Alchymist (11 page)

'Ah,
no,' he wailed, and flopped down in the mud again.

Flydd
hauled him out, wiping his face with a callused hand. Nish, expecting to be
smacked in the mouth again, pulled away.

'What
is it?' said Flydd, watching the overseer over Nish's shoulder.

'I
once had everything, and now I've lost it all. No, that's not true. I didn't
lose it, I threw it away. I'm useless. And then, just then . . , my mouth was
watering from the smell of cooked meat, and it was human meat.'

Flydd
stared at him for a long time. 'Mine too. It's entirely natural. It doesn't
make you any worse in my eyes.'

'You're
a slave, surr. What you think doesn't matter.’

Flydd
clenched his fist, but unclenched it. He sighed and, though plagued by his own
self-doubt, put it aside. 'You've done plenty that's right, Nish. You got the
best out of the seeker, little Ullii, where no one else could. You thought of
the idea of air-floaters, without which the war might already be lost. You
sailed a balloon all the way to Tirthrax, and found Tiaan there. You might have
brought her and the crystal back, had you not faced people with far greater
power than yourself. You killed the nylatl single-handed, and that was a feat
worthy of half a page in the Histories. You saved the lives of thousands in the
refugee camp. Had you not given warning in time, every person there might have
fed the enemy.'

'How
did you know about that?' said Nish.

'If a
leaf falls in the forest when it should not, the scrutators hear about it.'

Nish
must assume that the scrutator also knew about his disastrous attempt at
diplomacy, and the unfortunate liaison, if it could be called that, with Yara's
sister Mira.

'I
have other failings,' Nish said, determined to scathe himself to the bone.

'Who
does not? I have so many weaknesses that it makes me shudder to think about
them. It doesn't stop me from trying, though. Don't take on the slave's
mentality, Nish. Once you do, you might as well be dead.'

Nish
glanced over his shoulder The overseer was not in sight, but a slave was
squelching down the line with pannikins of water. Behind him, another bore a
platter on which chunks of black bread looked as though they had been hacked up
with an axe, and a filthy axe at that. 'There's one thing you haven't heard,'
he said quietly.

'Oh?1
said Flydd.

'After
my latest failing, which put Tiaan into the hands of Vithis, I came before the
Council of Scrutators. The head of the Council . . .'

'Chief
Scrutator Ghorr,' Flydd prompted. He stared into space, lost in his own world,
and Nish had to nudge him when the trusties held out the bread and water.

'Yes,
Ghorr,' Nish said after they had gone. 'He demanded that my father prove his
suitability to be a scrutator, by sentencing me. And Jal-Nish did.' Nish
repeated the sentence, word by awful word. It was engraved in his mind, and
would be until the day he died. 'My own father/ he said brokenly. 'He — he
condemned me without a second's hesitation.' Nish related the whole terrible
episode. 'I just can't comprehend it, surr.’

Flydd
was staring at him, not breathing. 'And how did Ghorr react?'

'He
seemed delighted.'

Flydd
went so still that Nish wondered if he was alive. The lump of coarse bread was
held out in one hand, the gourd of water in the other. His scarred and knotted
jaw looked as if it had been cast from bronze. Finally he gave a great shudder,
turned to Nish and handed him the bread.

'Take
this. I cannot eat.'

'But.
. .' said Nish, 'yesterday you told me I must eat to survive.'

Flydd
looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. 'What you've just told me
makes my flesh crawl. There have always been people who would do anything, even
sell their kin, to satisfy their lusts. I've met more than enough in my time.
But for the chief of scrutators to encourage such a deed, to demand it as proof
of worth to become a scrutator, shows that the Council is corrupt to the core.'

'I
always thought the Council would do anything —’ Nish began, but quickly
censored himself.

'We
did what was required for humanity to survive. I've done many things I'm not
proud of, though, as scrutator, I would do them again. But this . . . How can
the Council not see?'

'See
what?' said Nish, gnawing at the hard bread, which had been milled so coarsely
that many of the grains were whole. He spat out a particularly large grain,
which turned out to be a pebble.

'That
this deed, alone, makes Jal-Nish unworthy to be scrutator, and Ghorr to be
chief. A man who puts ambition before anything else can never be trusted to act
for the common good. And a man who demands such an act lacks the judgment to be
a lowly prober, much less a scrutator. Ghorr must be brought down, and the
Council with him.'

With
a loud crack, the neck of the gourd shattered under the force of Flydd's grip,
showering him with water. He put the ragged end to his mouth and drained it,
then tossed the gourd into the mud.

With
a rueful smile he spoke, quietly so the next pair of slaves would not hear:
'Well may you laugh, to hear a slave plot the downfall of the scrutators. But I
swear to you that I will do it, whatever it takes. This monstrosity, this
abomination of the Council, must be wiped from the earth.'

'Including
my father?' Despite everything, Nish could not even think of revenge. All he
felt was an empty bewilderment, that his father could have done such a thing to
him.

'Especially
Jal-Nish.'

In
the panic after the node exploded, and the disabled air-fioater crash-landed in
the middle of the battlefield, everyone fled for their lives. No one noticed
that little Ullii was not with them.

Ullii
was so furious with Flydd and Irisis that she stayed behind. The scrutator had
gained her cooperation by telling her that he'd found her long-lost twin
brother, Mylii, but it had all been a lie. Flydd had no idea where Mylii was.

When
the reverberations from the node had faded enough for her to open her lattice,
the mental matrix by which she organised her unique view of the world, there
were lyrinx everywhere. Huge lyrinx with bloodstained claws and shreds of flesh
and skin between their teeth. Ullii stifled a gasp, jumpad over the side and ran
after Flydd. Better him than the clawers, as she thought of them, but the
bright sun burst up, right into her eyes. Covering her face, she lurched back
to the air-floater, but couldn't find her mask or goggles. In daylight she was
helpless without one or the other. Ullii was groping under the tilted deck for
them when she realised that she was completely alone.

'Wait!'
she wailed, but her high, despairing cry did not carry. Despite Flydd lying to
her, despite Irisis letting her down as well, in this nightmare of blood and
violence Ullii could not do without them. 'Wait!' she shouted in her high
little voice.

It
was impossible to hear anything above the battle cries of the lyrinx, the sound
of weapons on armour, the hiss of spears and catapult balls, the screams of men
and beasts in agony.

Her
ears hurt; even after plugging them with lumps of wet clay she could still hear
the racket.

Her
burning eyes were streaming with tears and she could not leave the air-floater.
Ullii searched for Irisis and Xervish Flydd. Since they both had a talent for
the Secret Art, they should have appeared in the lattice. But Irisis and Flydd
were far across the battlefield, and in the chaos Ullii could not pick them
out. Thousands of lyrinx showed, and devices powered by the Secret Art. Only
those capable of storing power were working now. Anything that relied on the
field was dead.

Ullii
felt abandoned — it had been happening all her life. What was she to do? She
couldn't survive by herself. And what about the little intruder growing inside
her? She felt protective towards the baby because she and Nish had made it
together, but sometimes she hated it. One day it would abandon her, too.

The
battlefield became so terrifying that Ullii had to shut down her lattice. She
could not stand violence of any kind. The war was a nightmare brought to life
and she did not know how to cope. Ullii did the only thing left to her. She
crept into the smallest, darkest space she could find, a corner of the
air-floater's tiny galley, curled up into a ball and closed down her senses one
by one. The world vanished.

All
day the battle raged around her. Several times the wrecked air-floater was
struck by running lyrinx, hard enough to shake the flimsy structure. Once a
minor battle raged inside as four soldiers pursued a wounded lyrinx and
dispatched it. Men and lyrinx died to her left, then in the rear. Ullii was
oblivious. Thirst roused her in the cool of the evening. Uncoiling gracefully,
she opened her crusted eyes. The galley was a mess. When the air-floater had
flipped upside down, pans, pots, food and wine-had been scattered everywhere.
Ullii found a battered pot, tapped water from a barrel and gulped it down,
though it had an unpleasant metallic taste. She found dried fruit, stale bread
and a piece of mild cheese that had gone hard and cracked in the heat of the
day. It suited her perfectly, for Ullii could not bear any kind of herb or
spice, or other strong flavours, which were to her overpoweringly intense.

Sitting
on the floor, she gnawed at the cheese while she used the lattice to sense what
was going on around her. The fighting had paused; the battlefield was quiet
apart from the piteous groans of the dying and the cackle of fires here and
there. The smell of blood, excrement and raw flesh made her stomach heave.

Other
fires lit up the human camps, as well as those of the Aachim, but not the
lyrinx. They did not need camp fires. And in the distance Ullii could see, and
feel, and sense with every one of her senses, the baleful incandescence of the
exploded node. It was still molten, concealed by impenetrable fumes, and
spurting and dribbling white-hot rock like a miniature volcano. The fields that
had once been such a vital part of it had gone, though Ullii still sensed
something there.

Once
more she sought for Irisis and Xervish Flydd, but did not find them. There were
too many people with uncanny talents, and too many devices employing the Secret
Art. Her lattice glowed with them, like knotted stars in the heavens. Ullii did
not look for Nish, though she longed for him. Having no Art, he did not appear
in her lattice at all.

But
one point stood out like a nova in the night sky, and she recognised it at
once. It was the glowing knot of the amplimet, twinned to a smaller knot that
signified Tiaan. After months of searching for them, Ullii knew those marks the
instant they appeared.

They
were not far away, though she could not tell where. The lattice was twisted up
on itself, blasted out of shape by the sub-ethyric explosion from the node.
Everything was warped and confused.

Ullii
did not feel safe in the air-floater but she had nowhere else to go. She had
never felt so abandoned. Nish, she cried silently. Where are you? Ullii had
last seen him as a prisoner of the Aachim, and he'd not seemed as pleased to see
her as she'd been to find him. She suppressed that worry. Could he be at the
camp surrounded by those shining metal constructs? Ullii dared not go to see;
the Aachim leader was a harsh man, like the people who had tormented her in
childhood.

She
ate some more bread, then slept, the baby kicking in her belly like the
feathery brush of a fish's tail. The night passed. The fighting stopped briefly
before continuing, as brutal and bloody as ever. In the morning her sleep was
interrupted by flashes brighter than the sun. One passed right across the
air-floater, showing even,' rib, strut and wire of the collapsed gasbag, and
her black glass goggles jammed under a bench.

Scrambling
for them, Ullii stared up at the sky. The fleet of air-floaters was impossible
to miss. Their crystals appeared faintly in her lattice, a perfect formation of
three by four. Something else showed, too. The presence was also faint,
denoting only a minor talent for the Secret Art, but it had a signature she
would have known anywhere — a festering corruption of mind and body that made
her belly cramp and her skin crawl. Ullii had not felt it since their escape
from the mine at the manufactory, months ago. It was the man she feared most — Jal-Nish
Hlar.

She
tried to close down her senses again, but this time they would not obey her,
for fear of what might happen when she was helpless. Scuttling into the galley,
she closed the door and piled bags and barrels against it. Without a window, it
was stiflingly hot — too hot for comfort — and though it was dim inside, for
once that did not help.

She
closed her eyes, but again that beam passed over the air-floater, and light
streamed in through a tiny crack in the wall, so bright that she felt it. Ullii
was not safe anywhere. As she put her hands over the goggles, the earth began
to shake as if thousands of heavy feet were pounding it. The clawers were on
the move. If they came this way, one of them would eat her in a few
bone-snapping, brain-spurting gulps.