Forty-four

Can't be helped.' Flydd paced up and down, cracking his knuckles and muttering under his breath.

'I'll make the camp fire,' said Irisis. 'I'm starving.'

'Can't risk fire here, in case there are enemy patrols on high. Have something from the stew pot.'

'Cold bean-and-onion soup? We've been eating that for weeks.'

'The youth of today!' he muttered. 'When I was on the clanker-hauling team, I would have given my right foot for a bowl of bean-and-onion soup. Fetch me some, would you?'

'Get it yourself!' Irisis felt like hitting him. They'd passed half a dozen isolated peaks where they could have hidden for the night, built a roaring fire and cooked a decent meal from the supplies they'd bought in Jibstorn. Not even a brazier was permitted on the air-floater, lest it set off the floater gas. Irisis could think of nothing but the haunch of venison in the larder.

He was unfazed. 'Shall I wait on you with a bowl?'

'No thanks, I'm going to sleep. Why don't you pull the airbag down and patch those gashes properly?'

'Good idea.' He strolled down to the galley as if nothing had happened.

They warmed a flat iron against the floater-gas generator. Flangers ran it over the patches until the tar softened enough for the patch to be eased off, re-tarred and replaced smoothly. A larger patch was placed over that, just to be sure. Irisis set the floater-gas generator running and went to the cabin. She lay on the floor next to Nish, listening to his steady breathing, and suddenly, out of nowhere, realised that she loved him.

This changed everything — she could no longer be fatalistic about their probable fate. She had something to live for. And everything to fear.

The night passed uneventfully. Nish was still asleep in the morning, which bothered her. It was almost two days since he'd hit his head. However, he was breathing normally and nothing seemed broken so she left him to it.

The airbag was so full that the machine was straining at its ropes. They did not wait for breakfast, just went up as fast as they could and kept going, north by north-west.

In the mid-morning they passed over a city, also abandoned and partly overgrown. 'Garching,' said Flydd. 'It was held to be a beautiful place, in its time. A garden city at the foot of the mountains.' He scanned it with the spyglass, frowning.

'What is it?' said Irisis, who was standing beside him, Inouye having recovered enough to take the controller.

'Oh, I was just thinking of the past. Garching features in one of the Great Tales, you know. I was wondering if such times will ever come again. If, indeed, there'll be any more Great Tales. Or anyone to hear the old ones.'

'I don't imagine the ancient days were quite as wonderful as they're made out.'

'I'm sure they weren't but, except for the dark days of the Clysm, they weren't as desperate as our time, either. I'm afraid, Irisis. Afraid this is the end, not just for us, but for every human on Santhenar.'

Again Irisis felt that chill. She had never heard him talk like this before.

'Surely the scrutators can't be that bad?'

'They're worse than you can imagine! I hadn't realised it before — I was too busy with my provincial concerns to see the true picture. But since this last phase of the war began it's become all too clear. The Council of Scrutators, for all their control, for all their spy networks, for all their power, are not only corrupt, but incompetent. They're fossils and must be swept away.'

A shiver of dread started at the soles of her feet and ran up the backs of her legs, all the way to her scalp. 'That's treason, Xervish, punishable by the most gruesome death that human ingenuity can come up with.' Irisis had fought the scrutators, opposed them in many ways, escaped from their bastion of Nennifer, but those crimes were nothing to what he was proposing. It was worse than treason — it was sedition, the worst crime of all, and it would mean not only his death and hers, but the execution of her family, her friends, and every single person of her family's line. The House of Stirm would be expunged from the earth.

'I never thought I'd say it' Flydd said, 'but the age of scrutators is over.'

'But who would order the world?' Despite everything she'd experienced, Irisis was no revolutionary. She believed in the system they had, faulty though it was.

'I don't know. The trouble with tyrants is that so few are benevolent. Power corrupts, and most of those who seek it are already corrupt. That's the insoluble problem — replacing the Council without making things worse.'

'What about you, surr?'

'I don't want it, Irisis.'

'I've heard it said that the only man suitable for high office is the one who refuses to accept it.'

'An appropriate paradox . . .'

He broke off and Irisis did not question him further. It was all too disturbing.

Around the middle of the day they saw trees in the distance, and sunlight shining on water. 'Orist,' said Eiryn Muss.

A land of lakes, mires and swamp forests, it stretched northwest beyond sight. 'Where are we going, Muss?' asked Irisis.

'I don't know,' said the perfect spy, which was also worrying.

Sometime later, Irisis saw, away to her left in the west, a rugged coastline, and beyond it, what she took to be the Western Ocean.

'I presume we're not going across the ocean?' she said to Flydd. 'I hope not, since the patches are leaking again.' They had been losing altitude steadily, despite the floater-gas generator.

'We're not.' Flydd folded his arms across his skinny chest.

'Hadn't we better look for a refuge for the night?'

'I already have a place in mind,' he said.

'I didn't know you'd spent time on Meldorin before.'

'No reason why you should.'

'I wish you'd tell me what's going on!' For the past few weeks she had felt in control of her life, but as soon as Flydd reappeared, that had all been overturned. She didn't like it.

'I will, when I know myself.'

He turned away. She followed him down the back, where the pilot sagged in a canvas chair, listlessly holding the controller. 'How are you feeling, Inouye?'

'Better, though my fingers hurt.' Inouye inspected her blackened nails.

'You'll probably lose your fingernails,' said Flydd, 'though they'll grow back.'

'It doesn't matter' she said. 'I have no man to admire them.'

'If it is in my power' said the scrutator, 'you will be reunited with your family. You have my promise on that.'

'Oh!' A flush crept up Inouye's cheeks. She clenched one fist around the controller knob, concealing the other in her pocket. 'What may I do for you, surr?'

'I'd like to get there before dark. Can you go a little faster?' He checked the map against the country below. 'And somewhat to the left.'

The rotor spun up and the air-floater edged onto its new heading. Irisis watched the lakes and bogs go by. If Flydd did not want to tell her what he was up to, no force could make him. She supposed he had his reasons.

Nish came up beside her, rubbing his eyes.

She wanted to throw her arms around him and squeeze him against her, but Irisis restrained herself to an affectionate pat on the shoulder. She could wait- How's your head?'

Better. What happened? I don't remember going to sleep.

Have I slept all day?'

She laughed with relief. 'You fell down and smacked your head against the stern post, just after we rescued you.’

He glanced that way. 'How could that happen?' Nish went pale. 'The rotor —’

'The air-floater was going up steeply. You slid backwards under it and whacked into the post.'

'I knocked myself out?'

'You've been asleep for two and a half days.'

He ran a hand through his thick hair and winced. 'That explains the hollow in my belly.'

'Can I get you something to eat? It's only stew, I'm afraid, and days old.'

'Stew!' he exclaimed.

She mistook his meaning. 'I'm sorry, but bloody old Flydd —’

'Where is it? Quick!' He took her by the hand.

'Down here. Look, we've a little galley.' She led the way out of the cabin to a tiny room behind it, so small that she could touch all four walls with her outstretched arms. 'And we can't cook anything here, of course, because of the floater gas, so it's cold I'm afraid . . .'

Nish pushed past her, snatched a ladle off its hook and took a scoop out of the pot. Slurping down a mouthful, he gasped, 'That's goood!'

'You've got soup all over your face' said Irisis, wiping his cheek with her hand. They'd not spent time together since he'd left the manufactory in the balloon, last winter. She'd missed him terribly.

'I'm so hungry I could go into the pot head-first, and not come out until I'd licked it shiny clean.'

'It's not that good,' she said.

'Do you know what our last meal on the island was?'

'Fish? Mussels? Bird's eggs?'

'There weren't any edible shellfish and I don't recommend barnacles. In nine days we didn't catch a single fish. There's nothing to eat down there — no snakes, no lizards, no eggs. Not even an earthworm.'

'How did you survive?'

'Seaweed and belt soup.'

'What's belt soup?'

'We cut my belt into strips and boiled it for about ten hours. It still tasted like boiled leather. Next we were going to eat Flydd's stinking old boots, and if you think I was looking forward to that —’

'I get the picture,' she said hastily. And it explained why Flydd had been so irritable, if he'd been close to starvation.

Irisis watched Nish while he ate, thinking how changed he was from the young man she'd seen off in the balloon, and even from the Nish she'd encountered briefly at the Aachim camp, before the battle of Snizort.

'It's so good to see you, Nish. So good.' Impulsively, she embraced him.

He set down the ladle before it dribbled down her back, and wiped his mouth. And you, Irisis. I feel as though I've lived an entire life since I left the manufactory. And, from what the scrutator told me, you've been just as busy.' Nish pulled away, inspecting her. 'You look . . .'

'What?' she prompted after a long pause. 'Old? Haggard? Ugly?'

'You look the same, though . . . There seems to be more of you 'Well, thank you very much,' she said in mock outrage. Actually —’

'I meant as a person. You look more confident, even stronger than you were, and .., at peace with yourself 'If you only knew!' she exclaimed. And yet, in a way, I have found peace. Life has never been more insecure, I'm an outlaw under sentence of death, the scrutators will probably execute me in some hideous way, and yet — Oh, Nish!' She threw her arms around him again. 'I've got my long-lost talent back. I'm not a fraud any more. I feel almost happy'.

You never were a fraud to me, Irisis.'

'But I was in my own eyes.' After a moment's reflection she said, 'So how are you? You've changed. Nish. You're not the man who left us, last winter.'

'The boy', he said scornfully. 'I was no man. Yes, I have changed. I've seen enough adventure for a dozen lifetimes.'

'It's done you good.' She looked him up and down. 'You're a handsome man now. I like your beard.'

'It's better than scraping the skin off my face every morning.' He eyed her. 'I do believe you look more magnificent than ever. You seem to have bloomed.'

'I had a new lover for a while, Nish, no less than the scrutator himself, though it's over now.' She hadn't told Flydd yet. She hoped he'd take it well.

'I thought there was something between you, back when Flydd came to negotiate with Vithis. What else have you been up to?'

'Oh, I've had a few adventures too. A couple of run-ins with your father. A spell down in the tar pits of Snizort. You know the sort of thing.'

He leaned on the wall, companionably. 'It's a wonder we didn't run into each other. Why don't you tell me about it?'

'I'd rather hear your story, Nish, if you don't mind.'

He was happy to relate it, sitting on the port side, towards the stern, out of the wind, with Irisis facing him. She listened in silence until he mentioned Ullii being pregnant with his child.

'You didn't know!' she said incredulously.

'No one told me, and she was wearing a smock like a tent. How was I to tell? Nonetheless, I let her down, and now I'm paying for it.'

He went on with his story: the attack in the clearing, how his folly had brought down the air-floater, the ghastly death of Mylii, Ullii fleeing and not being seen again, and all the anguish that had caused him.

She knew he was telling the whole truth. Irisis took his hand, glad she'd held off from saying how she really felt — he was in no state to hear it. Her suit was going to be longer than she'd expected, and she'd have to be more careful. Not Ullii! she thought. No woman could be more wrong for him. Surely it could never come to pass?

She bit down on the jealousy. 'How you must have suffered.'

'It cost me dear — not least the child I'll never know. That's the hardest thing of all.'

'There's been no word of Ullii?'

'It's as if she vanished off the face of Lauralin. And she hates me, Irisis, though it was just a terrible accident. It was dark; I thought he was attacking her. He just reared back onto the knife and it went right into him.' He choked.

She drew him to her, folding her long arms around his compact, muscled body. 'You don't have to justify yourself to me,' she said softly.

'But I do have to live with it. Ah, Irisis, how I've missed you.'

'Do you want to tell me the rest of the story?'

'Maybe later. Where are we, anyway?'

'Heading up the western side of Meldorin Island.'

'Meldorin!' he cried, looking over the side as if to see lyrinx everywhere. 'Where are we going?'

'No idea. Bloody Flydd is acting all mysterious, as usual.'

The sun went down into the ocean to their left, and the evening light faded swiftly, though before it grew completely dark they beheld the walls of a great fortress in the distance. Black it was, even blacker than the shadowy forest that surrounded it, a forbidding wall of stone encircling a yard, and an inner fortress with horned towers.

'Is that our destination?' Nish asked Flydd, who was walking by.

'It is.' Flydd cast him an unreadable glance. 'Dragged yourself out of bed at last, I see.'

Nish didn't rise to the bait. He was used to Flydd's ways by now, and the tone had been almost affectionate. 'It's not a lyrinx fortress?'

'It belongs to an older power.' Flydd continued down to Inouye. 'Go over the outer wall, Inouye, and come down in the yard by the horned tower. See it there?'

'I see it.' Her voice was like a single page falling to the ground.

The air-floater passed over the wall. No guards could be seen, so Inouye settled the machine in the bleak yard. It came to rest without a bump. The rotor slowly spun down, the floater-gas generator fell silent.

Again that shiver up Irisis's spine.

'I don't like this place. Where are we?'

'We're in the one place in Meldorin that the scrutators will never find us. Not even the lyrinx dare come here. This is the ancient Aachim fortress of Fiz Gorge.’

Somewhere within the fortress an alarm clanged, like a broken bell.