Alchymist

'Always.'

Scooping gear from the table, he thrust it into a small pack. A pile on the bed followed it and he tossed the pack over his shoulder.

'What's the matter?' said Tiaan.

'Don't ask stupid questions, just go!'

That alarmed her, for the Aachim of Stassor might be remote, condescending or aloof, but they were invariably polite.

'Walk calmly,' he went on. 'Don't attract attention.'

Easy to say, but she didn't know if he was helping or kidnapping her. Trust Malien, she told herself. Tiaan did her best to act normally, though it must have been obvious, had the passing Aachim glanced at her, that she was under a strain. Fortunately they took no more notice of her than at any other time.

They'd trudged the corridors and were halfway across the ice pavement outside when someone called out, 'Bilfis, can you spare me a moment?'

'Keep going, Tiaan,' Bilfis said softly. 'Get into the thapter and make it ready for flight. Don't get out no matter what happens, or what I say.' He turned. 'Harjax? I'm just checking some of the maps I left in the thapter.'

'Would you bring the old human back for interrogation, please?'

'Certainly. Tiaan,' he called, 'fetch the maps from the thapter, if you would.'

Tiaan risked a glance over her shoulder as she climbed the side. Harjax stood uncertainly outside the cubular doors, a victim of indecision and Aachim politeness. Tiaan slipped in, put the maps into their racks, carefully inserted the amplimet and made all ready. She felt ill. She'd only flown this thapter a couple of times, and then briefly. Its controls, different from those of her original thapter, could be temperamental. She prayed for a steady hand and a strong stomach.

'Would you fetch her please, Bilfis,' called Harjax, trying to be commanding without alerting his quarry. 'It's rather important.'

'Of course,' said Bilfis, 'if it's so urgent.' He strolled towards the thapter, a picture of unconcern. As he climbed the side he said quietly to Tiaan, 'Ready?'

'Yes.'

'Go, as fast as you possibly can. Fly around the side, then back to the east-facing door. Malien will be waiting there.' He jumped in.

The thapter sprang to life. Tiaan mentally worked the controls, praying she had them right.

Harjax, belatedly realising that something was wrong, began to run across the paving.

'Come on!' Bilfis snapped.

She jerked and twisted the yoke at the same time. The thapter lifted sharply, spinning on its axis, front down, so quickly that she couldn't see where she was going. Harjax sprang out of the way, shouted to the guards outside the doors but again hesitated, unwilling to fire on his own.

Tiaan turned the yoke back, a fraction too far, for the thapter now tumbled end for end while it was still spinning. At least it was slowly gaining height, though it was heading straight for the cubular doors.

'Do something!' Bilfis shouted.

She jerked the yoke, intuition guiding her hand, the machine straightened out and Tiaan took it up vertically. Harjax roared orders to fire but Tiaan sideslipped, hurtled towards the high north-western corner of Stassor, skimmed the flank of its peak and shot over the top, out of sight.

'Down, low to the roof!' hissed Bilfis. 'Weave about, just in case. They've weapons here that could shatter this machine like ice on an anvil, once they find the resolve to use them.'

Tiaan raced across the roof, dropped so sharply on the other side that Bilfis's feet lifted off the floor, corkscrewed around the north-eastern peak out of sight, then zipped back towards the eastern door. There was no one outside.

A shrill piping sounded within, a call to arms, and she saw a squad of soldiers racing down the hall. 'What do we do, Bilfis?'

Just as Tiaan was thinking that Malien wasn't coming, three people threw themselves through the doors. Tiaan slammed into a pancaking hover just to the right of the doors, so the guards could not shoot from inside the hall. The three Aachim flung themselves in and she shot up, piling them all onto the floor.

'Get over that far mountain, quick!' cried Malien, pointing to a range to their east. 'Fly like you've never flown before, or they'll melt us down to tallow.'

Crossbow bolts slammed into the sides. Tiaan spun down the ridge, across the glacier-filled valley and up the other side towards a saddle between two rocky horns. As they were halfway up she felt the field draw down so hard that the thapter missed a beat. The patterns on the glass went wild and she could feel the amplimet flaring in sympathy.

'Over the saddle!' roared Malien. 'Get down into shelter, before it's too late.'

It was still a long way ahead, up a precipitous slope. Tiaan looked back. A tower at the top of the building had developed glowing crimson rings. The whole of the glassy cube of Stassor had gone black. A chill went up her spine. She hurled the thapter hard left, left again, right, up, then down and to the left once more.

The saddle approached, as sharp as a blade. She made for the middle of it, the lowest point. The rings were whirling up and down the tower, faster and faster. She could see them reflected on the glass of the binnacle.

Tiaan was almost to the saddle before she realised that it made the perfectly framed shot the Aachim were waiting for.

'Go left!' Malien's voice was a choked scream.

Tiaan was about to but, as her hand moved the yoke, an urgent sense of wrongness told her that the Aachim were expecting that. She flung the yoke hard the other way, veering right and shaving ice off the rising ridge crest with the base of the thapter.

The low point, as well as the left-hand side of the saddle, exploded in a spray of steam and molten rock, then they were over and hurtling down the sharp decline with an avalanche on their heels.

'Pull up,' said Malien, 'but keep well below the saddle. They might reflect the beam off the ice, even if they can't see us.'

Tiaan was already doing so. The Aachim picked themselves up from the floor, looking at each other. They were unharmed, apart from Bilfis, who had a fleck of blood on the back of his robes, below the right shoulder blade.

He rubbed it, examining his fingertip. 'Just a flying shard.'

'Where to?' asked Tiaan.

'We can't go to Tirthrax' said Malien. 'Not for long, anyway.'

'Or to any of our other known refuges.' said Bilfis, 'since they'll look there in their thaptersMalien considered. 'We've got little food or drink, and only the clothes we're wearing. Head south and west, Tiaan, for the moment.'

'What happened back there?'

'Harjax was uncomfortable with the story of your escape,' said Malien. 'As soon as their first thapter was free, he sent it to the Foshorn, to Vithis. We had a feeling the news would be bad, so we were ready to flee. The urgency of the envoy's return was alarm enough.'

And when he ordered the guards to fire on us,' added Bilfis, 'it confirmed the worst.'

Tiaan looked from one to the other. 'What news did he bear?'

'In your escape, you did more damage than you'd thought. Vithis suffered a broken arm and jaw, and three noble Aachim were killed in the construct that exploded underwater. But there was worse …'

'Minis!' Tiaan said, white-faced. 'I killed Minis.'

'You did worse than that, as far as Vithis is concerned.'

'How can anything be worse than death?'

'Oh, for some Aachim, there can be far worse,' Malien said grimly.

Part Five Air-Dreadnought

Fifty-three

'Death in life,' Malien explained sombrely. 'You maimed him, Tiaan. He lost a leg, three fingers, and his pelvis was crushed. He may never walk again; he'll never be without pain. But worse still, he's no longer whole, and every Aachim knows it. To their eyes Minis is a ruined man. If Vithis lives another thousand years he'll neither forgive nor forget. He's declared clan-vengeance against you and all who aid you in any way. Any Aachim who does so faces exile or death.'