To Tymon’s amazement, she then approached the stretcher where he lay waiting to be taken to the hospice ship, and offered the pendant to him. It was a rod of pure orah, about the length and width of a finger bone, its hardwood setting carved with the seminary’s seal. He did not reach out at once to take it from her. He felt an instinctive repugnance for the smooth, shining trinket, as if it were polluted.
‘It has been abused, Tymon,’ Samiha observed by his side. ‘But you should accept. Keep it safe until we can give it to someone who will cure it.’
‘I’m not so concerned with the religious aspects of the thing,’ added Gardan with a wink. ‘I do think this gives us a chance to negotiate with the Argosians, however. We’ll need the seal to ratify any deal. There’s no way I’m leaving it in the possession of that talkative deputy in the meantime. Can I rely on you to keep it?’
‘I’ll do my best, syora,’ sighed the boy. He slipped the pendant into his belt pouch; he could feel Wick’s gaze burning into him as he did so. His last glimpse of his schoolmate was of him trotting behind Gardan, his wrists bound and a length of grey cloth wrapped tightly about his scowling face.
Tymon would not rest easy until he had seen Galliano installed as comfortably as possible on the hospice ship, and closely questioned an apprentice nurse, the only healer as yet on board, about the old man’s injuries.
‘I not know why fever,’ was the girl’s less than satisfactory answer. She looked about thirteen, and presided over the makeshift infirmary in the ship’s hold with much in the way of clattering activity and a rolling of eyes. ‘Doctor come tonight, she say more.’
But she proved adept at setting bones and with Samiha’s help bullied Tymon out of his wet clothes and into a cot of his own. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying out as the two women cleaned the long scraping wounds and bound stiff strips of bark about his legs. Both shinbones were fractured, he was informed by the young nurse through pursed lips, as if this were entirely his fault. She then curtained off the section of the hold where he lay and bustled away, leaving him alone with Samiha in sudden and welcome silence.
‘So, here we are,’ he said.
He was pleasantly warm in the cot and the Nurian healing herbs had taken the edge off his pain. There were outstanding issues to be concerned about, he knew: Galliano’s health, the fate of his wounded companions among the refugees, and the ongoing problem of whether Wick’s capture would persuade the seminary to make peace with the Freeholders. But he was content to leave the worrying for later. It seemed a thousand years since his dawn appointment in the arena. He smiled tiredly at Samiha as she pulled a chair near the cot and sat down beside him.
‘I hope you know that you’re reckless, and stubborn, and almost drove me mad with worry today,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he replied. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Good. Because for a while there I thought I’d lost you forever.’ She searched his face. ‘I know you’re tired, but this is important. I’d like you to tell me what happened on the Envoy’s ship.’
Tymon turned away from her on the cot. He did not want to speak of his experience under the Envoy’s gruelling influence. He remembered with unpleasant clarity the crippling loss of will he had suffered at a mere word from his enemy. It had been so easy to give up his humanity, to slip into indifference. The thought of the beast-that-was-Lace haunted him. He struggled with his own reticence and exhaustion, loath to answer in depth but aware that Samiha deserved his trust. She deserved to hear about his moment of weakness as well as his strengths.
‘I got through it all by sheer luck,’ he began, automatically—then frowned, exasperated with himself. ‘No, not luck. It was terrible. Lace took me apart. I forgot who I was. But I had a Grafting vision. Ash helped me. If he hadn’t, I’d be lost.’ He shook his head. ‘The Envoy wasn’t just a sorcerer, Samiha. On the ship, I Saw his true shape. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe Wick would actually listen to someone—something like that. He was a monster, a creature out of a dream. He had no head, but he could See me. He had no mouth but I felt like he could have eaten me, too. I know that sounds impossible.’
To his surprise she took his hand in her own and squeezed it tightly.
‘It’s not impossible,’ she answered, her smile warm. He realised with dawning pleasure that she was proud of him. ‘We humans aren’t the only ones with the Sight. I know you don’t like to believe in such things, but just as there are helpful powers in the world there are others who don’t have our best interests at heart. I wish it were not so. But if you’re going to be a Grafter—and you are, a powerful one—then you will encounter them. You’ve heard of them, of course. Even the priests in Argos have not forgotten that there are demons in the Tree, as well as angels.’
‘Well, whatever Lace was, he’s gone,’ murmured Tymon, closing his eyes. ‘He was caught in the explosion: there’s no way he could have survived.’ He did not voice the swift doubt that accompanied this remark: What was survival to such as the Envoy? Was it dependent on the same factors as governed human life?
She frowned slightly, as if she had thought of something more to say on the subject of Lace and could not bring herself to trouble him with it. But she only said, ‘We’ll talk more tomorrow. I should let you rest.’
‘No!’
His eyes flew open. He was not willing to let her go, though his body ached and fatigue rolled over him in waves. He held tightly to her hand. He felt as if he had just won her back against terrible odds. She peered into his face, a curious tension in her expression. Her hair, still bedraggled and damp from the rainstorm, stuck in strands to her cheek. He could not help it: he reached up to brush away the tresses, as he had on the morning of their escape from Marak city. This time he let his hand linger on her cheek, caressing her. She did not push him away. His heart beat faster. A glad warmth rose up inside him, and he remembered the joyful pulse of the Sap. He did not ask what had changed her mind with regard to him. He did not care what she might still have held back and not yet told him. She bent close, her breath sweet on his face, until their lips touched.
The rasp of the curtain-runners jolted them apart.
‘Time to go, shanti.’ The youthful nurse gave a sly smile. ‘Even Argosi hero need to sleep.’
27
Poor Wick. Poor misused, misjudged Wick, abandoned and alone, left on a forsaken stump of this forsaken and barbaric corner of the Tree—may it rot and fall to Hell, and take its licelike inhabitants with it! Poor lonely little Wick, deserted by his so-called friends and forced to wait here, on this derelict outpost, for the arrival of Admiral Greenly and the Argosian fleet. Or so the damned lice said before they flew off in that abomination of theirs and left him to die. Cursed Nurries. He gave them what they wanted, too: helped them negotiate a nice little treaty with the Admiral, saved their dirty white skins from total destruction. And now they abandon him on this stub of a branch in the middle of nowhere, where no one would ever find him…
‘Stop wallowing in self-pity, acolyte, and use your eyes. The Admiral’s ship is already on the horizon.’
A shudder passed through Wick. A voice had spoken, interrupting his thoughts in unpleasantly recognisable tones. He did not search the skyline for a dirigible but turned instead to peer behind him on the bare and flattened top of the lookout branch. Beside the charred pit of the signal fire, where there had been nothing but whistling wind moments before, a figure now stood. A shadowy outline seemed to patch itself up out of thin air, to piece itself together from odds and ends and fragments rather than possess any real existence of its own. The fragments solidified, taking on the form of the Envoy.
‘Why, aren’t you happy to see me, Wick?’ asked Lace.
‘Excellency—’ gulped the youth, sinking to his knees. ‘I thought—I thought—’
‘Make it a rule never to think, acolyte,’ said Lace coolly. ‘You’re no good at it.’
‘I’m sorry, Excellency,’ gabbled Wick. ‘I’ve had a terr
ible time since…since you left. The Nurries treated me shamefully—’
‘And yet here you are, ultimately unharmed and waiting for a ride home,’ noted the Envoy. He shaded his eyes and surveyed the dirigible on the western horizon. It was drawing rapidly nearer, green sails billowing. ‘Almost as if you had betrayed me and given our enemies something in exchange for your freedom.’
‘Betrayed?’ The colour drained from Wick’s face. ‘I would not…not ever…’
‘Wouldn’t you now?’ said Lace softly. He cocked his head to one side, considering his acolyte. ‘Would you not sign a truce, perhaps, in order to save your own precious skin?’ His eye strayed to Wick’s neck, shorn of its pendant.
‘They took it,’ breathed the miserable Wick. ‘They took the seal. They forced me to talk to the Admiral. They threatened…I had no choice.’
‘Ah, the dictates of circumstance,’ observed the Envoy dryly. ‘But I remain curious. How did you manage to convince the Admiral, of all people, to negotiate?’
Wick hesitated, squirming where he knelt on the branch. ‘Forgive me, Excellency,’ he said. ‘After reports of…of your death, sir…the stories the survivors brought back from the ship…’
The Envoy’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Mistaken reports, of course,’ Wick rushed on. ‘The Admiral thought it best to seek a compromise.’
He squinted worriedly up at Lace. His mentor seemed unconcerned at the admission, however, scrutinising the horizon.
‘No matter,’ he said. He shrugged, his scarf flapping in the breeze. ‘After all, it worked out quite well for us.’
‘You’re not angry about the peace, sir?’
‘No, acolyte. If I were angry you would know about it, be assured.’ The Envoy grinned cadaverously at him. ‘I’m quite pleased, actually. Annihilating the Freehold would have given the enemy a reason to stick together. Now, they’re divided for good. The Nurian militant won’t stand for a negotiated peace. He’ll form his own faction and split them to the core. Your dear schoolmate has seen to that.’ He leered as Wick’s face spoke his question. ‘Oh yes, we are grateful to Tymon. He continues to do us great service.’
‘I don’t understand, sir,’ muttered Wick, evidently displeased at the mention of Tymon. ‘I thought he was of no use to us any more.’
‘Quite the reverse,’ chuckled Lace. ‘The Sap moves through him unaided now. But he is young, and proud, and full of pith. A most potent combination for our purposes, and one that appears only once or twice in a generation.’
This comment seemed to infuriate Wick. He clenched his fists. ‘Is that what your Masters say?’ he blurted out. ‘That Tymon’s the one you’re looking for?’
There was a moment of absolute silence. The Envoy regarded Wick, the black of his eyes fathomless. He did not smile. His acolyte withered under that frozen gaze.
‘You will not speak of my Masters,’ said Lace, after a while. His voice was soft but the sheer malice in it might have cut the air. ‘You are not worthy to crawl in the dust beneath their feet, worm of the Tree.’
He continued to fix Wick, unblinking, until the unfortunate acolyte literally grovelled at his feet. At last he glanced away and flicked a speck of dust from his coat with a thumb and forefinger, as if to clean off the last shreds of shadow, the tendrils of unreality that gave away the game.
‘We have some busy months ahead of us,’ he said tersely. ‘Some trusted associates must be found to help us in our task. Gowron, perhaps, or young Ferny. We could do with fresh manpower.’ He turned to Wick, brisk. ‘Now, acolyte. I have come a long way, and am in need of replenishment.’
Wick’s shoulders tensed; he grew smaller, crouched on the surface of the branch, as if he wished to disappear into the bark.
‘Yes, Excellency,’ he mumbled, wretched.
‘You know, I don’t mind admitting that I sometimes despair of you,’ said Lace. He strolled behind Wick and laid his hands upon the boy’s shoulders, the square, axe-like thumbs meeting at the nape of the neck. ‘I have chosen you among all the others for my special favour, lavished every attention on you. But you waste your time on trifles. You would advance much more quickly if you let go of this jealousy of yours, this unprofitable envy with regards to your old school chum. It doesn’t help us and, frankly, distracts you. You pay the price. I am right, am I not?’
‘Yes, sir,’ gasped Wick.
Though the Envoy’s touch appeared to be light, his acolyte’s face had become grey and drawn. He trembled as if Lace had clapped his shoulders in a vice.
‘Well, well. Nothing’s free, I suppose,’ the Envoy sighed.
He contemplated the approaching greatship a moment longer before removing his hands from Wick’s shoulders. When he released him, the boy sagged, breathing heavily, his head bowed in fatigue.
‘Nothing is free,’ repeated Lace with satisfaction. A pink flush suffused his harsh, coarse features, and he signalled the ship with a jaunty wave of his arm.
EPILOGUE
Tymon did not accompany the advance party that journeyed back to Sheb for the peace talks. He remained at the camp south of the promontory with the other frail or wounded villagers, recuperating on the hospice ship until his bones had set and he was able to hobble about with a cane. Had he been in good health he still would have stayed, for he wished to keep an eye on Galliano. The old man was dangerously weak, suffering from a bout of fly-fever that had complicated his injuries, and Tymon would not quit his cramped quarters in the ship until his friend had made a full recovery.
As a result, he saw little of Samiha in the days following the attack. Although the long, drawn-out process of negotiation took place primarily on the Argosian Admiral’s dirigible, with only Laska and Gardan presiding, the Kion did not consent to remain idle. She travelled back with her colleagues to the devastated village to oversee the beginnings of the reconstruction work. For once, her absence did not trouble Tymon. The knowledge that she cared for him, wanted him, had been planted like a swift seed in his heart. It filled him with a sense of possibility. He was willing to wait for her to be ready to see him again.
True to his word, he kept Wick’s pendant safe and unused. It was no chore to leave the rod of orah lying untouched in his belt-pouch, for the very sight of the slickly glittering thing set his teeth on edge with unpleasant memories. He thought that he would be rid of it the day the treaty was signed. On that rainy winter’s afternoon, more than a month after the battle for the Freehold, the hospice ship set sail at last for Sheb. But Tymon did not make the journey with it. Before the old dirigible had even cleared the twig-thickets, Laska and Gardan swept in on the Lyla, setting down on the deck. The boy was to accompany them to a different destination.
The ratification of the peace treaty occurred on the Admiral’s greatship, at the Argosian fleet’s current position, twenty miles west of the promontory. Tymon was obliged to wait uncomfortably through the procedures that took place in the Admiral’s cabin, the only person seated during the ceremonial signing. He was ogled at by a gaggle of his countrymen and scrutinised contemptuously by the Admiral himself, a broad-chested, mustachioed patrician. Wick was nowhere in evidence. It was up to Tymon to present the seminary’s seal to the daunting Argosian commander, to be affixed on the treaty parchment. After the Admiral had pressed down the seal on the warm wax, he broke off the carved base in a brusque movement and handed the rod of orah back to the astonished boy.
‘Take it,’ murmured Gardan, as he hesitated, reluctant to accept the accursed trinket. ‘It’s in our agreement. They keep the seal—not the sorcerer’s pendant.’
‘It is my studied opinion that sorcerers do not exist,’ rumbled the Admiral. He looked Tymon coldly up and down. ‘Traitors, on the other hand, are ever-present.’
And that was the end of it—or rather the beginning, as Laska pointed out to him kindly, when they had re-embarked onto the air-chariot. He had lost one home and found another. It was almost a relief to have his expulsion from Argosian society s
pelled out so clearly. He turned his back on the Admiral’s fleet with a sense of finality and let the Lyla propel him noisily eastwards. They caught up with the old hospice dirigible near the promontory, and brought the air-chariot down on board. They were met there by Samiha, who embarked on the ship at the base of the promontory.
Together they watched from the deck, Tymon propped up next to the Kion on a folding stool, as the ship drew level with what remained of the western spur. The joy of his reunion with her after days of separation, even the triumph of the completed treaty was mingled with sorrow, for this was no glorious homecoming. It was Kosta and Solis’ funeral and a memorial gathering for all those who had given their lives defending the Freehold. Laska and Gardan stood at the rail by the young pair, their heads bowed. Fine droplets of water stung their faces and the violated mass of the promontory rose, black and burnt, before their eyes. The bodies of the fallen had been prepared in the Nurian way, spice-embalmed and wrapped in white. They were brought to the end of the spur on biers of woven bark, where the grieving families waited, huddled in the tugging breeze. The rest of the Freeholders had gathered a little further down the branch-path. The dirigible hovered almost directly opposite the two biers, above the charred and gouged remains of the spur.
For a while the only sound was the wind whistling over the promontory and the snap of the dirigible’s ropes. Then Samiha’s clear voice broke the stillness, ringing out beside Tymon. He shivered as he recognised the slow cadences of the Song of the Dead. He remembered the last occasion he had heard her sing it, after the riot in the Marak shrine, and recalled the verses he had learnt long ago in Argosian. The Song was the same in both languages, a keening, wailing chant, a series of questions and answers, inevitably sung by women.
‘Who lies between the worlds?’ the first voice would ask.
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