by Ian Irvine
‘You’re so stupid!’ Jassika said furiously.
‘Why?’
‘Everyone’s in pain. And you can’t fix anyone else’s pain – though I can’t imagine why you’d want to. Karan was right. Block him out.’
‘Um …’ said Sulien.
‘What’s the matter now?’
Should she tell Jassika about her plan? Sulien had to tell someone. She lowered her voice and leaned closer. ‘The very first time I saw the Merdrun, in a dream – no, a nightmare – I also saw their one fatal weakness.’
‘What was it?’ Jassika said eagerly.
‘I don’t know. Their magiz attacked me and the secret got lost – but I know it’s still buried in my mind.’
‘And you think, if you spy on Skald, you might find it again.’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know it’s their fatal weakness?’
‘Their leader, Gergrig, said so. That’s why they were trying to kill me, before we came to the future.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Jassika in a breathy voice, as if Sulien had finally done something interesting. ‘Tell me about it.’
Sulien told the story. By the time she’d finished, the moon had set.
‘Wow!’ said Jassika, sighing. ‘You’re so brave.’
‘I was just trying to survive.’
‘I wish I had adventures. Nothing ever happens in my life except Klarm goes away and dumps me with people who don’t give a damn about me … or worse.’
Sulien did not want to think about or worse. ‘Is that why you walk tightropes? And live in trees? For the excitement?’
‘I’m sick of being told what to do. No one ever asks what I want.’
After a long silence, Sulien said, ‘I touched another enemy’s mind a few months back. A kid …’
She told Jassika about the drum boy, Uigg, Gergrig’s son. ‘The poor little boy was tormented too. If I can find out what’s the matter with Skald it might be a clue to the enemy’s weakness.’
Jassika sat next to Sulien on her rock. Up close, she was very smelly. ‘You’ve got to find out,’ she said quietly.
‘But I told Mummy I wouldn’t go anywhere near Skald’s mind again.’
‘We’re losing the war, idiot! You’ve got to break your word.’
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
‘You’re so selfish!’
‘And you stink!’ cried Sulien, nettled. ‘Don’t you ever wash?’
‘Don’t you tell me what to do!’ Jassika jumped up and stalked off into the forest.
Sulien was shaking with cold as she got back into bed. How dare Jassika! She didn’t care what happened to Sulien as long as there was plenty of excitement along the way.
But she could not stop thinking about it. Was it her duty to find the enemy’s weakness, as Flydd had seemed to think? Or was Karan right?
To get into Skald’s mind, Sulien would have to relax the barriers that protected herself, and that was scary. Back in the past, the sus-magizes had attacked her mind. It had been awful.
Besides, if Karan was right, Skald might be able to find her, even here. Don’t get close to him. Don’t reveal your true self to anyone who might take advantage, or use it against you. You can’t trust anyone.
Including Jassika. She wasn’t pressuring Sulien to spy on Skald to find out the enemy’s weakness. Jassika did it because she loved taking risks. Sulien had to push her away.
43
You Know Best, Of Course
A vast dark brown pall covered half the sky and stretched east over the ocean for at least a hundred leagues. A week had passed since the assassination attempt on Flydd, and the Merdrun gating to Skyrock, and Roros was still burning.
Day 24, Karan thought. Forty-one days to stop the Merdrun from cleansing Santhenar.
But most of Flydd’s old allies had been killed or taken to Skyrock, and the rest were in hiding. Unless a miracle awaited them in Roros, the war was lost – and Karan did not believe in miracles.
Flydd’s scarred hands clutched the bow rail, claw-like. The gashed hip had healed but he had lost more weight and looked like a skinned rat.
‘Yulla has never let us down,’ he said. ‘Even in the worst days of the war, and the dark times under the God Emperor, she always came through.’
‘But she’s old and ailing,’ said Nish. ‘We’ve got to prepare for the worst.’
‘Nish, old friend, I’ve got to keep hoping. You know why.’
‘The black dog has been stalking me lately, too.’
‘All my adult life,’ Flydd said with a shiver. ‘But we’re old adversaries and I know how to keep it at bay. It’s not depression I’m worried about, it’s despair. If I once give way to it, you might as well cut my throat and heave me over the side, because I’ll drag everyone down with me.’
‘We still have Rulke,’ said Nish. ‘And Maigraith. Two of the greatest figures in the Histories.’
Flydd laughed hollowly. ‘That would be the Rulke who, the moment he heard about the Merdrun, nicked three of my most important devices, pissed off and hid like the cowardly swine he is. And the Maigraith who, as the Numinator, did nothing to aid Santhenar in the entire 160 years of the war with the lyrinx. Try again, Nish.’
‘Give Rulke time. He wasn’t fully healed.’
‘He had 224 years under the stasis spell! If that couldn’t heal him, nothing will. And need I remind you that he was known, for most of his life, as the Great Betrayer?’
‘Karan had faith in him.’
‘Until he buggered off. Then dragged Llian, all but his little finger, through that gate.’
‘What?’ cried Karan, who had not been paying attention. She stood up, staring at him. ‘Rulke took Llian?’
‘Who else could it have been?’
‘I assumed it was the enemy.’
‘Why would they waste a gate on Llian, of all people? It was Rulke, it had his fingerprint.’
‘Then why didn’t you say so three weeks ago?’ Karan shrilled.
‘I didn’t realise it until recently.’
‘If I’d known you were holding out on me, I might have been a bit slower to save your bony backside. Twice!’
‘I’m sorry, but it doesn’t change anything. I don’t know how to contact Rulke.’
‘It changes everything. I thought the enemy had him … had tortured and killed him. You’ve got to take me to him. You gave your word.’
‘I can’t.’
‘It’s all take with you,’ she snarled, struggling to restrain herself. ‘I’ve done everything you asked of me. I keep risking my life to save yours, and you won’t even do this little thing for me.’
‘I have no idea where Rulke is.’
‘Wait! Why don’t you try Alcifer,’ she said with deepest sarcasm. ‘His home.’
‘Why would he hide in the obvious place?’
‘Because he loves Alcifer, and he knows its defences.’
‘Well, in the time it took to find him, the war might be lost.’
Flydd was not going to budge. Karan stalked away. Would Llian be safe there? He had a way of antagonising people, and he’d had some notable disagreements with Rulke in the past. But still … Better in his hands than the enemy’s.
As they approached Roros, the scale of the ruin grew ever more apparent, and it was worse than any of the other cities. Fields, orchards and forests had been burned for a good ten miles around the city. There would be no summer harvest in southern Crandor this year.
‘The Merdrun made a special effort here,’ said Nish, studying the charred ruins through Flydd’s spy glass. The city was almost gone, just a few stone buildings surviving, battered islands swamped by seas of rubble and ash. ‘Until three weeks ago, a million people lived in Roros. Now it’d be lucky to house ten thousand.’
‘Last I heard, the Governor’s Guard and the city militia had fought the enemy to a standstill,’ said Flydd. ‘Twenty thousand Merdrun died taking a third of the city – half of all thei
r dead in the invasion.’
‘But they made Roros pay.’
‘How they made them pay.’ Flydd looked close to the despair he so feared.
‘Yulla’s mistake was thinking they wanted to capture the city and plunder its wealth,’ said Nish, ‘and she prepared the defences well. But on a hot, windy day at the end of the dry season, if your enemy is determined to raze the city …’
‘I’m not giving up hope,’ Flydd said doggedly. ‘She raised a fortune for my war chest and sent hundreds of people into hiding. Former army officers, great artisans and mancers, all kinds of people I need for the conflict.’
‘Be very careful. The enemy’s assassins will try again.’
‘Then we’ve got to be quick.’
The sky galleon raced across the wasted city towards a six-sided compound surrounded by three massive sets of solid stone walls, with bare killing grounds between them where attackers who broke through could be shot down by hidden defenders. Inside the inner wall, lawns ran for several hundred yards, bare except for a number of defensive towers and shooting platforms.
And at the centre, a gigantic hexagonal citadel, surrounded by six smaller buildings linked to it by broad flagstone paths.
‘The Governor’s Compound and Palace,’ said Flydd.
In the Time of the Mirror it had been one of the Eleven Wonders. But the triple walls, each built from solid stone more than ten yards thick, had been battered down and breached in three places. The emerald lawn was scarred by deep gouges and littered with hurled boulders, while charred patches marked where burning barrels of oil had been catapulted in.
Of the Inner Wonders, only the hexagonal palace remained. Everything else had been burned or smashed down to the foundations. Outside the western breach in the inner wall thousands of bodies had been heaped up and incinerated, and the ghastly mountain was still smoking. The smell of charred, foul flesh was so overpowering that Karan did not think she would ever be rid of it – her clothes and hair were already steeped in it.
‘Xervish,’ said Maelys, ‘there’s no point going on. We’ve got to think of ourselves now.’
The face Flydd turned to her was the face of a stranger, almost a madman, twisted in a rictus of grief or despair. But he shuddered and regained control.
‘We fight on,’ he said in a blank voice. ‘We never give in.’
He set the sky galleon down on a star-shaped area of paving outside the main doors of the palace. It was littered with boulders too, and fragments of smashed gargoyle and carved wood. As they climbed down, the tropical heat washed over them. Thunderclouds were building out to sea –the wet season would start any day now. A week too late.
At the vast front doors, he lifted the door knocker, a massive brass sculpture shaped like the head and long curving horns of a mountain goat, and let it fall.
It symbolised unshakeable defiance, and the sound must have rung through the entire palace, but the three people who came out looked defeated. All had the dark skin and purple-brown eyes of Crandor. An obese old woman, moving painfully on swollen feet, a slender, black-haired young man no taller than Nish, and a strikingly beautiful young woman.
‘Yulla,’ Flydd said heartily, shaking the old woman’s hand, then the hand of the young man. ‘Renly, good to see you again.’
‘The only times we see you is when you want something,’ Yulla said sourly. Then she smiled. ‘But at least this time we all want the one thing.’
She introduced Maelys, Nish and Clech to Renly. Karan stepped out from behind Flydd and Yulla frowned.
‘Karan Elienor Melluselde Fyrn,’ said Flydd, ‘this is my old sparring partner and former Governor, Yulla Zaeff.’
They shook hands. Yulla’s hand was dry and cold, despite the sweaty heat, and as soft as dough. Flydd introduced her to Governor Renly, whose hand was warm and hard. Behind them the young woman was staring at Karan.
‘And Persia bel Soon,’ said Flydd. He pronounced her name Per-see-ar.
He was gazing at her as if she meant something to him, but she would not meet his eyes. Why not?
‘I’ve read the Tale of the Mirror,’ Persia said to Karan. ‘The true tale, not the scrutators’ bowdlerised version. I heard you’d contrived to come to the future.’ Her voice was soft and deep and melodious.
Karan started. ‘Back in my era, Tallia bel Soon, the Magister after Mendark, was a dear friend. Can you possibly be related?’
‘She was my great-grandmother, four times back,’ said Persia. ‘She died long before my time, of course, but you have an honoured place in our family Histories.’ To Karan’s astonishment, Persia hugged her.
‘Without Tallia and Zanser, a truly great healer, I would not be here today,’ said Karan. ‘She loved children but feared that she had left it too late to have any.’
‘She bore twins. I can tell you about them, later on. Come inside.’
‘They’d better hear it here,’ Yulla said darkly.
‘Hear what?’ said Flydd.
‘Xervish, I have to say it plainly. I’ve nothing for you. And no one.’
Flydd staggered and clutched at his healing hip. Maelys steadied him.
‘But you said – I expected –’
‘The key to happiness is always to hope, and never to expect,’ said Persia softly.
‘I had a mighty war chest for you,’ said Yulla. ‘Plus a room full of magical books and devices, many of them unique. And more than three hundred and thirty men and women: senior officers from the war, masters of all the branches of the Secret Art, mechanicians, artisans and so on. All hidden in the crypts under the Old Palace.’
Flydd looked towards the smoke-stained pile of rubble to the right. ‘Go on,’ he said grimly.
‘The Governor’s Guard kept the enemy out for sixteen days, but they kept coming. On the seventeenth day they set fire to Roros in thirty different places and nothing could save it. Everyone except us and the palace guards fled with whatever they could carry. The Merdrun let them go.’
‘They knew what they wanted, and they were determined to get it,’ said Renly.
‘We made them pay dearly,’ said Yulla. ‘But the Governor’s Guard was down to a thousand, and the enemy sent six thousand against them …’
‘They broke my mancers’ wards one by one, and everyone outside the Hexagonal Palace was killed. We went down to the secret chamber deep below the palace, our mancers secured the doors with more wards, and we waited for them to break in and kill us.’
‘But they never came,’ said Persia. ‘The enemy weren’t interested in us.’
‘They must have known about the people hidden in the crypts, because they targeted the Old Palace with ballistae. Smashed the roof in and lobbed in dozens of barrels of naphtha.’
‘And burned everyone to death?’ whispered Maelys, her dark eyes round in horror.
She must be remembering the night the enemy burned Nifferlin Manor. The smell here was an ever-present reminder.
‘They were down deep,’ said Renly. ‘Safe from the fire. But … it burned so fiercely that it sucked all the air out of the crypt. After the enemy left, we broke in, but it was too late. All three hundred and thirty of them had suffocated.’
‘Roros’s finest, gone just like that.’ Yulla sagged. ‘I’m sorry, Xervish, old friend. I can’t do this anymore.’
‘Let’s get you inside,’ said Flydd, holding her up with an effort, for she must have been twice his weight. ‘That’s all that matters now.’
She pushed him away and stood upright. ‘I’ll finish my sorry tale. They took the books and magical devices. The war chest too, though I think only to deprive you of it. They don’t seem interested in plunder, apart from silver –’
‘And they want that for some fell purpose,’ said Persia.
‘They could have killed us too, but they didn’t bother. They opened a monster gate to Skyrock and the whole army, and all their captives, passed through.’
They went in. Yulla lay on a slab of green, veined mar
ble and closed her eyes. Flydd held a grim council of war with Renly and Persia.
‘We’re praying for a good wet season and a bountiful autumn harvest,’ said Renly, ‘otherwise there’ll be mass starvation by winter.’
‘If what the Merdrun appear to be planning in forty-one days comes to pass,’ said Nish direly, ‘there may be no need for a harvest.’
‘I’m not giving in,’ Flydd said unconvincingly. ‘This is just a setback.’
But Karan knew it was a fatal blow, and even Flydd must see it. All they could do now was run and hide.
‘But how can I raise an army with no war chest,’ said Flydd, ‘and hardly any experienced officers?’
‘Skyrock is guarded by 150,000 troops,’ said Nish, ‘and they’re rapidly building defensive positions. You’d need three times that number to attack them successfully.’
‘And even if you could raise, train and supply such a mighty army, which would take months,’ said Renly, ‘how would you get them to Skyrock? We don’t have the power to send a squad of soldiers through a gate, much less an army.’
‘You’re proposing we should give in.’
‘No, I’m saying you have to find another way to attack Skyrock. A clever way that no one will think of.’
‘If I had any cleverness left, we wouldn’t be in this position.’
‘It’s over, you old fool!’ cried Karan. ‘So keep your damned promise! Pick up Sulien and take us to Llian. Leave us in Alcifer where you found us. Then you can do whatever you bloody well want.’
‘If I give up now,’ said Flydd, ‘it will nullify my life and everything I believe in. I’m going to Faranda, to seek the aid of the only power left on Santhenar – the Aachim. And you’re coming with me.’
‘They won’t help you.’
‘I know the Aachim of today a damned sight better than you do.’
Karan sank onto a seat and put her head in her hands. ‘I wonder if you do.’
44
She Might Still Kill Them
Maigraith disappeared for three days, then entered Aviel’s room at sunrise and shook her awake as though nothing had happened. As though the despicable scent potion she had compelled Aviel to make had not led to the death of an innocent young woman.