SIXTY-TWO

Leaving Booreah Ngurle, now blowing itself to pieces behind them, Gilhaelith set off for the Marches of Tacnah, a flight of more than a hundred leagues.

‘Get some sleep,’ he said to Nish and the soldiers. ‘I’m not planning to stop, and there’ll be precious little time after we arrive.’

Nish settled down in a corner but couldn’t sleep for worrying about the geomancer’s intentions. He’d considered trying to foment a rebellion, but surely stealing the relics from the enemy was a good outcome?

Gilhaelith and Merryl were down at the other end of the thapter. Gilhaelith had a farspeaker on his lap and was spinning the globes, listening, then spinning again. Merryl sat in the corner, steadying a writing tablet with his stump while he took notes. Daesmie was asleep in the corner.

Nish got up and sat beside Merryl, so as to see what he was writing, but the fragments of mindspeech didn’t mean anything to him.

‘I’m not as skilled as Daesmie,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘but we have to keep listening. Every lyrinx who heard that call for help will answer it, and some are bound to be closer than us.’

‘Why would they take the relics to Tacnah?’ said Nish.

‘They were taking them across Tacnah, to hide them. You don’t realise how insecure you’ve made the enemy feel. In a hundred and fifty years there wasn’t one successful attack on their underground cities. Then Snizort was destroyed in a way no one could ever have imagined, and now their six remaining cities have been rendered uninhabitable for years, in a single day. They’re homeless and winter is coming. They’ve lost everything except what they can carry on their backs.’

Gilhaelith kept working, but with little success – Merryl had only a few notes on his tablet by the time Nish began to doze off again. When he woke, Gilhaelith had his geomantic globe on the floor, its bowl resting on the crumpled indigo velvet from its box, and was scrying with the brimstone crystals again.

The light winked from the same place as before. ‘They’re not moving,’ said Merryl.

‘It might be a trap,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Or a false trail.’

‘How could they know about us?’ said Nish.

‘Never underestimate the enemy.’

Including you?

They flew into the night. Nish went up to stand with Kimli, who had begun to sag at the controller. The moon rose, near its full and mostly the dark side, an ill omen, not that Nish believed in such superstitions. Its slanting rays shone reddish silver off the dry plains grass. This was country the like of which he’d never seen before, even during his travels across Almadin. It was completely flat, bone-dry and empty.

‘The City of the Bargemen,’ said Gilhaelith, who had come up to stand on the other side. He pointed to their left, towards a lake shaped like a twisted teardrop. A meandering river ran in one end of it and out the other, its further reaches lost in the night. ‘An odd name, since it’s nothing like a city and the barges are run by the women. It’s built out over the lake on poles of turpentine wood.’

‘Then it’s probably the only settlement in Lauralin safe from the lyrinx’s vengeance,’ Nish observed.

‘I dare say. There’s nowhere that the lyrinx will be safe from mine.’

‘What did they do to you?’ said Nish.

‘They stole me away from Nyriandiol, the only place I’ve ever felt comfortable. They ruined me – I’m going to die the worst death a mancer can suffer …’

‘You look healthy enough to me,’ said Nish, who’d come to realise that Gilhaelith didn’t always tell the truth.

‘That is the worst death, Artificer. To have the body remain as strong as ever while the mind slowly decays from within. I’ve lost a quarter of my faculties already, because of the lyrinx. I might have repaired the damage with my globe but Gyrull denied it to me until it was too late and ensured there were flaws in it. My mind will be gone within a year. But worst of all, I’ll never finish the great project I worked on all my life – to understand the world and the forces that move and shape it. My whole life has been rendered meaningless, and all because of the lyrinx.’

‘So this is all about revenge?’

Gilhaelith was calm, almost good-humoured. There wasn’t a trace of rage in him as he answered. ‘The lyrinx robbed me of all that mattered, so I plan to take the relics that mean everything to them. I find revenge peculiarly nourishing. It’s given me a new purpose.’

They began to pass over forest, though even in this light Nish could see how different it was from the forests he was used to. This was a woodland of scrubby trees, twisted by the unceasing plains wind. They were flying low now and once, as Nish looked down, he saw the moon-reflected gleam of a pair of eyes looking up. He shivered.

‘How far to go?’ he asked.

‘Another twenty leagues,’ said Kimli. She yawned. ‘We should be there just after dawn.’

‘Have you heard anything else, Gilhaelith?’ said Nish.

‘Not a whisper.’

‘Maybe the matriarch is dead.’

‘Or maybe they’re waiting for us. For every action, a reaction. Everything we do with the Art leaves a trace, Nish, and a great adept may be able to find it.’

‘First time I’ve heard of it,’ said Nish.

‘What you know about the Art would fit into a thimble,’ Gilhaelith said crushingly. ‘And you don’t know any great adepts either.’

What about Yggur and Flydd, Nish was going to say. Not to mention Malien. He kept his mouth shut; Gilhaelith was baiting him.

‘If a great lyrinx adept was watching when I scried with the brimstone crystals,’ Gilhaelith went on, ‘he’s had plenty of time to close the trap.’

The moon dropped toward the western horizon, and as it sank the sun rose in the other direction, over the Marches of Tacnah. It was a featureless plain without rivers, lakes, or even a creek. Not a single tree could be seen; not a rock or a bush. The sparse tussock grass was grey, the soil red.

‘What a bleak place,’ said Nish.

Gilhaelith came up the ladder to see for himself. ‘The lyrinx won’t find it easy to ambush us here.’

But they can camouflage themselves to look like anything, Nish thought.

‘Not long now,’ said Gilhaelith. He went down to his globe, then called, ‘A little more to the east, Kimli.’

‘It should be just around here,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘Can you see anything?’

Nish was scanning the horizon with a spyglass. ‘Only red dirt and grey grass.’

‘Go higher, Kimli, and circle around.’

Kimli took the thapter up to a height of a few hundred spans. She could barely keep her hand on the controller now.

‘Are you all right?’ said Nish.

‘So tired …’

‘Anything?’ called Gilhaelith.

‘No,’ Kimli whispered.

‘What did you say?’ said Gilhaelith.

‘Lyrinx!’ yelled Nish. ‘In the west. Flying fast towards us.’

Gilhaelith shot up the ladder and took the spyglass. ‘And more coming from the south.’ He barked a bitter laugh. ‘At least we know we’re in the right place.’

‘Can’t you scry again?’

‘To locate the matriarch precisely, I’d need a globe a thousand spans in diameter.’

They went around and around as the flights of lyrinx drew ever closer. With the spyglass, Nish estimated twenty in the western group, a few more in the more distant southern flight. ‘They’re coming straight for us,’ he said, seized by a sudden thought.

Kimli, who had been sagging at the controller, let out a little squeak and stood up straighter.

‘Of course they are,’ said Gilhaelith.

‘No, both flights are heading for us,’ said Nish. ‘You’d think one would be going to the matriarch, unless she’s directly below and we can’t see her.’

‘She’s had plenty of time to skin-change.’

Nish swept the spyglass around the horizon. While the lyrinx stayed still, skin-changing could conceal them, but once they moved they would be visible. He went all the way around, once and again, then a flying lyrinx flashed across his view, camouflaged to disappear against the sky.

He went around again and saw another lyrinx, or was it the same one? It wasn’t flying towards him. It was streaking low across the grass to a point a little north of them.

‘We’re in the wrong place,’ yelled Nish. ‘There, Kimli.’

Kimli, bright-eyed now, whirled the thapter around so fast that Nish was thrown against the side. She calculated the place the lyrinx was heading for, maybe half a league away, and accelerated towards it.

‘Can we get there before it does?’ snapped Gilhaelith.

‘Yes,’ said the pilot, ‘but …’

‘The others will get here before we can snatch the relics. Hoy, Flangers! Pass the farspeaker up here, would you. I may need it.’

It came up the hatch. Gilhaelith spun the globes, froze them and waited.

‘There they are,’ cried Kimli, changing course so abruptly that the farspeaker almost went over the side. The mechanism of the thapter screamed, she seemed to bounce it off solid air, put it sideways and stopped in a cloud of torn-up tussocks and a whirlwind of red dirt.

Nish was impressed. He’d had reservations about her skills in the early days, but Kimli was proving nearly as good a pilot as Chissmoul.

Five lyrinx lay on the ground. Three were dead and their skin had faded to an oily grey that stood out against the red soil. No, it was their inner skin, gone dry and wrinkly. They must have shed the armoured layer in their agony and then, exposed to the sun and wind, they had died. The fourth was still twitching, its fanged mouth opening and closing. It had torn its chest armour to shreds and crumpled pieces of bloody armour still clung to its claws.

The fifth, a huge green-crested female, was practically invisible, her skin matching the texture of the pebbly soil. Her wings, camouflaged the same colour, were spread out over several long crates.

‘It’s Matriarch Gyrull,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Get the relics!’

Nish went over the side and ran toward the relics but one wing stirred and a fist of air thumped him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. It was more than just air, though. It had the Art behind it and Nish found it hard to get up again. All his nerve fibres were singing.

The matriarch lifted her head and tried to speak. Her armoured skin was blistered and had peeled away at throat and groin to reveal the sensitive inner skin, which looked as though it had been dipped in acid.

‘Matriarch Gyrull,’ said Nish, rising painfully. He bowed. She was a noble figure, after all, and he’d been taught respect at an early age.

He saw the dismay in her eyes. Mottled patterns chased each other across her chest and shoulders. The wing stirred and he felt another blow from her Art. This one was like a punch in the chest but not enough to hurt him. She was fading rapidly.

‘I should have allowed Ryll to send you to the slaughtering pens,’ she croaked. Her eyes were on Gilhaelith, who was on top of the thapter.

‘You should have,’ said Gilhaelith.

The soldiers leapt over the side and were racing for the crates when the first of the fliers shot across the bare ground towards them. Gilhaelith held the farspeaker close to his mouth and roared.

The lyrinx’s wings locked; it let out a paralysed squawk and ploughed into the ground, skidding on its chest and belly armour. Another close behind it did the same, the pair coming to rest in a tangle of limbs and wings. They swung around, and in their eyes was the same distress Gyrull had shown – that the precious relics might be lost. Their clawed feet tossed red dust into the air as they tried to rise, but their legs wouldn’t support them.

Two soldiers hefted the first crate, staggered to the thapter and slid it up onto the carrying racks. Flangers was limping for the second. Gyrull let out a despairing cry, her skin colours exploded into brilliant reds, yellows and blacks and she forced herself to her feet. Blood ebbed from the shredded skin. Her armour burst apart along the plates of her chest, revealing raw, bleeding flesh beneath. Red tears ran from her eyes but she took one excruciating step towards them. She would protect the relics whatever the cost to herself.

She took another step. Blood was running down her belly and thighs; her great maw was twisted in agony, but she reached out a hand and power fizzed from it. Nish froze in place, right foot upraised, the opposite hand outstretched. He couldn’t move, and the soldiers were similarly afflicted.

Gyrull took another step. ‘Come on!’ shouted Gilhaelith, but none of the soldiers could move. He clambered onto the rear platform of the thapter, his right hand in a filigree basket, working some Art of his own.

Gyrull strained so hard that her chest plates burst away, but she took another step, and another. She was almost to the racks now.

Gilhaelith attempted a different working. Gyrull dismissed it with a flash of skin colours on what outer skin she had left. Forcing herself against the torture, she threw herself at the racks and caught the end of the crate.

Nish was still paralysed as Gyrull took the crate in both hands and tried to lift it off. Nish was struck with admiration, that she could overcome such agony to regain, against such odds, the most precious things in the world to her people. He felt sure she would, for the other lyrinx were only minutes away.

Gyrull hefted the crate onto her bloody shoulder and staggered back with it. Gilhaelith abandoned his Arts, which were clearly inferior to hers, leapt down through the hatch and reappeared with a crossbow. He slid in a bolt, clumsily wound the cranks and pointed it at Gyrull’s back. The bow wobbled in his hands, but not even a novice could miss her from here.

He fired. She jerked, turned halfway around and the crate slid from her hands, raising clouds of dust when it hit the ground. Gyrull’s claws scraped at the wound, fell to her sides and she thudded to the ground beside the crate. Though she struggled until the soil around her was purple with blood, she could not force herself to her feet again.

The paralysis vanished. Nish ran to help recover the first crate and tie it down, while the paired soldiers went for the second and third. The downed lyrinx were on their feet, wobbly but recovering rapidly. He felt for his sword.

Once more Gilhaelith roared into the farspeaker. The lyrinx collapsed again, though this time they were up rather more quickly. Each time the device was used, it seemed to affect them less.

He roared again. They checked, their mouths open in pain but they remained on their feet. Gyrull was still struggling, though weakly. She urged the lyrinx on in her own tongue, reinforcing her exhortations with fiery skin-speech on her rags of outer skin.

The second pair of soldiers were struggling to lift the last crate. They carried it a few steps, let it down hard then hefted it again. Flangers hobbled across to help them while his mate stood by with the rack ropes.

The two lyrinx struggled towards them as if walking through thigh-deep honey, but suddenly broke free and went for the last crate. The other fliers were closing rapidly and once they arrived all would be lost. Nish threw himself between the lyrinx and the crate, swinging his sword around his head, hoping to make enough of a diversion for Flangers to heave the crate onto the racks.

The two lyrinx stopped, cast a couple of blows in his direction, which he ducked, then went around him on either side. Nish whirled, attacking the one on his right from behind, though his blow did not penetrate its armour.

‘Get aboard!’ shouted Gilhaelith. ‘We’ve got what we came for.’

The lyrinx were now between the thapter and Nish, running for the racks. Two soldiers took on the creature to Nish’s left. One soldier went down from a backhanded blow to the side of the head but the second fought on.

Flangers and the fourth soldier were already climbing the ladder; the thapter began to move, stirring up clouds of red dust. The lyrinx on Nish’s right sprang and landed on the racks, frantically slashing at the ropes with its claws and teeth, and tearing one of the metal covers of the thapter half off. Flangers armed a crossbow and jumped awkwardly onto the rear platform, landing just a span from the creature. His weak leg shook and he nearly went over the side, but the lyrinx didn’t look around. It kept clawing at the ropes. Flangers shot it and it fell off just as the first flight of lyrinx came hurtling through the drifting dust. The second flight was close behind.

Kimli spun the thapter to approach Nish from the other side. Gilhaelith was shouting at her. The second soldier had fallen.

‘Get aboard!’ she screeched.

Lyrinx flew at the thapter from all directions, teeth bared and eyes wild.

‘Go!’ Gilhaelith roared. ‘Leave him.’

Kimli nudged the machine across towards Nish, who took a running leap and managed to catch hold of the racks with one hand. The thapter jerked into the air, he lost his grip and fell hard.

‘Get going!’ Gilhaelith must have grabbed the pilot’s hand and pulled up on the controller, for the thapter took off vertically through the lyrinx. It stopped in mid-air about twenty spans up and hovered while they desperately beat their way to it.

Gilhaelith climbed onto the rear platform and shouted down to Gyrull. ‘Mindspeak this message to your people, Matriarch! Withdraw your armies from east and west or I’ll burn your relics to ash and scatter them from one side of the Dry Sea to the other.’

‘What would you have us do?’ she croaked, barely able to raise her head.

The thapter lifted another ten spans to remain out of reach of the despairing lyrinx.

Gilhaelith raised his voice. ‘Assemble your armies on the cliffs near Ashmode, at the edge of the Dry Sea north-west of here, and bring the power patterner with you. In exchange, I will return your precious relics.’

‘We will not give up the flisnadr,’ said the matriarch.

‘I know your deepest secrets,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘You’ll abandon everything else to recover the relics.’

‘You know nothing about us, Tetrarch.’

Nish couldn’t see how she found the strength to speak. And then a dozen lyrinx, diving out of the dazzle of the sun, plunged head-down straight for the thapter.

‘On the contrary,’ began Gilhaelith. ‘No! Kimli –’

She’d already acted. The thapter shot sideways, flinging Gilhaelith to his knees. ‘Bring the power patterner or lose everything,’ he shouted. The thapter shot away, soon to disappear into the northern sky.

The lyrinx in the air formed a circle and let out a series of shrill, wailing cries, echoed by the creatures on the ground. What would they do now? They’d been driven from their homes and lost the relics that mattered most to them, so what did they have to lose? Had he helped to precipitate Armageddon?

The lyrinx on the ground turned to attend to him, and Nish discovered that he was alone – the other soldier no longer had a head. He put up his hands, but the closest lyrinx seemed in no mood to accept his surrender, while another score of lyrinx were even now surrounding him. They landed heavily, puffing up more red dust. Nish had never seen such violent and threatening skin colours.

The nearest lyrinx caught Nish around the chest in a crushing grip. Its claws dug into his ribs, the enormous mouth opened and green saliva sprayed his cheeks. It was going to bite his head off. He closed his eyes.

‘Thlamp!’ said a female voice. ‘Inixxi rurr!’

The lyrinx dropped him on the ground and put its foot on him. Nish opened his eyes. The lyrinx that had spoken was unlike any of the others. It was slender, relatively speaking, with enormous pale wings that lacked pigmentation. Its skin was likewise uncoloured apart from the faintest tinge of green on its crest, indicating a mature female. Most unusual of all was the absence of armoured skin that protected the other lyrinx. Her soft outer skin, though coated with wax, was practically transparent. He could see her breasts through it.

‘I am Liett, daughter of Wise Mother Gyrull, who is now dying in agony because of you,’ the female said in the common tongue. ‘You are my prisoner and I’m going to see the colour of your blood.’

Liett’s wings caught the sunlight with a shimmering, pearly opalescence. Had he seen her before? Yes, he had. His eyes widened.

‘Do I know you, human?’ said Liett.

‘You slashed my balloon near Tirthrax, the winter before last. I was lucky to survive.’

‘Had I done the job properly,’ she said savagely, ‘we would not be here now. What is your name?’

He told her. She bent down and, though smaller and less muscular than the others, easily picked him up in one hand. Liett inspected him from top to toe. ‘There is a vague memory. You humans all look the same – like the squirming grubs we hooked out from under the bark of trees to feed the despised tetrarch.’

Liett tossed him into the dust. ‘Bind him tight,’ she said to the other lyrinx, though in the common tongue. ‘If he tries to escape you may eat his feet and lower legs, if you can stomach them, but no more. I don’t want him to die until after we have questioned him; and he has answered.’

Nish was bound hand and foot and left on the ground. Liett crouched beside her mother, spreading her beautiful wings to shade the dying matriarch. After giving Gyrull a drink from a canister on her hip, Liett spoke to her at length in low tones, in the lyrinx tongue.

She kept pointing to the northern sky and shaking one fist, as if counselling an all-out attack. The gathered lyrinx flashed the same aggressive reds and yellows as Gyrull had displayed earlier, but now Gyrull’s colours were muted pinks and purples, in swirling patterns that Nish interpreted as soothing or conciliatory. Acquiescence to Gilhaelith’s demands? More likely it would be feigned acquiescence until they recovered the relics, followed by an overwhelming onslaught to destroy the man who had so insulted them. And he, Nish, had been part of that sacrilege. He could expect no mercy either.

Liett glanced at him, her expression only marginally less threatening. She turned back to her mother, though this time she seemed to be presenting a different argument. She went to her knees, bowed low and spoke in a submissive way, looking up sideways at the matriarch.

Gyrull spoke so quietly that Nish didn’t catch a word, though Liett seemed vexed at her reply. She began her pleading anew but Gyrull only shook her head.

‘Ryll!’ she said.

Liett stood up abruptly. ‘Ryll?’ she repeated, as if dumbfounded.

‘Ryll.’

Liett turned away and stalked across the dirt, raising a storm of dust. She came back at once, trying to look contrite, and bowing until her head touched the ground. The matriarch said something in the lyrinx tongue. Liett called her fellows and they formed a tight circle, lifting Gyrull to her feet, supporting her and leaning over her with their foreheads touching. They began to chant.

Gyrull was beyond healing, as they must realise. He had the impression that they were combining their powers to broadcast a sending to their brethren, telling them of the theft, and Gilhaelith’s demand.

The chant built up until it became a thigh-slapping, foot-stamping roar. Finally, with a cry that went ringing across the plain, they broke apart and all flopped down, panting.

All but one. The matriarch swayed on her feet for a moment. She turned her head and her golden flecked eyes met Nish’s, but she was already dead. The air rushed from her chest with a sighing sound and she fell into the dust.

Liett enveloped her mother in her wings, held her for a minute then let her go. She stood up and signed to the group, who began to excavate a grave with their claws.

Stalking across to Nish, Liett lifted him again. ‘The call has gone out,’ she said between her teeth. ‘While we wait, I will talk and you will answer.’