Chimaera (96 page)

‘Then let us take them to the Hornrace and entomb them in the time-honoured way. Here, by the great mid-sea rift, the seat of such unstable power, is neither fitting nor safe.’

‘Here they fell and here they will be taken up,’ said Vithis softly, but then his voice rose. ‘What care I for safety? What care I if the whole of Santhenar falls into ruin? My world is gone, and my clan. I have nothing left.’

‘You have Minis,’ she said.

‘I lost him before I lost my clan or my world. It’s too late now; nothing remains of him.’ He raised his voice. ‘Flee now, any among you who fear death.’ He fixed each one of them with his baleful glare. ‘Well, Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

‘I fear your kind of death, but I would honour your dead,’ Nish said softly. ‘I will stay.’

‘There’s more to you than I thought,’ said Vithis. ‘Not much, but something. Take your place over there.’

Vithis offered them the choice, one after another, to go or to stay. Everyone stayed. ‘Then move back,’ he said. ‘The Well of Echoes – the
true Well
– has an appetite for the living as well as the dead.’

He reached out, clenching and unclenching his fists, and the sky changed to an ashy grey. Thunder rumbled all around them as if they were circled by storms. At least, it sounded like thunder, though it felt more like an earth trembler.

Tiaan shifted from one foot to another. They weren’t far from the mid-sea rift. What might an earth trembler do here, where the very rock beneath their feet had been riven apart by forces not even a geomancer could comprehend?

‘How can he summon the Well of Echoes?’ Tiaan asked quietly. ‘He has nothing in his hands.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Malien, ‘though there exist powers far older than the magic of crystals and devices, fields and nodes. Vithis has lived for a thousand years and is heir to Arts ten times that old, whose secrets have been passed down to none but the greatest in each generation.’

Vithis cried out a word, and a word of power it must have been, for the entire sky went black. It was an absolute darkness – no clouds showed, no moon, no stars. The ground shook so violently that loose rocks rattled like dice in a cup. Away in the distance a red glow appeared, a molten line squeezed up through the black rift.

He sang a second word. A column of yellow light seared a path down from the sky, beginning some degrees off the vertical and ending in the rocks behind the metal death-house, illuminating one of the mausoleums. The column was not solid yellow; rather it seemed to be made of a million threads of light, all different hues of yellow. And all were in motion: vibrating, revolving, shimmering.

He whispered a third word and the threads wove between one another, faster and faster, until they blended into a single bar of colour so bright that everyone had to shield their eyes. Its base drifted off the mausoleum, fingered the ground between it and the metal death-house, and began to rotate. Dust danced where it touched but the particles were instantly sucked down, apparently into the solid rock. Pieces of gravel and salt crust whirled after.

A hole appeared, a couple of spans across, though it did not actually seem to pass through the rock. It was, rather, that the hole was laid over the rock, the two existing in the same place but different dimensions.

Like Tiaan’s brief glimpses into the hyperplane long ago, or the inside of the tesseract, it was all wrong. It confused the mind as well as the eye and she could only imagine what the others must be making of it. Nish, next to her, looked as if he was going to be ill.

The column of threaded light moved steadily down and as it did it thickened. The hole, which Tiaan realised was the slowly materialising Well, broadened until it was five or six spans across. Suddenly, with another rolling rumble of thunder, the column of light evaporated. They were enveloped in darkness within which the only illumination was the Well, while the stifling heat had been replaced by cold air currents coiling about them.

The walls of the Well were midnight black, threaded with shimmering yellow strands that moved when the eye attempted to focus on them. From where she was standing, Tiaan could see down a few spans, and suddenly recalled hanging off Nish’s arm, half in and half out of the Well in Tirthrax. But that had been different. That had been a little, stable Well, frozen in place by powerful Arts. This was the master Well – wild and free, and only Vithis could control it.

Tiaan reached out blindly and her hand struck Nish’s. It startled her. She saw the same memories in his eyes. He was shuddering with horror. She felt for him – she had some small understanding of the Well, but Nish could have none. She squeezed his hand and he gave her a weak smile.

Vithis looked around him, though Tiaan knew he was not seeing any of them. He was remembering the Histories of Inthis, the first of the clans on Aachan and always the greatest. So powerful was the moment that she could almost see the story of Clan Inthis flickering in the air in front of him.

He stood that way for a long time. No one spoke or moved. Then Vithis shook himself and held up one hand, as if to give a blessing.

‘Farewell, my beloved Inthis,’ he said in a majestic voice drawn from somewhere deeper than the bitterness that had been his daily existence. ‘We were the greatest of all clans, and it will be recognised as long as our Histories endure. But now the time of First Clan is over. Go to the soft sweet Well of Echoes, my people. Go Hulis, go Maris, go Irrien …’

He went through the names from memory, one by one, listing them in the order that he had found them. There were thousands of dead but not once did he hesitate. Tiaan found tears welling in her eyes yet again.

As he spoke the last name, Vithis spread his arms and the Well lifted and slid toward the mausoleum directly behind the metal death-house. Crusts of salt whirled in the air and were pulled down to nothingness. It was eerie, the way the shimmering shaft drifted through the ground with no more sound than a sigh. There was no groan or crack of shifting rocks, no wind, no clatter. It settled over, or under, or around the mausoleum, which hung there even though there now appeared to be nothing underneath it.

The Well spun like a whirlpool, brightened, and in that sudden brilliant radiance the laid-out bodies took on a fullness and a colour they’d not had since they died. They looked as if they had come alive again and were just sleeping.

The base of the mausoleum collapsed and fell into the Well. The bodies followed, one by one, and as each passed within there was a flash of yellow light and a low, reverberating
boom
that seemed to echo up and down. The last body fell, dark hair trailing. Vithis moved one hand, the Well drifted away and the mausoleum collapsed into a pile of rubble on the now solid ground.

The scene was repeated at the next mausoleum, and the one after, Vithis directing the Well until every crashed construct had been visited, every body taken. Finally he pointed it to the last and most sacred place, the building formed from the metal cladding of many constructs, that contained his uncle, aunt and the seven dead children.

The aunt and uncle passed quickly, almost gladly, into the Well, but the children hung in the air, reluctant. Their arms moved, their hair streamed out behind them and the oldest girl appeared to turn her head and look reproachfully at Tiaan. Vithis let out a desolate cry and moved one hand to still the Well, but it was surely just a trick of the light. He let the hand drop.

The children fell. Little flashes marked their passing and a brief threnody of echoes, after which the Well went dull, though it was still centred over the building. The structure of the metal death-house quivered, as if the Well’s forces were trying to pull it to pieces. Vithis raised a beckoning hand and the Well moved, whirling towards him until his toes projected over the brink.

‘This house shall remain, a memorial to the nobility of First Clan. A reminder of all who worked so hard to destroy us. And succeeded.’ Vithis held each one of them with his gaze, but especially Tiaan and Minis. ‘You and you. How will you atone, Tiaan?’

She had been waiting for this moment; dreading it. ‘I cannot express how much I regret the fate of your people,’ she said. ‘It is a tragedy that will echo down the Histories, and I played a part in it. We all did, in some shape or another, but what amends I might make are my own affair.’

‘I see,’ he said grimly. ‘The lives of my people have been one tragedy after another. I’ve lost my clan and my world, and you have nothing to atone for.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ she began, but he waved her to silence.

‘Every misery the Aachim have ever suffered originated on this wretched world,’ cried Vithis. ‘It was Shuthdar of Santhenar who made the Golden Flute in the first place, then broke it and brought down the Forbidding. And it was the breaking of the Forbidding that caused beloved Aachan to destroy itself in volcanic convulsions. Would that it had been Santhenar instead.’

‘You misrepresent the Histories, Vithis,’ Malien said coldly, ’as you always seek to blame others for your own ill-judged deeds. The lamentations of the Aachim began with the Charon coming out of the void and taking our world from us. And who allowed it? We were led by First Clan elders: Mahthis and Briorne;
your
ancestors. They were defended by a guard of First Clan, and First Clan failed their duty. First Clan surrendered our world for two people already at the end of their lives. First Clan allowed themselves to be defeated by a hundred Charon: the Hundred as they were known ever after. In fact, as we know, the might of First Clan was defeated by a single Charon: Rulke. Only one of us struck back at him, and that was
my
ancestor and the founder of my clan: Elienor.

‘That stain became etched deep into the heart of First Clan; it moulded your ancestors as it moulded you. Indeed, the bitterness of Inthis, as well as the false pride and recklessness that so marked Pitlis in ancient times, and Tensor at the time the Forbidding was broken, and which has marked you, Vithis, all the time I’ve known you, arose from the failure of First Clan that day. You have never come to terms with the shame. I am sorry for the passing of Clan Inthis, and for all that was fine and noble in your people, and there was much. But it is for the good of the world. All things fail and decay, sooner or later. It is fitting that Inthis passes through the Well, as you came from it in the first place. If you did.’

‘You set out to destroy us!’ he roared. ‘From that day in Aachan, right down to this, Clan Elienor has done its best to undo us.’

‘There was no Clan Elienor in ancient times, and even after Elienor founded it, my house was always the poorest, the weakest and the least in numbers. We were always looking over our shoulders.’

‘Elienor wasn’t weak, nor the despised
blending
Karan when she helped you to bring noble Tensor down. Nor
you
, Malien, when you helped Tiaan in Tirthrax, and ever after.’

‘Then why has Inthis –’

‘No more, Malien. All things must fail – it is
your
time to go to the Well.’

He did not move the Well this time. Vithis wanted to wreak revenge with his own hands. He walked forward, deliberately, took Malien about the waist and lifted her high. And, oddly, Malien did not struggle – it was almost as if she had been waiting for it. The Aachim let out cries of horror, yet no one moved to stop him.

‘No,’ Tiaan said to herself. Then louder, so it rang out across the jagged ground, ‘No!’

Nish, who had been quivering beside her, threw himself at Vithis. Vithis didn’t move, but he roared a word and Nish was thrown sideways, landing on broken rock at the edge of the Well. Tiaan heard ribs crack.

Vithis waggled a finger in his direction and Nish was forced slowly backward. He clasped hands around a jagged spike of basalt but the force simply broke his grip. His head went over the edge of the Well; his shoulders; his chest.

Tiaan looked from him to Malien. If she tried to save Nish, Malien would surely be lost. Tiaan couldn’t see Irisis anywhere; she vaguely remembered her walking away a long time ago. What was she to do?

Malien was strong in the Art and ought to be able to defend herself, should she choose to. Nish had no chance and she saw sheer terror in his eyes. She caught hold of his belt and tried to haul him back, but the force pulling him into the Well was irresistible.

She heaved harder. It made no difference. ‘Help!’ she cried, but no one moved, and the Histories told her why. Sometimes, in the most desperate crises, the Aachim froze like deer staring into the eyes of the great cat about to devour them. They’d done it when the Charon had taken their world from them, and now they were doing it again.

Or did they want her and Nish, and Malien too, to die with Vithis? To make a cleansing of all those who’d played any part in the calamity, save themselves?

Now Nish’s whole upper body was over the edge. Tiaan braced her heels against the rock, but the force was too much for her knees to hold against. If she didn’t let go, she’d be pulled in with him. Was this an echo thrown up by the Well, an ironic reversal of the time in Tirthrax when she’d tried to throw herself down it, and Nish had struggled to save her? Was it
meant
to be?

Or was something even more sinister going on? What had Malien said earlier?
Look to your own enemies, Lord Vithis
. Were Malien and Nish, and she, taking the blame for the machinations of his clan enemies?

‘Look to your own enemies, Lord Vithis!’ she screamed. ‘That’s what Malien said and she was right. Once we’re dead, and you’ve gone to the Well, Inthis’s enemies will have achieved everything they’ve ever wanted. Isn’t that right, clan leaders?’

Her frantic stare passed over them one by one but no one broke. No one looked guilty either. ‘Vithis?’ she screeched, but he didn’t react. ‘Malien, why don’t you do something?’

Tiaan saw the look in Nish’s eyes, the terror that she would let him go. He jerked over a little further. Her knees buckled and their eyes met.

‘Let me go, Tiaan,’ he said, somehow finding calm beyond the terror. ‘You can’t save me.’