Ian Irvine - Alchymist

'Ullii?' called Flydd. 'Come here. I need you for a minute.'

She was standing in the middle of the clearing, staring at the sky.

'Nish?' said Flydd, thinking he was near. 'This is what we're going to do —’

Leaves crackled underfoot and Nish did not catch the rest. He started back towards Flydd, who was an indistinct shape in strips of moonlight and shadow. 'Surr, I didn't hear what you said …' But now Flydd was moving his hands in front of Ullii. Nish caught whispers, soft and sibilant, but could not make out the words.

Suddenly Ullii began to scream. 'No! Get away.' She thrust both hands hard against Flydd's face. His head snapped back and he overbalanced. Wailing, Ullii ran into the trees. Nish hurried across and helped Flydd up.

'Someone must have tried that with her before,' said the scrutator. 'I suppose it was Ghorr, in Nennifer.'

'Or my father,' said Nish.

'As soon as I began, her defences went up.'

'What are we going to do, surr?'

Mistaking the question, Flydd replied, 'I'll have to try stronger measures.' His voice went strange, as if he was choking. 'Though it will be like betraying a friend. I —’

The rotor roared and the air-floater appeared above them, bathed in moonlight, a bladder like a gigantic ovoid football with a boat-shaped compartment suspended beneath it. Soldiers were ranged along the side. At the front a slim figure held an object resembling a stubby spyglass to one eye. The images of machine and men, black and white against the black sky, froze in Nish's inner eye like brushstrokes on paper.

The soldiers moved; it looked as though they were readying crossbows to shoot. With bare seconds to act, Nish did the only thing he could. He hurled his cudgel straight at the rotor.

'No!' hissed Flydd, but it was too late.

The whirling club went true, for once. It flew straight into the wooden rotor, which was not meshed at the back, and smashed it to splinters. Some scythed across the clearing, tearing leaves off the trees and sending up clouds of dust. Others went straight up, tearing through the fabric of the balloon. Floater gas hissed out. The air-floater lifted, hovering for a second before turning over and plunging towards the ground.

'You wretched fool!' cried Flydd. 'If there's a spark when that hits, it'll blow us halfway to Borgistry.'

The air-floater struck hard, hurling soldiers and crew everywhere. There were thuds, snaps, screams. The airbag collapsed. Someone called out in an unnaturally high voice. It was Flydd. What was the matter?

Nish tried to answer but his voice was just as shrill. He waited for the spark that would blow them to pieces, but it did not come.

'Flydd?' he whispered after a minute or two. His voice sounded normal again.

'Here' Flydd said. 'Quiet.'

Someone emerged from the wreckage. It was the slim figure who'd been looking through the spyglass, a young man dressed in white. Long hair streamed down his back like a waterfall of black ink. He disappeared into the shadows.

A pair of soldiers hacked themselves free. One helped out a third soldier, who fell down. A fourth crawled out from under the collapsed gasbag. The first two lunged at Flydd. The fourth soldier came for Nish, limping badly, though his sword cut the air in a professional manner.

The sword flicked out. Nish backpedalled frantically, feeling for his knife. He hit a tree, leapt sideways and almost spitted himself on the soldier's blade, which had anticipated his every move. He slipped on wet leaves and the point crunched into his ribs.

He hurled himself backwards, landing hard in the darkness behind a pair of dose-growing trees. The soldier pushed forwards, feeling with the tip of his weapon to the right of where Nish lay. Nish held his breath.

The sword rustled in the leaves, left and right. Nish tensed. As the soldier moved, one leg was outlined in a sliver of moonbeam. Nish stabbed for the knee. The blade went in, the leg collapsed and the soldier went down.

Nish dared not go for the kill; the man still had the sword. He scuttled away, holding his ribs. Blood was trickling down his side though he felt no pain, so the injury couldn't be that bad.

Peering through the trees, he saw Flydd wrestling with a soldier. The other soldier lay on the ground. Ullii stood by the wreckage, staring into the forest behind the air-floater. The dark-haired man emerged, then froze, staring. She let out a faint cry; he ran at her.

A cloud drifted in front of the moon and Nish lost sight of them. Twigs crackled to his left. He turned slowly, so as not to give away his position. The rustling moved closer. He held his breath, afraid lest even that faint sound should give him away. Nish felt desperately frightened. A civilian with a knife could not hope to defeat a soldier with a sword.

A branch snapped, even closer, and he jumped. A drop of sweat made an itchy trail down his nose. He wasn't game to rub it. A shadow moved just a few steps away. Surely the soldier could smell him from here?

Nish's fist, clenched around the knife, shook. Just keep going, he prayed. He did not want to use the knife — he wanted out of here as fast as possible.

After an agonising wait, the shadow moved on and he lost it in the darkness, though a faint crunch of leaves told him that the soldier was not far away. Nish slid forward, one slow step after another, until he reached the edge of the clearing.

We could hear Ullii making a high-pitched keening sound.

Where was she?

There, close by the air-floater, and she appeared to be struggling with the dark-haired man. Nish could only make tarn out because his clothes were white. Ullii's pale face seemed to be floating in mid-air.

Holding the knife out, Nish tiptoed across the clearing. The man seemed to be wrestling with Ullii, who began to make choking noises. Nish crept closer.

As the moon came out, he threw his arm around the young man's neck and pressed the knife to his back. 'Let her go! Don't move.'

The young man gave a frightened cry, reared backwards and the knife slid into him like a red-hot poker into a block of cheese. He let out a soft sssss, stood up straight and tall, and fell, thumping face-first into the ground.

Ullii threw herself on him, turned him over and tried to lift him. She got him as far as a sitting position before he slumped over again. A silver bracelet glinted on his wrist. A moonbeam caught his glazed eyes. He looked as if he had been dead for a week.

Ullii let out a scream of anguish that froze Nish's blood, and it went on and on. 'Mylii,' she wailed, kissing his face and hands. 'Mylii, come back.'

Nish could only stare at her, the fatal knife hanging from his hand. Mylii?

Flydd came running across, reeking of blood. 'What have you done now?'

'I thought he was trying to choke her,' Nish whispered. 'I tried to stop him but he reared back onto the knife. What is it, Xervish?'

'I hardly dare to think.' Flydd was shaking his head. He squatted beside the seeker, who was frantically trying to rouse the dead man. 'Ullii?'

She did not answer. Ullii began to rock the young man, making a moaning noise in her throat. Flydd conjured ghost light in the palm of his hand and held it out.

Ullii looked up and, momentarily, the two faces were illuminated side by side. Nish's scalp crawled. Apart from the young man's black hair, they were identical.

'Ullii and Mylii, said Flydd in a voice as old as death. How often does that happen?'

'I don't understand; Nish said.

'Twins identical in all respects but their sex.' said Flydd. 'They were separated when she was four, Nish, and the trauma drove Ullii to become the sensitive creature that she is. You've just killed her long-lost brother, Mylii. She's been searching for him all her life.'