Vengeance

But the tingling and dizziness were getting worse, and she had never felt this way before. What was wrong? She wanted to scream and run but could not move. A wave of dread passed over her; she needed to huddle in a hole, covering her head, blocking out the world she had so longed for and which now felt utterly alien.

Rannilt came back, wearing a bright orange, broad-brimmed hat and carrying another. She gave the hat to Tali, then gasped and backed away, a hand over her mouth.

A huge Cythonian rose from behind one of the defensive walls, and he was so covered in blood and burns and weeping blisters that for a second she did not recognise him. He had a remarkably small, bulging head, all blackened save for the streaming eyes, and his charred clothes were falling to pieces. A small, egg-shaped blue stone, the one that had lit up as she dropped the sunstone, hung around his neck. How had Tinyhead survived? Why wasn’t he unconscious like all the other Cythonians?

‘Tali, run!’ yelled Rannilt.

But even when Tinyhead came stalking towards her, she could not move. The tingling ran up her arms, down her legs to her toes, and her heart was beating so wildly it must soon burst. The sky began to rock violently and she felt sure it was going to overturn. Was she dying? Going mad?

Tinyhead caught her arms, wound a leather belt three times around her wrists and jerked it tight.

‘Oh, Master,’ he slurred through red-raw lips. ‘Master, I have her at last.’

He looked around for Rannilt but the child had vanished.

‘Mimoy, help,’ said Tali in a whispery croak.

‘There is no help.’ Tinyhead heaved her out through the defensive walls surrounding the shaft.

The old woman lay sprawled over a low stone barricade, blood running from her mouth. More blood than Tali would have imagined Mimoy’s tiny body could hold.

CHAPTER 28

Tobry’s blistered eyes, now thickly coated in bile-green unguent, made him look like a corpse risen from the dead, yet he was unnaturally cheerful. He still wasn’t meeting Rix’s eyes, though. He seemed to be acting himself, trying to appear normal though clearly he was not.

Outside the valley an avalanche filled the central saddle of the pass to a depth of thirty feet, blocking the way they had come. Rix assessed the area, despair rising like a sickness in him.

‘Doesn’t look as though you’ll be finishing the portrait any time soon,’ said Tobry.

‘I gave my word it’d be done,’ Rix snapped, imagining the interview with Lady Ricinus, who could remove more skin with her acid tongue than the palace’s Master of the Floggings with his metal-tipped flails. ‘Is there any other way back?’

Tobry rubbed the top of his head and winced. ‘Only one — north over Hasp Pass, then down a series of unmarked mountain tracks. After that we’ll have to skirt around the eastern side of the Red and Grey Vomits, avoiding any fresh lava flows … and, er, head across the Seethings to the Caulderon Road.’

Rix had never been into that treacherous wasteland of hot springs, boiling mud lakes, bottomless sinkholes and lifeless pools corrosive enough to etch the toenails off anyone foolish enough to wade into them. He had no wish to go there now.

‘Didn’t someone ride into a hidden pool in the Seethings and get boiled alive?’

‘And then there was the fellow who took a dump in a geyser hole,’ said Tobry. ‘Did I tell you — ?’

‘Don’t bother,’ said Rix.

‘Blew him three hundred feet into the air and welded his arse to the back of his head. Gave a whole new meaning to the term — ’

‘I’m not in the mood, Tobe. Can we get home tomorrow?’

Tobry shook his head. ‘Dinner time the day after. Finding your way through the Seethings can be agonisingly slow.’

‘Gods! Mother is going to cut out my kidneys.’ Rix felt the area, which was painfully inflamed where the caitsthe’s claws had scraped down his belly.

‘Why go home?’

‘Sorry?’ said Rix.

Tobry grinned. ‘Defy Lady Ricinus. Neglect your responsibilities.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Every misery in your life comes from the palace, but you come of age in a few weeks and there’s enough coin in your saddlebags to last a year. Run away. Make your own way in the world.’

‘Mother would disinherit me.’

‘And release you from your greatest burden.’

‘I can’t do it.’

‘Why not? You’re strong, vigorous, clever …’ Tobry studied Rix, head to one side. ‘Perhaps clever is too strong a word — ’ He ducked as Rix hurled a coin pouch at him, and they both laughed.

Rix retrieved it, smiling for the first time since they had come up here. Of course Tobry was all right. He was recovering amazingly well, after all he had been through. But, tempting as the suggestion was, Rix could never do it. From the moment he had been able to walk, his destiny and duty had been to become the next Lord Ricinus. Given his father’s focus on drinking himself to death as quickly as possible, Rix might have to assume that responsibility any day.

‘My house needs me,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s what I was born for.’

‘It’s what people told you that you were born for. Your destiny lies in your own hands.’

‘I want to be Lord Ricinus. It’s the very meaning of my existence.’

‘Our existence has no meaning. We just are, and then we die and there’s an end to it.’

‘I hate it when you talk that way,’ Rix snapped.

‘I’ll lie if it’ll make you feel better. Tra-la-laa, tra-la-loy,’ Tobry sang in a girly falsetto, ‘life’s so wonderful I could skip for joy.’

Rix ground his teeth. ‘I can’t run away from my duty at a time like this.’

‘Duty will consume you and crap you out.’

‘I’m in charge of my life.’

‘You, and Lady Ricinus.’

Rix scowled and rode ahead. They picked their way through fetlock-deep snow, heading towards Hasp Pass. To the north he could just make out the fuming top of the Red Vomit. On his right, the dark face of Precipitous Crag reared up behind a series of white-covered ridges. What else did those caverns hide?

The swirling wind that plastered snow on their faces carried a faint, cleansing scent from the resin pines, and it cleared his head. ‘What did you make of those pens?’ he said shortly.

Tobry rubbed his face so furiously that several blisters burst. He jerked around in the saddle and once more his eyes dilated to vacancy.

Rix shivered. Not recovering so well after all. Or was there a darker reason? ‘Tobe?’

It was a long time before he answered. ‘They had the look of breeding pens.’

Every claw wound throbbed at once. ‘For shifters?’

‘That’s my guess.’

‘Why would a wrythen want to breed shifters?’

‘Because no living person could do so safely?’

‘Are you saying it’s working for the enemy?’

‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’

‘What are they up to? How does a wrythen manage it, anyhow?’

‘I don’t know.’