Rebellion

CHAPTER 68

“Chancellor!” cried Tali.

She had been dreading this meeting all the week-long trip to Glimmering-by-the-Water, yet still his appearance came as a shock. Was he planning to take her back and start it all over again?

“The Lady Thalalie,” he said sourly. “You’re looking well.”

“I feel well, now you’re not sucking my blood. I suppose that’s why you had me brought here.”

She studied him in the bright sunlight. He did not look a well man, nor a confident one. The failures of the past weeks must have ground him down. Tali felt a shiver of fear. Lyf would see it in an instant; why would he agree to peace when his opponents were so weak?

They were standing on the southernmost tip of the Nusidand Peninsula, which ran south for miles into Lake Fumerous. The peninsula was only a hundred yards across here, with low limestone cliffs all around, falling into deep water.

The roofless temple of Glimmering-by-the-Water, seven lines of columns by nine, stood fifty yards away on the western side of the peninsula. Tali did not know the name of the god the place was dedicated to — presumably one of the Lesser or the Forgotten Gods.

The conference was due to start in an hour, and would be held within the temple, at tables set up on the limestone-paved floor. Entry was controlled by a line of paired guards, one guard of each pair being the chancellor’s man, the other, Lyf’s.

“I no longer need your healing blood,” the chancellor said indifferently.

“Why not?”

“It only works on shifters in the first few days. Those of my people who could be healed were healed long ago, and the ones who could not had to be put down.”

“But you still want my master pearl.”

He smiled. “I do. Indeed, it’s my main hope now, though…”

“What?”

“At the rate magery is failing, I’m not sure it’ll be much use to me.” He looked up at her. “It’s time for desperate measures, Tali. But I must go to my pre-conference meet. Good day to you.” He walked off, hunch-backed, leaving Tali alone and more troubled than ever.

She looked around but there was no one in sight save the distant guards. Rix, along with Hightspall’s other invited leaders, had been called to the chancellor’s meeting, which was to be held several hundred yards from the temple. Rix had taken Tobry and Glynnie with him, and Tali had not seen Holm all day. Where could he be?

Tobry had been cold and unforgiving ever since her disastrous attempt to heal him, and Tali had no idea how she felt about him now. He hadn’t said I don’t love you. He had said I can’t love you. But what did that mean? Could it mean he still loved her, but had rejected his own feelings because their love could never be?

What were her own feelings? She had, with great difficulty, come to terms with his first rejection — the night she had come to his bed and he had revealed himself to be a shifter. But his attack in caitsthe form was another matter. Though she understood why it had happened, she could not get past the fact that he would have torn her to pieces.

Were I to look on your loveliness through a shifter’s eyes, all I would see is meat.

It had created a barrier that could never be broken. If she were near him when his inevitable descent into shifter madness began, it could happen again. How could her love — any love — survive that?

It was too painful to think about. She wandered the other way, down the slope to an oval depression where the cropped grass was starred with little white daisies that flowered here even in winter because the lake was warmed by subterranean fires. Outcrops of white stone around its uphill side mimicked an amphitheatre, though it was only twenty yards across. To the south, across the lake she could see the surviving towers of Caulderon, three miles away.

She was sitting in the sun, her broad hat pulled well down to ward off her agoraphobia, when a child shrieked, “Tali, Tali.”

“Rannilt?” said Tali, jumping up.

Rannilt came racing down, tripped, got up, rubbing a grazed knee, ran and threw herself into Tali’s arms with such force that she was knocked off her feet.

“I’m sorry!” wept Rannilt, and it burst out of her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault Lizue nearly killed ya. You were cross with me for takin’ your blood and I wanted to hurt you back, and she was really nice — and how was I supposed to know she was just pretendin’, and she was there to kill ya?”

“It’s all right,” said Tali, hugging the skinny child. “It’s all right, Rannilt. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was, it was!” howled Rannilt.

“She was too clever for us. I thought she seemed nice, too.”

“You did?” said Rannilt, looking up at Tali, then wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Really nice,” said Tali, exaggerating more than a little. “But wicked old Lyf sent her, you know. And he’d put some enchantment on her so she seemed nicer than she was, and prettier too, I dare say. She fooled everyone — ”

“Except the poor old Sullen Man,” said Rannilt. “He didn’t trust her a bit, and we were all horrible to him — ”

“He hardly ever looked at us. He just kept staring at her the whole time.”

“I used to stick my tongue out at him. And now he’s dead, stabbed right through the heart and out his back, poor man. There was a hole in him you could have put a cucumber in.”

“I don’t think we need to dwell on the gory details,” said Tali. “Poor man, he risked his life to save me. He was a spy for the chancellor, did you know?”

“Of course,” said Rannilt. “I could tell the minute I saw him.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Tali exclaimed.

“I was cross with you. I was sure you were fed up with me.” She looked hopefully at Tali.

“Never for a second,” Tali lied. “I was really sick, Rannilt. The chancellor had robbed me of so much blood I didn’t know what I was doing half the time.”

“I was sick, too, wasn’t I?”

“Very sick. Back in Caulderon, I was terrified you were going to die.”

“But your blood healed me. After you gave it to me the first time, wicked old Lyf couldn’t reach me any more, and — ” Rannilt recoiled, staring up the slope.

Oh no, thought Tali. She rose to her feet, still holding Rannilt’s hand, and turned around.

“Eee!” hissed Rannilt, twisting free and trying to hide behind Tali.

It was the very man. Alone, with no guards in sight.

“Many lies have been told about Lord Rixium,” said the chancellor to the assembled provincial leaders of Hightspall.

“And you told most of them,” Tobry said sourly.

“Don’t try my patience, shifter, or it’ll be the last thing you do.”

Tobry yawned. “Rix’s whole household is under a sacred safe conduct. Are you saying, publicly, that it means nothing to you?”

“Bah!” said the chancellor.

He was perched on an outcrop of limestone which formed a broad platform six feet above their level. The fifteen provincial leaders and their counsellors were seated on camp chairs on the grassy slope between him and the water, which was a few yards behind them. The stone was white, the grass thick and green, the chancellor pinch-faced and haggard.

Rix was shocked at how old and beaten he looked. The chancellor appeared to have aged ten years since Rix had last seen him. He looked like a man who had lost hope.

“I won’t deny that the war is going badly — ” said the chancellor.

“How could you?” said Rundi of Notherin, a stocky, purple-faced bruiser who had murdered his ageing lord and seized his vast holdings at the beginning of the war. “You’ve failed at everything you’ve done since it began.”

“When I called muster, Rundi, you refused to provide a single man to defend your country.”

“I have no country. Hightspall is finished and it’s every lord for himself.”

“But you’re not a lord,” said the chancellor with a flash of his old menace. “You’re just a vicious little thug out for all he can grab, and the moment Lyf turns in your direction you’ll be whining and begging the neighbours you brutalised to save your dirty hide. But you’ll wait in vain.”

The chancellor spat over the edge of the outcrop, onto Rundi’s boots.

Rundi scowled and clenched his scarred fists, but said no more. Rix knew the man by reputation — a coward who did his work in the dark, from behind.

“I’ve not done well,” the chancellor went on. “I admit it. Lyf killed all my officers and I don’t know how to lead an army in war. Even so, I love my country and would give anything to save it. Can any one of you say the same? Did any one of you give me the support I needed to fight for Hightspall?”

None of the leaders spoke.

“You’re gutless, the lot of you,” the chancellor said in disgust. “Lyf is going to pick you off, one by one, and good riddance!”

“If things are so bad,” said an old, dried-up lord, Carr of Caldees, “what the hell are we doing here? What sort of peace can you hope to negotiate?”

“I’m glad you asked,” said the chancellor. “Only one man here has had the courage to stand up to the enemy, and he’s a man who, only six weeks ago, had nothing. Rixium of Garramide, come to my side.”

“Here we go,” Tobry said quietly. “This is why you’re here.”

As Rix climbed onto the outcrop, the chancellor turned to face him and held out his hand. Hunched as he was, he was a full foot shorter than Rix, and only half his weight, but when Rix looked into the chancellor’s eyes he saw dark fires burning there. He wasn’t beaten yet, and he had a plan.

It turned Rix’s stomach to shake hands with the man who had destroyed House Ricinus and ruined his own good name, but he also loved his country and any alliance was better than none. He drew off the steel gauntlet and extended his dead right hand. The chancellor blanched as he took the hand he had ordered cut off, and quickly withdrew his own, but he was smiling when he turned to the other lords.

“In a few short weeks, Rixium escaped Caulderon, took back his stolen fortress of Garramide and won a mighty victory against the uncounted hordes of the enemy — the first victory of the war.”

“It wasn’t that great,” Rix muttered. “And they weren’t uncounted hordes, not even five hundred — ”

“Do you want to win the war or not?” said the chancellor out of the corner of his mouth.

“Of course, but — ”

“If I say it was a great victory, it was.”

The chancellor raised his voice. “Rixium has shown us that the enemy can be beaten.” He stepped to one side to leave Rix at the centre of the platform, then added quietly, “Draw your sword and raise it high.”

Rix did so. “Rixium also bears a prodigious weapon,” the chancellor went on. “Maloch, the enchanted sword of his towering ancestor, Axil Grandys. And Lyf fears Maloch more than anything in the world. All rise, and acclaim Rixium’s victory.”

They rose and gave him a perfunctory cheer.

“Louder!” said the chancellor. “I want Lyf to hear it, down at the temple.”

This time it was a full-throated roar.

“Excellent,” said the chancellor quietly. “It’ll help my negotiating position.”

“I don’t understand why Lyf needs to negotiate,” said Rix.

“He’s overplayed his hand, driven his people too hard and too far, and they’ve no stomach for any more bloody destruction. That’s why he’s here.” The chancellor looked up at Rix. “Time to go. Say something encouraging.”

Rix met the eyes of the provincial leaders, one by one. “I’ll tell you something else to give you heart,” he said. “Lyf’s great victories against Caulderon and Bleddimire weren’t won by force of arms alone. They were mainly won by magery — prodigious magery — coming from the stolen ebony pearls.”

“How can you possibly know that?” sneered Rundi.

“I have a spy.”

“Why should that news give us heart?” said Carr of Caldees, thoughtfully.

“Because Lyf was so desperate to win quickly that he used too much magery,” said Rix. “He’s almost drained the pearls dry, and now, as everyone knows, magery is failing everywhere. Without Lyf’s magery his soldiers are just men, no bigger, no stronger and no better than us. And we’re going to fight them! We’re going to beat them and take Hightspall back. Aren’t we?”

“Yes!” they roared, as one this time, and beat their swords on their shields until the din was thunderous.

The chancellor gave Rix an ambiguous stare, then nodded stiffly and turned to the lords. “It’s time for the peace conference. I’ll do all the talking.”

Rix waited until they had gone, then fell in beside Tobry and Glynnie. “Well, I never expected that.”

“I did,” said Tobry.

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I thought you’d do better if I didn’t. And you did.” They walked together for a few paces, then Tobry said suddenly, “If this goes badly, you should challenge him.”

Rix froze. “Lyf?”

“No, the chancellor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“He’s just built you up. The provincial leaders see you as one of them, and a fighter, not a schemer. Plus you’ve got Maloch — never discount it.”

“I think so too,” said Glynnie. “I’ve always thought you should be leading Hightspall, Rix.”

“I know,” snapped Rix. “You and Benn began that nonsense before we escaped from Caulderon. Don’t mention it again. I’m not up to it.”

He strode ahead to catch up to the others.