Rebellion

CHAPTER 48

“Do you want to see the mural?” said Rix.

Tobry was slumped in his chair. “Not right now.” He opened his eyes. “What happened to Benn?”

Rix told him. “He was just gone. No evidence, no trace.”

“It happens in war. Happens all the time. Gods,” cried Tobry, “I hate this world, this life.” He held out his glass. Rix filled it. Tobry stared into the wine as though he might find the answers to the miseries of the world there. “He was a nice kid.”

“Yes, he was,” said Rix, a trifle shocked. Not because of the outburst — anyone was entitled to react that way on hearing of the disappearance of a child they knew — but because it was so uncharacteristic of his close-mouthed friend.

They finished the bottle and began another, not talking. Rix ran through his search for Benn yet again, in case he’d missed something, but his thoughts kept turning back to Maloch. The sword had belonged to Grandys, and Rix had spent all his spare time reading about the man, so it was hardly surprising that he had painted the petrified image while he was holding Maloch.

“I didn’t land on the paving stones,” said Tobry.

“What?” said Rix, dragged abruptly out of his own thoughts and not sure what Tobry was talking about.

“When the chancellor’s guards threw me from the tower. The tidal wave must have collapsed the land beside the tower. I landed in a sinkhole full of water and slimy mud. And bodies; lots of drowned people.”

“It’s still a wonder you survived,” said Rix. “A hundred feet!”

“I didn’t survive by myself.”

“Oh?”

“The impact knocked me out and hurt me badly. I was throwing up blood for a week.”

He took a gulp of wine, which, as if to emphasise the point, stained his lips the colour of blood, then went on. “First thing I knew, Salyk was dragging me out over a pile of bodies.” He shuddered.

“Who’s Salyk?”

“A Cythonian soldier. Not much older than Glynnie, and quite unfit for soldiering…”

“Why so?”

“She was compassionate, gentle and caring, even to an ugly old enemy like me. She had nightmares from the atrocities she’d witnessed in the first days of the war. She should have been an artist…”

“Really?” said Rix, rolling his eyes.

“I mean it. We’ve talked before about Cythonians and their art. It seems to fill some great void in them, and even a humble soldier girl like her could tell the difference between good art and bad.” He studied Rix’s dead hand for a minute or two then said, with elaborate casualness, “I suppose that’s why she saved your father’s portrait.”

Rix’s heart stopped. “What portrait?” he said hoarsely. But he knew, he knew.

“The one you did for the Honouring.”

“Where did she get it? I thought the chancellor took it.”

“Evidently not. She found it in the ruins somewhere, and was so moved by it that she begged an audience with Lyf himself, to ask what to do with it.”

Rix did not move or speak. He could not. Just when he thought House Ricinus’s dreadful past had been erased, it rose up to haunt him.

“Lyf thought it a masterpiece, too. The finest work of Hightspall he’d ever seen.” Tobry looked sideways at Rix.

“Is that supposed to console me?”

“I know how you artists crave the adoration of the masses.” Tobry chuckled. “Ah, it’s good to be back, Rix.”

Rix scowled and did not reply.

Tobry went on. “In the early days of the war, Hightspall, at the instigation of Grandys and the other Heroes, wantonly destroyed almost all the treasures of old Cythe. Lyf ordered the portrait burned in retaliation.”

“Good riddance!” said Rix.

“But Salyk couldn’t burn it. It had moved her too deeply. She defied the express order of her lord king and hid the portrait where it would not be found. Though I’ve a feeling it will be found one day, and then it’ll reveal its true divination.”

“What do you mean, true divination?”

“I don’t know — like I said, it’s a feeling I have.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Salyk hid me, and doctored my wounds, for quite a few days. I spent all my waking hours staring at the damn thing.”

“Do you happen to know where the portrait is?”

“I dare say I could find it again, though I’m not planning to go back to Caulderon any time soon. They don’t like me any more.” Tobry chuckled. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s the best painting I’ve ever done, yet I’ve never hated anything more. I’ve an urge to burn the damn thing myself.”

“I wouldn’t advise it. I heard Lyf’s built a special scaffold, just for you.”

Rix’s lungs gave a convulsive heave. “Go on with your story.”

“Not much to tell,” Tobry said, a trifle hastily. “Salyk helped me to escape from Caulderon and I went looking for Tali. And a miserable time I had of it, too, until I gave up and ended up here.”

Rix knew that Tobry had left out a large part of the story, but if he did not want to tell it there was no point asking him.

“How about you?” said Tobry. “What brought you to Garramide?”

“There’s not a lot to tell that you don’t know. Benn was lost, Glynnie and I fought a bunch of Cythonians in the lake. We escaped and made our way here.”

“How come?”

“What?”

“Why here, as opposed to any other place?”

“My great-aunt left Garramide to me last year, in my own right. It didn’t come through House Ricinus, so not even the chancellor could rob me of it.”

“Were you consciously heading here? Or following the sword?”

“The sword pointed the way, and then I thought of Garramide.”

Tobry frowned. “All right, let’s assemble the evidence. You went to Precipitous Crag because Maloch pointed the way. You fought Lyf’s wrythen there with Maloch, the sword that Lyf hates and fears. Lyf’s ancient enemy was the great Herovian Axil Grandys, who started the war and owned the enchanted sword, Maloch. He hacked Lyf’s feet off with it.” Tobry’s sardonic eye met Rix’s bewildered one. “With me so far?”

Rix didn’t bother to reply.

Tobry went on. “In the fight in the murder cellar, Tali hurled Maloch at the trophy case containing Lyf’s severed foot bones, which Grandys had kept for some arcane purpose. Maloch destroyed the foot bones with a colossal burst of magery, hurting Lyf badly.

“Not long afterwards, you followed Maloch’s directions to Garramide, the fortress that Grandys’ only child lived in until 1950 years ago. The Herovian fortress where Maloch lay hidden all this time, until your great-aunt sent it to you a couple of years back.” Tobry raised an eyebrow. “Have I missed anything vital?”

Rix jerked his head from side to side.

“And what’s the first thing you do when you get here?”

“You tell me. You know so much more than I do.”

The sarcasm settled like a wet blanket.

“You call for paints and brushes,” said Tobry, “even though your hand has gone dead and you’ve vowed to never paint again. You take Maloch in your good hand and, Lo! Tra la! Like magic, your dead hand comes back to life just long enough to paint a mural depicting the opalised body of Axil Grandys. And what do you do then?”

Rix did not reply.

“Nothing!” said Tobry. “Nothing about the mural strikes you as the least odd or worrying. You draw no parallels, see no omens. You continue on your merry way as though nothing had happened.”

“I’ve been sweating about it for ages,” cried Rix, nettled beyond forbearance.

“Yet you still wear the sword,” Tobry said inexorably. “You still go up to the observatory and moon over the mural every night.”

“How the hell would you know what I do?”

“I asked Glynnie and she told me that much, because she was so worried about you. Rix, can’t you see that this obsession with Grandys — or perhaps a better word is infatuation — is perilous?”

“He’s been dead almost two thousand years, Tobe.”

“But his sword is up to something and it’s out of your control. And there’s another thing — ”

“Make it the last,” snapped Rix.

“All right. I know it came as a shock when the chancellor told you that you were Herovian, and directly descended from Grandys himself. And I know your life had been shattered by the fall of your house, and you felt you had nothing left — ”

“Get to the point, if you’ve got one,” Rix grated.

“You needed to fill the void in your life, but I wouldn’t advise you to adopt Herovian ideals uncritically.”

“I’m not like you, Tobe. I’m not a deep thinker.”

“You’ve got that right. You’re not even a shallow thinker.”

Rix gritted his teeth but let it pass. “I don’t know much about Herovian ideals — no one will tell me! But I know they believe in honour, nobility — ”

“And blood, Rix. Bloodlines were everything to them. That’s why Grandys made Garramide one of the strongest fortresses in Hightspall — to protect his only child. They also believe in racial purity, drunkenness, brawling and contempt for the arts, to name but a few. Grandys made a point of destroying every thing of beauty the Cythonians had created in thousands of years. How do you reconcile that, Rix?”

“I can’t. But… he was just one man.”

“A man who epitomised his people. He also believed that the mentally disabled, infirm and crippled should be done away with, to preserve the purity of the race.”

Rix was in dangerous waters and had no way out. “That was all long ago — ”

“Herovian beliefs haven’t changed,” said Tobry. “And before you get too involved with them, hasn’t it occurred to you that you count as a cripple, Deadhand!”