The Enigma Score Read Online Free PDF

smoke, and the great bulk of the North Watcher hung above them, a cliff formed of moonstone and ashy quartz, though chemists and geologists argued that the structure of the Watcher was not precisely either of these. In his mind, Tasmin said ‘emerald’ and ‘moonstone’ and ‘sapphire.’ Let the chemists argue what they really were; to him whether they were Presences hundreds of feet tall, or ’lings a tenth that size, or ’lets, smaller than a man, they were all sheer beauty.
    Between the Watchers, scattered among the Watchlings, was the wreckage of many wagons and a boneyard of human and animal skeletons, long since picked clean. Behind the Watchers to both north and south extended the endless line of named and unnamed Presences that made up the western rampart of Deepsoil Five, cutting it off from the rest of the continent except through this and several similar passes for which proven Passwords existed.
    Jamieson feigned boredom by sprawling on the trip wagon seat, although he himself had only been out twice before. Refnic, James, and Clarin perched on their mules like new hats at spring festival, so recently accoutered by the citadel Tripmaster as to seem almost artificial, like decorated manikins. ‘Put your hoods back,’ Tasmin advised them quietly. ‘Push up your sleeves and fasten them with the bands. That’s what the bands are for, and it gets your hands out in the open where you need them. I know the sleeves are stiff, but they’ll soften up in time.’ Tasmin’s own robes were silky from repeated washings and mendings. The embroidered cuffs fell in gentle folds from the bands, and the hood had long ago lost its stiff lining. ‘Put the reins in the saddle hook to free your hands. That’s it.’
    With heads and arms protruding from the Tripsingers’ robes, the students looked more human and more vulnerable, their skulls looking almost fragile through the short hair that had been allowed to grow in anticipation of their robing but was still only an inch or so long. They could not take their eyes from the Watchers, a normal reaction. Even experienced caravaners sometimes sat for an hour or more simply looking at a Presence as though unable to believe what they saw. Most passengers traveled inside screened wagons, often dosed with tranquilizers to avoid hysteria and the resultant fatal noise. These students were looking on the Presences at close range for the first time. Their heads moved slowly, scanning the monstrous crystals, from those before them to all the others dwindling toward the horizon. South, at the limit of vision, a mob of pillars dwarfed by distance marked the site of the Far Watchlings with the monstrous Black Tower hulked behind them, the route by which they would return. They knew that there, as here, the soil barely covered the crystals. Everything around them vibrated to the eager whining, buzzing, squeaking cacophony that had been becoming louder since they moved toward the ridge.
    The Watchers knew they were there.
    ‘Presumably you’ve decided how you want to assign this?’ Tasmin usually let his first trippers decide who sang what, so long as everyone took equal responsibility. ‘All right, move it along. Perform or retreat, one or the other. The Presences are getting irritated.’ Tasmin controlled his impatience. They could have moved a little faster, but at least they weren’t paralyzed. He had escorted more than one group that went into a total funk at the first sight of a Presence, and at least one during which a neophyte, paralyzed with fear, had flung himself at a Presence.
    ‘Clarin will sing it, sir, if you don’t mind. James and I will do the orchestral effects.’ Refnic was a little pale but composed. Clarin seemed almost hypnotized, her dark brows drawn together in a concentrated frown, deep hollows in her cheeks as she sucked them in, moistening her tongue.
    ‘Get on with it then.’
    The mules hitched to the trip wagon were trained to pull at a steady