by Ian Irvine
‘What for, then?’ said Wilm, wondering what lay behind her passion.
‘To make things better for ordinary people.’
‘Why would ordinary people want magic-powered devices? How could they use them, anyway?’
‘You’re stupid!’ she cried, and turned and walked away, head held high.
‘I wasn’t criticising you,’ he said hastily. ‘I just wanted to know …’
She did not look back. What is it about me? Wilm thought.
‘Need any more proof?’ smirked Klarm, strolling across the deck towards him.
It took all Wilm’s willpower to restrain himself. Don’t over-react. Klarm could point his finger and blast you to bits.
‘Thanks for the advice,’ he said stiffly. ‘I want to better myself. Can you tell me why –?’
Klarm snorted. ‘One – thing – at – a – time, laddie.’
Wilm crept into the cabin, where M’Lainte stood at the controls. Flydd and Lilis were seated at his table up the back, going through items in a ledger. Wilm edged towards M’Lainte. ‘Do – do you mind if I stand here?’
She smiled. ‘Why would I?’
‘Some people are prickly …’
‘Not me. What do you want?’
‘I … um … don’t know enough to ask.’
‘I meant, what do you want from your life?’
‘A skill. One that’s not to do with war or fighting … I can’t go back to being a despised labourer, at the mercy of –’
‘There’s nothing wrong with doing an honest day’s work, lad.’
‘There is when you can barely earn enough to feed yourself,’ he said hotly. ‘When everyone treats you like a worthless beast of burden. I want more! I want to be valued.’
‘You are valued. You’re a hero … and a good man, I’m told, brave and loyal and true.’
‘What do heroes do once the war is over, M’Lainte?’
‘Same as everyone else – they get on with their lives. You want a useful skill? Never stop learning, and constantly ask, How can I do this better? That way, you’ll always be useful – to others and yourself.’
‘Can I watch you?’
‘Of course. Be curious about everything but know your limitations; don’t strive for the impossible. You’re good with your hands. Work on those skills.’
Wilm sat to one side, watching her hands on the levers. She made dozens of little adjustments every minute, seemingly by instinct, to keep the massive craft flying.
Why had he volunteered to go with Klarm on such an incredibly dangerous mission? The odds were that he wouldn’t survive it. If he had stayed with Aviel he would have been some use.
The sky galleon raced east across the long, narrow sea. Thurkad was just a murky shadow behind them now; ahead the water was a grey blur. What would they find at the Sink of Despair, and would they survive it?
If only he hadn’t tossed Akkidul to Llian, back in Shazmak. Why hadn’t it occurred to Wilm that giving away an enchanted sword would mortally offend it? Had it dragged him and Aviel into the future to punish them? Given the malice it had shown to Llian, anything was possible, and Wilm was forced to an unpleasant conclusion – he could no longer trust it.
The sword might even betray him. Was there any point keeping it? He went to the side of the sky galleon and drew the weapon, thinking that he might be better off tossing it into the water and being done with it.
‘What are you doing?’ said Klarm. He had followed silently, no small feat with a wooden foot.
‘I don’t know,’ Wilm cried. ‘I don’t know anything anymore.’
‘Put it away.’
Wilm thrust the blade down into the copper sheath until it clicked.
‘For all its flaws it’s a mighty blade, laddie. Think about all it’s done for you, and others.’
‘It saved my life on Gwine,’ said Wilm. Without it he would not have survived one minute against the Merdrun. ‘And it cuts through metal and stone; it made the slave rebellion possible in the first place.’
‘And saved your friend, Aviel. Akkidul is self-obsessed, malicious and untrustworthy, but it’s also one of the greatest blades ever made on Santhenar, and you’ll need it when we run into the enemy.’
‘Do you think we will?’
‘I know we will. In the meantime, keep it safe.’ Klarm lowered his voice. ‘Never let it know what you’re really thinking. And above all, suck up to it.’
9
He’s Turned His Coat Before
‘The Sink of Despair!’ M’Lainte said with a theatrical sweep of her meaty arm. ‘Look on it and weep, Wilm.’
The sky galleon had raced east across Lauralin and, on the darkest of nights, Flydd had dropped Lilis at a place called Tullymool, somewhere in northern Tacnah. He did not say what she was to do there. Now the craft was hammering into a ferocious headwind, bucking up and down violently as they curved around the northern flank of the Great Mountains.
The Sink of Despair stretched ahead of them, an oval of sunken land two hundred miles long and a hundred wide. Its flat bed glittered with dried-up salt lakes and it was surrounded on three sides by arid mountains. A number of rivers ran from them into the Sink, but all failed in that cruel desolation. How could anything survive there? How could he?
‘That’s where we’ve got to go?’ said Wilm. ‘To hunt for the, um, secret weapon?’
‘Not in the Sink, thankfully. In the hills and mountains to its south.’
From the southern rim of the Sink of Despair an endless network of ridges and ravines ran up to the snowy crest of the range, the lowest of a series of parallel mountain chains that stepped ever upwards, culminating in the monumental arc of the Great Mountains, whose highest peaks stood more than thirty-five thousand feet high, forever sheathed in ice and utterly unclimbable.
Below the sky galleon, everywhere looked the same. Stony ground, bare apart from an occasional withered saltbush, and occasional dune fields which M’Lainte had said were made from windblown dust and salt. Patches of wiry scrub snaked along the bottom of each gully, their only hope of finding water. The place looked miserable.
‘How will we ever find the – it?’ said Wilm. ‘It could take years to search all that.’
‘We know where the air-dreadnought crashed,’ said Klarm, ‘because I was one of the scrutators who came looking for survivors. And the secret weapon.’
‘If you couldn’t find it then, how do you expect to all these years later?’
Klarm glanced at M’Lainte. ‘We’ve worked out a way to scry for it. A method no one had thought of back then.’ He consulted his map, pointed, and the sky galleon headed down.
Wilm eyed the bleak landscape with increasing apprehension. There was not a wisp of cloud, the sun scorched his head and the ground radiated heat. It was so dry his lips were cracking. If anything went wrong, it would be easy to die here.
‘Getting close,’ Klarm called from the bow half an hour later.
He climbed onto the top of the javelard frame, fifteen feet above the deck, and hung on with one hand, pointing left with the other. M’Lainte drifted the sky galleon that way, a few hundred feet above the ground.
He continued to point left, then held up his hand. ‘We’re next to the wreckage – set down.’
Wilm saw a series of broken bamboo hoops, so weathered that fibres were sticking out, and charred sections of a long, boat-like structure that must have been the main keel and cabin of the air-dreadnought, partly embedded in a glittering salt dune. Shreds of brown fabric, all that remained of the gum-sealed silk airbags, clung to the hoops. The ground was scattered with broken timber and lengths of frayed rope.
And patches of bleached bones. The air-dreadnought had been crewed by twenty-two people, plus the three scrutators and their guards and attendants – more than forty in all. And all had died here when the craft ploughed into the dunes at high speed, or soon after. Judging by the cracked and gnawed bones, the scavengers had fed well.
What mus
t it have been like, watching them creep in and knowing everyone was going to be torn apart and eaten? Wilm’s stomach cramped. Were they watching now, waiting for dark?
The sky galleon settled with a crunch and M’Lainte handed the controls over to Flydd. The edge of the Sink of Despair, a few miles north, was a good thousand feet below them. Its far side, a hundred miles away and blurred by the heat haze, was framed by a range of smaller but equally forbidding mountains.
The six guards stood in a huddle at the stern, talking in low voices. Flydd had hired them in Thurkad and they kept to themselves. They did not look happy.
‘Keep me informed,’ he said, handing M’Lainte a small, buff-coloured farspeaker box. ‘When you can – the fields around here can be unreliable.’
‘Tell me about it,’ she said. ‘It took all my concentration to keep us in the air, the last twenty leagues.’
Wilm’s entrails knotted. ‘You’re leaving us here?’ he said to Flydd.
‘The search could take weeks and I’ve got to get to the east, urgently.’
‘Weeks!’ Wilm had assumed it would take a few days, at most. ‘But … how will we get out?’
‘I’ll pick you up when you find it.’
‘What if something goes wrong?’ His voice cracked. ‘What if you can’t?’
Flydd, Klarm and M’Lainte exchanged glances.
‘Leave us to worry about that,’ said M’Lainte. She looked worried too. ‘We have a backup plan.’
‘Of sorts,’ said Klarm.
Wilm swallowed; his dry throat hurt.
Klarm stumped down to the stern, where Sulien and Jassika sat facing away from each other, and tried to embrace his daughter. ‘Jassika, I want –’
She pushed him off. ‘You’re a useless father and I couldn’t care less what happens to you. Go away and don’t come back!’
Wilm had never met his own father. A wealthy man, he had refused to acknowledge Wilm or give his mother a single copper grint. He must be two centuries dead by now, but Wilm still hated and despised him.
Klarm turned, met Wilm’s eye and snarled, ‘How dare you judge me, boy?’
‘I wasn’t!’ Wilm spluttered. Why did Klarm hate him, and only him?
‘Get the gear over the side.’ Klarm turned to M’Lainte. ‘We need to find a safe campsite before dark.’
He climbed down. The ground was littered with pieces of salt-crusted shale that crackled and broke and slipped underfoot. He limped off, swaying from side to side.
Wilm helped the guards unload the packs and supplies. He was about to go down when Flydd drew M’Lainte close.
‘Keep a watchful eye on Klarm,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s a brilliant man, and as good as anyone I’ve ever known in a tight spot … but …’
‘He served the God-Emperor for years,’ said M’Lainte, ‘and made no apology for it.’
‘We weren’t at war; no one could call it treachery. But still …’
‘What kind of a man would serve that blood-handed brute?’ She gripped Flydd by the shoulder. ‘Safe journey, old friend. You’ll be in more danger than us, where you’re going.’
‘We’re all targets now. The enemy will do everything possible to kill people like me …’
‘And capture people like me, to compel the use of our talents by torture.’ She wiped pudgy hands on her grubby shirt front. ‘Oh well – we live, we die.’
Wilm did not like what he was hearing. He turned and Klarm was behind him. He’d heard Flydd, too. Klarm scowled malevolently.
‘I didn’t say a word,’ Wilm said quietly.
‘But you’re thinking it. Judging me again.’
This was so unfair! ‘If you care so much what people think,’ Wilm snapped, ‘maybe you should behave better.’
‘I’m a bad enemy, Wilm.’ Klarm stumped off.
M’Lainte lowered her heavy body to the ground. The sky galleon lurched into the air and headed east, and only one person looked back. Jassika was staring at her little father as if fearing she would never see him again.
Within minutes the sky galleon had vanished into the heat haze. ‘It’s late,’ Klarm said irritably. ‘Come on.’
They humped their gear across a stony ridge and down into the next ravine where, according to Klarm’s memories, there had been a spring, though now it was just a patch of damp soil. He sent a pair of guards up to the ridge top to keep watch. Another pair gathered dead scrub for a campfire and the remaining two put up the tents, the guards’ tent well separated from the others. Ilisial had gone down the gully, behind a clump of bushes.
Klarm drew M’Lainte aside. Wilm laid flat stones in a ring, piled bark and dead twigs in the middle and larger wood across, and got the campfire going. While he worked, he kept one ear on what Klarm was saying.
‘… autonomous spellcaster … decide what … human intervention …’
Wilm could not imagine what an autonomous spellcaster was. Nothing good, surely.
‘… it had a worrying inner conflict,’ Klarm concluded.
M’Lainte’s voice rose. ‘What idiot decided that was a good idea?’
Wilm did not hear Klarm’s reply.
‘It must be destroyed,’ said M’Lainte. ‘And the fragments scattered over a hundred miles so it can never –’
‘No, I need it undamaged.’
‘If the enemy get hold of it, they could fill one of our old manufactories with slave artisans and make a thousand of them.’
‘We’ve got to have it,’ Klarm said quietly. ‘It could win us the war. Your job is to render it safe.’
‘I’m not sure there’s a way.’
Klarm, noticing that Wilm was watching, yelled, ‘Dig out the spring, you lazy oaf!’
Klarm drew M’Lainte further up the slope and Wilm heard no more. He found a spade in the pile of gear, dug an oval hole in the moist earth and filled a bucket with seeping, reddish water. It was bitter, with a strong iron taste, and lay heavily in his belly.
He filled a large pot and made a stand in one side of the fire, with flat stones. What did M’Lainte mean by the spellcaster having an inner conflict? How could a persona have one? And why was she so afraid?
Could the sword advise him? Would it even speak truly? He had to try; but first he had to test it. He drew it.
‘Akkidul?’ he said, ‘why did Mendark bury you in the desert?’
Mind your own damned business!
‘Did you fail him in some way?’
What do you care? This is the first time you’ve drawn me in a month.
Wilm had drawn it a number of times but there was no point in arguing.
‘Are you angry because I gave you to Llian?’
There’s only one reason you’d give me to such an oaf – to insult me.
‘Well, you got your revenge. You trapped me and Aviel in the future.’
Akkidul twitched. So what? I’ve been trapped in this crappy length of metal for three hundred and eighty-seven years!
‘Not long enough,’ muttered Klarm as he went by. ‘If you were mine I’d melt you down and turn you into a privy bucket.’
The sword lunged at Klarm’s throat, so powerfully that Wilm could barely hold it. Klarm turned a backwards somersault, walked across the campsite on his hands, then tumbled to his feet and strolled away, whistling a cheerful tune.
The sword was shuddering, and it took Wilm three goes to get it into its sheath. He jammed it down hard, so it could not hear, and stalked across to Klarm. ‘What did you do that for?’
‘Action is character,’ said the dwarf. ‘Now you know what you’ve got into bed with.’
And how long before you reveal your true character? Wilm thought. Or have you already done so?
All things considered, it wasn’t a good idea to ask Akkidul about the spellcaster. Wilm wasn’t sure he wanted it to know the device existed.
10
Don’t Pretend You Care!
Sulien huddled in a patch of shade at the stern of the sky galleon, aching inside
. Jassika stood a few yards away with her arms crossed across her chest and her fingers clenched, scowling at everyone. Today they were going to be dumped on strangers in the middle of nowhere, and Sulien felt sure she would never see her mother again. This was worse than being sent away with the Whelm. Far worse. Idlis, at least, had always been good to her.
After leaving the Sink of Despair they had crossed a range of mountains and another oval of sunken land, the Desolation Sink, which looked even bleaker. The sky galleon then headed east over endless mountains with not a road or a town in sight, though at least it was green here.
In the mid-morning Flydd landed on a small grassy area at the upper end of a valley indistinguishable from thousands of other valleys. There was forest along the small stream at the bottom and scrub higher up the slopes.
‘Where are we?’ said Karan.
‘Stibnibb,’ said Flydd.
‘What a miserable hole,’ said Jassika. ‘We might as well be on the moon.’
Karan looked awful, pale and puffy-eyed. She had slept badly last night, and every night since Llian was taken. ‘Why here?’ she said to Flydd.
‘There’s no field, so even if the enemy scry for Sulien, how could they see her?’
‘How can the sky galleon fly here, then?’
‘Huge banks of a rare kind of crystal – a third of all those ever found. They hold enough power for an hour or two of flying. Depending on conditions …’
‘What if the power runs out while we’re flying?’
‘We won’t need grave diggers.’
Sulien hugged herself more tightly. It didn’t help.
Fifty yards away, an ancient, poorly built log cabin huddled between the trees. The gaps between the logs had been chinked with mud but much had fallen out, leaving long cracks that, Sulien imagined, the wind must whistle through in winter. A narrow front veranda was furnished with two wooden chairs, a small table and an easel.
‘Wait here,’ said Flydd.
He picked up a brown canvas bag, went to the cabin door and knocked. The door opened and he went inside.