by Ian Irvine
‘That’s why you’re going first.’
She crept up the treads, the whole stair quivering, and through the hole at the top. Maigraith came after and directed her down a passage revealed to the left. With every step Aviel expected a trap to snap closed on her shins, or her head.
After a hundred yards they encountered a solid brass door with a curving band of symbols across the top.
‘W-what do they say?’ said Aviel.
Maigraith grimaced. ‘Better you don’t know.’
She unsealed it and shoved Aviel through into a five-sided chamber whose roof was held up by a series of slender grey columns, their sides carved with a variety of spiders, scorpions and other arachnids, all with fangs or stingers erected. A warning? Or a statement? It was a very obvious one.
‘The Magister’s spell vault,’ sighed Maigraith. ‘Many have sought it in vain.’
Aviel’s knees had gone weak. She supported herself on a long table strewn with dusty parchments, maps and books, some open, others in stacks. Bookcases lined three sides of the room. The fourth side had floor to ceiling pigeonholes, many containing scrolls or rolled papers. Everything was covered in thick dust or furry mould; the vault must have been closed for a very long time.
Maigraith lit lamps mounted on brackets on the walls, took one lamp down and carried it back and forth. ‘What a mess! No wonder Mendark failed.’
‘Only after a thousand years,’ said Aviel, then wondered why she was defending so dark and dubious a man.
‘His folly showed the Merdrun the way to Santhenar in the first place. Get to work!’
‘What am I supposed to be doing?’
‘Finding scent potion methods, of course.’
Did Maigraith think the rejuvenation magic was a scent potion? Aviel turned over books and unrolled several scrolls. ‘How?’
‘Sniff them out. Why do you think I brought you?’
No scent would have lasted that long. ‘I assumed it was to torment me.’
Aviel took down a lamp and wandered the spell vault, turning over parchments, opening papyrus scrolls and reading the spines of books, those she could read. Many were in languages unknown to her, others in hands so convoluted that she had to decipher each word.
‘Is there a catalogue?’
‘Mendark didn’t have a well-ordered mind.’
But Tallia had. She had been Mendark’s assistant, then Magister after he was killed, and Aviel had known her well. At the age of thirteen she had done Tallia a great service and it had not been forgotten.
Tallia’s ledger was in the first place she looked, in a tall cupboard on the left side of the door. Aviel wiped the dust and mould off a bowl-shaped reading chair, its cracked leather as wrinkled as an old man’s face, sat down with her legs dangling over the side and turned the pages. The books and scrolls weren’t listed by category, only by name, and soon the letters began to blur before her eyes. It had been a long day …
Something heavy landed on her lap, jerking her awake. ‘What?’ she cried, looking around frantically.
‘Scent potions,’ said Maigraith.
The book in Aviel’s lap, bound in green and grey lizard-skin, was so battered that she could not read the title. If, indeed, it had ever had one, for the title page had been torn out. There was no author name, either. She turned to the list of scent potions and a shiver passed down her spine. The first was To Liquefy the Bones of an Enemy, and the others were just as dire.
‘I don’t want to know any more dark potions,’ she said.
‘Why ever not?’
‘There are more than enough in Radizer’s grimoire. I couldn’t master them all in a lifetime – even supposed I wanted to.’
‘But you’re a scent potioneer. Why wouldn’t you want to master them all, good or bad?’
‘I never wanted to make them. I was forced into it. I just want to be a perfumer.’
‘Too bad,’ said Maigraith. ‘Santhenar needs you to master the art.’
‘I’m afraid.’
‘Of what?’
Aviel hesitated. ‘I – I’m drawn to the dark potions, and if I take one step too many down that path, I’ll be lost.’
‘What a load of rubbish! There is no dark path of the Secret Art; only dark people.’
Aviel noticed that Maigraith carried a small, rose-coloured volume with intricately worked silver corners. ‘What’s that?’
Maigraith slipped it into a pocket. ‘Never you mind.’
Had she found the magic to make her young and fertile again? If it was a potion or scent-potion, she would force Aviel to make it. And Aviel felt sure that giving Maigraith what she wanted would be a bad thing – for both of them.
As Maigraith departed, Aviel slid the unnamed book of dark scent potions down between a cupboard and the wall. She had enough troubles without it.
24
Blood Darkened The Water
Karan froze, straining to link to Sulien, but her warning cry was not repeated. How had she sensed that Karan was about to do something desperately rash? There was no way of knowing.
Keeping within the drifting smoke, she scurried across the track and looked down. Nish’s horse was on its side in the backwater, still kicking. Further out, three soldiers, knocked over the side in the stampede, thrashed desperately. The Merdrun came from a barren rock in the void and, clearly, did not know how to swim. With any luck the current would carry them away. A fourth soldier, a broad-shouldered woman with bristly black hair, was draped over a boulder, dead.
Nish, bundled in the cloak and tied to the saddle, was head and shoulders underwater, and if she could not free him in the next minute or two, he would drown. But the horse was terrified and kicking wildly, and a hoof blow could break bones, or crush her chest or her skull.
She hesitated. Llian might already be dead.
His head thrust up against the cloak, and again. He was alive and desperate; she had no choice. Karan picked the safest part of the backwater, ahead of the horse, and jumped, praying that the water was more than a few feet deep. If it wasn’t, she might break an ankle when she hit bottom.
The cloudy water went over her head, and it was icy. She swung her arms down to slow her plunge, her feet struck a cobbled bottom and she pushed up to the surface. The horse was slowly rotating and drifting out towards the current. It must have broken a leg, for it could not right itself.
She swam behind its back, where it was safest. Karan was a good swimmer, but she was fully dressed and wearing boots, and it was hard work. Nish’s hands were tied and his ankles had been roped together under the horse’s belly. It would not be easy to free him.
Someone up on the track was screaming. Was there any point trying to save Nish? If the Merdrun won, as seemed almost certain, they would both be better off dead.
Sulien needs you! She pulled the cloak away and ducked under. Nish’s eyes were open but staring fixedly. Had he drowned? No, his chest was heaving.
His wrists were bound to the saddle horn. Karan drew her knife and hacked at the ropes, which proved to be exceedingly tough. The horse kicked wildly, she took a strip of skin off his left wrist and his blood darkened the water. She sawed by feel and the ropes parted.
Freeing his feet would be far more dangerous. She filled her lungs and went under again, feeling her way down Nish’s leg to the ankle; she could not see anything now. As she sawed the rope, the horse kicked with three legs and she lost her grip. It was above her now and its frantic movements were pushing them towards the racing current. Once in it, there would be no getting out.
Karan located the rope again, but Nish had stopped moving. He’d been under water for two or three minutes. Was he still holding his breath, or had he drowned? She was also running out of air. She had to free him on this breath, or fail.
She hacked desperately at the rope, it parted, and he slid free. She sheathed the knife, caught him by the shirt and kicked for the surface. Nish lolled, apparently lifeless, though there was a faint bubbling in his t
hroat. She drew back a fist and thumped him below the ribs, thrusting her fist in and up. He coughed up water, explosively, then his chest expanded as the air rushed in.
But they were only a couple of yards from the current, and the horse was closer. It was doomed.
‘Swim!’ she hissed. ‘Or we’re dead!’
Karan turned onto her back and swam towards the shore, towing him. He made some ineffectual swimming motions, no use at all. Karan felt the tug of the current and swam harder, ignoring the pain in her bad leg.
The soldiers who had fallen into the water were gone, taken by the river. The horse drifted out, whinnying piteously. The current caught it and it was whirled away, out of sight. Nothing could survive the rapids further down; she prayed that its end was quick.
It took a minute to go ten yards. She reached the shore and, her leg tormenting her now, hauled Nish up into a concavity in the steep slope, where he would not be visible from above. It would not hide him from a search, though. She crouched and checked him over.
He was a short, stocky man about her own age, with thinning hair and blotchy welts on his face and neck where spurge sap had soaked through the cloak. Fist-shaped bruises showed where they had worked him over, and he was very cold.
There was nothing she could do; the cold was creeping into her as well. ‘I’m Karan,’ she whispered, her teeth chattering. ‘You all right?’
‘Give me a minute. Is Maelys –’ He choked.
‘In the sky galleon with Chissmoul. Flydd and Flangers attacked, though it seems hopeless.’
‘I need a weapon.’
Karan slipped down to the dead soldier on the rock, drew her curved sword from its sheath and gave it to him.
‘Stay out of sight,’ she said. ‘I’ll find out how it’s going.’
As she was about to move, an enemy soldier was outlined against the darkening sky above her, looking down. Had he seen her? The shadows were deep down here now. She held her breath as he walked along the edge, then turned away.
She climbed the slope, which was so steep that she had to use vines to haul herself up. The exercise was not enough to warm her, and her sodden clothes weighed her down.
The track was littered with bodies, including all four of Flydd’s guards and two horse handlers. Only four enemy were still on their feet – three soldiers, two men and one woman, and the sus-magiz. The rest had been blinded or otherwise disabled by the spurge sap, trampled in the stampede or killed in action. One soldier had a blade embedded in his chest; the remainder lacked obvious wounds. Shot by Flangers, Karan assumed.
The sus-magiz, whose face was enormously swollen, loomed over a small man on his knees on the track. His hands were bound behind him. Flydd! One of the soldiers raised a curved sword as if to behead him, and Karan choked. The sus-magiz shouted at the fellow, in a language she did not know, and he backed away.
The sus-magiz kicked Flydd in the side. He toppled over.
Was there any hope of rescuing him? Possibly, if Flangers was still free, though she could not imagine how.
But he had orders to shoot Flydd if he were captured. Flangers was a good soldier, tormented by things he’d had to do in the previous war, and an honourable man. Would he obey Flydd’s order? Probably.
There came a cry of triumph from some distance up the slope. Blue light burst from a crystal in the head of the sus-magiz’s staff and he raised it above his head, illuminating the steeply sloping track.
A fourth soldier appeared from the forest, driving a stumbling Flangers before him. There was blood on his face and down his front.
Karan could not count on Nish, which meant it was five against one. She was a fair shot with a crossbow and if she could find Flangers’ weapon she might take down two Merdrun, possibly three. But not all five.
All depended on what they did now. If they made camp and attended their injuries, there was a tiny chance. She crept up to a bend in the track, out of sight, then across into the forest and back down to the attack point.
A fifth soldier appeared, plodding up the track from the direction of the lower bridge. The left side of his face was ballooned out grotesquely. The sus-magiz bellowed at him, though the only word Karan understood was ‘horses.’ The soldier held out empty hands. Gone!
The sus-magiz turned and said, to another soldier, ‘Nish?’
He pointed over the side and drew a finger across his throat. The sus-magiz let forth a torrent of abuse, held up a skinny arm and slowly closed his fist. The soldier fell to his knees, choking. He withered visibly and slid sideways, dead.
Karan shuddered. Had the sus-magiz drunk that man’s life? It seemed so, for the sus-magiz looked bulkier than before. He issued orders and two soldiers began to heave the dead over the edge. She counted sixteen bodies: Flydd’s four guards, two horse handlers and ten of the enemy. Plus the four who had been hurled into the river in the stampede. That left ten enemy soldiers, though she could only see nine.
The sus-magiz walked along the injured, inspecting them in the light from his staff, then reached down to one and she sensed a vast flow of power. The sus-magiz drank the soldier’s life, and the lives of three more who had been badly injured, and their shrunken corpses were also dumped in the river. His skin was now a ruddy colour, a faint red nimbus surrounded him, and his white eyes glowed like twin lamps. He was so charged with power that his long, narrow feet barely seemed to touch the ground.
But what did he want all that power for?
Five soldiers remained, three with lesser wounds or burns, the other two unharmed. They piled logs and branches in heaps twenty yards apart along the track, then two soldiers climbed down the bank, carrying water skins.
Nish! They would be bound to find him. But minutes passed and there was no shout of triumph. Had he dragged himself away? Or slid back into the water and drowned?
In her wet clothes, Karan was getting colder by the second, but she dared not move. The water carriers returned. The sus-magiz ignited the wood piles with his staff and they blazed ten feet high, though none of the warmth reached her. Nish must be freezing by now, and he had already been in a bad way …
The soldiers prepared food and put water on to boil. The sus-magiz drew markings on the muddy track midway between the two fires and began to chant and make intricate movements with his hands.
What was he up to? The Merdrun did not tolerate failure and he had lost his captive, the horses and their handlers, and most of his troops. Flydd was an important prisoner, though without knowing the strength of the ambushers the sus-magiz might be loath to continue on foot.
He needed a gate, but the field was weak in this region and, even where it was strong, making gates took a lot of power. Had he drunk those lives to make one, or to call on an ally in Fadd to direct a gate here? How could Karan stop him?
She slipped up to the rocks Flangers had hidden behind and groped around in the dim light. His crossbow lay where he’d dropped it when he was attacked but she could only find one bolt – the one he’d been loading as they took him.
She crept down. The wavering firelight was tricky for accurate shooting, though if she could get close enough she might kill the sus-magiz and prevent the gate. But the soldiers would take her in seconds. She had to call the sky galleon down.
How long since the attack began? No more than fifteen minutes, though it felt like hours. Taking out the little silver box, she pressed the swirling markings and whispered, ‘Maelys?’
‘Nish?’ Maelys said as if she were speaking in Karan’s ear.
‘He’s free … somewhere. Most of the enemy are dead, and all our guards, but they’ve got Flydd and Flangers.’
In the background, Chissmoul let out a cry of despair.
‘I think the sus-magiz is trying for a gate,’ Karan added. ‘Or calling for one. You’ve got to stop him.’
Chissmoul gave another wail. ‘Chissmoul, no, wait –’ hissed Maelys. Then they were gone and Karan could not get them back.
A distant, mechanical
shriek echoed back and forth and the sky galleon, lit from within, howled across the sky. The Merdrun yelled and pointed. The sus-magiz took a swift look but continued with his spell.
Flydd and Flangers, their wrists bound, had been dumped on the track near the uphill fire, guarded by two soldiers. Karan had no way to rescue them.
The sky galleon reappeared and came hurtling up the track towards the fires, twenty feet above the ground. The sus-magiz scrabbled in his pouch, raised a pink rod and shouted a Command. The sky galleon lurched and angled toward the forest.
Karan caught her breath. It was going to crash!
Chissmoul must have regained control because it hurtled upwards at an angle to the track, smashing small branches out of the treetops and leaving a tornado of shredded bark and leaves in its wake. The sus-magiz shouted his Command again, and again the sky galleon lurched, then wobbled across the sky like a drunken bee.
‘I can see how this is going to end,’ Nish said from behind her.
Karan started. ‘How?’ she croaked.
‘Chissmoul has no defence against magic,’ he said in a slow, exhausted voice. ‘Either the sus-magiz will break her mind and seize control of the sky galleon …’
‘Or?’
‘Or if she knows she’s going to lose everything that matters to her … she’ll slam it into the track at full speed, and annihilate the Merdrun, and herself.’
‘And Maelys, Flydd and Flangers,’ said Karan, shocked numb.
‘It’s all or nothing with Chissmoul, and when she thinks it’s nothing, life is unbearable. I’ve seen it before. In the past Flangers has kept her together, but without him …’
‘What do we do?’
‘Kill the sus-magiz. You any good with that?’
He meant the crossbow. ‘Middling,’ said Karan.
Nish took it. ‘I was a good shot, once. Though … never mind.’
He sounded on the edge of collapse. ‘There’s only the one bolt,’ she said.
‘I’d better make it count, then. Come on.’
As the struggle between Chissmoul and the sus-magiz continued, the manoeuvres of the sky galleon grew ever wilder. Many times, Karan thought it was going to crash into trees or mountainside. It skimmed the jumbled rocks at the top of the slope, setting small boulders loose. One crashed down towards them, slammed into a tree with a ground-shaking thud and broke into pieces.
