Justice

by Ian Irvine

  A fragment of memory. An ancient horror, never to be woken.

  The shifter’s down there. I can smell him.

  As Lyf moved down the slope a faint red glow appeared, as if around a pair of gigantic nostrils. Light grew in the chamber and he knew what it was.

  That’s no horror. The wyverin is our Sacred Beast—it’s the living symbol of the enemy’s destruction and Cythe’s rebirth.

  That’s what our people have always been told, said Errek.

  What are you talking about?

  I can’t remember, but I know it’s not the Sacred Beast—it’s not even of this world! It’s the Chymical Beast, and it’s more deadly than anything you have ever encountered.

  Chymical as in alchymie?

  That’s where I got the idea to invent alchymie in the first place—from the beast. And there’s something else. Something really troubling.

  What?

  There’s a connection between the Chymical Beast and the Engine.

  Lyf jumped. Why? How?

  I don’t know.

  You said the wyverin isn’t of this world. What’s that supposed to mean?

  Errek did not answer.

  Where did it come from?

  I—don’t—know.

  Seems to me you don’t know much at all, said Lyf. I can’t think why I brought you.

  You didn’t. I brought myself, to keep you out of trouble.

  I’m going down, said Lyf.

  You know what a wyverin has to do once it’s roused? said Errek.

  Consume a magian to replenish its own magery. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.

  I’m not worried about you, said Errek with a faint chuckle. I’m worried it might consume me, for my magery.

  I didn’t know you had any worth having.

  There’re a lot of things you don’t know.

  Lyf crept down. Errek followed. Far below, but only a few yards from the wyverin, Lyf saw the man-shape, its arms extended towards the beast.

  Shh! said Lyf. There he is—the shifter. What the blazes is he doing?

  He’s communing with the beast, said Errek in wonder. It’s almost as if they’re sharing each other’s pain.

  What are you talking about! The wyverin isn’t in pain.

  It’s in great pain—see the tears flooding from its eyes, even in its enchanted sleep? And the twin stalagmites where the tears have been falling for aeons? Tobry’s own pain must be disguising his gift for magery, otherwise it would simply eat him, waking or sleeping.

  They eased closer. Now Tobry was scratching enigmatic signs on the rocky floor before him. He reached up again. “Khar—, Khar!”

  “What’s he trying to do?” Lyf said aloud.

  A child’s scream rang out from behind them. “Tobry, no!”

  Then the wyverin stirred, a vast, terrible creature rising out of the darkness, and Lyf realised what Tobry was up to.

  He was trying to wake the beast.

  CHAPTER 60

  “Sacrilege!” Lyf said aloud. “The Sacred Beast must not be disturbed in any way.”

  “It’s the Chymical Beast,” Errek reminded him, “and I’d be more worried about it consuming Tobry before he tells you where the circlet is. Stop him.”

  “How?”

  “By any means possible.”

  “You mean magery? Is it safe to use it here?”

  “No, it’s desperately unsafe, but you’ve run out of options.”

  Lyf slid two fingers into the pouch that contained the ebony pearls, each kept secure in a crushproof, magery-proof platina box. He flipped the lids up, touched the pearls and cast a sleep spell at Tobry. The wyverin snapped in Lyf’s direction. He stumbled backwards on his crutches but the snap was just a reflex; the beast was still deep in its enchanted sleep.

  Rannilt came running down. She shouldered Lyf aside and tried to catch Tobry as he fell but he collapsed on her, knocking her to the floor. She struggled out from under him.

  With a sweep of his hand Lyf raised Tobry, who was deeply asleep, and began to drift him back up the tunnel, through the air.

  Rannilt flew at Lyf. “Leave him alone!” she hissed. “You’re not doin’ your evil magery on Tobry.”

  Lyf raised his hand to blast her out of the way but Errek, with a strength Lyf had never imagined a wrythen could have, jerked him around.

  “She’s a child!” Errek thundered. “And that is not the action of a Cythian king!”

  Lyf rubbed his shoulder, which had been badly wrenched. “I don’t know what possessed me,” he said meekly.

  “Besides…” said Errek, looking thoughtfully at Rannilt.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Come away.”

  They went up the spiral to the place where Rannilt had been asleep. She followed, scowling. Lyf set Tobry down, bound him with spells strong enough to contain a caitsthe, and woke him.

  Tobry howled, tried to lunge at Lyf and fell over.

  Lyf, with a gesture, stood him upright. “Where is the circlet, shifter?”

  Tobry stared at him the way a dumb animal would.

  “Speak, beast!”

  Lyf directed a stinging blast at Tobry, knocking him backwards. He bared his teeth in pain, then wrapped his arms around himself and stood there, shivering.

  “Stop it!” cried Rannilt. “Leave him alone, you pig!”

  “I know you know where it is, beast,” said Lyf, ignoring her. “And I’m not going to stop until you give me the answer.”

  He stung Tobry again. Tobry doubled over, gasping, then began to claw furiously at himself as if stinging insects were burrowing into his flesh.

  “Stop it, stop it!” shrieked Rannilt. “You’re hurtin’ him.”

  “All he has to do is speak,” said Lyf irritably.

  “What are you gunna do then?” Rannilt said furiously, pushing between Lyf and Tobry. “Kill him, I’ll bet.”

  “What’s the difference?” said Lyf. “He’s a mad shifter, and it’s obvious he wants to die.”

  “He doesn’t! Not really! Besides, I’m gunna heal him.”

  “Get out of my way, you absurd child,” said Lyf.

  “I’m not movin’,” said Rannilt. “And you can’t make me.”

  “You dare defy me?” cried Lyf. “I could blast you to pieces with a twitch of my fingers.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re a nasty, evil, little man,” said Rannilt, trembling with fear but breathing fire in every syllable. “That’s why everyone hates you, even your own people. You don’t care about nothin’ good because there’s nothin’ good left in you. You’re rotten all the way through; rotten as Axil Grandys.”

  “You go too far, child!” Lyf thundered. He raised his hand.

  Errek ostentatiously cleared his throat. Instead, Lyf pointed at Tobry over Rannilt’s shoulder.

  “Speak, you verminous beast.” Red flashed from his fingers.

  Tobry shrieked, dropped to the floor and curled up into a whimpering ball.

  “Stop it!” shouted Rannilt. “You’re undoin’ all my healin’.”

  She kicked one of Lyf’s crutches out from under him, whacked him over the head and shoulders with it, then ran to Tobry and sank to her knees beside him, laying her hands on his forehead.

  “He was gettin’ better!” she screeched. “Now you’ve driven him mad again, you stupid, stupid man.”

  “I don’t take this kind of abuse from anyone,” said Lyf. “Get out of my way.”

  Rannilt tried to cover Tobry with her own body. “You’ll have to kill me! I bet you’d enjoy killin’ a little girl, you—you monster.”

  Lyf balled up his fists helplessly, then turned to Errek and snapped, “Don’t just float there, laughing. Help me.”

  Errek drifted towards Rannilt. “Do you know who I am, child?”

  “You’re a rotten old wrythen,” she muttered. “Just like him, only old as bones.”

  “Indeed I am old. Older than bones, in most cases. My name is Errek and they call me First-King
, because I was the very first king of Cythe, ten thousand years ago.”

  She shrugged, unimpressed. “I can only count to a hundred.”

  “If you counted to a hundred not once, but a hundred times, that’s how long ago I was king.”

  Now Rannilt did look impressed. “What do you want?” she said grudgingly.

  “We don’t want to hurt your friend, Tobry—”

  “Lyf does! He’s a pig!”

  “Sometimes Lyf gets carried away,” said Errek, waving Lyf’s outrage aside. “But all he wants is the secret that Tobry knows.”

  “Tobry can’t hardly speak,” said Rannilt.

  “He nearly spoke in the wyverin’s cavern. I think he can manage a word or two.”

  “I don’t see why—”

  “We need that secret, child, and I’ll tell you why. If Grandys gets it—”

  “I know!” cried Rannilt. “I’ve heard it a thousand times. He’ll get king-magery and destroy the world. But you’re no better.”

  “Lyf is better. Do you know what the highest duty of a Cythonian king is, child?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  “It’s to protect his people, and heal the land.”

  She went still, staring at him.

  “Yes, child, what Lyf wants most of all is to heal his troubled land. Just as you want, most of all, to heal your friend Tobry. You’re not so different after all, you and Lyf.”

  “Except he’s mean and horrible!”

  “I concede he has some unfortunate character traits,” said Errek. “But if the land isn’t healed soon, the Vomits will blow it to bits and everyone will die.”

  “How soon?”

  “Not even I know that. Maybe weeks; maybe years. But soon, and no one can heal it save the king—”

  “Why is it always the king?” said Rannilt. “Why can’t a queen heal the land?”

  “There have been ruling queens, and some of them have been great healers,” said Errek. “But Lyf is the king now, and he needs king-magery to heal the land. Yet without the key—”

  “I know!” she said rudely. “He needs your circlet to make king-magery work.”

  Lyf gasped. Errek raised an eyebrow. “You know about our most closely guarded secret?”

  “I hear things,” said Rannilt. She glanced at Tobry, who was still clenched into a ball. “All right! If you promise to leave him alone, I’ll tell you where the stupid thing is.”

  “You know where it is?” said Lyf, his voice rising.

  “You’ve got to promise.”

  “I promise,” said Errek. “On my solemn word, as the first king of Cythe that ever was.” He looked pointedly at Lyf.

  “I promise, upon my kingly oath,” Lyf said sourly. “Well, child?”

  “It’s at Garramide,” said Rannilt. “In the hoard with all the filthy old treasures Grandys hid there thousands of years ago.”

  “Where at Garramide?”

  “If anyone knew, his treasures wouldn’t be there any more, would they? Now go away. I’ve got healin’ to do.”

  “It can’t be that easy,” said Lyf.

  “She’s telling the truth as she knows it,” said Errek.

  “But is her truth the real truth?”

  “The only way to find out is to go and see.”

  “Garramide isn’t far away, via Turgur Thross,” said Lyf. “But first I’ve got to make a quick trip through the Sacred Gate and back. There’s something I need to do in Caulderon.”

  He set off up the tunnel as fast as his crutches could carry him. Errek floated along on his back as though he were taking an afternoon nap on a sofa.

  When Lyf looked back, Rannilt had her thin arms around the beast and was speaking healing words to him.

  “We’re goin’ to go back to the beginnin’,” said Rannilt briskly. “But this time the healin’ is going to work. Isn’t it?”

  Tobry let out a plaintive sound that could have been affirmation, or denial.

  “And then we’re goin’ home,” Rannilt added.

  CHAPTER 61

  “How many dead this time?” Rix said quietly. “Benn, close your ears.”

  It was late morning, and Glynnie had just come up onto the watchtower to give her report from the healery—how many injured men had died in the night, and how many her team had been able to save. The first number was usually larger than the second.

  He did not want to alarm Benn, who spent all his free time on the wall, carrying food and water, cleaning up and generally helping out the guards. Though as it happened, Benn seemed less troubled by the carnage than Rix, and that was terribly wrong. What dreadful atrocities had he seen in Caulderon that the nightly bloodshed on the wall had so little impact on him?

  Grandys’ army had been camped at the foot of the escarpment, half a day’s march away, for five eternal days. He seemed in no hurry to bring his army up the mountain; apparently he planned to soften Garramide up first with nightly terror raids.

  Another of his raiding parties had attacked late last night, taking advantage of fog to creep in close and pick off patrolling guards with arrows, then shoot fusillades of fire arrows over the walls and into the yard. The roof of the temporary barracks had caught alight and half of it had burned before the fire was extinguished.

  “Twelve guards,” said Glynnie in a grim voice. “Plus a stable boy who was carrying water for the fire-fighters. He was burned to death when the roof collapsed on him. Poor lad; his was the worst death.”

  Her eyes were hollow and her cheeks concave. Glynnie had always taken her work to heart, but her anguish about killing the tent guard to save Rix after the mutiny, plus her own narrow escape from death at the scaffold-henge, had heightened her concern for all those who came under her care. She often sank into depression after the night’s work. She could do so little to ease their suffering, or save their limbs or lives.

  “Are you going after the raiders?”she added, dully.

  “I’d like to,” said Rix, glancing at Benn, who was soaking it all up, wide-eyed. “But Grandys is trying to lure me out and I’m not going to be tempted. If he wants the circlet, he’s got to attack Garramide where it’s strongest. Then we’ll see how he likes it.”

  Hollow boast, he thought. Grandys likes it very well.

  Glynnie turned away, plodding towards the steps down to the yard, but turned back at Benn’s excited cry. “Sis! I saw someone moving out there.”

  “Where?”

  Glynnie trudged to the wall and looked over. “That way,” said Benn, pointing to the north.

  “Good sentry work, lad,” said Rix. “It’s not a raiding party, though. It’s just an adult and a kid. From one of the northern steadings, I expect.” He turned away. The plateau was home to several thousand people and they came and went all the time. “Go to bed, Glynnie. You’re swaying on your feet.”

  She rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I thought the whole world was wobbling back and forth.” She rested her head on the wall for a minute, then looked out again. “Rix?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I have your binoculars?”

  He handed them to her. She focused on the two people, lowered the binoculars and raised them again.

  “It’s Rannilt!” she cried. “And—and Tobry.”

  “Tobry’s dead,” Rix said flatly.

  “I dare say he’ll argue the point when he gets here. Take a look.” She held out the binoculars.

  Rix waved them away. “He’s already come back from the dead once,” he muttered. “It beggars belief that he could do it twice.”

  She left the binoculars teetering on the wall and ran down the stairs. Rix stared at the distant shapes but could not make out the faces. He glanced at the binoculars, looked away, then snatched them up and focused… and shivers ran up the back of his neck and over his head.

  His heart began to race. It could not be true; not twice! He rechecked, and there was no doubt at all. Rannilt was sauntering across the plateau as if she owned it, leadi
ng a bearded, shaggy, but unmistakable Tobry by the hand.

  Rix’s heart was pounding now, and tears were flooding from his eyes. He set the binoculars down and ran down the steps, taking them six at a time in dire risk of breaking an ankle, if not his neck. He passed Glynnie at the bottom, raced for the gates, forced them open with both hands and exploded out.

  He ran through the puddles and slush for a hundred yards, then stopped, feasting his eyes on them. Rannilt looked much the same as ever, only grubbier and more ragged. And thinner. She could hardly have had a decent meal in the month—had it been a month?—since he had last seen her.

  Tobry was as dirty as a pig in a wallow. He looked more animal-like, too. His shoulders, once so broad and square, sloped more like a big cat’s, and there was a lot of yellow in his eyes.

  Yet there was still something distinctly Tobry about him—an indefinable quality in the way he held his head, and the way he walked, that made him instantly recognisable.

  Rix ran towards him. Tobry reared back and Rix stopped four yards away, his eyes flicking from Rannilt to Tobry. Glynnie panted up beside him.

  “Stay back,” Rannilt said softly.

  “Ah…?” said Rix.

  “He’s still a shifter, but he ain’t dangerous now… hardly ever. Are you, Tobry?”

  Tobry made an incoherent sound in his throat.

  “What… How did you…?” said Rix.

  Rannilt seemed to have grown inwardly. There was something stronger and more confident about her. Under the grime, she was glowing.

  “The chains broke when the tree toppled, and Tobry got away before it hit the ground. I followed him, to heal him.” Tobry let out a yearning cry. “That’s what we’ve been doin’ all this time. Healin’; me and Tobry.”

  “You always said you could heal,” said Rix, “and people never believed you.”

  “You mean Tali,” said Rannilt. “Tali never believed me. But you do.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I haven’t finished yet. Tobry don’t have those mad shifter rages any more, but he can’t hardly talk either. There’s a long way to go, but we’re gunna get there, aren’t we?”

  She turned to Tobry, her eyes shining. Again he gave that little yearning cry.