The Watchsergeant nodded. “Tracks go west. Into Sekoi country.”
She nodded. Without a word she urged the horse on and galloped into the fog.
Five minutes later, hands shaking, she had to stop. For a moment weariness washed over her, a shuddering relief that drained her of all energy, so that she crouched low and breathed deep, dragging the sour smog into the back of her throat.
Then she pushed the hair off her face and listened.
Behind her, glass was being smashed.
Pane after pane of it.
RAFFI HAD NEVER BEEN SO DEEP into Sekoi country. He trudged wearily after Galen, watching the keeper’s stick stab the sodden red soil. The weather deteriorated now with astonishing speed; crashing rain drifting into an acid, stinging snow, then into squalls of howling wind with bizarre airborne showers of small, brown toad-like creatures that he had never seen before. A while ago a flash flood had roared down the valley, sweeping broken trees and even boulders along in its torrent. Now the night was dry and icy and there was a faint tang of fog in his throat.
There were no birds, few animals. Everything was hiding. He had never sensed a land so cowed.
They walked, silent; Galen was too morose or too deep in prayer to speak and whenever Marco ventured some comment he ignored it.
“And everything I say just makes things worse,” Solon had muttered mournfully during a pause to drink. He flexed his scarred fingers, pouring water over the dirt on them and rubbing it anxiously. “I am deeply sorry about Carys, Raffi. It must be hard for you. You were good friends.”
Raffi looked sick. “It wasn’t her.”
The Archkeeper was quiet, replacing the cork. Then he said, “When I was chained in the Watch cells, those under torture dared not speak to one another. You never knew who was a real prisoner and who was a spy. It was one of the worst things. You dared not say anything, comfort anyone, ask a question. And outside too it can be like that. Even if they’re not listening, we think they are. That’s what they’ve done to us.”
Behind them, Marco laughed. “You talked to me.”
“And you to me, old friend.” Solon turned, passing the water flask. “In the end we have to trust each other. That’s the only thing that will outwit them.” He put his hand up to the awen-beads that were gone, his fingers searching for them absently. “Dear God, what dark times those were. What horrors we endured . . .”
Marco lowered the flask. “Don’t,” he said sharply. “Stop thinking of it.” He caught Solon’s wrist and pulled it down. “It’s over. All over.”
For a moment they looked at each other. Raffi glimpsed a shared despair, a sudden pitful of shame and terror that he jerked back from, embarrassed and hot.
“It’ll never happen again,” Marco said firmly.
“My son.” Solon put both his hands on the other man’s shoulders. “We both know very well that it might. If they capture us, we will pay for our escape.”
Now, watching Solon climb wearily out of the trees, Raffi wondered where Carys was, in what fog of nightmare. And under it all ran his old terror of the Watch, the clang of the prison door, the agony of tiny worms burrowing into the flesh . . . he shuddered, so that Galen turned.
“Raffi?” he said. “Come and see this.”
Raffi walked up to the brow of the hill, and stared down.
23
“In fact, we have no rulers as such. The Council of Seven are called the Karamax; each member is chosen by its tribe. They stay aloof from the Starmen. We find an air of mystery can be useful to baffle the curious. We have worked hard to make the Watch take no account of us. ”
Words of a Sekoi Karamax.
Recorded by Kallebran.
BELOW THEM LAY AN ENORMOUS CAMP. It was vast; a town pitched in a hollow, made of thousands of tents and pavilions and awnings and rickety booths, all shapes and colors, the small red fires brilliant in the cloudy glimmer of four moons.
The Sekoi stopped and folded its arms.
“There must be millions here!” Solon stared down in consternation. “Surely all your tribes? This is like a migration.”
“Almost all.” The slits in the creature’s eyes were black and narrow. It turned. “Now listen to me, keepers. I’ve brought you here because the Watch must be shaken off and because my people may know something to help our search. I cannot promise that, but it may be.” It smiled complacently. “So I will do all the speaking here. You, Galen, would be far too impatient. And your sense-lines, I think, will not help you.”
They knew that already. Of all the great host in front of them, Raffi had not the ghost of a feeling. The sense-lines told him the land was empty. It was a terrible deception. It made him feel blind.
Galen nodded, tying his black hair back. “You know best. But we should hurry.”
They scrambled down among the outlying booths. Sekoi of all colors wandered out to stare at them, tall and starved-looking in the flame light and shadows, the silken gaudy fabrics of their tents flapping in the wind. As they threaded deeper into the vast encampment, Raffi wondered where the children were. You never saw any. The Sekoi hid them as carefully as their gold.
Awnings rose above them now; great rippling hangings of precious satins brilliantly colored, gold and turquoise and purple. In front of each tent was a tall pole, painted with stripes and odd angular signs that might be letters, running downwards. Bells hung here and there, chiming softly as the wind stirred them. Above all there were the owls, hundreds of them; gray owls and long-eared, ice-owls and three-toed—even ink-owls, perched everywhere, on tent pegs, on wooden rails, or just swooping in out of the dark, silent as moths under the tassels and silks.
The Sekoi walked ahead and Galen followed, nearly as tall, his dark coat making him a gaunt shadow among the fires. The camp smelled of trodden grass and smoke. It was crowded but strangely quiet. Solon looked around at the watching faces in avid curiosity, but Marco seemed oddly intimidated; he carried his crossbow, even unloaded, as if it were some comfort.
“Are you sure this isn’t some sort of trap?” he muttered, glancing back.
Solon smiled kindly at him. “Nervous, my son?”
“Holiness, I’m scared stiff. There are thousands of them.”
“They want nothing from us.”
“Gold.” Marco nursed the bow. “They’d do anything for gold. Mind you”—he grinned at Raffi—“so would I.”
Raffi didn’t smile. “So how much will you get for the Coronet?” he asked sourly.
Marco stared, his grin fading. After a moment he said, “That was hard, Raffi. You’re getting like your master.”
Raffi felt a flicker of shame. Until he remembered Carys. “She’s not the spy,” he said sullenly. “So who’s left?”
The bald man had no time to retort. They had come to an enormous pavilion, the biggest structure in the maze of silks by far. It was made of some deep crimson fabric, and all its sides hung in elaborate folded shapes, rising to three high pinnacles where owls perched silent under rippling pennants.
The Sekoi turned. “Leave everything outside. Especially that bow.”
Galen tossed the stick and pack down. Raffi did the same. Marco looked distinctly rebellious.
“Come on, old friend,” Solon murmured. “No one will threaten us.”
“You’d better be right.” Marco dumped the bow ungraciously. “This lot scare me more than the Watch.”
Galen glared at him darkly. “Maybe you should stay outside.” It was the first time he had spoken to Marco since the observatory.
The bald man shook his head. “Oh no. You don’t lose me that easily.”
The Sekoi gave an impatient mew. “We’re late. This way.”
It led them inside.
The first thing that struck Raffi was the scent. It was so sweet, a delicious sweetness of honey or sugared cakes. They walked on luxurious woven rugs and soft carpets that silenced their tread. Around them the walls and high ceiling rippled crimson. Small lamps sputtered on bronze stands; on a rail in the very center of the room an ancient gray owl slumbered, one eye slitted to watch them come.