Ian Irvine - Alchymist

'I don't imagine the ancient days were quite as wonderful as they're made out.'

'I'm sure they weren't but, except for the dark days of the Clysm, they weren't as desperate as our time, either. I'm afraid, Irisis. Afraid this is the end, not just for us, but for every human on Santhenar.'

Again Irisis felt that chill. She had never heard him talk like this before.

'Surely the scrutators can't be that bad?'

'They're worse than you can imagine! I hadn't realised it before — I was too busy with my provincial concerns to see the true picture. But since this last phase of the war began it's become all too clear. The Council of Scrutators, for all their control, for all their spy networks, for all their power, are not only corrupt, but incompetent. They're fossils and must be swept away.'

A shiver of dread started at the soles of her feet and ran up the backs of her legs, all the way to her scalp. 'That's treason, Xervish, punishable by the most gruesome death that human ingenuity can come up with.' Irisis had fought the scrutators, opposed them in many ways, escaped from their bastion of Nennifer, but those crimes were nothing to what he was proposing. It was worse than treason — it was sedition, the worst crime of all, and it would mean not only his death and hers, but the execution of her family, her friends, and every single person of her family's line. The House of Stirm would be expunged from the earth.

'I never thought I'd say it' Flydd said, 'but the age of scrutators is over.'

'But who would order the world?' Despite everything she'd experienced, Irisis was no revolutionary. She believed in the system they had, faulty though it was.

'I don't know. The trouble with tyrants is that so few are benevolent. Power corrupts, and most of those who seek it are already corrupt. That's the insoluble problem — replacing the Council without making things worse.'

'What about you, surr?'

'I don't want it, Irisis.'

'I've heard it said that the only man suitable for high office is the one who refuses to accept it.'

'An appropriate paradox …'

He broke off and Irisis did not question him further. It was all too disturbing.

Around the middle of the day they saw trees in the distance, and sunlight shining on water. 'Orist,' said Eiryn Muss.

A land of lakes, mires and swamp forests, it stretched northwest beyond sight. 'Where are we going, Muss?' asked Irisis.

'I don't know,' said the perfect spy, which was also worrying.

Sometime later, Irisis saw, away to her left in the west, a rugged coastline, and beyond it, what she took to be the Western Ocean.

'I presume we're not going across the ocean?' she said to Flydd. 'I hope not, since the patches are leaking again.' They had been losing altitude steadily, despite the floater-gas generator.

'We're not.' Flydd folded his arms across his skinny chest.

'Hadn't we better look for a refuge for the night?'

'I already have a place in mind,' he said.

'I didn't know you'd spent time on Meldorin before.'

'No reason why you should.'

'I wish you'd tell me what's going on!' For the past few weeks she had felt in control of her life, but as soon as Flydd reappeared, that had all been overturned. She didn't like it.

'I will, when I know myself.'

He turned away. She followed him down the back, where the pilot sagged in a canvas chair, listlessly holding the controller. 'How are you feeling, Inouye?'

'Better, though my fingers hurt.' Inouye inspected her blackened nails.

'You'll probably lose your fingernails,' said Flydd, 'though they'll grow back.'

'It doesn't matter' she said. 'I have no man to admire them.'

'If it is in my power' said the scrutator, 'you will be reunited with your family. You have my promise on that.'

'Oh!' A flush crept up Inouye's cheeks. She clenched one fist around the controller knob, concealing the other in her pocket. 'What may I do for you, surr?'

'I'd like to get there before dark. Can you go a little faster?' He checked the map against the country below. 'And somewhat to the left.'

The rotor spun up and the air-floater edged onto its new heading. Irisis watched the lakes and bogs go by. If Flydd did not want to tell her what he was up to, no force could make him. She supposed he had his reasons.

Nish came up beside her, rubbing his eyes.

She wanted to throw her arms around him and squeeze him against her, but Irisis restrained herself to an affectionate pat on the shoulder. She could wait- How's your head?'

Better. What happened? I don't remember going to sleep.

Have I slept all day?'

She laughed with relief. 'You fell down and smacked your head against the stern post, just after we rescued you.’

He glanced that way. 'How could that happen?' Nish went pale. 'The rotor —’

'The air-floater was going up steeply. You slid backwards under it and whacked into the post.'

'I knocked myself out?'

'You've been asleep for two and a half days.'

He ran a hand through his thick hair and winced. 'That explains the hollow in my belly.'

'Can I get you something to eat? It's only stew, I'm afraid, and days old.'

'Stew!' he exclaimed.

She mistook his meaning. 'I'm sorry, but bloody old Flydd —’

'Where is it? Quick!' He took her by the hand.

'Down here. Look, we've a little galley.' She led the way out of the cabin to a tiny room behind it, so small that she could touch all four walls with her outstretched arms. 'And we can't cook anything here, of course, because of the floater gas, so it's cold I'm afraid …'

Nish pushed past her, snatched a ladle off its hook and took a scoop out of the pot. Slurping down a mouthful, he gasped, 'That's goood!'

'You've got soup all over your face' said Irisis, wiping his cheek with her hand. They'd not spent time together since he'd left the manufactory in the balloon, last winter. She'd missed him terribly.

'I'm so hungry I could go into the pot head-first, and not come out until I'd licked it shiny clean.'

'It's not that good,' she said.

'Do you know what our last meal on the island was?'

'Fish? Mussels? Bird's eggs?'

'There weren't any edible shellfish and I don't recommend barnacles. In nine days we didn't catch a single fish. There's nothing to eat down there — no snakes, no lizards, no eggs. Not even an earthworm.'

'How did you survive?'

'Seaweed and belt soup.'

'What's belt soup?'

'We cut my belt into strips and boiled it for about ten hours. It still tasted like boiled leather. Next we were going to eat Flydd's stinking old boots, and if you think I was looking forward to that —’

'I get the picture,' she said hastily. And it explained why Flydd had been so irritable, if he'd been close to starvation.

Irisis watched Nish while he ate, thinking how changed he was from the young man she'd seen off in the balloon, and even from the Nish she'd encountered briefly at the Aachim camp, before the battle of Snizort.

'It's so good to see you, Nish. So good.' Impulsively, she embraced him.

He set down the ladle before it dribbled down her back, and wiped his mouth. And you, Irisis. I feel as though I've lived an entire life since I left the manufactory. And, from what the scrutator told me, you've been just as busy.' Nish pulled away, inspecting her. 'You look …'

'What?' she prompted after a long pause. 'Old? Haggard? Ugly?'

'You look the same, though …There seems to be more of you 'Well, thank you very much,' she said in mock outrage. Actually —’

'I meant as a person. You look more confident, even stronger than you were, and .., at peace with yourself 'If you only knew!' she exclaimed. And yet, in a way, I have found peace. Life has never been more insecure, I'm an outlaw under sentence of death, the scrutators will probably execute me in some hideous way, and yet — Oh, Nish!' She threw her arms around him again. 'I've got my long-lost talent back. I'm not a fraud any more. I feel almost happy'.