Alchymist twoe-3

by Ian Irvine

  Remarkably, in a few minutes Flydd had gained enough control to keep it circling around the centre of the room, using just the movement of one hand. It was a strain, though; he had to sit down and his fingers had stiffened into hooked claws.

  'Ready?' Yggur called.

  Flydd massaged his fingers until they would straighten.

  'Yes.’

  The beetle flier kept circling, its pattern unchanged. Minutes passed.

  'Knew it couldn't be done,' Flydd muttered. His gnarly hand was shaking. 'How much longer do I have to keep it up?'

  Yggur put his head around the door. 'What's happening?'

  'Absolutely nothing,' Flydd said with great cheer.

  Yggur scowled. 'All right, bring it back to the table.'

  'Can't you do that yourself?'

  'It's keyed to you and your Art, until you release it or I break your hold.'

  Flydd brought the flier down to the table. It landed on its side and thumped over onto its iridescent back. He touched it and the hum died.

  'No luck?' said Flydd, not displeased that the great Yggur had failed in front of witnesses.

  'You can leave now,' said Yggur evenly.

  They hurried to the door. Irisis lingered, looking back at him. 'You too!' he said in a forbidding voice. 'I've not had a second's peace since you arrived.'

  That afternoon Yggur called them back. There was no sign of his earlier euphoria. He sat with both elbows on the table, chin cupped in his hands, staring at the transfer controller.

  'All right, let's try it again.' He went into the other room.

  Flydd sent the flier up and circled it over their heads. There was silence from beyond the door. After a few minutes, the scrutator felt confident enough to try more complicated patterns: a series of vertical figure-eights, followed by a flat spiral down to the floor, another back up to the ceiling.

  Yggur cursed and banged something on the wall. It sounded like his head, thud-thud-thud. The flier dipped sharply, flipped end for end and slammed into a stack of books on the table. It spun around on its curved back, making a whistling hum, struck a pile of papers and sent them whirling into the air. The hum died away. Yggur burst through the doorway. 'What about that?' 'Fabulous!' said Irisis, running towards him. She stopped abruptly. 'What have you done to the scrutator?'

  Xervish Flydd lay on his side behind the big table, his arms clutched to his chest. One knee was drawn up; the other leg licked feebly, and his bloodshot eyes stared at the ceiling, unblinking.

  Falling to her knees beside him, Irisis put her head on his chest. 'His heart's going like a racehorse but his eyes are blank. What have you done to him, Yggur?'

  'Seizing control can be .., traumatic to the mind,' said Yggur, who looked rather shaky himself. 'Both minds, as it happens. I thought he'd be strong enough to endure it.'

  'Did you warn him, so that he could prepare himself?' she snapped. Irisis was a terrier when her friends were in trouble.

  'I wanted his reactions to be as natural as possible. Anyway, he's been working with the Art for most of his life. He knew the risks.'

  'I'd hate to be one of your enemies,' muttered Irisis, 'if this is the way you treat your friends.'

  Yggur put his hands on Flydd's head, and then on his chest. 'I don't have any friends, thankfully. He'll recover in an hour or two. Take him to his room and let him sleep, and don't come back. I've got a lot of work to do before we try again.'

  The scrutator recovered with no more harm than a piercing headache and a furious temper. He seemed to think that he had, somehow, been unmanned, which made Irisis even more livid. However, in the morning he was ready to try again.

  'Are you sure you're prepared for this?' said Irisis. 'Do you want me to take your place?'

  'I don't think that's such a good idea,' Flydd said without elaboration. 'I know what to expect now.'

  They began again. The iridescent metal bug flew in figure-eights about half a span below the ceiling. Flydd stood leaning against the table, his eyes following the flier, his fingers barely moving.

  Time passed. Nothing happened. 'What's Yggur doing, do you think?' whispered Nish.

  'I haven't got a clue.'

  Flydd groaned and slipped to one knee, but his fingers kept moving and the flier held to its pattern. There came a cry from the next room, swiftly cut off.

  Nish thought he detected a faint smile on the scrutator's face. 'He's not letting go this time,' he said quietly to Irisis. 'He's making Yggur work for it.'

  'He's a proud fool,' said Irisis. 'Yggur is stronger than he'll ever be. He'll kill himself. I'm going to stop it.'

  Nish caught her wrist as she passed. 'Never interfere in the affairs of mancers. Surely you know that?'

  She swung her other hand at him, but he caught it as well. Irisis looked furious but it passed in a moment and she sat down, watching the scrutator. Flydd's other leg collapsed. He wobbled on his knees, his teeth bared, but his fingers still moved. While there was breath in his belly he was not going to give in to Yggur.

  Another cry ripped through the door. Yggur let out a bellow and the flier dipped in the air.

  'Ugh!' Flydd grunted, but regained control and flew another perfect figure-eight.

  'Be damned!' roared Yggur, sounding as if he was thumping from one wall to another.

  The air rushed out of the scrutator's lungs and he subsided gently to the floor, still smiling. His fingers stopped moving.

  The flier turned sharply, bounced off the wall, jagged across the room, struck the door and disappeared through it.

  'Ha!' cried Yggur. 'I knew I could do it.' Then silence.

  Irisis lifted Flydd to his feet. 'I'm all right,' he said in a faint voice. 'I showed him a thing, didn't I?'

  'Bloody idiot!' Letting him fall, Irisis hurried into the other room.

  Yggur lay on the floor with the flier clutched in his hand, and he was actually smiling. 'We can do it. I never believed it would be possible.'

  That evening, Irisis had just carried a tray into Yggur's room when a servant came running in, carrying a message pouch. 'It's from Uritz, surr, by skeet, and it's marked of the utmost urgency.'

  Yggur dismissed the servant, pulled himself up in bed and broke the seal of the pouch. He still looked wan.

  'Do you want me to leave?' said Irisis.

  He did not answer. Yggur was staring at the paper as if he could not believe what was written there. Irisis felt her skin crawl. Another defeat? Was ruin imminent?

  He threw the paper aside, slid the tray to the other side of the bed and levered himself out. Standing on shaky legs, he began to dress.

  'What is it? You must rest, Yggur.'

  'There's no time. It's come from a spy I have near Alcifer, sent this morning. The skeet must have burst its heart getting here so quickly. A flying construct came across the sea from the east yesterday, went well north of Alcifer, crossed the range and circled back after dark. It's now believed to be hidden in the forest somewhere near the abandoned city. This is our chance!'

  'But you're not ready,' said Irisis. 'You could barely control that little flier, and it put you into your sickbed. How are you going to seize a construct?'

  'I'll have to. I thought we'd have to go all the way to Stassor and try to find it, with all the risks that entails. Now it's right in my own territory. There'll never be another chance like this. But if we know about it, chances are the enemy do too. Call everyone together. We're going in the air-floater — tonight.'

  In the end they did not get away until dawn, and with a headwind made agonisingly slow progress, so that it was long after dark before they reached the vicinity of Alcifer. They turned north, sitting the night out on a frigid mountain peak, and took off before sunrise the next morning.

  'Stay higher than they can fly,' said Yggur to Pilot Inouye. 'Should a lyrinx come on us unexpectedly, the war could end right here.'

  'They'll surely see us,' said Fyn-Mah. 'Their eyesight's not that bad.'

  'I don't m
ind them knowing we're here. Ghorr often sends air-floaters over the lyrinx cities, spying. But keep to the clouds as much as possible. If the flying construct is still here, and pray that it is, we don't want to alert it.'

  They circled high over Alcifer all day, examining the city and its surroundings with Yggur's spyglass, which was the best to be had. When the mist and rainclouds parted, they could see slaves working in the gardens, and their lyrinx guards, but there was no sign of a flying construct.

  'Your spy must have been mistaken,' Flydd said at the end of a long, tedious day. He had spent most of it lying on the floor of the cabin holding his stomach.

  They were flying within the base of the clouds, which made it difficult to see. 'Not Uritz—' Yggur broke off to train his spyglass on a lyrinx that was labouring up towards them, its wings straining in the thin air. It was not the first: half a dozen had already inspected them that day. 'That's an unusual beast. It's built more like a human than a lyrinx, and its skin's got no pigment at all.'

  The lyrinx almost met their height. It circled just out of javelard range, watching them with its large eyes, before wheeling around and diving back towards Alcifer.

  'If the flying construct was here,' said Flydd when the sun was about to disappear below the horizon, 'it isn't any longer. Let's go home.'

  He broke into another fit of coughing, ending with a groan. The struggle with Yggur had hurt him more than he dared show.

  'We're going nowhere,' said Yggur. 'They could be hiding, waiting for us to go away. After all, they'd assume that this air-floater belongs to the Council.'

  They returned to their rocky peak for the night, and went back on station the following morning, though this time they floated so far from Alcifer that they would have been no more than a speck against the overcast. Again they saw nothing.

  They were taking an early lunch on the third day of their watch when Flydd, who had been looking green all morning, stood up, groaned and collapsed against the rope mesh outside the cabin. He slid along the rope and had started to slip through, when Nish caught him by the arm and hauled him back. Irisis helped to carry him inside, where they laid him on the canvas bench at the front of the cabin.

  Nish checked Flydd's pulse, which was fast and erratic. His skin was clammy. 'It's not good, Irisis.'

  She stood up as Yggur came through the door. 'He's ill, Yggur.'

  'We can't leave now. It's there somewhere.' Yggur paced to the fabric door and back. 'He'll be all right.'

  'He looks bad.'

  'He did this damage to himself, trying to prove he was as good as me. He's not, and I'm not turning back. If we can take this construct—'

  'The damn thing's not here. And if it were, do you value the life of a scrutator less than some damned machine?'

  'I wouldn't swap the flying construct for a hundred scrutators,' said Yggur.

  'If I were a mancer, I'd blast you clear across the Sea of Thurkad,' she said furiously.

  'Your loyalty outweighs your common sense, Artisan. A flying construct means the difference between certain defeat and possible victory. We're going nowhere until I'm satisfied that it's here, or gone.'

  It was an unpleasant lunch. As they were finishing, the scrutator's groans gave way to a laboured panting.

  'He's really ill,' Irisis wept as they circled towards the mud terraces again. 'Can't you do anything, Yggur?'

  'I'm not a healer,' he replied.

  'There's a good one in Old Hripton.'

  'How did you know that?'

  'I've been down there several times. Women's troubles.' 'Oh!' He wasn't going to ask about that. 'If we get back in time you may take him there.'

  'Unless we go right away we won't be in time.'

  He folded his arms across his chest. 'No man is worth more than humanity, as I'm sure Flydd would agree.'

  Irisis had heard the scrutator say such things more than once. It made no difference — her friend and one-time lover was really ill. If she could have wrested control from Yggur, she would have. But that, of course, was impossible. She vented her fury at him as only she could. He ignored her.

  They slid into a veil of high cloud that covered most of the sky. Nish took up a spyglass, though his mind was no longer on the search. Looking through the cloud was like peering through a silk scarf. Far below, mist clung to the ridges, and only the tips of the spires and domes of Alcifer rose above it.

  'There's a lot of activity this afternoon,' he said after a while. There were at least a dozen lyrinx in the air.

  Irisis cast a bitter glance towards the rotor, where Yggur stood with Inouye, and went inside to check on the scrutator. Nish followed her, blanched at the sight of Flydd and did not stay long.

  'Something's going on,' Nish muttered a little later, peering through his spyglass.

  The air-floater continued to circle within the base of the cloud. Irisis stalked from the watch to the cabin, and back to the watch, a dozen times. The mist thinned over Alcifer but still clung to the ridges. Scudding rain-showers obscured their view most of the time.

  Irisis appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily. 'He's failing, Yggur. We've got to go now'.'

  'I've seen it!' snapped Yggur, staring through his spyglass.

  Nish swung his own glass in the direction Yggur was looking, sweeping it back and forth as he tried to penetrate the mist. He could not see a flying construct, but its metal skin would not be easy to pick out against the mist-hung forest.

  There were more lyrinx in the air than before, and yet more rising out of Alcifer.

  'Where is it, Yggur?' he called. 'You mightn't see it — it's under some kind of concealment and I don't dare try breaking it from here.'

  'He's failing, Yggur,' Irisis repeated. He didn't seem to hear her.. She ran down and began beating him around the shoul-ders and head. He laid down the spyglass and caught her wrists, holding her easily. She tried to kick him.

  'Stop it!' Yggur roared. He dragged her into the cabin, where Flydd lay panting on his bench.

  Putting his hands to Flydd's belly, Yggur muttered a few words. The lines faded from the scrutator's face and his breathing eased. Yggur shook him, gently.

  'Scrutator? Wake!'

  Flydd's eyes opened. 'Yes?' he said in a scratchy voice.

  'I've found the construct, but the lyrinx are rising and if we don't act now they must take it. And yet, Scrutator Flydd, you're very ill. Your resistance to the transfer controller must have burst something internally. I can ease the pain, as I just did, but I can't save you. Only a healer can.'

  'Get on with it,' Flydd muttered, irascible to the last.

  'But if we turn back now we must lose the construct, and all our plans fail with it. I give you the choice, Scrutator. What do you say?'

  'You bastard!' said Irisis.

  Flydd stared up at the ceiling.

  'Do you understand what I'm saying, Scrutator?' said Yggur.

  'I do,' he rasped.

  'Well?'

  'Of course you must take the flying construct. Why do you have to ask?' Flydd's head fell sideways and the laboured breathing renewed.

  Yggur ran outside and focussed his spyglass. Not finding what he was looking for, he cursed and ran back, to lug out a wooden box.

  'Hundreds of lyrinx are rising out of Alcifer,' he rapped.

  'But where are they going? Flangers, you've got the best eyes, can you see the construct?' Handing him the spyglass, he began to unpack the transfer controller.

  The rotor missed a beat. Inouye let out a frightened squawk.

  'What the hell's going on?' said Yggur.

  The mud terrace above the ridge erupted as a geyser roared thirty spans in the air. A roiling cloud of dirty steam burst out in all directions and they lost sight of the ridge, as well as the drama unfolding below.

  'That can't have been an accident,' Fyn-Mah said quietly.

  'Let's see what the result is,' said Yggur.

  'The lyrinx are heading that way,' said Nish.

  'I
can see the construct!' Flangers hissed. 'There — at the end of that ridge. There are people around it, though I can't tell if it's on the ground or above it. No, it's flying. It's just gone out over the edge. There's a flying lyrinx there. Looks like it's carrying something. It's gone down into the trees. I think the construct's crashing. No, it's all right.'

  Nish found it now, a shadow creeping in and out of the mist. Flangers was silent for a minute.

  'It's coming up again,' said Flangers. 'It's landing on the ridge. Someone's getting in. Now it's lifting; it's moving very slowly. The enemy are coming fast, forming a circular wall around it.'

  'Should I go down?' Inouye asked softly.

  'Yes. No! Wait.' Yggur was uncharacteristically irresolute. 'No. They'll tear us to pieces. How is your power, Inouye?'

  'Steady,' she said.

  'Stay at this height.'

  'Aren't you going to use your wonderful transfer controller?' Irisis ground the words out.

  'When the time is right,' said Yggur. 'What do you see now, Flangers?'

  'It's turned west, moving very slowly. They're going to catch it.' A long pause. Flangers adjusted the spyglass. 'No, it's shot up through the circle. It's leaving them behind.'

  Yggur cursed. After it, Inouye! Stay in the clouds. We don't want them to see us.' 'Why not?' said Nish.

  'It'll make it harder to seize control. Flangers?' The air-floater turned, the rotor whirring, and soon a vig-orous tailwind drove them swiftly west.

  'It's slowing again,' said Flangers. 'The lyrinx are catching it.'

  'They must be controlling its field,' said Yggur after they'd watched the construct's stop-start progress for some consider-able time. 'I wonder how they're doing that? I don't dare try to take control while it's having trouble drawing power. All that's keeping it ahead of them is the skill of the pilot. I can't duplicate that from here.'

  'If at all,' Irisis said under her breath, and turned back to the cabin.

  'It's going the way we want,' she heard Yggur say as she went through the door. 'Keep shadowing it, Inouye.'

  Flydd's knees were drawn up into his chest, his face wracked. His breathing was barely detectable. She took his hand. He was going to die, uselessly. Even if, by some miracle, Yggur did succeed in seizing control of the construct, he'd never fly it. He'd barely controlled his little flier from the next room. The construct would fall out of the sky, destroying itself and everyone inside, and the lyrinx would feast on their remains.