The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (5 page)

‘Fly, little lady,’ said Zham, turning to smile at her even
as he defended furiously. ‘I’m done for, but you can still get away.’

‘No, Zham! The door is closed. It’s over. Lay down your
weapon.’

‘Fly! I won’t give up until you pass through.’

‘Please, Zham.’

‘Ever since I took up arms,’ he grunted, ‘I’ve known it
would end this way. It’s all I’m good for, little lady.’

He drove the warrior backwards a few steps, then reached
down to grasp the plank and gave it a mighty heave. It twisted slightly; the
huge warrior threw out his arms for balance and, as the twisting motion
propagated along the plank, those men behind him did the same. One fell
silently to the left; another cried out as he went off to the right. Zham
twisted again. Could he pull the plank free? She allowed herself to hope, for
Zham’s strength was as huge as his heart.

Again that whirring, and this time Maelys looked down. The
shell of her taphloid was changing; faces and dials she’d never seen before
were appearing and disappearing there, as they’d not done in many years, and
the hand on one dial was pointing towards the rear of the cavern. The fragment
of crystal must have powered it for the first time in months, but it did not
blank out her gift, as it had always done before she’d passed through the
Mistmurk at the base of the Pit of Possibilities.

Hopeless, fatalistic thoughts rose up; again she crushed them
and focused on what she had to do. The taphloid must be enhancing her gift, for
suddenly she could see Jal-Nish’s jagged red and black aura again, and Flydd’s
pale green one flickering, and a tiny glimmer coming from Nish as well.

She turned, following the direction the little hand was
pointing, and the hidden door between the columns was outlined in yellow
radiance. A brighter oval in the middle marked a keyhole the size of her closed
fist, and in a daze she thrust the taphloid at the hole.

An enormous groan made her look over her shoulder. Zham had
lifted the end of the metal plank and the soldiers still on it. How could he do
that with broken ribs? Grunting with the strain, he forced it to chest height
and twisted it left, right, left. A dozen Imperial Guards fell to their deaths,
some silently, others screaming in terror, but the giant warrior rode the
twisting board as if his feet were glued to it, swaying from side to side and
balancing himself with swings of his rapier and cutlass.

Maelys could see how it was going to end, for Zham had
exhausted his strength, yet failed to dislodge his enemy. The warrior sprang,
bounced on the swaying plank, lunged and thrust his rapier down. It went
through Zham’s unprotected chest and came out a couple of hand-spans from his
lower back, sparkling like freshly polished metal with rubies dripping from its
tip.

‘Zham!’ she wailed.

The end of the plank slipped through his fingers and struck
the sill of the cave. The warrior tried to heave his weapon out but Zham’s hands
locked around his enemy’s on the rapier’s hilt, and held him. Putting his huge
boot against the warrior’s groin, Zham sent him flying into the three guards
behind, knocking them down. The warrior went over the side, and they did too.

Maelys ran to Zham. ‘Flee!’ he said weakly, and fell to the
floor, the impact pushing the rapier most of the way back through him. Blood
was flooding from the hole in his chest; he was going to die.

The few surviving guards broke into a run, and others were
scrambling over the side of the sky palace now that the way was clear. Soon
they would pour into the cavern like a dam bursting.

‘Thank you, faithful Zham,’ she wept, kissing his brow.
There was nothing more she could do for him. Family first; always family first.
Her eyes swimming with tears, she turned away from the friend who had given his
all and asked nothing in return, went to the rear door and thrust the taphloid
into the keyhole. The door began to scrape open.

Jal-Nish twitched, rolled over and groped blindly for
Reaper.

‘Get in!’ she screeched, leaping through into the darkness.

Flydd picked up his rucksack, which Zham had packed for him
after renewal, slung it over his back, and followed, then Nish; Colm was still
by the entrance, his sword out.

‘It’s over, Colm,’ Flydd said gruffly. ‘Come, if you’re
coming.’

Colm jerked the rapier out of Zham’s chest with one hand,
swiping at the leading soldier through the entrance with the other. The man
ducked, then came on. Colm ran across the cavern, through the door, and Maelys
put her fist into the glowing keyhole on the other side, then whipped it out
again as the slab slammed shut, leaving them in darkness.

 
FOUR

As the stone door closed, Nish sagged with relief, for
it had placed a physical barrier, however temporary, between him and his
father. He couldn’t see a thing, and there was no way to tell which way the
cavern led from here, save by feel. ‘Light!’ he said hoarsely, for his throat
was so dry it itched.

‘Can’t even make light,’ muttered Flydd. ‘I’m reduced to
mere, talentless humanity.’

‘It’s all I’ve ever been,’ said Colm.

‘Then you can’t possibly know any different.’

‘Stop moaning, you old fool!’ snapped Colm. ‘Make the best
of it.’

‘You sound better, Xervish,’ said Maelys hastily. ‘As cranky
as ever, in fact.’

Flydd managed a feeble chuckle. ‘I’d imagined that being
restored to a vigorous middle age would be like getting a new life, but it
feels as if my old bones are loosely clothed with someone else’s muscles. Every
movement requires an effort of will; it’s like learning to walk again.’ He
paused. ‘I don’t know how you did it, Maelys, but thank you.’

She said something, softly, but Nish missed it; he could not
concentrate for the pain of his charred left hand. He sucked at the wet sleeve
covering the coconut-sized moss bandage. The moisture felt good on his cracked
lips but the movement caused the agony of his burns, temporarily forgotten in
the mad scramble to escape, to flare anew.

He bit down on a cry; giving way to pain could only make
things worse. He had to be stronger than he’d ever been, for it was his only
hope of escaping the monster on the other side of the door. But it was hard,
very hard. The pain was worse than any of the many injuries he’d taken during
the war.

This will be my first test, he thought. No matter how much
it hurts, I won’t make a sound. And if I’m strong enough for that, I’ll take it
as a sign that I can defeat Father.

Nish groped in the darkness with his good hand, touched
something warm and yielding, Maelys’s bosom, and jerked his hand away. At her
sharp intake of breath he muttered, ‘Sorry! Can’t see a thing.’

She probably thought he’d done it deliberately, but he had
bigger worries, not least the extraordinary story she’d told his father. Could
Maelys really be pregnant with his child? He didn’t think so, but if she was,
even if she’d done it in such a sordid way, it would change both their lives.
They would be bound together for all time, by blood. He had to admire the
scheming little vixen. Maelys was braver than he was, and she never gave up.

He could sense her small, tense presence half a span away,
and hear her quick breathing. She sounded as if she were cracking up and he
couldn’t blame her. She’d saved them but she could do no more, nor could Flydd,
and Nish didn’t trust Colm. It was up to him, now. He had spent months
tormented by self-doubt and, to his shame, wallowing in self-pity, but he had
to put all that behind him. After repudiating his father’s offer to become his
lieutenant, there was no going back, for they were enemies and would remain so
until one of them died. It was time for Nish to take charge of his life.

Flydd and Maelys were talking about what she’d seen in the
Pit of Possibilities, which reminded Nish of his own visions there, the first
time. He could almost convince himself to discount his last vision – the
one where he, the Deliverer, was acclaimed as God-Emperor – no matter how
much he yearned for it, for Vivimord had as good as admitted sending it to him.
But take it away and the other futures all ended the same way: in the failure
of his quest, the triumph of the God-Emperor, and Nish’s exile, madness, or
death.

Despair pinched at his liver, a stabbing pain, but he
endured that too. Never give way, not once; not even for a second. I reject all
those possibilities and the pit itself, he raged inwardly. There will be no
madness; no exile; no death. I will make my own future!

I won’t become the Deliverer either, for that would mean
submitting to Vivimord’s plans for me, and he’s just as corrupt as my father.
But I
will
overthrow Father and
restore peace and justice to Santhenar – though not as the God-Emperor.
There will be no more God-Emperors. ‘Whatever it takes, and however long, I’m
going to do it!’

‘What’s that?’ said Flydd.

Nish hadn’t realised that he’d spoken aloud. ‘We’ve got to
get away from the door. Where does this cave go?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Why not?’ Nish snapped as the pain flared again. ‘You had
nine years.’

‘And you took ten years to get here,’ Flydd said mildly.

‘How far is it to the shadow realm?’

‘Not far; assuming I can find the power to enter it. Lead
on.’

‘I –’ The pain nearly overcame him; Nish squeezed his
eyes shut until the spasm passed. ‘Feel around, everyone; find where the
passage goes.’

‘Right here,’ said Colm from his left. ‘It slopes down
gently.’

‘Go down, and we’ll follow.’

‘Whatever you say,
Deliverer
,’
Colm said, the soles of his boots sliding on stone.

Nish didn’t have the strength to be irritated. He went
behind Maelys, wishing he had Zham’s strong arm to lean on, and already missing
his quiet, reliable solidity. But Zham was gone, as so many of his friends and
allies had been lost. Nish needed to grieve for him but couldn’t afford to; not
here. Jal-Nish would already be recovering; his troops would be helping him
back to the sky palace, where he would use Gatherer to search out all the
secrets of Mistmurk Mountain, and hunt Nish down.

He choked but managed to swallow his despair. Just take it
minute by minute, he told himself. Even agony can be endured for one minute,
and if you can do that, you can suffer it for another. And so he continued.

They went down a long straight passage, clambered over a
shallow crevasse which Colm discovered by falling into it and gashing his shin,
then along a narrow, snaking tunnel with a gentle downslope and a strong smell
of animal urine. Flydd kept stumbling, falling over and cursing his ill-fitting
new body.

‘Xervish,’ said Maelys in a tiny voice. Ten or fifteen
uneventful minutes had passed, during which Nish’s unease grew ever stronger.

‘What?’ panted Flydd.

‘When you began renewal, you talked about
forcing the barrier
and
holding open the shadow realm
for the
hours it would take to get through it to safety. You said you needed at least
three crystals to do that, but all we have is one tiny shard. How can we
possibly get through without the crystals?’

He began to breathe heavily, as if remembering something he
would sooner have forgotten. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I thought the stone door –’

‘It’s just a normal door into the caverns that run through
Mistmurk Mountain. The shadow realm is yet to come – if we can get into
it at all.’

‘What is the shadow realm?’ said Nish. ‘Is it like the maze
we passed through when we escaped from Monkshart at Tifferfyte?’

Flydd stopped to catch his breath. ‘Completely different.
That maze was a dangerous place, but an empty one. It could drive you mad, and
most people would become lost and die there, but it held no other threat. The
shadow realm is like a nether world to the Three Worlds, bound to yet separate
from them. It’s the pit into which necromancers like Vivimord delve to further
their depraved Arts, a perilous place full of dark and mischievous spirits.’

‘Then why are we going there?’

‘Because there’s no other choice. Bad as it is, we’ve got a
better chance passing through the shadow realm than we have staying here. We’re
not strong enough to fight Jal-Nish. We’ve got to disappear, though sooner or
later he’ll find us with the tears, wherever we hide. Therefore we’ve got to
have a weapon, one he’s afraid of, and the antithesis is the only possibility I
know of. Besides, I spent years preparing my crystal to protect us while we
pass through the shadow realm.’

‘But it’s broken.’

‘The spells remain in the shard Maelys caught. Let’s get moving.’

‘So we won’t be there long?’ said Maelys anxiously.

‘Just a few hours, hopefully …’

That sounded ominous. ‘And then what?’ said Nish.

‘We return to the real world a long way from here; and from
Jal-Nish.’

‘And after that?’

‘The instant I have regained my Art and my fitness, we go
south to the Tower of a Thousand Steps. To approach the Numinator, I’ll need
all my wits about me.’ He added under his breath, ‘And then some.’

They continued down a steeper slope which was slippery with
aromatic droppings. ‘What’s that smell?’ said Nish. It was sickly sweet and
spicy, like cane syrup mixed with pepper and cloves.

‘Giant swamp creepers,’ Maelys said from ahead. He could
hear the revulsion in her voice. ‘When I went down to the cursed flame earlier,
there were thousands of them, all oozing and squirming over each other. Yuk!’

‘Tasty, though,’ said Colm. ‘If we’re trapped down here, at
least we’ll eat well.’

Nish, remembering the splendid steaks they’d dined on during
their first night on the plateau, salivated. The swamp creepers were like
gigantic black slugs the size of a muscular man’s thigh, and almost all meat.