THIRTY-SIX

Flangers was still clinging to life, though only because of Healer Evee’s Arts, when Nish and Irisis came down the ladder.

‘How is he?’ Nish said.

‘He may live,’ said Yggur, ‘though with two bolts through the ribs and one that’s smashed his thighbone, I doubt if he’ll walk again, much less fight.’

‘You stupid, brave fool,’ Irisis said several hours later as Flangers came round after the bolts had been removed and the bone set.

‘I had to atone for my crime,’ said Flangers. ‘You knew that.’

‘And have you finished atoning?’ she said gently. ‘Or can we expect more such follies next time?’

‘I laid down my life, and it wasn’t taken. Only a fool would do it twice.’ He closed his eyes and slept.

‘You can’t talk!’ Nish accused her. ‘Going after him was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘The line has to be drawn, Nish,’ said Irisis. ‘In this bloody war I’ve done a hundred things I’ve regretted, and I expect I’ll do more before the war takes me. But I won’t turn my back on my friends ever again. That’s all there is to it.’

She must have been thinking of Inouye. ‘Flangers should have been dead, with three bolts in him.’

‘But he wasn’t.’ Irisis leaned against him and closed her eyes.

Nish was exhausted but his mind was too busy for sleep. He looked around. Tiaan was sitting in the corner, staring fixedly at him. She looked angry, lost and desolate in equal parts. Did she hold him to blame? Perhaps she did – he’d robbed her of the amplimet she’d striven so desperately to regain.

He had avoided her since, thinking that his presence could only make things worse. Tiaan had been in good hands. Malien had taken charge of her, bathing and delousing her and spending long days and nights talking to her, working to bring her out of her withdrawal psychosis. It seemed to have worked. Tiaan had been almost her normal reserved self by the time the air-dreadnought returned from Fadd. Nish had seen her laughing and joking with Malien, and once even with Yggur, though whenever Tiaan’s eye fell on Irisis or Nish he knew that she’d forgotten nothing and forgiven even less.

Nish looked away with a mental shrug. What did it matter? They didn’t need to work together.

Malien was so angry that she kept flying all night, only setting down at dawn for a brief rest stop before heading on. Her fury began to wear off during the day and at sunset she set the thapter down on a slaty hilltop in an unknown land. Flangers was out of danger and sleeping, so they left him inside with Evee and Inouye.

‘Let’s talk about the war,’ said Flydd at the campfire that night.

‘I’ve been putting together a plan,’ said Yggur.

‘So have I,’ said Flydd. ‘But let’s hear yours first.’

Nish was a little surprised at Yggur’s forthrightness. When they’d first come to Fiz Gorgo, about six months ago, he’d professed little interest in the war. But of course, the Histories told that Yggur had been a great warlord once.

‘Humanity is still strong, but its people, manufactories and armies are scattered across thousands of leagues and can’t easily be coordinated. But if they could be, we’d be a formidable force and many of the lyrinx’s advantages would evaporate.’

‘Intelligence and communication are the keys to victory,’ said Flydd. ‘To win we have to beat the enemy at both.’

‘The lyrinx avoid war during the winter mating season, and immediately after it,’ said Klarm. ‘So we have till early spring to prepare ourselves for the final phase of the war – just over three months.’

‘And in that time,’ said Yggur, ‘we must do a number of things. First, we must draw together all our allies, near and far.’

‘It would take a month to contact them all by skeet,’ said Klarm, ‘assuming we had enough skeets. And another month before the replies all came in.’

‘With the thapter we can visit them all in weeks …’ said Flydd. He gave Malien an abashed glance, which she did not acknowledge.

‘But the next time you want to consult them it’ll take just as long,’ Yggur said reasonably.

‘And the time after,’ Klarm chimed in. ‘You can’t be tied up as a messenger boy, Flydd. And if something goes wrong with the thapter, or we lose it, or it’s needed elsewhere –’

‘We must have more of them,’ said Yggur, ‘which is my second point. We’ll come back to the first. Are you prepared to share the secret of making thapters with us, Malien?’

After a brief hesitation she said, ‘With some disquiet.’

Yggur bowed his head. ‘Thank you. That raises another problem, of course. We can’t build thapters, or any kind of flying machine more complex than an air-floater, at Fiz Gorgo. We’d need an entire manufactory for that and it would still take years to construct one.’

‘Then the second problem is as insoluble as the first,’ said Klarm. He drained his goblet, which had been half full of a fine wine from the Council’s cellars. One of his crates had contained several small barrels. Klarm lived life to the fullest. ‘Why go back to Fiz Gorgo anyhow? Why not Lybing, for instance?’ Klarm had been the provincial scrutator for Lybing before his leg injury.

‘Lybing doesn’t have manufactories either,’ said Yggur.

‘But it does have skilled workers.’

‘We can bring skilled workers from anywhere,’ said Flydd. ‘In Fiz Gorgo we have an establishment and complete control.’

‘If you’re going to take on the role of head of the Council,’ said Klarm, ‘you need to be seen. Otherwise the generals and governors will seize the chance to intrigue against you. You’ve got to show them you’re just as tough as Ghorr.’

‘In Lybing I’d be pestered constantly by people wanting favours,’ said Flydd, ‘and I’ve no time for it. There’s a war to win.’

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Klarm. He sighed, presumably for the fleshly delights of civilised Lybing. ‘Pass the barrel, Flydd. This is thirsty work.’

Flydd rolled it across.

Yggur scowled. He didn’t like indulgence, in any form. ‘Some months ago we recovered parts of a construct abandoned at Snizort, including its flight controller. With Malien’s advice, we ought to be able to make the controllers needed to turn constructs into thapters.’

‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ said Flydd. ‘You’ll take charge of that work, Irisis, and Tiaan can help you. If you require more artisans, we’ll press them from a manufactory.’

‘And the moment the flight controllers are ready,’ said Yggur, ‘we’ll fly to the battlefield at Snizort, put them in the best of the abandoned constructs and fly them back.’

‘But the node exploded,’ said Irisis. ‘There’s not enough field at Snizort to flutter a handkerchief.’

‘Leave that to me,’ said Yggur. ‘I dare say I can think of a way.’

She regarded him dubiously. ‘How many controllers will you need?’

‘As many as twenty, certainly,’ said Yggur. ‘More, if you can make them in time. We’ll need as many thapters as can be made to fly.’

‘So you’ll need to take a small army to Snizort,’ said Klarm. ‘And dozens of trained pilots, though I don’t see how you’re going to train them.’

‘And we’ll need a means of getting them there,’ said Yggur, standing up and circling the fire before sitting down again. ‘The plan is coming together. First we must train artificers to fix those constructs that aren’t too badly damaged, and pilots to fly them. That’s going to take a long time. Meanwhile, we’ll need enough air-floaters to carry everyone to Snizort. Cryl-Nish, you will command this operation.’

‘I don’t see how it can be done in time,’ said Nish.

‘You’ll have to find a way – we’ve got to have the thapters before spring.’

‘It takes time to train people.’

‘It has to be done, Nish, and you’ve got to do it.’

Nish gritted his teeth. ‘If I had a year and a hundred people I couldn’t do it all,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t just wave a magic wand like some people. I have to do real work.’ Irisis squeezed his arm, warningly. Yggur was glaring down his long nose at him. Nish buried his face in his goblet.

‘That’s only the first stage,’ Yggur said coldly, ‘but everything else relies on it. Coming back to my first point, of finding a way to talk to our distant allies and our scattered forces, there’s this.’

Yggur withdrew a glass globe, the size of a grapefruit, from a leather case at his side. He held it up. ‘Some of you may have seen it before. Fusshte stole it from Fiz Gorgo and it was the first treasure I went looking for in Nennifer. It’s one of the few surviving farspeaker globes of Golias the Mad.’ Flydd cleared his throat. Yggur continued. ‘Or if not, it’s closely based on his original. It doesn’t work, unfortunately. The secret was lost with Golias’s death.’

He glanced briefly at Nish. ‘I plan to rediscover Golias’s secret and, once I have, our skilled artisans will craft as many globes as we need. You may give one to each of our allies, Flydd. Such a gift, and the hope of greater ones, will do more to unite us than all the former Council’s threats and punishments.’

‘Many have sought Golias’s secret,’ said Flydd, ‘but none have succeeded.’

‘But they worked as individuals for their own greed or glory, sharing neither their discoveries nor their failures. For us, it’s our very survival. And around this campfire, Flydd, are people whose grasp of the Art is as great as any who have ever lived.’

‘I thought you said you were going to do it,’ Flydd said.

‘It’s my task,’ said Yggur, ‘but I plan to call upon everyone here. Everyone with a talent for the Art, I mean. We now have the greatest secrets and Arts of the Council, and they’d made many breakthroughs the world was never told about. If we can work as a team, and we must, together we will be greater than the greatest individual. We must crack Golias’s globe. We cannot win the war without it; not even with a hundred thapters.’

‘The Council didn’t believe the war could be won at all,’ said Klarm.

‘I do,’ said Flydd. ‘Is that your entire plan, Yggur? You haven’t given me much to do. Or Malien. Or Klarm, for that matter.’

‘Klarm will be poring over the Council’s Arts and devices. Malien … can speak for herself.’

‘I expect I’ll be at the controls of the thapter most of the time,’ said Malien.

‘You’re the head of the new council, Flydd. You must lead our embassy-at-large,’ Yggur went on, ‘since you know everyone in the east. While the air-floaters and thapter controllers are being built, and their pilots and artificers trained, you’ll need to fly east and north to rally our allies.’ Yggur looked around the fire. ‘That’s my plan.’

‘It’s a good start,’ said Flydd, ‘but we must also plan the second stage. The lyrinx have had it far too easy in the past. They’ve attacked and we’ve defended; and lost. The Council’s response has always been predictable, so we’ve got to be unpredictable. I want to mount a surprise attack on the enemy in early spring, before they’re ready to fight. I want to shock them; to make them worry about what we’ll do next and how strong we really are.’

‘Good idea. Incidentally,’ Yggur said casually, ‘Tiaan, I believe you attempted to map fields from the air, in the east.’

Tiaan, who was staring blankly at the fire, came out of her introspection with a start. ‘I – I spent a long time at it, surr. I’ve mapped the fields north and south from Stassor for a hundred and forty leagues, east to the sea and west for another eighty leagues – perhaps a tenth of Lauralin. My map is still in the thapter, if you’d care to see it.’

Yggur gaped. ‘You’re making a fool of me, surely?’

‘I never joke about my work, surr.’ She went into the darkness with her head high, returning a few minutes later with a rolled map drawn on coated linen.

Tiaan unrolled it on the rough ground and weighted the ends with rocks. A chart of north-eastern Lauralin, it extended from Guffeons in the north to Tiksi in the south, and as far west as the desert of Kalar. The mountains were drawn in relief and shaded pale grey. Overlaid were a series of black marks, with symbols beside them, each surrounded by coloured haloes of various shapes and sizes, some in single colours, others like rainbows.

‘These represent the nodes,’ said Yggur, touching one of the black shapes with a fingertip.

‘Yes. There are 317 of them in the area of this map. Most, as far as I can tell, were not previously known.’

Yggur glanced at Flydd, whose astonishment was nearly as great as his own. ‘But this is priceless! Why didn’t we know about this?’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘And the symbols?’ asked Flydd. ‘The kind of node, presumably?’

‘Yes,’ Tiaan said faintly. She hated being the centre of attention. ‘This symbol denotes a normal node, this a spiral node and this a double.’

‘A double node?’

‘It quite disturbed me, passing over it.’

‘How did you manage such detail?’ said Yggur.

‘Oh, this is nothing. I have larger maps of many of the nodes, back in Fiz Gorgo, showing how they changed the various times I passed over them.’

‘But –’

‘I see each field as a coloured picture,’ she said. ‘And once seen, I can remember it forever. For example, this one,’ she pointed to a dot in the Kalar Desert, ‘I can show you how the field changes over a day and –’

‘We can talk about the details at another time,’ Yggur said. ‘Tiaan, such maps may be vital to the war. Will be vital, I should say, especially if the lyrinx expand their attacks on nodes. Would you care to do more of it?’

‘I want to map all the nodes in the world,’ said Tiaan, her eyes glowing. ‘I – I long to understand how the fields work. But … don’t you want me to work on thapter controllers …?’

‘This is more urgent. If Flydd agrees, I’d send you with him when he goes off on his embassies.’

‘She’ll have to come anyway,’ said Flydd gracelessly. ‘Flying the thapter is hard work and Malien can’t do it all by herself.’

‘Assuming I agree to take you,’ said Malien quietly.

Yggur ignored the exchange. ‘Tiaan, wherever Flydd goes, you shall go too, and map the fields of all the lands you pass over. Then, should the war resume sooner than we expect, at least we’ll have maps to go by.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tiaan in a low voice, and turned back to her contemplation of the fire.

‘I believe you’re up to something,’ Flydd muttered to Yggur.

‘I’m thinking ahead,’ Yggur replied. ‘We make more use of the fields each day, as do Vithis’s Aachim, and Malien’s people in Stassor. Malien is worried that we’re taking too much from them. We talked about it some time back. And the enemy uses fields far more than they did before. Now there’s talk of nodes failing of their own accord, and nodes being drained dry by overuse. If it gets worse, whosoever knows the fields best will have the upper hand. That task is yours, Tiaan, and it’s a vital one.’

Tiaan was so transformed by the responsibility Yggur had given her that she declined to fly the thapter when Malien offered her the amplimet. Irisis, who was in the cockpit at the time, saw the longing in Tiaan’s eyes. She gazed at the softly glowing crystal for a moment, then edged it away with the back of her hand. ‘You fly. I want to map.’

All the long hours that it took to get home, Tiaan sat with the relevant section of the map unrolled on her lap, making annotations on a pad in a tiny hand, and coloured markings on an overlay. Each night by the campfire she wrote up her notes and refined her master map.

Klarm was working just as hard. He sat in his corner of the thapter, studying the sheaves of papers he’d taken from Nennifer and writing in a series of rice-paper books with different-coloured bindings. He worked by the campfire too, until dinner, after which he got roaringly drunk every night.