Second Kiss (11 page)

“Now open your mouth,” the Pathan roared. With all his will Xemion tried to weld his mouth shut, but Lethir pushed his thumbs into Xemion's jaw muscles and Glittervein tugged his chin down. Once this was done, Vihata began to pour whatever liquid was in the bottle into Xemion's mouth. He spat and choked but they held his nose closed and when his mouth was full Lethir pressed his jaw shut, preventing Xemion from breathing until he swallowed. A great gulp of something thick and fungal and bloody made its way down his throat and into his stomach. With a gagging groan he almost vomited it right back up, but Lethir clamped his mouth shut until he kept it down.

“I'm sorry,” said Glittervein, trying not to laugh. “It had to be done.”

Xemion spat at him and howled in rage. “You bastard!” In response, Glittervein opened his mouth in an oval shape and with three small pumps of his down-curled tongue, propelled smoke rings directly into Xemion's face.

“Now, listen to me,” the Pathan said. “You will soon feel the effects of what I've given you. It is not unpleasant. Some people take it for their own enjoyment. I have given you quite a lot of it, but should it become necessary I have more — and you, of course, have lots more blood.”

Even as he said this, a dark, tired feeling began to wash over Xemion. Everything was taking on a slow, red tinge. The Pathan pulled a book with a red cover from the pocket of his ragged robe. He opened it and held it before Xemion. “Look.”

Xemion's gaze shifted down to the dark, blood-red text that was printed on a slightly less red page that appeared to have been woven from some kind of crystalline fibre. A strange warm crimson sensation began to wind its way into his bones.

“It's an invocation,” Vihata said in a glass-splintering tone, perhaps meant to be reassuring.

“But—”

“Read.”

Xemion felt one more surge of extreme rage but with his next breath it melted away. He began by reciting as tonelessly as his trembling voice would allow.

“Resist me not,” he began. “With brittle thought. With bitter lot, scar or blot. Through tie and tangle, tear and knot. Resist me not.”

“Now read it with feeling,” the Pathan ordered.

“Resist me not. With magic mind. With twisted tongue, root or rind. Unvein me now, unskin my thought. Resist me not.”

“You are resisting it. Stop resisting it. Again!”

Xemion began again but the Pathan shouted him down. “Do not resist it, I warn you. Again!”

Xemion gritted his teeth. His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath and started over.

“Resist me not. With brittle thought—”

“Louder!” the Pathan shrieked.

“With bitter lot, scar or blot. Through tie and tangle, tear and knot. Resist me not.”

“Louder!” He poked a sharp, cold finger into Xemion's ribs and Xemion felt the blood welling again in his forehead. He was now yelling the words, still trying desperately to keep his voice expressionless. But the taste of blood was thick on his tongue and something was uncoiling deep in his cells.

“Resist me not.”

“Sing it,” the Pathan roared.

“Resist me not.”

“Chant it!”

Something like a knot slipped out of itself in Xemion's stomach and suddenly the voice in his belly was unleashed and that tone he had used when reading to the class, that spellbinding tone Anya had tried to stifle in him all the days of his life, sprang free for a moment, ringing out with the full glory of the Elphaerean tongue.

“Resist me not.”

“Go on!” the Pathan roared.

“With magic mind,” Xemion sang. “With twisted tongue, root or rind. Unvein me now, unskin my thought. Resist me not.”

That last loud
not
echoed in the dark space and then there was silence. The Pathan slammed the book shut resoundingly and nodded, smiling slightly. Glittervein grinned with pride and, after tapping his pipe upside down against the chair, put it away in his pocket.

“Glittervein, I love you,” Vihata enthused, his voice like tiny, grating crystals. “You have given me so many precious gifts. But this — this means I love you forever.”

“And he is full grown.” Glittervein emitted a small, tight laugh of delight. “I've been watching him a long time. I was sure of it but I knew you would want to see for yourself.”

“Let me go!” Xemion bellowed, straining at his bonds.

Glittervein turned toward Xemion, but his attempt at a smile did not quite reach his eyes. “I'm sorry, but I can't, Xemion. Unfortunately, you've failed the examination.”

Xemion began to swear. Every foul imprecation he'd ever heard the drink Thralls hurl at one another in their drunken stupors bellowed out of him so loud he thought his throat might burst. But it wasn't just words that welled. All sorts of impulses and fractured visions were hurtling through his brain in a mad scramble to be known.

“Such lungs.” The Pathan nodded with approval. “He's perfect.”

“And he's yours. This very night if you like. If … if you have the funds of course.”

“Of course I do,” Vihata replied jovially, his voice taking on a glassy lilt. He reached into his robe and extracted a fat bag of coins, which he plumped into Glittervein's waiting hand. “As agreed.”

So many words were competing at once to come screaming out of Xemion he began to stutter and shriek in jagged, disconnected syllables.

“You may have given him a little too much of your libation,” Glittervein said gleefully as he weighed the bag judiciously in his palm.

“There'll be lots more of it where I'm taking him.” Laughing, Vihata took the torch from the bracket on the wall and strode to the opposite end of the chamber. There he opened a bronze door and fog billowed in. Xemion could hear the sea crashing far below.

“Lethir,” Vihata shouted over the sound of Xemion's continued profanities, “Secure him.”

Lethir stepped behind the stone chair, wrapped his massive fists about Xemion's wrists, and, when Glittervein released the restraints, yanked Xemion to his feet with one quick jerk, pinning his arms behind his back.

Xemion saw the Pathan step through the doorway onto the landing of a stairway outside and wave the torch. It was still very foggy and he had to wave it for a while, the billowing fog eerily lit up as though from some conflagration below. Finally the sound of a whistle was heard and the Pathan came back in and beckoned with the brand. Just as Lethir pushed him toward the doorway, Xemion brought his heel down with all his might and weight right onto the arch of Lethir's foot. Lethir bellowed in pain and in that instant Xemion tore free of his grip and tried to bolt away. But the Cyclops was too quick for him and succeeded in grabbing back one wrist. Xemion yanked his arm with all of his might, but when he couldn't pull free he swung round full circle with his other hand bunched into a tight fist and rammed it into Lethir's nose full force. There was only a second while the Cyclops jerked his head back, blinking and stunned, but in that second Xemion tore his wrist free and bolted off into the darkness.

He couldn't see, but he remembered where the stairs were, and sensed from the way the shouts echoed back around him where to turn. Soon he was sprinting back through the banquet room and into the hallway he'd entered by. But there in the doorway at the end stood a guard.

“Stop him!” came the shouts from behind. The guard looked uncertain, and groped at his waist for his sword. Xemion attempted to shout “Out of my way!” but as he barrelled straight at the man, what came out of his mouth was some kind of hideous bestial shriek. It startled the guard just enough for Xemion to get around him and dash out into the foggy night.

Down

T
he
fog had thinned a little but there was still enough to shroud his flight as he tore down the length of Phaer Point. When he got to the High Street the fog was thinner yet and he began to zigzag and take corners randomly in an effort to throw off his pursuers. All the while he kept cursing and spitting and shaking his hands as though these actions might somehow rid him of the horror and taste of that potion he had swallowed. He wanted it out of his cells immediately. He wanted to get down on his knees and stick his fingers down his throat and vomit until he was emptier than he'd ever been. But he had to get away.

His plan was to get to the wall that bisected the city, follow it along to the place where he and Saheli had entered, then cross back over to the other side of Ulde where he could hide among its spell-crossed denizens until the morning. Just as he got to the section of the wall that curved around the Great Kone he heard a shout echo along the wall from somewhere in front of him. And from behind him, the patter and racket of numerous feet was coming closer. And now there was almost nothing left of the fog. Soon he would be exposed. Right out in the open. There was only one place to go.

The wall around the aboveground portion of the Great Kone, whose disrepair Xemion had seen previously from the east side of Ulde, was better-maintained here. There were no gaps in the brickwork where one might see through to the actual surface of the Kone. But there was what must once have been an official point of entry. Recently, the Pathans had tried to seal it with a bronze gate bolted shut on both sides, but something had caused this structure to buckle inward, leaving a jagged opening in the middle. Xemion stepped between the rusted edges of torn bronze and found himself looking up at the topmost rim of the Great Kone itself.

A cloud had drifted in front of the moon, but the ancient reed paper that bore the script of the Great Kone had been invested with its own luminosity, so that even at night, travellers might be able to read its text. When the Pathans first conquered the city they had tried to destroy the Kone. But these efforts proved futile, so they covered it with numerous rude scrawled messages and icons. Frightened as he was, Xemion felt anger as he beheld the desecration. He took a deep breath and let the green glow of the Kone wash through the terrible red luminescence inside him. How it soothed. How it soothed him.

For a time he crouched just inside the opening. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw the top of an ancient stone stairway that ran around the outside of the Great Kone, following the spiral of its text deep into the Earth. As the sound of his pursuers' footsteps got closer, Xemion crept over to the top step and crouched on it in the darkness. He heard voices. They were right outside! Very quietly he began to back down the stairs. As he saw a foot finding its way through the ragged hole above him, he turned and bolted down the staircase.

He ran a long time without descending very far. This was because the circumference of the Kone at this level was greater than that of a stadium. The stairs had only the slightest slant. And, he now realized, if he kept going he would be running right back to a place just under where he had entered. If his pursuers were smart they would just leap over the banister and wait there for him. Panting, the air burning in his lungs, he stopped and listened. He looked over the edge to the banister below.

He could descend much quicker if he climbed straight down. He could hear water dripping somewhere, each drop magnified by its echo. His lips started moving. He was mumbling words again and felt like vomiting. He cupped his hand over his mouth and rocked there back and forth, considering his options. Whichever way he ran, he was trapped. But his best chance was to keep heading downward. Perhaps they would give up on him.

Careful to keep enough distance from the surface of the Great Kone, he swung his legs over the railing and lowered himself until his feet touched the banister below. In this manner he began to climb rapidly, straight down the inside of the spiralling stairs, so close to the surface of the Great Kone he was almost touching it. The smell of burnt paper and mould increased the deeper he got. Every once in a while he would pause and listen in the hope that they had stopped pursuing him, but each time, sooner or later, a soft sound would come — it may have just been water dripping, but it could just as likely be the padding of furtive footsteps. And so he continued down, down. Beneath him it seemed as though the Great Kone was narrowing so quickly that he was sure he should soon reach the bottom. But perhaps the tales that claimed there was no actual bottom were true, because no matter how far he descended the bottom never seemed to come into view. How could he have descended so far and yet still have such depths to go? And when he reached the bottom, what then? Would he just be trapped down there until his pursuers caught him and dragged him back up?

He heard a mumbling voice and started with fear, but then he realized that it was he who was making the sound: incomprehensible words, but words he knew he had heard before. They were the very words Musea had bid him to remember before she died. Xemion clamped his mouth shut tight, but soon the words erupted again beyond his control. He tried to clear them from his mind but they overrode his thoughts. Desperate to stop them, he stared directly at the text of the Great Kone and read it. The words were no longer obscured at this depth and even in his terror he was aware of their beauty. Someone had exercised such artistry in the imagining of these runes. Xemion turned and saw the letter
X
. His eyes fastened on it, and then his foot slipped. He grabbed desperately at the banister below, but he missed and bounced off it with a scream, crashing through the paper of the Kone and into its interior. He screamed as he fell, the inverted letters rising in a smear straight up as he fell straight down. And all the while the Kone grew narrower and narrower, and the text smaller and smaller, and Xemion seemed to be shrinking smaller and smaller too.