Chimaera

by Ian Irvine

  ‘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 was 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.

  ‘I believe he thought you were asleep,’ said Malien, ‘and did not want to wake you suddenly.’

  ‘If you believe that –’ Tiaan cried, then broke off. ‘I’m sorry, Malien.’

  ‘I’ve been insulted by the most powerful people in the land, Tiaan. There’s nothing you can say to upset me. Now listen – I’m ill and can’t fly the thapter to Thurkad. It must go today or it will be too late. Nish went to your room to ask if you would do it.’

  Tiaan opened her mouth to refuse, but Malien went on. ‘No one else can do it, yet it must be done. So I’m asking you, Tiaan. Will you fly the thapter?’

  After a long hesitation, she said, ‘Of course, Malien. But let it be known I am not doing it for him.’ Turning to Nish she said formally, ‘I will be ready in one hour. Will that be sufficient?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Still red in the face, Tiaan went out.

  ‘Sounds as though it’s going to be a jolly trip,’ said Malien, ‘what with you, Tiaan and Phar. Tell me all about it when you return.’

  Tiaan turned up as the last grain of the hourglass fell, when the soldiers and Phar were already below. Nish took his place beside her. It was going to be a hideous trip. Tiaan, at the controller, was like an iceberg that, instead of thawing, seemed to get colder by the second. Nish tried to apologise.

  ‘Don’t say anything. Your apology means nothing, since I know you’re only offering it to get what you want.’

  ‘But, Tiaan, I didn’t mean –’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know your character by now?’ she hissed. ‘You’re a true son of your father. I have nothing to say to you. Just tell me where you want to go and what you want to do.’

  He did so, since the soldiers were already muttering among themselves. Morale was critical to the success of any mission. Someone began to bang on the lower hatch.

  ‘What’s that disgusting smell?’ said Tiaan, edging away from him. ‘That wasn’t you, was it?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Flushing again. Nish lifted the hatch. He didn’t need to take a step down the ladder to discover that he’d made a gross mistake. The stench was so appalling that even the soldiers looked green.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ said the first, ‘or none of us will still be alive when we get there.’

  ‘Phar!’ snapped Nish. ‘I should have put you in the cauldron and boiled the filth off you. Grab hold of him, lads. We’ll take him up the back.’ He climbed up. ‘Would you set down, please, Tiaan? We’ll have to take this villain up to the platform and tie him on.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before we left,’ she said without looking at him. Tiaan directed the thapter toward a mud island in the swamp forest, taking it expertly down between the trees. She stood to one side, wrinkling her nose, as the soldiers manhandled Phar over the side and back to the shooter’s platform, where they secured him with ropes.

  The stink lingered, and even after the long flight to Thurkad, Nish could still smell the fellow. They arrived over the city around one in the morning. Tiaan was standing at the controller, practically asleep on her feet. She was swaying from side to side.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I’m all right!’ she snapped. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  He began to unroll the map of the city. Tiaan touched a panel globe above her head, which illuminated the binnacle with a soft white glow. Nish spread the map out as best he could over the irregular surface.

  ‘These three are the silk warehouses.’ Nish pointed to the buildings behind the Street of the Sail-makers. ‘Any will do.’

  ‘Just tell me which one you want to go to,’ she said curtly.

  ‘The easternmost one,’ said Nish.

  ‘Thank you. You can go now.’

  ‘I’ll leave the map –’

  ‘I don’t need it. Once I see a map I never forget it.’

  He didn’t see how that could be possible, for Nish was used to poring over maps for hours and still getting lost. However, he rolled it up and went below. The place still reeked of Phar.

  Shortly the thapter settled with a bump on a sloping roof. Timbers creaked underneath them and several slates cracked. Tiaan lifted the thapter off again, hovering just above the roof.

  ‘We’re here,’ she called down the hatch.

  ‘Time to go,’ Nish said to the soldiers. ‘Vim and Slann, would you bring Phar? He’s a burglar and it’s his job to find us a way in. I hope he can, otherwise we’ll have to make a hole in the roof and I’d rather avoid that. Tiaan, if you would keep watch …’

  ‘What if the enemy appear?’

  ‘If they see you and attack, go up at once. Come back every hour on the hour if you can, but don’t risk yourself or the thapter for us.’

  For the very first time, some kind of feeling showed in her eyes, as if she’d realised that he was, after all, a human being not completely without redeeming features. To be abandoned in a city possessed by the lyrinx was not pleasant to contemplate.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said.

  They gathered on the sloping roof beside the thapter with all their gear: packs full of tools for breaking and entering, coils of rope, a small hand winch, weapons. It was as dark as a cellar full of coal and the roof was wet and hard to stand on.

  ‘Ready?’ said Nish. ‘Come on, Vim,
’ he hissed in the direction of the rear platform. ‘Get a move on.’

  ‘Phar’s not here.’

  ‘What?’ Nish scrambled up the back. The stench lingered in the open turret but it was empty. Nish felt along the rails, encountered the ropes and ran his fingers down them. The ends had been neatly severed.

  ‘He must have had a blade hidden away, and jumped off as soon as we touched down,’ Nish raged. ‘Why didn’t anyone search him?’

  ‘We searched him,’ said Vim. ‘But, well …’

  ‘I know,’ said Nish. It was a disgusting job. There was no point blaming anyone. But it was not a good start.

  FORTY-TWO

  ‘I dare say he’ll come back once he’s done his bit of pilfering,’ said Slann. ‘He won’t want to stay here.’

  ‘If he does I’ll kick his arse right out into the middle of the bay.’

  They had to break in through the roof. It wasn’t difficult but pulling up slates in the dark made more noise than Nish liked.

  ‘If there are any lyrinx about,’ he said, ‘they now know we’re here. And they’ll see us even though we can’t see them.’

  ‘It’ll be a quick death then,’ said Slann, who had a melancholy disposition.

  ‘Though not a painless one,’ said Vim. ‘Better get down there, quick.’

  He fixed a rope around a roof beam. They climbed down it and, after breaking though a ceiling, ended up in the top floor of the warehouse. It was empty.

  ‘Suppose the silk will be in the basement,’ said Slann, ‘and we’ll have to carry it up ten flights of stairs.’

  ‘Shows how much you know,’ scoffed Vim. ‘They wouldn’t keep precious silk in the basement where it’d go mouldy. It’d be up high, where it’s warm and dry. Naw, I reckon the place is empty.’

  ‘It’d better not be.’ Nish gloomily headed for the stairs.

  Before long they were on their way up again. The warehouse contained nothing but rat droppings.

  The thapter was still there, thankfully. Phar was not. They climbed in.

  ‘Empty,’ said Nish.

  Tiaan did not look surprised. ‘Shall I go to the next one?’

  ‘Please.’ He sat on the floor and put his head in his hands. Nish had a pretty good idea what he would find in the second warehouse. Nothing. Phar must have been extracting a petty revenge, and now that he was gone they had no hope of finding the right warehouse.

  The second warehouse took a long time to break into, but proved as empty as the first. Nish was in a sick despair by the time he returned. Tiaan said nothing at all, just carried them to the third.

  Nish consulted the stars as they got out. It was three in the morning. Dawn was around seven-thirty. Plenty of time if the warehouse was empty. Not long at all if they found what they wanted and had to lift it through the roof.

  The top floor proved to be empty. So did the one below that. Halfway down the stairs, Nish paused. ‘I can smell something.’

  ‘So can I,’ said Vim. ‘Frying onions.’

  It had not occurred to Nish that there might still be people living in Thurkad. He’d assumed that the lyrinx would have driven them away, or eaten them all. But unless the enemy had become vegetarians, there were people below.

  ‘Where’s it coming from, do you think?’

  Slann sniffed the air. ‘Can’t tell.’

  ‘Be as quiet as you possibly can. If they find us, they’re bound to want a ride to somewhere safe.’

  Nish shuttered his lantern to a slit and crept around the corner onto the next level. He slid open the door, shone the light around and could have wept for joy. The whole floor was packed with rolls of cloth.

  ‘Come on,’ he hissed, running to the first stack. It proved to be cotton, and so did the second, but the third was silk. Beautiful silk.

  Nish sorted through the rolls. It didn’t have to be the finest cloth but it needed to be strong. All the rolls at the top turned out to be too fine, no use for anything but scarves and nightwear.

  ‘The best stuff is right down the bottom,’ said Nish. ‘Pull that one out, would you?’

  The soldier, whose name he could not remember, hauled at the roll. It did not budge. ‘We’ll have to shift the ones up top first.’

  Vim climbed the end of the stack, which was a couple of spans tall, and began hurling rolls down from the top. They thumped onto the floorboards.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ Nish waved his arms frantically. ‘If there are people below, they’ll come up to see what’s going on. Hand the damn things down.’

  They were all panting by the time they’d uncovered the bottom of the stack, and the dust was tickling their noses. Nish resisted the urge to sneeze. ‘Help me unroll this one.’

  They spread it out along the floor. It was good strong cloth, better than anything they’d been able to obtain at Fiz Gorgo. There were no flaws, no rat or moth holes. He paced out the length and width, calculating, then rolled it up again.

  ‘We’ll need eight of these to make three airbags. Vim, Slann, take this one. Leave it upstairs at the rope and come straight back.’

  ‘It’s bloody heavy,’ said Slann, a weedy man, as they heaved it to their shoulders.

  ‘Just get on with it.’

  They went out, the cloth sagging between them. Scarcely had they turned the corner when there came a cry of rage.

  ‘Hoy! Put that down, you. Neahl, Roys, they’re stealing our cloth.’

  The other four soldiers pelted to the door. Nish drew his sword and followed with the lantern. Opening the shutter wide he flashed it down the stairs.

  About three flights down, a crowd of at least thirty people, ranging in age from dirty children to withered oldsters, had gathered. A good few of them looked fit, though they were only armed with an assortment of knives.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ said Nish.

  ‘We live here,’ replied a snaggle-toothed old man.

  ‘But the lyrinx –’

  ‘Don’t bother us and we don’t bother them, any more’n the rats do.’ The oldster gave a squeaking kind of laugh.

  ‘Well, we’ve just come for some of this silk.’

  ‘Can’t have it,’ said the old fellow. ‘It’s our’n.’

  ‘You’re not using it.’

  ‘We will one day, now clear orf.’

  ‘We can pay you for it,’ said Nish, feeling the ground sinking beneath him.

  ‘Get lost! Can’t eat yer stinkin’ money.’

  ‘You fellows get your crossbows ready,’ Nish said in a low voice.

  ‘They are,’ a soldier replied. ‘Just give the word.’

  ‘Don’t shoot unless there’s no choice.’ Nish raised his voice. ‘Whether you accept the money or not is up to you, old fellow. We’re taking the cloth anyway – for the war.’

  Fingering a small bag of silver out of his pocket, he tossed it down the steps. It landed halfway and burst, scattering coins everywhere.

  The old fellow did not look down. Nor, to Nish’s surprise, did anyone else. Not even the children scrambled for the silver. The cold feeling in the pit of his stomach grew colder.

  ‘We don’t give a damn about the war,’ said the old man. ‘The lyrinx leave us alone.’

  ‘Raise your weapons, lads,’ Nish said softly. Then louder, ‘Come any closer and we’ll shoot.’ Nish drew back to give the soldiers with the bows a clear shot, though he still hoped that they could intimidate the crowd into running away. To the others he said, ‘Take it up, Vim and Slann. You two, get the next bolt. And hurry!’

  Vim and Slann thumped up the stairs. The second pair of soldiers hefted their bolt of silk. The crowd were a quivering mass of indignation. Nish darted in and tried to pick up the third bolt. It was extremely heavy, and when he got it onto his shoulders the ends of the roll bent to the floor. He’d never carry it up the stairs on his own.

  ‘Don’t move!’ said the soldier on the left.

  Nish staggered to the door. The old man was slowly creeping forward. ‘If y
ou have to shoot, try not to hurt him,’ said Nish. ‘This is their home, after all.’

  The crowd moved up behind the oldster. One step; two; three. They weren’t looking at the two soldiers. Every eye was on Nish.

  ‘No further!’ Nish shouted. ‘Soldiers, shoot if they go one more step.’

  The old man looked Nish in the eye and kept coming.

  ‘Stop or we’ll shoot!’ said the soldier on the left.

  The old man ignored him. The crossbow snapped, the bolt taking him in the middle of the forehead and hurling him backwards into the throng. A woman wailed. Children screamed. Two men took the oldster under the arms and dragged his body down the stairs into the darkness. The rest moved down to the limit of visibility and remained there. The soldier frantically reloaded his crossbow.

  ‘You bloody fool!’ Nish raged, dropping his roll. ‘I said don’t hurt him.’

  ‘And then you said to shoot if he went any further,’ said the soldier, as if that made it all right.

  Vim and Slann came thumping down the stairs, followed by the second pair of soldiers. ‘What’s happened?’ panted Vim.

  Nish told them.

  ‘Not good,’ said Slann. ‘I wonder what they’ll do now?’

  ‘I don’t dare think. Come on. Get the rest of the rolls up. We need another six.’

  The soldiers went up with another three rolls of silk, the second pair dragging a bolt each. Silence fell.

  ‘It’s very quiet down there,’ said Nish. ‘I wonder what they’re up to?’

  ‘Running for their lives,’ said the soldier who had fired. ‘Vermin.’

  Disgusted, Nish returned to the silk floor and began to drag the remaining bolts toward the entrance. He was lifting the third when the soldier who had fired clutched at his throat and toppled down the steps. The other soldier threw himself in through the entrance.

  ‘What was it?’ said Nish.

  ‘A slug from a sling, I’d say. Caught him in the throat.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’

  ‘If the slug didn’t kill him, or the fall, they will when he gets to the –’

  Slaughtering noises came up from the darkness. Nish looked around the corner. The lantern still glowed in the middle of the step. He ducked back hastily as another slug smacked into the side of the doorframe.