by Ian Irvine
'Mind your own business.'
Ullii crouched beside the scrutator. 'Does your leg hurt, Xervish?' She peeled away the torn flaps of fabric covering his left thigh. They were darkly stained in the moonlight. Ullii drew back, visibly distressed.
'More than somewhat,' Flydd replied. 'I'll just dress this, then —’ A howl drifted to them on the wind, followed by a furious baying. He rose to his feet with an effort, muttering, 'I thought we'd have a longer lead.'
They hurried down the stony slope. The sole of Nish's boot was practically off but he couldn't stop to fix it. The path narrowed, the scrub closing overhead until it resembled a rabbit run.
Towards the bottom, Flydd, who was limping worse than ever, stopped. 'Ullii, can you smell water?'
'Of course,' she said.
'Lead the way, quick as you can.'
She went down on hands and knees, crept under a bush, turned left and scuttled along a path that had not been visible to Nish. He followed. Thorns tore at his clothing and caught in his hair. Ullii was out of sight, making so little sound that he could not tell which way she'd gone.
'Left!' growled Flydd in his ear, 'And make it snappy. Those aren't puppies behind us.'
'I can't see the path.'
Flydd muttered an imprecation, pushed past and stood up. Letting out a muffled gasp, he pressed his hand to his thigh.
Are you all right?' said Nish.
'I'll have to be.'
They zigzagged down a steep decline where dry leaves and gravel slipped underfoot, over a bank between head-high tangles of berry bushes, and found themselves under some tall trees. The undergrowth disappeared and the ground became springy.
Ullii waited beside a leaning tree. 'The river is straight ahead, Xervish.'
'Can you swim. Ullii?' Flydd asked.
'No,' she said with a shudder.
'What about you, Artificer?"
Nish started. A long time had passed since anyone had called him by that title. 'I can, but not very well.'
'Useless fool!' Flydd said it without rancour. 'The rivers in Taltid aren't deep, or fast, but you can still drown in them. We have to go into the water or the dogs will have us. Ullii, come with me. Hang on to my shoulders, not my neck! Don't make any noise. Nish, you'll just have to do your best. No splashing.'
They went over the bank and Nish lost sight of them. Occasional shafts of moonlight touched the water. There came a splash, a faint cry, a curse, then the sound of paddling.
Nish followed gingerly. He had never been confident in water. To go into a river that he could not even see, in pitch darkness, took a deal of courage, though he'd done it once before and survived. Nish suppressed the embarrassing memories of the escape from Mira's house. Recollecting that the dogs were not far behind, and doubtless the overseer with his whip, he pushed forward.
The bank gave way, dropping him into the river with a mighty splash. Water went over his head and his foot caught on something — a fallen tree or branch. He kicked free, came up and looked around. The trees were taller here and the canopy closed. Not a glimmer of moonshine reached the water.
'Flydd?'
He could hear nothing over his own splashing and heavy breathing. Being prone to panic in deep water at the best of times, Nish was not game to stop paddling so he could listen.
He moved out into a current, which pulled him downstream. It was eerie. For all he could tell, the river might have been three spans wide, or a hundred, though Flydd had said there were no large rivers here.
Nish was beginning to feel more confident. He moved his arms in gentle circles, scissored his legs, and discovered he could keep his head above water without too much effort.
'Flydd?'
There was no answer. He'd surely go downriver as far as possible, so there would be more area to search. Nish floated along, calmly now. The water was cool enough to ease his throbbing wounds; it was the best he'd felt since his slavery began.
His feet grated on gravel — a shoal touched by light and moon-shadow. He pushed around the edge of it, heading for deeper water, then drifted towards the far bank.
A hand seized him by the collar. Nish thrashed, went under and water surged up his nose and down his windpipe. He was dragged choking and gasping onto the bank. He struck at his assailant, only to receive a blow that drove him into the mud. A big foot pressed him down; mud filled his mouth and eyes. He clawed at the bank.
'Don't move!' said a voice he had never heard before. 'Hoy, Plazzo! I've got one. Told you they'd come this way. Oh, boy, I can taste the reward money already.'
Thirteen
Someone grunted. The bushes rustled and footsteps came in their direction.
'Hey! Any sign of the others, Plazzo?' the fellow continued. 'Ungghr.’
A body fell into the water, making a loud splash. Nish was hauled up by the arms.
'What a useless fellow you are,' said Flydd amiably. 'Wipe the mud off your face — you're giving us a bad name.'
Nish blew the muck out of his nostrils and followed. 'There's another of them somewhere.'
'He's already floating downriver,' Flydd said laconically, tearing leaves into strips as he walked. It made a zipping sound, like cloth being ripped, and Nish smelt a pungent odour that resembled mustard oil.
'Where's Ullii?'
'She's here. Being quiet!
They continued on a track winding through scrub. Ullii fell in beside Nish and took his hand. He made to pull away, knowing how badly he stank, but she clung to him.
'Where are we headed?' said Nish, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. The intimacy he'd had with her months ago at Tirthrax was long gone. Evidently her feelings were unchanged. He felt, as he had briefly when they'd met in the Aachim camp weeks ago, that she expected something of him. Nish could not work out what it was, and was too exhausted to think about it. He could have slept standing up.
'I'll tell you when we get there.' Flydd was still tearing leaves. Ullii was carrying them too — Nish could smell them on her.
't' s the red mustard bush; Flydd said quietly, 'since I know you're going to ask. Ullii found it for me. Puts dogs off the scent, hopefully.'
'But not people?'
'I hardly think so.'
The sky had clouded over. Judging by an occasional glimpse of the moon, they now seemed to be heading north. Nish wondered why, but didn't ask.
Long before daybreak he smelt tar and knew they were passing Snizort again, further east. Flydd continued north, bypassing the now abandoned command hill, before turning onto a north-westerly heading across undulating country covered in crunchy, withered grass.
After several hours of weary trudging, it began to get light. The cloud had passed and it would be another clear, hot day. They climbed a rocky mound, not big enough to be called a hill. Nish sank into the shade afforded by a boulder shaped like a two-humped buffalo, closed his eyes and began to doze off. Flydd scanned the scene, keeping to the cover. 'I don't see anyone behind us.'
Nish grunted. He'd eaten his bread long ago and was so hungry he could have bitten off his arm.
'Better fix your boot,' said Flydd. . 'With what?' Nish snapped.
Flydd tossed him the whip and knife. Nish unbraided several strips of leather, poked holes in the boot with the tip of the knife and began to weave the strips through.
Flydd picked shreds of cloth from around the tear in his left thigh, careful not to touch it with his dirty hands. The edges looked as though they'd been burned.
'What happened there?' said Nish.
Flydd waved the question away.
'Do you want me to bandage that?'
'Touch it with those filthy paws and I'm likely to get gangrene.'
Ullii squatted beside Flydd, staring anxiously at the wound. She was wearing a tent-like smock made from a piece of green cloth fastened at the throat, and baggy trousers. She knotted a mask out of a strip torn from the hem of the smock, and covered her eyes, nose and ears. Horizontal slits over her eyes allowed her to see, not
that she needed to.
'You're hurting, Xervish, Ullii said, eyes blinking behind the mask as the light grew.
'Somewhat, Ullii.' Flydd touched her affectionately on the shoulder. 'I'll attend to it as soon as we find water.’
She packed surplus cloth into her nostrils and snuggled up to him, which Nish found extraordinary. Ullii was so wary of people. Gazing up into Flydd's eyes, she said, 'I forgive you, Xervish.'
Nish had no idea what she was talking about. Ullii turned to him then, as if challenging him, and her stare was so intense that he had to look away. What did she want? More of the intimacy they'd shared at Tirthrax? It felt like half a lifetime ago and, even though he cared about Ullii, Nish could not turn his feelings on like a tap.
She tossed her head, leapt up and stalked into the scrub. 'What was that about?' said Nish.
Flydd, bound up in his own troubles, answered the question he thought Nish had asked. 'A long time ago I promised to help find her twin brother, Mylii. They were separated when she was four and she hasn't heard from him since.'
'You mentioned him the other day,' said Nish.
'But I didn't tell you I'd lied to her in Snizort, at the node-drainer. Ullii was being uncooperative, so I told her Muss had found Mylii and was bringing him back. Unfortunately, she discovered that I'd lied.'
'Well, it's all over now.'
'I hope so,' said Flydd, 'though I've a feeling it isn't. Go and have a look around, will you?'
Nish was behind a tree on the other side of the mound when he caught a whiff of something burning, or at least extremely overheated. It was a-strange smell, nothing like burning wood or leaves, or flesh of human or lyrinx. The odour was like roasted rock. He called Flydd over. Ullii came out of the bushes, scowling.
'What's that?' Nish said, sniffing.
Unusually, Ullii answered. 'Iron tears.'
Flydd gave her a keen glance. The rising sun carved him out in profile, a black cut-out in a bronze wall. 'You've been here before, haven't you, Ullii?'
She adjusted her mask over her eyes, moving a little closer to the scrutator. 'Came with Irisis ages ago, looking for the node-drainer.'
'Is it the node?' Nish couldn't see anything unusual.
'What's left of it,' said Flydd. 'Let's take a look, shall we?'
'Shouldn't we try to get away while we can?'
'I've got to check something first.' Flydd scanned the landscape. There was nothing to be seen, though ten thousand soldiers could have hidden in any of the valleys still in shadow, or behind any of the stone-crowned hills. 'We've time enough. They haven't found our trail yet. Over there.' He indicated the hill to their left.
They wound up the hill, which was no more than a grassy undulation. From the top, not two hundred paces away, a black hole in the ground emitted wisps of steam.
Ullii stopped abruptly, her small head darting this way and that.
'What is it?' said Flydd. 'What do you see, Ullii?'
'A hole; she said.
'Of course there's a hole,' Nish muttered.
'Don't be a fool, boy! Ullii?'
'Hole in my lattice, Xervish,' said Ullii. 'A pair of holes.'
'A pair?' said Flydd. 'Are you afraid?'
'No,' said Ullii. 'They're empty now.'
Flydd's feet left pale trails in the dewy grass. Nish followed in silence, unable to make sense of it. Why was Flydd squandering their lead for the exploded remains of a node?
Shortly they began to encounter patches of burnt grass, each containing slaggy aggregations of melted rock which must have been blown out of the hole. The patches coalesced, the blobs of slag grew larger until the ground was knee-deep in them. The bigger ones were still hot enough to warm Nish's ankles as he wove between them.
The hole formed a perfect oval about forty spans wide by sixty long. Its rim was as sharp as cheese cut with a knife and crusted with exhalations of red, yellow and brown sulphur. Within, the land had subsided in a series of concentric oval rings, like a squashed spyglass. The outside ring, the highest, bore a hide of withered grass. On the next, the grass had been carbonised in place. The soil of the remaining rings was burnt bare. The centre of the hole was obscured by rising steam.
There were nine of these oval rings, each about the width of a span, the drop to the next being roughly the same distance. They formed a series of giant steps down to the centre, though the shimmering air obscured what lay below. The humidity was choking.
'You're not planning to go down there?' said Nish, eyeing the hole anxiously.
Flydd chuckled mirthlessly. 'Indeed we are.'
He lowered himself onto the first ring and held his arms up. Without hesitation Ullii slipped into them. Flydd could get her to do things that no one else could. The pair turned their backs and went to the edge.
Nish was reluctant to follow but Flydd was not a man for excuses. Going backwards over the first edge, he felt his chest tighten, his pulse quicken.
Flydd and Ullii were well below him as Nish climbed down to the next level. The sides of the oval rings, as smooth as polished stone, resembled a series of pistons one inside the other. At the ninth ring it was stifling, steamy. Waves of heat pulsed up from an oval trench five or six spans deep and, when the steam clouds parted, its base glowed red. Within the trench, a cylinder of rock rose from the centre, listing to one side. The once-smooth stone walls had run like toffee.
On its flat top, like a pair of teardrops on a pedestal, sat two shining globes of liquid metal, bright as quicksilver. They were shaped like drops of water, though each was the size of a soup bowl. A faint humming sound came from them. Ullii had taken her mask off and was staring at the globes as if entranced.
'My, oh my,' said Flydd. 'Can you hear the song of the tears?'
'What are they?' Nish sat near the edge, not too close, praying that Flydd was not going to go after them.
'The distilled tears of the node,' said Flydd.
'I don't understand.'
'No power is ever completely destroyed, Nish. There's always some residuum — and it's ever more complex, warped and strange. I wonder …Can this be an accident, or were they created?'
'Flydd?'
'According to myth, or rumour, the tears are the essence of the node, purified of all base elements by the blast that destroys it. They're believed to be made of the purest substance in the world, and desired by mancers more than any other. But no mancer has ever obtained so much as a speck of that matter, much less a complete tear. They represent the value of a continent.' Flydd gazed at the tears with greedy eyes.
'And you want them?' said Nish. 'Are they magic?'
'Empty,' Ullii interjected.
'Not at the moment,' said the scrutator. 'But their substance, which has been called nihilium, takes the print of the Art more readily than any other form of matter, and binds it much more tightly. Oh, I want them — to make sure no one else can have them.'
'How are you going to get across?'
Flydd gauged the distances. The oval trench was red hot, making it impossible to climb down and up the other side. The stone pedestal seemed cooler, though it still radiated such heat that they could not have gone within a couple of spans of it, even could they have reached that far. Besides, it was well out of reach, its top being three spans below them, and eight or nine out from where they stood.
'Even if we had a rope or a grappling iron we couldn't collect them,' Flydd muttered.
'And I dare say they're heavy?'
Flydd thought for a moment. 'If they have weight as we know it, they would be heavier than lead; they could have the weight of gold, or even platinum. But then again, they may weigh virtually nothing …Let's go up.' Flydd gave the tears one last, lingering look, then turned to the wall.
Nish boosted him up, then Ullii. Flydd reached down a hand to him.
'What are you going to do?' Nish wondered as they reached the top.
'I don't know. The time is all wrong.'
They repaired to the shade of a gro
ve of trees some ten minutes' walk away. Flydd filled the overseer's pannikin from a tiny spring, kindled a smokeless fire under it with dry twigs, carefully washed his hands then lay back with his eyes closed.
'If the field is dead,' said Nish, 'how come you were able to make that blast back there, to save Ullii?' It had been preying on his mind ever since.
Flydd looked up irritably. 'Can you be quiet? I'm trying to think.'
Nish stared at the scrutator as if unable to make him out. Finally Flydd snapped. 'Damn and blast you, Nish! Go away.'
Nish rose abruptly but Flydd said, 'Oh, you might as well sit down. I've lost my train of thought anyway.' He peeled back his torn and bloody pants leg to reveal the jagged, blistered gash in his thigh. 'I had a charged crystal embedded in my leg a long time ago, for just such an emergency.'
'You had it all that time?' Nish exclaimed. 'Why didn't you use it to save yourself?'
'It was for emergencies.' snapped Flydd.
And being enslaved didn't count?' Nish found that incomprehensible.
'My life wasn't in danger, apart from being bored to death by you, I wanted to remain with the army for as long as possible, so I'd know what Jal-Nish was up to. You do know that yoar father plans to lead an attack on the lyrinx? An unbelievable folly that can only end one way.'.’
'I've heard the slaves gossiping about it,' said Nish. Now I'm out of contact, and that's bad.'
'What about the crystal in your leg?'
'Once used, it can't be reused.'
'Why didn't you sew two crystals into yourself? Or twenty, for that matter?'
Flydd sprang up, his face thunderous. 'Don't you ever think before opening your mouth? Nothing comes without a price, Artificer, and putting powerful crystals inside you exacts a hefty one. Discharging one —’ He shook his head.
It was a nasty tear, the length of Nish's little finger and burned at the edges. 'That must be painful,' Nish observed.
'You use words the way a blacksmith cuts flowers! Scrutators are trained to overcome pain, and I've had more practice than most, but this hurts like bloody blazes.' Tearing off the sleeve of his shirt, Flydd ripped it into strips and poked them under the boiling water. After a minute or two he fished them out, waved them in the air to cool them, then bound them around the injury.