Ian Irvine - Rebellion

“I never said you were. But the need is now, and you’re the best we have.”

“But — ”

“Can any of this pathetic rabble lead Hightspall?”

Rix surveyed the officers, many of whom he knew by dismal reputation. “No.”

“Would you refuse your country when it needs you most?”

“Of course not.”

“Then raise your hand and take the oath, Commander.”

Rix hesitated.

“It’ll make things awkward if I die without appointing a commander,” said the chancellor wryly.

Rix raised his hand and swore to serve his country until his dying breath. This was an oath he could swear with all his heart.

The chancellor shook his hand. “Good luck, Commander,” he whispered, then his small hand relaxed in Rix’s and he fell backwards, dead.

What the hell do I do now? Rix thought. Our combined army is outnumbered by both Grandys’ army and Lyf’s. Am I doomed to fight a battle that must surely end in Hightspall’s annihilation?

Lyf looked up from his spyglass. “The chancellor is dead.”

“Then the war has returned to its two-thousand-year-old starting point,” said Errek. “Grandys versus you.”

“He’ll make no alliances and give no quarter. And neither can I. The fight for our world has begun.”

“Can Wil do it?” said Wil, swaying, for he was alkoyled to the eyeballs. “Can Wil undo Lyf’s work, and destroy the enemy too? Yes, yes he can. Wil can do anything .”

Three days had passed since Lyf had come after him, and only now was Wil game to creep out of his hiding place.

The great story of Cythe and Cython could not end this way. Something had to be done but the iron book was not ready. He had forged it for a third time, and thought the quality of the pages would do, but it would take months to etch the story into them. It could not be done in time because the story was racing off on its own, outside anyone’s control.

That could not be allowed.

Wil was going to make the Engine take charge.

Sobbing with terror, he lurched down the Hellish Conduit, going further than he had ever been before. He was carrying a platina bucket full of the purest form of alkoyl, a substance so rare and valuable that he could have bought half of Hightspall with it.

Wil went further than anyone had ever been. Right to the terror of the Engine he went, until his skin blistered like a roast chicken from the heat and the infernal radiance. But he felt no pain, only ecstasy.

He climbed up on top, his feet charring, and poured alkoyl in the one place where it should never go. Right into the works of the Engine at the heart of the world.

The dreadful hour had come. Before Rix led his army out to an impossible battle, he had to do his tragic duty to a friend.

Tali and Rix slipped out of the chaos of the war tent and went up the hill, then down the other side to the outbuilding where Tobry was chained. Rix dismissed the guards, who were glad to go — even to bloody war.

Tali took hold of the left-hand set of chains, and Rix the right, and they led the hopelessly mad shifter that had once been Tobry Lagger out for a last look at the land he had loved.

They took him further down the hill, heading away from the battle plain to a chuckling, pebbly-bottomed stream. Despite the season there was a scattering of wildflowers across the meadow by the water and, in the distance, a view of snowy mountains. By the big trees and the sweet water, they stopped and chained Tobry to the trunk of the largest tree.

“He was a dreadful cynic,” said Rix. “He mocked every convention, and everything I ever believed in. But it was just an expression of his pain at losing the house and the family that had been everything to him. I know that now.”

“He took me to the Honouring Ball,” said Tali, “and though I couldn’t dance a step, in his arms I was the queen of the ball.”

They bowed to their ruined friend. Momentarily, the shifter’s eyes — Tobry’s eyes — shone with love and regret. For a few seconds he was a noble man again, not a rabid beast.

Tali’s own eyes burned, but she could not weep, and the moment passed. He was a beast again, snarling and slavering. And she was just meat that he could not reach.

She opened Tobry’s shirt down the front, baring his chest and belly. Rix prepared the brazier and laid the packet of powdered lead beside it. Burning the twin livers on a fire fuelled with powdered lead was the one sure way to kill a caitsthe.

“Now?” said Rix.

“Now,” said Tali.

He embraced her. She clung desperately to him, as old friends do. In her right hand she held the disembowelling knife. Her eyes drifted to the brazier. Burning Tobry’s livers would rob her of her life’s greatest joy and worst pain in the same moment.

Rix shook his head in grief, then raised his sword and prepared to strike. Only now did he realise the truth of the mural he had painted in the vault below Palace Ricinus, eleven weeks and a full lifetime ago.

Abysm: The conduit down which Cythonian souls are believed to pass after death. It exists in several places at once in Hightspall.

Acidulator: A perilous piece of alchymical equipment in which powerful acids are boiled.

Aditty: A little old miner.

Alkoyl: A deadly alchymical fluid used for a myriad of purposes by the Cythonians. It will dissolve anything, even stone and flesh. Said to be wept by the Engine.

Ancestor Gallery: Spirit versions of the 106 most important kings and ruling queens of old Cythe, recreated by Lyf as advisors, though they’re more prone to lecture and hector him.

Arkyz Leatherhead: A gigantic, murderous bandit whose gang of thugs has been terrorising the Nandeloch Mountains for a decade. After the war begins, he seizes Garramide.

Astatin: A witch-woman in Garramide.

Banj: Tali’s overseer when she was a slave in Cython. She killed him during her escape, with an uncontrollable blast of magery.

Bedderlees: A local lord who agrees to help Rix in the raid on Jadgery.

Benn: Glynnie’s little brother, aged ten.

Blathy: Leatherhead’s mistress, a bold and dominating woman who is willing to risk all on a bluff. Blathy is also vengeful and malicious.

Bledd: The capital of Bleddimire.

Bleddimire: The wealthy north-western peninsula of Hightspall.

Bloody Herrie: An angry shade, one of Lyf’s ancestor gallery.

Bombast: A barrel-shaped explosive weapon hurled by a catapult.

Bondy, Lord: The lord of Castle Swire.

Caitsthe: The most powerful and savage of all shifters, a cat or cat-man, seven feet tall, which can heal wounds quickly by partial shifting. The one sure way to kill a caitsthe is by burning its twin livers on a fire fuelled with powdered lead.

Carr of Caldees: A provincial leader at the peace conference.

Castle Rebroff: The strongest fortress north of Lake Fumerous, held by Lyf’s greatest general, Rochlis.

Caulderon: The capital city of Hightspall, on the south-eastern shore of Lake Fumerous. Caulderon was built on the site of the Cythian city of Lucidand, which the Hightspallers largely tore down.

Caverns, the: The uncanny chambers deep below Precipitous Crag where Lyf’s wrythen dwelt and plotted for almost two thousand years after his death.