The Hidden Coronet Read Online Free Page B

you. In the names of Soren and Tamar I release the pain from you . . .”
    The pool bubbled. Out of it rose a great mass of tentacles that soared and groped high over their heads. Raffi ducked with a yelp of fear but Galen’s voice went on, relentless. “In the name of Theriss I draw out your dark dreams. In the name of Halen I unfasten you, atom by atom. And in the name of Kest—”
    The creature screamed. It slithered itself up into manshape and howled, arms overhead, bending and swaying as if in agony. The beads crackled and spat. Galen glanced at them anxiously.
    “Not that name!” The voice broke into hisses of static, barely understandable. “Not him! He started it! The terror, the decay!” It squirmed into separate flames of blackness, wordless moans, then hurled itself forward at them, hands out.
    Raffi leaped back; Galen lashed out and grabbed him.
    “Still!” he snarled.
    The awen-beads sparked. Smoke filled the room, blurring the light. The creature impacted on the invisible barrier and spread like a blot. It swarmed around them, hung over their heads, a black mass of despair. Raffi could feel its agony like a weight. He was dizzy, his chest ached.
    “Let me finish!” Galen said.
    “No! Not that name!”
    “The Litany . . .”
    “ You must do it,” the voice howled. “I know who you are. I know the Crow. Let me go to them through you!”
    Astounded, Raffi turned. The voice was everywhere—in his head, filling his veins. Back to back with Galen they were both swallowed in blackness, the lamplight gone as if some great beast had devoured it.
    “It’s too dangerous,” Galen muttered.
    “Please! Trust me!” It squirmed piteously. “I have been evil, done evil. Let me have peace, keeper.”
    Galen cursed bitterly. Then he dropped Raffi’s arm. In the darkness his face was gaunt, eyes black. “Stay in the spiral,” he hissed.
    “Galen!”
    It was useless. The keeper pushed him aside and stepped over the beads, into blackness.

4
    Evil is a shadow.
Without light it could not exist.
    Litany of the Makers

    T HE ROOM LAUGHED.
    A deep, devilish chuckle. Raffi felt dismay well up in him; he shuddered, saying blind, meaningless phrases from the Litany over and over.
    For a second he couldn’t see Galen at all; the keeper was eaten by the murk. And then, gradually, it rolled up, dragged back, shriveled into the vast shadow of a man, face-to-face with Galen, fingertip to fingertip.
    The keeper stood tall; he had the crackling stillness about him that was the Crow; his hair dark and glossy, the very air about him riven with sudden threads of energy. He spread his hands; the shadow-hands spread too, as if the creature were somehow the reverse of the keeper.
    “Come to the Makers. Let yourself come.” It was a harsh voice, barely Galen’s, making Raffi think of vast distances, the emptiness between stars. But to his surprise the creature’s reply was calm and amused.
    “No,” it said. “You come to me, keeper. Come to the dark.”
    Galen stared.
    The featureless face stared back.
    In the bare lamplit room they confronted each other, both charged with power. Catching the awen-beads at his neck Raffi saw the invisible struggle between them, knew the shadow-creature was growing, swelling into strength.
    “Come to me, keeper,” it said again, and now its fingers were locked in Galen’s, trapping them tight, pulling him close. “You’ve always wanted to. Deep into the dark.”
    Galen didn’t answer. Silence raged between them, as if their souls ebbed and flowed in a bitter tussle channeled through fingertips and sense-lines. When Raffi tried to reach out to help, the ferocity of it flung him back.
    “Galen!” he cried.
    The keeper was fading, flooded by darkness.
    “Galen!”
    “Darkness is stronger,” the creature hissed. “It was first, and will be last. Enter it with me.”
    “Who . . . awakened you?” Galen had to force the words out.
    “He did. The one you fear. The Great