10
Let the keeper beware men’s
cold voices.
The water and the
wood
Speak no empty phrases.
Speak no empty phrases.
Litany of the Makers
RAFFI STOOD ON THE HILL,
the sky above him a clear, warm blue. He could see the small red
moon, Pyra, the youngest of the sisters and his favorite, very pale
in the sunlight. Looking up at her, quite suddenly he remembered
one time when he had been small, sitting on his mother’s lap,
hearing the story of Pyra and the wolf, while his brothers and
sisters ran and argued around him. When could that have been? His
mother had always been too busy to pay much attention to him. How
were they all? he wondered. It had been a long time since he had
thought about home, though it had always been there, a place to go
back to in the corner of his mind. He knew it had been dirty,
noisy, full of arguments; he’d always been in the way, under
people’s feet, a dreamer. He probably wouldn’t like it if he went
back, he thought sadly, looking out. In a way, Sarres was home
now.
All the green island lay beneath him, its orchards
barely breaking into blossom, its lanes and hedges, where already
the white snowcaps and muskwort were out, and banks of yellow
crocus sprouted from the rich soil. In Sarres spring came early,
the ground ripe with Maker-power, and all over it, in the hush when
the breeze dropped, you could hear the endless, invisible trickle
of Artelan’s Well, the spring of water that ran clear as crystal,
that Flain had promised would never dry up.
Raffi let his mind slide deep in the energy lines
of the island, sending small sense-filaments into branch and root,
into worms and birds and water, feeling the green, fresh
restlessness, the small pains of awakening.
A sound brought him out abruptly; the soft whirr
and thwack of a crossbow bolt. He opened his eyes, sense-lines
swirling, then ran, slipping in haste down the steep, wet grass.
Halfway down the sound came again, closer, but in complete silence.
No one called or yelled.
He slowed, sweating, letting the panic go. Stupid.
There were no Watch on Sarres.
Or rather, just the one.
Ducking under the trees he came through the small
iron gate onto the lawns and saw Carys. She had set up a circle of
wood on a rickety open ladder and was aiming at it, standing well
back. As he watched, her finger tightened on the trigger; from here
he could see her one eye close, feel the strain of concentration
swell inside her like a bright bubble. Then it burst, instantly,
and the bolt thumped into the wood.
Carys bent and picked another out of the grass.
She looked over.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She slotted the bolt in. “Stupid question. You can
see.”
“Yes, but I mean why?”
“To keep my hand in.” She tucked the smooth hair
behind one ear. “And to be ready for when we go.”
“We’re not going till after the Feast,” he said,
his heart cold. “And Carys, you can’t come!”
She grinned at him. “Oh can’t I?”
“Your picture was on that death-list!”
To his surprise she just laughed. “Of course it
was! Don’t worry, Raffi. I can cut my hair and change its color.
They taught us all about that.”
“You can’t change your face.”
“You’d be surprised how bad people’s memories are.
I’ll take my chance.” She wound the bolt back rapidly.
He wandered over, knowing it was useless to argue.
“You’d be safe here.”
“I’m coming. If Galen’s going after this Coronet,
then so am I.” She aimed deliberately. Watching, he felt the weight
of the bow in his mind; then he opened his third eye and from the
target saw the bolt explode into his chest with a wooden
thump.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Why weren’t we on
that list? Galen and me?”
“They don’t have drawings of you.”
“Braylwin would have described us. They could have
made some sort of picture.”
She looked at him, thinking. “There are lots of
lists. Still, you’re right. It’s odd.”
A mere-duck flew over, its red tail flashing. She
whipped up the bow, following it down among the trees.
“Don’t,” he muttered, nervous.
Carys looked at him irritably. “It’s not
loaded.”
“I’m very glad of that!” Marco was walking through
the trees. In the last few days his wounds had almost healed;
looking at him now Raffi saw a stocky, broad-shouldered man in the
too-tight red jerkin Tallis had found for him. Red of face too, a
bold, blunt, cheery face. He sat himself down next to them.
“Now, I’d love to know why a scholar of the Order
needs to practice with a crossbow. Maybe if I wasn’t a hated
relic-dealer, and in Galen’s opinion lower than the muck on his
boot, I’d ask.”
Raffi frowned. Carys laughed. Lowering the bow she
kneeled on the grass. “I’m not a scholar. I’m ex-Watch. A bit like
you, I suppose.”
“Ex-Watch!” Marco looked curious. “I didn’t think
they allowed any ‘ex.’”
She shrugged.
After a silence he said, “My friend Solon tells me
we’ll only be here three more days. Until after the Feast of the
Field of Gold. Whatever that is.”
Raffi looked appalled. “You don’t know?”
Marco lay back on one elbow, ankles crossed.
“Should I?” he teased.
“It’s Flain’s return. From the Underworld. From
the dead.”
“Oh.” Marco winked at Carys. “I see. From the
dead!”
Raffi felt himself going red. The man was making
fun of him. And the Makers. It made him angry. “It’s important,” he
muttered fiercely. “It’s the first day of spring.”
“I’m sure it is. Where would we be without the
Makers.”
Raffi scrambled up.
“Wait. I’m sorry.” Marco sat upright, his grin
suddenly gone. “Really, Raffi. I shouldn’t poke fun at you. Not
after you all but took my head out of the noose. It’s just . . .”
He shook his head in irritation. “How an intelligent man like Solon
can believe all that nonsense . . .”
“Is it though?” Carys said thoughtfully. “How
would you explain the world, Marco? Relics—you must have handled a
lot of those. And Sarres?”
He pulled a mock painful face and rubbed an
eyebrow; he had thick eyebrows, as if his hair had been dark, and
across his knuckles the word ROSE tattooed in blue. “I’m a plain
man, Carys. How should I know. There were Makers—there probably
were—but I think they were people just like us. Well, cleverer.
Where they came from, I don’t know, but I don’t believe they came
down from the stars on stairs of silver! They knew things we don’t;
the relics were things they made. Over the centuries the Order
built up these fancy stories about them and forgot all the
important bits. And why not? It gave them plenty of power. Men like
Solon would have been respected. Before the Watch.”
She glanced over at Raffi. He looked hot and
confused.
“And the power the keepers have? It exists. I’ve
seen it.”
“So have I!” Marco laughed. “Oh, I can’t explain
that. The ice-cracking was incredible, but when Galen got those
trees to close in around us—that would have made my hair stand on
end if I still had any!”
They laughed with him, Raffi uncomfortably.
“It comes from the Makers, I suppose. It still
doesn’t make them gods.”
“They weren’t gods,” Raffi muttered. “They were
the sons of God.”
Marco lay back in the grass, hands behind his
head.
“Whatever,” he said lazily.
IT SCARED RAFFI. He couldn’t talk to Galen about it
because for two days the keeper had been deep in the rituals of
preparation—fasting, meditating alone, on the hill and by the
spring. And anyway, Raffi knew Galen too well. He’d have laughed
harshly, and given him some chapters of the Book to study. Or told
him off for listening to unbelievers.
Sitting in the dark, silent room that night, with
the fire and all the candles out, in the cold stillness before the
day of the Return, Raffi found himself wondering about the Makers.
Flain and Tamar, Soren, Halen, Theriss, Kest. All his life he had
known of them, had spoken to them. Often he felt they were close to
him, answering when he needed them. Sometimes there was just
silence. He knew all the stories, had even stood in the House of
Trees itself. And there he had heard a voice, a living voice, full
of distance. A voice from beyond the stars.
Marco couldn’t explain that away, could he?
Raffi shifted. He was stiff and cold and almost
lightheaded with hunger after fasting all day. Next to him Solon
turned for a moment and smiled. It made Raffi feel better. He and
Galen, Solon and Tallis sat silent. Even sense-lines were forbidden
now, in the darkest time before dawn. All night since sundown they
had waited, without food, without light, without speech. As Flain
had done. Because this was what it must be to be dead.
With a creak, the door opened.
Carys put her head around and slipped in. After
her came the Sekoi, a tall, thin shadow, carrying Felnia, looking
tousled and half asleep, still clutching her worn toy, Cub.
At the back, Marco followed. The bald man closed
the door silently and leaned against it, folding his arms. Seeing
Raffi’s stare, he grinned.
Tallis stood up, stiff. Tonight she was an old
woman, and wore a dark crimson dress.
“Keepers,” she said. “The night ends. The time has
come.”
All the doors and windows were opened. Outside,
the darkness was absolutely still, the sky mottled with high, pale
clouds, moon-edged. Agramon and Cyrax were full, and Lar’s pitted
face a ghostly shadow.
It was Solon who led them out, stiff with sitting,
over the gray lawns in the night-chill and up the hill, climbing
the long slope silently to the top, and as they stood there in a
breathless line the wind gusted, lifted Carys’s hair and Galen’s
coat. Felnia had gone back to sleep; the Sekoi propped her against
its thin shoulder.
They waited, seeing all the darkness of Sarres
below them, until Solon began the Canticle of Flain, his voice
strange, as if someone else spoke through him.
I, who had been in the dark,
am come into the light.
From the bitter places of the
Underworld I bring all I have learned.
For without pain how can there
be joy?
And without darkness how can
there be light?
Without hatred how can there
be love?
How can there be life without
the selflessness of death?
He raised his hands. A few birds had begun to sing
in the woods; the sky in the east was pale, the underside of the
clouds lit with a red glow.
There is no darkness black
enough to swallow me.
There is no chasm deep enough
to bury me.
There is no fear cold enough
to empty me.
My heart is full; my heart
holds all the world.
The sky brightened. All the woods and fields were
alive with birdsong. On the tip of the horizon far in front of
them, among the mists and fog of the marshes, a slit of scarlet
slashed the gray. Herons flew over, three in a row. All the keepers
were chanting now, and Raffi with them, hands out.
Behold, Anara, I have returned
to you from the Pit,
Bringing daylight,
Bringing the spring.
I have been dead. I have been
alive.
In all the hollows of your
heart there is nowhere that I have not been.
And at last the sun burned before them, vivid as
fire, catching Galen’s face and Carys’s, and the Sekoi’s grin and
Felnia’s yawn and Solon’s outstretched hands. It shone in Tallis’s
flame-red hair and she laughed; it stung Raffi’s eyes to wetness
and Marco’s broad face to a tolerant smile.
All around them, Sarres was a Field of Gold.