Ian Irvine - Tetrarch

The air-floater landed in the main street of the town, much to the excitement of a group of children playing a game with a ball made of bound rags. They gathered around in their hundreds until the scrutator came down the ladder and called for someone to take them to the perquisitor’s house, whereupon they melted away. Except one, a boy with a twisted leg, not able to dart off like the others.

Flydd grabbed him by the collar. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he said in the common speech of the south-west.

‘Nudl,’ said the boy.

‘Noodle? Funny name for a boy.’

‘That’th what I’m called, thurr.’

‘Well, Noodle, I need someone to show me to the perquisitor’s house. Can you do that?’

‘No, thurr,’ said the boy.

‘Why the blazes not? Surely you know where it is.’ Flydd’s continuous eyebrow crumpled up like wet twine.

‘Too thcared, thurr.’

‘You’re afraid of the perquisitor? Why?’

Nudl hesitated. ‘Boys put me up to it, thurr.’

‘Put you up to what? You’re like a limpet, boy.’

‘Thank you, thurr. Throwing thtoneth on perquithitor’th roof, thurr. But one mithed and went through the window. Threatened me –’

‘Yes, yes, I understand! Well, Noodle, I am a scrutator and you know what that means?’

‘You eat children, thurr.’

‘I don’t eat children, Noodle, though I’m bloody well prepared to make an exception, just this once. Take me to the perquisitor’s house, right away !’

They were there in ten minutes. The house was a relic of better times, a spacious place of orange brick with a high brick fence all around. Wide verandas sheltered all sides but the south. The perquisitor answered the door. She was a small, slight woman, black of hair and with eyes the same colour. Her skin was palest amber, her features delicately proportioned, her manner reserved.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Flydd. ‘This is a pleasant surprise, Fyn-Mah.’

Fyn-Mah smiled, which was rare for her. ‘It’s good to see you, scrutator. And you, crafter.’ She nodded curtly to Irisis, for they disliked each other. ‘Let’s sit on the porch. It’s cooler. I presume, from the Council despatches case in your hand, that you are scrutator again?’

Bowing, he passed it to her. ‘Indeed I am. What are you doing here? And a perquisitor, no less.’

‘You can hardly act surprised, surr, since you recommended my promotion.’

‘These days any recommendation of mine is a dubious one. I didn’t know you’d been sent west, though I’m very pleased to see you.’

‘I’ve always had a special interest in the enemy flesh-forming art,’ said Fyn-Mah. ‘There are more flesh-formers at Snizort than anywhere in Lauralin, and their work is well –’

‘So I understand. You can brief me about that in private. You may also be interested in what we’ve got to say.’

‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ Fyn-Mah said, ‘and I hope it’s good news. In my last report –’

‘I was briefed before we left Nennifer. Let’s see what can be done.’

‘Whatever is done,’ said Fyn-Mah, ‘were well that it be done quickly. The lyrinx are readying for war. The final assault.’

‘We’ll also talk about that later.’

‘There’s someone else you’ll be pleased to see, surr.’ Fyn-Mah called down the hall. ‘And you too, Irisis.’

A man came up. Middle-aged and slim, he was dressed in brown homespun leggings and shirt, and grey sandals. Dark hair, cut short, stuck up all over his head. He had a chiselled jaw, prominent cheekbones and a gleam in his grey eyes.

The man put out his hand. ‘Scrutator. Irisis.’ He sat in an empty chair.

Irisis noticed Flydd inspecting the fellow surreptitiously. She was sure she had never seen him before. Ullii came trailing along the path, where she had been communing with the flowers. She wore her goggles and earmuffs. The man stood up. ‘Hello, we haven’t met. You must be Ullii.’

Now how had he known that?

Ullii extended her little hand. ‘Hello, Mr Muss.’

There was a long silence, then Flydd’s laughter came like a thunderclap. ‘Oh, well done. Eiryn Muss, the best prober in the business. That’s the first time anyone’s disguise has fooled me.’ He shook the fellow’s hand again. ‘Ullii, what a marvel you are.’

Irisis inspected the man again. The disguise, or rather transformation, was miraculous. There was not a trace of the fat, bald, shambling halfwit from the manufactory, nor the least mannerism to give him away. But Ullii did not require such things. She could distinguish every human alive by their smell.

Irisis smiled. ‘I dare say it would take more than a few bottles of turnip brandy now.’

‘Indeed it would, crafter,’ said Muss primly, ‘since I do not touch spiritous liquors.’

Gilhaelith was led away, still trying to see the amplimet. Tiaan felt betrayed. He did not care a fig for her, and never had. He had wanted the amplimet all along, and everything else he’d said to her had been to make sure of it. She cursed herself for falling into the trap, once again.

Ryll fed her a bowl of what looked like green porridge but tasted like slimy compost. She could not feed herself, since her arms were trapped inside the patterner. She slept as if she had been drugged, waking with a fuzzy head to find a group of lyrinx gathered around the patterner three down from her. They had bowed heads, deferring to an ancient male whose skin bore a permanent red blush. His flaccid crest angled to the left and he wore a pair of spectacles. The small oval lenses only covered the centre of his eyes and were set in thick frames of leathery hide. Tiaan had not seen a lyrinx wearing glasses before. It looked odd.

The old male was speaking lyrinx, and though Tiaan did not know that language, it was clear that he was unhappy about something. Ryll and the other lyrinx had changed their skin to the colour of sand, as if they were trying to disappear against the walls, and their crests sagged.

The old lyrinx limped towards Tiaan, lifted her out and inspected her minutely. It had happened so often that she was hardly embarrassed at all. Her skin, irritated by the jelly, had gone blotchy. Behind the lenses, the pupils of his yellow eyes narrowed to slits. He swung around to Ryll, questioning him in a raspy staccato. Tiaan recognised her name several times, and once, ‘Tiksi’. She supposed Ryll was telling the old lyrinx her history.

The old creature grunted and his wings half unfurled. He snapped them down. ‘What have you done with the flying construct?’ he asked in her language.

Tiaan had been expecting that question. ‘I gave it to Querist Gan’l,’ she lied, making up a name at random. There were thousands of querists and he could not know all their names. ‘It was near a town south of here.’

Ryll muttered something in the old fellow’s ear. He grunted a question. Ryll went out, soon returning with the amplimet on its chain. As the old lyrinx took it, his crest stood up and bright red specks appeared at the tips. He pushed the amplimet away without touching it, his eyes glowing like molten toffee. In Kalissin the lyrinx had not known what the amplimet was. This fellow knew very well, and he was excited about it.

He rapped out a series of instructions in the lyrinx tongue, in which one word, torgnadr , was repeated several times. Ryll jumped. Liett ran down the row of patterners. The old lyrinx adjusted his chest plates as if they irritated him and went out, followed by the rest of his group. Ryll bent and began doing something to Tiaan’s patterner, below the level of her vision.