by Ian Irvine
It did not matter; she was a soft, curvaceous woman, with neat, symmetrical features and small feet and hands, and therefore no threat. Merdrun beauty was founded in size and strength, and her delicate looks, creamy skin and modest stature were signs of weakness.
What does Rulke see in her? he thought contemptuously. She belongs in one of the enemy’s salons, chattering inanely to others as superficial as herself.
A silver chain hung around her neck. Her right arm was broken above the wrist and the slender bones had torn through her skin.
‘Should we do a temporary healing?’ said Skald.
‘The broken arm will make her easy to control,’ said Pannilie, who was studying Lirriam thoughtfully. ‘If Rulke heard the outcry earlier, he’ll be on his way.’
And they would fail! ‘What do we do?’
‘I can’t take him on face-to-face. But if he doesn’t know I’m here, I might strike him down from concealment …’
‘Yes!’ said Skald. ‘Go, hide!’
Pannilie handed him the light, and a ring with a chunky red jewel embedded in it. ‘When you want me to attack, rotate the jewel half a turn anticlockwise.’ She gave the field scanner case to Sus-magiz Ghiv and slipped away.
Skald cut Tiaan’s bonds. ‘Dress her.’
He lifted Lirriam to a sitting position. Her skin was silky and soft but, underneath, the muscles were as hard as his own, and she bore a number of scars, evidence of old wounds. He sat back on his haunches. She was not what she seemed.
Tiaan pulled a loose red blouse on Lirriam, taking care with her broken arm, and did up the fastenings, a line of triangular ebony toggles that curved from her left shoulder to the right side of her waist. She drew blue, knee-length pants up Lirriam’s legs. She moaned and her eyelids fluttered.
‘Put a knife to her throat,’ Skald said to the sergeant. ‘If Rulke comes the threat must be immediate – but under no circumstances will you harm her.’
The sergeant repeated the order and drew a foot-long knife. Skald said to Ghiv, ‘Use the field scanner. Find the Source.’
Ghiv slipped away.
Skald sent three soldiers down each corridor to keep watch, and the remaining three down the long arm of the T-junction, then paced outside Lirriam’s doorway. Everything depended on Rulke now. If he had been alerted, they would probably die here and the mission would fail.
On active duty in the past, Skald had rarely felt fear. Going into combat, where the stakes were life and death, and his size, strength and superb training gave him the advantage, had exhilarated him. But he knew what would happen if he had to pit his useless body against the greatest warrior of all.
Rulke would annihilate him.
A muscle spasmed over Skald’s right eye, and again. His knees were wobbly, and it was hard to draw enough breath. He was afraid! Not afraid of dying, never that. Afraid of breaking in battle and running like a coward. Afraid that his mother would be proved right about him. He stiffened his courage, as he had been doing since he was a little boy.
I am not my father! If I have to face Rulke, if I must die, I will die bravely, doing my duty.
The mantra made him feel better, but he had to survive. The True Purpose rested on him getting the Source back to Skyrock. He had to find a way.
Without warning, with no sign at all, Rulke materialised next to Skald. He choked and took an involuntary step backwards. Now, now he was afraid.
Rulke was barefoot and wore only a robe belted at the waist, gaping to reveal a broad, muscular chest and a long, ropy purple scar across his belly and side. Another, faded scar ran almost parallel. He did not appear to be armed.
He was the biggest man Skald had ever seen, topping his own height by half a head, and his shoulders were a handspan wider. Rulke was more than four thousand years old; he had defeated most of the enemies he had ever faced and outlasted all of them; and he was probably the greatest living mancer on Santhenar. Skald could never have been his match.
Rulke raised his right hand and pale blue lights brightened along the ceilings of each corridor, reflecting off the drawn blades of Skald’s troops.
‘Stay!’ said Rulke, and they went still.
Paralysed, Skald thought, or petrified. Everything depended on Pannilie now. Pain tore through his belly, worse than before, but he had to try and take the initiative. ‘We have Lirriam.’
‘How did you get in?’ said Rulke mildly.
‘A secret entrance.’
Skald studied him in the bright light. The healed wound still restricted Rulke and he moved so as to favour that side. Was that why he had not come to Santhenar’s aid?
Rulke’s gaze settled on Tiaan. He gestured at her and the gag fell away. ‘Who are you?’
She looked him in the eye. ‘The mother of three children, the youngest five years old.’
‘That’s not why you’re here. What is your name?’
‘Tiaan Liise-Mar,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Tiaan?’ he said, as if riffling through the names of hundreds of people he’d read about recently. ‘The great artisan and geomancer. The destroyer of nodes and fields.’
‘I was sick of the ruin of war,’ she said quietly. ‘I wanted an end to it.’
‘There is no end to war. It’s part of the sad human condition.’
‘I was young and stupid,’ she cried. ‘I’ve a far more important purpose in life now.’
‘What greater purpose can anyone have,’ said Rulke, ‘than to protect their children? I have not fathered many, and all are dead. It makes me a failure.’ He looked down at Skald. ‘Name?’
Skald told himself that he was in charge here, though it did not feel that way. ‘Captain Skald Hulni. I am also a sus-magiz.’
‘Never heard of you. What do you want?’
‘In exchange for Lirriam’s safety,’ said Skald, ‘I want the Source.’
‘You’re overly bold for a midget.’
Skald was a big man by any standards, but he must not let himself be provoked. He waited.
‘What makes you think Lirriam matters that much to me?’ said Rulke. He glanced towards her doorway.
He could not see her from where he stood, for which Skald was thankful. Whether Rulke cared about her or not, in Alcifer she was under his protection.
‘If you’re wrong,’ Rulke added, ‘every one of you is dead. You do know that?’
Skald did but he was determined not to show it. This was as much a battle of wits and wills as it was a battle of strength. ‘If we were wrong,’ he said, ‘and you were capable of it, you would have killed us already.’
‘Only a fool, or a callow captain on his first mission, imagines he knows what his enemy is thinking. I could take days killing you, Captain Sus-magiz Skald. Weeks! There’s nothing I don’t know about death. I’ve looked back on it from the other side.’
52
Get My Potion Made
Late on the thirtieth day after the invasion began, the sky galleon raced through the vast pall of smoke above Booreah Ngurle, the Burning Mountain, then skirted Worm Wood not long after dark. Before midnight it was whispering over the dry plains and hills of Rencid.
Flydd had flown almost non-stop for two days and nights, yet he looked brighter and more determined than when they had left Roros, and there was no sign that he was affected by aftersickness. What a remarkable man he was. Karan had done nothing the whole time, yet she was exhausted.
‘Only fifty leagues to go,’ he said, yawning and rubbing his eyes. ‘But what am I to say to Rulke? What appeal will move him?’
His lips moved as if he were rehearsing a speech. He shook his head, thought for a while then rehearsed another, which appeared to satisfy him no better than the first.
Karan did not try to sleep; she knew it would be fruitless. Within hours she and Llian might be reunited – assuming she could prevail on Rulke to let him go. What would she say to Rulke? And to Llian, after all she had done to him? What a bitch she was! What had he ever seen in her?
But would he forgive? Could he?
Being a great chronicler and teller, as well as a legend from the past, Llian would be very attractive to the opposite sex – look how Thandiwe had pursued him. If he’d had enough, there would be a myriad of younger, kinder, better women to choose from. Women who would not keep him at a distance, forever put him down and keep terrible secrets from him.
Karan wanted to tear her hair out. And even it was failing her. Her magnificent, fire-red hair had always been her crowning glory, but yesterday she had discovered several grey threads there.
Aviel already regretted saving Maigraith’s life, because her much better idea involved conspiring with an enemy, Skald, via a spy gate. Aviel knew his name because she had seen an enemy propaganda poster about him on Maigraith’s table, and the conspiracy had to be about getting rid of Lirriam.
And it was partly Aviel’s fault. If she had let Maigraith die, an innocent woman would not be in mortal danger.
When Maigraith’s door opened and closed after midnight Aviel followed her, down the empty streets to a dusty park scattered with weeds and pocked with smelly ferret burrows. Two avenues of trees had once intersected at a round pavilion in the centre of the park, but many had died and had been cut down for firewood.
Even in daylight the park was a depressing place. It was a few nights after the full moon, half of whose dark face was now showing, and a dry wind hissed through the treetops and rattled the dead twigs like finger bones. Nothing good could come of such a night.
Maigraith went to a small stone table in the pavilion, the wind whipping her greying hair about her hollow cheeks. She stroked the outside of an egg-shaped geode and spoke, too quietly for Aviel to hear.
Maigraith slipped three fingers into the geode and a small, subtle gate formed in front of her. It was misty and Aviel could not see what was on the other side. Nothing happened for twenty heartbeats, then a big Merdrun was ejected from the gate. Skald, and he did not look well. A female sus-magiz was hurled out next, backwards. She slammed into Skald, bringing him down, and a file of soldiers in leather armour landed on top of them. A woman in slave’s rags and a junior sus-magiz, a tall man with butterfly ears and big, startled black eyes, completed the party.
Maigraith closed the gate. The soldiers stood guard outside the pavilion, facing out, their faces a ruddy brown in the eerie moonlight. Maigraith spoke quietly to Skald and the senior sus-magiz, then led them to the table and laid down a number of maps. They fluttered in the wind.
Skald picked up the top map, stared at it as if memorising it and handed it to the senior sus-magiz, who did the same. Skald asked Maigraith a question; Aviel didn’t catch it. Maigraith replied curtly and they walked back to the point where the gate had opened. The guards joined them. Maigraith created a new gate, smaller than the first, and they bent over and shuffled through. She went last.
Aviel was wondering if she dared follow, and thinking that she did not, when the gate closed. It did not disappear, though – its outline shimmered and twinkled in the air.
She scurried across to the table. The maps, held down with the geode, were drawn in purple ink and labelled in red in Maigraith’s small, neat hand. They showed sections of a city, though it was nothing like any city Aviel had seen, full of towers and aerial walkways and paths that looped back on one another.
She was studying the lowest map when a bony, age-spotted hand caught her upper arm and squeezed. Maigraith had come back so quietly that the gate had not flared when it opened. It was gone now.
‘Do you think I don’t know you’ve been spying on me?’ she said coldly.
Aviel gulped.
‘It’s lucky you haven’t finished the rejuvenation potion, mouse. Well, go on, ask me.’
‘What’s this place?’ Aviel looked down at the maps.
‘Alcifer, what else would it be?’
‘I don’t understand why you’re sending the enemy there.’
‘You’re not capable of understanding, you stupid little stickybeak. Hobble back to your workshop and get my potion made!’
Aviel went, but there was nothing she could do, since the next step had to be done precisely sixty-six hours after the previous one and there were still eight hours to go.
She unwrapped a chunk of cake she had baked in her workshop furnace and opened her grimoire, but could not concentrate. Was Maigraith a traitor? Presumably she was conspiring with the enemy to get rid of Lirriam, but what did the Merdrun get out of it?
There was no way of knowing, unless … No! Aviel was not going to spy on Maigraith again. It was too risky. There was nothing she could do, anyway.
The over-baked cake looked like conglomerate rock and was just as hard. She mashed it to chunks in an agate mortar and pestle and picked at the crumbs, thinking. Maigraith did not trust anyone. She would follow Skald’s troop, and Aviel could not let them destroy Lirriam.
She stuffed a handful of cake in a pocket, filled her water bottle, returned to the dusty park, hid behind a triple-trunked tree with black stripes across its pale bark, and waited, shivering, though it was a warm night. A quarter of an hour later Maigraith appeared, wearing a dagger on her left hip and a small pack on her back.
She recreated the gate and passed through, though this time it remained open, as if she might need to return in a hurry. Aviel hesitated. What could she possibly do, anyway? Nothing. There was no point. If she followed an armed troop of enemy, she would most likely be captured, tortured and killed.
Go back to bed. It’s not your problem.
But Aviel could not stand by. She dug deep for her courage and followed, quaking with every step.
Maigraith entered Alcifer through a hidden opening that only appeared after she put her right palm on the wall in front of her, and made her way along dark passages using the faint glow of a tiny, covered globe. She had lived here for a long time, mourning her lover and steeping herself in the city he had loved, and needed no map to tell her where to go.
Aviel had to keep up; if she lost Maigraith, she would never find the way out. But before they had gone far her ankle was tormenting her, and she bitterly regretted being such a stupid little stickybeak. Too late now.
In a large open space, faintly lit by starlight through a translucent skylight, Maigraith pocketed the globe and settled down to wait. An oval opening in the floor allowed her to look down on the level below, though Aviel could not see anything from her own hiding place. Was Maigraith watching for the intruders, or for Rulke?
The minutes ground by. Why would the Merdrun care about Lirriam, when Rulke had shown no signs of intervening in the war? Or were they after him? He was their ancient enemy, after all.
But Maigraith would never allow them to take the man she loved. Was that the real reason she was here – to ensure his safety?
53
Dare He Risk All To Gain All?
Skald’s strength was waning, the forbidden emotions rising to undermine him. He fought them back. ‘I too have looked back from the other side of death,’ he said quietly. ‘You don’t scare me.’
‘Ah, but I can.’ Rulke turned and called, ‘Llian!’
The man Skald had crashed into earlier came down the long corridor, struggling to walk straight. His left leg was still affected by Pannilie’s paralysis spell.
‘Thank you for the warning,’ said Rulke.
‘Not as useless as you think,’ Llian said pointedly. ‘You might remember that, when –’
‘Don’t push your luck. I can send you back to your prison as quick as blinking.’ Rulke pointed at Llian’s leg and he stood upright again. ‘This Merdrun calls himself Skald Hulni. What do you know about him?’
‘He’s the junior officer who found Flydd’s Histories.’
‘That all?’ said Rulke.
‘All I know,’ said Llian.
‘Then get out of here. There’s nothing you can do.’
&
nbsp; Llian stared at him, then turned and walked into the darkness.
Tiaan took a deep breath. ‘Skald captured M’Lainte near the Sink of Despair. And a secret weapon the scrutators lost long ago.’
Skald gaped at her. ‘That’s Top Secret.’
‘What one slave hears,’ she murmured, moving a little closer to Rulke, ‘we all hear.’
‘Anything else?’ said Rulke.
‘Skald almost succeeded in assassinating Flydd, who was trying to recover my old thapter near Ashmode. Skald drank part of his own life to get the power to escape.’
‘What an enterprising little chap you are,’ said Rulke to Skald. ‘And you want me to give up the Source, an incomparable reservoir of power, in exchange for one single woman?’
Skald did not reply.
‘What are your people building at Skyrock? And why in such desperate haste?’
‘Who said anything we do is in haste?’
‘You’ve spent the last ten thousand years honing your battle skills in place after place, against race after race. Any of the worldlets you attacked would have made a better home than the barren rock where your civilians have been hidden all this time, but they stayed where they were.’
The stabbing pains in Skald’s belly spread. Rulke was too clever, and he saw far too far.
‘Until a month ago,’ Rulke continued, ‘when you attacked Santhenar with your entire army, keeping nothing in reserve. You captured a few large cities and strategic places, only to abandon them two weeks later and take your army, and your civilians young and old, to live in hastily erected camps surrounding the great rock pinnacle at Skyrock, a place so high, cold and barren it could never support three hundred thousand Merdrun. And there’s only reason to go there.’
