Dark Heart Part 21

No one moved, though in Noetos's judgment a number of the women and at least two of the men wished they could. They do not believe their Emperor's a.s.surances. And why should they? They've just been reminded of a clever subterfuge to flush out the disloyal among them. Why would they not suspect another?

'We have questions for you,' Claudo said, approaching Noetos and Duon. Two soldiers accompanied him, each carrying one end of a long stake.

They mean to burn us? Inside this room?

Duon, his back to Noetos, began to shake. Noetos himself was certain he was shaking also. Anomer! Arathe! Are you there? Please!

Nothing.

The soldiers lifted the stake, then slipped it between the men, forcing them apart and scoring their backs with its rough, knotty surface. It would hold them upright when, as would no doubt happen in the next few moments, they could no longer stand unaided.

'I feel strange,' said Duon.

Claudo cracked him across the mouth. 'We'll hear from you later, black man.'

A third soldier wheeled a brazier into the room, leaving it next to their torturer. Coals glowed redly, and in their midst sat half a dozen instruments. Claudo donned a glove, leaned over with the air of a scholar choosing a volume to read, and selected a pair of pincers.

To Noetos's mortification, his bladder let go. A few t.i.tters of laughter rippled around the room from those close enough to see.

'Now, we want to know from you how you learned the schedule of the Neherian fleet. How did you know in time to organise resistance at Makyra Bay?'

Noetos lifted his head wearily. 'I know how this goes. What answer do you want me to give?' he said.

'Those with no imagination do not fear pain. At least,' Claudo said, with a glance at Noetos's damp breeches, 'not enough. The son of Demios has never had much imagination. At least, that is what our spy told us. Therefore we must stimulate it for him.'

As the man lifted the pincer to Noetos's tunic, fastened on the material and ripped it away, the fisherman's thoughts turned, oddly, to the sound and smell of the sea, as though there was comfort to be found there. Strange that, at the end, he should return to a place he never liked.

'Ready!'

A thousand hands clasped each other. 'Remember,' they had been told, 'you will experience discomfort, if not actual pain. Hold on, endure. The more of you who endure, the greater the number the effects will be spread across, and the less anyone will have to tolerate.'

By no means everyone had believed it, though Anomer and Arathe had used their Voices widely. Those people had moved on, over the brow of the hill, and made camp there. The remaining volunteers braced themselves.

'These things are of little use to a man,' Claudo said, playing to his audience. 'It is almost as though they were invented for the purpose. Can't think of what else they're good for.'

To Noetos, the man's voice was the cawing of a gull; the murmur of conversation from the table the wash of waves upon the reef.

The pincers closed over his left nipple and squeezed.

'Now.'

And nothing happened. Claudo gritted his teeth and squeezed his gloved hand as hard as he could. Noetos watched in giddy bemus.e.m.e.nt. He could feel nothing.

Meranios leaned forward.

Claudo grasped the pincers with both hands, intending to apply more pressure. 'Gah!' he cried, and jerked his gloveless hand off the handle.

A half-day's walk north of the Summer Palace, just under a thousand people felt a slight constriction on their own chests. One or two of the more sensitive among them gave an involuntary cry. The gentle pain lasted a few seconds, then ended suddenly.

Noetos's mind slowed, unable to keep up with events. He was still antic.i.p.ating pain, but none came.

A few of the men at table were laughing, believing the torturer's actions to be an elaborate joke. Wine flowed freely, and the comments as to how the traitor's son ought to be tortured were becoming more explicit.

'Claudo?' said the man who sat the throne. 'What are you doing?'

'Nothing, Mer-my Emperor. Attempting to frighten the prisoner.'

'Get on with it, man. Use the knife.'

Hold still, Father, Arathe sent.

'A finger, then,' Claudo said, his face rea.s.sembling itself into what he probably thought was a torturer's leer. He drew a knife from his belt while one of his a.s.sistants grasp Noetos's right hand and held it firmly.

Teeth bared, Claudo drew it powerfully across the fisherman's first and second fingers.

The sensation was to Noetos like someone pressing a stick against his knuckles. A slight pressure, nothing more.

This time about twenty people put up their hands for a.s.sistance, indicating they had been hurt. They bled from slight cuts to their fingers. The rest felt little more than a tingling sensation.

'You are doing well!' Anomer told them. 'Please, hold still. We will defeat the Neherians yet!'

'Aaah!' Claudo cried. 'Raaah!' All sophistication was abruptly abandoned. He struck with the knife, trying to bury it in the man's hand. It bounced off the suddenly hard skin. A greater arc this time, with the same result. The third and last time he drove the knife at his victim's arm. It connected, and the blade shattered into a thousand pieces.

'Hold!'

All over the hillside people cried out with sudden pain, and blood was visible from where Anomer stood. But no one moved save those rus.h.i.+ng with cloth bandages to staunch the wounds.

The comments from the table had become less mocking and more agitated. The Emperor shouted something, but Claudo could not hear it, preoccupied as he was with his own nightmare. He darted at the nearest a.s.sistant and drew the man's sword. Not the done thing, to unsheathe another man's weapon, but he didn't care. He took it in both hands-wincing at the burn-and swung at the traitor's unprotected neck. A mild thud, and nothing more.

'No! No!'

A frenzy came on the torturer. Had to be magic, had to be. He hacked and hacked, raining blows on the man until his sword arm dropped from exhaustion. The tip of the blade clicked on the stone floor.

The only sound in the room was Claudo's own panting.

Joined at once by Noetos's laughter. 'Neherius is a dung-heap,' he said. 'Always was, always will be. Time to rid ourselves of dung.' He turned his head towards the wide-eyed, white-faced soldiers. 'Are you going to free me, or must I break free on my own?'

'We, my friend,' said Duon from behind him. 'We. Our hosts have yet to see my power.'

The nearest soldier stammered something unintelligible, then pulled a key from his belt.

'No!' cried the Emperor, suddenly afraid. 'Keep the prisoners secured! Guards! Valiant Protectors! s.h.i.+eld your Emperor! Magicians! Launch your attack!'

The more perceptive members of his court were already up from their chairs, but they had left it too late. Feeling like a G.o.d, Noetos flexed his multiply augmented muscles and the chains around him disintegrated. Behind him Duon appeared to have done the same thing.

'I have the north door,' he said to Noetos, and was gone in a blur of movement. A moment later the remaining chains crashed to the ground, along with the stake.

The five magicians ignored Duon and came walking carefully towards Noetos.

'We believe this will work, particularly if they are not expecting it,' Anomer said. There were a number of uncertain faces in front of him, but there was not time to explain. 'If it fails, we will draw strength from all of you, but not enough to place anyone in danger. This is what we agreed to, remember. If any of you repent of the agreement, leave now.'

No one moved.

Here was the test. Could they draw magical power from a powerful magician using sheer strength of numbers? Would their distance from Raceme reduce their strength? Were the five magicians stronger than the brave thousand?

Now, sister, he said.

Noetos felt Arathe reach through him towards the magicians. The pull of her magic was immense. A thousand people, she had said in his mind. A few weakly gifted, but all possessing essenza she could tap into.

The leftmost of the magicians winced. 'What is that?' he asked. 'Are you-is anyone?' His face went white and he fell to the floor.

'You all felt that,' Noetos said. 'Who else wants to be drained dry?'

The four pale faces looked uncertainly at each other. Then, as one, they took to their heels and ran for the south door. Their fellow writhed on the floor, crying in a soft, unregarded voice.

'Be strong, now,' Anomer told those gathered on the hillside. 'And do not flinch, no matter what is demanded of you. No matter what you sense, what you see. As they have done to your countrymen-and as they would do to you-so must be done to them, if we are ever to be safe.'

Some of the people who had remained steadfast through pain and magical drain stood and walked away. Knowing even better than they did what was to come, Arathe did not blame them. But she knew her father would never accept surrender from those who had murdered his family. Her family. The grandparents, aunts and uncles she would never meet. Today she felt some of her father's rage.

She clenched her teeth and dug her feet into the turf beneath her, determined to do what needed to be done.

Noetos and Duon met in the middle of the room when the butchery was over. Some of it was fierce swordplay, but much of it had been simple execution. The fisherman knew he would regret this until his dying day. Not the defeat of the Neherians, but the manner in which it had been achieved. The human mind, he knew, was simply not resilient enough to cope with what he had just seen, with what he had just done.

But his soul, ever treacherous, sang in delight.

The room is even more colourful now, it said, and the realisation he was capable of such a thought sickened him.

The southerner, now his brother in arms, wore an obscene coat of red over his clothes. Noetos's own garments were torn and soaking wet, and he knew by looking at the man before him how he himself appeared. 'Like a b.l.o.o.d.y sunset,' he said. 'The sunset of Neherian power.'

Duon grinned fiercely, then frowned and put a hand to the back of his head. 'Oh!' he said. His eyes widened, his head swung around wildly, and he rushed for one of the windows, retching as he went.

'We had better leave,' Noetos said. Guards had come, alerted by the screaming, and at least one had escaped. The fisherman had no sense that his power was about to falter, but he knew he could take nothing for granted. And Duon had clearly lost his own source of strength.

'Come on.' He grabbed at the man's arm.

'Give me a moment.'

As Duon composed himself, Noetos began to hear the moans of the dying. Not every stroke had been clean, and there were those who would take time to die. Others, perhaps, who would live. He hoped so. This story needed to become part of history.

And it was his key to gain entrance to Andratan. Oh yes, the hero of Raceme would have unfettered access to the Undying Man.

'We must go,' Noetos insisted. The sooner he left the room, the less it would engrave itself on his memory.

'Which way?'

'The north door, then over the battlements and down to the d.u.c.h.ess's Walk. I'll explain the rest when we get there.'

Noetos had chosen wisely, he knew. The main force of soldiers in the Summer Palace were garrisoned in the Underfort, on the landward or southern side of the palace. They would come up the Flame Path and through the south door to the ballroom. No doubt were coming at this moment.

Noetos and Duon encountered two servants on their way to the d.u.c.h.ess's Walk. Both women wailed at the sight of them; one fell at their feet and begged to be spared, the other ran down a side corridor. The bespattered fugitives ignored them both.

They burst into the open and realised it was full night. Noetos had lost track of time in the ballroom, and wondered if what he planned was possible.

'Hoy!' someone shouted from somewhere to their left. Yes, of course, they were visible from lower levels, though were probably little more than shadows. 'Have you seen them?'

'Through the north door!' Noetos called back.

The one who had shouted to them was perhaps forty paces away and one level down, separated from the fugitives by a stone wall. There were steps, however, not far from where he had hailed them.

'Been there! No sign of them! Is it true they've slaughtered-' The ensuing silence was no doubt the man figuring out that the men he was speaking to must have come from the south door.

'Stand still!' he cried; bravely, Noetos thought.

'I've had enough of killing,' Duon said quietly.

'As have I. Can you swim?'

'Yes. But not with a sword at my side.'

'I'm not leaving this behind,' Noetos said. He fingered the hilt of the Heirsword.

'Then we must hope our benefactors can a.s.sist us,' Duon said. 'Where is the water?'

To their left the soldier clattered up the stairs, and would be on them in a moment.

'Down there.' Noetos pointed over the battlements. 'I've done this before.' Only once, and that when you were a much younger and more foolish man. 'You must leap at least three paces outwards from the wall to clear the rocks.'

'Rocks? Ah. How far down?'

'Does it matter? Into the dark, that's all we need to know.'

'Then let us leap.' The man stood on the crenellation, bunched his legs and jumped. Not far enough.

Noetos sighed, and followed the southerner over the edge.

CHAPTER 10.

LAKE WOE.

'THIS CAN'T GO ON.'

Arathe sighed, stretching her aching limbs. Morning. Noetos was making his way home, so there were no immediate demands on the ragged remnants of her strength. Sleep, more sleep, was the thing. Weeks since she'd had anything approaching a full night's rest. Still, as Anomer continually reminded her, there were many others suffering.