The Lost Heiress

by Catherine Fisher

  Harnesses creaked in the fog.

  The dwarf’s voice was calm, reassuring. “Come out. We’ll talk terms.”

  Galen’s mouth came close to Raffi’s ear. “Walk. Slowly. Don’t splash.”

  “Where?” Raffi breathed.

  “Out there.”

  “There’s nothing for you out there, keeper!” It was as if Alberic had heard them. Now he was barely controlling his fury. “You’ll drown, or the fog will choke you! There are horrors out there, Galen, fish that will eat your fingers away, steelworms, leeches, grubs that burrow into the flesh. Nothing else! And you, Cat-creature, water-hater, you know I’m right! The Great Hoard will never have that gold that’s weighing you down!”

  Nearby in the fog, the Sekoi sighed. “The worst thing is, he’s right.”

  “Ignore him.” Galen led the way, carefully brushing through leaves. They waded after him, trying not to make a sound.

  “Gnats will lay their eggs in your hair, keeper! Germs, hideous fevers, that’s all you’ll get. I want that box! Give me that and you can go, all of you!”

  He was raging now, desperate.

  In grim silence Galen waded always deeper, the scumwort dark above them. Insects whined. On a sudden open stretch of water Raffi saw the pale moon, Agramon, like a coin on black cloth.

  “Galen!” Alberic’s roar was distant now. “Are you that scared of me?”

  But they were far out, and the swamp was up to Raffi’s chin, so that if he stumbled, it washed into his ears and he swallowed it, coughing and spitting. He gripped tight to the keeper’s coat, and the night closed in around them, until they were struggling and hacking their way through the stiff growths, gasping for breath, bitten by innumerable flies.

  In no time at all he was exhausted. His drenched clothes dragged him down; the relentless suction of the mud made every step an effort. He was coughing, half choked by the marsh vapor. So was the Sekoi, its thin, bedraggled shoulders barely visible, shuddering uncontrollably with the bitter cold.

  The water swirled. Something nibbled Raffi’s knee; he panicked, jerking and splashing, yelling in fear.

  Galen grabbed him. “What!”

  “It was biting me!” He held on, shaking.

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “It’ll be back!” The Sekoi’s snarl shocked them; it was a hiss of despair. Looming up in the mist they saw its yellow eyes, the short fur swollen with bites and tics. “For Flain’s sake, Galen! We have to go back!”

  Stubborn, the keeper shook his soaked hair. “We’re close,” he gasped. “I know we’re close.”

  “There’s nothing out here!” The creature came close to him, clasped his arm with its spindly, dripping fingers. “Nothing! It’s all gone. The Unfinished Lands have spread over it. Even if we get to the island, it will be overgrown, stinking, poisoned. Listen to me. All this is folly. We can get back, avoid Alberic, get clear. We can still be safe . . .”

  Its voice was low, hypnotic. Tingles of warning hummed in Raffi’s mind; he knew it was putting them under the story-spell, but he didn’t care; he wanted that, to convince Galen, to get them all out before his strength went, before . . .

  “NO!” Galen’s roar was savage. A sudden burst of energy sparked in Raffi; he stumbled, flung an arm out wildly to stop himself going under. He struck something hard. Solid.

  “It won’t work on me!” the keeper yelled.

  “Galen,” Raffi breathed.

  “Go back if you want to! Take the boy! I’ll walk to my death before I give up!”

  “Then walk to it!” the Sekoi snarled. “This isn’t faith. It’s stupidity!”

  Raffi put out his other hand and felt the structure. It was real. Marshlight flickered cold phosphorescent flames under it.

  “Galen.”

  “What?” the keeper roared.

  “There’s some sort of trackway . . .”

  In the hush an eelworm rippled by his face. Then the water surged, and Galen pushed him aside.

  It was a mesh of branches, woven tight, rammed down between uprights. Old, oozing into decay. But in the green fumes of the fog it was a godsend.

  Galen hauled off the sodden pack and dumped it in the Sekoi’s arms. Then he climbed, tugging himself up in a great heave of water. Branches cracked; mist closed about him. Something bit Raffi’s cheek and he slapped at it, his whole body shuddering.

  Then Galen was leaning down, eyes bright, dark hair falling forward. “Come on.”

  Dragged up, Raffi felt himself dumped on the mesh of branches; he collapsed there, lying still, letting the water run from him endlessly, pouring out of his hair and sleeves and pockets, out of his eyes, out of his mind. He didn’t know he had blacked out until Galen grabbed him, propped him up, rubbing his soaked arms briskly. “No time to sleep. You’ll freeze.”

  Shivering, he nodded. Now that they were out of the water the cold was unbearable; he couldn’t stop shaking.

  Galen pulled him upright. “This trackway leads somewhere,” he said harshly, “and we need to find out where.”

  He was elated. Numbly Raffi felt it, and wondered why. In all the stillness of the fog, all the endless miles of marsh, there was nothing his mind could touch, no one, no Maker-power, nothing but a nightmare of swimming, slithering things, and all the threads of power that should have been in the land were tangled, broken, deeply drowned. But Galen was fierce with hope; he hardly waited for them, forcing his way through the leaves, then walking swiftly, carelessly over the creaking, splitting mesh of the trackway.

  The Sekoi pushed Raffi on. “I sometimes think his mind’s gone,” it said bitterly. “That business in the city. It scorched him.”

  Raffi shook his head, dragging himself over a hole. “He’s always been like this. Even before he spoke to the Makers. This is why they chose him.”

  The Sekoi was silent. The trackway led them deeper into murk; at times they could hardly see each other. Galen was a shadow far ahead. Raffi was stumbling; he felt sick and ill, hot and thirsty and bitterly cold all at once.

  And then he saw that Galen had stopped.

  The keeper stood still. Very still. Crowding behind, Raffi saw they had come to the end of the trackway. It broke off abruptly, and beyond it was nothing. Nothing but fog.

  The Sekoi gave a hiss of despair, Raffi clutched his hands to fists. He wanted to sink down and cry, but he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. He was a scholar of the Order. He had to have faith.

  Into the silence the Sekoi said, “What now?”

  Galen didn’t answer. He was alert, as if he listened.

  “Perhaps it’s at the other end,” Raffi said hopelessly.

  “No, it’s not.” Galen gripped his stick tightly. “It’s here.”

  Before they could stop him he stepped out, into the marsh.

  Raffi yelled, grabbed, but to his amazement the keeper didn’t sink; he stood there, on the scummy surface, as if it were solid, something real and hard.

  And instantly everything changed.

  A warm breeze blew the fog apart. He smelled grass, and apples, and to his astonishment the moons came out one by one above him, as if they had been waiting there all the time.

  Before them, dark grass sloped in the moonlight, and a figure was sitting under the apple trees. When she stood up, they saw she had two shadows, each an echo of herself.

  “Welcome, keepers,” she said, and smiled. “I was afraid there was no one left to come.”

  15

  There no trouble will be;

  There the summer will linger.

  There I will speak to my people with the water’s tongue.

  Flain to Artelan, Artelan’s Dream

  RAFFI WAS AWAKE BUT he didn’t open his eyes.

  Instead he lay curled in the warm heavy fleeces, completely relaxed, hearing somewhere outside the trickle of water over stones, an endless liquid ripple. Behind that was birdsong, a robin or pine-finch, and beyond that, silence, a tranquil silence with no worry.

  He
dozed again, but the oily wool tickled his bare shoulders. Scratching, he rolled, yawned, opened his eyes. Then he sat up.

  The house was large and pillared, swept clean, the door open, letting sunlight in. Raffi fingered the bites on his face. It was afternoon; he’d slept too long.

  Getting up he found his clothes, washed, amazingly soft; as he pulled them on he tried to remember the last time they had been clean, and couldn’t. He splashed in a silver bowl of water, soaking his hair and neck. As he dried himself, the Sekoi’s shadow darkened the doorway. “So you’re awake!” It looked cheerful, despite a swollen eyelid.

  “Where’s Galen?”

  “Near. He hasn’t slept much. Spent most of the morning talking with Tallis.”

  Raffi frowned. He had only glimpsed the woman last night, had felt a great sense of age, a bent figure in the dark. “Is she the only one here?”

  The Sekoi grinned and winked at him. “She’s the Guardian. Whether there’s only one of her I haven’t worked out yet.” And it went back out, bending under the low door.

  Puzzled, Raffi followed it.

  Outside, he stared around in a sudden warmth of delight. The house stood among green lawns, studded with ancient oaks and calarna trees, and beyond were apple orchards; even from here he could smell the ripening fruit. Near him were phlox and high banks of overripe daisies and some red gentians still in flower, and foxgloves with the fat bees fumbling in their speckled bells. The sky was blue and warm. Beyond the trees, a strange hill rose up almost to a point, an eerie humped outcrop with a buzzard circling over it, just as Artelan might have seen it in his dream.

  The Sekoi was grinning at him. “Hard to believe, little keeper?”

  “How is it here? How has it survived?”

  It shrugged. “Ask the Guardian. It seems the Order has more power left than my people thought.”

  Galen was sprawled on the grass, under a calarna tree. He looked oddly clean too, wearing a green shirt, and on his face was the look of grave content that Raffi had not seen there before. Beside him was a woman. She stood up stiffly, and he saw she was very old; a small, bent woman in a russet dress, her hair white, her face shrewd and wrinkled.

  “Welcome, Raffi. Have something to eat.”

  “Thanks.” He crouched down at the half-empty plates, littered with cuts of ham and cheeses and crusty bread that broke white and soft. There were different fruits too, currants and pears, and hot pies full of blackberries and jugs of cream. Relentlessly he began to eat.

  They watched him for a while. Then Galen said, “When will I begin?”

  “Tomorrow.” The woman’s eyes, palest blue, watched Raffi in amusement.

  “Begin what?” he muttered, swallowing.

  “The Ordeals.” She looked out at the orchard. “Galen has told me why you’ve come. To find out where this child, this Interrex, is, he will have to drink from the spring, and that needs preparation if it is to be safe. A time of fasting, of prayer, the pilgrimage of repentance around the island, a night alone on the peak. Then, when he’s ready, he will drink.”

  Raffi cut himself a big slice of pie. “How long will it take?”

  Galen shifted, the awen-beads shining. “That depends on the Makers.”

  “And on you,” the woman said softly.

  He nodded. “Yes. On me. We may be keepers, Guardian, but life outside has changed us. The teachings are in fragments and we’ve lost so much. Too many days spent running and hiding, not in prayer. Too few relics. And the Maker-life in the trees and leaves and stones curling up, harder to reach.”

  For a moment she watched him. “It hurts you,” she said.

  He glanced up, eyes dark. “Yes. But this place . . . Here the life is strong. How have you kept it?”

  The Sekoi came and sat down, its long fingers picking at the damsons. She nodded at it. “Our friend here has a belt full of gold coins wound about his body.”

  The Sekoi almost choked.

  Raffi laughed aloud. “How did you know?”

  “Oh, I know. But he keeps his treasure hidden, under the surface, and so do we, here. Flain made this island holy. The ground has deep lines of energy, the water strange properties. While the swamp spread around us, year by year, we worried, but the island has stayed untouched. Some keepers still came in the troubled years, we heard what was happening: the Fall of Tasceron, the Emperor’s death. But the swamp thickened and fog rose out of it and we were lost. The Watch never found us.”

  Raffi rubbed a finger around his empty plate. Into the silence he said, “Us?”

  Tallis looked at him, her smile sharp. “Did I say us? There’s only me.”

  She tried to stand then, and Galen had to help her. When he crouched to collect the dishes, her gnarled hand caught his shoulder. “No. You prepare yourself, keeper. The boy will help me—in return I will give him his lessons, while you’re busy.”

  Galen nodded gratefully. “He needs it. Work him hard.”

  She met Raffi’s eyes and smiled. “Oh, I will.”

  But after the dishes were clean she let him go exploring, wandering through the long grass of the orchards. The branches were heavy with apples, russets and pippins and medlars falling into rotten, wasp-tunneled softness in the grass. The air was rich with scent and the buzz of honey-bees. At the end of the fields was a gate, and coming through that he found himself on a track, green and overgrown, the tall umbels of burrwort and hemlock and hare’s-ear turning to heads of seed and fluff that drifted in the slightest breeze. Birds whistled; from the elm trees a few leaves pattered, caught on webs, spinning. It was so warm he took his jacket off and hung it on the hedge and walked on, humming, wondering at how happy he felt. It was as if they had stepped out of some endless heartbreak. Here, time stopped. Nothing could get in.

  He left the track at a stile and began to climb the hill, quickly at first and then more slowly, the sweat cooling on him, the breeze whipping his hair. Soon his chest thudded with the steepness; he dragged in huge breaths, laboring on, and whenever he looked up, the smooth green slopes hung out over him, so steep he almost had to pull himself up with his hands.

  When he scrambled over the top he was breathless; soaked with sweat, he crumpled in the spiky grass. Below him the island lay warm in the evening light. Beyond orchards and woodland the sun was setting; a great red globe shimmering in the cloudbanks, the strange shifting veils of mist that hid the marsh. He watched it sink, breathing deep, fingering the blue and purple awen-beads. This was how it should be, how it had been. This was the rule of the Order, all that Galen was fighting for. Odd memories moved through his mind. Slowly, over hours, the color drained; the island became a purple twilight of moths and owls calling from the distant woods. He stared down at it, still, unmoving.

  That night Galen lit the log fire in the house, and the candles were arranged. The Sekoi watched, curious. “Can I stay?”

  “If you want,” Galen said drily. “You might learn something.”

  Two of the cats that lived there came in over the window ledge; one climbed warmly onto the Sekoi’s lap, curling itself up, the other coming and purring at its ear. The creature purred back, as if it spoke to them. Then it said, “I apologize for my behavior in the marsh. You were right, as we see.”

  For a moment Galen’s hand was still. Then he lit another candle. “This time,” he said quietly.

  Raffi turned as the door opened. To his amazement a young woman came in, with long red hair braided and loose. She sat down next to Galen.

  “Are we ready?”

  “When you are, Guardian.”

  She glanced across archly. “Raffi?”

  They were grinning at him, he knew. He tried not to look bewildered. “I’m ready.”

  So they sat, the three of them, and Tallis began, because he knew it was she, the same woman, somehow impossibly younger. In a shimmer of candles and bells they chanted the long sonorous verses of the Litany, the praises of the Makers, and it sounded more mysterious to Raffi than ever before,
until Galen and Tallis went on into chants and chapters he hadn’t learned yet, full of the sorrows of the broken world and the echoes of ancient words.

  Later, when he slept in the warm bed, the words ran through his head, endless as the rippling water outside.

  ON SARRES, DAY BLURRED INTO DAY. Scarlet calarna leaves fell silently into the grass. Galen fasted, and spent long hours meditating in the quiet garden, as still as if he slept. On the second day he walked barefoot up the hill; from below Raffi watched him, sprawled in the warm sun. They prayed the prayers together, morning and sunset, and then Raffi had lessons from Tallis, or fed the hens, or helped picked the endless crop of apples and pears.

  Tallis bewildered him. Sometimes she was old, and sometimes a woman of about twenty, her red hair swinging, full of energy, climbing the apple ladders and whistling. And once, as he fished in the narrow lake for carp, he saw her come out of the trees and call him, and he sat up, cold, because now she was a little girl, barely ten, her voice high and petulant.

  “It’s time to come in for tea.”

  He stood. She was small, her face plump, her red hair tangled. The russet dress was short, showed bare legs.

  “Who are you?” he breathed. “How can you do this?”

  The little girl grinned. “I’m the Guardian,” she said. Then she stuck out her tongue at him and ran away.

  He asked the Sekoi about it, because Galen was too busy. The creature had made a hammock for itself between trees in the orchard; it spent hours there, slumbering in the shade, lazily.

  Now it fanned itself with a chestnut leaf, one leg dangling. “You’re the keeper.”

  “But I don’t understand! Is she . . . Have the Makers given her this ability? Which age is she really?”

  “Really is a word with no meaning.” The Sekoi closed its eyes. “My people have stories of similar beings. After all, we have our past ages somewhere inside of us.”

  Raffi picked a stone out of the grass and turned it over. “You mean she’s not human?”