The Perilous Tower: The Gates of Good & Evil Book 3

by Ian Irvine

‘Later! In the meantime, you will be given work suited to your capabilities.’

  As Skald went to the door, Durthix said something that, to the best of Skald’s knowledge, he had never said before. ‘Well done, Captain.’

  That was not the magiz’s opinion. He made it clear, on his daily visits to the healing tent, that he loathed Skald more than ever. And Dagog’s addiction seemed to be getting worse. His face was as purple and bloated as a blood-engorged leech; he must be drinking the lives of slaves every day now.

  The worse he became, the more sickened Skald grew with himself, for he now knew exactly what Tataste and his other victims had gone through, and each time he relived their deaths his flesh crawled as if maggots had hatched under the skin.

  I will not become him, he thought, over and over. I will never drink a life again.

  Yet the temptation was always there now. The yearning to feel that ecstasy, and know that nothing was beyond him, was all that got him through the pain. It was harder than ever to hide his emotions, and ever more necessary that he suppress them utterly. They would be the death of him if he did not.

  Yet not all was dark. In between hallucinations he had dreamed that a woman was gazing at him as if she actually cared about him, and that was novel. In all his life, no one had ever cared about him as a person.

  And once or twice his mind had been touched, fleetingly, by a young enemy girl, almost as unhappy as he was. She seemed familiar; had she come to him before? He could not remember.

  Who was she, and how could she reach him at all?

  When Skald reported for duty the following morning he was sent to an even larger tent, one of hundreds in a cramped tent city next to the officer’s compound, to report to the chief provisioner.

  These tents were so large that he could see nothing beyond them. Only the deep blue, cloudless sky, the gritty grey soil underfoot and the crisp, cold air told him that he was far from stinking, sweaty Guffeons.

  The provisioner’s tent was forty yards long and half that wide. It contained eighty-eight tall folding tables, each with a uniformed Merdrun standing at it, and stacks containing hundreds of crates of papers, scrolls and ledgers.

  ‘I’m to be a clerk?’ he said, unable to conceal his dismay.

  ‘Someone has to supply the bold adventurers,’ said Provisioner Tiligg, a narrow-shouldered little man wearing hemispherical eyeglasses and frayed green slippers on odd-shaped feet.

  Slippers! Skald felt nothing but contempt for the man. His own army boots were so polished that he could see his char-black beard shadow on them.

  ‘Food and water,’ Tiligg continued, ‘firewood and tents and stretchers, and everything else an army requires, all must be ordered, shipped, checked, protected from theft, vermin and spoilage at every stage, and delivered when needed. Without our work, there is no army and no True Purpose.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Skald.

  But Tiligg was determined to educate this arrogant upstart. ‘Building stone must be quarried, ores mined and smelted and the metals purified, forests felled, cut into timber and delivered to manufactories and workshops. And a hundred thousand slave artisans and labourers must be fed and watered, guarded and supervised to complete thousands of tasks, each of which must be done exactly to schedule. Schedules that humble clerks like yourself must devise and enact.’

  Skald wanted to tear the man’s slippers off and stop his grey-lipped mouth with them, but Tiligg was vastly higher in rank, so he listened in silence, then went to the table assigned to him and began to check his crate of manifests against the entries in the official ledgers.

  First, sacks of grain of various types and qualities: sacks ordered, delivered, spoiled or eaten by vermin, consumed or, in all too many cases, disappeared, presumably stolen by the slaves. Later, bags of dried peas of various kinds and grades, sacks of sweet potatoes and dozens of other kinds of root vegetables, onions, garlics, herbs and spices …

  The work was surprisingly exhausting and there was no end to it, because his crate was refilled with new documents faster than he could empty it. And there was none of the easy camaraderie of a captain with his troops, here. The chief provisioner discouraged any interaction that was not work-related.

  Besides, sus-magizes were feared for their magic, their capriciousness and their life-drinking, and only a fool would befriend one. None of the other clerks would meet his eye.

  After several days of brain-numbing work, Skald was summoned to the black command tent, which stood a quarter of a mile away inside the officers’ compound. This compound also contained of dozens of large tents, laid out with geometric precision. It was surrounded by a palisade of split logs and had a gate and gatehouse at the northern end.

  Durthix, half a dozen other senior officers and Dagog stood around a large table spread with maps and plans, some of which still bore the ineradicable stains of Skald’s blood. No one acknowledged him and he took an unobtrusive spot to the side, where he could hang onto one of the tent poles if necessary.

  ‘It’s worse than we thought,’ said Durthix. ‘Superintendent Furnix was crushed to death, the fool, along with Chief Architect Hunsor.’

  ‘Another slave rebellion?’ said the magiz.

  Durthix bared his big, square teeth. ‘Not after the way I dealt with the last one. Furnix took Hunsor down to inspect the tunnels below Skyrock, but part of the roof collapsed, killing them both. I suspect sabotage.’

  ‘By the miners?’

  ‘By Hunsor. The Aachim was a bitter man who could not come to terms with his enslavement. But the work must go on. We cannot fall behind by as much as a day.’

  ‘What work?’ said Skald. Everyone stared at him and he added, ‘I don’t know anything about it – or Skyrock, for that matter.’

  ‘Skyrock was a towering stone pinnacle at the western end of the Great Mountains.’ Durthix indicated a large painting hung on the side wall of the tent behind him.

  A mass of pale rock rose high in the sky to three peaks and was surrounded by radiating dikes of similar rock, each standing several yards above the surrounding countryside. The pinnacle was centred in a shallow, bowl-shaped valley some miles across, and the ground was grey, littered with stones and sparsely covered in wiry tussocks. A snowy range was visible in the far distance.

  Durthix continued. ‘And we came to Santhenar to build this.’

  A second painting depicted a tall tower made of interwoven spirals of blue and white, carved stone, on top of which stood a smaller tower made of iron with a large, crystal-driven mechanism at its top. A vast, broad tunnel, a shimmering blue, carved through the base of the tower. ‘It will allow us to fulfil our True Purpose.’

  ‘It’s … enormous,’ said Skald.

  ‘And way beyond our capabilities, which is why we abducted Hunsor, the greatest living Aachim architect, and compelled him to design the tower according to our ancient plan. But so vast a structure, over a thousand feet high, would have taken many years to build. The only way it could be done in time was to cut Skyrock down and hollow it out. And now the fool is dead!’

  ‘Hunsor’s design is complete,’ said General Chaxee, a one-armed old woman with a stubble of white hair and a red eye patch over her right eye. She had distinguished herself in many battles of earlier times and was Durthix’s Sixth in Command. ‘And the slave architects and designers are doing all the detailed work. All we need is someone to manage them, according to Hunsor’s plan.’

  ‘Then appoint a Superintendent of Works and get it done,’ said the magiz.

  ‘I’ve lost half my officers in a few weeks,’ said Durthix. ‘I can’t spare anyone.’

  ‘What about the one who’ll never be fit for active duty again?’

  Dagog was looking at Skald, who quailed. This was why he had been ordered here. But any position Dagog recommended Skald for would be designed to ruin him.

  Durthix swung around, staring at Skald and tapping his fingers on the table. ‘Superintendent of Works is a very senior position.’


  ‘I don’t have the experience,’ said Skald.

  ‘You’re a man of great initiative; you’ll work it out. Brief him, Chaxee.’

  Dagog gave Skald a triumphant glare as he went out, and the others followed, leaving just Skald and Chaxee in the black command tent.

  ‘General Chaxee?’ he began. ‘I don’t –’

  ‘Shut up and listen.’

  Her eye patch slipped, revealing radiating white scars around the empty eye socket. The skin inside it was mottled in shades of grey and red. She did not bother to adjust it and his admiration grew. Her disfigurement was a badge of honour.

  ‘You will not repeat what I am about to tell you, to anyone,’ she added.

  ‘No, General.’

  ‘The great martyr, Anubelux, our eleventh magiz, was the first to recognise our darkness of the soul, and that we would have to heal ourselves before we could go home.’

  ‘Heal ourselves of what, General?’

  ‘Our corruption. Our original sin, if you like.’

  He could not take his eyes away from her eye socket. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘At the dawn of our Histories, when Stermin separated us from our fellows like sacrificial goats and ordered us through the Crimson Gate, it corrupted us, and we’ve grown more corrupt with every succeeding generation. You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. War for the sake of war. Killing their enemies for the sake of killing. The magiz’s life-drinking for the pleasure of it. He shivered. This was close to heresy.

  ‘That’s why Anubelux created the True Purpose – to cleanse us before we go home and make a new start. And she set out how it was to be done in words and paintings, safely hidden until invasion day.’ She indicated the second painting. ‘This tower is a vital symbolic object. Do you know why?’

  ‘No, General.’

  ‘It’s the antithesis of the Crimson Gate that ruined us, the gate which we’ve been forced to recreate over and again in our practice wars against other worlds, and even against Santhenar. The tower must be beautiful, harmonious and perfect in every way – but we know nothing about beauty or harmony. Until now the only things that mattered to us were war – and winning.’

  Skald’s guts spasmed. ‘I’m just a soldier and a junior sus-magiz. What do I know of –?’

  ‘You don’t need to know. We abducted the most brilliant architects, designers, stone carvers and artists on Santhenar, and put them to work following Anubelux’s notes and drawings. The detailed designs are now done. As Superintendent of Works, your job is to ensure the plans for the tower and tunnel are followed down to the smallest decorations and symbols, and every deadline is met.’

  ‘I will do my best.’

  ‘Your best isn’t good enough,’ said Chaxee. ‘Follow me!’

  46

  A Sump For Toxic Magical Waste

  Chaxee led Skald out past the guards at the gates of the officers’ compound. On the other side of a broad, gravelled road that ran up the hill to Skald’s right, and down towards Skyrock, was another compound, with split-log palisade walls twenty feet high.

  ‘Slaves’ compound,’ said Chaxee. ‘For 100,000 slaves.’ She pointed up the road towards an expanse covered in thousands of smaller tents. ‘Army camp, 150,000 troops.’ And far beyond that to another, much smaller camp. ‘The Whelm who have sworn to Durthix. 4,000.’

  She rotated to indicate another high camp to the left of the road. ‘The rest of the Merdrun nation.’

  She turned left and headed down the road. The ground to either side had been stripped of all vegetation and levelled. Ahead, a circular compound, perhaps a mile across, was surrounded by a partly built stone wall. Where the road intersected it, ten enormous gateposts had been sunk into the ground, equally spaced across an opening two hundred yards wide, and workers were attaching yards-long hinges to each side of each post.

  ‘Why such an enormous gateway?’ said Skald.

  ‘When you need to know, you’ll be told.’

  Inside the compound the radiating dikes had been cut away and the ground levelled, and the area immediately inside the wall was being paved with slabs of coloured rock laid to an intricate design. The rest of the compound was bare ground littered with piles of cut and broken stone, stacks of timber and lengths of metal. The racket of hammer on chisel, and the crash and crack of falling stone, grew ever louder as they approached the pinnacle.

  At the centre of the compound stood what remained of the sky-piercing pinnacle of Skyrock. It must originally have been two thousand feet high, but the top half had been cut away to leave a flat surface on which, Skald assumed, the iron tower was to be erected.

  The upper third of the pinnacle had then been carved into spirals clad in either blue or white stone, enclosing a massive central cylinder of rock into which windows had been cut here and there. The middle third was encircled by bamboo scaffolding socketed into the rock and thousands of slave masons worked on three platforms there, more than six hundred feet above the ground. The workers on the lowest platform were cutting the pinnacle to shape with hammers and chisels, the ones on the platform above them polished the stone, and the workers on the upper platform fixed the blue and white cladding to the spirals.

  From the lower platform, cut rock thundered down on all sides, forming mounds around the base of the pinnacle. A roofed tunnel allowed safe access to the interior, and the gigantic opening that was to run through the base of Skyrock. Even unfinished, the tower was awe-inspiring.

  But the amount of work still to be done, and now Skald’s responsibility, was terrifying. What was it all for? Only Durthix and the magiz knew what the True Purpose really entailed.

  ‘I have to do all that …?’ Skald began.

  ‘It’s one of your two jobs as Superintendent of Works,’ said Chaxee. ‘Complete the tower, inside and out, and the tunnel through it.’

  ‘But there must be tens of thousands … How can I possibly …?’

  ‘Every supervisor knows what they have to do, and when,’ she said impatiently. ‘Your job is to ensure that they get it all done in time.’

  As he eyed the small, labouring figures on the scaffolding, a mason slipped from the lower platform, fell for about five seconds, and slammed into one of the piles of rubble. Skald winced.

  ‘Hundreds of slaves have been killed already,’ she said dispassionately, ‘and many of our supervisors. And many more will die before the Day of All Days.’

  ‘Dangerous work.’

  ‘Sometimes the slaves jump, and sometimes they nudge their supervisors off. Or drop rock on their heads. Be careful where you stand, Superintendent.’

  Skald turned away and saw, halfway across the far side of the compound, a black stone building shaped like a perfect cube. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘You are not permitted to know.’

  Nearby was a large rectangular pit, like an inverted pyramid, with a spike at its centre. He did not bother to ask about it.

  ‘And that?’ He indicated a hazy hole in the ground away to his left, near the partly built compound wall. Tendrils of a greenish miasma rose from it.

  ‘An old quarry. Now used as a sump for toxic magical waste.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was such a thing.’

  ‘All magic produces uncanny waste, though normally you can’t see it. But we’re using such vast amounts of magical power here that the waste builds up, and it’s extremely dangerous.’

  ‘Can’t it be dumped further away?’

  ‘It’s tricky to handle, and not even the magiz knows much about it. If it touches living things, or even inanimate objects – well, you can worry about that at a later date.’

  ‘It’s part of my responsibility too?’

  ‘You wanted the job, Superintendent.’

  No, I didn’t!

  She looked back at Skyrock. ‘The tower must also be untainted by any dark source of power. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Drinking lives,’ breath
ed Skald.

  ‘You, who have been dragged from the pyre after drinking your own life, know more than any man how dark that power is. It’s not why the magiz proposed you,’ she grimaced, ‘but it is why you were accepted.’ She paused. ‘That, and your determination to succeed at any cost. You’re unique among us, Skald. That’s why you were chosen for this honour … and this burden.’

  Chaxee’s one eye burned into Skald, but he could not think of anything to say.

  ‘Unfortunately, you also have a taste for the Despicable Spell. You must resist it, lest you taint that which you seek to make perfect.’

  The Despicable Spell – life-drinking. ‘What’s my second responsibility?’

  ‘We need power desperately, far more than the field here can provide. Where are we to get it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you read Histories of the Lyrinx War?’

  ‘Parts. Durthix gave me –’

  ‘Read it all, study it, understand it. It’s the enemy’s greatest folly, and finding it may turn out to be your greatest triumph. For instance, a chapter in the second last book describes Flydd’s attempt to block the draw of power from a node, but it failed, and all the node’s power was released in a cataclysm that destroyed it.’

  ‘I’m … not sure why you’re telling me this, General.’

  ‘The greatest node yet discovered lies beneath Skyrock,’ said Chaxee. ‘And if we can tap it, we’ll have all the power we need – pure, untainted power. Your second task is more important than ever after yesterday’s fiasco.’

  ‘Is that what Furnix was doing when he was killed?’

  ‘He should never have gone down the mine tunnels. When the roof fell on him and Hunsor, or was magicked down on them, it set our True Purpose back by many days, time that will be very difficult to make up. But the node is our only credible source of power, so it must be done.’

  And Skald had to make it happen, though on such a tight schedule even making up one lost day would be difficult. Making up many days was hardly possible, in which case the True Purpose must fail. And he would be blamed.