Gilhaelith had not got to where he was by having a closed mind. If it did have some kind of mineral awareness, he would discover it. But what could a piece of crystal want?
He spent a day and a half cunningly investigating it with the subtlest of his instruments. It shone steadily all the while unusual, but not unprecedented. It did not blink once. It was not communicating at all – that was just another of Tiaan's fantasies. Once he had gone, the amplimet's glow faded to the dullest of glimmers, but the central spark began to blink rapidly and, after some hours, the field of the Booreah Ngurle double node started to pulse in unison. Several minutes passed. The spark died and the field went back to normal.
T WENTY-FOUR
The thapter was another puzzle, though one more amenable to logic. Gilhaelith's smiths had removed its crumpled metal skin and were now beating it back to shape. He had studied every part of the machine's workings but had not discovered how it hovered, much less flew. It vexed him that a little liar and thief had been able to do what he could not.
Two days later, Mihail came running to Gilhaelith, who had just gone in to check on Tiaan.
'Master, master!' he cried, bursting through the door.
'What is it?' Gilhaelith snapped. He hated chaos and emotion.
'Klarm, surr. The dwarf scrutator.'
'What? On his way up the mountain?'
'He's turning onto the terrace right now.'
Gilhaelith jumped. How had Klarm climbed the hill without anyone seeing him? Scrutator magic! 'Keep this door shut!' he snapped and ran out, ignoring Tiaan.
Klarm was scrutator for Borgistry, the land south of Booreah Ngurle. Strictly speaking he did not have any authority here, for Gilhaelith held an ancient charter that declared his little kingdom independent. It suited the leaders of the surrounding nations, and more importantly the Council of Scrutators, otherwise they would have repudiated it long ago. But the war had changed the world and Gilhaelith was uncomfortably aware of his vulnerability. He had to please everyone, offend no one, and maintain his usefulness to the scrutators. And still he could not make his choice. Should he give the thapter to Klarm, or lie and pray he got away with it? Even if he did, he would soon have to abandon Nyriandiol and all he had done here. But if Klarm suspected the thapter was being kept from him…
'Scrutator Klarm!' Gilhaelith said as he went out the circular front door. 'It's very good to see you. Come down.'
Klarm's groom trotted across with a footstool and stood it beside the stirrup, for Klarm had not grown properly and, standing on tiptoes, his large round head reached no higher than Gilhaelith's waist. Despite his dwarfism he was a cheerful fellow, though as ruthless as anyone ever to take the robes of scrutator.
Klarm clambered down, nodding to the groom. He walked with a rolling gait, like a man who had spent too long on the deck of a ship. With a dazzling smile, the scrutator threw out his hand. He was a handsome man with a noble mane of brown wavy hair that enclosed his neck like a collar. His eyes were the brilliant blue of the crater lake below. 'It's a pleasure to be back, Gilhaelith.'
Gilhaelith bowed low and took the outstretched hand. He had always liked Klarm, though he did not trust him. Scrutator first, friend a distant second. 'And to you, my friend. How long has it been? Too long, certainly.'
'Eleven months to the day.' Klarm always knew such details.
'Come into the shade. Shall I bring up a jug of my finest stout?'
'Porter, I think, but don't be mean. Bring the whole damned barrel.'
A servant was despatched and Gilhaelith led Klarm under the vines. They talked about the splendid weather and the beauty of the blue lake, as custom dictated, until the drink arrived. The first servant bore a jug the size of a large bucket. Another carried a tray of delicacies – the pickled intestinal organs of lake fish, arranged in squares four to a side, for Gilhaelith, and more traditional tidbits for Klarm.
The scrutator wrinkled his nose. 'Nothing changes with you.' He chose a cube of blue cheese, which he roofed with slices of gherkin before swallowing it whole.
'And why should it?' Gilhaelith selected a pair of small, liver-pink organs between finger and thumb, admiring the colouring. Red-brown material oozed out. He slurped them down.
He poured the scrutator a large tankard of the boot-polish-brown brew. They touched porcelain to porcelain and Klarm drained his in a single swallow. It was his habit to begin a session that way, though he seldom lost his wits no matter how much ale he had taken. He poured another, sinking it as quickly, and a third, which he merely sipped.
Gilhaelith, knowing his limitations, took a sturdy pull at his own drink, sat it on the table and looked the scrutator in the eye.
'I know you'd come a tidy distance to drink a porter as fine as mine,' he said. 'Are you passing by, or have you come about this other matter that everyone is talking of?' No one passed by Booreah Ngurle, for it was a winding twenty leagues through Worm Wood from the Great North Road, and not on the way to anywhere.
'I figured your spies would have told you of it,' Klarm said. 'Whatever happened to this flying construct, it's checked the progress of the Aachim, and that's a blessing. They raced halfway across the continent in a couple of weeks, but since the machine disappeared they've not moved their main camp. I need not tell you what a shock their appearance was. They came from Aachan, Gilhaelith. Through a gate! What do they want? Are they really refugees, or an advance guard come to bring the rest of their people across? Will they ally with us against the lyrinx, or take their side, or fight us both? On the answers to these questions our very future depends.'
'And the Aachim's too. I'm glad you came, Klarm, for I've been mulling over the business ever since I first heard of it. And one thing puzzles me more than anything else.'
Scrutator Klarm raised an eyebrow.
'The earliest rumours were that they were imminently preparing for war. Since then, all reports show them to have lost their purpose.'
'Reports they could have tainted,' Klarm retorted.
'I doubt that even these Aachim are as calculating as the scrutators,' Gilhaelith said with a cheerfulness he did not feel. 'They mill all over the place, and every day their advantage is diminished. This is no way to win a war. If they planned to attack us, or the lyrinx, why not do so at once?'
'A question the Council also asks, you may be sure. The Aachim have had a number of shocks since they arrived. Recall.' Klarm dipped a stubby finger in the head of his porter then held it up, licking at the tip with a neat pink tongue. 'The last they knew of Santhenar, we were just a collection of primitive and warring nations, easy prey. Now they find a world united, organised for war, well-armed and hardened after generations of conflict. We have vast fleets of clankers, as well as other weapons powered by the Secret Art. What else do we have that they know nothing about, nor how to deal with?'
Another finger. 'The lyrinx are an equally formidable enemy and they too are legion. They also have developed the Art in directions the Aachim do not understand, such as flesh-forming.'
Finger number three. 'The Aachim would have expected their own kind, who have dwelt here for thousands of years, to support them, for they see themselves as the original and unsullied people of Aachan. But I know our Aachim and I see it differently. They will regard these interlopers as primitives who place clan above kind, who over four millennia never united to throw off the yoke of the Charon.'