11
Pyra looked up at the hot eyes
of the Wolf. “I’m not scared of you,” she said.
“Indeed?” the Wolf said
politely, coming a step closer.
“No. Because I come from the
sky.”
“You don’t say!” The Wolf came
closer still.
The wind rippled her red
cloak. “I could singe your fur,” she warned.
The Wolf grinned, showing
sharp teeth. “Go on then,” he muttered.
Pyra and the Wolf
![016](fish_9781101517024_oeb_016_r1.jpg)
“HOW LONG, SMALL KEEPER?”
the Sekoi asked anxiously.
Raffi yawned. “Ten hours, nearly.”
The room was black, lit only with two guttering
candles and the dull ashes of the fire. It was the second night
since the Feast, and Galen was deep in the dreamcoma.
The others took turns to come and go, but Raffi
had to stay. It was part of his duty as Galen’s scholar—though even
without that, he knew he could never have settled to anything
else.
The keeper lay on a couch near the fire, to keep
him warm. He lay still, without a flicker of movement, the sullen
light making strange quivers over his face, his long hair. He was
far, far away. Reaching out now, Raffi’s sense-lines could find no
trace of him, only a great vacancy like a black pit, so that Raffi
had to pull back from its edge, cold fear churning his stomach. It
had happened before. In every meditation Galen walked far. But
Raffi could never get used to that emptiness.
He was tired, though he’d slept a few hours,
curled in the corner while Carys and Tallis kept watch. Now, with
the Sekoi here, he felt a bit more wakeful.
“If I drank this well-water,” the creature mused,
propping its spindly legs up on a chair, “would this happen to
me?”
Raffi shrugged. “It did when I drank it.”
“I remember! What a panic we were in! But you have
had some training.”
“Not much. I’m on the fourth branch.”
“And that isn’t high?” the Sekoi asked
politely.
“No.” Raffi prowled over and put a log on the
fire. “Not really.”
“We’ve been too busy for you to be learning much,
maybe. And now”—it looked at him slyly out of one eye—“now we have
to travel again.”
“Yes.” Raffi sat down, staring at the sizzling
log. He felt gloom creep over him.
The Sekoi nodded smugly, as if Raffi had confirmed
something. “You want to stay,” it said.
Raffi didn’t deny it. He didn’t say anything. All
his mind was full of the last two days: the Feast with its tables
of food, the warm comfortable rooms, the small, silly presents
everyone had made for each other. Felnia dancing with Marco to the
small viola that Tallis played, the Sekoi singing one of its
endless tuneless songs with a chorus that convulsed Carys into
hysterics.
In Sarres everything was clean, warm, ordered;
everything was as it should be. There were set times for lessons
and reading and work and just playing around. The Litany was said
properly; all the feasts and fasts he had half forgotten were
remembered. Above all there was no Watch, no fear, no constant
staying alert, moving on. But it was a failing of his, this wanting
to hide, to be safe. Galen had warned him about it. They were never
out of the hands of the Makers if they did the work of the Order.
Wherever it led them.
Galen’s hand twitched.
Instantly the Sekoi was bending over him, Raffi
hovering anxiously. The keeper’s hand clenched, as if he gripped
something invisible. Behind them, Solon came in and said in a quiet
voice, “If he doesn’t come out by morning, Tallis and I will go in
for him.”
“His breathing’s changed.” The Sekoi spread its
long hands over Galen’s chest and looked up. “I think he’s
waking.”
The sense-lines were coming back. Raffi could feel
them, flooding the dark room with a charge of energy, surging from
somewhere incredibly remote.
Solon came quickly, feeling Galen’s pulse. He gave
a sidelong look at Raffi and said, “Your master has a strange
energy. I can feel it swooping into him like a great darkness. As
if something wilder than himself lived in him.” He smiled,
puzzled.
Raffi looked down.
“He never did tell me,” the Archkeeper said
gently, “how he broke the ice. Will you tell me, Raffi?”
“Ask him yourself,” the Sekoi muttered, to Raffi’s
relief. “He’s awake.”
Galen’s eyes opened. For a second he seemed to
stare at nothing, but then his gaze focused and he pushed himself
up on one hand stiffly.
“How long?” he croaked.
“Ten hours.” Raffi had water ready; he poured a
cupful and Galen drank thirstily, all their eyes intent on
him.
“Well?” Solon asked eagerly. “Did you learn
anything? Did the Makers speak to you?”
The keeper glanced up, his hooked face shadowed
with weary hollows. Echoes and taints of strange images flowed from
him, a crackle of light around his hands that made Solon
stare.
“Oh yes,” he whispered.
“AT FIRST THERE WAS JUST CONFUSION.” Galen sat
against the calarna tree in the morning sun and looked around the
circle. They were all there, even Marco, who had drifted over and
lounged in the shade. Galen ignored him.
“The Ride,” Tallis observed. Today she was a small
girl; she and Felnia were making a huge daisy chain, working one at
each end.
“The Ride, yes. As soon as I had controlled that,
I began to direct the dream. I spoke to Flain and asked him about
the Coronet, to show me where it was and whether it was our duty to
find it. When I had finished, I looked down and saw Anara.”
“The whole planet?” Solon asked, surprised.
“Yes. I was high above it, among the moons and
stars. Below me I could see the vast expanse of the sea, and the
Finished Lands were green and healthy, but so small, Archkeeper, so
tiny from that height! And as the planet turned I saw the
Unfinished Lands, over half the globe and spreading; a terrible,
churning destruction, a world burning and dissolving and erupting
into chaos.
“The sight filled me with a sort of horror, but
then someone called my name, and I turned. There were the moons,
all seven of them, making the Arch behind me; Atelgar and Lar,
Cyrax, Pyra, Agramon, Karnos, and Atterix, and I seemed to be
drifting just above their surfaces. How different they all are!” He
frowned, remembering. “Agramon is smooth and white. There is
nothing on it at all, no hills or valleys, its surface is as smooth
as a ball, and yet there are ruined buildings there, and a thing
that looks like a broken dome. And Pyra burns, her face is ravaged.
Smoke comes in great plumes from explosions deep within her.”
“This is an amazing vision,” Solon muttered.
“It gets stranger.” Galen scratched his hair. “It
would take too long to tell you all I saw of the moons, but after
an endless time I found a silver staircase and walked down it; a
long, long descent until I was in a place full of animals. A
jungle.”
He frowned. “There were creatures there I had
never imagined. And I was inside them. First I was a night-cat,
then a long winding vesp, then a wasp. I changed into hundreds of
shapes, slithering from one to another; I lost count, lost all
sense of myself. The colors and scents bewildered me—did you know,
Solon, that a hammerbird sees only blue, everything blue, while a
grendel’s eyes fracture light into a million colors we have no
names for and can’t even dream? It was exhilarating and terrifying.
I grew wings and fur and beaks and tails, I was huge and then tiny,
shifting between shapes until my whole body ached for it to stop
but it just went on, the creatures more warped now, with spines,
too many eyes, deformed legs and minds. I became all the deliberate
horrors Kest has made, seeing through their eyes, feeling their
agony. I was broken and evil, full of hate. I was blind and
unfeeling. My veins burned with poisons.”
Felnia stared at him, fascinated, the daisy chain
forgotten in the grass.
Galen paused. When he went on, his voice was
harsh, rigorously controlled. “Finally, all in an instant, I became
something brimming with intelligence. I thought I was back to
myself and looked at my hands, but they were misshapen, with bent
nails, and they were holding a mirror, so I raised it and looked
in. I saw . . . a face. Beyond the darkest of nightmares. Long,
reptilian, yet with a snout like a jackal’s, or a tomb-dog’s, and
eyes that were so evil I had to close them, because I feared for my
soul if I looked into them. And then the laughter came, and it
wasn’t me that was laughing but the Margrave, and yet I was inside
the laughter, I was trapped in it and couldn’t get out.”
He stopped.
In the silence a bird sang carelessly just above
them. Small fleecy clouds crossed the sky.
Galen’s whole body was tense. Slowly he relaxed;
his palms were wet with sweat.
Solon was pale. “Everywhere we turn,” he
whispered, “we meet this creature.”
“And you saw him?” Carys asked.
“Clearly.” Galen half glanced at Marco, then
rubbed his face with his hands and went on grimly. “Everything went
dark. I wandered in confusion after that. The vision was broken for
hours, years, it seemed. I began to think I would never get out.
Until I saw a small yellow flower, lying on the ground.”
“Flainscrown!” Raffi sat up.
“Yes.” Galen’s eyes lit. “As soon as I saw it, I
knew I was myself. I picked it up, and beyond it there was another,
and then another. I followed them.”
“Like the story of the children in the wood,”
Felnia put in gravely.
They all laughed, breaking the tension. Galen
reached over and pushed her into the grass. “Like that, yes.” He
looked at Carys. “Someone had been strewing them, so I followed,
and walked out of the darkness into a green field. There in front
of me were seven girls wearing yellow dresses. Each had a basket;
they were spreading the flowers on the ground in a great circle. I
walked up to them, and knew who they were.”
“The seven sisters,” Carys muttered.
“Exactly. Atelgar, Lar, Cyrax, all of them. Pyra
was the youngest, Agramon the eldest. They stood around me in a
ring on the grass and they walked, Carys, all around me, laughing
and saying, ‘Look at us, keeper. Look at us!’ until I was dizzy and
sick with it and all I seemed to see was light, seven flickers of
falling light getting so close, they were burning me. I reached out
and pushed one away. And then . . .” He shrugged, shaking his head.
“Then I woke up.”
There was silence. Into it Marco said drily, “I
must try some of that well-water myself!”
Galen glared at him in sudden cold fury, but Solon
was nodding. “Fascinating! ‘Look at us.’ That was what they said.
Do you notice how you saw the moons twice? Once as worlds, as they
are, and once as the sisters, as they appear in tales. They were
also strewing the flowers. To lead you to them.”
Marco grinned, but Solon looked at him sharply.
“Don’t mock us, old friend.”
“Sorry,” the bald man said, “but I fail to see how
you can get to—”
“Not get to them. Look at them. There is a place
where we can do that. About twenty miles east of Tasceron.”
“The observatory!” Carys said suddenly.
Tallis nodded. “So I have been thinking.”
“What’s that?” Felnia asked bluntly, and Raffi was
glad because he didn’t know either.
“It’s a tower,” Carys said. “The Order used to use
it for observing the moons. There were relics there—it was one of
the sites we studied on the Relic Recognition course.”
“I’m glad you know so much about it,” Solon said
mildly. “You must give us that course someday. But it would be the
obvious place to start looking. There were once detailed plans of
the moons there. Nothing may remain. But it seems clear the Makers
wish us to link the Coronet with the moons in some way.”
“I suppose so.” Galen looked at Tallis, who
threaded a last daisy and nodded.
“Yes. Though I wish the Margrave had not appeared
in your vision.” She glanced at Raffi. “That disturbs me.”
The Sekoi folded its long fingers,
thoughtful.
“I only wish,” Solon said impulsively, “that you
had had some message about the Crow!”
Galen stood up. He looked down at Marco
darkly.
“Maybe the Crow will make himself known on the
way.”