The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2)

by Ian Irvine

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Vivimord roared. He must have realised that he was losing command of them, for he attempted to draw himself upright on the slanted pole and said, with most of his old authority intact, ‘It was I who found that man at it, on my morning constitutional.’ He pointed a bloodstained finger at the smith. ‘He took the girl by force, then killed her to avoid being found out. It is he who must be put to trial, not I.’

  This time there was such Art in his voice that Nish was swayed, and so were all the townsfolk. He could see their faces hardening, their eyes swinging from Vivimord to the burly blacksmith. Even Nish, who knew that most of Vivimord’s power came from his Art of rhetoric, could not bring himself to disbelieve.

  He was about to order Vivimord released when Tulitine said quietly, ‘Vivimord is covered in blood, yet the blacksmith hasn’t a trace on him. How could he cut the girl’s throat without getting blood all over him?’

  ‘He did it from behind,’ said Vivimord. ‘After he’d had his lustful way with her.’

  ‘There would still be blood on his knife hand.’

  ‘Not if he were skilled at killing. Not if he were quick.’

  ‘You know a lot about the business of killing.’ Tulitine’s voice was so low that everyone had to strain to hear, but it was all the more effective for that.

  ‘I fought at the God-Emperor’s right hand during the war against the lyrinx.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath from the crowd.

  ‘And perhaps you serve him still,’ Tulitine said silkily. ‘Blacksmith, take us down to the body.’

  The smith let go of the pole, which was taken by another man, and led them silently across the sodden grass to the stream which partly encircled the town, and thence along it to a roofless stable set among tall trees, its wooden slab walls sagging with age and rot. Within a set of cow bails, on the manure-covered earth, lay the sad remains of Tildy the milking girl. Beside her body was an overturned stool; a dangling rope was still tied to the bails, where the beast she had been milking at the time of her death had broken away.

  ‘Keep back.’ Tulitine bent to inspect the body, the patterns of blood, and the footmarks on the ground. ‘The girl has not been taken, by force or otherwise. Her killer came up behind her and cut her throat while she was milking. And you’re the only man with blood on him, Vivimord.’

  ‘The killer must have washed himself in the stream,’ said Vivimord, straining to use his Art, but it no longer seemed to be working.

  ‘There are no marks down the bank. No one has washed themselves here today.’

  ‘Further along, then. He could have bathed anywhere.’

  ‘There hasn’t been time; the body is still warm. And the cry was heard, when?’ Tulitine wasn’t looking at the blacksmith, but at the taller man holding the pole.

  ‘Not half an hour ago,’ he replied. He was dark-featured and prematurely balding. ‘And we found the knife he used to kill poor little Tildy.’ He held out a wavy-bladed weapon made from black metal. It was smeared with damp blood.

  ‘The knife is his,’ said a voice from the crowd. ‘Vivimord always wore it on his right hip as he strutted about our town like an arrogant rooster, knocking honest, hard-working people out of his path.’

  ‘Someone stole it last night,’ Vivimord said weakly. The power of his voice was diminishing with every new piece of evidence, as if he was losing confidence in his Art. Tulitine now stood tall, her old eyes blazing, fighting him all the way.

  ‘There are bloody finger marks on the hilt,’ said the balding man. ‘And look at his hands – they’re huge. I’ll bet you can match the finger marks to him.’

  Two men forcibly folded the fingers of Vivimord’s right hand around the hilt, and everyone crowded around. His fingers fitted the blood marks perfectly.

  ‘It proves nothing,’ said Vivimord. ‘Lots of men in the town have big hands.’

  ‘Not like yours!’ said the balding man. ‘We’ve got worker’s hands. Your fingers are creepy, like a long-legged spider.’

  ‘And there’s blood under his nails,’ said Tulitine. ‘The girl’s blood.’

  ‘I bent over her,’ said Vivimord, ‘trying to save her life.’

  ‘Any man who saw as much death in the war as you did would have known that Tildy’s wound was fatal. Draw up his shirt, lads.’

  ‘Get away from me!’ Vivimord’s eyes were darting this way and that. ‘I can’t bear to be touched.’

  ‘Yet you held your victims down while you cut their innocent throats from behind. Do it.’

  The balding man drew Vivimord’s shirt up, all the way; it made a tearing sound. The townsfolk surged forwards again. His chest and stomach were thickly coated with dried blood, and where the bloodstained shirt had been torn away from his skin, it was revealed to be hideously thickened and scarred, with crisscrossing cracks that wept clear yellow fluid.

  ‘Well, Nish – er, Deliverer,’ said Barquine. ‘The evidence is clear against Vivimord, and he is your man. What are you going to do about his crime?’

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘He’s not my man,’ said Nish. ‘He brought me here, under duress.’

  ‘Yet you’re known as the leader of his Defiance.’

  ‘Deliverer!’ Vivimord extended his bound arms as far as they would go and ratcheted up his Art. ‘This accusation is a vicious lie. An enemy has set me up for this crime, to prevent you from ever casting the blasphemous God-Emperor down. You know you cannot succeed without me.’

  Nish felt his confidence faltering, for it could be true. Jal-Nish might have set this up – was there any place on Santhenar his power did not reach? And what if Nish did need Vivimord to help overthrow his father? For the good of the suffering people of the world, he could ignore this one crime, couldn’t he? After all, Tildy was dead; it didn’t matter to her.

  ‘I – I don’t know. I must think for a moment.’

  ‘Then think swiftly,’ snapped Barquine. ‘And not of your bonds with this man, whatever they may be, nor your goal to overthrow your father. Think only of justice for poor Tildy, who did no one any harm.’

  Nish nodded stiffly and walked into the forest. Dawn was breaking. He knew what had to be done, deep down, but what if he were wrong?

  ‘You’ve dealt out death aplenty in battle, Nish, and I dare say slept soundly afterwards. Why do you shy at delivering justice?’

  Tulitine’s voice came from the deep gloom between two gnarled trees which leaned towards each other to form an inverted V.

  Nish jumped. ‘I will not become my father.’

  ‘I never heard that what Jal-Nish meted out was justice.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t believe I do.’

  ‘Father has tempted me unbearably, over and again. You cannot know how he whispers in my mind, offering me the things I want most in all the world.’

  ‘I know exactly what you want, Nish. You long for wealth and authority, the love of beautiful women, and most of all, respect. You want people to look up to you for all you’ve achieved, but you’re terrified of failure, and of their contempt.’

  His stomach clenched. ‘How do you know me so well? Are you a sorcerer who can extract the secrets of the innermost mind?’

  ‘You said it all in your fever, months ago. And I can read your every thought on your face, and in what you say and do. Or don’t do – like dealing with Vivimord now you have the chance.’

  Nish ignored that. Before he could accept her help he had to confess his deepest desire and his greatest failing – the one which, were it offered to him again, he did not think he could refuse. That’s where he’d gone wrong last time. He’d kept it secret and it had grown until it almost overpowered him.

  ‘Father holds Irisis’s perfectly preserved body in a glass coffin in his palace of Morrelune, and he told me that, if I came back to him, he would restore her to me.’

  Tulitine stiffened in the gloom, then reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Can the
Profane Tears give him the power to reach into the shadow realm, and even below that?’ she said thickly. ‘It cannot be – no one can come back from death.’

  She was shaken, which gave Nish pause for thought. Flydd had also said that it was impossible to raise the dead, but what if Jal-Nish could restore Irisis to him? His heart soared at the thought, even as he recoiled in self-disgust for being seduced by it.

  ‘Necromancy is the greatest abomination of all, and yet you’re swayed by what it can give you,’ Tulitine said icily. ‘Be very, very careful, Nish. I’d thought better of you. If you can consider such depravity, you’re closer to becoming your father than I’d realised.’

  ‘That is why I shrink from dispensing justice to Vivimord,’ he said quietly. ‘Because I fear what will come of it.’

  ‘How should justice be dispensed, Nish?’

  Nish hesitated, for he knew she was going to disagree with him, and why, but it had to be said. ‘In Vivimord’s case, deep in the forest and well away from watching eyes. A swift slash across the throat, the way he killed the girl, then a pyre to burn the body to ashes, and the ashes scattered to the winds.’

  ‘You are very wrong if you think justice can be done in secret. Justice must be public, and impartial, else it looks like revenge and only inspires more killing.’

  ‘If it’s done publicly, Father will hear of it; he has spies everywhere, even here. He will make Gendrigore suffer a thousand times over for the justice meted out to Vivimord.’

  ‘But he and Vivimord are enemies.’ Tulitine came out from behind the trees.

  ‘Yet Vivimord once saved Father’s life, at great cost to himself, and Father does not forget such things.’

  ‘If you deal with Vivimord in secret, Gendrigore will believe that you let a depraved murderer go out of weakness. That could fatally undermine the Deliverer.’

  ‘Are you trying to talk me out of it?’

  ‘I merely point out the consequences. It’s up to you to make the choice, and you must do it at once.’

  ‘I dare not kill him as he deserves, Tulitine. You know how power tempts me. I dare not take one single step on the corrupt path.’ Nish put all thoughts of Irisis firmly behind him. ‘Yet neither can Vivimord be allowed to go unpunished.’

  He trudged back to the scene of the murder, oppressed by the thought that, whatever his choice, ill would come of it. He walked up to the mayor, looked him in the eye and said in a carrying voice, ‘Vivimord’s crime was against Gendrigore, not me. He will be tried according to the laws of Gendrigore.’

  Vivimord protested his innocence all the way back to the town green, and exerted his Art ever more powerfully, until Nish felt dazed from it, and ordered that the men dragging the pole have their ears blocked, and everyone else keep out of earshot. He stayed well behind, and once away from the zealot’s influence Nish had no doubt that Vivimord was guilty.

  ‘What form will the trial take?’ he asked Barquine on the way.

  ‘In matters such as this the accused is tried by ordeal,’ said Barquine. ‘If he survives, he is acquitted and will be expelled from Gendrigore.’

  ‘And if he does not survive?’

  ‘Then clearly he was guilty.’

  Swift, summary justice, and Vivimord was such a monster that Nish could not disagree. And yet …

  ‘You look troubled,’ said the mayor. ‘Do you doubt our justice?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Nish said hastily. ‘The law is the law, and I know, from experience, Vivimord’s character. Few will regret his passing, if he is convicted. But I should warn you that he was once the right-hand man of the God-Emperor –’

  ‘What is that to us?’

  ‘And Vivimord saved Jal-Nish’s life. If he is harmed, the God-Emperor could well seek retribution.’

  ‘I see.’ The mayor paced off across the grass, mud squelching up between his bare toes.

  Nish watched him go, feeling anxious for these kindly people. They had treated him well, yet, isolated here by cliff and mountain and impenetrable forest, they could not imagine the depravity of those who fought to control and dominate the outside world. Jal-Nish might well hate Vivimord for his betrayal; might well seek to kill him to end the threat to his own reign; yet if Gendrigore put Vivimord to death, it would be made to pay. Nish wished he’d carried out his original intention, but it was too late now.

  Barquine was gone a long time. Perhaps he was consulting the town elders. The sun had risen before he came striding back, anxious but determined.

  ‘The laws of Gendrigore stand,’ he said abruptly. ‘The Spine has protected us for twice a thousand years and we do not fear your God-Emperor. Bring the prisoner to the sea cliffs for trial.’

  Vivimord was dragged off, bound to his pole, cursing them in a low voice. Again Nish felt the power of the zealot’s mancery, and feared he might yet sway the peasants to let him escape.

  ‘I would stop his mouth,’ Nish said quietly to Barquine. ‘Vivimord’s chief sorcery is in his voice, and few people can resist for long.’

  ‘I can feel it working on me.’ Barquine gave the order and Vivimord’s mouth was filled with rags so he could not utter a sound, then two gags were bound tightly over them. ‘They will have to be removed for the ordeal, Nish. The trial must be fair. The accused must be allowed to speak.’

  He strode off. The men dragged Vivimord towards a path through the forest, in the direction of the sea cliffs. The towns-folk followed.

  Tulitine came up beside Nish. ‘Would you take my arm, Nish? I’m feeling my age this morning.’

  Nish did so. ‘What is a trial by ordeal?’

  ‘It’s an old form of justice, long abandoned in more civilised lands,’ she said as they headed after everyone else. ‘Some say that proving a man guilty or innocent by ordeal is just like tossing a coin, but I think otherwise. Destiny also sits at the judgment table and, given a choice between the ordeal and trial by the corrupt jurors of the God-Emperor, I know which I’d choose.’

  After walking for half a league or so, they emerged from the forest onto a sloping strip of land covered in scrubby, thick-leaved bushes and small trees, then onto a band of grass and herbs; beyond that was the bare rock of the cliff edge. The sun was just visible over the forest behind them. At least a hundred people had already assembled on the rock and more were coming along the cliffs, and emerging from other paths through the forest. There were storms out to sea and lightning flashed along the horizon.

  Nish smelt salt and rotting seaweed, and heard the crash of waves breaking on the cliffs far below, and the echoing boom as the swell rolled into sea caves. The sky was overcast and looked like rain, but then, it always looked like rain in Gendrigore.

  A number of tall tripods were mounted along the cliff edge, made from tree trunks. Each had a wooden arm extending out over the edge, from which was suspended, on a plaited rope, a large wooden basket with a bamboo floor and an umbrella shaped bamboo roof. Each rope ran up, over a rolling block at the end of the arm, and down to a hand winch fixed to one of the legs of the tripod.

  ‘They’re fishing baskets,’ said Tulitine. ‘The fisherwomen are wound down in their baskets until they’re a few spans above the water. They lower their lines and crab pots into the water, and wait.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like much of a life,’ Nish murmured.

  ‘Life is what you make of it. They can talk to each other, watch the ever-changing seas and the colours of the sky, lie back and think, sleep. What more could anyone want?’

  ‘It’s very exposed.’

  ‘The rain is warm here; and the breezes mild.’

  ‘What if the rope breaks, or a gale dashes them against the cliff?’

  ‘Then they’ll die, as we all must some day,’ she said sharply. ‘Life is dangerous, Nish, whether you’re a cliff fisherwoman of Gendrigore or a lapsed hero on the run from an all-powerful father and his own crippling self-doubt.’

  He avoided her eye. ‘How does the trial by ordeal work?’

 
‘I expect we’ll find out soon enough.’

  The trial proved simple and dignified. When everyone had assembled, the mayor simply said, ‘Let the trial of Vivimord, also known as Monkshart, begin.’

  Two sturdy, black-haired young women swung the arm of the nearest tripod in; a third, who could have been their mother, wound the winch and lowered the hanging basket to the ground. A bamboo door was unfastened and swung open. The three women joined a fourth, who was small, old and wiry – the grandmother, perhaps. They untied Vivimord from the pole, keeping his wrists and ankles bound, and his mouth stopped.

  ‘The trial is carried out by those most injured by the crime,’ said Tulitine. ‘In this case, the women of Tildy’s family.’

  They hauled Vivimord to the basket, his feet dragging, and pushed him inside. He did not deign to struggle, though his dark eyes shot apocalyptic fury at them. Never had Vivimord been treated with such contempt, and he could not bear it.

  The women said no word as they followed him inside, lashed his wrists to the side of the basket and fixed a thin rope around his waist. The other end was tied to the floor. The youngest woman, and the oldest, remained inside and closed the door. The other two began to raise the basket with the winch.

  It took many turns of the winch handle to lift it but they did not falter for a moment.

  ‘It is a matter of pride that they do not give way to human weakness during the trial,’ said Tulitine. ‘No pain, no weariness may delay the ordeal, for that would be an ill omen.’

  ‘For someone who didn’t know what was going on a while ago, you’re very well informed,’ sniffed Nish.

  ‘I spend more time watching and listening, and less talking.’

  Her acid tongue reminded him of Flydd, and again he wondered what had happened to him and Maelys, but that was fruitless.