by Ian Irvine
“Reckon you can get on a horse?”
“Suppose I’ll have to.”
“We’d better hurry,” she said, glancing at Crebb. “He could come to any time.”
“Tie him up.”
“No rope.”
She retrieved her knife, sheathed it and picked the smallest horse of the three. Holm took hold of the saddle, Tali boosted him from below and, with a lot of effort, got him into the saddle. Crebb groaned and clutched at his groin.
She took hold of the reins of the third horse, tied them to her saddle horn and clambered up like a crab trying to climb a wall.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“East then north.”
She had lost all sense of direction. “Which way would that be?”
He pointed to the right. “Keep going that way ’til you reach a rugged range, then follow it north – which will be on your left. Keep to the wildest country you can find.”
She directed her horse east, up and over a small hill, where she caught a last glimpse of the hostile sea, only a mile or two behind. The stranded iceberg was clearly visible and was bound to attract searchers.
A squall swept up from the south, dumping five minutes of heavy rain on them. Lightning flashed once, high up within a cloud; a rumble of thunder shook the ground. The rain died to a steady drizzle. Tali’s stomach rumbled. She pulled her belt in another notch.
“Do you know anything about this fellow they mentioned – Deadhand?”
“Never heard of him,” Holm said faintly. He did not look well.
“What was the name of the place?”
“Garramide.”
“Do you know where it is?”
He did not reply.
“Should we go there? What do you think, Holm?”
“I’m going to have a little rest. Wake me when we get there.”
Tali followed the range north, walking their horses along stream beds and across expanses of flat rock in an effort to disguise their tracks, and at sunset she holed up in a cave in the southern range. After tethering the horses where there was grass and water, and screening the cave entrance with a dense stack of bushes, she lit a small fire, checking twice to make sure no glow could be seen from outside. Holm was still poorly and she had to repeat her healing twice before, finally, he slept soundly.
Having slept so much in the past few days, she was wide awake. It was smoky in the little cave, but pleasantly warm, and for the first time since her escape from Cython she felt safe. No one knew she was here and their trail would be difficult to follow; though, sooner or later, a determined search must locate them. She had to be ready, and it would help if she knew what Lyf was up to.
Her previous seeings had been involuntary – either due to blood loss or to the effects of the heatstone helmet. But once before, when she had been in the Abysm trying to steal his pearl, Tali had seen Lyf at a distance, via magery. Could she use her newly recovered magery to see him again?
It proved easier than she had expected – she saw him the moment she looked. Tali drew back, afraid to go on. Had her unconscious visions of him in his temple created a mental pathway that allowed her to slip straight across? That could be dangerous. Such a pathway might reveal her to him. But she had to take the risk.
“Go through it all again,” said Errek. “In case we’ve missed something.”
Lyf related the tale of how the Five Heroes had betrayed him and Axil Grandys had hacked his feet off with the accursed blade.
“They bundled me up in a rug, disguised me with magery, then rode like fury to the Catacombs of the Kings and walled me in to die,” Lyf concluded.
Why didn’t you fight back, she wondered. You might have been an inexperienced king, but you were also an adept with the greatest magery of all at your disposal. Why didn’t you use it to save yourself?
“And you have no memory of what happened to the key?” said Errek. “None at all?”
“It was in its hiding place,” snapped Lyf. “No one knew it but me, and it’s not there now. It’s not in the temple.”
“Then someone took it – probably Grandys.”
“But he never used king-magery; he never even found where it had gone.”
“Perhaps he took the key when he searched the temple, but did not know what it was.”
“After all this time, we’ll never know.”
“There may be those in Hightspall who would know,” said Errek. “There’s a man outside you need to talk to.”
“Who?”
“The historian mage, Wiven.”
Lyf went to the temple door, unbolted it and said, “Bring him in.”
A little old man was brought in. His dark face was as wrinkled as a prune.
“You are Wiven?” said Lyf, after the guards had gone and closed the door behind them.
“Yes,” he said in a reedy little voice.
“Yes, Lord King!” corrected Errek.
Lyf waved a hand at him, irritably.
“I’m told that few people know more about the history of magery, and the time of Lyf’s death, than you,” said Errek.
“No one knows half as much as I do,” said Wiven. “What do you want?”
“What happened to the contents of the temple after Lyf’s disappearance?”
“It was raided in the night. Everything was taken.”
“Who raided it?” said Lyf.
“Axil Grandys.”
“Why? What was he looking for?”
“No one knows,” said Wiven. “But —”
“Yes?”
“It was rumoured that he was looking for a talisman.”
“A talisman?” said Lyf. “Why?”
“Grandys’ own magery relied on them. Maloch, for instance, is a great talisman.”
“Did he find one?”
“Since he never found the lost king-magery, it’s assumed he did not.”
“What happened to the contents of my temple?”
“No one knows.”
Lyf recalled the guards. “Take him out. Far enough that you don’t defile the temple.”
The little old man was hauled out. There was a brief scuffle, a reedy cry, then the thump of a blade cleaving a head from a neck. Tali winced.
Lyf closed the door, bolted it and moved well away. “Another dead end.”
“A poor choice of words, in the circumstances,” Errek said drily. He looked around. “What’s that?”
Had she been discovered? Tali broke the link and opened her eyes. So this vital key was definitely gone, probably taken by Grandys, but how could anyone find it after all this time?
Suddenly ravenous, she went through Holm’s pack, discovered a map which she put aside for later, then took out their remaining food – a chunk of fatty bacon, an onion, a couple of cups of oatmeal and some unidentifiable pieces of dried fruit. Tali had never cooked a meal but how difficult could it be? She chopped everything into small pieces, put it in the pan with some water and set it on the fire.
“I hope you’ve got an appetite,” she said, on waking Holm an hour later. “This is the last of the food.”
Holm eyed the grey, oily mess without enthusiasm. “What is it?”
“I’m calling it stew.”
“What’s in it?”
“All we had of everything.”
“Boiled?” he cried. “Even the bacon?”
“Um,” said Tali. “Isn’t that how you do it?”
He sighed and took a cautious spoonful. “Oh, well, I dare say it’ll be nourishing.”
“Isn’t that what people say when the food is horrible?”
“Did I say that?” he said with an innocent twinkle. He tasted, tasted again. “It’s not too bad… considering. Didn’t your mother teach you to cook?”
“In Cython, the kitchen slaves do all the cooking.”
They finished their stew in a companionable silence. The fire died low. She put more wood on.
“What now?” said Holm.
She debated
whether or not to tell him about her seeing of Lyf and Errek, but decided to put it off a bit longer. “Er… about my magery?”
“Yes?”
“Have I made my choice? Between healing and destruction, I mean?”
“By healing me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so. The choice can’t be any little old thing.”
“I wouldn’t call healing you a little old thing,” she exclaimed.
“Neither would I, but I’m biased. Here’s how the king’s choice used to work, according to what I’ve read in the history books. You have to choose either to do a great healing, such as saving a life that could not be saved any other way. Or a great destruction – taking someone’s life with magery, for instance, or destroying something vast, valuable or vital.”
“I did save your life.”
“From the thugs, not the head injury.” He felt it carefully, wincing.
“So if you’re right, I still have the option,” she said quietly. It came as a great relief, though she could not have said why.
“Perhaps it’s just as well,” said Holm, “since you’re the one. Lyf’s your great enemy, and you’re his. If he’s to restore the ancient realm of Cythe, or if you’re to rescue the Pale, sooner or later the battle has to be fought.”
“The later the better, as far as I’m concerned,” said Tali.
“And the sooner the better for him. He’ll be planning to take you on the moment he finds you, so you’ve got to be ready.”
“Um,” said Tali, “he may already have found me. Or at least, seen me.”
“What have you done now?”
She told him about her spying mission, and what she had seen and heard.
“He had the mage put to death at once, you say?”
“Yes,” said Tali.
“So the secret of the lost key is so vital that he couldn’t allow anyone to discover what questions he’d asked.” Holm picked up his stew bowl and scraped the sides. “I wish you’d waited until I was awake.”
“Sorry.”
“But it has told us one thing,” said Holm.
“What’s that?”
“The key he’s looking for is the key to king-magery. But what is it? Is it a physical key? A talisman? A document? A spell?”
“Judging by Lyf’s reaction to the word it wasn’t a talisman. And whatever it was, Grandys probably took it.”
“Though if he did, presumably he couldn’t get it to work – or didn’t recognise it as the key.”
“Since we don’t know where it is now, or even if it still exists, it doesn’t help us.”
“I have an idea about that,” said Holm.
“Really?”
“I was fascinated by Grandys at one stage, when I was young and proud and arrogant. I spent a couple of months reading his papers and studying his artefacts, and after that I didn’t want to be like him at all. Not long afterwards I discovered… that I didn’t want to be like me, either.”
What could he mean? His eyes gave nothing away. “Do you want to tell —?”
“No, thanks.”
After another pause she said, “Where is all Grandys’ stuff?”
“Lost, mostly, or scattered. Some of it’s at Tirnan Twil.”
“Where’s that?”
“In the Nandeloch Mountains.”
“Everything seems to be in the Nandelochs.”
“They’ve always been a Herovian stronghold. I think the rugged land and the wild weather was much akin to their racial dream of the Promised Realm.”
She sighed. “About Tirnan Twil?”
“It’s a homage to eternity.”
“That may be poetic, but it doesn’t give me the clearest picture.”
“It’s a library and museum, and, for some, a place of worship.”
“What for?”
“The Five Heroes began it to glorify their achievements and maintain their heritage. The expense was staggering. It almost bankrupted the young nation – and Hightspall almost lost the war because of it. But that’s ancient history.”
“I take it, then, that we’re going to Tirnan Twil?”
“If this key still exists, it’s the first place I’d look.”
CHAPTER 42
“What’s the matter with them?” said Rix, punching the steel gauntlet on his dead hand into the palm of his other hand. He wore it all the time now, because it made his dead hand into a formidable weapon. “Why don’t they attack?”
“Perhaps they’re waiting for reinforcements,” said Droag, idly polishing his sword.
“Any sign of the healers?” said Rix.
“No,” said Nuddell gloomily. “Must’ve gone into hiding. No way they can reach us now.”
Or else the enemy had caught or killed them.
They were up on the tower behind the gates again. The Cythonians had been outside for two days now, camped in the snow in a semicircle, several hundred yards out of arrow range. They had not fired at the fortress, nor used any of the chymical terror weapons they had employed to such devastating effect in the early days of the war.
From time to time they sent raiding parties across the plateau. The sentries on the walls would see smoke rising and know that another manor or village had been burned, along with anyone who had missed the call to take refuge in the fortress. The raiding party would return, driving cattle, sheep or goats before them, which they butchered and roasted over spits. Then the waiting resumed.
“They’re doing it to wear us down,” said Swelt, rubbing his depleted belly.
Now that the fortress was at war, everyone had to make do on reduced rations, even the castellan.
“They did the same thing at Caulderon,” said Glynnie. “After they blasted the gates, they didn’t attack for several days, and our armies couldn’t touch them. By the time they stormed the walls, morale was in tatters.”
“If they don’t attack today, it’ll be their last chance for a week,” said Nuddell, who was studying the sky. “There’s a blizzard coming, a big one.”
Away in the south-west, a black cloud-bank had been developing for ages, thickening and spreading until it covered the southern sky.
“Those clouds haven’t moved in days,” scoffed Droag. “If it gets any warmer the daffodils will come out.”
“Nor’westerlies are holding the blizzard back,” said Nuddell, “but they can’t last much longer. And once they break,” he said with dire relish, “the coming blizzard will tear the hairs right out of your nose.”
Droag plucked a clump of his luxuriant nose hairs, studied them incuriously, then let them fall. “Ain’t a breath of wind, Nuddell.”
“Mark my words, boy. It’ll be howling by dinner time.”
“Our biggest weakness is the length of the wall,” said Rix to his officers. “Ignoring the escarpment side, which is too steep for anyone to attack, we’ve got over half a mile of wall to defend. And only three hundred and ninety men, counting the reserves.”
“Surely they’ll attack the gates,” said Noys. “They’re always the weakest point.”
“But ours are strongly defended. And if they attack somewhere else under cover of darkness, they might get up onto the wall before we realise what they’re doing.”
“If you reinforce all the places they’re likely to attack —”
“We don’t have enough men,” said Rix. “We’d need another two hundred, at least.”
By noon the black cloud-bank was perceptibly closer and the towering storms at its front were illuminated by continuous flashes of lightning. By three in the afternoon, odd little puffs of warm air kept breaking the eerie calm. The high clouds ahead of the front had spread to cover all but a lens of sky in the north-west, through which were focused the slanting, blood-red rays of the descending sun.
At twenty to four, the storm struck with a flurry of heavy raindrops, followed by a fusillade of hail. Rix clapped on his helmet. At the same moment, the lens of bright sky vanished and it became almost as dark a
s night.
Nuddell, grinning, said something Rix could not make out over the hammering of hailstones on his helmet.
“What did you say?” said Rix.
“You can stand down the extra men,” Nuddell yelled. “There won’t be an attack today.”
“Why not?” said Droag.
“If they try to fight in a blizzard,” said Rix, “half their troops are liable to die of exposure.”
A red flash from the enemy’s position was followed by a smashing thud below.
“What the hell was that?” said Nuddell, the whites of his eyes shining in the gloom.
“Bombast,” said Rix.
He looked down. The exploding projectile must have been enormous, for it had blasted a ragged, cart-sized hole through the top of the great gates. Half a dozen guards on the right-hand wall lay dead or wounded, cut down by jagged, flying timber.
“Hope that’s the only one they’ve got,” said Nuddell.
“I doubt it,” Rix said curtly.
One bombast blast would not let the enemy in. Rix, who knew the power of the enemy’s weaponry first-hand, had ordered a stone wall built behind the gates. But the damage was worrying.
“Why now?” said Nuddell. “What’s the point? They can’t attack today.”
The answer came like a flash of lightning. “Maybe they are going to attack – despite the weather. Come on!”
He bolted along the wall towards the gates, hailstones the size of plums bouncing off his helmet and cracking painfully into his shoulders, chest and knees. A minute ago he had been sweltering in tunic and leather armour. Now his breath steamed in front of him and the hail and rain was so thick that he could barely see the gate tower.
Lightning struck the largest copper dome behind him, sending sparks in all directions. Another bolt hit something on the wall ten yards to his left – a guard – blowing him to pieces.
The shockwave drove Rix down to hands and knees and he remained there for a couple of seconds, wiping blood off his face, before getting back to his feet. The lightning could as easily have struck him. Was there malice behind the storm, some purpose directing it to harry them before the attack began? Could Lyf’s power have grown that strong? Perhaps, now that he had four ebony pearls, it could.