Alchymist (74 page)

'The
matriarch of Snizort went to great lengths to abduct Gilhaelith. Surely, when
she fled the tar pits, she took him with her.'

'And
yet they left me behind.'

'That
could have been confusion when Snizort was attacked.'

'Or
because the torgnadrs they patterned on me turned out to be useless!'

Tiaan
did not know what to expect of Stassor, except that it would be striking,
beautiful and different, for each of the Aachim cities was unique. Tirthrax, carved
out of the mountain's heart, bore no resemblance to the towers, pavilions and
kidney-shaped dwellings she had seen in paintings of Aachan. Different again
was Shazmak, their abandoned city on an island in the middle of the gorge of
the River Garr, in the mountains of Meldorin. Tiaan had seen images of it in
Tirthrax. Shazmak was a place of breathtakingly slender towers and pinnacles
connected by swooping and coiled aerial walkways that looked as though they
were made of glass. The city appeared so delicate that it might have been
broken by a tap with a hammer, yet it had endured the gales for a thousand
years. And still, in the end, it proved no match for treachery. The city's
betrayer had been one of its own.

She
was thinking these gloomy thoughts as they descended a long black slope
streaked with ice, at the base of which lay an ice-filled basin bounded by
crevasses. A glacier flowed out of its downhill lip. In the distance, partly
concealed by a razor-topped ridge, Tiaan saw an isolated steep-sided mountain
with four individual peaks, inside which nestled a field of ice. She
surreptitiously checked the amplimet but it wasn't glowing at all. That didn't
comfort her. Tiaan was beginning to feel that it was waiting for something;
lurking; even preying.

As
they approached the mountain with four peaks, Tiaan realised that the material
between them was not ice at all, rather a vast silvery cube that reflected
first one peak and then another, so that the whole top of the mountain appeared
to shift before their eyes.

'Behold
Stassor' said Malien. 'The greatest of our cities now.'

'It's
nothing like I expected,' Tiaan murmured. 'It's so plain, so simple! Do the
Aachim no longer care about their art and craft? In Tirthrax, every surface was
decorated, every space shaped to perfection.'

'Time
moves on and so must we. We yearn for simplicity now. Stassor is a new city
built on the foundations of the old, but it has a beauty of its own. You'll
see.'

'Tirthrax
was hidden inside a mountain, yet Stassor stands on the highest peak around,
for all the world to see. Do your people feel more secure these days?'

'Who
could threaten us here? Not even a construct could climb these rugged passes,
and what army could lay siege to Stassor? This entire land,' said Malien, a
sweep of her arm indicating the white-tipped ranges on every side, 'is our land,
and no one may cross its borders without our knowing.

'Besides,
we no longer care to hide from the world. For thousands of years we looked back
to Aachan, but our future is bound to Santhenar now. From the breaking of the
Forbidding, two centuries ago, we began to take down old Stassor and build it
anew, to celebrate our coming out. Do you not see its beauty now?'

The
thapter had curved across a vast valley steeped in snow and up the other side,
towards the four-peaked mountain. Tiaan caught her breath. With every movement
the ice-coloured cube shimmered with colour — now like oil on water, now like
the iridescence of a beetle's wing-case, now like the light of the sun fading
from the sky. There were colours and patterns within its depths, too, and they
resembled the shifting lines of sand on a wave-swept beach, or the flickering
flames of a camp fire, or the play of colours in precious opal.

The
thapter lifted sharply on an updraught. Tiaan's stomach lurched but Malien
steadied the machine expertly and directed it towards the base of the great
building, where a pattern of smaller cubes appeared to indicate an entrance.

She
brought the thapter to ground on a paved rectangle outside the smaller cubes. Best
if we show ourselves as friendly,' said Malien. 'My people have not seen a
flying machine before. At least, not since Rulke was slain, and his was a
weapon of war. Tiaan, I ask only one thing — that you say nothing about my part
in the creation of this thapter.' Of course,' said Tiaan, 'but why?'

'My
people may well suspect that I made it, but it would be better if they did not
know. That way—' She broke off as shadows appeared behind the smaller cubes.
'Later' Tiaan reached for the pack containing the amplimet and her other
possessions. 'Leave everything,' said Malien. 'They will be brought, after
inspection.'

Were
the Aachim just being careful or were they, for all their brilliance, insecure?
Tiaan was reluctant to leave anything behind, least of all the perilous
amplimet, but there was no alternative. She climbed down onto the platform,
which was made of compressed ice. It was bitterly, bone-achingly cold outside,
far worse than Tirthrax, and the air so thin that just placing one foot in
front of another was exhausting.

As
they approached the entrance, a dark line divided it vertically into two
halves, which separated into four individual cubes on either side, and each of
those into four more, a pattern which Malien described as cubular. The myriad
glassy cubes seemed to float through the air, leaving an opening which exhaled
a breath of warmth. Tiny crystals of ice whirled and tumbled and twinkled in
the sunlight. Gilhaelith would have been enchanted, Tiaan thought. The tetrarch
had an obsession with numbers.

'Come,'
said Malien, and they entered. 'I'm afraid.'

'Just
so Karan and Llian must have felt as they entered the forbidden city of
Shazmak. But they were met there by Rael, my son, and treated with all the
hospitality due to visitors, even unwelcome ones such as I.'

'What
happened to him?' asked Tiaan, not recalling that part of the tale.

'Alas,
he drowned, nobly helping Karan and Llian to escape their fate. I still think
about him every day. You need have no fear, Tiaan.' Her eyes glittered and she
turned away.

'I
would like to talk to you about that tale, sometime,' said Tiaan.

'I
would be happy to. Have you read it?' 'The original is a forbidden book. There
is a new Tale of the Mirror, but it was rewritten by the scrutators before my
birth. Malien stopped in mid-step. 'Rewritten? The greatest of the Great Tales
retold by a gaggle of spies and torturers? How did this come about?' 'I don't
know.'

'Llian
of Chanthed, who wrote the Great Tale, must lie uneasy in his grave,' said
Malien.

'He's
now known as Llian the Liar, the chronicler who debauched the Histories.'

'The
Histories have indeed been debauched,' Malien said coldly. 'We must speak
further about this. Ah, our hosts are coming.'

'Did
you know Llian?' said Tiaan.

'As
well as I knew any human man! The Histories were his life and his world.
Nothing could have compelled him to tell them falsely.' 'But. . .' 'Later.'

Malien
strode forward, holding out her hand to a stocky man of middle years, whose
black hair was marked by twin streaks of white sweeping back over his ears.
Half a dozen other Aachim stood behind him, three men and three women, all
dressed in robes that reflected the light like metallic silk. 'Harjax,' Malien said
cheerfully. 'I heard of your elevation. You will make a fine autarch.'

He
took her hand, without enthusiasm. 'Thank you, Matah Malien. Why have you come,
and how did you get here?'

'Come,
Harjax, you've been observing us for ages. Tiaan Liise-Mar here, an artisan
from the other side of the world has uncovered the secret of flight which has
eluded all the mancers of this world, and Aachan, since the death of Rulke. In
a short time she converted this construct, abandoned by Vithis in Tirthrax,
into a machine that flies.'

'She
may have assisted,' Harjax said, "but the mind behind this discovery was
yours, Matah, as your hand was at the controls when it set down. What are you
up to?'

'The
secret of flight will benefit us all, Harjax.'

'Have
you brought this thapter as a gift, then?'

'I
had in mind to see what progress you'd made before—'

'You
think you know better than everyone else,' he said with a sorrowful air, though
it seemed just a veneer of manners or custom. These Aachim were angry folk.
'You show us no more loyalty than you did in the past.'

'Stassor
is more magnificent than ever,' she observed calmly. 'You've done well for
yourselves, without me, as you've made clear many times.'

'For
good reason. You don't cleave to your own, Malien.'

'I am
Matah,' she reminded him, 'an honour specifically created to free the recipient
from such burdens, and permit her to think outside the cube, as it were.
Anyway, flight has been discovered, for good or for ill, and you must plan what
to do with it.' She glanced at Tiaan. 'Must we quarrel in the yard, forgetting
all courtesy to our guest, or will you offer Tiaan her due?'

All
this time, the Aachim had given Tiaan not a single glance, but now he turned
dark eyes on her, of such singular penetration that Tiaan could not meet his
gaze.

'The
last time an outsider was admitted to our precincts, it brought about the
downfall of a city — beloved Shazmak.'

'And
the death of my son,' Malien said pointedly. 'He's gone forever, yet Shazmak
endures. We can go back if we choose.'

'To a
land infested with lyrinx!'

'They
cannot thrive in the high mountains. They are no threat to us, now we have the
secret of flight.'

'But
they are a threat to the order of this world and we must consider what to do
about it. Come inside.'

They
followed the seven Aachim down a broad hall into a rectangular room that
appeared to be made of glass, though unlike any glass Tiaan had ever seen. The
walls glowed like oiled opal, the patterns forever changing.

The
Council of Stassor was called the year before last,' said Malien. 'What choices
have you made?'

'The
situation changes rapidly,' Harjax said, uncomfortable with her directness.

'Meaning
you cannot come to a decision. I'm glad you didn't invite me. I could have died
of old age before you did anything.'

Harjax
grimaced, for to speak so plainly bordered on insult. He indicated a small
table around which were distributed a number of oddly shaped chairs, each like
a bean opened in the middle and the ends folded out. They sat and refreshments
were brought in. Tiaan's chair proved surprisingly comfortable. She took
nothing to eat, feeling out of place and unwelcome, but sipped at a mug of
clear liquid as thin and clear as water, though more refreshing.

'But
when we do reach our decision,' said Harjax, 'it will be the right one. Look
what happened before, when we allowed unfettered power to a leader who was not
worthy of it.'

'Tensor
was a fool, and no one knows that better than I,' said Malien, leaning back. 'I
rue every hour that I let him have his way. But that's ancient history. The
world that existed when you began your council last year has been forever
altered. Should you ever reach your right decision, it will already be
irrelevant. And our fellow Aachim, from Aachan—'

'We've
met with Vithis's emissaries,' said Harjax. 'We found much to talk about. Much
to agree upon.'

'I
found much to fear and more to dread,' said Malien. 'Not least the way they
abused Tiaan. They forced her to use the amplimet all day and every day for
weeks.'

Harjax
squirmed in his seat. 'To what purpose?' "To save their fleet of
constructs, stalled by the destruction of the node.'

A
justifiable end, I would say. And after all,' he gave Tiaan a sideways glance,
'it's not as though she's . . .'

One
of us! Have the decency to speak your prejudice plainly.'

It's
not as if old humans are our equals.'

'In
some respects they're our superiors, but that's not the point. We're all
human.'

That's
heresy!'

'And
the cause of all our problems. I've spent my life trying to bring the peoples
of this world together, and little has come of it.'

'Aye,
and at the expense of your own kind,' growled Harjax. 'You might have taken
back the Mirror of Aachan, yet you did not. You made alliance with old humans,
forfeiting our own interests. And look what that led to.'

Malien
looked pointedly around the magnificent room. 'Peace and prosperity for us,
while old humans are being crushed on the anvil of war.' 'They are not our
kind, Matah.' 'We sprang from them in the distant past.' 'That's a lie!' he
cried, and the polite veneer was stripped away. 'Old humans are degenerate, not
ancestral. Vithis's Aachim are our kind and we must support them!'

'They
are the old kind, full of hate, prejudice and rivalry.' Malien spoke more
reasonably than before, as if to throw up the contrast between them. 'They
still adhere to clans, Harjax, and they see themselves as better than us. They
come to take, not to share. To rule, not to meet as equals. They will grind old
humans into the muck and then . . .' 'Yes?' he said coldly.