The light winked from the same place as before. ‘They’re not moving,’ said Merryl.
‘It might be a trap,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Or a false trail.’
‘How could they know about us?’ said Nish.
‘Never underestimate the enemy.’
Including you?
They flew into the night. Nish went up to stand with Kimli, who had begun to sag at the controller. The moon rose, near its full and mostly the dark side, an ill omen, not that Nish believed in such superstitions. Its slanting rays shone reddish silver off the dry plains grass. This was country the like of which he’d never seen before, even during his travels across Almadin. It was completely flat, bone-dry and empty.
‘The City of the Bargemen,’ said Gilhaelith, who had come up to stand on the other side. He pointed to their left, towards a lake shaped like a twisted teardrop. A meandering river ran in one end of it and out the other, its further reaches lost in the night. ‘An odd name, since it’s nothing like a city and the barges are run by the women. It’s built out over the lake on poles of turpentine wood.’
‘Then it’s probably the only settlement in Lauralin safe from the lyrinx’s vengeance,’ Nish observed.
‘I dare say. There’s nowhere that the lyrinx will be safe from mine.’
‘What did they do to you?’ said Nish.
‘They stole me away from Nyriandiol, the only place I’ve ever felt comfortable. They ruined me – I’m going to die the worst death a mancer can suffer …’
‘You look healthy enough to me,’ said Nish, who’d come to realise that Gilhaelith didn’t always tell the truth.
‘That is the worst death, Artificer. To have the body remain as strong as ever while the mind slowly decays from within. I’ve lost a quarter of my faculties already, because of the lyrinx. I might have repaired the damage with my globe but Gyrull denied it to me until it was too late and ensured there were flaws in it. My mind will be gone within a year. But worst of all, I’ll never finish the great project I worked on all my life – to understand the world and the forces that move and shape it. My whole life has been rendered meaningless, and all because of the lyrinx.’
‘So this is all about revenge?’
Gilhaelith was calm, almost good-humoured. There wasn’t a trace of rage in him as he answered. ‘The lyrinx robbed me of all that mattered, so I plan to take the relics that mean everything to them. I find revenge peculiarly nourishing. It’s given me a new purpose.’
They began to pass over forest, though even in this light Nish could see how different it was from the forests he was used to. This was a woodland of scrubby trees, twisted by the unceasing plains wind. They were flying low now and once, as Nish looked down, he saw the moon-reflected gleam of a pair of eyes looking up. He shivered.
‘How far to go?’ he asked.
‘Another twenty leagues,’ said Kimli. She yawned. ‘We should be there just after dawn.’
‘Have you heard anything else, Gilhaelith?’ said Nish.
‘Not a whisper.’
‘Maybe the matriarch is dead.’
‘Or maybe they’re waiting for us. For every action, a reaction. Everything we do with the Art leaves a trace, Nish, and a great adept may be able to find it.’
‘First time I’ve heard of it,’ said Nish.
‘What you know about the Art would fit into a thimble,’ Gilhaelith said crushingly. ‘And you don’t know any great adepts either.’
What about Yggur and Flydd, Nish was going to say. Not to mention Malien. He kept his mouth shut; Gilhaelith was baiting him.
‘If a great lyrinx adept was watching when I scried with the brimstone crystals,’ Gilhaelith went on, ‘he’s had plenty of time to close the trap.’
The moon dropped toward the western horizon, and as it sank the sun rose in the other direction, over the Marches of Tacnah. It was a featureless plain without rivers, lakes, or even a creek. Not a single tree could be seen; not a rock or a bush. The sparse tussock grass was grey, the soil red.
‘What a bleak place,’ said Nish.
Gilhaelith came up the ladder to see for himself. ‘The lyrinx won’t find it easy to ambush us here.’
But they can camouflage themselves to look like anything, Nish thought.
‘Not long now,’ said Gilhaelith. He went down to his globe, then called, ‘A little more to the east, Kimli.’
‘It should be just around here,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘Can you see anything?’
Nish was scanning the horizon with a spyglass. ‘Only red dirt and grey grass.’
‘Go higher, Kimli, and circle around.’
Kimli took the thapter up to a height of a few hundred spans. She could barely keep her hand on the controller now.
‘Are you all right?’ said Nish.
‘So tired …’
‘Anything?’ called Gilhaelith.
‘No,’ Kimli whispered.
‘What did you say?’ said Gilhaelith.
‘Lyrinx!’ yelled Nish. ‘In the west. Flying fast towards us.’
Gilhaelith shot up the ladder and took the spyglass. ‘And more coming from the south.’ He barked a bitter laugh. ‘At least we know we’re in the right place.’
‘Can’t you scry again?’
‘To locate the matriarch precisely, I’d need a globe a thousand spans in diameter.’
They went around and around as the flights of lyrinx drew ever closer. With the spyglass, Nish estimated twenty in the western group, a few more in the more distant southern flight. ‘They’re coming straight for us,’ he said, seized by a sudden thought.
Kimli, who had been sagging at the controller, let out a little squeak and stood up straighter.
‘Of course they are,’ said Gilhaelith.
‘No, both flights are heading for us,’ said Nish. ‘You’d think one would be going to the matriarch, unless she’s directly below and we can’t see her.’
‘She’s had plenty of time to skin-change.’
Nish swept the spyglass around the horizon. While the lyrinx stayed still, skin-changing could conceal them, but once they moved they would be visible. He went all the way around, once and again, then a flying lyrinx flashed across his view, camouflaged to disappear against the sky.
He went around again and saw another lyrinx, or was it the same one? It wasn’t flying towards him. It was streaking low across the grass to a point a little north of them.
‘We’re in the wrong place,’ yelled Nish. ‘There, Kimli.’
Kimli, bright-eyed now, whirled the thapter around so fast that Nish was thrown against the side. She calculated the place the lyrinx was heading for, maybe half a league away, and accelerated towards it.
‘Can we get there before it does?’ snapped Gilhaelith.
‘Yes,’ said the pilot, ‘but …’
‘The others will get here before we can snatch the relics. Hoy, Flangers! Pass the farspeaker up here, would you. I may need it.’
It came up the hatch. Gilhaelith spun the globes, froze them and waited.
‘There they are,’ cried Kimli, changing course so abruptly that the farspeaker almost went over the side. The mechanism of the thapter screamed, she seemed to bounce it off solid air, put it sideways and stopped in a cloud of torn-up tussocks and a whirlwind of red dirt.
Nish was impressed. He’d had reservations about her skills in the early days, but Kimli was proving nearly as good a pilot as Chissmoul.
Five lyrinx lay on the ground. Three were dead and their skin had faded to an oily grey that stood out against the red soil. No, it was their inner skin, gone dry and wrinkly. They must have shed the armoured layer in their agony and then, exposed to the sun and wind, they had died. The fourth was still twitching, its fanged mouth opening and closing. It had torn its chest armour to shreds and crumpled pieces of bloody armour still clung to its claws.
The fifth, a huge green-crested female, was practically invisible, her skin matching the texture of the pebbly soil. Her wings, camouflaged the same colour, were spread out over several long crates.