Everyone wore masks during the night of the Festival itself. Tradition dictated that if you covered your face then Death could not see who you were. So there was always an assortment of death masks as well as strange beasts and animals from the wildest imagination. Obligatory, however—and far more interesting for no one could ever explain why—was the tradition for eleven particular masks to always be present. They were created by the finest craftsmen in the Kingdom and the chance to wear one of the eleven was considered one of the highest privileges bestowed on an Ildagarthian.
One of these masks was Death, which took the shape of a handsome man who was meant to be
Orlac. The remaining ten depicted the most ancient of races of people from around the Kingdom of Tallinor, or so scholars suggested. Truth or fiction? It meant nothing to the present-day revellers but merely added to the pomp and intrigue of the Death Festival.
Alyssa now realised that the ten ancient races referred to the Paladin. Another piece of the jigsaw slotted into place.
She was giving Tor a tour of the streets she knew from her infrequent outings over the past few years. He drank in her calm voice, studied the way her lips moved, recalled how she used to fiddle with her honey-coloured hair the same way as a child. Her long hands with their perfect almond-shaped nails kept his attention rapt far more than her description of life in the city of Ildagarth, famous or not.
They found themselves wandering in a street known for its excellent watering holes, as Alyssa called them. Here they served every herb tea imaginable and a drink called zabub which was a heady, delicious brew served thick and sweetened. It was a local specialty and Alyssa suggested he try it.
Tor listened to her order in the language of street vendors of the north. He could tell Alyssa was a gifted linguist.
He spoke aloud. ‘This must be your first Czabba Festival too.’
‘It is, yes,’ she said, then frowned. ‘Do you think Saxon is all right…and what about Cloot?’
He grinned. ‘Cloot can take care of himself. He doesn’t like crowds or cities much. He’ll stay close and he’s always in my head.’
She sighed. ‘It used to be that way with Saxon too, before the archalyt.’
‘You’ve no need to worry on Saxon’s behalf. He’s a wise man. He’ll stay with the horses on the fringe of the city.’
‘It’s always in my mind that Goth will keep his promise. He means to destroy me because I’ve escaped his clutches twice.’
She saw his jaw clench at her words.
‘He will lay no finger on you ever again, Alyssa. I promise you. The man is a fiend. He must pay for what he did to you.’
She was about to say something when the drinks arrived. Instead she whispered across the link.
It’s past. Let it be.
She thanked the young serving woman and then clinked her mug with Tor’s. ‘Zabub is served heated to take the chill off a winter’s day. Be careful it doesn’t burn your mouth.’
He blew on the steaming contents and sipped. It was rich and laced with an exotic liquor.
‘Mmm,’ he said with genuine pleasure. It made her laugh. ‘So what do you think of all this festivity?’
‘It doesn’t mean much to me, Tor. In truth I prefer to celebrate life.’
‘Or perhaps survival,’ he said gently. ‘Czabba—is that Ildagarthian?’
‘Yes, but very old, a dialect dead for a century or
more.’ Alyssa suddenly became still, her mug lifted halfway to her mouth and a frown creasing her forehead.
‘You’ll catch a fly if you keep it open like that,’ he said, using a favourite phrase of his mother’s.
‘Tor…’
‘Yes, I’m still here…hanging on your every word.’
‘It doesn’t mean Death.’
‘Should I be following this?’
‘Czabba…the Festival…it doesn’t simply mean Death.’
‘Oh?’ Tor said, confused and totally uninterested in anything but the thought of kissing her sweet lips again.
Alyssa’s voice was suddenly excited. ‘Listen to me—this is really important. I’ve been reading two ancient scripts I found buried beneath the crypt in a place which was no casual hidey-hole. These books had been carefully concealed.’
He nodded. The temptation to tease her was great but she seemed very intent on this. He kept his expression serious.
Alyssa continued. ‘In those books I have read what I believe is a true commentary, written by one of the Masters of Goldstone. His name was Nanak. He told a story—too long in the re-telling for now—but it roughly goes that a child was stolen. No ordinary child, Tor, but a god.’
She saw him swallow very slowly. He placed his cup gently on the table. ‘Go on,’ he said carefully, all flippancy gone.
‘He was stolen from the Host and sold to mortals by—’
‘Scavengers.’ He completed her sentence.
It was Alyssa’s turn to put her mug down. Her skin paled before him. ‘You know?’
‘Please, go on,’ he encouraged, giving no eye contact now.
She felt compelled. ‘I…I meant to tell you this earlier. When Goth raped me I used the Green to escape his touch, the pain. In the Green I had a vision. I watched a baby being stolen from its parents. They were beautiful and they stood in an exquisite glade. They did nothing to help him, simply watched as the thieves ran away with their child.’
‘Tell me more,’ he said urgently.
‘Nothing more from that vision. Only what I’ve read in this book. The child grew amongst mortals, not knowing who he was. His mortal parents, who were sentient, also had no knowledge of his background. He was gifted, an extraordinary talent with the magics. They enrolled him at the Academie where his powers surpassed those of the Masters and they became scared of him.’
She paused. It was Tor who continued as his own dream vividly came back to him.
‘When they hatched a plan to Quell him, the young man razed the city of Goldstone—the Ancient Seat of Learning—and killed two thousand people. That city is now known as Ildagarth and the Ancient Seat, Caremboche, is where today’s Academie now sits.’
Alyssa shook her head in disbelief. ‘Tor, you must tell me how you know this.’
‘I dreamed it.’ He rubbed his hands over his face in consternation.
Alyssa’s words tumbled over one another in her excitement. ‘I have only read the first of the books. It is written in the most ancient of languages and I don’t understand how I can read it. No one else can. I have never encountered that language before; how do I know it? How do I know that this Festival is not Czabba but Aczabba Veiszuit?’
Tor shook his head in silence, waiting for her to explain.
‘Czabba is Ildagarthian for Death all right but I believe it might be a poor translation, a bastardisation if you will, from this more ancient language which the books are scribed in. Aczabba Veiszuit means Death of a God.’ She clapped her hands in wonderment. ‘Tell me what else you dreamed.’
Tor felt a chill crawl over his body as he began to recall for Alyssa all that he had seen in his dream. When he had finished they sat in silence for several moments.
‘This Lys you speak of—she told you that he lives and would return? That you must stop him? Tor, what folly is this?’
‘No folly. His name is Orlac.’
Her knees felt weak. Tor spoke the truth.
‘There’s worse.’ He finished his drink. ‘Want to take a guess at his mortal father’s name?’
‘I don’t need to. It’s written in the book. His name is Merkhud.’
‘One and the same.’
‘But, Tor, that would make your Merkhud centuries old.’ She wanted to use this impossibility to dismiss everything.
‘Why not? Nothing makes sense in my life any more, or yours come to that. There is potent magic surrounding us; coursing through us. We go undetected by Inquisitors and yet Merkhud finds us. He seems to be at the very core of all of this. Alyssa, I could almost believe he contrived to have you leave Mallee Marsh because he suspected I might try to bring you with me to Tal.’
Tor’s face creased in thought as he tried to gather together threads of ideas which had lain on the fringe of his mind for years.
‘It would not have suited him to have you with me but he knew you were sentient and that you also had escaped notice; you were too valuable to ignore. I know it sounds like a wild notion but I could even believe that he veiled you from me!’ He leapt to a new thought. ‘Alyssa, why did you leave? What made you wander off with a woman you had never met before?’
She thought hard. ‘After the Floral Dance I hoped that you might…well, you know.’
He nodded, knowing all too well.
She sighed. ‘Instead you scared me with your harsh words and angry voice. She was so kind to me on that first day when I felt alone and scared. But now that I think about it as an adult, I recall that
Sorrel’s conversation was cleverly directed at informing me of your leaving. Now I hear that you had not left at all. Sorrel wanted me to get angry at you, perhaps. I don’t know. Why would she lie otherwise?’
‘Exactly! I’ll bet all the gold in Ildagarth that Sorrel is part of this elaborate web which Merkhud weaves. Alyssa, if Merkhud is the mortal father of Orlac then why not—’
‘Don’t say it, Tor, please. She’s been my guardian for five summers. She has protected me and nursed me and watched over me.’
‘Of course she has! That’s her task. She may well love you, Alyssa, but she’s controlled by Merkhud, her husband. And why? I’ll tell you. Because she’s the mortal mother of Orlac. They have controlled us from the start and deliberately kept us apart.’ There was no elation in his voice as he weaved his threads together.
Alyssa felt hollow. She knew she had accepted Sorrel into her life all too easily and that the woman had come along at just the right time to help a hurting young girl find her feet and a purpose. Tor’s summary was very painful because it rang of too much truth. The jigsaw piece hovered, then snapped into place.
Merkhud and Sorrel, mortal parents of Orlac, working together to manipulate events.
‘Did you choose to come north when you left Tal?’ Alyssa asked carefully as she frowned again in thought.
‘No, Merkhud suggested it.’
‘So, if we follow your plot, then they have contrived to bring us together; they knew we would have to meet again. Why?’
Alyssa never did hear Tor’s reply for at that precise moment a familiar figure caught her attention. Sudddenly she was cold to the marrow. Over Tor’s broad shoulder she glimpsed a flash of purple; a colour she had not cared for since Fragglesham when she had lost something precious to a man she hated more than any other. That same man was now strolling down the street in Ildagarth where she sat twisting over a theory and sipping zabub.
Tor watched her expression flip from puzzlement to terror. He turned and immediately saw what had created the fear. He felt his own bile rise but fell into the practised calm he had taught himself that night when he felt Cloot’s life slipping away from him. That was the very first time he had banished fear and replaced it with power—his own power from within. Tor had called upon the calm many times since then and he called upon it now for he knew fear would draw the enemy to them.
He opened a link to Alyssa and told her to look at him. She turned with effort away from the purple and stared into the blue she trusted.
Pull your hood up over your hair,
he said calmly.
Do not look at Goth.
Then he sliced open a link to Cloot and warned his friend of the turn of events. The falcon was in the air before Tor had turned back to Alyssa.
Link with Saxon. Tell him you are coming. He must be ready to flee straight back to the Academie.
She did as she was told.
Good. Now, my beloved, I must do something I regret deeply but it will save you once more.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew the pale green archalyt disc.
Cloot, circling high above, spoke a warning.
He’s about forty steps from you, Tor, but is engaged in conversation with a storekeeper. He is not looking your way.
Tor pressed the archalyt onto Alyssa’s forehead and it adhered. She felt herself back in dullness, cut off from Saxon or Tor. It was a keen sense of isolation and renewed terror she now experienced but Tor stood and gripped her elbow, lending her his strength. He turned her from Goth and spoke quietly but firmly, releasing her arm so they drew no attention.
‘You are going to hurry but not run. You will move straight past Goth.’ He saw her flinch. ‘It is the shortest way back to Saxon. Goth will not notice you because I will distract him. I promise you will be safe.’
Alyssa did not believe him, he could see it in her frightened eyes, but she had courage and she would do as he asked.
Cloot?
He’s still busy haggling over some trinket. You had better do it now or not at all, my friends.
‘I love you, Alyssa,’ Tor said tenderly; then firmly: ‘Go now.’
Alyssa had heard him utter those words before, on a sunny day at Minstead Green. She left him against her will once again; this time walking away from the man she loved towards the man she hated.
Tor hid himself and watched her progress. He would not act until she was safely past Goth, whom he could now clearly see arguing with a shopkeeper.
Goth had had a pig of a day. None of his soldiers were with him at present and although he could not force a bridling without his men, he could certainly pick an argument with a grubby storekeeper who was fleecing people of their hard-earned money.
From the corner of his eye the Chief Inquisitor saw the robes of an acolyte of the Academie moving briskly past him. His practised observer’s technique registered that within them was a petite and slender woman. He could not see her face for she had it turned aside. And then she was out of his view and he was back with the story about eight mouths to feed as well as an ageing mother to care for.
At that moment the storekeeper stopped and looked up in wonder at the sky. Goth looked up too and noticed a falcon circling high above. The storekeeper and those around him were marvelling at it and commenting that no falcons had been seen in these parts for years.
It took only a second for Goth’s sharp mind to put it together. He had been following in the bastard
physic’s footsteps for weeks now. He had lost all trace of him at Saddleworth; had hoped to catch up with him at the pass through the southern fringe of the Rorky’el Mountains—the only way to the north-west—but had found no sign. However, that was unmistakably Gynt’s bird flying above. The physic was here for sure. Goth dropped the item he had been haggling for and looked around wildly for the man.