by Jude Fisher
‘We go down to the cells.’
‘And then what?’
Virelai turned and watched with satisfaction as Plutario almost fell down in shock.
‘By Falla, what you done to yourself?’
Virelai gave him an uncharacteristically wolfish grin, revealing three silver-capped teeth, a detail he was particularly proud to have captured. ‘You may also ask, what have I done to you?’ he jibed. ‘But do not get too attached to your new handsome appearance, for I fear it will not last; and because of that we cannot delay.’
They took the remaining stairs down into the Miseria at a run, then halted as two guards came into view.
‘You took your sweet time relieving us, Manso!’ the first one growled. ‘I’m off duty till noon tomorrow and every damned minute out of this place is precious to me.’
Virelai shrugged. ‘Keys?’ was all he said by way of response, as low and guttural a sound as he could make it.
‘Still nursing your sore head, are you?’ He turned to the other guard. ‘Bet us he could drink a flagon of Circesian Amber by the time it took Bosco to take a piss. And he did it, all right. Hellish stuff, that. Serves you right!’ he thumped Virelai on the shoulder and handed over a huge bunch of rusted keys. ‘Here you go. Not that you’ll need them. These bastards aren’t going anywhere till tomorrow’s burning.’
They picked up the cloaks which were hanging over their chairbacks.
‘You two’re goin’ to be chilly!’ said the other guard, noting their lack of outerwear. ‘It’s as cold as Falla’s tits down here.’
Virelai cursed himself silently: the men in the guardroom had a fire to keep them warm and had discarded their cloaks; he hadn’t thought to include them in the illusion. ‘Bosco was sick on them,’ he said quickly.
‘Filthy fucker!’ said the first man delightedly. ‘Here, take ours. Where I’m going, I don’t need a cloak; nor any other togs, either.’
‘I do!’ the other guard protested. ‘It’s bloody nippy on dawn watch.’
His companion cuffed him round the head. ‘Come on, Lady Lavender, let’s get your poor delicate bones up to the fireside, let these two buggers get on with it.’
Virelai watched them till they disappeared into the gloom, then waited until the clump of their boots echoed away to nothing. Then he went from cell to cell, keys in hand.
The sights he saw made his heart pound in his chest. In the first cell, two women lay in a heap against the wall like broken dolls, their limbs dislocated, their finger-ends dark with dried blood. One of them had no eyes; the other a blackened hole where her lips and tongue had once been. Neither of them made a sound. They might be dead. He hoped they were. In the next two cells a number of naked men were chained to the walls. Some were stuck through metal spikes, the skin so reddened and puckered where the cruel shafts penetrated the flesh that it was clear they had been driven in and left like that for days, maybe even weeks, a trial of the prisoners’ will to live, a test of their mortality. One man had succumbed to death. Flies buzzed around his head, landed in the pits of his eyes. The stench of him followed the pair as they walked the corridor. Now Virelai learned to glimpse quickly and move on. Behind him, Plutario heaved his guts up so that the sharp smell of vomit joined with all the other aromas of human misery.
In the last cell of all, he found a corpse which had rotted down to the bone, and a ragged bloodstained figure.
‘Saro!’
The head came up slowly.
‘What do you want?’
‘It’s me, Virelai.’
‘Manso, I know you love to taunt me, but I have little wit left to field your jibes tonight.’
Impatiently, Virelai shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t Manso, I just wear his appearance, for a little while. We have to get you out of here. Can you walk?’
The figure laughed like a rusty gate. Then with a hand made clublike by swaddling bandages it pushed aside the filthy, tattered cloth which covered it.
‘Oh, my heaven . . .’
Behind him, Plutario fell to his knees, retching.
‘My brother likes to take a little piece of me every day. He believes each part of me he takes makes him stronger.’
Virelai clutched the bars of the cell. He rested his forehead against the cold iron, felt hot tears threatening and blinked hard. The crystal had shown him many horrors, but it had not shown him this. He wiped his hand across his eyes and tried to pay attention to the keys, sorting through them one by one.
‘You won’t find it there,’ Saro said. ‘Tanto keeps it with him at all times. No one else is allowed to enter this cell. He comes every day, twice a day – I thought it was him when I heard voices.’ He coughed into the bandages, a racking sound which made him double up. When he recovered he smiled wanly, head on one side. ‘Is it really you, Virelai? I was sure you were dead on the battlefield. I saw you fall. Or am I going mad down here? I often think I am: I see all sorts of strange visions.’
‘It is me. I was unconscious, then Alisha . . . helped me.’
‘Is she still alive? Is she with you?’
Virelai shook his head. There was no way to talk about what she had done, what she was going to do. ‘She took the stallion and headed south.’
‘Night’s Harbinger?’ Saro sounded amazed.
‘We don’t have time for all this charming small talk,’ Plutario said crossly. ‘If we can’t open the damned cell we’ll have to leave him and get ourselves out of here before someone finds us and invites us to board in one of these delightful chambers. We tried and failed, and it’s really unfortunate and I’m very sorry for your friend, but look at the state of him! Even if you were able to get him out of here, what could he do? And since you can’t get him out there’s nothing more to be done. I came with you as you asked of me, now let me go.’
Virelai sighed. It was hard to deny the logic in any of what the conjuror said, hard-hearted though he was. ‘Go, then,’ he said at last. ‘Thank you for coming with me. I hope you make it to the ferry.’
‘And what about this?’ The conjurer gestured to his face and torso.
‘It’ll wear off in a little while.’
‘Shame: it’s in better nick than my old thing. Never mind. See you in Gila sometime, I hope.’ Then he leaned past Virelai and waved to Saro. ‘Sorry, my friend. I used to do a good trick with locks and keys, but my criminal past is far behind me now. Fare well.’ He paused. ‘Or something.’
Then he wrapped the borrowed cloak about his shoulders and left.
Virelai stared despondently at the lock. He stared at it so long that his vision blurred. Bright streaks of light scored the inside of his eyelids. He shut his eyes tight, and the light coalesced, made a shape. When he opened them again, the shape was in front of him, clear and precise. He laughed.
The keys buzzed in his hand. He chose one and inserted it into the great lock on the cell door, said the words which brought illusion to reality and let the magic flow down the bones of his arm. With a clunk, the door flew open and a moment later he was at Saro’s side.
‘Virelai: that was extraordinary. You’re a real sorcerer! But you said you had no magic . . .’
‘I understand it no better than you do,’ Virelai said, shaking his head. ‘Something in me has changed, and yet at the same time something much greater than me has changed. Maybe it’s that the Goddess has returned, the Rosa Eldi is in Elda once more . . . Perhaps it is her doing. I don’t know, I just don’t know. Illusion was all I could manage before, and that with Bëte’s help. But upstairs, I healed Plutario, mended a broken arm—’
‘Can you heal me?’ Saro’s eyes were wide.‘It’s rather more than a broken arm, though.’ With his teeth, he unwrapped the bandage from his left hand, held what lay within out for Virelai’s inspection. All the fingers and the thumb were gone, leaving blackened, tar-seared stumps. ‘He doesn’t want me to bleed to death. That would be no fun for him at all. Though I have prayed and prayed for such a release . . .’
‘I don’t know,’ Virelai said truthfully.‘I don’t know whether I can bring back what is there no longer.’ He remembered the tooth lying on the floor of the chamber, the gap that remained in the conjurer’s mouth. ‘I can try.’
He took one of Saro’s maimed hands between his own and stared at the mess that cruelty, iron, fire and infection had left there. After all, he told himself, when I healed Plutario, I thought only of his arm and head. I gave no thought to the lost tooth. He closed his eyes and remembered his friend’s hand, tan and warm, with its strong thumb, its long, square-tipped fingers, its bitten nails. He thought of that hand, grooming Night’s Harbinger, holding a cookpot, clutching the death-stone. Through the blinding light of the artefact as Saro brandished it in his defence, he saw the bones of the fingers that were missing, dark shadows amidst the glow, like ghosts of themselves.
The now-familiar beehive of noise filled his skull. Instead of fearing it, this time he sought it out, welcomed it, allowed it to suffuse him. There was a colour associated with the sound, a brightness not white, but a pale, clear gold. He found that if he did not resist it, it felt warm and mellow, coursing through his bones and veins like a great burst of energy. It was life, he realised with a sudden shock of understanding. Life, pure and simple, and he was channelling it into the man whose hand he held. Whose fingers closed around his . . .
He opened his eyes. Between his palms lay Saro’s new hand, perfect in every detail. He looked down. Saro had feet again, pale, bony feet with toes and ankles and small tufts of hair on the knuckle-joints, instead of swollen, burned, pus-filled stumps. As if to test the extent of the wonder, Saro wriggled his toes. Together they watched this small motion wordlessly, as parents might marvel over the movements of their new child.
‘This is more than mere sorcery, Virelai. By the Lady, it’s a miracle—’
They were both so enraptured that neither of them heard the approach of feet, the grate of the cell door . . .
‘You!’
A rough hand caught the pale man by the shoulder and wrenched him backwards so that he fell at the speaker’s feet.
It was Tanto Vingo , standing upright and with no wheeled chair in sight, his face puce with fury. Without further preamble, he kicked the sorcerer hard under the ribs so that the air rushed out of his lungs. ‘What in Falla’s name are you doing in this cell? Don’t I pay you well enough to keep out of here?’ He kicked him again, so that Virelai grunted with pain. ‘Well, don’t you listen to my orders, you snivelling bastard? Which one are you?’ He hauled on the uniform tunic, turning him face up. ‘Ah, Manso. You don’t look well, Manso, I must say. A little pale around the gills. Worried I might lock you up in here with my beloved brother and throw away the key?’ He leered at the fallen man, then frowned. ‘But I have the key. How did you open this door? Is there a duplicate no one told me about? By Falla, I’ll have Bandino’s head for this if there is—’
‘It was not Manso’s fault,’ Saro said swiftly. ‘I picked the lock.’
‘I’d like to have seen that! Ha – we could display you in the market square and charge good money for such a trick. See the fingerless cripple pick a lock with his teeth. Though you won’t have those for much longer—’
So saying, Tanto threw Virelai hard against the ground and turned to regard his brother. Saro watched in satisfaction as the vicious sneer became an open-mouthed gawp, as Tanto’s balled hands fell loosely to his sides.
Tanto blinked once, twice, again. ‘How—?’
Saro stood up. Beneath his bare feet the stone of the cell felt warm and the faintest vibration ran through it up into his legs and torso. He felt wonderful. He felt stronger and more alive than he had ever felt in his entire life. He laughed and watched as Tanto quailed away from him. ‘Surprised, brother? Thought you’d whittle me away bit by bit until there was nothing left but a bloody, beating heart?’ He waved his new hands in front of Tanto’s horrified face. ‘Be sure your crimes will find you out. It seems the Goddess did not wish for me to be reduced in such a way.’ Sidestepping his brother, he took Virelai by the arm with a powerful grip and levered him upright. ‘Now my friend and I are going to leave this place and you are going to sit quietly in this cell and ponder your fate. Give me the key, Tanto, and I will not harm you. The guards will release you later, unless of course – ’ he grinned – ‘the key mysteriously disappears with us.’
‘No! You cannot leave me in this foul, rat-infested place. With that—’ Tanto gave the skeleton of the whore he had left to die in Saro’s cell such a violent kick that bits of ribcage and pelvis shot across the floor, skittering to a halt where the iron bars stopped their pell-mell progress. Then he started to wail. The outraged, incoherent, unstoppable bellow of a tantrum-gripped toddler boiled into the close air of the tiny chamber.
Taking careful aim, Saro punched his brother hard on the jaw. The blow fell with cracking, satisfying precision, and as his fist connected, Saro was graced with a memory of such perfect clarity it was as if he was transported from this place of torture to a glorious sunny day beside Katla Aransen’s knife stall at the Allfair the previous summer, a day before the entire world had run mad. He could see Katla’s surprised face, her hawk’s-wing eyebrows arching, her sea-grey eyes alight with startled amusement. In just such a way had he hammered his brother down to stop him calling the guards; but then it had been to save Katla’s skin rather than his own. He had been thinking about the Eyran girl a lot in the grim darkness of the cells, as if her feisty spirit and that corona of fiery hair were a beacon in his soul’s night. Somewhere out there, beyond the tiny, stinking cell which his whole world had shrunk to she was still alive: it was a thought which kept him alive even when he prayed to die.
Tanto crumpled to a heap on the filth-laden flagstones. His jewelled collar sprang apart at the impact, showering the floor with gemstones which glittered in the muck. He lay there with only his chest moving beneath the vast tent of his belly-stuffed robe.
‘Give me a piece of rag so I can bind his mouth,’ Saro said. ‘I don’t know how long he’ll be unconscious, or how long it will take us to find the lakeside passage that leads out of here.’
Virelai obliged cheerfully. It was remarkable to see his friend restored to such health and vigour that he was able to pick himself up on feet he had just reacquired and with a new fist lay his brother out cold. It might not exactly be the way of peace the nomads spoke of, but it gave him faith in the future. It gave him faith in himself. The magic is in me, he thought over and over as he tore a strip from the filthiest part of the bandage that had swathed Saro’s mutilated hand. I have become a sorcerer who can heal the sick and wounded. What more may I do with such a miraculous power?
‘Virelai?’
‘Sorry, I was thinking.’ He gave the cloth over to Saro and watched as he bound it tightly around his brother’s bloated face.
‘Hope he chokes on it,’ Saro said uncharacteristically.
‘We could . . . kill him,’ Virelai offered suddenly. ‘It would be the best thing for the world.’
‘I cannot,’ Saro said simply. ‘I know I should, but he is still my brother.’
‘He is no brother to me.’ Even as he said this, Virelai wondered if he could kill a man, even this loathsome creature. It would certainly be an easier job while his victim was unconscious, but he could not quite imagine how he might rid Tanto Vingo of his life, could not fully picture his hands around that fat, slick neck, squeezing and squeezing.
‘No,’ Saro said, and in his voice there was a lifetime of despair. ‘I could never ask you, of all people, to do this. Whatever magic you have in you, Virelai, it is a positive force, life-generating, not life-destroying. Do not sully your gift with Tanto’s death. Let us instead escape this terrible place and find Alisha, wherever she may be. I owe her Falo’s life, and those of her friends. It is because of me that they died, and I must repay that debt. Somehow.’
Virelai looked away. There was a lump in his throat that made it impossible to
speak. He knew he could not go south, but he could think of nothing to say. So he watched mutely as Saro brought the iron door clanging shut and locked it with the key Tanto had carried.
‘Is there nothing we can do for the poor creatures in the other cells?’ Saro asked, pocketing the key.
Virelai shook his head, suddenly weary. ‘Only release them from their torments forever.’
Saro looked agonised. ‘It would be kindest, I know, but even that would not be right. Can you open their doors and remove their chains, so they might at least die free?’
It was a small thing, but it would take the last of Virelai’s strength. Most of the prisoners were in no condition to benefit from the gesture, but he did what Saro asked. Some shuffled to the open doors and stared at the two men outside – a young man in shining health but filthy rags, and an odd-looking Jetran guard whose face seemed to shimmer and shift if they looked too long. Most remained cowering in their cells, nursing limbs long numb from the manacles which had confined them, glowering distrustfully at these newcomers, for who knew what fiendish new trick the Tormentor had in store for them with this odd turn of events?
Along dark, slimy tunnels they made their way, down and ever down. Once they took a wrong turn and were suddenly overwhelmed by a sweet-sour stench. Virelai steadied himself against the wall, then pulled his hand back in dismay to find it covered in a thick black grease which clung obstinately to his fingers. It was hard to rub off, even on the rough serge of the uniform tunic, where it left vile sticky streaks.
‘By heaven, what is this foul stuff?’ he said into the air, not even expecting a response.
Saro turned, his eyes gleaming in the chancy light. ‘Do not ask,’ he said grimly. ‘You would not like the answer.’
They rounded the next corner and came suddenly on a high-vaulted chamber and a dead end where the ground dropped sharply away into some great, wide well. Narrow stairs led down to some kind of observation platform. Driven by some compulsive curiosity he could not explain, Saro walked down onto this and stared over the edge. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he made out the remains of some huge metal contraption which appeared to have burned through at a crucial point and collapsed inward upon itself so that it looked like some vast dead spider. Below this, lay a mound of ashes, and shards of bones piled up in heaps. Scattered teeth gleamed in the char like pearls.