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  Glynnie has fallen for Rix and feels that, now he’s been dispossessed, the imbalance between lord and servant has been reduced; that she has a chance. But Rix still sees her as a girl who needs protection. He plans to find a safe house to leave her, then build an army and lead the fight-back for Hightspall; he feels sure he’s going to die in this war. Glynnie is outraged by his presumption; she feels betrayed and lost.

  But no safe house can be found, and Rix’s enchanted sword, Maloch, points the way to the one place Rix still owns—Fortress Garramide, on a rain-drenched plateau high in the rugged Nandeloch Mountains. They head to Garramide through a land ruined by war.

  Tali and Rannilt are taken west by the chancellor with the battered remnant of his army, to grim Fortress Rutherin on the west coast. Rannilt wants to be a healer but Tali points out that Lyf stole her gift. Rannilt denies this but Tali won’t listen. She is determined to bring Lyf to justice for his part in her mother’s murder, but can’t because she’s lost control of her magery.

  The chancellor is bitter and desperate: news about the war is very bad. Hightspall’s armies have lost every battle; more than half the country has fallen to Lyf’s forces and the rest can’t hold out long. Tali is weak, for her healing blood is being taken to heal people bitten by shifters. And she’s desolate—it’s her fault that Tobry, whom she loves, chose to become a shifter and was killed. Tali also fears the chancellor will discover that she carries the master pearl in her head, and cut it out of her.

  Her other worry is that Lyf will realise the eighty thousand Pale slaves in Cython are a threat at the heart of his empire; that he will put them down. She cannot allow this to happen to her people but what can she do? After her bloody escape, she’s terrified of going anywhere near Cython.

  She realises that she’s being watched by KRONI, an old clock attendant, and also by LIZUE, another prisoner in the cells. Rannilt reveals Tali’s true identity and Lizue attacks, trying to cut the master pearl out of her head—she’s one of Lyf’s agents. Tali manages to escape and flees down to the old port of Rutherin. The chancellor’s men are closing in when she is rescued by Kroni, taken onto his boat, and he sails out to sea into the pack ice.

  Kroni’s real name is HOLM but is he an ally, or does he want to sell her to the highest bidder? After a number of battles, including being attacked by Lizue from a gauntling (a flying shifter), Holm’s boat being burned, and he and Tali taking refuge on an iceberg, she realises that this gentle, troubled man is on her side.

  Wil, now mad and tormented by guilt, has gone all the way down to the Engine at the heart of the land, the Engine whose imbalance Cythonians believe causes all the quakes, eruptions and other disasters that plague Hightspall. The king’s primary duty is to heal the land, that is to use king-magery to put the Engine back into balance, but king-magery was lost when Grandys killed Lyf 2000 years ago and now the land cannot be healed. Wil, suffering acute withdrawal from his alkoyl addiction, interferes with the Engine and sends it further out of balance.

  Rix, now known as Deadhand, and Glynnie reach Garramide but find that it has been taken over by a gigantic bandit, ARKYZ LEATHERHEAD, and his gang. Rix takes Leatherhead on and kills him, though his widow, the flamboyant BLATHY, swears revenge. Rix takes Garramide back, though his reputation has preceded him and he knows he’s on trial. The castellan, SWELT, supports Rix and he sets out to build his power by a raid on an enemy-occupied fortress, but one of Rix’s allies betrays him and the raid is a disaster.

  Though Rix and Glynnie had been more than friends, their relationship is fractured; she acts as though they’re servant and master again. Many of the people of the fortress are against him and now one of Lyf’s battalions is marching to besiege Garramide.

  Art is Rix’s sole consolation, yet when he takes up his brushes his dead hand comes alive and he paints a screaming figure made from black opal. It is Axil Grandys, Maloch’s original owner, whom Lyf’s vengeful wrythen petrified and cast into the Abysm in ancient times, along with the other four Heroes. Rix is haunted by this figure, which seems to be changing, but he’s also fascinated by it.

  On the iceberg Tali falls, hits her head and relives one of her ancestors’ deaths at the moment an ebony pearl was cut from her. Tali has had these nightmares before and feels sure she’ll be the next one to die. She has to get her magery back and Holm helps her to do so, though he tells her that she can either use it for destruction or for healing, but not both—if she uses it destructively she will never be able to heal again.

  Holm was once a brilliant young surgeon but, after a tragedy of his own making, gave it up forever. They reach shore and find themselves hunted and attacked. They eventually escape and head for the suspended tower of Tirnan Twil, where Axil Grandys’ papers and personal effects are held. Tali hopes to find a clue that will help them to defeat Lyf.

  The siege of Garramide reaches a climax, though Rix knows he cannot hold the enemy out. Then, in the middle of a bitter snowstorm, beyond his wildest hope Tobry reappears and they turn the enemy back.

  When Tobry was hurled from the tower he landed in a pit of water, mud and corpses—he was badly injured but his shifter nature saved his life and he was nursed back to health by an enemy soldier, Salyk. Rix thinks that Tobry was healed by Tali’s healing blood and Tobry does not tell him otherwise, though in fact he did not get enough healing blood and the shifter curse is getting worse.

  Lyf has torn down much of old Caulderon, including Palace Ricinus; he has executed thousands of dissidents and Herovians, and is bent on rebuilding the old city as it was during his reign. However his people are increasingly troubled by the excessive bloodshed and destruction and, when the chancellor’s envoys propose a peace conference, Lyf reluctantly agrees.

  At Tirnan Twil Tali sees a curious self-portrait, done by Lyf when he was a young man, which shows him wearing a simple, woven metal headband. Tirnan Twil is fire-bombed by a flock of gauntlings, who want revenge on Tali because she killed Lizue and crippled her gauntling. Tali and Holm barely escape. They head for the closest refuge, Garramide, and Tali has a joyful reunion with Tobry, until he reveals his terrible secret: he’s still a shifter, it’s passed to the incurable stage, and he’s going to go mad and die. He won’t let Tali use healing magery on him. It’s too risky for her.

  Blathy is listening through the keyhole and spreads the news to the other dissidents in Garramide—that Rix has allowed a vicious shifter into their midst. They plan a mutiny.

  Rix is furious that Tobry, his oldest friend, did not tell him. Morale is dreadful in Garramide now and Rix keeps dreaming about the furious, opalised man he painted. This gives him an idea—if he could recover Axil Grandys’ petrified body from the Abysm and place it above the gates of Garramide, this symbol of the legendary founder of Hightspall would greatly boost his people’s morale, and terrify Lyf’s forces. Tali and Holm get wind of this reckless plan and stop Rix on the brink of the Abysm just in time—the enchanted sword, Maloch, is rattling furiously in its sheath, trying to get to Grandys.

  Back in Garramide, Tali, in desperation, drugs Tobry and attempts to heal him with her healing blood, but when she takes the knife to him he shifts and goes for her, and only Holm’s intervention saves her. This is too much for the mutineers, who attack in the middle of the night. Blathy almost succeeds in killing Rix but Glynnie saves his life; he counterattacks and the mutiny is defeated though at heavy cost. Many good people are dead, including Swelt. The following morning, envoys from Lyf and the chancellor appear, calling Rix to a peace conference at Glimmering.

  The conference seethes with suspicion. Tali fears it’s a stratagem by Lyf to get her master pearl. However the chancellor and Lyf agree on a truce and are about to sign the papers when the towering figure of Axil Grandys appears—returned from stone to human form! In a few minutes of shattering violence he wounds Lyf, steals two of his ebony pearls and drives him off, then wrests Maloch from Rix and commands him to follow and serve. Rix, who has no magery, is unabl
e to break this command.

  Lyf is badly shaken by the attack, for Grandys has wounded him with the very sword with which he amputated Lyf’s feet in ancient times. But there’s worse—Lyf has lost his ability to heal people. Does this mean he will never be able to heal his beloved land? Is Cython, which had victory within its reach, about to be defeated?

  Grandys rescues the other four Heroes—RUFUSS, SYRTEN, LIRRIAM and YULIA—from the Abysm and turns them back from opal. He recruits an army of Herovians, his people, and such is his power, charisma and reputation that within days he has a force of thousands. He rampages across northern Hightspall, takes Lyf’s strongest fortress after a savage siege and puts Rochlis, Lyf’s greatest general to death. Soon Grandys holds the whole of northern Hightspall and is threatening the centre. Everyone knows he’s after the greatest prize of all—to recover Lyf’s lost king-magery.

  The chancellor takes Tali and Rannilt to Garramide—he can’t afford for Grandys to realise that Tali has the master pearl, the key to recovering king-magery, inside her. He sends envoys to Grandys, proposing an alliance against Lyf. Grandys sends the envoys’ heads back in a bag. He wants it all for himself.

  Tali is sick with fear—if Lyf is forced to retreat to Cython he may want to get rid of the Pale, and if that happens she will have no choice but to return and try to rouse them to rebellion… though after a thousand years of slavery the Pale are cowed and docile, and she is not a natural leader.

  Forced to fight beside Grandys, Rix soon comes to despise the man: Grandys may be a brilliant and charismatic warrior but he’s also a bloodthirsty bully who kills prisoners for the fun of it, and he’s bent on erasing all trace of both Hightspall and Cython so as to create the Herovians” Promised Realm. Rix fights Grandys and is defeated. He tries to break Grandys’ command on him but it is too strong.

  The chancellor calls his army from Rutherin and heads west to meet it; it’s time to make a stand. His camp is attacked by the Five Heroes; Grandys wounds the chancellor in the arm with Maloch and abducts Glynnie. The chancellor’s arm goes black and has to be amputated, but will not heal. He knows he’s going to die.

  Tali uses magery to spy on Lyf, for there’s a key to using king-magery and she needs to know what it is. She hears mention of a circlet and realises it’s the one Lyf was wearing in the self-portrait she saw in Tirnan Twil. Later she overhears Lyf discussing the planned genocide of the Pale in Cython. Now she has no choice; she has to go to their aid.

  Tobry and Holm reluctantly agree to help and they get into Cython via a long-forgotten air shaft. Tobry tailors a spell to give them enough air for the flooded passage, but it exhausts his magery and brings on a shifter attack. If he can’t control it he could turn shifter at the worst possible moment. After many obstacles Tali eventually reaches the Pale’s Empound and enters, trying to look like any other slave.

  But the Pale won’t listen because she’s no longer one of them. She is attacked by Radl, her enemy since childhood. Tali manages to convince Radl of the Pale’s peril, and she bullies a few thousand of her people into rebelling. They attack but the small, poorly armed Pale are no match for the Cythonians, who lock the rest of the Pale in the Empound and attack. Soon the battle is going badly.

  Tali sees, via her mage-glass, that Tobry is about to turn shifter. She runs after him with the potion that can reverse it, but is cut off by Lyf. He reveals that there was no plan for genocide—he knew she was spying on him and simply wanted to lure her here, but now that the Pale have rebelled he’s justified in putting them down.

  Tali kicks his crutches from under him and gets away, but finds the Pale in full retreat and dying in droves. She leads a retreat down to the forbidden chymical level of Cython, and there follows a colossal battle with many different kinds of chymical weaponry. But the enemy’s numbers are too great. Defeat looks inevitable until Tali realises that there’s only one way out—she must use her magery for destruction.

  It has unintended consequences—part of the centre of Cython collapses, including the area where the Cythonian people dwell. Many are killed, including the three MATRIARCHS who rule the underground city, and the same collapse frees the rest of the Pale. They swarm out, overwhelm the Cythonians who then retreat, abandoning Cython.

  The rebellion has succeeded but Tobry has relapsed badly; he will soon be taken by incurable shifter madness. They head north to Reffering to meet the dying chancellor, who is awaiting his army, though by the time it arrives only five thousand troops remain—the rest have been lost through disastrous leadership, and desertion.

  Down at the Engine, Wil is in despair at the loss of Cython, which he loves more than anything. He’s got to make up for it; he’s got to destroy Cython’s enemies. He pushes with the Engine further out of balance and the ground starts to quake.

  In Reffering the situation is dire—Grandys is moving in an army of ten thousand battle-hardened fighters, while Lyf is bringing his army of fifty thousand north, determined to make up for the loss of Cython by wiping his enemies off the map.

  Rix finally works out how to break Grandys’ command. He plans to fight him hand to hand at the drunken feast after the next victory, then kill him with a concealed dagger. After Grandys takes Bastion Cowly, Rix makes his move but Grandys brings out a prisoner, Glynnie, and says she goes to the winner. Rix and Grandys fight a brutal battle but when Rix attempts to kill him his concealed dagger is gone—Grandys has seen through the ploy. Rix has lost and Glynnie is also doomed.

  Grandys hurls Rix into an icy water cistern. The soldiers push him away from the edges, the drunken Herovians placing bets on how long it will take for Rix to drown.

  The men of Bastion Cowly counterattack; little Glynnie smashes the drunken Grandys in the face with a length of timber and manages to get Rix onto a horse and away. They reach the chancellor’s camp, where he expects a hostile welcome, but the chancellor sees in Rix the tough and courageous leader he’s been looking for. He appoints Rix commander of Hightspall’s army, to the outrage of the officers who were passed over. Rix doesn’t think he’s up to leading an army into battle against greatly superior foes, as early as tomorrow, but he has no choice.

  The ground is shaking constantly now and the quakes are getting worse. And Tobry is declining by the hour. Tali wants to use her powerful magery to try and heal him but Holm says it’s too late—she’s already chosen the other path—destruction. Tobry suddenly falls into the slavering shifter madness that signals the end is close. Tali and Rix can’t bear to see their dear friend in this state. They ignore Rannilt’s absurd pleas that she can heal him and decide that there’s only one thing to be done.

  At dawn the following day they take Tobry out to a glade by a stream, chain him to a tree and prepare to put him down. Only then does Rix realise the truth of the mural he painted in the crypt below the palace three months ago.

  PART ONE

  INCARNATE

  CHAPTER 1

  Tali was holding the disembowelling knife so tightly that her knuckles ached. She looked into the eyes of the man she loved, the man she had to kill, and her heart gave a convulsive lurch. She tried to swallow but her throat was too tight.

  “It has to be done,” said Rix dully. “It’s the only way.”

  “That doesn’t make it any easier.”

  It was ten minutes past dawn and they were in a meadow by a pebble-bottomed stream, a pretty, peaceful place. A band of ancient trees clothed each bank, forming a winding green ribbon across the surrounding grassland. White flowers dotted the short meadow grass; in the distance, a range of snowy mountains ran from left to right. Behind them, on the plain beyond a low hill, four armies prepared for slaughter.

  Their mad, ruined friend, Tobry, was chained to the largest tree, its trunk two yards through the middle. His shirt had been torn open, revealing a trace of reddish fur on his chest. His eyes were caitsthe yellow, the mark of the incurable shifter curse. To Tali’s left a brazier blazed; beside it sat a paper-wrapped packet of powdered
lead. The one sure way to kill a caitsthe was to burn its twin livers on a fire fuelled with that deadly substance.

  “Now!” said Rix.

  “I thought he’d died three months ago,” Tali said softly, putting off the evil moment.

  “We saw him thrown from the tower.”

  “I ached for Tobry, wept for him.” She slipped her fingers into her short hair, caught a handful and clenched until her scalp stung. “And finally, I came to accept his death. Then he came back as a shifter, doomed to madness…”

  “There was nothing to be done. No one’s ever cured a full-blown shifter.”

  “He told me to turn away.” Her voice went shrill. She moved closer to Rix. “Tobry knew he’d die a mindless beast, and I couldn’t accept it.” Tali’s pale skin flushed to the roots of her golden blonde hair. “I did shameful things, trying to save him. Wicked things…”

  “Out of love,” said Rix uncomfortably.

  He thrust his sword into the soft ground, bisecting a white daisy, and stepped away, scrubbing his dead hand across his eyes.

  Tali looked up at Rix—she was a small woman and he stood head and shoulders above her. “He doesn’t know us; he’ll kill us if he gets the chance. He’s got to be put down and I… just… can’t… bear… it.”

  He put his good arm around her shoulders. The shifter snarled. Rix pulled away and, with a jerky movement, plucked his sword from the grass.

  “He’s a beast in torment. We have to do our duty by him.”

  “Yes,” said Tali.

  “Ready?” Rix’s jaw locked.