Go to the armoury and find some of the Makers blades. I will go up, and bring that other thing.
Bayaz turned away, but Yulwei caught him by the arm. First answer me one question, brother.
What question?
The same one I always ask.
Again? Even now? Very well, if you must. Ask.
The two old men stood still for the longest time. Until the last echoes had faded and left only a silence as heavy as lead. Ferro held her breath.
Did you kill Juvens? Yulweis whisper hissed through the darkness. Did you kill our master?
Bayaz did not flinch. I made mistakes, long ago. Many mistakes, I know. Some out in the ruined west. Some here, in this place. The day does not pass when I do not regret them. I fought with Khalul. I ignored my masters wisdom. I trespassed in the House of the Maker. I fell in love with his daughter. I was proud, and vain, and rash, all this is true. But I did not kill Juvens.
What happened that day?
The First of the Magi spoke the words as though they were lines long rehearsed. Kanedias came to take me. For seducing his daughter. For stealing his secrets. Juvens would not give me up. They fought, I fled. The fury of their battle lit the skies. When I returned, the Maker was gone, and our master was dead. I did not kill Juvens.
Again a long silence, and Ferro watched, frozen. Very well. Yulwei let fall his hand from Bayaz arm. Mamun lied, then. Khalul lied. We will fight against them together.
Good, my old friend, good. I knew that I could trust you, as you can trust me. Ferro curled her lip. Trust. It was a word that only liars used. A word the truthful had no need of. The First of the Magis footsteps rang out as he strode towards one of the many archways and vanished into the gloom.
Yulwei watched him go. Then he gave a sharp sigh, and padded off in the other direction, his bangles jingling on his thin arms. The echoes of his passing slowly faded, and Ferro was left alone with the shadows, wrapped in silence.
Slowly, carefully, she crept forwards into that immense emptiness. The floor glitteredsnaking lines of bright metal, set into the black rock. The ceiling, if there was one, was shrouded in darkness. A high balcony ran around the walls a good twenty strides up, another far above that, then another, and another, vague in the half-light. Above all, a beautiful device hung. Rings of dark metal, great and small, gleaming discs and shining circles, marked with strange writings. All moving. All revolving, one ring about the other, and at their centre a black ball, the one point of perfect stillness.
She turned round, and round, or perhaps she stood still and the room turned about her. She felt dizzy, drunken, breathless. The bare rock soared away into the black, rough stones without mortar, no two alike. Ferro tried to imagine how many stones the tower was made of.
Thousands. Millions.
What had Bayaz said, on the island at the edge of the World? Where does the wise man hide a stone? Among a thousand. Among a million. The rings high above shifted gently. They pulled at her, and the black ball in the centre pulled at her most of all. Like a beckoning hand. Like a voice calling out her name.
She dug her fingers into the dry spaces between the stones and began to climb, hand over hand, up and up. It was easily done. As though the wall was meant to be climbed. Soon she swung her legs over the metal rail of the first balcony. On again, without pausing for breath, up and up. She reached the second balcony, sticky with sweat in the dead air. She reached the third, breath rasping. She gripped the rail of the fourth, and pulled herself over. She stood, staring down.
Far below, at the bottom of a black abyss, the whole Circle of the World lay on the round floor of the hall. A map, the coastlines picked out in shining metal. Level with Ferro, filling almost all the space within the gently curving gallery, suspended on wires no thicker than threads, the great mechanism slowly revolved.
She frowned at the black ball in its centre, her palms tingling. It seemed to hover there, without support. She should have wondered how that could be, but all she could think about was how much she wanted to touch it. Needed to. She had no choice. One of the metal circles drifted close to her, gleaming dully.
Sometimes it is best to seize the moment.
She sprang up onto the rail, crouched there for an instant, gathering herself. She did not think. Thinking would have been madness. She leapt into empty space, limbs flailing. The whole machine wobbled and swayed as she caught hold of its outermost ring. She swung underneath, hanging breathless. Slowly, delicately, her tongue pressed into the roof of her mouth, she pulled herself up by her arms, hooked her legs over the metal and dragged herself along it. Soon it brought her close to a wide disc, scored with grooves, and she clambered from one to the other, body trembling with effort. The cool metal quivered under her weight, twisting and flexing, wobbling with her every movement, threatening to shrug her off into the empty void. Ferro might have had no fear in her.
But plunges of a hundred strides onto the hardest of hard rock still demanded her deep respect.
So she slithered out, from one ring to another, hardly daring even to breathe. She told herself there was no drop. She was only climbing trees, sliding between their branches, the way she had when she was a child, before the Gurkish came. Finally she caught hold of the innermost ring. She clung to it, furious tight, waiting until its own movement brought her close to the centre. She hung down, legs crossed around the frail metal, one hand gripping it, the other reaching out towards that gleaming black ball.
She could see her rigid face reflected in its perfect surface, her clawing hand, swollen and distorted. She strained forward with every nerve, teeth gritted. Closer, and closer yet. All that mattered was to touch it. The very tip of her middle finger brushed against it and, like a bubble bursting, it vanished into empty mist.
Something dropped free, falling, slowly, as if it sank through water. Ferro watched it tumble away from her, a darker spot in the inky darkness, down, and down. It struck the floor with a boom that seemed to shake the very foundations of the Makers House, filled the hall with crashing echoes. The ring that Ferro clung to trembled and for a giddy instant she nearly lost her grip. When she managed to haul herself back she realised that it had stopped moving.
The whole device was still.
It seemed to take her an age to clamber back across the motionless rings to the topmost gallery, to make the long descent down the towering walls. When she finally dropped to the floor of the cavernous chamber her clothes were torn, her hands, elbows, knees grazed and bloody, but she scarcely noticed. She ran across the wide floor, her footsteps ringing out. Towards the very centre of the hall, where the thing that had fallen from above still lay.
It looked like nothing more than an uneven chunk of dark stone the size of a big fist. But this was no stone, and Ferro knew it. She felt something leaking from it, pouring from it, flooding out in thrilling waves. Something that could not be seen, or touched, and yet filled the whole space to its darkest reaches. Invisible, yet irresistible, it flowed tingling around her and dragged her forwards.
Ferros heart thumped at her ribs as her footsteps drew close. Her mouth flooded with hungry spit as she knelt beside it. Her breath clawed in her throat as she reached out, palm itching. Her hand closed around its pocked and pitted surface. Very heavy, and very cold, as if it were a chunk of frozen lead. She lifted it slowly up, turning it in her hand, watching it glitter in the darkness, fascinated.
The Seed.
Bayaz stood in one of the archways, face trembling with an ugly mixture of horror and delight. Leave, Ferro, now! Take it to the palace. He flinched, raised one arm, as if to shield his eyes from a blinding glare. The box is in my chambers. Put it inside, and seal it tight, do you hear me? Seal it tight!