The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (26 page)

The sun was setting as Monkshart led them through the
village, and everyone stared as they went by. The place was neat and tidy, the
paths freshly swept and even the composting piles formed into neat circles, but
every structure had an ill-made, temporary look.

The defensive wall was merely dry-stone rocks loosely fitted
together as if by inexperienced hands, and would not have held the God-Emperor’s
troops back for a second. The houses must also have been built by novices,
being the rudest of stone huts roofed with slabs of crumbling shale. The
terraced gardens were mostly bare at this time of year, apart from a large
patch of what looked like turnips and leeks.

The people were thin and work-worn; their dark, staring eyes
had a feverish glint which bothered Maelys almost as much as Monkshart had.
They looked haunted; trapped. And there was another odd thing. She didn’t see
any children.

A gaunt, ravaged young woman came stumbling out of the next
but last hut as they went by, crying and tugging at Monkshart’s sleeve. ‘Surr,’
she wept, ‘it came again last night. It took Milli and we can’t find her
anywhere. I’m so afraid.’

He brushed her off. ‘Phrune will deal with it, Ganni.’

She wailed and stumbled off. Maelys watched the girl go,
feeling her own hackles rising. She expected to be taken to one of the huts but
Monkshart led them up a set of steps rudely hacked into the stone all the way to
the top of the mountain, then turned aside. Nish stopped suddenly and Maelys’s
heart lurched, for one step ahead the ground fell away into the steaming
crater, which was nothing like the pile of rubble she had expected.

Its almost sheer inner walls were mostly as smooth as glass,
as if the rock had been melted in a titanic forge then trowelled flat, though
here and there the surface was hung with glassy festoons and dribbles where
molten rock had flowed then set. Directly across the crater, where the light of
the setting sun struck the wall, the surface glowed in reds, purples and
mauves. To her left it had a greenish hue, and colours shimmered across it like
a film of oil on the surface of a pond. It was an uncanny place and she didn’t
want to go anywhere near it.

Maelys looked down and wished she hadn’t. The walls fell
sheer for a good hundred spans, below which the rising steam blotted out her
view, though she glimpsed a blurred yellow flicker in the depths. A faint
crackle reached her ears, in waves that rose and fell.

‘What is this place?’ said Nish softly, as if speaking
loudly would be sacrilege.

Monkshart smiled thinly. ‘Should you answer my questions
correctly, you may ask your own. This way.’

He extended a long arm to his right, where a glass-smooth
path, no wider than Maelys’s shoulders, ran down the inside curve of the crater
towards a structure she could not see clearly through the belching steam. All
she could make out was a pair of red columns and what looked like a platform
extending over the abyss. It was warm though – like sitting by the fire
in a well-built house.

‘And if we don’t?’ said Nish.

Monkshart jerked a thumb over the side, then gestured ahead.
‘To the pavilion, if you please.’

Nish followed the glassy path, slowly and grimly. Maelys
went next, treading just as carefully, for it would be easy to slip on the
smooth glass underfoot, and fatal if she did.

Monkshart came a few paces behind and she resisted the urge
to glance over her shoulder. She could feel his physical presence smouldering
behind her, as if he might burst into flame at any moment. The thought of him
watching her made her acutely uncomfortable.

Nish gained the floor of the pavilion with a gasp of relief
and headed towards the rear, putting as much distance as he could between him
and the drop. Maelys stepped inside. The pavilion had a semi-circular floor, a
domed ceiling the same shape, and five columns equally spaced around the curve
of the semi-circle, all carved from the glassy rock as if by the hand of a
master, then polished until they shone.

Clearly the novices who’d built the village had no part in
making this place. A perfectly round opening at the rear led into darkness,
while at the front a long plank of thick rock-glass extended out like a diving
board between the second and third columns, over the crater.

‘What’s that for?’ Maelys asked in a low voice.

‘It’s where those who fail my questioning take their last
walk,’ said Monkshart, and she knew he was in earnest. He motioned Nish to a
stone chair to his right, Maelys to one facing it, and took the central chair.
‘Phrune!’

‘What?’ said Nish, evidently thinking Monkshart was speaking
to him.

A brown-clad shadow slipped through the round opening.
‘Master?’ said a treacly voice that made Maelys’s flesh creep. Phrune was a
baby-faced, chubby young man whose pale skin shone as if he’d been freshly
oiled. His head was shaven, apart from a gleaming queue sprouting from the top,
and his face was so plump that his eyes were mere slits. His lips were as red
and pouting as a split blood plum.

Phrune gave Nish a cursory glance before turning to Maelys,
studying her from head to foot then licking his swollen lips. Her eyes met his
for a second and she felt a physical shock; a revulsion she’d never felt
before. And yet she found it hard to look away, for his gaze clung to hers and
held it against her will.

‘Water for my guests, Phrune,’ Monkshart said sharply,
mechanically smoothing the gloves over his long fingers.

Phrune bowed low and, with another sideways glance at
Maelys, oozed back through the opening. After he’d returned with a jug of tepid
water and two stone beakers, and been sent away, Monkshart turned to Nish.

‘You claim to be the son of the God-Emperor. You would do
well to know that I served under Jal-Nish Hlar when he was scrutator, and
during his exile in the last years of the war.’

‘I wouldn’t call it exile,’ Nish snapped. ‘He lost the
battle of Gumby Marth through his own hubris, then ran away like the cowardly
cur he is, leaving his army to be slaughtered by the lyrinx.’

Monkshart smiled, though Maelys couldn’t read it. She knew
that story, for it formed part of the
Tale
of Nish and Irisis
and marked the time when Nish had first come into his
own. Though he’d not led men before, he had taken command of the decimated
army, single-handedly led the survivors against a superior force of the enemy,
and broken through to safety. The battle had still been a crushing defeat, with
most of a once proud army destroyed, but by the manner of the survivors’ escape
they had given hope to humanity in the darkest hours of the war.

‘Sometimes a limb must be sacrificed that the body may
survive,’ said Monkshart. ‘If you truly are Cryl-Nish, you would understand
that.’

‘
I
didn’t cut off
my father’s ruined arm,’ Nish said thickly.

‘The tales say you did, after a failed attack on a lyrinx
camp left him maimed.’

Nish’s right cheek spasmed. ‘The tales are wrong – I
couldn’t face it. I begged Irisis to do it to save Father’s life ... one thing
she
never lacked was courage. She cut
off the arm, sewed up Father’s face and saved the life he didn’t want, and from
that moment on she was doomed.’

‘What was the name of your little sister, who died just two
weeks after birth?’

Maelys saw Nish start. ‘How did you know that?’ he said hoarsely.
‘We weren’t allowed to mention her name.’

‘I was close to your father, once – until he became
the God-Emperor. Answer the question, please.’

Nish took a deep breath. ‘Hisly. My baby sister’s name was
Hisly and I was holding her when she died. She just stopped breathing. I was
only five; I didn’t know what the matter was, and by the time I ran to Mother
it was too late. Father never forgave me. I was the least favoured son ever
after, the one who’d let his precious daughter die.’

‘But now,
if you are
his son
, you’re all he’s got and he’s forgiven you. Take off your coat and
shirt, and your pants.’

‘What?’ croaked Nish.

Maelys felt the blood withdraw from her stomach. Had she
been wrong about Monkshart? Was he a man of depraved appetites?

‘I wish to see your scars,’ said Monkshart.

‘Why?’ said Nish.

‘Jal-Nish often talked about his youngest son, and all the
heroic things he’d done in the war. He knew every scar on Nish’s body, and I
remember everything he said about them.’

‘I don’t see how he could have,’ Nish said thickly.

‘The wisp-watcher outside Nish’s cell showed Jal-Nish
everything he wanted to see. He’d spend hours and days with the tears, watching
his son. And he questioned everyone who’d known Nish during the war. Jal-Nish
was proud of his son and wanted to know every detail of his service.’

‘My father was proud of me?’ Nish said in an odd voice.
‘I’ve not had a second’s praise from him in all my life.’

‘Nonetheless, he
was
proud,’ said Monkshart.

Maelys felt a shiver run up her spine. Was the God-Emperor
as obsessed with his son as Nish was with Irisis? If he was, it changed
everything. Nish choked, then stripped off and stood before Monkshart in just
his undershorts.

Maelys hadn’t seen him unclad in daylight before, though she
knew the story. The starkly pale skin of his back was scored with faint mauve
marks where he’d been flogged as a young man, and he had many other scars too;
war wounds. He was shivering.

‘Turn,’ said Monkshart.

Nish did so. Monkshart squinted at him, his lips moving as
if he were counting. From the corner of her eye Maelys saw Phrune appear in the
opening. He was staring at her, and she knew what he wanted. Monkshart waved
him away.

Finally, after several minutes, Monkshart nodded and said,
‘You may dress now.’

Nish dressed hastily, staring up at the zealot, then
suddenly Monkshart smiled like a wolf and thrust out his hand. ‘Cryl-Nish Hlar,
son of Jal-Nish, welcome to Tifferfyte.’

Nish tentatively offered his hand, which Monkshart clasped
in both of his big hands and shook firmly.

‘I know why you’ve come,’ Monkshart said. ‘My fame has
spread, for I’m one of the few people on Santhenar who dares defy the
God-Emperor. Perhaps the only one. Tifferfyte is an enclave of the forbidden
Defiance, and Jal-Nish can’t touch us, for there is a power here which not even
his tears can fight. It frightens him that there’s one place where his Arts do
not hold, and he dreads what could come out of it.’

‘But the steel of his soldiers’ swords bites as hard here as
anywhere,’ quoted Nish.

‘Not when they can’t come near enough to use them. I’ve lain
a protective halo around the mountaintop and no Art-powered device can pass
through its outer boundary without my permission. No human may cross the inner
boundary, which lies near where I met you, unless I allow them access. Let’s
get down to business. Ten years ago you swore to deliver Santhenar from your
father, Cryl-Nish, and now you have your chance. I’m going to turn you into
that Deliverer.’

‘What if I no longer want to?’ Nish gave Maelys a cool
sideways stare, as if to say, you’ve got what you wanted. I hope you’re happy.

‘Of course you do,’ said Monkshart.

Maelys lowered her eyes, almost fainting with relief. Beyond
hope and almost by accident, she’d succeeded. Tifferfyte was the one place on
Santhenar where Nish’s father couldn’t touch him, and Monkshart did have the
drive and the passionate purpose to forge Nish into the Deliverer. Now if there
were only a way to bring her family here, she would have done her duty. It was
the only way Maelys could do it now; not even for her sister’s life could she
make another seduction attempt.

‘Come to my quarters for refreshment, Deliverer,’ said
Monkshart. ‘And after that, there is much to be settled before we begin the
campaign.’

Nish rose. Monkshart took his arm. Maelys began to follow
but the zealot stilled her with a glance. ‘Who is she?’

‘My name –’ Maelys began, but Monkshart cut her off,
gesturing to Nish instead.

‘Her name is Maelys,’ said Nish. ‘She got me out of
Mazurhize – at least, her sister did – and Maelys brought me all
this way. I wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for her. She killed the
flappeter’s rider and took control of it …’

‘Maelys who?’ said Monkshart icily.

She didn’t like the way this was heading. Clearly, he thought
her a nobody to be cast aside. She knew she looked a mess, in her muddy,
tattered and blood-stained boy’s clothes, with her hair hanging around her
shoulders like a rat’s nest and her boots squelching as she moved. But surely,
she thought naively, Monkshart is pleased that I brought Nish to him?

Nish looked embarrassed. He didn’t know her clan name, for
Maelys had kept it back. The habit of secrecy was too deeply ingrained.

Monkshart turned those searing eyes on her and it was
impossible not to tell him. ‘Of Clan Nifferlin,’ she said reluctantly, not
expecting him to recognise the name. Though Nifferlin was an old clan and had
been modestly well off before the war, it had never been a powerful or
influential one. There was no reason why he should know it.

He looked up at the ceiling for a minute or two, and she
gained the impression of a man searching a vast catalogue of memory for one
small detail, then he focussed on her and his mouth turned down. ‘Nifferlin?
Unbiddable rebels all of them. Entirely unsuitable for the Deliverer. Phrune!’

Phrune put his head out through the opening. ‘Master?’

‘Take the girl to a suitable chamber and keep her there
until I call for her.’ He bent and whispered in Phrune’s ear, though loudly
enough for her to hear. ‘He’s lying, trying to protect the little tart. She
hasn’t got a speck of aura. She’s only out for one thing and she’s not having
him.’ He turned to Nish, saying in a normal voice. ‘Come over here, lad.’