Alchymist (87 page)

Xervish
Flydd lay on his side behind the big table, his arms clutched to his chest. One
knee was drawn up; the other leg licked feebly, and his bloodshot eyes stared
at the ceiling, unblinking.

Falling
to her knees beside him, Irisis put her head on his chest. 'His heart's going
like a racehorse but his eyes are blank. What have you done to him, Yggur?'

'Seizing
control can be .., traumatic to the mind,' said Yggur, who looked rather shaky
himself. 'Both minds, as it happens. I thought he'd be strong enough to endure
it.'

'Did
you warn him, so that he could prepare himself?' she snapped. Irisis was a
terrier when her friends were in trouble.

'I
wanted his reactions to be as natural as possible. Anyway, he's been working
with the Art for most of his life. He knew the risks.'

'I'd
hate to be one of your enemies,' muttered Irisis, 'if this is the way you treat
your friends.'

Yggur
put his hands on Flydd's head, and then on his chest. 'I don't have any
friends, thankfully. He'll recover in an hour or two. Take him to his room and
let him sleep, and don't come back. I've got a lot of work to do before we try
again.'

The
scrutator recovered with no more harm than a piercing headache and a furious
temper. He seemed to think that he had, somehow, been unmanned, which made
Irisis even more livid. However, in the morning he was ready to try again.

'Are
you sure you're prepared for this?' said Irisis. 'Do you want me to take your
place?'

'I
don't think that's such a good idea,' Flydd said without elaboration. 'I know
what to expect now.'

They
began again. The iridescent metal bug flew in figure-eights about half a span
below the ceiling. Flydd stood leaning against the table, his eyes following
the flier, his fingers barely moving.

Time
passed. Nothing happened. 'What's Yggur doing, do you think?' whispered Nish.

'I
haven't got a clue.'

Flydd
groaned and slipped to one knee, but his fingers kept moving and the flier held
to its pattern. There came a cry from the next room, swiftly cut off.

Nish
thought he detected a faint smile on the scrutator's face. 'He's not letting go
this time,' he said quietly to Irisis. 'He's making Yggur work for it.'

'He's
a proud fool,' said Irisis. 'Yggur is stronger than he'll ever be. He'll kill
himself. I'm going to stop it.'

Nish
caught her wrist as she passed. 'Never interfere in the affairs of mancers.
Surely you know that?'

She
swung her other hand at him, but he caught it as well. Irisis looked furious
but it passed in a moment and she sat down, watching the scrutator. Flydd's
other leg collapsed. He wobbled on his knees, his teeth bared, but his fingers
still moved. While there was breath in his belly he was not going to give in to
Yggur.

Another
cry ripped through the door. Yggur let out a bellow and the flier dipped in the
air.

'Ugh!'
Flydd grunted, but regained control and flew another perfect figure-eight.

'Be
damned!' roared Yggur, sounding as if he was thumping from one wall to another.

The
air rushed out of the scrutator's lungs and he subsided gently to the floor,
still smiling. His fingers stopped moving.

The
flier turned sharply, bounced off the wall, jagged across the room, struck the
door and disappeared through it.

'Ha!'
cried Yggur. 'I knew I could do it.' Then silence.

Irisis
lifted Flydd to his feet. 'I'm all right,' he said in a faint voice. 'I showed
him a thing, didn't I?'

'Bloody
idiot!' Letting him fall, Irisis hurried into the other room.

Yggur
lay on the floor with the flier clutched in his hand, and he was actually
smiling. 'We can do it. I never believed it would be possible.'

That
evening, Irisis had just carried a tray into Yggur's room when a servant came
running in, carrying a message pouch. 'It's from Uritz, surr, by skeet, and
it's marked of the utmost urgency.'

Yggur
dismissed the servant, pulled himself up in bed and broke the seal of the
pouch. He still looked wan.

'Do
you want me to leave?' said Irisis.

He
did not answer. Yggur was staring at the paper as if he could not believe what
was written there. Irisis felt her skin crawl. Another defeat? Was ruin
imminent?

He
threw the paper aside, slid the tray to the other side of the bed and levered
himself out. Standing on shaky legs, he began to dress.

'What
is it? You must rest, Yggur.'

'There's
no time. It's come from a spy I have near Alcifer, sent this morning. The skeet
must have burst its heart getting here so quickly. A flying construct came
across the sea from the east yesterday, went well north of Alcifer, crossed the
range and circled back after dark. It's now believed to be hidden in the forest
somewhere near the abandoned city. This is our chance!'

'But
you're not ready,' said Irisis. 'You could barely control that little flier,
and it put you into your sickbed. How are you going to seize a construct?'

'I'll
have to. I thought we'd have to go all the way to Stassor and try to find it,
with all the risks that entails. Now it's right in my own territory. There'll
never be another chance like this. But if we know about it, chances are the
enemy do too. Call everyone together. We're going in the air-floater — tonight.'

In
the end they did not get away until dawn, and with a headwind made agonisingly
slow progress, so that it was long after dark before they reached the vicinity
of Alcifer. They turned north, sitting the night out on a frigid mountain peak,
and took off before sunrise the next morning.

'Stay
higher than they can fly,' said Yggur to Pilot Inouye. 'Should a lyrinx come on
us unexpectedly, the war could end right here.'

'They'll
surely see us,' said Fyn-Mah. 'Their eyesight's not that bad.'

'I
don't mind them knowing we're here. Ghorr often sends air-floaters over the
lyrinx cities, spying. But keep to the clouds as much as possible. If the
flying construct is still here, and pray that it is, we don't want to alert
it.'

They
circled high over Alcifer all day, examining the city and its surroundings with
Yggur's spyglass, which was the best to be had. When the mist and rainclouds
parted, they could see slaves working in the gardens, and their lyrinx guards,
but there was no sign of a flying construct.

'Your
spy must have been mistaken,' Flydd said at the end of a long, tedious day. He
had spent most of it lying on the floor of the cabin holding his stomach.

They
were flying within the base of the clouds, which made it difficult to see. 'Not
Uritz—' Yggur broke off to train his spyglass on a lyrinx that was labouring up
towards them, its wings straining in the thin air. It was not the first: half a
dozen had already inspected them that day. 'That's an unusual beast. It's built
more like a human than a lyrinx, and its skin's got no pigment at all.'

The
lyrinx almost met their height. It circled just out of javelard range, watching
them with its large eyes, before wheeling around and diving back towards
Alcifer.

'If
the flying construct was here,' said Flydd when the sun was about to disappear
below the horizon, 'it isn't any longer. Let's go home.'

He
broke into another fit of coughing, ending with a groan. The struggle with
Yggur had hurt him more than he dared show.

'We're
going nowhere,' said Yggur. 'They could be hiding, waiting for us to go away.
After all, they'd assume that this air-floater belongs to the Council.'

They
returned to their rocky peak for the night, and went back on station the
following morning, though this time they floated so far from Alcifer that they
would have been no more than a speck against the overcast. Again they saw
nothing.

They
were taking an early lunch on the third day of their watch when Flydd, who had
been looking green all morning, stood up, groaned and collapsed against the
rope mesh outside the cabin. He slid along the rope and had started to slip
through, when Nish caught him by the arm and hauled him back. Irisis helped to
carry him inside, where they laid him on the canvas bench at the front of the
cabin.

Nish
checked Flydd's pulse, which was fast and erratic. His skin was clammy. 'It's
not good, Irisis.'

She
stood up as Yggur came through the door. 'He's ill, Yggur.'

'We
can't leave now. It's there somewhere.' Yggur paced to the fabric door and
back. 'He'll be all right.'

'He
looks bad.'

'He
did this damage to himself, trying to prove he was as good as me. He's not, and
I'm not turning back. If we can take this construct—'

'The
damn thing's not here. And if it were, do you value the life of a scrutator
less than some damned machine?'

'I
wouldn't swap the flying construct for a hundred scrutators,' said Yggur.

'If I
were a mancer, I'd blast you clear across the Sea of Thurkad,' she said
furiously.

'Your
loyalty outweighs your common sense, Artisan. A flying construct means the
difference between certain defeat and possible victory. We're going nowhere
until I'm satisfied that it's here, or gone.'

It
was an unpleasant lunch. As they were finishing, the scrutator's groans gave
way to a laboured panting.

'He's
really ill,' Irisis wept as they circled towards the mud terraces again. 'Can't
you do anything, Yggur?'

'I'm
not a healer,' he replied.

'There's
a good one in Old Hripton.'

'How
did you know that?'

'I've
been down there several times. Women's troubles.' 'Oh!' He wasn't going to ask
about that. 'If we get back in time you may take him there.'

'Unless
we go right away we won't be in time.'

He
folded his arms across his chest. 'No man is worth more than humanity, as I'm
sure Flydd would agree.'

Irisis
had heard the scrutator say such things more than once. It made no difference —
her friend and one-time lover was really ill. If she could have wrested control
from Yggur, she would have. But that, of course, was impossible. She vented her
fury at him as only she could. He ignored her.

They
slid into a veil of high cloud that covered most of the sky. Nish took up a
spyglass, though his mind was no longer on the search. Looking through the
cloud was like peering through a silk scarf. Far below, mist clung to the
ridges, and only the tips of the spires and domes of Alcifer rose above it.

'There's
a lot of activity this afternoon,' he said after a while. There were at least a
dozen lyrinx in the air.

Irisis
cast a bitter glance towards the rotor, where Yggur stood with Inouye, and went
inside to check on the scrutator. Nish followed her, blanched at the sight of
Flydd and did not stay long.

'Something's
going on,' Nish muttered a little later, peering through his spyglass.

The
air-floater continued to circle within the base of the cloud. Irisis stalked
from the watch to the cabin, and back to the watch, a dozen times. The mist
thinned over Alcifer but still clung to the ridges. Scudding rain-showers
obscured their view most of the time.

Irisis
appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily. 'He's failing, Yggur. We've got to
go now'.'

'I've
seen it!' snapped Yggur, staring through his spyglass.

Nish
swung his own glass in the direction Yggur was looking, sweeping it back and
forth as he tried to penetrate the mist. He could not see a flying construct,
but its metal skin would not be easy to pick out against the mist-hung forest.

There
were more lyrinx in the air than before, and yet more rising out of Alcifer.

'Where
is it, Yggur?' he called. 'You mightn't see it — it's under some kind of
concealment and I don't dare try breaking it from here.'

'He's
failing, Yggur,' Irisis repeated. He didn't seem to hear her.. She ran down and
began beating him around the shoul-ders and head. He laid down the spyglass and
caught her wrists, holding her easily. She tried to kick him.

'Stop
it!' Yggur roared. He dragged her into the cabin, where Flydd lay panting on
his bench.

Putting
his hands to Flydd's belly, Yggur muttered a few words. The lines faded from
the scrutator's face and his breathing eased. Yggur shook him, gently.

'Scrutator?
Wake!'

Flydd's
eyes opened. 'Yes?' he said in a scratchy voice.

'I've
found the construct, but the lyrinx are rising and if we don't act now they
must take it. And yet, Scrutator Flydd, you're very ill. Your resistance to the
transfer controller must have burst something internally. I can ease the pain,
as I just did, but I can't save you. Only a healer can.'

'Get
on with it,' Flydd muttered, irascible to the last.