by Ian Irvine
Malien turned east and they met the army near a small lake between the great lakes of Warde Yallock and Parnggi. The surrounding grassland was clear of enemy so they felt relatively secure, though the lyrinx could not be far away. From here, Troist planned to head east, by paths suitable for clankers, then south to meet the refugees on the other side of Parnggi.
The four remaining mindspeech listeners had recorded intense message activity the previous afternoon and all morning, but in the early afternoon it stopped abruptly. The two thapters continued with the army. It was not attacked again, not even the solitary night raids from flying lyrinx to which Troist had grown accustomed.
‘It’s so quiet,’ said Flydd the morning after that. ‘Too quiet.’
They were camped on a gentle rise, a patch of barren ground with good views over the grassland in every direction. A small fire smoked between the thapters and Irisis was grilling gangrene-coloured offal sausages over it. She wasn’t looking forward to dinner.
‘I can practically feel the enemy’s rage about their loss,’ said Tiaan, who’d spent two days in the bowels of the thapter working on the field controller with Irisis, or by herself after Irisis had gone to bed. It had come together at last and they were going to begin testing after breakfast, Tiaan working as the operator.
Golias’s globe sounded and a voice rumbled like a cow’s belly, the words low and drawn-out.
‘Who was that?’ said Troist.
‘It sounded like Governor Zaeff in Roros,’ said Flydd in amazement. ‘I’ve never spoken to her directly. The fields must be marvellously aligned today.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I couldn’t make it out.’ He turned to the farspeaker. ‘This is Scrutator Flydd, north of Borgistry. Please repeat your message, Governor Zaeff.’
It came again, after a wait of two or three minutes. ‘The enemy have abandoned the field of battle …’ The rest was lost in noises like water bubbling in blocked drains.
‘Please repeat that, Governor Zaeff. It sounded as if you said the enemy were retreating.’
‘… were preparing to … walls of Roros … within hours of overcoming us … are streaming west …’
‘Are you saying that the enemy have broken off the attack?’ Flydd said incredulously.
‘Yes,’ said Zaeff. ‘I don’t believe … miracles … else can I explain …?’
‘When did this happen?’
Another long wait. ‘Yesterday morning…. felt sure it … a decoy … kept our silence until … knew what was happening.’
Flydd tried to call the other cities in the east, but could not raise any of them. Their fields were not aligned, so he had to go through the laborious process of having his calls relayed. It took hours, but in the end proved worth it. From Taranta to Tiksi, all had the same news. The lyrinx had broken off all attacks in the east and, accounting for time differences, at the same time.
‘It’s got to be a trick,’ said Troist. ‘They’re trying to lure us out after them.’
‘Strange kind of trick,’ said Irisis.
‘In the past weeks we’ve lost everything in the east but a few walled cities,’ said Troist, ‘and we’ve no hope of recovering it. The enemy can afford to forgo some of their gains if it means we capitulate sooner. Now the end is near they may want to limit their own casualties.’
‘Abandoning sieges which will soon have to be renewed seems a strange way of doing it,’ said Flydd.
‘Governor Zaeff has a thapter at Roros. Ask her to find out what the lyrinx are doing.’
‘She already has,’ said Flydd. ‘They waited out of range of the walls of Roros for the rest of the day and night, then headed south-west. The fliers were followed as far as the Wahn Barre, the Crow Mountains, which they were flying across when the thapter turned back. The lyrinx on the ground were marching in the same direction.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Troist. ‘The enemy must have found a way to seize control of our farspeakers. These messages are lies, to lure us out of our refuges – they’ve got to be. You know we’ve never been able to speak directly to Roros, Flydd.’
‘You could be right,’ said Flydd, frowning and pulling at his bristly chin. ‘But we’ve got to know, either way.’
During the day, similar messages were received from the other eastern cities. Troist plotted the directions the enemy were said to have taken. They intersected in a broad area on the southern extremity of the Dry Sea, to the east of the area occupied by Vithis.
‘What about the lyrinx who were besieging Borgistry?’ said Yggur.
‘They’ve gone into Worm Wood and we can’t find them,’ said Troist.
‘There’s only one way to uncover the truth,’ said Flydd. ‘I’ll have to send one of the thapters east and confirm the flight of the lyrinx, with eyes I can trust.’
‘That’s going to take a long time,’ said Yggur. ‘If your observers can’t report by farspeaker, they’ll have to fly all the way back.’
‘What’s our alternative?’ said Flydd. ‘If we can’t trust our farspeakers, we’ll have to go back to the old reliable ways.’
Kattiloe’s thapter was dispatched to the city it could reach quickest, Tiksi, with three pilots so it could fly non-stop. It would still take at least a week. More messages came in that day and the next. Hosts of fliers were reported to be streaming from the east, making no attempt at concealment. All were heading towards the same area, if the reports could be believed, though no one trusted anything heard through a farspeaker now, even when the voice was recognisable. Lyrinx were also reported flying north-east from Meldorin, and north from Borgistry.
Troist’s map now had enough lines to show the destination: the old town of Ashmode, a port established an aeon ago when the Dry Sea had still been the Sea of Perion.
‘Why Ashmode?’ said Flydd. ‘The lyrinx have never shown any interest in that part of the world.’
No one could answer the question. Initial tests of the trial field controller having shown promise, Malien and Tiaan were sent to the Dry Sea, to fill in the gaps in Tiaan’s map. Irisis was assigned a team of artisans and told to get a reliable device made with the utmost speed.
SIXTY-TWO
Leaving Booreah Ngurle, now blowing itself to pieces behind them, Gilhaelith set off for the Marches of Tacnah, a flight of more than a hundred leagues.
‘Get some sleep,’ he said to Nish and the soldiers. ‘I’m not planning to stop, and there’ll be precious little time after we arrive.’
Nish settled down in a corner but couldn’t sleep for worrying about the geomancer’s intentions. He’d considered trying to foment a rebellion, but surely stealing the relics from the enemy was a good outcome?
Gilhaelith and Merryl were down at the other end of the thapter. Gilhaelith had a farspeaker on his lap and was spinning the globes, listening, then spinning again. Merryl sat in the corner, steadying a writing tablet with his stump while he took notes. Daesmie was asleep in the corner.
Nish got up and sat beside Merryl, so as to see what he was writing, but the fragments of mindspeech didn’t mean anything to him.
‘I’m not as skilled as Daesmie,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘but we have to keep listening. Every lyrinx who heard that call for help will answer it, and some are bound to be closer than us.’
‘Why would they take the relics to Tacnah?’ said Nish.
‘They were taking them across Tacnah, to hide them. You don’t realise how insecure you’ve made the enemy feel. In a hundred and fifty years there wasn’t one successful attack on their underground cities. Then Snizort was destroyed in a way no one could ever have imagined, and now their six remaining cities have been rendered uninhabitable for years, in a single day. They’re homeless and winter is coming. They’ve lost everything except what they can carry on their backs.’
Gilhaelith kept working, but with little success – Merryl had only a few notes on his tablet by the time Nish began to doze off again. When he woke, Gilhaelith had his geoma
ntic globe on the floor, its bowl resting on the crumpled indigo velvet from its box, and was scrying with the brimstone crystals again.
The light winked from the same place as before. ‘They’re not moving,’ said Merryl.
‘It might be a trap,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Or a false trail.’
‘How could they know about us?’ said Nish.
‘Never underestimate the enemy.’
Including you?
They flew into the night. Nish went up to stand with Kimli, who had begun to sag at the controller. The moon rose, near its full and mostly the dark side, an ill omen, not that Nish believed in such superstitions. Its slanting rays shone reddish silver off the dry plains grass. This was country the like of which he’d never seen before, even during his travels across Almadin. It was completely flat, bone-dry and empty.
‘The City of the Bargemen,’ said Gilhaelith, who had come up to stand on the other side. He pointed to their left, towards a lake shaped like a twisted teardrop. A meandering river ran in one end of it and out the other, its further reaches lost in the night. ‘An odd name, since it’s nothing like a city and the barges are run by the women. It’s built out over the lake on poles of turpentine wood.’
‘Then it’s probably the only settlement in Lauralin safe from the lyrinx’s vengeance,’ Nish observed.
‘I dare say. There’s nowhere that the lyrinx will be safe from mine.’
‘What did they do to you?’ said Nish.
‘They stole me away from Nyriandiol, the only place I’ve ever felt comfortable. They ruined me – I’m going to die the worst death a mancer can suffer …’
‘You look healthy enough to me,’ said Nish, who’d come to realise that Gilhaelith didn’t always tell the truth.
‘That is the worst death, Artificer. To have the body remain as strong as ever while the mind slowly decays from within. I’ve lost a quarter of my faculties already, because of the lyrinx. I might have repaired the damage with my globe but Gyrull denied it to me until it was too late and ensured there were flaws in it. My mind will be gone within a year. But worst of all, I’ll never finish the great project I worked on all my life – to understand the world and the forces that move and shape it. My whole life has been rendered meaningless, and all because of the lyrinx.’
‘So this is all about revenge?’
Gilhaelith was calm, almost good-humoured. There wasn’t a trace of rage in him as he answered. ‘The lyrinx robbed me of all that mattered, so I plan to take the relics that mean everything to them. I find revenge peculiarly nourishing. It’s given me a new purpose.’
They began to pass over forest, though even in this light Nish could see how different it was from the forests he was used to. This was a woodland of scrubby trees, twisted by the unceasing plains wind. They were flying low now and once, as Nish looked down, he saw the moon-reflected gleam of a pair of eyes looking up. He shivered.
‘How far to go?’ he asked.
‘Another twenty leagues,’ said Kimli. She yawned. ‘We should be there just after dawn.’
‘Have you heard anything else, Gilhaelith?’ said Nish.
‘Not a whisper.’
‘Maybe the matriarch is dead.’
‘Or maybe they’re waiting for us. For every action, a reaction. Everything we do with the Art leaves a trace, Nish, and a great adept may be able to find it.’
‘First time I’ve heard of it,’ said Nish.
‘What you know about the Art would fit into a thimble,’ Gilhaelith said crushingly. ‘And you don’t know any great adepts either.’
What about Yggur and Flydd, Nish was going to say. Not to mention Malien. He kept his mouth shut; Gilhaelith was baiting him.
‘If a great lyrinx adept was watching when I scried with the brimstone crystals,’ Gilhaelith went on, ‘he’s had plenty of time to close the trap.’
The moon dropped toward the western horizon, and as it sank the sun rose in the other direction, over the Marches of Tacnah. It was a featureless plain without rivers, lakes, or even a creek. Not a single tree could be seen; not a rock or a bush. The sparse tussock grass was grey, the soil red.
‘What a bleak place,’ said Nish.
Gilhaelith came up the ladder to see for himself. ‘The lyrinx won’t find it easy to ambush us here.’
But they can camouflage themselves to look like anything, Nish thought.
‘Not long now,’ said Gilhaelith. He went down to his globe, then called, ‘A little more to the east, Kimli.’
‘It should be just around here,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘Can you see anything?’
Nish was scanning the horizon with a spyglass. ‘Only red dirt and grey grass.’
‘Go higher, Kimli, and circle around.’
Kimli took the thapter up to a height of a few hundred spans. She could barely keep her hand on the controller now.
‘Are you all right?’ said Nish.
‘So tired …’
‘Anything?’ called Gilhaelith.
‘No,’ Kimli whispered.
‘What did you say?’ said Gilhaelith.
‘Lyrinx!’ yelled Nish. ‘In the west. Flying fast towards us.’
Gilhaelith shot up the ladder and took the spyglass. ‘And more coming from the south.’ He barked a bitter laugh. ‘At least we know we’re in the right place.’
‘Can’t you scry again?’
‘To locate the matriarch precisely, I’d need a globe a thousand spans in diameter.’
They went around and around as the flights of lyrinx drew ever closer. With the spyglass, Nish estimated twenty in the western group, a few more in the more distant southern flight. ‘They’re coming straight for us,’ he said, seized by a sudden thought.
Kimli, who had been sagging at the controller, let out a little squeak and stood up straighter.
‘Of course they are,’ said Gilhaelith.
‘No, both flights are heading for us,’ said Nish. ‘You’d think one would be going to the matriarch, unless she’s directly below and we can’t see her.’
‘She’s had plenty of time to skin-change.’
Nish swept the spyglass around the horizon. While the lyrinx stayed still, skin-changing could conceal them, but once they moved they would be visible. He went all the way around, once and again, then a flying lyrinx flashed across his view, camouflaged to disappear against the sky.
He went around again and saw another lyrinx, or was it the same one? It wasn’t flying towards him. It was streaking low across the grass to a point a little north of them.
‘We’re in the wrong place,’ yelled Nish. ‘There, Kimli.’
Kimli, bright-eyed now, whirled the thapter around so fast that Nish was thrown against the side. She calculated the place the lyrinx was heading for, maybe half a league away, and accelerated towards it.
‘Can we get there before it does?’ snapped Gilhaelith.
‘Yes,’ said the pilot, ‘but …’
‘The others will get here before we can snatch the relics. Hoy, Flangers! Pass the farspeaker up here, would you. I may need it.’
It came up the hatch. Gilhaelith spun the globes, froze them and waited.
‘There they are,’ cried Kimli, changing course so abruptly that the farspeaker almost went over the side. The mechanism of the thapter screamed, she seemed to bounce it off solid air, put it sideways and stopped in a cloud of torn-up tussocks and a whirlwind of red dirt.
Nish was impressed. He’d had reservations about her skills in the early days, but Kimli was proving nearly as good a pilot as Chissmoul.
Five lyrinx lay on the ground. Three were dead and their skin had faded to an oily grey that stood out against the red soil. No, it was their inner skin, gone dry and wrinkly. They must have shed the armoured layer in their agony and then, exposed to the sun and wind, they had died. The fourth was still twitching, its fanged mouth opening and closing. It had torn its chest armour to shreds and crumpled pieces of bloody armour still clung to its claws.
‘It’s Matriarch Gyrull,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Get the relics!’
Nish went over the side and ran toward the relics but one wing stirred and a fist of air thumped him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. It was more than just air, though. It had the Art behind it and Nish found it hard to get up again. All his nerve fibres were singing.
The matriarch lifted her head and tried to speak. Her armoured skin was blistered and had peeled away at throat and groin to reveal the sensitive inner skin, which looked as though it had been dipped in acid.
‘Matriarch Gyrull,’ said Nish, rising painfully. He bowed. She was a noble figure, after all, and he’d been taught respect at an early age.
He saw the dismay in her eyes. Mottled patterns chased each other across her chest and shoulders. The wing stirred and he felt another blow from her Art. This one was like a punch in the chest but not enough to hurt him. She was fading rapidly.
‘I should have allowed Ryll to send you to the slaughtering pens,’ she croaked. Her eyes were on Gilhaelith, who was on top of the thapter.
‘You should have,’ said Gilhaelith.
The soldiers leapt over the side and were racing for the crates when the first of the fliers shot across the bare ground towards them. Gilhaelith held the farspeaker close to his mouth and roared.
The lyrinx’s wings locked; it let out a paralysed squawk and ploughed into the ground, skidding on its chest and belly armour. Another close behind it did the same, the pair coming to rest in a tangle of limbs and wings. They swung around, and in their eyes was the same distress Gyrull had shown – that the precious relics might be lost. Their clawed feet tossed red dust into the air as they tried to rise, but their legs wouldn’t support them.
Two soldiers hefted the first crate, staggered to the thapter and slid it up onto the carrying racks. Flangers was limping for the second. Gyrull let out a despairing cry, her skin colours exploded into brilliant reds, yellows and blacks and she forced herself to her feet. Blood ebbed from the shredded skin. Her armour burst apart along the plates of her chest, revealing raw, bleeding flesh beneath. Red tears ran from her eyes but she took one excruciating step towards them. She would protect the relics whatever the cost to herself.