by Ian Irvine
“What did you say?” cried Karan, tearing free and confronting the much taller woman so fiercely that Thandiwe took a step back.
“A message came by skeet from Maigraith this morning. She was leaving Zile and heading for Gothryme to fulfil the promise she made before she left Alcifer.”
It took a few seconds for Llian to work out what she was talking about, then Maigraith’s final words rang through his mind like a graveyard bell.
Your man has earned you and Sulien a reprieve. Use it well, for if he has deceived me you will pay a hundredfold.
“She’s coming for Sulien,” Thandiwe added in a low voice, her voice dripping malice.
“Why are you being like this?” said Llian, utterly bewildered.
“Because you chose me over her,” said Karan. “And when she tried to get you back, again and again you chose me.”
“You’ve been the one since the first time I set eyes on you. Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to Thandiwe. She’s as much a narcissist as Snoat ever was—surely you realise that? She wanted you because you were the only teller in the world with a Great Tale to your name, and she has to get what she wants—it’s the only way she can feel complete. She felt she was doing you a favour, anyway. She never understood what you saw in me, or why you’d hide away in rustic Chanthed, allowing your career to wither and die.”
“A career she’d deliberately blocked.”
“She expected you to leave me and go back to Chanthed and her. Had you done so, she would have had the ban overturned in weeks.”
“How can you possibly know that?” said Llian.
“I’m a sensitive; I read people the way you read books. For a narcissist like Thandiwe, any stain on her partner’s career would have been unbearable. She would have raised you up for her own glory.”
“Very clever,” sneered Thandiwe. “But I don’t want him now and I certainly don’t need him.”
“We feel the same way then,” Llian said wearily and turned towards Sulien, who was now standing by herself, looking anxious. She was a sensitive too, a far stronger one, and she knew something was wrong.
“It’ll take Maigraith a month to ride from Zile to Gothryme,” said Thandiwe, following him. “If she doesn’t hurry, and why would she? I imagine she wants to draw out the anticipation before she abducts Sulien and takes her to live with herself and Julken.”
“Mummy?” cried Sulien. “What’s she talking about?”
“Rulke failed, the Charon are gone and Julken is all that’s left of him,” said Karan, quoting Maigraith’s terrifying words at Black Lake after Karan had foolishly dosed her with hrux, and the drug, plus the nearby summon stone, had turned Maigraith’s silly idea into an obsession. Karan, please listen. All their greatness and all their promise can’t be lost. Julken and Sulien could found an entirely new line of people. Their children would be tetrarchs—four-bloods!”
“Enjoy your last month with your pathetic little family, Llian,” Thandiwe said spitefully and walked off.
Karan just stood there, her face chalk-white, her hand pressed to her belly. She tried to speak but could not get the words out.
Sulien let out a cry of fury and pointed at Thandiwe’s back as she went down the steps. Her gown split from front to back, fell down around her ankles, and she tripped and fell flat on her face. There came a metallic crack. A quarter of the audience laughed and, to Llian’s surprise given that they had just voted for her tale, more than a few masters laughed as well.
Thandiwe got up, her face scarlet, hauled her gown up and clutched it around her, then let out a cry of dismay and snatched at her seal of office. It was broken in half. The brass seal, freshly cast for the seventy-sixth master, must have had a flaw in it, for it had snapped when it hit the floor.
“Not the best of omens for the new master,” Llian said quietly. He gave Karan his arm. “Come on; we’ll go out the back way.”
“What are we going to do?” Karan whispered as they were walking back to their room through streets crowded with people all talking about the new Great Tale. “Llian, I can’t think. My mind’s spinning round and round. I’ve got nothing left.”
“I don’t know.” Llian was fretting about Sulien, who had not said a word and was trembling. “But we can’t talk about it here. We’ll say our farewells in the morning and ride home, and decide what to do on the way.”
77
ARE YOU GOING TO RETIRE?
“Ride home in your condition?” said Malien at a dawn breakfast. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m taking you in my sky ship.”
“I didn’t know you had one here,” said Karan.
“I was in a hurry to go home so I sent it ahead from Qwale. It arrived last night.” She leaned forward and looked into Karan’s eyes. “You don’t look well; the healers shouldn’t have let you leave so soon.”
“It’s not the knife wound; it’s healing well.”
“Then what is it?”
Karan told her about Maigraith’s threat, relayed by Thandiwe.
“And nothing can be done to dissuade Maigraith?” said Malien.
“She’s always been obsessive and manipulative, but after Carcharon she became utterly implacable. No force on Santhenar can turn her from her course now.”
“Not even Shand, her grandfather?”
“He has no influence over her any more.” She paused. “Malien, can Maigraith make gates?”
“Possibly … though Shand and I plan to make it far more difficult for anyone else to make a gate on Santhenar—an extra precaution against the Merdrun trying again.” Malien rose. “I’ll be ready to leave in half an hour. Better get ready.”
Karan had not expected the gathering to break up so quickly. As the sun was rising, she, Sulien and Llian collected their gear and carried it out to Malien’s sky ship, which stood in the oval courtyard where the gate had opened. Heavy frost covered the blue paving stones and a fountain on the far side of the courtyard had frozen. The black chest containing Rulke’s papers stood by the ladder, and Nadiril was there, talking to Lilis and Ifoli. The rest of their allies were gathered round, stamping their feet to ward off the cold and breathing out clouds of steam.
“We’ll say goodbye,” wheezed Nadiril, always a bit chesty on cold mornings. “We’re flying back to the Great Library soon.” He looked very gloomy.
“How are you going to repair all the damage?” said Karan.
“I don’t know. It may be beyond me.”
“We’ll find a way,” said Lilis stoutly.
Karan embraced them, then Ussarine and Hingis, who stood quietly together at the rear of the sky ship. “What are your plans?”
“We’re going riding,” said Hingis.
“Nowhere in particular,” said Ussarine, “but together.”
“I hope you have a wonderful time,” said Karan. “Thank you for everything.”
Behind them, the rotors started to turn.
“Time to go,” called Malien.
Shand, Aviel, Wilm and Yggur were coming with them, plus half a dozen of Malien’s people, who were already inside. Aviel, Wilm and Shand were going back to Casyme, while Yggur was heading on to Thurkad, a city he had ruled until a year ago. He had not said what he was going to do there and Karan did not ask. She had no energy for anything but the insoluble problem of Maigraith.
When she climbed in, Llian and Sulien were already in their places. She took a seat in front of them.
“We’re going home!” said Sulien. “I can’t wait to see Rachis again, and the swans, and my little garden.” She sniffled.
Karan’s eyes watered. She had longed for this day for many months, without daring to hope it would ever come. Now their whole future was clouded. How long did they have? A lot less than a month, she felt sure.
The hop over the mountains from Chanthed to Casyme was a hundred miles in a straight line, though with a blustery south-westerly wind behind them it would to be a quick trip. It proved a cold and bumpy one at the altitude they ha
d to fly to cross the peaks north of Shazmak, and by the time the sky ship corkscrewed down out of the overcast at Casyme it was snowing heavily and Karan was airsick and utterly miserable.
“We won’t stop,” Malien said firmly after a dangerous landing behind Aviel’s workshop at half past two in the afternoon. Shand’s big house was just a shadow in the distance. “I want Karan tucked up in her own bed before dark.”
The sky ship was being buffeted by the wind so they said hasty farewells.
“What are your plans now, Shand?” said Karan.
“He promised to teach me to use my gift,” said Sulien.
“Really?” Karan said coolly. “First I’ve heard of it.”
“I was waiting until you were better,” Sulien said deceitfully.
“Well, you’ve got to be taught, and Shand’s a great teacher so … I’ll think about it. And after that,” she said to Shand, “are you going to retire?”
“Certainly not! I’ve got unfinished business here, and then I’m heading back to the Great Library.”
“What for?”
His eyes glowed. “Ifoli and I are working on something … big.”
“Care to tell me?”
“No.” He turned away, but swung back and said quietly, “I did a lot of damage, both unwittingly and when I was in hiding. Aviel, Earnis … I’ve got to make up for it, insofar as I can.”
The sky ship heeled over in a gust of wind. “Hurry up!” said Malien.
But Karan also needed to make amends. “Shand, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “About Maigraith … and about what I said to you at Alcifer.”
“Ah well,” said Shand, “neither of us were quite ourselves. We got through it; that’s the main thing.”
“But will we get through the next month?”
His mouth set in a grim line and he turned away. Karan’s heart sank; Maigraith, his granddaughter, must always come first. In a daze she shook hands with Wilm, marvelling at how changed he was. A few months ago he had left Casyme a clumsy, painfully shy boy; now he was returning a man, a hero and a leader.
“Thank you for everything you did for Llian,” said Karan.
“No more than he did for me.” They shook hands.
Karan embraced Aviel. “You must be glad to be home. What’s the first thing you’re going to do?”
“Light the braziers in my workshop and get to work.”
“In this weather?” Karan could not think of anything worse. “It’ll be like an ice box.”
“I’ve missed it so. Making perfumes and scent potions is everything to me.”
“Everything?” said Karan, watching Wilm climb down the ladder into the snowy gloom.
“Almost everything,” said Aviel, flushing. “He’s my dearest friend, but my place is here … and Wilm’s isn’t.”
The flight along the eastern flank of the range was only twenty-five miles but took a frightening hour and a half. The wind had turned around to the south-east, the snow had become rain, and it grew heavier the further they went north.
When they finally landed in comparative shelter between the two wings of Gothryme Manor it was after four and the short winter’s day was almost done. The rain was lashing down, the gutters were overflowing and the paved courtyard was awash.
“There’s not a light on anywhere,” said Karan, studying the windows of her beloved, dilapidated manor. “Something’s wrong. Llian.” She grabbed his arm. “Do you think Snoat’s army …”
“There’s no sign of damage,” said Llian.
“I’ve never seen rain like this in my life,” said Sulien, her eyes alight. “Daddy, did you see the swan pond? It’s overflowing!”
The sky ship was blown sideways by a gust of wind. “Get it tied down and get inside,” yelled Malien over the thunder of rain on the cabin roof.
Yggur and the Aachim jumped out and tied the sky ship down. Karan was saturated before she got to the bottom of the ladder. She lurched to the door of the old keep and heaved it open. It was dark inside.
“It’s freezing! Doesn’t feel as though the fires have been lit in weeks.”
“We’ll get everything sorted,” said Malien, holding up a lightglass. “Go to bed.”
“I’m not going to bloody bed,” Karan snapped. “Sulien, help me look for Rachis.” She stopped, overcome by an unhappy thought. “No, help Llian.”
“Daddy doesn’t need help,” said Sulien, “and if something’s happened to Rachis I want to know.”
“I don’t think—”
“I saw awful things when the Whelm hunted me, and on Gwine. If dear old Rachis is dead …”
Her eyes filled with tears. She took Karan’s hand and they searched the keep but found no sign that anyone had been inside it in weeks. “There’s dust on the table,” said Karan. “He must be … gone.”
“Rachis hardly ever comes in here when you’re away,” said Sulien. “He keeps to his room and his office.”
He wasn’t in his room either, which was tidy and spare, as always. What if he’d fallen down outside and broken a leg? He was a frail old man; the cold would carry him off quickly.
“Mummy!” yelled Sulien. “He’s in here.”
Karan stumbled into the estate office with its two desks, a wall of pigeonholes containing rolled documents, all neatly labelled, and shelves of massive ledgers detailing every aspect of life and work on the estate for more than a hundred and fifty years.
Rachis was slumped in his old straight-backed chair with a blanket wrapped around him, so still that Karan was sure he was dead. Then his eyes moved and he managed the faintest of smiles. “Welcome home,” he said, his voice wispy as a breeze blowing through spider webs. “Hope I … didn’t give you a fright.”
Sulien threw her arms around him. “Of course not. I knew you would be here.” She gestured to the window. “Just look at the rain! You said it would rain, and it has.”
“The best we’ve had since the great floods of forty-three years ago. The flowers we planted on poor Piffle’s grave are two feet high.” Rachis looked up at Karan. “I’ve heard news of your doings, and Llian’s. And yours too,” he said to Sulien. “Would you run and get me a drink? I’m a trifle dry—haven’t moved for a day and a half.”
Sulien ran out.
“Why not?” said Karan.
“Can’t get out of my chair.”
Her eyes watered. He was dying.
“My time was up long ago,” said Rachis. “I only hung around in the hope that you three would come home safe and sound.”
“And now we have, and you’re coming in to sit by the fire.”
Sulien came back with a cup of water, then they helped Rachis to the armchair closest to the great granite fireplace, where a fire now blazed, and arranged cushions around him.
“You must be starving,” said Karan. “I’ll make you some supper.”
“Just a bit of bread and cheese,” said Rachis. “And, Sulien …”
“Yes?” she said.
He reached out a withered claw and she took it. “Save the sadness until I’m gone. A happy, laughing home is the best send-off you can give me.”
In the kitchen Sulien said, “He’s dying.” Tears shone in her eyes.
“Yes, and we won’t say anything about Maigraith.”
The Aachim, who generally preferred their own company, had taken over the empty North Wing, though Malien came across after dinner. Karan, Llian, Sulien, Rachis and Yggur sat by the fire, not talking much. There was no wine left in the cellar worth drinking, but Malien produced a squat black bottle. It was a beautiful object in itself, the glass intricately etched down to a white under-layer depicting a clump of the luminous bog blossoms of upland Aachan. It was sealed with green wax.
She broke away the wax and poured small measures of the scintillating blue liquid for the adults. “This is Thousand-Year Lisk, distilled aeons ago by the elders of Clan Elienor from the nectar of these night blossoms. Have any of you tried it?”
No one had even hea
rd of it.
“I didn’t think so,” she went on. “This bottle is far older than a thousand years now; it was brought here by my ancestors when they came. It’s probably the only bottle on Santhenar and it’s said to be … memorable.” She paused. “It’s fitting that we toast our impossible victory with it, and give thanks to the three people who, almost single-handedly, made it possible.”
Llian, who had been staring into the fire for ages, his arm around Sulien, who was almost asleep in his lap, said, “Many people made it possible, and most didn’t live to see the victory.”
“If victory it is,” rumbled Yggur, “given that the Merdrun are more numerous than ever on Cinnabar and the summon stone still exists.”
“That’s a deadly secret,” said Malien with a glance at Rachis.
His chuckle was like knuckle bones rattling in a cup. “One I’ll be taking to my grave any day now.”
Sulien sat up and glared at Yggur. “We’re supposed to be having a nice evening where we don’t talk about all the bad stuff.”
Yggur bent his long head to hers. “I’m suitably chastened.” He raised his goblet. “To a thousand heroes, both recognised and unknown, and a victory no one ever thought possible.”
“And long years of peace and good harvests to follow,” said Rachis, taking a tiny sip of Thousand-Year Lisk. His eyes watered, and Karan fancied she saw a trickle of steam come from his beak of a nose.
“To heroes recognised and unknown,” she said, raising her own goblet. “And the breaking of the longest drought in four decades.”
Llian echoed her but made no toast of his own, which was almost unprecedented. He had barely said a word since Thandiwe dropped her malicious bombshells. Knowing him, she was sure he was blaming himself, though Llian was no more to blame than anyone else.
The Thousand-Year Lisk was silky smooth, aromatic, slightly bitter, and had a blistering spicy heat that burned all the way down to the pit of Karan’s stomach. “Aah!” she gasped, tossing half a mug of water down her throat. “It’s certainly memorable. I’ll be remembering it internally for a fortnight.”
“An acquired taste, they say,” said Malien, sipping her own.