by Ian Irvine
“And even with all the destruction in this area,” said Holm, “the rest of Cython is warm, productive and safe. Why would they leave it for the bitter cold of Hightspall, and an uncertain war in a land that has long despised them?”
CHAPTER 104
What had she done? Tali did not know. She looked across to the ramp. There was no fighting, no noise save for the rhythm of marching soldiers and the groans of the injured. The Pale stood in a circular mass in the wreckage-clotted centre of the chymical level, pressed close together as if for comfort. The enemy were racing up the ramp towards the part of Cython that had collapsed.
She used the pillar to pull herself to her feet and was edging towards the annihilation hole when she heard that sound again, zipppp, and felt a breeze on the back of her neck. Something that had been suspended in the hole had hurtled down like a piston, drawing air after it.
The rock around the hole looked solid. She crept to the edge and peered in, gingerly. All was black. Something glowed orange, deep down, then it went black again and the breeze died away.
“You all right?” said Holm.
His face was soot-stained, his grey hair had gone a smoky yellow-brown, and his eyes were red and watering.
“Don’t know,” said Tali, trembling. “I feel a trifle… fragile. Hot and cold at the same time.”
He peered up through the enormous hole in the wall and ceiling. It was dark up there and she could not tell what part of Cython had collapsed.
“What did you do?” said Holm.
“One drop of alkoyl landed on the heatstone stack. Just one drop.”
He frowned at her. She explained what she had done, and how Errek’s words had inspired her to do it.
“I think you’re right,” said Holm. “Alkoyl and heatstone must be the antithesis of each other, just as king-magery and the Engine are opposites. One creates, the other destroys, and both are necessary. But if that balance tilts —”
The ground shook.
“Have I helped, or made things worse?” she said quietly.
“Another minute and they would have overwhelmed us.”
She looked up to the dark collapse zone. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Holm.”
“About where the collapse took place?”
“It can’t have been far from the Empound. What if… what if it was right underneath?”
Holm looked grave. “We’d better go up.”
Something rumbled in the depths. The floor shook violently and more rock fell, though this time it was just an ordinary rock fall – whatever had happened at the heatstone cube, the point of annihilation, had completed itself.
Tali felt the last of her gift drain away. She swayed and almost fell. “Something’s wrong,” she croaked. “Something’s very wrong.”
Lyf reappeared at the curve of the ramp, moving slowly and wearily, as though his magery could barely support him. What had he seen up there?
“What have you done now?” he cried. “Something has just changed, deep down. The balance is tipping towards the point of no return.”
“Wil went down…” Tali was so exhausted that she could barely speak.
“When?” Lyf shook her. Holm pushed him away.
“Half an hour ago,” said Tali.
“Where did he go?”
Tali pointed to the fuming crevice.
“He went down the Hellish Conduit?”
“Where does it lead?”
“Way down. To the Engine at the heart of the world, eventually. But surely Wil can’t do any damage down there,” Lyf said, as if to himself. “He wouldn’t know…”
“He said, Got to write ending. Engine going to end everything,” said Tali. “And he was dragging a great platina demijohn. I… I think it held alkoyl.”
“He wouldn’t!” whispered Lyf. “He can’t get to the Engine, surely. And he wouldn’t know how to do any harm… Or would he?” He looked up. “Errek?”
The wispy old ghost-king appeared in the air before him.
“Did you hear?” said Lyf.
“Of course I heard,” said Errek. “I’m your creation.”
“Sometimes I forget.”
“Wil reforged the iron book,” said Errek. “He could not have done that in Cython without the matriarchs being informed. Where else would he find the heat for so mighty a forging? Only near the Engine.”
“Is that why magery has been failing?” said Tali. “Because Wil’s been rewriting the iron book?”
“The way the balance has been tilting,” said Errek, “he must have been interfering with the Engine. You’ve got to stop him, Lyf. Right now!”
Lyf looked up at the collapsed area. “But… my people need me. I can’t turn my back on them now, when they need me most.”
“When you swore your kingly oath all those years ago, when you chose the way of healing magery, you also swore that the king’s noble purpose would always come first.”
“What noble purpose?” said Tali.
“Healing the land and maintaining the balance?” said Holm, low-voiced.
“Since you became king again,” said Errek, “you’ve neglected that responsibility. Now you have no choice. Go!”
“How can I heal the land?” said Lyf. “Without the catalyz, I can’t use king-magery.”
“Kill Wil, then brake the Engine. Use your bare hands, if you must.”
“That won’t heal the land. It can’t.”
“But it can delay the catastrophe.”
“First, I’ll take the master pearl,” snarled Lyf. “Tali created this mess.”
“Grandys created it,” said Errek. “With Maloch, two thousand years ago. Leave her – she’s bound up with the fate of the world, somehow. Go!”
Lyf wobbled towards the smoking entrance to the Hellish Conduit and disappeared as Wil had done. Errek vanished. Tali’s legs gave beneath her and she slid to the floor. She had nothing left.
“We’d better go up and see what the damage is,” said Holm. “Hoy, Tobry?”
He came across, wearily.
“Give us a hand with her,” said Holm. “She’s all in.”
Tobry looked pale, shrunken and further aged. It was not a good sign.
He picked Tali up and began to carry her up the ramp, but she found no comfort in his arms. All she could think about was his terrible end that could not be far away.
Every jolt sent hot pain spearing through Tali’s head. She closed her eyes; it hurt too much with them open. Around her, hundreds of Pale were panting as they scrambled up.
“What’s happened?” someone asked.
“I don’t know,” said another. “Where have the enemy gone?”
There was no reply. Tali could hear the Pale’s bare feet slapping the stone all around. They ran in a mass for a minute or two, then stopped.
“To their armouries,” Radl was shouting. “Arm yourselves and hold the passages against the enemy. Pale in the Empound, come forth and take up arms.”
A great cheering rent the air. Tali forced her eyes open. The area was lit with lanterns and glowstones now, though it took a while to recognise what she was seeing.
The collapse had torn open the edge of the Empound and freed the trapped Pale who were streaming forth in their thousands. She could see the huge assembly area and some of the honeycomb cells, though there did not seem to be much damage there.
But there was massive damage in the other direction, where the Cythonian living quarters had been. The entrance tunnel was gone and hundreds of yards of the floor inside had vanished, drawn down into the annihilation hole. Much of the ceiling was gone as well, and the rest had fallen, destroying thousands of the small stone apartments in which the enemy dwelt.
“Most would have been unoccupied, their people long gone to Hightspall,” said Tobry, who must have sensed Tali’s horror. He put her down on her feet, but held her. “There might not have been too many killed.”
Tali blocked his voice out. She had made her choice, destruction over healing, and
this was the result. She could not shy away from it. The victims, enemy though they were, were owed that much. And there would be many of them. Very many.
A great wailing arose from the passage to the right; she saw the enemy troops clustered there. The soldiers who had come so close to victory down below now faced a disaster they could not comprehend.
They made their slow way around the broken edges of the collapsed area and into their living quarters, crying out for the survivors, but they did not find many.
As the first of the injured Cythonians were brought out, the rescuers were confronted by ten thousand armed Pale. Many wore armour, and their numbers and new-found determination made them a formidable force. For the first time the enemy realised how the situation had been overturned; how drastically they were outnumbered.
“You can fight, or you can leave Cython,” said Radl quietly. “If you leave we will not hinder you, and you may take what weapons and possessions you will. But if you fight, know that we will fight you to the death.”
The Cythonians consulted among themselves, but they had taken thousands of casualties in the hours-long battle and all were exhausted. Now, as they looked upon the destruction of the homes they had lived in for the past fifteen hundred years, Tali saw the heart go out of them.
“Our matriarchs are dead, crushed in their apartments, and Lyf has abandoned us for a higher duty,” said a tall Cythonian with zigzag face tattoos. “We cannot make this choice.”
“You must,” said Radl, “or we will deal with you the way you planned to deal with us.”
After another long consultation, the tall Cythonian said, “We will go.” They began to gather their injured, and their meagre possessions, and then they went.
“Happy now?” said Radl to Tali.
Radl was covered in blood and had suffered many small injuries, though none marred her beauty nor hindered her determination to lead her people.
“No, I’m not,” said Tali.
It was a victory she had never dreamed of achieving, from an attack that had not been planned, but she could take no joy from it. Thousands of lives had been lost on each side, and not just soldiers. Old men and women had been killed, girls and boys and infants. She put her head in her hands and wept.
“It’s not finished yet,” said Holm. “You’ve got to go on.”
“No, I’ve done enough damage.”
“There’s still a war up above, and we’re losing badly.”
“What can I do about it?”
“The chancellor needs soldiers, blooded in battle. The Pale can provide them.”
“I’m not leading anyone else to their death. I’ve too many on my conscience already.”
“You’ve got to ask them.”
“Why me? Why can’t you do it?”
“If we don’t defeat Lyf, he’ll try to take Cython back, and the blood bath will make today look like a tea party.”
He was right – she had to go on. Tobry boosted Tali up onto a heap of rubble where she could see the Pale and they could see her. Holm banged on a shield until people looked her way.
“You have won your freedom,” she shouted. “But your people in Hightspall are in the thrall of the enemy and cry out for your aid. Today I’m marching north to Nyrdly, to the aid of our country. Will you march with me?”
No one moved. No one spoke. They just stared at her with hostile eyes.
“Why won’t they answer?” she said to Radl.
“You’re not wearing your loincloth.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re dressed. You’re not one of us.” Radl scrambled up onto the pile of rubble. “The battle has been won but the war continues. We have to fight Lyf, and defeat him, or he will come at the head of an army to take Cython back. Will you march under my leadership?”
Thousands of Pale raised their hands, though not nearly as many as Tali had hoped.
“Is that all?” she said.
“Hightspall sent our ancestors here as child hostages,” said a gaunt man with bloodshot, staring eyes. “Hightspall refused to ransom us, then made us out to be traitors and enemy collaborators. Why should we fight for a land that despises us, when we can have Cython for ourselves?”
“He’ll come back,” said Tali.
“And if he does, we’ll fight for our country. But we’re not fighting for yours.”
Tali climbed down, more exhausted than she had ever felt. “I want to go home.”
“You and I still remember our noble heritage,” said Radl. “We still think of ourselves as Hightspallers, and all our lives we’ve yearned to go home, but most of the Pale forgot their ancestors and lost their heritage long ago. Cython is their home, the only one they’ve ever known.”
“And even with all the destruction in this area,” said Holm, “the rest of Cython is warm, productive and safe. Why would they leave it for the bitter cold of Hightspall, and an uncertain war in a land that has long despised them?”
CHAPTER 105
“Did you kill Wil?” said Errek First-King late that afternoon.
“He eluded me,” Lyf replied, wincing as a healer finished binding his cruelly burned hands. “He crept down into cracks where I could not follow.”
“But you did brake the Engine?”
Lyf looked down at his bound hands. “Thank you,” he said to the healer. “You may go.” Once she had gone, and the door was sealed, he resumed. “As best I could, though it won’t last. I stopped the balance tilting all the way to disaster, but it can only be restored with king-magery. And —”
“Lacking the catalyz…” said Errek.
“Where can it be? Unless it’s found, the balance can’t be restored, nor the land saved.”
“I would guess,” said Errek, “that it still lies in one of Grandys’ hoards, hidden before the time of his death, its true value never recognised.”
“But Tali knows our secret now, and so do her friends.”
“And a secret known to so many people cannot be kept. Sooner or later, Grandys will hear of it.”
“He’ll know where to go for the catalyz, and once he gets it, we’re lost.”
“Unless…” said Errek. He whispered in Lyf’s ear.
“I’ll call the ancestors into the temple,” said Lyf. Clumsily, with his bandaged hands, he inserted his nose plugs and led the way.
Within, the stench was now so foul that not even his hardiest workmen could enter. It was sickening even through the nose plugs. Did it presage the doom of his people, and the land as well?
“This sacred temple has been defiled beyond redemption,” he said to his ancestors, “but is that due to my crimes when it was the murder cellar, or to Grandys’ two thousand years ago?”
The ancestors did not speak. They were gazing at him in alarm.
“It should be torn down,” he continued, though the symbolism of such an act made him shudder. “But that would be like tearing down my own realm, my people, my land.”
“With Cython fallen, our final refuge lost,” said Errek, “our people are more troubled than ever.”
The eruptions at the Vomits had picked up in the past day and the land was quaking all the time now. Though Lyf had not told his people the true reason for it, every Cythonian knew that something was badly wrong, deep down.
“It will take a great victory to turn their morale around,” said Bloody Herrie.
“That’s what I’m planning.” Lyf opened the door and called to his attendant. “Order my armies to get ready. We’re marching north to Reffering in the morning.”
Lyf came back inside and closed the door.
“Are you intending to fight the chancellor?” said Errek.
“Not unless I’m forced to it. Our real enemy is Grandys, and if two sides are there, preparing to do battle, you can be sure he’ll turn up.”
“And then?”
“Grandys doesn’t know what the key is, but he knows where he hid everything he stole from my temple. I’m going to deal with him and
get the key,” said Lyf.
CHAPTER 105
“Did you kill Wil?” said Errek First-King late that afternoon.
“He eluded me,” Lyf replied, wincing as a healer finished binding his cruelly burned hands. “He crept down into cracks where I could not follow.”
“But you did brake the Engine?”
Lyf looked down at his bound hands. “Thank you,” he said to the healer. “You may go.” Once she had gone, and the door was sealed, he resumed. “As best I could, though it won’t last. I stopped the balance tilting all the way to disaster, but it can only be restored with king-magery. And —”
“Lacking the catalyz…” said Errek.
“Where can it be? Unless it’s found, the balance can’t be restored, nor the land saved.”
“I would guess,” said Errek, “that it still lies in one of Grandys’ hoards, hidden before the time of his death, its true value never recognised.”
“But Tali knows our secret now, and so do her friends.”
“And a secret known to so many people cannot be kept. Sooner or later, Grandys will hear of it.”
“He’ll know where to go for the catalyz, and once he gets it, we’re lost.”
“Unless…” said Errek. He whispered in Lyf’s ear.
“I’ll call the ancestors into the temple,” said Lyf. Clumsily, with his bandaged hands, he inserted his nose plugs and led the way.
Within, the stench was now so foul that not even his hardiest workmen could enter. It was sickening even through the nose plugs. Did it presage the doom of his people, and the land as well?
“This sacred temple has been defiled beyond redemption,” he said to his ancestors, “but is that due to my crimes when it was the murder cellar, or to Grandys’ two thousand years ago?”
The ancestors did not speak. They were gazing at him in alarm.
“It should be torn down,” he continued, though the symbolism of such an act made him shudder. “But that would be like tearing down my own realm, my people, my land.”
