Havenstar (13 page)

‘Ah, there you
are,’ the chantor greeted her cheerfully, reinforcing his relief
with a kinesis. ‘I was beginning to worry. This is not a place to
be wandering about in at night, lass. You’re a mite too confident
for your own safety, you know.’ He handed her a plate of bread and
a hunk of meat he’d grilled over the campfire. ‘Fresh beef I bought
from a hawker for both of us.’

She accepted
his rebuke with a nod, knowing he was right, and took the food with
thanks. As she sat beside the fire to eat, she was glad of his
presence and reflected wryly that she’d never thought she would be
grateful for the company of a rule-chantor. She did not think Thirl
would be able to find her or the tent in the dark, but she was
worried nonetheless. Come daylight he would find her fast enough,
and if he intended to charge her with theft, she was in trouble. At
the very least, he could force her home.

‘Chantor
Portron,’ she said, ‘I think I’ve changed my mind. If Master Davron
Storre will have me, I’m going to leave with you tomorrow.’

He gaped at
her, face blank, white hair a halo lit by firelight. ‘You want to
go to the Eighth Stability?’

‘No. No, just
as far as Pickle’s Halt. That’s about a week into the Unstable.
It’s a—private matter. A pilgrimage of sorts, I suppose. My father
died there, you see.’

Suddenly, she
had an unbidden vision of Storre as she had seen him back in
Kibbleberry, hard as knotted ironwood, all muscle and toughness
dressed in worn brown leather and coarse linen. A man who had done
something so shameful it could make him flush like a chantora
teased by the town rake. She had to remind herself that the Minions
of Chaos could not survive in a stability. Could not, in fact, pass
the kinesis chain. Davron Storre, therefore, could not belong to
the Unmaker.
Besides, no Minion would blush, for Maker’s
sake…

~~~~~~~

Portron had
his own vision as he watched Keris. For a brief moment he was
transported back more than twenty years… A face under the wimple of
her Ordering, freckles across a straight nose, and frightened grey
eyes looking into his. He had not been so very young then, but his
fingers had trembled as he loosened the wimple and seen her hair
for the first time: soft and fine and long.

‘I’ll try not
to hurt you, Maylie,’ he’d said.

‘I hope it
takes a long time to make a baby,’ she’d whispered, love shining
through her fear. ‘I want it to take forever.’

~~~~~~~

And Chantry
shall guide us, and be our protection against Lord Carasma the
Unmaker. They have established the Rule, and they shall oversee the
establishment of Order in every stability, devoting their lives to
our well-being and the defeat of Chaos. Honour them and give them
their due.

—Knights X: 12:
2-3 (Melcom the Pious)

Rugriss
Ruddleby was seated at his desk in the Anhedrin’s office of the
Chantry Hall in Middleton, going through a pile of reports. The
Chantry Hall was the most impressive building in the whole of the
Eighth Stability, possibly in all the stabilities, and the
Anhedrin’s office was the most magnificently appointed room in the
building, as befitted the head of the sixteen-member Sanhedrin, the
ruling council of Chantry. The ceiling and walls were heavy with
gilt and festooned with ornate tracery. Chandeliers dripped
crystals, chairs squatted on curled carvings, polished onyx gleamed
on table tops, inlaid wood parquetry was evidence of trees
slaughtered with scant attention to the Rule. What did that matter
after all? This was only one room in one building, and anyway it
was dedicated to the greater glory of the Maker, blessed be His
name…

The office had
belonged to Rugriss Ruddleby for a year past, and it would be his
for another two years, before a strict cycle of rotation passed the
position of Anhedrin on to another of the Sanhedrin. Rugriss had
long coveted the post, but now that it was his he was finding the
responsibility and the decision-making that went along with the
power was fraught with petty irritations. Or worse. Not even the
gilded luxury of his surroundings could make up for the major
worries and aggravations of being Anhedrin.

He was a tall
thin man with a lean face and, in spite of his anxieties, he was
still as sleek as a cat on the prowl, thanks be. He carried no
excess weight, his muscles were hard to the touch, his stomach as
flat as a millstone and he did not look his age. He believed a
person should care for the body that the Maker had created for him,
so he exercised, he watched his diet, and if taking care of himself
also meant adding a little colour to greying hair, then he wasn’t
past doing that either.

Someone had
once told him that frowning encouraged wrinkles, so he was careful
not to frown as he read the report from a devotions-chantor that
had happened to come across his desk, but he
felt
like
frowning. The report disturbed him, although it took him a while to
realise exactly why. After some thought, he took hold of his stole
of office and shook it in an agitated fashion. The pure silver
bells around the fringe at its end tinkled like wind-chimes and the
nacre sewn to the gold satin of the stole flashed with
kaleidoscopic colour.

A lowly
novice-chantor hurried in to the office in answer to the
summons.

Rugriss did
not look up. ‘Ask Hedrina Cylrie Mannertee if she would be so kind
as to step into my office.’ He was deliberately brusque, and the
novice hurried to obey, slippers slapping on the polished
parquetry.

The hedrina,
however, took her time in coming. It was a full half hour before
she appeared at the door. Cylrie, the sole female member of the
Sanhedrin, did not believe in hurrying anywhere, least of all to
the summons of someone who’d once been her lover. When she did
arrive, it was with languid ease. She was a tall, regal woman. Like
him, she had a certain stature that proclaimed itself without her
ever having to open her mouth. Although she was greying over the
temples and the first wrinkles of age were already lining her face,
he had to admit she was still a beautiful woman.

Also like him,
she was dressed in the robes of the Sanhedrin. The red gown of silk
reached her ankles, the gold stole of office was draped around her
neck with its bells tinkling below the knee, and the heavily beaded
belt of blue and gold was clasped around her waist. Over the top
she’d flung a fur-trimmed cope of shot-silk, embroidered with the
Chantry motif at the front edges. She shrugged the cope off on to a
chair as she crossed to sit in front of him.

She gave him a
lazy wave of her hand in greeting, causing the precious stones in
the rings she wore to flash gaudily. ‘Well, Ru, what is it that
merits a summons at this hour? You interrupted my session with the
cloth merchant. He was just showing me some new silks—’

He cut her
short. ‘A report I’ve just received.’ He flung it across the desk.
‘Here, you read this and see what you make of it. The man who wrote
it is a devotions-chantor who was accompanying a fellowship on its
way between the Third and the Fourth Stabs.’

She took the
paper and read it carefully. Then she raised an arched eyebrow at
Rugriss. ‘So?’ she drawled. ‘A traumatic experience for the poor
man, I’ll grant you, but of what possible significance is the death
of a mapmaker and a few pilgrims in a halt? Even if it did occur in
a rather unusual and bloodthirsty fashion?’

‘Firstly
because it smacks of a certain desperation on the part of the
Minion concerned, and therefore on the part of Carasma. And
anything that prompts the Unmaker Lord to desperation is surely of
interest to us. And secondly, did you not note what the chantor
said concerning the man who was asking about this same mapmaker
several days earlier?’

Cylrie glanced
back at the paper and then clicked her polished fingernails in
recognition. ‘Of course! It’s Edion!’

Rugriss
nodded. ‘Yes. Our elusive ex-Knight has surfaced. Now why do you
think he would be so interested in a mapmaker, the same mapmaker
that intrigued one of Lord Carasma’s Minions so much that they
ventured into a halt?’

Cylrie shook
her head. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘Unfortunately, neither have I. But it worries me. And Edion has
vanished again, of course. He could be anywhere in the Unstable by
now.’

‘The rumours
about this place called Havenstar continue?’

He nodded
grimly. ‘And often linked to a man who fits Edion’s description.
But the rumours are so…so
grotesque
. Impossible! How can one
believe in such a place? One may as well believe in dragons!’

She looked at
him shrewdly. ‘Why, Ru dear, I do believe you are worrying. That’s
not becoming in an Anhedrin.’

‘Don’t needle
me, Cylrie. This is a worrying matter. There’s a certain
restlessness among the excluded of the Unstable that I don’t like.
There are rumours, there’s an anti-Chantry sentiment, and there is
evidence to suggest that Edion is behind it.’ He grimaced. ‘We made
the biggest mistake of our lives when we excluded him. We should
have kept him within Chantry where we could keep an eye on him. The
man is dangerous.’

‘Huh! You’ve
changed your rhyme in mid-verse. You were the one who always had a
compassionate word when we wiser souls railed against Edion of
Galman.’ She shook out a sleeve and admired the fall of the
fabric.

‘So, I was
wrong. I admit it. The problem is: what do we do now?’

‘That’s
obvious. Chase him down and bring him in. Send a contingent of
Defenders after him.’

‘Not so easy.
How do I justify that? The man was excluded! The Defenders are not
going to be happy if I order a contingent to scour the Unstable to
bring in a man we ourselves insisted on banning from
stability.’

‘You’ll have
to choose between upsetting the Defenders, or letting Edion
continue to do whatever it is he’s doing,’ she said impatiently. ‘I
can’t see any alternative. Making difficult decisions is what being
the Anhedrin is all about, Ru.’

He looked at
her, frustrated. He had foolishly hoped she’d be able to offer some
miraculous advice that would solve the problem, and of course she
could not. Knight Edion of Galman had never been a man to be dealt
with lightly.

‘You’re right
of course. I’ll compromise. I’ll put out word to all Defenders and
chantors making crossings to keep an ear and an eye out for him,
and when he is found to bring him, preferably by persuasion.’ He
fiddled with the papers on his desk. ‘I’ll admit Edion scares me.
When we were boys together in the chantery, he had a mind as sharp
as a fyrcat’s fang, and about as devious. All of eleven years old,
and he was ruthless. Not cruel, but as ruthless as only the really
righteous can be. And that makes him a dangerous man. I keep on
remembering that bit in Predictions, about a man cast out in the
darkness, only to rise up and change the world—’

‘You think
that’s Edion? Bah! You can’t be serious! Haven’t you noticed how
predictions can always be twisted to fit what you want? Remember
the tale of Wedlear the domain lord, who went to the witch to ask
what would happen if he cheated his neighbour’s widow and her son
out of their inheritance? “There will be established the greatest
domain in all the land,” the witch promised. So Wedlear cheated the
widow, but the lad put an arrow through him in revenge and then
seized all his land. There was a great domain established, all
right, but it wasn’t Wedlear’s! And that, in my opinion, sums it
all up as far as predictions are concerned.’

‘And the moral
is: don’t read the Holy Books?’ he asked ironically.

‘The moral is
read the Book of Predictions with a great deal of scepticism.
Ley-fire, I never thought you would take one whit of notice of such
superstitious nonsense.’

‘Watch that
tongue of yours. That sounds perilously close to heresy.’

‘Rubbish.’ She
began to buff her nails on her stole, but her gaze was thoughtful.
‘Haven’t you any ideas about the reason for this attack on the halt
and the mapmaker?’

‘I don’t know
what to make of it. The only thing I can think of is that Havenstar
exists and that this mapmaker had a map of its location. Presumably
Carasma doesn’t like the idea of a Havenstar anymore than we do.
Perhaps he wants to find out where it is. And what it is.’ He
shrugged, a taut shrug of frustration. ‘I don’t know. The
desperation I sense in the attack, it doesn’t fit with what’s
happening elsewhere. Chaos is winning. Carasma is winning. You have
only to look at how the stabilities grow smaller with each passing
year to know he wins. A report I had last week says a whole
mountain vanished from the Impassables. The week before it was a
ley line penetrating deep into the Sixth, crossing the kinesis
chain as easily as it would a garden hedge. And there doesn’t seem
to be a thing we can do to stop the inroads. Order is no longer
enough. The kinesis chain is no longer enough. All our devotions
are no longer enough…’ He looked up from his reports and there was
real despair in his eyes. ‘We’re losing, Cylrie, and I don’t know
what to do about it.’

‘If the
presence of a mapmaker could somehow cause the Unmaker Lord to act
precipitately even though he is winning, it would be interesting to
know why,’ she mused. ‘The Minion could have easily waited until
the mapmaker had left the halt before slaughtering him. Instead she
confronted the Order of the halt, which can’t have been a pleasant
experience for her… Yes, I see your point.’ She thought for a
moment. ‘Well, it seems to me the only person who may just be able
to throw some light on the matter is Edion. All the more reason to
hunt him down.’