THIRTY-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?’
‘We’re running on the Gornies field and it’s a long way away.’
‘Of course,’ said Flydd. ‘The Minnien field has failed. That’s why we’re here.’
The air-floater set down as lightly as thistledown. The passengers descended the rope ladder. The scrutator gave instructions to the pilot, who nodded and raised her hand in salute. The air-floater lifted off and soon was just a shadow whirring into the night sky.
‘This way,’ said the scrutator. ‘Let’s get under cover before it’s light. Then we’ll go over the plan again.’
Irisis had slept the whole trip and woke to find herself in darkness. Then she remembered. She was blind.
Someone, not Flydd, helped her down the ladder. Her feet landed on uneven ground that slipped underfoot. It felt and sounded like shale. The air smelt different: a faint salty tang mixed with the sharp odour of a crushed herb whose name she did not know. It was considerably warmer than the manufactory.
So, she was on the coast somewhere, or near it. Minnien was just a name to her and she could not have traced it on a map. There was not even a village here, only a place name so old that people had forgotten where it came from.
But there was a node at Minnien, and it had failed, causing the loss of fifty clankers and hundreds of lives. She closed her eyes and saw the bloody plain, the wrecked machines that had taken years to build, the broken bodies and the red-mouthed, feeding lyrinx. If the enemy had made this node fail, they could do it anywhere. Everywhere – in which case clankers would become useless and the war must be lost. It was up to her to find out why. The job had been daunting when she’d been sighted. Now it felt impossible.
They walked around the side of a steep slope, one foot higher than the other, for a long time. Irisis plodded along, putting her feet where she was told, holding onto someone’s hand. No one spoke. She heard nothing but slate sliding underfoot, smelt only crushed herbs and the sea breeze.
Eventually they stopped and her guide sat her down on a sloping slab of rock. Her fingers traced its smooth surface and sharp edges. Food and drink was handed around. Irisis took what she was given, listening to the talk but alienated from the faces behind it.
‘Hush!’ said the scrutator. ‘Irisis?’
‘Yes?’
‘What have you got to say?’
‘Come here.’
He moved to her side, the slab settling under his weight. ‘What’s the matter?’
She clutched his arm, felt for his ear and whispered, ‘I can’t do it. I don’t know where the node is. I don’t even know what it is. What are we supposed to do first?’
‘You could start by trying to visualise the field.’
‘There is no field.’
He sighed. ‘The node may not be completely dead. Take hold of your pliance and do what you would do if you were trying to see the field.’