Outside the valley an avalanche filled the central saddle of the pass to a depth of thirty feet, blocking the way they had come. Rix assessed the area, despair rising like a sickness in him.
‘Doesn’t look as though you’ll be finishing the portrait any time soon,’ said Tobry.
‘I gave my word it’d be done,’ Rix snapped, imagining the interview with Lady Ricinus, who could remove more skin with her acid tongue than the palace’s Master of the Floggings with his metal-tipped flails. ‘Is there any other way back?’
Tobry rubbed the top of his head and winced. ‘Only one — north over Hasp Pass, then down a series of unmarked mountain tracks. After that we’ll have to skirt around the eastern side of the Red and Grey Vomits, avoiding any fresh lava flows … and, er, head across the Seethings to the Caulderon Road.’
Rix had never been into that treacherous wasteland of hot springs, boiling mud lakes, bottomless sinkholes and lifeless pools corrosive enough to etch the toenails off anyone foolish enough to wade into them. He had no wish to go there now.
‘Didn’t someone ride into a hidden pool in the Seethings and get boiled alive?’
‘And then there was the fellow who took a dump in a geyser hole,’ said Tobry. ‘Did I tell you — ?’
‘Don’t bother,’ said Rix.
‘Blew him three hundred feet into the air and welded his arse to the back of his head. Gave a whole new meaning to the term — ’
‘I’m not in the mood, Tobe. Can we get home tomorrow?’
Tobry shook his head. ‘Dinner time the day after. Finding your way through the Seethings can be agonisingly slow.’
‘Gods! Mother is going to cut out my kidneys.’ Rix felt the area, which was painfully inflamed where the caitsthe’s claws had scraped down his belly.
‘Why go home?’
‘Sorry?’ said Rix.
Tobry grinned. ‘Defy Lady Ricinus. Neglect your responsibilities.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Every misery in your life comes from the palace, but you come of age in a few weeks and there’s enough coin in your saddlebags to last a year. Run away. Make your own way in the world.’
‘Mother would disinherit me.’
‘And release you from your greatest burden.’
‘I can’t do it.’
‘Why not? You’re strong, vigorous, clever …’ Tobry studied Rix, head to one side. ‘Perhaps clever is too strong a word — ’ He ducked as Rix hurled a coin pouch at him, and they both laughed.
Rix retrieved it, smiling for the first time since they had come up here. Of course Tobry was all right. He was recovering amazingly well, after all he had been through. But, tempting as the suggestion was, Rix could never do it. From the moment he had been able to walk, his destiny and duty had been to become the next Lord Ricinus. Given his father’s focus on drinking himself to death as quickly as possible, Rix might have to assume that responsibility any day.
‘My house needs me,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s what I was born for.’
‘It’s what people told you that you were born for. Your destiny lies in your own hands.’
‘I want to be Lord Ricinus. It’s the very meaning of my existence.’
‘Our existence has no meaning. We just are, and then we die and there’s an end to it.’
‘I hate it when you talk that way,’ Rix snapped.
‘I’ll lie if it’ll make you feel better. Tra-la-laa, tra-la-loy,’ Tobry sang in a girly falsetto, ‘life’s so wonderful I could skip for joy.’
Rix ground his teeth. ‘I can’t run away from my duty at a time like this.’
‘Duty will consume you and crap you out.’
‘I’m in charge of my life.’
‘You, and Lady Ricinus.’
Rix scowled and rode ahead. They picked their way through fetlock-deep snow, heading towards Hasp Pass. To the north he could just make out the fuming top of the Red Vomit. On his right, the dark face of Precipitous Crag reared up behind a series of white-covered ridges. What else did those caverns hide?
The swirling wind that plastered snow on their faces carried a faint, cleansing scent from the resin pines, and it cleared his head. ‘What did you make of those pens?’ he said shortly.
Tobry rubbed his face so furiously that several blisters burst. He jerked around in the saddle and once more his eyes dilated to vacancy.
Rix shivered. Not recovering so well after all. Or was there a darker reason? ‘Tobe?’
It was a long time before he answered. ‘They had the look of breeding pens.’
Every claw wound throbbed at once. ‘For shifters?’
‘That’s my guess.’
‘Why would a wrythen want to breed shifters?’
‘Because no living person could do so safely?’
‘Are you saying it’s working for the enemy?’
‘I can’t think of any other explanation.’
‘What are they up to? How does a wrythen manage it, anyhow?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And that weird cavern below the stair. What was it for?’
‘Trying not to think about it.’
‘Why?’
‘It didn’t look possible, yet it was there.’
‘It had an odd smell, did you notice?’
‘Sickly sweet,’ said Tobry, ‘but masking something that left a bitter taste in the back of my mouth.’
‘Any idea what it was?’
‘Never smelt it before.’
Rix digested that as they rode. ‘The wrythen recognised my sword.’
‘What?’ Tobry said sharply. ‘When?’
‘After I killed the caitsthe.’
Tobry reined in sharply. ‘You — killed — it? How?’
As Rix explained, Tobry’s mouth turned down. ‘All while I lay unconscious?’
‘Yes,’ said Rix. What was the matter now?
‘And then you fought the wrythen?’
‘That’s right. Anyway — ’
‘Great!’ Tobry said. ‘So when you most needed help — ’
‘He recognised my sword,’ Rix said hastily. ‘Oathbreaker’s blade, he called it. What do you suppose that means?’
‘It means things are a lot worse than my worst imaginings.’
‘I wish you’d explain something,’ said Rix when Tobry did not go on. ‘Anything!’
‘The moment we get home, I’ll have to go away for a bit. I need to talk to people.’
‘What about talking to me?’
‘You’ve got the portrait to finish,’ said Tobry, deliberately misunderstanding him. ‘And Lady Ricinus to explain to.’
‘You sure know how to ruin my day.’
‘Thought I’d already done that.’ Tobry looked away.
Finally Rix realised what the matter was. Tobry felt that he had let Rix down. ‘It wasn’t your fault a rock knocked you out.’
‘When you needed my magery, it wasn’t there. That was my fault.’
‘If I’d listened to you, we wouldn’t have gone within miles of that place.’
‘I could have stopped you, and I didn’t,’ Tobry said bitterly.
Leaving him to his dark thoughts, Rix looked ahead. Hasp Pass was a vertical slot between white mountains, like a jawbone missing one front tooth, and the wind whistling through it was a wrythen wailing in a boneyard.
His thoughts returned to the sword. Why had it led him to the wrythen’s caverns? Why had the sword attacked the wrythen of its own accord? ‘And what was that opalised figure all about?’
‘Beg pardon?’ said Tobry.
Rix hadn’t realised he had spoken the last thought aloud. ‘Several times, when I’ve touched the hilt, I’ve seen a life-sized sculpture of a man carved from a single piece of black opal. A twisted figure; a man in agony.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
After a minute or two, Rix said, ‘Why is that quote on my sword notorious?’ He braced himself for another lecture about not paying attention to his tutors.
‘The Immortal Text said that the Herovians were the chosen race and Hightspall was their promised land. That’s why they left Thanneron and sailed here.’