Forty-three

Inouye began to jerk as if she were having a fit. Droplets of sweat burst out all over her, saturating her clothes in a few seconds. Irisis grew hot all over. Her eyes clouded until she could see nothing but floating specks of blue light.

The pilot slid from her grasp and power struck Irisis like a sledgehammer, knocking her to her knees. She fought against it, catching Inouye's hand with her free hand. If she let go the controller would fail, for it was tuned to Inouye alone.

As the air-floater turned, she saw the soldiers at the jave-lard halfway up the hill. They had freed the bent spear and were inserting a good one. The lever went back, the spear hur-tled towards them. She threw her weight against the steering arm, having difficulty keeping her balance. The air-floater did not move quickly enough. The heavy spear whistled over her head, smashing through the back end of the cabin and out the front Nish! Nish was inside. 'Shoot them!' Her voice cracked.

Flangers was cranking a crossbow. 'No spears left. Not many bolts, either.'

The pair of air-floaters were approaching. Both were armed with javelards and soldiers bearing crossbows, though they were not yet in range.

Another spear shot by, passing close to the top of the airbag. Where had that come from? Her erratic movements had taken the air-floater offshore and it had come within range of one of the ships' more powerful javelards. Irisis felt a flurry of panic but bit down on it. She would get everyone to safety or kill them all in the attempt.

'I need some help here,' she gasped as Inouye's weight pulled her hand off the controller.

The air-floater kept turning. Irisis, realising that it would take them towards the air-floaters, pulled the steering arm the other way with her boot. That brought them past the soldiers on the hill and, as they drifted west, she saw the soldiers from the third landing boat climbing the ridge ahead of them. There was nowhere to go.

A bony hand fell on her shoulder. 'Turn north-east towards the air-floaters,' said Flydd, taking the steering arm. He fired Flangers's crossbow one-handed, to no effect. 'We may be able to do something.'

'I can't imagine what.' Irisis muttered, but did as she was told.

As they passed over the water, she cast a glance over her shoulder. Flangers was pouring the flask of quicksilver through a sieve while the perquisitor did something under-neath with her hands. Irisis could feel the cold from here. Pellets of frozen quicksilver, far heavier than lead, rattled into a bucket. Fyn-Mah gave the scrutator such a look of hopeless longing that Irisis was touched. Flydd did not notice.

With a gloved hand, Flangers scooped a handful of pellets into a silk bag. He placed the bag in the cup of the javelard binding it loosely with thread.

'Get a move on,' roared Flydd.

Flangers swung the javelard around, tracking the air-floater to their left. It was doing the same, and fired first. The spear was aimed high, and looked as though it was going to fall short, but a gust drifted the air-floater into its path and out through the airbag just above its base, emerged a couple of spans away and fell past them.

Irisis gave the floater-gas generator as much power as she dared. Floater gas whistled up the pipe, though it seemed to be coming out the rents in the airbag just as quickly. Try as she might, she could not keep the machine level.

'Can you patch it?' she called over her shoulder.

Fire, dammit,' said Flydd.

Flangers fired. A scrap of silk drifted in the air, then the soldiers on the leading air-floater screamed and threw their arms in the air. A scatter of holes appeared in the airbag, tore into a huge gash and the airbag began to collapse. The air-floater went nose-down. 'Again' said Flydd.

While Flangers charged the javelard with another bag of quicksilver pellets, Muss climbed to the roof of the cabin. He hauled up Flydd, who was carrying a repair patch — a square of canvas coated in sticky tar.

'Keep it steady,' said the scrutator, wincing as his weight went onto his twisted ankle. He held the canvas in place while Muss pressed it against the lower tear in the balloon and smoothed it down, taking care to eliminate any wrinkles.

Flangers fired at the second air-floater, but this time the silk did not break and the bag of pellets tore harmlessly through the wall of the cabin.

'I've pellets left for one more attempt,' Flangers called. Flydd, struggling with the other piece of tarred canvas, snapped 'Get on with it. The quicksilver won't stay frozen forever.'

Irisis turned north into the wind, trying to keep her distance from the air-floater. That proved impossible for it had the wind on its starboard quarter. She also had to keep the machine steady and hold Inouye up. Power kept flowing through the controller, so something must be clinging on in the pilot's subconscious.

The second tear proved harder to fix, for it was well above Flydd and Muss's reach. They had to press the canvas patch on with poles. One side went on cleanly but as they smoothed the patch across, the canvas wrinkled. There was no way to fix it without setting down.

Flangers fired. Several people at the front of the enemy craft, including the pilot, went down. As it fell, the controller arm was jerked to one side and the air-floater veered towards them. Irisis turned away as sharply as she dared, prompting a flurry of oaths from the roof of the cabin, but still the enemy shooter had a perfect, side-on shot.

The spear whizzed by the cabin, clanging off the housing of the floater-gas generator. Irisis held her breath. One spark and they would light up the sky for ten leagues. Nothing happened, but the whistle of the generator died away.

The pilotless air-floater fell in looping corkscrews towards the sea. The shooter abandoned his weapon to stand at the rail, staring down fearfully. The first craft had already hit the water and now lay on its side, its airbag deflated. The nearest ship was moving towards it, and the dark-clad figures thrashing in the water. The third air-floater signalled with flags but made no attempt to come after them. Definitely scrutators on board, Irisis thought sourly.

'The floater-gas generator's busted,' said Flydd, climbing down. He was now limping badly. He looked around, marking the positions of the fleet, which was spread out to the south and east of them.

Irisis let Inouye slide to the deck, for she could no longer hold her up. The machine slowed dramatically — Inouye's subconscious had finally given out. Flangers and Fyn-Mah carried her inside, and Irisis ran in after them to check on Nish. He was asleep and unharmed. She returned to her post, took out the controller's crystal, put her pliance in its place and set it to channel to the rotor what power she could. The air-floater limped on, slowly losing height as floater gas trickled out from beneath the wrinkled patch.

'Which way?' she said to Flydd. 'With the fleet between us and land, I don't dare head south or west. If they've got other air-floaters, or we're forced to land, they'll have us. We can't go back towards Snizort, either.'

The afternoon sun angled across one cheek. If Flydd had been gaunt before, now he was nothing more than bone and sinew over which the skin was stretched drum-tight. As he clenched his jaw, knots formed under the skin.

'Go north-west,' he decided at last.

Towards Meldorin?' Irisis said incredulously. 'But the lyrinx control it.'

We're outlaws. There's nowhere on Lauralin to hide; nowhere the scrutators won't track us down. So we must go to the one place where they don't dare, and take our chances with the lyrinx. Which reminds me — how did you get on in Snizort?'

That adventure was so long ago Irisis could hardly recall what he was talking about. 'It began well, surr . . .' 'Oh?' he said sharply.

This wasn't the way she'd imagined their reunion. They'd been friends for a long time now; she'd been so glad to see him and imagined he would feel the same. Evidently she'd invested too much in the moment — Flydd was scrutator first and human being second. 'We managed to take one of the flesh-formed creatures alive — a newborn infant.' 'But?' said Flydd.

'The lyrinx attacked us on the way out and it was killed.

They'd slain all the adults before they left. They nearly killed us too. We lost all six of our guards, and Fyn-Mah and Flangers were badly hurt. Only Muss was unharmed, but he was never around when the fighting was on.'

'I don't allow him to fight, except to save his life,' said Flydd. 'He's too valuable to me. And the other?' 'The other, surr?'

'The phynadr, dammit. I saw Muss before the battle of Gumby Marth and he said you had it.' 'I did . . .'

'What happened?'

'It didn't thrive, surr. We did everything we could.' She took him into a corner of the cabin and retrieved the bag from under a bench.

He opened it. The phynadr had collapsed into a slimy mess with a strong, meaty smell, like buffalo broth. 'What a waste,' said Flydd, tossing it over the side.

She just stared at him. Was that all? Didn't he even care? Suddenly she felt furiously angry. 'Thank you for trying so hard, Irisis,' she said sarcastically. 'Next time you get lost, you miserable old fleabag, you can rescue yourself.'

'Hey,' he said. 'I didn't mean —’

She had already stalked away.

Nish was still sleeping peacefully, his knees doubled up, one hand under his cheek. It made him look very young. Irisis stood looking down at him, reflecting. She knew now that she wanted this man, but would he want her? Either way, she was glad that her brief affair with Flydd had ended before they came west. She tucked a blanket around Nish and left him to recover.

The air-floater had caught a breeze and was moving more quickly now. In an hour they had left the enemy behind and were drifting across an empty, mist-covered sea.

'Can't we go any faster?' said Flydd, coming up beside her. 'If I stuck my head out the back and blew, we'd move quicker than this.'

'Off you go, then,' Irisis said coolly.

He did not reply. He looked terrible.

She felt contrite. How could she know what he had been through? 'What's the matter, Xervish?'

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to sound ungrateful, earlier. This past week and a half . . .'

'You look as though you haven't eaten since I last saw you.'

'Close enough.' He stared up at the balloon. 'The bag's still losing floater gas. At this rate, we'll be lucky to make it to land.'

'How's Inouye?'

'Who?'

'The pilot.'

'I've never seen anyone go so close to anthracism and survive.'

'Can she come up and take over?'

'Only if you want to kill her' said Flydd.

'Then you'd better hang onto this.' She gave him the controller arm.

Hey!' he cried. 'I can't operate one of these.'

The alarm in his voice amused her. 'In that case you'd better start blowing.' She went down to the cabin.

Inouye lay on the canvas bench, her eyes as red as tomatoes. Her lips were like crumpled paper and her fingernails had gone black. Her skin was completely white, as if all the blood had withdrawn from beneath.

'I thought you were going to die,' Irisis said, taking the small woman's hand.

'I want to,' said Inouye in a whisper like the rustling of papers. 'The one thing I have left is to die.'

'You saved us all, and the scrutator. You've done more than your duty.'

'I couldn't save my family.' Inouye turned her face to the wall.

'I don't think the Council would harm them.'

'I'll never see my children again.'

How could Irisis answer that? She stroked Inouye's limp hair, then returned to the pilot's position and coaxed a little more speed from the rotor, at the cost of exhausting herself. Without training, or a controller tailored to her, piloting was a debilitating business. Fortunately the tailwind had picked up, though Meldorin was not in sight and from here must be a day's flight away — if the floater gas lasted that long. She leaned back against the cabin wall and closed her eyes, feeling as if she'd not slept in a week. There would be none tonight.

Flangers and Muss had rigged up a rope ladder between the bottom of the airbag and the rail, and run a line around the floater-gas generator, which had a huge dent in one side. Flangers was hammering out the crusted pins that held it to its mountings.

'Gently,' Irisis called. 'Don't make a spark —’

'There's no iron in it,' said Flangers.

'What about your hammer and punch?'

He looked down, grinning sheepishly. Morons! she thought.

'We're still losing altitude,' Irisis said to Fyn-Mah, who was standing in the doorway of the cabin with the map flapping in her hands. 'Better find a place to land. The gas won't keep us up much longer.'

'Turn due north. There are reefs and islets not far from here.'

'Doesn't sound very promising.' Irisis turned onto the new heading and an hour later, when she could barely stand up, saw surf breaking on submerged obstacles. 'I don't see any dry land.'

Fyn-Mah was now on the cabin roof with her spyglass. 'There, to the left.'

Irisis rotored that way, shortly encountering a platform of black rock fringed with olive-green seaweed. The surface was only half a span above the water, crisscrossed with water-filled gutters and rockpools, and none of it was dry.

'Is this the best we can do?' she said, dismayed. The wind was jerking the air-floater this way and that and she wasn't experienced enough to control it. She aimed for a flat slab of rock but overshot. The machine set down with a crash, right in one of the gutters. Water dribbled in through the canvas floor.

'Up!' yelled Flydd as a wave foamed towards them. 'The next wave —’

'I know, I know.'

The air-floater would not rise, of course, for the floater-gas generator was no longer connected. She spun the rotor hard, grinding the keel along the gutter and bouncing it up onto the next slab. Grapnels were flung out, pulled tight and the machine came to rest canted over on its side. Irisis let go the controller and lay down on the sloping deck. She simply could not stand up.

'What happens when the tide comes in?' asked Flangers.

'The Karama Malama isn't big enough to have tides,' said Eiryn Muss.

'Let's get the damn thing fixed and get out of here,' Flydd said tersely. 'I've spent enough time in this bloody sea.'

'You'll have to do it,' Irisis said. 'I'm utterly worn out.'

'It can't be that difficult,' said Flydd.

Flangers shot him an unreadable glance. He and Muss tightened the grapnel ropes to bring the deck horizontal, then brought the floater-gas generator down to the front deck and began to take it apart.

'Does anyone know how these things operate?' Irisis heard Flydd say.

'I imagine Irisis could work it out,' said Flangers.

'She's exhausted. Pull it apart, see what you can find. And don't break anything.'

'Which way does this screw?'

'It doesn't screw at all, you clot,' said Flydd cheerfully. 'You —’

Irisis was amazed to realise that they were enjoying themselves. Good-natured though the banter was, it irritated her. Men! She slipped over the side. Being a genius with her hands, she couldn't bear to listen as they squabbled about how to get the case open.

She trudged across to the far edge of the rock platform, the brown pea-sized bladders of seaweed popping underfoot. There was nothing to see but water. Irisis sat down on the wet rock, but even that was tiring. She lay on her back, feeling the cold water seeping through her coat but too drained to do anything about it. Irisis was hurt that Flydd hadn't recognised all they'd done to find him; she felt unappreciated. She could have fixed the device, weary though she was, but let Flydd have his go. When he failed, he must realise how much he needed her.

She put up with their incompetence for another ten minutes, then looked up to see dark clouds gathering behind them. A wave broke next to her and she scrambled to her feet. They were dreadfully exposed here — the mildest of storms would drive head-high breakers right across the platform. A strong wind would simply blow them away. It had gone on long enough. Irisis wobbled across to the air-floater.

'Get out of the way, you dills! Can't you see, it goes like this.' She twisted the housing one way, then partway back.

The mechanism clicked and she tugged gently on each end. The two parts slid open.

She laid the internal workings on the canvas, turned it over and said, 'There's the problem. The crystal that draws power into the mechanism was smashed by the impact. I'll pop in another one and we'll be on our way.'

It didn't turn out to be that simple, of course. There were no replacement crystals.

'We had a spare,' said Inouye in that dreary, husk-like voice, "but one of the other air-floaters had a problem on the way from Nennifer, and we had to give it to them.'

'Don't you have any other crystals?' asked Flydd.

'Only in the spare controller for the rotor. But it wouldn't fit.'

'What about my scrying crystal?' said Fyn-Mah.

'It wouldn't do at all,' said Irisis without looking up. 'I'll have to cut down the spare controller crystal. And that won't be easy without suitable tools.'

After an hour of careful labour, during which time the storm clouds came ever closer, she managed to obtain a suitably shaped sliver of crystal, which she tested with her pliance. 'It's far from ideal, but it's the best I can do.'

Flangers had pounded the dent out of the housing on the rock platform, keeping well away from the airbag in case of sparks. Irisis inserted the crystal and put the case together. Flangers and Muss climbed the ladder, hefting the device onto its frame. They filled the barrel with seawater. By the time all that had been done the airbag was as flabby as an old bladder.

Irisis held her breath as she worked the controller. The floater-gas generator shuddered and gave a cheerful whistling hiss.

By this time the sea had come up and waves were breaking over the platform, foaming all the way across and swinging the keel on its mooring ropes. The wind had risen, jerking the airbag this way and that. It took a long time before the air-floater began to lift; when it did, it reached a height of a few hundred spans and would rise no higher.

They crept north-west, crossing the southern coast of Meldorin after noon the following day. She'd expected to see lyrinx everywhere but, apart from a sea eagle wheeling in the distance, the sky was empty. Some way off to their left she saw a town or port, abandoned long ago, with trees growing in the middle of the streets. They crept on. Directly ahead, a range of mountains towered above them. The air-floater would never rise that high.

'Go east around it,' said Flydd, who had a rolled map in one hand.

'We've got to set down,' Irisis said, rubbing her swollen eyes. 'I can't go any longer without sleep.'

'I'm not keen on stopping just here. I believe there's a lyrinx town not far away.'

'There'll be no light tonight.' Irisis cocked an eye at the dense overcast. 'It'll be just as dangerous floating in the dark, if we can't get higher than this.'

'We'll have to take that risk. Keep going as long as you can.'

It was completely dark before they had passed by the eastern end of the range and turned back onto their north-westerly tack.

'What's ahead of us?' said Irisis.

'Grassland, then forest, swamp, more forest, more grassland and, finally, desert.'

'And the lyrinx control the lot?'

'Most of it,' said Flydd. 'Not being keen on water, they keep clear of the bog country.'

'Even so, I don't see how we're better off than we were before.'

'There are creatures in Meldorin that even the lyrinx are afraid of.'

'Very comforting. So where are we going?'

'I'll tell you, if we get there.'

She shivered and drew her coat around her. There had been snow on the mountains and she could feel it on the wind.

The dark became so intense that finally they were forced to land, creeping down with the rotor off while Flangers stood at the front, and Muss at the rear, with lanterns held out on poles to watch for trees and other obstacles. Normally they were forbidden on air-floaters because of the danger of explosion. Irisis held her breath all the way but they made it safely to the ground, hammered in wooden pegs and tethered the machine.

'If there are lyrinx about, we've just told them exactly where we are,' said Fyn-Mah.