The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (3 page)

‘A lucky accident that the anchor tore out,’ said Zham. ‘Can
we make something of it?’

‘No accident,’ slurred Flydd. ‘Monkshart – Vivimord
– determined – bring down – blasphemous God-Emperor.’

‘And he wants Nish,’ Maelys reminded them. ‘You’d be better
off with your father, Nish. Vivimord is insane.’

‘But while Father has Reaper,’ said Nish, ‘Vivimord can’t
touch him. Which means –’

‘Jal-Nish – playing with us,’ said Flydd.

‘He loves his little games,’ Nish said bitterly. ‘And more
than anything Father loves to allow his victims to hope, so he can have the
pleasure of crushing it. He wants us to dream that there’s a way out –’

‘Which means there’s none,’ said Flydd. ‘He’s set us up.’

Absolute silence fell, for no sound penetrated the seal at
the entrance. The cavern was dark, save for the faint light from Flydd’s
crystal.

‘He’s not a god; just a pretender,’ said Maelys. ‘He didn’t
expect Vivimord to come through the hidden door at the back of the cave; nor
did he know what choice Nish was going to make, or what I was going to say. And
he can’t know what we’re going to do next. We’ve still got a chance. Teach us
to use the crystal.’

‘Secret Art – years to master. No novice can use
– crystal – no matter how much – power it contains.’

His voice was cold; nothing remained of the charming,
friendly Flydd she’d met just days ago. Why was he so bitter? Renewal had been
a terrible ordeal for him, but he was alive and had a healthy and vigorous
body. Couldn’t he be thankful for that?

Nish snatched the fiery crystal out of Flydd’s hand and
thrust it into Maelys’s. ‘You’ve got a small gift for the Art. Try it –
Father could be back any minute.’

‘He could be waiting outside right now, laughing his head
off,’ said Colm grimly. ‘We should have jumped off the cliff when we had the
chance.’

‘My family needs me,’ Maelys hissed.

‘And it’s abundantly clear that you’ll stoop to any depths
for them.’

His words were another slap in the face. She wanted to do
the same to him; felt an urge to hurt him, but Maelys turned away and clenched
her slender fingers around the crystal, trying to think her way into its heart.
Its light came pinkly through her flesh, flaring and fading; a pulse was
beating in one of the veins of her wrist. Think! There’s got to be a way.

She couldn’t think of one; Maelys didn’t know anything about
her little gift, which had been suppressed too long, and now was stunted.
Training in the Arts needed to begin in youth and, at nineteen, she was too old
to ever achieve mastery.

Could there be a simpler way? She touched the crystal to the
columns carved into the rear wall, left and right, high and low, and to the
flat section in between, where the secret door had opened. Nothing happened.
Maelys imagined Jal-Nish’s mocking laughter.

She rubbed the crystal against her forehead and touched it
to the taphloid hanging on its chain around her neck, again to no effect. Nish
was frowning at her. Did he think their peril was her fault? In a way, it was,
but surely it was better than the alternative? If she’d refused her aunts’
demand in the first place, he would still be in his father’s prison, going mad,
and she and her family would be hiding in the mountains, slowly starving to
death.

‘You try it.’ She passed the crystal to him. ‘You’re the one
with the clearsight.’

‘My gift is puny,’ he reminded her. ‘Totally insignificant.’

‘But linked – to God-Emperor,’ said Flydd. ‘Gift came
from – touch of tears, Nish.’

‘I’ll never forget it.’ Nish was clutching the crystal in
both hands, one clasped around the other. ‘During the war, Father thrust my
hands right into the tears in an effort to bend me to his will. Fighting his
compulsion almost broke me.’

‘But you got free – single-handedly saved what was
left of – mighty army,’ said Flydd, sounding more coherent now. ‘Fighting
him strengthened you – Nish. Strength you can draw on now.’

‘It’s a wonder you still have your hands,’ rumbled Zham.
‘The touch of Reaper crisped Vivimord’s belly like a roast pig, and he’s a
great mancer.’

‘Father protected me, I suppose,’ said Nish.

‘Power of – tears has grown mightily since –
beware!’ said Flydd. ‘Anything coming to you?’

‘Not a thing.’

Maelys’s eyes met Zham’s. He was standing between the
columns, holding his enormous sword. He gave her an encouraging smile, and it
warmed her. She still had one friend left. Colm was grimly practising strokes
with his notched blade; was he mentally using it on her?

‘Nish,’ she said, ‘what if you used your clearsight to see
what’s happened to Xervish’s Art?’

‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ There was a long silence while
Nish strained until a muscle began to jump in his jaw. ‘I can’t see anything.’

Panic was creeping over Maelys, suffocating her, but she
couldn’t give in to it. Whenever she wavered, the thought of Fyllis in the
hands of Jal-Nish’s torturers stiffened her spine for one last try.

‘What about using
me
?’
she said.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Nish.

‘I’m not sure I do, either, but something strange happened
to Flydd during renewal last night. After he’d used the fourth crystal, he had
to draw on me. He took my hand and I could feel the heat running up my arm to
my heart … the strength being drawn out of me …’

‘How does that help?’

‘What if he didn’t just take from me? What if he gave as
well?’

Nish frowned, the flickering crystal lighting the furrows
across his forehead. ‘Xervish? Could Maelys be the woman in red you were raving
about?’

‘She isn’t wearing red.’

‘Perhaps, in the fever, she seemed to be.’

Flydd shook his head vigorously, then winced. ‘The woman in
red looked nothing like Maelys. She wasn’t beautiful; her face was stern and
arrogant; and she was bigger, taller, and older.’

Maelys stared at Flydd. He thought she was beautiful? No one
had ever said that before.

‘Did you give anything to Maelys?’ Nish persisted.

‘Can’t remember what happened during renewal,’ Flydd said
hoarsely. ‘Few mancers ever do.’

‘Is it the kind of thing you might have done?’

‘Not unless I was desperate. What mancer would willingly
give away the least fraction of his Art, knowing he might never get it back?’

‘But you were desperate, Xervish,’ Maelys said softly,
glancing over her shoulder at the barrier. Jal-Nish could return at any second.
‘Nish, use your clearsight on me,
quickly
.’

He put his hands around her skull, above her ears, and Maelys
shivered at his touch. Nish didn’t press hard, nor hold his hands there long,
and when he drew away there was an odd look in his eyes.

‘Xervish, I think you did pass something to Maelys, and yet
…’

‘My Art?’ Flydd said hoarsely. ‘My precious Art?’

Maelys hadn’t realised that it meant so much to him, though
when she thought about it, to have been a great mancer for so long, and then to
lose it in a moment, must be like losing a limb. No, worse, for a man with no
legs can walk with crutches, but losing one’s Art would be like going back to
the helplessness of infancy.

‘There’s something not right, though.’ Nish swallowed.

‘I’ve lost my Art!’ Flydd cried. ‘The one thing that has
sustained me all my life. I’m naked without it.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Nish was staring alternately at
Flydd, then Maelys. ‘My clearsight tells me that there’s
more
of you now, Xervish.’

‘That’s absurd. If I’ve passed my gift to her, there should
be less of me.’

‘Can you remember doing that?’

‘I can’t remember anything save the woman coming into me.
She had strange eyes – a reddish purple … now what does that remind me
of?’

‘Can you take your talent back from me?’ said Maelys.

‘Not without the Art … though there may be a way to use it
where it lies,’ said Flydd. ‘Look deeper, quick.’

Nish put his hands on Maelys again, and shook his head. ‘I
can’t tell. My clearsight is too feeble.’

‘If only there were a way to strengthen it,’ said Maelys,
musing on what had been said. And how could there be
more
of Flydd when he’d lost his Art? That didn’t make sense.

‘If we could eat rock, we could chew our way to freedom!’
sneered Colm.

‘There is a way,’ said Nish, ignoring him, ‘though I’m not
sure I’ve got the courage to try it.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Flydd. ‘Your father won’t save you this time,
Nish.’

Maelys didn’t know what they were talking about. ‘I’ll try
anything if it helps to save my family.’

‘Not this way,’ said Nish. ‘I won’t let you.’

Flydd’s eyes were on Maelys. ‘I do believe she would, Nish.
She’s braver than any of us.’

‘Just tell me what to do,’ snapped Maelys.

Thump
. Something
struck the barrier from the outside and it cracked like an ancient bowl. Nish
was staring at it, his fists clenched rigidly at his sides and his jaw muscles
standing out. He turned to her, and something shone in his eyes. Admiration?
Surely not from Nish? Now he let out a long breath, but the fine hairs stirred
on the back of Maelys’s neck – what was he going to do?

He eased himself into the deep shadows to the left of the
opening, crouched and pulled up great handfuls of dead moss until he was
covered in it.

‘Nish?’ said Maelys.

‘There’s only one hope left,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s do or
die this time and I don’t care which.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Stay back; distract Father so he thinks I’ve escaped. As
soon as he breaks through, scream my name and leave the rest to me.’

‘To the wall,’ hissed Zham, sweeping them together in his
long arms and thrusting them backwards as the clay seal began to crack and fall
out. ‘Pretend Nish has gone through the hidden door. When Jal-Nish comes in, we
all attack him at once.’

Fragments crashed to the floor and misty light flooded in.
Maelys reached out towards the wall and yelled, ‘Nish?’ as shrilly as she
could.

‘What the –?’ cried Jal-Nish, then leapt to the floor
of the cave.

Maelys spun around, trying to maintain the pretence that
Nish had disappeared. Jal-Nish came forwards, staring at the closed door. ‘How
did he get away?’

‘Get him!’ roared Zham, hurling himself at Jal-Nish.

Nish propelled himself to his feet. Jal-Nish spun around,
sure he was under attack, but Nish wasn’t going for him. He dived and thrust
his left hand deep into Reaper.

And shrieked.

 
THREE

‘You should not have done that, Son,’ said Jal-Nish
with icy calm. ‘I’m not going to protect you this time.’

Nish was writhing on the floor, frantically trying to jerk
his hand free, but it was held fast and his wrist and forearm were blistering
and growing redder by the second. Maelys caught a whiff of burning flesh and
was glad Nish hadn’t told her what he was going to do. If she’d done that to
herself …

As everyone rushed Jal-Nish, he caressed the upper surface
of Reaper. Zham was hurled sideways against the hidden door; the
crack-crack
sounded like ribs breaking.
Colm went flying across the cavern, thudding into the left-hand wall with his
shoulder and side. Maelys dived for Jal-Nish’s ankles, trying to heave him off
his feet, but was driven face-first into the moss.

Flydd must have thrown something, for Jal-Nish doubled over
and fell to his knees, spit spraying through the mouth slit of his mask. Nish’s
shrieks broke off; he brought his free hand up and crashed it into his father’s
chin, sending the half mask clanging off the stone sill and over the precipice.
Maelys caught a glimpse of the scarred, noseless, suppurating horror of
Jal-Nish’s face, destroyed by a lyrinx’s claws thirteen years ago. Despite all
the power the tears gave him, he had never been able to repair the injuries.

Jal-Nish’s one eye glazed, his hand fell away from Reaper and
he collapsed, unconscious. The quicksilver surface of the Profane Tear turned a
dull, roiling red and a hideous clanging erupted from it. The rest of the
crazed barrier exploded out of the entrance, tearing the curtains of moss and
lichen away, and Maelys heard an answering clanging from bow and stern of the
sky palace, a few hundred paces away.

Soldiers ran along the deck, the white armour of the
Imperial Guard shimmering, their adamantine blades raised high. The ultimate
crime had been committed: the God-Emperor’s sacred person had been attacked and
they burned to avenge the insult. They converged on the copper plank-path that
linked the sky palace to the cavern.

‘Kick the plank away,’ said Flydd.

Maelys ran and took hold of it with both hands but it was so
heavy she could not budge it. Only minutes to live, she thought, but a whole
eternity for the dying. Nish’s hand was still caught and his lower arm was
smoking; his mouth opened and closed as if he were silently shrieking his lungs
out.

Maelys couldn’t bear to see his agony. She scrambled towards
him on hands and knees. ‘Nish, Nish?’

She had reached for his sleeve when Flydd shouldered her out
of the way. ‘Don’t touch him, lest you end up the same way.’

‘But … Nish … why did he do it …?’

Flydd scooped dry moss from the floor, wrapped it around
Nish’s wrist and heaved. The moss began to smoulder, then burst into flame.
Flydd cursed but didn’t let go. With a wrench, he tore Nish’s hand free of
Reaper.

Maelys nearly threw up, for his hand was a smoking ruin and
smelt of burnt meat. She darted to the sill, tore up handfuls of wet moss and
covered his hand in it. Steam boiled out; he gave another silent scream. She
dragged him to the entrance and thrust his hand out under the cascading water.