by Ian Irvine
Lifka inspected Tali’s plate, drool beading on her lower lip, but did not answer.
Tali fished a prawn scale off the top of her soup and sipped the gloriously fatty broth. Through the kitchen doorway she could see slaves cleaning the oval heatstone ovens and benches, and other slaves on their knees, scrubbing the floor. No dirt or grime was permitted in Cython.
The top of her skull throbbed and she looked away; the uncanny shimmer of heatstone always unnerved her. Tali plucked a couple of charred pinfeathers from the poulter leg and put them on the edge of her platter, already tasting the gamy orange flesh from childhood memory. She sniffed the hulee, which she had never had before, then gagged and shoved it aside.
‘Yuk. It smells like the seepage from the compost pits.’
‘I’ll have it,’ Lifka said eagerly.
Tali pushed it across the table top and Lifka drained it in a gulp, as if afraid another slave would take it off her. She shuddered, licked the clinging foam from the vase with a pointed tongue, then bit the curly end off a baked piece of horse-parsnip.
The hissing died away, the pressure eased and Tali realised she was ravenous. The gobbled length of baked yam was a nutty explosion in the mouth, the spicy dregs of the prawn-head soup made her tongue tingle. She nipped a corner off the glass-eel cake, which had a pleasant tang but was otherwise flavourless.
Tali gave Lifka a tentative smile.
The vacant eyes inspected her. ‘Ya look like me. Though yer not as pretty.’
Tali had never met anyone like Lifka, who uttered whatever thoughts came into her empty head. She studied her, side-on.
With her shaggy gold-blonde hair, high brow and neat, oval face, Lifka looked remarkably like Tali. She was prettier, Tali conceded, apart from the drooping lower lip which accentuated the vacant look in her eyes. Lifka wasn’t as curvy, but appeared stronger. Her thighs were more muscular, there were callused indentations on her shoulders and her face and hands were lightly tanned, which was odd, since no sunlight ever penetrated into Cython …
Tali was wondering about that, trying to understand it, when the ghost of a plan whispered into her mind. Could it be possible?
‘Aren’t ya scared?’ said Lifka, chewing with her mouth open.
‘Of them?’ Tali put on her most disdainful voice.
‘No, of him.’
Her stomach turned a back flip. The biggest Cythonian she had ever seen stood in the eel-mouth entrance, staring at her. His biceps were the size of her thighs, yet he had a tiny head no larger than a two-year-old’s. A peculiar, purplish head, bulging in all the wrong places.
Tali had blocked out most of what had happened in the cellar that day ten years before, but she could never forget Tinyhead. Could this Cythonian be the same man? The man who had promised to show Iusia the way out, then betrayed her?
She did not think so. His head had neither been misshapen nor purple.
Then he flopped out a disgusting white-coated tongue flecked with black spots like crawling blowflies.
Yes, it was.
CHAPTER 10
‘Free, free, and not a care in the world,’ Rix exclaimed as the sun rose.
Tobry raised an ironic eyebrow. His horse, a neat chestnut with a white blaze on its forehead and a muzzle that always seemed to be smiling, rotated its hairy ears as if it could not believe what it was hearing.
‘All right, one or two cares.’ Rix drew the frigid air into his lungs and sighed. ‘But I can breathe up here; I’m not choked, stifled, cramped.’ He wouldn’t suffer the nightmares here, either. He never had them anywhere but at the palace.
‘Cramped? Your chambers are the size of a small mansion. No, make that a large mansion.’
‘I was born to live under the stars,’ Rix said lyrically, sweeping his arms towards the heavens, ‘to tickle fish in icy streams with my bare hands, to — ’
‘To paint in your studio while a hundred servants wait on your smallest whim.’
Rix scowled. ‘After the stinking portrait is completed I may never paint again.’
Tobry and his horse both snorted. ‘It’s the one thing in your life that has nothing to do with house and heritage. You can’t give it up.’
‘Watch me!’
‘If you had to choose whether to give up painting or your inheritance, I believe you’d renounce your inheritance.’
‘Have you been at the flask while I wasn’t looking?’
After an exhilarating race along the moonlit highway in the night, they were now mile-high in the Crowbung Range, which squeezed around Lake Fumerous and the city of Caulderon like the coils of a constrictor. Spear-point peaks pricked the belly of the sky behind them. Ahead, a monstrous bluff of tortured rock blocked a third of the horizon. It was snowing gently and bracingly cold.
Away to the right, the Red Vomit rumbled, shaking snow from tree branches and blasting steam and ash higher than any storm cloud could reach.
‘Cursed Vomits,’ said Rix.
A change in the wind had drifted volcanic ash over House Ricinus’s south-western estates for the past month, ruining the autumn crops, collapsing roofs and costing the family’s treasury a fortune it no longer had.
‘Cythonian legend says Lake Fumerous filled the hole where a fourth Vomit blew itself to bits in ancient times,’ said Tobry.
‘If this one goes up, Caulderon will cease to be,’ said Rix, his good mood fading, ‘and probably half of Hightspall.’
‘Look on the bright side. Cython won’t want to fight us for it any more.’
‘I see menace and doom everywhere, and all you can do is make jokes?’
‘If you really want to see my dark side, I’ll indulge you this once.’
While Tobry sometimes hinted about his family’s troubles, he had never spoken about them openly. Maybe he needed to. ‘I’m listening,’ said Rix.
‘Did I ever tell you what really brought down the House of Lagger, or the terrible part I played in it — when I was a boy of thirteen?’ Red flecks danced in Tobry’s eyes.
Rix could not bear to look into them. ‘Perhaps some other time,’ he said hastily, and twitched the reins. ‘C’m on, Leather.’
The great horse, black as the inside of a chimney and ferociously loyal, trotted to a rock platform that looked over the mountain chain encircling the fertile lands of central Hightspall, and towards the broad South Plains and the sea beyond.
He wished he had kept straight on. The strait between Hightspall and the long southern island of Suden was choked by icebergs, and that had never happened before.
Tobry came up beside him. ‘Until two hundred years ago, House Lagger’s richest estates were in Suden.’
‘And now?’ said Rix.
‘Buried under half a mile of ice. Everyone and everything lost.’
The wire-handled sword rattled in its scabbard. As Rix steadied it, an image flashed into his mind — a statue of a screaming man, rudely carved from a single piece of black opal, his arms and legs spread as though he was falling. Rix jerked his hand away and the image disappeared. He touched the hilt with a fingertip, but this time saw nothing.
He swallowed, looked where Tobry was pointing and goose pimples ran up his arms. ‘No wonder I dream about ice leviathans.’
The coastline of Suden was ice-locked as far as he could see, and to either side the cliffs of oceanic ice crept ever north, closing in on Hightspall from the south, west and east. The northern sea passages remained open, but for how long? Only the most reckless sea captains dared venture into the mazy pack ice these days, and few returned.
‘What’s to become of us, Tobe? Is Hightspall to die under endless ice?’
Tobry shrugged. ‘Or a fiery eruption.’
‘The chancellor has doubled the prize,’ said Rix. ‘To fifty thousand.’
‘What prize?’ Tobry was studying the strait with Rix’s telescope.
‘For anyone who can turn the ice sheets back. Mother says the chief magian has thirty assistants working on ice-wasting s
pells.’
Tobry swung the telescope towards the descending moon. ‘Gramarye can no more turn back the ice than stop the moon in its orbit.’ The dire thought seemed to cheer him up.
Rix took a swig of water but his throat felt just as arid afterwards. ‘Is this the end of the world, then?’
‘The world endures. But Hightspall may not.’
‘You’re not helping my mood,’ Rix muttered. ‘Let’s go hunting.’
After a few hundred yards, the path angled to the right around a finger-like rock. Slantwise to the left, in front of the monstrous bluff, lay the slot-like entrance of a narrow valley, still dark inside, whose bare walls rose steeply to east and west.
Further right, a red, triangular peak rose out of a stubble of pines like a pointed head. A round opening near its base resembled a yawning mouth. ‘Is that …?’
‘Catacombs of the Kings,’ said Tobry. ‘A sacred place in old Cythe. We’re not going there.’
‘Afraid of ghosts?’ Rix teased.
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘We should have torn the Catacombs down, like their other foul places.’
‘Take a closer look.’
Scanning along the base of the peak with his telescope, Rix made out a line of stone figures carved into the red stone on either side of the entrance. The effigies to the far left and right were no more than thirty feet tall, but they grew progressively taller until the pair framing the entrance — the first kings of Cythe — towered at least five hundred feet high.
‘Every king and ruling queen of Cythe for ten thousand years is represented there,’ said Tobry. ‘Save the last.’
‘Weird heads!’
Tobry gave Rix a sardonic glance.
He refocused on the statue to the left of the entrance. The red stone was crumbling, and ferns and small bushes had taken root in crevices here and there, but — ‘The head’s upside-down.’
‘After we won the war, Chancellor Nidry ordered the head of every king taken off and replaced upside-down.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a worse insult than pissing on their graves. Do you wonder that the Cythonians hate us so much?’
‘They started the war!’
‘Did they?’
Rix mentally inverted the head — an artist’s trick — and fitted it to the body. And stared. ‘But … it’s magnificent.’ He did the same for the others. ‘They’re masterpieces. The finest sculptures I’ve ever seen.’
‘Haven’t you seen their art before?’ said Tobry.
‘Didn’t know there was any left.’
‘There are a few pieces in private collections. It’s all like this.’
‘I was taught it was sentimental rubbish.’
‘I gather their art meant as much to them as yours does to you.’
Rix soaked up the figures, marvelling at the artistry of those aeons-dead sculptors. ‘But …’
‘Yes?’ said Tobry.
‘If what we were taught about their art is wrong … or a lie …?’
Tobry did not respond. Rix pulled his cloak around him, already regretting the mad impulse that had brought him here. Only ten days remained until the Honouring. If the portrait was not perfect by then it would be a public insult to his father and Lady Ricinus would be choleric. Rix would sooner have had his skin flayed off than suffer another minute of her scarifying tongue.
Lately she had been more unbearable than usual, but he was not game to ask what the matter was. You’re not of age, she would say coldly. How dare you question me?
Sometimes it seemed as though his mother was afraid, though that was preposterous. He had never known Lady Ricinus to be scared of anyone.
‘Nice day,’ Tobry said laconically.
‘What are you so happy about?’ Rix snapped.
‘I’m free, healthy and there’s that beautiful bottle in the saddlebags. What more could any man want?’
‘The moment I get something I want, all the pleasure dies inside me. What’s wrong with me, Tobe?’
Tobry opened his mouth, again closed it without speaking. He studied the rearing peaks to the right, the steep slope on their left. ‘Which way?’
The finger rock appeared to be beckoning. Rix drew his sword and his malaise vanished — he felt as though he owned the world. ‘Heroes must fight!’
Tobry stopped dead. ‘What?’
‘The rest of the inscription just came to me.’
‘That would only run halfway down the blade,’ said Tobry in a curiously flat voice. ‘Hold it out.’
Rix did so. Tobry ran his fingers along the inscription, subvocalising a revelation charm. Black letters appeared on the blade, then faded. He looked up sharply. ‘Heroes must fight to preserve the race.’
Rix shrugged. ‘So what?’
‘It’s a notorious quote from the Herovians’ Immortal Text.’
‘They’re just words, Tobe.’
‘Words that toppled a nation.’ Tobry reached out. ‘I need a closer look.’
Rix jerked the weapon away, irritated without knowing why. ‘When we get home you can look all you want.’
He rode to the rock, balanced the sword there and spun it. It stopped with its tip pointing to the entrance of the valley.
‘Not that way,’ said Tobry.
‘Why not?’
‘Trust me, you don’t want to go up to Precipitous Crag.’
‘Why not?’ Rix repeated tersely. Suddenly it was exactly where he wanted to go.
‘The woods are too thick. If we flush out something big and it gets between us and the entrance … Spin it again.’
On the second spin, the sword pointed the same way.
‘I’ve heard there’s good hunting up at the Crag,’ said Rix.
Tobry twitched the reins; his horse danced backwards on the narrow path. ‘For us, or for them?’
‘I need this, Tobe.’
‘Why, exactly?’
Rix swallowed. ‘Yesterday’s nightmare wasn’t like the others. It — it’s as though something is taking control of me, and when I’m at the palace I can’t fight it. I’ve got to fight, Tobe, or I’m dead.’
‘All right. Give it another twirl.’
This time the blade kept spinning, and spinning, for at least two minutes. Rix gave Tobry a suspicious glance. ‘Are you using magery?’
‘Who, me?’ Tobry said in injured tones.
‘Well, stop.’
The blade stopped, pointing towards the slot-like entrance.
‘You’re right about that sword,’ said Tobry. ‘I don’t like it either.’
CHAPTER 11
As Rix took his sword back, the shadows dwindled and the nightmare faded. ‘Oddly, I feel better when it’s in my hand.’
He swept it through the air. He was not a reckless man — unlike Tobry when one of those dark moods overcame him — but now Rix longed for the cleansing of violent action.
‘And that doesn’t bother you?’
‘Why should it?’
‘Where did you say the sword came from?’
‘No idea. It’s been in the family for ages.’ Rix was irritated by Tobry’s persistence. ‘Let’s go hunting.’
‘Not up there.’
‘There are more predators around than last year, and they’re hungrier.’
‘Stands to reason, with the winters getting harder every year. But I don’t — ’
‘Winter is weeks away, yet they’re already attacking our outlying steadings and killing our serfs. Our scouts say they come from the Crag.’
‘That’s why House Ricinus has an army,’ said Tobry. ‘It’s not your responsibility.’
‘Army isn’t as big as you think.’
‘Then hire mercenaries.’
Rix looked away. ‘It’s not a good time.’
‘Why ever not? House Ricinus could buy the chancellor himself.’
Rix started; Tobry was awkwardly close to the truth. ‘Our treasury is a trifle short.’
‘Oh, come now,�
� said Tobry.
How could Rix tell him about the wealth his drunken father had squandered, or the fortunes outlaid by social-climbing Lady Ricinus in bribes and kickbacks to a purpose only she knew? Even Rix, inexperienced though he was, could have managed House Ricinus better.
‘As the heir to House Ricinus,’ he said pompously, ‘it’s my duty to protect my lands and my people.’ It was another excuse. To avoid going home he would even lie to his best friend.
Tobry shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re a throwback. The heir never risks his own life — especially when he has no brothers or sisters.’
Rix had often wondered why his mother, who was obsessed with the family line, had only one child. Had she refused to do it a second time, or did the problem lie with his father? Was that why Lord Ricinus drank, or was the problem because of his drinking?
‘Earlier, you said I was running away from my problems, and it’s true.’
‘It’s an endearing weakness,’ said Tobry. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you become responsible.’ He spat on the rocks.
‘I come of age in a few weeks. It’s time I started acting like the next lord.’
‘Until you are of age, leave the worrying to your parents.’
‘They’re not doing any worrying!’ Rix cried. ‘They’re making things worse.’
‘Besides, you need to marry and produce an heir.’
Rix frowned, not sure what he was hinting at. ‘Coming from you, that’s rich.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You’re five years older. Where’s your heir?’
‘I’ve got nothing to pass on save a ruined name. I don’t need an heir.’ He studied Rix sidelong, grinning. ‘Actually, a good woman could be the making of you. I might have a word to Lady Ricinus about my cousin, Callista. Lovely girl, after a while you hardly notice the crossed eyes — ’
‘You swine! Don’t you dare.’
His friend arched an eyebrow. ‘Touched upon a sore point, have I?’
‘Mother has lined up half a dozen candidates already,’ snapped Rix. ‘All mindless, simpering and controllable.’
‘It’s a mother’s right to propose suitable wives,’ Tobry said sententiously. ‘And as a dutiful son …’