The humiliation of Rix’s escape must be avenged, though Grandys had been planning to let him get away, anyway. The trace on Rix was intended to show Grandys where Tali had been hidden, and soon it would.
“Rufuss!” he bellowed.
The cadaverous man appeared at once, as if he had been lurking outside. He probably had. He was quite insane. But he could be relied on in certain matters.
“Grandys?” said Rufuss.
Grandys tossed him the spy-scope. “Follow Rixium, but don’t alert him. Eventually, he will lead you to Tali. When you can do so without being discovered, bring her to me unharmed.”
“What about the other two?”
“They can wait. Just Tali.”
“What will you do to her?” said Rufuss, licking his lips.
Grandys wasn’t going to mention the master pearl. He didn’t trust anyone with that knowledge, and certainly not Rufuss. “I’m going to have my revenge.”
“Shall I bring her back here?”
Grandys suppressed his impatience. “Of course not — we won’t be here. We’re marching to war, overnight.”
“War with whom?”
“With everyone, of course.”
“But we’ll be outnumbered many times.”
“That’s how I like it. It will make my victory all the greater. Bring her to me at the battle plain of Reffering.”
CHAPTER 104
What had she done? Tali did not know. She looked across to the ramp. There was no fighting, no noise save for the rhythm of marching soldiers and the groans of the injured. The Pale stood in a circular mass in the wreckage-clotted centre of the chymical level, pressed close together as if for comfort. The enemy were racing up the ramp towards the part of Cython that had collapsed.
She used the pillar to pull herself to her feet and was edging towards the annihilation hole when she heard that sound again, zipppp, and felt a breeze on the back of her neck. Something that had been suspended in the hole had hurtled down like a piston, drawing air after it.
The rock around the hole looked solid. She crept to the edge and peered in, gingerly. All was black. Something glowed orange, deep down, then it went black again and the breeze died away.
“You all right?” said Holm.
His face was soot-stained, his grey hair had gone a smoky yellow-brown, and his eyes were red and watering.
“Don’t know,” said Tali, trembling. “I feel a trifle… fragile. Hot and cold at the same time.”
He peered up through the enormous hole in the wall and ceiling. It was dark up there and she could not tell what part of Cython had collapsed.
“What did you do?” said Holm.
“One drop of alkoyl landed on the heatstone stack. Just one drop.”
He frowned at her. She explained what she had done, and how Errek’s words had inspired her to do it.
“I think you’re right,” said Holm. “Alkoyl and heatstone must be the antithesis of each other, just as king-magery and the Engine are opposites. One creates, the other destroys, and both are necessary. But if that balance tilts — ”
The ground shook.
“Have I helped, or made things worse?” she said quietly.
“Another minute and they would have overwhelmed us.”
She looked up to the dark collapse zone. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Holm.”
“About where the collapse took place?”
“It can’t have been far from the Empound. What if… what if it was right underneath?”
Holm looked grave. “We’d better go up.”
Something rumbled in the depths. The floor shook violently and more rock fell, though this time it was just an ordinary rock fall — whatever had happened at the heatstone cube, the point of annihilation, had completed itself.
Tali felt the last of her gift drain away. She swayed and almost fell. “Something’s wrong,” she croaked. “Something’s very wrong.”
Lyf reappeared at the curve of the ramp, moving slowly and wearily, as though his magery could barely support him. What had he seen up there?
“What have you done now?” he cried. “Something has just changed, deep down. The balance is tipping towards the point of no return.”
“Wil went down…” Tali was so exhausted that she could barely speak.
“When?” Lyf shook her. Holm pushed him away.
“Half an hour ago,” said Tali.
“Where did he go?”
Tali pointed to the fuming crevice.
“He went down the Hellish Conduit?”
“Where does it lead?”
“Way down. To the Engine at the heart of the world, eventually. But surely Wil can’t do any damage down there,” Lyf said, as if to himself. “He wouldn’t know…”
“He said, Got to write ending. Engine going to end everything,” said Tali. “And he was dragging a great platina demijohn. I… I think it held alkoyl.”
“He wouldn’t!” whispered Lyf. “He can’t get to the Engine, surely. And he wouldn’t know how to do any harm… Or would he?” He looked up. “Errek?”
The wispy old ghost-king appeared in the air before him.
“Did you hear?” said Lyf.
“Of course I heard,” said Errek. “I’m your creation.”
“Sometimes I forget.”
“Wil reforged the iron book,” said Errek. “He could not have done that in Cython without the matriarchs being informed. Where else would he find the heat for so mighty a forging? Only near the Engine.”
“Is that why magery has been failing?” said Tali. “Because Wil’s been rewriting the iron book?”
“The way the balance has been tilting,” said Errek, “he must have been interfering with the Engine. You’ve got to stop him, Lyf. Right now!”
Lyf looked up at the collapsed area. “But… my people need me. I can’t turn my back on them now, when they need me most.”
“When you swore your kingly oath all those years ago, when you chose the way of healing magery, you also swore that the king’s noble purpose would always come first.”
“What noble purpose?” said Tali.
“Healing the land and maintaining the balance?” said Holm, low-voiced.
“Since you became king again,” said Errek, “you’ve neglected that responsibility. Now you have no choice. Go!”
“How can I heal the land?” said Lyf. “Without the catalyz, I can’t use king-magery.”
“Kill Wil, then brake the Engine. Use your bare hands, if you must.”
“That won’t heal the land. It can’t.”
“But it can delay the catastrophe.”
“First, I’ll take the master pearl,” snarled Lyf. “Tali created this mess.”
“Grandys created it,” said Errek. “With Maloch, two thousand years ago. Leave her — she’s bound up with the fate of the world, somehow. Go!”
Lyf wobbled towards the smoking entrance to the Hellish Conduit and disappeared as Wil had done. Errek vanished. Tali’s legs gave beneath her and she slid to the floor. She had nothing left.
“We’d better go up and see what the damage is,” said Holm. “Hoy, Tobry?”
He came across, wearily.
“Give us a hand with her,” said Holm. “She’s all in.”
Tobry looked pale, shrunken and further aged. It was not a good sign.
He picked Tali up and began to carry her up the ramp, but she found no comfort in his arms. All she could think about was his terrible end that could not be far away.
Every jolt sent hot pain spearing through Tali’s head. She closed her eyes; it hurt too much with them open. Around her, hundreds of Pale were panting as they scrambled up.
“What’s happened?” someone asked.
“I don’t know,” said another. “Where have the enemy gone?”
There was no reply. Tali could hear the Pale’s bare feet slapping the stone all around. They ran in a mass for a minute or two, then stopped.
“To their armouries,” Radl was shouting. “Arm yourselves and hold the passages against the enemy. Pale in the Empound, come forth and take up arms.”