Ian Irvine - Tetrarch

‘What sort of secret weapons?’

‘If I told you, they would not be secret, would they? Think of the ways clankers have changed warfare compared to foot soldiers and cavalry, and apply that Art to everything we do. We could use controllers to power dozens of different kinds of devices – night lights, weapons, pumps, boats. And indeed we must, for we no longer have the labour to do otherwise.’

The thought was less comforting than it seemed. ‘We’re already overusing the Secret Art,’ she said, ‘and seeing nodes drained of their fields. I would be worried about the consequences, were I on the Council.’

‘Thankfully you will never be,’ he said smoothly, ‘so you can leave that worry to us.’

‘The enemy also have secret projects, like their flesh-forming. What if that succeeds?’

‘We’ll need our own devices to combat it.’ He looked away. He did not want to talk about that.

Irisis had a sudden thought. ‘Wasn’t the querist studying their flesh-forming? I haven’t seen Fyn-Mah for months.’ Fyn-Mah, the querist or spymaster for the city of Tiksi, answered to the perquisitor and therefore, indirectly, to Flydd.

‘She was and still is.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Away on Council business. Don’t ask that kind of question.’

‘What about the Aachim and their eleven thousand constructs? Are they with us or against us?’

‘We don’t know. There has been contact with them, though it wasn’t fruitful.’

‘What do you think?’ She held out her glass for more brandy.

‘I’d say they are too bitter to negotiate. Bitter that the Charon kept them as slaves on their own world. Doubly bitter that since the Forbidding was broken their world has become uninhabitable. I hear they blame us, which is a worry. We have no answer to their constructs, and maybe the lyrinx don’t either. We’re both weak after so much war. The Aachim are strong. What they choose to do will decide the fate of the world.’

‘So how important is our work? Really ?’

‘Finding out what happened to the node is vital.’

‘Then why don’t we do that first?’

‘Because without crystal this entire manufactory, and the others we supply with controllers, are useless. If we can’t produce them, my head will soon be hanging over the gate and a new scrutator will take over. You would be out within a week. You’re tainted, Irisis.’

‘Who would the new scrutator be?’

‘I can’t talk about things like that. However, I can tell you one thing – I was premature to write off Nish’s father. Perquisitor Jal-Nish Hlar has fought back from his injuries. He will always be a horror to look at, he will always be in pain, but that has only hardened his ambition. He still wants to be scrutator and there’s only one way he can get there. Over my maimed and mutilated body.’

She wrapped her arms around herself. It felt as if something had just scuttled over her coffin and was clawing at the lid, trying to get in. ‘Were you ever friends?’

‘No. I was his mentor for a time, but that was terminated by mutual agreement. Jal-Nish is too ambitious, and ambitious people can’t be trusted. They’re always looking out for themselves.’

‘Coming from someone who has been scrutator for thirty years, that’s a bit rich!’

‘I was made scrutator because I was better at what I did than anyone else. I never wanted to be on the Council, though having got there, I cling to it because I know what happens once you let go. I still think I can do the job better than anyone else, in spite of the last few months. Ah, it’s hot in here. You don’t mind if I take off my shirt, do you?’

‘I’ve seen your chest before,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘I don’t expect to lose control.’

He pulled it over his head, revealing a scarred and sinewy torso that looked as though all the flesh had been gouged out from under the skin.

‘I wonder about you,’ she said, fascinated. He was ugly but not grotesque. The scrutator was such a likeable man, once you got to know him, that his appearance became irrelevant.

‘People do.’

‘Who did such terrible things to you?’

He emptied his glass but did not answer.

She held out the bottle. ‘More?’

‘No, thank you. I’ve a job to do later on and I’ll need my wits for it. The Council of Scrutators did this to me. At least, it was done at their command.’

‘Why would they torture their own?’ she said, appalled.

‘I was not scrutator then. I was a perquisitor; a young and handsome one, rising fast. I became too full of myself, and too curious. As you know, the scrutators have the best spy network in the land. We pride ourselves on knowing everything, though of course there’s no such thing as perfect knowledge. I was too clever. I pored over what everyone else had looked at, and saw something no one else had seen. I saw a pattern. People had been a little careless.’

‘What are you talking about?’

He rubbed his chest, pointedly. ‘Do you really want to know?’

She did not. She sipped. He reached for the bottle, drew back, then filled his glass after all. They sat in a companionable silence, listening to the crackling of the fire.

‘It was about our master,’ he said, now slurring just a little.

‘The Council of Scrutators?’

‘No, our real master. The Numinator.’

‘I’ve never heard of him.’

‘No one knows who the Numinator is, but be assured, there is a power behind the Council, working to its own purpose. It may not care who wins the war. It may have manipulated everything that’s happened since the Council was formed.’

‘The Numinator?’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Don’t mention that name again! It’s a death certificate. I must have had more brandy than I thought.’ Suddenly he looked frail and rather vulnerable, which she found strangely endearing.

‘I’ve also had more than is good for me,’ she said, moving close. She traced the scars on his chest with a fingertip. ‘You must have suffered so.’

‘I did,’ he said, ‘and would rather not be reminded of it. Besides, you have also felt the lash.’

‘And I have the scars to prove it, though they are nothing like yours.’

‘I’m sure they are.’

‘Would you like to see them?’

‘As a matter of fact, I would.’

She unbuttoned her shirt, pulled it off and draped it over the back of the chair. Irisis had a magnificent bosom, though the rest of her did not put it to shame.

His eyes passed over her, and again. Finally he said in a hoarse voice, ‘I see no scars.’

She turned her back. The creamy skin was marked across with welts that, even after half a year, had a purple tinge. He laid a hard hand on her back, quite gently. A shiver went up her neck.

‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘Of your back, I meant.’

She turned around.

‘Would you like to see the rest of my scars?’ he said.

‘That depends.’

He raised his forehead-wide eyebrow. ‘On what?’

‘On whether every part of you is as emaciated as your chest.’

He took off his trousers.

Irisis considered him thoughtfully. ‘Am I the job for which you needed your wits about you?’

‘You are.’

‘You’re not the handsomest of men, scrutator, nor the youngest. What gave you the idea that I would be interested?’

‘I told you. We scrutators pride ourselves on knowing everything.’

Well, thought Irisis, smiling to herself after Flydd had gone to sleep. The things they teach you in scrutator school! Easing out of bed, she looked down at him. They must have appeared quite the oddest couple, when they were at it, for he was her opposite in every physical respect. Tucking the blankets around him, she dressed, went to the bathing room and after that to her own room, but not to sleep.