by Ian Irvine
“It was Glynnie’s idea. Didn’t occur to me for an instant. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“I always thought so.”
“She used the rest of Tali’s healing blood. There wasn’t much. Maybe that’s why…” He looked down at it. “She made me hold Maloch while she did it. Because Maloch was supposed to protect me, she said, and it might not have severed my hand on all the levels. Whatever the hell that means.”
Tobry whistled. “How did she know that?”
“Something she picked up, listening to the magians talk.”
“I gather your hand was alive for a while… and then not?”
Rix froze. He had been trying not to think about the mural he’d painted on the wall of the little vault after Glynnie had rejoined his hand — the mural depicting himself and Tali about to kill Tobry, drawn with bone charcoal then painted with his own blood.
What could the mural mean? Do I secretly resent Tobry for gaining Tali’s love? She’s a beautiful and desirable woman. Do I, subconsciously, want to take her from him? No, that’s absurd.
Should I tell him about the mural?
Rix wanted to tell Tobry and see him laugh it off, but couldn’t bear to bring it up. It was too painful, too confronting. What would Tobry say? What would he think? He was a tolerant man, but could anyone be that tolerant? Revealing it could undermine Tobry’s trust in him, even destroy their friendship. What if he walked out, never to return?
Rix could not take the chance. He needed Tobry’s friendship, his wise counsel, his strength and not least his magery. Besides, Rix’s paintings often portrayed strange, mysterious or alarming scenes. Occasionally — very occasionally — they divined some aspect of the future, though most of the time the paintings were mere figments of his artist’s imagination. He wasn’t going to risk Tobry’s friendship and support over a mural that was so patently absurd.
“I used it for an hour or so,” he said, looking into the fire, “while we hid in a forgotten vault deep beneath the palace. Then it went grey and dead in a few minutes. There can’t have been enough of Tali’s blood to heal it.”
“I was talking to Glynnie earlier, down in the healery…” began Tobry.
Rix’s heart thumped three times, close together, then missed the next three beats entirely. He looked away, afraid to meet Tobry’s eyes; afraid he would read the sickening truth there. Rix’s throat tightened until he could barely draw a breath. “What about?” he said with studied casualness.
Tobry favoured him with a sour smile, as if he knew Rix had left out something vital. In days gone by they had shared everything. Well, almost everything.
Could Tobry know what Rix was hiding? Surely not; Glynnie had the discretion of the perfect servant. She would never tell Tobry about a painting that concerned him so directly.
“The mural you painted up in the observatory. And how your hand came back to life when you took up your brushes.”
“It’s true,” said Rix, wondering what Tobry was going to say next. Knowing him, it would not be positive.
Tobry didn’t disappoint him. “Didn’t you wonder how your hand could be dead all that time, then suddenly come to life when you began to paint?”
“Of course I did, but I decided to treat it as a gift.”
“A miraculous gift, come to you because you’re so deserving.” Tobry heaped the sarcasm on with a shovel.
“Why not?” Rix said defensively.
“Glynnie as good as told you that there was magery involved — ”
“What would she know about it?” Rix muttered, contradicting his earlier remark.
“And where can the magery have come from, but Maloch? In case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you. Nothing good has yet come from that sword.”
“You’ve changed your tune. You’re the one who urged me to wear it.”
“I wish I hadn’t.”
“It saved both our lives in the wrythen’s caverns,” Rix pointed out.
“Only after it led us there for its own fell purposes.”
“What rot!”
“Do you deny it led us there? You spun Maloch three times, remember, and each time it pointed to Precipitous Crag. I tried to stop it spinning, using the best magery I had, but it resisted me. No, it beat me.”
“I don’t deny it,” said Rix, thinking about the sword and the strange pull it had on him. When he held it, all his doubts fell away. He felt strong, powerful, invincible. He wasn’t planning to tell Tobry that either.
“Were you holding Maloch when you began the painting up in the observatory?”
Tobry had an unerring ability to make Rix feel like an idiot. “Er, yes.”
“What did it tell you to paint?”
“It didn’t tell me to paint anything,” he snapped. “That’s not how I work, as you know very well.”
Tobry leaned back in his chair. The firelight played on his face and Rix saw that he looked much older — closer to forty than his true age, twenty-five. He wore scars Rix had not seen before and his eyes were brooding.
“Remind me how you do work.”
“I disconnect my mind — ”
“Never a hard thing, in your case.”
Rix smiled, for the retort reminded him of the old, acerbic Tobry. He was far preferable to the new, harder man. The lost one.
“I deliberately didn’t think about the painting. I didn’t set out to paint Grandys — ”
Tobry shot out of his chair, scattering wine across the floor. “You painted Axil Grandys?”
“I assumed Glynnie would have told you that.”
“I tried to get it out of her, but she’s like a clam where it concerns you. Go on.”
“I needed to paint. You know how I get, sometimes — it’s the only escape I have. I didn’t care what I painted, so I deliberately disconnected. I spent the time planning the raid on Jadgery, as it happens.”
“I heard about that on the way here. Not your most brilliant success.”
“I came here to fight, and Swelt supported me. And,” Rix realised, “I suppose I was obsessed with proving that I wasn’t a true son of House Ricinus.”
“Ah, well. You’re not the only fool in this room.”
“It wasn’t until I’d finished working out the plan for the raid, and my right hand had gone icy cold, that I saw what I’d painted. Even then, it took a good while to realise I’d painted the image of Grandys I’d seen before.”
“What image?” said Tobry.
“The one I saw when I put my hand on Maloch’s hilt, on the way to Precipitous Crag.”
“Like I say,” said Tobry, “beware the sword. Whatever it’s up to, it’s not acting on your behalf.”
“Then on whose behalf is it acting?”
“That,” said Tobry, “is the question you should have asked yourself a long time ago.”
CHAPTER 48
“Do you want to see the mural?” said Rix.
Tobry was slumped in his chair. “Not right now.” He opened his eyes. “What happened to Benn?”
Rix told him. “He was just gone. No evidence, no trace.”
“It happens in war. Happens all the time. Gods,” cried Tobry, “I hate this world, this life.” He held out his glass. Rix filled it. Tobry stared into the wine as though he might find the answers to the miseries of the world there. “He was a nice kid.”
“Yes, he was,” said Rix, a trifle shocked. Not because of the outburst — anyone was entitled to react that way on hearing of the disappearance of a child they knew — but because it was so uncharacteristic of his close-mouthed friend.
They finished the bottle and began another, not talking. Rix ran through his search for Benn yet again, in case he’d missed something, but his thoughts kept turning back to Maloch. The sword had belonged to Grandys, and Rix had spent all his spare time reading about the man, so it was hardly surprising that he had painted the petrified image while he was holding Maloch.
“I didn’t land on the paving stones,” said Tobry.
“What?” said Rix, dragged abruptly out of his own thoughts and not sure what Tobry was talking about.
“When the chancellor’s guards threw me from the tower. The tidal wave must have collapsed the land beside the tower. I landed in a sinkhole full of water and slimy mud. And bodies; lots of drowned people.”
“It’s still a wonder you survived,” said Rix. “A hundred feet!”
“I didn’t survive by myself.”
“Oh?”
“The impact knocked me out and hurt me badly. I was throwing up blood for a week.”
He took a gulp of wine, which, as if to emphasise the point, stained his lips the colour of blood, then went on. “First thing I knew, Salyk was dragging me out over a pile of bodies.” He shuddered.
“Who’s Salyk?”
“A Cythonian soldier. Not much older than Glynnie, and quite unfit for soldiering…”
“Why so?”
“She was compassionate, gentle and caring, even to an ugly old enemy like me. She had nightmares from the atrocities she’d witnessed in the first days of the war. She should have been an artist…”
“Really?” said Rix, rolling his eyes.
“I mean it. We’ve talked before about Cythonians and their art. It seems to fill some great void in them, and even a humble soldier girl like her could tell the difference between good art and bad.” He studied Rix’s dead hand for a minute or two then said, with elaborate casualness, “I suppose that’s why she saved your father’s portrait.”
Rix’s heart stopped. “What portrait?” he said hoarsely. But he knew, he knew.
“The one you did for the Honouring.”
“Where did she get it? I thought the chancellor took it.”
“Evidently not. She found it in the ruins somewhere, and was so moved by it that she begged an audience with Lyf himself, to ask what to do with it.”
Rix did not move or speak. He could not. Just when he thought House Ricinus’s dreadful past had been erased, it rose up to haunt him.
“Lyf thought it a masterpiece, too. The finest work of Hightspall he’d ever seen.” Tobry looked sideways at Rix.
“Is that supposed to console me?”
“I know how you artists crave the adoration of the masses.” Tobry chuckled. “Ah, it’s good to be back, Rix.”
Rix scowled and did not reply.
Tobry went on. “In the early days of the war, Hightspall, at the instigation of Grandys and the other Heroes, wantonly destroyed almost all the treasures of old Cythe. Lyf ordered the portrait burned in retaliation.”
“Good riddance!” said Rix.
“But Salyk couldn’t burn it. It had moved her too deeply. She defied the express order of her lord king and hid the portrait where it would not be found. Though I’ve a feeling it will be found one day, and then it’ll reveal its true divination.”
“What do you mean, true divination?”
“I don’t know — like I said, it’s a feeling I have.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Salyk hid me, and doctored my wounds, for quite a few days. I spent all my waking hours staring at the damn thing.”
“Do you happen to know where the portrait is?”
“I dare say I could find it again, though I’m not planning to go back to Caulderon any time soon. They don’t like me any more.” Tobry chuckled. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s the best painting I’ve ever done, yet I’ve never hated anything more. I’ve an urge to burn the damn thing myself.”
“I wouldn’t advise it. I heard Lyf’s built a special scaffold, just for you.”
Rix’s lungs gave a convulsive heave. “Go on with your story.”
“Not much to tell,” Tobry said, a trifle hastily. “Salyk helped me to escape from Caulderon and I went looking for Tali. And a miserable time I had of it, too, until I gave up and ended up here.”
Rix knew that Tobry had left out a large part of the story, but if he did not want to tell it there was no point asking him.
“How about you?” said Tobry. “What brought you to Garramide?”
“There’s not a lot to tell that you don’t know. Benn was lost, Glynnie and I fought a bunch of Cythonians in the lake. We escaped and made our way here.”
“How come?”
“What?”
“Why here, as opposed to any other place?”
“My great-aunt left Garramide to me last year, in my own right. It didn’t come through House Ricinus, so not even the chancellor could rob me of it.”
“Were you consciously heading here? Or following the sword?”
“The sword pointed the way, and then I thought of Garramide.”
Tobry frowned. “All right, let’s assemble the evidence. You went to Precipitous Crag because Maloch pointed the way. You fought Lyf’s wrythen there with Maloch, the sword that Lyf hates and fears. Lyf’s ancient enemy was the great Herovian Axil Grandys, who started the war and owned the enchanted sword, Maloch. He hacked Lyf’s feet off with it.” Tobry’s sardonic eye met Rix’s bewildered one. “With me so far?”
Rix didn’t bother to reply.
Tobry went on. “In the fight in the murder cellar, Tali hurled Maloch at the trophy case containing Lyf’s severed foot bones, which Grandys had kept for some arcane purpose. Maloch destroyed the foot bones with a colossal burst of magery, hurting Lyf badly.
“Not long afterwards, you followed Maloch’s directions to Garramide, the fortress that Grandys’ only child lived in until 1950 years ago. The Herovian fortress where Maloch lay hidden all this time, until your great-aunt sent it to you a couple of years back.” Tobry raised an eyebrow. “Have I missed anything vital?”
Rix jerked his head from side to side.
“And what’s the first thing you do when you get here?”
“You tell me. You know so much more than I do.”
The sarcasm settled like a wet blanket.
“You call for paints and brushes,” said Tobry, “even though your hand has gone dead and you’ve vowed to never paint again. You take Maloch in your good hand and, Lo! Tra la! Like magic, your dead hand comes back to life just long enough to paint a mural depicting the opalised body of Axil Grandys. And what do you do then?”
Rix did not reply.
“Nothing!” said Tobry. “Nothing about the mural strikes you as the least odd or worrying. You draw no parallels, see no omens. You continue on your merry way as though nothing had happened.”
“I’ve been sweating about it for ages,” cried Rix, nettled beyond forbearance.
“Yet you still wear the sword,” Tobry said inexorably. “You still go up to the observatory and moon over the mural every night.”
“How the hell would you know what I do?”
“I asked Glynnie and she told me that much, because she was so worried about you. Rix, can’t you see that this obsession with Grandys — or perhaps a better word is infatuation — is perilous?”
“He’s been dead almost two thousand years, Tobe.”
“But his sword is up to something and it’s out of your control. And there’s another thing — ”
“Make it the last,” snapped Rix.
“All right. I know it came as a shock when the chancellor told you that you were Herovian, and directly descended from Grandys himself. And I know your life had been shattered by the fall of your house, and you felt you had nothing left — ”
“Get to the point, if you’ve got one,” Rix grated.
“You needed to fill the void in your life, but I wouldn’t advise you to adopt Herovian ideals uncritically.”
“I’m not like you, Tobe. I’m not a deep thinker.”
“You’ve got that right. You’re not even a shallow thinker.”
Rix gritted his teeth but let it pass. “I don’t know much about Herovian ideals — no one will tell me! But I know they believe in honour, nobility — ”
“And blood, Rix. Bloodlines were everything to them. That’s why Grandys mad
e Garramide one of the strongest fortresses in Hightspall — to protect his only child. They also believe in racial purity, drunkenness, brawling and contempt for the arts, to name but a few. Grandys made a point of destroying every thing of beauty the Cythonians had created in thousands of years. How do you reconcile that, Rix?”
“I can’t. But… he was just one man.”
“A man who epitomised his people. He also believed that the mentally disabled, infirm and crippled should be done away with, to preserve the purity of the race.”
Rix was in dangerous waters and had no way out. “That was all long ago — ”
“Herovian beliefs haven’t changed,” said Tobry. “And before you get too involved with them, hasn’t it occurred to you that you count as a cripple, Deadhand!”
CHAPTER 49
It was impossible to sleep with the enemy camped outside the walls of Garramide. After tossing in his bed for hours, listening to the blizzard shrieking like the injured men down in the healery, Rix rose and went up to the main watchtower behind the gates. Even wearing a heavy, down-filled coat with a fur-lined hood, it felt petrifyingly cold outside now.
“Lord?” said Nuddell as Rix entered the guardhouse. Nuddell was warming his hands over the brazier, but must have just come in from the wall — he had an epaulette of snow on each shoulder.
“Hope you haven’t been here all night,” said Rix, joining him.
“Just an hour. Couldn’t sleep.”
“Me either. Anything to report?”
“They’re still out there — but they’re wishing they weren’t.”
“I’ll bet,” said Rix. “Even when Tobe and I went hunting in the mountains, I’ve never known it to be this cold.”
“Blizzard’s blowing off a thousand miles of ice,” said Nuddell. “A man could freeze to death fully dressed out there.”
“Let’s hope Oosta and her healers are hiding somewhere warm.”
“Let’s hope they’re still alive.”
Rix turned away from the brazier, reluctantly. “If anything happens I’ll be down at the healery.”