The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (81 page)

‘I could kill Flydd, though,’ said Jal-Nish.

Flydd took a small step closer to Jal-Nish.

‘Go ahead,’ said Irisis, not smiling now, ‘if killing is your
only answer. Flydd’s had a good life, and he’ll be wonderful company for me in
the shadow realm. Kill him or not, I’m not telling you what you want.’

‘Then I’ll kill Maelys,’ snarled Jal-Nish.

‘Why should she have your son, if I can’t?’ said Irisis. She
moved to her left, and Jal-Nish’s eyes followed her, but Maelys noticed her
make a tiny, wiggling gesture of her fingers to Flydd.

He sprang, punched Jal-Nish in the face, knocking him down,
and ran for the tears. Jerking them from their pedestal by their chain, he slid
his gnarled fingers above the roiling surfaces of Gatherer and Reaper.

‘Xervish!’ Maelys cried. ‘The tears are their own
antithesis. If you crush them together, I think they’ll annihilate each other
…’ But how was he supposed to do that without killing himself and everyone
else? Or was that the only solution?

Jal-Nish rolled over, spat out blood and a broken tooth, and
snapped his fingers. The surface of Reaper seethed and bubbled; Flydd’s hand
began to smoke and he was hurled ten spans across the floor, where he lay on
his back, rolling from side to side and holding his head.

‘
You’ve
always
been predictable, Flydd,’ said Jal-Nish, ‘and it was worth a tooth to have you
take the tears, because I’d set my trap earlier. The moment you touched
Gatherer, it drew from you the memories of what you did and saw and felt in
Snizort and, now I have them, I will finally understand the tears.’

He went to the pedestal, laid his good hand upon Gatherer,
and stood for a minute or two, head down.

‘I see it,’ he said. ‘The process that created the tears was
unique and none of the other exploded nodes would have reacted that way. There
are
no other tears on Santhenar. No one
can hope to match my power.’

He closed his good eye, and momentarily the shimmer in his
empty eye socket died as well, though when he looked up it was back, brighter,
deeper, and darker. ‘Finally I understand the tears, and I have everything I
need to turn myself into an immortal
being
.
It will be good to escape the shackles of this feeble, fragile world –
I’ve finished with it, and all of you.

‘You did discover the antithesis to the tears,’ he said
mockingly to Flydd and Maelys, ‘but you could never have done anything with it.
No human save me can withstand the touch of the tears, and even if anyone
could, no human has the strength to overcome the repulsion between Gatherer and
Reaper and force them to coalesce into one. The tears can never be destroyed;
they are my chthonic fire and they will last forever, just as I will – once
I become a being.’

He closed one fist and Maelys staggered, for it felt as
though he was squeezing her heart like a lemon. He opened it again and the pain
was gone, yet she felt so weak and breathless that she could hardly stand up.

‘Your clan has been a burr under my saddle far too long,’
said Jal-Nish. ‘And I’ve reserved a special torment for you, Maelys Nifferlin
– after I become a being. All that time in Stilkeen’s thrall taught me
much about pain and I can’t wait to put my lessons into practice.’

He hung the tears about his neck, put one hand into each,
and for a moment Jal-Nish looked almost serene. Then he withdrew his hands and
closed his fist again.

Maelys gasped, for the squeezing pain in her heart was far
worse this time. The room swam before her eyes, her knees gave, and Nish just
caught her before her head hit the floor.

Jal-Nish didn’t look at them. Through her daze, she saw that
he was moving his hands in complicated patterns above the tears, his movements
lifting silvery tendrils off the surface of Gatherer and sending them streaming
out towards Reaper, further each time.

What was he doing? She struggled to think, knowing she had
to, and fast. Ah, yes! Once he overcame the antipathy of the tears to each
other, the antithesis would no longer exist and he could no longer be stopped.
They had to act now but Flydd was still twitching on the floor, and there was
nothing she could do either. Maelys was as weak as a newborn infant. Had Nish
let her go, she would have collapsed.

Nish was staring at her, not even looking at Irisis, and to
her amazement his face was wet with tears.

‘I’m sorry; I’m so sorry it’s come to this,’ he said,
holding her tightly and smoothing her sweat-damp brow. ‘Everything you and your
clan have suffered has been done to you by Father, or by me, yet everything I
have I owe to you.

‘From the moment we met you’ve stood by me, not because I
deserved it, for I did not, but because you could not do otherwise than keep
your word. When you give, you do so without reservation and, no matter what
I’ve done, you have always remained steadfast. No man has ever had a
better
friend, yet I can do nothing to
help you when you need it most.’

‘Your being here is a great help,’ she said, clinging to
him. Maelys felt someone’s eyes on her and looked up. Irisis was watching them,
and she was smiling.

‘I lied, Nish,’ Irisis said softly. ‘Of course I’ve been
watching you. I’ve been aching for you, in your terrible grief, ever since my
death, for it’s not the one who dies that loses, it’s those who are left
behind. Not a day of your imprisonment went by without my checking on you, and
it wrung my heart that I could do nothing to ease your pain. Now, at last, you
have set me free – and I can do no less for you.’

What did she mean? How was Irisis going to set Nish free?
Horror churned Maelys’s insides, for she could only think of one way to do
that.

Irisis came to them. She kissed Nish on the lips, and Maelys
on the brow, then flashed a savage warrior’s smile, just as the tales said she
had done when going recklessly into battle, back in the days of the lyrinx war.

‘Thank you, my love,’ she said softly to Nish, and strode
across to Jal-Nish.

He looked up at her indifferently, then bent to his work
again, knowing that, while he had the tears, no one could harm him. But she
took him by the arm, spun him around and caught him from behind in a bear-hug,
squeezing him against her breast.

Jal-Nish went for the tears but she clasped his wrists so
tightly that he could not touch either Gatherer or Reaper and, though he
struggled furiously, neither could he break her grip. Irisis was half a head
taller than him and had always been strong; she was far stronger than a man of
Jal-Nish’s age.

‘Reaper!’ he gasped. ‘Burn her from the inside out. Destroy
the yellow-haired bitch.’

‘You can’t,’ said Irisis with a mocking laugh. ‘You made a
fatal mistake when you raised me from the dead, Jal-Nish.’

Flydd rolled over, came to his knees and got up painfully.
The squeezing pain around Maelys’s heart faded and she felt the strength
returning to her legs, but she still clung to Nish. It felt wonderful when he
held her; for the first time since she had been a little girl and Clan
Nifferlin had been attacked, she felt safe.

‘What’s that?’ Jal-Nish’s good eye bulged; his face twisted
in the first vestiges of unease.

‘You forgot a fundamental law of nature,’ said Irisis.

‘What law of nature?’ he sneered, jerking his arms
fruitlessly.

‘
The law that says no
one can be killed twice
. You had me slain ten years ago and you can’t do it
again. There’s nothing you can do to stop me, God-Emperor, but I’m going to
stop you, forever.’

‘Your pathetic artisan’s Art was never a patch on my
mancery,’ sneered Jal-Nish. ‘You can’t hope to use the tears against me, and as
for taking them from me –’

‘Your big mistake,’ said Irisis, holding him without any
visible strain, ‘and the one
you’ve
never learned from, is the assumption that other people want the same things as
you. I have no intention of attacking you with the tears, and neither do I want
them for myself.’

‘What do you want?’ There was a tremor in his voice now.

Irisis pulled his wrists closer, and closer yet, until the
tears were shuddering with antipathy as they tried to repel each other. ‘Can’t
you guess?’

‘No!’ he cried. ‘It can’t be done, anyway.’

‘
No human has the
strength to overcome the repulsion between Gatherer and Reaper and force them
to coalesce into one
,’ she quoted mockingly. ‘Aren’t you forgetting
something? You raised me from the dead, Jal-Nish – I’m no longer human.’

Irisis pushed the tears another ell closer and, though
Jal-Nish strained with all his strength, he could not stop her.

‘Besides,’ said Irisis, ‘I was always stronger than you
– mentally
and
physically.’

The repulsive forces between the tears grew ever stronger,
and they shook ever more wildly, but she continued to thrust them together
until they touched.

Instantly they flared so bright that Maelys could see the
outline of Jal-Nish’s bones through his skin, and suddenly the façade of calm
and control the God-Emperor had maintained all this time sloughed from him like
a carapace shed by a cockroach.

‘Reaper, unbind her soul from her body!’ he raged. ‘Hurl the
slut back into the shadow realm where she belongs.’

The quicksilver surface of Reaper boiled, and shining
globules burst forth from it, but were drawn back at once and Irisis was
unaffected. The tears no longer had the power to affect her in any way.

‘I can’t be killed twice,’ she reminded him. ‘Nor can any
spell designed to attack a human touch me.’

He froze and the tears went still. ‘You can’t do this to
me
!’ cried Jal-Nish. ‘I’m the
God-Emperor – I’m going to become a
being
.’
He twisted to look up at her, and his voice took on what he imagined to be a
cajoling tone. ‘Irisis, will – will you come with me? I’ve always admired
your beauty, your courage –’

‘You impotent little turd,’ she said. ‘How dare you suck up
to
me
? Your son is ten times the man
you were. He’s a
real man
, and that’s
the only kind I ever cared for.’

‘I’ll give you –’

Irisis’s slender forearm muscles knotted, then she forced
Gatherer and Reaper into each other until they coalesced into a two-lobed
spheroid of liquid metal that brightened until it appeared to outshine the sun.
Maelys was forced to look away, but she had to see. She let go of Nish and
peered through her slitted fingers; sweat burst from her forehead; her heart
thundered like a great drum.

‘You can have the world,’ cried Jal-Nish, trying to twist
around to beseech her. ‘The universe! I’ll make you into a
being
too.’

Irisis laughed in his face. ‘There’s no coming back from
annihilation, Jal-Nish. Not for you, nor the tears either. You’re going to the
fate you’ve been trying to avoid all your life.’

‘No, I won’t! I can’t.’

‘It’s a beautiful irony, don’t you agree, that the very
objects you killed for, and stole to stave off death, should be the ones to
drag you, whining and whimpering, through the worst death any human can suffer,
and beyond it to the ultimate oblivion.’

‘I’ll hunt you down in the shadow realm. I’ll make you pay
–’

‘You’re not going to the shadow realm, Jal-Nish. Haven’t you
worked that out yet? The shadow realm is too good for you. You’re going all the
way to eternal nothingness, and I’m delighted to take you with me. Oblivion is
all I’ve craved since you slew me so brutally.

‘Goodbye, dearest Xervish,’ she said, ‘and you, beautiful
Maelys. Farewell, sweet Nish, the love of my life, but not beyond it. I’m
taking Jal-Nish where no one in the Three Worlds, nor the shadow realm, can
follow.’

He struggled furiously, and for an anguished moment Maelys
thought he was going to free himself after all, but Irisis tightened her
crushing grip on him.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Maelys, clinging to Nish for comfort and
never wanting to let go. ‘What’s going to happen if the tears do annihilate
each other?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, holding her.

‘They’ll destroy the whole palace. And us. They’ve got to.
All that power has to go somewhere.’

‘At least we’ll be together.’

‘I don’t want to die with you – I want to live with
you.’

Irisis crushed the coalesced tears, now an almost perfect
sphere, tighter to Jal-Nish’s chest, squeezing it until it passed through his
ribs into the region where any normal man would have had a heart. Jal-Nish
shrieked as Gatherer gathered the very life and soul out of him, then slumped
bonelessly as Reaper brutally reaped it.

‘Farewell, false God-Emperor,’ Irisis cried. ‘Annihilation,
take him!’ and she tossed the revolving sphere into the air.

The single tear drifted upwards and flared so brightly that
Maelys, squinting through the slits between her fingers, could see nothing but
a molten ball of fire whose heat made the stone floor fume underfoot. With a
shrill wail, the fire and light were sucked into the ball, and the rag-doll
remnants of Jal-Nish too, until he disappeared like smoke drawn back into a
pipe.

Irisis opened her hands and the tear settled and floated in
front of her in mid-air, slowly rotating, but quiescent now. She stood there,
gazing at Maelys, Nish and Flydd, then gave him a fond, parting smile. ‘I told
you that I had a destiny after death.’

‘I never believed you,’ said Flydd, and there were bright
tears in his old eyes. ‘But you were right. You were always right. And I can
say it now …’

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘That day ten years ago was also the worst day of my life,
for you were the only woman I ever loved.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Irisis said, looking ever so slightly
uncomfortable for the first time. ‘You must have been with thousands of women.’