by Ian Irvine
‘Ahh!’ He was smiling. ‘But you truly are worth the gamble.’
Tali stared at him. He seemed pleased, even vindicated. Had he manipulated the situation so she would reveal her gift? Truly, he was a dangerous man.
‘Remove the child,’ said the chancellor.
Rannilt was still screaming a hundred yards down the corridors. Her helpless, hopeless cries stabbed through Tali’s heart. Rannilt had given everything she had for Tali, over and over, and Tali could do nothing for her.
‘Well?’ he said.
She was beaten. ‘How are you going to get me through the enemy lines to Precipitous Crag?’
‘There are secret ways.’
This could not work. Even if breaking the heatstone did liberate her gift, it must take years to master. And without mastery, how could she take on a wrythen who had survived two thousand years after death? How could she attack a magian so powerful that he could create shifters, possess other magians and burn through Tinyhead’s brain from many miles away?
Without mastery of her gift, there was no hope. Lyf would take the master pearl he so coveted, and when he cut it out, she would die, just as Rix’s sketch predicted.
She was the one, all right. The one who opened Lyf’s path to vengeance.
PART THREE
HUNT
CHAPTER 76
Plague stalked the streets of Caulderon, poxes of Lyf’s own creation to which his people were immune, and for which there was no cure. Neither could Hightspall’s frantic magians and alchymists find any defence to Cython’s chymical weaponry. The enemy’s morale was crumbling and Lyf’s vast armies were in place. Caulderon would soon fall.
All was well.
When Lyf last haunted Rix’s nightmares, the compulsion had been close to taking him. On the next visit, it would, and Lyf would have neutralised his most pressing worry, the Oathbreaker’s Blade. Then Rix would bring the host to the cellar and cut the master nuclix from her.
But before he did, Lyf had to make sure of his most cunning enemy. Deroe had strengthened his wards further. A triple layer now surrounded the magian in his cliff-top manor and he believed he was safe. He believed he had beaten Lyf and was closing in on the host who bore the master pearl. The pearl that would allow Deroe to drive Lyf out for good, then exact a terrible vengeance on him.
Let Deroe think that until the very moment when Lyf slid between the wards and, striking like a cobra, tore his throat out.
Yes, all was very well.
CHAPTER 77
‘Wake up!’ shrieked a high, desperate voice. ‘Chancellor’s got her — ’
Little fists pounded Rix’s shoulder, then a pair of cold hands dragged him rudely off the settee. It was a long way to the floor and he hit with a thump that rattled his teeth.
Tobry chuckled. ‘Well done, Rannilt. Serves the sod right for napping at this time of night.’
‘How did you get here?’ said Rix, focusing blearily on the child.
‘Escaped.’ She was half sobbing, half choking. ‘Get up, we got to save Tali.’
‘What’s the chancellor got to do with her?’
‘Tali sneaked into his palace,’ she panted, her bird-like chest heaving. ‘Hurry!’
‘Why would she do such a thing?’ The sleep-fog lifted. Tali had disappeared after the revelation about ebony pearls and Tobry had gone after her. Rix, who had barely been to bed in days, had lain on the settee for a minute and must have slept for many hours. ‘You didn’t find her, then?’
‘Lost her in the tunnels,’ Tobry said coolly.
Elbowing Rix aside, he crouched before the girl and took her dirty hand. Belatedly, Rix remembered all that Rannilt had gone through, including Luzia’s murder and an interrogation by the chancellor. It was a wonder she wasn’t under the bed, screaming.
‘She sneaked in to rescue you, didn’t she?’ said Tobry.
Rannilt sniffled and wiped her nose on her arm, not successfully. Tobry handed her a piece of white linen. She smeared dirt and mucus across her face with it.
She nodded. ‘But the chancellor caught her and sent her off.’
‘How do you know?’ said Tobry. ‘Rix, go and get a cloth. Rannilt wants to wash her face. And a drink of water.’
Rix did so and she scrubbed her face and hands with it. Her eyes were huge, the sockets purple as bruises. She gulped the water, spilling it everywhere.
‘Better?’ said Tobry.
She nodded.
‘How do you know he sent her away?’
‘Was pretendin’ to be asleep. Heard them talkin’. He said he was sendin’ her on a quest.’
‘What quest?’
‘To find the wrythen. At Precip-Precipitous Crag.’
Tobry let out an inarticulate cry.
‘Why in the name of the Gods would he send Tali to her enemy?’ said Rix.
‘Stupid Wil told him Tali was the one,’ said Rannilt. ‘Chancellor thinks she can beat the wrythen and save Caulderon.’
‘Clearly he doesn’t know about the — ’
At a slashing motion from Tobry, Rix broke off. If word got out about the master pearl, Tali would be hunted ruthlessly for it. And if Lyf got it, he would win.
‘The chancellor’s taking an almighty risk,’ said Tobry.
‘Said Tali was worth the gamble.’ Rannilt hugged herself with her thin arms. ‘I’m really scared, Tobry. We’ve got to save her.’
‘We don’t know how he got her out of the city,’ said Rix.
‘I can find out.’
‘How?’
‘Tried to wake Tali’s gift with my golden mage-light, but it … um, spliced us. And when — ’
‘How do you mean, spliced us?’ said Tobry in an odd voice.
‘It leaves threads floatin’ in the air behind her. I can see where they took her.’
‘Are you saying you can track Tali?’ said Rix.
‘As long as we’re quick. Threads are fadin’.’
‘When did they take her?’
‘Hours ago.’
Rix looked at Tobry.
‘Last time, your excuse was you had the portrait to finish,’ said Tobry pointedly.
Anything to avoid that. ‘You’ve swayed me. Let’s go.’
‘Sure you’re not using Tali to escape your responsibilities?’ Tobry sniffed.
‘If she’s killed,’ said Rix, ‘if the wrythen takes — ’ Tobry was shaking his head. ‘Get Rannilt some winter gear.’
Tobry ran out. Rix hurled all the necessities into a pack, gathered bow and arrows, made sure his sword was sharp and filled a couple of storm lanterns. The urgency was a welcome distraction from the unanswerable questions. Why had he been in the cellar? Why the blood on his hands? How could he warn the chancellor without betraying his own mother?
Rannilt watched him in silence. He wasn’t sure she trusted him, and he knew damn well she did not like him.
‘Haven’t you got anything to do?’ said Rix.
She did not answer, and he was pleased when Tobry returned a few minutes later with fur-lined gear and boots in the child’s size. While she dressed, Rix studied the hole under the great tub, which Tobry must have enlarged when he had gone after her.
‘I don’t see how I’m going to get down there.’
Tobry put his elbrot to the side of the hole and screwed up his face. A high-pitched whine shook the mortar behind the tiles to dust and they fell off. Tobry put his foot on one of the stone blocks and shoved. It slid into the shaft and fell, hitting far below with a muffled thud. He sent half a dozen more blocks the same way, leaving a hole a pony could have passed through.
Rannilt went first. Like Tali, she was accustomed to making her way through tunnels in near darkness. Rix shuttered his lantern to a glimmer and followed.
The tunnel was close, humid and dripping, and he did not like it. ‘No wonder the rock rats are desperate to take Hightspall back,’ he said quietly. ‘Imagine spending all your life in a place like this.’
‘Cython ain
’t like this,’ said Rannilt. ‘It’s dry and warm, and it don’t smell. And the walls are carved into beautiful places.’
‘What kind of places?’
‘The way Hightspall is supposed to be,’ she said rebelliously. She sniffled, went to wipe her nose on her arm, then used Tobry’s rag instead.
‘I would have liked to have seen it in the olden days,’ said Tobry. ‘The First Fleeters said Cythe was a paradise.’
They followed the passage for miles, up and down, through a narrow pinch like a dyke eroded out of black rock, then through a broad passage of cream limestone crisscrossed with veins of a pink mineral that twinkled as the light caught it. Finally, along a dipping tunnel where they splashed through ankle-deep water, stirring up silt, and up again.
‘Shh!’ Rannilt stopped, staring up the dark passage. The rock was greatly fissured and water dripped from every crack.
Rix shuttered the lantern.
‘What is it?’ said Tobry.
Rannilt sniffed the air. ‘Horses.’
‘What would horses be doing down here?’ said Rix, who could not smell anything save dust and damp.
‘For the chancellor’s private use,’ Tobry said drily. ‘To escape when the city falls.’
‘To run away like a coward!’ Rannilt said in a fierce whisper.
‘When Caulderon does fall, it’ll take more courage to fly and fight again than it would to lie down and die.’
CHAPTER 78
‘Rannilt, can you tell how many guards there are?’
She sniffed the air. ‘At least one, in with the horses.’
‘Wait here.’
‘Don’t hurt him.’
Rix slipped into the stables, a cross-shaped space excavated out of yellow limestone. The left-hand end of the cross was stacked with dark cubes of silage which gave off a rich, malty odour. The floor of the central area was worn in an exercise circle. A rock salt lick was set in a metal frame near the far wall, while the right-hand end contained a series of stone-walled stalls, reeking of manure and urine, each with a horse inside.
Further down, he made out a trundling squeal, a stable boy barrowing manure away. Rix waited in shadow until he returned, a stocky, brown-haired lad of twelve, then rose like a golem into the lantern light and took him by the arm.
‘Don’t make a sound.’
The boy jumped, groped for a knife on his belt, then stopped, smiling tentatively. Two of his front teeth were missing. ‘Lord Rixium?’
‘You know me?’ Rix was constantly surprised at the number of people who recognised his face.
‘Everyone’s talkin’ ’bout how you beat the enemy out in the Seethin’s,’ said the lad, breathily. His eyes were shining. ‘You’re the hero of Caulderon.’
Rix raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, we’ve come for the horses.’ He studied the stalls. ‘And we’ll need a change of mounts, so four of your best.’
‘I haven’t been told about this,’ said the boy.
‘It came up rather suddenly.’
‘They’re the chancellor’s horses.’
‘And he’s sent me, so go and rouse them out.’
The boy was starting to sweat, but he stood his ground. ‘Sorry, Lord, I can’t let them go without a docket.’
There wasn’t time for debate. Rix drew his sword, its curved blade glittering in the lantern light. ‘This is my authorisation, lad.’
The boy took a deep breath, as if to yell for help. Rix twitched the sword. The shining light vanished from the boy’s eyes. His face flushed and he looked bitterly disillusioned.
‘You’re no hero,’ he said crushingly, jerking free and scrambling away. ‘You’re runnin’ like a stinkin’ coward, and I’ll die before I let you have them.’
Rix started after the lad, the sword dangling uselessly. He could never use it on a child. The boy bolted, roaring, ‘Thieves! Traitors! Help!’
‘Sorry, kid,’ said Tobry. A low, fizzing sound, a narrow streak of emerald light, and the boy crumpled.
‘I didn’t know you could do that with magery,’ said Rix.
Tobry tied the lad up. ‘It only works on the unformed minds of children and innocents,’ he said with more than a hint of bitterness.
Rix, shaken by the boy’s accusation, did not reply. Was he doing the right thing or making an inevitable disaster worse? But how could Tali take on Lyf? It was impossible.
Shortly they emerged through a cobwebby illusion concealing an exit screened by boulders and scrub, partway down a warty hill. It was not long until dawn and the moon was an eerie red through gauzy clouds and heavy smoke.
‘Where are we?’ said Rix, leading the largest horse, a rangy, red-eyed grey, up the hill.
The Vomits were smoking balefully to his left, and every so often the ground gave a faint quiver. Ahead, a couple of miles away, the orange glow of Caulderon’s burning shanty towns was clearly visible. Thousands of yellow flares illuminated the dark mass of Cython’s armies ringing the walls.
Tobry cursed under his breath. ‘How many are there?’
‘We’ve got eighteen thousand troops in Caulderon, counting the injured. The enemy must be three times that number by now.’
‘And nothing we can do save go on,’ said Tobry. ‘We’re a little south of Nollyrigg. If we strike towards the Brown Vomit, we should reach the Caulderon Road in half an hour. Though I’m not keen on risking the road — ’
‘Or Rannilt,’ said Rix.
‘You’re not leavin’ me behind again,’ said Rannilt.
‘No, we can’t do without you,’ said Tobry.
He shook Rix’s hand, then Rannilt’s tiny paw, gravely.
‘The enemy seem to be massing for an all-out attack,’ said Rix, wondering if there would be anything left to come back to. ‘The boy was right. People will say I’ve run like a coward.’
‘People say all manner of things,’ said Tobry.
‘Tali is hours ahead. She could be captured by now.’ Or dead.
‘She saved you,’ said Rannilt. ‘Now you’ve got to save her.’
‘I should be defending my family and my house, not riding into a certain trap.’
‘Tali comes first.’
Rix could not bear to argue. The conflict was already unendurable. As they reached the road and headed south, all three Vomits were smoking. He spurred his horse and they raced towards the mountains in the blood-red moonlight. The world was eerily quiet. The towns they passed were dark, every window shuttered, the people cowering inside. Or horribly dead of plague or pox.
Several hours passed. Dawn broke under a heavy, yellow-brown overcast sky, not much brighter than twilight. Closer to the Vomits, the ground shook constantly and they had to slow because cracks had opened across the road, some wide enough to trap a horse’s leg.
‘Do you think all three Vomits are going to erupt?’ said Rix, reining in.
‘I hope not,’ Tobry said direly. ‘According to Cythonian legend, that presages — ’
‘Let me guess,’ said Rix. ‘Apocalypse? Armageddon?’
‘What’s Armageddon?’ piped Rannilt.
‘The end of the world, child. Ruin in fire, then ice.’
Tobry, who was holding her as if she were his own precious child, seemed to be in physical pain. Not a trace remained of the reckless hedonist Rix had known all his life.
As they approached the mountain climb, ruddy glows lit the sky. Sudden hot winds rushed down the Vomits, which now lay ahead to the right, and billowed across the Seethings to the road, only to be driven back by icy gales from the mountains on their left. One minute Rix was sweltering in his heavy gear, the next, freezing despite it. Tobry’s sweaty face had a demonic aspect in the baleful light. It certainly looked like the end of the world.
The wire-handled sword rattled. As Rix steadied it, he saw the opalised figure again, contorted in agony. He had only ever seen it on the way to the caverns — the caverns the sword had led him to last time. What was it up to? He had never discovered where the sword came fr
om and that now felt like a fatal error.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Tobe,’ Rix said quietly. The foreboding was so thick that he could have painted it.
‘What’s that?’
Rannilt turned to stare at Rix, but even with her all-seeing eyes on him he could not hold back.
‘That we’ll be too late to save Tali; that Lyf will win and bring Hightspall to ruin. That we won’t all come back alive.’
‘ I haven’t given up,’ said Rannilt coldly. ‘Tali will beat the nasty old wrythen-king, I know it.’
‘It might be an idea to get a move on,’ said Tobry.
‘I’m not going quietly!’ Rix drew the enchanted sword that he had once feared, and now was his mainstay against the foe at journey’s end. Raising it high, he roared, ‘Ride, ride, or the whole world is dead!’
Hours later they stopped at the lookout where they had rested briefly on the way to Precipitous Crag, over a week ago. Smoke and fumes hid both the Vomits and Caulderon now, though the sky was clear to the south and the red moon rode high, reflecting off a white ocean for as far as they could see.
‘The sea ice clamps around the coast of Hightspall like a fist,’ said Tobry. ‘The end can’t be far away.’
The nightmare almost choked Rix. ‘How can it be the end? Why are we being punished? What have we done wrong?’
No one had an answer.
They navigated the narrow valley in the brooding darkness under the blood-bark trees, the hooves making little sound in deep snow, then left the horses next to the boulder-studded strip of open land where the caitsthe had attacked.
Tobry wiped icy sweat from his forehead. His terror of shifters could not be contained. And perhaps he’s still blaming himself for letting me down last time, Rix thought, which was absurd. Tobry never gave less than his all.
As they were crawling through the vine thicket, Rannilt let out a little, hoarse cry. ‘I can smell blood.’