Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 (62 page)

Tali scrambled back to the ladder and up six rungs to the seventh level, which was empty. Where was everyone?

“Holm?” she yelled, her voice going shrill. “Where are you? The top of the spike is on fire.”

“I’m here!” Holm called from below. “Come down.”

She looked down. “Is Rezire there?”

“No, he went up.”

“I’ve got to warn him.”

“You already did.”

“Not about the fire.”

“Make it quick!”

Tali stood there. “I took too long. I might have stopped them.”

“All twenty-four gauntlings? When all the world’s magery is failing? You take too much on yourself.”

“I was distracted, and by the time I’d gathered enough magery to attack, it was too late. I’ve got to warn everyone.”

“Then get a move on! I’ll tell the people down below.”

Tali scrambled up the ladder to the eighth level and screamed, “Rezire! Fire! Fire!”

He did not answer. She looked up the series of ladders, through level after level, hole after hole until she could no longer separate them. It was another eight hundred feet to the top. Tali was a lot stronger than she had been a week ago, but she could not climb all that way.

However the shape of the chambers focused sound upwards, and if she shouted loudly enough it would be heard many levels up. If the librarians and curators on each level repeated the warning, it would pass from the bottom of the tower to the top in a minute or two.

“Fire!” she screamed. “The top of the tower is on fire. Get out
now
!”

A gowned curator, a little, bald gnome of a man, looked down from the ninth level. “Did you call?”

“Fire, you bloody moron. The top level is on fire. Get out now.”

He pursed his lips. “There’s no excuse for rudeness. Good manners cost nothing, girlie.”

“If you don’t get out, you’re going to burn to death. Warn the people above.”

He looked up. “I don’t see any fire.”

“Hurry, please.”

He began to replace books on the shelves as though he had hours. What was the matter with these people? They seemed to live in another world.

Was there time enough to get everyone out? Surely fire would not burn down nearly as quickly as it would go up. Each level would have to catch alight, all the way down, and desperate people could scramble down faster than that.

“Tali?” yelled Holm. “Come down.”

She hesitated on the ladder. Had she done enough? No; she had to make up for her failure with the gauntlings. She was climbing up to the ninth level, slowly and wearily, when a hot red dot blossomed an impossible distance above her – fire seen through a succession of ladder holes.

Then a slightly larger dot.

“Tali!” Holm said urgently.

“Yes?” Her voice had a tremor.

“There’s nothing more you can do.”

She looked up, looked down. With all that magery at her disposal, she must be able to do something. But what? She did not know any spell that would answer in this situation.

“Tali, get down
now
!”

She held on with her left hand, extended her right up towards the distant red dot, and drew power. Her head throbbed.

The ladder shook. Holm was scrambling up it. He came around the other side, level with her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to hold back the fire.”

“Do you
know
how to stop fire with magery?”

“No, but —”

“It’s one of the most difficult of all spells. I’ve heard of master magians who have spent decades trying to master it – and still failed.”

“If I’d stopped the gauntlings —”

Holm let out an inarticulate cry, then held up his right fist in front of her face. “See this?” he said furiously.

The white scars across his knuckles stood out lividly. “Yes.”

“If you don’t go down
right now
, I’m going to knock you out and carry you down over my shoulder. Of course, I’m an old man, so I’ll probably fall off the ladder and break my neck, but —”

“All right,” she said quietly. “I’ll go. After you.”

“You first. I don’t trust you.”

She looked up.
Whoomph!
A slightly larger dot of red appeared. Another floor ablaze.

“Go!” cried Holm, and she could hear the fear in his voice.

She scrambled down the rungs. He swung around to her side and followed, shaking the ladder in his haste.

“Faster, Tali.”

Her knees were already wobbly. “I can’t go any faster. I’ll fall.”

“Better you fall than the fire catches you.”

She tried to hurry but her foot slipped. Tali swung by her hands for a few seconds, her heart missing several beats. The holes were directly above one another – she could plunge all the way down, a hundred and eighty feet. She felt for the rungs, settled. Sweat was running down her face.

“Come
on
!” said Holm.

The red dot was much larger now.
Whoomph!
Then again, only seconds later.

She reached the bottom of the ladder and scrambled onto the next one down. “How many levels to go?” she gasped.

“Six.”

“I don’t think we’re going to make it. And what if the fire weakens the spike above us? The floors could fall down on our heads.”

“It’ll be a quicker way to go than burning to death.”

They made it down to the sixth level. Tali looked across the room and saw a curator polishing an orb on a stand.

“Get out!” she screamed. “Tirnan Twil is on fire.”

The man did not look up. “Fire or no fire, our work must be done.”

“But…” She looked up desperately. “Holm, tell them.”

“I have told them, but this is the only life they’ve ever known. We’ve done all we can.”

“I was wrong about the fire,” said Tali, who could feel the heat radiation on the top of her head now. “It’s coming faster than we can climb down.”

“You talk too much,” panted Holm.

“And I’m holding you up,” she said. “Sorry.”

He grunted.

She shot down the next ladder and onto the one after that. She tried to guess how far up the fire was. Surely only ten or twelve levels. Down she hurtled, her sweat-drenched palms slipping on the rungs. Not far to go now.

She reached the bottom, looked up, and choked. There was no sign of Holm.

“Holm, where are you?”

No answer. “Holm?”

She cursed and headed up again, her heart crashing violently. What had happened to him? Had he fallen backwards off the ladder, out of sight?

He wasn’t on the second level, the third or fourth or fifth. Pain spread through her chest. He had vanished. She forced herself up towards the sixth, where she had last seen him. Her legs were so wobbly that they would barely support her.

Whoomph!
 

There was smoke on this level now, stinging her eyes and blinding her with tears. But he wasn’t here either. She scrabbled up to the seventh, the portrait gallery.

“Holm?” she said, turning around. There he was, hardly visible through the swirling smoke. “What are you doing?” she screamed.

“I remembered something.”

Whoomph! Whoomph!
 

A pressure wave sent an incandescent blast of heat down at them. That’s why it’s burning down so fast, she thought. That’s why none of the librarians have made it down the ladders. And if it catches us —

Holm sprang down, stuffing something into his coat.

“What’s that?” said Tali.

“There isn’t time to talk about it.”

“You’re a fine one to lecture me,” cried Tali, fear choking her. “Go down!”

He rattled down the ladder and she followed. When they reached the bottom, the fire was only three levels above. A blistering wind was driven down past them, and on it she could smell burning hair and other unpleasant things. There was no smoke down here, but it was a struggle to breathe nonetheless; the air did not seem to be giving her what she needed.

She looked around frantically. “Which way did we come in?” she said, panting.

“That way.” He indicated a closed door. He was breathing heavily too. “But it’s not the way we’re going out.”

“Why not?”

“Do you have to argue every bloody point? Do what I say for once.”

He limped to the great door on the other side. It was locked.
Whoomph!

“
Open it,” said Holm, and stepped aside.

“How?”

“Use your damned magery. As much raw power as you’ve got. No subtlety is required.”

She extended her hand, drew from the pearl and, with a stone-rending boom, the door tore off its hinges and was blasted outwards. It went tumbling across the ravine, to crash into the yellow cliff a hundred yards away.

“Perhaps a
hint
of subtlety,” smiled Holm.

A cold wind rushed in and up the ladder. The fires above glowed red, then blue.

Suddenly there was flame all around, consuming the air, making it impossible to breathe. Holm caught Tali’s hand, dragging her outside. It was raining heavily and the air was thick with smoke. The arch stretched before them, across to a ledge. They ran, but were only halfway across when, with a
Whoomph! Whoomph! Whoomph!
fire burst out the door, straight at them.

Tali felt the tips of her hair shrivelling, the fur on the collar of her coat singeing. There came a blast of heat on her exposed skin, then she was pounding away, hauling Holm behind her.

She skidded off the end of the arch, holding her hands out to prevent herself from crashing into the cut-away cliff, then ducked below the level of the arch. Flames roared overhead for a minute or two, bouncing off the cliff in all directions. She was sweltering in her heavy clothes. She sucked at the hot air but still felt suffocated.

Then it was gone into nothing. It might never have been there, save that the yellow cliff was steaming and the moss in the cracks had been charred away. Tali stood up unsteadily and looked back.

Orange flames were visible through the windows of Tirnan Twil, all the way up. Some of the thick panes had burst and flames were licking out, along with yellow, black and brown smoke. The golden stone around the broken windows was already smirched by tarry smoke stains.

Smoke whirled about the spike; rain hissed off the hot stone. The whole structure seemed to shiver slightly, then settle, and for a long moment Tali thought it was going to collapse into the abyss, but it held.

“I almost wish it had fallen,” she said quietly. “Apart from the smoke stains, it looks unharmed.”

“Just as it ever was,” said Holm.

“And even the smoke stains will wash away in time.”

“I know what you mean. It doesn’t seem right that all those people, and everything they looked after so carefully for so long, should have been destroyed…”

“Yet the vainglorious shell remains, untouched. Why didn’t they run?” said Tali. Her insides were aching, burning.

“I think some, like Rezire, had invested so much of their lives in Tirnan Twil that they couldn’t bear to leave, even in its death agony. Like a captain going down with his ship, perhaps.”

“What about the others?”

“It had stood for two millennia, unchanged, untouched. Perhaps the idea of it being destroyed was so preposterous that they could not take it in. Life in Tirnan Twil was slow, contemplative, deliberate.”

“I tried to warn them.”

“You did everything you could. And at the end, the fire came very fast. Much faster than I expected. By the time they realised how bad it was, it would have been on them.”

“It must be a terrible thing, being burned to death.” She shuddered violently.

“I think most would have suffocated,” he said gently.

“Why do you say that?”

“Remember how hard it was to breathe at the bottom? The burnt air sinks. I doubt they suffered much.”

“But still…”

“Not the way I would choose to go.”

He put an arm around her shoulders. She looked back at Tirnan Twil, one last time.

“As they said, a monument to eternity
.”

“Was blowing the door off a
great destruction
?” said Tali.

The smoke was thickening, whirling and tumbling in the updrafts created by the ravine. She could hardly see Tirnan Twil now.

“Did it kill anyone, or destroy something vast or vital?”

“No.”

“Then the answer is no.” He looked down the ravine, then up. “Can you hear them?”

“The people inside?” she whispered, shivering.

“No, the gauntlings.”

It was hard to tell over the roar and crackle of the fire, the wind whistling along the gorge, and the pattering rain.

Kaark
!
Kaark
!

“They’ll come after us, won’t they?”

“Once the smoke clears, they’ll come down to check. With the gusting winds around here, it’d be too dangerous right now.” He glanced at the sky. “Not much daylight left, which is good. Though it means…” He gave her a sympathetic smile.

“What now?” she groaned.

“We’ll have to walk the cliff path out – the really dangerous one – in darkness.”

“What do you mean the
really dangerous
one? How could it be worse than the one we came in on?”

“It’s worse.” He was smirking.

Tali could not smile. The destruction of Tirnan Twil had burned all humour out of her.

“However I do know a secret way out,” said Holm. “If we can get out of sight we can lose them in the night.”

“Luck isn’t something we’ve had much of, lately.”

“We’re alive, free, and in improving health. I count that as good luck.”

“Just as a matter of interest,” she said as they trudged along, “where are we going?”

“I thought you’d decided that when I was injured and out of it.”

“I was heading in the direction of a place called Garramide. Though I don’t know where it is.”

“It’s a few days east of here, in the middle of the Nandeloch Mountains.”

“Good. I’ve had enough of travel,” said Tali. “About the portrait?”

“What portrait?”

“The one you stuffed in your pocket up on the seventh level. I assume it’s Lyf’s self-portrait. Why did you take it?”

“I suppose, like you, I saw something in it.”

“Do you think it’s the key?”

“Probably not, but self-portraits are always revealing. If it’s cleaned up it could tell us something useful about him.”

That night a wicked blizzard blew in and the few days turned into five, the first two of which they spent in a cave, waiting for the weather to improve.

“Go carefully,” said Holm, on the fifth afternoon. “These are suspicious times, and isolated fortresses are more likely to shoot strangers than welcome them.”

They had spent most of the day labouring up the escarpment through dense forest and heavy snow. They were now standing under the eaves of the forest, studying Fortress Garramide from a quarter of a mile away.

“Better make sure we can’t be mistaken for the enemy, then,” said Tali.

“Take your hat off. There’s never been a Cythonian with golden hair in the history of the world.”

From beneath her broad hat brim, Tali looked nervously at the sky. It was heavily overcast and light snow was drifting before a keen southerly.

“I suppose I could manage it – when we’re outside the gates.”

They headed out of the forest across deep snow, though the surface was hard and it was easy walking, save where a too-hasty step broke through the crust.

“Looks like they’ve been under attack,” said Holm.

“And won.”

There were guards all along the walls and carpenters were repairing the main gates. Several large mounds in the snow suggested a lot of enemy dead, but the fortress stood proud and undefeated, and a hundred chimneys were smoking.

They headed across to the road, where the snow had been beaten down by people coming and going, then slowly along it. Tali went first, nervously. The men on the wall to either side of the gate had their bows trained on her all the way.

“No further,” said Holm. “You’re almost within bowshot. Take off your hat. The scarf too. Let them be in no doubt that you’re a Hightspaller, and no threat.”

Tali took off her hat, unwound her scarf, then braced herself for the sickening panic of agoraphobia, but it did not rise. Perhaps the sky was too gloomy. The wind ruffled her hair. It was icy on her exposed neck and the driven snowflakes settled there, but did not melt.

“State your name and business,” called a tall guard.

“We’ve been hunted halfway across Hightspall, and seek refuge.” Her voice sounded shrill, fearful. “My companion is called Holm and —”

“What is your name?” the guard said curtly.

“I am the Lady Thalalie vi Torgrist.”

Silence. The man had disappeared from the wall. None of the other guards spoke. Neither did they lower their weapons.

“He’s gone to speak to his captain,” Holm said quietly. “We may have a long wait.”

Tali drew her coat around her more tightly. Cold was seeping up through the soles of her boots. She stamped her feet but it did not help.

Five minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. “Why is it taking so long?” said Tali.

Holm did not answer.

“What if they turn us away? We’ve got no food left.”

A huge man appeared on the wall, clad in furs and wearing a hat drawn down over his face against the driving snow. He studied them for a few seconds before turning away.

Tali swallowed. “That doesn’t seem like a good sign.”

“Depends how you look at it,” said Holm.

Shortly a small gate opened beside the main fortress gates. A guard gestured to them.

Tali put on her scarf and hat as she hurried across. The guard held up a square, callused hand, studied their faces as though memorising them, then waved them through.

A tall, weathered man stood waiting in the yard, wearing the insignia of a sergeant. He was quite bald and did not have many teeth. “Sergeant Nuddell,” he said courteously. “Your escort to Lord Deadhand.”

“Does he always interview refugees personally?” said Holm.

“I don’t talk about his business.”

They followed Nuddell along paved paths, freshly cleared of snow. Several leafless trees occupied a left-hand corner of the yard. Ahead was a massive castle built from yellow stone. Towers on the corners each had a green, copper-clad dome.

“Garramide looks all very neat and orderly,” said Tali.

“The late, great dame ran a tight house,” said Nuddell. “Her heir, Lord Deadhand, does things the same way.”

He led them inside, along a broad entrance hall and up several levels to a door guarded by a compact, hungry looking fellow, scarred across the throat as if someone had tried to cut it. He nodded to Nuddell, opened the door, stood aside to let them pass and pulled the door closed.

Tali went in, anxiety gnawing at her stomach and acid burning a track up the centre of her chest. She passed across an anteroom, her feet making no sound on an ancient patterned rug, then around through a doorway into a large, panelled room lit only by embers in a large fireplace.

The big man still wore a greatcoat. He had his back to her and was standing in the shadow beside the window, looking out. But there was a presence about him, a familiarity, that swelled and grew until, at the moment he turned, she knew him.

“Rix!” It came out as a shriek of joy.

He stretched out a grey right hand, studied it ruefully for a moment and drew it back. “Around here, they call me Deadhand.”

She sprang forwards, thinking to embrace him, for they had been great friends. Then, remembering the manner of their parting, she froze.

Rix frowned. “Am I so very changed? So very ferocious?”

She had to put things right. “I did you wrong, not telling you about Lord and Lady Ricinus’s treason. I’m sorry. I was trying to protect you.”

“It was my right to know,” said Rix coolly.

She could not tell what he was thinking. “I wasn’t trying to protect you, as though you were a child,” she went on. “But if you’d known, you would have been in an impossible situation —”

“A duty to protect my sovereign in a time of war,” said Rix, “utterly in conflict with my duty to honour my parents and safeguard my house. Even so, you should have told me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tali, “I’ve been worrying —”

“Then worry no more. The high treason was revealed, the traitors condemned, the house crushed. Everything I had and everything I was has been swept away. The slate has not just been erased, it’s been smashed and thrown out. Come here.” He held out his arms.

Tali embraced him, or tried to, though in her heavy coat her arms did not meet around him. He could have enfolded her twice in his arms.

Rix looked over her head towards Holm, then disengaged.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Rixium of Garramide, though I go by Rix. Or Deadhand, whichever you prefer. I won’t shake hands, if you don’t mind – it rather puts people off.”

“I’m Holm,” said Holm. “I hear you did away with that hyena, Leatherhead. That must have been a sight to see.”

“He might easily have done away with me.”

He ushered them to chairs by the fire and called for food and drink, then gave a brief account of the fight with Leatherhead and his time here, though to Tali’s mind it raised many questions and provided few answers.

But if he wanted to draw a veil over the time since the fall of Caulderon, that was his right. She’d had a number of experiences in the past weeks that she never wanted to think about again. Though, as it happened, Rix did not ask her about her time with the chancellor, how she had escaped, or how she had found him.

Shortly a serving maid came in, bearing a heavy tray.

“Glynnie!” Tali cried.

Glynnie set down the tray and turned to her, smiling, though rather formally. Tali, who had been intending to embrace the girl, shook hands instead.

“You look different,” said Tali.

She seemed taller, and the slender girl’s shape was taking on a woman’s curves.

“I get enough to eat here,” said Glynnie. “Will that be all, ma’am,
Lord
?”

She shot a glance at Rix, whose jaw tightened. Tali looked from one to the other. There was a tension between them that had not been there back in Caulderon. Rix nodded. Glynnie went out.

“Benn’s dead,” said Rix. “At least, I lost him when we escaped from Caulderon. I don’t see how he can be alive.”

“I’m sorry,” said Tali. “He was a nice boy.”

“Sit down. Eat. And if you have any news, I need to hear it.”

“Wherever we go,” said Holm, “people are desperate for news of the war. Though there’s never any good news.”

“There is here,” said Rix. “We’ve beaten off a besieging force of almost five hundred. Inflicted a heavy defeat, in fact. Though the blizzard helped.”

“A win is a win,” said Tali. “Well done, Rix. Though it doesn’t surprise me. You should be a general.”

“For the moment, I’ve got my hands full protecting Garramide. What news do you have?”

“The chancellor never stops scheming,” said Tali. “But his schemes don’t come to anything. We can’t rely on him.”

“How big is his army?”

“Not big enough.” She frowned. “It was less than five thousand when I escaped, though it’d be bigger by now.”

“That’s not even enough to hold the south-west,” said Rix. “If Lyf attacks it, now he’s taken Bleddimire —”

“Bleddimire’s fallen?” cried Holm. “When?”

“Weeks ago.”

“Then it’s over. He holds the best of Hightspall already and we’re left with the dregs.”

“Be damned!” cried Rix, leaping to his feet and towering over them. “We’re
never
giving in. Next time we’ll have a bigger victory. And a bigger one after that, until we drive the mongrels back down the rat holes they came from.”

He paced around the room, breathing heavily, then sat down with a thump. He looked up, met Tali’s eye and said with a rueful smile, “Or, more likely, until me and all my rebels are dead.”

“Count me among them,” Tali said impulsively. “The rebels, I mean.”

“Count
us
!” said Holm. “How dare you leave me out of it?”

Rix’s eyes shone. He wiped them hastily. “Thank you,” he said, embracing Tali and Holm in turn. “That means everything to me.”

“There is one other piece of news,” said Tali. “Two pieces, actually. And perhaps you’ll find them hopeful.”

“Go on.”

“From time to time I’ve been able to spy or eavesdrop on Lyf, via my gift.”

“Yes, yes?” said Rix.

“Lyf’s victory over Caulderon always seemed uncanny to me. Taking such a great and well-defended city within hours seemed too quick, too complete.”

“And to me, too.”

“That’s because it
was
uncanny.”

“How do you know?”

“I overheard him talking to his ghost ancestor, Errek. After Lyf added Deroe’s ebony pearls to his own, he drew on vast amounts of magery to attack our armies, and defeat them.”

“Why would I find that hopeful?” said Rix.

“Because he took too much. Lyf thought magery was limitless but it isn’t. It’s failing rapidly – his and the chief magian’s. It’s failing everywhere, even mine. So next time he fights a battle, he’ll have to do it without magery.”

“That is good news. I can’t fight magery, but I can fight men.”

They finished their dinner and a servant appeared to usher them to their quarters. Tali was glad to go. All she wanted was a bath and a bed. She followed the servant to the room prepared for her. It was small and spare, with a low ceiling and bare walls, but she liked small rooms and simple surroundings. It reminded her of the little stone chamber she had shared with her mother in Cython.

It did not remind her of the bad things about Cython, but rather the good ones, and the moment she lay down and blew out the candle, Tali fell asleep.