Tali fell to her knees beside Rannilt, who lay as still as before, and pressed her hands to the girl’s chest. ‘Heal, heal!’ she whispered, but her hands did not warm, nor did Rannilt react.
‘Come on,’ said Rix, lifting the child, ‘before Lyf comes back. Bring the book.’
Tali wrapped it in a piece hacked from the hem of her coat and pulled on her discarded boots. Tobry recovered his charred elbrot. Then they went up, looking over their shoulders all the way. They passed out through the cave mouth and down the bloodstained rubble where the bodies of the two women were nothing but bones, and under the vine thicket to the horses. Several jackal shifters lay broken there, kicked to death. There were eyes all around in the darkness.
Tobry would not meet Tali’s eye. Rix hacked at every branch they passed as if the whole world was his enemy. Rannilt lay in Tali’s arms, breathing steadily now, a little colour had returned to her pale cheeks, but nothing could wake her.
A defeat or a victory? Tali had not beaten the wrythen, as the chancellor had hoped. Rather, the intrusion had strengthened Lyf. Nonetheless, she had gained some understanding of her magery and almost taken his ebony pearl, and he had been shaken to be attacked in his hitherto inviolable realm. The facinore, the most potent of his shifter creations, was finished, and they had his iron book. It was a victory of sorts — or would be when Rannilt woke.
If Rannilt woke.
CHAPTER 86
The ride home, under the twilight of that choking brown overcast sky, was silent and endless. What was
And why, since it was Lyf’s book, had it hurt him so badly when she had struck him with it? Had taking it been a master stroke, or a fatal folly? She could not tell. Not even Tobry, who knew five languages, could read the glyphs inside.
He was slumped in the saddle, eyes dead, and she did not know how to aid him. Tobry was a man whose word was unbreakable, a man who would do anything to help those he held dear, yet Lyf had forced him to attack his friend. It was eating him alive.
Something ailed Rix, too, something that bit even deeper than the wrythen taking command of him and ordering him to
‘Tobe,’ said Rix, riding stirrup to stirrup with him, ‘do you think — ?’
‘It’s finished, Rix. I’m utterly and irretrievably dishonoured.’
‘
Something snapped and Rix spurred away, hacking down an innocent needlebush as he passed, then several branches off a blood-bark tree.
‘Damn you!’ he roared, racing back to them and brandishing his sword towards Precipitous Crag. ‘You will not command me!’
The echoes chased themselves back and forth between the bluffs to either side, mocking him.
‘Ride away, Tali, and ride fast,’ he said, biting the words off and flinging them to the wind. ‘When next Lyf comes, I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist his compulsion.’
Tali forced herself to swallow her fear. She could no longer fight alone, and without Rix and Tobry she was lost. She reached across and put a hand on his arm.
‘I believe in you, just as I believe in Tobry. When Lyf comes, you will resist him.’
‘He’s stronger each time!’ said Rix, wild-eyed.
She tightened her grip. ‘So is Tobry, and so are you. You’re much stronger than when I first met you, and a better man, and I trust you, no matter what. And if Rannilt was — ’ she had almost said
Rix stared at her as if she had gone mad. He swallowed and rubbed his eyes, but not before she saw tears form there. He nodded stiffly, as if afraid to speak. ‘You have no idea what that means to me.’
Tobry turned those empty eyes on her. ‘Have you ever been violated?’
‘No,’ she said quietly.
‘It’s as though he’s emptied all his fury into me, a festering rage at what was done to his people. He owns me now, Tali. How can I fight him?’
‘He’s not as strong as you think. We can still beat him.’ They were empty words. Tali had none that could comfort him.
A mile or two further on, Rix said suddenly, ‘I envisaged that opal sculpture again, Tobe.’
‘When?’ Tobry said dully.
‘As we left the caverns.’
‘I saw one too,’ said Tali, and told them about the contorted figure she had seen bobbing up and down, deep in the Abysm. ‘But it looked too perfect to be a sculpture.’
Rix drew a sharp breath. ‘What else could it be?’
‘It looked like a man turned to opal … yet …’
‘What?’
‘I’m sure the eyes were alive.’
No one could guess what it meant. Hours later, they were riding up a high hill when Rix cried, ‘They’re gone!’
‘Who’s gone?’ said Tali.
‘The enemy. From Caulderon.’
Smoke still belched from the burning shanty towns outside the walls and brown trails issued from a dozen places within the city, but the grey shadow of the Cythonian armies was no longer there.
‘The city’s fallen,’ said Rix bleakly. ‘We’re too late.’
Tobry checked with Rix’s telescope. ‘The gates are still standing, and they’re manned by our troops.’ His voice rose. ‘And … I can see dozens of prisoners, chained to the walls and the gates …’
‘Can we have beaten them?’ said Tali.
‘You must have hurt Lyf more than we thought,’ said Tobry. For the first time that day, she saw a hint of hope in his bruised eyes.
‘We’d better make plans,’ said Rix. ‘If we ride in together, the palace’s spies will hear about it in minutes. I’ll go alone. Tobry, come later with Tali and Rannilt. Bring them underground to my chambers.’
‘The chancellor will surely guess I’m there,’ said Tali. ‘And Rannilt.’
‘There’s nowhere else to go,’ Rix said distractedly. ‘I’ve got — ’ He swallowed. ‘Got a duty to pay.’
He galloped off, leaving Tali and Tobry staring after him.
The streets were a drunken carnival clogged with people, and every stride of the way they clutched at Rix’s stirrups, crying out their glad tidings.
‘We showed them. The gutless rock rats are running for their lives.’
Rix shook them off and rode on, grim of face. He could only think of one thing now — his mother’s treason and his duty to report it. Acid burnt up his throat. How could he make the threat known to the chancellor without implicating her?
He used his horse to force passage through the throngs, heading for the chancellor’s palace, and was admitted at once. The chancellor was at a red-jasper-framed window, looking down on the celebrations.
‘Caulderon is doomed,’ he said without turning around, ‘yet for the sake of morale the poor must have their street parties. And the rich their Honouring, tomorrow.’
Rix remembered, guiltily, the portrait that had to be completed tonight.
