Alchymist (39 page)

at
was a comfort.

just
do as I say. Don't aim at the hare, for it will dart away.

that
tussock just to the left? Aim for the very centre of that, then throw with all
your strength.

Ullii
sighted on the tussock.

That's
good. Now throw hard!

She
hurled the stone. It went cleanly from her hand, exactly where she had aimed.
The hare was slow to move, then darted to its right, directly into the path of
the stone, and fell dead.

Animals
did not show in her lattice, as a rule, but as the hare expired, Ullii felt a
flare of pain. She ran across to the small creature, hating herself and
regretting its death. She picked it up, stroking its fur. It was still warm,
the eyes still bright. She had no idea what to do with it. She rarely ate meat,
and then only the smallest amounts.

'What
do you want me to do?' She had no knife to skin it, no flint and tinder with
which to kindle a fire.

Tear
off the skin with your teeth. Drink the blood before it congeals, then eat the
meat and the organs. The very idea made her want to vomit.

This
is your first test, Ullii, and if you fail it, you won't succeed in anything
and Yllii will lie in torment for eternity.

'But
it was a living creature.'

Is it
wrong for the lion to kill the lamb when her cubs are hungry? Of course not.
Eat it, that you may survive, that poor Yllii may be revenged, and the world
saved.

Ullii
put her sharp teeth to the creature's throat and began to tear at the fur.

She
did not hear the voice for days after that. Ullii wandered across the plains,
sheltering from the sun in the day, moving at night. She learned to hunt and
kill small animals with her bare hands, or with sticks, stones, pits or snares,
drinking their blood and eating their flesh raw. She did not think at all, for
thinking led to all sorts of mad thoughts that she could not bear, and grief
that overwhelmed her. She simply became an animal.

Then,
one morning, maybe a week later, she was snapped back to full consciousness.

Wake,
said the voice, and this time there was an inexorability about it that made her
afraid. The voice had grown more powerful, and bleaker. It no longer sounded
like Flammas. It reminded her of the evil scrutator, the dumpy- old woman. It's
time!

'Time
for what?' Ullii shuddered, but now she was afraid to disobey.

Time
to begin your retribution. Time to set the world to rights.

'I
don't understand.'

Look
in your lattice. Look for the knot of Chief Scrutator Ghorr.

She
searched the lattice and found it at the very limit, a long way to the south.
'I can see it.'

Call
him to you.

'I
don't know how.'

Change
his knot. You can do that.

'I
don't dare. He'll attack me.'

He's
looking for you. Change it so he knows where you are, and he will come.

'I'm
afraid. He's a cruel man.'

Ah,
but now you can give him what he wants, he'll do.anything for you.

'What
does he want?'

He
wants Scrutator Flydd, Cryl-Nish Him and Irisis Stirm, and you can find them.
You must, for they've all betrayed you.

'I
don't know where they are.'

You
can find them.

'Flydd
and Irisis aren't in my lattice any more. Nish never has been.'

Ghorr
will help you find them. Wherever Flydd is, there Nish will be. Call Ghorr to
you.

Ullii
reached into her lattice, traced out Ghorr's jagged, angry knot and began to
tug at the ends. As soon as she did, a feeling of dread crept over her, a cold
shivering of the flesh.

He
was a wicked man, even worse than Jal-Nish. Just looking closely at his knot
made her shudder with terror.

He's
not the worst. Cryl-Nish is the worst, for he pretends to be.’

‘Yes,’
she thought. Nish is worse, and I'll use these evil people to punish him. She
plucked at the knot again, and all at once felt an alertness searching for her.

Withdraw.

She
drew back, shivering, though the day was warm.

Reach
out again, carefully. Don't alarm him and he won't strike at you like an enemy;
just make him know that you're here.

Ullii
reached out, touched the knot and turned it around, and as she did so she felt
Ghorr thinking, Aaahhhhhh! There she is.

Withdraw
and shut down the lattice. Go out into the open. See where that great tree has
fallen and the wind has piled scrub and dead glass against it? Burn it.

'I've
nothing to light it with.'

‘I
will show you how.’

The
voice had her collect dry grass and crush it between two stones until it was a
bone-dry powder. Then it led Ullii around the fallen tree, picking up sticks
and putting them down again until she found two different kinds of wood, one
hard, the other softer, that were just right. She rubbed the hard stick back
and forth across the softer one, pressing firmly, with a steady motion that she
could keep up for a long time.

Eventually
Ullii was rewarded by smoking wood-dust that set the grass powder ablaze.
Lighting a handful of twigs, she thrust it into her prepared nest of kindling,
and within minutes the timber was roaring. She stood back and waited for
Ghorr's air-floater to find her. The voice in her head had gone. Ullii felt
that she had taken command of her life at last.

The
air-floater landed just before dusk, well away from the fire, which had
consumed the centre of the vast trunk and was now creeping along the length of
it. Ghorr got out. Ullii remained standing in front of the blaze, in full view.
Her gut tightened as he headed towards her, robes flapping, followed by Fusshte
and the dumpy old woman with the balding head.

Ghorr
could have picked Ullii up in one hand; he was her peer. And yet, halfway to
the fire, his stride faltered and he stopped, stung in ha.

Ullii
did not meet his gaze. She did not have the strength for that kind of
connection – he knew the balance had changed between them. She might be little
and weak, but she had called him, and he had come. It made all the difference.
Furthermore, she knew he was remembering those strange things she had done in
Nennifer, that no one else on Santhenar could have explained, much less
duplicated.

'I
knew I'd find you,' Ghorr said.

'I
summoned you.'

He
smiled at her use of that word. 'Did you really? Why?'

She
caught her breath. 'My brother, Mylii, is dead! The word sent a spasm through
her bowel. 'Nish killed him. My baby is dead and that's Nish's fault too. He is
evil and must be punished. I will find him for you.'

Chief
Scrutator Ghorr's eyes narrowed. 'What about Ex-Scrutator Xervish Flydd, the
greatest enemy of them all?'

'He
lied to me, betrayed and abandoned me.'

'Will
you find him for me?'

'I
will find him,' said Ullii. 'Wherever he goes. There is nowhere on Santhenar
that he can hide.'

'And
Crafter Irisis Stirm?' He bared his hyena teeth.

After
a considerable pause, for Irisis had not betrayed her as badly as the others
had, she whispered, 'Her too.'

Ghorr
raised his hands to the sky and roared in exultation. She had to stop her ears
until he was done.

'I'll
put it about that you're dead,' Ghorr said after some reflection. 'That way
Flydd won't try to hide from your talent. Is that acceptable?'

'No
one cares whether I live or die,' she said softly, sadly.

Ullii
stood watching him, hating him almost as much as the others, but that did not
matter. Nothing mattered but that she find the three who had tormented her, and
bring them to justice:

'Well
done, Scrutator T'Lisp,' Ghorr purred to the old man.

‘I
never would have believed it possible, even with your talent, but you've
excelled yourself.'

T'Lisp
smiled and caressed a bracelet on her arm, identical to the one that now
strangled Ullii's wrist. She said nothing at all.

'It
was a stroke of genius, trapping her with Mylii's bracelet,'

Ghorr
went on. 'She didn't realise for a second.'

Ullii
looked from one to the other, her guts crawling with horror as she understood
what they'd done. They'd set the snare and she'd put her head right in it. From
the instant she'd slipped on the bracelet she'd been under their control, just
as they must have controlled Mylii before. It hadn't been Flammas in her head
at all, but wicked Scrutator T'Lisp. Ullii hadn't taken charge of her life;
she'd simply done their bidding.

'Oh
yes,' said Ghorr, sneering at her distress, her futile struggle to wrench the
bracelet off. 'You're mine, Ullii, just as your brother was, and there's
nothing you can do about it.'

The
race to Gumby Marth had been plagued by breakdowns and mechanical problems that
could not be allowed to delay the army. Where these could not be fixed at once,
the affected clankers and their cargo of soldiers were left behind with an
artificer, to catch up when they could. Troist fought furiously with the
scrutator about it, for the general did not care to leave the least of his
soldiers behind, but if they were to save Jal-Nish's army it had to be done. He
had abandoned the idea of travelling at night, instead rousing the army before
dawn so they could begin at first light, but still they were behind schedule.

Flydd
spent most of his waking hours closeted in another twelve-legged clanker with
the army's chief mancer, who went by the absurd name of Nutrid. He was an
elongated stick of a man, quite meagre apart from an improbably round,
quivering belly, like a jelly moulded in a bowl. His head was the shape of a
hatchet, his eyes huge and glassy, and his fluted, constantly pursed lips had
the look of an insect's proboscis.

Nish
never spoke to Nutrid, nor even went close to his clanker. Mancers were
particularly irritable when at work and Flydd's natural irascibility was
growing as he recovered. Nish did glean, however, that the two mancers were
trying to modify a cloaking spell to conceal the entire clanker fleet from
sight and hearing, for the last day of travel. Camp gossip told him that Nutrid
was dubious. Such spells had had limited success previously, and had never been
attempted for an army as big as this one. The strain on the mancers, not to
mention the field, would be prodigious. Twice on the first day of travel, and
three times on the second, the entire column had to be stopped so the two
mancers could test their makeshift spell. During the first three stops, nothing
happened, though Flydd was so exhausted afterwards he had to lie down.

On
the fourth attempt, as Nish was climbing out of Troist's clanker, the air
turned a shimmering green and every anthill within two hundred paces of the
column exploded, deluging the army with red clay and little green ants. Nish
was still picking them out of his hair an hour later — and so, unfortunately,
was the cook from his cauldrons. Lunch reeked so pungently of crushed ants that
not even the hardiest soldiers could force it down.

The
mancers tried again at sunset, as camp was being set up for the evening. Nish
was taking his turn on watch when a burst of purple flame set fire to a row of
canvas privies, sending the occupants hopping, trousers about their ankles, in
fear of their lives. Unfortunately the chief cook was one of them and took it
personally. He locked himself in his supply clanker and not even Troist could
coax him out in time to supervise the preparation of dinner. That task fell to
the under-cook, a good assistant but a disorganised supervisor, and the food he
served three hours late was worse than lunch had been. A grim Troist, whose
belly was giving him more trouble than usual, ordered the chief cook to his
post at once, and the troublesome mancers to get it right or desist forthwith,
before the soldiers mutinied.

On
the following morning, the fourth, a loud bang from Nutrid's clanker was
followed by puffs of orange smoke and the two mancers hurling themselves out of
the rear hatch.

'Another
failure, surr?' called Nish, keeping a safe distance away. He couldn't resist
getting a little of his own back. Whenever Nutrid and Flydd went to work, the
wags among the soldiers had begun to snigger behind their hands.

'Nothing
that compares to your gross and repeated incompetence' Flydd said coldly,
beating out acrid yellow fumes issuing from the seat of his pants. 'Now clear
out.'

The
fleet stopped in the imddle of the fifth day, a good few leagues from their
destination, to give Nutrid and Flydd one last chance to master their cloaking
spell. The sky was clear and Troist was afraid of being spotted by flying
spies.

Nish
went for a walk across a plain covered in long grass, and studded with orange anthills
twice the height of his head. He was thinking and fretting about Ullii when a
hot breath of air stirred the hair on the back of his head. That was odd, for
the cool breeze in his face was blowing from the sea.