The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3)

by Ian Irvine

  ‘Only when it’s near the caduceus,’ said Maelys.

  ‘A threat?’ said Tulitine. ‘That’s not how I read it.’

  ‘How do you read it?’ said Yggur, gazing at her as though he’d just seen her true beauty for the first time.

  ‘As an offer,’ said Tulitine, frowning at him and stepping away.

  ‘Why would Stilkeen offer us anything?’

  Tulitine did not reply. She appeared to find Yggur’s fixed regard uncomfortable.

  ‘To help it get what it wants?’ guessed Maelys. ‘The chthonic fire.’

  ‘You may be right,’ Yggur mused. ‘We know that Stilkeen needs chthonic fire so it can rejoin with the spirits severed from its physical self – its revenants now trapped in the shadow realm. Do you think, since it took Jal-Nish hostage and demanded chthonic fire in return, that it’s incapable of finding any itself?’

  ‘It makes sense,’ said Tulitine, ‘but even so, what are we supposed to do with the caduceus?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is it still hot?’

  Yggur moved the back of his right hand slowly towards the shaft until it touched. ‘It’s blood warm, but I can’t sense anything in it. What can you see with your gift, Tulitine?’

  With eyes closed, she extended a slender, blue-veined hand towards the shaft. ‘I see us all holding it.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly, as though it was taking time to see clearly.

  ‘Then where are we?’

  ‘I can’t tell, though we’re surrounded by swirling dust.’

  ‘There’s no dust on the Range of Ruin, or anywhere near it,’ Yggur pointed out. ‘I can feel my clothes rotting by the minute.’

  ‘Then it has to be a trap,’ said Maelys.

  ‘Stilkeen is a powerful being!’ said Yggur. ‘It has no need to trap us – it could have taken us at any time.’

  ‘Yet it seemed to be in terrible pain.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, after a thoughtful pause. ‘I noticed that too. But why would a being so powerful that it has roamed the universe for half an eternity be in pain?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tulitine, ‘I also sensed an urge to hide; to insulate itself from our world.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s in pain because it’s no longer whole,’ said Maelys, answering Yggur’s question. ‘It seemed to me that our world was painful to it.’

  ‘The caduceus could be a trap,’ said Tulitine. ‘How can we tell? No human can fathom how a being thinks, or why it does what it does. But I think it is an offer, and we’ve got to use it.’

  ‘How?’ said Yggur.

  ‘By holding the caduceus, the way I envisaged us doing, and seeing what happens.’

  ‘You saw us a long way from here. Are you thinking that it can create portals? That’s a mighty Art, one of the greatest spells of all.’

  ‘For human mancers,’ said Tulitine. ‘But for an immortal being that once roamed the eleven dimensions, making a portal from one place to another is probably the tiniest of spells, one it does without thinking.’

  ‘A portal!’ said Yggur in a breathy voice. ‘Well, why not? And then what?’

  ‘Chthonic fire must be found, or all humanity is in peril, and if we can’t find it, no one can.’

  ‘If we do find it, and give it to Stilkeen, it might rejoin with its severed spirits, then destroy humanity anyway,’ said Yggur. ‘I know that much about beings – insults to their dignity, or their majesty, never go unpunished.’

  ‘We’ve got nothing to lose,’ said Tulitine. ‘Let’s try it. Where can chthonic fire be found, apart from at the Numinator’s tower?’

  ‘I’ve no idea – I’d never heard of it until Flydd showed up with the wretched stuff. Interfering old fool. Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone?’

  ‘It was the only way to escape from the God-Emperor,’ said Maelys. ‘Besides, Stilkeen has been searching for its stolen fire for thousands of years. The Numinator said so.’

  ‘But surely, Flydd’s use of the fire led Stilkeen here,’ said Yggur. He looked around. ‘We’ll need warmer clothing, where we’re going.’

  They rifled the packs of the nearest enemy soldiers for their travelling cloaks, dry socks, and food.

  ‘Take hold of the caduceus,’ said Yggur.

  Maelys did not want to go anywhere near it, or the Numinator, but she could not remain here. She grasped the shaft of the caduceus, below Tulitine’s hand. Yggur’s hand was near the top, below the mouths of the serpents.

  The moment her fingers closed around the rough iron, the two entwining serpents slid off onto the baked mud. The wind shrilled in Maelys’s ears, she felt a hard blow in the belly, then they vanished from the Range of Ruin and were surrounded by frigid, whirling whiteness – not dust but snow.

  SEVEN

  Nish was racing along the deer track, when the ground gave a long, rolling shudder. He stopped, alarmed, for he knew what it was – a landslide. After all the rain, the soil was so saturated that it was turning into mud.

  His first thought was for Maelys, and he had just turned to run back when the ground gave a much stronger shudder, a huge landslide. He heard a deafening series of crashes, and then a thunderous roar. The landslide had gone into the dam, and the dam had broken.

  There was no time to go back, or forwards; on this path he was close to the river and if he could not find a higher path he was going to die. Nish closed his eyes, turned his head from side to side and forced himself to trust his clear-sight. It wasn’t easy to let go, but he had to. There, directly up the slope through the forest.

  He hacked the vines and giant fungi aside, pushed through, and within thirty paces came onto another path he would never have known was there, heading uphill. Nish sprang onto it, turned left and ran up as though the flood was at his heels.

  It was, for he could hear the water coming with a vast grinding roar as it tore forest trees out of the earth and razed everything to the ground. He was running up a steep slope now and had a terrific pain in his side, but he had to warn his militia. They wouldn’t realise what was happening until the flood tore through the lower clearing, by which time it would be too late.

  But what about Maelys? He stopped, gasping and trying to think. The landslide must have been upstream of the upper clearing or it would not have gone into the dam. Therefore Maelys only had to run up the clearing to be safe. She was quick-witted; she’d be all right. He prayed she would be, for there was nothing he could do for her.

  He ran on, and soon burst out of the forest opposite the rock outcrop, which was a few hundred paces away. His militia had taken cover behind it, lances out. Klarm’s troops were closer to him, halfway up the slope and advancing steadily. They could afford to take their time, for Nish’s archers had shot their last arrows and their bows were useless.

  The enemy were shouting taunts and displaying the heads of fallen militiamen and women on the points of their spears. Nish was close enough to recognise some of them. Was that Gi’s head impaled on the spear of that brute of a sergeant? Not sweet, gentle Gi, whose clever strategy with the archers had saved them in the upper clearing! But it was and, remembering all the good times they had shared together, Nish clenched his fists in impotent fury. Oh, for a bow and a quiverful of arrows.

  The sergeant saw him and bellowed. ‘It’s Cryl-Nish. After him!’

  Nish took off, roaring, ‘Run! Run for your very lives, that way!’ and pointing towards the vine-tangled upper wall of the forest.

  The militia were all staring at him, but no one moved. The roaring of the flood echoed down the valley, far louder here. The enemy troops whirled and stared at the river, which was rising rapidly, but they could not comprehend the magnitude of the horror bearing down on them.

  ‘Run!’ Nish bellowed, forcing more speed from his exhausted legs. He was above the level of the outcrop now, and some hundred paces away.

  A wall of water, trees and rocks exploded down the river, smashing th
e trees in its path to splinters. Passing well below the lowest of the enemy, who must have thought they were safe, it slammed into the narrow slot of the gorge, damming it in an instant. The water behind it piled up and up, then flooded out in the only direction it could go, sideways into the clearing, and up the slope.

  The first wave took the lower third of Klarm’s troops.

  ‘Go, you fools!’ Nish screamed.

  The militia could not have heard him over the cataclysmic sound of the flood, but they could see the danger now. They ran for the forest above.

  The second, much higher wave took the rest of the enemy, including the sergeant with his gruesome trophy, while the third wave raced up the slope almost to the base of the outcrop. But a far larger surge was rolling down the river to crash against the dammed gorge, and anyone who did not make the forest before it bored its way up the clearing was doomed.

  Nish ran as he had never run before. To his left, the militia were scrambling into the trees as fast as they could force their way through the tangled vegetation. Maybe half were inside now, with half to go. They weren’t moving fast enough but there was no more he could do for them. He put his head down and drove himself upwards.

  The great surge was hissing up the steep slope, carrying a few floating enemy with it. It overtopped the outcrop and kept going, only twenty paces behind him now, and slowing, but so was he, for his calf muscles felt as if they were tearing apart. He kept going and, as the water struck the backs of his knees, dived head-first through a gap in the vegetation, caught hold of a sturdy vine and wrapped it around himself.

  The surge came through the trees in a series of streams, its force almost spent, then rose over his head in seconds and began to flow the other way; if he’d not held onto the vine he would have been carried with it. He swung in the water, clinging desperately as it drained away, carrying branches, leaves and all too many militiamen with it, then it was over.

  There were other surges, though none as powerful, and after the third they no longer reached the trees. Nish pushed deeper into the forest, calling the survivors to him, and led them on until they were well beyond sight of the clearing. He stopped beneath a gigantic strangler fig whose host tree had completely rotted away, leaving a hollow inside the fig’s ropy trunk.

  ‘To me!’ Nish panted. ‘Gather everyone in.’

  They pressed up to him. He scrambled onto a knotted root and had just begun a count of the survivors when he heard the air-sled shrieking across the forest lower down. ‘Quiet! It’s Klarm. Don’t move.’

  They waited, silent and still, while the air-sled circled the clearing several times.

  ‘He’s got an army on the other side of the mountain,’ Nish reminded them, ‘and he’ll call them in as soon as he’s finished here, so we’ve got to stay hidden until he’s gone. Let him think we’ve all drowned. Now stand still while I take the muster.’

  People were still straggling in. Flangers appeared, along with Chissmoul and her friend Allioun, one of the few freed captives from the Tower of a Thousand Steps who had not accepted Klarm’s offer of sanctuary. She was thin and nervous, with large blue eyes and the pallor of the long-term prisoner. Nish had looked like that for months after his own escape from Mazurhize.

  ‘Klarm has flown downstream,’ said Flangers. ‘He’ll be checking in case we got through the gorge before the flood.’

  ‘Then he’ll be a while,’ said Flydd, emerging from behind the fig tree.

  He did not look much better than he had previously, but at least he was still alive. And so were Hoshi and the gigantic fisherman, Clech. Unfortunately Yggur was not with him, and Nish could not see Tulitine either.

  He finished the count, and the muster was better than he had feared – a hundred and sixty-two survivors, counting himself. At least twenty had been lost in the forest, and rather more had been swept away by the flood. He ached for every lost man and woman; and yet, had he arrived a minute later it would have been far worse.

  ‘Where’s Yggur and Tulitine?’ said Nish, frowning.

  ‘Gone back to the other clearing,’ said Clech, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Er … Yggur said something to Lady Tulitine about taking another look at the caduceus; said it was calling to them.’

  ‘Calling? And you let them go?’ Nish cried. Just when he’d thought that things were under control!

  ‘I said it was a bad idea but Yggur told me to mind my own damn business. Sorry, Nish.’

  ‘It’s not your bloody fault. What’s the matter with Yggur? He couldn’t walk an hour ago.’

  ‘He got better, then he was whispering to Tulitine for a while.’

  ‘Damn fools! I suppose the flood got them.’

  ‘They had enough time to get there –’ said Clech.

  ‘Well, I didn’t see them,’ said Nish.

  ‘Where have you been, anyway?’ said Flydd.

  ‘Klarm caught me and took me back to the air-sled. Maelys rescued me – I’ll never know how she outwitted him – and we started down here. She couldn’t keep up and I ran ahead …’

  ‘After she’d just done her all for you?’ said Flydd.

  ‘If I hadn’t, you’d all be dead!’ The criticism was a bit rich, coming from Flydd, after all the times he’d lectured Nish about acting for the greater good. Even so, Nish bitterly regretted leaving her. ‘I – I didn’t know the dam was going to collapse.’

  ‘She might have survived.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Nish, though after witnessing that flood he had little hope.

  ‘Or Klarm might have captured her,’ said Flydd.

  Yes, of course that’s what happened, Nish thought, faint with relief. ‘Did anyone get a close look at the air-sled?’

  ‘I did,’ said Flangers, ‘though my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be –’

  ‘Chissmoul has pilot’s eyes,’ said Flydd, for she had been a thapter pilot in the war, the best and most daring of them all. ‘What did you see, girl?’

  Chissmoul was at least as old as Nish, and therefore no girl, but she said without rancour, ‘There was no one on the air-sled except Klarm.’ She let out a heavy sigh, presumably for the miracle of flight that she would never experience again.

  ‘I’m going back to look for her,’ said Nish, rubbing his eyes. ‘And Yggur and Tulitine. Wait here –’

  ‘You’re not doing anything of the sort,’ said Flydd. ‘Now we’re finally back together, we’re staying together. We’ll have something to eat then follow the forest around to the upper clearing and stay under cover while you check it. And then we’ve got to work out what the hell we can do.’

  Klarm passed over the upper clearing from a great height and turned away towards the white-thorn peak. They waited for half an hour, in case he came sneaking back, then Nish and Flydd went down. It was early afternoon.

  The flood had only covered the lowest third of this clearing, and most of the bodies remained where they had been cut down. The winged shaft of the caduceus was gone, and Nish assumed that Klarm had taken it, though the two iron serpents that had entwined it lay on the baked earth. There was no sign of Yggur, Tulitine or Maelys, and the rain, which was still falling, had washed out all tracks.

  Nish was cursing himself for leaving her behind when he remembered their disturbing foreseeings at the Pit of Possibilities, months ago. Maelys had not appeared in any of the possible futures, and at the time she’d been afraid that it meant she was going to die. Had her life been snuffed out, like Gi’s, in an instant, or had she suffered a lingering death? Or could she still be alive? He could not find any reason to think so, but he had to cling to hope.

  Leaving Flydd studying the iron serpents, Nish plodded down towards the river through a sea of mud and debris. The river path had disappeared and the forest near the bank was gone apart from the shattered stumps of the largest trees. Numb with grief, he trudged back.

  ‘What a stinking, lousy day,’ he said
. ‘This has been one of the worst I can ever remember.’ But not the worst. The worst day of all time was forever fixed in his memory and no other tragedy, no matter how awful, could erase it.

  ‘It’s not over yet,’ said Flydd, holding the iron serpent with the forked tongue that had seemed to stare at him earlier. The older man had some colour back in his cheeks at last.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ said Nish. Flydd’s choice of that serpent felt a trifle ominous, given Nish’s worries about him.

  ‘There’s power in it, and I’m sure it wasn’t left here by accident.’

  ‘No, Stilkeen left it to trap us,’ said Nish.

  ‘Perhaps, but Klarm isn’t having it, nor the other one. Take it.’

  ‘What?’ said Nish.

  ‘Take the serpent with the bared fangs.’

  ‘Why? Even if it does have power, I can’t use it.’

  ‘We can’t leave it here for some scoundrel to find. Besides, our situation can’t get much worse, can it?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Nish said grudgingly.

  ‘In that case, it might get better. Take it.’

  Nish gingerly touched the iron serpent, which was like a sinuous staff. He was afraid that it would come to life and sink those fangs into him, but nothing happened save that he sensed a surging heat within it.

  ‘I felt sure it would be hot, but it’s only blood warm.’

  ‘It’s hot inside. And there may be a time when you need that heat,’ said Flydd.

  ‘Not being a mancer, I’ll never know how to liberate it.’

  ‘You don’t necessarily have to be a mancer to use an enchanted object. Some devices can be used by anyone, when the time is right.’

  Not by me, Nish thought, but he hefted the serpent staff, which was his own height and rather heavy. It was one more thing to carry, and he was already worn out and feeling more hopeless every minute. Had they survived only to be trapped up here and starve? He followed Flydd back to the forest and the waiting militia.