‘Excellent. If you see something strange, or something you don’t understand, call me.’
Gilhaelith hurried away. ‘But what are you looking for?’ Nish called.
‘Something they don’t want us to know,’ Gilhaelith said over his shoulder.
The next day was tedious and long. Nish sat in the tent, listening to the whispers in the background, which meant nothing to him, and reading though the pages as Merryl handed them to him. They were just a series of words, with annotations by Merryl, that did not make much sense.
Great Lake (scratchy voice)
Dawn! Dawn! (hoarse voice)
Too late.
Humans.
Fly west to the … (unintelligible.? Burning Mountain)
(long pause)
Fire? (hoarse voice)
(short pause)
Node failing. Node failing. Node fai – (powerful voice. female.? a matriarch)
What node? (scratchy voice)
Where are you? (hoarse voice)
(burst of unintelligible chatter, many voices at once, then a long pause)
Dawn? (hoarse voice)
Dawn! (scratchy voice)
Nish puzzled over the exchange. Were they planning an attack in the morning, as the army passed by a smaller lake between the two largest of the Great Chain of Lakes? Did it involve fire, or was that a completely separate remark? He scribbled two notes and sent them with the waiting runner to Troist and Gilhaelith. Let them agonise over it.
His pages were piling up. He wondered about the other cry – about the node failing – but not for long. Node failures were increasingly common these days. He made a note on his summary sheet and got on with his work.
Rubbing sore eyes, Nish shuffled his papers and stacked them in the pile. He’d been reading for eighteen hours without a break and every time he shifted his head vertigo made him feel as though he was falling off his seat. It had been hard enough in the tent, for one recorder’s writing could have been made by a spider crawling out of an inkwell, and another’s was so tiny Nish had to squint to read it. In a jouncing, rattling clanker on a winding mountain road it was almost impossible. He prayed that the column would stop soon. He was desperate for sleep but would be lucky to get an hour. Even here, the pages were coming in faster than he could read them.
He had dozed off, in spite of the vibration, when the clanker stopped suddenly. There were shouts and screams outside, while a red glow lit up the sky ahead. The operator thrust up the top hatch, shouting to the shooter.
‘What is it, shooter? Are we under attack?’
The shooter did not answer at once. The threaded rods of his javelard whirred and the mechanism creaked as he turned it this way and that.
‘There’s a big fire up ahead,’ he said.
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!’