Sixty-two

Exploding stone and seething, boiling metal shocked Irisis awake. She shot up in bed, thinking she was back in the manufactory, under attack by the lyrinx. 'Nish?' she cried, 'Where are you?'

He was gone and the nightmare was back, but this time Irisis knew it was real. That crash was a battering-ram on the front doors. Those shrieks — the death screams of the servants who had foolishly run to see what was going on. This was it. Her long-anticipated doom had come at last.

She pulled on her clothes, tied her boots, grabbed the sword and peered out the door, expecting to see lyrinx everywhere. Soldiers were advancing methodically along the corridor, checking every door. For a fleeting second she relaxed, until it penetrated her fuzzy mind that they were human soldiers, wearing the black and scarlet uniform of the chief scrutator's personal guard, the most elite troops of all. It was worse than lyrinx, far worse. Ghorr had found them. She could see at least a hundred soldiers and, from the racket in the other halls, many more were there. Doubtless there were mancers, too.

Against them, Yggur had merely twenty troops and Irisis was prepared to bet that the majority of them, stationed in the barracks outside, were dead. The battle was already lost, the only option to try to escape into the labyrinth of tunnels that honeycombed the rock underneath Fiz Gorgo. Unfortunately, though Irisis knew how to get into the labyrinth, she had never been down there. That was the problem with labyrinths, she thought wryly. They were so damned hard to get out of.

Ducking out the door, she ran towards the rear of the building. At the first corner, she stopped. Flydd's room was just to the left, Nish's a long way down the corridor to the right. There wasn't time to rouse both. After a second's hesitation, she turned left. Nish was a poor sleeper and was probably up already. If not, he'd be captured within seconds. It took a lot to rouse Flydd, so there was no choice. Ah, Nish love, I'm sorry.

Fleeting down the corridor in the dark, she pounded on Flydd's door. There was no answer so she kicked it open. Flydd was sitting up in bed, naked.

'What is it?' he said, only half-awake.

She dragged him out of bed. 'The scrutators are here, inside Fiz Gorgo, with hundreds of soldiers.'

He didn't move. "Then we're done for. Run to the labyrinth. Hide. It's me they want.'

She found his boots, a knife, his clothes. 'I don't leave my friends behind. Get these on. Besides, they've come for the lot of us and they won't leave until they've torn this place apart, stone by stone. There's no point hiding unless you know a way out.'

'I expect I can find one.' He threw on his boots, buckled a belt around his waist, into which he thrust the knife, and tossed his satchel over his shoulder.

Irisis stood at the door, peering out into the dark corridor. The soldiers weren't yet in sight. There might just be time to run down to Nish's room. No, she could hear them coming from his direction. They'd have him already.

'You could at least tie on a loincloth,' she snapped. 'For dignity's sake.'

He tore a sheet off the bed and wrapped it around himself. 'At a time like this, dignity is the least of my worries.'

'It was my dignity I was thinking about,' she said.

'Oh!' He smiled. 'Right. Let's go.'

She opened the door. The corridor was now illuminated by distant lantern light, and soldiers were advancing on them from both right and left. Past the junction of the corridors she saw people she recognised, struggling with their captors. Fyn-Mah went down under the weight of three men, who swiftly bound and gagged her. One soldier sufficed to subdue the tragic little pilot, Inouye, who just waited listlessly for her fate.

A great roar echoed along the hall, followed by a flash and a clap of thunder. Plaster rained down from the ceiling. It was Yggur, half-dressed and struggling furiously. A scarlet-robed mancer collapsed screaming and holding bloody ears. Another mancer reeled sideways, going face-first into the wall. Yggur let out another roar and, raising his arm, swung it like a scythe at his attackers. Black light streamed out in rippling beams and a group of soldiers fell. He swung it the other way, hurling aside another trio of armed men.

'He's going to do it,' she said, awed at Yggur's power.

The remaining soldiers broke and ran, abandoning their weapons.

'To me,' Yggur roared. 'Rally behind me. Flydd, make a—'

An unnoticed soldier behind Yggur brought the flat of his sword down on the mancer's head. The sword broke, but Yggur was driven to his knees. The soldier, gasping for breath, slammed the hilt into the side of Yggur's skull. He slid to the floor, stunned. The soldier pinioned his hands. The ones who had fled ran back, swarming over Yggur and binding him like a moth in a spider's web.

'That's it,' said Irisis.

'There's still a chance,' said Flydd. 'Gilhaelith and Malien each have the power to take on a brace of scrutators.'

'But not all of them together.' Irisis ducked back inside Flydd's room. 'And their mancers at the same time. There's no way out, Xervish.' The room had no window.

Flydd was fumbling in his satchel and did not answer.

'Forget it, Xervish,' she said. 'There's far too many of them. There's nothing you can do.'

'Bar the door and shut up.'

She flung it shut, dropped the heavy bar and pushed the bed up against the door. 'What do you have in mind?' She didn't imagine he could do much, not being fully recovered yet. 'Close your eyes. Turn your back.'

'But-' she began, then obediently closed them and turned away. She'd been down that road before.

'One, two, three . . .' he said under his breath, then something cracked against the floor.

Sound enveloped the room, a roaring, crashing and crumbling. A piece of stone thumped her in the side so hard that it knocked the breath out of her.

He took her hand. 'You can look now.' The room was full of whirling dust and there was a hole in the floor between them, large enough to have slid the bed down on its end. She could not see what lay below.

Flydd was already knotting the sheet and the blankets together and tying one end to a leg of the bed. 'Go down!' he said.

Something struck the door so hard that it shivered. Irisis grasped the blanket and slid through the hole to the first knot, then past it to the second, and the third. As she was dangling there her feet scraped the floor, though she still could not see anything. The room was in darkness.

Abandoning the makeshift rope, she sprang to one side. Flydd came sliding and bumping after her. He hit the floor hard, clutched at his middle and she steadied him. 'Are you all right?' Just a twinge.' 'Where to now?' said Irisis. 'I'm not sure. Feel around the walls for a door.' He found it first, opening it into darkness. 'This way,' he whispered- "Follow me.'

They eased through the door, tiptoed down a corridor and out into a wider hall that was also dark, though Irisis could feel a cold wind blowing along it. It was not far to the outside. They had a chance, though at the expense of leaving all their friends behind..

'Come on,' said Flydd. 'I think we're going to make it after all.' Irisis clutched her sword and followed, but they had not gone more than a dozen steps before brilliant lights came on before them, and behind.

'Xervish Flydd,' said a voice that was unpleasantly familiar. 'Irisis Stirm. I'm so pleased to see you both again.'

It was Chief Scrutator Ghorr, and he had at least a dozen soldiers with him. She looked the other way and recognised the malicious face of Scrutator Fusshte, with as many more troops, all armoured and heavily armed.

'These are the last,' said Fusshte. 'Let's get the trials underway. The executioners are impatient.'

Their hands were bound behind them and they were marched out of the broken doors of Fiz Gorgo into the bleak yard. The thirty or so prisoners already there, each with their group of guards, were well separated. Yggur's servants and his few surviving guards were treated no differently. All were surrounded by four or five soldiers.

Irisis struggled all the way, suffering many a kick and a cuff across the face from the soldiers. It did not deter her. She fought them until the ropes had worn a collar of skin off each wrist and her raw flesh rasped against the wiry fibres.

'Cut it out,' said Flydd, who was still beside her. He looked up at the vast air-dreadnoughts, hanging in the sky around the walls in perfect formation. Already the attendants were tethering them in place with cables as thick as a man's arm. 'See what we're facing. They've spent half a year planning this. If I know Ghorr, he's left nothing to chance.'

'I'm not giving in,' she gritted. 'I'll never submit to them, Xervish.'

He shrugged. 'Do as you will. It won't make any difference, either way.'

'What do you mean?'

'They made up their minds about us a long time ago. We've got as much time left as the trial takes, and that's the limit.'

For all her premonitions of doom, Irisis wasn't prepared for that. 'But surely they'll take us back to Nennifer. Or Lybing, or other great city, to make a spectacle of our trial and punishment.'

¦Ghorr won't risk it, in case any of us has a trick up our sleeves. Their air-dreadnoughts must contain a thousand people, and that's plenty to witness the spectacle. Among them will be tale-tellers and chroniclers enough to spread the word throughout all the lands of Santhenar. There have been too many humiliations, Irisis. The people are already questioning the scrutators' authority, so this operation has to be quick, brutal and complete. We must all die in the most drawn-out and horrible of ways, as a lesson to everyone else. I wonder what Ghorr's got planned for us?'

'How can you be so calm?' she said.

'To be a scrutator is to be impassive to the worst the world, and your fellows, can throw at you.'

'Impassive!' she murmured cheekily. 'I've seen the proud, imperious Flydd, the irascible, the querulous, and occasionally the mean and spiteful side of you, but I'd never call you impassive.'

'I'm just a man, with as many faults as any other, and I never claimed differently. It seems the worst brings out the best in me. Let me assure you, Irisis,' Flydd gave her the best smile he could manage, 'on the inside I'm quaking. I know what it's going to be like. I've been in their hands before, remember?'

The smile did not help. She'd been expecting to die for a year now, and had long ago inured herself to it. But this was going to be torment, inflicted by people who had made a science of agony.

'I'm really scared, Xervish.'

He rubbed his shoulder against hers, since his hands were tied behind his back and he could not reach her. 'You shouldbe scared. Take comfort from one thing, though.'

'What's that?'

'We're all in it together, and we'll all be thinking of you, as you will be of us.'

'I don't see how that's going to make a difference,' she said bitterly. 'Oh, I suppose it does, in a way. I've suffered alone, and I've suffered with dear friends, and the latter is preferable.'

'Well, if that's little comfort,' said Flydd, 'here's something that should be: We'll all be dead by nightfall.'

'They'll draw our torment out for days. They like to make their prisoners suffer.'

'They won't dare, this deep in enemy territory. The air-dreadnoughts are a powerful force, none more so. And from what we heard earlier, they've got weapons no one has ever heard of before. But even so, air-dreadnoughts are as vulnerable as any other kind of air-floater. It only takes one lyrinx to tear the airbags, after all. In the daytime this fleet might fight off hundreds of flying lyrinx, but if they attacked in their thousands, enough would get through to bring down every machine and all the people in them. That would be the end of the Council, and Ghorr doesn't take chances like that. See how most of the guards up there have their weapons pointed out and up, rather than down at us.'

She did not look up. There was no point — to anything.

And in the night,' Flydd went on, 'he won't dare land, for a handful of flying lyrinx could destroy all these air-dreadnoughts without being seen. Ghorr must finish his business with us and be high in the sky before nightfall. The only way to ensure the safety of such fragile craft is to fly higher than the lyrinx can reach. This Council will put their safety before anything else. No, it will all be over by dark, and that's a pity and a tragedy.'

'It's certainly a tragedy for us,' she said waspishly, 'and a pity we won't be around to mourn ourselves, since no one else will.'

'I meant for humanity. This victory spells the death-knell for humankind, and that's something I've fought my entire life to avoid.'

'Surely you've got a plan or two up your sleeve, Xervish? You always do. What about another of those embedded crystals, that you used to escape once before?'

'Sadly, no. I never thought Ghorr would dare come this deep into Meldorin. And even if I had a crystal or two, it wouldn't make a jot of difference. See up there?' He pointed with his elbow.

Each air-dreadnought held at least one robed mancer, watching the prisoners with a spyglass. Beside him were cross-bowmen and javelard operators, whose weapons were trained on them.

'Ghorr has thought of everything,' said Flydd. 'Even if I could free myself with such a crystal, they'd shoot me down before I could move a dozen strides. That's why they've kept us in the middle of the yard, where we can be seen.'

'How did they find us?' said Irisis. 'I thought Yggur had a protection to hide Fiz Gorge.’

'I don't know, but if they can track down mancers from so far away, what else can they do?'

Irisis didn't care to speculate. She was still thinking that there had to be a way to escape.

Flydd seemed to read her mind. 'Even were I Rulke himself, the greatest mancer that ever lived, there's no way out of here alive.'

'I refuse to give up. While there's a breath left in my lungs, I'll fight them.'

'By all means,' said Flydd. 'If that helps.'

Irisis looked around the yard. The other prisoners were surrounded by tall, burly guards so, in most cases, she could not identify who was in the middle. Over in the corner she made out the tall form of Yggur, tightly bound and his mouth stopped. He was swaying on his feet; a bloody bandage was wrapped around his skull. To his left, taller by his frizzled mass of sandy hair, Gilhaelith stood half a head above the biggest of the guards. Rags were bound across his mouth, in case he tried to speak mathemancy or any other kind of spell.

'Where's Malien?' said Irisis, still hoping that one of the company had escaped and would free them. If anyone had power to break the hold of the scrutators, it was Malien.

'Don't get your hopes up,' said Flydd. 'I saw her being carried out, all trussed up like a chicken. She's over by the southern wall.'

Irisis made out someone slumped in the shadows, surrounded by at least twenty guards, and with a crystal-equipped mancer at either end. 'Surely they're not going to execute Malien?'

'They wouldn't dare. That would be as good as declaring war on the Aachim. But they've made sure she can't help us.' Irisis scanned the yard. 'I don't see Tiaan anywhere.' 'You're clinging to the hope that she's got free and will single-handedly rescue us in the thapter.' Flydd chuckled mockingly.

'Why not?' she said, not liking his tone. 'The miracles Tiaan's performed in the past year, why can't I hope for one more?'

'Because they have her, too. She's there, strapped to the stretcher.' He nodded towards the western wall, in whose shadow a group of soldiers clustered around a prone figure, while a robed healer bent over it. 'Looks like she struggled and one of the soldiers struck her down. Besides, they've already secured the thapter. That would have been their first target. And you never know, it might just make the difference, in the war.'

'If they can get it to work,' said Irisis. 'Tiaan won't be on the execution list. They'll be taking good care of her. The soldier who struck her down will be lucky to keep his head.'

'Then there's no hope for us, Xervish.' It just drained out of her, turning her in an instant from hope to despair. Irisis was like that.

'You can always pray for a miracle. Say a wild storm that drives them off. . .'

'I've never seen the sky so clear' 'Well, an attack by the lyrinx—'

'We're surrounded by swamp. They can only attack from the air,' said Irisis. 'The scrutators' spotters will see them half an hour before they get here. Plenty of time to take our heads off, in an emergency.'

'Suddenly you seem determined to establish that we've got no hope,' said Flydd.

'I'm a realist. I have to know the odds, but you've made me realise that there are no odds, because our chances are nil.'

'I'm really sorry about that, Irisis.'

Irisis took a few steps to her left, trying to identify who was being held by the soldiers over near the northern wall. Flangers, she thought, but couldn't be sure. The guards prodded her back to the centre of the circle.

'What's going to happen now?' They had been standing therefor the best part of an hour already. Irisis was only clad in indoor clothes and the yard was frigid. At this time of year, the sun never reached the ground inside the walls, and ice lingered there from autumn to spring.

Flydd was shivering too, and his scarred skin was mottled white and blue. He must be freezing in his sheet.

"They're preparing a special end for us. The scrutators do love their spectacles.'