Chimaera (75 page)

‘But …’ said Tiaan.

‘I saw them move.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Why did she always feel the need to apologise? ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said delightedly. ‘It’s an important discovery. Where are you?’

‘Somewhere in the hills of Bannador. We’re resting on the way south to Alcifer.’

‘Good for you. I presume you got the job done at Thurkad?’

‘Not entirely.’ She explained what had happened. ‘Some of the spores could have been sucked inside but the barrel fell out. There was nothing we could do about it.’

‘You did better than I dared hope, and survived. And who knows, fear of the fungus may do our work for us.’

‘Why didn’t you call before?’

‘I tried,’ said Flydd. ‘But two more nodes have gone down and we’re having a lot of trouble with our farspeakers.’

She was about to say, ‘I have a theory about that,’ but decided not to. It was probably nothing. She still hadn’t thought it through properly. ‘Scrutator?’

‘What is it, Tiaan?’

‘Something unusual happened during the attack on Alcifer. If you recall, I shouted at you on the farspeaker.’

Flydd chuckled. ‘It’s not often I’m shouted at. Most people are too afraid.’

‘The lyrinx attacked Nish and Irisis as they tried to throw the spores in, and I couldn’t get to them in time. But as I screamed at you, the enemy reacted as if in pain, and one lyrinx put its hands over its ears. Have you ever seen that kind of thing before?’

‘Can’t say that I have, though I’ve never been close to the enemy when using it. You’ve given me an idea. I’ll order some trials with lyrinx prisoners.’

After he had gone she lay back in the seat, utterly exhausted, and slept. Two days later they were high over Alcifer, above the height that any lyrinx could reach, watching and waiting. There was a little more activity on the ground and in the air than usual, but no sign of an army in readiness for battle. The scrutator called twice a day but there was nothing to report, apart from the odd flaring and fading of the exotic node-within-a-node at Alcifer, and a corresponding fading and flaring in the node associated with the nearby volcano. They had to be linked in some way. Tiaan made a note to mention it the next time he called. She hadn’t attempted to contact him again, so she did not know if she could reproduce what she had done before.

Time went by. It was now a week since they’d dropped the fungus spores, without any discernible effect, and it was the same at the other cities. Every time Tiaan spoke to Flydd he sounded more depressed.

‘What a waste of time this has been!’ Irisis said irritably.

Nish was peering over the side with a spyglass. ‘Hello, I think they’re coming out. Yes they are. I can see hundreds of lyrinx, assembling in the great square not far from the white building with the glass dome.’

‘Hundreds won’t bother us,’ said Irisis, reaching out for the spyglass.

‘Wait a second,’ said Nish, leaning away. ‘Go a bit lower, Tiaan.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’m not sure, yet.’

Tiaan began to spiral down. Normally the wheeling fliers would have turned towards her but they continued their patterns as if they were flying along wires.

‘They’re carrying something out,’ said Nish.

Irisis took the spyglass from him and peered over the other side. ‘Looks like dead lyrinx, to me. A bit closer, please, Tiaan.’

Tiaan went down another turn, anxiously watching the fliers, who were not far away. ‘They’re carrying bodies down to that embankment,’ cried Irisis, ‘and throwing them over.’

Tiaan felt cold inside. They’d brought plague upon the lyrinx and they were dying in agony. It wasn’t right.

Irisis counted some sixty bodies being dumped. Not long after that, more lyrinx appeared, carrying barrels which they also emptied over the embankment.

‘Can you see what that is?’ said Nish.

Irisis adjusted the spyglass. ‘The bodies of small creatures. About cat-sized. Hundreds of them.’

‘Could they be uggnatl?’ said Tiaan.

‘I think they are,’ said Irisis. ‘Yes, definitely.’

Many more barrels were brought out, then the pile began to smoke, the fliers turned towards them and Tiaan headed away. They had just flown across the glass dome when the sound of the mechanism vanished. She took power from another node and climbed a little higher.

‘What was
that
?’ said Nish.

‘I don’t know, but it was a lot stronger than when they tried to take my power a year ago.’

It happened again, though this time Tiaan was waiting for it and switched nodes instantly. ‘I don’t think they like us here,’ she said, turning away.

A few seconds later, power was snatched from her again. Then again, and each time it was quicker than before.

‘Fly!’ yelled Irisis.

Tiaan tried to, but all at once time seemed to freeze. Nish, his mouth open, went as still as a statue. Tiaan’s hand appeared to solidify in mid-air and the thapter itself to stop, though it did not fall. She tried to reach for the flight knob but her hand would not move.
What’s … happening
? Her thoughts were so sluggish that she had to force herself to create each word.

After an agonised aeon, time reverted to its normal beat and she streaked away to safety, without having the faintest idea what had been done to them.

Flydd was revoltingly pleased to hear about the dead, and the uggnatl, and told them that similar plagues had been reported from two of the lyrinx’s eastern cities, though the number of lyrinx dead was relatively small so far. He was not so pleased to hear about the strange attack on the thapter, though he couldn’t make anything of it either.

The next day Tiaan kept at a safe distance, observing with the spyglass. The thapter was not attacked again, but a thousand dead were carried out of the city. The day after that Oellyll erupted, lyrinx boiling from it like ants from a broken anthill. They disappeared into the forest too quickly to count, though Nish did his best to estimate the numbers.

‘Around twenty thousand,’ he said when dusk cut off the scene.

Irisis laid down her tally sheet. ‘I make it more like twenty-five.’

‘Then we’ll take the difference. Twenty-two and a half.’

They were back on station at dawn, and found the enemy fleeing Oellyll as fast as ever. By the end of the day Nish and Irisis had estimated another twenty-two thousand. That night was clear with a good moon and they saw that the evacuation continued all night, though it wasn’t bright enough to count them. Finally, around lunchtime of the following day, it slowed to a trickle and the circling lyrinx, without so much as a glance at the thapter, flew east across the sea.

‘Fifty-five thousand,’ Tiaan said when Flydd called not long after. ‘And that’s just the ones we saw in the daytime. There would have been roughly as many again at night.’

‘So a hundred thousand; maybe a hundred and ten,’ said Tiaan. ‘That’s far more than Flydd expected.’

The scrutator could hardly speak when she told him the number. ‘And how many dead?’ he said after a long, long pause.

‘A couple of thousand, in total,’ she said soberly.

‘Is that
all
?’ he whispered. ‘It’s not near enough. If that’s repeated at the other cities, we’re staring at a catastrophe.’

‘What do you want us to do?’ said Tiaan through her farspeaker.

‘When you’re sure it’s safe, take a look at the bodies, if they’re not all burnt. Then you’d better go north and see if the same is happening there.’

That afternoon she landed by one of the main entrances to Oellyll. The bodies lay in great piles, adults as well as infants whose armour had barely formed. The outer skin was red and blistered, the fingers and toes hooked as though the creatures had died in agony. The threat of the uggnatl had meant there was no choice, but Tiaan felt sick. We did this, she thought.
I
did it, and for what? There’s got to be a better way – a way we can all live together, without slaughtering each other and resorting to ever-increasing barbarities like this.

By the time they reached the lyrinx city west of Thurkad the following day, the smoking bodies were piled as high as houses between the cliff and the pinnacles. They saw no lyrinx about, which surely meant that this city had also been abandoned.

Tiaan landed the thapter so that Irisis and Nish could inspect the bodies, then took them up to one of the entrances, as they wanted to check inside. She did not. She sat at the very brink, looking down at the fuming corpses. Many of them were children and infants. Very many. How could peace ever be made between humans and lyrinx, after this?

But there had to be a way. Tiaan could not bear to think of the war going on in ever-increasing violence and depravity until the world had been utterly laid waste. One side would be annihilated and the other ruined by the legacy of its own viciousness and moral corruption, as it tried to justify more and worse depravities in the cause of victory. How could humanity – should it prove the victor – ever recover from such bloody Histories? It would taint every child born in this world, for as long as the Histories endured.

I can’t be a party to it any longer, she thought. I must find a solution,
whatever it costs me
.

Nish and Irisis came out, pale and silent. They did not speak about what they’d found inside, though Tiaan could only assume it had been more dead, twisted in their last agonies. Neither did she mention to them her resolve – let Flydd get word of it and she’d be deprived of thapter and amplimet, and probably locked up for the duration. Her quest would have to be silent and secret. She could not afford to trust even her new-found friends.

‘We’d better report to Flydd,’ said Irisis.

‘You do it,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

Irisis nodded. ‘I think I know how you feel.’

I doubt that you do, thought Tiaan, handing her the slave farspeaker. ‘Let’s go; I can’t bear the smell any longer.’

‘We can’t tell how many there were,’ Irisis said over the farspeaker once they were almost to Thurkad. It had taken ages to contact Flydd. ‘Though …’ She squinted into the distance.

‘What is it?’ said Flydd, his voice echoing.

‘I can see clouds of lyrinx in the distance, flying over the sea towards Meldorin. There must be ten thousand fliers; or more.’

‘And I dare say there’s more that you can’t see,’ he said heavily.

‘I dare say. And the harbour of Thurkad is full of boats, thousands of them. The enemy must have had them stored under cover. Some are already moving out. They’ll all be across the sea in a few days.’

‘I suppose we could pray for a storm.’

‘I’ve never seen the sea calmer,’ said Irisis. ‘What’s happening on the east coast?’

‘The same,’ said Flydd. ‘Our estimates were low at each city. Their numbers are at least a third higher than we’d thought.’

‘A third!’ cried Nish, staring into the farspeaker. ‘But that means …’

‘I’d hoped we’d infect most of them, and wipe them out as a threat, but a few thousand dead is nothing.’

Tiaan was even more shocked than when she’d looked at the twisted corpses. ‘It seemed a lot to me,’ she said quietly.

‘Tiaan, each of our armies is outnumbered by an enemy that doesn’t need to outnumber us, and they’ve nowhere to go. They’ll all go to war against us. We gambled and we’ve lost.’

‘Can’t you use the spores again?’ said Nish.

‘They’re all gone.’

‘What do you want us to do?’ said Irisis.

‘Do whatever you want,’ Flydd said despairingly. ‘You have my permission to save yourselves any way you can.’

‘What would be the point?’ said Nish. He looked questioningly as Tiaan, who was staring straight ahead, her jaw clenched, and gave no response. Irisis nodded. ‘We’re coming home to fight,’ Nish added.

G
ilhaelith had been working with Ryll for months before, in late summer, they made the breakthrough. The lyrinx watched him so carefully, and constrained his every movement so tightly, that he could not have lifted a finger without being noticed. On the first few occasions he was watched over by Great Anabyng himself, whom Gilhaelith knew to be a mancer of surpassing power. Gilhaelith was meekness personified, doing nothing without asking permission first. He would be patient. The lyrinx couldn’t afford to waste Anabyng’s talents on guard duties for long.

Sure enough, after several sessions Anabyng came no more, being replaced by a pair of lesser but still powerful mancers who never took their eyes off him. Gilhaelith kept up the pretence of total acquiescence. In fact they constrained him so tightly, out of fear, that he was almost useless to Ryll. Gilhaelith was happy to go along with that. Sooner or later they would have to give him more freedom, and he would use it to get what he wanted. In the meantime he kept his head down and let his resentment burn. He, a master geomancer, had been reduced to begging for the right to use his geomantic globe, just to save his life. Gyrull had not deigned to reply to his pleas, which made him bitter indeed. Once he got hold of the globe, she would pay. He’d rehearsed his plan so many times that even his reluctant, damaged brain had it down perfectly.