The Dark City (23 page)

There was a crash at the door. The table shuddered.

Galen took no notice. His eyes had fixed on a small silver device on the table in the center of the room. He crossed to it and touched it in awe. There were five touchpanels, like Raffi had seen on relics before; these would operate it. Each had an unknown symbol, set in a circle, and above them were words: COMMUNICATIONS RELAY—OUTER WORLDS.

They were set on a panel, the shape of which made Raffi forget the pounding at the door and the hammering of his heart. A sign that was the most secret, guarded image of the Order; a black bird with spread wings, holding a globe.

The Crow!

Staring at it, he breathed, “But the Crow is a man!”

Something crashed against the door. Carys spun around.

“No. The Crow is a relic.” Galen was still for a split second; then he grabbed Raffi and sent him sprawling back. “Block that door! Keep them out! Do whatever it takes!”

Feverishly his fingers danced over the panel.

Raffi and the Sekoi threw themselves against the table; they jolted it back and piled everything they could find against it.

“More!” the Sekoi yelled.

“There’s nothing big enough!”

“Then do something.” Carys grabbed his hand. “You can, Raffi!”

Closing his eyes, he threw force-lines around it, bound it tight with all the energies he could summon. As if the Makers lingered here, he found it easier than before; the very earth in this place was sacred, it gave him power, fed him, and he laughed aloud.

The door shivered; someone outside yelled in anger.

He ran back to Galen. “Is it working?”

“Not yet! Not yet!” Galen’s face was tense; his fingers stabbed each symbol, working out sequences frantically. Behind him, the Sekoi crouched, its fur bristling.

Carys gripped the table. “Perhaps it doesn’t work. It’s too old . . . !”

“Be quiet! Pray, Raffi. Pray.”

Galen didn’t have to tell him. But the Crow was silent. No spark came from it, no flicker of life.

And then the room was humming. Amazed, they stared around. It was coming from everywhere and nowhere; it lay in the air and was full of distance; small crackles and hisses, a listening sound.

“Makers. Can you hear me?” Galen asked in a whisper.

Something spoke. It was the voice of a ghost, garbled, distorted in bursts of static. All they knew was that it had asked a question. Galen was shivering, pale with dread and joy. He gripped his hands together. “Hear me,” he breathed. “We need you! Hear me, lords!”

Far away, eons away, the Makers answered. “
We hear you. Who is this? What frequency are you on?
”

Galen’s voice was unsteady. “I am Galen Harn, of the Order. Masters, come back to us! The world is slipping into the dark. Tasceron is fallen; the Emperor is dead. Do you know what’s happening on your world, lords? We need you! Come back to us.”

A hiss of static. Behind them the door was jerking open; chairs crashing down. Only the Sekoi glanced back.

When the voice came again it was broken, the words fuzzy and slow, as if spoken distinctly and urgently, over and over.

“
What . . . world? What world?
”

Galen made the sign of blessing. “Anara,” he breathed. “Are there others?”

The answer was a crackle of noise. “
Wait . . . light-years. Are you . . . colonists?
”

Galen gripped the table. “Say it again,” he pleaded. “What did you say? Will you come?” But the hissing faded out and died.

The Crow was silent.

Galen bent over it, his face dark, and then slowly he straightened, and his eyes met Raffi’s.

“They said they would come. They said, ‘Wait.’”

“I’m not sure . . .”

“They will, Raffi! I know they will!”

With a crack that turned Raffi sick, the force-lines exploded; the doors crashed wide, men leaped across the table.

Galen turned, standing in front of the Crow. The Watchmen stared at him, then around, curiously; each had a loaded bow and they were all pointing at Galen. Dizzy, Raffi pulled himself up and watched the castellan shoulder his way through.

He was a gray, bearded man. He folded his arms and looked at them all in silence.

“This is a great day for the Watch,” he said softly.

It was Carys who moved. She came out from behind the Sekoi and said irritably, “You took your time! Where have you been?”

Raffi stared at her with horror.

The castellan smiled. “We had some trouble. Been wishing we were here, have you?”

She shrugged and crossed to him. “They know about me. Things were getting a little difficult.”

“So what have I missed?”

She turned around and looked at Galen, her face set and hard. “The keeper will tell you. Show them the Crow, Galen. Show them now.”

25

The leaves of the trees shall cry out for joy, for behold, the stars have spoken.

Apocalypse of Tamar

G
ALEN STARED AT HER; their eyes met. He stepped back, until the Crow was on the table between them, and he spread his hands over it. For Raffi it was a moment of black despair. She had told them. It was all over.

Then the light went dim. The Watchmen looked around uneasily.

“Take your hands off that device,” the castellan called sharply.

Galen looked up. His face was wild and triumphant. “Too late,” he said.

The thought-bolts burst from him like fire; they exploded among the Watchmen, who yelled and scattered and dropped their bows. Two turned and ran. The doors slammed tight.

“Pick those weapons up!” the castellan raged. He grabbed one, raised it, and shot the bolt straight at Galen. Raffi gave a strangled yell, but the bolt had already burst into brilliant flames of green and black; then it shattered, sending pieces crashing across the hall.

Astonished, the Watchmen stood still.

“Take their weapons,” Galen said harshly.

After a second, the Sekoi pushed past him. It snatched the bows quickly from the men’s hands, gripping them with its seven fingers, a wide, happy smirk on its face. Then it dumped the pile against the wall and stood over them.

“What . . . who are you?” the castellan muttered.

The lights flickered, turned green. Galen was standing upright above the device; power from it filled him, flowed from him; he was flooded with it, Raffi could feel it, a wild, exulting joy that surged out of him.

“
I am the Crow
,” he breathed. His voice was raw and strange; in the brightness his eyes were black.

Raffi found himself trembling, shaking with fear, his hands clutched in the sign of blessing. The Sekoi crouched beside him, one hand on his shoulder.

It was Carys who answered, tense with excitement. “How can you be?”

Galen was taller, his face dark and hooked. Energy surged through him in crackles and sparks of color; Raffi saw blue and purple and silver threads of it flicker through the dark. Immense shadow loomed behind him, seeming to rustle and flap.

“I am the Crow! I have been buried too long in the dark,” he cried, and his voice was harsh, both Galen’s and yet changed. “Now I arise and look, Anara, I have summoned your Makers back to you; through the darkness and emptiness I call them! In ships of silver and crystal they’ll come, Flain and Tamar and Soren of the trees—even Kest will come—and they will dispel the darkness and scatter the towers of the Watch. This is the prophecy I make! This is the truth I speak! They have told me they will come, and no one will stand against them!”

He flung out his hands; the shadows jerked wide. All around him the walls were hissing and sprouting; Raffi saw that the trees were alive, growing, slithering out leaves and fruit. The Watchmen called out, some of them crumpled on the floor, terrified, and behind them the great doors thrummed with a strange electric hum, and the symbols on them glowed green and gold.

And then with a yell of delight, Galen made the seven moons, and they came to him with sparks of power out of the dark; Pyra and Agramon, Atterix, the pitted face of Cyrax, Lar, Karnos, the craters of Atelgar. And they moved in their right patterns—the Web, the Ring, the Arch—and Raffi laughed aloud to see them, and the Sekoi purred behind him, its hand clutching his shoulder tight.

As if he could never tire of it, Galen poured out his newfound power; he made sense-lines that snaked and tangled, brilliant flashes of scents, rivers and rainbows of energy that spurted and crackled and lit every one of the thousand candles with one enormous roar of flame.

And then suddenly he was still, and the room shimmered and glinted into silence. The lamps flickered, grew brighter. They saw they were in a room of leaves; millions of fresh green leaves that smelled like spring, and yet fruit hung there too, and great helios flowers.

The Watchmen were lying crumpled up against the door. Carys sat near them. She seemed too astonished to speak, but she was awake, and as Raffi came toward her, she staggered up unsteadily.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded, silent.

Galen followed them. He looked tired, the crow-black hair hung to his neck, but the very air about him still seemed to crackle.

“How did you know?” He gripped her hands. “How did you know, Carys?”

Her eyes widened, as if his touch burned. “I don’t . . . I’m not sure. I just . . . felt that you could.”

“But you went over to them—” Raffi began.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I had to do something. Did you think I meant it?”

“I don’t know.” He stared at her. “I don’t know what you are anymore.”

She glared back, furious. “Well, neither do I, Raffi! Everything was simple before I met you! Everything was clear! The Order were frauds and fanatics and the Watch were my family and I wanted Galen Harn, dead or alive!”

She stared down at her hands. “That’s all gone now. Nothing’s the same. If the Order’s powers are real, the Watch has lied to me, to all of us. I’ve got friends there, good friends. I won’t leave them to be made fools of.”

“If you go back,” Galen said quietly, “they may see your doubts. I think you should stay with us, Carys.”

She looked at him, a long, hard look. Then she hugged herself with her arms and said, “I can’t.”

“Keeper, you can’t let her go back,” the Sekoi put in, getting up from its corner. “Her or any of them. They’ve seen where your holy place is.”

“I have the power,” Galen said softly, “to wipe that from their minds.” Ignoring Raffi’s stare, he said, “And for the men I’ll do that. But for you . . .”

Stepping forward, he faced her. “Now it’s my turn to make an act of faith. Keep the knowledge. It will work inside you, Carys. It will draw you back to us. One day.”

Wanly, she smiled. “Always trying to convert the fallen, Galen.”

He nodded. “But come soon. The Makers will arrive, and I’d hate them to find you with the Watch.”

“The Watch are my father and mother.” She shook her head. “Or I thought so. But I can’t wipe that training out. I need to think about things, find out what’s true.”

“You never will. But ask your questions carefully. If they think—”

“I know.” She pulled a face. “I’ve seen people disappear. I know what happens to them, better than you.”

He looked at her for a moment with a look that was new to him, then turned away. Bending over the Watchmen, he said something, and to Raffi’s surprise they all stood up, but there was no consciousness in them, no memory.

“Lead them through the maze,” he said to the Sekoi. “They’ll follow you.

“Keeper . . . !”

“Don’t worry. They’re not dangerous.”

With a wry grimace at Raffi, the creature shrugged and turned. The doors opened and the Sekoi walked through, the Watchmen following in a cowed, obedient huddle. None of them looked back.

Galen glanced around. “No power is left here. But the House will be sealed, and the secret kept.” He glanced at Carys. “No one must know.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, picking a crossbow off the pile. “They’ll only get it out of me on the rack.”

“It might come to that,” Raffi muttered.

He followed Galen through the doors, with one look back at the room of leaves, and then trudged thoughtfully through the maze. At one corner he turned and waited for Carys.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.” He felt awkward. “But I’m confused. Whose side are you really on, Carys?”

She caught his arm, swung him around, and pushed him ahead of her. “My side. And that’s where I stay till I’ve decided.” He felt her grin at his back. “You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

He turned, blocking the way. “If you betray him, I’ll hunt you down myself. I’d never forgive you.”

Silent, she nodded. “I know,” she whispered.

He walked on, grim, wondering if it was true, or if she would go straight to the Watch and tell them everything. Galen thought not. Galen with all his powers back—and more. Galen, who had been the Crow, and had prophesied the future of the world.

“We’ll have to write this down,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Coming to the stairs he ran up in the dark, suddenly happy. “Nothing.”

Outside in the dim square the Sekoi sat impatiently on a low wall, chewing its nails. The Watchmen stood near, an eerily silent group.