The Fatal Gate

by Ian Irvine

  “Then … how am I supposed to find it?”

  Tallia and Malien exchanged glances. “That’s not what we need you for,” said Tallia. “This job doesn’t involve scent potions.”

  “But perfume-making is all I know.”

  “Have you ever heard of nyphalle?” said Nadiril, leaning forward and fixing his cloudy eyes on her. “Also known as nivol?”

  “No,” said Aviel.

  “It’s an alchemical fluid first mentioned in ancient times. And several times in Mendark’s secret papers, which we’ve retrieved from the council’s spell vault.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Nivol is also known as the Universal Dissoluent. It consumes everything it touches—flesh, paper, metal, rock …”

  “And you want it so you can destroy the summon stone.”

  Malien rocked back in her chair, staring at Aviel.

  “Told you she was quick,” said Tallia. “Yes, we believe nivol is the only substance in the world that can consume so powerful and alien an object as the summon stone.”

  “And you want me to find it?”

  “It doesn’t occur naturally.” Tallia paused, then said in a rush, “We want you to make some nivol.”

  This knocked the breath out of Aviel. “But … that’s alchemy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Nadiril, his eyes now fixed on the painted ceiling.

  “I don’t know anything about alchemy.”

  “Hardly anyone does these days,” said Tallia. “It’s a forgotten art.”

  “Is Torsion Tule—”

  “Grand Master Tule to you,” said Nadiril. “He was a brilliant alchemist in his day, the very last alchemist in the west. But his day was a long time ago and none of his apprentices became masters … ah …”

  Because he’s so obnoxious, thought Aviel. “Why can’t he make some nivol?”

  “The man quivers like a hummingbird in a hurricane,” said Janck. “He can’t hold a cup of tea without spilling it.”

  “But there must be hundreds of people better suited to the job than me.”

  “As I said,” said Tallia with a touch of impatience, “Grand Master Tule is the last alchemist in the west.”

  “What about the east?” Aviel said desperately.

  “We can’t get one here in time.”

  “How bare our cupboard is,” said Nadiril, “that we have to rely on an untrained girl.”

  “Aviel,” said Janck forbiddingly, “nivol is top secret. You cannot talk to anyone about it save the people in this room and your master. Not a hint to your friends.”

  “I don’t have any friends.” With Wilm probably dead, all Aviel had were a few acquaintances like Lilis who, if they could see into her heart, would have to inform on her.

  “This work is urgent,” said Malien. “We believe the Crimson Gate closed quickly, leaving the Merdrun far from their destination, and they won’t be able to reopen it until they find the summon stone and install a new magiz strong enough to draw great power from it. If we can destroy it first, it’ll rob them of much of their power and they’ll be stuck where they are. It’ll give us a chance.”

  “Why me?” said Aviel.

  “Many of the techniques you’ve used in scent-potion-making are alchemical ones,” said Tallia.

  “Lots of people know alchemical techniques. Apothecaries, and people who make healing potions, and—”

  “Plodders all!” snapped Malien. “People with little if any understanding of the Secret Art and no creative insight. You made one of the Great Potions on your first attempt, and survived. And it worked! You have a great gift, an intuitive grasp of some of the techniques required and the drive to succeed. We need you.”

  Aviel could not refuse such a plea. “I’ll do my very best,” she said, gulping. “But … if nivol dissolves everything it touches, how can it be made at all?”

  “It’s only formed in the final blending. Once you’ve found, made and purified all the necessary ingredients, you will do the final blending in the one substance in the world that can contain nivol—a phial cut from a single unflawed diamond.”

  Aviel swallowed. They were going to cut the middle out of a precious diamond just for her work? “It’d have to be a big diamond.”

  “A perfect diamond suitable for the tiara of the greatest lady in the land,” said Janck, his eyes fixed on her. “And that’s probably where we’ll get it. That’s how much your work matters, Aviel.”

  Aviel sat back, stunned and overburdened. To put such faith in her untrained abilities, they must be desperate indeed, but she knew it could not be done. Alchemy was a great art, very difficult to master, and far more than a collection of workshop techniques. You had to have a gift for it and she did not.

  Tallia handed her a sheaf of papers and parchments. “Copies of all the documents that mention the preparation of nivol. Keep them safe and don’t read them in Grand Master Tule’s presence.”

  “Why not?”

  “He has … old-fashioned views on the relationship between master and pupil. He will want to dole out the information grudgingly, and we don’t have time for that.”

  “Are you saying I should disobey my master?”

  Tallia hesitated. “Certainly not. He has much to teach you.”

  “Making nivol is your job, not his,” interrupted Nadiril. “It’s the most important job in the world right now, and the most urgent. You have to find a way to learn everything you need to know from Tule and prevent him from hindering you in any way.”

  Aviel’s heart sank to her frayed bootlaces. “How long do I have?”

  “At best, a few weeks.”

  She let out a squawk of dismay. It was impossible.

  Tallia stood up. “A workshop has been equipped for you, however to collect certain rare ingredients you may need to travel to distant lands. If so, a sky ship will be put at your disposal.”

  “But Karan and Yggur stole it.”

  “Sith is famed for its artisans and boat builders. Under the guidance and supervision of the Aachim, we’re building more sky ships. That’s top secret too.”

  A sky ship just for her! Aviel rose dazedly. “I’ll get started. Though—”

  “Tule is a very difficult man,” said Janck. He rose, heaved his trousers up over his big round belly and came round to her end of the table. “It may be that your greatest task is not the creation of nivol, but learning how to work with your master. But you must, for all our sakes.” He held out a meaty hand.

  Aviel shook it and felt her spirits lift. There was something about Janck that inspired confidence, and as she went out she was hardly limping at all.

  20

  GNASHING THEIR FANGS

  Llian woke late, aching down to the bones, to a howling wind lashing rain at the windowpanes. He was tying his bootlaces when he heard a crack of thunder, then another. The storm had not moved, and the lightning was still striking the eastern tip of Demondifang. It now seemed ominous.

  That island was a few miles across, conical in shape and covered in forest, with a broad band of mangroves ringing the shoreline. Waves broke across the two-mile-long gravel spit connecting Demondifang to Mollymoot.

  Finding the kitchen empty, he helped himself from a pot of gruel on the blackened hob of the fireplace and made tea from some herbs he could not identify. He carried his tea into the next room, a small living room with two ancient settees and a pair of armchairs facing a small fireplace.

  Dilly was in the left-hand armchair by the fire, darning a thick fisherman’s sock by feel with green thread and studying a book of accounts. Ifoli, pale and barefoot, her short hair tousled, was perched on a curving window seat looking out at the wild sea.

  “Morning,” said Dilly without looking up.

  “Nice day for ducks,” said Llian.

  “And librarians. You won’t be heading south today or tomorrow.”

  “Why not?”

  “Take a look at the causeway,” said Ifoli.

  H
e went to the window. A big sea was driving breakers right across the mile-long gap between Mollymoot and the mainland.

  “Not even at low tide?” said Llian.

  “This is low tide.”

  “Are you saying there’s no way to get off the island?”

  “Would you take a boat out in these conditions?”

  Llian had been out in worse, though only in vessels sailed by master seamen. The gnawing feeling in his belly sharpened.

  “Gives me time to think, I suppose,” he said, trying to make the best of it.

  “What about?” Ifoli said listlessly.

  “Why we ended up here and why that storm is still there.”

  “Demondifang attracts storms,” said Dilly, turning the page of her book of accounts and frowning. “I’ve seen them hang there from mid-afternoon until midnight. Though I’ve never known one to still be there in the morning. It’s unnatural.”

  “Did you have any luck contacting Nadiril?” he said quietly to Ifoli.

  “Not exactly …” She was still staring out the window, jaw clenched. “I heard a couple of snatches of talk, all bad. But I couldn’t speak to him and he couldn’t hear me.”

  “All bad?” he repeated.

  “The Merdrun have invaded but no one knows where.”

  “Anything about Karan or Sulien?” he croaked.

  “No.”

  A tall well-built youth came in, carrying a fishing rod and a basket containing half a dozen fat fish, each the length of Llian’s forearm. His thick brown hair was windblown, his handsome face crusted with salt. He set his basket down, propped the rod against the wall, looked around and saw Ifoli on the window seat.

  “Cousin Ifoli!” He ran to embrace her. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  She stood up, smiling. “I didn’t know myself. We got here in the middle of the night. I was wondering where you were.”

  “Went out at dawn,” he said. “It’s the best time.” He looked round as Llian rose, and studied him for a few seconds before saying, “Hello, I’m Reggeley.”

  “This is Llian,” said Ifoli. “He’s a teller.”

  Llian shook hands with Reggeley, who seemed overawed and said hastily, “Better clean my fish.”

  Four days later Llian was still trapped on Mollymoot and the ominous storm was still coiled above Demondifang like a striking snake. He had written up the climactic events at Alcifer in his salt-stained journal, and now, with nothing to occupy him, he was chafing to head south and look for Sulien, hopeless though the search was likely to be. Unfortunately a strong westerly had been blowing for days and the causeway was still underwater.

  “How do you stand it without any news?” he said to Dilly that night in the kitchen. “The world outside could be falling to pieces and we’d never know.”

  She was hanging bunches of marjoram from ceiling hooks. The whole house was scented with it. “How would it help you to know when you can do nothing about it?”

  “Everyone I care about is in danger. I’ve got to do something.”

  “The wind’s turning; you’ll be able to cross to Demondifang at low tide tomorrow morning. But if you decide to climb the mountain be prepared to stay the night—you can’t climb the peak and get back to the spit before the tide comes in.”

  The following morning, Llian’s unease grew with every step they took towards Demondifang. The unnatural thunderhead was still there, a black, rotating coil centred on the tip of the mountain.

  Ifoli was labouring through the wet gravel. Though not fully recovered, she had insisted on accompanying him and so had Regg, who knew the island well. He was a hundred yards ahead, carrying a long fishing rod in one hand. Llian wondered what it would be like to be fifteen again and have his whole life ahead of him, but there was no profit in that train of thought.

  “What’s that?” called Regg.

  The sun had finally broken through the clouds and it was the first time Llian had seen Demondifang clearly. The yellow toothed peak thrust up out of the forest though it was not, as he had first thought, sheer all around. The cliffs at the western end were broken by ledges covered in shrubbery.

  “What?” Llian jogged across to him, the gravel rattling underfoot.

  “There.”

  On the right side of the tooth a brown shadow crept down the yellow rock into the forest like a trickle of sludge down the side of a column. But it wasn’t a shadow; the eastern side of the peak was in direct sunlight.

  The hairs rose on the top of Llian’s head. “Is that new?”

  “I’ve never seen it before.”

  Ifoli reached them, panting. “I don’t like that at all.”

  “Is it safe to go up?”

  “The lightning’s only striking at the eastern end; as long as we stay well away from it we’ll be all right.”

  They continued across to the mangroves, which stood on clusters of stilt roots a good fifteen feet high. It was a warm day and Llian was glad to pass under the leaf canopy, though they had not gone far before the humidity became oppressive. The stilt roots were covered in huge jagged barnacles and razor-sharp oysters the size of the palm of his hand, and the air was full of mosquitoes and gnats determined to suck his blood, and sand-flies that burrowed through his hair and left stinging lumps on the top of his head.

  Beyond the mangroves, Regg led them along a faint path through fifty yards of barren salt flats, then a band of salt marsh, and then into forest that grew taller and darker with every step inland. The soft ground rose steadily and was covered in ferns and scattered boulders of hard yellow stone.

  Regg took them to a suitable campsite beside a rivulet, where they left the tent and sleeping pouches and headed on. They had been climbing the slope for about twenty minutes, heading towards the point below the cliff where Llian had seen the creeping brown stain, when Regg, who was a few yards ahead, froze with one foot in the air. He turned slowly, his face blanched. “I … felt … something.”

  “What?” said Ifoli, stopping dead.

  “A … a screeching sound, like someone dragging the tip of a knife down a window, but it was in my head.”

  Llian had not heard anything but he was notoriously insensitive to arcane phenomena. “Stay here. I’ll go ahead.”

  Fifty yards on, the misty green light under the forest canopy suddenly changed to yellow, and further on it was an unpleasant mud-brown. The ground underfoot felt spongy now and the air had a pungent smell he could not identify, though it stung his nasal passages and made his eyes water. He crept forwards into the brown gloom, keeping a wary lookout. What could have caused such a change?

  The ground was even softer here and the ferns were distinctly odd—their stems had side stems growing in places where there should have been none, and the fronds formed unnatural wavy patterns. There were toadstools everywhere: red-capped ones spotted with white, blue and sometimes black, bright yellow toadstools and big white ones with broad caps that were a pale oily green in places—he knew that kind were deadly.

  He was walking across a half-buried slab of yellow rock when it gave under him. Llian looked down, thinking he must have stepped in a mossy hollow, and saw his boots sinking into what should have been solid stone.

  “Stop!” he roared to Ifoli and Regg.

  He tried to step off but the stone clung to his boots like toffee. He twisted free, hurled himself backwards onto the spongy earth, then stood there, his throat so dry that it was a struggle to draw breath, staring at the rock. The twin depressions his boots had made were slowly rising back to a level surface. His knees were shaking, his breath coming in gasps. He picked up a fallen branch and prodded the rock where he had stood. It was quite solid.

  Regg was gasping and Ifoli looked unnerved, but not as unnerved as Llian felt. If he’d hesitated, the quick-rock would have held him. What was wrong with this place? From the corner of an eye he saw more luridly coloured toadstools thrusting up out of the ground, growing in seconds to a height that should have taken them days.

/>   Suddenly Regg let out a screech and whacked at his trouser legs. “Get off!” he shrieked. “Off, off!”

  He spun around, smacking his legs furiously, and every spiral took him closer to the treacherous rock and the furiously growing toadstools.

  Llian caught him by the arm and pulled him away. “Back!”

  Regg continued to thump his legs until Llian had hauled him thirty yards back the way they had come, when he stopped as suddenly as he had begun.

  “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “There were huge hairy spiders crawling up my legs.” He shuddered. “I could hear them gnashing their fangs.”

  “Stay here,” said Llian. He drew Ifoli aside, saying quietly, “You know a lot more about the uncanny than I do. What was that?”

  She was trembling. “I’ve read about places called unreality zones,” she said slowly. “Though I didn’t think they actually existed.”

  “What causes them?”

  “You know how there are places in the world where mancery just seems to be stronger, and it’s easier to work?”

  “I’ve been to some of them. Carcharon and Shazmak, and Katazza at the middle of the Dry Sea.”

  “It’s said that if very dark mancery is done at such places, and too much power is drawn from them, the waste power can create an unreality zone.”

  “But what is it?”

  “A magically polluted wasteland. A place where toxic waste left over from the uncontrolled use of powerful dark magic contaminates the land, sometimes for miles around.”

  “And causes plants to grow wild.”

  “Animals too. Physically and mentally.”

  “You mean they can go insane?”

  “You saw how quickly Regg was affected by hallucinations—if that’s what they were. He saw, felt and heard spiders crawling on him, yet he was at the very edge of the unreality zone. What must it be like in the middle?”

  “The rock softened under my feet, then started to close around them,” said Llian, shuddering. “If I hadn’t leapt out, I would have been trapped in it.”

  “But what’s causing it?”

  He looked up at the yellow peak, just visible through the forest canopy. “Who’s using dark magic up there? And what for?”