Alchymist (42 page)

'Look
who I found,' said Xabbier. 'Cryl-Nish Hlar, no less.'

'Jal-Nish
will be pleased,' the other soldier purred. 'Let's hope he shows his
appreciation. I'll take him down if you like.'

No!
Nish thought, for the soldier was motivated either by greed or malice.

'I'll
do it; Xabbier said curtly. 'My watch is over and you've got an hour to go.
Come with me, Cryl-Nish.'

He
led Nish down the steep track, shortly encountering a sentry coming up to
relieve him. They spoke for a minute or two and Xabbier continued.

Nish
wasn't ready to meet his father, and could never be. What can I say to him? he
thought despairingly. And what would Jal-Nish do to him this time?

'You're
troubled, Cryl-Nish,' said Xabbier as they reached the bottom and turned
towards the camp.

'You
know what my father is like. Imagine—'

'I
can't imagine.' Xabbier put an arm across Nish's shoul-ders. 'But my thoughts,
my hopes, go with you. I'm sorry, Cryl-Nish. If I could have prevented this I
would have, but oncee you were seen there was no choice.' 'I understand duty,'
Nish said hollowly. 'I'll take you up to his tent.'

As
the lieutenant led him up the slope of Gumby Marth, through row after row of
tents, Nish fought a desperate urge to run. That would be the act of a coward.
Besides, he'd never get away from Xabbier.

Xabbier
ushered him through a dozen guards surrounding a tent the size of a cottage,
lifted the flap and stepped through into an anteroom. Light shone from an open
flap ahead. Jal-Sish was alone, his back to them, bent over a table covered in
retorts, alembics and a variety of other types of alchymical apparatus. Nish's
mouth went dry. He had never been able to stand up to his father.

Xabbier
cleared his throat. Jal-Nish turned and his head jerked up as he saw his son
standing before him. The loose mask shifted on his face, revealing part of the
scarred and writhen flesh beneath. Jal-Nish tossed his head and the shining
platinum face-cover settled back in place.

'Well,
Lieutenant?' he said to Xabbier.

'I
found him on my watch, surr, halfway down the escarpment. He thought he saw—'

'He
can tell me himself. Leave us, Lieutenant. Wait outside for my orders. Don't
allow anyone in!'

Once
Xabbier had gone, Jal-Nish drew the tent flaps closed with his one hand.
Returning to Nish, he stood chest to chest. 'I heard you escaped with Flydd.
He's behind this, I suppose?' . Nish had been expecting that question. 'Flydd's
dead,' he lied.

'Dead?
How?'

'An
injury he took in the escape turned bad and he got blood poisoning. There was
nothing I could do to save him.'

'A
pity,' Jal-Nish said indifferently. 'I wanted to see him suffer, first. And
you, Cryl-Nish — what do you want?'

Panicky
and unable to think clearly, Nish said the first thing that came into his head.
'I want to be free of you, Father. Forever!'

'What?'
Jal-Nish looked disconcerted.

'You've
ruined my life. Since I was three years old I've slaved to please you, but not
once did you praise me or show you cared in any way. Not once did you comfort
me, when I was little and had those awful nightmares . . .'

Jal-Nish
opened his mouth, beneath the mask. 'I—' 'I haven't finished!' Nish said
desperately, and, to his surprise, Jal-Nish allowed him to go on.

'Say
it, whatever it is; he said, smiling malevolently.

'I
know I've done stupid things, but I've suffered tor them. I've also done brave
deeds, and clever ones, and not had a word of acknowledgment from you. That
used to hurt me more than you can ever know, but it no longer matters. Do you
know why? Because I no longer care! You mean nothing to me. I used to pity
Tiaan because she had no father. Now I envy her, because no father at all would
be better than one like you.'

Oddly,
considering his heartless denunciation of his son, this rejection seemed to
strike Jal-Nish to the core, but Nish ploughed on.

'I
don't know what you wanted from life, or whether you're happy now, but I know
one thing. As a father, you were a miserable failure and I'm happy to go to my
death if it means I'll never see you again.'

Jal-Nish
lurched backwards into the table and overbalanced. As he fell, the back of his
head caught on the edge of the table, flipping the platinum helm off.

Jal-Nish
looked up and Nish almost vomited. He well remembered the ruin of his father's
face after the lyrinx attack, but that was nothing to what he saw now. The
claws had torn three jagged gouges from ear to mouth, under which the flesh had
grown back in ugly lumps and depressions. The scars were purple and blistered
with pus-filled boils that even after three-quarters of a year had not healed.
His left eye was a purple socket filled with bulging veins the size of
earthworms, his once proud nose a crusted hole that could have accommodated a
lemon. The mouth, a twisted ruin that would no longer close, leaked stringy
green saliva with every breath.

Jal-Nish
rose, but did not bother with the helmet. He approached his son. Nish tried to
back away but Jal-Nish's hand caught his jaw in a crushing grip.

I too
had a father, Cryl-Nish, and if you think I'm a bad one, he's the reason for
it. He taught me all I know. He hated me because my mother died giving birth to
me. He loathed me because I was clever and he was not. He despised me because I
was handsome and he was a hideous little weasel.

You
remember that, Nish? I was handsome, wasn't I?' His lips contorted in the most
nauseating travesty of a smile Nish had ever seen.

Nish
swallowed bile, wanting to look away but held fast by fingers as strong as
steel. 'You were, Father. I envied you your looks and, yes, your easy charm.'

'He
tormented me, Cryl-Nish. Every day for fourteen years he beat me black and
blue. Before I was a grown man, I'd suffered more horrors than the soldiers in
this army have in all their service. He was a small-minded man who wanted to be
great, and failed, and ever after forced me into the mould he could not fill. I
hated him and all he stood for, yet he's twenty years in his grave and still I
have to drive myself higher, though every success only causes more pain. It
would not have been enough for him, so it cannot satisfy me. I must be great.'

'But
you are great,' Nish muttered. 'A scrutator, no less. One of the mighty who
control the world.'

'It
can never be enough until there's nothing left to achieve, because I must have
it all.'

'And
then?'

Jal-Nish
gave another of those ghastly smiles and green crusts flaked off his lower lip.
'There'll come a time when I've finally beaten him. That's what keeps me going,
even in this hideous state.' He thrust his face at Nish and Nish recoiled. 'You
can't bear to look at me, though it was you who made me this way. I begged you
to let me die, Cryl-Nish -remember? After the lyrinx tore me apart I pleaded
for death, but you would not give it me. You had to save my life, so I could
suffer ever after.’

'I
couldn't let you die,' whispered Nish, recalling that horror up on the icy
plateau. 'Despite everything, I couldn't. . .'

You
made me this way. Jal-Nish thrust one finger into the yellow-green cavity where
his nose had been. You and that cur Irisis.'

'But
there must be a way, with the Secret Art, to restore you to what you once
were.'

'Do
you think I haven't sought for it? There is no way. Even with the alchymical
power I now have, I can't repair what you did to me.'

'Then
what good is seeking more power?'

'Revenge!'
hissed Jal-Nish. 'It's the one pleasure I have left.'

'But,
Mother—' Nish began, looking anywhere but at that ghastly face.

Jal-Nish
caught his son by the shirt and pulled him close. He was ferociously strong.
'Your mother has cast me aside. She always looked down on me; now she can't
stand the sight of me. Though I'm scrutator and will soon be elevated to the
Council, I'm no more use to her.'

'No!'
Nish whispered. 'Not Mother.'

All
my life, women have betrayed me. My mother died, abandoning me to the monster.
My wife has repudiated me. Irisis humiliated me and performed this butchery on
me, from which I've not had a moment without pain since. Tiaan, by her
treachery, has torn down everything I worked so hard for. Let me tell you this,
Cryl-Nish! When I'm Chief of the Council of Scrutators I'll put them in their
place. Women will go where they belong — to the breeding factories.'

'You're
a monster/ cried Nish.

Jal-Nish
gave him a pus-smeared smile. 'And who created me?'

'I'll
hear no more of this.' Nish backed away. 'I'm leaving, Father. I repudiate you.
You'll never see me again.'

'You're
not going anywhere, Son. Now that you've come back, I see something in you I
can use. You're mine and ever will be, and just to make sure—'

Nish
leapt for the flap of the tent but Jal-Nish hauled him back. Hypnotised by that
face, Nish could not defy him.

Jal-Nish
dragged a small rosewood chest out from underneath the table. The timber had a
sweet, spicy fragrance, Turning the key, he lifted the lid. 'Bend over the
chest!' Nish looked in. The inside of the chest was as black as the void,, and
a familiar humming set his teeth on edge. Jal-Nish flipped back a swatch of
ebony velvet and the light from beneath was so dazzling that Nish stumbled
backwards.

His
father took hold of Nish's right hand and pulled it down into the box. It
struck something both hot and cold, hard yet yielding, metal yet liquid. Nish
cried out and tried to pull away but his hand would not move. Jal-Nish took
Nish's left hand, forced it into the box and he felt the same sensations there.

Nish's
hands clenched around, or within, those uncanny objects, while surges of force
boiled through him. His vision inverted: black became white; colours turned
into their oppo-sites. He saw the bones of his father's arm through the flesh.
He saw right through the walls of the tent, the iron scales of nearby clankers,
the rocks of the cliff face. He saw the world under Jal-Nish's rule: cities
burning; people crowded into workhouses worse than the one in the refugee camp,
fetters on their ankles; the guards lashing them with whips. He saw everything,
and nothing.

Jal-Nish
was no longer holding him down. He was standing at the table, holding high a
flask that contained a red, fuming liquid and reciting some kind of rhyming
spell. Nish tried to get away but his hands were stuck fast.

His
father began another rhyme — a series of alchymical spells, Nish assumed. He
recognised his name and several other repeated words: servant, slave, mine.
Jal-Nish must be casting a spell of control or domination, but Nish, lacking
any talent for the Art, could not tell more than that.

His
hands grew increasingly painful. Nish resisted until his overstrained mind
rebelled and he collapsed face-first into the chest.

Jal-Nish
cursed under his breath, pressed Nish's hands more firmly into the globes and
began the spell again. The sensation faded. Nish found himself on his knees,
bent over the chest. He pulled his hands free. The objects rippled like balls
of quicksilver then went solid again, and he understood what they were: the
distilled tears created by the destruction of the Snizort node. Jal-Nish had
been the man in the air-floater, the one who had taken the tears and left that
pit full of smouldering corpses.

'Damnation!'
cried Jal-Nish, beginning the spell for the third time. 'Why isn't it taking?'
He poured liquids from one flask to a second, then a third. Yellow clouds
belched up around him. 'Ah, that's better. Drink this!'

He
threw Nish over onto his back and forced the contents of a small glass phial
down his throat. It burned all the way.

'What
have you done to me?' whispered Nish. His throat had the texture of sandpaper.
'I have woken you, Cryl-Nish!' 'What do you mean? Woken me to what?' 'Not the
Art, if that's what you're hoping. You don't have the talent, nor can you
acquire it — yet another way that you're less of a man than me.'

'Then
what?' Nish screamed, the sound tearing at his tender throat.

'You'll
see horrors no one has ever seen before. You'll hear what has previously been
unheard. And you'll feel — well, I leave that to you to discover. The gift of
the tears is not predictable. But you'll know what it is like to suffer. You
will know what it is like to he your father, as you stand beside me for the
rest of your life.'

'I
have no father,' Nish mumbled.

'You
had that opportunity, but you made the wrong choice; you held me to this
existence and now I hold you to me. You were right, Son.' The lips writhed as
Jal-Nish fought to form the words that had once come so easily to him. 'No
father would be better than the one I've become. But I am your father, and ever
will be, and nothing you say or do can change that. Be sure that you'll spend
your life ruing it for, once the spell sets, you'll have no choice in the
matter. You'll serve me all your remaining days.'