Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2

by Ian Irvine

  “What’s he writing?”

  “I can’t read it. But it’s only a few words. Lyf’s put the scriber down. Now he’s using his hands, as if working magery. The iron page is rising in the air – no, it’s crashed down on the table. I’d say he’s trying to send it somewhere.”

  “I think I can guess what it is, and where he’s sending it,” said Holm.

  “Where?”

  “We know he’s planning to put the Pale down, so I’d reckon this is the death order. And a highly symbolic one, since he’s written it on a page of the iron book.”

  “The Consolation of Vengeance,” whispered Tali. “And the book was unfinished. The ending hadn’t been written.”

  “It has now,” said Holm. “What’s he doing?”

  “I – I can’t see,” said Tali. Her heart was hammering in her ears, yet so little blood was going to her head that she felt faint. She forced herself to focus. “He’s calling someone in. A servant. No, a courier.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “The only word I could lip-read was matriarchs. Now the courier’s put the iron page into a bag. He’s running out.”

  “How far is it from Caulderon to Cython?” said Holm. “Quick!”

  “Um… the nearest entrance is nine or ten miles, on horseback.”

  “Once he gets out the gates of Caulderon, a courier could ride that in an hour, even through the rough country of the Seethings.”

  “Add another hour to get out of the city,” said Tali, “and to reach the matriarchs way across Cython, but in two hours they’ll have the order.”

  “Will they act on it straight away?” said Holm. “Or wait until morning?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think.”

  “It must take an hour or two to get ready, surely? Four hours, say, before the Pale start to die. Can we do it in time?”

  Tali ran through her mental map. “If we can get in, and we’re not discovered, and everything goes well, we can reach the Pale in an hour and a half. But to get them out, first I’ve got to convince them to rebel.”

  “Surely they’ll want to escape,” said Tobry, speaking for the first time.

  “They’re not like me. In Cython, any slaves who cause trouble, or show initiative, are sent to the heatstone mines to die. For a thousand years the fate of the brave and the bold has been an unpleasant death, and every Pale knows that the only way to survive is to be docile and obedient. Getting them to rebel won’t be easy.”

  “But when you tell them about the death order —” said Holm.

  “What if they refuse to listen?”

  “We’d better get moving,” said Tobry. He took hold of the ropes and went over the edge.

  Because of the underground heat, even a cold winter was mild in the Seethings, and once they were fifty feet down the air shaft Tali was sweating as profusely as Tobry. He was twitchy, looking behind him all the time now. Holm seemed unnaturally calm but it was all an act. She knew he was terrified.

  He was a far better actor than she was.

  Though Holm had spliced loops into the rope every two feet, climbing down it was tricky and dangerous. Once they passed below the level of the hill, the hard volcanic rock gave way to layers of welded ash, some crumbling. The wall of the shaft was covered in slimy growths and the air had a dead reek.

  “Smells like something fell in here long ago and is quietly rotting at the bottom,” said Tali, who had her feet in one loop and was hanging onto another.

  “I imagine many animals have fallen in and drowned since the air shaft was last used,” said Holm. “And perhaps one or two unwary people.”

  And soon, us?

  They settled into the black water. A shudder rose up Tali’s back.

  “At least it’s warm,” said Tobry, holding up his elbrot to provide an eerie emerald light. “Hope you’ve remembered your swimming lessons, Tali.”

  He forced a smile but Tali could not reciprocate. I – can’t – do – it.

  Holm counted the loops. “We’re a hundred and eighty feet below the level of the Seethings. That means the water could be a hundred feet deep…”

  “That’s a hell of a dive,” said Tobry, gnawing on a thumb. “I’m not sure the spell is up to it.”

  “Then fix the damn thing,” snapped Holm, his voice cracking.

  Tobry made a few adjustments, using his elbrot. “All right.” He tapped Tali on the head with it, then Holm and lastly himself.

  Nothing happened for a few seconds, then Tali’s lungs spasmed and she began to choke. “Can’t breathe,” she gasped.

  “Get–under–water,” said Tobry.

  Holm, his eyes protruding, slid beneath the surface. Tobry dropped off the rope. Tali didn’t move. She was too afraid of the black water. She clung to the loop, wanting to scream but lacking the breath to do so. It was getting worse. Her head was spinning, her fingers slipping —

  Someone clamped onto her left ankle and yanked. She hit the water with a stinging splash and sank, thrashing wildly. There came a cold pain in her chest, a sharp ache that spread through her along a thousand little branches, and she could breathe again. She could breathe – underwater!

  Her terror faded as a light appeared below her, Tobry’s elbrot, now glowing orange. He pulled her down to his level. Holm was a few feet below them, his eyes bulging more than before and his jaw clenched. He jerked a finger at the side of the shaft, where a rock layer had crumbled away. The rock above and below looked none too secure either.

  Don’t show me anything else, she thought. If that’s how we’re going to die, I don’t want to know.

  Down they went. Down, down. She could not tell how deep; the shaft felt as though it was running all the way to the centre of the world. Down, down, down. The water grew warmer, and murkier. She lost sight of Tobry and Holm. Tali thrashed a couple of times, overcome by a momentary panic, then calmed herself by an effort of will. They had to be close by; there was nowhere else they could be. She settled on crumbling, silt-covered stone and they appeared on either side.

  Tobry forced more orange light from his elbrot but it did not help. They had stirred up the silt and the water was cloudy, visibility only a foot. He began to feel along the rock, looking for a way through. Tali and Holm did the same. It did not take them long. Crumbling rock covered the bottom of the shaft to an unknown depth. There was no way through.

  Tali perched on the pile, head in hands. What now? Even with the loops in the rope, it would be a struggle to climb all the way back up. Tobry was creeping around the oval wall of the shaft. Every so often she caught a glimpse of him through the increasingly murky water.

  He caught her arm from behind. He was pointing to the wall. She pulled herself across. A smaller air shaft led off horizontally, its entrance only partly blocked. Tali was helping to heave the rubble aside when another pain passed through her chest and for a second she felt breathless, stifled. Was Tobry’s spell wearing off too soon?

  She caught his arm, urgently pointing to her chest. He nodded. He’d felt it too. What do I do? she mimed.

  He raised his hands, palms up. He didn’t know either.

  She gestured to the elbrot. Re-do the spell.

  I can’t.

  Had the overdose of potion affected his ability to work magery? His chest heaved and he whipped around, staring behind him again. His eyes were wild, his mouth gaping. Was the shifter madness coming?

  Holm hurled the last rock aside. Tobry wriggled into the horizontal shaft, his broad shoulders touching the sides, and held the elbrot out to light the way. The water was clearer here; she could see for yards. She followed, expecting the shaft to turn upwards, but it kept going, and going.

  And going.

  The breathless feeling was growing by the minute, draining the energy from her. She could not last much longer. Neither could Holm, who still wore that stricken look. Tobry, help! Do something.

  She could not reach him. He was too far ahead and going faster than she could.


  Then his light disappeared.

  Behind her, Holm let out a frenzied cry that was throttled by the water. Tali reached back, caught his hand and gave it a jerk. Her head struck rock. She groped all around, discovered that the shaft took an upwards bend, and kicked upwards. The orange light of the elbrot was dwindling above them as Tobry raced for the surface. Tali struggled after him, lungs heaving, breath gone. She had nothing left.

  She ran out of steam twenty feet from the surface. Her muscles stopped working, as though her last air had been diverted to her brain. For what? She wasn’t capable of thought, much less of some magery that could save them…

  CHAPTER 88

  Holm was drifting up past her, unmoving, when Tobry came spearing down. He caught her hand with his, and the back of Holm’s belt with the other hand, and with mighty kicks drove them to the surface.

  Tali turned onto her back and floated there, staring up at the dark roof and gasping as she dragged the unfamiliar air into her lungs. It hurt. It hurt dreadfully. She was drifting in a circle when she realised that her fear of the water was gone. She rolled over, pushed her arms forward and out, the way Tobry had tried so hard to teach her – and it worked. She was breathing and swimming at the same time!

  The elbrot’s light reflected off distant stone walls, and along to a heavy iron grating that ran from stone ceiling to stone floor. They had emerged in the pondages, and they were locked.

  Tobry swam across to the edge. Holm was already there. Tali followed and hung onto the low side wall, getting her breath. After a minute Holm climbed out and went, wobbly-kneed, to the grating. It was made of thick iron, rusty on the outside but solid underneath. The central part opened to let people in, though there was a massive lock on the other side.

  He did not look at it. Holm was down on hands and knees, studying the floor where the grating passed into it. He began to pick at the edge with his knife, prising the caked dust away, then stood up wearily.

  “There’s a second gate down there, spring operated, I’d say. Looks like it’s got a shearing blade on top. Even if I could pick the lock without springing the gate and cutting myself in two, I don’t think we can get through without setting off one of their clangours…”

  Tali, who knew Holm by now, waited for him to go on. Tobry stared at Holm, a muscle jumping in his left cheek. It was warm and humid here, and rivers of sweat were pouring down his stubbled cheeks.

  “Whatever you’re planning, you’d better make it snappy.” Tobry’s voice had a hint of caitsthe roar in it. “Don’t think I’ve got long left.”

  “But you took two doses,” said Tali.

  “Saw that, did you? It wasn’t enough. Could be touch and go, if you aren’t quick.”

  Tobry got out his potion bottles and mixed a third dose. He poured the thick grey liquid into an empty potion bottle and held it out to Tali.

  “What’s that for?” she said, not taking it.

  “An emergency. You’ll need to force it down my throat…”

  “I don’t think I could force it down a shifter’s throat.”

  “You’ll see the signs. You’ll have a minute… if you’re lucky.”

  “That’ll make it a triple dose,” said Tali. “It could kill you.”

  “If I shift involuntarily, I could kill you both.”

  With deep misgivings, she took the little, thick-walled bottle and tucked it away in her small pack. Holm was feeling in his own pack. He brought out a small package, carefully wrapped, and opened it to reveal a glass phial, tightly stoppered.

  “Not you, too?” said Tali. “Bloody shifters, they’re everywhere.” She had seen a phial like it before but could not remember where.

  Holm smiled at the feeble joke. “Lizue dropped this one in your cell in Rutherin. I’ve been carrying it ever since.”

  He twisted the stopper out and white fumes wisped up. Holding the phial out carefully, he ran a line of liquid onto the bars in a large rectangle. The bars fizzed and dripped, and after several minutes he heaved and the section came away.

  Holm put it down carefully. “We’re in.”

  “But there’s still a long, long way to go,” said Tobry.

  Tali did not need reminding. Nor what was at the end of it. “How long did all that take?”

  “About twenty minutes,” said Holm, who always seemed to know the time.

  “Lyf’s courier will be out the city gates by now.”

  “And racing towards the Seethings.”

  As they moved out into a carved and painted tunnel, she caught the faint, familiar scent of Cython: the quiet odour of the rock, an occasional whiff of sulphur from the hot springs that broke through the walls here and there, and the distant tang of the fish tanks and eeleries.

  Her eyes stung, but she dashed the tears away. How could she possibly be feeling homesick for Cython? But she was. Her first eighteen years, and the lives of her ancestors for the past thousand years, had been lived here, and she had felt more at home in Cython than she ever had in Hightspall.

  She took a few steps forward, a few steps back, listening to the rock and tasting the air with her nose. She could sense Tobry’s churning emotions but she put him out of mind. All depended on her now. Her knowledge and her instincts about Cython.

  Tali knew vaguely where she was; as a child she had wandered down to the pondages several times. After being put to full-time slavery at the age of ten, however, she’d had no right to be in this area and would have been chuck-lashed if she had ever come here.

  A faint boot scrape told her someone was coming; one of the enemy. The Pale slaves were mostly small, slender people and they went barefoot, making no sound on the stone floors.

  “Enemy!” she whispered, drawing Tobry and Holm back to the dark pondages. “Put out the light. No fighting unless I give the signal.”

  Tobry extinguished his elbrot and they crouched in the dark, hands on their blades. It would be a bad sign if they had to fight so soon after getting in. Any ruckus risked the enemy being alerted, and if that happened, they would have to try and get out the way they had come, impossible though that seemed. If the enemy knew they were in Cython there would be no hope of completing their mission.

  The bluish light of a glowstone lantern cast streaks down the passage. It must be a pair of guards, patrolling the halls as they did every day and night. But there were many halls to monitor, so why had they come this way at this particular moment? Had the break-in set off a clangour somewhere else?

  Their footfalls were regular; there was nothing to suggest that it was anything but a routine patrol. The light was bright now, and Tali edged back. They would pass by any second.

  They reached the entrance to the pondages. A man and a woman, both big and strong. Then they stopped.

  “What’s that smell?” said the woman, who was closest to the entrance. She held up her lantern. It revealed a broad, mannish face, black hair cut short, and tattoos like a pair of crossed ribbons across her forehead.

  Tobry was still sweating rivers but Tali did not think the female had scented him. Now she noticed the smell too – a faint, acrid odour drifting from the grating, coming from the corrosive fluid Holm had used to eat through the metal.

  “Alkoyl?” said the male guard.

  “No,” said the woman, sniffing. “It smells like the new kind of vitriol.” She took a chuck-lash from her belt, a red and black one almost as thick as Tali’s little finger, and raised it over her shoulder.

  The man drew a curved sword and followed.

  Tali had been lashed with little chuck-lashes several times, which exploded against the skin with excruciating, blistering pain. But the big ones could take an arm off, or a lower leg, and if they hit in the face, throat or belly, they usually killed.

  She made the agreed sign to Tobry and Holm, slashing her fingers across her throat. Silence the guards – as quickly as possible.

  They already had a plan for this. Tali and Tobry would attack, while Holm stood by to cut down anyone who
got away or went for the clangours, the system of alarms that ran along the ceiling of every tunnel in Cython. If the clangours were sounded, the alarm would be carried, and repeated, by a series of bell-pipes throughout Cython. Every Cythonian, anywhere in the underground city, would hear the sound within minutes.

  The woman passed by. One step. Two steps. She raised her glowstone lantern, extended it ahead of her towards the pondages, and the light fell directly on the rectangular section that Holm’s phial of acid had eaten through the grating.

  She spun around and raced for the clangours, shouting, “Intruders, intruders!”

  CHAPTER 88

  Holm was drifting up past her, unmoving, when Tobry came spearing down. He caught her hand with his, and the back of Holm’s belt with the other hand, and with mighty kicks drove them to the surface.

  Tali turned onto her back and floated there, staring up at the dark roof and gasping as she dragged the unfamiliar air into her lungs. It hurt. It hurt dreadfully. She was drifting in a circle when she realised that her fear of the water was gone. She rolled over, pushed her arms forward and out, the way Tobry had tried so hard to teach her – and it worked. She was breathing and swimming at the same time!

  The elbrot’s light reflected off distant stone walls, and along to a heavy iron grating that ran from stone ceiling to stone floor. They had emerged in the pondages, and they were locked.

  Tobry swam across to the edge. Holm was already there. Tali followed and hung onto the low side wall, getting her breath. After a minute Holm climbed out and went, wobbly-kneed, to the grating. It was made of thick iron, rusty on the outside but solid underneath. The central part opened to let people in, though there was a massive lock on the other side.

  He did not look at it. Holm was down on hands and knees, studying the floor where the grating passed into it. He began to pick at the edge with his knife, prising the caked dust away, then stood up wearily.

  “There’s a second gate down there, spring operated, I’d say. Looks like it’s got a shearing blade on top. Even if I could pick the lock without springing the gate and cutting myself in two, I don’t think we can get through without setting off one of their clangours…”