Alchymist (21 page)

On
its flat top, like a pair of teardrops on a pedestal, sat two shining globes of
liquid metal, bright as quicksilver. They were shaped like drops of water,
though each was the size of a soup bowl. A faint humming sound came from them.
Ullii had taken her mask off and was staring at the globes as if entranced.

'My,
oh my,' said Flydd. 'Can you hear the song of the tears?'

'What
are they?' Nish sat near the edge, not too close, praying that Flydd was not
going to go after them.

'The
distilled tears of the node,' said Flydd.

'I
don't understand.'

'No
power is ever completely destroyed, Nish. There's always some residuum — and
it's ever more complex, warped and strange. I wonder . . . Can this be an
accident, or were they created?'

'Flydd?'

'According
to myth, or rumour, the tears are the essence of the node, purified of all base
elements by the blast that destroys it. They're believed to be made of the
purest substance in the world, and desired by mancers more than any other. But
no mancer has ever obtained so much as a speck of that matter, much less a
complete tear. They represent the value of a continent.' Flydd gazed at the
tears with greedy eyes.

'And
you want them?' said Nish. 'Are they magic?'

'Empty,'
Ullii interjected.

'Not
at the moment,' said the scrutator. 'But their substance, which has been called
nihilium, takes the print of the Art more readily than any other form of
matter, and binds it much more tightly. Oh, I want them — to make sure no one
else can have them.'

'How
are you going to get across?'

Flydd
gauged the distances. The oval trench was red hot, making it impossible to
climb down and up the other side. The stone pedestal seemed cooler, though it
still radiated such heat that they could not have gone within a couple of spans
of it, even could they have reached that far. Besides, it was well out of
reach, its top being three spans below them, and eight or nine out from where
they stood.

'Even
if we had a rope or a grappling iron we couldn't collect them,' Flydd muttered.

'And
I dare say they're heavy?'

Flydd
thought for a moment. 'If they have weight as we know it, they would be heavier
than lead; they could have the weight of gold, or even platinum. But then
again, they may weigh virtually nothing . . . Let's go up.' Flydd gave the
tears one last, lingering look, then turned to the wall.

Nish
boosted him up, then Ullii. Flydd reached down a hand to him.

'What
are you going to do?' Nish wondered as they reached the top.

'I
don't know. The time is all wrong.'

They
repaired to the shade of a grove of trees some ten minutes' walk away. Flydd
filled the overseer's pannikin from a tiny spring, kindled a smokeless fire
under it with dry twigs, carefully washed his hands then lay back with his eyes
closed.

'If
the field is dead,' said Nish, 'how come you were able to make that blast back
there, to save Ullii?' It had been preying on his mind ever since.

Flydd
looked up irritably. 'Can you be quiet? I'm trying to think.'

Nish
stared at the scrutator as if unable to make him out. Finally Flydd snapped.
'Damn and blast you, Nish! Go away.'

Nish
rose abruptly but Flydd said, 'Oh, you might as well sit down. I've lost my
train of thought anyway.' He peeled back his torn and bloody pants leg to
reveal the jagged, blistered gash in his thigh. 'I had a charged crystal
embedded in my leg a long time ago, for just such an emergency.'

'You
had it all that time?' Nish exclaimed. 'Why didn't you use it to save
yourself?'

'It
was for emergencies.' snapped Flydd.

And
being enslaved didn't count?' Nish found that incomprehensible.

'My
life wasn't in danger, apart from being bored to death by you, I wanted to
remain with the army for as long as possible, so I'd know what Jal-Nish was up
to. You do know that yoar father plans to lead an attack on the lyrinx? An
unbelievable folly that can only end one way.'.’

'I've
heard the slaves gossiping about it,' said Nish. Now I'm out of contact, and
that's bad.'

'What
about the crystal in your leg?'

'Once
used, it can't be reused.'

'Why
didn't you sew two crystals into yourself? Or twenty, for that matter?'

Flydd
sprang up, his face thunderous. 'Don't you ever think before opening your
mouth? Nothing comes without a price, Artificer, and putting powerful crystals
inside you exacts a hefty one. Discharging one —’ He shook his head.

It
was a nasty tear, the length of Nish's little finger and burned at the edges.
'That must be painful,' Nish observed.

'You
use words the way a blacksmith cuts flowers! Scrutators are trained to overcome
pain, and I've had more practice than most, but this hurts like bloody blazes.'
Tearing off the sleeve of his shirt, Flydd ripped it into strips and poked them
under the boiling water. After a minute or two he fished them out, waved them
in the air to cool them, then bound them around the injury.

'That'll
do.' Turning away from the pit, Flydd began to limp towards a hill some half a
league to the east.

'Where
are we going?' said Nish.

'We
can't recover the tears on our own. I've got to find help.'

It
took the best part of an hour to reach the hill, which was mounded like a
breast and topped with a cliffed nipple of gullied grey stone. Flydd panted his
way up, emerging on a patch of flat rock some thirty paces across, bisected by
a cleft from which a solitary tree sprouted. They sat in its meagre shade while
he got his breath back.

'You'll
have noticed that this hill is quite distinctive,' said the scrutator. 'Irisis
and Fyn-Mah were to rendezvous here with the air-floater, if they got out of
Snizort alive.'

'What
were they doing there?'

'None
of your business.'

'Did
you know you were going to be taken prisoner?'

'Ghorr
needed a scapegoat and there was nothing I could do about it without —’ He
broke off, staring back towards the node. 'But of course, if Irisis and Fyn-Mah
did escape, they would have been here days ago. Spread out. Look for a sign.'

It
took the best part of an hour to find it, an ornamental dagger partly embedded
in the ground, as if dropped from a height. Rudely scratched on the blade was:
Yes, no, 3.

'What
can that mean?' said Nish.

'It
means Fyn-Mah found what she went into Snizort to find, that she was hunted and
had to flee, and that she's gone to the third place I mentioned previously.'

'That
being?'

'None
of your business.'

Nish
sighed. In this mood, Flydd was impossible to deal with. 'Then we have to
walk,' he remarked gloomily. Despite its dangers, air-floating was the most
pleasant of all means of travelling. 'Is it far away?'

The
reply was pure Flydd. 'Further than the people hunting us.'

They
were climbing down the cleft when something winked in the sun to the south.
'That's an air-floater!' hissed Nish. 'Could it be Irisis coming back for us?'

Flydd
squinted at the object, which was moving low to the ground along a line of
trees that marked the course of a creek. 'She wouldn't dare, in daylight.' The
machine began to zigzag back and forth as if following something. 'What can
they be doing?'

'Dogs!'
whispered Ullii. She'd been so quiet since leaving the node crater that Nish
had practically forgotten she was there.

'They've
found our tracks,' said Flydd.

Nish
hefted a knobbly stick. 'We'd better get ready to fight.’

'Stay
down! We can't fight that many people.' A leathery tree grew horizontally out
of the cleft before bending to, the vertical. Flydd pulled himself up into the
curve and peered around the trunk. Nish crouched between two rocks splotched
with bright yellow lichen.

The
air-floater lifted and ran directly towards the node crater. Flydd groaned, the
tortured sound two trees make when rubbed together in a storm. 'Let's pray no
one recognises what's down there.'

The machine
settled. Nine figures went into the pit: seven people and two dogs. The pilot
and one other person could be seen moving about on the air-floater. Nish
twisted his fingers, together. After some minutes it lifted, moved over the
depression, bucking in the updraught, and drifted down.

'That's
a dangerous manoeuvre,' said Flydd. 'If the walls of the gasbag touch something
hot, they're dead.'

Time
passed. They could see nothing but the top of the airbag. 'What are they
doing?' said Nish.

'A
really good pilot could bring it down right over the pedestal. Someone could
simply pick up the tears.'

'They're
taking a long time,' Nish said later.

'Be
quiet!'

The
air-floater crept out of the crater and hovered in the updraught, its bow
pointing at their hiding place. 'Whoever it is,' said Flydd in a curiously flat
voice, 'they have the tears.'

The
air-floater lurched, turned away and began to drift, low to the ground, towards
the army camp in the distance.

'We'd
better make sure/ Flydd said.

They
scrambled down the gully. 'I dare say the tears are more important than we
are,' said Nish hopefully.

'They
are, but the scrutators won't give us up, Nish.'

They
could see the smoke well before they reached the hole. It was yellow-brown with
threads of black, and smelled like burning hair and meat.

'I
can't see anything.' Flydd was peering over the edge. 'I'll have to climb
down.'

'Do
you mind if I stay here?' said Nish. The stench was making him sick.

'Good
idea. Keep watch. You too, Ullii. Ullii?'

She
was hanging back, holding her noseplugs in. 'This is a terrible place,' she
whispered.

'You
don't have to come near.' Flydd eased his injured leg over the side.

Nish
watched him go down. A surge of greasy brown fumes obscured Flydd as he reached
the fourth oval. He bent double, coughing. Nish moved away from the edge. When
he returned, after the smoke had thinned, Flydd was not to be seen.

'Is
he all right?' he said to Ullii.

She
gagged and doubled over, unable to speak. Nish circumnavigated the depression,
seeking a better vantage point, but did not find one. After five or ten
minutes, Flydd began to labour up again.

Nish
helped him out onto the ground. The skin below Flydd's eyes had gone the purple
of a day-old bruise and it took him quite a while to focus.

'Are
the tears gone?' said Nish.

'Yes.'

'Who
could it have been?'

'Ghorr
is my guess, though it could have been any of the scrutators. Can you tell,
Ullii?'

'No,'
she whispered. 'Can't tell anything. Can't see anything.' In times of stress
she sometimes lost her lattice.

'But
whoever did take it,' said Flydd, 'they've made sure no one will ever know.'

'What
do you mean?' said Nish.

'The
trench at the bottom is clotted with bodies. Six soldiers and the air-floater's
chart-maker. And the dogs. In an hour, the witnesses will be ash.'

All
but us,' said Nish. 'And the pilot.'

'He
needs her to get back to camp, but as soon as the air-floater lands, she's
dead. He'll call it a seizure.'

And
the soldiers?'

'He'll
say I ambushed them and blasted the soldiers into nothingness with another
crystal. No one will be able to prove otherwise.'

'If
he knew we were watching, our lives could be measured in minutes, said Nish.

"He
knows we've been there,' said Flydd. 'The air-floater tracked us to the node.
Once the tears are safely hidden, he'll come after us.'

'Then
we'd better get moving. Which way, surr?'

'North.'

They
set off, keeping to the lowest ground. Ullii whimpered and moved close to Nish
for comfort, though he was too preoccupied to notice. After some minutes she
flounced away and took Flydd's hand. Flydd put his arm around her as he walked.
She was red in the face and struggling to keep up, which Nish found surprising.
When he'd last been with Ullii, she'd climbed the slopes of Tirthrax more
easily than he had.

'Was
this an accident?' Flydd mused as they rested among a pile of boulders a couple
of hours later, 'Or was it planned from the beginning?'

'What
do you mean?' said Nish.

'What
if the device Ghorr gave me was designed to be faulty, so as to destroy the
node and create the tears?'

'How
could that be, surr? You told me it was tested, independently.'