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

by Ian Irvine

  It would be freezing up here tonight but she wasn’t game to light a fire, for it would be visible for leagues; besides, she had neither food nor water, and there would be no water up here. Yet if she went down to the forest Flydd and Colm wouldn’t know where to look for her.

  The grass rustled again, just behind her, and she looked down to see a large black and red snake winding its way between the stems, just a flashing strike away from her bare feet. Terror froze her to the spot, and Maelys nearly wet herself when the snake stopped and raised its head to stare at her.

  She didn’t know what to do; snakes had been rare in the cold uplands of Nifferlin, and though she’d seen them on her travels since, there had always been someone with her. She’d never had to deal with one all by herself. What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t game to run, sure that it could strike more swiftly than she could leap, and what if there were others close by? She wouldn’t see them if she were running.

  She didn’t move, apart from an uncontrollable curling of her toes into the powdery dirt. The snake’s head turned this way and that, its eyes staring into hers. Don’t worry about me, she thought desperately. I’m no threat. I’ve never killed a snake in my life.

  A hundred thumping heartbeats she stood there, watching the snake as it watched her, before it lowered its head, wriggled elegantly through the grass and was gone.

  Maelys picked her way back to the stone chimney, inspecting the ground ahead and to either side before each step; she had never felt more vulnerable. The chimney looked solid enough, and there would be a better view from the top. Reluctant to climb the outside, which would leave her exposed to view, she stepped into the fireplace and looked up. At least there would be no swamp creepers in this one.

  It was still sooty, and rather narrow at the top, but any of the boys at Nifferlin Manor would have been able to scramble up it, so surely she could. The sun was falling rapidly towards the snowy mountains and it would soon be dark. She scrambled up; the last third of the climb proved a tight squeeze and she tore her pants squeezing through. I don’t have to worry about falling down again, Maelys thought ruefully.

  Some leagues to the east the land sloped steeply down to a broad plain covered in forest save for a few small patches of cleared land. The plain ran north and south further than she could see. Beyond must be the long narrow Sea of Thurkad, though she couldn’t make it out through the haze.

  Behind her, in the west, the land rose ever higher, though it lay in the shadow of the setting sun and she could see no signs of human habitation there. Manors or farmhouses occupied two of the other nearby hills, though none of their chimneys were smoking, which surely meant that they were abandoned. South of her, however, perhaps a league away, a village was clustered around a larger building; a communal barn or inn. No, not a barn; she could definitely see smoke rising from its chimneys. It must be an inn, and a substantial one.

  Maelys could see no sign of Colm or Flydd further down her hill, nor were there any tracks in the grass. Should she wait, or head down to the village, barefoot? Either alternative was fraught – she knew all too well how unfriendly country folk could be, especially to people who spoke differently, and had no money.

  The sun dropped below the mountains, the temperature fell sharply and the choice was made for her – it would take half the night to reach the village in the dark, but with nightfall all kinds of predators would be on the prowl.

  She climbed down, rubbed her chilly fingers together and went looking for firewood. There was none up here; nor could she find a sharp stick with which to defend herself. She had to have shelter though, so gathering what broken stone she could lift, she built a curving wall in front of the fireplace.

  It was only hip-high when the last light faded, but better than nothing. She felt more secure crouching in the fireplace behind her shelter, until the night noises began. Something swooped past the chimney, and in her imagination it was a savage skeet, or some beast flesh-formed by the God-Emperor’s Arts. A cat-call, not far away, was answered by a howl somewhere to her left, and Maelys almost cried out. Curse Colm and Flydd; why hadn’t they come through? At least they were armed. Any large predator could leap the wall and trap her inside.

  The next cry was closer; Maelys imagined she could see two yellow eyes moving towards her in the darkness. Scrambling to her feet, she felt for the handholds in the chimney and hauled herself up as fast as she could go.

  Her left foot was dangling in the centre of the fireplace when something struck her wall, knocking a stone off the top layer, and let out a screeching howl. Maelys yelped, jerked her foot up, then felt for a handhold and headed higher.

  The creature, whatever it was, scrabbled over the wall and began to claw at the chimney. Afraid that it could climb, she pulled herself up to the narrow point, but this time she stuck there, and no matter how she strained Maelys could not force her way up any further.

  That night was one of the longest she could ever remember. The beast remained there for at least an hour, and she could smell it. It was rank as an old fox, though far bigger, and its breath reeked as though it dined on carrion.

  It jumped out over the wall and she dared to hope that it had given up, but it began to howl until it was answered by other howls, not far away. They weren’t wolves, but something just as savage. It ran around the chimney at least a hundred times before rushing the fireplace again. This time a whole pack followed it, all screeching and snarling at each other, then clawing themselves a span up the chimney on the backs of the pack, to snap at her feet. Maelys twisted around, managed to wriggle her hips up through the constriction and clung to the top of the chimney, looking down. Dozens of pairs of eyes reflected the starlight.

  Frost began to settle on the stone. Maelys eased her legs and body down the chimney where the stone was still warm from the sun, though the rising stench from the pack of beasts was nauseating. She supported herself on her arms but dared not sleep in case she fell down among them.

  The night dragged on, every second an eternity, and it wasn’t until the sun rose that the creatures slunk away. They looked like jackals, only with bigger shoulders, huge, bone-crushing jaws and dragging haunches.

  Pulling herself up to watch them go, Maelys was clinging on, feeling ill from lack of sleep, when she saw a pair of horses climbing the hill. She slid into the chimney and peeped over the top. The two riders stopped halfway up, pointing to tracks in the grass and then to the pack of hunting beasts, now creeping on their bellies into a patch of longer grass. The riders looked up in her direction, one pointed, and they rode towards her.

  There was no way to escape them. They would see her tracks in the grass, and the rude wall that, clearly, had only been built yesterday, so what was the point of hiding?

  Never give up; something might distract them at the last minute. Withdrawing below the level of the chimney, she made sure she had a solid foothold and kept still.

  The horses’ hooves made barely a sound on the powdery ground. As they approached she heard a mutter of conversation, and a man laughed. They knew she was here and she could do nothing to defend herself. Her imagination was running through a series of probable fates when there came a rapping sound on the side of the fireplace and Flydd’s voice said, ‘Maelys, you can come down now.’

  She almost fell down the chimney in relief. She climbed down to the hearth, scrambled over the wall and stopped, staring. She didn’t recognise either of them.

  ‘Our faces are too well known.’ Flydd’s voice came from the older of the two men, who was grey-haired, bearded and yellow-skinned. ‘A strong illusion was needed so Jal-Nish’s watchers and spies would not recognise us.’

  Colm was weather-beaten, tanned and bald apart from an arc of hair behind his ears. They were wearing clean clothes, looked freshly bathed, and Flydd had even had a haircut.

  He studied her, head to one side, smiling. Maelys flushed; she felt sure he was laughing at her filthy, bedraggled appearance. Her arms and clothes were sme
ared with soot; her face must be as well, and her pants were torn on both hips where she’d forced herself up through the narrow point of the chimney.

  ‘I – I thought you were my friend,’ she wailed. ‘I – can’t – take – any – more,’ and she burst into tears.

  ‘I ache all over,’ Maelys groaned as she slid off Flydd’s horse into the mud outside the inn at a village called Plogg, a good six leagues from where she had prematurely fallen out of the portal. She hit the ground and her knees buckled, for she’d been riding in front of him all day on a lumpy and poorly made saddle. Her backside was one massive bruise, the insides of her thighs were rubbed raw and her new boots pinched. But worst of all, she was dressed as a boy again and her bound breasts were even more painful than her bottom.

  Flydd steadied her. ‘I don’t feel so good myself. Using the virtual construct was more painful than I expected.’

  ‘You are all right, though?’

  ‘I will be in a day or two. And you haven’t helped, have you?’ he said to his horse, patting it on the flank. ‘My new body has thighs as soft as a maiden’s.’

  ‘What would you know about maidens’ thighs?’ she snapped.

  ‘I’ve ridden that saddle many a time,’ he chuckled, ‘and it’s a damn sight more comfortable than this one. Why, I remember –’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said coldly.

  Colm was looking around in satisfaction. ‘The inn at Plogg is exactly as it was when I came here as a boy – three storeys of mossy white stone, a host of chimneys like cut-off witches’ hats, and a front door decorated with a pair of eels standing on their tails.’

  ‘Lampreys, to be precise.’ Flydd indicated the hanging sign above the door, The Laughing Lampreys.

  ‘What’s a lamprey?’ said Maelys.

  ‘It’s like a parasitic eel. It attaches to a fish with its sucker mouth and feeds on it.’

  ‘What about people?’ Maelys said uncomfortably.

  ‘I’ve met just as many parasites among humans.’ He chuckled.

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I know what you meant. Lampreys don’t attach to land animals, as far as I’ve heard. Come on – I’m wet and hungry. Now, don’t say anything about our quest.’

  Colm led their horses down the street to a stable. ‘Ah, I’m weary,’ said Flydd, clinging to the doorknocker for a moment. ‘Let’s get in out of the rain,’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘It’s just aftersickness. I haven’t suffered it in years, and it hits me very hard in this new body. After making two portals in a row, it’s amazing that I can still stand up.’

  ‘Will it get worse?’

  ‘I hope not.’ He turned to Maelys, who had hesitated in the muddy road, feeling shy. ‘Something the matter?’

  ‘I’ve never been in an inn before.’

  ‘You astonish me. I’ve stayed in thousands and they’re all the same – dirty linen, bedbugs and food I wouldn’t feed to my dog. In some inns, the food is dog.’

  ‘I thought the scrutators had the best of everything.’

  ‘They could have the best of everything, if they chose to, and many did. Personally, I’ve never found that a good way to rule. To know what the common people think, you’ve got to live amongst them.’ He reflected, then added, ‘Well, some of the time. There are limits.’

  ‘I hope the food isn’t dog here,’ said Maelys. ‘I’m starving. I don’t feel as though I’ve eaten proper food in weeks.’

  ‘You haven’t; we were in the Nightland for the best part of a month, Santhenar time.’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him. ‘You’re making it up.’

  ‘I’m not. I asked the date when we bought the horses.’

  ‘It only felt like a few days to me.’

  ‘Time runs faster there, evidently.’

  Not for poor, lonely Emberr, she thought.

  He rapped with the knocker, and shortly the door was opened by a short, bald man, so pale that it looked as though he’d never been outside. He had transparent eyebrows and unnervingly pink eyes. ‘You’ll be wanting a bed at this time of day,’ he said in a flat voice.

  ‘Three beds, taverner.’ Flydd pushed through into a foyer lined with coat pegs, most of which were occupied by dripping cloaks or heavy coats. Maelys followed, standing behind him and feeling uncomfortable. ‘There’s three of us.’

  ‘You want a bed each?’ exclaimed the innkeeper. ‘Can’t be done. You’ll have to share.’

  ‘We’ll have two rooms, at the very least, with no one else in them. Just us and your fattest bedbugs.’ Flydd laughed.

  The innkeeper looked hurt. ‘Mistress puts oil of turpentine in the wash. No bedbugs here.’

  ‘Excellent, taverner. We’ll have your freshest, cleanest sheets as well.’

  ‘They were only changed a month ago.’

  Flydd clinked two coins in his pocket, meaningfully.

  ‘If you want to pay for fresh sheets,’ said the innkeeper, beaming, ‘that’s different. Don’t get many through here as do.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you get many visitors at all, in these empty lands,’ said Flydd.

  ‘More than you might suppose, lately. Some nights we turn people away to the stables, but a large party left this morning, hurrying west. Come in.’

  Flydd stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘What’s west of here?’

  ‘Just rocks and trees, but these folks were the sort you don’t ask questions about, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘Bandits?’ Flydd said, almost too casually. ‘We’ll want to keep well away from them.’

  ‘Not bandits,’ said the innkeeper out of the corner of his mouth. ‘God-Emperor’s men; soldiers and scriers. Come through – you’re letting a draught in.’ He bustled away.

  ‘Just wipe my boots first,’ said Flydd, closing the door behind the taverner.

  He took Maelys’s arm. ‘Why do you suppose a party of the God-Emperor’s people are hurrying west?’ he said softly.

  Her heart lurched. She looked up into his fierce eyes; he wasn’t so different from the old Flydd after all. ‘They can’t know we’re here. They just can’t!’

  ‘Jal-Nish soon will. I’ve underestimated him badly; I should have known better. He leaves nothing to chance, and his humiliation at Mistmurk Mountain will only have stiffened his resolve. I deliberately chose our destination at the last possible moment to make the portal difficult to track; I dare say that’s why you went astray.’

  ‘Then why are they here already?’

  ‘They’ve had a month, remember? From the instant we fled the plateau, Jal-Nish’s spies and record-keepers would have been set to work, tracing our every connection so as to work out all the places we might have gone, and sending people to every one of those places to intercept us the moment we appeared. He would soon have discovered that Colm’s family came from Gothryme, and that he was heir to the manor. Jal-Nish, or one of his tellers, would have remembered the connection to the Tale of the Mirror and the treasure left to Karan Kin-Slayer in a cave in Elludore. A treasure that could give me the power I so desperately need,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Only Colm knows where the cave is, but Jal-Nish’s scriers –’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Maelys.

  ‘I thought I heard something.’ He put his ear against the inner door, then the outer, listened and shook his head. ‘Wipe your feet. We’ll talk later.’

  Maelys heard footsteps coming up the outside steps. ‘That must be Colm now.’

  She opened the door. It wasn’t Colm, but a tall and extremely buxom woman in her middle thirties, with flaming red hair and a lush, scarlet mouth curved into an enigmatic smile. She stopped on the step below Maelys, but still looked down into her eyes.

  ‘What have we here?’ she said. ‘A little door boy?’ She reached into her coat as if to tip Maelys, who coloured and stepped backwards.

  ‘I’m a g-guest here.’

  ‘Really?’ said the woman. She l
ooked up, saw Flydd, and her dark eyes widened momentarily.

  He nodded absently to her, his mind on other matters, but she brushed past Maelys and extended her hand to him, smiling. ‘Bellulah Vix, but you can call me Bel. What’s your name? You don’t look as though you’re from these parts.’

  ‘I’m Lorkentyne Pumice,’ lied Flydd in an accent so neutral that it would have been impossible to tell where he came from. He took her hand and his eyes went blank momentarily, then shook it, wincing at the strength of her grip. ‘Just taking the air for a day or two. And you?’ he added politely.

  ‘Buy me a cup of mead and I’ll tell you everything.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve other business to attend to, Bel.’ Flydd looked as though he regretted having to say it.

  ‘Nonsense, Lorky,’ said Bel, as though the decision had been made and there was nothing more to say. ‘You’ll do your other business all the better for spending a relaxing hour with me.’

  Flydd looked taken aback; surely no one had ever spoken to him in such a confident and familiar way before. ‘Another time,’ he said with a greater degree of reluctance.

  ‘Right now.’ She linked her arm through his and turned him around. Flydd looked back almost pleadingly, as if to say, ‘Get me out of this,’ as Bel led him inside, flipping a coin over her shoulder to Maelys.

  ‘My bags are outside, lad. Treat them as delicately as you would a lady.’

  She laughed heartily and the door banged behind them. Maelys stared at it. Bel’s profile, as she turned to go through the door, had been vaguely familiar. Where could she have seen her before?

  TWENTY-SIX

  Maelys, who had caught the copper coin without thinking, limped down the steps and carried in Bel’s bags, which were extremely heavy. She could not have said why she did it, save that the woman had a natural authority which, because of Maelys’s upbringing, she found difficult to defy. But how could Flydd be taken in by her? Was he really that low from aftersickness?