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

by Ian Irvine

  They climbed through equally rough ridge lands for two more days and, around midnight on the fourteenth day, finally reached a broad area of level ground, partly obscured by low-lying mist.

  Nish drew everyone back down into the shelter of the trees, by a trickling stream, and lit a stub of candle so he could check the map. Persia sat beside him, kneading her calf muscles with her good hand. Her broken arm was healing but it was still weak. The last day’s march had been as hard as the first and everyone was footsore and bone-weary.

  ‘This has to be the plain of Morrelune,’ Nish said to Flangers and Clech. ‘Tell your men we’ll have a break for twenty minutes, and they’d better fill their water skins.’

  When they returned, he went on, ‘The plain forms a crescent of flat land separating the coastal range we’ve just climbed from the ridges running up to the high mountains. Maelys’s home, Nifferlin, was up there.’

  Memories stirred, of the terrible time after her little sister had broken him out of Mazurhize, and Maelys had shepherded him up into the mountains. Nish had been ill and delirious, and yet he had a vague memory of her carrying him at some stage, which was incredible. Afterwards he had treated her shabbily, and he had not properly made amends. Too late now. He forced the distracting thoughts away.

  ‘The plain is about four leagues long,’ said Persia, ‘but only a league wide at its broadest point, and we’re at the northern tip. Morrelune must be a couple of leagues to our left.’

  The four of them studied the map. ‘We’ll have to go carefully now,’ said Flangers. ‘The other armies will be camped within striking distance of Morrelune, and …’

  ‘My head will be a great prize to any of their commanders,’ said Nish. ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s a chance they’ll fight each other?’ said Clech, who was shivering. To Nish it was a mild spring night, but not for someone who came from hot, steamy Gendrigore.

  Nish shrugged; the question was unanswerable.

  ‘We’ll skirt the northern end of the plain and continue up on this track,’ he said, tracing it across the map with a fingertip. ‘It runs into the mountain path about a league west of Morrelune. We’ll sneak down it until we see the palace, then take cover and wait. The enemy armies won’t have camped up there –’

  ‘Why not?’ said Clech, thumping his massive thighs, which had wasted while his broken legs were healing.

  ‘There’s no water. The armies will camp below the plain where there are springs aplenty. Let’s move out.’

  They skirted the end of the plain, marched up along the path for some hours and, a little before dawn on the fifteenth day, he crested a rise, with a silent Persia beside him, looked down and saw the lights of his father’s palace below them.

  Nish stopped, breathing heavily. The last time he’d seen Morrelune, dragged there by his father’s guards, it had been framed by the rearing mountains immediately behind it, and it had looked airy, delicate and stunningly beautiful. A crescent-shaped lake, called the Sacred Lake, curved around its northern side, and from there both the palace and the framing mountains were reflected.

  Sets of broad steps rose on all four sides to a wide promenade surrounding the palace, which was built from white and golden stone. It consisted of nine levels, tapering upwards, each being like an open temple supported on many columns arranged in interlinked circles.

  There were no walls, not even in the highest level where Jal-Nish had dwelt, which was roofed over with a sky-piercing spire covered in lapis lazuli. The God-Emperor had no need of walls, for no one would have dared to spy on him, and with the tears he could even control the weather around his palace.

  But not any more. He was gone and Morrelune had been transformed; it was ablaze with light like a glowing jewel, but it was now Stilkeen’s, and Nish turned away hastily.

  He could not make Mazurhize out from here, since it lay another half a league across the plain. Mazurhize, the grimmest prison in the empire, was surrounded by a vast expanse of paving, though all he could see were the mist-haloed lamps around the four gigantic, tower-mounted wisp-watchers that scanned the paving with relentless, microscopic precision.

  It was the converse of Morrelune in every respect – it too had nine levels, but they tapered downwards, for the prison lay entirely underground and was massive, dark and claustrophobic. The ninth level, the dankest, most putrid and festering of them all, contained only a single cell and it had been reserved for the God-Emperor’s son. That was where Nish had served out his ten-year sentence.

  At the memories, his chest tightened and he fought to control the frantic impulse to run, anywhere.

  ‘Nish?’ said Persia. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Just remembering my prison days,’ he said lightly.

  She laid a hand on his shoulder and the panic eased, but it wasn’t going to go away. As long as there was an empire, and he was an outlaw, the threat remained.

  In Nish’s eyes Morrelune was equally tainted, for when his ten years were up he had been taken to his father’s court and tempted beyond endurance. He had almost broken; he had gone so very close, but in the end the proof demanded by Jal-Nish as the price of fealty had been too high.

  He had repudiated his father, who had then, to punish Nish, shown him the perfectly preserved body of his beloved Irisis, in a crystal coffin. She had looked exactly as she had the moment before she’d been slain, ten years before. Irisis might still have been alive, save for the thread-like seam where her head had been rejoined to her body.

  Subsequently, Jal-Nish had claimed that he could bring her back from the dead, exactly as she had been before death, and Nish had been half-mad with longing, but he had fought it and rejected his father once more. He would never again be tempted; yet neither could he entirely free himself from the desperate yearning to have her back.

  The sound of brass sliding against brass shook him from his reverie – Persia was surveying the eastern side of the plateau through a fieldscope.

  ‘I can see lights in three places, Nish – army camps.’ She pointed them out.

  ‘There were supposed to be five armies,’ Nish fretted. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘If they’re further down the ridges, we wouldn’t see them from here.’

  Nor if they’re up here somewhere, hunting me, he thought. ‘Take a look at Morrelune. It doesn’t seem quite right.’

  She trained the fieldscope on the palace and let out a yelp of dismay.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered. ‘Have you recognised someone? Father?’ No, not at this distance, surely.

  ‘The palace still has the shape of Morrelune, but –’

  ‘You’ve been here before?’

  ‘I accompanied Yulla, three years ago,’ said Persia, ‘when she came to plead for the return of her monopolies. The God-Emperor turned her away, of course. See for yourself.’

  She handed him the fieldscope. He looked through it, adjusted the focus, and stared. The palace was ablaze – every floor, column, stair and spire flickered with yellow and orange fire – yet there was no smoke, nor any evident damage. Morrelune was burning, but not being burnt.

  ‘It’s as if the very stone has been replaced by fire,’ he said breathlessly. He moved the fieldscope back and forth but the air around Morrelune had a mirage-like shimmer and he could not make out any finer details, nor any trace of the great enemy. ‘Why would it do that?’

  ‘You said Stilkeen was in great pain when you first met it,’ said Persia.

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

  ‘If it’s in such pain in our world, it makes sense that it would rebuild Morrelune so as to minimise its suffering. And being a creature of fire and shadow, it has remade Morrelune in that guise. Let’s see …’

  Persia took a number of crystalline plates from a bag, pushed one into a slot in front of the eyepiece and looked through the fieldscope. Shaking her head, she replaced the first plate with another, and another, then swallowed and lowered t
he fieldscope, staring blankly.

  ‘You’d better take a look.’ She passed it to him.

  Nish looked; his heart skipped several beats and began to thump erratically. The fire palace was clearer now, but that wasn’t what had bothered her. Between Morrelune and the distant mountains, a translucent barrier could now be seen rising up from the land to the sky like a monstrous wall, and blurred shadows were moving behind it.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Persia. ‘The barrier that protects Santhenar from the void, made visible.’

  ‘Stilkeen threatened us with the void. It told us to bring the fire to Morrelune within fifteen days, or after that time, it would empty the void into the Three Worlds and all human life will be erased.’

  ‘Was that a threat?’ said Persia quietly, ‘or was it a promise? I think … Stilkeen has been hurt badly … and its sacred person has been insulted and profaned …’

  Nish followed her train of thought to its unpleasant conclusion. ‘And if it doesn’t just blame Yalkara, if Stilkeen thinks all of us are complicit –’

  ‘It may decide to punish us by opening the void into Santhenar, even if it gets the pure fire.’

  It would be the end of the world – at least, for humanity. His stomach burned as if it was brimming with acid, for this was a problem he could not solve with arms; it was beyond any of them. It had to be the end.

  ‘What can I do,’ he said, ‘with five armies waiting for me to appear, plus Stilkeen, and the most savage creatures in the void waiting to be released? And all I have to oppose them is a company of worn-out soldiers.’

  Persia did not reply, though the look on her face told him that she had no more hope than he did. They trudged back to the wooded fold where the rest of his force was hidden but, as they reached it, there came a crash from the other side of the ridge above them, then the sound of rubble sliding down a slope, and silence.

  ‘What was that?’ said Clech, rising to his feet, gigantic sword in hand. He was out of his element in the chilly, barren south, and did not like it.

  ‘Has Stilkeen opened the void already?’ whispered Persia.

  ‘It can’t have,’ Nish said unconvincingly. ‘It’s too soon; it hasn’t got what it wants.’

  ‘We can’t predict what a being will do,’ said Persia.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The journey from Aachan back to Santhenar seemed to take forever, and all the while the caduceus shook beneath their hands as if buffeted by a gale, though not a hair on Maelys’s head was disturbed. She could see nothing, yet she had an uncomfortable feeling that something was watching her – the back of her neck burned as if a searing gaze had focussed on it. Yggur began to pant, and once Tulitine cried out in pain. Malien was silent save for several stifled sighs, presumably for the world she would never see again.

  What if we’re too late? Maelys kept thinking. Time passes differently in the Three Worlds, as in the Nightland; days could have gone by while we were on Aachan. If the deadline had already passed, Stilkeen might have emptied the void into Santhenar already.

  Yggur groaned and the caduceus tilted right over. Malien said sharply, ‘You can’t give up now. If we stop in between, we could end up anywhere. Or nowhere.’

  ‘Can’t hold it,’ he slurred. ‘It’s sucking me dry.’

  ‘Tulitine?’ Malien said urgently.

  The caduceus shook wildly, as if trying to throw them off. ‘I can barely hang on,’ said Tulitine.

  ‘What’s the matter with it?’ cried Maelys.

  ‘Stilkeen must know that we’ve found the pure fire,’ said Malien, ‘since the caduceus led us to it. And here, within the portal, we’re close to its ethereal realm. If Stilkeen can maroon us here, it might be able to take the fire from us, instead of suffering on Santhenar while it waits for us to bring the fire to it – and perhaps it’s afraid we won’t. Fight it, Yggur. If Stilkeen was strong here, it would have snatched the fire at once.’

  ‘Nothing left …’ whispered Yggur.

  ‘Maelys, hang onto him.’

  Maelys pulled herself up the furiously vibrating caduceus until she caught Yggur’s hands.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ he slurred. ‘Might fall out of portal.’

  ‘What if I do?’

  ‘You’ll go nowhere – forever.’

  She took a tighter grip and the taphloid swung against Yggur’s wrist.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said sharply.

  ‘My taphloid.’

  ‘Give it to me. Quick!’

  She handed it over reluctantly, wondering what the connection was between Yggur and the taphloid, and why he had recognised it back on the Range of Ruin, yet had no memory of ever seeing it.

  Yggur let out a great sigh, Maelys felt him relax and the caduceus stopped shaking. The feeling of eyes on the back of her neck disappeared, as did all sensation of movement. Did it hide Yggur, the way it did herself? It must. Unfortunately, they seemed no closer to Morrelune than before.

  Light grew in the distance, spreading around a horizon, and Maelys saw that they were suspended just above a flat surface faintly marked with a grid of squares. Not completely flat – it was dimpled below the caduceus and again below the taphloid, now held in Yggur’s outstretched right hand.

  A distorting wave passed through him as if he were a figure made of jelly, then he was his normal self again. ‘Maintain the watch against Stilkeen, Yggur,’ he said in the voice an adult might use to a young child.

  ‘What did you say?’ hissed Malien.

  He blinked twice and shook his head as if to clear it. ‘The words just came to me, as they did before we left the Range of Ruin. Didn’t I tell you about that?’

  ‘You said a voice told you to keep watch; you didn’t say “against Stilkeen”. And that wasn’t your voice. It sounded like a father speaking to his son – but what father would have known about Stilkeen in the distant age when you were a boy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Yggur hoarsely, as if afraid of the answer. ‘According to Lilis, not even Nadiril the Librarian could find any early reference to Stilkeen. Who could have known it but Yalkara …?’

  ‘Or another Charon, close to her,’ said Malien.

  He started. ‘But only two Charon men ever came to Santhenar, and of them, Rulke was ever my enemy. What are you saying? Do you mean …? Could Kandor be my father?’

  ‘That’s it!’ cried Malien. ‘Kandor and Yalkara were close in ancient times, and if anyone would have known about the stolen fire it would have been him. He might have warned her about it, but Yalkara was ever proud and headstrong.

  ‘What if they fell out over chthonic fire?’ she mused. ‘Kandor would have known that a being’s patience is infinite, and that eventually it must discover who had stolen the fire. He could not force Yalkara to give it back, for she was far more powerful than he was. Neither could he hope to stop Stilkeen when it came, but Kandor had recently had a son by an old human woman, and he must have known that the boy possessed a brilliant gift for mancery. With the proper lessons his son – you, Yggur – might be able to protect the world from Stilkeen.’

  ‘So that’s why the taphloid felt so much smaller,’ sighed Yggur. ‘When I first held it, I was a small boy.’

  ‘I see it now,’ said Malien. ‘Kandor made the taphloid and hid your lessons in it in case something happened to him. It was designed to protect and instruct you, and only you, once you were old enough.

  ‘But soon afterwards he was killed in the Clysm, and it was such a bitter war that your mother must have been afraid to tell anyone, even you, who your father was. Left destitute, and not knowing the taphloid’s importance, she sold it to survive, and eventually it ended up at the Great Library.’

  ‘It also explains why my Arts are so enigmatic,’ said Yggur, sounding stronger now. ‘Because the Charon came from outside the Three Worlds.’ His face cleared suddenly and he said, ‘Now I know that my duty was to maintain the watch against Stilkeen, I’m goi
ng to fulfil my destiny.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Malien. ‘The past cannot command the future.’

  ‘I want to do it. It’s the only way I can bond with the father I never knew.’ He passed the taphloid back to Maelys. ‘Do you still have our destination in mind, Maelys?’

  She focussed on the memories. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then hang on tight – we’re going all the way this time.’

  The caduceus began to shudder but Yggur forced it to stillness and the gridded plane faded away. Wind whistled about Maelys’s ears, Tulitine let out a soft cry, then they emerged from darkness into a chilly morning, landing heavily on a flat rock perched on a steep slope. As the rock began to move, they leapt off and it slid down the hill, a little landslide following in its wake, to crash into a patch of scrub further down.

  ‘Where are we?’ said Malien, rubbing a bleeding knee.

  Maelys looked up at the mountains in the distance, and they were her mountains; she knew every one of those peaks. ‘Not far above Morrelune.’

  ‘And we’ve just told anyone within a quarter of a league where to find us,’ said Tulitine.

  ‘But are we in time?’ said Malien.

  It reminded Maelys about her visions in the Pit of Possibilities, months ago. She had appeared in none of the possible futures she and Nish had seen there. Was she destined to die soon; today?

  ‘Where’s Morrelune?’ said Yggur.

  Maelys pointed away from the mountains. ‘We’ll see it from the top of that ridge.’

  And Mazurhize, where Jal-Nish had held her mother, Lyma, her aunts Haga and Bugi, and her little sister, Fyllis. Could they still be alive after all these months? Maelys had last seen them in the image Jal-Nish had shown her at the top of Mistmurk Mountain, a long time ago now, and they had looked starved, listless and beaten. She could not bear to think of what they had gone through.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ said Yggur urgently. ‘We’d better hide.’