Alchymist (28 page)

'They
go to establish the truth of what you've told us,' she said. 'We'll rest for an
hour, then take you to Oellyll.'

'What's
Oellyll?' said Gilhaelith.

'A
city of ours, the best part of a day's flight from here.'

He
felt the familiar panicky tightness in his chest, the difficulty of getting
enough air. Once she had him there, it was unlikely she would ever let him go.
And, held like a pet in a cage, subject to Gyrull's whims, he must eventually
go mad.

After
flying through dense cloud that night and all the next day, they arrived at
Oellyll on a dark and rainy evening. Gilhaelith had no idea where in Meldorin
they were. He was carried blind-folded through caverns lined with cut slabs of
carven stone, into a deeper underground that the lyrinx had excavated out of
rock. It was warm here, which was pleasant, for he was still saturated with an
inner chill.

He
learned nothing about Oellyll that night, save that it was ventilated by great
bellows up on the surface. Several times he passed through their blasts of air,
so strong that they almost tore him from the lyrinx's grasp. He was left in a
warm room on a low platform which passed for a bed. It had an open doorway.
They had no fear of him escaping for he could not stand up.

He
lay on the platform, closed his eyes and did not wake for twenty-four hours,
not even while their healers attended his injuries.

Two
more days Gilhaelith spent in his room, lying on the platform without strength
to raise his head. He had been badly hurt by immersion in the tat His liver
troubled him, his head still throbbed, his heart would race for no particular
reason and he felt incredibly weak. Walking the few hundred steps to the privy
was beyond him. And the movement of those gallstone fragments along his
internal ducts proved more excruciating than his most dismal imaginings.

Making
matters worse, the food they gave him was a murky sludge the colour of rotting
leaves. Reaching over the side of the platform, Gilhaelith dipped a finger in
the bowl. The stuff turned out to be vegetable in origin, but quite bland. He
pushed it away. The only vegetables he cared for were strongly flavoured ones,
such as onions, turnips and radishes. He'd lived on a diet of slugs, pickled
organs and other delicacies most of his adult life, and his palate craved
exotic and the intense tastes. But if this pulverised goop was all he was going
to get, he'd better eat it. He extended bony fingers, scooped up a gob of the
green-brown muck, and swallowed. The repulsive blandness reminded him of his
miserable childhood and the repressed memories exploded.

An
orphan who had been dragged screaming out of his mother's lifeless body, he'd
been carried to a far-off land by his loyal nurse, travelling by night and
hiding by day. Gilhaelith had never learned why, or who he was, and had long
since decided that he did not want to know. It could only cause him more
trouble.

He'd
never fitted in. Gilhaelith shivered as the distant memories ebbed and flowed.
He'd been plagued by illness and stomach upsets as an infant. As a child,
learning had been difficult, and if not for the patience of his nurse he'd
still be illiterate. Once he'd mastered reading, though, and especially
numbers, the whole world had opened up to him.

Then
came the greatest tragedy of his life. His nurse fell ill and died, and
Gilhaelith ended up in an orphans' home, fed on tasteless gruel and little
enough of it. He thrust the bowl away so roughly that mush slopped all over the
floor. In the home his stomach had begun to trouble him again and it wasn't
until he began to feed on slugs, grubs, fish organs and other exotica that it
had settled down.

Gilhaelith
had been out of harmony with the world and had to fight it every step of the
way, though the world showed him only brutality or indifference. Always an
outsider, his feeding habits made him an object of derision and disgust. He was
ostracised and bullied, and the only way he could cope was with absolute
self-control. Forced to master his feelings and emotions, he had gradually
extended that control to everyone around him, and then to everything.

Once
grown to manhood, that iron control had helped him to accumulate great wealth,
which allowed him to retreat to a place he could control completely. He'd built
Nyriandiol so as to be master of his own environment, though he'd discovered
that, without perfect understanding of the world, he could never have complete
control. Gilhaelith, a man determined to overcome all obstacles, had set out to
do just that. And first he had to discover why the world was the way it was.
His life's work was born.

He'd
become a geomancer and, after a century and more of study, the greatest
geomancer of all, but his goal seemed as far off as ever. He still felt
threatened — some unpredictable event might still overturn his carefully
constructed existence. Then it had: Tiaan had appeared, and her amplimet had
opened up all sorts of previously inconceivable possibilities.

But
Tiaan had upset his control mechanisms. At first, because of his attraction to
her, he'd found that exhilarating. Soon, however, his carefully structured life
had fallen into chaos, which he'd found increasingly difficult to handle.
Vithis had come, and Klarm. His servants had begun to plot behind his back. Then
Gyrull had abducted him and Gilhaelith's hard-won control began to falter. He'd
felt like an orphan again. In Snizort he'd allowed his relationship with Tiaan
to founder. Gilhaelith regretted it, both for the loss of her friendship, and
the loss of an apprentice worthy of him, but at the time there'd been little
choice.

Since
being trapped in the tar his life had careered out of control. His health grew
worse each day, he felt ever more stressed and panicky and there were signs of
breakdown that he could not admit to himself. He'd never thought he could be so
vulnerable. The panic exploded, choking him.

In an
effort to calm himself, he began to recite a list of minerals and their
properties. He'd previously found rote exercise to be soothing in times of stress.
He'd listed all the properties of quartz and fluorspar and was about to begin
on calcite when his mind went completely and unaccountably blank.

Calcite,
he thought. Rhombohedral crystals, sometimes prismatic or .., or ... Nothing!
He could not recall any of the dozens of properties on the list, not even the
variety of its colours, only that calcite was mostly white.

He
picked another mineral at random, barite. Nothing. Dolomite. Nothing. Sulphur.
Nothing. Then, with a horror that could not be described, the entire catalogue
of minerals faded from his mind. He'd known the list by heart for a hundred and
thirty years, and in that time had never forgotten the smallest detail.

It's
just exhaustion, he told himself. You're pushing too hard. Give yourself a
chance to recover. He put the failure out of mind, or at least tried to, but
the appalling thought kept returning. He hadn't been pushing at all — the
recitation had been meant to be a comfort. And from there, only one conclusion
was possible. During the escape from Snizort he must have damaged a part of his
brain.

Gilhaelith
did not try again; he was too afraid. In his long, long life there had been few
problems he'd not been able to solve by intellect, geomancy or sheer will. He'd
even found a solution to the vexation of human relations — he controlled
everyone who came into his life. Those who could not be controlled he simply
pushed away. Until Tiaan appeared, emotion had played no part in his existence,
or so he liked to think. He was a man governed by pure reason, and if his
intellect deserted him, what would he have left?

After
a few more days' rest he was mobile again. Gilhaelith was tracing out the
familiar journey to the privy for the third time in a few hours, hobbling like
an old man, when a lyrinx fell in beside him.

'Would
you come this way, please?' she said politely. 'The matriarch wishes to speak
with you.'

Her
tone gave no indication as to whether Gyrull was pleased or otherwise. He
shuffled after her, unable to raise much interest either way. His illness
preoccupied him all his waking hours. He had begun to wonder if he would ever
recover.

Gyrull
was standing at a stone table, an oval slab that rose from the floor on a
tapered stalk carved out of the native shale. She was studying a collection of
papers but put them aside as he entered.

'My
people have come back from Snizort,' she said. 'You were right. There was a
residue left behind by the failure of the node.'

'Did
they recover it?'

'Unfortunately
someone found it first.'

'Who
was it?' said Gilhaelith. 'One of the scrutators?'

'It
would appear so.'

His
idea about the residue at the node-drainer had been an inspired guess. Now that
it had been confirmed, Gilhaelith was furiously thinking through the
implications. Could the residue have had anything to do with Tiaan's amplimet,
its communication with the node and those strange threads it had drawn
throughout Snizort? Or had so much power been taken from the node that it had
been unable to sustain itself and had collapsed into nothingness — nihilium?
Much depended on the answer. And how might it impinge on his life's work, to
understand the workings of the world, and control them?

'This
residue may give humanity additional confidence,' Gyrull added. 'But then,
knowing they have it will benefit us, in a way . . .'

'How
so?' said Gilhaelith.

'Despite
their near-defeat at Snizort, the human army is pursuing our Land forces
towards the sea. We'll prepare a trap and wipe then out. What do you think of
that, Tetrarch?'

'I
would be sorry to meat an army' he said, 'whether human or lyrinx.’

'I
regret the necessity, but we did not start this war, despite the propaganda of
the scrutators. In the early days they rejected every peaceful overture we
made. They regard us as abominations, even denying our right to exist. Now that
we have the upper hand, and may soon win the war, I won't let the fate of their
soldiers stand in the way.'

Gilhaelith
was still thinking about the residue. 'SoJ was right about the node.'

'And
I keep my bargains. I'll take you wherever you wish, within reason. I can't
carry you far into Lauralin, nor to any place that would endanger my own life.
Where do you wish to go?'

'I'm
not sure,' he said. 'Because of. . .'

'Your
betrayal of the scrutators,' she said helpfully. 'And the Aachim.'

He
felt a momentary embarrassment. 'Quite. There are few places in Lauralin where
I can live in safety now, unless I dwell in a cave as a hermit. I can't do that
— my work is everything to me.' It had been and still was, though the earlier
failure had shaken his confidence . ..

Gilhaelith
realised that the matriarch was staring at him. 'I must have my geomantic
instruments and be near a node,' he went on, 'preferably a powerful one. I'd
prepared a refuge in the far south, but my health isn't good enough to go that
far, without servants and loyal guards. Because of my, er, situation, suitable
ones may be impossible to find. But. . .'

'Yes?'
she said.

'Were
you to give me a safe conduct, and a small number of your human prisoners to
provide for my necessities, there's a place in Meldorin which would serve
equally well. It's filled with ancient resonances and I could continue my work
there.'

'You
want me to provide you with servants?' she exclaimed.

'Now
you're asking for more than the bargain. Should I agree, what can you offer in
return?'

'My
aid with problems you may encounter, of a geomantic nature,' said Gilhaelith.

'What
makes you think I'm likely to encounter any?'

'I
believe you will, as the war progresses. I imagine you may want to further
develop your node-drainers, for example.'

'How
can I trust a man who has betrayed his own kind in favour of an alien race?'
Gyrull said reasonably.

'I'm
descended from several human species, not just old humankind, so I don't
consider I've betrayed anyone. Besides, you lyrinx are not as alien as you
appear. And has not my word always been good?'

'Not
always,' she said, 'since you make such a point of it. But it's enough, for the
moment. You can't cause too much trouble in Meldorin, I think. Tell me — what
is this place you want to go to, filled with ancient resonances?'

'It
was called Alcifer, long ago.'

'Alcifer!'
Slivers of yellow shone out on her flanks. 'Is that the limit of your needs, or
do you demand yet more?'

Her
reaction bothered him. 'It can't be more than a few days' flight from here. It
was the great city built by Rulke the Charon —’

'Oh,
I know all about Alcifer.' Gyrull began to laugh. Lyrinx rarely displayed
amusement, but this became a great, sidesplitting guffaw that showed all her
hundreds of teeth and made her sides heave like the bellows upstairs.
'Alcifer!'

'Is
there some problem?' he said, anxious now. 'You did agree to do this for me . .
.'