The Margrave-crow 4 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Broken Hills

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  The Mirrors of Halen

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  The Barrier of Pain

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  The Crucible of Fire

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  The Makers

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Praise

  Praise

  About the Author

  DIAL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Published by The Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Auckland, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States 2011

  by Dial Books

  an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

  First published in Great Britain by Red Fox 2001

  Copyright © 2001 by Catherine Fisher

  All rights reserved

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fisher, Catherine, date.

  The Margrave / by Catherine Fisher.

  p. cm.—(Relic Master ; 4)

  Summary: Their quest to find a secret relic with great power leads

  Master Galen and his sixteen-year-old apprentice, Raffi, into the Pitts

  of Maar and the deep evil world at the heart of the Watch.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-51767-3

  [1. Fantasy. 2. Apprentices—Fiction. 3. Antiquities—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F4995Mar 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010043237

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  I think you should confide this fear to your master, the tree said gently.

  Raffi gave a sour laugh. “No point.”

  He is, I admit, difficult to approach. A small sparkbird, brilliantly red, fluttered among the branches; the tree rustled thoughtfully over Raffi’s head. If he was one of my kind, he would be holly. Or dark firethorn that grows in the chasm of Zeail. Such a one is Galen.

  Raffi nodded. He lay on his back in the dappled green light, eyes closed against the sun. The tree was a birch; young, and very curious.

  Tell me where it takes you, this Deep Journey.

  “It’s a vision.” Raffi sat up and gazed out hopelessly into the depths of the warm spring woodland. “It happens in your mind. The Litany says there are different “ stages—the Cosmic Tree, the Plain of Hunger.”

  Hunger is a sensation?

  “Emptiness. No food.”

  Indeed. The tree sounded fascinated. Our roots are always storing. Rootless creatures, it seems to me, are most vulnerable. The Makers were wise, but sometimes we feel you were something of a failed experiment.

  “And then,” Raffi said, half to himself, “comes something called the Barrier of Pain.”

  The tree was silent. Finally it whispered, You fear that. He nodded. “And the last thing even more. To be a keeper every scholar must pass through utter darkness into something the books won’t even describe. They call it the Crucible of Fire.”

  Fire! The birch shuddered down to its very roots, every leaf quivering. The sparkbird flew out with a cheep of alarm. Fire is the worst of enemies! The Watch burned the forest of Harenak, every leaf, every sapling. Who could fail to mourn so many deaths?

  “Raffi!”

  Galen had woken in a black temper. He came out of the shelter, still looking tired, and snapped, “Any news?”

  “Nothing.”

  “As soon as there is, let me know.” The keeper turned, tugging his black hair loose from the knot of string. “And stop wasting your time. Read! Flain knows you need to.”

  Raffi picked the book up without glancing at it. “He’s a nightmare,” he muttered, “since Marco died.”

  The tree was silent.

  Galen limped between the birches to the stream. He waded in, scooping the cold water up to drink, splashing it over his face. For weeks he had been working on the sense-lines, driving himself nonstop. Already they had a chain of lines between a few known keepers and through re-awakened channels of tree-minds and earth-filaments that reached to Tasceron itself; in fact, last night, after days of effort, Galen had spoken with Shean, the keeper of the Pyramid in the Wounded City. It had been a triumph. But it had worn him out.

  Looking down on him, Raffi thought of the night of Marco’s death, of Galen’s terrible oath, that he would seek out the Margrave. That he would kill the Margrave.

  “That’s why he’s so desperate to set the sense-grid up. And to get me through the Journey. He thinks he won’t come back alive.”

  Now, the tree said gently, you are really afraid.

  Raffi jumped up, brushing pollen from his clothes. Already it was back, that sickening terror he could never lose for long. He felt the tree’s consciousness spiraling into him, intrigued.

  Do you really believe, it whispered, curious, that this Margrave is hunting especially for you?

  “I can’t talk anymore.” Raffi turned abruptly, blocking its voice out. Sickness was already surging in him, a choking stress, blurring the tree-words to a crackle of leaves. He started to stumble through to the stream, then swung around for the book, feeling the sweat on his back chill as he bent, dizziness making his vision spin. He gasped and leaned on the tree.

  Raffi, it said urgently, its voice bursting through his panic. Someone comes!

  Bewildered, he felt for the sense-lines. They were intact.

  “Galen!” His voice was a whisper, a croak, but the keeper was already racing up; a firm hand grabbed him.

  “The Watch?”

  “Can’t be. Can’t feel anything.” Weak, he crouched on the tree roots. Galen spun around, facing the footsteps.

  It was the Sekoi.

  Wiping his clammy mouth and streaming eyes, Raffi staggered up and tried to focus, but the creature was close to them before he could see it properly. Then he stared. The Sekoi was worn and ragged. Dried blood clogged its fur from a half-healed wound under one ear. Its yellow eyes were glazed with weariness.

  Galen grabbed its thin shoulders. “For God’s sake, did they ambush you? Have they got the Coronet?”

  Exhausted, the creature collapsed onto the leafy bank. For a moment it seemed too worn out to speak. Then it whispered, “The Coronet is safe in Sar
res. We were on our way back when we ran into the Watch.”

  “Thank God,” Galen breathed, but the Sekoi seemed not to hear. Over his shoulder it glanced at Raffi. “They’ve got Carys,” it said hopelessly.

  The Broken Hills

  1

  When the work of the Makers stopped, Halen fell silent. He answered no one. He climbed far into the hills and built a fearsome castle. He built it in a day and a night, and no one came there but himself. Throughout its dim corridors, there were mirrors.

  Book of the Seven Moons

  THE SLAP WAS HARD, and when she dragged her head up she tasted blood.

  Breathing deeply, she stared at the Watch captain. Fury almost made her quiver. Fury and fear.

  “I said, get in line,” he snarled.

  Carys stepped back, giving one glance at the old woman who lay collapsed on the verge of the road. The Watch captain turned and prodded the inert body with his boot. When it didn’t move he kneeled and took out a knife.

  Carys stiffened.

  But all he did was slice the rope that held the woman to the rest of the prisoners.

  “Are you just going to leave her there!” Carys snapped.

  “She’s no good to us. You there, at the front! Walk!”

  The razorhounds snarled and scrabbled at the mesh of their cages, and the small line of prisoners stumbled quickly back into motion, the jerk of the rope tugging Carys on despite her anger. The road was steep, rutted with recent cart-tracks, a great gash along the flank of the mountain, plummeting on the left to a dizzy ravine. All the hot day they’d stumbled up it, with water only once at a stream, hours ago.

  Carys sucked her swelling lip. Her hair and clothes were filthy with road-dust and she was almost too tired to think. Only anger kept her going. She clenched the knotted ropes around her hands as if anger was a thing she could hold on to, tight.

  Around her waist the second rope slackened, sagging as the weary group closed up, stung by the irritating dartflies that had followed all day in a buzzing cloud.

  With the old woman gone, Carys was last. It was a relief not to have to hear that terrible gasping, or have the constant jerk of the rope as the woman stumbled, but the thought of the frail figure lying on the bleak road, without water, a prey to night-cats, was unbearable. Carys cursed herself for talking to the woman, for getting to know her. Her name had been Alys. At one of the pauses she had whispered to Carys that she “had a granddaughter, dear, very like you.”

  She looked back. The Watch captain, Quist, was far behind, striding up fast.

  “Turn around!” he yelled, and she turned, grim.

  They were taking no chances with her. Not now that they knew who she was. Speaking up for the woman had been useless, she’d known that. Before she met Galen she’d never have done it. But before she met Galen she’d never have been in such a mess.

  It had been three days since she’d been caught. The patrol had jumped them in seconds. How the Sekoi had gotten away she had no idea, but they’d loosed the razorhounds after it instantly, thin silver beasts streaking into the wood. An hour later their handlers had dragged them back, bloodied. They’d certainly caught something.

  The line stopped; she slammed into the prisoner in front. A lanky youth, older than her, pimply and stinking of sweat, one of his teeth black. “Rest,” he gasped, crouching and clutching his side.

  Carys didn’t waste breath talking. Instead she watched Quist walk past her to the front. His number was 8472. High. No child from a Watchhouse, but a volunteer, enlisting as an adult. A dangerous, agile man.

  The first thing he’d done was have her searched, and he’d found the Watch insignia. Galen had warned her often enough to get rid of them, the small silver discs with her old number, name, hard-earned promotions. But they were still part of her. She hadn’t been able to let them go. Seeing them glint in the sun in Quist’s fingers had been strange; as he’d read them and looked at her curiously she’d felt as if some last protection had been snatched away.

  Sitting now on the edge of the road she rubbed sweat from her neck and looked around. The road edge was sheer, plunging down to a valley far below. She couldn’t see over. Behind her was woodland, some squat, dark species; ahead, the road rose along the arduous slopes of the mountains. Where it led she had no idea, but it had seen heavy traffic lately, its surface cracked and worn.

  The patrol was an eight-man standard. Three horses and a cart, with the razorhounds’ cage and various food sacks. Ten prisoners left, all roped in line.

  Water was being passed back. She stood and grabbed it from the boy’s hand, clutching the dirty jug with both fists, drinking fast, then splashing the last drops on her face.

  For a second, he was standing quite close to her. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, grinning slyly at her. “There’s a plan.”

  She stared in astonishment. “What?”

  “It’s all fixed.” He winked. “I’m in on it. I’ll see you safe, at the castle.”

  He was serious.

  Carys didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. But before she had time to say another word, the jug had been snatched by a Watchman, the rope jerking her to her feet.

  “What’s the rush?” she muttered, sullen.

  “Orders. To be in before dark.”

  “In where?”

  But he’d gone, and the line was already moving.

  All the hot spring afternoon and into the evening they tramped nonstop, climbing along a narrow track, so treacherous in places that loose rock slid away under their feet, rolled over the edge, and dropped for a long silent second into the distant, crashing branches. The landscape was arid; stunted lemon trees and calarna sprouting from high ravines, the road winding up under natural arches and along the very brinks of drops that made Carys dizzy to look down.

  These were the Broken Hills, a shattered, convulsed highland infested with lizards and the scurrying, manyjointed purple scorpions that could kill a man with one sting. The peaks above her had slipped and shifted; it was as if some terrible bolt of the Makers’ lightning had smashed the whole range to pieces centuries before. Perhaps it had. Galen would know.

  The road had been repaired. Stumbling around the flank of a vertical cliff, she passed piles of cut stone, great heaps of sand. There must be quarries up some of these side-trails. Away to the west, green foothills still glimmered with late sun, but as the road wound up a riven hillside where all the trees had been hacked and felled, far over the horizon she saw the smokes and vapors of the Unfinished Lands, amazingly close.

  And on the last ridge, she saw the castle. It was black, half ruined or half built, some eerie Maker-structure. It was no ordinary Watchtower; the whole thing was more like a fortified hilltop, with immense walls and towering gates, and as the prisoners stumbled on she saw it was crowded with people, all working, hauling stone up scaffolds, dragging great blocks of mined rock, the racket of hammering and chiseling carrying clearly on the mountain air. As Carys gazed up, the curfew-horn sounded; a familiar distant blare from the highest part of the Keep. Abruptly all hammering stopped, the workmen climbing down wearily.

  So she was part of a work-gang. If they needed them, the Watch dragged in criminals and outlaws to build their Towers; she seemed to have walked straight into that. Though this place was immense. And secure.

  By the time the weary prisoners straggled through the main barbican, dusk had fallen; as they stood to be registered the faint smells of cooking from the shuttered huts and houses filled Carys with a groaning hunger. Behind her the sentinels dragged the heavy wooden gates shut with a hollow clang, then rattled enormous chains across. Under the vaulted arch it was suddenly dark, stinking of marset dung and woodsmoke.

  A number was stamped on her neck; she could feel it, but not see it, and she knew it would take months to wear off. The Watch used corris-juice; she’d done it herself.

  Then the line was moved on, through the twilit streets, climbing through archways and cobbled alleys betw
een what seemed hundreds of squalid, crammed huts and shelters, up toward the Keep.

  In one street a shutter slid apart; for a second Carys glimpsed a pair of eyes watching her, but a Watchman glared up and it was slammed tight. The lanky boy turned and winked at her. She looked away, and then remembered with a tingle of surprise that he had called this place the castle, as if he had known where they were going. Was he a spy? That was only too likely. It was best not to talk to any of them.

  Between the great inner Keep and the rest of the castle was a chasm, too black to see into. The bridge over it was so narrow that only one person could cross it at a time. It was lit by flaring torches, guttering at the corners.

  In the very middle of it, Carys shuddered. Something had rattled and slid under her feet; breathless she took four quick strides. She knew about the trapdoors in bridges like these, opening underfoot without warning, plunging intruders to an endless, screaming fall.

  On the far side was another great gate; eyes looked out of a grille and some question was barked. Quist pushed a piece of paper through and waited, whistling through his teeth, arms folded, impatient. Once he glanced back and caught her eye; she looked away immediately.

  When the gate was finally opened it led to a stone tunnel; on each side were guardrooms. Above her head were murder-holes, and she saw slots for the sudden swordracks that sprang out sideways, both doors and weapons at once. Getting out of here would tax the cleverest Watchspy.

  Alert, she glanced into the chambers as she passed, but only the relentless red letters of the Rule marched down the bare walls. A hand grasped the back of her neck, twisted her head painfully.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you,” Quist muttered in her ear. “Keep your eyes front. I hear you’ve done enough damage already.”

  He stayed close behind her. Across a dim courtyard and down greasy steps, into a corridor where the prisoners’ breath made the damp air smoke, and along a series of doorways that were obviously cells. At the door of each, a prisoner was untied and thrust inside: the two farmers, the woman with the fair hair, the lanky youth. As he went he grinned at her cheerfully. The door slammed shut behind him.