Vengeance

CHAPTER 72

‘They’re not putting it in,’ Tali said quietly.

Rix spun around. She had climbed the steps and was swaying on her feet. Her pale features were stark, her gold-blonde hair hanging lank as straw.

‘I’ve just remembered — ’

She crumpled and was about to tumble backwards down the steps when Rix leapt three yards and caught her. He carried her to the couch, holding her tightly as if it was the only way to save her.

Tobry poured a splash of brandy into a goblet, sat her up and pressed it to her lips.

Tali grimaced, swallowed and looked up. ‘The woman on the bench isn’t me. It’s … it’s my mother, ten years ago.’

‘How do you know?’ said Rix, waves of relief sweeping over him. It wasn’t a divination at all.

‘That’s the cellar where she was killed. Mama made me hide, but then they caught her and — they did it.’

‘You were there?’ said Rix. ‘You saw your poor mother murdered?’

‘I told you that already.’ Tali gave him a peculiar look and took a deep breath, only to shake her head and close her mouth without speaking.

‘If you know more — ’ began Rix.

‘Those are my mother’s killers, at the end of the bench,’ she said in a tight, controlled voice. ‘I was eight. I must have blocked most of it out.’

‘How could anyone block that out?’ said Rix. ‘I’d remember it to my dying day.’

She gave him another strange look. Her arms hung rigidly by her sides and her small fists were knotted. Rix frowned. What was the matter with everyone today?

‘The woman told the man to kill me,’ said Tali, ‘and he came after me with a knife, but I was too good at hiding.’

‘What kind of monster would order a child killed?’ said Rix, slumping onto the other end of the settee. It was horrible, but nothing to do with him. The relief was dizzying.

‘When I saw the new sketch, I remembered the woman … gouging at Mama’s head. She pulled out something round and black with the tongs and …’ Tali frowned, trying to remember. ‘She put it in something.’ Tali shuddered. ‘Then she licked the blood off the tongs, the evil bitch. I remember that!’

‘It’s an ebony pearl,’ said Rix, haltingly. He felt battered, assaulted. ‘Your mother was killed for it.’

‘So that’s what the wrythen wants.’ Tali rubbed the top of her head as if to feel a lump through the skull. ‘Four of my ancestors have died with their heads opened. Four pearls have been taken already, and I’m to provide the fifth.’

‘The master pearl,’ said Tobry.

‘What did you say?’ cried Tali.

‘From what I’ve read about them, each pearl is different from the one before. And stronger. And the fifth pearl is the master. It can be used to unite the others, and command them — assuming one is strong enough to withstand it.’

‘The master pearl,’ said Tali with dawning hope. ‘He wants my pearl.’

‘Kirikay!’ Rix said softly.

‘Where did that come from?’ said Tobry.

‘I heard it when you were unconscious in the cave,’ said Rix. ‘As the caitsthe died, it reached out towards the wrythen, saying, “Kirikay, Kirikay”.’

Tali started. ‘Not Kirikay, Khirrik-ai. It’s the Cythonians’ familiar name for their last and most beloved king — King Lyf.’

‘The oath-breaker who started the war,’ snapped Rix.

‘Or a trusting man terribly betrayed by the Five Heroes,’ said Tobry, ‘depending on who you listen to.’

‘Why was he their last king?’ said Rix. ‘You’d think that, with a war to fight — ’

‘He disappeared and was never found. Without a body, Lyf could not be given the rituals that allowed their sacred king-magery to separate from the king’s soul before it passed on, down through the Abysm. And without receiving that king-magery, no new king or queen could ever be crowned. That must be why the Cythonians are ruled by matriarchs.’

‘Khirrik-ai doesn’t have to mean Lyf, though,’ said Rix. ‘The name could mean any number of people.’

Tobry shook his head. ‘Every king and ruling queen had a different name. They never re-used them, and neither were they bestowed on commoners. It must be Lyf.’

‘So your wrythen, and my enemy, is Lyf’s ghost,’ said Tali.

‘A wrythen is far more than a ghost,’ said Tobry. ‘It has a strong hold on life.’

‘He’s partly solid, too,’ said Rix. ‘I felt it when I put my blade through the bastard.’

‘To burn through Tinyhead’s skull from a distance, and nearly possess me,’ said Tobry, ‘Lyf’s no empty spirit. He’s got real power.’

‘Where would he get it after two thousand years?’ said Rix.

‘He could be a psychic vampire, stealing the life force of anyone venturing inside his caverns.’

‘It explains why he’s attacking my family,’ mused Tali. ‘Lyf must have discovered that certain women of my line were forming ebony pearls, and he wants them for their power. And now he needs the master pearl, my pearl, to unite and control them.’

‘But your mother wasn’t killed by a wrythen,’ said Rix, staring at the sketch. ‘This pearl was taken by real people, so who are they?’

‘I don’t know. They were masked.’

‘Lyf’s after me too, because I used the titane sword on him in the caverns. Traitor’s blade,’ he called it. ‘ Liar’s blade. Oathbreaker’s blade — ’ He broke off, staring.

‘Why does Lyf hate the sword?’ said Tali.

‘I don’t know that either,’ said Rix. ‘But I’ll bet it’s got something to do with the inscription.’

‘We’d better find out who owned it when Lyf was alive.’ Tobry’s eyes narrowed. ‘What were you going to say about the Oathbreaker’s Blade?’

‘Lyf knew me,’ Rix said slowly. ‘He said, I have not seen you since you were a boy. And later he said, You belong to me. He told me to put the sword down, and I started to obey. I had to fight hard to stop myself.’

‘I wish you’d told me this before,’ said Tobry. ‘Lyf must be the presence in your nightmares.’

‘But why choose me, out of all the people in Hightspall?’ said Rix. ‘No one has less magery than I do.’

Tobry shrugged. ‘It beggars belief that all this isn’t connected. And it explains why you keep imagining the murder scene. He’s putting it into your head.’

‘Not all of it,’ said Tali, who was tense as wire.

‘How do you mean?’ said Rix, frowning.

‘You were there,’ she said, almost inaudibly.

‘What?’ Rix was not sure he had heard her correctly.

‘You were there!’ she shouted, her voice cracking. ‘In the cellar. As a boy. Just after Mama was killed.’

‘No,’ cried Rix, a cry of pain because he recognised the truth in her voice. ‘No, it’s not possible.’

‘I saw you.’

‘Saw what?’ The horror swelled like one of his nightmares. ‘What did I do?’

‘You were wearing a plum-coloured velvet coat with gold buttons. An emerald kilt. Black shoes with shiny buckles. You’d thrown up all down your front. And you had blood on your hands.’

Tobry was staring at her, mouth agape. Then he turned to Rix and said stiffly, ‘Is this true?’

Rix felt like a prisoner accused of a terrible crime and afraid that, in some madness, he might have done it. ‘I’ve never seen the cellar before.’

‘But you lost a month of your life when you had the fever,’ said Tobry. ‘Ten years ago — at the time when Tali’s mother was murdered. The nightmares began after that, and the voice telling you that you’d done something dreadful. Lyf’s voice!’

‘Rix had nothing to do with Mama’s death,’ said Tali.

‘Then what are you accusing him of?’ said Tobry furiously.

‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Rix,’ she said, taking his trembling fist in both hands.

He put his other hand over hers, clinging to her as if she was the only person who could save him. ‘What are you saying?’

Tali was staring into his eyes, her hands giving his little shakes as she strained to remember. ‘I think something went wrong for Lyf when my mother was killed …’

She seemed to be looking to the sketch for inspiration.

‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘Lyf’s face was carved into the end wall of the cellar … and yellow moved in his eyes … and … and there was a hand, a foggy hand reaching out towards the woman who’d taken Mama’s pearl … but there came a flash from behind a pile of barrels — even as a child I knew it was magery — and the hand recoiled … and the woman licked Mama’s blood off the tongs.’

She went so pale that Rix was sure she was going to faint. He tried to digest what she had said, but could not get past the horror of the scene he could not remember yet could imagine perfectly.

Tobry let his breath out in a gust. ‘So the killers stole the pearl Lyf was after.’

Suddenly Tali understood what the triple call, di-DA-doh, really meant. ‘The pearls call out to one another, and three of them always call together, di-DA-doh. And the call is always close — in Caulderon.’

‘Therefore the killers must have stolen three pearls,’ said Tobry, ‘and Lyf only has one. That’s why he’s so enraged, so desperate to get yours. With the master pearl, he may be able to command the stolen ones.’

‘There’s more,’ said Tali to Rix. ‘When you came out from behind those barrels, there on the left, I saw a faint pink aura around you — ’

‘I don’t have any magery,’ said Rix, trying to deny what she was saying.

‘I knew it even then,’ said Tali, ‘but the aura was definitely there.’

‘What if the killers put a blocking charm on you?’ Tobry said to Rix.

‘Why would they?’ said Rix, pulling free and burying his face in his hands. He wanted to scream.

‘It could have been designed to go off when Lyf appeared, to stop him getting the pearl. The charm would have been painful — perhaps that’s why you’ve always been afraid of magery.’

‘I repeat, why?’ Rix’s voice was muffled by his hands. ‘Why was I there at all? Such a spell could have been put on any object in the cellar. Why put it on me?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Tobry.

‘Lyf blames you for him losing the last pearl,’ said Tali. ‘That must be why he’s sending you nightmares.’

Rix felt as though he was trapped under a weighted shroud, screaming with claustrophobia. Why had be been there? Why put a spell on him? Why, why, why? The shroud kept tightening around him, suffocating him, and he could not heave it off.

‘Rix?’ Tali said softly.

He did not reply. Could not.

‘Rix?’

‘Yes?’

She pulled his hands away. ‘I’ve got to know what you saw that day. Did you see the killers’ faces?’

‘This is all I know.’ Rix swiped at the sketch. ‘And I’ve had to fight for days to get it.’

There was a long silence.

‘What if it represents both the past and the future?’ said Tobry. ‘Such symmetry might appeal to a wrythen two thousand years old. What if the sketch depicts both Iusia’s murder, and Tali’s?’

No, Rix thought. I don’t believe it. I can’t accept it. I won’t do it. No, no, no!

‘So that’s what the nightmares are all about,’ said Tobry. ‘After Lyf was robbed of your mother’s pearl, he chose you, Rix, because you have no magery. That’s what it’s all about — he means you to kill Tali and take her ebony pearl for him.’

The black shroud tightened until Rix could hardly breathe. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ he said, gasping for air. He felt the way Tali must have done in the water: overcome by panic, helpless, drowning. But there was no one to come to his rescue.

‘Do the sketch again, and finish it. But this time, you have to control the divination.’

‘What if I can’t?’

‘Tali, I think — ’ Tobry looked around sharply. ‘Where’s Tali?’

Rix knew he should go after her. She must be just as traumatised as he was, and the best way to deal with it was to talk everything through with her, but he was drained to the last drop.

‘She can take care of herself,’ he said in a faded croak.

‘Not in the state she’s in. She’s bound to do something reckless.’

Rix raised a boneless hand and let it fall.

‘Come with me,’ said Tobry. ‘We’ve got to find her.’

‘Tobe, I’ve got nothing left. And I’ve got the stinking portrait to finish.’

Rix flopped onto the settee and lay there, staring up at the timbered ceiling.

Tobry gave him a look of deep disgust and went out.

Rix closed his eyes, but could not rid himself of the scene in the cellar, and the mental image of himself at the end of the bench, eyes wide with horror as he cut the pearl out of Tali’s head.