The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) (73 page)

‘You’ll have all the time you can endure.’ Jal-Nish turned
away to face Nish. ‘Cryl-Nish, my only son –’

‘
Time!
’ said
Flydd.

Suddenly Nish realised what he was saying. He whipped up his
sword and sent it spinning at his father. ‘Go!’ he roared.

The sword vanished in a flash of fire, forming a shower of
molten metal that had Jal-Nish and his soldiers reeling backwards.

Nish caught Flydd’s arm and bolted for the ladder. He thrust
Flydd’s foot onto the top rung, pushed him down, then followed as quickly as he
could, though before his head dropped below the edge of the cliff his father
had recovered and the sky palace began creeping towards them.

The ladder was bouncing and banging around in the updraught,
each thump against the cliff tearing skin off Nish’s knuckles. Down about
twenty rungs he saw a streaming curtain of moss and algae partly covering an
opening in the cliff. He reached it and Zham’s huge hands pulled Nish in and
set him on the floor.

He couldn’t hear the sky palace coming over the howling
gale, but it wouldn’t be long. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Nish looked
towards the back of the cave, which ended in a flat wall with two half columns
carved in the rock at either side, like pillars framing a doorway.

Outside, the great cables whined as the nearby anchor was
released, lowered and, with a crunch of shattered rock, hooked on further down
the cliff. The sky palace crept over the edge and out, dropped to their level
then pulled back in, illuminating the cave with its reflected whiteness. This
time, though, the staircase didn’t extend.

Instead, a glittering plank slid out until it parted the
moss curtains at the entrance. It was narrow but Jal-Nish trod it confidently,
as if there wasn’t a drop of a thousand spans to either side and the
treacherous updraughts whirling all about. Perhaps with the tears he could even
control gravity’s pull on him.

And he had the tears, or one of them, dangling from a chain
around his neck. Nish couldn’t tell which one. Jal-Nish stopped just outside,
his greying hair stirring in the wind, condensed moisture dripping off the
platinum mask. Nish couldn’t breathe. Flydd was still mumbling, but to no
effect. It was too late. Jal-Nish stepped through the moss curtain, his real
hand caressing the tear, the restored arm hanging stiffly at his side.

‘Gatherer?’ Nish said limply.

‘No, Son. It’s time for Reaper.’

FIFTY-ONE

Maelys felt a shriek of raw, living terror building up
inside her, and this time she didn’t try to suppress it, because she’d
remembered Phrune’s one weakness and if she didn’t act on it instantly she was
dead. She let it out, screaming so loudly and shrilly that it tore at her
healing throat where it had been scored by the barbs of the slurchie.

Phrune clapped his hands over his ear holes, trying to block
out the high-pitched sounds which caused him so much pain. Instantly, Maelys
punched him in the larynx. Her father had once told her that it was a good way
to disable an attacker.

Phrune fell to his knees, gasping, though he could still
draw air. She hadn’t hit him hard enough. He began to struggle to his feet. She
kicked them from under him then grabbed her staff and thumped him over the head
with it.

There was no time to think. Maelys sprang up onto the centre
of the slab and held the clear crystal in the cursed flame, praying that it was
the right thing to do. The flame was only warm, but a shock ran up her arm,
then her muscles contracted violently, hurling her backwards. She landed on the
flat top of the slab, tingling all over and unable to get up, for her muscles
wouldn’t obey her.

Phrune pushed himself to his feet, looking like a mutilated,
malevolent death’s head, and let out an incongruous giggle. ‘It’s the
cursed
flame, Maelys. Are you really
that stupid? Yes, you must be. You can’t get up; can’t move. You’ve doomed
yourself. What bliss you’re going to give me as I take your skin and offer your
blood to my master.’

He turned away into the gloom beyond the direct rays of the
cursed flame. Maelys heard scuffling and shortly he reappeared, hauling the
limp form of Monkshart.

The zealot was naked, his ruined skin weeping from hundreds
of inflamed cracks, but his head, neck and shoulders were a bloody, grotesque
mess. Almost all the carefully tended long hair had fallen out and his face
looked as though it had been boiled in acid. The corrugated, bark-like skin
there was gone apart from a few residual tiles standing above raw flesh. His
eyes were swollen closed and he was barely breathing.

Phrune saw the expression in her eyes as she looked at the
ruin that had once been a man.

‘Nish attacked him, after all my master did for him. But
he’ll pay.’

Phrune hauled Monkshart into a cavity Maelys hadn’t noticed,
under the broad end of the slab, and scuffling indicated that he’d dragged him
beneath the star-shaped hole through which the cursed flame issued.

Phrune’s head popped up above the other end of the slab.
‘Are you ready to be sacrificed, Maelys? Of course you are, but you can’t say
so, can you? You can’t move, for the kiss of the flame has paralysed you. What
a pity you didn’t take the trouble to find out first.’

Maelys tried to wiggle her toes, and found that she could
move them a little. She attempted the same with her hand, the one that had gone
into the flame. It didn’t budge, though she caught a faint diamond-clear
flicker between her fingers, as if some of the brightness of the cursed flame
had been trapped within the crystal. It didn’t help her; she had no idea how to
use that power.

Her arm was completely dead but she
could
move the fingers of her other hand. Perhaps the amber-wood
had helped. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a way to use it either.

Phrune clambered up and started to unfasten the toggles of
the amber-wood coat, but his oily fingers were shaking in his excitement and
kept fumbling. Monkshart let out a piteous groan from beneath the slab.

Phrune cried, ‘Sorry, Master,’ then hacked the cords apart
with his ever-ready stiletto, scattering amber-wood everywhere.

‘Flydd must have come to a pretty pass if he has to make
himself a coat out of wood,’ he sneered.

He didn’t know it was amber-wood. Not that it helped.

Monkshart moaned. ‘Master, what is it?’ said Phrune.

‘Piiittt,’ said Monkshart.

‘What, Master?’

Monkshart said nothing. Phrune looked over the side, head
cocked. ‘Ah, yes. What did you see in the Pit of Possibilities, Maelys?’

She didn’t answer, thinking that he’d have to keep her alive
until she told him, and if she could just hold out –

In an instant he was beside her, gripping her nose with his
slippery fingers. ‘You’re not a pretty girl, Maelys, but you’ll be hideous when
I cut your nose off.’ He pressed the blade up against her nostrils. ‘Be quick.
My master is dying and I won’t tolerate delay.’

Maelys couldn’t waste time, either. If she didn’t get the
crystal back to Flydd soon, it would be too late. ‘I saw Jal-Nish with the
tears,’ she said. ‘He was close to reaching his ultimate goals.’

‘What goals?’ Phrune’s eyes glistened in the blue light of
the flame.

‘He needs but three things to become invulnerable: perfect
knowledge of the tears; complete mastery of himself; and a clear understanding
of the Art by which he uses Gatherer and Reaper. And he’s close to gaining all
three …’

‘But that’s not all, is it? What else did you see?’

She didn’t want to reveal their solitary hope of undermining
the God-Emperor but the blade was cutting into her nostrils. One slash and her
nose would be gone, and she couldn’t bear that even if she was going to die.
‘He’s afraid.’

Phrune sighed. ‘Ahh!’ and it was echoed from under the slab.
‘What is he afraid of?’

Maelys couldn’t think of any convincing lie. She wished she
could resist him but felt too afraid. ‘We believe that somewhere, at the moment
the tears were formed, their antithesis was also created – the one thing
that could undermine their power.’

Phrune went very still, save for his dark, flickering
tongue. ‘Where is this
antithesis
?’
he hissed. ‘What is it?’

‘I have no idea. But if an enemy –’

Monkshart made a grunting sound and Phrune interjected.
‘That’s all we need!’ He favoured her with his sick grin. ‘Now
my
time begins.’

He began to strip off Maelys’s clothes, carefully, though
not out of any concern for her. He didn’t want to risk an accidental nick that
would damage her beautiful skin. He had her naked in a minute, then began to
run his hands all over her, gloating over the fineness of the body-glove he was
going to make from her.

She tried to restrain her disgust, to pretend to raw,
incoherent terror, and that wasn’t hard at all. Let him think that she was
helpless and there might be a chance, for she’d had an idea.

He eased her into position until her backside was over the
star-shaped hole, the cursed flame licking warmly against her buttocks. It
tickled but did not burn, but what was it doing to her? She didn’t feel any
shock this time, so that must have come from holding the crystal in the flame.

‘Your blood runs down through the star hole,’ said Phrune,
‘where it is sanctified and transformed by the cursed flame. Every drop that
drips on my master’s cruelly burned face will restore him.’

Monkshart groaned again. Phrune flicked the blade against
the pad of his thumb, several times, frowned, then took out an oiled sharpening
stone and began to hone the edge.

While he was thus occupied, Maelys’s groping fingers
gathered a piece of amber-wood and poked it beneath her buttocks until it fell
into the flame. Feeling a surge of heat, she gathered more amber-wood and
awkwardly did the same with it. She thought it was doing some good, because she
could move this arm further now, and some life was even coming back to the hand
she’d put into the flame. But would it be enough? He didn’t need the skin from
her face and neck, for Monkshart didn’t wear tissue-leathers there. Phrune
could indulge his lust for pain and suffering all he liked, before draining her
blood for his master.

Maelys felt cold inside and out, despite the warmth of the
chamber. Her feet were freezing; her pulse ticked slowly in her temples,
counting the remaining seconds of her life away. She was afraid to move too
soon in case she missed her chance; afraid to wait too long in case he did
something irrevocable. She was scared of the cursed flame licking at her
buttocks and terrified of Monkshart groaning softly beneath the slab. He smelt
like freshly butchered meat.

Phrune finished honing, wiped the blade, laid the sharpening
stone on the slab and climbed up. He moved along on hands and knees until he
was straddling Maelys, and she began to fear that he’d begin with rape. He
laughed at the look on her face, then settled back on his haunches.

‘I wouldn’t touch you in that way for any reward.’ Phrune’s
mouth puckered in disgust, then he reached forwards with the knife. Her nerves
shrank from the blade but her body couldn’t move. He pricked her throat and his
tongue went slither-slap across his lips. Even his eyes seemed to be drooling.
She had to do something
right now
.

What if she thrust a finger into his eye and tried to gouge
it out? She didn’t think she could reach that far, for her upper arm and
shoulder had little strength yet. Not enough to hurt him.

Then he leaned forwards, deliberately bringing his repulsive
face close to hers, and the tissue-wrapped taphloid slipped from his shirt,
swinging below his bruised throat. He licked his lips again and bent over her,
concentrating on the first cut.

Maelys saw her only chance, and she took it. Her good hand
shot out, clawed the tissue off the taphloid and thrust it through his
obscenely plump lips. She ground it into his mouth, holding it there with the
heel of her hand.

He reared backwards and dropped the knife, whose point went
a finger width into the flesh of her left hip before clattering to the slab.
Blood welled out, running underneath her and into the flame, which burned
blisteringly hot for a second. Monkshart cried out in pain, or exultation.

Phrune was leaning back on his haunches, squealing as his
cheeks inflated and his lips swelled to several times their normal size and
turned a vivid plum purple. Bubbles of blood formed in his right nostril, then
his left eye and both ear holes. He began scrabbling at his mouth with his
fingers, trying to claw the taphloid out, but his lips were already so swollen
that he couldn’t force his fingers in.

Great shudders racked him. His eyes went red; a scream burst
through his lips; the taphloid was forced out, to bounce against his throat,
every impact creating a circular red swelling.

Maelys felt her upper arm unfreezing, which had to be due to
the amber-wood. She gathered all she could reach, raked it into the hole and,
as the flame singed her buttocks, felt the paralysis fading.

She hastily rolled off the table before her blood healed
Monkshart further, landing hard on her bottom. Her legs were still partly numb
but she managed to pull herself to her feet, holding the rough side of the
slab, and dressed painfully. Ebbing blood stained her pants along the hip.

Phrune was still crouched on the slab but his head had
swollen so much it looked about to explode. The skin along his jawline began to
tear in his agony. He looked down at the star hole and tried to smile, but was
in too much pain.

Blood trickled from his mouth. He pressed his lips tightly
together to contain it. Falling to his hands and knees, he crawled forwards to
the hole, saying in gurgling dribbles, ‘Master … my last service …’