Vengeance

CHAPTER 30

Something was very wrong. The scheme the wrythen had fed, nurtured, honed and tweaked for so many centuries, his plan that was in the last but one stage of completion, was sliding off track like a wagon on wet clay. And if the plan failed, all failed, for he had invested everything in it.

The last nuclix — the fifth — was the master, and once he held it his power would rise a thousandfold. He might even get his long-lost body back, might live again rather than merely existing. Everything rested on the master nuclix now. If he lost it, if even the least of Cython’s enemies obtained it, the plan would fail so utterly that it would be better never to have begun it. His people would be driven from their underground refuge and expunged.

He had tried to anticipate every problem and find a solution. Deroe might attempt to break free and add the master nuclix to the others he had stolen, but the wrythen had a plan to stop him and get them back. The Hightspallers who had cut out the other nuclixes might try to take the fifth for themselves, and ruin it. Or sell it to one of their own. He had schemes for those eventualities too.

Of all possible failures, it had not occurred to the wrythen that his one faithful servant might be outwitted by the miserable slave girl who was the host. The Pale were half-starved, illiterate and contemptible, a beaten race from which all those manifesting the gift for magery had been culled long ago.

The girl hosting the master nuclix should have been as cowed as the others — she should have gone blindly to her doom. Why, then, was the wrythen’s blue signal ovoid shrieking out a warning of imminent betrayal?

He shot towards it and, as he touched the ovoid, saw his servant outside Cython’s sunstone shaft, fifteen miles away. The man was raising his own ovoid to his forehead, crying, ‘Master? Help me, Master.’

Then he smashed it there -

The shockwave of its destruction split the wrythen’s ovoid and tore him to fluttering wisps. His disembodied consciousness did not try to pull himself together — there wasn’t time.

It should not have been possible, but he forced himself along the link formed between the two ovoids, settled into his servant’s addled mind then cut through the hallucinations to look out from his eyes.

And the wrythen’s distant heart-plasm stopped.

The host girl was a slip of a thing, barely out of childhood. She should have had no gift, yet it burnt in her so brightly that he could see the flares wavering all around her. And she was clever, too. Without using her gift, she had beaten his servant. Unease fluttered within him — who was she?

‘Tell me the name!’ she hissed to his servant.

And his servant, all restraint destroyed by the hallucinogenic toadstool, tried to answer. ‘Master — is … is — ’

The wrythen’s name could not be revealed. Though it would throw his plan into utter disarray, he had no choice but to burn through his faithful servant’s brain.

Ah, how it hurt, even worse than the cursed sword. It felt as though a hole had been burnt through the wrythen’s own head from front to back. There were hot needles in his eyes and his vision went redly in and out of focus as though blood was running down his servant’s eyeballs. The slave girl was staring at his servant in horror, her small hands beating the air.

With a supreme effort, the wrythen took command of his smouldering consciousness. Think! Several of his people had gathered by the shaft doors and would soon come after the girl. He could not allow them to catch her — if they killed her, the master nuclix would be ruined and his plans set back by decades. But if they discovered the nuclix and kept her alive until they cut it out and used it, his plan would fail utterly and, in the end, Cython would be destroyed.

His servant’s vision was fading, the man’s tongue flopping uncontrollably from his mouth. The wrythen had to act quickly. His people had to be kept back, no matter the price. He raised his servant’s twitching right arm, reached towards the arched roof over the shaft and directed all the power that remained in him at the keystones.

Stone grated on stone. The bones of the earth groaned and there came a dull rumble as part of the shaft house collapsed, crushing the guards inside, his own people whom he had dedicated his life to protecting.

Look what I have become, he thought bitterly as his consciousness was hurled back to his home cavern. But the girl — what a magnificent creature she was. The fire in her almost equalled his own. A tragedy that one so gifted had to die.

He dragged himself up to the ancestor gallery to confess his folly. His long-dead nerves should not have been capable of feeling pain, yet pain throbbed through each phantom limb and digit.

I have made terrible blunders, he said to the massed faces, and the wrythen bent his head to them. Yesterday I sent the facinore -

You made afacinore? cried Rovena the Wise, her voice shivering. What if it breaks free and turns on our people?

It won’t, the wrythen said uncomfortably.

You can never tell with them. Never!

You sent it where? said Bloody Herrie.

To the matriarchs, ordering them to make war on Hightspall. The first attack will come tonight and I have no means of calling them back.

Send the caitsthe.

It was a long time before the wrythen spoke. Rixium killed it.

You boasted that no man could kill a caitsthe.

I was wrong.

He also hurt you grievously. With that sword, he’s a formidable foe.

He will die.

What else have you done? said Bloody Herrie, icily.

The host girl got out through the sunstone shaft, outwitted my servant and almost forced him to reveal my identity. I had to burn through his brain, and now she will escape into Hightspall, bearing the master nuclix within her. If the enemy realises -

They will cut the nuclix from her and use it to control the others, including your own, said Ruris.

Their failing magery will be rejuvenated, said the wrythen. It will take on the power of the land itself and tip the balance against us. To the ruin of all.

The matriarchs’ soldiers will find her, said Ruris.

They must not take her, cried the wrythen. If our people find the master nuclix, it will be worse than the enemy getting it.

You said the Pale were sad, cowed creatures, said Bloody Herrie. You said all their magery was gone. How did this girl come to be so strong, so bold?

I don’t know.

What will she do next?

I cannot say …

But you’re afraid.

He did not reply. He wanted to plunge through the floor.

Order the matriarchs to take the girl, but leave her untouched for you, said Rovena.

I have no way to contact them.

Then write another page to the Solaces and transmit it.

I have no alkoyl.

The ghostly ancestors consulted among themselves, then Bloody Herrie said, Can you take command of Rixium?

Not until he’s near the heatstone in his own chambers, said the wrythen.

What about his spell-casting friend, Tobry? You went close to possessing him, did you not?

I … might be able to reach him, though he will be difficult to control.

Do it. Have him find the girl and bring her here.

The master nuclix may not be brought here in a host who has the gift of magery.

A tiny gift, surely. Untutored, unpractised -

Nuclixes call to each other, said the wrythen. The master nuclix might attempt to command the one I hold, and the girl’s magery could be so different to my own that I might not be able to stop it. There is only one safe way. The girl must be taken to the cellar — our healing temple of olden times — and the nuclix cut from her by a Hightspaller under my command. One who lacks even a whisper of magery.

It will not be easy to get her there through a land at war, said Ruris.

You must. If you fail, all fails, said Bloody Herrie.