Ian Irvine - Alchymist

'But I killed Mylii, surr.'

'A tragic accident that could have happened to anyone. Besides, he reared back onto the knife after you told him to hold still, so you can hardly be blamed for it.’

‘I thought he was attacking Ullii' said Nish. 'I was trying to save her, and now he's dead — an innocent man.’

'You were doing your best, so let's say no more, eh? Besides, it remains to be seen whether he was innocent.'

'What do you mean?'

'Was he embracing his sister, or holding her for the soldiers? Did he put his arms around her because he loved her, or because Ghorr ordered him to find her? But enough of this speculation — fit yourself out and gather what food you can, and make it snappy.'

They replaced their rags with clothes from the victims, the least bloodstained garments they could find. Nish's were too big, but he found a pair of boots that were roughly his size, and a hat. In ten minutes they were ready. Pilfered packs contained spare clothing, food for a couple of weeks, water bottles and all the other gear that soldiers carried. Nish had a shiny new sword, unused by the look of it. Flydd had taken the hedron from the air-floater's controller, as well as the chart-maker's spyglass, which had survived the crash.

'Not sure what use this will be,' he said, tossing the crystal in his hand. 'But you never know. Let's go. This place will be swarming with scrutators in a few hours.'

Are we going to the rendezvous?'

'There's no point. By the time we walked all that way, Irisis would be long gone. You can't hide an air-floater in country like this.'

'Where are we going?'

'Into the wilderness.' Flydd smiled grimly, as if at some private joke.

'What about Ullii?' Nish's voice squeaked. 'We can't leave her.'

'There's no way of knowing where she is. If she wants to find us she will, though that's hardly likely now.'

He said it without rancour, but Nish cringed.

It was another sweltering day. They walked all that morning, taking advantage of the cover along creeks, mostly dry, and ridges, whenever they ran in the right direction, which was not often. They saw no sign of Ullii.

In the afternoon, Nish began to flag. The wound in his ribs grew increasingly painful but he could not stop to attend to it. He was continually falling behind and Flydd kept yelling at him to keep up. The scrutator had not mentioned Mylii's death again but Nish ached with guilt.

Flydd seemed to be making for a hill knobbed with round red boulders, one of many in this endless landscape of undulating plains and gentle mounded hills. Nish up-ended his water bottle but the few drops it contained barely wet his tongue. They had crossed half a dozen watercourses in the afternoon, all dry. He sat on a rock, staring at the ground. It was hard to find the will to go on. Every moment of the day he'd regretted his follies; he'd looked everywhere for Ullii but she was gone and his child with her. Why couldn't he have thought before he brought down the air-floater, or held the knife to Mylii's back? Why hadn't he realised Ullii was pregnant? Why, why, why?

The scrutator appeared. 'What's the matter? We can't stop out in the open.'

Nish struggled to his feet. Pain spread from the wound up into his shoulder, and down his hip to the outside of his leg. His feet hurt, too, for the boots were too small and had already rubbed the skin off his toes and heels.

He fell several times on the way up the hill, which was steeper than it had appeared. Flydd, well ahead, did not notice. The next time Nish looked up, the old man had vanished.

Nish slipped on rubble. As he picked himself up, he spied another air-floater on the horizon. They couldn't see him from so far away, but he lay still until it drifted out of sight to the south. He had to crawl the rest of the way up the hill — his feet hurt too much to walk.

He eased between two boulders and saw Flydd sitting in the shade, eating another of those knobbly fruits, licking the skin with the gusto of a child with a piece of honeycomb. The green pulp had oozed all down his front and he hadn't noticed. I just saw an air-floater; Nish croaked.

'It's been there a while. We should be safe from it, unless they've picked Ullii up to track me.'

The cold was spreading across Nish's chest now, but his forehead was dripping with perspiration.

'Is something the matter?' said Flydd..

Nish managed a limp wave with one hand. 'S'orright,' he slurred, holding his side. 'Just a flesh wound.'

'Where?' Flydd unfastened his shirt. 'How did you get this?'

'Soldier in the forest. Stuck me in the ribs. Not serious.' Nish tried to lie down.

Now Flydd was furious. 'I'll be the judge of that. You're a fool, Nish. Why didn't you tell me?'

Nish groaned as the scrutator probed the wound with fingers that seemed deliberately rough.

'This should have been treated last night. Now it's infected. You need a swift boot up the arse!' Flydd proceeded to give Nish one, knocking him down on his face. He leapt up with the empty water bottles and disappeared.

Nish closed his eyes. He deserved no less.

It was dark by the time the scrutator returned. Nish woke from a feverish sleep to find Flydd looming over him.

I didn't want to risk a fire,' he said, the anger gone, 'but we've got to have hot water. That wound must be cleaned out.'

'I didn't think it was that bad,' said Nish, who felt cold all over. 'It didn't bleed much.'

'You've been lucky, but if the infection sets in you'll die of it. And that might not be such a bad thing,' Flydd said cheerfully. 'At least you won't be able to cock up anything else.' At the look on Nish's face, he added, 'I'm joking.'

The scrutator kindled a small fire well under the overhang of a boulder and climbed up to check that it could not be seen from above. 'This'll have to do. I'd have to be really unlucky for that to be spotted. But lately, I have been really unlucky.'

When the water was boiling, Flydd cleaned the wound with rags soaked in scalding water, before making a poultice of herbs beaten into the pulp of one of the knobbly fruits and binding it over the gash. Subsequently he stewed meat and vegetables for dinner.

Though famished, Nish was unable to take more than a few spoonfuls. The scrutator ate the rest, pulled his coat around him and closed his eyes. Nish did too, and slept, until his dreams forced him to wake.

Seven people had died last night and he was responsible for five of them. He hadn't meant to kill anybody, but they were dead nonetheless. It was not an attractive thought. The soldiers might have killed him without a qualm, but he could not feel the same way about their deaths. Mylii had been harmless. Worse still, the pilot of the air-floater had been a female, as most pilots were. He had killed a woman. In a world where the falling population was a disaster, to kill a woman of child-bearing age was the worst crime in the register. He let out a small, squeaking choke.

Flydd rolled over in his coat. 'What is it now?'

'I killed the pilot. A woman. What am I to do, Scrutator?'

'Find a way to atone for it. And you can start by not disturbing my sleep.' Flydd rolled back the other way, snapping the collar about his ears.

Nish kept seeing her face — she had been a pretty little thing. It became a night of horrors. Each time he dozed off he dreamed about the dead, but now all were women with babies in their bellies — his children. Each time, the dreams jerked him awake. Nish stared into the night but their faces were painted on the darkness. And Mylii. For all that it had been an accident, he had killed Ullii's brother and nothing could undo that. It must destroy everything that had ever been between him and Ullii. If only she would come back and he could, at least, explain.

Flydd's poultice proved efficacious, for Nish's wound was better in the morning. It was just as well, as Flydd's left thigh, the one torn open and burned by his first crystal, had become infected. Nish spent the best pan of an hour cleaning and dressing it in the foggy dawn, with the scrutator stoically enduring the pain.