The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (7 page)

Yggur glanced at it without interest. ‘What is it?’

‘A device my father, Rudigo, gave me when I was little,’
said Maelys.

‘I’ve a vague memory of having seen one before, though I
can’t say where. So many years, and so many devices – they all blur into
one another.’

‘Father told me to wear it always. It’s designed to hide the
aura created by my gift, though it’s been behaving oddly ever since we ended up
here.’

‘What gift?’ Yggur said sharply. ‘I didn’t know you had a
gift for the Art.’

‘I don’t know what mine is, though some people in my family
could locate the God-Emperor’s wisp-watchers, or hide from them. My little
sister, Fyllis, has the strongest gift. She fooled all the watchers in
Mazurhize, and Gatherer too, and got Nish out of prison all by herself,’ Maelys
said proudly, ‘though she was only eight.’

‘Remarkable,’ said Yggur.

He did not seem overly impressed, but then, he must have
known thousands of people more gifted than her, including the greatest mancers
of all. ‘But I’ve never had any training,’ said Maelys, ‘and apparently I’m too
old to start now.’

‘Very possibly.’ He held out his hand.

She lifted the taphloid over her head, more reluctant than
usual to take it off. ‘Be careful. It’s set to protect me, and it’s hurt
everyone who’s touched it – at least, everyone with a gift for the Art.’

‘I’m not
everyone
,’
he said curtly, closing his big fingers around the egg-shaped, yellow-metal
taphloid. It had no apparent effect on him, and he closed his eyes as if
thinking.

‘Yggur?’ said Tulitine shortly.

He shook himself and handed it back to Maelys, shaking his
head in puzzlement. ‘It felt as though it belonged in my hand, like an everyday
object from long ago suddenly found again, though how can that be? I don’t
remember ever having one. Put it on, Maelys. It doesn’t just hide your aura; it
also makes you harder to see, a considerable advantage on the battlefield.’

‘That must be Yalkara’s doing,’ said Maelys. ‘To protect the
child she thinks I’m carrying.’

‘Hmm,’ said Yggur. ‘Well, I’ve done all I could to increase
the protection, though I don’t think I made much difference.’

The taphloid seemed heavier, and warmer, and every so often
it gave a little shudder, as though something inside it was wobbling like an
off-centre spinning top. It had been doing that a lot since she’d come through
the portal from the Tower of a Thousand Steps, and Maelys was afraid it was
breaking down.

She set off without looking back, for five precious minutes
had been lost and, though another fourteen stragglers had arrived, Nish had
not. They were the last, they said, and they had seen no sign of him.

Maelys crept along the track with the rain pouring down as
heavily as ever, increasingly afraid that Nish had been captured, or … or
killed
. She could not bear to think
about that ... he had been a part of her life for too long.

As a little girl she had hero-worshipped him from the time
she first heard, then read and re-read, the tales of his mighty exploits during
the war. She no longer had any romantic feelings for Nish, thankfully, but she
would always care about him.

She dragged her thoughts back to the present. If she went
on, she was bound to run into the Imperial army and be captured; the taphloid
would not hide her from their direct sight, but returning to the militia also
felt wrong. No, she must keep going – if anyone could find Nish, she
could.

Nifferlin Manor had been torn down by the God-Emperor’s
troops when Maelys was still a child, but the family had remained in the ruins,
for they had nowhere else to go. The estate had been searched a number of times
and she had quickly learned how to find the best hiding places, and how to move
silently through forest and across moor. The scriers had never found her.

She slipped into the rainforest, weaving between the huge,
buttressed trunks festooned with vines of all sizes, some thin as string,
others as large around as her waist. There was no danger of a stick snapping
underfoot to give her away, for the ground was like a sponge made of rotten
wood and dark brown humus like peat, and all was covered in ankle-high moss,
downy ferns and huge, extraordinary fungi. Many of them were a luminous green
or blue in the dim light, with suggestive or vulgar shapes and unpleasant
odours.

She hadn’t gone far when she heard soldiers running down the
track. Maelys slid behind a phallic fungus taller than she was and peered
around its oozing side. The troop splashed past, only a few paces away, led by
a burly, toad-faced sergeant.

Another squad followed close behind, and finally a smaller
figure clad in sodden brown robes and dripping hood, moving with a sliding,
slithery stride. A battle mancer? Maelys froze.

Even worse; far worse. The unblinking iris of a little
wisp-watcher was mounted on the man’s head, a shimmering loop-listener clamped
to his left shoulder, and as he drew near she caught a whiff of burnt bones
– scrier! She feared scriers more than any of the God-Emperor’s other
servants, for they had hunted her family many times, and twice they had almost
caught them.

He stopped, raised his flared nostrils and began to sniff
the air. His head rotated left and right like an oiled piece of machinery; now
he was staring at the stalk of the fungus. Could he make her out in the gloom?
The huge wisp-watchers could see in the dimmest light but a little one might
not be so keen-sighted. She dared not move, not even to clutch her taphloid.

Though the rain was almost deafening, Maelys scarcely dared
to breathe in case the loop-listener could detect it. A scrier’s spying devices
could be linked to Gatherer, and if he did hear her, Klarm would soon be told
about it.

The scrier reached up with a long-nailed hand and caressed
the loop-listener, which rotated back and forth before pointing at her hiding
place. Behind the stalk of the toadstool, Maelys slid her hand down to the big
knife on her hip, not that it would be any use against a scrier. He would call
in the troops, then torment her while they held her down.

Don’t see me
, she
thought.
I’m far away and, the longer you
waste here, the less chance you have of finding me
.

The taphloid warmed slightly. The scrier turned away, looked
back, then shook his head and moved on. More troops ran by, and more. Once
they’d gone, Maelys shivered and crept away, now really anxious about the time.

The best place for Nish to ambush the enemy was the dense
forest at the nearer end of the partly collapsed path next to the river. She
struggled through the dripping jungle beside the track, fretting about how much
time she was taking, but if she went further into the forest she was likely to
get lost.

Another squad of troops ran by. The enemy would soon be in a
position to attack, and they would quickly overwhelm the militia sheltering
behind the outcrop. She had to go faster.

Maelys only just stifled a cry as another scrier came
slithering around the bend, just paces away on the track, and for a second he
was looking right at her. She tried to blend into the forest, hoping the mud
all over her would help.

The scrier stopped abruptly and squinted between the trees,
nose up. She stared at him, restraining the overwhelming urge to bolt. He moved
the iris of his wisp-watcher back and forth, but it was pointing slightly away
from her. She took hold of the taphloid and, after a few seconds, he too headed
on.

She was approaching the collapsed section of path now
– Maelys could just make out the dangling roots through the trees. There
seemed to be far more exposed than before, and the river was a lot higher,
which explained why the enemy had been so far behind; presumably they’d had to
hack their way through the tangled vines.

The ground shook then heaved under her feet, and not far
ahead a gigantic tree began to topple as its roots were undermined. A thick
root tore up through the ground, pulled as taut as a hawser, then snapped,
flinging mud in all directions. A clot smacked stingingly into her right cheek.

Scrambling backwards, she caught hold of a vine as other
roots tore out of the ground, the tree tilted and, with majestic slowness and a
deafening roar, crashed into the river, sending waves in all directions. As the
tree was dragged downstream by the current, the roots tore out and the ground
where it had stood liquefied before Maelys’s eyes. The slurry poured into the
river, leaving a hole the width of a cottage.

Now a series of concentric cracks formed in the soil,
centred where the tree had been, then began to widen and the ground between
them to sink. The earth moved under Maelys’s feet; it was cracking out here as
well. She ran the other way and caught hold of a solid vine as the river
flooded into the hole and began to eat the soil away.

Scrabbling across to the most likely ambush point, she noted
arrows embedded in a branch. Nish had been fired upon, but had they got him?
Maelys saw no blood, though the downpour would surely have washed any away. If
he’d escaped, he should be in the lower clearing by now and, with the enemy
about to attack, could not afford to wait for her.

Afraid she was going to be left behind, Maelys was heading
for the track when she trod on something that did not give under her weight
– the hilt of Vivimord’s black sabre. Nish would not have left it behind,
therefore he must have been taken. Which way? The spongy ground held no tracks,
but a company of soldiers would have trampled the exotic fungi and mound-mosses
underfoot and she saw no sign of that. Who, then?

Closing her eyes, she took the taphloid in her right hand
and turned around. It was unlikely to be a scrier; they located their victims,
then waited for the soldiers to take them. That only left Klarm – and he
had the tears.

 
FIVE

Klarm was as bruised, battered and filthy as Nish, and
a trail of blood ran from his swollen nose down his chin, but he looked as
though he’d just been given an unexpected birthday present.

Nish cursed himself for not keeping a better lookout, for
there was nothing he could do to save himself. Klarm will take me back to
Mazurhize, he thought, and put me in that stinking cell again, and I won’t be
able to take it. I’ll go insane.

‘It had to end, Nish,’ Klarm said. ‘It’s for the best.’

Nish tensed, but Klarm pressed the knoblaggie harder into
the small of his back. ‘Don’t try it; I can make every nerve in your body
scream.’

‘I never thought of you as a sadist,’ Nish said, ‘but I
don’t suppose there’s any limit to what you’ll do to suck up to your master.’

‘I don’t enjoy inflicting pain,’ said Klarm, unprovoked,
‘but I’m not giving away any chances either. If you force me, I’ll subdue you
in the quickest way possible.’

Nish turned around, slowly. Klarm’s right hand had a muddy
bandage wrapped around it and was seeping a thin yellow fluid, as Nish’s hand
had when he’d been burned by the tears. He recalled the dwarf’s earlier cries,
after he had used Reaper. Clearly he had not mastered it, since it had hurt him
so badly.

‘How did you get here so quietly? The tears, I suppose. The
stinking tears.’ Though Klarm was not wearing them.

‘Know your enemy,’ said Klarm. ‘I didn’t need to use them; I
swung through the trees.’

‘I forgot you were like an acrobat, once.’

‘I was an acrobat, and I’ve kept up my skills. It’s one
field where dwarves are superior – we have most of the strength but only
half the weight. No one else could have got to you in time.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Follow my orders. I’m taking you back, and Maelys once I
find her, and dispatching everyone else.’

‘How you use words,’ said Nish, sickened by what Klarm had
become. ‘You’re not
dispatching
my
militia – you’re
slaughtering
good, decent people for defending their own country.’

‘I’m following my orders,’ said Klarm, but he looked
uncomfortable.

‘That excuse has served cowardly, murdering scum like you
for thousands of years. Are you also
dispatching
the friends you fought beside during the war?’

‘The war ended ten years ago,’ said Klarm. ‘Flydd and Yggur
are rebels against the God-Emperor and, as I’ve sworn to serve him, my former
friends are now my enemies.’

‘My father’s rule is illegitimate,’ snapped Nish. ‘He took
power by force.’

Klarm sighed. ‘Power grants its own legitimacy, as you very
well know. Jal-Nish has remained God-Emperor because he has the strength to
hold his empire. He’s defeated every rebellion, of which there were many in the
early days.’

‘And you admire the way he’s done that, do you?’

‘I don’t admire everything he’s done, but I swore an oath
and I cannot, will not, break it.’

‘Why does everyone have to die?’ said Nish.

‘Because the God-Emperor ordered it, and he’s the only one
in a position to see how desperate our situation is.’

‘You’ve got the tears. You can make your own decisions
– unless you’re afraid to!’

‘No!’ cried Klarm, and Nish wondered if he was afraid of
them. ‘The tears have to be studied, practised, mastered. No mancer can simply
pick them up and use them. Jal-Nish held them for many years, and there is
still much he doesn’t know about them –’

Klarm broke off, then added, ‘Santhenar is in mortal peril
from Stilkeen and without unity we can’t survive, so this rebellion has to be
crushed. That’s why I follow Jal-Nish’s orders to the letter.’

‘What a load of self-serving tripe,’ said Nish. ‘You’ve been
supporting Father for years.’

‘He first saw the danger from the void a long time ago,’
said Klarm. ‘And every time he looked again, the threat grew more serious.’