Book 3: The Gates of Good and Evil
1
THE MOST DISTURBING THING
The sky galleon, an absurd craft with an equally silly name, Three Reckless Old Ladies, streaked north along the coast of the Sea of Thurkad. There had been no further sign of the enemy and Llian allowed himself to hope that the Merdrun’s great Crimson Gate had failed. That they had not succeeded in invading Santhenar after all.
Even the best-designed gates were dangerous, and all who entered them did so at their peril. The enemy could be undone by bad luck too.
He looked west, in the direction of Karan’s former family estate of Gothryme, and sighed. After being banned from working as a chronicler or teller he had done his best to learn about farming and forestry, but from the beginning Karan had made it clear that the estate was hers, not theirs, and she would not let him manage the smallest aspect of it. He had seldom been happy there.
Now Gothryme was gone, and good riddance! She was no longer the owner of a great estate, impoverished though it may have been, handed down mother to daughter for more than a thousand years. And Llian was no longer a eunuch of a man, forbidden to pursue his calling. Finally, they were equals again.
And not before time. Dark times needed a great Chronicler of the Histories, and a surpassing Teller of the Great Tales, and he could be both. With Gothryme and his tarnished reputation confined to history, the burden of the past ten years had lifted. He could make a new start here.
So many tales needed telling, but … Karan was not going to be happy.
*
Karan’s eyes were wet as she gazed at her sleeping daughter, the most perfect thing in her life, yet the least explicable.
The black pill Rulke had given Karan, which had allowed her to become pregnant in the first place, had greatly enhanced Sulien’s natural gift for far-seeing, though not in a good way. Four months ago she had far-seen the Merdrun’s one fatal weakness in a nightmare, and since then she had been stalked, betrayed, hunted, lost, rescued, recaptured with Karan and condemned to death –
Until, in an act so reckless and desperate that Karan got chills every time she thought of it, Llian, a clumsy scholar who was incompetent with any kind of weapon, had saved Sulien and herself. The scar low on Karan’s belly, from the stab wound that had almost killed her that day, burned.
When they’d escaped to the future she had thought the danger over, but two days ago Sulien had far-seen a Merdrun army at the Crimson Gate, and Rulke had managed to extract part of her nightmare.
A child of a lesser race can defeat us if her mighty gift is allowed to develop –
Develop what? No one could guess. Not even Rulke had been able to recover the rest of the nightmare, and that was bad for two reasons.
Whilever the secret was buried in Sulien, the Merdrun could protect themselves by hunting her down and killing her. A nine-year-old girl’s life meant nothing to them; they saw their enemies as subhuman.
And Sulien felt guilty that she could not remember this vital secret. She would not give up trying to find it, and she had a bad habit of acting without thinking things through – like her mother!
Instinctively, Karan looked to Llian, who was slumped against the rear wall of the cabin, next to the closed hatch that led below. There was ink on his fingers and the front of his shirt, and the journal that never left his side was open on his lap, but he was asleep.
Her heart went out to him. How he had suffered these past years. How she had made him suffer, controlling cow that she was. Lording it over him because she owned Gothryme and he, being banned, could not earn a copper grint from his calling. Well, everything had to change now.
But how? She felt torn out by the roots.
She took the front door key to Gothryme Manor from her bag. The black iron, heavy and worn, was as old as the manor itself. The bow was a cloverleaf, flecked with orange rust in the interstices, the shank as long as her hand, and the key wards were crescent moons. It was all she had left.
Before she, Llian and Sulien had found a way to flee 214 years into the future, Karan had given Gothryme, the drought-stricken estate that she’d loved with every atom of herself and had planned to pass down to Sulien, to a stranger.
But the Santhenar of today had been ground down by the 160-year-long Lyrinx War and the west had suffered worst. The cities and towns of Meldorin had been emptied long ago, its estates great and small abandoned, Gothryme among them. It was her binding duty to get it back and leave it to Sulien, whatever the cost to herself.
Karan put the thought aside. They had come to the future to save Sulien from Maigraith, but Maigraith was still alive and as vengeful as ever, so what had it all been for?
And it had always been Karan’s role to provide, though how was she to provide for Sulien and Llian now? Or Wilm and Aviel, who had also ended up here in some mocking twist of fate. Karan’s purse would soon be empty and then they would be dependent on charity.
Yet in a world exhausted by war followed by civil war, and facing another war, how long could charity last? Were they doomed to become serfs, slaving all the hours of the day just to feed themselves, and at the mercy of every predator, human or beast?
No chance for a second child then. Her eyes stung. She had abandoned the idea years ago and turned away whenever Llian mentioned it. But if they had a proper home –
‘Xervish?’ she said.
‘Mmm?’ said Xervish Flydd. A small, greatly scarred and hideously ugly man, he was seated in the far rear corner of the sky galleon’s overdecorated cabin, reading a small book of tales.
‘Can we go to Gothryme? It’s only half an hour out of your way.’
‘What for?’
‘I’m no use to you. I’m going to take my estate back.’
Llian woke abruptly and twisted around, staring at Karan. ‘What?’
‘Meldorin is an empty land,’ said Karan. ‘We can go home.’
‘It’s not home anymore.’
‘Where else can we go? You can’t provide –’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ he said bitterly.
‘Meldorin is a dangerous place,’ said Flydd. ‘I don’t think –’
‘If the Merdrun come,’ said Karan, ‘everywhere will be dangerous.’
‘What about Maigraith?’
‘If she comes near my family again,’ Karan said ferociously, ‘she’s dead!’
Flydd closed the book and rubbed his twisted fingers. ‘You can’t hide from her, or the Merdrun, in your former home.’
‘Then we’ll go up into the mountains. We can live off the land. It’d be a lot better than –’
‘Being dependent on me?’ Flydd shrugged and called forwards. ‘M’Lainte, would you?’
M’Lainte, a big, saggy, cheerful old woman, stood behind the binnacle at the front of the cabin, holding the stubby levers that controlled the speed and flight of the uncanny craft. She turned it west towards the range of mountains called the Hills of Bannador.
The sky galleon was the most ridiculous vessel Karan had ever seen. It had the deep keel and curving sides of a seagoing ship, though the timbers were sheathed in brass interleaved with black metal and swirling strips of silver, and the interior was decorated with even greater extravagance. From the high bow, scalloped metal shields extended along both sides of the deck in place of rails. A heavy, spear-throwing javelard was mounted behind the bow shields, and a catapult on another swivelling platform at the stern. She had no idea what allowed such a heavy craft to fly, but then, she had not understood Rulke’s construct either.
As she gazed upon the familiar, snow-tipped peaks of Bannador, her eyes misted. Home. How she loved it. It had come to her when her mother, Vuula, died when Karan was twelve, and giving it away had meant abandoning the one good thing she’d had from Vuula. She had to get it back. Llian would just have to get used to it.
*
Karan’s eyes don’t shine like that when she looks at me, Llian thought. She cares more about that drought-struck expanse of rock and dirt than she does for me.
He tried to see her side but the anger that had smouldered in him for years was too strong. He jumped up. ‘No, Karan. Not again!’
Flydd gestured to M’Lainte, who slowed the sky galleon and hovered above the aromatic coastal heath.
‘What are you talking about?’ Karan hissed.
Llian hesitated. Was this the time? It had to be now, or he would lose the courage and end up a pathetic, bitter old man. ‘I can’t do this again.’
‘Do what?’
‘Follow you back and sit at your feet like an adoring little lapdog, waiting for the occasional bone, but never allowed to do anything worthwhile.’
Karan snapped, ‘You couldn’t do anything at Gothryme.’
That hurt. ‘I could have written the records, kept the accounts, learned to help plan the crops and the rotations –’
‘Those were my jobs.’
‘Everything was your job. You wouldn’t trust me to do anything.’
‘Daddy’s right, Mummy,’ said Sulien, in a let’s be reasonable tone. ‘You are a bit, um, controlling.’
Karan softened her voice. ‘Not now, darling.’
‘I lost ten years of my life,’ said Llian.
‘Are you saying the last ten years of your life, with your family, have been wasted?’ Karan hissed.
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
‘I didn’t get you banned. You managed that all by yourself.’
‘Supportive of you to say so, for the hundredth time.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Karan, but I’m getting my life back.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I’m not going back to cringe and cower at Gothryme. I’m going after another Great Tale.’
‘You’ve got a family, Llian! Why isn’t that enough? Why can’t you be an ordinary Teller?’
‘Because I’m not an ordinary Teller. That’s what drew you to me in the first place, if you remember. My retelling of the greatest of the Great Tales – the Tale of the Forbidding.’
Karan’s anger faded and her green eyes took on a dreamy look. He knew she was reliving the magical night when she had first set eyes on him, when he’d retold the tale at the Graduation Telling and caused such a sensation. That night had changed both of their lives.
‘Well,’ she said softly, ‘I’m sorry, but we all have to make compromises.’
You never have, he thought, but everyone was staring at them and he said no more.
‘What’s the decision?’ Flydd said to Karan.
‘Gothryme.’
She was studiously avoiding looking Llian’s way.
*
Karan had just resumed her seat when Sulien’s eyes rolled up and her breath whistled out between her teeth.
‘It’s in an amber-wood box,’ she said in the grating Merdrun accent, ‘and amber-wood is famously lucky. It could have survived. Find it!’
Icy needles crept through Karan like frost spreading across a windowpane. ‘Xervish, they’re here!’
Flydd leapt up. ‘M’Lainte, down!’
The sky galleon descended rapidly. ‘What is it?’ she said calmly.
Nothing seemed to faze the old woman. But then, she had been an important figure during the last decade of the Lyrinx War, and through all the turmoil since. Karan supposed M’Lainte had seen it all.
Shrubs creaked and snapped as the heavy craft settled. She smelled crushed leaves, thyme and rosemary, dust, and the salty tang of the nearby Sea of Thurkad.
‘The most disturbing thing I’ve heard all year,’ said Flydd. ‘Sulien?’
Her eyes were unfocused, her mind in a far-off place.
Karan was trembling as she took Sulien’s hand. ‘Are you having a far-seeing?’
Nothing.
Flydd touched her forehead with a gnarled fingertip. Sulien jerked and her eyes sprang open. ‘A foggy mountaintop,’ she said in her own voice. ‘Big pieces of white metal sticking up. And bones! Bones and skulls, everywhere. It’s pouring with rain.’
‘Thuntunnimoe,’ hissed Flydd, looking meaningfully at M’Lainte. ‘It’s worse than I feared. Far worse!’
‘What’s Thuntunnimoe?’ said Llian, leaning forwards eagerly.
‘Mistmurk Mountain. A high, cliff-bound plateau in the rainforest west of Guffeons – away in the tropical north. I spent nine years trapped up there in my former, badly-aged body.’
Karan gazed at Flydd, wondering. The body he had now was nothing to inspire the poets.
‘Dozens of Merdrun in bright red armour!’ cried Sulien. ‘Wading through bogs and pools. They came through a gate.’
‘Why are they looking for an amber-wood box?’ said Lilis, a white-haired, little old lady who had once been Librarian at the Great Library in Zile. ‘Xervish, what’s going on?’
‘Please, no!’ Flydd’s warped hands were clenched, the battered knuckles standing out.
‘What’s all the white metal?’ said Llian.
‘Wreckage of the God-Emperor’s sky palace. He flew it there four years ago, hunting his renegade son, Nish, a hero of the war. Maelys had broken him out of prison. I – I had no choice; I cast the forbidden renewal spell on myself –’ pain shivered Flydd’s raddled cheeks, ‘– and got a younger, stronger body. In the ensuing battle the sky palace fell out of the air and smashed to bits. We only escaped, Maelys, Nish and I, by a whisker.’
‘Skald!’ whispered Sulien. ‘Skald Hulni.’
‘What’s that, darling?’ said Karan, taking her small, cold hands.
‘The Merdrun I’m … seeing through. A young battle mancer … He reminds me –’ Sulien frowned as if chasing a lost thought, then shook her head. ‘He’s using a seeking spell.’
‘Clever fellow,’ said Flydd. ‘Pray he fails.’
‘He’s desperate to find the box. He’s shaking.’
‘Why does he want it so badly?’ said Llian.
Sulien’s eyes closed again. Karan sat beside her, still holding her hand. Was going home the right thing to do, with Llian so opposed? How could she rely on her own judgement when she had made such colossal blunders these past few months? Like coming to the future.
Llian had never felt he belonged at Gothryme, because she was such a controlling bitch! What if he’d had enough of her? If he discovered the secret she’d been keeping from him all this time he would be gone in an instant.
Would Sulien stay, or go with him? Karan thought she would go. Feeling a scream building up, she suppressed the dangerous thoughts. If they left her, she would surely go mad, like her poor mother. But where else could they be safe?
After pacing for an interval, Flydd said to M’Lainte, ‘It’ll be dark soon. How far are we from Thurkad?’
‘Hour and a half.’
‘Get us there, fast as you can.’
‘What about Gothryme?’ cried Karan.
‘The enemy have invaded, and you want to run away?’ Flydd snarled.
‘They want Sulien dead. Will you protect her, every hour of the day?’
Flydd didn’t answer. He didn’t care!
‘Take your seats,’ said M’Lainte, standing at the controls with impressive calm.
As the sky galleon heaved itself into the air and hurtled north, the sun went down behind the mountains to their left, streaking the sky with light and shadow. Home was so close Karan could almost smell it – but she wasn’t going to get there.
Sulien’s far-seeing went on, in fragments, for the best part of an hour. The enemy searchers scoured the rain-drenched plateau in straight lines, an arm’s length apart, ploughing through chest-deep pools and sucking mires. Three soldiers were taken by swamp beasts that lunged from the brown water, their massive shearing blades crunching right through the Merdrun’s crimson armour. Two more were dragged into giant carnivorous plants and submerged in viscous yellow digestive acids.
‘They’re screaming for help,’ whispered Sulien. ‘But the other soldiers are just ignoring –’
Whatever was in the amber-wood box, the enemy were desperate to find it.
Sulien shuddered, wiped her running eyes and continued. ‘The water’s all red. Red everywhere –
‘I’ve got it!’ she cried in a young man’s voice that lacked the harshness of the other Merdrun. ‘I’ve got it!’
She opened her eyes very wide. ‘That was Skald, in a gully on the edge of the mountain. He’s holding up a big wooden box.’
‘But what’s in it?’ said Karan irritably.
‘The greatest folly of my life,’ said Flydd in a dead voice. ‘Something I’d assumed to be destroyed when the sky palace crashed.’
Stupid man! What had he done?
‘I’d love to hear your story,’ said Llian, bright-eyed, his pencil hovering over his journal.
‘Put that away,’ snapped Flydd.
‘Tell us!’ Karan yelled.
He scowled at her. ‘You can’t imagine what it was like being trapped up there, with no way down.’
‘Then how did you climb up in the first place?’
‘Fourteen years ago, I went there to a secret rendezvous, to plan the fightback against the God-Emperor, but none of my fellow conspirators turned up. Turned out they’d all been imprisoned or killed. The body I had then was old, well past sixty. I broke my ankle and it healed so badly I couldn’t climb down again.’
‘Must be lonely up there,’ said Llian.
‘The top of Mistmurk is surrounded by mile-high cliffs on all sides, and it never stops raining. I was stuck there, waiting for my allies to appear. Then, after it became clear they weren’t coming, waiting to die. More than nine years I spent there, and they were hard times … I was rotting alive. I – I had to keep my mind active or I would have gone insane.’
‘Arguably, you did,’ said Karan waspishly.
‘Not helpful,’ said M’Lainte without looking around. It was dark now, for the waning moon had not yet risen.
‘I’d always planned to write the truth about the Lyrinx War,’ said Flydd. ‘Someone had to. Everything the Council of Scrutators wrote was propaganda … or outright lies.’
Llian stared at Flydd, his eyes shining. Irritating men, both of them!
‘So you wrote some books,’ said Karan. ‘So what?’
‘I made paper from reeds, and ink from soot and rotgut spirits I distilled to numb the endless nights, and in five volumes I set down my Histories of the Lyrinx War,’ said Flydd. ‘At least, the vital last thirty years. It seemed important at the time – every node of power had been destroyed, and the depraved God-Emperor controlled the world with his sorcerous quicksilver tears, Gatherer and Reaper.’
‘I don’t see –’
‘If you’ll shut up for a minute, I’ll tell you.’
Karan shut up, flushing.
‘My fifth book described the last two years of the war, and I named all the key names: the top scrutators and generals, the greatest mancers, the most skilled artisans and artificers, and people with every other skill vital to such a war. I listed our most important mines and manufactories and training colleges, told the stories of the most important battles and how they were won or lost …
‘Imbecile that I am, I even described our magic-controlled weaponry, the flying thapters and armoured battle clankers, and how they were powered by the fields surrounding natural nodes. I drew dozens of maps showing battlefields, mines, manufactories …’
He put his head in his hands. ‘And fool, fool, I reproduced Tiaan’s priceless charts of the locations of nodes and fields throughout Lauralin and Meldorin …’
The skin on the back of Karan’s shoulders crawled. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’ she whispered.
‘So the future can learn from the past.’
‘The future never learns from the past,’ said Llian. ‘It always thinks this time is different.’
‘At the time, we believed the nodes of power were gone for good,’ said Flydd.
He ground his grizzled head into his spread hands and went on. ‘Our brilliant advances in mech-magical weaponry, and the fields that powered them and are now regenerating, are our only advantage in the coming war. If I’d thought there was a chance the books had survived, I would have raced to Thuntunnimoe the moment we saw the Crimson Gate open.
‘But now the Merdrun have them, and my Histories will tell them everything they need to know to master our mech-magic … and utterly expunge us from Santhenar.’
Karan rocked back and forth in her seat. Coming to this worn-out future had made things disastrously worse and there was nothing she could do about it.
And Sulien had far-seen this gifted young Merdrun battle mancer, Skald. What if he had also seen her?