The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (37 page)

Maelys peered around a column. The armoured soldiers were at
the top of the narrow path now, moving gingerly, for they were big,
broad-shouldered men and their armour scraped against the wall as they moved.
The air-dreadnought was hovering; fortunately it could come no lower since the
airbags extended further than the width of the crater. More soldiers came over
the sides, swinging back and forth on long ropes, though there was nowhere safe
for them to settle but the edge of the pavilion far below, and they were having
trouble manoeuvring them down.

She ducked across to the downward path. ‘Lead the way, Jil.’

Jil was just standing there. ‘You have no boots.’

‘There’s no time to fetch them.’

‘You must have shoes, or you’ll go lame. Run; it’ll just
take a minute.’

A minute would be too long. Maelys looked around wildly. How
could she delay them? She sprang up, wrenched one of the lanterns off the wall,
blew it out and hurled it up the path. It smashed about halfway up, though it
wasn’t light enough to see if it had spilled its oil.

She ran to her room, grabbed boots, socks and her little
pack, hurtled back to the pavilion and started down after Jil.

‘Faster, fools!’ roared Vomix. ‘They’re getting away.’

The leading soldiers broke into a trot. They were only a
minute behind. Jil was moving slowly now, for it was so gloomy here that the
path could barely be seen. Maelys hadn’t gone far when glass crunched up above
and a voice roared, ‘Look out!’

The second soldier, who was halfway down, had slipped on the
oil. His feet went from under him and he began to slide down the path on his
back, roaring in fear. The soldier below him realised his peril and began to
run down the slippery path, desperately trying to get ahead, but the second soldier,
sliding ever faster, swept into him from behind, knocking him off his feet.
They went over the edge in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs.

The remaining soldiers stopped and began to mutter to one
another. Vomix’s voice came echoing down from the air-dreadnought, a cold rage
that made Maelys shudder.

‘After them. If they get away, you’ll be impaled!’

Lanterns were lowered on ropes, casting the crater into
bright light and deeper shadow. The soldiers continued, slowly and carefully.
Maelys tried to put them out of her mind as she felt her way down.

Jil was waiting at the top of the Pit. Strips of its floor
were illuminated as brightly as a moonlit night. Her brother stood beside her,
looking around sleepily. He had a shock of tangled brown hair and a quizzical
expression, and appeared about seven years old.

‘I don’t see any way out,’ said Jil.

Maelys took a turn around the walls, feeling with her
fingers, then spiralled in, looking for a concealed passage or door. Her foot
struck something yielding in a strip of shadow and she smelt blood and offal
– the two dead soldiers, still tangled. Thankfully, darkness hid what the
fall had done to them. Fragments of beetle-shell armour crunched underfoot as
she backed away.

Maelys found nothing that resembled a door, cave or opening
of any sort. If the escape way had been rendered invisible she could do nothing
about it. The only other alternative was the Pit.

‘It must be down there,’ she said, putting on a confident
air for Jil. ‘I’ll go first.’

Jil nodded stiffly. Her eyes were huge and she was holding
her brother so that he faced away from the corpses.

‘Come on!’ Maelys went down the rope ladder in a rush,
turning aside at the bottom to leave space for Jil and Timfy. As she scanned
the Pit, she could feel a number of dark possible futures swarming in the
corner of her eye. Perhaps they came quicker the second time. She tried to rid
herself of the grim images, but they wouldn’t go.

The curved walls were solid. So was the floor, apart from
the fuming Mistmurk, and even had Maelys not been warned about it she would
have kept her distance. It had a dangerous, corrosive look, with roiling fumes
bursting out of it at intervals, sometimes belching high like miniature
thunderheads, at other times creeping across the floor as though the vapours
were too heavy to rise any higher.

Something came crashing and smashing down, to burst upon the
beam above the Pit. Shards of crockery, as if from an enormous pot, rained
through the sump. A fragment fell into the Mistmurk, making it fizz and seethe.
A soldier shouted, from not far above them, ‘That’s enough! They’re down in a
hole in the floor. We’ve got them trapped this time.’

Jil was squeezing Timfy to her chest, her face frozen. He
squirmed as if he wanted to be put down; he didn’t understand the danger.
Maelys was beginning to panic again. She forced it back, still finding it
impossible to believe that Nish would have run away and left her here to die.

‘I don’t know where they could have gone,’ she said to
herself.

‘They went down the hole,’ said Timfy. ‘See?’ He pointed at
the Mistmurk.

She crouched down. A few threads torn from dark cloth were
moving in an air current, caught on a splinter of glass just outside the
wavering edge of the Mistmurk. They were the colour of Monkshart’s cloak.

Maelys met the girl’s eyes. There was a question in them.
Above, a horde of soldiers was clattering down the stairs. ‘I’m prepared to
take the risk,’ Maelys said.

Jil nodded stiffly. Maelys caught hold of her upper arm and
together they jumped into the Mistmurk.

 
TWENTY-SEVEN

In an instant, the taphloid became burning hot between
her breasts. Maelys jerked it out on its chain, holding it away from her in the
darkness. Her skin crept as if she were covered in crawling ants, then began to
burn as if it were peeling off. A wavering aura flashed into existence around
her, then she felt a burst of excruciating pain and the aura felt as though it
were being forced back inside her. Maelys cried out, snatched at the taphloid,
which was no longer hot, and squeezed it hard for a moment. The aura faded and
took the pain with it.

The boy began to moan; Jil shushed him. They were jerked
sideways, then upside down, though they didn’t actually seem to be falling.
Maelys couldn’t see anything now, even when her hand brushed against something
soft and slick. She had no idea what had happened.

They hung in nothingness for about twenty heartbeats, then
began to fall so quickly that the wind whistled around Maelys’s ears. As
abruptly, their motion slowed and they drifted onto an angled rubbery surface
covered in little round knobs, bounced twice and slid down the slope for a good
few spans before coming to rest.

Letting go of Jil’s hand, Maelys grasped the taphloid again.
It was cool, and it felt different. There still seemed to be some kind of life
or presence within it, but it wasn’t comforting now. The taphloid felt loaded;
dangerous. She put it back into her cleavage, which stung, for the skin was
blistered there.

The crawling sensation disappeared and she began to
distinguish a maze of transparent paths, tunnels, bridges and stairs leading
off in every direction, including straight up. They were in a labyrinth in
which every path was intertwined with every other one, but each was also in
ceaseless, jiggling motion.

No matter where she looked, nothing was still. It made her
dizzy to look at it, and there was no way of telling the correct path, for none
looked clearer, stiller or more solid than any other. Even the slope they were
sprawled on appeared to be moving, though it felt stable beneath her. The hole
they’d jumped through, the Mistmurk, could no longer be distinguished.

Beside her, Jil began to retch and tried to crawl down the
barely tangible slope. Maelys held her back. ‘Jil, if we’re separated, we’ll
never find each other again.’

Jil brought up a thin green trickle and groaned. Maelys’s
stomach heaved in sympathy but she held it down. Timfy was on his feet, his
eyes wide and mouth open in wonder. What was he seeing? It could be different for
each of them; it probably was.

She took their hands. ‘We’ve got to get away in case the
soldiers come after us.’ And they would. No matter how terrified they were of
the Mistmurk, they’d be more afraid of incurring the God-Emperor’s displeasure.

Feeling forwards with one foot, Maelys began to make her way
down the sloping path, and with every step the three-dimensional maze shifted
and wavered. She fought down the nausea until they reached a small unseen
depression, then stopped, trying to work out if any path or direction were more
real than the others. Unfortunately they all looked the same. Her ears popped
and the rubbery ground quivered as if from a heavy impact, then another and
another, though she couldn’t see anything.

A man’s voice spoke, shivery and echoing. It couldn’t be far
away though it appeared to come from all directions at once. ‘Where have they
gone?’

Jil opened her mouth to scream. Maelys hastily covered it
with her hand. ‘Shh! They’ll hear.’ She stared around her, trying to see where
the soldiers had come through.

‘What the blazes is this place, Sergeant Tink?’ said another
voice. ‘Vardo, what’s the matter?’ A liquid choking and gurgling was followed
by an angry curse and the smack of a fist against flesh. ‘Disgusting pig! Why
didn’t you turn the other way?’

‘What’s the matter?’ said the first voice, the sergeant.

‘Vardo threw up all over me,’ said the second. ‘The swine
always did have weak guts.’

Two more pops and the floor quivered twice. ‘Here come the
rest,’ said Tink. ‘Spread out and start looking for them, but don’t lose sight
of each other.’

‘Cursed place,’ said the second soldier. ‘And curse the
mancer who created it. Curse them all.’

‘Shut your mouth,’ hissed Sergeant Tink. ‘Seneschal Vomix
will be here in a minute.’

‘I hope he can see better than I can,’ muttered the second
man.

‘A mancer of his power will see straight through this maze,’
said the sergeant. ‘They won’t get away this time.’

There were more pops, more quivers. Maelys’s dizziness was
getting worse. She thought ten people had come through the Mistmurk, or perhaps
eleven, but the voices faded and though she could still hear them she couldn’t
make out what they were saying. The confusion of the maze was getting worse.
People could go mad in here.

Timfy began to cry. ‘Shh!’ Maelys whispered.

‘What’s that?’ said Vomix’s unmistakeable voice,
mucous-thick and sibilant.

‘A whining brat,’ said the sergeant. ‘Down there … I think.’

‘No, they’re this way,’ said Vomix, and he was closer.
‘What’s the matter with that man, sergeant?’

‘The maze scrambled his wits, surr. Can’t stop hurling his
guts.’ Tink chuckled mirthlessly.

‘Get rid of him and call more men down.’

Maelys heard stumbling noises, more cursing and vomiting,
and a mad cry. The sergeant said, hoarsely and slurring a little, ‘That’s three
down, surr. This place is twisting the brains inside my head. I can’t send them
back, Seneschal Vomix, surr.’

‘Why the devil not?’

‘The hole closed over and I can’t tell where it was.’

Vomix let loose with a series of vile oaths. Jil, who was
swaying from side to side, put her hands over Timfy’s ears. Maelys noticed that
there was blood on his lip. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ She pointed to his
mouth.

‘What have you done, Timfy?’ Jil whispered, straining to
focus. ‘What’s that in your hand?’

It was a small crystal bottle, the kind used for perfume or
potions, with the top broken off. Maelys reached out for it but Jil said, ‘It’s
Monkshart’s. I’ve seen him with it.’

‘What’s it for?’

‘I don’t know. Did you drink it, Timfy?’ Jil’s voice went
squeaky.

‘Just a little taste. It was horrible.’

Maelys and Jil exchanged glances. ‘I don’t see why it would
be poison,’ said Maelys, ‘and if he only had a little bit …’

‘You don’t know what they’re like.’ Jil’s eyes were wide and
staring. She squeezed her brother so tightly that he cried out, then upended
the broken flask against her fingertip and raised her finger towards her mouth,
though she was so uncoordinated that it took three attempts to reach it. She
licked her finger and shuddered.

Maelys did know, but there was no point adding to Jil’s
torment by saying so. She took the flask, which had a strong fruity smell, so
cloyingly sweet that it made her salivate. As she took another sniff, the
shifting maze solidified a fraction and her dizziness faded momentarily. Could
it be –?

‘Down there!’ slurred the sergeant, his voice coming from
one direction, then another. ‘Seneschal, this way!’

Maelys turned around twice, but couldn’t see anyone.
Suddenly a huge soldier burst out of a fold in the fabric of the maze behind
Jil, swaying from side to side, his head whipping back and forth as if that
were the only way he could see clearly. He grabbed Jil and Timfy but staggered
and fell to his knees. His eyes were rolling in circles; chunks of vomit clotted
his iridescent chest armour, but he didn’t let go.

‘I can see,’ Jil mouthed.

Maelys hesitated no longer. She had sucked down three or
four thick, intensely bitter drops when someone thumped onto the floor behind
her and a hairy, bony hand snatched the phial. Another hand snaked around her
side and caught her by the left breast, but instantly the taphloid grew hot and
he jerked his hand away with a gasp of pain.

‘What did you do?’ whispered Jil, staring at Maelys.

She shook her head; she had no idea.

Her vision began to clear. Seneschal Vomix was dancing
around in a circle, shaking his hand furiously. ‘You little cow!’

‘What’s the matter?’ said Tink.

‘Bitch has a very odd aura. Touched mine and it seemed to
turn inside out. Ah, that hurt.’ He studied his hand, which appeared to be
swollen. His yellow eyes were looking in two directions at once. He swayed,
held the phial up and blinked at it, slowly and owlishly. Maelys tried to slide
away but his boot came down on her foot, pinning her to the path.