The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (69 page)

‘I enchanted it long ago, so as to open the gate of the
shadow realm,’ said Vivimord. ‘Though I did not expect to be using it from the
other side of death.’ He reached out for the sabre. ‘It’s mine, and I can take
it. I don’t owe you a thing in return.’

‘My Arts can break the key,
permanently
,’ said Nadiril coldly. ‘I’d advise you to act
honourably to her, Vivimord.’

‘Very well,’ scowled Vivimord, taking the sabre. ‘But I’m
not sure it will –’

A ghastly rising and falling wail fluttered the clouds above
them, followed by another, and another.

‘What’s that?’ whispered Maelys, rising to her toes.

She could not see anything amiss, but now it felt grey and
cold in the shadow realm, and she remembered how afraid Flydd had been of
coming here. Once outside the small oasis of Nadiril’s influence, how could she
hope to survive? She hugged her goose pimpled arms to her chest, afraid that
there was no way out for her.

‘From time to time the revenants must feed,’ said Nadiril,
‘and they consume the life forces of the slowest and weakest spirits, the ones
easiest to catch. Even in the shadow realm the hunt goes on. One day it will be
my turn.’

‘No!’ she cried. ‘Can’t anyone stop them?’

‘As I explained,’ Nadiril said gently, ‘they’re quite
invulnerable here.’

The screams continued until dozens of souls must have been
consumed, then, in a flash, Vivimord was gone. Maelys waited, uneasily, and
directly he returned.

‘There is news from outside,’ he said grimly. ‘The void has
had a great victory; an army has fallen and the other cannot last. That’s why
the revenants are feeding; they know they’ll soon be freed.’

‘What’s happened to Nish?’ Maelys cried, unable to bear the
thought of losing him as well. After such a disastrous defeat, many of her
friends might be dead; perhaps all of them. ‘I’ve got to get back.’

‘We’re not quite ready yet,’ said Nadiril, glancing at
Vivimord, who looked away.

Panic almost overwhelmed her but she fought it down and
forced herself to stay calm. If the revenants came this way, she would use the
knoblaggie. And if they attacked a second time, then what?

‘Stilkeen must have ordered the revenants to feed and fatten
their spirits,’ said Vivimord. ‘It must believe that it will soon have the pure
fire.’

‘And, alas, the more souls they consume now, the stronger
will be the bonding when they and Stilkeen are rejoined,’ said Nadiril.

‘How many can they consume before they’re full?’ Maelys
croaked, for her throat had gone so dry that she could barely speak.

Vivimord laughed scornfully.

‘You can’t get full on spirits,’ said Nadiril. ‘The
revenants could consume all of us … but that’s not my big worry.’

Ice touched her veins. ‘What is?’

‘That they might
scent
you. A spirit housed in a living body is far tastier than we disembodied ones …
and more fattening, too.’ He rose like a creaky old crane, knees cracking and
elbows flailing. ‘We’d better convey Maelys to the gate, now you’ve the means
to open it,’ he said to Vivimord. ‘It’ll take a good while to get there.’

‘I thought the shadow realm touched all places equally?’
said Maelys.

‘It does, but the gate is some distance away. Vivimord,
gather a shell of spirits around us so we can hide Maelys from them.’

Vivimord gave him a black look, and Maelys was afraid that
he was going to refuse, for in life he had been a mighty and commanding man
while Nadiril, for all his wisdom and knowledge, had been just a librarian.

‘Go!’ said Nadiril, and his wispy voice shivered with power.

Vivimord shot off without looking back.

‘I was never
just
a librarian,’ said Nadiril, as though he had read her thoughts. ‘I was a member
of the Great Council of Santhenar for two centuries, and I would certainly have
had that twerp’s measure when I was alive.’

‘Thank you,’ said Maelys. ‘But I thought the taphloid would
hide me from the revenants.’

‘It would, in the physical world, but not here, and I pray
that we can protect you. Ah, here they come.’

A flock of spirits soared towards them like birds in flight,
their garments fluttering. There were children and crones, toothless old men,
pregnant young women and every other age, size and shape of humanity. They
whirled into a cylinder around Maelys, took hold of her and lifted her towards
the clouds above.

Glancing over her shoulder, Maelys made out something red
but blurry winding in her direction like a python gliding across a carpet. More
screams issued forth; the spirits tightened their grip and flew faster.

Another flock of spirits appeared on the left, coming to her
protection, but a second sinuous red shadow curved around them, this time like
a tiger circling a herd of deer. The spirits flocked one way, then another,
like frightened birds. A red shadow darted, snapped; a straggling spirit wailed
as it was gulped and devoured.

So it went on, as they fled across the shadow realm for what
seemed like hours. There were seven revenants, and they took down the spirits
in the second flock one by one, then the flock Vivimord recruited after that,
until the last spirit had been taken and no others dared approach. Soon they
would come after Maelys.

‘They’re gaining; we must go faster,’ said Nadiril to her
spirit shield.

‘We can’t carry her any faster,’ said a strong, heavy-bodied
spirit, in an exhausted voice. ‘She’s alive. She has weight and we have none.’

‘We must all try a little harder,’ said Nadiril, taking
Maelys’s arm in his fleshless hand.

‘The revenants are coming,’ said a spirit youth who could
not have been older than thirteen when he died. He looked like the little
brother Maelys had often wished for. ‘Why should we be consumed to save her?’

‘Because it’s the right thing to do,’ Nadiril said gently.

‘I’m scared,’ said the boy.

‘So am I,’ said Nadiril. ‘Come in beside me, lad. We’ll get
there yet.’ Nadiril moved up ahead, taking the boy with him.

Now the five Phrunes came slithering in between the spirits
of her flock, rubbing their chubby hands together and leaving snail trails of
ectoplasm behind them. ‘We promised revenge,’ leered the first of them, ‘and
we’re going to have you.’

Maelys clutched the knoblaggie. Was now the time to use it?
No, for that would surely cost her protection as well, and the gate was not yet
in sight.

The Phrunes approached, leering, and her stomach churned
with revulsion; in life he had been a sadistic killer and death had not
improved him. The plump fingers were almost touching her when Vivimord appeared
from above. ‘Phrunes, begone!’

‘But, Master, you promised!’ they wept.

‘Things have changed, and now she’s mine. I have no further
need of you.’

‘Master!’ snivelled the Phrunes. ‘I gave my life for you.’

‘And I thank you for it, but I am going where no spirit can
follow. Leave us.’

The Phrunes wailed and shot out like sparks from a firework,
without looking where they were going. The circling revenants snapped as one,
gagged, swallowed and the Phrunes were gone.

But the revenants weren’t satisfied, and they were moving in
– they must have scented her. They looked larger, stronger, more solid
now, and they began to dart at the tail end of her protecting flock, picking
them off one by one. Maelys was afraid that her spirits would abandon her, but
Nadiril kept encouraging them and, though they were terrified, none fled or
tried to save themselves.

A revenant shot by in a long red blur streaked with black.
Dark spots at the front seemed less than eyes; it had a swaying tail like a
running crocodile, limbs that dissolved and reformed, and a round, fleshy maw
that appeared better suited to suction than to biting. Maelys did not find that
comforting.

‘They’re shapeshifters,’ said Nadiril, who was still holding
her arm, ‘as is Stilkeen itself, and before being severed they could take on
any aspect they wanted, though in the shadow realm they always look much the
same – rather reptilian. For half an eternity they had whatever they
wanted and they believe it is their right. That’s the arrogance of absolute
power, the arrogance of the
being
– look out!’

Two revenants shot in, one from either side, nosing the
spirits out of the way and going for Maelys like red rockets. Just as they were
about to strike, she willed a solid shield around her with the knoblaggie.

It formed around Vivimord and Nadiril as well, and the
revenants slammed into it and recoiled, snarling and snapping at their tails.
Unfortunately the remaining spirits, sent tumbling through the air, were hurled
aside by the shield and gulped down one after another. The boy who had been so
frightened was attacked last of all, his wet eyes staring desperately at them.

‘Nadiril, help me!’ he cried.

‘I’m sorry, lad, I can’t reach you.’ Nadiril, trapped inside
the shield, could only watch as the boy was taken.

Tears sprang to Maelys’s own eyes. He had died so young; and
now his spirit was gone too, forever. It didn’t seem fair.

As they continued, the knoblaggie’s shield slowly faded.
There were only two spirits with her now: Nadiril and Vivimord, and Nadiril was
thinning visibly.

A revenant bored in at him, expecting another easy victim.
Nadiril raised his hand, a stubby wand was outlined there, and the revenant was
blasted away. It rolled over and over, snapping at its tail, before sinking out
of sight.

‘Get on with it, Vivimord,’ said Nadiril faintly. ‘I’ve used
half my ectoplasmic essence and I didn’t have much to start with.’

The revenant came slinking back up and the others joined it.
Vivimord stopped in mid-air and called out to them, though Maelys only caught
the first part of his oration.

‘Revenants, Stilkeen has the white fire at last; that’s why
it told you to fatten up. And now it is calling you to rejoin with it, to come
together as one. Just think how wonderful your reunion is going to be, after
thousands of years of
severance
. It
will soon be safe to leave the shadow realm and I, Vivimord, or Life-in-Death,
am the one person who can cleave the shadow realm to the real world to let you
out …’

His voice faded as she passed out of hearing, but shortly
the revenants reappeared. Had Vivimord’s oratory failed, or had he offered
her
to them?

They came spiralling in from the rear, seven attacking at
once, and Maelys put on a desperate spurt, thinking she was gone. Again Nadiril
drove them off with his wand, but not far this time, and it was clear he could
not do it a third time.

Vivimord renewed his siren song, more compellingly than
before, and the revenants dropped back. Maelys could see the great gate now,
not far ahead, but before she reached it the revenants came streaking for her
like a seven-headed trident, and Nadiril was struggling to keep up.

‘Sorry, Maelys,’ he said, trying to smile. ‘There’s nothing
left of me.’ He was much more transparent than before; barely there, for the
power he’d used had been drawn from his spirit and could not be replenished.
‘And I had so much to mull over,’ he added huskily. ‘A whole lifetime of
reading to digest. Ah, well; all things must pass. All lives, and all deaths.’

Her heart went out to the ancient, gentle spirit. ‘We can
still make it.’

She took his arm and clutched the useless knoblaggie to her
chest with her other hand, wishing it was the weapon that could destroy the
revenants out in the real world. If she got the chance, she would not hesitate.

‘Make it,’ he echoed.

As they raced for the gate, Vivimord flew alongside the
revenants, and his oratory would have charmed a snail out of its shell.
Unfortunately, with such a sweet, fleshly victim so near, they would not be
distracted.

The seven of them dived for her, lunged together, but
Nadiril’s long, bony arm hooked around Maelys’s waist and from the last of his
essence he drew the strength to hurl her at the barred gate, so hard that she
felt sure she was going to break her neck. She was trying to protect her face
with her arms when light stabbed from the old librarian’s wand and the gate
opened just wide enough to let her through.

The revenants turned on him, snapped, and Nadiril was gone.
The gate slammed closed, the shadow realm faded and she went skidding across
one of the floors of Morrelune on her backside.

Maelys came to a halt and sat up, rubbing her bruised
bottom. Old Nadiril, that great librarian and dear old man, was gone forever,
his spirit
consumed
. How was she
going to tell Lilis?

She got up, shaking. A great and noble spirit had been lost,
and for what? She still did not know how to stop Stilkeen.

‘Who else must be destroyed?’ she raged. ‘How many more are
we going to lose?’

And she had rewarded one of the most sickening scoundrels in
all Santhenar. She had given Vivimord the means to come back from death, which
surely he was going to take.

She was trudging towards a stair when she slipped on a
sticky patch of floor and saw Klarm’s boot and severed foot. She had returned
to the level below the audience chamber. She set the knoblaggie down beside it
and looked around for him, trying to think.

The creatures from the
void have had a great victory
, Vivimord had said.
An army has fallen and the other cannot last
. But which army had
fallen – Nish’s? She climbed the steps, stumbled across the sand-strewn,
bloodstained audience chamber and out a side entrance to the promenade, to look
down over a scene of chaos.

Smoke drifted across the paved plain, and in the garish,
fume-yellowed glow from the lanterns of Morrelune and Mazurhize she saw bodies
everywhere in gory, unidentifiable heaps.

Around to her left, not far from the edge of the Sacred
Lake, a company of the white-armoured Imperial Guard was fighting a horde of
beasts like long-tailed bears – no, not beasts, for they carried forged
weapons and knew how to use them. Further off, a phalanx of lyrinx was in
furious melee with several winged serpents, and other struggles were visible
fleetingly through the smoke.