Ian Irvine - Alchymist

Letting out a roar that hurt his ears, they began to chant, 'Cryl-Nish Hlar! Cryl-Nish Hlar!' and beat their weapons on their shields, and did not stop until they had roared themselves hoarse.

It would have been the greatest day of Nish's life, had it not been for the thought of all their dead. And his.

Later that afternoon, Flydd drew Nish aside, questioning him about the fate of his father, and how Jal-Nish had used the tears. When Nish had finished, the scrutator said, 'We'd better ride up there.’

Nish had been expecting that. Flydd would have to see for himself, and try to find the tears, or discover what had happened to them.

'Now?' Nish said.

'Later. There are still too many lyrinx about. Get some sleep. We'll go in the night.'

Flydd woke him at midnight. It was cloudy and drizzling as they mounted and headed out, without a solitary guard. Flydd said it was better that way. They crossed the ford and he led them carefully up the valley, with lengthy stops where he sat his horse, sniffing the air and listening to the night.

'I believe they've gone,' Flydd said. 'The enemy don't linger around battlefields filled with their dead, and this one has cost them dear. Come on.'

It was not far off dawn when they reached the cliff-bound upper end of Gumby Marth, where the command area had been. They hunched under an overhang of limestone, out of the wind, to await the light. It was cool enough for the breeze to carry little taint. Nish hoped they would be well gone before the heat of the day ripened the dead.

'You must be feeling rather grim,' Flydd said.

'In truth, I don't know what to feel. I'm glad Father's out of his misery, and I suppose it's better this way, for everyone. He was an evil man, and becoming more wicked everyday. Had he lived …And yet, despite all he did to me, he was still my father and now I have none.'

'Its a loss for any man. I still remember the day I heard the news about mine …' Flydd sighed, rummaged in his saddlebags and brought out a large silver flask, which he offered to Nish.

Nish took a healthy swig and promptly choked. 'That's strong!' His eyes began to water.

A stiffener!' Flydd leaned back against the stone. 'It'll set your belly right for the job.'

He raised the flask to his lips but, despite his words, did not drink. It was just growing light. The grey cliffs separated from the grey sky, the lower valley from the horizon, the rocks from the dry grass. The brown earth from the humps and mounds made by the dead.

Wisps of fog hung in hollows and along the course of the streams. The scene was grey, dank and utterly, utterly dismal. Nish wanted to weep. 'So many dead, and all for the folly of one man, one scrutator. My father!'

It took more than one man's folly to create this disaster,' Flydd. 'You might as well ask how the Council came to have such power, yet lack the ability to use it wisely? Or how they delegated it to such a flawed man?' 'Or gave it to one so corrupt as Ghorr in the first place?' said Nish.

'He was a good man once,' Flydd reflected, 'but too ambitious. When his time was up, Ghorr couldn't let go, and perhaps it suited the power behind the Council—'

When I mentioned that the other day, you put your fist in my mouth.'

Clankers have ears, Nish. As I was saying, Ghorr refused to step down. He had the statutes of the Council changed to allow permanent tenure and that, I believe, was the first step on his path to corruption. The Council became unaccountable, even to itself. Others followed Ghorr's path and, once they grew old, many took the path of renewal, or rejuvenation — making their bodies young again. It's an evil I've sworn never to undertake.

'Not all survived it, but those who did soon had such power, such knowledge and experience that no one could better them. Instead of working for the security of the realm and the good of all, they became obsessed with maintaining control over everything. Power became more important than winning the war — indeed, the scrutators needed the war. It was their excuse to tighten the screws ever more, and in our terror of the enemy we allowed them to do so. Once that happened, Santhenar was on the road to ruin.

'It was only recently that I realised where we'd gone wrong, but by then it was much too late. The lyrinx had entrenched themselves and were outbreeding us. The war was no longer winnable.'

'What?' Nish leapt to his feet. 'You're joking.'

'I wish I were. Short of some brilliant breakthrough, it's already been lost. That's a secret that must never be revealed, Nish — the effect on morale would be disastrous; yet another reason to keep everyone in the dark. But the more you clamp down, the more people look for ways around it. Take your friend Mira, for example.'

'You know Mira?'

'I know she communicates, by skeet, with a network of like-minded people all over Lauralin.'

'Does the Council see them as enemies?'

'No, or they would have been eliminated by now, for all that they include many important and powerful people. But they are watched, very carefully, and if they make one wrong move it will be the end of them.'

'Not Mira, surely,' said Nish. 'She's already lost a husband and all three sons to the war.'

'She's safe for the moment. The Council have finally realised that, in seeking to control everything, they lost control of the war. Unfortunately, they're not capable of doing anything about it.'

'Are you saying that we're doomed? That we might as well give up?'

'there are always things that can be done, if you have the wit and will for it, and the arrival of the Aachim has changed the balance. We've a better chance than we had before they came, but there's greater danger, and more uncertainty. I

know only this: if we are to have any chance at all, this millstone of stinking corruption, the Council of Scrutators, must be eradicated. Ah, here comes the sun. Let's go.'

Hundreds of scavenging beasts had come out of the hills, and they did not look up from their grisly business as Nish and Flydd went by. Thus far they'd made little impact on the dead; there were simply too many.

Nish led Flydd to the former command area. He hardly needed to explain — the evidence of Jal-Nish's folly was clear enough, in the cleanly truncated bodies of the officers, the amputated limbs, the tents and even clankers shorn neatly in two by that bladed disc of white light. Many of the bodies had been fed on by the lyrinx, and since then by the scavengers that slunk around Nish and Flydd in circles, not daring to take them on, but not planning to be driven from their feast either.

'Here's General Tham,' said Flydd. 'And Grism beside him. Both good men we'll find impossible to replace.' The scrutator shook his head in incomprehension. 'Such unbelievable stupidity. He destroyed the entire command structure of the army, wiped them out in a second. Why did he assemble them all in one place? What can he have hoped to achieve?'

'I suppose he wanted to make a display of his cleverness,' said Nish, answering the first question. 'Father was ever like that.’

Flydd squatted by the war chests and began to pick up the coins. 'We'd better take this back. Disaster or no, armies on the march burn gold and silver. Do you recall where Jal-Nish's tent was?'

Nish pointed up the hill and told Flydd what to look for.

There's not much to be seen. I'll leave it to you, if you don't mind.' He did not want to go near. Nish especially did not want to see that booted foot again. He busied himself collecting the coins.

Flydd walked around and around, holding his hands out parallel to the ground. Stopping at the shredded tent, he pressed his palms against the surface of the broken table, then squatted by the splinters of the box that had held the tears. Picking up a splinter he ran his gnarled fingers up and down it, sniffed, closed his eyes, spun around and tossed the splinter whirling into the air. It fluttered to the ground. He picked it up, sighted each way along it, then grunted.