Havenstar (14 page)

Rugriss
sighed. ‘The Unstable is a big place, and the excluded tend to look
after their own.’ Restless, he stood up, bells tinkling. ‘May as
well look for a particular grain of sand in a sand patch.’

Cylrie nodded.
‘Knight Edion,’ she said softly, eyes glinting in memory, ‘was
always a very clever man.’

Rugriss did
not reply, but he did forget himself enough to frown.

~~~~~~~

Go thou forth
prayerfully and with good heart into the Unstable and face the ley
with courage, knowing that the Maker has asked this of thee for
thine own sake.

—Pilgrims III:
6: 24

Keris glanced
around the group gathered by the pond and wondered if she was going
to regret her decision to go to Pickle’s Halt.

The day had
started well enough. Thirl had not found her, and although the
Master Guide Davron Storre had been clearly puzzled by her need to
go only as far as the halt, he’d agreed to take her there for the
sum of one gold. One glance around the assembled travellers of
Storre’s fellowship had, however, dissipated any feeling of
complacency she might have had. This was not going to be an easy
crossing.

A typical
pilgrim fellowship consisted of young people embarking on the
greatest adventure of their lives. She had seen any number of them
ride past the shop on the South Drumlin Road, laughing, full of
themselves, defiantly excited to cover their nervousness at what
lay ahead. At a moment like this they would have been hiding the
reality of their fears beneath boisterous good humour and banter.
But the conventional pilgrim did not travel the length of the
Unstable from the First to the Eighth Stability. The people
gathered here to listen to Davron Storre’s final orders were no
ordinary pilgrims. Certainly none of them appeared in the least
excited.

Apart from
Portron Bittle and Keris, there were four men and one woman. The
woman was close to sixty years old, and rode a battered mule that
bared its teeth and flared its nostrils at anyone or anything that
came too close. From the old woman’s appearance, Keris half
expected her to behave in a similar fashion. She was like old
leather, chewed and tattered around the edges but still as tough as
ever, and about as attractive. Shattered black teeth clamped down
on the nicked end of a pipe stem; the bowl alternately glowed, or
belched forth an acrid black smoke. So reluctant was she to remove
the pipe that she spoke out of the edge of her mouth rather than do
so, and as a disconcerting consequence much of what she said was
accompanied by a sneering leer. She told them her given name was
Corrian and then glared as if daring someone to ask her to divulge
her family name. No one did.

Of the men,
one was about the same age as Corrian, and totally blind. He rode a
crossings-horse and waited with calm ease, wrists crossed and reins
loosely held as though embarking on perilous journeys was something
he did every other day. His sightless eyes rolled upwards, but
something about his tranquil confidence suggested he did not miss
much of what was going on around him. Keris half expected him to
have an aristocratic name, but he introduced himself simply as
Meldor and he wore no domain symbols. His voice was a mellifluous
bass that sent shivers up her spine.

Next to him
was a man of about thirty who gave his name as Graval Hurg,
merchant. He did not seem to have much control over the dapple-grey
mare he rode. She skittered this way and that, bumping into other
mounts, generally upsetting everyone. The blind man’s horse,
however, did not budge an inch, and eventually its rider reached
out and grabbed the dapple’s bridle. He pulled her over until her
face was next to his horse’s own and the mare, surprisingly,
calmed. Hurg apologised abjectly, and Keris stared, wondering just
how a blind man had been able to reach out so unerringly for
something he could not see.

The other two
men in the party were young, both were from Drumlin and they
arrived together, but Keris doubted they were friends or even that
they were long acquainted. Prime Beef and Scrag Ends, she had
thought irreverently. Prime Beef was well-dressed, well-mounted and
had two pack mules. He was solidly built, with a neck as wide as
his head and a torso of hard curves that could have been carved
from stone. He wore his shirt unbuttoned to the waist but the
muscles he flaunted seemed ugly to Keris, somehow artificial. After
a while she decided it must be because they were the result of
weightlifting and exercise, rather than the natural outcome of hard
work. When she glimpsed a gold domain-symbol around his neck a few
minutes later, she knew her surmise was probably correct. The man
was a Trician, a trained fighter. She spent a moment wondering why
he was not riding with a Trician fellowship, until the obvious
answer occurred to her. None would have been headed for the Eighth
Stability. The question was rather: what was a Trician doing
wanting to ride on the Long Pilgrimage?

Scrag Ends,
who gave his name as Quirk Quinling, could have done with more
muscles, not less. He was a reedy, hollow-chested and
narrow-shouldered youth with a number of irritating nervous
mannerisms. He chewed his lower lip, pulled at his side burns,
picked at the skin at the edge of his fingernails, fidgeted
unbearably before he said anything. He gave the appearance of being
habitually uncomfortable in the presence of others. Yet, just when
Keris was ready to dismiss him as an uninteresting nonentity, he
said something about his own meagre luggage fitting into a
Trician’s manicure box with room to spare, a remark that
masqueraded as self-deprecating, but which was more truly aimed at
Prime Beef’s extraordinary amount of baggage. It was enough to tell
her that there was more to Scrag Ends than first met the eye.

His mount was
an under-fed palfrey and he had no pack animal at all. Davron
Storre took pity on the palfrey and told him to transfer the packs
it had been carrying to one of the mules belonging to Prime Beef,
otherwise named Baraine of Valmair. Baraine was outraged and only
the threat of being left behind to wait for the next guide to the
Eighth had secured his grudging acquiescence.

Confound
the Unmaker,
Keris thought,
what an unpromising lot of
travelling companions this is. A guide who doesn’t know how to
crack a smile, an old woman who looks and smells like a greasy
kitchen stove, a muscle-bound spoiled brat of a Trician, a young
man who’s already scared out of his wits, an old man who can’t see
where he’s going, a rule-chantor who talks too much, and a fellow
who can’t ride as well as a sack of yams
. A moment later she
added,
And a thief who stole from her brother and walked out on
her dying mother
. She sighed inwardly. This promised to be an
awkward crossing.

She listened
as Davron gave last minute instructions, noting how those deep
rough tones of his carried. ‘My assistant,’ he was saying, ‘will be
joining us once we leave the Stability. His name is Scow, and he is
one of the Unbound, but I will not tolerate that you treat him any
differently because of that. In fact, you will obey him as you
would obey me.’ He singled out Baraine of Valmair for a hard stare.
‘This trip is always dangerous. In addition, for some reason,
crossings this year are especially hazardous. Ley lines change with
a rapidity we’ve never seen before, the Wild are especially vicious
and the Minions seem more numerous. You can perform devotions for
the Maker all you want, but He doesn’t see too many kineses out
there. Lord Carasma rules in the Unstable and it is unwise to
forget it. Given these dangers, it is essential that orders are
obeyed, instantly and without question. If you stop to argue, you
may well end up dead. As a guide it is my duty to get you to your
destination untainted and alive, but in a dangerous situation
neither Scow nor I will stop to help anyone who disobeys an order.
Remember that.

‘Remember too,
that although much of the vegetation is edible for both you and
your mounts, all animals, birds and so on are Wildish, and it’s
definitely not advisable to provoke them unnecessarily. No matter
how harmless they look, they’re all tainted and you will have
enough trouble with them without deliberately setting out to hunt
them down. In other words, until we reach the first halt, the only
meat you’ll eat will be what you’ve brought with you.’

His eyes swept
around the group, missing nothing of their reactions to what he was
saying. ‘I ride in front,’ he said. ‘Scow normally rides last.’ He
looked at Quirk, who fidgeted nervously under his gaze.

‘Today’s ride
is not an arduous one, nor is it particularly dangerous because we
will still be close to the Stability. However, it is wise to be
alert at all times, and prepared for the unexpected.’ With that
remark, he turned his horse and rode out towards the Unstable. The
blind man followed, giving his horse its head. Graval’s mare danced
this way and that before finally trotting off after them.

‘Charming
fellow.’ Baraine of Valmair had waited until Davron was out of
earshot before muttering the words and then adding, more loudly,
‘You take care of the mule, Quinling, or I’ll snap you across my
knee.’

The woman,
Corrian, cocked her head at Baraine. ‘And you’re another charmer,’
she told him, grinning to display her mouth of blackened, cracked
teeth. ‘Tell me, young fella, do the muscles in your arse match
those of your mouth?’ Baraine jabbed his heels into his horse, but
Corrian rode after him, pressing him with embarrassing questions in
a penetrating voice.

Quirk Quinling
gave a nervous laugh. ‘Baraine really, um, is a bit much,’ he said
to Keris and Portron. ‘I met him last night for the first time, you
know, and he spent several hours complaining about how his servant
had broken his ankle and had to be sent back to Drumlin instead of
making the crossing, dancing attendance on Baraine. One would have
thought the poor man had done it on purpose.’

‘Maybe he did
at that,’ she said grimly. She’d already decided she did not like
Baraine of Valmair.

They crossed
the kinesis chain about ten minutes later. Even if she had not seen
the Chantry House beside the track, and glimpsed another, tangled
in the mist, off in the distance, she would have known the moment
they crossed from stability to the Unstable: something seemed to
hit her hard in the middle of the chest. For a moment she felt that
the air had been sucked from her lungs, and then she was through
into another world.

Beside her
Chantor Portron chuckled. ‘Felt it, did you lass? Don’t let anyone
be telling you there’s no power in kinesis!’ He waved a hand at the
Chantry House. ‘Think on it: there’s been someone performing
kinesis devotions there, and in each of the Houses that circle each
of the stabs, every minute of every hour of every day of every year
for nigh on a thousand years. Eight circles of unbroken kinesis…’
He sounded smug, so she refused to comment on the marvel of it, but
she was impressed nonetheless. She hadn’t expected to feel the
barrier. Or was it perhaps the Unstable she’d felt?

For the first
mile the land seemed much like that around Kibbleberry village. If
she looked back, she could see where the Impassables snagged the
clouds, while ahead the forests and grasslands of the Unstable
showed as patches of dark and light green through cat’s-cradle
wisps of early morning mist. Yet she was aware of a difference
without at first being able to identify its nature. Then it came to
her that it wasn’t one thing, but several.

The land
smelled different. Not bad, or foul; just different. And the sounds
had changed too. The background chirping of meadow birds and
crickets, the sough of wind through grass and trees, all that had
subtly altered the moment the kinesis chain was crossed. The birds
sang different songs, the insects sawed different trills, the
grasses rustled with a different timbre. The changes were slight,
but a prelude to something more sinister.

She shivered,
then chided herself for over-sensitivity. She’d always wanted to
travel the Unstable, hadn’t she?
Well, here you are, you fool—be
happy!
She straightened in the saddle and looked ahead. The
track gradually became fainter and fainter and finally disappeared
entirely. They would not see another until they reached the
outskirts of another stability; the Unstable did not allow those
who passed to mark its surface. Here nature was under the sway of
the Unmaker’s hatred for Creation.
A world being unmade
…

‘Yet the lack
of tracks doesn’t seem such a bad thing,’ she remarked to Chantor
Portron as they rode. ‘A road scars the landscape, after all. In
fact, when you think about it, much of what we do harms the world
irretrievably. Why, think of the stone quarries in the First. They
are only used when it’s absolutely necessary—my father used to say
it was no good asking for new stone until you could powder your
face with the remains of the old, Chantry’s so strict about it—but
the quarries are still a scar that will last for generations.’

‘Ah, my dear,
you’re not understanding the true nature of what you’re seeing
here,’ he murmured sadly. ‘Or rather, you’re not understanding its
un-nature. The Unmaker promotes Chaos. And anything that is going
against what is natural, promotes the chaotic. It’s not natural
that a blade of grass, crushed under the hoof of your horse, should
straighten its wee self up again after you’ve passed. It’s a
negation of the true cycle of life and death. And it is therefore
evil.’

‘Though isn’t
something not being destroyed, but rather remade, a good
result?’

‘The battle
between good and evil is much more complex than merely creation
versus destruction, Maid Kereven. Think of it as a battle between
Order and Chaos, where the Unmaker may do good on his way to evil
and the Maker can be forced, perhaps not to evil, but to a certain
hardness of heart in order to achieve a wider good. Am I sounding
boringly pedantic, lass?’