by Ian Irvine
What could it be? Where could it be? She was looking all around when Yetchah froze, her mouth hanging open and a look of naked terror on her gaunt face.
“Aiieeee!” she shrieked, backing away.
Sulien checked the walls around but saw only the trees, the teeming rain and dozens of Whelm on the walls behind her, howling and holding their bony arms up as if to defend themselves against some monstrous foe. Then they turned and ran for the nearest shelter.
“Run, little one!” screamed Idlis from fifty yards away.
Shudders rippled down her back. “What is it?” she choked, her blood thickening and freezing in her veins.
“I don’t know.”
“Where is it?”
“There!” He pointed up, then bolted.
And then she saw it: a winged beast with an enormous toothy mouth that could have bitten her head off. Its body was more or less human, though much bigger and more heavily muscled than any human—it had to be eight feet tall.
Sulien ran for the far side of the arch but the creature was diving far too quickly. Her only hope was her gift for the Secret Art and she had never needed it more; surely it would come this time. She raised her arm, pointed with fingers and thumb, and prepared to give the beast such a blistering blast that it would be knocked out of the air.
Down it plunged, down, down, the wind whistling around the tips of its wings and the extended claws, as long as daggers, on its fingers and toes. Sulien quailed. How could she hope to stop such a beast? It would tear her apart.
The winged beast swooped. She thrust up her shaking arm, trying to create a blast bigger than anything she had ever made. It hurtled in, her forefinger touched the middle claw of its left foot and … nothing! Her gift had failed her and she was going to die.
The beast caught her around the waist with its huge toe claws and carried her away, swinging wildly beneath it.
Mummeeeee! she sent involuntarily. Mummy, Daddy, it’s got me. Help!
But no one could help her now. Sulien knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that the creature was going to eat her.
17
FROZEN IN A RED RICTUS
There they are! On the pyramid! Take them!
“That was Sulien!” cried Karan. Sulien, where are you?
Her heart was thundering, the backs of her hands tingling, her belly throbbing as if she had been kicked there. Who were “they”? Where was Sulien? Panic flooded Karan—she had to find her but could not think of a thing that would help.
“I heard her too,” said Yggur. “Link! Now!”
He clamped his hands around her head as he had done before, and it calmed her. Karan focused on Sulien, on the sense of her, the feeling of her, on her wavy red hair streaming out in the wind, her love for her little puppy Piffle and the sad, faraway gaze that was her trademark, as if Sulien were seeing a future where she had been robbed of everything dear to her.
Thump! A psychic blow drove the wind out of Karan. She bit her tongue, tasted blood and all went dark. She tried to call out to Yggur but could not speak.
Then she saw a curving line of dark red stones, surrounded by blackness.
Unbuly! Unbuly?
The voice in her head was soft, insistent, cajoling, and sent shudders through her. The blackness closed over the red stones, blocking them out.
Unbuly? Jaguly? Help me!
The line of red stones slowly reappeared, followed by another curving line of stones below them. Karan let out an involuntary groan—they weren’t stones, they were teeth! Blood-red teeth framed by black lips. Another sickening psychic blow struck her; she was seeing into the mouth of one of the triplets.
Drink! said a hard voice, not one of them. Eat!
The red teeth vanished and she saw a weathered forehead with the jagged Merdrun glyph deeply etched into it. Dark deep-set eyes, in shadow save for stray indigo gleams. A high domed head, devoid of a single hair; a short, dense beard, thick and char-black.
“Gergrig!” Karan whispered.
Where? Yggur said into her mind.
Karan could not see or hear him; she had lost her surroundings, sight and sound. All she could sense was his hands around her head and the sky ship rocking in the wind. Why was she seeing this now? And why could she not sense Sulien at all?
I can’t tell.
What’s he doing?
I can’t see. Ah, now I can.
Karan relayed what she was seeing to Yggur. Gergrig stood on a bare round hill where all the grass had been burned to ash. At its centre a large triangular slab of white limestone lay on three round black rocks like a plate resting on three marbles. Grey-robed acolytes were gathered around the broad base and lower sides of the triangle, singing in high voices. Gergrig stood at its apex.
Karan’s viewpoint rose and she saw the top of the slab; she started and let out a small cry.
Steady! said Yggur. Don’t give yourself away.
The triplets sat side by side on the slab, their outstretched legs bound with ropes tied to iron stakes driven into the stone at thighs and shins. Their hair, formerly long, black and silky, had been hacked short. A red torus a handspan across, made from polished stone, sat upright on a gold stand at their bare feet, at the centre of the slab.
A powder-blue bowl, the same shape as the slab, stood at its apex in front of Gergrig. It held several dozen small red tablets, as red as the rocks on the world of Cinnabar. As red as the triplets’ teeth.
What’s going on? said Karan.
Shh!
Gergrig offered the blue bowl to the head acolyte, a pretty, round-faced young woman a foot shorter than himself; her pixie-cut hair was palest amber. Using forefinger and thumb, she took a red tablet from the bowl and held it up while he pointed the tip of his black iron staff at it. There was a small white flash, and a silvery drop formed at the bottom of the tablet and hung there. The acolytes brought their song to a final high note, almost a shriek, and held it, unwavering.
The high note was like a barbed wire drawn in one of Karan’s ears and out the other. She did not know what the ritual was for but she knew it was bad; bad for Sulien and bad for the world.
“Jaguly!” said Gergrig.
The head acolyte popped the tablet into the open mouth of the triplet on the left. Jaguly bared her blood-red teeth and licked her black lips, then leaned forward, glaring at the head acolyte, who took a sharp breath and a small step back.
Gergrig shook the bowl at her. The head acolyte took a second tablet. Gergrig performed the same ritual, then said, “Unbuly!”
The head acolyte gave the tablet to the middle triplet. Unbuly did not react; she just sat there, staring straight ahead.
The head acolyte took a third red tablet from the bowl. Gergrig touched it with his staff and a third silver metal drop formed.
“Empuly!”
The singers still held that screeching note, though it was wavering now.
As the head acolyte knelt and reached out towards the third triplet, the one on the right, Empuly convulsed, straining at the ropes that bound her until they tore into her thighs and shins, crumpling the skin like rubber. She made an awful sound in her throat, a screechy, whining howl that raised Karan’s hackles even further.
“Hold her!” snapped Gergrig.
The acolytes on the right side of the slab took hold of Empuly’s head, body, arms and legs. She was immensely strong, and it took six of them to keep her still, and another to prise her mouth open. Empuly snapped at that acolyte’s fingers with her red teeth.
The head acolyte forced the tablet in and worked Empuly’s jaw up and down, then held her nose until, with a despairing moan, she swallowed. She stopped struggling; her breast rose and fell; her eyes were open but empty.
“Blood torus,” said Gergrig.
Karan sensed Yggur’s hiss of shock. He was alarmed, and that made her even more afraid. This was a powerful ritual intended for some terrible purpose.
Can we stop it? she said.
No! If we tri
ed they’d find us in an instant.
The head acolyte lifted the red torus from its gold stand. It was only a handspan across but appeared to be extremely heavy. She carried it to Gergrig and held it out before her at shoulder height, her arms trembling under the strain. Gergrig clenched his jaw, raised the iron staff and thrust it through the hole in the torus. White, crackling discharges zigzagged out in all directions; the torus went the colour of quicksilver then slowly turned red again, though a darker red than before and webbed with black.
Gergrig gestured to the head acolyte. Fear shivered across her pretty face but she carried the blood torus to Jaguly, knelt and touched it to the centre of her forehead. Jaguly fell back to the stone with a thud, black lips bared to display red teeth. Her fixed grin was sickening.
The head acolyte touched the blood torus to Unbuly’s forehead, but she did not react. She seemed indifferent, though her mouth slowly distended until she wore the same fixed red grin as Jaguly.
The head acolyte touched Empuly with the blood torus, and she howled and shrieked and ground her knuckles against the white marble until they bled. Her black mouth stretched into a rictus, and froze.
The head acolyte climbed down off the white slab and presented the blood torus to Gergrig, who fixed it to an iron chain whose links were shaped like the jagged Merdrun glyph. Holding it by the chain, he carried it to Empuly, whose mouth pouted like a vampire sipping from a throat as she licked the bright red stone. He frowned, then after a short pause reached across to Unbuly, who lay unmoving; he had to prise her mouth open and pull out her tongue until it touched the blood torus. He walked around the base of the slab to Jaguly, who made a screeching sound in the back of her throat, then licked the blood torus slyly, sat up and looked sideways at the acolytes.
Gergrig slipped the chain over Jaguly’s head and laid the blood torus between her breasts. White discharges cracked out from it to surround her, then jumped to Unbuly, who shot upright, then to Empuly, who did the same.
Empuly let out a cracked howl, tore her right arm free of the stone, pointed a long finger at the head acolyte and made the pouting movements with her black lips again. The head acolyte’s amber hair stood up. Her eyes were staring; she backed away.
Empuly, with immense and remorseless strength, tore the iron stakes out of the slab and stood up, the ropes dangling from her heavily muscled legs. With a gesture she freed her sisters and they rose too, twitching and trembling. They pointed at the head acolyte, who whimpered and turned to run.
Gergrig blocked her path with his staff. She made to dart past him but Empuly clapped her big hands and the head acolyte could not move. She could still scream, though, and it was heart-rending.
Empuly’s black lips pouted, and pale shimmering threads formed on the head acolyte’s face and chest. They were drawn to Empuly, who gobbled them down like a glutton, so fast that little bits of ethereal matter remained clinging to her chin and caught on the front of her robes.
Karan fought to hold back her own scream; Yggur’s hands tightened crushingly around her head and she could feel him shuddering.
The more the head acolyte screamed, the more Empuly fed on her pain until, as the last of the shimmering plasma was torn from her victim, the head acolyte’s eyes went blank and she crumpled to the ashy hilltop. Her flesh seemed to be eaten away from the inside, leaving her skin sagging off her slender bones.
The triplets were steady on their feet now and looked much stronger. Gergrig was smiling grimly, as if he had not expected the ritual to work so well or so quickly. His gaze swept across the other acolytes and Karan saw their horror turn to terror. They bolted in a mass but Gergrig gestured lazily towards them with the iron staff and froze them in place.
“Drink their lives,” he said to the triplets.
When they had done so, and the baggy remains of the acolytes lay on the grass as empty as their former leader, Gergrig turned away.
“Dispose of them after we’re done,” he ordered a squad of wild-eyed soldiers twenty yards away. “Magiz,” he said, speaking to the triplets as though they were now one, “You have the power. Find the brat and the mother, and suck their lives out of them.”
Fury surged through Karan, then she was hurled backwards against the side wall of the sky ship. She gasped. Could the triplets have found her so quickly? Were they attacking?
Bright light dazzled her, and she was lifted and put in a seat.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Had to stop you,” said Yggur, lowering his hand and dimming the light streaming from his fingertips. “You can’t take them on, Karan—they’re already stronger than the old magiz.”
“Then they’ll soon find me, and Sulien.”
“I’m afraid so. What did you see of her?”
“She was running through the ruins of a great city, a place abandoned so long ago that forest had almost reclaimed it.” She told him what she had seen.
“Doesn’t help much,” said Yggur. He rubbed his jaw, his stubble rasping. “You’ll have to risk a link to her.”
“What if the triplets detect it?”
“What if they locate Sulien before we do?”
Karan relived the deaths of the acolytes and the sick glee on the faces of the triplets. It could not be endured.
“The longer you leave it, the stronger they’ll become,” said Yggur.
She readied herself for another attempt at linking. It would not be easy; her head felt fuzzy and her belly was heaving—aftersickness, the bane of all sensitives, was tightening its grip.
Karan fought it; Sulien’s life depended on her. She was reaching out, very carefully, for her sense of Sulien, when Sulien shrieked into her mind loud enough to wake the dead.
Mummeeeee! Mummy, Daddy, it’s got me. Help!
Karan saw a soaring arch, a crumbling pyramid in the background and dozens of terrified Whelm, some perched precariously on the tops of mossy walls, others running for their lives.
The image changed. Sulien was looking up at a monstrous winged creature that had her in its claws. In its belt it had a spike-tipped flail and a heavy hammer.
“Was that … a thranx?” Karan whispered, almost fainting with dread.
Many savage creatures from the void had invaded Santhenar during the Time of the Mirror, especially when the Way between the Worlds was opened ten years ago. Most of them had been hunted down and exterminated, but some had survived and bred in the wilderness. Thranx were incredibly strong and tough. She had seen one crash straight through a stone wall at Carcharon, unharmed.
“There are no thranx left,” said Yggur. “They were wiped out by creatures very like them, but cleverer and far better mancers.”
Karan felt sick. “What are they called?”
“Lyrinx,” said Yggur. “They’re called lyrinx. And that was one of them.”
18
WHAT IF I REFUSE?
Aviel was limping down the broad hall of the mansion Tallia had commandeered for their headquarters when she sensed someone watching her. She crouched and, pretending to tie her bootlace, checked behind her.
Ten yards away in a doorway, Tallia was arguing with a plump, uniformed officer who wore two rows of medals on his chest. But he wasn’t looking at her; he was staring at Aviel as if they had been talking about her. But why would they? She was no more use to anyone.
Two servants in orange and black emerged from a side hall, wheeling a steaming tureen. Aviel could smell the spicy chowder called bimbull, one of the staple dishes of Sith, though to her keen nose it had a faint foul odour as if the fish was going off. It felt like a sign.
They had disembarked in Vilikshathûr a day and a half ago and sailed upriver in a smaller boat. She limped on, clutching her copy of the laws of Sith. Everyone who entered the city had to make their personal rubbing of the laws, which were inscribed on brass posts on every street corner, and anyone could be examined on their knowledge of the laws at any time. In Sith you could be fined for being ignorant of the
laws.
As she turned the corner a hard hand caught her by the shoulder. Aviel whirled. There was no one within ten yards but the hand kept squeezing; an invisible hand.
“In there,” said a low, familiar voice. Shand thrust her towards an open door, jarring her ankle.
He wasn’t the stern yet kindly Shand of old; he was a traitor with a price on his head. What was he going to do to her? She stumbled through, the door closed and she heard the lock click.
“Move away from the door,” grated Shand. “Stop that infernal squeaking.”
She was making a keening sound; she had not realised she was doing it. Aviel cast a swift glance around her. A large high-ceilinged meeting room with intricate plaster cornices outlined in gilt and painted in many colours, a pair of tall windows with green velvet curtains, a long white table in the middle, so polished that it reflected the ceiling, surrounded by hard rectangular chairs. Bookcases on the walls were filled with more books than she had seen in her life.
She limped to the other side of the table and supported herself on it. The pain was always worse when she was afraid, and she was very afraid now. Why had he come to Sith? Was he still spying for the enemy? What could he want from her?
Aviel felt a tingling in the palms of her hands, heard a grunt, and ever so slowly Shand materialised, feet first, then his pack, his legs and arms and body, and his head last. It was unnerving.
His leathery old face was flushed and his eyes were hard. “You owe me, girl,” he grated, advancing around the table towards her.
More than she could ever repay. On Aviel’s thirteenth birthday her dissolute father, Gybb, had been planning to indenture her for seven years to evil old Magsie Murg, who would have forced her to do hard labour fourteen hours a day in her stinking tannery. Aviel had run away, but her six older half-sisters, who were all far bigger than her and even meaner than Gybb, had hunted her down and dumped her into the hollow inside of the vast old Sacrifice Tree, knowing she would not be able to get out.