Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 (20 page)

“What’s that smell?” said Lyf. He was at the door of his underground temple, formerly the murder cellar beneath Palace Ricinus. After many days of labour all traces of the cellar had been removed and the temple stripped back to its original stonework. “You told me it had been thoroughly scrubbed.”

“Three times it’s been cleaned, Lord King,” said his personal attendant, Moley Gryle, “and the final time I did it myself. When we’re finished, it’s as perfect as we can make it, yet within hours the smell comes back.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

Lyf hobbled inside on his crutches. He could have floated in, or flown, but it would have felt sacrilegious to use the magery of the pearls in such a place. In olden times, the temple had one purpose only – healing. Besides, the pearl magery had been weakening rapidly of late. Had he drawn too much to ensure his fabulous victories? All the more reason to get the master pearl as soon as possible.

Before the Hightspallers had arrived on the First Fleet, this temple had been one of the most sacred places in Cythe, the private temple of the king. Here a succession of kings had worked their king-magery to heal the turbulent and disaster-prone land, as well as those unfortunate people whom ordinary healers could not help. At least, most of them. Some people suffered ailments beyond even the kings’ healing.

But the temple had been debauched by Axil Grandys, who had betrayed the young, naïve King Lyf there, hacked off his feet and dragged him away to his death. Curiously, though, Grandys had protected the temple when every other building in the capital city of Lucidand had been torn down, and he had spent the following years in a fruitless attempt to find the secret of king-magery.

“There, Lord King,” said Gryle, pointing.

She ushered him in and across to the centre. Everything had been removed from the former cellar, even the plaster on the walls and the staircase that had spiralled down through the ceiling when it had been the murder cellar. Now it was an empty, ovoid space some forty yards long and twenty-five wide, with a curving ceiling like the top of a skull. A skull with a hole in it, for the staircase opening had not yet been plugged. Lyf wondered if that was the problem.

“This is the spot.” Gryle indicated the large flagstone in front of her.

Lyf measured the cellar with his eyes. “The altar stood here. The table and benches were over there – that’s where the Five Herovians used their foul magery to compel my signature onto the lying charter they used to justify the theft of our country. And here —” He choked, but collected himself. “Here – see the gash in the stone – this is the place where they held me down while Grandys hacked my feet off with his accursed blade.”

“The sacred stones cannot forget the crime that was committed here,” Gryle said sententiously. “They reek to remind us that we must never forget.”

“I wonder,” said Lyf. “After I’ve completed my morning’s devotions, take up the stones, remove the earth beneath and re-lay them.”

“It will be done.” Gryle went to speak, hesitated for almost a minute, then said, “Lord King, may I raise a matter with you?”

“If you must.”

“Lord King, this is not something that concerns me personally… not deeply, at any rate – but so many of your people are talking about it that I feel I must speak.”

Lyf made an impatient gesture, and she hurried on.

“Many people are troubled by the way the war is, um… going, Lord King.”

“You may speak candidly, Gryle.”

“Our people want Cythe back, and the enemy punished. But they feel the destruction of every house, every palace, every library and every temple built by the enemy over the past two thousand years is… excessive.”

“It’s what they did to us,” said Lyf, nettled.

“And they’re sickened by all the unnecessary killing.”

“Do you know how many Cythians they put down?” bellowed Lyf, brandishing a fist at her. “Fifty thousand, at least.”

Gryle held her ground, though only with an effort. “Lord King, I do. But that was long ago and we – they – we feel —”

“You asked to speak, Gryle, and I have heard you.”

“Yes, Lord King. And may I say —”

“You may not!”

“Lord King?”

“Get out.”

As she was leaving, a courier came running. “Lord King, an urgent message from Lizue, at Rutherin.”

“Yes?”

“The disguised prisoner
was
the escaped Pale, Tali vi Torgrist. Lizue almost took her head, but one of the chancellor’s spies interfered and the Pale got away. Lizue is injured, though not badly enough to stop her from trying again.”

His severed shinbones began to throb. Could victory be slipping from his grasp already? No, he would not allow it.

“Send gauntlings,” said Lyf. “All we have. Find Tali.”

The courier withdrew. Lyf called for his daily report on the war. An officer he did not recognise came to present it, a slender young man with prematurely white hair. General Hillish was leading the army against Bleddimire, and Lyf had banished General Rochlis, that great hero of the war, to a fortress in the north, for insubordination.

“Who are you?” said Lyf.

“Captain Durling, Lord King.”

“Make it quick, Durling. I’ve much on my mind today.”

Durling bowed. “Caulderon is quiet, Lord King. The people are thoroughly cowed.”

“No signs of insurrection anywhere?”

“There are, from time to time, but we put them down swiftly and execute the ringleaders, which serves as a lesson to the rest of the city.”

“Good. Continue.”

“There was some trouble in the north, around Lakeland, but Rochlis has sorted it out. He’s a good man, Lord King.”

“He has an overly sensitive conscience for a military man,” Lyf said coldly. All was not forgiven. “What’s the state of the south?”

“Steady. It’s too miserably cold there for trouble, Lord King. I doubt you’ll have to worry about it until the spring.”

“How about the west? What’s the chancellor up to?”

“Growing his army and making alliances.”

“How many troops does he have now?”

“About seven thousand, according to our spies. But most are inexperienced, and they’re poorly led.”

“I had all his officers killed after we took Caulderon,” said Lyf. “You can train a soldier in a couple of weeks, but it takes months to produce a good officer – or years. And Bleddimire?”

“Your army is in position for battle and morale is good.”

“Have my spies mentioned Bleddimire’s morale?”

“Weakening by the hour.”

“Then I can safely leave the business to Hillish. He’ll soon have another famous victory. That only leaves the Nandeloch Mountains.”

“The north-east is as rebellious as ever,” said Durling, “but we can’t do anything about it until spring.”

“Why not?”

“The mountains are too high, too rugged, too cold. We’d need an army of twenty-five thousand to subdue the area and we don’t even have five thousand to spare. Besides, if we tried to fight there in winter we could lose half an army.”

“Why?” Lyf said coldly. He did not appreciate such advice.

“The roads are bad and the snow heavy. We run the risk of having our forces cut off by avalanches and freezing to death.”

“Their petty little earldoms can wait until spring,” said Lyf. “Is there any news of Rixium Ricinus?”

“I’m afraid not, Lord King… though we have hundreds of troops looking.”

“I am displeased. Find him!”

Durling withdrew.

Lyf closed the doors, barred them and walked around the temple. He knew it was empty, but caution was ingrained in him and in this matter he could not take any risks. Once sure that no spying device had been hidden inside, he continued his painstaking search. He would remove every stone in the walls and ceiling if he had to.

The key had to be found. The need was becoming desperate.

“Where did I go wrong?” wailed Wil the Sump, rubbing his cavernous, eaten-away nostril until it bled.

The little man was deep underground in the Hellish Conduit, a down-plunging passageway so sweltering and humid that each breath clagged in his throat and had to be consciously swallowed. A place where green, corrosive fluids seeped from the walls and welled sluggishly up through cracks in the floor; where sickening emanations howled out of the depths; where luminous, tentacled growths sprouted from every crack and cranny, and tiny multi-legged creatures cowered in cracks while the plants were the predators.

Wil clawed at the encrusted wall until his fingernails tore to splinters, but it did not ease the agony he felt inside. The only thing that could take away the pain of his failure was the perilous alchymical solvent called alkoyl. But he had sniffed the last of his alkoyl eight days ago, he had no way of getting more, and withdrawal was like fishhooks dragging through his brain.

That wasn’t the worst, though. Wil’s beloved land was in danger and no one else could save it. The ice sheets were creeping up from the southern pole, closing in around the coast, and if they were not stopped they would grind all life off the face of the land, as they had already extinguished everything on the great southern island of Suden.

To save his country, Wil had to erase the iron book,
The Consolation of Vengeance
, that he had stolen from under Lyf’s nose, then reforge the pages and rewrite them to tell the true story. Wil loved books and stories more than he loved his own miserable life, and the true story of Cython had to be told. He had to know how the story ended, but how could he find the right ending now?

He felt sure it involved the subterranean Engine, way down the Hellish Conduit at the heart of the world. Cythonians believed that the Engine powered the workings of the land itself, and Wil had planned to open the stopcocks to make the Engine race and melt the ice away. But the Engine had proven to be so vast, hot and terrifying that his courage had failed him, and he had run and kept on running. The Engine’s story was beyond his power to write.

Nor could he rewrite the iron book. He had not yet succeeded in erasing the words Lyf had written, the words that had seemed so right until
the one
had appeared and made Lyf’s story go wrong. That was Wil’s fault too. Long ago he had lied to the matriarchs about
the one
, and though they had put all those little slave girls to death to get rid of her, Tali had survived and changed the story. She had changed everything.

To erase the iron book, Wil had to have more alkoyl, but the stores held in Cython were closed to him now. The only other place to get more was the source, the Engine itself, for as it worked the Engine wept small quantities of the universal solvent. However he dared not approach the source.

Until something changed, he would have to wait. But his pain could be endured no longer and he had a remedy for that. In the dark of night he would creep up the Hellish Conduit into Cython, and there he would strangle the life out of the first Pale he encountered. He should have killed Tali the first time he had seen her.

That was only right and just.

Tali was
the one
.

It was all her fault.

“Where did I go wrong?” wailed Wil the Sump, rubbing his cavernous, eaten-away nostril until it bled.

The little man was deep underground in the Hellish Conduit, a down-plunging passageway so sweltering and humid that each breath clagged in his throat and had to be consciously swallowed. A place where green, corrosive fluids seeped from the walls and welled sluggishly up through cracks in the floor; where sickening emanations howled out of the depths; where luminous, tentacled growths sprouted from every crack and cranny, and tiny multi-legged creatures cowered in cracks while the plants were the predators.

Wil clawed at the encrusted wall until his fingernails tore to splinters, but it did not ease the agony he felt inside. The only thing that could take away the pain of his failure was the perilous alchymical solvent called alkoyl. But he had sniffed the last of his alkoyl eight days ago, he had no way of getting more, and withdrawal was like fishhooks dragging through his brain.

That wasn’t the worst, though. Wil’s beloved land was in danger and no one else could save it. The ice sheets were creeping up from the southern pole, closing in around the coast, and if they were not stopped they would grind all life off the face of the land, as they had already extinguished everything on the great southern island of Suden.

To save his country, Wil had to erase the iron book,
The Consolation of Vengeance
, that he had stolen from under Lyf’s nose, then reforge the pages and rewrite them to tell the true story. Wil loved books and stories more than he loved his own miserable life, and the true story of Cython had to be told. He had to know how the story ended, but how could he find the right ending now?

He felt sure it involved the subterranean Engine, way down the Hellish Conduit at the heart of the world. Cythonians believed that the Engine powered the workings of the land itself, and Wil had planned to open the stopcocks to make the Engine race and melt the ice away. But the Engine had proven to be so vast, hot and terrifying that his courage had failed him, and he had run and kept on running. The Engine’s story was beyond his power to write.

Nor could he rewrite the iron book. He had not yet succeeded in erasing the words Lyf had written, the words that had seemed so right until
the one
had appeared and made Lyf’s story go wrong. That was Wil’s fault too. Long ago he had lied to the matriarchs about
the one
, and though they had put all those little slave girls to death to get rid of her, Tali had survived and changed the story. She had changed everything.

To erase the iron book, Wil had to have more alkoyl, but the stores held in Cython were closed to him now. The only other place to get more was the source, the Engine itself, for as it worked the Engine wept small quantities of the universal solvent. However he dared not approach the source.

Until something changed, he would have to wait. But his pain could be endured no longer and he had a remedy for that. In the dark of night he would creep up the Hellish Conduit into Cython, and there he would strangle the life out of the first Pale he encountered. He should have killed Tali the first time he had seen her.

That was only right and just.

Tali was
the one
.

It was all her fault.