The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (29 page)

It took a good half-hour before the basket was lowered to
the point where the ordeal would take place, some fifty spans below them and a
few spans above a huge, swirling whirlpool, one of a line of three formed
between clusters of toothed rocks by a racing current. This whirlpool was ten
spans across, and two or three deep, and its perimeter was flecked with creamy
foam.

The women in the basket raised their right hands. The women
at the winch locked it, then signalled to the mayor with their closed fists.
Barquine gestured to the assembled townsfolk along the cliffs, drew his head
back and walked to the brink. After studying the basket, the whirlpool, the sea
and the sky, he held out his right hand, palm downwards.

Nish edged closer to the brink. He did not like cliffs, but
he wasn’t going to take his eyes off Vivimord for an instant. The two women cut
the ropes around the prisoner’s ankles, and his wrists, and opened the door.
The older woman held Vivimord’s knife pressed against his back while the
younger cut the gags. They were taking no chances with him.

Vivimord spat out the rags and his roar of fury echoed up
the cliff. He lunged at the older woman like a striking snake, trying to hurl
her out the door. She must have expected it for she slashed him twice –
once across the excrescence on his cheek, and again in a zigzag pattern down
his scarred chest. Black burst from the excrescence like an exploding buboe;
blood poured down his chest. She pressed the knife to his throat, her free arm
hooked though the side of the basket, while the younger woman held him back
with the rope.

‘The symbolic cuts,’ said the mayor. ‘A cheek for a throat,
if you like, yet he lives so that justice can be done.’

‘Jal-Nish owes his life to me,’ Vivimord bellowed, using no
rhetoric this time, just naked, quivering rage. The back of Nish’s hand
throbbed. ‘He once swore an oath that he would never see me harmed, and he will
send an army to avenge this insult. Jal-Nish will see Gendrigore wiped from the
face of Santhenar, and its people sold into everlasting slavery.’

Vivimord threw out his arms as if to cast a mighty spell,
but the younger woman sprang, kicked him in the back with both feet and sent
him flying out. He plunged down towards the whirlpool, trailing the rope, and
hit the water with a tremendous splash.

‘If he is carried down and drowned,’ said Tulitine, ‘he is
proven guilty. The rope is there so the body can be checked for signs of life.
Should the whirlpool cast him out, he is judged innocent and the townsfolk will
haul him up again.’

Vivimord bobbed up and floated for a second, spread-eagled
on the spinning water like a four-legged spider, with the rope trailing up from
the middle of his back. He slowly rotated towards the centre of the whirlpool,
reached it and was sucked under in an instant.

One of the women in the basket let out more rope, until it
lay in loops on the whirling surface. Several loops were drawn under. Nish
realised that he was holding his breath. No one spoke, anywhere along the
cliffs. The wind had died away and the humidity suddenly became oppressive. How
deliciously cool it would be in the water.

There came a concussive thud, then a pink dome of water
formed at the centre of the whirlpool and expanded upwards until the
whirlpool’s motion had been cancelled and the sea surface went flat. The dome
kept expanding, rising, and Nish made out a figure rising with it, propelled
upwards at fantastic speed. Vivimord burst up from the water dome as if flung
by a mighty hand, slowly rotating in the air and trailing blood from the stumps
of his legs, which had been sheared off below the knees. His mouth was wide
open and he was screaming, though no sound could be heard.

He described a spiral through the air like a seal thrown by
a leviathan of the sea, the broken rope trailing behind him and his blood
making a ragged curtain of red.

A vast creature thrust its streamlined black head up through
the collapsing water dome. Nish could not tell if it were shark or whale, or
something else entirely, but as Vivimord spun down it caught him by the thighs,
shook him back and forth as a terrier shakes a rat and hurled him upwards,
almost to the height of the fisherwomen’s basket.

Vivimord came tumbling down again, screaming shrilly, and
the sea creature snapped at him again. For a moment Nish thought its jaws were
going to close over Vivimord’s head, which would surely be proof of his guilt
if any more were needed, but he gave a convulsive jerk, turned right side up,
the vast maw slammed shut and bit him off above the knees.

The leviathan seemed to nod in the direction of the watchers
on the cliff, then submerged silently. Vivimord, now making a dreadful cracked
screech, spun in another loop, blood spraying from his stumps. His agony-etched
eyes fixed on Nish, and the mayor, and Tulitine, and he cried, ‘Revenge
eternal, until the very pit of the abyss cracks open,’ then smacked into the
water.

Nish’s restored hand burned as fiercely as if it had been
thrust back into Reaper. At every point where Vivimord’s blood had touched the
water a cloud of red fog formed, and the clouds spread and grew until they
merged and he disappeared beneath them, save for his upthrust fist. Nish’s left
fist clenched so tightly that he could not open it. He shuddered, then the fog
billowed up to conceal all. When it dispersed a minute or two later there was
no sign of the zealot.

Someone sighed; the woman holding the wavy-bladed knife
dropped it into the water, then everyone on the cliff line cried out in unison,
‘The Maelstrom of Justice and Retribution has spoken. Vivimord was guilty and
has paid the price.’

Flecks of red foam revolved on the surface of the water. The
women at the winch slowly wound the basket up again, and everyone headed back
to the town green for Tildy’s funeral rite, and the wake to follow.

Tulitine remained at the top of the cliff, staring down into
the green water and frowning. Nish, burning fist clenched in his pocket, went
back to her. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you feel that justice was done?’

‘Few would argue that Vivimord has suffered a just
punishment …’

‘But?’ said Nish.

‘There is no body.’

‘There seldom is when people drown at sea.’

‘With mancers as powerful as Vivimord, one must always check
the body – and then burn it to ash and scatter it to the winds, as you
said earlier.’

His unease grew. ‘After all that, you still don’t think he’s
dead?’

‘The body can’t be recovered, so there’s no proof that he
is. Even more disturbing, the whirlpool, which has existed for hundreds of
years, is gone.’

Nish hadn’t noticed that, but she was right. The whirlpools
further up and down the coast were spinning exactly as they had always done,
but of the Maelstrom of Justice and Retribution there was not a trace.

‘Then we’d better get ready for war,’ he said grimly.

 
TWENTY-TWO

Maelys lay on her side on the cold floor, surrounded by
flakes of dried mud, trying to erase that image of the sky palace smashing into
the plateau. She could not bear to think of all its crew, and all those
soldiers, wiped out in an instant. Though they were servants of the
God-Emperor, they were also human beings with families. Having lost her own
clan, she could feel for their tragedies.

And after all she’d done to reach the portal in time, she
had failed to save Nish or to take Vivimord down, or end dead Phrune. She had a
feeling that the five spectres liberated when he’d been consumed by the
chthonic fire would be worse than he had been, alive or dead. Why five? Was
that a product of the Black Arts Vivimord had used to animate his corpse?

Nish was lost, no one knew where, and all her differences
with him had dissolved once she’d seen the torment in his eyes in the bedchamber,
the pain of being controlled by another. Nish had been so deeply in the
zealot’s thrall that she could not see how he would ever escape from it. And if
Nish was the only man who could bring down his father, what hope was there?

Only one – it was more urgent than ever that they find
the antithesis to the tears, and that meant reaching the Numinator.

She rubbed her aching face. Having spent her childhood
helping the clan healer, Maelys had known how to fix a dislocated jaw, but it
would be painful for a long time.

She sat up and the pool of grey light illuminating her
shifted slightly. She could still see Flydd, but only Colm’s boots were visible
now. Around them, nothing could be seen save the black, glassy-smooth floor
extending in every direction until the darkness of the Nightland obscured it.

‘I thought you were supposed to be crippled with
after-sickness, Flydd,’ said Colm. His voice sounded odd here, as if he were
further away than he looked.

‘I expected to be,’ said Flydd. ‘Don’t know why I’m not.’

‘Xervish?’ Maelys said, feeling a trifle breathless. ‘I’m
really worried about Nish.’

‘So am I,’ said Flydd, ‘but there’s no way of finding him.’

‘He looked like a zombie,’ said Colm. ‘Vivimord must have
broken his mind.’

He did not sound upset about it, which strengthened Maelys’s
growing dislike of him. ‘He’s a lot stronger than you think!’ she snapped.

‘That he is,’ said Flydd. ‘I’ve stood beside Nish in many a
struggle and I’ve had no more reliable ally.’

Colm scowled and changed the subject. ‘What happened to the
chthonic fire when the sky palace crashed?’

‘I’d say it was sealed into the depths under a plug of
molten rock,’ said Flydd. ‘Trapped forever.’

‘I saw a woman on the way here,’ said Maelys thoughtfully.
‘She was clawing at the clear wall, trying to get in. Was that your woman in
red?’

‘It was.’

‘She looked terrible.’

‘She’s afraid.’

‘What of?’

‘I don’t know. The portal was meant to bring her here,
evidently, but I didn’t know that. When I directed it to the shadow realm she
took it from me and brought it here instead, but couldn’t get to the portal in
time.’

‘Why did she want to come here?’

‘When I was briefly in
her
mind, I saw something I wasn’t meant to see: some kind of phantom hunting her,
a creeping thing of white shadow and black fire, constantly changing its form.
I’ve never heard of anything like it.’

‘I hope it can’t get in here,’ said Maelys, rubbing her cold
arms.

‘I hope so too,’ said Flydd, ‘though I’ve got a good bit of
my Art back now, and I’m starting to think I might regain the rest, in time.’

‘Xervish,’ Maelys said uneasily, ‘Rulke isn’t still here, is
he? I’m sure I’ve read –’

‘No, he’d long dead. He was freed from the Nightland by
Tensor the Aachim some two hundred and twenty years ago. Tensor had waited more
than a thousand years to take his revenge. He was a brilliant man but an even
bigger fool; he killed Rulke and that folly has been shaping the world ever
since. Had Rulke survived, the lyrinx would never have gained a foothold on
Santhenar; there would have been no war, no scrutators, and no God-Emperor.’

‘And I would never have lost my heritage,’ said Colm.

‘You would not have inherited Gothryme in the first place.’

Colm sat up and glared into the darkness.

What’s the matter with him now, Maelys wondered. ‘Where is
the Nightland, anyway? And how do we get out?’

‘I don’t know, to either question,’ said Flydd wearily. ‘It
was created by the Council of Santhenar – the greatest mancers of the
ancient world – as a prison to trap Rulke, the most powerful mancer of
all time, and hold him until they could find a way to put an end to him. The
Council were learned men and women who had devoted their long lives to the Art,
and they had far more power than I do. It’s said that they made this place from
a fold in the wall of the Forbidding, an intangible barrier which closed
Santhenar off from the perils of the void.’

‘Why did they want to trap him?’

‘Many reasons: some noble, others base. The Charon were few
– only three of them are known to have come to Santhenar – but
mighty, and they lived for thousands of years. Just a hundred of them, The
Hundred, took the Aachim’s world from them, and the conquest would never have
succeeded without Rulke. He was a threat to Santhenar too.’

‘What happened to the Nightland after he was freed?’ said
Maelys, rubbing her jaw, which ached every time she opened her mouth. Her
rudely bandaged calf was even more painful. ‘Did the Council leave it in
place?’

‘As I recall the Histories – and I haven’t got all my
memories back yet – the Nightland collapsed after he went free.’ Flydd
frowned. ‘No, that must have happened later on, for the
Tale of the Mirror
says that Rulke returned here, briefly. As
scrutator I was required to know the Histories by heart, especially the banned
ones like the
Tale of the Mirror
.’

‘Who banned that tale?’ said Colm. ‘It’s a matter of
personal interest to me.’

‘Why is that?’ asked Maelys, picking dried mud out of her
hair and flicking it away.

‘I don’t see it’s any of your business,’ he said coldly.

It was like a slap across the face. Why did he feel so
betrayed? She had never given him any reason to think she cared for him other
than as a friend, but clearly he’d hoped otherwise. Damn him – it was
lucky he’d revealed his true harsh and moralistic colours early.

‘I’d like to know what your personal interest is, Colm,’
said Flydd.

‘Llian of Chanthed wrote the Tale of the Mirror,’ said Colm,
‘and he married Karan, a distant cousin of mine. After they, er,
died
, my branch of the family inherited
the estate.’

‘Llian was a great teller, wasn’t he?’ said Maelys. ‘I
remember Father talking about him when I was little.’