Ian Irvine - Alchymist

'I'm not sure I want to be hanging in the air when the beams find us again.'

'We run,' said Flangers, 'and try to get out the way I came in.'

'Oh well,' said Irisis casually, it we don't get there, at least Yggur will have what he came for.'

'That's the way it is,' said Flangers, in a tone that suggested he'd be happy to make the sacrifice. He might have given his life into her keeping, but the soldier still wanted to do the only thing left to him.

Another explosion rocked the night, though this one did not do much damage. 'Get ready,' said Flangers.

The rope came hissing down, its last coils smacking into the ground just a few spans away. Flangers retrieved it, knotted it expertly around the mechanism, gave three sharp tugs and stepped back.

The rope tightened and the mechanism came up off the ground, but it rose only half a span before stopping, swaying back and forth.

'How's Yggur going to lift that by himself?' said Nish.

'A collection of pulleys,' said Flangers.

Someone shouted from the remaining clanker and the beam returned, picking up the rope, which shone like a vertical rod of light. The javelard fired.

'It's a difficult shot but if he hits the rope we're sunk,' said Flangers. 'We've got to make a diversion. Run, that way! Go separately. I'll come last.' The most dangerous position.

Irisis ran diagonally away from the clankers and the burning wagon. Nish went a few seconds later, followed by Flangers. The girl's voice called out a warning; the beam swung, fixed upon Irisis and tracked her.

'Down!' Flangers roared.

Running full tilt, she threw herself down, skidding on her front across the ground. Thunnggg! A spear went over her shoulders, ploughing the dirt beyond her, then she was up and haring off again.

Another beam fixed on the mechanism, now ten spans in the air. As Nish fled, he heard a spear clank off the outside and prayed it had done no damage. Another spear flew past Irisis's ear — he saw it flash like a silver snake through the beam -and they were beyond range of night shooting.

Flangers passed Nish, running easily. 'How far to go?'

panted Nish, who had a stitch already.

'A thousand paces, more or less.' 'Less, I hope.'

The soldier drew level with Irisis, pointed a little to his left, then drew ahead. Irisis had begun to flag and Nish felt no better. After a day without food or water he had nothing left to give. He chanced a glance back and up. The clanker had one last shot at the rope, but missed. The mechanism was almost out of sight.

The clanker turned in their direction, following the other, which was moving slowly along the perimeter of the barrier. Ahead, Flangers was trotting, barely visible in the dark. As they caught up to him he had one hand out, searching for the opening Yggur had made for him earlier.

'Here!' he called in a low voice, pushing something invisible open and holding it for them.

'Which way?' gasped Irisis.

'Straight towards the north-western corner of the Snizort wall.' He indicated the direction with a finger.

Irisis jogged that way. Nish staggered after her, his throat so dry he could hear each breath rushing in and out. Flangers picked up a crossbow he'd left at the entrance and came last.

By the time they were halfway to the Snizort wall, the clankers, with at least thirty vengeful scavengers hanging off the top and sides, were thumping after them. The seeker girl must have been directing the pursuit for, no matter how they twisted and turned in the darkness, Irisis and Nish could not shake it off.

They topped a rise. To Irisis's dismay, the wall was a good half a league ahead. Flangers dropped to one knee and fired. Nish heard the bolt clang off the iron plates.

Just when he thought he could go no further, there was an explosion between the two clankers. They stopped in a scream of metal and the beams wavered across the sky, searching frantically, then went out.

The air-floater dropped out of the dark beside Irisis. They flopped over the side and it shot up and away.

Gilhaelith sent a messenger down to Oellyll, carrying another plea to the matriarch, for any world maps the lyrinx had made. Gyrull came up to see him that afternoon and again consented so readily to help that he wondered if she had an ulterior motive. But then, he knew she had an interest in his work.

'In our early days on Santhenar,' Gyrull said, 'before the war began, our best fliers crisscrossed the globe, mapping it from the air. We wanted to see if there were other lands we could go to, instead of fighting for a piece of Lauralin.'

'Did they find any?'

'Several. A small continent a long way to the west closely resembles the one marked on the far southern side of your geomantic globe. There are also a series of lands, well above the equator, that are wrongly depicted on your globe.'

No wonder it had let him down before. 'Do human peoples live there?'

'I don't know, Tetrarch. Those lands were so far away that only our best fliers could reach them, and they did not stay long. Such lands were of little interest to us, for the non-fliers, most of our population, would have had to sail there.' Jags flashed across her breast plates at the thought. 'The risk of sailing all that way was too great.' Her wings stirred in agitation. 'Better to die fighting for Meldorin and Lauralin than drown like dogs in the endless ocean. Our fliers did, however, make careful charts of the lands. I'll have a set of copies sent up.'

'What about nodes and fields?'

We know where the most powerful ones lie, on land and undersea. We had to, to be able to fly to unknown lands. You may also see those charts. In return, you will permit me one use of your geomantic globe, should I request it.'

that night, four lyrinx carried up a great many rolled maps. Each was as large as a good-sized carpet, and each was drawn in meticulous detail in coloured ink on the softest leather Gilhaelith had ever seen. He unrolled the first map and recoiled. On the right-hand side, quite distinctly, was a navel, and above it a pair of large, dark nipples. It was made from human skin, evidently from women and several dozen skins had gone into each chart.

Once he got used to the idea, though, he discovered what a marvel the maps were. They showed the kind of detail that could only be observed from the air. Even with just a fraction of that information, the usefulness of his globe would be magnified a hundredfold.

Changing his world model, under the glass, was the most exquisitely painstaking work Gilhaelith had ever done. The lands and seas of the geomantic globe were marked so precisely that he required three pairs of lenses, mounted in a sliding frame, to resolve their finest structure. Once he had focussed on a particular point, Gilhaelith used the Art to change it, in three dimensions, to what was on the charts. Sometimes it took an hour to make one tiny alteration, for he might have to raise mountains, reduce highlands, correct the course of rivers or alter the shape of the coast. Hundreds of such modifications had to be made, not to mention creating an entire new continent in the northern hemisphere, complete with peninsulas, gulfs and archipelagos, and many islands large and small.

Immersed in this craftsmanship, it was almost possible to forget the slow decay of his mental faculties. Almost possible, save that each new task took longer and required more concentration. By evening he felt like a mat that had been hung over a rope and beaten. And the work took its toll. The slow leakage of power from those fragments of phantom crystal was steadily damaging him. The difference was not noticeable at the end of one day, or even a week, but after working on the globe for a month it was clear what he'd lost. His thoughts were sluggish and disconnected. His ability to concentrate, once effortless, now required the most anguished feats of willpower, while parts of the landscaping spell, which formerly he could have used without thinking, often faded from his mind midway and had to be done over and over again.