by Ian Irvine
Even Vithis let out a muffled cry at that. Perhaps he was remembering that Tiaan had saved Minis from a fiery death. It was all Tiaan could do to remain silent as they reached the healers' tent and carried her within.
'It's a shabby way to treat someone who saved all our lives,' said Luxor.
If she knew what a fully woken amplimet would do to her,' said Urien, 'she'd thank us on bended knees.'
Twenty
There was shouting in the night, not far from Thyzzea's tent. Recognising Minis's voice, Tiaan looked out the window flap.
'How dare you abuse her so!' Minis roared, struggling against a number of guards.
Shortly Vithis came running and, after a low-voiced argument, Minis went away with him. Tiaan was pleased to see him go. Whether sincere or not, Minis could do nothing for her.
She was woken before dawn by Thyzzea, who handed her a steaming mug. 'You must be quick, Tiaan. Vithis will soon be here. I brought you clothes, since yours are .., in need of cleaning.' That was a politeness. Tiaan's clothes were no better than tar-stained rags. 'Do you need help to dress?'
'Thank you,' said Tiaan, Taut I'm used to doing it.'
Once Thyzzea had gone, she eased her legs out of bed. Her thigh and calf muscles ached but she had more coordination than before; more strength too. She was able to stand up and take a couple of halting steps, and it felt like a personal triumph.
The red drink practically needed to be eaten with a spoon. It was sweet, with a slightly bitter under-taste that she came to appreciate by the time she had finished, for without it the beverage would have been cloyingly rich.
The clothes fitted well enough. She was dressed and sitting at the table, eating bread and hot sausage, when Vithis burst through the flap of the tent.
'Time to go to work. Bring her, Guard!
Thyzzea put her head through the door of her parents' room, said something and picked Tiaan up. Vithis set off with great strides, so that Thyzzea had to trot to keep up.
'What do you want of me?' Tiaan asked Vithis as they crossed between row after row of silent constructs. She knew, but wanted to hear him say it.
You're going to operate my construct with the amplimet, and tow the other machines to the nearest field. Thyzzea will guard you, and if you attempt to escape, her family will suffer the prescribed penalty.'
At the furthest end of the row, Vithis stopped at a construct that was somewhat larger than most others. Its hatch was open. Aachim ran back and forth, packing gear into it and into a number of other constructs. Each was connected to the first by stout ropes, around which were looped finer cables that ran underneath.
Vithis climbed in. Thyzzea followed, struggling under Tiaan's awkward weight. Vithis handed Tiaan the package, wrapped in platinum, which she unfolded to reveal the amplimet. Again she felt that blind terror, but fought it down. The amplimet offered the only hope of escape for her, too.
'This machine is linked to six others,' said Vithis. 'Once you draw power, they will take enough to rise off the ground and maintain direction, though not to drive themselves. Do nothing hastily. Don't attempt to escape. I'll be with you the whole time, and I have two guards in the following construct, armed with crossbows.'
Tiaan was not planning to escape just yet. First she must be able to walk, even run.
Vithis climbed onto the rear platform, looking back. 'All is ready. Begin, very slowly.'
The nearest node lay not too many leagues to the south. Though small and nondescript, weak and wavering, she could use it. Locking onto its field, she drew power smoothly. The construct rumbled and rose up to hip height. She looked over her shoulder at Vithis, who was shivering with tension. Small wonder.
'All is well,' he said. 'Head directly towards the node. Take it steadily or you'll break the cables.'
She eased the lever and the construct crept forward until the slack of the first tether was taken up The machine shook as the weight of the second construct came on the line. A dull ache tickled across the top of her skull. Tiaan rubbed the spot with her fingers and drew more power.
So it went until all six constructs were underway. After that it was routine, though the work was draining. She headed south towards the node, the construct moving across undulating plains at slightly more than walking pace, in the general direction of Gospett. There was no sign of life. The once plentiful game had been slaughtered to feed the armies.
'Go round in a circle and stop,' called Vithis some hours later. The constructs behind him were signalling. 'They can see the field.'
They were in a circular valley with a rim of low hills on all sides. White quartzite outcropped in lines across the slope, and along the crest. A dry creek, its bed filled with white pebbles, meandered across the floor of the valley. Its path was marked by trees with slate-blue pendulous leaves and hanging purple fruits like curly beans.
'Set up camp here and dig a pit in the creek bed. We'll find good water there.'
Vithis gave orders for the layout of the camp and his people ran to carry them out. The constructs were unhooked, disgorging about a hundred Aachim. The cables were reloaded into Tiaan's construct. The others moved under their own power, making a defensive ring around the camp.
'Head back to the Snizort camp, Tiaan/ said Vithis, smiling. She'd not thought him capable of it. 'Make all the speed you can.' He came down from the turret to stand beside her, leaving a wide gap between them.
Tiaan glanced up at his stern profile and, despite the way he'd treated her, for the first time she felt a trace of empathy. Vithis had lost everything. She could not truly understand his loss, but she could feel it, and it reminded her of something that had been troubling her for a long time. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it, afraid he would blame her again.
But surely, in spite of everything he'd done to her, it would e wrong not to tell him. She flipped back and forth as they floated along then, when they were halfway back, it just burst out of her.
'I heard them!' Tiaan said suddenly.
'What?' He roused from his thoughts.
'When the gate opened, in Tirthrax …'
He spun around, staring at her. 'Yes? Yes?'
'I heard a host of people crying out in agony.'
He put his hands on her cheeks, probing her eyes with his own. 'What did you hear?'
'They were lost' she said softly, closing her eyes and immersing herself in the horror of it. 'Lost in the void. It was terrible.'
'You heard,' he said. 'Ah, my clan, my clan!' He began to weep, but dashed the tears away. 'Before I do anything else, my dead must be honoured. I will find them and bring their bodies back, no matter how far I have to go or how long it takes.' He sprang out through the hatch.
When she looked back he was standing in the shooter's turret, legs spread, grim face fixed on the horizon. His cloak streamed out in the wind, lifting his hair, which had changed from black to silver since his coming to Santhenar. Tiaan wished she had not spoken.
Vithis worked Tiaan without respite. For the next trip, ten constructs were linked to hers, and on the one after that, fourteen, and they travelled more quickly. It took the most intense concentration to draw enough power, and keep it flowing smoothly. The amplimet could handle it, though Tiaan was not sure how much more she could take. The inside of her skull felt as if hot channels had been bored through it. Once, using her talent had been pure pleasure and the highest fulfilment she could imagine. No more — now there was just pain and a feeling of being driven beyond her strength. She wasn't a human being, or even a slave. She was just a tool to be used and discarded when it was worn out.
They stopped for lunch in the mid-afternoon, while twenty constructs were linked to her machine On the trip after that, the number was thirty. By the time she had hauled all those to the field, it was long after dark.
There was no break, apart from dinner eaten while they waited for another thirty to be linked up. They kept going all through the night, pulling thirty each time, Vithis driving her mercile
ssly. Dawn revealed another thirty, ready to be linked up, but Tiaan could do no more.
'My brain is burning.' Unfastening her belt, she slid off the chair onto the metal floor.
Thyzzea and one of the soldiers carried Tiaan out, laying her on the brittle grass. A healer was brought, then Urien appeared and laid her hands on Tiaan's head.
'No harm has been done,' said Urien, 'hut you must take better care of her, Vithis.'
'We've moved only a hundred and forty constructs,' said Vithis. 'At this rate it'll take six weeks.'
'That's a hundred and forty more than was thought possible yesterday, and if you work her to death you'll get no more.'
'In two weeks our supplies will run out, Urien!'
'Surely you understand the risk you're taking?'
All right!' he said. 'But there's got to be a way.'
Tiaan lay in a daze, watching as Vithis held a heated conference with Urien, Tirior, and other Aachim she did not know.
A buzzing started in her ears, and hot flushes began to radiate out from the centre of her head. Tiaan heard sounds like speech but could no longer make out the words. She turned over, shielding her face from the sun.
Thyzzea helped Tiaan to a seat in the shade and the symptoms gradually faded. She was sitting there, sipping at a cool drink, when Vithis and Urien approached.
'How are you feeling?' said Urien.
Tiaan told her. 'You're killing me.’
'We've got to move the constructs faster,' said Vithis. 'Should the lyrinx come back we'll be defenceless.' 'We've faced this problem before,' said Urien. "There may be a way. Your sickness is not from the amount of power you're drawing, Tiaan, but the source!
'I don't understand; said Tiaan.
'You're taking all that power from one small field and the draw is too concentrated; that's why it's damaging you. But if you were to draw from a number of fields at once, spreading the load evenly, you could take as much, or even more, without harm.'
'I've tried it before. As soon as I turn to the new field, I lose track of the old.'
Urien rose, drawing Vithis out of earshot. They had another long, heated argument before heading their separate ways.
'What was that about?' Tiaan asked Thyzzea after they had gone.
'It has to do with forbidden knowledge, and the danger of giving it to you.'
'What forbidden knowledge?'
'I don't know.'
'Suppose that it works,' said Tiaan, 'and the constructs are saved. What then?'
'Better to ask my father that,' said Thyzzea, looking worried. 'But…'
'Yes?'
'How could they ever let you go?'
Twenty-one
Ullii had gone, fleeing into the night. Nish began to run after her but Flydd took hold of his collar. 'You'll only make it worse, if that's possible. She'll come back when she has to — I hope!
'I have to explain,' Nish said desperately. 'I've got to tell her I'm sorry. It was an accident, surr. She'll think I don't care.'
'You'll never find her,' said Flydd. 'No one is better at hiding than Ullii.'
'What if she doesn't come back? What about my child?'
'You'd better pray she does, for all our sakes. And that when she does, you know what to say to her.'
What could he say? I'm sorry I killed your long-lost brother, Ullii. I didn't mean to. It was pointless.
They searched the clearing, using Flydd's ghost light. Both of his opponents were dead, as was the soldier by the air-floater. The one Nish had wounded in the leg had fled, leaving only a few specks of blood on the leaf litter. There were three more bodies in the wrecked air-floater, two soldiers and the pilot, a young woman who looked unharmed but was already growing cold. She had a broken neck.
Nish stood by her, his guts crawling with horror. She had been younger than he was. The young soldier, too. 'How could everything have gone so wrong?' he said softly. 'I tried so hard.'
'I told you I wanted to capture the air-floater,' said Flydd, glaring at Nish like an executioner choosing his next victim.
'I didn't hear your orders, surr. I was coming across to ask you what you'd said—'
'Couldn't you have thought before you threw your cudgel?'
'There was no time. The air-floater was coming down fast, surr, and I knew we couldn't deal with that many soldiers. If they'd landed, they'd have had us. I reacted instinctively.'
Surely it was obvious that I planned to escape in it?'
'No surr, it wasn't. I'm sorry.'
I was going to rendezvous with Irisis and Fyn-Mah, then stop your wretched father before he attacks the lyrinx and destroys another army. Now its fate is out of my hands. All I can do is run like the whipped cur I am.'
Nish hung his head. What a miserable, useless worm he was. He wanted to crawl under a rock and die. The wound in his side was painful but had stopped bleeding, so, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself, he didn't mention it.
'Why so few in the air-floater?' said Flydd to himself.
'Perhaps the others got out on the other side of the forest.'
Flydd took no notice. 'Who was directing them? This search must have been led by a querist, at the very least, but there's no sign of one. Unless this seeker was doing it, shielded from us and under their control.'
Nish was sure he knew what Flydd was thinking: that he, Nish, was the most worthless fool who had ever drawn breath. That his father had been right — he was a walking disaster.
'I'll keep going north,' said Flydd. 'Not that I can do anything there, except sweat blood about the war. At least with Mylii dead they won't be able to track me.'
'Do you want me to come too?' Nish asked in a low voice. The way Flydd was talking, Nish was afraid of being left behind.
'Want?' said Flydd. 'Of course I don't want you — though I suppose I've got to have you.' He gave Nish a furious glare, then relented. 'Come on, lad, put it behind you. You clearly didn't know I planned to take the air-floater, and maybe you were right. Six soldiers probably were beyond me. In other circumstances you'd be a hero.'
'But I killed Mylii, surr.'
'A tragic accident that could have happened to anyone. Besides, he reared back onto the knife after you told him to hold still, so you can hardly be blamed for it.’
‘I thought he was attacking Ullii' said Nish. 'I was trying to save her, and now he's dead — an innocent man.’
'You were doing your best, so let's say no more, eh? Besides, it remains to be seen whether he was innocent.'
'What do you mean?'
'Was he embracing his sister, or holding her for the soldiers? Did he put his arms around her because he loved her, or because Ghorr ordered him to find her? But enough of this speculation — fit yourself out and gather what food you can, and make it snappy.'
They replaced their rags with clothes from the victims, the least bloodstained garments they could find. Nish's were too big, but he found a pair of boots that were roughly his size, and a hat. In ten minutes they were ready. Pilfered packs contained spare clothing, food for a couple of weeks, water bottles and all the other gear that soldiers carried. Nish had a shiny new sword, unused by the look of it. Flydd had taken the hedron from the air-floater's controller, as well as the chart-maker's spyglass, which had survived the crash.
'Not sure what use this will be,' he said, tossing the crystal in his hand. 'But you never know. Let's go. This place will be swarming with scrutators in a few hours.'
Are we going to the rendezvous?'
'There's no point. By the time we walked all that way, Irisis would be long gone. You can't hide an air-floater in country like this.'
'Where are we going?'
'Into the wilderness.' Flydd smiled grimly, as if at some private joke.
'What about Ullii?' Nish's voice squeaked. 'We can't leave her.'
'There's no way of knowing where she is. If she wants to find us she will, though that's hardly likely now.'
He said it without rancour, but Nish
cringed.
It was another sweltering day. They walked all that morning, taking advantage of the cover along creeks, mostly dry, and ridges, whenever they ran in the right direction, which was not often. They saw no sign of Ullii.
In the afternoon, Nish began to flag. The wound in his ribs grew increasingly painful but he could not stop to attend to it. He was continually falling behind and Flydd kept yelling at him to keep up. The scrutator had not mentioned Mylii's death again but Nish ached with guilt.
Flydd seemed to be making for a hill knobbed with round red boulders, one of many in this endless landscape of undulating plains and gentle mounded hills. Nish up-ended his water bottle but the few drops it contained barely wet his tongue. They had crossed half a dozen watercourses in the afternoon, all dry. He sat on a rock, staring at the ground. It was hard to find the will to go on. Every moment of the day he'd regretted his follies; he'd looked everywhere for Ullii but she was gone and his child with her. Why couldn't he have thought before he brought down the air-floater, or held the knife to Mylii's back? Why hadn't he realised Ullii was pregnant? Why, why, why?
The scrutator appeared. 'What's the matter? We can't stop out in the open.'
Nish struggled to his feet. Pain spread from the wound up into his shoulder, and down his hip to the outside of his leg. His feet hurt, too, for the boots were too small and had already rubbed the skin off his toes and heels.
He fell several times on the way up the hill, which was steeper than it had appeared. Flydd, well ahead, did not notice. The next time Nish looked up, the old man had vanished.
Nish slipped on rubble. As he picked himself up, he spied another air-floater on the horizon. They couldn't see him from so far away, but he lay still until it drifted out of sight to the south. He had to crawl the rest of the way up the hill — his feet hurt too much to walk.
He eased between two boulders and saw Flydd sitting in the shade, eating another of those knobbly fruits, licking the skin with the gusto of a child with a piece of honeycomb. The green pulp had oozed all down his front and he hadn't noticed. I just saw an air-floater; Nish croaked.