by Ian Irvine
She laughed, and it was like Tulitine’s laughter, too, though lacking the hoarseness of the old woman’s voice. ‘My children are long dead. I am Tulitine.’
Nish gaped. ‘It’s a very fine illusion.’
‘It’s no illusion. I used the Regression Spell to turn back my age. Once it wears off I’ll pay dearly, but for the moment I’m forty-five again – younger than you look, incidentally.’
Nish touched his swollen face. He had never heard of the Regression Spell; nor had he been aware that Tulitine could use the mancer’s Art. ‘How did you catch us?’
‘I used another charm, of unrelenting stamina. Because of my heritage I see well in the dark –’
‘What heritage?’ Tulitine herself was an enigma enclosed within a paradox.
She went on as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ve walked day and night for four days, without stopping. You must turn back, Nish. Whatever happened to your clearsight?’
‘It hasn’t been much in evidence since Vivimord took me to Gendrigore, but it was never reliable.’
‘I’ve often wondered why your wits seemed so dull.’
Nish wasn’t offended. She’d always had an acid tongue but he didn’t think she meant it. But then, maybe she did. And maybe she was right.
Tulitine lifted his scarred hand, studying the restored skin there, which had grown steadily darker over the past weeks. ‘I didn’t notice this when I dressed your hand a month ago.’
He explained about the cursed flame, and Vivimord’s blood dripping onto his hand.
‘And you did that, even though Flydd tried to stop you? You’re a fool punished by his folly. The blood formed a bond between you and Vivimord, and with it he fashioned an enchantment that still dulls your wits, even now he’s gone. I’m not sure I can remove it completely.’
Her cool fingers tapped a lengthy pattern on his brow; she whispered something; he felt a sharp pain behind his eyes and the enchantment faded. The pain of his broken nose also eased a little.
‘Who are you, Tulitine?’ he said as they climbed to the top of the clearing, slipping on the wet grass. ‘Are you one of the great mages of ancient times, hidden for centuries?’
She shook her head. ‘I was hidden for a long time, but for my own protection.’
‘Who would want to harm you?’
‘We have more important things to talk about, Nish. I know a spell or two, not because I have a great gift for the Art – I don’t – but because I was taught by the best, for my protection. I’ve lived a humble life, and I never wanted to excel at anything save healing. I had a calling for that – it was my way of making good.’
It was an odd thing to say. ‘Why? Had you done something terrible?’
‘Not I.’ They were at the top of the clearing now. She preceded him into the gloom under the trees, then turned to face him. ‘And I was greatly loved,’ she said as if in afterthought, ‘which was worth more to me than a hundred lives of the mighty.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Nish. ‘Where did –?’
‘There’s no time for this,’ she said urgently. ‘I learned four days ago that Curr was a traitor. He led you astray, delayed you so the enemy could reach the pass first. Blisterbone is strongly garrisoned and you could not take it with five times the troops you have. You must retreat all the way to the lowlands, not stopping day or night, or you won’t survive.’
‘We’ve got no food, and they’ll cut us off before we can get down to our track.’
‘There’s still a chance,’ said Tulitine. ‘They don’t know you’re here.’
‘They must. Curr has been gone for ages.’
‘I know, for the birds spoke to me, and the wind in the trees, that he was set on betrayal. I followed him; came upon him in the dark so silently that he didn’t know I was there.’ Her unclouded eyes were bright in the dripping shade. ‘I broke my solemn healer’s oath, cut him down from behind and wrung the truth out of him before he died. He had not yet given you away. The cur will do no more betraying – and I no more healing. I am no longer worthy. Call your troops.’ She turned away, head bowed and looking her age again.
Nish whistled; shortly Gi and Hoshi appeared. ‘Curr’s betrayed us. Retreat to the track we came up, and keep low.’
Gi and Hoshi ran, but the militia had just reached the clearing when an army horn echoed back and forth across the bowl-shaped valley. Another joined it from the lower rim. And Nish’s force did not carry horns. His marrow went cold.
‘They must have spotted you from the lookout above the pass,’ said Tulitine.
‘And they’ll be quick down the ridges.’ Nish suppressed the panic, trying to think. ‘We may be able to get out the lower end of the valley before they close it off, if we run.’
‘I don’t know this valley.’
‘The river cuts through a cliff-bound ravine with a natural arch across it. We can scramble through the ravine beside the water. Come on.’
Before they had skirted the clearing, however, Nish could see hundreds of soldiers moving down both ridges, making no effort to conceal themselves. The enemy must have been watching them for hours.
‘They’re moving faster than we are,’ said Gi, heaving one boot out of calf-deep mud. ‘They’ll be at the stone bridge before we’re halfway.’
Nish called a halt, watching his father’s men moving around the edges of the bowl as if they owned the world. Gi was right. They couldn’t get out through the ravine, nor over the ridges, and the top of the valley ended in an unclimbable cliff running all the way up to the white-thorn mountain. There was nowhere to go.
‘Raise a surrender flag, Gi. One single life lost in a hopeless cause is too many.’ Nish had trouble meeting her clear young eyes, for she was going to die; all his cheerful, friendly soldiers were. When Jal-Nish made an example of Gendrigore, everyone would die, save Nish.
Gi ran back to give the orders. Tulitine seemed even younger now; the faint wrinkles that had been at the corners of her eyes half an hour ago were gone, and her skin was smoother and paler, as if she’d lived her life indoors.
‘The Regression Spell is still younging me,’ she said with a faraway smile, ‘though it doesn’t have far to run now.’
‘And then?’
‘I’ll reach a certain age, about thirty-five, and maintain it for a week, perhaps even a month, after which I’ll slowly and painfully revert. Everything has a price, and the Regression Spell has a particularly cruel one.’ She shuddered and clenched her small fists. ‘It’s no use; there’s only one way to avert the catastrophe –’
Nish began to speak but she gestured him to silence.
‘Which I helped to create by speaking in riddles, to avoid breaking my healer’s oath and facing up to what had to be done. I must call on the one person I loathe more than any other – the one I swore never to turn to, no matter how bitter my circumstances.’
‘Who’s that?’ said Nish, the skin of his back crawling.
‘My terrible grandmother!’
She turned around several times, eyes closed, her beautiful face turned up to the drenching rain until it cascaded off her cheeks and chin. Her lips moved. More soldiers were lining up along the ridges, waiting for something, or someone. Jal-Nish?
‘I can’t see her at all,’ Tulitine burst out. ‘She’s cut me off. Why would she do that?’
Nish’s faint hope sank again, until he took in the emphasis in her words. ‘Who can you see?’
‘It – it feels like Maelys.’
‘Maelys!’ She was still alive, and that mattered, not just because she might be carrying his child. He understood her so much better now, and what drove her to do all she had done. ‘Why would you see Maelys, of all people?’
‘I cannot say. I haven’t used this spell in ninety years – near half my lifetime. And it wasn’t answered that time, either,’ she said under her breath. ‘What should I do? I’m at a loss. I’ll call her. At least if we all die here, someone will know what’s happened to us.’<
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Tulitine stood still for several minutes, her lips moving. More soldiers appeared on the ridges every minute.
The air crackled; a miniature bolt of lightning fizzed above their heads. Nish jumped; Hoshi let out a squeal; Tulitine broke off her murmuring.
A yellow sausage exploded into being twenty or thirty paces away in the clearing, expanded hugely and a puckered sphincter formed in its end. Rrrrippp. A hurricane of freezing air burst forth, hurling everyone off their feet; mist eddies spun in all directions like miniature tornadoes; bodies were ejected from the sphincter one by one – people wearing thick, fleecy clothes and furs covered in a layer of frost.
Nish had landed on his back in the mud and felt the tip of his nose and the lobes of his ears go numb, then the mud began to freeze around him. He looked up to the most astonishing sight – snow settling over the rainforest as a myriad of frost-covered people skidded down the wet slope, clutching swords and spears made from crystalline ice. They were looking back fearfully at the place where the portal had opened, but it could no longer be seen.
About thirty-five people had come through, half men and half women, and most had unnaturally pale skin, as if they had not seen the sun in many years. His gaze swung across their faces and he started.
‘Xervish?’ Flydd looked much as Nish had last seen him, except that his face was even more bruised and swollen than Nish’s own. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I should ask you the same question, but at least I know where we are,’ for he recognised the white-thorn mountain. Flydd gestured at a very tall, well-built man who was climbing to his feet, frost melting off him.
It was a long time since Nish had shed tears of joy, but now he felt his eyes prickling at the sight of his old friend. Yggur had been one of the greatest mancers of all, and he hadn’t aged a day in ten years. Surely with Yggur and Flydd they could find a way out of the trap. ‘Well met; oh, well met! Tulitine, it’s Yggur! Where did you come from?’
Flydd answered. ‘The Island of Noom, in the Frozen Sea, and the Numinator’s Tower of a Thousand Steps. And we didn’t get what we went there for, since I’m sure you’re about to ask.’
‘I couldn’t care less,’ said Nish, his heart singing. ‘Open the portal again and get us out of here.’
FIFTY
Maelys, thrown out of the portal onto a grassy slope in a deluge, went sliding down on her back in the middle of a freezing cloud and splashed into a dip full of water, which froze all around her. She tried to sit up but was stuck fast.
There were hundreds of armed men above her, a rustic mud-drenched army dressed in homespun. She jerked upright and broke free, for the ice was melting again. The frost dissolved and suddenly she was sweltering in her heavy clothing.
She threw off her furs, and all around her the rescued prisoners were doing the same, their ice weapons melting on the saturated ground. Maelys looked up and Nish was just five paces away, staring at her. He looked as if he’d been hit in the face with a brick, but she was glad to see him. Behind him stood a tall woman who looked rather like Tulitine, save that she was at least forty years too young, and very beautiful.
‘Is this the help you were looking for?’ said Nish to Tulitine.
The woman who looked like Tulitine shook her head. Maelys scanned the people who had come from the portal. Neither Yalkara nor the Numinator were among them and, for the first time since going back to the Nightland, she dared to hope that she might get away from her enemies.
‘It’s wonderful to see you, of course,’ Nish said to Flydd and Yggur, grinning all over his face, ‘but surely you didn’t plan to hurl yourself into Father’s trap.’
Flydd slowly rotated, his boots sinking into the muddy grass, as he took in the enemy army lined up along the ridges. His mouth opened and closed. Maelys, following his gaze, felt her stomach cramp. She’d hoped too soon.
‘Well done, Yggur,’ Flydd said hoarsely. ‘You’ve excelled yourself this time.’
‘You made the bloody portal!’ Yggur laughed, though there was no mirth in it. ‘How Jal-Nish will crow. All his enemies in one bag, and we climbed into it willingly.’
Maelys closed her eyes. Surely this was her punishment for all the wrongs she’d done, the lies she’d told, the little deceits she’d employed to get her way over the past months. Oh Emberr, Emberr, why did I go back?
‘It was close, though,’ said Nish. ‘Had our guide not betrayed us we would have beaten them to the pass, and Father would have had the fight of a lifetime prising us out. We might even have turned him back; another victory on the long road to casting him off his throne.’
‘I’ll call again,’ said Tulitine, turning her face up to the rain.
Maelys couldn’t take her eyes off her. It could not be Tulitine, yet it was.
‘Surrender!’ boomed an amplified voice from the higher ridge, and Maelys jumped. ‘My name is General Klarm. I am commander of the God-Emperor’s forces here. Surrender and I give you my word that you will not be harmed. Fight on and you will be slain to the last man and woman, all save Cryl-Nish Hlar and Maelys Nifferlin.’
‘I thought he died on Mistmurk Mountain,’ said Maelys.
‘Evidently Jal-Nish saved his miserable skin.’ Flydd turned to Yggur. ‘I told you Klarm went over to the enemy,’ he said bitterly. ‘Listen to him crow, the puffed up little runt.’
‘You’ll soon topple Jal-Nish from his post as the God of Liars, Flydd.’ Colm rose from the grass, dripping mud and glowering. ‘Klarm twice told you that he did not take Jal-Nish’s side until after he’d won.’
‘And you believed him?’ cried Flydd.
‘I did. I believed you, too, fool that I am, and you betrayed me in the hour of my greatest need. Klarm is an honourable man and I intend to surrender to him.’
‘He’ll shoot you down like a dog,’ Flydd hissed.
‘What have I got to lose? You treated me worse than I would ever treat a dog.’
‘Colm, no!’ cried Maelys.
He spat in her direction, raised his hands and shouted, ‘My name is Colm. I surrender.’ He walked slowly across the clearing in the direction of Klarm’s voice. Maelys put her head in her hands, sure they would shoot Colm down.
‘Your surrender is accepted, Colm of Gothryme. Stand well to one side,’ called Klarm. ‘Flydd, Yggur, my old friends, you cannot escape.’
‘Make another portal, Flydd,’ Yggur whispered.
‘I used all my white fire for the last one.’
‘Try the damn mimemule.’
‘Without power, I don’t know how to make it work.’ Yggur cursed. ‘Once Klarm comes down, what say we wrest his knoblaggie from him, crack off these bracelets with it and reopen the portal?’
‘As if he won’t have thought of that,’ Flydd said sourly.
Tulitine was standing face-up to the sky, her lips moving ceaselessly. ‘Why won’t you come, grandmother?’
‘Because you’re no use to her,’ said Yggur brutally. ‘A Regression Spell may have temporarily given you back your youth, but it cannot allow an old woman to bear children, and they’re the only thing the Numinator is interested in.’
‘The Numinator is your grandmother?’ said Maelys to Tulitine. ‘Then you must be the only child of –’
‘It is I, Liel, daughter of your firstborn, Illiel,’ called Tulitine. ‘I am the only kin you have – does that mean nothing to you?’
‘Look out!’ yelled Nish.
A hissing sound, like a boiling kettle, grew ever louder, and a platform the size of Rulke’s Nightland bed scooted down the ridge and came skimming across the treetops towards them. A number of tall men stood at the back and sides, clad in white armour – Jal-Nish’s Imperial Guard. Before them stood the God-Emperor, wearing his platinum half-mask again; the humming tears were looped around his neck on their chain. At his right hand was a handsome dwarf clad in a red and black military uniform, General Klarm. His mane of hair was sheared off in a flat plane across the top of his head, as if i
t had been burned away.
The air-sled began to shudder violently as it passed over the point where the portal had opened, and Jal-Nish set it down hastily on the grass. Along the ridges, the soldiers trained their arrows at the militia, and particularly at Flydd and Yggur.
Maelys, feeling as if every arrow was aimed at her, instinctively moved closer to Nish.
‘I know how you feel.’ He put his left arm around her shoulders as though they were old friends and the past had been forgotten, and Maelys felt strangely warmed by the gesture. How she needed a friend.
Nish raised his voice and spoke to his militia. ‘My friends, you did everything I asked of you, but we’ve been beaten by a stronger foe. Your service is over. Run or stay, as you wish. Some of you may break through.’
There was not a trace of the despair he must be feeling – Nish sounded like the great leader from the tales she’d read as a child, and it gave her hope where she’d had none.
No one moved. ‘This is just like the last time,’ he said to Flydd and Yggur. ‘My every encounter with Father repeats what has happened before, then takes it one step further.’
The previous bitterness was also gone; Nish seemed to have reached an acceptance of his fate, which was more than Maelys could do.
‘Mutiny in your ranks, Cryl-Nish?’ said the God-Emperor, referring to Nish’s black and blue face. ‘Flydd.’ He nodded stiffly. ‘Yggur – what a pleasure it is to see you again after so many years. Where have you been hiding?’
Yggur held up the bracelets. ‘I fell into the hands of the Numinator and she hobbled me.’
‘It’s as well I only recently learned of her existence,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘How did she hide her realm from Gatherer?’
‘You’d have to ask her that,’ said Yggur.
‘Oh, I will.’ The God-Emperor’s gaze fell on Maelys and her insides turned to ice, for she knew what he was going to say. ‘Not showing yet, I see.’
‘There are signs, Grandfather, of my child,’ she lied. ‘It’s only three months, but there are unmistakable signs.’