The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (39 page)

Colm paced back and forth, his back bowed and his shoulders
slumped. ‘I don’t think there’s anything left.’

‘Faelamor was a master illusionist,’ Flydd reminded him.
‘The greatest that ever lived.’

‘Then break her illusion, if it still exists.’

Flydd didn’t move. ‘It’s not that easy.’

‘You haven’t tried! I’ve been brought here under false
pretences.’

‘Oh, don’t be so pathetic! You nagged me to come here, if
you recall, though I told you more than once that I might not be able to break
her illusion.’

‘I’m sorry. Please try.’

‘Colm, I can’t yet tell if there
is
an illusion. I’ve got to have something to start with, and it
all takes time.’

‘Then why did you come?’ Colm said, very controlled. ‘Why
allow me to hope?’

‘Because you begged me.’ Flydd turned back to his study of
the floor, and again Maelys noticed a faint gleam in his eyes.

‘Then it’s over,’ Colm said dully. ‘I’ve nothing left to
hope for.’

No one said anything. Nothing Maelys could say would give
him any comfort.

‘I think you’re looking for this.’ The woman’s voice came
from behind them.

 
TWENTY-NINE

Maelys spun around. A woman not much taller than
herself stood at the entrance to the cave, her hair tumbling halfway down her
back. She was silhouetted against the light, so her features could not be seen,
and at first Maelys assumed it must be Faelamor herself, back from the dead,
for the woman held out a small ebony bracelet.

‘Colm?’ she said in a dry little voice. ‘Colm?’

Not Faelamor. Colm swallowed noisily, tried to speak but
nothing emerged save a hoarse croak. He tried again. ‘Ketila?’

‘Yes. It’s me.’ She just stood there, staring at him as if
at the rising sun.

‘I thought you were dead,’ Colm whispered. ‘Though I never
gave up hope. Is little Fransi …?’

Ketila’s throat quivered. ‘Eaten by a lyrinx,’ she said
slowly, deliberately, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time.

He staggered and caught blindly at Maelys’s shoulder. ‘Oh,
oh! But … it would have been quick. She would not have suffered …’

‘Fransi suffered.’ There was a whole world of torment in her
words. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Why wasn’t I there? If only I’d been there –’

‘It would have eaten you too.’

‘At least my worries would be over.’ Then, softly, ‘What
about Mother and Father?’ He was pleading with Ketila; please, please say that
they’re alive.

‘They died soon after we lost you, escaping from the slave
camp. They attacked the lyrinx that had taken Fransi, with their bare hands.
They had no chance.’

Though Colm must have expected it, he shrank down on
himself, each death a blow hammering him deeper into the dirt. He swayed, his
nails digging in and out of Maelys’s shoulder. She could not bear to imagine
what that night must have been like.

‘No chance.’ His arm fell to his side. ‘All the heart had
gone out of them long ago. They would have been glad to die.’ He went forwards,
slowly.

Ketila moved backwards and the light from outside fell on
her face. She was not yet thirty and might once have been pretty, but was now
thin and drawn. Her skin was weathered from sun and wind, grief had etched deep
lines around her mouth, and her eyes had an unnervingly blank stare.

‘What are you doing here, Kettie?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she said sharply, fighting back tears.

‘Sorry, Ketila.’

‘I can’t bear to be reminded of the good old days.’

‘In that terrible camp?’ he exclaimed.

‘I was happy there. We were all together; we had each
other.’

‘I never thought of it like that,’ he said quietly.

‘I searched everywhere for you that night,’ said Ketila.
‘And for weeks and months afterwards, but no one had seen a twelve-year-old boy
answering your description.’

‘Nor a fifteen-year-old girl like you,’ said Colm. ‘Nor Fransi;
nor Mother and Father. I never gave up looking, but I had lost hope.’

‘I knew you’d find your way to Dunnet eventually, if you
were still alive.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Eight years.’

‘All by yourself?’

‘Since I lost everyone, I prefer to be alone … In the war, I
learned that no one but your family can be trusted. I went through a lot in the
years it took me to find this place.’

Maelys could only imagine it – a young woman,
travelling alone for years through the lawless chaos of those dark times.

‘Oh, Ketila,’ said Colm, and took her in his arms.

Ketila kindled a small smokeless fire between the
boulders down the slope, out of sight of the bone field, and they ate smoked
fish from her stores, and drank sweet-sour tea made from a local herb.
Afterwards Flydd walked away towards the bones, but Maelys remained by the
fire. She had never seen Colm so alive, not even during those brief weeks
together on the way to the plateau. He kept jumping up and sitting down again,
pacing between the rocks, staring hungrily at his sister and looking away
again, and all the while beaming as though he could not believe his good
fortune.

Ketila maintained her reserve. Mostly she stared into the
fire, lost in her thoughts like a lifelong hermit. Occasionally she looked up
at Colm and, momentarily, there was a glow in her eyes.

Maelys sat well to the side, keeping watch. She didn’t want
to intrude; besides, the enemy could come down the cliffs, or up the river, at
any moment and she wasn’t going to be taken by surprise again.

‘I felt so guilty,’ said Ketila. ‘I still do.’

‘Why?’ said Colm. ‘You never did anything wrong.’

‘I’m the oldest. I should have been looking after you and
Fransi.’

‘You couldn’t look after me – I was always in trouble
and I never did what I was told. And I forced Mother and Father to take Nish
in. If only I hadn’t.’ He bowed his head.

‘What difference would that have made?’ she said in the
brisk fashion of an older sister. It was the first trace of animation Maelys
had seen in her since dinner.

‘If I hadn’t, Nish would have been taken into custody at
once, and maybe the lyrinx –’

‘They didn’t come for him, Colm; they didn’t know he was
there. It was the war – just the stupid war – and without Nish we
might never have won it.’ Her eyes shone for a moment. ‘I was quite taken with
him once, you know.’

Maelys sat up. Ketila had known Nish back when he was
Maelys’s age – would he fit the legend, or fall terribly short? Had Nish
done something to make her mistrust humanity so?

‘Really?’ said Colm in astonishment.

‘I was just fifteen. Remember how Mother forced me to wear
those horrible black wooden teeth, and painted spots and warts all over me?’

‘It was the only way to keep you safe. A pretty girl in that
lawless place …’

‘Then Nish dropped into the camp from a balloon he’d flown
halfway across the world. He was already a hero; he’d killed a nylatl; he’d
fought lyrinx, and beaten them.’ Her eyes were shining now. ‘He told such
stories in those few nights he slept in our hovel; I’ll never forget a word of
them. And Nish was a gentleman, too. He was so kind to me, though I was just a
kid he would never see again. The thought of him sustained me in my darkest
hours.’ Ketila sighed.

Maelys studied her from under her lashes. They weren’t so
different after all, for Maelys had nurtured a silly romantic dream about Nish
ever since reading his tale when she was nine. And I wasn’t wrong about him
after all, she thought. Ketila’s story proves that Nish was once as noble as
the stories say. Poor Nish, tormented beyond endurance by his father until he
believes himself a failure. Poor Nish, who promised the world he would
overthrow his father, and then went back on his promise. How can he ever redeem
himself?

‘I never wanted him, romantically,’ said Ketila, as though
she’d read Maelys’s face and wanted to distinguish them from each other. ‘It
was just hero-worship. And after I was left on my own … I don’t want any man,
ever
,’ she concluded fiercely.

Flydd came wandering back and sat down, wincing and rubbing
the scar on his back. The crossbow bolt had to come out, but now was not the
time. No one spoke. Maelys could feel her stomach muscles knotting; they were
wasting precious time. She glanced at Flydd, who had leaned back against a rock
with his eyes closed, fingers drumming on his knee.

‘We’ve got to get moving!’ she burst out. ‘They could be in
the valley already.’

‘Who?’ said Ketila.

‘The God-Emperor’s army,’ said Flydd. ‘Colm?’

Colm stiffened, then emptied the dregs of his tea onto the
ground. ‘What did you find after you dispelled the illusion, Ketila?’ he said
quietly, struggling to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

‘I didn’t dispel it.’

‘Why not?’

Ketila still looked wary, and Maelys didn’t suppose that
would change in a hurry, after spending half a lifetime on her own.

‘It’s your heritage, not mine,’ said Ketila.

‘We could share it.’

‘I never wanted it, Colm; all I wanted was home and family.
A little cottage would have been enough for me if I could have shared it with
the people I loved. But you were different. You could never be happy with what
you had – you were always reaching out for more; always expecting what
could never be yours.’

She rose, sliding the ebony bracelet up and down her arm,
and headed to the cave. They followed. At the entrance, she held the bracelet
up.

‘It’s made of precious ebony from the world of Tallallame,’
said Flydd from below, ‘which had special powers even in that magical land. But
objects carried between the Three Worlds change in unusual ways –’

‘Change in what ways?’ said Colm.

‘No one would have known save Faelamor herself, for it’s
different every time. Would you go in, Ketila?’

She did so, and Maelys noticed, from behind, how little
there was of her. Though she had ample stores of dried fish and other
foodstuffs, and the valley was abundant with game, Ketila ate no more than was
necessary to sustain herself.

As she advanced with the bracelet, a myriad of shadows
sprang up from the floor to form a confusion of tangled, moving shapes. But
they were not quite shadows: they had the outlines of people with subtly
aura-tinged edges. The hairs on the back of Maelys’s neck rose.

‘Come back a step,’ said Flydd, holding his right hand out.
His lips moved, though Maelys didn’t hear anything.

As Ketila stepped back, most of the shadows sank into the
floor again, though one remained, the barest outline of a small female figure
bending over a fire set on the floor. Ketila’s arm shook; the figure faded to a
wisp and disappeared. Other figures, male and female, rose and moved about the
cave, though seldom were they visible for more than a few steps.

‘The first woman would be Faelamor,’ said Flydd. ‘And the
others, no doubt, her people; the Faellem were a small folk. Faelamor dwelt
here for months, perhaps years, though she would not have left much of herself
behind – only when she used her Art, and that sparingly. Move your arm to
the left, Ketila.’

As she complied, several larger, bulkier shadows rose and
moved about, though only one could be seen clearly, a big man swinging a pick
into the earth floor, then bending over to look at what he had uncovered.
Behind Maelys, Colm groaned.

‘Shh!’ said Flydd. ‘Ah, I think I understand. Faelamor
brought her most precious possessions here long ago, and hid them, protected by
her perpetual illusion. She may have returned many times, taking some items or
adding others, and each time renewing the illusion.’

‘And the other shadows?’ said Colm. ‘
That man?
’

‘Villains and fortune hunters who came after her death,
attracted by the tale and the lure of what lay hidden here. Hundreds could have
entered the cave, though only those with sufficient Art to touch the illusion
will have left their shadows behind. Don’t panic, Colm. He took nothing away.’

Ketila moved around the cavern under Flydd’s direction; the
shadow figures rose and fell. They saw Faelamor’s outline many times, plus
other small slender folk who could have been her people. A taller woman came,
then more men digging under the direction of a robed figure whose face was not
visible from any angle. A small, curvaceous woman came and went, plus other
shadows so faint that not even their sex could be determined. Finally, what
could only have been a pair of Jal-Nish’s scriers turned up, armed with
wisp-watchers, though they did not seem to find anything either.

Colm was growing ever more agitated. ‘The enemy may be
encircling the valley even now, Flydd. Why isn’t the bracelet dispelling the
illusion and showing us the trove?’

‘I don’t know; we’ll have to use trial and error.’

Flydd had Ketila walk around the walls of the cavern, then
spiral slowly in to the place where the miscreants had been digging, an
insignificant hollow in the floor. She touched the ebony bracelet to the hollow
and through the dirt Maelys saw a brighter, richer shadow: a long, wide,
shallow box, full of scrolls, parchments, cups and bowls made from precious
metals, plus items of jewellery and a small wooden ball. Colm sighed and fell
to his knees beside the hollow.

‘Dig carefully,’ Flydd said. ‘Even the box is precious.’

Colm began to dig with a pointed stick, while Ketila watched
him in silence. Soon the corner of a wooden box was revealed, its pale timbers
stained with the colour of the earth in which it had been buried for centuries.
He scraped the earth off the top, and all around it, then levered carefully.
The box rose out of the earth and the last of the dirt crumbled away. He lifted
it in trembling fingers, slid the cracked lid off and rocked back with a cry of
despair.