by Ian Irvine
‘No, I’m the Lord of Nothing,’ Tobry said drily, ‘family disgraced, ancestral manor burnt down, lands confiscated to pay our debts and not a penny to my name.’ He brushed away an imaginary tear. ‘Forced to rely on the charity of my friends, and sleep in their hard beds — ’
‘With soft women,’ retorted Rix, managing a smile. ‘My women.’
‘Someone has to keep the poor girls warm after they flee from your bed.’
The smile vanished; Rix wasn’t feeling that good humoured. ‘Make yourself useful and ring the bell. I’m starving.’
Tobry did so and, despite the hour, a manservant appeared at the outer door within seconds. Night or day, when the family rang, the servants jumped, or else. At the end of each month Lady Ricinus rated all the palace servants, and those in the lowest tithe were flogged as a lesson to all.
‘Food and drink, please, Choom,’ said Tobry. ‘Something traditional, I think.’
‘At once,’ said Choom, who was so old and thin that his joints creaked as he walked. He lowered his voice. ‘I heard a cry. Is the young master — ’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Rix scowled and stalked into his dressing room. Shortly Tobry joined him, wearing his own kilt, black shot with threads of scarlet and gold.
‘May I?’ Tobry said, indicating the racks of garments.
Despite their long friendship, he never presumed, and Rix appreciated that. He waved a hand. Tobry went down the other end of the rack, where Rix kept clothes in his indigent friend’s size. Rix selected a cream shirt, plain save for puffed-out shoulders and a diagonal sash of white lace across the front.
He climbed the stairs to his white studio, which encircled the core of his personal tower like a doughnut, and leaned on a malachite windowsill, looking down across the lawn to the shores of Lake Fumerous, the sapphire glory of Hightspall. The nightmare had been so real that he half expected to see the leviathan approaching, but the palace gardens, lit by a thousand hazy gaslights, were empty save for a gang of navvies in a trench, packing another layer of asbestos around the main hot water tubule.
‘Waste of time,’ said Tobry from behind. ‘The heat’s gone and it’s never coming back.’
Caulderon had been built on a geyser field and for two thousand years a network of tubules had carried hot groundwater around the city, but a century ago it had started to cool. Now, no amount of lagging could retain what little heat was left.
‘’Course it will,’ said Rix, without looking around. ‘We just have to delve deeper.’
‘The last hot-rock bakery went out of business two weeks ago, and it was four hundred feet down. And all the public scalderies have closed.’
‘No wonder the common folk are on the nose.’
‘In my grandfather’s day, even the poorest folk were well fed and clean.’
‘Why don’t they use heatstones?’
‘Your mother would love that.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing,’ Tobry said hastily. ‘You have to be wealthy to afford heat-stones, Rix. Life in the shanty towns is grim, and getting grimmer. The steam mills and screw pumps have to be driven by firewood boilers and we’ve stripped every hill bare for ten miles — ’
‘Enough bad news,’ snapped Rix. ‘Did you bring anything to eat?’
He turned and Tobry was levitating a tray above his head.
Involuntarily, Rix clenched his fists. ‘Do you have to? You know I hate anything uncanny.’
‘It’s hardly magery at all,’ Tobry said mildly. ‘You know what a dilettante I am. Never done a day’s work in my life.’
A waggle of his fingers and the black bottle poured a goblet of a brown, foul smelling wine. The tray turned upside down and floated towards Rix, yet nothing spilled or fell. Despite Tobry’s self-deprecation, his forehead had a faint sheen. He was showing off, just to be annoying.
Rix resisted the urge to swat the tray out of the air. Stay calm. It’s just his way. He clung to the carved green windowsill until his heart steadied and the pounding in his ears stopped.
‘Why do you hate magery?’ said Tobry.
‘Don’t know. I always have, since I was a kid.’
‘Did someone use it on you once?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Mother protected me from everything.’ Rix took a goblet, sniffed and made a face. ‘Yuk! What’s this?’
‘Fishwine. It’s traditional. I know how important that is to you.’
Tobry was mocking him because House Ricinus was so recently risen. Rix sipped. The wine left a foul taste in his mouth, but he drank it anyway. He wasn’t going to be beaten that easily.
‘Did you bring anything to eat?’
Tobry handed him a flat oval of hard yellow clay, the size of a small platter. His eyes were gleaming; he seemed to be restraining himself.
‘What is it?’ Rix said suspiciously.
‘Hundred-year cod.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘It’s a rare delicacy. Very traditional in the oldest families.’
‘Baked?’ Rix sniffed the clay, which had no odour.
‘No, just matured for a hundred years. Or more.’
Rix cracked the clay, gingerly. The hundred-year cod was brown as peat, hard, and had no odour. ‘This isn’t one of your jokes, is it?’
‘Would I joke about Hightspall’s noble traditions?’
‘You make fun of everything else I hold dear.’
Rix picked a small piece out with the corner of a knife, put it in his mouth then, gagging, ran to the window and spat it out. ‘That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted.’
‘Too traditional for you?’ Tobry was smirking.
Rix scrubbed his mouth with a handkerchief. ‘I don’t see you eating any.’
‘I only live for the present.’
Rix stalked away and uncovered a ten-foot-long canvas on which a nobleman in blood-spattered coil-armour was severing the head of a monstrous wyverin. The lava-streaked volcanoes in the background were nearly complete, and the wyverin had been painted in intricate detail, even down to the reflections in each pearly scale, but the nobleman was little more than a sketch. Only the purple, bloated nose looked finished.
‘Not your father’s best feature,’ Tobry said quietly.
How long could Lord Ricinus keep it up, Rix wondered. Surely the drinking would kill him before much longer. What had driven him to such sodden excess, anyway?
‘How can I do it to him?’ he said aloud.
‘I’m sure he’d want you to paint him the way he is.’
‘Father wouldn’t give a damn. It’s Mother who ordered the portrait, and if it’s not finished in time she’ll crucify me. But that’s not what I meant.’
Rix opened a pot of red ochre and dabbed some on his palette. He mixed colours, picked up a large brush then threw it down with another heavy sigh.
‘You used to love painting,’ said Tobry, sitting down. He brought out a liqueur bottle from behind his back, filled his own goblet and leaned back.
‘I still do.’ Rix selected a smaller brush. ‘When I’m working, all my troubles disappear, but this picture won’t come right.’
‘Your heart’s not in it,’ said Tobry. ‘You don’t want to do it.’ He sipped the liqueur and his eyes rolled upwards in bliss.
Rix’s knuckles whitened around the brush, which snapped. He tossed it aside, irritated by the pleasure his friend could take from the simplest things while he, Rix … ‘Of course I want to do it,’ he said. ‘It’s for Father’s great day.’
‘When is his Honouring?’ said Tobry.
Rix glanced at the cherry wood month-clock by the stairs. The knife-blade hands seemed to be spinning towards him. He blinked, focused and it was just a clock.
‘Eleven days,’ he said ominously. At this rate he wouldn’t have his father’s face finished by then, and the whole portrait had to be completed by the Honouring. That it not be done was unthinkable, for he was a dutiful son, and yet …
‘You’d better get back to my women,’ Rix said curtly, collecting crimson paint on the tip of another brush.
Laughter echoed up the stairs. ‘They seem happier without me.’ Tobry rubbed his chin. ‘And considering how hard I tried to please them, I find that a tad ironic.’
‘You find everything ironic.’ Rix dabbed at the line of his father’s twisted mouth, then scraped it off. ‘You don’t take anything seriously.’
‘With the world about to end in ice or fire,’ Tobry said lightly, ‘why should I? Life is a joke at our expense. I sometimes wonder if the entire universe isn’t a farce.’
As Rix reached out to the canvas, he felt the palace closing around him like dungeon walls. He was exhausted, but if he went back to bed the nightmare would batter him again, and again. He could not stay here, must not be here the night after tomorrow -
‘Are you all right?’ said Tobry.
‘What?’ Rix felt dislocated, as though a segment had been snipped from his life.
‘You’ve been as still as a gargoyle for a good five minutes.’
Rix cast the brush down. ‘I can’t do it … Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’ Tobry rose lazily, goblet in hand.
‘Anywhere but here.’ Rix thought for a moment. ‘Let’s go hunting in the mountains.’ He held his breath, waiting for Tobry to tell him what a bad idea it was, hoping he would. ‘Don’t try to talk me out of it,’ Rix said half-heartedly.
‘I wasn’t planning to. I love it when people run away from their responsibilities.’
‘I’m not running away — ’ Of course he was, and Lady Ricinus would be furious. Rix stopped, wryly imagining her listing him into the month’s flogging tithe. He wouldn’t put it past her.
‘I’d encourage you to neglect all your duties,’ said Tobry, studying the canvas. ‘For instance, it can’t possibly take eleven days to finish this. Leave it ’til the last night, then fling the paint on with a bucket. None of the philistines at the Honouring will know the difference.’
Had Tobry been talking to anyone else, Rix would have laughed. ‘Oh, shut up and come on. Bring the liqueur.’ Was he turning into his drunken father already? ‘No, leave it.’
‘What say I bring it and you don’t have any?’ Tobry said cheekily.
‘I suppose we might need it,’ Rix rationalised. ‘For the cold, I mean.’
He had to get away from Lady Ricinus who controlled every minute of his life, from the terrorised servants and the beautiful palace which was as suffocating as a coffin. Tobry didn’t know how lucky he was, having nothing.
Rix ran down the stairs to the dressing room, exchanged his kilt for mustard-yellow woollen trews, selected a pair of black knee-boots and heaved them on. He reached for his favourite weapon, a magnificent red broadsword he had been given on his seventeenth birthday, then hesitated.
‘Is that a new one?’ said Tobry, pointing to a battered scabbard at the back. A square hilt, tightly wound with worn black wire, protruded from it.
‘Actually, it’s a family heirloom, and ages-old. Mother told me to use it but I don’t like it.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too light. I’m afraid it’ll break,’ Rix lied.
Tobry carried the scabbard out into the salon, drew the sword, sliced the air across and down, then diced it. ‘It’s beautifully balanced.’ He flicked the tip, ting. ‘Lovely metalwork. It’s titane, almost unbreakable. And damnably hard to forge.’
It had a bluish tint and the blade was slightly curved, like a sabre, though it had cutting edges on front and back. An inscription down the blade was so worn as to be illegible save for the first two words, Heroes must.
‘Heroes must?’ said Tobry, looking from the blade to Rix, then back to the blade. ‘What does that remind me of?’
Rix had no idea. ‘Mother said it’s enchanted to protect its owner,’ he said reluctantly. His throat tightened. He thumped his chest a couple of times to clear his air passages.
Tobry ran a finger along the flat of the blade and pale yellow swirls appeared in the air around it. ‘No ordinary charm, though.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not meant to work against soldiers, or wild beasts.’
‘Really? What’s the good of it, then?’
‘It protects against magery.’
Sweat formed in Rix’s armpits. ‘Why would anyone attack me with magery?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ Tobry said drily. He handed it to Rix and went out.
The sword jerked like a dowsing rod and swung around until its quivering tip pointed towards the heatstone. For a few seconds Rix strained to hold it, then it stilled like any other lifeless blade.
Was the magery of a sword enchanted to protect its owner worse than the attack of some uncanny creature? Probably not. He slammed it into its scabbard and belted it on, shuddering. After considering his kilt, head to one side, he tossed it into his bag in case the weather turned warm.
Tobry reappeared with a small case containing balms and potions, bandages and needles.
‘What’s that for?’ said Rix irritably.
‘When some beast tears your legs off, I’ll be able to sew the loose skin over your stumps,’ Tobry said casually.
Rix felt a phantom pain at mid-thigh level, but shook it off.
‘Why go at this time of night?’ asked Tobry.
‘It’ll be light when we get there.’
‘And by the time the servants wake Lady Ricinus, she won’t be able to order you back.’
Rix didn’t bother to reply. Tobry knew him better than he knew himself.
‘What are we hunting?’ Tobry went on.
‘I don’t care, the more savage the better. I need to cleanse myself.’
‘Of what?’
‘I can’t tell! But there’s something wrong inside me.’
‘Drinking and wenching aren’t crimes. Even Lady Ricinus encourages you in that.’
‘I’d feel better if she disapproved. What kind of a mother urges her only son into debauchery?’
Tobry opened his mouth, but wisely closed it again.
‘Something is badly wrong with the world,’ said Rix. ‘And I feel as though it’s all down to me.’
‘Hightspall’s troubles began over a century ago.’
‘I know. Yet I still feel it’s my fault!’
Tobry frowned at that. ‘Well, I’m not sure that killing some unfortunate beast is the answer.’
‘Right now,’ Rix said bleakly, ‘it’s the only answer I’ve got.’
CHAPTER 8
Tali kept seeing that frozen moment — the singing blade, Mia’s body on its feet and her eyes begging Tali to save her even as her head flew through the air. She could not take it in, tried to deny it, rationalised that Mia had chosen to use her feeble magery, but Tali knew she had caused the tragedy. After her mother’s death she had vowed not to be a docile slave. Now Mia was dead because she had been so reckless. She would never get it right.
If only she hadn’t lost her temper with Orlyk. If only she hadn’t woken with the blinding headaches that had driven her into that uncontrollable rage. If only she hadn’t ducked the last chuck-lash. But she had, and gentle Mia, whose quick thinking had saved her life, was dead in her place. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Why were the innocent Pale held as slaves, anyway? Why was the wonderful gift of magery such a crime? What gave their masters the right of life and death over Mia, or any of them?
No other Pale posed such questions; they accepted the slaves’ lot. Tali’s aged tutors, Nurse Bet, Waitie and Little Nan, had always shushed Tali when she spoke up, and the other slaves avoided her. Only Mia had stood by her.
The body had been taken away and the other Pale were back at work, as far from Tali’s grotto as possible. She was tainted now and they wanted nothing to do with her. She looked down at the blood spotting her hands. Nothing could bring Mia b
ack — the best Tali could do was offer her own life in recompense.
She laid her right hand over the blood on her left, took a breath, then said, ‘On this precious blood, I swear to make up for what’s been done to the Pale. For you, Mia. And your poor little boy who never had a chance.’
It was done. A binding blood oath. But first she had to escape and she did not know how. In Cython, only docile, obedient Pale survived. Those who displayed boldness or daring earned a one-way trip to the heatstone mines. Yet to find a way out she had to be bolder than any of them.
Work in the grottoes had finished early because of Lyf’s Day, but it was too early for dinner and Tali wasn’t ready to face the accusing stares of the other Pale. She wandered down the outside passage to the entrance of a partly excavated tunnel. A team of Cythonian miners had been working there for weeks, using the chymical technique of splittery to cut a defile down to the next level.
A slave gang was pushing a heavily laden rock cart up the slope, the women gasping and grunting with every heave. Sweat carved runnels down their dusty faces. I’m going to free you, too, Tali thought. Every one of you.
Down at the workface, a Cythonian miner was trowelling the rusty, chymical powder called thermitto into channels chiselled into the rock. He turned away and a red-faced firer wearing smoked-glass goggles packed a length of silvery ribbon into the thermitto, ignited it and stood well back. Tali, who had seen splittery done before, hastily averted her eyes.
The thermitto burnt with a roar and such blinding, blue-white ferocity that molten rock trickled from the ends of the channel. Shortly, the rock split with resounding cracks and a second gang heaved the debris out of the way. The miners began to set up the next shot. Tali continued.
But a hundred yards past the tunnel she stopped, for there was a ward post around the corner and if she approached without a pass the guards would sound the clangours.
Having nowhere to go, she crept into an empty breeze-room where a little waterwheel in a stone flume drove a set of ticking box-fans, pumping air down to the lower levels of Cython. She huddled in its darkest corner, holding her throbbing head, and forced the bloody images of Mia’s death out of her mind. She had to focus. The Cythonians were watching her, her enemy might be after her already, and she had to find a way out where no one ever had.
