by Ian Irvine
‘My daughter’s around here somewhere,’ Klarm added. ‘Jassika’s ten; I’m sure you’ll get on famously.’
Sulien looked dubious. ‘Is she … um … like you?’
‘Unfortunately, not. She’s disgracefully tall.’ He raised his voice. ‘Jass, Jass?’
‘You have a child?’ said Flydd in rank astonishment. ‘I know you have a way with the ladies, you rogue, but … a child!’
‘And a lovely girl she is too,’ said Klarm. He beamed. ‘Here she is now.’
A girl clumped in, scowling. She was a foot taller than her father and seemed to have nothing in common with him. Her shoulder-length hair, ruler-straight, was the glossy black of a freshly shone boot. Her face was oval, her skin dark amber and her eyes almost purple. She would have been pretty, save for her furious expression.
‘What do you want, stumpy?’ she snapped.
‘Don’t hold back,’ said Klarm. ‘Say what you really think of me.’
‘You’re a lazy, irresponsible, drunken womaniser.’
‘I’ve never understood why womaniser is supposed to be an insult.’
‘You wouldn’t! It’s lucky you had to hack your left foot off.’
‘Why is that, Jassika dear?’
‘If you had two feet, the smell would be unbearable!’
Sulien’s eyes were as wide and round as green plums. Karan fought down a smile.
Klarm grinned. ‘Sulien, meet Jassika. She’s refreshingly direct. Jass, show Sulien around and explain what’s safe to do in Thurkad, and what’s not.’
‘Nothing’s safe in Thurkad,’ said Jassika. ‘It’s full of crooks and Father is one of the worst.’ She offered her arm and, after a long hesitation, Sulien took it.
‘Sulien, I don’t think –’ said Karan.
‘Jassika is surprisingly responsible,’ said Klarm. ‘Compared to me, at least.’
Jassika rolled her eyes. ‘An hour ago you called me a vexing little witch.’
‘You were picking on my lady friends.’
‘I wouldn’t call them friends – or ladies.’
‘Off you go. I’m busy.’
‘You’re always too busy for me.’ She led a reluctant Sulien out.
‘What’s the bad news?’ said Klarm, drawing Flydd aside.
‘The Merdrun have inv–’
‘Roros, Guffeons, Gosport and Fadd. I’ve got spies too. But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it?’
‘Open a bottle, Klarm. I’m ... out of my depth.’
Karan found this alarming. Up to now, Flydd had been so commanding.
Llian sat on the other couch, next to Wilm and Aviel. Lilis went through the far door. Klarm extracted the cork of the nearest bottle and waved it at Karan. She shook her head.
‘No, thank you,’ said Aviel for herself and Wilm.
‘I’ll have some,’ said Llian.
‘’Course you will,’ said Klarm. ‘Tellers! Pisspots, every one of you.’
He poured half the bottle into a none-too-clean goblet and handed it to Llian, then gave Flydd a small serving. Flydd scowled.
‘Need your wits about you. Such as they are,’ said Klarm.
‘I – I’ve made a disastrous mistake, Klarm. Not sure we can recover from it.’
Klarm did not speak. Flydd summarised what he had said earlier about the state of the invasion, then paused.
‘What else?’ said Klarm.
‘Two hours ago, Sulien had a far-seeing. The enemy gated a company of troops to the top of Mistmurk Mountain and searched it minutely.’
Klarm examined his broad hands. ‘What for?’
‘My Histories of the Lyrinx War. I wrote them while I was trapped up there. Very – detailed – Histories.’
‘Judging by your doleful expression, they found them.’
‘Yes,’ Flydd croaked.
‘So they’ll soon know all about our battle mech-magic, and the names of the key artisans they’ll need to take, to use it for themselves.’
‘Plus all the people to kill, to gravely weaken us.’
Klarm sat back, suddenly looking sober. ‘Whole battlefields and manufactories full of clankers, and other machineries of war, were abandoned after Tiaan destroyed the nodes, because without power they were useless. But now the fields are regenerating –’
‘The enemy will take them and use them against us,’ Flydd whispered. He was leaning forwards, his hands clenched and his bony jaw knotted. ‘But that’s not the worst.’
Klarm set his goblet down with a crash that snapped its stem. He quaffed the contents and tossed the bowl and stem at the fireplace, which was littered with broken glasses. ‘Please tell me you didn’t mention the scrutators’ lost secret weapon.’
Flydd groaned.
3
You Worthless Little Wretch!
Please, please let it work!
Battle Mancer Skald Hulni wiped sweat off his face and hands, then checked his makeshift scrying device again. He had cobbled it together following a design he’d glimpsed in the fifth book of Histories of the Lyrinx War. In the years preceding the invasion every Merdrun had been ordered to learn the enemy’s common speech, and he could read it fluently.
But after discovering the amber-wood box at the bottom of a fern-covered ravine there had only been a few minutes to examine the books before Senior Sus-magiz Pannilie realised the Histories had been found. She snatched the book from Skald and sealed the box.
The enemy’s mech-magical arts were foreign to the Merdrun, who had never seen anything like the complicated mechanisms they made to draw power from fields and control their mechanical contrivances and weapons of war. Skald did not expect his contraption to work but, if it did, it might give him the chance he so desperately needed.
His device was a jumble of crystals, wires, dials, toothed wheels and amber rods and other bits and pieces, surrounding a glass bowl shaped like an eggcup, which he had mounted above the centre of a pair of black concentric discs like compass roses. Heart beating very fast, Skald clamped a thick copper wire against one end of the yellow crystal and fixed a thin silver wire to the other end, then slowly rotated the small upper disc, and the larger lower one as well, tick, tick, tick.
Pinpoints of white light drifted back and forth across the curved base of the eggcup, climbed the sides, circled the base again – then a beam of brilliant green light burst upwards, scorching a path through his cropped hair. He sprang backwards, beating at it, and the smell of burnt hair filled the small room. The beam blinked on and off a dozen times and went out.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. What had he done wrong? Leaning out of harm’s way, Skald rotated the discs back to their previous positions. Again the searing, pulsing green beam.
It had worked – though not in the way he’d hoped. He marked the spot the beam had come from, wrote down the positions of the two discs, checked his map of Santhenar and located the source. Then sat down, shivering, though it was a hot day. He rubbed his hair, which was standing on end, and charred fibres drifted down onto the bench.
Skald had hoped to find a natural source of power. Or, if he was very lucky, locate an enemy adept using the Secret Art. But the pulses of light weren’t a power source, or an adept. They appeared to be a signal or beacon, a powerful one, and it came from Alcifer, the long-abandoned city built for their great enemy, Rulke, in ancient times. But who had made the beacon? Who were they signalling, and why? Skald choked; this was big. This could finally give him the chance to rise above his family’s shame.
Taking Santhenar was going to be bloody; tens of thousands of Merdrun would die, and dozens of sus-magiz, the magiz’s deputies. Seven had been killed already. Yet every death created an opportunity, and there would be many opportunities for a determined, worthy young battle mancer.
Assuming he could climb the first, very difficult step and become a sus-magiz himself. The magiz, Dagog, hated Skald and would never agree to a trial – unless his hand was forced. Dare I? Skald thought. I must!
He strode by hundreds of ruined and burned buildings, up to the squat watchtower on the highest of the five hills of the subtropical city of Guffeons, which the Merdrun had taken three days ago. After a modest slaughter, by their standards, the inhabitants of Guffeons had been ordered to leave or die, and most had fled. A few hundred, out of a city of 150,000, had refused to leave their homes or businesses and had paid the price, but once the city had been cleared the magiz reopened the Crimson Gate and the Merdrun civilians had come through.
The sight had brought tears to Skald’s eyes. They had been hidden on a barren worldlet in the void for aeons, for their protection, but the Day of All Days was very close now.
He had not yet taken a breeding partner, but it was wonderful to see his people reunited at last. It meant that they were close to the goal they had ached for, ever since they were cursed and exiled by Stermin at the dawn of time. Skald was determined to be one of the few who finally gained the Merdrun’s greatest desire. The yearning burned him – only months to go.
He suppressed the forbidden emotions that would fatally undermine him and strode on, clutching the box.
At the gate of the watchtower he saluted the ever-watchful guards. ‘Battle Mancer Skald Hulni. I bear important news for High Commander Durthix.’ His stomach throbbed. What if Durthix would not see him? Skald dared not go direct to the magiz, who would curse him and take all the credit.
‘Captain Skald?’ said the senior guard, ‘who found the enemy’s secret box the other day?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What is your news?’
‘It’s a military secret, sir.’
The guard pursed his cheeks. ‘The High Commander does not wish to be interrupted.’
A senior sus-magiz appeared, a big, square-faced fellow called Widderlin, fourth below the magiz. ‘What is it, Skald?’
‘I’ve discovered something that could turn the war, sir.’
Widderlin drew him aside and Skald told him what he had done and found.
Widderlin looked in the box, then said to the guard, ‘I’ll take responsibility. Come with me, Skald.’
Widderlin escorted Skald through two more checks and he was allowed into a circular room, thirty feet across, at the top of the watchtower. A stair ran up to the guard post. The chamber contained six officers, an adjutant, High Commander Durthix and, to Skald’s dismay, the magiz himself.
Dagog was small, wiry, hairless and none too clean, with glittering black eyes and a faint reek of decayed meat, none of which mattered a damn. A magiz could be man or woman, big or small, old or young, handsome or hideous. The only requirements were a brilliant gift for the Secret Art and an utter indifference to human suffering in enemy or friend.
Skald hastily turned his back. If the magiz recognised him he would be sent away unheard. Dagog hated Skald because of his father’s cowardice in battle, and because Skald, who was big and strong and hairy, looked like a true Merdrun hero.
Widderlin had a quiet word to Durthix and after half an hour Skald was called over. The high commander was a large man, black-bearded and shaven of head, as all the senior officers were, though Skald was pleased to note that he topped Durthix by an inch and was equally broad in the shoulder. In the Merdrun army, size mattered. As did body hair, the more the better. On both sexes.
‘Skald Hulni?’ said Durthix. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Battle mancer to the Ninth, sir,’ said an adjutant, a slender, narrow-shouldered fellow, too meagre to ever qualify as a field officer. ‘The young fellow who did such clever work on Mistmurk Mountain.’
Dagog bridled. ‘Damn you, Widderlin! Skald’s father was executed for cowardice and he’s tainted too. Skald, get out!’
Skald fought the fatal emotions. The magiz was trying to break him, publicly.
Durthix turned a cold eye on Dagog. ‘We’re at war, Magiz, and this is my command.’
‘There was a time –’
‘And that magiz’s harshness and obsession led us to the brink of ruin. That’s why I am supreme, Magiz – and you are subordinate.’
‘Fairness, justice, mercy!’ the magiz spat, standing toe to toe with Durthix, though the high commander was twice his size. ‘Your army is soft. We must return to the old ways.’
‘An army ruled by fear cannot be a great army.’
‘If I were supreme –’
‘Are you challenging me?’ said Durthix in a low voice.
Dagog took a step backwards and bowed. ‘No, of course not.’ His eye fell on the senior sus-magiz. ‘Widderlin!’
‘Yes, Magiz?’
‘You are to gate to Ogur, deep in the south, within the hour. Prepare yourself and your company for a long stay.’
‘Why Ogur?’ said Durthix. ‘It has nothing of strategic importance.’
‘Are you questioning my authority over my sus-magizes?’ Dagog asked coldly.
Durthix smiled thinly but said no more. Widderlin trudged out, his broad shoulders slumped.
Ogur, Skald knew, was a frozen wasteland. For supporting Skald, Widderlin was being sent into exile. That’s the kind of man the magiz was.
Durthix gestured Skald across. ‘Well, Battle Mancer?’
Skald, who had lost focus, was about to gabble when he saw the magiz’s chilly eye on him. His smile exuded malice.
Sweat, Skald’s personal affliction, oozed down his chest and sides. He waited for three painful heartbeats, then said, ‘I’ve built a scrying device, High Commander, loosely based on an enemy design – and it’s detected a strange signal or beacon that appears to be coming from Alcifer, the abandoned –’
‘We know what Alcifer is,’ hissed the magiz. ‘Give it here!’
He held out his hand. His fingers, stained manure-brown, stank. Skald handed him the box and Dagog opened it, took out the scrying device and laid it on a bench.
‘Would you like me to explain how it works?’ said Skald.
‘I–am–magiz!’
Dagog fixed the wires to the ends of the crystal and rotated the graduated circles one way then another, and back again. ‘I see no signal.’ He rotated them further, a tiny crystal winked, then the beam of green light roared upwards and began to pulse. He yelped, scrambled backwards and fell onto his back, thrashing like a four-legged crab. Skald fought to control his face; a twitch of the lip could doom him.
Dagog got up. ‘Something amusing you, Skald?’
‘No, Magiz.
The magiz returned to the device and studied it for several minutes, scowling.
‘Well?’ said Durthix.
‘Clear the room, High Commander. We must talk.’
‘What is it?’ said Durthix.
‘He’s not dead,’ the magiz whispered. ‘He’s back!’
Durthix ordered everyone out. Skald went reluctantly. Who was back? And what should he, Skald, do? Questioning an order could mean a black mark on his record, but it wasn’t forbidden, and he had to know more about his discovery.
Sweat dripped into his eyes. He wiped his forehead on a black-furred arm. Outside the door, he turned. ‘High Commander?’
‘Return to your post!’ snarled Dagog. ‘This–is–not–your–business.’
‘No, wait outside,’ said Durthix, and closed the door.
It proved a long wait. Had Skald made some stupid blunder? Wasting the time of the magiz and the high commander might mark him as a troublemaker, someone expendable. Skald believed passionately in One for All and was almost as ready to sacrifice his life for the good of the Merdrun as the next man, though such a fate would prove his mother had been right about him. Pain stabbed him in the kidneys.
A memory struck
him, one he had not taken in before. Someone had touched his mind when he was looking for the amber-wood box. An enemy; a little girl. He strained to recover the details but the memory vanished like mist in sunlight.
The door was wrenched open and Durthix said, ‘Enter, Battle Mancer Skald.’
As Skald went in, his knees felt disturbingly weak. The commander’s face showed nothing; it seldom did save after victory in battle, for triumph was an allowable emotion. The magiz looked sour and malicious; nothing new there.
‘You have done well, Skald,’ said Durthix. ‘You have revealed something at Alcifer that could be an opportunity – or a threat.’
‘May I ask what –?’
‘You may not.’ Then Durthix smiled, a fierce baring of big, square teeth. ‘This is the second time you’ve impressed me, Battle Mancer. After your success at Mistmurk Mountain, you made a request to the magiz, I understand? One that was refused.’
‘Yes, High Commander.’
‘Do you wish to make the request again?’
‘Yes, High Commander.’
Durthix jerked his head towards the magiz, whose face twisted in fury. Skald caught his breath. This would give Dagog the excuse to destroy him.
‘Magiz Dagog,’ said Skald, ‘I request a trial to become a sus-magiz.’
In the past, the Merdrun had only had a few sus-magiz but, because their armies were spread across Lauralin, many more were needed for this invasion and for the Great Purpose to follow. Skald had dreamed about becoming a sus-magiz since he was a little boy, training with a slate sword on the barren rock in the void that the Merdrun nation had called home. Until now.
‘You are aware of the risks?’ said Durthix.
‘No,’ said Skald. ‘The trial is secret.’
Dagog said, with a malicious grin, ‘Those who fail the trial – two out of every three – are damaged and no use to anyone. They are staked through the belly, disembowelled alive and left for the dogs.’
A dishonourable and agonising death. Skald’s mother would be vindicated. Accept or withdraw – he only had seconds to choose. Above all, a sus-magiz must be decisive.
Her voice echoed in his mind from a time she had flogged him as a little boy, after his father was executed for cowardice under fire, and Skald had committed the unforgiveable crime of asking his mother if she loved him. Hide your emotions, you worthless little wretch, or you’ll be put down too.