The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (31 page)

‘The tale is so bitter I can scarcely bear to begin it,’
said Colm.

‘Half a million families were dispossessed during the war
with the lyrinx and they all have bitter tales.’

‘My family dwelt at Gothryme for more than a thousand
years,’ Colm said, tight-mouthed, ‘and we were robbed of it.’

‘Maelys’s family held Nifferlin for just as long, and her
entire clan is dead or scattered. Why is your tragedy worse than hers?’

‘She can go back, but Gothryme Manor and all its land, poor
though it is, has been given to others.’

‘Maelys can’t return while the God-Emperor lives. You’re
holding out on us, Colm.’ Flydd didn’t look curious, merely expectant, as if he
already knew what Colm was going to say. ‘Gothryme,’ he repeated.

The name was vaguely familiar to Maelys, in the way that
hundreds of places she’d heard about were.

‘You know all about it!’ Colm said fiercely. ‘The scrutators
knew everything. They had the
Tale of the
Mirror
banned.’

‘That was long before my time,’ said Flydd. ‘Later the tale
was rewritten to correct certain grievous inaccuracies inserted by the Teller.
I’m told that Llian the Liar was a most unreliable narrator –’

‘He was the greatest Teller of all!’

Flydd shrugged. ‘What’s it to you, anyhow?’

‘Gothryme belonged to Karan Fyrn, and she was the heroine of
the
Tale of the Mirror
, as it was
originally written. My ancestor Macolm, nine generations ago, was her distant
cousin and never expected to inherit anything. It should all have gone to Karan
and Llian’s children …’

‘Until she murdered them, and Llian too,’ Flydd said softly.
‘Then killed herself. Karan Kin-Slayer she’s been called ever since. She was no
heroine; that was another of Llian’s lies. She broke the Forbidding, or caused
it to be broken, which brought the lyrinx to Santhenar and began the greatest
of all wars. No wonder her name, and Llian’s, are among the most reviled in all
the Histories. Your family gained no honour from inheriting Gothryme.’

‘It’s still tainted to this day,’ said Colm softly, ‘and so
is my family name, but Gothryme is my heritage.’

‘You won’t get it back while the God-Emperor remains in
power.’

‘It’s not my
only
heritage, and I’ll gladly accept your aid in recovering the rest.’

Flydd frowned. ‘You’re asking for my aid?’

‘I’ve done all you asked of me, and I’d thought I’d earned a
little consideration in return. Evidently not.’

Flydd sighed. ‘Long ago I vowed to help overthrow the
God-Emperor, Colm. Surely you realise that must come before any personal
matters, no matter how pressing? But do go on.’ He sounded as though he was
humouring Colm.

‘Karan was left a treasure by Faelamor, the leader of the
Faellem people, just before she led them back to her own world of Tallallame.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Flydd, his eyes lighting momentarily.
‘Faelamor’s fabled trove. I’ve wondered why it was left to Karan.’

‘Faelamor had done her a great wrong and wished to atone for
it.’

‘Well, that’s what the
original
tale said,’ Flydd conceded.

Two angry red spots appeared on Colm’s cheeks. ‘Faelamor
left the remaining treasures of her people to Karan, and that trove lies under
a perpetual concealment in a cave in Elludore. An ebony bracelet handed down
the generations will dispel the illusion and reveal the treasure.’

‘I’d like to see it,’ said Flydd with rather more interest
than before.

‘Where’s Elludore?’ asked Maelys.

‘It’s on the eastern side of the Island of Meldorin,’ said
Flydd. ‘Elludore is a rugged, forested land north of Thurkad, between the
mountains and the sea. Do you have the bracelet, Colm?’

‘Mother gave it to my sister, Ketila. She was three years
older than me, but my family were lost in a lyrinx attack not long after I met
Nish. I told you that.’

‘Then the bracelet is lost or destroyed,’ said Flydd.

‘I imagine so, but surely with your powers you can dispel
illusions?’

‘You’re asking me to abandon the struggle against the
God-Emperor to help you find a few trinkets?’ Again Maelys got the impression
that Flydd was toying with Colm.

‘You have to hide until you’re fit to take him on,’ said
Colm. ‘You can hide in Elludore as well as anywhere.’

‘You’ve got a nerve!’ said Maelys. ‘We’re supposed to be
finding the Numinator, not fighting your battles for you.’

Flydd raised a hand to her. ‘Go on, Colm.’

‘You can dispel illusions, can’t you?’ Colm looked
pathetically eager now.

‘
Many
illusions,
if my powers come back fully, though a perpetual illusion created by the
greatest illusionist of all is another matter entirely. But Colm, Faelamor’s
treasure trove is mentioned in the Histories, and therefore thousands of people
must have known about it over the past two centuries. Even its location in
Elludore – in the ridge-and-valley land called Dunnet – must have
been identified long ago.’

‘No one else knew the location of the cave, or even which
valley it lay in,’ said Colm. ‘There are millions of caves in Dunnet.’

‘Or Karan Kin-Slayer would have taken it,’ said Flydd,
‘before she went mad and slaughtered her family.’

‘It was always said, in our clan, that she spurned the gift
of her enemy.’

‘A rumour she may have put about herself, to conceal the
treasure from marauders.’

‘I’m sure it’s still there,’ Colm said heatedly, ‘Will you
help me?’

‘Do you know the location of the cave?’

‘The secret was told to me when I was a boy.’

‘And you still remember where to find one small valley among
thousands in a trackless wilderness?’ Flydd said with a trace of scorn.
‘Elludore must be two hundred leagues from Bannador. Have you ever been there?’

‘Once, when I was little. I’m sure I can find it, and I’ll
know the place when I do. It has one particular …’ he shivered, ‘
landmark
that can be found nowhere else
– if it still exists after all this time.’

‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’ said Flydd, clearly
intrigued.

Maelys was too, but Colm had that familiar tightness about
the mouth and jaw, and the fixed look in his eye, that said he wasn’t going to
say. It was the first thing that had struck her about him – how closed
off he was. His past was a nagging thorn that he might never get over, even if
he recovered the treasure trove.

‘I’ve got to have it, Flydd,’ Colm said, ‘with your help or
without it. Our line has been tainted since Karan’s time, and I’ve lost my
family and my estate. This is the only thing I’ve got left.’

‘I don’t even know if the portal spell will work here,’ said
Flydd.

‘But if you can make it work, why not head for Elludore?
It’s the perfect place to hide while you regain your Art.’

Flydd was breathing heavily. ‘Perhaps I will. Faelamor’s
fabled trove – what mancer wouldn’t want to set eyes on that?’

Maelys thought there was an odd, greedy tone to his voice.
Surely not.

‘Assuming we can get there,’ Flydd continued. ‘Portals can
only be opened in a few special places.’

‘But surely Faelamor’s cave
is
a special place?’ said Colm.

‘Not necessarily a special place for portals. Elludore,
Elludore,’ said Flydd, uneasily. ‘That reminds me of something unpleasant.’ He
walked around the table several times. ‘No matter; whatever it was, it happened
long ago. I can’t think about this now, Colm. Losing Nish has thrown me and I
don’t see how we can defeat Jal-Nish without him.’

‘We were going to find the Numinator,’ Maelys pointed out.
‘That’s why you took renewal in the first place, Xervish.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Flydd didn’t look pleased to be reminded. ‘And
the Numinator must be approached carefully. It may have been weakened by Jal-Nish’s
rise, but it will not be powerless.’

‘How do you know it still exists?’ Colm burst out. ‘This
quest seems like a waste of time to me.’

‘My deepest scars – the ones that survived renewal
– still throb at intervals, the way they used to when I was tortured. The
Numinator is still alive, all right, and it guards its privacy jealously.’

‘It may have fallen under Jal-Nish’s control by now.’

‘I don’t think so. At the end of the war, just after he
reappeared so shockingly, I mentioned the Numinator to Jal-Nish in passing, and
he didn’t know what I was talking about. Not being on the inner Council, he had
never been told that most secret of all secrets. And the Numinator would have
had plenty of time to hide itself, after the nodes were destroyed.

‘So how do I get to it?’ he mused. ‘And survive?’

 
TWENTY-THREE

‘What if you offered the Numinator something it wanted
badly?’ said Maelys.

Calling the Numinator
it
felt strange, yet there were many intelligent, non-human creatures in the void,
and it had appeared not long after the Forbidding, which protected Santhenar
from the void, had been broken.

‘I’ve already thought of that.’ Flydd pressed his hand
against the bottled flames in his inside pocket. ‘These are a magnificent gift
for any mancer, even one of the greatest: a source of power unaffected by the
destruction of the nodes. What secrets may be uncovered by a diligent study of
these uncanny fires? Dare I give them to the Numinator, though? Will the gift
gain us a boon in return, or be used against us? The gratitude of mancers is
unreliable at the best of times.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ Colm said pointedly. ‘You can agonise for
the rest of your miserable life, Flydd, or you can just get on with it.’

‘The future of Santhenar is at stake!’ Flydd flashed. ‘I’ll
decide what to do in my own time.’

‘Can you tell us
anything
about the Numinator?’ Maelys asked hastily. ‘Where did it come from? What does
it do; what does it want?’

‘The Council never knew, though the Numinator’s great age
argues either for someone with blood from one of the longer-lived human species
– that is, Aachim, Faellem or Charon – or a mancer who has taken
renewal, and more than once; or a non-human creature that entered the world at
the time the Forbidding was broken.

‘If Chief Scrutator Ghorr knew its origins, he told no one
and the secret died with him. All we knew was that the Numinator created the
Council of Scrutators nearly a hundred and fifty years ago out of the Council
of Santhenar, which had existed in one form or another for thousands of years.
The Numinator shaped our Council to its own purposes, of which only one was
winning the war.’

‘What were its other purposes?’ asked Colm.

‘It wanted to control Santhenar, though not to exercise
power over it – the Numinator was never interested in power for its own
sake. It required the Council to collect information on every single person in
the world: their ancestry, looks, family traits, habits, talents and gifts, and
compile it in registers.’

‘What for?’ said Maelys curiously. Nothing she heard about
the Numinator made sense.

‘No one knows,’ said Flydd. ‘A copy of each register was
placed in Ghorr’s strongroom in the scrutators’ hidden bastion, Nennifer, and
from there it vanished. However I did learn, by means I won’t go into, that the
Numinator dwelt in the frozen south at the Tower of a Thousand Steps.’

‘Where is that, anyway?’ said Colm.

‘It lies on the forbidden Island of Noom, in the middle of
the Kara Agel or Frozen Sea, an Antarctic wasteland so bleak that only ice
bears and seals, walruses and snow leopards can survive there. A few trappers
and prospectors cross in and out in the brief and bitter Antarctic summer, but
no one winters near the Kara Agel.’

‘Save the Numinator.’

‘And perhaps ice runs in its veins instead of blood.’ Flydd
shivered and pressed a hand to his chest again. ‘I most passionately don’t want
to go there. Though my torture was half a century ago, I can still feel the
scourges flaying the flesh from my body for daring to speculate about the
Numinator.’

‘It may have given up by now,’ said Colm.

‘It has held to its plan for at least a hundred and fifty
years.’

‘It could be dead.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Flydd. He looked at Maelys. ‘The
thought of Noom arouses terrors that you cannot imagine, yet I must go there
sooner or later. The Numinator knows the Histories better than anyone on
Santhenar, even Jal-Nish. If there is an antithesis to the tears, that’s where
we’ll find out about it. But not now; I’ve got to sleep. The way may be clearer
in the morning.’ He looked around. ‘Ah!’

Maelys followed his gaze and saw, about twenty paces away, a
simple straw mattress, like Flydd’s former bed in his amber-wood hut on
Mistmurk Mountain, covered in a single blanket. A good distance to the left, a
black replica of Colm’s bedroll lay on the floor, while further off stood a
wooden bed identical to the one Maelys had slept in when she’d been a little
girl. It even had the same patchwork quilt her mother had made. Tears formed,
but she didn’t brush them away.

‘Good night,’ she said, and headed towards the bed, her only
hope of comfort in an alien world.

It was smaller than she remembered, but Maelys didn’t try to
imagine it differently in the hope that it would change to fit. She crawled
under the covers, pulled them up around her ears, gave a little sigh and fell
instantly asleep.

Maelys did not dream, so far as she was aware, but woke
feeling restless, having no idea how long she’d slept. Flydd was flat on his
back with his legs spread and mouth open, snoring. Colm lay on his side in his
bedroll, knees drawn up to his chest and an arm wrapped around them – a
revealing posture. Was he unconsciously trying to protect himself, or to keep
the world at bay because he could rely on nobody but himself?