by Ian Irvine
The flap was thrust open, scattering ice across the floor. Yggur came in, bent low, followed by Flydd and Klarm.
‘Time to go,’ said Yggur, going to his knees to shake Malien’s shoulder.
She sat up, bleary-eyed. ‘Already?’
‘I’m afraid so. We’ve got about half a league to go. We go over the ridge and down into the little valley where they grow their crops. We’ll get a bit of cover there. When we’re in place, we’ll work together. It’ll be easier down there, closer to the amplimet. If you seek it as before, I’ll lend you my shoulder when you need it.’ He hesitated. ‘That’s the idea, anyhow.’
‘Great,’ Nish muttered when they had gone out. ‘Now when it goes wrong we’ll lose them all.’
‘It’s no use,’ said Yggur a couple of hours after midnight, wiping hard granules of blown snow off his brow. He’d been working with Malien for ages, without success. ‘It’s hopeless.’
‘Let’s give it one last try,’ said Flydd.
‘The moon’s up. We’ll have to leave it until tonight.’
‘We must go on,’ said Flydd.
‘We’ve got to have darkness.’
‘Another day and neither you nor Malien will have the strength. And I’m not turning my back on the Council again.’
This time they were just above the valley floor, which was networked in dark and light greys by its dry irrigation ditches and the tufted remnants of the harvested autumn crop. They huddled in the long moon-shadow behind a cluster of hip-high boulders, while the wind shrieked all around them. To their left, a frozen stream in the bottom of the valley disappeared over the precipice into the abyss of the Desolation Sink.
‘Aftersickness is killing me,’ croaked Malien.
‘One more time,’ Flydd said grimly.
Malien grew the golden bubble around her and became a blurred outline. Yggur stood facing her, his hands at his sides. He whistled under his breath and a series of golden threads extended from the sphere towards his face.
Malien shifted her weight, Yggur threw up his arms as if off-balance, and for a moment the rock Nish crouched behind faded to translucency. His vision blurred then returned to normal, but his anxiety only intensified. He let out his breath in a loud hiss.
Flydd jabbed him in the ribs. ‘What’s the matter with you tonight?’
‘The amplimet is waiting for us,’ Nish burst out, ‘and it’s angry.’
Malien stood up on tiptoe, shuddering with the strain. Yggur turned his head as far as the filaments would allow. He seemed to be holding his breath.
‘It’s just a mineral,’ said Flydd. ‘It can’t feel anything. You’re projecting your own fears onto it.’
Malien seemed to be beckoning to Nish, as if saying, ‘Go on.’
‘It’s real,’ said Nish.
Everyone stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’ Flydd rasped.
Nish had no idea how he knew it, until the words formed and he spoke them aloud. ‘I can sense something … just as I did that night above Gumby Marth, after Father cast his alchymical spell on me and I saw the lyrinx stone-formed into the pinnacles. It’s a … a brittle rage, a crackling fury like a box of crystals being ground underfoot. The amplimet is tormented, and it hates the scrutators for shackling and probing it, and for blocking it from the field it so desperately needs. They’ve fenced it in with ice and now they’re forcing it …’
‘To what end?’ said Flydd.
‘I can’t tell.’ Nish slumped to the ground and it was all gone. He was just his normal prosaic self, with not a trace of the Art in him.
‘Ice,’ Yggur muttered, the golden threads twanging as his jaw moved. He swayed on his feet and nearly fell.
‘Heat quickly destroys any kind of hedron,’ said Irisis. ‘Cold never can, but it can slow it to a murmur. Why didn’t I think of that? That’s how they’ve made it safe to use.’
Flydd gave a mirthless snort. ‘And to think we’ve spent days trying to wake it without killing ourselves. To unshackle it, all we have to do is warm it up. It’ll lash out at the scrutators and then we go in.’
‘It may lash out at us,’ said Malien, slumping to the ground. ‘You can never tell what an amplimet will do.’
‘We don’t have any other option,’ said Flydd. ‘We must go on, no matter what the risk.’
‘You’re insane,’ she said in a wisp of a voice.
‘We – go – on!’ he ground out.
Another still silence.
‘If Malien can find it again I might be able to warm it up,’ said Yggur finally. ‘Though I’d have to be closer. I’ve not got much strength left.’
‘How close?’ said Malien, lying on her back on the frozen ground with her arms flopped by her sides.
Yggur joined her, breathing heavily. ‘Ideally, against the outside wall of Nennifer.’
‘The sentinels would pick you up before you got within a hundred spans,’ said Klarm.
‘How close can we get?’ said Flydd.
‘Five hundred spans is the closest I’d dare,’ replied Klarm, ‘and even that’s …’
‘Not good enough,’ said Yggur. ‘I can’t do it from so far away.’
‘Then we risk everything and go on,’ said Flydd in tones that would not be denied.
‘No closer,’ Malien begged as they crawled up the edge of the shallow valley towards the flat-topped promontory, out of which the foundations of Nennifer had been carved. Here there had been enough moisture to freeze the gravelly soil into an iron-hard aggregate, brutal on their hands and knees. ‘Please.’
‘I can’t do it from here,’ said Yggur as he’d said half a dozen times already. He could barely hold himself on all fours now. Aftersickness was crushing him and Malien was little better.
‘Hold him up, Nish,’ said Flydd, working some kind of illusion with the fingers of one hand. It made no difference as far as Nish could see but, after a whispered consultation, Malien and Yggur agreed to keep going.
They continued crawling up the side of the valley, thence onto a fluted ridge of sharp rock. The sky had clouded over but now the moon came out momentarily and Irisis, beside Nish, caught her breath. The sudden brightness lit up the paved parade ground and mooring field which extended from the vertical slash of the thousand-span-high precipice that fell into the sunken lands of the Desolation Sink, all the way, as flat as a table, to the front wall of Nennifer. Two air-dreadnoughts were moored in the central part of the parade ground, one not far from this end, the other midway.
Nennifer’s monumental bulk reared up before them, the biggest building in the world and one of the most brutal in its sheer functional ugliness. It made no concession to beauty, harmony, proportion or setting: in a world devoted to war, nothing mattered but the power of those who told the world how to fight and die. Behind Nennifer, mountains black and bare rose up to pierce the glowing sky.
They were no more than five hundred spans from the front of the building. From here they would be exposed every step of the way, and within range of the great javelards and catapults mounted on the walls. If the sentries saw them, they would be shot without warning.
‘Where’s the amplimet, Malien?’ said Flydd.
‘Somewhere in the middle of the building,’ she replied. ‘I can’t tell more from here. The third floor, or perhaps the fourth. No closer, please.’ She choked.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Nish.
‘Something is very wrong. We must turn back.’
‘We have to go on,’ grated Flydd.
‘No further. I’m begging you.’ Malien’s face was stark in the moonlight. ‘Take another step and the mission will fail.’
‘If we turn back, we’ve already failed. Neither of you have the strength for another attempt.’
Yggur raised his head, which was nodding like a puppet’s. ‘What’s that?’ he whispered, looking at a small stone structure a couple of hundred spans ahead and to their left, not far from the edge of the precipice.
‘It’s a shed w
here they keep the mooring cables for the air-dreadnoughts,’ said Klarm.
‘Will anyone be there now?’
‘No reason why there should be.’
‘We’ll do it in the lee of the shed,’ said Flydd, ‘if we can’t get inside.’
They went on their bellies across the ice-glazed paving stones, and every wriggle of the way Nish expected to feel the pulverising impact of a javelard. He could make out guards moving on the upper walls. Surely Flydd’s meagre illusion couldn’t conceal them from such an unceasing watch?
The shed was built of flat slabs of gneiss laid in courses like long thin bricks, the mortar deeply raked so that the joints were half a fist deep and wide. The door proved to be locked so they took shelter against the end wall, whose shadow provided partial screening while allowing them to see the front of Nennifer.
‘Keep still,’ whispered Flydd. ‘I’ll have to release the illusion now, and the guards never fail in their alertness at Nennifer.’
‘They fail at times,’ amended Klarm, ‘but then they die horribly, as an example to their fellows. And rightly so.’
Nish gave him a shocked glance.
‘A guard’s duty is to guard,’ Klarm elaborated, ‘and all may rest on it.’
They put their backs to the rough stones while Yggur and Malien did their best to overcome their aftersickness, then made ready for the final attempt.
The night grew wilder. The wind, howling around the angles of the shed, rasped at exposed skin with abrasive particles of ice. The last of the cloud blew away and the moon appeared, brilliant in the thin mountain air. Then, as they watched, a pair of rings grew around it, the spectral colours little more than shades of grey.
‘Two rings around the moon,’ said Klarm. ‘Not a good omen.’
‘It’s better than a moonbow,’ grunted Flydd.
‘Not much, and we may see one as it rises.’
‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Yggur. ‘Malien?’ The moonlight gave her face a bluish cast.
‘Are you all right?’ said Nish.
‘Just thinking,’ Malien said, ‘of all the ways it could go wrong.’
As soon as she and Yggur began, the crystal’s inanimate fury hit Nish like a blow to the stomach. For a minute he struggled to draw breath and, when it passed, his belly throbbed. They had no idea what they were dealing with.
Yggur and Malien were sitting side by side, she sagging in her bubble, he propped against the wall with his face enveloped in pale filaments. The bubble was dull this time, else it would have been visible in the shadows.
‘Ready?’ Yggur’s jaw moved oddly, as if the threads were working it like a puppet.
Malien’s affirmation was just a distant echo.
‘The amplimet is hungry for power,’ said Flydd. ‘All you have to do is melt the ice wards surrounding it.’
‘If we alert Fusshte’s mancers,’ said Malien, ‘they’ll shut it in a shielded box and we won’t be able to reach it.’
‘Then flood it with power directly. That’ll warm it up. But whatever you’re going to do, do it now. The guards patrol this area and they could come by at any time.’
Nish heard Malien’s inrushing breath, the bubble darkened and she let out a pained grunt.
‘Withdraw!’ gasped Yggur, but there was no reply. The bubble had gone black and nothing could be seen inside.
‘Come back, Malien, wherever you are,’ Yggur choked. He tried to get up and fell forward, right into the moonlight.
Everyone went still, knowing that the guards on the wall must have seen the movement. All at once Irisis leapt up, grabbed Yggur’s legs and began to drag him back.
A klaxon sounded from one of the corner guard towers. It was answered by half a dozen others, then a javelard spear screamed off the paving stone where Yggur’s head had been a moment before. Nish grabbed a leg and heaved, heedless that Yggur’s face was being dragged across the ground.
Another spear dug a span-long groove in the stone before Nish and Irisis got the big man around the corner.
‘And now we’re dead,’ Nish said.
‘Like hell!’ Irisis said savagely. ‘Run, while we still can. Maybe we can attack from the rear of Nennifer.’
‘We can’t carry Yggur and Malien,’ said Flydd.
‘Then leave them behind!’ she snapped. ‘I thought you were a ruthless scrutator, not a puling defeatist without any balls.’
Nish froze, holding his breath. Flydd gave a strangled gasp of outrage, but then a hail of heavy spears slammed into the far wall, flinging shattered rock everywhere.
‘Come on!’ she hissed. ‘The soldiers will be on their way.’
‘It’s too late –’
Malien’s sphere expanded then shrank again as if she was breathing it in and out. Its surface roiled, solidified like the shell of a nut then turned transparent again. They could now see her inside, working desperately with her hands as if trying to contain something too hot or bright to touch.
A catapult ball tore half the roof off the shed, showering them with broken tiles and splinters of wood. One of the soldiers, hit on the head, slumped sideways without a sound.
‘Another couple of those and there’ll be nothing to hide behind,’ said Flangers, flicking fragments of tile out of his crossbow. ‘They can pick us off without risking a man.’
‘The scrutators don’t care about risking a thousand men,’ said Klarm. ‘Now that the shock has worn off, they’ll want us alive.’
Malien doubled over, holding her midriff, but forced herself upright and extended her fists in front of her. The shell burst into fragments that fizzed to nothingness in the air. She brought her fists together with a spray of light and stood swaying on her feet for a moment before sliding into a crumpled heap.
‘The amplimet was waiting,’ she said faintly. ‘I couldn’t contain it.’
In the distance something went crack, like a long, brittle crystal being snapped in two.
‘What happened?’ asked Flydd.
‘I don’t know.’ Malien could barely speak. ‘There was no resistance at all. As soon as I pushed, the wards gave way like rotten ice … as if they’d been eaten away from inside.’
‘The amplimet must have already woken,’ said Klarm. ‘It had set a trap for the scrutators but got us instead. Now there’s an irony for you.’
‘So we just wait for Fusshte to take us?’ said Irisis.
No one said anything. The barrage had stopped; now the klaxons were cut off in mid-cry. The guards were equally silent. Not a sound came from the length and breadth of Nennifer.
Nish could feel the tension building. His skin prickled and his diaphragm began to thud back and forth like a beaten drum. He swallowed and his ears popped, but the pressure on his eardrums was still there. He did it again and again. It made no difference.
The moonlight faded like a slowly lidded eye. When it shone out again the double rings were brighter than before.
‘Why haven’t the guards come after us?’ he said.
‘They’re afraid to move,’ said Irisis.
Nish’s diaphragm was beating so hard he could barely draw breath. Afraid?
‘What was that?’ hissed Flangers.
The wind had died down too, and they heard a curious noise.
‘It sounds like rushing water,’ said Irisis, looking towards the precipice only a dozen spans away.
‘Any water on the ground would be frozen iron-hard at this time of year,’ said Nish.
She wriggled across to the edge, keeping within the shed’s shadow, but came straight back.
‘It’s rushing out of a fissure in the cliff and freezing as it falls.’
‘Funny we didn’t hear it before,’ said Nish. The ground gave the faintest tremor. ‘Did you feel that?’
‘Earth tremblers are common here,’ said Klarm.
Again they heard that brittle crunching, though this time it was like a clanker’s metal feet grinding across a field of crystals and crumbling them to shards. Th
ere came a drawn-out, subterranean rumbling and the ground shook hard enough to toss Irisis off her feet.
‘We’re not finished yet,’ said Flydd, standing up and lurching back and forth with a maniacal glint in his eye.
‘What have we done?’ gasped Malien. ‘Yggur …?’ She looked around wildly.
‘He’s unconscious,’ said Flydd dismissively. ‘Overcome by aftersickness. He’ll be no further use tonight.’
‘The amplimet’s broken free,’ said Malien, climbing to her feet and bracing her back against the shed as the vibrations grew stronger. ‘We’ve got to stop it before it gets out of control.’
‘How can we, Malien?’ Turning away, Flydd gave a series of low-voiced orders to the troops and they readied for action.
‘You don’t understand. It’s … It’s …’
‘What?’ At the expression on her face he spun around and caught her by the lapels of her coat. ‘What is it?’
‘I … think it’s come to the second stage of awakening,’ she said, then her eyes rolled back in her head.
Flydd cursed and let her fall. ‘Two down.’
Nish was shocked by his callousness, even in this desperate situation. The Flydd he’d once known so well had been replaced by a ruthless stranger.
‘Second stage of awakening?’ said Klarm. ‘What’s she talking about, Flydd?’
‘I don’t think I want to know.’
There came a tearing screech, like metal being torn apart, followed by a low shudder that shook more fragments of roof slate onto their heads and shoulders. They moved down to the corner where the structure was still sound, and Nish peered across the mooring ground. The shuddering grew stronger; then, with a deafening roar, a boiling shaft of light the width of a room burst up through the roof of Nennifer. Coloured particles whirled around and up until the column faded against the bright moon. And then the whole world moved.
‘What the hell was that?’ said Flydd, picking himself up. The ground beneath their feet was still quivering.
‘I don’t know,’ said Klarm. The whites of his eyes were showing. ‘But I suggest we run for our lives.’
‘We’ll be seen,’ said Flydd.
The rings around the brilliant moon had given way to a gigantic moonbow. The ground shook again and parts of the moonbow disappeared as if washed away. The parade ground wrenched sideways, hurling them against the wall. Nish’s hand went straight through a crack, to his bemusement. He wrenched it out just before the crack snapped closed, losing the skin along his right thumb. The soldier who’d been hit on the head got up, shakily.