by Ian Irvine
‘You believe me?’
‘Never trusted House Ricinus. The lord’s a pig, the lady an adder. There’s nothing so foul that she would not do to raise the family higher.’ His eyes met hers. ‘And you’re not going back to warn them.’
Gulp! ‘Why would I?’
‘Because you’re friends with Rixium and Tobry, and if they don’t tell me about the treason, they’ll swing for it.’
‘But Tobry doesn’t know anything about it,’ she cried, caught off-guard.
‘I’ve never liked the man,’ said the chancellor chillingly, as though that were reason enough for Tobry to die. ‘Can’t trust a fellow who believes in nothing.’
‘What are you going to do to Lord and Lady Ricinus?’ said Tali, with a kind of fascinated horror.
Again, that malicious smile. This was not a man she would want to make her enemy.
‘I’ll see their necks settled into the noose, first.’ The chancellor studied Tali’s slender neck in a contemplative way, then called for a large sheet of blank paper, a pencil and a wedge of brown rubber. ‘Draw me a map of Cython. Mark every tunnel and chamber, and its purpose and use, and everything you know of Cython’s defences. Then tell me all about the Cythonians.’
‘I only know the main level of Cython. I’ve never been lower down.’
‘All I ask is what you know. Rannilt has also helped me, and some of the captured enemy will reveal a scrap or two before they die. It should be enough.’
‘Enough for what?’
He rang the bell and the tall redhead Tali had seen earlier appeared. ‘Note down everything she says, Verla.’
Though Tali could envisage any route she had ever taken through Cython, the underground city proved surprisingly difficult to map. After some hours, and many sheets of paper, she was still ending up with rooms and workshops where she knew they could not be.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when her latest sketch showed the eastern edge of the heatstone mine intersecting the straight line of the main floatillery. ‘The mine should be half a mile this way.’
‘Note it on the map. My cartographers will sort it after we’ve tortured enough of the enemy. Describe the kinds of wall carvings in every area — their art may prove more reliable than signposts.’
‘What are you going to do with all this?’ she said at the end, after Verla had gone as silently as she came, without saying a word the whole time.
‘That’s my business.’ He met her eyes. ‘You have done me mighty service today, and I pay my debts.’ He sent the spectible spinning across the table towards her. ‘It’s yours.’
She caught it before it hit her in the belly and felt it with her fingers. The metal was cold; the mica felt warm to the touch.
‘How is it used?’
‘One puts it across one’s eyes and forehead, then turns the knobs until the emanations of magery come into focus.’
Tali had no idea what it was supposed to show, but she saw nothing save the lustre of the dark mica and the chancellor’s blurred features through it. She slowly turned the knobs. Nothing, nothing, nothing. ‘You said it’s dead.’
‘So my chief magian says. But Hightspall’s magery has dwindled over the centuries and perhaps he lacks the strength to work it.’ Again it felt as though he was peering into her head. ‘It’s said you have a unique gift.’
‘Who told you that?’ she said sharply.
‘One of my rangers caught an eyeless fellow called Wil, a Cythonian seer. Unlike the other prisoners, he was eager to talk. Especially about you.’
‘Mad Wil,’ said Tali. ‘You can’t take any notice — ’
‘Oh, yes I can,’ he said softly, the gleam back in his eyes. ‘A mad seer might see more clearly than all one’s spies and advisors together. Wil said you’re the one, and I believe him, because I’ve also read something rare and wild in you.’
Whatever he really wanted of her, she did not like it. She kept turning the knobs until they would go no further, but saw nothing. ‘What does the one mean?’
‘The one who changes the future, and not to Cython’s advantage. The matriarchs are afraid of Wil’s foreseeing, which they call shillilar.’
She squirmed. Her life was being moved by forces beyond her understanding.
‘Years ago they had dozens of little girls killed, to make sure the one was dead,’ said Tali, shivering. ‘But Wil lied — he told the matriarchs I had black hair and olive skin.’ She raised her head, looked him in the eye. ‘What do you want of me?’
‘If I fail,’ said the chancellor, ‘Hightspall will be swept away. And the war’s going so disastrously you can’t possibly make things worse. Yet if you are the one …’ Tali held her breath, but he shook his head. ‘I must think on it. Wil says he’s been all the way down. What does that mean?’
The sudden change of tack was disconcerting. ‘To the lowest level of Cython?’
‘If you don’t know, don’t guess. What about the Hellish Conduit?’
‘I overheard the master chymister mention it once. He said I’ll have to send down the Hellish Conduit for more.’
‘More what?’
‘Alkoyl.’ Tali told him about the young woman whose leg had been eaten away.
‘Fascinating,’ said the chancellor, ‘though not immediately useful. What’s the Engine?’
‘Cythonians believe that everything in nature comes from the working of a great machine, at the heart of the world, called the Engine.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘If the Engine gets a wobble, the ground shakes. If it overheats, the Vomits erupt …’
‘And?’ he said when she did not go on.
‘They also believe the Engine is fuelled by an unstable cauldron deep in the Earth. And sometimes it blows up. That’s all I know.’
‘It’s said that Lake Fumerous fills the chasm where a fourth Vomit blew itself to pieces.’ He made a dismissing gesture. ‘How goes the spectible?’
She looked down. ‘I’ve turned both knobs as far as they go. Did the chief magian say why it stopped working?’
‘He said the source it drew from could no longer be reached.’
‘If a new source could be found, might it work again?’ An ebony pearl, perhaps? Careful, don’t even think about them here or he’ll have the secret out of you — and perhaps the pearl, too.
‘Possibly. Hold the first knob steady and turn the other all the way. Then rotate the first knob one notch and the second all the way back, and so on.’
She began to do so. Nothing for the first notch, nothing for the second, nothing for the third. Then, as she moved her head from side to side, a pinkish rainbow flashed across the black mica.
‘Ah!’ said the chancellor.
‘You saw it?’
‘No, but you did.’
‘What was it?’
‘The emanation of magery from this speaking egg.’ He picked an oval yellow object, egg-sized, from the shelf behind him. ‘Abbess Hildy has another. It’s how she told me about you, soon after you arrived.’
‘So the spectible does work.’
‘It does for you.’
But could she use it to locate her own magery? Tali set it down on the table. ‘What are you going to do with me now?’
‘In return for my concession to the Pale you must do me a service — assuming you’re a woman of your word?’
Tali swallowed. ‘I said it, and my word holds.’ She fought to hold her voice steady. ‘What must I do?’
‘A trifling task.’ He examined his buffed and manicured nails, drawing out the tension.
‘How trifling?’ she rasped.
‘Before we counterattack, you will return to Cython and rouse the Pale to rebellion.’
‘No!’ She snatched at the table edge for support. ‘I’m no leader. And the enemy will kill me on sight.’
‘If you’re truly the one, you’ll find a way.’
‘And if I’m not, I die an agonising death.’
‘Thousands of my
people have already died such deaths in the war,’ said the chancellor, ‘and more fall every minute. Until the enemy is stopped they will continue to die.’
‘Unless they wipe us out first,’ said Tali.
His head shot up, the impassive face cracked. She had shocked him. ‘You think that is their intention? Not just to take back the land, but to erase us from Hightspall forever?’
Tali considered everything she knew about the enemy. ‘Yes, I believe it is.’
He did not speak for a very long time, and when he did, though he fought to control his voice, it had the faintest tremor. ‘Worse than I had thought; far worse. What can I do?’ He thought for a moment. ‘I have no choice but to go on — and neither do you.’
‘I’m not up to it, Lord Chancellor.’
‘Do you imagine you’re the only one tormented by self-doubt?’
Had she not seen his anguish a few minutes ago, she would have said he had no demons. Perhaps he was more practised at hiding them. She shook her head.
‘A while ago you argued passionately for the Pale. You must know what the enemy will do to all eighty-five thousand of them when they no longer need slaves.’
She thought about the people she cared for — Nurse Bet, Waitie, Little Nan — and the people she owed, like Lifka and the first eunuch at the loading station. How could she let them be cut down?
‘Well?’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve long feared it.’
‘Can any other Pale save them? Or anyone from outside Cython?’
‘No. They have only me.’ And she had sworn that oath on Mia’s blood, to make up for all the injustices done to the Pale. To free them from bondage. Even her enemy, Radl.
‘Then your duty is clear.’
‘Yes,’ she said despairingly. She could not do it, but neither could she refuse. ‘It is.’
CHAPTER 75
‘Your word on it,’ he said, coming around the table. His back was hunched; he wasn’t much taller than her. He extended his hand. ‘And my word to you.’
She shook his hand, which was surprisingly firm, though a trifle claw-like.
‘It is done,’ said the chancellor. ‘Sit down. Take refreshment while I think. Be at ease — what you fear may never happen.’ He grimaced. ‘We may be driven over the mountains to the furthest reaches of Hightspall and crushed by the ice. We may never regain the strength to counterattack.’
‘I hope you’re not planning to say that publicly.’
‘Nor even to my allies, privately. Morale would never recover.’
It suggested that he thought more of her than his allies, which confounded her.
Food and drink was brought in — smoked meats, yellow and green pickles, a mound of dried fruits, a blood-red cordial. Everything was delicious yet she ate absently, watching him across the table. He studied the maps, then read through Verla’s notes, marking several passages with an orange crayon. His face became ever more drawn, his cheeks turned a bloodless grey.
‘Lord Chancellor?’ she said tentatively. ‘You seem shaken by what I said.’
‘That the enemy’s intent is genocide? It changes everything. Only in the past few days has Caulderon begun to take Cython seriously. Even now, people sneer and call them rock rats. But they were a formidable enemy before, one it took us two hundred and fifty years to defeat, and they’re stronger now. While we’re weak and unready, and the magery that saved us last time dwindles daily — ’
If he knew about the three ebony pearls stolen from Lyf, she thought guiltily, and could gain them, it might change the course of the war. But she dared not mention them. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Take desperate measures.’ He went into the hall and spoke to his servants in urgent tones for some minutes, then returned. ‘I understand you have a quest — to avenge yourself on a family enemy.’
‘I will have justice for my murdered mother,’ said Tali.
‘Justice.’ He chewed over the word as though he had not heard it before. ‘Extraordinary! And this enemy dwells in the caverns at the base of Precipitous Crag. Is he the wrythen Rixium fought there?’
How did he know that? ‘So I believe.’
‘A wrythen in the pay of the enemy.’ The chancellor was watching her from the corners of his eyes. ‘A powerful, uncanny creature breeding shifters for Cython to use in the war.’
This was getting dangerous. If the chancellor learned that she was host to the master pearl, she was lost. They’re the most powerfully enchanted objects ever discovered, Tobry had said. They’re so priceless, I doubt that the chief magian has ever seen one.
Magery was the one weapon the Cythonians could not use, and in the chief magian’s hands the master pearl could turn the war Hightspall’s way. The chancellor would have to take it. What was one life — her life — compared to the fate of a nation?
‘That’s what Rix and Tobry said,’ said Tali.
‘Interesting. Perhaps this wrythen is Cython’s way around the prohibition against magery.’ He tap-tapped two fingers on the table. ‘Were the wrythen to be eliminated, it would strike a mighty blow against the enemy.’ He looked up suddenly, weighing her. ‘I wonder …’
‘If Rix and Tobry couldn’t harm it, it would take an army — ’
The small servant appeared at the door with a package the size of a wrapped book. The chancellor put it on the table beside him. ‘I can’t drive a squad of soldiers through the enemy’s lines to attack this wrythen, but …’
‘What?’ she said uncomfortably. Was he planning to send Rix and Tobry there, in revenge for House Ricinus’s threat against him?
‘I can get the one there.’
‘No!’ cried Tali. Was he insane? No, it was a calculated gamble by an utterly ruthless man, and if she failed he would shrug his shoulders and try something else.
‘I thought you burnt for justice,’ he said mildly.
‘I can’t fight … the wrythen without magery.’ She had almost said Lyf, and naming him would raise too many dangerous questions. ‘Powerful magery.’
‘I think you will find it. I think this is the one’s first great task. I’m going to send you there.’
‘What if the wrythen kills me?’
‘What if Lady Ricinus assassinates me in spite of all my precautions?’ said the chancellor. ‘What if the Cythonians tunnel under my palace and collapse it into a gigantic pit? Any of us may fail through error, or the unexpected, or the sheer perversity of life. You’re a gamble, but my instinct, which is seldom wrong, tells me you’re worth it. And here is the key.’
He slid the wrapped package to her.
She untied the cords, unwrapped the linen and discovered a book-sized heatstone inside. Tali felt no relief, only a numb horror. What if it didn’t work? What if her magery came and went again? In any case, that storm of white needles, so devastating against human flesh, might have no effect on a wrythen.
‘Take it with you,’ said the chancellor. ‘Smash it when you need magery.’
‘The wrythen nearly killed Rix and Tobry. How can you imagine I can do better?’
‘I can read people better than anyone in Hightspall.’
‘What do you read in me?’
‘That you’re a risky investment, but a worthy one.’
‘I’m not ready,’ said Tali. ‘Magery takes years to master. I’ll only make things worse.’
‘Neither am I ready, but as chancellor I have to act now. The enemy could break into Caulderon tonight or tomorrow. What if they intend to kill every man, every woman, every child and babe-in-arms in this great city? Think about the horror of all those individual deaths, then tell me that you’ll do your duty to the country you profess to love.’
This nightmare was all the more terrifying because it was what she had wanted. Now she realised how unprepared she was, how naive she had been to think of attacking Lyf. What if she failed and he gained the master pearl?
She had to do something. She checked around her. If she could leap o
n the chancellor, and bind and gag him, could she get back to the tunnels with Rannilt and the spectible before the alarm was raised?
The instant she moved, he snapped his fingers and two guards appeared at the door. They were much bigger than Tali and their blades were in their hands.
‘Chancellor?’ said the first of them, an oval-faced brunette almost as tall as Rix.
‘Take the child away.’
Chills spiralled through Tali as the brunette unfastened the stocks and picked Rannilt up. She woke, beamed and threw her arms out towards Tali.
‘Knew you’d come,’ said Rannilt. ‘I told the old man so.’
‘Take her away,’ said the chancellor. ‘I hold her hostage for your conduct, Tali.’
It was like history repeating itself. ‘Will you enslave her descendants for a thousand years?’ cried Tali.
‘Why would I harm a child?’
‘I don’t want to go,’ cried Rannilt, struggling furiously.
‘Tali, help, help!’ Tali trembled with a mad urge to hurl herself at the guard, but the smaller guard blocked the way with her blade.
Tali swallowed. ‘Rannilt, I’ll come back for you, I promise.’
‘Don’t leave me,’ Rannilt wailed, and reached out to her with both hands. ‘Here — use your gift.’
Golden bubbles formed at her fingertips, expanding and bursting into fragments that pattered gently on Tali’s face and hands. A sharp pain cleaved through the top of her skull and she felt a tight pressure there, as though a balloon was swelling inside her head, pressing so hard on her skull bones that they creaked.
She had felt that pressure before, in the sunstone shaft. Coloured lights swirled madly; the pain intensified; more balloons formed in her chest; her eyes misted and her vision swam. Then something rose up in her, something powerful, dark and uncontrollable, and she thrust her right arm towards the chancellor’s meagre chest. Her fingertips ached for release.
Considering his peril, he was eerily calm. ‘Don’t mistake an ally for an enemy,’ he said quietly.
The balloon popped, the mist vanished, and her rising gift sank out of sight and out of reach. Tali sagged backwards against the wall, almost as drained as if she had used magery. She felt a profound disappointment, a deep and troubling loss. The gift longed to be used and, horrific though it was, she longed to use it.
