by Ian Irvine
The next man to move gets a bolt in the eye;' said Flangers, showing his crossbow. Put down your weapons.'
The soldiers looked up. No one made any move for a long moment. Irisis held her breath. If he shot one, the others would be on him before he could reload.; Four against one could only end one way.
'Who's going to be the first?' said Flangers, pointing his weapon at each in turn. 'You, big man?'
The dark-faced fellow still clutched his sword. 'I'm prepared to die for my duty,' he sneered, 'and I'm not afraid of a stinking traitor like you.'
Irisis could sense Flangers's pain, but he said nothing.
'But are you afraid of a perquisitor?' said Fyn-Mah from the doorway.
White smoke was coiling up from the bush where the red-hot sword had landed. As the leading soldier looked over the side, his weapon drooped.
'Run,' said Fyn-Mah softly. 'Tell the scrutators I forced you with the Art. It's close to the truth.'
He nodded, not looking at her, and slipped over the side. The others followed, disappearing into the forest.
'Inouye,' said the perquisitor, 'go to your station and be ready to take the air-floater up. Irisis, you and Flangers unfasten the tethers.'
'Where are we going?' said Irisis.
'To the next place on Flydd's list. I daren't stay here, in case they get their courage back.'
They spent more than a week travelling from hideout to hideout, sometimes staying only long enough to check if Eiryn Muss had left a message, though they did not see him in that time. On the ninth day after the mutiny, as they drifted over the latest rendezvous — a dead tree with a fire-scarred, hollow trunk, broken off about ten spans above the ground — a head appeared at the top. An arm waved.
Inouye hovered, Flangers let down the rope ladder and Muss scampered up. 'Go west,' he said.
'Did you find the scrutator?' cried Irisis.
'I learned where he is,' Muss said grimly. 'He was sent to slave in one of the clanker-hauling teams. Cryl-Nish Hlar was with him, condemned by his own father.'
'Nish?' Irisis found her voice had gone squeaky. 'He's alive?'
'For the moment.'
'You said was', said Fyn-Mah. 'What's happened?'
'Flydd escaped six days ago and fled north, beyond the Snizort node, with Nish and Ullii.'
'We can assume he's received my message then,' said Irisis. 'We'd better get after him.'
'Unfortunately,' said Muss, 'they're pursued by all the might of the scrutators, including no less than three air-floaters. We can't risk it.'
'So what do we do?'
'Go to the rendezvous. Sit tight and wait.'
'Wonderful!' said Irisis, who hated enforced inaction in any form.
And there was another problem. The phynadr, which they had risked so much for, and lost more to recover, was withering daily. They kept it cool and damp in a wetted sack, but it wasn't enough. Within days, Irisis felt sure, it would be dead, and all their sacrifice would have been for nothing.
But at least Nish was alive. She'd thought she was over him long ago, but lately Irisis had been thinking about him all the time. She would have given anything to be with him now.
S EVENT E E N
Gilhaelith fell swiftly, feet first, so by the time Gyrull could react, he was a hundred spans below her, hurtling towards the Sea of Thurkad. At this speed it would be as hard as rock.
She folded her great wings into the shape of an arrow and dived after him, though at first she did not seem to be gaining. He looked up at her, then down at the sea. He could see whitecaps and the fluid streamlines of windblown spume.
She matched his speed, now more than matched it. Gyrull was gaining, but so was the sea. He knew what she was trying to do, but how could she do it in time?
She mouthed something at him, though the sound was whipped away by the wind. What did she want him to do? Slow down! Gilhaelith spread his legs and drew out his coat on either side. It flapped wildly, the wind trying to tear it out of his grasp, but braked his fall a little. Would it be enough?
As the water came hurtling up, Gyrull flung herself at him, the claws of her outstretched feet striking him hard in the sides. They went straight through his coat and shirt, his skin and flesh, and in between his ribs. Gilhaelith screamed in agony. It felt as if the claws had gone right into his lungs.
She roared out words of power as the huge wings cracked to slow her plummeting fall. Something tore in his side; it felt as if the strain was stripping the ribs from his living flesh. Crack-crack, another tear. The pain was excruciating. The angled wings broke the free fall into a dive, then into a steep glide. His fragile brain throbbed from the power she'd used to keep them aloft.
He guessed trajectories. They must still hit the sea, and neither would survive it. Lyrinx were helpless in water, for heir bodies were too heavy to float Swimming was harder for them than flying, and panic soon pulled them under. Gilhaelith was a competent swimmer but could not survive these chilly waters to reach the shore, more than a league away.
Again his brain sang as she drew more power. The glide shallowed, the roaring waters rushed closer. She pounded her wings, digging into the salty air. Now they were just ten spans above the sea, now five, now three, two, one. His feet skimmed the water, the wings cracked harder and Gyrull lifted a fraction.
But the matriarch was very tired now. He could feel it in her movements, which were more sluggish than before, the slower beat of the wings, the droop of her neck. One claw slipped from between his ribs, leaving him dangling in the path of the swell. Driven by the wind, it was a good two spans high.
She tried to climb above it but only succeeded in dragging Gilhaelith through the crest. It broke over his head, drenching him. She let out a cry; her colours flashed and faded. He was sure she could not hold him. But Gyrull was not matriarch of a great and powerful race for nothing. Drawing on her last reserves of strength, she dug her claws further into his flesh, lifted him free of the water and slowly began to beat her way up.
The lyrinx surrounded her in a fluttering, spherical shell, offering their strength and shepherding her the last league to the shore of Meldorin. She hovered above a platform of yellow rock, a stone's throw from the water. Gyrull retracted her claws and Gilhaelith fell heavily, ruddy salt water streaming off him. Misty rain drifted down from the hills. It was as cool as Taltid had been sweltering.
Flashing dark browns and reds, colours he could not interpret, Gyrull settled beside him. He expected her to abuse him for his stupidity, but she bowed her head, displaying camouflage colours.
'I beg your indulgence. Tetrarch Gilhaelith,' she said hoarsely, inclining her head towards him. You startled me, but that is no excuse. The conveying code is a sacred one and I should not have dropped you under any circumstances What was it you wished to say to me?'
Gilhaelith lay on the wet rock, so frightened and dazed that he failed to capitalise on the advantage. A matter of the greatest moment, and great urgency too. It concerns the Snizort node that exploded and died to nothing.'
She tipped her head to one side, studying him with eyes like liquid gold. Her breast was heaving. 'Go on, pray.'
He pressed his fingers against the throbbing punctures between his ribs, praying her claws were clean. 'My knowledge of geomancy, and my studies of many nodes, tell me that a node cannot simply explode and disappear.' He explained how he came to know that. 'There must be some residue left behind to balance what has been lost. That residue, in the wrong hands, could be perilous indeed.'
'Present your reasoning, if you please, Tetrarch.'
Before he was finished, he saw, from the look in her eyes and the patterning of her skin, that she had reached the same conclusion. He had forgotten what a frightening intellect she had. Indeed, because the lyrinx ate human flesh and mostly fought with their bare hands, it was easy to underestimate them, to think of them as savages. That could be a fatal mistake.
'This residue,' said Gyrull, 'could be a mighty power, in the h
ands of someone who knows how to use it.'
'That is my belief,' said Gilhaelith.
'And you want it for yourself, of course.'
'I don't,' he said untruthfully, 'for I've never sought power over others. Knowledge and understanding are my passions. I would, however, like the opportunity to learn from this residue.'
'Then why tell me?'
'As a token of good faith, to set against my debt.'
Again that sideways, birdlike glance. 'You hope I'll gain for you what you can't get by yourself. And when the debt is repaid, what do you ask of me, Tetrarch?'
'My freedom. And carriage to a place where I may continue my work.'
'We'll see about that after my searchers return.'
Calling her lieutenants together, Gyrull spoke rapidly in a low voice. For once she displayed no skin-speech at all, and the others little more than blushes of yellow or grey. After a few minutes, three of the strongest lifted off from the platform and headed back across the sea, in the direction of Snizort.
'They go to establish the truth of what you've told us,' she said. 'We'll rest for an hour, then take you to Oellyll.'
'What's Oellyll?' said Gilhaelith.
'A city of ours, the best part of a day's flight from here.'
He felt the familiar panicky tightness in his chest, the difficulty of getting enough air. Once she had him there, it was unlikely she would ever let him go. And, held like a pet in a cage, subject to Gyrull's whims, he must eventually go mad.
After flying through dense cloud that night and all the next day, they arrived at Oellyll on a dark and rainy evening. Gilhaelith had no idea where in Meldorin they were. He was carried blind-folded through caverns lined with cut slabs of carven stone, into a deeper underground that the lyrinx had excavated out of rock. It was warm here, which was pleasant, for he was still saturated with an inner chill.
He learned nothing about Oellyll that night, save that it was ventilated by great bellows up on the surface. Several times he passed through their blasts of air, so strong that they almost tore him from the lyrinx's grasp. He was left in a warm room on a low platform which passed for a bed. It had an open doorway. They had no fear of him escaping for he could not stand up.
He lay on the platform, closed his eyes and did not wake for twenty-four hours, not even while their healers attended his injuries.
Seventeen
Two more days Gilhaelith spent in his room, lying on the platform without strength to raise his head. He had been badly hurt by immersion in the tat His liver troubled him, his head still throbbed, his heart would race for no particular reason and he felt incredibly weak. Walking the few hundred steps to the privy was beyond him. And the movement of those gallstone fragments along his internal ducts proved more excruciating than his most dismal imaginings.
Making matters worse, the food they gave him was a murky sludge the colour of rotting leaves. Reaching over the side of the platform, Gilhaelith dipped a finger in the bowl. The stuff turned out to be vegetable in origin, but quite bland. He pushed it away. The only vegetables he cared for were strongly flavoured ones, such as onions, turnips and radishes. He'd lived on a diet of slugs, pickled organs and other delicacies most of his adult life, and his palate craved exotic and the intense tastes. But if this pulverised goop was all he was going to get, he'd better eat it. He extended bony fingers, scooped up a gob of the green-brown muck, and swallowed. The repulsive blandness reminded him of his miserable childhood and the repressed memories exploded.
An orphan who had been dragged screaming out of his mother's lifeless body, he'd been carried to a far-off land by his loyal nurse, travelling by night and hiding by day. Gilhaelith had never learned why, or who he was, and had long since decided that he did not want to know. It could only cause him more trouble.
He'd never fitted in. Gilhaelith shivered as the distant memories ebbed and flowed. He'd been plagued by illness and stomach upsets as an infant. As a child, learning had been difficult, and if not for the patience of his nurse he'd still be illiterate. Once he'd mastered reading, though, and especially numbers, the whole world had opened up to him.
Then came the greatest tragedy of his life. His nurse fell ill and died, and Gilhaelith ended up in an orphans' home, fed on tasteless gruel and little enough of it. He thrust the bowl away so roughly that mush slopped all over the floor. In the home his stomach had begun to trouble him again and it wasn't until he began to feed on slugs, grubs, fish organs and other exotica that it had settled down.
Gilhaelith had been out of harmony with the world and had to fight it every step of the way, though the world showed him only brutality or indifference. Always an outsider, his feeding habits made him an object of derision and disgust. He was ostracised and bullied, and the only way he could cope was with absolute self-control. Forced to master his feelings and emotions, he had gradually extended that control to everyone around him, and then to everything.
Once grown to manhood, that iron control had helped him to accumulate great wealth, which allowed him to retreat to a place he could control completely. He'd built Nyriandiol so as to be master of his own environment, though he'd discovered that, without perfect understanding of the world, he could never have complete control. Gilhaelith, a man determined to overcome all obstacles, had set out to do just that. And first he had to discover why the world was the way it was. His life's work was born.
He'd become a geomancer and, after a century and more of study, the greatest geomancer of all, but his goal seemed as far off as ever. He still felt threatened — some unpredictable event might still overturn his carefully constructed existence. Then it had: Tiaan had appeared, and her amplimet had opened up all sorts of previously inconceivable possibilities.
But Tiaan had upset his control mechanisms. At first, because of his attraction to her, he'd found that exhilarating. Soon, however, his carefully structured life had fallen into chaos, which he'd found increasingly difficult to handle. Vithis had come, and Klarm. His servants had begun to plot behind his back. Then Gyrull had abducted him and Gilhaelith's hard-won control began to falter. He'd felt like an orphan again. In Snizort he'd allowed his relationship with Tiaan to founder. Gilhaelith regretted it, both for the loss of her friendship, and the loss of an apprentice worthy of him, but at the time there'd been little choice.
Since being trapped in the tar his life had careered out of control. His health grew worse each day, he felt ever more stressed and panicky and there were signs of breakdown that he could not admit to himself. He'd never thought he could be so vulnerable. The panic exploded, choking him.
In an effort to calm himself, he began to recite a list of minerals and their properties. He'd previously found rote exercise to be soothing in times of stress. He'd listed all the properties of quartz and fluorspar and was about to begin on calcite when his mind went completely and unaccountably blank.
Calcite, he thought. Rhombohedral crystals, sometimes prismatic or .., or …Nothing! He could not recall any of the dozens of properties on the list, not even the variety of its colours, only that calcite was mostly white.
He picked another mineral at random, barite. Nothing. Dolomite. Nothing. Sulphur. Nothing. Then, with a horror that could not be described, the entire catalogue of minerals faded from his mind. He'd known the list by heart for a hundred and thirty years, and in that time had never forgotten the smallest detail.
It's just exhaustion, he told himself. You're pushing too hard. Give yourself a chance to recover. He put the failure out of mind, or at least tried to, but the appalling thought kept returning. He hadn't been pushing at all — the recitation had been meant to be a comfort. And from there, only one conclusion was possible. During the escape from Snizort he must have damaged a part of his brain.
Gilhaelith did not try again; he was too afraid. In his long, long life there had been few problems he'd not been able to solve by intellect, geomancy or sheer will. He'd even found a solution to the vexation of human relations — he contro
lled everyone who came into his life. Those who could not be controlled he simply pushed away. Until Tiaan appeared, emotion had played no part in his existence, or so he liked to think. He was a man governed by pure reason, and if his intellect deserted him, what would he have left?
After a few more days' rest he was mobile again. Gilhaelith was tracing out the familiar journey to the privy for the third time in a few hours, hobbling like an old man, when a lyrinx fell in beside him.
'Would you come this way, please?' she said politely. 'The matriarch wishes to speak with you.'
Her tone gave no indication as to whether Gyrull was pleased or otherwise. He shuffled after her, unable to raise much interest either way. His illness preoccupied him all his waking hours. He had begun to wonder if he would ever recover.
Gyrull was standing at a stone table, an oval slab that rose from the floor on a tapered stalk carved out of the native shale. She was studying a collection of papers but put them aside as he entered.
'My people have come back from Snizort,' she said. 'You were right. There was a residue left behind by the failure of the node.'
'Did they recover it?'
'Unfortunately someone found it first.'
'Who was it?' said Gilhaelith. 'One of the scrutators?'
'It would appear so.'
His idea about the residue at the node-drainer had been an inspired guess. Now that it had been confirmed, Gilhaelith was furiously thinking through the implications. Could the residue have had anything to do with Tiaan's amplimet, its communication with the node and those strange threads it had drawn throughout Snizort? Or had so much power been taken from the node that it had been unable to sustain itself and had collapsed into nothingness — nihilium? Much depended on the answer. And how might it impinge on his life's work, to understand the workings of the world, and control them?
'This residue may give humanity additional confidence,' Gyrull added. 'But then, knowing they have it will benefit us, in a way …'
