Still red in the face, Tiaan went out.
‘Sounds as though it’s going to be a jolly trip,’ said Malien, ‘what with you, Tiaan and Phar. Tell me all about it when you return.’
Tiaan turned up as the last grain of the hourglass fell, when the soldiers and Phar were already below. Nish took his place beside her. It was going to be a hideous trip. Tiaan, at the controller, was like an iceberg that, instead of thawing, seemed to get colder by the second. Nish tried to apologise.
‘Don’t say anything. Your apology means nothing, since I know you’re only offering it to get what you want.’
‘But, Tiaan, I didn’t mean –’
‘Do you think I don’t know your character by now?’ she hissed. ‘You’re a true son of your father. I have nothing to say to you. Just tell me where you want to go and what you want to do.’
He did so, since the soldiers were already muttering among themselves. Morale was critical to the success of any mission. Someone began to bang on the lower hatch.
‘What’s that disgusting smell?’ said Tiaan, edging away from him. ‘That wasn’t you, was it?’
‘Of course not!’ Flushing again. Nish lifted the hatch. He didn’t need to take a step down the ladder to discover that he’d made a gross mistake. The stench was so appalling that even the soldiers looked green.
‘Get him out of here,’ said the first, ‘or none of us will still be alive when we get there.’
‘Phar!’ snapped Nish. ‘I should have put you in the cauldron and boiled the filth off you. Grab hold of him, lads. We’ll take him up the back.’ He climbed up. ‘Would you set down, please, Tiaan? We’ll have to take this villain up to the platform and tie him on.’
‘You should have thought of that before we left,’ she said without looking at him. Tiaan directed the thapter toward a mud island in the swamp forest, taking it expertly down between the trees. She stood to one side, wrinkling her nose, as the soldiers manhandled Phar over the side and back to the shooter’s platform, where they secured him with ropes.
The stink lingered, and even after the long flight to Thurkad, Nish could still smell the fellow. They arrived over the city around one in the morning. Tiaan was standing at the controller, practically asleep on her feet. She was swaying from side to side.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Of course I’m all right!’ she snapped. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
He began to unroll the map of the city. Tiaan touched a panel globe above her head, which illuminated the binnacle with a soft white glow. Nish spread the map out as best he could over the irregular surface.
‘These three are the silk warehouses.’ Nish pointed to the buildings behind the Street of the Sail-makers. ‘Any will do.’
‘Just tell me which one you want to go to,’ she said curtly.
‘The easternmost one,’ said Nish.
‘Thank you. You can go now.’
‘I’ll leave the map –’
‘I don’t need it. Once I see a map I never forget it.’
He didn’t see how that could be possible, for Nish was used to poring over maps for hours and still getting lost. However, he rolled it up and went below. The place still reeked of Phar.
Shortly the thapter settled with a bump on a sloping roof. Timbers creaked underneath them and several slates cracked. Tiaan lifted the thapter off again, hovering just above the roof.
‘We’re here,’ she called down the hatch.
‘Time to go,’ Nish said to the soldiers. ‘Vim and Slann, would you bring Phar? He’s a burglar and it’s his job to find us a way in. I hope he can, otherwise we’ll have to make a hole in the roof and I’d rather avoid that. Tiaan, if you would keep watch …’
‘What if the enemy appear?’
‘If they see you and attack, go up at once. Come back every hour on the hour if you can, but don’t risk yourself or the thapter for us.’
For the very first time, some kind of feeling showed in her eyes, as if she’d realised that he was, after all, a human being not completely without redeeming features. To be abandoned in a city possessed by the lyrinx was not pleasant to contemplate.
‘I won’t,’ she said.
They gathered on the sloping roof beside the thapter with all their gear: packs full of tools for breaking and entering, coils of rope, a small hand winch, weapons. It was as dark as a cellar full of coal and the roof was wet and hard to stand on.
‘Ready?’ said Nish. ‘Come on, Vim,’ he hissed in the direction of the rear platform. ‘Get a move on.’
‘Phar’s not here.’
‘What?’ Nish scrambled up the back. The stench lingered in the open turret but it was empty. Nish felt along the rails, encountered the ropes and ran his fingers down them. The ends had been neatly severed.
‘He must have had a blade hidden away, and jumped off as soon as we touched down,’ Nish raged. ‘Why didn’t anyone search him?’
‘We searched him,’ said Vim. ‘But, well …’
‘I know,’ said Nish. It was a disgusting job. There was no point blaming anyone. But it was not a good start.
FORTY-TWO
‘I dare say he’ll come back once he’s done his bit of pilfering,’ said Slann. ‘He won’t want to stay here.’
‘If he does I’ll kick his arse right out into the middle of the bay.’
They had to break in through the roof. It wasn’t difficult but pulling up slates in the dark made more noise than Nish liked.
‘If there are any lyrinx about,’ he said, ‘they now know we’re here. And they’ll see us even though we can’t see them.’
‘It’ll be a quick death then,’ said Slann, who had a melancholy disposition.
‘Though not a painless one,’ said Vim. ‘Better get down there, quick.’
He fixed a rope around a roof beam. They climbed down it and, after breaking though a ceiling, ended up in the top floor of the warehouse. It was empty.
‘Suppose the silk will be in the basement,’ said Slann, ‘and we’ll have to carry it up ten flights of stairs.’
‘Shows how much you know,’ scoffed Vim. ‘They wouldn’t keep precious silk in the basement where it’d go mouldy. It’d be up high, where it’s warm and dry. Naw, I reckon the place is empty.’
‘It’d better not be.’ Nish gloomily headed for the stairs.
Before long they were on their way up again. The warehouse contained nothing but rat droppings.
The thapter was still there, thankfully. Phar was not. They climbed in.
‘Empty,’ said Nish.
Tiaan did not look surprised. ‘Shall I go to the next one?’
‘Please.’ He sat on the floor and put his head in his hands. Nish had a pretty good idea what he would find in the second warehouse. Nothing. Phar must have been extracting a petty revenge, and now that he was gone they had no hope of finding the right warehouse.
The second warehouse took a long time to break into, but proved as empty as the first. Nish was in a sick despair by the time he returned. Tiaan said nothing at all, just carried them to the third.
Nish consulted the stars as they got out. It was three in the morning. Dawn was around seven-thirty. Plenty of time if the warehouse was empty. Not long at all if they found what they wanted and had to lift it through the roof.
The top floor proved to be empty. So did the one below that. Halfway down the stairs, Nish paused. ‘I can smell something.’
‘So can I,’ said Vim. ‘Frying onions.’
It had not occurred to Nish that there might still be people living in Thurkad. He’d assumed that the lyrinx would have driven them away, or eaten them all. But unless the enemy had become vegetarians, there were people below.
‘Where’s it coming from, do you think?’
Slann sniffed the air. ‘Can’t tell.’
‘Be as quiet as you possibly can. If they find us, they’re bound to want a ride to somewhere safe.’
Nish shuttered his lantern to a slit and crept around the corner onto the next level. He slid open the door, shone the light around and could have wept for joy. The whole floor was packed with rolls of cloth.