by Ian Irvine
Taking up her packs, Ullii trotted after Ghorr, up the stairs, along the corridors, out through the vast double doors and down the broad steps onto the paved area, as large as a parade ground, that ran from fortress Nennifer to the towering cliff that fell into the Desolation Sink. She stopped in shock. The paved area was crammed with monstrous air-floaters, reaching above the topmost storey of Nennifer, which was five floors and a steep roof above the ground. Each was supported by no less than five cigar-shaped balloon bags as long as the trunk of a forest tree. Four were arranged at the corners of a diamond, one each at front and rear, another out to either side. A fifth, smaller balloon was suspended in the centre. The vessels slung beneath the balloons were more than twenty spans long and their side decks were packed with weapons whose design was unknown to her, though each looked deadly.
The machines were painted in brilliant reds and yellows, like poisonous reptiles, for they were intended to be seen and feared. Barbaric designs decorated their prows — vicious creatures with gnashing teeth and bloodstained tusks, or devices spitting fire or venom.
There were sixteen of the air-floaters, and drawn up at the front of each stood a squad of heavily armed soldiers, in a rank of five by five, with two officers before them. There were almost as many mancers, artisans, artificers and servants.
'What do you think of our air-dreadnoughts?' said Ghorr beside her. 'Aren't they the most magnificent sight you've ever seen?'
'I hate them,' she said fiercely, for their auras reeked of violence.
He smiled patronisingly. 'It doesn't matter what you think, little Ullii. Just find Flydd and Irisis, and we will have your revenge for you.'
In a flash she understood just how badly she had blundered. She didn't want revenge, but retribution, and it had to be with her own hands. Taking that away rendered it meaningless, vicious.
Ghorr shouted orders. People ran in all directions, in what appeared to be confusion but was carefully orchestrated, then she was urged up the ladder into the first air-dreadnought of the fleet, and ushered inside.
With a flourish of cornets, Ghorr's machine loosed its tethers.
The great triple rotors began to tick, then whirr, its nose lifted and it rose into the sky. She could feel the drain on the field, which manifested itself as a swirling yellow pattern across her lattice.
The others followed, one by one, taking care to keep their distance. When all were in the air they manoeuvred into formation, signalled to each other with flags and then turned towards the west, to pick up the rest of the scrutators in Lybing. And then, on to the hunt.
The journey took days, though it was mostly uneventful, for which Ullii was glad. Used to shutting the world out, she found the proximity of so many hard, relentless people unbearable. She could not sleep in the great cabin, as the racket of chatter, snoring, belching and farting never stopped. On the second night she climbed onto the roof, found a recess sheltered from the wind and spent the night there, wrapped in blankets and coat. It was miserably cold but she was used to that. The air was fresh and the constant wailing of the wind blurred out the sounds of the fifty people below.
Only once during that journey did anything of note happen. It was about a week after they had departed Nennifer — Ullii did not count the days — and the fleet had just sailed high over the Sea of Thurkad, heading towards Meldorin Island and the ancient city of Thurkad, whose fall had heralded the loss of the west.
Ullii was standing at the bow, where the air streaming in her face protected her from the stink of unwashed humanity, when her keen hearing picked up Ghorr's voice, just outside the forward cabin door. He was talking to Scrutator Fusshte.
'Are you still going to give a demonstration?' Fusshte asked. His sibilant tones always made Ullii shiver, and the way he looked at her was worse.
'When I find the best target,' said Ghorr. 'I'll send a warning to our enemies not to take us too lightly.'
'And to our friends!' Fusshte chuckled nastily.
'Indeed' said Ghorr. 'There's not a single person on Santhenar who should not know what I can do, and beware! Fusshte took a step backwards, just managing to control his alarm. 'Quite,' he said smoothly. 'People have come to doubt the power of the scrutators. After this, they'll be in no doubt at all.'
Ghorr called the captain of his personal guard. The man listened carefully, saluted, then gave orders to his signalman, who began to pull his coloured flags up and down. After checking the acknowledgment with a spyglass, he reported back to the captain.
The air-dreadnought turned slowly. The others followed it, maintaining their formation, until they were heading directly for the southern section of the city of Thurkad. Ghorr consulted a plan and gave further orders, which the signalman relayed.
'Just there,' he said to the captain, pointing. According to my intelligence, many lyrinx house themselves in that one.'
They were now close enough for the largest buildings of Thurkad to be distinguished. Ghorr's outstretched arm indicated one of a series of tall wooden warehouses, built on the edge of the wharf city that formed the seaward rim of the city proper. Lyrinx soared in the air though, as yet, none approached them. This mighty armada would be the match of hundreds of flying lyrinx, and flew above the height they could reach.
Artificers now pulled the cover off a large metal mirror, the best part of two spans across, and swung it out. But it was more than just a mirror, for it had a complicated controller apparatus at the back, and an operator to use it. On the other air-dreadnoughts, similar devices were being moved into position.
More signals were sent. At the bow, a young woman in a green and grey uniform turned over a minute-glass. The air-dreadnought floated ponderously towards the target. The operator made continual adjustments to his mirror, reflecting the sunlight in a narrow beam across the bay, and then at the wharves ahead. The beams of the other mirrors followed the first, making a tight cluster of bright dots.
'Ten,' called the young woman. A man behind her raised a series of signal flags, one after another, as she counted down the numbers. 'Five, four, three, two, one. Now!'
The signalman swept down his red flag. The mirror operator stood up on his toes, drew power into the mighty controller crystals and pulled down a lever. The air-dreadnought shuddered.
Ullii felt a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach as the field — what was left of it — tried to tie itself in knots. For an instant the rotors stopped completely, and there was silence, apart from wind whistling through the ropes and wires.
The beams of all sixteen mirrors converged on a single point, the top floor of the warehouse Ghorr had indicated. Suddenly they were amplified a thousand times by the power from the controller crystals. The bright spot became incandescent, burning straight through the tiled roof. The timbers erupted in flames and within seconds the roof, fifty spans long and twenty wide, was gone.
The bright spot moved down inside, fire leaping up after it, before smoke belching from the warehouse blotted it out. A single lyrinx fled out through the roof, one wing aflame, before wheeling down to smack into the water beside the wharf.
The smoke sucked back down momentarily; then, in a colossal explosion, the walls of the warehouse blew out, raining burning debris everywhere and setting fire to the neighbouring buildings. Burning lyrinx fled through the doors and windows.
'Must have been an old store of naphtha barrels in there,' Ghorr said with a grim chuckle. 'But we won't mention that in our reports, eh, Fusshte? Let the world think we did it all.'
The mirror operator was standing up in his seat, helmet askew, mouth agape.
'Marvellous,' said Fusshte in a choked voice. He cast a side-ways glance at Ghorr that told Ullii a lot. Suddenly, Fusshte was afraid of the chief scrutator.
Ullii became aware that the pilot was shouting. The rotors were still running irregularly and there was barely anything left in the field. Down below, a score of lyrinx tried to take to the air but none could get aloft.
Ghorr, Fussht
e, and the pilot and operator had a hurried conference by the rail. With all the cheering, Ullii only caught part of it. They were worried by what had happened to the field.
'That'll have to be all,' Ghorr said regretfully. 'I'm not going to spoil a brilliant success by a failure. If there's no power there's no power. It'll look better if we just sail majestically on. Still, we've given them a shock they'll not forget.'
They drifted with the wind and, some leagues west of Thurkad, the operators picked up another field, though the rotors were still running irregularly. It appeared the surge of power had damaged something. Ullii was pleased about that. The ruin wrought by the mirrors had horrified her.
That night they passed over the mountains of Bannador, and the higher ranges beyond, which were covered in snow from top to bottom. 'Where do you think they are?' said Fusshte in the night. 'Shazmak? It lies south of our route.'
'Why would they go to Shazmak?' said Ghorr. 'They'll be somewhere where they can buy food, or hunt for it. Isolated towns survive in the north of Meldorin, I'm told, and on the west coast.'
In the morning they landed on a grassy plain, where they could see for leagues in any direction, though four of the air-dreadnoughts remained in the air, on watch.
'We're some little way north of the ruins of Chanthed,' said Ghorr, 'where the College of the Histories stood. The Plains of Folc lie north of us. To the west the plains run for fifty leagues into the Silbis Drylands. The western mountains lie beyond that, by the coast. Somewhere there we'll find them.
'Now,' he went on once the machine had settled on its triple keels, 'it's your turn, Ullii Find the traitor Flydd. Find Irisis Stirm, who lied to you and abandoned you. Find Cryl-Nish Hlar, the man who made you pregnant. The one who murdered your brother and destroyed your helpless baby. And then, lead us to them, so we can take your revenge for you.'
Ullii had had much time to dwell on her retribution on the journey here. Since the attack on Thurkad yesterday she'd thought about little else. Nish had done those terrible things, and deserved to be punished, but Ghorr was a wicked man, a brute and a liar. How could it be right to give up her former friends to him? She could not decide. She wanted to deceive him but did not know how. I won't give them up, she thought. But Nish does deserve to be punished …
'Well, Seeker?' growled Ghorr.
'I .., can't see Flydd in my lattice,' she said. 'Nor Irisis.' It was the truth. Lately her lattice had been ever harder to see and she could no longer deny it. She dreaded that it would go completely, taking her unique life of the mind with it.
'Have you ever seen them, or any other sign of them, since we came west?'
'No.' Sweat prickled in her armpits, in spite of the chilly weather.
He skewered her with his all-seeing eyes. 'Then we must go up. We'll fly in a square, south, west, north and east, and you'll keep watch.'
'Yes,' she whispered.
They flew south. 'Can you see them?' Ghorr asked, halfway across the traverse.
'No,' she gulped.
They flew west. 'Can you see them now?'
Ullii shook her head. They headed north, then east, and ever Ghorr asked, and ever the answer was the same. By late that afternoon he was growing impatient. 'If all this has been for nothing …" he said menacingly.
Fusshte whispered in his ear. 'All right,' said Ghorr. 'You have my leave.'
Fusshte gave Ullii the look that always made her skin creep. Ghorr broke people like her, but Fusshte devoured them.
'Come inside the cabin with me, little Ullii,' Fusshte said in that voice as dry as the rustling of a snake's scales. 'I have some questions for you …'
'I'll try harder' she squeaked.
'I thought you might,' said Ghorr. 'Go east another two leagues,' he said to the pilot, 'then turn south and keep going, expanding the square by two leagues each circuit. If they're anywhere on Meldorin, we'll find them.'
Fusshte looked like a viper who'd had his dinner stolen.
It wasn't until the following evening that Ullii picked up a trace. She let out a little gasp and tried vainly to conceal it, but the chief scrutator missed nothing. 'You've found them.'
'I can see something,' she said in a tiny voice.
Ghorr was on her in three powerful strides. 'Who, Seeker?'
'I don't recognise it.'
Ghorr and Fusshte exchanged glances. 'It's a trick' Fusshte said in a low voice, but not too low for Ullii's keen ears. 'She's trying to protect them. If she picked up anyone, it would be Flydd. He's the strongest.'
'Maybe,' said Ghorr. 'And maybe not. Her talent defies analysis. It could be anything.' He turned back to the seeker. 'It's not lyrinx, is it?'
'No.'
'Not a node or field?'
'No.'
'It's human, isn't it?'
'Yes.' She barely exhaled the word.
'Where?' Ghorr seized her by the shoulders, but let her go at once. The time for threats was past. 'Which way, Seeker?' He put on a kindly voice but his eyes were like shards of glass.
Ullii gestured. 'A long way. As far as I can see.' South-south-west,' said the pilot.
What's down that way?' said Ghorr.
The pilot consulted her map. 'We're here at the moment.' Her pointed fingernail, which was tinted yellow, marked a range of hills that ran west from the mountains almost all the way to the Silbis Drylands. 'Below us, according to the map, there used to be towns and scattered villages, running to forest in the east, up against the mountains. To the west it's just empty desert. Further south the desert passes into scrub and then into the swamp forests of Orist, which run on for fifty leagues, though much of that is said to be impassable.'
'Not to us,' said Ghorr. 'I need more, Ullii. Where on the map do you sense this person?'
Ullii, after much prompting, drew a large circle with her finger. It covered most of southern Meldorin.
'That's not good enough!' hissed Fusshte. 'Seeker—'
'Leave her,' said Ghorr. 'The talent only gives direction, not distance. Strong talents, or strong Arts, she may pick up from hundreds of leagues away, while insignificant ones could elude her from the other side of the hill. We'll follow her path until the destination becomes clear, then wait for night. I don't want to alert them — if it is them.'
'What does it matter?' said Fusshte. 'We've got power enough in these sixteen air-dreadnoughts to overcome any enemy. How can Flydd's ragtag band trouble us?'
'They've given us trouble aplenty over the past year,' snapped Ghorr. 'If Flydd realises we're coming, he may find a way of hiding, even from Ullii. Take nothing for granted, Scrutator.'
The hunt continued, but the next time she looked Ullii found nothing at all. It was not that their quarry had disappeared but, rather, as if something was blocking that part of the lattice. By now she was so worn out with seeking that there was no choice but to stop for the night. Ghorr was furious.
Sixty-one
Gilhaelith had spent the previous day lying on his damp palliasse, brooding. It was an outrage that he should be controlled by such a collection of fools. He could not suffer it. The attack on Nennifer would certainly fail and the scrutators would come to Fiz Gorgo in force, to seize whatever Yggur had left behind. Finding Gilhaelith here, they would slay him out of hand.
It was clear that humanity was going to lose the war, so the safest place for him was Alcifer. He was going back, even if he had to slog all the way through the swamp forests of Orist. Nothing could stand in his way. Tiaan's remark about the nodes being linked had opened up a whole avenue of possibilities. The key to his project was not the nodes, as he'd always thought, but the way they were linked and force transferred between them. He was just a whisker away from his goal, but he needed the geomantic globe to prove it. And then, true mastery would be his. And real power too, if he wanted it — enough to heal himself; enough to ensure that he was never at the mercy of others again; enough to control the power available to other mancers, if he cared to; enough, just possibly, to protect the wo
rld he'd gone to such lengths to understand, from all mancers.
How to get away? He'd been stripped and searched carefully before they put him in this cell. The guards had taken his clothes and given him fresh ones, in case he'd had some device secreted about his person, as he had. He got up and began picking moodily at ice that had formed below a seeping crack in the wall. It was a dirty yellow colour, like urine. His breath steamed; it was miserably cold and he wasn't used to it.
Someone rapped at the door — a guard with his dinner. He rapped back, then moved to the rear of the cell. If he didn't the brute would simply take it away. Two armed guards watched the whole time the door was open. The third guard placed the tray on the floor inside the door and went out.
Gilhaelith cast an eye over the meal. Clear soup, invariably lukewarm, a piece of overcooked fish, boiled vegetables and dry bread. Misery! He'd requested freshly salted live slugs, pickled pigs' ovaries and other delicacies he'd been used to in Nyriandiol, but the guard had given him a disgusted look and banged the door.
'Excuse me, Guard?' Gilhaelith said firmly. 'I'd like some salt, if you please.'
The guard checked with his fellows, who shrugged. He disappeared, shortly returning with a chunk of rock salt as big as a lemon, which he tossed to Gilhaelith. It was almost as hard as stone. The door clicked and was bolted on the outside.
Gilhaelith took up the bowl, slurping noisily at the soup, which wasn't lukewarm. It was cold, had a grey scum around the rim and was utterly tasteless. Prising off a piece of salt, Gilhaelith held it in his mouth and sucked the soup past it.
Something occurred to him. Spitting the rest of the soup back into the bowl, he took out the piece of salt and examined it in the dim light. It had crystal faces.
Salt was of little use in geomancy unless the crystals were perfectly formed, and even then it could take little power. But it was all he had. Using a tine of his fork, he picked away at the chunk of rock salt, trying to separate it into one or more crystals he could use. Gilhaelith was exquisitely careful, for the tiniest scratch on a crystal face would ruin it for mancery. He quite lost himself in his work, taking an hour to remove a flawed crystal as small as a grain of wheat.
