Ian Irvine - Vengeance

You stinking mongrel, how dare you boast about killing my ancestors? If Tali’s magery had come then, she would have splattered the walls with him. He didn’t seem like a man at all; rather, a selfish, immature but incredibly powerful boy trapped in an old man’s decaying body. She could not predict what he would do next.

‘Clever,’ she said, nearly choking on her words. ‘But Lyf must have been furious.’

‘He was bound to his caverns, he could not come after it.’

‘But when he repossessed you — ’

‘I’d already put the pearl out of reach. You have no idea of the agony I endured, but he could neither find the pearl nor force me to give it up.’

‘And the same for the third and fourth pearls, when they were mature?’

‘Lyf dared not send his own people after the pearls, and could not take them himself, yet he could not possess anyone but me. He had no choice but to use me. Each time he tried harder to outwit me; each time I beat him, ha, ha. I have three, and he only has one.’

His voice had a sing-song quality now. From the look in his eyes, he expected her to applaud his cleverness. ‘Once I have the master pearl I’ll be able to command his pearl, too. And then,’ he said viciously, ‘I’ll stamp him to pieces like a toad in the garden.’

Tali fought the urge to smash his yellow teeth in. ‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll use the master pearl to control your three? I too have a gift, magian.’

His face lit and Tali realised, uncomfortably, that he had been hoping she would ask.

‘I worked that out as a boy,’ he chortled, ‘after he made me take the first pearl. Your thrice-grandmother had the gift stronger than you, and she tried to fight me, the stupid bitch! But the pearls aren’t meant to be used within the host and she fell into a swoon, bleeding from the eyes and ears.’ He shuddered. ‘The emotional connections are too dangerous; the host can never control it.’

No wonder Tali’s every attempt to take control of her gift had failed, and would always fail. It could not be done.

‘How is the pearl made safe, then?’ she said dully.

He came closer. ‘It must be cut from the living host, severing all connection with her, then healed for three days in her healing blood.’

As Lady Ricinus had done, putting the pearl inside that green-metal glove filled with Iusia’s blood. ‘And killing the host,’ Tali said.

Closer. ‘The trauma is great, but it’s separation from the pearl that kills.’

If I can’t rely on the master pearl, Tali thought, I’ll have to outwit him of his three. And then, deliver him to my own justice, since there’s none to be had in Caulderon.

Oh, how he would pay.

Reaching out with his free hand, he stroked the top of her head, though not in any sensuous way. Deroe cared nothing for the human flesh, only what had been cultured within.

Tali’s scalp crept and her mother’s cries echoed within her skull, then the splintery gouging sound she had not recognised as a little girl. She tried to dart away but toppled forwards. His magery had fixed the soles of her boots to the floor, and now Tali knew fear as she had never known it before. If she could not break his magery, his tools would soon bore through her skull.

Deroe sniggered, turned to the black bench and reached up with his hands. The mesh of light threads that had been clinging to his fingers hung in the air there, illuminating the bench with a ragged cone of light. The greenish mist drifted back and forth through it, highlighting the edges of the cone. The poisoned-rat smell thickened in Tali’s nostrils.

He wiped the bench with a rag. The black, slightly domed bench top had the gleam of the ebony pearl in Rix’s finished painting — a pearl at the centre of the skull-shaped cellar like the pearl in her mother’s head, and now her own.

He walked into the darkness. Objects clicked and rattled as though he was feeling in a cluttered cupboard. Tali heaved and lunged but could not tear free. Deroe came back carrying a small, upside-down parasol on a stand, though the silver ribs lacked any fabric covering.

‘What’s that for?’ she said.

He did not reply.

In his other hand he had a circular disc made of white wood, as thick through as her closed fist and the diameter of her open hand. Five round depressions had been cut into the top, four at the corners of a square and the fifth at the centre.

He took three black pearls from a case lined with yellow velvet and put them in the depressions at three corners of the square. Tali struggled to draw breath. Each pearl had been cultured in one of her ancestors. Which was her mother’s? They looked identical. The top right depression, and the slightly larger hollow in the middle, remained empty.

After fixing the parasol upright on a small table near the head of the bench, Deroe closed and opened its metal arms, set the pearls beneath, rotated the disc by ninety degrees, then nodded.

Now me. And Tali still could not move her feet.

He took a small hammer and narrow chisel from a bag. Was that to crack her skull? Now a thin-bladed saw, a steel gouger and two reamers, which he handled as gingerly as a first-day apprentice in a slaughterhouse. As though he was afraid to use them …

A savage urge for vengeance boiled inside her. If she got the chance she would jam them through his wattled throat. But how could she beat him? What were his weaknesses?

In a land where it was rare to live beyond sixty, he had to be double that, at least. Either he had lengthened his life by uncanny means, or the pearls had. But the greater the magery, the greater the cost, and it had cost Deroe dearly. Was that why he seemed as decayed inside as he was decrepit outside? And with those clouded eyes, his sight must be poor. If she moved swiftly once he freed her feet, she might beat him.

He turned and shuffled towards her. Tali tried to look like a terrified slave. It wasn’t hard; the urge to scream was overwhelming. Her stomach muscles were so tight that it was difficult to breathe. Outside, Tobry was hacking at the grey barrier and attacking it with flashes of emerald magery, but he made no impression on it.

As Deroe reached out, she avoided his eyes in case her own gave her away. His crusted hand touched her biceps and her feet came free. She swung, fast as a striking adder, burying her fist in his belly below the diaphragm and driving it up.

Tali was strong for her size and there was so much power behind her small fist that she felt his papery skin tear. The blow forced air from his lungs and he doubled over, gasping. His spell broke and the light threads went out, leaving the cellar in darkness save for the faintest glimmer from her lantern, which she had left on the other side of the stacked crates.

Tali dived for the pearls.

But Deroe called them up, high above her head, to him.

Rix woke with the voice ringing in his head. Lyf’s voice.

It is time. Go down.

‘Damn you!’ he said aloud. ‘You’ll never force me.’ But even in his own ears, he sounded unconvincing.

Lyf seemed amused. You divined this night, this scene, this death. You had the chance to seize command of the divination when you painted the scene in the cellar, but you did not. Now it is set and can’t be changed.

‘I won’t do it!’ Rix roared, though he could see no way of escape. Why hadn’t he ridden out to give his life away yesterday? Why had he told his treacherous friends his plan?

In the shadows, a girl cried out in fear. It took some time for him to recognise Glynnie cowering behind the couch, sheltering her little brother with her arms. But before he could speak …

Ten years I’ve worked my compulsion on you, preparing you for this night.