Gil Trilogy 1: Lady in Gil

by Rebecca Bradley

  Lord Kekashr recovered himself quickly. He surveyed the carnage with every sign of critical appreciation, also noting Shree, judging him, cursing him, and passing on to more urgent matters with little more than a narrowing of the eyes. "Very impressive, Tigrallef," he said. "My grandfather Kishr was right about your Lady's potential."

  I did not answer. My shoulder was making itself felt, and the room was in slow but sickening rotation. I shifted the Lady to my stronger hand and tightened the fingers. In the outer dungeon, the locks burst on all the cages. A brief disbelieving continuation of the hush, and then a babble of voices, followed by a hesitant scrabbling of feet. In the chamber, Shree was carrying the last of the injured Flamens out of the cage.

  "Such power was wasted on Oballef," Kekashr went on. "Peace and the pursuit of beauty, pah! Music and poetry. Milk-piddle and shit. Without the Lady, your fine overbred forefathers collapsed like a house of sand."

  "Into the cage," I said.

  "Now you could be different, I see you have the makings of a conqueror in you. Between us, we could—"

  "Into the cage."

  "—take the whole world, you and I—" He broke off with a squawk of surprise as an invisible hand took him by the neck and dragged him into the cage. The Lady pulsed in my fingers. The door slammed, the lock fused in a flash of green fire. In the other cage, Jebri whimpered and pushed himself into the furthest corner.

  Taking a deep breath, I staggered towards Bekri, holding the Lady out to him like a trophy. He pulled away from Corri and toppled to meet me. When we met, it was debatable who was supporting whom, but somehow we didn't fall over and I didn't drop the Lady. Bekri leaned away from me far enough to sign the ultimate in respectful greetings to the Priest-King in Gil.

  "Not me, Revered Bekri," I said, smiling, and he opened his mouth to answer, also smiling, but only a soft sigh emerged. He crumpled slowly to the floor, dragging me with him to my knees. He was already dead.

  I cradled his head on my good arm. Shree cursed and started to draw his sword, but I had already seen the dart-tube at Kekashr's lips. It turned white-hot in his fingers. He dropped it hastily. I eased Bekri's head down and advanced on the cage, the Lady in hand.

  The rage was upon me; every detail in the chamber had an icy clarity. Kekashr's face seemed chiselled out of solid defiance, but that was no more than a patina on his fear—oh, yes, he was most certainly afraid. "Was the first dart intended for me?" I asked softly.

  He rose to meet me, still defiant; his hands, though, were shaking. "Indeed it was—what a pity the old man moved. And the next would have been for my well-beloved nephew. You should have given me another second, Scion of Oballef, for your own sake. Do you really imagine he won't betray you too?"

  "You're the one who taught me about treachery, Uncle." Shree came to my side and gazed impassively through the bars.

  "That's enough," I said.

  I turned to look behind me. Bekri's dead face was flushed by the venom, his scars painted on in paler ochre. Kekashr squawked and thudded to his knees. Dazeene, Dazeene, whispered my father; Kekashr began to make small sobbing noises. I turned again to look at him. He was bleeding from a thousand short, deep wounds, like those made by his own torture tools; blue sparks bearded his face and writhed along his arms. "Perhaps a few boils," I murmured, and a moment later he was the very image of a beggar I'd seen in the Great Market, but otherwise not really human. A moment after that, his heart burst and he was dead.

  That was my first deliberately vicious act; but, unlike the things that happened later, it never caused me a broken moment's regret.

  What to do now? I had effectively captured the Gilgard, though the Sherank hardly knew it yet and might whip about like the body of a beheaded snake for some time; but even when the island was wholly ours, there would still be Iklankish to reckon with. That was where the real danger lay. I closed my eyes and looked deep into my own mind.

  The Lady in Gil was there. A mass of silvery hair crackled about her head but the features were Calla's. She spoke, though her lips didn't move. The Greater Will, Scion of Oballef. You must use the Greater Will.

  It's never been used before.

  It has, you know—but not recently.

  She laughed with Lissula's voice and Calla's face, that eerie resemblance to Kekashr surfacing again around the lips. And the Caveat?

  The Caveat has nothing to do with the Wills, Scion. Has so much knowledge been lost?

  Flames rose around her. The filmy robe fluttered without catching fire. But what will I do?

  She laughed again. Whatever comes to mind. You're the Scion. You'll know. The flames roared around her. She evanesced, fading into the flames of my rage, until only Calla's smile, Kekashr's smile, remained. I opened my eyes.

  I was standing over Bekri's body, still clutching the Lady. Shree was shaking my shoulder—rather gingerly—and the surviving Flamens were watching me with awed faces. "Dazeene," whispered my father, still in Angel's arms. I reached out to touch him. The room wavered one more time and became solid.

  The Lady was right. I would know. The knowledge was already there, inside my head, a smooth black egg waiting for the right moment to hatch. But before that moment came, there was work to do.

  Screams erupted in the outer dungeon.

  "Damn Xilo," Shree muttered, "he must have raised the alarm. Are you there, Scion? Can your Lady take on the whole castle?"

  "Oh yes," I said dreamily. Things. Things of legend, terrible creatures of the dark. Marori's words. Not that I believed in them, of course, but all things were possible with the Lady, and even nightmares had their uses. I roused myself.

  "Angel," I said. He took off his helmet and looked at me with doggy reverence. "Go to the shintashkr. Use the between-ways, I guarantee no one will stop you. Tell the shints to stay where they are, no matter what happens; until I come, it will be death to step outside the door. Stay there yourself. I'll give you five minutes—go!"

  He passed my father over to Corri and made to prostrate himself. "Never mind that," I snapped at him, "just go!" He went straight to the correct flagstone, stamped once and disappeared into the narrow gap that revealed itself. When he was gone, I motioned to Shree to follow and the others to stay, and marched through into the outer dungeon, not looking back.

  The prisoners were milling in panic among the ranks of cages, cattle in slaughter pens, gaunt and pale and confused. At the foot of the great spiral stairs, a few fiercer souls were using the spears left by their late guards to hold off a Sherkin sortie, and not doing badly, although they were slowly being pushed back. I spoke, and the Sherank on the lower stairs burst inside their armour, with a noise like overripe apples splitting in a hot sun. Those above turned and fled, but I knew they'd be back soon, and in greater strength.

  In the dungeon, there was shocked silence—until they saw us. A terrible outcry of fear and loathing went up at the sight of Shree, but I kept him close by my side and raised the Lady over my head like a beacon.

  "I am Tigrallef, Scion of Oballef," I cried. "The Lady in Gil is back in our hands!"

  There were sparse cheers, and many puzzled faces.

  "The Lady in Gil," I repeated. "With her power, we can drive the accursed Sherank from our shores!"

  There was a slightly better response to that, but the concensus was plain bewilderment. I lowered the Lady. "What's the matter with you?" I cried. "She makes us invincible—you've all seen what she can do. What do you think this light around my head is, you pocketing clots?"

  Vacant eyes, suspicious eyes, eyes that knew too much misery to trust in miracles. Shree nudged me. He said, rather kindly, "They've forgotten the Lady. Never mind, Tigrallef; you can still save them."

  The Gilborns parted before us as we hurried to the stairs and picked our way over the Sherkin mess. At the first turning, I stopped and faced that wretched multitude again.

  "Listen to me," I shouted, "stay in the dungeon. You'll be safe here—but until I return, there is death at th
e top of the stairs. The Sherank will not attack you again."

  Still the uncertain faces. I beckoned to Shree and we went on, wrapped in the Lady's haze. As we reached the final turn, I stopped; I could sense that Angel had reached the shintashkr. A few low words, and all through Gilgard Castle the screaming began.

  "What's happening?" Shree grabbed at my arm.

  "Things of legend, terrible creatures of the dark," I quoted.

  "What?"

  "Things of—"

  "I heard you. But what do you mean?"

  "You'll see in a minute. Don't worry, we'll be safe."

  "You're insane."

  "I read a lot." We reached the top of the stairs and started along the corridor. Something shadowy and many-headed paused politely to let us go by. Most of its mouths were full. Strewn around it were the remains of what would have been a major Sherkin offensive on the south dungeon. Shree kept very close.

  "The falorsiirth," I explained as we hurried down the corridor, "a mythical beast from Miishel, closely related to the steam-dragon of Calloonic mythology but with three or four more heads. And it doesn't make steam. Would you like to see a steam-dragon? There's one here somewhere."

  "No," said Shree.

  "You won't get another chance, you know. They don't actually exist."

  He walked faster. "That what-you-said looked real."

  "Falorsiirth. The Lady can make them real, for a while. For long enough."

  We came to the Queen's Vestibule. Nothing was moving except a gaggle of wispy things in floating white shrouds, off in the far corner; we could not see what they were clustered around, but the slurping noises suggested feeding time in a sty.

  "Ghouls of Ghasca," I remarked.

  "Do they exist?"

  "Only in legend, warlord. I told you, I read a lot."

  He started to answer, but broke off with a gasp, staring past me. I turned my head. Xilo, the Koroskan who had tortured my father, was lurching in through the portico door, his fat hands stretched out in front of him, his fat mouth perfectly circular in a silent scream. Shree raised his sword, but I put my hand on his arm.

  "No need," I said, "he's all but dead already."

  Xilo crashed into a pillar and stumbled backwards, falling to the tiles with a thud that shook the room. His eyelids fluttered open, but there were no eyes behind them—only motion, the kind of seething you see in an eel-basket as it's hauled out of the sea. What was seething wasn't clear until a few of them spilled out on to Xilo's cheek and began at once to burrow downwards into the pallid flesh. Xilo screamed silently; a few more crawled out between his open lips.

  Shree made an untranscribable noise of pure disgust. "Maggots," he added. Moved, I suppose, by an impulse of mercy, he leapt forward and thrust his sword into the Koroskan's quivering bulk, to give him a quick death. A kind idea, but not necessary. The belly burst open as he sliced into it, loosing neither blood nor entrails, just an agitated mass of the things, like squirming rice or live porridge, boiling up over the edges of the rift. Shree made another of those interesting noises.

  "Burrowers," I said, "from one of the Lucian hells. Reserved for gluttons, I think. Nasty minds, the Lucians. Let's go."

  We went. A Zainoi harpy waddled past us down the stairs as we went up, its brazen wing-tips clacking behind it. It seemed intent on the problems of walking on its awkwardly barbed feet, and took no notice of us at all. The remains of its dinner were still scattered on the first landing.

  The harpy was the last of my miscellany of horrors that we actually saw, although we heard many others. I led Shree up through the Middle Palace, quiet except for odd thumps and creaks and roars that I stopped bothering to identify after a while; up through the Temple Palace, where desperate pockets of Sherank were still holding out, but my business was not with them, not directly.

  Higher we climbed, to the topmost chambers of the Temple Palace, bare low-ceilinged rooms cut into the rock, with narrow slits for windows. And in the highest of these chambers was a door, quite ordinary to look at, but leading out of the castle and on to the virgin mountainside. Shree and I stepped together into the open air.

  * * *

  40

  THERE WAS NO path, only a stretch of broken rocks and minor screes rising steeply towards the summit, tufted here and there with patches of tough pale grass and bright wild-flowers, flanked by sheer cliff-faces. It was perhaps two hours past dawn and the air was still cool on the lee of the mountain, but the sky arched blue and cloudless above us.

  I climbed easily, steadily, never faltering, never looking back. Shree kept pace, or so I assume, since he was almost on my heels when I pulled myself over the lip of the mountain and on to the bare rock-strewn tableland of the summit. We stood together on the edge, looking down at the city. Its scars and squalor were masked by the residual grace of Oballef's design; beyond it swept the green crescent of the island, fertile and prosperous-looking, prettily dotted with hamlets and small towns, meshed with a fine tracery of roads. From this distance, it was unsullied—the sores that festered under the illusion needed sharper eyes than mine.

  "Krisht is on that ship." Those were the first words Shree had spoken since we left the Lower Palace. I followed his pointing finger. There was a flotilla perhaps an hour's sail out of Malvi harbour, faring eastwards in the direction of Sher. One ship was larger than the rest and glittered in the sun as if silver-plated, which it might well have been. I postponed thinking about Calla—there would be time later; I could not afford to be distracted. I hissed to Shree to keep quiet and began to raise the Lady.

  Shree grabbed my arm. "What are you going to do?"

  The golden motes still danced above my head. Shree's hand flung itself off my arm with such force that he whirled towards the brink and teetered for a second before I reached out invisibly and pulled him to safety.

  "I'd rather you didn't talk just now," I said.

  He was shaking, but he planted himself in front of me like a boulder before a plough. The hectic colour was back in his face. Behind his eyes, I saw a rage at least as great as my own. "Whatever you do," he said, holding my eyes, "it can't be half measure."

  The rage whirled inside my head. I grinned. "I'll sink the whole damned continent into the sea if that's what it takes," I said. "Now move back and be quiet." I forgot him immediately.

  I raised the Lady and began the Greater Will. The words flowed out of my mouth, slowly at first and at my volition, but gradually, seductively, taking control of my tongue and palate and breath. I can't remember those words now, as if the act of speaking them wiped them out of my brain; but I remember the wind that rose around me, the live throbbing crystal in my hands, the dazzle in my eyes that collapsed to a shining splinter on a background of black nothing in the moment when the last word was spoken—and then the power came, enfolding and enfolded by the rage, the two marbling together like two clays under the potter's hand, melding, billowing into the great golden shape of a woman the size of a mountain who towered over my head. This time the Lady had no face. She cocked her massive head towards me, waiting. The black egg cracked open, the wind screamed a monstrous magnification of something terrible inside my mind. I screamed too, quite separately. A hole into darkness tore open under my feet; then silence.

  Mysteriously, my cheek was cushioned on one of the summit's rare clumps of grass. I opened my eyes. The last golden motes were winking out around my head. I watched the long grass blades swaying, a beetle of some sort rooting about in the junction of stalk and blade. A booted foot moved into my field of view, crushing the grass and the beetle. My grief focused on that tiny murder. I was drained of rage. A hand pushed at my shoulder and I flopped on to my back.

  Shree looked down at me. His face was pale but composed. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the pain behind my eyes. "What happened?" I whispered, "what did I say?"

  He squatted and handed me a small silver flask. Distilled fith-beer. I choked on it, but it gave me the strength to sit up. The golden mountain
was gone; the Lady lay among the sharp pebbles a few feet away, beaming palely in the sunlight.

  "What happened?" I asked again.

  "Damn me if I know," said Shree. "A big bright cloud blew up all around you, and then tore away across the sea. You howled and fell over. That's all I saw. What was supposed to happen?"

  "I really don't know," I said shakily, "I'm not sure anyone ever invoked the Greater Will before, no matter what the Lady says. Tell me—where did the cloud go, which way?"

  He pointed to the east. "Towards Sher," he said.

  Nothing was visible in that direction, except a vague smudge on the horizon like a line of distant hills. Not Sher itself—Sher was too far. Out on the sea, Calla's flotilla moved serenely onwards, her ship gradually diminishing to a blur of silver surrounded by bobbing grey dots. Far beyond it, the smudge darkened and swelled and became more distinct.

  We sat tensely among the rocks, Shree and I, waiting. The island was invisible from where we sat—the world comprised only that stony tableland, the expanse of sea, the ominous growth billowing on the horizon. The sun looked somehow wrong, as if the air between us and the sky had thickened and was slowing the passage of light. I plucked and ate a series of grass stems. Shree offered me his flask again, and I took a long, burning drink.

  "Why, Shree?" I asked, to break the silence.

  "What?"

  "Why did you help me?" I handed the flask back.

  He took a long pull at the flask, then grinned companion-ably, quite unexpectedly. "They made a bad mistake with me, Scion," he said.

  "Obviously—but what was it?"

  His grin faded. He picked up some pebbles and sifted them through his fingers. "My mother was a Gilwoman, did you know? Nothing unusual about that, Tigrallef, the war-court was full of imperial half-castes, but they let me see too much of her when she was still able to whisper into my ear. They thought she was already broken, you see, but she wasn't, not until after I was taken away from her."