by Ian Irvine
She was scrambling higher when a pinpoint of light reflected back at her from an icy facet. You silly fool, Maelys thought, you landed on the twinklestone and crushed it down to a mote; that’s what happened to the light. It was still stuck to her finger but she didn’t have time to stretch it to brightness, because the sorcerer was only a span below. And, she remembered, Whelm could see in near darkness.
She scrambled up the slope, tearing the soft skin of her palms on the iron-hard permafrost and praying that the speck-sized twinklestone would not stick to it and be lost.
With a snorting grunt, Zofloc lunged. She threw herself upwards but his flat fingertips caught the heel of her left boot, tightened, and jerked. She tried to kick him, but he was holding her too tightly.
Maelys attempted to shake him loose though that did not work either, and her foot began to slip out of her boot. If it was the only way to get free she would gladly lose it. She wiggled her small foot back and forth, it came out and she pulled herself up another half a span.
Her filthy sock kept catching on the broken surface so she threw it in Zofloc’s face and kept going, up and up, though after she had climbed five spans or so Maelys realised that she could not hear him. Was he close? Or had he gone another way to cut her off?
She stood up, swaying on the steep surface, and stretched the twinklestone until it reached its original size and cast bright light up and down the shaft. Maelys checked below her, yelped and nearly fell into the sorcerer’s arms, for he was only a span away. He had discarded his wooden sandals and was creeping up like a four-legged insect, his broad, flat fingers and toes clinging securely to the iciest surfaces.
Stretching the twinklestone to its fullest extent, Maelys thrust it down at him. Pain wrenched his grim features out of shape and he swayed backwards so far that it seemed impossible he could cling on, but he crouched, turned his head away and began to move up again.
She would never escape him on hands and knees; she wasn’t quick enough. Maelys stood and tried to run up the slope, but it was too steep; her legs did not have the strength, nor her feet the grip.
Whacking the twinklestone against her forehead, she used her fingers to pull herself up. The glow was so brilliant that she had to squint to see, but there was no time to reduce it.
She gained a span; he closed the gap in a scrabbling lunge. She forced herself up further; again he nearly caught her. Twice she turned and pointed the twinklestone at him without warning, and twice he evaded the light just in time.
Maelys was exhausted now, her strength failing rapidly, and she wasn’t yet halfway. She would never make it to the top. Might as well get frostbite in both feet as in one, she thought, then wrenched her other boot off and hurled it at Zofloc’s head.
At this range she could hardly miss and, with his eyes screwed shut, he did not see it. The boot heel slammed into his nose with a satisfying crunch, and he swayed backwards. His feet slipped and for one glorious moment she thought he was going to fall all the way, but he caught a firm hand-hold a few spans below her and hung on.
She’d gained a respite, though only a temporary one. ‘Yggur, Tulitine!’ she screamed. ‘Help, help!’
The distorted echoes chased themselves up and down the permafrost shaft, slowly dying away, and she thought she heard a reply, though she could not make out any words. Yggur and Tulitine certainly weren’t nearby; they must not have found a way in.
Now Zofloc was coming again, every breath making a repulsive nasal gurgling. Blood was flooding from his nose; he licked it away with a long grey tongue. If anything, he was moving faster than before. She’d hurt him and clearly he planned to brutalise her, before … before he made that shroud from her battered and broken body.
‘Help!’ she cried plaintively.
He looked up, eyes carefully averted, and smiled. They both knew it would soon be over. Only one thing could save her now: the dimensionless box, and if she unfolded it and held it edge-on, he could not see it.
Maelys unbuttoned her pocket, carefully caught the scrunched-up box by its edge, as Yggur had held it, and drew it out. While she’d been thinking about the attack, Zofloc had climbed another span. Now he was crouching not far below, his lower face smeared with blood.
She backed up a step, then another, but one of his long strides closed the gap again. Maelys held the twinklestone out before her, like a weapon. He glanced at her, sideways, then hastily away. His eyes were watering but as long as he kept them averted from the light he could still see.
As she tried to move up another step, her foot slipped on an icy patch. She steadied herself, moved a little sideways and tried again. Again she slipped.
The sorcerer rose from a crouch to his full height, and she tensed. One leaping lunge and he would have her. She prepared to whip the dimensionless box around and slam it into him.
They faced each other for a minute or two, perfectly still. Her heart was thundering now; why didn’t he move? She wanted him to attack first, for she was afraid to.
He crouched suddenly, as if to spring, but shot upright again and feinted with his left hand, swinging it at her middle. Maelys went at him with the dimensionless box, not realising until too late that his stroke was a feint and he hadn’t leapt at all; his body was well out of reach.
As she began to overbalance, she swung desperately at him. He reached out to grab her wrist; she twisted at the last second and the flattened dimensionless box slapped against the side of his right hand.
Air shrieked into the box; Zofloc let out a harsh cry of dismay, followed by words of sorcery, and batted at his right hand with the left. A bright light flashed in the darkness and the dimensionless box went flying. She felt it whine past her ear, something cool splattered against her face, and she lost sight of it.
The sorcerer was gasping and shaking his right hand, which was red-raw and dripping blood. All the skin was gone, down to his wrist, and some of the flesh – it had been drawn into the box and disintegrated in an instant. She found a firm footing and backed up carefully, feeling sick at what the box had done. And where was it?
She glanced behind her, knowing that it had fallen not far up. If she stepped on it, it would do the same to her and she had no sorcery to protect herself. Maelys could not see the black circle anywhere, and dared not swing the twinklestone that way to look for it in case Zofloc went for her.
‘Maelys?’ came Yggur’s voice, and her heart leapt, though from the timbre of the echoes he was a long way up.
‘Down here,’ she shouted. ‘Zofloc’s here!’ Maelys turned instinctively, hoping for a glimpse of Yggur, even a reflection from his eyes, but nothing moved in the darkness.
She heard the sorcerer’s scrabbling leap, his gurgling gasp, and before she could move he was flying at her, arms and legs spread. He landed on top of her, eyes closed, and crushed her against the slope.
Laying a knee across her hips, he pressed her against the broken permafrost. He forced her arms behind her back, pinned them there with his other knee across her chest and, when the light was hidden behind her, opened his eyes.
She humped her back; Zofloc’s arm flailed, his skinless hand bumped against the side of the shaft and he bared his teeth in silent agony. He was so strong and stoic: had it happened to her, Maelys would have screamed until her throat bled.
‘What are you going to do to me?’ she said faintly, for with his weight on her chest it was hard to draw breath.
‘A very particular kind of sorcery, Maelys Nifferlin, known only to us Whelm and developed for one single purpose – to savagely punish our master’s enemies.’
There was a ferocious, bloodthirsty gleam in his eyes. She’d hurt him and he was going to do far worse to her.
‘Why?’ she squeaked. She had to keep him talking, though she did not think he would allow Yggur to get close. What could Yggur do, anyway? His powers were fading – he could not combat a sorcerer as strong and determined as Zofloc. ‘Why do you hate us so?’
‘I don’t hate
you; your kind are nothing to me. Had you not thwarted my master, I would not have turned my head as you went by.’
Maelys could not hear any sound from above; Yggur was not coming to help her. She had to save herself. Zofloc took his weight off her chest and bent to lift her, and Maelys’s right hand, which still held the twinklestone, slipped free.
While it was still concealed behind her back she separated the twinklestone into two between her fingers and thumb, stuck one to the tip of her middle finger and the other to her index finger, and loosely curled her hand to hide the lights. She did not think her feeble plan could work, but it was her only hope now.
He caught her shirt-front with his good hand, but as he heaved her upright, Maelys whipped her right hand out and the lights shone brilliantly. Had he closed his eyes she would have failed, and died, but instead he turned his head to the left to escape the brightness and she thrust her index and middle fingers at his eyes. The twinklestones stuck to his moist eyeballs; he let out a roar; his grip relaxed and she scrabbled away.
He tried to tear the twinklestones off but they would not come. His tear-flooded eyes had gone red, and when he pulled on the twinklestones his eyeballs came halfway out of their sockets, which was one of the more unpleasant sights Maelys had seen lately. She felt sick at what she had done, for nothing but a knife could remove the shining stones now.
Zofloc began to flail about, making a dreadful squealing as he tried to rid himself of the burning rays, but could not close his eyes. He slipped, snatched frantically at the permafrost with his skinless hand, failed to get a grip and fell all the way down. Maelys heard a hollow crack that she did not want to consider too carefully, then lay back on the slope, gasping.
‘Maelys?’ said Yggur distantly.
‘Here,’ she whispered.
‘Where are you?’
‘Further down,’ she called. ‘Be careful – the dimensionless box is up there, somewhere.’
A faint yellow gleam appeared above, and directly she saw him, his long features made grotesque by the uplight limning his fingers – not a twinklestone but another kind of sorcerous glow altogether.
‘I thought you couldn’t use the Art?’ said Maelys.
‘When the need was great enough, I found a wisp of it.’
‘More than a wisp, to move all that broken rock and get in.’
‘That wasn’t mancery,’ Yggur said, ‘that was honest muscle.’
A few spans above her Yggur bent, picked up the crumpled dimensionless box, squeezed it in his fist and thrust it into a pocket. Going to his haunches beside her, he inspected her scratched knees and palms, her blood-spattered face. ‘Are you …?’
‘I’m all right,’ said Maelys, clinging to him. His big hands were also scratched and torn. ‘I fell a few times. Zofloc didn’t harm me … but he was going to.’
‘Where is he now? Did he run when he heard my voice?’
‘You’ve got a high opinion of yourself,’ she muttered, looking up at his stern and craggy face.
‘I dare say I have,’ said Yggur, smiling. ‘You get like that when you’ve lived as long as I have, and had your way for most of it. Well?’
‘I think he’s dead. I twinklestoned his eyeballs.’
‘Did you now?’ he exclaimed admiringly. ‘Well done – there could be no better way to disable a Whelm, had you known it.’
‘He fell all the way down and – it sounded like the impact made rather a mess. I’m sorry about that.’
‘Why are you sorry?’ said Yggur. ‘He was going to kill you; you’re entitled to defend yourself, in whatever way you can.’
‘I’m sorry because I’m not going back down. If you want the white fire, you’ll have to go past Zofloc’s body to get it.’
‘You found some?’ he said eagerly.
‘Yes, on a central foundation pillar of ice. It would have been under the inner tower. You go down –’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘And bring my boots when you come,’ she called after him, hugging her aching feet. ‘I’m freezing.’
TWENTY-ONE
Chissmoul flew them south-east to Taranta, a ramshackle old city occupying the narrow isthmus that had once joined the northern tip of the continent of Lauralin to the great island of Faranda. To the north stood the tropical ocean surrounding the peninsula of Gendrigore, while on the south, Taranta’s peasant quarter had once looked over the mighty cliffs onto the unrelenting aridity of the Dry Sea.
However the Dry Sea had been flooded at the end of the lyrinx war and its level, still rising slowly, now lay less than fifty spans below the top of the cliffs, which had begun to crumble, carrying parts of the peasant quarter with them. The people rebuilt their hovels a few paces away and went on with their lives as though crumbling cliffs were an everyday matter.
That afternoon, not long before sunset, as the air-sled completed the relatively short flight from Blisterbone Pass, and Chissmoul was circling high above the city, Flydd stood up to address them.
‘We’ll have to be careful now. Taranta is a conservative place and the God-Emperor’s biggest garrison in the north is based here – fifteen thousand men, though many of them would have been in the army you’ve just wiped out. The dead will have many friends in Taranta, and it’s one of the most loyal outposts of the empire, so they won’t be thrilled to hear our news. But we can’t afford any delay – Klarm could turn up anywhere, at any time, and we’ve got to get our story out first. The first version of a story is the one that most people will believe. How are we going to play it, Nish?’
He had been thinking about that question for the whole trip, but Nish hadn’t come up with a decent plan and did not think he was likely to; their opposition was too overwhelming.
‘Call a secret meeting with the city elders, the Imperial seneschal, the governor and the commander of the garrison,’ he said. ‘Tell them the bad news and beat a hasty retreat towards Roros.’
Flydd frowned, looked back at the militia, as if for inspiration, and shook his head. ‘That won’t do at all.’
‘Why not?’
‘If we run, we’ll look scared and they’ll think we’ve got something to hide. We must appear strong, measured and in control. Besides, the Deliverer is the heir to the Imperial throne; he can’t slink away, no matter how much he might want to.’
Flydd favoured Nish with a sour stare. ‘And if we were to run, they could accuse us of any villainy imaginable. They could make us out to be worse monsters than your father – and they will.’
‘Surr?’ said Flangers tentatively, as if he had no right to express an opinion in such weighty matters.
‘Yes?’ said Flydd, pacing in a circle around the serpent staff, which was embedded in its socket at the prow.
His outstretched fingers trailed across it as he walked; he had hardly let go of it since they’d left the pass. What did his mancery see in it, Nish wondered, and how did he plan to use it?
‘They don’t know we’ve got the air-sled,’ said Flangers. ‘And no one knows that Stilkeen has snatched the God-Emperor, so everyone will assume that he’s flying this craft. If you hover high above the square, where you can’t be identified, and give your orders, the city’s leaders will obey without question.’
‘Very good,’ said Flydd. ‘I knew there was a reason why we rescued you from the Numinator.’
Chissmoul, whose hands were embedded between the wires of the controller, scowled and jumped up, glaring at Flydd. The air-sled lurched and dropped sharply; she corrected automatically and it resumed its steady circling.
Flangers chuckled and touched her on the shoulder. ‘Take no notice,’ he said sotto voce. ‘The old fellow doesn’t mean to be insulting; it’s just his way, as surely you remember of old.’
‘After all you’ve done!’ Chissmoul gritted, slamming down into her pilot’s chair.
‘Go on, Flangers,’ said Flydd, unfazed.
‘What if you were to order a general assembly in the main square – not jus
t the city elders, but also the landowners, lawyers, merchants and traders, and everyone else of note, and the common people as well. Wait – what if you held it in that great square over there in the peasant quarter?’ Flangers indicated the ramshackle suburb by the cliffs.
‘That would get the city elders and the governor offside.’
‘They’ll be offside anyway, since they’re hand-picked by the God-Emperor, but with thousands of people in the square they’ll never suppress your story. People will start spreading it tonight, by skeet, to the four quarters of the world.’
Flydd stared at him in astonishment. ‘You show an amazing grasp of political manoeuvrings for a humble sergeant, Flangers … even one recently raised to lieutenant for heroism above the call of duty,’ he added hastily as Chissmoul directed another blistering glare at him.
‘I didn’t make him lieutenant because of his courage under fire,’ said Nish, wishing he’d thought of Flangers’s idea. ‘I did it because of his mastery of battle tactics and his brilliant leadership.’
‘Whatever you say,’ said Flydd, eyeing Flangers curiously. ‘How come this talent didn’t manifest itself during the war? You might have made general by the end of it.’
‘I never wanted to be a general,’ Flangers said quietly. ‘Sergeant was always good enough for me. But since you ask, for the seven years we were held prisoner in the Numinator’s tower, Yggur and I spent our free time talking about the nature of power and the art of command. You can learn a lot in seven years, if you’ve a mind to, and I want to make Santhenar a better place.’
‘Very good,’ said Flydd, losing interest. ‘Nish, what do you think of the lieutenant’s plan?’
‘I wish I’d thought of it.’