Chimaera

by Ian Irvine

An hour into the flight, Nish came up the ladder and Tiaan had never been more glad to see him. The uncomfortable silence stretched out. Shortly they saw ahead the solitary tower, like red balls on a skewer, which the Aachim had constructed on the pinnacle in the Dry Sea.

  ‘Nithmak Tower,’ said Vithis. ‘Another monument to my folly. I built it to bring First Clan home from the void. If only I had looked closer to home. All that time I wasted here, striving to beam my beacon out across the limitless void, and my people were crying out for aid just days away. Why was I so fixed on the void? Why did I not think of the Dry Sea? How could I have been so blind?’

  ‘Is Nithmak a portal?’ asked Nish.

  ‘Not of itself, but one can readily be made there at need,’ said Vithis.

  ‘I wish I’d never made the gate at Tirthrax,’ said Tiaan. ‘I wish I’d never seen the amplimet, nor heard Minis’s call. Nor listened to him.’

  ‘So do I wish it,’ said Vithis. ‘I would shed every drop of my heart’s blood to make it so. If First Clan had to disappear, why could we not have died together on our own world, with dignity?’

  ‘I thought I was doing the right thing,’ said Tiaan. ‘Why didn’t I refuse to put the port-all together?’

  ‘Nithmak is a master zyxibule,’ said Vithis. ‘Nothing was done in haste this time. It was designed so carefully that a child could use it, built by masters, and checked by my own hands. It’s perfect.’

  She studied the structure as they went by. ‘And you designed it to reach anywhere in the void?’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘I wouldn’t say anywhere, for the void is limitless. But anywhere my people could have ended up.’

  ‘Could you go back to Aachan?’

  ‘We have gone back,’ he said grimly. ‘We clan leaders have been there a dozen times, visiting all the havens and searching for survivors of any clan. We found none. Our beloved Aachan is a volcanic hell.’

  Tiaan dwelt on that as they left the tower behind. And all because of choices made thousands of years ago, by Aachim desperate to have the power that mastery of an amplimet could bring.

  ‘Whenever the way into the void has been opened, trouble has come out of it,’ said Malien from the top of the ladder. ‘I dread what will come through this gate if it’s left for the future’s fools to play with.’

  ‘Do what you wish with it,’ said Vithis. ‘Destroy it! I care not. Here is the key.’ From a chain around his neck he took a hexagonal rod carved from a single sapphire, whose corners were rounded from aeons of handling. He gave it to Malien.

  Malien studied it for a moment, nodded and put it in her scrip. ‘I will see to it.’

  No one spoke for hours afterwards. Tiaan held on to her controller like a lifeline, longing for the journey to be over, though not for what lay at the end of it. In the immensity of the Dry Sea the thapter did not seem to be moving.

  She flew through the night and soon after dawn began to descend. ‘We saw the first construct not far ahead,’ Tiaan said.

  Vithis was the first to spot the wreckage. He showed no expression, apart from a hardening of the corners of his mouth.

  ‘There’s one. Go lower. I would count their number first, and make sure none have been overlooked.’

  Tiaan went back and forth as he directed. As many of the Aachim as could fit came up, until the compartment was so crammed that she was hard pressed to work the levers.

  Vithis’s lips moved. ‘Some constructs hit so hard that they were smashed to pieces, yet others are hardly damaged. Why didn’t they repair one and send for help?’

  ‘This country is so rugged that not even a construct could hover across it,’ said Malien. ‘You’ll see what I mean when we set down.’

  His mouth shut like a trap. ‘I’ve seen enough. Go down now.’

  The heat radiating from the black rocks hit them like a furnace. They visited the isolated machines, and their dead, before turning to the stone tombs. For Minis, having to pick his way on crutches across the jagged rocks must have been another kind of torture, but he neither complained nor faltered.

  Vithis examined the bodies in the mausoleums, exclaiming as he recognised one, and another. ‘My clan, oh my clan.’

  It took all day and night, for there were many, many bodies. He checked each one, named it without hesitation; mourned over each, too. Each name seemed to take a little more from him. The lines of his face lengthened and deepened, his eyes became more sunken, his back more bent as the terrible night wore on. Tiaan had to sleep at last, but he was still going when she got up.

  ‘Ah, Sulien,’ he said, bent over the desiccated rags of a small, black-haired woman. ‘You were the greatest beauty of our times. I once thought to match you with my foster-son. Would that I had.’ Vithis stood up, wiped dust from his eye and shuffled to the next. ‘And you, Orthis – sage, philosopher, dear friend and counsellor, how I need your wise guidance now.’

  So it went on – poet, architect, Mother of the Clan, beloved niece – he mourned over every one, as the sun rose higher and sucked up the last drops of perspiration.

  ‘You survived all this time,’ he said at the last stone mausoleum. ‘If only I had known to look here. Why did you not call? Did you not see my beacon?’

  Vithis shuffled out like an old man. His skin had taken on a grey tinge and Minis, beside him, looked even worse. The dried paths of tears streaked his salt-crusted face.

  ‘Is that all?’ Vithis said hoarsely. ‘There are many missing. Very many that I would have expected to find accompanying these.’

  ‘There’s still the building constructed from the skins of the wrecked constructs,’ said Malien. ‘Perhaps some you’re looking for lie within.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘How could I have forgotten it? Or is it that I dread what I will see inside?’

  They went up the path to the metal building and began to go through each of the rooms, Vithis leading, Minis struggling along behind. Tiaan noticed that Irisis and Nish were not following and was glad. It didn’t concern them.

  Vithis turned into a compartment that Tiaan and Malien had missed previously. On pallets on the floor lay an old man and an old woman, their dark robes covered in a dusting of windblown salt. They were thin to the point of emaciation and the woman’s arms were folded across her breast; the man’s lay by his sides. They too looked as if they were sleeping.

  Vithis looked down, saying nothing. A single tear welled in his left eye. He ignored it. ‘Uncle Mumis, Aunt Zefren. Why didn’t I hear your cries?’

  Luxor tapped Tiaan on the shoulder and jerked his head at the entrance. She went out, followed by Malien and all but Vithis and Minis.

  ‘Clan mourning,’ said Malien to the clan leader beside her. ‘What comes after, Tayel?’

  ‘I can scarcely bear to think.’

  A good while later Vithis emerged, more stooped than before, and more haggard. His eyes sought Tiaan out among the gathering.

  ‘There are more.’ It was a statement.

  ‘Upstairs.’ She hesitated, unsure what he wanted, then pointed.

  ‘You will take me there.’

  Tiaan led the way. This time only Minis followed, leaving his crutches at the bottom and hauling himself up the steps. At the top, by the children’s room, she stood aside to let Vithis past. The doorway was no higher than her head but he was so bowed that he passed through freely.

  He walked to the centre of the room, looked at the beds, and gave forth a cry of anguish such as Tiaan had never heard from a human throat. She turned to leave him but his arm shot out and caught her hand.

  ‘Stay! See what you’ve wrought by debauching my foster-son with your alien allure.’ Tears coursed down his cratered cheeks. ‘You seduced him with your charms and your deadly stone, and for that First Clan is no more. Ah, the children, the children!’

  ‘Foster-father,’ cried Minis. ‘Have you lost your wits? We called out for help, remember, and when she answered we used her innocent infatuation –’

  ‘B
e silent!’

  ‘You approved every action we took, Foster-father, and if the gate went wrong that was due to what you did with it after it opened.’

  ‘It had already gone wrong. I was trying to put it right.’

  ‘If it did go wrong,’ said Malien, who had come up quietly, ‘and I know it did, then you must look to your own enemies, Lord Vithis. Ask yourself who wanted to see the end of First Clan. And who seized that opportunity, when Inthis were first into the gate, to be rid of them?’

  ‘No!’ cried Vithis, putting his hands over his ears. ‘I will not hear this. It is Aachim first and clan second, as it has always been. No one would attack another clan at such a desperate time. No one!’

  He turned to Minis, who was leaning against the wall, panting. ‘And you are just as culpable. Why could you not cleave to your own? What was so wrong with the women of First Clan that you had to call out across the void for an old human mate?’ The very words were a curse.

  ‘You know it wasn’t like that,’ began Minis. ‘I was asked to join the call.’

  ‘For help. Not for a mate. You could have had anyone, even beautiful Sulien who now lies out there, shrivelled like a piece of dried meat. Our clan, the greatest and oldest of all, is dying, yet you have not produced so much as a half-Inthis child. What have I done to make you hate me so?’

  ‘I don’t hate you, Foster-father. I …’

  ‘Aaargh! Begone. And take her with you.’

  Tiaan scrambled down the stairs and outside. Minis clacked after her, avoiding her eyes. A great cry of anguish came from the attic window, after which there was silence. Finally Vithis emerged. His back was no longer bent but his face was more crevassed than ever.

  ‘All things must pass and First Clan is no more. I will send them on their longest journey, in the way that has always been foretold. Not foretold by a mooncalf with a head full of fantasies,’ he spat, with a glance in Minis’s direction. ‘Forecast by our ancient seers. Inthis came first and we found the Well. Some say it came first and First Clan was born of it. As we came, so shall we depart. No more fitting farewell can I make my people.’

  He threw his arms up, clawing for the sky, and opened his mouth to speak the Great Spell.

  ‘What are you doing?’ cried Malien.

  ‘I am summoning the Well, Matah Malien.’

  Malien looked afraid. Tiaan shuddered and moved closer to her.

  ‘The Well cannot be summoned,’ said Malien. ‘It just is, and presently it lies chained within Tirthrax. Even to go near it is perilous.’

  ‘Not to me, for I am the direct heir of Inthis, founder of First Clan ten thousand years ago. I have the power and the right, for the chained Well at Tirthrax is just a shadow of what it should be.’ He raised his arms again.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ said Malien.

  ‘The least honour I can do my people is to send them to the Well, but it is the only honour in my power.’

  ‘Then let us take them to the Hornrace and entomb them in the time-honoured way. Here, by the great mid-sea rift, the seat of such unstable power, is neither fitting nor safe.’

  ‘Here they fell and here they will be taken up,’ said Vithis softly, but then his voice rose. ‘What care I for safety? What care I if the whole of Santhenar falls into ruin? My world is gone, and my clan. I have nothing left.’

  ‘You have Minis,’ she said.

  ‘I lost him before I lost my clan or my world. It’s too late now; nothing remains of him.’ He raised his voice. ‘Flee now, any among you who fear death.’ He fixed each one of them with his baleful glare. ‘Well, Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

  ‘I fear your kind of death, but I would honour your dead,’ Nish said softly. ‘I will stay.’

  ‘There’s more to you than I thought,’ said Vithis. ‘Not much, but something. Take your place over there.’

  Vithis offered them the choice, one after another, to go or to stay. Everyone stayed. ‘Then move back,’ he said. ‘The Well of Echoes – the true Well – has an appetite for the living as well as the dead.’

  He reached out, clenching and unclenching his fists, and the sky changed to an ashy grey. Thunder rumbled all around them as if they were circled by storms. At least, it sounded like thunder, though it felt more like an earth trembler.

  Tiaan shifted from one foot to another. They weren’t far from the mid-sea rift. What might an earth trembler do here, where the very rock beneath their feet had been riven apart by forces not even a geomancer could comprehend?

  ‘How can he summon the Well of Echoes?’ Tiaan asked quietly. ‘He has nothing in his hands.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Malien, ‘though there exist powers far older than the magic of crystals and devices, fields and nodes. Vithis has lived for a thousand years and is heir to Arts ten times that old, whose secrets have been passed down to none but the greatest in each generation.’

  Vithis cried out a word, and a word of power it must have been, for the entire sky went black. It was an absolute darkness – no clouds showed, no moon, no stars. The ground shook so violently that loose rocks rattled like dice in a cup. Away in the distance a red glow appeared, a molten line squeezed up through the black rift.

  He sang a second word. A column of yellow light seared a path down from the sky, beginning some degrees off the vertical and ending in the rocks behind the metal death-house, illuminating one of the mausoleums. The column was not solid yellow; rather it seemed to be made of a million threads of light, all different hues of yellow. And all were in motion: vibrating, revolving, shimmering.

  He whispered a third word and the threads wove between one another, faster and faster, until they blended into a single bar of colour so bright that everyone had to shield their eyes. Its base drifted off the mausoleum, fingered the ground between it and the metal death-house, and began to rotate. Dust danced where it touched but the particles were instantly sucked down, apparently into the solid rock. Pieces of gravel and salt crust whirled after.

  A hole appeared, a couple of spans across, though it did not actually seem to pass through the rock. It was, rather, that the hole was laid over the rock, the two existing in the same place but different dimensions.

  Like Tiaan’s brief glimpses into the hyperplane long ago, or the inside of the tesseract, it was all wrong. It confused the mind as well as the eye and she could only imagine what the others must be making of it. Nish, next to her, looked as if he was going to be ill.

  The column of threaded light moved steadily down and as it did it thickened. The hole, which Tiaan realised was the slowly materialising Well, broadened until it was five or six spans across. Suddenly, with another rolling rumble of thunder, the column of light evaporated. They were enveloped in darkness within which the only illumination was the Well, while the stifling heat had been replaced by cold air currents coiling about them.

  The walls of the Well were midnight black, threaded with shimmering yellow strands that moved when the eye attempted to focus on them. From where she was standing, Tiaan could see down a few spans, and suddenly recalled hanging off Nish’s arm, half in and half out of the Well in Tirthrax. But that had been different. That had been a little, stable Well, frozen in place by powerful Arts. This was the master Well – wild and free, and only Vithis could control it.

  Tiaan reached out blindly and her hand struck Nish’s. It startled her. She saw the same memories in his eyes. He was shuddering with horror. She felt for him – she had some small understanding of the Well, but Nish could have none. She squeezed his hand and he gave her a weak smile.

  Vithis looked around him, though Tiaan knew he was not seeing any of them. He was remembering the Histories of Inthis, the first of the clans on Aachan and always the greatest. So powerful was the moment that she could almost see the story of Clan Inthis flickering in the air in front of him.

  He stood that way for a long time. No one spoke or moved. Then Vithis shook himself and held up one hand, as if to give a blessing.

  ‘Farewe
ll, my beloved Inthis,’ he said in a majestic voice drawn from somewhere deeper than the bitterness that had been his daily existence. ‘We were the greatest of all clans, and it will be recognised as long as our Histories endure. But now the time of First Clan is over. Go to the soft sweet Well of Echoes, my people. Go Hulis, go Maris, go Irrien …’

  He went through the names from memory, one by one, listing them in the order that he had found them. There were thousands of dead but not once did he hesitate. Tiaan found tears welling in her eyes yet again.

  As he spoke the last name, Vithis spread his arms and the Well lifted and slid toward the mausoleum directly behind the metal death-house. Crusts of salt whirled in the air and were pulled down to nothingness. It was eerie, the way the shimmering shaft drifted through the ground with no more sound than a sigh. There was no groan or crack of shifting rocks, no wind, no clatter. It settled over, or under, or around the mausoleum, which hung there even though there now appeared to be nothing underneath it.

  The Well spun like a whirlpool, brightened, and in that sudden brilliant radiance the laid-out bodies took on a fullness and a colour they’d not had since they died. They looked as if they had come alive again and were just sleeping.

  The base of the mausoleum collapsed and fell into the Well. The bodies followed, one by one, and as each passed within there was a flash of yellow light and a low, reverberating boom that seemed to echo up and down. The last body fell, dark hair trailing. Vithis moved one hand, the Well drifted away and the mausoleum collapsed into a pile of rubble on the now solid ground.

  The scene was repeated at the next mausoleum, and the one after, Vithis directing the Well until every crashed construct had been visited, every body taken. Finally he pointed it to the last and most sacred place, the building formed from the metal cladding of many constructs, that contained his uncle, aunt and the seven dead children.

  The aunt and uncle passed quickly, almost gladly, into the Well, but the children hung in the air, reluctant. Their arms moved, their hair streamed out behind them and the oldest girl appeared to turn her head and look reproachfully at Tiaan. Vithis let out a desolate cry and moved one hand to still the Well, but it was surely just a trick of the light. He let the hand drop.