The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (29 page)

As she tried to move up another step, her foot slipped on an
icy patch. She steadied herself, moved a little sideways and tried again. Again
she slipped.

The sorcerer rose from a crouch to his full height, and she
tensed. One leaping lunge and he would have her. She prepared to whip the
dimensionless box around and slam it into him.

They faced each other for a minute or two, perfectly still.
Her heart was thundering now; why didn’t he move? She wanted him to attack
first, for she was afraid to.

He crouched suddenly, as if to spring, but shot upright
again and feinted with his left hand, swinging it at her middle. Maelys went at
him with the dimensionless box, not realising until too late that his stroke
was a feint and he hadn’t leapt at all; his body was well out of reach.

As she began to overbalance, she swung desperately at him.
He reached out to grab her wrist; she twisted at the last second and the
flattened dimensionless box slapped against the side of his right hand.

Air shrieked into the box; Zofloc let out a harsh cry of
dismay, followed by words of sorcery, and batted at his right hand with the
left. A bright light flashed in the darkness and the dimensionless box went
flying. She felt it whine past her ear, something cool splattered against her
face, and she lost sight of it.

The sorcerer was gasping and shaking his right hand, which
was red-raw and dripping blood. All the skin was gone, down to his wrist, and
some of the flesh – it had been drawn into the box and disintegrated in
an instant. She found a firm footing and backed up carefully, feeling sick at
what the box had done. And where was it?

She glanced behind her, knowing that it had fallen not far
up. If she stepped on it, it would do the same to her and she had no sorcery to
protect herself. Maelys could not see the black circle anywhere, and dared not
swing the twinklestone that way to look for it in case Zofloc went for her.

‘Maelys?’ came Yggur’s voice, and her heart leapt, though
from the timbre of the echoes he was a long way up.

‘Down here,’ she shouted. ‘Zofloc’s here!’ Maelys turned
instinctively, hoping for a glimpse of Yggur, even a reflection from his eyes,
but nothing moved in the darkness.

She heard the sorcerer’s scrabbling leap, his gurgling gasp,
and before she could move he was flying at her, arms and legs spread. He landed
on top of her, eyes closed, and crushed her against the slope.

Laying a knee across her hips, he pressed her against the
broken permafrost. He forced her arms behind her back, pinned them there with
his other knee across her chest and, when the light was hidden behind her,
opened his eyes.

She humped her back; Zofloc’s arm flailed, his skinless hand
bumped against the side of the shaft and he bared his teeth in silent agony. He
was so strong and stoic: had it happened to her, Maelys would have screamed
until her throat bled.

‘What are you going to do to me?’ she said faintly, for with
his weight on her chest it was hard to draw breath.

‘A very particular kind of sorcery, Maelys Nifferlin, known
only to us Whelm and developed for one single purpose – to savagely
punish our master’s enemies.’

There was a ferocious, bloodthirsty gleam in his eyes. She’d
hurt him and he was going to do far worse to her.

‘Why?’ she squeaked. She had to keep him talking, though she
did not think he would allow Yggur to get close. What could Yggur do, anyway?
His powers were fading – he could not combat a sorcerer as strong and
determined as Zofloc. ‘Why do you hate us so?’

‘I don’t hate you; your kind are nothing to me. Had you not
thwarted my master, I would not have turned my head as you went by.’

Maelys could not hear any sound from above; Yggur was not
coming to help her. She had to save herself. Zofloc took his weight off her
chest and bent to lift her, and Maelys’s right hand, which still held the
twinklestone, slipped free.

While it was still concealed behind her back she separated the
twinklestone into two between her fingers and thumb, stuck one to the tip of
her middle finger and the other to her index finger, and loosely curled her
hand to hide the lights. She did not think her feeble plan could work, but it
was her only hope now.

He caught her shirt-front with his good hand, but as he
heaved her upright, Maelys whipped her right hand out and the lights shone
brilliantly. Had he closed his eyes she would have failed, and died, but
instead he turned his head to the left to escape the brightness and she thrust
her index and middle fingers at his eyes. The twinklestones stuck to his moist
eyeballs; he let out a roar; his grip relaxed and she scrabbled away.

He tried to tear the twinklestones off but they would not
come. His tear-flooded eyes had gone red, and when he pulled on the
twinklestones his eyeballs came halfway out of their sockets, which was one of
the more unpleasant sights Maelys had seen lately. She felt sick at what she
had done, for nothing but a knife could remove the shining stones now.

Zofloc began to flail about, making a dreadful squealing as
he tried to rid himself of the burning rays, but could not close his eyes. He
slipped, snatched frantically at the permafrost with his skinless hand, failed
to get a grip and fell all the way down. Maelys heard a hollow crack that she
did not want to consider too carefully, then lay back on the slope, gasping.

‘Maelys?’ said Yggur distantly.

‘Here,’ she whispered.

‘Where are you?’

‘Further down,’ she called. ‘Be careful – the
dimensionless box is up there, somewhere.’

A faint yellow gleam appeared above, and directly she saw
him, his long features made grotesque by the uplight limning his fingers
– not a twinklestone but another kind of sorcerous glow altogether.

‘I thought you couldn’t use the Art?’ said Maelys.

‘When the need was great enough, I found a wisp of it.’

‘More than a wisp, to move all that broken rock and get in.’

‘That wasn’t mancery,’ Yggur said, ‘that was honest muscle.’

A few spans above her Yggur bent, picked up the crumpled
dimensionless box, squeezed it in his fist and thrust it into a pocket. Going
to his haunches beside her, he inspected her scratched knees and palms, her
blood-spattered face. ‘Are you …?’

‘I’m all right,’ said Maelys, clinging to him. His big hands
were also scratched and torn. ‘I fell a few times. Zofloc didn’t harm me … but
he was going to.’

‘Where is he now? Did he run when he heard my voice?’

‘You’ve got a high opinion of yourself,’ she muttered,
looking up at his stern and craggy face.

‘I dare say I have,’ said Yggur, smiling. ‘You get like that
when you’ve lived as long as I have, and had your way for most of it. Well?’

‘I think he’s dead. I twinklestoned his eyeballs.’

‘Did you now?’ he exclaimed admiringly. ‘Well done –
there could be no better way to disable a Whelm, had you known it.’

‘He fell all the way down and – it sounded like the
impact made rather a mess. I’m sorry about that.’

‘Why are you sorry?’ said Yggur. ‘He was going to kill you;
you’re entitled to defend yourself, in whatever way you can.’

‘I’m sorry because I’m not going back down. If you want the
white fire, you’ll have to go past Zofloc’s body to get it.’

‘You found some?’ he said eagerly.

‘Yes, on a central foundation pillar of ice. It would have
been under the inner tower. You go down –’

‘I’ll find it.’

‘And bring my boots when you come,’ she called after him,
hugging her aching feet. ‘I’m freezing.’

 
TWENTY-ONE

Chissmoul flew them south-east to Taranta, a ramshackle
old city occupying the narrow isthmus that had once joined the northern tip of
the continent of Lauralin to the great island of Faranda. To the north stood
the tropical ocean surrounding the peninsula of Gendrigore, while on the south,
Taranta’s peasant quarter had once looked over the mighty cliffs onto the
unrelenting aridity of the Dry Sea.

However the Dry Sea had been flooded at the end of the
lyrinx war and its level, still rising slowly, now lay less than fifty spans
below the top of the cliffs, which had begun to crumble, carrying parts of the
peasant quarter with them. The people rebuilt their hovels a few paces away and
went on with their lives as though crumbling cliffs were an everyday matter.

That afternoon, not long before sunset, as the air-sled
completed the relatively short flight from Blisterbone Pass, and Chissmoul was
circling high above the city, Flydd stood up to address them.

‘We’ll have to be careful now. Taranta is a conservative
place and the God-Emperor’s biggest garrison in the north is based here –
fifteen thousand men, though many of them would have been in the army you’ve
just wiped out. The dead will have many friends in Taranta, and it’s one of the
most loyal outposts of the empire, so they won’t be thrilled to hear our news.
But we can’t afford any delay – Klarm could turn up anywhere, at any
time, and we’ve got to get our story out first. The first version of a story is
the one that most people will believe. How are we going to play it, Nish?’

He had been thinking about that question for the whole trip,
but Nish hadn’t come up with a decent plan and did not think he was likely to;
their opposition was too overwhelming.

‘Call a secret meeting with the city elders, the Imperial
seneschal, the governor and the commander of the garrison,’ he said. ‘Tell them
the bad news and beat a hasty retreat towards Roros.’

Flydd frowned, looked back at the militia, as if for
inspiration, and shook his head. ‘That won’t do at all.’

‘Why not?’

‘If we run, we’ll look scared and they’ll think we’ve got
something to hide. We must appear strong, measured and in control. Besides, the
Deliverer is the heir to the Imperial throne; he can’t slink away, no matter
how much he might want to.’

Flydd favoured Nish with a sour stare. ‘And if we were to
run, they could accuse us of any villainy imaginable. They could make us out to
be worse monsters than your father – and they will.’

‘Surr?’ said Flangers tentatively, as if he had no right to
express an opinion in such weighty matters.

‘Yes?’ said Flydd, pacing in a circle around the serpent
staff, which was embedded in its socket at the prow.

His outstretched fingers trailed across it as he walked; he
had hardly let go of it since they’d left the pass. What did his mancery see in
it, Nish wondered, and how did he plan to use it?

‘They don’t know we’ve got the air-sled,’ said Flangers.
‘And no one knows that Stilkeen has snatched the God-Emperor, so everyone will
assume that he’s flying this craft. If you hover high above the square, where
you can’t be identified, and give your orders, the city’s leaders will obey
without question.’

‘Very good,’ said Flydd. ‘I knew there was a reason why we
rescued you from the Numinator.’

Chissmoul, whose hands were embedded between the wires of
the controller, scowled and jumped up, glaring at Flydd. The air-sled lurched
and dropped sharply; she corrected automatically and it resumed its steady
circling.

Flangers chuckled and touched her on the shoulder. ‘Take no
notice,’ he said
sotto voce
. ‘The old
fellow doesn’t mean to be insulting; it’s just his way, as surely you remember
of old.’

‘After all you’ve done!’ Chissmoul gritted, slamming down
into her pilot’s chair.

‘Go on, Flangers,’ said Flydd, unfazed.

‘What if you were to order a general assembly in the main
square – not just the city elders, but also the landowners, lawyers,
merchants and traders, and everyone else of note, and the common people as
well. Wait – what if you held it in that great square over there in the
peasant quarter?’ Flangers indicated the ramshackle suburb by the cliffs.

‘That would get the city elders and the governor offside.’

‘They’ll be offside anyway, since they’re hand-picked by the
God-Emperor, but with thousands of people in the square they’ll never suppress
your story. People will start spreading it tonight, by skeet, to the four
quarters of the world.’

Flydd stared at him in astonishment. ‘You show an amazing
grasp of political manoeuvrings for a humble sergeant, Flangers … even one
recently raised to lieutenant for heroism above the call of duty,’ he added
hastily as Chissmoul directed another blistering glare at him.

‘I didn’t make him lieutenant because of his courage under
fire,’ said Nish, wishing he’d thought of Flangers’s idea. ‘I did it because of
his mastery of battle tactics and his brilliant leadership.’

‘Whatever you say,’ said Flydd, eyeing Flangers curiously.
‘How come this talent didn’t manifest itself during the war? You might have
made general by the end of it.’

‘I never wanted to be a general,’ Flangers said quietly.
‘Sergeant was always good enough for me. But since you ask, for the seven years
we were held prisoner in the Numinator’s tower, Yggur and I spent our free time
talking about the nature of power and the art of command. You can learn a lot
in seven years, if you’ve a mind to, and I want to make Santhenar a better
place.’

‘Very good,’ said Flydd, losing interest. ‘Nish, what do you
think of the lieutenant’s plan?’

‘I wish I’d thought of it.’

‘Chissmoul,’ said Flydd, ‘head to the
main
city square and hover, fifty spans up so they can’t see me, while
I make the announcement.’

She turned towards a large paved square, actually pentagonal
in outline, in the wealthy part of the city. An ornate marble building of
several storeys, fronted with columns, extended along a third of its northern
edge. A series of domes soared from the centre of the structure, framed with
pairs of tall, slender towers on each corner.