by E. C. Blake
Mara had never seen anything more beautiful. For a long moment she just stared, entranced: and then, like a blow, she remembered what all this beauty meant. When she went back and told Pixot what she had seen, she would be condemning this place to ruin. The Warden would drive shafts into it, tear down its soaring walls, smash the stone, extract the magic, delve deeper and deeper into the mountain: and all would come at the expense of untold numbers of unMasked, crushed, beaten, starved, tortured . . . raped.
She reached out and touched the wall, and her hand came back covered with a thin sheen of magic. She stared at it, turning her hand back and forth. I could lie, she thought. I could tell the Warden there’s nothing there.
Yes, she’d promised to tell him the truth, but what of that? No promise to a man like that could hold her.
But if she did that it wasn’t just her own life she was playing with, it was Katia’s. The Warden might well decide that if there were no magic to be found here, Mara was of no further use, and therefore he no longer needed to keep his bargain regarding Katia.
“My blood will be on your hands,” Katia had said, and Mara couldn’t deny it.
Frozen by indecision, for a long time she simply crouched there at the mouth of that beautiful, breathtaking chamber of magic . . . until the rope around her waist twitched, tightened—and jerked her backward. She flung herself belly-down, the candle lantern hissing and going out as it hit the water, and grabbed at the rock beneath the stream, but couldn’t stop her slide. She banged back along the tunnel helpless, face down, fighting to keep her head out of the water, fighting to get onto her back, fighting . . . and failing. She wrapped her arms around her head, trying to protect her face and skull. Her shoulder banged into a stone so hard her arm tingled; her leg scraped over a rock so sharp she felt clothes and skin tear; and then she saw daylight glimmering on the rocks and heard distant shouts. The rope went slack. She rolled over and raised her head to look at the slash of light that was the opening to the cave, then screamed as a black silhouette filled it, lunged into the tunnel, and grabbed her ankles.
The man pulled her out and flung her into the stream, the water cushioning the fall but the impact still driving most of the air from her body. Helpless, literally breathless, she gaped up at the dark figure looming over her.
It was one of the Watchers. Something else dark and motionless lay to her left. She turned her head that way and saw, a dozen yards away, the second Watcher, staring blankly up through a Mask already crumbling away, revealing the sallow face beneath, slackened by death. Two arrows protruded from the red ruin of his neck.
“Bitch,” the Watcher snarled. He straddled her, his weight pushing her down into the icy water, sharp stones digging into her back. “They killed Karx without warning, then called to give you up or they’d kill us all. But they’ll kill me anyway, so the only way they’ll get you is the way I’m going to give them to you—with your throat slit from ear to ear!”
He grabbed her hair and pulled it back, exposing her throat. In absolute terror, Mara shoved at him as hard as she could, desperate to get him away from her, desperate to save her life—
Only a little magic still clung to her hand. But it wasn’t that magic that answered the silent scream for help that filled her mind, unvoiced because her lungs held too little air for her to produce a sound: instead, it was the magic inside the mountain.
It surged from the mouth of the tunnel, and this time Mara did not see it as made of many colors. This time it was pure white, white as the sun. It poured from the cave as though riding the surface of the rushing water. It enveloped her . . .
...and it burned. Pain like nothing she had ever imagined blotted out the weight of the Watcher astride her, blotted out the sight of the looming cliffs, blotted out the sky and the clouds, blotted out everything she had ever seen or done, heard or tasted, smelled or felt. Her world, her life, dissolved into burning white agony. She screamed, or thought she did, and out of desperate instinct to save her life and sanity, threw the magic away from her, threw it the only place she could—
—into the Watcher.
She didn’t see what happened to him. All she knew was that suddenly, absolutely, and with finality his weight vanished . . . and so did the all-enveloping pain.
She gasped one shuddering, lung-filling breath, exhaled in a rush, and fell into darkness.
EIGHTEEN
“I Have to Rescue Her”
DARKNESS: but not the darkness of dreamless sleep. This darkness was both less deep and more black. Less deep, because she dreamed. More black, for what she dreamed.
Grute. Over and over, Grute, naked, coming toward her . . . her hands on his head . . . the magic dripping from her fingers like clotted cream . . . the burst of light, the explosion of red and white and gray; Grute, headless, dropping to the ground, blood fountaining, spreading in a scarlet lake across the floor as his body twitched away the last of its life . . .
The Watcher, pulling her from the tunnel’s mouth, straddling her, dagger drawn, the tug of his hand in her hair, then the rush of power, of light, of unbelievable, searing pain . . .
Those same two images, over and over, not real and yet, in some ways, more real than waking reality. She lay trapped in her own brain, unable to wake, unable to hear, unable to break through the thick black walls of the prison the flood of magic from the cavern had made of her skull.
But, slowly, oh so slowly, those black walls thinned. Other dreams began to creep into her mind: bad dreams, but ordinary dreams, real and terrible enough, but without the glittering, hard-edged superreality of the images of Grute and the Watcher.
She dreamed of the mine, darkness of a different sort, the weight of stone, the body-soaking humidity, the ache in her shoulders and back, the shock of Katia’s bar slamming into her forearm, the sickening snap of the bone . . .
She dreamed of the moment of her Masking, the moment when the clay twisted and stiffened, the agony of her cheeks splitting, her nose breaking, and worse than that, the horror of her mother’s scream, the knowledge she would never see her parents again . . .
Bad dreams, terrible dreams, but still, only dreams. And then, finally, she stopped dreaming altogether . . .
...and then she woke.
She stared up at a ceiling of whitewashed stone, tinged blue by the light of early morning or late evening. It was not the ceiling of the camp hospital. It was not the underside of the bunk above hers in the longhouse. It was not the painted ceiling of her room in the Warden’s house. It was not the inside of the tent. And it most certainly was not the ceiling of her own room in her father’s house in Tamita, with its loose skylight providing easy access to the roof.
So where was she?
And how was she?
She lay without moving for a long moment, probing her own internal workings as though poking at a loose tooth with her tongue. She felt . . . weak. Thin. Stretched. Like a piece of linen pulled taut to make an artist’s canvas; too taut, so that it threatened to split down the middle at any moment.
Physically, she ached, every inch of her. Her right calf, which she remembered cutting on the rock as she was dragged from the cave, was bound in a clean white bandage. It throbbed slightly. She had other scrapes and bruises, though nothing else was bandaged.
She wore a thin white shift, and beneath that . . . a diaper. Again. At least it’s clean and dry, she thought.
She was thirsty. Parched, in fact. She could barely summon spit enough to swallow. And her stomach cramped with emptiness, though that didn’t seem nearly as important as her thirst.
How long had she been unconscious?
How long had she suffered those terrible visions of Grute and the Watcher, those horrible dreams of the mine and her Masking?
And again, where was she?
She took a deep breath, and by dint of enormous effort, raised her head.
Hewn ou
t of white-painted rock, the smallish room contained three other beds, all empty, interspersed with side tables and simple wooden chairs. An earthenware pitcher and a glazed tumbler stood on the table by her bed. Water! She looked at them longingly, but they might as well have been in Tamita: she couldn’t summon strength to reach for them.
A red curtain hung over an archway near her bed. A cool, salt-flavored breeze flowed in through a narrow, slit-like window in one wall, cut through several feet of rock. It was early morning, she decided; already the glow outside seemed brighter.
Her neck ached and her shoulders quivered from the effort of lifting her impossibly heavy head. She let it drop back to the pillow, and, bathed in cold sweat, lay there, shaking. At least, from the stone walls and narrow windows, not to mention the smell of the sea, she thought she knew where she was: the Secret City.
But how had she gotten there?
The last thing she remembered was that agonizing rush of magic. But how had it happened? She had had almost no magic on her hands, certainly not enough to do anything to the Watcher. But she hadn’t needed it. The magic had simply come, answering her call from its chamber deep inside the mountain like an eager dog rushing to its master . . .
...except, like an eager dog that didn’t know its own strength, it had almost killed her when it reached her.
Her father had never even hinted that such a thing was possible. He had said he could only use the magic from the basin—made of black lodestone, she knew now—filled for him from the stores of the Palace. And she had always heard, from her father, from her tutor, from everyone, that the Gifted had to touch magic to use it.
Maybe it didn’t really happen, she thought. Maybe I hit my head when I fell into the creek. Maybe everything else was a hallucination.
Maybe this is.
She looked around the room. “Hello?” she called, her voice so weak and thin it sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Hello?”
A young woman in a blue dress and white apron swept in through the red-curtained archway, frowning down at a tiny green-glass bottle she carried in her right hand. When Mara said “Hello?” again, her head jerked up so suddenly she bobbled the bottle and barely managed to regain control of it before it smashed to the stone floor.
Then she turned toward Mara, brown eyes wide beneath an unruly mass of curly black hair. “You’re awake!” she said. It sounded almost like an accusation.
“Shouldn’t I be?” Mara croaked.
The young woman blushed. “Sorry, I . . .” She took a deep breath, and smiled, so warmly that Mara’s momentary annoyance melted away like snow in the spring sun. “Sorry. My name is Asteria.”
Mara smiled back. “I’m Mara,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I startled you.”
Asteria laughed. “I don’t mind, believe me. I’ve been looking after you for the past two nights and I’ve been afraid you would never wake up at all!”
“In that case, I’m glad I startled you,” Mara said, and Asteria laughed again. Mara worked her dry mouth. “Could I . . . could I have a drink of water, please?”
“Oh! Of course!” Asteria turned to the side table and filled the tumbler from the pitcher. She bent down with it, put her arm under Mara’s head, and lifted her up so she could sip from the tumbler. She took several swallows. Her empty stomach cramped as the liquid hit it. She nodded, and Asteria put the tumbler back on the side table and lowered her to the pillow again. Mara winced as her stomach cramped again, then said, “How did I get here?”
“Edrik brought you in the day before last. He said they found you unconscious, and hadn’t been able to wake you. Hyram looked mad with worry. So did that other boy, Keltan.” Asteria grinned. “They’re both smitten with you, you know.”
“Um . . .” Mara felt her face redden. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“You should,” Asteria said confidently. “Believe me, I know about boys. My Maris is . . .” She stopped, and now it was her turn to blush. “Well, I know, that’s all.” And then her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh! I forgot! I shouldn’t be talking to you!”
“What?” Mara said, confused. “Why?”
“No, no, I didn’t mean . . .” Asteria stopped, took a deep breath, and made a pushing-down motion with her hands. “Let me start over. What I meant was, I was told to fetch Grelda the moment you woke. If you woke.” She paused, then added in a rush, “Um, which of course you have! Obviously.”
Mara laughed. “Obviously. So who’s Grelda?”
“Head Healer,” Asteria said promptly and proudly.
“A Healer?” Mara felt a surge of excitement. “Then she has the Gift?” Someone to teach me how to use it! she thought.
“The Gift?” Asteria looked puzzled for a moment, then her face cleared. “Oh, you mean magic!” She laughed. “No, no, don’t worry, there’s no magic here in the Secret City. No, she’s a regular Healer. She knows how the body works, how to fix the things that go wrong, herbs that help, that sort of thing.” She leaned closer and dropped her voice to a near whisper. “I’ve heard she can even cut open a living man and fix what’s wrong inside him, then sew him up again. But I’ve never seen it.” She shuddered. “Don’t want to!”
Mara felt more confused than ever. “But aren’t you her apprentice, or something?”
“Me?” Asteria giggled. “No, no. I’m her granddaughter. I couldn’t do what she does. Blood and . . . and other things. Yuck.”
“Then why are you . . . ?” Mara said, bewildered. She had the feeling bewilderment might be the natural state for anyone who spent much time with Asteria.
“Sometimes I help Gran with the stuff that’s not messy. She said you weren’t any trouble, you’d just lie here, maybe mutter or cry out, but not to worry, and not to wake her unless you actually woke up, or, or your diaper needed, um . . .” She blushed; then she looked stricken. “Oh! And now you’re awake! Look, I really must go get Gran.”
“I wish you would,” Mara said, but kindly; you couldn’t stay mad at Asteria. It would be like kicking a puppy.
Asteria rushed out. Mara, still feeling weak, but more alert by the minute, and much better since she’d had a little water, stared up at the whitewashed ceiling. A day and a half she’d been there, Asteria had said. At least two days’ travel before that. It must be six days since she’d left the camp. She felt a chill. How long would the Warden wait before he decided something was wrong and send out Watchers to look for his missing geologists?
How long would he wait before blaming Mara for it, and making Katia pay the price?
I’ve got to go back there, she thought in sudden desperation. I’ve got to save her!
The deaths of Grute and the Watcher already dragged on her soul. She thought it would collapse completely under the additional weight of Katia’s suffering in her stead.
Asteria returned with “Gran” within a quarter of an hour. Mara heard Asteria’s chatter a good twenty seconds before she swept in through the red curtain, her grandmother in tow.
Grelda proved to be a woman of the same vintage as Catilla, and, like Catilla, tiny: no taller than Mara, and a good head and a half shorter than her granddaughter, who pointed at Mara with proprietary glee, as though personally responsible for her waking up, and said, “See!”
“Yes, child,” Grelda said in the tone of voice one would use to quiet a skittish horse. She came over to Mara’s bedside and bent down. “Hold still,” she said. For the next few moments she poked and prodded, lifting Mara’s arm and letting it fall, taking her pulse in her wrist and in her neck, feeling her abdomen, feeling her forehead, peeling back an eyelid to get a good look at her eyes, making her stick out her tongue and open her mouth wide. In the end she leaned back. “There is nothing obviously wrong with you,” she said. “But there has not been anything obviously wrong with you since Edrik brought you back. Except, of course, you would not wake up. So why were you
unconscious? Did you suffer a blow to the head? A shortage of breath? A disruption of the rhythm of the heart?”
Mara shook her head. “No,” she said. “It was the magic.”
Grelda’s eyes narrowed. “Magic?”
“Yes,” Mara said. She told Grelda what had happened, how the rush of magic that had come from the cave had almost killed her—and presumably had killed the Watcher.
Grelda’s lips thinned as she listened. “No one,” she said in a low, angry voice, “told me you had the Gift. No one told me your condition might have been caused by magic.” Something about the way she said “no one” made Mara think she had a very specific someone in mind.
Grelda turned to Asteria. “Fetch Edrik,” she snapped. “And then inform Catilla that I intend to have a word with her.” From the way she said it, Mara thought it clear that Grelda had no fear Catilla would refuse that word. They’re almost of an age, Mara thought. I wonder . . .
“Were you one of the original ones?” she said. “One of those who founded the Secret City?”
Grelda watched Asteria bustle out of sight, then turned to Mara again. “I was,” she said. “My family, and Catilla’s, and three others.” She frowned. “This is common knowledge. Why do you ask?”
“It’s not common knowledge to me,” Mara pointed out.
“Hmmm. Nor is the fact you have the Gift common knowledge to me,” Grelda said. “But it should have been.” She thought for a moment. “Wait here,” she said. “I have something that may help.”
She swished out through the hanging curtain, leaving Mara to lie in the now-bright room and wonder just where else she could possibly go.
Grelda returned after ten minutes or so, holding a steaming mug in both hands. The morning breeze blowing through the window slit wafted the scent of the mug’s contents to Mara’s nostrils: fresh, floral, sweet, spicy. It smelled like . . . like good things to eat, a spring morning, her mother’s sun-warmed hair, all at the same time. She’d never smelled anything like it. She’d never smelled anything more wonderful.
