The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (77 page)

And then there was Nish, slumped against the side wall.
Maelys had once looked up to him as the Deliverer, the one man who could
overthrow the tyrant God-Emperor, break his cruel grip on the world and relieve
the suffering of Santhenar’s downtrodden people. Nish had made that promise and
all Santhenar looked to him to keep it, but he never would. Ten years in
Mazurhize had broken him; he wasn’t a shadow of the hero he’d once been.

Jal-Nish, secure in the power of his Profane Tear, Reaper,
stood nonchalantly on the sill of the cave, at the brink of the
thousand-span-high precipice of Mistmurk Mountain, gazing out. The twin bands
of his platinum half-mask circled the back of his head, one high, the other
low, and his good hand fondled the sorcerous quicksilver tear that hung from a
chain about his neck. And well he might, for Reaper and its absent twin,
Gatherer, gave him the power to control the world.

His sky palace ground its way towards them on the
thigh-thick cables anchoring it to the plateau. In a few minutes it would be
within reach; his Imperial Guard would come down the gangplank and all hope
would be lost.

Maelys’s stomach knotted at the thought of what Jal-Nish’s
torturers would do to her little sister, a slender, pretty, blonde-haired girl
of nine – no, she would be ten now. Fyllis wasn’t clever, but she
possessed a gift that had saved her family several times, when the
God-Emperor’s scriers had come searching ruined Nifferlin Manor armed with
uncanny spying devices. Jal-Nish wanted to eradicate all stray gifts for the
Secret Art, and did not hesitate to kill children to ensure that he succeeded.

Her jaw was clenched so tight that her teeth hurt. A stray
breeze swirled through the entrance, icing the sweat on her brow. She must save
her family, whatever it took, or die trying. No, she could not die. Failure was
unthinkable; she couldn’t give up, even if everyone else had, but how was
she
to defeat the most powerful man in
the world?

Jal-Nish had deliberately turned his back to show his utter
contempt for them, and drive home their helplessness. And she was helpless, for
Maelys was a small, demure woman, only nineteen, with no training in the
warrior’s arts. Moreover, she’d been brought up to be truthful, polite, gentle
and respectful, and her stern aunts had taught her obedience with a leather
strap. How could she hope to match wits with this cunning and merciless man; to
defy his authority over them all?

She had to find a way. Jal-Nish wasn’t as powerful as the
world believed him to be, yet he had easily overcome everyone in this cavern.
Nonetheless, he had a secret fear that someone would find the antithesis to his
Profane Tears – the one thing that could nullify their power – and
lead an army to overthrow him. Maelys had foolishly pressured the old, feeble
Flydd to cast that terrible renewal spell upon himself in the hope that he
could help her find the antithesis to the tears, and she had to answer for the
consequences.

Only one person might know if the antithesis existed, and
that was the Numinator, the shadowy figure who had established and controlled
the former Council of Scrutators during the one hundred and fifty year war
against the lyrinx. The Numinator dwelt in the Tower of a Thousand Steps, on
the Island of Noom in the frozen Antarctic wastes, a thousand leagues – a
year’s march – to the south of here. It was an impossible distance in a
world whose every ell was monitored by the God-Emperor’s human, and inhuman,
spies.

The sky palace crept ever closer. It was connected to the
mouth of the cave by a long but narrow metal plank which swayed and flexed in
the ferocious updraught rushing up the sides of the plateau. Jal-Nish watched
the approach, not bothering to check on his prisoners. What if she ran and
thrust him over the cliff? Any normal man would be smashed to pulp at the
bottom, but Jal-Nish was not a normal man; she felt sure he could save himself
with Reaper. Besides, she was no murderer; it wasn’t in her to kill a man from
behind, not even him.

She knew he dreaded that everything he’d done would be
undone once he grew old and died. He sought immortality with the tears, yet
feared that he would never find it. But Maelys did not know how to exploit that
weakness, either.

So much for his fears; what about his hopes? Family was
everything to Jal-Nish, though his wife had repudiated him many years ago,
after a lyrinx’s claws turned him into a monstrosity. His daughter and three
older sons had died without issue and he had no living relatives apart from
Nish, who had just rejected his father’s offer and all he stood for. Though
Jal-Nish felt desperately alone, he was too proud to ask for his only son’s
help again.

‘Flames,’ slurred Flydd. ‘White, cold flames, burning but
never consuming.’

He had been talking nonsense for ages, always about fire and
darkness. He groaned and slumped back to sit on his heels, threads of vomit and
blood-stained saliva hanging from his open mouth. Jal-Nish’s head shot around,
his fingers working instinctively on the shimmering surface of Reaper, only to
let out a short, barking laugh. Flydd heaved up a black clot onto the dry moss;
Jal-Nish, bouncing on the balls of his feet, resumed his vigil.

‘Darkness aflame,’ choked Flydd. ‘Never the same; forever in
pain; the flame to regain.’ He spat out another clot and began to mumble
incoherently.

And Maelys had helped to do this to him. Guilt-ridden, she
tried to shut out his groans, for the sky palace would be here in a minute.
Family was her only lever and Nish was all the God-Emperor had left –
or was he
? What if she could convince
Jal-Nish otherwise?

Her heart began to thunder. Dare she try? Jal-Nish had been
a scrutator, and possessed all their arts of interrogation and torture; he was
practised at extracting secrets from even the most hardened opponents. He must
be even more skilled now, for Gatherer controlled his wisp-watchers,
loop-listeners, snoop-sniffers and all the other instruments, public and
secret, with which he maintained control over the world. No one could resist
Gatherer, with the possible exception of little Fyllis.

But Gatherer was on his sky palace, and that gave Maelys a
slender chance. Could she pull it off, all alone? She quailed at the thought of
trying, for deceit was foreign to her nature, but she had to, no matter what it
cost her. She knew there would be a cost; she’d discovered that the first time
she’d been forced to act against her principles.

Somewhere below the entrance to the cavern, rock crunched.
Jal-Nish held up his hand and the grinding stopped as the winch cables were
halted. He leaned out, peering down at the gigantic anchor embedded in the
precipice below the cavern, which sounded as if it were tearing free.

‘Slowly,’ he said to Reaper. ‘Take it slowly now.’

The grinding resumed; the sky palace inched closer. Flydd
was raving about wraiths and darkness, and a woman dressed in red, but his eyes
were empty. She began to fear that his old self was lost inside his renewed
body and he was sinking into insanity, but she couldn’t worry about that now.
It was all up to her and she had to do two impossible things: first, find a way
to save her family from Jal-Nish, and second, discover a means of escape.

The glimmerings of a plan came to her, so reckless that it
just might work, though if she were caught he would put her to such agonies
that the chroniclers would still be telling the tale in a thousand years. She
looked away, struggling to curb her panic. How could a shy, bookish country
girl even think to deceive the God-Emperor and his Profane Tears?

She had to find a way. Maelys glanced through the swaying
curtains of moss and lichen that partly closed off the entrance. Jal-Nish was
still looking out. She made up her mind; she would not give up on her family
while she lived. She would do whatever it took, and pay the price later.

Taking a deep breath, conscious that she might not have many
left, she called, ‘Jal-Nish?’ She could not bring herself to use the title
God-Emperor
.

He turned and put his head through the moss curtain,
frowning at her. Maelys’s knees went weak at the thought of what she was about
to do. It couldn’t possibly succeed; he would see through her instantly.

‘Yes?’ he said. The platinum half-mask covered the ruined
left and central parts of his face, including his nose and chin, but left his
right eye, brow and cheek exposed. ‘What do you want, girl?’

Maelys couldn’t bear to look at him, or Nish, who had
previously rejected her so humiliatingly; or least of all, Colm, who she felt
sure was in love with her. She cared for him too, and admired him even more,
since Colm, honourable man that he was, had previously declined to press his
suit at such a difficult time for her. After this, he never would. What she was
about to do would cost her all her friends, and mean the death of any hopes she
held for Colm and herself.

‘I’m pregnant!’ she said hoarsely. ‘By Nish.’

 
TWO

Colm choked. Nish jerked upright. The dead moss rustled
where Flydd knelt, bloody strings swinging from his lips. Even the gentle
giant, Zham, looked shocked.

Maelys couldn’t afford to look any of them in the face. This
meant life or death; nothing else mattered. She kept staring at Jal-Nish, and
his one eye lit up for an instant, enough to give him away. Oh yes, he wanted
what she could bear him – he wanted it more than anything in his empire.
But then his face hardened.

‘Cryl-Nish said, only half an hour ago, that he’s not had
congress with any woman since escaping from Mazurhize. Are you calling my son a
liar?’

‘No,’ Maelys said faintly.

His cheek went purple. ‘If he’s not lying, you must be.’

‘I’m not lying,’ she gasped. This was much harder than she’d
thought; she couldn’t do it.

Jal-Nish turned to Nish. Say nothing, Nish, Maelys prayed.
Leave it to me.

‘Well, Cryl-Nish?’ said his father.

‘I have not had relations with her. As far as I know, Maelys
is a virgin.’ Nish’s jaw clenched and his eyes flicked towards Colm.

No, Maelys prayed. Please don’t say it, Nish. You’ll ruin
everything. If you ever cared about me at all, please keep quiet.

He said thickly, ‘Though
he
may have taken her on the way here – they were close enough when they
arrived.’

Out of the corner of her eye Maelys saw Colm’s look of
outrage. ‘I may be just a humble woodcutter to you, Deliverer, but I’ve behaved
as a gentleman with Maelys, as I have with all women. While you,
surr
, are nothing but scum, no matter
who your father is.’

Jal-Nish’s fingers stroked Reaper, hooked through its
silvery surface and Colm doubled over, gasping for air.

‘Despite his manifest failings,’ he grated, ‘Cryl-Nish is my
only son, and the chosen one. You will treat him with the respect due to his
station.’

Colm collapsed, clawing at the dead moss covering the floor.
Jal-Nish looked away indifferently and spoke to Maelys. ‘Virginity is easily
tested, girl. Think carefully before you say any more, for every untrue word
earns you a deeper excruciation.’

Maelys
had
thought
very carefully, but the story was already spinning out of her control. Besides,
she had always been a modest girl, and in her family people did not talk about
such matters, especially not to strangers; but there was no going back now.

‘You may have me tested,’ she said, flushing at the thought
of it, even at speaking of such an intimate test, ‘and you will discover that I
am a virgin still. Colm does not lie.
He
is a gentleman.’

‘Then you’re a lying slut,’ spat Jal-Nish. ‘You’ve proven it
out of your own mouth.’

The sky palace loomed into view, its white stone sails
shining in a fleeting ray of sunlight. He stopped it with a backwards gesture.

‘I’m neither a liar nor a slut.’ Maelys felt her cheeks
going even redder. ‘I
am
pregnant, to
Nish.’

‘Why do you insist on this vicious falsehood?’ Jal-Nish’s
flesh-formed hand gripped a rock at the entrance, crushing it to dust. ‘Faugh!
I’ve had enough of this.’ He turned to step out onto the plank and Maelys could
not think how to stop him.

‘There is – a way,’ Flydd said hoarsely from the
floor. ‘We both know – it can be done, Jal-Nish.’

Jal-Nish spun on his boot heel on the swaying plank, strode
back to Maelys and lifted her by the front of her shirt, staring into her eyes.
She forced herself to meet his one eye, and again she saw that fleeting spark
of hope in it.

‘Well, girl?’ he said, letting her down again. ‘I have to
know. And you must understand that, once I have Gatherer in my hands again, I
can sort truth from falsehood in an instant.’

Yet you want this grandchild so desperately you can’t bear
to wait until the sky palace arrives. It was his weakness and her opportunity,
though only if she could capitalise on it once she’d told her story, and Maelys
still hadn’t thought of a way to do that.

‘Your son is a passionate man,’ she said, ‘a lusty man who
had been deprived for ten years.’

‘I know my son,’ he said thickly. ‘I was like that myself,
before the tears raised me above such animal appetites. Get on with it.’

The cavern was perfectly still; there was no sound apart
from the swishing of the moss curtain in the wind and the creaking of the
monstrous mooring cables as the sky palace moved in the updraughts.

‘I nursed Nish after he was wounded leading the Defiance in
their victory over your army,’ said Maelys. So far, so good, but she hadn’t
begun the real lie yet. Her eyes met Nish’s, and it looked as though he was
trying to say something, but she couldn’t tell what.

‘It was no victory at all,’ sneered Jal-Nish. ‘I was
directing my troops via Gatherer. I let him win.’