Havenstar (36 page)

‘But you sound
more like a chantor—’

‘Oh no, never
that. Chantry uses the Holy Books to justify stability and lack of
change. Meldor tells us to study them with a view to finding out
how the world can be altered, how the Unmaker can be defeated.
Meldor is a deeply religious man, but his views are not those of
Chantry.’

She was
appalled by the hint in his words. ‘There can only be one religion.
One way. To even
think
anything else—’ The ultimate heresy.
The only crime, except being born Unbred, that was punishable by
death.

‘He will
explain it to you better. Ask him.’ He grinned at her, rather like
a large friendly dog.

She looked
away, out towards the Sponge, now a black outline against a starlit
sky. ‘If he’s alive.’

‘He will live.
He has not yet fulfilled his destiny. And your trompleri maps will
be part of the plan, you’ll see.’ He held up the piece of the
Sponge he’d been carving. He had created a rough representation of
Stockwood, horns and all. ‘It would be a terrible irony, would it
not, if my oversized hack has killed Davron…’ His hand tightened on
the carving for a moment, as if he wanted to crush it, then he
tossed it into the fire and watched it burn.

She stood up,
restless, and turned to look at the Snarled Fist. She’d been aware
of it ever since she had emerged from the Sponge, aware of it out
of the corner of her eye, on the edge of her consciousness, but
after her initial gaze she’d avoided looking at it directly. It was
too overpowering. Too compelling. Too downright dangerous. Now she
forced herself to look, forced herself to absorb its reality and
face its power.

Below her the
Wide flowed through the night like a broad river of churning light.
Beyond it, somewhere out in the darkness, was the true river known
as the Flow, while to her right, streaming through the Sponge one
after another, came the maelstrom of the fickle Wanderer, and the
narrow ribbon of the Dancer. Their confluence with the Wide was a
clash of force, a vortex that sent power and colour upwards into a
perpetual mushroom cloud of roiling purple and livid billows. It
created its own light; it glowed and sparked and flared and
flickered, sometimes like playful lightning, sometimes with the
ferocity of brushfire, sometimes as cold and eerie as foxfire.

The Snarled
Fist, feared and avoided by all Unstablers, and there it was within
an hour’s ride of where she stood…

‘It pulls me,’
she murmured. ‘I feel it all the time. Like a restlessness inside
me.’
Like that moment in the ley line when I wanted Davron to
love me
— ‘I feel as if I want to walk into it.’ She
trembled.

Scow watched
her face, not the ley. ‘I cannot see it. I cannot feel it. It does
nothing to me.’ He shrugged. ‘Meldor exults in ley, you know, but
Davron is more cautious.’

She turned
away from the Fist and looked back at the Sponge. ‘The ley I
saw—the ley that killed the Wild that were attacking me—where did
it come from?’

He was
silent.

‘It was
Davron, wasn’t it?’ When he continued to keep silent, she made a
small sound of exasperation. ‘Scow, I know it was him. I just want
to know why he collapsed. Was he—did it kill him too?’

The tainted
man shook his head. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so. But Davron is not
like Meldor. He doesn’t have the same sort of skills. I suspect he
misjudged and drained himself, not only of ley, but of his
own…energy. He probably fainted.’

She wanted to
ask how he’d obtained the ley, she wanted to ask half a dozen
questions, but they all died unasked. ‘There’s someone there,’ she
whispered. ‘There’s someone coming.’ And the hope that surged in
her was painful and told her far too much.
I mustn’t.

Meldor and
Davron appeared at the edge of the fire’s glow, one leaning into
the other. Davron was partly supporting himself on Piers’ staff,
which she had thought she’d lost forever.

Scow jumped to
his feet, grinning. ‘Maker be thanked!’ He went forward to help
Meldor, but Keris saw that it was Davron who suffered, not the
blind man. Meldor was tired, but he held himself erect and the
blood on his clothes was Davron’s, not his. It was the guide who
was in pain. The cut on his arm had been roughly bandaged, but the
bandage was blood-soaked. Freed of Meldor’s support he limped
hesitantly to where she stood, and halted a step away. The look he
gave her was concentrated, as if he had blocked out the rest of the
world.

She remained
where she was, unable to move, afraid she would give herself away.
Afraid of what she was feeling. She took no joy in her relief that
he was safe; every particle of desire and love she felt was
suffused with an equal horror. He is bonded to the Unmaker. He is
married, he is Trician, his wife is beautiful. He plays with the
evil of ley. One day he will answer the Unmaker’s summons…

She said, ‘I
thought you must have died.’
Don’t let me love you.

He spoke at
the same time. ‘I thought the Wild had taken you.’

They stopped,
then she started again. ‘Stockwood trampled you—’

Meldor
laughed, and the spell was broken; the world came back with a rush.
She stepped back, flushing, wondering how obvious she’d been.
Davron turned away, smiling at Meldor, then looking back at her to
share the joke. ‘I said to Meldor that I felt I had been trampled
by a herd of horses. I guess Stockwood is about equal to a herd of
normal beasts. Ley-life, Scow, I swear he must have broken every
rib I have. I need to be strapped up, and whatever you do, don’t
make me laugh.’

Scow put a
hand on his shoulder by way of apology and the three of them made
their way to where the Unbound man had erected Davron’s tent, and
disappeared inside.

Keris, left
alone by the fire, felt the prick of helpless tears and was not
sure which of her numerous miseries was responsible.
I shall
have to learn to swear out loud,
she thought.
Maybe then I
wouldn’t need to cry all the time
…

~~~~~~~

‘You shouldn’t
have said that to her,’ Meldor said some time later, after
listening to all Scow had to tell them. ‘It was too early.’

Scow gave a
shake of his reddish mane. He was seated on the floor of Davron’s
tent, next to the guide’s bedroll. Meldor, although he must have
been tired, remained standing. The only concession he made to
fatigue was to lean on his staff. ‘Sorry,’ Scow said. ‘I was not
thinking. I was worried, wondering if you might both be hurt, or
dead, and I didn’t know whether I should go back for you, or
not.’

‘There, you
did the right thing. If you had gone back, we’d probably have had
to turn around and go and look for you. But make no mistake about
it, Maid Kaylen’s still not to be trusted. She’s still tethered to
Chantry, and just because she’s had a few frustrations doesn’t mean
she’s ready to change her allegiance. There’s a streak of
righteousness there and she doesn’t have the trauma of being
tainted to help her change. Not like Quirk.’

‘As long as
she doesn’t go to Portron,’ Davron said. Now that he was clean, fed
and re-bandaged, he was feeling much better, especially as Meldor
had applied ley to help the healing process. Nonetheless, he was
not entirely comfortable, as his constant shifting of position
showed.

‘Keris run to
Portron? She won’t,’ Scow said. ‘Even if she wasn’t ley-coerced.
She has a well-developed sense of fair play, and anyway, anyone
with half a mind can see she’s halfway to loving you, Davron.’

Davron winced
and said nothing.

‘Anyway,’
Meldor said, ‘you’re not to trust her yet. Either of you. Certainly
no mention of Havenstar. Although if she loves you, Davron, maybe
we can use that.’

The blackness
in Davron’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘One of these days I might
just run a blade into your guts, Meldor.’

Meldor did not
seen disturbed by the threat. He looked down at the guide with a
shrug. ‘I don’t have your scruples, Maker be thanked. If I did,
nothing would ever be done. Now, what about your ley, my friend?
Can it wait until tomorrow night?’

Davron shook
his head. ‘I’m afraid not. I need it, Meldor. The lack of it is an
ache right through my bones to my soul.’ He hesitated. ‘I didn’t
know… I never guessed! I didn’t really know until this moment.
Meldor, if ever we win, totally win and banish ley from this land,
we who have taken the ley will die of its lack, just as surely as
the Unbound will die of too much stability.’

Meldor nodded
calmly. ‘I’ve always known that.’

Davron took a
deep breath. ‘You never warned us. Was that
just
? Ley-life,
how can you ask men to fight for a victory that will bring only
certain death to them?’

‘Won’t it be
worth it?’

‘
I
may
think so, but others may not. If they knew they were doomed, would
they follow?’

‘I did,’ said
Scow softly. ‘Others of my kind may believe what the Margraf tells
them of a better world where we will all be whole again, with the
Unmaker vanquished. I am not so sanguine, and I know Meldor well
enough to know when he equivocates. If there’s a total victory,
we’re all doomed, Davron. That’s our tragedy. But we will go on,
nonetheless—for the Tillys of this world, and the Alysses. For
children like your Mirren and Staven. So that one day they will not
have to make a crossing.’

Meldor pushed
himself away from the tent pole. ‘Perhaps you should both put your
faith in Havenstar,’ he admonished them. ‘Haven’t I told you it
will be our salvation?’ He went to the tent flap, saying, ‘Try to
sleep for an hour or two, Davron. I will come for you when the camp
is quiet, and we will go into the ley together.’

~~~~~~~

Keris could
not sleep. Too much had happened that day. She’d been too close to
death too many times, her emotions had been scored and scarified
and shredded. She was exhausted, but sleep would not come. When
someone scratched at the canvas of her tent she was almost
relieved. ‘Who is it?’

‘Quirk.’

She unlaced
the tent opening and poked her head out. She strained to see him
against the darkness of the ground beyond, and thought she glimpsed
his small eyes, perched as they were in moving mounds of ringed
flesh. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Something
woke me. I looked out to see Meldor and Davron. I followed them.
Keris, I think they went into the ley.’

‘One moment.’
She withdrew into her tent and hurriedly dressed, ignoring the
momentary pain of her scratches and aching muscles.

When she
emerged from the tent, Quirk clutched at her arm worriedly. ‘I
don’t know if it’s any of our business, but I followed them. They
were stopped by the Trader’s sentry but he let them pass. None of
them saw me, of course. Meldor and Davron just went straight down
towards the mist, where you say the Wide is. What should we
do?’

‘I’ll take a
look.’

He guided her
through the camp, then distracted the sentry with noise while she
slipped past. A moment later he rejoined her. He pointed. ‘They
entered over there somewhere.’

‘Yes, I can
see them.’

‘What are they
doing? They didn’t go to, um, to meet Carasma, did they? Could they
be, er,
Minions
?’

Towards the
centre of the line she could see a swirl of ley hues. As the clot
of colour teased out more thinly she caught glimpses of Davron and
Meldor standing together, close enough to have been in an embrace.
A twirl of ley, pinkish in colour, wrapped them around in a spiral,
tied them one to the other. And then she saw: there was no end to
the top of the spiral. At the bottom it eased out of the ribbon of
ley; at the top it disappeared into them both. Was absorbed through
their skin, into their faces.

She turned
away, troubled.

‘What did you
see?’ Quirk asked, watching her anxiously. ‘Is he there?’

She shook her
head. ‘No, they’re alone. They are…absorbing the ley. For its
powers.’

‘Ah.’ He
thought about that and nodded. ‘That’s what they used to dispose of
the bilee, I suppose.’

She nodded in
turn.

‘That’s
illegal,’ he remarked finally. ‘And it’s what Minions do.’

She was
silent.

‘Keris,’ he
said, ‘I don’t know what to do. They want me to come with them.
They want to fight the Unmaker. You know I’ve become friendly with
Scow—’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s a fine
chap. The best.’ He pulled at his earlobe. ‘He says there’s a place
where the Unbound can live and be safe.’

‘Havenstar?
I’ve heard of it. But Scow told me it didn’t exist. At least,
that’s what I thought he meant.’

‘Well, I don’t
think it’s like rumours say, with sorcerers and all that, to make
us human again. I don’t even know if it’s called Havenstar. Scow
didn’t use that word. But he says there is a place. Look, I’m
scared of the Unstable. I’ve always been scared. I hate it. I hate
the thought that out here, there are Minions and the Wild just
waiting for an opportunity to rip us apart. I want to be safe
again.’

‘They make use
of ley. And they’ll lead you into confrontation with the Unmaker.
You will be far from safe in their company. In
our
company,’
she corrected. For am I not one of them too? ‘You will be hunted by
both Lord Carasma and Chantry, if you are not careful.’

‘Oh, but I’ll
be there, in that place. Safe. They won’t want me to fight! They
know what a coward I am.’

She sighed.
‘Quirk, Quirk, can’t you see? They want you for what you are. The
Chameleon.’

In the light
she saw his blank uncertainty.

‘A
spy,
Quirk. You are the perfect spy. Not even the Minions can see you if
you stay still, or move slowly. Although the Wild may smell you, I
suppose.’