by Ian Irvine
Karan’s knees were wobbly; she was too old for this. She staggered across and shook his hand. “Thank you for rescuing Llian. And for all you’ve done for him.”
“No more than he did for me,” Wilm said simply.
Karan wondered at that but did not ask. “Did you find Aviel?”
“I think Unick has her trapped below. At the… summon stone.”
“We’d better do something about it.”
She surveyed the yard with its litter of bodies. Ussarine was uninjured. Shand was pressing a rag against his backside and grimacing.
Finally she turned to Llian, who had put on his pack and was watching her anxiously. There was blood on his face and purpling bruises where Unick had encircled his throat with those great hands, almost finishing him. He looked exhausted, and a little afraid.
Karan noticed a familiar ring on his little finger. “That’s Maigraith’s ring! Where did you get it?”
“It was in the dirt, just over there.” He pointed. “Come here.”
Karan hesitated for a second. But against all expectations he was alive, and safe, and she knew he had done his best. And he had done what he’d set out to do – found the summon stone for them. She took a flying leap into his arms. He caught her, staggering backwards, and held her tightly.
Then Llian’s left hand went around her neck and Maigraith’s enchanted ring, which had once belonged to Rulke, touched Fiachra’s chain, which had been made by Rulke’s enemy Shuthdar. The ring lit with an eerie yellow radiance, and Karan felt something wake in it.
The whole of Carcharon answered, echoing the same yellow radiance. It waved up from every stone, every twisted metal fragment of the ruined roof, and every one of those weird projections in the outside walls.
The drumming returned, louder yet deeper than ever.
There came a cry of agony from the depths.
Then a gate opened in front of Karan and Llian – an oval, shimmering tunnel – and humid air gushed out of it, instantly condensing to fog. The tunnel contracted then expanded again, sucking the air in. It lifted Llian off his feet and tumbled him backwards, his arms still wrapped around Karan, into the gate. She felt a blow to the belly, like being struck with a fast-moving ball, and clung to him more tightly.
Llian went “Oof!”
Then they hurtled into darkness.
73
IT WAS WORTH THE SACRIFICE
As Wilm stared into the whirling gate, every hair on his head and body stood up. It was awe-inspiring yet terrifying. He could feel the power all around him; the hilt of the black sword was crackling and sparks kept jumping from it to the copper sheath.
His unease was mirrored on Ussarine’s face. Shand was looking into the gate too, his jaw knotted. Wilm, who had read every part of the Tale of the Mirror that featured Shand, knew that he had not only passed through gates, he had actually created at least one. So why was he looking so anxious?
“My ring!” a woman screamed, and staggered out of the ruins.
Thin almost to gauntness, she looked as though she had lost a lot of weight in a short time. Wilm saw shoulder-length brown hair, matted and tangled, and a long face that might have been attractive once. Tears streaked her cheeks – tears of desperation, swiftly turning to fury. She stumbled towards the gate, reaching out with one thin arm.
“Maigraith?” cried Shand. He limped towards her, his arms outstretched. “Maigraith, stop!”
She ran past him as if he wasn’t there and leaped into the gate. It flared bright, cleared inside, and Wilm saw a dark alien city – tall towers, gigantic, barely supported domes, sweeping arches and sinuous aerial stairways – at the end of a long tunnel. Maigraith turned, her gaze passing over Wilm, Ussarine and even Shand with seeming indifference, then shook her fist over her head and the gate winked out of existence.
The yellow radiance streaming up from every part of Carcharon vanished, and the drumming cut off.
“This is bad,” said Shand. “This is very bad.”
“What was that place?” whispered Wilm.
“Alcifer! Rulke’s abandoned city.”
“Will Karan and Llian be all right there?”
“Not with Maigraith hunting them.”
“What are you going to do?”
Shand let out a bray of mirthless laughter. “Alcifer is two hundred and fifty miles south of here – a fortnight’s ride.”
“Are you going to reopen the gate? I’ve read that you’ve made gates before.”
“You read too damn much for my liking. Go away and let me think.”
“What about?” Wilm persisted.
“Destroying the stone. And saving Aviel – if she’s still alive.” Shand walked away.
It was a brutal reminder of why he was here. Wilm had to sit down before his knees gave under him. “Aviel,” he said softly. “Aviel!”
Ussarine laid a hand on his shoulder. “You did well, Wilm. Who taught you how to use a sword?”
“I taught myself. From some notes Llian gave me.” He looked at the four bodies. Snow was already an inch deep on them.
“Must’ve been good notes. Come inside.”
He was following her to the door when Shand said, “Wilm?”
Shand was bent over something lying on the floor of the yard. Wilm went across. It was the separated brass tubes and crystals of Unick’s Identity device.
“What’s this doing here?”
Wilm explained about the earlier fight, when they had been attacked by Rasper and Unick. “It came out of Unick’s pack and fell apart.”
“I wonder if it can be put together again?” Shand gathered the pieces and stowed them in his pack.
“Shand, there was a message! From Mendark!”
“What?” said Shand in astonishment.
Wilm showed him what Llian had found. Shand studied the scratches on the stone, frowning.
“There was another device,” Wilm said.
“What?” Shand said sharply.
“The one he murdered… murdered Dajaes with. Llian called it the Command device, but the assassin who got away took it.”
Shand cursed. “He’ll be taking it to Snoat.”
Wilm was uncomfortably aware of the Origin device in his own pack. He should give it to Shand. He might be able to do something with it, while Wilm almost certainly could not. Yet something made him hold back – a tiny hope that he might be able to find Aviel with it.
They went inside. “First, find a place we can defend,” said Shand. “Then a fire and food.”
“What about Aviel?” said Wilm.
“If Unick’s found the stone, he doesn’t need her any more. It’s hard to imagine she’s still alive.”
“I’m sure she was when I started to go down earlier.” Wilm explained about the scent trail.
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. I didn’t go all the way down. I… I panicked and ran.”
“What you did outside proves your courage,” said Ussarine.
“But I came here to save Aviel,” said Wilm.
“We’ve got to destroy the stone,” said Shand. “But how can we, if it’s dangerous to use mancery near it?”
Shand could be a hard man, and if it came to a choice he would probably put destroying the stone ahead of saving Aviel. Wilm was glad he’d kept the Origin device secret. She came before everything else.
“What about blasting powder?” said Wilm.
“It’d take barrels of the stuff to do the job, and I’d have to go to Radomin to get it, then hire porters to carry it up. That’d take at least a week and we can’t afford the time – or to leave Unick to his devices all that time.”
“We’ve got to deal with him first,” said Ussarine.
They went down the way Wilm had before, and though Shand and Ussarine were with him he did not feel much better. The air seemed thicker and fouler, the darkness darker; it felt as though it was congealing around him. The only positive was the occasional waft of one of Aviel’s scents. Sh
e had to be alive, she just had to.
They reached a shaft with a downward-spiralling step-stair. Shand peered down and blanched.
Ussarine, beside him, said, “Not without a rope.”
“I didn’t bring one,” said Shand. “A blunder, in the circumstances.”
It took a long time to find another way down, into deep caverns where the rock had been eaten away in smooth curves. The air was warm down here and getting warmer the further they went.
“We’re below the part that Basunez built,” said Shand. “This could be a thousand years old… or ten thousand.”
“Perhaps it’s why he came here in the first place,” said Ussarine.
They continued along downward-winding passages like gigantic grub holes. Wilm’s feeling of being stifled and his claustrophobia grew until he was close to panic. A scream was building up in him, and the only thing stopping him from bolting was that he was utterly lost.
“Getting close,” said Shand.
“How can you tell?” gasped Wilm.
“I can feel the power. Stay behind me. You too, Ussarine. This is mancer’s work.”
“Didn’t Malien warn you to not use mancery near the stone?” said Wilm.
“I don’t see that I have any choice,” said Shand. “If I don’t, Unick will.”
“What’s the plan?” said Ussarine.
“Kill Unick. Find Aviel, in the unlikely event that she’s still alive, and get her out. Destroy the stone and run for our miserable lives.”
They turned a corner and an elongated cavern opened up in front of them.
“And there it is,” said Shand, exhaling in a rush. “How the hell am I supposed to destroy that?”
The trilithon was an ominous glowing red. Everything in the cavern was red, even the shadows.
Unick stepped out from behind the trilithon. His hands were empty and he was smiling.
“What’s happened to your fancy devices?” sneered Shand.
“While I’m here, all the power in the world is at my command,” said Unick.
“Didn’t save your little finger.”
Unick’s marble-sized eyes flicked towards the summon stone. “It was worth the sacrifice.”
Wilm couldn’t take it any longer. “You bastard, where’s Aviel?”
Unick grinned, a truly horrible sight. “She had nothing left to give save her sad little life. The stone didn’t think much of it; it doesn’t like cripples. Or gutless boys like you.”
“You’re lying!” Wilm drew the black sword.
Ussarine’s hand clamped onto his shoulder, holding him back. “He’s taunting you, Wilm. His only joy comes from destroying anything good.”
Without a hint of what he was planning, Shand pointed a little green crystal at Unick. White light shot towards his eyes, but Unick threw up his four-fingered hand and red light coiled from the summon stone, reflecting Shand’s blast back at him and shattering the green crystal.
Shand cursed and wrung his scorched hand. Unick lazily pointed at Wilm, who knew he was going to die. But Ussarine knocked him aside with one hand and hurled a throwing dart with the other. It buried itself inch-deep in Unick’s breastbone.
As Wilm hit the floor, the flap of his pack came open and the Origin device went skidding across the floor. Unick extended his hand, drawing the device across the chamber to him.
“Why did you keep that from me, you imbecile?” roared Shand.
Unick scrambled backwards, the dart still in his chest. He took cover behind the stone and reached up to it as if drawing power. Ussarine dragged Wilm around the corner with one hand and Shand with the other. Unick fired blast after blast, melting the wall where they had been standing. The cavern lit up like the inside of a furnace and the sound echoed back and forth, deafeningly loud.
They ran up for fifty yards to a place where they would see him coming, and stopped.
Shand clouted Wilm over the side of the head. “Explain yourself!”
Wilm knew he’d been an utter fool. “I… I thought it might help me find Aviel.”
“You’re… not… a… mancer,” Shand ground out. “You don’t have the gift.”
“No.” Wilm could not look Shand in the eye.
“And even if you were, Malien said not to use mancery near the summon stone.”
“You used it.”
“Only after weighing the risks,” Shand said with menacing softness. “And I do have several hundred years of experience in the art. Aarrgh! Get out of my sight!”
Wilm crept away to where it was darkest and hunched down.
“It’s hopeless,” said Shand to Ussarine. “The stone is greatly enhancing Unick’s mancery, giving him the power to defend it. With the Origin device I might have drawn enough power to do something about him. But now…” He gave Wilm a look that would have frozen molten lava.
“Is it feeding off Unick?” said Ussarine.
“I think so, but he’s bonded with it too. It’s corrupted him, the way the drumming corrupts susceptible folk, but it’s also made him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Before Unick used his Origin device he was just a brilliant but unpleasant mancer, going nowhere,” said Shand. “But the moment he drew on the power of the stone with the Origin device, back in Pem-Y-Rum, the drumming released all the inner restraints holding him back. Unick was willing to do whatever it took to reach the stone, and now he has.”
“Is it a thinking device?”
“I doubt it,” said Shand. “From what Karan said, it’s being directed by Gergrig or the magiz. Or both. A pity Karan’s gone, or I’d get her to go to Cinnabar again.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”
“Not as dangerous as the Merdrun invading,” Shand said carelessly. “Let’s go up.”
Wilm’s eyes narrowed. This was a harder Shand than the man he had come to know over the past few years. Was the stone working on him too, warping him so he took no account of all the little people who would be hurt on the way?
“What about Aviel?” said Wilm.
“You heard Unick,” snapped Shand. “She’s dead!”
“I don’t believe him.”
“He glories in killing. He sacrificed her to the stone.”
“If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I took you for,” Wilm said furiously.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” snarled Shand.
“Someone who cares about people, not power! If you’re going to abandon Aviel on the word of that madman, why did you come all this way?”
“Shand, Wilm,” said Ussarine placatingly. “Can’t you see it’s the stone working on you?”
“I came here because Malien told me to destroy the summon stone,” Shand said coldly to Wilm. “But if we’re to beat Snoat we need all the power we can get.”
“You’ve got it arse about,” said Wilm. “If we destroy it, the Merdrun won’t be able to get through. That’s a far better outcome than letting them through and going to war against them.”
“How the hell would you know?” Shand cried, apoplectic with fury. “You’re a seventeen-year-old kid whose life experience consists of labouring jobs in the back end of nowhere.”
“And you’re a bloody old fool who can’t see that he’s being corrupted by the very thing that he thinks he can control.”
The temperature in the passage dropped twenty degrees. Wilm knew he had gone way too far but it was too late to take the words back.
“Is that so?” Shand said nastily. “Then you can clear out because you’re not welcome in my camp. Come on, Ussarine. The little shit can find his own way out.”
Shand headed back the way they had come. Ussarine made hand signals to Wilm. They weren’t hard to interpret. Follow us but not too closely. I’ll see what I can do to change his mind. In the meantime, keep your bloody gob shut.
Despite his pounding heart and overwhelming feelings of claustrophobia, Wilm did not follow, for he had caught another whiff of scent – frees
ia – which could only have been left here by Aviel, and recently. To leave now would be to abandon her.
He loosened the black blade in its sheath and, in what was undoubtedly the bravest yet most reckless moment of his life, forced his claustrophobia beneath the surface and headed down to the summon stone cavern. He was almost there when he recalled Llian saying that his sword could be enchanted. Do not use mancery near it, Malien had said. Did that include taking enchanted objects near it?
Wilm dared not take the risk. He took off his sword and sheath, laid them beside the wall in the thickest darkness, then went the rest of the way on hands and knees, and peered in. The cavern was empty and the stench of Unick was so faint that he must have been gone for some time.
Dare he search the cavern? If the stone could sense his presence, it would call Unick and, unarmed, Wilm would be doomed. But if he left, he did not think he would ever find the courage to return.
There was no sound save a breathy whisper of circulating air. He supposed the warm air from the cavern would follow the rising passages and icy air would flow in from outside to replace it. He crept around the cavern and behind the stone. It looked the same from behind. He went up the other end and checked the lobes one by one. The first one smelled only of warm rock. Wilm was losing hope. He looked over into the second, which bulged down for about twelve feet. The light was poorer down there and he had to wait for his eyes to adjust. It was empty too.
Then he caught it – the faint but unmistakeable tang of citrus and daphne. It wasn’t one of the blends he associated with Aviel’s workshop, but rather the scent she wore herself. And it would not last long in such a warm place. She had been here recently. She could still be alive. No, she must be alive!
Why hadn’t Unick killed her? Wilm could only think of one reason. He was saving her for some terrible purpose to do with the summon stone.
Perhaps to feed it.
74
IT BEGGARS BELIEF
At the bottom of her deep prison hole, over the rise and fall of the drumming, Aviel heard people shouting some distance away: Unick, followed by a deep female voice she did not know, then a broad voice she knew very well. Shand! Hope surged; she might survive after all. But how could old Shand hope to deal with Unick, a huge brute of a man with all the power of the summon stone behind him?
