‘He said the source it drew from could no longer be reached.’
‘If a new source could be found, might it work again?’ An ebony pearl, perhaps? Careful, don’t even think about them here or he’ll have the secret out of you — and perhaps the pearl, too.
‘Possibly. Hold the first knob steady and turn the other all the way. Then rotate the first knob one notch and the second all the way back, and so on.’
She began to do so. Nothing for the first notch, nothing for the second, nothing for the third. Then, as she moved her head from side to side, a pinkish rainbow flashed across the black mica.
‘Ah!’ said the chancellor.
‘You saw it?’
‘No, but you did.’
‘What was it?’
‘The emanation of magery from this speaking egg.’ He picked an oval yellow object, egg-sized, from the shelf behind him. ‘Abbess Hildy has another. It’s how she told me about you, soon after you arrived.’
‘So the spectible does work.’
‘It does for you.’
But could she use it to locate her own magery? Tali set it down on the table. ‘What are you going to do with me now?’
‘In return for my concession to the Pale you must do me a service — assuming you’re a woman of your word?’
Tali swallowed. ‘I said it, and my word holds.’ She fought to hold her voice steady. ‘What must I do?’
‘A trifling task.’ He examined his buffed and manicured nails, drawing out the tension.
‘How trifling?’ she rasped.
‘Before we counterattack, you will return to Cython and rouse the Pale to rebellion.’
‘No!’ She snatched at the table edge for support. ‘I’m no leader. And the enemy will kill me on sight.’
‘If you’re truly the one, you’ll find a way.’
‘And if I’m not, I die an agonising death.’
‘Thousands of my people have already died such deaths in the war,’ said the chancellor, ‘and more fall every minute. Until the enemy is stopped they will continue to die.’
‘Unless they wipe us out first,’ said Tali.
His head shot up, the impassive face cracked. She had shocked him. ‘You think that is their intention? Not just to take back the land, but to erase us from Hightspall forever?’
Tali considered everything she knew about the enemy. ‘Yes, I believe it is.’
He did not speak for a very long time, and when he did, though he fought to control his voice, it had the faintest tremor. ‘Worse than I had thought; far worse. What can I do?’ He thought for a moment. ‘I have no choice but to go on — and neither do you.’
‘I’m not up to it, Lord Chancellor.’
‘Do you imagine you’re the only one tormented by self-doubt?’
Had she not seen his anguish a few minutes ago, she would have said he had no demons. Perhaps he was more practised at hiding them. She shook her head.
‘A while ago you argued passionately for the Pale. You must know what the enemy will do to all eighty-five thousand of them when they no longer need slaves.’
She thought about the people she cared for — Nurse Bet, Waitie, Little Nan — and the people she owed, like Lifka and the first eunuch at the loading station. How could she let them be cut down?
‘Well?’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve long feared it.’
‘Can any other Pale save them? Or anyone from outside Cython?’
‘No. They have only me.’ And she had sworn that oath on Mia’s blood, to make up for all the injustices done to the Pale. To free them from bondage. Even her enemy, Radl.
‘Then your duty is clear.’
‘Yes,’ she said despairingly. She could not do it, but neither could she refuse. ‘It is.’
CHAPTER 75
‘Your word on it,’ he said, coming around the table. His back was hunched; he wasn’t much taller than her. He extended his hand. ‘And my word to you.’
She shook his hand, which was surprisingly firm, though a trifle claw-like.
‘It is done,’ said the chancellor. ‘Sit down. Take refreshment while I think. Be at ease — what you fear may never happen.’ He grimaced. ‘We may be driven over the mountains to the furthest reaches of Hightspall and crushed by the ice. We may never regain the strength to counterattack.’
‘I hope you’re not planning to say that publicly.’
‘Nor even to my allies, privately. Morale would never recover.’
It suggested that he thought more of her than his allies, which confounded her.
Food and drink was brought in — smoked meats, yellow and green pickles, a mound of dried fruits, a blood-red cordial. Everything was delicious yet she ate absently, watching him across the table. He studied the maps, then read through Verla’s notes, marking several passages with an orange crayon. His face became ever more drawn, his cheeks turned a bloodless grey.
‘Lord Chancellor?’ she said tentatively. ‘You seem shaken by what I said.’
‘That the enemy’s intent is genocide? It changes everything. Only in the past few days has Caulderon begun to take Cython seriously. Even now, people sneer and call them rock rats. But they were a formidable enemy before, one it took us two hundred and fifty years to defeat, and they’re stronger now. While we’re weak and unready, and the magery that saved us last time dwindles daily — ’
If he knew about the three ebony pearls stolen from Lyf, she thought guiltily, and could gain them, it might change the course of the war. But she dared not mention them. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Take desperate measures.’ He went into the hall and spoke to his servants in urgent tones for some minutes, then returned. ‘I understand you have a quest — to avenge yourself on a family enemy.’
‘I will have justice for my murdered mother,’ said Tali.
‘Justice.’ He chewed over the word as though he had not heard it before. ‘Extraordinary! And this enemy dwells in the caverns at the base of Precipitous Crag. Is he the wrythen Rixium fought there?’
How did he know that? ‘So I believe.’
‘A wrythen in the pay of the enemy.’ The chancellor was watching her from the corners of his eyes. ‘A powerful, uncanny creature breeding shifters for Cython to use in the war.’
This was getting dangerous. If the chancellor learned that she was host to the master pearl, she was lost. They’re the most powerfully enchanted objects ever discovered, Tobry had said. They’re so priceless, I doubt that the chief magian has ever seen one.
Magery was the one weapon the Cythonians could not use, and in the chief magian’s hands the master pearl could turn the war Hightspall’s way. The chancellor would have to take it. What was one life — her life — compared to the fate of a nation?
‘That’s what Rix and Tobry said,’ said Tali.
‘Interesting. Perhaps this wrythen is Cython’s way around the prohibition against magery.’ He tap-tapped two fingers on the table. ‘Were the wrythen to be eliminated, it would strike a mighty blow against the enemy.’ He looked up suddenly, weighing her. ‘I wonder …’
‘If Rix and Tobry couldn’t harm it, it would take an army — ’
The small servant appeared at the door with a package the size of a wrapped book. The chancellor put it on the table beside him. ‘I can’t drive a squad of soldiers through the enemy’s lines to attack this wrythen, but …’
‘What?’ she said uncomfortably. Was he planning to send Rix and Tobry there, in revenge for House Ricinus’s threat against him?
‘I can get the one there.’
‘No!’ cried Tali. Was he insane? No, it was a calculated gamble by an utterly ruthless man, and if she failed he would shrug his shoulders and try something else.
‘I thought you burnt for justice,’ he said mildly.
‘I can’t fight … the wrythen without magery.’ She had almost said Lyf, and naming him would raise too many dangerous questions. ‘Powerful magery.’
‘I think you will find it. I think this is the one’s first great task. I’m going to send you there.’