He opened his eyes as if for the first time in years, so fresh did the world seem, and so raw.
The cards lay like inert slips of stiff paper on wrinkled silk.
Silence echoed in the mountain heights—not an absence of noise, but a presence in itself, a medium that endured human intrusion as the sea endures the passage of a ship. Before the ship came, there was the sea; as the ship passes, the sea rolls against the hull. When the ship is gone the sea remains. Without the sea, there could be no ships. Without the ships, there could be no sea, Caleb thought, not knowing what that might mean.
He listened to the silence above the Drakspine in the dark, beside the dwindling fire.
The players wandered off. The Wardens relieved the watch or took their rest, and Mal faded into the night while Caleb stowed and purified the cards.
Searching the campsite after his rituals were done, at first he could not find her. The Wardens stood guard or slept; those who acknowledged him did so with curt, quiet nods. He thought about Four, by the fireside, and about duty.
He was about to call Mal’s name, when he looked up.
She sat on the edge of the magisterium stump, her profile lit by campfire and stars. She watched the sky.
She must have heard him climb the tree’s gnarled roots. But when he stood beside her, hands scraped and arms aching with exertion, she did not look away from the stars and mountains. Couatl slept behind them in a coiled heap, wings furled over winding bodies. Long crocodile-toothed heads rested against cold, pliant scales.
“I never took you for a religious man,” she said, lost and faint as if she wandered beyond the horizon of a dream.
“I’m not.” He waited for her to turn, but she did not. “My father’s the last of the Eagle Knights, a priest of the old gods, and I work for the man who kicked his gods to the curb. More religion is the last thing I need in my life.”
“Yet you follow a goddess.”
He laughed, but she did not, so he stopped. “I wouldn’t call that a religion.”
“What would you call it?”
“The Lady of the Cards,” and he heard the capitals and wished he could unsay them, “lives between the players of a game. She’s their souls mingled, and has no power save over the game. The game ends, and she leaves. Not much of a goddess.”
“Yet you worship her.”
“Not really.”
“You observe her rites and rules in the dealing of a hand or the shuffling of cards. You worship her, sure as a ballplayer sixty years ago worshipped the Twins or Ili of the Bright Sails or Qet Sea-Lord or Exchitli. For you, at least, the card game never ends. You’re an occasional priest—pledged to a goddess who only exists occasionally.”
“You’re philosophical tonight.”
“Maybe I am.”
She faced north, toward a palpable darkness on the horizon, where the curtain of stars faded and failed.
“Looks like Craftwork,” he said.
“That’s Seven Leaf Lake. We’ll reach it before noon tomorrow.” She spoke with a measured tone that could have been excitement or fear or anger masquerading as control.
“Good.” Starshine was a potent source of power for Craft, rawest of all raw materials: starshine filtered through human mind became the stuff of souls, and Craftswomen could use it to accomplish wonders and great blasphemies. Whatever force had seized Seven Leaf, it would be less powerful at noon, with the stars hidden, than at any other time of day.
“That blot must be miles across. Is Seven Leaf supposed to pull down so much light?”
“No. The station’s drawing more power than it was designed to use. That narrows the possibilities. Narrows them down to one, actually: someone is inside, working against us.”
“Not someone,” he said after a while.
“Excuse me?”
“Our enemy isn’t faceless, is he? Pushing the station beyond its limits like that takes real Craft.”
“There are many trained Craftsmen in the world. They’re not all good people.”
“Sure.” The dark spot bled into the sky, growing as he watched. “But this one took over your station without raising a single alarm. This is an inside job. I’d wager a tenth of my soul you know who did it, or can guess.”
Her legs dangled over the edge of the stump. Her feet were bare, long and narrow, their bones slender. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “What if I do?”
“Tell me.” He sat down beside her. Tree frogs sang a senseless throbbing song.
“I tell you, and you tell the King in Red.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“Fine,” Caleb said. “Trust me, or don’t. I’m going to bed.”
He was about to climb down and abandon her to the stars and sleeping serpents, but she put out a hand and stopped him.
“Her name is Allesandre Olim,” she said. “Allie. She was the strongest Craftswoman at Seven Leaf. She was eager for the assignment. I guess now we know why.”
That name floated back to him through time, from tunnels and caves and a lake of lava. “Allesandre. Alaxic’s aide?”
“Yes.”
“I met her once. She didn’t seem insane at the time. Precise, dangerous, yes. But this…”
“I know.” She pointed again to the corruption of the stars. “But there it is. She was the best Craftswoman at Seven Leaf by far. A genius. No one else in the station could have overcome her, or done this.”
“Can you reason with her? Talk her down?”
“I doubt it. She’s gone too far. That blot’s larger than a living Craftswoman could handle without going mad. If people want to use more, they have to die, like your boss.”
“Maybe she died.”
“Death takes time. There are classes, support groups, premortem exercises. Allie’s alive, but her mind is a splinter caught in a tornado. She’ll tear through anything in her way, but she has no control.”
“That doesn’t sound good for us.”
“We’ll be outmatched when we reach Seven Leaf, and overpowered.”
“So we call for backup. The King in Red’s forces can be here by morning.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You heard your boss, in that meeting. If I succeed, Heartstone’s safe. I’m safe. If I call your boss, I admit failure, and everything that goes with it. He already blames us for this mess. He’ll take his revenge, scour Heartstone from the foundations up. None of my friends and colleagues will survive.” She tore strips of moss from the trunk, and threw them over the side: centuries of decomposition undone by a fingernail scrape. “It’s better this way. I succeed, if I can. If not, the King in Red and his armies can be here in hours, and ride to the city’s rescue.”
“But you’ll die.”
“I don’t care,” she said in a monotone as striking as a scream.
“I do.”
In the dark her eyes deepened.
“Yes,” she said. “You do.”
“You’re not worried for yourself. You’re worried for me.”
“Worried,” she said, and laughed at the word’s poverty. “The Wardens knew what they were getting into when they took the job. You heard Four down there. I know why I’m here. But you didn’t ask for this.”
“I knew what I was getting into.”
“Whatever you thought chasing me would bring you, this is worse. I don’t know what weapons Allie will throw against us. The Wardens are scared. I’m scared. You’ve never been in a war of Craft before. You’ll die, if you’re lucky, and dying hurts.” She looked away from him. “I don’t want you to die, Caleb.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised by that.”
The uncertainty left her voice. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have let you come.”
“I can handle myself.”