Chimaera

by Ian Irvine

  ‘It’d better,’ grunted Yggur. ‘Team, now!’

  ‘Have you broken the power patterner?’ said Irisis to Flydd.

  ‘No,’ he said grimly, ‘but I have broken Anabyng’s attack.’

  ‘Better get on with it,’ said Irisis. ‘That’s the enemy just out there.’

  He glanced that way and his red face paled. ‘So close. All right, Tiaan, the last effort. Ryll and Liett are using the power patterner. Take advantage of any weaknesses you’re aware of.’

  Again the tiny hesitation before she said, ‘I’ll do my best.’

  The struggle went on. The enemy had temporarily stalled but their numbers were overwhelming. The soldiers of the rearguard were fighting to the death to protect them and create a chance for everyone else. But the dead were piling up and the lyrinx must break through at any moment.

  ‘Call Troist,’ she yelled at the operator. ‘Tell him we’re still working.’

  ‘I have. He said his men can’t hold out any longer.’

  ‘Neither can we.’ Irisis held a cool drink to Flydd’s cracked lips and sponged his forehead with water. She offered a drink to Tiaan but Tiaan shook her head.

  ‘Mind-shocker, now!’ Flydd shouted to Yggur. ‘Irisis, keep an eye out. Tell me if it’s working.’

  The air crackled as Yggur went to work, and Irisis felt a faint throb at the base of her skull, a momentary weakness in her limbs. Yggur was directing the mind-shocker so powerfully that even she could feel it.

  Flydd was growing hoarse now and the cane wasn’t moving as quickly as before. Irisis glanced over her shoulder and saw the enemy for the first time. Troist’s line had broken.

  ‘I can see the enemy. To the thapter, surr!’

  ‘Wait!’ said Flydd, his teeth clenched so tightly she expected them to shatter. He choked out another set of numbers.

  Tiaan’s fingers raced, then went still. She looked questioningly across to the scrutator, who wasn’t saying anything. He was staring at the farspeaker.

  ‘They’ve broken,’ Operator Daesmie said, her eyes glassy. She was drenched with sweat and Irisis realised that she had neglected Daesmie, who had been working for hours without a break. ‘They’ve broken, surr!’

  Flydd lurched to his feet, looking around wildly.

  ‘No, surr,’ cried Daesmie. ‘The enemy have broken.’

  ‘Broken?’ Flydd whispered, unable to comprehend, much less believe that they had finally done it.

  Yggur was slumped in his chair, utterly drained.

  ‘Come outside, surr,’ said Irisis. She helped him out, then signalled to Malien. ‘Take us up so we can see what’s going on.’

  Yggur looked up as Flydd staggered by. ‘Well, Scrutator,’ he said in a hoarse rasp, ‘I’ve met my end of the bargain.’

  ‘And I will honour mine,’ said Flydd. ‘Though I’ve no idea how.’

  The thapter slipped into the air. The enemy line had broken. The clankers equipped with mind-shockers had swung around in a curving line and the lyrinx were being pushed north, further out into the Dry Sea. Malien climbed higher. It was happening on the other side as well: another curve of clankers splitting the enemy in two around the human army and driving them out into the wasteland.

  Flydd shook his head. ‘I never thought it was possible. Not for a second.’

  ‘But you never gave in, either,’ said Malien. ‘You’re quite a man, Scrutator.’

  ‘If only you knew the despair I give way to, in the dark each night after I’ve gone to bed.’

  ‘You’re not alone, Xervish Flydd. You’re not alone.’

  SEVENTY

  As soon as it became evident that they had mastery of the lyrinx, an open-air council of war was called to formally decide on the next step, the most momentous of the war. Irisis, sitting up the back with Malien and Tiaan, wasn’t looking forward to the debate.

  ‘The war will soon be over,’ said Flydd. ‘Our field controller now has control of most of the nodes within a forty-league semicircle of Ashmode. We’re slowly but progressively choking off their power patterner, and in a day or two it’ll be useless. The enemy can no longer fly. In two more days – three at the outside – they won’t be able to use any of their Arts.’

  ‘And there’s no way they can strike back?’ said Nisbeth.

  ‘They’re cut off from the shore by a circle of clankers armed with mind-shockers, and they can’t approach within half a league of them. They can’t escape. The only question remaining is – what do we do with them?’

  ‘We’ve had this argument before,’ said a purple-faced General Orgestre. The golden medals danced as he shifted position and Irisis noticed that he’d added another row since Flydd and Troist’s victory. Orgestre was a man who knew his priorities. ‘Exterminate them! It’s the only way we can ever be safe.’

  ‘But that would be genocide,’ said Gilhaelith, who still looked shaken from his day at the battlefront.

  ‘I thought you were out for revenge?’ said Flydd.

  ‘It’s not as sweet as I’d thought,’ Gilhaelith muttered.

  ‘After what they’ve done to our world,’ said Orgestre coldly, ‘a million deaths and whole nations devastated, genocide is exactly what I’m proposing.’

  ‘They might have been human once,’ said a young, yellow-haired officer up the front, ‘but they forfeited their humanity when they began to flesh-form their unborn young. The lyrinx are an abomination and we cannot suffer them to live. I say we move in on them right away.’

  ‘We’re not going to make any hasty decisions,’ said Flydd with a glance at Yggur, whose frosty eye was fixed on him. ‘If we attack while they’ve still got power we could lose half our army. If we delay we can save those lives and … still meet our objective.’

  To Irisis, he didn’t sound convincing. Tiaan turned to her and Malien, saying quietly, ‘This kind of talk makes me sick to my stomach. I’m going for a walk.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Irisis. ‘I can’t bear it either.’ Malien joined them.

  They slipped out, crunching across the crusted salt in the moonlight. ‘There has to be another way,’ said Malien.

  ‘I wish I knew one,’ Tiaan replied.

  ‘A night flight would clear your head and help you think about it.’

  Beside Irisis, Tiaan stiffened.

  ‘Vithis has to be told that his clan is no more,’ said Malien.

  ‘I – but surely I don’t have to go? He …’

  ‘You must, Tiaan. It’s the end of his clan, and you discovered what happened to them. You have to tell him what you know. I can’t do that for you. I have my own story to relate.’

  ‘But … Minis will be there. How am I to face him? I don’t think I can.’

  ‘You’ve been running away for more than a year. If you’ve done him wrong – and only you and he know the truth of that – you have to face up to it.’

  ‘I’m sure Flydd won’t allow me to go.’

  ‘He can spare you now,’ said Malien. ‘Nothing’s going to happen until all the enemy’s Arts have been stripped from them. I’ll tell him I’m taking you.’

  Tiaan walked away across the salt until Irisis lost sight of her in the dim light. She shifted her weight with a faint crunch.

  ‘You think I’m pushing her too hard,’ Malien said quietly.

  ‘I can’t say,’ said Irisis. ‘Although I couldn’t bear to have it hanging over my head. I’d have to go at it head-on, whatever the consequences.’

  Malien went in to Flydd, and came back within minutes. ‘He didn’t put up as much of a fight as I’d expected, even when I said I was taking you as well.’

  It was a long time before Tiaan returned. ‘I can see that you’re right,’ she said to Malien. Her face was in darkness but the tension in her voice was palpable. ‘Vithis has to be faced sooner or later. And Minis. In some ways, it’d be a relief to have it over, though I don’t know how I’m going to get through it.’

  ‘I’ll be standing beside you,’ sai
d Malien.

  ‘But I can’t run away and allow the lyrinx to be exterminated,’ Tiaan added.

  ‘Nice try, Tiaan, but any decision will be days yet. Besides,’ Malien said slyly, ‘if you were to take your node map, Orgestre wouldn’t dare attack them.’

  ‘But then the lyrinx might –’

  ‘They won’t. There’s no escaping your duty, Tiaan.’

  Dawn broke as they approached the Foshorn. Irisis climbed the ladder, rubbed her eyes and yawned. She’d slept most of the night and wouldn’t have minded a few hours more. The rising sun lit up the towering cliffs and ramparts. Directly below, the salt lakes formed by the Trihorn Falls were still in shadow.

  Tiaan, who was rigid with tension, offered her hot chard and strips of dried quince. Irisis took a handful. ‘Where’s the famous Foshorn, then?

  ‘The Trihorn Falls are straight ahead,’ said Malien, who was still flying. ‘The Hornrace, linking the Sea of Thurkad to the Dry Sea, lies behind them. We’ll be over it in half an hour.’

  ‘That’s strange,’ Malien said a few minutes later. ‘I don’t see much water coming over the falls.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it changes with the seasons?’ said Irisis.

  Malien chuckled. ‘Not with an ocean behind it.’ She turned to curve across the glistening lower flanks of the Trihorn. The layered rock was etched with deep slots and canyons that ran down to the salt lakes below the Trihorn, but the falls had been reduced to a few trickles.

  She lifted the nose of the machine to fly up the face of the Trihorn. Irisis felt her stomach being left behind. She put down the dried quince, no longer hungry, and concentrated on not spilling her chard. Up, up and up they soared, flying faster and faster. Malien’s jaw was set and she was staring fixedly ahead.

  They rocketed towards the peaks and, as they reached the left-hand gap through which the falls had once flowed, Malien flattened out with a jerk of her hand, curving between the two peaks.

  Irisis gagged as her stomach and intestines seemed to be pushing up into her throat. Her feet lifted off the floor and she caught desperately at the side rail.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Malien. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry –’

  Below the thapter a trench, cut hundreds of spans deep and wide through solid rock, ran ahead as far as they could see.

  ‘Was that the Hornrace?’ said Irisis. It contained just a few elongated pools.

  ‘It was.’

  The thapter climbed higher. In the distance a massive, rectangular building, constructed upon a colossal arch of stone, spanned the Foshorn. Smaller cubes made a kind of pyramid at the centre of the arch.

  ‘Where’s the watch-tower?’ said Tiaan.

  ‘It’s fallen,’ Malien replied grimly. ‘See. And not of its own accord. History repeats itself.’

  Tiaan shot her a glance. Malien shook her head as if saying, later.

  The tower’s suspended arches appeared to have broken and it had speared right through the pyramidal building. The pyramid and the Span still stood, though rubble from the tower had dammed the Hornrace. The flagpole that had stood on top stuck up at an angle from the dam, still proudly flying the pennant of Inthis First Clan.

  Malien circled over the arch. A ragged hole had been torn right through the vast building. Thousands of constructs were drawn up in ranks outside, not too close in case the rest collapsed. Aachim stood in groups everywhere, staring at the ruins.

  Malien hovered for a while, silently taking in the scene. ‘Best we go down and find Vithis,’ she said at last.

  ‘How are we going to guard the thapter?’ Tiaan said in a dry croak.

  ‘I am Matah of all my people,’ said Malien with the unconscious arrogance that characterised her kind. ‘And I’m bringing Vithis the most tragic news of all.’

  She landed between the constructs, close by the main doors, and a small group of Aachim came to meet them. They were still covered in dust and their eyes had a faraway look.

  ‘I am Malien,’ she said. ‘Matah of the Aachim of Santhenar. I must see Vithis on a matter of the utmost importance.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Matah,’ said the robed woman at their head, and they all bowed their heads respectfully. ‘In the circumstances, Vithis will not see even you. I’m sure you appreciate …’

  ‘It concerns the fate of his clan,’ Malien said.

  The Aachim stiffened and cast a glance at her fellows. ‘I will take you to him at once.’ She gave orders to a slender boy, who set off at a run.

  They followed in more stately fashion. The Aachim said no more and Malien asked no questions of her. Inside they climbed many flights of dust-covered, gritty stairs. Irisis lost count after a while. The building was different to other Aachim structures Irisis had read about in the Histories, being extremely plain and undecorated.

  The lad appeared and led them across a large open floor scattered with rubble, to a slumped figure in the centre. Vithis was sitting on the edge of the ragged hole, legs dangling down through it, staring blindly at the still waters of the Hornrace. Tiaan hung back; then, with a visible wrench, she forced herself to come to the edge beside him.

  ‘Matah Malien,’ Vithis said dully. ‘You have news of Inthis?’

  He looked up at Tiaan and Irisis caught her breath, knowing the enmity between them, but Vithis’s expression did not change.

  Malien dusted off the floor and sat beside him, though she kept her legs clear of the hole. ‘I do, but not good news. We found the wreckage of many constructs out in the Dry Sea. They were made of the blue metal which only Inthis knows the secret of working. A few of the bodies wore First Clan colours. They had survived for some time.’

  ‘But they are all dead now?’

  ‘Alas, all that we could find. I’m sorry.’

  ‘They called this tower another First Clan folly.’ His voice was as harsh and dry as grit grinding underfoot. ‘A monument to my hubris. Not even my wretched foster-son had faith in our clan’s tenacity and will to live. But I knew First Clan had survived and I would not abandon them, whatever it cost my own reputation.’

  Vithis looked up through the hole at the sky, or perhaps the limitless void. For a moment Irisis saw the nobility in him, the dreams he’d nurtured before life had crushed them one by one.

  ‘You did the right thing,’ said Malien. ‘Will you come to view the bodies, name those you know and record how they lived and died?’

  ‘I knew every one of my people, and I will send them off with all the honour that is their due. Let us waste no time.’

  On the way down Vithis opened a door and said, ‘Come out, lad. You were in Tirthrax at the beginning. You might as well see the end.’

  A small man came through the door, rather warily, and he was so covered in dust that at first Irisis did not recognise him. When she did, Irisis, who prided herself on her control, let out a shriek and ran.

  ‘Nish!’ She threw her arms around him, lifted him in the air and whirled him around in a circle. ‘I was sure the lyrinx had eaten you. What are you doing here?’ She couldn’t restrain her tears, which spotted his dusty face. She kissed them away, smudging her lips and cheek.

  Nish hugged her back. ‘It would take a day to tell you.’

  As they went out the main doors towards the thapter, Irisis, who had her arm linked through Nish’s, heard a distinctive clicking sound, like a metal-shod crutch on stone. She eased him to a stop. Just ahead, Tiaan had frozen. She rotated in place like a statue on a pedestal, and could not conceal her horror.

  A haggard, aged Minis emerged from the front door, moving painfully on his crutches. He saw Tiaan standing there and his face lit up. His joy brought a lump to Irisis’s throat.

  She glanced at Tiaan, despite herself half hoping to see it reflected there. It wasn’t. Whatever Tiaan was feeling at that moment – horror at the extent of his injuries, compassion, guilt perhaps – it wasn’t the naked adoration shining from Minis. She may have loved him once but it was gone forever.

  Minis strained
forward on his crutches as if he could compel her to love him in return, but as it became clear that she did not, would not, could not, the seams of his face deepened, his shoulders dropped and he sagged onto his crutches with a groan of despair.

  Vithis had also turned. He looked from one to the other and his face hardened. ‘What did you expect?’ he said harshly. ‘Come, Foster-son. I’m all you have left.’

  Irisis couldn’t watch any more. ‘Let’s go,’ she whispered to Nish. ‘This is none of our business.’

  She led him around the other side of the thapter and they climbed in and settled companionably on the lower floor, in a shaded corner. Irisis linked her arm through his again. ‘Now tell me everything. Don’t leave out the tiniest detail.’

  SEVENTY-ONE

  ‘Take the controller,’ Malien said, ushering Tiaan toward the thapter.

  ‘I’m not sure I can.’ Tiaan’s knees were shaking.

  ‘I think it’s best. It’ll give you something to do.’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to talk to Minis?’

  ‘You can’t do that in a crowded thapter. Time enough after the dead have been dealt with.’

  Vithis climbed in, followed by ten Aachim – the other clan leaders and Matah Urien – there to set down the fate of First Clan and see the dead laid to rest. Minis came last, and when no one moved to help him up the ladder, Tiaan went to do so.

  ‘Don’t take away the little self-respect he has left!’ said Vithis.

  She returned to the controller and fastened her straps. Minis struggled in and she could feel his feverish eyes on her. It was a relief when he went below with the others. Malien had gone down too.

  ‘Lift off!’ rasped Vithis.

  She did so, as jerkily as a novice. He stood beside her, shuddering with such suppressed emotions that Tiaan began to think he would strike her down and seize the controller for himself.

  They travelled in silence, for Tiaan could think of nothing to say to him, and he, it appeared, did not trust himself to speak.