“I may have had another small victory over Grandys, but my people paid for it,” said Lyf, leaning closer to the fire and rubbing his blue fingers. No heat could warm them. “How many troops did we lose this time?”
“General Hramm’s latest dispatch says 5600,” said Moley Gryle.
“And the fighting isn’t finished yet.”
They were in the front sitting room of the former chancellor’s palace, a red and black, debauched monstrosity of a building next door to the temple grounds. Lyf had originally ordered it demolished along with Palace Ricinus but had subsequently countermanded the order, for reasons he did not fully understand himself. It was one of the few great buildings from the Hightspall era still standing, and almost completely intact.
“How did you do it?” said Moley Gryle. “Did you use some new spell on Maloch?”
“No,” said Lyf.
“Then how—forgive me, Lord King. I have no right to your secrets.”
“You have every right. When the pit was being made, I secretly lined its floor, sides and lid with sheets of platina, the only known substance that can form a barrier against magery.”
“I didn’t know it could.”
“Few people do, thankfully. Then, once Grandys was in the pit, Maloch was powerless…”
“Are you saying that after Lirriam got him out, Maloch would have aided him again?”
“Yes—had he thought to try it. But Grandys was too troubled, and in too much pain, and my little trick worked. Let’s hope it keeps on worrying him until the end.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Leave me now, Moley,” said Lyf. “See I’m not disturbed.”
She bowed and went to the door, then came back. “If I might advise you, Lord King…”
“Yes?” he said tersely.
“You’ve kept secret your encounter with Grandys at Reffering. No one knows save your King’s Guard and me.”
“What of it?”
“I think you should spread the news about that victory, and your win in the temple. Let everyone know that Grandys can no longer rely on Maloch. It’ll gladden our people’s hearts, and undermine him.”
“Good idea,” said Lyf.
When she had gone he summoned the wrythen of Errek First-King. “You know what’s happened?”
“I haven’t returned to my tomb,” said Errek, sardonically. “I just haven’t been visible.”
Without thinking, Lyf gestured him to the other chair by the fire, and indicated a flask and a goblet.
Errek chuckled. “I’ve no weight to take off my aged feet. I would certainly enjoy a glass of that liqueur, had I only the capacity to taste it. Ah, to feel its fire surging through my ethereal veins!”
“My small victories over Grandys only throw his vast wins into sharper relief,” Lyf burst out. “What must I do to defeat him, Errek?”
“I’ve said it before. Leave the war to your commanders.”
“They haven’t done well either. But Grandys has burned men getting to this point, and he’s not recruiting them as quickly as he used to. His allure is fading and even if he fights his way out of Caulderon—”
“As he will,” said Errek. “If he does, he’ll be lucky to have three thousand men left. You’ve got fifty thousand. Even Hramm should be able to do something with those odds. Have you found Tali?”
“No, but a spy tells me the rebels contacted him to make a deal.”
“And Grandys agreed?”
“My spy didn’t know.”
“What deal?”
“It wasn’t specified, though I’m afraid…”
“They offered him Tali,” guessed Errek.
“And he’s got Holm the surgeon, so he’ll soon have the pearl—”
“Then it’s time to go on the road,” said Errek.
“What for?”
“To find out about the circlet. Who knows about it?”
“Holm and Tali—but I’m not going into Grandys’ camp looking for them. That’s exactly what he wants me to do.”
“Anyone else?”
“I dare say Tali told Rix about it.”
“Rix has an army to protect him; he’s also out of your reach,” said Errek. “What about Tobry?”
“The mad shifter?” cried Lyf. “He’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“My spies said Rix and Tali were going to put him down weeks ago. Just before the great quake.”
“Did any of your spies see the body?”
“No, but even supposing Tobry is still alive. And supposing we can find him, and subdue him, how do we get any sense out of a mad shifter?”
“If he’s the only other one who knows, you’d better think of a way. Grandys’ endgame is fast approaching.”
Half an hour later, Lyf took his seat on Grolik, the greatest of his gauntlings. He detested the beasts but Lyf no longer had sufficient magery to fly and there was no other way of getting there in time. Errek was mounted behind him, for wrythens were bound to the vicinity of their place of death. They could only roam further afield in the shelter of someone else’s magery.
“To Reffering, Grolik,” said Lyf.
Grolik turned her long, leathery neck back on itself and aimed a gob of slimy saliva at Lyf’s eye. He raised his hand.
“If you ever try that again, I’ll burn your eyes out,” Lyf said coldly.
Grolik’s stinking gob hissed past Lyf’s ear. She snorted, propelled herself ten feet in the air and flapped off, west-north-west.
“Disgusting creatures,” Lyf muttered.
“You created them,” Errek said cheerfully, leaning back so the air ruffled the few threads of white hair remaining to him.
*
“Are you sure this is the place?” he said several hours later.
They were standing in what was left of the clearing by the stream.
“Yes,” said Lyf. “My spy said Tobry was chained to a great tree here, but it toppled in the quake. This must be the tree—see the chains running around it.”
“And here’s the remains of a packet of powdered lead,” said Errek, drifting weightlessly across the leaf-littered ground.
“Whether they put Tobry down or not, he could not have survived that tree falling on him.”
“I’m old-fashioned. I always like to see the body.”
Lyf conjured a saw and set it to work on the trunk above the chains. The trunk was two yards through; it took a long time. He then had it saw through below the chains and when that was complete, with considerable effort he rolled the sawn disc of wood out of the way.
Errek hovered overhead. “Broken chains, with a length missing, and no body. Tobry got away.”
“Even so, once a shifter goes into its final madness, it rarely lives long.”
“Ah, but this shifter was treated with Tali’s healing blood only hours after being turned. It may have given Tobry a longer life—or made him a different kind of shifter entirely. You can’t assume anything. Besides, he’s the only chance you’ve got.”
“How to find him, though?” said Lyf. “He could be anywhere.”
“You must have faced this problem before,” said Errek. “Mad shifters have been a menace ever since our people emerged from Cython.”
“Normally they were hunted down with specially trained dogs.”
“Gauntlings have a keen sense of smell, don’t they?”
Lyf grimaced. “Very keen. Though I was hoping to minimise contact with the vile beast.”
“Think of this as your penance for creating them,” grinned Errek. “And while Grolik’s sniffing Tobry out, start working on a shifter-hunting spell to take its place. Tobry is liable to be hiding somewhere a gauntling can’t go.”