Chimaera

by Ian Irvine

  After some minutes of trekking quite as dangerous as the trip in, and rather more crowded with wailing spectres, they reached the solid wooden door of what, from the dank smell, had been a basement dungeon cell. It now lay two floors above ground level.

  ‘Tiaan’s cell,’ said Eiryn Muss.

  Nish tried the door but it didn’t budge.

  ‘It’s held fast by scrutator magic,’ said Muss. ‘You’ll have to break the door to get inside.’

  ‘It’s solid ironwood,’ said Irisis. ‘It’d take half an hour to get through it with an axe. And we don’t have an axe.’ She stared at him expectantly.

  After a long hesitation, Muss used his eidoscope again, this time not seeming to care that they saw it. Nish didn’t think that was a good sign. Muss frowned, shape-shifted a couple of times, returned to his normal form, then reached out and seemed to put his arm right through the stone beside the door. He did something on the other side and the door came open.

  They pushed in. Tiaan lay on a straw-filled palliasse, staring at the ceiling. She was filthy, her clothes even filthier, and her black hair formed a tangled mass. Her arms and legs were shaking. Nish approached her tentatively, for Tiaan mistrusted him, and with good reason. And she felt the same way about Irisis.

  ‘Tiaan?’ he said softly.

  She turned her eyes toward him, without recognition, then looked back at the ceiling. A louse the length of Nish’s fingernail crawled up her neck into her hair. She didn’t appear to notice.

  ‘Tiaan?’

  She turned, and this time her eyes widened. She lurched to her feet, batted feebly at a point to the right of Nish, gave a gasp of horror and tried to climb the wall behind her.

  Nish caught her as she fell back on the palliasse. ‘It’s like she’s seeing ghosts.’

  ‘Perhaps she thinks we are ghosts.’

  ‘What do we do with her?’ said Nish.

  ‘I have no idea. And to add to our troubles, bloody Muss has disappeared again.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  They carried Tiaan back through the spectre-infested chaos, taking turns. She did not resist. Indeed, Tiaan hardly knew they were there.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  Nish had stopped for a breather on a floor made of smashed slabs of pink gneiss that crunched and crackled underfoot. In the distance, a segment of Nennifer crumbled with a roar that shook the walls. Glass objects, warped like figures in a torture chamber, fell off a shelf. Collapses were happening all the time now.

  ‘She’s been in the depraved hands of Fusshte,’ said Irisis, frowning at the three corridors that led on. ‘It would drive anyone out of their mind.’

  ‘He’s slimy and squalid, but he’s not a fool. Tiaan can do things no one else has ever been able to, and he wouldn’t break her and lose that talent.’

  ‘I’ll take her now.’ Nish hefted Tiaan off his shoulder onto Irisis’s. Irisis grimaced. ‘She stinks.’

  ‘And that’s not all.’ Raking his fingers though his short hair, Nish plucked off a fat louse which he flicked away with his thumb. He scratched under his arm. ‘I think she’s given me fleas as well.’

  ‘Poor Nish. How you must be suffering.’ She looked around. ‘Surely we’re getting close to the warding chamber?’

  ‘I think so. It’s not easy to remember the way.’

  They continued on, struggling between head-high piles of rubble, or over them. Confronted by a particularly large heap, with beams sticking out of it like the spines of a sea urchin, Nish said, ‘This wasn’t here when we came through.’

  She picked her way around to the left, Tiaan flopping on her shoulder. ‘There’s not much holding Nennifer up. Once any slice fails, the ones on either side of it are doomed to follow. The whole lot could come down without warning.’

  He stayed where he was, unsure if they were going in the right direction. ‘You don’t have to be so damned cheerful about it.’

  ‘The joys of fatalism, Nish. When you have no expectations, every extra moment of life is a blessing and a wonder.’ She gave him a beatific smile over her shoulder.

  ‘Humbug!’

  ‘I think it’s this way,’ she said, moving around the other side of the rubble pile.

  Nish climbed up onto the heap and peered over into the gloom. Their path was blocked by tilted slabs of floor and ceiling which had collapsed on one another like a deck of cards. ‘No, we’ll have to go back to that junction where we went right, and take the middle way. Do you need a hand?’

  Irisis hefted Tiaan higher onto her shoulder and turned back. At the junction she checked the other corridors. ‘I don’t think it was either of these. Bloody Muss! What’s he up to?’

  Nish was too weary to answer. He put his hand on the wall and a small section collapsed, revealing a cavity than ran in to the limit of sight. He hopped backwards in case the rest came down, but the wall didn’t move. Once the dust had settled he sniffed the air coming from the hole. ‘I can smell that stink again. The warding chamber must be this way.’

  ‘Surprised you can smell anything over Tiaan,’ Irisis grumbled, coming up to the cavity. ‘Can you take her?’

  Nish hauled Tiaan through, heaved her onto his shoulder and set off, following his nose.

  Tiaan let out a low moan and began to thrash. Nish, who was negotiating a pile of rubble higher than his head, landed hard on one knee on a broken piece of stone and cried out. Tiaan jerked herself out of his arms. Crouching on all fours, she gave him a strange sideways glance and scuttled up the pile.

  ‘No you don’t!’ Irisis threw herself after Tiaan and caught her by the ankle.

  Tiaan let out a thin squeal and kicked furiously. Irisis clamped her other hand around the smaller woman’s calf, holding her until Nish twisted one arm behind her back, whereupon Tiaan ceased to struggle and her eyes fluttered closed.

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ he panted.

  Irisis shrugged. ‘Do you think we should tie her up?’

  He shook his head. ‘We need her to cooperate when we get there and … you know how she feels about us.’

  ‘We’d better keep moving. We’ve taken too long already …’

  Time may well have run out, Nish thought. A small war could have been fought at the other end of Nennifer and they wouldn’t have been aware of it.

  They struggled on. Tiaan wasn’t a big woman but the strain of carrying her was telling. Nish ached in every muscle.

  ‘We must be nearly there,’ said Irisis as they stopped briefly, ‘though I don’t recognise this place.’ The burnt-flesh smell was sickening.

  ‘I think we’re approaching the warding chamber from the other side.’ What were they supposed to do once they got there?

  ‘So the scrutators’ workroom and turret must be above us. Now what?’ said Irisis as if she’d read his thought. ‘Did Flydd want us to take Tiaan to him, or to the warding chamber?’

  ‘The chamber, surely? We’ve no way of getting to him.’

  ‘Inouye was trying to tell us something,’ Irisis recalled. ‘But she couldn’t get it out. Should I go up and ask her?’

  ‘She’s probably unconscious,’ said Nish, guilt rising up to overwhelm him. What had Inouye ever done to harm anyone?

  They were pressing on towards the final door into the amplimet chamber when Tiaan’s eyes sprang open. She quivered in Nish’s arms then said clearly, ‘Put me down.’

  Nish did so gladly. Tiaan wavered on her feet, steadied herself and looked around, as alert as she had previously been apathetic. She glanced at Irisis, then Nish, without seeming to recognise either of them. Tiaan faced the door, cocking her head as if listening, then smiled.

  What’s going on? Nish mouthed to Irisis. She signed that she didn’t have a clue. He pointed to the door. Irisis puffed out her cheeks, looked back the other way, then ruefully scratched herself.

  A stub of wall collapsed behind them, sending a cloud of dust billowing in their direction. Someone called out in the indeterminate d
istance. Tiaan started.

  ‘That sounded like Flydd,’ said Irisis.

  ‘I don’t think we’d hear him from here.’

  They listened but the cry was not repeated. A crystalline crackle came from inside the chamber and Nish suddenly knew that they’d made the wrong choice.

  ‘It’s waiting for us!’ he hissed. ‘We’ve got to go up to –’

  The crackle sounded again, peremptory this time. Tiaan stopped quivering; a joyous smile spread across her dirty face and she bolted for the last door.

  Irisis threw herself forward and got two fingers into Tiaan’s collar. Tiaan swung around, clenched her two hands into a mallet and clubbed Irisis across the side of the head. Tiaan tore free and darted through the door into the warding chamber.

  Nish cursed and raced after her. ‘That’s what Inouye was trying to tell us. To keep Tiaan away from the warding chamber.’

  He crashed through the door. Tiaan was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘All the signs were there,’ said Irisis, ‘and we missed them. Fusshte hadn’t mistreated Tiaan, he’d only neglected her. Tiaan was suffering withdrawal from the amplimet and the first thing she’d do would be to go for it.’

  The room was noticeably warmer than before, and the reek of burnt flesh and hair even more overpowering, if that was possible.

  ‘I don’t see her,’ said Nish, taking a couple of steps.

  Irisis dragged him back. ‘Remember what happened to the inner ring of mancers.’

  ‘But if we don’t stop her –’

  ‘Tiaan may be suffering withdrawal, but she’s seen other people die through the amplimet. She’ll make sure it recognises her before she goes too close.’

  ‘There’s no saying it will allow her near. What are we supposed to do?’

  ‘I – I’ve got no idea, Nish. I can’t make sense out of anything.’

  Irisis had always been a leader and her indecision dismayed him. ‘I’ll stay here and see if I can catch her. Run up to the dome chamber and shout a warning to Flydd.’

  She smiled at that. ‘Don’t be silly, Nish. There’s nothing you can do here, but I may be able to. Go up. Run as though all our lives depend on it. And … be careful. You’ve got the most dangerous job.’

  Nish ran, though it was not until he’d passed through the last door and was halfway up the shuddering metal stairs that he realised she’d deceived him. The safest person in the warding chamber, if anyone could be safe from the amplimet, was someone who had neither talent for the Art nor ability to draw power from the field.

  He stopped, afraid for her, but then went on. Irisis had made her decision and it wasn’t up to him to undermine it. Besides, there was no time. He could feel the tension building second by second.

  Nish was just stepping off onto the roof when the back of his neck crawled, as if someone was watching him. He looked left, then right, but saw nothing. He headed for the walkway, cursing an over-active imagination.

  The attack came without warning – a colossal thump in the back that drove him face-first into the roof. He tried to scramble away but was struck in the back of the neck and around the sides of the head by someone who was kneeling on his back, pinning him down.

  The weight wasn’t inordinate – a woman or a compact man, and not one with much experience of fighting. The blows hurt but had done no great damage, apart from his nose which felt as if it was broken.

  He took a deep breath, tensed and heaved with all his strength, rolling at the same time. His attacker went flying. Nish kept rolling, came to his feet and threw himself at the man. It was a man, a young fellow not much bigger than Nish. Nish didn’t waste time. He punched his assailant in the belly, kneed him in the jaw when he doubled over, lifting him to his toes, and followed that with a left hook that rattled the fellow’s teeth. His head hit the wall and he shifted right before Nish’s eyes, becoming a shaggy, dazed, but very small bear.

  Nish hit him and he shifted again, into a small wingless lyrinx. ‘Muss, you bloody treacherous bastard!’ Nish roared, clamping his fingers around the leathery throat and banging the crested head against the wall.

  Muss shifted to a much smaller person, a beautiful, buxom young woman, black of hair and eye. Nish lost his grip and hesitated for a moment. The code against harming women was so strong that it momentarily overrode his reason.

  Muss brought his knee up into Nish’s groin, thrust him out of the way and bolted for the stairs. By the time Nish recovered, the spy was out of sight. Nish didn’t go after him. Trying to ignore the agony in his groin, he staggered across the roof towards the dome.

  He eased through the door, keeping a sharp lookout. The chamber was as gloomy as before, though an occasional fitful burst of light came from the direction where Flydd and Klarm had been pinned down. At least one of them must be at large.

  Nish didn’t try to get to them; he would certainly be captured. All he could do was shout, which would alert Fusshte as well. Nothing he could do about that. He raised his voice and roared, ‘Flydd!’

  The flashes stopped. The room went dark, then he heard Fusshte’s voice. ‘That’s Cryl-Nish Hlar. Get him!’

  ‘About time!’ yelled Flydd. ‘Where’s Tiaan?’

  ‘She got away. She’s in the warding chamber.’

  Flydd cursed. ‘You damn fool – I told you – never mind. Nish, we got two of the scrutators but the other three are blocking us. Run down and smash the warding barriers – the rose-crystal blades around the amplimet. Hurry.’ He paused, then said in a lower voice, as though to his comrades, ‘Now!’

  A gigantic flash of purple light illuminated the chamber and the dome. Thunder reverberated back and forth. Nish was starting for the door when he felt the floor move underfoot. At first he thought that the whole chamber was collapsing, but the movement was constant and only in one direction. The floor was moving, drawing back underneath the walls. That was why the outer ring of the chamber had been empty.

  It slid away from the centre in radial sections, revealing that the scrutators’ turret was founded on a column that ran down through the floor. It looked like the column that ran up from the warding chamber. Sections of false floor rotated out and up and snapped into place, creating circular ranks of seating as in a stadium, or a theatre with a central stage. That’s what it was – a theatre for displays of power and terror. The scrutators loved their public spectacles.

  Ducking low, Nish made his way to the edge. The warding chamber, several floors below, now formed the stage of the theatre. He could see the dais with its rose-crystal barriers, and outside them the shadows of the nine anthracised mancers. Tiaan was standing between them, staring at the barriers.

  She could get to the amplimet before anyone else could reach the warding chamber. What then? Disaster, he suspected. And doom for Irisis, wherever she was. His heart turned over at the thought.

  Flydd had ordered him to smash the rose-crystal barriers. He couldn’t jump – the dais was a good twenty spans below. Nish turned and bolted for the door.

  THIRTY

  Once Nish had gone, Irisis began to creep around the circumference of the warding chamber behind the ring of fifteen mancers, who were standing as silent and motionless as before. Her stomach hurt. Fatalist that she was, she was still vain enough that she didn’t want to be slain in some grotesque or disfiguring way.

  A swift sword thrust between the ribs, or in through the back, she found herself thinking. That won’t make too much of a mess. But no severed limbs or spilled guts, and definitely not anthracism. The sight of those oozing, foamed-up statues of char and bone, once men and women as proud as herself, filled her with unspeakable horror.

  Irisis heard a footfall off to her left and shook herself free of morbid reflections. She’d spent far too much time wallowing in that sort of thing lately. How was she to capture Tiaan while preventing the amplimet from destroying them both? If she drew no power at all, not even the tiny amount required to check on the state of the field, she might be all right.
But then again, the amplimet might be able to take control of her pliance and direct power straight at her. She didn’t know what it was capable of.

  She passed in front of one of the living ward-mancers – the dumpy old woman she’d noted earlier. Her whole body was shuddering now, and her eye had a deranged, unblinking stare. Her mouth hung open on the left side but was twisted closed on the right, as if she’d had a stroke. Saliva ran down her chin, sliming the breast of her robe. Surely she couldn’t hold out much longer.

  Irisis circled the room. The other fourteen mancers were in a similar condition. Though none had yet failed, they were close to cracking. When they did, they would die as gruesomely as the inner circle, and so would she.

  She circled the room again but saw no sign of Tiaan. At all costs she must stop the amplimet breaking free until Flydd got here, though how was she to do that?

  She couldn’t do anything to support the ward-mancers. Tiaan was the key, but would Tiaan try to contain the amplimet or help it get free? Another unknown. Irisis went down on hands and knees and began to crawl towards the dais. The stench was truly revolting, and as she eased between two of the carbonised mancers, her head brushed a hanging hand. A finger tangled in her hair and broke off. Irisis raked it out furiously. The crunchy, bubbly feel of the remnant made her gag.

  She still hadn’t seen Tiaan, though surely she would be close to the rose-crystal barriers. Irisis didn’t think Tiaan would have gone inside yet – she’d sound out the amplimet first. She could be patient now; this close, her withdrawal would ease.

  And then the unexpected happened. The ceiling shook and, with a whirring of oiled rods, separated into radial segments that moved fractionally apart and began to slide away from the centre, exposing a twelve-sided hole. It slowly enlarged to reveal, far above, the scrutators’ turret with its elongated speaking trumpets, surmounting its column like a flower at the end of a tall thick stalk.