The Hidden Coronet Read Online Free PDF Page A

One.”
    “The Great One? Who is that?”
    Suddenly the creature tried to jerk away. Galen gripped it tight. “Is it the one called the Margrave? Does he control you? Did he send you here?”
    “Let me stay!” It was a howl, a scream, and with sudden panic the shadow fought, but Galen pulled it closer.
    “I can’t go to the Makers,” it sobbed. “I’ve been evil.”
    “No one is turned away. No one.” Galen’s fingers merged into the black hands, warm as fire. He hugged it into himself. “Come to us,” he said.
    And to Raffi’s astonishment the creature’s blackness had stars in it, distant suns and tiny nebulae, and then it was fading, passing into the keeper’s fingers, into his body and beyond him, far out to somewhere else, streaming into the sense-lines and the stars, still crying out, still sobbing.
    Until it was gone.
     
     
     
     
    THE LAMP FLICKERED. Galen was alone.
    For a second he stood there; then he muttered, “Raffi,” and staggered back. Raffi grabbed him; together they crumpled breathless onto the bare boards.
    Galen dragged in breath. His hair was soaked with sweat, his face white as if in pain. Raffi looked around for water but there was none.
    “The beads,” the keeper croaked. “Give me the beads.”
    The spiral was broken, all its green and black crystals scattered, as if something had blasted them wide. Raffi gathered up a handful and pressed them into Galen’s fingers; the keeper held them tight, bending over, forcing himself to breathe, to be calm, and as his eyes opened, just for an instant, Raffi was sure he saw the echoes of tiny stars fade out of their blackness.
    Unless it was the lamp.
    “What did you do?”
    “I don’t know.” Galen leaned back against the wall, his breathing ragged. He looked exhausted.
    “You asked it about the Margrave.”
    “Yes.” The keeper looked up. Rubbing his cheek with the edge of his palm he said, “Something’s not right here. That was no ghost, no trapped relic-power. That was real, malevolent, a creature woken, maybe even made intentionally.”
    “To do what?”
    Galen shrugged. “To get us here.”
    Raffi went cold. “Us?”
    “A keeper. Any keeper. Bait.”
    Raffi chewed his nails. “If that’s true, we ought to get away.”
    “Not before we stop those executions.”
    There was silence a moment, a hostile, worried silence. Then the keeper said, “I need some water. Go and get it. And anything she left to eat. Bring the pack up too.”
    Reluctant, Raffi scrambled to his feet.
    “You won’t need the lamp,” Galen said wearily, watching him reach for it. “The house is empty. Feel it.”
    And all down the stairs he could feel it, a silence raw and astonished.
    When he came back they ate the rest of the cheese. Galen drank heavily and then spread the blanket over his legs and leaned back, closing his eyes.
    “I don’t understand,” Raffi muttered. “Why did it put the flowers there?”
    “It didn’t.”
    Puzzled, he chewed the hard rind. “We saw them.”
    “We saw them. But that creature didn’t put them there.”
    “So who did?”
    But Galen did not answer.
     
     
     
     
    BANGING WOKE HIM. A hard, insistent banging that seemed to go on and on, until Raffi rolled over with a groan and heard Galen unbolting the doors below. Echoes of a woman’s voice murmured in the house.
    He sat up.
    Bleak gray light was seeping through the boarded windows. He yawned and scratched and rubbed his face with dry hands. Then he pulled his boots on and went downstairs.
    In the kitchen they were talking.
    The woman had a bundle in her arms; she laid it on the table. “Are you sure?” she said, dubious, looking around.
    Galen was tired and bad-tempered. “It’s gone. It won’t be back.”
    Raffi was amazed she couldn’t feel that. The whole house was calm around him, as if it had slept for the first time in weeks. He knew that was why he felt so bleary.
    She nodded. “I’ll have to take your word. I’ve brought these,