Havenstar (39 page)

‘Withering
Hole?’

‘That’s it.
We’ll meet there in eight days.’ He turned back to Meldor. ‘This is
all coming to a head. We can’t go on like this much longer. I can’t
go on travelling with you if the Unmaker has realised what you are
doing. If he has, then the task he will ask me to perform will be
either your murder, or the destruction of Havenstar.’

Meldor gave
the faintest of sad smiles. ‘Davron, I have never at any time
thought it would be anything else. Surely it is obvious that there
is a certain…inevitably about it. Destiny, if you like.’

Davron dragged
in a heavy breath. ‘A case of the fence stealing the crop, eh? And
believing that, you have travelled with me all this time?’

‘Companion to
a guide has been a good cover, as you know. You’ve suited my
purposes, and where better than to have your enemy than under your
nose?’

‘You think of
me as your enemy?’ The unbearable desolation in Davron’s voice
touched both of his listeners; it was the cry of a lonely man
knowing his own abandonment.

‘You are my
closest friend and my greatest danger. You will destroy me, or I
will kill you. Or…just perhaps, together we will destroy Carasma
first. As I have said before, I believe I will have warning of the
Unmaker’s call to you. If that happens, you will die before I will
let you destroy our dreams. You have my promise on that.’ He then
added briskly, ‘Come, we waste time. You must ride on to
Edgeloss.’

~~~~~~~

Idly Keris
watched the manta rays circling, pointed tails ruddering through
the air to keep them on track.
Minion pets?
she wondered. Or
just Wild, descendants of some of Malinawar’s vanished bird
species, perhaps, for all that they were featherless. She felt a
moment’s sadness. With the Rending, so much had gone or been
irretrievably changed. Even if it was possible to restabilise the
world, to banish ley, there was so much that could never return.
Extinction is forever. A tautology she had read somewhere that now
plucked a strand of helpless sorrow within her.
Damn him. Damn
the Unmaker.

She pushed the
thought away and looked over to Portron. ‘Chantor, will you still
be riding with this fellowship after the Fifth?’

‘Oh, aye. I’m
thinking so. As long as you do.’

‘You don’t
have to. I don’t need a guardian.’

‘That’s a
matter of opinion.’ He glanced towards Corrian and Quirk to make
sure they could not hear. ‘I’m not good for much, I know. I’m not
much of a rule-chantor, never have been. I hate confrontations. I
should never have been placed in a Rule Office. I might have made a
better devotions-chantor, or a mentor—I don’t know. But the
Sanhedrin said rule-chantor and once a decision is made it can’t be
unmade. But even I can see I have a duty towards an unprotected
lass riding in a fellowship like this one. I’ll be seeing you as
far as the Eighth.’

She did not
ask what he thought he could do to protect her. She knew it was a
question he would not be able to answer.

~~~~~~~

Edgeloss was
much like Hopen Grat, yet in spite of its lawlessness, Keris was
surprised at the surge of confidence she felt. For the first time
in weeks she was safe. Here there were no Minions, no Wild. Here
the land was not going to erupt beneath her feet, swallow her up or
do anything else impossible. Tomorrow it would look exactly as it
had done yesterday. Here she might be raped or knifed or robbed,
but no one was going to use ley on her, rip her to pieces, or steal
her soul.

As they rode
down the potholed dust of the main street, she drew in a deep
breath of contentment. Not even the unsettling memory of the
abandoned line of kinesis chain towers they had just passed, a good
five hundred paces outside the present barrier, could disturb her
sense of well-being.

She glanced
across at Davron where he rode beside her, to see that he too had
relaxed. The tight look around his eyes had faded. For a while at
least he did not have to worry about being ordered to embark on
some murderous task that would turn his stomach. Within the
stability he was safe from the Unmaker.

‘Where are we
going?’ Portron asked him, looking around with some distaste. ‘This
place is as bad as Hopen Grat.’

‘There’s a
Chantry with a traveller’s lodge in the next town: Dormuss
Crossways. There’s a shrine there to Kt Beogor, I believe—or is it
Kte Sylgie? Anyway, doubtless you will be glad to be among your own
kind again, Chantor.’

‘Indeed I
will. And it’s Kt Belmatian, I believe.’

Corrian
removed her pipe and spat. ‘And what about me and my kind, Master
Storre?’

He gave her a
teasing grin. ‘Stay here if you will, Mistress.’

She grinned
back, impervious to the slur. ‘Ah, nay. I’ll stick with you. Two
nights, you said?’

‘Yes. Then
we’ll cross to the south of the stab, buying supplies as we go, and
leave from the south. You will have time to visit the obligatory
shrines in the stability along the way.’

She sighed.
‘More time on bent knee, or worse. I do hate these shrines that
demand you approach flat on your belly, wriggling along like
maggots trying to get out of the light. And as for Abasement
kinesis: down on your knees, up on your feet, down on your belly,
up on your elbows, down on your forehead— My old joints don’t like
this kinesis business at the best of times, but Abasement is the
buffalo’s arse.’

Portron
frowned, as if wondering whether to make some remark to exhort
Corrian to behave herself, then thinking better of it. It was
Davron who replied. ‘I don’t know why not,’ he said, his tone
deceptively mild. ‘Those same joints or yours don’t seem to mind
other sorts of exercise.’

Corrian
cackled and pulled her mule around to skirt what appeared to be a
dead body on the road.

‘Should we do
something about him?’ Keris asked doubtfully.

Davron glanced
down. ‘No. he’s beyond help. Did you know Dormuss Crossways is
where Letering the Mapmaker has his shop?’

‘Is it? Will I
have time to see to him?’

‘Of course!
Unless you want to linger around the shrine all day.’

‘Not me,’ she
said, low enough so that Portron could not hear. ‘If I was going to
stay anywhere all day, it would be in a steaming hot herb bath,
with lots of that lovely scented soap the chanteries make.’ She
sighed. ‘It seems months since I had a good bath.’

~~~~~~~

The chantery
did not have any guest baths at all, but there was a public
bathhouse next door so, for a price, Keris had her wish, scented
soap included. When she slipped between two clean sheets on a real
bed that night, after a hot meal that had not been cooked with beef
jerky and old vegetables, she felt she never wanted to leave again.
Yet, when she woke in the morning to the sound of bells tinkling as
the chantors hurried past her room to attend morning Obeisance, and
when she smelt the whiff of the rose-musk perfume used in the
ceremony, she felt uncomfortable. The Rule was suddenly once again
too close, too oppressive. With an inward sigh she dug around in
her packs to find a skirt. Trousers might be all right to wear when
riding in from the Unstable, but no chantor would tolerate her
wearing anything but a skirt in the chantery of the town.

Breakfast, hot
milk and fresh bread still warm from the oven, was lying on the
refectory table when she entered, although most of the chantors had
eaten already. Davron sat at a long trestle table, alone.

She made the
morning kinesis as she sat opposite him and poured herself some
milk from the jug. ‘Where’s Portron?’

He returned
the salute cheerfully. ‘Obeisance. Where’s Corrian?’

‘Dead to the
world. She had a tremendous argument with the dormitory chantor
last night, did you hear? She wouldn’t put out her pipe.’

She sipped her
milk, surreptitiously watching him. In the Unstable he always
seemed tensely alert, yet calm. Now it was the opposite. He was
relaxed, yet somehow his calm had vanished. He was fidgeting and
seemed to have shredded most of his bread rather than eat it.

‘I’ll show you
the way to the mapmaker’s when you’ve finished,’ he said. ‘I have
to walk that way myself.’

A chantor, who
had been cleaning the other tables, stopped beside him. ‘Master
Guide,’ he said politely, ‘we don’t waste bread here.’

Davron looked
down at what he had done, seeming to notice the pile of crumbs for
the first time. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ He picked out the biggest piece of
bread and popped it into his mouth.

‘It’s the
Rule,’ the man said.

Davron raised
a puzzled eyebrow. ‘It’s the Rule not to make a mess of one’s
bread?’

‘Not to waste
bread. We grow all the grain we can, but we’ve lost a lot of land
to Chaos since my grandfather’s day.’ He shook his head
sorrowfully. ‘I heard they are thinking they’ll have to shift the
kinesis chain yet again and abandon a village on the south side of
the Fifth. That’s good farming land out that way. I keep on
wondering when we’ll be able to move the chain the other way,
taking land away from Chaos, but it never happens.’ He sighed and
moved on to the next table.

Guiltily,
Davron upended a cup over his crumbs and grinned at Keris. ‘Let’s
go,’ he said, ‘before I have to do kinesis penance for the wanton
destruction of a slice of bread.’

~~~~~~~

Dormuss
Crossways was shabbier than any First Stability town. The houses
were more ancient and the slate roofs were often so broken they
resembled rubble rather than tiles. The people were also shabbier.
The Rule in the Fifth was more oppressive and stated all
non-encoloured citizens must wear grey, with black collars and
cuffs. Boots had to be black and have a regulation number of hooks
for the laces. Snoods and wimples had to be dark and even unmarried
women had to have their hair done in braids tied with black laces.
Men were obliged to wear narrow brimmed hats. Dressed in her fawn
blouse and brown skirt, Keris felt colourful and far too
conspicuous.

Just outside
the travellers’ lodge a few town workmen had dug up the street and
then abandoned the workings. As Keris and Davron stepped out of
their lodgings, they had to push their way through a crowd now
gathered about the pile of unearthed cobbles, arguing heatedly. ‘I
wonder what that’s all that about,’ she said.

‘The chantors
were talking about it this morning at breakfast. It seems the Rule
won’t allow anyone to quarry for more stone to make new cobbles, so
someone decided they should just turn over the old ones to put the
underside uppermost. Unfortunately they’ve just discovered that
someone else had the same idea several hundred years ago—and now
they’re arguing about which side of the cobbles is the most
worn.’

They looked at
one another and simultaneously burst into laughter, sharing an
appreciation of all that tale said about the absurdity of stability
life and the Rule.

They were
still laughing when they were stopped a moment later by a
rule-chantor. He was resplendent in crimson and gold, with the
green braid of his rank and the purple of this Ordering adding
still more colour. Both wrists were heavy with jewelled bracelets,
and he had fringed his stole with lace as well as bells. His
tricorne hat was ruched and spangled. Chantors in the First were
always colourful, but Keris had never seen quite as much splendour
as on this man. He held up an authoritative hand. ‘Stop, please.
Tell me why you are dressed this way.’

‘Master
Guide,’ Davron said laconically, tapping his chest. ‘And a pilgrim
from the First.’ He fumbled in his purse and produced the leather
tag of a guide, duly stamped with the seal of the Sanhedrin.

The
Rule-chantor looked at it and carefully handed it back, before
glaring at her. ‘Your pilgrim’s pass, please.’

She showed him
the pass she had bought in Hopen Grat. He stared at the date, did a
few calculations and then handed it back with a curt nod. ‘You
Firsters,’ he grumbled, ‘you don’t know how to dress. If I had my
way, you’d have to put on the clothing of the Fifth while you are
here. You disturb the regularity of the Rule with your different
garb, and it encourages disorder. In fact, the Sanhedrin should
enforce uniformity throughout all the stabilities.’

‘I agree
entirely,’ Davron said blandly. ‘
Everyone
should wear
exactly the same thing.’ She just managed to keep a straight face
until the chantor had disappeared around a nearby corner.

They continued
on their way, swapping tales of Chantry absurdities. When she
related stories of her verbal battles with Nebuthnar in winter
school, she was amazed to find she had the power to turn Davron’s
casual interest into chuckles and finally into helpless laughter.
Davron Storre, laughing? When he finally pointed out the mapmaker’s
and then continued on his way alone, she felt a disproportionate
regret. They had so little opportunity to feel carefree…

And Letering
was not there. ‘I’m sorry, ‘ his wife said, ‘but he’s gone to buy
more skins from the tanner’s. I expect he’ll be back in half an
hour or so. I’m sure he’d be glad to meet you, if you’re a
mapmaker.’ She sounded doubtful, dubious of the truth of Keris’s
statement about her trade, rather than her husband’s willingness to
meet a colleague. ‘You can wait, or go for a walk. There’s a nice
stretch of river further along the road. Real picture it is now,
with all the wildflowers and the view across to the domain.’

‘Which domain
is that?’ Keris asked, suddenly alert.

‘Tower-and-Fleury. Not a big place, mind.’ The woman laughed. ‘Even
the Tricians aren’t rich around here.’

‘Oh. Would
that—would that be the family of Alyss who married Davron of
Storre?’