by Ian Irvine
A severed right leg lay on a table inside the door, along with a mashed, freshly amputated pair of hands, and at the back a tall, bald soldier, dead from a horrific head wound. Droag. Rix hadn’t liked the man, but he didn’t want to see him like this, either – taken from life by a single smashing blow.
Two blood-covered men – amateur healers – were holding down an injured soldier while a woman with a bone saw cut off his shattered right arm. The man was eerily silent. And there was Glynnie, down the far end of the room, leaning over a screaming man who had been bound to the table, stitching a foot-long gash across his chest.
He went down to her as she completed the last stitch and began to bandage the wound. Glynnie was as pale as the snow on the windowsill and swaying with exhaustion. Her clothes were still wet and she was shivering fitfully.
“Have you had anything to eat or drink?” said Rix.
“There’s no time. No one else knows as much about healing as I do. If I stop now, men will die.”
Rix cursed Oosta yet again. “What can I do to help?”
“This is my job, not yours. You’ve been fighting for our lives.”
“If there’s no one else better to do it, it’s my job. I’ve attended plenty of injuries in my time. Give the orders and I’ll see them done.”
CHAPTER 44
“If I try to climb up there, I’ll die,” said Tali.
“You’re being hysterical,” said Holm.
“I hate you.”
“So you’ve been saying for the last three hours and twenty-seven minutes.”
“Tirnan Twil had better be worth it.”
“It is.”
“I can’t do it. I’ll fall.”
“Unless I throw you over the side first.”
“I’m sure that’s why you brought me here,” she muttered.
“Don’t tempt me. Take your right foot and put it in front of your left. Then move your left foot up in front of your right. Keep doing that and you’ll reach the top in no time.”
Tali would have thumped him, had she been game to take her eyes off the track.
An uneventful four days had passed as they rode north for Tirnan Twil, travelling through the wildest country they could find, fishing or scrounging for their dinner and some nights, when they could not find anything edible, going to their blankets hungry and rising hungrier.
Finally, last night, they had reached the tiny village of Tirnan Plat, where all the houses were made from red rammed earth roofed with yellow thatch. They had exchanged the horses for as much food as they could carry, Tali had said a teary goodbye to her mount, and they had set out on foot at first light.
The mountain track had grown progressively steeper all morning. She kept feeling that there was someone behind her, or watching her, but the track above and below them was empty. At midday she turned a corner and all the blood drained from her head. The track ran diagonally up a cliff, a good thousand feet high, where an ancient fault line had carved half the mountain away.
“I’m going to die without ever seeing the place,” she said hoarsely.
Tali knew she sounded whiny, but even with her hat pulled down over her ears the sky was rocking. Her panic was rising, along with the sick fear that she was going to fall and be smashed to bits on the rocks far below.
“Steady,” said Holm, not teasing her now.
His strong hand closed around her upper arm and the panic eased a little.
“Sorry,” she croaked. “And to think I had a panic attack the first time I saw the open sky, yet it was all in my head.”
Here, death lay on every side, only a misstep away. A momentary weakness of the knees, a pebble rolling underfoot, a piece of rotten rock crumbling, an attack of agoraphobia – any of those things could send her over. And that wasn’t her only trouble. Something was wrong, she knew it. They should not have come here.
“You’ll be all right,” said Holm. “We’ve passed the worst. Tirnan Twil is just around the corner.”
He did not seem fazed by the climb. But then, a man who could hang on with one hand, twenty feet up a mast in a gale, could not be afraid of many things.
“You’ve been saying that for three hours,” said Tali.
“This time I mean it.”
“You’ve been saying that for two hours.”
“And this time it’s true.”
“And you’ve been saying – oh, what’s the use?”
“Exactly,” he beamed. “And since it’s impossible to turn back, you might as well keep going as cheerfully as possible.”
“It’d better be worth it,” she muttered.
“The view’s worth it, I promise you.”
“I don’t give a damn about the view. I meant Grandys’ stuff.”
“You should give a damn. Life is short and uncertain; you can’t spend the whole of it chasing an obsession.”
“Do we have to talk about this here?” said Tali.
He took her hand. “Come.”
She allowed him to draw her around the corner of the cliff. Tali shuffled along, watching her feet and making sure she didn’t stand on anything unstable that would tip her over. Then, a few yards around the corner, the foot-wide track broadened to a ledge ten times that width. She let go, looked up and out, and every hair on her body stood up.
“Oh!” she whispered. “That’s… that’s…”
“There aren’t enough words,” said Holm. He seemed as overcome as she was.
The other side of the chasm, two hundred yards away, was as sheer as the cliff she was standing on. The slanting afternoon light touched veins in the yellow stone as though there was a fire behind them. It was beautiful, but that was not it.
Tirnan Twil was it.
Five slender arches of golden stone, spanning the chasm. Each buttressed against the cliff on either side. All intersecting over the centre of the chasm, and that was marvel enough. It was incomprehensible that anyone could have built such vast unsupported spans, far greater than the greatest dome in Caulderon.
At the centre, rising up from the point of intersection, stood a building unlike anything Tali had ever seen, or imagined. A spire. No, a spike, for it did not aspire to the sky – it transfixed and impaled it.
It was extravagant, astonishing, impossible. It made no concessions to structure, function or practicality. Tirnan Twil was pure form.
No more than thirty feet in width, the golden stone smooth and unornamented save that the outside was shaped like a five-sided cloverleaf, it soared a thousand feet into the heavens. It was simplicity itself, and astoundingly beautiful.
Tali swallowed. “Five arches.”
“For the Five Heroes who founded Hightspall. Though back then they were still known by their real name – the Five Herovians.”
“Why the change?”
“The Herovians fell out of favour, but a nation has to have its heroes.”
“And a five-sided spike.”
“Like a nail through the celestial dome,” said Holm. “An insight into the way they viewed the world, if you like.”
She did not care to dwell on that. “I don’t understand what holds it up.”
“Arches are strong. And the weight of the spike on it only makes it stronger.”
“Even the strongest stone will break if you put a big enough load on it. So the Cythonians say, and they’re masters of stone.”
Holm shrugged. “It’s stood for a very long time.”
“How do we get in?”
“We walk across the central arch. The shortest one.”
“Aren’t there guards, or gates?”
“There used to be. During the Two Hundred and Fifty Years War, and for a while afterwards, there were five Guardians, but then Tirnan Twil fell on hard times. Anyway, once the Cythians were defeated, Tirnan Twil faced no threats.”
“Why not?”
“How would anyone attack it? Every approach runs along a cliff like this one, and from their cliff-top guard posts intruders can be seen c
oming for miles.”
The broad ledge ran in a gentle curve out of sight. They reached the first arch which, though it appeared slender from a distance, was twenty feet deep and fifty feet broad. And the way across it was blocked.
“Every piece of stone in the arches is shaped to interlock like a three-dimensional jigsaw,” said Holm.
“Like the pieces of the heatstone helmet you made for me,” said Tali.
“Where do you think I got the idea?”
They passed the second arch, which had the same cross-section as the first but was shorter, and reached the third, the central arch. It crossed the chasm at right angles and was shorter yet, and unblocked. Holm headed across the arch, which had neither rail, kerb nor gutter.
“I wouldn’t fancy walking across this in a high wind,” said Tali, plodding after him and trying to look neither down nor up.
“Nor snow or ice. But I dare say one gets used to it.”
At the other end, a large wooden door stood open. It was so old that the surface of the wood had weathered into corrugations along the grain, leaving little fibres standing out from the surface.
“After you,” said Holm.
She didn’t move. “Surely we can’t just walk in unannounced?”
“If they didn’t want us to come in, they wouldn’t have opened the door.”
A shadow passed across the sun. Tali shivered and looked over her shoulder. Again she felt as though someone was watching her, but there was nothing to see. Nonetheless, she felt as though she was an intruder, open door or not.
She went through and was immediately struck by how thick the walls were, and how small the rooms. Or room, for there was only one on this level. It was also shaped like a five-leaved cloverleaf on the inside, and each embayment contained an ancient tapestry depicting the life and glories of one of the Five Heroes. In the centre, a fixed steel ladder ran up vertically through a hole with the same shape.
As Tali studied the tapestries, the feeling of being watched grew until all the skin on her back crawled. She turned, looked across into the embayment on the other side, let out a yelp and instinctively sprang backwards.
Its tapestry depicted a man with the heavy-jawed, florid face she remembered from the Abysm – the face she had seen contorted in agony on the opalised figure of the First Hero.
Axil Grandys.
CHAPTER 44
“If I try to climb up there, I’ll die,” said Tali.
“You’re being hysterical,” said Holm.
“I hate you.”
“So you’ve been saying for the last three hours and twenty-seven minutes.”
“Tirnan Twil had better be worth it.”
“It is.”
“I can’t do it. I’ll fall.”
“Unless I throw you over the side first.”
“I’m sure that’s why you brought me here,” she muttered.
“Don’t tempt me. Take your right foot and put it in front of your left. Then move your left foot up in front of your right. Keep doing that and you’ll reach the top in no time.”
Tali would have thumped him, had she been game to take her eyes off the track.
An uneventful four days had passed as they rode north for Tirnan Twil, travelling through the wildest country they could find, fishing or scrounging for their dinner and some nights, when they could not find anything edible, going to their blankets hungry and rising hungrier.
Finally, last night, they had reached the tiny village of Tirnan Plat, where all the houses were made from red rammed earth roofed with yellow thatch. They had exchanged the horses for as much food as they could carry, Tali had said a teary goodbye to her mount, and they had set out on foot at first light.
The mountain track had grown progressively steeper all morning. She kept feeling that there was someone behind her, or watching her, but the track above and below them was empty. At midday she turned a corner and all the blood drained from her head. The track ran diagonally up a cliff, a good thousand feet high, where an ancient fault line had carved half the mountain away.
“I’m going to die without ever seeing the place,” she said hoarsely.
Tali knew she sounded whiny, but even with her hat pulled down over her ears the sky was rocking. Her panic was rising, along with the sick fear that she was going to fall and be smashed to bits on the rocks far below.
“Steady,” said Holm, not teasing her now.
His strong hand closed around her upper arm and the panic eased a little.
“Sorry,” she croaked. “And to think I had a panic attack the first time I saw the open sky, yet it was all in my head.”
Here, death lay on every side, only a misstep away. A momentary weakness of the knees, a pebble rolling underfoot, a piece of rotten rock crumbling, an attack of agoraphobia – any of those things could send her over. And that wasn’t her only trouble. Something was wrong, she knew it. They should not have come here.
“You’ll be all right,” said Holm. “We’ve passed the worst. Tirnan Twil is just around the corner.”
He did not seem fazed by the climb. But then, a man who could hang on with one hand, twenty feet up a mast in a gale, could not be afraid of many things.
“You’ve been saying that for three hours,” said Tali.
“This time I mean it.”
“You’ve been saying that for two hours.”
“And this time it’s true.”
“And you’ve been saying – oh, what’s the use?”
“Exactly,” he beamed. “And since it’s impossible to turn back, you might as well keep going as cheerfully as possible.”
“It’d better be worth it,” she muttered.
“The view’s worth it, I promise you.”
“I don’t give a damn about the view. I meant Grandys’ stuff.”
“You should give a damn. Life is short and uncertain; you can’t spend the whole of it chasing an obsession.”
“Do we have to talk about this here?” said Tali.
He took her hand. “Come.”
She allowed him to draw her around the corner of the cliff. Tali shuffled along, watching her feet and making sure she didn’t stand on anything unstable that would tip her over. Then, a few yards around the corner, the foot-wide track broadened to a ledge ten times that width. She let go, looked up and out, and every hair on her body stood up.
“Oh!” she whispered. “That’s… that’s…”
“There aren’t enough words,” said Holm. He seemed as overcome as she was.
The other side of the chasm, two hundred yards away, was as sheer as the cliff she was standing on. The slanting afternoon light touched veins in the yellow stone as though there was a fire behind them. It was beautiful, but that was not it.
Tirnan Twil was it.
Five slender arches of golden stone, spanning the chasm. Each buttressed against the cliff on either side. All intersecting over the centre of the chasm, and that was marvel enough. It was incomprehensible that anyone could have built such vast unsupported spans, far greater than the greatest dome in Caulderon.
At the centre, rising up from the point of intersection, stood a building unlike anything Tali had ever seen, or imagined. A spire. No, a spike, for it did not aspire to the sky – it transfixed and impaled it.
It was extravagant, astonishing, impossible. It made no concessions to structure, function or practicality. Tirnan Twil was pure form.
No more than thirty feet in width, the golden stone smooth and unornamented save that the outside was shaped like a five-sided cloverleaf, it soared a thousand feet into the heavens. It was simplicity itself, and astoundingly beautiful.
Tali swallowed. “Five arches.”
“For the Five Heroes who founded Hightspall. Though back then they were still known by their real name – the Five Herovians.”
“Why the change?”
“The Herovians fell out of favour, but a nation has to have its heroes.”
“And a five-sided spike.”
She did not care to dwell on that. “I don’t understand what holds it up.”
“Arches are strong. And the weight of the spike on it only makes it stronger.”
“Even the strongest stone will break if you put a big enough load on it. So the Cythonians say, and they’re masters of stone.”
Holm shrugged. “It’s stood for a very long time.”
“How do we get in?”
“We walk across the central arch. The shortest one.”
“Aren’t there guards, or gates?”
“There used to be. During the Two Hundred and Fifty Years War, and for a while afterwards, there were five Guardians, but then Tirnan Twil fell on hard times. Anyway, once the Cythians were defeated, Tirnan Twil faced no threats.”
“Why not?”
“How would anyone attack it? Every approach runs along a cliff like this one, and from their cliff-top guard posts intruders can be seen coming for miles.”
The broad ledge ran in a gentle curve out of sight. They reached the first arch which, though it appeared slender from a distance, was twenty feet deep and fifty feet broad. And the way across it was blocked.
“Every piece of stone in the arches is shaped to interlock like a three-dimensional jigsaw,” said Holm.
“Like the pieces of the heatstone helmet you made for me,” said Tali.
“Where do you think I got the idea?”
They passed the second arch, which had the same cross-section as the first but was shorter, and reached the third, the central arch. It crossed the chasm at right angles and was shorter yet, and unblocked. Holm headed across the arch, which had neither rail, kerb nor gutter.
“I wouldn’t fancy walking across this in a high wind,” said Tali, plodding after him and trying to look neither down nor up.
