‘Perquisitor Hlar!’ The scrutator inclined his head. ‘Never have we seen a more welcome sight.’ He held out his hand.
Jal-Nish hesitated for a second, then took it. ‘Scrutator!’ His voice had once been rich and warm; now it was slurred as if he had been drinking. His ruined mouth could barely shape the words. He bowed and Irisis held her breath in case the mask came off. It did not. ‘We would appear to be just in time.’
‘The enemy have been unrelenting, Jal-Nish. They know the worth of this place, and its people.’
‘Things have not gone well since you moved your station here,’ said the perquisitor.
The words held a threat and Irisis was not the only one to notice it.
‘I inherited a difficult situation.’
‘That was some time back. I’d have expected that you would have sorted it out long ago.’
That was no way for a perquisitor to speak to his superior. Jal-Nish was hiding something.
‘How goes the war, down on the coast?’ the scrutator enquired.
If he was hoping to discomfort his enemy, it misfired.
‘Badly, though we would do better if we had the clankers that sit here, rusting and controllerless.’
‘Aren’t you in charge of the node failures?’ asked Flydd. ‘What progress has been made there?’
‘None so far,’ Jal-Nish said grudgingly. ‘I have put a new team on it, though, and I expect results very soon.’
‘What team?’
‘It is led by Mancer Flammas.’
The scrutator raised part of his eyebrow. ‘A courageous choice, perquisitor. No doubt you have your reasons.’
‘He won’t let me down.’
‘I’m sure. But you’ve travelled a long way, and in haste. You must be as tired as we are. Come inside; breakfast is ready.’
‘I’ll inspect the damage, if you don’t mind, then go down to the mine.’
‘The mine has fallen into enemy hands.’
‘What?’ bellowed Jal-Nish. The soldiers swung around, their boots grating on the gravel. He lowered his voice. ‘This is bad, scrutator. The Council, I need not remind you, is unhappy. When they hear this news … I can’t say how they will react, surr.’
‘I am also unhappy, perquisitor, but I cannot do the impossible. It would take an army to defend this place against the forces gathered nearby and the Council has not seen fit to give me one. However, I do have a plan. I’ll tell you about it while we do our inspection.’ He drew the perquisitor toward the shattered gates.
Irisis relaxed. The confrontation was not going to be as violent as she had expected, though it had been bad enough. For Jal-Nish to speak to his superior that way showed considerable support on the Council, and little for Flydd.
She went back to her work, checking on the progress of each of the artisans and prentices, and inspecting every completed controller for flaws of any kind. There were none; her team was working well, though several of the prentices had to be reprimanded for not keeping up with their lessons.
Irisis could not blame them; neither could she concentrate. The perquisitor had disliked her from the moment they had met, but on the hunt for Tiaan, across the snowy plateau, that had turned to contempt. She felt the same way about him. After his callous attack on little Ullii, Irisis had struck Jal-Nish down, smashing his noble nose. Jal-Nish had ordered her death but the sergeant had refused to carry it out. The perquisitor had hated her ever since.
But that was nothing compared to her next crime. Horribly mutilated by Ryll the lyrinx, Jal-Nish had begged that they let him die but Nish had pleaded for his father to be saved. Irisis had done the ghastly operation out in the open, while a blizzard roared across that desolate plateau. Jal-Nish had survived, deformed and in constant torment. Now he lived for the opportunity to take an equally horrible revenge on Irisis. What’s more, he had the perfect hold over her. He was convinced she had lost her artisan’s talent and had been lying for years to cover it up.
It was not Jal-Nish’s way to strike at once. He would draw it out, the longer the better. She went to bed early that night, falling into an exhausted sleep in which she was tormented by a vengeful perquisitor. Jal-Nish loomed over her, pulling away the mask to reveal torn, festering flesh. Yellow liquid oozed onto her forehead …
She jerked awake and struck her flint striker at the lantern, needing light and lots of it. The room was empty, of course, and the door locked. She failed to go back to sleep.
Ullii had spent the past two days under her bed. She often slept there, curled up in the darkest corner. The noise was the worst. The screams, the impact of stone against walls, the crumbling of masonry, the clashing of weapons, the constant screaming, could not be blocked out even with earplugs and muffs. There was too much sound. The impacts shook the whole building.
Worse, she had lost the ability to sink into the catatonic state that had saved her so many times. In it she felt nothing and not even a beating could rouse her. She had been sliding into that state when the lyrinx came after them in the mine, but had not been able to find it since. That frightened her, as did the sudden unreliability of her seeker’s talent. Her life was changing and she did not know why. Ullii was losing the control she had worked so hard for.
Finally the battle noises stopped. She heard cheering and the rattle and squeak of clankers. Ullii already knew they were coming. She could have told the scrutator hours before, had he thought to ask her. The clankers’ controllers had appeared in her mental map the previous day.
She knew it was the perquisitor. Having some talent for the Secret Art, as all perquisitors must, Jal-Nish made a recognisable knot in her matrix. He had struck her, that terrible day beside the frozen river. Ullii would never forgive him for it and would always fear him. In her experience, the strong preyed on the weak.
If only Nish were here. But Nish was lost with the balloon and she could not tell if he was dead or alive, for he left no trace in her lattice at all. Nish, Nish, Nish. She could not stop thinking about him. That day in the balloon basket, for the first time in her life, she had truly known love. Skin on skin. Flesh in flesh. Ecstasy. She had replayed it every day since, and every night, sometimes many times.
But the brilliance was fading like a message repeated too often. The memory was losing its power to move her. She wanted more of it, but Nish was gone. He had abandoned her, just as Myllii had. Her beloved twin brother was the only other person she had cared about. Love led only to abandonment. Her longings turned to despair.
Her nose picked up a faint, putrid odour. ‘Come out, seeker! You are required down the mine.’
It was that hated voice, the perquisitor himself. Ullii dared not disobey him. His knot in her mental lattice was different, now. It was much larger than before, a swollen clot of jagged tangles. That alone would have told her to avoid him.
‘Seeker! At once.’
She crept out from under the bed. The perquisitor stood at the door, with the scrutator behind him, and a dozen soldiers. The putrid odour was strong now, and it came from behind the mask. Ullii stood up, caught a stronger whiff and vomited on the floor.
A single speck landed on the perquisitor’s shiny boot. He quivered and Ullii quaked, expecting him to smash her down. He tore the cover off her bed, wiped his boot with it and tossed it aside.
‘Clean her up and bring her!’ he said coldly.
Less than an hour later they were gathered at the entrance to the mine, along with four clankers and forty heavily armed soldiers. These were led by the perquisitor’s captain, a completely bald man, even lacking eyebrows, but with a dense black beard clipped to the length of a week’s growth. Four of his front teeth had been knocked out. His compact frame was densely muscled.
The grid was up and the entrance appeared empty. ‘How many lyrinx can you sense in the tunnel, seeker?’ rasped Jal-Nish. Lantern light danced on the cheek of his mask.