by Ian Irvine
‘Please, Zham.’
‘Ever since I took up arms,’ he grunted, ‘I’ve known it would end this way. It’s all I’m good for, little lady.’
He drove the warrior backwards a few steps, then reached down to grasp the plank and gave it a mighty heave. It twisted slightly; the huge warrior threw out his arms for balance and, as the twisting motion propagated along the plank, those men behind him did the same. One fell silently to the left; another cried out as he went off to the right. Zham twisted again. Could he pull the plank free? She allowed herself to hope, for Zham’s strength was as huge as his heart.
Again that whirring, and this time Maelys looked down. The shell of her taphloid was changing; faces and dials she’d never seen before were appearing and disappearing there, as they’d not done in many years, and the hand on one dial was pointing towards the rear of the cavern. The fragment of crystal must have powered it for the first time in months, but it did not blank out her gift, as it had always done before she’d passed through the Mistmurk at the base of the Pit of Possibilities.
Hopeless, fatalistic thoughts rose up; again she crushed them and focused on what she had to do. The taphloid must be enhancing her gift, for suddenly she could see Jal-Nish’s jagged red and black aura again, and Flydd’s pale green one flickering, and a tiny glimmer coming from Nish as well.
She turned, following the direction the little hand was pointing, and the hidden door between the columns was outlined in yellow radiance. A brighter oval in the middle marked a keyhole the size of her closed fist, and in a daze she thrust the taphloid at the hole.
An enormous groan made her look over her shoulder. Zham had lifted the end of the metal plank and the soldiers still on it. How could he do that with broken ribs? Grunting with the strain, he forced it to chest height and twisted it left, right, left. A dozen Imperial Guards fell to their deaths, some silently, others screaming in terror, but the giant warrior rode the twisting board as if his feet were glued to it, swaying from side to side and balancing himself with swings of his rapier and cutlass.
Maelys could see how it was going to end, for Zham had exhausted his strength, yet failed to dislodge his enemy. The warrior sprang, bounced on the swaying plank, lunged and thrust his rapier down. It went through Zham’s unprotected chest and came out a couple of hand-spans from his lower back, sparkling like freshly polished metal with rubies dripping from its tip.
‘Zham!’ she wailed.
The end of the plank slipped through his fingers and struck the sill of the cave. The warrior tried to heave his weapon out but Zham’s hands locked around his enemy’s on the rapier’s hilt, and held him. Putting his huge boot against the warrior’s groin, Zham sent him flying into the three guards behind, knocking them down. The warrior went over the side, and they did too.
Maelys ran to Zham. ‘Flee!’ he said weakly, and fell to the floor, the impact pushing the rapier most of the way back through him. Blood was flooding from the hole in his chest; he was going to die.
The few surviving guards broke into a run, and others were scrambling over the side of the sky palace now that the way was clear. Soon they would pour into the cavern like a dam bursting.
‘Thank you, faithful Zham,’ she wept, kissing his brow. There was nothing more she could do for him. Family first; always family first. Her eyes swimming with tears, she turned away from the friend who had given his all and asked nothing in return, went to the rear door and thrust the taphloid into the keyhole. The door began to scrape open.
Jal-Nish twitched, rolled over and groped blindly for Reaper.
‘Get in!’ she screeched, leaping through into the darkness.
Flydd picked up his rucksack, which Zham had packed for him after renewal, slung it over his back, and followed, then Nish; Colm was still by the entrance, his sword out.
‘It’s over, Colm,’ Flydd said gruffly. ‘Come, if you’re coming.’
Colm jerked the rapier out of Zham’s chest with one hand, swiping at the leading soldier through the entrance with the other. The man ducked, then came on. Colm ran across the cavern, through the door, and Maelys put her fist into the glowing keyhole on the other side, then whipped it out again as the slab slammed shut, leaving them in darkness.
FOUR
As the stone door closed, Nish sagged with relief, for it had placed a physical barrier, however temporary, between him and his father. He couldn’t see a thing, and there was no way to tell which way the cavern led from here, save by feel. ‘Light!’ he said hoarsely, for his throat was so dry it itched.
‘Can’t even make light,’ muttered Flydd. ‘I’m reduced to mere, talentless humanity.’
‘It’s all I’ve ever been,’ said Colm.
‘Then you can’t possibly know any different.’
‘Stop moaning, you old fool!’ snapped Colm. ‘Make the best of it.’
‘You sound better, Xervish,’ said Maelys hastily. ‘As cranky as ever, in fact.’
Flydd managed a feeble chuckle. ‘I’d imagined that being restored to a vigorous middle age would be like getting a new life, but it feels as if my old bones are loosely clothed with someone else’s muscles. Every movement requires an effort of will; it’s like learning to walk again.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how you did it, Maelys, but thank you.’
She said something, softly, but Nish missed it; he could not concentrate for the pain of his charred left hand. He sucked at the wet sleeve covering the coconut-sized moss bandage. The moisture felt good on his cracked lips but the movement caused the agony of his burns, temporarily forgotten in the mad scramble to escape, to flare anew.
He bit down on a cry; giving way to pain could only make things worse. He had to be stronger than he’d ever been, for it was his only hope of escaping the monster on the other side of the door. But it was hard, very hard. The pain was worse than any of the many injuries he’d taken during the war.
This will be my first test, he thought. No matter how much it hurts, I won’t make a sound. And if I’m strong enough for that, I’ll take it as a sign that I can defeat Father.
Nish groped in the darkness with his good hand, touched something warm and yielding, Maelys’s bosom, and jerked his hand away. At her sharp intake of breath he muttered, ‘Sorry! Can’t see a thing.’
She probably thought he’d done it deliberately, but he had bigger worries, not least the extraordinary story she’d told his father. Could Maelys really be pregnant with his child? He didn’t think so, but if she was, even if she’d done it in such a sordid way, it would change both their lives. They would be bound together for all time, by blood. He had to admire the scheming little vixen. Maelys was braver than he was, and she never gave up.
He could sense her small, tense presence half a span away, and hear her quick breathing. She sounded as if she were cracking up and he couldn’t blame her. She’d saved them but she could do no more, nor could Flydd, and Nish didn’t trust Colm. It was up to him, now. He had spent months tormented by self-doubt and, to his shame, wallowing in self-pity, but he had to put all that behind him. After repudiating his father’s offer to become his lieutenant, there was no going back, for they were enemies and would remain so until one of them died. It was time for Nish to take charge of his life.
Flydd and Maelys were talking about what she’d seen in the Pit of Possibilities, which reminded Nish of his own visions there, the first time. He could almost convince himself to discount his last vision – the one where he, the Deliverer, was acclaimed as God-Emperor – no matter how much he yearned for it, for Vivimord had as good as admitted sending it to him. But take it away and the other futures all ended the same way: in the failure of his quest, the triumph of the God-Emperor, and Nish’s exile, madness, or death.
Despair pinched at his liver, a stabbing pain, but he endured that too. Never give way, not once; not even for a second. I reject all those possibilities and the pit itself, he raged inwardly. There will be no madness; no exile; no death. I will make my own future!
I won’t become the Deliverer either, for that would mean submitting to Vivimord’s plans for me, and he’s just as corrupt as my father. But I will overthrow Father and restore peace and justice to Santhenar – though not as the God-Emperor. There will be no more God-Emperors. ‘Whatever it takes, and however long, I’m going to do it!’
‘What’s that?’ said Flydd.
Nish hadn’t realised that he’d spoken aloud. ‘We’ve got to get away from the door. Where does this cave go?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Why not?’ Nish snapped as the pain flared again. ‘You had nine years.’
‘And you took ten years to get here,’ Flydd said mildly.
‘How far is it to the shadow realm?’
‘Not far; assuming I can find the power to enter it. Lead on.’
‘I –’ The pain nearly overcame him; Nish squeezed his eyes shut until the spasm passed. ‘Feel around, everyone; find where the passage goes.’
‘Right here,’ said Colm from his left. ‘It slopes down gently.’
‘Go down, and we’ll follow.’
‘Whatever you say, Deliverer,’ Colm said, the soles of his boots sliding on stone.
Nish didn’t have the strength to be irritated. He went behind Maelys, wishing he had Zham’s strong arm to lean on, and already missing his quiet, reliable solidity. But Zham was gone, as so many of his friends and allies had been lost. Nish needed to grieve for him but couldn’t afford to; not here. Jal-Nish would already be recovering; his troops would be helping him back to the sky palace, where he would use Gatherer to search out all the secrets of Mistmurk Mountain, and hunt Nish down.
He choked but managed to swallow his despair. Just take it minute by minute, he told himself. Even agony can be endured for one minute, and if you can do that, you can suffer it for another. And so he continued.
They went down a long straight passage, clambered over a shallow crevasse which Colm discovered by falling into it and gashing his shin, then along a narrow, snaking tunnel with a gentle downslope and a strong smell of animal urine. Flydd kept stumbling, falling over and cursing his ill-fitting new body.
‘Xervish,’ said Maelys in a tiny voice. Ten or fifteen uneventful minutes had passed, during which Nish’s unease grew ever stronger.
‘What?’ panted Flydd.
‘When you began renewal, you talked about forcing the barrier and holding open the shadow realm for the hours it would take to get through it to safety. You said you needed at least three crystals to do that, but all we have is one tiny shard. How can we possibly get through without the crystals?’
He began to breathe heavily, as if remembering something he would sooner have forgotten. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought the stone door –’
‘It’s just a normal door into the caverns that run through Mistmurk Mountain. The shadow realm is yet to come – if we can get into it at all.’
‘What is the shadow realm?’ said Nish. ‘Is it like the maze we passed through when we escaped from Monkshart at Tifferfyte?’
Flydd stopped to catch his breath. ‘Completely different. That maze was a dangerous place, but an empty one. It could drive you mad, and most people would become lost and die there, but it held no other threat. The shadow realm is like a nether world to the Three Worlds, bound to yet separate from them. It’s the pit into which necromancers like Vivimord delve to further their depraved Arts, a perilous place full of dark and mischievous spirits.’
‘Then why are we going there?’
‘Because there’s no other choice. Bad as it is, we’ve got a better chance passing through the shadow realm than we have staying here. We’re not strong enough to fight Jal-Nish. We’ve got to disappear, though sooner or later he’ll find us with the tears, wherever we hide. Therefore we’ve got to have a weapon, one he’s afraid of, and the antithesis is the only possibility I know of. Besides, I spent years preparing my crystal to protect us while we pass through the shadow realm.’
‘But it’s broken.’
‘The spells remain in the shard Maelys caught. Let’s get moving.’
‘So we won’t be there long?’ said Maelys anxiously.
‘Just a few hours, hopefully …’
That sounded ominous. ‘And then what?’ said Nish.
‘We return to the real world a long way from here; and from Jal-Nish.’
‘And after that?’
‘The instant I have regained my Art and my fitness, we go south to the Tower of a Thousand Steps. To approach the Numinator, I’ll need all my wits about me.’ He added under his breath, ‘And then some.’
They continued down a steeper slope which was slippery with aromatic droppings. ‘What’s that smell?’ said Nish. It was sickly sweet and spicy, like cane syrup mixed with pepper and cloves.
‘Giant swamp creepers,’ Maelys said from ahead. He could hear the revulsion in her voice. ‘When I went down to the cursed flame earlier, there were thousands of them, all oozing and squirming over each other. Yuk!’
‘Tasty, though,’ said Colm. ‘If we’re trapped down here, at least we’ll eat well.’
Nish, remembering the splendid steaks they’d dined on during their first night on the plateau, salivated. The swamp creepers were like gigantic black slugs the size of a muscular man’s thigh, and almost all meat.
‘I remember now!’ cried Flydd. ‘That’s where we’ve got to go. The cursed flame is the one source of power available to me.’
‘And Father will have it under guard,’ said Nish.
‘He may not know about the flame yet. Ah, this place has a familiar feel. I think I know where we are.’
‘Lead the way, then – what’s that?’ said Nish, as thunder rolled down the passage.
‘The God-Emperor’s mancers must be attacking the hidden door,’ said Flydd. ‘Come on.’
They skidded down the slick surface, scrambled through a pit full of droppings which had an appalling stench and a faint luminosity, then climbed a broken slope equally coated with muck. By the time they reached the top they were smeared with it. Handicapped as he was, Nish fell many times, and each time his burned hand struck the rock it sent sickening waves of pain through him. He almost cried out, but managed to stifle it. I will not give in, he kept telling himself. I can beat Father; I must. He was thankful for the darkness, which concealed the tears streaming down his cheeks.
‘Nish, are you all right?’ said Maelys. Her hand touched his arm. ‘Oh Nish,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry – about everything.’
Her concern almost undid his resolve, but he could not reply. It was taking all his strength to endure the pain. He managed a grunt and after a moment she moved on.
After some twenty minutes of scrambling, during which they heard the thunder twice more, Flydd whispered, ‘It can’t be far now. Once we get to the bottom of this long slope, we should be below the flame – back!’
They crept backwards. ‘What is it, surr?’ said Nish.
‘I caught the faintest reflection, a long way down, as if someone had put his head around the corner, then ducked back.’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Colm.
‘Good eyes are the one benefit I’ve got from renewal so far,’ said Flydd.
‘Apart from life!’
Flydd ignored the sarcasm. ‘My renewed guts feel as though they’re eating themselves, and my leg muscles slide up and down on my bones with every step. We’d better go back to that cross passage we saw a few minutes ago. I think there’s another way into the flame chamber.’
‘I got to it from beneath the obelisk in the marshes,’ said Maelys timidly.
Did she think they were disgusted with her? Colm had certainly made his contempt plain. Nish no longer knew what he felt about Maelys, though she was as brave and resourceful as any woman he’d ever known, even Irisis – No! He could not, would not allow himself to make the comparison.
After feeling their way through absolute darkness for a good
while, Flydd grunted, ‘I smell moist air – cool air.’
‘I smell nothing but the decaying turds of a million swamp creepers,’ muttered Colm.
‘Above the cavern of the cursed flame,’ Maelys said, ‘the air was warm, but below it a cool breeze was blowing up from the depths.’
‘So we’re below the cavern. Good,’ said Flydd. ‘Perhaps this way is not guarded.’
Nish thought that unlikely, but refrained from saying so. Despair is your greatest failing, he told himself. Don’t open the door to it; not even a crack. While we’re alive, there’s hope. Things aren’t as bad here as they were at Fiz Gorgo, and you pulled off a miraculous victory there. You can do it again. He closed his mind to the thought that miraculous victories had occurred a number of times in the Histories, but seldom had even the greatest of heroes done it twice.
‘I can smell sweaty men,’ said Maelys, now walking shoulder to shoulder with Nish.
‘Just what you’ve been panting for,’ said Colm.
‘Shut up!’ she hissed. ‘Just shut up, Colm. I don’t know what I ever saw in you.’
‘Likewise!’
Nish couldn’t stay silent any longer. ‘Leave her alone or you’ll have me to deal with.’
‘Is that a promise, oath-breaker?’
Nish felt himself flushing. ‘She saved us all, you fool!’
‘And she’d do –’
‘Enough!’ hissed Flydd. ‘What’s the matter with you three?’
Now Nish could smell the soldiers’ rancid sweat. The way was guarded, and as they crawled back into the reeking dark, he felt despair’s door creaking open. Just a crack, but it was always there. With an effort of will he closed it again. ‘Is there no other way to obtain the power we need?’
‘There are only two entrances, and I dare say the other one is guarded as well.’
FIVE
Maelys sagged against the wall, feeling worse than ever. Colm’s naked contempt was almost unendurable, and she could not understand why he was so hostile. She’d made no promises to him; they had never been more than travelling companions. With an effort, she put him out of mind. She’d had barely any sleep last night and not much the night before; every muscle in her body was aching and she was tired beyond rational thought.