FIFTEEN.

Ullii screamed herself into a fit and had to be sedated, for she kept trying to jump out of the air-floater in mid-air, as if she could fly to Nish. When the drug had taken effect, the guards bound her hands and took her inside the cabin, a flimsy structure of canvas attached to stretched rope and a few bracing timbers.

The scrutator stood with the mechanician, arms folded, watching Nish's desperate struggle with the nylatl. 'Dare we go closer, M'lainte?' he asked at one point.

She took a long time to answer. 'We dare not. We can't get near enough to take him out of the basket, and if we tried, chances are the brazier would set off our floater-gas. I don't want to end our lives as a firework.'

'He might kill the beast,' said Flydd. 'If he does, can we risk landing to pick him up?'

M'lainte eyed the three lyrinx, which were circling some distance away. They don't look as though they're going to attack.'

'I was referring to our shortage of floater-gas.'

'We're already taking a risk,' said the mechanician. 'Ask me if it happens.'

They watched in silence until Nish began to hurl liquid about the basket. 'What's in that flask?' the scrutator asked sharply.

'Tar spirits.' M'lainte swung around but the scrutator was quicker.

'Away!' roared Flydd. 'Away and all speed!'

The air-floater veered off. The complement of the vessel was leaning over the rail now, willing Nish to succeed.

'Faster!' yelled the mechanician. 'Get over the other side, you lot. You're ruining our trim.'

'What's he doing?' cried Flydd, for they were now a long way off.

'He's up at the brazier,' said the watchman with a spygla.s.s. 'He's reaching into the brazier with his bare hands. He's ...'

They watched, holding their breath as flames appeared in the basket. Suddenly it was blown apart and dark objects fell, trailing flame. The balloon shot upwards, was caught by high-level winds and disappeared towards the west.

'Well?' Flydd said to M'lainte.

'Not a chance. Nothing could catch it now.'

The scrutator turned away, shoulders slumped. 'A pity! He had a great future, that lad.'

'We can't be certain he's dead,' said M'lainte.

'If not now, then soon enough, when the balloon comes to ground in the wilderness. Let's go home.'

Despite the danger, Flydd changed his mind as they whirred past the great mountain. Tapping Pilot Hila on her slender shoulder, he pointed to the ragged entrance. The air-floater landed just inside and the guards formed a ring around it, aiming their weapons at the circling lyrinx, while scrutator and mechanician walked into Tirthrax.

'I hope ...' began the scrutator.

M'lainte raised an eyebrow.

'I must speak with Malien.'

'To make alliance with her?'

'Just to talk, first. I ...' Flydd smiled self-consciously. 'My childhood was spent elbow-deep in the books of the Histories.'

'You had had a childhood?' M'lainte was making one of her rare jokes. 'I thought you were born scrutator.' a childhood?' M'lainte was making one of her rare jokes. 'I thought you were born scrutator.'

'I loved the Great Tales as much as any child alive. It's ironic, now that I look back ...'

'What?' she said.

'No matter. Malien is a legend, one of the few surviving from ancient times. Just to talk about the past '

'I understand, Xervish. This place is a marvel,' M'lainte went on as they pa.s.sed yet another staircase made of little more than a ribbon of metal. 'The Aachim know so much. It's tragic that we've not been able to make an alliance with them.'

'Aye,' said Flydd, 'but they are a people much governed by history, tradition and a powerful sense of their own worth. The affairs of other humans are of importance only when they touch theirs, and in their increasing isolation, that is seldom.'

'Until now!'

The scrutator looked morose. 'What has this fleet of constructs come for? Is Aachan really dying, or is it the first wave of an invasion?'

'The Aachim of Santhenar will take their side, whatever their purpose.'

'And we're in the middle. But can we persuade them to take our our side against the lyrinx?' side against the lyrinx?'

'We are both human species.'

'The lyrinx are not as alien as they might appear,' the scrutator said enigmatically.

They stopped beside the two wrecked constructs. 'Nish's message said there were three,' Flydd went on. 'Where is the other?'

'And Tiaan gone too,' said M'lainte shrewdly.

'Well, better her than the enemy.'

'I dare say. Beautiful metalwork,' the mechanician observed.

'Aye.'

She walked around and around, making notes on a sc.r.a.p of paper. 'They float above the ground, Nish said.'

'Yes, and we must try to get Tiaan's back.'

'She could be hard to find.'

'There's not much the scrutators can't find if they want it enough. I'll send a skeet at once, in case we don't get back.' Flydd cast an anxious glance at the entrance. 'We'd better go, M'lainte. Those lyrinx may have called their mates. We're vulnerable here.'

'To say nothing of our leaking floater-gas. Write your message, surr. I'll just have a peep inside.'

The scrutator flexed his twisted fingers. 'Make it a quick one, old friend. I'd hate to lose you.'

'I'd hate to lose myself!' M'lainte looked down at her thick body and grinned. 'Not much danger of that.'

The scrutator wrote a note and took it to the skeet handler, who was standing mournfully outside the cage. The skeet lay on the floor, quite dead.

'What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l's happened?' Flydd began.

'Jellybeak,' said the handler. 'There was an outbreak in Tiksi but I thought our birds were clean.'

Cursing, Flydd returned to the constructs. 'Come on, M'lainte!' He was not worrying about her being killed, and least of all himself, but if they did not get back to tell all they knew, the war effort would suffer.

'I'm coming,' she said from inside. She did not appear.

He went across to a broad set of steps guarded by a black conical object like a witch's hat. Flydd knew it to be a sentinel. He looked up. The stair pa.s.sed through a hole in the stone ceiling, as did all the others. He edged closer. Closer. Crack! Crack! The shock curled his toes and it was just a warning. If he tried to go up it would be far worse. The shock curled his toes and it was just a warning. If he tried to go up it would be far worse.

He considered using his Art on it. Scrutator magic was designed for sneaking, spying, interrogating and manipulating, and the breaking of locks and protections. Only rarely did it involve outright power, but he had that too, in words of power, charged crystals and other artefacts. Flydd thought better of it. The Aachim had used sentinels for ages and had defences for most of the Arts.

He walked up the other end of the vast chamber, looking all around. The sentinel would have sounded an alarm in the floors above but Malien did not come to check on it. Finally, when the mechanician had been inside for a good hour, Flydd rapped on the hatch with a knuckle.

Her head popped out. M'lainte's eyes were gleaming. 'Marvellous!' she said. 'Just marvellous.'

'Remember our leaky floater-gas.'

'I've finished.' She hauled herself out. 'Well, of course I'm not not finished. I could spend a year here.' finished. I could spend a year here.'

'Can you make one like it?'

'Probably not. Some of the innards are sealed and I have no idea what's inside, and we'd not master such fine metal-working as this ' she slapped the smoothly curving side, 'in a hundred years. Still, I've learned a thing or two.'

The scrutator left it at that. M'lainte was the best mechanician in the south-east, and did not make promises she could not keep. It was better than nothing.

'Malien's not coming,' Flydd said dispiritedly. 'Come on.'

The air-floater took off as soon as they climbed in, heading east. There were no enemy in sight. It was something over two hundred leagues back to the manufactory and they would probably have to rotor all the way.

They had taken on rock ballast at Tirthrax so as to fly extra low, for at high alt.i.tudes, strong winds blew directly against them. They floated along the line of the mountains, enjoying the magnificent vista of peaks and glaciers. Below and south as far as they could see lay a flat landscape, a monotonous vista of snow-clad plains, swamps and ragged lakes, many still frozen. The forests were straggles of spindly, impoverished pines.

The trip was slow but uneventful. Night fell. They continued, and late in the morning, at a place where the Great Mountains were less high and they could see across the range to another in the distance, the air-floater dropped its ballast and turned northeast to make the crossing.

'We should reach the manufactory within the hour,' said M'lainte in the mid-afternoon, trying to consult her map as the air-floater lurched and bounced.

'I'll be glad to see it,' the scrutator replied curtly. He had paced all night and was not in the best of humours, and the rough flight made his head spin.

'At least the air-floater has worked well,' she said cheerfully.

'Don't jinx it!' he snapped.

M'lainte went up the other end, to stare over the rope rail. Flydd inspected his scarred and gnarled hands, trying not to think of the events that had made them that way. The knot in his stomach was painful.

'How is the seeker?' he called to the soldier on duty inside.

'Still sleeping, last I checked.'

'Check again.'

The man ducked away, then came back. 'She's stirring. Should I give her another dose of poppy?'

'Of course not! Keep an eye on her. b.l.o.o.d.y idiot,' the scrutator said, more out of habit than annoyance. His mind was on other matters.

They floated over the last range and saw smoke everywhere. 'What's going on?' cried Flydd. 'We've only been gone four days.'

'It's early in the season for a forest fire.' M'lainte had come up to the rail beside him.

'Far too early. That's Tiksi; the city is burning. Circle round,' he roared to the man at the helm. 'See what's going on. Hurry!'

They veered left, sliding through smoke clouds all the way. The air-floater bucked and rolled in the updraughts. Flydd choked back on nausea uncomfortably similar to seasickness.

The air-floater broke out of the smoke. Tiksi lay dead ahead. The city wall was broken in three places, the eastern quarter ablaze. On the plain outside the main gates a battle raged, four clankers against dozens of lyrinx. Dead lay everywhere, and Flydd counted fifteen broken clankers. Behind the clankers a small force of troops stood together, shields up, spears out.

They circled, weighing the damage. Flydd's escort stood by with their heavy crossbows, in case of an attack, though there were no lyrinx in the air. Flydd allowed half the soldiers to fire on the enemy. Several lyrinx fell. The others retreated, but not far.

'It's not as bad as I first thought,' said the scrutator. 'They would have beaten the enemy off without us. There's no fighting inside the walls.'

'But bad enough!' It was his sergeant, Ruvix, a short, broad man who was a solid slab of muscle. 'Those are storehouses burning.'

'Still, the damage can be repaired.'

'As long as they don't come back in force. It'll take a week to fix the wall breaches, and with only four clankers left ...' Ruvix muttered oaths.

'Do you want to go lower?' called the woman at the helm.

'I've seen enough. Wait.' The scrutator pulled out a piece of paper and began scribbling. 'Take us over the master's palace.'

They hovered over the magnificent building, which was unscathed apart from minor damage from catapult b.a.l.l.s. Flydd finished writing, stamped his seal at the bottom of the paper and snapped his fingers. A soldier came running with a leather envelope.

Another shouted to the crowd gathered below. The soldier dropped the envelope, someone caught it and ran inside.

'To the manufactory,' said the scrutator. 'And don't muck about.'

The manufactory had also been attacked though it was not badly damaged. The air-floater landed on the gravelled area outside the front gates, disgorged its pa.s.sengers and took off to replenish the floater-gas. Scrutator and mechanician watched it away, then went inside, where Flydd called Overseer Tuniz, all eleven foremen, Captain Gir-Dan and Crafter Irisis to a meeting.

'Your reports, if you please,' said the scrutator. 'Captain?'

Captain Gir-Dan had recently arrived from one of the coast garrisons. A handsome man, dark-haired and broad-shouldered, he had set many hearts aflutter since his arrival. Scurrilous rumour, however, put a question mark over his behaviour on the battle lines, and said that he had been sent here 'for evaluation', as the quisitors put it.

'One attack, surr.' Gir-Dan was not a loquacious man. 'Two days back, it were. Five of the beasts, with a single 'pult. We did three of them with the javelards mounted on the wall. The others fled.'

'Very good.' The scrutator swung around to face Tuniz, a tall, dark-skinned woman with wiry brown hair and filed teeth. A native of Crandor, a steamy land in the subtropical north, she stood out among the smaller, honey-skinned and black-haired natives of this region. 'Overseer, what news from below?'