‘Did you think I came to this island willingly?’
‘Why didn’t they just kill you?’ Kutch asked, agog.
‘To make me suffer the more for my defiance. That and a certain awe for my rank. The clans tend to dote on their leadership.’
‘Things have changed a bit in that respect,’ Serrah dryly informed him.
‘No amount of depravity on their part would surprise me,’ Mahaganis stated soberly. ‘Anyhow, I was dislodged, my faction purged. After I aided Reeth, they finally caught up with me, which is how I came to be here, nurse-maiding an orphaned child and the Source.’
‘So it does exist.’
He wore a pained expression. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘Where is it?’ Caldason demanded, rising again. ‘ What is it?’
The old man lifted a mollifying hand. ‘Your patience still needs work, Reeth. It was always a virtue that eluded you.’
‘The Source could be decisive in what’s going on out there, Praltor. It could be the salvation of a lot of people, me included.’
‘It could also be your damnation.’
‘At least don’t deny us that choice.’
‘But it doesn’t just affect you, does it? The repercussions could be enormous. Its power is…beyond words. Just being near it can be destructive.’
‘Neither of you seem to have suffered too much by it.’
‘Really? All right then, Reeth; if you want it so badly, take it.’
‘Where is it?’ Serrah asked. ‘How do we find it?’
Kutch had been watching silently. He said, ‘I know.’
‘You do?’
‘I can feel it.’ He nodded at the old man. ‘It’s him.’
Caldason stared. ‘What?’
‘The boy’s very perceptive,’ Mahaganis noted approvingly.
‘Are you all going to start talking gibberish again?’ Serrah wanted to know. ‘Because if you are…’
‘Kutch here asked why my enemies in the clans didn’t simply kill me and have done with it,’ Mahaganis reminded them. ‘It was partly because of my station, but that paints far too benevolent a picture of them. They actually spared my life in order to torment me further.’
‘What have your sufferings to do with the Source?’
‘What do you suppose the Source to be, Reeth? A store of knowledge, yes; but what about its form? A grimoire, perhaps? A whole library? Hoards of papyrus, or clay tablets? Over the eons since its accumulation by the Founders it may well have been all those things. But it’s something much more nebulous than that. Essentially, the Source is an occult system, a concept. And I’ve come to believe it’s something much more than that.’
‘Such as?’
‘The Source is some kind of embodiment of magic. I think it’s…sentient.’
‘That’s a hell of a conclusion to draw,’ Serrah responded. ‘What’s your evidence?’
‘Tell them what they did to you,’ Wendah blurted out.
Everyone was thrown for a second by the usually silent girl’s sudden outburst. Then Mahaganis spoke.
‘As punishment for aiding Reeth,’ he said, ‘and for turning my back on the paladins, they infused the Source here.’ He laid a finger against his temple. ‘In my mind.’
‘And they put out his eyes with fire,’ Wendah added, ‘to make his torment worse.’
‘That was a masterful touch of sadism,’ the old man remarked, almost admiringly. ‘It left me with nowhere to look but inward. So all I glimpse, permanently, is the quintessence of Founder evil; and the squirming, putrid life force in which it’s suspended. You ask me for evidence. I have the testimony of my own, unblinking inner eye. For all practical purposes I am the Source.’
Another silence, broken this time by Serrah. ‘We have people back on the island who can help you,’ she promised. ‘Magicians, scholars-’
He shook his head. ‘The clans couldn’t master it, for all their resources, and they would dearly have loved to. Respect to your sorcerers, but what chance would they have?’
‘If it’s so powerful,’ Kutch asked, ‘why did the Founders leave the Source to be discovered? Why didn’t they destroy it, or at least hide it better?’
‘Perhaps whatever catastrophe overtook them was too swift. But I suspect the real reason is because even the Founders couldn’t better it. My feeling is that it can’t be understood and, as long as magic fuels it, it can’t be destroyed.’
‘That’s a cheerful prospect,’ Serrah returned mordantly.
‘There’s nothing joyous about any of it,’ Mahaganis informed her. ‘Unless you count the fact that the magic locked in my head has kept me going far beyond my natural lifespan. But that can be a mixed blessing, can’t it, Reeth?’
Caldason ignored that, and posed a question of his own. You still haven’t told me why the clans targeted my tribe for butchery.’
‘Your kin were irrelevant, except insofar as they might have protected you. Or at least they were of no consequence to the client who commissioned the slaughter. You were the only real target.’
‘Why? And who-’
‘There are some things you’re ready to hear, others not.’ He was massaging his forehead. ‘We’ve spoken enough about all this for the moment.’
‘Have we? Have we really? I’m not a child anymore, Mahaganis. I don’t need to be sheltered and lied to.’
‘Not now, Reeth. I don’t feel too good.’
‘To hell with that. Answer me.’
‘Leave him alone!’ Wendah demanded. ‘Can’t you see he’s ill?’
‘Would it hurt him that much to tell me?’ Caldason’s temper was rising.
Serrah caught his arm. ‘What are you going to do, Reeth, beat it out of him?’
Caldason sighed. He regarded the frail old man and the emaciated girl at his side.
‘No,’ he said. ‘What we’re going to do is get you two out of here.’
25
While not especially built for speed, the Daughters of Mercy hospital ship was compact and sleek, and capable of a good rate of knots. Fortunately so, for no sooner had the island been sighted than trouble struck.
An insipid sun at their backs, a brace of privateers bore down on the disguised rebel craft. Shortly, a second pair arrived, the other edge of an intended pincer.
The Mercy ship put on speed. From port and starboard, further pirate galleons closed in, canvas swelling, prows carving the chill water. On board the infirmary craft the order went up to jettison all surplus cargo, and crates, chests and casks tumbled overboard. Lightened, the quarry surged.
A race ensued, the hospital ship trying to reach friendly climes before the pirates blocked its path. It was a close run. The hunted vessel beat the tightening blockade by a nose, and now it was a chase, the loner battling to outpace a small fleet even more determined to prevent it making shore.
Then a new set of ballooning sails was spotted, moving out from the island itself. A flotilla hove into view, equal in number to that which the pirates had mustered. And though ramshackle and makeshift, it put them to flight.
So it was that Dulian Karr and the dregs of the Resistance came to the Diamond Isle.
For Karr and Goyter, Quinn Disgleirio and a few hundred others, it was a time of joyous reunions.
For Tanalvah Lahn it was an experience of quite a different order.
In the shadow of their great tiered fortress, the islanders allowed themselves a brief period of rejoicing, for all that their situation looked hopeless. There were celebrations, some revelry, and cups raised to fallen comrades.
