Nish reached for the rear hatch but Merryl put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Remember what Gilhaelith said. We’re to keep away from the fighting unless our lives are directly threatened.’
‘I can’t hide while soldiers are dying.’
‘Their job is to fight, and if necessary to die. Ours is to do this work which may save many lives.’
Nish slid back into his seat. ‘What’s going on?’ he said softly, with a glance at the farspeaker operator. Daesmie was asleep, her head pillowed on her small hands. She looked like a child. ‘What’s Gilhaelith really looking for?’
‘I don’t know.’
A roar echoed down the road from up ahead and flames billowed into the sky. The clanker’s shooter cried out in terror. Nish felt the wash of heat through the front porthole, until the operator lurched his clanker forward, sideways and around. The clanker ahead of them was covered in what looked like burning pitch. Nish could hear the agonised screams of those trapped inside.
‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘We’ve got to get them out.’
The clanker kept going. ‘I have my orders, surr,’ said the operator.
Nish wrestled with the handle of the rear hatch but Merryl caught him by the arm. ‘There’s nothing you can do, Nish. Their rear hatch is covered in burning pitch; you’d never get it open.’
The sounds, and the smell, lingered long in Nish’s nostrils. It reminded him of that awful night in the slave team at Snizort, when he’d salivated over the smell of the burning dead.
‘That was a timely warning,’ Gilhaelith said later that night, when the army had found a safe camp. ‘Troist asked me to personally thank each of you. It saved countless lives.’
Nish nodded absently, his mind still on the horrors of the attack, which had gone on for an hour before the enemy had silently withdrawn. ‘Did we lose many?’
‘Hundreds,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘But it could easily have been thousands. Now, back to work.’
Two days later, in the sunken lands between the two great lakes, Nish was again in Merryl’s tent, completing his summary of the day’s listening, when he heard a shouted message. It had an urgency he’d not heard from the lyrinx before.
Thyllix musrr. Ing! Ing!
Merryl sat up, cocking his ear at the farspeaker. His hand was scribbling furiously.
Nish knew the word ‘Ing’. It was a cry for help. ‘What –?’ he began, but broke off. He could not afford to distract Merryl.
Thyllix musrr. Ing! Ing!
Nish moved around behind Merryl so he could read the words over his shoulder.
Skin bursting. Help! Help! (powerful voice, female.? a matriarch)
Dark-haired, demure little Daesmie swore an oath so vile that not even Nish would have used it in public, and spun the globes. ‘Lost it,’ she said.
Nish resisted the urge to yell at her to get it back. She was doing her best. Anything that troubled a lyrinx matriarch was of interest to them. There were only six as far as he knew; one for each of their cities.
‘Skin bursting?’ he said. ‘Does that mean the spore disease?’
‘I’d say so,’ said Merryl. ‘There have been cries about it before. But this is different. If it’s affected a matriarch …’ He trailed off, deep in thought.
The globes froze in place. ‘I think I have it,’ said Daesmie.
Help. Save the Sacred Ones. This… Matriarch Gyrull.
‘Get Gilhaelith,’ snapped Merryl.
Nish did not move.
Where? (female, whispery voice)
Where? (female, raspy voice)
Where? (male, deep, rolls his r’s)
‘Now, Nish!’
Nish hesitated, wanting to know what they were going to say next. He ran out and around each of the other listeners. Gilhaelith was not with them. As Nish turned back, intending to look for him at the command tent, he ran past Merryl’s tent and now heard Gilhaelith’s voice inside.
The mancer was positively glowing. ‘This is it. Gather your gear,’ he said to Merryl and Daesmie. ‘Bring all the record sheets. Meet me by the thapter in five minutes. You too, Nish.’ He disappeared.
Nish looked down at the sheet. Nothing further had been written on it. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.
‘I can’t tell you, Nish.’ Merryl stuffed the papers in his pack and hurried out.
Daesmie was doing the same with the globe and the rest of her apparatus. Nish put the paper down, hoisted his pack and headed for Kimli’s thapter, which stood behind the command tent. It had come in only an hour ago, after studying the enemy’s movements from the air.
When he arrived, the others were already inside. He passed up his pack and was just climbing over the side when Troist came running around the tent. He had Nish’s sheet in his hand.
‘Hey? What are you doing?’ Troist cried.
‘Go, Kimli,’ Gilhaelith hissed, heaving Nish in.
She hesitated. ‘But he’s the general, surr.’
‘And I’m your superior and a mancer of dreadful power. Do as I say!’
‘Guards!’ roared Troist.
‘Now!’ Gilhaelith screamed in her face.
Kimli’s arm jerked on the flight knob and the thapter leapt in the air. The guards came running, arming their crossbows, but by the time they took aim it was too late. The thapter was out of range.
‘Go north until we’re out of sight,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘then sweep around to the west.’
‘Where are we going?’ she quavered.
‘First to Nyriandiol, my former fortress atop Booreah Ngurle, if anything remains of it. And then, we shall see. Go swiftly.’
Four soldiers were sitting down below. Flangers was one of them. Nish sat beside him. ‘What’s going on?’
‘No idea,’ said Flangers. ‘I’m just doing what I’m told.’
He looked unhappy but did not seem inclined to talk so Nish sat in a corner, closed his tired eyes and tried to work out what the geomancer was up to, and what he, Nish, should do about it. Clearly, Gilhaelith was following his own private agenda. Equally clearly, he was on to something important and, even if Troist wasn’t aware of it, it might have been sanctioned by Flydd or Yggur. Well, probably not Yggur. Nish decided to keep his eyes and ears open and follow Gilhaelith’s orders, for the time being …
He woke as they set down on the mountaintop. Outside, he looked around curiously. Booreah Ngurle was often mentioned in the Histories. It had been an important site two thousand years ago, though Nish could not remember why.
It was mid-morning. The mountain’s crest was wreathed in steam and fumes which had a yellow cast and a sulphurous stench. Gilhaelith had made a fortune mining condensed sulphur from the floor of the crater.
Nish looked over the side. Not even the foolhardiest miner would have gone down there now. The crater lake was boiling, while up the other end red lava forced itself from a vent, surrounded by roiling black smoke and punctuated by small explosions that filled the air with wheeling, red-hot lumps of rock. The ground shook and grey ash filtered from the sky. His shoulders were already coated with it.
‘This is the end for the mountain,’ said Gilhaelith, leaning on a stone wall to look over the edge. ‘It won’t be long now.’
‘Then hadn’t we better do what you came for and get away?’ said Nish.
‘Humour me, Nish. I lived here a hundred and fifty years, all that time wondering when Booreah Ngurle would finally blow itself apart. The mountain is like an old friend to me, and I have to say goodbye.’
‘Why are we here?’
Gilhaelith roused. ‘Ah, yes. Because I left something here which will help us to find the matriarch, and more importantly, what she has with her. Kimli, Nish, come with me. The rest of you, stay with the thapter. We won’t be long. Keep a sharp lookout.’
He laid his hands on the broken front doors, which had been rudely but strongly reinforced with iron bands, and they unlocked. Gritty hinges squealed when he pulled the door open. Nish followed him and Kimli fell in beside Nish. No doubt Gilhaelith wanted her along so she couldn’t be forced to fly the thapter away.