by Ian Irvine
“Is it perfect?” said Grandys, leaning forward. His voice was hoarse. Whatever Yulia was doing, he wanted it badly.
“As perfect as I can make it,” said Yulia.
“Get to the nub.”
Yulia rotated her bracelet, four or five times. She ran her hands over Tali’s skull and face as she had before, though this time her movements were slow and deliberate, and her fingers skimmed Tali’s skin and hair. Yulia grimaced, as though she did not like to touch her, and the lines of her face deepened. By the end, her hands were shaking.
“Pull yourself together,” Grandys said coldly.
Yulia clamped her right hand over the bracelet, took three long breaths and turned to the skull drawings. She quickly drew a small circle on each, beneath the top of Tali’s skull, though not quite touching it.
The master pearl!
“You’re sure the location is right?” said Grandys.
“Yes,” said Yulia.
“Exactly?”
“Yes!” she snapped.
“Can you cut it out?”
“No!” she cried. “No!”
“Why the hell not?”
“Since I will never be able to create life, I will not willingly destroy another life.”
He made as if to speak, restrained himself and said, “Finish the job.”
Yulia scribed a circle around the pearl in the third drawing and swept a line from the circle down to a blank space at the bottom of the paper, where she drew a larger circle—a magnified view of the master pearl, Tali assumed. With swift, bold movements Yulia drew a thick, slightly curving line which Tali took to represent her skull then, using her sharpest pencil, a small circle: the master pearl. Yulia touched the pencil to the outside of the circle, making small irregularities all the way around.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Grandys.
“The two pearls you took from Lyf have dozens of layers,” said Yulia, “one atop another. It makes them strong—you could toss either pearl across this room and it would not be harmed. But Tali’s master pearl has only one layer left, plus a few remnants of the layer that used to be above it.”
She indicated the irregularities with the tip of her pencil.
“Why is there only one layer?” said Grandys.
“Have you used the pearl?” said Yulia to Tali.
She saw no reason not to answer; she had to know what was wrong. “Many times, though it’s always painful. And it’s worse each time.”
“Ebony pearls aren’t meant to be used within the host,” said Yulia.
“Says who?” said Grandys.
“It’s common knowledge. Tali has used her pearl often, and drawing all that power through it has ablated its outer layers.”
“What the hell does ablated mean?”
“Eroded away.”
“And?” said Grandys, his opal-clad jaw jutting.
“The master pearl is incredibly fragile now,” said Yulia. “Any threat or trauma to Tali threatens it. If it bursts inside her she will die… and the master pearl will be destroyed.”
“How do I get it out?”
“Even a master surgeon would struggle to perform such an operation—and keep her alive long enough to take it.”
Tali stiffened. She could see where this was going.
“Do we have a master surgeon of that quality?” said Grandys.
“No,” said Yulia, “though I believe there are several among the Cythonians…”
“No Cythonian could be trusted. What about the Hightspallers?”
“There were several in Caulderon before the war. But…”
“They’d be hard to find, even if they’ve survived Lyf’s purges.” He looked into Tali’s eyes. “How long between her death and the pearl dying?”
“What are you saying?” said Yulia.
“All that matters is getting the pearl into a vessel of healing blood before Tali dies. Any butcher of a surgeon could do that.”
Grandys leered at Tali. He was enjoying this.
“You’d trust the greatest prize in the land to a butcher?” said Yulia. “If the master pearl is broken, it can never be replaced. You’ll never get king-magery… and we’ll never create our Promised Realm.”
Grandys stared at her but did not speak.
“It has to be a master surgeon,” said Yulia. “The best there is. A healer who’s committed to keeping her alive and protecting the master pearl.”
“Tali reacted the first time I mentioned a surgeon,” said Grandys. “She has one in mind.”
Yulia thought for a moment. “The old man called Holm is her friend. It’s said he was a great surgeon, long ago.”
Yulia went out, hand pressed to her belly.
“He won’t do it,” said Tali. “He abandoned that career long ago.”
“I have ways of compelling the most reluctant people,” said Grandys. “If I can’t torment you, I’ll have to try twice as hard with Holm.”
CHAPTER 25
Grandys was playing games with Tali and she had to find a way to strike back, but she could not use her gift. He had tightened the block on it in order to protect the master pearl.
She had been removed to a large, square room that he used as an office. He had created an invisible barrier across the far end to contain her. From time to time, retainers came in bearing magnificent works of art or scholarship: manuscripts, illuminated volumes, tapestries, paintings and engravings, old maps, musical scores. Grandys gave each work a cursory examination, after which the majority of these treasures were cast into the open fireplace, drenched with oil and burned to ashes.
Rarely, however, he would place the object in a small blackwood cabinet containing a number of other such treasures.
“Fifteen,” he said on the first occasion, and on the second, “Sixteen. One to go.”
“What are they for?” said Tali, unable to restrain her curiosity. “Why are you collecting them when you’ve burned every library you’ve come to, and destroyed every other thing of beauty you’ve found?”
“In time,” said Grandys.
“You said ‘one to go’. You’re collecting seventeen items. Why seventeen?”
He did not answer.
Once or twice, empty phials from his ice chest were taken away then returned, filled with fresh crimson blood. “Seventy-nine,” he said on the last such occasion. “Eighteen more.”
“So you’re collecting ninety-seven samples of blood,” said Tali.
“Including yours, at the right time.”
To reinforce the point he withdrew the phial labelled with her name and held it up so it caught the light. It twinkled off crystals of frost.
Tali felt as though it was forming on the back of her neck, then melting to chilly water running down her backbone. “Why ninety-seven samples? Why seventeen treasures?”
“That’s what the Three Spells require.”
For Grandys’ endgame.
“Where did Incarnate come from?” said Tali as Lirriam entered, wearing the heavy stone on her breast. It had made a small bruise there and it must have been painful when she moved suddenly, though she gave no sign of it.
Although Yulia had healed Lirriam’s broken jaw, it hung slightly left of centre. Tali thought Lirriam had ordered it healed that way, as a reminder of Grandys’ unforgivable assault on one of the Five.
“From the moment the idea was conceived that stone gave our ancestors nothing but trouble,” said Grandys, watching her warily.
“The term conceived is apt,” said Lirriam. “The source may have been quickened by a male, but Incarnate grew from a female’s tears, and only a woman can use it.”
Incarnate! The very word gave Tali the shudders, with its hints of demonic possession, crimson blood and uncontrollable extremity. She reminded herself that it could also have an opposing meaning—the embodiment of some attribute of the Herovian race.
“It’s dead!” Grandys said thickly. “The wretched stone was only used once, and it led our peopl
e astray and caused us ten thousand years of misery. It’s cursed; useless!”
“Only to males,” said Lirriam.
“Why are you bent on creating this division between our sexes? In all the time we Five have been together, we’ve always acted as one.”
“That’s because you were much older than us, and far stronger. Syrten, Yulia and I were still in our teens when you bent us to your foul will. You implicated us in your crimes and ensured we could never get free.”
Tali came up to the barrier and pressed her hands against its invisible surface, testing it. It was as solid as ever. Even if she’d had full command of her gift she did not think she could have broken it.
“Together we changed the world,” said Grandys to Lirriam. “Don’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed it.”
“You corrupted me when I was an impressionable girl; you left me no way back. But to answer your question, you created the rift between our sexes by constantly putting Yulia down. You attacked me, though you’re twice my size. You must have known I’d fight back.”
“You fight with underhanded, women’s weapons.”
Lirriam sneered. “Is that the best insult you can come up with? Surely you didn’t expect I’d match you stroke for stroke like one of your oafish comrades.”
“It’s always been the Heroes’ way.”
“No, it’s always been your way.” She rubbed her jaw, pointedly. “You taught us to fight the enemy on our battlefield, not his. With our weapons, not his.”
“We’re the Five Heroes! The rest of the world is our enemy, but we stand together.”
“We used to. But you’re past your prime, Grandys. Your strength is fading, and soon you’ll fall the way you rose—in a bucket of blood.”
He gaped at her. “You want to lead the Heroes.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Who would you choose? Syrten, who hasn’t had an independent thought in a thousand years? Rufuss, who’s in thrall to his unslakeable need to torment the powerless? Or Yulia, sick with guilt at her forced complicity in the foul acts you forced the Heroes to commit?”
“I created the Five Heroes,” said Grandys. “There can be no other leader while—”
She smiled coldly. “While you live.”
Grandys shook in a passion, took a step towards her, then stopped.
“You want to hit me again,” said Lirriam. “It’s the only answer you have. You’re such a hero.”
“One day you’ll push me too far,” he choked.
“I intend to push you all the way… before Maloch deserts you for its true master.”
“I am its true master. Envoy Urtiga left it to me in a signed deed.”
“A signed deed means nothing. We all saw you use magery to forge Lyf’s signature on the charter that began the Two Hundred and Fifty Years War. A time will come when the sword will betray you, Grandys.”
Tali could see the fear in Grandys’ eyes now, and his burning doubt in the sword. The balance was tilting. How could she increase the pressure in a way that would give her a chance?
“Why is the wyverin the Five Heroes’ nemesis?” said Tali.
Lirriam shot her a sharp glance. “It’s not our nemesis. Only Grandys’.”
“Why? Where does it come from?”
“We don’t talk about it,” said Grandys.
Yulia entered silently, dressed in travelling clothes, followed by Syrten, who carried a heavy pack.
“Where are you off to?” said Grandys.
“To the Custodian, to get the Immortal Text,” said Yulia. “Before we can use the Three Spells to cleanse our Promised Realm, we need the Text in hand.”
Grandys grunted.
“You don’t wish us to go?” said Yulia.
“Yes, go!” he said. “The time draws near.”
“Are the Three Spells prepared?”
“What are the Three Spells, anyway?” said Tali.
“Stonespell. Writspell. Bloodspell,” said Grandys, with a nasty smile. “They’re almost ready to use.” He waved Yulia away and she went out, followed, dog-like, by Syrten.
“And now,” he said, turning back to Tali, “we come to the key.”
That thud was her heart hitting the pit of her stomach. “What key?” she croaked.
“Surely you didn’t think your pitiful attempts to distract me would work?”
Tali rubbed her cold arms but the goose pimples would not go away.
“You know what the key to king-magery is,” said Grandys. “And you’re going to tell me.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
He walked through the barrier as though it did not exist, drew Maloch and held it above her head. “What’s the key to king-magery?”
Her head throbbed. “I—don’t—know.”
“Maloch says you’re lying.”
As he laid the flat of the blade on top of her head, Tali felt a shrieking pain beneath her skull. She gasped and pressed her palms to the sides of her head. Endure it! Don’t tell him anything.
“Careful,” said Lirriam. “You don’t know how much the pearl can take—or how little.”
The pain grew until it was like having the sword thrust down through her skull; until she could not bear it. She fell to her knees, clutching at her head. Grandys followed her down with the sword.
“Stop it!” Lirriam yelled. “You’ll burst the master pearl.”
He scowled but rammed Maloch into its sheath. “They can endure so little pain, these Pale. They deserve to be enslaved.”
“Violence isn’t the answer. It rarely is.”
“Maybe I can’t torture Tali,” said Grandys. “But I can torture her friends: Deadhand and the little maidservant, whatever her name is.”
He knew Glynnie’s name. Of course he knew.
“I’m making a beautiful trap and they’re going to fall right in it.” He grinned savagely at Tali.
She could not think of anything to say. She was helpless and he was back on top.
“And once I take them,” said Grandys, “I’ll also have Holm, the master surgeon. When I’ve got him, your life, and the fate of this land, will be measured in hours.”
CHAPTER 26
“You look dreadful,” said Glynnie. “If your eyes sink in any further they’ll come out the back of your head.”
“I don’t feel too good.” Rix rubbed the fading bruises on his face. They had not faded nearly as quickly as his triumph over Libbens and the mutineers. He sniffed himself. “And I stink.”
“We all stink,” said Glynnie. “You get used to it after a while.”
“The bastard’s playing his mind games again. Why won’t he attack?”
“Grandys doesn’t just want to win. He wants to break you… and ravage me, before he kills us.”
She made a small, trapped sound in her throat, clutched at his arm and squelched on through the muck.
Grandys was not their only woe. Rix stood in the grey, dawn rain, surveying the mess. So much volcanic ash had fallen during the night that half the tents had collapsed, his command tent among them. The powdery ash had got into everything, even sealed containers of food, and the rain turned the eight-inch layer on the ground to a grey sludge. Marching through it was like walking in glue. It found its way between the wagon axles and their housings and set like mortar, locking them. And when the sun finally came out, the rutted ash would set as hard as stone.
There was no water for washing or anything else save drinking and cooking, because every stream was clogged with the muck. Even drinking water was at a premium, since the fine ash remained suspended in the water and every gallon had to be filtered through cloth. The tea, and everything cooked in water, had the same foul, mouth-puckering taste.
And there was still the matter of his officers. Rix had not sacked Hork and the other four captains yet, because he had no officers to replace them. Several of Rix’s men showed promise, including the scar-faced Sergeant Waysman, and the innocent-looking Pomfree, and
Jackery of course, though Rix knew none of them were ready for high command. But when the battle came he would have to throw them into the water and hope they could swim—or at least, dog paddle.
“It’s getting worse,” said Glynnie. “People are saying the Red Vomit is going to blow itself to pieces.” She looked south to where the three Vomits were concealed by low cloud. “If it does, it’ll put an end to all wars.”
As if to underline her words, the ground quivered underfoot. Rix had tracked Grandys’ army north-west through Togl. It had forded the Rinkl River in the foothills and gone to Bastion Barr, but Rix had not followed Grandys across the river. It felt like a trap and he did not know this country.
“If it’s this bad twenty-five miles from the Vomits,” she added, “what must it be like right next door? Or in Caulderon?”
Rix did not answer. He had other things on his mind, such as how to take on Grandys’ vastly superior army; such as squeezing enough supplies out of this miserable, war-torn land to feed his 4400 men. He had begun with five thousand but the bad food and water had laid many hundreds low and he’d had to leave them behind.
“Grandys has seven thousand men,” said Rix. “And he’s bound to be recruiting more.”
“You’re recruiting too.”
“I’m not finding many volunteers. For some reason they’re reluctant to join an army led by a dead-handed man whose parents were executed for high treason—after he betrayed them.” He let out a mirthless chuckle. “Can you credit it?”
“Let’s focus on the positive,” she said pointedly. “What are you going to do next?”
“Tali’s the key. Since I allowed her to fall into Grandys’ hands, I should be trying to rescue her.”
“Which is what Grandys wants you to do.”
“He’s back,” said Jackery the following morning.
“Who’s back?” said Rix, who was supervising a battle drill between his troops. They were fighting with wooden weapons so as to cause the minimum number of injuries.
“Grandys, on horseback. Watching everything you do.”
“He was doing that yesterday.”