by Ian Irvine
‘An excellent idea,’ said Flydd. ‘We must maintain control over what people say to each other. Free speech is a wicked thing.’
Tiaan, who had been imagining all the good things one could do with a farspeaker, such as talking to her mother, was so shocked that she couldn’t speak.
‘Spoken like a true scrutator.’ Yggur clapped him jovially on the shoulder. ‘Klarm will be tickled pink when he gets one. It’ll save him months of travel and give him so much more time for drinking and wenching.’
‘Presumably a message from the master farspeaker can be heard by all the slaves,’ said Flydd, frowning.
Tiaan didn’t want to answer, though the question was an interesting one. She thought for some time before replying. ‘It could, if all slave farspeakers were the same. But an artisan could tailor them so they only respond to one particular setting. Then you simply lock Golias’s globe at the correct setting and speak, and only the person you’re talking to will hear your message.’
‘Oh, very good,’ said the scrutator.
‘The message isn’t instantaneous,’ said Yggur. ‘I wonder why?’
‘Who knows what tortuous route it takes, via the ultra-dimensional ethyr,’ said Flydd. ‘Who cares if it takes hours to get from one side of Lauralin to the other, or even a day? Not even a skeet can beat it, and it can’t be intercepted.’
‘Nor will it tear your throat out, like a skeet will if you step too close to its cage,’ said Flangers.
They all gathered around, excitedly discussing the device and how it might alter the balance of the war. No one noticed Tiaan slip away quietly.
Malien realised that Tiaan was missing and went to her room.
‘I wasn’t joking,’ said Tiaan. ‘I just want to go to bed.’
‘I know. But tell me, you didn’t seem quite as pleased as everyone else, at the end.’
‘It was the way Flydd was talking about it,’ she said. ‘Wanting to control what people say. Farspeakers could be wonderful things. If only we all had them I could talk to Marnie now.’
‘You miss her terribly, don’t you?’
‘She’s the most annoying woman in the world, and we fight constantly when we’re together. She says the most awful things to me. But I do miss her – she’s the only family I’ve got. And I’m worried. She’s too old for the breeding factory now. What will become of her? She has no idea how to look after herself.’
‘She can afford a house and servants.’
‘If they’ll put up with her.’
‘I’m sure she’s all right. And Xervish is a good man.’
‘The way he talks frightens me. The powerful wouldn’t use farspeakers to help people, but to control them.’
‘But when the war is over, the whole world will be transformed.’
‘But how?’ said Tiaan. ‘For good or for ill?’
Later that evening, Malien, Flydd and Yggur met secretly, and Flydd told Yggur about what they’d seen at the Hornrace.
‘I don’t understand why the Aachim broke off their plans for conquest,’ said Yggur. ‘With all those constructs they could have swept from one side of Lauralin to the other.’
‘We Aachim have never been empire builders,’ said Malien. ‘Security has always been more important to us. And often, after a setback, instead of fighting back we’ve simply cut ourselves off from the world.’
‘Have you any idea what Vithis is constructing?’ asked Yggur.
‘It’s either a bridge – a gigantic arch – or a building spanning the gulf,’ said Malien. ‘Though I can’t imagine why anyone would go to such an immense labour.’
‘Any building to span the Hornrace would be a mighty one indeed,’ said Yggur. ‘I’d have thought it beyond the capabilities of any civilisation.’
‘We used to be fond of extravagant symbols,’ said Malien. ‘Vithis may simply be putting his mark on Santhenar in the strongest way possible.’
‘Do you think so?’ Yggur wondered.
‘If he is, it masks a deeper purpose,’ said Malien.
‘Such as?’
‘A gate to ferry the rest of the Aachim from Aachan? A device to change the weather and make the desert bloom?’
‘Could it be a weapon?’
‘It could. They are greatly advanced in geomancy. They taught Tiaan how to make a gate, something no one on this world could have done. They built eleven thousand constructs on Aachan in a couple of decades. They may be building a weapon that we cannot even conceive of.’
FORTY-ONE
Nish went back to his room that night, fretting more than usual. Everyone else seemed to have achieved wonders but his students weren’t trained yet, nor the air-floaters ready, through no fault of his own. Now that the thapter had returned he could do some work with his pilots and artificers, but there was nothing he could do about the air-floaters. Ghorr’s air-dreadnoughts had consumed all the suitable silk cloth available in Meldorin, and only silk would do. Nothing else was light yet strong enough for an air-floater gasbag.
Unfortunately, he was in charge and neither Yggur nor Flydd was interested in excuses. They simply expected the problem to be solved, and quickly. Nish could see no alternative but to make a raid on the silk warehouses of Thurkad, dangerous though it would be.
He went to see Flydd and Yggur about it in the morning and asked if they knew which warehouses contained silk cloth.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Yggur. ‘Thurkad had thousands of warehouses. Klarm would know but naturally he’s not here. I’ll put a discreet word around in Hripton, and also up at The Entrance, where all the thugs and pirates dwell. Someone there will know.’
‘And I’ll need to take the air-floater and a crew to Thurkad to steal the stuff,’ said Nish.
‘Klarm’s using it at the moment,’ said Flydd.
‘Is he ever not?’ said Nish. ‘It’s ironic, don’t you think, that I need the air-floater so I can make more of them, and train more pilots, but I can never get access to it.’
‘It’s generally the work done behind the scenes that wins the war,’ Flydd said, ‘rather than the armies slaughtering each other. Very well, put a plan together and, if you locate the silk, we’ll see what can be done. One step at a time, remember?’
Two days later, Seneschal Berty brought a villainous-looking old fellow to Nish’s shed. He had two teeth in the bottom jaw and three in the top, whose purpose seemed solely to hold the blackened pipe that never left his mouth. He certainly never used them to chew his food, his diet being entirely liquid. It was a foul-smelling brew, too, even worse than the turnip brandy the miners used to drink around the back of the manufactory. It smelled as though it had been distilled from the cook’s compost heap, a festering mound of vegetable peelings, food scraps, burnt fat and bones that even the dogs turned their noses up at.
‘This is Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar,’ said Berty, keeping well upwind. ‘He is known to his friends as Nish. You are not his friend, Phar, and never will be. You may call him Artificer Hlar.’
‘Yerz, Nish,’ said Phar.
‘Hello,’ said Nish. ‘Come inside. No, let’s go out in the fresh air.’
The air in the yard was anything but fresh, reeking as it did of wood smoke and hot metal, sweaty labourers and bubbling tar. All were ambrosia beside Phar, who was small, bandy-legged, red of eye and so foul of breath that it signalled his arrival from five paces away. Nish could not imagine being cooped up in the thapter with him, if it should come to that. Phar’s sandals revealed splintered black toenails and ankles from which the grime could have been peeled with a knife. He was missing two toes, one thumb and half his left ear. He was, in short, the most repulsive individual Nish had ever seen.
Nish had already heard about Phar, who had a single redeeming feature. He had, through more than sixty years of crime centred around the waterfront of Thurkad, developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the warehouses and their contents. He loved the ancient city, in his own squalid and inarticulate way, and nothing would have i
nduced him to leave it. Nothing, that is, but the threat of being eaten by a lyrinx. So Nish gleaned eventually from Phar’s rambling and incoherent discourse, punctuated regularly by slugs from his putrid leather flagon.
You were never in any danger, thought Nish, looking him up and down in disgust. There wasn’t a lyrinx in Santhenar that would have touched him, not even to feed its starving children.
‘I understand that you know the warehouses of Thurkad well, Mr Phar. I wonder if you would be so good –’ He stopped at the seneschal’s slashing gesture.
‘Allow me, Nish,’ said the seneschal. ‘Phar. We want silk cloth. Strong cloth, best quality. Long bolts of it. Where do we get it?’
Nish passed Phar a map of the waterfront which Yggur had given him. ‘Can you read, Phar?’
‘Maps. Not words.’
Nish spread the map on the paving stones. Phar squinted at it, picked his nose then turned the map upside down. He grinned broadly, his wagging pipe spilling clots of tarry ash on the map. Nish brushed it off hastily. The disgusting stuff stuck to his fingers.
‘Here,’ said Phar, pointing with a snotty fingertip. ‘Street of the Sail-makers. All these buildings behind are warehouses. This, this and this, all silk.’
‘You’re absolutely sure?’ said Nish.
‘Bah,’ said Phar, picking the other nostril and parking the residue on the edge of the map.
‘Disgusting brute,’ piped Berty, cuffing him over the half-ear. ‘Wipe that off, you pig.’
Phar smeared snot halfway across the sheet. Snatching the map, Nish rolled it up and said, ‘We’ll go at first light.’
Phar began to shamble off. ‘Not likely,’ said the seneschal. He called a pair of guards over. ‘Look after this fellow for the night, will you? And take good care of him; he’s escaped more times than you fellows have changed your underwear.’
‘Never change my underwear,’ said the first guard, evidently puzzled by the comparison. ‘Only when it falls to pieces.’
‘You’re in good company then. Lock him up tight. If he escapes you’ll be explaining why to Lord Yggur.’
The mission seemed doomed from the first second. When the guards went to the cell for Phar in the morning he wasn’t there; despite all the precautions, he had got away.
‘What the blazes were you doing?’ Nish roared, practically incoherent with rage. It did not matter that Seneschal Berty had given the orders and the guards carried them out. He, Nish, was in charge and there was no excuse for failure.
Berty looked worried too, which was unusual. He was always the picture of control. He hastily roused out the guards and soon a hundred people were looking for the thief.
An hour later Nish was sitting on the step to his shed, head in hands, a position he’d spent a lot of time in lately, when Yggur came stalking out the front doors of Fiz Gorgo, holding a crumpled, twitching object as far away from him as possible.
‘I believe you’re looking for this,’ he said, dropping Phar on the ground. The villain splatted, like a cow defecating. Lying on the paving stones, reeking, he did rather resemble a pile of droppings.
‘You won’t run away again, will you, Phar?’ said Yggur.
Phar covered his face, making a ratty squeal. He shook his head vigorously.
Yggur inspected his fingers, seeming to find some distasteful residue there, for he crossed to a wash trough and scrubbed his hands with sand-soap and water.
‘You won’t let us down, will you, Nish?’ Without waiting for an answer Yggur went inside.
No, Nish said to himself, I won’t, and he finished stowing his gear in the thapter. Yggur would not let him take the air-floater to such a dangerous place, deeming it too slow and vulnerable to lyrinx attack. Nish heartily agreed. They were to leave immediately.
‘Where’s Malien?’ he said to his crew after they had been waiting for half an hour. She was to pilot the thapter to Thurkad.
No one had seen Malien. He found her in her bed, looking wan.
‘I’m sorry, Nish. I’ve been throwing up all night. I don’t think I can even stand up.’
‘Was it something you ate?’
‘No. I’m afraid I overdid it, flying the thapter all that time. I’ve been feeling poorly for days. Maybe tomorrow …’
‘Well, look after yourself.’ He went out. Tomorrow was going to be too late. Nish was acutely conscious how time was fleeting by. It was mid-winter and they had to be ready for war in less than two months. At this stage, even a day could make the difference between success and failure.
In an emergency, Nish supposed Flydd and Yggur would agree to his taking the air-floater, though it was exquisitely vulnerable to attack by lyrinx. A single tear in the gasbag meant the loss of the craft and everyone on it, and any chance of recovering thapters. And though it was the mating season, when the enemy avoided all-out war, there would be plenty of lyrinx about who were neither hibernating nor mating. No, it had to be the thapter and they must go today. Flydd needed it in a few days’ time, to visit the manufactories in the south-east, which were to make farspeakers and other devices for the spring offensive.
None of Nish’s trainee pilots had ever been at the controls of a real thapter and there was no possibility that they would be allowed to take this one to Thurkad. He needed the best for such a dangerous mission. He would have to ask Tiaan.
Nish had kept clear of her ever since her return, for Tiaan made it plain that she loathed him. She only spoke to him when she had to, and avoided him whenever she could.
And if she refused, as he expected her to? Nish had no idea what he would do.
He knocked on her door. She did not answer. He knocked again. Still nothing. It was early and she could be asleep. He turned the handle.
‘Tiaan?’ he said quietly.
Her bed was empty. Perhaps she was down the hall having breakfast. Then Nish heard splashing, realised his error and, too late, turned to go. Tiaan appeared around the corner, naked from her bath, towelling her dark hair vigorously.
Had he slipped out at once he might have got away with it, for the towel was over her face. Nish hesitated just long enough for her to open her eyes and see him staring at her.
She fled back into the bathing room. Nish went the other way, scarlet with mortification. Now what was he supposed to do?
Irisis laughed herself sick when he confessed his folly. ‘What a prize clown you are, Nish. You can’t do anything right, can you?’
It stung, even from his best friend. ‘Not with Tiaan. I was trying to do the right thing.’
‘But Nish, she’s such a repressed little chit, and you sneaked into her bedroom. How could you imagine she was going to react?’
‘I didn’t sneak. I knocked twice.’
‘It was her bedroom. You should have knocked loudly and not gone in until she answered.’
‘I was trying not to disturb her.’
‘And she didn’t have any clothes on?’
‘Completely naked,’ he said miserably, ‘and still gleaming wet from her bath …’
‘Remember who you’re talking to,’ Irisis snapped.
‘Sorry.’
‘She’ll never forgive you, not if she lives for a hundred years.’
‘I know. I’ve ruined everything.’
‘Not necessarily. Just because she despises you and holds you in deepest contempt –’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
She sniggered. ‘Of course I am. You were being a rotten little perv and now you’ve got your just desserts.’
‘I wasn’t!’ he said plaintively. ‘Why won’t you believe me?’
‘Because I don’t want to. It’d spoil the story, for me and for everyone.’
‘You’re not going to tell the others! No, please don’t, Irisis.’
‘Of course I am. We can all do with a good laugh. But, just to show good faith, I’ll get you out of your little problem.’
‘How?’ Nish said suspiciously.
‘As I wa
s saying, just because Tiaan despises you more deeply than –’
‘Thank you! I got the message.’
‘– it doesn’t mean that she won’t fly the thapter.’
‘But …’ He looked at Irisis in sudden hope.
‘If you hadn’t caught her at her bath, and she had agreed, would she have done it as a favour to you?’
‘Of course not. She loathes me.’
‘Well, there you are. Now she just loathes you a little more. Er, a lot more, actually.’
‘Thanks! But I still don’t see –’
‘Go and talk to Malien. Confess your folly and get her to ask Tiaan to do it. Malien is her only friend.’
Malien looked a little better, and she also laughed when Nish shamefacedly told her what he’d done. ‘That’s worth two hours with the healer, Nish. How do you get yourself into such messes?’
‘Will you plead with her?’
‘I’ll ask Tiaan. She’s been working night and day on the farspeaker designs, but I believe they’re finished now.’ She pulled the bell cord and asked the servant, who appeared straight away, to fetch Tiaan at once.
‘I’ll go,’ Nish said hastily.
‘No, stay. Time is precious. Sit over there.’
He took a chair by the window.
Shortly Tiaan appeared. ‘How are you, Malien? They said you weren’t well.’
‘I’ve felt better. Dare say I’ll be all right in a day or two.’
‘If there’s anything –’ She caught sight of Nish and a flush mounted up her cheeks. ‘You vile, disgusting, repuls–’
‘I gather you had a small incident this morning,’ Malien said mildly.
‘He sneaked into my bedroom so he could spy on me at my bath!’ she cried. ‘He’s always been a squalid little pervert.’
Nish, even redder in the face than she was, wanted to die. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Between her and him, his words had always made things worse. He opened his mouth but Malien signalled, hand up, for him to say nothing.