by Ian Irvine
“I detected the call and followed its trace inside, but as I entered the call was blocked. It had come from a secure room upstairs, at the back, and Tali had been held there, but she had slipped away only minutes before. We never detected the call again.”
“She knows how to block it,” said Lyf. “And, evidently, how to cloak herself from sight as well.”
“However we discovered a strange thing in that room,” said Lanz. “Several strange things, in truth.”
“Go on.”
“There were traces of magery. Most enigmatic magery, and it had been used in the previous half hour.”
“Magery to do with Maloch?” said Lyf.
“No, it was unlike anything we’ve ever encountered. It seemed… not of this world.” Lanz began to shiver.
“Get him a blanket,” said Lyf to Moley Gryle.
She fetched one and Lyf tucked it around the soldier. “Have you eaten, Captain Lanz?”
“I will complete my report first, Lord King. But if you have some small ale to hand…”
Moley Gryle brought a mug of ale. Lyf held it to Lanz’s lips. He took a small swallow.
“You said that the magery you detected was not of this world,” said Lyf. “What do you mean by that?”
“I didn’t get the chance to look more deeply,” said Lanz. “Though I did notice that it had a… a feminine character. It was nothing like Grandys’ magery, or Maloch’s—it wasn’t destructive magery at all.”
“How curious. And the other strange things?”
“There was gold-blonde hair on the floor—Tali’s hair. And a razor. And fresh vomit, as though she had thrown up violently.”
Lyf felt the blood draining from his cheeks. “Anything else?”
“After the call vanished, Lirriam burst out of that room, fighting like a red-eyed tiger. None of our weapons could touch her and the eight of us who had reached the room died there, save me. When I knew we had failed and Tali could not be found, I fought my way out to bring you the news.”
“Did Tali escape, or did Lirriam recapture her?”
“I cannot say, Lord King.”
“You did well,” said Lyf. “You can rest now.” Lyf shook Lanz’s hand, called the attendants and they carried him out.
“You look worried, Lord King,” said Moley Gryle when the door had been closed.
“Why would Lirriam shave Tali’s head?”
“Perhaps she was planning to cut out the master pearl.”
“I don’t think Lirriam cares for the pearl. There must be some other reason… something to do with the enigmatic magery Lanz detected…”
“What is it, Lord King?”
“I have no idea; that’s what’s so worrying. If they have another kind of magery at their disposal, one they haven’t even used yet… one they’re trying to link to the master pearl in some way…”
He sat on a bench, deep in thought. There came a rapping on the door. Moley Gryle spoke to someone outside and came back. Lyf, though aware she was waiting for his attention, did not move. The news was too worrying.
After ten minutes, Moley Gryle cleared her throat.
“What?” he snapped.
“Grandys’ spies are spreading a troubling piece of news.”
“What news?”
“That he’s captured Tali’s friend, the former master surgeon, Holm.”
Lyf reeled. “He’s taunting us. Telling us he can take the master pearl any time he wants.”
“Assuming he still has Tali.”
“He must have.”
“Or he wants you to think that. He’s trying to force you into a rash act,” said Moley Gryle.
“Tali knows the circlet is the key to using king-magery,” said Lyf, “and so does Holm. Grandys will get the secret out of one of them, and once he knows what the key is, he’ll know where to find it. If he takes the master pearl as well, he can command the other four ebony pearls, and king-magery will be his to control.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Send out more spies—find out if Tali did escape, and if so, where she went. And Grandys must be watched day and night, no matter the cost. If he goes after the circlet, I’ve got to follow him there and take it first.”
Lyf lay on the bench and closed his eyes. “I need to rest for an hour,” he said when Moley Gryle did not move.
“Before you do, there’s another urgent matter to be dealt with, Lord King.”
“What?”
“The Resistance is growing again. Our intelligence says they’re planning another uprising.”
“We only purged them a month ago.”
“Cut off one head and three grow back,” said Moley Gryle.
“What does Hramm think?”
“He has a new idea, Lord King. A final idea.”
Lyf sighed. Why couldn’t she ever get to the point? “Which is?”
“Flushing their underground hideouts with stink-damp.”
Lyf considered the idea for a minute or two. “Why not? We’ve got enough to deal with abroad without fighting rebels at home at the same time. Yes! If it’ll solve the problem, tell him to do it right away.”
CHAPTER 40
Grandys raced ahead of his troops, driving his mount to the limit of exhaustion. He reached Castle Swire two hours after dawn and stopped, staring. About a hundred dead Cythonian warriors were scattered across the road, and the gates had been blown to pieces. It looked as though Lyf’s sappers had used a bombast on them.
He spurred his horse. It staggered through the gateway and collapsed under him. Grandys jumped free and stood in the middle of the yard, panting. There were bodies everywhere here as well, more than half of them men of his elite Herovian Guard. Tall, muscular, black-haired men for the most part; purebloods. The best.
Among them were more enemy dead, mostly men who were somewhat shorter than his Herovians, and more heavily built. There were some female warriors as well. Ugly brutes all. He kicked the nearest corpse.
“Grandys!”
Lirriam was standing on the front steps, at the spot where he had slain Bondy, the lord of Castle Swire, several months ago. It had been one of Grandys’ happiest memories, the start of his victorious campaign, and now it was forever marred. How dare they attack his first bastion?
He hacked through the neck of an enemy corpse so violently that the head spun across the flagstones for twenty feet, then stalked towards Lirriam.
“Did they get her?” said Grandys.
“Tali’s gone.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I can’t tell. Her path is cloaked.”
“I blocked her gift before I left. She couldn’t use it.”
“Perhaps she unblocked it,” said Lirriam.
“Not by herself!” He looked around the yard. “I left you in charge. What the hell were you doing?”
“They came too quickly,” she said defensively. “And there were too many of them.”
He knew she was lying. Lirriam hadn’t been down here when the attack began, as she should have been, bolstering the defences with her subtle magecraft. What was she up to now?
“You had the numbers,” said Grandys, reading the battlefield with an expert eye. “They can’t have been more than two hundred to my three hundred, and my men were behind strong defences. It should have taken a thousand men to break them, so how did two hundred get so far, so fast?”
“I don’t know.”
“And how did they pass your defensive magery?”
“I—I was ill,” she said.
“Some women’s ailment?” he sneered.
“If you like.”
“You’re lying!” he rapped. “I can read it on you.” He drew Maloch and pushed past her, heading for the stairs.
“What are you doing?” said Lirriam, hurrying after him.
She was unnaturally pale. Perhaps she was ill.
“I’m going to read the signs, starting with Tali’s room.”
“Where are your me
n? Or did you come alone?”
“A third of my troops are following; they’ll be here within the hour. I left the rest under Rufuss’s command, with orders to keep Rixium’s rabble bottled up until I’m ready to take him.”
“Why haven’t you taken him already?”
He did not reply. Grandys crossed the hall, heading for the main stairs, but stopped. He moved Maloch carefully back and forth and shortly a faint aura appeared around the blade. He prowled around and under the staircase, and peered into the dark recess beneath it.
“What’s the matter?” said Lirriam.
“She was here. Hiding!”
“Where did she go?”
He moved back and forth, holding Maloch out, but the aura faded. “I can’t tell.” He sheathed the sword and turned to the stairs.
“Why do you keep toying with Rixium?” said Lirriam, running up ahead of him and standing in his way. “Why haven’t you ground him into the dirt? Are you afraid he is Maloch’s true master?”
He glared at her lopsided jaw, fighting the urge to knock it back into shape.
“As I keep telling you,” he snarled, “Rix has to be there at the end because I need something from him as I cast the last spell. If I don’t get it, Bloodspell may not work properly. Now get out of my way.”
She didn’t move. “I can’t believe you let that puny maidservant beat you up when he escaped. You’ve lost it, Grandys.”
He stared at her, eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to distract me from something.”
He swept her out of the way, slamming her against the side of the staircase, and stormed up to the room where Tali had been imprisoned. The door was closed. He kicked it open and studied the room, the bed, the blonde hair on the floor, the vomit. Maloch rattled in its sheath and when he lowered his hand towards the hilt the sword propelled itself up into his hand as if it could not wait to be there.
A crimson aura sprang up around the blade this time, bright and baleful. He rotated slowly, holding the sword out. A shadowy aura appeared on the floor not far from the bed, an aura unmistakably in the shape of a buxom, broad-hipped woman. As Grandys read the scene his eyes hardened.
“You were trying to take the master pearl,” he said softly.
“I wasn’t.”
“And it was too strong for you,” he went on relentlessly. “It knocked you down. You lay on the floor, helpless, for a long time. That’s why you didn’t realise Swire was under attack until it was too late. If you had, your magery could have kept them out. This disaster is of your making.”
“I couldn’t give a damn about the master pearl,” said Lirriam.
“Then what the hell were you up to?”
“I was using Incarnate.”
“Where is it?” he choked. “Don’t tell me Tali stole it?”
Lirriam sneered. “She threw up at the merest touch of it.” The lopsided jaw gave her smile an unnerving character.
“You didn’t try to wake Incarnate!”
“I didn’t try.”
Her smile broadened. She looped a finger through the chain around her neck and drew the stone up from the depths of her cleavage; it made a moist, popping sound as it came free. The tiny red spark in Incarnate’s core matched the aura that had briefly limned Maloch.
Grandys took an involuntary step backwards. The sword’s hilt felt slippery in his palm; he could barely hold it. He wiped his palms on his shirt.
“But you didn’t succeed,” said Grandys.
“Not completely. But I will.” She stepped forward, Incarnate swinging in her hand like a pendulum, marking out the distance he had stepped back. “You’re sweating like a pig, Grandys.”
He tried to regain the initiative. “All right, it wasn’t the master pearl that knocked you down. When you tried to wake Incarnate, you broke the block I’d put on Tali’s gift and she attacked you. Your folly allowed her to free herself and paralyse you, and when my Herovian Guard most needed your aid, you failed them.”
When she yawned, it drove him into a fury.
“Don’t you even care that we’ve lost the master pearl?” he bellowed.
“I couldn’t give a damn,” said Lirriam. “You broke the pact. I want you to fail.”
“But… what about our enemies?”
“Your enemies.”
“And the Promised Realm?”
“It’s your quest; it’s never been mine.” She went out.
Grandys wiped his dripping hands again, stumbled to his bedchamber and rested his head on the wall, trying to make sense of what she had said.
There was movement down below, hundreds of men riding in. His cavalry. He did not go down to greet them.
Grandys found a full flagon of wine, lay on his pallet and upended it into his mouth.
CHAPTER 41
Jets of wet grey ash and fragments of burnt bone squirted out of the sides of Murderers’ Mound in all directions, splattering all over the watchers. The slum dwellers cried out in terror and fled into the alleys, evidently thinking the mound was going to collapse.
Tali choked—what had she done? The middle of the scaffold-henge began to tilt and the third of eight huge lintel stones toppled, crushing the moon-faced guard. The hawk-nosed guard and one of the emaciated prisoners disappeared under a falling upright. Another guard dived over the side of the mound, only to be enveloped by a mudslide of liquefied ash.
The eastern third of the scaffold-henge slid downwards into a hole that had not been there moments before, carrying three more guards and two prisoners with it. The whole top of the mound was falling in. A spray of grey water squirted up, followed by a perfect spiral of bluish smoke, spinning out of a tiny hole.
Where was Glynnie? Tali could not see her. The slum dwellers had vanished up the alleys of Tumulus Town and the guards placed there to keep them back had retreated down the road. The annulus of bare ground around Murderers’ Mound was filling with sludge.
Tali ran for the steps to the top of the mound, taking them three at a time. They were already cracked and separating from each other—the whole mound was collapsing. Her hat fell off but she did not stop for it. She had to get Glynnie out now, because every step sent pain shooting through Tali’s skull and she could not endure it much longer. When this was over, if she survived, she would pay dearly for all the power she had abused today.
Tali reached the quaking top. “Glynnie?”
She did not answer. One of the bearded prisoners was trying to strangle a guard with his bound hands. “Where’s Glynnie?” she yelled.
He shrugged and kept strangling, even as the ground sank beneath him.
“You’ve got five seconds to get away before it falls in,” said Tali.
He did not let go. Tali was risking her own life here; half the top of the mound had fallen in and the rest was about to go. She dodged around a toppling stone upright, along a rim of ground that looked solid but sank underfoot, and up to the other end of the broken scaffold-henge.
A flash of red hair: Glynnie was hip-deep in liquid ash and being drawn down. Tali would never be able to pull her out against the suction; if she tried she was liable to be sucked in as well. She caught hold of a swinging noose, yanked it down over Glynnie’s head, shoulders and bound wrists, and slipped it up to tighten the noose under her arms.
“Keep your arms down!” said Tali.
The rope went taut as Glynnie was drawn further down. The scaffold that the rope was attached to was still standing, though it was wobbly. Tali threw her weight against it and it moved outwards, pulling Glynnie up a little. But this was a dangerous manoeuvre—once the lintel fell away down the slope, the rope would drag Glynnie sideways, under the sloppy ash.
Tali gave another heave. The rope twanged and pulled Glynnie up out of the muck. Tali hacked through the rope, caught the end and sprang aside as the lintel slammed into the edge of the mound, tearing it away, and rolled down the rear slope, creating a massive mudslide.
Glynnie was sliding down again. Tali heaved her up. T
here was no time to untie her. Tali took her by her wrists and they staggered down the crumbling steps and across to the door within the ceremonial gate. She wrenched it open, thrust Glynnie inside, banged the door behind her and mentally worked the lock. More magery; much more pain, an axe being buried in her skull. This had to be the very last time.
Tali staggered, fell to her knees and could not get up.
“Sorry,” she gasped. “Magery… catching up.”
“Cut my ropes,” said Glynnie, holding out her wrists.
Tali barely had strength to hold her knife. She sawed at the ropes, which fell away. Glynnie hauled her along the tunnel past the half-built wall, which was all that was holding the ashy flood back. More of the roof below the mound fell in. The second pit prop snapped and the rest of the roof came down with a roar.
Glynnie dragged Tali into the darkness as a vast surge of sludge flooded down, carrying broken bodies with it and blocking the exit.
“We need light!” said Glynnie.
Tali managed a feeble glimmer, enough for Glynnie to heave them another hundred yards along the tunnel and down, then up again until they were beyond reach of the surge. She let go of Tali for a second, panting.
Tali fell down and could not move. She felt like throwing up; she wanted to lie there and die.
Glynnie lifted her under the arms, heaved her around a bend in the tunnel and sat her on a fallen lump of rock. Tali slumped and Glynnie had to steady her. She knelt before Tali, holding her upright. Glynnie’s huge green eyes were filled with tears.
“Thank you,” she said, throwing her arms around Tali and squeezing her until she could not draw breath. “I don’t know why you risked your life for me. But thank you.”
Tali could not speak. She leaned back against the cool rock and closed her eyes.
“Water,” she managed to gasp after a few minutes.
Glynnie fetched a double handful from a seep and held it to her mouth.
“Over—head,” said Tali, leaning forward.
Glynnie tipped it over Tali’s bare head. It wasn’t very cold, but it helped with the pain.