“Nope,” said Dad. “You must remember that things changed very fast in Amil’s reign. Singers were right out of date by the time Amil died.”
Poor Moril. Next time Maewen charged upstairs, she asked, “Earl Keril of Hannart, Dad. Was he a great nuisance to Amil the Great?”
Eyebrows up, like the image of Navis, Dad said, “Are you writing a historical novel or something? Far be it from me to discourage such a venture. But let it be accurate, please. Earl Keril supported Amil, like most earls of the North, but he never seems to have been very deep in Amil’s confidence. Historians usually put Hannart’s decline down to this period.”
“Thanks.” Oh. So history had Keril as just a politician who backed the wrong move. Right, in a way, but so wrong, too.
Maewen went thoughtfully away. She was tired. Today had literally lasted two hundred years. But even if she could have borne to sit and wait for Kankredin, Maewen’s misery would not let her keep still. She patrolled wider and wider, through most of the palace by the afternoon.
Halfway through the afternoon the loudspeaker outlets crackled all over the palace. Here it comes! Maewen thought, and stood stock-still where she was, between two state bedrooms.
“Attention. Your attention, please.” It was Major Alksen’s voice. “A bomb has been reported concealed on the palace premises. I repeat. A bomb has been reported somewhere in the palace or grounds. I must ask everyone to leave as quickly and quietly as possible. This applies to all visitors and staff alike. Please leave the palace and its grounds as quickly as you can. Doors and gates have been opened front and rear. Please leave by the nearest exit you can find. Please do not return until the bomb is located. Attention, please…”
The message went on and on, repeating.
The palace resounded softly as hundreds of people’s feet hurried through rooms and down stairs to find the doors. Presumably Dad and his ladies were on their way out, too. Maewen wanted to know. Once more her feet took her on the familiar journey to the office. But the stairs were blocked by the office staff pouring down them.
“Your father, dear?” said someone, barely stopping. “Mr. Singer’s gone down to Security. He’ll probably stay with them until the bomb squad gets here. You come down with us.”
Maewen hung back and let them pass until the stairway was empty. Dad was not safe, but there was nothing she could do. She went softly down again. The palace was weirdly empty, much emptier than she had ever known it. Maewen went on a zigzag course, quite unimpeded, from back windows to front ones, and then back windows again, as she went down. She saw people pouring out through gardens at the back and through the court at the front. Nothing would happen until everyone was gone. She was sure of that. Kankredin was after her. Maybe he would also destroy the palace as a belated revenge on Mitt, but he would not blow up all the tourists. Kankredin valued power over people, and you could not have that if all the people were dead.
She went on down, checking windows. By now she had come to the floors that opened onto the cloister balconies at the front. The windows were big glass doors, and Maewen had to go through those, into a roofed space held up by thin pillars, and then lean over the parapet to see into the front court. When she did this at the highest balcony, there was still a scatter of people hurrying away through the court and out under the arched gateway. At the next floor, everyone had gone. Everywhere was empty and still—No, it was not!
Maewen leaned on the parapet and did not dare move. Over the multiple domes of Amil’s tomb, a big cloud of something nearly invisible rolled and coiled on itself. She could see it mostly by the way it distorted the wall and the city buildings beyond, in ugly, glassy waves. It was not person-shaped—yet. Kankredin was busy assembling himself. Maewen licked her lips. There was so much of it. Kankredin seemed to have brought more of himself from somewhere. The ugly shimmer was easily five times the size of the ghost thing that had been her horse. She supposed she ought to shout that word, but she had a feeling that the thing hovering there was too big to be dealt with like that.
On the other side of the court the gates in the big main gateway were softly closing, switched by remote control from Security, shutting her in with Kankredin. But Dad was inside, too. She had to do something.
Before the gates had quite swung closed, a man in an old leather jacket slipped between them and pushed them shut with his back. He must be the bomb disposal expert. Maewen had heard that bomb men were daredevils who dressed all anyhow and enjoyed risking their lives. The trouble was, he was not up against a bomb. She saw him realize. He stood as still as Maewen, staring up at the heaving, invisible cloud. Then his head switched—There was something odd about—There was somebody else in the court, running. Maewen could hear running footsteps. Then see who. It was Wend, racing toward Amil’s tomb.
The man by the gate gave a great shout. “GET BACK, YOU FLAMING FOOL!”
That was Mitt’s voice! Maewen was head down, leaning far out over the parapet, without knowing she had moved. She knew she was right. Except it couldn’t be true. The man was not gawky enough—was he?
Above the tomb, the coiling movement, which had been bunching and bending over itself ready to move down on the man by the gate, now swayed round and turned to face the movement Maewen had made. She saw—no, felt—eyes in its midst. Eyes that knew her. Eyes that hated her. Fat-lidded eyes she knew.
Mitt’s voice yelled a word. It was not the word Maewen knew. This was a word that made your brain clench and then prefer to forget you had heard it. It was a word that dragged shivers from deep, deep under the earth. A word that shook the palace. The invisibleness above the tomb coiled hurriedly round to throw itself at the shouter.
In the act of coiling it was caught, and held, and thrown high, high in the air, mixed with and part of a tremendous jet of water, a huge tsunami. Water burst from the tomb in a giant dark horn, throwing pieces of building aside like a card house. Maewen stared, with her neck twisted, at the immense column of water hanging into the sky, darker and darker with dissolving shreds of the coiling cloud, and all spouted to yellow froth at its distant top.
Then it fell.
Maewen threw herself flat beside the parapet. Even so, she was soaked. The open balcony bucked under her. Salt water stung her eyes. Salt? And the roar of falling tons of water was more deafening than any bomb. It went on and on, mixed with the crashing of stone. Maewen scrambled up in the midst of it, unable to care that she was deaf as a post. Three pillars that held up the balcony were missing nearby, and there was a gap in the parapet where she had been leaning. Unable to care about that either, she walked over balcony that swayed and grated until she reached the nearest whole pillar. Clinging to it, she stared at the courtyard awash with angry, gray, leaping waves. The gate was down. The gateway was mostly rubble. Water was roaring out into King Street. The salt that ran on Maewen’s face was partly tears. No one could have survived that.
But he had. He must have been swept over to the side wall. She could see him, nearly out of her view, where it was blocked by the ragged edge of the balcony, clawing himself along the wall, first shoulder-deep, then, very quickly, only waist-deep. The water was rushing away all the time, going back underground. Maewen could dimly hear the surge and growl of it running away. But she was staring at the man’s soaking, lank hair. It did look like Mitt’s.
Then he had clawed himself out of sight. Maewen had turned to dash away down into the court when she heard him speaking, right under the balcony. “Come on, get up, you fool. Walk.” It was Mitt’s voice, no doubt now.
Wend’s voice answered. “Let me go. I deserve to drown.”
And then Mitt’s voice again: “If that was true, the Earth Shaker wouldn’t have left you alive. Come on, stand up.”
Maewen heard splashing, and coughing. Wend said, “Don’t you understand? I was working with Kankredin.”
Mitt answered, “Well, you had the sense to phone and tell me when you realized how much of him he’d collected here. He’s an expert in blackmailing and tempting and all that. Stop kicking yourself. What I want to know—Watch it! These steps are all broken.” There were flounderings, and the sound of wet stones rolling and splashing. Then Mitt’s voice came from right underneath, where the palace door was. “What I want to know is how did he persuade you?”
“Noreth,” said Wend. Maewen could tell he was crying. “My daughter Noreth! All these years I thought you were the one who’d killed her.”
“Of all the idiots!” Mitt answered. “There were several hundred people you could have asked!”