Ian Irvine - Alchymist

Ullii gestured. 'A long way. As far as I can see.' South-south-west,' said the pilot.

What's down that way?' said Ghorr.

The pilot consulted her map. 'We're here at the moment.' Her pointed fingernail, which was tinted yellow, marked a range of hills that ran west from the mountains almost all the way to the Silbis Drylands. 'Below us, according to the map, there used to be towns and scattered villages, running to forest in the east, up against the mountains. To the west it's just empty desert. Further south the desert passes into scrub and then into the swamp forests of Orist, which run on for fifty leagues, though much of that is said to be impassable.'

'Not to us,' said Ghorr. 'I need more, Ullii. Where on the map do you sense this person?'

Ullii, after much prompting, drew a large circle with her finger. It covered most of southern Meldorin.

'That's not good enough!' hissed Fusshte. 'Seeker—'

'Leave her,' said Ghorr. 'The talent only gives direction, not distance. Strong talents, or strong Arts, she may pick up from hundreds of leagues away, while insignificant ones could elude her from the other side of the hill. We'll follow her path until the destination becomes clear, then wait for night. I don't want to alert them — if it is them.'

'What does it matter?' said Fusshte. 'We've got power enough in these sixteen air-dreadnoughts to overcome any enemy. How can Flydd's ragtag band trouble us?'

'They've given us trouble aplenty over the past year,' snapped Ghorr. 'If Flydd realises we're coming, he may find a way of hiding, even from Ullii. Take nothing for granted, Scrutator.'

The hunt continued, but the next time she looked Ullii found nothing at all. It was not that their quarry had disappeared but, rather, as if something was blocking that part of the lattice. By now she was so worn out with seeking that there was no choice but to stop for the night. Ghorr was furious.

Gilhaelith had spent the previous day lying on his damp palliasse, brooding. It was an outrage that he should be controlled by such a collection of fools. He could not suffer it. The attack on Nennifer would certainly fail and the scrutators would come to Fiz Gorgo in force, to seize whatever Yggur had left behind. Finding Gilhaelith here, they would slay him out of hand.

It was clear that humanity was going to lose the war, so the safest place for him was Alcifer. He was going back, even if he had to slog all the way through the swamp forests of Orist. Nothing could stand in his way. Tiaan's remark about the nodes being linked had opened up a whole avenue of possibilities. The key to his project was not the nodes, as he'd always thought, but the way they were linked and force transferred between them. He was just a whisker away from his goal, but he needed the geomantic globe to prove it. And then, true mastery would be his. And real power too, if he wanted it — enough to heal himself; enough to ensure that he was never at the mercy of others again; enough to control the power available to other mancers, if he cared to; enough, just possibly, to protect the world he'd gone to such lengths to understand, from all mancers.

How to get away? He'd been stripped and searched carefully before they put him in this cell. The guards had taken his clothes and given him fresh ones, in case he'd had some device secreted about his person, as he had. He got up and began picking moodily at ice that had formed below a seeping crack in the wall. It was a dirty yellow colour, like urine. His breath steamed; it was miserably cold and he wasn't used to it.

Someone rapped at the door — a guard with his dinner. He rapped back, then moved to the rear of the cell. If he didn't the brute would simply take it away. Two armed guards watched the whole time the door was open. The third guard placed the tray on the floor inside the door and went out.

Gilhaelith cast an eye over the meal. Clear soup, invariably lukewarm, a piece of overcooked fish, boiled vegetables and dry bread. Misery! He'd requested freshly salted live slugs, pickled pigs' ovaries and other delicacies he'd been used to in Nyriandiol, but the guard had given him a disgusted look and banged the door.

'Excuse me, Guard?' Gilhaelith said firmly. 'I'd like some salt, if you please.'

The guard checked with his fellows, who shrugged. He disappeared, shortly returning with a chunk of rock salt as big as a lemon, which he tossed to Gilhaelith. It was almost as hard as stone. The door clicked and was bolted on the outside.

Gilhaelith took up the bowl, slurping noisily at the soup, which wasn't lukewarm. It was cold, had a grey scum around the rim and was utterly tasteless. Prising off a piece of salt, Gilhaelith held it in his mouth and sucked the soup past it.

Something occurred to him. Spitting the rest of the soup back into the bowl, he took out the piece of salt and examined it in the dim light. It had crystal faces.

Salt was of little use in geomancy unless the crystals were perfectly formed, and even then it could take little power. But it was all he had. Using a tine of his fork, he picked away at the chunk of rock salt, trying to separate it into one or more crystals he could use. Gilhaelith was exquisitely careful, for the tiniest scratch on a crystal face would ruin it for mancery. He quite lost himself in his work, taking an hour to remove a flawed crystal as small as a grain of wheat.

The night passed, and the following morning. Gilhaelith laboured on, now holding the remaining crystals in a rag torn from his shirt, for even the moisture from his fingers would damage them. By the middle of the afternoon the last dross cleaved away and he had a single, perfect cube of salt, transparent and with a faint yellow tinge. He might be able to work some minor magic with it — slip the lock, douse the lights in the corridor, possibly even put the nearby guards to sleep, but that would be its limit.

Wiping a patch of floor, he set his forgotten dinner on it and carefully placed the crystal in the centre of the tray. A pair of guards passed down the corridor, talking quietly. Gilhaelith dropped his rag over the crystal and lay back on the palliasse, clenching his fists against the tension. The guards were watchful and intelligent. Anything might arouse their suspicion.

They looked in, saw nothing amiss and went by. He began at once. If the crystal did work, he would have to get it right first time, for Yggur would allow no second chances. It might be better to wait until he'd gone to Nennifer. No, Yggur could have special plans for Gilhaelith in his absence. Do it now.

Gilhaelith ever so gently drew power into the crystal — not enough to reveal himself, but enough for him to sense any auras elsewhere in Fiz Gorgo. They could be due to mancers or other sources of the Art best avoided. He picked up several: Yggur and Malien close together, Flydd elsewhere, and various devices presumably in Yggur's quarters. He wasn't worried about them, but something larger and more tenuous, further out, did bother him.

It was like a filmy cloud surrounding Fiz Gorgo, and he could detect nothing beyond it. It must be a protection of some sort, to keep the outside world from spying or even noticing that there were mancers here, or to keep people in.

Gilhaelith withdrew, considering. Invisible to sight and touch the protection might be, nonetheless it could prevent him from escaping. He probed it tentatively, to discover how it had been made, and its strength. To his surprise it did not resist him — it was set to protect from the outside, not from within.

He took a little more power but the phantom fragments stung his brain like sparklers. He lost control for a second and his probe went right through the protection, burning a small opening like an eye. He withdrew hastily and it closed over again. Too hastily! A final surge of power zipped through the cubic crystal, cleaving it down the middle. He cursed, crushed it underfoot and threw himself on the bed in disgust.