by Ian Irvine
He put up his own fists, though he had never won a fight in his life. Unick sprang ten feet, landed in front of Llian and swung at him with terrible force. Llian ducked late and the blow clipped him on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground. He lay there, stunned, seeing the threat but unable to move.
“Ifoli!” said Snoat.
Unick leapt, intending to land with all his weight on Llian’s head. This would have killed him had Ifoli not leapt into Unick’s path like a ballet dancer, swinging the Oolian vase by its rim. She slammed it into Unick’s face and it shattered, driving him backwards. Llian crawled the other way, then the tetrad had hold of Unick again.
For a moment he was silent, dazed by the blow, which had broken his nose and cut his face in a dozen places. Ifoli stood there, her breast heaving, staring at the fragments.
Snoat scowled. “For pity’s sake, Ifoli, close your mouth. You look like a yokel.” She did so, and he smiled. “You saved the life of one of my most precious possessions and I won’t forget it.”
“But… the vase was the last in existence,” said Ifoli.
“It was one of a set. Better none at all than an incomplete set.”
Another insight into the character of the man. Llian liked Snoat less every second, and feared him more.
Snoat addressed the tetrad. “You will beat Unick to a pulp and lock him in his workshop. Then you will beat each other to a pulp for so failing me.”
The tetrad battered Unick with ruthless efficiency, sickening to watch. Such a beating would have killed Llian, but Unick, an experienced brawler, had an astonishing ability to absorb punishment. He did not look at his attackers or try to resist them. His bloody eyes stayed fixed on Llian the whole time.
Finally he slumped into unconsciousness and the tetrad dragged him out. Servants came in, barefoot so they would make no noise, to clean up the blood and the shattered porcelain.
“It doesn’t do to let me down,” Snoat observed.
Llian squirmed.
A messenger appeared at the door. Ifoli spoke to him for half a minute. “Ill news, Cumulus. Will you hear it now?” She looked meaningfully at Llian.
“I will,” said Snoat.
“Ragred caught up with Karan some miles east of Chanthed but failed to get her chain, and now he’s dead. A Whelm killed him.”
“A Whelm?” cried Snoat, vexed. “What name?”
“We don’t know. Karan gave her daughter into the Whelm’s safe custody.”
“Why would she give Sulien to them?” cried Llian. He appreciated all Idlis and Yetchah had done for Karan but did not share her faith in them. “Where are they taking her? Is she all right? Where is Karan now?”
Snoat raised an eyebrow at Ifoli.
“The messenger did not know where they were taking Sulien, chronicler,” she said to Llian, “but Karan was heading to Chanthed.”
Snoat looked Llian up and down. “Escort Llian to his room. He’s got a lot to think about.”
The night that followed was one of the worst of Llian’s life. Possibly, the worst. What a fool he had been, voting against Thandiwe. Karan must have heard that he had been accused of murder and had come after him, and then she had been attacked. He could only imagine what she and Sulien had gone through before Ragred was killed.
But why had she sent Sulien away with the Whelm? She had been afraid of them since Idlis lurched up the path to Gothryme when she was a toddler. She had screamed herself hoarse.
It did not make sense, for she came first, always. Llian could only think of one reason why Karan would send her away. The magiz must have got to her, and she believed that Sulien was safer with the Whelm than with herself.
It must be Karan’s worst nightmare. It was certainly Llian’s.
49
CONTROLLING THE SOURCE
Llian was at the window of the salon when a six-horse carriage drew up outside, just on dark. Snoat got in, accompanied by Ifoli, and the coach drew away. It was followed by his mounted escort, the tetrad, their muscles straining their purple and yellow uniforms to bursting point.
Llian knew where Snoat was going because he had gloated about it – to the same place he had gone last night and the night before. He kept returning to the private library of the College of the Histories, to sigh and drool over the manuscripts of the other twenty-two Great Tales.
Snoat could not touch them, for they were protected by an enchantment of such potency that not even the demolition of the library would have released them. But he was determined to have the tales, and Unick was working on a means to break the enchantment. Llian had no idea if it was a task for a week or a decade, though, judging by Snoat’s demeanour, it was going well.
Unick, however, looked worse every time Llian saw him. The drumming was corrupting him by the hour, which suggested that the summon stone was the source of the power he had found, and that his newly completed Origin device was linked to it. Dare Llian sneak into the workshop to find out? The best part of a month had passed since Sulien’s nightmare about the Merdrun, and his thwarted quest to find the stone grew more urgent by the hour.
Unick would be drunk by now – he always was by dinnertime – though drunk could mean more dangerous, not less. But Llian had to try. If he could locate the stone and get a message to Shand or Tallia, they could go after it. It would begin to make up for all the damage he had done since arriving in Chanthed.
Unick’s workshop was at the back of the South Wing, below ground, in a part of the villa that was little used as it was close to the river and had a problem with damp. The door was not locked, and the smell of him was muted, as if he had not been there in hours. Even so, Llian hesitated. If he was caught snooping, Unick might well kill him.
It had to be done. He entered a large pentagonal room containing a labyrinth of tables and benches, haphazardly arranged. Half of the benches were covered in clockwork mechanisms and other mechanical devices in various stages of disassembly.
The others held a variety of alchemical equipment, all as filthy as Unick himself. The contents of one distillation flask had congealed to a festering brown sludge covered with blue and red mould. A zinc-covered bench was corroded through to the timber, while pits in the metal were coated with fantastic growths of white and yellow crystals.
The stench became gaggingly strong, then the door slammed. Llian whirled. Unick stood there, holding a flask in each hand and rocking like a dinghy in a heavy sea. He was clad in the same stained trousers he’d been wearing during his attack on Llian the other day. His bare chest and belly were covered in a thicket of wiry hair, the hair of his armpits was six inches long and clotted into rat-tails, and his feet were filthy.
“Looking for another Great Tale, chronicler?” sneered Unick. “Stick around and I’ll write it with your broken bones.”
The bruises from his beating had faded, though his bloated face was as purple as ever, as if he was only seconds away from apoplexy. Llian prayed it would take the brute sooner rather than later.
He edged along the benches, always keeping one between him and Unick.
“If you want to know what I’m up to,” Unick said conversationally, “all you have to do is ask.”
He seemed in a rare good humour tonight and Llian wondered why. “Why would you tell me?”
“Snoat doesn’t want anyone to know, and I hate him even more than I hate you.”
Unick upended one flask into his mouth, drained it and tossed it into a pile of rubbish in the corner. He wrenched the bung out of the other one.
“All right,” said Llian, suspecting a trick. “I’m asking. Have you found the source?”
If the source was the summon stone, which was corrupting people to gain enough power to let the Merdrun through, how could it ever be used safely? Was that why Unick was decaying so rapidly?
“Snoat wants the Command device to break the college’s protection and steal the twenty-two Great Tales,” Llian added. “How far have you got?”
“I built the
Origin device in less than a day,” Unick boasted, “then tapped the source for the very first time.”
And it had corrupted him. Ifoli was right – this secret was too dangerous to use.
“Snoat has ordered his artisans to copy each device as soon as I finish it,” Unick added, “but they’ll fail. It’s not that simple.”
“Have you made the other two devices?”
“Very soon.”
“Can I see the Origin device?”
Unick shrugged. “I might even test it on you.”
He waded through the mess to a bench next to the mould-streaked south wall and picked up a long brass tube. It resembled a telescope but had a cluster of blue needle-shaped crystals on one end and a pair of glass lenses in the other. Silver and gold wires were wound tightly around the middle, and more crystals, red rubies and green emeralds, could be seen through the windings.
Unick gave the tubes a half-twist and the blue needles began to glow. He touched the jewels in a complicated sequence, raised the device and put his eye to the lenses, and swung the tube from left to right.
The drumming swelled and Llian felt a mad urge to attack Unick. Though it would have been suicidal, it took all his strength to beat the compulsion.
Unick’s tiny eyes were darting now, his fists balling up. Then, in an instant, he went into a berserk rage and hurled himself at Llian, who leaped back, crashed into a bench and dodged behind it, trying to get to the door.
The Origin device jerked so wildly that Unick lost his grip on it. It went flying through the air; he dived after it but it bounced off a bench and the cluster of blue crystals fell out. The drumming stopped instantly.
Unick pulled himself to his feet, rubbing a bruise on his forehead. He turned slowly and for a second Llian heard the drumming again, though this time it seemed to be thumping inside Unick’s head. His eyes bulging, he sprang onto a bench, then to the next one and launched himself at Llian.
He gave in to the call of the drumming, using it to defend himself. The closest object was a two-foot-high glass still. Its cooling jacket was full of water and it was very heavy. He grabbed it and smashed it down on Unick’s head, scattering glass and water everywhere and knocking him to the floor. Unick should have been unconscious but he was tearing his fingernails on the floorboards as he clawed his way towards Llian.
He bolted.
“What the hell have you done now?”
Thandiwe was shaking Llian by the shoulder. As he sat up she gave him a last furious shake, banging his head on the head of the bed.
“What do you want?” he muttered. It was just getting light outside.
“Why has Snoat stopped questioning you? I haven’t got nearly enough for Mendark’s Tale.”
Llian took a malicious pleasure in enlightening her. “He doesn’t give a damn about it. The tale was just bait to get me here.”
“What an ego you’ve got! Why on earth would he want a failed chronicler and murderer, anyway?”
“He framed me! And you know it.”
“Answer the bloody question!”
Llian told her about Snoat’s plan to make the three devices, and what Unick had done so far.
“So it’s all been for nothing,” she said bitterly. “No! I’ve got to have the tale, or I’m ruined.”
“Right now we’ve got more important things to worry about.”
“Like what?”
“Once Unick completes the Identity and Command devices, Snoat will get rid of us. We know too much.”
Thandiwe’s full lips moved but no sound emerged. She scrubbed her mouth with the back of her hand. “But—”
“Surely you thought about that before you approached him?”
“Why would he hurt me? I’m—”
“Beautiful?” said Llian without sarcasm. “Clever? A great chronicler?”
“I don’t believe he would just… kill me. For nothing.”
“Believe it!”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Make yourself useful to him.”
“You mean sleep with him?” said Thandiwe.
“I’m not sure you’re his type.”
“You mean I’m too old! You’re a cruel bastard, Llian.”
“I didn’t mean that at all. Besides, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“I said he’d get rid of us. We’re in this together, and you put us here, but your only thought has been about how I can help you.”
“I didn’t have my college fees and stipend paid for by one of the most powerful people of all. Everything I’ve gained in life, I’ve had to work for.”
“And there was nothing you wouldn’t do to get it.”
She slapped him, a stinging blow that knocked his head sideways. “You slimy hypocrite! How dare you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“A great chronicler you may be, Llian, but you are not a worthy master,” she quoted in a passable imitation of Wistan’s voice from the never-to-be-forgotten night when he had banned Llian. “Your tale proves your dishonour.”
“I’m sorry,” he said after a mortifying minute of self-analysis. “I’ve no right to point the finger at anyone.”
She sat beside him, a trifle mollified. “What are we going to do?”
“Sell him on Mendark’s Tale.”
“I tried that already.”
“No, really sell it. He’s a rapacious collector, remember? The moment he got my manuscript and realised how rare and important it was, nothing would satisfy him except owning all the Great Tales. But what then?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Collectors have to keep collecting, but once Snoat steals the other twenty-two Great Tales he’ll have the perfect collection – the originals of all the greatest tales ever written, the very core of the Histories. Nothing can ever be more valuable, except…”
“A twenty-fourth Great Tale,” Thandiwe said slowly.
“And if it also featured Snoat – as one of the great people in the Histories – his ego would drive him to have it.”
“Doesn’t necessarily mean he’d want me to write it.”
“You underestimate yourself. If anyone can sell you as the best person to tell the story, you can.”
Thandiwe stood up, her breast heaving, and walked around the room. Llian’s news had shaken her, but she was as resourceful as anyone he had ever known.
“I think I can do it,” she said.
“Unless you know you can do it, you’ll never convince him.”
“I know I can do it.” She sat beside him again. “Thank you, Llian. We… we could have been good together.” She looked at him expectantly, almost coquettishly.
He wasn’t going down that road. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, though. He could come for me at any time.”
“You’ve got a ready-made means of making yourself useful.”
“What’s that?”
“A private telling of your Great Tale.”
“What a good idea. If I drag it out I could increase my life span by days.”
50
I, A MERE COLLECTABLE
Llian was staring at a blank page of his journal when Ifoli entered his room. She wore a simple gown of emerald silk and silk slippers of the same colour. Her black hair, freshly cut, was a feathery cap around her head. In all his life he had never seen anyone so beautiful.
He rose, conscious of his own awkwardness. She bowed, then presented, on a lozenge-shaped platinum tray, a white card with silvery writing on it in a calligraphic hand even better than his own.
Llian took the card.
Lord Cumulus Snoat
and Ifoli Saquarin
request the pleasure of your company at dinner tonight,
9 p.m., in the gallery of the private library.
Llian read it again. Why would Snoat invite when he could command? Had Unick completed the three devices? Was Llian no longer needed? Was he going to be killed tonight? Nine o’cloc
k was only three hours away.
“Do you accept or decline?” said Ifoli.
“What would you advise?”
“How could I, a mere collectable, presume to advise the greatest living teller?”
It was the first hint that she was unhappy with her status here, and again he wondered where she came from and how she had come to serve Snoat.
“Currently I’m a disgraced ex-chronicler, accused of murdering the man who rightly banned me from practising my art.”
“Your achievements stand. You beat the incomparable Rulke in a telling competition. And your tale was voted a Great Tale, unanimously.”
Previously, Llian had rarely sensed any emotion in her speech, yet now he detected a hint of admiration. Why would Ifoli, the perfect servant, admire him? Because she loved books, or the Great Tales? If so, why was she helping Snoat? He studied her face, searching for a hint of what was to come. Could she remain impassive if he were to be killed tonight?
She was too good; she reflected his gaze like a mirror.
“Please tell Lord Snoat that I would be… delighted to accept.”
Ifoli bowed, then looked him up and down.
“Something the matter?” said Llian. The clothes he had been given when first brought here were respectable enough.
She seemed to be measuring him. Height a little above average, leg length average, shoulder width broad, feet large.
“Go to the bathing chamber.” She frowned, considered. “No, you will use mine. Go to the top floor and down the hall to the very end, on the right.” She handed him a small brass key. “A cutter will attend to your hair at eight. Your outfit will be ready at eight thirty-five. Lord Snoat would prefer that you be punctual.”
“Translating that,” Llian said sarcastically, “I’ll be punished for being late.”
“This dinner is exceedingly important to him. Do nothing to spoil it.”
Or else?
She went out. Llian returned to his journal but could not concentrate. Where had Snoat found such a perfect servant anyway? Her features, and the name Saquarin, hinted at the far east, the lands between Fadd and Tiksi, though it was a part of Lauralin that Llian had never visited.
