Alchymist (90 page)

'We
know it will be difficult,' said Tiaan. 'What are you going to do about it,
supposing, of course, that Malien allows you the use of her thapter? And since
that would constitute an act of aggression against humanity . . .'

'Thank
you, Tiaan,' said Malien. 'I can speak for myself. Yet the point is a valid
one, Yggur. I'll need much convincing, though I do feel sympathy for your
cause.'

'I
don't,' snapped Gilhaelith. 'It's a folly that can't succeed.'

'In
that case,' said Yggur, 'I must restrain you for the duration. Would you come
with me, please?' Gilhaelith stood up slowly. 'You dare?' Tiaan caught her
breath. A duel between two great mancers could lay waste the room, if not the
entirety of Fiz Gorgo.

'My
guards will shoot before you can raise your hand; said Yggur.

There
was a taut instant of silence, then Gilhaelith held out his empty hands. Two
guards bound him, while another two kept their crossbows aimed at his chest.

'I
thought you'd be eager to help us,' Yggur resumed, 'since you're presently
under a death sentence from the scrutators.' 'I was safe from them in Alcifer,'
he said coldly as the guards took hold of him. 'I'm not about to commit suicide
on your behalf. None of you will leave Nennifer alive.'

Yggur
waved a hand and the guards led him away, unresisting.

'You
were expecting that?' said Malien to Yggur. 'I spoke to Tiaan about him the
other day. I wish he'd never come here. He's going to cause us trouble.'

'Yet
we need him, for another purpose,' said Malien. 'The purpose for which I've
come all the way from Stassor. Yggur, I must talk to you, alone.' 'Now?' said
Yggur. 'I think so.'

'This
meeting is adjourned,' Yggur said abruptly. 'Come to my quarters, Malien.' The
others stared after them as they went out together. Yggur inclined his head.
'Would you care for some hot chard?'

'I
prefer red wine, if you have it.'

'There
are barrels of the stuff in my cellars, untapped these past fifty years.' He
gave orders to his steward.

In
his rooms, which were comfortable but austerely furnished, he lit the fire and
drew two hard chairs up to it. A carafe of wine came, and a steaming pot of
chard. He poured wine into a crystal goblet, orange chard into his bowl.

Malien
held her goblet up to the flames. The wine was a deep purple, almost black. She
warmed it in her hands, set it on a small side-table and turned to him. 'I
never expected to see you again.'

'Nor
I you. I came home to die, for there was nothing left in life that I wanted.
Alas, life can be tenacious when you no longer value it, and here I am, two
centuries older and hardly changed. I began to live again — not even my grief
could outlast the centuries — but I don't know what to do with this endless
existence. Oh, I'm active, and my mind is alert, but I've seen everything so many
times before. Nothing surprises me and precious little entertains me.'

'To
appreciate life again, you must put it at risk.' 'Wisely said, Malien. No doubt
I will, in this hare-brained attack on Nennifer, which surely cannot succeed.'
'Yet you've committed to it.'

Yggur
blew on his chard. He took a tentative sip, then blew on it again.

Malien
tested the bouquet of the wine with a delicate sniff and smiled with pleasure.
She sipped, rolling it back over her tongue. 'A truly great year, and a master
winemaker.'

'Unobtainable
now,' he said. 'The vineyards lie abandoned and covered in weeds.'

'Vines
are long-lived,' Malien replied. 'Should the-war end, with judicious pruning
they'll yield again. And the oldest vines give the best fruit. I could spend a
pleasant day in your cellars, Yggur, if only we had the leisure. You were
saying?'

'I've
realised that the world is worth saving, and who else but we can do it. What's
your tale, Malien?'

'It
has elements in common with your own. My line doesn't come from the long-lived
Aachim, so I expected my end a hundred years ago. It never came. Since the
Forbidding I've been an exile, revered for my place in the Histories but
rejected for the independence of spirit that made my name. It's a hard thing to
suffer when your own people won't have you. I'd had enough and was preparing to
go to the Well when Tiaan came and shook me out of it. I too have begun to live
again.'

So
here we are, two geriatrics — three if you count Flydd taking on the mighty.
How the scrutators would roll about if they knew.'

She
smiled. 'I dare say. Well, let's see if wisdom and ageless cunning are their
match.'

He
raised his bowl. 'To ageless cunning.'

They
drank the toast, after which Yggur said curiously, 'Why do you need
Gilhaelith?'

She
explained her fears about the excessive drain on the world's nodes, the danger
to the nodes themselves, and the wider threat that posed. 'Bilfis might have
solved that problem, in time and with sufficiently good maps of the nodes. Now
he's dead, I know of no one with the talents -geomancy plus the new Art of
mathemancy — to do the same.'

'Except
this miserable fellow I have in my dungeon,' said Yggur. 'I understand your
concern. Profligacy is the curse of the modern age. Mancers no longer care for
elegance, subtlety or economy in their Art. Nothing but raw power will do, and
the more of it the better. Match power with greater power and simply blast your
enemy away, no matter that it brings the whole world to ruin.'

'You're
right, of course. Our age is well over, and lamenting it makes no difference.
But who else has the vision to see where the world is heading?'

'The
bigger picture,' he said approvingly. 'To me it's all part of the same picture.
In the past we had our differences, Malien, but I trust you and I hope you feel
the same way about me. I'll help you with the nodes, and even pressure this
miserable worm Gilhaelith for you, though I doubt you'll find him cooperative.
I know his type.'

'What
do you require in return?'

'I
require nothing,' he said, surprising her.

'Nothing?'
He'd certainly changed from the single-minded Yggur of old, who had measured
his debts to the last copper grint, and expected those who owed him to be
equally exacting.

'You
know what I want — the use of your thapter — but given freely. I would not make
things worse by coming between you and your own kind..' 'We are already
sundered,' said Malien, quaffing her wine.

'Vithis
has declared clan-vengeance against Tiaan, for injuries done to his son during
her escape. Since I helped her get away from Stassor, it applies equally to
me.' In response to his quizzical glance, she told that tale.

'Astounding,'
said Yggur at the end of it. 'And Tiaan is just a slip of a woman. Who would
have thought she could do such marvels?'

'Other
slips have,' Malien said dryly, 'going all the way back to my distant ancestor,
Elienor. Not all heroes are big, sword-waving louts. Or tall, dark, wand-waving
mancers, for that matter.'

'I
forget the very Histories I've lived through.' He stared into the fire,
remembering ancient days, but some thought must have caused him pain for he put
his hands over his face, breathing heavily.

'Since
I am exiled,' said Malien, 'no act of mine can further reflect on the Aachim.
Therefore I offer my thapter to you, freely and unencumbered. Better yet, I
will come with you to Nennifer. There may be a need for my talents.'

He
did not react at once. Yggur rocked on his chair, then shook off his malaise
and stood up. Malien did too.

'Thank
you,' he said, bowing from the waist. 'You give me new hope. Shall we go back
and plan the attack?'

'Walls
have ears, even those as solid as your own. Let's keep the details to those who
need to know, at least until we've lifted away from here.'

'Very
wise,' he said. 'Just you, me and Xervish Flydd, then. We'll be on our way with
the utmost speed. Who knows but Gilhaelith may find a way to reveal our secret,
in time.'

'It
feels as though we've gone back to last year,' Nish said to Irisis the
following evening. 'Tiaan turns up and suddenly we're not trusted any more.'

Yesterday's
meeting had been cancelled and they had been set to packing supplies and
weapons and stowing them in the thapter, along with ropes, climbing irons,
armour, tents and alpine sleeping pouches, and the myriad other things on
Flydd's lists that they would need for an assault on the most closely guarded
fortress in the known world.

'You're
just feeling guilty for the way you treated her before,' said Irisis.

'I
own it. I behaved shabbily to her. And so did you.'

Irisis
shrugged. 'I've never denied it, but guilt isn't one of my afflictions.' That
wasn't entirely true, but she didn't suffer from it the way Nish did. He was
still having trouble coming to terms with Tiaan being here and, not knowing
what to say, avoided her whenever possible. 'I can see why they'd want to keep
it secret.'

Despite
her words, she felt aggrieved at being left out. She'd helped to carry the
crated and sealed items from Yggur's storeroom. They had to do with the Art,
and with controllers too, and therefore came within her province, but she could
discover nothing about what was inside, or what they were to be used for.

The
attack would consist of Yggur, Flydd, Malien, Fyn-Mah, Inouye, Flangers, Nish,
Irisis and Tiaan, plus three of Yggur's most experienced soldiers. They were leaving
tomorrow afternoon, but had been told nothing more.

'It'll
have to be one hell of a clever plan,' Nish persisted. 'The twelve of us
against two thousand soldiers, hundreds of mancers, and everyone else in
Nennifer.'

'Or a
suicidal one,' said Irisis. 'If we fail, as seems likely, it'll be the end of
any effective resistance in Lauralin.'

'That'll
no longer be our worry.'

'Or
our friends' or relatives',' she reminded him. 'The scrutators will destroy
them all, down to the fourth cousins.'

He
contemplated that in silence. 'And if we win, we'll have the Numinator after
us.'

'I
wish you hadn't mentioned that.'

'I
wish I hadn't thought of it.'

'I
dare say they'll tell us the plan on the way,' said Irisis. 'It'll take quite a
few days to fly to Nennifer, so there'll be plenty of time for detailed
planning. Better get a good night's sleep. It'll be your last in a proper bed
for a while.'

The
months had gone by slowly in the bastion of Nennifer, set in a highland where
summer was short and cold, winter long and bitter and, in the shadow of
towering mountains on all sides, it had not rained in twenty years. The ground
was a barren grit less than the depth of Ullii's thumb, covered in black stones
so smooth and shiny they appeared to have been melted in a furnace. Nothing
grew there, save in the valleys where moisture from summer snowmelt supported
the pastures, gardens and fish ponds that supplied Nennifer. Even the tallest
mountains bore little snow, for higher ranges lay in every direction. The
utter, uncompromising aridity suited the bleak souls of the scrutators.

Ullii
hated Nennifer with all her angry little heart. There was nothing of beauty in
the whole vast building, and little kindness either. The people who laboured
there, whether mancers, artisans, artificers or common servants, were all of a
type — cold, mechanical and closed off from their fellows. In all her time in
the scrutators' citadel, Ullii saw no love, little passion save for their grim
work, and precious little generosity or selflessness, just a desperate
efficiency driven by terror. Everyone lived in fear of their superiors, and
they of theirs, all the way up to the scrutators. And even the Council members,
those who had not remained in Lybing to direct the war, kept one eye out for their
dark and deadly chieftain.

Of
all the people in Nennifer, Ullii was the only one who had any kind of freedom.
Ghorr had tried to study and school her lattice-twisting talent, to understand
how she had done such marvels in her previous escape with Irisis. Despite much labour
and cunningly conceived punishments, it had proved an abject failure. Ullii
could neither explain nor duplicate what she had previously done in extremis.
Finally Ghorr passed the problem to his cleverest mancers and let her be. He
had another use for Ullii and could not afford to damage her. Not yet.

He
barely spoke to her for months afterwards, for she was too far beneath him to
be worthy of his time. Ghorr was busy forging a mighty battle fleet, not to
attack the enemy but to hunt Flydd to his refuge, whether in Meldorin or
elsewhere, and to expunge him from the earth.

Though
she was allowed outside, Ullii seldom went into the barrens. She loved nature
in a romantic, idealised way, but there was no nature here, just cold desert.
And as the seasons turned towards winter the land grew ever colder, windier and
bleaker.

Once,
Ullii's life of the mind had been all she'd needed, but the events of the past
year had broken that mould. Other realities kept butting in, and other
memories. Of Nish making love to her that day in the balloon basket, after she
had driven off the nylatl. Of the nylatl attacking him again, after Scrutator
Flydd had appeared in the air-floater. And her terror as Nish had blown the
creature to bits with the flask of tar spirits, then been carried out of her
life on what had been left of the balloon.