The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (58 page)

She handed him the fieldscope. He looked through it,
adjusted the focus, and stared. The palace was ablaze – every floor,
column, stair and spire flickered with yellow and orange fire – yet there
was no smoke, nor any evident damage. Morrelune was burning, but not being
burnt.

‘It’s as if the very stone has been replaced by fire,’ he
said breathlessly. He moved the fieldscope back and forth but the air around
Morrelune had a mirage-like shimmer and he could not make out any finer
details, nor any trace of the great enemy. ‘Why would it do that?’

‘You said Stilkeen was in great pain when you first met it,’
said Persia.

‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

‘If it’s in such pain in our world, it makes sense that it
would rebuild Morrelune so as to minimise its suffering. And being a creature
of fire and shadow, it has remade Morrelune in that guise. Let’s see …’

Persia took a number of crystalline plates from a bag,
pushed one into a slot in front of the eyepiece and looked through the
fieldscope. Shaking her head, she replaced the first plate with another, and
another, then swallowed and lowered the fieldscope, staring blankly.

‘You’d better take a look.’ She passed it to him.

Nish looked; his heart skipped several beats and began to
thump erratically. The fire palace was clearer now, but that wasn’t what had
bothered her. Between Morrelune and the distant mountains, a translucent barrier
could now be seen rising up from the land to the sky like a monstrous wall, and
blurred shadows were moving behind it.

‘Is that what I think it is?’

‘I think so,’ said Persia. ‘The barrier that protects
Santhenar from the void, made visible.’

‘Stilkeen threatened us with the void. It told us to bring
the fire to Morrelune within fifteen days, or after that time, it would empty
the void into the Three Worlds and all human life will be erased.’

‘Was that a threat?’ said Persia quietly, ‘or was it a
promise? I think … Stilkeen has been hurt badly … and its sacred person has
been insulted and profaned …’

Nish followed her train of thought to its unpleasant
conclusion. ‘And if it doesn’t just blame Yalkara, if Stilkeen thinks all of us
are complicit –’

‘It may decide to punish us by opening the void into
Santhenar, even if it gets the pure fire.’

It would be the end of the world – at least, for
humanity. His stomach burned as if it was brimming with acid, for this was a
problem he could not solve with arms; it was beyond any of them. It had to be
the end.

‘What can I do,’ he said, ‘with five armies waiting for me
to appear, plus Stilkeen,
and
the
most savage creatures in the void waiting to be released? And all I have to
oppose them is a company of worn-out soldiers.’

Persia did not reply, though the look on her face told him
that she had no more hope than he did. They trudged back to the wooded fold
where the rest of his force was hidden but, as they reached it, there came a
crash from the other side of the ridge above them, then the sound of rubble
sliding down a slope, and silence.

‘What was that?’ said Clech, rising to his feet, gigantic
sword in hand. He was out of his element in the chilly, barren south, and did
not like it.

‘Has Stilkeen opened the void already?’ whispered Persia.

‘It can’t have,’ Nish said unconvincingly. ‘It’s too soon;
it hasn’t got what it wants.’

‘We can’t predict what a
being
will do,’ said Persia.

 
THIRTY-NINE

The journey from Aachan back to Santhenar seemed to
take forever, and all the while the caduceus shook beneath their hands as if
buffeted by a gale, though not a hair on Maelys’s head was disturbed. She could
see nothing, yet she had an uncomfortable feeling that something was watching
her – the back of her neck burned as if a searing gaze had focussed on
it. Yggur began to pant, and once Tulitine cried out in pain. Malien was silent
save for several stifled sighs, presumably for the world she would never see
again.

What if we’re too late? Maelys kept thinking. Time passes
differently in the Three Worlds, as in the Nightland; days could have gone by
while we were on Aachan. If the deadline had already passed, Stilkeen might
have emptied the void into Santhenar already.

Yggur groaned and the caduceus tilted right over. Malien
said sharply, ‘You can’t give up now. If we stop in between, we could end up
anywhere. Or nowhere.’

‘Can’t hold it,’ he slurred. ‘It’s sucking me dry.’

‘Tulitine?’ Malien said urgently.

The caduceus shook wildly, as if trying to throw them off. ‘I
can barely hang on,’ said Tulitine.

‘What’s the matter with it?’ cried Maelys.

‘Stilkeen must know that we’ve found the pure fire,’ said
Malien, ‘since the caduceus led us to it. And here, within the portal, we’re
close to its ethereal realm. If Stilkeen can maroon us here, it might be able
to take the fire from us, instead of suffering on Santhenar while it waits for
us to bring the fire to it – and perhaps it’s afraid we won’t. Fight it,
Yggur. If Stilkeen was strong here, it would have snatched the fire at once.’

‘Nothing left …’ whispered Yggur.

‘Maelys, hang onto him.’

Maelys pulled herself up the furiously vibrating caduceus
until she caught Yggur’s hands.

‘Don’t let go,’ he slurred. ‘Might fall out of portal.’

‘What if I do?’

‘You’ll go nowhere – forever.’

She took a tighter grip and the taphloid swung against
Yggur’s wrist.

‘What’s that?’ he said sharply.

‘My taphloid.’

‘Give it to me. Quick!’

She handed it over reluctantly, wondering what the
connection was between Yggur and the taphloid, and why he had recognised it
back on the Range of Ruin, yet had no memory of ever seeing it.

Yggur let out a great sigh, Maelys felt him relax and the
caduceus stopped shaking. The feeling of eyes on the back of her neck
disappeared, as did all sensation of movement. Did it hide Yggur, the way it
did herself? It must. Unfortunately, they seemed no closer to Morrelune than
before.

Light grew in the distance, spreading around a horizon, and
Maelys saw that they were suspended just above a flat surface faintly marked
with a grid of squares. Not completely flat – it was dimpled below the
caduceus and again below the taphloid, now held in Yggur’s outstretched right
hand.

A distorting wave passed through him as if he were a figure
made of jelly, then he was his normal self again. ‘
Maintain the watch against Stilkeen, Yggur
,’ he said in the voice
an adult might use to a young child.

‘What did you say?’ hissed Malien.

He blinked twice and shook his head as if to clear it. ‘The
words just came to me, as they did before we left the Range of Ruin. Didn’t I
tell you about that?’

‘You said a voice told you to keep watch; you didn’t say
“against Stilkeen”. And that wasn’t
your
voice. It sounded like a father speaking to his son – but what father
would have known about Stilkeen in the distant age when you were a boy?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Yggur hoarsely, as if afraid of the
answer. ‘According to Lilis, not even Nadiril the Librarian could find any
early reference to Stilkeen. Who could have known it but Yalkara …?’

‘Or another Charon, close to her,’ said Malien.

He started. ‘But only two Charon men ever came to Santhenar,
and of them, Rulke was ever my enemy. What are you saying? Do you mean …? Could
Kandor
be my father?’

‘That’s it!’ cried Malien. ‘Kandor and Yalkara were close in
ancient times, and if anyone would have known about the stolen fire it would
have been him. He might have warned her about it, but Yalkara was ever proud
and headstrong.

‘What if they fell out over chthonic fire?’ she mused.
‘Kandor would have known that a
being’s
patience is infinite, and that eventually it must discover who had stolen the
fire. He could not force Yalkara to give it back, for she was far more powerful
than he was. Neither could he hope to stop Stilkeen when it came, but Kandor had
recently had a son by an
old human
woman, and he must have known that the boy possessed a brilliant gift for
mancery. With the proper lessons his son – you, Yggur – might be
able to protect the world from Stilkeen.’

‘So that’s why the taphloid felt so much smaller,’ sighed
Yggur. ‘When I first held it, I was a small boy.’

‘I see it now,’ said Malien. ‘Kandor made the taphloid and
hid your lessons in it in case something happened to him. It was designed to
protect and instruct you, and only you, once you were old enough.

‘But soon afterwards he was killed in the Clysm, and it was
such a bitter war that your mother must have been afraid to tell anyone, even
you, who your father was. Left destitute, and not knowing the taphloid’s
importance, she sold it to survive, and eventually it ended up at the Great
Library.’

‘It also explains why my Arts are so enigmatic,’ said Yggur,
sounding stronger now. ‘Because the Charon came from outside the Three Worlds.’
His face cleared suddenly and he said, ‘Now I know that my duty was to maintain
the watch against Stilkeen, I’m going to fulfil my destiny.’

‘You don’t have to,’ said Malien. ‘The past cannot command
the future.’

‘I want to do it. It’s the only way I can bond with the
father I never knew.’ He passed the taphloid back to Maelys. ‘Do you still have
our destination in mind, Maelys?’

She focussed on the memories. ‘Yes.’

‘Then hang on tight – we’re going all the way this
time.’

The caduceus began to shudder but Yggur forced it to
stillness and the gridded plane faded away. Wind whistled about Maelys’s ears,
Tulitine let out a soft cry, then they emerged from darkness into a chilly
morning, landing heavily on a flat rock perched on a steep slope. As the rock
began to move, they leapt off and it slid down the hill, a little landslide
following in its wake, to crash into a patch of scrub further down.

‘Where are we?’ said Malien, rubbing a bleeding knee.

Maelys looked up at the mountains in the distance, and they
were
her
mountains; she knew every
one of those peaks. ‘Not far above Morrelune.’

‘And we’ve just told anyone within a quarter of a league
where to find us,’ said Tulitine.

‘But are we in time?’ said Malien.

It reminded Maelys about her visions in the Pit of
Possibilities, months ago. She had appeared in none of the possible futures she
and Nish had seen there. Was she destined to die soon;
today
?

‘Where’s Morrelune?’ said Yggur.

Maelys pointed away from the mountains. ‘We’ll see it from
the top of that ridge.’

And Mazurhize, where Jal-Nish had held her mother, Lyma, her
aunts Haga and Bugi, and her little sister, Fyllis. Could they still be alive
after all these months? Maelys had last seen them in the image Jal-Nish had
shown her at the top of Mistmurk Mountain, a long time ago now, and they had
looked starved, listless and beaten. She could not bear to think of what they
had gone through.

‘Someone’s coming,’ said Yggur urgently. ‘We’d better hide.’

She had tried to hide on these barren slopes with Nish, last
autumn. The only cover nearby was a scatter of spindly bushes and an occasional
depression or boulder. Further up stood a patch of woodland, and there was
scrub in the gully, though neither would conceal them from a determined search.

As they were heading for the woodland, a huge soldier limped
over the rise directly ahead, followed by a dark, beautiful woman and, partly
concealed behind her, a smaller man.

The big soldier looked vaguely familiar, though Maelys had
never seen the woman before. She was turning to run when the smaller man moved
out from behind the woman and her heart leapt. Could that shaggy, haggard
wretch be Nish,
alive
?

‘Nish!’ she cried, and pelted up the slope. ‘Nish, we saw
the flood; we were sure you were dead.’

The trio froze, staring, then Nish came on a step. ‘Maelys?’

She crossed the distance in seconds, past the grinning giant
and the beautiful woman, and threw herself into his arms so hard that she
almost knocked him off his feet.

He clung to her, smiling in bemusement. ‘And we were afraid
you
had drowned. Is that Yggur and Tulitine?’

‘Yes,’ said Maelys, hopping up and down, still holding him,
before realising that Nish might not share her feelings – the feelings
she had not realised she’d had for him – and that the woman with him
might be more than a friend. She disengaged herself and stepped back at once,
confused and embarrassed.

He was staring at her as if she were a long-lost treasure.
‘You can’t know how much I’ve cursed myself for running on ahead that day. How
did you escape the flood?’

‘I was high up, with Yggur and Tulitine. When we went back
to look for you, everyone was gone. I was so afraid. Where’s Xervish? He’s not
…?’

Nish was looking over her shoulder. ‘Malien?’ He ran to her
and Yggur, leaving Maelys even more confused.

They crossed to the other side of the ridge, where
Nish’s small force lay hidden in a patch of scrub that extended the length of
the gully. Persia had quietly left the old friends together, and Nish led
Maelys, Yggur, Tulitine and Malien back to the camp, where they breakfasted on
field rations and Malien’s strange but delicious Aachim food, before settling
down to briefly tell their tales.

Maelys’s eyes never left Nish’s face while he told the story
of the battles at the Range of Ruin, and all that had happened since. Surely
she can’t be that pleased to see me, he thought, after the way I treated her.
But it was so good to have her back, unharmed, and as strong, brave and
beautiful as ever. Maelys had always bolstered his faltering heart and he felt
all the stronger for her being here. There might be a faint hope after all.