The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (83 page)

‘We obeyed the Chief Scrutator, who took his orders from the
Numinator,’ said Flydd. ‘And as I may have mentioned previously,’ he rubbed his
scarred and twisted hands, from which most of the flesh had been gouged off
decades ago, ‘asking questions was strongly discouraged.’

‘The Numinator decreed that my friends be called Karan
Kin-Slayer and Llian the Liar,’ said Yggur, ‘and I believe that to be a vile
slur on their names; a terrible injustice. It would please me greatly, Nish, if
the first decision of your council was to right that wrong.’

‘The council will be happy to review the matter,’ said Nish,
‘once it has heard all the facts.’

To Maelys, sitting beside him, he sounded overly formal,
even a trifle pompous. But then, she reasoned, Nish had never wanted this
position, nor had he done anything like it before. What mattered was that he
had a good heart; he was bound to grow as leader of the council, in time.

Yggur looked at Flydd. ‘Will you do it, or shall I?’

‘As the only former scrutator here, I believe it’s my
responsibility,’ said Flydd. ‘Let’s begin with Llian’s case, since it’s the
clearer. The scrutators called him
Llian
the Liar, the man who corrupted the Histories
. His Great Tale was banned,
withdrawn and all known copies burned, and a new version was subsequently written.
To clear his name, strong evidence will be required that the charges were
false.’

‘Llian was a Master Chronicler of the Histories, an honour
awarded to few people,’ said Malien, ‘and I knew him as well as anyone still
alive. He was an honourable man and a brilliant Teller of the Great Tales,
though,’ she added wryly, ‘he was pretty useless at practical matters. He had a
head full of stories.’

‘He got better in the end,’ said Yggur. ‘He was willing to
learn, unlike some others.’

‘And Llian loved the Histories for their
truth
,’ Malien went on. ‘When it came to
writing the chronicles of the times, or crafting the tale that he hoped would
become a Great Tale, he was scrupulous – Llian would permit no relevant
omission, no exaggeration and, absolutely, not the least hint of falsehood.
Besides,’ Malien said, fixing Flydd with a cold eye, ‘his tale was read by
everyone who survived the Time of the Mirror, including myself and Yggur, and
no one found any fault with it.’

‘Do you agree with these statements, Yggur?’ said Flydd.

‘I do.’

‘In that case, we must accept them as truth,’ said Flydd.

‘You weren’t so accepting when the matter was first raised,’
Maelys said mildly. ‘I recall you getting angry with Colm and pompously
standing on your scrutatorly dignity.’

‘So I did,’ grinned Flydd, ‘but the renewed me wasn’t as
clear-headed as I am –’

‘What does Colm have to do with them?’ said Persia. ‘Wasn’t
he the fellow who went over to the enemy?’

‘He was,’ said Maelys, remembering the good times and the
bad with him, ‘and he drowned in the flood on the Range of Ruin. Poor Colm. He
was a descendant of Karan’s cousin,’ she said to Malien, ‘and heir to her
estate, or would have been, had it not been for the war. He was bitter about
his loss, and about the stains on Karan’s and Llian’s names.’

‘As I was saying,’ said Flydd, ‘Maigraith – when she
was the Numinator – ordered that Llian be called “the Liar” so as to take
revenge on Karan, though this was long after her death.’

‘Where did you hear that?’ said Malien.

‘It was in the Tower of a Thousand Steps,’ said Maelys,
‘though Maigraith didn’t actually admit it.’

‘She didn’t bother to deny the accusation,’ said Yggur. ‘And
she definitely gave the order to Chief Scrutator Ghorr, didn’t she?’

‘No question about it,’ said Flydd. ‘And that’s all I know
about the matter.’

‘The case seems perfectly clear,’ said Nish. ‘Does the
interim council agree to clear Llian’s name?’

‘
And
have his
original Great Tale restored,’ said Yggur.

The council agreed to both.

‘Now, to the matter of Karan Kin-Slayer,’ said Nish, ‘which,
from what I know of it, is rather more complicated. I don’t see how we can get
at the truth after all this time. What are the facts, Yggur?’

‘After Maigraith’s lover, Rulke, was slain,’ said Yggur,
‘and she found that she was with child, she became obsessed with creating an
eternal monument to him, by breeding her
triune
children and Karan’s to create quartines: that is, children with the blood of
all four human species. She hoped that these quartines would have all the
strengths and none of the weakness of their progenitors, particularly the
Charon, whom she believed to be extinct.’

‘Karan, rightly, would have none of this terrible scheme,’
said Malien, ‘but Maigraith pursued her relentlessly. She kidnapped Karan’s
firstborn daughter, Sulien, when she was just thirteen, and gave her to her
thuggish son, Rulken, the twin who most resembled his father – in looks,
if not in nobility.’

‘Karan managed to steal Sulien back,’ said Yggur, ‘and the
family fled Gothryme in secret; they spent more than a year on the run, pursued
by Maigraith all that time. They were penniless and hungry, while she was
wealthy and powerful by then. She made sure that Llian could never
tell
again, then destroyed his
reputation, and finally Karan could take no more; she was driven out of her
mind.’

‘They were hiding in Shazmak at the time,’ said Malien. ‘She
hurled her children, then Llian and herself, off the top of a tower into the
River Garr, where they all drowned.’

 
FIFTY-SIX

‘At least,
that
is the tale
,’ said Yggur meaningfully.

‘But is it true?’ said Nish. ‘Or is it falsehood?’

‘Everything is true up to the point of Karan’s madness,’
said Yggur. ‘We all knew it at the time; it was no secret. And Maigraith did
not bother to deny it, either. Indeed, at the Tower of a Thousand Steps, she
attempted to justify her wickedness on the grounds that Karan had three
children and Maigraith only wanted one.’

‘Madness is the curse of blendings and triunes,’ said Flydd
thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps Maigraith also lost her wits.’

‘It was an evil, cunning madness if she did,’ said Yggur.

Someone let out a pained grunt from the jumble of rocks
behind the table. Maelys jumped, then saw that it was the dwarf, who was
covered in dust. He limped towards them, slowly and exhaustedly, as if it had
taken him hours to struggle free of the ruins.

‘What are you doing here, Klarm?’ she said.

‘Coming back to my own,’ he said, tentatively.

‘You assume too much, little man,’ snapped Flydd. ‘Treachery
is not easily erased –’

‘It wasn’t treachery, since there was nothing left of our alliance
to betray. Swearing to Jal-Nish was a mistake, and I’ve paid dearly for it.’

‘Not dearly enough!’

‘Would you think better of me if, after swearing that sacred
oath to Jal-Nish, I chose to break it?’

‘Ahem!’ said Nish. ‘That’ll do, Flydd. Since I’ve been
pressed into service as leader of this council, I hereby declare my first
amnesty. Klarm, your past is wiped clean – under sufferance!’

Klarm bowed a trifle awkwardly, and Maelys saw that his
stump was causing him great pain.

‘Thank you, Nish,’ he said. ‘I always knew
you
were a man of honour.’

‘Don’t push your luck! Getting back to the matter we were
debating,’ said Nish, ‘there must have been justification for Karan’s crime, in
her own mind at least. Driven beyond endurance and with nowhere else to turn,
she may have seen this terrible act as the only way out. We may feel sympathy
for her, even understanding but, on this evidence, the council cannot clear her
name. If she killed her family, Karan Kin-Slayer she must remain.’

‘How do we know she did?’ said Maelys, feeling for that
poor, tormented woman, harassed far more unrelentingly than she, Maelys, had
been.

‘It was about fifteen years after the Time of the Mirror, as
I recall,’ said Malien. ‘Karan and Llian were still famous, and the news of
their deaths even reached me at my lonely eyrie inside Mount Tirthrax, the
highest peak in the Three Worlds.’

‘Who witnessed the deaths?’ said Nish.

‘I don’t remember,’ said Yggur.

‘The witnesses weren’t Aachim,’ said Malien. ‘Few of my
people had returned to Shazmak by that time.’ She turned to the other end of
the table. ‘But Lilis might know.’

‘It was one of the first important matters that dear old
Nadiril entrusted to me after I became a fully fledged librarian,’ said Lilis,
‘because I had known Karan and Llian.’

‘And the names of the witnesses were?’ asked Nish.

‘Two Whelm, called Idlis and Yetchah.’

‘I remember them,’ said Malien. ‘It’s almost unheard of for
Whelm to form friendships outside their own kind, but there was a deep bond
between Karan and Idlis, despite their differences. He was the healer who put
her shattered bones together after the Way between the Worlds was opened, and I
was there when he left to go home.

‘
I will come to
Gothryme on this day once a year, in case you need the drug hrux, he said to
Karan, because nothing else could relieve her pain. There is no other way of
getting it, for no one else knows how it is made
.

‘And Karan told him and Yetchah to come to Gothryme, if ever
they needed help,’ Malien added.

‘Extraordinary,’ said Yggur. ‘But Karan was extraordinary,
and if anyone could befriend the friendless Whelm, it would have been her.’

‘Are Whelm long-lived?’ said Nish.

‘They can be, though not so long that they would still be
alive two centuries later. The Whelm keep their own Histories, of course, but I
very much doubt that they would allow us access to them. They are a secretive
people at the best of times.’

‘Then we can’t take the matter any further,’ said Nish,
rising.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Maelys, who had been thinking through
all she’d ever heard about Karan. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there,
Xervish?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean Karan’s heritage, left to her as reparation by her
enemy, Faelamor. It had once been hidden in that cave we visited in Elludore.’

‘Elludore!’ cried Yggur, clinging to Tulitine for a moment.

Maelys eyed him curiously, but he said no more.

‘Colm said that Karan had spurned that gift,’ Flydd reminded
her.

‘Yet years later, in desperate need, she might have gone
back for it. Remember that the mimemule had been dug up and replaced –
and
it had been used, twice.’

‘Why would anyone use it, then replace it?’ said Nish,
frowning. ‘Why not keep it?’

‘To convince Maigraith that Karan had never touched her
heritage, perhaps,’ said Maelys.

‘Again I ask, why?’ said Nish.

‘We’d have to go to Elludore to find out,’ said Flydd.
‘Unfortunately the mimemule has died and, without the caduceus –’

‘That reminds me,’ said Nish, scowling at Flydd. ‘How come
you didn’t make a portal with the caduceus at the Range of Ruin? You could have
saved the lives of most of the militia.’

‘Do you have to ask?’ snapped Flydd, who had never liked
being questioned.

‘Well, yes I do.’

‘You still had to take the pass, and hold it. That’s why you
were there, remember? To stop your father’s army.’

‘But you could have made it easier. You could have taken us
behind the enemy lines at the pass, for instance.’

‘If you’d had an easy victory you wouldn’t be here now.’

Nish opened his mouth, but closed it again.

‘Besides,’ said Flydd. ‘I didn’t know how to make a portal
then.
If you recall
, at the time I
didn’t even have the strength to make light with my fingers, and if I had, I
had no idea that the caduceus could make portals. At that stage, we still
thought it was a trap. Have you finished interrogating me?’

‘For the moment,’ said Nish, unfazed.

‘Splendid!’ Flydd said sarcastically. ‘You were right not to
become God-Emperor. Power is already going to your head.’

‘You wanted me here,’ said Nish, grinning. ‘It’s too late to
complain now.’

‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ said Flydd loftily, ‘without the
caduceus I no longer have the capacity to make portals.’

‘Ah, but I do,’ said Klarm, who seemed eager to impress
them, or perhaps to make amends.

‘Really?’ said Flydd darkly. ‘How?’

‘During the weeks I spent travelling through the shadow
realm,’ replied Klarm, ‘I found cause to reconsider my allegiance to the
God-Emperor, after I discovered that he was not the man I’d thought him to be.’

‘And yet you saved him,’ snapped Flydd.

‘I’d sworn an oath. I had to fulfil it; but I also had to
take precautions for the good of the empire, in the event that my worst fears
about Jal-Nish were realised. I took the liberty of siphoning some of the power
of the tears into my knoblaggie, just in case.’

‘No wonder he couldn’t get them to work properly,’ said
Maelys.

‘Well, get it out, man,’ said Flydd, ‘and take us to
Elludore without delay.’

Klarm’s eyes flashed at his former friend, but he made a
portal and minutes later they were standing at the entrance to the cave on that
steep, forested slope above the field of bones.

‘I know this place,’ said Yggur, looking over his shoulder,
and again he swayed and clung to Tulitine for support. ‘My skin crawls at the
memory of Elludore, for it is the scene of my most devastating defeat. In the
Time of the Mirror, Faelamor lured my entire army over the cliffs above us, in
a fog. Two thousand men met their deaths in that hour, and it took me a good fifty
years to recover from it.’

Flydd gripped his shoulder. ‘We saw the bone field when we
were here last time. Would it help if you went down?’