The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (25 page)

‘I thought you said the spiral would lock everything out.’

‘Any normal attack. Not an army with all the power of Reaper
behind it.’

He reached the centre, where the portal should have formed,
and entered the next arm, the correct one. Dozens of soldiers had pushed
between the spiral arms and were attacking the sides; others had climbed on top
and were trying to smash it in with hammers and war axes. They grimaced and
brandished their weapons at him. He tried to ignore them, but more troops were
running up all the time, along with robed battle mancers and grim, grey-skinned
scriers with wisp-watchers on their backs. They would be sending everything
they saw to Gatherer, and Jal-Nish would see it more clearly than if he were
here.

Klarm appeared, pointing the brassy knoblaggie at him.
Treacherous Klarm, and if he couldn’t be trusted, no one could. Win or lose,
you’re all alone, Flydd.

Yellow light stabbed from the knoblaggie, to bounce
harmlessly off the wall. Flydd put it out of mind and jogged on. Each spiral
arm wrapped around the centre twice, so he had to make another two circles
before he reached the end.

Running through the sticky mire was exhausting; he could barely
lift his feet. He dropped back to a walk, following the right-hand wall so he
would know how far he’d gone, and trying not to look at the hundreds of brutal
faces lined up along the outside. He felt like a rat in a maze, with his
nemesis awaiting him at the other end.

The fog was so thick here that he practically had to swim
through it, swinging his arms and legs against its uncanny, clinging
resistance. Flydd couldn’t tell if Colm were still behind him; with the
constant blows on the spiral he couldn’t even hear his own thoughts. He passed
a scarred face he recognised from the previous turn, then Klarm, who had his
hands out as if pleading with him. Flydd turned his face away.

It was taking so long! A couple of minutes later he went
past the same faces again, and then again, as though he were on a treadmill to
nowhere. Jal-Nish’s arts must have stretched the spiral arm out, or twisted it
into an endless loop. Suddenly afraid, he broke into a run, squelching through
the boggy mud, and finally broke into fresh, untrodden ooze. Whatever had been
restraining him before had let him go, but why?

He was nearing the end of the arm, dread growing with every
step. It was darker here, for the end was completely surrounded by troops, each
man trying to be first to smash a way in and claim the prize. Even the
strongest mancery could be overcome by brute force, if enough of it could be
brought to bear. It was Jal-Nish’s strength, and Flydd’s weakness.

He went on, step by slow step, holding his knife out. Seeing
a moving shadow ahead, he went for it, and the white tip of his blade was just
an ell from the man’s belly when he recognised him.

‘Nish? What the blazes are you doing here?’

Nish managed a slurred grunt. His eyes were dull, his arms
hung limp; he looked as though he’d been drugged, or spell-dazed. The mist
swirled and only then did Flydd make out the baby-smooth arm around Nish’s
neck, and the long face marred by that black excrescence on his cheek. It
hadn’t been Jal-Nish blocking him, but Vivimord! Vivimord had stopped him from
opening the portal until he could get into position to take it.

‘Open it, Flydd,’ he said quietly.

‘So you can escape with Nish.’ Flydd tasted the bitterness
of abject failure. Why hadn’t he realised who his real enemy was? ‘I’ll destroy
us all before I give in to you.’

‘No one goes through the agony of renewal only to throw it
all away. I’ve beaten you, Flydd. Open the portal.’

How Flydd wanted to wipe the twisted smile off his face.
‘You don’t know me at all,’ he spat.

He dared not attack Vivimord directly, for that would put
Nish at risk. What if he blasted the portal wide open? It might create an
opportunity to attack. The chance was slim but he had to take it.

Drawing the power of the chthonic flame from the white
blade, he visualised the entrance to the shadow realm the way Rassitifer had
taught him, and hurled power into the misty vortex behind Vivimord. It faded
from black to pearl. Vivimord moved towards it, dragging Nish with him. He
wasn’t struggling; Nish hardly knew he was there.

Mist began to whirl into the vortex; the portal was creeping
open, the shadow realm just a leap away. ‘Colm?’ Flydd said softly.

‘Here,’ came from directly behind him.

‘Be ready for anything.’

Though Flydd had little experience of portals, he knew that
no two were alike, and that it was impossible to predict what would happen when
this one opened. Might it suck them through, or would there still be some
barrier to be forced before they could enter the shadow realm?

‘And after we go through,’ he added, ‘hang onto me.’

‘Why?’ said Colm.

‘Because aftersickness will be so bad I might not be able to
stand up.’ Opening a portal required a stronger Art than he’d ever used before.

The portal opened with a roar and freezing air blasted out,
churning the mist. Flydd, blown off balance, slipped and fell. Vivimord let go
of Nish and somehow – Flydd had no idea how – tore the portal from
his control.

Klarm’s face appeared through the wall; he pressed his
knoblaggie against it and strained with all his strength, but fruitlessly. He
stared at the knoblaggie in dismay, then tried again. Nothing. Flydd’s heart
stopped for a good five seconds, for he knew what it meant. The chthonic flame
was overwhelming all other powers and, if the tears failed, even for a second,
it could be catastrophic.

The soldiers resumed their attack with greater fury. Flydd
tried desperately to regain the portal but he’d done too much, too soon, with a
body that still didn’t feel like his, and he had nothing left.

And Vivimord was too strong; he’d been healed at the cursed
flame and its power flowed in his veins; those black flames still dripped from
his fingertips. He was stealing the portal, directing it to some unknown
destination, and Flydd knew he’d never get it back.

In one last desperate effort he snatched Colm’s sword and
leapt at his enemy, but Vivimord turned aside, casually tossed a loop of mist
over Flydd and pulled it tight around his neck.

Nish was given a hard shove in the back and disappeared into
the portal. He was gone; lost. With a tweak of Vivimord’s fingers, the mist
noose pulled ever tighter. Flydd dropped the sword and tried to force his
fingers under the noose but there was nothing to grip; it was as intangible as
the mist it had been made from, yet it was cutting into his neck and crushing
his windpipe. It was the simplest of spells, one that a journeyman sorcerer
could break, but in his powerless state Flydd could do nothing to save himself.

‘Colm, help,’ he gasped, falling to his knees, but Colm had
a silvery mist-noose around his own throat.

With ironic salutes to Flydd, to Klarm and to the sky palace
high above, Vivimord backed towards the portal. He’d won. But then, as he was
about to step into it, the mist stirred on the other side of the vortex, at the
tip of the spiral arm, and a battered, mud-covered apparition staggered out.

‘Maelys?’ Flydd subvocalised.

Vivimord looked up sharply, as if he’d sensed something,
though Flydd still had the taphloid in his pocket and it must have partly
shielded her aura.

Maelys had eyes for only one man. Her young features
twisted, she sprang, raised a octopede fang high and stabbed it into the middle
of Vivimord’s back. He staggered and fell to one knee but she followed him
down, pressing the fang in and twisting it as far as it would go.

‘Die, you cur!’ she gasped.

He swung at her but she squeezed a sac attached to the fang;
yellow venom oozed out from around the wound in his back and he squealed like a
pig in a slaughterhouse. One swinging fist struck her in the face, and as she
went down, the long fang tore free.

Maelys collapsed, holding her jaw, which hung at an odd
angle. Vivimord staggered two steps into the portal, his knees wobbling
uncontrollably, and tried to close it behind him. The mist-nooses turned back
to mist; Flydd could breathe again. He drew on the power of the chthonic flame
– it really hurt this time – and tried to stop the portal from
closing. If he could hold it for another minute the venom might bring Vivimord
down. The zealot’s left leg had buckled and his face was distorted in agony,
but he fought back and the mist tightened around Flydd’s throat again. He had
to ignore it; had to hold the portal with his last breath. He strained but
instead felt the most extraordinary sensation, as if the spiral were being
pulled apart.

And it was. The four arms shifted slightly, then separated
into a pair of two-armed spirals. He was in one, Vivimord and Nish in the
other, and there was no way to get to them. Vivimord’s spiral spun until it
became a blur, and vanished.

‘They’re gone!’ Flydd croaked, watching the mist noose drift
away and dissolve back into the air. ‘We’ve lost Nish now. By the time Vivimord
is finished with him, there’ll be nothing left.’

The hammering on the spiral, which had stopped during the
struggle, resumed in greater fury.

‘They’re breaking through,’ said Colm, rubbing his throat.

The red crystal wall was cracked in several places and could
not last much longer. Flydd dragged a flask of chthonic fire from his pocket,
unstoppered it and forced the remaining portal open a crack.

Not yet. I’m not
ready.

There wasn’t time to worry about voices in his head; the
woman in red had been using him all this time. No more! He forced the portal
wide open.

Noooo!
she
screamed again; again too late.

A vast surge of force burned through him, as if he’d linked
the tiny flame wisping up from the flask to the column of chthonic fire
blasting into the sky.
I’m back!
Flydd thought. I’m a real mancer again. He took a step into the portal but,
remembering how quickly Rassitifer had taken that fatal injury in the shadow
realm, Flydd froze.

‘Wass ’at?’ mumbled Maelys, holding her jaw. Colm was
staring up at the sky, open-mouthed.

Flydd made out a massed scream of terror, so loud that it
penetrated the solid walls of the spiral, and looked out to see the soldiers,
mancers, scriers, and even Klarm, running for their lives.

What had he done? A moving reflection flashed across the
spiral and the dreadful realisation struck him. The sky palace, suddenly robbed
of the power which held its enormous weight suspended in mid-air, was falling
directly towards them, for the chthonic flame had overwhelmed the power of the
tears which held it up.

‘Get out of the way, Flydd!’ shrieked Colm, heaving Maelys
to her feet and trying to push into the portal.

The army was doomed, and Klarm as well, for the sky palace
was going to smash the centre of the plateau to smithereens and blast
everything off it in a hurricane of shattered rock. Not even the spiral could
resist that kind of impact. Nothing could.

But still Flydd hesitated. Without his own Art, he would be
practically defenceless in the shadow realm. He could not use the Arts he’d
been given by the woman, for they relied on the flame, and once he passed
through the portal it would be beyond his reach.

‘Flydd!’ Colm screeched.

Was a quick death here worse than a lingering one in the
shadow realm? He had only seconds to choose. Suddenly, with a scream of agony,
she was in his mind, a part of him as she had been once before.

Thrice-cursed fool.
You’ll owe me a lifetime of service for this.

Flydd felt hot threads weaving back and forth across the
centre of his head, as if those parts of his mind separated since renewal were
finally being rejoined, and he felt more of his Art return.

Go, you fool. I’m with
you now.

The sky palace was hurtling down, directly at them. He
wasn’t sure he had enough Art to survive the shadow realm, but she was within
him still; she might. Holding the two flasks of chthonic fire out, he drew
power and opened the portal the way he had learned from her.

As Flydd stumbled through, he looked up. Moments before
impact, a wing-ray lifted off from the deck of the sky palace, a small figure
riding on its back. Jal-Nish was abandoning his army, his servants and even his
mancers, and running for his life.

The portal opened all the way and Colm leapt through with
Maelys. Flydd lurched after her, and the last he saw of Mistmurk Mountain was
the sky palace thundering towards the flame, driving it back down the monstrous
shaft, then slamming into the plateau so hard that it rifted it from one side
to the other. The scene was obscured in a pall of mud, steam, dust and the
pulverised bodies of the God-Emperor’s entire Imperial Militia, three thousand
men.

Colm and Maelys were tumbling head over heels ahead of him,
carried towards the shadow realm’s grim, thorn-wreathed entrance, through which
Flydd could see shades swooping and revenants leering in anticipation. They
looked even stronger than he’d imagined. He swallowed and tried to draw away;
he wasn’t ready. Neither his memories nor his Art were coming back quickly
enough.

He felt her sigh of relief –
At last!
– as she went with him – but then her horror
as she realised where he was going.

Not there! What are
you doing to me?

Pain sheared through his skull; the portal was torn from his
control again. No, he thought. Not this time. Whatever the woman in red wanted,
he did not. He fought back but she beat him off, wrenching the portal out of
his grip.

Way behind him he could just make out its distorted opening,
wreathed in blasted chthonic fire. He drew on it and the portal was his again.
It snapped shut and he felt her separate from him agonisingly, as if a healing
wound had been torn open.