Chimaera (79 page)

It wasn’t until the thapter had lifted off that Nish realised what he wanted to say to them, but by then it was too late.

H
ysse was a small, pretty but incredibly overcrowded town at the top of a green valley surrounded by knife-edged ridges. All of its homes and buildings were built from silver weathered timber, with steep, pointed shingle roofs and green painted doors and window sashes. There were flower gardens everywhere, though many had been trampled by the deluge of refugees from Borgistry.

Tiaan set the thapter down in the market square, opened the hatch and was assailed by the overpowering perfume of night hyssamin, for which the town had been named. She was breathing deep when Flydd came running up, with Yggur not far behind. The sun was just rising.

‘Don’t get out, Tiaan,’ panted Flydd. ‘We’re going north right away.’

‘Where?’ said Tiaan, who had one leg over the side. She rubbed her eyes. They’d stopped in the middle of the night for a few hours’ sleep but she was still tired.

‘I’ll tell you after we’ve gone. I’ve had an idea.’

She couldn’t resist saying, ‘I hope it’s better than the last one.’

A pair of soldiers laboured up, carrying something heavy in a small wooden crate. A second pair followed with a larger crate, while a third were directed to another thapter, standing across the square next to a stall proclaiming the merits of yellow quinces, hard green pears and other mid-autumn fruit. Tiaan’s mouth watered, but none of the stalls were open yet.

‘Come on, Fyn-Mah!’ Flydd roared over the side. ‘Yggur, Irisis, go with Chissmoul in her thapter.’

‘Where?’ said Irisis, getting out gingerly. Her ankle and leg still troubled her.

‘East. I’ll call you on the farspeaker. Just go.’

Yggur and Irisis clambered into Chissmoul’s thapter, which shot into the air as if booted by a giant, to disappear eastward towards the Great Mountains.

‘That pilot has a distinctly reckless streak,’ Flydd observed. ‘Malien, would you take the controller, please? I need Tiaan to do something on the way.’

‘But …’ said Tiaan.

‘Come on!’ snapped Flydd. ‘We don’t have any time to waste.’

‘Where to?’ said Malien, as Fyn-Mah climbed in, carrying a heavy bag, and went below.

‘We need to find a powerful node that isn’t being used by anyone. Tiaan, where’s the nearest one that fits?’

Tiaan thought for a moment. ‘At the southern end of Warde Yallock.’

‘Perfect,’ said Flydd.

‘What
is
your idea?’ Tiaan asked when they were among scattered fluffy clouds.

‘Actually, it was yours,’ said Flydd. ‘I’m going to test your idea about speaking back and forth between connected nodes. Before we get to Warde Yallock I want you to try something. First, to make a map in your head of all the nodes in this area, plus all those you know to be connected in some way.’

‘I’ve been doing that for ages.’

‘I thought you might be. Do you know of any nodes connected to the one we’re heading for?’

She closed her eyes, mentally rotating her network of node symbols, field colours and interconnecting lines. It took some minutes before she was sure. ‘There should be one at the foot of the Ramparts of Tacnah.’

‘Where abouts?’

Tiaan showed Flydd on the map.

‘That’s eighty leagues from where we’re headed. Isn’t there anything nearer?’

‘Probably, but without studying every node I wouldn’t know.’

Flydd set up Golias’s globe and called Irisis. ‘Tell Chissmoul to fly to the Ramparts of Tacnah.’ He gave instructions. ‘Call on your farspeaker when you’re in place.’

Malien veered to the left to pass over a mass of lyrinx, assembled near a lake beyond the forest. Flydd counted the enemy numbers, then called Troist and gave their position.

Once they were in place at the southern end of Warde Yallock, late that afternoon, Flydd dragged the crate into the shelter of a tilted plate of rock, one of a group of ancient standing stones dating from the dawn of civilisation on Santhenar, and prised the smaller crate open. Tiaan yawned as she looked inside. It contained a complex device made of green crystals linked into an open sphere with thick wafers of beaten platinum, silver, gold and copper foil.

‘It’s my version of the node-drainer that we encountered in Snizort,’ said Flydd. ‘Yggur and I have been working on it, on and off, for months. Irisis and Yggur have another. They’ll call when they’re ready.’

He lay down under the tree, tipped his hat over his eyes to keep out the sinking sun, and began to snore.

‘You might have told me what I’m supposed to do,’ muttered Tiaan.

‘He likes to be mysterious,’ said Fyn-Mah. ‘Get some rest. You look exhausted.’

‘I haven’t slept well since we attacked Oellyll, but I won’t be able to sleep until I know what I’m meant to do.’

‘As I understand it, you’re to send messages, using Golias’s globe, to Irisis. She’ll send back while we watch how weak or strong the messages are, how much delayed, and so forth. Afterwards we’ll set the node-drainer to draw power from this node and send again. We’ll take ever more power, and do it over and over, while Irisis and Yggur will be doing the same at the linked node.’

‘To what purpose?’ said Tiaan.

‘We hope to discover
how
the fields, or the nodes, are linked. If we can solve that problem it might just give us a chance.’

Flydd woke Tiaan in the middle of the night and she sat with Golias’s globe on a flat rock, waiting, listening and sending, until dawn. The globe squelched periodically, conveying reports of lyrinx sightings all over the place, attacks in various spots, and details of the movements of the refugees and their escorts. Troist’s army had taken heavy casualties before beating off their ambushers, and the report was gruesomely graphic. Tiaan’s resolve to find a peaceful solution grew stronger.

They began again a few hours after dawn, though she could sense Flydd’s frustration now. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Her head was aching from overuse of the amplimet and she was well aware of
that
danger.

‘I’ll have to stop,’ she said not long before sunset. ‘My head is killing me.’

‘If we can do just one more test,’ said Flydd, ‘it will complete this set and we’ll be finished for the day. Can you manage it?’

‘I suppose so,’ Tiaan sighed, knowing that Flydd would keep pushing until he got what he wanted.

‘Do you want me to increase the draining?’ asked Fyn-Mah, who was wearing an operator’s wire-and-crystal cap, with her hands inside Flydd’s node-drainer.

‘Leave it as it is,’ said Flydd. ‘We’ll send the message on another farspeaker setting.’

He told Tiaan what it was and she relayed that to Irisis.

‘Ready, Tiaan?’ said Flydd.

‘As long as it doesn’t take too long,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t feel very well.’

‘Why don’t I send the message?’ said Flydd. ‘Can you set the globe for me first? You’re a lot quicker at it than I am.’

‘All right.’ Tiaan slipped the amplimet down her front. It felt hot. She put her hands around the smooth surface of the farspeaker and mentally spun the globes to visualise what to do with her hands. Her head felt fuzzy and she couldn’t recall the setting she was supposed to use.

She did it again but a different setting flashed into her mind, one far removed from any she’d ever used before. She turned to Flydd but he’d gone across to Fyn-Mah and had his arms deep in the node-drainer.

She tried to concentrate but could only see the new setting, not the one Flydd had given her. But then, what did it matter as long as Irisis’s farspeaker was set the same? She didn’t relay the new setting to Irisis – it was easier to change Irisis’s farspeaker the way she’d reset Flydd’s from Bannador a while ago.

Then, without thinking that Golias’s globe was self-powered, Tiaan drew power through the amplimet, spun the spheres and stopped them one by one until they lined up correctly. As the innermost sphere slowed and stopped, the amplimet flared. Its light shone through her blouse and the crystal grew so bright that it burned her and she had to jerk it out.

The node-drainer let out a loud crackling squeal.

‘What’s that?’ cried Flydd, whipping his hands out as if they were on fire. ‘What’s happening?’

He ran to Tiaan, shielding his eyes. ‘Tiaan?’

She blinked, shook her head then closed her fist around the amplimet. She cut off power and the sound from the node-drainer stopped abruptly.

‘What are you doing?’ Irisis roared from the farspeaker.

Flydd went still, turned to Malien, eyes wide, then back to the farspeaker. ‘What just happened, Irisis?’

‘The node flared out of control. The field was twenty times as strong as before. I could see it with my eyes open.’

‘But that’s not possible,’ said Flydd. ‘It was stronger
here
too.’

‘What did you do?’ Tiaan heard Yggur say, hoarsely. He sounded uneasy.

‘Tiaan did something with Golias’s globe, and the amplimet.’ Flydd turned to her. ‘What did you do, Tiaan?’

She explained as best she could. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘I think,’ said Yggur over the farspeaker, ‘you’ve stumbled on a way to control the nodes themselves.’ The unease was gone; he let out an uncharacteristic whoop. ‘It’s a secret no mancer ever expected to find. Do you see the implications, Flydd?’

‘I’m beginning to see the perils,’ said Malien.

‘If we
can
control the nodes,’ said Flydd, ‘we can snatch power from the lyrinx while maintaining it for ourselves, despite their power patterner. We’d have as much power as we wanted, and they’d have none.
Then
we’d take the battle to them.’

‘As long as they don’t get it first,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’ve seen a pair of nodes acting that way before, now that I think of it. It was in Alcifer, not long before Oellyll was abandoned.’

‘So the enemy may also be closing in on the secret,’ said Yggur. ‘And it may not be such a large step for them, since they’ve had node-drainers for years.’

Flydd scowled. ‘Just when I thought we’d made a breakthrough.’

‘We may have, but it’s a race,’ said Yggur. ‘To the winner, ultimate power. To the losers, oblivion.’

That’s all you mancers ever think of, Tiaan thought despairingly. She wanted to run away with the secret and deny it to all of them. But of course she could not – that would be playing into the hands of the enemy. Surely there had to be another way.

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Flydd. ‘How are you feeling, Tiaan?’

‘A little better.’ She wasn’t, but she might as well get it over with.

‘Are you up to showing us exactly what you did?’

‘I think so.’

Tiaan did it a second time. The node-drainer and the amplimet reacted exactly as before, and the effects were felt, as before, at Irisis’s end.

‘What else do we need, to control nodes?’ said Yggur through the farspeaker, once all was quiet again.

‘Two things,’ said Flydd. ‘Firstly, a completed map of the fields, including the Dry Sea, which Tiaan hasn’t even looked at. Tiaan, I think you and Malien had better get that done right away.’

‘I’d prefer to be asked,’ Malien said frostily. ‘I’m an ally, not a lackey, as I believe I’ve pointed out to you before.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Flydd. ‘I forgot myself. Malien –’

‘Certainly I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Tiaan, what about you?’

Tiaan had to be asked twice, for her mind had wandered a long way as she worked through the possibilities of this unexpected discovery. ‘Yes,’ she said absently. ‘I’d be glad to survey the Dry Sea.’

‘Irisis, Yggur,’ Flydd called on the farspeaker. ‘Pack up and meet us at the southern end of Warde Yallock.’ He gave directions. ‘Tiaan, go to bed before you collapse. We’ll talk in the morning.’

‘What’s the second thing we need?’ said Yggur.

‘A field controller. It’s a device I’ve been thinking about ever since Klarm and I went through the Council’s secret workrooms in Nennifer. Ghorr’s best mancers and artisans began working on a field controller as soon as they finished making the node-breaker we took to Snizort. They built a rude prototype, though they could never get it to work. Klarm brought it back in the dirigible and I’ve also fiddled with it over the summer. It’s in the other crate.’

‘But you couldn’t get it to work either,’ said Yggur.

‘No, but Gilhaelith, unwittingly, gave me some fresh ideas when he was telling me about the power patterner. Tiaan’s discovery might be the missing piece of the puzzle. As soon as you get here, we’ll go over everything. Are you there, Irisis?’

‘Where else would I be?’ she said.

‘I want you and Tiaan to pull apart the failed field controller and work out how to rebuild it to make use of Tiaan’s discovery. Just throw it together anyhow, for the time being. Tiaan can help with the initial tests, then be on her way to the Dry Sea.’

‘And me?’ said Irisis.

‘If the tests work, I’ll give you as many artisans as you need. You’ve got to produce a reliable field controller and you haven’t got long. It’ll be the challenge of your life.’

‘It’s for all our lives,’ said Yggur.