Ian Irvine - Vengeance

Rix hacked across and back. This time, Deroe’s spell twanged apart.

‘Benn, Glynnie, go through.’ He looked back. ‘Tobe?’

Tobry had a rag over his nose and was alternately looking from the fuming livers to the caitsthe writhing on the stone. It had been caught halfway between beast and man but would never complete the transformation now.

‘I’ve got to make sure the livers are destroyed. If they aren’t, it might restore itself.’

‘It won’t come back from that,’ said Rix. The livers were a charred mess covered in shiny, molten lead. ‘Come on.’

An air current drifted the poisonous fumes towards the jackals. They retreated, coughing and howling. This is our chance, thought Rix. If we can seal the door against them …

Tobry staggered and had to prop himself up on his sword. ‘Go! I’ll be along in a minute — ’

A furious baying and howling began further up the passage, then a pack of jackals came rolling around the corner — ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred of them. They hurtled up and stopped just beyond the low-hanging fumes.

Rix’s knees trembled. It was over. As jackal-men they would soon open the door and pull everyone down.

‘This is where it ends, Rix,’ said Tobry, panting. ‘Go through to Tali.’

‘You can’t fight that many jackals.’

‘Not as a man. But as a caitsthe I might.’

Rix goggled. ‘That … that’s always been your greatest fear.’

‘It still is. But if I don’t, we’re all going to die, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘A while back, you felt so dishonoured that you were going to ride out to die.’

‘And you chained me up,’ Rix said mildly. The fury was long gone.

‘That was wrong, but I don’t regret it — we needed you. Listen, Rix. I too was put to a terrible choice, many years ago, and I’ve got to atone for what I did.’

‘I can stop you,’ said Rix.

‘I know you can, but what would be the point? If I can hold the jackals back for five minutes, it’ll give you and Tali a good chance. Besides, even being a caitsthe is a kind of life …’

Rix shuddered. He wanted to say, ‘Let me do it,’ but couldn’t. He would sooner die than turn shifter. ‘You’re a better man than I am, Tobe. But then, you always were.’

A small piece of liver lay near Tobry’s right boot, perhaps left for such an emergency. Before Rix could stop him, Tobry bent, put it in his mouth and swallowed.

Rix wanted to scream and punch the stone with his fists, but that would have been a poor way to honour his friend’s sacrifice. He saluted Tobry, then sprang through the door and slammed it behind him.

The shrieks as Tobry transformed for the first agonising time were like a red-hot poker thrust through Rix’s belly.

Deroe slapped his flaking hand across the three pearls, jeering like a malicious schoolboy, ‘Ha, ha, got you!’

His wards flared brilliant orange, then Lyf was driven backwards out of sight and the crystal wall burst. A sharp fragment speared into Tali’s forehead, sticking there, and when she pulled it free, blood flooded into her eyes.

‘Come,’ said Deroe, touching her cheek, and again she was paralysed.

He dragged her to the black bench, panting. Tali fought the paralysis with all her strength and again it eased a little. Outside, there was more baying of jackal shifters, more furious howling and a series of thumps that shook the door. How long before they killed Tobry and Rix, and broke through? Not long. Deroe was going to win and everyone else was going to die.

The numbness faded. Tali swung the fragment of crystal at his right eye but he whacked her elbow with the chisel and she dropped the shard. He renewed the paralysis, heaved her onto the black bench then bent double, wheezing.

Die! she prayed.

He spat on the floor and turned away.

As she lay there, Tali saw Rix’s cellar painting truly for the first time. It had been a divination. He had seen her future. The murdered woman was both her mother and herself, and she was cast back to the day when Iusia had lain here. The vision was so real that, momentarily, she was her mother. She screamed.

The magian shuddered and blocked his ears. Taking up a crystal of pale green tourmaline, he passed it back and forth over the top of her head, his lips pursed and brow furrowed. It did not light up as — another memory surfaced — the stubby blue crystal had when Lady Ricinus had pointed it at her mother’s head.

‘Where is it?’ Deroe hissed. ‘Tell me. I must know where to cut.’

Tali strained to wriggle a finger, a toe, but all she could move were her lips and tongue. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d care, you murdering swine.’

‘The least nick will ruin the pearl; it has to be plucked from a live host. Death, even if only a heartbeat ago, and the pearl’s vitality is lost.’

Tali spat in his eye and braced herself for a return blow. If she was going to die, she would not die meekly like her mother.

Deroe wiped his face, ran flaky fingers over her scalp then stood back, gnawing on a cracked nail. ‘What if I saw the top of the skull all around?’ he muttered, ‘then prise it off in one piece.’

He shuddered. ‘That horrible paste of blood and bone and hair. Yecch! The grinding of the saw as it chews through bone! But I must have the master pearl. The others only keep the wrythen at bay. They can’t hold it out when it comes possessing; they can’t destroy it. It must be done, despite the blood and the slimy, oozing brains.’

This was her living body he was talking about, and her pain, her suffering, her life meant nothing to him. Tali wanted to punch his cracked teeth through his tonsils. What could she do? Her inner magery would not return quickly — she’d drained her personal well with the blizzard. But what about an external power? She visualised the whirling, multi-coloured patterns she had seen in the Abysm and drew on one small part to try and break the paralysis. Nothing happened.

Something was watching her. Someone. She rolled her eyes backwards. Lyf’s yellow eyes were back in the cracked stone face and he was studying her, consideringly.

A small, quivering loop of brightness appeared, not in her inner eye, but in the air in front of her. Had he sent it so she could attack his enemy?

You can only defeat your enemy with magery, but the only person who can teach you how to use your magery is your enemy. Could she learn magery from him?

Or was it a trap? Probably, but how could she be worse off by trying it? She took hold of the loop, drew strength from it and her right index finger moved.

‘It’s the only way to be free of him, so it must be done.’

Deroe was talking to himself again. It sounded odd, though she supposed he had spent so much of his life in hiding that it was natural to him. He walked around the bench, eyeing her from all sides.

‘Make a cut all the way around the top of her skull, yes. Peel back the skin; expose the living bone and saw it like an eggshell. But she must be still as death. One twitch and all is ruined. That’s the way, and you can do it. Yes, you can. You must.’

He sounded as though he was trying to talk himself into something unpleasant. Tali got another finger to move, then a third, but it would take more than that to save herself. She worked on releasing her right hand, freeing the arm.

The magian rubbed his face furiously, as if scrubbing away blood, and flakes of skin drifted in the mage-light, lifting and circling in rising air. They reminded her of the flocking vultures she had seen out in the Seethings.

He began to set out his instruments. So, he was afraid of blood. The thought of cutting her head open was practically making him sick. But he had done it to her great-great-grandmother and he would do it again.