SEVENTEEN

‘You haven’t finished me yet,’ said Ghorr. ‘But I can finish you.’

‘Your power is broken, Ghorr,’ said Klarm, making no secret of his derision. ‘You’ll never get it back.’

‘There’s more than one kind of power,’ Ghorr choked, trying to pull the rags over his sagging, repulsive frame.

‘You needn’t bother,’ said Irisis. ‘It’d take a sail to cover that up.’

Ghorr shot her a venomous glance, took three steps to the collapsed remains of his sphere and from inside lifted an unusual multiple crossbow. Irisis hadn’t seen one like it for ages. A massive device that only a strong man could use, it fired five bolts at once. Jal-Nish had designed the bow as a lyrinx killer long ago, though it had proved too unwieldy in the battlefield. Before anyone could move, he had its five bolts trained on them.

‘Come out, Yggur,’ he said.

Nails scratched on glass, then a blackened hand flopped over the nearer side of the hemisphere. A frizzy head and ebony face rose up above the side, frost-grey eyes brilliant against the soot.

‘Out!’ Ghorr jerked the crossbow at him.

Yggur climbed out and staggered across to the others, charred pieces of clothing flaking off him like the black snow of a few minutes ago. He could barely stand, but at least he was alive.

‘Five with one blow,’ Ghorr said. ‘It’ll have to do. Any last words, my friends? A simple acknowledgment of my mastery will do.’

Klarm began to speak but Ullii, who was standing beside Nish and Irisis, said quietly, ‘Do you love me, Nish?’

After a long pause he replied, ‘Ah, Ullii, I’m sorry. I thought I did, once and … I’ll always care for you. But no, I don’t love you. I can’t.’

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. Turning to Nish, she took his hand in her little hands.

‘What for?’ he said numbly.

‘You’ve set me free. My lattice is truly gone this time and it will never come back. There’s nothing to keep me now.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She let go of his hand. Klarm was still speaking.

‘Enough!’ snapped Ghorr. ‘You never did know when to stop, Klarm. That’s why you were never admitted to the Council.’

‘For which I’m mightily glad, as it’s turned out,’ said Klarm.

Ullii took a small step forward. She looked little and frail, her skin was practically transparent, but her back was straight and her head held high.

‘What pathetic last words,’ said Ghorr to Klarm. ‘Anyone else have anything to say?’ He took no notice of Ullii. Ghorr had always held her in contempt. Run away, little mouse, he’d sneered in Nennifer. ‘Cryl-Nish?’

Ullii kept moving, and all at once Irisis did understand. ‘No!’ She reached out for the seeker.

Ghorr swung the crossbow at Irisis, struggling to keep it steady, and Ullii sprang.

He fired just as she reached him, knocking the crossbow to one side. Four of its bolts tore through the snowy floor but the fifth struck Ullii in the chest, felling her instantly.

Ghorr let the useless bow fall. As Flangers and Irisis threw themselves at him, he tore one of the crystals from his belt, formed a circular section of the floor into a slide, leapt into it and disappeared.

Nish fell to his knees and lifted Ullii’s head into his lap. There was a neat hole in the centre of her chest, hardly bleeding at all. ‘Why did you do that?’ he wept. He kissed her on the forehead and then on the mouth. ‘Dear Ullii, you didn’t –’

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Yggur stood there, looking down sombrely.

‘I didn’t want to be here any longer. I’m going to Myllii and Yllii,’ she said with a joyous smile. Ullii squeezed Nish’s hand, closed her eyes and died.

‘Come on,’ said Klarm. ‘As soon as Ghorr gets to the bottom he’ll dissolve this place, and then we’re done. I’ve got a little power back but not enough to maintain all this.’

Nish picked up Ullii’s body, cradling it in his arms. There was no point to it, for she was gone, but Irisis would have done the same. Ullii had, despite all her frailties, been one of them for a long time now. The spirit might be gone but the mortal flesh demanded a dignified completion.

‘We’ll never get down in time,’ said Flangers. ‘He must be nearly there now.’

‘Look!’ cried Irisis, pointing to a rope ladder that ran up to the high central balloon. ‘That’s real.’

They ran, and Irisis could feel the floor becoming more insubstantial with every step. Pieces fell out, leaving ragged holes that she had to dart around, or try to leap, and hope that what lay beyond was solid. She reached the ladder just ahead of Klarm, whose dwarfish scuttle could be surprisingly fast, considering the caliper.

‘Up!’ he snapped. ‘Give them room.’

Irisis went up a span. Klarm remained where he was. Flangers laboured across, his feet sinking into the floor and clouds of its failing material pulling up every time he lifted his feet. Yggur lurched a few steps behind. Patches of red skin were exposed where his charred clothing had flaked away.

The phantom world shook; chunks of floor fell away on all sides. Flangers came up the ladder. Klarm helped Yggur to the rope. ‘Go down!’

Yggur began to do so, mechanically and painfully.

Nish was still several spans away, making slow progress, but would not lay Ullii’s body down. In the circumstances, Irisis began to think he was being excessively noble. ‘Come on!’ she snapped.

Klarm stepped onto the floor, thrust out an arm and jerked him to the rope ladder. Nish clung to it with one hand.

‘She’s gone, Nish,’ Irisis said. ‘She doesn’t care.’

‘But I do,’ said Nish. ‘She loved me and I couldn’t repay her by loving her in return.’

‘Love doesn’t work that way,’ she said waspishly. ‘I should know.’

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘And, despite everything I did to her, she gave her life for me.’

‘Ullii was glad to go,’ said Klarm. ‘There was no longer anything to keep her here. We need not weep for her, Nish – only for ourselves.’

‘I intend to bury her with my own hands, and then to honour her,’ said Nish. ‘I let her down – that’s why she’s gone.’

Irisis gritted her teeth but said nothing.

The ladder shook and slowly began to move through the mist.

‘Well spoken, lad,’ said Klarm, ‘but first we must get out of here. We’re still on Ghorr’s air-dreadnought, do you realise, and judging by its motion the pilot has come to.’

‘Ghorr will start shooting at us soon,’ Irisis muttered.

‘He won’t want to, for fear of hitting the airbags,’ said Klarm.

‘What’s left of his crew will come out of hiding, and he can recruit others from the survivors of the other craft,’ said Irisis. ‘If he hasn’t already cut it free.’

‘Is there any way we can signal Malien?’

‘She’s probably too weak to come for us,’ said Nish, unable to conceal his resentment at her earlier abandonment, as he persisted in seeing it. ‘She couldn’t help before. She could barely fly the thapter when she left me here.’

‘She may have recovered by now. I’ll do what I can.’ Klarm scuttled up the rope ladder as far as he could climb, and a green light flashed and flickered there. As he was making his way down again, a crossbow bolt whistled through the rigging, not far away.

‘Already they attack,’ said Flangers. ‘And we’re weaponless. We must go higher.’

‘What’s the point?’ said Nish, hefting Ullii’s body on his arm. ‘We can’t defend ourselves.’

Irisis moved up. Flangers climbed around Nish and followed. Even Yggur, beaten though he seemed, ascended half a dozen rungs. ‘Are you coming, Nish?’

Nish clung to the rope with one hand. His shirt was smeared with Ullii’s blood. ‘I can’t climb and carry her too.’

‘Pass her to me,’ said Flangers.

‘She’s my burden,’ Nish replied, looking down at her face. Ullii was at peace. ‘I’ll take my chances.’

Another bolt whipped through the rigging, clipping a rope in half and sending the severed ends dancing. The air-dreadnought lurched suddenly and jerked upwards. Irisis looked down. Someone had cut free the broken bow section of the other air-dreadnought, though its airbags were still tangled in the rigging of Ghorr’s machine, giving it extra lift at the expense of control. Two men were now sawing at the ropes from which the stern section was suspended.

‘No!’ she yelled, remembering the woman in the cabin with the two broken legs. You’ll be safe here, Irisis had told her.

The last ropes were severed and the stern section, still hanging vertically, fell towards the swamp. Irisis tried to console herself. Perhaps Ghorr had taken the injured off first, unlikely as that seemed. The stern section struck a tree, tearing off branches and smashing to pieces. Objects that looked like people fell out. Ghorr’s craft gave another lurch and lifted out of the mist into the light of the setting sun.

‘The bastard has managed it,’ said Nish. ‘After all he’s done, Ghorr is going to get away.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Klarm. ‘Here come the jackals.’

Irisis looked the way he was pointing. The surviving air-dreadnoughts, led by Fusshte’s brown-nosed craft, were heading in an arrowhead formation directly for them.

‘Faster, pilot!’ Ghorr cried in a cracked voice.

The sound of the rotors became more shrill, though the air-dreadnought went no faster. The drag from the tangled airbags meant that he could never outrun his pursuers.

‘Cut those airbags free,’ he shouted at his crew. ‘Then bring down the prisoners.’

Three men began to run up the rigging. The first airbag was released, then two more. The air-dreadnought leapt forward. One man headed for the fourth airbag, while the second and third angled across to where Nish and the others clung to the rope ladder.

Irisis was preparing to fight them bare-handed when, with a swoop and a whoosh, the thapter rose out of the swamp forest, wove expertly through the rigging and hovered next to the ladder. Two strong-armed guards lifted Nish, Ullii’s body and all, in through the hatch. They took Yggur next, the others followed and the thapter darted away. Nish went below. Yggur did too, aided by the guards.

Irisis stayed up top with Klarm and Flangers. ‘Perfect timing, Malien.’

‘It was sheer good luck,’ said Malien, ‘and it’s about time we had some of it. I came as soon as I could summon the strength. Twenty minutes ago I couldn’t even stand up.’

‘You arrived in time and that’s all that matters.’

‘It’s been an endless day; a day of continual reversals. But now I think we’re going to see the end of it.’

‘I hope so,’ said Klarm. ‘Though I wouldn’t put it past Ghorr to have one last ace up his sleeve.’

‘He no longer has a sleeve,’ said Flangers prosaically.

Malien circled out of range of the scrutators’ javelards, keeping a wary eye out for signs of activity at the crystal-powered mirrors, though so far there had been none. With spyglasses they watched the drama unfold. Ghorr’s air-dreadnought had risen slightly above the fleet, fleeing as quickly as its rattling rotors could take it, but Fusshte’s was steadily overhauling it.

‘He’s failed in front of all the scrutators,’ said Irisis. ‘Surely not even Ghorr can overcome such a reversal.’

‘Let’s just watch and see.’

Scrutator Fusshte’s crew manoeuvred his craft up beside Ghorr’s. His soldiers were arranged along the side, their crossbows and javelards pointing at the other vessel.

‘Would they shoot him down?’ said Flangers. ‘A chief scrutator?’

No one answered. Fusshte was seen to shout orders to Ghorr’s craft. Ghorr’s depleted crew were also spread along the sides, holding their weapons, though they did not point them in the direction of Fusshte’s air-dreadnought.

Ghorr’s craft jerked forward, making one last desperate attempt to get away. Smoke rose from the rotor mechanisms. Fusshte’s air-dreadnought matched his pace. More orders were shouted and, as far as Irisis could tell, ignored.

Fusshte called his captains to a brief conference, after which they hastened back to their troops. Fusshte’s pilot manoeuvred the vessel a fraction closer, and the men at the javelards pointed their weapons upwards and fired. Floater gas rushed out of one of Ghorr’s airbags, it collapsed, and the craft dropped sharply.

Ghorr’s operators worked the floater-gas generators but the vessel continued to lose altitude. Other air-dreadnoughts moved in to the sides and one shadowed him from below.

‘That’s it. It’s got to be the end,’ said Irisis.

Malien moved the thapter a little closer, the better to see.

Ghorr raised his arm and directed a fiery blast at his tormentor, but it fizzled out long before it reached him. Fusshte was laughing as he moved in for the kill.

‘He’s finished,’ said Irisis. ‘He’s lost his power.’

‘Ghorr’s a hyena,’ Klarm replied. ‘He could be trying to lure his enemy into range.’

Fusshte didn’t deign to reply to the attack, but his javelard operators shot out another of Ghorr’s airbags. Fusshte’s craft moved closer.

‘Is he planning to board Ghorr’s vessel in mid-air?’ said Flangers.

‘I don’t think that’s possible,’ said Malien. ‘I can’t tell what he’s up to.’

Ghorr, his hideousness now enveloped in a black cape, climbed onto the ladder above the rotors, as if to get a better shot at his enemy.

Yggur came up from below, wincing with every step. He’d cleaned himself up, washed the soot off and was wrapped in a blanket. His skin was swollen and blistered, both eyebrows had been singed off and the frizzy hair at his right temple was already beginning to crumble.

‘Ah, the endgame,’ Yggur said thickly, as if even his tongue was blistered.

‘What’s Ghorr holding?’ said Malien sharply.

‘Looks like his scrutator-magic belt,’ said Irisis. ‘Surely he can’t be planning to –’ She’d once seen an operator call power directly into his crystal, and the result had not been pretty. She couldn’t imagine the cataclysm if a master mancer did it with all his crystals at once.

‘I’d better move out of range, just in case,’ said Malien, and the thapter veered off sharply.

Fusshte must have recognised the danger, too, for his vessel also turned away, though slowly. Such huge craft were not capable of rapid manoeuvring. The other craft followed his lead. The one below Ghorr’s vessel went hard to port but Ghorr’s pilot matched the movement, dropping towards it.

‘Is Ghorr deliberately trying to crash into it?’ said Irisis.

No one answered. Fusshte shouted an order and one of his javelard operators fired a warning shot above Ghorr’s head.

At first it appeared as though Ghorr had tried to duck out of the way, but slipped and fell. Irisis clenched her fists as he plunged towards the swamp, thinking it was over. However, as soon as he was clear of his own craft, Ghorr flung out his cape, which formed a scalloped curve like a great batwing. He swooped one way, then the other, curved around in a circle and landed gently on top of the port airbag of the air-dreadnought below his own.

‘He’s got the luck of a thousand men,’ said Klarm. ‘I couldn’t have done that if I’d practised it all my life.’

‘What’s he planning?’ said Malien.

‘To climb down the rigging and seize control of the air-dreadnought before the other scrutators can manoeuvre back into range.’

‘And he’ll do it,’ said Flangers. ‘He’s going to get away after all.’

Ghorr was struggling across the top, having difficulty moving across the spongy surface in the wind, though he was steadily making his way towards the rope rigging that ran down the side.

‘I’ll be blowed,’ said Klarm. ‘The man’s unstoppable. I think he might do it after all.’

Irisis thought so too, for the other vessels, having turned away with the wind, were having trouble forcing their way back against it. They wouldn’t get within firing distance in time. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her fists tight with rage at the thought of him getting away. Fall, you swine, fall.

Ghorr was just reaching for the ropes, while the paralysed crew watched from below, when a gust of wind caught his wing and lifted him into the air. He wrenched at the wing, which collapsed, and landed so hard that one of his boots tore through the fabric of the airbag. His leg went in, all the way to the hip. Ghorr thrashed madly, trying to extricate himself, but only succeeded in tearing a larger hole.

He raised his arms as if trying to use his Art to stop his fall, but disappeared inside.

‘He’ll hold his breath while he tears a hole through the bottom,’ Irisis said. ‘He’s indestructible. He’ll come out, slide down the rigging and be off –’

She was cut off by a gigantic explosion of floater gas that sent tongues of flame fifty spans into the sky. It was followed within seconds by other explosions as the remaining airbags went off. What was left of the air-dreadnought plunged into the swamp, making an enormous muddy splash.

No one spoke. The remaining air-dreadnoughts circled the spot twice, but as Malien moved in their direction they turned away and headed for the eastern horizon at high speed.

Irisis let out her breath and unclenched her fists. Her nails had dug white crescents in her palms.

‘Well,’ said Malien after a considered pause, ‘I very much believe that it’s over. We won’t be seeing them in Fiz Gorgo again.’ She turned the thapter down towards the crash scene, in case there were any survivors.

They found none, but as they were lifting off again, Klarm said, ‘What’s that?’

‘What?’ said Flangers.

‘That horrible red rag hanging in that tree.’ As they came alongside the bloody, gruesome object, Klarm began to laugh. ‘Trust Ghorr to go out in his own unique way. This is truly an end for the Histories, though not one he’d want to be remembered for.’

It looked like some kind of elongated membrane, waxy on the outside but red within, with strands of hair on one end and a grey thicket in the middle. Irisis recoiled. ‘It’s his skin,’ she said, disgusted. ‘The explosion blew Ghorr right out of his skin.’

‘An entirely appropriate ending,’ said Klarm, ‘considering the number of victims he ordered to be flayed alive. I’m sure Flydd will appreciate it even more than I do.’ He frowned at that thought, rubbed his chin and cast a glance down at the swamp. ‘I wonder if Ghorr could be down there now, his heart still beating?’

‘Not even Ghorr could have survived the fall, even if he did live through the explosion and the skinning,’ said Malien. ‘A great mancer can do a lot with the Art, but he can’t protect himself from a fall of fifty spans.’

‘We’d better make sure,’ said Klarm. ‘If he landed in a thick bed of reeds it might have saved him, and he could then use his Art to fashion some kind of substitute for his skin.’

‘I don’t see how,’ said Malien. ‘Oh, very well. I’d like to make sure of him too.’

After some searching they found the body, which had landed on the upraised branch of a fallen tree and burst open. There was no doubt that it had once been the chief scrutator, and none that he was now dead. They left the corpse where it lay for the scavengers to feed on, and headed back to do what they could at Fiz Gorgo.

‘Swing by the skin again, Malien,’ said Klarm. ‘I’ll have it tanned and stuffed and keep it in the corner of my workroom. And in the difficult days to come, whenever someone tells me that things were better in the time of the scrutators, I’ll bring Ghorr’s skin out to illustrate the tale I plan to write, of his life and death, and his evil regime.’

‘Don’t be disgusting,’ said Irisis. She had never hated anyone, not even Jal-Nish, the way she’d hated Ghorr, but she could not countenance that.

‘It’s not worthy of you, Klarm,’ said Malien. ‘Let’s get back and see to the living.’

‘If you plan to overthrow the Council, and prevent them from ever rising again,’ Klarm said carefully, ‘first you must destroy them in the eyes of the people. Ridicule is the best way to do that, and there’s no better symbol than this.’

‘Oh very well,’ said Malien, and brought the thapter close while the gruesome object was retrieved. ‘Can we go now?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Klarm, still chuckling as he rolled the skin up carefully and packed it away.

Malien turned the thapter back to Fiz Gorgo.

‘Does anyone know what happened to Tiaan?’ Irisis wondered.

‘She was taken up at the same time as I was,’ said Malien. ‘But to a different craft.’

‘Do you know which one?’

‘No.’

‘I hope it was Fusshte’s,’ said Irisis.

‘Why?’

‘The Council came here with sixteen air-dreadnoughts and they’ve left with seven. The others exploded or crashed and I doubt if anyone would have survived.’

‘Where’s Gilhaelith?’ Yggur asked his captain in charge the moment they trudged through the broken doors of Fiz Gorgo.

Everyone looked at everyone else. No one had seen him since they’d come down the slide, hours ago.

‘Search Fiz Gorgo,’ Yggur said grimly. ‘He must be found and safely secured.’

‘But surely …’ Malien began.

‘Ghorr didn’t find this place by accident,’ said Yggur. ‘I had a protection around the entirety of Fiz Gorgo and I don’t see how the Council could have seen through it, even using Ullii’s talents. Gilhaelith definitely had a hand in it. I’ve just been to his cell and found the proof.’ He displayed a handful of rock-salt crystals. ‘They’ve got the print of the Art all over them. Gilhaelith made a working, down in his cell, which allowed Ullii to look through my protection.’

‘That doesn’t mean he deliberately betrayed us,’ said Nish.

Yggur gave him a cold glare from beneath frizzled, soot-stained brows. ‘But it does reinforce my initial opinion of the man, that he’s unreliable, untrustworthy and completely lacking in judgment. Find him!’

They hastened to do his bidding, all except Irisis, who fell in beside Yggur as they went down the corridor.

‘He’s gone, hasn’t he?’

‘I’m afraid he has,’ Yggur said grimly. ‘And he’s going to cause us no end of trouble unless we find him quickly.’

He organised his remaining soldiers into search parties and sent messages to the nearby towns and villages, to hold Gilhaelith at all costs. They did not find him, though his trail was not difficult to discover. He’d taken advantage of the chaos when everyone had come down the slide to slip away into Fiz Gorgo. There he’d gathered weapons, a sackful of provisions and as much gold as he could carry. Avoiding the guards, he had slipped out through the gates into the mist and headed up the track for Old Hripton. He’d chartered a boat, making no secret of his destination. Then he’d set sail around the northern end of the island of Meldorin, thence heading down the Sea of Thurkad.

Yggur put his head in his hands when his messengers came back with the news. ‘I can only assume that he is heading back to Alcifer.’

‘To do what?’ said Nish.

‘Betray us to the lyrinx?’

‘Well, it’s out of our hands. What happens now? There was a plan …’

‘To attack Nennifer and overthrow the scrutators?’ said Yggur.

‘Yes,’ said Nish. ‘Has Gilhaelith betrayed that as well?’

‘Ghorr gave no sign that he knew, and it would have been included in the charges against us had Ghorr known of it. But …’

‘The longer we delay, the more likely it is that the Council will learn of it,’ said Irisis.

‘Flydd was the key to the attack,’ said Yggur. ‘It’s going to take time for him to recover … if, indeed, he does.’

‘Do you mean …’ Irisis began.

‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll live, but the damage goes deeper than that. I hardly dare mount the attack without him, though I’m equally reluctant to wait until he recovers.’

‘Either way it’s going to be a bigger gamble than the one we’ve just been through, and less likely to succeed,’ said Irisis. ‘But let’s worry about that tomorrow. I’m going to cook a victory dinner.’

‘Better to call it a survival dinner,’ said Yggur. ‘I’m not yet sure that we’ve had a victory.’

‘Coming, Nish?’ said Irisis, taking him by the arm.

‘I’m not really in the mood just now,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk.’

She stared at him for a moment, then suddenly she understood and gave him a quick hug. ‘All right then. I’ll see you later.’

Nish watched her go, not sure whether to pray for Flydd’s quick recovery or to hope that his convalescence would be a lengthy one. Then he went outside to walk along the track that ran around the edge of the swamp forest. He had to think through the loss of Ullii, not to mention the son he’d never known, and never would. And then, find a suitable place to lay Ullii to rest. A quiet, pretty spot, as far from grim Fiz Gorgo as he could carry her.