Ian Irvine - Alchymist

'I'll tell you when we get there.' Flydd was still tearing leaves. Ullii was carrying them too — Nish could smell them on her.

't' s the red mustard bush; Flydd said quietly, 'since I know you're going to ask. Ullii found it for me. Puts dogs off the scent, hopefully.'

'But not people?'

'I hardly think so.'

The sky had clouded over. Judging by an occasional glimpse of the moon, they now seemed to be heading north. Nish wondered why, but didn't ask.

Long before daybreak he smelt tar and knew they were passing Snizort again, further east. Flydd continued north, bypassing the now abandoned command hill, before turning onto a north-westerly heading across undulating country covered in crunchy, withered grass.

After several hours of weary trudging, it began to get light. The cloud had passed and it would be another clear, hot day. They climbed a rocky mound, not big enough to be called a hill. Nish sank into the shade afforded by a boulder shaped like a two-humped buffalo, closed his eyes and began to doze off. Flydd scanned the scene, keeping to the cover. 'I don't see anyone behind us.'

Nish grunted. He'd eaten his bread long ago and was so hungry he could have bitten off his arm.

'Better fix your boot,' said Flydd. . 'With what?' Nish snapped.

Flydd tossed him the whip and knife. Nish unbraided several strips of leather, poked holes in the boot with the tip of the knife and began to weave the strips through.

Flydd picked shreds of cloth from around the tear in his left thigh, careful not to touch it with his dirty hands. The edges looked as though they'd been burned.

'What happened there?' said Nish.

Flydd waved the question away.

'Do you want me to bandage that?'

'Touch it with those filthy paws and I'm likely to get gangrene.'

Ullii squatted beside Flydd, staring anxiously at the wound. She was wearing a tent-like smock made from a piece of green cloth fastened at the throat, and baggy trousers. She knotted a mask out of a strip torn from the hem of the smock, and covered her eyes, nose and ears. Horizontal slits over her eyes allowed her to see, not that she needed to.

'You're hurting, Xervish, Ullii said, eyes blinking behind the mask as the light grew.

'Somewhat, Ullii.' Flydd touched her affectionately on the shoulder. 'I'll attend to it as soon as we find water.’

She packed surplus cloth into her nostrils and snuggled up to him, which Nish found extraordinary. Ullii was so wary of people. Gazing up into Flydd's eyes, she said, 'I forgive you, Xervish.'

Nish had no idea what she was talking about. Ullii turned to him then, as if challenging him, and her stare was so intense that he had to look away. What did she want? More of the intimacy they'd shared at Tirthrax? It felt like half a lifetime ago and, even though he cared about Ullii, Nish could not turn his feelings on like a tap.

She tossed her head, leapt up and stalked into the scrub. 'What was that about?' said Nish.

Flydd, bound up in his own troubles, answered the question he thought Nish had asked. 'A long time ago I promised to help find her twin brother, Mylii. They were separated when she was four and she hasn't heard from him since.'

'You mentioned him the other day,' said Nish.

'But I didn't tell you I'd lied to her in Snizort, at the node-drainer. Ullii was being uncooperative, so I told her Muss had found Mylii and was bringing him back. Unfortunately, she discovered that I'd lied.'

'Well, it's all over now.'

'I hope so,' said Flydd, 'though I've a feeling it isn't. Go and have a look around, will you?'

Nish was behind a tree on the other side of the mound when he caught a whiff of something burning, or at least extremely overheated. It was a-strange smell, nothing like burning wood or leaves, or flesh of human or lyrinx. The odour was like roasted rock. He called Flydd over. Ullii came out of the bushes, scowling.

'What's that?' Nish said, sniffing.

Unusually, Ullii answered. 'Iron tears.'

Flydd gave her a keen glance. The rising sun carved him out in profile, a black cut-out in a bronze wall. 'You've been here before, haven't you, Ullii?'

She adjusted her mask over her eyes, moving a little closer to the scrutator. 'Came with Irisis ages ago, looking for the node-drainer.'

'Is it the node?' Nish couldn't see anything unusual.

'What's left of it,' said Flydd. 'Let's take a look, shall we?'

'Shouldn't we try to get away while we can?'

'I've got to check something first.' Flydd scanned the landscape. There was nothing to be seen, though ten thousand soldiers could have hidden in any of the valleys still in shadow, or behind any of the stone-crowned hills. 'We've time enough. They haven't found our trail yet. Over there.' He indicated the hill to their left.

They wound up the hill, which was no more than a grassy undulation. From the top, not two hundred paces away, a black hole in the ground emitted wisps of steam.

Ullii stopped abruptly, her small head darting this way and that.

'What is it?' said Flydd. 'What do you see, Ullii?'

'A hole; she said.

'Of course there's a hole,' Nish muttered.

'Don't be a fool, boy! Ullii?'

'Hole in my lattice, Xervish,' said Ullii. 'A pair of holes.'

'A pair?' said Flydd. 'Are you afraid?'

'No,' said Ullii. 'They're empty now.'

Flydd's feet left pale trails in the dewy grass. Nish followed in silence, unable to make sense of it. Why was Flydd squandering their lead for the exploded remains of a node?

Shortly they began to encounter patches of burnt grass, each containing slaggy aggregations of melted rock which must have been blown out of the hole. The patches coalesced, the blobs of slag grew larger until the ground was knee-deep in them. The bigger ones were still hot enough to warm Nish's ankles as he wove between them.

The hole formed a perfect oval about forty spans wide by sixty long. Its rim was as sharp as cheese cut with a knife and crusted with exhalations of red, yellow and brown sulphur. Within, the land had subsided in a series of concentric oval rings, like a squashed spyglass. The outside ring, the highest, bore a hide of withered grass. On the next, the grass had been carbonised in place. The soil of the remaining rings was burnt bare. The centre of the hole was obscured by rising steam.

There were nine of these oval rings, each about the width of a span, the drop to the next being roughly the same distance. They formed a series of giant steps down to the centre, though the shimmering air obscured what lay below. The humidity was choking.

'You're not planning to go down there?' said Nish, eyeing the hole anxiously.

Flydd chuckled mirthlessly. 'Indeed we are.'

He lowered himself onto the first ring and held his arms up. Without hesitation Ullii slipped into them. Flydd could get her to do things that no one else could. The pair turned their backs and went to the edge.

Nish was reluctant to follow but Flydd was not a man for excuses. Going backwards over the first edge, he felt his chest tighten, his pulse quicken.

Flydd and Ullii were well below him as Nish climbed down to the next level. The sides of the oval rings, as smooth as polished stone, resembled a series of pistons one inside the other. At the ninth ring it was stifling, steamy. Waves of heat pulsed up from an oval trench five or six spans deep and, when the steam clouds parted, its base glowed red. Within the trench, a cylinder of rock rose from the centre, listing to one side. The once-smooth stone walls had run like toffee.

On its flat top, like a pair of teardrops on a pedestal, sat two shining globes of liquid metal, bright as quicksilver. They were shaped like drops of water, though each was the size of a soup bowl. A faint humming sound came from them. Ullii had taken her mask off and was staring at the globes as if entranced.