by Ian Irvine
“Rannilt, can you help me with something? But you can’t tell anyone.”
CHAPTER 9
“Told you, I’m not helpin’ you escape,” said Rannilt.
“I didn’t mean that,” said Tali. She lowered her voice. “After Dibly took blood the first time, I had a vision of Lyf, in his temple, and — ”
Rannilt started. “No!” she cried.
“He’s looking for something really important. I need to find out what it is.”
“You can’t ask me to look,” Rannilt said shrilly, and covered her face with her hands. “You can’t! You can’t!”
“What’s the matter?”
“He’ll get into my head again. He’ll rob my gift. It’s horrible, horrible…”
Tali cursed herself. Why hadn’t she thought before she opened her mouth? She hugged the trembling child. “I wasn’t going to ask you to look. I just thought you might be able to make it easier for me.”
“No,” Rannilt said faintly. “Nooo…”
Tali held her tightly, thinking hard. The only other way to spy on Lyf was with magery, if she could recover hers, but it would be taking a terrible risk.
Rannilt’s mood went steadily downhill after that, and became ever worse as the afternoon waned. She was dreading the night.
“Can I push my bunk against yours?” she asked around 4 p.m., when the distant light from a slit window above the stair was fading. Most of the lanterns had been extinguished to save lamp oil and it was almost dark in the cell.
“Of course,” said Tali.
In the night something roused Tali, a rustling in the straw. Just a mouse, she thought until Rannilt began to kick and bang her head on her pillow. She had crept closer in the night and was now lying against Tali.
She put an arm around the child and she lay still. But as Tali was dozing off again, Rannilt moaned, went rigid, then began to thrash so violently that Tali couldn’t hold her.
“Rannilt, wake up. It’s just a nightmare. You’re all right.”
Rannilt shot upright and stared around wildly, the faint light from the corridor reflecting eerily off her wet eyes. She shuddered, groaned, then seized Tali’s wrist and sank her teeth into it, at the little scar where Tali had drawn her own blood in that ill-fated attempt to heal Tobry on top of Rix’s tower.
Before she could pull away, Rannilt’s sharp little teeth broke the skin and the tip of her tongue began lapping at the wound, taking Tali’s healing blood for herself.
She tried to pull free. “Rannilt, what are you doing? Stop it, this instant.”
Rannilt’s bony fingers were locked around Tali’s wrist so tightly that, in her weakened state, she could not tear them off. Rannilt pressed her mouth over Tali’s wrist and bit down hard, hungry for her blood. No, desperate for it.
Tali swung her free hand at the child, smacking her across the face. Rannilt let go, swallowed then lay back and slipped into a peaceful sleep — if, indeed, she had ever woken.
Tali stumbled across to the table and collapsed into a chair, shaking so violently that she had to cling to the table. It could almost have been her nightmare, save for the pain in her torn wrist and the tang of blood in the cold air.
Had Rannilt reverted to the time when Lyf had been stealing her gift to strengthen himself, and unwittingly — or wittingly? — revealing the nightmares of his own distant past? Could Lyf use his connection with Rannilt to get at Tali? Was that what he was up to now? If he could, spying on him with magery would be the height of folly.
Or did Tali’s blood have some other value? Of course it did — while the master pearl remained inside her, it was bathed in her blood, and perhaps that was the connection Lyf really wanted.
Or was she over-analysing it? Was Rannilt subconsciously attempting to undo the damage Lyf had done to her the only way she could, by stealing Tali’s healing blood?
Whatever the reason, Tali thought guiltily, I precipitated it.
“I’ve spread a cover story about you being a traitor and spy,” the chancellor said the next morning, “to ensure neither the guards nor the prisoners will have anything to do with you. I’m sure you won’t mind.” He bared his crooked teeth.
His guards had come for her at first light. Rannilt had not stirred, which put off one problem, at least — what to say to the child when she woke. Tali looked down at the wounds on her wrist. Was she being used more ill by her enemies, like the chancellor, or her friends?
“I’m sure you don’t give a damn either way,” she snapped.
“No, I don’t.”
A burly guard stood on watch near the door. “When I first met you,” said Tali, “you surrounded yourself with women. How come you have male guards now?”
“After you deceived me and let me down, I came to realise that men are more reliable — at least in wartime. Enough talking. Eat!” A large table was set in a corner, by a window covered in a translucent membrane, perhaps the stretched stomach of a cow or buffalo. “You’re weak, and that’s no good to me.”
“You want to fatten me up so you can milk more of my blood.”
“So I do,” he said jovially. “The blood of a weakling is unlikely to have strong healing powers.”
The words stung, which doubtless was his intention.
“I’m just a living tool to you, something to be used then thrown away once I’m broken.”
When he did not react, she added, nastily, “Are you winning the war yet?”
“I’m not your enemy. Why do you keep fighting me?”
To distract you from thinking about the pearls, and reaching the conclusion that I bear the master pearl.
“How does it go, then? What’s your latest disaster?”
His lips tightened. He went to the table, which was set with an array of covered dishes at one end, and a small plate containing two slices of black bread and a thin wedge of green cheese at the other. After gesturing her to a chair, he sat, nibbled at a corner of black bread, then tossed it aside and picked up a yellow oval object.
Tali took a helping of white fish cooked in a spicy sauce. It tasted wonderful. Since her escape from slavery, almost everything did.
“The only news I’ve had in the past week has come via this speaking egg,” said the chancellor, fondling the yellow ovoid, “though I’m not sure it’s reliable any more. Now that Lyf has four ebony pearls, he might be able to corrupt the messages my spies send me. Or send lying messages of his own.”
His eyes rested on Tali as he said “ebony pearls’, and her heart skipped a beat. Did he know she bore the master pearl? Was he toying with her for his own amusement? It would be just like him.
The chancellor grimaced and set the ovoid down. He did not speak for some time, but the lines on his face deepened and the flesh seemed to sag.
“I don’t know where to turn, Tali. He’s intercepting my couriers and killing my spies. How can I fight a war when I can’t find out what’s going on?”
She didn’t answer.
“My only experienced generals died in the storming of Caulderon,” he went on. “Who can I turn to? And if I had good leaders, where could I strike that would make any difference?”
“You had a good man, one of the best. You cut his right hand off and left him to die.”
“Rix betrayed his own mother,” he snapped, nettled for the first time. “How could I trust a man like that?”
“You already knew Lady Ricinus was plotting high treason. I told you myself.”
“That’s not the point. He informed on her.”
“You’re a swine, Chancellor! You drove Rix to it, coldly and deliberately, because you were determined to crush House Ricinus. You gave him an impossible choice — between his mother and his dearest friend. She was a monster who abused him cruelly. Is it Rix’s fault that he cared more for Tobry than he did her?”
“It’s entirely understandable,” said the chancellor. “But how could I trust him?”
“For a man with his back to the wall, you’re overly dis
criminating. A good leader crafts his plans to take advantage of his officers’ strengths and compensate for their failings.”
He leaned back, folded his hands over his scrawny chest, and she saw his first genuine smile since their flight from Caulderon. “You speak boldly for a helpless prisoner. Perhaps next time I should insert the cannula into your carotid.”
The long bruise on her neck pulsed. “If I get hold of it, I’m liable to insert it through your larynx and out the back of your spine.”
His eyes widened. He rubbed his throat.
“How are you going to save the country you profess to love so dearly, Chancellor?”
“Again you put your finger on the nub of the matter. I used to be feared for my grasp of political strategy and my bold tactics, but now I’ve got no idea what to do, and the people of the west have sensed it. I’ve dispatched envoys to provincial leaders far and wide, trying to raise an army to replace the ones lost in the ruin of Caulderon. And what do my envoys tell me when they return?”
“Nothing good,” said Tali.
“Some were turned away at the gates, their pleas unheard. Others were invited in to hear lies and excuses. Only unity can save us but the west is falling into chaos, and every mayor and petty lordling is trying to set up his own kingdom. Soon there will be anarchy, and then where will we be?”
“There must be some loyal men in the west,” said Tali.
“I have pledges for four hundred mounted troops and four thousand foot soldiers, and there will be more. A goodly force, you might think, but — ”
“I would have done, until I saw twice that many cut down in an hour at the storming of Caulderon. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“How the war is going? Badly. Lyf now holds all of central Hightspall and he has small forces advancing on the south and the north. I’m told that they’re meeting no organised resistance.”
“Does that mean Hightspall’s troops there are surrendering?”
“Pretty much. News spreads fast. Everyone knows how quickly our armies were defeated in the first days of the war.” He lowered his voice. “Too quickly, in my opinion.”
“Meaning?”
“I suspect that Lyf used pearl magery in the storming of Caulderon. His soldiers aren’t superhuman, but that’s how they seemed.”
“Is there any good news?” said Tali.
“Good and bad. The people of the north-west peninsula still hold loyal to Hightspall. Bleddimire is almost as wealthy as Caulderon and they’re doubling their army. Unfortunately, they won’t be coming a hundred and fifty miles south to help me.”
“Why not?”
“Lyf is marching an army of twenty thousand north-west at this moment, and Bleddimire is his next target.”
“It could defeat him.”
“I pray that it does, but all the evidence tells me I should prepare for bad news.”
“Why don’t you send your own army north, catch his force between yours and Bleddimire’s, and destroy him?”
“His army is five times as big as mine,” said the chancellor. “Nonetheless, if I could march an army north in secret, I would. But he can spy on us from the air, with gauntlings, and we can do nothing about them.”
CHAPTER 10
“What do the planets say?” Tali said, panting. Walking fifty yards had exhausted her, but it was twice as far as she could have gone yesterday.
They were up in the chancellor’s observatory, at the highest point of Fortress Rutherin. It was a cold, still night with a red moon and a scattering of the brightest stars.
The chancellor, swathed in a fur-lined cloak, was studying the motions of the planets through a telescope. He had provided a padded chair for Tali, and a charcoal brazier, but she was pacing around the triangular roof. If a chance came to escape, she must be ready to take it.
“That if I don’t do something brilliant now,” he replied, “it will be too late.”
He warmed his hands over the coals and hunched in his chair. He looked defeated.
She continued her circuits, counting the steps. One hundred, two hundred, two hundred and fifty -
“You’re up to something,” he said. “Come here.”
Tali returned to the chairs and put on her cloak, but did not sit down. She did not speak; it was the safest way with the chancellor. He was a cunning interrogator and the most innocent questions had a way of leading into quicksand.
“We could be friends,” he said mildly. “You don’t have any friends, only the child.”
“I had two friends,” she blurted. “You killed one and condemned the other.”
“The necessities of war.”
“That’s your excuse for everything. You always hated Tobry.”
“It wasn’t hate I felt for the man — it was contempt. How could I respect a fellow who made a joke of all I held dear, yet himself believed in nothing?”
“He’d lost his house, his family and all he held dear, through no fault of his own.”
“I know his story,” the chancellor said indifferently.
“Not all of it. The Tobry I knew, and came to love, was fighting for his country as bravely as any man I’ve ever met.”
“You haven’t met many men, have you? In Cython, the Pale men are kept apart from the women.”
Tali wasn’t going to be distracted that easily. “Tobry made the ultimate sacrifice to save his friends — he became a shifter because it was the only way to save us from a horde of them. That’s not the action of a man who believes in nothing!”
The chancellor waved a twisted hand. “Perhaps I was wrong about him. I’m fallible, like everyone else.”
“Unlike everyone else, your mistakes kill people!” she said furiously.
He jerked the cloak more tightly around his meagre frame. “Do you think I don’t lie awake at night reliving my failures? I had eighteen thousand troops in Caulderon. How many do you think I got out with me?”
Tali had no idea. “Two thousand?”
His laugh was like metal tearing. “I couldn’t even save two hundred. Most of those eighteen thousand died in the storming of Caulderon, along with thousands of civilians, because I underestimated the enemy.”
The pain in his voice was evident; the agony of command, but after all he had done to her friends she could not feel any sympathy for him. “When are you going to stand up and fight?”
“When my army is ready.”
“It’ll never be ready,” Tali guessed.
“You are at my mercy,” he reminded her coldly.
“But unlike you, I haven’t given up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re just going through the motions. You don’t have what it takes to lead Hightspall in war.”
His face flushed. She had stung him. Good!
“Will you be as diligent in fulfilling your blood oath as you are in criticising my failings?” said the chancellor.
She looked down at her hands. How could she rescue the Pale? In a thousand years, no other slave had ever escaped from Cython, and there was a good reason why. Every entrance was heavily guarded and the entry passages were mined with all kinds of ingenious traps.
And even if she could overcome her terror of slavery enough to go back, and even if she could get inside, how would she ever rouse the cowed, unarmed, untrusting Pale to rebellion and get them out again? In Cython, betrayal was the way to favour and most of them would inform on her in an instant.
The chancellor rose and warmed his hands over the brazier again. A momentary breeze stirred the coals, sending a single spark drifting up and wafting warmth towards her.
“Sit down, Tali.”
She sat by the brazier.
“You’ve suddenly regained a sense of purpose,” he said.
A chill crept over her. This was why he had called her up here. How could she hold him out?
“After a week and a half abed you’ve suddenly started exercising. Why?”
“You’re spying on me.�
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“I spy on everyone. Answer the question!”
“Why do I need a reason to eat, or to rise from my sickbed and regain my health?”
“I wouldn’t advise you to play games with me, Thalalie vi Torgrist.”
What could she say? Nothing that would heighten his suspicions.
“It’s Rannilt,” said Tali.
The chancellor’s eyes met hers. “What about her?” he said mildly. “She’s no use to me. Her blood doesn’t heal. Now why would that be?”
“I think Lyf stole her healing gift in the caverns under Precipitous Crag.”
“Is that so? My spies tell me Rannilt has nightmares and comes to you for comfort.”
“Not the kind of comfort you’re imagining,” said Tali, and showed him her scabbed wrist.
The chancellor stared. “She’s taking your blood?”
“I love the child, and I owe her my life, but…”
“But she’s like a little parasite, sucking your blood.”
“Yes, she is!” Tali cried, rising abruptly and lurching, stiff-legged, around the chairs. “You can’t imagine how much I resent it.” She used her passion to try and conceal the coming lie. “I’m not taking it any more — letting her take it,” she amended hastily.
His enigmatic smile troubled her. He knew she was concealing something. She had to give him more.
“There’s something else,” said Tali. “About Lyf.”
“Go on.”
“I’ve seen him.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I–I connected to Lyf after Dibly took my blood the first time. He’s searching for something, lost long ago.”
“What?” the chancellor said sharply.
“Some kind of a key. The ghost king with Lyf said, The key must be found. Without it, all you’ve done is for nothing.”
“A key lost long ago?” The chancellor leapt up and paced around the brazier. “Do you mean from the time he was abducted by the Five Heroes?”
That hadn’t occurred to Tali. “I suppose it must be.”
