Tetrarch

T WENTY-FOUR

The thapter was another puzzle, though one more amenable to logic. Gilhaelith's smiths had removed its crumpled metal skin and were now beating it back to shape. He had studied every part of the machine's workings but had not discovered how it hovered, much less flew. It vexed him that a little liar and thief had been able to do what he could not.

Two days later, Mihail came running to Gilhaelith, who had just gone in to check on Tiaan.

'Master, master!' he cried, bursting through the door.

'What is it?' Gilhaelith snapped. He hated chaos and emotion.

'Klarm, surr. The dwarf scrutator.'

'What? On his way up the mountain?'

'He's turning onto the terrace right now.'

Gilhaelith jumped. How had Klarm climbed the hill without anyone seeing him? Scrutator magic! 'Keep this door shut!' he snapped and ran out, ignoring Tiaan.

Klarm was scrutator for Borgistry, the land south of Booreah Ngurle. Strictly speaking he did not have any authority here, for Gilhaelith held an ancient charter that declared his little kingdom independent. It suited the leaders of the surrounding nations, and more importantly the Council of Scrutators, otherwise they would have repudiated it long ago. But the war had changed the world and Gilhaelith was uncomfortably aware of his vulnerability. He had to please everyone, offend no one, and maintain his usefulness to the scrutators. And still he could not make his choice. Should he give the thapter to Klarm, or lie and pray he got away with it? Even if he did, he would soon have to abandon Nyriandiol and all he had done here. But if Klarm suspected the thapter was being kept from him…

'Scrutator Klarm!' Gilhaelith said as he went out the circular front door. 'It's very good to see you. Come down.'

Klarm's groom trotted across with a footstool and stood it beside the stirrup, for Klarm had not grown properly and, standing on tiptoes, his large round head reached no higher than Gilhaelith's waist. Despite his dwarfism he was a cheerful fellow, though as ruthless as anyone ever to take the robes of scrutator.

Klarm clambered down, nodding to the groom. He walked with a rolling gait, like a man who had spent too long on the deck of a ship. With a dazzling smile, the scrutator threw out his hand. He was a handsome man with a noble mane of brown wavy hair that enclosed his neck like a collar. His eyes were the brilliant blue of the crater lake below. 'It's a pleasure to be back, Gilhaelith.'

Gilhaelith bowed low and took the outstretched hand. He had always liked Klarm, though he did not trust him. Scrutator first, friend a distant second. 'And to you, my friend. How long has it been? Too long, certainly.'

'Eleven months to the day.' Klarm always knew such details.

'Come into the shade. Shall I bring up a jug of my finest stout?'

'Porter, I think, but don't be mean. Bring the whole damned barrel.'

A servant was despatched and Gilhaelith led Klarm under the vines. They talked about the splendid weather and the beauty of the blue lake, as custom dictated, until the drink arrived. The first servant bore a jug the size of a large bucket. Another carried a tray of delicacies – the pickled intestinal organs of lake fish, arranged in squares four to a side, for Gilhaelith, and more traditional tidbits for Klarm.

The scrutator wrinkled his nose. 'Nothing changes with you.' He chose a cube of blue cheese, which he roofed with slices of gherkin before swallowing it whole.

'And why should it?' Gilhaelith selected a pair of small, liver-pink organs between finger and thumb, admiring the colouring. Red-brown material oozed out. He slurped them down.

He poured the scrutator a large tankard of the boot-polish-brown brew. They touched porcelain to porcelain and Klarm drained his in a single swallow. It was his habit to begin a session that way, though he seldom lost his wits no matter how much ale he had taken. He poured another, sinking it as quickly, and a third, which he merely sipped.

Gilhaelith, knowing his limitations, took a sturdy pull at his own drink, sat it on the table and looked the scrutator in the eye.

'I know you'd come a tidy distance to drink a porter as fine as mine,' he said. 'Are you passing by, or have you come about this other matter that everyone is talking of?' No one passed by Booreah Ngurle, for it was a winding twenty leagues through Worm Wood from the Great North Road, and not on the way to anywhere.

'I figured your spies would have told you of it,' Klarm said. 'Whatever happened to this flying construct, it's checked the progress of the Aachim, and that's a blessing. They raced halfway across the continent in a couple of weeks, but since the machine disappeared they've not moved their main camp. I need not tell you what a shock their appearance was. They came from Aachan, Gilhaelith. Through a gate! What do they want? Are they really refugees, or an advance guard come to bring the rest of their people across? Will they ally with us against the lyrinx, or take their side, or fight us both? On the answers to these questions our very future depends.'

'And the Aachim's too. I'm glad you came, Klarm, for I've been mulling over the business ever since I first heard of it. And one thing puzzles me more than anything else.'

Scrutator Klarm raised an eyebrow.

'The earliest rumours were that they were imminently preparing for war. Since then, all reports show them to have lost their purpose.'

'Reports they could have tainted,' Klarm retorted.

'I doubt that even these Aachim are as calculating as the scrutators,' Gilhaelith said with a cheerfulness he did not feel. 'They mill all over the place, and every day their advantage is diminished. This is no way to win a war. If they planned to attack us, or the lyrinx, why not do so at once?'

'A question the Council also asks, you may be sure. The Aachim have had a number of shocks since they arrived. Recall.' Klarm dipped a stubby finger in the head of his porter then held it up, licking at the tip with a neat pink tongue. 'The last they knew of Santhenar, we were just a collection of primitive and warring nations, easy prey. Now they find a world united, organised for war, well-armed and hardened after generations of conflict. We have vast fleets of clankers, as well as other weapons powered by the Secret Art. What else do we have that they know nothing about, nor how to deal with?'

Another finger. 'The lyrinx are an equally formidable enemy and they too are legion. They also have developed the Art in directions the Aachim do not understand, such as flesh-forming.'

Finger number three. 'The Aachim would have expected their own kind, who have dwelt here for thousands of years, to support them, for they see themselves as the original and unsullied people of Aachan. But I know our Aachim and I see it differently. They will regard these interlopers as primitives who place clan above kind, who over four millennia never united to throw off the yoke of the Charon.'

A fourth foam-covered digit. 'The flying construct is a secret they do not have, despite the fact that they built all the others: more than ten thousand, I am told. Who is this genius who transformed their work so quickly, and so radically? The Council of Scrutators will pay one million gold tells for the secret of flight. For the flying construct, or the person who stole it, ten thousand apiece.'

Gilhaelith was staggered. A soldier's pay for a year was a single gold tell and the scrutators were notoriously miserly.

'And there is friction among the invaders,' Klarm went on. 'The clans resent Vithis for his arrogance and his inflexible command. And he, it is said, condemns those who cannot focus on the prize.' He drained his porter and poured another. 'Whatever his plans are, losing this construct has stalled them. In order to get it back, he has given away the element of surprise.'

'You're saying they can't agree what to do?' said Gilhaelith.

'They're disunited. It gives us an opportunity, though one that will vanish the instant war is declared. But first we need answers. What have you heard about the woman who stole it?' Klarm's eyes were unnaturally bright.

Last chance. If he gave up the thapter, and Tiaan, would Klarm let him keep the amplimet? Of course not. Without it the thapter could not be made to fly. No doubt that problem could be solved in time, but humanity did not have time. I can't give up the amplimet, Gilhaelith thought. I've worked a hundred and fifty years for this. Humanity must fend for itself.

He met Klarm's eyes. 'Nothing, save that she attacked their camp,' he lied. 'And you?' There was no going back now.

'She is old human, an artisan from Tiksi who used to make clanker controllers. Very good ones. Her name is Tiaan.' Klarm licked foam from the rim of the tankard. 'It took me a while to work out who she was. So many despatches to remember. She fled the manufactory last year after a… distasteful incident. The last I heard, she had been taken by the lyrinx. My colleague Xervish Flydd was trying to get her back. And here is the most important question of all: did she discover how to make the construct fly? Or if she did not, who did?'

'How could she? That would require mastery of the Secret Art, surely? You imply that she has a history of crime. She is just a clever thief. I would look to the Aachim of Santhenar.'

'Why?'

'Rumour says the gate was made at Tirthrax. The Aachim have the resources and the Art. Who else does? I don't, and I doubt if even the Council -'

'I wouldn't take that line of reasoning any further, if I were you.'

'Meddle in the scrutators' business at your peril,' Gilhaelith quoted.

Klarm waddled to the wall, which was the height of his head, and hopped up on it facing the crater. Gilhaelith perched beside him.

'I'm terrified,' said Klarm, and he did look distressed, a rare expression for a scrutator. 'Though I say it to no one but you. If the Aachim do unite, and I'm sure they will when it comes to it, their constructs will destroy us. Flight is the only answer, if we get it first. I hear what you say but we've got to find Tiaan before Vithis does. Our future depends on this machine. I must send messages right away.'

Any other man might have felt guilty. Gilhaelith felt not a twinge. Klarm began scribbling notes, after which they walked around the back of Nyriandiol to the skeet house. Gilhaelith gave Klarm three message wallets and the scrutator placed one letter in each.

'Where are they going?' Gilhaelith asked.

Klarm told him. 'How long will it take to school your skeets to the destinations?'

A sharp pain struck Gilhaelith in the stomach, high up, and he bent over, clutching at the spot.

'Are you all right, my friend?'

'A touch of colic.'

'No wonder, the gruesome stuff you feed on.'

'It's made me what I am today.'

'I've no doubt of that,' Klarm said dryly. 'Can I do -?'

'It's just gallstones. The pain will pass.'

'Not too quickly, I'll warrant. My apothek has a sovereign remedy for stones.'

'If it persists I may well call on his services.' Gilhaelith forced himself to straighten up. 'How much time, you asked? None at all.' He took seed crystals from labelled jars on a shelf and popped one into each wallet. 'The bird homes by following lines of force. I've already set these crystals to the correct destinations.'

'A clever innovation.' Klarm passed the wallets to the handler. 'We must do business. Lost messages are one of our greatest problems.'

'You may have as many crystals as you want,' said Gilhaelith. 'With my compliments.'

Klarm bowed. They watched the skeets released, with an interval between each so they would not attack one another, then returned to the front terrace, Gilhaelith walking bent over.

'It will not be easy to find her,' said Klarm, 'nor to carry her and the construct away if we do. Vithis's spies and informers are everywhere.'

'I shouldn't wonder. Whoever finds this flying machine, and can crack its secrets, will win the war.'

'Whoever finds it and tells me,' said the scrutator, 'will bathe in a solid-gold tub for the rest of his life.'

'I wish I had it!' Gilhaelith forced a smile. 'Mine is of humble rhyolite.'

'You haven't done so badly.' Klarm ran his eye along the length of the villa.

'It's taken me a long time.'

'And all could be lost so quickly,' said Klarm.

'Indeed,' Gilhaelith sighed, ignoring the ever-so-subtle threat. 'In the twinkling of an eye.'

'On a different matter entirely, isn't your brimstone contract up for renewal soon?'

'It is, but if you don't want to renew it…'

'Of course we do,' said Klarm, 'though many considerations have to be weighed up. The war, other suppliers…'

'I'm sure we can satisfy each other, Klarm. As you know, I am the most flexible of men. And if there's any other way I can help the scrutators -'

'Do you have anything specific in mind?' Klarm feigned disinterest, not entirely successfully. Gilhaelith had developed a rare ability to read people, even the trained impassivity of the scrutators.

'One rumour has it that the construct disappeared in the northern part of Worm Wood. I am doing everything I can to find it, and if I do… well, I have no need of such a device.'

'Any merchant who had it would make a fortune,' said Klarm.

'But he wouldn't keep fortune or construct for too long,' said Gilhaelith. 'Nor his head! I prefer to stay attached to mine. If I hear anything, I will send word at once, by skeet.'

'Thank you,' said the dwarf, draining his tankard. 'As always, it's a pleasure doing business with you.'

'Another porter, my friend?'

'Not this time. The Council runs us harder than ever. I must go.' Tiaan lay in her room, trying to hear, though she caught only a sentence or two. The air of controlled power the little man gave off frightened her, but better him than Vithis.

The door opened. Gilhaelith came in. 'Scrutator Klarm is a dangerous man. A good friend, as long as you don't cross him, which I have just done, but a deadly enemy.'

Tiaan closed her eyes. Two deadly enemies, and both were hunting her. 'You're going to give the thapter to him, of course?' She held her breath for the answer.

'No.'

'Why not?'

Gilhaelith scowled. Clearly he was not used to being questioned by inferiors. 'I need the amplimet, so I cannot give up the thapter either.'

'But it's vital to the war!'

'There's always a war somewhere. The amplimet may hold the key to the great game.'

She could not believe anyone could be so greedy or stupid. 'You fool!' she cried. 'What use will your precious secrets be if there is no one alive to see them?'