by Ian Irvine
“Then where have they gone?”
An awful thought struck him. “That glow up on the hill—did the triplets open the Crimson Gate somewhere else, to attack Thurkad or some other place?”
No one answered. Suddenly Wilm felt cold and afraid. Had it all been for nothing?
Tallia came running. “What’s going on?” said Wilm. “I don’t understand what just happened.”
“Llian and Sulien severed the link between the triplets, destroying them as magiz,” said Tallia. “And they died when I pulled the roof down. It’s over.”
“How can it be over? They had more than ten thousand troops, ten thousand of the best fighters in the void. Where are the rest?”
“They never got here.”
“But they had all those reserves.”
“Xarah has finally tracked the full path of the Crimson Gate,” said Tallia. “Only a thousand Merdrun came through before it closed. We have you and Aviel to thank for that.”
“Only a thousand,” Wilm said dazedly. “But—”
“The reserves on the hill were just illusions created by the triplets’ mancery, using the immense power they could draw from the summon stone. That’s why they never moved. They were good enough to fool us from a distance, but not up close.”
“And when the triplets died, they vanished. So it really is over.”
“It’ll only be over when the summon stone has been destroyed.”
“But we’ve won.” Wilm could not take it in.
“At a terrible cost,” Tallia said quietly.
“How bad?”
“Of our twenty-three hundred troops, two thousand are dead, including almost all our officers.”
“And more than two thousand of my Gwinians.”
“Four of our troops died for every Merdrun, and even then we had it easier than we should have,” said Tallia
“What are you talking about?”
“Karan said that on Cinnabar they were almost superhuman. They could fight for hours without tiring and they didn’t so much run as bound. But they weren’t bounding here. They tired just as quickly as our best.”
“I did wonder about that,” said Wilm. “But why?”
“Cinnabar is a small world, and the Merdrun’s muscles gave them extra strength there. But Santhenar is a much bigger world and they weren’t here long enough to adapt to it. Everything felt heavier and every movement was harder.”
“Are you saying that if the Merdrun had adapted, we wouldn’t have won?”
“It might have taken ten thousand of us to beat their one thousand.”
“Then we’d better pray they never find a way to reopen the Crimson Gate.”
69
THEY’RE RAISING A NEW MAGIZ
An hour before dawn Karan was still barely alive, and Sulien could not stand it any longer. She kissed her on the forehead and walked away across the camp, sick with guilt. Was it her fault Karan was dying? It must be. According to Tallia, Karan had panicked on hearing that Sulien had come through the gate, and the triplets had then drawn her into their trap.
Sulien was trudging across the muddy ground near the stream, keeping well away from the battlefields to east and west, when her gift picked up a familiar, anguished mental outburst.
“Uigg?” she said softly.
He groaned, not far away. She squelched through the mud and found him huddled behind a clump of reeds. She hesitated for a moment—he was Merdrun after all—but he was also a confused and terrified boy not much older than herself.
She knelt beside him. His chest was wet with blood. “Uigg, what happened?”
His voice was feeble, thread-like. “I betrayed my people.”
“By not telling your father about me?”
“I did a terrible wrong. I had to confess it and take my punishment.”
“What … happened?”
“Father had no choice. He had to kill me; that’s our way.”
“It’s a terrible way!” she cried.
“I know that now,” he said, voice gurgling in his throat. “You taught me the meaning of kindness.”
“There’s a great healer close by. I’ll bring him.”
“Too late. Soon be gone.” His mud-covered hand gripped hers. “My people are bad people. It isn’t right that they want to steal Santhenar from you.”
“But what can we do?” said Sulien.
“We … have one … weakness. And … and … I’m your best clue to it.”
Uigg’s hand fell away, his throat gave a final gurgle, and he was dead. Sulien remained beside him, kneeling in the mud. Had he been killed because she had been kind to him? She had certainly brought conflicts to the surface that he had been struggling with for some time. If she had never contacted him, would he still be alive?
The question was unanswerable. She closed Uigg’s eyes and with a heavy heart stumbled back to the barely living.
“Is she any better?” said Llian in a leaden voice.
Dawn had broken. He was sitting on the paved parade ground, well away from the grim evidence of the first battle, still holding Karan in his arms. She had not moved since he’d picked her up, and he felt sure she was slipping away. Sulien had come back and, judging by the desperate look on her face, she thought so too.
Zanser sat beside Llian, his bloody sewn-together thigh stretched out, periodically checking Karan’s vital signs. Her pale skin was cool and waxen, her pulse weak, her belly still swollen and her breathing slow and shallow.
“The same,” said Zanser, who was clearly in great pain.
The Merdrun were dead and Sulien was safe at last—one small joy in a sea of torment. Tallia had signalled to the sky ships, then had gone to round up their surviving troops. Various people Llian knew straggled in, including Ussarine and Hingis. Neither spoke, though they stood very close. Llian did not have the strength to wonder what had happened between them.
Wilm appeared, his ragged clothes dripping and his skin so vigorously scrubbed that it was glowing. He must have bathed in the dam further down the hill.
He crouched beside Llian, wincing. “How is she?”
“Not good.” Llian could not focus on anything save the cool weight in his arms and the piercing throbbing in the nose he had broken soon after arriving on Gwine.
Wilm rose slowly, letting out an involuntary groan and clutching at his side.
“Let me see that,” said Zanser.
“You’ve got Karan to look after. It can wait.”
“Show me!”
Wilm drew up his shirt, revealing a two-inch wound and a broken rib. Zanser put his palm over it and held it there for a minute.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “No serious damage, but another couple of inches …”
A sky ship settled a quarter of a mile away, and shortly Yggur’s tall figure appeared. He stopped by Ussarine and Hingis for some time. Llian assumed they were giving him the news. Yggur’s eyes flicked towards Llian and Sulien, then settled on Karan.
He strode across, crouched down wearily and laid two long fingers across her brow. Yggur frowned and turned to Zanser. “And you are?” he said.
“Zanser, master healer from Roros.”
“Then you’re more use than I am.” Yggur got up. “Where’s Tallia?”
Wilm pointed west. “She went to search Gergrig’s tent.”
In the distance squads were burying the bodies. They would want to get as many underground as possible before the sun, the flies and the heat of the day made the job intolerable. Llian looked down at Karan and a choking sob burst out of him, then suddenly he was bawling and Sulien was too, hugging them both and clinging as if she never wanted to let go.
Suddenly she pulled away. “The gate’s coming.”
Half a mile to the south yellow lightning fizzed and crackled, then formed a neat egg-shaped oval, much smaller than before. When Malien emerged Tallia and Yggur brought her across, along with Xarah and three other Aachim Llian had not seen before.
Malien also c
hecked Karan, then said, “I’ll send—”
Sulien was staring up into the sky, her green eyes wide. She rotated three times, then stopped, staring in the same direction.
“They’re raising a new magiz,” she said in a low, moaning voice.
Llian held Karan more tightly and rocked back and forth. Sulien’s words held no meaning for him; nothing did.
Malien put an arm around Sulien. “All the Merdrun are dead. You don’t have to worry about them any more.”
Sulien pulled away. “It’s the ones on Cinnabar. Their new magiz is an old man. A very bad man, and he’s right next to the Crimson Gate. He’s reaching out to it, and there’s lightning spiking up from the top.”
“How do you know?”
Sulien hesitated. “When I banged the triplets’ heads together I got something from them.”
“What?” Malien said sharply.
“I don’t know.”
“What else can you see?” rapped Yggur.
“A gigantic army on the ice, all around the gate. It’s much bigger than the army they had there before.” Her lips moved; she appeared to be counting. “It covers the whole top of the mountain.”
The voices briefly broke through Llian’s agony. What were they talking about?
“The army they had there before was at least ten thousand,” Malien said to Tallia and Yggur. “And if this one is much bigger—”
“It’s ten times bigger,” said Sulien. “The soldiers have blocks of stone on their backs and iron weights on their legs, and they’re running round and round.”
“Before Gergrig died, he told them what had happened here,” said Tallia. “They’re training to be fit to attack again. Malien, we’ve got to attack the summon stone right away. Send someone back to Zile. We’ve got to have the nivol, if Aviel has finished making it.”
“And if she hasn’t?”
“All is lost.”
Llian struggled to his feet with Karan in his arms. This could not be happening; how could victory, agonising though it had been, turn in an instant to defeat?
Malien called two Aachim across. “Return through the gate to Zile. Collect Aviel and all the gear she needs, and Nadiril. Load our last three sky ships and all the supplies we’ll need for an attack on the stone, then fly to …”
“Healer’s Isle,” said Yggur. “The Isle of Qwale. It’s got the best healers this side of Crandor, and it’s only a five-hour flight west to Demondifang. We’ll take Karan and as many other injured as we can carry there.”
“Whereabouts on Qwale? It’s a big island.”
He crouched down and with the point of his knife scratched a triangular outline on the paving stones, then marked a point on the south-western side. “Nukkilick. The central square of the healery.”
“Have you been there?” said Malien.
“Many times,” said Yggur, “during my … troubles.”
“You can direct the gate.” Malien turned to her two Aachim. “Bring the sky ships to Nukkilick on Qwale. Run!”
They ran for the gate.
Malien, Tallia and Yggur squatted down and conferred for ten or fifteen minutes. Yggur sketched a number of maps or diagrams on the ground with the point of his knife, and they studied them, talking in low voices. Llian paid no attention. He did not care.
Then, with considerable effort, Malien and Yggur diverted the gate to Nukkilick.
“It’s ready,” she called.
Tallia lifted Zanser to his feet, and they gazed into each other’s eyes, then she helped him across to the gate. Llian took a firm grip on Karan and, with Sulien beside him, walked into the gate. He did not look back; he never wanted to see Gwine again.
The passage was an unusually smooth one; Llian supposed that was Malien’s doing. A minute later, with a reverberating crack-crack, they exited into a small square paved with black hexagonal slabs and surrounded on four sides by low buildings built from the local stone, a magnificent patterned marble with swirls of red, yellow and blue. Dawn was just breaking this far south and it was very cold; the humid air gushing through the gate condensed to fog.
Two stocky female healers who looked like sisters bustled out with a canvas stretcher. They took Karan from Llian’s arms and laid her down on the canvas.
“I’ve been attending her,” said Zanser, still leaning on Tallia and clearly in a lot of pain. “Stabbed in the belly three hours ago. Lost a lot of blood, internally. I’m a master healer—Crandor.”
One of the healers frowned. Her sister said something in a low voice, though all Llian heard was, “That’s the Magister.”
The first healer looked Zanser up and down, focused on his bare, bloody thigh and the many stitches down it, then nodded. “Come with us.”
They carried Karan under a marble portico and in through double doors. Llian made to follow, but the first healer said, “You’ll be sent for when we have something to tell you.”
Sulien squeezed Llian’s hand. “Mummy will be all right now.” She followed the healers, trying to look inconspicuous. Another healer came out, gave Zanser his shoulder, and they also went in.
Cold fear washed over Llian. They’d got here too late; Karan’s wound had been bleeding for so long not even the best healers in the world could save her. He would never see her again.
“Come with me,” said Tallia. “We need to go through the plan in detail.”
“What plan?” he said dully.
“The one Yggur, Malien and I worked out half an hour ago—right next to you.”
“Wasn’t listening,” said Llian. “Don’t care.”
“I need you for the attack on the summon stone.”
“Not as much as Karan and Sulien do. Haven’t we done enough?”
“If we stop before the job’s done we’ll soon be fighting the Merdrun again, and they’ll be a hell of a lot stronger next time.”
“I’m not up to it.”
“Llian,” she said coldly, “You’ve just seen what a thousand unfit Merdrun could do. What will a hundred thousand of them be like after they’ve trained for Santhenar? An army of half a million would not be able to stop them.”
Sulien peeped out the front doors of the healery at Llian, then disappeared inside. He could not speak. If he went on this mad mission, would he ever see either of them again?
70
THE GREATEST TREACHERY OF ALL
After a tormented night in the visitors’ dormitory beside the healery, his dreams haunted by blood, violence and utter despair, Llian was shaken awake by Tallia.
“Get up. We’ve got him, and you’re wanted at the trial.”
“Got who? What trial?”
“Shand.”
“He’s here?”
“We set a trap and he walked off the sky ship, still invisible, right into it.”
Llian followed her across the courtyard to another imposing building and into a large square room lined with slabs of superlative red- and blue-veined marble. It would have graced the reception rooms of a palace anywhere else, but on Qwale it was just the local stone used everywhere.
A square table made from a pale yellow hardwood had a dozen chairs around it though only half were occupied. Tallia, Malien, Yggur and Nadiril sat along one side. Nadiril gestured Llian to the seat beside him. Shand and Ifoli stood by the other side of the table, wearing hand manacles. What had Ifoli done?
“We’ll try Shand first,” said Tallia. “Briefly. There’s no time to waste.”
Shand put his square hands on the table. A dark silvery chain ran in a spiral around his wrist manacles. Some kind of mancery blocker, Llian assumed. He looked haggard and much thinner than when Llian had last seen him at Alcifer five weeks ago.
“Shand, you are charged with treachery, punishable by death,” said Tallia. “You betrayed our secrets to the Merdrun, and—”
“I betrayed no secrets to the Merdrun,” snapped Shand, “or to anyone else.”
“You revealed our secrets to the magiz on Cinnabar, allowing her to whisper
them to Snoat, who blocked us at every turn.”
“I revealed nothing. She put some kind of link in me when I was searching for Maigraith two months ago. I never knew anything about it, so how can I be accused—”
“Ignorance is no excuse. Karan told you the magiz was boasting about her pet spy, but did you examine yourself to see if that spy could be you? You did not! You blamed Karan and Yggur to divert attention from yourself.”
“At my first examination,” said Malien, “you refused to consider that Karan’s accusation could be true, then used an illegal invisibility spell to escape justice. But did you use your freedom to help us in our great need?”
“I did, actually,” Shand said coldly.
“Liar!” said Nadiril. “You coerced and threatened Aviel, a child. With utter recklessness and callous disregard for her life you used her equipment to prepare the Afflatus Effluvium, a forbidden, flawed and highly dangerous scent potion that killed your own master, Radizer, and could have killed her. You used her very badly, Shand; you gave her an alchemical formula that’s also forbidden and even more dangerous, not to help her—”
“The method I gave Aviel was the only one that could create nivol in time.”
“But you gave it to her because it was the only way you could get Archeus for your own potion. You risked everyone’s lives to get it, Shand, utterly indifferent to their fate.”
The defiance faded from Shand face. “Not indifferent,” he said softly. “But you’re right: I was unforgivably reckless.”
His old face cracked, and for an awful moment Llian thought Shand was going to cry.
“I’d planned it so there would be no danger to anyone but myself,” he went on. “I planned to capture Lumillal before anyone could come to harm, but I failed; I didn’t know he’d consumed the spirit of a considerable sorcerer—his own wife!—and gained her gift for the black art. Because of my folly Aviel was almost consumed by a ghost vampire, and Earnis was, and it will haunt me all my remaining days.”
“Which will be numbered on the fingers of a leper’s hand unless you can satisfy us about the greatest treachery of all,” said Tallia. “Even knowing that Aviel had to make as much nivol as possible, you stole the one essential ingredient—the Archeus.”