by Ian Irvine
He trudged back to the barracks but did not sleep for hours; he kept seeing the dead faces of Tataste and her little children. He would never drink another life!
What have we become? he thought. No – what have we turned ourselves into?
Skald woke in the pre-dawn with his body afire and the blood singing through his veins. Ah, the seductive feeling of taking all that power for himself, of drinking a life! He could not wait to do it again.
5
Beware Of The Sword, Wilm
Hardly anyone here knew about Llian’s banning by the College of the Histories two centuries ago, and surely no one cared. And the Santhenar of today was ripe for his talents. There were few chroniclers and tellers anymore and, after writing propaganda for the scrutators in the Lyrinx War, and for Jal-Nish the brutal God-Emperor after that, most were held in low repute.
A lifetime of fascinating work awaited Llian, stripping the Histories and the Great Tales of all the lies and exaggerations, and restoring them to their rightful place at the centre of human life on Santhenar. And crafting new tales that could well become Great Tales – stories from the Lyrinx War and the God-Emperor’s monstrous reign, Llian’s unfinished tale of the Merdrun’s invasions …
It felt as if he had struggled out of a raging sea into a paradise. And only the small matter of the Merdrun army standing in his way, he thought wryly.
The daydream now seemed foolish, a kind of denial. He looked around the faded magnificence of the great chamber, which might once have been a ballroom. Flydd’s face was so pale that the criss-crossing scars stood out like basket weave. What had he and Klarm been talking about?
Klarm had said, ‘Please tell me you didn’t mention the scrutators’ secret weapon.’
‘It was destroyed in an air-dreadnought crash at the edge of the Sink of Despair,’ Flydd said grimly. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘What’s the secret weapon?’ Llian said eagerly. His instincts were aroused; there was an important tale here and he would not rest until he knew it.
‘I can’t tell you,’ said Flydd.
‘Where’s the Sink of Despair, then?’
‘North of the Great Mountains. A desert of sunken land, blisteringly hot in summer and freezing in winter, surrounded on three sides by mountains.’
‘Can I be your official chronicler?’ said Llian.
‘What?’ cried Karan.
‘We have to eat!’ Llian muttered. Why was she always undermining him?
‘I don’t need chroniclers,’ snapped Flydd. ‘I need mancers and armies, and a gigantic war chest. None of which I have.’
‘I’ve never thought of you as a reckless man, Xervish,’ said Klarm, filling another goblet. ‘What possessed you to write about the secret weapon?’
‘As a warning – that some devices are too dangerous to ever be used. It seemed safe to do so, since it had been destroyed –’
‘But it wasn’t destroyed.’
Flydd lurched to his feet, gaping at the dwarf. ‘How come?’
‘Everyone on the air-dreadnought died in the crash, but when we went there to recover the secret weapon it couldn’t be found.’
‘Why not?’ Flydd whispered.
Klarm shrugged. ‘Perhaps it hid.’
‘Hid?’ croaked Aviel, her grey eyes huge. ‘What kind of a device is it?’
It had to be an intelligent weapon. A device not just capable of assisting its owner, like Wilm’s enchanted black sword, but of independent action and movement. Llian’s mind raced through the possibilities, and most were dark. People were bad enough; how much worse would thinking machines be?
‘It was the greatest secret of the war,’ said Klarm. ‘How did you find out about it, Xervish?’
‘How the hell did it get past the scrutators’ so-called ethics group?’ said Flydd.
Klarm laughed hollowly. ‘They weren’t told; they would have forbidden it.’ He rose, scowling at Flydd, and Llian was surprised to see that Klarm was the dominant man here. ‘The Merdrun learned our languages last time they were here, and as soon as they read your Histories, they’ll hunt the spellcaster down.’
‘Don’t say the name, damn you!’
‘Bit late now.’ Klarm sipped his wine and smacked his lips, ostentatiously.
‘If they find it, they could reopen one of our abandoned manufactories and make thousands of copies.’ Flydd paused for a long time. ‘Then erase human life on Santhenar.’
‘Then it has to be found.’
‘And destroyed.’
‘Brought back,’ said Klarm.
‘No, destroyed!’ Flydd paced for a minute. ‘You know more about it than anyone. Put together a search team. I’m flying east for help. I’ll drop you at the Sink of Despair on the way.’
‘Where are you off to?’
‘If you don’t know,’ said Flydd with a flinty smile, ‘you can’t be forced to tell. Who will you take?’
‘M’Lainte, if you can spare her. There’s no one better when it comes to devices, mechanical or magical.’
‘All … right,’ said Flydd, with great reluctance. ‘Who else?’
‘I came across a clever young artisan a while back, Ilisial. She can be M’Lainte’s apprentice – if she agrees to take her on.’
M’Lainte frowned but said nothing.
‘Half a dozen guards, and I’ll need an assistant. Someone steadfast who can think on his feet.’
‘You need Wilm,’ said Llian, without thinking.
‘No!’ cried Aviel.
Wilm squeezed her hand, then rose. ‘We’re at war. I have to do my bit.’
Klarm looked dubious. ‘You look a trifle young for this job, lad.’
Aviel’s high voice rang through the room. ‘Wilm’s got the stoutest heart you’ll ever meet. He taught himself sword fighting, then beat Cumulus Snoat’s best assassin to save Llian. Then, defending me, he killed Unick at the summon stone; that’s how Wilm lost half his ear. And on the Isle of Gwine he led the slave revolt that helped to beat the Merdrun army.’
‘If you don’t want him to go,’ said Klarm, smiling at her passion, ‘why are you promoting his qualities so vigorously?’
Aviel’s cheeks had gone a charming pink. ‘Wilm’s the bravest man I know, and the kindest,’ she said. ‘If he wants to go, that’s all that matters. And he’s got Mendark’s enchanted sword.’
‘You’ve got Akkidul?’ said Klarm.
Llian made a mental note of the name. That dark blade was mentioned a number of times in the Histories, though not during the time Mendark had held it.
Klarm held out a hand and, after a long hesitation, Wilm drew the black sword and handed it to him. Klarm felt along the blade with his fingertips, rubbed the hilt and put it to his ear. His heavy eyebrows rose, he stared at it for a moment, then gave it back. Wilm sheathed it.
‘Press it right down,’ said Klarm.
Wilm pushed the sword in until it would go no further.
‘When it’s all the way in, Akkidul can’t hear,’ Klarm added.
‘Why does that matter?’
‘An enchanted blade is, if you’ll permit so feeble a pun, a double-edged sword.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Wilm absently moved it up and down in its sheath.
‘When an inanimate object is enchanted, this sometimes forms a persona – a kind of intelligence – within it. But the persona is trapped and can never escape, and if it feels unappreciated or ill-used it may withdraw its aid, or even deceive or betray its user. Beware of the sword, Wilm.’
Wilm looked down at the hilt, uneasily.
So much to learn, Llian thought. Does any tale ever end?
Klarm turned to Aviel. ‘What can you do for us, my dear?’
Aviel, her eyes now downcast, whispered, ‘I make scent potions.’
‘I thought that art was lost long ago.’
‘I – I’ve got Radizer’s book,’ she said, almost inaudibly.
‘Master Radizer’s lost grimoire? Where the blazes did you g
et it?’
‘Shand gave it to me … after I kept … um, borrowing it.’
Klarm rolled his eyes. ‘Come now. A master’s grimoire is way beyond the capabilities of a half-grown girl.’
Llian was about to correct Klarm when Wilm interjected.
‘Aviel’s brilliant!’ he cried. ‘She made the scent potion that located the summon stone, and she can do alchymy, too.’
‘Is that so?’ Klarm was smirking. ‘Is there anything this little prodigy can’t do?’
‘Don’t you dare insult my friend!’ Wilm said hotly. ‘Aviel also made a batch of nivol to destroy the summon stone.’
Klarm stared at Flydd, then Wilm, then Aviel again. ‘You – made – nivol?’
‘Twice, but I don’t like alchymy,’ said Aviel. ‘I just want to be a perfumer.’ Her eyes shone in the lamplight, then she looked down and the gleam went out and she was a timid girl again.
‘Extraordinary! We must have a long chat before I go.’
Aviel did not look thrilled at the prospect. Llian wished Klarm would favour him with a long chat. He must have lived through a hundred tales.
‘So must you and I, Klarm,’ said Flydd. ‘Do you happen to have a key to the ancient Magisters’ spell vault?’
‘What happened to your key?’
‘Lost it.’
Klarm turned back to Aviel. ‘Why are you here, my dear?’
‘We – we came to the future by accident.’
His dark blue eyes narrowed. ‘Not a sentence I hear very often.’
‘Maigraith had hunted Karan and Llian and Sulien, and us, through Shazmak.’ Aviel closed her eyes for a moment. ‘We were on the wall at the top of the tallest tower, and Yggur had just materialised the construct. Llian and Sulien were inside, and I was telling Karan how to use the scent potion to see the right future –’
‘I unbuckled the sword.’ Wilm moved it up and down. ‘And tossed it down to Llian, for luck.’
‘You gave away an enchanted sword?’ said Klarm.
‘Llian needed it more than I did. But a bubble formed around the sword, and Aviel and me, and pulled us down into the construct. It was too late to get out.’
‘Maybe Akkidul resented you giving it away. After all it had done for you.’
‘More likely it resented being given to me,’ Llian said with a rueful grin. ‘When it comes to fighting, I’m a clodhopper.’
‘I’m sure it would have helped you,’ said Wilm loyally.
‘It’s marvellous how you’ve changed in the time I’ve known you,’ mused Llian, remembering the nervous lad Shand had asked him to escort to Chanthed to sit the college scholarship test, only four months ago. ‘You’ve utterly transformed yourself.’
Without my aid he’d be a shit-shovelling yokel! a reedy voice sneered from the copper scabbard.
Wilm had not pushed the sword all the way down. He flushed. Klarm gestured to him to draw the weapon and he laid it on the table between the empty bottles.
‘Got something to say, Akkidul?’ said Klarm.
The sword did not speak.
‘Wilm’s transformation came from within,’ snapped Llian, offended for his friend, ‘and it started long before we found the sword. Which Mendark had buried in a rusty old box in the desert. Why did he dump such a famous blade, I wonder?’
The sword rattled on the table. Since you still haven’t realised how Mendark duped you as a boy, your opinion is worthless.
Llian stiffened. ‘What are you talking about?’
Leaving home so trustingly with him when you were twelve, to take up his scholarship at the College of the Histories.
‘I wasn’t duped,’ Llian said slowly, caught up in old but still painful memories. ‘Mendark made the offer, and I talked it over with Mum and Dad, and we agreed I’d take it. I didn’t want to go so far away, but we were poor and the scholarship was too good to refuse ...’
Llian’s time at the college had transformed him. It had given him the opportunity to become a great chronicler and teller – perhaps the greatest of the age – though the cost had been a lot higher than he had expected.
You didn’t choose freely at all, sneered Akkidul. I was there.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Llian said dazedly.
You were going to say no, weren’t you?
‘Well, yes ... but I changed my mind.’
Mendark could never take no for an answer. He cast a compulsion on you to make you change your mind. And another on your parents to allow you to go.
‘That’s not true!’ cried Llian. ‘He was good to me ... at least, in the early days.’
When you got to Chanthed, Akkidul continued relentlessly, what did Mendark say to you?
‘“Never forget how much you owe me.”’
Then he ordered Master Wistan to persecute you for being an accursed Zain, and make sure letters to and from your family never reached their destinations, so you’d forget them and focus all your energy on your studies.
‘You’re a stinking liar!’
Did you receive a single letter from your family in the sixteen years you spent at the college?
It was a hammer blow to the gut; Llian barely had the breath to speak. ‘No,’ he choked. ‘But –’
You thought they were angry with you for going.
‘A little, but ...’
And you never went home.
‘I missed them desperately ... and everyone hated me because I was –’
A treacherous Zain!
Llian flushed. ‘But it was a six-month journey home to Jepperand, and cost a fortune … and my stipend was just enough to live on ...’
Mendark made sure of that.
‘I – I finally got home twenty years later,’ said Llian, the old guilt rising until it choked him. ‘But Dad and Mum were dead ... Mum of grief, the neighbours said. My two sisters were long gone, no one remembered where. And it all was my fault! How could I have believed they’d turn their backs on me?’
The sword sniggered. The proud chronicler is finally humbled. Never thought I’d see the day –
‘Damn you!’ cried Wilm, thrusting the sword into its sheath and pushing it all the way down. ‘Llian, don’t take any notice.’
What a fool I’ve been, Llian thought.
How betrayed his family must have felt. His little sister, Alyz, only six at the time, had pleaded with him not to go. Llian is never coming home again, she had wailed. Never, never, never! It had nearly broken him. The long journey south, then west to Chanthed, had been the worst six months of his life. His only consolation had been that his family wanted him to get the best education he could, and he had been determined to make them proud.
Why had Mendark done such a monstrous thing? So Llian would be forever in his debt, of course. What a bastard! No favour without an eternal obligation.
Alyz, Alyz, how could I have hurt you so?
‘You said you’d corresponded with your family,’ Karan said quietly. ‘You told me several times.’
‘I couldn’t bear to admit that they’d never answered my letters,’ he muttered.
‘How could you keep such a thing from me?’
He lowered his voice further and said pointedly, ‘Says the woman whose whole life is built on secrets. And I’ll bet they’re a lot darker than mine.’
A pink flush moved up Karan’s throat. His intuition was right; she was keeping something from him. Something really important.
‘Well, you left home twenty-eight years ago,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to focus on what matters now.’
How could she be so indifferent to a revelation that had torn his life apart? It proved that she no longer cared about him; she was just pretending for Sulien’s sake. Llian stalked to the far corner of the room, flung himself down in a grubby armchair and stared at the boarded-up windows, thinking bitter thoughts. Perhaps it was for the best. It made his decision more justifiable, at least.
‘I’ll get organised,’ Klarm said quietly, and w
ent out.
CRACK!
A small square gate opened beside Llian, its edges glowing like plaited red-hot wires, and hot, humid air hissed out. He scrambled backwards but crashed into the wall. A dark hand appeared in the opening, pointing at him.
Zzztttt! There came a bright blue flash and he was jerked off his feet and drawn towards the gate.
He tried to catch the edge with his left hand but there was another flash, a blinding pain in his little finger, a wisp of smoke, then he was drawn through the gate and flung into darkness.
As he tumbled through nowhere, Llian clutched his throbbing left hand with his right. The little finger was gone, severed by the side of the gate. He landed hard on an unseen floor, raising dust, and the gate disappeared. Where was he? Why would the enemy take him, of all people? What did they want from him?
He crouched in a dark space, shivering. The Merdrun had a rare mastery of torture and he was not good at enduring pain. This was going to be bad.
6
You Finally Showed Some Spine
As the gate snapped shut, something arced through the air, trailing smoke, and landed with a plop on a plate of pastries in front of Karan. Llian’s left little finger, cauterised as if by a red-hot knife, was pointing at her as if accusing her.
She shrieked and ran for the gate, but it had vanished. She came back and picked up the finger, shivered and put it down again. The air reeked of charred flesh, Llian’s flesh. Who had taken him? What were they going to do to him? Her knees wobbled and she had to sit down. Why had she been such a heartless bitch?
She clutched her head with both hands, shaking it. Her stomach heaved and she thought she was going to throw up. Where had they taken him? She tried to get up but could not; there was no strength in her legs or arms. She was failing him again.
‘M’Lainte,’ rapped Flydd, ‘I need the gate-scrier, quick.’
M’Lainte was already lumbering towards the door.
Karan watched numbly as, with the tip of his staff, Flydd traced faint silver lines, the edges of the former gate, and studied them from both sides until they faded. He returned to the couch and sat down heavily, scowling at his staff, which was as battered and gnarled as the rest of him. ‘So it begins.’
