Ian Irvine - Tetrarch

People were streaming back, screaming and trampling each other in their desperation to get away. He knew what was behind them but had to see it with his own eyes.

A great shape came over the palisade, landing in front of the flames. The silhouette was unmistakable – a massive body, crested head and leathery wings. A lyrinx. Others stormed through the gate.

Nish could not bear to watch. He hurtled down the gully, splashed through the stinking muck in the bottom and along the other side, running and running despite the agony in his injured leg. He could not ignore it, but it was a reminder of what it would be like to be eaten alive. Nish rounded the corner and the fence stood in front of him. Several of its poles had been torn away. Someone was just going through the gap. He squeezed after them, tearing his shirt.

On the other side he looked around for Colm’s family, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Ullii was down the mine with Irisis, her only friend now that the scrutator had betrayed her and Nish abandoned her, and even Irisis was suspect. True, she had defended Ullii previously, but she had also been Nish’s lover. Ullii resented that with all her jealous little heart, and took pleasure in defying Irisis whenever she could get away with it.

Dandri and Peate, the leaders of the two mining teams, were there as well, to make sure artisan or seeker did not wander into unsafe ground, and also because it was their mine and they did not like outsiders poking around in it. They were accompanied by a pair of soldiers armed with heavy crossbows. The loss of the crystals, and the discovery of that secret tunnel, had been a shocking blow. The mine was no longer their haven from the world, but an unknown and threatening place where at any moment they might find a lyrinx behind them.

They were now completing a survey of the seventh level, working in the section below Joeyn’s vein. It was a dangerous area, with many sections out of bounds because the roof was too unstable. It had been a frustrating week and Ullii had found no crystal at all.

Please find something, Ullii, Irisis prayed. Anything! I can’t bear to tell the scrutator no again. He’s afraid. I saw it in his eyes last night.

‘I can’t see anything .’ Ullii was standing against the wall, her arms and hands pressed to the stone. She had been saying that all day.

‘All right,’ said Irisis tiredly. When had she last had a decent night’s sleep? ‘Where to now, Dandri?’

The miner held out her map, on which she had marked in red ink all the places Ullii had been. ‘We’ve finished this level. There’s nowhere to go but down to the eighth, if the scrutator permits it.’

‘I already have his authorisation,’ said Irisis.

‘We must have it in writing,’ Peate interjected, ‘since that level was expressly forbidden by the previous overseer.’

He referred to Overseer Gi-Had, her second cousin, who had been slain in that terrible battle up at the ice houses. Irisis could never forget that. Gi-Had had been a decent man, despite the fact that he’d had her flogged. Her back would bear those scars until she died.

Irisis handed Peate his copy of the letter. The miner placed his mark on it and put it in his pocket. ‘Then let’s make a start.’

‘Tired,’ said Ullii, whose sentences grew more abbreviated the more weary she became. ‘Can’t do any more.’

‘Please, Ullii,’ said Irisis. ‘Just for an hour. The scrutator –’ She broke off, realising her mistake.

‘Lost the lattice,’ Ullii said, pleased to refuse her. ‘Going home.’

It was not long after dark when Irisis returned to the manufactory, but Xervish Flydd had already retired to his room. She could hardly deny him his report on the grounds of lateness, so she went there directly. The door was ajar, as if she was expected. She knocked once and pushed it open.

The room was warm, for a charcoal fire burned in a corner grate. The scrutator was at his table, clothed this time, surrounded by maps and papers. Flydd had a ruler in his hand and was measuring the distance between a series of red marks on the map, then entering figures into a column on a sheet of paper.

Unusually, he laid down his pen as she entered. ‘You don’t need to tell me,’ he said. ‘You found nothing.’

‘I’m afraid not, surr.’

He leaned back in his chair and put his battered feet on the table. ‘Shut the door. Sit down. Would you like a drink?’

‘I can’t say I’m that fond of parsnip whisky.’

‘That’s not what I’m offering.’ He selected a green glass bottle, carefully wrapped, from one corner of his chest, levered out the bung with a little silver tool and poured a healthy slug into two glasses. ‘This is real brandy; one hundred years old.’

They were proper glasses, made of crystal. Irisis’s parents had some at home, but she had never seen any in the manufactory. She warmed the glass in her hands and took a careful sniff. It went up her nose and made her gasp.

‘What are you celebrating, surr?’ she asked after her eyes had stopped watering. Irisis touched her glass to his and took the gentlest of sips. It was splendid stuff, the best she’d ever tasted.

‘I drink this at wakes, not weddings.’ He tossed half the glass down his throat. ‘You think I’m all-powerful, don’t you, Irisis?’

‘Er, well, I once did, surr.’

‘I too have my masters, crafter, and they are less forgiving than I am. And there is another consideration. The higher you climb, the further there is to fall. I can climb no higher, for which I’m glad, though don’t tell anyone I said so.’

‘You have had a reprimand from the scrutators?’

‘You might say that, though the Council won’t couch it so bluntly. The letter begins, Be assured, Xervish, that we are not saying we are displeased with you . Of course, that means they are highly displeased. Furious!’ He chuckled, which she found odd.

‘What’s going to happen to you? And to us?’

‘You’re worried that when the tower falls, it will smash all the little ants to bits. I suppose it will, if it falls. But I’m a fighter, Irisis, and I’m a way from beaten yet. I have friends on the Council, as well as enemies.’

She relaxed, leaned back and took another sip of the glorious brandy. Irisis seldom drank and the fumes seemed to be floating around her head, inducing a delicious haziness.

‘Don’t feel too reassured,’ he went on. ‘Another failure and I may well be done. The war is going worse than ever.’

‘You can’t be blamed for that!’

‘I would be quick enough to take the credit, were it going well. And I can be blamed for the Aachim invasion, as we are calling it. Without Tiaan, it would never have occurred.’

‘But you weren’t anywhere near here. If anyone should be blamed, it’s me!’

‘Don’t remind me!’ he growled, draining his glass and filling it again, along with hers. ‘Einunar is my province. I’m supposed to know everything that’s going on, and be in control of it.’

‘How badly is the war going?’

‘Very badly!’

‘People have been saying that for a long time.’

‘It’s been going badly for a long time, but it’s going worse now. We’ve been losing territory for years, but not gaining any. It could be all over in twelve months, and then we’ll be in pens, waiting to be eaten.’

‘Is it really that hopeless?’ She took a sturdy pull at her glass.

‘No. We’re working on a lot of … secret weapons. If one or two of them come off, it could make all the difference.’