Havenstar (33 page)

It stretched
as far as she could see in both directions and it rose into the air
four times the height of a tall tree. There was no way over the top
either, not with horses. The only route was through.

Before the
light was completely gone from the sky, she walked over to the base
of it to take a close look. It was just as Piers had described it
to her, rubbery in texture, blue in colour, consisting of
interlocking bridges and pillars and columns, passages and holes
and arches. There wasn’t a straight line or a flat path or a large
cavern anywhere in it, just twisting warrens and niches, holes and
wells and walls.

There was
light. It filtered in through holes from above, through entrances
along the sides, then through the network of spans and cavities,
funnels and warrens until it was a dim and diffused blue. There
were many entrances and exits; the problem was that once inside, it
was easy to become lost. Nor was there any point in marking a path
for the next fellowship to follow either, because the passages kept
on changing. Spans fell, others grew, holes filled in, burrows
opened up, exits disappeared and new entrances split open. A guide
had to find his own way through each time he passed that way. She
knew Piers had used Ygraine as his guide. The canny old
crossings-horse had never seemed to have trouble finding a short
route from one side to the other. Other Unstablers used dogs or
ferrets. One or two boasted that they didn’t need animals to sniff
out a route because they could do it themselves.

She was still
contemplating the structure when the Chameleon, Portron and Corrian
joined her. None of them seemed any more comfortable with the sight
than she did.

‘A cheese with
holes,’ the Chameleon remarked, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
‘How far through, Keris? Do you know?’

‘A day’s
journey if Master Davron knows what he is doing and we’re lucky.
But the width varies, and it’s all too easy to get lost
inside.’

‘Cheeses never
have that many holes. At least not where I come from,’ Portron
said. ‘It’s more like a honeycomb.’

‘Blue cheeses,
maybe, but blue honeycombs?’ Corrian asked, somehow managing to
light her pipe and talk at the same time. ‘Sides, honeycombs are
regular. This is a maze gone bonkers. Reminds me of the slums of
Drumlin Cess, and it stinks just as bad, too.’

‘What is that
smell?’ the Chameleon asked.

‘The Wild,’
Keris said. Her curt response made him jump.

‘Once I saw
someone sliced up in a street fight,’ Corrian mused, puffing. ‘Made
a right proper job of him, they did. His lungs were a bit like
that: all spongy and holey. Maybe that’s why they give it that
name. The Sponge.’

Keris shook
her head. ‘My father said he heard that it was named after
something that came from the sea. When there were seas.’

The Chameleon
poked at the blue chunk of wall in front of him. It gave slightly
under his fingers like a living thing. He drew back hurriedly. ‘An
animal?’

‘I don’t know.
A kind of plant perhaps?’

He rubbed his
cheek, his nervousness obvious. ‘Well, let’s hope this is not
alive. I don’t like the thought of walking inside something that’s
still, er, capable of digestion.’

‘Let’s be
getting back,’ Portron said, ‘It’s getting dark.’ But when Quirk
and Corrian began to walk back towards the camp he ambled behind,
forcing Keris to slow her pace to his. ‘You haven’t told me just
why you decided to come with us,’ he said. ‘This is a dangerous
route, lass.’

She cut him
short. ‘I’ve decided to become an Unstabler, Chantor. I am now in
Meldor’s employ.’

He gaped, then
shut his mouth with an audible snap. ‘Doing what?’ he asked
finally.

‘I’m a
mapmaker.’

‘Impossible!
It’s a man’s profession.’

‘No one cares
for such things in the Unstable.’

‘But who would
be after buying your maps?’

‘Do you know,
I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve come to the conclusion that
Unstablers wouldn’t care a flea’s purse for anything but the
accuracy of the map, and the ease with which it could be read.
Ordinary people might balk at buying a woman’s map, but not those
who know the Unstable, not those who know maps.’

‘You will be
breaking the Rule. Opposing Chantry, and all that Chantry stands
for.’ He waved his fly switch at her in agitation.

‘Oh, I’ll
probably have a shop in some bordertown like Hopen Grat where Order
doesn’t operate and no one takes much notice of the Rule and
rule-chantors.’

‘Maker help
you, Keris! That doesn’t make it right. Besides, you know Meldor
and Storre are messing with ley. You saw what they did with that
bilee. How can you think of working with a man who has deliberately
sought to make the power of the Unmaker’s realm his own?’

She sighed, in
her heart agreeing with him. ‘Chantor, why didn’t you tell people
at the halt about it? Why didn’t you tell the Defenders that Meldor
and Davron dabble in the forbidden?’

‘Believe me, I
was wanting to. But somehow—’ He shivered and stopped, holding her
back. ‘He told me not to, and I
couldn’t
. Keris, there is
evil abroad in that man.’

‘Meldor?’

‘Yes. I wish I
could remember where it was I’ve seen him before.

‘If you felt
he was evil, then why are you here?’

‘Because you
are, disorder be damned! I might still be back in Pickle’s Halt,
waiting for the next fellowship to pass, if you hadn’t announced
you were riding out with Davron. I was thinking of dropping out of
the Fellowship until I knew you weren’t.’

She was taken
aback. ‘Oh. Oh, Creation. I never meant—’

He sighed.
‘’Tis too late now. You’re a headstrong lass, Keris Kaylen, and
I’ll be hoping that you have a change of heart. ’Tis never too late
to return to the Rule and the protection of Chantry.’

‘You won’t—you
won’t deliberately make trouble for me, will you? With Chantry, I
mean.’

He looked
uncomfortable. ‘I—er— Yes, well. I’m not looking to stir the burnt
crust at the bottom of the pot. I’m too old for crusades.’ He had a
sudden thought. ‘What is Master Meldor wanting a mapmaker for?’

She hedged.
‘An investment, I imagine. Doubtless he thinks there’s money in
maps.’

He looked over
to where Meldor was warming his hands on the single campfire. ‘I’ve
been scouring my brains to think where I’ve seen him before.’

‘Probably in a
chantery somewhere. He was a chantor, once.’

‘Meldor?’ He
continued to stare at the blind man. ‘But I’ve never seen him bend
a knee in kinesis, nor read the Holy Books—’

‘I said he
was
, not is. He’s blind, Chantor Portron, and quite apart
from the fact that he’d find it hard to read anything, doubtless
you know what the Rule says about the blind.’

‘Oh. Yes.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember he can’t see. Anyway, just because
he’s not allowed to stay in a stab, doesn’t mean a chantor should
be giving up his calling. He can serve the faithful here as well
as—’ He paled and almost fell. ‘Holy ley-life!’ he breathed.

She reached
out to take hold of him, but he pulled away from her and stumbled
over to his tent, as if he was in a state of shock.
Well
,
she wondered,
what was all that about?

A moment later
her thought was echoed in words. ‘What was all that about?’ Davron
asked, coming over to her.

‘I don’t
know,’ she said. ‘Are we having only one fire tonight?’

‘Fuel is
scarce. From here on, there’s hardly any trees. But I don’t suppose
I have to tell you that.’

‘No.’ She knew
what lay on the other side of the Sponge: the Wide and then the
Flow—ley line and river, running parallel. Somewhere the Snarled
Fist, where four lines met and mingled. And then beyond, a land
increasingly hostile and unmade.

‘I haven’t
thanked you,’ he said. ‘For being here. For agreeing. For giving me
hope.’

‘I didn’t do
it for you,’ she said, incurably honest. ‘At least, not in that
sense. I was afraid of what you would do if I didn’t. I didn’t want
another burden of guilt loaded on to my shoulders.’

‘Another?’

‘I ran away
from my dying mother. I left her when she needed me most because it
suited my—my convenience. That’s hard to live with.’

‘Ah.’ He
rubbed the back of his neck and the look he gave her was tinged
with embarrassment. ‘You—you shouldn’t have felt that you could be
responsible for what I might have done. My decisions have always
been my own.’

‘Yes. And my
mother’s decision to ask me to leave was hers, yet it makes no
difference. The guilt is there. It always will be,’ she added
simply. ‘It is something I am learning to live with and I had no
wish to add to it.’

He nodded and
she had the impression that not only did he understand, but that he
was reluctantly amused by it, as if what she said struck too
personal a chord within him. She guessed he too knew what it was
like to suffer from those insidious tendrils of guilt entwining
themselves into one’s conscience. She sighed. ‘Davron, I don’t have
the faintest clue of how to set about making a trompleri map. I
don’t have ideas. I don’t know where to begin.’ This time she was
very much aware that she had dropped the honorific ‘Master’. She
was determined he was going to treat her as an equal, but found
herself blushing anyway.

He said, ‘We
will introduce you to people who knew Deverli. And others who might
have ideas. We’ll tell you the same things that we told him. He
found the secret, so can you.’

‘Well, I hope
you take better care of me than you did of him.’

His lips
twisted, but it was hardly a smile. ‘I’ll try. And—I’m sorry about
your mother. I remember her. I met her several times. The first
time I came to Kibbleberry, years ago, I remember that I noticed
she had edged her petticoat with lacework. I saw it, peeping out
from underneath her skirt. It impressed me that someone would go to
all that trouble just to please themselves, and taunt Chantry in a
way that only she knew about. I liked that. I thought her a woman
of dignity and integrity.’

Ornamentation
was only for chantors, for the glory of Chantry, but Sheyli, for
all her piety, had possessed a stubborn streak and she’d had a love
of beautiful things. Davron was right, she had indeed been a woman
of integrity, refusing ever to surrender that core of herself to
the Rule. She looked up at the guide in wonderment; he could hardly
have known Sheyli well, yet he’d sensed so much.

‘Hey, Keris—do
you have some food for the fire?’ Scow called out. ‘We don’t have
much fuel to keep this going.’

‘I’m coming.’
She left Davron and headed for her tent, wishing all the while that
it did not matter to her that he was married. With children. But it
did matter, and it was becoming increasingly hard for her to
convince herself that he meant nothing to her.

Infatuation
, she thought, disgusted with herself.
That’s
all.

But then she
would remember the shame in his eyes and the way he drew on some
inner resource to damp it down. She would recall the way he had
grieved at Baraine’s defection and Quirk’s maiming. She would
remember the turn of his head, the fluidity of the way he moved.
She would remember the way he’d sensed her turmoil at Graval’s
death, the way he had tried, not to comfort her, for he was not a
man to offer platitudes, but to make her strong. There was even
something intriguing about his hardness, something enticing in that
obsidian blackness; there was something attractive, too, about the
weakness within he strove to conceal, something fascinating about a
man who blushed so easily and yet whose weapons of choice included
a whip. He intrigued. He repelled. And something stirred inside her
in response.

And there was
no way he could ever be for her.

Oh, Creation,
why is nothing simple any more?

~~~~~~~

It was not
easy to find a way through the Sponge. A chosen route could
suddenly end in a blank wall or a dead end passage; or it would
simply narrow down so much a horse couldn’t pass. In the soft blue
light it was sometimes difficult to see the holes that suddenly
opened up in the floor, or to make out the unevenness that snagged
their feet. There were sills and nodules and humps and loops, all
capable of catching unwary boots. And somewhere within were the
Wild that made their nests and webs and dens and burrows there.

They walked
the animals and plodded on. Tousson tossed her head and banged her
neck against Keris’s arm. ‘She doesn’t like it,’ Scow remarked. He
was bringing up the rear, behind them.

‘No. I don’t
blame her.’

‘Yes. Watch
out here, it’s slippery. It’s wet for some reason.’

She glanced
ahead. In front Corrian was swearing because she’d bumped her head,
Portron was talking to his palfrey trying to keep the nervous
animal calm, and the Chameleon, now a pale blue to match his
surroundings, was padding along with his animals, quiet and
unobtrusive.

Funny
,
she thought,
how Quirk moves differently now that he’s the
Chameleon.
He walked softly, with a confidence that seemed
innate, like an animal in its home territory. In company he might
still agonise over what to say and he was certainly a dithering
mess of nervous mannerisms, but at other times his camouflage
seemed to cloak him with assurance as well as hiding him. His
maiming had changed him in an unexpected way.

She looked
past him, and failed to see Davron and Meldor. They were hidden by
the numerous twists and turns, but she knew which one of the two
men led them. ‘Scow,’ she asked, ‘how does Meldor know his
way?’

The tainted
man shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Don’t worry; I’ve never known
him to get lost in here.’