Vengeance

CHAPTER 25

The sunstone did not fall.

The weight was crushing Tali against the rail, preventing her from drawing breath. She shook herself frantically, trying to dislodge the stone. The guards were only one flight above her and could reach her in a leap. She had to get rid of it now.

She gave an almighty heave. The sunstone slid from its pouch, rasped across the back of her head and fell.

When the weight left her back an even heavier weight slipped from her heart. She watched it plummet towards Tinyhead and, momentarily, all her cares were gone. The enemy would kill her but at least she had ended her mother’s betrayer.

Then the blue stone around Tinyhead’s neck emitted an angry blink of light and he moved so fast she lost sight of him.

‘Look out!’ yelled the guard above. She heard him scrambling up again, desperate to get to the outside door.

‘Get down!’ shrieked another guard. ‘Cover yourselves.’

Used to obeying instantly, Tali scrunched herself up against the wall of the landing and yanked the leather pouch over her as the sunstone hit the steps far below and smashed. There came an immense flash, so bright that she could see it through the leather, and white rays seared up the shaft. It was as bad as the time the pyrites calciner had exploded, punching a hole through a small floatillery and scalding twenty slaves to death with superheated steam, save that this cataclysm took place in silence empty as a vacuum.

Her head throbbed and a single, pure note sounded in her inner ear, like the highest note of a clarinet. She did not want it to stop, she yearned for it as much as any Pale had ever yearned for Hightspall, but it died away in a little upturn, like an unanswered question.

In the silence that followed, the bracelet burned around her ankle as if all those pointed spikes had turned red-hot, then tinkled and fell off. Her slave mark turned to ice embedded under the skin.

The shaft shook so violently that Tali’s head cracked against the wall. Scalding reds and yellows whirled and tumbled, then pain screamed through her skull as it had the night before last, when she had come of age. Shattered rock hammered at the underside of the landing, glancing off the rails and skidding up along the walls. A whirlwind of dusty air carried the pungency of overheated stone and the stench of burning flesh. She scrunched against the wall, sure she was going to die. Gravel rained onto the leather pouch, pressing it against her, and it was burning hot.

Finally it ended and the eerie silence resumed. She heard no shouts, no cries of pain, no sound at all. She shoved the pouch off and the thick leather was deeply charred on the outside, though not as charred as she would have been without it. So that’s why the slaves were so afraid of dropping a sunstone, why the edges of the steps had been glassy, why the stone at the bottom was soot-stained. A churning power lay at each sunstone’s core and, when liberated, it was deadly.

As she stood up on shaky knees, a long object, black and smoking and trailing a burnt meat stench, fell past and smashed below her. She caught at the rail. Her head felt so peculiar, hot and bruised, that it was a struggle to focus, but she had to make sure of Tinyhead. She could not see him. Surely he must be dead.

It was her chance to escape, though she would have to be quick — the cataclysm would bring armed troops running from all directions, thinking Cython was under attack. If she could slip by the guards stationed outside, she might get away.

She hesitated. After the sunstone implosion, and Tinyhead’s rib-shattering blow, could Mimoy still be alive? Tali could not see the base of the shaft for dust. There was no way to tell without going down, nor any time to do so. And the wicked old woman had planned to use Tali — only a fool would risk everything to check on her. In Cython it was every slave for herself.

But the Pale had been slaves for the past thousand years because the enemy had pitted them against each other, and they could only survive the coming war by working together. What’s more, Mimoy had been struck down trying to help. Tali, imagining what it must have cost the old woman hobbling all this way on her ruined feet, could not abandon her.

Her head throbbed and a series of coloured patterns drifted through her inner eye, as if she were looking ever deeper into a maze of brightly coloured loops and whorls that were continuously expanding around her. Tali shook herself and the colours faded, though now she felt a tight fullness in her head, a build-up of pressure that longed for release. She squeezed her head between her palms and the pressure eased, though it did not entirely disappear.

Covering her nose, she felt her way down the gravel-littered steps. On nearing the bottom, she put her hand down on something that crunched and crumbled — her hand had broken through into a chest turned to charcoal. Tali gasped and sprang aside, shaking off sticky red char and shuddering violently. Tinyhead? No, the body wasn’t big enough.

In her brief life she had seen more than enough dead people: many killed in ghastly work accidents; a few, like Mia, executed by the guards; suicides hanging in their cells or twisted in convulsions from eating Sprite Caps; an occasional woman killed in a fight over a man; her mother murdered in the cellar. But she never got used to it. Only minutes ago this object had been a living, breathing guard. Her enemy, and yet a man, and she had done this to him.

She had not intended to harm anyone save Tinyhead but, she rationalised, the Cythonians would kill her without a qualm. To survive, save her country and punish her mother’s killers she must be prepared to kill them.

She did not have to like it, though.

Grains of bloody charcoal clung to her fingers. She wiped them on her robes, scrubbed her fingers with the coarse cloth, and continued down. There was no sign of Tinyhead and she dared to hope, if he had taken the full force of the sunstone implosion, that it had burned him to ash.

Tali put her head through the archway. The visibility was better beyond the shaft and she saw all six guards scattered around the loading station, unburnt but unconscious. There was no sign of the slaves, who must have stampeded back towards the Empound. Why hadn’t they been knocked out? Why hadn’t she? And how long before the guards came to?

‘Mimoy?’ she said urgently.

Tinyhead’s blow had driven the old woman diagonally through the archway, which had sheltered her from the blast, though she lay like a heap of bones, twisted toes hooked, fingers locked around her cane. The only colour on her was the blood on her shrunken lips. She looked like a bald, dead crow, save for her eyes, which were open, glinting.

As Tali bent over the old woman, a ray of golden-yellow light lit the wall above her head, reflecting off something in the defence maze. Lantern light from Banj’s runners? No, the light was the wrong colour, too warm.

‘What — you do?’ Mimoy cawed.

‘Tried to kill Tinyhead with my sunstone … but it imploded. They’re coming. We’ve got to go.’

The old woman’s mouth stretched into a grin, or a grimace. ‘Take me home to die.’

‘All right.’ Tali took a deep breath. She almost did not speak, for it felt wrong to bargain at a time like this, but she had to know. ‘And in return, you’ll tell me who killed my mother.’

Tali could not tell whether the glister in the crow eyes was fury or glee. ‘Once you’ve dug my grave.’

Tali did not know what to say to that. She nodded stiffly.

Though Mimoy weighed no more than an armload of sticks, it hurt to lift her. Tali was at the entrance to the shaft when another golden ray caressed her cheek and she heard a faint, wrenching groan. She turned back towards the maze.

‘What are you doing?’ grated Mimoy.

‘Someone’s hurt. It sounds like a child.’

‘Stupid girl! It’s a trap. Take me up, I must die in Hightspall.’

Doing otherwise was madness, but Tali could not turn away from a child in pain. Ignoring Mimoy’s raucous protests, then a series of stinging blows from the cane, she limped through the maze. The light was reflecting from the polished clangours, the golden flashes growing brighter the further she went, and shortly Tali saw a slave girl lying on the floor at the far end of the maze, convulsing. It was Rannilt, the water carrier.

‘What’s the matter with her?’ whispered Tali.

Rannilt’s head snapped backwards, her back arched, she groaned, then light fountained from her eyes, mouth, ears, nostrils and fingertips. A clean, beautiful light, so soft and warm that as it fell on Tali’s face it was like being stroked with golden feathers.

‘Sunstone woke a gift she never knew she had.’ The old woman’s voice was stronger now, and Mimoy dug her splintered nails into Tali’s left ear. ‘Go! She’s not worth a turd in a teacup.’

Suppressing an urge to slap the vile old woman, Tali prised Mimoy’s nails out, set her down and crouched beside the slave girl.

‘Rannilt,’ she whispered, ‘you’ve got to stop the light.’

The girl’s eyes fluttered and the light brightened until it was dazzling. Tali checked up the dark tunnel, her stomach fluttering. The enemy must be close by now. They would see the light hundreds of yards away but Tali would not see them. What was she supposed to do? The fullness in her head was growing ever tighter. She could hardly think for it.

‘Brat can’t control it,’ said Mimoy. ‘Leave her.’

‘But when the enemy sees she’s got the gift, they’ll kill her.’

‘Are you weak, like your mother?’

‘She wasn’t weak,’ Tali hissed. ‘She was brave and kind.’

‘Aren’t you bitter that she left you an orphan? That she failed to teach you magery? That she left you to the mercy of Tinyhead?’

‘She loved me. She gave everything for me.’

‘She taught you nothing,’ Mimoy spat, ‘then abandoned you.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Tali lifted the girl to a sitting position. ‘Well, I’m not abandoning Rannilt.’

‘They kill Pale every day, and we’ll be next if you don’t get moving. Carry me up!’

Rannilt’s huge eyes fixed on Tali. The girl smiled and gave a little sigh and snuggled up to her, as if to say, I’m safe now.

When they had first met, Rannilt had said, with such childlike, wistful hope, you could be my new mother. Tali’s eyes misted. She checked down the tunnel, her toes clenching. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t carry them both.

Mimoy whacked Tali around the ankles with her cane. ‘The little scutter’s worthless. Take-me-up!’

Distantly, someone swore in the guttural Cythonian tongue. Tali jumped.

Mimoy gave her another whack. ‘They’re coming.’

Tali looked down at Rannilt’s bruised legs, the knees covered in scabs, and her heart went out to the skinny little girl. Though taking her would surely lead to disaster, she could not leave her behind to be killed like a cockroach. But how could she abandon the old woman to a worse fate?

‘Chuck her away,’ hissed Mimoy, delivering a hail of blows to Tali’s backside and right hip, from the floor.

‘If you’re strong enough to beat me, you’re strong enough to walk up by yourself,’ Tali snapped, for the blows were hard enough to bruise.

‘I’ve got five broken ribs, you little bitch.’

‘They don’t seem to be hindering you.’ The vicious old cow had probably healed them already. Tali picked Rannilt up. ‘Put your arms around my neck.’

With another sigh, the girl cuddled against Tali. She was shorter than Mimoy, but heavier. Mimoy dealt Tali another ferocious blow to the buttocks then levered herself to her feet and her cane rap-tapped away.

A set of robes lay on the floor. Tali, remembering her mother’s warnings about sunburn, wrapped them around the girl. Rannilt convulsed and more golden light burst from her, so brightly that it illuminated a group of creeping figures a hundred yards down the tunnel.

‘Enemy,’ Rannilt moaned, clinging so tightly that her arm was cutting off Tali’s air. ‘Coming to kill us.’

‘Foul, forbidden magery!’ a guard bellowed. ‘Stop them.’

Tali lurched through the maze, knowing she couldn’t possibly beat the Cythonians up the shaft while carrying Rannilt. Why had she wasted so much time?

As she climbed the first step, she realised how weak she was — the strength Mimoy’s earlier spell had given her was gone and she ached from the base of her skull to the soles of her feet. There was no sign of the guards who had been up above, and she dared to hope that they had also been knocked out. If they were waiting outside — no, one thing at a time. Just get to the top.

Mimoy was halfway up, her cane flashing. Despite her twisted feet and broken ribs she was moving faster than Tali.

‘You all right, Rannilt?’ Tali gasped. ‘Can’t carry you much further.’

The girl jerked. Again the golden light poured from her and she made a rasping noise in her throat. Tali forced against the bone-ache, crunched across a rubble-littered landing and up the next set of steps.

The pressure in her head was building; once more those coloured patterns whorled and looped their way across her inner eye, confusing her. Her foot missed the next step and she stumbled and nearly dropped the girl. The enemy was close behind. Their lantern beams were shining through the archway and Tali could hear them speaking in low voices.

Why hadn’t they come through? They must be checking the guards at the loading station, trying to work out what had happened here and wondering how someone could have knocked them all out without leaving a mark, probably fearing it had been done with magery. Their fear was her friend. How could she use it against them? She had to have her gift, and the wilder and more dangerous the better.

‘Mimoy?’ Tali called. ‘Wait, I need — ’

‘You chose that worthless brat over me,’ Mimoy spat. ‘Beg her for aid.’

‘I’m sorry. Please, help me with …’ she was too indoctrinated to say it aloud. The best she could do was whisper, ‘ … my magery.’

‘Don’t need you any more.’ Mimoy tossed her head, her white hair floating up like strands of silk, and continued.

A handful of Cythonians edged through the archway into the shaft and stood there, gaping at the smashed steps, the rubble, the greasy charcoal that had once been a man. Tali had six flights to go and if she had to lug Rannilt all the way she would never make it.

Then they looked up and saw the golden light dribbling from Rannilt’s dangling hand.

‘Aieee!’ a woman cried. It was Orlyk, her face still grey-pink and bloated from the puffball spores. From a belt pouch she withdrew a crimson, chymical death-lash. Yellow bands circled each end. It was a foot long and as thick through as her pudgy thumb. ‘Forbidden magery. The Pale filth spit in Khirrik-ai’s face. Kill them — ’

A man cut her off, pushed to the front and Tali recognised the compact, muscular figure of Overseer Banj. She was not surprised to see him. It was his responsibility to find any slave from the grottoes who ran.

At heart he was a kindly man, to those who obeyed the rules, and Tali had always felt that he liked her. But Banj was not a thinker and, as Mia’s death had shown, he was quick to enforce Cython’s rigid rules at need. He could show an escaping slave no mercy. And perhaps he was doing the matriarchs’ work for them. Tali was going to die without ever knowing why she was the one.

‘Slave,’ he said to Tali in the voice that every Pale was conditioned to obeying instantly. ‘Come down.’