by Ian Irvine
‘And you’re determined to ignore the truth,’ said Rix, restraining himself with an effort. ‘You found his weakness, you hurt him badly, and he’s lost the iron book. You’ve done more than you could have hoped for. Isn’t it enough?’
Tali had to think about that. ‘It’s more than I ever expected, but nothing will be enough until Lyf pays for his crimes. And he never will, now.’
‘He’ll pay,’ said Rix. ‘But not today.’
As they reached the top, the sun tipped the horizon and a cascade of bombast blasts rippled along the south-eastern wall of the city, half a mile from the main gates where the First Army waited in its ranks. When the dust and smoke blew away, a section of wall a quarter of a mile long was gone and the enemy soldiers were scrambling over the rubble. Another great force was attacking from the unwalled lake shore.
‘They’re encircling the First Army on three sides,’ said Rix directly, reporting on the scene through his telescope. ‘They’ve pinned our soldiers between the gates and the buildings along the avenue. They’re blocking all the side streets …’
‘But our soldiers are better than theirs,’ said Benn. Even standing on the bench, he only came up to Rix’s shoulders. ‘We’ll beat ’em, Lord, won’t we?’ His voice went shrill and he fought to hold back tears.
Rix put an arm across the boy’s shoulders. ‘I wish I could say so. Hop down, lad. You don’t need to watch.’
But Benn, though white-faced and trembling, shook his head. ‘Got to see what they do to us, Lord. Got to know.’
The enemy began to cut the First Army down, rank by rank, for the soldiers had no defence against Cythonian ferocity, their unusual tactics or their strange, chymical weaponry. From other breaches in the wall, more enemy streamed in to trap the Second and Third Armies.
‘If House Ricinus hadn’t paid for the Third Army,’ said Rix, ‘would those men be dying now?’
‘Yes, they would,’ said Tobry, whose eyes never left Rannilt’s blanched face.
‘Caulderon will fall within the hour,’ said Rix.
‘Is there no hope?’ Tali was still praying for a miracle.
‘None,’ said Tobry. ‘And little for you, if Rix still retains his suicidal urge. If anyone can get you across the mountains to plan the counterattack, he can.’
‘We’re going to fight,’ said Rix. ‘And win Caulderon back. Gather your gear. We’ll take the chancellor’s secret way.’
Before they could move, a squad of burly troops burst through the tower door, wearing the livery of the chancellor’s personal guard, and the chancellor followed. The tubby, balding chief magian was there too.
The chancellor inspected Rix, the servants, Tali, then Tobry’s cat-like ears, and smiled. ‘I told you to leave this place and never return,’ he said to Glynnie and Benn.
Rix stepped forwards, carrying his sword, with light-footed menace. ‘I ordered them home,’ he lied. ‘I protect my servants with my own life, sir. Every one of them.’
The chancellor shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’ He turned towards Tali, his eyes glittering.
‘I did what you asked of me,’ she said defensively.
His voice was ice smashing on an anvil. ‘You neglected to mention the most vital secret — that the wrythen was Lyf.’
She had not dared, knowing that he would ask dangerous questions.
‘Had I known Lyf was our enemy,’ the chancellor grated, ‘had I known he had been plotting against us for two thousand years, had I known he wrote the Solaces to guide his people every step of their way back to power, I would never have sent you to the Crag.’
‘I hurt him,’ Tali said feebly. ‘It made him pull back his army.’
‘For a day and a half!’ He was like a cobra waiting to strike, and Tali knew she had made a deadly enemy. ‘You also strengthened him immeasurably and drove him out, bent on vengeance.’
She could not deny it. ‘Lyf’s only attacking the armies. He’s not killing indiscriminately.’
‘Yet!’ The word was a whiplash. ‘But once my people have been enslaved and forced to tear Caulderon down, he will.’ The chancellor pulled her aside, saying in a low voice, ‘I know you’re holding out on me — ’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tali blustered. She had not mentioned her murdered ancestors at the Honouring, but too many people knew the truth. He would soon guess that she bore the master pearl.
‘Take your hands off her,’ Rix snapped.
‘You consider the girl who attacked your helpless, drunken father and knocked him out a friend?’ said the chancellor.
Rix froze with his hands outstretched. ‘Tali? Tell me this isn’t true.’
‘He — he swung the bottle at me,’ said Tali, feeling sick. ‘I only pushed him. I didn’t mean to hurt him.’
‘I know what Father was like,’ he said coldly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me he was hurt?’
Her denials and half-truths had been instinctive, a slave’s way of keeping out of trouble. How bitterly she regretted them now. ‘It — I — the guards were looking after him — I was afraid — ’
‘Never make excuses to me!’ Rix stalked off.
The chancellor turned to Tobry, wrinkling his nose. ‘As for the shifter-cat, the law requires that it be put to death.’
‘No!’ cried Tali.
‘I was aware of the penalty before I ate the beast’s liver,’ said Tobry, with a trace of his old insolence.
The chancellor gestured to an attendant carrying a flask and a sealed box. ‘You have the powdered lead?’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said the attendant.
‘Stand ready to burn the livers the moment they’re taken.’
Tali stepped in front of Tobry and spread her arms. ‘There has to be a way to save him.’
‘There isn’t, as he knows better than any,’ said the chancellor.
‘What’s he talking about?’ said Tali, twisting to look up at Tobry’s furred cheeks.
‘His grandfather was bitten by a jackal shifter and House Lagger tried to save him,’ said Rix. ‘Though I’ve never known why that was such a mistake.’
‘You can’t bring anyone back,’ said Tobry. ‘Once you’re fully a shifter, you remain one until you die. They should have put Grandfather down, but he was greatly loved and the best magians in the land were called in to break the shape-shifting curse.’
‘But they didn’t succeed?’ said Tali.
‘It looked as though they had but, inside, the shifter madness was taking him, and he stalked the halls by night, hunting his own family. He got into the nursery, killed my little brother and all the young cousins, and turned several others, though it was years before we realised the culprit was Grandfather.’
‘Oh, Tobry, I’m sorry.’
‘Father had no choice but to hunt down his own father-in-law. It tore our house apart.’
‘But there’s more, isn’t there?’ said Tali, seeing the pain in his cat eyes now and remembering things he’d said previously.
Tobry stared back through time and space. ‘I was thirteen,’ he whispered. ‘Just a kid. When Father called for help I didn’t understand what was going on. Grandfather still had the shifter’s strength and he was going to tear Father’s throat out. What could I do? I saved Father; I killed my grandfather.’
‘You could have done nothing else,’ said Rix.
‘Mother went out of her mind and Father was destroyed by the guilt — not for trying to do what had to be done, but for failing and calling on a boy to do a man’s job. Afterwards, Mother burnt Lagger Mansion down with the rest of the family inside it, all save me.’
Tobry looked into Tali’s eyes. ‘So I’m certainly not going to inflict — ’
‘I don’t have time for this,’ said the chancellor to his guards. ‘Cut the beast’s livers out.’
CHAPTER 108
Tali remembered a detail of her mother’s murder that was not on Rix’s painting. ‘What if there’s another way?’
‘Magians have been looking for a solution ever since shifters were first created a hundred years ago,’ said the chancellor.
‘It’s not a spell,’ said Tali.
‘Really?’ His eyes picked at her, peeling the layers away, trying to prise open her head again. ‘Many people have been bitten by shifters since the war began — valuable people we can’t afford to put down. Tell me more.’
Could he know about her pearl? Was he just toying with her? Tobry was sweating — he was worried about it, too. A stench of burnt meat drifted her way, from the skewers forgotten on the fire, and Tali lost her train of thought. ‘What?’
‘ “What if there’s another way?” you said,’ said the chancellor.
‘Oh! Yes! After she killed my mother, Lady Ricinus collected a tin of her blood.’
‘She took blood? Why?’
Tali was working it out as she went along. ‘In Cython the Pale are half starved and worked like dogs, but hardly anyone ever gets ill.’
‘You asked me what a cold was,’ said Rix, momentarily forgetting that he was angry with her.
‘And in Hightspall, whole houses have died out from plague and pox, yet no one in Palace Ricinus has caught any disease in years. People in the palace are really healthy.’
‘I nearly died of fever when I was ten,’ Rix pointed out.
‘But you haven’t been sick since,’ said Tali. ‘And you keep having nightmares about someone rubbing blood into your wounds.’
‘I never understood why I kept having such an odd dream — ’ Rix stared at her. ‘Are you saying Lady Ricinus kept your mother’s blood to use on me?’
‘To give you our immunity to disease,’ said Tali. ‘Perhaps she put some in the palace water, too, to protect the household.’
‘Get to the point,’ growled the chancellor.
‘What if Pale blood can protect against shapeshifting?’
‘I wouldn’t call shifting a disease.’
‘But what if it is?’ Tali persisted. ‘What if Lyf created the first shifters that way?’
‘Such creations would be an utter debasement of his king-magery,’ said the chancellor thoughtfully. ‘And the oath each Cythian king swore to use magery only for healing.’
‘Perhaps he felt the end justified the means,’ she said pointedly.
‘Let’s see it, then.’
The gleam in his eye was alarming. But if she failed, Tobry would be butchered. Tali reopened her wrist artery, put her thumb over it and reached out to the largest gash on Tobry’s chest.
He backed away. ‘If my blood gets into that cut it’ll condemn you. Bleed into a cup.’
The attendant held out a drinking mug. Tali allowed her blood to spurt into it until the bottom was covered a fingernail deep, then pressed her thumb to the wrist puncture and murmured her healing charm. The flow stopped. Tobry held his hand out for the mug.
She felt a spasm of fear. What if she was wrong? How could her blood heal, anyway? She rubbed her slave mark, for luck, then tipped blood into her cupped hand. The deepest gash across Tobry’s chest had not scabbed over. It was a jagged, zigzagging wound, still raw.
The chancellor leaned forwards, his lips parted. He wanted her to succeed — but why? Tali’s throat had gone dry. What if she failed? What would happen if she succeeded? She fought the fear down, steadied her shaking hand and pushed her blood into the wound. Hoping to reinforce it, she murmured her strongest healing charm. Tobry must not die. She could not bear it.
‘More?’ she whispered.
All the little hairs on Tobry’s cheeks were standing up. ‘Yes, more.’
As Tali rubbed the blood inside the ragged edges of the gash, Tobry’s fingers hooked and the tendons of his neck stood out.
‘Is it — ?’
‘I’ve felt worse,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘But not much worse.’
Then, as she watched, her blood was drawn into his flesh until all trace of it was gone.
‘Wash your hands, very carefully,’ said Tobry.
The attendant brought water in a bucket and she scrubbed her hands, then Tali looked up and started. ‘But you’re bleeding! The wound’s bleeding.’ Tobry’s teeth were bared; he seemed in more pain than before. ‘I’ve made it worse.’
‘Bleeding and pain are good,’ gasped Tobry. ‘It might mean there’s not enough caitsthe in me to heal the wound.’
‘An impressive demonstration,’ said the chancellor smoothly. ‘Though the shifter side may restore itself the way a damaged liver can regrow. Lagger may always require the healing blood, and so may all those valuable people who will be bitten before this war ends.’
Tali stared at the chancellor, trying to work out what he meant. Each breath rasped in her throat. Had she made the most dreadful mistake of her life?
‘I can only take a handful of people into exile,’ he went on, ‘and if we’re to counterattack and win Caulderon back, I can’t lose any one of them.’
He paced across the room, then back, studying Tali all the while. ‘Saving those bitten will require much Pale blood, and there’s only one place we can get it.’ He looked down at Rannilt. ‘Two places, if the child survives.’
Tali reeled and the scar on her shoulder burnt. It had once been her slave mark, then the symbol of her nobility. And now enslavement again, by her own people? A far worse kind of slavery — to be milked of her blood like a beast of the stables? No, it could not be borne.
The chancellor gestured to the captain of his personal guard, who had moved in close without anyone noticing. ‘Bind the two Pale and bring them.’
Rix let out a great roar and sprang for his sword, but two guards brought him down from behind and pinned him to the floor. Tali darted for Rannilt, unable to leave her yet knowing that any attempt to rescue her was not only hopeless, it would doom them both.
The captain seized her around the chest. Tobry staggered towards her, trying to shift, but before he could do so another pair of guards disarmed him.
‘Chief Magian,’ said the chancellor, his eyes glittering like chunks of anthracite, ‘would you put Rixium’s blade to the test you found in the archives?’
‘What test?’ said Rix.
His captors allowed him to rise but held his arms behind him. Rix wasn’t struggling, though Tali felt sure he was planning to break free, and two ordinary men could hardly hold him. Could he save them? The chancellor had fifteen men here, and surely not even Rix could beat those odds.
The black writing Tali had seen from a distance at the Honouring appeared on the sword. Heroes must fight to preserve the race. The chief magian passed a copper-coloured elbrot above and below the blade and a green aura shimmered around it, which slowly turned blue, and then finally a deep purple.
‘It’s Maloch!’ said the chief magian, and the small amount of grey hair on his head stood up.
Rix tensed. ‘What the blazes is Maloch?’
‘The dire sword that Herovian swine Axil Grandys brought here.’ The chancellor’s smile twisted, his eyes burned. ‘A foul blade, enchanted to protect none but himself and his direct descendants.’
‘But I’m not his descendant. Mother had those documents forged …’ Rix faltered. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the chancellor softly. ‘ Her documents were fakes, but Maloch was well forged. It doesn’t lie.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your father wasn’t descended from Axil Grandys,’ the chancellor said with gleeful malice. ‘The sword came to you down your mother’s line.’
Rix’s mouth opened and closed. Tali felt sick. If revenge was meat and drink to the chancellor, this was a royal banquet.
‘The sword protected you,’ said the chancellor. ‘Therefore, you were already of the First Circle. You’re descended directly from Grandys — via your mother.’
‘You utter bastard,’ spat Tobry. ‘You guessed that at the Honouring, yet you allowed Lady Ricinus to go on so you could publicly humiliate her.’
The c
hancellor did not bother to look his way. ‘Two days before the Honouring, Tali informed me that Lady and Lord Ricinus were plotting my assassination.’
Rix’s head shot around and she saw the shock in his eyes, the accusation, the feeling of betrayal. I thought we were friends. You should have told me.
‘How could I tell you?’ she said softly. ‘It would have put you in an impossible position.’
‘I was already in an impossible position. It was my right to know.’
‘If I told you, it would have endangered you too.’
‘Am I a child, that I need to be protected?’ Rix said, low and deadly.
She could not reply. He was lost to her now.
‘The treason had nothing to do with Rix,’ Tobry said hastily. ‘Besides, he told you …’ He trailed off.
‘The lord and lady stand for the house. Therefore House Ricinus plotted high treason and it had to pay.’ The chancellor turned to his captain. ‘Take Tali and the child away. Feed them well; we could be milking their blood for a long time. Leave the others.’
‘Rix is one of our greatest fighters, and an inspiring leader,’ murmured the captain.
‘And I wanted him by my side,’ said the chancellor, ‘but I could never trust a man who would betray his own mother, and I won’t have a Herovian at any price.’
‘I never knew I was,’ Rix said. ‘But since you’ve taken away everything else I had, and now name me Herovian, a Herovian I will be.’
In her head, Tali heard an irresistible ice sheet grinding against an immoveable glacier. What was Rix going to do — or become?
‘Your kind will be at the top of the enemy’s death list,’ said the chancellor, unperturbed. ‘I’ll leave you to them.’
Two guards began to drag Tali towards the door. ‘What about Tobry?’ she cried, struggling uselessly against the lashings. ‘What’s he going to do without my blood?’
The chancellor’s smile was terrifying. ‘He won’t need it. Heave him over the side.’
Two burly guardsmen swept Tobry up and began to drag him towards the wall. His eyes met Tali’s and she saw the same despairing look there as when she had told him she loved Rix.