The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (3 page)

‘You haven’t had a decent meal, a flask of wine, or a woman
in ten years,’ said Jal-Nish softly. ‘You always were a man of strong
appetites, Cryl-Nish. I know how much your lusts mean to you, for I was like
that too, before the tears burned all that out of me. Just say the word, my
son.’

Nish squeezed his eyes shut, for they were burning and his
mouth had flooded with saliva. He was overcome by the mere thought of good
food. He ached, he
yearned
for it,
but he fought down the urge as he’d done so often.

He would not become a disciple of his father, which left
only one choice, to attack, even though there could be only one outcome –
utter ruin. The temptation eased and Nish tried to form a new plan. Could he
lie convincingly to Jal-Nish, the world’s greatest liar, then get close enough
to snatch the tears and cut his father off from their power? He didn’t have
much hope for this plan either, for he wasn’t sure he could use the tears if he
got them, but he had to try.

‘Father,’ Nish said, and the words were so bitter in his
mouth that it took every ounce of control to say them without vomiting in
self-disgust, ‘I will bow before you and do your bidding in all things, without
question.’

Again Jal-Nish’s cheek twitched, but before Nish could move,
his father held up his right hand. ‘Forgive me, beloved son, but you’ll
understand that I must test your word. I trust
you
, of course, yet faithless men with black hearts have sworn to
me before.’

‘Test me?’ said Nish. A chill spread through him. His father
knew everything; he couldn’t possibly deceive him.

‘It’s the smallest trifle,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘Just look upon
this image as you swear to serve me.’

He reached out towards the right-hand tear, whereupon Reaper
pulsed and swelled until a filament streamed out of it, to hang in the air
before Nish. It slowly formed into one of his starvation-induced
hallucinations, only far more real. This one showed his beautiful Irisis on her
knees, gazing lovingly up at him, but before he could look away the
executioner’s blade flashed down, ending her life and his dreams. He saw the
horror of it, over and over and over, and though he fought harder to contain
himself than he’d ever fought before, to ignore the provocation, Nish snapped.

‘I’ll never bow to you!’ he screamed, propelling himself
forwards so violently that he took Jal-Nish by surprise. Leaping onto the
table, he hurled himself at his father. ‘I curse you and all you stand for, and
I’m going to tear your evil world down.’

He got so very close. He had his hands around Jal-Nish’s
throat, below the platinum mask, before Jal-Nish could move. But as Nish’s
hands closed on something hot and inflamed, his clearsight saw right though the
mask to the horror that lay beneath and which, for all his father’s power, he
hadn’t been able to repair. As Nish’s fingers tightened, Jal-Nish shrieked.
Involuntarily, Nish’s grip relaxed and the instant it did, he was lost. It
wasn’t in him to harm his father and Jal-Nish now knew it.

He tore free, knocked Nish onto the table and stood over
him, breathing heavily, the mask askew. But again Jal-Nish hesitated. He must
care!

‘You little fool. I did everything for you.’

‘You had me whipped!’ Nish choked. ‘You killed Irisis. You
sent me to the most degraded prison in the world –’

‘You were weak; a prisoner of your
feelings
for others.’ Jal-Nish spat the word at him. ‘What I’ve put
you through has made you strong, as all I’ve suffered has made me what I am.
I’ve given you the strength to become the man you’ve always wanted to be
– a leader like me.’

‘I despise everything you stand for. I’ll never –’

Jal-Nish didn’t hesitate now. He thrust one finger towards
Reaper, which brightened and grew. As the song of the tears rose to a shrill
wail, pain such as Nish had never felt sheared through his skull. It was an
agony so complete that he couldn’t think, couldn’t act, couldn’t even stand up.
He rolled off the table onto the floor, curled up into a tight shuddering ball.

Dimly, Nish saw his father wipe his throat fastidiously with
a silk cloth and adjust the mask. ‘Traitorous son! Once more you betray me, as
your mother did, and everyone I’ve ever trusted, and most of all,
her
.’

He stabbed his forefinger towards a hanging curtain, which
slid out of the way. A crystalline coffin stood behind it, its walls and lid as
clear as if they were made from frozen tears. The coffin drifted towards them,
stopped an arm’s length away and stood on end.

Nish looked through the lid and screamed. Inside lay the
perfectly preserved body of his beautiful Irisis, unchanged from when he’d last
seen her alive. Unmarred save for the thread-like red seam where her head had
been cunningly rejoined to her body. Her eyes were looking right at him and he
imagined that her pupils dilated, though that had to be another of his father’s
torments. She had gone where no living man could follow.

‘I was wrong about you, Son. You still don’t have the
strength to take what you’ve always wanted. Before you can be reforged, you
must go back to the furnace. Ten more years,’ said Jal-Nish, and walked away
without a backwards glance.

TWO

Maelys shivered, turned the page, moved her cushion
closer to the embers, then closer still. Books burned hot but unfortunately not
for long, and once the last of her clan’s ancient library was gone, the
creeping mountain cold would surely freeze them solid.

Unwilling to think about matters she was helpless to change,
she went back to the story, trying to memorise every word before her precious,
forbidden book of tales ended up in the fire.
Tiaan and the Lyrinx
was a wonderful tale but, because of the way
her mother and aunts were muttering around the cooking brazier, Maelys was
finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. They were always chattering,
though lately their talk had grown urgent, calculating. They were plotting
something and she knew she wasn’t going to like it. Bent over the fuming
brazier with their lank hair hanging across their faces, they looked just like
the three evil witches in Snittiloe’s scurrilous tale.

Maelys’s little sister, Fyllis, who was playing with some
carved animals in the corner, sat up suddenly, head to one side. Maelys jumped,
for she knew that look. Not again!

Her hand crept towards the egg-shaped taphloid hanging on
its chain between her breasts, well hidden there, even from her family. Though
only the size of a chicken’s egg, it was heavy. Its surface was smooth yellow
metal, neither gold nor brass. Pressing hard on the round end opened it to
reveal the dial of a clockwork moon-calendar.

The taphloid had been a secret gift from her father when
she’d turned twelve, but it never needed winding, and that was strange. Equally
strange were the other little numbered and lettered faces that only appeared
rarely and fleetingly. She had no idea what they were for, but it was the only
treasure she had left and Maelys felt safe whilever she wore it. Her father had
warned her never to let anyone see it, and never to take it off.

The women stood bolt upright, three staring statues carved
out of gnarled root wood, then Maelys’s mother, Lyma, jerked her head. Maelys
darted to the door, pulled the hanging blanket down so not a glimmer of light
could escape, then eased the door open to look out into the ruins.

A pang struck her at what the God-Emperor had done to their
beautiful home. Her ancestors had dwelt here for thirty generations, carefully
managing their alpine orchards, tending their flocks and forests, and extending
Nifferlin Manor whenever the rowdy clan grew too large for it. When Maelys had
been little she’d had the run of a dozen halls, a hundred rooms, and had been
welcome everywhere. With twenty-eight young cousins to play with it had been a
carefree time, despite the war and the loss of so many uncles and older male
cousins. But when the war ended, instead of the peace everyone so longed for,
the God-Emperor had come to power, and in a few brief years Clan Nifferlin had
lost everything.

Now the menfolk were dead or in prison, the women and
children scattered or enslaved. The manor had been ransacked a dozen times, its
walls torn down to the foundations. Anything that couldn’t be carried away had
been smashed. All that remained were these three rooms, and only the one Maelys
and her family cowered in had a complete roof.

Something skittered across the sky; the little hairs on her
arms stood up, then she heard gravel crunch on the road. ‘They’re coming!’ she
hissed. Maelys slipped inside and bolted the door, not that it could hold out
the God-Emperor’s troops. Nothing could.

‘Fyllis?’ said their mother urgently.

Fyllis was staring at the door. She winced at the first
shout outside, winced again as a sledge-hammer smashed into the wall of the
next room. Putting her hands to her temples, she began to hum under her breath
and the room blurred as if fog had drifted under the door.

It wasn’t fog, but a subtle
shifting
of reality. Too subtle, for now hammers were thudding all
around, sections of plaster and gilt ceiling smashing on rubble, pieces of wall
collapsing. Their orders must be to bring down every last remnant of Nifferlin
Manor. How they’d crow when they found the cowering women, the girl and the
child cringing here, and gloat over the reward.

‘Hey,’ said a soldier’s voice just outside. ‘There’s a door
here.’

‘Can’t be, or we’d have seen it last time,’ said a more
distant voice.

The latch was rattled, then a hammer thudded against the
timber. The bolt held, though the door couldn’t take many such blows. ‘Hoy!
Lantern-bearer,’ yelled the first soldier.

‘Fyllis!’ hissed Lyma.

Fyllis glanced at her mother, took a deep breath, squeezed
her head between her hands and the fog thickened until all Maelys could make
out was a faint glow from the fire.

‘Don’t see no door nor wall,’ said the second soldier.
‘You’re imagining things. It’s just old magic lingering in the ruins.’ His
voice went squeaky as he said ‘old magic’, then he continued, ‘Give us a hand
to knock down this chimney. Seneschal Vomix wants the place razed.’

‘I definitely saw something and I’m not going to the torture
pits because we didn’t find it. I’m calling in the wisp-watcher. Hoy, scrier
– over here!’

Maelys felt the cold creep up her legs. Fyllis’s talent
couldn’t hide four walls and a roof from a wisp-watcher, not this close. The
fog thinned momentarily and she saw something she’d never seen before –
stark terror in tough old Aunt Haga’s eyes. Maelys looked away. If Aunt Haga
had given up there was no hope at all.

An axle squeaked as a cart was hauled their way, its
iron-shod wheels crunching through the rubble, and Maelys made out the faint,
hackle-raising buzz of a wisp-watcher. As it came closer, she began to feel
that familiar unpleasant itchy sensation inside her head, along with a distant
raspy whisper that she could never make out.

‘Back, you useless dogs,’ said the scrier in a dry,
crackling voice. Maelys smelt a foul odour, like burning bones. ‘Give the
watcher
room.’

The soldiers scrambled away across the rubble and the buzz
rose in pitch. She struggled to control her breathing. Her mother was panting.
Fyllis let out a little gasping cry. The buzz became an irritating whine.

A sudden wind wailed around the ragged fragments of wall,
muffling the wisp-watcher for a second, but it returned louder and more
chillingly than before. Outside, the hammers had fallen silent.

It knew they were here. It was playing with them,
deliberately delaying, storing up their torment for its master’s pleasure.

‘Nothing!’ crackled the scrier. Another whiff of burned
bones drifted under the door. ‘I didn’t think there could be. It was just the
soldiers jumping at ghosts again. Get on with it – Seneschal Vomix has a
lot more
watching
for us tonight.
Bring down that last bit of wall.’

The cart creaked and grated away. A fury of hammers attacked
the masonry nearby, chunks tumbled with a series of thuds, then silence fell.

Maelys got up and went for the door. ‘No!’ hissed Aunt Haga.

Maelys stopped. Everyone was staring at Fyllis, whose face
had gone blank. She swayed from side to side. Her mother steadied her, then
Fyllis looked up, bestowing a childlike, innocent smile on them as if it had
all been a game. Returning to the corner she took up her animal figures and
soon was immersed in her play as if nothing had happened.

Aunt Haga drew her two sisters over to the brazier and began
to whisper urgently. Every so often, the three would turn to stare at Maelys
before putting their heads down again. She tried vainly to ignore them but the
knot in her stomach grew ever tighter.

Maelys was woken from a restless sleep by her mother’s
cracked sobbing. Lyma often wept in the night when she thought the girls were
asleep. Maelys scrunched up into a tighter ball, for her straw pile was always
furthest from the embers and her toes felt as though ice crystals were growing
on them.

At the movement Lyma broke off, and Maelys heard a rustle of
clothing from the direction of the hearth as the three women turned to stare at
her. She pretended to be asleep.

Lyma took a long, shuddering breath. ‘Why did it have to be
Rudigo?’ she whimpered. The girls’ father had fallen into the God-Emperor’s
hands long ago and was now dying in Mazurhize.

‘Get a grip on yourself!’ hissed Aunt Haga. ‘We’ve been over
this a hundred times. The cursed clan talent put him in Mazurhize, and just be
thankful none of us have got it, or we’d be as dead as our useless husbands.
Who would look after Fyllis then? Not
her
,
you can be sure, the troublemaking little slattern.’