The Summon Stone

by Ian Irvine

  Karan had dismissed the idea out of hand and Maigraith had never mentioned it again, but clearly she had not forgotten it.

  “Every single thing Rulke did in his long life was to save his people from extinction,” said Maigraith, showing passion for the first time. She rotated a heavy gold ring on her finger – Rulke’s own ring that he had shrunk to fit her.

  “I’m aware of that,” said Karan.

  “But he failed, the Charon are gone, and Julken is all that’s left of him. Karan, please listen. All their greatness and all their promise can’t be lost. Julken and Sulien could found an entirely new line of people. Their children would be tetrarchs – four-bloods!”

  It was outrageous. Karan trembled with fury but kept her silence. She had to know the worst.

  “It could enhance our great gifts and best qualities,” Maigraith went on, “and overcome the great flaws in triunes, like the constant threat of madness.”

  “It might also cancel out those gifts and amplify the risk of madness,” Karan said coldly. “But even if every possibility was as you say, my answer would be the same. Sulien will make her own choice, when she comes of age.”

  “Karan, please…”

  The drumming pounded in Karan’s ears. “And never Julken. He strangled Sulien’s puppy just because she laughed at him.”

  “That’s a filthy lie!” screamed Maigraith. She leaped to her feet, her eyes flashing fire. “Take it back or… or…”

  Karan sprang back, her heart racing. She had never seen Maigraith lose control so badly. If the drumming was behind it, there was no saying what she would do next.

  The drumming roared; Maigraith’s eyes flashed brighter. She stepped towards Karan, raising her hands. “I don’t want to take her from you, but…”

  This had to stop now. Karan stepped in a small hole and pain rippled down her right thigh. Hrux, hrux! She froze. What if she fed the last piece to Maigraith?

  No, for all her pestering, Maigraith had done Sulien no harm. And hrux was a dangerous drug with unpredictable effects. There was no way of knowing what it would do to her… though no permanent harm, surely. There wasn’t nearly enough for a fatal dose.

  “But if you leave me no choice, I will!” said Maigraith.

  Dare Karan use it? Half mad with pain and terror as she was, she could not think straight, but how else could she stop Maigraith for long enough to get Sulien away?

  “Calm down.” Karan pointed to the fish to distract her. “I’m starving. We’ll talk about it after dinner.”

  The flush retreated from Maigraith’s face; she nodded and sat by the water. The pan was smoking. Karan greased it by rubbing it with a piece of oily cheese and slid the fillets in. When they were done she scooped them out onto two of the enamelled plates and squeezed the juice of one lime over the fish. The others she squeezed into the pan, tipped in a small amount of water and tossed in the greens. Their bitterness would disguise the taste of hrux, she thought in a curiously detached way – if she used it.

  Pain shrieked up her leg as her body realised it was not going to get the hrux it craved. She wavered; whatever happened next she would soon be desperate for it. Then she thought about Sulien falling into Julken’s brutish hands. It could not be endured, so her own pain must be.

  She stirred the wilted greens around, then, when Maigraith was not watching, flicked in the piece of hrux and squashed it into the liquid on the far side of the pan. Karan poured the hrux-dosed sauce over one plate of fish and handed it to Maigraith, then dribbled the sauce from the near side of the pan onto her own meal.

  “What’s this?” said Maigraith, forking out a piece of red leaf.

  “Mustard greens.” Karan indicated the tall plants growing further up the slope.

  “And this?”

  “Rogid. It grows over there.”

  Maigraith studied Karan for a moment. Karan ate her dinner. Maigraith took a forkful of fish and greens, frowning at the taste, but ate it.

  Karan tensed. Hrux only took a few minutes to act, but how would it affect her? Would she slide into euphoria? Pass out? Scream and shout? Become violent?

  Maigraith’s teeth began to chatter. She half rose to her feet, the enamel plate clattering to the stone.

  She turned to Karan. “What have you… nnnnnhh? Nnnnnhh. Guh! Guh!”

  Foam formed at the corners of her mouth; her eyes went a burning carmine and protruded from their sockets; her arms flailed; she reeled around in interlocking circles, knees bent, gagged, spat out a cupful of foam, reeled in the other direction… then stopped as if she had run into a post.

  Blood ran down her chin from a bitten lip. Her eyes widened even further. “No!” She shrieked. “Rulke, it’s Tensor! Look out!”

  Her slim body twisted; she was wrenching at something immovable as if trying to get past. “No, no!”

  Karan’s flesh went cold as she realised what was happening. Maigraith was reliving the worst day of her life, the moment ten years ago when Tensor had attacked Rulke with that irresistible Aachim spell, blasting him backwards and impaling him on a long metal thorn torn out of the side of his ruined construct.

  Maigraith went wheeling sideways, landed with a thump, rose to her hands and knees, then screamed so shrilly that it hurt Karan’s ears. But then the iron self-control Maigraith had practised for decades asserted itself, even over the effects of hrux. She laboured across to the point where, in her addled mind, her dying lover must be, and stood like a marble statue, staring down at him.

  “You gave your life for me,” she said.

  Then in Rulke’s voice as if replaying the fatal moment, “How we would have loved, you and I. But it was not to be.”

  “I once loved, and was loved.” She bent as if to kiss him. “And the fruit of our love will shake the Three Worlds to their underpinnings. But this is the end of the Charon.”

  Maigraith’s marble face twisted. “I will not allow it!” she screamed. “I will reach even beyond the grave to bring him back.”

  She thrust her hooked hands up as if to pull the sky down on their heads. “I… will… not… allow… it!”

  She turned and stared at Karan, though she could not tell if Maigraith was seeing her or something else from that desperate day ten years ago. She ran at Karan, reaching out as if intending to choke her. Unable to get out of the way, Karan dropped to the stone with an impact that sent needles of pain up her bones.

  Maigraith trampled over her, still screaming, and ran straight over the edge into the water. She sank out of sight, resurfaced, thrashed to the bank, slipped in the mud, clawed her way to her feet and pounded up through the black forest.

  Her cries faded into the night. Silence fell, though for half an hour afterwards Karan could still hear Maigraith’s psychic screams.

  I will not allow it! I will not allow it!

  Suddenly the pain struck like an avalanche. Hrux, hrux! Karan crawled to the frying pan and licked out the dregs of sauce, but her tongue did not even tingle. Every skerrick of hrux was gone.

  Why had she come up here; and why had she done such a reckless thing? The drumming, so strong here, had turned Maigraith’s foolish longing into obsession, and now the hrux had raised that obsession to a mania.

  Sick with guilt and in such pain that she could not stand up, Karan began to crawl back down the dark path towards the cliff stair. She could not stop, even if she wore her hands and knees down to bare bone. She had to take Sulien away before the hrux wore off and Maigraith reverted to the quest she could never forsake, because she had just sworn it on the image of the love of her life.

  Before she reached the cliff path Karan felt a small piercing pain in the top of her skull, as if a sharpened spike had been pressed against it. Tap! The pain increased. Tap! It increased again. It felt as though the spike was being tapped into her skull with a mallet. The magiz was attacking again, but far more strongly than before, and Karan could guess why.

  The struggle had weakened her block, reducing her ability to keep
the magiz at bay. And perhaps the drumming up here, so much stronger than at Gothryme, was also eating away her strength.

  Tap, tap, tap. Crack!

  The pain was agonising. The magiz was close to breaking through. And the moment she did, she would divert her attack from Karan to Sulien. Sulien could not resist the magiz; she would be killed in minutes and then the sorcerer would attack Rachis, everyone who worked at Gothryme, and go after Llian.

  And all because of Karan’s unbelievably stupid act.

  32

  AS BAD AS IT CAN GET

  The shriek was so chilling that Aviel dropped her basket of bitter orange leaves – one of the ingredients for a phial of scent she was making to send to Wilm – in the mud. She gasped and stumbled, looking around frantically. It sounded like a skeet, but Shand’s skeet cage was empty – he had sent his three carrier birds out before he’d left and none had come back.

  Another shriek, louder and rising in pitch, approaching rapidly. It was above her! She let out a squawk of fear. The raptor was hurting down in a vertical dive straight at her. And skeets were killers.

  It was thirty yards to her workshop and the bitter orange trees were too small to shelter her. Aviel snatched up the basket, knowing it was a hopeless defence against such a creature.

  Her heart was skipping all over the place, her breath coming in tearing gasps. Down, down the skeet hurtled, like a condor hunting a rabbit. Hooked yellow beak almost as big as her hand, bloodstained claws that could tear her face off or her throat out, battering wings, evil eye.

  It let out another shriek, folded its wings back and accelerated. Aviel’s worn boots settled into the mud and pain throbbed through her bad ankle. She clutched the handle of the basket. Ready… now!

  She swung the basket desperately, knowing how little chance she had. The skeet struck, tearing it apart, and shot past, leaving her holding the handle. She hurled it after the bird, missed, then hobbled through the onion patch towards the workshop, knowing she wouldn’t make it. The skeet was already turning. She grabbed Shand’s spade, which she had been using earlier, and raised it above her head.

  Aviel was used to avoiding blows; she’d had plenty of them from her father and her six big sisters. But she had little experience in dealing blows out. The skeet swept in again, legs extended, wicked claws spread wide enough to enclose her head. She swiped at it with the shovel but it swerved and she only struck a wingtip. It slashed at her, one claw tearing through her sleeve, and she felt a stinging pain along her forearm.

  She dropped the shovel, snatched it up again and flailed furiously around her, cursing the bird with the choicest of her father’s swear words. It turned towards her and she caught a flash of red on its right leg.

  “Get away from me, you horrible mongrel beast!” she yelled, sobbing in her terror. “Get away!”

  It perched on the leafless branch of a small plum tree, eyeing her malevolently. Aviel gagged. It smelled like the rotting carrion that was its favourite diet.

  “What do you want?”

  It raised its right leg, then lowered it. A red case was strapped there, and they were only used for the most urgent messages. But Shand had left suddenly a couple of days ago, saying that his granddaughter was in trouble and racing to Gothryme, and she had no idea when he would be back. She had to get the message.

  The skeet shot over Aviel’s head, making her flinch, then wheeled around the wooden skeet house, folded its wings and squeezed through the one-way opening. It flapped up onto its perch and glared at her.

  It wanted her to remove the message, but she didn’t want to go anywhere near it. When only thirteen Aviel had seen a skeet tear a man’s throat out, then feed on him while he was dying.

  Yet Shand had been good to her; when no one else would think about helping an unlucky twist-foot, he had paid off her indenture to Magsie Murg’s stinking tannery, asking nothing in return. He had given Aviel use of the workshop for a modest rent and kept her horrible father, Gybb, who wanted to profit from her good fortune, at bay.

  Skeets were malicious creatures; it would attack her for the joy of it, and hungry skeets were doubly vicious. She let herself into Shand’s house, went to the cold-room and cut off a hindquarter of rabbit, which she carried down to the skeet house. She took up a length of broom handle with a spike in the end, spiked the haunch and eased it in through the feeding hole towards the skeet.

  It ripped the meat from the bone with its hooked beak and gobbled the pieces. Aviel watched the lumps move down its throat, shuddering. Get the snool over its head, quick!

  She unlatched the door, but as she reached out with the snool, a narrow leather bag on a long handle, it shook wildly. If she whacked the skeet on the head it was bound to attack. She calmed herself and tried again. It took four goes before the snool slipped over the bird’s head, and it went still.

  Getting the message was the most dangerous part, and Shand usually asked someone to help him. Her heart was hammering and her stomach felt as though something was thrashing around down there, trying to chew its way out.

  But delay was risky too. She crept in, small bones crunching underfoot and the stench of putrefying skeet droppings rising around her with every step. Holding the snool on with her left land, she reached out with her right. But the straps of the red case were tightly buckled; it would take both hands to undo them.

  Aviel was not going to let go of the snool handle. If she did, the skeet would knock her down and eat her innards. Making sure the door was open behind her, she tied the handle of the snool to the side of the cage. The skeet moved sideways on its perch and the snool slipped up an inch. She froze, then slowly eased it down.

  Taking a last step, she unfastened the lower buckle. As she began on the upper one the skeet stepped sideways and the snool slipped up again. Aviel’s bowels turned liquid. She eased the snool down. The strap was very tight and slippery with bird poo. The skeet raised its head and cracked its wings. Aviel panicked and jerked at the strap. The message case came free, but the snool slipped off and the skeet let out a shriek of fury.

  Aviel hurled herself at the doorway. The skeet cracked its wings again; it was after her! Agony shot through her bad ankle; she stumbled and fell to hands and knees in the manure, dropping the case. The stench burned the passages of her nose; she scrabbled forward, but as she reached the door the skeet landed, thump, on her back, its claws digging through her coat and shirt into the skin.

  She hurled herself backwards, slamming the skeet against the side of the cage. It shrieked and struck at the top of her head with its beak, a tearing pain. Aviel slammed back again and again until its claws relaxed, then staggered out through the open door and around behind it, pulling it hard against her.

  Through gaps in the boards she could see the skeet swaying from side to side. They were very expensive birds. What if she’d broken its neck? She crouched behind the door, guilty and afraid, her skull and back and arm throbbing. But after a minute or two it let out another shriek and flew out of the open doorway into the night.

  Aviel retrieved the muck-covered message case. Blood was running down the side of her head – the skeet had torn her scalp open. She dipped a bucket into the water barrel outside Shand’s back door and cleaned the muck off her boots, hands and knees, then returned to her workshop and scrubbed her hands with soap and warm water.

  Skeet fed on carrion and an infected scalp wound could be deadly. She filled a bowl with hot water from the pot hanging over the fire and fetched a clean rag and a little green olivine jar of ointment.

  Among the hundreds of items she had inherited in the workshop was a small cracked mirror. Aviel propped it up against the big mortar and pestle, pulled a stool up to the bench and perched on it, letting out a sigh as the weight came off her ankle.

  The top of her head was red and blood had run down to her right ear, clotting her flyaway silver hair into scarlet strands. She dabbed at the wound until she could see it clearly, a hook-shaped tear an inch and a half long.<
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  She smeared it with ointment, which burned like lemon juice in a cut, washed the blood out of her hair and attended to her other injuries. Her belly churned; she felt faint, in shock.

  Aviel grated fresh ginger into a mug, added hot water and stirred it, pulled her stool up to the brazier, broke the seal on the message case, then stopped. It felt wrong to be touching Shand’s mail. What would he want her to do? He was a private man; if the message was personal he might be furious, might even throw her out.

  The thought of being homeless and penniless again, unable to pursue her dream and forced to take the meanest work of all because no one would give an unlucky twist-foot anything better, was unbearable.

  Should she take one of Shand’s horses and try to find him? She had never ridden a horse, and the thought of climbing onto such a great beast and trying to stay on was paralysing.

  Surely doing the wrong thing was better than doing nothing. She took out the message and unrolled it. It was from Malien, whom Aviel knew to be one of the Aachim leaders.

  As she scanned the letter, which was written in a sloping, elegant hand, a shiver began at the base of Aviel’s spine and wove its way up until the hairs stood up on the back of her neck.

  Malien

  Tirthrax

  27 Mard, 3111

  The 27th of Mard was a week ago. Why had the letter taken so long?

  Shand,

  Call our allies together, urgently. Then prepare for war.

  I don’t know how Karan’s spying mission to Cinnabar went – I can’t contact her. But I’ve learned a little about the Merdrun and it’s all bad. They want an empty world for themselves and no species in the void is more versed in war. If they get through the gate they will take Santhenar in a very short time, and the only people spared will be as slaves. Before anything, you must find the summon stone and destroy it.

  Snoat’s activities are a deadly distraction that is aiding the Merdrun. Do whatever it takes to stop him. Assassinate him and his allies; take the reins of power yourself, if necessary.