by Ian Irvine
‘But if you were to die while I still had it,’ said Flydd with a cunning leer, ‘it would be mine, wouldn’t it?’
‘You’ve always lusted after it, you greedy swine,’ said Klarm, ‘but you’re not going to get it.’
‘I don’t see how you can stop me, if you’re –’
‘Dead!’ said Klarm. ‘I’m not going to die, no matter how much I want to. I’m going to outlive you, just to spite you. Now take the damn thing and get us out of here.’
Grinning, Flydd made a portal, and they returned to Morrelune, where the army was ready to depart for Fadd. The healers attended to Klarm, and managed to relieve his aftersickness and some of the pain of his severed foot, after which everyone prepared to leave for their separate destinations.
Maelys stood some distance away, an enormous lump in her throat. One part of her just wanted to go home, but the rest couldn’t bear the parting –
‘It’s farewell, then,’ said Flydd, ‘and for some of us it must be for the last time. I doubt that we’ll ever all be together again.’ He shook Yggur’s hand.
‘I don’t expect I will,’ said Yggur with a weary sigh. ‘I haven’t many years left.’
‘Nor I,’ said Malien, ‘and I plan to spend them on Aachan. Now that we have a world to go back to, and the field gives us the power to do so, many of my people will join me, and I don’t plan to return to Santhenar.’
‘All things must pass,’ said Flydd. ‘And all people too, even the oldest of friends. I’ll miss every one of you.’ His eye caught the dwarf’s and he said, ‘Even you, runt!’
‘I’ll miss you equally little, scarface!’
Flydd shook hands with Klarm, each trying to crush the other’s hand, then they both laughed.
Flydd embraced Malien and turned to Yggur. ‘There’s a certain irony in Maigraith so desperately hunting those few people with Charon blood for her breeding program, and yet she rejected you, her half-Charon first lover.’
‘I’m glad I’ve found my true heritage at last,’ said Yggur, carefully putting his bandaged arm around Tulitine’s waist. ‘And equally glad that I’m powerless now. She would no longer want me, any more than I would have her back.’
‘Before you go,’ said Maelys, ‘can anyone explain to me why I didn’t appear in any of the futures we saw in the Pit of Possibilities? I always thought it meant I was going to die.’
‘It must have been the taphloid,’ said Yggur, ‘hiding you from your enemies, just as Kandor had set it to conceal me from mine. I’m glad you have it, Maelys, and long may it look after you and yours.’
Maelys suspected that its power had gone when the hidden bottle of pure fire had been removed, yet the taphloid would always be a comfort to her. She was embracing him when she felt the little parcel, Yalkara’s gift, in her pocket, and drew it out.
‘I wonder what this is?’ The wrapping was pitted and charred. ‘I hope it’s still all right.’
Inside she found a small rectangular metal mirror, highly polished, with glyphs arranged around all four sides and a symbol in the top right corner.
‘It’s the Mirror of Aachan!’ Malien exclaimed. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘Yalkara gave it to me, for the baby.’
‘I’m astonished! I don’t think you should keep it – it was a terrible, corrupting device –’
‘She said it had been cleansed of the past by the pure fire,’ said Maelys.
‘Yalkara took it to the void with her at the end of the Time of the Mirror,’ said Yggur. ‘I wonder why she kept it?’
‘Why does anyone keep keepsakes?’ said Malien. ‘To remind them of happier times, I suppose.’
They said their last goodbyes and Flydd created a final portal with the knoblaggie. The lyrinx came marching up, then Ryll stooped and embraced them one by one. Maelys, remembering all the tales she’d read about lyrinx when she was young, found his hug alarming, though she thought she’d managed to conceal it.
‘Someday, when things are better,’ Ryll rumbled, ‘I would have you come to Tallallame. I would like everyone to see what we’ve made of our new world, and Liett would have wanted that too.’
His eyes grew wet at the memories, then he sketched a farewell and went through the portal without looking back.
Flydd diverted the portal north to Faranda for the Aachim, to Shazmak for Malien, Yrael and the surviving Aachim of Clan Elienor, then finally to the south for Tiaan, the Whelm and the Faellem.
The portal closed for the last time, and faded away. Flangers and Chissmoul shook everyone’s hands.
‘Well, General Flangers,’ said Flydd, ‘until we meet again.’
‘Not so much of the general, if you please,’ said Flangers. ‘I’ve only taken the command because someone had to, and once I’ve trained some officers up, I’m leaving the army.’
‘But you’ve been a soldier all your life,’ said Flydd, taken aback. ‘It’s a bit late to change now.’
‘If Nish can change, so can I. Besides, now that the field is back …’ Flangers looked fondly at Chissmoul.
‘What?’ said Flydd.
‘We thought we might go into the business of flight,’ she said, grinning broadly and rubbing the scar where her ear had been. ‘And if monopolies are being handed out to the unworthy, I don’t see why I shouldn’t have one too.’
‘Be off with you,’ said Flydd, laughing, and they waved and turned away to the army.
Tulitine helped Yggur to climb aboard Three Reckless Old Ladies. Flydd, Persia and Lilis followed them, and finally Klarm was helped up. He sat on the side, clinging to a rope and looking wan. Eight of Nish’s militia were already aboard, going home to Gendrigore at last, yet there was no sign of Clech or Aimee.
‘Where the blazes are they?’ muttered Flydd.
‘I said if they weren’t here by ten I was going without them,’ said Yulla, and gestured to M’lainte, who was at the helm.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Flydd?’ said Klarm coldly.
‘What?’ said Flydd.
‘My knoblaggie, you larcenous scoundrel. Hand it over.’
Flydd pretended he did not know what Klarm was talking about, then patted his pockets and reluctantly brought it out. ‘How did that get there? Sorry. Must have slipped my mind.’
‘I’ll bet,’ said Klarm, snatching it. ‘Once a thieving scrutator, always a thieving scrutator!’
‘You’d know!’
They were still bickering cheerfully as the sky-galleon lifted off, circled twice then headed south, for Roros and Gendrigore.
Maelys was left standing among the tables by herself, dreading what was coming next. Nish was at the other end of the main table, staring into the pit at the ruins of Morrelune, while Haga and Fyllis were a little way off, watching the craft dwindling into the northern sky.
‘I suppose you’ll be going to Fadd too,’ she said.
‘Fadd?’ said Nish. ‘Why would I go to that dreadful, mosquito-ridden hole?’
‘That’s where your army is going.’
‘It’s not my army. Why would I want an army?’
‘You’re the head of the council. You’re a great man now; the most powerful in all the empire. You’ve got to have an army.’
‘No, I don’t.’
She was staring at him, more confused than ever, when there came a high-pitched peal of laughter, followed by a deep, good-humoured bellow, and Clech and Aimee appeared from the Sacred Lake, where evidently they had been bathing together. They were both drenched; Clech had a huge splatter of mud in the middle of his chest and Aimee was aiming another mud ball at him.
‘Where have you been?’ said Nish in schoolmasterly tones. ‘You’re behaving like children, and now they’ve gone without you.’
‘We know. We’re going with you,’ said Aimee. ‘Someone’s got to look after you and keep you out of trouble.’
‘And the leader of the council has to have an honour guard,’ Clech said seriously, scraping the mud off his chest and fl
icking it at Aimee, who ducked just in time, then ran back to the lake for more.
Nish scowled at the two dripping figures, Clech the giant and Aimee like a little bird, barely coming up to his breast-bone, then smiled. ‘And I could never wish for a better honour guard. Well,’ he said to Maelys, ‘it’s over. Let’s go home.’
She couldn’t speak for a minute. What was he talking about? ‘I don’t … I can’t possibly … where is your home, Nish? I don’t think you ever told me.’
‘My home is wherever you are.’
‘But … w-what? You can’t come with me. You’re the son of the late God-Emperor; the leader of the council. You can’t live at Nifferlin.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘It’s just a pile of rubble. There are only two rooms left standing, and one of them has no roof.’
‘Then we’ll live in the one with a roof while we rebuild Nifferlin Manor, and make it as beautiful as it ever was.’
‘But I’m going to have a baby – to another man.’
‘A good, kind and decent man, by all accounts,’ said Nish, ‘and I’m sure I would have liked him. Besides, poor Emberr is dead and his old human child needs a father as well as a mother.’
Maelys couldn’t take it in. She kept searching for reasons why it wouldn’t work. ‘But … but Aunt Haga is really cranky. You couldn’t possibly put up with her.’
‘I’m the son of the late God-Emperor,’ grinned Nish, putting on a pompous voice. ‘And the leader of the council. Not even Aunt Haga would dare be cranky to me. Besides, she sent you away from Nifferlin to get me, remember?’
Maelys had the grace to blush. ‘And now I have you,’ she said softly, extending her hands to him. ‘So she can’t be cross with me, either. Call your honour guard, Nish, and let’s go home.’
The End of
THE SONG OF THE TEARS
The fate of Karan, Llian and their children
– and other world-shaking perils –
will be told in a future
THREE WORLDS trilogy,
which will appear in 2015
In the meantime,
Ian's TAINTED REALM
epic fantasy trilogy
is available now
The first chapters of Book 1
VENGEANCE
follow
FIRST CHAPTERS OF VENGEANCE
BOOK 1 OF THE TAINTED REALM
ONE
‘Matriarch Ady, can I check the Solaces for you?’ said Wil, staring at the locked basalt door behind her. ‘Can I, please?’
Ady frowned at the quivering, cross-eyed youth, then laid her scribing tool beside the partly engraved sheet of spelter and flexed her aching fingers. ‘The Solaces are for the matriarchs’ eyes only. Go and polish the clangours.’
Wil, who was neither handsome nor clever, knew that Ady only kept him around because he worked hard. And because, years ago, he had revealed a gift for shillilar, morrow-sight. Having been robbed of their past, the matriarchs used even their weakest tools to protect Cython’s future.
Though Wil was so lowly that he might never earn a tattoo, he desperately wanted to be special, to matter. But he had another reason for wanting to look at the Solaces, one he dared not mention to anyone. A later shillilar had told him that there was something wrong, something the matriarchs weren’t telling them. Perhaps – heretical thought – something they didn’t know.
‘You can see your face in the clangours,’ he said, inflating his hollow chest. ‘I’ve also fed the fireflies and cleaned out the effluxor sump. Please can I check the Solaces?’
Ady studied her swollen knuckles, but did not reply.
‘Why are the secret books called Solaces, anyway?’ said Wil.
‘Because they comfort us in our bitter exile.’
‘I heard they order the matriarchs about like naughty children.’
Ady slapped him, though not as hard as he deserved. ‘How dare you question the Solaces, idiot youth?’
Being used to blows, Wil merely rubbed his pockmarked cheek. ‘If you’d just let me peek …’
‘We only check for new pages once a month.’
‘But it’s been a month, look, look.’ A shiny globule of quicksilver, freshly fallen from the coiled condenser of the wall clock, was rolling down its inclined planes towards today’s brazen bucket. ‘Today’s the ninth. You always check the Solaces on the ninth.’
‘I dare say I’ll get around to it.’
‘How can you bear to wait?’ he said, jumping up and down.
‘At my age, the only thing that excites me is soaking my aching feet. Besides, it’s three years since the last new page appeared.’
‘The next page could come today. It might be there already.’
Though Wil’s eyes made reading a struggle, he loved books with a passion that shook his bones. The mere shapes of the letters sent him into ecstasies, but, ah! What stories the letters made. He had no words to express how he felt about the stories.
Wil did not own any book, not even the meanest little volume, and he longed to, desperately. Books were truth. Their stories were the world. And the Solaces were perfect books – the very soul of Cython, the matriarchs said. He ached to read one so badly that his whole body trembled and the breath clotted in his throat.
‘I don’t think any more pages are coming, lad.’ Ady pressed her finger-tips against the blue triangle tattooed on her brow. ‘I doubt the thirteenth book will ever be finished.’
‘Then it can’t hurt if I look, can it?’ he cried, sensing victory.
‘I – I suppose not.’
Ady rose painfully, selected three chymical phials from a rack and shook them. In the first, watery fluid took on a subtle jade glow. The contents of the second thickened and bubbled like black porridge and the third crystallised to a network of needles that radiated pinpricks of sulphur-yellow light.
A spiral on the basalt door was dotted with phial-sized holes. Ady inserted the light keys into the day’s pattern and waited for it to recognise the colours. The lock sighed; the door opened into the Chamber of the Solaces.
‘Touch nothing,’ she said to the gaping youth, and returned to her engraving.
Unlike every other part of Cython, this chamber was uncarved, unpainted stone. It was a small, cubic room, unfurnished save for a white quartzite table with a closed book on its far end and, on the wall to Wil’s right, a four-shelf bookcase etched out of solid rock. The third and fourth shelves were empty.
Tears formed as he gazed upon the mysterious books he had only ever glimpsed through the doorway. After much practice he could now read a page or two of a storybook before the pain in his eyes became blinding, but only the secret books could take him where he wanted to go – to a world and a life not walled-in in every direction.
‘Who is the Scribe, Ady?’
Wil worshipped the unknown Scribe for the elegance of his calligraphy and his mastery of book making, but most of all for the stories he had given Cython. They were the purest truth of all.
He often asked that question but Ady never answered. Maybe she didn’t know, and it worried him, because Wil feared the Scribe was in danger. If I could save him, he thought, I’d be the greatest hero of all.
He smiled at that. Wil knew he was utterly insignificant.
The top shelf contained five ancient Solaces, all with worn brown covers, and each bore the main title, The Songs of Survival. These books, vital though they had once been, were of least interest to Wil, since the last had been completed one thousand, three hundred and seventy-seven years ago. Their stories had ended long before. It was the future that called to him, the unfinished stories.
On the second shelf stood the thick volumes entitled The Lore of Prosperity. There were nine of these and the last five formed a set called Industry. On Delven had covers of pale mica with topazes embedded down the spine, On Metallix was written in white-hot letters on sheets of beaten silver. Wil could not tell what On Smything, On Spagyric or On Catalyz were made from
, for his eyes were aching now, his sight blurring.
He covered his eyes for a moment. Nine books. Why were there nine books on the second shelf? The ninth, unfinished book, On Catalyz, should lie on the table, open at the last new page.
His heart bruised itself on his breastbone as he counted them again. Five books, plus nine. Could On Catalyz be finished? If it was, this was amazing news, and he would be the one to tell it. He would be really special then. Yes, the last book on the shelf definitely said, On Catalyz.
Then what was the book on the table?
A new book?
The first new book in three hundred and twelve years?
Magery was anathema to his people and Wil had never asked how the pages came to write themselves, nor how each new book could appear in a locked room in Cython, deep underground. Since magery had been forbidden to all save their long-lost kings, the self-writing pages were proof of instruction from a higher power. The Solaces were Cython’s comfort in their agonising exile, the only evidence that they still mattered.
We are not alone.
The cover of the new book was the dark, scaly grey of freshly cast iron. It was a thin volume, no more than thirty sheet-iron pages. He could not read the crimson, deeply etched title from this angle, though it was too long to be The Lore of Prosperity.
Wil choked and had to bend double, panting. Not just a new book, but the first of the third shelf, and no one else in Cython had seen it. His eyes were flooding, his heart pounding, his mouth full of saliva.
He swallowed painfully. Even from here, the book had a peculiar smell, oily-sweet then bitter underneath, yet strangely appealing. He took a deep sniff. The inside of his nose burnt, his head spun and he felt an instant’s bliss, then tendrils webbed across his inner eye. He shook his head, they disappeared and he sniffed again, wanting that bliss to take him away from his life of drudgery. But he wanted the iron book more. What story did it tell? Could it be the Scribe’s own?
He turned to call Ady, then hesitated. She would shoo him off and the three matriarchs would closet themselves with the new book for weeks. Afterwards they would meet with the leaders of the four levels of Cython, the master chymister, the heads of the other guilds and the overseer of the Pale slaves. Then the new book would be locked away and Wil would go back to scraping muck out of the effluxors for the rest of his life.