The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) (53 page)

‘We think Maelys was concealing something from us, and
–’

‘Who the devil is Maelys?’

Flydd explained, briefly. ‘The Numinator questioned Maelys
alone last night, about the portals I’ve made. I think the Numinator has used
the chthonic flame to make a portal, and has taken Maelys back to the Nightland
–’

Yggur looked as though he were going to have a fit, but
contained himself and said quietly, ‘
The
Nightland? Rulke’s prison?’

‘The same. It didn’t collapse after he left it, as everyone
thought. Or if it did, it has been carefully restored, and maintained ever
since, though who could do such a thing?’

‘Not I,’ said Yggur. ‘All the old human mancers on
Santhenar, working together, could not have rebuilt the Nightland after the
Forbidding was broken. They would not have had the power.’

‘Then who?’

‘The question is unanswerable, as is the more important
question – why? And since the Numinator has already used chthonic fire,
it may be too late. Once taken out of the flask it can never be put back. See
how it’s eating away at the ice? If it can’t be extinguished, the roof of the
inner tower will fall in on us.’

Flydd was digesting that when Yggur said sharply, ‘You said
back
to the Nightland. Have you been
there already?’

Flydd explained that as well, and how they had come here via
Dunnet, though he did not mention the mimemule. ‘The Nightland was as big a
surprise –’

‘They’re coming!’ whispered Flangers, backing down the hall
with the cudgel over his shoulder, ready to swing.

‘I’ve got to use the fire to get through this ice, Yggur,’
said Flydd.

‘I said no!’ Yggur put his hands on the wall, pushed, and
Flydd smelt singed hair again. ‘For seven years she’s drawn on my power to hold
this place together. I could not stop her, but I’ve learned how to follow the
paths she’s taken with it, and how she’s used my power. If she’s truly gone,
with what you’ve given me I might just …’

With gritted teeth, he strained until the bones in his
arched back creaked. Lines appeared on the wall – the outlines of the
blocks from which it had originally been constructed. ‘Ice,
unbind
.’

Water began to dribble out from the edges of the block he
had his hands on. He pushed hard and, after a brief moment when it seemed the
block would not budge, it glided away smoothly on a film of meltwater and fell
out with a loud crash.

From the other side of the wall, a woman cried out
fearfully, then Flydd heard a clamour of voices. He scrambled through the hole
and held up his hands. They quieted at once.

‘I am Xervish Flydd. Some of you may know my name.’ A low,
excited buzz spread through the throng before him. The light was dim, and he
could make out no more than a mass of thin figures. ‘I came to Noom to get you
out.’ The lie was excusable, in the circumstances. ‘The Numinator is not here
at the moment … which gives us our best chance, but you must all do exactly as
I say.’

Chissmoul ducked through the hole, then Flangers and Colm.
Yggur was still on the other side.

‘How can we get away?’ said a scrawny man near the front.
Flydd could make out no more than an enormous prow of a nose. ‘There’s five
hundred leagues of snow and ice in every direction.’

A considerable exaggeration, but there was no time to argue.
‘The same way I got here,’ Flydd said. ‘Through my vast command of the Secret
Arts – Arts that the God-Emperor thinks
he
controls – ha!’

He held up the flask so everyone could see the swirling fire
inside it. Yggur climbed through and stood up, wearing an ironic smile, though
he made no move to interfere. Damn right! Flydd thought mulishly. He wears the
bracelets, not me.

‘The Whelm are after us,’ he went on, ‘but they’re afraid.
Their master is not here and they’re leaderless.’

‘Which means they’ll be terrified and panicky,’ said the man
with the big nose. ‘And merciless.’

‘Trust me, and I’ll get you out of here,’ said Flydd weakly,
knowing that he was losing them. It would never have happened in the olden
days, when he had often swayed multitudes with his rhetoric.

‘A hundred and fifty of us can’t fight seven hundred armed
Whelm,’ said beaky nose. ‘The Numinator treats us well enough, and it’s better
to live as her slaves than die at the hands of these brutal Whelm. Go away and
fight your own battles.’

Yggur, who was leaning against the wall, stood up to his
full height and raised his bracelets so they caught the light of the chthonic
fire, which was oozing down these walls as well.

‘You don’t know Xervish Flydd, save as a name from the past,
but you do know me, and you know that my power, tapped by the Numinator through
these bracelets, is all that is holding up the Tower of a Thousand Steps. The
Numinator has gone – and she may never return – but Flydd has given
me some of my power back. We are leaving to continue the fight against the
God-Emperor, so you have no choice. Once I leave, the tower will collapse
whether the Numinator returns or not.’

‘We won’t let you leave,’ said the beaky-nosed man. ‘We’re
not dying just so you can get away. Take him, lads!’

A group of men at the front surged forwards and icy teeth sank
into Flydd's liver – the situation was out of control and he could not
think how to regain it.

Yggur didn’t move, though he stood more stiffly erect and
the bracelets gave off little flashes. ‘You know better than that, Lazus,’ he
said, looking to the left. ‘And you, Pordey. Don’t you?’

Two of the leaders stopped, and all the others with them.

‘He’s bluffing,’ said the beaky-nosed man. ‘He’s got no
power. Take him.’

Yggur smiled grimly and extended a long arm towards him. ‘My
phantom hand, an invisible hand which is an extension of this one, is going to
reach in through your chest and squeeze your heart until it bursts …’

‘Go on, then,’ the beaky-nosed man said, with a knowing
smile.

Yggur reached a little further and stiffened his fingers as
though forcing them through something hard. The beak-nosed man gasped and
clutched at his chest. Flydd heard cracking sounds, like ribs breaking, then
Yggur slowly clenched his fist. His arm did not shake.

The man’s face went red, then white. His lips turned blue,
he beat awkwardly at the air with his hands, then screamed as bright red blood
was forced out his mouth, nostrils and eyeballs.

He collapsed to his knees, slumped forwards and fell on his
face, dead before he hit the ground.

‘Was that really necessary?’ said Colm, looking sick. He
opened the distance between himself and Yggur.

Yggur stared at the body as if contemplating giving its
heart another squeeze. ‘He would have hindered us every step of the way,’ he
said quietly, ‘if we got out at all. Now the problem is solved.’ He raised his
voice. ‘Does anyone else dispute my command?’

No one answered.

‘Can you really do that?’ said Flydd. He had seen more
violent death than most men, but the display left him awed, and uneasy. No one
had ever understood the roots of Yggur’s strange power, nor his impossibly long
life, for that matter.

‘It’s marvellous what the power of suggestion can do to an
angry man with a weak heart,’ said Yggur ambiguously.

‘Then use your power to get us out of here.’

Yggur held up his braceleted wrists. ‘The Tower of a
Thousand Steps is not an easy place to escape from. Its power is linked to
hers
.’

‘You’d better think of a way.’

‘And you’d better do something about the hole in the wall
before the Whelm come through.’

‘Call the biggest of the prisoners over and help me heave
the block back in.’

‘No, I need it.’

‘What on earth for?’ said Flydd.

‘Weapons!’

 
THIRTY-NINE

Flydd had done what he could to seal the hole with webs
of ice as thick as bars, but it would not hinder the enemy long and,
unfortunately, there was no other way out of the cells.

‘They’re coming!’ Flangers said hoarsely. ‘We’ll have to
fight them as they come through.’ He hefted Flydd’s cudgel and stood to one
side of the hole.

‘Surr,’ said Chissmoul to Yggur, ‘he’s too weak to fight.
They’ll kill him in the first minute.’

‘Flangers can’t
not
fight, Chissmoul. He was a professional soldier; take that from him and he’ll
have nothing left.’

‘If he dies,
I’ll
have nothing left,’ Chissmoul said, white-faced.

What could he say? Flydd eyed the ice walls, which were
laced with chthonic fire now, spreading out from each oozing thread and slowly
eating the surface ice away. Every so often a small chunk would fall and smash
on the floor; within, the ice was honeycombed with water-filled holes.

‘How long can the inner tower hold?’ Colm said quietly.

‘I don’t think there’s any way of telling.’ Flydd wiped
drops off his face. ‘Perhaps not long at all.’

‘The core of the wall is still solid,’ said Yggur. ‘It’ll
last a while yet.’

He was standing over the block of ice he’d pushed out,
rubbing the bracelets. ‘Now I’ve got some power, let’s see what I can do with
it. For the past seven years, the Numinator has drawn upon my power to shape
and strengthen her ice tower, and those skills have flowed back to me. With a
little effort, I should be able to form ice with as much skill as a sculptor
carves marble.’

Yggur smoothed his hands across the great block, ignoring
the biting cold, and seemed to be calculating its dimensions. ‘Spears are the
only weapon suited to untrained soldiers.’ He spoke to the stone, softly.
‘Split and split and split again – split eight times over.’

With a dull crack the block split in two, and each piece
split again and again, eight times, until hundreds of long ice stakes went
tumbling across the floor.

‘Blade tips!’ Yggur picked up one of the stakes and shaped its
tip into a spearhead with his fingers. This proved a greater strain; he swayed
on his feet.

Ice cracked away from the leading end of each stake to form
a leaf-shaped point about a hand-span long, bladed on either side.

‘Javelins, become as adamant,’ said Yggur, now screwing up
his face as if he’d swallowed a cup of fishhooks.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Flydd.

‘When one must use a power held in another’s thrall,
after-sickness is swift, and cruel.’ The spears did not look as though they’d
changed, apart from a slight creaking of their crystalline structures, but
Yggur swayed on his feet.

Flydd steadied him. ‘And will get crueller, as I know all
too well.’ He raised his voice. ‘Take a spear each and prepare to defend
yourselves.’

The prisoners came forwards, picking up their weapons
gingerly, as if they had never handled one before and did not want to do so
now. It was not a good sign; it meant they still saw themselves as helpless
slaves rather than as prisoners determined to escape. There was going to be
blood on the floor before they won free – assuming they did.

Flangers hefted his spear with a wince that he tried to
disguise.

‘For those of us who know how to use weapons,’ said Yggur,
‘I’ll make something a little more ambitious.’ Holding three spears together,
he formed them into a long sword. ‘Use it carefully, Sergeant Flangers. This
isn’t as brittle as regular ice, but it’ll shatter if you strike the wrong
way.’

Flangers made a space for himself and swished it through the
air. ‘It’s a fine weapon. Perfectly balanced, though a trifle light. It won’t
cut far into an enemy.’

‘Ice is light,’ said Yggur. ‘I can’t do anything about that.
But it’ll cut deep enough, if you swing true.’

By the time he’d made blades for himself, Colm and Flydd,
Yggur was staggering from aftersickness and holding his belly with his free
hand.

‘Stand back,’ said Flydd as the Whelm began to smash at the
ice webbing over the hole. ‘I’ll take charge of our defences. Flangers, you’re
my first lieutenant. Defend our left flank.’

The Whelm, a host of gaunt, staring shadows, were prising at
the hole, bent on making them suffer for daring to defy their master.

‘We can’t defend this place,’ Flydd said to Colm, who was
standing by Yggur, sword in hand. ‘We’ve got to get out before they surround us
and break in from all sides.’

‘There’s a stair in the far corner,’ said Yggur, nodding in
that direction. ‘We should make for it, and hope we can force our way out
through the sealed door at the top.’

‘Where does it lead?’ said Colm.

‘To the top of the inner tower. It contains the cells, the
hall of the registers, the work rooms and the coffins. It’s ten floors high,
and lies entirely within the Tower of a Thousand Steps, though it’s completely
separate from it.’

‘Why is that?’ said Flydd.

‘I don’t know,’ said Yggur. ‘The outer tower is five times
as high, but unused save for the Numinator’s eyrie. Perhaps she did not want it
tainted by what was done below.’

‘We won’t get out of here by going up,’ said Colm. ‘We
should go down.’

‘There’s no choice. They’ve got this level surrounded.’

Colm lowered his voice. ‘We’ll never get a hundred and fifty
terrified people up the stairs. And if we do, we’ll still be trapped, only at
the top.’

‘Attack!’ shouted the leader of the Whelm. They burst
Flydd’s ice defences and surged through the rectangular hole, far faster than
he had expected. Within seconds a dozen were in the room, swinging long black,
jag-edged blades.

‘Stand!’ shouted Flangers, defending with his ice-blade,
though his illness made him slow. Too slow?

Perhaps it’s for the best, Flydd thought. Flangers had
atoned over and over for breaking his soldier’s oath, yet it had not been
enough for his unyielding personal code of honour. He was the best of men but
the forced betrayal had eaten him away inside, just as the chthonic fire was
consuming the tower’s ice from within, until all that remained was the husk.