The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (56 page)

They sat in silence for a long time. In the distance, some
native creature let out a whistling shriek.

Maelys jumped, thinking that it had met a violent end. ‘What
was
that
?’

‘Perhaps a flightsinger,’ said Malien. ‘A small night bird,
calling to its mate.’

‘Oh.’

From above, there came a long, vibrating howl that echoed
off the canyon walls. ‘And
that
?’

‘A gruvellor, I’d say – a predator like a wolverine,
only larger and faster.’

Maelys put her back against the wall and took hold of the
handle of her knife. ‘How large? How fast?’

‘Enough to take down a human by itself, should one
carelessly wander into its territory – and should the bigger predators
allow it.’

She swallowed. ‘Are we in its territory?’

‘Of course. If it hasn’t already scented us, it soon will.’

‘And then?’

Malien shrugged. She was standing near the edge, staring
down the canyon. Maelys remained behind the fire, as far away from the brink as
possible, for the sheer drop unnerved her and it would be easy to go over in
the darkness.

Malien said abruptly, ‘I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back
for my watch.’

‘But, you can’t go up there …’ Maelys didn’t want to be left
alone – at least, effectively alone.

‘I know how to deal with them, Maelys. Here in the land of
my ancestors, my Art is powerful. In any case, I require little sleep, and I
can’t bear to waste the few hours I will ever have on Aachan,’ she said
wistfully. ‘I would brave
any
predator for a little more time here.’

Moved by Malien’s passion for her world, Maelys said
impulsively, ‘I’ll take your watch. Stay out all night if you like.’

‘Thank you. That’s most generous – I know how afraid
you are. I’ll be back before dawn.’

Maelys wouldn’t have gone up onto the plateau in the dark
for anything. ‘What if something happens and you don’t come back?’

‘Then you must leave without me.’

‘We can’t do that!’ Maelys whispered.

‘Why not? I’m near the end of my days, and my life can be
set at naught compared to the fate of a world.’ Malien headed away along the
ledge and was lost to the darkness.

The gruvellor howled again, closer, and another answered it
in a lower register. Were they calling each other to attack Malien, or to creep
down the ledge?

The fire died down to a few dull coals and would soon go out,
since there was no more wood. Maelys kept an anxious watch along the ledge to
left and right, not that she would be able to see an approaching predator now.

She unsheathed her knife and held it up. The luminous juice
gave out a steady yellow glow, enough to have read a book by, but, thinking
that it was more likely to attract the predators than deter them, she put it
away and continued her lonely vigil.

In the morning they would only have one chance to find the
true fire, for if it failed there would be no time to try again. Had they come
here for nothing? She felt sure they had. And what would happen when they went
back empty-handed?

The night sounds continued for hours, before dying away. Did
it signify that the gruvellor were gone, or were they creeping closer? Or
eating Malien? Every second seemed to take an eternity and Maelys desperately
wanted to wake Yggur and Tulitine, but restrained herself. They needed the rest
more than she needed company.

When the stars told her it was midnight she went across to
wake Yggur, but Tulitine said, ‘Leave him, I’ll take the watch. He needs his
sleep if he’s to get us home.’

Maelys clutched her blankets and furs around her like a
defensive wall and prepared to wait out the night, but soon fell asleep and did
not wake until Malien returned at sunrise, her cheeks flushed from the cold
air. She looked serene.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘All night I have been communing with
the land of my ancestors. If only my bones could rest here after I die, I could
pass away in peace.’

Maelys shivered at the morbid thought. She wouldn’t want
her
bones to lie in such a gloomy and
forlorn place. ‘Did you see any predators?’

‘A number, including a hunting pack of gruvellor. They were
following your scent, so I had to lead them away.’

‘How did you manage that? Weren’t you terrified?’

‘There was a tense moment or two,’ said Malien drily. ‘But
this is my world, and I knew it would be worse for you.’

After breakfast they trudged up onto the plateau to make a
final attempt to find the pure fire. The small sun had risen some time ago but
it was only a hand’s breadth up on its low arc across the sky, and its light
was dim.

They took hold of the caduceus while Yggur concentrated on
finding a new source of chthonic fire.

‘That’s odd,’ he said after several minutes had passed and
nothing had happened. ‘It isn’t even attempting to make a portal. Am I too
weak, do you think?’

‘Who can fathom the workings of such an enigmatic device?’
said Malien. ‘Or the one who left it for us. Try again.’

After three attempts, Yggur’s knees were trembling and there
were globules of sweat on his forehead, but the caduceus hadn’t budged. He
slumped to the black, ropy rock, wiping his brow.

Despite his previous illness, it had never occurred to
Maelys that Yggur could fail; he had been too great and powerful a figure for
too long, and in the past he had overcome every obstacle. Now, contemplating
the thought of remaining on this alien world until she died,
or was eaten
, she felt her pulse race
and her jaw clench. To never see Santhenar again, or her family, to fail and
allow Stilkeen to destroy the world – it could not be borne. There had to
be a way out of here, but it was beyond her understanding.

She sprang up and began to walk in circles around the
others, so fast that she was panting.

‘What’s happened to your sheath?’ Tulitine said sharply.

Maelys looked down at it. The leather had gone black and
crumbly at the bottom. She drew her knife.

‘That’s odd,’ she said, studying the glowing marks on its
tip. ‘Didn’t you say that the luminous juice only lasted a few hours?’

‘I did,’ said Malien.

‘I collected this yesterday and it’s as bright as it was
then.’ A shiver made its way across the backs of Maelys’s hands. ‘Though it’s
not yellow any more; it’s
pure white
;
and flickering like …’

Everyone rose, and Tulitine was reaching out with a
fingertip when Yggur cried, ‘Don’t touch it! Pure chthonic fire could eat
through human flesh as easily as it’s consumed the leather.’

Tulitine took the knife, held it up, and the faintest flame
flickered on the tip. ‘It’s white fire, all right, but is this enough?’

‘It might be corrupted already,’ said Yggur. ‘Better collect
it afresh.’

Maelys collected all the glowing juice she could get from
the toadstool, directly into Yggur’s third and last dimensionless box, then
wiped her knife carefully on the ground and threw away the crumbling sheath.
They sat down to wait and, after a couple of hours, the yellow luminescence
disappeared and the pure white fire it had been masking flickered to life.
Yggur folded over the dimensionless box.

‘Is that why the caduceus wouldn’t take us anywhere?’ said
Maelys. ‘Because the white fire was right here?’

‘I hope so.’

‘We were also going to look for a weapon against Stilkeen.
If we went back to those abandoned buildings we saw earlier, or to an Aachim
city, do you think we might find some Aachim device we could use to attack
Stilkeen?’

‘We can’t delay any longer,’ said Malien. ‘Today is the last
day.’

‘Let’s see if we can get to Morrelune,’ said Yggur.

‘Where the jackals will be gathering,’ said Tulitine, ‘to
rob anyone who approaches with the true fire.’

‘We’d better take precautions,’ said Yggur. ‘Maelys, you
know Morrelune. Think of a safe place for us to appear.’

‘I don’t know the area well,’ said Maelys. ‘I’ve only seen
it once.’

‘Do your best. What’s our destination?’

She thought for a moment. ‘A gully in the range above the
palace, not far off the path up to Nifferlin, my home – before Jal-Nish
ordered it torn down.’ Maelys bit her lip, understanding how Malien had felt
last night, and must be feeling now. ‘I led Nish that way after we got him out
of Mazurhize.’

‘Take my hand. Concentrate on where you’re taking us, and
keep it carefully in mind until we arrive,
or
we never will
. Everyone else, blank your minds, just in case.’

Maelys closed her eyes and held her breath. Now their
survival, and the hope of the world, did depend on her and how well she could
imagine their destination. She prayed that she was up to it.

 
THIRTY-EIGHT

It was late on the eleventh day since Stilkeen’s
proclamation and Nish, hobbling onto the quay at the little fishing port of
Tungst, was worn thin from throwing up.

Yulla’s ship had carried a mere hundred of her troops, the
only ones to escape the ambush and, with no option but to continue, Nish and
his militia had gone aboard. As M’lainte turned the air-sled north towards
Roros, the ship’s captain had fled south for Fadd as fast as his craft could
go, looking over his shoulder all the way.

On the fifth day a trio of Vomix’s fast cutters had appeared
far astern and steadily ran them down. Yulla’s captain had put on all the sail
his creaking craft could carry in the stormy weather but the cutters had
continued to gain by the hour, and on the following morning they were almost
within bowshot.

The strengthening storm had become a gale and it had raged
for almost a week. Nish had been thankful at first, since it was near
impossible for the enemy to find them in such conditions, but as the weather
worsened Yulla’s round-bottomed tub had rolled her guts out.

The soldiers and Nish’s militia had thrown up in the cramped
holds until the bilges were awash and the ship reeked of vomit from the
bowsprit to the anchor lockers. They could not go up on deck – the one
soldier foolish enough to try had been swept over the side and never seen
again. Of the militia, only Clech the fisherman had been spared seasickness,
but Aimee had made up for it, heaving so violently that she had cracked one of
her healing ribs, for which he mocked her gently but mercilessly.

Finally, this afternoon, racing with the wind on bare masts,
the battered craft had ridden out the storm, but Nish hadn’t dared sail into
Fadd. It had been close to midnight when the captain had docked at Tungst, two
leagues north, where he had scraped the soldiers and militia onto the dock like
muck from the bottom of a shoe.

‘I’ll never take on such filthy landlubbers again,’ he
muttered, while the holds were hosed down and the polluted bilges pumped out
into the harbour.

Nish thanked him and looked around the deserted quay, which
was dimly illuminated by a single lantern hanging from a post a pebble-cast
away. He made out the lights of a tavern further around the small bay, but that
was all. The fishing village was hidden in a sheltered fold in the hills, the
captain had told him, though at this time of night not a single light glimmered
there.

At the other end of the quay a wisp-watcher hung from its
pole, smashed. Even this close to the heart of the empire, rebellion was everywhere
now that the God-Emperor had disappeared.

The hills, Nish knew, ran up to a steep coastal range, at
the top of which Morrelune lay on a long, narrow plain skirting a higher chain
of mountains. The palace was two hard days’ climb from here and he wasn’t
looking forward to the journey, assuming they could get away undiscovered.

Clech was pacing back and forth along the shore, limping
just a little. With the aid of the healing spells his broken bones had knitted
quickly, though he was not yet back to full strength.

The soldiers and the militia were huddled at the end of the
dock, wanting nothing more than to lie down on ground that was not rocking and
sleep a full circuit of the clock. No one yearned for it more than Nish, but he
had to know what was going on.

‘Flangers?’ he said quietly.

Flangers looked as ill as any of them, but he rose at once.
‘Surr?’

‘Lead everyone out into the countryside, bed them down in
the first patch of cover you come to, and don’t let anyone out of your sight.
I’m going to the tavern; I’ll be back in an hour or two.’

‘You’ll have to go in disguise,’ said Persia, Nish’s silent
shadow, who had only left his side on board ship when one of them had been
throwing up.

She was always polite, and never failed to do her duty, but
they had not regained the friendship that had begun when she was making him up
as a silver miner. Nish felt sure that he had mortally offended her by
suggesting that Yulla might have betrayed them. It seemed an enormous
over-reaction to what had been an imprudent, yet wholly reasonable, inference
on his part, but it did not seem as though Persia was ever going to forgive
him.

He should have known better, but it was too late now.
Sighing for what might have been, he concentrated on what she had said.

‘A disguise? Is that really necessary at this hour?’ He was
so unkempt, bearded and haggard that no one would have recognised him from the
portrait made by his father ten years ago.

‘We can’t take any chances. It won’t take long.’

‘All right.’

‘That’ll do,’ she said shortly, studying his made-up face in
the dim light. ‘Let’s go.’

‘I’m going alone,’ said Nish. ‘As Yulla’s bodyguard, your
face is too well known.’

‘I’ll disguise myself.’

‘There isn’t time, and you’ll be a liability –
especially if Vomix has spies here.’

She shivered. ‘Yes, of course.’