by Ian Irvine
She fell back to the rear, then turned and wandered away until she had a clear view of the tent. Yes, there was the tall figure of Monkshart at the entrance, and Phrune a few steps away. Monkshart gestured to Phrune, who hurried after the crowd. Monkshart did not go inside, but walked a few steps, staring at the distant throng. Even from this distance he looked worn. His arms hung limply and his back was bowed. Maelys was pleased to see it.
Now or never. She tried vainly to calm herself, discovered she couldn’t, then screwed up her courage as far as it would go and walked around to the back of the tent. No one was looking. She got down on the dry ground, lifted the side and wriggled underneath.
It was divided into a number of rooms inside. She was in a large room, an audience chamber perhaps, with a rug on the ground, several chests in the centre and, beside them, a table made of planks set on trestles. She left this chamber for later. First she had to find Phrune’s room. Ah, there it was; the smallest of five. It had a low camp bed, the covers fastidiously arranged, a small chest, a long, knee-high trestle table whose planks were shiny with oil, and a belt which sheathed a number of stilettos. His canvas bag was closed.
Maelys checked it swiftly. It contained nothing but clean clothes. She turned to the chest. It contained several small instruments that might be alchymical devices, plus packets of herbs and powders, and jars of balm. She looked under the bed. Nothing but a spare pair of boots. She checked them. Nothing was hidden inside.
She was about to go to the next room when she heard Phrune plodding back, rather out of breath. ‘Just fools fighting over nothing, Master. Come inside and I’ll cream you up.’
Monkshart muttered something she didn’t catch, in a dead voice. Maelys should have gone under the side at once but she didn’t think quickly enough, and when the two entered the outer flap of the tent there was no time to do anything but slip beneath the camp bed and pray that the low-hanging covers would conceal her if they came in.
They did. Maelys could see a sliver of the room through a gap between the covers. Monkshart pulled off his robes then stood while Phrune peeled away the body gloves, inspected them carefully for tears and laid them out over the bed. He then helped Monkshart onto the table. He lay down carefully on his front, wincing. The weeping, corrugated skin covered him all over.
Phrune scooped balm from a jar and began to spread it over Monkshart’s legs.
‘The scouts saw no sign of the Deliverer,’ Monkshart said dully. ‘He’s concealed his tracks too well; by the time I can scry them out he’ll be long gone. Our quest is teetering towards failure, Phrune. How could it have come to this?’
Maelys couldn’t hear Phrune’s reply over the squelching of the balm.
Monkshart went on. ‘He’s gone after her, hasn’t he? After all I’ve done for him.’
‘I expect so, Master.’
‘What’s the matter with Cryl-Nish? How can he not want to become the Deliverer?’
‘He’s fatally flawed, Master. I’d say his father has broken him – or else he’s a gutless fool whose exploits in the war were a total lie.’
‘No – Nish was a hero once; a great man. With his allies, he changed the course of the world.’
‘There’s no sign of such vision now. You should have held to your original plan – taken his mind and used him as a walking, talking puppet.’
There was a pause while Monkshart turned over, then he said, ‘I dare say you’re right, and should he ever fall into my hands again that’s exactly what I’ll do. Unfortunately that doesn’t help us now. What does he see in the little wretch, anyway?’
‘It’ll be her talent between the sheets, Master. The quiet, ugly ones make the best lovers – they have to try harder.’ Maelys cringed. ‘And after all,’ Phrune said slyly, ‘Nish hasn’t had it for ten years. It’s not surprising he should become attached to the first little tart who spread her legs for him.’
‘I suppose so.’ Monkshart’s voice hardened. ‘But it’s not her only appeal, is it?’
‘What do you mean, Master?’
‘I’ve been looking into Clan Nifferlin and I don’t like what I’m seeing. There’s a clan talent. Jal-Nish killed most of the men to be rid of it, but I think she’s got it too.’
‘But she has no aura. You said –’
‘I thought Cryl-Nish had made up those stories about Maelys to protect her, but I’ve changed my mind since she followed us through the maze. She’s got to have a talent: look what she did to Vomix. Have you got that device of hers – what did she call it?’
‘She told the boy it was a taphloid.’
‘Curious word,’ mused Monkshart. ‘I’ve never heard it before.’
Phrune moved and cut off her view, but Maelys heard the rustle of tissue-leather.
‘And just the touch of it was agonising to Vomix,’ Monkshart went on. ‘Can she have enchanted it in some way?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Phrune. ‘I barely touched it, yet it felt as if my aura was being turned inside out – as though my very nature was being forcibly changed. Yet it didn’t hurt the boy.’
‘The boy has no talent. He’s just an ordinary kid with no aura. I don’t dare touch it with bare skin – what did you say?’
‘It seemed to invert my aura, Master. No, it felt as if it was trying to convert my aura into its opposite, and changing me at the same time – transforming the very essence that gives me my talent.’ Phrune shuddered ostentatiously. ‘Such torment!’
‘It’s ironic that you should glory in inflicting pain on others, yet be so sensitive to it yourself. It’s a weakness, Phrune. You should practise stoicism, as I do. You’ll be all the stronger for it.’
‘I might not serve you so well, then,’ Phrune said sulkily.
‘Quite, and we can’t have that. Ahh!’ said Monkshart. ‘Hand me my glove, then stand back. Give me room.’
Phrune fetched the body-glove Monkshart had taken off earlier and moved out of the way. Monkshart held the taphloid in his left hand, in several folds of dangling tissue-leather, turning his hand this way and that. He popped the taphloid open with a covered thumbnail, studied the moon dial inside, made a pass over it with his other hand, then snapped it closed.
‘Very, very clever,’ said Monkshart.
‘What is it, Master?’ said Phrune.
‘It’s designed to conceal an aura – her aura – completely. That’s why I saw nothing when she came to Tifferfyte, though I looked on all the planes.’ He shook his head in wonder, staring at the little device on his palm. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. This was made by a master craftsman.’
Maelys, lying under the bed, had a sudden, horrifying thought. What was concealing her aura now? Was it just the nearness of the taphloid? If so, and Phrune went out of the room with it, Monkshart would see her aura at once. She almost choked at the thought. She could feel the blood roaring through her veins, and surely they must notice that too. She would never get out of here alive.
‘How does it work?’ said Phrune.
‘By mimicry, I think. By imitating another person who doesn’t have an aura.’
‘Does the taphloid enhance her little talent, then?’ said Phrune.
Monkshart gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Your sneer is misplaced, Phrune. It’s designed to suppress Maelys’s talent because it’s too strong.’
Maelys started, then almost screamed in panic. Had she made a sound? Surely a strong talent meant a strong aura, and the taphloid wouldn’t need to be far away before her aura showed up.
‘Suppress it?’ cried Phrune.
‘She would have been given the taphloid to conceal her talent as soon as it began to appear, and to stunt its development. That saved her life – no child living so close to Morrelune could have concealed such a strong gift from Jal-Nish.’
‘But what is her talent?’
‘I don’t know. The family talent apparently allows them to hide from Jal-Nish’s watchers as long as Gatherer itself doesn’t actually know about th
em.’
‘We might use such a talent, Master.’
Monkshart recoiled. ‘No! It would be too dangerous to me. I daren’t risk it. It won’t be easy for her to develop her gift anyway, at her age. You’ve got to start young with that sort of thing. Put the taphloid away.’
He handed it back. Phrune wrapped it in its tissue-leather and hung it around his neck.
‘And that’s how she was able to control the flappeter, untutored,’ Monkshart added. ‘The taphloid must have mimicked the dead rider’s aura, around her, long enough for her to form a bond with it.’
‘How could it?’ said Phrune. ‘His aura would vanish the moment he died.’
‘I have no idea,’ said Monkshart, shaking his head. He lay down and Phrune began to rub the balm on him again.
It must have happened when I imploded the crystal, before I killed the rider, Maelys thought. Afterwards the rider’s aura around me must have slowly faded as the taphloid began to work again, even without its crystal, and Rurr-shyve became increasingly recalcitrant. No wonder the creature felt that I’d cheated on the contract.
Phrune’s voice broke the silence. ‘How did the taphloid become so dangerous?’
‘By passage through the Mistmurk,’ said Monkshart. ‘Objects carried through portals between worlds are known to change in unpredictable ways, and the Mistmurk is a minor version of a portal. The Pit of Possibilities is the antithesis of what existed there before the Tifferfyte node was destroyed – a negation of the power of the node, perhaps – and it nullifies all normal powers and forces.’
‘Does that always happen when a node is destroyed?’
‘Ah – that’s the question Jal-Nish most wants answered.’
‘And what is the answer, Master?’
‘No one knows. Every destroyed node is different. Some are transformed into nothingness, some into a new and opposing force, and some, perhaps, into forces which are the antithesis of each other. I don’t think we’ll ever know – it would take a mancer’s lifetime just to study one destroyed node.’
‘But you understood the destroyed Tifferfyte node.’
‘Only enough to know why it could reveal the futures. That’s why I set it up to spy on Jal-Nish. The Pit should have nullified Maelys’s taphloid too, but the abrupt transition from pit to maze, through the Mistmurk, has changed it. It’s made the taphloid greater, but more dangerous.’
So that’s why she’d seen Jal-Nish using the tears – in the Pit the taphloid had been prevented from suppressing her talent and, because the place had been set up for Monkshart to spy on Jal-Nish, her talent must have shone out and caught that fleeting glimpse of Gatherer.
‘And Maelys?’ Phrune’s voice had a deadly edge. ‘What did she see in the Pit, I wonder, with her special talent?’
‘A very good question, Phrune. More importantly, what are we to do about her?’
‘She’s a wild card, Master. She keeps interfering, changing the future in unpredictable ways.’
‘The wrong ways. You should have dealt with her at once.’.
The squelching stopped abruptly. ‘I could hardly do that, Master, with hundreds of the Defiance around.’
‘Twice before you had the chance to finish her, and failed.’ Monkshart sat up and his voice took on a low, silky edge. ‘I’m starting to wonder about you, Phrune.’
‘Master!’ said Phrune with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Count the hundreds of ways I’ve served you, then weigh my few failures against them. Where would you be without my balms and unguents, to say nothing of the body-gloves I’ve risked my life to provide you? Some donors proved most reluctant to give up their living skin.’
Monkshart sighed. ‘Very well. You have served me, Phrune, and I’m grateful for it. Assist me into the gloves, please. I must make plans for the hunt.’
He hopped down from the table and Maelys heard a series of squelches as the body-glove was eased up his balm-covered body. What unfortunate had given his or her young life to ease his pain this time?
‘Are you going to take the Defiance with you?’ said Phrune when it was done and Monkshart was donning his robes.
‘No. We must travel alone, and fast. I’ll make arrangements for them to follow, and to be fed titbits about the Deliverer on the way, otherwise they’ll soon lose heart and go back to their villages. Should that happen, it won’t be so easy to raise them next time.’
‘If there is a next time.’
‘There must be. I’m wondering if the girl isn’t the key to him. Find her and we may find him, sooner or later. Get onto it, Phrune. Learn everything there is to be known about Maelys of Nifferlin, her family and clan. Whatever it costs.’
‘And then?’
‘Hunt her down, Phrune.’
‘Yes, Master. And when I get her?’
‘I’ll extract what she saw in the Pit.’
‘And then, Master?’ Phrune sounded uncertain.
Monkshart laughed harshly. ‘I’m teasing you, faithful Phrune. You’ll take her skin, of course. Then kill her to make sure no one else learns what she saw.’
‘Thank you, Master.’ Phrune’s tongue was lap-lapping at his lips again as he packed away his balms and lotions. He bent to put them in the chest and the taphloid slipped out of his robes, dangling on a chain around his neck. She saw it clearly for the first time, and felt a sudden, overpowering urge to hold it in her hand again.
Maelys bit her knuckles to stop herself from crying out, but she must have made a sound, for Phrune’s head whipped around. He stole across the room and she was sure he knew she was there. What was she to do? Should she burst out, knife in hand, and go for him? She’d never get away from him and Monkshart, but she might just take Phrune with her, and that would be doing the world a service.
She was about to scramble out from under the bed when Phrune walked past the end. What was he doing? She heard the faintest rustle and his feet appeared, parallel to the side wall. He was standing against it as if listening for someone outside. Or searching for an aura?
‘Master?’ he said softly.
‘What is it?’ Monkshart said from the adjoining room.
‘I just had a fleeting sense of the girl. I think she’s still in the camp.’
Monkshart appeared in the doorway. If he came in, and Phrune went out with the taphloid, she was doomed. ‘I don’t sense any aura nearby, and my senses are stronger than yours … but we must leave nothing to chance.’
Maelys’s heart was pounding but she tried to hold her nerve. Even if Phrune didn’t sense anything he would search the tent, just in case. He could probably hear her thundering heartbeat. He stood there for a long time, then someone spoke outside, not far away, and he went out, creeping on his bare feet.
Monkshart stood in the doorway for a moment, head up in the air as if sensing for something, then went into the adjoining room.
Maelys didn’t dare move while Phrune was outside. She waited until he came back, the longest ten minutes of her life, and spoke to Monkshart. A bold warrior or a cunning spy would have lain there until Phrune came into his room, then slit his throat as he slept, or thrust the dagger up into him through the thin mattress. Maelys couldn’t do it. Her courage had run out. She felt her way to the side wall of the tent, rolled under it, walked out of the camp and ran for her life.
Thommel was sitting by a small, smokeless fire making tea when she regained the campsite. Maelys checked as soon as she caught sight of him. He would be furious when he discovered what she’d done, and she could hardly blame him, since she’d risked everything for no gain. It didn’t occur to her to lie and say she’d just been for a walk. He had to know. Besides, she’d always been a truthful person and couldn’t bear to start out with him the way she had with Nish. Look what those lies and deceits had done for her.
‘The tea’s ready,’ Thommel said with a lazy smile as she approached. ‘Where have you been?’
Maelys took a deep breath, raising her chin. ‘I went back to the camp to see if I could
get my taphloid back from Phrune.’ She’d told him about its loss previously.
The smile faded. ‘You’re so brave. After what he’s done, I wouldn’t have dared.’ He stood up, looking anxious. ‘Maelys, are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ she said faintly. ‘Why?’
‘You’re breathing as though you’ve just run a race, yet you’re as white as pastry.’ He took her arm. ‘Here, sit down. Have some tea. It’s good and sweet; I found some honeycomb on the way back.’
She sat down and took the tea, gratefully. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been rather stupid.’ She told him what had happened. ‘Phrune was so close that I could smell him. I was so afraid, I wanted to scream. What if they’d detected my aura, or I’d left some traces in the tent? I would have ruined everything.’ She was still shaking.
He came across to sit beside her, putting an arm across her shoulder. ‘I’ve lost things that are precious to me, too. Of course you had to try to get it back.’
‘You’re not angry with me?’
‘You’re not my servant. I don’t have any right to be angry. But when I think that you could have fallen into their hands, my heart stops beating.’
He hugged her briefly, then moved away and poured himself a mug of tea, for he’d given her his. She sipped the hot sweet drink thoughtfully and her panic began to recede. She’d gotten the wrong impression about Thommel the other day. He was gentle and understanding, and it was good to be sharing the journey with him. She felt safer than she had at any time since she’d left home.
Unlike Nish, Thommel was good-humoured most of the time. His dark side only appeared when Nish’s name was mentioned. Thommel believed that Nish had recognised him as soon as he’d appeared in the Defiance camp, and had ordered Monkshart and Phrune to keep him at bay. Whenever she said Nish’s name Thommel became bitter and remote.
But what did he want of Nish, and who was Thommel anyway? He wouldn’t say, though the name rang falsely in her mind whenever she heard it.
