Consorts of Heaven (33 page)

The Cariad continued, ‘The test requires that the child be blindfolded. It is the responsibility of the guardians to ensure that the skyfool accepts this, and all other requests that are made of him. Do you understand?’

‘Aye, Divinity,’ said Kerin.

Sais cleared his throat. ‘We do,’ he said.

Guards approached, one of them carrying a helmet like a larger version of those worn by some of the monitors, with a shining plate over the eyes.

Kerin turned Damaru to face her. ‘Damaru, you must let this man put this . . . special hat on your head. You will not be able to see, but I will still be here beside you.’

Damaru looked unhappy.

‘He will show it to you first.’ Kerin nodded to the guard who obliged by holding the helmet up so Damaru could see it.

‘He is going behind you now, and he will put it on you.’

The guard lifted the helmet over Damaru’s head. As he began to lower it Damaru twitched his head out of the way.

Kerin felt her composure slip. She must keep her boy calm, allow things to take their course and hope all would be well. Aye, hope - when not so long ago she would have prayed, trusting to the Mothers. She swallowed hard, striving to keep her voice even. ‘Damaru, please. You have to let him do this. All will be well.’

Damaru squirmed, but he kept his head still enough for the guard to put the helmet on him.

For a moment, he stood unmoving. Then he reached up, trying to pull the thing off. When it would not move he started to keen.

‘Calm him!’ muttered the guard.

Damaru fell to his knees and Kerin threw her arms around him, holding him to her breast.

The Cariad said, ‘Do not worry, he will adjust soon.’

Damaru’s keens subsided into whimpers, then died away. Kerin helped him to his feet.

When he was standing up again, the Cariad said, ‘Now lead the boy to the bridge. When he reaches it he must cross alone.’

This was the moment he had been born for. Yet Kerin could not move. She looked at her hands, holding onto her son’s.

Almost gently, the Cariad said, ‘This is the final test. It cannot be refused. He must come to me.’

Kerin raised her head. ‘Damaru,’ she murmured, ‘I love you. I will never stop loving you. But you must go. You have to obey her. We have no option.’ How she wished she were wrong, how she wished she had taken any one of those paths in the last weeks that would not have brought them to this point!

A guard had come to stand next to her: if she did not accompany Damaru, the guard would. She dropped one of Damaru’s hands. Compliant under the shiny helmet he shuffled forward beside her as they walked up to the chasm. The guard shadowed them.

Her steps faltered before they reached the bridge. Though she knew she must do this, she could not make him go through with it.

To her surprise, Damaru did not stop. Kerin, still holding onto him, tried to follow. The guard put a restraining hand on her arm. Damaru took a second step. His hand pulled free of Kerin’s. The loss of his touch felt keen as a blow. She covered her mouth with her hand, rather than cry out.

Damaru took another step. He was on the bridge now. He walked slowly, as though in a daze. In another couple of steps he reached the centre of the span.

With a barely audible hiss, the bridge disappeared.

So did Damaru.

Shock grabbed Kerin by the throat. Then everything twisted.

In that moment Kerin knew that Damaru had succeeded, and where he was now. She spun round in time to see him collapse to the ground behind her. She shook off the dazed guard and ran to her boy. She felt like she was sinking into the mere, though by the time she reached him everything had begun to settle back into place.

She crouched next to him, calling his name. He made no response, just kept shaking his head. When a shadow fell across her, Kerin looked up to see the guard. ‘Get this thing off him!’ she hissed.

The guard nodded and bent down, fumbling with the helmet. Another guard held out a beaker to her, but she waved it away.

The Cariad spoke, her voice distant and unreal. ‘The boy is found worthy.’

 

Sais knew what the Sidhe wanted the skyfools for.

The first time he’d felt reality take that crazy sideways step, back during the reivers’ attack, he hadn’t been able to pin down the feeling. The second time, he’d been about to come down with the falling fire, and hadn’t even realised what had happened until much later. Now, with his memory back, he recognised the sensation - as well he should. It was one he’d experienced a lot.

Damaru could create shiftspace portals, to bypass normal space-time, moving himself - or others - instantaneously between two points.

Just as Sais did in the
Judas Kiss
when he travelled between the stars.

Everyone - everyone who didn’t live on an isolated world like this, anyway - knew that the engines that allowed interstellar travel were stolen Sidhe technology. It was part of the legend of humanity’s fight-back against the Sidhe Protectorate: humans taking control of the stars for themselves. Or so people thought. But what if the transit-kernel at the heart of every shiftship wasn’t just black-box technology the average spacer knew better than to tamper with? What if the power to move ships across space without obeying the usual laws of physics came from minds like Damaru’s?

He remembered the first time Nual had experienced a shiftspace transit. She had descended into a temporary insanity far worse than the usual hallucinatory weirdness anyone who stayed conscious for a transit had to endure. When he’d tried to help her, one of the things she’d ranted about was
darkness in the heart
. At the time he’d put the comment down to her disturbed state of mind - he’d just saved her life, and she was in shock. Now he saw how her reaction could have been due to her mind touching the mind hidden aboard his ship, the one he had known nothing about, the one imprisoned in the ship’s drive.

This whole culture had been created and maintained in order to breed minds capable of entering shiftspace.

He had to get the news out.

 

The guard finally got the helmet off Damaru’s head and Kerin bent over him. His eyelids fluttered and he began to stir. She pulled him close. She heard someone speaking nearby, but she ignored them. Damaru was quivering like a wild creature, breathing harsh and fast. She helped him sit up, supporting him in her arms.

Above her she heard Sais say, ‘She is very upset, but I will persuade her.’

He bent down next to her. ‘Kerin my love, the guard says Damaru must drink this.’

Sais was pressing a beaker into her hand; drugged, no doubt. Sais positioned himself so he blocked the guard’s view. Kerin murmured, ‘Of course, husband.’

She took the beaker and pressed it to Damaru’s lips. He drank a little, but then, after checking the guard could not see, she pulled the drink away, letting the rest trickle over her skirt where the liquid would not show against the dark fabric.

The Cariad said, ‘You must say your last farewell now.’ She did not sound imperious so much as regretful.

Damaru’s eyes opened. Kerin looked up at Sais. Seeing his expression, she whispered, ‘This is wrong, is it not?’

Sais murmured, ‘As wrong as it gets.’

She put her arms around Damaru and buried her face in his neck.

‘Do not be concerned, mistress,’ said the Cariad. ‘Your child will ascend to Heaven to take his place amongst the stars. All will be well.’

Despite the Cariad’s gentle tone, and Kerin’s desperate desire to believe, she knew she could not trust the Beloved’s words. She tightened her grip on Damaru. He wriggled in her grasp - even now, he disliked feeling smothered by her love.

From above her she heard a guard say, ‘You must persuade your wife to release the boy.’

Sais said evenly, ‘You have to let him go, Kerin.’ Then, in a whisper, he added, ‘If we fight now, we’ll lose. But we’ll get him back, I promise.’

Kerin shook her head, not sure what she was denying.

Someone took her arm, and a moment later Damaru was pulled out of her grasp. ‘No!’ she shouted, trying to break free. The guard got his other arm round her shoulders. He pulled her against his chest and pinioned her arms.

Damaru struggled in the other guard’s grasp, his vague gaze searching for reassurance. A third guard came up to help and two of them began to half-drag, half-carry Damaru towards the bridge which, Kerin noted dully, was back in place. She glanced at Sais, who was looking round in desperation.
Do something!
she thought.
Stop them!
But what could they do?

She had no choice but to watch her child being taken from her. Nothing else in the world mattered, save the growing distance between them.

Damaru’s struggles became more frantic when the guards stepped onto the bridge. The guards lifted him off his feet and crossed the bridge with a careful sideways shuffle.

As soon as they reached the far side, the bridge disappeared again.

The Cariad stood and said, ‘Blessings of Heaven upon you all.’

With the bridge gone and Damaru out of reach, Kerin felt something, hope perhaps, drain out of her. Her eyes did not leave her son as the guards carried him after the Cariad. The two silent Escorai brought up the rear.

Finally, when the procession had disappeared into the darkness behind the dais, she dropped her head. The worst had happened. She cursed the Mothers, naming them in her head, demanding that if they existed, they should strike her dead now, as then she would at least know the truth as she died.

The guard holding her loosened his grip and turned her round. She did not resist. He began to steer her out, one arm around her shoulders.

Sais walked beside her. She realised, as she stumbled along, that he was trying to attract her attention. She blinked back tears and looked over at him. He gave a tiny nod, as though asking her something. Or . . .
telling her something
. Telling her it was time to fight. She was as good as dead already - what did she have to lose?

Keeping her head down, she nodded in response. Looking over at Sais from under her hair she saw him check round, then look back at her and mouth one word:

With a groan worthy of a star-season actor, Kerin collapsed to the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sais charge the other guard.

Kerin’s guard grabbed for her with a curse. She ducked, and he missed. She wanted to fight, to tear into the guard with her bare hands, putting all the fury and frustration of her loss into the attack, but she was on the floor, and he was standing up.

The guard grabbed her hair. She screamed - and, ignoring the pain, turned in his grasp, surprising him into dropping her. She lashed out and up. Her hand hit hard leather. The guard caught hold of her arm and jerked upwards and she found herself suspended painfully by one wrist. The guard shifted his grip, pulling her round until—

‘Let her go or I’ll cut your friend’s throat.’ Sais had his knife pressed against the other guard’s neck.

Her guard paused. If she could use her free hand to get to her own knife, she might even the odds. She began to fumble at her waist.

Sais’s guard said, ‘What do you hope to achieve by this sacrilege? ’ He did not sound afraid or angry.

Kerin managed to get a hand inside her skirt, where the knife was hidden. Before she could get it out, the guard pulled her to her feet. As she straightened she felt a sharp point prick her ribs. She froze.

Sais’s guard said, ‘Now let me go, you foolish peasant. Unless you wish my corporal to gut your wife, after which time he will be free to help me.’

They had lost everything: Damaru was gone and their ill-conceived ploy had failed.

The door flew open, knocking Sais and his guard to the floor. In the doorway stood a tall man in brocaded robes of green and white. He spoke with an easy authority. ‘What in the name of Heaven is going on here?’

He must be the Escori of Frythil, thought Kerin. Not only had she failed to guard her son, but now they had attracted the attention of an Escori. She wondered, absently, if he would have them put to death.

The guard who stood over Sais said, ‘Gwas, these people attacked us.’

‘So I see,’ said the Escori. ‘You may let the woman go.’

Her guard pulled the knife away, but kept hold of her.

‘She is no threat,’ said the Escori. Kerin spotted another priest in the corridor behind him. ‘The man too. Let him stand.’

Sais got up. His guard walked over to his crossbow, which he had dropped in the fight.

‘Leave that.’

The guard stopped in the act of reaching down. Kerin’s guard released her, a little reluctantly. ‘Good,’ said the Escori, as though praising the work of a backward child. As he came in from the corridor, Kerin realised who the other priest was: Einon. ‘Now, men, you may go.’

The guards were obviously as confused as her. ‘But these peasants—’ began the one beside Sais.

‘Are not your concern, Captain. I have business with them. But since you feel they may be a threat, perhaps you should give your crossbow and quarrels to my assistant here.’ He nodded to Einon, who had followed him in. His face blank, the guard handed his crossbow over, along with a small case from his belt. ‘Thank you,’ said the Escori by way of dismissal. The guards left, pulling the door closed behind them.

Sais asked, ‘Who are you?’

Einon winced at the disrespectful tone; Kerin found herself amused at the priest’s discomfort. Though both her hands were now free, she made no move to circle her breast.

Without taking obvious offence the man replied, ‘I am Urien, Escori of Frythil. And you must be Sais.’