The Margrave (12 page)

All around him the desert burned, an emptiness of rock, shimmering. It took him a long time, a bitter struggle, before he poured the cup of clear water away into the sand.

IT WAS RAINING. The rain came from nowhere; he had barely noticed, as he trudged, how the skies had grown dark with cloud, but now it thundered, and he looked up suddenly, and great drops of water began to fall, plopping into tiny craters in the sand. He laughed, and stumbled into a run, head up, and the rain crashed on him; in an instant it had soaked him and he was drinking it, scooping it up from the flooding streambeds where it ran and gathered in gullies, splashed down rock-falls. Animals came from caves and cracks and holes, all around him; warthogs and night-cats and candorils and zabrays, they crowded the edges of the flooding streams, drinking thirstily, and tiny snakes burrowed out of the mud and launched themselves into the gushing brown water.

Raffi kneeled and drank. This was better. He had passed some test, done something right. Maybe that had been the Plain of Hunger, and he had crossed it. He felt so elated, he wanted to shout.

And in that moment, he saw Flain.

The Maker was far off, on the opposite side of the stream, standing under the trees at the edge of a great forest. He was tiny in the distance, but Raffi knew him at once, his coat of stars, the darkness of his hair.

“
Flain,”
he breathed. “
Wait for me.”

For a second, Flain looked at him. Then he turned and strode in among the trees.

“Wait!” Raffi struggled after him, but the animals were a herd now, mad for water, a gathering host. More and more of every species slithered and galloped down to the flood, and he had to push and shove through the snuffling, yelping, barking, hissing crowd. Great leathery creatures put their heads down and threatened him; he dodged unicorns and pale striped antelopes with twisted horns; snapping avancs menaced him at knee-height. “Flain!” he yelled, and his cry startled birds, flocks of white cranes, into the sky.

The stink and noise were unbearable; he pushed his way out and took one step into the swift, plunging river.

 

 

AND EVERYTHING CHANGED.

He was back in the castle. Still wet, breathless, he stared around. How could he be here! This wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? Bewildered, he rubbed his face with his hands. The room was dark, and it took him a few giddy seconds to recognize it, but when he did his hands went chill and his heart beat loud in his chest.

It was the Room of Mirrors. But someone had rearranged them. Now they made a pathway, a maze that led between images of himself, a labyrinth of twists and turns, dead ends, and always, everywhere, endlessly repeated, his own tired, grubby reflection. He looked at himself with sudden loathing. “Look at you,” he thought. “How can you be a Relic Master?”

“Raffi!”

He jumped. In the mirror to his left Carys was looking out at him. She was sitting, knees up. She jumped to her feet. “Thank God! I’m here to warn you. I haven’t got much time.”

She was wearing a Watch uniform. He had never seen her in one before and it made her look like a stranger, an enemy, because the uniform meant gallows and checkpoints, burning houses. Her hair was hacked short. She wore a bronze insignia. “Raffi, listen. He’s here. You’ve brought him with you.”

“What’s happened to you?” he breathed.

“Never mind me! I’m telling you! He’s here; he’s . . .” Her eyes moved, looking behind him.

He turned. The door was closing; as he watched, it slammed loudly and when he ran to it and shook the handle furiously, it was locked. There was no key. He spun back. The mirror was empty.

 

 

WAS IT THE SAME ROOM? It seemed bigger. Very quietly, he began to edge among the mirrors, making no sound, his bare feet muffled among the layers of thick dust. A glimmer of light came from somewhere high up. Shapes moved around him, reflections, looming shadows. His foot touched something icy; he picked it up and found it was a gold coin, a shining Sekoi coin. And there was another, lying just out of the light. He padded over and crouched for it. It was a trail, leading around a corner, deeper into the maze. Was it to help him? Or a trap? He didn’t know. The gold clinked together in his hand.

Far off in the maze, something slithered. Hands hot on the sticky coins, Raffi kept absolutely still. His very breathing seemed enormous, ragged and jerky.

Something else was in here with him. Frozen, he traced its footsteps, the odd crackle and rustle of its progress. It moved among the mirrors, down corridors of glass. Any minute and he might see it, a thousand images of it at once, flashing into the dim panes.

It was looking for him.

He tried a single step, to his left. The slithering stopped. He imagined the creature’s head turned to one side, alert, listening. His heart hammered; he moved deeper into darkness and saw another coin, but as he bent for it he banged against glass and knew it was only a reflection, and he turned quickly, and smelled the creature. He had smelled it before, this mustiness, heard this crackle of scaly skin.

The Margrave.

Soren,
he whispered.
Please.
He backed desperately into the maze, banging into glass, against himself, into dead ends. Every turn he took brought him to face himself, or in the shadowier places, someone who looked like him, because Halen had walked here before him, endlessly tormented by whispers and small noises and shadows seen out of the corners of his eyes. Until Tamar had come.

As if the name triggered it, every mirror became a doorway. He stopped dead, staring. Sarres was through one; he could see Felnia lying on her stomach under a tree, turning the pages of a book. She didn’t look up. In others, as he circled, he saw unaccountable visions: a drowned palace, deep forests, a great herd of martlets migrating over a plain, a Sekoi tent, all cushioned. And a cottage, where a woman was washing clothes. A woman he knew.

His mother.

Amazed, he stepped forward, his hands gripping the mirror’s ornate frame. She looked older. Threads of gray streaked her hair. The familiar house seemed grimy and small; steamy from the hot water. Sudden, bitter longing took hold of him. “Can you hear me?” he whispered.

It was a mistake. In all the corners of the maze the question echoed, softly distorted. Something fell and rattled, disturbed by vibrations. A spider ran over his bare foot. There was a tiny crackle of movement just behind him.

He couldn’t turn. In front of him the cottage steamed. His mother dunked the clothes and pushed a wisp of hair wearily from her face.

“You might go there,” the voice said over his shoulder. “Step through and speak to her.”

“She won’t hear me.”

“How do you know? This is a vision. Anything can happen.”

Raffi’s fingers were tight on the dusty frame. “My vision. My Journey. But it’s all going wrong. Because of you.”

A dry, rasping chuckle. “I’m only here, Raffi, because you brought me in with you. You would not let me stay outside. I came in here hidden in your heart, and you know it.”

He felt giddy. His palms were sweating and there was a pain throbbing in his head. The thump of his heart made him breathless.

“Won’t you look?” the voice pleaded. “You know who I am, Raffi. Are you so afraid to see me again?”

He lifted his head; it was like a weight. Gripping the mirror to stay upright, he turned. The Margrave was so close he could have touched it. Its eyes were very bright; its lipless, distorted profile dim against the mirrors. It raised its hand. “You’re still afraid of me. There’s no need. I would not hurt you; you know that. I think you have known it a long time now, and that’s what you fear. Take my hand.”

“No.” He couldn’t step back; the mirror glass was hard at his back.

“Please. Because no human has touched me since Kest. No one has spoken to me. Your Order teaches you that the lonely are to be pitied, I think. And I am the loneliest being in the world, Raffi.”

Its hand was close to his.

Slowly, disbelieving, he reached out and took it. Their fingers clasped. And behind him, the mirror glass melted, and he fell through.

 

 

BREATH. ANOTHER BREATH. Convulsions of pain in his chest.

“Hold him!” A voice yelled. “Tighter! Don’t let him hurt himself.”

He rolled, was sick, violently, and then again, shuddering over and over, his whole body a fever of sweat. Pain burned behind his eyes; someone held him up and forced him to drink some sweet water and he was sick again, and all the time he knew, hopelessly, bitterly, that it was over, that he had failed, that he would never be a Relic Master.

It took an age to come out of the coma, for Galen and the Sekoi to get liquid into him, to stop the terrible trembling, to give him something for the pain. He couldn’t remember much of it; perhaps he slept. Because when he finally opened his eyes he was up in his room, in bed, and Galen was sitting with his back to the window, his face grim and set. And weary.

Through wet eyes, Raffi watched him. The keeper said coldly, “How do you feel?”

He could barely answer. “Better.”

Galen stood quickly. “Raffi, what happened? How could it fail? You were only on the Journey for two hours. Two hours! Why did you come out? I don’t understand what went wrong!”

“Galen!” The Sekoi came in. “For Flain’s sake, not now. You told me he can try again.”

“We haven’t got time! We leave for Maar tomorrow.”

“NO!” Raffi struggled up. “I can’t—I won’t go there!”

“I’ve told you we’re going!” Galen’s eyes were black with anger; he turned away and then swung back savagely. “This is my fault. I’ve been too soft with you, and now there’s no time, because all that matters is destroying the Margrave. We have to, Raffi, even if both of us die in the attempt. Even if you’re the only poor excuse for a keeper left to take my place!”

He crouched. “What happened—tell me!”

Raffi couldn’t. He dared not. “I . . . It’s all confused. I don’t know.”

Galen’s look cut him to the heart.

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head helplessly. “I know I’ve failed you. I’m all mixed up . . .” He was mumbling hopelessly; the Sekoi came over and its long, cool palms pushed him back onto the pillow.

“Go to sleep. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter! It’s a disaster!” Galen was rigid with contempt. “Are you a coward, Raffi, is that it? What sort of scholar have I wasted all these years on? Dear God, what am I going to do with you! What good are you to the Order, to me, to any of us! What good are you!” His voice was icy. It was more appalling than his anger. Raffi closed his eyes in despair. When he opened them, Galen had gone and the Sekoi was scratching its tribemark.

“Take no notice, small keeper,” it said, into the terrible silence. “He’s disappointed. He’ll get over it.”

Raffi couldn’t answer. He turned over and buried his face. Pain and misery swept over him, in every vein, every sense-line. As soon as the creature crept out, he sobbed it all into the stiff pillow bitterly, his tears hot and heavy, biting his hand to make no sound. There was no one he could tell, not the horror of the Journey, not the pain, not his terror of Maar. Carys was gone, Galen despised him. Even the Sekoi would not understand. He was alone. He had never been so alone.

 

 

ALL NIGHT LONG he could not sleep. Before dawn he crept out of bed, pulled on clothes and boots, took an empty pack, and wandered half dazed down through the sleeping dimness of the castle. In the kitchens the remnants of Alberic’s feast were piled on tables. He took water and some food, and fumbled his way out to a small, secret gate he had found the day before. It led into the dry moat. He let himself out silently.

The sky was purple. Atterix and Lar hung among the frosty stars; to the east the faintest pink flushed the clouds. A sparkbird whistled, flitting over the battlements.

Raffi closed the door. For some reason it was important to lock it, so he did, and then threw the key into the mud because he found himself staring at it stupidly. After a second he took the awen-beads out of his pocket and looked at them a long time, their purple and blue crystals deep and secret in the predawn chill. Finally, he threw them after the key. Then, numbly and without feeling, he stumbled out of the ditch and turned west. Away from the castle. Away from Maar.

C
ARYS POURED OUT ANOTHER CUP of the sweet yellow ale and slid it across the tabletop. “So tell me,” she said, chin on hand, “how long have you been stuck here?”

“In this stinking hole?” The Watchsergeant scowled, raised the glass and downed half its contents, leaving a yellow scum over his ragged mustache. “Ten stinking months.”