by Ian Irvine
‘Nothing could give me greater pleasure,’ said Nish wholeheartedly then, glancing sideways at Liett, ‘Er, assuming you can get away.’
‘Five hundred lyrinx,’ Flydd repeated, louder than before. ‘And as fighters, one lyrinx is worth two ordinary soldiers.’
‘Four!’ snapped Liett.
Ryll bowed to Flydd and said in a booming voice, ‘We have answered your call, to show our gratitude for the way we were treated by you and Nish in the past, and to demonstrate our cousinship with all the human species of Santhenar – now and in the future.’
The portal closed, but Flydd was not finished yet. He now created a smaller one between the Aachim and lyrinx.
‘Who on earth can this be?’ said Maelys softly.
‘I can’t imagine,’ said Nish.
The new portal was only half the size of the others, and the air eddying from it felt bitterly cold and carried whirling flakes of snow that swiftly melted in the warm air. From within, all he could hear was the faint rustle of cloth on cloth, and a melodic jingling.
A golden-skinned man appeared, no taller than Nish but reed-slender. A woman marched beside him, only Maelys’s height, though she was slim of hip and narrow of chest.
‘I am Galgilliel,’ said the man.
‘And I am Lainor,’ said the woman. ‘Our three hundred and fifty fighting men and women are here to represent the sole survivors of the Faellem species. We remained behind in our southern forests two centuries ago when Faelamor led the rest of our kind back to Tallallame, and to self-immolation when they discovered what her folly had done to our beautiful world.’ She came across to Ryll, who was twice her height and ten times her bulk, and extended her hand. ‘You are the custodians of Tallallame now, and I am sure no one could take better care of it.’
‘We’re slowly exterminating the void vermin that infested the world at that time,’ said Ryll, ‘though the task will take many generations.’
‘Do you ever see any trace of our ancestral selves?’ said Lainor. ‘The Faellem who regressed to barbarism long ago? Or have they vanished as well?’
‘They are shy and easily frightened,’ said Ryll, ‘but we see them from time to time.’
‘We would so love to see Tallallame again,’ she said wistfully. ‘Might we – one day –?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Ryll firmly. ‘But not yet.’
The portal appeared to close but reopened at once, now rimed with ice. It had gone a frosty blue inside and Nish made out the clatter of wooden-soled sandals.
‘The sorcerer Zofloc … reanimated, and eighty Whelm,’ Flydd announced.
‘You old devil!’ cried Yggur admiringly. ‘You have been busy.’
‘But Zofloc was dead,’ whispered Maelys, remembering the way her skin had crept at his touch. ‘Yggur, you said his fall killed him.’
‘Flydd did say reanimated,’ said Yggur.
‘The way the dead in the Tower of a Thousand Steps were brought back to life?’ asked Maelys, shuddering. ‘By shooting them with needles of distilled fire?’
‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’ said Yggur.
The clatter grew louder and out lurched Zofloc, who looked almost as horrible as Maelys’s other nemesis, dead Phrune. The sorcerer’s grey skin, the colour of lead, was touched with writhing worms of off-white fire; his scarlet, protruding eyeballs sparkled from the twinklestones still stuck to them, while jagged pieces of bone stuck out in a crest from the back of his evacuated skull.
‘I expect he carried a needle of his distilled fire,’ said Yggur, ‘and plunged it into himself as he lay dying.’
A good distance behind Zofloc, and looking at him askance, came a disorderly throng of Whelm clad in loincloths or ragged robes. The men carried jag-swords and the women long stilettos, but they had a forlorn, hangdog air about them.
‘I thought the Whelm were a proud people,’ said Nish, who had not encountered them before.
‘They are when they have a master,’ said Yggur. ‘Whelm are born to serve and without a master they are miserable creatures. The Numinator must have cast them off.’
The portal closed, but reopened almost at once, and out of it stepped a woman of Nish’s age and height, at least seven months pregnant, and an older man who had only one hand. Nish recognised the older man at once, but the woman was so changed that he stared at her for a full minute before he knew who she was, for her long dark hair was streaked with white, and she was rather plumper than when he had known her.
‘Tiaan?’ said Nish.
She also looked at him without recognition, then smiled and came across.
‘No one has heard anything about you for ten years,’ said Nish, embracing her awkwardly, since her bump got in the way. ‘We were afraid that Father had ordered you killed.’
‘I’m sure he would have,’ said Tiaan, a dimple flashing in her cheek, ‘had I not foolishly destroyed all the nodes, thus delivering the gift of Santhenar to him. He hunted us down, Father and me – you remember Merryl?’
‘Very well,’ said Nish, smiling and shaking hands. He’d always liked Tiaan’s father.
‘Jal-Nish threw us in prison down south, near our old manufactory,’ Tiaan went on, ‘along with my mother, poor old Marnie. But six months later we were set free and I was given work as an artisan. Marnie and Father got back together, but …’
‘She was a terrible wife,’ said Merryl, ‘as you told me she would be.’
‘Marnie ran away within the month,’ said Tiaan, ‘but I have a good man now, and two children, and Merryl.’
‘You look happy,’ said Nish, pleased for her. ‘In all the time I knew you, you never seemed happy.’
‘I wasn’t. I was always searching for something, but until I found Father at the victory feast, I did not know what it was.’
‘Yet you, alone of all of us who sat down to the feast that day ten years ago, were the one to find happiness. How oddly things turn out. What are you doing here?’
‘So pregnant, you mean?’ said Tiaan. ‘I destroyed the nodes and made it possible for your father to become God-Emperor, and I’ve never stopped regretting that stupidity. Even if I cannot undo it, I had to be here.’
‘What about your children?’
‘If I don’t come back? I pray that I will, but if the worst happens Marnie will look after them – it’s what she does best. I had to help make up for the ill I’ve done, Nish. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Better than anyone, and I’m very glad to have you with me.’
FORTY-ONE
How had Flydd done so much, so quickly, Maelys wondered. But then, who better to pull such an unlikely alliance together, since he’d spent the last years of the war doing just that. It was another reason for reverting to the old Flydd that people knew and trusted. No matter how persuasive the renewed man might have been, he’d looked, and had been, too different.
Stilkeen had not emerged from the palace but, within thirty minutes, the military arrangements outside had been transformed. Vomix and Seneschal Lidgeon had amalgamated their reduced forces, putting Vomix in command of an army no less powerful than he’d had before.
Hackel had lost few men, since his mercenaries had come to plunder the wealth of the God-Emperor, and their greed for loot outweighed their unease. Nosby’s fiercely loyal Imperial Guard had stood firm to the man.
Nish’s allies now numbered two and a half thousand, a powerful force, but still greatly outnumbered. Maelys stood behind him, covertly watching these famous names from the pages of the Histories. They might have been enemies once, but all seemed to be old friends now, and she felt quite intimidated by them.
‘V-Vomix has raised a blue truce flag,’ called Persia. ‘He wants to parley.’
‘Don’t go near him, Nish,’ said Maelys. ‘He means to kill you.’
‘Hackel and Nosby are also raising parley flags,’ said Persia.
‘The real enemy is still inside the palace,’ said Nish. ‘I have to go, b
ut I won’t be taking the pure fire, so killing me will do Vomix no good.’
‘It’ll rid the empire of the one legitimate heir,’ said Maelys.
Nish glanced at the sun, which hung not far above the mountains to the west. ‘It’s getting late, and we’ve got to take the fire to Stilkeen before it comes after us. I’m going to the parley.’
‘Not alone,’ said Persia.
‘How many is Vomix bringing?’
She looked through her fieldscope. ‘Just himself, a standard bearer and a witness.’
‘Then I must do the same.’
‘But –’
‘Ranking my allies behind me would mean that I lacked confidence in myself,’ said Nish. ‘I will march behind my standard bearer, Clech, with one old friend as witness. Maelys, will you stand beside me?’
‘Me?’ she squeaked. Vomix had suffered excruciating agony because of her, and she knew he wanted to make her suffer equally.
‘I need you.’
Maelys could not imagine why, but since he had asked, how could she refuse? She took a deep breath. ‘Then I will come.’
Clech led them out, and she felt very small and conspicuous in the vast paved space between the armies. On her left, Vomix’s flapping standard sounded like a whip being cracked; to her right, Hackel’s pennant showed a black jackal on a blue background. The officer in the white uniform was General Nosby, behind the flag of the Imperial Guard. Renowned for his loyalty to the God-Emperor, Nosby, at least, was unlikely to be after Nish’s blood.
They came together. Nosby was a tall, bluff man with white hair and pouched eyes. He had lost a lot of weight recently and did not look as though he’d slept in a week, which was understandable. If Vomix took over, he would slaughter everyone loyal to the former God-Emperor, including Nosby and his entire family.
Hackel the Jackal was lean, wiry, and tremendously hairy. His yellow-brown eyes burned with a hunter’s intensity, he had a snout of a nose and his underslung jaw was studded with canine teeth. When he moved, it was with an alert, eager step, as though he were straining at the leash, longing to run down his prey. On his left hip was a short sword with tendrils of white fumes drifting up from its scabbard; a small leather bag the size of a wine skin swung from his right hip.
Seneschal Vomix strode up, brandishing his spike-ended right arm, and Maelys stared at him in horror. He had never been a handsome man but, after the touch of her taphloid had inverted his aura months ago, his face resembled a painting that had been ripped into pieces and rudely pasted back together.
‘We meet again, Cryl-Nish,’ he said, bowing ironically, but his eyes were on her, and they said, You’ll pay for what you did to me. He extended his left hand.
‘Don’t bother,’ said Nish. ‘What do you want?’
Vomix’s eyes glittered and he dropped his hand. ‘The fifteenth day is nearly up. Do you have the pure fire?’
‘Do you?’ said Nish, looking at Vomix, and then Hackel, and Nosby.
‘I don’t know what chthonic fire is,’ said Nosby wearily. ‘I am here to defend my liege lord’s realm, as I swore to do.’
‘Then it’s between us three,’ said Vomix. ‘Shall we draw lots to be the first to approach Stilkeen? Or do you claim that right, Cryl-Nish, as the son of the God-Emperor?’
Maelys could read Nish’s hesitation. Stilkeen was an enigma; could its word be relied upon, or was it also planning revenge? And how would it react if the chthonic fire they gave it was not pure enough?
If its offer was genuine, the first person to bring it the true fire would be rewarded beyond his dreams, though, with Vomix and Hackel waiting outside, he might not enjoy it long.
Yet if Stilkeen had revenge in mind, it might be better to allow Vomix or Hackel to go first. It was unlikely that they had found true fire, and if they had not, let its wrath fall upon them. However, if they had found true fire, the game was lost.
‘I do not claim that right,’ said Nish at last.
His brow shone with sweat; he was afraid he’d made the wrong decision. Maelys noted that both Vomix and Hackel were smiling. They had also read him.
‘Then it will be lots,’ said Vomix, drawing some tally sticks from a pocket.
‘Put them away,’ said Hackel. ‘I enjoy a wager, but I won’t have anyone tilting the odds against me.’
Vomix pocketed the tally sticks. ‘Do you have a better alternative?’
Hackel considered the standard bearers and witnesses. ‘You have the only guileless face among us,’ he said to Maelys. ‘Draw a large circle on the ground.’
With her knife, Maelys described a wobbly circle on the paving stones.
‘Pick up three pieces of gravel, the same size, and mark them with a V, N and H.’
‘I’ll make my own mark,’ said Vomix.
‘The devil you will,’ said Hackel. ‘No one touches them but the girl.’
Maelys scouted around until she found three suitable pieces of gravel, inscribed the letters on them and held them out so Nish, Vomix and Hackel could inspect them.
‘We’ll walk away,’ said Hackel. ‘You, girl, are to stand in the circle, shake the gravel in your hand and hurl it upwards. The piece of gravel that falls closest to the centre of the circle indicates the first to confront Stilkeen, and the furthest piece, last.’
‘What if she cheats?’ Vomix said sourly.
‘How can she?’ said Hackel.
A layer of grey cloud passed across the setting sun, and in the sudden gloom the fire palace flared and flickered. Maelys did not want to go near it. Was she going to meet the death the Pit of Possibilities had predicted, in Morrelune?
She hurled the gravel straight up and moved out of the way. One piece fell inside the circle, a second near the rim, and the third, further off.
‘An unambiguous result,’ said Hackel. ‘Pick up the stones, one at a time.’
Hackel, Nish and Vomix approached. The outer stone was marked H.
‘Oh, well,’ Hackel said philosophically.
The second stone had a V on it. And the third, an N.
‘So Cryl-Nish approaches Stilkeen first,’ said Vomix. ‘And I’ve a feeling the reward is not going to be to his liking. We will assemble outside Morrelune in ten minutes, then go in together.’
Nish led his allies forwards: Yggur, Tulitine and Flydd, Maelys, Malien and Persia, Garthor representing the Aachim, Ryll and Liett the lyrinx, Galgilliel the Faellem, and Zofloc the Whelm.
Nosby was waiting below the broad steps of Morrelune with two uniformed officers. Vomix came marching up from the left with six men, and Hackel from the right with his four. They stopped, eyeing each other warily.
Maelys tried to conceal herself behind Yggur, though she knew Vomix could see her. Surely that unpleasantly thick and rancid smell emanating from him, like the fumes from a cauldron of congealed blood, indicated that there was something desperately sick inside him.
‘Shall we go in?’ said Hackel with a toothy gambler’s smile.
He’s no more to be trusted than Vomix, Maelys thought.
They formed into four separate ranks and prepared to march into Morrelune together. As they reached the first step a current of warm air rushed past them, the structural flames stood out more brightly, and Maelys heard a distant roaring, like the inward breath of a furnace.
‘Do you think it’s wise to carry the caduceus and the serpent staffs into Morrelune?’ said Malien in a low voice.
‘Good point,’ said Flydd. ‘Give them here.’
He fitted the two serpent staffs around the caduceus, as it had been when Stilkeen first appeared and, with a flash of red fire, they welded themselves back in place. He raised the complete caduceus, struggling with its weight, climbed the steps and slammed the tip into the marble paving stone directly before the open doorway of Morrelune.
Thunder rolled, cracks zigzagged out from the riven stone, and Maelys shuddered. How would Stilkeen meet this challenge?
‘Be very careful now,’ Yggur said in a
low voice. ‘Close to Stilkeen, our Arts may not work properly – or at all.’
Flames leaped up from the palace, higher than ever, but they gave forth neither heat nor any smell of burning. They weren’t eating the stone away, they were a replacement for it, and they appeared to burn without ever consuming anything. Maelys did not want to go near the place.
The hum rose again and a white barrier appeared behind Morrelune, like the one Nish had mentioned seeing earlier, through Persia’s fieldscope. It slanted up from the ground to the sky until it blocked out the mountains completely, then its dazzling whiteness slowly faded to translucency and moving shadows appeared behind it – the blurred shapes of beasts and monstrosities.
‘There’s thousands of them,’ Maelys whispered, pressing her hand against her fluttering heart.
‘Millions and billions uncounted,’ said Yggur. ‘We’re seeing the barrier that protects our world from the void, made visible. Stilkeen threatened to empty the void into Santhenar if we failed to give it the true fire. And if it does –’
In the unseen distance, something made a low, purring yet mechanical hum.
‘Do you think that could be Klarm?’ said Nish, looking around.
‘There’s no reason to suppose it is,’ said Flydd. ‘Nor that he’d help us.’
Maelys covertly studied the other three leaders, trying to guess what they would do. Vomix was nervously licking his ruined lips; Hackel’s broad and unwavering smile might have been stretched out with hooks, while Nosby’s cheeks were bloodless and he was struggling to control a twitch near his left eye.
‘We’d better go in,’ said Flydd casually. If he was anxious about meeting Stilkeen, his gaunt, ugly face did not show it.
‘You first,’ muttered Vomix.
He was afraid, which did not make Maelys feel any better.
Flydd returned Vomix’s earlier bow, mockingly, and headed for the entrance of the palace. Maelys followed, keeping so close to Nish that her shoulder touched his upper arm. The flaming walls, floor and ceiling burned bright but cold and she felt no more than a tickle as she moved into the fire – it was not of this world, barely here. Had Stilkeen shifted the dimensions slightly to make it so? Her mind whirled at the thought; other dimensions were, like Yggur’s dimensionless boxes, beyond her imagining.
