Chimaera twoe-4

by Ian Irvine

  The second spear came out. Tiaan tossed it over the side and lifted the sheet of metal, which sprang back to its original shape. Nish gave a groan and turned his head. His nose was running with a mixture of blood and mucus and his lower face was wet with half-frozen saliva.

  ‘You took your bloody time,’ he said through bruised and swollen lips.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Irisis said, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘You look disgusting.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘If you were all right, why the hell didn’t you say so! I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I couldn’t move a fingertip. Couldn’t open my mouth, or close it. Do you think you could wipe my nose?’

  ‘The things I do for your dignity.’ Irisis took off her shirt and began to clean him up with it.

  Tiaan walked away across the wet tussock grass and left them to their cheerful bickering.

  Once Irisis’s twisted ankle had been immobilised by strapping it to shaped pieces of wood, her wrist bandaged and Nish’s bodylength bruises marvelled over, Tiaan said, ‘What now?’

  ‘Flydd wants us to check on the cities again, to see what’s happened,’ Nish reminded her. ‘If we go back to Alcifer in three or four days, we should be able to see if the spores have had any effect. In the meantime, let’s find somewhere to hide. With no lyrinx.’

  ‘Somewhere tranquil,’ said Irisis. ‘With decent food.’

  ‘And wine,’ said Nish.

  ‘Neither will be easy to come by,’ said Tiaan, ‘in a land that’s been empty of humans for years. I’ll see what I can find.’

  They flew south-west, skirting along the foothills of the mountains. Below, they saw many manors and fastnesses, once sited to protect the fertile valleys from mountain marauders, but now abandoned and some already falling into ruin.

  ‘What about that one?’ said Irisis.

  It was a small manor set on the edge of a grassy upland plateau. A stream meandered across the sward, passed by the rear of the manor then curled around like a sickle before tinkling over a waterfall, five or six spans high, in a crystalline shower. The grass was green, fragrant herbs grew on the edge of the plateau and in the distance a forest barred the way to the higher mountains. Stock grazed on the grass: cattle with long, twisting horns and sheep whose fine crinkly wool was a purple black. Goats stood sentinel on rock stacks here and there. The Sea of Thurkad was just visible in the east. They hid the thapter in a stone barn, pushed the doors closed and hobbled off to look for something better than the hard tack they had in the thapter.

  ‘I wonder who lived here, and what happened to them?’ said Tiaan. The place had a melancholy air. ‘Whoever they were, they lost everything, and probably their lives as well.’

  ‘A story that’s been repeated a hundred thousand times across Santhenar since the lyrinx came,’ said Nish, supporting Irisis with his shoulder.

  The front door was closed but not locked. They went inside. The owners had either been killed or had fled carrying only what would fit on their backs, for the manor was full of precious things. Silverware, cloisonné lamps of the most exquisite workmanship, silken tapestries and other fineries remained in place as though the house was still occupied, though there was a film of dust over everything.

  ‘How long ago would this place have been abandoned?’ Tiaan wondered.

  ‘It must have been one of the last, since it’s not been looted,’ said Irisis, hopping across to a leather chair and sitting down. ‘No more than three years, I’d say. I’m going to stay right here. You can wait on me for a change, Nish.’

  ‘There could still be food in the pantries, and drink in the cellars,’ said Nish. ‘Beer wouldn’t be much good after three years, but wine should have lasted, and cheese.’

  ‘You keep talking about food,’ smiled Irisis.

  ‘I haven’t had anything decent to eat since you went east at the end of the winter. Cooking is a lost art at Fiz Gorgo.’

  ‘Yggur’s food is a little stodgy, I’ll agree, but it’s a damn sight better than I’ve been eating in the eastern manufactories.’

  Nish and Tiaan found a larder with a vermin-proof door, and there was food in it: hanging hams, cheeses, pickled onions and other preserved vegetables and fruits. He found wine in a cellar too: an immensely strong red wine, as well as small barrels of fruit liqueurs. Nish lugged one of each up and outside, while Tiaan carried out the most comfortable chairs. Irisis was carving herself a crutch from a forked stick.

  They had a picnic on the terrace, overlooking the lands of Iagador, while the sun went down behind them. It hadn’t stormed here and they lingered outside in the balmy evening.

  Tiaan toyed with a mug of wine, then put it aside. It was too strong, and wine did uncomfortable things to her head. She lay back and studied the stars.

  Nish and Irisis had gone inside, Irisis hopping on her crutch. Tiaan knew what they were up to. Good luck to them; they might as well enjoy what little time they had left.

  She was thirsty but felt too lethargic to go all the way to the well for water. Irisis had decanted part of the liqueur barrel into a jug so Tiaan took a sip. It was thick and sweet, more to her taste. She had another, then lay back in her armchair again, pulled her coat about her and watched the stars wheel across the sky.

  She woke as a crescent moon rose over the distant sea. All was quiet inside the manor and her bare hands were cold. Somewhere behind her, an owl hooted. Moonbeams lit up the mist above the falls like a fairy veil drifting in the wind. Dew glittered on the grass. It was so peaceful; so beautiful. It must often have been like this, before the war began.

  She felt a tear in the corner of her eye. This place would always be as lovely, but there would be no one to appreciate it. These attacks were a folly, and suddenly she felt sure that they were going to lose the war.

  Tiaan had an urge to call Flydd and tell him so. She considered it, but the drink had left her lethargic. It was easier to snuggle up in the chair and close her eyes again.

  Despite having unlocked Golias’s globe all those months ago, she still didn’t understand how a message could travel from one field to another. Even less, how it could loop and whorl its way across lands a dozen nodes apart one day, yet on the next, not even reach someone in a nearby town.

  Nothing was as simple as it seemed. Tiaan wondered if the erratic performance of farspeakers could have anything to do with the interlinking, or failing, of the nodes. Could she put farspeaker globes at each end to study how the signals changed as power was drawn from the nodes?

  What if? There were too many questions and never enough answers, while each answer raised new questions. In a lifetime she wouldn’t be able to answer a fraction of them.

  The moon travelled higher; the illuminated veils of mist danced over the waterfall like the restless spirits of those who once lived here. She wished she knew who they’d been, and what had happened to them. Did they still pine for this place and long to come home once the war was over? Or were they dead and eaten by the enemy long ago?

  The morbid thoughts disturbed her. As a distraction, Tiaan went over the events of the past few days, still marvelling how they’d survived the attack at Alcifer. Had it not been for the lyrinx suddenly checking as they raced for Irisis and Nish at the bellows … Now, why had they done that?

  For a few seconds, they’d all acted as though they’d been in pain. Could it have something to do with the way she’d been operating the thapter? She’d often flown it near lyrinx and never seen such a reaction before.

  Tiaan replayed the scene, back and forth. It had happened just as she had screamed into the farspeaker at Flydd. Could that have hurt them? She’d not encountered anything like it. Or had she?

  Nearly two years ago, when Besant had carried her off to Kalissin, Tiaan had felt a strange sensation whenever Besant drew powerfully on the Secret Art. It had been like sherbet dissolving and fizzing behind her temples, and Tiaan had experienced it a number of times.

 
Poor Ullii had felt it much more strongly: Tiaan could still recall her anguished screams as Besant took off. It was equally possible that lyrinx could be affected when humans used the Art in certain ways.

  Had anyone else noticed? She went inside, intending to ask Irisis and Nish. The lamp had burned low in the front room but its dying flickers showed them lying together on a rug on the floor, fast asleep. Tiaan looked down at Nish’s scarred back, which he had been so anxious to conceal. It was worse than Irisis’s. How it must have hurt. Pulling a fold of the rug over them, she blew out the lamp.

  She went into the barn and sat in the thapter, in the dark. It was the closest thing she had to home and a place of her own, though it still stank of lyrinx blood. Tiaan wanted to talk to Flydd or Yggur about her observations, but her slave farspeaker could only call when Flydd’s master globe had been set to speak to her.

  Setting up the farspeaker, she leaned back in her seat. What would Flydd and Yggur do if the lyrinx did come out of their underground cities? It now struck Tiaan as an absurd plan – surely the enemy would fight twice as hard if they had no home to return to. Using the spores now seemed reckless and she wished she hadn’t been talked into it, though, if she hadn’t, one of the other pilots would have done it.

  She felt so isolated and alone that it was easy to imagine the world had already ended, for humanity. What if the only humans left alive were herself and the snoring pair inside?

  In need of comfort, Tiaan took the amplimet out of its socket under the smashed binnacle. Flydd had given it back to her for the duration of this mission, after which it was to return to the platinum box. Tiaan didn’t mind – since Nennifer she’d been purged of that tormenting withdrawal. Nonetheless, the amplimet was a comfort and reminded her of her first real friend, old Joeyn.

  A tiny spark drifted slowly down the centre of the crystal. It was dull, which meant that there wasn’t a strong node nearby. Tiaan knew that already – the fields were always in her inner eye now. She cupped the amplimet in her cold hands and warmth spread through her, out of all proportion to its size.

  She focussed on her slave farspeaker, wondering yet again about the force that made such things work. Bringing up her mental image of Golias’s globe, Tiaan revolved its inner spheres as if tuning it to speak with her farspeaker. The spheres turned as if coated in oil. Golias’s globe had been so well made that the best artisans had not been able to equal it, and it still worked better than any of the copies. Messages went further and were just that little bit clearer.

  The farspeaker burped, startling her. An uncanny coincidence, that the scrutator should call her just as she was thinking about him. She imagined him sitting at the long table, papers and maps all around. She waited for him to speak but he did not.

  ‘Hello?’ she said after a decent interval. ‘This is Tiaan.’

  ‘Tiaan?’ Flydd cried in astonishment. ‘What …?’

  ‘What do you want, Scrutator?’

  ‘I didn’t call you. My globe was set to speak to someone else.’

  ‘But, that’s impossible.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be. What have you done, Tiaan?’

  She didn’t know. ‘I was just sitting in the thapter with the amplimet in my hands, wondering what was happening back east. Thinking about your globe, and the settings needed for you to contact me, I just moved the spheres in my mind.’

  ‘You did more than that. You actually changed the settings of my globe.’

  ‘But …’ said Tiaan.

  ‘I saw them move.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Why did she always feel the need to apologise? ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said delightedly. ‘It’s an important discovery. Where are you?’

  ‘Somewhere in the hills of Bannador. We’re resting on the way south to Alcifer.’

  ‘Good for you. I presume you got the job done at Thurkad?’

  ‘Not entirely.’ She explained what had happened. ‘Some of the spores could have been sucked inside but the barrel fell out. There was nothing we could do about it.’

  ‘You did better than I dared hope, and survived. And who knows, fear of the fungus may do our work for us.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call before?’

  ‘I tried,’ said Flydd. ‘But two more nodes have gone down and we’re having a lot of trouble with our farspeakers.’

  She was about to say, ‘I have a theory about that,’ but decided not to. It was probably nothing. She still hadn’t thought it through properly. ‘Scrutator?’

  ‘What is it, Tiaan?’

  ‘Something unusual happened during the attack on Alcifer. If you recall, I shouted at you on the farspeaker.’

  Flydd chuckled. ‘It’s not often I’m shouted at. Most people are too afraid.’

  ‘The lyrinx attacked Nish and Irisis as they tried to throw the spores in, and I couldn’t get to them in time. But as I screamed at you, the enemy reacted as if in pain, and one lyrinx put its hands over its ears. Have you ever seen that kind of thing before?’

  ‘Can’t say that I have, though I’ve never been close to the enemy when using it. You’ve given me an idea. I’ll order some trials with lyrinx prisoners.’

  After he had gone she lay back in the seat, utterly exhausted, and slept. Two days later they were high over Alcifer, above the height that any lyrinx could reach, watching and waiting. There was a little more activity on the ground and in the air than usual, but no sign of an army in readiness for battle. The scrutator called twice a day but there was nothing to report, apart from the odd flaring and fading of the exotic node-within-a-node at Alcifer, and a corresponding fading and flaring in the node associated with the nearby volcano. They had to be linked in some way. Tiaan made a note to mention it the next time he called. She hadn’t attempted to contact him again, so she did not know if she could reproduce what she had done before.

  Time went by. It was now a week since they’d dropped the fungus spores, without any discernible effect, and it was the same at the other cities. Every time Tiaan spoke to Flydd he sounded more depressed.

  ‘What a waste of time this has been!’ Irisis said irritably.

  Nish was peering over the side with a spyglass. ‘Hello, I think they’re coming out. Yes they are. I can see hundreds of lyrinx, assembling in the great square not far from the white building with the glass dome.’

  ‘Hundreds won’t bother us,’ said Irisis, reaching out for the spyglass.

  ‘Wait a second,’ said Nish, leaning away. ‘Go a bit lower, Tiaan.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m not sure, yet.’

  Tiaan began to spiral down. Normally the wheeling fliers would have turned towards her but they continued their patterns as if they were flying along wires.

  ‘They’re carrying something out,’ said Nish.

  Irisis took the spyglass from him and peered over the other side. ‘Looks like dead lyrinx, to me. A bit closer, please, Tiaan.’

  Tiaan went down another turn, anxiously watching the fliers, who were not far away. ‘They’re carrying bodies down to that embankment,’ cried Irisis, ‘and throwing them over.’

  Tiaan felt cold inside. They’d brought plague upon the lyrinx and they were dying in agony. It wasn’t right.

  Irisis counted some sixty bodies being dumped. Not long after that, more lyrinx appeared, carrying barrels which they also emptied over the embankment.

  ‘Can you see what that is?’ said Nish.

  Irisis adjusted the spyglass. ‘The bodies of small creatures. About cat-sized. Hundreds of them.’

  ‘Could they be uggnatl?’ said Tiaan.

  ‘I think they are,’ said Irisis. ‘Yes, definitely.’

  Many more barrels were brought out, then the pile began to smoke, the fliers turned towards them and Tiaan headed away. They had just flown across the glass dome when the sound of the mechanism vanished. She took power from another node and climbed a little higher.

  ‘What was that?’ sa
id Nish.

  ‘I don’t know, but it was a lot stronger than when they tried to take my power a year ago.’

  It happened again, though this time Tiaan was waiting for it and switched nodes instantly. ‘I don’t think they like us here,’ she said, turning away.

  A few seconds later, power was snatched from her again. Then again, and each time it was quicker than before.

  ‘Fly!’ yelled Irisis.

  Tiaan tried to, but all at once time seemed to freeze. Nish, his mouth open, went as still as a statue. Tiaan’s hand appeared to solidify in mid-air and the thapter itself to stop, though it did not fall. She tried to reach for the flight knob but her hand would not move. What’s … happening? Her thoughts were so sluggish that she had to force herself to create each word.

  After an agonised aeon, time reverted to its normal beat and she streaked away to safety, without having the faintest idea what had been done to them.

  Flydd was revoltingly pleased to hear about the dead, and the uggnatl, and told them that similar plagues had been reported from two of the lyrinx’s eastern cities, though the number of lyrinx dead was relatively small so far. He was not so pleased to hear about the strange attack on the thapter, though he couldn’t make anything of it either.

  The next day Tiaan kept at a safe distance, observing with the spyglass. The thapter was not attacked again, but a thousand dead were carried out of the city. The day after that Oellyll erupted, lyrinx boiling from it like ants from a broken anthill. They disappeared into the forest too quickly to count, though Nish did his best to estimate the numbers.

  ‘Around twenty thousand,’ he said when dusk cut off the scene.

  Irisis laid down her tally sheet. ‘I make it more like twenty-five.’

  ‘Then we’ll take the difference. Twenty-two and a half.’

  They were back on station at dawn, and found the enemy fleeing Oellyll as fast as ever. By the end of the day Nish and Irisis had estimated another twenty-two thousand. That night was clear with a good moon and they saw that the evacuation continued all night, though it wasn’t bright enough to count them. Finally, around lunchtime of the following day, it slowed to a trickle and the circling lyrinx, without so much as a glance at the thapter, flew east across the sea.