by Ian Irvine
Ghorr prodded Yggur with the platinum-shod tip of his staff. Yggur did not move. Ghorr jabbed it hard into his ribs. Nothing.
‘A pity,’ Ghorr said dispassionately. ‘A great man and a great mancer – probably the greatest of all, before me. I could have learned much from him. But, like many a great mancer down the aeons, hubris was his downfall. He fought me all the way but neglected to protect himself against his own power.’
He turned to Nish. ‘My guards let me down last night, in failing to ensure that you were taken. They will pay for it.’ He raised his hand.
Nish’s sword grew too hot to hold. He dropped it and it fell straight through the white floor. Nish rubbed his burning palm.
‘But not nearly as much as you, Cryl-Nish. Oh, how you’re going to suffer.’
Irisis had watched despairingly as Yggur’s defences were broken, globe by globe, but she plunged to the depths of the abyss when Nish suddenly appeared on the edge of the platform. Why had she been so reckless? How could she have imagined she could overcome Ghorr? She’d assumed, because he’d previously fled like a craven cur, that he was a broken man. A cur he undoubtedly was, but he was still the strongest and best-equipped mancer on Santhenar.
Yggur was beaten, broken and probably dead. The burning sword fell from Nish’s fingers and disappeared through the floor. Ghorr had everything except the thapter and soon he would have that as well. Oh Nish, why didn’t you stay away? She couldn’t bear to think of Ghorr torturing him. She’d sooner take the pain on herself.
She felt all hot and congested; her face was bloated from hanging upside down. Irisis pushed against the wall and found that she could move a little. She heaved and thrust until she got herself right way up, but could go no further.
Irisis couldn’t hear what Ghorr was saying, though she’d spent enough time in his hands to imagine it. He would be treating Nish to a picturesque description of the excruciations to come. Ghorr would torture Nish on the spot to discover the whereabouts of Malien, the thapter, and his last remaining enemy, Xervish Flydd.
And Nish couldn’t hold out, for he felt pain keenly. Then, as Ghorr gestured over his shoulder in her direction, Irisis realised that Nish’s torture would only be the first act. He’d soon switch to torturing her in front of Nish, and Nish would snap. He’d tell Ghorr everything rather than be the cause of a friend’s agony.
There had to be a way out. If Ullii had been stronger-minded, she might have saved them, but even at the best of times Ullii could only perform her wonders to save herself. She’d rescued Irisis back in Nennifer purely because Ullii had felt so threatened. Unfortunately, Ullii wasn’t directly threatened now.
And then a possibility popped into her head. What if she, Irisis, were to attack Ghorr the way she’d killed Jal-Nish’s mancer on the aqueduct a year ago?
Under the most desperate duress, Irisis had constructed a concealed packet of pure force and manipulated it to the place from which Jal-Nish’s mancer had been drawing power from the field. The power had been too much for the mancer to bear. It had blown her to pieces and Ghorr had been so threatened by what Irisis had stumbled upon, all unwittingly, that he’d tortured her in fruitless attempts to uncover the secret. Fortunately Ullii had spirited her away from Nennifer first.
Yet Jal-Nish’s mancer, strong though she had been, could be no more than a novice compared to Ghorr. Moreover, Ghorr could have gleaned enough from Irisis’s tormented ramblings to fashion a protection for himself. If he had, attacking him this way was tantamount to suicide. But she had to try.
Taking her pliance from around her neck, Irisis clasped her hands around it, careful not to let Ghorr see that she’d recovered it. Hands in front of her as if begging, or praying, she sought for the field. It was all around her, and very strong here, swirling in threads and streaks of red and blue, plunging into fringed sinkholes, and arching out again. The sinkholes were the draw points that supported this whole phantom architecture in the sky.
Nish cried out. Irisis couldn’t hear it through the wall of the sphere, though she saw his face contorting in agony. The field vanished and she couldn’t find it again. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t look upon his torment and do what she had to do. Wrenching the field back into her inner eye, Irisis scanned it for the place from which Ghorr was drawing power.
Ah, he was clever. Yggur had created this phantom labyrinth, but Ghorr maintained it by drawing from five or six parts of the field at once. That would make it difficult to do what she had done before – perhaps impossible. Moreover, he did not draw power through a simple object like a crystal or pliance, as all mancers she knew did. Ghorr used a myriad of such devices linked together on a belt studded with crystals and linked by threads of wire. It spread the load throughout his body and protected him from overloading – though, in truth, he was such a powerful mancer that it might not be possible to overload him.
Defeating him was as far beyond her as reaching to the moon. Irisis unclenched her fists, opened her eyes and Nish doubled up in such agony that she could feel it. How could that be?
Nish fell forward and Irisis saw Ullii contorted behind him. Nish’s pain was hurting her and she was broadcasting it throughout her lattice. So Ullii hadn’t completely lost it.
It gave Irisis heart. Reaching into the field, she began to weave its tiny threads into a lozenge shape, representing one of the crystals on Ghorr’s belt. Following the patterns of the power he was drawing, she linked the lozenge to another, then another, continuing until she had made a crude representation of the nine crystals on his belt. Irisis then shuttled back and forth, weaving linkages between the lozenges and checking to make sure that they were as close as possible to the linkages of his belt. It was just like making her jewellery, really, and she’d been doing that since she was little.
A multicoloured fan flashed into her mind, then vanished. Though Irisis hadn’t seen it before, she knew what it was – it was the way Ullii saw her lattice. Ullii’s despairing broadcast must be sending it to her. The fan was clustered with knots, near and far, representing the surviving scrutators and mancers on the air-dreadnoughts, as well as Malien, Gilhaelith, Flydd and any other person who could use the Art. Other shapes denoted every crystal and artefact within leagues of Fiz Gorgo.
But the lattice was dominated by one gigantic knot, a globe clad with poisoned flails. It was the way Ullii saw Ghorr.
Another silent scream from Nish, though this time Irisis managed to divert it so as to protect her ethereal weaving. When it was as precise a representation as she could manage, she passed a spindle through each of the lozenge-crystals and spun the field around it until it was tightly concentrated there. Lastly, she wove a concealment around each lozenge. Unless Ghorr was scanning the field constantly, he wouldn’t realise what she had done.
Now! she thought, as Nish arched up again. Irisis moved the ethyric belt so that the positions of its lozenges of pure force matched the places Ghorr was drawing power from, via the crystals on his belt. She withdrew from the field carefully, lest he become suspicious.
She opened her eyes to see Nish doubled over again and Ghorr raising his arms to strike. But Ghorr did not strike. He froze and her heart began to hammer. Ghorr looked around uneasily. Irisis did not meet his eye, afraid that he would be able to read what she had been up to.
A movement in the distance caught her eye. Scrutator Fusshte stood at the bow of his air-dreadnought, a spyglass to his eye, waiting like a jackal for his chief to fall. Or like a sycophant, should Ghorr succeed, to pledge allegiance anew. Either way, success or failure, Fusshte would emerge the stronger.
She looked back to Ghorr, who squeezed one fist. Nish cried out, arching his back and forming his fingers into hooks. Come on, Ghorr, she thought. Take the power, now.
Ghorr did so, then suddenly doubled over, gasping and clutching at his chest. Flecks of red sprayed across the white floor. He retched, coughing something red out onto the floor that looked for all the world like a piece of lung.
<
br /> Yes! You stinking swine, take that. Irisis rose to her feet, brandishing one fist. You’re not as clever as you think.
He snapped upright and she realised that it had been a ruse to identify who was secretly attacking him. Whirling on one foot, Ghorr flung out his arm, his thick middle finger pointing at her throat.
The outer sphere split like the segments of an orange, frigid air buffeted her, then the inner sphere crashed into her back, knocking Irisis off her feet. Before she could move it rolled up her spread legs, over her buttocks and settled in the hollow of her back, where its base seemed to flow and mould itself to her contours. It was so heavy that she could not budge it, and her chest was pressed against the floor so tightly that she could hardly draw breath.
The base of the sphere flowed up her back, spread around both sides of her neck and began to draw tight. She threw out her arms before it trapped them too, and forced her fingers up in front of her throat, trying to hold back the invisible straps that were close to joining into a noose.
Ghorr had known what she was doing all along, yet felt so confident that he’d allowed her to continue. Perhaps he’d been hoping to discover her deadly secret. And now he had it.
The straps joined to form a belt, an analogue of the one she’d woven and powered by the same spindles of force. He had a keen sense of irony. The belt pulled tight, cutting off her breath in mid-gasp, and Irisis was not strong enough to hold it back. Her fingers were trapped, the knuckles digging into her throat and crushing her windpipe. In two or three minutes she would be unconscious, and two minutes after that, dead.
A choking minute went by. Ullii’s fan-shaped lattice appeared and suddenly, instantly, Irisis knew what she had to do. She focussed on that flail-covered sphere, the seeker’s unique rendering of Ghorr, and remade it.
She turned the flails to drooping, overripe bananas, the black sphere into a rotting pumpkin covered in blowflies, with fat white grubs crawling out of oozing holes in the skin. It was all she could think of to do. Not enough, surely, though Ullii’s sense of humour was rustic in the extreme.
The belt snapped tighter and she felt the bones of her neck shift. She wondered if she’d die of a broken neck before she suffocated. Time slowed right down and the last thing Irisis saw, before all went opaque, was Ullii suddenly convulse with laughter.
For an unknown time, seconds or hours, the field swirled in stately patterns more beautiful than any she’d ever seen. Dying wasn’t so bad after all.
The patterns vanished, the pressure eased and cold air rushed down her throat, and then the world went insane. Her eyes flicked open, though what she saw could not be happening. The ticking rotors of the surrounding air-dreadnoughts emitted tortured groans as they spun up beyond their maxima. There were cries as the great craft lurched in all directions, colliding and tangling with each other. Two exploded in a colossal fireball that seared her exposed cheek.
The phantom labyrinth sagged underfoot before going hard as crystal, flinging Nish and Klarm in the air. The deformed sphere on Irisis’s back crumbled like week-old bread. Pieces of the floor broke away and once again black snowflakes drifted down, while red wisps of acrid vapour, like the fumings from an alchymist’s cauldron, condensed in mid-air.
Ullii’s lattice fan was stretched like a rubber sheet, as if she’d taken it in her hands and pulled it. The knots on it were drawn out to black streaks, all but one. Ullii let go of the lattice and Ghorr’s rotting sphere went flubbing up above the fan as if she’d fired it from a catapult. It came down again and splatted against the lattice, which snapped back and wrapped itself tightly around Ghorr’s knot, squeezing it into a tighter and tighter ball until, finally, with a burst of light, both knot and lattice vanished.
Ghorr shrieked as he fell halfway through the floor. His clothes exploded into rags, revealing a wattled, sack-like belly bulging between a pair of tightly laced corsets, fat-marbled upper arms, the left one stained with old blood, and wobbling fish-belly thighs. The illusions he’d maintained for decades evaporated. His lips shrank, displaying yellow, corroded teeth and retreating gums, and jowls saggy enough to contain a handful of marbles each. The mane of hair vanished apart from a few dingy straps dangling over his ears.
The tightness around her throat was gone. Irisis sucked in a breath, rubbing her bruised throat as she tried to work out what Ullii had done. She’d destroyed Ghorr’s knot, an analogue of his mancer’s self, and her lattice in the process. She’d damaged Ghorr, stripped him of much of his mancer’s power, but had she destroyed it utterly? Surely not, or this phantom world would have vanished and they would all have fallen into the forest. So something still remained. What would he do with it?
She got up and limped across to join her friends.
SEVENTEEN
‘You haven’t finished me yet,’ said Ghorr. ‘But I can finish you.’
‘Your power is broken, Ghorr,’ said Klarm, making no secret of his derision. ‘You’ll never get it back.’
‘There’s more than one kind of power,’ Ghorr choked, trying to pull the rags over his sagging, repulsive frame.
‘You needn’t bother,’ said Irisis. ‘It’d take a sail to cover that up.’
Ghorr shot her a venomous glance, took three steps to the collapsed remains of his sphere and from inside lifted an unusual multiple crossbow. Irisis hadn’t seen one like it for ages. A massive device that only a strong man could use, it fired five bolts at once. Jal-Nish had designed the bow as a lyrinx killer long ago, though it had proved too unwieldy in the battlefield. Before anyone could move, he had its five bolts trained on them.
‘Come out, Yggur,’ he said.
Nails scratched on glass, then a blackened hand flopped over the nearer side of the hemisphere. A frizzy head and ebony face rose up above the side, frost-grey eyes brilliant against the soot.
‘Out!’ Ghorr jerked the crossbow at him.
Yggur climbed out and staggered across to the others, charred pieces of clothing flaking off him like the black snow of a few minutes ago. He could barely stand, but at least he was alive.
‘Five with one blow,’ Ghorr said. ‘It’ll have to do. Any last words, my friends? A simple acknowledgment of my mastery will do.’
Klarm began to speak but Ullii, who was standing beside Nish and Irisis, said quietly, ‘Do you love me, Nish?’
After a long pause he replied, ‘Ah, Ullii, I’m sorry. I thought I did, once and … I’ll always care for you. But no, I don’t love you. I can’t.’
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. Turning to Nish, she took his hand in her little hands.
‘What for?’ he said numbly.
‘You’ve set me free. My lattice is truly gone this time and it will never come back. There’s nothing to keep me now.’
‘I don’t understand.’
She let go of his hand. Klarm was still speaking.
‘Enough!’ snapped Ghorr. ‘You never did know when to stop, Klarm. That’s why you were never admitted to the Council.’
‘For which I’m mightily glad, as it’s turned out,’ said Klarm.
Ullii took a small step forward. She looked little and frail, her skin was practically transparent, but her back was straight and her head held high.
‘What pathetic last words,’ said Ghorr to Klarm. ‘Anyone else have anything to say?’ He took no notice of Ullii. Ghorr had always held her in contempt. Run away, little mouse, he’d sneered in Nennifer. ‘Cryl-Nish?’
Ullii kept moving, and all at once Irisis did understand. ‘No!’ She reached out for the seeker.
Ghorr swung the crossbow at Irisis, struggling to keep it steady, and Ullii sprang.
He fired just as she reached him, knocking the crossbow to one side. Four of its bolts tore through the snowy floor but the fifth struck Ullii in the chest, felling her instantly.
Ghorr let the useless bow fall. As Flangers and Irisis threw themselves at him, he tore one of the crystals from his belt, formed a circular section of the floor into a slide
, leapt into it and disappeared.
Nish fell to his knees and lifted Ullii’s head into his lap. There was a neat hole in the centre of her chest, hardly bleeding at all. ‘Why did you do that?’ he wept. He kissed her on the forehead and then on the mouth. ‘Dear Ullii, you didn’t –’
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Yggur stood there, looking down sombrely.
‘I didn’t want to be here any longer. I’m going to Myllii and Yllii,’ she said with a joyous smile. Ullii squeezed Nish’s hand, closed her eyes and died.
‘Come on,’ said Klarm. ‘As soon as Ghorr gets to the bottom he’ll dissolve this place, and then we’re done. I’ve got a little power back but not enough to maintain all this.’
Nish picked up Ullii’s body, cradling it in his arms. There was no point to it, for she was gone, but Irisis would have done the same. Ullii had, despite all her frailties, been one of them for a long time now. The spirit might be gone but the mortal flesh demanded a dignified completion.
‘We’ll never get down in time,’ said Flangers. ‘He must be nearly there now.’
‘Look!’ cried Irisis, pointing to a rope ladder that ran up to the high central balloon. ‘That’s real.’
They ran, and Irisis could feel the floor becoming more insubstantial with every step. Pieces fell out, leaving ragged holes that she had to dart around, or try to leap, and hope that what lay beyond was solid. She reached the ladder just ahead of Klarm, whose dwarfish scuttle could be surprisingly fast, considering the caliper.
‘Up!’ he snapped. ‘Give them room.’
Irisis went up a span. Klarm remained where he was. Flangers laboured across, his feet sinking into the floor and clouds of its failing material pulling up every time he lifted his feet. Yggur lurched a few steps behind. Patches of red skin were exposed where his charred clothing had flaked away.
