by Ian Irvine
The Perilous Tower
The Gates of Good & Evil Book 3
Ian Irvine
Santhenar Press
THE GATES OF GOOD & EVIL QUARTET
Book 3 – The Perilous Tower
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Ian Irvine
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Copyright © 2020 by Ian Irvine
Cover illustration © 2020 Rachel Lawston, Lawston Design
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
1. The Most Disturbing Thing
2. Where All His Bodies Are Buried
3. You Worthless Little Wretch!
4. Bring In The Victim
5. Beware Of The Sword, Wilm
6. You Finally Showed Some Spine
7. Don’t Be Such A Sooky Little Baby
8. What You’ve Got Into Bed With
9. He’s Turned His Coat Before
10. Don’t Pretend You Care!
11. It Had Gone Rogue
12. What A Little Mouse You Are
13. You’ll Spill Your Guts
14. ‘I Will Never Despair!
15. How Can It Be Gone?
16. The Right Person For The Job
17. Stupid Old Bag!
18. To Whom Do You Owe Your Loyalty?
19. The Faint Psychic Trail
20. I’ve Got An Idea
21. Why Do You Hate Me So Much?
22. Am I A Beautiful Woman?
23. There Is No Dark Path
24. Blood Darkened The Water
25. You Miserable Grub!
26. We Could Be Here For Weeks
27. The Bitch Must Have Ensorcelled Him!
28. A Grasping Trollop
29. Not Quickly Enough To Save Her
30. I Know What Side I’m On
31. The Ecstasy Was On Him Now
32. You Will Tell No One
33. A Hateful Alien Device
34. What Is This Abomination?
35. Got A Death Wish, Chronicler?
36. He Took The Bait
37. Trying To Look Like All The Other Dead
38. I Don’t Need Your Help
39. Leave Them For The Maggots
40. How Could She Stop Maigraith?
41. We’ve Got 48 Days To Save Humanity
42. Their One True Weakness
43. You Know Best, Of Course
44. She Might Still Kill Them
45. I Will Never Drink A Life Again
46. A Sump For Toxic Magical Waste
47. A Wonder You Didn’t Let Me Die
48. Can Water Be Pumped From A Dry Well?
49. He’s Not The Man He Was
50. Another Weakness In His Plan
51. Put A Knife To Her Throat
52. Get My Potion Made
53. Dare He Risk All To Gain All?
54. He Would Have To Be Carried
55. You’re A Pearl Beyond Price, Chronicler
56. Hit The Bastard!
57. I Don’t Care If I Die
58. Can’t Do It Anymore. Want To Die
59. Had He Burned Her Mind Out?
60. Mummy, I’ve Got To Break My Promise
FIRST CHAPTER OF BOOK 4, THE SAPPHIRE PORTAL
Other Books by Ian Irvine
About the Author
1
The Most Disturbing Thing
The sky galleon, an absurd craft with an equally silly name, Three Reckless Old Ladies, streaked north along the coast of the Sea of Thurkad. There had been no further sign of the enemy and Llian allowed himself to hope that the Merdrun’s great Crimson Gate had failed. That they had not succeeded in invading Santhenar after all.
Even the best-designed gates were dangerous, and all who entered them did so at their peril. The enemy could be undone by bad luck too.
He looked west, in the direction of Karan’s former family estate of Gothryme, and sighed. After being banned from working as a chronicler or teller he had done his best to learn about farming and forestry, but from the beginning Karan had made it clear that the estate was hers, not theirs, and she would not let him manage the smallest aspect of it. He had seldom been happy there.
Now Gothryme was gone, and good riddance! She was no longer the owner of a great estate, impoverished though it may have been, handed down mother to daughter for more than a thousand years. And Llian was no longer a eunuch of a man, forbidden to pursue his calling. Finally, they were equals again.
And not before time. Dark times needed a great Chronicler of the Histories, and a surpassing Teller of the Great Tales, and he could be both. With Gothryme and his tarnished reputation confined to history, the burden of the past ten years had lifted. He could make a new start here.
So many tales needed telling, but … Karan was not going to be happy.
Karan’s eyes were wet as she gazed at her sleeping daughter, the most perfect thing in her life, yet the least explicable.
The black pill Rulke had given Karan, which had allowed her to become pregnant in the first place, had greatly enhanced Sulien’s natural gift for far-seeing, though not in a good way. Four months ago, she had far-seen the Merdrun’s one fatal weakness in a nightmare, and since then she had been stalked, betrayed, hunted, lost, rescued, recaptured with Karan and condemned to death –
Until, in an act so reckless and desperate that Karan got chills every time she thought of it, Llian, a clumsy scholar who was incompetent with any kind of weapon, had saved Sulien and herself. The scar low on Karan’s belly, from the stab wound that had almost killed her that day, burned.
When they’d escaped to the future she had thought the danger over, but two days ago Sulien had far-seen a Merdrun army at the Crimson Gate, and Rulke had managed to extract part of her nightmare.
A child of a lesser race can defeat us if her mighty gift is allowed to develop –
Develop what? No one could guess. Not even Rulke had been able to recover the rest of the nightmare, and that was bad for two reasons.
Whilever the secret was buried in Sulien, the Merdrun could protect themselves by hunting her down and killing her. A nine-year-old girl’s life meant nothing to them; they saw their enemies as subhuman.
And Sulien felt guilty that she could not remember this vital secret. She would not give up trying to find it, and she had a bad habit of acting without thinking things through – like her mother!
Instinctively, Karan looked to Llian, who was slumped against the rear wall of the cabin, next to the closed hatch that led below. There was ink on his fingers and the front of his shirt, and the journal that never left his side was open on his lap, but he was asleep.
Her heart went out to him. How he had suffered these past years. How she had made him suffer, controlling cow that she was. Lording it over him because she owned Gothryme and he, being banned, could not earn a copper grint from his calling. Well, everything had to change now.
But how? She felt torn out by the roots.
She took the front door key to Gothryme Manor from her bag. The black iron, heavy and worn, was as old as the manor itself. The bow was a cloverleaf, flecked with orange rust in the interstices, the shank as long as her hand, and the key wards were crescent moons. It was all she had left.
Before she, Llian and Sulien had found a way to flee 214 years into the future, Karan had given Gothryme, the drought-stricken estate that she’d loved with every atom of herself and had planned to pass
down to Sulien, to a stranger.
But the Santhenar of today had been ground down by the 160-year-long Lyrinx War and the west had suffered worst. The cities and towns of Meldorin had been emptied long ago, its estates great and small abandoned, Gothryme among them. It was her binding duty to get it back and leave it to Sulien, whatever the cost to herself.
Karan put the thought aside. They had come to the future to save Sulien from Maigraith, but Maigraith was still alive and as vengeful as ever, so what had it all been for?
And it had always been Karan’s role to provide, though how was she to provide for Sulien and Llian now? Or Wilm and Aviel, who had also ended up here in some mocking twist of fate. Karan’s purse would soon be empty and then they would be dependent on charity.
Yet in a world exhausted by war followed by civil war, and facing another war, how long could charity last? Were they doomed to become serfs, slaving all the hours of the day just to feed themselves, and at the mercy of every predator, human or beast?
No chance for a second child then. Her eyes stung. She had abandoned the idea years ago and turned away whenever Llian mentioned it. But if they had a proper home –
‘Xervish?’ she said.
‘Mmm?’ said Xervish Flydd. A small, greatly scarred and hideously ugly man, he was seated in the far rear corner of the sky galleon’s overdecorated cabin, reading a small book of tales.
‘Can we go to Gothryme? It’s only half an hour out of your way.’
‘What for?’
‘I’m no use to you. I’m going to take my estate back.’
Llian woke abruptly and twisted around, staring at Karan. ‘What?’
‘Meldorin is an empty land,’ said Karan. ‘We can go home.’
‘It’s not home anymore.’
‘Where else can we go? You can’t provide –’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ he said bitterly.
‘Meldorin is a dangerous place,’ said Flydd. ‘I don’t think –’
‘If the Merdrun come,’ said Karan, ‘everywhere will be dangerous.’
‘What about Maigraith?’
‘If she comes near my family again,’ Karan said ferociously, ‘she’s dead!’
Flydd closed the book and rubbed his twisted fingers. ‘You can’t hide from her, or the Merdrun, in your former home.’
‘Then we’ll go up into the mountains. We can live off the land. It’d be a lot better than –’
‘Being dependent on me?’ Flydd shrugged and called forwards. ‘M’Lainte, would you?’
M’Lainte, a big, saggy, cheerful old woman, stood behind the binnacle at the front of the cabin, holding the stubby levers that controlled the speed and flight of the uncanny craft. She turned it west towards the range of mountains called the Hills of Bannador.
The sky galleon was the most ridiculous vessel Karan had ever seen. It had the deep keel and curving sides of a seagoing ship, though the timbers were sheathed in brass interleaved with black metal and swirling strips of silver, and the interior was decorated with even greater extravagance. From the high bow, scalloped metal shields extended along both sides of the deck in place of rails. A heavy, spear-throwing javelard was mounted behind the bow shields, and a catapult on another swivelling platform at the stern. She had no idea what allowed such a heavy craft to fly, but then, she had not understood Rulke’s construct either.
As she gazed upon the familiar, snow-tipped peaks of Bannador, her eyes misted. Home. How she loved it. It had come to her when her mother, Vuula, died when Karan was twelve, and giving it away had meant abandoning the one good thing she’d had from Vuula. She had to get it back. Llian would just have to get used to it.
Karan’s eyes don’t shine like that when she looks at me, Llian thought. She cares more about that drought-struck expanse of rock and dirt than she does for me.
He tried to see her side but the anger that had smouldered in him for years was too strong. He jumped up. ‘No, Karan. Not again!’
Flydd gestured to M’Lainte, who slowed the sky galleon and hovered above the aromatic coastal heath.
‘What are you talking about?’ Karan hissed.
Llian hesitated. Was this the time? It had to be now, or he would lose the courage and end up a pathetic, bitter old man. ‘I can’t do this again.’
‘Do what?’
‘Follow you back and sit at your feet like an adoring little lapdog, waiting for the occasional bone, but never allowed to do anything worthwhile.’
Karan snapped, ‘You couldn’t do anything at Gothryme.’
That hurt. ‘I could have written the records, kept the accounts, learned to help plan the crops and the rotations –’
‘Those were my jobs.’
‘Everything was your job. You wouldn’t trust me to do anything.’
‘Daddy’s right, Mummy,’ said Sulien, in a let’s be reasonable tone. ‘You are a bit, um, controlling.’
Karan softened her voice. ‘Not now, darling.’
‘I lost ten years of my life,’ said Llian.
‘Are you saying the last ten years of your life, with your family, have been wasted?’ Karan hissed.
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
‘I didn’t get you banned. You managed that all by yourself.’
‘Supportive of you to say so, for the hundredth time.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Karan, but I’m getting my life back.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I’m not going back to cringe and cower at Gothryme. I’m going after another Great Tale.’
‘You’ve got a family, Llian! Why isn’t that enough? Why can’t you be an ordinary Teller?’
‘Because I’m not an ordinary Teller. That’s what drew you to me in the first place, if you remember. My retelling of the greatest of the Great Tales – the Tale of the Forbidding.’
Karan’s anger faded and her green eyes took on a dreamy look. He knew she was reliving the magical night when she had first set eyes on him, when he’d retold the tale at the Graduation Telling and caused such a sensation. That night had changed both of their lives.
‘Well,’ she said softly, ‘I’m sorry, but we all have to make compromises.’
You never have, he thought, but everyone was staring at them and he said no more.
‘What’s the decision?’ Flydd said to Karan.
‘Gothryme.’
She was studiously avoiding looking Llian’s way.
Karan had just resumed her seat when Sulien’s eyes rolled up and her breath whistled out between her teeth.
‘It’s in an amber-wood box,’ she said in the grating Merdrun accent, ‘and amber-wood is famously lucky. It could have survived. Find it!’
Icy needles crept through Karan like frost spreading across a windowpane. ‘Xervish, they’re here!’
Flydd leapt up. ‘M’Lainte, down!’
The sky galleon descended rapidly. ‘What is it?’ she said calmly.
Nothing seemed to faze the old woman. But then, she had been an important figure during the last decade of the Lyrinx War, and through all the turmoil since. Karan supposed M’Lainte had seen it all.
Shrubs creaked and snapped as the heavy craft settled. She smelled crushed leaves, thyme and rosemary, dust, and the salty tang of the nearby Sea of Thurkad.
‘The most disturbing thing I’ve heard all year,’ said Flydd. ‘Sulien?’
Her eyes were unfocused, her mind in a far-off place.
Karan was trembling as she took Sulien’s hand. ‘Are you having a far-seeing?’
Nothing.
Flydd touched her forehead with a gnarled fingertip. Sulien jerked and her eyes sprang open. ‘A foggy mountaintop,’ she said in her own voice. ‘Big pieces of white metal sticking up. And bones! Bones and skulls, everywhere. It’s pouring with rain.’
‘Thuntunnimoe,’ hissed Flydd, looking meaningfully at M’Lainte. ‘It’s worse than I feared. Far worse!’
‘What’s Thuntunnimoe?’ said Ll
ian, leaning forwards eagerly.
‘Mistmurk Mountain. A high, cliff-bound plateau in the rainforest west of Guffeons – away in the tropical north. I spent nine years trapped up there in my former, badly-aged body.’
Karan gazed at Flydd, wondering. The body he had now was nothing to inspire the poets.
‘Dozens of Merdrun in bright red armour!’ cried Sulien. ‘Wading through bogs and pools. They came through a gate.’
‘Why are they looking for an amber-wood box?’ said Lilis, a white-haired, little old lady who had once been Librarian at the Great Library in Zile. ‘Xervish, what’s going on?’
‘Please, no!’ Flydd’s warped hands were clenched, the battered knuckles standing out.
‘What’s all the white metal?’ said Llian.
‘Wreckage of the God-Emperor’s sky palace. He flew it there four years ago, hunting his renegade son, Nish, a hero of the war. Maelys had broken him out of prison. I – I had no choice; I cast the forbidden renewal spell on myself –’ pain shivered Flydd’s raddled cheeks, ‘– and got a younger, stronger body. In the ensuing battle the sky palace fell out of the air and smashed to bits. We only escaped, Maelys, Nish and I, by a whisker.’
