The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (38 page)

He sniffed the phial. His eyes widened and he tried to shake
the potion onto his palm, but the phial was empty. With a roar of rage he made
to hurl it away, but thought better of it and broke it against his boot.
Picking up the pieces, he carefully licked the potion off the inside of the
largest. After a good few seconds his eyes uncrossed.

Handing the remaining shards to the big soldier, Vomix bade
him do the same, though the sergeant was so far gone that his tongue was
bleeding in four places before he’d finished.

‘That’s the last of it, unfortunately,’ said Vomix. ‘Better
hope it’s enough to get you and me out, Sergeant Tink.’

‘What about my men?’ said Tink.

Three soldiers were slumped on the ground further up the
slope; others could be heard stumbling about, making increasingly incoherent
noises. Maelys prayed that they’d collapse as well.

‘They’ll have to follow as best they can, though the maze
madness will take them all, I’ll warrant.’ Vomix didn’t sound as though he
cared. ‘Can you see?’

‘Better than ever,’ said Tink. ‘I can see double!’ He
laughed hysterically. ‘What about you, surr?’

‘I’m all right.’ Vomix swayed, scowling at Maelys, who was
still trying to get her foot free, then thumped her in the side with an elbow.
She felt a rib creak. Dizziness hadn’t affected his aim. ‘Bitch took the last
of it.’ He tore off her pack, pawed through it, pocketed the golden bracelet
and tossed the pack to one side. She wrenched her foot free and lunged for the
pack. He kicked it out of sight. ‘Know you, don’t I?’

Maelys’s blood ran cold.

‘I remember now,’ he said slowly. ‘An insolent brat who
didn’t know her place. It was on the road to market – what, six years
ago. Or seven? Where was that?’ He pretended to think, but Maelys was sure he
knew and was enjoying tormenting her. ‘Oh yes, on the road down from the manor
of that upstart family, Clan Nifferlin. You must be Maelys, the rude little
girl who compared my face to a boar’s arse.’ He reached down for her but
thought better of it. ‘You brought your clan to my attention that day, and
doomed them as surely as if you’d pissed in the face of the God-Emperor.’ He
snorted like a pig.

‘I was just a little girl,’ she croaked. ‘I didn’t mean
anything by it. That can’t be why …’

‘You drew my attention to your clan, Maelys of Nifferlin. I
took a closer look and didn’t like what I saw – a concealed, illegal
talent for the Art, allied to an arrogant and rebellious nature that made
Nifferlin a threat to the God-Emperor. I plucked the troublemakers one by one
until only three stupid old women survived, and the little girl, and
you
. I was going to have you for
myself.’ He reached down to twist her nipple but again jerked his hand back.
‘But the five of you vanished and not even the wisp-watchers could tell what
had happened to you.’

Vomix seemed to be trying to recall those times. ‘How could
five people vanish so utterly? Your mother and aunts had no talents; my
torturers tested them thoroughly.’ He let out an evil snort. ‘And I don’t think
it was you. To ride a flap-peter you must have a talent, but that’s not the
kind that can conceal an escaping family.

‘Ahhh … odd incidents spring to mind at the ruins of
Nifferlin – searches that found nothing though the soldiers swore to
seeing things. You were
still there
,
hidden by the fifth person – the blonde girl. Oh, I especially like
extracting secrets from pretty little girls. The God-Emperor will make me a
high lord this time.’

Maelys’s blood was clotting in her veins. No wonder her
mother and aunts had treated her so badly – the downfall of Clan
Nifferlin had been all her fault. All doubts about right and wrong, or doing
her duty with Nish, disappeared. She’d doomed her clan; only she could save
what was left of her family. Neither Vomix nor the sergeant could be allowed to
leave the maze alive. And if she did get out she must do whatever it took to
make up for that childhood stupidity.

‘Not if you let Nish get away,’ she whispered, trying to
distract him.

Vomix thumped her on the back, though not hard enough to do
any damage. She noted that he was being careful not to touch her with bare
skin. ‘He won’t, because you’re going to lead me to him.’

‘I don’t know where he is. He’s run away.’ She immediately
wished she hadn’t spoken; Vomix might see no further use for her, or the others.

‘I don’t believe you. He can’t be that far ahead, can he,
Sergeant?’

‘Just minutes, according to Vardo. He saw three men running
down the path as we left the air-dreadnought. Vardo had the keenest eyes in the
guard.’

‘Where is Vardo? Get him down here right away.’

There was a short pause. ‘He was the first to succumb, surr.
He’s the man you ordered up. He wasn’t moving, the last I saw of him. A good
man at your back in a battle, was Vardo.’

‘No good now, though, is he?’ Another snort. ‘Can you see the
true path, Sergeant?’

‘I can see a hundred paths, surr, and I can’t tell the
difference between any of them.’

‘I only see five clearly, but I don’t know which one to
take. And the soldiers are useless. Maelys?’

‘I see seven paths but I can’t tell which one is true,’ she
whispered.

‘Lying bitch!’ Drawing a long, heavy gauntlet from a belt
hook, he struck her across the face. ‘You’re letting him get away. What about
you, girl?’ Vomix clouted Jil over the side of the head.

‘It’s all whirling,’ wept Jil, choking with terror. Timfy
screamed and thrust his face into her shoulder.

Vomix scowled, pulled out a dagger and was about to cut her
throat when the sergeant said, ‘We may need her later, surr.’

Vomix lowered the knife. ‘Are you defying me?’ he said
dangerously.

‘What if the brat’s the only one who can see? We won’t get
any sense out of him if you’ve just slaughtered his sister.’

Vomix slammed the knife into its sheath. ‘You’re right, of
course. In places like this, sometimes weakness can mean strength.’ He wrenched
Timfy’s head back. ‘Well, brat!’ he roared, spit flying onto the lad’s cheeks.
‘Can you
see
?’

The boy tried to pull away. Vomix jerked him back and
slapped him with an open hand. He began to wail.

‘Surr,’ said the sergeant, ‘I don’t think –’

‘Soldiers don’t think,’ said Vomix in a deadly voice.
‘Beating is the only way to get the best out of a brat.’ He raised his hand.

The sergeant caught it and held it in an unbreakable grip.
‘Stop, surr!’

Vomix’s other hand flashed to the dagger. ‘Get your filthy
hand off me –’

‘I am a sergeant in the God-Emperor’s Imperial Militia,’
said the sergeant. ‘And I’m not required to answer to any man, even you, surr,
who is acting against my lord’s wishes.’ Tink turned to Maelys. ‘You’ve got
your wits about you, girl. Make the lad speak, for all our sakes.’

Maelys managed to coax Timfy from his sister’s arms and took
him a little further down where he could still see Jil, but not Vomix nor the
soldiers. ‘Timfy,’ she said, ‘can you tell which way to go?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Can’t you?’

‘No, I’m not as strong or clever as you. Nor as brave.’
Timfy swelled a little. ‘Jil and I need you to show us the way out so we can
get away from the bad men. Can you lead the way, Timfy?’

‘I want my sister.’

‘I’ll call her.’ She waved at the sergeant, who brought Jil
down. Vomix followed, glowering, then two staggering, cross-eyed soldiers.
There was no sign of the others and she imagined what it must be like for them,
lost in an unreal place they could not understand, then abandoned by their
comrades to madness and death. The Imperial Militia were brutal thugs who
doubtless deserved to die but she could still feel pity for them, dying alone
down here.

Timfy strode ahead, proudly and confidently, as if he were
walking along the road through Tifferfyte. Maelys could see the path he trod,
though it was just one of many arching up, plunging down or curving around in
circles, with nothing to distinguish it from any of the others. Behind her one
soldier sounded as though he was trying to bring up his intestines. The other
wailed and ran up a smoothly curved wall, managing several leaps before he fell
backwards onto the path, twitching but unable to get up. The sergeant knelt
beside him for a moment, until Vomix angrily called him on.

‘Any soldier who falls must be abandoned, sergeant, else the
potion will wear off and we’ll be trapped here too.’

Only Vomix and the sergeant were with them now, and the
sergeant was lurching like a drunken man as his small dose of potion wore off
and the wild magic of the maze took an ever stronger hold. Vomix,
unfortunately, seemed little worse than he’d been at the beginning, for he kept
casting charms on himself to ward off the multiple visions. Each charm appeared
to hurt him more than the previous one, though he soon recovered. Afraid to
touch Maelys now, he drove her on by pricking her back with his knife,
muttering dire threats should she lead him astray.

Maelys endured it as best she could while she tried to work
out what had happened at the Mistmurk. After she’d arrived at Tifferfyte,
Monkshart had told Phrune that she had no aura at all – and therefore, no
talent. But after touching Maelys, Vomix had been stung or burned by her odd
aura. Had passage through the Mistmurk changed her in some fashion?

She didn’t think she could keep going much longer. The
potion was wearing off and she could see so many intersecting, quivering
pathways that her mind had begun to rebel and reject all of them, even the one
she was standing on. She felt giddy all the time and was having trouble telling
up from down. Jil had bound a strip of cloth over her eyes: only terror for her
brother kept her on her feet.

Vomix’s rage was swelling all the time. Prevented by the
sergeant from harming Timfy or Jil, he took it out on Maelys, though he was
careful only to touch her with the gauntlets. He was grunting and gasping;
strings of slobber dangled from the dense black stubble which had sprouted on
his chin. Maelys felt sure he was being driven mad by the maze, and
aftersickness from the dangerous charms he was using to keep it at bay.

Wait – none of them really mattered to him, but Nish
did, and if Vomix brought Nish back unharmed it would make him. So if she could
offer him that hope there might be a chance …

‘A light, a light,’ she lied, pointing in a wavering circle,
forwards. ‘Nish, help –’

The maze hadn’t affected Vomix’s reflexes. He sprang at her,
knocking Jil and Timfy out of the way, and slapped his reeking gauntlet across
Maelys’s mouth and nose.

‘You’ll live to regret that,’ he hissed. Thrusting her
sprawling, he peered into the maze. ‘Where’s the light? I don’t see it.’

‘There.’ She gestured to where a narrow grey path appeared
to coil up and over, before plunging down precipitously. ‘Halfway down the
further slope.’

‘I can’t see anything,’ Vomix growled.

‘You can see it, can’t you, Timfy?’ Maelys said desperately,
knowing that Timfy would say no and then, likely as not, Vomix would plunge his
sword right through her. ‘Can’t you?’

Timfy looked up and said, with the perfect innocence of a
child, ‘I saw the light ages ago. It was climbing up but now it’s going down
again.’ He pointed somewhat to the right. She could have hugged him.

Vomix looked from Timfy to her, breathing heavily, then back
to Timfy. ‘You pointed further left,’ he said to Maelys.

‘No, that way.’ She described another shaky circle in the
air, her arm trembling so badly that she could barely hold it out.

His eyes narrowed, but a spasm racked him and bile-green
saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth. He managed to gasp, ‘Follow the
light, and be quick about it.’ He made a gesture as if blessing himself,
renewing the painful illusion-breaking charm. ‘Aahhh!’ he roared, doubling over
and holding his stomach.

Maelys moved backwards to safety, knowing that he’d lash out
the moment he’d recovered. If she could keep him at bay long enough,
aftersickness must build up until he couldn’t resist it.

As she turned away, a gauntleted blow drove her to her
knees, then Vomix spat a green gob beside her. ‘Liar!’ he roared, jerking her
up and around to face him. ‘My charm tells me that there is no light. How dare
you coax the boy to lie for you?’

He swung another wild blow, which glanced off her shoulder.
‘But you
know
! You’ve known where
Cryl-Nish and the traitors were all along and you’ve been leading the boy
astray so they could escape.’ He reached out with the knife. ‘You’ll show
–’

Maelys couldn’t take any more. She lunged, bringing her
right knee up so hard between his legs that she felt something burst. He
shrieked and collapsed on top of her. She thrust his vomit-crusted face away,
wriggled out from under him and flicked a glance to her left. The sergeant had
his sword out but his eyes were crossed and he kept jerking his head left and
right, as if that were the only way he could focus. It was the only chance
they’d get.

‘Run for the light!’ she hissed in Timfy’s ear.

Timfy didn’t move. ‘Jil?’ he said anxiously.

Jil’s nose was running and she was staggering like a newborn
calf. Maelys caught her around the shoulders. ‘Run ahead, Timfy!’ she hissed.
‘Show us the way. If we can get out of sight the bad men won’t be able to find
us again.’

He took his sister’s hand and began to pull her along as
fast as she could stagger. Maelys looked down. Vomix was still squirming on the
ground, making a thin squeal like an animal chewing its leg off to escape a
trap. His knife was in its sheath, partly under him. She had her hand on the
hilt when he rolled over onto his side and drew his legs up. His eyes were
screwed closed, and if she snatched the knife and buried it in his heart it
would all be over.