The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (66 page)

Suddenly the light came back to Flydd’s rheumy eyes and he
laughed, with just a tinge of bitter irony this time. ‘Only one person on
Santhenar could know that. A calculating, inscrutable, relentless foe that in a
hundred years no one has ever set eyes upon; the power who established the
Council of Scrutators for an unknown purpose so long ago. And the one in whose
name I was flogged until half the flesh had been scoured from my bones.’

He looked around the hut, studying them one by one as if
weighing up their fitness. ‘Very well, Maelys, I will do as you ask. I will
attempt the renewal spell. And if I should survive it, and we get away,
which can’t and won’t happen
, I will
lead you on the long hunt to find this terrible foe. I’ll take you south
towards the frigid pole, across the Frozen Sea to the forbidden Island of Noom.

‘And there we’ll climb the Tower of a Thousand Steps where,
if you dare
, you may put that question
to the Numinator.’

 
FORTY-FIVE

Zham had appeared at the door but did not interrupt.
Nish shivered at Flydd’s words, and Maelys wondered what he knew that she did
not.

‘What’s the Numinator?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Nish, ‘and I’m not sure I want to.’

‘Nish, if you know something, can’t you just say so?’

‘No one knows about the Numinator, Maelys,’ said Flydd. ‘Not
even the head of the Council of Scrutators, when it was the most powerful body
in the world, could say whether the Numinator was man, woman, beast or alien,
or what its purpose was. We knew only that the Council answered to the
Numinator which had created it, and how savagely it punished all who tried to
pry into its affairs.’

‘How come it hasn’t taken down the God-Emperor, then?’ said
Nish. ‘Or he it, if Father truly is all-powerful?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Flydd. ‘Perhaps he has. Or perhaps
they’ve reached some accommodation; or a stalemate.’

‘Either way, it’s been very quiet,’ said Nish.

‘Everything about the Numinator has been kept quiet; I doubt
that forty people, living or dead, have ever heard the name.’

‘So even if we succeed in all these impossible challenges,’
said Maelys, ‘and reach the Tower of a Thousand Steps on the Island of Noom,
the Numinator could slay us out of hand?’

‘He, she or it could.’ Flydd was staring into space again.
‘But the Numinator might also have been hurt by the destruction of the nodes;
perhaps even humbled.’ A vengeful smile crept across his face, and Maelys
shuddered. He had depths she couldn’t imagine.

He snapped back to the present. ‘There’s no time for
speculation. You’ve required me to take renewal, and I will. The preparations
are arduous, the after-effects long and brutal, and we’ll be undone if Jal-Nish
arrives when I’m still laid low with aftersickness. It’s late. What news from
the watch, Zham?’

‘They’re not waiting until dawn, Mr Xervish, surr,’ said
Zham. ‘There’s movement at the camp fires and a line of torches around the
south-east cleft.’

Flydd cursed. ‘How long do you think they’ll take?’

‘It took us eight hours in daylight, not counting rest
stops. Even his most reckless climbers couldn’t do it in under ten hours at
night. Though an advance guard might already be on their way.’

‘I dare say they are, though he won’t attack until he’s got
a strong force in place,’ said Flydd. ‘Jal-Nish knows that Nish came here to
meet one of his great enemies. He’s probably guessed that it’s me and knows I’m
not weaponless. He won’t want to lose the element of surprise by sending a
handful of scouts who could be destroyed with a single blast.’

‘Could you destroy them with a single blast?’ said Maelys,
remembering tales of the great mancers of olden times. And she’d taken him on
without a thought.

‘In my present state I’d be hard-pressed to stop a
one-legged tortoise, but fear makes your enemies greater, and Jal-Nish has
always feared me.’

‘Let’s say we’ve got six hours, just to be safe,’ said Nish.
‘Can you work the renewal spell in that time, Xervish, and recover from it?’

Flydd’s eyes went to the grimoires and spell books on his
rudely carved bookshelf. ‘I have no idea – I haven’t done it before.’

‘But you do know how?’

‘Well – I’ve seen it done. As a young man, not yet out
of prenticeship, I assisted my master to take renewal.’

‘How did it go?’ asked Maelys.

‘It took us prentices a week to scrape his organs off the
ceiling.’

He sat down, staring at the rush-strewn floor between his
feet, breathing heavily. No one spoke. You could die just as horribly, Maelys
thought, and I forced you into it. She wanted to stop him, but backing out now
would have been cowardice, so she dug her nails into her palms and waited.

Finally Flydd raised his head. ‘Nish, the four ways must be
watched, and since there are only three of you, one will have to run back and
forth.’

‘There’s four of us, Xervish.’

‘But to cast the spell I require an assistant; and to watch
over me while it takes its painful course, an observer. And since Maelys was so
kind as to urge renewal on me, I choose her.

‘It’s no less dangerous than guarding the ways up, Maelys,’
he said quickly. ‘Don’t think for a minute I’m offering you the easy
alternative because you’re a girl. I’ve chosen you because you have healing
skills; and because you alone among us aren’t trained in combat. And also,’ he
said with a thin smile, ‘because I want you to know exactly what you’ve put me
through. I’m a vengeful man. Petty, and vengeful. Let’s begin.’

Reaching up onto a shelf, he took down a folded sheet of
paper. ‘I haven’t wasted my nine years here. Long ago I prepared an array of
defences in case the worst happened, and this plan sets them out.’ He handed
the paper to Nish. ‘Get a lantern and read it outside – I’ve got to get
on without interruption. Take some more amber-wood; you’ll need all the
concealment you can carry.’ He scooped chips and shavings from the table. ‘It
might even conceal you from Gatherer, as long as the tears are a long way
away.’

‘But not from the eyes of ordinary soldiers?’ said Nish,
handing chips to Colm and Zham. Colm shook his head. He already had a
pocketful.

‘No, unfortunately. Nor from the tears if Jal-Nish gets onto
the plateau.’

Nish, Colm and Zham checked their weapons and went out.
Flydd lifted the lid of a box behind the door and removed four large packets of
food wrapped in woven reeds. He opened the first – strips of dried swamp
creeper flesh, from the colour – and wolfed them down with gasping gulps
from a water jug. When he’d consumed the lot, enough to feed the five of them,
he held the empty jug out and began on the second packet, more of the green
biscuits.

‘Are you all right?’ said Maelys uneasily, not taking the
jug. ‘Water!’ He crammed a lump of biscuit in his mouth sideways. ‘Renewal is
the most draining spell of all and one can’t eat for days afterwards. And
besides –’ He shook the jug at her. ‘Just fill the damn thing.’

She scurried out and scooped it full at the nearest rivulet.
By the time she returned, Flydd’s stomach was bulging like a pregnant woman’s.
He was at the table, reading a blackened grimoire which was charred at the
edges, as if it had been rescued from a fire. She handed him the jug, which he
drained in a single long swallow, then let it fall to the earth floor. She
stood by the fire, waiting for him to tell her what to do. After five minutes
he was still turning the pages so she said, ‘Xervish, how would you have me
prepare?’

‘By holding your bloody tongue.’

She did so for another while, then couldn’t stand it any
longer. ‘Are you angry with me?’

He stood up suddenly, treading on the jug and kicking it out
of the way. ‘Of course I’m angry. I’m a proud old man, set in my ways, and
you’ve forced me to a path I swore never to take. Renewal is utterly abhorrent
to me; I’ve never felt anything but contempt for those mancers who’ve taken it,
whatever their justification. I feel like a hypocrite.’

How little she’d known what she was asking. But she hadn’t
taken the choice from him – how could she? He’d made the decision for
himself. ‘Why did you choose me?’

‘I told you – petty revenge.’

‘I’ve never thought of you as a petty man.’

He smiled thinly. ‘And after knowing me for half a day,
little Maelys can read all the quirks of my character. Isn’t she a clever one!’

How could she have thought to bandy words with him? ‘But
–’

‘Will you shut up! I can’t think for your foolish chatter.’
She shut up, feeling bruised. He turned the pages back and forth, settled on
one and began to read. His lips moved as if he were rehearsing lines, then he
placed a dried rush in the book and closed it.

‘I also chose you for the inner strength you displayed a
while back, and your unwavering courage.’

She thought he was being sarcastic again. ‘It wavers all the
time, Xervish.’

‘Not the way mine does;
or
Nish’s
,’ he said meaningfully. ‘Besides, I may have to draw strength from
you to complete the spell, since my body is so cursedly frail.’

She didn’t think it was quite as frail as he made out, but
said, ‘I’ll do whatever I can.’

‘Splendid!’ he said with fake joviality. ‘Let’s begin.’
Opening a small flat wooden case which she hadn’t noticed on the table, he
fingered something inside, then drew it out between finger and thumb.

The crystal, about the size of one of her finger joints, was
a pale translucent red, though as it warmed to his touch it gave out the
faintest inner glow. The box held four more crystals, each a different shape
and colour, but dull.

Seeing her staring at the box, he said, ‘I don’t have to
explain about powered crystals, do I?’

‘Er –’

‘Any crystals charged before the nodes were destroyed will
retain that power for a long time, though once it’s drawn upon the crystal
becomes useless.’

‘I do know that much. Where did you get them?’

‘I’d hidden three of them in a secret place long ago, in
case the worst happened. After Jal-Nish came to power I walked halfway across
Lauralin, hunted all the way, to recover them.’ He paused for a long moment,
lost in memories. ‘That story, were it ever told, would rival one of the lesser
Great Tales of ancient times. The other two crystals I bought later, at the
most fantastic cost – a mancer’s ransom, in fact. The fewer such crystals
are left, the more valuable the remaining ones become. Keep silent while I
recite the spell, then wait.’

After a pause she said, ‘I don’t know what you want me to
do.’

‘Stand by and be ready to hand me the second crystal, though
I pray I won’t need it. Assuming that renewal gives me the strength to use
them,
at least
three crystals
, and maybe four, will be required to force the
barrier for our escape, then hold the shadow realm open for the hours it will
take to traverse it. Not to mention keeping at bay the phantasms which stalk
that place, hungering for the flesh-and-blood prey which offer their only hope
of escape from the shadow realm, like blood-sucking leeches hitching a ride out
of the endless slough to the undefended feasting grounds.’

He sounded almost lyrical as he spoke but an abrupt hand
gesture told her to ask no more questions. ‘Put out the lights; cover your eyes
from the crystal and keep out of its sphere of influence.
Now!
’

He began to take his clothes off. Maelys stared at his
scrawny and horribly scarred chest, which looked as though the surplus flesh
had been gouged off with a red-hot spoon, then hastily turned away.

She didn’t see him cast the spell on himself, for she had
her back turned, blowing out the second lantern, though she heard guttural
whispers in a language she did not know. A brilliant red flare cast her
wavering shadow on the wall for a few seconds, then began to fade. Flydd
gasped, in pain.

Mindful of his orders, she turned carefully, shielding her
eyes from the flare, only to see him falling. Steaming blood dripped from the
fingers of his right hand, where the crystal had given up all its power in a
moment. Now colourless, cloudy and dark, it lay on the floor in fragments.

‘Xervish!’ She ran the five steps to him but didn’t get
there in time. He hit the floor with a hollow thump. His heels drummed,
rustling the rushes, and he lay still.

The egg-shaped floating flare drifted up towards the
ceiling, slowly fading. She knelt beside Flydd in its dim red light, afraid
that the onset of the spell had killed him, but found a faint pulse in his neck.
His eyes were staring glassily, like a dead man’s. She went to close them with
her fingertips but his bony arm snapped up, cracking painfully into her wrist
and knocking it away.

‘Don’t – touch –’

The flare dwindled to a point of dull red below the central
roof beam, directly above them. Flydd had gone so rigid that she could hear his
joints cracking. His teeth ground together and liquids gurgled in his distended
belly, which bulged up as if he’d swallowed a watermelon, then all was still
save for the wind shaking the walls of the hut.

The minutes ticked by. Maelys crouched beside Flydd in numb
terror. Why hadn’t he told her what was going to happen? Was the spell working
properly? If it went wrong, how would she know, and what was she supposed to do
then? Were Jal-Nish’s climbers creeping up the clefts, even now?

Half an hour might have gone by before anything changed,
then the red point of light went blue. A speck formed at its base and swelled
until it resembled a large dangling soap bubble. It wobbled back and forth,
expanding at the bottom, broke off and drifted down towards them.

Maelys was crouched by Flydd, watching the bubble fall and
wondering what it meant, when his arm snapped out again, whacking her painfully
across the nose and knocking her backwards. She didn’t realise that he was
protecting her until the bubble landed on his face.