Prisoner of Fate (38 page)

‘A what?’ Chase asked.

Meg briefly explained the purpose of a moat to her companions, surprised that they had never seen or heard of the defensive device, but she conceded that moat-building was unknown in the Kerwyn and Western Shess kingdoms. ‘You learned this from a book?’ Chase asked.

‘And I saw some in Andrak, a long time ago,’ she told him.

‘Whisper is waiting,’ Swift said, pointing to the black animal crouched at the edge of the overgrown garden surrounding the black building.

When they crossed the dry moat and reached the edge of the thick bushes and wild trees, Whisper vanished into the chaotic garden. ‘Now what?’ Swift asked, assessing the rampant foliage as too thick for them to walk through.

‘There has to be a pathway,’ Chase said.

‘There was,’ said Swift, pointing to crumbled grey cobbles lying among the grass and smaller plants. ‘It’s overgrown.’

‘We crawl,’ Meg suggested, and she searched for an opening in the vegetation through which she could enter the grounds beyond.

Chase and Wahim joined her, and they searched until Chase called, ‘Here!’

‘It looks like an animal run,’ said Meg, studying the oval tunnel through the undergrowth.

‘If we can fit through there, then it must belong to a big animal,’ Swift said warily.

‘Probably something like a dingo or a wild dog,’ Meg suggested.

‘There are no dingoes in this country,’ said Chase. ‘We haven’t seen any familiar animals.’

Meg got onto all fours. ‘Whisper is calling. I’m going to see where this goes.’

‘I’ll follow,’ said Chase, crouching behind her.

‘What if the resident is at the other end?’ Swift asked. ‘You can’t just turn around.’

Meg ignored the assassin’s complaints and crawled into the vegetation. ‘Here we go,’ Chase said and followed.

‘Wait,’ Swift said, grabbing Wahim’s arm as he went to enter the tunnel. ‘We’re no good to them, sniffing their rear ends in there. Wait to see if they need help or call us through.’

Wahim squatted and listened to the first pair’s progress. Several moments passed before he heard a muffled yell from beyond the vegetation, Chase calling, ‘Come through. It’s safe. You should see this place.’

T
he vision they had seen across the city of a solid black keep was a mere facade, a shadow of what might have existed a long time past. The roof had collapsed into the heart of the square and three of the four walls had crumbled to rubble. A multitude of rabbits scattered as the group emerged from the undergrowth, and the grey animals sat up beside their burrows in the rubble, watching the intruders until they came too close, at which point the rabbits disappeared. ‘They’re everywhere,’ Chase remarked, astonished at the number of animals in the ruin.

‘Good breeders,’ Swift noted. ‘Plenty for us to eat.’

‘It’s all black marble,’ Wahim said as he kicked over a chunk of the rubble. ‘The people in my father’s village polished small bits and wore it as jewellery. Traders from the east sold it to them. Now I know where it came from.’

‘The whole building must have been made out of it,’ said Chase, stooping to pick up a piece. He rolled it in his hand. ‘It’s heavy.’

‘Is this what you thought you’d find?’ Swift asked.

‘No,’ said Meg. ‘There’s meant to be a library.’

‘How do you know that?’

Meg met Swift’s inquiring gaze, noting how the young woman’s red hair had grown to frame her head during the journey, and for a moment she felt as if she was looking into a mirror at herself when she was younger—only Swift’s face had a harsher edge, the features defined by hard living and her cruel trade. ‘I dreamed it,’ she said simply. She was aware of the silence following her admission as Swift’s expression shifted from mild curiosity to disbelief.

‘You
dreamed
it?’ the young woman repeated. She groaned and slapped her hands against her thighs. ‘We’ve travelled
how
many days and
how
far, left our families behind, risked being shot by the Kerwyn all because you
dreamed
about a library?’

‘I have a lot of dreams,’ Meg told her calmly.

‘So do I!’ Swift snapped. ‘So does everyone else. What makes yours any different?’

‘I told you that I used to be Lady Amber.’

‘I know, I know,’ Swift said, pacing angrily over the stones. ‘You were the real one in the ballads and stories. You lost your children to the Seers and the Kerwyn. That’s why you do your clever little tricks with magic and you have a weird rat for a companion. So what, though? Huh?’ She kicked a rock, sending it clattering across the rubble. ‘So
what
?’ Chase and Wahim stopped to watch the unexpected outburst, caught between amusement and astonishment.

‘Chase found something that the Seers don’t want anyone to have, something that can stop their quest to destroy everything,’ said Meg, ‘but no one knows what it is.’

‘If no one knows what it is, it doesn’t matter,’ Swift argued. ‘Let it be. I was taught a simple lesson by Killer Dagger: if the bees are minding their own business, let them. That’s good advice. You should consider it. We wouldn’t be out here if you’d considered it.’

‘
I
found the bag a long time ago,’ Meg said.

‘What?’ Swift asked, confused by the older woman’s admission. ‘
You
found it? Then how come the Seers had it? How come Chase found it?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Ha!’ Swift snorted. ‘Everything is a long story with you. Why don’t you just tell us the truth for once?’

‘Because I don’t know,’ Meg replied. ‘I have the dreams but I don’t understand them until they actually become real, and then they don’t always turn out how they seem.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ Swift erupted, and kicked another marble chunk. ‘I’m wet, I’m cold, I’m a long way from home and I’m stuck on a pile of rubble with a lunatic old woman!’

‘Meg?’ Wahim interrupted. ‘Look at Whisper.’

Meg turned from Swift and followed Wahim’s pointing finger to a pile of rocks towards the back of the ruin where Whisper was busily digging into the rubble beside a square block. As if sensing she was being watched, the rat sat up on her haunches and Meg heard the thought inside her head.
Here
, Whisper called.
Dig.
Then the rat resumed digging.

‘What is she doing?’ Chase asked.

Meg didn’t answer. Instead, she clambered across the rubble, skirting the numerous rabbit burrows, her feet slipping on the wet marble shards, until she stood with her little companion—and saw the ancient letters. And her heart skipped a beat because a dream broke open like a wave on rocks. She touched her hand against the amber shard inside her tunic and read the Ashuak inscription on the block beside where Whisper was busy—‘The truth is buried here where the past and future will meet.’ Beneath it, in much smaller script, she read, ‘The amber key for access is to believe and it will be.’

‘What’s there?’ Chase asked, climbing over the rubble towards her.

‘I think this is what I came here for,’ she answered.

‘What does it say?’ She read the inscription aloud. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Chase remarked. ‘Do you have an amber key?’

‘Where is Whisper?’ Wahim’s question interrupted Meg and Chase who looked at the section of rubble where the bush rat had been digging. Meg searched wider, but she couldn’t see Whisper.

‘That’s odd,’ said Chase.

‘You didn’t see her go?’ Meg asked.

Wahim shook his head. ‘She was right there. It was as if I blinked and she vanished.’

Whisper
? Meg probed.

Here
, came a reply.

Meg searched the rubble again.
Where
? she asked.

Here
, the rat repeated, and an image formed of darkness and a sensation of comfortable familiarity.

‘She’s in a burrow,’ Meg told Chase and Wahim. As the men began to rummage through the rubble near the block where Whisper had been digging to find the burrow down which she must have gone, Meg’s eyes settled on Swift. The young woman had retreated to the edge of the ruin where she was sitting on a marble slab, facing the bushes, face buried in her hands. Meg negotiated the slippery rubble until she reached the assassin and sat beside her. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. Swift lowered her hands and Meg saw that the young woman had been crying when she turned her reddened eyes towards Meg. In the many days of the eastward journey, Swift seemed the strongest of the three companions, the hardest. ‘I’m sorry that none of this makes sense,’ Meg offered quietly.

Swift snorted and shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m sorry for what I said before. I—’ She hesitated. ‘I just wish I could see my kids, you know, do something for them.’ She sighed and covered her face again with
her hands. ‘I’ve been a lousy mother. I’m never there when they need me.’

Meg put an arm gently around Swift’s waist. She felt that she had to offer words of reassurance and comfort, but she didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t end up being trite. Instead, she sat quietly with her arm around Swift in the soft rain, listening to the raindrops dripping from the tree leaves, until Chase called out, ‘There’s no burrow anywhere near the granite block!’

Down
, Whisper projected to Meg.
Come down.

They established camp under the shelter of a large tree beside the ruin, while Meg meticulously pored over the rubble, searching for anything that might be an entrance underground. The inscription’s reference to the amber key made her believe that she would find a keyhole or an impression in a slab that her amber crystal would fit, but her search was fruitless. What frustrated her further were regular communications from Whisper, each one insisting that Meg join her below ground in darkness.
Where
? Meg demanded.

Here
, the rat replied, and it always came with the feeling of security.

By mid-afternoon, the rain became a heavy downpour and Meg and her companions were forced to abandon their search through the rubble and take shelter. ‘We should have caught some rabbits while we had a chance,’ Swift noted as she chewed a mouthful of grain.

‘They’ll come out when the rain stops,’ Meg told her. ‘We’ll catch some then.’

‘We should be able to have a fire at least,’ said Chase. ‘No one will see us inside this forest.’

‘They’ll see the glow,’ Meg warned.

‘What will that matter?’ Swift argued. ‘They’d still have to crawl in here like we did. We need a fire.’

Meg conceded, so Chase, Swift and Wahim quickly gathered a pile of wood, but when they tried to light it the sparks from the flint wouldn’t take. ‘Too much moisture,’ Wahim grumbled. Meg watched them persevere, until they created a smoky flame that threatened to drive them from under the tree. Swift stamped it out and swore. ‘All I wanted was a bloody fire!’ she complained, and angrily kicked apart the wood pile.

‘Take it easy,’ Chase urged. ‘What’s got into you?’

Swift glared at him, but Meg intervened, saying, ‘We’re all tired and frustrated, Chase, even you. It’s been a long journey and it seems we’ve arrived at a dead end. There might have been a library in this place a long time ago, but it’s gone. Swift has every right to be angry.’ She stooped to reassemble the wood pile.

‘What are you doing?’ Chase asked.

‘Lighting the fire,’ Meg replied.

‘How?’

‘Patience,’ she said, and her response stirred a memory of an old woman in a cottage a long time ago telling her to be patient.
Life goes in circles
, she reflected, as she touched the amber and held her hand above the wood pile. Steam rose as she concentrated on drying the damp wood. Then, satisfied that the wood was ready, she conjured a flame and fire leaped to life. She lowered her hand.

‘How did you do that?’ Chase asked, coming forward to warm his hands.

‘If you can do that, why didn’t you light fires for us on the way here?’ Swift inquired, anger bubbling in her tone.

‘You could already light them yourselves,’ Meg replied.

‘Not that easily,’ Chase noted. ‘Is there anything you can’t do?’

I can’t save anyone from death
, she suddenly thought, and the thought was like a barb in her heart. ‘Lots of things,’ she murmured, turning away from the fire to warm her back.

The rain stayed into the night and the tiny party huddled by the fire, replenishing the wood regularly, Wahim placing the sticks and branches at Meg’s feet first so that she could use her skill to dry them before they went to the fire. Talk circled around families and friends, and the politics of the princes and Seers and the threat of the Demon Horsemen. Chase and Wahim drew Meg into relating more about Lady Amber’s adventures—what was true and what was fabricated—while Meg continued to show interest in their respective backgrounds, including Swift’s, although the young woman was reticent about much of her assassin work. Meg knew most of their stories, having talked often on the eastward journey, but was keen to learn more about Chase and Swift’s mutual father. ‘You share the same name,’ she noted.

‘Goodenough,’ Chase said.

‘And you were eight when your father died.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know?’ she asked Swift.

‘About him dying?’ Swift asked. ‘No. I didn’t find out until later. Passion told me.’

‘Did you miss him?’

Swift shook her head. ‘I was five when he ran out on my mother. I didn’t know him. I never spoke to him. I can’t even remember what he looked like.’

‘He was a normal man,’ said Chase. ‘He worked hard. He drank a lot. He wasn’t unkind to our mother, at least not that I knew of.’

‘And what was his first name?’ Meg asked.

‘His friends called him Trez,’ said Chase. ‘Everyone called him Trez.’

‘A foreign name?’

Chase laughed. ‘No. It was short for Treasure. He always told Passion and me that he was named after old royalty.’

Meg drew in a sharp breath and a cold shiver raced along her spine. ‘Treasure,’ she repeated.

‘He preferred Trez. Even our mother called him that.’

Meg stood and walked into the rain to the astonishment of her three companions. ‘What is it?’ Swift asked, standing to follow her. ‘What’s wrong?’

Meg’s mind raced.
It can’t be
, she argued.
It’s too coincidental. Treasure was a popular name in the old kingdom.

‘Meg?’ Swift asked, touching the old woman’s shoulder, but the wild look in Meg’s eyes when she turned startled the young woman. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

Meg didn’t know how to answer. She stared at the young woman’s red hair and sharp features, as if she was seeing them for the first time. Then she fixed her gaze on Chase and saw fragments of Button in his features, tiny traces that were unmistakable—the jawline, the slightly crooked mouth.

‘Meg?’ Swift repeated, taking hold of the old woman’s arm. ‘What’s wrong?’

I was looking in the wrong place all the time
, Meg reasoned.
Treasure never went to Andrak. They separated him from Emma in Westport. That’s why there was never any record of him in Andrak. He was left here.
She felt someone shaking her arm and she focussed on the red-haired young woman who stood before her.

‘Speak to me,’ Swift ordered. ‘Meg?’

But what if I’m wrong? What if it really is a cruel coincidence
?

‘Are you all right?’ Chase asked, joining Swift beside Meg.

Meg blinked and nodded. ‘I’m all right,’ she murmured.

‘But what happened?’ Swift asked.

‘An old memory, that’s all,’ Meg replied. ‘It happens as you get older. Memories come back and sometimes you can’t tell what’s memory and what’s real.’

‘That’s scary,’ said Chase. ‘That’s really weird.’

‘But you’re all right now?’ Swift inquired, steering Meg back to the fire under the tree’s shelter.

‘I’m all right,’ Meg reassured her, but she avoided her companions’ faces, afraid that she might see more in them than she could manage after the revelation.
It couldn’t be possible
, she told herself.
You still haven’t let go. And you have to let go of the past.

‘Who’s taking first watch tonight?’ Swift asked.

‘Do we need a watch in here?’ Chase posed. ‘I feel safe enough.’

‘We always need a watch, no matter how safe we feel in a strange place,’ Meg reminded him. ‘I’ll stay up first.’

‘Is that wise after what just happened?’ Swift asked.