Alchymist (60 page)

She
kept going at a steady pace towards the shore. Scanning the rock masses for the
safest passage to the water, she saw nothing odd about the curved black rocks
to her left, nor those on her right. She saw nothing amiss until a net rose up
from the sand and the construct drove straight into it.

It
gave before her then began to pull taut. The webs of another net whipped
against the back and over the top, enclosing the construct. Tiaan panicked, but
instinct moved the controls. The construct lurched forwards but the ropes
snapped tight, slowing her machine until it was barely moving. Now it was not
moving at all. Now they began to pull it backwards.

Tiaan
shot a glance over her shoulder. The huge nets were attached to three constructs
on her left, two on her right. She could draw more power than they could, but
not five times as much. Poured directly into this machine, it would either
destroy it, or her. She took as much as she dared. Her backwards progress
halted. She inched forward a few spans, stalled, and was dragged back. Now the
net began to tighten as they reeled it in from the ends. As soon as she was
immobilised, they would swarm all over her.

What
if she turned and went for the join of the net? Unfortunately, its two leaves
overlapped above her. Whichever way she went, it would hold her. And it was too
strong to break; thus far she had not torn a single strand.

There
was one last hope, though she had only seconds to do it. With the helm, and the
skills the Aachim had taught her, she could draw power more precisely than ever
before. If she could locate the spot from which the other machines were drawing
power, she might be able to snatch that power from under their noses. It would
only stop them for a few seconds, but it might just be enough. The problem was,
how to tell which machine was drawing power from which part of the field.

Maybe
it didn't matter. She could distinguish these five from the many distant
constructs. Tiaan identified all the sources and locked onto the first, the
second, then each of the others She did not draw power yet, but allowed the
Aachim to pull her backwards. Let them think she was weakening. This must be
hurting them, too.

Tiaan
sensed an irregularity in one of the power draws. The field there was fluttering.
She pounced, taking all the power she could. The tension on the right-hand side
of the rope eased and her construct jerked forward. Sensing another flutter,
she drew power from there as well. Another jerk, and there came a rending noise
behind her and the net gave. It was now tangled around one of the three
constructs. Back to her right it was still fixed, though one construct had lost
power and was being dragged sideways. The other could not hold her by itself.
Tiaan was now approaching the water. A long way to her right, hordes of
machines were racing along the water's edge, flinging clouds of sand and mist
into the air. She took power jerkily, trying to break free of the other two
constructs. One rolled onto its side, jammed against a rock ledge and the ropes
broke. The other was still attached and, no matter how she tried, Tiaan could
not get rid of it. If she didn't, they would have her. She could now see
hundreds of constructs. They were coming from her left as well, through the
scrub near the black headland.

Her
only chance was straight ahead. Tiaan gave it everything she had. Her construct
leapt across the sand and onto the water, dragging the other machine. It struck
a boulder in the surf, was hurled high and came crashing down, nose first, to
plunge beneath the water. The sea hissed like a kettle, boiled over and, as the
cold water came in contact with the hot innards of the construct, it exploded
in all directions. Pieces of flaming construct hurtled skywards and, to her
horror, several bodies. The net came away. Her construct soared like a skipping
stone, came down hard and bounced, spinning sideways. Tiaan hung on grimly as
the whirling force tried to throw her out. The machine hit the water on its
base and skipped again.

Constructs
were converging on her from all directions. Hundreds more — how had she not
seen them? — had formed into a curving barrier further across the sea. There
was just one small gap, to the south. She darted through and raced south down
the Sea of Thurkad.

She
was not going to make it across, for the seaward constructs were tracking her
all the way. She could not get through them to the dubious security of
Meldorin. Even if she did, its shore here was edged with impassable cliffs.

That
first impact with the water must have damaged something, for Tiaan's construct
now had no more speed than her pursuers. She curved back towards the Lauralin
shore. Ahead, the Karama Malama, hung with banners of mist, was an endless
expanse of slate grey. Just a narrow, scrubby peninsula now separated her from
it.

She
rounded the tip, looking east and west. More constructs were coming along the
south-facing shore and down out of the scrub. There were thousands of them. She
could only go one way. She turned due south, out into the centre of the Sea of
Mists. Let them follow her there, if they dared.

The
Aachim did follow, a great host of them, for an hour and more. At the end of
that time they began to fall back, one by one, as the separation from the node
became too great to sustain their motion. Soon there were only two left, then
one Finally the last construct turned back. She was alone with her bleeding
conscience on the empty sea.

Tiaan
looked for another node, not knowing if there was one. Some seas were barren of
them. If she could not find a node, any sudden failure of the fading field
would sink her. Tiaan was no longer sure that she cared, but she did find
another. It was nearly as distant as the first, with barely enough power in it
to move the construct. She took some from each and continued.

A
week or more after his arrival in Oellyll, when Gilhaelith was trudging the
tunnels in a vain attempt to regain his strength, he heard a number of lyrinx
engaged in furious argument up ahead. He eased forward and peered around the
corner. He was looking into an excavated chamber shaped like a cloverleaf, its
roof supported by columns of fused stone. Two lyrinx stood at the far side, in
one of the lobes of the room, before a crowd of twenty or more.

'This
is our future on Santhenar,' urged one of the two out the front, 'and we must
take it.' She was small with transparent unarmoured skin and magnificent wings
that quivered as she spoke, casting rainbow reflections around the room. 'Now
that we know, we cannot stay like this,' she said passionately.

Know
what? Gilhaelith thought, sliding across the tunnel into a shadowed aperture
where he could see but not be seen.

'Neither
can we re-order the grains of time, Liett,' said the other, a muscular female,
twice the size of the first. Her skin armour was scarred and battered as if
from a lifetime of fighting though she was not old. 'No amount of flesh-forming
can change what we are.'

'You
fool — of course we can change! We must.' 'How dare you speak that way to me!
You can't even take your place in battle — you have no armour.' 'I don't need
armour,' Liett said furiously, 'and I'm just as good as you are. My work has
saved many lives, and taken many of the enemy's.'

'You
can't even skin-speak.' The big female's armour flickered a display of
brilliant reds and yellows — a sneer at Liett's lack. You should have been
drowned at birth.'

'How
dare you!' Liett shook her wings at the other. 'Your kind came from the
monstrosities we had to flesh-form in the womb, to survive in the pitiless
void.'

'I am
true lyrinx,' said the muscular female, 'and this is my nature.'

'You're
has-beens. You're wrong for this world and must submit to amendment!

Amendment?
Gilhaelith peered around the corner. Were they planning to flesh-form
themselves anew, to better suit Santhenar?

The
other lyrinx rose onto her toe claws, towering over Liett and extending finger
claws.as long and sharp as daggers. 'You speak blasphemy! Take it back or
suffer the consequences.'

Liett
lowered her wings, though not in submission. 'I'm sorry, Inyll. I put it badly.
Let me explain. I once thought as you do, but Matriarch has opened my eyes.
We've become creatures designed for just one thing — perpetual war! We're
prisoners in our own armour.'

Inyll
tore the soft shale underfoot with her toe claws. 'War is our existence.'

'But
don't you yearn for peace, and the chance to live our lives without fear?'

'What
do I want with-peace? I am a warrior from a line of warriors. The line of
battle is my life.' 'But surely for your children -?'

'My
children yearn to do their duty, not change their nature to suit some selfish
whim.' Inyll used the word as if it was obscene, which it was. To the lyrinx,
placing oneself ahead of the group was the greatest evil of all.

'Ah,'
said Liett, 'but we must change for the best of all reasons — to ensure our
survival.'

'We're
winning the war as we are. There's no need to change.'

'In
so winning, we could be sowing the seeds of our ruin. I've been among humans,
Inyll,' said Liett softly, carefully, and I used to hate and despise them too.
I wanted to kill them all. But now I envy them, for the meanest of humans has
something that we lost so long ago we cannot even remember it. Where is our
culture? Where are our arts and sciences? We have none. In the void we rid
ourselves of everything not essential to survival. In doing so, we cast away all
that made us unique. We became machines.'

Liett
raised her voice, threw out her arms and addressed the group. 'Listen to me, my
people. Unless you want to go back to the void, our future lies on this world.
We must transform ourselves so that we can embrace it. Creatures like me, which
you see as deformed, half-born, are the future of the lyrinx. Yet even we must
renew —’

'I'll
hear no more of this . . , this sedition'.' Inyll cracked her wings and threw
herself at Liett who, lacking armour, was at a severe disadvantage. She was
brave, though. She bared her claws and stood up to her opponent, ducking one
blow that could have taken her head off and just managing to sidestep another.

'Enough!'
roared Gyrull, who had been standing behind a pillar out of sight of
Gilhaelith. 'Inyll?'

The
larger female drew back, bowing with ill grace. Liett, my daughter' said Gyrull
sternly, Liett bowed to her mother, and to Inyll, flashing dark looks from beneath
her heavy brows. Possessed of an aggressive nature and a powerful sense of her
own rightness, she found difficult to defer to anyone.

'I
have fostered this debate,' said Gyrull to the group, 'for it is clear to me,
as matriarch, that we must change. In the void we gave up our culture, our
humanity and, yea, our very identity, in our desperation to survive. It was
necessary, but we have come to lament it. Think about what has been said here
today. We'll meet again tomorrow.'

'To
change now would be to warp our very souls,' said Inyll. I can't do it and I
won't.' She stalked out, head held high, crying over her shoulder, 'Don't try
to convince me, for I will never relent.'

The
remainder of the lyrinx followed, arguing among themselves, leaving just Liett
and her mother in the cloverleaf chamber.

Liett
started after them but the matriarch laid a hand on her shoulder. 'Leave it for
a while, my child.'

'But
I'm right!' said Liett in a passion. 'Why won't they listen?'

'Their
attitudes have been frozen by thousands of years of adversity, and all that
time your kind has never been good enough. Until now, reverts, half-borns such
as you and Ryll, have been a blight on our line.'

'But
they're just designed for battle,' said Liett. 'It leaves nothing for any other
kind of life. We're handicapped, Mother. We may win the war — it looks as
though we will — only to find that humanity has transformed its whole society
again, and come up with a weapon we can find no defence against. Humans are
infinitely flexible, so we must be the same.'

'Or
else,' the matriarch said provocatively, 'we must wipe every living human from
the face of the world.'

'I
used to think that way,' said Liett, 'but after working with their females in
the patterners in Snizort, I came to see them as people, not just food animals.
We must embrace the future before the war is over, Mother, and we reverts are
the best equipped to do it.'

'You
may be right, though it will take much to convince Inyll and her many
followers.'

'Why
don't you talk to them? They would follow you anywhere.'

'My
time is coming to an end and I can't lead them where I cannot go myself. A new
young leader is required for a bold new direction.'

'You
could order them to obey.'

'Liett,
Liett,' said Gyrull. 'You have much to learn, and many to sway, if you're to be
chosen matriarch after me.'

'But
I've worked so hard, at every task you've given me. I've done well —’

'At
most. I recall a number of reprimands.'

Liett
bit her lip.