The Keeping Place

by Isobelle Carmody

  I realized then that he had no idea what had happened in the White Valley. Rather than tell him of Malik’s treachery, I bade him talk to Lina and work with her to gather the others who would ride back to Obernewtyn. I knew she would explain everything.

  Promising to see me before they departed, Zarak went to find Lina. I turned to Dameon. “We have had no chance to talk, and there are so many things I want to ask you about.”

  He found my hand unerringly. “Do not concern yourself with me right now. I will go and sit with Kella and her patient. We will have plenty of time later.”

  I hugged him impulsively, at the same time instructing Ceirwan to take him to Kella. By the time the guilden returned with Brydda, the council room was virtually empty.

  “What now?” Ceirwan asked.

  “You stay with Dardelan,” I decided. “Everything that happens will be relayed back to him, and you can farsend it to me.”

  Brydda ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “This is a cursed mess.”

  “It is,” I said.

  “I have not had time to tell you how sorry I am about what happened in the White Valley. Rest assured that Malik will be brought to answer for what he did, though I know that can be no consolation to you.”

  I said nothing. The deaths in the White Valley and now the news that the Misfits sent to the west coast were trapped in a hostile situation, utterly beyond our help, was almost too much to bear.

  “Despite everything, it is good to see Dameon again,” Brydda went on.

  I smiled wanly, for it was true. “When did he arrive?”

  “On a ship yesterday evening with Jakoby and her people. He wanted to go up to Obernewtyn when you did not arrive, but Malik said you would come.”

  “What exactly did Malik say when he arrived here without us?”

  The rebel scowled. “He said there had been a mishap.” He strode about restlessly, then suggested we go to Dardelan’s home, saying he wished to speak with Bodera.

  As we made our way along the street, I was struck again by the silence that lay over the metropolis. For all its appearance, there were hundreds of people on all sides, many times outnumbering the rebels occupying the city. Dardelan was right in saying control could slip from the rebels’ fingers all too easily if they did not tread very carefully.

  “You won’t be able to keep these people penned up forever,” I said aloud.

  “Dardelan said in the meeting that he would think about how we might assume peaceful control, but the reality is that he has been giving it considerable thought for some time. He has a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  He nodded. “He believes we should begin by organizing a series of trials of soldierguards and Councilmen as a way of demonstrating our disinclination to rule by brute force. This will allow us to remind the people of the tyranny and greed of their erstwhile masters. The trials will also focus people’s attention on what comes next. I should let him explain, but I can say Dardelan wants to institute other changes.”

  “Will he be able to do so with the west coast situation?” I asked.

  He sighed, and his stride slowed. “First we have to consolidate our position this side of the river. We must ensure that what we have won cannot be taken back. Then we must find a way to wrest control of the west coast from our enemies. I am afraid what has gone before will be nothing compared to what will come, for there will be open confrontation.”

  “You are speaking of civil war,” I said.

  He nodded morosely. “I am afraid so. Of course, we will not speak those doubts very loudly. If we are to hold what we have gained, we must instill confidence in people by showing them we can run things competently. Otherwise, they will collaborate against us for fear of what will happen if the Council resumes control.”

  “I wouldn’t let people know much about the situation on the west coast to start with, then,” Reuvan opined.

  “Exactly my feeling,” Brydda agreed.

  “You won’t be able to stop people realizing that something is going on when they can’t use the ferry,” I said.

  “Truespoken, but we can make it seem as if the port is held in a desperate move by a few soldierguards,” Brydda said.

  The big rebel stopped outside a small house and knocked softly. It was opened by the scarred blond woman I had first met long ago with Domick. Instinctively, I probed for news of Domick or Rushton in her mind, but there was nothing. She had not seen Domick in many sevendays, and she had never seen Rushton.

  She paled to hear Brydda’s news but asked calmly enough what he wanted her to do.

  “Help Reuvan set up a watch of the city piers,” the big man said.

  Reuvan lifted his head and grasped the big rebel’s arm.

  “What is it?” Brydda asked impatiently.

  “Smoke,” the seaman said. “Can’t you smell it?”

  Now that he had pointed it out, I could smell it, too. Reuvan pointed to the sky, and I turned to see monstrous billows of black smoke, streaked with orange and red, rising over the buildings.

  “It’s coming from the wharves,” Reuvan said. “One of the sheds must be on fire.”

  Brydda groaned. “Not the sheds, curse it! The ships!” He broke into a run.

  28

  “THE STINKING BASTARDS,” Brydda cursed as we stood helplessly on the pier, watching every ship in the port burn, including the ancient Sadorian vessel, Zephyr. Dirty black smoke hung in a thick veil over the sky, and the angry red of flames was reflected in the waves as a blighted dusk.

  “Who did this?” Reuvan said incredulously. “The Council?”

  “Who else could it have been?” Brydda raged. “They must have set someone up here to burn the ships. Who would think they would be far-sighted enough to consider the possibility that their plan might fail?”

  Other rebels were arriving now, Dardelan among the first, with Ceirwan at his heels.

  “I saw th’ smoke an’ turned back,” the young rebel panted.

  Jakoby came running up. Seeing the conflagration, her eyes sought out the Zephyr, which Dameon had told me had been among the ships that had carried her people on their raid of New Gadfia. She swore coldly.

  “Why didna th’ crews sound an alarm?” Ceirwan asked.

  Dardelan said, “Hiding inside their homes for fear of plague germs, I suppose.”

  Reuvan said in a queer, flat tone, “No ship would ever be left unwatched. There would always be at least a skeleton crew aboard.”

  “My people had no home in this place but the Zephyr, “Jakoby said very softly, her eyes shimmering with reflected flames.

  No one said a word, for we saw then what we should perhaps have realized immediately. It was not just the boats that had been destroyed. Anyone who had been aboard them had been murdered.

  Suddenly Ceirwan spoke. “Isn’t that a ship way out there?”

  “It’s going out,” Brydda muttered. “I would bet my life that the people who did all of this are aboard and are even now bound for the west coast to report to their masters.”

  Reuvan shook his head decisively. “That ship is bound for the open sea.”

  “Open sea…,” Brydda echoed blankly.

  “That, or Herder Isle,” Reuvan murmured.

  “Herder Isle,” Dardelan repeated. “But what has Herder Isle to do with this?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Brydda said slowly. “That ship might simply have turned back when it saw the smoke.”

  “What if th’ Herders are th’ ones who fired th’ ships?” Ceirwan said breathlessly. Then he shook his head. “No, that’s stupid. Why should they?”

  “Why, indeed,” Brydda said darkly. “I think we had best go and see how Elii is faring with the cloister.”

  “What about the ships?” Reuvan protested.

  “There is no saving them,” Jakoby murmured.

  “I must speak to my father,” Dardelan said. “I will come to the cloister after that.” As he turned away, I bade Ceirwan m
entally to stay with him.

  “I will wait here,” Jakoby murmured, her eyes on the burning Zephyr. “I can do nothing to help her, but some things must be witnessed to the bitter end.”

  “I will stay, too,” Reuvan mumbled. Brydda gave him leave with a look of compassion. He knew that, as a seaman, Reuvan would have known most of the men and women killed.

  On our way to the cloister, Brydda strode so fast that I had to run to keep up, his face set in a mask of cold rage.

  I was more frightened than angry. There seemed something nightmarishly sinister in the possibility that the Faction were involved in the destruction of the ships and their crews. I thought again of the nightmares of Ariel and wondered if he could have anything to do with what was happening.

  Soon we came in sight of the cloister. I had not clapped eyes on one since I had tried to rescue Jik from the clutches of his former masters. But this was larger than the cloister in Aborium. Set apart from other buildings, the cloister and its grounds were surrounded by a high wall of hard stone. Greenery showed above the wall, and though I could not see it, I pictured the manicured gardens and lawns surrounding the square buildings where the priests lived and went about Faction business.

  I tried to farseek beyond the wall, but my mind could not penetrate the perimeter. As Zarak had described, it felt exactly like trying to scry over badly tainted ground. I frowned up at the walls. Once I might have thought the use of tainted material an accident, but that had been before the Herders manufactured their demon bands. Now it seemed very likely that the stone had been chosen and used specifically to thwart Misfit powers.

  “There,” Brydda said, pointing. Elii and a group of rebels had come from a nearby street, carrying lanterns and dragging a log they clearly meant to use as a ram. Seeing the big rebel, Elii hailed him cheerfully and asked if he had come to lend his muscles to the ramming.

  “Let my try the muscles in my tongue first,” Brydda said.

  Elii shrugged. “Call them if you like, but we have tried and they respond to nothing.”

  Brydda walked up to the gate and hammered boldly upon it. The sound of his blows was a loud, flat clangor on the still night air, but not a sound came from beyond the wall other than the hoarse barking of dogs.

  “Come out, priests! The boats are burned, so there is no going back to Herder Isle,” Brydda bellowed.

  Still no response.

  He came back to where the rest of us stood. “Don’t bother with the ram. The doors are too heavy. Get ropes and hooks, and we’ll go over the walls.”

  “No!” I said, and they both stared at me. “I am sorry but…it’s possible the walls contain tainted stone. If anyone climbs onto them, and the taint is strong enough…”

  Brydda nodded. “Very well. Then have someone find two long ladders and lash them together. We’ll construct a bridge that will clear the walls.”

  Elii sent a few of his people off to fetch ladders and leather thongs but said he did not think ladders a good idea. “They’ll just as likely shoot arrows into anyone who shows his head above the top,” he said.

  “We’ll use shields, but somehow I don’t think anyone will be shot,” the bearded rebel said.

  “There may be no soldierguards in there, but the priests will defend themselves,” Wila said. “They don’t fight as a rule, but many of them can.”

  “The priests would attack intruders, I know,” Brydda agreed, “if there were any there.”

  Elii stared. “Are you saying that you think the cloister is empty of priests?”

  “That is exactly what I am saying,” Brydda said grimly.

  The ladders came, were fixed together, and then scaled. Elii insisted on being first to mount the makeshift bridge. He carried a small shield of stiffened leather before his face, but not an arrow was fired from beyond the wall.

  “I can’t see anyone,” he cried down to us. “Just a couple dogs over by the stable gate.”

  Brydda called him to come down, saying he would go over the wall first. But I caught at his arm and suggested I go first. “It’s not a matter of sacrificing myself,” I said. “The dogs can be trouble. I can calm them down and scry out the whole place from the top to make sure this is not some sort of trap. And if there is someone waiting when I climb down, you know I can defend myself.”

  He tugged at his beard but finally nodded. “Very well. But take no risk, Elspeth. If you sense anything untoward, come back at once. Enough Misfits have been lost already in this rebellion.”

  To satisfy him, I carried a wretchedly awkward shield and nearly fell off the ladder for my pains. Once I topped the wall, the breeze flicked my hair irritatingly into my eyes. The dogs Elii had seen were tied up, and when I beastspoke them, they projected ravenous hunger, saying they had not been fed for days. Bidding them be patient, I turned my mind to the dark buildings connected by stone corridors that formed the main part of the cloister and sent out a broad probe. It did not take me long to discover that there was not a single human mind in the place. I turned to shout my findings, then climbed down into the grounds.

  It was even darker under the trees, but I sensed a dog bounding toward me before I had taken two steps. I used both coercion and beastspeaking to stop him from attacking me. He sniffed my leg, then lay on his belly in a sign of respect, addressing me reverently as ElspethInnle. As ever, I wondered how it was that beasts knew me. He promised to let the other dogs know not to attack anyone coming over the wall.

  “I will tell them you bring food,” he sent with a hopeful wag of his tail.

  Repressing amusement, I agreed that we would certainly provide food while we searched the buildings.

  “You seek the funaga-ra who dwell here?” he asked, adding a suffix I had never heard of. I agreed that we were seeking the inhabitants of the cloister.

  “Many funaga-ra came. Then some went out the gates. Many more went/were eaten by the ground.”

  I asked what he meant, but he could explain it no better. I heard a noise and turned to find Brydda coming down the ladder. He eyed the dog warily, but I assured him it would not attack.

  “They’re half starved, especially the ones tied up,” I said, and told him what the dog had said about the priests.

  “Maybe he means the cells,” Brydda said. “There is a great network of them beneath the buildings.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Under the ground?” I echoed. “I cannot farseek under the ground. Maybe I was wrong about there being no one here.”

  Other rebels and Misfits were coming down the ladder now, and Brydda directed some of them to go and open the front gate and others to tend to any animals needing care. I asked the dog to accompany them in case any other dogs were minded to attack.

  “I have warned them,” he sent, “but I will go with the funaga.”

  He trotted off amiably.

  I was hesitating outside the door to the main building when Tomash and Wila joined me.

  “What I don’t understand is how the priests got away without anyone noticing,” Tomash said, following me inside. “They must have gone under cover of night. Or perhaps it was all that coming and going to the ships from the cloister. Maybe there was a lot more going than coming.”

  “It is so dark,” Wila said, looking back longingly at the door. “Are we looking for something?” she asked in a subdued voice.

  “Prisoners,” I said. “Brydda told me there is a network of cells beneath the grounds, and if the priests are gone, I doubt they would have bothered freeing their prisoners.”

  We went randomly along several halls and through a number of doors, until we came to one that was bolted from the inside.

  I focused my mind and forced the lock, then pushed the heavy door inward. A foul reek rushed out, and after an initial recoil, I felt my way warily into the room.

  Only it wasn’t a room. It was a stairwell. I realized we had found a way down to the cells, but it was idiotic to think of descending without light. I sent Wila and Tomash to find one, and a l
ittle time later they reappeared, both carrying candles in unadorned metal holders.

  “There don’t seem to be any lanterns about,” Tomash said apologetically.

  “Candles will serve,” I said.

  He insisted on taking the lead, and I followed, with Wila coming along behind.

  “What is that terrible smell?” she whispered, for indeed the offensive odor seemed to increase in potency as we descended. I did not dare say what I thought it was, and the fact that Tomash did not venture a guess suggested he had made the same dreadful assumption as I.

  “I think this must be the bottom,” he said when the stairs ended in a low-roofed corridor running away into shadow. His voice sounded flat, as if the weight of earth above us were pressing down on his words.

  “Let’s keep going,” I said.

  We continued slowly along the corridor. It turned sharply, and just beyond the corner, there was a metal door, locked crudely with a beam. The door was so heavy that it took all three of us to move it, and when it opened, the smell was horrendous. Wila reeled back, retching, and I held my nose.

  “Give me the light,” I said, gesturing impatiently to Tomash.

  Gulping audibly, he brushed my hand aside and stepped through the door. I followed, and we both stopped at the sight of what appeared to be a room full of bodies.

  “Mercy,” Tomash whispered.

  Suddenly a filthy hand clawed at the light. It belonged to an emaciated man with a rash of red weeping sores over his face.

  “I will tell you,” he rasped. “I will tell you everything. Don’t leave me here.”

  Fighting horror, I forced myself to step forward.

  “We are not priests. We have come to help you,” I said.

  The man cowered back. “Please! Please,” he begged, struggling to his knees.

  I took a deep breath and regretted it instantly as the odor of the cell filled my nostrils. Forcing myself to calmness, I reached out mentally in an attempt to probe the man’s mind, but it was so shattered by his ordeal that I could find nothing to hold on to. I tried sending reassurance and compassion, but I was no empath. Finally, I simply resorted to sending images of the open sky above white-capped mountains.