The Lost Heiress

16

To make the Deep Journey the keeper must be ready, and of age.

He must have completed the Ordeals, and be wise.

Or else his mind will shatter in the grip of the Makers.

Fourth Warning of Gaeraint

HE WAS FLYING.

Though he had no wings.

No body.

Giddily he stared down through the fleeting clouds; they sped under him, and plunging through their rifts and tears he saw a whole countryside spread out below; green fields, hedges, the long unwinding glitter of rivers, then a sudden upsurge of mountains, so that the air iced, and he gasped and soared into cloud, through tiny crystals sharp as needles, and then out again, sun-warmed, the frost on his eyelashes melting.

He fought for control but couldn’t stop, couldn’t hold himself steady. Below now were networks of lakes and a great forest; the smell of sap and pine dizzied him, the trees seemed to shout at him. He plunged down, crashing through the treetops and all the birds flew out, screaming irritation; jekkles yelled and chattered. Dragged out, breathless, upside down, he air-tumbled over fields, bare and furrowed, struggling to slow down, until he steadied and looked on the ground for his speeding shadow, and it wasn’t there.

He knew what this was. This was the Ride, the first part of the Deep Journey, and it would go on and on forever unless he could control it. A swarm of mere-bees flashed around him; he squirmed, stung, screamed for it to stop. Next he tried closing his eyes, fighting for mind-control, but that was worse; he couldn’t breathe, was terrified of flying smack into some hill. Opening his eyes, he gave a stifled screech, and he was sucked into a narrow crack in a mountainside, buffeted along it, dragged through an icy chasm so that the rock walls grazed him, banging and bruising, seeing up close the astonished eyes of a fire-fox in a cave, tiny green lichens, the twist of a snake that fell from its ledge and plunged past him in a rattle of stones.

Abruptly a rock reared ahead; he cried out and jerked aside and he was out! He was in a wide blue sky and he yelled in relief and caught hold of his mind, slowing himself, slowing, fighting bitterly for control.

He dropped carefully. Now he had it; then it all slipped away and he was plunging wildly again through endless blue air. He couldn’t keep it up. Panicking, he held on, praying for help, gabbling the Litany in terror over and over.

He was above the Unfinished Lands. They were more terrible than he had dreamed. Below were vast plateaus where nothing grew, where great cracks had opened in the ground, and plumes of filthy smoke hissed up and choked him. Flames and sparks spat from ravines; ahead a cone of ash erupted scorching lava, its gray cinder-field spreading destruction for miles. Briefly he saw ruins, crushed houses. Beyond that the land heaved and buckled as he watched, as if the very atoms of rock and soil were coming undone; convulsions cracked mountains, new rivers gushed out, sinister lichens crawled over every rotting growth. He began to think he was soaring over some great disease, as if Anara were pocked and pustuled with abscesses, as if the planet burned and tossed in fever, and then below him, coming suddenly into view, was the worst of it, a great wound, a vast open sore in the planet’s side, and out of it crawled creatures so disfigured that even from this height they filled him with horror.

These were the Pits of Maar.

Seven great holes, like some obscene reversal of the moons.

They were in every story he’d ever heard, and the sight of them filled him with dread. The nearest was pulling at him. Desperately he struggled to tug away, but it had him, it dragged him and he tipped over and fell, headfirst, mile after mile, arms out, screaming. Below, the Pit gaped, spiraling down in immense terraces, thousands of them, one beneath the other, and as he fell into it the darkness closed around him, and swallowed him in one gulp.

HE WAS STANDING IN A ROOM.

It was very dark; there were no candles. A small fire burned in a brazier, and as Raffi looked he saw that in front of it was a desk, and at the desk, far back in the shadows, someone was writing.

Bewildered, he stared around. He felt sick and giddy, battered, sore, and for a moment the room seemed to sway around him, and then it was still.

There was no sound but the pen, scratching.

He was glad of the fire; awkwardly he stretched out his hands to it and saw with a shock that they were frail and ghostly, and he could see right through them.

The figure that was writing never turned its head, but quite suddenly the scratch of the pen was an ominous sound, as if the words it formed were evil, and Raffi knew that the writer had sensed him, or heard him. He kept still, his heart thumping.

It was too dark to see the figure properly, but there was a wrongness about it, a slither of soft mesh or scales, something abhorrent in the shape. Slowly it stopped writing and put down the pen.

Raffi stared, astonished, at the hand that lay in the firelight. It was long, ridged. Unhuman.

And then he knew, suddenly and surely, that he was in the very depths of hell, in the Pits of Maar, and that for mile upon mile above him the unimaginable horrors of Kest bred and spawned and crawled.

The figure spoke. Its voice was low, reptilian. “Who are you?” it hissed.

Rigid with terror, Raffi couldn’t answer.

He could see the edge of its face: long, too long. If it got up and walked into the firelight he knew he would collapse, crumple in on himself, that it would destroy his mind like a searing flame. But he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

Close your eyes, he screamed at himself. Close your eyes! But they were fixed. The eyelids were heavy sheets of steel; he couldn’t do it, couldn’t force them down.

The figure stirred.

“A keeper!” it said, wondering. It began to stand.

And then, abruptly, Galen was there, Galen was helping him. Together they forced down the iron blinds, blotting out the room, fire, the nightmare narrow turning face. But Raffi was screaming, or someone was, far off, over and over, and for a second he saw himself lying in a dark bed, and the tall shapes were holding him down and calling him, calling him.

There was a hundred years of silence.

Water dripped into a pool.

“Raffi?”

Ages later, Carys was standing with him. They were alone in a golden place. She looked around, bewildered. “Where are we?”

He was sitting on a stone, huddled up. When she spoke, he found he could move, stiffly, could rub his face with his hands. His skin felt strange, his hands like an old man’s.

“I don’t know.”

She knelt and caught hold of his arm. “Are you all right?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“But where’s here? And I wish that screaming would stop!”

Vaguely he thought he could do something about that. Far off, he let it ebb into silence. Then he said, “This is all a dream. A vision. I drank the water of the well, Carys. I shouldn’t have done that. It was so stupid! And now I’m lost. I don’t know where I am; I’ve been here too long. And I can’t get back!”

She looked at him closely. “You look older. You are older.”

He knew that, could feel himself aging, as if month by month all his years were speeding up inside him. His chin felt stubbly, his hands too big.

She caught hold of him, and her hands were warm. “Concentrate, Raffi! What did you come here for?”

“What?”

Impatient, she shook him. “What are you looking for? Is it the Interrex?”

“Yes!”

Suddenly the word shone in front of him; he reached out his hands and caught hold of it and it was solid, heavy. It was a box, and he opened it and climbed inside, and walked down the long stairway. Behind him, Carys stood on the top step.

“Hurry up!” she said. “Time’s running out!”

He could see it too, time trickling down the stairs past him like water, rippling and dripping, the sound loud and close, a spring that never ran dry.

By the bottom of the stairs he was old; his hair was white and he couldn’t straighten; a pain throbbed in his side. But as he limped on, a sense-line came out of the dark and wrapped itself around him, and instantly he was young, only about ten, and he opened a door and walked into the classroom.

IT WAS A HUGE ROOM. BITTERLY COLD.

About fifty children sat there in rows, writing in utter silence, and he realized with a shock they were all wearing around their necks the insignia of the Watch.

He slid into a desk at the back, picked up the pen, and read what was on the paper. It was Galen’s handwriting.

Which one of them is the Interrex?

Glancing up, he saw a tall lean man patrolling the lanes between desks, a splintered stick under his arm. Every now and then he would stop and bark out a number. A child shot up, chanted a section of the Rule, and sat down.

Something cold touched Raffi’s chest. Feeling inside his shirt, he pulled out a small metal disc on a chain and read the number on it: 914.

Then he noticed, on the opposite side of the room, a small girl, her red hair hacked short. She was no more than six or seven, and was watching him slyly. He smiled at her.

Instantly her hand shot up.

“What?” the Watchmaster roared.

“He isn’t writing.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Him.”

She pointed. Every head turned to Raffi. He swallowed; the Watchmaster was already striding down the aisle like a great long-legged stork.

“Stand up,” he hissed.

It really was a stork now, a black one with a viciously sharp beak. “Speak the Rule,” it snapped, but Raffi didn’t know the words.

The bird’s beak jabbed his chest. “Speak!”

“I . . . I can’t.”

“Can’t?”

“I don’t know it,” he shouted, desperate. Then he glared across at the girl. “Why did you tell him?”

She giggled. “The Watch must watch each other first, stupid.”

Raffi. Can you hear me?

“He’s a spy!” the stork hissed.

They were all around him now, crowding, prodding. They held him tight, he couldn’t move, and though they were children, they were changing before his eyes, slithering, growing tails, mutating with nightmare speed.

“He must be punished!” The stork beak stabbed at his eyes; he jerked aside in terror. “Where is this?” he yelled. “What Watchhouse? Tell me!”

Raffi.

The girl smirked, her ears pointed like a cat’s. “Keilder Wood seven seventy.”

Raffi! He’s coming. He’s coming!

Hands scratched at him; he fought and bit and struggled, but they had him, and the vicious beak stabbed at his forehead till the pain exploded in him and the blood ran down, and a voice was saying over and over, “Raffi. Don’t fight us, Raffi. Open your eyes. Open your eyes.”

And finally, hopelessly, though he knew they were open, he opened them.

The Sekoi sat back, weary and gaunt with relief. “It’s all right, Galen,” it said. “He’s back.”