SIXTY

Nish watched his friends fly away, unable to speak.

Once the last refugees reported that they’d met Orgestre’s army and no longer needed Troist’s protection, his infantry and its escort of clankers set off up the Great North Road, which here ran north-west. Worm Wood was about twenty leagues away, the edge of the forest curving east until it ran into the northern extremity of the Borgis Woods, a forest just as dark and tangled, and with a more dubious reputation, than Worm Wood itself. The road ran through the forest for twenty leagues, then beside it and the lands between the Great Chain of Lakes, before finally passing into the flat drylands to the north. In all, the army had to cross more than forty leagues of rugged country, ripe for ambushing, before they reached the relative security of the plains of Tacnah. Nish knew they would be lucky to get that far.

‘Nish,’ said Gilhaelith as they camped on the fringe of the forest, ‘you’re a resourceful fellow. Come with me.’

Nish wondered why Gilhaelith had remained behind with the rearguard instead of flying to safety with the Council. Was it because Yggur was so hostile to him? Whatever the reason, Troist wasn’t bothered about it. He’d invited Gilhaelith to travel with him in his twelve-legged command clanker, often consulting him about the lyrinx’s mancery and how they might use it to hinder the army’s progress.

Nish followed the woolly-headed mancer down through the rows of tents and clankers to a larger tent, guarded by two soldiers, set in an isolated spot under the trees. They went inside. It was dark apart from a glowing globe with a bowl of smoked glass over the top, reducing the light to a glimmer. A folding table had been set up in the middle. Merryl sat on one side, a writing tablet before him, a pen in his hand. A young, dark-haired woman on the other side of the table had her hands around a master farspeaker whose interior globes were spinning. Her head was bent so far that Nish couldn’t see her face, only a long, pointed nose.

Nish turned to Gilhaelith but he put a finger across his lips. ‘Later.’

Nothing happened for some minutes, when there came a whisper from the farspeaker. The dark young woman froze the globes. Again the whisper. Merryl wrote something on his pad. They waited. Eventually, another whisper. Another wait, interminable this time.

‘All right,’ said Gilhaelith after more than an hour had passed. ‘Take a break.’

They went outside. ‘You’re spying on the lyrinx,’ said Nish.

Gilhaelith raised an interrogative eyebrow.

‘Merryl’s the only one who speaks their language,’ he added.

‘Very good, artificer.’

Nish had an uncomfortable feeling that the mancer was laughing at him. He’d never worked Gilhaelith out; he did not fit any of the kinds of people Nish had met before.

‘Daesmie,’ Gilhaelith indicated the young woman through the tent flap, ‘has a talent akin to Tiaan’s, though undeveloped by comparison. She was only discovered recently – one of many projects the Council has going behind the scenes, Flydd tells me. Daesmie is able to sense lyrinx mindspeech and tune the master farspeaker to pull it out of the ethyr. There’s one problem, of course.’

‘There are half a million lyrinx,’ said Nish, ‘and they’d be using mindspeech all the time. How can you pick out what’s important in all that racket?’

‘On the contrary, few lyrinx have the talent and it’s exhausting to use. They employ it on the battlefield, or to signal danger or cry for help, so everything they say is of interest to us. And only the most powerful lyrinx can call for long distances, so if the lesser ones are mindspeaking further away, we don’t hear it.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘They seldom identify themselves or where they are. It limits the usefulness of spying on them.’

‘Have you learned anything interesting yet?’

‘Indeed. Twice we’ve had warning of attacks before they occurred. Only a minute or two, but it makes a difference. The attack this morning would have cut the army in half if I hadn’t alerted Troist to it.’

Nish had wondered why Troist seemed so happy with Gilhaelith. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘Read everything Merryl and the other listeners write down.’

‘What others?’

‘There are five tents down here, all listening on different globe settings. Merryl has taught the listeners the most common words of the lyrinx language, and each listener is recording pages of messages every hour. I don’t have the time to read it all, so you can do it for me.’

‘I’m Troist’s adjutant, surr, and I’ve a lot to do.’

‘And he’s made you over to me for the time being.’

‘Really?’ said Nish, unconvinced.

‘Go and ask him,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘The work I’m doing is vital to the survival of this army.’

‘All right,’ said Nish. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Excellent. If you see something strange, or something you don’t understand, call me.’

Gilhaelith hurried away. ‘But what are you looking for?’ Nish called.

‘Something they don’t want us to know,’ Gilhaelith said over his shoulder.

The next day was tedious and long. Nish sat in the tent, listening to the whispers in the background, which meant nothing to him, and reading though the pages as Merryl handed them to him. They were just a series of words, with annotations by Merryl, that did not make much sense.

Nish puzzled over the exchange. Were they planning an attack in the morning, as the army passed by a smaller lake between the two largest of the Great Chain of Lakes? Did it involve fire, or was that a completely separate remark? He scribbled two notes and sent them with the waiting runner to Troist and Gilhaelith. Let them agonise over it.

His pages were piling up. He wondered about the other cry – about the node failing – but not for long. Node failures were increasingly common these days. He made a note on his summary sheet and got on with his work.

Rubbing sore eyes, Nish shuffled his papers and stacked them in the pile. He’d been reading for eighteen hours without a break and every time he shifted his head vertigo made him feel as though he was falling off his seat. It had been hard enough in the tent, for one recorder’s writing could have been made by a spider crawling out of an inkwell, and another’s was so tiny Nish had to squint to read it. In a jouncing, rattling clanker on a winding mountain road it was almost impossible. He prayed that the column would stop soon. He was desperate for sleep but would be lucky to get an hour. Even here, the pages were coming in faster than he could read them.

He had dozed off, in spite of the vibration, when the clanker stopped suddenly. There were shouts and screams outside, while a red glow lit up the sky ahead. The operator thrust up the top hatch, shouting to the shooter.

‘What is it, shooter? Are we under attack?’

The shooter did not answer at once. The threaded rods of his javelard whirred and the mechanism creaked as he turned it this way and that.

‘There’s a big fire up ahead,’ he said.

Nish reached for the rear hatch but Merryl put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Remember what Gilhaelith said. We’re to keep away from the fighting unless our lives are directly threatened.’

‘I can’t hide while soldiers are dying.’

‘Their job is to fight, and if necessary to die. Ours is to do this work which may save many lives.’

Nish slid back into his seat. ‘What’s going on?’ he said softly, with a glance at the farspeaker operator. Daesmie was asleep, her head pillowed on her small hands. She looked like a child. ‘What’s Gilhaelith really looking for?’

‘I don’t know.’

A roar echoed down the road from up ahead and flames billowed into the sky. The clanker’s shooter cried out in terror. Nish felt the wash of heat through the front porthole, until the operator lurched his clanker forward, sideways and around. The clanker ahead of them was covered in what looked like burning pitch. Nish could hear the agonised screams of those trapped inside.

‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘We’ve got to get them out.’

The clanker kept going. ‘I have my orders, surr,’ said the operator.

Nish wrestled with the handle of the rear hatch but Merryl caught him by the arm. ‘There’s nothing you can do, Nish. Their rear hatch is covered in burning pitch; you’d never get it open.’

The sounds, and the smell, lingered long in Nish’s nostrils. It reminded him of that awful night in the slave team at Snizort, when he’d salivated over the smell of the burning dead.

‘That was a timely warning,’ Gilhaelith said later that night, when the army had found a safe camp. ‘Troist asked me to personally thank each of you. It saved countless lives.’

Nish nodded absently, his mind still on the horrors of the attack, which had gone on for an hour before the enemy had silently withdrawn. ‘Did we lose many?’

‘Hundreds,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘But it could easily have been thousands. Now, back to work.’

Two days later, in the sunken lands between the two great lakes, Nish was again in Merryl’s tent, completing his summary of the day’s listening, when he heard a shouted message. It had an urgency he’d not heard from the lyrinx before.

Merryl sat up, cocking his ear at the farspeaker. His hand was scribbling furiously.

Nish knew the word ‘Ing’. It was a cry for help. ‘What –?’ he began, but broke off. He could not afford to distract Merryl.

Nish moved around behind Merryl so he could read the words over his shoulder.

Dark-haired, demure little Daesmie swore an oath so vile that not even Nish would have used it in public, and spun the globes. ‘Lost it,’ she said.

Nish resisted the urge to yell at her to get it back. She was doing her best. Anything that troubled a lyrinx matriarch was of interest to them. There were only six as far as he knew; one for each of their cities.

‘Skin bursting?’ he said. ‘Does that mean the spore disease?’

‘I’d say so,’ said Merryl. ‘There have been cries about it before. But this is different. If it’s affected a matriarch …’ He trailed off, deep in thought.

The globes froze in place. ‘I think I have it,’ said Daesmie.

‘Get Gilhaelith,’ snapped Merryl.

Nish did not move.

‘Now, Nish!’

Nish hesitated, wanting to know what they were going to say next. He ran out and around each of the other listeners. Gilhaelith was not with them. As Nish turned back, intending to look for him at the command tent, he ran past Merryl’s tent and now heard Gilhaelith’s voice inside.

The mancer was positively glowing. ‘This is it. Gather your gear,’ he said to Merryl and Daesmie. ‘Bring all the record sheets. Meet me by the thapter in five minutes. You too, Nish.’ He disappeared.

Nish looked down at the sheet. Nothing further had been written on it. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

‘I can’t tell you, Nish.’ Merryl stuffed the papers in his pack and hurried out.

Daesmie was doing the same with the globe and the rest of her apparatus. Nish put the paper down, hoisted his pack and headed for Kimli’s thapter, which stood behind the command tent. It had come in only an hour ago, after studying the enemy’s movements from the air.

When he arrived, the others were already inside. He passed up his pack and was just climbing over the side when Troist came running around the tent. He had Nish’s sheet in his hand.

‘Hey? What are you doing?’ Troist cried.

‘Go, Kimli,’ Gilhaelith hissed, heaving Nish in.

She hesitated. ‘But he’s the general, surr.’

‘And I’m your superior and a mancer of dreadful power. Do as I say!’

‘Guards!’ roared Troist.

‘Now!’ Gilhaelith screamed in her face.

Kimli’s arm jerked on the flight knob and the thapter leapt in the air. The guards came running, arming their crossbows, but by the time they took aim it was too late. The thapter was out of range.

‘Go north until we’re out of sight,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘then sweep around to the west.’

‘Where are we going?’ she quavered.

‘First to Nyriandiol, my former fortress atop Booreah Ngurle, if anything remains of it. And then, we shall see. Go swiftly.’

Four soldiers were sitting down below. Flangers was one of them. Nish sat beside him. ‘What’s going on?’

‘No idea,’ said Flangers. ‘I’m just doing what I’m told.’

He looked unhappy but did not seem inclined to talk so Nish sat in a corner, closed his tired eyes and tried to work out what the geomancer was up to, and what he, Nish, should do about it. Clearly, Gilhaelith was following his own private agenda. Equally clearly, he was on to something important and, even if Troist wasn’t aware of it, it might have been sanctioned by Flydd or Yggur. Well, probably not Yggur. Nish decided to keep his eyes and ears open and follow Gilhaelith’s orders, for the time being …

He woke as they set down on the mountaintop. Outside, he looked around curiously. Booreah Ngurle was often mentioned in the Histories. It had been an important site two thousand years ago, though Nish could not remember why.

It was mid-morning. The mountain’s crest was wreathed in steam and fumes which had a yellow cast and a sulphurous stench. Gilhaelith had made a fortune mining condensed sulphur from the floor of the crater.

Nish looked over the side. Not even the foolhardiest miner would have gone down there now. The crater lake was boiling, while up the other end red lava forced itself from a vent, surrounded by roiling black smoke and punctuated by small explosions that filled the air with wheeling, red-hot lumps of rock. The ground shook and grey ash filtered from the sky. His shoulders were already coated with it.

‘This is the end for the mountain,’ said Gilhaelith, leaning on a stone wall to look over the edge. ‘It won’t be long now.’

‘Then hadn’t we better do what you came for and get away?’ said Nish.

‘Humour me, Nish. I lived here a hundred and fifty years, all that time wondering when Booreah Ngurle would finally blow itself apart. The mountain is like an old friend to me, and I have to say goodbye.’

‘Why are we here?’

Gilhaelith roused. ‘Ah, yes. Because I left something here which will help us to find the matriarch, and more importantly, what she has with her. Kimli, Nish, come with me. The rest of you, stay with the thapter. We won’t be long. Keep a sharp lookout.’

He laid his hands on the broken front doors, which had been rudely but strongly reinforced with iron bands, and they unlocked. Gritty hinges squealed when he pulled the door open. Nish followed him and Kimli fell in beside Nish. No doubt Gilhaelith wanted her along so she couldn’t be forced to fly the thapter away.

They headed down a long hall thick with dust and ash which long ago had been scalloped into ripples by the wind. There were no tracks apart from one set of boot marks going in and another back out, and the occasional trail made by a lizard’s tail. The boot marks were Gilhaelith’s. So he’d been back here after escaping from Alcifer.

‘The earth has been my science and my Art, for all my adult life,’ said Gilhaelith, his long strides puffing up ash at toe and heel. ‘If I am to leave here forever, there’s one small thing I have to take with me.’

They went down several floors. Nish was amazed at the wealth of the place, and the austere beauty. Both his father and mother had been wealthy but they’d possessed nothing like Nyriandiol. Even more amazing, it had not been looted. Perhaps Gilhaelith’s reputation was too uncanny.

Gilhaelith opened a door into a dark room, touched a quartz sphere above the door and soft light spread out. The room was empty except for a sphere, about half a span across, turning slowly in a metal bowl on a round wooden base set with brass graduated rings and pointers that could be slid around them.

‘This,’ said the mancer.

‘Not so small,’ said Nish. It appeared to be a model of Santhenar. The side facing them showed Lauralin and the ocean to the east, and part of another land, beyond the equator to the north. He walked around it, studying the islands and continents. ‘I’ve often wondered what was beyond those seas.’

‘So did I, Nish,’ said the mancer. ‘All my life I’ve wondered, and now I know.’

‘It must have taken you a long time,’ said Nish.

‘Half a lifetime. I completed it only recently, in Alcifer, with the aid of the lyrinx. They’d flown the entire world in their early days here, mapping it on charts made from tanned human skin.’

‘How did you get away?’

‘The globe can be used for more than I told them. At an early stage I tapped into their sentinels and discovered what they had planned for me – among other things.

‘I’d given up hope of escape when fate took a hand. You, Tiaan and Irisis attacked Alcifer with the fungus spores. A clever idea – I never would have thought of it, but nothing could have been more cunningly designed to panic them. On the night of your attack, their watch relaxed, I used the globe to conceal myself from their sentinels and walked out of Alcifer to the port. I’d left a boat there when I came from Fiz Gorgo, and I sailed it across the sea. Once in Taltid I signalled a passing air-floater and convinced them to bring me and the globe here. I left it here for safekeeping and they flew me down to Lybing in time for the conclave.’

The holes in his story gaped as wide as the front door, but Nish didn’t question Gilhaelith further. He took a closer look at the globe.

It was exquisite. The surface appeared to be a kind of glass, and although the mountains were raised in relief, they were below the surface, which was smooth and so cold that when Nish touched it with a finger, his skin stuck to the glass and had to be eased off.

‘Don’t touch,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘There could be … unexpected consequences.’ He drew on a pair of silken gloves and traced a fingertip across the surface, which had hardly any dust on it. ‘It’s my life’s work.’

‘Surely not?’ said Nish. A skilled artisan, such as Irisis, could have made it in a few months.

‘It’s more than it seems,’ Gilhaelith said mildly. ‘This is not just a globe, Nish. It’s a geomancer’s model of the world, meaning that each part of the model corresponds to a part of the world. Had I power enough, I could change the world, within limits, by changing the model.’

‘Is that why you want it?’ asked the pilot in a meek little voice.

‘No, Kimli. I’ve never sought to change the world, merely to understand it. But I have a different purpose today. That call Daesmie picked up was from Matriarch Gyrull, one of the six matriarchs, and pre-eminent among them on the rare occasions when a supreme leader is required, as at the moment. She must have escaped from the collapsed tunnels in Oellyll, but the infection has taken hold. She’ll soon be incapacitated, if she’s not already.’

‘That must be the bitterest of blows to them,’ said Nish.

‘Not in the sense that we value a leader. The moment Gyrull became matriarch, she would have begun training successors. It’s what she’s bearing that’s important.’

‘What are the Sacred Ones?’ said Nish. ‘Her children?’

‘The cultural relics of the lyrinx.’

‘I didn’t know they had any culture.’

‘They gave up their ancient culture in their struggle to exist in the void. That’s why the relics found in the Great Seep are so important. They’ll do anything to protect them. The matriarch must have been ferrying the relics to a safe place, far away, but was struck down by the disease. Perhaps her escort is similarly afflicted; they’re calling for help and we have the chance I never imagined would come.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know.’ He held up his hand as Nish began to speak. ‘But my geomantic globe may tell me.’

‘How?’

‘If you keep quiet, you’ll find out. Stay here.’

He was only gone a few minutes, returning carrying a small timber box which he set on the table. Inside were many lemon-yellow crystals, pyramidal on each end.

‘Brimstone, or sulphur,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Don’t touch them.’

‘Why not?’

Irritated, Gilhaelith picked out the smallest and placed it in the palm of Nish’s hand. It lay there for a few seconds; then, with a crackling sound, shattered to pieces. ‘That’s why. Just the warmth of a human hand can fracture them. But if one is careful …’

With gloved fingers he stroked another crystal, faster and faster, then held it out between forefinger and thumb. He passed it back and forth over the surface of the globe, without ever touching it, sweeping a series of closely spaced lines from the Sea of Thurkad to the curve of the Great Mountains. Gilhaelith began in the south, at the shores of the Karama Malama, and continued north, every so often stopping to rub the crystal vigorously.

Nish didn’t question him. Gilhaelith’s attention was focussed on the surface of the globe. Nish did the same. Finally, as the lines swept across the drylands of the Tacnah Marches, between the City of the Bargemen and the Ramparts of Tacnah, a tiny lemon-yellow light winked through the surface.

Gilhaelith thrust the box of brimstone crystals in his pocket and gave him a triumphant look. ‘That’s where they are.’

‘How do you know. What was all that about?’

‘Like calls to like, Nish. Among the relics is a large crystal, and some smaller ones. The larger one is known as The Brimstone. My crystal called and The Brimstone answered.’ Gilhaelith gathered the geomantic globe up. ‘Bring that crate over, would you?’

Nish lugged the box across. Gilhaelith nestled the globe inside, carefully protected in folds of indigo velvet, packed the turned base, put down the top, took one of the rope handles and signed to Nish to take the other. They carried the crate out to the thapter.

‘I know one should never become sentimental about material things,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘but I spent the most contented years of my life here. If you would give me a moment. Please wait in the flier.’

Nish and Kimli handed the crate up into the thapter. Gilhaelith stood on the stone wall, staring into the crater. Fumes were now belching out of it; an explosion sent boulders arcing through the air.

Gilhaelith watched them rise and fall. One landed on the crater’s rim just a few hundred paces away. Another crashed through an outside walkway of Nyriandiol, tearing most of it away and sending it plunging into the bubbling lake.

He took something out of his pocket. It looked to be a smooth round rock with a hollow in the centre, though it was shiny, as if it had been polished. Gilhaelith weighed it in his hand, tossed it up and caught it, then drew back his arm and hurled it high, out towards the centre of the crater. As it fell he spoke five lines in a language Nish had never heard.

The stone disappeared into the roiling clouds. Nish realised that he was holding his breath. The ground shook, shook again and with a roar that hurt his eardrums the centre of the crater erupted upwards with colossal force, a cataclysm of steam, pulverised rock and red-hot particles of lava.

Nish bolted to the thapter. Gilhaelith followed with calm and measured steps. As he climbed inside, the debris was boiling towards them.

‘To the Marches of Tacnah,’ he said. ‘And be quick about it.’