Gil Trilogy 3: Lady Pain

by Rebecca Bradley

  Our backsacks, for example. They had been carefully and precisely positioned, one at each corner of the carpet, and they were intact, if rather pawed-over. Nothing was missing from mine as far as I could tell, down to the last tooth-pry and ragged pair of underbritches. The backsacks were not the only souvenirs of visitors to Cansh Fathan, either. The longer wall was taken up with a display of helmets, breastplates and triple-curved swords, all of Miisheli manufacture, centred around a rather clever mosaic of longbones and disarticulated vertebrae. These had to be trophies of the Bequiin Ardin's expedition, which had lost something over half its complement to a never-seen enemy. On either side of the door, the walls were given over to shrines of smaller expeditions—a few single explorers, their travelling cloaks, bedrolls, saddle-packs and even notebooks lovingly embedded in the plaster along with their bones. Two were Gillish, and very recent. The plaster was still slightly damp. A group of five arranged in a tasteful starburst effect was probably a team of noted Zelfic geographers who vanished about three hundred years ago, last seen heading inland from Cansh Miishel. A fresh undercoat of plaster was drying on one of the end walls—a large pile of Gillish Imperial armour and weaponry was gleaming in the corner. A new exhibition of trophies was evidently in preparation.

  There remained one wall—the shorter wall at the far end of the chamber. I leaned over Shree and shook his shoulder.

  "What's behind the curtain?"

  He glanced towards the end of the room. "I don't know. We never had a chance to look." As he spoke, he nodded to Angel, got to his feet and walked with me towards the curtain. "It always happened that either the workmen were in here or we were busy making up rituals to keep the Afadhnid off our throats—a tiring business. We had a chance to look at some of these other relics, though. Quite a museum. I wonder if there'd be time before we escape—"

  He fell silent as I drew back the curtain and light fell across the wall.

  "Our ancestor was stating his intentions," said Tigrallef. "This was written by the Excommunicant himself." He moved his forefinger shakily along the lines of faded black letters inscribed on the wall. The forms of the glyphs were Old Fathidiic, but the language was not—after a bit of puzzling I realized it had the sound of Naarhil, the language of Oballef and the Harashil, of which I understood very little. All of us crowded around Tigrallef waiting for his translation, except Calla, who was sitting on the carpet staring grimly at the depleted platter of fenset. Although the curtained alcove had been the only dim corner of the room, we needed no lamp or candle to see the inscription inked with such care upon the time-worn plaster. Tigrallef was shining again, brighter than ever. His finger reached the bottom line and stopped. His hand fell to his side. Thinking back later, I realized that was probably the moment on which subsequent history was hinged.

  "Well? What does it say? How much of it can you read?" Shree asked eagerly. My father showed no sign of hearing him. The light was fading under his skin, leaving him pale and tired and very young. He turned around and pushed between Katla and Shree, managing to take a few stumbling steps towards Calla before collapsing. Five of us leapt to catch him—Calla won.

  "What is it, dearheart? What did you read there?" Her voice dropped hopefully. "Is it the Banishment?"

  "No, Mother." Kat alone was still peering at the words on the wall. The other members of our old crew were clustered helplessly around Tigrallef, who was a heap on the floor with his head on my mother's yellow silk knee. Of our new additions, Angel had tottered back to the carpet with Mallinna's help and was gazing pensively into the distance, Mallinna was drifting back towards Kat and the inscription, and Jonno had joined the mother-hen contingent around Tigrallef. Not an hour had passed since we were reunited, and we had already fallen back into the same old tableaux. I experienced a moment of despair that had nothing to do with the old sow.

  "So galling," Tig whispered. "So obvious, and we missed it. Cycles upon cycles, but the old sow blinded us to the great cycle that overarched the others."

  "What are you talking about, dearheart? Tell me."

  "Seven empires," said Angel suddenly.

  "Exactly," said Tig.

  "And one to begin with?"

  "The Great Nameless First."

  "Plus one more to finish with?"

  "The Great Nameless Last."

  "Gil?"

  "Yes and no. The Gil that should have been."

  "The vases? The Old Ones?"

  "One canine, one feline," said Tig, "two reptilian, three anthropomorphic. Too tupping obvious. However, the Lady was Oballef's own invention."

  My mother rebelled at this point. She clapped a hand over Tig's mouth and bent herself at the waist until her nose almost touched his. "Enough of that. In clear, simple sentences, my beloved, you'll explain to the rest of us what Angel already seems to understand."

  "It's about the Great Nameless First," Kat broke in without turning around. "Oballef was the Child of Naar chosen to return there, only he wasn't supposed to go alone. And that's not all."

  "It's funny." Tig gently pushed Calla away and sat up slowly, giving the impression that his body was too heavy for his own strength to move, or perhaps that the old sow was determined to stop him. "All these years," he said, "we thought it was Oballef who was excommunicated, but it was the other way round—he left the others behind to suffer the fate of all the Naar's discards."

  "The Afadhnids," I said.

  "And the Myrene Eyesuckers, Vero, rapidly becoming extinct. Yes, they're your cousins too. The demons of Gafrin-Gammanthan mythology, wiped out by the invading Gafrind. The fishmen of Itsant, food for the Bloody Spirits. The ape tribe of Nkalvi, massacred by the descendants of their surviving subjects. The Vizzathan—same story, but the canny Heretrixes twisted it to their own purposes. There have always been some left behind, but Oballef went altogether alone. He never did build his ship of light."

  "Perhaps," said Calla evenly, "you could just tell us what the inscription says and let us work it out for ourselves."

  He stared at her with glassy eyes. "Tricky old sod, Oballef. The Excommunicant. The bargain-breaker. He crossed the Old Ones, well and truly; but, by the balls of—by his own balls, he certainly landed Tigrallef in the quicksand. None of this was meant to happen, none of it. And that's our best hope."

  My mother sighed and shook him gently. "The inscription, dearheart?"

  His mouth worked, but any words were caught in his throat.

  "In the destined Year of the Coming of the Great Nameless Last," Katla began, "being chosen by the Wind and the Tree to redeem the pledge—"

  "When did you learn Naarhil?" Calla demanded with panic in her voice.

  "I didn't," Katla said fiercely. "Do you want to hear this or not? I don't think the old sow will let Father be coherent."

  My mother sank back on her heels and put her face in her hands. I was grateful for that—she was thus spared Tigrallef's silent but quite spectacular struggle with his own repertoire, right there on the floor. Shree and Chasco saw, went pale and looked despairingly at each other, but said nothing. The rest of us had seen it before.

  "I'll begin again," said Katla. "He says:

  In the destined Year of the Coming of the Great Nameless Last, being chosen by the Wind and the Tree to redeem the pledge of our forefather Naar and yield up his seed and his talisman to the Old Ones according to the ancient compact between them, I do hereby defy the Old Ones and repudiate the compact and declare a new cycle of the world; and in token of defiance I shall bear the talisman called Harashil to the Great Nameless First and thus complete the circle; but I shall not complete the prophecy, nor make the two be one, nor build the Great Nameless Last, nor yield up the Harashil and the seed of Naar; for I shall build according to a new will and a new order, an empire that shall never fall nor bring the world to an end; and I do this in repugnance at the works of the Old Ones, and at the pride of my forefather Naar.

  And that's all."

  "He meant well," Tig said faintly,
"but he made a big mistake." He sighed and seemed to gather strength. "Ah well, what's done is done, and we'll just have to deal with it. Come on, we'd better get moving." He began to hoist himself off the floor.

  "There's plenty of time, Tig," I said quickly. "You need to rest—we all do. And we need to think about this inscription."

  "No, actually we need to leave, and we need to do it tonight. As for the inscription, we've already thought about it."

  "Tonight?" Calla protested, uncovering her wet face. "You've been starving for days. You have to recover your strength. You can't possibly ask poor Angel and Katla and—"

  "We have to go tonight. Why else would we have instructed the Afadhnids to get gloriously drunk? Pack the rest of the fenset in the backsacks, Vero, and pick up a couple of leathers of wine—you'll need it for the journey."

  "Tigrallef, dearheart—"

  "Did we mention the sacrifices have been scheduled for tomorrow morning?"

  "Sacrifices?"

  "Jonno, Katla, Mallinna and Vero. They assumed Angel was our priest. Did we forget to tell you? A symbolic re-enactment of the immolation of Fathan, using real fire."

  Shree was already stripping off the silken gown. "Vero, can you spare me some clothes? Thanks. Tig, I assume we're going to Gil."

  "That's right. Where it all began," Tig affirmed dazedly, "and where the Excommunicant was meant to finish it."

  "And what happens when we get to Gil?" Chasco asked as he caught the tunic and trousers Jonno tossed to him. "Last time we got no farther than the outer harbour. What if the Primate captures us again?"

  "That," said Tigrallef, "is not important. Nothing that is happening here and now is important. All the important things should have happened a thousand years ago. Katla, keep hold. Come along, our beloved."

  The Afadhnids were an obedient people. It was not yet midnight, barely two hours since my father told them to hoist a few drinks in honour of the Excommunicant, and about half of them were already in a stupor. Some of them were weeping quietly into whatever villainous liquid passed for brew in those parts; small groups here and there were crooning mournful melodies in surprisingly tuneful voices and pleasant harmonies. The words I could catch dealt with things like young love, motherhood, dear little babies, moonlight, the wildflowers in the walls of Cansh Fathan, the poignancy of old age, the paradise that would be restored when the Excommunicant returned to his beloved Afadhnids. I began to see what Shree meant when he described them as endearing. I also noticed four iron cages hung over a great heap of firewood in one of the squares.

  We did not attempt to move stealthily; the cloaks and the darkness were disguise enough, in combination with the gently contemplative style of drunkenness the Afadhnids went in for. Few of our cousins looked up to watch us pass. No alarm was given, even when Tigrallef led us unerringly to the great gate and took some time strapping Angel on to the sledge, which had not been touched since we left it behind. It was only when we were across the water and nearly to the top of the switchback road that Chasco, sharing the sledge's tow-rope with Shree, looked down and noticed a stream of tiny silver points flowing out of the gate and on to the causeway.

  "The Afadhnids are coming," he said grimly. "I can see the lights of their eyes."

  "Keep moving," said Tigrallef.

  Shree cleared his throat uncomfortably. "What I'm hoping, Tig, is that you can just tell them to turn around and go home; is that what you're planning to do? Because otherwise we'll have to stand and fight them at some point, seeing as we can't outrun them all the way to the coast." By the flashing of starlight on a polished blade, I could see he had armed himself from the Gillish weapons in the museum chamber. "The thing is," he went on unhappily, "it'll be a tragic pity if we do have to fight them. I can't help feeling a little—guilty."

  "Guilty?" said Tig. His cloak had a hood, which had been pulled down over his face to muffle the Pain's light. Now he threw it back and illuminated the roadway with a strong golden radiance. The forefront of the stream of silver points was nearly across the causeway, and moving much faster than we were, tipsy or not.

  "Don't laugh," said Calla, "I know what Shree means."

  "So do I," said Mallinna.

  "It was that song of joy at the Excommunicant's return that made my tunic feel too tight." I loosened my belt, checked the chain. "But I can't believe we're getting sentimental over a pack of degenerate murderers. Aren't we forgetting what they did at Faddelin and Deppowe? Did anyone else notice those iron cages?"

  Jonno was stalking along beside Katla with a sword in his hand. "You're right, Lord Verolef. But I keep thinking how disappointed they'll be when they see Lord Tigrallef has—um—"

  "Abandoned them, just like our ancestor Oballef?" Tig finished. "They don't know it yet, guardsman, but we're the last thing they need. We should run now."

  We were at the top of the cliff—glancing down, I could see the Afadhnids were already at the bottom and starting up the switchback road. We ran, all right. The sledge bounced behind Shree and Chasco, the hard black rock rang under our feet. We were not running for our lives—we were running to keep Cansh Fathan from becoming another Itsant or Amballa, to keep my father from toppling off his knife-edge path. Unfortunately we were on the verge of exhaustion before we even started, weak from our long fast; I glanced back again as we reached the bridge and saw the constellation of Afadhnid eyes already well along the road from the cliff top. I tried to think as we ran—what shelter was there on the other side of the Carthenten Cleft? Was there a place where we could turn and make a stand? We had passed that way only a few hours earlier, but I could not remember a thing about it.

  Up the hill of the bridge at last: slipping a little on the dew-slick stone, recovering, thinking with a shudder of the long fall if one slid too close to the edge; one arm around my mother, the other around Mallinna; Shree and Chasco pounding along on my heels, Jonno and Katla scampering hand-in-hand a few paces ahead of us—then down the hill of the bridge. It was when our feet were on the solid ground of the other side that I noticed Tigrallef was no longer with us. I spun around.

  He had stopped halfway across the bridge. He was shining on the summit of the Carthenten Span, facing away from us towards the silver eyes swarming along the roadway. With a terrible flash of intuition, I saw what he was intending to do. I knew it was too late to anchor him or divert him, but I threw myself anyway towards the foot of the great black arch. Shree and Jonno dragged me back; Calla, cursing, struggled in Chasco's arms.

  "Let me go!" I roared. "He's going to—"

  "An act of Will, I know. We can't stop him, Vero."

  As the vanguard of the Afadhnid horde reached the far end of the span, I saw my father raise his arms. That is roughly when I gave up struggling. Shree was right. It was too late, there was no point. The Afadhnids began to collect just short of the bridge, with their feet still on solid ground, and Tigrallef cried out to them in Old Fathidiic.

  "Children of Afadhna! Listen carefully."

  The bridge glowed crimson at the Cansh Fathan end; the Afadhnid swarm retreated a few paces in characteristic silence. My mother whispered, "He swore he wouldn't, you know, he swore on Vero's head. He swore he'd keep hold for ten thousand years and more," and hid her face for a moment on Chasco's shoulder.

  "I'm leaving now. I won't be coming back."

  The dull crimson brightened, turned a hot white, spread up the bridge towards Tigrallef. Somewhere in the Afadhnid horde, a few voices howled. My father spread his arms wider.

  "You must make your own future."

  The far half of the span sagged all at once along its whole arc from the bridgehead to the high point where my father stood. Within seconds it was bellying downwards in a lengthening parabola; the bridgehead itself was pulling away from the cliff in strings like taffy candy. A moment later it parted altogether and fell away. Now there was only half a bridge.

  My mother broke free from Chasco and planted herself on the very rim of the cliff. I caught at
her—just in case—but she snapped at me over her shoulder, "Don't be a fool, Vero, I won't jump. But after twenty years of fearing this, I have to watch it happen."

  As she spoke, my father turned and set off unhurriedly down the black slope towards us. The tip of the remaining demi-arch turned white and molten even as he left it. The rest of the destruction followed him at an easy walking pace, the deck of the bridge drooping and scrolling down into the abyss behind him almost at his heels. The heat of it blasted our faces as he stepped into our midst on the solid cliff top. He turned to look back just as the last few feet of the bridgehead slumped out of sight below the edge of the precipice. Now there was no bridge at all.

  Two, then three, then ten, then hundreds: voice by voice, the Afadhnids proceeded to break our hearts with their grief. A whole people knelt on the other side of the Carthenten Cleft and wailed for my father to come back. A thousand hairy arms were stretched out to him in piteous supplication. Tigrallef surveyed them dreamily while the glow dimmed under his skin.

  "Poor things," said Jonno.

  "Not at all. We gave them the best gift we could, at some cost to ourselves. Did you think we destroyed the bridge to save you from them?"

  He picked up the tow-rope and walked off without glancing again at the Afadhnids. I realized dimly what this must mean; that the Afadhnids weren't important either.

  With a half-moon rising above the mountains, we trudged off down the road that would take us eventually to Faddelin and the Fifth. It was miles before the massed lamentation of the Afadhnids died away behind us, and we could not stop to rest while it was still in our ears. Four of us were mired in despair, defeat and confusion—the latter because Tig was still walking along on two feet like any ordinary earthbound mortal, when as far as we knew, he could no longer be considered strictly human. Kat should have been upset too, but she seemed quite cheerful. Angel was unreadable. Jonno and Mallinna could not be expected to understand. To them, the destruction of the Carthenten Span was a happy miracle that served both us and the poor old Afadhnids rather well.