The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1)

by Ian Irvine

  ‘Not for any price?’ Vivimord said compassionately.

  ‘Alas not,’ said Jal-Nish.

  ‘I thought that would be your answer, and here is mine. But for one thing alone, I would come back to you, Jal-Nish. And you know what that thing is.’

  ‘My declaring myself as God-Emperor.’

  ‘Emperor I could take, for that is what you are – emperor of the world, and I admire you for having the foresight to aspire to such heights, and the strength to seize Santhenar at the critical moment. But no man may declare himself a god. That is a matter of personal faith on which I cannot yield.’

  ‘I know and understand, but even if I were of a mind to give up the title, I cannot. You understand the basis of power, Vivimord. The moment I denied my godhead, every jackal on Santhenar would fall on me, and even with the tears I could not keep them all at bay. It would be a fatal sign of weakness from which I would never recover.’

  ‘I thought you were better than that. I confess I’m disappointed, Jal-Nish.’

  Jal-Nish laughed harshly. ‘Are you? Are you really? At least I’m not a mealy-mouthed hypocrite. You forget that I know where all your bodies are buried, Vivimord, and there’s an awful lot of them. I know how you appeased Phrune, allowing him to slake his sordid and murderous lusts on the innocent because you couldn’t do without him. Or wouldn’t. And I know about the things you do in your ungovernable rages –’

  Vivimord clenched his fists; pale flames dripped from his knuckles and his face grew ever more inflamed, as if a fire were burning inside him. ‘That affliction comes from the touch of the tears, Jal-Nish. While I was saving them for you.’

  ‘Does it? Or were the tears a convenient excuse? You always had to control everything around you, yet you could never control yourself.’

  Vivimord tried to do so now, but couldn’t. He shuddered with fury, then snapped, ‘Why should you have it all? You’re not half the man I am.’

  ‘You show your real colours, Vivimord. Envy burns you, doesn’t it? That’s why I let you go, despite all you meant to me. So, you’re challenging me. Must we fight, then?’

  ‘We must, though not today.’

  ‘If we must fight, it will be now,’ said Jal-Nish, regretfully. ‘I love my few friends despite their weaknesses, but you’ve declared yourself my enemy and I can’t allow any enemy to walk away and recover his strength.’

  He was reaching for Reaper when Vivimord flung out his hand, blue fire jagging from his fingertips. ‘I may be at death’s door but the cursed flame burns strong in me, thanks to Phrune’s sacrifice. Let the chaos within Reaper turn against you, false God-Emperor! Fall!’

  Jal-Nish recoiled as if he’d been burned and fell sideways to the floor of the cave, the tear slipping from around his neck and wobbling across the floor into a bed of moss. Vivimord thrust out his arm and the pale, dripping fire shot out like water from a hose, setting the damp moss ablaze between Jal-Nish and Reaper. Vivimord swung his arm, pointing, and the door at the back of the cave opened to a shoulder-wide crack.

  ‘Run, Deliverer,’ he said hoarsely. ‘This is your chance. You’ll not get another.’

  Jal-Nish got up and raised his hand. ‘I don’t need to touch Reaper to draw power from it.’ He gestured and the door began to grind shut.

  Vivimord stopped it with a finger gesture and the two mancers strove against each other for a minute or two, though neither had the strength to prevail and the door remained ajar. Despite Jal-Nish’s words, it was clear that without the touch of the tears his power was greatly weakened.

  It was their chance. Flydd lurched towards the door. Colm and Zham followed. Nish was starting after them when his father, who stood near the mossy entrance, looked up sharply.

  ‘Hello?’ He turned towards Vivimord, rapped out, ‘Truce,’ then turned his back, as if knowing that he would not be struck down from behind.

  After a long hesitation punctuated by convulsive jerks of his fingers, Vivimord overcame the temptation. His lips moved, ‘Truce,’ though Nish couldn’t hear the word over the sound of the wind.

  Jal-Nish stepped out through the moss curtain, saying, ‘The last of the crew has come. Can you also think to bring me down, Maelys of Nifferlin?’

  Nish froze, then, ignoring Vivimord’s gasped, ‘Run, you fool!’ turned back to the entrance. The burning moss had gone out.

  Maelys was coming down the rope ladder, which was swinging wildly back and forth in the updraught. She let out a cry as it slammed against the wet cliff, cracking her knuckles between the rock and the rope, then clung desperately to the rungs as the wind lifted the ladder almost to the horizontal before slamming it back. She managed to swing around this time and take the impact on shoulder and hip, though she almost lost her grip. She wrapped her arms around and through the rungs and hung on grimly, eyes closed, but Nish knew she wouldn’t survive another such impact.

  ‘Go up, Maelys!’ he said hoarsely. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

  She wouldn’t have heard him over the sound of the wind, and she had her back to the entrance so she hadn’t seen Jal-Nish either, though she must know he was here. She hung limply on the rope for a moment, took a deep, sobbing breath, then straightened her back and continued down.

  Maelys turned when she was just a rung above the plank, searching for a safe way to get off the ladder and inside, then froze when she saw Jal-Nish standing by the entrance, swaying on the balls of his feet like a sailor on the deck of a ship.

  He took hold of the ladder, holding it still for her. She moved down stiffly; her feet settled on the plank.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, gesturing with his good hand. ‘Join your friends.’ Jal-Nish moved sideways in the entrance to give her room, the curtain of moss sweeping wetly across his shoulders.

  ‘Fly, Maelys!’ cried Nish.

  Maelys looked past him to Zham and Colm, who had gathered inside the curtain and were also urging her to go back. Flydd had managed to stumble halfway before falling to his knees.

  Maelys came inside. Nish didn’t dare say anything that might give away what she’d gone for. Could she have succeeded after all?

  She was spattered with dried blood, and streaked with dust and green moss stains. Her eyes were as hollow as her cheeks. She looked as if she’d been to the depths of the abyss and back.

  ‘What happened to you out –?’ began Colm.

  Zham brought his weight down on Colm’s toes and he broke off.

  ‘Phrune caught me and … took me to the cursed flame.’ She shuddered involuntarily. ‘I – I – managed to kill him, but he gave his blood to the flame, to save his master’s life.’ Maelys glanced at Vivimord, whose blind eyes were on her, then away hastily. ‘It was a terrible death,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll never get over it.’

  Vivimord went as rigid as a poker. ‘Nor I,’ he rasped. His jaw knotted and for a moment Nish thought he was going to give way to his affliction and strike her down, but the zealot managed to control himself this time. ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ he spat, then turned to Jal-Nish. ‘Truce over?’

  Jal-Nish nodded. He waved his hand. The door between the columns slammed shut and disappeared. ‘Truce over.’

  The cavern suddenly went dark save for the faint outline of Jal-Nish near the entrance. Now Vivimord became an outline too, as the green nimbus of before surrounded him. Reaper, lying half buried in the damp moss, appeared to shimmer as it reflected the zealot’s glow. Jal-Nish moved his hand again and a transparent barrier sealed off Nish, Flydd, Colm and Zham, who had retreated to the rear of the cavern. Another small hemisphere trapped Maelys against the side wall. Nish presumed it was to protect them.

  A struggle ensued, full of long tense silences as the two mancers manoeuvred for position in the gloom, then sudden violent flashes which lit up the cave as they used unknown powers on each other. Vivimord kept moving so as to keep himself between Jal-Nish and Reaper, though the zealot maintained his distance from the deadly tear. After what it had done to him
long ago, Nish understood why he kept away.

  Without the direct power of Reaper at Jal-Nish’s disposal, he and Vivimord seemed evenly matched. The zealot, with the cursed flame burning within him, might have had the edge in power had he been well enough to use it, but he moved ever more stiffly and often stumbled. His ordeals had greatly weakened him.

  As the battle raged on, Nish noticed that Flydd was probing the stone wall where the door had opened, then running his hands over the transparent barrier. Flydd shook his head.

  ‘You can’t open it, surr?’

  ‘Not – without power.’

  ‘Do you think Maelys –?’ Flydd gave a violent shake of the head and Nish broke off. His father might still overhear.

  Maelys, about ten paces away in her bubble, was also fingering its clear curved wall. Not finding any weakness, she stood with her nose pressed to the barrier, watching the combatants. A blast of blue fire from Vivimord was accompanied by a roar that made the wall oscillate like a soap bubble. She jumped backwards, then came forwards again, staring out.

  Both mancers were staggering now. Jal-Nish was bent over, gasping for breath. Vivimord stood upright, keeping his back to Reaper, but could barely move. It looked as if his joints were freezing up.

  Maelys turned away from them, putting her hand down her front as if to scratch herself, but lifted something over her head. Nish couldn’t see what she held, but she thrust her hand out, pushing it hard into the barrier, and to his amazement it tore open. She forced through, her face a mask of terrified resolve. As Nish stared at Maelys, she took three steps to Jal-Nish, who stood side-on to her, and before he had realised the danger she whacked her open hand against his bare neck.

  Jal-Nish convulsed and a coruscating red and black aura, a reversal or corruption of his own, flickered into existence around him, dazzlingly bright, then abruptly pulled back in. He smashed Maelys out of the way with his stiff arm and reeled off, holding his face in his hands and crying out in agony. She’d touched him with her taphloid.

  Vivimord’s head whipped from side to side, as if the senses which replaced his sight hadn’t told him what had happened, then threw out his arm to destroy the presumptuous God-Emperor. Nish caught his breath – despite everything, this wasn’t how his father should fall. And was Vivimord any better?

  Maelys, lying on the floor of the cavern where she’d fallen, drew her arm back and tossed her taphloid at Vivimord. It whirled through the air on its chain and struck him on the right cheek. The green nimbus flared then shrank to nothing; a patch of skin the size of an egg blistered and bulged out like a black mole. Letting out a thin scream, Vivimord fell down, right on Reaper. He convulsed until he bent double and shot to his feet again, his robes smouldering across his chest and belly, the cloth falling away there to reveal his skin bubbling like crackling on a roast pig.

  Nish, scenting the hope of escape after all, forced at the barrier but it didn’t give. ‘Maelys!’ he screamed, gesturing at her to break it with the taphloid.

  She didn’t see him. She was watching the two mancers, mouth open. Vivimord was on his knees by the wall, his face screwed up in agony. Jal-Nish was lurching in circles, the deadly aura flickering in and out, though Nish noticed that every wobbling circle took him closer to the tears.

  Vivimord hit him with blue fire again, knocking Jal-Nish backwards into the wall. He slumped to the floor but managed to raise his hand for one final burst of power which hurled Vivimord backwards through the mossy curtain. He landed on the springy plank, bounced high, struck again and, deliberately, rolled over the edge.

  The transparent barrier faded to nothing. Nish ran to the entrance, getting there just before his father. It didn’t seem like Vivimord to commit suicide, and he hadn’t.

  He was whirling his hands in front of his face as he fell, evidently performing summoning mancery, then flung them out as a flock of Jal-Nish’s bladder-bats materialised below him. He caught one by the legs, swinging around in a falling spiral as it inflated to several times its former size, then slowly drifted down out of sight.

  Jal-Nish lurched out after him and stood on the plank, his arms hanging limply, panting. He stared after his former friend, then beckoned and the distant sky palace began to grind back towards the cave on its contracting plank. Jal-Nish turned towards Reaper but his corrupted aura flared brilliantly. He gasped and doubled over, shaking his head as if to clear it.

  Maelys got up, slowly and painfully, retrieved her taphloid from the floor and hung it around her neck. Had she succeeded in recharging the crystal after all?

  Nish felt a surge of impossible hope, but if they had any chance at all they had to strike now while his father was still weak, and while the inverted aura prevented him from taking up Reaper again. Even now, Jal-Nish was far from powerless. He, Nish, had to create a diversion so she could get the crystal to Flydd, unseen.

  His mind raced. What could he do? He had no weapon, nor any way to attack his father. No plea would make any difference now. Neither would Jal-Nish listen if Nish were to agree to go back to him. It was too late for that.

  Could he shock Jal-Nish by playing on his greatest fear? Nish dared not reveal that Maelys had seen him in the Pit of Possibilities, for that would doom her instantly, but …

  ‘I know what you’re most afraid of, Father,’ he said. It didn’t come out as well as he’d thought. It sounded like something one child would say to another in the schoolyard.

  Flydd made a grunting sound in his throat, as if trying to cut Nish off, but Nish ignored him. They had only one tiny chance and he had to take it, whatever the cost later. Assuming there was a later.

  Jal-Nish didn’t react at all. ‘Another of your silly games, Cryl-Nish?’

  Flydd made another urgent grunt. Nish had to say it now or he’d never be able to. ‘It’s the antithesis to the tears!’ he burst out. ‘The one thing that can unmake them and take all your power with it. We’re going to find it and tear you down, Father.’

  Jal-Nish jerked so violently that the platinum mask slipped sideways, revealing his ruined mouth and scarred chin. His one eye stared at Nish for a moment, then he thumped the mask back into place, saying hoarsely, ‘I have no weakness. There is no antithesis to the tears.’

  From the corner of his eye, Nish saw Maelys ease something from her pocket, her hand glowing faintly red. She’d done it! They had one last chance, if she could get the crystal to Flydd without Jal-Nish seeing.

  But Jal-Nish raised his good hand. ‘I see what you’re about, Son, and it won’t work. I know what you’re most afraid of, Maelys of Nifferlin.’

  Maelys’s clenched hand, which had been creeping out towards Flydd’s, froze. The red glow pulsed in her fist, as if synchronised to her heartbeat. ‘Afraid of?’ she croaked.

  Jal-Nish made a pass in the air and a floating ball of mist appeared between them, just above head height. ‘Look into the mist,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t look,’ said Flydd. ‘Whatever he shows you, it’ll be a lie.’

  She looked, and so did Nish. The mist cleared to a globe of darkness within which the faintest shadows moved. A dull yellow light grew in the centre, revealing a horribly familiar cell – Nish’s dungeon cell in Mazurhize, or another exactly like it. It contained four people: three middle-aged women slumped against one wall, and someone, much smaller, clinging desperately to the bars.

  ‘Mother!’ Maelys cried in anguish. ‘Fyllis?’

  It was the beautiful blonde-haired little girl who had rescued Nish from Mazurhize, but she looked gaunt, her hair was lifeless and her eyes were staring vacantly through the bars. The women didn’t move.

  ‘It’s a lie,’ Flydd repeated. ‘All a lie, Maelys.’

  ‘No,’ said Maelys. ‘He has them; I know it.’

  ‘Give up the crystal, Maelys,’ said Jal-Nish, ‘and I promise you’ll see your family again.’

  ‘Because I’ll be in that cell with them.’

  ‘You’re a clever, brave girl who has given your
all for my son, worthless though he is. I recognise your courage. Hand me the crystal and I’ll allow you your freedom, and your family’s. I’ll even rebuild Nifferlin Manor and restore it to you.’

  Why doesn’t Father strike her down and take the crystal? Nish wondered. Was he enjoying the game, or was he too weak now – too afraid that Flydd would get the crystal first and crush him with its flame-fed power?

  ‘But if you don’t,’ Jal-Nish went on, ‘your family will feel the longest and most terrible excruciations my torturers can devise, and your little sister will suffer equally with them.’

  Maelys closed her eyes, swaying on her feet. Nish knew what she was going through, for he’d endured the agony of his father’s bitter choices many times. ‘Don’t give in to him,’ he said softly, though who was he to say it? In her place …

  Maelys looked up at Fyllis, whose mouth was gaping as she stared through the bars, then turned away from Flydd. ‘I can’t do it, Xervish,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Flydd groaned and reached out a hand.

  Maelys took a step towards Jal-Nish, staring into his eye. She opened her hand and the crystal, lying on her palm, lit up the cavern with diamond-clear beams of flame-fed light. Nish felt a shiver pass down his spine at the raw power it held.

  The moment was drawn out; time hardly seemed to be passing at all. His father was staring at it too. Nish saw him swallow. It threatened him, in his weakened state.

  Flydd had fallen to his knees again. Zham and Colm were at the rear of the cavern, by the closed door, too far away to help. This was Nish’s own moment of choice. No one else could do anything. It was up to him. His father wasn’t even looking at him. Dare he try? It would mean sacrificing Maelys’s family and destroying her faith in him forever. But surely, if it was their only chance to overthrow his father, he had to take it.

  Maelys took another step forwards, and another.

  Yes, he would take it. He must, whatever the consequences. Nish sprang at her, tore the crystal from her hand and in one movement tossed it to Flydd, praying that his old friend had the wit to catch it.