by Ian Irvine
‘Sometimes a limb must be sacrificed that the body may survive,’ said Monkshart. ‘If you truly are Cryl-Nish, you would understand that.’
‘I didn’t cut off my father’s ruined arm,’ Nish said thickly.
‘The tales say you did, after a failed attack on a lyrinx camp left him maimed.’
Nish’s right cheek spasmed. ‘The tales are wrong – I couldn’t face it. I begged Irisis to do it to save Father’s life ... one thing she never lacked was courage. She cut off the arm, sewed up Father’s face and saved the life he didn’t want, and from that moment on she was doomed.’
‘What was the name of your little sister, who died just two weeks after birth?’
Maelys saw Nish start. ‘How did you know that?’ he said hoarsely. ‘We weren’t allowed to mention her name.’
‘I was close to your father, once – until he became the God-Emperor. Answer the question, please.’
Nish took a deep breath. ‘Hisly. My baby sister’s name was Hisly and I was holding her when she died. She just stopped breathing. I was only five; I didn’t know what the matter was, and by the time I ran to Mother it was too late. Father never forgave me. I was the least favoured son ever after, the one who’d let his precious daughter die.’
‘But now, if you are his son, you’re all he’s got and he’s forgiven you. Take off your coat and shirt, and your pants.’
‘What?’ croaked Nish.
Maelys felt the blood withdraw from her stomach. Had she been wrong about Monkshart? Was he a man of depraved appetites?
‘I wish to see your scars,’ said Monkshart.
‘Why?’ said Nish.
‘Jal-Nish often talked about his youngest son, and all the heroic things he’d done in the war. He knew every scar on Nish’s body, and I remember everything he said about them.’
‘I don’t see how he could have,’ Nish said thickly.
‘The wisp-watcher outside Nish’s cell showed Jal-Nish everything he wanted to see. He’d spend hours and days with the tears, watching his son. And he questioned everyone who’d known Nish during the war. Jal-Nish was proud of his son and wanted to know every detail of his service.’
‘My father was proud of me?’ Nish said in an odd voice. ‘I’ve not had a second’s praise from him in all my life.’
‘Nonetheless, he was proud,’ said Monkshart.
Maelys felt a shiver run up her spine. Was the God-Emperor as obsessed with his son as Nish was with Irisis? If he was, it changed everything. Nish choked, then stripped off and stood before Monkshart in just his undershorts.
Maelys hadn’t seen him unclad in daylight before, though she knew the story. The starkly pale skin of his back was scored with faint mauve marks where he’d been flogged as a young man, and he had many other scars too; war wounds. He was shivering.
‘Turn,’ said Monkshart.
Nish did so. Monkshart squinted at him, his lips moving as if he were counting. From the corner of her eye Maelys saw Phrune appear in the opening. He was staring at her, and she knew what he wanted. Monkshart waved him away.
Finally, after several minutes, Monkshart nodded and said, ‘You may dress now.’
Nish dressed hastily, staring up at the zealot, then suddenly Monkshart smiled like a wolf and thrust out his hand. ‘Cryl-Nish Hlar, son of Jal-Nish, welcome to Tifferfyte.’
Nish tentatively offered his hand, which Monkshart clasped in both of his big hands and shook firmly.
‘I know why you’ve come,’ Monkshart said. ‘My fame has spread, for I’m one of the few people on Santhenar who dares defy the God-Emperor. Perhaps the only one. Tifferfyte is an enclave of the forbidden Defiance, and Jal-Nish can’t touch us, for there is a power here which not even his tears can fight. It frightens him that there’s one place where his Arts do not hold, and he dreads what could come out of it.’
‘But the steel of his soldiers’ swords bites as hard here as anywhere,’ quoted Nish.
‘Not when they can’t come near enough to use them. I’ve lain a protective halo around the mountaintop and no Art-powered device can pass through its outer boundary without my permission. No human may cross the inner boundary, which lies near where I met you, unless I allow them access. Let’s get down to business. Ten years ago you swore to deliver Santhenar from your father, Cryl-Nish, and now you have your chance. I’m going to turn you into that Deliverer.’
‘What if I no longer want to?’ Nish gave Maelys a cool sideways stare, as if to say, you’ve got what you wanted. I hope you’re happy.
‘Of course you do,’ said Monkshart.
Maelys lowered her eyes, almost fainting with relief. Beyond hope and almost by accident, she’d succeeded. Tifferfyte was the one place on Santhenar where Nish’s father couldn’t touch him, and Monkshart did have the drive and the passionate purpose to forge Nish into the Deliverer. Now if there were only a way to bring her family here, she would have done her duty. It was the only way Maelys could do it now; not even for her sister’s life could she make another seduction attempt.
‘Come to my quarters for refreshment, Deliverer,’ said Monkshart. ‘And after that, there is much to be settled before we begin the campaign.’
Nish rose. Monkshart took his arm. Maelys began to follow but the zealot stilled her with a glance. ‘Who is she?’
‘My name –’ Maelys began, but Monkshart cut her off, gesturing to Nish instead.
‘Her name is Maelys,’ said Nish. ‘She got me out of Mazurhize – at least, her sister did – and Maelys brought me all this way. I wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for her. She killed the flappeter’s rider and took control of it …’
‘Maelys who?’ said Monkshart icily.
She didn’t like the way this was heading. Clearly, he thought her a nobody to be cast aside. She knew she looked a mess, in her muddy, tattered and blood-stained boy’s clothes, with her hair hanging around her shoulders like a rat’s nest and her boots squelching as she moved. But surely, she thought naively, Monkshart is pleased that I brought Nish to him?
Nish looked embarrassed. He didn’t know her clan name, for Maelys had kept it back. The habit of secrecy was too deeply ingrained.
Monkshart turned those searing eyes on her and it was impossible not to tell him. ‘Of Clan Nifferlin,’ she said reluctantly, not expecting him to recognise the name. Though Nifferlin was an old clan and had been modestly well off before the war, it had never been a powerful or influential one. There was no reason why he should know it.
He looked up at the ceiling for a minute or two, and she gained the impression of a man searching a vast catalogue of memory for one small detail, then he focussed on her and his mouth turned down. ‘Nifferlin? Unbiddable rebels all of them. Entirely unsuitable for the Deliverer. Phrune!’
Phrune put his head out through the opening. ‘Master?’
‘Take the girl to a suitable chamber and keep her there until I call for her.’ He bent and whispered in Phrune’s ear, though loudly enough for her to hear. ‘He’s lying, trying to protect the little tart. She hasn’t got a speck of aura. She’s only out for one thing and she’s not having him.’ He turned to Nish, saying in a normal voice. ‘Come over here, lad.’
‘Nish?’ Maelys said, as Phrune took her by the arm with plump, slippery fingers. His shiny face looked as though it had been rubbed with lard. She tried to shake him off but he locked his fingers around her arm until the long, manicured nails dug in.
Nish stood his ground. ‘Maelys is my friend. I owe everything to her.’
‘Of course you do,’ Monkshart said smoothly. ‘Do you think I can’t see her qualities? But for her sake as well as the Deliverer’s, some matters are best kept private. Rest assured, Acolyte Phrune will take very good care of her. Won’t you, Phrune?’
‘Indeed, Master,’ said Phrune, bowing deeply to Monkshart, then almost as deeply to Nish. His slippery fingers slid back and forth on Maelys’s arm like the caress of an eel. ‘I’ll give her my most special attention and
take care of all her needs.’
Jerking on her arm, he hauled her through the circular opening. Maelys looked back despairingly. Monkshart was afraid Nish would form an attachment with her and be diverted from the cause, and suddenly Maelys knew that she’d never be safe here. She would have to be on her guard night and day.
If only Monkshart knew, she thought bitterly. He’s got nothing whatsoever to worry about.
NINETEEN
‘The girl is a danger to the Deliverer,’ said Monkshart after Phrune had taken Maelys away.
‘Nonsense,’ said Nish. ‘She and her family saved my life and I’m in their debt.’
‘She’s unworthy of you, Cryl-Nish. And she wants something from you.’
Nish yawned involuntarily. ‘So does everyone who believes in the Deliverer. Including you, Monkshart.’
‘I admit it. I can’t bear to see my world and my people suffering under this brutal monster – I beg your pardon, Deliverer. He is still your father.’
‘There’s no need to apologise,’ Nish said stiffly.
‘How dare he call himself “God-Emperor”!? For any man to set himself up as a god is blasphemy!’ he cried, his bark-like face dark with passion. ‘There is only one god –’
Nish stirred uneasily. Like most people on Santhenar he had little time for gods, whose dogma always seemed to reflect the mores of the societies that created them, and he was suspicious of anyone who tried to convince him otherwise. He kept silent, though. Monkshart had given him shelter, after all, and he was a powerful, dangerous man. Let’s find out what he really wanted, and if they could work together.
‘You must agree with me, Cryl-Nish?’ Monkshart’s hot eyes seemed to be trying to peer inside his skull.
‘I have no truck with emperors,’ said Nish. ‘Especially not self-declared ones. But for a man to declare himself a god is an abomination.’
Monkshart smiled thinly. If he’d noted Nish’s careful answer, he chose to overlook it. ‘And you will become the Deliverer?’
‘Until I’m satisfied that I know who you are and what you really want, I won’t commit myself to anything.’
‘Very wise. Santhenar is full of liars, cheats, charlatans and false prophets.’ Monkshart sat back in his seat. ‘Ask of me what you will.’
‘Who are you, Monkshart, and how did you come by such power?’
‘I was a mancer in the war. Not one of any great distinction, let me assure you, though I’d worked harder than most to master my craft. I was just one among many warrior-mages in your father’s army, until it was destroyed.’
‘At Gumby Marth.’
‘Quite so. We were both hurt in that battle, your father badly. He carried the tears away, and I carried him.’
‘Despite all he’d done?’
‘I wasn’t pleased to be running away but I’d sworn an oath to him and I do not break my word lightly.’
Nish gave him a thoughtful glance. ‘Yet you no longer serve him.’
Monkshart ignored that. ‘Your father and I went into hiding and I nursed him back to health, over many months and three relapses. The last nearly killed him. He lay between life and death for seven weeks and I stood by him all that time, watching over him night and day.’
‘Why didn’t you let him die?’ said Nish. ‘The world would have been better off if you had.’ To hear the words from his own mouth shocked him, despite everything his father had done since.
‘I had to remain true to my oath, for if men are foresworn the whole world must come to chaos. Besides, humanity was losing the war and I saw a strength in Jal-Nish that I’ve not seen in anyone before, or since. For all I knew, that strength might have meant the difference between survival and enslavement for humanity. I believed it did.’
‘Yet you now oppose everything he stands for, so why should I trust you? Any man who turns his coat once is liable to do so again.’
‘I turned no coat. I served your father all the while that he was consolidating his power, and until he declared himself God-Emperor, seven years ago. At that moment I told him to his face that he had broken the terms of my oath, and therefore the bond between us was void. I had sworn to a man, not a false god.’
‘But he let you live?’ Nish wondered if it was the truth. Perhaps Monkshart still served his father and this was another of his elaborate traps. How could he, Nish, tell?
‘After I saved your father’s life, he swore to never harm me save in self-defence, nor to take my Arts from me. He wasn’t happy with my going, but he held to his word.’
‘So how did you come by all this?’ Nish indicated the crater with a sweep of his arm. ‘Surely you didn’t just happen upon it by some lucky coincidence?’
Monkshart ignored the sarcasm. ‘Of course not. After all the nodes failed, your father had me search out every one of them and make sure.’
‘That they had actually gone dead?’
‘Yes, but more importantly, to check each dead node in case something had formed there at the moment of its destruction. You’ll understand why.’
The tears, Gatherer and Reaper, had been formed when the Snizort node was deliberately destroyed in a particular and very special way, and Jal-Nish would have been desperate to make sure that no more tears, or other arcane objects which could threaten his power, had formed at any other node. ‘And had there?’
‘Oh no,’ said Monkshart. ‘No tears, at any rate, nor any other device of power. The tears are unique.’
‘Then why are you here? Why hasn’t my father driven you out, and your fledgling Defiance?’ That was what Nish didn’t understand.
‘Until you came, he didn’t know I was here.’
Nish’s eyes narrowed. A while ago Monkshart had boasted about his fame spreading, but since Jal-Nish knew everything, how could that be true? ‘Why not? Surely flappeters would have detected the strange … er, field here before.’
‘There is no field, and besides, my protection halo wasn’t activated until I saw your flappeter being pursued so desperately. Anyone who flew over Tifferfyte would have seen no more than an impoverished village, not worth bothering about.’
‘Why didn’t Father’s troops follow us? Can your halo really keep them all out?’
‘Possibly not, but remember Jal-Nish has had three terrible shocks at once. His long-lost former ally has just reappeared, and at a site of power like nothing Jal-Nish has ever seen before; his renegade son has joined that ally. What are the implications? Your father will think them through thoroughly before taking any action that might fail and damage his dread reputation.’
‘What is the source of power at Tifferfyte?’
Monkshart shrugged. ‘I don’t need to tell you yet. All I’ll say is that Nothing goes to nothing. No object nor device of power can ever be completely destroyed. All force has to go somewhere, and the former Tifferfyte node has been transformed into a place where the Secret Art, at least as your father understands it, no longer holds.’
‘Ahh!’ sighed Nish. ‘And you plan to form it into a shield against him.’
‘If only that were possible. The power of Tifferfyte doesn’t reside in an object that can be carried around, like the tears. It’s an essence, if you like, intrinsically associated with Tifferfyte. It only holds here.’
‘Then what’s the use of it?’
‘It provides a refuge where I can help you to build your strength, as the Deliverer, unmolested.’
‘What use is strength in the middle of nowhere? My father can only be overthrown in the heart of his empire.’
Monkshart hesitated, then looked deep into Nish’s eyes, before nodding as if satisfied at what he’d seen there. ‘Tifferfyte isn’t a solitary outpost. The Defiance is strong and growing every day. People are flocking to our bastions in their hundreds, simply on the rumour that Jal-Nish’s son has escaped. Already your father trembles in Morrelune Palace.’
‘With derisory laughter,’ Nish said sourly.
‘He knows!’ said Monkshart, bright-eyed. �
�The whole world hates Jal-Nish and questions his legitimacy, and it burns him. He might be the most powerful man in the world –’
‘He is!’ Nish said fiercely.
‘But he understands how quickly power can be lost. He’s afraid of you, Cryl-Nish, for you’re all he’s got left and he can’t injure you in any way.’
‘He tormented me in prison without a qualm.’
‘But never really harmed you. This is your chance, but you must seize it without delay. As long as you move swiftly and decisively, you’ll always be one step ahead of him.’
‘I’ll need to see evidence to support your claims.’
‘I would expect no less.’ Monkshart drew a folded map from inside his cloak. ‘The Defiance has nine secret fortresses in the east; these are their locations. We keep in touch by skeet. It’s the safest way these days.’
Skeets were large raptors, used for centuries to carry messages because they were fleet and vicious. Nothing attacked them, save man, though they were a menace to train and use. ‘How come my father, with all his spies and watchers, doesn’t know where your refuges are?’
‘They’re well hidden in remote places, difficult to attack and easily defended.’ He handed Nish the map.
It was just a sketch on rice paper, so it could be eaten in an emergency, presumably, but there were nine small marks on it with names beside them, and some were places Nish knew. One was Hulipont.
‘Hulipont was Maelys’s initial destination,’ said Nish. ‘Is it still in Defiance hands?’
‘I had a skeet from there yesterday.’
Then Cathim must have died without revealing its name, so Maelys’s family might also be safe.
