by Ian Irvine
“You began well,” said Errek. “You gave your people the Books of the Solaces—survival manuals written out of love and compassion. Books to show them how to rise again, after they’d lost the Two Hundred and Fifty Years War and the enemy’s work camps had turned them into debased and despicable degradoes.”
“Don’t try to comfort me—I don’t deserve it. Even as I began the first book of the Solaces I had the last in mind—the iron book. The Consolation of Vengeance.”
“It’s gone, Lyf. Mad Wil melted it down. It’s as if it never was.”
“But not its consequences. The book created Mad Wil,” Lyf said bitterly, “and sent him on his murderous quest all the way down to the Engine. And there he interfered with the Engine, which is now desperately out of balance and getting worse all the time—and I can’t heal it.”
Lyf sat on a crumpled piece of copper sheeting and took off the circlet. “This crown seems a lot heavier than it used to.”
“Platina is a heavy metal. One of the heaviest.”
“I didn’t mean heavy in that sense.”
Lyf set it on the platform beside him and rubbed his eyes.
“A king who’s lost his healing gift is no king at all, and now I’ve roused the wyverin for nothing. Have I brought about the doom of my land, and my people?”
Errek looked in the direction the wyverin had flown. “I… don’t… know.”
“Perhaps it’s time for me to be unmade.”
Lightning sizzled through the open side of the dome and struck the rail beside Lyf, sending him tumbling, his crutches going in one direction and the circlet in another. Grandys burst through the copper door and exploded up the steps. Lyf came to his knees and tried to strike back, but without the circlet he could not command king-magery, and without king-magery he could not defend himself.
Errek soared after the circlet. Grandys snatched it from his feeble grip and threw himself onto the canister of king-magery, landing so hard that it drove the breath from his lungs. He lay on it for a few seconds, winded, then rose with both the canister and the circlet in his left hand. He raised Maloch and advanced on Lyf, who was still on his knees.
Lyf did not move. He looked as though he wanted to die and put an end to the nightmare.
Errek rose ten feet in the air and let out a high-pitched call of “Grolik?” then extended an arm down and heaved Lyf off his feet.
Air whistled over leathery wings as the gauntling raced across the rooftops and banked around the side of the dome. As Grandys prepared to blast Lyf down, Grolik caught Lyf in her teeth and carried him away, swinging back and forth like a ragdoll, towards Turgur Thross.
Lirriam slipped out through the copper door. Rix edged backwards out of sight.
“This is worse than Lyf getting it,” he said. “Unimaginably worse.”
“And only you and I to stop Grandys,” said Glynnie. “Shh! Someone else’s coming.”
The lead-footed tread was unmistakable. Syrten came lumbering after Lirriam, carrying Yulia’s cloth-shrouded form in his arms. Judging by her shape, the fall had broken her. He sat on the crumpled copper sheet Lyf had perched on earlier, then uncovered Yulia’s face and gazed longingly, desperately at her.
Grandys, despite his triumph, was surveying the sky anxiously. The clouds had thickened; now it began to rain.
“The wyverin is feeding on your battle magians,” said Lirriam, “but once it’s replenished its gift it’ll come back, and the last of the line of Herox will be consumed by his bastardised creation, just as it ate the first—Herox himself.”
“The ancients were always spouting dire prophecies,” said Grandys. “Most of them never came true.”
“No one believes this one more strongly than you do.” Her white teeth flashed in the gloom. “You know it’s your doom, Grandys.”
“Bah!” He turned to Syrten. “Guard the stairs. I’ll watch the sky.”
The rain grew heavier, fat drops splashing on Yulia’s face until it looked as though she was weeping. Syrten laid her body down carefully, covered her face and rose, wincing. His right hand went to his ribs, the thick fingers probing along them. The ribs moved in and out.
“That blow from the wyverin’s tail must have broken a rib or two,” Rix said quietly.
“Good!” said Glynnie. “Syrten acts docile, but he’s as bad as any of them.”
“Their injuries don’t weaken them nearly as much as king-magery strengthens them.”
“And Lirriam is unharmed.”
“Yes, Lirriam,” said Rix, staring at her.
“Keep your eyes off her. You’re mine!”
Rix grinned. “I’m trying to work her out. What’s she up to?”
Glynnie did not reply. She was looking at Holm, who had swathed Tali in a blanket. Her eyes were closed and she was shivering fitfully. Holm bent over her.
“Tali’s alive!” said Glynnie.
“But she doesn’t look well,” said Rix.
Grandys, still wearing the circlet and swinging the canister, was walking around the platform, looking down.
“What’s he after?” said Rix.
Grandys bent, probed with the tip of his sword and heaved something out from behind a stone bench—the wyverin’s severed little toe, complete with talon. He picked it up, sat on the bench and peeled the leathery skin off. After scraping the inside of the skin he laid it aside, rested the three-foot-long talon across his knee and began to carve it into a curved blade with Maloch.
“He’s making a sword,” said Glynnie.
“Why?” Rix said absently. “He’s already got the best sword there is.”
“Maybe it’s a way to assert his power over the wyverin.”
“Or to convince himself that he can.”
Grandys completed his work, wiped the talon blade down and shook it at the empty sky. “Come on, beast! Do your worst!”
“You weren’t so bold when its face was in yours,” said Lirriam.
“I admit it,” said Grandys, uncharacteristically. “My dread of the creature almost overwhelmed me.”
“When it returns, so will your naked, shivering terror.”
“Fear can be useful. I’m using it to strengthen myself for the endgame.”
“What, here?”
“Of course not—I’ve had the perfect location in mind for months.”
“Where?” she said curiously.
“We’re going underground to our camp so I can collect the seven items, the seventeen, and the ninety-seven.”
“And?”
“Then we’re going to Touchstone Peak.”
“But that’s a sacred Cythian site,” said Lirriam.
“Yes it is.”
“Why there?”
“It’s where the circlet was first worn, ten thousand years ago, when king-magery was cast for the very first time. To the enemy, it’s the most holy place in all the land.”
“And you’re planning to profane it with the Three Spells.”
Grandys smiled.
CHAPTER 79
After a furious ride across the plateau in heavy rain, held in Holm’s arms, Tali’s head was a mass of pain and she could feel cold blood running down behind her ear. The stitching must have torn, but she was too ill to care.
She felt strangely empty. Though she had come to hate the master pearl, and though she had often cursed it and longed for it to be gone, she felt lost without it. Grandys had robbed her of the very thing to which she owed her identity.
The four Heroes and their twenty guards bypassed Turgur Thross, continued through thick forest for a mile or more beyond the plateau in increasingly rugged country, then rode across a patch of grassland to the top of a rocky hill. Directly ahead, set in a field of standing stones, stood Touchstone Peak, a rain-drenched blade of hard black chert that rose almost sheer for four hundred feet to a trio of narrow, hand-cut platforms, and the bowl-shaped tip above them. Beyond, untouched rainforest stretched over the hills to the east until it blurred into the distance.
The low
er platform was on the south side of Touchstone, the middle platform on the west and the highest platform faced east. Steep steps, carved into the resistant rock long ago, wound up to the platforms, though they were covered in moss, lichen and ferns and would be treacherous to negotiate.
Grandys set out his guards among the standing stones and ordered them to defend the way up. “But not too vigorously,” he added.
“I don’t understand, Lord Grandys,” said the captain of his guards.
“All ends on Touchstone,” said Grandys. “But for it to end the right way, captain, the main players must reach the top, because I need something from each of them. When Rixium comes, defend vigorously so he won’t become suspicious—then let him fight his way through.”
Syrten laid the wrapped bundle that was Yulia’s body down against the base of Touchstone, where there was a modicum of shelter from wind and rain, and slumped beside it, desolation in his eyes. Lirriam took Tali from Holm’s arms and laid her beside the body. Holm dismounted stiffly and Lirriam bound his wrists.
“What is this place?” said Tali.
“The earliest alchymical works in Cythe were on Touchstone,” said Holm. He managed the ghost of a smile. “Errek First-King built them. How are you feeling?”
“Lost,” said Tali dismally.
“Because your pearl is gone?”
“Yes.”
“It was surprisingly small,” said Holm. “Not much bigger than a pea.”
“I should be glad to be rid of it. From the moment it woke, on my eighteenth birthday, it gave me terrible headaches. And lately it’s felt like a grenado inside my head, one that could burst and kill me at any time. I’ve wanted to get rid of it for months, yet now it’s gone I feel empty; robbed.”
“It stands to reason, after such trauma—”
“No, I feel… reduced. As though I’ve lost a vital part of myself; my very core. I don’t know how I’m going to get by without it.”
“How are you otherwise?”
“So weak I doubt I could sit up. Did you have to cut such a huge crater in my skull?”
“It’s less than an inch across, and I fixed the bone back in place before I stitched you up.”
“An inch is a hell of a lot bigger than a pea.”
“Would you have sooner I went too close, and broke the master pearl?” he said mildly.
“The way my head feels, death seems like an attractive alternative.” She rubbed her face, limply. Her fingers were as weak as rubber. “Sorry to be so crabby.”
He put his bound hands on her shoulder. “If you were cheerful after that operation I’d be really worried.”
“What does he want from us? I assumed, after Grandys got the pearl…”
“That he’d have us killed? So did I, but he needs you for something—and me to keep you alive.”
From the pack horses, Grandys lifted down a small, ice-covered chest, a large and immensely heavy crate, and the cabinet Tali had seen when he’d held her prisoner weeks ago.
“Take the chest and crate up to the lowest platform,” he said to Syrten and Rufuss.
Syrten stared at Grandys blankly, then hefted the crate as though it were a matchbox and headed up. Grandys took the cabinet and Rufuss the ice chest, one-handed.
“What—what’s Grandys going to do up there?” Tali said to Lirriam.
Lirriam took out Incarnate and polished it, but did not reply. She climbed a few dozen steps up Touchstone and stood there for a few minutes, looking back the way they had come, before strolling down again.
“Rix will come after us,” said Tali.
“That’s Grandys’ intention,” said Lirriam. “Everything ends at Touchstone.”
“It might not be the ending you expect,” Tali said feebly.
“You have no idea what I expect.”
Tali lacked the strength for any further verbal jousting. She closed her eyes and endured the throbbing pain as best she could. Time went blank; she was barely aware of Grandys and Syrten returning, or of Syrten picking her up, though she felt each step of the climb as a spike through the top of her skull, thud, thud, thud…
“She’s fading,” said Grandys.
Tali tried to open her eyes but they were too heavy. The air was colder here, and it was windy. She felt that they were high up on Touchstone.
“People die all the time,” said Lirriam.
“To bait the trap, I may yet need her. Do a partial healing, just in case.”
“It’s harder to do a partial healing than a full healing.”
“I don’t want her fully healed—she’s caused me too much trouble already.”
“The strain of a partial healing could kill her.”
“So could doing nothing!” Grandys snapped. “I need her alive until I’ve finished the Three Spells. Then you can heave her over the side for all I care.”
“I’ll leave that to you. It’s more your style.”
Tali’s bandages were removed. She felt the cold wind on her freshly shaven head, and a flurry of raindrops. Lirriam’s fingertips touched her all around the circular wound. She did not touch the wound itself, though the slight pressure was enough to cause Tali more splintery pain. She would have given almost anything to be free of it. Dying began to seem like a good way out—
No! It came from her subconscious, fiercely. Her oath had not been fulfilled. Justice had not been done. Lyf had not paid.
“A remarkable job,” came Lirriam’s voice, as if from a long way away. “You have a fine hand for an old man. And a good eye.”
“I once thought being a surgeon was the most vital job of all,” said Holm. “Until I made my fatal mistake.”
The chilly fingertips worked outwards from the wound and the pain eased a little. Tali felt a sudden urge to throw up. A bowl was held to her lips. She heaved into it. Her mouth was wiped with a wet rag and Lirriam’s fingers resumed their gentle probing.
“Only one?” Lirriam said to Holm. “No matter how good the surgeon is, a proportion of his patients will die.”
“My mistake was too grave,” said Holm. “I could not risk another.”
“How many died because of that decision?”
“I don’t follow you,” Holm grated.
Tali felt another bout of nausea, not as strong this time. She managed to hold it down.
“How many people, condemned to second-rate surgeons because you refused to use your great gift, died from their butchery?” said Lirriam.
“The question is immaterial,” said Holm.
“On the contrary, it cuts to the very meaning of life. You shaped your own life to avoid a risk which, had you learned from your mistake, is unlikely to have recurred. In doing so, you probably cost hundreds of people their lives.”
“One could use that argument to justify almost anything.”
“Everything comes at a cost, surgeon. Choosing to follow a course, or choosing not to. Offering people in need the benefit of your great skills, or denying them.”
Tali heard Holm rise and move away, his footsteps agitated. She felt a little stronger and managed to open her eyes.
“Can you sit up?” said Lirriam.
Tali could not bear to think about moving. “No.”
Lirriam sat her upright. Tali’s head spun. The pain jagged through her head, though not unbearably, and to her surprise she found that she could remain in the sitting position.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Lirriam gave her an enigmatic smile. “Grandys isn’t keeping you alive for your health.”
“And you? What about you?”
“Place no reliance on my good offices. In my own way, I’m almost as corrupt as he is. Almost.”
Lirriam seemed to consider that thought, her full lips pursed, then walked across to the edge of the platform and stood there, looking down. Tali studied her lush figure for a moment, so different from her own petite, reed-slender frame.
Grandys was down the other end of the platform, bent over the crate. Tali
could not see Rufuss or Syrten.
“Where are we?” she said to Holm.
“On the third-highest platform of Touchstone.”
It was shaped like a wedge, about twenty yards by six, straight at the back and cliff-bounded, slightly curved along the sheer outer edge. Water streamed down the cliff from the constant rain and trickled across the platform in a dozen places, before tumbling over.
Two-thirds of the way along, where the wedge was widest, a circle of rock two yards across was raised the height of a step. Tali saw faint black traces on top, as if it had been used for burning. Behind it stood a white stone arch, ten feet high and covered in moss up to a height of three feet.
“It’s said,” said Holm, “though no one knows if it’s true, that this open hearth was used by Errek when he first cast king-magery to heal the land. It was certainly used by the Cythian kings and queens for thousands of years. And now Grandys is planning to debauch it.”
Grandys, limping badly, lugged the crate up and put it down beside the hearth. He unpacked seven pieces of cut stone, each a different type of rock, and each with mortar clinging to them. He began to stack the pieces on the open hearth, naming them as he did so.
“This piece of basalt comes from the altar in Lyf’s temple. This slab of granite once formed part of the threshold of the Great Library at Lammum, which I personally burned at the beginning of the Two Hundred and Fifty Years War. This marble moulding was taken from the Lady’s bathroom in the palace latterly known as Palace Ricinus…”
Tali tuned him out. “The Three Spells are meant to tear Hightspall apart,” she said to Holm, “so the Heroes can recreate it as their Promised Realm. But what does that actually mean? Will the spells tear the very land down—mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes—and rebuild it?”
“I wouldn’t think any spell, or set of spells, could do that.”
“Then what?”
“I believe the Three Spells are intended to tear down the civilisation of Hightspall. To erase everything our people, and the Cythonians, have done here. To create a tabula rasa, if you will, on which the Heroes can build the homeland they so yearn for.”
“Is there any way to stop him?” she said quietly.
Holm mutely held up his bound hands. Tali had seen him trying to free himself, though thus far his bonds had resisted all efforts.