by Ian Irvine
The facinore’s skull-crackers snapped at Rix’s head. Tali choked, but the paralysis broke and Rix ducked and whirled, striking up at it and re-severing both arms in the one blow. Its legs shrank, it stumbled, the fluttering shadows withdrew to a dark band surrounding it, then began to flare and fade. With a screechy whine, the facinore dwindled until it was smaller than Rix, and then it backed away.
Tobry lurched forwards, stiff-legged, stretching up on tiptoes for the drifting globe. Rix swung the sword at his friend’s neck. Rannilt wailed and covered her eyes. Tali choked.
But Rix twisted and lifted the blade at the last instant, slamming the flat of it into the side of Tobry’s head and he crumpled, unconscious. His eyes emptied and Lyf’s yellow eyes reappeared in the wrythen’s empty form, which filled like a balloon, soared up to catch the golden globe and thrust it into its chest. Its middle — Lyf’s middle — darkened until Tali could no longer see through it, as if it were changing from wrythen to a real being.
Lyf was floating ten feet high, out of reach of the sword he so feared. White bone gleamed in his shin stumps and he was staring at Rannilt as if he had never met anyone like her before. Then he smiled and met her eyes and pointed a finger. Rannilt was panting now, shaking her head, covering her eyes and trying to get away, but he whispered, Come forth, and more golden light burst from her. Taking hold of a thread of it, he reeled it in and rolled it into a ball around his arm.
Rannilt collapsed with a little sigh. Lyf thickened further and, while the golden draw continued, extended his left hand towards the armless facinore. It let out a squeal of fear as it was pulled towards him. Lyf clenched a fist around the upper part of its shadow and drew it into his chest. Rannilt heaved like a caterpillar on a leaf. The facinore screamed, a shrill, ugly sound as, bit by bit, its shadow halo was stripped away and also incorporated into Lyf.
Without it the facinore was a gaunt, shuddering monster, a scrawny thing all bone and sinew and stringy lengths of desiccated muscle. Lyf gestured and a second globe was wrenched from Rannilt’s mouth. She moaned, faint and feeble now, and Tali felt a pang of fear. Lyf was taking so much from the little girl, how could she survive?
Lyf swallowed the globe and momentarily his chest glowed golden-red, as if real blood was beginning to flow in him. He was getting stronger every second. Tali willed her gift to come. If it did not, she could not save Rannilt or any of them.
Rix took a slow step towards Lyf, who held up a hand. Rix ground to a halt as though the air had set hard to hold him back. Lyf gestured towards the facinore’s legs, twirling his fingers. The facinore screamed as a layer of muscle was stripped off its legs in sprays of black blood, then drifted towards Lyf. He continued to twirl his fingers and the muscle strips wrapped around his wrythen legs like lengths of ribbon, slowly building them into reality, all the way down to his stumps.
Tali covered her eyes, peeped through her fingers and covered her eyes again, shuddering at how quickly his power had grown. His chest pulsed red, gold, red — he was using Rannilt’s life force and gift to cannibalise the facinore’s body into his own, and if he was this strong with only part of a body, she dared not imagine what he could do when it was completed.
Lyf drew the elbrot from Tobry’s hand, pointed it at Rix’s head and spoke, mind to all their minds.
Ten years I have worked my compulsion on you. Now you are mine and you must atone.
‘No, Rix!’ Tali screamed. ‘He’s a stinking liar and a murderer. Don’t listen to anything he says.’
Rix might not have heard her, for he choked and the tip of his sword struck the floor, scattering chips of smoking stone. He jerked his head from side to side as if his neck joints were fused together.
‘Done nothing wrong,’ he slurred.
Remember the blood?
Rix dropped the sword, clang, stared at his hands then rubbed them furiously on his coat as though they were smirched with blood. Tali remembered the blood on the boy’s hands, in that cellar of long ago, and her scalp crawled. Such was Lyf’s power that even she wondered what Rix had done.
She fought it and spoke the words she no longer quite believed. ‘He’s a liar, Rix. You’ve done nothing wrong.’
Obeying me is the only way you can gain peace.
‘Get out of my head!’ cried Rix.
It belongs to me. You will cut it out of her and bring it to me.
The top of Tali’s head throbbed. Rix was cracking, falling under Lyf’s power, and any minute now he would break.
Rix’s cheeks shivered as if worms were crawling under the skin. ‘Go away, leave me alone.’ He groaned and bent for the sword.
You are mine. I own you.
Rix’s fingers closed over the hilt of the sword.
Cut it from her.
He hefted the sword.
Not with that! Lyf tossed down a tool with a circular cutting edge. Cut it out now!
An image flashed through Tali’s head — the murder cellar, the way Rix had sketched it. She heard a tooth crack in his tightly clenched jaw, then he took a slow, grinding step towards her and the look in his eyes was not Rix at all. Lyf had taken command of him. Was this the end?
Tobry was unconscious, Rannilt dying and Rix was out of control. Tali had to do something and, if her magery would not work, all she had left was her own strength. Lyf might not be expecting physical attack from a small woman he had always underestimated.
With an effort, she heaved the iron book off the table and swung it out to one side, for it was incredibly heavy. Rix stopped as if he had been frozen to the floor.
Put that down! Lyf shot towards her, arms outstretched.
She swung the heavy book, slowly at first, then gathering momentum that would make it difficult to stop, and as Lyf dived she smashed him in the face.
The blow passed right through his translucent wrythen head, driving his more solid upper body backwards. Blood-red ink — or red-tinged alkoyl — was driven out of the etched letters in the book to form seething globules inside his skull.
Lyf screamed.
The pearl in the Abysm shrieked and so did Tali’s own, agonisingly, then, faintly, the three distant, stolen pearls. She let out a sigh, and knew that the master of the three pearls had realised where she was. Then the half-wrythen with the legs made from a facinore fell to the floor like an empty cloak.
Where was Lyf? Had he possessed Tobry again? No, Tobry still lay unconscious. Tali’s head was shrieking, but she scanned the chamber through the spectible and caught a flash from the corner of an eye as Lyf’s disembodied consciousness hurtled through the crack into the white shaft of the Abysm. The crack vanished.
Her fingers stung from the iron book. She dropped it on the table and Tobry shot upright as if propelled by a spring. Pale and dazed and swaying, he looked down at his right hand in bewilderment. It was swollen and purple; huge, fluid-filled blisters covered his palm and fingers, burns from the bursting heatstone. Then he must have remembered, for the colour rose to his face and she saw the sick horror in his eyes. He raked at his skull as if it carried some vile infestation, then doubled over, retching.
Rix shook his head as though waking from a nightmare. With a roar that echoed through the flaskoid chamber, he snatched the titane sword, jamming it through the facinore’s mouth and out the back of its head. It flopped and fell, twitching beside the empty wrythen, but did not die. Lyf must be keeping it alive until he could strip the rest of its flesh from it.
Tali fell to her knees beside Rannilt, who lay as still as before, and pressed her hands to the girl’s chest. ‘Heal, heal!’ she whispered, but her hands did not warm, nor did Rannilt react.
‘Come on,’ said Rix, lifting the child, ‘before Lyf comes back. Bring the book.’
Tali wrapped it in a piece hacked from the hem of her coat and pulled on her discarded boots. Tobry recovered his charred elbrot. Then they went up, looking over their shoulders all the way. They passed out through the cave mouth and down the bloodstained rubble w
here the bodies of the two women were nothing but bones, and under the vine thicket to the horses. Several jackal shifters lay broken there, kicked to death. There were eyes all around in the darkness.
Tobry would not meet Tali’s eye. Rix hacked at every branch they passed as if the whole world was his enemy. Rannilt lay in Tali’s arms, breathing steadily now, a little colour had returned to her pale cheeks, but nothing could wake her.
A defeat or a victory? Tali had not beaten the wrythen, as the chancellor had hoped. Rather, the intrusion had strengthened Lyf. Nonetheless, she had gained some understanding of her magery and almost taken his ebony pearl, and he had been shaken to be attacked in his hitherto inviolable realm. The facinore, the most potent of his shifter creations, was finished, and they had his iron book. It was a victory of sorts — or would be when Rannilt woke.
If Rannilt woke.
CHAPTER 86
The ride home, under the twilight of that choking brown overcast sky, was silent and endless. What was The Consolation of Vengeance for? And what did it say? Though cold to the touch, it radiated heat. Tali could feel it through the leather of the saddlebag.
And why, since it was Lyf’s book, had it hurt him so badly when she had struck him with it? Had taking it been a master stroke, or a fatal folly? She could not tell. Not even Tobry, who knew five languages, could read the glyphs inside.
He was slumped in the saddle, eyes dead, and she did not know how to aid him. Tobry was a man whose word was unbreakable, a man who would do anything to help those he held dear, yet Lyf had forced him to attack his friend. It was eating him alive.
Something ailed Rix, too, something that bit even deeper than the wrythen taking command of him and ordering him to cut it from her. He alternated between furious rages and intervals of slack-jawed apathy.
‘Tobe,’ said Rix, riding stirrup to stirrup with him, ‘do you think — ?’
‘It’s finished, Rix. I’m utterly and irretrievably dishonoured.’
‘How do you think I feel?’
Something snapped and Rix spurred away, hacking down an innocent needlebush as he passed, then several branches off a blood-bark tree.
‘Damn you!’ he roared, racing back to them and brandishing his sword towards Precipitous Crag. ‘You will not command me!’
The echoes chased themselves back and forth between the bluffs to either side, mocking him.
‘Ride away, Tali, and ride fast,’ he said, biting the words off and flinging them to the wind. ‘When next Lyf comes, I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist his compulsion.’
Tali forced herself to swallow her fear. She could no longer fight alone, and without Rix and Tobry she was lost. She reached across and put a hand on his arm.
‘I believe in you, just as I believe in Tobry. When Lyf comes, you will resist him.’
‘He’s stronger each time!’ said Rix, wild-eyed.
She tightened her grip. ‘So is Tobry, and so are you. You’re much stronger than when I first met you, and a better man, and I trust you, no matter what. And if Rannilt was — ’ she had almost said alive — ‘was awake, she would say the same. We have to hold together. We’re all that stands between Lyf and victory now.’
Rix stared at her as if she had gone mad. He swallowed and rubbed his eyes, but not before she saw tears form there. He nodded stiffly, as if afraid to speak. ‘You have no idea what that means to me.’
Tobry turned those empty eyes on her. ‘Have you ever been violated?’
‘No,’ she said quietly.
‘It’s as though he’s emptied all his fury into me, a festering rage at what was done to his people. He owns me now, Tali. How can I fight him?’
‘He’s not as strong as you think. We can still beat him.’ They were empty words. Tali had none that could comfort him.
A mile or two further on, Rix said suddenly, ‘I envisaged that opal sculpture again, Tobe.’
‘When?’ Tobry said dully.
‘As we left the caverns.’
‘I saw one too,’ said Tali, and told them about the contorted figure she had seen bobbing up and down, deep in the Abysm. ‘But it looked too perfect to be a sculpture.’
Rix drew a sharp breath. ‘What else could it be?’
‘It looked like a man turned to opal … yet …’
‘What?’
‘I’m sure the eyes were alive.’
No one could guess what it meant. Hours later, they were riding up a high hill when Rix cried, ‘They’re gone!’
‘Who’s gone?’ said Tali.
‘The enemy. From Caulderon.’
Smoke still belched from the burning shanty towns outside the walls and brown trails issued from a dozen places within the city, but the grey shadow of the Cythonian armies was no longer there.
‘The city’s fallen,’ said Rix bleakly. ‘We’re too late.’
Tobry checked with Rix’s telescope. ‘The gates are still standing, and they’re manned by our troops.’ His voice rose. ‘And … I can see dozens of prisoners, chained to the walls and the gates …’
‘Can we have beaten them?’ said Tali.
‘You must have hurt Lyf more than we thought,’ said Tobry. For the first time that day, she saw a hint of hope in his bruised eyes.
‘We’d better make plans,’ said Rix. ‘If we ride in together, the palace’s spies will hear about it in minutes. I’ll go alone. Tobry, come later with Tali and Rannilt. Bring them underground to my chambers.’
‘The chancellor will surely guess I’m there,’ said Tali. ‘And Rannilt.’
‘There’s nowhere else to go,’ Rix said distractedly. ‘I’ve got — ’ He swallowed. ‘Got a duty to pay.’
He galloped off, leaving Tali and Tobry staring after him.
The streets were a drunken carnival clogged with people, and every stride of the way they clutched at Rix’s stirrups, crying out their glad tidings.
‘We showed them. The gutless rock rats are running for their lives.’
Rix shook them off and rode on, grim of face. He could only think of one thing now — his mother’s treason and his duty to report it. Acid burnt up his throat. How could he make the threat known to the chancellor without implicating her?
He used his horse to force passage through the throngs, heading for the chancellor’s palace, and was admitted at once. The chancellor was at a red-jasper-framed window, looking down on the celebrations.
‘Caulderon is doomed,’ he said without turning around, ‘yet for the sake of morale the poor must have their street parties. And the rich their Honouring, tomorrow.’
Rix remembered, guiltily, the portrait that had to be completed tonight.
The chancellor took an upholstered chair by the fire and gestured to the other. ‘Clearly, the encounter at the Crag was not a complete success.’
‘No,’ said Rix. ‘But Tali hurt him.’ He told the story briefly, omitting any details that could harm her.
The chancellor listened without comment, then said, ‘Why have you come here?’
Rix stared into the flames, but found no assistance there. When he looked up, the chancellor was studying him, impassively. Rix looked down again. ‘I’ve overheard a plot. To get rid of you.’
‘Don’t mumble, boy!’ The chancellor leaned forwards, his face unreadable. ‘When did you hear this?’
Rix had never found it easy to lie, except to his mother. ‘Two days ago.’
‘Before you stole my horses and galloped to Precipitous Crag.’
He shivered. Minds were open books to the chancellor. What did he know? Was this a test?
‘Yes.’
‘How long before?’
The noose was tightening. If he lied and said days or weeks, it would make him an accessory. ‘Less than a day.’
‘I know you’re a brave man, and I’m told you’re an honourable one,’ said the chancellor. ‘Since you’re only telling me about the treason now, the plotter must be friend or family.’
Rix could not speak; he
could hardly breathe.
‘And the name?’ said the chancellor.
‘I — can’t say,’ Rix said in a strangled voice.
‘Allow me to assist you. My spies watch your windows and one of your door guards is my man. On the day before you left, you did not go out of your tower, and no one entered save myself, Lady Ricinus, Tobry Lagger, Tali vi Torgrist, and servants. You would not keep silent for a servant, and I know it wasn’t Tali.’ He leaned back and his hard little eyes met Rix’s. ‘I hope it was Lagger. I’ve always despised the man.’
Out in the city, every steam whistle went off at once. Rix sprang up. ‘What’s that? Are we attacked?’ The whistles died as though they had run out of steam.
‘Sit down,’ said the chancellor.
As Rix sat, a drop of sweat ran down his nose. The chancellor would order Tobry’s execution without a qualm. But if Rix denied it was Tobry, it was the same as betraying his mother.
‘If you don’t deny it,’ said the chancellor, ‘your silence affirms his guilt and he dies a traitor’s death.’ He reached for the bell pull to his left.
A black-haired servant girl came in, carrying something heavy on a large silver tray covered by a silk cloth. She set it down on a low table between Rix and the chancellor. The chancellor nodded, she lifted the cloth and withdrew.
Rix jumped, sending his chair backwards. A small white dog, contorted by the agony of its death, lay on the tray. Blood had leaked from its mouth and bowel. The chancellor leaned forwards, stroking the small head, then looked up.
‘Ricin,’ he said. ‘The deadliest poison in Hightspall, the most agonising death, and there is no antidote.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘I thought myself well protected. I had employed every protection at my disposal, yet still the assassin got through. The poison was meant for me.’
‘It wasn’t Tobry,’ Rix gasped.
‘But he knows about the plot? You’re his best friend. You tell him everything.’
‘He knows nothing. I dared not tell him.’
The chancellor leaned forwards again, eyes impaling Rix. He felt like a worm with a hook through its guts.
