Tetrarch

S IXTY-TWO

'Where is the watcher?' whispered Flydd urgently. 'Around corner,' grunted Ullii.

'I told you so,' Irisis muttered. 'What are you going to do now, scrutator?'

'Pipe down. Ullii, come here. You're my eyes and ears into this device.'

He squatted on the floor, knees popping like little fireworks. Ullii crouched beside him, whispering. She seemed quite cooperative now, but Ullii usually was when she was in danger.

Flydd rose, rubbing his knees. 'The watcher, or sentinel, is a kind of growth. If I attack, it will give an alarm.'

'Can you conceal us from it?' said Irisis.

'No. It picks up the aura of the Art, and we all bear enough of that to set it off.'

'Then we've failed before we begin.'

'There are ways, crafter. I'm just running though a dozen or two. You might as well sit down.'

Looking at the tarry floor with distaste, Irisis leaned against the cleanest wall she could find. Time ticked by, and every moment of delay meant more bloodshed outside. She began to pace up and down. Ullii gestured at her to stop – the watcher might detect it. Irisis returned to her post. Her organs vibrated in her belly and the way the flesh shivered beneath her skin was uncanny. How long would it take before the unreality of the node-drainer pulled her apart?

Flydd's eyes were closed but his lips moved as he ran through all the forms and adaptations of scrutator magic, searching for the right one.

'The spell must disable it instantly, before it can send an alarm.' He sought more precise directions from Ullii. 'I think I have it.' He held out his hands and uttered words in a language Irisis did not know.

'No,' said Ullii, after a long pause.

'Are you sure?… Of course you are. Damn it!' he yelped, holding his head.

'What is it?' said Irisis.

'That hurt. I used a spell to freeze it into place. That's a reliable way of attack, as a rule, but the spell hasn't taken.'

'Why not?'

'I don't know. It's as if a similar spell was already at work nearby, but that makes no sense at all. Let me get my strength back and I'll try another.'

Recovering from the spell took so long that Irisis thought it was not going to happen at all. Flydd looked like a man having his leg amputated with a broken bottle. Drops of sweat stood out on his forehead, though in the gloom they had a ruddy look like blood.

'Aargh!' he gasped, spitting gobs on the floor. 'I think I can manage it now.'

He moved his hands and spoke his words of power. They waited, then a crack-crack-SNAP came from around the corner.

'It's gone,' said the seeker.

Now there were drops of blood on the scrutator's forehead. 'Just as well,' he gasped. 'I could not have done that again.'

They went by a mushroom-shaped device that had split down the middle, unable to withstand his evocation that had instantly turned it to stone.

'Anything else, Ullii? he said hoarsely.

'No,' she whispered back. 'But I see many lyrinx.'

'Coming after us?'

'Not yet.'

'Take us to the node-drainer.'

They turned the corner, passed down a wide tunnel and entered a grotto like the inside of a stubby cross. All was black. The walls were studded with ebony crystals, the roof hung with bituminous stalactites. The floor was strewn with lipped pools, each perfectly circular, that seethed and bubbled like boiling mud ponds.

Flydd stared in wonderment. 'This is it, Irisis.'

In the luminosity of the node-drainer the cavern was eerily beautiful. The walls sparkled like black diamonds, the roof glowed like black pearls, the pools emitted ebony bubbles that drifted around the room, reflecting the light like mirror balls. The node-drainer was, from the vision back at Minnien, just as Irisis expected it to be. It resembled a broad leathery mushroom, white as death, with a circular cap rising to a peak. A hole in the centre, above the stalk, gushed forth energies that flowed and tumbled and shone.

'It's not quite what I expected,' Flydd muttered. 'It's taking power from the node all right, and staggering amounts of it, but channelling most of it away. Where to?'

A hanging funnel made of the same leathery substances collected most of the flow. Irisis could not see where it led to. The leaking field created a foggy unreality at the back of the cavern that blurred everything into the walls.

'I expect they're using it for flesh-forming, and other Arts.'

'No doubt, and if Snizort should survive, we'll have to follow that up.'

Ullii gasped, doubled over and projectile vomited through her legs. Curling into a ball, she rolled forward until she struck the wall, toppled over and lay unmoving. Her eyes were wide open, her arms wrapped protectingly around her belly.

'Myllii?' she whispered. 'Help me, Myllii.'

'Ullii?' whispered Irisis. 'What's wrong?'

'Node-drainer is wrong. Wrong!'

'What do you mean, Ullii?'

'Tiaan!'

'What about her?'

Ullii would, or could, say no more.

The seeker did not seem to be harmed so Irisis carried her to the entrance, as far as she could get from the node-drainer. Laying her on the floor, she ran back to the centre.

'How are we supposed to destroy that?' She clutched her roiling stomach.

'We discussed it privately at the Council of Scrutators,' said Flydd. 'They had something made up for me in Nennifer.'

From his chest pack he took a device, a sort of metal cap, mirrored on the inside. The rim was set with hedrons made from five perfectly matched blue tourmaline crystals.

'What does it do?' Irisis asked.

'It simply reflects, in a magical sense, the drained power back the way it came. As long as you can tune the crystals to what's left of the field, of course. It requires power to make it work, and a lot of it.'

'What if the power can't go back the way it came? And surely it can't, since power will keep flowing the other way.'

'It won't flow back until the power built up within the hedrons is greater than what's coming from the node. Then it will simply burst through, back to the node, burning out the node-drainer.'

'Has such a device ever been tested?' She knew the answer to that.

'How could it be? It was made in Nennifer while we… er, waited.'

'About which the least said the better!'

He went to the entrance, crouching beside the seeker and taking her hand. 'Thank you, Ullii. I won't forget what you've done to get us here.'

She snatched it away. 'You are a wicked man. You broke your promise!'

'I do keep my promises, Ullii. You will see. Rest now. You still have to get us out.'

He went back to the centre. 'Irisis, you've got the easiest job of all. I have the hardest – to fit the cap while the drainer is still flowing.'

'What's my job?' Irisis said suspiciously.

'You must tune the node-drainer to the field, draw power into it and make it work.'

It was as if he had raised his sword and cloven her head in two. Irisis fell to her knees in the tar and could not get up.

'Xervish – scrutator – surr.' She stared at him in horror.

'What's the problem, crafter?' As if he did not know.

One minute molten tin was flowing in her veins, the next they were clogged with ice crystals. Her heartbeat sounded like a galloping horse. She licked lips so dry that they crackled. Irisis looked up at the scrutator, standing as implacable as a statue.

'I can't do it, surr. I can't draw power from the field. You know I've lost the talent.'

Flydd, who was staring at the fountaining node-drainer, did not answer.

'Surr, you came here, knowing all the time…?'

His head rotated like a sunflower on its stalk. The eyes were like pitch fires in a cauldron. 'You must!'

'You knew my failing, Xervish. Why build a device I cannot use? Why bring me at all?'

'I didn't build it. The Council of Scrutators had it made and Ghorr said it was tailored to me alone. He lied. It wasn't until I opened the box this afternoon that I understood how it worked. In the time I could not find another artisan; a proper one.'

The insult was like a smack in the mouth. 'Why didn't you warn me?'

'That would have made it worse.'

Then she realised that the solution was right in front of her. 'Surr, Tiaan is in here somewhere. She could use it.'

Hope flared in his eyes, which hurt her too. 'Yes, why didn't I think of that? Ullii? Ullii?'

The seeker groaned. Flydd crouched beside her. 'Ullii, can you see Tiaan?'

Ullii was holding her head. 'Myllii, Myllii?'

Flydd and Irisis exchanged glances. He tried again.

'Ullii. We must find Artisan Tiaan. Where is she?'

The seeker's eyes flicked from side to side. 'Long way from here,' she whispered.

'Can you take us there?' said Irisis.

'Too far. Toooo far.' She closed her eyes.

Irisis wept in despair. Flydd dragged her to her feet. 'There's no time for that. Every minute's delay means more dead.'

'Can't you use it, surr?' she said desperately. 'You're a powerful mancer.'

'I told you, it's designed for an artisan, not a mancer. Ghorr has betrayed me – he wants me dead and doesn't care if we fail. Do it!'

His words froze her to the marrow. That was not Xervish, her friend and one-time lover speaking. It was the scrutator, who broke whomever he had to, to get the job done. She had long dreaded this moment, and surely suffered every pang a mortal human could suffer. If she failed, as she would, she would not have long to regret it. She met his eye.

'I will try, surr.'

'Don't try,' he replied, harsh-voiced. 'Succeed. The army, the war, yes, even the survival of humankind is in your hands, Irisis.'

She took the jewelled cap from his hand. Holding it out, she touched her artisan's pliance with her other hand and brought the field into view. Irisis closed her eyes, the better to see.

'The field is fading fast. And it's… all flabby and warped. I've not seen anything like it. It's hardly got any colour left.'

'Then you'd better work quickly.'

Irisis imaged the field in all directions, then tuned her mind to the blue crystals. That was hard, for she was used to working with one at a time. She traced out paths, through ethyric space, from the field to each of the crystals. It was difficult work, even for her. The knowledge of one path tended to erase the others from her mind.

You must do it! There is no alternative. She struggled on, fixing the first path, holding it while she did the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. Now the next step. The one she could not do. Opening her eyes, Irisis saw the scrutator staring at her. His mouth moved, as if uttering the word Hurry. She heard nothing except the hissing of the node-drainer.

She felt disconnected, as if she was being taken apart muscle by muscle, sinew by sinew, organ by organ. The disruption was beginning. Flydd looked even worse. And it would be worse for him if she succeeded, as he attempted to cap the node-drainer.

Snapping her eyes closed, she felt the blue crystals with her fingertips and imagined power flowing from the field into them. She could see it perfectly. Unfortunately, when she tried to draw on that power, nothing happened. No surprise there. It never had, since that day at her fourth birthday party when she had lost the talent.