Part 64 (1/2)

'It's got a mighty hard skin, then. No, something was carried this way, weeks ago. Let's see where it came from.'

They backtracked down through the forest and after hours of searching found deep indentations in a pair of fallen, rotting trees. 'There's only one way they could have got there,' said Nish. 'Something big and heavy fell from the sky, and it had the shape of a construct. Gilhaelith was lying. He's got it up there. Or had it the lyrinx probably have it now.'

'I hope she's all right.' Minis's eyes were ablaze.

Nish fought an internal battle. He no longer wanted Vithis to get the flying construct, but it was too late to do anything about that, so he might as well get some credit.

'Let's go up and find out.'

'Foster-father must first be told.'

'If you take the time, you'll lose her,' said Nish.

Minis wavered, but only for a moment. 'Father expressly forbade me to go to Nyriandiol. I cannot defy him.'

'It'll be gone by the time we get back, and so will she.'

It took a day to track Vithis down, for he had taken a contingent to the south-eastern tip of Warde Yallock. Vithis cursed them for not going after her at once.

'But you forbade me ...' Minis began.

'You've gone past two thousand two thousand constructs to find me. You might have used a bit of initiative, foster-son!' constructs to find me. You might have used a bit of initiative, foster-son!'

Vithis detached sixty constructs from the fleet and they went full speed to the Burning Mountain, travelling day and night, but it still took a day. As they raced up the winding road, Nish knew they were going to be too late. The rotting bodies out the front, and the barred door, only confirmed it.

'Break down the door!' said a grim-faced Vithis.

The chalcedony door proved unexpectedly st.u.r.dy; a dozen blows were required to breach it.

'Search every room, every attic, every cellar,' Vithis ordered. 'When I think of that grinning baboon, surring me and seducing you with his talk, foster-son, and all the time he had the construct hidden away here. I'll destroy destroy him!' him!'

The upper floors proved to be empty, but during the long search one of the Aachim came running up from the bas.e.m.e.nt. 'There's a barricaded door on the lowest level, Vithis.'

The Aachim's face lit up. 'Smash it in!'

They hurtled down the steps. Nish could not keep up. By the time he reached the door an Aachim was hacking into it with an axe. In between the axe strokes Nish heard a familiar whine.

'It's still here,' Vithis roared. 'Hurry!' Whipping out a violet-coloured rod, he pointed it at the door.

It burst apart. At the other end of a long room sat the construct. Some of the front panels were missing, revealing coiling innards. The metal sheets were strapped to the rear and a strange, four-legged contraption to one side. As they poured through onto a landing, a slender, black-haired woman looked over her shoulder.

'Tiaan!' Minis screamed.

Tiaan had crawled down the side of the construct, taken the hedron out of the walker and dragged herself up again. Climbing in was exhausting work, though she had done it many times now. Her useless legs swung back and forth. She slid into the construct, inserted the hedron in its cup and closed the cap.

As she pulled herself onto her seat, the first blow had struck the bas.e.m.e.nt door. She could see the axe blade s.h.i.+vering the planks, before being wrenched out again. A wedge of timber fell; an eye was put to the hole and the attack had resumed. It would only take another few strokes.

The door was blasted apart. A dozen Aachim were framed in the opening, Vithis at their head. There was no time to complete the test. No time to do up the straps either. Taking the controller arm, she s.n.a.t.c.hed at the field and the mechanism whined into life. The thapter rose to hip height, rocking in the air but would it fly? She put on the special goggles and visualised the strong forces, which were very strong here.

Vithis shouted, 'Stop!' and raised a rod-shaped device.

Tiaan s.n.a.t.c.hed Gilhaelith's crystal rod off the binnacle, pointed it at the crowd in the door and pressed the metal. The beam blasted rock out of the wall in a curving path before shattering the bottom step. The Aachim sprang back to safety.

She turned the thapter in the air, too hard, for it kept going until it faced the door. The Aachim were creeping forward. She gave them another blast but the beam faded out in a shower of sparks. The stored power in the crystal was gone. Thrusting the controller forward, Tiaan drew power and curved around for the windows overlooking the crater and the lake. Acceleration hurled her against the rear wall of the compartment.

A brilliant violet light bathed her, reflecting back from the binnacle. Tiaan lost the field and the mechanism faltered, but it was too late to stop. She threw one arm across her face as the thapter smashed through the myriad little panes of the window. Timber and gla.s.s went everywhere.

As the rain of shards and splinters stopped, Tiaan looked up. The thapter was dropping like a stone. The violet light had lost her, though, and with a wrench she recovered the field. She flicked down the finger lever for flight, pulled up on the controller k.n.o.b, drew from the strong force, and prayed.

Nothing happened. Had the amplimet rejected her again, or did it feel it had a greater chance of achieving its goal with Vithis? You won't get it this way, she vowed. The thapter will smash, the amplimet sink to the bottom of the lake, and when the volcano erupts, it will be blown to pieces. She hurled all that at the crystal, trying to control or at least influence it.

The machine kept falling towards the brilliant blue lake. The sheer rock walls of the crater flashed past. The violet light played on her again. The field winked out but returned just as swiftly as she fell out of range. It did not help her the amplimet was not drawing on the strong force. Her impact with the water would be spectacular.

The thapter hit an air pocket, rolled, and she almost fell out. Tiaan clung to the controller, which moved sideways and the thapter crabbed around, skidding like a stone across the air. Something went click in her brain and as the machine came upright she pulled up the k.n.o.b, all the way. The blood rushed from her head and Tiaan blacked out momentarily, rousing to find herself pressed against the back of the seat. The thapter was going straight up, like a child's skyrocket.

It approached Nyriandiol, which overhung the basalt cliff above the lake. She altered course so as to avoid the shattered window and the Aachim, who were sighting their weapons. Was Minis one of them? The violet light played over her, the whine ceasing for a second as she shot past. Tiaan shook her fist at Vithis, altered course to avoid cras.h.i.+ng into the eaves, shot up over the roof and out of their sight.

A wall of cloud was racing in from the south. She plunged into its concealment, climbed through and took her bearings from the sun. She was shaking so violently that the thapter skated back and forth across the sky. Where to go? The largest city of Borgistry was about twenty leagues to the south, but the sky was clear in that direction and Vithis would soon discover where she had gone. He could be there in a day. In his current mood, her presence there could only lead to war.

Or was that just a convenient excuse? Tiaan feared the scrutators, as every sensible person did. She was still a fugitive and must surely be blamed for bringing the Aachim to Santhenar. Her clear duty was to give Scrutator Klarm the thapter and the amplimet, but ...

She desperately wanted to find Gilhaelith and discover if there was a way to repair her broken back. She would give anything for that. But even if she could find him, a prisoner of the lyrinx could do nothing for her.

Health or duty? Selfish or self-sacrificing? Snizort or Borgistry? How could she decide? The thapter would help end the endless war, and all the human misery it had caused. Against that, her own health was insignificant. It was time to do her duty.

Tiaan turned south to Lybing, the capital of Borgistry. At least, she tried to, but the controls would not let her go that way. The amplimet, clearly, did not want to fall into the hands of the scrutators. Twice it had turned away from them.

Tiaan might have gone down to ground, as she had done before, disabled the flying controls and hovered to Lybing. It was the sensible and responsible thing to do. She hesitated over the choice, but only for a second. The capricious amplimet was all the excuse she needed. Hope triumphed over despair and she turned south-south-east, towards Snizort. She felt guilty about it, but if there was a chance to repair her back ... Was it so terribly wrong to take it?

As Tiaan vanished from sight, Vithis turned away from the window hole, so angry that he had to sit down. Minis was white and shaking. Despite everything, Nish felt like cheering.

'Watch where she goes,' Vithis screamed. 'Track her! Offer mighty rewards for true information, and dire threats for false. Hunt down the people who once served here. The survivors can't be far away. Take the names of all informants. Han, bring my fleet here and signal to the others. We are going after her with every construct we have.'

He hunted down Gilhaelith's servants, in their cave hideouts, and tortured them. They told him nothing, for no one knew what Tiaan was up to, and Nixx, the only one who might have had an inkling, could not be found.

More than two weeks went by before they discovered their first lead, for Tiaan had flown into thick overcast and her path away from the mountain was unknown. Now they knew that she had gone west and south. The fleet flowed down the Great North Road through Borgistry, to the alarm of its citizens. They had to go that way there were few paths through Worm Wood and none were suitable for carts, much less constructs.

The convoy swelled as other detachments rejoined Vithis's force. Beyond Clew's Top and The Elbow, his fleet broke into a dozen fronts that spread across a hundred leagues, some going west to Taltid and the lands north of there, some south to Nihilnor and Oolo, and others back east by Saludith and the Moonpath to cover the Borgis Woods and Three k.n.o.bs, and even the pa.s.sage through the mountains to the Misty Meres. A system of flags by day, and flashes by night, enabled communication from unit to unit across that distance. Vithis was determined to find Tiaan no matter which way she fled, though she could be anywhere by now, even over the Sea of Thurkad.

At the end of the third week, an old sighting placed her in the vicinity of Gospett, a town in southern Taltid, not far from Gnulp Forest. The main force headed that way, but near Gospett the trail went cold. Vithis called in the informers and questioned them personally, but could learn nothing more.

'The lyrinx may have her,' he said.

'Send an emba.s.sy to the gates of Snizort,' said Tirior. 'Offer a reward for her, and another for the thapter.'

'What reward?' Nish piped up, and immediately regretted it.