Ian Irvine - Alchymist

Her only chance was straight ahead. Tiaan gave it everything she had. Her construct leapt across the sand and onto the water, dragging the other machine. It struck a boulder in the surf, was hurled high and came crashing down, nose first, to plunge beneath the water. The sea hissed like a kettle, boiled over and, as the cold water came in contact with the hot innards of the construct, it exploded in all directions. Pieces of flaming construct hurtled skywards and, to her horror, several bodies. The net came away. Her construct soared like a skipping stone, came down hard and bounced, spinning sideways. Tiaan hung on grimly as the whirling force tried to throw her out. The machine hit the water on its base and skipped again.

Constructs were converging on her from all directions. Hundreds more — how had she not seen them? — had formed into a curving barrier further across the sea. There was just one small gap, to the south. She darted through and raced south down the Sea of Thurkad.

She was not going to make it across, for the seaward constructs were tracking her all the way. She could not get through them to the dubious security of Meldorin. Even if she did, its shore here was edged with impassable cliffs.

That first impact with the water must have damaged something, for Tiaan's construct now had no more speed than her pursuers. She curved back towards the Lauralin shore. Ahead, the Karama Malama, hung with banners of mist, was an endless expanse of slate grey. Just a narrow, scrubby peninsula now separated her from it.

She rounded the tip, looking east and west. More constructs were coming along the south-facing shore and down out of the scrub. There were thousands of them. She could only go one way. She turned due south, out into the centre of the Sea of Mists. Let them follow her there, if they dared.

The Aachim did follow, a great host of them, for an hour and more. At the end of that time they began to fall back, one by one, as the separation from the node became too great to sustain their motion. Soon there were only two left, then one Finally the last construct turned back. She was alone with her bleeding conscience on the empty sea.

Tiaan looked for another node, not knowing if there was one. Some seas were barren of them. If she could not find a node, any sudden failure of the fading field would sink her. Tiaan was no longer sure that she cared, but she did find another. It was nearly as distant as the first, with barely enough power in it to move the construct. She took some from each and continued.

A week or more after his arrival in Oellyll, when Gilhaelith was trudging the tunnels in a vain attempt to regain his strength, he heard a number of lyrinx engaged in furious argument up ahead. He eased forward and peered around the corner. He was looking into an excavated chamber shaped like a cloverleaf, its roof supported by columns of fused stone. Two lyrinx stood at the far side, in one of the lobes of the room, before a crowd of twenty or more.

'This is our future on Santhenar,' urged one of the two out the front, 'and we must take it.' She was small with transparent unarmoured skin and magnificent wings that quivered as she spoke, casting rainbow reflections around the room. 'Now that we know, we cannot stay like this,' she said passionately.

Know what? Gilhaelith thought, sliding across the tunnel into a shadowed aperture where he could see but not be seen.

'Neither can we re-order the grains of time, Liett,' said the other, a muscular female, twice the size of the first. Her skin armour was scarred and battered as if from a lifetime of fighting though she was not old. 'No amount of flesh-forming can change what we are.'

'You fool — of course we can change! We must.' 'How dare you speak that way to me! You can't even take your place in battle — you have no armour.' 'I don't need armour,' Liett said furiously, 'and I'm just as good as you are. My work has saved many lives, and taken many of the enemy's.'

'You can't even skin-speak.' The big female's armour flickered a display of brilliant reds and yellows — a sneer at Liett's lack. You should have been drowned at birth.'

'How dare you!' Liett shook her wings at the other. 'Your kind came from the monstrosities we had to flesh-form in the womb, to survive in the pitiless void.'

'I am true lyrinx,' said the muscular female, 'and this is my nature.'

'You're has-beens. You're wrong for this world and must submit to amendment!

Amendment? Gilhaelith peered around the corner. Were they planning to flesh-form themselves anew, to better suit Santhenar?

The other lyrinx rose onto her toe claws, towering over Liett and extending finger claws.as long and sharp as daggers. 'You speak blasphemy! Take it back or suffer the consequences.'

Liett lowered her wings, though not in submission. 'I'm sorry, Inyll. I put it badly. Let me explain. I once thought as you do, but Matriarch has opened my eyes. We've become creatures designed for just one thing — perpetual war! We're prisoners in our own armour.'

Inyll tore the soft shale underfoot with her toe claws. 'War is our existence.'

'But don't you yearn for peace, and the chance to live our lives without fear?'

'What do I want with-peace? I am a warrior from a line of warriors. The line of battle is my life.' 'But surely for your children -?'

'My children yearn to do their duty, not change their nature to suit some selfish whim.' Inyll used the word as if it was obscene, which it was. To the lyrinx, placing oneself ahead of the group was the greatest evil of all.

'Ah,' said Liett, 'but we must change for the best of all reasons — to ensure our survival.'

'We're winning the war as we are. There's no need to change.'

'In so winning, we could be sowing the seeds of our ruin. I've been among humans, Inyll,' said Liett softly, carefully, and I used to hate and despise them too. I wanted to kill them all. But now I envy them, for the meanest of humans has something that we lost so long ago we cannot even remember it. Where is our culture? Where are our arts and sciences? We have none. In the void we rid ourselves of everything not essential to survival. In doing so, we cast away all that made us unique. We became machines.'

Liett raised her voice, threw out her arms and addressed the group. 'Listen to me, my people. Unless you want to go back to the void, our future lies on this world. We must transform ourselves so that we can embrace it. Creatures like me, which you see as deformed, half-born, are the future of the lyrinx. Yet even we must renew —’

'I'll hear no more of this . . , this sedition'.' Inyll cracked her wings and threw herself at Liett who, lacking armour, was at a severe disadvantage. She was brave, though. She bared her claws and stood up to her opponent, ducking one blow that could have taken her head off and just managing to sidestep another.

'Enough!' roared Gyrull, who had been standing behind a pillar out of sight of Gilhaelith. 'Inyll?'

The larger female drew back, bowing with ill grace. Liett, my daughter' said Gyrull sternly, Liett bowed to her mother, and to Inyll, flashing dark looks from beneath her heavy brows. Possessed of an aggressive nature and a powerful sense of her own rightness, she found difficult to defer to anyone.

'I have fostered this debate,' said Gyrull to the group, 'for it is clear to me, as matriarch, that we must change. In the void we gave up our culture, our humanity and, yea, our very identity, in our desperation to survive. It was necessary, but we have come to lament it. Think about what has been said here today. We'll meet again tomorrow.'

'To change now would be to warp our very souls,' said Inyll. I can't do it and I won't.' She stalked out, head held high, crying over her shoulder, 'Don't try to convince me, for I will never relent.'