by J. V. Jones
And then, even as the surlord approached the big chair, it happened. The pump in the stables started to creak. The hand crank jerked up violently, and water began to gush from around the seal. Almost immediately the lead trough filled to overflowing and fluid spilled in sheets to the floor of the quad. Everyone, including the surlord, turned to look. The groom nearest the trough tried to force the handle back down, but he just created more pressure and the water spurted higher. A horse by the stable door shied. Another one tried to buck its rider. Someone called for the stablemaster. The stablemaster, a big man wearing a leather apron, rushed out to take a look. Water was rushing over toward Traitor’s Doom now, and the fancy patterned carpets placed nearby.
The stablemaster shook his head, took a nervous look at the surlord who was nearly at his chair. “Anyone here know pumps?” he shouted, slightly hysterically, to the crowd.
It was Crope’s cue. Stepping out from the line of petitioners he said in a soft voice, “Master, I know the pumps.”
The stablemaster looked him up and down. Crope could tell he didn’t like what he saw, but his pump seal had broken and the surlord was watching and he didn’t have much of a choice. Beckoning Crope impatiently, he said, “Well, come forward then. See to it.”
Crope did just that, and for an instant, as he left the other petitioners behind, he felt the pressure of the surlord’s attention on his back. It chilled him down through his new clothes to his skin.
When he arrived at the flooding pump he began to feel better. Pumps he knew. Kneeling, he set his big hands on the pump shaft and twisted, pulling the entire cranking mechanism from the ground. Straightaway the pressure abated, and once he’d drawn the seven-foot plunger shaft from the well-hole, the flow fell off to a manageable run.
The stablemaster sighed in relief. Horses calmed. One of the grooms standing close to the trough winked once at Crope and then was gone. Quill’s man in the fortress.
Crope was soaked, but so intent on saying his next line properly that he barely noticed. “Needs tow and clay—for the seal.”
The stablemaster looked at his grooms. None moved. “Well, go and fetch what the man needs,” he ordered them. “And you. Get him a towel.”
The excitement was over. Grooms drifted away, walking their horses into the stables and fetching brooms to manage the water spill. Over by Traitor’s Doom, Surlord’s Justice was called into session, and the first petitioner moved forward to kneel on the patterned—and only very slightly dampened—carpets.
Crope reached inside his cloak and scratched Town Dog’s ears, hunkering down for a long wait. By the time the groom came back with a pot of tow and a hunk of clay wrapped in a wet cloth, the surlord had seen over two dozen petitioners. The man was quick, Crope had to give him that.
Accepting the tow, Crope made a point of squinting hard at the clay just as Quill had advised. “If they bring red clay ask for gray,” he’d said. “If they bring gray ask for red. That’ll keep ’em busy for awhile.”
“Needs red,” Crope said gently.
The groom, a stick of a boy with big lips and a big nose, sneered at him. “ ’S no difference.”
“Needs red,” Crope insisted.
The groom rolled his eyes.
“He wants red,” ordered the stablemaster, coming to stand at the head of the trough. “Get him red.”
The groom huffed and went off in search of more clay. The stablemaster watched Crope for a moment, shook his head with feeling, and then walked away.
Crope waited again. The line of petitioners was dwindling now, as the red cloaks guarding the surlord ordered a limit on the length of all applications. Every so often, the surlord would turn to his Master-of-Purse and command coin to be dispensed to a petitioner. Gradually, the quad began to darken. Braziers were brought out to illuminate Traitor’s Doom, and safe-lamps were lit within the stables.
Still the groom didn’t return. Crope’s stomach rumbled as the surlord heard the final petition. Checking that no one was paying attention either to him or to the pump, Crope quickly reversed his cloak, raised the hood, and leant back into the shadows behind the trough. Gray for day. Brown for sundown. This side of the cloak was a bit strange, shimmery like water, and Crope decided he liked the other side much better.
Finally, the Surlord Justice was done and the surlord stood and made his way back to the fat tower. As the servants came to disassemble the canopy and roll carpets, the groom returned with a square of red clay. He appeared to have some difficulty seeing Crope at first, and when he finally spotted him he was not pleased. “Had to go all the way to Potters Walk for it,” he complained, letting the clay drop at Crope’s feet. “You best be done soon, else you’ll be locked in for the night.”
Crope took the clay and began to knead it. Kneading was soothing. It made time pass. When the stable’s double doors rolled closed he kept kneading. When the stablemaster came out, peered into the shadows by the trough, and said to himself, “He’s upped and gone,” Crope kept kneading. Unease kills thieves.
The fortress fell into quiet and darkness around him. When Crope judged it safe he stood. Muscles in his legs that hadn’t moved for hours threw cramps, and he had to rest his weight on his staff for a moment.
Come to me, his lord had commanded. And now at last he could.
Crossing the quad, he headed for the boarded-up gallery that ran opposite to the stables and bordered the pointy tower. Quill had warned him that he was on his own once darkness came. “Thieves may help other thieves,” he had said. “But the act of thievery must be committed alone.” Crope understood that. A man could only rely on himself past a certain point.
A boarded-up window at cellar level collapsed inward as he kicked it hard with his foot. Wood splintered and there was a sharp crack as the board hit the floor, but Crope couldn’t say he much cared. His lord was very close and very weak, and Crope had waited patiently long enough.
The drop down wasn’t as bad as he feared, and he rolled out of it without harm. Releasing Town Dog from her pouch, he went in search of a stairway.
His eyes had already grown accustomed to darkness in the quad and he found his bearings quickly. The chamber ran the length of the gallery with stairs at either end. Crope headed in the direction of the tower and climbed. By the time he emerged at ground level his heart was racing in strange and painful ways. A great sense of urgency filled him, and when he saw the wooden door to the pointy tower he ran toward it with all his might.
Crack! The door jumped in its frame but did not give. He went at it again, and again, ramming his shoulders into the wood. On the fourth assault it gave, and the noise it made as it crashed open was deafening.
Crope and Town Dog stepped into the cold darkness of the Splinter. A chill mist curled up around them, and for the first time in eighteen years Crope could feel the living, breathing essence of his lord. It nearly drove him insane.
As he moved toward the stairway a soft click sounded, and a section of wall began to swing inward.
Come to me.
Shivers passed along Crope’s spine as he descended into the underworld. He could not see, Town Dog could not see, but somehow they were guided. Down they went, the chasm below them roaring with wind, the first sounds of alert echoing from above.
By the time they reached the first chamber, Crope was taking four stairs at a time. Wildly, he swung his head in great half-circles, searching for his lord.
Farther down.
Crope could not take the final stairs fast enough. A door bolted from the outside halted him. The horror of that one little thing, what it said about the man who’d taken his lord, made the white rage fork behind his eyes. Wedging his fingers behind the bolt he tore off the entire plate. Locked up and never let out. Crope knew all about that.
And then, quite suddenly, he was in the presence of his lord. Tears sprang to Crope’s eyes as he knelt by the hideous iron cradle and touched the man who was his life. Gently, carefully, he lifted him, trying hard not to think
about the terrible lightness, the diminishment of his lord. Chains tugged against him so he broke them like twigs. He wished for more. Suddenly there were not enough things in the world to break.
His lord weighed so little it was like carrying a young child. Almost he could not bear it, the thought of what his lord had borne. As he carried Baralis up through the large chamber and into the chasm he heard Town Dog growl.
A figure with a lamp standing halfway down the great spiraling flight of steps froze. The surlord. The pale-eyed man.
Something for Crope to break.
“Come to me!” he roared, charging toward him. “COME TO ME!”
The figure turned and began to head back up the steps. White rage filled Crope, gushing through his body like water from the pump. His eyesight sharpened, his muscles engorged, and he was filled with the strength of ten men. Cradling his lord with one arm, he hoisted his staff over his shoulder with his left hand and let it fly.
The staff punctured the surlord’s chest like a sword, impaling him from behind and knocking him forward onto the steps. Crope was upon him in a matter of seconds, not caring if the surlord were alive or dead, and heaved his jerking, bleeding body into the abyss.
That was when the first rumble started—a deep bellowing of rock followed by a high-pitched creak. The tower shook. Stone facings popped from the walls. Crope hurried to carry his lord to the surface.
A great black crack opened up, running forking splits along the curtain wall. Something gave with the force of snapped rock. The tower heaved. Masonry flew past Crope’s head. Dust bloomed, thick and acrid, and when Crope rubbed it from his eyes he saw two figures barring the way out.
Red cloaks, the ones who had accompanied the surlord to and from the fat tower. One fair, one dark.
Without a staff he had no weapon . . . and they were big men. Crope had no choice but to meet them. The red cloaks drew swords and waited.
The stairway was buckling now, and capstones and risers were flying from it with small explosions. Crope climbed the final stairs. Hunching his shoulders to protect his lord, he received the red cloaks’ blows. They were wary, surprised. One of them looked ill. Sticking him with their swords, they opened deep cuts on his arms and shoulders. Pain came, but it wasn’t much really. It would not stop him. He was calm now, the white rage gone. The cuts of the red cloaks’ swords stung and he could feel his own blood, running slow and unnaturally hot over his skin.
When the tower lurched violently to the side, one of the red cloaks lost his footing and went screaming into the chasm. Crope pushed past the remaining man, the dark-haired one, receiving stabs to the liver and buttocks. At some point the man ceased stabbing, perhaps to save himself. Crope continued to climb. He and his lord could feel the breeze now. A new beginning was in sight.
The tallest tower in the North collapsed, sending debris across quarter of the city, as Crope carried his lord to safety.
FORTY-SIX
A Fortress of Grey Ice
The hour before dawn was a strange time on the dry riverbed. Noises echoed softly across the trench. Raif heard the sound of water splashing and the low moan of a great blue heron as he lay bunched within his blanket, emerging from sleep. When he opened his eyes the sounds fled, and it was easy to believe he’d never heard anything at all. The mist was different. Just before dawn it filled the trench and began flowing like a river, moving with muscular force. The first time it had happened Raif and the pony had been sleeping in the center of the riverbed and the mist river had rolled over them. It had been the only time the little pony had abandoned him, her ears down and her eyes wide in panic as she fled the trench. He made sure neither of them slept there again.
For the past few days they had climbed from the riverbed each night, and had made camp on the raised bank. The Want was full of ghosts. Sometimes when Raif looked up at the misplaced stars, he wondered if he wasn’t seeing them as they had once appeared in a different Age.
Whole days had passed when Raif believed the Want was leading him in circles, where every bend of the river and outcropping of rock looked familiar. One morning he had scratched his mark on a flat slab of granite embedded in the river wall, imagining that here was a way to know if he passed this point again. Raif sucked in his breath, half smiling at his own lack of insight. Nothing was that straightforward in the Want. Within an hour he had passed a second slab of granite so similar to the first one that he began to wonder if some man or ghost had purposely erased his mark. Within two hours he began to doubt that he’d actually made a mark, imagining that perhaps he had intended to, or dreamt he had but never actually gone ahead with scribing a raven’s likeness in the stone.
That was the secret of the Want, Raif had discovered. It made you doubt yourself. It was better not to worry that the river trench was taking you nowhere. Even if that were true there was exactly nothing you could do about it. The Want took you wherever it chose to.
Raif did the things he could: kept the pony’s wounds greased and her coat well tended, rationed his food, watched for clean ice that could be melted for water. The rest he could not control.
Even the days themselves were hard to track. Raif thought he had spent perhaps seven nights here, but he could not be certain. The food stash was down to hardtack, dry meat, the last few lardcakes, and the oiled grain for the pony. That seemed as good a gauge of time as anything else here; how much food you ate on the journey.
The earth moved every day, he knew that much. Small tremors that set the river debris bouncing and sent loose stones rolling down the banks. The middle of the trench was the best place to be then. Two days ago there had been a sustained shaking that had opened cracks in the riverbed. Raif had dropped to his knees while rocks crashed from the trench walls and a storm of dust whirled around him. When the dust settled, he saw that boulders the size of haystacks had moved, and the riverbed’s crust had split for leagues. Shatan Maer, Raif thought with a shiver. Time grows short.
Shrugging off his blanket, he rose to his feet. The mist river had passed, and dawn was showing pink on two opposite horizons. He ignored them both and went to rub down the pony.
The cut on her heel looked a little better, drier and scabbed, and she didn’t shy when he greased it. She knew the routine now—greasing, brushing, bandaging her hocks, and then a treat—and took it all with stout resignation. Every day Raif sent silent thanks to the outlander for forcing her upon him. She made the journey bearable. They were two, not one. And Raif found it frighteningly easy to imagine what would become of one man alone in the Want.
As they broke camp and set back down the slope toward the river trench, Raif decided it was time the pony had a name. He thought for a moment, and then a band of muscle began to tighten slowly around his chest. Every part of his mind held traps and this was one of them. Moose, that was the name of his last horse, given to him by Orwin Shank. Bitty’s Da.
Raif dragged a hand across his face, pressing hard against his eyes and teeth. That was the thing with clan; all those connections. You injured one, you injured them all.
What have I turned into? But he knew the answers, they were all in his names. Twelve Kill. Watcher of the Dead. Mor Drakka.
There was nothing to do but carry on down the course of the river, not knowing if he was heading east or west. After a time he rested his hand on the pony’s neck, and some time after that it all became bearable again. That was when the pony’s name came to him. Bear: with all its connections, just like clan.
It wasn’t an especially feminine name, but it suited her, and that’s what counted. Raif called her it a few times and she flicked her ears and seemed to take to it. She was walking better now, not resting her injured leg as much. It was a good day for a name.
Bear. Raif breathed in deeply, feeling his lungs push against the last traces of tightness in his chest. He’d always wanted the bear lore, like Drey and Da; now he had the bear horse instead.
Morning passed, or perhaps it didn’t. The light changed, turn
ing the sky a shade of blue he’d only ever seen before in deep, algae-covered water. Clouds were in their usual place, around the sun. A day moon showed for a while, and then was snuffed. The problem with walking in a trench was that there was little to look at but the sky. During the day Raif barely caught a glimpse of the headland. Sometimes he saw the needle peaks of basalt spires, or long barrows of mounded rocks. Once he’d seen a fully petrified tree, its main branches all preserved. Mostly, he looked at the river walls.
The trench varied in width and depth, but even at its narrowest point Raif judged it to be a third of a league wide. Its landscape of rock, calcified debris, tumbled stones and frozen earth changed as he walked. Seams of fossils were exposed in some places, revealing the forms of creatures Raif did not know. In other sections he saw where the force of the river had worn hard granite smooth, and elsewhere noticed that softer rock had been broken into sand. At midday he spotted something that made the hairs rise on his neck. Steps, a flight of them cut into the bank. He slowed Bear and they went to investigate.
The steps ended at a point partway down the river terrace, and to reach them they had to climb a wall of trap rock. Bear was sure-footed, but Raif found himself making mistakes and stumbling. This was the first sign of a civilization he had seen since entering the Want. Someone had cut these steps, perhaps so they could wash clothes in the river or bathe. Steps meant a settlement. Close.
As Raif reached the first square-cut ledge, a reflex action made him check the sky—it was how he’d come to measure the Want, to gauge its temper. All changes in the Great Want were foreshadowed by the sky.
Clouds were on the move, rolling toward him in waves, and the colors in the sky were changing. The Gods Lights had begun to burn.
It was time.
Bear sniffed the step at some length before she put a hoof upon it. Raif knew exactly how she felt. After so many days of walking on rough rock, the hewn stone felt strange beneath his feet. The steps were low but wide, each one about ten paces in length. People could have sat upon them, talking whilst they cooled their feet in the river. Raif tried to imagine what the Old Ones had looked like, but his mind was strangely blank. The Listener had told him so little about them, and Heritas Cant even less. Their Age had long passed, he knew that. In a way, these steps were like the fossils he’d seen earlier: a sign of life lost.
