Alchymist

Urien rose, drawing Vithis out of earshot. They had another long, heated argument before heading their separate ways.

'What was that about?' Tiaan asked Thyzzea after they had gone.

'It has to do with forbidden knowledge, and the danger of giving it to you.'

'What forbidden knowledge?'

'I don't know.'

'Suppose that it works,' said Tiaan, 'and the constructs are saved. What then?'

'Better to ask my father that,' said Thyzzea, looking worried. 'But…'

'Yes?'

'How could they ever let you go?'

Twenty-one

Ullii had gone, fleeing into the night. Nish began to run after her but Flydd took hold of his collar. 'You'll only make it worse, if that's possible. She'll come back when she has to — I hope!

'I have to explain,' Nish said desperately. 'I've got to tell her I'm sorry. It was an accident, surr. She'll think I don't care.'

'You'll never find her,' said Flydd. 'No one is better at hiding than Ullii.'

'What if she doesn't come back? What about my child?'

'You'd better pray she does, for all our sakes. And that when she does, you know what to say to her.'

What could he say? I'm sorry I killed your long-lost brother, Ullii. I didn't mean to. It was pointless.

They searched the clearing, using Flydd's ghost light. Both of his opponents were dead, as was the soldier by the air-floater. The one Nish had wounded in the leg had fled, leaving only a few specks of blood on the leaf litter. There were three more bodies in the wrecked air-floater, two soldiers and the pilot, a young woman who looked unharmed but was already growing cold. She had a broken neck.

Nish stood by her, his guts crawling with horror. She had been younger than he was. The young soldier, too. 'How could everything have gone so wrong?' he said softly. 'I tried so hard.'

'I told you I wanted to capture the air-floater,' said Flydd, glaring at Nish like an executioner choosing his next victim.

'I didn't hear your orders, surr. I was coming across to ask you what you'd said—'

'Couldn't you have thought before you threw your cudgel?'

'There was no time. The air-floater was coming down fast, surr, and I knew we couldn't deal with that many soldiers. If they'd landed, they'd have had us. I reacted instinctively.'

Surely it was obvious that I planned to escape in it?'

'No surr, it wasn't. I'm sorry.'

I was going to rendezvous with Irisis and Fyn-Mah, then stop your wretched father before he attacks the lyrinx and destroys another army. Now its fate is out of my hands. All I can do is run like the whipped cur I am.'

Nish hung his head. What a miserable, useless worm he was. He wanted to crawl under a rock and die. The wound in his side was painful but had stopped bleeding, so, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself, he didn't mention it.

'Why so few in the air-floater?' said Flydd to himself.

'Perhaps the others got out on the other side of the forest.'

Flydd took no notice. 'Who was directing them? This search must have been led by a querist, at the very least, but there's no sign of one. Unless this seeker was doing it, shielded from us and under their control.'

Nish was sure he knew what Flydd was thinking: that he, Nish, was the most worthless fool who had ever drawn breath. That his father had been right — he was a walking disaster.

'I'll keep going north,' said Flydd. 'Not that I can do anything there, except sweat blood about the war. At least with Mylii dead they won't be able to track me.'

'Do you want me to come too?' Nish asked in a low voice. The way Flydd was talking, Nish was afraid of being left behind.

'Want?' said Flydd. 'Of course I don't want you — though I suppose I've got to have you.' He gave Nish a furious glare, then relented. 'Come on, lad, put it behind you. You clearly didn't know I planned to take the air-floater, and maybe you were right. Six soldiers probably were beyond me. In other circumstances you'd be a hero.'

'But I killed Mylii, surr.'

'A tragic accident that could have happened to anyone. Besides, he reared back onto the knife after you told him to hold still, so you can hardly be blamed for it.’

‘I thought he was attacking Ullii' said Nish. 'I was trying to save her, and now he's dead — an innocent man.’

'You were doing your best, so let's say no more, eh? Besides, it remains to be seen whether he was innocent.'

'What do you mean?'

'Was he embracing his sister, or holding her for the soldiers? Did he put his arms around her because he loved her, or because Ghorr ordered him to find her? But enough of this speculation — fit yourself out and gather what food you can, and make it snappy.'

They replaced their rags with clothes from the victims, the least bloodstained garments they could find. Nish's were too big, but he found a pair of boots that were roughly his size, and a hat. In ten minutes they were ready. Pilfered packs contained spare clothing, food for a couple of weeks, water bottles and all the other gear that soldiers carried. Nish had a shiny new sword, unused by the look of it. Flydd had taken the hedron from the air-floater's controller, as well as the chart-maker's spyglass, which had survived the crash.

'Not sure what use this will be,' he said, tossing the crystal in his hand. 'But you never know. Let's go. This place will be swarming with scrutators in a few hours.'

Are we going to the rendezvous?'

'There's no point. By the time we walked all that way, Irisis would be long gone. You can't hide an air-floater in country like this.'

'Where are we going?'

'Into the wilderness.' Flydd smiled grimly, as if at some private joke.

'What about Ullii?' Nish's voice squeaked. 'We can't leave her.'

'There's no way of knowing where she is. If she wants to find us she will, though that's hardly likely now.'

He said it without rancour, but Nish cringed.

It was another sweltering day. They walked all that morning, taking advantage of the cover along creeks, mostly dry, and ridges, whenever they ran in the right direction, which was not often. They saw no sign of Ullii.

In the afternoon, Nish began to flag. The wound in his ribs grew increasingly painful but he could not stop to attend to it. He was continually falling behind and Flydd kept yelling at him to keep up. The scrutator had not mentioned Mylii's death again but Nish ached with guilt.

Flydd seemed to be making for a hill knobbed with round red boulders, one of many in this endless landscape of undulating plains and gentle mounded hills. Nish up-ended his water bottle but the few drops it contained barely wet his tongue. They had crossed half a dozen watercourses in the afternoon, all dry. He sat on a rock, staring at the ground. It was hard to find the will to go on. Every moment of the day he'd regretted his follies; he'd looked everywhere for Ullii but she was gone and his child with her. Why couldn't he have thought before he brought down the air-floater, or held the knife to Mylii's back? Why hadn't he realised Ullii was pregnant? Why, why, why?

The scrutator appeared. 'What's the matter? We can't stop out in the open.'

Nish struggled to his feet. Pain spread from the wound up into his shoulder, and down his hip to the outside of his leg. His feet hurt, too, for the boots were too small and had already rubbed the skin off his toes and heels.

He fell several times on the way up the hill, which was steeper than it had appeared. Flydd, well ahead, did not notice. The next time Nish looked up, the old man had vanished.

Nish slipped on rubble. As he picked himself up, he spied another air-floater on the horizon. They couldn't see him from so far away, but he lay still until it drifted out of sight to the south. He had to crawl the rest of the way up the hill — his feet hurt too much to walk.