‘Axil Grandys’s most prized trophy,’ said Deroe, looking up at the crazed stone face, ‘and your greatest weakness. Ha-ha-ha!’
One stone eye cracked out and a shadow-clad finger protruded through the hole. A whisper of sound swelled to a howl, then a cloudy rock-glass barrier rose between the trophy case and Deroe, locking him into the right-hand end of the cellar.
Take the master pearl and bring it to me.
Rix rotated, the soles of his boots grinding on the gritty floor. Tali could see the sick failure in his eyes, that his life had been pre-ordained ever since he had been taken to the cellar by his mother ten years ago and ensnared by Lyf. How could she stop him?
‘Rix,’ she said desperately, ‘how did he get to you?’
Rix shook his head. He did not know.
Tobry broke off his futile attack on the barrier, for the question had set his mind racing. Rix only had nightmares in the palace, and then only in his own chambers. But Tobry had checked them for magery many times and had found no trace of an enchantment save in Rix’s sword. Unquestionably, the compulsion did not come through the sword.
That left only one possibility — the heatstone.
Tobry turned and ran. To his knowledge, no inanimate object was enchanted in its natural state — only through deliberate human intervention did magery come about. The heatstone in the salon contained no enchantment, so how had Lyf, who could only travel to the cellar, used it to get at Rix?
Tobry raced up the dusty stairs. There was an ache in his side and his healing wounds burnt as though they were tearing open, but he dared not rest. Tali could not hold Rix off long. Either he would kill her for the pearl, or she would find her gift and kill him. The one possibility was as dreadful as the other.
He reached the ground level and hurtled along the halls to Rix’s chambers, bursting the door open with his shoulder and skidding the length of the hall into the salon, where the heatstone twinkled as balefully as ever. If he broke it, surely it must snap the link that allowed Lyf to control Rix through the compulsion.
Glynnie started up from the couch with a cry of fear.
‘Get out!’ he bellowed. ‘Take the boy with you. Now!’
She took one look at his face and ran, dragging Benn behind her.
The heatstone was a good four inches thick; it would take a sledgehammer wielded by a blacksmith to break it. Tobry ran around the room twice, cursing. There was nothing here that could even knock a chip out of it. Perhaps it was just as well. When Tali’s little heatstone had smashed on his elbrot in the caverns, it had burnt him badly. If he succeeded in breaking this one, there would be nothing left of him, and it would be a hideous way to die.
But if the heatstone remained, Rix would kill Tali and Lyf would get the master pearl. Tobry could not allow that. For the sake of his friends, and the woman he loved who did not love him, he had to make the sacrifice.
He was looking around wildly when The Consolation of Vengeance caught his eye, lying on the blankets where Tali had dropped it. The iron book was potent with magery, and without further thought he picked it up and slammed it against the centre of the heatstone.
The impact jarred all the way up to the back of his neck. The heatstone was unmarked, though small red flecks of spent alkoyl, driven out of the deeply etched words, had splattered across the middle, outlining the title in reverse.
Tobry was swinging the book again when the heatstone cracked beneath each red fleck. The cracks spread and merged and fire licked along them, then the centre of the heatstone swelled, showering him with blistering chips of stone.
He dived behind the couch, knowing it could not save him, as the centre of the heatstone was drawn inwards. It pulled in the rest, crumbling the enormous stone to dust which collapsed to a bright red mote, then vanished with a roar like an erupting volcano.
At the moment of the implosion, every captured Cythonian in the chancellor’s cells next door to Palace Ricinus fell unconscious, save one.
Wil the Sump rubbed his aching forehead, stared around him with the blind eye sockets that saw so much further than any ordinary man, then giggled, ‘She the one. This the ending.’
Using a smear of alkoyl from his hidden stock, he burnt through the door of his cell and scuttled along the red, contorted passages of the palace.
‘Clever Wil,’ he said, for no one he encountered noticed him. ‘Stupid chancellor.’
Outside, Wil scurried across the grounds to the unguarded side gate to Palace Ricinus, and through it, drawn inexorably to a cellar he had never seen. The ending was close now, but who would win the contest — the Scribe or the one? Which story would prevail? He had to be there, had to see it first. Wil was so tense he struggled to draw breath.
Back in his palace, the chancellor listened to the reports of Wil’s progress, smiled, and called for the captain of his personal guard.
CHAPTER 103
It had been bad enough killing an enemy, Banj. How much worse would it be to cut down a friend? Could Tali kill Rix, even to save herself?
He stopped six feet away, within lunging distance, and still she did not know what to do. The magery Deroe had raised in her was bubbling beneath the surface, and if there was no choice she would use it on Rix to save her life, but she was afraid to bring it all the way too soon in case she lost control. She could not attack Deroe with it. He had cleverly blocked that way.
Rix was gasping and grunting as he strove to overcome Lyf’s compulsion but she knew it was futile. Now Lyf had a body, he was far stronger than before and Rix could never break free of his own accord.
He took another step, reaching out for her. Tali backpedalled, blinking away tears as she prepared to defend herself the only way she could. Her fingertips tingled. The fury that had killed Banj was only a breath away, a thread, a sigh …
The floor shuddered, then a golden light burst from Rannilt, driving the misty shadows off and revealing the simple beauty of Lyf’s ancient temple for the first time. She cried out in wonder and sat up.
Pain sheared through Tali’s skull, worse than the time the sunstone had smashed in the shaft. Her gift rose uncontrollably, as it had that time, and her fingertips began to sting. The sensations were unmistakeable — someone had broken Rix’s gigantic heatstone and the cataclysm must have burnt him to charcoal. Who could have done it? Who would have known it was the only way?
Only one man.
‘Tobry!’ she screamed, but then the white blizzard was forced out through her spread fingers and she could not stop it. Her eyes flooded until she could not see. ‘Rix?’ Had she killed him?
Not Rix as well! Was she to lose everyone she cared about? Tali swung aside and rock shattered with a roar, chattering off the ceiling and walls, falling all around. She blinked the tears away. She was pointing towards the left-hand stone raptor and her white torrent was tearing the stone apart.
‘Rix, where are you?’ she gasped as the well emptied, and the flood faded. Her gift — if gift it was, and not a curse — was gone again.
Her burning fingertips were covered in hundreds of tiny red specks. The room was full of dust and smoke. She could not see anyone.
‘Garrimoolish! Flisseroomph blorrgggg! Gebblinengle-googaah!’
Rix came reeling through the clouds, shaking his head between his hands and raving like a madman. What had she done? Had she burnt his brain? She could see no sign of injury — it must be the effect of the shattered heatstone.