The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (59 page)

It was the high, unnerving shrilling she’d heard before.

‘Definitely something there,’ said Zham.

But they couldn’t find it – they couldn’t tell which
direction the sound was coming from.

‘It’s as if it doesn’t want to be found,’ Zham said,
squelching back and forth over ground they’d covered a dozen times, but there
was always water where they wanted to go. ‘Look, here’s where you were standing
before, Maelys.’ He indicated two small, foot-shaped depressions in the
brilliantly green moss.

‘Can’t you use clearsight, Nish?’ she wondered.

‘I’ve been trying all day but it’s not working, as usual.
It’s never been very reliable, but this time it feels as though something is
blocking it.’

Maelys recalled a recent conversation with Thommel. ‘Could
it be blocked by red amber-wood?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’

‘Well, if something is blocking it, that’s good, in a way.
At least it confirms that there’s something hidden up here.’

Nish scowled. ‘Doesn’t help if we can’t find it.’

Zham had been going back and forth, prodding the ground. He
gave an irritated grunt and without warning plunged into a scummy pool up to
his chest and began to wade through it, swinging his staff.

‘Be careful, Zham,’ Maelys cried. ‘There could be anything
in there –’

The water swirled. Zham let out a muffled cry then stabbed
his staff down with full force and held it there. Bubbles burst up all around
him; plumes of mud stained the dark water. He swung himself up and over
whatever he’d pinned to the bottom, pivoting on the staff, then went on and
faded into the fog.

The shrilling resumed, though now it made a lower, more
melancholy note. Maelys moved closer to Nish. ‘I don’t like this plateau,’ she
said quietly.

‘It’s not what I imagined either.’ He reached out,
tentatively, to take her cold hand. ‘And yet, I still think there’s something
up here.’

She held his hand for a while, stiffly, then let it go. ‘I
hope so.’

‘He’s been a long time,’ Nish said a while later.

‘Zham?’ Maelys called. Her voice made no impression on the
wind. ‘Zham!’

‘Here!’ His shout could have come from anywhere. ‘Come on.’
There was a note of excitement in his voice.

‘He’s found it!’ Nish cried, plunging recklessly into the
water, which came up to his chin. He churned his way across, stumbled on
something halfway and his head went under.

Maelys, thinking that some creature had got him, felt for
Zham’s big knife, though there was little she could do. Nish burst out of the
water, turned towards her, eyes staring, then turned the other way and flailed
across into the fog.

The windsong dropped to a sobbing moan. She held the knife out,
looking this way and that. She didn’t like it here, but didn’t want to go into
the pool either, which was now a muddy brown and looked as thick as soup.
Smelly bubbles were popping all over its surface.

She called Nish a couple of times but evidently he couldn’t
hear her. What if they were both in trouble? If they were it was unlikely she
could make any difference, though they had acted recklessly. If she were
careful …

She didn’t want to go into the pool, but she couldn’t stand
by either. Taking a deep breath, and holding the blade out low, she stepped
into the water. It came up to her nose, her eyes; she had to stand on tiptoes
to breathe and her boots sank into a deep sludge on the bottom that made it
difficult to move. She took one step, then another, feeling an overwhelming
urge to shriek, but her mouth was underwater.

Maelys trod on something that gave underfoot, then heaved.
She jumped, lost her footing and went under. She tried not to panic but
couldn’t stop herself. She’d always been afraid of deep water, and even more
afraid of creatures that dwelt in dark places where they couldn’t be seen. The
water was so dark and cold, and she had to close her eyes to keep the mud out.

She went all the way to the bottom and something slapped
against her thigh. Flailing madly, she tried to whack it away with the knife
but failed to connect. She rolled over, not knowing which way was up and which
was down. Her foot slid through the ooze and she felt hard mud underneath.

Maelys fought the panic. The water wasn’t that deep. She
should be able to stand up in it. She got her other foot down, propelled
herself upright and half waded, half swam until her head popped out of the
water and she saw a reedy bank. Sheathing the knife, she caught hold of some
bladed reeds with both hands and dragged herself out onto relatively solid
ground.

Her hands were bleeding from the sharp edges of the reeds.
She wiped them on moss, tore up handfuls of it to clean the mud out of her eyes
and stood up. She couldn’t see Nish or Zham, though their footprints were
clearly visible in the moss, leading straight on.

The sobbing wind was louder now, and more unnerving. This
place didn’t feel lucky at all. It felt as though something terrible had
happened here. She kept going, the feelings growing stronger all the time. And
then she saw them.

Nish and Zham stood side by side, staring at something she
couldn’t make out from here. It wasn’t good news, though. Nish’s shoulders were
slumped; even from behind he looked defeated.

As Maelys came up beside him, the shape she’d seen earlier
resolved out of the fog. It was a standing stone – no, a monument, an
obelisk cut from a single slab of grey rock. It was at least twice Zham’s
height, though the top could not be seen, and she saw the blurred outline of
writing running up the facing surface. The glyphs weren’t clear, since the
surface was covered in moss at the bottom and grey-green lichen further up.
Feathers of lichen wavered in the wind and a faint mist or steam was rising off
the top of the rock. Her scalp prickled.

‘That’s not it, Nish?’

‘No,’ Nish said dully. ‘It doesn’t speak to me at all. The
whole journey has been a waste of time.’

It spoke to Maelys, though. It was the monument to a
terrible tragedy, though why here where no one would see it? She scraped some
of the moss off. The glyphs were clearer in the raw stone. It looked like a
script from long ago; one she’d seen in a book of the Histories of ancient
times, before her mother had burnt it to keep warm. Unfortunately Maelys hadn’t
read those Histories first, so the glyphs told her nothing. And, just as
curious, the rock was warm.

‘Why would it be warm, when everything else up here is
cold?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Zham.

‘It’s a wonder Thommel didn’t mention it,’ said Nish, ‘since
he’s been here before.’

‘It’s not easy to find,’ rumbled Zham. ‘Do you want to go
on, Deliverer? There’s plenty of plateau left to search. And Maelys needs to
get out of the wind.’

‘I’m all right,’ she said automatically. ‘I’m used to the
cold.’ She shivered. ‘Let’s finish the job we came so far to do.’

As she went by the obelisk, she stumbled over the top part,
which must have been broken off long ago and now lay half buried in the sodden
ground, so thickly coated with moss that the memorial glyphs were as unreadable
as the memories of those long-dead souls who had erected it. Thinking such
melancholy thoughts, she followed Nish and Zham through the barrier pools and
they went on with quartering the plateau.

They found nothing. Nish became more downcast as the hours
passed and finally, around three in the afternoon, tossed his sword clanging
onto a large sloping rock. Something had eaten the moss off it in large, lobed
patches, exposing black stone beneath. Nish threw himself down on one of the
bare areas, staring morosely into a nearby pool.

‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. ‘My vision must have been a
lie put into the Pit of Possibilities to mock me. Father is playing games
again.’ He sprang up, and Maelys couldn’t bear to see the torment on his face.
‘It’s all a lie!’ he shouted up into the whirling fog. ‘There is no future save
the God-Emperor’s unending rule, and I was a fool for daring to think
otherwise.’ His voice cracked. ‘A bigger fool for daring to hope.’

He stalked away without either sword or staff, splashing
blindly through the bogs and mosses, falling in and heedlessly pulling himself
out again. Maelys rose to follow him but Zham laid a hand on her arm. ‘Let him
go. After coming all this way, you can’t blame him.’

‘But what if he …?’ She couldn’t say the words in case Nish
acted them out. This might push him over the edge.

‘He won’t harm himself,’ said Zham. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘I do worry,’ Maelys said softly, but didn’t go after him.

After walking for ages, and stumbling into many a bog
and pothole, Nish’s anguish gave way to a melancholy misery. He was soaked, and
so cold and exhausted that he couldn’t find the energy for stronger feelings.
He just couldn’t take it any more.

Coming to a rock that sloped down in a shelf on the lee
side, providing shelter from the wind, he lay on it and tried to make sense of
what had been done to him. Did the God-Emperor control the whole world,
including the Defiance, Monkshart, and the Pit of Possibilities? Could
everything that had happened since he’d been freed from Mazurhize
really
be part of a malicious game, to
demonstrate how absolute his father’s power was? Nish recoiled from the idea,
which smacked of paranoia and allowed no room for hope, but what other
explanation was there?

He rubbed the itching spine scar. He could draw no other
conclusion. If there truly was no hope, if Father did control the world and
they were mere players in his game, why be a pawn? He couldn’t fight any more.
He felt exhausted; physically, mentally and most of all, morally. The burden
was too much for him to bear.

The moment he allowed himself that thought, the
long-suppressed temptation grew until it was almost irresistible. Nish could
feel himself weakening every second. He wanted what his father offered, more
than anything. He always had, though he’d never allowed himself to think about
it. But now he did, and why shouldn’t he have it? And perhaps …

Perhaps there was another way. After all, if anyone could
sway his father, curb his excesses and turn him aside from evil, his only surviving
son had the best chance of doing it. Yes, it was the only way. Some people,
even his friends, might see it as a betrayal, but if he could stand at the
right hand of the God-Emperor, and do good at the same time, it would be worth
all it had cost him to get there.

Even me, Nish?

It was as if Irisis had spoken in his mind. Nish jumped up,
looking around guiltily, longingly, but there was no one in sight.

Use your clearsight,
Nish. Is this what you really want?

It had hardly ever worked after he’d come out of the maze,
but perhaps he needed to try harder. Nish closed his eyes and was attempting to
see with his inner vision, while her voice was still echoing in his mind, when
a small rectangular shape appeared out of the fog not far away, near the rim of
the southern lobe of the plateau. He began to move towards it, arms out like a
sleepwalker. It had to be an illusion, because he’d been back and forth across
the area and couldn’t have missed anything that big.

It didn’t recede as he approached, and when he was close
enough he opened his eyes. It was still there, and grew ever clearer, as any
real object would. It was an ancient, crumbling wooden hut, listing to the left
and looking as though the next puff of wind would blow it over. He caught the faintest
spicy whiff but couldn’t place it.

Going with trembling steps to the door, Nish rapped on it.
There was no answer and his heart sank again, but he pushed it open on its
cracked and sagging leather hinges. The floor of the hut was formed from packed
earth which the bottom of the door scraped semicircular grooves across as it
opened. He stepped inside but it was so dark he couldn’t see a thing. He waited
until his eyes adjusted. There didn’t appear to be anything in the hut but a
rude table and chair, and a bed covered in rags.

Until the rags stirred and an acerbic voice he’d never
expected to hear again said, ‘You took your bloody time, Nish! I expected you
nine years ago.’

 
FORTY-ONE

Nish leapt backwards as if he’d been scalded, and
shivers broke out across his body. The crusty voice, though rendered hoarse by
age and shortness of breath, was unmistakable.

‘Xervish? Surr? Is it really you?’

The rags fell away as the figure sat up, slowly and stiffly.
‘You always were one for asking stupid questions,’ said his old mentor and
friend, the former Scrutator Xervish Flydd. ‘Of course it’s me. Where the devil
have you been all this time? On holidays?’

Had anyone else spoken to him that way, Nish would have been
mortally offended, but Flydd’s acerbity was legendary, and not intended to
hurt. Well, not all of the time. When he was angry, Flydd’s tongue could flay
the hide off a nylatl.

Nish managed a smile. ‘I’m afraid I was rather tied up.’ He
went forwards. Flydd swung his feet onto the floor, the smell of mouldy bedding
rising with him.

‘Cursed damp place,’ said Flydd, coughing. ‘Nothing ever
dries out. Give me your hand.’

Nish extended his hand. Flydd took it and heaved himself up.
‘Let’s go outside where I can look at you. The light in here is too dim for my
old eyes.’

Outside, the fog had closed in again and visibility was down
to a few paces, but it was bright enough to see that the old man had aged
shockingly. At the end of the war Flydd had been a vigorous man of sixty-odd
years. Yes, he’d been small and skinny, horribly scarred and incredibly ugly,
but with such strength, courage and, when he cared to use it, charm, that he’d
seemed the best of men. But now …