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“She has never gone longer than three days,” Min-Obal replied. “At the rate of change in her that we’ve both seen, five would be enough. What we need is to have others within the household who can take her to her room, tell her that someone with deep grief wants to see her, so she will stay, and then lock her in.”

  Fear ran through Ardesir like cold water drenching him. It was a moment before he could find his voice. “Even one mistake ... would be fatal.”

  “I know. But will doing nothing not also be fatal?” Min-Obal asked.

  “Yes. We must be certain. Who else can we trust?” It was a rhetorical question. Both he and Min-Obal had been seeking and testing, watching, judging over the past months. They knew the answer already. There were about a dozen men and women they were certain of, who would risk their lives, even against the kind of death Tiyo-Mah would exact in vengeance. Now was proof that all those hours had been well spent. Ardesir answered his own question, reeling off their names before Min-Obal could reply. “We must warn them of the risk,” he finished, cringing inside at the knowledge of what they faced.

  Min-Obal was already naming the men who would keep Tiyo-Mah occupied with officials she could not afford to deny, and the actress who would find others of her skill, and the captain of the guard who would lock and bolt Tiyo-Mah’s door. This was his city, his people. He had already weighed it in his mind.

  Ardesir could do no more than agree, praying in silence for success, or if not, at least for survival of those brave enough to offer their lives in such a venture.

  The first step worked superbly, with the rhythm of a perfectly conducted ensemble of musical players, each striking his note at the moment, singly or together.

  Tiyo-Mah gave her regular audience to the most lately bereaved. The real widows were received by a senior palace official, the actresses stood in the courtyard under the trees, hands lowered in respect, their faces wet with tears, and murmured their thanks as the old woman touched them.

  She departed as gaunt and weak as she had come, her brow furrowed with confusion but her anger concealed. Min-Obal himself offered her his arm and she needed it to support her return.

  “You must be tired, my lady,” he said softly to her. “So much grief for you to comfort. I hesitate to ask anything further of you, but I know you have given more to the war than anyone else, even the Isarch or the generals.”

  “What is it?” she said roughly, staring ahead of her as she leaned on him as they climbed the steps.

  “A man who has lost all his sons, four young men of unquestioning courage and devotion ...” He did not wish to say too much and raise suspicion. Invention was always best kept to a minimum.

  She murmured something almost inaudible. He felt her weight deadening his arm. Hope surged up inside him. Was this all victory required—planning, care and the nerve to carry it out?

  He guided her inside. She seemed willing to go towards her own chambers. He passed under the great archways and along the corridors with their painted walls. Bol-Ferrat, the Isarch’s son, was lounging in one of the ante chambers, his youthful face creased in lines of discontent. He hated Tiyo-Mah because he was frightened of her, and he saw her eating away his father’s power, and so eventually his own. He would like to have been insolent, but even in her weakened state, he dared not. He straightened up and unfolded his arms.

  Min-Obal and Tiyo-Mah passed him in silence. Min-Obal knew the boy would be staring at them, possibly pulling a face at the old woman’s retreating back, but she was too weak to turn and catch him.

  “Fetch the man who lost his sons,” she ordered as they reached her quarters and the guard stood to attention. She did not notice the captain himself was there, nor that the soldiers were not the usual ones; her attention was on Min-Obal.

  “Are you certain you have the patience to see him, my lady?” he asked, savouring the moment, but dropping his voice with concern.

  She too played the part. “I am tired. All this grief, this loss. But the war is for our survival! He has given his sons for his country. Of course bring him to me, but quickly, so I can rest.” Her black eyes were filmed over, as if she were growing blind, and the gaunt flesh of her face sagged.

  Min-Obal felt a twinge of pity. She had once been human. Could Ardesir be mistaken? Mabeluz was certainly a creature of hell, but could Tiyo-Mah be no more than a magnificently brave old woman, fired by her own losses, and the leader the nation needed against the barbarian, who was certainly real enough? Was it pity, or sheer strength of will which renewed her?

  Then to lock her in would do no harm.

  “Yes, my lady,” he said obediently. “Rest yourself for a moment, and I shall bring him to you.”

  The captain of the guard opened the door for her and she went in without glancing at him. He closed it and pulled the bar across soundlessly. He looked at Min-Obal, then Min-Obal turned and left.

  From the courtyard Ardesir had watched them, his heart pounding, his mouth dry. He had followed a few minutes after, in time to see Bol-Ferrat glaring at the back of the old woman with hatred in his face.

  Ardesir had gone on and up the stairs to the old woman’s rooms. He’d felt a surge of relief as he’d seen the guard standing at ease at the door and had met his eyes. The guard had nodded very slightly.

  When Ardesir returned two hours later and found Min-Obal also there, it was a totally different scene. The guard was pale, a sheen of sweat on his face in the reflected light from the high windows, and Tiyo-Mah’s voice was audible through the door, hoarse, rattling like death in her throat.

  “Let me out! Fool! If I die in here, what do you imagine will happen to you?”

  The guard gave no answer. He looked beseechingly at Ardesir, then Min-Obal.

  “No!” Ardesir barely mouthed the word.

  There was silence for several minutes, then they heard a faint scratching on the inside of the door, as if fingernails were drawn along it, someone straining for the handle but too weak to reach it.

  Tiyo-Mah’s voice came again, dry as dust. “If I die Mabeluz will avenge me. He will destroy your body in agony, and take your soul to hell! He can do it—think of his face, his eyes, and know that I am not threatening in vain! Let me out!”

  The guard was shivering, biting his lip.

  “No,” Min-Obal repeated. Then, looking at the barred door, and the guard’s face: “If we let her out now, she’ll kill us anyway,” he added. “She would never forgive us for making her beg. Keep the door barred. Say nothing. Don’t answer her. It won’t be long. She sounds weaker by the moment.”

  But they remained there, afraid to leave the guard alone in case somehow she reached his fear or his compassion, and gradually Tiyo-Mah’s voice grew weaker. The threats were more vicious—she described the tortures of hell, the agonies of the mind which never die—but now only some of her words penetrated the weight of the door, and they heard no movement any more.

  It was hot in the passage. The air seemed motionless in spite of the watered wall only yards away with its glistening surface and the lilies in the green pool below.

  “Go and make sure Mabeluz is occupied,” Min-Obal said after another hour. “I have made provision, but I would be better assured if you checked that all is well.”

  Ardesir nodded and turned to leave, glad of an honourable reason to escape the enclosing prison of the corridor, its airlessness and the knowledge of what lay behind the barred door, waiting to die.

  But he had gone only as far as the main hallway at the bottom of the stairs when he saw the Isarch’s son, Bol-Ferrat, again.

  The boy looked at him, at the stair behind him, then, as if he had suddenly perceived a wonderful idea, he turned and moved swiftly along a side passage which appeared to lead only to storerooms. But in his time as clerk of works Ardesir had learned it actually led to the entrance of a series of passages within the walls.

  He went after the boy. He had never either liked or trusted him. He had seen a cruel streak which made it easy to believe that he
could be anciently descended from Tiyo-Mah. There were characteristics in him which leaped the five hundred years, and the thought of it sent Ardesir along the same passages with a sense of urgency.

  He could not see Bol-Ferrat ahead of him, but there was only one place he could be going, and Ardesir knew the way, at least in theory. He had never actually followed it.

  He found the entrance and opened it without difficulty. It was dark inside, but not as stale as he had expected. He certainly was not the only person to be using it! He closed the doorway behind him and felt his way along softly, keeping one hand to the wall to guide him. Bol-Ferrat must be somewhere ahead. He listened but he could hear nothing, no footsteps, no breathing.

  He lost track of time and of direction after he had turned half a dozen corners, and the passage itself had curved and gone up a slight incline. He tripped and fell to his knees when he came to a flight of steps upward, but the air was still fresh. And then ahead of him he saw light coming from a vent high in the wall to the left. But it was not the end of the passage. It forked. There was no indication which way Bol-Ferrat had gone. Ardesir chose the left. He was wrong. It led to the Council Chamber. He knew that as soon as he opened the entrance an inch wide. He closed it again, retraced his steps and went to the right.

  Ten minutes later he heard the sound of weeping, and a thin shaft of light showed him Bol-Ferrat crouching before a hole in the wall, big enough to see through, no more. His shoulders shook and he seemed to be trying to deny something.

  “No!” he gasped. “No, no, no!” But he believed it, his voice was strained with grief. “I won’t let it happen! There’s got to be something left!”

  Then a long, thin finger came infinitely slowly through the hole and touched his cheek, and withdrew again. Then as he watched, paralysed, the finger came again, hard and swift, pointed nail like a dagger straight to the eye and the brain. There was a long-drawn-out, high and terrible scream. For a hideous minute Bol-Ferrat hung pinned to the wall, kicking. Then he stopped and slithered off to lie crumpled on the ground. The long, scarlet finger withdrew, leaving a rim of blood in the hole.

  Ardesir knew they had lost. The boy had gone to spy on the old woman, to see if she was really as weak as she seemed, and she had seen him, and told him something which had hurt him so badly he had wept. Ardesir would never know what it was, but he could guess. There was little Bol-Ferrat held dear except his heritage, but some spark of decency in him loved that, and the ruin of it awoke a real grief in him. He was still young enough to cry. Then she had taken her vengeance on him, because he had seen her extremity.

  Clumsy and half blind with despair, Ardesir stumbled back along the passage, and in his drenching horror became lost, his mind too numbed with dread of what would happen to all those brave enough to have dared the conspiracy. There was no time to weep, but he felt grief sufficient to have fed Tiyo-Mah into eternity, could she have touched him.

  He was too late to warn and no one could help. Tiyo-Mah’s strength was renewed tenfold. She had the power to force the door herself, and her vengeance was hideous and immediate. Before Ardesir could find his way out of the passages, Min-Obal and the captain of the guard had been arrested, and all those on duty, who had obviously complied, and those who had arranged for the changes in routine.

  Naturally there was no trial. Tiyo-Mah could not afford to have their crime understood. They knew her weakness. She must take steps to guard against it for ever afterwards. Perhaps when there was enough grief in the world she would not need to. She might even grow stronger, used enough to the world not to need constant sustenance. But she could not let anyone know how close they had come to defeating her.

  The conspirators were charged with treason in their absence and before sundown they were put to death in the ancient way of the Isarchs of the first age, a thousand years before Tiyo-Mah’s time.

  Min-Obal was tortured, as were they all, but they spoke no one else’s name. Certainly Ardesir’s did not pass their lips.

  They were then taken to the place of public execution, laid on the ground with their arms tied to stakes, and their mouths were wedged open and hot sand poured down their throats until they suffocated to death.

  Ardesir was the only one who escaped, by the accident of having followed Bol-Ferrat into the passages and becoming lost so that he was nowhere in sight when Tiyo-Mah burst out.

  But he knew his discovery was only a matter of time. He had lodged with Min-Obal. If it was not already known, it would be within a day or two, perhaps even by morning. And he was not master enough to hide the grief and the guilt which consumed him in a pain almost unbearable. His failure was total. Had it cost his own life that would at least have been just, but he was alive and unhurt in body. He had sacrificed some of the finest people he knew, and a dear friend who had believed in him. Now there was nothing for him to do but effect his own escape, because the war continued. The cause was greater than any one man’s pain or loss, any man’s guilt or desire to redeem his failure, or indeed have concern for himself at all.

  He left before sunrise to cross the desert towards Tarra-Ghum and the sea.

  He had been there a week, trying to find a ship westward to the Island when he overheard a group of sailors talking excitedly about the profit to be had in taking Tiyo-Mah and her embassy across the sea to the City in the Centre of the World, where she was going apparently, to incite the Emperor of Camassia to ally with her in one vast empire to save the world from the barbarian.

  Of course Camassia would be a junior partner in this! But she could hardly tell them that! They would find it out in time, afterwards, when the barbarian was conquered and the world was at peace again.

  They laughed.

  Ardesir stood on the quayside, the sun glittering sharp as knives off the bright water, and felt the salt wind on his face as if it had blown off the ice.

  Chapter V

  SARDRIEL BEGAN HIS JOURNEY from the Eastern Shore of the Island where Sadokhar had spent the latter part of his youth, where he had learned obedience and comradeship, skill and loyalty, and eventually obedience. Its bright, turbulent waters haunted his dreams, and as the ship pulled away Sardriel’s mind was filled with memories of their plans for this war, and how differently it had come to pass. Yet if Sadokhar could make this sacrifice into the most hideous unknown man could imagine, then to lead mercenaries east to the uncharted steppes of Irria-Kand was a small thing, and he would do it with a whole heart. It was only nature and the barbarian he was going to face. It was mortal, a thing of the body, no worse.

  The voyage to Caeva was short. They were only two days sailing with a hard wind behind them, and then a third following the deepest fjord inland between heavily forested shores where the trees came right down to the water’s edge.

  Sardriel put ashore, leaving the treasure in the ship, and alone set out to follow the wide road inland. There was no point in taking men with him. He was going to meet the leader of an army.

  Just over two miles from the shore the way ended in a clearing where he saw the hall of Almerid.

  He was accosted almost immediately by sentries dressed in leather armour studded with iron. The breastplates were scarred and bloodstained from use, and the soldiers stood easily, unafraid of one lone man emerging from the trees, wearing a green jacket and cloak, and carrying only a dagger.

  Sardriel introduced himself and they recognised a client for their services, welcoming him inside the great hall with joviality.

  He stared around with interest. The hall was built of split tree trunks, smooth and polished, and the wooden floor gleamed warm with the mellow tones of gold and red. Fires blazed at both ends, filling the air with the sharp smell of smoke, and beside them were seats covered with the soft, shaggy skins of bears and wolves.

  He had little time to look further, but he saw no art to compare with that of Tyrn Vawr, or the Lost Lands. These were men whose lives were spent elsewhere. This place was for luxury, for physical ease between the long, hard mo
nths of battle. Booty might be sold, or even given away, but the luxuries of the imagination held little worth for them. Perhaps creating a place of beauty, things to love, was something they dared not think of.

  Standing in the middle of the hall, stared at with curiosity by threescore men, ale mugs in hand, and at least half as many women, Sardriel was acutely aware of the trees hemming them around on every side, whispering, moving, towering to the sky with clouds racing past their speared crowns, and the silent carpet of needles on the floor beneath. It stretched hundreds of miles, covering the land to the borders of the plains of Irria-Kand. The pathways were not easy to find, nor the rivers to ford. He would be dependent upon these men, not only for victory, but for life itself.

  Almerid rose from his seat at the head of the high table and sauntered down the length of the open floor till he stopped in front of Sardriel. He was stocky, broad-chested and heavy-shouldered. His hair was dark, and chopped rather than cut, but the first impression was of the power of his mind rather than his body. His eyes were watchful and clever, afraid of nothing. His face, criss-crossed with scars, was hard with years of self-discipline. The knowledge of command was in the air around him before he moved or spoke.

  Sardriel stood squarely facing him, his head high. “I am Sardriel, Lord of the Lost Lands,” he said levelly. “I come from the Island at the Edge of the World to purchase your services in war. I have the wealth of the Treasury at my disposal.”

  Almerid pursed his lips. “You carry nothing,” he observed. There was a gleam in his eye, it might have been humour.

  “Of course not,” Sardriel answered, smiling very slightly. “I would not want to waste it—for either of us—should I have failed to reach here safely.”

  Almerid relaxed a little. He saw ahead of him the challenge and the entertainment of a good bargain.

  And so it proved. They offered, argued and counteroffered for two days, each knowing that ultimately they would find terms acceptable to both. It was not the quest nor the payment that mattered, it was a testing of will and intelligence between them, a measure of nerve, of agility of mind, of temperament and above all of strength of purpose.