Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 (81 page)

“Chancellor!” cried Tali.

She had been dreading this meeting all the week-long trip to Glimmering-by-the-Water, yet still his appearance came as a shock. Was he planning to take her back and start it all over again?

“The Lady Thalalie,” he said sourly. “You’re looking well.”

“I feel well, now you’re not sucking my blood. I suppose that’s why you had me brought here.”

She studied him in the bright sunlight. He did not look a well man, nor a confident one. The failures of the past weeks must have ground him down. Tali felt a shiver of fear. Lyf would see it in an instant; why would he agree to peace when his opponents were so weak?

They were standing on the southernmost tip of the Nusidand Peninsula, which ran south for miles into Lake Fumerous. The peninsula was only a hundred yards across here, with low limestone cliffs all around, falling into deep water.

The roofless temple of Glimmering-by-the-Water, seven lines of columns by nine, stood fifty yards away on the western side of the peninsula. Tali did not know the name of the god the place was dedicated to – presumably one of the Lesser or the Forgotten Gods.

The conference was due to start in an hour, and would be held within the temple, at tables set up on the limestone-paved floor. Entry was controlled by a line of paired guards, one guard of each pair being the chancellor’s man, the other, Lyf’s.

“I no longer need your healing blood,” the chancellor said indifferently.

“Why not?”

“It only works on shifters in the first few days. Those of my people who could be healed were healed long ago, and the ones who could not had to be put down.”

“But you still want my master pearl.”

He smiled. “I do. Indeed, it’s my main hope now, though…”

“What?”

“At the rate magery is failing, I’m not sure it’ll be much use to me.” He looked up at her. “It’s time for desperate measures, Tali. But I must go to my pre-conference meet. Good day to you.” He walked off, hunch-backed, leaving Tali alone and more troubled than ever.

She looked around but there was no one in sight save the distant guards. Rix, along with Hightspall’s other invited leaders, had been called to the chancellor’s meeting, which was to be held several hundred yards from the temple. Rix had taken Tobry and Glynnie with him, and Tali had not seen Holm all day. Where could he be?

Tobry had been cold and unforgiving ever since her disastrous attempt to heal him, and Tali had no idea how she felt about him now. He hadn’t said
I don’t love you
. He had said
I can’t love you
. But what did that mean? Could it mean he still loved her, but had rejected his own feelings because their love could never be?

What were
her
own feelings? She had, with great difficulty, come to terms with his first rejection – the night she had come to his bed and he had revealed himself to be a shifter. But his attack in caitsthe form was another matter. Though she understood why it had happened, she could not get past the fact that he would have torn her to pieces.

Were I to look on your loveliness through a shifter’s eyes, all I would see is
meat
.

It had created a barrier that could never be broken. If she were near him when his inevitable descent into shifter madness began, it could happen again. How could her love –
any
love – survive that?

It was too painful to think about. She wandered the other way, down the slope to an oval depression where the cropped grass was starred with little white daisies that flowered here even in winter because the lake was warmed by subterranean fires. Outcrops of white stone around its uphill side mimicked an amphitheatre, though it was only twenty yards across. To the south, across the lake she could see the surviving towers of Caulderon, three miles away.

She was sitting in the sun, her broad hat pulled well down to ward off her agoraphobia, when a child shrieked, “Tali, Tali.”

“Rannilt?” said Tali, jumping up.

Rannilt came racing down, tripped, got up, rubbing a grazed knee, ran and threw herself into Tali’s arms with such force that she was knocked off her feet.

“I’m sorry!” wept Rannilt, and it burst out of her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault Lizue nearly killed ya. You were cross with me for takin’ your blood and I wanted to hurt you back, and she was really nice – and how was I supposed to know she was just pretendin’, and she was there to kill ya?”

“It’s all right,” said Tali, hugging the skinny child. “It’s all right, Rannilt. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was, it was!” howled Rannilt.

“She was too clever for us. I thought she seemed nice, too.”

“You did?” said Rannilt, looking up at Tali, then wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Really nice,” said Tali, exaggerating more than a little. “But wicked old Lyf sent her, you know. And he’d put some enchantment on her so she seemed nicer than she was, and prettier too, I dare say. She fooled everyone —”

“Except the poor old Sullen Man,” said Rannilt. “He didn’t trust her a bit, and we were all horrible to him —”

“He hardly ever looked at us. He just kept staring at her the whole time.”

“I used to stick my tongue out at him. And now he’s dead, stabbed right through the heart and out his back, poor man. There was a hole in him you could have put a cucumber in.”

“I don’t think we need to dwell on the gory details,” said Tali. “Poor man, he risked his life to save me. He was a spy for the chancellor, did you know?”

“Of course,” said Rannilt. “I could tell the minute I saw him.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Tali exclaimed.

“I was cross with you. I was sure you were fed up with me.” She looked hopefully at Tali.

“Never for a second,” Tali lied. “I was really sick, Rannilt. The chancellor had robbed me of so much blood I didn’t know what I was doing half the time.”

“I was sick, too, wasn’t I?”

“Very sick. Back in Caulderon, I was terrified you were going to die.”

“But your blood healed me. After you gave it to me the first time, wicked old Lyf couldn’t reach me any more, and —” Rannilt recoiled, staring up the slope.

Oh no, thought Tali. She rose to her feet, still holding Rannilt’s hand, and turned around.

“Eee!” hissed Rannilt, twisting free and trying to hide behind Tali.

It was the very man. Alone, with no guards in sight.

“Many lies have been told about Lord Rixium,” said the chancellor to the assembled provincial leaders of Hightspall.

“And you told most of them,” Tobry said sourly.

“Don’t try my patience,
shifter
, or it’ll be the last thing you do.”

Tobry yawned. “Rix’s whole household is under a sacred safe conduct. Are you saying, publicly, that it means nothing to you?”

“Bah!” said the chancellor.

He was perched on an outcrop of limestone which formed a broad platform six feet above their level. The fifteen provincial leaders and their counsellors were seated on camp chairs on the grassy slope between him and the water, which was a few yards behind them. The stone was white, the grass thick and green, the chancellor pinch-faced and haggard.

Rix was shocked at how old and beaten he looked. The chancellor appeared to have aged ten years since Rix had last seen him. He looked like a man who had lost hope.

“I won’t deny that the war is going badly —” said the chancellor.

“How could you?” said Rundi of Notherin, a stocky, purple-faced bruiser who had murdered his ageing lord and seized his vast holdings at the beginning of the war. “You’ve failed at everything you’ve done since it began.”

“When I called muster, Rundi, you refused to provide a single man to defend your country.”

“I have no country. Hightspall is finished and it’s every lord for himself.”

“But you’re not a lord,” said the chancellor with a flash of his old menace. “You’re just a vicious little thug out for all he can grab, and the moment Lyf turns in your direction you’ll be whining and begging the neighbours you brutalised to save your dirty hide. But you’ll wait in vain.”

The chancellor spat over the edge of the outcrop, onto Rundi’s boots.

Rundi scowled and clenched his scarred fists, but said no more. Rix knew the man by reputation – a coward who did his work in the dark, from behind.

“I’ve not done well,” the chancellor went on. “I admit it. Lyf killed all my officers and I don’t know how to lead an army in war. Even so, I love my country and would give anything to save it. Can any one of you say the same? Did any one of you give me the support I needed to fight for Hightspall?”

None of the leaders spoke.

“You’re gutless, the lot of you,” the chancellor said in disgust. “Lyf is going to pick you off, one by one, and good riddance!”

“If things are so bad,” said an old, dried-up lord, Carr of Caldees, “what the hell are we doing here? What sort of peace can you hope to negotiate?”

“I’m glad you asked,” said the chancellor. “Only one man here has had the courage to stand up to the enemy, and he’s a man who, only six weeks ago, had nothing. Rixium of Garramide, come to my side.”

“Here we go,” Tobry said quietly. “This is why you’re here.”

As Rix climbed onto the outcrop, the chancellor turned to face him and held out his hand. Hunched as he was, he was a full foot shorter than Rix, and only half his weight, but when Rix looked into the chancellor’s eyes he saw dark fires burning there. He wasn’t beaten yet, and he had a plan.

It turned Rix’s stomach to shake hands with the man who had destroyed House Ricinus and ruined his own good name, but he also loved his country and any alliance was better than none. He drew off the steel gauntlet and extended his dead right hand. The chancellor blanched as he took the hand he had ordered cut off, and quickly withdrew his own, but he was smiling when he turned to the other lords.

“In a few short weeks, Rixium escaped Caulderon, took back his stolen fortress of Garramide and won a mighty victory against the uncounted hordes of the enemy – the first victory of the war.”

“It wasn’t
that
great,” Rix muttered. “And they weren’t uncounted hordes, not even five hundred —”

“Do you want to win the war or not?” said the chancellor out of the corner of his mouth.

“Of course, but —”

“If I say it was a great victory,
it was
.”

The chancellor raised his voice. “Rixium has shown us that the enemy can be beaten.” He stepped to one side to leave Rix at the centre of the platform, then added quietly, “Draw your sword and raise it high.”

Rix did so. “Rixium also bears a prodigious weapon,” the chancellor went on. “Maloch, the enchanted sword of his towering ancestor, Axil Grandys. And Lyf fears Maloch more than anything in the world. All rise, and acclaim Rixium’s victory.”

They rose and gave him a perfunctory cheer.

“Louder!” said the chancellor. “I want Lyf to hear it, down at the temple.”

This time it was a full-throated roar.

“Excellent,” said the chancellor quietly. “It’ll help my negotiating position.”

“I don’t understand why Lyf needs to negotiate,” said Rix.

“He’s overplayed his hand, driven his people too hard and too far, and they’ve no stomach for any more bloody destruction. That’s why
he’s
here.” The chancellor looked up at Rix. “Time to go. Say something encouraging.”

Rix met the eyes of the provincial leaders, one by one. “I’ll tell you something else to give you heart,” he said. “Lyf’s great victories against Caulderon and Bleddimire weren’t won by force of arms alone. They were mainly won by magery – prodigious magery – coming from the stolen ebony pearls.”

“How can you possibly know that?” sneered Rundi.

“I have a spy.”

“Why should that news give us heart?” said Carr of Caldees, thoughtfully.

“Because Lyf was so desperate to win quickly that he used too much magery,” said Rix. “He’s almost drained the pearls dry, and now, as everyone knows, magery is failing everywhere. Without Lyf’s magery his soldiers are just men, no bigger, no stronger and no better than us. And we’re going to fight them! We’re going to beat them and take Hightspall back.
Aren’t we?”

“Yes!” they roared, as one this time, and beat their swords on their shields until the din was thunderous.

The chancellor gave Rix an ambiguous stare, then nodded stiffly and turned to the lords. “It’s time for the peace conference. I’ll do all the talking.”

Rix waited until they had gone, then fell in beside Tobry and Glynnie. “Well, I never expected that.”

“I did,” said Tobry.

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I thought you’d do better if I didn’t. And you did.” They walked together for a few paces, then Tobry said suddenly, “If this goes badly, you should challenge him.”

Rix froze. “Lyf?”

“No, the chancellor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“He’s just built you up. The provincial leaders see you as one of them, and a fighter, not a schemer. Plus you’ve got Maloch – never discount it.”

“I think so too,” said Glynnie. “I’ve always thought you should be leading Hightspall, Rix.”

“I know,” snapped Rix. “You and Benn began that nonsense before we escaped from Caulderon. Don’t mention it again. I’m not up to it.”

He strode ahead to catch up to the others.

Tali swallowed. Had the peace conference been a ploy to bring her here? Did Lyf plan to break the truce and attack her for her pearl? If
he
got it, no way would he agree to peace. Lyf wouldn’t need to – the outcome of the war would be certain.

She had to be strong, and ready to fight him if necessary. She stiffened her back, reminding herself that he held the lives of her people in his hands. How would he decide the Pale’s fate? Easily, or painfully? She could still see traces of the noble young man from the self-portrait in his ravaged face. But only traces.

Lyf wore long boots over his stumps but he was supporting himself on crutches; his soles did not touch the ground. He carried a rectangular case made from polished stone on a chain around his neck. Heatstone – her head was already starting to throb. Did it hold his ebony pearls? It looked big enough to hold the master pearl as well.

“Ugh!” she said, rubbing her head.

“What did you do with my iron book?” said Lyf.

“One of your people took it.”

“One of
my
people?” he exclaimed.

“Mad Wil. Wil the Sump. He carried it down under the palace.”

Lyf wrinkled his brow, but did not speak for a long time. Then he dismissed the thought and moved slowly towards Tali.

“I’m tempted,” he said. “The master pearl could solve everything.”

Because it could lead you to the key, she thought, and give you command of king-magery.

“That’s why the chancellor has exactly the same number of guards as you do,” she said pointedly.

“And yet,” he said, as though she had not spoken, “sometimes I wonder if I’ve taken the wrong path. Whether it’s all been worth it. I’m not sure I know my people any more. My fault – I couldn’t let them go, but to save them I had to take them apart and remake them. Did I remake them in the wrong image?”

Tali cracked. “You’re just like the bloody chancellor.”

He stiffened. He had not expected that. His eyes roved over her, and Rannilt hiding behind her.

“I’m nothing like the chancellor, Lady of the Pale.”

“Yes, you are,” said Rannilt. “He was always moanin’ and wringin’ his horrid, twisted fingers. And askin’ Tali for advice and confidin’ his troubles to her, and the same time he was holdin’ her in prison and punishin’ her.”

“Was he now?” said Lyf. “But I’m not confiding my troubles, child, because I don’t have any. Everything is going very well for me.”

“Except for the stink in your temple,” the child retorted. “You can’t get rid of that, can you?”

Lyf almost fell off his crutches. “Who told you that?” he hissed, his breath smoking. “Who’s the spy in my camp?”

“You think you’re such a big smartypants,” said Rannilt, peeping out from behind Tali. “But you don’t know nothin’.”

“I can force you to tell me,” Lyf said menacingly.

“That would break the truce,” said Tali, “and prove that your word meant nothing.”

“Your treacherous Five Heroes started it,” snarled Lyf. “They broke their word and betrayed me in the first place.”

“That was two thousand years ago. People change.”

“Some people don’t.”

“Anyway,” said Tali, “they were Herovian. They’re not my kind.”

“You’re all Hightspallers. You’re all from the same stock.”

“Axil Grandys saw us as inferior stock.”

Lyf shot forwards, and Tali’s head gave such a piercing throb that she fell to her knees on the grass.

“What’s the matter?” said Lyf, staring at her.

“Heatstone. It always hurts.” And knew she had blundered badly.

“Does it now?” said Lyf. He drifted up in the air for several feet, looking down at her. A gong sounded in the temple. “It’s time. Now we shall see.” He turned and drifted up the slope.

“He’s too strong,” said Rannilt. “What are we gonna do, Tali?”

“I don’t know, child,” Tali said, shivering.

Storm clouds had formed over the lake to the north and lightning was flickering there, reflecting on the water. Was it always this stormy in Hightspall? she wondered. There seemed to be one every week. Or had Lyf created the storm for some fell purpose?

“Why are you shiverin’ when it’s so warm?” said Rannilt, putting her arms around Tali.

“I don’t know.”

“You shouldn’t have told Lyf that heatstone hurts you. I’m worryin’, now.”

So am I. Tali moved slowly up the slope, drawn to the drama taking place inside the temple. The columns were vast, dwarfing the dozen or so people gathered at the table in the centre.

A pair of guards stepped into their path. One was a Cythonian man with spiral face tattoos, the other a tall redhead, one of the chancellor’s female guards. Tali had seen her on her first visit to the chancellor’s red and black palace, a long time ago now. Was her name Verla? The guards studied their faces and checked a list.

“You may pass to the red rope,” said the Cythonian, “but no further.”

A great circle of red rope encompassed the conference table, the leaders of both parties, and their personal guards and counsellors, who stood well back. Tali and Rannilt went in slowly until their toes touched the circle, whereupon another guard held up a hand.

Lyf was at one end of the table, the chancellor at the other. Various provincial leaders of Hightspall occupied the right-hand side, including Rix. Lyf’s generals sat in the chairs on the left, and after them were three old women dressed in white.

“Are they the Matriarchs of Cython?” Rannilt asked in an awed whisper.

No Pale slave had ever set eyes on the legendary matriarchs, who had assumed leadership when the underground realm of Cython was established. “I suppose they must be. Shh!”

Tobry looked as uneasy as Tali had ever seen him. The dark clouds moved steadily down on a warm breeze. The light faded to an ominous olive gloom. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

After ten minutes, Lyf and the chancellor stood up together and went to the centre of the table, one on either side. An attendant held up a document on heavy paper or parchment. Lyf read it, then the chancellor. Lyf checked it three times, with a variety of implements, and Tali saw the shimmer of magery on the parchment.

“Why’s he doin’ that?” whispered Rannilt.

“In olden times, the Five Heroes used magery and forced King Lyf to sign a charter giving up the best half of Cythe to Hightspall. Axil Grandys then used the lying charter to prove that the Cythians were wicked cheats, and to justify going to war with them. Lyf has hated our magery ever since.”

“He’s got magery too!”

“But in the olden days the kings of Cythe only used their magery for healing. That’s why Lyf wasn’t suspicious of the Herovians’ magery. He thought it was the same.”

“He uses bad magery now.”

Tali sighed. “I suppose he’d say he had to fight bad with bad.”

“They’re goin’ to sign. Does that mean the war will be over?”

“I hope so.”

The storm was coming closer, tracking down the peninsula towards Glimmering-by-the-Water. It was less than half a mile away now, and moving rapidly. The air seemed to tingle.

“What’s that funny smell?” said Rannilt.

Tali had noticed it too. It was like alkoyl though more acrid, stinging the nose and eyes.

The chancellor signed the charter with a flourish. The attendant held it up so everyone could see his signature, then extended the charter to Lyf. His fingers had just closed over its edge when he went still. He looked over his shoulder, uneasily. Then over the other shoulder.

“What’s the matter?” said Tali. “What’s he worried about?”

“He’s comin’,” Rannilt said in a bloodcurdling whisper. “He’s comin’, Tali.”

“Who’s coming?”

“
He
is.”

The chancellor was whispering in his chief magian’s ear.
Time for desperate measures
, he had said. Was this part of a last-ditch plan to even the odds against Lyf?

“Is he on our side?” said Tali

“He’s Lyf’s enemy,” said Rannilt.

Lyf raised his right hand. Tali didn’t see anything, but suddenly the tension drained away and he was the one who was smiling.

“What just happened?” said Tali. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Lyf’s enemy can’t get through. Lyf’s blocked him.”

Tali didn’t ask how the child knew. Rannilt’s gift was quite unfathomable. “He must be an ally of the chancellor’s, then. I knew he had something up his sleeve.”

“Should I let him through?” said Rannilt.

“You can do that?”

“I think so.”

There wasn’t time to weigh the pros and cons, and without knowing the chancellor’s plan Tali had no way of doing so. “Yes, let him through, whoever he is.”

Rannilt opened her closed right fist and a stream of tiny golden bubbles streaked out towards the centre of the approaching storm cloud.

Instantly it went dark, then lightning struck the top of the temple, dazzling Tali. The thunder was a simultaneous, deafening blast. The storm exploded around them, four more bolts reflecting off the wind-polished columns, the soldiers’ helmets, swords and shields, and a great silver urn in the centre of the table. Then it stopped.

But the dazzling reflections off the urn did not. They grew brighter, extending in gorgeous shimmers and sprays of red and crimson, black and purple and violet. The urn split apart and the pieces rolled off the edges of the table. The brilliant moving colours remained, and grew. They began to take on the form of a man, a huge man, bigger than Rix, with a great bloated head and a vast prow of a nose, armoured in opal. A man whose very skin was armour made from black opal, reflecting the light in every direction.

He’s not the chancellor’s ally, Tali realised. We shouldn’t have let him through. We’ve done a really stupid thing.

The black opal was beautiful. Beautiful and terrifying. It enclosed the man Tali had seen in the Abysm, turned to stone.

Now the stone had been made flesh.

Grandys.