The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (14 page)

Colm was looking ever more alarmed. He’s regretting not
taking the easy way out the other night, and jumping off the precipice, Flydd
thought. Perhaps he should have.

‘What’s she trying to hold together?’

Flydd shrugged.

‘Could it have anything to do with the shadow realm?’ Colm
wondered aloud. ‘And where did you hear of the shadow realm, anyway?’

‘From Rassitifer, an itinerant sorcerer, but a good one, and
a friend for many years; I trusted him. He found a way inside, and that’s where
he suffered the wound that killed him. It left no mark, no scar, but he wasted
away from within.’

‘What did he die of?’

Flydd squirmed. ‘Not even the council’s healers had seen
anything like it – he’d been eaten away inside; his vital organs were no
more than soot, crawling with …’

‘Maggots?’

‘Whatever it was, it wasn’t any kind of life I’d seen
before. Meddle with the shadow realm at your peril.’

‘And you planned to take us through it?’ Colm’s voice rose.
He was as brave as any man when dealing with the known, but how could he cope
with this?

‘Only because there was no other way out. Besides, I was a
greater mancer than Rassitifer; I thought it was worth the risk, and I’d
prepared that crystal to protect us on the way through.’

‘But you haven’t got the crystal,’ cried Colm. ‘And you’ve
lost your Art, so how the bloody hell are you going to protect us if you do
find a way in?’

‘I – I’ll have to find a way,’ Flydd said weakly. Just
how was he supposed to forge a protection when he couldn’t remember where the
dangers in the shadow realm lay, nor the spells and protections he’d planned to
use there?

‘Well, you’ll be going on your own. I’d sooner an honest
death on an enemy’s blade than what’s going to happen to you.’ Colm was
circling around the altar, well clear of the flame, his head turned away as if
he couldn’t bear to look at it, which was another oddity in a day full of
oddities.

‘You’ll probably get your wish. Go and check the doors.’

Colm went across, opened them carefully and slipped out into
the dark. Flydd paced. There was something special about the flame, and it had
to do with the woman in red,
and what
she’d done to him during renewal
.

Why had she been in his head at that time, as if she’d been
trying a mind-merge with him? Why would anyone with such powerful Arts want to
rifle through the mind of an old fogy like him?

Because she wanted him to do something she could not do
herself, which suggested that she couldn’t use her own powers, or was afraid
to. Did she want to attack her enemy without leaving anything that could be
traced back to her?
Not me. I will not be
used!

Colm crept back, head lowered, again shielding his eyes from
the flame. ‘I heard no one outside.’

‘It’s as I’d thought – Vivimord sent those footsteps
to distract us.’ Flydd took in Colm’s fearful expression, his averted gaze, and
remembered that he had also avoided the cursed flame. ‘If I didn’t know better,
I’d think you were scared of fire.’

‘Little fires I can manage,’ said Colm in a bare whisper.
‘I’ve trained myself to cook on them; I had to. But big ones … and especially
any kind of uncanny fire –’ A shudder racked him.

‘What happened?’ Flydd said more kindly. There wasn’t time
for counselling, but he couldn’t have Colm cracking up on him either.

‘I was a little kid the first time,’ Colm said haltingly.
‘It was during the war. The lyrinx war,’ he added unnecessarily, for it had
lasted a hundred and fifty years and raged across the known world, and there
had been no war since it ended. ‘We lived in the mountains of Bannador, on the
great Island of Meldorin. Across the Sea of Thurkad. That’s where the war
began, in the mountains.’

Flydd knew it far better than Colm could have, but remained
silent.

‘We were burned out of our manor by the lyrinx, or the human
scum who served them. I was too young to understand, though I can never forget
our home ablaze with uncanny fire and the old servants screaming and running
across the yard, burning, burning …

‘Mum and Dad couldn’t fight the lyrinx. The whole of
Bannador was ablaze; there was war and blood and fire everywhere. The enemy
were determined to burn us out. Even Thurkad fell, a few years later –
the greatest city in the world.’

And the oldest, Flydd thought. The priceless treasures of
more than three thousand years had been lost that day. He often reflected on
how long it had survived, and how quickly it had been destroyed.

‘It happened again as we fled in a wagon to the coast.’
Colm’s eyes were black pools of horror. ‘We were attacked from the air, and the
wagon and horses were burned with uncanny fire; we lost everything we had left.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Flydd. There was nothing more to be said,
for such human tragedies had happened a hundred thousand times during the war,
on both sides.

‘We ended up in a refugee camp on the other side of the Sea
of Thurkad, near Nilkerrand. At least, it was
called
a refugee camp.’ Colm’s voice dripped bitterness now, the
bitterness he could not hold back whenever he talked about his life, and some
day it was going to consume him. ‘In reality it was a city of slave labour,
walled in with a palisade and patrolled by armed guards, where even the
littlest children worked day and night, every day of the year, making equipment
for the war.’

The cursed war, though long over, continued to intrude into
all their lives. And Chief Scrutator Ghorr’s corrupt council had given up
trying to win it, for the war had allowed them to maintain their grip on power
and wring it ever tighter. Had Colm known that, his hands would have been
around Flydd’s throat in an instant, though it had not been Flydd’s doing.

‘We spent years in that camp,’ Colm went on. ‘Terrible years
where I saw my parents dying before my eyes. They couldn’t take any more; if
they hadn’t had me and my sisters to protect they’d have wasted away and died.
But it all came to nothing in the end, of course,’ he said savagely.

‘That’s where I met Nish,’ Colm went on after an interval.
‘He dropped out of the sky, half-dead, clinging to the wreckage of an
air-floater.’

‘The very first air-floater,’ said Flydd. ‘As it happens, I
sent him out on it, though I didn’t expect it would carry him halfway across
the continent of Lauralin.’

‘We took him in at the risk of all our lives, and in return
Nish promised to help me regain my lost heritage. Though he never did.’ The
fury was gone. Colm sounded defeated, as though nothing mattered any more.

‘He might yet do so,’ said Flydd. ‘Once this is over.’

‘Ha!’ Colm snorted. ‘Not long after he came, the camp was
attacked with uncanny fire. I remember flames leaping above the roof and a
horde of lyrinx swooping down on us. People ran in all directions but the gates
were closed, and nearly everyone died. We escaped but I lost Mum and Dad and my
two sisters. I searched for weeks; months; years; but I never found them. Do
you wonder that uncanny fire arouses such terror in me?’

‘I’m really sorry, Colm.’

They crouched with their backs to the altar, with the
overhang above them and the flame roaring in their ears, and after a minute or
two Colm stopped shuddering.

‘We’ve got to succeed,’ said Flydd, trying to convince
himself. ‘If Nish is lost, we’re the sole resistance.’

‘Save for the Defiance,’ said Colm.

‘If Vivimord did win, he’d be worse than the God-Emperor,
who is, at least, an accomplished ruler. Under Vivimord, the world would fall
into civil war, and that would be the worst outcome of all, for even a dictator
like Jal-Nish is better than anarchy. The fate of Santhenar is up to me, and if
the only way out of here is to walk the shadow realm, I’ve got to do it –
alone if necessary
.’

‘I’m not going there,’ Colm repeated.

Please let there be another way, Flydd thought, for several
more memories had come back, of things Rassitifer had told him about the shadow
realm. How could he hope to get through without the protection of the spells
he’d put into the lost crystal? ‘I’m sure the abyssal flame is the key,’ he
mused, ‘if I can only discover how to use it.’

Colm half-rose, staring towards the double doors, which were
faintly illuminated by the flame. ‘The left-hand door just moved.’

They crawled behind the altar. ‘If it was Vivimord, I’d know
it, so it must be Jal-Nish’s advance guard. Prepare to defend yourself.’ Flydd
drew his knife, knowing it would be useless against soldiers armed with swords.
The flame had to be the answer, but how was he to use it?

Colm seemed unnaturally calm now. ‘I’ve been expecting to
die for so long, it’s almost like an old friend at the door.’

‘When Death puts his blade to your throat you’ll find the
will to fight. Let’s see if I can do something with her flame, to scare them
off. Follow my lead.’

‘I have been,’ Colm muttered, ‘and look where it’s got me.’

The door was pushed wide and in the darkness beyond it Flydd
made out green iridescent reflections – the abyssal flame reflecting off
the armour of the God-Emperor’s Imperial Militia, his second-best troops.

If the woman in red had wanted him to use the flame all
along, she’d have to show him how. He stood up, keeping cover behind the altar,
and raised the taphloid, hoping it would reveal another glimpse of her. The
abyssal flame flickered and wavered away without showing him anything. His
chest tightened.

‘There’s three of them,’ said Colm. ‘Two with scimitars, the
third with a war axe. They’re mighty big.’

‘Size isn’t everything.’

The original Flydd, though a small, gaunt man, had slain many
a warrior in combat through his skill with a sword, not to mention his low
cunning and a dash of mancery in emergencies. Unfortunately his renewed body
still didn’t fit and he was afraid it would let him down again. But how else
was he to fight?

Use the flame, fool!

Her voice was even hoarser and more strained, as if it had
taken a mighty effort to speak to him. How am I to use the flame, Flydd
thought, but received no answer.

The leading soldier shouted, ‘There they are; behind that
altar,’ and they moved in.

Exposing the metal side of the taphloid, he thrust it as
close to the flame as he could bear its prickly, tingling heat. A huge bubble
formed and swirled up on a current of air, turning slowly, and this time he saw
clearly what was imprinted on it. Everyone must have, since the bubble was
transparent.

The woman in red was standing by a fire, holding a crystal
chalice in her left hand, and raised it high as if saluting an unseen observer.
Green flame flickered in the bowl. She lowered the chalice, drained it in a
long swallow and tossed it over her shoulder to smash in the fireplace. Looking
up suddenly as if she’d seen him, she pointed at Flydd with her right index
finger.

He felt a burning pain in the centre of his forehead –
a pain he remembered from renewal – as if the sun’s rays had been focused
there. Was she attacking him, or waking something? She slumped backwards into a
chair, in evident distress, and the bubble popped.

His heart skipped several beats, then began to race. The
pain became a wedge driven into his skull, sharper than before. He staggered
and clutched at his head, but the pain disappeared and his knife hand began to
tingle.

Use the flame
, she
had said, and its touch had also tingled. Knife to flame? He reached out with
the tip of the knife, and as soon as it entered the flame the knife shook in
his hand and began to make a faint humming sound.

Sword clashed on sword. Flydd looked around dazedly, knowing
he’d lost precious seconds. Colm had his back to the altar and was fighting for
his life against a soldier half a head taller and twice his weight. Another man
was coming at him from the left, swinging the war axe, while the third was
advancing on Flydd, carving the air with a span-long scimitar. They weren’t
planning to take prisoners.

Colm had been driven to one knee and his assailant was
raising his scimitar for a blow that would split him from skull to buttocks
like a side of beef. Flydd lunged at the soldier, swinging the singing knife in
a wicked slash, in the faint hope that he would falter.

The note of the blade rose as it moved and a fiery lance of
light extended from it, carving a streak across the soldier’s iridescent chest
plate. Flydd’s fingers stung. He could barely hold the knife, which was
vibrating wildly, singing piercingly. His heart began to hammer like a set of
native drums and his chest burned from front to back.

The soldier screamed; steam wisped from the thin line which
the light had carved right through his armour, followed by curtains of pulsing
blood. His legs buckled and he fell.

The other two soldiers were frozen in place, staring at the
dead man. Flydd’s hand was throbbing now; he swung the shrieking blade in a
wobbly arc towards the soldier nearest to him. The light lance passed across
the man’s throat, just above his armour, as he turned to run.

He kept turning but his head did not. Colm gagged, for the
soldier’s eyes remained locked on his, while his body was facing the other way,
the sheared-off head perched neatly on his stub of neck. He kept moving and
head and body separated; the eyes went dull in the flame-light and the head
toppled off, bouncing twice before coming to rest near Flydd’s foot. He nudged
it out of the way, then had to let go of the shuddering blade, whose light was
carving smoking arcs across the murals and the ceiling.

It clattered to the floor and the light went out. The
beheaded soldier managed two more steps, blood fountaining from his neck,
before slamming into the floor. The soldier with the war axe was pounding for
the doors.