Ian Irvine - Alchymist

Artificers now pulled the cover off a large metal mirror, the best part of two spans across, and swung it out. But it was more than just a mirror, for it had a complicated controller apparatus at the back, and an operator to use it. On the other air-dreadnoughts, similar devices were being moved into position.

More signals were sent. At the bow, a young woman in a green and grey uniform turned over a minute-glass. The air-dreadnought floated ponderously towards the target. The operator made continual adjustments to his mirror, reflecting the sunlight in a narrow beam across the bay, and then at the wharves ahead. The beams of the other mirrors followed the first, making a tight cluster of bright dots.

'Ten,' called the young woman. A man behind her raised a series of signal flags, one after another, as she counted down the numbers. 'Five, four, three, two, one. Now!'

The signalman swept down his red flag. The mirror operator stood up on his toes, drew power into the mighty controller crystals and pulled down a lever. The air-dreadnought shuddered.

Ullii felt a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach as the field — what was left of it — tried to tie itself in knots. For an instant the rotors stopped completely, and there was silence, apart from wind whistling through the ropes and wires.

The beams of all sixteen mirrors converged on a single point, the top floor of the warehouse Ghorr had indicated. Suddenly they were amplified a thousand times by the power from the controller crystals. The bright spot became incandescent, burning straight through the tiled roof. The timbers erupted in flames and within seconds the roof, fifty spans long and twenty wide, was gone.

The bright spot moved down inside, fire leaping up after it, before smoke belching from the warehouse blotted it out. A single lyrinx fled out through the roof, one wing aflame, before wheeling down to smack into the water beside the wharf.

The smoke sucked back down momentarily; then, in a colossal explosion, the walls of the warehouse blew out, raining burning debris everywhere and setting fire to the neighbouring buildings. Burning lyrinx fled through the doors and windows.

'Must have been an old store of naphtha barrels in there,' Ghorr said with a grim chuckle. 'But we won't mention that in our reports, eh, Fusshte? Let the world think we did it all.'

The mirror operator was standing up in his seat, helmet askew, mouth agape.

'Marvellous,' said Fusshte in a choked voice. He cast a side-ways glance at Ghorr that told Ullii a lot. Suddenly, Fusshte was afraid of the chief scrutator.

Ullii became aware that the pilot was shouting. The rotors were still running irregularly and there was barely anything left in the field. Down below, a score of lyrinx tried to take to the air but none could get aloft.

Ghorr, Fusshte, and the pilot and operator had a hurried conference by the rail. With all the cheering, Ullii only caught part of it. They were worried by what had happened to the field.

'That'll have to be all,' Ghorr said regretfully. 'I'm not going to spoil a brilliant success by a failure. If there's no power there's no power. It'll look better if we just sail majestically on. Still, we've given them a shock they'll not forget.'

They drifted with the wind and, some leagues west of Thurkad, the operators picked up another field, though the rotors were still running irregularly. It appeared the surge of power had damaged something. Ullii was pleased about that. The ruin wrought by the mirrors had horrified her.

That night they passed over the mountains of Bannador, and the higher ranges beyond, which were covered in snow from top to bottom. 'Where do you think they are?' said Fusshte in the night. 'Shazmak? It lies south of our route.'

'Why would they go to Shazmak?' said Ghorr. 'They'll be somewhere where they can buy food, or hunt for it. Isolated towns survive in the north of Meldorin, I'm told, and on the west coast.'

In the morning they landed on a grassy plain, where they could see for leagues in any direction, though four of the air-dreadnoughts remained in the air, on watch.

'We're some little way north of the ruins of Chanthed,' said Ghorr, 'where the College of the Histories stood. The Plains of Folc lie north of us. To the west the plains run for fifty leagues into the Silbis Drylands. The western mountains lie beyond that, by the coast. Somewhere there we'll find them.

'Now,' he went on once the machine had settled on its triple keels, 'it's your turn, Ullii Find the traitor Flydd. Find Irisis Stirm, who lied to you and abandoned you. Find Cryl-Nish Hlar, the man who made you pregnant. The one who murdered your brother and destroyed your helpless baby. And then, lead us to them, so we can take your revenge for you.'

Ullii had had much time to dwell on her retribution on the journey here. Since the attack on Thurkad yesterday she'd thought about little else. Nish had done those terrible things, and deserved to be punished, but Ghorr was a wicked man, a brute and a liar. How could it be right to give up her former friends to him? She could not decide. She wanted to deceive him but did not know how. I won't give them up, she thought. But Nish does deserve to be punished …

'Well, Seeker?' growled Ghorr.

'I .., can't see Flydd in my lattice,' she said. 'Nor Irisis.' It was the truth. Lately her lattice had been ever harder to see and she could no longer deny it. She dreaded that it would go completely, taking her unique life of the mind with it.

'Have you ever seen them, or any other sign of them, since we came west?'

'No.' Sweat prickled in her armpits, in spite of the chilly weather.

He skewered her with his all-seeing eyes. 'Then we must go up. We'll fly in a square, south, west, north and east, and you'll keep watch.'

'Yes,' she whispered.

They flew south. 'Can you see them?' Ghorr asked, halfway across the traverse.

'No,' she gulped.

They flew west. 'Can you see them now?'

Ullii shook her head. They headed north, then east, and ever Ghorr asked, and ever the answer was the same. By late that afternoon he was growing impatient. 'If all this has been for nothing …" he said menacingly.

Fusshte whispered in his ear. 'All right,' said Ghorr. 'You have my leave.'

Fusshte gave Ullii the look that always made her skin creep. Ghorr broke people like her, but Fusshte devoured them.

'Come inside the cabin with me, little Ullii,' Fusshte said in that voice as dry as the rustling of a snake's scales. 'I have some questions for you …'

'I'll try harder' she squeaked.

'I thought you might,' said Ghorr. 'Go east another two leagues,' he said to the pilot, 'then turn south and keep going, expanding the square by two leagues each circuit. If they're anywhere on Meldorin, we'll find them.'

Fusshte looked like a viper who'd had his dinner stolen.

It wasn't until the following evening that Ullii picked up a trace. She let out a little gasp and tried vainly to conceal it, but the chief scrutator missed nothing. 'You've found them.'

'I can see something,' she said in a tiny voice.

Ghorr was on her in three powerful strides. 'Who, Seeker?'

'I don't recognise it.'

Ghorr and Fusshte exchanged glances. 'It's a trick' Fusshte said in a low voice, but not too low for Ullii's keen ears. 'She's trying to protect them. If she picked up anyone, it would be Flydd. He's the strongest.'

'Maybe,' said Ghorr. 'And maybe not. Her talent defies analysis. It could be anything.' He turned back to the seeker. 'It's not lyrinx, is it?'

'No.'

'Not a node or field?'

'No.'

'It's human, isn't it?'

'Yes.' She barely exhaled the word.

'Where?' Ghorr seized her by the shoulders, but let her go at once. The time for threats was past. 'Which way, Seeker?' He put on a kindly voice but his eyes were like shards of glass.