Vengeance

Almost magical, or actually magical? That would put an entirely different complexion on the Solaces. Tali heaved open the cover of the iron book. ‘In his caverns, I saw how he wrote it.’

‘How?’ Tobry said curiously.

‘With a hollow-pointed scriber filled with diluted alkoyl.’ It would not have been easy to write with such a tool, yet every glyph was perfect in its elegance and grace. ‘It’s a beautiful book, for all it’s called The Consolation of Vengeance. Why did he make it this way, I wonder?’

‘For permanence, I suppose,’ said Tobry. ‘Paper burns, and worms eat it. It rarely lasts.’

‘And iron rusts,’ said Tali. ‘Why not bronze, if he wanted it to last?’

Tobry shrugged.

‘What are his weaknesses? I see none, now he’s making himself a body.’

‘Who knows?’ said Tobry. ‘Self-doubt, perhaps?’

‘He’s afraid of Rix’s sword,’ said Tali.

Rix came down, shivering from his tower-top vigil. ‘Hand me my titane sword, there’s a good fellow,’ he said to Tobry.

‘What for?’ said Tobry, unmoving.

‘The enemy are back.’

CHAPTER 97

‘The wind changed at four o’clock as if Lyf had ordered it personally,’ said Rix, buckling on the sword.

‘Maybe he did.’ Tobry handed Rix his chest plate.

He frowned at it, as if thinking that a man bent on self-sacrifice had no need of armour, then put it on.

Tali watched them, aching inside. Why was Tobry arming Rix for a one-way trip to the enemy lines? Had he decided that, where Rix’s honour was concerned, he had no right to interfere? She wanted to scream at them and demand answers, but who was she to interfere between friends who had known each other all their lives?

No! Rix’s strength was their only hope now. Without him they could not survive and Tali had to stop him from sacrificing himself. She had to do whatever it took and she was beginning to think of a way. An ignoble way she was bound to regret, but she would worry about that later — if there was a later.

‘A wicked sou’wester blew the ash away,’ said Rix, ‘and when I could see beyond the walls again, the armies of Cython were there — all of them this time.’

‘What do you mean, all of them?’ said Tali, rising.

Rix tucked his telescope under his arm and led them up eight flights to the top of his tower, one of the highest points in Caulderon. Tali hadn’t been there before and looked around curiously. Above them, the leaf- patterned, zinc-clad roof spire soared in a twisted spiral for another fifty feet. On this level the sides were open, save for nine slender columns supporting the roof and a tiled surrounding wall, shoulder-high to Rix, though too high for her to see over.

Rix looked out. ‘Seventy-nine,’ he said with a grim smile.

‘What?’ said Tali.

‘He’s counting the palace towers,’ said Tobry. ‘Until this morning there were eighty-eight of them.’

‘At this rate, the palace won’t long outlast its lord and lady,’ said Rix. ‘And that’s only fitting after what they got up to here.’

An icy wind licked the back of Tali’s neck. Already Rix seemed to have gone on so far that he could not see back to the real world.

A feeble, blood-red sun was skidding below the horizon, and glad to go by the look of the sky, which was mottled the red and black of rust blisters on iron plate. The air already smelled like the dead.

Tobry dragged over a bench. Tali stood on it and pointed the telescope towards the city gates, though she did not need it to see the Cythonian armies — they stretched to the horizon. And once they attacked, every soldier would be looking for her.

‘For every man, every squad, every army they had before,’ said Rix, ‘they now have two. There must be a hundred thousand of the bastards.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘Waiting,’ said Rix.

‘What for?’

‘Lyf’s word, I suppose.’

‘They’re taunting us,’ said Tobry. ‘Telling us they can do what they want, when they want, and nothing we can do can make a jot of difference.’

Tali looked across Lake Fumerous. Its northern cliffs were steep and ragged, like a hole smashed through a stone window — the chasm made when the fourth Vomit had blown itself to bits. She turned back to the Brown Vomit and her stomach twisted into a knot. If it blew up, neither Hightspall nor Cython would have anything to fight over.

‘What’s north beyond the lake?’

‘The sunken lands of Fennery,’ said Rix. ‘Ten miles of treacherous swamp and mire, and Lakeland after that. We have an estate on the largest lake — ’ He tightened his jaw. ‘We had one, bought with blood, no doubt.’ Goose pimples rose on his arms as though something had scuttled over his grave. ‘Come down. I can’t put it off any longer.’

Tobry was unnaturally pale beneath his tan. ‘Wait a moment.’ He took the telescope and pointed it down towards the streets around the palace.

‘Can we possibly beat them?’ Tali asked Rix. ‘Or is Caulderon doomed?’

‘It takes a lot of soldiers to capture a city,’ said Rix, pacing jerkily around the low wall. ‘Far more than to defend one. Had the wave not washed all the lower walls away we might have held them out for a month, even two. But nothing can stop them now.’

‘Hightspall has magery, and the Cythonians aren’t allowed to use it. Surely magery can make a difference?’

‘Our magery has been dwindling ever since the First Fleets grounded here,’ Tobry reminded her. ‘And it was never so powerful that it could destroy such an army.’

‘What if the chancellor gets the three pearls from Deroe?’

‘I don’t think Deroe will be easy to find.’

He’ll come after the master pearl, Tali thought. She had to be ready.

‘No one is celebrating now,’ said Tobry, who was still studying the streets. ‘The eruption has everyone on edge — the people believe it was sent against us.’

‘And the tidal wave?’

‘That too. They knew it presaged the end, even before the latest rumour.’

‘What rumour?’ Tali said curiously.

‘That the entire First Circle fled in the night,’ Rix grated. ‘Caulderon is finished, Tobe.’

‘We can still fight,’ said Tali.

‘The common folk have given up,’ said Tobry. ‘You can see it in their eyes. They’re not even looting any more.’

‘Their best hope is to be carried into slavery.’ Rix’s eyes met Tali’s, briefly.

‘I’m not giving up,’ said Tali. Her head gave another painful throb and she felt fingers prising at the mental shell she’d built to prevent the call from getting out. She clamped down hard.

‘Will you do one last thing for me, Tobe?’ said Rix, turning to the door.

‘What?’ said Tobry.

‘Take Tali and the child, and get out now.’

As Rix headed down, Tali grabbed the back of his coat. ‘I didn’t escape from Cython to run away.’

Rix stared at her vacantly. His mind seemed to be fixed on the last fatal ride that, if it did not pay for all,