Vengeance

boulders, his gaze sweeping the ridge. How could she stop him? Tali remembered her unused plan from last night.

After one taste, I’ll tell ya anythin, Lifka had said.

Tali fumbled one of the withered Purple Pixies out of her pocket, poked it under the surface of the glorn and resumed her position, surreptitiously wiping the pickle off her finger. She was not game to lick it.

Tinyhead took several steps towards the ridge crest.

Tali shouted, ‘Rannilt, run, hide!’

He stalked back, the knife jerking up and down with each stride. She shrank away, expecting him to strike her, but he merely picked up his breakfast.

‘When we reach the cellar, she’ll cut your head open like this loaf.’ Tinyhead opened his mouth to take a bite.

‘Who’s she?’

Tali’s memories of the masked woman who had killed her mother were lost, save for her icy contempt. She had despised the Pale, viciously mocked the man who had been her accomplice and stood on Iusia’s chest as though she was rubbish.

Tinyhead froze for a second, mouth open, and a muscle on his jaw twitched. He tried to smile but it failed. ‘A traitor to her own people,’ he gasped.

‘Just like you, then.’

She had gone too far. Tinyhead dragged her upright by her bound hands and clubbed a fist. His misshapen face had gone purple; his whole body shook. With a visible effort he withheld the blow and shoved her backwards onto the grass.

‘You think I’ve suffered all this for gold?’ he spat. ‘For the enemy’s filthy coin?’

She tried to calm her galloping heart. His outrage was genuine. She had been wrong about Tinyhead all along, and it changed everything. Clearly, she had mortally insulted him by comparing him to the woman who had killed her mother. But if he wasn’t acting out of greed, or some deep seated hatred of the Pale, what did move him?

‘Why do you do it?’ she said softly. She needed to know. She had to understand him.

For the first time, he met her eyes. ‘I love my country. I was chosen. I serve.’

He took a huge bite from the loaf, through the cavity filled with glorn, then chewed twice and swallowed. Had he eaten the Purple Pixie? How long would it take to work? She found it hard to breathe. Would it work on a Cythonian?

‘Who do you serve?’ said Tali.

It was the vital question. If he wasn’t betraying Pale for money, if he was following some Cythonian’s secret orders, then whose? And why did that person require him to lead the women of Tali’s family to a distant cellar, to be killed in a particular way by that evil, masked woman — a Hightspaller and an enemy? It made no sense. Why not kill them in Cython? Why involve the enemy at all?

Could the women of her family pose a threat to someone in Cython, a threat most safely eliminated by having them killed by the enemy? It seemed far fetched; much simpler to kill the mother and her little daughter, thus eliminating the threat forever. Why allow each daughter to grow up and have another daughter?

Tinyhead squatted and attacked the rest of the loaf. His bloodshot eyes were on her mouth again. He was definitely afraid of something about her. Her gift?

Tali attacked the problem from another direction. What if the women of her house were not a threat? What if there was something valuable in them — some promise that had to mature: their magery, perhaps? But if so, why didn’t the Cythonians take it for themselves? Why hand it to an enemy? Unless, she thought with a sudden chill, there was something wrong with this unknown gift in her family …

Her stomach began to throb. What if there was something poisoned inside her? If she escaped and went home to Hightspall, might she carry that corruption to her own people? But she could not live her life on what ifs. She had to continue with her plan.

Tinyhead swayed and fell backwards, his eyes describing ovals in their sockets. He tried to sit up but fell down again — the Purple Pixie was starting to work. Tali had to get the truth out of him quickly. Once he began to hallucinate she would not be able to trust anything he said.

She checked on the shaft. Orlyk’s reinforcements must arrive any minute, to begin the search for her. She had to be gone by then, because the well-fed, tireless Cythonians would soon run her down. They could not afford to let her warn Hightspall about the coming war.

But first Tali needed the name of the woman who had killed her mother, or the man who had aided her, though they weren’t her ultimate quarry. Iusia had called House vi Torgrist’s enemy he.

And Tinyhead had said, I love my country. I was chosen. I serve. Who did he serve, and why was it such a secret that he would risk his life rather than allow his fellow Cythonians to discover it? It had to be her real enemy.

Voices came from the top of the shaft. The Cythonians were back. Tinyhead began to grunt and gasp. His pupils were so dilated now that his eyes were watering.

Tali bent over him. ‘Who killed my mother?’

‘Lay-lay-lay-’ he gasped, white tongue lolling from his open mouth.

‘Is that the woman’s name? Layla, Ladis, Layyalie?’

‘Lay-’ Tinyhead’s eyes rolled, then focused on somewhere behind her. ‘No!’ he said, trying to scramble away on his back like a four-legged spider. ‘Get away.’

There was nothing behind her — he was beginning to hallucinate. She was almost out of time; forget the woman’s name. Tali took him by the shoulders and whispered, ‘Who do you serve?’

‘The dead — the dead — ’

Tinyhead convulsed so violently that she was knocked aside, then stood up and began to reel about, waving his arms and bellowing incoherently. ‘M — M — Master — ’

Someone shouted, ‘I heard something, over there,’ from the direction of the shaft. Orlyk.

Tali only had seconds to get the name. Still hidden behind the boulders, she said, ‘Who is your master?’

‘Master …’

Tinyhead jerked like a loose-stringed marionette, then his left arm stilled and, moving at a calm purpose at odds with the rest of his uncontrollable body, he drew from his pouch the blue ovoid he’d been toying with earlier. It was glowing again.

‘Master? Help me, Master.’

His hand smashed the ovoid against the right side of his blistered forehead and blue light fled in all directions, leaving a small blue-green blob like thick jelly stuck to his brow. His dilated pupils contracted to pinpoints, swung onto Tali and focused like twin telescopes.

She gasped, for the air had gone so frigid that her lungs crackled with each breath. His eyes had turned an eerie yellow and someone was looking out of them, someone cold as death, patient as time, radiating rage and an implacable determination. The House vi Torgrist’s enemy had found her.

‘The name!’ hissed Tali, praying that the Purple Pixie still had some influence over Tinyhead.

‘Master — is … is — ’

With a boiling hiss, the blob vanished. Smoke rose from a small circle burned deep into Tinyhead’s forehead, then something white and gluey squirted from his left ear. He swayed in a circle but remained on his feet.

A piercing pain stabbed through Tali’s own brow. Her head began to throb like a beating heart and suddenly she felt exposed, naked, vulnerable. Her enemy knew where she was, yet she knew nothing about him.

Behind her, the Cythonians were shouting down the shaft for reinforcements, yelling at Tinyhead, gasping, choking.

Whatever he knew about her enemy, it was lost.

And Tali had but seconds to get away.