The Seer stalked right up to the cage, and now the girls could see that he was even taller than the beastmen—a giant, gripping the bars and staring down at them with a cold, skullish grin and wide, wild eyes. “So follow my instructions. Take the queen’s pathetic ship. Remove her from her throne, destroy her bothersome offspring. And then we shall see a beastman wear Bel Amica’s crown. And you will be exalted as his faithful followers, free to run and hunt and have what you wish.”
One of the beastmen turned and translated these words to the horde. The grumbling mob bristled, gathering closer to the bars. Margi suddenly understood.
“He’s going to turn them loose?” Luci whimpered. “We should go back.” Margi punched her in the arm.
“Many, many times our moon has risen and fallen,” the Seer intoned, and he climbed onto the tilting deck of the ship, unlatched a hatch, and opened it. “But the time has come.”
Luci’s mouth popped open again, and Margi slapped her hand across it.
“No more, then.” The beastman rattled the bars again. “No more sleep. No more poison.”
The Seer pointed up to the wooden cask and smiled. “The time has come to wake.”
He walked to the cage. “You remember what it felt like, don’t you?” He grinned. “You remember that glorious night when you gathered in the depths of Abascar’s ruins? When you watched as Ryllion ran a sword through Deuneroi’s back?” He raised his hand to the lock that bound the cage door shut. “You delivered Bel Amica from its future king. You spilled his blood in the dark. And today, in full view of the people of Bel Amica, you will slaughter the rest of—”
He stopped. The key fell from his hand. He staggered a bit to the side, then lurched away from the beastmen.
Luci shrieked, but the Seer did not respond. He stood there, teetering, his trembling hands rising—one to grasp the feathered shaft of the enormous arrow that had penetrated his right temple, the other to grasp the sharp barb that had come out the other side.
Margi lifted her eyes to see Tabor Jan standing in one of those high windows. But Tabor Jan was not holding the bow.
Cyndere stood beside him, the bow raised. She was far away, but Margi could see her shaking, and then her voice rang out.
“Deuneroi!”
The Seer crashed down on all fours, his dark cape enveloping him like the wings of an injured bat. He crawled forward through the water, raised himself onto his knees, reached for the ends of the arrow again, and with a vicious hiss snapped the barb off one end and then pulled the arrow out of the other side of his skull.
Much to Margi’s disgust and amazement, not a drop of blood spilled out.
“You’re finished, Pretor Xa!” roared Tabor Jan. “The queen has not gone to her ship. And she will reckon with you and Ryllion for everything—every-thing—you have done!”
The Seer had his back to Tabor Jan and Cyndere. He must have looked like a dying dog crawling away from them. But Margi was in front of him, staring at him through the driftwood. And she could hear him laughing.
“Fools,” he hissed, “you have no idea.” Then he turned and shrieked, “Your arrows cannot stop us. And you don’t have enough for all the beastmen.” He reached the cage, snatched the key, and unlocked it.
The beastmen burst out, howling with bloodthirst. They splashed through the water and climbed onto the boat’s canted deck. They roared at Tabor Jan and Cyndere and lashed at the air with their claws.
But then the cask on the platform began to rock. It moved closer to the edge of the stone.
Wynn!
Yes, now you see, came Madi’s gleeful thought. Isn’t he brave? His moment has come.
“It’s my moment too.” Margi, moving on an impulse she could not understand, shoved a piece of driftwood aside and clambered through it, then fell down onto the pool’s sandy shore. The Seer did not hear her, did not turn, for his attention was focused on his assailants. She waded into the water, then reached down through the shallows and pressed her hands against the rocky floor of the cave.
A resonant pulse rippled through the cavern.
The Seer staggered and fell forward again as the ground moved beneath him.
Margi stood up and scrambled backward. He won’t get away now. Look out, Margi!
She turned and saw the great barrel of oil topple from its perch. It hurtled down through the air and struck the edge of the ship and exploded.
As its contents spilled across the boat, a powerful wave of perfume struck the girls as hard as any rush of water. Margi looked up to see Wynn standing where the barrel had been. And then she ran for the driftwood barrier and clambered over it as her consciousness collapsed.
“Cover your face!” Tabor Jan shouted, throwing himself backward from the balcony and casting his arms across his face. Cyndere dove with him.
They heard the sound of the barrel of slumberseed oil strike the boat. There was a cacophony of splashing for a few short moments. Then, silence.
The pungent aroma seeped through their sleeves as they fought to stay awake. But the power of the oil was too much. Cyndere, leaning against Tabor Jan, looked anxiously into his eyes, and then she was asleep.
He settled her against the wall. Then he crawled to the edge and looked down to see Wynn lying on the edge of the promontory beside the crystal, fast asleep, just inches from a fall that would have killed him. He saw the Seer in the water, tugging as if his hands and feet were stuck to the floor beneath the shallows. Sprawled and scattered all around him were the motionless bodies of the slumbering beastmen.
Everything began to blur.
And then there were others with him on the balcony. Was that Partayn?
He looked down again to see a figure walking onto the promontory—a woman in an extravagant gown with a gleaming circle on her head. She was pressing her sleeve to her face and striding forward as if moving up a steep incline. She shouted a shrill question to Pretor Xa. The Seer screamed back up at her in a fury.
Then the woman put her hand upon the wheel and began to turn it.
The heavy stone gate that held back the waters of the Rushtide Inlet began to rise.
The tide burst in.
A wall of water came sweeping into the Punchbowl, filling it up almost to the edge of the promontory. The boat rose, righting itself, swaying, spinning, and smashing itself against that jutting arm of stone.
Water crashed against the sides of the cave. It fractured driftwood. It churned and roiled in such a way that Tabor Jan finally understood why it was called a Punchbowl.
But all this was quickly forgotten, for he was asleep. Asleep at last.
35
CAL-RAVEN, LOST
If Jordam doesn’t come back, then my people got away.
Cal-raven paused, holding his arms across his face as a stinging gust of dustcloud struck him. I must not rest until I find the river. They may be waiting for me.
The only features in this blasted landscape were the sinking, collapsing Cent Regus structures, less than empty, devoid of symmetry, besieged by some strange and colorless mold.
Cal-raven stumbled among them feeling as if he had died beside his mother in the prongbull’s stable. The midday sun was hot, but the light was drained of health or hue. Each step he took scared ghosts of ash from some slow, invisible burning into anxious southward flight. How could he be sure of a direction north and west? The world around him was disintegrating; he saw nothing he might have recognized.
If I hadn’t insisted on hastening the rescue… If I hadn’t left Bel Amica…
He walked down a deserted avenue, finding momentary relief in the shelter of the decrepit walls. As he skirted the edge of a deep break in the ground, he looked down to where dust swirled over scattered bones that did not resemble anything human or animal. Looking up, he saw a weather-beaten rope swinging between two long, sagging structures. Strung from that rope were half skeletons of creatures ruined and displayed for all to see.
If there never was a Keeper, there will ne
ver be any kind of reckoning. And all my belief that my father might be waiting for me, all the hope in my mother’s dying gaze, is folly.
He coughed, and the sound echoed. He needed water, and he had no sense of where to find it.
A gorrel crept out from under an abandoned wagon. It blinked at him, and then bolted off, leaving a grey stripe of cloud to mark its path.
If there is no Keeper, those tracks I sought and found were not leading me anywhere. My discoveries were mere luck and nothing more. I was not being led. I was not meant to find anything. It was just an animal.
He put his hands into his pockets and found that the wind had filled them with dust that could not be molded.
If there is no Keeper, even Scharr ben Fray is deceived.
What would he say if he saw his people again? How could he tell them that he had watched the creature he had claimed was leading them die?
The ale boy was caught up in the same madness, thinking that it led him to save so many lives. But did I not see the creature snapping the bridge like a twig and the boy falling, on fire, into the abyss?
He stopped and regarded a block of stone that upheld great, sculpted feet. Once a statue had stood there, perhaps a monument to Cent Regus himself, that famous son of Tammos Raak who had rebelled against his father and chased him to his death. But the creatures that his descendants had become had broken it off at the ankles, and who knows what had become of it?
He ducked behind the block at the sound of an approaching steed. A wheezing vawn came charging down the avenue bearing a figure wrapped in white rags.
The Seer. Malefyk Xa.
The reptile did not even pause, its rider leaning forward on some urgent mission.
If there is no Keeper, then what power in this world can stop the Seers? Cal-raven closed his eyes, remembering his proud claims in that dark Bel Amican sanctuary where the name Auralia had been twisted into something troubling and wrong. What a fool.
It came to him suddenly—Auralia’s colors. They had gone with his mother, to wherever that creature had left her body.
If there is no Keeper, Auralia was either a liar or greatly deceived. And yet…
He stood up and staggered back onto the avenue. “Could I have killed the Keeper?” he asked. “By failing to help it escape, did I destroy the creature in everyone’s dreams?”
He moved on, but the desire to go back was taking hold. He wanted confirmation that the creature had, indeed, died there in the Longhouse gate. And he wanted to find Auralia’s colors again.
He walked through a dense wave of haze to discover that he had moved in a circle, and there indeed was the Longhouse, its maw still open wide. He began to run, his question compelling his aching body just a bit farther.
He found the creature’s body there, contorted and still. It was a horrible sight, for it had been crushed and scarred by the beastmen that had clawed their way past it and burrowed down into the labyrinth.
No. Something isn’t right.
The creature’s body was caving in on itself. It was empty.
Cal-raven approached and found that the body had no head. All that remained was the thick husk of the creature’s breast—a thick shell of silvery scales, beaded with gold. Other scraps of scaly skin had been cast aside like a discarded garment.
He saw tracks—fresh tracks—marking the dust.
The creature has sloughed off its skin. It has crawled free of its own dying shell.
The tracks led away from the tunnel.
“Alive,” he said aloud.
He walked in dim bewilderment. But as he followed the disturbance through the dust, his steps quickened. He scanned the landscape, in hope that the creature’s shape might rise up, wild and beautiful, triumphant over even his rash doubts.
For hours he followed. Past the carcasses of monstrous cattle, the bones of ruined beastmen, the shelters and storehouses of Cent Regus history engulfed in the spreading disease. His throat was parched, his skin blasted by the stinging dust. “Please,” he said, his tongue swollen and cracked. “If you are the creature Auralia spoke of, if you have sought to watch over and protect my people, forgive me.”
At the effort of his words, the white scar flared, insistent, like a signal waiting to be understood.
The tracks were steady, but they were increasingly difficult to discern. Then, at the crest of an ashen rise, they stopped.
Beyond the rise, the ground fell away into a canyon, a rift that ran in a jagged line. He began to wander along the top of the ridge, pushing through patches of shoulder-high weeds that grew without any hint of green or blossom—rough, brown branches with dark black stripes.
Then he felt the creature’s voice, a vibration in the ground. It was a menacing music, a warning. He crouched down in the weeds, but as he did, he knew it was too late. He had surely been seen, and there was nowhere to hide.
But the creature did not come for him. It was walking slowly along a trail at the base of the canyon not far ahead. The trail was lined with rubble that had fallen from the walls. Its wings were spread out as if to intimidate anything it might encounter, but its nose was low to the ground, and Cal-raven could hear it breathing deeply as if hunting.
It was as vast as a fleet of ships, armored in new emerald scales, and its wings were like sails, layer upon layer of feathered canvas filled with wind and singing. He wondered why it bothered with the ground. Streaks of light rippled down its tail, and there sparks burned like red jewels in its dusty wake. Beholding it again, he asked himself how he could have refused to help this creature. It had taken him up in its claws and treated him gently. It had comforted him in dreams and given him courage in the wilderness.
Did I really see all that I thought I saw? Did I really understand? This must be the Keeper.
Now it swayed from side to side, and then it reared up on its mighty hind legs and cupped its wings around its head. It howled a sound like a question, and the bell of its wings magnified its voice so that it resounded through the canyon and shook showers of stone from the walls.
When the sounds diminished into silence, Cal-raven felt a strange foreboding, for the creature was still, its wings cast out as if it might catch something in return.
An answer did come, a high shriek like a bird’s.
The creature retracted those wings—a sound like sheets being shaken out—and began to march eagerly forward. Cal-raven knew he could not move fast enough to follow.
Nevertheless, he studied the precipice and then let himself down over the edge, his hands working only feeble enchantment on the cliff face, for he was exhausted. His fingers found faint holds, and he cautiously worked his way toward a place where the sheer drop became a faint incline, a place where he could turn and slide down.
But then a sharp twang of wire stung the air, and he turned.
The creature lurched, hissing with the force of a river breaking through a dam. Golden wires had sprung up from the ground, coiling about its legs. The creature roared, shattering plates of stone from the walls and shaking Cal-raven free. He fell upon that slant of stone and slid head first down its rugged incline until he tumbled into a thicket of lifeless weeds.
When he got back to his feet, he watched the creature breathe streams of fire across the ground as if trying to fight some unseen assailant. But the wires had a life of their own, tightening their grasp. He had heard of Bel Amica’s cruel beastman trap-wires, but this seemed a frightful new invention. And it brought the creature crashing down. He breathed the scent of hot blood, and he choked. The creature fought on, thrashing with such ferocity that Cal-raven could hardly see it for the dust.
From a ledge above, a great black tarpaulin weighted with large green spheres was cast out like a net, and it pinned the distraught behemoth to the ground. Dark figures ran from their hiding places in the rocks to seize the cover and tighten the cords along its edge.
Strongbreed.
There were sharp shouts from a tall figure on the overlook. Cal-raven recognized t
he white-wound Seer at once.
There was nothing he could do but watch in silent, aching horror as the Strongbreed tightened the black, oily trap around their prey. The creature fell hard on its side, groaning, unable to fight.
More of the altered guard emerged from the base of the canyon wall, leading harnessed prongbulls. They were dwarfed by this creature, and yet they formed an obedient line as the Strongbreed bound their harnesses to their struggling captive.
The Seer disappeared from the promontory, and Cal-raven began to climb, concentrating on each handhold. At times deep pangs of grief would leave him breathless, clinging to the wall while tempted to surrender and fall away.
Evening deepened into night as Cal-raven crept westward along the canyon’s edge toward the setting sun, following this nightmare parade. There was just enough light for him to see that the trail turned a corner. He woke from something near sleepwalking when he heard a cacophony of beastly voices. He heard the Seer giving orders, and he dropped to his belly, hoping no one had seen him silhouetted against the sky. He crawled to the rim and peered over.
Set into the canyon face was a line of fourteen caves—great, dark caverns carved into the opposite wall. Bars of dark metal—thick as tree trunks—closed off those caves.
Behind the bars of twelve caves, similarly tremendous creatures paced, groaning and spewing fire—each one magnificent and terrible, each one different. The creature that had found Cal-raven in the brambles outside Barnashum was being hauled into the space of the thirteenth cavern, dragged beneath the bars that had been raised by a mechanism in the wall.
Malefyk Xa walked along the avenue, keeping a fair distance from the bars, a whip in his hand. He shouted in the Cent Regus tongue, but Cal-raven understood the sound of mockery in that voice. The Seer was reveling in his dominion, taunting his captures.
Thirteen of them.
When the latest catch was through the arch of its prison, the bars crashed back down into their deep holes, trapping the animal.
The black canvas fell away, and the creature hurled itself against the bars in a fiery tirade. The canyon wall shuddered with the impact.