by Ian Irvine
‘We’ve come to see Yulla Zaeff,’ said Flydd quietly.
‘Zaeff?’ said Nish. ‘I know the name, though I can’t remember where I’ve heard it before.’
‘At the end of the war she was the governor of Crandor, the wealthiest nation on Santhenar.’ Flydd lowered his voice. ‘She’s a greedy, conniving woman who made herself rich beyond your dreams –’
‘You’d be surprised at how modest my dreams are these days.’
‘Unfortunately!’ Flydd said pointedly. ‘Yulla was once so wealthy and influential that even Jal-Nish, when he became God-Emperor, did not care to bring her down, though he dismissed her as governor and installed his own puppet. I knew her well, once, and she was a great help to us in the lyrinx war –’
‘I remember now,’ said Nish. ‘You gave her the first spare thapter, even though you knew she would use it to enrich herself immeasurably.’
‘Yulla was worth it. Despite the qualities I’ve mentioned, she was the best of governors. She loved her country, defended it stoutly, and made sure that even the meanest of her citizens shared in its wealth. And she kept her promises.’
‘You sound as though you admire her.’
‘I disliked her thoroughly, and she me, yet we worked well together when we had to.’
‘But surely she no longer has to, so why would she help us?’
‘Because your father has long since stripped her of the monopolies that made her rich, and taxed most of her wealth away, and she wants it back. Besides, Yulla is a patriot. She can’t bear to see her beloved Crandor suffering under the tyrant’s yoke, and its wealth stolen to prop up the God-Emperor’s corrupt and brutal realm. I think she’ll help us, for a price. Indeed, she’s the best person in Roros to do so. Yulla is no longer powerful, but she has the ear of almost every important person in this land, and they will listen. Hush now.’
The front door opened silently the moment they reached it, and Nish felt his heart miss a beat, for the woman who stood in the hall was so striking that she took his breath away.
She was his height, and slender, yet nicely curved in all the right places, with skin the colour of melted chocolate and a perfect oval face. Her hair was woven into a single braid, and her smile lifted the corners of her mouth enchantingly. The people of Crandor often filed their teeth to points, which Nish loathed, but her teeth were small, white and perfectly even.
She held out her hand to Flydd, and her voice was low and melodious.
‘You are Xervish Flydd? I studied the artists’ images of you, which were done before your renewal of course, but even now there is a likeness about your eyes …’ As Flydd gripped her hand she studied him, head to one side. ‘Yes, I’m sure you are Xervish Flydd. My name is Persia bel Soon.’ She pronounced it Purr-see-arr. ‘I presently serve Yulla Zaeff in several capacities, but more of that later.’
He seemed a little reluctant to release her hand, and Nish could understand why.
She was turning to Nish when Flydd said, ‘Bel Soon? That is a name from the Histories, and also mentioned in a Great Tale, is it not?’
‘Indeed,’ said Persia, still smiling, though not so welcomingly.
‘So many Histories, so many names,’ said Flydd. ‘And my memories haven’t all come back, but … was it the twenty-third – the Tale of the Mirror?’
‘The tale that you scrutators had banned, denounced as a lie, and rewritten?’ she said in a chilly voice.
‘I did not denounce it,’ said Flydd, slightly taken aback.
‘Our family name is mentioned in that tale, which,’ said Persia, ‘according to our Histories, was written by my grandmother of many generations back. Her name was Tallia bel Soon. And every word of the Great Tale was true.’
‘Tallia, of course. She served the great mancer, Mendark, for a time, and most honourably I understand, until her indenture was completed.’
‘As with her, so with me,’ said Persia. ‘But I am discourteous.’ She turned back to Nish. ‘You are Cryl-Nish Hlar, known as Nish. There is no difficulty recognising you from your portraits, despite the bruises. I have a salve that will ease them, if they are troubling you.’
‘Very much so,’ said Nish, imagining her applying salve in all kinds of places. He pushed the distracting thoughts away.
She extended her hand, which was cool and strong. He winced as she squeezed his bruised fingers and she let go at once.
‘Would you come this way.’
She led them down a broad hall with family portraits to either side, all of broad-faced, unattractive people. Her gown was clinging and Nish found his eyes irresistibly drawn to her prominent, swaying bottom. He swallowed and looked aside, telling himself that he was here on a mission of vital importance and could not afford to be distracted, but distracted he remained.
After climbing several stairs, Persia opened a door, stepped through into a large though dimly lit room with curtained windows on three sides, and announced, ‘The renewed ex-scrutator, Xervish Flydd, and the son of the God-Emperor, Cryl-Nish Hlar, to see you, Lady Yulla.’
The windowless inner wall contained shelves extending from floor to ceiling, each divided into many small compartments which appeared to contain rocks and minerals. There was a small table and a high-backed chair by the right-hand window, another long, low table further down, with soft chairs around it, and a high-backed wing chair down the far end.
The chair by the right-hand window creaked and a large, fleshy woman rose and turned to face them. She had triple chins, small grey eyes set in flesh bloated from over-indulgence, and her sagging skin had an oily sheen. In her left hand she held a piece of rock crystal, which she was examining through a large hand lens. She looked up, her gaze passed over them indifferently, then she turned away and resumed her study of the crystal.
How rude, Nish thought, disliking her on sight. She cares more about that stupid crystal than she does about us.
‘Would you take your places here,’ said Persia, leading them to the soft armchairs around the low table.
Nish sank into the cushions of his chair with a grateful sigh and Flydd sat beside him.
‘Have you dined?’ she said.
Nish was about to say, ‘Not since lunchtime,’ when Flydd said, ‘Yes, thank you.’
Persia’s lovely eyes searched his face. ‘Lady Yulla will be with you directly.’ She went out and closed the door.
Nish looked around. On the far side of the room a man with unkempt grey hair and a bald patch was slumped in the wing chair as if asleep. He was facing away from them and Nish could not see his features, though a lamp on a stand behind him shone on a large piece of paper on his lap.
A bookcase held a number of ledgers, plus a matching series of thick volumes with gold leaf on the spines. They might have been a complete set of the Great Tales, or Yulla’s own family Histories. Shelves held vases, pieces of statuary and other small items of exquisite artistry.
Suddenly aware that Yulla was sitting in the large chair across the table from him, Nish swung around. For a big woman she moved quickly, and silently.
Nish rose to his feet, and extended his hand. ‘Good evening, Lady Yulla, I’m Nish.’
Her eyes met his but she did not extend her hand and he sat down, discomfited. Persia returned bearing a tray, a decanter, and glasses. She took a chair halfway across the room and sat side-on to them, looking towards the old man in the corner, though Nish could tell that she was aware of everything they did, and ready to defend her mistress in an instant should the need arise.
Yulla still held the hand lens; the piece of rock crystal stood on the table in front of her. It was a beautiful specimen, an array of dozens of crystals all intergrown, all perfect, and Nish briefly wondered if she were a geomancer.
Geomancy had been one of the most powerful of the Secret Arts, in the olden days, but the destruction of the nodes had taken a greater toll of it than any of the other Arts, and to the best of his knowledge geomancy no longer existed.
‘Flydd
,’ she said. Her voice had a hoarse, rasping quality, as if she had eaten too much, drunk too much, and smoked more herbs than she should have. ‘Renewal has done you no favours – I preferred you the way you were last time we met.’
‘A gaunt old man who looked as though the spare flesh had been gouged off his much-broken bones.’
‘He was a better man than you are. But I am wasting time. What do you want?’
The implication was that they were wasting her time.
‘You will have heard our news already, I think.’
‘Of the abduction of our beloved God-Emperor by a being called Stilkeen; the defeat of Jal-Nish’s army in the mountains by a meagre force of farmers and hunters led by Nish; and an insolent attack on the seneschal’s mansion in Taranta by a band of renegades using the God-Emperor’s personal air-sled? The tales came to me by skeet two days ago, but are they true?’
Yulla’s small eyes were fixed intently on him and Nish suddenly saw the clever, determined woman within the saggy folds of flesh. She smiled thinly; her teeth were filed to points in the old Crandorian way, which, he recalled, had rather gone out of fashion since the war ended.
‘I can’t answer for the details of what you were told,’ said Flydd, ‘though your précis is correct in every particular. Is there any news of General Klarm?’
‘No. I heard that he walked into the rock of the mountain and disappeared.’
‘Nish and I both saw it. He used the Profane Tears to enter the shadow realm, the place where spirits dwell, and hunt. I am one of the few people who know what that place is like, and if I were forced to go there I would not rate my chances of survival highly.’
Unease shivered her plump cheeks and triple chins. ‘Yet Klarm is a man of the utmost resourcefulness – and he has the tears.’
‘He does –’
‘Though I felt he was afraid to use them,’ said Nish.
Flydd gave him a blank stare, but Nish sensed that he was annoyed; had he not wanted that piece of information revealed?
‘That is interesting,’ said Yulla. ‘Go on.’
Nish glanced at Flydd, who looked away. Now Nish had to continue and he sensed that, having been such a powerful governor, Yulla would read any evasion or omission instantly. ‘Klarm doesn’t want power badly enough.’
‘He did not get where he is today, with all his physical handicaps, without a deep yearning for power and what it brings and buys,’ she said frostily, as though Nish’s assumption was offensive to her.
Nish refused to be cowed. He too had taken on the mighty in his time, and beaten some of them.
‘But he doesn’t want to become God-Emperor. Klarm is a magnificent deputy, but he lacks the vital, selfish drive to risk everything for his own ambition. That’s why he holds back with the tears – he doesn’t want what they offer badly enough to risk destruction. That’s how I read him, anyhow.’
‘If you’re right, it indicates a weakness that can be used against him when he returns; assuming he does.’
Yulla heaved her bulk to her feet and twitched the curtains together more tightly – from behind she had the shape of a rectangle distorted by the effects of gravity – then turned back to Flydd. ‘What do you want from me, and what can you do for me?’
‘I want to use this opportunity to take Nish to the throne.’
‘Not as God-Emperor!’ said Nish.
Again Flydd favoured him with that blank look, but Nish felt he was saying, Keep your bloody mouth shut and let me do the talking. Nish wasn’t going to have that; he wasn’t going to be Flydd’s puppet as he had once been Vivimord’s.
‘You don’t want absolute power either?’ said Yulla in astonishment. ‘Or wealth beyond any man’s dreams? Or the most beautiful women in the world for your bed?’
Nish thought of Persia walking ahead of him down the hall, and swallowed.
‘I am not immune to such desires, but at the end of the war I swore an oath to tear down the tyrant and restore peace and justice to Santhenar, and the common wealth to all.’ He met her eyes. ‘Would you do business with a man who did not keep his word?’
‘If our word cannot be relied upon,’ she said sententiously, ‘nothing can.’
‘We’ve got to strike fast,’ said Flydd, smiling now. ‘Jal-Nish’s seneschals are watching for us, and as soon as Nish starts giving his public addresses, and appealing for volunteers to join his army, the enemy will strike with a force we cannot match. Not even the God-Emperor’s only son is safe if he threatens the throne.’
Nish wondered why Flydd was talking about that plan when he had already derided it in private.
‘And you want something from me?’ said Yulla.
‘A small measure of coin, protection for ourselves and the militia we brought with us, plus the contacts to recruit a small army, swiftly and secretly.’
How could they recruit an army secretly? It was, by definition, impossible. And so is overthrowing the empire, he thought gloomily. Father has thought of everything.
‘Is that all?’ said Yulla.
‘We also require ships to convey the army swiftly to Fadd, so we can strike at the heart of the empire – Jal-Nish’s palace of Morrelune.’
‘Coin I can provide,’ said Yulla. ‘I am no longer wealthy, but the type of campaign you propose – small and fast – is within my capacity. Ships also. I only have two in Roros at the moment, but trusted allies could supply the rest. My protection is yours, of course, while you remain in Roros. The army is another matter. What did you have in mind?’
She was looking at Nish again.
‘As – as Flydd said, I plan to show myself publicly, announce my intention to overthrow my father and call for volunteers. I –’
‘No, no and no,’ she cried. ‘There can be no appearances, no public announcements, no recruitment of volunteers.’
‘But –’ began Nish.
‘Surely I don’t need to explain it to him?’ said Yulla.
‘He would not hear it from me,’ said Flydd.
‘Show yourself publicly and the seneschal of Roros will move against you with overwhelming force – he’s already planned his attack for the moment you appear. Merely saying that you plan to overthrow the God-Emperor is sedition and you will be shot on sight by anonymous assassins.’
‘The seneschal wouldn’t dare,’ said Nish weakly.
‘He would not have while your father was around, but your announcement in Taranta changed everything,’ said Yulla. ‘Clearly, Jal-Nish is no longer the all-powerful God-Emperor he once was. The sharks can taste blood in the water, and they’re already circling. Besides, if you call for volunteers, half of those who come forward will be in the pay of the empire, and after taking you, they’ll come for me.’
‘Then what can I do?’ cried Nish. Realising that he sounded like a petulant child, and that Persia was taking in everything he said and judging him on it, he went on more calmly. ‘I must have an army, but how am I to raise one?’
‘You can’t, but I could put a small corps together,’ said Yulla. ‘I have several hundred men on my wage rolls, all former soldiers from Crandor’s army during the war. Men rejected for Jal-Nish’s forces because of their loyalty to me.’
‘And you’ve kept them on all this time?’ said Nish, looking at her through new eyes.
‘Any leader who demands loyalty of her troops must show the same loyalty to them, in good times and in bad. And I have influential friends who also have their own private corps. We could muster an army of two thousand, given a little time.’
‘I can’t take the empire with such a small force,’ Nish said quietly.
‘Didn’t you just defeat ten thousand men with a few hundred?’
‘With a great deal of aid from the Range of Ruin, and from nature.’
‘If you want my aid you’ll find a way, because two thousand is all I can bring you, and even if I had more, there would not be the ships to carry them south. Well?’
‘If that is an offer,’ said Fl
ydd, ‘we’ll take it.’
Two thousand men, Nish thought, shaking his head. How can I attack the might of the empire with so few?
‘Not so fast,’ said Yulla. ‘What are you offering me?’
‘The governorship of Crandor.’
‘I would expect no less. What else?’ She leaned forward greedily, her jowls quivering.
‘Restoration of the monopolies the God-Emperor took from you, plus restitution for the unfair taxes imposed on you to destroy your wealth.’
‘Agreed,’ said Yulla at once. ‘With compound interest, of course.’
‘Come now,’ said Flydd evenly, but in the tone that signified he was not going to negotiate. ‘I’m not going to bankrupt the empire for you.’
‘My losses have been very high. And this campaign will cost me a fortune.’
‘You’ve reduced your outlays enormously since you lost the governorship, so you’re not nearly as badly off as you maintain.’
‘I’ll have to call in a host of favours; and reward those who aid me.’
‘With what I’ve offered, you can easily afford it.’ Flydd folded his arms.
She picked up the hand lens, studied her crystal cluster for a minute or two, then said, ‘I’ll concede the point. Go on.’
‘A seat on the God-Emp–’ Flydd glanced at Nish, saw his scowl and amended, ‘on the advisory council set up in the event of Nish’s victory.’
‘A permanent seat.’
‘Agreed,’ said Flydd, then added, ‘as long as you remain of sound mind and body, and are capable of occupying that seat and doing your duty.’
After hesitating fractionally, Yulla agreed. ‘However, all such offers are contingent on your success, which is far from guaranteed. What can you offer me now?’
‘Now?’ said Flydd, frowning.
‘If the plot is discovered, I lose everything and so does my family. I must have a down-payment.’