Vengeance

not recognised as a little girl. She tried to dart away but toppled forwards. His magery had fixed the soles of her boots to the floor, and now Tali knew fear as she had never known it before. If she could not break his magery, his tools would soon bore through her skull.

Deroe sniggered, turned to the black bench and reached up with his hands. The mesh of light threads that had been clinging to his fingers hung in the air there, illuminating the bench with a ragged cone of light. The greenish mist drifted back and forth through it, highlighting the edges of the cone. The poisoned-rat smell thickened in Tali’s nostrils.

He wiped the bench with a rag. The black, slightly domed bench top had the gleam of the ebony pearl in Rix’s finished painting — a pearl at the centre of the skull-shaped cellar like the pearl in her mother’s head, and now her own.

He walked into the darkness. Objects clicked and rattled as though he was feeling in a cluttered cupboard. Tali heaved and lunged but could not tear free. Deroe came back carrying a small, upside-down parasol on a stand, though the silver ribs lacked any fabric covering.

‘What’s that for?’ she said.

He did not reply.

In his other hand he had a circular disc made of white wood, as thick through as her closed fist and the diameter of her open hand. Five round depressions had been cut into the top, four at the corners of a square and the fifth at the centre.

He took three black pearls from a case lined with yellow velvet and put them in the depressions at three corners of the square. Tali struggled to draw breath. Each pearl had been cultured in one of her ancestors. Which was her mother’s? They looked identical. The top right depression, and the slightly larger hollow in the middle, remained empty.

After fixing the parasol upright on a small table near the head of the bench, Deroe closed and opened its metal arms, set the pearls beneath, rotated the disc by ninety degrees, then nodded.

Now me. And Tali still could not move her feet.

He took a small hammer and narrow chisel from a bag. Was that to crack her skull? Now a thin-bladed saw, a steel gouger and two reamers, which he handled as gingerly as a first-day apprentice in a slaughterhouse. As though he was afraid to use them …

A savage urge for vengeance boiled inside her. If she got the chance she would jam them through his wattled throat. But how could she beat him? What were his weaknesses?

In a land where it was rare to live beyond sixty, he had to be double that, at least. Either he had lengthened his life by uncanny means, or the pearls had. But the greater the magery, the greater the cost, and it had cost Deroe dearly. Was that why he seemed as decayed inside as he was decrepit outside? And with those clouded eyes, his sight must be poor. If she moved swiftly once he freed her feet, she might beat him.

He turned and shuffled towards her. Tali tried to look like a terrified slave. It wasn’t hard; the urge to scream was overwhelming. Her stomach muscles were so tight that it was difficult to breathe. Outside, Tobry was hacking at the grey barrier and attacking it with flashes of emerald magery, but he made no impression on it.

As Deroe reached out, she avoided his eyes in case her own gave her away. His crusted hand touched her biceps and her feet came free. She swung, fast as a striking adder, burying her fist in his belly below the diaphragm and driving it up.

Tali was strong for her size and there was so much power behind her small fist that she felt his papery skin tear. The blow forced air from his lungs and he doubled over, gasping. His spell broke and the light threads went out, leaving the cellar in darkness save for the faintest glimmer from her lantern, which she had left on the other side of the stacked crates.

Tali dived for the pearls.

But Deroe called them up, high above her head, to him.

CHAPTER 101

Rix woke with the voice ringing in his head. Lyf’s voice.

It is time. Go down.

‘Damn you!’ he said aloud. ‘You’ll never force me.’ But even in his own ears, he sounded unconvincing.

Lyf seemed amused. You divined this night, this scene, this death. You had the chance to seize command of the divination when you painted the scene in the cellar, but you did not. Now it is set and can’t be changed.

‘I won’t do it!’ Rix roared, though he could see no way of escape. Why hadn’t he ridden out to give his life away yesterday? Why had he told his treacherous friends his plan?

In the shadows, a girl cried out in fear. It took some time for him to recognise Glynnie cowering behind the couch, sheltering her little brother with her arms. But before he could speak …

Ten years I’ve worked my compulsion on you, preparing you for this night.

I’ll fight you.

Yes, you will do everything in your power to break the compulsion. And you will fail. You will go down. You will cut the master nuclix from Tali, submerge it in her blood and keep it safe for me.

‘I won’t!’ But the willpower was draining from him as Lyf wrapped the compulsion ever tighter. Only Tobry’s shackle was keeping Rix here now. His shin was chafed to the bone from straining against it.

Call for your sword. I will have my due.

‘Damn you, no!’ But against his will, Rix turned to a wild-eyed Glynnie, who clearly thought he had gone insane, and said, ‘Fetch my sword, girl.’

Clutching Benn tighter, she shook her head.

Good, Rix thought, but the compulsion stabbed him and his treacherous mouth said, ‘Who took you in, at risk of his own life, when the chancellor cast you out?’

‘You did, Lord,’ she whispered.

‘Am I your master?’

‘Yes, Lord.’

‘Then obey me or be thrown into the street.’

Trembling all over, she took the wire-handled sword from the shelf where Tobry had left it and carried it to Rix, holding it out by the tip as if she expected to be cut down with it. At any other time, that would have hurt.

He raised it high, then drove it down with all his strength onto the chain fixing his ankle to the heatstone. The enchanted blade cut through the chain in a shower of sparks.

Get the implements.

What was the point in fighting when he was bound to be defeated? He stalked out, the chain dragging, and down the halls to Lady Ricinus’s rooms. The door was locked; he kicked it open and hacked her tiny desk in two.

A hand reamer tumbled out, along with a woven, green-metal glove and a pair of golden tongs. With these implements she had murdered Tali’s mother and grandmother, and taken their pearls. She had planned to kill Tali the same way and she had shown no remorse.

Don’t touch them. Turn around, walk to the front doors and ride out to face the enemy. Your death means Lyf’s defeat.

But though he fought with all the strength he possessed, Rix took up the fatal tools. He could not stop himself. The compulsion was strengthening with everything it forced him to do and he could not overcome it.

He stalked the empty halls, following the path Lyf mapped in his head, and across to the secret stairs that, worked by a lever, plunged five flights before corkscrewing down through the roof of the cellar to the black bench.

At the top of the stairs Rix stopped, fighting to summon a shred of defiance.

Go down. The voice was softer now. Lyf knew Rix was beaten.

The assumption was just enough to summon a wisp of resistance. Before the compulsion could deny him, Rix pulled the stair lever, pressed the enchanted blade against himself and threw himself head-first down the