Chimaera

by Ian Irvine

  ‘Move!’ roared Flangers, hurling Nish out of the way. He picked up Malien and ran with her as the shed collapsed behind them.

  Nish lay where he’d been thrown, unable to believe what he was seeing. A series of ground waves spiralled out from Nennifer, heaving solid paving stones in the air and shaking the tethered air-dreadnoughts like balloons in a storm. The first wave threw him up and backwards, and it was like being hit by a moving clanker. He’d just landed on his shoulder when the second wave tossed him head over heels. Falling head-down, he saw the ground coming up and threw out his arms to break his fall, but it dropped away again.

  ‘Run!’ Flydd heaved Nish to his feet. Irisis had taken Malien from Flangers, who was struggling to lift Yggur.

  ‘Which way?’ Nish gasped.

  ‘Towards Nennifer, you bloody fool. This is our chance.’

  But they’ll see us! Nish thought. He watched them go, thinking they’d lost their minds, until another shock knocked him down and the outer edge of the parade ground began to tilt beneath his feet. And then he ran until his heart was bursting. Ahead, a knife-edged crack appeared, curving out from the centre of Nennifer. The inner side rose and the outer fell, leaving a cliff a third of a span high. Irisis pushed Malien up it, then went over in one great bound, her bright hair flying in the moonlight. Flydd scrambled over, followed by several of the soldiers. Nish made a last effort and smelt a whiff of brimstone as he sprang.

  The crack opened visibly beneath him and clouds of misty dust boiled out. The groaning in the depths was like the prisoners in the dungeons of Nennifer suffering their daily torments.

  He landed on the high side, skidding on his knees, out of breath. Surely he was the last? No, one of Yggur’s soldiers was labouring up the slope carrying another, who looked to have broken his leg.

  He was almost to the cliff when the outer section of the parade ground dropped sharply. The man with the broken leg screamed. His partner, straining with all his might, lifted the injured soldier above his head and tossed him up onto solid ground. Reaction sent him sliding the other way, down the steadily increasing slope of the falling slab.

  The soldier put his head down and even made a little ground before the slope grew so steep that he could gain no traction on it. He clung on with hands and knees, looking up at them in despair as the whole great slab of parade ground, fifty spans wide and about two hundred long, ground off, carrying him over the cliff into the vast abyss of the Desolation Sink.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘What have we done?’ said Nish, lying on the ground with his hands over his face.

  Flydd jerked him to his feet. ‘I don’t know, but we’re going to make the best of it.’

  The whole of Nennifer was shaking and, it seemed, the mountains behind them. More slabs of parade ground fell into the Desolation Sink and springs burst out of the ground, freezing instantly to brittle fountains. The tethers snapped on the nearer of the air-dreadnoughts, which lifted sluggishly on its flabby airbags.

  Spiralling lines of force appeared in Nish’s inner eye, radiating out from the point whence that column of light had originated. His head whirled and he felt a sudden attack of nausea, like lying down when very drunk. Weird visions fleeted through his mind – the vast bulk of Nennifer as transparent as a glass maze; magnified views of one part of it, then another. Distant cries carried to him as if the people were standing close by. Then the enormous building was cut into curving slices and slowly forced apart by a boiling white nothingness.

  It had to be an hallucination, but how come he could still think clearly? Klarm let out a cry of disbelief. Nish blinked, turned towards the dwarf scrutator and the vision was gone.

  Klarm raised his right arm, pointing with one finger. With wrenching shrieks, like blades piercing his eardrums, Nennifer was sliced into dozens of segments along the spiralling planes he’d seen earlier. For a moment the segments stood in place, slightly offset from each other, their edges as sharp and sheer as razor cuts. It wasn’t right; it could not be real; but there they stood.

  Then in an instant the planes or dimensions shifted, but Nish couldn’t take that in – his mind refused to believe his eyes. He doubled over, trying to retch out the head-spinning nausea.

  Irisis wiped his face with his coat sleeve. ‘Are you all right?’

  He had to lean on her for a moment. Nennifer still stood but the segments had been rearranged, as if they had been withdrawn into another dimension, shuffled like a deck of cards then put back in place. Curve lay perfectly against curve but Nennifer was no longer rectangular. It now resembled a spoked wheel and some of the segments – the layers of the original building – were exposed like slices through a cake.

  The air shimmered and the front of the building warped as though a distorting lens had passed along it. Dust devils whirled up. Sections here and there, now unsupported, crumbled to rubble, while the rest of the edifice stood as solidly as if it had been built that way. In the brilliant moonlight, people could be seen at the windows, up on the battlements and in sections that had been sliced open.

  The subterranean noises became a grinding roar that blocked out every other sound. Nish smelt the earthy pungency of ground-up rock. Clouds of dust billowed out, obscuring parts of the building, and by the time it began to clear they were all coated.

  ‘Did the amplimet do all that?’ whispered Flydd, his self-possession gone.

  ‘The Council didn’t throw Nennifer down,’ Klarm replied shakily.

  The ground shook again, hurling men and women from the battlements. One of the surviving front doors was flung wide and people – servants, soldiers, mancers in capes and gowns – boiled out of it, fleeing for their lives. Others climbed out of every hole and crack, threading the front of Nennifer with figures like ants from a stirred-up nest. A few jumped from upper floors, though they did not get up again.

  The cracked remnants of the parade ground gave a last, self-satisfied shudder and all was still once more. In the distance, someone was shouting orders but the fleeing people took no notice.

  ‘Look out,’ said Nish, brushing dust from his nose. His eyebrows were thick with it. ‘They’re coming our way.’

  ‘Just act terrified and aimless,’ said Irisis, blinking dust out of her long eyelashes.

  A battered group of people stumbled by, not giving them a second glance, and disappeared. Others followed.

  ‘Do we have to go in?’ said Nish. ‘Surely this means the end of the Council.’

  ‘I should have listened, Malien,’ Flydd sounded as if he had a throat full of gravel. ‘It’s woken. What’s the amplimet going to do now?’

  Malien, lying on the ground with her eyes closed, did not reply.

  Irisis reached out and caught hold of Nish’s fingers. ‘I’m scared,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want to go in there.’

  Coming from the bravest person he knew, that was chilling. He slid his cold hand into hers. ‘Neither do I.’

  Klarm waddled across to Flydd. ‘I don’t see what we can do, Xervish. It’ll be like a maze inside.’

  ‘One where every path leads to a blank wall,’ said Flydd. He thought for a moment. ‘We must go in. We’ve got to make sure of the Council – you can bet they’ve survived – and attempt to secure the amplimet. And find Tiaan.’

  ‘If she’s alive!’ growled Klarm.

  ‘You’d better hope she is,’ whispered Malien. ‘She may be the only one who can restrain the amplimet now.’

  ‘We’ll never find it in that chaos,’ said Klarm. ‘Or her.’

  ‘I will lead you,’ said a vaguely familiar voice from the crumbled rock along the edge of the cloven parade ground.

  Klarm whirled, groping for his short blade.

  ‘Hold!’ cried Flydd. ‘Hold, damn it.’

  Klarm slowly lowered his arm.

  ‘Come forth,’ said Flydd. ‘Slowly.’

  A man emerged, empty hands out in front of him. His back was to the moon and Nish could make out no more than an out
line. He was of middle height and slim.

  ‘Surr,’ said the man.

  Suddenly Nish knew him. ‘Eiryn Muss!’

  ‘Or someone taking his shape,’ said Irisis.

  ‘No, it’s Muss all right,’ said Flydd. ‘Where the hell have you been all this time, Prober Muss? I sent you to do a job months ago and you didn’t report back.’

  ‘You sent me to find news of the flying construct, surr,’ said Muss. ‘And I followed the webs of lies and rumour to Lybing where, unfortunately, I came to the notice of Scrutator Fusshte. He knew I served you, of course. And my worth.’

  Flydd grunted, which could have meant anything.

  ‘Fusshte offered me a choice,’ Muss went on. ‘To serve him, or die the death prescribed for the trusted servant of a traitor. What could I do, surr? Dead I would be no use to you. I chose to serve Fusshte, for that was the only way to discharge my oath and duty to you. And, after all, much of the scrutators’ intelligence flows through him.’

  ‘He’s a master of lies and deceit,’ said Klarm. ‘As are you, Prober Muss. Any man sworn to Fusshte is no good to us.’

  ‘Surr,’ said Muss. ‘I –’

  ‘Eiryn Muss served me faithfully for a very long time,’ said Flydd, though in a neutral voice.

  Klarm just looked at him. Flydd met his stare. Finally Klarm said, very dubiously, ‘And in all that time he gave you no cause to doubt him?’

  ‘Not in the least degree,’ said Flydd.

  What was Flydd playing at? In Nish’s travels with him after fleeing Snizort, Flydd had more than once wondered at Muss’s personal agenda.

  ‘Explain yourself, Muss, if you can,’ said Flydd. ‘And be quick about it. Time presses upon us.’

  ‘I’ll save you more time than you’ll lose by questioning me, surr. Fusshte brought me here to assist him and, in time, made me his Master of the Watch. I learned much about flying constructs, surr, and other matters of interest to you.’

  ‘You conveyed not a jot of it to me,’ snapped Flydd.

  ‘Fusshte did not allow me access to the message skeets,’ said Muss.

  ‘How could he stop a man of your talents?’

  ‘He put a specific ward around their pens, proof against whatever guise I might put on. I did everything I could to find a way –’

  ‘Fine words,’ said Klarm, ‘but they mean nothing.’

  ‘Neither could I leave Nennifer by air-floater or mountain camel caravan,’ said Muss. ‘All escapes were warded against me, and I’m not hardy enough to cross the mountain paths alone.’

  ‘Few are,’ said Flydd. ‘This seems enough –’

  ‘Without proof of loyalty his words are empty,’ said Klarm. ‘I spent months here after my leg was smashed, and this man seemed all too close to Fusshte then. He even admits that he’s Fusshte’s sworn servant.’

  ‘What say you, Eiryn Muss?’ said Flydd. ‘Can you offer any proof to convince my doubting companions?’

  ‘Only this,’ said Muss. ‘I detected your coming yet did not give you away.’

  ‘Prove it,’ said Klarm.

  ‘You did not come straight here in the thapter,’ said Muss. ‘You flew by in the cloud before turning to approach from the west. Your thapter towed another craft, a balloon of some sort, and landed some four or five leagues beyond the mountain to the north.’

  Klarm rocked back on his heels. ‘Really? When was this, Prober Muss?’

  ‘Four days ago,’ Muss said without hesitation. ‘Late in the afternoon.’

  ‘And how did you detect our coming, Prober?’

  ‘My profession has its secrets, surr,’ said Muss with dignity, ‘and I’ll no more reveal them than you would yours. I will say only that, in addition to my own talents and devices, as Master of the Watch I monitor all the sentinels in Nennifer.’

  ‘Who else knows of our coming?’ rapped Klarm. ‘The entire Council, or just Fusshte?’

  ‘I told no one. Indeed, I kept the knowledge from them.’

  ‘Which makes you a treasonous oath-breaker,’ cried Klarm, vindicated. ‘And no doubt a liar as well.’

  ‘My oath to Scrutator Flydd remained valid,’ Muss said simply. ‘Subsequent oaths were made under duress and therefore had no force.’

  ‘Flydd had been cast out by the Council,’ said Klarm, ‘which unbinds all oaths.’

  ‘My oath was to the man as well as the scrutator,’ said Muss. ‘I deemed that it held.’

  Klarm did not relent. ‘Flydd was condemned and made a non-citizen. By law, no oath to a non-citizen can remain valid.’

  ‘It remained binding to me. I can say no more.’

  ‘I cannot trust –’

  ‘Enough, Klarm!’ snarled Flydd. ‘It is, as you point out, a matter of trust. I choose to trust my man and there’s an end to it.’

  Klarm inclined his head and stepped backwards. ‘As you will,’ he said, though his eyes did not leave the face of the prober.

  ‘Well, Muss,’ said Flydd. ‘I expect you know why we’re here. What can you do for us?’

  ‘If you would give me a moment, surr.’ Muss turned away, consulting an instrument he kept concealed under his cloak. Coloured gleams briefly illuminated the fabric.

  ‘Hey!’ cried Klarm, grabbing his arm. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘My eidoscope is linked to the sentinels,’ said Muss, pulling away. ‘It enables me to see truly, even in this chaos, though the sentinels are failing now.’

  ‘What do you see, Muss?’ said Flydd.

  ‘The scrutators have survived the collapse and guard the amplimet still. You won’t easily get to either.’

  ‘But it is possible?’ said Flydd. ‘You can lead us to it?’

  ‘I believe so,’ said Muss. ‘Though even for me, the dislocation of Nennifer will not be easy to track through.’

  ‘What about Artisan Tiaan? Does she live?’

  ‘Unless she died in the dislocation. I expect I can find her.’

  ‘Tell me about the amplimet. What is its state?’

  ‘Ah!’ said Muss pregnantly. ‘Not being a mancer, surr, I cannot say.’

  ‘What do you know, Muss?’

  ‘The Council has been probing the crystal, very carefully, ever since they brought it back from Fiz Gorgo. And I understand, surr, though I’ve not been able to confirm it with my own eyes, that they’ve contained it to prevent it drawing more than a trickle of power.’

  ‘With ice wards,’ said Flydd. ‘But they’ve been melted; that’s how it got free.’

  ‘Ice was just the inner ward,’ said Muss. ‘There were outer wards as well.’

  ‘What were they?’ said Klarm eagerly.

  ‘I know no more than that,’ Muss said. ‘And beyond the wards was a circle of adepts, just in case …’

  ‘In case?’ said Flydd.

  ‘I was unable to discern the contingency they were guarding against.’

  ‘And you call yourself a spy,’ said Klarm.

  ‘The Council guards its secrets jealously,’ said Muss. ‘Though I dare say it bears upon what you’ve done to destroy Nennifer, for all that you had no idea what you were doing.’

  ‘Thank you, Muss,’ snapped Flydd. ‘Such speculations exceed your mandate. Lead us within, if you please.’

  ‘Hold just a moment,’ said Klarm. ‘I think this fellow knows more than he’s telling us. Prober Muss, pray enlarge upon your previous statement. What do you know about our doings?’

  Muss glanced at Flydd but found no relief there.

  ‘Well?’ said Klarm. ‘What does a humble prober know about the Art?’

  ‘Nothing, surr,’ said Muss, his normally impassive face showing the faintest sign of discomfort.

  ‘Come now, Eiryn Muss,’ said Flydd. ‘Don’t treat us like fools. You’re far more than a humble prober, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, surr.’

  ‘Of course you do. One of the reasons you’re such a brilliant spy is that you have a hidden talent, in the true sens
e of the word. You’re a mancer too, Eiryn Muss, but of a very rare kind.’

  ‘I –’ Muss shook his head. ‘No, surr …’

  ‘You’re a morphmancer, Muss – you can take on the shape and appearance of any human, or any creature, roughly your own size. You can go anywhere, and disguise yourself as anyone, and no one will ever know it’s you.’

  Muss, who had regained his self-control, scarcely reacted this time. All Nish caught was a slight tightening of the fists, a momentary flexure of the brows.

  ‘I can take on certain shapes and appearances, surr,’ Muss said, ‘but my essential nature remains unchanged. Therefore any ward or sentinel set against me will keep me at bay no matter how I change my shape. I tried to enter the chamber where the amplimet is held, but the sentinels would not allow it. Therefore I know not, of my own eyes, what went on in there.’

  ‘You just said your eidoscope was linked to the sentinels,’ said Klarm.

  ‘Only to read them. I can’t change their settings.’

  ‘What does your eidoscope tell you about what we did?’ said Flydd.

  ‘I believe,’ Muss said carefully, ‘though I do not know, that you managed to bypass the wards and the rings of mancers surrounding the amplimet. You melted the ice wards –’

  ‘That was our intention, but the ice wards had already been eaten away from within,’ said Flydd. ‘The amplimet must have done that, so it must have already woken, secretly.’

  ‘You forced power into the amplimet,’ said Muss, ‘allowing it to take control of the field for an instant. It lashed out, killing the ring of adepts and causing the dislocation of Nennifer, before the Council brought up another ring of ward-mancers to reinforce the wards that now contain it again.’

  ‘Are you sure they’ve contained it?’ said Malien, trying to sit up but failing. She lay down, cradling her head in her hands. ‘It’s under their control?’