by Ian Irvine
Tulitine let out an uncharacteristic mewling cry and the back of Maelys’s neck prickled. Yggur half rose to his feet but settled down again.
‘What was that?’ said Maelys.
‘Just thunder,’ said Yggur, wiping sweat off his brow. ‘Maybe a storm will cool things down.’
‘Thunder would hardly shake the ground.’
‘Perhaps it’s another cave collapsing inside the mountain,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m tired, Maelys. I’ve hardly slept in three days and I don’t care.’
The caduceus shook again, more vigorously. Yggur stood up, looked around, but sat down and closed his eyes again.
The ground shook once more but this time the head of the caduceus revolved in a circle, leaving a blue trail behind, like a smoke ring. It drifted up and swelled to become a transparent blue sphere that hung in the air, touched redly here and there by the firelight, and an image appeared on the surface: a broad, flattened head with flaring bony plates like a winged helmet, a split nose and yellow eyes covered in nictitating membranes.
‘I am Stilkeen,’ it said, its voice low and soft, like thunder heard from a great distance. Wisps of red flame dripped from its nostrils; it snapped at them with needle-sharp teeth. ‘I have roamed the eleven dimensions of space and time for an eternity and a half. I cannot die, and nothing –’
Lightning flashed; the image dissolved in jags and the voice was lost in an irritating crackling buzz.
‘– without fire and spirit, I am diminished and in pain … and when I hurt, I hunger to make worlds pay –’
Another flash, and more crackling.
‘… who brings Stilkeen the true, uncorrupted chthonic fire will be rewarded beyond their dreams … keeps true fire from Stilkeen will suffer … agonies … endlessly prolonged. Bring the fire to Morrelune within fifteen days, or …’ Another long interruption. ‘… from the void … engulf … your civilisation.’
The blue sphere vanished, and Stilkeen with it.
‘True, uncorrupted chthonic fire,’ said Yggur. ‘What can that mean?’
‘I suppose it means that the fire we’ve found is no good,’ said Tulitine. ‘It must have been corrupted, as you thought.’
‘How could Stilkeen know it’s no good?’ said Maelys, her heart sinking even further. Had all they’d done since leaving the Range of Ruin been for nothing?
‘If it is linked to the caduceus, and I’m sure it is, Stilkeen must be able to tell that our chthonic fire isn’t pure. I think it’s getting impatient.’
‘Then why doesn’t it get the wretched stuff for itself?’
‘Presumably it can’t.’
‘Fifteen days!’ said Maelys. ‘And we haven’t got the faintest idea where to look for pure fire – or how it gets corrupted.’
‘It explains why the caduceus has been so cooperative,’ said Tulitine. ‘Stilkeen definitely left it there to help us.’
‘As long as we use it for the right purpose,’ said Yggur drily. ‘I doubt it would bless us if we went hunting treasure.’
‘Do you think the message only came to us?’ said Maelys.
‘How would that profit Stilkeen?’ he said. ‘I’m sure many people saw it.’
‘What do you think rewarded beyond their dreams means?’
‘We’re dealing with a subtle being here,’ said Tulitine, ‘and it could be offering a demon’s bargain. Rewarded beyond your dreams might be a threat.’
‘It might, but the greedy will only see treasure, and by tomorrow every fortune hunter on Santhenar will be after the true fire. We can only pray that none of them find it.’
‘It reinforces the urgency of our quest,’ said Yggur. He looked at Maelys. ‘And since we don’t know where else chthonic fire might be found, we’ll have to go to the Nightland.’
They prepared to leave at first light. The time of day never varied in the Nightland but dawn seemed the best time to be going.
The caduceus grew hot and heavy when Yggur announced the destination, and trembled as if its interior was in churning motion, though for a good few minutes they remained in the rainforest. The caduceus seemed to be struggling to pierce the barrier that had cut the Nightland off from the world and the void for so long.
Finally the barrier parted like a pair of curtains, they were drawn through and Maelys found herself on that flat and featureless black plane again.
Tulitine was rubbing her hands together. The Nightland felt colder than before – so cold that the chill went straight up through the soles of Maelys’s boots. Cold as my dead lover, she thought, and her eyes stung.
‘Which way?’ said Yggur, peering into the darkness.
‘I don’t know,’ said Maelys, almost choking. She wished they were a thousand leagues away. She could not bear to think about Emberr lying here, dead, and she did not want to talk to anyone about him, nor for anyone else to see his body – in whatever state it was in by now.
‘But … surely – you’ve been here twice …’
‘And I have no idea where Emberr’s cottage is.’
‘How did you find it in the beginning?’ said Tulitine gently.
‘When I came here with Flydd and Colm … Emberr scented me while I slept. He called me, mind to mind, and gave me directions.’ Maelys smiled at the memories.
‘And the second time?’
‘After I followed the Numinator through the fire portal, I called Emberr with my mind. I didn’t expect it to work but he must have been waiting for me, and he told me where to go. His cottage was under an enchantment and no one could find it unless he willed it; he said it was made that way.’
‘By Yalkara, to protect him, I suppose,’ said Tulitine.
‘But the Numinator found the cottage,’ said Yggur.
‘That was my fault,’ said Maelys. ‘After Emberr and I … lay together, I got up. He was still sleeping …’ She rubbed eyes that were already red. ‘At least, I thought he was asleep. I went to the front door and looked out, but the Numinator was nearby, searching, and as soon as I opened the door it broke the enchantment. She saw me and I couldn’t keep her out.’
‘Why do you blame yourself for that?’ said Tulitine. ‘She didn’t harm Emberr.’
‘At home, every time something went wrong it was my fault. What if we can’t find the cottage?’
‘The caduceus has a powerful link to white fire,’ said Yggur. ‘If there’s any here, we’ll find it.’
He made a fist, held it upright, laid the caduceus across it and spun it gently, three times, but each time it came to rest pointing in a different direction. ‘Not a very good start,’ he said ruefully.
‘Why did Stilkeen want to revenge itself on Emberr, anyhow?’ said Maelys. ‘Yalkara committed the crime.’
‘Perhaps it thought that destroying her child, the sole surviving Charon male, was a better revenge,’ said Yggur. ‘Let’s get on.’
They found no sign of Emberr’s cottage on the first day and had no idea where to look next; since this part of the Nightland was so featureless, there was no way of telling where they were going or where they had been. They camped for the night and made a frugal meal on the supplies they had brought with them. Afterwards the Nightland provided them with black blankets, in the same way that it had provided food and bedding on Maelys’s first visit, and she lay down to rest.
Yggur helped Tulitine off with her boots, tucked her in, folded his own blankets and put them under her head for a pillow.
‘What about you?’ said Tulitine, sighing as the weight came off her troubled bones.
‘I wasn’t planning on sleeping yet.’
She lay there, eyes on him as he moved back and forth. With the point of the caduceus he prised out a length of the black floor, a firm, yet plastic substance unlike any material Maelys had ever seen, and fashioned it into a simple stand which curved over at the top. Drawing a black thread down from the end, he tied it around the centre of the caduceus and moved it back and forth until it was suspended horizontally.
‘Is it a direction finder?’ said Maelys.
‘I hope so.’
He spun the caduceus gently, and it came to rest pointing past Tulitine. Maelys sat up and peered that way, but Yggur spun the caduceus again and it pointed in a different direction, and different again the third time.
‘I hate this place,’ said Yggur, adjusting the caduceus and thread, ‘which is ironic since I had a hand in creating it, well over a thousand years ago. But it’s greatly changed, and in ways that I cannot fathom.’
‘All things change,’ said Tulitine.
‘And things fashioned with the Art change in unpredictable ways. The more they’re used, or the more powerful the mancers who use them, the more radically they can be transformed. It’s one of the first principles of mancery, and why the same spell never works exactly the same way twice.’
‘My taphloid seems to change all the time,’ said Maelys. ‘Whenever I think I understand it, it does something to surprise me.’
‘Ah yes, your taphloid,’ said Yggur, staring so fixedly at the chain running down between her breasts that Maelys felt uncomfortable and hugged herself protectively. ‘Where did it come from – and why did it feel so familiar in my hand, when I’ve no memory of having seen it before?’
‘There’s a long gap in your life,’ said Tulitine. ‘When you …’
‘Wandered witless?’ said Yggur. ‘I don’t mind you saying it.’
‘Can you teach me the Art?’ said Maelys, who had been lost in her own thoughts. ‘Father had my talent suppressed to protect me. Though … I know I’m really old to be starting on mancery …’
‘Really old?’ said Yggur, smiling. ‘How old are you?’
She flushed. Was he laughing at her? ‘I’m nineteen.’
He idly spun the caduceus, which came to rest pointing over her shoulder. ‘It’s true – unless one begins mancery at an early age it can never be truly mastered, just as one who learns a new language after childhood will always speak it with an accent. It may already be too late for you.’
He frowned at a sudden realisation. ‘I must have learned my own Art from the earliest age; I cannot remember a time without it.’ He spun the caduceus again; again it pointed over Maelys’s shoulder.
‘Will you teach me, when all this is done?’
Yggur twisted the tip of the caduceus in the opposite direction. ‘I expect I would be an indifferent teacher –’
The caduceus shuddered, tore out of his grasp and pointed over Maelys’s shoulder again.
‘That’s definitely a sign,’ Tulitine said. ‘I suppose I’ve got to get out of bed.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Yggur.
Maelys stared in the direction the caduceus was pointing, and swallowed. It had to be pointing to the cottage; to Emberr’s abandoned body.
They walked through the black, featureless wastes of the Nightland for the best part of an hour, at which time she made out a small square shape in the distance.
‘There it is!’ said Maelys, and took off.
‘Wait,’ said Yggur.
Tulitine murmured, ‘Maelys, it may not –’
The happiest hours of Maelys’s life had been spent there, followed by the darkest, and whatever lay ahead of her she could not hold back now. She ran until she had a stitch in her side and each breath was tearing at her throat.
The cottage had been a pretty little wooden place with warm light streaming through its windows to illuminate gardens full of flowers at the front, a paved path and a rustic timber fence. At the rear there had been a vegetable patch, fruit trees and a small forest fading into the darkness.
But no more. ‘What’s happened?’ she panted, coming to a stop outside the crumbling gate. ‘I was here only a couple of weeks ago. How can it be so changed?’
‘Time passes differently in the Nightland,’ said Yggur, who had run after her. ‘Sometimes fast, at other times with interminable slowness. It was designed that way so as to punish its solitary prisoner.’
‘Emberr’s cottage had been so warm and lovely. Now look at it.’
The garden was dead, the fruit trees leafless, while the light leaking from the broken, sagging windows was a dingy grey. There was a hole in the roof, and the garden and path were littered with fallen, rotting shingles.
There came a low, distant thud. The floor of the Nightland quivered gently, and in the woods behind the cottage something fell with a cracking sound, like a long-dead branch breaking. It’s all dead, she thought. Everything’s falling to pieces.
She pushed on the gate but it did not move, for the hinges had rusted; the timber broke under the pressure of her fingers. It was powdery and crumbling, eaten away by dry rot.
Maelys picked her way along the path, afraid of what she would find inside, but even if Emberr was rotting flesh or mouldering bones she could not stop now. She swallowed, tightened her jaw and continued.
‘Wait,’ called Tulitine, who was still some distance away, and her voice sounded more strained than before. Every step, even on the smooth floor of the Nightland, troubled her. ‘We’ll come with you.’
‘I’d prefer to see Emberr alone,’ said Maelys over her shoulder. ‘No matter what state he’s in. I caused his death; the least I can do is take care of the – the body.’
‘As you told the story,’ said Yggur, ‘Emberr saw traces of white fire on your skin and knew what it was likely to do to him, but lay with you anyway. He was born in the Nightland; he had spent more than two hundred years here and could never leave; maybe he’d had enough.’
Maelys could not listen; Emberr was dead and that was all that mattered. What use was reasoned argument, or excuses? Going up the steps, feeling the rotten wood giving underfoot, she pushed on the sagging door.
It swung open, scraping across the floor, and she looked down the hall. The wall and floor timbers were decayed now and everything was covered in fine black dust. She did not recall seeing dust in the Nightland previously.
She crept down the hall into the small room with the rugs on the floor. The rugs by the fireplace where … There was a lump in her throat; she swallowed but still found it hard to breathe. As she went in, she saw the cushion Emberr had given her to sit on, and beside it the platter of food, now just shrivelled and unidentifiable shreds.
And there was the kilt he had taken off before they lay together on the rug. It was still indented with the shape of his long, muscular body. But the body was gone.
TWENTY-FOUR
Nish scrambled out from under the deck of the air-sled. ‘What’s the matter? What have I done?’
The air-sled was lurching and wobbling across the sky, for Chissmoul was flying it with her eyes closed and her face was screwed up.
‘It burns,’ she gasped. ‘It feels like the backs of my eyes are burning. Aah! Aaahh! Flangers, put your hands over my eyes. Press hard, then tell me which way to go.’
He did so and she zigged and zagged, banked and climbed, completely blind. His head was swinging this way and that, keeping watch on the javelards coming from the front and sides, and calling out instructions to go fast or slow, climb or descend, turn east or south or west or north.
Flydd, facing the other way, was also calling out directions, and Nish marvelled that Chissmoul could follow them both at the same time. Even with her eyes blocked, she always knew which direction the air-sled was heading, and never hesitated.
The javelards were firing as fast and furiously as before, but suddenly their spears and chain-shot were no longer coming close.
‘It’s working,’ Nish said dully, hanging onto the back of the seat with both hands, for he was so drained from using the staff that he could barely stand up. ‘Gatherer has lost the link.’
‘I’m all right now,’ Chissmoul said. ‘It’s coming back.’
Flangers took his hands away and she opened one eye, winced, and then the other. After checking that the missiles were missing by wide margins, she wiped her brow on her sleeve and began to climb out of range, up into the n
ight sky where they could no longer be seen. Shortly she headed away, across the city and out over the Sea of Perion.
No one spoke for ten or fifteen minutes; everyone save the pilot lay on the deck, exhausted. Nish stared up at the sky, thinking about the encounter. We couldn’t even sway the leaders of one provincial city, he thought. How can we hope to seize the empire? It’s hopeless, even more hopeless than the battle for the pass. At least there I knew how to fight my enemy. I have no idea how to deal with these people.
But he had fought his crippling self-doubt before, and knew how to recognise it now. Nish had vowed never to give in to it again, and he would not. He was going to fight on; he would find a way to combat these foes and until then, for the sake of morale, he had to appear calm and in control.
He lay there for a good while, slowly coming to terms with these fears, and when he felt that he had overcome them for the moment, and the lights of Taranta had disappeared, he took a number of deep breaths and sat up.
‘I have to say, Xervish,’ he said mildly, ‘that wasn’t one of your greatest speeches.’
‘Should have known better than to try it here,’ Flydd said ruefully. ‘I’m sure it would have worked a treat in Roros, or wicked old Thurkad that is no more, but what can you expect from these inbred, back-country rubes?’
‘Not everyone was against you,’ said Flangers. ‘I saw some groups looking very attentive.’
‘But the seneschal has sowed doubt in everyone’s minds, which is a pity. Wherever we go, the God-Emperor’s loyal servants will have heard their lies, and they’ll be expecting us.’
‘Now they know the God-Emperor is missing,’ said Flangers, ‘they might swing their allegiance to Nish.’
‘A few might, but could he trust them? It would be different if we could prove that Jal-Nish was dead, but a man who turns his coat when his master needs him most is likely to do it again. We don’t want such a man, or such an army, at our backs.’
‘How long will it take to reach Roros?’ said Flangers. ‘The militia are tired and hungry and desperate for sleep, and their bladders must be bursting – I know mine is.’
