Tal looked at her. Why was she standing up for him?
Crow ignored Milla and turned to Gill, who stepped back a little.
"Come on, Gill. We've got to go back for the barrels."
Gill shook her head. "I'm showing Milla how to get to the heatways."
Crow scowled. "We need you to help with the airweed. She has a Spiritshadow. Let it find the way for her. Let her get lost, if it comes to that."
"I'm not an it," growled Odris. She billowed down, and Milla slipped into a fighting crouch. Suddenly conflict seemed seconds away.
"No, no!" said Jarnil. "This is all going wrong! Crow, we need to talk to these people, not fight them! Why don't you get Korvim to help with the weed?"
"Korvim and his lot have gone back," Crow replied. "To rejoin the Fatalists. Just like Linel and Drenn and all the others, because we sit around talking all the time instead of killing Chosen!"
"How many Freefolk are there?" asked Tal.
All the Freefolk began to speak at the same time. "Well, the numbers fluctuate--" began Jarnil. "Don't tell the spy--" spat Crow.
"Seven right now," said Ferek. "Counting Jarnil."
"Close it!" roared Crow. Ferek flinched, but the older boy did not follow through with any action to enforce his words.
"Close it," repeated Crow, but softer. For a second Tal thought he caught a hint of kindness in Crow's voice, as if he was sorry he'd shouted at Ferek.
"Seven
Freefolk?" asked Tal. "That's all? Counting Jarnil? What about the other Sharers of the Light? How many of them are there?"
Jarnil looked down and mumbled something.
"None left?" repeated Milla, who was the only one who had heard his words. "None at all?"
"There were only ever twelve of us," said Jarnil. "Thirteen if you count Ebbitt, though he was never formally in the group and sometimes I wondered… anyway, Rerem--your father--was one, Tal. After I I… began my new life down here, I made contact with them. But then over the years, they disappeared, one by one. Rerem was the last to go. I'm sorry, Tal, but I am sure that like the others… like the others, he must be dead."
"No, he isn't," said Tal, shaking his head. "I asked the Codex. It said
He is the Guardian of the Orange Keystone. It has been unsealed and so he does not live. Until or unless the Orange Keystone is sealed again, he does not live. If it is sealed, he will live again.'"
Tal took a deep breath and got to his feet before continuing, the words coming faster and more forcibly as he spoke.
"That's why I want to know what the Keystones are, and how they get unsealed, or sealed. And I think Milla needs to know, too, because there is something terrible going on, and we all need to sit down and talk because no matter whether we're Chosen, or Un… Freefolk, or Icecarls, or something in between, if the Veil is destroyed and the sun breaks through and shadows swarm in from Aenir, they'll kill all of us! We should be working together, instead of fighting and arguing and helping
Sushin and the Aenirans take over!"
Tal's impassioned words had the strongest effect on Ebbitt. The old man stopped pacing as he spoke and stood taller and straighter than anyone had ever seen him stand. His Spiritshadow stood at his side, a regal companion. And Ebbitt spoke with a voice that Tal had not heard from him before, an assured and somehow noble voice, without the wandering and strange humor. For a moment, Ebbitt was once again the Shadowlord of the Indigo he had once been, a great man among the Chosen.
"Seven Keystones stand in Seven Towers, forming the foundation of the veil," he pronounced. "Seven Guardians hold the secrets of the Stones. My nephew Rerem was indeed the Guardian of the Orange Keystone, as was my brother before him. If the Codex has told Tal that the Orange Keystone is unsealed, then the veil is indeed threatened. For if all seven of the Keystones fail, the veil will be destroyed."
The room was silent after Ebbitt spoke. Everyone stared at him, even Crow. Ebbitt met their looks, unblinking. Then his eyes seemed to twinkle, and his gaze shifted to the ceiling.
The silence broke as he began to speak again, his voice softer, his stance already shifting. He seemed diminished, more like his everyday, eccentric self.
"Sun and shadows," he said. "Sun and shadows. The veil may block the sun, but it cannot block the pride and greed of the Chosen. We should have obeyed Ramellan's Strictures and never returned to Aenir. Everything that will come we have brought upon ourselves."
"The Orange Keystone unsealed," echoed Jarnil. Beads of sweat had come up on his forehead. "Unsealed. My cousin Lokar was the Guardian of the Red. She disappeared a year before Rerem and…"
Jarnil's face went white and his voice almost disappeared. He drank heavily from his cup of sweet-water, as if it might bring relief from some great fear.
"I have just had the most terrible thought," he whispered. "Twenty-two years ago, Shadowlord Verrin of the Indigo disappeared without a trace, just like Lokar and Rerem. He was the first Chosen to disappear without explanation for almost a hundred years. He was probably the Guardian of the Indigo Keystone. The first to go."
Now incredibly agitated, Jarnil leapt up and gripped Ebbitt on the arm.
"Twenty-two years ago, Ebbitt! That same year that the three Chosen overstayed in Aenir!"
Ebbitt gently pulled Jarnil's fingers away, but did not speak. He kept staring up at the Sunstone in the ceiling and Tal could hear him humming some soft and doleful tune.
"What about the Chosen who stayed in Aenir?" Tal asked.
"The only one who came back was Sushin,"
whispered Jarnil. "He never explained what had happened, and disclaimed all knowledge of the other two. He was more than a month late returning, but he was not punished. Verrin disappeared soon after he came back. I would never have thought to connect them before."
"This is Chosen business," interrupted Crow, sneering. "You talk of the veil being destroyed. What does that matter to the Freefolk? We have never seen the sun in your Towers, or in your private world of Aenir. Maybe it is good the veil will be destroyed."
Milla looked at him angrily.
"You speak faster than you think," she said. "The veil is a defense, a ship-wall against shadows. It is not just the sun that would be let in, but also the many creatures of Aenir who hate and fear us. They are the ancient enemies of all our people, and they will slay Freefolk, Underfolk, Chosen, and Icecarls."
Crow shrugged, as if he could shake off Milla's words. But he did not speak, and she could tell that he didn't want to admit that he heard truth in her voice.
"How is a Keystone unsealed?" asked Tal.
Jarnil wiped the sweat from his forehead and folded his hands together before he answered, a habit Tal remembered from the Lectorium. It meant that Jarnil didn't want to admit he didn't know the answer and would talk a lot to disguise that fact.
"While the secrets of the Keystones are kept only by the Guardians," Jarnil began, "I understand that certain lengthy rituals and incantations"
"Balderdash," interrupted Ebbitt. "Also codswollop and shadowpoop. No one knows, except the six Guardians."
"Seven," corrected Jarnil, angry at being so rudely interrupted.
Ebbitt smiled and held up six fingers, closing each one in turn into his fists as he counted.
"Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo."
"And Violet," added Tal. He was used to Ebbitt's eccentricities and weird lapses of ordinary knowledge, but this was so obvious he was embarrassed for his great-uncle.
Ebbitt shook his head and smiled, a secret smile.
"The Violet Guardian is the heir of Ramellan," he said. "Not the toe, not the ear, nor the fingernail, but the heir of Ramellan. The in-hair-itor."
"The Empress," said Jarnil. He seemed relieved. "Then we need not fear for the veil so much. It would be truly terrible if Sushin and his cohorts already had the Violet Keystone."
"Why?" asked Milla.
"The Seventh Tower holds all the ancient secrets of Ramellan, all the devices and ma
chines of the ancient magic," said Jarnil. "Whoever controls the Violet Keystone controls the Tower. Fortunately, while the Empress is obviously unaware of the machinations of her Dark Vizier, she would never entrust control of the Violet Keystone to anyone but herself. We can rest easy on that one Keystone, at least."
Ebbitt held up an imaginary book and turned some imaginary pages. It seemed that he had no trouble seeing the book himself, because he traced the first line with his finger, reciting.
" 'The Empress Kathild, first of her line, came to the throne of Ramellan in unusual circumstances. Controversy surrounded the death of Emperor Mercur, and his funeral was irregular and rushed, with no lying in state, giving rise to talk that he had been hideously assassinated and the body was not fit to view.'"
"That's from Kimerl's
History,"