Two days later, Seneschal Berty brought a villainous-looking old fellow to Nish’s shed. He had two teeth in the bottom jaw and three in the top, whose purpose seemed solely to hold the blackened pipe that never left his mouth. He certainly never used them to chew his food, his diet being entirely liquid. It was a foul-smelling brew, too, even worse than the turnip brandy the miners used to drink around the back of the manufactory. It smelled as though it had been distilled from the cook’s compost heap, a festering mound of vegetable peelings, food scraps, burnt fat and bones that even the dogs turned their noses up at.
‘This is Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar,’ said Berty, keeping well upwind. ‘He is known to his friends as Nish. You are not his friend, Phar, and never will be. You may call him Artificer Hlar.’
‘Yerz, Nish,’ said Phar.
‘Hello,’ said Nish. ‘Come inside. No, let’s go out in the fresh air.’
The air in the yard was anything but fresh, reeking as it did of wood smoke and hot metal, sweaty labourers and bubbling tar. All were ambrosia beside Phar, who was small, bandy-legged, red of eye and so foul of breath that it signalled his arrival from five paces away. Nish could not imagine being cooped up in the thapter with him, if it should come to that. Phar’s sandals revealed splintered black toenails and ankles from which the grime could have been peeled with a knife. He was missing two toes, one thumb and half his left ear. He was, in short, the most repulsive individual Nish had ever seen.
Nish had already heard about Phar, who had a single redeeming feature. He had, through more than sixty years of crime centred around the waterfront of Thurkad, developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the warehouses and their contents. He loved the ancient city, in his own squalid and inarticulate way, and nothing would have induced him to leave it. Nothing, that is, but the threat of being eaten by a lyrinx. So Nish gleaned eventually from Phar’s rambling and incoherent discourse, punctuated regularly by slugs from his putrid leather flagon.
You were never in any danger, thought Nish, looking him up and down in disgust. There wasn’t a lyrinx in Santhenar that would have touched him, not even to feed its starving children.
‘I understand that you know the warehouses of Thurkad well, Mr Phar. I wonder if you would be so good –’ He stopped at the seneschal’s slashing gesture.
‘Allow me, Nish,’ said the seneschal. ‘Phar. We want silk cloth. Strong cloth, best quality. Long bolts of it. Where do we get it?’
Nish passed Phar a map of the waterfront which Yggur had given him. ‘Can you read, Phar?’
‘Maps. Not words.’
Nish spread the map on the paving stones. Phar squinted at it, picked his nose then turned the map upside down. He grinned broadly, his wagging pipe spilling clots of tarry ash on the map. Nish brushed it off hastily. The disgusting stuff stuck to his fingers.
‘Here,’ said Phar, pointing with a snotty fingertip. ‘Street of the Sail-makers. All these buildings behind are warehouses. This, this and this, all silk.’
‘You’re absolutely sure?’ said Nish.
‘Bah,’ said Phar, picking the other nostril and parking the residue on the edge of the map.
‘Disgusting brute,’ piped Berty, cuffing him over the half-ear. ‘Wipe that off, you pig.’
Phar smeared snot halfway across the sheet. Snatching the map, Nish rolled it up and said, ‘We’ll go at first light.’
Phar began to shamble off. ‘Not likely,’ said the seneschal. He called a pair of guards over. ‘Look after this fellow for the night, will you? And take good care of him; he’s escaped more times than you fellows have changed your underwear.’
‘Never change my underwear,’ said the first guard, evidently puzzled by the comparison. ‘Only when it falls to pieces.’
‘You’re in good company then. Lock him up tight. If he escapes you’ll be explaining why to Lord Yggur.’
The mission seemed doomed from the first second. When the guards went to the cell for Phar in the morning he wasn’t there; despite all the precautions, he had got away.
‘What the blazes were you doing?’ Nish roared, practically incoherent with rage. It did not matter that Seneschal Berty had given the orders and the guards carried them out. He, Nish, was in charge and there was no excuse for failure.
Berty looked worried too, which was unusual. He was always the picture of control. He hastily roused out the guards and soon a hundred people were looking for the thief.
An hour later Nish was sitting on the step to his shed, head in hands, a position he’d spent a lot of time in lately, when Yggur came stalking out the front doors of Fiz Gorgo, holding a crumpled, twitching object as far away from him as possible.
‘I believe you’re looking for this,’ he said, dropping Phar on the ground. The villain splatted, like a cow defecating. Lying on the paving stones, reeking, he did rather resemble a pile of droppings.
‘You won’t run away again, will you, Phar?’ said Yggur.
Phar covered his face, making a ratty squeal. He shook his head vigorously.
Yggur inspected his fingers, seeming to find some distasteful residue there, for he crossed to a wash trough and scrubbed his hands with sand-soap and water.
‘You won’t let us down, will you, Nish?’ Without waiting for an answer Yggur went inside.
No, Nish said to himself, I won’t, and he finished stowing his gear in the thapter. Yggur would not let him take the air-floater to such a dangerous place, deeming it too slow and vulnerable to lyrinx attack. Nish heartily agreed. They were to leave immediately.
‘Where’s Malien?’ he said to his crew after they had been waiting for half an hour. She was to pilot the thapter to Thurkad.
No one had seen Malien. He found her in her bed, looking wan.
‘I’m sorry, Nish. I’ve been throwing up all night. I don’t think I can even stand up.’
‘Was it something you ate?’
‘No. I’m afraid I overdid it, flying the thapter all that time. I’ve been feeling poorly for days. Maybe tomorrow …’
‘Well, look after yourself.’ He went out. Tomorrow was going to be too late. Nish was acutely conscious how time was fleeting by. It was mid-winter and they had to be ready for war in less than two months. At this stage, even a day could make the difference between success and failure.
In an emergency, Nish supposed Flydd and Yggur would agree to his taking the air-floater, though it was exquisitely vulnerable to attack by lyrinx. A single tear in the gasbag meant the loss of the craft and everyone on it, and any chance of recovering thapters. And though it was the mating season, when the enemy avoided all-out war, there would be plenty of lyrinx about who were neither hibernating nor mating. No, it had to be the thapter and they must go today. Flydd needed it in a few days’ time, to visit the manufactories in the south-east, which were to make farspeakers and other devices for the spring offensive.
None of Nish’s trainee pilots had ever been at the controls of a real thapter and there was no possibility that they would be allowed to take this one to Thurkad. He needed the best for such a dangerous mission. He would have to ask Tiaan.
Nish had kept clear of her ever since her return, for Tiaan made it plain that she loathed him. She only spoke to him when she had to, and avoided him whenever she could.
And if she refused, as he expected her to? Nish had no idea what he would do.
He knocked on her door. She did not answer. He knocked again. Still nothing. It was early and she could be asleep. He turned the handle.
‘Tiaan?’ he said quietly.
Her bed was empty. Perhaps she was down the hall having breakfast. Then Nish heard splashing, realised his error and, too late, turned to go. Tiaan appeared around the corner, naked from her bath, towelling her dark hair vigorously.