by Ian Irvine
“But still…”
“I’ve been among the common folk these past weeks, and they’re terrified. People have lost hope for Hightspall. They’re starting to think it’s better to live as slaves than die as heroes.”
Rix shivered. “I’m not thinking that!”
“Nor I. But to answer your question, as far as I know, organised resistance is confined to this fortress.”
Tobry studied Rix thoughtfully, as though weighing him for the task, but said no more.
“What should I do, Tobe?”
“Unless a great leader steps forward, very soon, Hightspall is lost.”
“In the past, you never stopped short of telling me what to do.”
“I’ve been to hell and back, Rix. I’m not sending anyone else there.”
Rix studied Tobry’s worn face for a minute or two. “I’m no great leader. Doubt I ever will be. But even if I have to fight alone, I’m fighting for Hightspall – all the way.”
“You’re a good man, Rix. Did I ever tell you that?”
“Not as often as I’d like to hear it,” said Rix, and they both laughed.
Tobry’s smile faded. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, as though the brief exchange had worn him out. “You… talk.”
“What about?” said Rix, feeling more than a little anxious.
“Anything. I just want to hear the sound of a friendly voice. It’s… it’s a cruel world out there, Rix, when you’re alone and friendless, and have no house to protect you. It’s savage.” His gaze fell on Rix’s grey hand. “Tell me about it.”
Rix didn’t particularly want to. He still felt self-conscious about his dead hand, but Tobry was his oldest friend, and there were one or two curious things he might be able to cast some light on.
“It was Glynnie’s idea. Didn’t occur to me for an instant. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“I always thought so.”
“She used the rest of Tali’s healing blood. There wasn’t much. Maybe that’s why…” He looked down at it. “She made me hold Maloch while she did it. Because Maloch was supposed to protect me, she said, and it might not have severed my hand on all the levels. Whatever the hell that means.”
Tobry whistled. “How did she know that?”
“Something she picked up, listening to the magians talk.”
“I gather your hand was alive for a while… and then not?”
Rix froze. He had been trying not to think about the mural he’d painted on the wall of the little vault after Glynnie had rejoined his hand – the mural depicting himself and Tali about to kill Tobry, drawn with bone charcoal then painted with his own blood.
What could the mural mean? Do I secretly resent Tobry for gaining Tali’s love? She’s a beautiful and desirable woman. Do I, subconsciously, want to take her from him? No, that’s absurd.
Should I tell him about the mural?
Rix wanted to tell Tobry and see him laugh it off, but couldn’t bear to bring it up. It was too painful, too confronting. What would Tobry say? What would he think? He was a tolerant man, but could anyone be that tolerant? Revealing it could undermine Tobry’s trust in him, even destroy their friendship. What if he walked out, never to return?
Rix could not take the chance. He needed Tobry’s friendship, his wise counsel, his strength and not least his magery. Besides, Rix’s paintings often portrayed strange, mysterious or alarming scenes. Occasionally – very occasionally – they divined some aspect of the future, though most of the time the paintings were mere figments of his artist’s imagination. He wasn’t going to risk Tobry’s friendship and support over a mural that was so patently absurd.
“I used it for an hour or so,” he said, looking into the fire, “while we hid in a forgotten vault deep beneath the palace. Then it went grey and dead in a few minutes. There can’t have been enough of Tali’s blood to heal it.”
“I was talking to Glynnie earlier, down in the healery…” began Tobry.
Rix’s heart thumped three times, close together, then missed the next three beats entirely. He looked away, afraid to meet Tobry’s eyes; afraid he would read the sickening truth there. Rix’s throat tightened until he could barely draw a breath. “What about?” he said with studied casualness.
Tobry favoured him with a sour smile, as if he knew Rix had left out something vital. In days gone by they had shared everything. Well, almost everything.
Could Tobry know what Rix was hiding? Surely not; Glynnie had the discretion of the perfect servant. She would never tell Tobry about a painting that concerned him so directly.
“The mural you painted up in the observatory. And how your hand came back to life when you took up your brushes.”
“It’s true,” said Rix, wondering what Tobry was going to say next. Knowing him, it would not be positive.
Tobry didn’t disappoint him. “Didn’t you wonder how your hand could be dead all that time, then suddenly come to life when you began to paint?”
“Of course I did, but I decided to treat it as a gift.”
“A miraculous gift, come to you because you’re so deserving.” Tobry heaped the sarcasm on with a shovel.
“Why not?” Rix said defensively.
“Glynnie as good as told you that there was magery involved —”
“What would she know about it?” Rix muttered, contradicting his earlier remark.
“And where can the magery have come from, but Maloch? In case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you. Nothing good has yet come from that sword.”
“You’ve changed your tune. You’re the one who urged me to wear it.”
“I wish I hadn’t.”
“It saved both our lives in the wrythen’s caverns,” Rix pointed out.
“Only after it led us there for its own fell purposes.”
“What rot!”
“Do you deny it led us there? You spun Maloch three times, remember, and each time it pointed to Precipitous Crag. I tried to stop it spinning, using the best magery I had, but it resisted me. No, it beat me.”
“I don’t deny it,” said Rix, thinking about the sword and the strange pull it had on him. When he held it, all his doubts fell away. He felt strong, powerful, invincible. He wasn’t planning to tell Tobry that either.
“Were you holding Maloch when you began the painting up in the observatory?”
Tobry had an unerring ability to make Rix feel like an idiot. “Er, yes.”
“What did it tell you to paint?”
“It didn’t tell me to paint anything,” he snapped. “That’s not how I work, as you know very well.”
Tobry leaned back in his chair. The firelight played on his face and Rix saw that he looked much older – closer to forty than his true age, twenty-five. He wore scars Rix had not seen before and his eyes were brooding.
“Remind me how you do work.”
“I disconnect my mind —”
“Never a hard thing, in your case.”
Rix smiled, for the retort reminded him of the old, acerbic Tobry. He was far preferable to the new, harder man. The lost one.
“I deliberately didn’t think about the painting. I didn’t set out to paint Grandys —”
Tobry shot out of his chair, scattering wine across the floor. “You painted Axil Grandys?”
“I assumed Glynnie would have told you that.”
“I tried to get it out of her, but she’s like a clam where it concerns you. Go on.”
“I needed to paint. You know how I get, sometimes – it’s the only escape I have. I didn’t care what I painted, so I deliberately disconnected. I spent the time planning the raid on Jadgery, as it happens.”
“I heard about that on the way here. Not your most brilliant success.”
“I came here to fight, and Swelt supported me. And,” Rix realised, “I suppose I was obsessed with proving that I wasn’t a true son of House Ricinus.”
“Ah, well. You’re not the only fool in this room.”
“It wasn’t
until I’d finished working out the plan for the raid, and my right hand had gone icy cold, that I saw what I’d painted. Even then, it took a good while to realise I’d painted the image of Grandys I’d seen before.”
“What image?” said Tobry.
“The one I saw when I put my hand on Maloch’s hilt, on the way to Precipitous Crag.”
“Like I say,” said Tobry, “beware the sword. Whatever it’s up to, it’s not acting on your behalf.”
“Then on whose behalf is it acting?”
“That,” said Tobry, “is the question you should have asked yourself a long time ago.”
CHAPTER 47
“How the blazes did you survive, Tobe?” said Rix late that night, after all the injured in the healery had been attended to and Glynnie had finally been relieved. “You fell a hundred feet, head-first, from my tower. It beggars belief.”
The blizzard had struck in earnest and was blowing a near hurricane, with snow so thick and blinding that a man outside could not see his extended hand. Rix had no fear of the enemy attacking again while it raged, for they would die of exposure before they reached the top of the wall. Until it passed they would lie huddled in their miserable tents, wishing they were back in the warmth and safety of Cython. But once the blizzard passed, it would be on again.
Tobry did not reply. He was leaning towards the fire, staring fixedly into the flames.
Rix studied his old friend covertly, looking for signs of shifter in him, but saw none. Even after Tali had used her healing blood on Tobry, his cheeks had been downy, his eyes rounder, and his ears slightly furry and pointed. Tobry’s eyes, Rix remembered, had still had a tinge of caitsthe yellow. There was no trace of it now; though bloodshot, they were the grey they’d always been. Her healing blood had worked, then.
The chancellor would be so pleased.
Tobry raised his glass, studied the play of light through the wine, and sipped appreciatively. “A fine cellar the old dame had. I wonder your mother’s bandits didn’t ship it away as well.”
“They might have done had Swelt not realised what they were up to, and hidden the best of the drink in one of the abandoned cisterns.”
“Is he a drinking man?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then I praise him all the more.” Tobry raised his glass. “It’s a wonder none of the household gave the game away.” He was a renowned cynic.
“Things are different in the provinces,” said Rix. “Country folk cleave to their own and nurse their loyalties, and the old dame was greatly loved. But even had she not been, they would not have willingly given up Garramide’s wealth to interlopers from Caulderon.”
“From wicked House Ricinus, as was,” said Tobry.
“We’re the same now, you and I,” Rix said without thinking. “Both ruined men whose houses have fallen.”
“Not quite the same,” said Tobry curtly.
Rix, assuming he was referring to Rix’s inheritance of Garramide, bit his tongue.
“You’ve fallen on your feet, at any rate,” Tobry added.
Rix snorted. “There are people here who would gladly cut my throat.”
“You don’t seem too worried.”
“Once the enemy turned up, the servants realised that I’m the only one who can save them. My enemies had to pull their heads in – for a while, anyway.”
Rix leaned back in his chair. They were in the grand dame’s salon, a long rectangle of walnut-panelled walls with a painted ceiling twenty feet above them. The salon was a cold room, though with their chairs drawn up on either side of the fire it was almost cosy. It was the first time he had been able to relax since the war began.
“You were going to tell me your tale,” said Rix.
“Later, if you don’t mind.” The wind howled outside the shuttered windows and Tobry shuddered, as if at some unpleasant memory. “The places I’ve been over the past weeks, the sights I’ve seen, have almost robbed me of the power of speech. I need to take it slowly.”
Rix leaned back in his chair, studying his friend through the side of his glass. Tobry could be moody, and after all he’d suffered as a child, no wonder.
“No hurry. More wine?”
Tobry looked at him absently, then waved the bottle away. Rix wasn’t sure what disturbed him more – that Tobry had been through a nightmare, or that he could refuse a second glass of the finest wine Rix had ever tasted.
“Am I talking too much?” said Rix. “Would you prefer I left you alone?”
“No!” Tobry said sharply. “My own company is the last thing I want. I’ve had far too much of it, and presently my mind isn’t a fit state to visit, much less live. Tell me about yourself, and Glynnie and Benn. And… and Tali,” he said in a rush, “if you’ve got any news of her.”
“I wish I had. I haven’t heard a whisper since the chancellor took her away.”
Tobry hunched down in his chair, reached for his glass, found it empty and said, “Think I will have another drop.”
Rix filled it to the brim. Tobry gulped it, spilling red wine down his chin without realising it. Rix pointed it out.
“Sorry.” Tobry wiped his chin. “Been living like a pig for weeks. Hiding in drains, eating rats and other vermin. When you’re bedding down in a sewer, manners don’t seem so important.” He looked up. “I spent most of that time searching for news of Tali and Rannilt, and the chancellor.”
“That bastard!”
“Indeed,” said Tobry. “But there was none, and I’m sure if the enemy had caught them I’d have heard about it. No, he ran away with his tail between his legs, somewhere west I’m guessing. But he’s got Tali so well hidden by magery that no one knows where she is. After I exhausted my last lead, I came looking for you.”
“Any news of the war?”
“Probably less than you have, given Swelt’s network of informers. I can tell you that the centre of Caulderon lies in ruins – torn down so Lyf can rebuild old Lucidand.”
“Any chance of a rebellion?”
“If there’s one thing the enemy know, it’s how to subdue a conquered people. They practised on the Pale for a thousand years.”
“You mean there’s no chance,” said Rix.
“Lyf has fifty thousand troops in Caulderon, and the first thing they did was make a death list – all our leaders, military officers, thinkers, plus known troublemakers like you and me. The scaffolds have been working overtime. At the first hint of opposition, they round up all the ringleaders and put them to death.”
“And now Bleddimire is going the same way. Is there any resistance in the provinces? Anywhere at all?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Lyf’s victories have been too quick, too overpowering, too terrible… and, for want of a better word, too magical. Rebels die swiftly and unpleasantly, and most local lordlings prefer to grab what they can get to fighting for their country – the gutless scum.”
“But still…”
“I’ve been among the common folk these past weeks, and they’re terrified. People have lost hope for Hightspall. They’re starting to think it’s better to live as slaves than die as heroes.”
Rix shivered. “I’m not thinking that!”
“Nor I. But to answer your question, as far as I know, organised resistance is confined to this fortress.”
Tobry studied Rix thoughtfully, as though weighing him for the task, but said no more.
“What should I do, Tobe?”
“Unless a great leader steps forward, very soon, Hightspall is lost.”
“In the past, you never stopped short of telling me what to do.”
“I’ve been to hell and back, Rix. I’m not sending anyone else there.”
Rix studied Tobry’s worn face for a minute or two. “I’m no great leader. Doubt I ever will be. But even if I have to fight alone, I’m fighting for Hightspall – all the way.”
“You’re a good man, Rix. Did I ever tell you that?”
“Not as often as I’d like to hear it,”
said Rix, and they both laughed.
Tobry’s smile faded. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, as though the brief exchange had worn him out. “You… talk.”
“What about?” said Rix, feeling more than a little anxious.
“Anything. I just want to hear the sound of a friendly voice. It’s… it’s a cruel world out there, Rix, when you’re alone and friendless, and have no house to protect you. It’s savage.” His gaze fell on Rix’s grey hand. “Tell me about it.”
Rix didn’t particularly want to. He still felt self-conscious about his dead hand, but Tobry was his oldest friend, and there were one or two curious things he might be able to cast some light on.
“It was Glynnie’s idea. Didn’t occur to me for an instant. She’s a remarkable woman.”
“I always thought so.”
“She used the rest of Tali’s healing blood. There wasn’t much. Maybe that’s why…” He looked down at it. “She made me hold Maloch while she did it. Because Maloch was supposed to protect me, she said, and it might not have severed my hand on all the levels. Whatever the hell that means.”
Tobry whistled. “How did she know that?”
“Something she picked up, listening to the magians talk.”
“I gather your hand was alive for a while… and then not?”
Rix froze. He had been trying not to think about the mural he’d painted on the wall of the little vault after Glynnie had rejoined his hand – the mural depicting himself and Tali about to kill Tobry, drawn with bone charcoal then painted with his own blood.
What could the mural mean? Do I secretly resent Tobry for gaining Tali’s love? She’s a beautiful and desirable woman. Do I, subconsciously, want to take her from him? No, that’s absurd.
Should I tell him about the mural?
Rix wanted to tell Tobry and see him laugh it off, but couldn’t bear to bring it up. It was too painful, too confronting. What would Tobry say? What would he think? He was a tolerant man, but could anyone be that tolerant? Revealing it could undermine Tobry’s trust in him, even destroy their friendship. What if he walked out, never to return?
