The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (82 page)

‘I’ve had my share,’ he conceded, ‘but only one mattered.
You were the only one I cared about, and even after you cast me aside and took
up with Nish, I never stopped loving you.’

‘You’re a good man, Xervish,’ she said wistfully, ‘but this
has to stop.’ She cupped her hands around the tear and pressed gently, and it
brightened again, and swelled.

‘Wait!’ cried Maelys. ‘What happens when Gatherer and Reaper
annihilate each other and explode?’

‘The coalesced tear doesn’t explode, it implodes,’ said
Irisis. ‘And all that power doesn’t have to go somewhere. It has to go
nowhere
. Farewell, my friends.’

She crushed the tear between her palms. The dazzling globe
shrank to a pinpoint and she was drawn into it, smiling at them, shrinking
until she and the tear could no longer be seen. With a little pop, it vanished
... and Irisis had gone to a place from which there could be no returning.

Nish stared after her for a long time, then gave Maelys a
small, uncertain smile and took her hand. ‘Irisis was always right,’ he echoed.
‘I’m glad she’s found peace at last.’

‘Ah, Irisis, Irisis,’ said Flydd, rubbing his eyes. The
ceiling gave a creaking groan and cracked from one side to the other. ‘We’d
better go.’ He continued to stare at the point where she had disappeared, then
shook himself and took Maelys’s free hand. ‘Morrelune was built with the tears,
and now they’re gone there’s not much holding it up.’

With an almighty crash, the metal spire toppled and fell.
They ran out to the edge of the ninth level and saw that the spire had crashed
across the gap and its tip now rested in the Sacred Lake, which had begun to
spill down into the moat surrounding Morrelune.

‘Do you think we can walk across?’ said Flydd.

‘We’d better,’ said Maelys. ‘There won’t be time to run all
the way down, then climb up.’

They teetered along the flattened spire in the moonlight,
and clambered down onto the cracked paving next to the abandoned feast tables.
A mass of people were running their way.

‘What did Irisis mean about her destiny?’ said Maelys.

Yggur and Tulitine were coming towards them, and behind them
were several other people who could not be identified in the dark, apart from
Lilis’s slender figure and Yulla’s sack-like form.

‘Nish and I talked about it that night we camped in the
mountains,’ said Flydd, ‘after we stole the Seneschal of Taranta’s best wine.’

‘Irisis believed that her destiny could only be fulfilled
after her death.’

‘That’s why she never expected to survive the war. And if
Jal-Nish hadn’t killed her, she would never have been able to bring him down,
or destroy the tears, because no human could have done it.’

Nish did not reply, and after a long pause Maelys said, ‘She
must have been a wonderful woman. It’s no wonder …’ She glanced at Nish, then
away hastily.

‘She was a beautiful, warm, wonderful part of my life,’ said
Nish, wiping his face.

‘Of all our lives,’ Flydd added.

‘And I’ll never forget her,’ Nish added, ‘but she’s gone,
forever.’

‘It’s over,’ says Flydd. ‘It’s finally over.’ He looked
around, sniffing the air like a dog on the hunt and added, ‘That’s strange.’

‘What?’ says Maelys and Nish at the same time.

‘Just for a moment, I thought I sensed a faint, distant
field
.’

‘A
field
?’ said
Maelys.

‘The force created by nodes, and the source of most mancers’
power.’

‘But with Tiaan’s destruction of the nodes at the end of the
war,’ said Nish, ‘all the fields disappeared, leaving Father, with the tears,
in command of almost all the Secret Art.’

‘And now the tears are gone, the fields are coming back,’
said Flydd. ‘Slowly, I suspect, and they probably won’t be as strong as before,
but even so, they’ll be available to all who can master the Secret Art –
not just to one corrupt man.’

‘And just in time,’ said the Numinator from the darkness,
‘to complete
my
project.’

 
FIFTY-FIVE

Maelys had no chance to run, for the Numinator, now
right behind her, grabbed her wrist.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m going to take very good care
of you – and your unborn child.’

‘It won’t do you any good, Maigraith,’ said Tulitine, her
granddaughter.

‘Don’t call me Maigraith!’ snapped the Numinator. ‘It is a
Faellem name and I won’t have it.’

‘Numinator is equally inappropriate,’ said Tulitine coldly.
‘The Numinous One indeed! You’re no more a
being
than Jal-Nish was a God-Emperor. You were frauds, both of you – and
Maigraith it is.’

‘Well, I’m having the child,’ Maigraith ground out. ‘Two
hundred and twenty years I’ve worked on my great project and I’m not giving it
up now.’

‘You won’t find what you’re looking for here,’ said
Tulitine. ‘If you recall, and I’m sure you were watching, Yalkara held the same
view until the moment she touched Maelys’s belly. She seemed to age a hundred
years, and then she said, “I have nothing left.” As you of all people know,
Charon don’t give up lightly.’

‘I don’t
ever
give
up,’ said Maigraith, ‘and having the field back will make it so much easier.’

With a flick of her fingers she conjured up a hollow dagger
of fuming ice, much like the stiletto she’d used to test Maelys’s fertility in
the Nightland, save that the core of the dagger was as green as atatusk blood
and its point as narrow as a needle. Before Maelys could move, Maigraith had
pressed the tip through her shirt into her belly. Maelys felt a burning,
freezing pain, then the point was withdrawn and inside was a small thread of
blood.

She drew the blood up into the green core, which slowly
changed to grey. Maigraith went the same colour. ‘No! It isn’t possible.’

‘Yet it’s happened,’ said Tulitine, ‘and there’s nothing you
can do about it.’

Maigraith studied the grey core again, and her shoulders
slumped. ‘It’s certain. No wonder she gave up.’

‘What’s the matter?’ cried Maelys, clutching at her belly.
‘Is there something wrong with the baby?’

‘Terribly wrong!’

‘What? Tell me!’ She took Maigraith by the coat and shook
her. ‘You’ve got to tell me.’

‘It’s entirely
old
human
,’ said Maigraith.

Had Yalkara also said that? At the time, Maelys had been so
shocked at being told that she was pregnant that she hadn’t taken it in. ‘It
can’t be. Emberr is the father, and he was a full-blood Charon.’

‘I’ve been studying the mating business for more than two
hundred years,’ said Maigraith wearily, ‘and there’s no doubt. But how can it
be?’

She thought for a minute or two, while all the people
gathered around stared at her. ‘I think I understand – when you and
Emberr lay together in the Nightland, the chthonic fire that killed him must
have stripped his seed back to its essence – and the essence of all four
human species is the one they sprang from in the deeps of time,
old human
. The child was worth nothing
to Yalkara. That’s why she gave up, and it’s no use to me, either. You’re free,
Maelys … and I must start again, from the beginning.’

‘Surely it’s time to abandon this fruitless obsession,
Grandmother?’ said Tulitine.

‘I
never
give up,’
Maigraith repeated. She double-clapped her hands and vanished from Morrelune.

That afternoon, after the last of the soldiers’ bodies
had been interred in the sump of Mazurhize, the allies gathered at the tables
by the Sacred Lake for a final meal. The palace had collapsed and the army was
making ready to go down to the garrison at Fadd, under Flangers’s command.

‘Well, Nish,’ said Flydd, when everyone had settled at the
table, ‘you swore that oath ten years ago, you fought the God-Emperor all the
way, and you’ve prevailed. No one could argue that this is your hour, so what
are you going to do about the empire, and your people?’

‘You were right all along,’ said Nish, who had given the
matter much thought. ‘The empire can’t be torn down, for civil war would surely
follow. But neither am I going to become God-Emperor, or merely a
humble
emperor.’ He gave Maelys a
twisted smile, and went on.

‘For most of my life I’ve yearned for power, authority, and
the respect of all who knew me. Yet now I have all those things, what I want
most of all is peace and an ordered world, where ordinary people can live their
lives as freely as possible. Unfortunately, peace isn’t so easily maintained,
and I know nothing about maintaining it.’

‘Nish,’ said Flydd warningly.

Nish held up his hand. ‘I’ve spent most of my life either in
the manufactory, in warfare or in prison. I wouldn’t know how to run a
household, much less rule an empire. Any of you would do a better job.’

‘Your father was an able administrator, if nothing else,’
said Yulla. ‘He might have been an evil scoundrel, but he knew how to control
his empire. You could learn –’

Her words were gall in Nish’s mouth, but she was right.
‘Anything that was good about Father’s empire must be maintained; and all that
was evil will be torn down and remade. But not by me.’

‘Nish!’ snapped Flydd.

‘No, Flydd. I’ve had enough of war, empires, dictators and
universal rule. The hundred nations of Santhenar should be free to live
according to their own laws and customs, rather than having them imposed from
above.’

‘You can’t tear down the empire, and you can’t walk away,’
said Yggur.

‘I wasn’t planning to,’ Nish said mildly. ‘I’m going to
replace it with something better.’

‘Better!’ cried Flydd. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I plan to use my authority, as the heir of the God-Emperor
and a hero of the wars, to set up a parliamentary council to advise,
and constrain
, the elected leader of the
confederated nations of Santhenar, when Santhenar is ready for such a leader
–
and it won’t be me
. I swore that
I would not become my father, and I will not, but neither will I leave
Santhenar to anarchy. Yulla, you will advise me as to the permanent members of
the council, and what its statutes should be. You’ll be a member, of course
– at least for the first term.’

Yulla was playing with another of her crystal specimens, a
mass of intergrown golden cubes as shiny as metal. ‘Thank you,’ she said,
staring into the distance, and a greedy gleam came and went in her small eyes.

‘Don’t get any ideas about having your monopolies back,’
Nish added, then smiled. ‘At least, not all of them.’ One had to be realistic
– it wouldn’t do to try and change the world too quickly. ‘Flydd, you’ll
be on the council, of course, so you’ll have to postpone your holiday. I’ll be
its head at first, since the people must have continuity of leadership, but my
vote will be worth no more than anyone else’s, unless the issue is tied.’

‘Very well,’ said Flydd. ‘I suppose it’s the best I could
hope for. It’s good enough, for the moment. But don’t think I’ve given up on
you,’ he said darkly.

Nish shrugged. ‘I didn’t expect you would.’

‘You’ll need an interim council,’ said Yggur, ‘to maintain
order and authority until the parliamentary council can be established.’

‘And I propose that everyone at this table be on it,’ said
Nish. ‘At least, all those who care to.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ryll, who had been sitting silently, head
bowed. ‘But this is not our affair and we have our own world to look after. I
will see you again before we depart.’

He bowed and turned away, his shoulders hunched. Lyrinx
rarely partnered more than once and his grief for Liett might take the rest of
his lifetime to fade.

The members of the council were agreed upon: Flydd and
Yggur, Yulla and M’lainte, Lilis and Malien, Tulitine and Nish, Chissmoul and
Flangers.

‘Maelys?’ said Nish.

She had that faraway look in her eyes again. Maelys shook
her head, and he understood that she could think of nothing save going home,
and all the work it would take to raise Nifferlin Manor from the ruins. Not
even her unused gift for the Art, nor the fact that she was too old to begin
learning it, mattered any more.

‘That’s enough,’ said Nish. ‘I’ll take your oaths now. And
once the council’s statutes have been agreed, I’ll have them carved into the
largest fragment of Morrelune, as a perpetual reminder of what the new realm
stands for. Smaller stones will be taken from the palace and also engraved with
the statutes. They will be set up in every city, town and village, at the
places where the God-Emperor’s wisp-watchers once stood, so the people may know
who rules them, and the principles by which they are ruled.

‘And now,’ he added, ‘since I can’t remember when I last had
a good night’s sleep, I’m going to bed.’

Maelys was exhausted but, zigzagging back and forth
between the anticipation of finally going home and her dread of tomorrow’s
farewells, she slept badly and woke late, feeling more tired than when she’d
lain down in her blankets.

‘There’s one last thing we must do before we separate,’ said
Yggur as Maelys joined everyone at the long table for the last time, for
breakfast. ‘A great injustice has been done to two dear friends of mine, Karan
and Llian, and it must be righted.’

Maelys’s weariness vanished, for she had often thought about
them, and particularly Karan. Maigraith had pursued Karan, too, but
relentlessly, and Maelys would forever feel linked to that unknown woman whose
life had ended so tragically two hundred years ago.

And why
had
Yggur,
Lilis and Malien, the only people here who had actually known Karan and Llian,
grown so angry when their names were mentioned?

‘Dear friends of
ours
,’
said Malien. ‘I never believed those lies, either. I can’t believe that the
scrutators were taken in by them, Flydd.’