by Ian Irvine
‘Are there power sources that aren’t credible?’
‘Just one. Alcifer.’
Fear thrilled through Skald. Excitement too. His discovery of the strange beacon originating from Alcifer had gained him the opportunity to become sus-magiz in the first place. ‘Rulke’s ancient city.’
‘Where he now lies in hiding, recuperating from his injuries.’
‘He was a great and terrible foe.’
‘But he’s a shadow of what he once was,’ said Chaxee.
‘And the non-credible possibility?’
‘It’s said that within Alcifer, whose defences have, unfortunately, proved impenetrable, there is a great Source.’
‘Another node?’ said Skald.
‘An entirely different kind of power. But even if it’s true, there’s no way to get to it. The Charon have long been our enemies and Rulke has tailored Alcifer’s defences against us.’
She paused, then said, ‘One final thing, the most critical of all. Both your tasks must be complete and ready for use by Founder’s Day.’
Skald’s heart sank. ‘The tower complete, and supplied with enough power?’
‘Yes,’ she said grimly.
He sensed an undercurrent of despair. Chaxee knew it could not be done but could not admit it, so she was shifting responsibility to him.
‘Why that day?’
‘A rare conjunction of the heavenly bodies offers the chance to reach our goal. But that window is only open for eight hours – and the conjunction does not occur again for 287 years.’
Unlike Charon, Merdrun were not long-lived. If Skald failed, the True Purpose would also fail, and his people, and many generations to come, would suffer.
‘And in 287 years,’ she continued remorselessly, ‘anything could happen to prevent our descendants reaching the goal that has driven us ever since we were forced to pass through the Crimson Gate. Now do you understand why it must be done?’
‘I will do everything in my power –’ Skald said desperately.
‘Not good enough!’ Chaxee said in a harsh croak. ‘You will swear, by our sacred Founder’s Stone, that you will complete the tower and tunnel, and ensure sufficient power is available, by midday of the day before Founder’s Day.’
‘How can I swear when I don’t know what the tower is for, or what devices and mechanisms are required?’
‘The magiz has designed the necessary mechanisms, and a team of artisans and artificers, led by the slave mechanician, M’Lainte, is building them. That’s all you need to know. Swear!’
Was Dagog watching in secret? How he would be enjoying this. ‘How can I swear to the impossible?’
‘I have revealed one of our most vital secrets to you – the date of the Day of All Days. If you cannot swear, I will disgrace you on a pretext, have you killed to protect the secret, and someone else will be appointed.’
Skald looked at her, numbly. There was no possibility that everything could be done in time. Yet it had to be done, for the sake of the Merdrun nation.
‘I swear by our sacred Founder’s Stone,’ he said grimly, ‘that all will be built, powered and ready for use by midday of the day before Founder’s Day.’
And when he failed, as he must, his fate would be unimaginable.
47
A Wonder You Didn’t Let Me Die
An inner voice said to Aviel, ‘You’re just as bad as Maigraith.’
But another voice whispered, ‘Let her die. It’d be a mercy for her. And a reprieve for everyone else.’
Aviel’s gift-blocking potion had left Maigraith comatose and barely breathing, her heart only beating a few times a minute. She looked dead, save that the unmarred half of her face was twisted in an agony so brutal that Aviel could not bear to look at it.
It should have been easy to go out and close the door. If she had, in this hot weather, without food or water Maigraith would probably have slipped away without ever regaining consciousness.
It was the best thing to do …
But the grief got to Aviel. The other emotions she had seen time and again in Maigraith – the sneering mockery, the hatred, obsessive rage, jealousy, bitterness, and most of all the cold indifference to the suffering or fate of anyone else – told Aviel to let her go. Yet Maigraith’s aching grief at the loss of her magical gift brought them together, because Aviel would feel the same way if she had been robbed of her own small gift.
So here she was, holding Maigraith’s slack mouth open while she trickled honeyed water down her throat with an eyedropper. It took ages and Aviel felt the need to do it at least every three hours, night and day.
Until the sixth morning, when Maigraith’s eyes quivered open, the twisted half of her face relaxed and her right hand rose and sent the eyedropper flying, to shatter on the floor.
‘Mooning over me now?’ she said in a cracked voice. ‘Got a bad conscience, mouse?’
Aviel had not expected thanks, but still … ‘You took ill after you opened the bottle,’ she lied. ‘You’ve been unconscious for many days.’
‘A wonder you didn’t let me die.’
‘I thought about it.’
Maigraith eyed her suspiciously. ‘I would have told you to, if I’d been able to speak. My gift was gone … But now it’s back, and as strong as ever.’ She smiled twistedly.
Because Aviel had relented, fool that she was, and only given half the specified dose. And now it was all going to start again.
‘But you couldn’t do it,’ Maigraith sneered. ‘You are a mouse, a terrified little rodent.’
‘I’ll know better next time.’
‘There won’t be a next time. Where’s my trull toxicant?’
‘The poison in the crystal bottle? I chucked it down a well.’
Maigraith’s eyes flashed and she tried to get up, but did not have the strength. ‘That took ten days to make.’
Aviel did not bother to answer.
‘No matter. I’ve had a much better idea.’
Maigraith pushed herself upright. She now looked much as she had before Aviel dosed her, though a little older, and the tip of her nose had a droop. She really resembled a hag now. Aviel took a small, spiteful pleasure from it.
‘I’ll get back to work on your rejuvenation potion, then.’
‘Hurry up. I’m going to need it soon.’
‘It’ll be a couple of weeks, yet.’
Maigraith gave her a cold stare. ‘That’s not good enough.’
‘It can’t be hurried – assuming you want it to work properly.’
As Aviel headed back to her workshop she wondered how she would feel if Maigraith had died. On the one hand, relieved.
And on the other? As though she, Aviel, had fallen and would never recover. Many people could do bad things without a qualm, but she was not one of them. She had done the right thing, saving Maigraith’s life.
Yet she knew she was going to regret it.
Late that night, Maigraith took an enemy propaganda poster out of a drawer and sat there, gazing at the sketch of the hero it portrayed. Skald was a big, handsome man who resembled Rulke, though Skald was much younger and a lot hairier. Some time ago she had used the image to locate him and had subsequently created a secret spy portal to check on him.
Seeing his vulnerability and his desperate yearning to prove himself, she had briefly fantasised about seducing him to get back at Rulke – but that would be the pettiest of revenges. Besides, Maigraith was not the seducing type. Even if she used illusion to give herself the outward appearance of a siren, inside she would remain the cold, inhibited woman she had always been.
But could she use Skald to rid herself of her rival?
The more she had spied on him, the more he’d aroused her curiosity, especially his astounding escape from Flydd through a gate powered by partly drinking his own life. It bespoke both a superhuman need to succeed and a terror of the disgrace of capture.
She had also spied on him as he lay on Durthix’s chart table, stripped naked and
bleeding from every orifice while Dagog tried to terminate the life-drinking spell, and the Merdrun’s best healers struggled to haul Skald back up the precipice of death.
The first thing she had done after recovering was to spy on him again. Skald was desk-bound and chafing; he craved danger because it temporarily quieted his inner demons. But there was only frustration in his present work, and he was ripe for an offer. Maigraith would give him another couple of days to learn the meaning of despair.
48
Can Water Be Pumped From A Dry Well?
Skald had been right. The tower could not be completed in time, or even if he’d had twice the available time. Doing it by mechanical means was out of the question; it would take years. It could only be done in time by using magic, but the magical power needed to lift hundreds of massive iron beams to the top of Skyrock and assemble them there, and to cut the six hundred-foot-wide tunnel through the base of the pinnacle, was far beyond what could be drawn from the field.
And even if those works could be completed on schedule, much greater power would be needed to operate the secret devices and mechanisms required for the True Purpose on the Day of All Days, Founder’s Day. It could only come from the node deep below Skyrock.
Skald met the chief miner, a small, lopsided fellow, on the Fourth Level below Skyrock, which was as deep as Skald was allowed to go.
‘No further, Super.’ The pores of the chief miner’s grey skin and the wrinkles around his pinkly inflamed eyes were infilled with rock dust, and there was dust on his cap and his eyebrows, and down the bridge of his flat nose. He had no fingers on his left hand, just the thumb, and his left shoulder hung three inches below the right. ‘Ain’t safe for the likes o’ ye.’
Skald did not want to go lower. The confinement, the close, dusty air and the weeping walls roused long-suppressed horrors from his early childhood: darkness, his two older brothers holding blankets over his head so he could not breathe, kicking and screaming in pure terror –
With an effort, he crushed the unworthy emotions. His brothers had died in minor battles years ago; they could not hurt him anymore. ‘How long to clear the rubble out from the roof fall, and the bodies?’
The chief miner picked grey sludge out of his nose with a pointed thumbnail. ‘Safer to leave them there … bad luck, though.’
Skald wasn’t going to tempt fate any further. ‘How long?’
‘Two days,’ said the miner. ‘Or three or four. Could be more roof falls, or fissures gushin’ water that’s gotta be pumped out, or bad air. Never know what yer gunna find underground.’
‘I need it done in two days,’ said Skald. ‘And the node reached three days after that.’
‘It’ll take as long as it takes.’
‘I could have you killed,’ Skald said, already feeling desperate.
‘Next chief miner will tell you the same. And the one after that.’
He was probably telling the truth, though you could never tell with the enemy. ‘What if I bring in a second crew?’
‘There are miners enough, and all hungry for paid work.’
To get the best out of key workers, they had to be paid, though that wasn’t a problem. The Merdrun had an endless supply of purloined treasure and no other use for it, since they did not value gold or jewels. ‘What about a third crew?’
‘No room. Gotta haul all the rock back up the shaft.’
‘Dig a new shaft.’
The chief miner rolled his inflamed eyes. ‘That’d take weeks. And the more miners you got, the more fresh air you need. Bad air, killin’ air, lies in low places, and the deeper you go the worse it gets, and you can’t smell it. Got to have fans to get rid of it, and they take power too.’
‘But all these problems can be solved.’
The chief miner sighed ostentatiously. ‘Super, the closer we get to the node, the rottener the rock becomes.’ He picked the other nostril and held out the grey, quivering muck. ‘It’s like this, sometimes.’
Skald stepped backwards, disgusted. ‘Why?’
‘You’d know better than me, bein’ a sus-magiz.’
‘Have a guess.’
‘Guess the great node is eatin’ away at the rock.’
‘Does it affect people who get close to it?’
The chief miner shrugged with his good shoulder. ‘People are softer than rock.’
Skald assumed that meant yes – but if a crew of miners became ill from exposure to the node, another crew would replace them. ‘I’ll send two more crews, and find power to drive the fans,’ he said rashly. ‘And there’ll be a great prize for the crew who can get to the node in five days.’
‘Double is more likely,’ the chief miner said dourly.
He probably expected to be killed when the job was finished. It was what the Merdrun had always done, but now Skald could see how corrupt they had become, how that would taint their True Purpose.
Pain stabbed through his inner organs as he plodded back to the shaft and climbed over the wicker side of the lifting basket. A pair of emaciated female slaves wound the winch and the basket slowly rose, swinging from side to side and thumping into the broken walls. The surface seemed so far away, and the frayed ropes symbolised life and death. Like this impossible task.
They would never do it in time. He had to find another source of power – but there was no other credible source.
When he returned to the tent where he worked, Sus-magiz Pannilie, who ranked fifth below the magiz and was vastly Skald’s superior in talent and experience, was waiting. A lean, compact woman, darker than most Merdrun, with pink scaly patches running up her arms and throat, and almost covering the lower third of her face, including her lower lip. A failed spell cast on her by a rival sus-magiz years ago, it was rumoured. Other rumours said a bitter former lover had done it.
‘You called for a report on power,’ she said brusquely, picking at the scaly skin on her lower lip until it bled. ‘We’re drawing everything we can take from the field, and it’s not nearly enough.’
‘You can’t squeeze any more out of it?’
‘Can water be pumped from a dry well?’
‘What about fields further away? Why can’t we draw power and store it – as the enemy does with their sky galleon?’
‘Suitable crystals are very scarce; we can’t store enough power to make any difference. Don’t you know anything about the nature of power on Santhenar?’
‘Only what I’ve read in Flydd’s Histories. But I’ve got to explore all possibilities.’
‘The only possibility is the node.’
‘I’ve ordered two more mining crews in. One of them might reach the node in five days.’
‘Mining always runs behind schedule. When is it likely that they’ll reach the node?’
‘Ten days.’
The blood withdrew from under Pannilie’s dark skin, leaving the upper part of her face a sickly grey but the pink, lower third unchanged. She turned away. ‘Then it’s hopeless.’
Paradoxically, the despair of this immensely competent and experienced sus-magiz strengthened Skald’s own resolve. ‘I swore to complete the tower and tunnel, and get the power we need, by the appointed day,’ he said quietly. ‘There must be a way.’
She grimaced and went out. Skald still did not know what the inside of the tower was meant to look like once complete, so he headed up the hill to see the deputy architect. She was a slave; all the designers and artists were.
The design tent was set on a knoll overlooking the front of the officers’ compound and, unlike all the other tents, was circular with a high central peak, not unlike a circus tent. The deputy architect turned out to be surprisingly young, and Skald stopped in mid-step, staring at her.
‘Have we met before?’ he said.
‘No, Superintendent. My name is Uletta.’
She was a big woman, tall and broad-shouldered, with heavy thighs and muscular arms, nicely hairy, and broad feet and hands. Her nose was long and blunt, her ears large, and her j
aw strong enough to crack nuts. Skald, to whom delicacy of face or figure was a sign of weakness, thought her beautiful.
‘The – the former Superintendent of Works and the Chief Architect have been killed by a rock fall,’ he said, feeling a trifle breathless. ‘I’m in charge of completing the project in time. And powering it.’
‘We have been told.’ She did not look upset. ‘And you wish me to show you the plans and designs.’
‘At once.’
They spent hours going over the structural drawings for the tower and tunnel. Skald was quick to understand them, for he could look at a plan and visualise it in three dimensions, but his head was throbbing and his damaged inner organs were pierced with shard-like pains. If he did not rest, he was likely to do more damage.
But time was desperately short and he did not take well to inaction. Few Merdrun did; they lived on their feet and mostly died on their feet. Even mating and childbirth were more often than not done standing up.
‘Do you also want to see the decorative designs, artwork, embellishments, motifs and symbols?’ said Uletta.
Skald did not need to see them yet, but working with her created feelings that he had never felt before and did not have words for. He felt a little light-headed, almost delirious. ‘I need to know everything.’
They worked late into the night, after all the other slaves had been escorted to their compound and locked in. Near midnight, Uletta rolled the second last set of drawings and took them back to their rack.
Skald was admiring her massive backside and heavy thighs, her glossy black hair and quick, confident step – she was not cowed like most of the slaves – when a dreadful pain tore through his belly. His head and torso grew boiling hot, yet his hands were freezing. He put his head between his legs but the dizziness did not go away. He was going to faint! And no Merdrun soldier ever fainted.
‘Superintendent?’ said Uletta. Merdrun did not name themselves to slaves, even important ones; they went by rank or title only. ‘Are you unwell?’
