Alchymist (78 page)

'But
I don't. Come here.' She put her arms around him. 'I've missed you so badly,
Nish.'

And I
you — you're my dearest friend.' After a long moment he pulled away. 'Sorry — it's
too hot.'

She
sighed.

'Yggur
will do something,' Irisis said a good while later.

'If
they haven't got the air-floater already. There were three clankers, remember?'

'That's
comforting.'

'Glad
to be of assistance,' he grunted.

'It
seems to be getting hotter every second,' she said after another long wait. 'Do
you think they're still there?'

'We'd
hear them move. Scavengers must be used to waiting.'

It
was mid-afternoon now and Nish was parched. Unable to stand the suspense, he
crept to the front end of the construct, peering warily around. A spear slammed
into the dirt a finger's length from his nose. Shortly, the other two clankers
thumped up.

'How
long does it take to die of thirst?' Irisis asked casually. A few days, I'd
imagine.'

'I
don't-'

'What's
that?' hissed Nish.

'It
must be Yggur coming back in the air-floater.'

A
shadow passed across the sun and soon the machine was hovering above the
barrier, just out of javelard range.

'Now
what?' said Nish. 'It can't come any lower, and we can't move without being
shot.'

'We
wait for dark.'

They
did, interminably, but dark brought no relief. The scavengers raised a
ramshackle tower from the top of the first clanker, from which, by some uncanny
means, a beam of blinding light lit up the area around their refuge. The other
two clankers did the same from the sides, leaving only a tiny pool of darkness
behind the construct for Nish and Irisis to hide in. Camp fires were built, and
shortly the smell of roasting meat drifted across.

'I
could use a haunch of that, whatever it is,' Nish said in a cracked voice.

Irisis
took his hand, giving it a hard squeeze. 'We've got to do something, Nish.'

Once
Nish would have thought the same, but he was wiser now. 'There's nothing we can
do. Leave it to Yggur. He'll have a plan and we might spoil it.'

'What
if he doesn't? What if he's past it?'

He
didn't reply.

'Can
you hear something?' Irisis was on her feet. There was shouting off to the
right, and one of the beams had gone out.

'Something's
burning,' said Nish.

Another
of the beams swung away. Nish peered from the dark side. 'One of their wagons
is on fire.'

'Yggur's
made a diversion,' said Irisis. 'Does he mean us to run for safety?'

'He
hasn't come all this way to leave without the driver mechanism,' said Nish.
'Let's see if we can get it out.'

After
further shouting, the third beam went out. They scampered round the exposed
side and underneath, heaving and tugging, but hadn't moved the mechanism far before
the beam swung back in their faces. They froze under the construct, trying to
look like red dirt and black metal.

'If
he realises we're here,' Irisis said out of the corner of her mouth, 'he can
hardly miss.'

'Whoever
he shoots won't know anything about it.' Nish shielded his eyes, but the beam
was so dazzling he couldn't tell what was happening at the clankers.

As he
was squinting off to his right, Nish saw a tiny spark drift down, as if
attached to a piece of thistledown. It floated towards where the second of the
clankers had been.

The
explosion painted his retina red. The black cut-out of the clanker was lifted
into the air and turned onto its side. His eardrums throbbed from the colossal
boom and crash. There were cries of pain and terror, and the last beam swung
away, crisscrossing the sky for the air-floater.

Feet
pounded towards them. They shrank down into the dirt, then someone skidded
under the construct. Flangers!

'Is
this it?' he panted, indicating the mechanism.

'Yes,
but we'll never lift it.'

'We
don't have to.' They lugged it out from underneath. 'Round the back!' said
Flangers, 'where they can't get such an easy shot at us.'

'What
was that bang?' said Irisis.

'A
big balloon full of floater gas, pulled down by sandbags. Went off nicely, didn't
it?'

'We're
not complaining,' Irisis said dryly.

'And
before that, I dropped a burning jug of oil onto one of the wagons.'

'You're
a dangerous man in an emergency,' said Nish. 'What's the plan?'

'Yggur's
getting another balloon ready. As soon as it goes off, he'll lower a rope onto
us and winch the mechanism up through a hole he's made in the barrier.'

 'I'm
not sure I want to be hanging in the air when the beams find us again.'

'We
run,' said Flangers, 'and try to get out the way I came in.'

'Oh
well,' said Irisis casually, it we don't get there, at least Yggur will have
what he came for.'

'That's
the way it is,' said Flangers, in a tone that suggested he'd be happy to make
the sacrifice. He might have given his life into her keeping, but the soldier still
wanted to do the only thing left to him.

Another
explosion rocked the night, though this one did not do much damage. 'Get
ready,' said Flangers.

The
rope came hissing down, its last coils smacking into the ground just a few
spans away. Flangers retrieved it, knotted it expertly around the mechanism,
gave three sharp tugs and stepped back.

The
rope tightened and the mechanism came up off the ground, but it rose only half
a span before stopping, swaying back and forth.

'How's
Yggur going to lift that by himself?' said Nish.

'A
collection of pulleys,' said Flangers.

Someone
shouted from the remaining clanker and the beam returned, picking up the rope,
which shone like a vertical rod of light. The javelard fired.

'It's
a difficult shot but if he hits the rope we're sunk,' said Flangers. 'We've got
to make a diversion. Run, that way! Go separately. I'll come last.' The most
dangerous position.

Irisis
ran diagonally away from the clankers and the burning wagon. Nish went a few
seconds later, followed by Flangers. The girl's voice called out a warning; the
beam swung, fixed upon Irisis and tracked her.

'Down!'
Flangers roared.

Running
full tilt, she threw herself down, skidding on her front across the ground.
Thunnggg! A spear went over her shoulders, ploughing the dirt beyond her, then
she was up and haring off again.

Another
beam fixed on the mechanism, now ten spans in the air. As Nish fled, he heard a
spear clank off the outside and prayed it had done no damage. Another spear
flew past Irisis's ear — he saw it flash like a silver snake through the beam
-and they were beyond range of night shooting.

Flangers
passed Nish, running easily. 'How far to go?'

panted
Nish, who had a stitch already.

'A
thousand paces, more or less.' 'Less, I hope.'

The
soldier drew level with Irisis, pointed a little to his left, then drew ahead.
Irisis had begun to flag and Nish felt no better. After a day without food or
water he had nothing left to give. He chanced a glance back and up. The clanker
had one last shot at the rope, but missed. The mechanism was almost out of
sight.

The
clanker turned in their direction, following the other, which was moving slowly
along the perimeter of the barrier. Ahead, Flangers was trotting, barely
visible in the dark. As they caught up to him he had one hand out, searching
for the opening Yggur had made for him earlier.

'Here!'
he called in a low voice, pushing something invisible open and holding it for
them.

'Which
way?' gasped Irisis.

'Straight
towards the north-western corner of the Snizort wall.' He indicated the
direction with a finger.

Irisis
jogged that way. Nish staggered after her, his throat so dry he could hear each
breath rushing in and out. Flangers picked up a crossbow he'd left at the
entrance and came last.

By
the time they were halfway to the Snizort wall, the clankers, with at least
thirty vengeful scavengers hanging off the top and sides, were thumping after
them. The seeker girl must have been directing the pursuit for, no matter how
they twisted and turned in the darkness, Irisis and Nish could not shake it
off.

They
topped a rise. To Irisis's dismay, the wall was a good half a league ahead.
Flangers dropped to one knee and fired. Nish heard the bolt clang off the iron
plates.

Just
when he thought he could go no further, there was an explosion between the two
clankers. They stopped in a scream of metal and the beams wavered across the
sky, searching frantically, then went out.

The
air-floater dropped out of the dark beside Irisis. They flopped over the side
and it shot up and away.

Gilhaelith
sent a messenger down to Oellyll, carrying another plea to the matriarch, for
any world maps the lyrinx had made. Gyrull came up to see him that afternoon
and again consented so readily to help that he wondered if she had an ulterior
motive. But then, he knew she had an interest in his work.

'In
our early days on Santhenar,' Gyrull said, 'before the war began, our best
fliers crisscrossed the globe, mapping it from the air. We wanted to see if
there were other lands we could go to, instead of fighting for a piece of
Lauralin.'

'Did
they find any?'

'Several.
A small continent a long way to the west closely resembles the one marked on
the far southern side of your geomantic globe. There are also a series of
lands, well above the equator, that are wrongly depicted on your globe.'

No
wonder it had let him down before. 'Do human peoples live there?'

'I
don't know, Tetrarch. Those lands were so far away that only our best fliers
could reach them, and they did not stay long. Such lands were of little
interest to us, for the non-fliers, most of our population, would have had to
sail there.' Jags flashed across her breast plates at the thought. 'The risk of
sailing all that way was too great.' Her wings stirred in agitation. 'Better to
die fighting for Meldorin and Lauralin than drown like dogs in the endless
ocean. Our fliers did, however, make careful charts of the lands. I'll have a
set of copies sent up.'

'What
about nodes and fields?'

We
know where the most powerful ones lie, on land and undersea. We had to, to be
able to fly to unknown lands. You may also see those charts. In return, you
will permit me one use of your geomantic globe, should I request it.'

that
night, four lyrinx carried up a great many rolled maps. Each was as large as a
good-sized carpet, and each was drawn in meticulous detail in coloured ink on
the softest leather Gilhaelith had ever seen. He unrolled the first map and
recoiled. On the right-hand side, quite distinctly, was a navel, and above it a
pair of large, dark nipples. It was made from human skin, evidently from women
and several dozen skins had gone into each chart.

Once
he got used to the idea, though, he discovered what a marvel the maps were.
They showed the kind of detail that could only be observed from the air. Even
with just a fraction of that information, the usefulness of his globe would be
magnified a hundredfold.

Changing
his world model, under the glass, was the most exquisitely painstaking work
Gilhaelith had ever done. The lands and seas of the geomantic globe were marked
so precisely that he required three pairs of lenses, mounted in a sliding
frame, to resolve their finest structure. Once he had focussed on a particular
point, Gilhaelith used the Art to change it, in three dimensions, to what was
on the charts. Sometimes it took an hour to make one tiny alteration, for he
might have to raise mountains, reduce highlands, correct the course of rivers
or alter the shape of the coast. Hundreds of such modifications had to be made,
not to mention creating an entire new continent in the northern hemisphere,
complete with peninsulas, gulfs and archipelagos, and many islands large and
small.

Immersed
in this craftsmanship, it was almost possible to forget the slow decay of his
mental faculties. Almost possible, save that each new task took longer and
required more concentration. By evening he felt like a mat that had been hung
over a rope and beaten. And the work took its toll. The slow leakage of power
from those fragments of phantom crystal was steadily damaging him. The
difference was not noticeable at the end of one day, or even a week, but after
working on the globe for a month it was clear what he'd lost. His thoughts were
sluggish and disconnected. His ability to concentrate, once effortless, now
required the most anguished feats of willpower, while parts of the landscaping
spell, which formerly he could have used without thinking, often faded from his
mind midway and had to be done over and over again.