Alchymist

He glanced that way. 'How could that happen?' Nish went pale. 'The rotor —’

'The air-floater was going up steeply. You slid backwards under it and whacked into the post.'

'I knocked myself out?'

'You've been asleep for two and a half days.'

He ran a hand through his thick hair and winced. 'That explains the hollow in my belly.'

'Can I get you something to eat? It's only stew, I'm afraid, and days old.'

'Stew!' he exclaimed.

She mistook his meaning. 'I'm sorry, but bloody old Flydd —’

'Where is it? Quick!' He took her by the hand.

'Down here. Look, we've a little galley.' She led the way out of the cabin to a tiny room behind it, so small that she could touch all four walls with her outstretched arms. 'And we can't cook anything here, of course, because of the floater gas, so it's cold I'm afraid …'

Nish pushed past her, snatched a ladle off its hook and took a scoop out of the pot. Slurping down a mouthful, he gasped, 'That's goood!'

'You've got soup all over your face' said Irisis, wiping his cheek with her hand. They'd not spent time together since he'd left the manufactory in the balloon, last winter. She'd missed him terribly.

'I'm so hungry I could go into the pot head-first, and not come out until I'd licked it shiny clean.'

'It's not that good,' she said.

'Do you know what our last meal on the island was?'

'Fish? Mussels? Bird's eggs?'

'There weren't any edible shellfish and I don't recommend barnacles. In nine days we didn't catch a single fish. There's nothing to eat down there — no snakes, no lizards, no eggs. Not even an earthworm.'

'How did you survive?'

'Seaweed and belt soup.'

'What's belt soup?'

'We cut my belt into strips and boiled it for about ten hours. It still tasted like boiled leather. Next we were going to eat Flydd's stinking old boots, and if you think I was looking forward to that —’

'I get the picture,' she said hastily. And it explained why Flydd had been so irritable, if he'd been close to starvation.

Irisis watched Nish while he ate, thinking how changed he was from the young man she'd seen off in the balloon, and even from the Nish she'd encountered briefly at the Aachim camp, before the battle of Snizort.

'It's so good to see you, Nish. So good.' Impulsively, she embraced him.

He set down the ladle before it dribbled down her back, and wiped his mouth. And you, Irisis. I feel as though I've lived an entire life since I left the manufactory. And, from what the scrutator told me, you've been just as busy.' Nish pulled away, inspecting her. 'You look …'

'What?' she prompted after a long pause. 'Old? Haggard? Ugly?'

'You look the same, though …There seems to be more of you 'Well, thank you very much,' she said in mock outrage. Actually —’

'I meant as a person. You look more confident, even stronger than you were, and .., at peace with yourself 'If you only knew!' she exclaimed. And yet, in a way, I have found peace. Life has never been more insecure, I'm an outlaw under sentence of death, the scrutators will probably execute me in some hideous way, and yet — Oh, Nish!' She threw her arms around him again. 'I've got my long-lost talent back. I'm not a fraud any more. I feel almost happy'.

You never were a fraud to me, Irisis.'

'But I was in my own eyes.' After a moment's reflection she said, 'So how are you? You've changed. Nish. You're not the man who left us, last winter.'

'The boy', he said scornfully. 'I was no man. Yes, I have changed. I've seen enough adventure for a dozen lifetimes.'

'It's done you good.' She looked him up and down. 'You're a handsome man now. I like your beard.'

'It's better than scraping the skin off my face every morning.' He eyed her. 'I do believe you look more magnificent than ever. You seem to have bloomed.'

'I had a new lover for a while, Nish, no less than the scrutator himself, though it's over now.' She hadn't told Flydd yet. She hoped he'd take it well.

'I thought there was something between you, back when Flydd came to negotiate with Vithis. What else have you been up to?'

'Oh, I've had a few adventures too. A couple of run-ins with your father. A spell down in the tar pits of Snizort. You know the sort of thing.'

He leaned on the wall, companionably. 'It's a wonder we didn't run into each other. Why don't you tell me about it?'

'I'd rather hear your story, Nish, if you don't mind.'

He was happy to relate it, sitting on the port side, towards the stern, out of the wind, with Irisis facing him. She listened in silence until he mentioned Ullii being pregnant with his child.

'You didn't know!' she said incredulously.

'No one told me, and she was wearing a smock like a tent. How was I to tell? Nonetheless, I let her down, and now I'm paying for it.'

He went on with his story: the attack in the clearing, how his folly had brought down the air-floater, the ghastly death of Mylii, Ullii fleeing and not being seen again, and all the anguish that had caused him.

She knew he was telling the whole truth. Irisis took his hand, glad she'd held off from saying how she really felt — he was in no state to hear it. Her suit was going to be longer than she'd expected, and she'd have to be more careful. Not Ullii! she thought. No woman could be more wrong for him. Surely it could never come to pass?

She bit down on the jealousy. 'How you must have suffered.'

'It cost me dear — not least the child I'll never know. That's the hardest thing of all.'

'There's been no word of Ullii?'

'It's as if she vanished off the face of Lauralin. And she hates me, Irisis, though it was just a terrible accident. It was dark; I thought he was attacking her. He just reared back onto the knife and it went right into him.' He choked.

She drew him to her, folding her long arms around his compact, muscled body. 'You don't have to justify yourself to me,' she said softly.

'But I do have to live with it. Ah, Irisis, how I've missed you.'

'Do you want to tell me the rest of the story?'

'Maybe later. Where are we, anyway?'

'Heading up the western side of Meldorin Island.'

'Meldorin!' he cried, looking over the side as if to see lyrinx everywhere. 'Where are we going?'

'No idea. Bloody Flydd is acting all mysterious, as usual.'

The sun went down into the ocean to their left, and the evening light faded swiftly, though before it grew completely dark they beheld the walls of a great fortress in the distance. Black it was, even blacker than the shadowy forest that surrounded it, a forbidding wall of stone encircling a yard, and an inner fortress with horned towers.

'Is that our destination?' Nish asked Flydd, who was walking by.

'It is.' Flydd cast him an unreadable glance. 'Dragged yourself out of bed at last, I see.'

Nish didn't rise to the bait. He was used to Flydd's ways by now, and the tone had been almost affectionate. 'It's not a lyrinx fortress?'

'It belongs to an older power.' Flydd continued down to Inouye. 'Go over the outer wall, Inouye, and come down in the yard by the horned tower. See it there?'

'I see it.' Her voice was like a single page falling to the ground.

The air-floater passed over the wall. No guards could be seen, so Inouye settled the machine in the bleak yard. It came to rest without a bump. The rotor slowly spun down, the floater-gas generator fell silent.

Again that shiver up Irisis's spine.

'I don't like this place. Where are we?'

'We're in the one place in Meldorin that the scrutators will never find us. Not even the lyrinx dare come here. This is the ancient Aachim fortress of Fiz Gorge.’

Somewhere within the fortress an alarm clanged, like a broken bell.