by Ian Irvine
There was no time to plan—in spirit form she raced north, then up the steep slope of the hill, up a thirty-foot cliff and onto the crest. All vegetation had been cleared from the top and it was now a bare dome of rock with a crudely built wooden watchtower, twenty feet high, at the highest point. A rickety ladder led to a platform at the top, barely large enough for two guards to stand there.
Where were the triplets? As she drifted across the hilltop she caught a whiff of scalding air and the smell of hot metal issuing from a crack in the rocks. There must be a considerable fire somewhere below. At the left-hand side of the hill, where it met the ridge, a narrow ledge ran halfway across the face of the cliff to the lens-shaped mouth of a cave partly concealed by an overhang. The triplets had to be inside. But did they know she was coming?
As tense as wire, Karan floated along the ledge to the corner of the cave mouth and peered in. The interior was partly concealed by a screen made from woven strips of green leather, behind which a fire in a tall brazier of dark blue metal burned so intensely that the roof, around the wide crack that served as a flue, had softened until the rock flowed like toffee.
The triplets were inside, dressed only in shifts and running with sweat, and no wonder: the heat flooding from the cave was the temperature of Karan’s bread oven at Gothryme. But evidently it was not hot enough, for Jaguly scooped what appeared to be powdered iron from a barrel and tossed it onto the centre of the fire. It blazed blue-white, the flames doubling in height and lapping at the ceiling, and the soft rock around the crack sagged and dripped.
They must be working some terrible form of mancery, either to strengthen the Merdrun army and weaken the allies, or to open the Crimson Gate. Or both. Karan ducked back out of sight. She had known the triplets were big women, but not how big. They were over six feet tall, strong and fleshy and twice her weight. And being Merdrun they would be highly skilled in all forms of combat. It was highly unlikely that she could beat one of them; taking on three was out of the question.
Then it got terrifyingly worse. The middle triplet, Unbuly, picked up the blood torus and licked it, then crooned, “Sulien, Sulien?”
Karan managed to stifle a cry but was less successful at controlling her terror and rage. The emotions flooded out of her, and she knew at once that the empath, Empuly, had detected her.
Karan darted away but Jaguly hurled herself out of the cave onto the narrow ledge, pointed her meaty hand and hissed, “Paralyse!”
Karan lost all control of her spirit form. She could not move or speak, rise in the air or sink. She simply floated there, sick with dread, as Jaguly moved under her, touched the ghostly outline of her left calf and said, “Materialise!”
Karan’s body and spirit reunited and she fell into Jaguly’s arms, still paralysed. Jaguly carried her into the cave and dropped her on the floor. The back of her head slammed into hard stone and pain shrieked through her skull—she could still feel.
Unbuly took a thick-bladed knife from a sheath and showed it to her sisters.
“Too thick,” said Jaguly and produced her own, a much longer knife, very thin but with a tapered blade two inches wide at the hilt.
“Too wide,” said Empuly. She drew her own knife and held it up. It was a stiletto, and the blade was only half an inch from one side to the other.
“Just right,” said Jaguly and Unbuly together.
“Stab her,” Unbuly added. She tore Karan’s shirt open and prodded her belly with a thick forefinger. “There!”
“Too quick,” said Empuly. “Do it there.” Her finger pressed lower.
“Too slow,” said Jaguly. “Here is best.” She put her finger a little higher and to the left.
“Just right,” said Unbuly and Empuly.
And Jaguly stabbed Karan so hard that she felt the tip of the stiletto come out her back and snap off on the stone floor.
Surprisingly, it barely hurt at all, and when Jaguly withdrew the knife the little slit closed over with just a small welling of blood, though Karan knew it was intended to be a fatal wound. They wanted her to bleed to death internally, but not too quickly. When drinking the life of a dying victim, they could take more power if she died slowly.
This was it. She had been in many dangerous situations in the past but there had always been a way out. Not this time.
How long did she have? Belly wounds were unpredictable. She might last as little as five minutes or as long as a few hours, though Karan already felt fuzzy in the head. Half an hour would probably end her.
Then Empuly raised that same thick finger and said, “Ah!”
“What have you sensed?” said Unbuly eagerly. “Is it …?”
“It’s the prize,” said Empuly. “Hush, she’s just outside.”
No pain, not even the agony of birthing Sulien through the badly healed bones of her shattered pelvis, had been as bad as this. It was so bad that it broke through the paralysis spell. She jerked herself upright, blood pulsing from the wound, and shrieked, “Sulien, run!”
There was no more she could do. She fell back and the spell tightened around her again until every muscle in her body was locked.
Jaguly hurled herself through the mouth of the cave, skidded on the ledge, lunged and caught Sulien by the wrist. She swung her by the arm out over the cliff, and Karan was sure she was going to hurl her to her death or dash her small body against the rock.
But that would have been too quick and painless. Jaguly sent her spinning into the cave, tumbling head over feet. Unbuly swung a massive fist at her, but Sulien ducked, darted away around the metal-burning brazier, then saw Karan on the floor with blood on her belly.
She froze, her pretty face twisting in the most awful agony, then screamed out a sending so powerful that the flame from the brazier was blown sideways and started to melt the wall of the cave.
“Daddy, help! They’re killing Mummy!”
The sending burned a track through Karan’s mind, blasting away the shock from the belly wound. Empuly let out a cracked shriek, then doubled up and dug her fists deep into her ample belly as if trying to prise out something gnawing at her insides. Jaguly toppled to the stone floor, breaking her nose.
But the sociopath Unbuly merely smiled, picked up the thick-bladed knife and licked her full black lips. “Just right!” She giggled and went after Sulien.
Jaguly rose, wiped the blood off her face and flicked it into the fire, then began to hum a ragged tune. Shortly Empuly joined in, an octave higher, then Unbuly, higher still.
Sulien was backing away around the brazier. Karan tried to sit up again, tried to tell Sulien to run, but the paralysis spell was much tighter now and she could not even twitch a lip.
Still humming, the triplets spread out, Unbuly covering the mouth of the cave, Jaguly moving towards Sulien from the left and Empuly from the right. As she passed the bag of powdered iron Jaguly scooped out a handful and tossed it onto the fire, which roared even higher.
Suddenly Sulien stopped, thrust both arms out at Empuly, strained, then gasped, “Sever!”
The humming broke off and Empuly let out a thin scream. Jaguly stopped as if she had run into a wall; her face lost all expression and she looked around at her sisters as if she did not know who they were or why they were here. Unbuly, whose face seldom wore any expression, looked utterly lost; she gave a choked sob, ran to Jaguly and tried to embrace her. Jaguly shoved her away like an unwanted stranger.
But Empuly regained control and extended an arm towards each of her sisters, saying, “Bind! Bind for ever!”
Jaguly shivered and shuddered, wiped her bleeding nose on the back of her hand, then smiled cruelly. Unbuly, who was still clutching the thick-bladed knife, said, “Just right, just right, just right!” and lunged at Sulien.
Sulien struck at her, and in a lucky blow knocked the knife from her hand, sending it soaring high to land in the brazier. Again the triplets froze, staring at the fire. Molten metal had begun to drip from the brazier, splashing on the floor and setting t
o black iron there.
“Unlucky,” whispered Jaguly. “Very, very unlucky. We’ll have to bind her.”
“Sever!” cried Sulien. “Sever, sever, sever!”
But the spell, presumably one she had made up, did not work this time. Unbuly lunged at Sulien. She backpedalled, but Jaguly flung a long muscular arm around Sulien’s middle, crushing her to her own massive chest. Empuly then came at her with a thin diamond-patterned rope that appeared to be made from snakeskin, tied Sulien’s wrists together, then her ankles, and threw her down beside Karan.
Unbuly studied the knife with the tapered blade. Karan exerted every ounce of will in a desperate attempt to move, but could not. Her bare belly was bloated now from internal bleeding.
“Too wide!” cried Empuly.
Unbuly fetched the broken-tipped stiletto with which Jaguly had stabbed Karan.
“Too narrow and incomplete,” hissed Unbuly.
The triplets looked at the red-hot metal dribbling from the brazier, all that remained of the third knife.
“Can it be reforged?” said Empuly.
“No,” said Jaguly. “You’ll have to strangle her.” She was humming again, though this time she could not get the tune right.
“Not me.”
“Nor me,” said Jaguly.
“I’ll strangle her,” said Unbuly with another trilling giggle.
She reached for a red stone torus leaning against the rear wall of the cave. The blood torus must have been very heavy for she strained to lift it. She held it out to her sisters and they licked it one after another. They clicked their red teeth and licked their black lips with eroded tongues, then linked arms and cavorted around the brazier.
It’s carved from the mineral cinnabar, Karan realised. The ore of quicksilver. She had seen great outcrops and ridges of it on the little world of Cinnabar. And quicksilver was deadly—it could drive you slowly mad or kill you quickly, according to the form and the dose.
“Mummy?” whispered Sulien. “Are you all right?”
Karan could not turn her head or speak. She tried desperately to think of a way to save Sulien, but there was none. A mother’s greatest duty was to protect her child and she had failed, and that failure would allow Gergrig to destroy her world.
“Sorry, Mummy. I wish—”
Just then a great roar erupted from one of the battles down below. The triplets separated and ran to the mouth of the cave.
Jaguly held up an object that resembled a magnifying glass, though the glass within was not shaped like a lens, but rather a prism. She peered through it. “The enemy have had a small victory. Gergrig needs more power.”
“Gergrig’s not hurt, is he?” quavered Empuly. “He’s not going to—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jaguly said scornfully. “While we strengthen him he cannot be defeated, much less killed. But the enemy have proved surprisingly determined. Bring the blood torus.”
Unbuly passed it back and forth through the blistering flame, three times, until quicksilver droplets formed on it, then carried it outside. The others went with her and the triplets stood side by side, Empuly in the middle. Unbuly laid the blood torus on top of her head like a heavy red crown then touched the left side with the fingertips of one hand. Jaguly touched the right side of the blood torus and, with her free hand, held up the object that resembled a magnifying glass and moved it carefully, as if aiming one side of the glass prism. The triplets started chanting in a harsh language Karan did not know.
“Jung sither garg, jung sither garg, jung sither GARG!”
On the final word an intense blue-white ray shot from the metal-fuelled fire to the prism, then burst out the other side in a narrow ribbon containing all the colours of the rainbow and streaked down towards the battlefield.
“To Gergrig!” sighed Empuly.
Suddenly the darkness outside was lit by an ominous scarlet glow, all too familiar to Karan, because she had seen it on Cinnabar when the Crimson Gate had been opening. So that’s what the triplets were really up to. They were close to opening the gate, and that would spell the end.
They were humming now. For a few seconds the clamour of fighting, always in the background, ceased, and there was silence apart from the hissing roar of the brazier and Karan’s laboured breathing. She was not in pain though she felt very weak now. Even if the paralysis spell had been lifted she would have struggled to move.
Dying, she thought. Might only have minutes left. Was there anything she could do for Sulien, anything at all?
She did not think so. She could not link or send, so there was no way to call for help. The Merdrun had won.
62
A MUD-SHOVELLING HICK!
Wilm led the freed Gwinians up the track, trying to put on an air of confidence. But how could he feel confident when the odds were so against them?
The Merdrun, Llian had told him, numbered more than ten thousand, and Wilm led four thousand Gwinians, though only twenty were armed with proper weapons. The rest carried cudgels, sharpened sticks and rocks, though few had any fighting experience. They would be outnumbered and outmatched, and he had a sick feeling that he was leading these gentle people to their deaths.
He almost turned back more than once, but each time reminded himself that he had been in hopeless situations before and had prevailed through ingenuity and a determination never to give up. For the sake of the world and his friends and allies, he had to fight on. And for Aviel, who had never lost faith in him or stopped thinking about him.
He unstoppered the phial of scent potion she had sent him via Karan, and the familiar bouquet of the flowers and herbs of home stiffened his heart. He would fight to the bitter end and, if there was any justice at all in this world, he would prevail.
They reached the great wooden gates of the enemy camp, which Llian had left unbarred, to discover that someone had re-barred them. Wilm scanned the wall to either side but saw no guards, which was surprising.
How to get in? The gates were made of six-inch-thick timber slabs reinforced with another layer of slabs at right angles. Not even the black sword could cut through them in time.
“We’ll make a human ladder,” he said, instructing the Gwinians to form a pyramid by standing on each others’ backs.
When it was six feet high he climbed up, reached up for the top of the gate and felt along it carefully in case shards or spikes had been embedded there. He found none, heaved himself up, scanned the camp—darkness, smoke, fire and confusion—then dropped to the ground inside. After checking for guards—none—he called more Gwinians up and over. It took six of them to heave the bar up, then the gate swung open and they flowed in, looking at him expectantly.
Wilm had a sudden crisis of self-confidence. He had never led men before; what was he supposed to do now?
“Tell them to keep to the shadows,” he whispered to his captains, the Gwinians he had been able to arm, “while we climb the watchtower.”
They gave the orders and followed him up the back-and-forth wooden staircase to the top. The stairs were rudely built and creaked with every step. Thirty feet above the entrance they stood shoulder to shoulder and studied the camp. There was fighting in two places. High on the north-western side, several hundred Merdrun had pinned a larger number of allied fighters against the curtain wall and were slowly closing around them. On the eastern side, a little lower, as many as eight hundred invaders had been trapped on a small mound and were encircled by Merdrun. Wilm could not tell how many, though it could have been five hundred. Given that one Merdrun fighter was the equal of three or four ordinary soldiers, the odds were poor. In both places the invaders were likely to be wiped out within half an hour.
Unless he attacked, though what strategy could a lad of seventeen possibly come up with? Until three months ago he had done nothing but dig gardens and muck out stables.
“Go down,” he said to his captains. “I just … need to think things through.”
They obeyed at once as if he were a real leader
. How could they have such faith in him? He took another sniff of Aviel’s perfume, which strengthened him more than he would have expected, then drew the black sword. Llian had once told him that it was enchanted to protect its previous owner, Mendark, and Wilm imagined that he could sense that enchantment now. If only he could get it to help him, somehow …
But Mendark was ten years dead, his guts opened by a lorrsk when he had not been wearing the sword, and why would it want to protect Wilm?
Indeed. Why would we?
The thin, scratchy voice was in his head, and he answered without thinking. “Because I’m fighting for the same cause Mendark was for the last hundred years of his final life. I’m fighting for the world I love.”
Thousands of people fight for such things, but few ever make a difference.
“Who are you? What do you want anyway?”
A worthy partner.
“I’m not worthy,” said Wilm, since he’d been brought up honest and could not think of any lie that wouldn’t immediately reveal itself. “But I am determined.”
To do what?
“To fight. To do whatever it takes to beat the enemy. To win!”
You can’t win. Mendark said the Merdrun had never been beaten.
“Yet! We’ve got a chance, if you help me the way you helped him.”
I would have helped him, sniffed the sword, had he not lost faith in me and buried me in a rusty box in the desert.
Wilm sensed a chance. “Why did he lose faith?”
I … became distracted.
“Why?”
A private matter. No organism could ever understand.
“Please help me,” said Wilm. “I—”
Never beg! It’s demeaning.
“I’m determined to save our beautiful world, and surely you feel the same.”
I’m a persona enchanted into a length of hand-forged metal. Why would I care about this or any world?
Wilm was getting nowhere. How could he be talking to his sword anyway? Was he losing his mind? No, the blade was definitely enchanted … and it had already given him the key. It wanted a worthy partner.