Vengeance

chips of stone.

He dived behind the couch, knowing it could not save him, as the centre of the heatstone was drawn inwards. It pulled in the rest, crumbling the enormous stone to dust which collapsed to a bright red mote, then vanished with a roar like an erupting volcano.

At the moment of the implosion, every captured Cythonian in the chancellor’s cells next door to Palace Ricinus fell unconscious, save one.

Wil the Sump rubbed his aching forehead, stared around him with the blind eye sockets that saw so much further than any ordinary man, then giggled, ‘She the one. This the ending.’

Using a smear of alkoyl from his hidden stock, he burnt through the door of his cell and scuttled along the red, contorted passages of the palace.

‘Clever Wil,’ he said, for no one he encountered noticed him. ‘Stupid chancellor.’

Outside, Wil scurried across the grounds to the unguarded side gate to Palace Ricinus, and through it, drawn inexorably to a cellar he had never seen. The ending was close now, but who would win the contest — the Scribe or the one? Which story would prevail? He had to be there, had to see it first. Wil was so tense he struggled to draw breath.

Back in his palace, the chancellor listened to the reports of Wil’s progress, smiled, and called for the captain of his personal guard.

CHAPTER 103

It had been bad enough killing an enemy, Banj. How much worse would it be to cut down a friend? Could Tali kill Rix, even to save herself?

He stopped six feet away, within lunging distance, and still she did not know what to do. The magery Deroe had raised in her was bubbling beneath the surface, and if there was no choice she would use it on Rix to save her life, but she was afraid to bring it all the way too soon in case she lost control. She could not attack Deroe with it. He had cleverly blocked that way.

Rix was gasping and grunting as he strove to overcome Lyf’s compulsion but she knew it was futile. Now Lyf had a body, he was far stronger than before and Rix could never break free of his own accord.

He took another step, reaching out for her. Tali backpedalled, blinking away tears as she prepared to defend herself the only way she could. Her fingertips tingled. The fury that had killed Banj was only a breath away, a thread, a sigh …

The floor shuddered, then a golden light burst from Rannilt, driving the misty shadows off and revealing the simple beauty of Lyf’s ancient temple for the first time. She cried out in wonder and sat up.

Pain sheared through Tali’s skull, worse than the time the sunstone had smashed in the shaft. Her gift rose uncontrollably, as it had that time, and her fingertips began to sting. The sensations were unmistakeable — someone had broken Rix’s gigantic heatstone and the cataclysm must have burnt him to charcoal. Who could have done it? Who would have known it was the only way?

Only one man.

‘Tobry!’ she screamed, but then the white blizzard was forced out through her spread fingers and she could not stop it. Her eyes flooded until she could not see. ‘Rix?’ Had she killed him?

Not Rix as well! Was she to lose everyone she cared about? Tali swung aside and rock shattered with a roar, chattering off the ceiling and walls, falling all around. She blinked the tears away. She was pointing towards the left-hand stone raptor and her white torrent was tearing the stone apart.

‘Rix, where are you?’ she gasped as the well emptied, and the flood faded. Her gift — if gift it was, and not a curse — was gone again.

Her burning fingertips were covered in hundreds of tiny red specks. The room was full of dust and smoke. She could not see anyone.

‘Garrimoolish! Flisseroomph blorrgggg! Gebblinengle-googaah!’

Rix came reeling through the clouds, shaking his head between his hands and raving like a madman. What had she done? Had she burnt his brain? She could see no sign of injury — it must be the effect of the shattered heatstone.

He stopped, swaying on his feet and utterly bewildered. The dust began to settle. His mouth gaped; his eyes flicked back and forth as though he was watching a fast-moving scene. He frowned, nodded and extended his right hand as though mixing paint on a palette. Then, with sweeping movements of an invisible brush, Rix painted a moving picture in the air for all to see.

It was another scene set in this cellar, though the filth and clutter was gone. The walls were carved with gentle Cythian dioramas, the floor marked with the swirls of a kingly tattoo. As Rix imagined the scene, he painted it so vividly that Tali could have been there.

But this was not a divination — it was a revelation.

A slender young man stood at the door, wearing the scarlet king’s robes of old Cythe. He held out his arms, welcoming five Hightspallers into the most sacred place he knew, the private temple where he worked king-magery to heal his land. The temple was bright with light, and uncluttered. A simple stone altar stood at the far end. The young man, Lyf, indicated a low table and the visitors sat around it, talking merrily while he treated them as honoured guests, bringing them food and drink, and serving them with his own hands.

The biggest of the Hightspallers, a florid, yellow-haired giant, produced a parchment document, evidently a charter or contract, and handed it to Lyf. The jollity faded; he read it, frowning, then shook his head.

The giant scowled and brandished a slender book at Lyf, pointing to the words on a particular page. Lyf scanned the text, thrust the book away as though he had read an obscenity and stood up, furiously indicating the door.

One of the women — thin-faced, with a prow of a nose and hair cropped close like a soldier — drew a swirling object like an elbrot and pointed it at Lyf. He stared at it as if he did not know what it was.

The elbrot lit a muddy green, like the misty light in an endless swamp, like the light that pervaded the murder cellar. Lyf convulsed, recovered, then ran for his staff which stood by the door. The elbrot flashed and he was brought down, trembling all over and his legs thrashing. The yellow-haired man dragged him to the table and, while the other four held him down, put a quill in his hand. The elbrot flashed a third time and, though Lyf fought the enchantment with all his strength, his hand inscribed his kingly signature on the charter.

The five shook hands, grinning and congratulating one another as if they had just won a kingdom. The king collapsed, shuddering violently. The yellow-haired man drew a curved sword — the same sword that now hung by Rix’s side — and said something to the others, laughing.

They cried ‘No!’ as one, but he strode to the fallen king and, with a mighty blow, hacked his feet off, then stood them on the king’s own altar as a bloody trophy. The five dragged Lyf out, his stumps trailing blood, like a living corpse to be disposed of.

The final image hung in the air for a minute, slowly fading. Rix stared at it as if he had no idea what he had done or how he had done it, then his shoulders slumped. It was over.

‘That can’t have been the Five Heroes,’ said Tali, dismayed. ‘That brute of a man wasn’t Axil Grandys. It’s a mistake; a lie …’

But she knew it to be truth as only Rix could portray it. She had also recognised the dark-haired woman as Sporrealie, the Hero she had always revered.

Tali could not take it in. The revelation was too shocking, the betrayal too monstrous, the implications too far-reaching. The Hightspall she loved was based on a lie, the realm irredeemably tainted at the moment of its