by Ian Irvine
The boy lay still and the camp site looked just as it had when Nish left it. He was about to move when Rurr-shyve gave an extra-loud snort, waking the boy, who jerked upright and looked around wildly. His hat fell off, revealing long black hair plaited and coiled on top of his head. Nish didn’t think anything of that, for it wasn’t uncommon for men to wear their hair long, and he’d occasionally seen warriors plait it and tie it up before battle.
The boy rubbed his chest, grimaced and looked furtively around the camp site. What was he up to? Not seeing Nish, he unfastened his shirt and began to pick at a cloth knotted around his chest. The knots were tight and it took a minute or two to untie them. He drew out a long strip of linen, sighed in relief and rubbed his chest again, though not in the way a boy would. Definitely not.
For Nish had glimpsed, unmistakeable even from this distance, two pale, plump breasts. Maelys was a girl, of course. And thinking about the hair, the voice, the way she’d moved, he wondered how he could ever have thought otherwise, even in the dark. Not a young girl either. No child could have had the presence of mind to do all she’d done.
Nish couldn’t help himself, for he hadn’t seen a woman in ten years. He just stood there, staring like a yokel, instantly and painfully aroused. Then Maelys looked up and saw him.
She cried out, whipped her shirt closed and flushed a brilliant, glowing red. He turned away at once, thinking that it made her even more of an enigma. Definitely not an experienced young woman. His beautiful Irisis had once gone into battle with her breasts bared like a warrior queen of legend, but there had been no woman in the world like Irisis …
That wasn’t a thought he wanted to pursue. Nish came out from behind the tree, bowed his head and said thickly, ‘I’m really sorry, I thought you were a boy … I should have called out.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she lied, going even redder, if that were possible. She didn’t look at him, just kept staring at the ground. ‘How could you have known?’
He came across slowly, reassessing her. An unusually modest young woman, even for these prudish times, and once again he wondered what she was doing here. She looked too fresh and innocent to survive alone in the harsh world. It must have been sheer luck that she’d killed the rider. She’d shown resourcefulness during their escape, but if Jal-Nish’s troops caught her she’d be broken so thoroughly that she would never recover. He couldn’t have that on his conscience. She had to be sent home to her family.
‘Thank you for all you did last night,’ he said. ‘I would not have thought it possible, but now –’
She nodded stiffly. ‘I was just doing my duty.’ She managed a fleeting smile. ‘You seem better.’
‘I feel so much better.’ He rubbed his clean, spiky stubble. It didn’t feel like him at all and that was good, too. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like, not to bathe for ten years.’
She looked down again, the colour starting to fade. Maelys was an attractive little thing; almost pretty with that ink-black hair, flushed skin and shining eyes – but so young. And his father’s spies were nearby.
‘I saw a flappeter circling, from up there.’ Nish pointed. ‘They’re looking for us.’
She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Then we’re trapped.’
‘The forest goes as far as I could see. If it’s dark tonight –’
‘There’s nowhere to go!’ she cried, clenching her little fists helplessly. She told him about Cathim, Ousther and Hulipont.
‘Who’s Ousther?’
‘I don’t know. The aunts didn’t tell me.’
Nish frowned. She wasn’t making sense. ‘What aunts? You’d better start from the beginning – from the pretty little girl who got me out.’
Maelys looked hurt, as if he’d implied that she were plain, though she hastily concealed it. She explained, and as the story came out – the crushing of an ancient clan, the women struggling for survival in the one room left to them, the aunts who refused to bend to the tyrant, Fyllis’s unusual talent – the knot in the pit of Nish’s stomach tightened.
‘I don’t understand what your clan’s downfall has to do with me.’
On the pinnacle he’d foolishly succumbed to the hope of an ordinary life beyond his father’s reach. Maelys’s tale shattered that hope. There was no great conspiracy against Jal-Nish; no powerful enemy preparing to take him on. Nish remembered the aunts now; Fyllis had mentioned them. He was trapped in a farce constructed by three mad old women. He bit down on hysterical laughter.
‘Because you’ve got to become the Deliverer,’ she said, as if that were obvious.
‘The Deliverer?’ The knot tightened painfully. ‘What’s that?’
Maelys gave him an odd look. ‘Before you went to prison, you vowed to return and save the world from your father.’ With eyes shining, she quoted his ringing declaration back at him, word for word and with exactly the emphasis he’d used when he’d spoken it after Irisis’s death. It took him right back to that awful day, the worst of his life, and Nish couldn’t bear it. He screwed up his eyes, trying to block out the sound of her voice, desperate to escape the memories.
Maelys stopped abruptly. When Nish opened his eyes she said simply, ‘All Santhenar has been waiting for this day. Everyone remembers your promise, and we’ve all been praying that you would escape from prison and save us from the God-Emperor. You’ve got to become the Deliverer. You’re the only hope left in the world.’
She was looking at him with such wide-eyed, innocent trust that he wanted to throw up. His father couldn’t be beaten and it would destroy him to try; that’s why he’d decided, back in Mazurhize, that there was no choice but to repudiate his promise. How dare she! He had to put the past behind him.
‘Then the world has no hope at all,’ he said, despising himself for the oath-breaker and coward that he was, ‘for I can’t do it.’
NINE
Maelys, watching Nish stumble into the forest, picked sightlessly at her binding cloth. It had never occurred to her that he would break his word. What could the matter be? She carefully avoided the thought that he was a coward, or that the stories about his heroism in the war had been made up. Who was she, an inexperienced girl whose only knowledge of the world came from books, to judge such a great man?
He’d been through too much, and must also be suffering from the brainstorm and the disruption. She should not have pressured him. If they escaped she would nurse him back to health, and only then remind him of his duty. Yes, that was the best way. He must become the Deliverer; no one else could. But the doubt had been raised and, try as she might, Maelys could not quite banish it.
The aunts wouldn’t want her to become pregnant to a coward and oath-breaker, surely? Or would they? If the God-Emperor took Nish back, the baby would be his only grandchild and would save Clan Nifferlin. That was the only thing that mattered to the aunts.
She sank down among the ferns, head in hands. Everything was so difficult. She had no idea how to bring Nish out of his dismal withdrawal. She didn’t know much about men, for the men and youths of her clan had all been killed or driven away when she was still a girl.
For the past two years there had only been her mother, the aunts and Fyllis, and the aunts never stopped talking about the follies of their dead husbands, or pointing out the superiority of women in all important matters. The bitterness helped to mask the pain of all they’d lost, but it didn’t assist Maelys in understanding what was the matter with Nish. She was so used to being blamed when things went wrong that she felt sure it was her fault. She had to discover what really ailed him, then help him to recover. He had to do his duty and so did she.
Later Maelys took off Rurr-shyve’s splint, applied salve to the broken skin and re-fastened the sheath carefully so as to better support the injury, yet cause as little pain as possible. That night they took to the air again, flying at treetop height across the forest, and though they saw flappeters high up, silhouetted against the moonlit sky, Rurr-shyve was not seen against the d
ark canopy.
After that it was overcast for days and she had to fly in daytime, for night flying in these rugged mountains became too dangerous. There had been no sign of pursuit for the past three days, nor any evidence of human habitation. All Maelys had seen were the towering mountains on either side and the forested valley winding between them. However, Rurr-shyve was, for the time being, compliant.
Flying hadn’t become any easier, though. It was always exhausting, and she never got over her urge to scream whenever the amulet unfolded its legs and began to creep about inside her shirt. She couldn’t keep it anywhere else, though, for unless it was touching her skin or in her fist, she couldn’t control Rurr-shyve.
As the sun was setting, in the distance Maelys made out a long clearing and a pattern of cultivated fields on either side of a river, then a large village set on a heart-shaped rise partly enclosed by a meander. She turned away at once, flying low and close to the dark mountain slope, and brought Rurr-shyve down between a series of rock spires where a luxuriance of ferns and moss offered good grazing, plus shelter from the cold wind.
The village couldn’t be seen from here but she guessed it was half a league away. An hour’s walk, in the dark, as long as the country wasn’t too rough. She mentally traced a route to it, down the ridge then through the forest to the edge of the clearing.
They set up camp in silence, after which Nish began to pace around in a ragged circle, head down. He did it every night and it was driving her mad.
‘Is something the matter, Nish?’
‘I need to think things through.’
He said that every night as well, though she couldn’t imagine there was anything left to think about, after all his years in prison. It was time for action, surely, but Nish appeared to be recycling the same despairing thoughts over and over. She had to shake him out of it.
‘We should go down to the village and ask for help.’
‘What help can they give us?’ he said dully. ‘My father’s reach extends across the known world.’
‘So his servants say, but we’re a long way from Mazurhize now and maybe he hasn’t bothered with such a remote village as this.’
‘No detail, however small, escapes my father’s eye.’
‘We’ve got to do something, Nish! We can’t run forever …’ Maelys didn’t go on, sure he’d think she was criticising him. But the time was rushing by. It was almost winter now. Her family would have to come out of hiding at winter’s end, if not sooner, and once they did, Jal-Nish must find them. She had to convince Nish to become the Deliverer long before that, to gather a protective host of followers around him and begin the uprising. To strike before his father expected it, then use Nish’s reputation to raise the world against the God-Emperor.
It sounded easy, when she put it that way, but it wouldn’t be. Jal-Nish had spies everywhere, and many people would be prepared to betray the fledgling revolution out of fear or greed. How could she know who to trust? She’d have to rely on Nish’s experience and good judgement. Maelys avoided thinking too hard about that irony, but she had to begin making him into the Deliverer right away.
The fires of the village were just visible in the distance and Maelys had an idea. What if she put him in a position where he had to act? It felt sneaky and wrong, but what choice did she have?
‘I’m going to go to the village … to get fresh food.’ She coloured at the half-truth but he didn’t notice. ‘Will you come with me?’ Please, please do. She didn’t want to go by herself.
‘You go. It’s not far. I’ve got to think,’ he said abruptly, walking away.
She felt like shouting at him – it’s past time for thinking. You’ve got to do something! But she didn’t; respect was ingrained in her. Besides, they did need fresh food, if any was available, though Maelys wasn’t hopeful at this time of year.
Ducking out of sight, she dressed in her boy’s clothes, bound her breasts as flat as they would go – not very flat – and buckled the cut-down belt, and the knife, around her waist. She took a single gold link out of her bracelet, for payment, leaving the rest of it in her pack.
Maelys pulled the chain of the taphloid over her head, feeling a mental wrench as she took it off for the first time since she’d been given it. All of a sudden she felt naked; exposed. But after all, it was useless without the crystal. She put the taphloid in her pack as well, but kept the amulet inside her shirt. She dared not leave it behind in case Rurr-shyve got it.
The flappeter stirred in its slumber, then settled down again. Nish sat on a rock, staring at the clear sky.
‘I’ll be off then,’ she said, still hoping he would come. She felt uneasy at going alone, and afraid that she’d make a fool of herself at the village, for she planned to appeal to the villagers on behalf of the Deliverer. It would go much better if he were there. Once they saw Nish, they couldn’t help supporting him.
Nish grunted but did not look around. Maelys felt a wild urge to hurl a clod of dirt at him, but suppressed it and set off down the hill. It was growing dark, though a full moon was rising and there would soon be plenty of light. Besides, she was used to walking in the dark.
It was rough going down the ridge and she had to descend parts of it backwards, clinging to the knobbly rock. After a quarter of an hour she reached the edge of the forest and here the walking was easier, between tall, widely spaced trees with just an understorey of knee-high bracken. The moon had risen high enough that an occasional shaft slanted in through gaps in the canopy, and shortly she hit upon a narrow but well-used track probably made by small animals. It led in the general direction of the village so she followed it, trying to work out what to say when she got there.
She’d never spoken in public but Maelys was sure the words would flow when she needed them. Surely it couldn’t be that hard to appeal to the people? No village in the known world was untouched by the God-Emperor’s cruel whim, so once she told the villagers that Nish was here, and reminded them of his famous promise, they would surely flock to him.
Then Nish, fired up by their support and loyalty, would finally take on his life’s role – he wouldn’t have any choice. He’d probably be angry at first, though Maelys shied away from thinking about that. One day he’d thank her for it.
She smiled as she walked. It felt good to be doing her duty, and helped to overcome the nagging voice which kept reminding her that she’d done nothing about endearing herself to Nish. I can’t do everything at once, she rationalised. I’ve got to give Nish time. Let’s get the Defiance underway first.
Her main worry was that the villagers would have gone to bed by the time she arrived. If she had to wake them they wouldn’t be in a good mood. She walked faster. Ahead the path divided, one branch heading right, the other off to her left.
After checking the angle of the moon, Maelys took the right-hand track, climbed a long, gentle slope and on the downhill side reached the edge of the forest. Below and to the left she saw lights in the distance. A large blaze looked like a bonfire; smaller ones scattered around it would be lanterns. The villagers must be celebrating a festival or a wedding. She couldn’t believe her good fortune.
Slanting across the cropped grass, she hit upon a beaten path and followed it until she reached the edge of the village, a broad, straggling circle of two-storey houses and simple huts. The bonfire blazed in the centre and she could hear singing and clapping; a large group of people were dancing while others carried blazing torches on poles.
Maelys moved between two huts and stood in the shadows, watching the revelry and wondering how best to approach them. About thirty pairs of young men and women were dancing in an oval around the bonfire, while a smaller circle of girls skipped to a tune played on bone flutes beyond the fire, and a straggle of boys were clapping away to her left. A throng of adults, perhaps a hundred strong, stood to the back, clapping and chanting.
She couldn’t see either a wisp-watcher or loop-listener, which made her feel better – clearly Jal-Nish didn’t h
ave them in every village in the world. Should she wait until the dancing stopped before making her appeal? No, if she were discovered they might think she was a spy. Maelys began to feel anxious and, knowing it wouldn’t help, took a deep breath, stepped out into the lighted circle and called, ‘Hello.’
The chanting and clapping broke off; the dancers froze in position and everyone stared at her. There was not a welcoming face among them and suddenly the words she’d been rehearsing slid out of her mind.
A tall, stringy old man limped out of the throng. He was clad in homespun pants and baggy, dun-coloured shirt, and wore a long sheepskin coat with the wool on the inside, fastened with thongs, plus a cap made from animal fur with a long grey tail wrapped around his neck like a scarf. His weathered skin was seamed and he had but five or six yellow teeth.
‘What are you doing here, boy?’ the headman said in a deep, throaty voice, as if suffering a bad cold. He stooped to squint at Maelys. ‘What is your clan?’
‘I – I –’ She couldn’t think what to say. She looked from face to face, desperate for inspiration, but found no interest, kindness or tolerance – just dumb hostility that she’d interrupted their celebration.
The old man clenched gnarled fists. ‘Your Histories, boy!’ The crowd were slowly moving forwards.
Just say what you’ve come for! Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye, but raised her voice to speak to them all. ‘I am the emissary of Cryl-Nish Hlar, Nish, the son of the God-Emperor, and he speaks to you all.’
As she paused, there came an audible intake of breath from the adults. The old man took a hasty step backwards. One of the smaller children screamed and others began to cry. Perhaps mentioning the God-Emperor’s name had been a mistake. Maelys hastily went on.
‘Nish,’ she repeated loudly. ‘The great hero of the war against the lyrinx, and the bitter enemy of his father, who imprisoned him for ten years.’ They stared at her, blank-faced. ‘Enemy’ hadn’t done her any good either. Why hadn’t she thought her speech through on the way and rehearsed it in the forest? She struggled on. ‘Nish, who promised to return and become the Deliverer.’
