Chimaera (59 page)

‘I am Yggur,’ said Yggur, ‘the master of this place, which is known as Fiz Gorgo.’

‘I know who you are, surr.’ Merryl’s eyes turned to the smaller man.

‘This is the scrutator, Xervish Flydd, and … where has she got to?’

Tiaan stepped out from behind Yggur.

‘Tiaan!’ Merryl reached out to her. ‘I saw the Aachim take you. I was so afraid.’

‘That’s a long time ago now. What have you been doing these past months?’

‘Surviving. I became a slave for my own kind, hauling clankers out of the mud.’

‘Me too,’ said Flydd. ‘Not an occupation with much to recommend it.’

Merryl gave him a curious glance. ‘After it was over, most of us were abandoned to our own devices. Some of the slaves joined the army, but I did not.’

‘Not willing to do your duty, Merryl?’ said Yggur.

‘I never shirked my duty, surr,’ Merryl said mildly, as if nothing anyone said could touch him. ‘And I’ve spent the past twenty years paying for it. Not liking what I saw of the scrutators, I pretended to be one of the peasants pressed into hauling duties, and afterwards I disappeared into the countryside.’

‘You must have had a lean time of it,’ said Flydd. ‘The armies had scoured the land bare.’

‘I went hungry more times than I ate, but I wouldn’t have changed anything. I’ve been a prisoner of the lyrinx for half my life. They treated me well enough but I lived with the threat of being eaten if my usefulness expired. After that, even the freedom to starve was a precious gift. Why did you bring me here?’

‘We need to know about the lyrinx, Merryl,’ said Yggur. ‘Particularly any weaknesses we can use against them.’

‘I’ll write out a list for you.’

‘Just tell us!’ said Flydd.

‘The thoughts don’t flow, with mancers and the like staring at me,’ said Merryl, unperturbed. After surviving all the enemy had done, no mere human could bother him. ‘I work better in solitude.’

‘Whatever gets us the list the quickest,’ said Flydd, turning away.

‘Just a moment,’ said Yggur. ‘Why did they make a tunnel to the centre of the Great Seep, and what did they find there?’

‘The remains of a village of ancient times, under edict for sorcerous practices, I understand,’ said Merryl. ‘Apparently the village sank into the tar and the lyrinx wished to recover some relics that had been lost at that time.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Since I knew their language, they were always careful what they spoke about in my presence.’

‘And what did they find?’

‘Bodies, young and old, preserved in the tar, and other household items of that time. Some yellow crystals which, I heard, they were excited about. I didn’t see the relics, for the node exploded.’

‘Do they have any diseases or illnesses?’ asked Flydd.

‘Not many. They’re healthy, robust creatures, generally.’

‘But their children are sometimes born malformed, lacking the ability to develop wings. Sometimes they’re born without armour, skin pigment or claws.’

‘That’s so,’ said Merryl. ‘Such malformations are common, but not all survive to adulthood.’

‘I heard,’ said Yggur, leaning forward, ‘that one lyrinx working in the tar tunnel developed a dreadful skin inflammation that rendered him helpless.’

‘I saw several with that affliction,’ said Merryl thoughtfully. ‘They were in such torment that they sloughed their outer skin, though that was as agonising as if the layers of our skin were peeled away.’

‘The less said about that the better,’ said Flydd, rubbing his upper thigh.

Merryl gave him a puzzled look. ‘Sometimes grit gets in between the armour and the inner skin, which is irritating to them. But this inflammation was much worse.’

‘Do you know what caused it?’ said Flydd. ‘Was it the tar?’

‘I believe it was a mould, or fungus.’

‘Do they often get this kind of complaint?’

‘I never saw it before, in all my time with them. It may have come from one of the relics they found in the tar.’

‘Thank you,’ said Yggur. ‘That’s most interesting.’

N
ish breathed a sigh as the last air-floater lifted. They were finally on their way to Snizort. Though the expedition was well behind schedule, no one could have done it more quickly, and what they’d achieved was nothing short of miraculous. All the pilots had flown Malien’s thapter, though few more than twice. That was his biggest worry, apart from the state of the abandoned constructs. He was afraid they would be too damaged to repair.

They arrived over the battlefield just before dawn. Everything had been rehearsed. The four air-floaters would fly low across the site as soon as it was light, while Nish and the other artificers identified those constructs in the best condition. The pilots and artificers would go to work and three air-floaters would wait on the ground. The fourth would take a wandering path over the battlefield, to raise the alarm if the enemy appeared. Snizort seemed to be abandoned but Nish wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks. There were too many necessary ones.

‘How long have we been working towards this day?’ he said, leaning on the rope rail of Inouye’s air-floater. The east was growing light, though there were still some minutes until sunrise.

‘It’s two months since we got back from Nennifer,’ said Irisis.

‘I never thought we’d get this far.’

‘Nor did I. But then, I try not to expect anything. Saves disappointment.’

‘How many constructs were abandoned here, do you recall?’

‘Tiaan said about five hundred.’

‘And how many of those could have been repaired,’ Nish wondered, ‘if the node hadn’t been destroyed?’

‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’

‘Imagine if we could bring a hundred thapters back,’ he said dreamily.

‘That would certainly be a marvel,’ she said dryly, ‘since you’ve only managed to train thirty pilots.’

He came back to reality. ‘True; but just imagine the look on Yggur’s face.’

‘If we manage to recover three he’ll be over the moon.’

The sun slid over the horizon like a jelly across a greased tray. The battlefield consisted of a series of hummocks, their tips just touched by light, surrounded by seas of shadow. ‘Not much snow left,’ said Nish.

‘It’s been windy in these parts.’ Klarm came up beside them and rested his forearms on the lower rail. He had a small bound volume in one hand.

‘Have you been here recently?’ Nish said carefully. Klarm did not talk about his spying missions.

‘Not in more than a month.’

‘But we wouldn’t expect to run into the enemy?’ They’d been over this before but Nish felt in need of reassurance.

‘Lyrinx could be anywhere,’ grunted Klarm, ‘though they haven’t reoccupied Snizort. The area is a wasteland, the tar’s still burning underground and the native people fled long ago. There’s been no sign of the scavengers here either.’

The light was advancing swiftly now and Nish began to distinguish the bones of the wrecked machines. Most were clankers, but scattered among them, particularly on the western side of the battlefield, he made out the distinctive smooth curves of constructs.

‘Over there,’ Klarm called to Inouye. ‘Some ten constructs were abandoned close together, formed into a group.’

The air-floater drifted westward. ‘I don’t see them,’ said the pilot. It was the first time she’d spoken in ages. Inouye went about her work in silent, tragic despair, and it wrenched Nish’s heart. Separation from her children and her man was eating her alive.

‘Just to the left of that little hill,’ said Klarm.

Inouye took them over the hill, then circled around it.

‘You must be mistaken,’ said Irisis. ‘I can only see three.’

‘I kept careful records,’ said Klarm, consulting his book, ‘because the constructs weren’t badly damaged.’

‘Well, there’s only three now. Maybe Vithis came back and dragged them away. Could you go a little lower, Inouye?’

The air-floater came down to within ten spans of the ground. ‘I can’t see any tracks,’ said Nish.

‘The surface snow has been blown away.’

‘Constructs are very heavy. If they’d been hauled off, you’d expect to see drag marks.’

Inouye hovered over the site. ‘They
have
been taken,’ said Irisis. ‘Look, you can see depressions where they were lying.’

‘They must have flown –’ Nish began furiously. ‘Oh no!’ He clutched at her arm as a chill ran down his spine. ‘They’ve
flown
. Vithis converted them to thapters and flew them away.’

‘Or hovered them.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Klarm. ‘The only thapter my spies have sighted near the Hornrace was Malien’s.’

‘What if Malien’s people have been here?’ said Irisis slowly. ‘They already know how to build thapters, so it’d be no trouble to fix these ones. In fact, that’s probably what’s happened.’

‘How many have gone?’ Nish choked. ‘Please, let it only be these seven.’

They rotored back and forth across the battlefield. ‘There’s another depression,’ said Klarm, pointing. ‘It contained four constructs a month ago.’

‘And two more have gone from the south of it,’ Irisis called.

As they went back and forth, and the count rose, Nish fell deeper into depression. ‘How many is it now?’ he asked drearily as they completed the last run.

‘Thirty-one,’ said Irisis.

Despair. ‘I’ll bet they’ve taken every construct that could possibly be repaired.’

They spent all day trudging through the remnants of rust-coloured snow, checking the constructs one by one. There was not a single usable machine among them. The controllers had been broken with a hammer.

Nish studied the innards of the last machine, grim-faced. ‘There’s no chance that our pilots could fly it with one of your controllers?’

Irisis shook her head. ‘Ours are just designed to fit into theirs. If we’d had to make new controllers from scratch, we’d still be working on the first one.’

‘What am I going to say to Yggur and Flydd?’

Night fell. Nish set up camp and sent an air-floater home with the bad news. He was too depressed to eat and the trainee pilots, highly strung as were all operators, had taken it hard. Many were in tears, including one of the best, pretty little Kattiloe with the dozens of blonde plaits. Sturdy, dark-eyed Chissmoul, too shy to speak about her distress, had simply walked off into the night. The artificers and their prentices were of a more phlegmatic disposition. Glad of the opportunity to employ their talents on real machines, they were pulling one of the constructs apart in the firelight.

Nish felt like screaming at them, but resisted. Let them have their moment. Let them hone their useless skills.

‘We might as well go home.’ Funny how he could think of forbidding Fiz Gorgo as home.

‘The air-floater pilots need their rest,’ said Irisis. ‘They flew all night, Nish.’

‘In the morning then. At first light.’

Irisis prodded the fire. ‘I’ve been thinking. This might not be an absolute disaster yet.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Remember the first time we came here, when we ran into the scavengers? I took away a complete controller and used it to design all my flight assemblies. I’m sure I brought the controller with me, so at least we can bring one thapter home. Kimli can fly it.’

‘One lousy thapter,’ said Nish in melancholy tones.

‘Oh, come on. It’s twice what we have now.’

After his glorious daydreams about bringing back fleets of fliers, it took an effort for Nish to see that even one thapter was infinitely better than none. None meant that the past months had been wasted. With none, the war could not be won. With one, added to the one they already had, it was still possible to hope.

They worked all night fitting the controller into the least damaged of the machines close by. It took a team of artificers and artisans, for whoever had smashed the controller had done other damage and they had to take parts from a second construct to fix it. The work was not yet completed when the sun came up. As it lifted above the horizon they heard an approaching, unmistakable whine.

‘It’s a thapter!’ Nish cried. ‘The Aachim have come back. Are you nearly finished?’