The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (39 page)

She reached for it but it was now trapped under him and she
wasn’t game to roll him over; he didn’t look completely incapacitated. Besides,
she didn’t think she could kill him in cold blood, monster though he was. It
was a weakness she might come to regret but it wasn’t in her to do it. Maelys
backed away.

The sergeant began to lurch after them, now in a rush, now
wobbling from side to side, but his path was like an ant meandering across a
sheet of paper and he soon began to head in the wrong direction.

She didn’t look back, though shortly she heard a shriek when
Vomix realised that they’d escaped. Why hadn’t she used the knife?

On Maelys staggered, and on. Hours had gone by since
they’d escaped, and the maze was brightening by the minute. She felt weak from
hunger and thirst. Jil was as blanched as an almond and her cracked lips were
bleeding.

Only Timfy was unaffected, but there seemed no end to the
maze and Maelys had lost hope of his finding a way out. Soon, when she could go
no further, they were all going to die here.

Jil sat down suddenly and covered her face with her arms.
‘Can you see the way, Timfy?’ Maelys said, as she had many times before.

‘No,’ he croaked. ‘But the light is getting brighter.’

‘It must be daytime outside,’ she murmured.

‘No, the
light
is
getting brighter.’

‘That’s what I just said – what light?’

‘The light I’ve been following.’

It took an agonisingly long time to take in what he’d said.
‘You mean there
is
a light? I thought
you made that up.’

Timfy looked shocked. ‘Only bad people tell lies.’

‘Sometimes good people have to …’ She didn’t have the
energy. ‘Where is it?’

His thin arm pointed. ‘There.’

The maze shifted sickeningly as she tried to focus, as if it
were responding to her feelings and deliberately trying to frustrate her. She
squinted, which helped a little, so she closed one eye. Everything settled down
and she saw a small, jiggling yellow point in the distance, though it made her
nauseous to focus on it and she couldn’t have followed it far.

‘Are we getting closer?’

‘No. It’s going faster now.’

‘I don’t suppose you can find a quicker way through the
maze?’

He licked his lips, but didn’t answer for some time, as if
afraid he’d get into trouble. ‘I know how to get out.’ He wasn’t looking at
her, nor at his sister, who was now lying on her side with her knees drawn up.

‘How did you discover that?’

‘I saw it ages ago.’

She couldn’t restrain herself, snapping, ‘Then why didn’t
you tell me?’

Timfy jumped backwards and she regretted it instantly. ‘The
bad man told me to follow the light and I was scared … scared he’d hurt Jil.’

‘Sorry, Timfy. I’m not cross with you.’ Going down on her
knees before him, she took his hand. ‘Do you think, if we went straight to the
way out, we could get there by the time they do?’ She nodded in the direction
of the light.

‘We’ll get there first.’

‘Good boy. I’ll carry Jil. Lead the way, but don’t go too
fast.’

He waited until she had heaved Jil over her shoulder, then
set off proudly, taking a path to their left which she hadn’t realised was
there. It went down steeply and became a blocky, square staircase. She followed
as best she could, trying not to think, squinting through one eye so as to
block out the shifting paths. They went along a springy track, like a sheet of
rubber stretched across a gorge, waded through something invisible that dragged
at her legs, then climbed a long incline to a lookout shaped like a segment of
an orange, enclosed on the curved side by a shoulder-high wall with a warm,
fleshy feel.

Maelys peered over. Most of the alternative paths had
disappeared and the others had faded to barely visible lines, but the true path
was clear now, and other details were becoming visible for the first time. The
track wound back and forth down a steep slope to a small rest station
consisting of four columns and a pointed roof. Below that, another path running
from the right joined theirs and it turned towards a transparent tunnel, beyond
which she thought she could faintly see something real – trees and rocks.

‘Is that the way out, Timfy?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll wait down there under the roof,’ she said, weak with
relief. There was no reason to seek shelter since there was no sun in the maze,
no weather, not even a sky, but it looked safer there. ‘It’s not far now, Jil.
Do you think you can walk?’

Jil opened her eyes, winced at the brightness and looked
around, more alert than she’d been in hours. The wild power of the maze must be
weakening as they approached the exit. ‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘I think I’ll be all
right now.’

Maelys took her arm. They went down slowly and settled onto
the floor of the way station. There was no dust. She put her back against a
column and closed her eyes, thinking about Nish and what he’d say when he saw
her. She refused to believe that he’d left her behind deliberately. There had
to be another explanation. She prayed that there was.

She must have dozed, for an unexpected sound jerked her
awake. Jil was asleep on her back, breathing through her cracked lips and
snoring softly. Timfy was snuggled up to his sister, also asleep. Since the
other path went right past the way station and no one could go by without
seeing them, Maelys hunched herself up, getting as comfortable as she could,
and closed her eyes.

She was just dozing off when the sound came again, though
this time she recognised it for what it was. It wasn’t Jil snoring, but a
snorting chuckle. She scrambled to her feet, heart pounding, as a man stepped
out from behind the far column of the way station. Seneschal Vomix grinned,
snapped his fingers and her legs went rigid.

‘How …?’ she managed to gasp. Her lips had gone as stiff as
old rubber.

‘I knew you were hiding something,’ he gloated, moving
closer but careful not to touch, ‘so I set a trap and you fell right into it.
Did you really think you could disable
me
with such a crude blow? I let you get away; I knew one of you would lead me to
Cryl-Nish.’

‘How did you find us?’

With another click of his fingers, a shining thread appeared
in the air, looping back and forth across the pavilion then halfway up the
hill. It began at her back and ended in a coil in his hand. He tossed it in the
air and it vanished. He must have put the spell on her when he’d thumped her on
the back.

‘It was as easy as following a line,’ he sneered. ‘You don’t
become the God-Emperor’s seneschal without knowing every trick there is.’
Glancing towards the exit, he smiled. ‘I’ll have my full strength back by the
time your friends come by.’

 
TWENTY-EIGHT

Vomix took them up the track to a point where he could
see the other path without being seen, then disappeared, shortly to return
supporting the sergeant, who looked as though he’d fallen down a set of stairs.

His nostrils were caked with blood, he’d lost four front
teeth and his face was so bruised and swollen that he couldn’t see out of his
left eye. He limped along, supporting himself on the point of his sword, though
from the blood seeping from the toe of his right boot he must have skewered his
foot at some stage. But he looked alert again. It would not be easy to get away
a second time.

The seneschal let him fall and the sergeant slumped on the
ground, breathing raggedly. ‘Pull yourself together, Sergeant,’ said Vomix,
stirring him in the ribs with a boot toe. ‘You militiamen are supposed to be
tough. They’ll be here in a few minutes. And don’t breathe so damn loud.’
Shading his eyes with his hand, for the light was brightening all the time, he
stared back into the transparencies of the maze.

Maelys couldn’t see anyone coming, though she didn’t doubt
that they were. However, she couldn’t warn them for she could neither move nor
speak. Jil lay where Vomix had dropped her, eyes closed. The boy was slumped
against a rock, fast asleep, and Maelys hoped he’d stay that way through the
coming attack. He’d done more than anyone could ask of a child, and seen more
than any child should see.

Shortly, staring down at the other path, she saw something
move in the distance. They were coming. Her gut tightened and her heart began
to race. She tried not to react, but Vomix, watching her, grinned like a hyena.
Hauling the sergeant to his feet, Vomix worked hairy fingers over his head in
what Maelys assumed to be a rejuvenation spell. The sergeant immediately stood
up straighter, though he still needed the support of his sword.

‘Go down to the ambush point,’ said Vomix. ‘Keep under
cover.’

He looked ghastly too, though aftersickness hadn’t weakened
him as she’d hoped. He cast another restorative charm on himself, which drained
the blood from his face and made his lower lip droop like a cretin’s, and
turned down the boulder-strewn slope after Tink. He and the sergeant settled
into their ambush, slightly above the path.

Maelys could see Nish clearly now. He was stumbling with
weariness, though he looked better than the other two. Monkshart’s tall form
was doubled over, his head almost at ground level and his arms flopping like
dead weights. The long pale gloves hung off in shreds, exposing the weeping
skin of his arms.

Her stomach heaved at the sight of Phrune, for he resembled
a flabby, glistening balloon, apart from his cheeks, which sagged like a
bloodhound’s. His shaven hair had grown rapidly in the maze; a dark mat, half
the length of Maelys’s thumb, now surrounded the oiled queue. She couldn’t bear
to think about the things he did, or the other services he provided Monkshart.
How could any man become so debased?

‘Nish!’ she tried to shout, but just the barest wisp of
sound emerged. It didn’t even wake Jil.

Maelys tried again, trying so hard to shout that it hurt her
throat. ‘Nish, turn back. It’s Vomix; an ambush.’ No sound came forth this
time.

Vomix turned his head sharply and she saw that his teeth
were stained red. She shouted her warning again and again, until her throat was
raw, but never managed more than a raspy scrape. Just once Nish stopped,
cocking his head to the left as if listening but, evidently hearing nothing,
continued. He was only a few spans from the huge boulder behind which the
ambushers lurked. Looking towards the transparency that marked the barrier
between the maze and the real world, Nish laughed in relief.

Behind the rock, the sergeant raised his sword and a chill
went through her. Tink didn’t look like a man preparing to take prisoners and
she prayed he hadn’t been driven mad in the maze.

Nish couldn’t tell how long they’d been lost in the
maze, though it felt like all night and half the next day, and he’d had nothing
to eat or drink in that time. Monkshart hadn’t packed food or water, expecting
that the transit would take no more than an hour, but as they’d wandered
helplessly with no idea of how to get out, twice more he had succumbed to those
murderous rages.

Both times they were directed at Phrune, fortunately, but
Nish felt ever more alarmed. Monkshart’s power, allied to that passionate
purpose and mesmerising charisma, made him one of the most potent people in the
world, but the rages gave him a deadly unpredictability.

On three occasions, early on, Monkshart had sensed Vomix and
his men nearby, but each time the zealot had managed to conceal his little
company and the paths of pursued and pursuers had diverged again. Yet Nish’s
worst fears hadn’t come true: there had been no sign of pursuit in many hours
and finally Monkshart allowed Nish to have his head, since he could still see a
clear path and it appeared to be going somewhere.

Nish could see little but the path, since relying on
clearsight all this time had dulled his normal senses. The base of his skull
throbbed, his eyes felt as though hot peppers had been ground into them, and he
couldn’t concentrate on anything more complicated than placing one foot in
front of the other. If this was what aftersickness felt like, he was glad he
lacked a talent for the Art.

Now the exit lay just ahead. Not even Monkshart knew where
they would emerge, though he’d said that distances travelled through the maze
were greater than in the real world, and they might come out anywhere on the
continent of Lauralin. Nish prayed it was on the other side of the world from
Morrelune.

Nish!
It wasn’t a
voice, just the faintest of echoes whispering through the spaces of the maze,
and at first he thought his tormented mind was playing tricks on him.

He stopped but couldn’t hear anything, and neither Monkshart
nor Phrune had reacted. Nish continued, trudging on aching, blistered feet. He
couldn’t remember when he’d last walked so far without a rest, and his only
thought was of passing the barrier and getting out into the real world which,
thankfully, was becoming clearer every minute.

It came again,
Nish!
and a note in it was an aching reminder of Maelys. Could she be calling him
from beyond the grave? Were such things possible in the unreality of the maze?
Clearsight didn’t offer any answers.

He didn’t hear the ghostly call again, and was moving on
when the back of his neck prickled and a jag of white fire hurled Monkshart
backwards, skidding him across the rubbery ground. A huge, blood-covered
sergeant lurched out from behind a boulder to their left, waving his sword like
a madman. Phrune yelped, ducked under the sword and hacked at the soldier’s
groin with a stiletto. He missed, though a short red gash appeared on the
sergeant’s thigh. Phrune didn’t look like a fighter but he was as quick and
deadly as a viper.

Nish looked around for the source of the blast. The maze
shimmered in front of him, blocking his way to the real world, though he
couldn’t see what was behind it.