“Benie… killed Cook?” cried Karan. It was preposterous.

“Stabbed him through the heart with the boning knife,” said Rachis.

Karan ran into the kitchen. Fragments of a wide blue bowl and pieces of chopped cabbage, turnip and carrots were scattered across the flagstones. Cook lay on his back in front of the enormous cast-iron range, arms outstretched. Blood soaked the front of his apron and he was clearly dead.

Her cranky, wonderful Cook, the centre of her household for the past seven years, was gone – from some moment of madness. Why?

Benie, a stocky lad with untidy blonde hair and little scars all over his hands, was backed up against the door of the larder, a thin-bladed knife hanging from his left hand. A thick crimson drop of Cook’s blood, not yet congealed, hung from its tip. His teeth were chattering.

Karan held out her hand. “Can I have the knife, Benie?”

He handed it to her at once, dazedly. His hands were trembling, his prominent larynx bobbing up and down.

“What happened?” said Karan. Her knees had gone wobbly. She clutched the edge of the kitchen table, looking from Cook to Benie, back to Cook. How could he be dead, just like that? She could not take it in.

“I… killed… Cook,” said Benie, shaking his head as if he could not believe it.

“Did he attack you?”

“No… why would he?”

“Cook’s got a sharp tongue,” said Rachis. “But he’s not… he wasn’t a hard man.”

“Why did you do it, Benie?” said Llian.

“I don’t know.”

“There’s got to be a reason.”

“No. None at all.”

“Did you hear voices?” said Rachis. “Telling you to kill Cook?”

Benie shook his head. “I was boning out a leg of mutton and suddenly I felt furiously angry.”

“Why?” said Karan.

“I don’t know. It came from nowhere and I couldn’t stop myself. I… just… stabbed him.” Benie looked down at Cook’s body, blanched, and Karan saw the little boy in him, bewildered and terrified. He began to shake. “Poor Cook,” he sobbed, his nose running. “He taught me so much. I just wanted to be as good as him.”

Benie let out a howl that pierced her to the heart. “Did anything odd happen before you did it?” said Karan.

“No,” said Benie. “Except for that thumping sound.”

“What thumping sound?”

He tapped it on the bench, the rhythm that Karan had heard. The drumming. “I heard it just before…”

Karan exchanged glances with Llian, who seemed to be thinking the same thing as her.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Benie said plaintively. “They won’t hang me, will they?”

Karan swallowed. He had been a mischievous little boy, always getting into scrapes and coming to her to say sorry afterwards, but there was nothing she could do about murder.

“I’ll put him in the old cellar,” Rachis said heavily. “And send for the bailiff. Come with me, lad.” He led Benie away.

“I didn’t want to hurt him,” Benie wailed. “Cook was good to me. Karan, please help me!”

Karan stood there, fists clenched by her sides, utterly helpless. Why was everything falling apart?

“Sulien will be down soon,” Llian said in a low voice. “We’d better do something about the body.”

They carried Cook down to an empty coolroom, locked the door and cleaned up the mess and the blood – there wasn’t much. Out in the stone-walled orangery, they sat on a granite bench spotted with circular grey patches of lichen, among the orange and kumquat trees. The small green oranges were sparse and the leaves hung down, badly wilted. Everything was wilted this year, Llian most of all.

“Is there anything we can do for him?” he said.

Benie had been part of Gothryme all his life and more than half of Karan’s. His mother had died in childbirth and his father was unknown. He had simply been taken in; it was what people did around here.

“It’s got to be the drumming,” said Karan. “It affected you too.”

“But not you.”

She shrugged. “Nor Rachis.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe only certain people are susceptible.”

“Benie’s a good lad,” said Llian, getting up like a worn-out old man. “He’s worked hard these past years… and we have a duty to him. Do you think we should…?”

“Let him escape?” said Karan bleakly.

He pressed his forehead against a horizontal branch. “Yes.”

“He killed an innocent man, for no reason. Will he kill again, the next time the drumming sounds? And the time after that? We can’t take the risk, Llian.”

“What if we hide him somewhere? Lock him up where he’ll be safe.”

“For ever? No, we can’t. Cook’s poor wife is now a widow, his three children are fatherless, and without his earnings they’ll starve. I’ll have to take them in, and they have to know what happened, and why. And know that justice has been done for their father.” Karan shook her head. “How am I going to tell them?”

Llian paced in figure eights between the orange trees. “Benie will be convicted of murder.”

“I’ll plead for him,” said Karan. “I’ll do everything I can…”

“But he’ll still be put to death.”

She covered her face with her hands. There was no solution; the drumming had made sure of that. She could see the rest of Benie’s brief life, all the way to the rope.

Llian came back and put his arms around her. She scrunched herself against the comforting solidity of his chest.

“Do you think they’re connected?” he said after a long pause.

“What?”

“Sulien’s nightmare and your seeing – and the drumming.”

“I first heard it after Gergrig touched the red cube,” said Karan. “Yes, I do.”

“Is he trying to wake the summon stone with it?”

“He must be, though why does that come at such a cost in power? And what’s the summon stone meant to do? What’s the drumming for, anyway? And when do the Merdrun plan to invade us?”

“The Magister has to be told, urgently.”

The Magister led the Council of Santhenar, which for many centuries had been an alliance of the most powerful mancers in the world. It had been formed for the protection of Santhenar fifteen centuries ago and for most of that time it had been headed by Mendark, a ruthless mancer who had renewed his life many times. On his death ten years ago Karan’s friend Tallia had taken his place. Though the council was in decline now, its greatest members dead and its influence waning, she was Karan’s best hope.

“I’ll courier a letter to her this morning. And to Shand – he knows everyone.” Couriers were expensive; another bite out of their almost empty coffers.

“What do you want me to do?” said Llian.

It warmed her; she felt as though they were working as a team at last. “What you’re brilliant at – finding answers to the vital questions.”

“Like what?”

“Who are these Merdrun, who look just like Charon?”

Llian thought for a long while, frowning. “I’ve never heard the name before. I don’t think I can find the answer here.”

“And, how could Gergrig see Sulien from the void? He looked into a little glass box and I saw lights flashing.”

“At a guess, because of her seeing, though I didn’t know she had the gift.”

“Neither did I,” said Karan. “But I’ll stop her from ever doing it again.”

“It came through a nightmare – how can you stop that?”

Karan’s belly knotted painfully. What if Sulien saw Gergrig again, tonight, and the magiz used the nightmare to locate her?

“I’ll have to find a way to hide her from the magiz. Next question – how do the Merdrun plan to invade Santhenar? Everyone knows how difficult it is to get out of the void.”

“That’s why Gergrig was going to wake the summon stone right away,” said Llian.

“But what is the summon stone? Where is it and how is it woken? Why does that cost so much power, and what does the stone actually do? Can it be stopped or destroyed? And what’s the drumming got to do with it?”

“If I had access to the secret archives of the college library, I might be able to answer those questions. But since I’m banned —”

“You’ve got to find out, urgently; do whatever it takes to get the ban overturned. And I…” Karan looked away.

The blood drained from Llian’s face. “Please tell me you’re not going to spy on them again?”

She avoided his eye. It had to be done.

“Karan?” he said desperately.

“The Merdrun want to kill Sulien. You and I have to protect her. It’s as simple as that.”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Well… if you’re quick.” He frowned. “There’s one question you haven’t asked me to answer.”

“How long until syzygy, when the three moons line up in the sky of Cinnabar?” said Karan. “That’s my other job.”

“But —”

“The only way I can know when syzygy is, is to do more seeings.”

He choked. “They’d have to be really long ones.”

“Yes.”

“All right,” said Llian. “But before anything, we’ve got to spread the word about the invasion.”

“How will that help?”

“If everyone knows, the magiz has no reason to target Sulien.”

Except malice – or hunger to drink her innocent life.

Karan went across to the nearest kumquat tree. Some of the little round fruit were ripe and she picked a handful and ate them whole, the pungent oils stinging the inside of her nose and clearing her head.

She had another, even more dangerous plan, one she dared not even whisper to Llian. If there was no other way she would try to attack the magiz, and Gergrig too. Though she did not know how.

“Don’t tell Sulien about any of this,” said Karan.

“Why not? She’ll have to know before long.”

“Until we know more, for her sake I’d like to pretend that everything is all right.”

“But it’s not all right!”

“No. And I’ve got a very bad feeling.”

“What?” said Llian.

“That everything we care about, everything that matters, is about to be swept away. Until… that happens, I just want Sulien to be a normal, happy little girl.”