Ian Irvine - Rebellion

This was the strangest aspect of their relationship. One minute he was the ruthless master and she the helpless victim; the next he was confiding in her and seeking her advice as though she were his one true friend.

The chancellor was not, and could never be, her friend. He was a ruthless man who surrounded himself in surreal, twisted artworks, and with beautiful young women he never laid a finger on. He was not a kind man, or even a good one, but he had two virtues: he held to his word and he loved his country. He would do almost anything, sacrifice almost anyone, to save it, and if she wasn’t strong enough, if she didn’t fight him all the way, he would sacrifice her too.

“Why ask me? Where are you running to, Chancellor, with your tail between your crooked little legs?”

His smile was crooked, too. “I’ve been insulted by the best in the land. Do you think your second-rate jibes can scratch my corrugated hide?”

Tali slumped. She was so weak that five minutes of verbal jousting was all she could manage.

“Is all lost, then?” she said faintly.

He took her hand, which was even more surprising. The chancellor was not given to touching.

“Not yet, but it could soon be. I fear the worst, Tali, I’m not afraid to tell you. If you know anything that can help us, anything at all…”

She had to distract him from that line of thought. “Do you have a plan? For the war, I mean?”

“Rebuild my army and forge alliances, so when the time comes…”

“For a bold stroke?”

“Or a last desperate gamble. Possibly using you.”

Tali froze. Did he know about the ebony pearl? She turned to the brazier, afraid that her eyes would give her away.

“You gave me your word,” he went on.

Not her pearl. Worse . He was referring to the promise he had forced out of her in his red palace in Caulderon. That one day he might ask her to do the impossible and sneak into Cython to rouse the Pale to rebellion.

She did not consider the promise binding since it had been given under duress. But the blood oath she had sworn before escaping from Cython was binding, and it amounted to the same thing. With Cython depopulated because most of its troops had marched out to war, the vast numbers of Pale slaves there were a threat at the heart of Lyf’s empire.

Sooner or later he would decide to deal with the threat, and that was where Tali’s blood oath came in. She had sworn to do whatever it took to save her people. But before she could hope to, she would have to overcome her darkest fear — a return to slavery.

The winter journey over the Crowbung Mountains, and the lower ranges beyond, took eight days of cold, exhaustion and pain. Tali saw nothing of the lands they were passing through, for the chancellor had taken pains to ensure that no spy could discover where she was.

She was confined to a covered wagon all the hours of daylight, disguised by a glamour the chief magian had cast over her. All she knew, from glimpses of the setting sun, was that they were heading west, then south-west.

Twice more she was taken to the healer’s tent at night so Madam Dibly could draw more blood. It was needed to heal valued people who had been bitten by shifters and thus turned to shifters themselves.

Tali had been waiting for it, hoping to have another of those blood-loss visions. What key was Lyf looking for, that mattered more than anything he had done so far? Finding out was the one way she could help the war effort. But, frustratingly, the vision had not been repeated.

“Does it work?” said Tali on the second occasion, “or are you putting me through all this out of spite?”

“I’m a healer!” cried Dibly, deeply affronted. “I look after my patients no matter what I think of them.” Her scowl indicated exactly what she thought of Tali.

“Does my blood work?” Tali repeated. “Or aren’t I allowed to know.”

“It heals most shifters — ”

“But not all?”

“Few panaceas work on every patient,” said Madam Dibly. “The blood you give so grudgingly heals most shifters, as long as it’s administered within a few days after they’ve been turned.”

“But not after that?”

“The longer they’ve been a shifter, the harder it is to turn them back. And once the shifter madness comes on them it’s no use at all…” Dibly looked away, her jaw tight, her eyelids screwed shut. “My brother was one of the bitten ones. Your blood came too late for him.”

“What happened?” said Tali, moved despite her dislike of the old healer.

“For everyone’s safety, the bitten ones have to be put down — like rabid dogs.” Madam Dibly wiped her eyes, then said harshly, “Lie down. Bare your throat.”

She only took a pint of blood this time. Tali tried to force another blood-loss vision by envisaging Lyf in his temple, but saw nothing. She was so exhausted she could only doze on the camp bed afterwards. If they took any more it was bound to be the end of her.

She was given the best of food, including more meat than she had eaten in her life, though after the third blood-taking Tali lacked the energy to chew it. Dibly had it made into rich stews which she dribbled down Tali’s throat from a spoon.

But today, the eighth day since leaving Caulderon, she felt better. The cold wasn’t so bitter, her throat felt less bruised, and she had enough strength to pull herself up to a sitting position, wedged in place by pillows. The cavalcade was heading down a steep, potholed track, the brakes squealing and the wagon lurching each time they grabbed the rims of the six-foot-high wheels.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Approaching Rutherin,” said the healer, who was trying to write in a small, red-bound herbal.

Ruth-erin . The name had an unpleasant sound. “Is that a town?”

“It is, but we’re going to Fortress Rutherin, which is on the cliff-top above the town.”

“Can I see?”

Madam Dibly had mellowed after seeing how badly Tali had been affected by blood loss. She peered out between the curtains. “It can’t hurt, I suppose, since we’re high up and no one can see in.”

She drew the curtains wide and white light flooded in, momentarily dazzling Tali. Her throat constricted. For a few seconds the wagon rocked, as the dome of the sky had rocked the first time she had left the dim underworld of Cython for Hightspall. She had suffered her first attack of agoraphobia then, and now thought she was about to have another, but everything settled.

They had crossed the mountains and were winding down a steep hill towards the south-west coast. The sun was out and in the distance, as far as she could see, a dazzling field of white extended across the ocean. “Is that the ice ?”

Madam Dibly seemed amused, in a grim sort of way. “Indeed it is, and creeping closer to Hightspall every year. When I was a girl it could only be seen from here in winter, at the furthest horizon.”

“Why is it coming closer?”

“The land we took from the enemy long ago is rising up against us.”

So people said, but Tali found it hard to believe. “But… so much ice. Where does it come from?”

“No one knows, but it cut Hightspall off long ago. Now we’re alone in the world — perhaps the only nation left…”

“Alone in the world,” said Tali, “and at the mercy of the ice.” She shivered.

“It’s closing off our southern ports, one by one, and creeping up the east and west coasts. Soon Hightspall will be ice-locked. Some say that our great volcanoes will stop it from covering the land the way it’s buried Suden, but surely ice will win over fire.” The grim smile faded.

“Is Rutherin a port town?” Tali said, trying to sound casual.