Alchymist twoe-3

by Ian Irvine

  'How would we maintain Stassor, or any of our cities, without the Art?' said Harjax.

  'By intelligence and hard work,' she snapped.

  'The lyrinx would overrun this world all the sooner.'

  'They rely on the Art more than you think,' said Bilfis. 'Without it they cannot fly, in which case their wings are a hindrance rather than an advantage.'

  'Nor could they flesh-form,' said Tiaan.

  Every Aachim stared at her, as if a servant had just spoken up in a king's council.

  'Just so,' said Malien, smiling at their discomfiture. 'Neither could they use their spying devices. All they would have is their strength and native wit, which is less advantage than you might suppose, without a civilisation to support it.'

  Harjax jerked his head at an aide, who took Tiaan by the elbow. 'Would you come with me, please?'

  Tiaan shot up in her chair, thinking they meant to do her mischief, but Malien laid a hand on hers. 'Don't be afraid, Tiaan. My people only wish to discuss matters privately. You won't be harmed.'

  Tiaan went with the aide, uneasily. Though she trusted Malien, she'd also heard such assurances before.

  Forty-nine

  Nish was standing by the air-floater early the following morning, when Yggur appeared at the front doors. 'Come with me, Cryl-Nish.' He strode across the yard.

  Nish had to trot to catch up to him, which he found undignified. He followed the mancer up a set of stone stairs onto the outer wall, which was gravelled and as wide as a road, and down to a corner with a stone guard post, not presently manned, though Nish had seen guards there yesterday.

  Yggur turned to face him. 'Tell me about these tears your father found.'

  That endless night, and the hideous scene in Jal-Nish's tent, came crashing back as vividly as if Nish were there still.

  It unreeled from beginning to end and he could not stop it: Jal-Nish without the mask, the rage against the world. His father thrusting Nish's hands into the box, inside the tears, and that extra dimension it had temporarily brought to his sight, his other senses, even his emotions. And finally, Jal-Nish's alchymical compulsion. Nish opened his mouth but found himself too short of breath to speak. He swayed on his feet, even now feeling the urge to go to his father. The compulsion was painfully strong.

  Yggur reached out and steadied him. 'What secret are you hiding for your master?'

  The compulsion faded. 'I have no master,' Nish said shakily.

  'Another one!' Yggur gave a grim smile. 'It's no wonder the world falls into ruin.'

  'I'm not hiding anything, surr. I—' Nish's knees buckled and he slipped through the mancer's fingers, to lie sprawled on the floor.

  Yggur crouched beside him. 'What is it, lad? I touched a spell of sorts just then, didn't I?'

  'My father put it on me.'

  'Why, Artificer? Here, let me help you up. Calm yourself -take your time.'

  The memories, or the spell, faded. Nish explained about his part, and Irisis's, in condemning his father to life in a ruined body, and all the rest of it. 'Jal-Nish has hated Irisis ever since, and despised me, and I can't blame him. No man should have had to suffer what he's suffered. I should have let him die.'

  'Sometimes there are no right choices,' said Yggur. 'What was it like, when he put your hands into the tears?'

  'It's . . , impossible to describe. They were hot yet cold, hard yet yielding, metal yet liquid. They were far more than that, but I can't find the words for it. And then—'

  'Yes?'

  'Briefly, the touch of the tears heightened my senses. I think it was the tears, rather than the potion he forced me to drink. The moon became dazzlingly bright, and I could see through things that were solid. I saw the lyrinx twisted up and cramped into the rock pinnacles, stone-formed to ambush my father's army.'

  'Briefly, you say?'

  'By the following day it had faded, although the tears did change me.'

  'In what way?'

  'I—' Nish gave a shamefaced grimace. 'I used to be obsessed with myself; with achievement, success and being recognised for it. But after touching the tears, I saw things so much more clearly. I saw what the world would be like under tyrants like my father. What it will be like if the scrutator-remain in power.’

  'The tears did not change you in that way, lad,' Yggur said softly. 'You simply grew up.'

  'I have to fight this tyranny, whatever it costs me, but I'm terribiy, terribly afraid. I'm not a brave man, Lord Yggur.' 'Your companions tell a different story. About this spell — I wonder why it did not take?' 'Perhaps he'd not yet mastered the tears.' 'Let me see.' Yggur put his hands to Nish's temples and closed his eyes. 'Ah, I see it. It's made with a strange, alchymical kind of Art that I don't know much about.' It's still there?' cried Nish. 'Inside me?'

  'Just a trace, fortunately. Had you not brought up the bulk of the potion, you'd have become his slave.'

  Thanks to Xabbier's quick thinking. Nish wondered where he was now. 'Not for long. I'd have been killed with him.'

  But you weren't. And unless the spell is removed, a trace will remain there until you die.'

  'But—' said Nish. 'What if someone else compels me?' They could not, unless they had the tears.' That wasn't comforting. 'Can't you remove it?' 'Not without the tears.'

  Day after day, Yggur sat at the big table in his workshop, reading or writing in his journals as though nothing had happened. Nish could see how frustrated the scrutator was. After five days of inaction, Flydd went to see Yggur, taking Irisis and Nish with him.

  A map of the known world was spread out on the huge tabIe and Yggur was measuring distances on it with a pair of black calipers. He did not look up.

  We've got to get moving,' Flydd said abruptly. 'The lyrinx mature quickly. If we don't strike them now, by spring they'll have another army and they'll be unstoppable.'

  I have no grievance with the lyrinx,' said Yggur, making a notee in his journal. 'But you agreed to help us,' Flydd spluttered.

  'I agreed to give you a refuge for a few days, Scrutator. That doesn't make us bedfellows.' 'But I thought—'

  'You aroused my curiosity about the Numinator and the tears, but what I'm doing about that is my own affair. I'm not going to fight your wars for you.'

  'You're up to something!' Flydd said furiously. To have power, as Yggur undoubtedly did, and not want to use it, was incomprehensible.

  Yggur simply raised his hands in the air. 'Then leave. I didn't ask you to come here, consuming my supplies and disturbing my peace.'

  'You don't care about the fate of your own kind.'

  'If I were threatened by the lyrinx, would you have come to my aid?'

  'That's different,' said Flydd.

  'I see. Why don't you go to the Aachim?'

  'Our alliance was not a fruitful one,' Flydd said uncomfortably.

  'Meaning you've made enemies of your friends and now look to me to fix it for you.'

  'Vithis is an unreasonable man, even by your standards,' snapped Flydd. 'Besides, he's withdrawn to the Foshorn, near the southern corner of the Dry Sea—'

  'I know where the Foshorn is,' said Yggur. 'I've been there.'

  'The Aachim have driven out the people that dwelt there and closed the borders. Vithis isn't going to help us.'

  'Then you'll have to abandon Lauralin. Go north across the tropic ocean. You may find a haven in that hemisphere.'

  'The lyrinx breed like maggots,' said Flydd. 'In a few generations they'd overrun Lauralin and come after us. Win or lose, the battle must be fought now.'

  'You will lose,' said Yggur with such studied indifference that Nish wondered if he was testing their resolve before committing himself.

  'When you're the last human left alive, you'll regret that you did nothing for your fellows.'

  'I'm immune to emotional blackmail.' Nodding stiffly, Yggur went around the table and out.

  'Arrogant swine!' said Flydd as they were walking back to their rooms. 'To have such power, yet refuse to use it.' 'How
do you know he still has power?' Nish wondered. 'I don't suppose I do,' Flydd said slowly. I just assumed …Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps he hides here because his power is failing.'

  'But he does live in harmony with the lyrinx,' said Irisis. 'Why should he turn on them on our say-so? It's up to us,' she sighed. 'I suppose it always was.'

  'But what can we do?' cried Nish. 'We're exiles cowering in our hidey-hole a hundred leagues from Lauralin. We've got no army, no coin, just a handful of weapons and a decrepit air-floater. We've no friends, no influence, and face instant death if we return to Lauralin. How can we hope to overthrow the scrutators? How can we do anything at all?'

  No one spoke. They seemed shocked by the outburst, though Nish had only put into words what they'd all been thinking: they were deluding themselves.

  'I expected Yggur to take over' said Flydd. 'I was steeling myself for a fight to maintain our objectives. The last thing I expected was a complete lack of interest.'

  'Then we'll have to find a way to gain his support,' said Irisis.

  Flydd went out, head bowed, looking very careworn.

  For a long time after that, the scrutator did nothing but sit by the fire, reading Yggur's volumes of the Histories or, more often, just staring into the flames. The pain of his ancient torments troubled him more than usual, and Irisis often noted him sipping from a flask of poppy syrup, though not even that could bring him the oblivion he so desperately sought.

  'It's been my life's work to protect the people and the civilisations of our world,' he said one bitter night. 'To stop — if not to reverse — the long decline that's been going on ever since the Forbidding. In that time we've had failure upon failure, defeat upon defeat, and I'm forced to the realisation that I simply can't do it. No one can reverse the damage caused by the reign of the scrutators. It's too late.'

  'It's not like you to despair, Xervish,' said Irisis.

  'It's the only thing left to do. Ah, but it's a tragedy. The loss of Thurkad, the destruction of the College of the Histories. A hundred cities are gone; whole nations and cultures have disappeared. The past was a glorious place, Irisis, where men and women were free. The scrutators have turned the present into a slave pen. What can the future hold but a slaughterhouse for us all, until humanity is no more?'

  He began to weep, silently and terribly, and Irisis could not bear to see it.

  Another week went by, more painful than the previous one. In Yggur's absence, for he kept to his rooms, they debated the problem over and again. Whatever scheme was proposed, and there were many, the group always reached the same conclusion: there was no way a handful of people, in hiding so far from Lauralin, could affect the war.

  Irisis came back from a walk to Old Hripton, a fishing town a few leagues away along the bay, to find Flydd sitting on his bed, head in hands. She ducked out again before he could see her and went looking for Nish. Flydd had always been so strong, and had always known what to do. It hurt to see him laid so low.

  'Where the masters fail,' Irisis said to Nish, 'the peasants must take charge. It's up to you and me, Nish.'

  'I don't follow you.'

  'Come outside, where we can talk.' She led him into a chilly corner of the yard. 'Do you get the impression that Yggur knows more than he's letting on?'

  'It's just rivalry. No mancer can bear to be told what to do. And they've always got to go one better.'

  'That's not what I meant. I think Yggur, despite his gruff manner, does feel some sympathy for our cause. But he's been burned in the past and that's why he's withdrawn.'

  'Doesn't help us much,' said Nish glumly.

  'He was one of the greatest mancers of all time.'

  'A thousand years ago.'

  'He played a great part in the Tale of the Mirror, too. We've got to convince him to help us.' 'Good luck!' said Nish. 'I've an idea. I'm going to see him.' 'What are you going to say?' 'I won't know until I say it.'

  Nish followed her inside and down the corridor. She rapped on Yggur's door, which was firmly closed. There was no answer. She rapped louder. Go away!' he roared. Irisis took hold of the handle. 'Coming?' Nish, who was hanging back, shook his head. 'I've felt enough of the wrath of mancers for one lifetime. I'll see you later.'

  You coward,' she said amiably. She opened the door and slipped inside.

  Yggur was down the far end, working at a bench littered with objects familiar and unfamiliar. 'Go away, I said.'

  Irisis kept coming. 'I know you want to help us. You're a hard man, Yggur, but not a mean one. You'll happily turn the screws on Flydd, out of mancer's rivalry—'

  'It's not rivalry, Irisis. I'm not that petty.' He smiled ruefully. 'Well, hardly ever. It's not the man, but his office. The Council is notoriously corrupt. I'm sorry, but I just can't bring myself to trust a scrutator' 'He's not like them.' 'How do you know?' 'I'm a good judge of character—' Clouded by feelings for your lover.'

  'He hasn't been my lover for months, but I admire him as a man and a friend. Trust me.' 'Hmn.'

  'You're an honourable man, Yggur, and I don't believe you'd refuse us if you could help.'

  'Don't you?' he said, trying to stare her down. She held his gaze, defiant as always. 'Remarkable. Very well — I'll share what I have with you.'

  May I call Xervish Flydd?'

  With you alone,' he growled. 'Come here. You understand devices. Tell me what you think of this.'

  It looked like a glass onion the size of a grapefruit. She could see layer upon layer inside, each different, each made of glass etched or painted in colours and patterns, or bonded with geometric shapes in gold, silver and copper foil. A faint luminescence at the core was irregularly eclipsed as the layers revolved and rotated independently of one another.

  'It's beautifully made,' said Irisis. 'I've never seen such craftsmanship. Where did you get it?'

  'I've had it for hundreds of years, and before that it must have been through many hands. The man who . . , sold it to me claimed it was made by Golias the Mad, though I can't verify that.'

  'Didn't Golias invent the farspeaker?' she asked.

  Yggur gave her a keen glance. 'Indeed, though its secret died with him.'

  She touched a finger to the glass. 'What does it do?'

  'I haven't learned that, despite diligent study. I was hoping you might be able to help me.'

  'Me? But I know little of the Art.' As Irisis picked up the sphere, the internal layers spun.

  'I believe it requires a different kind of understanding — a capacity for thinking across the Arts, if you will.'

  'I've heard Flydd talk about Golias's farspeaker,' said Irisis. 'Could it not speak from one side of the world to the other?'

  'So the ancients have it, though all his devices failed on his death and no one has been able to reproduce them.'

  Yggur took the globe from her hand, replacing it on the bench. 'Now this is entirely my own work.' Reaching up to a high shelf, he brought down an object even more incomprehensible than the first.

  Made of metal, and rather heavy, it was shaped like a legless beetle the length of a man's finger. Its iridescent top was convex. Though flat underneath, it was so well made that the joins in the metal could scarcely be seen.

  'What is it?' she said.

  Yggur touched it at what, if it had been a beetle, would have been the rear. It emitted a high-pitched whistle and slowly rose off the table, to hover a hand-span above it.

  'Just a toy.' They watched it rocking in the air for a moment, whereupon Yggur touched it in the same place and it sank down, rather more quickly, to thump into the surface. He was panting from the strain.

  'You're trying to make a flying machine,' exclaimed Irisis.

  He took a while to get his breath back. 'Not as a weapon of war, merely for the intellectual challenge. I saw Rulke's original construct. I studied it as closely as I could, from a distance, and I destroyed it. For two hundred and seven years I've been trying to recover his secret, and this is all I've achieved.'

  '
No one else did better, until the Aachim came.'

  'And they made the real thing — eleven thousand constructs.'

  'But they had the original to model it on,' said Irisis. At least, what was left of it. And they haven't made them fly, only hover. No one but Tiaan has done more.'

  'Even so, I call this little thing a failure …'

  'But?' said Irisis. 'That's not the end of it, is it?'

  He gnawed at his lower lip; then, as if reversing a long-held policy in a moment of weakness he was bound to regret, said: 'I've a mind to take a trip in your air-floater, to the battlefield at Snizort. Hundreds of wrecked constructs lie there, I'm told. No doubt they've been disabled, but I may learn a thing or two. Of course, I'll need a skilled artificer to go with me …'

  He looked uncertain, as if not used to asking favours. The great mancer was vulnerable too. 'Will Nish come, do you think?'

  'I'll make sure he does.'

  'Tell him to bring his artificer's tools.'

  'He has none. He escaped Snizort with just the rags on his back.'

  Yggur frowned. 'Instruct him to go to my lower tool room and select what he needs. We may have to take a construct apart. What about you, Irisis?'

  I'll be there, if the scrutator will release me.' 'You said you had no master,' Yggur reminded her. She turned away. 'I meant it in a different way.' 'Ah, how you use words.'

  Flangers went with them too, and Inouye to pilot the air-floater. She was as meek and quiet as ever, though once or twice, when she moved the controller arm and the machine responded more precisely than before, Nish thought he detected the faintest of smiles. Yggur had worked his magic there as well, to Flydd's irritation. Flydd did not come. He had planned to refuse but Yggur hadn't invited him. The other passenger was Eiryn Muss, whom Flydd was sending back to Lauralin, where he could be useful.

  'How long to Snizort, Inouye?' Yggur said as they floated up from the yard and turned south-east.

  'Depends on the wind, surr. If it's strong behind us, we might be there in fifteen hours. If against us, it could take two days.'

  He studied the sky. 'Hard to tell what it's like up there. There's not a cloud to be seen.'