by Ian Irvine
Lyf did not ask why. He did not want to know about any possibilities worse than the current ones. They scrambled up the narrow chimney. Distantly he could hear rock being smashed to pieces as the wyverin fought to get out the long way; he could feel the shuddering transmitted through the solid earth.
“Faster!” said Errek.
Lyf squeezed out the top of the chimney into the open, into the holy, lichen-covered ruins of Turgur Thross.
“Where’s that blasted gauntling?” said Errek.
Lyf could not see it anywhere. He called Grolik again. The wyverin was close to the surface now and the noise, as it battered its way out, was eardrum-shattering. Lyf drifted higher, turned and saw the gauntling plummeting at him in a vertical dive.
He flinched. The creatures were prone to madness and generally untrustworthy. He raised a threatening fist as if he still had magery to burn. The gauntling adjusted the angle of its dive to come down behind him. It flattened out and, as it passed beneath, he dropped onto its back.
It shot past Errek and Lyf plucked him out of the air. It was no easy feat to catch an almost bodiless wrythen but he’d had plenty of practice by now. The gauntling jagged away as the wyverin forced its head out of a small entrance a few hundred yards from Turgur Thross. Its claws were scrabbling against the solid rock, tearing it apart and sending chunks of broken rock the size of boulders flying in all directions.
Lyf conjured the image of Grandys killing the wyverin again and projected it onto the air a hundred yards ahead of the beast, in the direction of Garramide. The wyverin’s vast eyes turned towards the image. Lyf vanished it and the wyverin’s eyes focused on the scene that had been concealed behind it: the platform at the top of the great dome, where Grandys stood with two fists raised in the air, broadcasting his dominance.
The wyverin exploded out, opened its wings and shook itself in mid-air, scattering rocks like missiles. The gauntling swept around behind it. Lyf and Errek slid off onto the wyverin’s back, unnoticed, and it took off.
Lyf stood up, holding the circlet high and shaking it in the direction of Garramide. “This is both the means and the hour of your doom, Grandys.”
Lyf settled the circlet on his brow and rode the Chymical Beast to Garramide like an avenging fury.
CHAPTER 77
“Is this what Grandys called ‘the endgame’?” said Glynnie.
Rix scrambled onto the circular walkway that ran around the inside of the dome, thirty feet below the top. She followed him up. Now he could see the platform through one of the small skylights at the top of the dome. Grandys and the other Heroes were moving about on the platform though Rix could not tell what they were doing.
“If it isn’t, it can’t be far away.”
“What’s our plan?”
“Lyf has to go after the king-magery right away, and the moment he attacks—”
Glynnie sucked her breath in through her teeth. “You can’t fight king-magery with a sword, Rix.”
“I’m not planning to. When Lyf attacks I’m going to try to snatch the canister and the circlet, then rescue Tali—if she’s still alive—and Holm.” He smiled wryly. “Not aiming too high, am I?”
She clutched at his wrist. “They’ll kill you.”
“They’ll certainly try.”
“You can’t possibly take both. Go for the platina canister—it’s really heavy—and I’ll try for the circlet.”
He opened his mouth to say no.
“Don’t insult me by trying to protect me,” said Glynnie. “We’re a team and if you’re risking your life, I’m entitled to risk mine.”
“That doubles the chance of… a bad outcome.”
“You mean one of us being killed? I know, but it also doubles our chances of a good outcome.”
He put his arms around her. “We’ll live or die together. Probably—”
“Don’t say that either.” She tightened her arms around his chest until he could hardly breathe. “What’s happening on the wall?”
Rix was so focused on Grandys that he had not thought to look. He pulled free and peered out and down. “Looks like the Herovians have drawn back. Your brilliant work with the portrait must have unnerved them.”
“They’ll attack again.”
“First they’ll have to gain back all the ground they’ve given up. It doesn’t give us a big advantage, but…”
“We’ll take what we can get,” said Glynnie.
They crept around the walkway and checked through the next skylight, which offered a better view. Grandys was swinging Maloch in complex patterns, though each ended with the blade pointing in the same direction—towards Turgur Thross.
“What’s he doing?” said Glynnie.
“Scrying for Lyf, I’d guess. Even in the days when I carried Maloch it always seemed to know where Lyf was.”
Ahead, a copper-clad door opened through the side of the dome onto a second, narrower walkway that ran around the outside. Rix opened the door and went through. Glynnie stepped out beside him. Away to the right, a dozen steps ran up towards the platform, though the people on it could not be seen from this angle.
They crept around until he could see up to the platform. Glynnie looked north and her eyes widened.
“Is that—?” She pointed. “Is that—?”
The wyverin—for it could be nothing else—was howling towards them. Rix gazed at it in awe. He had imagined it hundreds of times since he’d begun the portrait. At that time he had drawn dozens of sketches, and he’d done many more since his return to Garramide, yet none did it justice. Rannilt had been right—it was too big for the world.
“Look out!” hissed Glynnie.
She pulled him down as the wyverin struck the side of the copper dome like a thunderbolt, ripping it open and scattering crumpled lengths of copper sheeting like shredded paper. The screech of metal being torn in two stung his ears. Lyf, wearing the circlet on his brow, flew through the air towards the platform and landed on the other side, twenty yards away from Grandys. Errek drifted through the air high above.
“Now!” said Rix. “Slowly.”
He crept up the steps and stopped with only his eyes above the edge of the circular platform, which was some twenty-five yards across. Glynnie squeezed up beside him. Grandys was a few yards away and had his back to them, holding the canister in his left hand and Maloch in his right. Lirriam was beyond on the left, along with Holm and the still figure of Tali. Syrten, further on, was gazing at Yulia, oblivious to everything around him.
The wyverin tore another half dozen sheets of copper off the dome, let them fall and raced around it, sweeping its fifty-foot tail from side to side. Its first blow knocked the steepled roof and top floor off the pencil-shaped tower to the right of the castle, scattering stone and roof timbers across the fortress yard and onto the top of North Tower.
The next sweep of its tail smashed through the top of the observatory tower, demolishing the wall onto which that tormented figure of Grandys had been etched. Rix hoped the symbol mirrored the reality to come.
It looked like a beast out of control, though Rix gained the impression that it was putting on a display—and that the destruction was coolly calculated. It settled on the supporting metal frame of the ruined dome, swaying back and forth and shaking the castle to its foundations. Its great head was moving from side to side but its inflamed, weeping eyes, each a yard across, swivelled to keep Grandys in view the whole time. Then, to Rix’s astonishment, it let out a huff-huff-huff that was, unmistakably, laughter.
“What’s it laughing at?” asked Glynnie, pressing closer to Rix.
“Us, I’d say,” said Rix. “I think it finds people ridiculous.”
“Too ridiculous to gobble us down, I hope.”
“They say it needs to eat a magian or two soon after it wakes.”
“Let’s hope it can tell the difference between them and us.”
The wyverin extended its long neck towards Syrten and Yulia, then snorted and swung towards Lirri
am, sniffing her and staring at her chest. She gave a little shiver, then drew out Incarnate and held it up, like an offering. The wyverin opened its maw as if to take the stone, and her arm as well, but closed it again and nudged Incarnate away with the tip of its snout.
It lifted off the ruined dome, inflated its belly to twice its normal size and floated up into the air beside the platform, drifting around Rufuss and eyeing the stump of his arm. He clutched his sword and swallowed audibly. The wyverin’s left leg flashed out and an extended claw raked down his front, tearing Rufuss’s clothes off to expose a fleshless frame whose fish-belly pallor contrasted unattractively with the sparse clumps of coarse black hair on his chest and back.
The wyverin let out a series of rolling chuckles which rumbled through it from one end to the other. Two claws closed around Rufuss’s middle, lifted him onto a broken column like a naked statue on a pedestal, and left him there, crouched low, shaking with mortified rage. A thunder of laughter shook stones out of the side of the observatory tower and sent them crashing to the ground.
It cocked its head to one side. Silence fell and Rix heard crying from the ruins. The wyverin rotated in the air, dived and plucked twisted iron and crumpled copper sheeting out of the way, then hooked out a boy and raised him to its eye.
“Benn!” whispered Glynnie. “Benn, no…”
“He must have followed us. Stay back!” Rix drew his sword and prepared to hurl himself at the wyverin, useless though the gesture must be.
“It’s going to eat him,” Glynnie moaned.
But the wyverin made a crooning sound, touched Benn’s forehead with the back of a talon and set him down at the edge of the platform. He scuttled across to the steps, unnoticed, and down into Glynnie’s arms.
“Take him down and stay with him,” said Rix.
“I don’t want to leave you…” said Glynnie, clearly torn.
“He’s not safe here. Go!”
She went.
As the wyverin turned to Grandys, the line of spines down the back of its neck stood up. It lunged at his face, stopped a yard away and stared at him, eye to eye. Its eyes were watering.
Hmn, hmn, it went. Could it be mocking him?
Grandys let out a hoarse cry and attacked with a flurry of strokes, faster than the eye could see, still holding the canister of king-magery in his left hand and Maloch in his right. The wyverin did not move—it simply took the blows, which cut into its inch-thick scales, though not even Maloch could penetrate to the flesh and bone beneath. Then it snorted, as if in derision—is that the best you can do?
It lifted sharply on its wings, the down-draught driving Grandys backwards into the iron railing around the platform. It pinned him there and struck at him with its smallest talon, tearing a shallow gash from his left shoulder to mid-chest. Blood flowed freely. Grandys bared his teeth but did not cry out.
“You’ll have to do better than that, my nemesis,” he said.
He blasted at it with brute-force magery, attempting to drive it backwards, and fire licked across the scales around its nostrils, though it soon went out.
Pouches on either side of the wyverin’s neck inflated and it breathed out a stream of some pungent elemental fluid, red-brown in colour, which caught fire in the air and gave off orange fumes that bleached Grandys’ clothing, and his ruddy, exposed skin, white. The fumes etched the iron rails and the metal platform wherever they touched, and puddles of fire formed and flickered there.
But Grandys was no coward. He leapt forward, smashing the wyverin on the end of its snout with the sealed canister, then striking a series of sword blows in quick succession. Again, none did any damage. The wyverin gave him an identical gash, though to his right shoulder.
“It’s playing with him,” said Rix, forgetting Glynnie had gone.
Grandys attacked in a frenzy and an almighty blow hacked off the last joint of the wyverin’s small toe, complete with a talon the length of a sword blade. The wyverin reared up, its second toe striking Grandys under the chin and knocking him over. The tip of its flailing tail slammed into Syrten, who was holding Yulia’s body in his arms as if to shield it. The corpse was torn from his grip, went over the rails and bounced off the side of the dome several times before disappearing from view.
Lyf flew into the air and dived away.
Syrten cried, “Yulia!” and ran.
Rix was about to be discovered and there was nothing he could do—he could not get out of the way in time. But Syrten leapt over him, landed on the walkway and thrust through the copper door.
The wyverin shook its injured limb, drops of its dark blood flying through the air and spattering on the platform in plate-sized red-black gouts. It bit a chunk out of the side, propelled itself into the air and raced away, streaming blood. Grandys fell to his knees, dazed. Rufuss dropped onto the platform and dragged on his shredded clothes, looking around furtively as he did.
Rix stared after the beast. It flew low across the fortress, jinked around the main watchtower, then let out an eerie shriek and dived towards the Herovian camp, half a mile outside the gates of Garramide.
“What’s it doing?” whispered Glynnie, slipping back into place beside Rix.
“I told you to stay below.”
“We’ve already had that argument.”
There was no point persisting. “I’d say it’s hoping to feed on a couple of Grandys’ battle magians. After such a long sleep its own magery must be exhausted; no wonder it’s been so quiet.”
“You call that quiet?”
“Compared to what it could do, yes.”
“Why didn’t it eat Lyf or Lirriam or Grandys?”
“No idea. But it’ll rest for an hour or two after it feeds—the digestive torpor, it’s called.”
“How do you know?” said Glynnie.
Rix had to think for a minute. “I read all about wyverin before I started painting Father’s portrait. But once it’s replenished its magery, Grandys had better look out.”
“So should we. I dare say it eats ordinary folk as well.”
“I dare say,” said Rix. “Now’s our chance, while Grandys is down and Lyf isn’t here.”
CHAPTER 78
Rix leapt onto the platform and went for Grandys, who was still on his knees. Before he could get Maloch into position, Rix’s blow knocked the platina canister from his hand and sent it rolling across the floor.
Rix dived for it but Lyf shot out from under the platform with the circlet on his brow and called the canister to his hand.
“King-magery, at last!” he exulted.
Rix swore and backed away, into Glynnie. He pulled her down onto the steps.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“We can’t fight king-magery.”
“I already told you that. So what do we do?”
“We wait for another chance.”
Lyf flew into the air. Grandys attempted to impale him with Maloch but could not reach high enough. Lyf blasted at Grandys and Lirriam, driving them towards the steps. He did not bother with Holm or Tali—perhaps they were irrelevant now.
“Come away!” said Glynnie.
They darted down the steps and around the outside walkway, out of sight, then peered back around the curve of the dome.
Grandys, Lirriam and Rufuss retreated into the dome. Lyf used binding magery on the copper door and stood on the platform, gazing around him and breathing heavily. Errek floated cross-legged in mid-air to his left.
“Lyf’s won,” said Glynnie. “What’s he going to do now?”
“Who knows? I don’t think he expected it to be so easy.”
Lyf raised the circlet above his head and blasted white flares at the sky in a display that must have been visible for fifty miles.
“It must be a victory message to his people,” said Rix.
“Enough play-acting!” said Errek from above. “Do your kingly duty!”
Lyf carefully removed the cap on the canister and put his hand over the top, as if to pre
vent king-magery from escaping. He nodded to himself and removed his hand, which was outlined with pale green. He paced to the north, south, east and west sides of the platform, each time pointing the circlet out over the land and intoning a five-word phrase in a language Rix did not recognise.
“He’s trying to heal the land,” said Glynnie.
Three times Lyf repeated his healing, and the words of power. Three times he drew on king-magery, and three times nothing happened. His shoulders slumped; he twisted the cap onto the canister and set it down.
“It’s as I’ve long feared,” said Errek.
Lyf stood with head downcast, breathing raggedly, then staggered to the closest railing and slumped over it with his arms hanging down. Great magery takes a great toll, Rix remembered Tobry saying, and sometimes the toll is worse if the magery fails.
“My healing gift is gone,” said Lyf.
“Why do you think that might be?” said Errek, the way a master might speak to an errant pupil.
“I broke the kings’ commandments.”
“And?”
“I debauched my healing gift into the evil art of germine, in order to create shifters and poxes that had never been seen before.”
“And?”
“I twisted the perfection that was alchymie into a foul art devoted solely to weapons of war.”
“And?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Lyf cried.
“It’s far more than enough,” said Errek, “but is it all you have to confess?”
“I used my sacred art to create magical ebony pearls inside the heads of innocent Pale girls, and when the pearls were mature I tasked my agents to hack the pearls out so I could get king-magery back.”
“And?”
“I even corrupted my own people after I sent them underground—”
Lyf conjured his crutches from wherever he had left them and stumped around the platform, swerving to avoid a puddle of wyverin blood. He stood looking down at it, his fingers clenching and unclenching.
