by Glenda Larke
‘I’ll check first thing in the morning.’ She shivered slightly, aware she was stepping into a dead man’s shoes.
‘He wasn’t killed here, you know. He died out in the Unstable. The Mantis was with him, but managed to escape. We don’t think the Mantis betrayed him, but rather just took advantage of the situation. He came back here, telling no one what had happened, and stole the maps. Probably he intended to sell them. Silly fool! The moment he tried to sell one, both Havenbrethren and the Minions were on to him and he had to flee. That’s probably when the first lot of maps were destroyed—exactly how, we’ll never know.’
He came and stood close to her. ‘Keris, I have something for you.’ He fumbled in his jerkin pocket. ‘I bought it in the Fifth. I knew you’d need it here if you came.’ He produced a ring and held it up.
‘You brought me a ring?’ The enormity of the gesture left her breathless. She was to wear jewellery. How Sheyli would have loved to have done that! Instead she’d had to embroider lace on her underwear in secret…
The ring was gold and set all around with tiny ruby, emerald and sapphire chips. She stared, disbelieving. ‘It’s beautiful!’ She was not sure how she could come to terms with wearing such a thing. It seemed sacrilegious.
‘Your finger, milady?’
She held up both hands, still bemused. She had no idea which finger to use.
‘Let’s try this one for size.’ Careful not to touch her, he slipped it on to the middle finger of her left hand. For a moment she stood admiring it, then a single tear slid down her cheek. He reached out and collected the drop on his fingertip. Still not touching her, he place it on his tongue in an act of tenderness that choked her with emotion. She covered her nose and mouth with steepled fingers, watching him.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said gently. They were standing so close the buttons on his coat brushed her breast. ‘You know, I used to feel perhaps you had the right of it when you first found out what I was. You said it would be better for us all if I died. But now, what you have found out about the trompleri map has given me hope. It makes things—easier, when you hope.’
‘I want—I want—’ But she choked again.
‘I know. So do I. Keris, perhaps it is better we do not see each other too much—’
She shuddered. ‘I can’t bear it either way.’
‘I know.’
They looked at each other helplessly.
‘I’m so afraid for you,’ she whispered.
‘I know that too.’
‘Promise … promise me—’
‘I can’t make any promises. When the time comes, I must do what I think is right, and who can say now what that will be?’ He rushed on, changing the subject. ‘I am going to the Hall now. That’s the City Hall. Meldor and Scow and I have rooms there. It’s where all the administration of Havenstar is done. I—I can’t afford ever to be far from Meldor, you know. Not in Havenstar.’
She nodded and dropped her hands away from her face. ‘I love you Davron of Storre,’ she said and walked away from him, back into the main rooms of the house.
~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-Nine
He of darkness who offers light; she of talent who bestows colour; he of betrayal who shows courage; he of cowardice who is inconstant: apart they are nothing, but together their sacrifice shall offer hope. Pray that they prevail, for if not, Chaos shall. If even one should falter, then the Margravate is lost.
—Predictions XXII: 5: 1
On her first morning in Deverli’s shop—her shop—Keris discovered that the inks and paints he kept under his counter out of sight were made with ley-soaked earths, pigments and minerals. They were all the colours she could have wished for, not only the earth tints, but cobalt blue, greens of all descriptions, reds, sun-gold and moon-cream, shadow purples, sepia, devil’s black and chalk white. There was a faint lambency to them that told her they were probably infected with some kind of ley, but that was not unusual in Havenstar. So many things, children included, had visible ley.
So, without too much hope, she tried out all the colours, tracing an outline in the ley-ink from one of her own maps, then colouring it with the paints. No sooner had she filled in the lines than the hills and trees and rocks leapt up out of the vellum at her. She stared, gripped tight with emotion. Trompleri, in all its perfection. An immediate three-dimensional map. But where had Deverli obtained such a range of trompleri hues? Surely he could not have found all the ingredients conveniently situated under ley lines.
She called Colibran into the workroom of the shop to ask how much he knew about the origin of the inks and colours.
One of his feelers moved around to scratch the back of his head. ‘I don’t really know, milady,’ he said, apologetic. ‘Milord Deverli was very secretive and always, always out, you understand. He’d bring back the ingredients for the paints and the Mantis’d mix them up here, but he never said where they came from in the first place. Except for the verdigris. He used to get that from old Graynix at the metalmakers. Oh, and the chalk he used for white, I used to get that from the herbalist in Solidarity Street. I think she uses it in her medicines.’ Every time he emphasised a word, his feelers would flick backwards in harmony. She had to concentrate to prevent herself from nodding in rhythm.
‘Tell me about him, about Kereven Deverli. What sort of things did he do? Where did he go?’
‘Well, he was always messing about in ley lines. There was such a big argument about it, because we aren’t supposed to go into ley lines anymore, you know. That’s what the bridges are for.’
‘Why did he keep some of the colours under the counter, separate from the others on the shelf?’
‘He said they were his special ones. We weren’t ever to touch them. He mixed them himself. I never even saw him use them. But then, he often used to lock the door. It’s a secretive business, making maps, you know.’
‘So they weren’t made special somehow, after they were made? They were special from the moment he mixed them?’
‘Oh, well…’ The feeler scratched some more as he pondered. Colibran wanted badly to help. ‘I think so.’
She continued to pester him with questions and gradually began to build up a picture of Deverli and his mapmaking. ‘This is all conjecture, mind,’ she said to Davron and Meldor when they came to see her that afternoon, ‘but I think Deverli took ordinary ingredients and left them in a ley line. He then brought them back and mixed up his colours. I don’t think he actually had to dig in a ley line for his pigments, or anything like that. I’ll need to go to a ley line to prove it.’
While Meldor considered what she’d said, she studied him. He was dressed in something that was halfway between the flamboyant garb of a knight-prophet of Chantry and the plain austerity of a margrave. It was a long white robe, embroidered around the neck and hem with gold thread. It made him appear noble, yet there was a touch of the ascetic as well. She wondered who’d chosen it for him. It did not seem to be something either Scow or Davron would select, but she couldn’t help feeling it was exactly right for Meldor the Blind, now Margrave of Havenstar. He would never be just Meldor to her again.
‘Keris,’ he said finally, ‘you are valuable to us. We want to use your time to the best advantage. I think experiments like this can best be left to others. I will send someone I trust to assist you. Just tell him what you want done. After all,’ he added with a smile, ‘the more people who know, the safer you are.’
‘What do you want me to do with my time, then? Experiment with burning trompleri maps?’
‘No,’ he said, faintly impatient. ‘Not that either. Favellis and Dita can work on that, once you’ve done some maps for them to experiment with. I want you to do what you do best: make maps. Let me explain. Eventually I want maps of all Havenstar and all the surrounding areas, but more importantly I want maps of our borders now. How better to protect our land than to watch the enemy approach on a chart, and thus know when and where to thwart him with our Havenguard?’
/> ‘Large scale charts, so you can tell friend from foe.’ She nodded, thinking. ‘That’s going to require an enormous amount of parchment. And inks.’
‘And labour,’ Davron added. ‘She’ll need help, Meldor.’
He nodded. ‘You’ll have everything you need. I’ll put people on to making rag-paper for you. There’s no way we can get hold of enough parchment in such a short time. You’ll need more staff to do the tedious unskilled work. Confine yourself to what others can’t do, the surveying and the actual mapping.’
‘It’s not as much as it sounds, I suppose,’ she said, half to herself. ‘Deverli had already done a lot of standard maps of the Havenstar area before he died. I can transfer that work over into trompleri, or have other people do it.’
‘Davron and Scow will go with you when you are out surveying.’
She nodded and felt her heart lift. Surveying, mapmaking—and Davron. Davron … almost. She looked across at him to share her pleasure, only to see that he was gazing at Meldor in consternation. At first she thought it might just be concern that they would both find it too much of a strain, then she realised the real reason. He was afraid. Afraid of being separated from Meldor because the Margrave was the only one who might be able to thwart the Unmaker when he came to claim the service Davron owed him. She waited for Davron’s protest, but he shrugged in resignation and grunted his acquiescence. She didn’t know whether the acceptance came from his trust in his friend, or from his innate fatalism. He looked across at her and smiled, but all her joy of anticipation had drained away.
‘There’s one other thing I came to talk to you about, Keris,’ Meldor was saying. ‘I want nobody to know what happens when a trompleri map is burned. It is to be kept absolutely confidential—I can’t stress that enough. And I want you to write to each of the mapmakers who had letters from you about trompleri. I want you to tell them that on no account should a trompleri map be burned or, in fact, destroyed in any way whatsoever. Put the fear of the Maker into them, tell them anything: that it will give off poisonous fumes, that it will unmake stability, anything except the truth.’
‘But why—?’
‘Trust me.’
She subsided reluctantly. ‘I’ll do it today.’
‘I’ll send a courier to collect them. And now I want to see the Chameleon. May I go through into the house, Keris?’ He was asking her permission? She was embarrassed and called for Colibran to show him the way.
She and Davron were left looking at one another. ‘How bad is it?’ she asked. ‘Why does he fear attack after all these years of peace? Why is he calling all the Havenbrethren home?’
He was sombre. ‘The Unmaker knows about us now, knows where we are. He knows we search for the secret of trompleri. Minions may have already told him that we’ve found a way to stabilise the Unstable. We are too dangerous to him, too dangerous to be allowed to live here in peace.’ He toyed with the edge of one of her maps where it lay on the table in front of him. ‘It won’t be long before he attacks. He’s moving his Minions through the Unstable already, and we are doing the same thing with our Havenbrethren. We have to reinforce our Havenguards, and train more men and women. We have a number of Unbound Tricians helping us.’
She listened, and watched him. He was clad in clean clothes of a finer material than she’d been used to seeing him wearing, and he now wore a chunky red-gold ring on his right hand. ‘You aren’t wearing your knives!’ she said suddenly. He wasn’t carrying his whip either. It was the first time she’d ever seen him unarmed.
‘I don’t wear them in Havenstar.’ He sounded casual, but the tell-tale flush spread from the back of his neck up to his ears. He said hurriedly, ‘You do realise, don’t you, that Portron might bring Chantry down on our heads ?’
She would not be diverted. ‘Not wear them? Why not? It’s not that safe here, surely? I’m told the Wild can be bold—’
‘Not inside the city.’ He sighed, seeing that she was not about to be side-tracked. ‘Keris, I’m the danger here. Me. It’s better I carry no weapons. It evens up the chances that I can be stopped when the time comes.’
She was silenced, feeling sick, wishing she’d had the sense not to ask.
Suddenly he laughed, sounding almost light-hearted. ‘It’s that damned blush of mine, isn’t it? I just can’t seem to do anything about it and it gives me away every time. I feel an awful fool, colouring up like a torchlight all the time.’
‘Don’t denigrate it. I may never have spared you a thought if you hadn’t lit up like a flame the day we first met.’
‘Really? That almost might make it worth it. But no, maybe not. You try impressing a troop of ley-scarred Defenders under your leadership, or a fellowship of wily sinners on a pilgrimage, when you blush like a lad at his first kiss! It’s been the bane of my life.’
‘Well, I like it.’
‘Ah. Just as I happen to like a certain spattering of freckles across an otherwise ordinary nose…’
She pulled a face at him and felt her sorrow dissipate.
‘When do you want to leave for the borders?’ he asked.
She dragged her mind back to business, forgetting in the meantime what he’d said about Portron. ‘I have to write those letters, then go through the rest of Deverli’s maps to see exactly what areas he has surveyed. I’ll have to make some decisions about just what I want done with regards to the production of more inks and paints. Organise whoever it is that Meldor sends me, start training people, prepare a number of trompleri maps for Favellis and Dita—’ She looked up at him, suddenly appalled by the amount of work involved. ‘Shall we say six days?’
‘Fine. I’ll get the paper organised for you and do what else I can to help. Make me a list of paint ingredients you may need.’
‘And the Chameleon? Why does Meldor want to speak to him? He’s not going to send him back into the Unstable, is he?’
‘Everyone who comes to Havenstar knows they can be called upon to fight, Quirk included. Meldor wants him to embark on a career of Minion-watching.’
She sighed. ‘An impressive profession for someone who vows and declares that of all the world’s lily-livered cowards, he has the lilyest liver!’
‘The Unstable makes cowards of us all. And none of us get what we want when the Unmaker plays with us.’
~~~~~~~
Keris was amazed how quickly she slipped into routine. She would spend a week or more at a time out on the borders doing the surveying with Davron and Scow, then return to Shield to stock up on supplies, to check how her team of helpers was coping with the work she gave them, and to draw up maps of those areas she’d just surveyed. She loved the work and felt much more at home in the Unstable than she’d ever felt before. With astonishment, she acknowledged that although she retained a healthy respect for its vagaries, she no longer feared it. She’d grown more sure of herself and her abilities. Under Davron’s tutelage she was even becoming an expert with the throwing knife.
Her one complaint was that sometimes she felt swamped under heaps of vellum and parchment and charts. She worked all day, every day, and nights as well, mapping by lamplight in her tent or in the bustle of her shop workroom in Shield. She surveyed for maps, planned maps, drew maps, altered maps. She talked about maps, thought about maps, dreamed about maps. Wryly, she wondered if it was possible to have too much mapmaking in her life.
Her knowledge of her craft expanded. Maps which deviated too far from the true aspect of the land refused ever to become trompleri maps, no matter how much ley-ink was applied. Maps with too small a scale could never become a trompleri map. Her assistants, experimenting in ley lines, were soon able to tell her ten hours in a ley line was enough to turn almost all of the components for inks and colours into ingredients so ley-soaked that the final mixture, when she made it up, was as good as any Deverli had created.
‘As simple as that!’ She laughed, sharing her pleasure with Davron.
Davron obtained any equipment she needed for mapmaking and recru
ited the people to help her. He planned their trips with meticulous care and, together with Scow, guarded her as she surveyed the Unstable bordering Havenstar. They discussed everything with easy camaraderie, and their friendship contained as much laughter as pain. He could be cheerful, romantic and humorous, even though he walked through life balanced on a knife blade. On one side lurked death at the hands of his friends; and on the other, the death of his friends at his hands, knowing all the while that Carasma was already reaching to twist the knife handle.
That he could often close all that off behind a steel gate of pain and let his eyes gleam with love, or humour, was to her nothing short of a miracle.
At those times when she felt the saddest, when she felt at her most pensive, she would go to her bedroom and look out of the window there. She’d never seen a window with such a large expanse of thick glass, made possible only by ley, and the view never failed to imbue her with awe. To the right and left there were the rooftops of Shield—ornate flamboyance and a mixture of styles made them look like a playground for faerie, while directly in front of her was a view over the lake. Perhaps she would never glimpse the ocean as she’d dreamed, but here there was more water than she had ever hoped to see all at once. She loved its many moods, the way it reflected the blue of the sky, the way it could sparkle with sunshine and ley, or brood with bad weather in slatey darkness. When she watched the fishing boats leave the dock bouncing on the breeze as their triangular sails filled, she knew she’d never tire of it. If she could not have an ocean, at least she could have the lake.
