SIXTY-ONE

The following afternoon, Irisis and Tiaan were putting the core of their crude field controller together when Golias’s globe belched. ‘Flydd, Flydd? Troist here.’

Irisis didn’t look up. Tiaan seemed to understand what she was doing but Irisis felt as though she were working blind and Flydd had been fretting at their lack of progress.

He ran to the globe. ‘What is it? Are you under attack?’

‘We’ve been under attack for two days, Scrutator. I’ve been calling and calling but couldn’t raise you.’ Why not, was the unspoken implication.

‘Sorry,’ said Flydd. ‘We’ve been using the farspeaker for something else. Is everything all right?’

‘We’re surviving. Tiaan’s idea was a brilliant one.’

‘What idea?’ said Flydd distractedly.

‘Shouting into the farspeaker, remember? It only works if the enemy are within twenty or thirty paces, but it knocks them down for a minute or two, and if we change the setting it keeps knocking them down. I’ve issued slave farspeakers to as many units as I could. We’ve driven off quite a few attacks that way, though with heavy casualties. Two thousand so far, and eight hundred of those are dead.’

‘Two thousand …’ said Flydd, unconsciously clenching one fist. ‘It could have been worse, I suppose.’

‘I weep for every life lost,’ said Troist. There was a heavy silence, broken only by squelches and clicks in the background. ‘But that’s not what I’ve called about. Yggur was right about Gilhaelith. I should never have trusted him, though his timely warnings did save many lives. He’s just played his hand.’

‘What’s he done now?’ cried Flydd.

‘He stole Kimli’s thapter and flew north, just half an hour ago.’

‘Has he gone over to the enemy?’ Flydd asked dully.

‘I’ve no idea, surr.’

Shortly Flydd set down the farspeaker and turned to Yggur. ‘Gilhaelith took Nish with him in Kimli’s thapter, as well as Merryl and four soldiers, one of whom was Flangers.’

Irisis dropped the assembly she was trying to put together. Crystals and tiny silver clips went everywhere but she didn’t move to pick them up. ‘Why did he take Nish?’

‘He was helping Merryl to listen in to the enemy’s mindspeech.’

‘What’s Gilhaelith up to?’ said Yggur, who seemed to be resisting the urge to say ‘I told you so’.

‘Troist doesn’t know,’ said Flydd. ‘Unfortunately, Gilhaelith took most of the mindspeech records. Troist has the last page, which mentions Matriarch Gyrull and some relics that seem to have precipitated his hasty departure.’

‘The relics they took from Snizort?’ said Yggur.

‘I don’t know. Pack everything up; we’re going to Booreah Ngurle. That’s probably where he’s headed.’

‘He’ll be long gone before we get there.’

‘Not if we hurry. We’re not much further away.’

But it took longer than expected to pack the partly assembled field controller, and when they reached Booreah Ngurle late in the night it was erupting violently. They settled in the forest for a few hours’ sleep, returning at dawn. They could not see the crest of the volcano for dust and falling rocks, and of course there was no sign of the thapter.

‘That’s the end of Nyriandiol,’ said Flydd soberly as Malien circled at a safe distance. ‘One of the most extraordinary places ever built. It’s a shame.’

‘Nothing lasts forever,’ said Malien.

‘Indeed not. Not even our kind.’

‘Where do you want to go now?’

‘I need to talk to Troist. Tiaan and Irisis can finish their work while we’re there. And be careful. We’re down to three thapters now.’

‘You’re down to two,’ Malien pointed out. ‘I still have mine, and I’m always careful.’

Work was the last thing on Irisis’s mind but she continued mechanically, doing whatever Tiaan told her while she tried to understand what Gilhaelith could be up to. His actions didn’t make any sense, though one thing was clear – he didn’t care about people and Nish was in deadly danger.

Malien turned east and they met the army near a small lake between the great lakes of Warde Yallock and Parnggi. The surrounding grassland was clear of enemy so they felt relatively secure, though the lyrinx could not be far away. From here, Troist planned to head east, by paths suitable for clankers, then south to meet the refugees on the other side of Parnggi.

The four remaining mindspeech listeners had recorded intense message activity the previous afternoon and all morning, but in the early afternoon it stopped abruptly. The two thapters continued with the army. It was not attacked again, not even the solitary night raids from flying lyrinx to which Troist had grown accustomed.

‘It’s so quiet,’ said Flydd the morning after that. ‘Too quiet.’

They were camped on a gentle rise, a patch of barren ground with good views over the grassland in every direction. A small fire smoked between the thapters and Irisis was grilling gangrene-coloured offal sausages over it. She wasn’t looking forward to dinner.

‘I can practically feel the enemy’s rage about their loss,’ said Tiaan, who’d spent two days in the bowels of the thapter working on the field controller with Irisis, or by herself after Irisis had gone to bed. It had come together at last and they were going to begin testing after breakfast, Tiaan working as the operator.

Golias’s globe sounded and a voice rumbled like a cow’s belly, the words low and drawn-out.

‘Who was that?’ said Troist.

‘It sounded like Governor Zaeff in Roros,’ said Flydd in amazement. ‘I’ve never spoken to her directly. The fields must be marvellously aligned today.’

‘What did she say?’

‘I couldn’t make it out.’ He turned to the farspeaker. ‘This is Scrutator Flydd, north of Borgistry. Please repeat your message, Governor Zaeff.’

It came again, after a wait of two or three minutes. ‘The enemy have abandoned the field of battle …’ The rest was lost in noises like water bubbling in blocked drains.

‘Please repeat that, Governor Zaeff. It sounded as if you said the enemy were retreating.’

‘… were preparing to … walls of Roros … within hours of overcoming us … are streaming west …’

‘Are you saying that the enemy have broken off the attack?’ Flydd said incredulously.

‘Yes,’ said Zaeff. ‘I don’t believe … miracles … else can I explain …?’

‘When did this happen?’

Another long wait. ‘Yesterday morning…. felt sure it … a decoy … kept our silence until … knew what was happening.’

Flydd tried to call the other cities in the east, but could not raise any of them. Their fields were not aligned, so he had to go through the laborious process of having his calls relayed. It took hours, but in the end proved worth it. From Taranta to Tiksi, all had the same news. The lyrinx had broken off all attacks in the east and, accounting for time differences, at the same time.

‘It’s got to be a trick,’ said Troist. ‘They’re trying to lure us out after them.’

‘Strange kind of trick,’ said Irisis.

‘In the past weeks we’ve lost everything in the east but a few walled cities,’ said Troist, ‘and we’ve no hope of recovering it. The enemy can afford to forgo some of their gains if it means we capitulate sooner. Now the end is near they may want to limit their own casualties.’

‘Abandoning sieges which will soon have to be renewed seems a strange way of doing it,’ said Flydd.

‘Governor Zaeff has a thapter at Roros. Ask her to find out what the lyrinx are doing.’

‘She already has,’ said Flydd. ‘They waited out of range of the walls of Roros for the rest of the day and night, then headed south-west. The fliers were followed as far as the Wahn Barre, the Crow Mountains, which they were flying across when the thapter turned back. The lyrinx on the ground were marching in the same direction.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Troist. ‘The enemy must have found a way to seize control of our farspeakers. These messages are lies, to lure us out of our refuges – they’ve got to be. You know we’ve never been able to speak directly to Roros, Flydd.’

‘You could be right,’ said Flydd, frowning and pulling at his bristly chin. ‘But we’ve got to know, either way.’

During the day, similar messages were received from the other eastern cities. Troist plotted the directions the enemy were said to have taken. They intersected in a broad area on the southern extremity of the Dry Sea, to the east of the area occupied by Vithis.

‘What about the lyrinx who were besieging Borgistry?’ said Yggur.

‘They’ve gone into Worm Wood and we can’t find them,’ said Troist.

‘There’s only one way to uncover the truth,’ said Flydd. ‘I’ll have to send one of the thapters east and confirm the flight of the lyrinx, with eyes I can trust.’

‘That’s going to take a long time,’ said Yggur. ‘If your observers can’t report by farspeaker, they’ll have to fly all the way back.’

‘What’s our alternative?’ said Flydd. ‘If we can’t trust our farspeakers, we’ll have to go back to the old reliable ways.’

Kattiloe’s thapter was dispatched to the city it could reach quickest, Tiksi, with three pilots so it could fly non-stop. It would still take at least a week. More messages came in that day and the next. Hosts of fliers were reported to be streaming from the east, making no attempt at concealment. All were heading towards the same area, if the reports could be believed, though no one trusted anything heard through a farspeaker now, even when the voice was recognisable. Lyrinx were also reported flying north-east from Meldorin, and north from Borgistry.

Troist’s map now had enough lines to show the destination: the old town of Ashmode, a port established an aeon ago when the Dry Sea had still been the Sea of Perion.

‘Why Ashmode?’ said Flydd. ‘The lyrinx have never shown any interest in that part of the world.’

No one could answer the question. Initial tests of the trial field controller having shown promise, Malien and Tiaan were sent to the Dry Sea, to fill in the gaps in Tiaan’s map. Irisis was assigned a team of artisans and told to get a reliable device made with the utmost speed.