by Ian Irvine
She reminded herself that, though Nish had been sorely tempted more than once, he had done nothing about it, yet. Vivimord was the immediate problem, but Maelys didn’t have the faintest idea of how to deal with him; he was too ruthless and clever. So why was he playing out this seduction scene? Just to torment her? Hardly. Every minute that passed meant a greater chance of discovery by Jal-Nish, so why not simply seize Nish when he appeared? Could Vivimord be afraid of Flydd?
Then why show her the octopede? To ensure that she did what she was told – and betray Nish? And she probably would. Vivimord had found her weakness. She couldn’t bear to be at the mercy of such a creature, its disgusting, warty limbs on her, its hook-claws dragging her to its fanged mouth. She would agree to anything to get away from it.
NINE
Nish had no idea how Flydd was tracking Vivimord and Maelys through the tunnels of Mistmurk Mountain, unless it was by smell. Several times he got down on hands and knees to sniff at the floor, where Nish noted an occasional greasy smear, and once a faint odour of rotten flesh, though it didn’t tell him anything. Where they were going or what Flydd planned to do when he got there was a mystery, though Vivimord with his powers restored was almost as formidable an opponent as the God-Emperor. What could Flydd do, with just enough Art to create light? Nish noticed he kept playing with the crystal he’d taken from beneath the slab, rolling it back and forth between his fingers or pressing it against his forehead, but if he was trying to draw upon its power, it was not working.
Nish trudged along at the rear, enduring the fierce pain from his partly healed hand; the healing process felt like clusters of spines growing through inflamed flesh. His thumb, first two fingers and half the back of his hand were covered in new skin, and so was his palm, though the remaining two fingers were deeply burnt and he might still lose them.
‘I think this is it,’ Flydd whispered, loosening his knife in its sheath but not drawing it. They had turned into a straight hall lined with polished stone, smooth and cold to Nish’s fingertips. ‘We’ll go in darkness now.’
‘What’s down there?’ said Colm.
‘Quiet.’ Flydd was staring fixedly along the hall.
Nish couldn’t hear a thing, though when he rested his head against the wall for a moment, the stone had the subtlest vibration.
‘A great chamber lies at the end of this corridor,’ said Flydd, ‘and it’s a place of power, though not one I know how to use. The abyssal flame, the mother of all cursed flames, burns continuously here, fed by a source deep in the roots of the mountain; it’s the reason Vivimord brought Maelys here. With the mountain surrounded, he can’t get out without tapping a mighty source of power to – what’s that?’
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Nish.
‘Nor I,’ said Colm.
‘Perhaps I imagined it,’ said Flydd. ‘My new mind jumps all over the place; I can’t always be sure whether I’m living in the moment or remembering the past – or her past. Come on; Nish, stay close. Vivimord wants you, remember.’
Everyone wants me, Nish thought, and Maelys too. I’m beginning to understand what she has gone through these past months.
‘What does he hope to do with this mighty source of power?’ said Colm. ‘Open the shadow realm?’
‘That was a secret known only to two scrutators,’ said Flydd. ‘The vile and vicious Chief Scrutator Ghorr, may he lie rotting in the most infested pit of all, and myself. Ghorr would have told no one before he died; he loved the power of his solitary secrets too much. I feel sure that not even Jal-Nish or Vivimord know how to enter it – directly, I mean.’
‘How else can it be entered?’
‘It’s rumoured that there was once a Charon portal here. That’s one of the reasons I chose this place.’
Or the woman in red put it into your mind, not for our betterment, Nish thought, though he didn’t dare say it.
‘What do you mean, a portal?’ said Colm.
‘A gate which allows one to travel instantly from one place to another.’
‘Then open the damn thing and take us somewhere civilised, as far away from the shadow realm as possible.’
‘I don’t know how to open it, yet,’ Flydd said. ‘And even in my prime I wouldn’t have had the strength to open a portal sealed for centuries. However, its previous existence would have left a weakness in the fabric of space here, which, even without my special crystal, I hope to exploit to slip into the shadow realm. And then out somewhere safe, as quickly as possible.’
‘But Vivimord –’
‘He’s a great mancer, and having recently been restored at the cursed flame, he’ll be able to wield its power better than any living man. He may be able to reopen the portal and carry Nish and Maelys beyond our reach; that cannot be allowed to happen. If she does carry the first grandchild of the God-Emperor, Vivimord would have a hold over him that would be impossible to break, and an alliance between those two monsters must be prevented at all costs.’
At the end of the corridor Flydd leaned on one of a tall pair of doors until it opened a crack, and peered through. Nish made out a distant whistling.
‘This is the chamber of the abyssal flame,’ whispered Flydd. ‘Prepare for battle, but don’t strike until I give the order.’
Nish and Colm drew their weapons. Flydd kept his knife in its sheath; the faintest glow limned the fingers of his right hand. As they entered, the whistling became shrill, painful; a monstrous green-black flame flared spans high from an altar in the centre of the room. They stopped, staring at it. Colm was breathing heavily.
They were in a vast, magnificent chamber with polished stone walls and splendidly barbaric murals. Flydd continued and the flame drew down to a flicker, the whistle dying to a gassy hiss. All fell into shadow save for the greenstone altar through which the flame issued. Its circular top was a thick, ornamented disc, several spans across, with the flame hole in the centre and a pair of curved projections running out from opposite sides to form the tips of a stubby two-armed spiral whose grooves continued into the centre of the disc.
‘That’s odd,’ Flydd said quietly.
‘What is?’ Colm was moving his blade slowly from left to right.
‘I’ve been here many times over the past nine years, trying to find traces of the portal, and the flame hasn’t changed by so much as a flicker. Someone’s made it change.’
‘Vivimord must be using it,’ said Nish, suddenly feeling cold, though the room was warm. The unhealed parts of his hand throbbed mercilessly, while where the new skin and flesh had grown he felt those prickling clusters of needles. What if Flydd was right and the blood did link him to Vivimord?
‘I’m afraid he is. It’s time for desperate measures.’ Flydd raised his hand, grunting with the strain, and yellow light burst forth from his crystal, reflecting dazzlingly off a thousand polished surfaces.
The barbaric splendour of the chamber imprinted itself on Nish’s inner eye, then the abyssal flame was drawn below the aperture from which it issued and the yellow light radiating from Flydd’s crystal was driven back into it. He groaned, clenched his fist around the crystal and shook it furiously. Momentarily the blood was visible flowing in his fingers, but the crystal went out and the chamber grew dark.
‘Can you hear that?’ hissed Flydd.
Nish made out distant heavy footsteps, as of a squad of soldiers running up a long stair, though they had an echoing, unreal quality. Flydd grunted and his fingers flushed pink for a second, then the light went out and he could not force another glimmer from the crystal.
‘It’s Father’s army coming up from the rainforest. They’ve found a way into the base of the mountain.’
‘Are they close?’ said Colm.
‘I can’t tell,’ said Flydd. ‘Wait! No, I don’t think so. Those sounds are being sent here, to panic us. Back to the door!’
As he moved away, Nish caught a faint whiff of smoke – no, incense, with a sweet, spicy odour. His head spun; he shook it and it cle
ared, but the needle pricks in his hand grew so painful that he couldn’t think straight.
‘What about Maelys –?’ began Colm, somewhere to Nish’s right.
‘We can’t help her if we’re caught.’ Flydd’s voice seemed to come from a distance. ‘This way.’
Nish headed back towards the doors through which they had entered, holding his rapier low, but soon began to doubt that he was going in the right direction.
‘Xervish, where are you?’
‘Here!’ Flydd hissed.
His voice came from even further away; to Nish’s left now, he thought. How could he have made such a mistake? He turned in the direction he thought Flydd’s voice was coming from, hurried forwards then, whack.
He hit the floor and the rapier clattered away. Nish rolled to one side, thinking he’d been attacked, but his groping right hand came down on carved stone which had a circular shape. He stood up, feeling his way around it. He’d run headfirst into the altar.
What was he doing in the middle of the room? He rubbed his forehead and caught a stronger whiff of incense, though it didn’t make his head spin this time; it seemed to clear it. His hand prickled again, and now it felt as though someone had taken hold of it and was leading him to safety. He jerked back and felt around but there was nothing in front of him.
‘Xervish?’
He did not reply, though a pale shape wisped by off to Nish’s right. Stumbling backwards, he trod on the hilt of the rapier and grabbed it, never more glad to have a weapon in his hand.
‘Colm?’
He didn’t reply either. Nish shivered; he felt even colder now, and really afraid. ‘Xervish!’
It was as if he’d shouted into an amphitheatre full of mud, which absorbed every sound. How had Vivimord separated them so easily?
His new skin tingled and he rubbed at it absently. He had to find the door; Flydd and Colm must be waiting there. Nish put his back to the altar and, trailing the rapier’s tip on the floor, walked directly away from the altar. When he came to the wall he would follow it along to the double doors.
The smell of incense grew stronger with every step. He was halfway across the chamber, as near as he could judge, when someone whispered his name. He stopped, squinting into the dark until his eyes ached, but could not see a thing.
He couldn’t hear anything either, save his breathing. Those pounding footsteps had stopped when he’d hit his head, which surely proved that they had been sent to panic him.
‘Nish?’ It was louder this time – a woman’s voice – though it also came from a long way away. It might have been Maelys; he could not be sure. Clearsight, I’ve never needed you more – show me the way. But his clearsight, though it had been enhanced by the kiss of Reaper, told him nothing.
He bumped into a column supporting the roof, felt his way around it and kept going, swinging the rapier back and forth like a blind man’s cane. Shortly it scraped on something hard. He reached out but it swung silently away from him – it was just a normal-sized door, not either of the pair of huge double doors they’d come through a few minutes ago. From beyond he made out a faint music of pipes and drums, notes that stirred the senses and set them on fire.
He shook the feelings off – they had to be an enchantment sent by Vivimord or Jal-Nish to ensnare him, and he wasn’t going to be taken in. Suddenly his burned hand throbbed like a warning of greater pain to come; the effects of the cursed flame were wearing off.
He tried to ignore the pain and the head-spinning incense; he had to think clearly now. Left or right? There was no way to tell. He caught another whiff of incense; it was stronger, richer and more perfumed this time, and again his head spun. Nish rubbed his face with his free hand, struggling to think straight, then turned left, but heard the voice again, coming through the door. A throaty woman’s voice – a nerve-achingly familiar one.
‘Nish?’
It couldn’t be, for Irisis was ten years dead and he wasn’t going down that path again. Only madness lay that way, and he’d nearly succumbed before, when Jal-Nish had offered him what he most wanted in all the world. Nish had managed to resist the temptation and was all the stronger for it.
Nonetheless, he pushed the door open; he had to satisfy himself that it wasn’t her; that it was a trick. The stirring music grew stronger, an overpowering waft of incense seared his nasal passages, and he saw that he was in the boudoir of some potentate of olden times. It was pleasantly warm but dimly lit; all he could see was a magnificent bed, dark, costly curtains and bed coverings, turned down on one side, and the flames guttering in their wall brackets.
And the buxom young woman on the bed. It wasn’t Irisis, but a smaller version of her, for the shoulder-length golden hair was exactly the colour Irisis’s hair had been. He couldn’t see the woman’s face, just the curve of a cheek, one bare, soft shoulder and the outline of her figure beneath the covers.
Nish swallowed, the incense swirling through him like a drug that muddied the mind and enfeebled the will, the music driving his pulse and quickening his desire. The last time he’d lain with a woman – with Irisis – had been ten and a half years ago.
A vague unease stirred, though he couldn’t remember why. Something didn’t seem right but he could no longer tell; his mind felt like mush. He tried to fight the urge to go to the bed, but it proved too strong – he was led there by that ghostly compulsion, again tugging his burned hand. Nish no longer cared about anything else; both Vivimord and his father had vanished from his mind. He could only think of the woman on the bed and his flaming desire for her.
TEN
Maelys lay in the bed, unable to focus on a single thought. The drugged incense and mesmerising music had eaten away her will and she wasn’t strong enough to break free. Neither the fate of her family, nor of Flydd, Nish and Colm, mattered. She was no longer afraid of Vivimord; she felt a sense of lazy, drifting peace.
As she’d emerged from her bath, fully clothed, a touch of Vivimord’s fingers had left her dazed and compliant. With hand gestures he’d transformed her garments to a diaphanous bed gown, painted her nails and lips, and converted her shaggy black hair to golden-blonde locks that caressed her bare shoulders. He artfully arranged her in the bed and she could do nothing about it. Had he sent her underneath to face the octopede she would not have been able to disobey, for he was far more powerful than when she had first met him.
Now Vivimord entered and made a mirror in the air in front of her, to show her what she’d become, and her appearance so shocked her that the enchantment he’d laid on her cracked and she felt the blood flooding to her face.
Her upbringing had been modest, and had become puritanical after her father had fled from Jal-Nish. She had never worn lip paint, nor clothes that were the least revealing, but now she might as well have been wearing air.
‘You’ve turned me into a slut!’ Jerking the covers up to her chin, she scrubbed at her lips with the back of one hand, smearing crimson lip paint across her face. Her voice was deeper, more throaty and sensual, and she didn’t like that either. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’
‘I’ve transformed you into a temptress, to trap Nish,’ he said, removing the smears with a snap of his fingers. ‘No easy feat, given the base materials I had to start with.’
She ignored the insult; Maelys was used to them by now. Vivimord’s plan didn’t make sense; why did he need her to trap Nish? ‘Why me? You once thought I was completely unsuitable for Nish.’
‘I’ve changed my mind about you,’ he said cryptically. ‘Besides, the need is urgent now, and I have no one else.’
She had to get out of here. She wasn’t going to do his depraved bidding. Maelys tried to get out the other side of the bed without revealing any more of herself, no easy thing in the gossamer gown.
Vivimord dragged her back by the ankle. ‘Either you obey my commands,’ he said icily, ‘or you will suffer retribution for what you’ve done to Phrune and me.’
‘What do you mean?’ she whisper
ed.
‘Once Phrune has taken your skin, I’ll feed your shrieking remains to the octopede.’
He touched her on the forehead, restoring the charm, and she fell back on the pillows, unable to resist as he arranged her limbs as before and pushed up her breasts until they were bursting out the bodice of the gown. He brushed his hand over her eyes and Maelys felt herself drifting off to sleep. She tried to resist it but his lips brushed her ear as he spoke in a language she did not know; sleep claimed her.
Time passed and she woke, so listless that she could barely move, drifting, dreaming, the music reinforcing Vivimord’s enchantment with every beat, the incense dulling her wits with every breath. She was unable to think two connected thoughts; her mind kept wandering into waking dreams no matter how hard she tried to concentrate.
She managed to turn her head and noticed the three platinum stubs on the bed head. Hadn’t there been a fourth? She had a feeling that Vivimord had hidden it from her. She tried to reach up but her arm had no strength.
Later, the door opened and Nish appeared there, looking around dazedly. He seemed taller, younger and more handsome than before, though she knew that was also Vivimord’s enchantment.
She wasn’t drowsy now and suddenly Maelys understood what was going on. Vivimord wanted her to get pregnant by Nish and would use his Arts to make sure she did; then Vivimord, by keeping the child, would be able to control both Nish and his father.
Yet in her dazed state, it felt right. If she could only sink back and accept Nish, it would make her lie to Jal-Nish into truth, one he could never disprove, and once she was pregnant her family would be safe for as long as he lived. Why not? She could not stop Vivimord, so what was the point of resisting? It would save her from Phrune too, and the octopede.
Nish was staring at her so hard that it burned, though Maelys knew he was seeing the Irisis look-alike Vivimord had made of her. She refused to meet his eyes or encourage him in any way. Give him nothing of yourself, she thought laboriously. Expect nothing from him and you won’t get hurt. Lie with him; save your family, and your life. Get it over with. It won’t be so bad.
