by Ian Irvine
Tali fought the urge to smash his yellow teeth in. ‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll use the master pearl to control your three? I too have a gift, magian.’
His face lit and Tali realised, uncomfortably, that he had been hoping she would ask.
‘I worked that out as a boy,’ he chortled, ‘after he made me take the first pearl. Your thrice-grandmother had the gift stronger than you, and she tried to fight me, the stupid bitch! But the pearls aren’t meant to be used within the host and she fell into a swoon, bleeding from the eyes and ears.’ He shuddered. ‘The emotional connections are too dangerous; the host can never control it.’
No wonder Tali’s every attempt to take control of her gift had failed, and would always fail. It could not be done.
‘How is the pearl made safe, then?’ she said dully.
He came closer. ‘It must be cut from the living host, severing all connection with her, then healed for three days in her healing blood.’
As Lady Ricinus had done, putting the pearl inside that green-metal glove filled with Iusia’s blood. ‘And killing the host,’ Tali said.
Closer. ‘The trauma is great, but it’s separation from the pearl that kills.’
If I can’t rely on the master pearl, Tali thought, I’ll have to outwit him of his three. And then, deliver him to my own justice, since there’s none to be had in Caulderon.
Oh, how he would pay.
Reaching out with his free hand, he stroked the top of her head, though not in any sensuous way. Deroe cared nothing for the human flesh, only what had been cultured within.
Tali’s scalp crept and her mother’s cries echoed within her skull, then the splintery gouging sound she had not recognised as a little girl. She tried to dart away but toppled forwards. His magery had fixed the soles of her boots to the floor, and now Tali knew fear as she had never known it before. If she could not break his magery, his tools would soon bore through her skull.
Deroe sniggered, turned to the black bench and reached up with his hands. The mesh of light threads that had been clinging to his fingers hung in the air there, illuminating the bench with a ragged cone of light. The greenish mist drifted back and forth through it, highlighting the edges of the cone. The poisoned-rat smell thickened in Tali’s nostrils.
He wiped the bench with a rag. The black, slightly domed bench top had the gleam of the ebony pearl in Rix’s finished painting — a pearl at the centre of the skull-shaped cellar like the pearl in her mother’s head, and now her own.
He walked into the darkness. Objects clicked and rattled as though he was feeling in a cluttered cupboard. Tali heaved and lunged but could not tear free. Deroe came back carrying a small, upside-down parasol on a stand, though the silver ribs lacked any fabric covering.
‘What’s that for?’ she said.
He did not reply.
In his other hand he had a circular disc made of white wood, as thick through as her closed fist and the diameter of her open hand. Five round depressions had been cut into the top, four at the corners of a square and the fifth at the centre.
He took three black pearls from a case lined with yellow velvet and put them in the depressions at three corners of the square. Tali struggled to draw breath. Each pearl had been cultured in one of her ancestors. Which was her mother’s? They looked identical. The top right depression, and the slightly larger hollow in the middle, remained empty.
After fixing the parasol upright on a small table near the head of the bench, Deroe closed and opened its metal arms, set the pearls beneath, rotated the disc by ninety degrees, then nodded.
Now me. And Tali still could not move her feet.
He took a small hammer and narrow chisel from a bag. Was that to crack her skull? Now a thin-bladed saw, a steel gouger and two reamers, which he handled as gingerly as a first-day apprentice in a slaughterhouse. As though he was afraid to use them …
A savage urge for vengeance boiled inside her. If she got the chance she would jam them through his wattled throat. But how could she beat him? What were his weaknesses?
In a land where it was rare to live beyond sixty, he had to be double that, at least. Either he had lengthened his life by uncanny means, or the pearls had. But the greater the magery, the greater the cost, and it had cost Deroe dearly. Was that why he seemed as decayed inside as he was decrepit outside? And with those clouded eyes, his sight must be poor. If she moved swiftly once he freed her feet, she might beat him.
He turned and shuffled towards her. Tali tried to look like a terrified slave. It wasn’t hard; the urge to scream was overwhelming. Her stomach muscles were so tight that it was difficult to breathe. Outside, Tobry was hacking at the grey barrier and attacking it with flashes of emerald magery, but he made no impression on it.
As Deroe reached out, she avoided his eyes in case her own gave her away. His crusted hand touched her biceps and her feet came free. She swung, fast as a striking adder, burying her fist in his belly below the diaphragm and driving it up.
Tali was strong for her size and there was so much power behind her small fist that she felt his papery skin tear. The blow forced air from his lungs and he doubled over, gasping. His spell broke and the light threads went out, leaving the cellar in darkness save for the faintest glimmer from her lantern, which she had left on the other side of the stacked crates.
Tali dived for the pearls.
But Deroe called them up, high above her head, to him.
CHAPTER 101
Rix woke with the voice ringing in his head. Lyf’s voice.
It is time. Go down.
‘Damn you!’ he said aloud. ‘You’ll never force me.’ But even in his own ears, he sounded unconvincing.
Lyf seemed amused. You divined this night, this scene, this death. You had the chance to seize command of the divination when you painted the scene in the cellar, but you did not. Now it is set and can’t be changed.
‘I won’t do it!’ Rix roared, though he could see no way of escape. Why hadn’t he ridden out to give his life away yesterday? Why had he told his treacherous friends his plan?
In the shadows, a girl cried out in fear. It took some time for him to recognise Glynnie cowering behind the couch, sheltering her little brother with her arms. But before he could speak …
Ten years I’ve worked my compulsion on you, preparing you for this night.
I’ll fight you.
Yes, you will do everything in your power to break the compulsion. And you will fail. You will go down. You will cut the master nuclix from Tali, submerge it in her blood and keep it safe for me.
‘I won’t!’ But the willpower was draining from him as Lyf wrapped the compulsion ever tighter. Only Tobry’s shackle was keeping Rix here now. His shin was chafed to the bone from straining against it.
Call for your sword. I will have my due.
‘Damn you, no!’ But against his will, Rix turned to a wild-eyed Glynnie, who clearly thought he had gone insane, and said, ‘Fetch my sword, girl.’
Clutching Benn tighter, she shook her head.
Good, Rix thought, but the compulsion stabbed him and his treacherous mouth said, ‘Who took you in, at risk of his own life, when the chancellor cast you out?’
‘You did, Lord,’ she whispered.
‘Am I your master?’
‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Then obey me or be thrown into the street.’
Trembling all over, she took the wire-handled sword from the shelf where Tobry had left it and carried it to Rix, holding it out by the tip as if she expected to be cut down with it. At any other time, that would have hurt.
He raised it high, then drove it down with all his strength onto the chain fixing his ankle to the heatstone. The enchanted blade cut through the chain in a shower of sparks.
Get the implements.
What was the point in fighting when he was bound to be defeated? He stalked out, the chain dragging, and down the halls to Lady Ricinus’s rooms. The door was locked; he kicked it open and hacked
her tiny desk in two.
A hand reamer tumbled out, along with a woven, green-metal glove and a pair of golden tongs. With these implements she had murdered Tali’s mother and grandmother, and taken their pearls. She had planned to kill Tali the same way and she had shown no remorse.
Don’t touch them. Turn around, walk to the front doors and ride out to face the enemy. Your death means Lyf’s defeat.
But though he fought with all the strength he possessed, Rix took up the fatal tools. He could not stop himself. The compulsion was strengthening with everything it forced him to do and he could not overcome it.
He stalked the empty halls, following the path Lyf mapped in his head, and across to the secret stairs that, worked by a lever, plunged five flights before corkscrewing down through the roof of the cellar to the black bench.
At the top of the stairs Rix stopped, fighting to summon a shred of defiance.
Go down. The voice was softer now. Lyf knew Rix was beaten.
The assumption was just enough to summon a wisp of resistance. Before the compulsion could deny him, Rix pulled the stair lever, pressed the enchanted blade against himself and threw himself head-first down the stairs. Even if the blade did not open him from belly to throat, he would surely break his neck before he struck bottom.
He hoped so. After a life etched in failure, death was all he had left.
But the blade twisted in his hands, turned away from him and, though on the endless plunge he struck every step with head or shoulder or knee or hip, Rix tumbled through the mist of the cellar and landed beside the bench, winded and battered and bruised all over, but otherwise unharmed.
Do it.
Rix had no resistance left. He picked up the bone reamer, the green-metal blood glove and the golden tongs, and looked around for Tali.
CHAPTER 102
As Deroe took hold of the pearls, the eyes in the stone head on the wall went yellow. The trapdoor in the ceiling burst open, then the screw-shaped stairs that Tali remembered from ten years ago spiralled down between her and Deroe, grounding beside the black bench.
Deroe let out a squeal of terror, rolled his hand across the three pearls and the agate wards around the walls flared. Tali sprang at him, knowing she had only seconds to get the pearls, but he scrabbled past the stone raptors with them, slipping and skidding in his panic to get away.
A sword came clattering down the stairs, striking sparks with every impact — Rix’s sword. Tali’s heart stopped for several beats. This must be the time.
The sword was followed by several jangling objects she could not make out in the dim light, then a series of thumps and grunts, and Rix came tumbling through the air to slam into the floor.
The impact would have broken her bones but he sat up and picked up the objects, one by one. Tali recognised the bone reamer, the green-metal glove and the golden tongs. Rusty barbs scraped down the knobs of her spine.
She backed away, trying to make no sound, but Rix’s horror-filled eyes picked her out of the darkness and he took a slow step towards her. He was fully conscious of what Lyf was forcing him to do and it was eating him alive. Away to the left, Tobry was hacking desperately at the transparent barrier.
‘Rix, stop!’ Tobry screamed, until his voice went hoarse.
Rix could not meet his eyes, nor Tali’s. She had never seen a man with a greater longing for death.
‘You should have let Rixium ride out to war.’ Deroe, sheltering behind one of the raptors, let out another incongruous giggle.
‘Rix?’ said Tali, fighting her own urge to scream. She had to stay calm. There had to be a way to get through to him. ‘You’ve got to fight the compulsion.’
‘Been fighting it for ten years.’ Rix’s voice was as dead as his eyes. ‘Lost!’
He turned towards her. One of Deroe’s pearls called to hers and Tali’s gift rose in a flush of anger, though not her own. The anger came from outside her, as if Deroe was manipulating her gift for his own ends, and it was one step too far.
‘Kill him,’ said Deroe. ‘You’ve killed before; I can read the blood lust in you.’
Her hand rose, involuntarily. She fought it down — she would not be dictated to like a slave — and her gift sank with it. Deroe cursed, pointed the parasol frame at the face on the end wall, caressed the pearls and an ultrasonic screech turned the stone nose to powder. Lyf’s yellow eyes disappeared behind a puff of dust.
Cut down Deroe first, said a voice in her head that she knew to be Lyf’s voice, though he was not talking to her.
Rix stopped in mid-stride. His eyes crossed, then he swivelled and headed after the magian. Deroe scuttled away and took shelter behind a low granite pedestal. A square trophy case stood on top, its sides made of crystal so grimy that Tali could not see what it contained.
Deroe’s mouth twisted into a lopsided grin and he began to rub the dirt off the trophy case.
Stop!
Rix stopped, his arms dangling like a run-down clockwork toy. Deroe cleaned the last of the crystal faces, stepped aside, and within the trophy case Tali saw a pair of skeletal feet, severed at the ankles as if by the blow of a sword.
‘Axil Grandys’s most prized trophy,’ said Deroe, looking up at the crazed stone face, ‘and your greatest weakness. Ha-ha-ha!’
One stone eye cracked out and a shadow-clad finger protruded through the hole. A whisper of sound swelled to a howl, then a cloudy rock-glass barrier rose between the trophy case and Deroe, locking him into the right-hand end of the cellar.
Take the master pearl and bring it to me.
Rix rotated, the soles of his boots grinding on the gritty floor. Tali could see the sick failure in his eyes, that his life had been pre-ordained ever since he had been taken to the cellar by his mother ten years ago and ensnared by Lyf. How could she stop him?
‘Rix,’ she said desperately, ‘how did he get to you?’
Rix shook his head. He did not know.
Tobry broke off his futile attack on the barrier, for the question had set his mind racing. Rix only had nightmares in the palace, and then only in his own chambers. But Tobry had checked them for magery many times and had found no trace of an enchantment save in Rix’s sword. Unquestionably, the compulsion did not come through the sword.
That left only one possibility — the heatstone.
Tobry turned and ran. To his knowledge, no inanimate object was enchanted in its natural state — only through deliberate human intervention did magery come about. The heatstone in the salon contained no enchantment, so how had Lyf, who could only travel to the cellar, used it to get at Rix?
Tobry raced up the dusty stairs. There was an ache in his side and his healing wounds burnt as though they were tearing open, but he dared not rest. Tali could not hold Rix off long. Either he would kill her for the pearl, or she would find her gift and kill him. The one possibility was as dreadful as the other.
He reached the ground level and hurtled along the halls to Rix’s chambers, bursting the door open with his shoulder and skidding the length of the hall into the salon, where the heatstone twinkled as balefully as ever. If he broke it, surely it must snap the link that allowed Lyf to control Rix through the compulsion.
Glynnie started up from the couch with a cry of fear.
‘Get out!’ he bellowed. ‘Take the boy with you. Now!’
She took one look at his face and ran, dragging Benn behind her.
The heatstone was a good four inches thick; it would take a sledgehammer wielded by a blacksmith to break it. Tobry ran around the room twice, cursing. There was nothing here that could even knock a chip out of it. Perhaps it was just as well. When Tali’s little heatstone had smashed on his elbrot in the caverns, it had burnt him badly. If he succeeded in breaking this one, there would be nothing left of him, and it would be a hideous way to die.
But if the heatstone remained, Rix would kill Tali and Lyf would get the master pearl. Tobry could not allow that. For the sake of his friends, and the woman he loved who did not l
ove him, he had to make the sacrifice.
He was looking around wildly when The Consolation of Vengeance caught his eye, lying on the blankets where Tali had dropped it. The iron book was potent with magery, and without further thought he picked it up and slammed it against the centre of the heatstone.
The impact jarred all the way up to the back of his neck. The heatstone was unmarked, though small red flecks of spent alkoyl, driven out of the deeply etched words, had splattered across the middle, outlining the title in reverse.
Tobry was swinging the book again when the heatstone cracked beneath each red fleck. The cracks spread and merged and fire licked along them, then the centre of the heatstone swelled, showering him with blistering chips of stone.
He dived behind the couch, knowing it could not save him, as the centre of the heatstone was drawn inwards. It pulled in the rest, crumbling the enormous stone to dust which collapsed to a bright red mote, then vanished with a roar like an erupting volcano.
At the moment of the implosion, every captured Cythonian in the chancellor’s cells next door to Palace Ricinus fell unconscious, save one.
Wil the Sump rubbed his aching forehead, stared around him with the blind eye sockets that saw so much further than any ordinary man, then giggled, ‘She the one. This the ending.’
Using a smear of alkoyl from his hidden stock, he burnt through the door of his cell and scuttled along the red, contorted passages of the palace.
‘Clever Wil,’ he said, for no one he encountered noticed him. ‘Stupid chancellor.’
Outside, Wil scurried across the grounds to the unguarded side gate to Palace Ricinus, and through it, drawn inexorably to a cellar he had never seen. The ending was close now, but who would win the contest — the Scribe or the one? Which story would prevail? He had to be there, had to see it first. Wil was so tense he struggled to draw breath.
