Chimaera (105 page)

‘And take the black box too,’ Malien said suddenly.

‘Why?’

‘It would … not be good for it to be sucked into the Well.’

‘But if we take it, won’t that close the gate immediately?’

‘It will remain open until you close it, Tiaan, because you’re holding it in your mind.’

‘Can I leave the gate open after we go?’

‘No!’ said Malien sharply. ‘As soon as we’re in the air you must close it, or else the Well might pass through the gate.’

‘To Tallallame?’

‘It might go anywhere in the void. It might annihilate itself, the gate and half of Santhenar. Anything might happen. The void might be disrupted … It is … the Well must
not
pass through the gate. Though it came from Aachan in the beginning, this Well is now a creature of Santhenar, and Santhenar must deal with it.’

Malien went looking for Ryll and Liett. Tiaan headed up to retrieve the black box. It proved surprisingly light, as if it was, after all, no more than an empty box. When she reached the bottom, panting and weak in the knees, Malien was talking to Ryll. Liett was pacing back and forth, casting anxious glances at the Well and stormy ones at Ryll, which he was steadfastly ignoring.

‘As soon as the Well touches the side of Nithmak,’ Malien was saying, ‘we must close the gate. We can’t risk the Well passing through.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Ryll. ‘And then you must get in your thapter and fly to safety, knowing that you could have done no more.’

Liett beckoned furiously to him. Ryll gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head, whereupon she drove her fist into the nearest wall and stormed away, shaking her wings.

‘I think Liett wants to talk to you,’ Tiaan said uncomfortably. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Just a disagreement about when I’m to go,’ said Ryll. ‘She wants me to leave now, but I can’t abandon my people to die.’

‘Are there many left?’

‘More than twenty thousand of us,’ said Ryll. ‘Too many. But we knew the risk.’

Of us
, Ryll had said. But if he was staying to the last, he wouldn’t get through at all. He would drown here with the stragglers. Liett came storming back and took him by the arm, trying to pull him towards the gate. Ryll set his feet and did not move.

‘Will you not go, Ryll?’ said Tiaan.

‘Not while any of my people still cling to the side of this peak.’

‘You’ll drown.’

A shudder passed over him and his skin colours writhed in iridescent shades of purple and grey. ‘So will they, and without ever a sight of Tallallame. At least I’ve had that. Go, Liett.’

‘Not without you.’ She folded her arms across her chest.

‘I order you to go through the gate,’ he thundered. ‘As patriarch of all the lyrinx.’

‘I am the daughter of a matriarch,’ Liett flashed. ‘I take orders from
no
base-born unmated, wingless male.’

Ryll was so furious that his skin flashed all the colours of the spectrum, but Liett simply set her jaw and cracked her wings in his face, as she’d done so often.

The funnel of the Well now loomed so huge that it covered a quarter of the sky, and so black that the world seemed to have slipped into twilight. Tiaan ran to the edge of the pinnacle. The water was more than a third of the way up the sides of the peak, and huge, driven waves lashed up another twenty or thirty spans, washing the scrambling lyrinx away like ants off an anthill.

As the base of the funnel approached, even larger waves formed and moved ponderously out in all directions. The flow of lyrinx up the sides and into the gate slowed to a trickle. The flat area at the top of Nithmak was almost empty now.

The Well swept towards them, depressing the surface of the sea like water going down a prodigious plughole, then drew back. As it did the sea was pulled up with it, and the biggest wave Tiaan had ever seen surged out from the base of the Well; a monster at least fifty spans high. It was nowhere near as high as the pinnacle but the surge would drive the water up and up.

‘It’s going to overtop the pinnacle!’ Tiaan yelled. ‘To the thapter, everyone.’

Malien caught her wrist. ‘It’s too late. If it breaks over the peak, we’re done.’

They watched the wave swell and grow, driving inexorably towards them, its foaming top rising higher and higher until it looked as though it would wash everything away, including the tower. Ryll ran out to the edge, shouting to the climbers to hurry.

He was too late. The wave struck well below the crest but burst in an explosion of foaming brown water that climbed the sides until it lapped the top of Nithmak and swirled across, knee-deep. It rose no further but, as it passed, Tiaan saw lyrinx thrashing in terror on the foam. One by one, they sank. When she looked over, the sides of the pinnacle had been swept clean.

Ryll stood on the brink, staring down into the churning water. His skin had turned completely grey. The Well surged again and another wave began to form, as big as the last, if not bigger.

‘It’s time,’ said Malien. ‘If there’s enough left in the field to lift us.’

As they ran to the thapter, the last surviving lyrinx were passing through the gate. All but one. Ryll was still gazing at the water.

‘Ryll, you must come!’ screamed Liett. ‘You
are
the last.’

‘The last.’ He teetered on the brink and it looked as though he was going to jump, to join all those thousands who had suffered the most terrible death of all.

Tiaan walked backwards to the thapter, ignoring Nish and Irisis, who were screaming at her. She felt for the ladder and began to climb.

Liett ran out to Ryll. ‘Come on!’ she screamed in his face.

The thapter came to life, whining gently. The wave was swelling, growing enormously, and it would sweep the top of Nithmak clean. Tiaan found herself caught around the waist and lifted bodily.

It was Irisis and she carried Tiaan all the way. Tiaan hung onto the hatch as the thapter lifted, shuddering violently.

‘Who am I to go,’ said Ryll to Liett, ‘when so many more worthy have lost their lives to the waters? You should have been matriarch, Liett. I resign. I am not legitimate. I am unmated male.’

As he raised one foot to step over the side, Liett swung her fist in a roundhouse blow to the chin that knocked Ryll unconscious onto his back.

‘On Tallallame I
will
be matriarch,’ she said imperiously. ‘And I choose you, weak and worthless though you are. You are now Hy-Ryll,
mated
male.’

Irisis chuckled. Tiaan had to resist the urge to clap.

Seizing Ryll under the arms, Liett dragged him across the rocks and into the gate. ‘Farewell,’ she said, and passed beyond.

The Well swelled again. Malien pushed the controller and the thapter moved sluggishly off the far side of the peak. ‘Close the gate, Tiaan.’

Tiaan brought up her mental image of the tesseract, withdrew the port-all, took out the image of the amplimet and closed the box. The gate vanished as the Well roared up and over the peak and the sea followed it. When they looked back there was nothing but the boiling sea and the funnel hanging there, and the red spheres bobbing in the foam. The tower had gone.

‘Where are we going?’ said Malien.

‘Where
can
we go?’ said Nish, wanting to run to the ends of the earth.

‘To Ashmode,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘That’s where everyone else has gone. It’s as good a place as any to watch the Sea of Perion fill again.’

‘Well,’ said Irisis, ‘I’m not running away. I’m proud of what we’ve done. Let’s go and face up to it.’

N
ish looked over the side, dreading the coming confrontation. He couldn’t be as sanguine as Irisis, nor as philosophical. Even if Flydd accepted that theirs had been the best solution, his opponents would not forgive it. And Flydd’s opponents now greatly outnumbered his friends, assuming he’d survived at all. Gilhaelith, Irisis, Tiaan and he, Nish, could well be executed for treason, though Malien would undoubtedly be spared.

Ashmode, from above, was a beautiful, spacious town built entirely of the local blue-white marble. Its streets were broad and lined with palms or enormous twisting fig trees whose canopies shaded the width of the street. Its fields, orchards and vineyards, grown on the fertile, moist slopes below the cliffs, made a ribbon of green from the air, marking the boundary between the brown drylands of Carendor and the glittering whiteness of the Dry Sea. Soon they would disappear under the rising sea.

It was a lovely sunny day as they passed across the town square looking for a place to set down. It was warm, with just the gentlest breeze. A perfect autumn day to be tried for treason.

‘There seem to be an awful lot of people down there,’ said Tiaan.

‘The war’s over, remember?’ said Irisis. ‘The celebrations will go on until the drink runs out.’

‘I hope it hasn’t run out yet,’ said Nish.

‘They won’t be giving it to condemned prisoners,’ said Irisis. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered as Nish blanched. ‘At times like this, I find it helps to joke.’

‘I don’t.’

The crowd moved back to form a staring circle as the thapter came in.

‘There’s Flydd,’ said Tiaan. ‘He’s alive, at least. And Troist. And they don’t look happy,’ she added in a low voice.

Scrutator Flydd was standing at the front, with Troist. Nish didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. The knot in his stomach tightened. Yggur and a pale-faced Klarm stood some distance away. Both had their arms folded against their chests.

Tiaan climbed down onto the paving stones. The others followed, standing on either side of her. There was an awkward silence.

‘You bloody fools!’ the scrutator said furiously. ‘What gives you the right to overturn decisions voted on by the mighty after days of considered debate? You ought to be fried in your own tallow, and had it been up to General Orgestre you would have been. It’s lucky he’s not here or I wouldn’t be able to restrain him.’

‘Where is Orgestre?’ said Nish in a small voice.

Flydd’s eyes fixed on him and Nish squirmed. ‘He had an apoplexy when he heard that you’d freed the lyrinx. It burst the vessels in his brain. He’ll never walk or talk again.’

‘A medal-winning performance at last,’ said Irisis, almost inaudibly.

Nish wanted to laugh but he couldn’t.

‘Troist has taken Orgestre’s position, for the moment,’ Flydd went on. ‘Troist?’

Nish met Troist’s eyes, remembering that the general was, nominally at least, still his commanding officer.

‘I’m bitterly disappointed in you, Nish,’ said Troist. ‘I thought I knew you. Do you realise that I could have you whipped and executed for treason?’

‘Yes, surr,’ said Nish.

‘You’ll have to stand in line to flog the little sod,’ said Flydd. ‘He was my man before he was yours. What the blazes were you thinking, Nish?’

‘We did what we thought was right,’ said Tiaan softly.

Flydd’s head whipped around. ‘Oh, did you? Since when are you running the world?’

‘Since the scrutators failed at it,’ said Gilhaelith over her shoulder.

‘I thought you were dying?’ Flydd said sourly.

‘I’m taking it slowly, just to annoy you.’

‘You’ve succeeded. I –’

‘If you’re going to execute them,’ Klarm interjected, ‘can you bloody well get on with it. The war’s over and I need a drink.’

‘I’m with you, Klarm,’ said Yggur. ‘We’ve got what we wanted. Let’s go and burst a barrel or two.’

Klarm could scarcely contain his astonishment. ‘You’re agreeing with
me
?’

‘Don’t let it go to your head. I’m not planning to make a habit of it.’ Yggur grinned and extended his hand.

Klarm let out a great roar that made heads turn curiously on the other side of the square, and he jerked Yggur’s hand up and down in both of his. ‘It’ll be a pleasure drinking with you, surr.’

Flydd couldn’t maintain his furious face any longer. He chuckled. ‘Damn the pair of you – you’ve cut my feet out from under me. Well, my friends, I can’t condone the way you went about it, but it was the best solution in the end. We’ve got our world back, the lyrinx have their own, and our future Histories aren’t stained by genocide. Let’s celebrate.’

Nish fell in beside Flydd as they walked. ‘What did you mean, surr, when you said that General Troist was commander “for the moment”?’

‘You might have expected that the governors would be grateful for what we’ve done.’

‘Of course they’re grateful –’

‘There’s a whole world up for the taking, Nish, and they’ve already got both feet in the trough. Why do you think they came here so hastily?’

‘But you saved humanity, surr!’

‘We saved the world, Nish, but we couldn’t hold it, and they didn’t take kindly to Tiaan’s … er, creative solution. They accused Yggur and me of being behind it. I’ve been forced to give up every office I hold. If I hadn’t, my head would have been on the block.’

How could this be? Flydd had worked his whole life for humanity. ‘I’m sorry, surr,’ whispered Nish.

‘Ah well, it’s done,’ said Flydd. ‘I’m an old man. Too old for this, so not another word of regret, eh? Anyway, the future of the world, and who’s going to be running it, is being decided right now on the other side of town. And it won’t be any of us.’