The spectible revealed spirals of colour spinning out of Lyf’s pearl in a complex pattern where the smallest part contained the whole. Prudence told her to fly with Lyf’s pearl, but when would she have a better chance to decipher her own pearl than here in the Abysm, where the patterns of magery were so bright and clear? I’ll give it one minute, she thought, and if I learn nothing about my pearl, I’ll go.
She concentrated on the tangles writhing through her inner eye, trying to reconcile them with the endless spirals coming from Lyf’s pearl. The colours in her head were whirling and twisting randomly — or were they?
What if she was only seeing a tiny part of the pattern, because she was looking at it from inside? It would be like trying to decipher the structure of the universe by peering at the night sky through a pinhole.
She fixed the spiral from Lyf’s pearl in her memory, tried to imagine a similar spiral coming from her own pearl and, for a moment, Tali glimpsed the whole glorious pattern radiating from her pearl, and understood it. Before it could disappear she reached out with her mind’s eye, took hold of a tiny piece of the pattern and drew it into herself. And as she did, her magery rose inside her all the way to the surface, not in a chaotic, uncontrollable surge, but steadily, like a well that could be drawn upon at need.
Tears stung her eyes. At last!
But a long time had passed. Quick! Grab the pearl. Go!
The instant she snatched at it, Tali knew it was the wrong thing to do, but the realisation came too late. The pearl shot backwards out of reach, shrieking the call. And far away, Lyf answered in a strangled cry of fear and fury.
She sensed him attempting to separate from the unpleasant mind he was possessing — a magian and killer who had three pearls, stolen from Lyf. And Tali’s mental shell was wide open; she could not close it without also closing off her magery. Even if Lyf was in Caulderon, where she had previously sensed the triple call, di-DA- doh?Di-DA- doh, his consciousness could cross the distance quickly.
Trapped! Why had she delayed? Outside, in the flaskoid chamber, the facinore howled and clawed at the crack.
‘Come!’ Tali made the word a command.
The pearl spun away towards its hiding place. She dived after it, but it vanished, then the crack opened and she was ejected into the main chamber.
She raised her hands to blast the facinore but her magery sank out of sight like the water level in an over-pumped well — as if only in the power-saturated Abysm was it possible. A repulsive stench blasted up her nostrils then something scabbed and slimy clamped around her ankle.
The facinore had her.
CHAPTER 83
Rix saw a golden nimbus form around Rannilt only to be slammed back into her. She yelped, clenched her pointed jaw and the nimbus reformed, brighter. Again it was driven back into her. Rannilt let out a strained groan, pressed her hands together like a diver and thrust them upwards at the blur.
The facinore was clinging to the wall like a chameleon to a branch. It reached up, yanked and Tali appeared there, upside-down, suspended by the ankle from its right hand.
‘Rix?’ Tali wailed, ‘why did you bring Rannilt here?’
Rix was asking himself the same question. The facinore had felt Rannilt’s great gift before, and it would not be long before Lyf knew she was here.
Its arms shifted to wings, to crab claws and back to arms; the shadows writhed and fluttered all around it. It drew Tali towards it, hissed a visible breath in her face and a silver aura appeared like a halo above her head. The facinore snatched at it, tore part of it away and swallowed it. The rest of the aura faded.
Rix’s skin crept. Was it trying to feed on her psyche, attacking her mentally as well as physically? He raised the sword, wondering if he could hurl it true and impale the beast. No, the risk was too great.
Rannilt shrieked in fury and thrust her folded hands up again. The facinore reared backwards, Tali tore free, tumbled and landed hard on her feet with the beast close behind.
She darted towards the shelves, looking around desperately. The facinore’s legs shifted to frog’s legs; it leapt over her head and blocked her, spreading its arms wide. Bare feet skidding on the black floor, she shot back towards Rix. It sprang over her head again.
Its back was to Rix, only three steps away. He lunged, aiming to pierce its heart from behind, but it shifted and the sword tip skidded off thick, ridged armour, then it leapt over Tali again, out of reach. Rix cursed and went after it.
‘Tali, you can kill the beast,’ cried Rannilt. ‘I know you can.’
Tali was trembling, her eyes darting. What was she looking for? A moan burst from her but she strangled it. She made hand-over-hand motions as if raising a bucket from a well, then extended her right hand towards the creature. A jagged grey clot shot forth, though it only shattered against the facinore’s chest like mushy ice.
‘Your gift’s there!’ yelled Rannilt. ‘I can see it.’
Rannilt flung a golden globe at the facinore, which ducked and shot out a chitinous fist, striking her a glancing blow to the left temple and sending her tumbling. She took a shuddering breath and rolled over, holding her head with both hands and trying not to cry.
‘Rannilt, stay down!’ Tali blasted again and again but her feeble gift could only produce harmless, rotten ice.
‘Out of the way,’ said Rix.
Tobry yanked him back by the shoulder. ‘The facinore was created by magery, and only magery can finish it.’
His arm was trembling, his voice thick. Fear of the shifter was choking him and Rix knew he couldn’t do it. If Tobry took on the facinore he would die.
‘I can deal with it, Tobe,’ said Rix.
‘I let you down last time,’ Tobry said bitterly. ‘I’m not doing it again.’
Rix knocked him aside and extended the titane blade, gauging his foe. It did not retreat. It was leaning towards Tali, a humanoid core with those eerily shifting limbs and the fluttering shadows surrounding it that made it nine feet tall. It reeked of blood and sweat and the carrion it had been feeding on.
It was a creature of the magery he had always feared, and powerful magery at that, stronger than anything he had come across outside these caverns. But Rannilt had hurt it out in the Seethings and surely he could do as much here. Rix lunged and struck at its back.
It whirled, the left fist clubbed and shot out like a Cythonian war rocket. Rix tried to parry it but the air clung to his blade like tar and he barely got it up in time to protect his face from a blow that would have pulped it. The facinore’s fist struck the flat of the blade, driving it against his forehead so hard that Rix saw coloured lights. He staggered, momentarily dazed, went to one knee then recovered as the other fist came looping around, shifting and opening like lobster pincers.
Instinct jerked the edge of his blade into its path. The pincers split down the limb and the left half shot past his head. The right half struck him a skidding blow on the cheek that knocked him sideways and almost tore his ear off. Defence was going to be fatal. His only option was to attack.
The severed pincers withdrew, shifted to the serrated blade of a sawfish and the muscles behind it swelled as it prepared for a killing blow. Rix settled into the warrior’s mindset where his sword became an extension of his arm and he simply reacted. The sawfish blade swung. Rix did too, hacking it off, and when it clattered to the floor it sizzled into a black, glutinous stain.
The facinore shifted its other arm to a narwhal’s tusk and tried to spear him through the groin. He leapt onto the six-foot tusk, swung low and clove it off at the shoulder. The facinore shrieked and stumbled, and its enveloping shadow shrank, retreating into flesh. The shifter seemed smaller than before, though it was still bigger than he was. He was only one lucky blow away from death, but luck was an unreliable ally.