Dark Heart Part 10

'I don't share it,' Anomer said.

'Yet I've heard your voice in my mind,' said his father.

Anomer frowned. 'As far as we can tell, that is through Arathe's gift. My thoughts travel through her to you. Perhaps it depends to an extent on my own magical ability, but without Arathe I cannot go beyond the confines of my own head.'

'You hear voices also?' Captain Duon asked Noetos.

'Only my son and daughter, and only when they choose to include me,' he said, the merest trace of asperity in his voice.

'Voices?' Anomer said to the captain. 'You hear voices other than my sister?'

As fascinated as Lenares was by the idea of hearing voices in one's head, she had questions of her own that could wait no longer.

'Ask her why her family shines so brightly,' she said to Captain Duon. She recalled one of Mahudia's many sayings. 'Don't ignore me like I am a bedpost. Ask them my question.'

'But, Lenares...very well.'

He turned to their bemused hosts and asked her question. Their attention shifted to her.

'Shines? What do you mean?'

She saw the look on the father's face; the same look so many others had given her in the past. Halfwit, his face said to her, much more loudly than his audible words. So she wasted no time, and laid out what the numbers had told her.

'You hold back a great secret,' she said, pointing at Noetos. 'But it is not a secret any more. Your son knows it, though your daughter does not. Others know it too. You want to tell them, even though you think they will hate you forever because of it.'

The family stared at her, then at Captain Duon, waiting for the translation. The captain seemed uncomfortable.

'Translate for me, Captain,' Lenares demanded. 'I will know if you change my words.'

Duon scowled at her, but did as she bade him.

'What is this?' Noetos growled. He turned to Anomer. 'What have you been telling these people?'

The boy looked upset. 'Father, nothing would make me reveal your secrets. They are not mine to tell. I haven't even spoken of them to Arathe yet.'

His sister grabbed him by the arm. 'Wahh seeyits?' She glanced from her brother to her father and back again, then focused on Lenares.

Lenares smiled. I am special too.

Captain Duon sighed. 'Lenares is a cosmographer. Her mentor said she is the best we've had in a thousand years. She can read the patterns all around us; converts them into numbers, or some such thing. That she sees something special about you and your family is clear. Would you be able to guess at what she means by a "shining"? Then we can return to the important questions.'

'This may be important,' Anomer said. 'All this may be very important indeed.'

He turned and favoured Lenares with a wide smile. His eyes were sparkly like Mahudia's used to get. This boy doesn't pity me. He thinks I am special. She smiled shyly in return.

The shining Lenares saw might be the water magic of Bhrudwo, the children of Noetos explained. They both had it, and because of this Andratan had been interested in them. Lenares did not think their idea was correct, but she listened politely. Arathe had been sold-Lenares wasn't sure this was the right word-to the Undying Man, but had discovered that much of the magic was put to evil use in his service. Using it hurt those near the user. So she tried to leave Andratan, but the cruel magicians there would not let her go. Instead they cut out her tongue and put her to work in the dungeons, drawing on her for power. It wasn't until she was taken south, to be used as a drudge by Recruiters on their way to search for more magically gifted children, that she had been reunited with her family. Her father was very angry at how she had been treated, and wanted to go to Andratan and ask why.

Lenares nodded. 'I've never seen people's numbers shining like yours do. You both look very beautiful.'

The siblings smiled at her.

Captain Duon turned to Lenares and his face wore its own frown. 'I've just realised something. How can you know the local language? Did you learn it from someone in Talamaq? Is that why you were sent with the expedition?'

'Patterns and numbers,' she replied. 'Just as good as magic. Maybe better; I still have a tongue.' Again she could have bitten hers off, but Arathe laughed.

The talk continued, hour after hour of it, and Lenares was enthralled with it all.

Captain Duon wondered aloud whether anyone else who had been in Andratan two years ago had been infected with voices. Arathe thought that maybe everyone who went there received the ability. No one else thought this likely. There was apparently another voice, a nasty, horrible voice, which both Captain Duon and Arathe could hear. They seemed very worried about this voice. The two of them talked for some time about how they might fool the voice, but came to no conclusion that Lenares could follow.

Eventually, however, she allowed their earnest voices to fade a little. She had her own thinking to do. Did any of this connect to the hole in the world? What was her next move? Would Dryman allow her the freedom she needed to pursue and somehow defeat the hole? And why did she have a vague feeling that she had it all wrong?

And behind these thoughts, a rosy pink glow that kept her warm.

Duon sat apart from the others, making himself comfortable on a small rocky knoll above the main campsite. Below him bonfires flickered, with only the occasional silhouette momentarily visible in front of the flames. The former residents of Raceme had settled down to sleep.

The night was cold, but dread chilled him more effectively than the cool breeze ever could. Arathe and he had speculated on the ident.i.ty and nature of the cynical voice in his...in their heads. Anomer, however, had the most frightening insights; perhaps, Duon speculated, only half in jest, because the boy's head was not so crowded.

'You have Andratan in common,' Anomer said to them. 'At the very least someone has done something to you there that has made you receptive to this voice; at worst one of you is carrying someone else in their head, and the other can hear it. Or you may both be carrying someone.'

Arathe had become upset at the thought that another being might be lodged within her. 'It's like being with child after a rape, if the child could hold conversations with its mother,' she had said. 'I don't want it.'

'There is only one person who can wield magic sufficient to do this,' Anomer had continued. 'And that is the Undying Man himself.'

Noetos had growled at the words, a bear ready to strike. Duon had revised his earlier estimation of the man: though he did not look much like a warrior, he might prove difficult to best in combat. There was something of the vledmehar about him, those legendary warriors of the icy south who foamed at the mouth when they fought. Given what Noetos's daughter had suffered in the Undying Man's fortress, Duon supposed the man's anger was justified.

Arathe had sighed at her brother's words, as if he'd confirmed something she had suspected but not been willing to confront. 'I never saw the Undying Man, except once from afar when I first arrived.'

'Does he need to be near someone he ensorcels?'

Duon listened carefully. He could not ascribe their fear and horror of the Undying Man to the very human figure he had met. That said, he had met the Emperor of Elamaq and had not felt the power that, with a word, had a.s.sembled an army thirty thousand strong only a few days later.

'But why?' Duon had asked the youngsters. 'Why us? What does he hope to achieve? I don't understand. Is this anonymous magician spending his days listening to our thoughts? We are not important people...are we?'

These were the questions he wrestled with now, as the fires died down and the cold settled on him like a second skin. The fear that had his heart in its grip was this: did unimportant Captain Duon now have two emperors competing for his obedience? One to the south, who would destroy him and his family should he believe Duon responsible for the loss of the expedition. And one to the north, who might well be listening to his baffled musings even now.

Was that laughter he could hear? A faint, repet.i.tive sound, like derisive laughter in the back of his head?

No, it was the slap of boot on stone; someone was leaving the camp.

Duon raised his head. He'd had half an eye on the path below him, wondering when Dryman and Torve would return from whatever nocturnal wandering they were engaged in. This was a solitary figure, a much bigger man than either of Duon's fellow southerners. It took only a flash of red hair in the wan moonlight for Duon to recognise him.

Where was Noetos going?

Duon was not inclined to pry into the private affairs of others. However, he had learned a number of things concerning the Fossan family that connected them to him. And there was something about the way the man walked, a furtiveness, as though he was trying to disguise his bulk, that made Duon get to his feet and follow quietly after the northerner.

The man left the narrow path soon after, and made his way surefootedly across three fields to the main highway they had all walked along earlier in the day. Duon tried to keep in the shadows, guessing that the man would be angry at being followed. He nearly turned back, but he was fed up with mysteries. Besides, the man would not be going very far.

For the next three hours Duon followed Noetos, alternating between deciding to give up his pursuit and becoming increasingly convinced the fellow was about to do something he wanted no one else to know about. The pace the man set was extraordinarily swift, and Duon, though hardened by months of walking in the southern desert lands-added to years of exploration-found it difficult to keep pace. After a while, however, it didn't matter. It was obvious where the man was heading.

They arrived at Shambles Hill just as the moon went down. Below them the city of Raceme was nothing but a shadow p.r.i.c.ked by torchlights. The man halted briefly, then pressed on, more cautiously. It was basic soldiery to a.s.sume the Neherians had patrols out beyond the walls; belatedly Duon considered the danger he might now be in. Having the northern man angry at him was not the worst thing that could happen.

They approached the city wall. The fool means to get inside the city, Duon told himself.

Yes, and you've known it for an hour or more, said the cynical voice. Stay out of the city. Don't throw your life away when you don't know what is happening.

Duon listened carefully to the voice, as Arathe had suggested they ought, and thought he detected an underlying current of worry.

Am I that valuable to the voice?

He found himself strongly tempted to ignore its advice.

A hand gripped his arm and pulled him into an alcove in the wall. 'Nice night for a stroll,' Noetos growled in his ear. 'But a little dangerous to be taking the midnight air under the eyes of the enemy, don't you think?'

For a moment Duon could barely draw breath past the sudden constriction of his throat. A hot retort, built from anger and fear, formed in his mind.

The cynical voice spoke. This man is a hothead. You will impress him by remaining calm.

Duon could see the sense of this. 'Welcome back to Raceme, friend Noetos,' he whispered. 'Did you miss it as much as I?'

The bulky shadow drew back a pace, his hand still on Duon's arm. 'You're a cool one,' he said. 'Why did you follow me?'

'Curiosity,' Duon replied promptly. 'I wondered what would bring you here, and thought you might want some help.' He brushed the man's hand away.

'I don't trust you,' Noetos said brusquely. 'Wait here until I return, and don't go on a walking tour. If your heavy-footed journey tonight is any indication, you will be seen and taken as a spy. That you want to avoid: the Neherians are not a merciful people.'

'I see you intend to invade Raceme single-handedly and without a weapon,' Duon said.

The man grunted. 'I have come tonight to retrieve the blade I left here.'

'Plenty of blades back at the camp. What is so special about this one?'

'Because,' Noetos said, sighing, 'this one belongs to the heir of Roudhos, and I fear the Racemen may have need of it.'

Anomer woke as the moon sank behind nearby trees. His bladder demanded he make a walk to those trees, where a score or more men stood satisfying the same need.

'The men of Buntha won't see us wrong,' an old man muttered as he shook himself, spraying drops everywhere.

'Can't see how a few hundred villagers can help us,' said a younger man. 'We need to go north to Trais or south to Tochar. Plenty of men there who hate the Neherians.'

Anomer moved into the s.p.a.ce cleared by the old man's lack of control. 'Don't you think they might have their own problems?' he asked them. 'The Neherians are not about to conquer the Fisher Coast and ignore the inland towns.'

'Is that what they've done?' the younger man asked. 'Conquered the Fisher Coast?'

'Where you from, lad?' said the old man to Anomer.

'Fossa. A small village not far north of Neherius.'

'Heard of it,' the old man allowed.

'The Neherian fleet has been moving north, destroying the villages and taking the people as slaves. They succeeded in most of the villages. Seems like conquest to me.'

'Your village?'

'Burned to the ground,' Anomer said bleakly.

He finished his business and bade the men goodbye. Now the moon had set there was virtually no light by which to make his way back; he stumbled into one sleeping group and extricated himself only after profuse apologies.

He realised he was near the remains of his own fire only when Arathe's voice crept into his head. Look over to your right, you should see the embers glowing. Is Father with you? Her voice was anxious.

He came down a shallow slope and could barely see her, a pale figure smeared against the darkness. No, he answered, surprised.

Noetos's sleeping mat lay unoccupied. Anomer reached down: cold. He's been gone for some time. The missing pack suggested his father was not merely off walking.

He's gone to do something stupid, hasn't he? Arathe thought.

Well, it's been at least a day since the last time, her brother agreed. Here, take my strength and reach out to him.

He sat on his father's sleeping mat and felt a b.u.mp beneath his b.u.t.tock. He pulled back the mat.

'Now I'm really worried,' he said, but did not touch the object lying there on the gra.s.s. 'Father would not have left this behind unless he thought he might not return.'

What is it? Arathe asked, and reached out to pick it up.

'Don't touch that!' Anomer cried.

Her hand stopped just short of the dark thing on the gra.s.s. She turned a puzzled expression towards him.

'It's too dark to see, and I'm not going to pick it up. But, sister, that is the most valuable and the most dangerous thing you've ever encountered.'

The stone you were telling me about?

'The huanu stone,' he replied. 'With it Father drained the magic from a Recruiter; and you saw what it did to the whirlwinds. For him to leave it here means he's either gone to do something so risky he wanted to keep it safe, or he has been taken from his bed.'

Then we must contact him immediately, his sister thought.

Anomer nodded, and replaced the mat over the carving. His sister had always taken his strength gently, carefully, but he knew it would hurt all the same. He lay back and waited for the pain to begin.

'No talking, I said.'

Duon sighed. The man was insufferably bluff.

'If I'm to help you, I need to know what we're doing,' he whispered.

'If we are caught I'm leaving you to your own devices,' Noetos replied, continuing to ignore Duon's questions. 'And the more you talk, the greater chance we have of being caught.'

'Your voice is far louder than mine,' Duon said, aggrieved.

'Then don't make me speak,' came the reply, demonstrating, Duon thought, admirable logic.