by Ian Irvine
Another followed it, and a third, flying with sinuous undulations of their leathery wings, though such heavy creatures must also be using the Art to keep themselves aloft. They didn’t look particularly dangerous, yet if one perched at the top of the stairs he would not be able to pass.
Was this the way out, or had he missed something? He swung the taphloid through the flame. Bubbles, come! It was a cry of desperation, but he’d also commanded the flame as though it was his right to do so – no, her right – and a series of small bubbles rose up towards him.
‘Mancers, destroy them!’ shouted the plumed officer.
A small, cloaked figure in the doorway pointed at the bubbles with his right hand and they popped one by one before Flydd could read anything in them. At first, Flydd thought the mancer was Jal-Nish, but it was not wearing a mask, and it was far shorter – a dwarf of a man, in fact. He reeled.
‘No! It can’t be.’
‘Who is it?’ said Colm, who was just a few steps above now, watching the wing-rays warily. He was still breathing heavily, though the panic had receded. The wing-rays were circling the top of the stairs, blocking the way. Flesh-formed creatures as they were, they seemed immune to the flames.
‘I know that little man.’ Flydd clung to the treads above him as his knees buckled. ‘He was a great friend once; an unshakeable ally; a masterly mancer and one of the bravest men I’ve ever met.’
The soldiers were still climbing towards them, but the dwarf stopped them with a hand gesture and Flydd made out a brassy glint in his fist.
‘Come down, Xervish.’
The dwarf came forwards with that characteristic rolling gait, like a sailor walking the deck of a heaving ship. He was a handsome man with a leonine mane of hair that was as thick and full as when Flydd had last seen him ten years ago, though there were grey streaks in it now. He looked distinguished, from the neck up.
His voice put the matter beyond doubt, for it was rich, throaty and cheerful. He was Klarm, once known as the dwarf scrutator, and he had gone over to the enemy. It was one of the most bitter blows Flydd had ever suffered.
‘I thought I knew you, Klarm,’ said Flydd. It took all his strength to keep his voice steady. ‘Clearly, I never did.’
‘I haven’t changed,’ said Klarm. ‘There was no point in being a powerless renegade, snapping uselessly at the God-Emperor’s ankles. The war was won ten years ago –’
‘The war was lost the day Jal-Nish came back from the dead in his air-dreadnought, and you know it.’
‘Whatever you say, Xervish, but he controls the world, and all the Arts now –’
‘Not this one!’
Klarm stared at the column of flame, now roaring ever higher and buffeting the wing-rays aside, and Flydd thought he saw a momentary unease in his old friend’s eyes, before Klarm went on.
‘– and there’s nothing to be gained by fighting him. It behoves those of us who have mastered the Arts to use them for the world’s betterment. Surely you can see that?’
‘I see only a former friend who sold out for the basest of motives,’ Flydd said thickly.
He did not want to believe his eyes, for if Klarm had gone over to the enemy, could anyone be trusted? This was unbearable. It was one thing to lose dear friends to the war, cut down in their prime; that was one of life’s inevitable tragedies. But for a former friend to willingly serve their most bitter enemy shook Flydd’s faith in human nature, not to mention his own judgment.
‘You judge me,’ said Klarm, ‘yet you know nothing about my life these past years.’
‘You’re right. I do judge you, and I find you wanting, but I’ll finish that debate when I have you at my mercy, traitor.’
The dwarf raised his right hand and Flydd saw that brassy glint again. Klarm rarely used rod or staff, wand or crystal; his favoured device was a little brassy object he called a knoblaggie. No one else employed such a device and Flydd had never fathomed how it worked, which might turn out to be a fatal weakness.
‘It gives me ten times the power of before, Xervish,’ said Klarm. ‘And you’ve lost most of your Art. You can’t resist me. Come down.’
Flydd noticed another silvery bubble rising on the side of the ring of flame furthest from Klarm. It was so small that he might not notice it, though the dwarf was amazingly competent in everything he did, and his keen eyes missed little. Flydd had to distract him; had to keep him talking.
‘What mighty position has he given you, old friend?’ he shouted down, looking away from the bubble, not much bigger than a grape, that was slowly coiling upwards in the flame. ‘Did you take over as his chief lieutenant when Vivimord left him? I know how you crave power.’
It was a lie intended to provoke; Klarm had been the best of men to serve with, for he had never been ambitious for himself. His greatest pride had been to do whatever job he had been tasked with to the best of his abilities.
‘You know me better than that, Xervish.’ Klarm scanned the flames but the bubble was concealed in a fiery green knot. ‘A position was offered but I did not take it; I’m a mancer, not a governor.’
And a very good mancer, better than Flydd himself, in some respects. How much more had Klarm learned from Jal-Nish and the tears while Flydd had been trapped on Mistmurk Mountain? Just for a second, he envied him.
The bubble was stationary now, well out of reach, and he could not draw on it from so far away. He had to keep Klarm talking.
‘If only he could have trusted you,’ said Flydd, ‘he might have made you second only to himself, for you’re a man of rare qualities. But the God-Emperor fears rivals, and he knows that a man who has turned his coat once will do so again, when the price is right.’
‘I did not turn my coat.’ Klarm showed that Flydd had nettled him only by a slight stiffening of the spine, a small man trying to appear taller. No one else would have picked it, but Flydd had known Klarm for a very long time. ‘I only accepted his offer after he controlled the world and all resistance had ended.’
The bubble was moving up again. ‘And the remaining traitors, your former friends,’ Flydd sneered, ‘rounded up. You must be pleased to know that the job is done. How many pieces of gold will he pay you for my head?’
‘I’ve never served for love of gold; you know that too. I wish there could have been another way, Xervish, for I love my friends even when they’ve done wrong. But I love duty more and, having sworn to the God-Emperor I cannot do otherwise than honour my oath. You would have done the same, had our positions been reversed.’
Klarm spoke truly; in the long decades of the war, Flydd had often been forced to choose, and every time he’d come down on the side of duty rather than friendship. A great leader could do no less, and when there had been no choice but to sacrifice a friend to the greater good, he’d done it. It had always left a bad taste in his mouth afterwards, but the war had to be won. Losing it had been unthinkable, for that would have meant the end of humanity on Santhenar.
‘Which capture gave you the greatest pleasure, Klarm?’ said Flydd, bursting with frustration at the slow rise of the bubble. If he continued to taunt the dwarf, he might reveal something about the fate of their friends. ‘Who got away that day, apart from you?’
In his mind’s eye Flydd relived those last frantic moments after Klarm had engineered their escape and they’d bolted across the town square to steal Jal-Nish’s undefended air-dreadnought. Flydd had got there first, along with Yggur, Fyn-Mah and General Troist. Flangers, that noble, troubled warrior, came next, with Klarm gasping at his side, his little legs going three strides to Flangers’s one.
But Nish, well behind them, had been struck down, and Irisis, who never forgot a friend, turned back to help him, knowing she was dooming herself.
‘You remember what happened as well as I do,’ said Klarm, ‘and you’re trying to find out if there were any other survivors. I’m telling you nothing.’
Curious, Flydd thought. He doesn’t parrot the God-Emperor’s line, every one of
your old allies is dead. Was Klarm afraid to lie to Flydd in case he picked it? Could someone else have survived? He felt his eyes pricking at the thought; oh, to not have to fight the God-Emperor all alone.
Klarm’s eyes narrowed; he was no longer looking at Flydd, but just below him. The bubble, which had grown a little, was clearly visible now. Klarm threw out his arm, the knoblaggie glinting in his fist, but Flydd was quicker. Lunging, he snatched the bubble out of the air, and felt the most terrifying pain he had ever experienced.
FOURTEEN
Maelys swung across onto the roof of the swamp-creeper pit, fell into thick dust and lay there, unable to move. Climbing the octopede’s web cord for the second time had been like hauling herself up a thousand-span-high cliff. Every bone ached, every muscle burned; her torn calf was shrieking and she was shaking uncontrollably. She rolled over onto her back, eyes shut, reliving the nightmare. It had been even worse than Phrune’s attempt to skin her alive at the cursed flame.
But it made no difference to the smouldering knot of determination inside her. No one got away with abusing her the way Vivimord had. He must be stopped, and there was only one way to do that. For someone as gentle and soft-hearted as Maelys, it was a life-changing revelation. Vivimord had to die.
She’d gone a little way down this path months ago, when Seneschal Vomix had pursued her through the labyrinth below Tifferfyte. At one stage she’d had him at her mercy, but she could not bring herself to cut down a helpless man, monster though he was. Look what had come from that failure.
This time, if she got the chance, she would kill Vivimord, and Phrune, no matter the consequences. She had no idea how to make Phrune die permanently, but she was going to find out. And she’d better get going; Vivimord could come back at any moment. Jal-Nish was hunting her too, to take her back so she could incubate his little grub of a grandchild – or so he thought. And he’d better not discover otherwise.
She rolled over, and it hurt, but no amount of pain was going to stop her. Maelys came to her hands and knees and began to crawl up the glassy slope. Time passed in a daze; she could not have said whether the journey to the boudoir wall had taken ten minutes or ten hours. She could think of nothing save what she was going to do when she got to the top.
When she touched the wall she’d been thrown through, it shivered like the surface of a pool and her hand slipped in. She eased forwards until her eyes crossed the cool barrier. The bedchamber was empty.
Maelys crawled in. Apart from the rumpled covers and scattered flakes of dried swamp-creeper slime, like the stuff she was covered in now, there was no sign that anyone had been here. She could not see the octopede either – perhaps it was the one she’d killed below. Her feet still burned from contact with its innards.
Desperately thirsty, she dragged herself into the bathing chamber, clambered up into the tulip tub and lay in the water with her mouth open. Her injured calf throbbed, but she did not move. She could not.
Eventually the cold roused her; Maelys scrubbed the last of the octopede entrails off her inflamed skin and felt better. She slid to the floor, only then realising that she was in her old clothes; Vivimord’s temporary enchantment had exhausted itself. She could not find her boots though.
She tore a strip of cloth off her shirt, bandaged her calf, went out into the bedchamber and headed for the door, barefoot, but it was no longer visible; the walls were completely blank. She wanted to scream, yet only cold logic was going to get her out.
Nish’s rapier lay near where the door had been. The weapon was far too long for her, and unwieldy, but at least it was light. How to find the way out? The door must be hidden by illusion, and Maelys knew that illusions cost power for as long as they were maintained. Therefore, since he knew her to be trapped, why waste his strength on unnecessary detail? And if this illusion was designed to deceive the eye, could she break it by using another sense? Touch, say?
Closing her eyes, Maelys ran the tip of the rapier across the wall where the door should be. It made a loud scraping sound, but she had to take that risk. After covering many spans of wall, the tip slipped into an invisible crack. She felt it with her fingers. It ran vertically; it had to be the edge of the door.
By sliding the rapier tip up and down in the crack she found the latch, and when she pushed hard on it, it slid in silently and the door came ajar. At once she heard the hiss of the abyssal flame, and raised voices coming from a distance. Extinguishing the wall lights, she cracked the door open. The altar was gone, the flame chamber now brightly lit by a vast doughnut-shaped ring of green-black fire soaring up towards the ceiling, though her doorway lay in the shadow of a nearby column.
A pleasant, fruity voice spoke. Maelys went very still, for the room was full of Imperial Militia, plus several battle mancers and one of the God-Emperor’s black-robed scriers. An all-seeing wisp-watcher was mounted on his back, its blind eye turning this way and that. Maelys felt a rush of fear, for the sight brought back those terrible times from her childhood, hiding in the ruins of Nifferlin Manor while the searchers tramped back and forth, dragging away cousins, uncles and aunts, never to be seen again, and drawing ever closer to her family’s miserable hiding place.
She shook her head, put childhood behind her and eased back through the door, for the soldiers encircled the flame and were pressing steadily in. The men facing her across the circle might see her if she moved.
‘Come down, Xervish. There’s no escape from here.’
The voice belonged to a tiny robed mancer, a handsome dwarf with swept-back hair. Flydd was trapped halfway to the ceiling on a coiling set of steps arising from the centre of the fiery ring, and Colm was further up. Maelys couldn’t see Nish or Vivimord.
A plumed officer shouted orders and the circle of soldiers closed on the flame. Maelys pulled the door shut. There were too many of them; there was nothing she could do.
She bit down on a momentary despair; she had to be even stronger. From outside there came a boom, a fizzing whip-crack, a series of roars and the sound of pounding feet. Had she been discovered? She stood to one side of the door, holding the rapier out.
No one came through; after a couple of minutes the sounds died away and she forced herself to open the door. The flame chamber was empty, though the fiery annulus roared higher and brighter and louder than before, and it was growing every minute. The floor shook with its fury and an ominous crackling came from the depths.
The annulus had been bridged by the rigid bodies of many soldiers, but as it slowly widened they were falling into the deep. She put her head around the column. The chamber was so brightly lit that she could see into the furthest corners. Dead men lay scattered across the floor, including two lying in a red heap at the base of the stairs – Flydd and Colm?
Her throat went dry. They could not have been killed so quickly, so easily – could they? Maelys had to restrain herself from running across.
A furtive movement caught her eye, high above, and she was glad she had not moved, for it was Vivimord, right at the top of the stair. As he heaved someone off onto a platform through a small gap in the flame, the illusion he’d used to conceal himself must have slipped momentarily. And the man he was dragging, slumped over and barely able to walk, was Nish.
Maelys could not forget the awful despair she’d seen in Nish’s eyes as Vivimord had compelled him to come to the bed earlier. It had moved her, for she had seen into Nish’s soul, into the torment of a man struggling to overcome his own demons and do what he believed was right, yet forced to a base act by a stronger foe. He must still be under the compulsion.
She wasn’t game to go out the double doors; Jal-Nish was bound to have left guards, or a scrier with a wisp-watcher. Vivimord disappeared into a tunnel high above and Maelys, quaking, knew she had to follow him now or lose him and Nish. She crept out into the flame light, feeling as though a target was painted on her back.
First she had to cross the corpse bridge, and she’d better be quick. Only three statue-stiff sold
iers remained and, as she approached, the annulus widened, sending the shortest of the three tumbling headfirst into the crack. The body next to him wasn’t much taller; it must soon follow.
She checked again, but could not see anyone alive. She crept towards the bridge, repelled by the idea of walking across men’s bodies. It seemed so callous, but there was no other way across. She stared at the crumpled remains at the foot of the steps. Could they be Flydd and Colm? There was so much blood she couldn’t tell.
The dead soldier on the right only rested on his helm and boot heels and she dared not put any weight on him; with the annulus creeping ever outwards, they would both end up in the abyss. The body on the left was much taller; his head and shoulders rested on solid stone, though the green flame licked up on either side, and occasional tongues of fire wisped up between his legs. It looked more dangerous than the cursed flame and she was really afraid of it.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped onto his shins. Had the flame killed the poor fellow?
It was hot above the flame; not as hot as normal fire, but still uncomfortable. She stepped carefully across onto his marble-hard belly, swayed and nearly threw her arms out into the flame. The annulus widened another ell and the soldier’s helm made a scraping sound as it slipped on the floor. Now he was only supported by the back of his head and his boot heels. Maelys froze, afraid to move in case it toppled him, but even more afraid of remaining where she was.
She was gauging how much of his helm remained on solid stone when his eyes opened. Maelys’s knees went so weak that she nearly toppled off. He wasn’t dead, just petrified; maybe none of the soldiers making up the bridge had been dead.
He was a handsome young man, no older than her nineteen years, and he was staring up at her with pleading eyes. His full lips parted and he whispered, ‘Help me.’
Maelys felt a pang in her heart. For all his size he was no more than a boy, but even had he been her best friend, he was twice her weight and she could not save him. He was going to die.
