Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 (13 page)

Regg carried Tali down three flights of an age-blackened stairway to a once grand, ornately decorated chamber with a carved ceiling and elaborate cornices. One half was now a fifteen-foot-wide corridor with an iron door at the far end. The other half had been divided into a dozen large, cold cells. The guard opened the fifth cell, dropped her on the bunk and locked her in.

The bunk was a mouldy palliasse, the toilet a filthy wooden bucket; the floor was puddled with water oozing from every crack in the ceiling and walls. The side and rear walls were stone, but the front wall was made of wrought-iron bars that writhed and twisted like a lunatic’s nightmare. Large portholes had been carved through the side walls and she could see into the adjoining cells, though the portholes were also meshed with tormented iron bars.

It was a struggle to stand up, but she had to know where she was. Tali tottered across to the right porthole and clung to the bars. Five or six cells away, a bent old man was shuffling back and forth. She called out several times but he did not look up. None of the other cells were occupied.

She wrapped her coat around her and lay on the palliasse. How long before the chancellor sent another healer to take her blood? He was a vengeful man, and how better to punish Tali than by rendering her so weak that she could not cause any more trouble?

She closed her eyes, longing for the oblivion of sleep, but it would not come. Enslaved again, and it was all her fault. Everything was her fault.

“Tali?” said a shrill little voice she had not heard in more than a week.

She looked up. “Rannilt?”

Two of the chancellor’s personal guards were at the door, one working the massive lock while the other held the child by the arm. She was a skinny, knock-kneed little thing, though not as skinny as the last time Tali had seen her.

Rannilt turned to her, frowned, looked up at the guards questioningly, then back.

“Where’s Tali?” she said, taking a dragging step through the door. The guards locked it and turned away.

“I’m right here,” said Tali. What was the matter?

Rannilt stretched out a skinny finger. A little golden bubble formed at her fingertip, some product of her unfathomable gift for magery. It separated, drifted towards Tali and burst on the tip of her nose with a small, cold pop, and Tali felt something stir inside her, her own buried magery. But it subsided again.

“Ah!” sighed Rannilt. “Chief magian put a glamour on, to hide you.”

She bolted across the cell and threw herself at Tali so hard that she was knocked back against the wall. Rannilt hauled Tali to her feet and danced her around the cell until her head whirled.

“Enough, child,” she said, groping back for the bed. “If I don’t sit down, I’m going to throw up.”

Rannilt sat beside Tali, holding her right arm with both hands and staring hungrily at her.

“I didn’t know there was a glamour,” Tali said hoarsely. She hadn’t seen her face since leaving Caulderon. “Can you see the real me?”

“Of course not, silly,” said Rannilt.

Tali’s shoulders slumped. “Then how do you know it’s me?”

“Checked your aura, of course.”

“Didn’t know I had one.”

“Don’t worry.” Rannilt patted Tali’s shoulder condescendingly. “You’re still Tali on the inside.”

“You can’t call me by name,” said Tali. “Lyf’s after me.”

“I know. Old Chancellor said to call you Grizel.”

An ugly name, thought Tali. He’s doing it to punish me.

“Someone’s comin’, Grizel,” said Rannilt.

They squatted in the corner while orderlies bustled in and out, sweeping the puddles down a drain hole, exchanging Tali’s mouldy mattress for a fresh one and bringing in another bunk for Rannilt, providing a table and two chairs and, finally, a steaming bowl of stew, two plates, cutlery and a third of a loaf of grainy bread. All was done under the watchful eyes of the chancellor’s guards, then the cell was relocked and they were alone.

“You’re shakin’,” said Rannilt, helping Tali across to her bunk. “Are you sick?”

Tali leaned back against the cold wall. Rannilt snuggled up against her. The child, starved of human contact most of her life, had always been clingy, but Tali needed the contact now. She put an arm around her.

“They’ve taken pints and pints of my blood,” she said dully. “I’m so weak I can barely walk. Aren’t they taking yours?”

“Healer Dibly took some on the first day out of Caulderon. But only half a cup, and she was really cross about it. She called the old chancellor some wicked names, I can tell you.”

“Really?” said Tali, revising her opinion of Madam Dibly.

“I’m sorry she’s dead,” said Rannilt. “I liked her.”

“Did they only take your blood the once?”

“Yes, Dibly said it didn’t heal. But she kept feedin’ me just as much. Said I needed feedin’ up.”

“And so you do,” said Tali, feeling ravenous herself. “Could you get me something to eat?”

Rannilt went to the table, spooned stew onto the plates and brought them back. When Tali had first met her, Rannilt had been as skinny as a stick and covered in bruises, for the other slave girls had picked on her constantly.

Tali lowered her voice. “We’re in trouble, child. Did you hear —”

“About the gauntlin’? Yes.”

Tali ate some stew. “We’ve got to escape, like we did from Cython. Can you wake my gift again?”

Without Rannilt’s last-minute intervention that had, in some inexplicable way, roused Tali’s gift, she would have died in the sunstone shaft within sight of her destination, beheaded by Overseer Banj’s Living Blade, and Rannilt, too.

“No,” said Rannilt. “Chancellor told me to make sure you don’t escape.”

Tali pulled away. “I thought you were on my side.”

Rannilt put her plate down, snuggled up and curled Tali’s arm around her. “I am, Grizel. The only place you’re safe is here, under guard.”

If only you knew, thought Tali.

“I’m no good to you anyway,” said Rannilt. “As soon as it’s dark…” She shuddered. “Things get bad when it’s dark.”

“What kind of things?”

“It was really bad after we went to Precipitous Crag and fought Lyf’s wicked old wrythen.”

“I was sure you were going to die,” said Tali, realising that she needed to know what had happened. “What did he do to you?”

Lyf had made some kind of connection to Rannilt’s gift and had started drawing it out of her. He had fed on it to strengthen himself so he could escape his intangible wrythen form and get back a real, physical body that would make him so much more powerful – and free him from the caverns the wrythen was bound to.

Rannilt’s eyes turned inward. “I don’t know. He was suckin’ the gift out of me. The golden threads were streamin’ out and up and away, but I couldn’t do nothin’ about it. I was gettin’ weaker and weaker. I knew I was goin’ to die.”

“We were really worried about you,” said Tali. “Me and Rix and Tobry.”

“I really miss them,” said Rannilt wistfully. “Especially Tobry. He was so kind to me.”

“Me too,” said Tali, turning away. Her eyes blurred.

“When my eyes were closed I saw all kinds of things I didn’t want to see.”

“Were they coming from the wrythen?” said Tali.

Rannilt shrugged her thin shoulders. “Maybe. Stories were gushin’ into my head, a hundred at once. Wars and traitors and people bein’ killed just for nothin’. Had to hide in my own head to get away.”

Tali sat up. She’d thought that Rannilt had collapsed because Lyf had stolen too much of her gift, but if she had retreated to escape the unbearable stories flooding into her mind, it put a very different complexion on matters.

“Then there was the healin’,” Rannilt added, reflecting.

“What about it?”

“The old kings of Cython were the only ones who were allowed to use magery, and they used it only for healin’. Healin’ the land, and healin’ their people.”

Tali knew that, but did not say so. It was so good to hear Rannilt talking again.

“It’s why that rotter Axil Grandys betrayed King Lyf, then chopped his feet off and walled him up in the Cat – Catacombs, to die,” the girl added. “He wanted the king-magery for himself, but he could only steal it when Lyf died and the magery was released —”

Tali finished the sentence. “To pass to the new king. But it didn’t pass on, did it?”

“It couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one in Cython knew what had happened to Lyf.” Rannilt thought for a moment. “And without his body they couldn’t do all the fancy stuff to make sure his gift went to the new king. The king-magery left him when he died, but Axil Grandys didn’t get it. No one knows where it went.”

“That’s why Lyf became a wrythen,” said Tali. “Without the proper rituals, his spirit couldn’t pass on, either.”

“Serves him right, after all the horrid things he did.”

“He hadn’t done them, then. Until he was betrayed and left to die, Lyf was a good king.”

Rannilt shivered. “I’d love to be a proper healer. Reckon I’d be a good one.” She studied her small hands. Several of her fingers were crooked, as if they’d been broken more than once.

“I’m sure you would,” Tali said absently. “Though it’s curious your blood doesn’t heal.”

“What if that’s what old Lyf was really after?” said Rannilt. “My healin’ gift. Maybe that’s what he was tryin’ to steal from me.”

“Why would he want your healing gift when he has his own?” said Tali.

“He’s healed all sorts of things, but he’s never been able to heal his legs, has he? I’ll bet he wants that more than anythin’.”

And if he had stolen Rannilt’s healing gift, rendering her blood useless for healing, maybe he could do it, too. All the more reason for Tali to uncover his secret, as soon as possible.

“Rannilt, can you help me with something? But you can’t tell anyone.”

“Told you, I’m not helpin’ you escape,” said Rannilt.

“I didn’t mean that,” said Tali. She lowered her voice. “After Dibly took blood the first time, I had a vision of Lyf, in his temple, and —”

Rannilt started. “No!” she cried.

“He’s looking for something really important. I need to find out what it is.”

“You can’t ask me to look,” Rannilt said shrilly, and covered her face with her hands. “You can’t! You can’t!”

“What’s the matter?”

“He’ll get into my head again. He’ll rob my gift. It’s horrible, horrible…”

Tali cursed herself. Why hadn’t she thought before she opened her mouth? She hugged the trembling child. “I wasn’t going to ask you to look. I just thought you might be able to make it easier for me.”

“No,” Rannilt said faintly. “Nooo…”

Tali held her tightly, thinking hard. The only other way to spy on Lyf was with magery, if she could recover hers, but it would be taking a terrible risk.

Rannilt’s mood went steadily downhill after that, and became ever worse as the afternoon waned. She was dreading the night.

“Can I push my bunk against yours?” she asked around 4 p.m., when the distant light from a slit window above the stair was fading. Most of the lanterns had been extinguished to save lamp oil and it was almost dark in the cell.

“Of course,” said Tali.

In the night something roused Tali, a rustling in the straw. Just a mouse, she thought until Rannilt began to kick and bang her head on her pillow. She had crept closer in the night and was now lying against Tali.

She put an arm around the child and she lay still. But as Tali was dozing off again, Rannilt moaned, went rigid, then began to thrash so violently that Tali couldn’t hold her.

“Rannilt, wake up. It’s just a nightmare. You’re all right.”

Rannilt shot upright and stared around wildly, the faint light from the corridor reflecting eerily off her wet eyes. She shuddered, groaned, then seized Tali’s wrist and sank her teeth into it, at the little scar where Tali had drawn her own blood in that ill-fated attempt to heal Tobry on top of Rix’s tower.

Before she could pull away, Rannilt’s sharp little teeth broke the skin and the tip of her tongue began lapping at the wound, taking Tali’s healing blood for herself.

She tried to pull free. “Rannilt, what are you doing? Stop it, this instant.”

Rannilt’s bony fingers were locked around Tali’s wrist so tightly that, in her weakened state, she could not tear them off. Rannilt pressed her mouth over Tali’s wrist and bit down hard, hungry for her blood. No,
desperate
for it.

Tali swung her free hand at the child, smacking her across the face. Rannilt let go, swallowed then lay back and slipped into a peaceful sleep – if, indeed, she had ever woken.

Tali stumbled across to the table and collapsed into a chair, shaking so violently that she had to cling to the table. It could almost have been
her
nightmare, save for the pain in her torn wrist and the tang of blood in the cold air.

Had Rannilt reverted to the time when Lyf had been stealing her gift to strengthen himself, and unwittingly – or wittingly? – revealing the nightmares of his own distant past? Could Lyf use his connection with Rannilt to get at Tali? Was that what he was up to now? If he could, spying on him with magery would be the height of folly.

Or did Tali’s blood have some other value? Of course it did – while the master pearl remained inside her, it was bathed in her blood, and perhaps that was the connection Lyf really wanted.

Or was she over-analysing it? Was Rannilt subconsciously attempting to undo the damage Lyf had done to her the only way she could, by stealing Tali’s healing blood?

Whatever the reason, Tali thought guiltily, I precipitated it.

“I’ve spread a cover story about you being a traitor and spy,” the chancellor said the next morning, “to ensure neither the guards nor the prisoners will have anything to do with you. I’m sure you won’t mind.” He bared his crooked teeth.

His guards had come for her at first light. Rannilt had not stirred, which put off one problem, at least – what to say to the child when she woke. Tali looked down at the wounds on her wrist. Was she being used more ill by her enemies, like the chancellor, or her friends?

“I’m sure you don’t give a damn either way,” she snapped.

“No, I don’t.”

A burly guard stood on watch near the door. “When I first met you,” said Tali, “you surrounded yourself with women. How come you have male guards now?”

“After you deceived me and let me down, I came to realise that men are more reliable – at least in wartime. Enough talking. Eat!” A large table was set in a corner, by a window covered in a translucent membrane, perhaps the stretched stomach of a cow or buffalo. “You’re weak, and that’s no good to me.”

“You want to fatten me up so you can milk more of my blood.”

“So I do,” he said jovially. “The blood of a weakling is unlikely to have strong healing powers.”

The words stung, which doubtless was his intention.

“I’m just a living tool to you, something to be used then thrown away once I’m broken.”

When he did not react, she added, nastily, “Are you winning the war yet?”

“I’m not your enemy. Why do you keep fighting me?”

To distract you from thinking about the pearls, and reaching the conclusion that I bear the master pearl.

“How does it go, then? What’s your latest disaster?”

His lips tightened. He went to the table, which was set with an array of covered dishes at one end, and a small plate containing two slices of black bread and a thin wedge of green cheese at the other. After gesturing her to a chair, he sat, nibbled at a corner of black bread, then tossed it aside and picked up a yellow oval object.

Tali took a helping of white fish cooked in a spicy sauce. It tasted wonderful. Since her escape from slavery, almost everything did.

“The only news I’ve had in the past week has come via this speaking egg,” said the chancellor, fondling the yellow ovoid, “though I’m not sure it’s reliable any more. Now that Lyf has four ebony pearls, he might be able to corrupt the messages my spies send me. Or send lying messages of his own.”

His eyes rested on Tali as he said “ebony pearls’, and her heart skipped a beat. Did he know she bore the master pearl? Was he toying with her for his own amusement? It would be just like him.

The chancellor grimaced and set the ovoid down. He did not speak for some time, but the lines on his face deepened and the flesh seemed to sag.

“I don’t know where to turn, Tali. He’s intercepting my couriers and killing my spies. How can I fight a war when I can’t find out what’s going on?”

She didn’t answer.

“My only experienced generals died in the storming of Caulderon,” he went on. “Who can I turn to? And if I had good leaders, where could I strike that would make any difference?”

“You had a good man, one of the best. You cut his right hand off and left him to die.”

“Rix betrayed his own mother,” he snapped, nettled for the first time. “How could I trust a man like that?”

“You already knew Lady Ricinus was plotting high treason. I told you myself.”

“That’s not the point. He informed on her.”

“You’re a swine, Chancellor! You drove Rix to it, coldly and deliberately, because you were determined to crush House Ricinus. You gave him an impossible choice – between his mother and his dearest friend. She was a monster who abused him cruelly. Is it Rix’s fault that he cared more for Tobry than he did her?”

“It’s entirely understandable,” said the chancellor. “But how could I trust him?”

“For a man with his back to the wall, you’re overly discriminating. A good leader crafts his plans to take advantage of his officers’ strengths and compensate for their failings.”

He leaned back, folded his hands over his scrawny chest, and she saw his first genuine smile since their flight from Caulderon. “You speak boldly for a helpless prisoner. Perhaps next time
I
should insert the cannula into your carotid.”

The long bruise on her neck pulsed. “If I get hold of it, I’m liable to insert it through your larynx and out the back of your spine.”

His eyes widened. He rubbed his throat.

“How are you going to save the country you profess to love so dearly, Chancellor?”

“Again you put your finger on the nub of the matter. I used to be feared for my grasp of political strategy and my bold tactics, but now I’ve got no idea what to do, and the people of the west have sensed it. I’ve dispatched envoys to provincial leaders far and wide, trying to raise an army to replace the ones lost in the ruin of Caulderon. And what do my envoys tell me when they return?”

“Nothing good,” said Tali.

“Some were turned away at the gates, their pleas unheard. Others were invited in to hear lies and excuses. Only unity can save us but the west is falling into chaos, and every mayor and petty lordling is trying to set up his own kingdom. Soon there will be anarchy, and then where will we be?”

“There must be some loyal men in the west,” said Tali.

“I have pledges for four hundred mounted troops and four thousand foot soldiers, and there will be more. A goodly force, you might think, but —”

“I would have done, until I saw twice that many cut down in an hour at the storming of Caulderon. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“How the war is going? Badly. Lyf now holds all of central Hightspall and he has small forces advancing on the south and the north. I’m told that they’re meeting no organised resistance.”

“Does that mean Hightspall’s troops there are
surrendering
?”

“Pretty much. News spreads fast. Everyone knows how quickly our armies were defeated in the first days of the war.” He lowered his voice. “Too quickly, in my opinion.”

“Meaning?”

“I suspect that Lyf used pearl magery in the storming of Caulderon. His soldiers aren’t superhuman, but that’s how they seemed.”

“Is there any good news?” said Tali.

“Good and bad. The people of the north-west peninsula still hold loyal to Hightspall. Bleddimire is almost as wealthy as Caulderon and they’re doubling their army. Unfortunately, they won’t be coming a hundred and fifty miles south to help me.”

“Why not?”

“Lyf is marching an army of twenty thousand north-west at this moment, and Bleddimire is his next target.”

“It could defeat him.”

“I pray that it does, but all the evidence tells me I should prepare for bad news.”

“Why don’t you send your own army north, catch his force between yours and Bleddimire’s, and destroy him?”

“His army is five times as big as mine,” said the chancellor. “Nonetheless, if I could march an army north in secret, I would. But he can spy on us from the air, with gauntlings, and we can do nothing about them.”