The Ragpicker King (Chronicles of Castellane #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

L in barely remembered leaving Conor’s rooms, or leaving the grounds of Marivent. She walked numbly out of the Castel Mitat and across the Palace grounds. Now that she was no longer dressed in Ashkar garb, no one seemed to take much notice of her, even when she passed through the North Gate and made her way down to the city.

Her thoughts were a blur of white noise. She was aware of the dust in the air and the smell of the garrigue, lavender and sage and sea salt. Eventually there was the end of the dirt path and the beginning of houses that rose up around her like comforting walls. Like the walls of the Sault, which would never circle her again.

After some time she realized she could see Scarlet Square only a few streets away. She wondered when she had learned to navigate her way to the Black Mansion without thinking about where she was going. She wondered when she had grown grateful to see it rather than wary, when it had become a place of possible refuge.

She tried to imagine what she would say to the Ragpicker King, to the others. She had been so sure she would be able to convince Conor to see the truth.

The guard in front of the mansion stepped aside to let her in. “Domna Caster,” he said to Lin, surprising her; usually he was silent. “Morettus is waiting for you inside. In the Great Room.”

“Thank you.” Lin hurried past him and through the snaking corridors of the mansion until the Great Room opened up before her.

It was almost as though she’d never left. She saw Andreyen in his chair, his staff in his hand; Ji-An and Merren were both standing near him, though none of them were speaking. Waiting for her, she thought. For news from the Palace.

She took a step into the room. “He wouldn’t listen to me,” she said. “Not about Kel, not about the conspiracy.”

Andreyen held up a hand, as if to stop her talking. “Lin—”

“We are going to have to find another way,” she said. “To stop Malgasi. To help Kel—”

“ Lin. ” Andreyen cut his eyes sideways, and Lin realized that there was someone else in the room. He had been sitting in an armchair facing Andreyen, which is why she had not seen him; now he rose to his feet and turned to face her.

Her breath hissed out of her in a shocked exhale. “Exilarch.”

Aron Benjudah regarded her from across the Great Room. He wore his Rhadanite traveler’s linens and looked much as he had the first time she’d seen him. Only then he had been in the Shulamat, in a world in which the black straps around his arms, the Evening Sword at his hip, the dark markings on his skin, were expected. Here he seemed wildly out of place, the sight of him a sort of shock, as if she’d come across a basilisk in Fleshmarket Square.

He nodded stiffly. “Lin.”

“How did you know where I was?” she said, her gaze darting to Andreyen, then to Ji-An and Merren. Merren shrugged, palms up, as if to say he’d no idea and doubted the others did, either.

“Your grandfather,” said Aron. “He understood it was important that I speak with you.”

She felt a brief surge of almost painful hope. “Has the Maharam changed his mind about my exile?”

There was a flash of something like pity in Aron’s eyes, and she hated him for it. “The Maharam is not one to change his mind,” he said, and looked at Andreyen, whose green eyes were blazing. “You remain exiled.”

Disappointment laced her voice with bitterness. “Then you shouldn’t be here,” she said. “Speaking to an exile is forbidden even to the Exilarch, I imagine.”

“There are some things more important than the Maharam and even the Law,” Aron said. There was something in his voice Lin had never heard before. Unease, hesitancy—even something like desperation. It wasn’t a tone she’d ever have expected from the Exilarch. She half expected him to tell her something terrible: that something had happened to Mariam—that the cure she had effected had not been permanent. That Mayesh had been lying, and that when the wall of the Sault had collapsed, someone had been hurt, even killed.

Instead, Aron crossed the room to her. She almost flinched away from the intensity in his eyes, the emotions that seemed to pour off him like water. To her shock, he dropped to his knees in front of her, his head lowered, his hands extended toward her, palms up.

“I acknowledge you,” Aron said, “as the Goddess who has been promised. And I present myself as your guardian, as my ancestor Judah Makabi guarded the Shekinah Adassa during the fall of Aram.”

Lin felt numb. This was the very last thing she would have expected him to say, and now that he’d said it, she had no idea how to feel. “What?” she said, feeling foolish for not having a more composed, Goddess-like reaction. “ Now? ”

He remained on his knees, but looked up slowly, as if he could not quite believe the sight of her. “I have been blind,” he said. “I have been blind because it served me to be blind. For years, I have tested those claiming to be the Goddess, and each time I met a new claimant, I hoped for it—for that sense of recognition that was promised to me. That when I saw her, I would know her. I have awaited that knowing and have felt nothing. I grew used to that lack of feeling, and when I met you, I saw you with the eyes of my mind, not of my heart. I was determined to doubt, and so I doubted.”

Lin remained stock-still, barely able to breathe. She was waiting for him to stop, to stand up, to laugh and say he was only mocking her, that he’d come to ensure she knew how far from the light of the Goddess she truly was.

But he didn’t. “When you healed Mariam,” he said, “I saw a fire within you. I saw the tower burning. I was myself and I was also my own ancestor, looking up at the tower, seeing the Goddess at work. I felt what he felt. I felt that sense of knowing. I felt a perfect faith, a perfect rightness. I could not have described the feeling ahead of time, but now that I know it, it is undeniable. You are the Ancient of Days. You will change the course of history. The Maharam does not see it, but he is a small and petty man. I see it. I know. ”

“I am not sure,” Lin whispered, “that I am worthy of a perfect faith. I do not even have perfect faith in myself.”

“That is because you are not ready,” said Aron. “The destruction you caused in the Sault was because you have not yet connected to your full, true power. It was a lack of control, and that is what you next must master. The ordeal will grant you that control.”

“What ordeal?” said Merren. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Lin had nearly forgotten that he and Ji-An were there. Both were looking at Aron warily. Andreyen’s expression as he gazed at the Exilarch was unreadable.

“The Ordeal of Bitter Water,” said Aron. “It will connect the Goddess Returned to her Source-Stone. Having passed through the ordeal, she will rise up in fire and power. She will be invincible.”

And Lin remembered suddenly what she had read: The magician and the stone must then travel together to the caves of Sulemon, where, having passed the Halls of Hewn Stone, the gem must be cleansed in the Place of Bitter Water before it being bound unto the Sorcerer whose power it will hold.

But that had been a thousand years ago, when she had been determined beyond reason to master magic, to cure Mariam. And she had done it. Mariam was well now. She was no magician, whatever Aron might say. She had tried to compass magic and had nearly lost everything. Her home, her best friend, her community.

“What are you asking of me?” she said, almost in a whisper. “No one believes I am the Goddess. Will this ordeal force that faith upon them? Perhaps all you saw in the Shulamat was the power of my Source-Stone. Perhaps the Maharam is right. The Goddess would not return in such a weak vessel.”

Slowly, the Exilarch rose to his feet. Without taking his gaze from hers, he said, “Asher. Tell her.”

Lin’s head spun. Did he mean Asher Benezar, the Maharam’s son? Why was he invoking the name of someone exiled so long ago?

The Ragpicker King sighed. “I am not sure she can be convinced, Aron. Lin is very stubborn.”

Lin stared at him. “Asher?” she whispered.

Andreyen laid his hand atop the head of his blackthorn staff. “ Tahe Asher Benezar, ” he said in Ashkar. “ Sape zenevet altah wakhahe. Pekanwa kol qemzo zawahena. ”

I am Asher Benezar, I was exiled by my father. I think you know my story.

Lin’s head spun. As if she were recalling a Story-Spinner’s tale, images flashed before her—the silver incantation bowl on the shelf in this very room, with its Ashkar inscription: DESIGNATED IS THIS BOWL FOR THE SEALING OF THE HOUSE OF BENJUDAH . She had thought he had simply collected it, as he collected so many pretty things; now she realized otherwise. His obsession with magic—the very subject that had gotten Asher exiled. That he had known there were books in the Shulamat, books he wanted. She had wondered why her grandfather had brought her here after her trial: It was not because he had known she was working with Andreyen, she realized, but because he had known Andreyen was really Asher, and would look out for another exile.

Asher Benezar. She had never seen a hint, never guessed. In her world, there had been Ashkar and malbushim, and one could not be the other. And yet...

“Does your father know? That you are the Ragpicker King?” she demanded, turning from Andreyen to Aron. “How did you know?”

“Indeed, Aron,” said Andreyen, with a slightly foxlike grin. “How did you?”

Aron spread his hands wide and spoke not to Lin, but to Andreyen. “Asher, I tried to stop it when it happened. I spoke to my father when you were exiled; I beseeched him to intervene. He said he could not, that it was in the Maharam’s power and neither the Law nor mercy would justify interference. But I could not let it lie. I searched for you, for whispers of you on the Gold Roads, and when I heard there was a new Ragpicker King, and I heard of his doings, I recognized your cleverness, the labyrinthine paths of your mind. I knew— You were always resilient, Asher. I knew you would not simply disappear. I knew you would find your way.”

For a long moment, Andreyen said nothing. His clear green eyes were opaque, like milky jade; Lin could not guess what he was thinking.

Then, to her immense surprise, he swung his beloved staff up over his knee and snapped it unceremoniously in half.

Ji-An jumped as if a cannon had gone off. They all stared as Andreyen dropped one half of the cane and lifted the other. It was hollow as a reed. He reached his fingers inside and drew out a long length of parchment vellum, carefully rolled into a hollow circle, like the symbol of the magal.

He handed it to Lin. “Read it,” he said.

She began to unroll the paper, careful with the old vellum, which threatened to crack in her careful fingers. At last she had it open, a narrow banner upon which was written in a careful hand the Great Prayer: Hear, oh Aram, She is One, She will return.

“You gave me that,” Andreyen said to Aron, who was gazing at the paper with a stunned expression. “And I have kept it all these years. I never blamed you, Aron; you were a child. And I have never accepted that because I am exiled, I am not Ashkar.” He turned to Lin. “If Aron believes that you are the Goddess, then you are the Goddess. If you believe it, then you are the Goddess. I may be a heretic and an exile, but I have always thought that the Goddess is the one who has the courage to stand up and claim the name and all that comes with it.”

“But I am exiled,” Lin said. “What could I even do with such power, if I am not accepted by my people?”

“Then you make them accept you,” said Ji-An. She had her arms crossed over her chest. “You make them see the truth.”

“Come with me,” Aron said, “to the Halls of Hewn Stone. The place of the ordeal. And when you return from the ordeal, you will return with the power of lightning in your hands. They will have no choice but to see, Lin.”

The Halls of Hewn Stone. Lin felt lightheaded. She had never been out of Castellane, and Aron was asking her to come with him to what had once been Aram. The stony desert of Jiqal, far in the northeast of Dannemore.

“The Malgasi have magic,” added Aron. “Only another who wields magic can face them down. But Lin, you must choose soon. The Black Rose, the ship that will take us to Jiqal, will sail at dawn. And it will not wait.”

In that moment, Lin heard the voice of the King, burning with the fire of the phoenix inside him. The Malgasi will come. They cannot be held back without great power. You will be that power. You will protect Castellane. You will protect your people. For without the Goddess, all are doomed.

“But I am needed here,” she said. “Kel and Conor, both of them need our help. The conspiracy will close its net around House Aurelian very soon. The Malgasi—”

“Let us worry about Castellane,” said Andreyen, and glanced over at Merren and Ji-An, who nodded. “About Kel, and about the Prince. If Prince Conor must be made to see the truth, we will find a way.”

Lin slowly closed her hands at her sides. She could feel her heart beating in her palms. She did not say that there was no use telling her not to worry about Conor; she had never been able to stop herself thinking of Conor. And she would not forget her last glimpse of him, alone in his rooms with a pile of glass shattered at his feet. She did not say she doubted her own ability to withstand the ordeal, or to return with the power to strike down an army.

She did not say any of those things, because they did not matter. What mattered was not that her chance of success was small, but that it did not seem that Castellane had another chance as good. And it mattered that those in the most danger from the Malgasi were all those she loved—even if they had cast her out. Even if they did not want her.

She had chosen to claim the title of the Goddess, and with it she had claimed a destiny. She did not know if she could see a fire within herself, as Aron could, but she could see it reflected in his eyes, and she could see the road to Jiqal spread out before her like a beacon. At the Tevath, she had made a promise to her people, and she would keep that promise. Even if it took her away from her friends, her family. From Conor. From all that she loved.

She turned to Aron, who was watching her with his desert eyes. “It is up to you,” he said. “As the Goddess chooses, I will do.”

Lin looked to her friends. Ji-An and Merren regarded her steadily, as if to say that whatever she was leaving was safe in their hands. And Andreyen—Asher—sat holding the broken pieces of his staff, the staff he had carried everywhere with him for years because of the prayer it contained: an invocation and a vow, a statement of faith and belief. In the Goddess. In Lin herself.

She turned to Aron.

“I have made my choice,” she said. “I will go with you. I choose the ordeal.”

Hours passed after Conor’s footsteps had receded into silence, and Kel didn’t move. He stayed where he was, his back to the wall, watching the small patch of moonlight travel across the floor before it dimmed and vanished.

He was not angry at Conor, he realized. He couldn’t be. Falconet and the others had lined up the evidence against Kel like Castles pieces, arranged on a board by a master of the game who left his opponent no way out. And Kel knew better than anyone who Conor had to be, and what his responsibilities were. The Malgasi and their allies had made sure it didn’t matter whether Conor believed in Kel’s guilt or not; his hands were tied.

And there were other, deeper reasons, Kel knew, why Conor could not afford to let himself be convinced of Kel’s innocence. He remembered Conor sitting opposite him on the windowsill in their room, saying, Hope is a danger, you know. Hope may raise you up for a time, but when it is disappointed, the fall is all the more acute.

Kel knew that Conor feared the fall, the tumble into the vast empty abyss of despair. Anger was better than despair—even anger against someone you loved. Anger was fire, and despair was darkness. And Conor had for years been afraid of the dark.

Kel woke from a fitful sleep plagued by dreams in which he was once again bleeding out in that alley near the Maze, only when he called out for help, Falconet came and, grinning, pushed the knife in deeper.

He sat up, rubbing at his sore eyes. He ached all over, probably from shivering. It was cold in the Trick. He turned to mark the place of the moonlight, wondering what time it was.

He stared. The moonlight fell upon the bars of his cell—and upon the wooden tray placed in front of the door. Usually it contained an unpleasant meal of porridge or flavorless bread. This time, though, something on the tray sparked the light.

A key.

Kel barely had time to think; he was on his feet and kneeling down by the bars within seconds. He slid his hand through them, feeling around on the tray until his hand closed on the heavy silver key. When he fitted it into the lock, it turned silently, without a creak, as if the hinges had been recently oiled.

The door sprang open. A second later, Kel was through it. A trap, he thought. This has to be a trap. But he was moving anyway, down the corridor, past empty cell after empty cell. At the end of it, before the steep spiral stairs leading down, a dark, huddled figure crouched behind Sunderglass bars. Moonlight illuminated the path ahead; Kel could barely see into the occupied cell, see anything save two bright dark eyes regarding him from behind a tangle of hair.

He paused, just for a moment, then threw the key he was holding into the cell. If this was a trap, he thought, he might as well create as much chaos as he could before they took him down.

He had just made it to the top of the steps when he heard voices below: guards, headed upward. He looked around. There was nothing here. No weapon to lay hands on, no stairs going up. Only a single casement window through which moonlight spilled like blood.

Kel yanked the window open. Turning his body around, he wriggled through, bare feet first. He turned as he went, grasping the sill, his head disappearing below it just as the guards reached the top of the stairs.

He could hear them shouting as he lowered himself slowly, his feet searching for purchase on the smooth wall. There was some cursing, too, and the sound of blows. Apparently the prisoner he had just freed was creating an excellent distraction.

Not that he could let himself think about what was happening inside the tower. Nor would he let himself think about what he was doing right now; nor that no one escaped from the Trick, that it had never been done. But surely no one who knows how to Crawl has ever tried it, he told himself.

He was high up, so high that the wind tore at him, whipped his hair and his clothes. He seemed to be hovering among the stars, and it ought to have been terrifying, but somehow it was not. Being in the cell was terrifying. This was freedom, and his own salvation in his hands.

He began to climb, leaning into the side of the tower, remembering what Jerrod had told him, remembering to imagine that he was Crawling across a flat surface. That gravity did not exist, was not trying to draw him down.

There. A slight impression, a dent in the marble side of the tower. And there, a crack, minute but textured. He dug in, fingers and toes bearing his weight. The shouts and cries of the guards receded as he made his way down.

He glanced up at the ever-changing moon, its wine-red light weaving patterns on the surface of the ocean. He saw the sea itself, a black shield stretching to the horizon. He was part of the tapestry, part of the night, moving down and farther down.

The tower rose above him now, a vast black pillar. His hands and feet were aching. He moved his foot down, seeking another toehold, and hit a solid surface instead.

He had reached the ground.

He sprang away from the tower, his blood roaring triumphantly in his ears. He had done it, what no one else had ever done. He had escaped the Trick. He was on the rocky ground of the garrigue now, the walls of the Palace rising in the distance, the tower and sea cliffs curving away to his right. He could hear the crash of the surf far below, taste the brine on the air.

He was alive.

In the distance, Marivent rose like a galleon at sea, glowing from every window. Keeping to the shadows, Kel crept around the side of the tower, the uneven gravel digging into the soles of his feet. His heart was slamming in his chest like a door in a high wind. He was hidden, but they’d be looking for him, and there was nowhere to run. He was pinned between the guards on one side and the sheer cliff-edge drop to the sea on the other. He could hope that the prisoner he had freed would at least be leading some of the guards off in another direction, but there would still be plenty of others to hunt him down.

Could I climb down the side of the cliff? he wondered. He’d made it down the Trick; surely a natural rock wall offered better purchase for his hands and feet. But then, there was nothing at the bottom—only the dark water filled with snapping green death.

He heard more shouts. He peered around the corner; Castelguards were approaching from Marivent, a wall of red uniforms, torchlight gleaming off their swords. Kel jerked back, away from the sight, only to find himself seized in a strong grip.

He struggled, but the hold on him was hard as iron. He was dragged several feet away from the tower before being spun around.

The face that looked down at him was as familiar as his own face in the mirror. It very nearly was his own face in the mirror. Gray eyes, black hair, set jaw. The spark of moonlight off a gold chain around his neck.

“Conor,” Kel said blankly. “What in gray hell—”

“Shut up,” Conor said. “I don’t want the guards here yet.” With that bizarre pronouncement, he grabbed Kel by the back of his shirt and pulled him after him as he edged away from the tower.

Kel went. He had never fought Conor in his life; he wasn’t going to start now. His mind was buzzing. Had Conor left the key for him? Had he been planning to get Kel out?

They had reached the cliff edge. The Trick loomed directly above them; below was churning white water that spilled over the rocks at the cliff’s base.

Conor swung Kel around to face him. Behind Conor were the lights of Marivent and the Hill, the glow of windows, the shimmer that came from the white walls of stone—all the places where Kel had grown up, and where he would never have a place again.

He could see a group of Castelguards coming from the Palace, heading for the Trick; they were too far away for Kel to make out their faces, but they would arrive soon enough.

Kel’s back was to the sea, to the drop below. He could hear the crash of the water. Feeling oddly calm, he looked at Conor. He wished he could memorize his face, but how much did it matter now? “I had not thought we would end like this,” he said. “That you would kill me as your father killed Fausten.”

Conor gave a sort of gasping laugh. “You know me well, too well,” he said. “I, too, was thinking of Fausten tonight.”

“I do not know how Fausten may have felt,” Kel said, “but I would rather that you ended my life than that you let anyone else do it. My life was always yours anyway.”

Conor closed his eyes, just for a moment. When they fluttered open again, they were wide, piercing—haunted. Conor took hold of the lapels of Kel’s tattered jacket, fingers whitening with the tautness of his grip.

He said, “You are my unbreakable armor. And you will not die.”

He pulled Kel closer for a moment; Kel felt Conor’s lips brush his forehead and something cold settle around his neck. Conor let go of his shirt—Kel could see the Castelguards, not far behind him now, staring with wide eyes—and Conor’s hands struck Kel’s chest, flat-palmed, a hard shove. Kel stumbled, felt the ground under him crumble and give way as he fell, toppling headlong from the cliff edge toward the sea below.

For a long and breathless eternity that lasted less than three seconds, he fell. The stars were under his feet, the sea a sheet of rumpled glass below.

Kel struck the glassy surface as if striking the surface of a mirror. The sea shattered soundlessly around him, sending up shards of jade laced with white foam. He saw the stars wheel away overhead and then he was sinking into a numbing cold.

Icy black liquid seemed to swallow him. For a moment, it was all he wanted. He sank as if in a dream, silver bubbles tracing a path above his head.

Something moved past him. A shape in the water, dark against a greater darkness, slipping past with a sinuous flick.

Crocodile.

Kel choked, kicked upward. He broke the surface with a gasp, spitting bitter water. Looking up, he could see he had already drifted some way past the Trick. The lights of Marivent glowed atop the cliffs, a string of fiery pearls.

His fall had been an implosion, leaving a trail of silver-white foam across the water. A few feet away, he thought he saw something break the surface. The glint of moonlight on scales.

He kicked out as hard as he could, toward the harbor. Thank the Gods Jolivet had insisted he know how to swim. He swam for his life now, his arms pistoning, legs scissoring, cutting an arrow’s path through the water. His eyes stung, the harbor a blur in the distance. He could think of nothing but the gape of distance below him, the depth of the ocean, and the sharp-toothed creatures that swam and swarmed in it.

He thought of Fausten. His blood spreading across the water like scarlet dye. The crocodiles had devoured him in an instant. It was madness that Kel was still alive. Certainly he could not outswim them, but that did not matter. He would not float aimlessly, waiting to be devoured.

Conor, he thought, and waited for the sense of betrayal to hit him in the guts, but there was no space for it. Something hard and slimy struck him in the side. He swung around in furious terror, only to see a rotting log. He kicked at it, pushed off, swam harder. He was finding a rhythm now, the strokes of his arms interrupted only when he turned his head to breathe. Salt water ran stinging down his throat.

He could see the Key now. And music; he could hear music spilling from the taverns. The water had begun to turn gray as the light from the city fell upon it. Gray hell. Kel’s legs and arms were burning, each stroke forward an agony. The water underneath him rolled, and rolled again. He had reached the wave break.

He let himself go limp, let the next wave catch him and carry him in. It slammed him down on the edge of the beach, shoving him up the rocky, pebbled slope. He rolled over onto his stomach, retching salt.

And then he saw them. They slid up out of the water, two—no, three—green crocodiles, slithering, low to the ground. Kel tried to stand, but it was no use. His legs did not work. They were useless as wet string. He managed to push himself up onto his elbows, gasping, wet hair in his eyes.

In the moon’s red light, they were enormous. Lurching, scaled, massive jaws hanging open, row upon row of jagged, prehistoric teeth. He had heard of such things—of crocodiles slithering up on land, fast, to snatch up a child and drag it back to sea before the mother even had a chance to scream.

He tried to push himself up to his knees. It was too late, regardless; they were on him, rearing over him. They stank of salt and rot and the deep places of the ocean, and their eyes glowed red in the moonlight, blank scarlet marbles without feeling or depth. Kel raised a hand to his face, as if he could ward them off—

And something cold brushed against his wrist. He glanced down and realized to his shock that a gold chain was looped around his throat, and from it dangled a glimmering medallion. He recalled Conor settling something cold around his neck. Conor’s words to him. You are my unbreakable armor. And you will not die.

He knew now what Conor had meant. The medallion was big and bright, gaudily familiar. The last time Kel had seen it, it had been worn by Artal Gremont. The amulet that had so frustrated Merren; the one that kept Gremont safe from any kind of harm. Conor had given him the amulet then thrown him from the cliff—knowing that the fall would not kill him. That the crocodiles could not hurt him.

That he would live.

Kel let his hand fall, slowly. Around him, the crocodiles had gone still. They crouched over him, motionless, jaws agape. They were staring at him—no, not at him. At the amulet. Kel felt pinned beneath the gaze of malicious statues, only statues did not drip water, they did not breathe hot, stinking breath, they did not rear back and turn around, tails whipping. They did not slide back into the ocean like ghosts, one after another, humped dark shapes disappearing into the churn of the waves.

The pebbled beach was utterly still and empty. Somewhere in the distance Kel could hear water running. There was a ringing in his ears, a darkness at the edge of his vision. He slumped motionless onto the ground.