The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (9 page)

The air-sled went shrieking towards the lower clearing but
she knew Klarm would not reach it in time, and if Nish was still on the forest
path he could not survive. The flood would tear the forest along the river to
pieces then batter its way through the gorge, filling it from top to bottom.

 
SIX

Maelys plodded up to Yggur and Tulitine, who were staring
at the churning floodwaters. Every step took an effort now. What was the point
of going on? She didn’t see how Nish could have survived, and soon Klarm would
come back for her.

‘Nish, Nish …’ she gasped.

‘Where is he?’ said Tulitine.

‘Klarm had him,’ Maelys said. She reached them and stopped,
rubbing a lump on the back of her head where the air-sled had struck it. ‘I
managed to free him, and he was running down through the forest …’

‘How long ago?’

‘About ten minutes, and I’m really afraid. The flood
–’

‘I’m sure he’ll be all right,’ said Tulitine. ‘Nish would
have heard it coming.’

‘But it was so quick …’ Maelys tried not to imagine what it
would do to a human body; Nish’s body.

‘We saw Klarm fly over,’ said Yggur thickly, swaying.

Tulitine put an arm around him, supporting him.

‘What’s happened down there?’ asked Maelys.

‘The Imperial forces seemed to be waiting for Klarm.’

‘The flood might have swept the militia away,’ said Maelys
dully.

‘They were fairly high up.’

‘Yes, of course they were,’ said Maelys, feeling a trace of
hope. ‘I sent them up there. Come on. We’ve got to check.’

‘We have business here first,’ said Yggur, and they headed
on. ‘There’s something very strange about the caduceus and I’ve got to know
what it is.’

She watched them go, bewildered. What could be more
important than finding Nish? Just minutes ago he had kissed her on the brow;
his beard had been soft and silky. How could he be dead? She could not come to
terms with the thought, yet nature struck randomly, not caring who lived or
died …

She had to pull herself together. ‘What’s the matter?’ she
said, running after them. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Not now!’ snapped Tulitine. ‘Help me get him to the
caduceus.’

‘Why?’ Neither answered, so she went around to Yggur’s other
side and tried to help him, but the taphloid grew so hot that it was burning
her.

‘Aah!’ he gasped, doubling over. ‘You’re making it worse. Go
away.’

How could she be making it worse? She followed them, angry
and uncomprehending, as they lurched through the ring of bodies. The caduceus
was a dull orange, and looked smaller now. Originally, it had been the height
of a small tree; now it was the size of a tall mancer’s staff. Its heat had
baked the soil around it to the texture of earthenware. The rain had eased, but
steam rose all around the caduceus.

‘No further,’ Yggur said to Tulitine, shaking her off.

She stepped away, her eyes on him, but unreadable.

He nearly fell, regained his balance and took a halting step
towards the caduceus, holding his arms out like a blind man. ‘Why are you
here?’ he said in a hoarse, old man’s voice. A sudden breeze whipped his wet
hair out behind him. ‘Why did you call me back? What are you trying to tell
me?’

‘Calling him?’ Maelys mouthed to Tulitine. ‘What’s he
talking about?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘But I believe him, and if
such a powerful and alien device is calling, we’d better listen.’

‘If it is, it’s a trap,’ Maelys muttered.

Yggur looked up raptly, as if seeing something visible only
to him.

‘Mother?’ he cried, and fell to his knees before the
caduceus, weeping.

‘What’s going on?’ said Maelys quietly. ‘He isn’t … er?’

‘Losing his wits?’ Tulitine gave a dry chuckle. ‘No, Yggur
seems to be remembering part of his childhood. You know that his origins have
always been a mystery.’

‘I knew he was a great mancer during the Time of the Mirror
…’

‘Yggur was great long before that,’ Tulitine said quietly.
‘He was powerful in ancient times. He helped to create the Nightland and hurl
Rulke into it, where he was held prisoner for a thousand years.

‘But no one knows where Yggur came from, and the source of
his great power is another mystery. He was one of only two mancers whose gift
was not crippled by the destruction of the nodes at the end of the war, because
his power had never depended on nodes or fields, as other mancers’ had. It
flows into him from an unknown place which not even he understands.’

Yggur reached up with both hands towards the head of the
caduceus, repeated, ‘Mother?’ and crashed onto the baked earth.

His hair began to steam and frizzle. Maelys darted forwards
to pull him away but, as she bent over him, the taphloid began to vibrate ever
more wildly, slipped from her cleavage and cracked him on the head. He let out
a great groan.

‘… and burn them to nothingness,’ a deep, rumbling voice
sounded.

Maelys jumped, for it had seemed to come from the taphloid,
but how could that be? Her father had given it to her to protect her, though
the voice had not been his. In fact, she’d never heard the taphloid speak before.

Yggur’s groping left hand closed around it, he quivered and
his eyes snapped open.

‘I know
this
.’

Maelys, alarmed, tried to pull away, but he did not let go
and the chain began to cut into the back of her neck. ‘It’s mine. How can
you
know it?’

‘By the feel of it in my hand. It is as familiar as my own
dinner knife, though …’ Yggur studied the little device in puzzlement, ‘… it
feels smaller than it once did.’

‘It’s made of solid metal. How can it become smaller?’
Maelys was alarmed now, for it was the only thing she had left from her father
– from her life at Nifferlin, for that matter – and it was precious
to her. ‘I’ve had it half my life and my father had it before that.’

‘But where did
he
get it?’ said Yggur.

‘I – I don’t know. I always thought he’d made it.’

Yggur gave a scornful laugh and she flushed. ‘He would not
have had the skill. This taphloid, as you call it, was made by a master in
ancient times. It looks like Aachim work to me.’

‘But …’ said Maelys. ‘Anyway, we’re wasting time. We’ve got
to go after Flydd and Nish.’

‘This matters more.’

‘They could be dying.’

‘Either the flood killed them or it didn’t,’ Yggur said
harshly, ‘and if it didn’t, it will certainly have blocked the gorge. A few
minutes more won’t make any difference. Hand it over.’ He jerked on the
taphloid.

Maelys turned to Tulitine for help, but she said, ‘Give it
to him.’

Maelys drew the chain over her head and handed the taphloid
to Yggur, sure that she would never get it back. It was hot and vibrating
again. He stood with the taphloid held loosely in his fist, head cocked to one
side, eyes un-focussed.

‘Maintain the watch against Stilkeen, Yggur,’ said a deep,
resonant voice from his fist, the same voice she’d heard a minute ago.
‘Maintain it always, and all will be well. But if you fail …’

He gave a little stagger, and shook himself. ‘And clearly I
did fail, since I have no memory of ever hearing Stilkeen’s name before it
showed up.’

‘Did the taphloid say that?’ said Maelys, alarmed now.

‘It did. What else do you know about it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Has anyone else recognised it?’ said Tulitine.

‘Not that I remember.’ Maelys thought back over the past
months. ‘Flydd didn’t, and neither did Jal-Nish or Seneschal Vomix.’ She
shivered at the thought of that monster, the cause of all her clan’s
misfortunes, but thankfully he was dead. ‘Vivimord didn’t seem to think the
taphloid was anything special; neither did Yalkara nor the Numinator.’

‘How very curious,’ said Tulitine.

‘Then why does it feel familiar to me?’ mused Yggur, looking
more like his old self. ‘Did I see it in the hundreds of years I wandered,
witless and without my powers, after the struggle with Rulke that finally put
him into the Nightland? I must have done, and yet I have no memory of it, save
for the way it feels in my hand.’

He turned to stare at the caduceus. ‘I still feel as though
it’s calling to me, but I can’t read what it’s trying to say. Should I take it
with me?’

‘No!’ cried Maelys. ‘It’s a trap, it’s got to be; why else
would Stilkeen have left it here?’

‘Perhaps you’re right. We’d better go back.’

Tulitine offered him her shoulder but Yggur said, ‘I feel
better now,’ and strode off towards the forest as though he were completely
reinvigorated, his long legs covering two paces to Maelys’s one.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said to Tulitine. ‘How did he
recover so quickly? Was it my taphloid?’ She had to keep calling it her own,
though Maelys was beginning to fear that she would never get it back.

‘I think it must have been,’ said Tulitine uneasily. She went
after Yggur, but slipped in the mud and fell to her knees with a small, stifled
gasp.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Maelys, helping her up.

‘A sudden pain – in my leg bones this time. The
Regression Spell is coming undone.’

‘You don’t look any different.’

‘And that’s peculiar,’ said Tulitine. ‘Normally, when this
spell fails, the outside ages faster than what lies within, but with me it
seems to be the other way around. The caduceus must be interfering with the
Regression Spell.’ She drew a sharp breath, then pushed herself upright and
took a painful step.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ said Maelys.

‘Give me your hand.’

On reaching the forest, they found Yggur waiting at the
entrance to a track high above the flood line. The rain had not resumed though
the forest canopy dripped steadily. Tulitine winced with every footstep but
made no complaint. As they approached the lower clearing Yggur slipped behind a
tree.

‘What is it?’ said Maelys.

‘Shh! Klarm is circling, looking for survivors.’

‘Can … can you see any?’

He did not answer, so she went down, her stomach clenched
tightly. Nish, where are you? The height of the flood had passed and the water
level was falling, though there was not a soul in sight.

‘Could the militia have gone through the gorge before the
flood?’ she said, though she already knew the answer.

‘They were trapped up above the rock outcrop,’ said Tulitine
in an empty voice.

‘That was a while ago,’ said Maelys, clinging to the hope,
in spite of all logic, that they had survived. ‘They might have –’

Yggur shook his head.

The lower half of the clearing was a mess of mud and rock,
boulders and tree trunks, while the gorge was now a torrent from wall to wall.
The huge boulders that had previously choked the right-hand side could not be
seen and the slender bridge had fallen.

‘Where are Klarm’s troops?’ said Maelys.

‘Swept away,’ said Tulitine in her seer’s voice. ‘All
– swept – away.’

It began to pour again. They waited until the air-sled had
finished its circuits, whereupon it headed downstream above the gorge, flying
low and slow.

‘We’d better make sure there are no survivors,’ said Yggur
heavily, ‘though I’m sure Klarm would have found them if there were any. Try
not to leave tracks.’

They slogged across the sodden ground to the brown out-crop,
behind which the militia had taken cover. The ferns had been torn off the lower
face and a narrow, crescent-shaped pond had formed on the uphill side.

‘The gorge must have been blocked at first,’ said Yggur,
‘and there was nowhere for the flood to go but up the clearing. It washed
everyone away, then the blockage burst and the flood drained through the gorge,
carrying the dead with it.’

Maelys forced her weary legs to the upper edge of the
clearing but there was not a sign of human life. The disaster was so
overwhelming that she could not think. Nish was gone, and dear old Flydd, and
nothing seemed to have any meaning any more. She trudged down to Yggur and
Tulitine.

‘If Klarm comes back,’ Tulitine was saying, ‘we’ll have to
take him. Otherwise, with the really wet season coming, we’ll never get out of
here.’

How can we capture Klarm, Maelys thought. He’s got his
knoblaggie, and the tears, and all we have is a burnt-out mancer, a crippled
seer, and me. She looked down the slope. ‘Hey, I thought I saw someone down in
that hollow.’

She skidded down to the former pond by the river, now a
long, narrow lake, then wished she had not, for the falling water had revealed
many corpses trapped among the piled boulders and tangled tree trunks. Dozens
of bodies lay in the water, all naked and broken. The force of the water had
torn off their clothes and boots before smashing them against the obstacles.

Maelys felt sick, but she had to make sure. She waded out to
the nearest of the dead. ‘I don’t see Nish,’ she said, clinging to the faintest
hope.

‘No,’ said Tulitine, who had hobbled down behind her on
Yggur’s arm. ‘These all look like Klarm’s men, but I expect most of the bodies
would have been swept through the gorge. Wait – I know that face. Isn’t
he the fellow who went over to the enemy?’

Maelys followed her to the figure draped backwards over a
tree trunk. The long body was as broken as the others, but the man’s face was
unscathed, the bitter cast to his otherwise handsome face erased in death. He
looked at peace, but he would never go home to Gothryme.

‘It’s Colm,’ said Maelys, swallowing hard. ‘We were friends
once, and I liked him a lot – there was a time when I thought that he was
the one for me … but I was wrong. Poor Colm. He had such an unhappy life.’

‘His skin is pale; he’s not from these parts,’ said
Tulitine.

‘He came from the island of Meldorin, originally, but his
family was driven away from their home in the war and they lost everything. He
never got over losing his inheritance, Gothryme Manor, and then the death of
his sister, Ketila, killed him inside.’