Gil Trilogy 3: Lady Pain

by Rebecca Bradley

  He disengaged himself gently. "Not yet. Some day. But Verolef, you have not been listening."

  Something happened then, either to him or to my eyes—the effect was a momentary shimmering of his form, a blurring and wavering of his outlines, like a wax figure when it first comes to the heart of a fire—and then I was flat on my back on the deckboards, looking a few hundred feet straight up through closed eyelids as solid as iron doors, to where my father's face, enormous, was flaming brighter than the sun. His voice boomed around me, shaking the sky.

  "NOTHING THAT IS HAPPENING HERE HAS THE WEIGHT OF A VERY SMALL HEADLOUSE ON THE GREAT BODY OF HISTORY. REMEMBER THAT WHEN THE TIME COMES, CHILD OF THE NAAR." And he added, "Have some water and a little rest, Vero, you'll feel much better."

  I opened my eyes. Something odd was happening with the speed of time. My head was cradled in Mallinna's lap, and Angel was taking for ever to bring a beaker to my lips. Jonno and Kat were inching towards us across the deck in a strange leisurely fashion that looked like a run but was taking far too long, as if they were trying to move under water. Mallinna's voice was a deep slow rumble.

  "Yoooooooooo . . ."

  Tig turned away and walked to the foremast. In this slow-time world, he was the only object moving at a normal pace.

  "Faaaaaiiiii . . ."

  He climbed up into the rigging and out of my sight.

  " . . . nted, but you'll be fine, Vero." Mallinna dipped her clean nose-rag into the beaker and swabbed my forehead with it, with a tenderness that I only recognized when I had a chance to think it over. At the time, I was too shaken to think at all. I struggled to sit up, fell back again under a fresh wave of dizziness, fought hard to refocus my eyes. Four anxious faces formed a square above me, but Mallinna's was the closest.

  Another sip from Angel's beaker and I was able to talk. "What just happened?"

  "You fainted, Vero—too much sun and worry, too little sleep and water. You'll be fine."

  "That's absurd, I didn't faint. Surely you saw what happened?"

  Mallinna shook her head soothingly. "Nothing happened. Lord Tigrallef is right, Vero, you need to rest. We can wake you up when we reach Faddelin."

  "But didn't you see my father?"

  Three of them traded puzzled looks; the fourth just watched me. "Yes," Mallinna said, "of course we saw him. He's gone back up the mast, though. Shall I call him down?"

  "No!" I shut my eyes, reviewed the sight of my father rearing up against the dark background of my closed eyelids. "Just tell me something: what did he do when I—what did he do just before he went up the mast?"

  "He caught you as you fell, and stopped you from cracking your head open on the deck."

  "Is that all? You're sure he didn't—"

  Multiply his height a hundredfold? Speak like an earthquake? Shine like two suns?

  "—do anything else?" I finished weakly.

  Three pairs of eyes said no, nothing to speak of; the fourth refused to comment. Katla abruptly abandoned the square and strode away. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back into Mallinna's lap.

  * * *

  14

  THEY ROLLED ME on to a fleece on the foredeck and let me sleep most of the way to Faddelin. Soundly and dreamlessly, I snored through the first sighting of a haze of smoke overhanging the shore a few miles ahead, and the nasty surprise of the first face-down cadaver bumping tentatively against the hull of the Fifth, and the sight of the mast-tops of a ship about the size of ours thrusting up at a tilt from the waters near the shore. Mallinna only shook me awake when the site of Faddelin was actually in view, about a mile away at the far end of a sweeping bight backed by a gentle roll of hills. She did not say anything—her face was enough. Yawning and stretching, I sat up and surveyed the distant billows of yellow-grey smoke, which hid the townsite even as they marked its location.

  Mallinna cleared her throat uneasily. "How do you feel?"

  "Fine. Best sleep I've had in weeks." It was true. I felt stronger and fresher, less gloomy about Tigrallef's thunderous pronouncements, more sanguine about his others. I scanned inshore from the townsite for any sign of movement. Nothing stirred, but I was still hopeful.

  Mallinna, following the direction of my eyes, laid her long hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Vero."

  "Sorry? What for?"

  She hesitated. "Because it looks like we're too late. Whatever hit Deppowe also hit Faddelin, and hit it just as hard. I'm so sorry."

  "Thanks, but it's too early for sorrow." I put my hand over hers and flashed her a quick smile. "They're not dead, you know. I have that on my father's authority. He said it very clearly."

  She favoured me with a long dubious look before turning her eyes back to the townsite, via another sunken hulk and a scatter of floating corpses. After a while I remembered my manners and let go of her hand.

  Kat brought the Fifth in as close as she dared to the naked pilings of the quay before we dropped anchor. A few minutes later, with the sun already sliding down to the western horizon, we began to gather on the port side of the foredeck to stare in shock over the wrack of Faddelin. Tigrallef came down the foremast in a more conventional manner this time and stood close to the railing with a supportive arm around Angel. Kat stood a little apart, but otherwise the discomfort we might have felt in Tigrallef's presence was swallowed up by the unrelieved grimness of the prospect before us.

  As for my hopes, they had died as abruptly and violently as the trooper I could see lying half out of the water on the black shingle beach, the one without a head. My father had sounded so sure they weren't dead; I had half-expected to see the figures of Calla, Chasco and Shree waiting patiently for us in the very epicentre of the devastation, or leaping up to wave at the Fifth from the ruined landing stage as we sailed into the tiny harbour. I felt betrayed.

  Jonno, detailed by Kat to secure the buntlines, was the last to join us on the foredeck. Shaking his head, he whistled in awe. "What in the known world could have done that?" he exclaimed. "By the Divine Scion Tigrallef—oh—I'm sorry, my lord, I meant no disrespect." Blushing, he shut up before I could tell him to. For what seemed like a long time after that, we stood in silence trying to make sense of the picture puzzle which was all that was left of Faddelin.

  The town had been a fraction the size of Deppowe, a rough rectangle of an outpost without fortifications, amenities or the smallest element of grace in its surroundings. In addition to the two wrecks we had passed further out, the remains of a little galley and a somewhat larger windcatcher were hard up against the stumps of the pilings, apparently torched at their moorings. The windcatcher, built for cargo, had burned with special ferocity, and I recalled that the moss was said to be almost explosively flammable.

  The smoke was still rising from what had been the largest structure in the outpost, the warehouse for the moss, which fronted directly on the quay in the centre of the rectangle. Around it were grouped some rather interesting sculptural arrangements of burnt beams and flame-cracked stones that no doubt represented barracks, lockups, storehouses, clerks' quarters; but so completely had the recent fires destroyed them that there was no telling which was which. Aside from the smoke and a few ash devils raised by the breeze, nothing moved on shore.

  Mallinna broke the silence. "How long do you suppose—?"

  "Two days ago at least," said Tigrallef, "so we shouldn't delay our departure if we want to catch up."

  "Catch up?" I looked at him sharply. As the numbing effects of the shock wore off, I could feel my anger beginning to build. "You said they were still alive, Tig. So where are they? Faddelin's been wiped out. Everybody's dead. Where are they?"

  "Oh, they're not here," he said. His look told me I was mad to suggest such a thing.

  "Do you mean to say they didn't come to Faddelin after all?" Wild flare of hope.

  Tigrallef immediately threw cold sand on it. "Oh yes, they were here. That's where they were housed." He pointed to a tall finger of scorched masonry poking out of a pile of rubble
near the warehouse. "But they're not here now, and that's why we need to get going."

  I sighed; unclenched my fists with great effort. "Where, Father? Back to Deppowe? To Mashakel? All the way to Gil? Where's the old sow going to drag us this time?"

  "At the moment, Verolef, insofar as I am able to tell, I still appear to be dragging the old sow. I think."

  "But where? Where?"

  "There." He pointed in the direction of the hills behind Faddelin. Beyond the hills were starker uplands. Beyond the uplands were mountains. Puzzled, we all stared along the line of his finger and then around at each other.

  "Are you telling us they escaped into the hills?" I asked hopefully.

  "No, my son. I'm telling you they were taken into the mountains."

  "Taken? Who—?"

  Tigrallef waved rather too cheerfully at the devastation that used to be Faddelin, the blackened bundles that used to be citizens of the glorious Gillish Empire. "Whoever it was that did all that."

  This was already a horribly memorable moment; we did not need a spectacular sunset to mark it, but we got one anyway. Long streamers of light stabbed out from the dying sun and strewed reflections across Fathan's broken surface like a scatter of overblown jewels, painted the clouds with an unnecessary range of golds and lilacs, ignited the glossy black peaks of the mountains. My eyes were drawn to the highlands again, along with everybody else's.

  "Cansh Fathan," Angel said suddenly.

  "That's right," said my father, "that's where we're going. And I think we're going to find some old friends there, too."

  At the time, I thought he was only talking about Chasco, Calla and Shree.

  Tigrallef's intention was completely mad. It involved six people—one of them a girl of fifteen years, another a bent old man of eighty-one who refused to be left behind—blithely setting off over fiendish terrain into what could very well be the mouth of a dragon, metaphorical or real. It meant the same tiny crew of six challenging the might of a blood-hungry horde of indeterminate size, on the horde's home ground.

  It meant leaving our beautiful Fifth unguarded near a charnel-ground that used to be a prison camp, for anyone who came along to seize or sink as they pleased. It meant a camping trip—a camping trip, by Raksh!—into the dark heart of a cursed land, the very name of which gave goose-flesh to half the known world.

  Maddest of all, Tigrallef proposed to make this journey at a time of vicious massacres, apparently perpetrated by the very group of unknowns whose footsteps we would be following into the interior of Fathan. It was madness for him to suggest it, and worse madness for the rest of us to agree. We set off in the morning.

  The Fifth could not be camouflaged. The best we could do for her, after using the smallboat to ferry people and supplies to the shingle beach, was to sail her around the point just east of Faddelin and leave her anchored in the shelter of a small cove, visible to any ship coming along the strait from the east, but not visible from west or from the townsite. Kat sailed over with me to help in the melancholy task of battening the ship down and doing whatever else we could to secure her, which was not a great deal. When we finished, it was only about two hours past dawn.

  Neither of us said very much until we were in the smallboat again, rowing away from the Fifth's shining sides towards the cove's tiny beach. I rowed, Kat made wake patterns in the water with her fingers, just as Tigrallef was fond of doing. I watched her covertly, thinking of Tig's revelation about her birth. Certainly she was not your standard-issue young girl trembling on the brink of womanhood—as I understood it, few young girls had mastered eighteen languages, ten weapons and the art of Sherkin trip-fighting by her age—but she still seemed fairly normal for a child born with the Harashil's poison in her veins. Then I wondered how much Tig might have suffered over the last twelve years to keep her that normal.

  She shook the water from her fingers and gazed sadly back at the ship. "I hate to leave the Fifth on her own like this," she said.

  "So do I; but unfortunately she's a ship, little Katla," I answered, "and not much use in the mountains."

  "You know what I mean. Look at her—she looks lonely and vulnerable. What if something happens to her while we're gone? Or what if we don't come back at all?"

  "Oh, we'll come back, flower, all of us will. Mother as well, and Chasco and Shree. And when we do, the Fifth will be waiting for us, pretty as ever."

  "Who made you a prophet?" She took hold of the painter as the smallboat's keel crunched against the shingle.

  "It's something called optimism, little Kat. Look it up in Angel's lexicon when we get home again."

  She hopped over the smallboat's nose to the shore. "So who made you an optimist?"

  That was impossible to answer, so I didn't try. Kat was too bright to fob off with easy answers, hollow comfort or counterfeit confidence. I busied myself with hauling most of the smallboat's weight while she struggled with the stern, and together we moved it above the tideline and hid it between two boulders. Then we set off to climb the low ridge that divided the cove from the broad bay of Faddelin, a pathless slope of dark scoria and sharp black pebbles, fortunately not too steep. An odd cheerfulness crept up on us as we climbed—though I hate to say this, I think it was because we had managed to put a little distance between us and our poor father for even a few short hours. It was a guilty relief.

  "All right, Vero," Kat said, "as long as you're playing at being an optimist, let's assume we get back safely from Cansh Fathan with Mother and the rest and find the Fifth in one piece. What then?"

  I grinned; what then had been a favourite game of Katla's from the time she learned to talk. "What then? We sail away, I suppose, and try to pick up the trail of the Great Nameless First. Though we'll have to find some way of getting Jonno and the memorians safely back to Gil before we do anything else."

  She glanced up at me. "I don't know about Jonno, but Mallinna and Angel aren't going back to the Gilgard. Didn't you know?"

  "Who told you that?"

  "Mallinna did."

  I kicked a chunk of slag out of my way. "Oh, Kat, she wasn't serious. She once told me something like that too, but it was clearly the enthusiasm of the moment. Pleasant sailing, a sort of holiday for her, a rest from her routine, the illusion of freedom; I think she fancied it would always be like that, but I set her straight."

  "Did you kiss her?"

  "What?"

  "Did you kiss her?"

  "No!" I kicked at another chunk of slag, which proved to be more solidly connected to the ground than the first one.

  "People who wear sandals should not kick rocks," Katla quoted smugly. "You haven't broken a toe, have you? And you should try kissing her, Vero, I've seen her face when she looks at you."

  "That is none of your damned business, Katlefiya."

  Just then reaching the crest of the ridge, we stopped to catch our breath. Kat turned around for a last glimpse of the lonely little windcatcher in the cove, while I sat down on the ground and made sure the toe wasn't broken. Down in Faddelin, the others were visible in the shade of the ruined warehouse, knocking together the sledge we would use to transport Angel when he was no longer able to walk. I could clearly hear the intrusive clack-clack of the hammer Mallinna was wielding. Even at that distance, insect-sized, she looked enticing—the man-style tunic and britches suited her long Storican frame. After an awkward few moments I coughed for Kat's attention and asked, "So tell me: what about her face when she looks at me?"

  "It's none of my damned business," Kat said in a cool voice.

  I thought that over and decided I deserved it. Silently, I got to my feet and began to limp down the slope. Kat's feet grated on the pebbles behind me.

  "It's true about the archives, though, Vero," she said, catching up. "Angel and Mallinna were looking for ways to leave the Gilgard long before you and Tig came along. That's why they made up the idea of the Benthonic Survey Expedition in the first place and asked the Flamens for a ship."

  I scraped to a
halt and swung around to face her. "That's nonsense!"

  "It is not nonsense, Vero. Mallinna told me herself. There was some high official, one of the Flamens with a lot of power, who wanted to have her as soon as his celibacy expired—"

  "Lestri? The Second Flamen?"

  "Could be."

  "But she was going to accept his offer—"

  "That's unlikely. She described him as a smelly little turd-for-brains."

  "—for the good of the archives . . ."

  "No, you're thinking of Poor Tigrallef and the Wicked Princess Rinn." This had always been one of Kat's favourite bedtime stories. "Anyway, this Flamen was going to remove Mallinna from the archives at midwinter, so she had nothing to lose by running away. She and Angel were planning to fake a shipwreck in the Sherkin Sea and then take refuge outside the Gillish Empire, but when you and Father came along . . ."

  Still chattering, she started down the slope. I turned again and limped along by her side, rearranging my ideas instead of listening. I had been so sure about what Angel meant—that Mallinna would willingly move into Lestri's bed for the sake of a few rooms of spotty books and tortoise plastrons; but now that I tried to recall the old memorian's exact words, his meaning was not so clear. Mallinna will do what is best. Best in what sense? And there were other oddities to fit into the picture: Angel's many stacks of instructions for the Second Memorian, his careful attention to accounts, the regret in his face as his eyes tracked slowly around the workroom. He had been a man setting his affairs in order before leaving them behind him for ever. I thought it was because he expected to die on our journey, but he had brought along an extraordinary amount of baggage for a man who intended to be buried at sea.

  Mallinna, come to think of it, had brought a great deal of baggage along as well—from the look of it, just about everything she owned . . .

  " . . . foot feels better, does it?"

  "What? I'm sorry?"

  "You've stopped limping," Kat said, "and you've got a funny smile on your face."