Alchymist twoe-3

by Ian Irvine

  The trip was uneventful, the winds light and variable but generally assisting them They flew all afternoon and most of the night, arriving over the battlefield Sround five in the morning. Dawn was still some way off and there was no moon; the stars barely illuminated the hummocky ground.

  'The smell …' said Inouye faintly.

  Eleven weeks had gone by, and the maggots and scavengers had reduced the unburnt bodies to bone, sinew and hide, yet still the battlefield stank of its dead. The Aachim had buried their dead deep, but the other remains lay where they'd fallen. The stench brought it all back to Nish: the knee-deep, bloody mud, the futility of war. He put his hands over his nose and breathed shallowly. It helped, if only a little.

  Yggur laid one big hand on his shoulder. 'The sooner we begin, the sooner we can leave this place.' He checked something concealed in his fingers. 'Settle down over there, Inouye, by those pointed rocks. Stay at your post while we're gone; you never know what we may encounter here. Flangers, keep the watch. Cryl-Nish and Irisis, bring your tools.' He shrugged pack onto his back.

  The air-floater set down, the crusted ground crunching under the keel. Eiryn Muss slipped between the ropes and was gone without a goodbye. They followed Yggur over the side. An early autumn frost crackled underfoot. He moved purposefully towards a hump about fifty paces distant, which turned out to be a wrecked clanker. The oily smell reminded Nish of his time as an artificer.

  The mancer muttered to himself and a light glowed in his hand. He strode off to another hump. This one was a construct, tilted on its side with solidified mud holding it in place.

  'Keep watch,' said Yggur curtly.

  For what? Nish thought. A thousand lyrinx could be out there and we wouldn't see them.

  Yggur made ghost fire in his palm and held it up to the base of the construct while he walked around the machine. 'It's so like the original. Why, I wonder?'

  'Perhaps they felt it was perfect as it was,' said Irisis.

  'The Aachim's work is their art and they seldom make two objects exactly the same way. Rulke was their most bitter enemy, so to copy his creation must have been bile to them. Why did they not remake it in their own image?'

  'Perhaps they were afraid to,' said Nish. 'If they did not understand …'

  'Yes,' said Yggur. 'They've not been able to solve the secret of flight, which can only mean one thing — they didn't understand what they were doing. They copied his work blindly, afraid to make changes in case they modified something vital. We've found their weakness.'

  He went round it several times, studying everything, then prised open the hatch and climbed inside. A few seconds later he was out again, gagging.

  'There's a rotting corpse in there. We'll have to find another.'

  And burned underneath,' added Nish, 'doubtless destroying what we came for.'

  Yggur leapt down and set off across the rutted field, breathing heavily. They followed him in silence. Dawn was dabbing patches of colour on the eastern sky by the time they found another construct. This one was a wreck, the metal skin torn open and curled back on itself, the hatch completely gone and even the underside smashed in.

  'I doubt I'll find what I'm looking for here,' said Yggur, but he inspected it as carefully as the first. He did not spend much time in this one either.

  'There was a fire.' He wiped sooty hands on his cloak. 'It looks like the drive mechanism burst open. What's not burned has melted. Even the bones inside are charcoal.' Standing up on the shooter's platform, he scanned the surroundings. 'There's another. We'll have to be careful. The lyrinx may still keep an eye on this place.'

  That clanker was also ruined, and the one after. 'This could take days,' Nish said gloomily.

  'Why don't we go up in the air-floater?' said Irisis. 'I've seen this place enough times from the air to be able to find you a construct.'

  'It'll tell everyone within five leagues that we're here,' said Yggur, 'but I suppose we've got no choice.'

  They floated over the walls of Snizort. 'The Aachim constructs were concentrated to the west and north-west,' said Irisis. 'Over there.' She pointed west. 'I can see hundreds of them, close together.'

  The humps were clearly visible, and in the middle they saw a magnificent pavilion of golden sandstone, its carven dome standing on seven columns. In the distance a creek, dry save for a few small pools, meandered between the hills.

  'That structure wasn't there before,' said Irisis.

  'It'll be a memorial to the Aachim dead,' said Yggur. 'So much death! On a dark night the ghosts will be thick as mist.'

  Nish snorted. 'I don't believe in ghosts.'

  Nor did I, until I took pilgrimage to places where I'd sent armies to their deaths. My Second Army in Bannador; the thousand of my finest who fell in Elludore Forest. I wept for their lost souls, Nish. As will you, should you ever revisit Gumby Marth, or any other place where men's lives were in your keeping.' He went down the back to speak to Inouye.

  'Cheerful company, isn't he,' said Irisis, though she couldn't help thinking of the mancer she'd obliterated on the aqueduct at the manufactory. What hopes had she had? What dreams? What fears all too brutally realised? 'Bloody mancers!' They strolled after him. 'Down there, I think, Inouye' said Yggur. The pilot moved the steering arm and released a little floater gas. The machine had just begun to sink when she turned around. 'Something's there, Lord Yggur.'

  He did not correct her. Yggur seemed to be sniffing the air, his head questing this way and that. 'I sense it, too. It's .., a kind of defence, or protection! 'Against what?' said Nish.

  'I can't say, but it's likely to cause us some trouble.' 'Can't you break it?'

  'Only a fool would break a magical defence without understanding what it was for, or who put it there.' 'What's that?' hissed Irisis. 'Where?'

  'Way over to the west, by that loop of the creek. See the smoke?' She reached out blindly for the spyglass. Nish put it in her hand. 'Can you see what it is?' 'A camp fire. A big one, and wagons pulled by clankers, though they're the oddest clankers I've ever seen.' 'What's odd about them?' asked Yggur sharply. 'They're clankers below, but above they look like shacks.' 'Nothing to do with the scrutators, then,' said Nish. Appearances are everything to them.'

  'And rightly so,' Yggur observed, taking the spyglass. 'The outside is a mirror to what lies within.'

  My father was the most fastidious of men,' Nish countered, yet inside he festered.'

  The air-floater was closer now and he could see the contraptions unaided. There were three, each with a six-wheeled wagon connected behind. A host of people had emerged, staring up at them. Some were loading crossbows, others manning javelards.

  'Scavengers,' said Yggur.

  'Where'd they get the clankers from?' said Nish.

  'There are wrecked ones everywhere, and not just on this battlefield. The human maggots are always the first to get there.'

  'How can they use them without trained operators?'

  A question Irisis would do well to ponder,' said Yggur. 'But there are many with talents who remain outside the law.'

  'I meant, how do they get away with it?' said Nish.

  'The scrutators' writ no longer holds in this land, so the scavengers can do what they like. It's marvellous what human ingenuity can achieve when survival is at stake.'

  'Is that where the protection spell comes from?' asked Irisis.

  'I doubt it,' said Yggur. 'It's too strong, and doesn't have the right flavour, but we'll keep well away from their camp, just in case. Go down to the other side of the battlefield, Inouye. Stay low so they can't see where we're heading.'

  They descended to within a few spans of the ground, Yggur staring over the side, gripping the rope rail with both hands.

  'I'm losing the field,' Inouye sang out. She was drawing from a distant one, of course, since the Snizort node was completely dead. The rotor slowed until it was barely ticking over.

  'Try another.'

  She did so. 'Nothing.' Inouye looked anxious but-
determined. A threat to her controller was a threat to her and she would fight to protect it.

  'What's the matter?' said Yggur.

  'The field's still there but I can't draw from it.'

  'Can it be the protection?' Irisis wondered.

  'It must be' said Yggur. Let it drift, Inouye, and I'll make sure.'

  A breeze carried them further west. Shortly the rotor began to tick again and soon spun up to full speed.

  'Set down,' said Yggur. 'There, on that little mound. And keep a sharp lookout. If anyone comes, go up fast.'

  'What if it's lyrinx?' said Flangers, checking that the crank of his crossbow turned smoothly.

  'Use your initiative. Irisis, Nish, come with me.'

  They slipped through the ropes, dropping to the ground before the keel touched, and turned towards a group of damaged constructs that lay close together. Before they'd gone a hundred paces, Yggur, who was a little way ahead, stopped abruptly. He put his hands up, feeling the air in front of him.

  'Is it the protection?' said Irisis.

  'Yes. It's a defensive shell designed to keep out living things.'

  'What for?' said Nish.

  'The Aachim greatly revere their dead. It would distress them to leave the bodies here, in alien ground. Some day, as soon as they can manage it, they'll come back and remove the remains. Until that time they've protected them from scavengers and looters, and those who simply want to pry into what's none of their business. And also, I think, they'd want to keep people from studying their abandoned constructs. The ones outside the protection, you'll recall, were all ruined.'

  'How is the protection made, and maintained without the field?' said Irisis.

  'The Aachim have used sentinel devices, self-powered, for thousands of years. They may have linked dozens together to create this. Or it may be a more potent spell. It's a mighty work, however they've managed it.' Yggur was walking sideways, hands still in the air. They followed in silence. He seemed to be feeling, or sensing, for something.

  After a good while he stopped, moving his hands slowly in circles. His lips moved. Ah!' he said softly, pulling outwards as if peeling open the flap of a tent. 'Come through. Be quick. It's a strain to do this.'

  It looked odd, for the barrier, whatever it was, was completely invisible. It felt odder going through, a tingling of the skin that extended into Nish's ears and up his nose, only to disappear once he was through, though the soles of his feet itched for a long time afterwards. Inside looked exactly the same as outside. The sun was just as bright. He could hear birds calling, and the gentle tick of the rotor, and the same breeze ruffled his hair. Yet it was totally different. Nish felt enclosed. And also, that he was in a sacred place.

  Yggur strode past, not awed at all, heading for a pair of constructs, seemingly undamaged, some way further in. 'Come on. Those scavengers might come to investigate and I don't want to be trapped in here.'

  There were no bodies inside either machine. Yggur wasted no time. 'Nish, pull the base of this one apart and see if you can get the driving mechanism out in one piece. Irisis, we'll work in the cabin, to discover whatever we can about how it's controlled. We'll have to be quick.'

  The metal was cold but Nish had experienced far worse. And having spent so much time with Minis and the Aachim, he was quite familiar with constructs, even if he'd never taken one apart by himself.

  By the time the sun was halfway up the sky, he had removed the base plate and was struggling with the mechanism inside, a complicated structure of reciprocating metal parts set in a black metal casing the size of a small barrel. As he sat back, trying to work out how to remove it, he heard the hum of the rotor. The air-floater shot up and turned away.

  'Keep down!' hissed Yggur from above. 'If they see us, they'll hang around until we come out.'

  'Who?' said Nish, who couldn't see very far from his vantage point.

  'The scavengers.'

  Fifty

  Lying still, Nish felt the ground shake in that familiar thump-thump. A clanker went slowly by, greatly modified from its original purpose. The shooter's platform had been enclosed with pieces of metal in all shapes and sizes, and then roofed over with leaves of cast-iron armour from wrecked clankers. The roof bristled with metal spikes and the machine had a javelard at front and rear. Everything was rusted, makeshift and appallingly ugly.

  Metal screeched and squealed as it shuddered to a stop. Three men leapt out, wild-haired, dirty creatures dressed in rags and pieces of armour. All were armed with swords and knives, and two had crossbows strapped to their backs.

  One bent down, pointing. 'They've found our heel marks,' Yggur said quietly. 'Now they'll follow our tracks, coming this way but not going back.'

  'Better hope we didn't leave tracks all the way,' said Nish.

  The scavengers prowled around the curve of the barrier for the best part of an hour before returning to their machine and thumping off.

  'Get working, Nish,' Yggur called. 'You too, Irisis. I'll keep lookout. I don't think they've gone very far.'

  When the sun was as high as it was going to get, Irisis slid down the curved side of the construct. Yggur passed a sack to her, which she placed carefully on the ground in the shade, and sat beside it.

  'What's that?' said Nish.

  'All the controller workings.' Irisis picked at a broken fingernail.

  Do you know how to use them?'

  They've been disabled, but I expect we can work it out, said Yggur. 'How are you going, Nish?'

  'I've freed the driving mechanism,' he replied, "but it's too heavy to lift by myself. Even with three of us, I don't see how we're going to carry it to the other side of the harrier.'

  'Let's get it out first.' Yggur moved under the construct, which was tilted at an angle, having come down onto a boulder when the field failed. He began to pull. 'Irisis, get that stick over there. Put it underneath the mechanism and, as we pull it free, let it slide gently to the ground.'

  They did that, accompanied by much grunting and heaving, not to mention the near loss of Nish's toes when the mechanism slipped at the last moment; but finally it lay on the stony soil, undamaged.

  'Wait here,' said Yggur, heading for the invisible barrier a few hundred paces distant. He passed through, looking up for signs of the air-floater, and disappeared among the sparse shrubbery.

  Several minutes went by. 'I hope it hasn't gone too far,' said Nish.

  'Or worse,' Irisis replied darkly.

  Thump-thump.

  'The scavengers are coming back,' she added.

  'Afraid so.'

  'What are we going to do?'

  'Haven't a clue.'

  Neither spoke for several minutes. The clanker contraption reappeared, tracking along the outside of the barrier. The same three men got out.

  'I've just had an uncomfortable thought,' said Nish.

  'What's that?'

  'This protection keeps out living things, but the wind blows straight through it.'

  'I'm not sure what you're saying,' said Irisis.

  'What if they can fire their weapons through?'

  A big, hairy man climbed on top, peering in their direction with a rusty spyglass. The pair on the ground squatted down.

  'We're in trouble,' said Nish. 'Don't move. 'You're the one who's breathing so loudly,' Irisis retorted with her famous calm.

  'I hope Yggur sealed the protection when he went out.'

  The spyglass tracked across to where they huddled in the shadow under the construct, passed on, then came back. The hairy man shouted instructions, though Nish could not distinguish them.

  Shortly a woman emerged from the rear hatch of the clanker, pulling a child by the arm. The child, a girl of ten or twelve with tangled black hair, resisted. The man roared at the woman, pointing at the tilted construct. The woman screeched back, clipped the struggling girl over the ear and dragged her to the barrier by her hair.

  The girl shook the woman off, turned towards the hairy man, who was still roari
ng, and gave him a two-fingered sign. She poked her tongue out at the woman and received another clip over the ear.

  Pressing her grubby hands to the barrier, she stared through it. As her gaze passed across him, again the soles of Nish's feet tingled.

  'That's done it,' said Irisis. 'She must have a native seeker's talent.'

  'Doesn't explain how she found me,' said Nish. 'Since, as you frequently point out, I've got no talent at all.'

  'You make up for it in other ways, Nish.'

  The girl pointed at them, shouting excitedly.

  'Look out!' cried Irisis as the hairy man swung his javelard in their direction.

  No time to run. All Nish could do was flatten himself against the ground and pray that he made an indistinct target. The spear slammed into the base of the construct next to him. Irisis cried out.

  'Are you all right?' said Nish.

  'Just dirt in my eye. Run! Next time he'll put it right through one of us.'

  They scrambled out, clawing their way around the other side, where he would not be able to see them. Another missile whizzed by Nish's backside as he went.

  'He's bloody fast to reload,' Nish said, panting.

  'Now what do we do?'

  'Wait for them to go away?'

  'Have you got any water?'

  'No. Have you?'

  'No. It could be a thirsty wait.'

  'At least the company's good' said Nish.

  'I've been wondering when you'd notice,' she said, pretending to be piqued.

  'You know what I'm like—'

  'Slow!'

  'I have to work things out in my own way and my own time.'

  'But I don't. Come here.' She put her arms around him. 'I've missed you so badly, Nish.'

  And I you — you're my dearest friend.' After a long moment he pulled away. 'Sorry — it's too hot.'

  She sighed.

  'Yggur will do something,' Irisis said a good while later.

  'If they haven't got the air-floater already. There were three clankers, remember?'

  'That's comforting.'

  'Glad to be of assistance,' he grunted.

  'It seems to be getting hotter every second,' she said after another long wait. 'Do you think they're still there?'