Chimaera

by Ian Irvine

  ‘What if he has the seeker with him?’ came Fusshte’s slithering voice.

  Ullii had passed the last knot but now stopped in mid-swing. No man terrified her more than Fusshte did. Nish held out his arms to her and she came on, more slowly, her mouth working.

  ‘Where is the seeker?’ said Ghorr.

  ‘I haven’t seen her since we took Flydd.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to check?’ Ghorr’s voice became shrill.

  ‘She was in your custody, Chief Scrutator,’ Fusshte snarled. ‘She’s your little pet. She must be with him.’

  ‘Of course she is, but we know how to deal with Ullii,’ Ghorr said. ‘Where’s Scrutator T’Lisp?’

  ‘Up on her air-dreadnought.’

  ‘Get her down here right away.’

  Nish abandoned his spark-making as hopeless and began sawing at a cross-stay, not that it would make any difference.

  No difference at all. His blunt knife made barely any impression on the tough fibres. It would take minutes to cut through, and minutes he didn’t have. As soon as one of the soldiers thought to look underneath the deck, they’d be seen. Sharpshooters could pick them off with crossbows from the ground or through holes cut in the deck, or the mancers destroy them in any number of hideous ways.

  Ullii was still about ten spans away when the canvas creaked above Nish, as if someone was creeping across it. He readied the crossbow, knowing that it could make no difference if he shot one soldier, or even ten.

  ‘There’s a funny smell over here,’ yelled a soldier from near one of the knots Ullii had soaked. ‘Like lamp spirit.’

  Nish couldn’t breathe. A hand appeared over the edge, clutching at the melon-sized knot. It was a long time before the other hand appeared beside it. Perhaps the soldier was afraid of heights.

  The soldier’s head appeared, bald patch first, looking the other way. Nish readied the bow then froze, hoping vainly that he might not be seen in the gloom, or that the soldier might be careless.

  The head turned towards Nish, upside down and red-faced. He did not appear to see him. Nish breathed out, but unfortunately Ullii moved.

  Nish fired, but not in time to prevent the soldier’s triumphant cry.

  ‘He’s down here, surr, underneath the deck. And the seek –’

  EIGHT

  The bolt struck him in the throat, the soldier lost his grip and fell, head-first, as dead as a stone, the naphtha-soaked tail fluttering at his throat like a necktie. But the alarm had already been raised.

  An exultant Ghorr shouted, ‘Captain, call your men back. T’Lisp?’

  There came a mutter that Nish could not decipher, just as Ullii reached him. Then came the scratchy, old woman’s voice that sent Ullii crawling into his arms. Nish hooked his way further from the edge and began to reload the crossbow.

  ‘What is your will, Chief Scrutator?’ the old woman said breathlessly.

  ‘The seeker is underneath the canvas and I want her, unharmed. Use the bracelet and compel her to you, Scrutator T’Lisp. If you can bring the artificer as well, all the better.’

  ‘At once, Chief Scrutator.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ whispered Nish.

  Ullii scrunched herself tighter in his arms, whimpering.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got to get further from the edge.’

  They crept in. Nish clamped on securely, eased himself out of Ullii’s grip and tied her trailing safety line to the stay rope. He had just gone back to striking sparks when Ullii’s eyes rolled up.

  ‘No,’ she said in a choked whisper. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘It’s T’Lisp, Ullii, and she murdered our son. Don’t give in to her.’

  He took her hand but it just lay limply in his. Ullii didn’t seem to be there at all. Then all at once her grip grew tight and she jerked him towards her, her eyes now focussed and feral.

  ‘You’ve got to fight her, Ullii.’

  She went for Nish as if it was he who was trying to possess her, clawing, scratching and biting. He fought her off, then slapped her across the cheek.

  She put up one hand, staring at him. ‘Nish, I’m sorry …’ Her eyes crossed and she went for him again.

  He pushed her away, harder this time. Ullii lost her grip and fell until she reached the limit of her safety line. The harness pulled tight around her chest and the shock broke her free of T’Lisp’s compulsion. She hung on the line, slowly revolving, staring into space.

  Nish retreated along the rope as quickly as he dared, realised that his hooks were also steel, and swiped at the nearest with his knife, across and back. Not a spark.

  A soldier was lowered over the side of the amphitheatre on a line, thirty or forty spans away to his left, followed by a second, a few spans nearer. Nish rotated on his hooks. More soldiers appeared to the right.

  Nish struck furiously at the steel. His plan had failed – should he take the easy way out and let go? Suicide wasn’t in his nature, but allowing himself to be caught was also suicide, the only difference being in the excruciations Ghorr would put him through first.

  Still trying to make a spark, he didn’t notice the change that had come over Ullii, the sudden calm and resolve. He didn’t see her edging towards him until she was almost within arm’s reach. Her face was a mask that showed nothing at all, though her eyes were fixed on him and her free hand clenched and unclenched. She reached up and unfastened her safety rope.

  ‘Ullii,’ he hissed, holding the knife out crossways as a barrier. ‘What are you doing?’

  Her fingers flexed but she did not reply.

  ‘Ullii, Scrutator T’Lisp is controlling you. She’s telling you to come after me, isn’t she? Is that what you really want to do?’

  She hung there for a moment, one-handed, like an acrobat.

  ‘T’Lisp is evil, Ullii,’ he went on quickly. ‘As evil as Ghorr or Scrutator Fusshte. You’ve got to resist her.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Ullii gasped. ‘She’s too strong.’

  ‘Try with your very heart.’

  ‘I can’t do it, Nish.’

  ‘She killed Yllii! Try for our son’s sake, as you’ve never tried before. Look for your lattice and use it against her, or the whole world is dead.’

  ‘She said that before,’ Ullii whispered. ‘She told me I had to help her or you would destroy everything.’

  ‘I may be a fool, Ullii, and I may have done some stupid things in my time, but I don’t hold the fate of the world in my hands. The scrutators do.’

  ‘I … don’t know.’ She had to force it out.

  ‘Who do you believe, Ullii? Think of all you know about me, the good and the bad. And then think about the scrutators, and decide whom you can trust.’

  Ullii really did try, and the struggle was reflected on her face, then she broke and launched herself through the air at him. Her arms went around his chest and her hands locked in the middle of his back, binding his arms to his sides. She bared her sharp little teeth and went for his throat.

  ‘No, Ullii,’ he cried, ducking his head out of the way. The impact had sent him swinging wildly and Nish was afraid his hooks would pull out. He couldn’t get his hands up to fix them, and if he managed to break free of Ullii she would fall.

  She went for his throat again.

  ‘Ullii, it’s Scrutator T’Lisp controlling you. You’ve got to stop her.’ Out of the corner of his eye Nish could see the soldiers fastening their climbing ropes to the horizontal stay cables, preparing to come after them.

  ‘Ullii,’ he said, forcing himself to be as measured as possible. ‘Would Myllii want you to do this?’

  It was the wrong thing to say. ‘You killed him,’ she screamed, trying to bite his nose. Nish jerked his head sideways and her teeth fastened onto his cheek and sank in through the skin. The pain made him lose control.

  ‘And you’re killing me, for the scrutators who killed our son! Can’t you get that through your thick skull, you stupid little bitch! You’re killing me.’

  Ul
lii reacted as if she’d been struck across the face. She threw her head back and her eyes focussed on Nish’s bleeding cheek.

  He’d broken through, if just for a second. ‘Please, Ullii, if there’s anything left in the lattice, use it. ’

  Ullii strained, squeezing him so hard that his ribs creaked. A red mist passed before his eyes, Nish came over all faint and her face began to fade, replaced by the oddest vision.

  A black, barbed knot, like a spinning ball covered in hooks, was whirling towards him. Other knots near and far were out of focus. He had to be seeing Ullii’s lattice. So it wasn’t lost after all.

  ‘If I lose it,’ Ullii said plaintively, ‘I’ll have nothing left.’

  It took an effort to reply, for he couldn’t draw breath. ‘You’re not going to lose it.’

  ‘It’s been fading for weeks. It’s nearly gone. To use it will take everything I have left.’

  Nish managed to raise his head and open his eyes. ‘If you give me up to them, how would you explain that to little Yllii?’

  Tears welled in her eyes, as pink as if they’d flowed across caked blood. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’

  ‘When Ghorr takes us, he’ll torture me to death and give you to Fusshte to play with.’

  She drew a deep breath and in his vision the spinning knot slowed then stopped. Glowing filaments extended out in all directions, while the centre went from black to orange to blue-white.

  Nish’s brain felt as though it had revolved in his head. ‘Ullii?’ he gasped.

  The soldiers jerked on their ropes, one man spinning like a spider dangling from a web, another freezing into a rigid spread-eagle. A third lost his grip and fell.

  The clamour from above ceased abruptly. Nish felt a swelling pressure and caught a whiff of charred hair. People cried out in horror or disgust; he could hear them running. Someone retched, right above his head. Then, boom-splat, and something heavy thudded onto the deck.

  The canvas began to char in the shape of a head and neck. As Nish stared at the blackening fabric, it pinholed and clear fluid began to drip through, followed by a loop of yellow slime that grew ever longer. Droplets of watery blood ran down the dangling thread.

  Plop. An eyeball slid through the slowly enlarging hole, dangling from its optic nerve. A red-raw tongue slithered through another hole as the charring spread across the canvas.

  Then, to Nish’s disgust and horror, a smoking face, bare of skin, flopped down on its skinless, wattled neck. The canvas parted to reveal the other eye, staring at them, still alive. It was Scrutator T’Lisp, all that was left of her.

  Ullii cried out in horror and tried to throw herself out of the way. Nish crushed her to him with his free arm as the blue-lipped mouth opened, the yellow, angled teeth parted in a smile that was mostly rictus. For a moment Nish thought T’Lisp was going to scream a death spell at him, but a revolting sucking gurgle cut off what she had been going to say. Her jaws were forced open, she heaved once, twice, three times, then her intestines oozed out of her mouth, popping and squelching as they came.

  Nish’s stomach heaved, though all he brought up was a thin green trickle of bitter bile that burned his throat and mouth. He spat the residue carefully to one side of a now limp Ullii and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  By the time he’d finished, the other eyeball had popped out, but the charred canvas gave way under the ruined creature’s torso and, thankfully, it fell through.

  Framed by the hole, not two spans away, was the horrified face of Chief Scrutator Ghorr, spattered with the indescribable remnants of his former colleague. Red-brown fumes wisped from the sable collar of his coat and, to his left, Scrutator Fusshte was doubled over, choking. Behind him a pair of soldiers reeled in circles as if drunk. Whatever Ullii had done, it hadn’t just affected T’Lisp.

  ‘There – are,’ slurred Ghorr, sluggishly raising his arm at them.

  Acting purely on instinct, Nish swung the crossbow up and fired through the smoking hole. The bolt struck Ghorr in the left shoulder, driving him backwards out of sight.

  ‘Ullii,’ Nish gasped. ‘Get a grip. You’ve given us our chance!’

  With eyes screwed shut, she reached up for the rope. Nish fumbled a rag-wrapped bolt out of his pocket, slipped it into the groove of the crossbow and wound furiously. He touched the tails of the rag to the smouldering canvas and the rag flared. Taking careful aim at the nearest of the naphtha-soaked knots, he fired.

  The bolt went true, embedding itself in the knot, and blue flame flickered there. Nish fired three more flaming bolts; each hit their target. Fire licked up and down the vertical cables and ran around the circumferential ropes between them. It was done.

  The people on the amphitheatre began shouting, screaming and stampeding away from the fire, whose flames were already nibbling at the edges of the canvas. The cables were thick and it would take a good while for fire to weaken their tightly woven cores, though the canvas would burn through in a minute. Flame ran up one cable like a wick, causing cries of panic from the scrutators, rightly terrified of an explosion of floater-gas that would threaten all their craft. Two of the soldiers hanging over the side fell, ropes blazing. The others swiftly pulled back out of sight.

  ‘Put it out!’ someone screamed.

  Across at the nearest knot, cloaks were flapped as the soldiers tried to smother the flames, though after each thump the fire sprang out again.

  Someone shouted, ‘Water, quickly!’

  Nish didn’t dare stick his head up through the hole, but he put his ear to the canvas and their voices came clearly to him.

  ‘You can’t put out naphtha with water, fool,’ came Ghorr’s halting voice. Though in much pain, he was still in control. ‘Cut up sheets of canvas … roll it round the ropes … smother it. Guards – carry me to my lifting chair. What’s it doing way up there? Lower it at once. Healer? Where’s my healer, dammit?’

  ‘Are we to abandon the executions, then?’ said Fusshte. He spoke thickly, as if his tongue had swollen to fill his mouth.

  ‘Of course not,’ Ghorr snapped, regaining control of himself. ‘The spectacle must go on. The Council has to show that it’s in control. We can’t be driven away by a renegade traitor and a squeaking mouse.’

  ‘If a spark rises up to one of the airbags and sets off the floater gas –’

  ‘It won’t if you take control of the fires. Get on with it! Get a squad of soldiers to each fire and check the rest of the cables. And shut that rabble up.’ The prisoners were shouting, cheering and urging Nish on. ‘Where’s my captain?’

  ‘He’s trying to put out the cable fires.’

  ‘Take charge here and calm the witnesses. Order must be restored at once.’

  Fusshte ran and gave the commands, then came back. ‘And if we can’t put out the fires?’

  ‘Have the baskets lowered halfway, just in case,’ said Ghorr. ‘Separate out the most important witnesses to go in the first lift. Where’s my healer? My shoulder …’

  ‘He’s coming down now. What about the others?’ said Fusshte. ‘It’ll look bad if you sneak off and abandon them.’

  ‘How dare you speak that way!’ cried Ghorr. There was a heavy thump, as if he’d slumped to the canvas, and a gasp of pain. ‘If the cables burn through, the rest of the witnesses will be sacrificed. They’ll be doing their duty. I’ll allow no risk to the air-dreadnoughts.’

  ‘What about the prisoners?’

  ‘Let them fall to their doom, all but Xervish Flydd. Without him they’re nothing, and I’ll see the rest of his blood run before the day is out. Bring Irisis Stirm too.’

  ‘And Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

  Nish reached over and lifted the naphtha flagon off Ullii’s back. It gurgled satisfyingly. He whipped out the stopper, folded over a twist of soaked rag and screwed it in so that it was tight.

  ‘Take him alive, if you can,’ Ghorr said. ‘And if you can’t, I want him dead with a thousand crossbow bolts in him. I’ll not be made a
laughing stock by that treacherous little cur.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that,’ said Fusshte softly.

  ‘What did you say?’ Ghorr hissed.

  ‘You wanted all the credit for this victory for yourself,’ said Fusshte in a low and deadly voice. ‘So you must take the blame for the scrutators’ humiliation and failure.’

  ‘There is no failure,’ snarled Ghorr. ‘We’ve got all we came for, and more.’

  ‘But you’ve lost more, and that’s what’s going to be remembered. The amphitheatre can’t last ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ve strengthened the cables with our Secret Art.’

  ‘Against fire? When it falls, the whole world will know that the chief scrutator has had his nose pulled by a renegade traitor and a squeaking mouse. And won’t they laugh.’

  ‘Anyone who so much as smiles will be executed on the spot.’

  ‘Which will only prove that you’ve lost it. You’re finished, Ghorr.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you doing anything about it?’

  ‘I’m waiting for you to abdicate.’

  ‘Be damned! Lower my chair, fools,’ Ghorr roared.

  ‘Leave it where it is,’ Fusshte ordered.

  Nish was astounded. Revolt among the scrutators was unheard of. How could he make use of it?

  ‘Yesterday you might have destroyed me with a snap of your fingers,’ Fusshte went on. ‘After today you won’t have the authority. The chief scrutator survives only so long as he proves worthy of the office, Ghorr, and you’ve failed in front of your fellows. Without my support you’ll suffer the same fate as Ex-Scrutator Flydd. Scrutators leave office only one way, as you should know. You made the rule, after all.’

  ‘Where’s my chair?’ said Ghorr. ‘Why isn’t it coming?’

  ‘I signalled the operator to pull it back up. The chief scrutator can’t flee like a rat from a burning hold. It wouldn’t be good for the dignity of the Council.’

  ‘Damn you, Fusshte,’ Ghorr ground out. ‘I’ll see you flayed alive for this.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Fusshte chuckled. ‘Look! They’ve obeyed my orders, not yours. You’re finished, Ghorr.’