The steps led up, around a damp wall. She climbed soundlessly, Galen a tall shadow at her shoulder. He was stiff and sore, but he moved carefully and, glancing back, she saw his eyes were alert. At the top of the steps was a dim corridor, pungent with smoke; from a guard-room nearby the sound of voices and the rattle of dice echoed. They edged carefully by; Galen caught a glimpse of the men inside, their backs to him. Then he was running down a passage, into another, and all the time neither of them spoke.
Then Carys stopped. Finger to lips, she jerked her head and, stepping forward, he saw around the corner a man sitting on a bench eating lumps of potato from the tip of his knife.
Beside him was a small, half-open door.
Galen glanced at Carys. She raised the bow. He gave a harsh smile and shrugged. Carys was surprised, but she turned at once and braced herself. He saw the bolt quiver; with a sound like a crack it was gone. The man sprawled on the floor.
Leaping over, Carys had the door open; she turned back and gasped, “Leave him!”
Galen straightened from the body. He pushed past her to the door and peered around it. The night was black, the narrow alley stinking with refuse.
“Where?”
“Straight on!”
He followed her up the lane, leaping piles of rubbish, the rats scuttling before them. Ducking around corners, they came to a low arch and raced under it; in the shadow she swung around and racked the bow again hastily.
“You think they’ll be coming.”
“When they find out.” She glanced back, then tugged away from the wall. “Down here.”
Turning into a ruined courtyard, they crossed it and scrambled through a hole in the wall to a wider street. She turned left. “Hurry!”
They ran close to the wall, through the fog of darkness and the soft hooting of owls. Once Galen stumbled; picking himself up, he glanced back. Shadows moved in the entrance to the lane. He ran after her, his face dark.
They climbed over a roof-fall, then under a wide arch of stone.
“Come on!” She ran ahead but he caught up with her and grabbed her arm. “Wait!”
She looked back. “We can’t! They’re coming!”
“Where’s Raffi?” Galen hissed. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know!” She stared into the darkness under the arch. “He should be here! It was here I said . . .”
They could hear the Watchmen now; soft feet running.
“In the doorway.” Galen pulled her in beside him and peered out.
Instantly the side of his face was lit with color; a vivid green flash that dazzled them both.
“What was that!” Carys gasped.
The keeper grinned wolfishly. “We call it the third action of the inner eye. Don’t tell him, but he’s quite good at it.”
Gazing past him she was shocked to see the archway spitting flame and sparks; for a few moments it fizzed and crackled and then went black, and she could see the bodies of two Watchmen lying still.
“Are they dead?”
“Stunned.”
“How can he do that?” she marveled as the shapes of Raffi and the Sekoi came slithering up the broken street.
Raffi raced up to Galen and stood staring at him. “She did it,” he said in a choked voice.
Galen smiled grimly. “Indeed she did.”
Raffi touched the keeper’s arm hesitantly. “We thought you were lost . . .”
Galen shook his head. “Always keep the faith, boy,” he said gruffly. “Sometimes the Makers act in ways we could never imagine. Have you got the chart?”
“Here.”
“Then let’s go from here. Before more of them come.”
Following the list of streets, they twisted between houses and past palaces whose windows were empty, and through whose halls the wind moaned uneasily. Rain began to fall; a black, oily drizzle. The city was changing; they were coming to the oldest part, the citadel, and the ruins here were of great temples and palaces, shattered by the terrible destruction. The darkness grew deeper, and more silent; even the rats and owls were left behind, and all they heard now was the sound of their own running, soft footsteps pattering in alleys and doorways, as if the city was full of ghosts that fled endlessly.
After half an hour, Galen stopped them. “Here,” he gasped. “We rest here.”
It was a small window; climbing through they found they were in the kitchen of some villa. An empty hearth was black with soot, and one table still stood, huge and immovable in the center of the room.
Galen crossed to the wall and sat down, easing his leg with a groan.
Raffi crouched beside him. “Did they hurt you?”
“Not much. They were just warming up.”
Carys sat too, more slowly. She looked at Raffi, who bit his lip. The Sekoi stretched its legs out and scratched its fur. “Are you going to tell him, or shall we?” it said severely.
“I will,” Carys muttered.
Galen looked up at her. “I should thank you, Carys. I owe you my life. Maybe more, my honor as a keeper.” Gathering the black hair from his face, he knotted it in the dirty string and looked at her, his hawk-face grim and dark. “It’s a debt I’ll pay, if ever I can.”
“You may not want to,” she said.
He frowned. “Why not?”
She was silent, looking down. Raffi rolled the glass globe nervously in his pocket.
“I’ve got something to tell you.” But Galen looked at her so sharply that she couldn’t say it; for the first time in her life she felt afraid to speak. Lies leaped to her mind, convincing stories, excuses; fiercely she drove them away.
When she did speak, her voice was defiant. “Galen, I’ve been deceiving you. I’m not what I said. I’m a spy. For the Watch.”
It was out. His face did not flicker, his eyes black and keen. She looked away, but his answer made her jerk her head back in astonishment.
“I know,” he said.
23
Kest’s creatures attacked them. But Flain had a maze built before the House, and the beasts and birds of nightmare wandered in it and howled.
Then Kest arose, and wept. “The damage I have done,” he said, “I will make good. The monsters I have made I will destroy.”
And he took up his weapons and walked through them all into the dark.
Book of the Seven Moons
THEY ALL STARED AT HIM IN AMAZEMENT. Then the Sekoi gave a low purr of laughter.
“You knew?” Raffi gasped.
“From the beginning.” Galen rubbed his leg calmly. “From the first time we saw her at the tree.”
Carys was staring at him. “You couldn’t have!”
“And as we went on I grew more certain. She writes an interesting journal, Raffi. You should read it.”
“You . . .” She shook her head, disbelieving. “You deciphered it?”
“A few times.” He smiled sourly. “I’m sorry, Carys, but you were the one who was deceived. I kept you with us because I knew you’d be useful. You could keep the Watch away from us; get us where we needed to go. So it proved. At the gates, for instance.”
Bewildered, she sat down. The Sekoi was purring in ecstasy, all its fur bristling. “Wonderful,” it murmured. “Wonderful.”
“I made sure you went under the first wagon. I knew there was no real way into the city, but I thought you’d persuade them. I also thought you might be useful if any of us were caught.” He rubbed his sore neck. “Luckily for me.”
There was nothing, nothing she could say. The shock of it was like a cold downpour; it left her shivering. All this time she thought she had been so clever . . . She shuddered with the thought of her pride. All that time. Now she knew how Raffi must have felt.