The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (30 page)

‘He made himself out to be,’ Flydd said darkly, ‘though he’s
now known as Llian the Liar.’

‘Not by everyone!’ snapped Colm. ‘My family never believed
that story, nor the one about Karan Kin-Slayer.’

‘I don’t see why you’re taking it so personally,’ said
Flydd. ‘They’ve been dead two centuries. You’ve got to forgive and forget.’

‘I
never
forgive
an injury,’ grated Colm, giving Maelys another cold glance.

‘Then you’ll always be shackled by your own bitterness,’
said Flydd. ‘But since you’ve asked, the tale was banned because the Numinator
ordered that it be banned – presumably because Llian the Liar made parts
of it up, or changed them to suit himself – and the scrutators obeyed the
Numinator’s orders without question – or else.’

He grimaced and rubbed his chest, where a deep torture scar,
from the time he’d dared to enquire about the Numinator, had reappeared after
renewal.

‘I suppose the Council maintained the Nightland in case they
recaptured Rulke,’ Maelys speculated.

‘Not all this time,’ said Flydd.

‘Why not?’ said Colm.

‘Because he’s long dead, and so are the mancers who created
it. It doesn’t make sense that the Nightland still exists.’

‘Maybe it will just go on forever,’ said Maelys, resting her
throbbing jaw on her arms and closing her eyes.

‘Nothing lasts forever,’ said Flydd. ‘Everything fails and
dies, in the end. It took mighty Arts to create the Nightland, and more power
to keep it in existence for all the centuries that it was Rulke’s prison, so
why is it still here?’ He got up and paced around in a circle, hands clasped
behind his back. The puddle of grey light followed him, leaving her and Colm in
the dark. ‘Why didn’t it collapse to a singularity two centuries ago, when the
Forbidding was broken?’

Maelys couldn’t have cared less. She wanted to sleep for a
month.

‘Something must be maintaining it,’ said Colm.

‘That would take monstrous power,’ said Flydd, ‘and not even
the God-Emperor has power to waste.’

Maelys heard Colm walk away with quick, anxious steps that
did not echo. She sighed; after the pursuits, terrors, torments and betrayals
of the past days, she found the Nightland peculiarly soothing. It was chilly
but she was used to that, for Nifferlin Manor had been high in the mountains.
Cold was better than heat.

She took a quick sideways glance at Flydd. His jaw was
clenched but he did not speak, for which she was grateful. She craved quiet and
solitude until her shredded nerves could repair themselves. Before she left
home, the forests of her family estate had provided a much needed refuge from
the constant bickering of her mother and aunts. Perhaps the Nightland could
provide a similar solace.

Maelys lay on her back and rolled from side to side,
allowing the cold to ease her overheated muscles, feeling her pulse slowly
returning to normal. They were safe from Jal-Nish, and Vivimord. Nothing from
the real world could touch them here. Flydd would find a way out, and there was
nothing she could do to help. She pillowed her head on her arms and closed her
eyes …

Flydd was still breathing heavily as he tried to
recover his equilibrium. Nine years he’d spent trapped at the top of the
plateau where one day, even one year, had been as uneventful as the next
– until Nish had appeared just a few days ago. Flydd’s world had been
turned upside down; the time since then had been one crisis after another and
he was finding it hard to cope.

A mancer’s mind was least affected by renewal, for the brain
could not be remade from scratch like the rest of the body. That was his
problem. He had a strong, middle-aged body that he was slowly growing into, but
he still had the mind of an old man.

And there remained blanks in his memory, particularly to do
with the woman in red. Why had she come to him? He felt sure it had not been an
accident. Could she have picked him out long ago, even planted the idea that
had brought him to Mistmurk Mountain, to do something that she could not, and
bring her here? And he’d failed her at the critical moment, so what would she
do now?

Colm came pacing back. Maelys was asleep, a little
mud-covered ball. He scowled.

‘Why are you so hard on her?’ Flydd asked quietly. ‘Without
her courage and determination we could not have escaped.’

‘I salute her courage and determination,’ Colm said,
tight-mouthed, ‘but I cannot forgive her methods, or her morals. I once thought
– well, I know better now, after what she did with Nish …’ His face
twisted in disgust. ‘She’s the most calculating woman I’ve ever met, and she’s
bound herself forever to the God-Emperor. I hope she’s satisfied.’

Whatever Maelys wanted, and whatever she did in pursuit of
it, was no business of Flydd’s. But even so …

‘Colm, you’re a bloody fool.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Colm snarled.

‘Maelys isn’t pregnant. She made up that lie to save her
family.’

Colm drew in a sharp breath. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I was a scrutator, on the Council,’ Flydd said simply. ‘One
of our unsung Arts was telling truth from falsehood, and I was better at it
than most. Maelys is an honest, truthful person and she hated making up such a
sordid lie, but she’s a loyal daughter and sister, and there’s nothing she
won’t do to save her family.’

‘Jal-Nish was a scrutator too.
He
believed her.’

‘He wasn’t a
full
scrutator long, and only briefly; he never had
our
training. Besides, he’s desperate for a grandchild. He wanted
to believe Maelys and, after all she’s done to defy and thwart him, he’s
developing a grudging admiration for her. He realises she’s a worthy partner
for the son of the God-Emperor, and a suitable mother for his grandchild.’

‘So
she’s
safe,
then,’ said Colm sullenly.

‘She would be if she
were
pregnant, but once Jal-Nish discovers she’s not, he’ll crush her, no matter
what her other qualities, for deceiving him. Once we return to the real world
she’ll be in peril of her life.’

‘Maybe we should leave her here until the job is done.’

Flydd stared at him. ‘Maelys isn’t a bag of treasure to be
hidden.’ He reached over and shook her by the shoulder. ‘Wake up. We can’t stay
here.’

‘Like it here,’ she said sleepily. ‘Nice and quiet; cool. No
flame.’

‘We’ve got to find the way out before it’s too late.’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘We’ve got to look now. My portal will have weakened the
barrier around the Nightland, but it will soon repair itself, and the longer we
take, the harder it will be to get back to the real world …’

Assuming we can. Flydd wasn’t entirely sure that there was a
way out. Taking the four containers from his coat, he lined them up on the floor
– first the white crystal phial containing the trapped cursed flame,
followed by the abyssal flame in its square stone bottle, and lastly the oval
and pyramidal green-ice flasks containing the freezing chthonic flame. The
green ice condensed from the chthonic flame showed no signs of melting. Inside
the flasks, the white fire swirled, glacier slow, and glacier cold.

Maelys sat up, combing the hair off her face with her
fingers. ‘What are they for?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘What did you mean by
too
late
?’

‘The Nightland was the most secure prison ever built and a
mancer of my talents, considerable though they once were, should never have
been able to make a portal to it. I would not have, had the woman in red not
forced my portal away from the shadow realm, to here.’

‘But she didn’t get in,
did
she
?’ Maelys peered into the dark.

‘No, she didn’t get in,’ said Flydd.

‘Then she can’t harm us,’ said Colm. ‘Can’t you get us out
the way you got in?’

‘The Nightland was designed so no one could get out. There
may be no way to open it from inside.’ Flydd got up abruptly. ‘Let’s go for a
walk.’

Maelys followed Flydd and Colm across the black floor
for ten or fifteen minutes, but they might as well have been standing still for
all the difference she saw. The Nightland was utterly featureless: it had no
walls; no roof; no landscapes, structures or furnishings.

She stopped, looking around anxiously. ‘I don’t think we
should go any further. What if we can’t find the way back?’

Flydd kept going. ‘The barrier that walls the real world off
from the Nightland touches all points of it equally, so it should not matter
where we are.’

‘What’s that?’ said Colm, moving carefully to the left.
Flydd let out a sigh and followed.

Maelys hurried after them. About thirty paces away, a
transparent device of wheels and levers, wires and glassy plates, hung in the
air. Flydd prodded it with his fingertips and they went straight through.

‘The Histories tell that Rulke built all manner of devices
here, trying to find a way out, and to make war on his enemies once he did.
Virtual devices, formed from the fabric of the Nightland, like blueprints in
three dimensions. That’s how he designed his construct.’

‘What’s a construct?’ asked Maelys.

‘A metal conveyance that could create its own portals and
jump from one part of Santhenar to another.’

‘The Aachim built constructs on Aachan,’ said Colm.
‘Thousands of them came to Santhenar through a portal when Aachan was being
destroyed by volcanoes.’

‘But they did not invent them; they merely copied Rulke’s,
and imperfectly.’

They continued, seeing other suspended devices every now and
again. Some were large and complex, and seemed almost real, while others
appeared mere afterthoughts which hung in the air as thin as smoke.

‘I could use a drink,’ said Colm. ‘My throat tastes like
dried mud.’

Splash
. Maelys,
now a few paces ahead, had walked straight into a waist-deep pool. The chilly
water stung her injured calf; it was black, motionless, and seemed thicker than
normal water, for it barely rippled as she moved. She climbed out hastily.
Black droplets wobbled through the air, taking ages to fall, and skidded across
the floor in globules like spilled quicksilver.

‘How could I have missed that?’ she said, irritably flicking
drops away.

‘It wasn’t there,’ said Flydd.

She stared at him, hands on hips. ‘What are you talking
about?’

‘The Nightland was designed to keep its prisoner alive for
as long as he lived, so it had to provide water, food and air, if nothing else.
Colm wanted water, therefore it appeared.’

Colm scooped a handful of the dark liquid and held it up. It
quivered on his palm and he looked at it askance. ‘I’m not drinking that.’

‘It’s a trifle black, I admit,’ smiled Flydd, ‘but what
would you expect in the Nightland?’

‘I’m afraid to expect anything,’ muttered Colm.

Flydd dropped to his knees by the pool, gathered a double
handful and drank noisily. ‘It has a slight taint, but I’m sure it’s not
harmful.’

‘I’m not.’ Colm tasted the water, very tentatively, then
shrugged. ‘But if there’s no way out, what does it matter?’ He drank deeply,
and washed his face and hands. ‘I’m starving,’ he announced loudly. ‘I’d like a
grilled rump of young buffalo, with mustard and pepper, a mug of dark ale and a
plateful of those nut and honey pastries Mother used to make when I was
little.’ He looked around expectantly.

Flydd chuckled. ‘It doesn’t work like that. We’re in a
prison, after all. Whatever it provides for us will be nourishing, but I doubt
it’ll be tasty.’

Maelys went back to the pool. The globules were hard to
swallow and made her burp, sending a host of tiny droplets soaring out of her
mouth and away. ‘Pardon me,’ she said politely, then giggled and turned her
head, firing more droplets in a soaring arc. She crouched under the water and
scrubbed the worst of the mud off.

They continued, and shortly came to a low oval table, as
black as everything else in the Nightland, on which sat three loaves of bread,
plus platters, knives and a large black mound with a strong, yeasty smell.

‘I’m not eating that,’ said Colm, staring at the mound. ‘It
looks like a flappeter’s dropping.’

Flydd, unperturbed, sat on the floor and extended his legs
under the table. Maelys’s mouth flooded with saliva. She sat opposite, drew one
of the loaves towards her and began to cut neat slices from it, as if serving
guests at Nifferlin Manor. She passed three slices to Flydd.

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely, inclining his head to her.

She pushed a platter of slices towards Colm, who ignored
them, then took a single slice for herself and bit into it. ‘It’s not as good
as we had at home, before …’ Maelys stopped chewing as the memories flooded
her, and had to wipe her eyes. ‘It hasn’t got much flavour.’

‘Try the black stuff,’ said Flydd, watching her, like an
emperor his food taster.

She felt like retorting, ‘Try it yourself!’ but dug the
knife into the mound. It had a soft consistency, like butter, so she spread it
on a corner of her slice and tasted it.

‘Yuk!’ she said, swallowing without chewing. ‘It’s
horrible.’

‘But nourishing,’ said Flydd. ‘Pass it over.’

‘So I’m your official taster now, am I?’ said Maelys.

‘Someone’s got to do it.’ He spread the black paste thickly
on his slice, took an experimental bite, gagged and swallowed hastily.
‘Delicious!’

‘Liar! It’s absolutely disgusting.’

‘I’ve eaten worse.’

After they’d finished, Flydd lay on his back beside the
table. ‘Before I attempt the portal again I’ve got to rest, but my mind is too
full for sleep. Has anyone got a tale to divert me?’

‘You both know my story,’ said Maelys. ‘But we don’t know
Colm’s –’

He glowered at her. ‘Why don’t you mind your own –?’

‘An excellent idea,’ Flydd interposed smoothly. ‘Tell us
your story, Colm. Down at the abyssal flame you gave me just the bare bones.’