by Ian Irvine
He looked ghastly too, though aftersickness hadn’t weakened him as she’d hoped. He cast another restorative charm on himself, which drained the blood from his face and made his lower lip droop like a cretin’s, and turned down the boulder-strewn slope after Tink. He and the sergeant settled into their ambush, slightly above the path.
Maelys could see Nish clearly now. He was stumbling with weariness, though he looked better than the other two. Monkshart’s tall form was doubled over, his head almost at ground level and his arms flopping like dead weights. The long pale gloves hung off in shreds, exposing the weeping skin of his arms.
Her stomach heaved at the sight of Phrune, for he resembled a flabby, glistening balloon, apart from his cheeks, which sagged like a bloodhound’s. His shaven hair had grown rapidly in the maze; a dark mat, half the length of Maelys’s thumb, now surrounded the oiled queue. She couldn’t bear to think about the things he did, or the other services he provided Monkshart. How could any man become so debased?
‘Nish!’ she tried to shout, but just the barest wisp of sound emerged. It didn’t even wake Jil.
Maelys tried again, trying so hard to shout that it hurt her throat. ‘Nish, turn back. It’s Vomix; an ambush.’ No sound came forth this time.
Vomix turned his head sharply and she saw that his teeth were stained red. She shouted her warning again and again, until her throat was raw, but never managed more than a raspy scrape. Just once Nish stopped, cocking his head to the left as if listening but, evidently hearing nothing, continued. He was only a few spans from the huge boulder behind which the ambushers lurked. Looking towards the transparency that marked the barrier between the maze and the real world, Nish laughed in relief.
Behind the rock, the sergeant raised his sword and a chill went through her. Tink didn’t look like a man preparing to take prisoners and she prayed he hadn’t been driven mad in the maze.
Nish couldn’t tell how long they’d been lost in the maze, though it felt like all night and half the next day, and he’d had nothing to eat or drink in that time. Monkshart hadn’t packed food or water, expecting that the transit would take no more than an hour, but as they’d wandered helplessly with no idea of how to get out, twice more he had succumbed to those murderous rages.
Both times they were directed at Phrune, fortunately, but Nish felt ever more alarmed. Monkshart’s power, allied to that passionate purpose and mesmerising charisma, made him one of the most potent people in the world, but the rages gave him a deadly unpredictability.
On three occasions, early on, Monkshart had sensed Vomix and his men nearby, but each time the zealot had managed to conceal his little company and the paths of pursued and pursuers had diverged again. Yet Nish’s worst fears hadn’t come true: there had been no sign of pursuit in many hours and finally Monkshart allowed Nish to have his head, since he could still see a clear path and it appeared to be going somewhere.
Nish could see little but the path, since relying on clearsight all this time had dulled his normal senses. The base of his skull throbbed, his eyes felt as though hot peppers had been ground into them, and he couldn’t concentrate on anything more complicated than placing one foot in front of the other. If this was what aftersickness felt like, he was glad he lacked a talent for the Art.
Now the exit lay just ahead. Not even Monkshart knew where they would emerge, though he’d said that distances travelled through the maze were greater than in the real world, and they might come out anywhere on the continent of Lauralin. Nish prayed it was on the other side of the world from Morrelune.
Nish! It wasn’t a voice, just the faintest of echoes whispering through the spaces of the maze, and at first he thought his tormented mind was playing tricks on him.
He stopped but couldn’t hear anything, and neither Monkshart nor Phrune had reacted. Nish continued, trudging on aching, blistered feet. He couldn’t remember when he’d last walked so far without a rest, and his only thought was of passing the barrier and getting out into the real world which, thankfully, was becoming clearer every minute.
It came again, Nish! and a note in it was an aching reminder of Maelys. Could she be calling him from beyond the grave? Were such things possible in the unreality of the maze? Clearsight didn’t offer any answers.
He didn’t hear the ghostly call again, and was moving on when the back of his neck prickled and a jag of white fire hurled Monkshart backwards, skidding him across the rubbery ground. A huge, blood-covered sergeant lurched out from behind a boulder to their left, waving his sword like a madman. Phrune yelped, ducked under the sword and hacked at the soldier’s groin with a stiletto. He missed, though a short red gash appeared on the sergeant’s thigh. Phrune didn’t look like a fighter but he was as quick and deadly as a viper.
Nish looked around for the source of the blast. The maze shimmered in front of him, blocking his way to the real world, though he couldn’t see what was behind it.
The sergeant grunted and attacked with a measured horizontal slash that shaved off Phrune’s queue, giving him a tonsure. He looked stupidly at the horsetail of dark hair, which had settled on the path as if it had grown there, then lunged. It looked as though the knife was going to carve right through the sergeant’s belly but he bent backwards and the blade only sent buttons flying.
Phrune lunged again, cutting a streak across the sergeant’s other thigh. The sergeant speared the point of his sword at the acolyte’s face. Phrune wove sideways then screamed as the blade sliced off his ear. Another lucky blow?
No. The point flicked out again, taking the other ear off just as neatly, then sliced Phrune’s nose from bridge to tip. The soldier was playing with him, and Nish couldn’t blame him for it. Phrune stumbled away, squealing like a stuck pig, and shortly a brief sparkle lit up the surroundings as he forced himself through an intangible barrier and passed out of the maze.
Nish slowly raised his hands. ‘I’m Cryl-Nish Hlar, son of –’
‘I know who you are, lad,’ panted the sergeant. ‘I’m a sergeant of your father’s Imperial Militia and you’ll come to no harm from me, but don’t move. You’re going back to Morrelune.’ He looked the other way.
Monkshart had recovered and was slowly beating Vomix down. The seneschal was still firing bolts of uncanny force, though aftersickness appeared to be taking its toll, for they were feeble and the zealot avoided them easily. Monkshart raised his hands high and his expression slowly set hard as he prepared a killing blow.
Nish didn’t see the sergeant move, but a knife flashed from his hand, its hilt striking Monkshart on the right temple, and he fell without a sound. Vomix lurched across, picked up the knife and was about to plunge it into the zealot’s eye when the sergeant caught his hand.
‘The God-Emperor will not be pleased if you kill the man who once saved his life.’
Taking the knife, he slid it into its sheath, then tore the sleeve off Monkshart’s coat, exposing the ravaged skin of his arm. The sergeant gagged him with part of the sleeve, pulled the coat over his head and bound it down tightly to blindfold him. Before Monkshart had recovered, his red-raw fingers had been fastened together so he could work no spell, and his hands tied behind his back.
Nish should have run, but he was so dazed from overusing clearsight that he couldn’t think clearly. He stumbled for the exit but Vomix blocked the way, and before Nish could get by, the sergeant had taken him from behind. Tink swiftly bound Nish’s hands, gagged him and tied his coat over his head.
‘Lead them out, Tink,’ Vomix gasped. ‘Let’s see where we’ve ended up. I hope the maze hasn’t taken us too far.’
Nish prayed that it had. He felt the sergeant’s strong hands working at his bonds. ‘I’ve tied you to Monkshart so there’s no point running. This way.’ Tink turned Nish around.
‘Keep a sharp eye out for that cur of an acolyte,’ said Vomix, who was recovering. His resilience was astonishing. ‘Though I’ll bet he won’t stop running until he reaches the Great Ocean.’ He snorted. ‘You’r
e alone and friendless, Cryl-Nish. You’ll be back in your father’s hands before you can say torture chamber. I’ll catch you up,’ he said in a lower voice to the sergeant, then muttered something that Nish did not catch. He heard Vomix walking away.
Nish began to walk, despair rising up his throat like bile.
Maelys watched helplessly as the brief battle went one way, then another, until Phrune fled and Nish and Monkshart were taken. It was all over in a couple of minutes and, though there was nothing she could have done, she bitterly regretted letting Vomix live, earlier. If she’d had the courage to stab him to the heart when she’d had the opportunity, she and Nish might now be out of the maze and on their way to safety.
Vomix lurched up the slope, grinning from one side of his sick mouth to the other. ‘I always win in the end,’ he said, jerking her towards him. ‘The God-Emperor will reward me beyond all measure for what I’ve achieved today. And do you know what I’m going to ask for, as part of that reward?’
‘What?’ She managed a painful croak.
‘You, little Maelys. I’ll ask Jal-Nish not to damage you, outwardly. I wouldn’t like my pleasure in you to be marred in any way. And then I’m going to break you in. Do you enjoy pain?’
She didn’t want to communicate with him in any way, for that was all part of his game, but if she didn’t respond she’d suffer for it. She jerked her head.
‘You will. In my bedchamber, ecstasy and agony are inseparable. You’ll come to beg for it.’
Down below, the sergeant was leading Nish and Monkshart through the barrier. Their outlines sparkled, wavered a shimmering yellow, then became shadows beyond the transparency that blended with all the other shapes and shadows. Maelys wondered if she could stir up trouble between them. It was worth trying.
‘You’d better keep an eye on the sergeant,’ she croaked, all she could manage. ‘He has no reason to love you.’
‘We both serve the same master.’
‘But does Sergeant Tink want to share the credit for this victory?’
He smacked her in the mouth with a gauntlet. ‘Don’t treat me like a fool.’
He clicked his fingers and the paralysis was gone, though she still couldn’t speak above a whisper. He began to drag her down the path, kicking Jil in the ribs on the way past. She woke dazedly and he snarled, ‘Bring the brat. Don’t make a sound or he dies.’
The barrier had barely any resistance as they followed the path through it – it was no harder than pushing through a soap bubble, and that was peculiar. Where was the maze country anyway, and how could it be separated from the real world by such a fragile barrier? Maelys stepped out into the normal world, into a sweltering wave of heat and humidity. The air was sticky and scented with a rich muskiness that was unfamiliar. Perspiration burst out all over her.
Ahead and down the slope, a wall of tall trees with huge, moss- and fern-covered trunks cut off all view of the distance. Behind her a curving outcrop of grey granite formed a broken cliff, a good thirty spans high, which curved in either direction further than she could see. There was no sign of the transparent barrier though she felt sure it coincided with the granite cliff. Its surface was pocked with fern-covered crevices and long wet fractures, while a shear zone at the base had eroded away to her left leaving a mossy overhang. Tall ferns and glossy-leaved shrubs luxuriated in the damp soil along the bottom.
Vomix was feeling the cliff, doubtless trying to work out how such a powerfully uncanny place as the maze could exist without the God-Emperor knowing of it, and trying to find a way that he, Vomix, could profit from it. Was the maze part of the Pit, or had it been created separately by Monkshart? Or was it a place apart? Either way, Monkshart must be a mancer of rare and enigmatic talents.
Vomix might also be thinking that Monkshart had been Jal-Nish’s friend, and that Jal-Nish had sworn never to harm him. What if Monkshart turned his coat again? Jal-Nish might welcome him back and, in exchange for the secrets of pit and maze, might reward him with favours that rightly belonged to his faithful Seneschal Vomix, who had never wavered.
Vomix eyed Monkshart’s broad back, licked his lips, then eased the dagger in its sheath, caressing its bone hilt. He looked around and Maelys hastily averted her eyes. A man who contemplated killing his master’s former friend could permit no witness to such thoughts.
He dragged her across to a sapling in the shadow of the cliff, swiftly bound her to it, and tied Jil nearby. Vomix didn’t bother with Timfy. ‘Don’t make a sound,’ he hissed.
She still couldn’t speak loudly enough to call to Nish. Maelys watched Vomix walk along the base of the cliff to the sergeant, who stood with Nish and Monkshart. Nish did not know she was within a hundred leagues, or even alive, and she had no way of telling him.
Vomix pointed to the granite wall. ‘Climb up that cleft. See if you can see a landmark.’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Keep a sharp lookout. The acolyte –’
‘He won’t get past me.’ Vomix led the prisoners away around the curve of the cliff.
The sergeant walked along to the cleft and began to climb. He was gone some time, but when he came trotting along the base of the cliff from the other direction he was grinning. ‘I recognised a citadel tower just a league away, for I served there once, as a common soldier. It’s Gundoe.’
‘Gundoe!’ said Vomix. ‘But that’s … that’s a hundred leagues north of Tifferfyte, at least.’
‘Closer to two hundred, as the skeet flies. It’s not far south of the city of Guffeons.’
‘How did we come so far? It would be weeks of walking in the real world.’
‘A question the God-Emperor will want answered,’ the sergeant said dryly.
‘Keep an eye out for the acolyte. He’s a dangerous man and he may have friends nearby.’
‘He’ll need a lot of friends to make any difference. I flashed a message to Gundoe, using the Imperial Militia’s secret signal, and they answered. They’ll have a mounted squad here within the hour.’
TWENTY-NINE
Half an hour had gone by and Maelys was counting down the remaining minutes with increasing desperation. Jil and Timfy were a good ten paces away, while Nish and Monkshart had been taken by the sergeant out of sight around the base of the cliff. The troops would be here soon, and no one escaped from the army’s custody.
Maelys told herself not to give up hope. Surely there must be a way to use her dangerous new aura against Vomix? She was fantasising about that when she realised that she’d touched him earlier, in the maze. She’d put her hands on his face and pushed him away, yet he hadn’t reacted, so her aura can’t have been powerful after all. Her faint hope faded.
But what if it hadn’t been her aura at all? What if the taphloid had stung him through her shirt? It had grown burning hot as she’d passed through the Mistmurk, and she’d glimpsed an aura around herself, though only for a second. Yes, that had to be it. The passage must have changed the taphloid in some way, and if she could trick him into touching it with his bare skin, it might distract him long enough for her to attack.
Vomix was heading down into the forest with a handful of dry grass, undoing his belt buckle. She hoped he suffered from constipation, like Aunt Haga. If he did, there might be time for this last desperate gamble.
‘Timfy!’ Her whisper came out almost normally. Vomix’s spell must be wearing off at last. ‘Do you think you could untie me?’
He trotted across, but Vomix’s knots were cunningly tied and Timfy didn’t have the strength to undo them. ‘I’m sorry, Lady Maelys.’
‘Keep trying,’ she said distractedly, for she’d seen something moving on the shadowed part of the granite slope above and to her right. Who could it be? She couldn’t make it out, though the mounted troops couldn’t come that way. There was no sign of Vomix yet.
Someone dropped to the ground on her other side and she smelt a familiar sickly sweet and oily odour. Her head whipped around. Timfy scuttled out of the way.
‘Phrune!�
�� What was he up to? Better not say anything about being left in the village, or his night-time activities. Let him think she knew nothing; it might give her a small advantage. ‘I thought you’d run away.’
‘That’s what I wanted everyone to think,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘Run away to fight later, that’s my motto.’ He gave her a sour grin. ‘How did you get here, anyway? I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you …’
‘There’s more to me than meets the eye.’ Her voice was a little stronger now.
‘Oh, indeed.’ He looked her up and down as if measuring her for one of his master’s body-gloves.
Maelys shuddered and looked away hastily, unable to disguise her revulsion. With the top of his head shaven down to red-speckled skin, two bloody holes where his ears had been and a cleft through the end of his nose which exposed its crusted insides, Phrune was more repulsive than usual. A shiver of fear passed through her. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Since you and I are such good friends,’ he caressed her arm with plump, oily fingers as he spoke, ‘I’ll be relying on you to create a diversion.’
‘How?’ she croaked, trying to pull away.
He drew a stiletto and Maelys shrank back, for her previous nightmare came flooding back as if it were happening now, but Phrune slipped the stiletto between her wrists. The bonds parted and the blood pulsed into her numb hands, making her fingers tingle. He slid the back of his hand across her cheek. ‘Such beautiful skin. It would be a pity to waste it. I’m sure you’ll think –’
He broke off, pressed a small knife into her hand and vanished into the shadows. Seneschal Vomix was making his way up the slope, a long way from where he’d entered the forest, moving quickly but quietly.
He gave her a cursory glance as he passed, then headed along the granite bulge towards Nish and Monkshart. Maelys couldn’t see them from where she stood, though she’d heard Vomix talking to the sergeant earlier and knew roughly where they must be.