The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (7 page)

‘There’s one more problem,’ said Flydd, ‘though I don’t see
what we can do about it.’

‘What’s that?’ she said gloomily.

‘I don’t know how much power your shard can absorb from the
flame. It may not be much at all.’

‘How will I know when it’s got all it can take?’

‘It’ll burst.’

‘So how do I know when to stop?’ she cried.

‘I haven’t regained that memory.’

‘Wonderful!’ Maelys said sourly. ‘Are there any other ways
this can go disastrously wrong?’

‘I’ll give you a list when I think of them. If you fail,
just come up. Have you got a knife? You’ll need one if you get tangled up in a
web, or …’

‘Yes.’ The huge blade Zham had given her up in the mires was
still strapped to her lower leg, under her trousers. She unsheathed it.

‘Go now.’

She took a deep breath, then went to her hands and knees and
lowered her head into the hole, conscious that her bottom was facing them.

‘Make sure the rope is tight, Colm. If I’m going down
head-first, I’d hate it to slip over my hips.’

‘As if that’s going to happen,’ Nish smirked.

She wanted to smack him. Colm pulled the harness so tightly
around her small waist that it hurt. Maelys closed her taphloid and the chimney
was plunged into darkness. She went down head first, arms outstretched below
her, and as her feet scraped over the edge she felt him take up the slack. Colm
might hold her in deepest contempt, but she was safe while he was holding the
rope.

About half a span down she encountered a thick web clotted
with droppings, though fortunately it was so old and dusty that it was no
longer sticky. Zham’s knife cut through the strands like a razor. She stretched
out her free hand, and froze, for her fingertips were touching something round,
cool and slippery.

It was a giant swamp creeper – the most disgusting
thing she could possibly have encountered in the darkness – and she had
to feel her way around it. She dared not open the taphloid for light in case
the precious crystal fell out.

The chimney was wider here, not narrower. Even Colm could
have come down it, she thought resentfully, and swamp creepers didn’t bother
him at all. On their first day on the plateau he’d killed one and carried it
back to the camp over his shoulder.

Maelys tried to stop but her slippery fingers couldn’t get a
grip on the wall, and Colm kept lowering her on the rope. She dropped sharply;
her right cheek glided across the swamp creeper’s skin, coating her in sickly
smelling, slimy gunk.

She tried to push herself back up but the swamp creeper
moved under her weight and she fell headfirst into the gap between it and
another. The chimney was blocked with a great mass of them, one upon the next.
She kept sliding down between the loathsome, squirming creatures.

Her forehead was coated in slime; it clogged her eyes, and
with every breath sticky bubbles formed at her nostrils; her mouth was blocked
with a clot of ooze the size of a lyrinx’s bogey. She spat it out explosively,
shuddering with disgust, then twisted sideways and managed to get another
breath, but her weight kept pushing her down and there was nothing she could do
but go with it.

She slipped further; now all but her legs were surrounded by
giant swamp creatures, all stirring and creeping over each other on their mucus
tracks, making disgusting slurpings and squelchings which, this close, were
deafeningly loud.

Maelys squirmed, trying to clear a space so she could get a
decent breath, for she could feel herself starting to panic. She slipped all
the way down into another great cluster of swamp creepers, enclosing her from
head to knee. Her shirt had slipped up and a small creeper oozed its way across
her bare belly. Another crawled over her mouth and nose. She desperately,
frantically tried to batter it out of the way but her blows just skidded off.

Panic burst over her; she couldn’t control it. Maelys
thrashed wildly, shaking her head from side to side until she was dizzy, and a
little space opened up in front of her nose. She spat out another mouthful of
ooze, which reminded her unpleasantly of the barbed slurchie Colm had removed
from her belly in the rainforest. Maelys sucked in a breath of smelly air and
screamed her lungs out.

Colm couldn’t have heard, for he kept lowering her. She
continued to flail and scream until her throat hurt and she was so exhausted
that she couldn’t move her arms or legs. She slumped in the middle of the
cluster, ever so slowly sliding down between the swamp creepers, too exhausted
to do any more. The panic was gone. She no longer had the energy for it. She
had given up.

Until that reminded her of Tulitine, the old seer who had
helped raise the Defiance in Nish’s name, months ago. Though Tulitine must have
been nearly eighty, she had a lover not a third her age and a zest for life
unmatched in anyone Maelys had ever met. Tulitine had helped and protected her,
though she’d been disappointed in Maelys when she’d fled the Defiance camp
after Phrune had identified her.

Maelys’s courage had failed her then, but she was stronger
now. She could not, would not give up. She was going to fight Jal-Nish until
there was no breath left in her body – but fight cleverly.

If there was anyone in the cavern below, she must have given
herself away. Or maybe not. She’d slid through a couple of spans of swamp
creepers, which completely blocked the chimney here. If they formed as thick a
cluster below her, her screams might not have penetrated it.

Surely there couldn’t be far to go? Maelys wiped her eyes on
the back of her hand, but it didn’t help; every part of her was thickly
enslimed. The swamp creepers didn’t feel quite so bad now; their skin was no
more slippery than hers. And they were harmless, she reminded herself; entirely
vegetarian. She slid another arm’s length, then stopped, for they were so
tightly packed here that her weight wouldn’t carry her any further.

Maelys realised that she was breathing heavily, the panic
rising again at the idea of being trapped in this slimy darkness. What if she
cut her way through? The thought was revolting; besides, she would have to work
head-down in a puddle of swamp-creeper blood and body fluids, and might drown
before she got through.

She couldn’t do it, and sheathed the knife, but could she
force a path through them? Maelys twisted left, then right, but a space didn’t
open up. Harmless the creepers might be, yet she might easily suffocate before
Colm realised that something was wrong.

She pushed harder but couldn’t exert enough force to move
them. Got to have something to push against, she thought. She wriggled and
jerked but couldn’t get the tiniest breath. The panic was swelling, almost
overwhelming her. Her lungs were heaving; she only had air enough for another
few moments.

She couldn’t stand this; she had to get out. Maelys tried to
punch the closest swamp creeper out of the way, but her fist sank into it as if
it were a fat man’s belly, forcing a gust of cool air out of an opening below
its head,
prrrp
. It had a humid smell
of chewed-up vegetation somewhat like a cow’s belch, but it was breathable,
life-sustaining air.

Wriggling her legs and sliding her weary arms this way and
that, she managed to slip one foot to the side of the chimney, then another.
The stone, though slick, was rough enough for her to get a grip. She pushed
against it, forced with her arms until she broke the suction between the swamp
creepers, and a cluster fell away. She shot through the obstruction like a cork
popped from a bottle, into an open space, and dropped a good span before the
rope caught her. Maelys hung there, slowly revolving, gasping at the cold,
spicy air.

She went lower as Colm continued to pay out the rope, and
her down-stretched palms skidded across another clot of swamp creepers. They
didn’t feel any better than the ones above, but the sooner she began, the
sooner it would be over. Maelys formed an arrowhead with her hands, wedged the
swamp creepers apart, and began to wriggle through like a human tadpole.

This passage was just as unpleasant as the previous one, but
she continued, keeping her head bent towards her armpit so as to protect her
nose with her angled arm. It worked, mostly; after several more panting minutes
her hands popped free and in place of the sickly swamp creeper odour she caught
a faint, gassy warmth that she remembered from her previous visit. She was out
of the chimney and suspended above the huge, coffin-shaped slab up through
which the cursed flame issued.

Maelys scraped muck out of her eyes and wiped it off on her
saturated shirt. Clots of muck splattered on the stone far below. After
blinking furiously, she managed to ungum her eyelids and made out the flicker
of the cursed flame at least eight spans down. It was no longer blue; the flame
looked purple-black now. She couldn’t see anyone in the cavern, though most of
its expanse lay in shadow. Besides, if Jal-Nish’s scriers had found a way in,
they might have set up a wisp-watcher anywhere.

She couldn’t afford to worry about that. If she were
discovered, she would give the signal and pray that Colm could heave her up in
time. Maelys closed her mind to everything except what she had to do.

In a couple of minutes she was settling on the slab, which
was partly covered in the splattered remains of a fallen swamp creeper. Near
the flame hole the stone was stained with blood: hers, Phrune’s and Vivimord’s.
She shivered at the memories. How long ago had Phrune attacked her? Six hours?
Eight? Ten? She felt quite desperately tired. There was no time to waste. If
any soldiers came in, she would be clearly visible.

Don’t think about what happened earlier. Just recharge the
crystal and get going. She gave the rope three sharp tugs. Maelys popped out
the shard, which was glowing fiercely now, passed it through the loop of wire
and pulled it tight. What if the force of the flame could travel up the wire?
She pulled her sleeve down so no part of her skin would be in contact with it,
then gingerly reached out to the flame.

Nothing happened, save that the dancing colours in the shard
brightened. It’s all right, she thought, her arm shaking. I can do this. And
last time it hadn’t taken long to charge the whole crystal. She’d held her
shard in the flame for the count of thirty. It must be nearly that long now
– long enough. She daren’t take the risk –

Bang!

The shard burst into a thousand flying fragments; one stung
the back of her hand. She picked it out and sucked at the tiny drop of blood
welling there. Their last source of power was lost. All was lost. Why, why
hadn’t she been more careful?

 
SIX

Maelys was about to give Colm the signal to haul her up
when she noticed a coating of little crystals, like spilled sugar, around the
star-shaped hole through which the cursed flame issued.

Crystals were everywhere, of course – rocks were full
of them – but even in the days before the nodes were destroyed, crystals
capable of storing power for use in the Secret Art had been rare and precious.
They were far rarer now, and finding one was as difficult as searching through
the myriad grains of sand on a beach for one lost jewel.

And yet … the cursed flame had charged Flydd’s fifth crystal
quickly, so even an ordinary crystal might absorb some power after being bathed
in the cursed flame for hundreds, even thousands of years.

She studied the sugary crust of yellow sulphur surrounding
the star hole, but these crystals had no glow. Besides, they could not be
bathed by the flame or the sulphur would have burned – every apprentice
healer knew that. To find crystals bathed by the flame she would need to search
beneath the slab.

Dare she? Flydd had said to come straight up if she failed,
but she had to make up for bursting the shard. She had let him down and her
failure would only confirm the contempt Colm felt for her. Unfastening the
harness from her waist, she slid over the edge of the slab, avoiding the
congealed puddle of Phrune’s blood, and crawled into the space beneath the
slab. Here the floor was scattered with flakes of Vivimord’s skin, for Phrune
had dragged his master underneath so Maelys’s blood, purified by the cursed
flame, could heal him.

She brushed the skin aside with her sleeve and crawled up to
the flame, which hissed from a crystal-encrusted crack in the floor. These
crystals were different, being long, thin, and blue-green, but all intergrown.
She prised carefully with the point of Zham’s knife but the brittle crystals
broke every time.

Rolling onto her back, she studied the underside of the
slab. There were more such crystals inside the star hole, but she couldn’t
reach them without putting her hand into the cursed flame. However the
underside of the slab, around the hole, was covered in squat pink crystals
condensed from the flame; she could see their facets twinkling.

Squelch!

What was that? Maelys eased her head out from under the
slab, thinking that she’d been seen. Why, why had she untied the harness? She
was about to spring up for it when her eye caught a faint movement from the
chimney above – flame reflecting off the mucosal sheen of a moving swamp
creeper.

Feeling like a fool, she resumed her search. Most of the
pink crystals were the size of grains of rice but there were occasional larger
ones, as big as kernels of corn, a few of which had faint colours swirling
within them.

It didn’t mean that they contained usable power, but Maelys
couldn’t go back up the rope empty-handed. She scanned the underside, not for
the biggest crystal, but the one with the brightest colours.

It was only as long as her little fingernail, though the
colours were intense. She touched the tip of Zham’s knife to the rock above the
crystal and it fell into her hand. The moment she put it in the taphloid, it
came to life, suppressing her aura the way the taphloid had been designed to.
So the crystal did contain some power.