Vengeance

CHAPTER 98

Though she bedded down in front of the heatstone, Tali ached from the cold that night. But even had she been warm, even had the shearing pains in her head not been worse than ever, she would not have been able to sleep.

Rix, sitting as unyielding as a set square by the left-hand end of the heatstone, never took his eyes off her. Had she done the right thing? She could not tell. He knew she had put Tobry up to it and his silence was an accusation — three times I risked my life for you, and when I most needed your understanding you turned on me.

It wasn’t the only thing between them. Rix had not betrayed his mother, because Tali had already informed the chancellor of Lady Ricinus’s treason. But she could not find the words to make this confession. Or perhaps she lacked Rix’s courage.

Tobry lay on his back with his eyes closed, so rigidly that she knew he was awake. He had avoided her eye since the incident on the stairs. How long had he loved her? Thinking back, Tali suspected it was from the moment he first set eyes on her at the oasis.

And what about herself? She cared for him as a friend, yet until her quest was fulfilled and justice done she could not allow any man to be more than a friend. Even so, that magical night at the ball, when she had spent two hours in his arms, still made her glow inside.

She shook off the memories. Glynnie and Benn were curled up together on one of the couches, bathed in the light from the heatstone, sleeping soundly. Their faith in their lord was absolute.

Rannilt’s pulse was barely there now. She was slipping away and there was nothing anyone could do. Fretfully, Tali whipped the iron pages of The Consolation of Vengeance back and forth. What else was the book apart from a call to action? A philosophical work, or a manual for revenge?

From Wil, she knew it was the latest of a set of books called the Solaces. Lyf had made them and, via some incomprehensible magery, transmitted perfect copies to the Matriarchs in Cython, page by page, over hundreds of years. The Solaces told the matriarchs what to do, Wil had said, but what did this book say, and how could she find out? Might the book be translated with magery? Why did it smell faintly of alkoyl? What was alkoyl, anyway?

Why were there never any answers? She flipped the iron page, a ragged edge tore her finger and a speck of blood fell on the bottom of the book. As she was wiping it off the etched glyphs seemed to blur into words, though when she rubbed her weary eyes and looked again she saw only glyphs, as unreadable as ever.

The book was densely clotted with magery — she could tell without resorting to the spectible. What was the magery for? She turned the last, blank leaf. Who was supposed to write the ending? Lyf, or the Matriarchs?

Tali fantasised about writing it herself, turning his plan back on him and his vengeance into her just retribution. Why not? She was the one, after all. But before she could write it, she must discover how to read it. And then she would need alkoyl to etch her words into the iron.

Beside her, Rannilt jerked, stiffened and cried out. Tali dismissed the fantasy and sat up, the covers falling around her and the book hitting her knee with a painful thump.

The child’s eyes opened wide and she said in a little, awed voice, ‘He’s coming!’

Her eyes closed, then her mouth opened and a tiny bubble of golden light was pulled out of her, trailing threads like a bandage torn from a healing wound. The bubble spiralled upwards and vanished, but another followed it, then another.

Tali was stroking Rannilt’s brow when the ragged, three-note sequence went off in her head, di-DA-doh, though this time the calls were close and seemed to come from three different directions. Had Deroe separated the pearls so he could triangulate the location of the master pearl?

‘What’s the matter?’ Tobry, beyond the far end of the heatstone, and not illuminated by it, was only an outline in the dim salon.

‘Lyf’s on his way,’ said Tali. ‘Deroe too. Whoever gets the master pearl first can control the others and take all. What do we do?’

‘We wait.’

Trapped in the palace in a besieged city, she had no way to escape either hunter. But was there a way to use them against each other? She glanced across at Rix, who was still sitting upright, eyes closed. As much by the lack of tension in his face as by the rise and fall of his chest, she knew he slept at last.

‘What if I were to lure Deroe into the cellar?’ she whispered to Tobry.

He did not look at her. ‘Lyf’s been trying to trap Deroe for years, and he’s never succeeded.’ The implication was that she had no hope.

‘But until now, Lyf’s had no body and hardly any power. And he’s been bound to the caverns. The only place he could go from there is to the cellar. Besides, I’ve thought of a plan Lyf could never use.’

‘Go on,’ he said dubiously.

‘Deroe must be a very old man, yet when I heard his thoughts the other day, he sounded like a whining boy — as though his emotions were frozen at the moment Lyf possessed him. And I think he’s desperately lonely. No one likes him, no one cares for him, yet that’s what he yearns for. If I listen to his troubles and pretend to care, I might discover how he uses the pearls and command his three with my own. Then, when Lyf comes, I might be able to take control of his as well — ’

‘That’s a lot of mights,’ said Tobry.

‘I can’t think of any other way to save Rannilt. Or Caulderon.’

Rix let out a muffled gasp. His eyes were flicking back and forth beneath their lids as if he was having another nightmare. Since his house had already fallen it must be the other nightmare — the one he had painted, the future he had divined, where Lyf told him to go down and cut it out of her, and Rix obeyed.

Tali pulled her blankets up around her throat and chafed her aching hands. How could Lyf, who had not been able to leave his caverns, get to Rix from so far away? There was no spell or magery on him, nor any enchanted object nearby through which Lyf could have worked the compulsion. She had checked him with the spectible and Rix was — as Tobry had often joked — as lacking in magery as a log of wood. She had also checked his chambers and found no trance of an enchantment.

So how was Lyf sending the nightmares to him?