by Ian Irvine
‘I’ve often wondered how she came to be indentured.’
‘It’s an all too common story under your father’s reign. A powerful, greedy man wanted Clan bel Soon’s land and manor, so he sent in a squad of thugs, cut the family down and took everything for himself. Persia was the only one to escape, and the only witness. He hunted her, caught her, and, well, you can imagine the rest. Eight years later, she still hasn’t recovered from it.’
‘It’s a wonder he let her live.’
‘He didn’t plan to.’
‘So how did she end up with Yulla?’
‘Yulla knew Persia’s parents, so she sent me to rescue her.’
‘You!’ Nish exclaimed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean –’
‘It’s quite all right,’ M’lainte said equably. ‘The job required brain, not brawn, plus the use of certain devices hidden since the end of the war. And we did it.’
‘And then Persia indentured herself to Yulla for seven years, in repayment,’ said Nish.
‘Yes,’ said M’lainte. ‘And for her own safety, of course.’
It explained why Persia would not hear a bad word about Yulla; and also why she so craved the security of a powerful protector.
‘What happened to the man who did all this to her?’
‘He’s out there now.’ M’lainte nodded towards the battlefield.
‘Vomix!’
‘None other.’
‘Poor Persia,’ Nish said, remembering her terror when she’d seen the seneschal at the monastery. ‘She’s had to face him again and again.’
‘Nothing is gained by hiding from our fears. Ah, Tiaan is ready.’
She was moving the lever back and forth. The sky-galleon shuddered forwards, then back, and Tiaan nodded. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’
Up at the opening, another squad of atatusk were sliding down their ropes. Nish waited until the platform was empty then said to Tiaan, ‘Go, quickly!’
As the sky-galleon raced upwards, sweat prickled in his armpits. His force was pitifully small but it was all the craft could carry, and they would not have long to get everything set up on the platform. If the next squad of atatusk was close enough to charge them, everyone would be swept over the sides.
‘Do they have any weaknesses?’ said Nish.
‘Well …’ Ryll scratched his armoured backside, his claws making a sound like wood being sawn. ‘They don’t like each other; they fight in clan groups but they never form armies.’
‘They won’t need an army. A few dozen of them could finish us off.’
‘And their eyesight is poor. They probably can’t tell one human from another.’
‘I recall you saying that we all looked the same.’
‘I only said that to be insulting – when we were enemies,’ Ryll added hastily. ‘But their sense of smell is acute, and they pick up movement quickly with it. Strong smells trouble them, though I wouldn’t exactly call that a weakness.’
‘If you’d told me earlier I wouldn’t have bathed.’
‘I wasn’t aware that you had.’
Nish swatted at him; Ryll ducked, grinning toothily.
‘What kind of smells trouble them?’ said Yulla curiously, emerging from the cabin, crystal in hand.
‘Pungent ones,’ said Ryll. ‘I can’t think of any other weaknesses. When you’re fighting hand-to-hand, they’re hard to kill unless you can get in low and close, then strike straight up under the ribs into the heart.’
‘If I’m that close, I’m a dead man,’ said Nish.
‘That’s generally the problem,’ the lyrinx said drily.
‘Better put a rope around the first to jump,’ called Lilis as they approached the opening.
‘Why?’ said Nish, beckoning Aimee and Clech.
‘The platform might not be very solid.’
‘What do we do if it isn’t?’
‘Leave that to me,’ said M’lainte, popping her head out of the cabin where she was working. ‘Ready? The sky-galleon can’t go too close to the barrier.’
Clech and Aimee roped up and the craft curved past the platform, fifty spans out. Nish looked through the opening and blanched. If that moving shadow in the far distance was a horde of atatusk, the attack was doomed before it began.
‘That’s bad,’ said Clech.
‘They’re a good way back,’ said Ryll. ‘We might manage to close it before they get here.’
Now the sky-galleon’s flight mechanism began to stutter, and as they approached the barrier it grew worse.
‘You’d better go,’ said Tiaan. ‘I can’t keep it here much longer.’
Clech and Aimee sprang over the side onto the platform – and plunged straight through it, trailing their ropes. It might be solid for the void-dwelling atatusk, but it was no firmer than air to humans. Ryll hauled Clech up; Nish did the same for Aimee.
‘I was afraid of that,’ said M’lainte, hurrying back into the cabin.
Nish made out pouring and stirring sounds, and she returned carrying a wooden bucket full of an oily liquid with pink fire flickering on it, plus a mop.
As Clech hauled himself over the side, M’lainte said, ‘Here.’ She immersed the mop in the bucket and handed it to him.
‘What am I supposed to do with it?’ said Clech.
Aimee hooted with laughter. ‘Swab the platform, you lubber.’
‘The liquid is distilled fire – the corrupted stuff that Zofloc brought – but I’ve safely diluted it,’ said M’lainte. ‘Mop the top of the platform and it should turn solid enough to stand on. Then swab across to the opening.’
Tiaan held the stuttering craft in place while Clech mopped a patch on the end of the platform, then prodded it. It did not yield. He jumped down, rather recklessly in Nish’s opinion, and began to swab furiously, accompanied by good-natured jeers from his fellow militiamen.
When he’d done half the platform, the troops started over the side. Ryll’s crew heaved the small javelard down, plus the ropes and all their other gear, and began to drag it through the opening onto the track leading into the void.
Nish was waiting his turn when M’lainte reappeared and handed him a stoppered flask with a thong tied around its neck.
‘What’s that for?’
‘It’s undiluted distilled fire and, unlike any other kinds of chthonic fire you may have encountered, it’s deadly. One drop will burn right through the barrier, and through you as well, if you get any on you. Once you’ve heaved the platform into place, rub the merest smear of fire around the edges and it’ll seal the opening.’
‘How do you know?’ said Nish.
‘Because that’s what it does. When you’ve finished, Tiaan will come back and pick everyone up.’
Nish thought everyone was a trifle over-optimistic, but he nodded and tied the thong to his belt.
M’lainte handed him a dimensionless box. ‘This contains your shadow web.’
Nish took the box carefully, knowing how dangerous it was. ‘How do I get the web out?’
‘Shake the box. And you’ll need this to handle the webs.’ Holding a black glove by a dangling string, she dropped it into the box. ‘Careful – I made it from a dimensionless box. Don’t touch the outside of the glove while you’re putting it on.’
‘What would happen if I did?’
‘I can’t say, exactly, but Hackel’s death would be pleasant by comparison.’
His hair standing on end, Nish crumpled up the dimensionless box and pocketed it.
‘You … you might find this comes in handy if the atatusk are getting too close,’ said Yulla, offering him a beautiful, fist-sized pink crystal, partly translucent and rather heavy.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s the largest crystal of realgar ever found, the prize of my collection. If you burn it, it will give off choking fumes of arsenic – which smells of garlic – and sulphur, both very pungent. Use it wisely.’ She turned away abruptly.
‘Thank you,’ said Nish, conscious that the gift meant fa
r more to her than any of her other treasures.
He clambered down onto the platform, which felt solid beneath his feet, though slightly rubbery, and the sky galleon sideslipped away.
Before he reached the opening he could feel the chill from beyond. Inside, the granular track, wide enough for a dozen men – or half that many lyrinx – to stand abreast, extended into the limitless void. His defenders had already gone through and were advancing in bounding strides that took them a span into the air, exclaiming at the floating sensation. There was nothing to either side of the track, nor above nor below it – literally nothing except greyness which deepened to black in the distance.
Ahead the track extended straight and true as far as he could see and, moving along it in their separate clan troops, came the atatusk horde. The closest troop was only a few hundred spans away.
‘Into position,’ said Nish.
The archers aimed their weapons and the lyrinx formed an armoured barrier beside them. At the rear the lancers waited.
‘You’d better get on with it,’ said Ryll, bouncing several spans into the air so as to see further. ‘We can’t hold them long.’
Nish ran out to the platform, shook the sticky shadow web from its dimensionless box and gingerly slipped his hand into the black glove without touching the outside, which was more difficult than it had seemed.
Using the glove, he pressed a strip of shadow web across the edge of the platform, waited for it to set and yanked hard to make sure it was secure. The web pulled away. He turned it over and tried the other side, with the same result. The plan wasn’t going to work; the web wasn’t sticky enough to lift the solidified platform.
So how were they to close the opening?
FORTY-FIVE
‘I’ll send you back now, Maelys,’ said Nadiril, rubbing his bald and blotchy skull with his fingertips, ‘for time is precious. Vivimord, you’re the best orator I’ve ever known. You must convince the revenants that it’s safe for them to leave the shadow realm and go to Stilkeen.’
The librarian’s clouded eyes settled on the carpet-wrapped parcel on her lap, as if he knew what was inside.
Maelys stirred reluctantly. She felt safe here but, once she left Nadiril, she would be surrounded by enemies, including Vivimord, who hadn’t yet said that he would help. For all she knew, he was still set on revenge.
‘That won’t be easy,’ said Vivimord. ‘Stilkeen has impressed upon its revenants that they must remain in the shadow realm until it lets them out, on peril of their lives. They may be foolish, thoughtless creatures, but they won’t disobey it.’
Nadiril turned those all-seeing blind eyes on him. ‘Yet should the revenants come to believe that Stilkeen had opened the gate and was calling them, and if you convinced them that it was safe to leave, I don’t think anyone would be able to stop them. They yearn to rejoin with it just as much as it does with them. That longing is a constant ache, a burning need that affects them both, when they are severed.’
‘I might be able to sway them,’ said Vivimord. ‘But what would be the point? I can’t let them out of the shadow realm.’
‘Can’t they go out the way I came in?’ said Maelys.
‘The dead may take many paths into the shadow realm,’ said Nadiril, again looking down at her lap, ‘but they have only one way out, and that gate has not been opened in the two hundred years I’ve spent here. No one has the key and, assuming such a key is ever found, the gate only lets one spirit out per opening.’
‘Does that mean only one revenant?’
‘The revenants may all leave at once, since they are effectively one spirit – but no other.’
‘What about me?’ said Maelys, squeezing the heavy knoblaggie in her pocket.
‘Live humans can pass through any entrance,’ said Vivimord. He paused, then added menacingly, ‘as long as they have the means to open it. And they stay alive long enough.’
Would the knoblaggie open the gate for her? Klarm hadn’t said anything about that. Had he used the knoblaggie to escape – or the tears?
‘Didn’t you say, not long after you reached the shadow realm, that your Black Arts had fashioned a key?’ said Nadiril.
‘I did,’ said Vivimord. ‘Though unfortunately, when I died at the Maelstrom of Justice and Retribution, I did not have the key with me. Besides, it was my way back to life.’
‘Then should you ever regain it, you will face a difficult choice. Which do you love more – beautiful Santhenar, or your own freedom?’
Maelys looked from one to the other, frowning, for Nadiril was talking as though Vivimord did have the key, or soon would.
‘You can’t possibly understand, you dried-up old fool,’ said Vivimord in a low voice.
‘Can’t I?’ said Nadiril mildly.
‘Your librarian’s span was far more than the allotted life of any man, and by its end you must have been glad to die. My life was brutally cut short.’
‘As you cut short the lives of many others,’ Nadiril pointed out. ‘Few people are ever glad to go and I was not – my research was at a most fascinating stage when I died. Besides, what use is your freedom if you return to a world that has been destroyed – when you could have saved it?’
Vivimord did not reply, though Maelys could see his lungs swelling and contracting through his chest, as though his spirit, which could have no need for air, was breathing heavily.
‘You must abandon those dreams, my friend,’ Nadiril added. ‘The dead may not return to life. But when we spirits are given a chance to ease the burden of the living, we must seize it, to atone for the wrongs we did during our own lives. Maelys, it’s time. Give it to him.’
‘What?’ said Maelys, shifting on her seat.
The sabre, of course. Klarm had said that Vivimord might be glad to see it, because it was enchanted. What for? To cut his way out of the shadow realm? Yes, that must be it. Vivimord had talked about his delvings into the mancery of death a long time ago. I know Black Arts that can make a corpse scream in agony, he’d said to her after she had killed Phrune.
She turned towards Vivimord, praying that he would not use those Arts on her, and allowed the carpet to fall away, exposing the sabre.
Vivimord stared at it in wonder. ‘My fashioned key! Where did you get it?’
‘Klarm thought you might need it.’
‘I enchanted it long ago, so as to open the gate of the shadow realm,’ said Vivimord. ‘Though I did not expect to be using it from the other side of death.’ He reached out for the sabre. ‘It’s mine, and I can take it. I don’t owe you a thing in return.’
‘My Arts can break the key, permanently,’ said Nadiril coldly. ‘I’d advise you to act honourably to her, Vivimord.’
‘Very well,’ scowled Vivimord, taking the sabre. ‘But I’m not sure it will –’
A ghastly rising and falling wail fluttered the clouds above them, followed by another, and another.
‘What’s that?’ whispered Maelys, rising to her toes.
She could not see anything amiss, but now it felt grey and cold in the shadow realm, and she remembered how afraid Flydd had been of coming here. Once outside the small oasis of Nadiril’s influence, how could she hope to survive? She hugged her goose pimpled arms to her chest, afraid that there was no way out for her.
‘From time to time the revenants must feed,’ said Nadiril, ‘and they consume the life forces of the slowest and weakest spirits, the ones easiest to catch. Even in the shadow realm the hunt goes on. One day it will be my turn.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Can’t anyone stop them?’
‘As I explained,’ Nadiril said gently, ‘they’re quite invulnerable here.’
The screams continued until dozens of souls must have been consumed, then, in a flash, Vivimord was gone. Maelys waited, uneasily, and directly he returned.
‘There is news from outside,’ he said grimly. ‘The void has had a great victory; an army has fallen and the other cannot last. That’s why the revenants are feed
ing; they know they’ll soon be freed.’
‘What’s happened to Nish?’ Maelys cried, unable to bear the thought of losing him as well. After such a disastrous defeat, many of her friends might be dead; perhaps all of them. ‘I’ve got to get back.’
‘We’re not quite ready yet,’ said Nadiril, glancing at Vivimord, who looked away.
Panic almost overwhelmed her but she fought it down and forced herself to stay calm. If the revenants came this way, she would use the knoblaggie. And if they attacked a second time, then what?
‘Stilkeen must have ordered the revenants to feed and fatten their spirits,’ said Vivimord. ‘It must believe that it will soon have the pure fire.’
‘And, alas, the more souls they consume now, the stronger will be the bonding when they and Stilkeen are rejoined,’ said Nadiril.
‘How many can they consume before they’re full?’ Maelys croaked, for her throat had gone so dry that she could barely speak.
Vivimord laughed scornfully.
‘You can’t get full on spirits,’ said Nadiril. ‘The revenants could consume all of us … but that’s not my big worry.’
Ice touched her veins. ‘What is?’
‘That they might scent you. A spirit housed in a living body is far tastier than we disembodied ones … and more fattening, too.’ He rose like a creaky old crane, knees cracking and elbows flailing. ‘We’d better convey Maelys to the gate, now you’ve the means to open it,’ he said to Vivimord. ‘It’ll take a good while to get there.’
‘I thought the shadow realm touched all places equally?’ said Maelys.
‘It does, but the gate is some distance away. Vivimord, gather a shell of spirits around us so we can hide Maelys from them.’
Vivimord gave him a black look, and Maelys was afraid that he was going to refuse, for in life he had been a mighty and commanding man while Nadiril, for all his wisdom and knowledge, had been just a librarian.
‘Go!’ said Nadiril, and his wispy voice shivered with power.
Vivimord shot off without looking back.