‘I dare say. And the harbour of Thurkad is full of boats, thousands of them. The enemy must have had them stored under cover. Some are already moving out. They’ll all be across the sea in a few days.’
‘I suppose we could pray for a storm.’
‘I’ve never seen the sea calmer,’ said Irisis. ‘What’s happening on the east coast?’
‘The same,’ said Flydd. ‘Our estimates were low at each city. Their numbers are at least a third higher than we’d thought.’
‘A third!’ cried Nish, staring into the farspeaker. ‘But that means …’
‘I’d hoped we’d infect most of them, and wipe them out as a threat, but a few thousand dead is nothing.’
Tiaan was even more shocked than when she’d looked at the twisted corpses. ‘It seemed a lot to me,’ she said quietly.
‘Tiaan, each of our armies is outnumbered by an enemy that doesn’t need to outnumber us, and they’ve nowhere to go. They’ll all go to war against us. We gambled and we’ve lost.’
‘Can’t you use the spores again?’ said Nish.
‘They’re all gone.’
‘What do you want us to do?’ said Irisis.
‘Do whatever you want,’ Flydd said despairingly. ‘You have my permission to save yourselves any way you can.’
‘What would be the point?’ said Nish. He looked questioningly as Tiaan, who was staring straight ahead, her jaw clenched, and gave no response. Irisis nodded. ‘We’re coming home to fight,’ Nish added.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Gilhaelith had been working with Ryll for months before, in late summer, they made the breakthrough. The lyrinx watched him so carefully, and constrained his every movement so tightly, that he could not have lifted a finger without being noticed. On the first few occasions he was watched over by Great Anabyng himself, whom Gilhaelith knew to be a mancer of surpassing power. Gilhaelith was meekness personified, doing nothing without asking permission first. He would be patient. The lyrinx couldn’t afford to waste Anabyng’s talents on guard duties for long.
Sure enough, after several sessions Anabyng came no more, being replaced by a pair of lesser but still powerful mancers who never took their eyes off him. Gilhaelith kept up the pretence of total acquiescence. In fact they constrained him so tightly, out of fear, that he was almost useless to Ryll. Gilhaelith was happy to go along with that. Sooner or later they would have to give him more freedom, and he would use it to get what he wanted. In the meantime he kept his head down and let his resentment burn. He, a master geomancer, had been reduced to begging for the right to use his geomantic globe, just to save his life. Gyrull had not deigned to reply to his pleas, which made him bitter indeed. Once he got hold of the globe, she would pay. He’d rehearsed his plan so many times that even his reluctant, damaged brain had it down perfectly.
Eventually they had given him a little freedom – enough for Ryll to discover what he needed to complete the flisnadr, yet not enough for Gilhaelith to take control of his globe. And the instant Ryll had it, the guards had taken Gilhaelith straight back to his watermelon-shaped stone cell and locked him in.
This time Gilhaelith knew he was doomed. The damage caused by the phantom crystals was close to irreparable now, and in a month or two it would be. A few months after that, if he was still alive, he would be little better than a vegetable. And he probably would live that long. They would keep him alive until the flisnadr had been tested and was ready for use, just in case. But as soon as it was ready, he would go to the slaughtering pens. Apart from any other considerations, he knew too much about the power patterner to be allowed to live.
Liett hurtled into the patterning chamber, skidding halfway across the stone floor before she could stop herself. Her claws screeched on the shale, gouging pale marks across it. ‘Ryll!’ she screamed.
He set down the bucket of gruel with which he was feeding the human females sealed in the linked patterners, but didn’t turn to her at once. Ryll was used to Liett’s histrionics, and he was deep in thought. The flisnadr was the size of a beer barrel now, almost fully grown, and he’d already carried out most of the tests. The results were encouraging, though he wanted to keep testing for a month or two, just to be sure that he had mastery of it well before it was needed. ‘What is it?’ he said absently, watching the flickering chameleon colours on its skin.
‘We’ve been attacked,’ she cried.
‘Attacked?’ Ryll spun around. ‘How?’
‘One of the enemy thapters flew right to the main air shaft, the one with the bellows, and hurled in a barrel of the skin-rotting spores.’
Ryll’s skin turned a dull, creeping yellow, fading to grey, and he felt an involuntary urge to scratch himself. He resisted. ‘When?’
‘Just ten minutes ago. Mother ordered the bellows shut down and the shaft sealed but … it may be too late. The spores could have blown anywhere by now. What are we going to do?’
‘We don’t panic,’ said Ryll, heading for the door at a run. ‘First, we burn brimstone in the sealed shaft.’
‘Will that work with spores?’ Liett was trotting beside him.
‘I don’t know. It saved a few of our uggnatl, but that was a different kind of infection. We seal all the floors the shaft blows air to, wash everything down into the gutters, and burn the washings outside. Did we get the thapter?’
‘Almost, but the black-haired pilot got away in the end.’
His heart sank even further. ‘Tiaan was the pilot?’
‘Yes.’
For once Liett refrained from making the obvious accusation. Tiaan had thwarted them a number of times now, and all because he, Ryll, had allowed her to escape from Kalissin a year and a half ago. Shame made his stomach throb, for all that he’d followed his honourable instincts, and few could fault that. His mind was already projecting the worst possibilities from this attack, and they were very bad.
On the upper level they ran into a group of desperate lyrinx, milling back and forth, barely able to contain their terror. Recalling the fate of those infected by the spores in Borgistry, he could hardly blame them.
‘Where’s Matriarch Gyrull?’ said Ryll.
A squat female, whose dark-green crest looked as though it had been chewed by a dog, pointed down the corridor. ‘She’s receiving. She can’t be disturbed.’
‘What about Great Anabyng?’
‘Outside, strengthening the defences.’
‘It’s too late for that,’ said Ryll. ‘They won’t come back.’
‘If they’re trying to frighten us,’ Liett said savagely, ‘they –’
‘They’re not trying to frighten us, Liett. They’re trying to wipe us out.’ Ryll headed up the corridor searching for Gyrull, and found her in a small room, crouched in the corner with her hands over her ears, her brow ridges knitted in concentration. She would be mindspeaking to the other matriarchs.
He waited silently, and after several minutes she dropped her hands and looked up.
‘What did they say when you told them, Wise Mother?’ said Ryll.
‘All our cities have been attacked in the same way, at the same time. All the attacks succeeded save the one at Thurkad, where the pilot of the thapter was shot and those inside it were killed.’
The ice in his stomach developed needles that pricked right through him. ‘Is this the time, Wise Mother?’
‘For victory or annihilation? I don’t know, Ryll. The spores may do nothing. We won’t know for some days, but we’d better be ready.’
‘Are you going to release the uggnatl?’
‘Maybe in the east, where we have enough to make a difference. Not here. How is your work going?’
‘The flisnadr has passed all but the final tests. I could use it now if I had to. Within weeks I’ll have mastered it.’
Matriarch Gyrull smiled. ‘Well done, Ryll. It’s been a mighty labour, and few among us thought it could ever succeed. Even I had my doubts, but you’ve done everything I asked of you, and more. We may save something out of our ruin after all. It – it’ll be the last thing I do for my people.’