Gil Trilogy 1: Lady in Gil

by Rebecca Bradley

  "Repeat after me, Gilman," he said. Hawelli raised his head. "Aro elian calos pilian—say it!" I jerked as I recognized the words. The Lesser Will. More of Jebri's treachery.

  "No, Hawelli!" Bekri was back at the bars, pressing desperately against them, not laughing now.

  Hawelli shook his head in confusion. I think he was barely conscious. One of the guards reached down and twisted the gangrenous leg. Hawelli screamed.

  "Aro elian calos pilian," Kekashr repeated gently. Hawelli whispered the words after him. "Calos milaf aro elian . . ." The Will went on, Kekashr echoed faintly by Hawelli—I closed my eyes, knowing what would happen and powerless to stop it. The Heroic Code yammered in my head, urging me forwards. But if I did, Kekashr would win. It was as simple and deadly as that.

  They reached the end of the Will. For a second, nothing seemed to be happening, the light was growing so slowly. Then it soundlessly exploded, and I threw my hand over my eyes; faint tremors in the floor, hardly perceptible at first, built in violence as if the mountain were arching in pain. The stone walls seemed to writhe for a few seconds, then gradually solidified, and the Lady's light faded back to no more than its normal brilliance.

  Oddly, the room was undisturbed, the torture tools still in good order, the table upright, Hawelli and his guards frozen in the same postures. But when Kekashr moved closer and picked the Lady out of Hawelli's hand, all three men crumbled into dust.

  * * *

  38

  "WHAT A PITY," Lord Kekashr sighed. "Well, Shree, we have no end of Gilmen, if it comes to that."

  "It was a little hard on the troopers," said Shree, frowning at the three heaps of dust.

  Lord Kekashr shrugged. He strolled back to the cage and stood in front of Bekri with his arms crossed and his head thrown back triumphantly. "You see, old man?" he said in Gillish. "You should have waited before laughing."

  Behind the bars, Bekri raised his head wearily. "I can't imagine what you think you're doing."

  "Exploring an option, Flamen. I grant you, we've had bad luck with Scions, though we'll continue down that path as well—but I'm told that all we really need is a Gilman with a drop of Oballef's blood in his veins."

  Bekri laughed, this time bitterly and unamused. "It will be a long search."

  "But worth it in the end—of course, we may succeed with Tigrallef or the other before then." Bekri looked uncertain at the mention of the other, and I remembered—this would be the first he'd heard of another Scion in the Gilgard. Lord Kekashr moved closer to the bars and I had to strain to hear him. "You could shorten the search for me, old man. You must know if any by-blows of the royal line remained in Gil after the invasion. Tell me; you could save many lives."

  "While causing many deaths."

  The warlord spread his hands. "Everyone dies in the end."

  "So I've learned. But why should they die to your profit?"

  "You're a boring old bastard, you know," Kekashr said evenly. "You should have died yourself seventy years ago, along with your brother priests. Just consider what I've said." He swung around and paced back to the table.

  He set the Lady carelessly down and stood by her, pondering, drumming his ringers. I gauged the distance—it was just possible I could make it that far without a bolt in the back, but what then? It seemed unlikely that Kekashr and his troopers would be kind enough to wait while I intoned the Lesser Will, and I was not sure enough of Shree's intentions to trust him for help. Angel would do what he could, but what would that be against the eight remaining troopers, not to mention the hordes in the next room? A vagrant thought wandered through my head: Arkolef would not have hesitated—but Arko had no sense of timing. I sighed, and clenched my fists, and waited.

  Everybody waited. Kekashr did not suggest another of those obscene experiments, somewhat to my surprise. The troopers stood silently at attention, the Lady glowed on the table, Kekashr contemplated the Lady, Shree contemplated Kekashr. Now and then Shree's eyes flickered towards me, and there was the shadow of a smile on his face as if he were enjoying himself. The only sounds in the chamber were suppressed groans from the cages, although the room was far from silent. There was always the threnody from the outer dungeon, a lamentation as performed by waterfall or tidal race.

  At last, the sound of booted feet. Lord Kekashr looked up; in the cage, Bekri rose unsteadily with Corri's aid. Four Sherkin troopers marched through the door and fanned out, followed by a pale Koroskan with an even greater paunch and heavier silver chain than most. He was followed in turn by two troopers carrying between them a blanketed figure on a stretcher, with four more troopers bringing up the rear. These last also spread themselves about the chamber, one of them practically on top of me. The room was getting too crowded for my liking.

  The Koroskan grovelled formally, and Kekashr delivered a token kick to the head, but he seemed impatient with the courtesies. "Tell me quickly, Xilo," he growled, "what progress have you made?"

  The Koroskan heaved ponderously to his feet, but gave a clear impression of continuing to grovel. "My lord Kekashr, mighty Hammer of Iklankish, his condition remains almost the same. He has said nothing."

  "Almost the same?" Kekashr asked, leaning forwards.

  Xilo hesitated. "He stood again, with assistance. And once his lips moved, but there were no words that I could make out."

  "Did he seem to be hearing you?"

  "Perhaps, great lord, but one cannot be certain—" The Koroskan's voice faltered. If ever a man that massive could be said to squirm, he was squirming. And no wonder—Lord Kekashr's infamous temper, already in a poor state, looked to be getting worse. He strode to the stretcher and coldly examined the face above the blanket. I turned my head as far as I dared, straining to see the same face, guessing that it was my kinsman, going over the possible names in my mind. Tension spread throughout the chamber; the trooper beside me was taut as a harp-string after tuning. Nobody was safe when a warlord of Iklankish felt an itch under his armour.

  Of those outside the cages, only Shree appeared unaffected. He joined his uncle beside the stretcher and gazed down at the still figure. "It takes time to bring back the dead, Uncle. After all, he spent nineteen years in the dark with only shulls for company, and—"

  Nineteen years. I missed the rest of Shree's no doubt reasonable argument. Nineteen years. Tell your father when you find him that I'm still waiting. It hardly seemed possible, but there it was. The husk on the stretcher was (or had been) Lord Cirallef of Gil, of the line of Oballef, son of Arrislef, grandson of Callef, father of Arkolef, and my father as well. Suddenly the inside of my helmet was wet, and I wondered bemusedly whether the tears would drip down my chin and give me away—the Sherank were not known to cry—but nobody was looking at me, not even Shree.

  "But we have no time," Kekashr was saying when I began to hear again. He was biting his words, which appeared to taste progressively worse. "Iklankish is already impatient about the insurrection—and you know I had to send news of the Lady with Krisht's vessel, in case the princess should hear from another source that it's been found. Why, they'd suspect me of treachery then!"

  "With good reason, you must admit," Shree said mildly.

  Kekashr's voice was low and dangerous. "If you were not my brother's son—never mind. Of the three paths, this is the surest. We'll force the Scion to notice us."

  "How, my lord Uncle?"

  Silence while Lord Kekashr glided back to the table, caressed the Lady, turned to look gloatingly at the watching Flamens behind their bars. He said, "Put him in the frame."

  Without a second's hesitation, Shree nodded to Xilo.

  I swayed forwards, reaching for my sword. It was not the Heroic Code that impelled me, it was blind revulsion—whatever the risks, whatever the consequences, whether Kekashr conquered the world or not, I could not let this happen. I could not let my father, dead for nineteen years though his body still breathed and his heart still pushed the blood through his veins, be wakened from his long sleep by Lord Kekash
r's terrible little tools; my fingers tightened on the sword. I felt my muscles gathering for the spring, and a snarl forming on my lips under the snarling helmet.

  "Wait!" Shree's voice was sharp. He was speaking directly to me. I froze. His eyes were wide, and there was a clear message in them. Please. This is necessary. Trust me. Do nothing yet. After an endless moment, my hand dropped from the sword.

  "What is it, Shree?" Lord Kekashr's voice came testily from a great distance.

  "Nothing, my lord Uncle." Shree turned a blank face to Kekashr. "I thought I saw the Scion move." Truthful but ambiguous: Shree's style.

  "Xilo?"

  "I saw nothing, great Hammer of Iklankish."

  "Then get on with it."

  With blurred eyes I saw my father lifted off the stretcher, stripped of his blanket and strapped naked into the torture frame. I had a moment's uncertainty—my father was not much past forty, whereas this man was old, old and scarred, bony with an old man's boniness, sunken and withered. A sudden memory encompassed me. Myself at four years old, high in the air in a tall man's arms, Arko's five-year-old face upturned far below, then the short descent to my mother's arms and her voice in my ear while the tall man walked away from us through an archway of flowers, don't worry, little man, you'll see your father again. I choked and the memory dissolved. The man in the frame was open-eyed and staring at nothing. I could not mistake his face.

  It is strange but true, that small discomforts can sometimes distract the mind from horrors that might otherwise break it. Throughout my father's torture, I was desperate to blow my nose.

  Xilo was skilled, but the Hammer of Iklankish was impatient. After a long, anguished time during which I smothered helplessly in my own snot and my father continued to dangle like a dead man from his wrist-straps, Kekashr shoved the Koroskan aside. "Have the box fetched," he snapped to Shree.

  I had once read about this instrument with some interest, naïvely wondering if it might have benign possibilities—just a box fitted with a crank handle and a couple of long copper wires, but the peak achievement of Sherkin magical research. When the wires were glued to the victim with hot wax and the handle was cranked, mysterious blue sparks crackled along the copper, the body jerked, the throat laboured to scream. Very satisfying from the Sherkin point of view, especially as it did no fatal damage if intelligently used.

  When the box was brought, Kekashr ruminated for a moment and then pointed to my father's temples. Cirallef did not flinch as the hot wax dripped on to his skin. I felt it in my own temples. Kekashr himself turned the handle, not too fast, just enough to make the wires seem to shimmer. My father hung limply. The handle speeded up, and my father's body twitched, then convulsed in a crazy wooden dance. Kekashr stopped cranking.

  "A response of sorts," he said thoughtfully. "Put in the protector, Xilo, we need his tongue intact." Xilo slipped something into my father's mouth and the cranking resumed, as did my father's grotesque ballet. I was afraid those frail arms would snap in their leather restraints, but Kekashr knew his business, judged his speed, watched my father's convulsions with the intentness of a dance critic. A lowing began behind the tongue protector and built up to a roar. Kekashr stilled the handle.

  "That's much better," he beamed. "You see, Xilo? He's starting to take notice." He stepped up to the frame and slipped the protector out of my father's mouth. "Cirallef, my friend," he said gently, "speak your name."

  My father stared straight ahead. There was no sign that he had heard. Kekashr slapped his face hard, and he shook his head, something of awareness surfacing briefly and then vanishing again. Back went the tongue protector; back went Kekashr to the box, and the whole painful process was repeated. And repeated, and repeated again, until my fists ached with clenching and my heart burned with the shame of letting it continue. Finally, after the fifth- measure of the dance, my father raised his head at Kekashr's approach.

  "You have something to say to me?" Kekashr enquired pleasantly, as if my father were a supplicant on the Day of Appeals. My father's jaws worked silently for a few seconds before the sound emerged.

  "Dazeene—"

  "What's that? Dazeene? That's not your name, idiot."

  Disappointed, Kekashr turned back to the box, but Shree caught his arm. "It's a Satheli name, Uncle, not Gillish," he said helpfully, "his whore, maybe, that he kept in Exile. A good sign."

  By the Lady, it was hard to forgive Shree for that. Dazeene was my mother, a princess of Sathelforn, and she was no whore—a woman who kept herself to herself for all the years of her prime, because her man had ridden the storm on a soap-bubble and never come back. And whose fault was that? The guilt was shared by so many, even by my father. Something exploded inside my head. It was rage.

  Oh, that was a good rage, a strong rage! I recognized it suddenly as an old companion, incubated in Exile, hatched in Gil—an anger at wasted lives, at throwaway heroism, at treachery and cruelty and the lust for power. It had broken through before, this rage, but not like this; I suppose I had never welcomed it before. Fortunately, it also strangled me for the moment. I stood silently, a model trooper, letting the rage spread throughout my body until it became a second entity sharing my skin.

  In the meantime, I had missed something. Kekashr was standing by my father, looking rather pleased. "What do you think, Shree? It needn't be loud as long as the syllables are clear."

  "Right as always, Uncle," said Shree. He loosened the wrist-straps, and my father immediately collapsed. Shree added thoughtfully, "He'll need to be held—but there could be some danger."

  "What danger? He's a fullborn Scion."

  "A fullborn Scion who's lost his mind. We don't know that the Lady will answer in the way we hope. Didn't the little spider mention a Caveat?"

  Kekashr waved off this trifle. "I leave it to you, Shree," he said. He picked up the Lady; his hands vanished into the light.

  The thin smile was back on Shree's lips. He was very pale, except for a blotch of colour high on each cheek. He looked around and seemed to notice me for the first time. "You, trooper—the one with the dirty boots. Yes, and your friend. Come over here. If you live through this, you'll remember to clean your kit."

  I floated over on the wings of my glorious rage, poking Angel to follow as I passed him. Under Shree's direction, we hoisted my father to his feet and lugged him past the drift of dust that marked Lord Kekashr's previous experiment. How light he was! No more weight than a four-year-old child. I saw Bekri and Corri and a few other Flamens huddle against the bars in mute despair. I saw Jebri, awake now, cover his face. I saw Shree gazing through my helmet with eyes that said: your waiting is over, Scion, here is your chance, use it in good health. I saw the Lady approaching in the hand of Lord Kekashr. The radiance was almost unbearable at this range—my poor father moaned with the pain of it, and screwed up his face.

  "You'll need to help him hold it, trooper. Wind your fingers around his—that's good. Now, Lord Cirallef—repeat after me . . ."

  * * *

  39

  "ARO ELIAN CALOS pilian."

  My father's lips moved. So did mine.

  "Calos milaf aro elian—is he saying it, trooper? Can you hear the words?"

  "Yes, Great Lord." He was actually murmuring my mother's name, but Kekashr did not need to know that. The Lady was cool and glassy under my fingers—the statues were a sham, she was a featureless cylinder concealed in her own nimbus, warming and quickening as I whispered the Lesser Will.

  "Milaf solor calos pilian."

  I knew the words, I did not need Kekashr to prompt me in his barbarous Sheranik accent, but it was a pleasing irony to repeat the lines after him and let him take part in his own doom. The power was gathering—I remember the Lady purring and pulsing, and streaks of jade fire playing along the surface of the light. My grip tightened.

  "Calos pilian aros elian."

  That was the key line. Oballef's glittering fog rolled out of the light and filled the chamber. Kekashr moved closer, his face
washed ghastly pallid by the incandescence, but avid, triumphant. He reached for the Lady.

  I laughed. I knocked off my helmet and showed him all my teeth, and his hand jerked back. He stared at me with his mouth wide open. Then he cried, "Kill him!" and the troopers reached for their swords and found fangs instead, serpent fangs. Parth-asps, probably; I had no chance to look and they were swords again by the time the troopers hit the floor, but parth-asps had certainly been in my mind.

  Kekashr glanced around wildly during the brief screaming. He backed away until his mailed rump hit the table. I gently disengaged my father and transferred his whole pitiful weight into Angel's arms, keeping my eyes on Kekashr. I barely registered Shree unlocking the cage, but it must have been while his back was turned and my attention was focused on Kekashr that Xilo slipped unnoticed through the door.

  The warlord's arm was almost too fast to follow. A little scalpel from among the torture tools flew towards me, aimed at my exposed throat. It slowed in the golden haze, flashing like a minnow in a sunlit pool, and dropped at my feet. I shook my head chidingly at Kekashr and moved closer to him by a step.

  "Scion! The door!" Shree's voice.

  I spun around, and so the knife took me not in the exposed nape as intended, but in the shoulder, the same damned shoulder as before, bouncing off the mailed sleeve but cruelly jarring my old wound in the process. I hardly felt the pain—only the rage. Troopers spurted through the doorway, their swords flaming in the mist. I held up my hand, and the flames were real, the troopers were victory bonfires on jerking feet that carried them on a step or two before the flames reached their faces. I dropped my hand again and the conflagration died. The troopers lay where they fell, blackened and stinking of burnt meat, charred leather. From the outer dungeon, a hush—in the chamber, only Jebri's sobbing and my father's incessant murmur, Dazeene, Dazeene.