The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (6 page)

‘I remember now!’ cried Flydd. ‘That’s where we’ve got to
go. The cursed flame is the one source of power available to me.’

‘And Father will have it under guard,’ said Nish.

‘He may not know about the flame yet. Ah, this place has a
familiar feel. I think I know where we are.’

‘Lead the way, then –
what’s that
?’ said Nish, as thunder rolled down the passage.

‘The God-Emperor’s mancers must be attacking the hidden
door,’ said Flydd. ‘Come on.’

They skidded down the slick surface, scrambled through a pit
full of droppings which had an appalling stench and a faint luminosity, then
climbed a broken slope equally coated with muck. By the time they reached the
top they were smeared with it. Handicapped as he was, Nish fell many times, and
each time his burned hand struck the rock it sent sickening waves of pain
through him. He almost cried out, but managed to stifle it. I will not give in,
he kept telling himself. I can beat Father; I must. He was thankful for the
darkness, which concealed the tears streaming down his cheeks.

‘Nish, are you all right?’ said Maelys. Her hand touched his
arm. ‘Oh Nish,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry – about everything.’

Her concern almost undid his resolve, but he could not
reply. It was taking all his strength to endure the pain. He managed a grunt
and after a moment she moved on.

After some twenty minutes of scrambling, during which they
heard the thunder twice more, Flydd whispered, ‘It can’t be far now. Once we
get to the bottom of this long slope, we should be below the flame –
back!’

They crept backwards. ‘What is it, surr?’ said Nish.

‘I caught the faintest reflection, a long way down, as if
someone had put his head around the corner, then ducked back.’

‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Colm.

‘Good eyes are the one benefit I’ve got from renewal so
far,’ said Flydd.

‘Apart from life!’

Flydd ignored the sarcasm. ‘My renewed guts feel as though
they’re eating themselves, and my leg muscles slide up and down on my bones
with every step. We’d better go back to that cross passage we saw a few minutes
ago. I think there’s another way into the flame chamber.’

‘I got to it from beneath the obelisk in the marshes,’ said
Maelys timidly.

Did she think they were disgusted with her? Colm had
certainly made his contempt plain. Nish no longer knew what he felt about
Maelys, though she was as brave and resourceful as any woman he’d ever known,
even Irisis – No! He could not,
would
not
allow himself to make the comparison.

After feeling their way through absolute darkness for a good
while, Flydd grunted, ‘I smell moist air – cool air.’

‘I smell nothing but the decaying turds of a million swamp
creepers,’ muttered Colm.

‘Above the cavern of the cursed flame,’ Maelys said, ‘the
air was warm, but below it a cool breeze was blowing up from the depths.’

‘So we’re below the cavern. Good,’ said Flydd. ‘Perhaps this
way is not guarded.’

Nish thought that unlikely, but refrained from saying so. Despair
is your greatest failing, he told himself. Don’t open the door to it; not even
a crack. While we’re alive, there’s hope. Things aren’t as bad here as they
were at Fiz Gorgo, and you pulled off a miraculous victory there. You can do it
again. He closed his mind to the thought that miraculous victories had occurred
a number of times in the Histories, but seldom had even the greatest of heroes
done it twice.

‘I can smell sweaty men,’ said Maelys, now walking shoulder
to shoulder with Nish.

‘Just what you’ve been panting for,’ said Colm.

‘Shut up!’ she hissed. ‘Just shut up, Colm. I don’t know
what I ever saw in you.’

‘Likewise!’

Nish couldn’t stay silent any longer. ‘Leave her alone or
you’ll have me to deal with.’

‘Is that a promise,
oath-breaker
?’

Nish felt himself flushing. ‘She saved us all, you fool!’

‘And she’d do –’

‘Enough!’ hissed Flydd. ‘What’s the matter with you three?’

Now Nish could smell the soldiers’ rancid sweat. The way
was
guarded, and as they crawled back
into the reeking dark, he felt despair’s door creaking open. Just a crack, but
it was always there. With an effort of will he closed it again. ‘Is there no
other way to obtain the power we need?’

‘There are only two entrances, and I dare say the other one
is guarded as well.’

 
FIVE

Maelys sagged against the wall, feeling worse than
ever. Colm’s naked contempt was almost unendurable, and she could not
understand why he was so hostile. She’d made no promises to him; they had never
been more than travelling companions. With an effort, she put him out of mind.
She’d had barely any sleep last night and not much the night before; every
muscle in her body was aching and she was tired beyond rational thought.

Flydd’s and Nish’s muttering was like a harsh lullaby, and
her eyelids drooped. She would snatch a few minutes’ sleep while they worked
out what to do. Maelys felt herself drifting, all her cares retreating …

The suppressed nightmare jerked her awake, reviving those
paralysed minutes she’d spent on the slab with the cursed flame licking at her,
and Phrune looming over her, preparing to take her skin and spill her blood
into the flame, so as to revive his dreadful master.

The scene played over and over, until she was shuddering
with the horror of it: the blade, the blood; Phrune’s mutilated, leering face
and Vivimord’s groans issuing from beneath the slab; the heat of the cursed
flame and the bouquet of precious amber-wood. The high, shadowed ceiling
covered in the mucus crusts of swamp creepers, webbed by the corded nets of
some unknown scuttling beast, all the way across that pyramidal opening –

Maelys’s eyes flew open. ‘Xervish!’

‘Yes?’ he said dully.

‘There may be another way into the chamber of the cursed
flame.’

She heard his sharp intake of breath. ‘Where?’

‘When I was on the slab and the flame flared, I saw a hole
high above. It may be an old chimney, and if anyone has some rope, you might be
able to get down it.’

‘I’ve got rope,’ said Colm. ‘Can you find the top of the
chimney, Flydd?’

‘I think I know where to look.’

He led them up a broken slope, over a blade-like hump and
around a twisting bend which felt as though water had once flowed down it.
There were no droppings here, though Maelys could still smell them. Flydd
stopped so suddenly that she ran into him and Nish into her.

‘Hush!’ Flydd said softly.

‘What is it, Gorderz?’ A slurred voice issued through a
fissure in the rock to Maelys’s left.

‘Thought I heard footsteps, Snegg,’ said another voice,
sounding rather strained. ‘Hold up.’

‘This place makes my mind reel. Where are we?’

‘No idea. What’s happened to the others?’

‘I thought they were with you,’ said Snegg.

Gorderz cursed. ‘The master won’t be pleased.’

The intruders were only spans away through the rock; they
would hear the slightest sound. Maelys steadied herself against the wall.
Nish’s shoulder touched her and she could feel him shuddering as he fought the
pain. If he let out a squeak, they were lost.

The soldiers did not speak again, though Maelys was afraid
they were still there, waiting for someone to move. Nish’s breathing grew ever
more laboured but she wasn’t game to try and comfort him.

Finally the first man spoke again, much further away.

‘Wait another minute,’ said Flydd quietly. ‘They’re lost and
afraid; if we go the other way we should be safe.’

There’s no safety anywhere inside Mistmurk Mountain, Maelys
thought.

They went on, feeling their way around a hairpin corner and
along a passage so low that even Maelys had to negotiate it bent double. She
could hear Colm’s muffled curses as his backbone struck the knobbly roof.

‘There’s a crack ahead of me,’ said Flydd when they emerged
at the other end where there was room to stand upright, ‘and it smells faintly
of smoke. I think we can dare a little light here. Maelys, if you would open
your taphloid.’

She did so, gingerly. Flame swirled within the shard,
revealing a vertical, soot-stained crack a couple of spans high, though less
than two hand-spans wide. ‘The crystal is brighter here.’

‘No wonder,’ said Flydd. ‘We’re directly above the cursed
flame. Close the lid to just a sliver of light. That’s better. Go through,
Maelys, and step with care.’

She squeezed sideways through the crack, at the risk of her
remaining coat buttons, and felt around with her foot. ‘I’m on a narrow rock
shelf running around the inside of the chimney,’ she whispered. Its walls were
smoke-stained and criss-crossed with crusted mucus tracks, some of which were
fresh, judging by the shine. ‘The chimney hole is practically blocked. Come
inside; don’t step in the centre or you’ll fall through.’

Below, the chimney was a clotted mess of slime and droppings
caught in corded cobwebs. Maelys felt her skin creeping. She didn’t want to
meet whatever made such thick webs, especially not in the dark.

The others worked their way through, and she moved around
the ledge to give them space. Colm, who was tallest, blocked the crack with his
body and Maelys opened the lid of the taphloid all the way. The chimney flared
out around and above them but narrowed below the shelf.

Colm thrust his sword into its sheath, leaned the rapier
that had killed Zham against the corner, then pulled a hank of fine rope from
his pack and tugged on it, testing its strength.

‘Down there?’ said Flydd.

‘That’s where the smoky smell is coming from …’ Swamp
creepers gave Maelys the shudders, and though she wasn’t afraid of ordinary
spiders, the creature that had made those cord webs could be as big as she was.
‘If you and Nish go down, I’ll watch the way out with Colm.’

‘Nish can’t use his left hand.’ Flydd frowned at the crusted
mess blocking the chimney. ‘Give that a poke with your blade, Colm. It doesn’t
look very wide.’

‘Chimneys rarely are,’ said Colm. ‘That’s why they use
little kids as chimney sweeps.’ He was looking coldly at Maelys, as if she were
a stranger.

Not me, she thought. Haven’t I done enough?

Colm ran the tip of his sword around the four sides of the
chimney hole, then carefully lifted out the web and its clinging droppings,
flicking them into a corner and wiping his hands on his pants. A warm spicy smell
wafted up, of swamp-creeper slime, ordure and smoke. The exposed hole was no
wider than her shoulders.

‘It seems to narrow further down,’ said Flydd, with the
faintest of smiles. ‘You’re the only one who’ll fit, Maelys.’

‘You’re pleased it’s not you.’ She felt petulant saying it,
but she’d sooner fight a stink-snapper in the swamp than go down there.

‘I certainly am, but if I had to go down, I would, and so
will you.’

Not for the first time, Maelys cursed herself for being so
little; she cursed her companions too, and her whole life. She’d been brought
up to marry well and manage her manor and estate, and there had been a clear
division between men’s work and women’s. Men did the hard, backbreaking labour,
and most of the really dirty work. Climbing down this chimney was
definitely
men’s work.

She heard a squelching slurp from the depths that had to be
one giant swamp creeper crawling over another. ‘You’re not that big, Xervish,’
she said desperately. ‘I’m sure you’d fit – at a pinch.’

‘Nope,’ said Flydd. ‘The renewed me has broad shoulders.’

‘And I’ve got a big bottom,’ she said recklessly. ‘Huge, in
fact.’

‘Indeed you have.’ Flydd gave her an appraising grin. ‘Turn
around; I’d better make sure. Don’t want you getting stuck halfway.’

She did so, flushing, yet praying for once that it would be
too big.

‘It’s large all right,’ said Nish, grinning despite his
pain.

Even Colm, who had been grim-faced ever since her lie about
being pregnant, gave a faint twitch of the lips. Men!

Flydd measured her hips with his outstretched hands, then
the chimney hole. ‘Your bottom, while certainly of a traditional size, isn’t
large enough to get you out of trouble. Take your coat off and down you go.’

She might have refused, but Maelys felt she had to prove
herself.

‘I’ll go down!’ she said savagely. ‘But you’re going to pay
for this.’

‘I’ll add it to the list,’ said Flydd. ‘I’ve a whole
lifetime of villainy to atone for.’

She didn’t budge. ‘What am I’m supposed to do?’

‘Ah!’ He frowned. ‘This is where it gets tricky. Your shard
still retains the spells I wove into the fifth crystal years ago, and it should
be able to open the shadow realm if you can recharge it. Take it to the cursed
flame –’

‘But when I touched the flame last time, it paralysed me.’

He felt in his pockets. ‘Hold the shard in this.’ He handed
her a coil of fine wire.

She quickly formed a loop in one end and put the coil in her
pocket, again reliving how close she’d come to being skinned alive by Phrune.
Her stomach muscles tightened. He was dead, thankfully.

Colm fashioned a rope harness around her middle, avoiding
her eyes and being careful not to touch her, as if she were tainted. He checked
the knots and tied the other end of the rope around himself.

‘We’ll lower you until you’re directly above the slab,’ said
Flydd. ‘You won’t need to set foot on the floor. Give three jerks on the rope
once you’re in place, then two and two more when you want to be hauled up
again.’

‘What if there are guards?’

‘Give the second signal before they see you. We’ll pull you
up and try again later.’

Going down and up once would be bad enough. She couldn’t
bear to do it twice.