Tetrarch

'What's happened?' she shouted. 'Jym?'

'Something seems to have burst down among the soldiers. They're all running around. It's all red, and red stuff is flying all through the air. It's… Oh, that's -' Irisis could hear him retching.

'A horrible way to die,' groaned the scrutator. 'But better her than me.' He took Irisis's hand. 'I'll thank you properly one day.'

'One night would be better,' she said automatically, not understanding what she'd done.

'Floater's down!' shouted Yorme. 'Jym, grab the tethers. Get up the ladder, surr, quick as you can.'

'You first, Irisis,' said the scrutator. 'We're safe for a minute. They can only see the top of the floater here, in the viaduct.'

'But when we take off -'

'Yes, that's the dangerous bit. Come on.'

She went up, hand over hand, which in her blindness Irisis found decidedly unpleasant. The rope ladder swayed alarmingly and her weight pushed the section she was standing on under the keel of the air-floater, so she felt she was trying to climb around a corner. Irisis had no idea where she was in relation to anything. What if she was hanging over the ravine? Her sweaty hands slipped on the ropes. She gasped.

'Get a move on!' shouted the scrutator. 'It's not a party.'

Strong hands caught her under the arms and lifted her over the side. 'Over there,' said a deep male voice.

'I can't see!'

Someone took her hand and led her out of the way, sitting her on a canvas seat. Someone else thumped beside her. 'That's the lot,' the deep voice shouted. 'Take it up.'

'No!' yelled the scrutator. 'Get it moving inside the aqueduct, then up as fast as you can possibly go. That'll give them less time to aim.'

'The soldiers are still alive,' said the deep voice. 'They're almost within range.'

'All right! Just go!'

'All hands to the ballast, then hang on. Bowmen, ready your crossbows. Pilot Hila, don't let them get a second shot at us.'

The air-floater lurched. 'Ready? Ballast overboard.'

It lurched again, then shot up. Irisis clutched onto the arm next to her in naked terror. The scrutator's hand held hers until the sensation died away. The crossbows twanged. The rotor spun up to a whine.

'Firing, surr. They're going to go close. Turn it!'

The machine turned, too slowly for her liking.

'Look out!' the deep voice cried.

Wood smashed and splinters went everywhere; some landed in her hair. 'What's happened?' she screamed. 'We're crashing, aren't we?'

'That was close,' said the scrutator calmly. 'Fortunately the javelard hit one of the timbers of the cabin, not the balloon. It went in one side and out the other. No harm done. No one hurt.'

'Firing again,' said the deep voice. 'Too low. We've done, it, surr. They'll not touch us now.'

'Very good,' said Flydd. 'Steer a course north, if you please, but take it slowly. I don't dare arrive in daylight.'

T HIRTY-SEVEN

Irisis could smell herself, and the scrutator. They both reeked of blood, sweat and fear. 'I wouldn't mind a drink,' she said hoarsely, and discovered that she was trembling.

'I'll get us one.' The chair creaked. Presently he returned, pressing a mug into her hands.

She sniffed. It was ale, of a sort, but all that mattered was that it be wet. Irisis downed it at a single swallow. 'My eyes hurt.' She saw not a glimmer.

The scrutator inspected them closely, his fingers holding her eyelids open, put pads over each and bound them on with a thick strip of cloth.

'I'm so tired,' she said. 'I could sleep standing up.'

'Let's talk first,' said Flydd.

'Are we heading for Minnien, Xervish?'

'Yes. To do the job I've been talking about for a month. To find out what's happened to the node.'

'I'll need help.'

'You'll have the guards, another two artisans and a mancer.'

That reminded her of the mancer who had died on the ladder after Jal-Nish's mysterious horn blast. 'Who was the fellow Jal-Nish killed?'

'Mancer Thards. Poor old Thards,' said the scrutator. 'He was always an unlucky man.'

'So now I need another mancer,' she said thoughtfully.

'I've already organised a replacement.'

'When do I get to meet him, or her?'

'You already have.'

'You!' She stared sightlessly in his direction.

'Is that so bad?'

'No, of course not. It's just, well, you're the scrutator!'

'Not for much longer. Jal-Nish will be writing his report right now and there's no one to contradict him. In a few days it will be in the hands of the Council. They'll convene an emergency meeting where my supporters will have no choice but to vote against me. I'll be struck off the list, broken to a non-citizen, and there will be a reward for my head, whether or not it's attached to my body. You'd be well advised to stay clear of me, lest you be tainted the same way.'

'I imagine I already am. It's too late to do anything about that.'

'I suggest you think again.'

'The advice of a non-citizen is as worthless as he is,' she said loftily. 'In any case, that is not the way I do things.'

'So I'm beginning to discover. Just what did you do back there.'

'What makes you think I did anything?'

'I may have fallen low but I'm still a mancer, and one of rare subtlety, if I do say so myself.'

'Not one of rare modesty at any rate.' She laid her head on his knobby shoulder.

'Well?'

She told him. Flydd whistled. 'Now there's something I don't think has ever been done before; probably never thought of. The Council may even readmit me, just for telling them how you did it.'

'Really?'

'Probably not, but they'll certainly be interested to find out.'

'Where are my artisans?'

'Up the other end, somewhere. There's Zoyl Aarp and Oon-Mie.'

Zoyl Aarp was a lad of sixteen, big and muscular, but with the face of a ten-year-old, for which he had been ragged unmercifully in the manufactory. He behaved like a ten-year-old most of the time, being prone to temper tantrums and fits of 'poor me'. He was a brilliant, intuitive artisan, though his craftsmanship was rudimentary. He had no patience for fine work and Irisis usually finished his controllers off, but he was right for this job.

Oon-Mie was the opposite, small with a sturdy frame, a broad face marred by a flat nose, and eyebrows plucked to pencil marks. No one would have called her pretty but she had an impish grin that curled up the left corner of her mouth. Oon-Mie had three children in the creche, each by a different father. She had a one-track mind, chiefly concerning intimate relations between men and women, but it was always good-humoured. Everyone liked her and Irisis felt better just knowing she was here.

She could relax at last. She rested her head on her arm and fell asleep. The air-floater drifted serenely across the skies, heading northeast toward the coast. Nothing disturbed its stately progress. Once, a lyrinx wheeling in the air above a burning town noted it pass by, but before the creature could react, the air-floater vanished into thick cloud. As the sun set, it emerged long enough for Navigator Nivulee to study the land below through her spyglass, and compare it with her map. Like all air-floater crew, Nivulee was small – a bony girl with waves of dark hair cascading down her back. Her uniform was too big for her and her nails bitten to the quick.

'That way.' She pointed a little more east, with a bleeding finger.

Twice in the night the navigator checked their bearings, using the lights of coastal cities, and a little after midnight told the pilot to go down. They went back and forth for an hour while the pilot muttered and an increasingly worried Nivulee checked her charts over and again; then finally she looked out the port side, nodded and indicated a massif that reared up to a double horn.

The pilot went around it three times in the light of a sliver of moon before the scrutator said, 'Over there. Can't you go any faster?'