The Hidden Coronet

6

The hardest thing to keep will be trust. When a man may be an enemy, to trust him may lead to disaster. And yet God works his purposes in strange ways.

Third Letter of Mardoc Archkeeper

THE QUENTA FOREST was said to stretch for miles, but only after a few minutes the tangle of vast trunks became impassable. Branches knotted together, split and interlaced. There was no way through. Paths led in circles back to the lake.

The fugitives ran till they were breathless, then crouched against the bole of a king-quenta, the man called Marco clutching his shoulder in agony.

“How far have we gone?” Raffi gasped.

“Not far enough.” Galen threw down the crossbow, dragged the black gloves off, and hurled them angrily into the knotted darkness. “We need to speak to the trees. Get them to let us through.”

He turned quickly to Solon. “Will you do that?”

The older man stared back, his face calm, his blue eyes shrewd and deep. “I would be able to, if I were one of the Order.”

“There’s no time for that,” Galen snapped. “I know you are.”

“Do you?”

“So am I. You can feel that, can’t you?”

Solon’s stare was even. Then to Raffi’s horror he said, “No. What I sense about you is strange and utterly dark. Not like any keeper I may ever have met. I’m sorry,” he said, half turning. “I can’t take the risk.”

What he did Raffi barely saw. There was a crack of light. Galen staggered back with a gasp of pain. Then he was down, crumpled against the tree roots. Still.

“Galen?” Raffi whispered.

A rustle made him turn. The bald man, Marco, had the crossbow. Painfully he aimed it at Galen’s head.

“NO!”

Raffi ran forward, right in front of the tense bolt.

“How can you do this?” he yelled, wild with fury. “We got you out of there! We helped you to escape!”

“The ice cracked. And we ran,” Solon said.

“But Galen did that! He cracked the ice!”

“I’m not a fool, my son,” the man said mildly. “No keeper, not even the most learned, could do that on his own. He’s part of some Watchplan. For all I know, so are you.”

“I’m his scholar!”

“I’m sure you are. Keep the other one covered, Marco.” Briskly, almost kindly, he came and tied up Raffi’s hands and feet with the ends of rope, then with a strip torn from his shirt gagged him gently and pushed him over. Raffi sat down hard next to Galen.

Solon crouched. “I’ve been a prisoner of the Watch for a long time,” he said, his voice strangely quiet. “I’m never going back alive. You might be spies—I can’t take the risk. You may also be what you say. If so, I pray to Flain to forgive me. And that they don’t find you.” Turning, he said, “Come on.”

He took the bald man’s arm over his shoulder, sagging a little with the weight. “You should leave the bow.”

Marco grinned. “Good try, Your Holiness. Maybe later.” He clutched it tight, like a crutch.

Then they were gone, lost in the tangle of quenta trees like shadows, the only sound a rustle and a cracked twig.

Raffi kicked and struggled. Furiously he squirmed around onto his side and nudged Galen with his tied feet, then shoved harder, trying to call the keeper’s name. Only stupid muffled sounds came out.

Far off, where the lake must be, a razorhound howled. Another answered it. Galen didn’t move. Raffi tugged his wrists frantically, feeling the tight bonds scorch his skin. Then, deliberately, he lay still and opened his third eye.

He was tired and scared, and it was an effort. But after two minutes’ forced concentration he managed to make a small circle of light and let his mind crawl through it, into a room. Dimly he recognized it, the lamp, the bare, dusty floorboards. Galen lay here, crumpled and still, one arm flung out. But now there were flowers scattered on him, over his back and hair and all around him, the fresh strange yellow flowers of Flainscrown. Raffi brushed them off hastily, grabbing the keeper’s shoulder.

“Galen!” he said. “Wake up!”

Galen’s eyes snapped open. He rolled over, looked around at the room and the flowers, picked one up. “These again?” he muttered.

And suddenly they were back in the quenta forest, and in his fingers there was only a shriveled leaf.

“Raffi!” Instantly the keeper was on his feet. He rolled Raffi over, whipped off the gag, and fumbled for a knife. “What happened?”

“Solon. He used the Third Action. Thinks we’re Watch.” Raffi wriggled out of the ropes hurriedly. “They can’t have gone far. Are we going after them?”

“Of course we are!” Galen’s eyes were black with annoyance. “He’s a keeper! We need him!”

“But if he won’t believe us . . .”

“I’ll make him.” Galen hauled him up roughly and grabbed the pack. “Go on! Quickly!”

They hurried, following broken leaves, branches. There was no need for anything more; the trail was only too obvious. Behind them the razorhounds snarled and spat, answering each other across the lake, always closer.

Galen burst through a hanging curtain of leaves, Raffi breathless behind. The keeper stopped dead; peering past him, Raffi saw why.

Solon was kneeling, deep in the leaves. He wasn’t touching the tree, but they could feel his contact with it, his struggle to reach its deep intelligence.

Galen stepped forward. To his left, a crossbow swiveled up.

“My God, you’re persistent!” Marco muttered.

“He needs me to help him. Or none of us will get out of this.” Without moving from where he stood, Galen sent sudden sense-lines of energy flickering between the trees, their power raw and sharp. Instantly Solon glanced back. He looked amazed, then afraid.

“Who are you?” he breathed.

But Galen spoke to the forest. “Let us through,” he said quietly. “Make a way and close it after us. The men behind us are despoilers, burners of trees. We need to escape from them. Will you do this for us?”

Like the stirring of many leaves the forest answered him, its voice rustling and multifold. It has been many years.

“I know that. But you see who we are.”

We see. You are Soren’s Sons.

Raffi was surprised. It was a name for the Order rarely heard now, written only once or twice in very old books, like the Prophecies of Askelon.

Something dragged and slithered next to him, so that he turned in fear. Branches and leaves were drawing back. Beyond them was a dim green darkness.

We make a way for you, the wood whispered. Go through.

The hole led deep into the forest. It was a network of spaces, the knotted boughs easing apart, leaving gaps to scramble through and over; far in front of them Raffi could see it unfurling, a dim tunnel of branches. He went in front, pushing and climbing. Galen came next with Marco, Solon was last, and behind him with scarcely a sound the trees closed their mesh again, the giant branches sprouting and interlocking.

Down here the gloom was so deep nothing else grew, only pale toadstools and ghostly threads of fungus fingering up from the accumulated springy mattresses of a century’s dead leaves. Stumbling, Raffi remembered Galen once telling him that the quenta forest was supposed to be all one tree, a vast, sprawling entity. If that was the case, they were deep inside its body now, miles inside, the smooth green-lichened trunks rising above him into rustling canopies.

After what seemed an age Galen gasped, “All right, Raffi. This is enough.”

It was a small clearing, musty-smelling. When Raffi sat down he sank into leaves to his waist, dry and crumbling.

Galen, limping now, eased Marco down. The bald man still held the crossbow. Leaning over, one hand on a tree bole, Galen dragged in deep breaths. He looked haggard, as if his old leg wound ached, but his eyes were sharp with that reckless triumph Raffi knew only too well. When Solon caught up, they were all silent a while, recovering. Raffi lay on his back and listened to the forest, the cold wind making an endless whistling in the high leaves above him, though down here everything was still, as if it had never moved. Lichen grew thick on trunks and bark; hanging green beards of it, as if snow or wind never penetrated, never disturbed it. Only the slow drip of the rain would reach this place.

Slowly the terror died in him. They were safe here. No one else might ever have come this far in, not since the Makers walked the world.

Solon must have thought so too. He sat down wearily and looked up at Galen, rubbing one hand through his smooth silver hair. “It seems we have much to thank you for.” Then he stood up abruptly and held out his hand.

Galen took it, their fingers tight in the sign of Meeting.

“Another keeper,” Solon breathed. “I hardly believed there were any left!”

“A few.”

“Flainsteeth,” Marco muttered. “More fanatics.”

Solon smiled at him. “Excuse my friend. He is something of an unbeliever. But still I have to say I don’t understand how you could do all this.”

Galen looked at him sidelong. “When we get to Sarres, I’ll explain everything. Not before. We may still be captured.”

“Sarres!” Solon’s eyes went wide with intense curiosity.

“Sarres is a lost place! A place in legend!”

Galen smiled a wolfish smile. “That’s what you think,” he said.