Vengeance

CHAPTER 38

‘Are you all right?’ said Rannilt, creeping up beside Tali.

She sat by the water, shivering. She could not stop remembering now.

The skull-shaped cellar that had stunk of poisoned rats. Her mama darting and weaving as she tried to lead the hunters away from her little daughter. The masked woman so cold and cruel. The tall, round-bellied man, afraid to stand up to her. The shiny knife, the nail sticking deep into Tali’s hip, the woman standing on Mama’s chest as though she were rubbish and her frail ribs snapping like wishbones.

Tali jumped up, caught sight of her reflection in the still pool, and cried, ‘Mama!’

‘Tali?’ said Rannilt anxiously.

Tali could not look away. There were no mirrors in the Empound and she had never seen her face clearly before, but it could have been Iusia looking up at her. She studied every detail, tears stinging in her eyes as she remembered all the good times. Despite their slavery, she had always felt safe before Iusia had been killed.

She dashed the tears away and rage surged so furiously that her jaw clicked. How dare they treat her mama that way? She had never done anything to hurt them. How they were going to pay.

But first she had to find the killers and Rix was the best lead she had. Why had he been in the cellar anyway? Tobry had said that Rix was not a bad man, but had he, even as a boy, been part of the crime? Tali could not believe that of any child … yet she had a faded memory of blood on his hands.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Rannilt.

Tali shuddered and pulled the coarse robes around her, struggling to think. Her plan had collapsed. She had assumed that, as the first Pale ever to escape from Cython, she would be welcomed home as a hero. In reality, the Pale were despised as traitors. And there was no House vi Torgrist to help her. She had no one in the world save this grubby little urchin staring at her so anxiously.

Tali forced a smile. ‘When I looked at my reflection in the water, for a minute I thought it was my mother. Don’t fret, I’m all right now.’

‘She must have been very beautiful.’ Rannilt twined her arms around Tali, sighing and snuggling.

‘Yes, she was,’ Tali said absently.

‘Why was that big man so nasty? How could anyone not like you?’

Tali gave her a hug. Why did Rix hold the Pale in such contempt? Did he blame them for not escaping from their masters? It was like a sick joke, save that Rix believed every word he had said. The woman in the cellar had called Iusia Pale scum, and if everyone in Hightspall thought that way, Tali and Rannilt would be in more danger in their homeland than they had been in Cython. What could she do? How could she go on when everything she believed in was regarded as a lie?

Someone had been lied to, but she did not think it had been the Pale. They had definitely been taken to Cython a thousand years ago as child hostages, for she had often heard the Cythonians laugh about it. And she did not think the Pale had made up the story about being noble. Therefore, Hightspall’s view of the Pale was wrong — wickedly so.

‘Your slave’s mark is better than mine,’ said Rannilt.

‘Nonsense, child,’ said Tali.

It was true, though. Rannilt’s mark was just a squiggle burnt into her shoulder, while Tali’s was an elegant pattern of lines and swirls, identical to her family seal and as beautiful as it was old.

She ran a finger around it. To the Cythonians, the slave mark had been a sign of eternal bondage. To Rix it was the mark of treachery and collaboration — it raised feelings so powerful that he had thrown up at the sight of it. But to her it would always be the symbol of House vi Torgrist, one of the oldest of the noble houses, and of vi Torgrist’s strength, longevity and steadfastness. It was also a symbol of hope — that she could succeed despite the opposition of both her enemies and her own people.

Tali pressed the seal against her arm, leaving a white impression there. It made her feel better so she made a series of marks down her arm. She was the last of her line and the heir to House vi Torgrist, therefore, her house wasn’t extinct. It was up to her to raise it again. After she had gained justice for Mama, Grandmama, Great-Grandmama and Great-Great-Grandmama, that’s what she was going to do.

Despite Rix’s threat, and the foul things he had said about her, she had to find a way to get the truth out of him. And she had better hurry; night was bound to bring the enemy.

Her thoughts turned to Tobry, who had magery in his pocket and might be able to help her uncover her own. Tobry had been kind to her, and clearly he did not despise the Pale — another positive. Her world was beginning to tilt back.

Tali tried to rise but could not move. ‘Help me up, Rannilt. My muscles have locked.’

As the girl heaved her to her feet, every bone and sinew protested. Tali hobbled around the pool like old Mimoy until her muscles came back to life.

‘Where are we goin’?’ said Rannilt.

‘After Rix and Tobry.’

‘But he was so mean to you.’

‘Not as mean as the enemy will be.’

‘If he does it again, he’ll be really sorry.’

The girl’s fierce loyalty warmed Tali more than she could have imagined. A third positive. ‘Yes, we’ll fix him.’

She drank from the pool, bathed her hot face and told herself that the open spaces could not harm her. It was a silly, irrational phobia and she was going to overcome it. She wove grass into a band and tied the hat brim down to her eyebrows. Her legs and back ached down to the bones, but pain was a slave’s lot and she had learned to endure it.

‘I’m a really hard worker,’ said Rannilt. She was plodding along, exhausted and trying to hide it. They had been following Rix’s tracks for hours.

There was no sign of anyone in the scorched lands. It was late afternoon now, at most an hour of daylight left. Tali walked faster. The Seethings was no place to navigate after dark.

Her head was aching again. She kept seeing the swirling lights and coloured patterns, and twice more she heard that distant note in her inner ear, pealing like an unanswered question. She had first heard it as the sunstone imploded and had associated it with freedom and liberation. Now it sounded angry.

‘I can wash clothes and carry water,’ said Rannilt. ‘And when I clean fish, I don’t leave a speck of meat on the bones.’

The girl had been nattering about her accomplishments for ages. ‘I’m sure you’re really good.’

‘I know how to massage achin’ muscles,’ Rannilt said shrilly. ‘I’m really quiet, too. You hardly know I’m there.’

A pointed suggestion was on the tip of Tali’s tongue when she realised what was behind it. She stopped abruptly.

‘Is somethin’ the matter?’ Rannilt cried, and began to bite a bloody knuckle.

‘Rannilt, I can’t be your mother. But I’m not going to turn you away either.’

‘You’re not?’ cried the girl, throwing her arms around Tali and bursting into tears.

‘Of course not. We’re going to stay together. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’

‘And I’m goin’ to look after you.’

Rannilt looked up, eyes shining and nostrils running rivers. She burrowed her face into Tali’s chest, inadvertently wiping her nose on the silk gown, then went skipping off.

Tali looked down at the claggy smears and sighed. How was she supposed to look after the child when she didn’t know how to look after herself? She looked up and the sky overturned. She wrenched on the hat brim.

‘I wish the sun would go down.’ Sunset had better take the phobia with it.

‘I don’t.’ Rannilt shuddered.

‘Why not?’

‘Things live in the dark. Things come out of the dark.’

‘Nonsense, child. That’s just an irrational — ’ Tali broke off. They weren’t so different — they just feared different things. ‘What sort of things?’

‘I can feel somethin’ bad. Really bad, waitin’ for the dark.’

It didn’t help Tali’s own frame of mind. ‘I’m sure we’ll find Tobry and Rix before then.’

Several weary minutes passed. ‘Why do you keep doin’ that?’ said Rannilt.

‘What?’

‘Tracin’ your slave mark.’

Tali had not realised that she was doing it. ‘When I’ve got a problem, sometimes it seems to help …’ Should she tell Rannilt? It would be wrong to shield her. ‘I keep hearing an angry note in my head and I’m worried the enemy are using it to track me. I don’t think they’re far behind.’

She glanced over her shoulder. If the Cythonians were closing in, they were concealed by the mirages that shimmered and danced in every direction.

‘Why don’t you block it?’ said Rannilt. ‘That’s how I hide from the mean girls.’

‘How?’

‘I make their eyesight go foggy so they can’t see me.’

‘And that works?’

‘Sometimes. But it’d be different for you.’ Rannilt took Tali’s arm, staring at the slave mark, then traced the central part with a dirty finger. ‘Why don’t you close it?’

‘Close what?’ Tali said irritably, for her feet and back and head hurt and she was very afraid.

‘This, in the centre.’ Rannilt was looking anxious again. ‘See this bit here, it’s like an open shell, and if you close it the note can’t get out. Then they won’t be able to find you …’ She bit her lip.

Tali realised that she was frowning. It sounded like nonsense. She inspected the central part of her slave mark and supposed that the pair of touching semicircles there did resemble a shell open at its hinge.

‘How am I supposed to close it?’ She felt obtuse.

‘In yer mind. It helps if you close yer eyes.’

Tali did so and tried to visualise her slave mark. Though she could have drawn it from memory, creating a visible image in her inner eye proved more difficult than she had imagined. Ah, there it was.

As she focused on the shell, she heard the angry note again. ‘Can you see anyone coming, Rannilt?’

‘No. Take hold of the shell,’ Rannilt said, sounding deliberately calm. ‘Push it closed.’

As Tali mentally grasped the two sides of the shell the angry note cut off, to be replaced by a higher one, faint and rarefied as though it came from far away. As though, she thought, her angry note was a call, and this note was an answer. She pushed on the two sides of the shell, forced them shut and the distant note was gone, and so were the swirling patterns and the coloured lights. Her head spun; she staggered and grabbed blindly at the girl.

‘Tali?’ Rannilt cried.

‘Sorry. I’ve been wading through fog for days and suddenly I’m free. Thank you.’

The relief was so great that Tali felt weak in the knees. She had not felt her normal self since the night she had come of age, when she had woken feeling as though a stone heart was grinding against her skull.

They trudged on and the sun went down. Tali looked up at the sky and it did not rock.

‘It’s waitin’ in the dark,’ whispered Rannilt. ‘Waitin’, waitin’.’

Instinctively, Tali checked behind her. ‘Now you’ve got me worried.’

The light faded and the temperature dropped sharply. She pulled her robes around her and was gazing at the dark sky and the jewel-like points of stars, the first she had ever seen, when Rannilt stopped, moaning deep in her throat. Tali caught her thin wrist, afraid the girl was lapsing back into the enraptured state where her magery had burst out in those golden rays.

But Rannilt’s eyes were fixed on a hollow fifty yards ahead, from which at least a dozen of the enemy were rising, including a stumbling giant with a little head. Somehow, incredibly, despite the hole through his head, Tinyhead had led them to her.

‘Run!’ Tali said softly. ‘Run, Rannilt, and don’t look back.’

‘I’m not leavin’ you.’ Rannilt’s teeth were chattering.

‘Find Rix and Tobry. Get help, go!’

Rannilt bolted. Tali broke into the fastest hobble she could manage, but she had not gone ten yards when a whirling missile went zivva-zivva-zivva past her left ear, struck a small salt mound not far ahead and went off, flinging scorching white crystals everywhere.

Salt shards stung her cheeks. A spinning chunk the size of a fist struck her in the belly hard enough to double her over, then the dust was stinging her eyes and they were watering so badly that she could not see. Tali choked on air laden with salt dust, so much salt in her nose and mouth and throat that she began to retch and could not stop.

She was lurching around, knowing she was lost, when a chuck-lash wrapped around her bottom and went off in a series of cracks that drove her to her knees. The pain was excruciating. As she was clawing at the crusted ground, a heavy boot drove into her side, knocking her down.

‘Got you,’ said Orlyk, tight with glee, and kept kicking.