In the
meantime, Corrian had opted for a much quieter life. She seemed
content not to move elsewhere. She earned her keep by helping with
the cooking, as best she was able with one arm. She took up with a
one-legged street-sweeper, and regaled anyone who would listen with
a discourse on the variations possible in bed when you only had six
limbs between you. Most of her time, however, seemed to be directed
at becoming the neighbourhood herbalist for women’s ailments. She
dispensed remedies for everything from cramps to infertility,
apparently with some success as there was a constant stream of
women coming to the kitchen door and she now bought the best of
pipeweed. Missie, Colibran’s wife, whiskers twitching in
indignation, complained about the house becoming a medicine shop,
but only when Corrian was not around.
The only time
Keris met Meldor was when he came to the shop to discuss the
burning of trompleri maps with Favellis and Dita. These discussions
always took place late at night when everyone else had gone to bed
and, other than the two women and Meldor, they involved only
herself, Scow and Davron. Meldor, it seemed, was determined to keep
the whole matter a close secret. Dita and Favellis performed their
experiments on an area Keris first surveyed and mapped to the south
of Havenstar, far from Minion eyes, and reported back their
findings only to the select group.
They’d
discovered that the burning of any trompleri map brought about the
same result: an instant and possibly lasting stability. The only
limitations were the limitations of trompleri maps themselves.
Poorly executed maps could never become trompleri maps and were
therefore of no use in creating stability.
‘So, that
means the transposing of the Unstable is going to be a slow and
piecemeal process,’ Davron lamented once, ‘one small area at a
time.’
Meldor smiled
an enigmatic smile, leaving everyone with the impression that the
thought pleased him. It was Scow who remarked, ‘Which is probably
just as well for the likes of the tainted. Need I remind you that
we would all eventually die in stability? And we know that the
Unbound are all reporting that they find the new stabilities, the
ones created by the burning of Deverli’s maps, inimical to them,
unlike the old fixed features.’
Sobered, Keris
thought about the irony of that. They were the ones who’d brought
the end of instability to within the bounds of possibility, and
they were among the ones who could never benefit. Even Favellis and
Dita were doomed, because they’d also imbibed ley.
‘Nonetheless,’
she said, ‘I think this is how the old fixed features were created.
I suspect the tainted can live in them now because the stability
has been compromised by time and the Unstable. I think that once
they were a lot bigger, and a lot more stable—a thousand years
ago.’
‘A thousand
years is rather a long time for us to wait for a stability we can
live in,’ Scow said mournfully.
‘Havenstar
will never be stabilised,’ Meldor said, and his voice was the
closest she had ever heard to harshness. ‘
Never
. We will
always have Havenstar.’
The other
experiments done by Favellis and Dita had shown that there was no
other way out for the tainted. When the two women had stabilised an
area containing six tainted animals captured by Havenguards, three
had died in agony with frightening rapidity and the other three
lived but appeared to have gone mad. They’d tested one of their own
untainted dogs after Favellis had drugged it. The animal had not
died, but did wake up violently ill and it was days before Favellis
could forgive herself. After that, nobody suggested any more
experiments with living things.
Favellis and
Dita continued to keep a close eye on the stabilised areas,
watching for any signs of change, and had come to the conclusion
that Keris had been right. They were much like the old fixed
features. Left alone, their edges would gradually be eaten away by
instability. They could be more immediately threatened by the
vagaries of a capricious ley line, but they would probably have the
capacity to last hundreds of years. ‘We can make them large,’
Favellis said. ‘Keris gave us contiguous maps and we have
successfully enlarged the first area we did.’
‘Good,’ said
Meldor. ‘But that’s enough for now. Trompleri maps are going to be
too precious to waste burning them. We know all we need to know for
the time being.’
It was true
that trompleri maps were invaluable. People were coming to
Havenstar, more and more each day, and each day, guides left with
some trompleri maps to show the newcomers the safest routes into
the enclave. If they’d blundered into a Minion camp people would
have died. Instead they came in safely, the Unbound and the
excluded, the tainted and the ley-lit, the Unbred who had somehow
escaped execution at birth, and all the variety of Unstablers:
traders, Tricians, couriers, tinkers, peddlers, guides. There were
good men and rogues, the cast-offs of Chantry and the rebels from
Order, men and women, all with one thing in common: they were
Havenbrethren, and had served Havenstar even though in many cases
they had not yet seen the place. They came because Meldor asked
them; they came because they knew him or knew of him; they came
because they trusted him. They came safely because of Keris’s
maps.
He’s bringing
them to war, she thought, and still they trust him.
War. There had
not been a war in what remained of Malinawar since just after the
Rending, a thousand years past. Nobody waged wars when there was
nothing to be gained, and everything to be lost, until now. Yet
even she could see it was coming. Each time she drew a map that
portrayed an area close to Havenstar, Minions could be seen on it.
Just as Havenbrethen moved in, so did Lord Carasma move in his
forces. They did not approach Havenstar territory too closely—yet.
They camped where they thought they could remain unseen. ‘Waiting
for the right moment,’ Meldor remarked with cold calm. ‘Waiting for
a gathering big enough to form an army. Never mind, we grow
stronger with every passing day, too. Keris, we need as many maps
as you can possibly make.’
~~~~~~~
‘Davron—!’
Davron jumped,
spilled his char and cursed heartily. ‘Quirk—damn it, you
misbegotten lizard, you frightened ten year’s growth out of
me!’
‘Sorry,’ Quirk
said cheerfully, lowering his small pack to the ground. ‘But I
can’t help it if you people are all as blind as moles in a
hole.’
Scow’s voice
drifted across the camp from the darkness. ‘Disorder be damned! I
could have sworn that he wouldn’t make it in tonight without me
seeing. Unmaker take you, Quirk.’
They had known
he was coming—their meeting was by arrangement—but still the
Chameleon could arrive unseen by either Scow on guard duty, or by
Keris, perusing her trompleri maps of the area.
She stuck her
head out of her tent and laughed. ‘Quirk, how are you? Don’t take
any notice of these sulky menfolk! It’s good to see you. We’ve
brought you your new supplies, as promised.’
Scow came in
to join them around the fire. ‘Anything to worry about out there,
Keris, or can I take a break?’
She glanced at
the map she’d been working on. It was hard to see much at night, of
course, but there had been no one around at dusk. ‘Nothing as far
as I can see. The nearest Minions were a couple of hours away,
beyond those hills. I’ve seen quite a few,’ she added, trying to
hide her unease.
‘I know,’
Quirk said. ‘I’ve just come from that direction. There’s a big camp
there.’
‘We thought as
much,’ Davron said. ‘Keris has been mapping the foot of the valley
between them and Havenstar. That way, if ever they move out, we’ll
be able to see.’
‘Can I get you
a meal, Quirk?’ she asked.
‘Whatever you
have leftover from supper will be fine. And a cup of your brew,
Scow. You do make a good drink, for all that you’re as
short-sighted as a blindworm.’
‘Watch it, or
the char won’t taste as good,’ Davron told him.
‘You mean he
would dare to sabotage the brew?’ Quirk asked.
Scow said
loftily, ‘An artist likes me needs to be free from strife,
dissension, and insults before he can produce a true blend of the
ingredients that make up the smooth perfection of—’
Quirk threw a
pebble at him.
The banter
continued, followed by a more serious discussion of the Minion
movements Quirk had noted, but Keris sat remote from it, letting
the talk roll over her. She watched as Davron joked, glad he could
appear light-hearted. Her own mood was sombre. Davron was so alone,
sitting there. He could laugh and talk and swap tales, but his gaze
held a bleakness he could not hide from her. He’d not touched
another human being, skin to skin, in over five years. He had not
held a woman or played with his daughter or known his son. She
could love him, and go on loving him, but she couldn’t eradicate
his loneliness. When he said goodnight and left the fireside, she
watched, and ached for him.
And in the
morning he was gone.
~~~~~~~
There will
come a Betrayer to your new land. Beware this man, for he will
wreak destruction in Lord Carasma’s name. Yet pity him, for he will
destroy that which he loves. Hold to hope, you people of the
shining land, even as he cuts a swathe through your aspirations,
even as your children drown in the flood he will loose behind him,
for hope may be all ye have.
—Predictions
24: 5: 12-13
Keris woke to
sunlight streaming through her tent walls, bright and warm. Too
warm. She crawled out of her bedroll and stretched, a little
puzzled. Why had no one woken her earlier than this? They had many
things to do. Time was precious as war came closer. She poked her
head out of the tent. No one was up. Quirk was still lying out in
the open in his bedroll with a blanket pulled up over his nose. The
sun was already high in the sky.
She stood up
and looked for Davron, who’d been on the dawn watch, and could not
see him. She woke Quirk and went to wake Scow, to find him snoring.
Of Davron, there was no sign. His tent was still there, his packs
were still there, but he was gone.
So was his
crossings-mount.
At first they
were more puzzled than worried. ‘He must have gone to investigate
something,’ Scow said.
‘I can find
him,’ she replied, confident. ‘I’ll just look at the trompleri
maps.’
When she did,
the only moving figures she saw were right at the edge of one of
the charts, which would put them five miles away.
‘That can’t be
him, surely,’ Scow said in shock. ‘He wouldn’t have gone that far
without telling us.’
Panicked, she
wrenched her enlarging glass out of her pack. Her hand shook as she
focused on the two riders about to move out of range of the chart.
She sat back on her heels and gazed at Scow in dismay. ‘It’s him.
And a Minion,’ she said in a strangled whisper. ‘He’s with a
Minion.’
‘How can you
tell?’ Quirk asked. ‘Minions often don’t look any different from
most untainted people.’
Wordlessly she
handed him the enlarging glass. ‘It’s him. I’d know that horse of
his anywhere, and the way he rides.’ She swallowed. ‘The other
person is riding some sort of tainted animal, and there’s a pet
with them. No one but a Minion has a pet.’
Quirk snatched
the glass from her to look for himself, and then handed the glass
to Scow. ‘I’m afraid she’s right. He’s been taken prisoner!’
Scow looked
through the glass in turn. ‘No. I can see nothing to indicate that
he’s a prisoner. Besides, what single Minion, no matter how hideous
his pet, could take Davron Storre a prisoner? He went
willingly.’
‘But why?’
Quirk asked, bewildered.
It was Keris
who told him, choking back her tears.
‘You mean—’ he
said, when he finally understood, ‘that he can’t help himself? He
has to serve the Unmaker? Davron Storre?’
‘Yes. From the
moment the Unmaker calls him until the moment he completes the task
he is given, he is as much a Minion as the man he now rides
with.’
‘No,’ Quirk
said flatly.
Tears slid
down her cheeks, but her weeping was silent. ‘He has become our
enemy. And should we meet him, we are bound to stop him.’
‘Kill him? But
you love him! Don’t you?’ Quirk’s anguish riddled his protest.
‘And I failed
to stop him.’ Scow said, bitterness seeping out of every word.
‘Great help I was… Meldor would have felt something. I just slept.’
He slammed one massive hand into the palm of another and turned
away.
‘Can we catch
up with them?’ Quirk asked, gesturing at the tiny figures on the
map.
Scow shook his
head. ‘They have at least two hours start and they’ll be off the
map soon. And we don’t have a chart showing the area they are
riding towards. Useless to follow; we’d never find them. Besides,
he’ll join up with other Minions soon—or meet the Unmaker somewhere
in the Writhe. Chaosdamn, poor Davron.’
Quirk looked
shocked. ‘But we should stop him. He knows so much! About trompleri
maps, about the defences of Havenstar, about everything. If the
Unmaker questions him…’
‘—he won’t say
anything,’ Scow said quietly. ‘Quirk, all the Unmaker can do is to
give him a task. One task. Which will probably be to destroy
Havenstar somehow. He can’t force Davron to answer questions,
unless he gets his Minions to torture him.’ Keris shuddered. ‘But
he won’t want Davron hurt, I think,’ he added quickly. ‘He’ll want
him in good health to perform his mission, whatever it is. One
mission, that’s all.’
Quirk
continued to look appalled. Scow was trying to be upbeat, but it
was clear to them all that it made little difference if Davron
answered questions or not.