by Ian Irvine
The dead rat smell thickened and grew fouler. ‘Who, Mama?’
‘I don’t know. He’s never seen, never heard, but he flutters in my nightmares like a foul wrythen — ’
‘You’re scaring me, Mama!’
‘When you’re older, you’ve got to find your gift and master it. It’s the only way to beat him.’
Tali shivered. In Cython, magery was forbidden. Magery meant death. Children were beaten just for whispering the word.
At a hollow click from the far side of the cellar, Mama jumped.
‘But Mama,’ said Tali, lowering her voice, ‘if our masters catch any slave using …magery, they kill them.’
‘Even innocent little children,’ said Mama, hugging her desperately. ‘You must be very careful.’
Tali’s voice rose. ‘Then how am I supposed to find my magery?’
Mama clapped a hand over Tali’s mouth. ‘I don’t know, child. Don’t tell anyone about your gift. Trust no one.’
Tali pulled away. ‘Is Tinyhead the enemy?’ She took hold of a splintered length of wood, wanting to jam it through his disgusting tongue.
‘Shh! You know what happens when you get angry.’
‘I’m already angry, and I’m going — ’
‘Forget him. He’s nothing.’
‘When I find my gift, his head will be nothing. I’ll blast it right off.’
‘Tali, never say such things! You must lower your eyes and say, “Yes, Master.”’
‘I won’t!’ Tali said furiously. ‘I hate our masters and one day I’m going to escape.’
‘Yes, one day,’ said Mama, dully. ‘But for now, promise you’ll be a good little slave.’
‘I can’t.’
Mama stroked Tali’s golden hair. ‘You may think whatever fierce thoughts you like, little one, for one day you will be the noble Lady Tali vi Torgrist, but in Cython you must always act the obedient slave.’
It frightened Tali to hear her mama say such things. ‘All right,’ she muttered. She had a bad temper, and knew it, but for Mama’s sake she would try. ‘I promise.’
Her mother looked dubious. ‘I’ll put a little glamour on you. It’ll hide you, as long as they don’t look directly at you. Hold still.’
She put her hands on Tali’s cheeks, whispered a word Tali could not make out, then drew her hands down Tali’s sides, all the way to her feet. Tali’s skin tingled and when she looked down, her body had blurred into the shadows. Magery! She ached for it. Feared it, too.
Something made an ugly scraping sound, closer this time, and her scalp felt as though grubs were creeping across it.
‘Stay here,’ Mama said softly. ‘Don’t look.’
‘Mama, what was that noise?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mama’s teeth chattered. ‘But whatever happens, even if your gift comes, don’t use it here.’
Mama darted away, her pale blonde hair flying. Her bare feet skidded on the flagstones as she passed an ugly tapestry of three jackals fighting over the guts of a nobleman, recovered, then zigzagged between the barrels and the stone bins. She was a beautiful little bird, leading a snake away from her nest.
But as she passed between a pair of stone raptors with flesh-tearing beaks, two masked figures came after her. Tali clutched at a crate, her fingers sinking into the powdery wood.
‘Mama, look out!’ she whispered, for the masks had fanged teeth and awful, angry eyes. ‘Don’t let them catch you.’
Then Mama slipped and twisted her ankle, and the moment they caught her Tali knew they were going to do something terrible.
‘No!’ she whimpered. ‘Mama, get away!’
The big man caught Mama’s arms and held her while his accomplice, a bony woman, punched her in the mouth.
‘Treacherous Pale scum!’ the woman hissed.
Mama sagged, staring at them like a mouse trapped by two cats, and Tali’s front teeth began to throb. Stop it, stop it! Mama, use your gift on them.
They dragged her to the black bench and heaved her onto it. The woman forced an oily green lump into Mama’s mouth, then passed a stubby crystal back and forth over her head until the end glowed blue, scattering brilliant rays across the cellar. Mama moaned and her toes curled.
As the blue crystal glowed more brightly, pain stabbed around the whorled scar on Tali’s left shoulder, her slave mark, and cold spread through her like venom. She shuddered and remembered to cover her eyes.
Born to slavery in underground Cython, she had learned life’s lesson in her stone cradle — obey, or suffer. But the people who held her mama weren’t tattooed like Cythonians, and they were too big to be Pale slaves. Who were they?
Something made an ugly grinding sound. Mama shrieked.
‘Careful,’ the man cried. ‘He won’t pay if — ’
‘It’s stuck,’ said the woman, and the grinding grew louder.
What were they doing to Mama?
‘It’s got to be taken while she’s alive,’ said the man.
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’
Tali peeped between her fingers and nearly screamed. Mama’s arms and legs were thrashing, green foam was oozing from her nose and a strand of hair dripped blood. Mama! Tali could not breathe; for a moment she could hardly see.
‘I can’t hold her.’ The man’s voice was hoarse, his eyes darting.
‘Nor me if you don’t!’
The woman was pressing a metal rod against the top of Mama’s head, twisting and shoving as if trying to force it in. Through the mouth of the mask her grey teeth were bared. She was grunting and her hands were red.
Why were they talking like that? Why were they hurting Mama? Tali’s breath came in painful gasps and her stomach was full of fishhooks. She had to help Mama. But Mama had told her not to move. Only magery could save Mama now, but she had told Tali not to use it here. Yet if she didn’t, Mama was going to die. But Tali had promised …
No! She had to break that promise, and if she got into trouble she would take her punishment. Tali had used magery once before, when she was little. She had been really angry about something and her gift had burst forth out of nowhere. She tried to summon it now but it shrank from her mother’s warnings, Always hide your gift! Never use it or they’ll find out and kill you.
She tried and tried, but it would not come. Tali was desperate now. She had to save Mama. The glamour would hide her, wouldn’t it? She crept out, picked up a piece of stone, took aim at the woman’s head and hurled it with all the fury her small body could muster. And missed her.
‘Ow!’ cried the man, clapping a hand to the back of his head. ‘What was that?’
Tali eased backwards to the crates, praying the glamour would hold. She felt with her foot for a bigger stone.
The woman gave a last twist of her length of metal, withdrew it and flicked a white disc, trailing a clump of bloody hair, to the floor. Was that a piece of Mama’s head? Tali was reaching for a fist-sized chunk of rock when the woman opened a pair of golden tongs behind Mama’s head, pushed in and yanked. Tali heard an awful, squelchy pop. Mama’s arms and legs jerked, then hung limp.
‘You’ve ended her,’ the man said hoarsely, shying away.
‘Who cares about a filthy Pale?’ said the woman, holding up the steaming tongs. ‘I got it in time.’
Tali’s head spun and her eyes flooded. But for the crates she would have fallen down. Though she was only eight, she had seen all too many dead slaves. Why was this happening? Was it her fault? She should have run and led them away; she should have done something, anything. Had the evil woman killed Mama? No, she couldn’t be dead.
‘Mama, Mama!’ she whimpered, hurting all over.
The man gasped, ‘Did you hear a cry?’
You stupid fool, thought Tali. Now they’ll kill you too.
‘Are you useless?’ sneered the woman.
The man drew a long knife and waved it at her.
She laughed in his face. ‘Find the brat and finish it.’
CHA
PTER 3
The man took a lantern in his free hand and crept towards the stacked crates.
The woman put on a long glove that shone like woven green-metal — Tali sensed the whisper of magery coming from it — and removed something round from the tongs. It looked like a black marble. She stripped off the glove so it turned inside out, trapping the black object inside.
Now — horrible, horrible! — she opened a vein in Mama’s neck and filled the glove with dribbling blood, then tied a knot in the long wrist and thrust the glove down her front. Tali made out a crimson glow there, shining through the glove, but it went out. She checked on the man, who was at the other end of the stacks, slowly moving her way.
On the far wall of the cellar, the carved face of Lyf shifted. Yellow moved in its stone eyes and a foggy hand reached towards the woman, stretching and stretching as if to pluck out the glove. It was more magery, but whose?
There came a purple flash from behind a pile of barrels, a zzzt like a spell going off and the hand recoiled, then faded out. The woman froze, staring at the stone face, then laughed and picked up the gory tongs.
‘Oh!’ she whispered. ‘Oh, yes!’ and licked them clean.
Tali saw her muddy eyes roll up until the whites were showing through the holes in the mask. Tali wanted to punch her nose flat. After checking that the man wasn’t looking, the woman filled a square, green-metal tin with Mama’s blood, twisted on a brass cap and licked her bony fingers.
Tali’s eyes burnt and her nose was running. She wiped it on the back of her hand, fighting the urge to scream. If she made a sound, the man would cut her open like Mama. But she was much more scared of the evil woman with the crab-leg fingers and those awful eyes. She pressed a finger to the slave mark on her left shoulder, for luck. Touching it always made her feel better.
The man was tall, with a round, jiggling belly like a pudding basin. He was outside her hiding place now and she caught a glimpse of the gleaming knife blade, as long as her arm. Tali recoiled and felt a shocking pain as a nail in one of the crates pierced her hip to the bone. Tears stung her eyes yet she dared not move. If she made a sound he would stab that knife right through her.
The man was panting and the spirits on his breath made her head spin. His hand shook as he raised the lantern, then lowered it. Silence fell, apart from a sickening drip-drip from the black bench.
After Papa’s terrible death, Mama had taught Tali how to hide. ‘A slave must be invisible,’ she had said. ‘Never be noticed and you’ll be safe.’
No slave was ever safe, but Tali was the best of the slave kids at hiding. She traced the loops and whorls of her slave mark with a fingertip, trying to find comfort there, but nothing could comfort her now. Mama couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible, yet she was gone.
He waited, as if he knew she was there. What if he pulled the crates away? She had to do something. She felt among the broken wood on the floor for the sharpest length, a piece as long as her forearm. If he came at her, she would shove it into his fat belly and run.
Her arm was trembling so much she could hardly hold the weapon. Then, to her shame, Tali realised that wee was running down her legs. She clamped her thighs together and, to distract herself, began to count her heartbeats, which were so loud that surely he could hear them. After another twenty beats, the man grunted and moved on. She kept still.
He sprang back, hacking at the crates with his knife and roaring, ‘Haaaaaa! Got you.’
Tali’s heart leapt up her throat and the nail ground into her hipbone. She was almost screaming from the pain but she did not move. She was going to win this contest, for Mama.
With savage hacks of the knife, the man began to tear down the crates to her left, smash, crash. He was going to find her. How could she stop him? She eased off the nail, took hold of the lowest crate and heaved. It did not budge; the weight of all the crates above it was too great.
More crates crashed down. It would not be long now. She could not go further backwards; the gap was too narrow. And she dared not wait. Once he saw her, he would jam the knife through her guts.
Tali crouched, took hold of the lowest crate and heaved, using her legs this time. Even little girl slaves were strong, and she forced upwards, slowly straightening her legs, until her back ached and her knees trembled. But she wasn’t going to give in, ever.
The moving crates scraped and squealed. He swung around, trying to work out where the sound had come from. She gave an almighty heave, the ten-high stack swayed, then with a roar the lot fell down on him.
Tali scurried sideways into a new gap and hid in the darkness. The man groaned. The woman appeared, taking her time, and heaved the crates aside. The man’s face was covered in blood. Ha! thought Tali. Take that! But it could never make up for what they had done to Mama.
‘What happened?’ he moaned.
‘Stop whining,’ said the woman disgustedly. ‘You pulled them down on yourself. Did you find anything?’
Fifty heartbeats passed, then the man lurched away. ‘Must have been rats. Come on. I need another drink.’
‘I’ll pour it down your throat until you choke.’
Tali pressed a fingertip against the nail wound, trying to heal it the way Nurse Bet had taught her, but the hole went too deep. The beads of blood on her fingers were as bright as jewels, as bright as Mama’s blood. Mama! Her eyes flooded.
The woman pulled on a dangling rope and, with a screech, an iron staircase corkscrewed down. Tali felt sure the point at the bottom was going to twist right through Mama, but it brushed by her tiny waist before grounding on the black bench. The man shot up the steps, a rat running away from a ferret. The staircase was a coiled spring quivering under his weight.
But then — then the woman picked up the tin of blood, climbed onto the bench and stepped onto Mama’s chest as though she was rubbish. One of Mama’s ribs snapped like the wishbone of a poulter and a scorching fury surged through Tali, an urge to smash the woman down. She fought it; Mama had told her to not make a sound.
The woman rocked back and forth as she scanned the cellar, crack-crack, standing on Tali’s beautiful mama as if she were a piece of firewood, then followed the man.
Once they were gone, Tali darted across and touched the crimson beads on her fingers to her mama’s head, as if her own blood could heal her. There was blood everywhere, but none left in Mama. Taking hold of her hand, Tali squeezed it tightly, trying to will Mama back to life, but the spirit had left her forever.
She had taught Tali not to fight back, to always bow her head and say, ‘Yes, Master,’ and it had killed her. Tali wasn’t going to make that mistake. Mama said it was wrong to hate people, but Tali’s rage had redhot teeth and talons as sharp as spikes. How dare they treat her beautiful mama that way?
‘When I’m grown up I’ll find them out,’ she whispered, hand upon her mother’s heart. ‘Once I get my gift I’ll hunt them down and make them pay.’
Someone took a heavy breath, close by. The murderers! Coming back to kill her! Tali scuttled into the shadows between two of the stone bins, grabbed a grey stick protruding from its broken top and prepared to defend herself.
But it was a handsome, black-haired boy, a few years older than herself, who stumbled out from behind a heap of empty barrels. He wasn’t a slave, though, nor a tattooed Cythonian. He must have been rich, for he wore a plum-coloured velvet coat with gold buttons, an emerald kilt and shoes with shiny buckles. His face was white, his eyes a rich, purply brown, his yellow vest was covered in vomit and his teeth were chattering.
That wasn’t the only odd thing about him. The faintest misty aura, pale pink as the gills of a mushroom, clung to his head and hands. The aura of magery — though not his. Tali could tell that he had no more gift than a log.
The boy reached out towards Mama then drew back sharply, staring at his hands. Tali’s hair stood up. His hands were covered in blood, yet he hadn’t touched Mama.
He doubled over, sicked onto his shoes and let out t
he moan of an animal in pain. Tali must have made a sound for his head shot around and he stared at her, then bolted up the stairs, yanking on the rope as he went. The iron staircase howled as it rose with him out of sight.
Tali could hold back no longer. ‘I’m going to get you!’ she screeched, brandishing the stick. A trapdoor clanged shut and the greenish light began to fade.
What if Tinyhead was waiting outside? Tali shivered. What if he came after her? No, he had betrayed Mama and he had to pay. Rage swelled until her heart felt as if it was going to explode, then she pointed the stick at the stone door, willing Tinyhead’s head to burst like a melon. With a sudden gush, the pressure was gone and her rage as well.
She was holding the stick so tightly that her knuckles hurt, and for the first time Tali saw it clearly. It wasn’t a stick, it was a human thigh bone. There was nothing horrible about it, though. Oddly, it felt like a friend.
Tali put it back where she had found it. Now so exhausted that she could barely stand up, she stumbled to the door, trying not to think about the man with the knife or the woman and her golden tongs, trying to wipe out the memories forever. When she slipped into the painted tunnel that led back to Cython, there was no sign of Tinyhead.
Learn to lower your eyes and say, ‘Yes, Master’.
‘All right!’ Tali said savagely. ‘But once I come of age, once I find my gift, look out!’
How could she find her gift when she couldn’t trust anyone? How could she beat her enemy when no one knew who he was? Blinded by scalding tears, she crept home to Cython, and slavery.
At least she would be safe there.
CHAPTER 4
It takes an unnatural cold to touch a wrythen: cold bitter as bile and empty as a dead man’s eyes. Cold so bleak that he felt his frostbitten plasm congealing and it took precious strength to maintain his uncanny, neither-live-nor-dead state. Strength he could not afford to waste.
Not when vengeance was so achingly near.
The wrythen suppressed his rage at the loss of a third nuclix. He had a plan to get all three back and avenge himself on the thief. It would not take long — not as he counted time.
