The Summon Stone

by Ian Irvine

  I have sent word to my own people in the east, and the Faellem in Mirrilladell, but both are so far away I fear they can do little to aid us in time.

  I will go to Chanthed by the fastest means possible but I can’t get there in under a month. That may be too late.

  Malien

  The letter slipped from Aviel’s hand. They want an empty world…

  The brazier did not seem to be putting out any warmth. She shivered and hugged her arms around herself. Call our allies together, urgently. If it had been urgent a week ago it was far more urgent now. She had to find Shand, wherever he was, and give him the letter without delay.

  She had to leave the only home she had ever known and go out into the dangerous world she knew nothing about, but feared with all her heart.

  33

  I’LL MANAGE

  Karan thumped her bloody fists against the iron-reinforced front door of Gothryme over and over, gasping and sobbing and crying out desperately, “Rachis! Rachis!”

  A minute or two later he hauled the door open. In the harsh lantern light he looked like a barely reanimated corpse. “It’s three in the morning. You’ll be the death of me, Karan.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve—”

  “Got to go. And you don’t know when you’ll be back. And can I please take care of Gothryme while you’re away.”

  Karan allowed her head to fall forward until it struck the two-inch-thick planking. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “I’ll take that as a given. Maigraith?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Have her visits ever brought anything but misery?”

  “Don’t know where she is. Could be half an hour behind, for all I know. Got to fly.”

  “What do you want me to pack?”

  “Enough for a week or two. I’m going to Chanthed and taking Sulien with me. You… heard about Llian?”

  “Sulien often feels she has no one to talk to but some silly old fool out the back.”

  “She’s told you everything?”

  “Everything she knows, which is a lot.” Tears formed in his rheumy old eyes. “I can’t tell you how much I’ll miss that child.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ll miss you.” She reached out to him.

  “Yes.” He turned away hastily. “I’ll get on with it then.”

  Karan cleaned herself up at the sink – things were bad enough without scaring Sulien witless – and went up the echoing stairs of the old keep on her hands and knees. At the top she pulled herself upright and leaned against the granite wall for a minute, panting and longing for hrux.

  There was no hrux, and if something happened to Idlis on the long and dangerous journey north from Shazabba there would never be hrux again. Better get used to it. She opened Sulien’s door, and the lamplight in her eyes was dazzling. Sulien was sitting on her bed dressed in green trousers and blouse, and her travelling pack was bulging.

  “What… are you doing… awake?” Karan’s thoughts were worms trying to swim through treacle.

  “You had a fight with Maigraith,” said Sulien. “Up at the Black Lake.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Sulien shrugged. “I just know stuff.”

  “Not a fight, exactly,” said Karan. “She went a little crazy. I stopped her, though I don’t know for how long.”

  Sulien pulled on her socks, then her boots. She began to lace them up but could not seem to manage it. Karan knelt in front of her. “Sometimes you frighten me.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry when I can’t lace up my own boots.”

  Karan stood up unsteadily.

  “Your hands are all bloody,” said Sulien. “And your knees.”

  “Just scratches. From crawling. Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To find Llian and get him out of trouble.” She looked around the odd-shaped little room. “Got everything?”

  “Yes,” Sulien said in a whisper, as though realising that after this nothing would ever be the same again.

  In Karan’s room the great box bed was as she had left it, including the dimple in Llian’s pillow that she had not wanted to smooth out. Stupid, sentimental fool! She changed her clothes and packed.

  “Go down to Rachis,” said Karan. “I need a few minutes to myself.”

  Sulien frowned but went out. Karan sat in the canvas chair by the window, braced herself, then made a link to Malien.

  She expected it to fail, as it had every time she had tried to contact her in the past week and a half, but the link formed instantly and strongly. She could actually see Malien sitting on a stone platform cut into the side of Mount Tirthrax. The view, across the incomparable snow-capped wilderness of the Great Mountains, was one of the greatest on Santhenar, but Karan had no eyes for it.

  It was windy there. Malien’s hair had blown up into a corona around her head.

  “About time,” she said.

  “You were expecting me?”

  “I’ve used half my art to make sure you got through. I expected you to contact me after you spied on the magiz – assuming you survived.”

  “I tried over and over,” said Karan. “Couldn’t get through. But Shand and Tallia know what’s going on.”

  “Tell me everything. Be quick.”

  Karan did so.

  “I’m coming west,” said Malien. “We’re almost ready to leave.”

  Karan sagged; relief left her feeling peculiarly boneless. Malien led a powerful people and would know how to organise the defences. “You don’t sound surprised at my news.”

  “I have other sources of information,” said Malien. “It’ll take us weeks to get to Bannador, of course.”

  “Months, surely?”

  “Not the way we’re travelling. So, what do you want?”

  “Pardon?” said Karan, wondering how the Aachim, clever though they were, could get here so quickly.

  “You linked because you wanted something from me. I think I can guess, but why don’t you tell me?”

  “I’m afraid that everything I’ve done – including my fight with Maigraith – is strengthening the magiz’s link, and she’ll soon be able to attack Sulien again. I can’t guard her day and night, so there’s only one solution.”

  “Go back and kill the magiz,” said Malien.

  “It sounds bad, said out loud.”

  “To protect our own, we do what we must.”

  “Last time, when I talked about attacking her while I was disembodied, you hesitated. Is there a way?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Your father knew a way. He may even have used it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Mad Basunez’s experiments let a savage creature in from the void and it almost wiped out your family, but that did not stop him. He simply invented a spell for killing such creatures. More than five centuries later, your father improved that spell.”

  “How do you know?” said Karan.

  “It was contained in a forbidden object. That’s the real reason we exiled him from Shazmak.”

  “How does the spell work?”

  “It has the form of a death mask – in fact, the death mask of Basunez himself. It won’t harm anyone who can’t use mancery, but when used against a wizard or sorcerer it reverses the power they’re drawing and directs it into the heart or some other vital organ. The more power they use, the more quickly it kills them. It’s a horrible death.”

  “No more horrible than the magiz is planning for us.”

  “It’s highly dangerous. A non-mancer taking on a powerful mancer is always fraught, and after your previous visit she’ll be expecting an attack.”

  “You said, Yes and no. What’s the no?”

  “You can’t attack her when you’re in spirit form.”

  “You mean…?”

  “Before you can use the death-mask spell, you’ll have to allow the magiz to materialise you.” Malien pause
d.

  Karan swallowed. “Can’t I materialise myself?”

  Malien hesitated. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Even for a skilled mancer, it’s incredibly exhausting. Since you aren’t a mancer, in the unlikely event you could materialise yourself at all, you’d be too weak to stand up.”

  “Can you put the spell on me to do it myself? So I’d only have to trigger it?”

  Karan sensed her deep unease, and Malien did not speak for several minutes.

  “I could… All right, but don’t use it unless there’s absolutely no alternative. Going back to what I was saying, if you can kill the magiz quickly it should dematerialise you again, and you can use Spell-stop to return. But if you fail, you will be taken…”

  “It seems horribly risky,” said Karan, reliving the screams of the prisoners the magiz and Gergrig had tortured to death before she drank their lives. Her fate, if she failed.

  “Too risky, but you did ask.”

  “Is there any other way I can protect Sulien against her?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Where is the death mask?”

  “Among your father’s secret things, I expect.”

  “How do I use it?”

  “Put it on, point at the magiz’s heart and say Transpose as though you really mean it. The spell embedded in the mask should do the rest.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “You will die.”

  Karan thanked Malien and broke the link. Sulien did not know that the magiz was trying to kill her, but she would soon have to be told.

  In the secret passage of the library Karan rifled through the dusty boxes of her father’s possessions and found it at the very bottom – a grimy verdigris-covered copper mask of a hideous old man, clearly cast from a plaster mould of Basunez’s dead, furious face. She shuddered and hid it in her pack.

  Rachis was waiting in the kitchen with a bag containing travel necessities. She did not check it; there was no need. Her guilt deepened. How could she leave all Gothryme’s troubles to him at such a time? The first time Maigraith turned up unexpectedly Karan had not returned for a year and a half. When she got back this time, if she did, would he still be alive?

  “Will you be all right?” she said.

  “I’ll manage,” said Rachis. “It’ll probably rain tomorrow.”

  She embraced the old man. There seemed nothing to him. Tears pricked her eyes, something which was happening all the time lately. Was she cracking up? No, she had to be as strong as she ever had. For Sulien. And for Llian.

  “Go!” Rachis shook hands with Sulien, gravely, like one adult to another. “Look after your mother for me, won’t you?”

  “I will,” said Sulien, large-eyed and overcome by the moment. “Can you do me a favour, Rachis?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you water the flowers I planted on Piffle’s grave?” Tears leaked from her eyes.

  “Twice a day,” said Rachis.

  They went out into the darkness. Rachis and the stable boy had saddled the strongest horse, Jergoe, a compact bay. Karan boosted Sulien up, then climbed up behind her. Her worn-out muscles shrieked. The trip down from the Black Lake, a quarter of it on hands and knees, the rest at a desperate stagger, had drained her almost beyond endurance.

  She looked back at her shabby manor, just grey shadows in the moonlight. Would she ever see it again? Sulien was sniffling. Karan put an arm around her and took the reins with her free hand. She nudged Jergoe with her heels, waved, and they headed away.

  “Where are we going?” said Sulien.

  “I’m so tired I can’t think.”

  “I think we should go straight to Chanthed and find Daddy.”

  “That’s what Maigraith would expect me to do.”

  “Then we’ve got to get there first. We’ll be safe in Chanthed.”

  Karan wasn’t sure they would be safe anywhere. “We’ll ride until the sun comes up, then find a place to hide and get some sleep.”

  Sulien leaned back against her. Karan kept to the wheel ruts of the road, where the ground was hard and Jergoe’s hooves would leave poor tracks. After half an hour she turned off the Tolryme road and headed right on a stony path that led up into the hills. Each jolting stride sent a spike of pain through her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  How long would the hrux affect Maigraith? If she was unable to travel for a day or two, there was a good chance Karan could stay ahead of her. But if she was only affected for hours, she might already be on their trail. And if she caught them, Karan had nothing left. Dare she open a spy link?

  “No, Mummy,” Sulien said softly.

  “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “When you start to make a link my head aches.”

  Another reminder that she did not know what Sulien’s gifts were – or whether they were assets or liabilities. She pulled her close. “I’m sorry.”

  “Did Maigraith attack you up at the Black Lake?”

  “Not exactly.” Karan told her what had happened as briefly as possible.

  “But you don’t go mad when you take hrux.”

  “Maigraith and I could hardly be more different. She’s a triune of Charon, Faellem and old human with the Charon side predominant. I’m a triune of Aachim, Faellem and old human with the old human side predominant.”

  “Am I a triune too?” said Sulien.

  “Yes, though because Llian is old human, that side of you is even stronger.”

  “Old humans are the best, aren’t we?”

  “Of course,” Karan said absently. “Maigraith was terribly damaged as a child. She learned early on that nothing she did would ever be good enough.”

  “Why not?”

  “The Faellem and the Charon were deadly enemies, and Faelamor, who brought Maigraith up, hated and feared Maigraith’s Charon side.”

  “Then why did Faelamor use her?”

  “Because Maigraith could do something that no one else could. But, because she could never escape the pain inside her, she denied her feelings. Perhaps that’s why, when she recognised her soulmate in Rulke, Maigraith fell so hard for him.”

  “Is Daddy your soulmate?” Sulien said sleepily.

  “In… a very different way.”

  It reminded Karan how badly she had treated him. What was he doing now? Was he even alive? What if they had caught him, tried him and were knotting the noose? She choked. Sulien, who was dozing, whimpered.

  They rode on until the eastern skyline showed the faintest blush of colour. Time to find a place to hide. Ahead a series of little stony gullies ran up to a lens-shaped patch of scrub. If she were careful the hard ground would show no tracks. She roused Sulien, then dismounted and led Jergoe up the gully and into the grey-leaved trees. Brown boulders marked with white scribbly quartz veins littered the slope. It would have to do, for she could go no further.

  She found a relatively level spot near the top of the scrub in the lee of a small bluff. Karan settled Sulien there and lay on her bedroll, trying to think things through. Once she found Llian, then what?

  What if, influenced by the drumming, he had killed Wistan? No, she had to believe in him. This irony was a particularly bitter one. She refused to believe he could have killed Wistan, yet could not bring herself to trust him – if under the influence of the drumming – to protect Sulien or resist Thandiwe.

  34

  NOT AFRAID ENOUGH

  Malien’s letter was urgent and Aviel had to get it to Shand at once. His mute stable boy, Demoy, saddled her a horse, an ugly cross-eyed beast called Thistle. The lad’s expression said it all – you’ll be lucky to get a hundred yards before you break your silly neck.

  “How do I get on?” said Aviel.

  Demoy rolled his baby-blue eyes, rubbed his coarse yellow hair, making it stick out in all directions, then led Thistle to the nearest stall. She climbed the rails, trembling. Animals could smell fear a
nd she must stink of it. Demoy pointed to the reins. She took them in her left hand, extended her right leg across his back and landed in the saddle with a bone-jarring thump.

  Thistle snapped his tail, leaped from the stall and bolted out the stable door.

  “Help!” Aviel wailed.

  She clung to the reins as he careered up Shand’s drive and out onto the potholed road. She was bouncing and sliding from side to side. The stable boy had not shortened the stirrups and her legs weren’t long enough to reach them. She was going to fall off and break all her bones.

  Thump, thump. With every stride her bottom struck the hard saddle and the motion was chafing skin off the insides of her thighs. At the crossroads she needed to go left, towards the north. She hauled on the left rein and to her surprise Thistle went that way.

  Her slight weight meant nothing to the big horse and an hour later he was still cantering, uphill and down, now through a scrubby forest. Her bottom was one massive bruise. He hurtled around a corner and ahead she saw half a dozen refugees, fleeing west from Snoat’s war on Iagador. Their belongings were piled high in a cart and they were staring at their carthorse, which lay dead on the road.

  A tall young man jumped out in front of Thistle, waving a knobbly stick. Aviel let out an involuntary cry. He wanted her horse and looked desperate enough to kill for it.

  “Thistle, run!”

  Thistle leaped straight at the young man, who swung the stick at her head. Aviel ducked and it struck Thistle on the back. He shrieked and kicked out. The young man dived out of the way, cursing her. Thistle raced on.

  “Not that way!” cried Aviel as he headed right at an intersection. “Straight ahead!”

  Thistle turned right. At the next crossroads she managed to turn him left, then left again, then right. She checked her sketch map, making sure she was back on the right road – the one Shand would take on the way home from Gothryme. She must not miss him.

  Thistle was splashing along a muddy track snaking across a steep forested slope when she heard a drumming sound. He whinnied and reared up on his back legs. She slid backwards off the saddle, over his rump, landed on her bruised bottom on a wet slope and skidded down it.