This is heresy, of course. If anyone reads it I’ll be finished. There was a boy once, in the Watchhouse, I forget his name. We were about seven, and it was in the courtyard, the grim stony place they used to let us play in for ten minutes a day. Three of us were under one coat for warmth. He said, this boy, that his grandfather had told him that the Makers were real men, and that their power was enormous. And that he thought the Watch had been wrong to kill so many of the Order.
Someone must have reported what he said, because a week later he was taken away, and he never came back. Like a lot of others ...
“I DIDN’T KNOW you could write.”
Carys closed the journal with a gasp, and spun around. Galen was sitting up against the wall, watching her. For a moment she was lost for an answer. Then Watchtraining surged up in her; she shook her head and laughed. “You scared me!”
“I’m sorry.”
She slipped the journal into her bag. “My mother taught me, a long time ago. I don’t know how she learned—probably with one of the Order. There were many keepers when she was young.”
“Indeed there were.” Galen frowned, rubbing his stubbly chin. “But it seemed to be in a language strange to me.”
For a moment she looked at him. Then she said, “It’s in code.”
“Code?”
“I made it up myself. In case the Watch should ever get hold of it. It’s the story of my search.”
“Then we’re in there—the boy and I?”
“Only briefly.” She shook her head. “I’ve changed your names. No one would ever be able to read it.”
“I hope not.” He pulled the pack over and began to rummage inside. “They say the Watch have men skilled in codes and secret signs. If they caught you with it they’d force you to explain it.”
She nodded. “You mean get rid of it.”
He passed her some bread. “It would be wise.”
Wanting to change the subject, she said, “Shall we wake Raffi?”
“No. Let him sleep.”
They ate in silence, listening. A long way off something banged, and once Carys thought she heard voices, but the city was as dark and silent as before, the only sound a faint rushing, as if water ran nearby. She knew it must be late in the day, but outside the blocked doorway the blackness still hung.
“Does it ever get light here?”
Galen shook his head. In the tiny candle flame his hawk-face looked tired and drawn; he tugged the string out of his hair and raked his fingers through it. “Not since the Destruction.”
“What happened?” she asked, chewing the hard bread.
“You know. Or you ought to.”
“Tell me again.” She did know, but she was curious to hear how the Order told the story.
Galen gave her a hard look. Then he said, “The Order had its most holy sites here. Somewhere in the city, buried deep under layers of other buildings, were the secret places, the houses of the Makers. The House of Trees, the Nemeta, the Hall of the Slain. Where exactly they were is not known now. The Emperor’s palace was here too. In the last hours of the siege, when men were fighting in the streets and the Emperor knew the war was lost, it’s said he sent a message to Mardoc Archkeeper, to warn him. That was late on Pyrasnight, about eight o’clock. Two hours later the palace fell. The Emperor was killed at the Phoenix Gate—you know about that?”
She nodded, silent. The Emperor had been killed by accident, by some fool of a Watchsergeant. The Watchlords had thrown the man into the demon-pit at Maar in their fury. They had wanted the Emperor alive.
“And then,” Galen went on, his voice dropping, “late in the night, with the hordes of the Watch looting and spoiling the city, there was a great trembling of the ground. Buildings fell. Whole districts crumbled. Fires erupted underground. And from somewhere deep among the alleys and courts of the old palace, the Darkness came. They say it spread like ink over a map, blotting out the moons and stars, filling alleys, doorways, oozing out from cellars and pits and manholes in the streets, up sewers and drains.
“What it was, how it was released, no one knows now, or whether it was meant to happen. So much is lost, Carys!” He sighed, scratching his cheek. “The Archkeeper escaped. He was caught three months later and died under torture, but I don’t believe he told them where the Houses were. If he had, they’d be in ruins, and the Watch would be gloating. They want all the power they can get.” He spat, savagely, to one side.
Carys was silent. She took some more bread. “The Watch say Mardoc tried to bring the Makers back. That he had some relic which was so powerful that its explosion would make the city burn forever.”
“They would!” Galen watched Raffi stir and roll over. “But Mardoc got out. Something that big would have killed him.”
“And what about the Crow?”
She said it slowly, deliberately. Raffi, half awake, stared at her in astonishment; Galen slid his eyes to her.
“What about him?” he asked, after a cold moment.
Carys smiled, but Raffi knew she was uneasy. “All right. I suppose I should tell you. I listened at Lerin’s door.”
Galen’s hand clutched his stick; for a moment Raffi thought he would use it on her and scrambled up, gasping, “No!” but Carys only laughed scornfully. “I’m not your scholar, Galen. Don’t think you can beat me into silence.”
He stared at her, and Raffi caught the strange taints of anger and despair that wreathed him. Finally, in a voice choked with wrath, he said, “How much did you hear?”
“That the Crow is here in Tasceron. That you’d had messages. That you thought, if you could find him, he could destroy the Watch.”
She leaned forward, her hair glossy in the flame light. “That was all. I’m sorry, Galen, but I had to know what was happening! I’m here to find my father, and I don’t know where to start. But the Crow! With him we could do anything!”
The silence was terrible. Raffi pulled the blanket around himself and rubbed his face nervously with a filthy hand. Galen sat absolutely still, watching Carys with a bitter stare that made her hand creep toward the crossbow. When he spoke his voice was hoarse. “Never spy on me again, girl. Never.”
The threat was cold, and real. Chilled, she nodded. It took all her courage to say, “I want to stay with you. I want to help.”
But Galen got up abruptly. Taking his stick, he flung the wood from the doorway. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” Raffi asked.
“Out!” The keeper stared at him grimly. “To breathe!”
When he was gone, they both relaxed. Raffi drank some water from the flask and passed it across; kneeling up, he felt for the bread in the pack.
“Was I wrong to tell him?” Carys asked quietly.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We’d have had to explain to you soon, I suppose. And he would have found out. He’s a keeper.”
“He hadn’t yet,” she said drily.
Raffi glanced at her, then away. “How could you listen at the door, Carys! We thought we could trust you!”
Looking down at the flask, she said, “You can. Of course you can.”
GALEN WAS A LONG time away. When he finally came back he said nothing about Carys or the Crow. Crouching, he crammed the blankets into the pack. “There’s a fountain not far from here, still running. The water’s tainted, but drinkable. And you can wash.”
His own hair was wet and his face clean.
“Then what?” Carys asked.
He gave her a bitter glare. “You’ll find out.”
They crossed a maze of small lanes, following the splashing sound, then turned into an open space among tall buildings, whose tops were lost in dark smoke. The fountain was astonishingly hot, the water steaming from spouts and holes among stones that had once been white, but were now streaked with soot. Carys and Raffi drank and washed their arms and faces, while Galen kept watch, eyeing the narrow streets intently. The water was pungent and sour, despite the green lichens that grew out of it.