Vengeance ttr-1

by Ian Irvine

  Perhaps disconcerted that a little Pale was attacking him, he swayed backwards and her blow missed. The Living Blade began to keen, the blood waves racing across it.

  Rannilt screamed and the golden light seared out from her. The colours in Tali’s inner eye went wild, the pressure in her head made her skull creak and she felt a warm gush as if something had burst open. Then, as she frantically tried to beat Banj’s out-arcing blade with a backhanded strike, needles of boiling whiteness burst from her fingertips.

  Tali tried to pull away but her arm continued its inexorable sweep. With a hypersonic screech the whiteness swept across the Living Blade, shattering the annulus of transparent metal and spraying splinters into Banj’s face, throat and chest. Blood sprang from a dozen wounds, then to Tali’s horror her white-light needles carved across his throat, peeling the skin back before tearing all the way through, cutting off his hoarse scream and sandblasting the wall with fragments of bone.

  Banj’s body toppled backwards, slid down a dozen steps and came to rest, his blood flooding down to pool on the landing below. His handsome head bounced down the stairs, following the curve of the ten-sided shaft, and thudded bloodily into Orlyk’s thick shins.

  Her toad mouth was sagging, her eyes black and white buttons in her grey face. Her arm twitched involuntarily and the death-lash went flying across the shaft, exploding so violently that it carved an s-shaped groove in the stone. She backed towards the doorway, along with the rest of the enemy, then bolted.

  The white needles vanished. The colours in Tali’s head were gone, the pressure too. Her knees gave, she fell against the wall and her head began to throb. Her fingertips were speckled with blood as if by a hundred pin-pricks — the only sign of the magery that had torn out of her. But the rise of her gift gave her no joy. She felt sick at the thought of what it had done.

  ‘How did that happen?’ she said dazedly, turning away from the shambles and crouching before Rannilt to block her view. ‘What were those white needles?’

  Had she seen? Tali hoped not. She shook the child, gently.

  Rannilt sat up and her eyes sprang open. The golden light was gone. She looked her normal self again. ‘You’re all bloody. Tali, you all right?’

  Tali wiped her face on her sleeve. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘Saw it in my mind’s eye,’ Rannilt whispered. ‘You saved me. With magery.’

  She said it as though it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Had she no memory of her golden display? Had she not seen what Tali had done? Perhaps it was for the best.

  ‘Run! Get reinforcements,’ Orlyk bellowed from below.

  A grey face appeared in the doorway, looking up, then ducked out of sight. Tali clung to the rail. Her head had never hurt this badly before. She could barely see.

  ‘Tali, come,’ whispered Rannilt.

  ‘Can’t — move.’ Tali felt faint, and cold, and so weak she could barely hold her head up.

  Rannilt took her hand, hauled her to her feet and put a skinny arm around her waist. ‘I’m lookin’ after you. I’ll never leave you, never.’

  Tali submitted to her, confused and shivering and unable to speak. She kept seeing Banj’s head flying off, then Mia’s, then Banj’s again. And blood. So much blood. When she’d used magery before, it had never been like that. It had never been visible; it had never killed before. Where had that tearing white hail come from?

  Something had jumped from Rannilt to her. Had the golden force flowing from the girl kindled that deadly fire in Tali? The light-storm had burst out as if she were just a conduit for a greater force.

  The top landing was covered in pulverised rock and there was no sign of the other guards, save for one whose remains were fused to the right-hand wall beside a hat rack, like a blackened bas relief. The rays from the sunstone implosion had turned him to char, though the stone around him and the hats on the rack were unmarked.

  Rannilt put her skinny fingers over Tali’s eyes, as if to protect her. They reached the exit, a square arch of stone whose pair of carved stone doors stood open.

  ‘Careful.’ Tali clung to the door for a moment, for her legs felt as though the bones had been removed. ‘Guards out there.’

  Rannilt slipped out, but soon returned. ‘They’re lyin’ on the ground with their eyes closed.’

  Unconscious like the ones at the loading station, Tali prayed. Why had the blast knocked them down yet left her and the other Pale unharmed? It was an important question for later — if they escaped.

  ‘It’s beautiful outside, Tali,’ said Rannilt, eyes wide. ‘Oh, come see!’

  Tali roused. All her life she had dreamed of Hightspall and now it was only a few steps away. She rubbed her eyes, longing for it, then the girl took her hand and led her out into a world she had never seen, into the glorious sunlight of an autumn morning, to her beloved country at last.

  Though it was not long after sunrise, the daylight was so bright that her eyes flooded with tears. Tears for the homeland she had never seen, and the mother and father who had sacrificed their lives to try and find it. She wiped her face and was looking around when her head spun and she had to grab Rannilt’s shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said the girl, gazing in open-mouthed wonder. ‘Tali, look at all the flowers. I can see a hundred kinds.’

  ‘It’s — too big,’ said Tali. ‘I–I didn’t realise it would go so far, in every direction.’

  In Cython, no chamber or passage extended more than a few hundred yards without a bend or barrier. All her life she had been used to tunnel vision, to having walls on either side and a roof close above her head. Now she was surrounded by a vast emptiness and the dome of the sky was rocking. It felt as though it was going to overturn on her head.

  Her heart raced and she felt a peculiar tingling in her fingers. It was hard to breathe; she swayed on her feet; suddenly she felt cold, ill, dizzy.

  Rannilt caught her by the arm. ‘You’re shakin’ all over. What’s the matter?’

  Tali’s mouth was so dry she could barely speak. She turned her head and the sky seemed to detach from the earth. Instinctively she covered her face with her arms.

  ‘Be all right in a minute,’ she croaked. ‘Hat, hat!’

  But the tingling and dizziness were getting worse, and she had never felt this way before. What was wrong? She wanted to scream and run but could not move. A wave of dread passed over her; she needed to huddle in a hole, covering her head, blocking out the world she had so longed for and which now felt utterly alien.

  Rannilt came back, wearing a bright orange, broad-brimmed hat and carrying another. She gave the hat to Tali, then gasped and backed away, a hand over her mouth.

  A huge Cythonian rose from behind one of the defensive walls, and he was so covered in blood and burns and weeping blisters that for a second she did not recognise him. He had a remarkably small, bulging head, all blackened save for the streaming eyes, and his charred clothes were falling to pieces. A small, egg-shaped blue stone, the one that had lit up as she dropped the sunstone, hung around his neck. How had Tinyhead survived? Why wasn’t he unconscious like all the other Cythonians?

  ‘Tali, run!’ yelled Rannilt.

  But even when Tinyhead came stalking towards her, she could not move. The tingling ran up her arms, down her legs to her toes, and her heart was beating so wildly it must soon burst. The sky began to rock violently and she felt sure it was going to overturn. Was she dying? Going mad?

  Tinyhead caught her arms, wound a leather belt three times around her wrists and jerked it tight.

  ‘Oh, Master,’ he slurred through red-raw lips. ‘Master, I have her at last.’

  He looked around for Rannilt but the child had vanished.

  ‘Mimoy, help,’ said Tali in a whispery croak.

  ‘There is no help.’ Tinyhead heaved her out through the defensive walls surrounding the shaft.

  The old woman lay sprawled over a low stone barricade, blood running from her mouth. More blood than
Tali would have imagined Mimoy’s tiny body could hold.

  CHAPTER 28

  Tobry’s blistered eyes, now thickly coated in bile-green unguent, made him look like a corpse risen from the dead, yet he was unnaturally cheerful. He still wasn’t meeting Rix’s eyes, though. He seemed to be acting himself, trying to appear normal though clearly he was not.

  Outside the valley an avalanche filled the central saddle of the pass to a depth of thirty feet, blocking the way they had come. Rix assessed the area, despair rising like a sickness in him.

  ‘Doesn’t look as though you’ll be finishing the portrait any time soon,’ said Tobry.

  ‘I gave my word it’d be done,’ Rix snapped, imagining the interview with Lady Ricinus, who could remove more skin with her acid tongue than the palace’s Master of the Floggings with his metal-tipped flails. ‘Is there any other way back?’

  Tobry rubbed the top of his head and winced. ‘Only one — north over Hasp Pass, then down a series of unmarked mountain tracks. After that we’ll have to skirt around the eastern side of the Red and Grey Vomits, avoiding any fresh lava flows … and, er, head across the Seethings to the Caulderon Road.’

  Rix had never been into that treacherous wasteland of hot springs, boiling mud lakes, bottomless sinkholes and lifeless pools corrosive enough to etch the toenails off anyone foolish enough to wade into them. He had no wish to go there now.

  ‘Didn’t someone ride into a hidden pool in the Seethings and get boiled alive?’

  ‘And then there was the fellow who took a dump in a geyser hole,’ said Tobry. ‘Did I tell you — ?’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Rix.

  ‘Blew him three hundred feet into the air and welded his arse to the back of his head. Gave a whole new meaning to the term — ’

  ‘I’m not in the mood, Tobe. Can we get home tomorrow?’

  Tobry shook his head. ‘Dinner time the day after. Finding your way through the Seethings can be agonisingly slow.’

  ‘Gods! Mother is going to cut out my kidneys.’ Rix felt the area, which was painfully inflamed where the caitsthe’s claws had scraped down his belly.

  ‘Why go home?’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Rix.

  Tobry grinned. ‘Defy Lady Ricinus. Neglect your responsibilities.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Every misery in your life comes from the palace, but you come of age in a few weeks and there’s enough coin in your saddlebags to last a year. Run away. Make your own way in the world.’

  ‘Mother would disinherit me.’

  ‘And release you from your greatest burden.’

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘Why not? You’re strong, vigorous, clever …’ Tobry studied Rix, head to one side. ‘Perhaps clever is too strong a word — ’ He ducked as Rix hurled a coin pouch at him, and they both laughed.

  Rix retrieved it, smiling for the first time since they had come up here. Of course Tobry was all right. He was recovering amazingly well, after all he had been through. But, tempting as the suggestion was, Rix could never do it. From the moment he had been able to walk, his destiny and duty had been to become the next Lord Ricinus. Given his father’s focus on drinking himself to death as quickly as possible, Rix might have to assume that responsibility any day.

  ‘My house needs me,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s what I was born for.’

  ‘It’s what people told you that you were born for. Your destiny lies in your own hands.’

  ‘I want to be Lord Ricinus. It’s the very meaning of my existence.’

  ‘Our existence has no meaning. We just are, and then we die and there’s an end to it.’

  ‘I hate it when you talk that way,’ Rix snapped.

  ‘I’ll lie if it’ll make you feel better. Tra-la-laa, tra-la-loy,’ Tobry sang in a girly falsetto, ‘life’s so wonderful I could skip for joy.’

  Rix ground his teeth. ‘I can’t run away from my duty at a time like this.’

  ‘Duty will consume you and crap you out.’

  ‘I’m in charge of my life.’

  ‘You, and Lady Ricinus.’

  Rix scowled and rode ahead. They picked their way through fetlock-deep snow, heading towards Hasp Pass. To the north he could just make out the fuming top of the Red Vomit. On his right, the dark face of Precipitous Crag reared up behind a series of white-covered ridges. What else did those caverns hide?

  The swirling wind that plastered snow on their faces carried a faint, cleansing scent from the resin pines, and it cleared his head. ‘What did you make of those pens?’ he said shortly.

  Tobry rubbed his face so furiously that several blisters burst. He jerked around in the saddle and once more his eyes dilated to vacancy.

  Rix shivered. Not recovering so well after all. Or was there a darker reason? ‘Tobe?’

  It was a long time before he answered. ‘They had the look of breeding pens.’

  Every claw wound throbbed at once. ‘For shifters?’

  ‘That’s my guess.’

  ‘Why would a wrythen want to breed shifters?’

  ‘Because no living person could do so safely?’

  ‘Are you saying it’s working for the enemy?’

  ‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’

  ‘What are they up to? How does a wrythen manage it, anyhow?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And that weird cavern below the stair. What was it for?’

  ‘Trying not to think about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It didn’t look possible, yet it was there.’

  ‘It had an odd smell, did you notice?’

  ‘Sickly sweet,’ said Tobry, ‘but masking something that left a bitter taste in the back of my mouth.’

  ‘Any idea what it was?’

  ‘Never smelt it before.’

  Rix digested that as they rode. ‘The wrythen recognised my sword.’

  ‘What?’ Tobry said sharply. ‘When?’

  ‘After I killed the caitsthe.’

  Tobry reined in sharply. ‘You — killed — it? How?’

  As Rix explained, Tobry’s mouth turned down. ‘All while I lay unconscious?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rix. What was the matter now?

  ‘And then you fought the wrythen?’

  ‘That’s right. Anyway — ’

  ‘Great!’ Tobry said. ‘So when you most needed help — ’

  ‘He recognised my sword,’ Rix said hastily. ‘Oathbreaker’s blade, he called it. What do you suppose that means?’

  ‘It means things are a lot worse than my worst imaginings.’

  ‘I wish you’d explain something,’ said Rix when Tobry did not go on. ‘Anything!’

  ‘The moment we get home, I’ll have to go away for a bit. I need to talk to people.’

  ‘What about talking to me?’

  ‘You’ve got the portrait to finish,’ said Tobry, deliberately misunderstanding him. ‘And Lady Ricinus to explain to.’

  ‘You sure know how to ruin my day.’

  ‘Thought I’d already done that.’ Tobry looked away.

  Finally Rix realised what the matter was. Tobry felt that he had let Rix down. ‘It wasn’t your fault a rock knocked you out.’

  ‘When you needed my magery, it wasn’t there. That was my fault.’

  ‘If I’d listened to you, we wouldn’t have gone within miles of that place.’

  ‘I could have stopped you, and I didn’t,’ Tobry said bitterly.

  Leaving him to his dark thoughts, Rix looked ahead. Hasp Pass was a vertical slot between white mountains, like a jawbone missing one front tooth, and the wind whistling through it was a wrythen wailing in a boneyard.

  His thoughts returned to the sword. Why had it led him to the wrythen’s caverns? Why had the sword attacked the wrythen of its own accord? ‘And what was that opalised figure all about?’

  ‘Beg pardon?’ said Tobry.

  Rix hadn’t realised he had spoken the last thought
aloud. ‘Several times, when I’ve touched the hilt, I’ve seen a life-sized sculpture of a man carved from a single piece of black opal. A twisted figure; a man in agony.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  After a minute or two, Rix said, ‘Why is that quote on my sword notorious?’ He braced himself for another lecture about not paying attention to his tutors.

  ‘The Immortal Text said that the Herovians were the chosen race and Hightspall was their promised land. That’s why they left Thanneron and sailed here.’

  ‘I heard they were brawling barbarians, always drunk and fighting everyone.’

  ‘They were, but in their eyes the book justified their supremacist war against Cythe. And their right to this land.’

  A layer of ice formed on the back of Rix’s neck.

  ‘That’s where the word hero comes from,’ Tobry added. ‘The Five Heroes who led the war were originally called the Five Herovians.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘The Immortal Text disappeared in the Ten Day War. That — was — a — thousand — years — ago,’ said Tobry as if talking to a slow child.

  Rix ground his teeth. ‘I know!’

  Tobry chuckled. ‘After that, the Herovians faded from view, though there are still plenty of them in Hightspall. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised …’ He stared at Rix for a moment.

  ‘What?’ said Rix.

  ‘Nothing.’ Tobry rode ahead.

  Rix called out, ‘Why is everyone against the Herovians anyway?’

  ‘Arrogance and deceit,’ Tobry said over his shoulder.

  Rix spurred up to him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘When they landed here and discovered how numerous and strong the Cythians were, the Herovians pretended friendship, but sent a ship racing back to Thanneron, calling thousands of settlers here with the lie that the land was empty. As soon as the Second Fleet landed, they went to war against the Cythians. The people on the Second Fleet had come in peace but they had no choice other than to fight beside the Herovians. And we’ve never forgotten how they lied to us and manipulated us.’