Alchymist (34 page)

'Yes?'

'How
could they ever let you go?'

Ullii
had gone, fleeing into the night. Nish began to run after her but Flydd took
hold of his collar. 'You'll only make it worse, if that's possible. She'll come
back when she has to — I hope!

'I
have to explain,' Nish said desperately. 'I've got to tell her I'm sorry. It
was an accident, surr. She'll think I don't care.'

'You'll
never find her,' said Flydd. 'No one is better at hiding than Ullii.'

'What
if she doesn't come back? What about my child?'

'You'd
better pray she does, for all our sakes. And that when she does, you know what
to say to her.'

What
could he say? I'm sorry I killed your long-lost brother, Ullii. I didn't mean
to. It was pointless.

They
searched the clearing, using Flydd's ghost light. Both of his opponents were
dead, as was the soldier by the air-floater. The one Nish had wounded in the
leg had fled, leaving only a few specks of blood on the leaf litter. There were
three more bodies in the wrecked air-floater, two soldiers and the pilot, a
young woman who looked unharmed but was already growing cold. She had a broken
neck.

Nish stood
by her, his guts crawling with horror. She had been younger than he was. The
young soldier, too. 'How could everything have gone so wrong?' he said softly.
'I tried so hard.'

'I
told you I wanted to capture the air-floater,' said Flydd, glaring at Nish like
an executioner choosing his next victim.

'I
didn't hear your orders, surr. I was coming across to ask you what you'd said—'

'Couldn't
you have thought before you threw your cudgel?'

'There
was no time. The air-floater was coming down fast, surr, and I knew we couldn't
deal with that many soldiers. If they'd landed, they'd have had us. I reacted
instinctively.'

Surely
it was obvious that I planned to escape in it?'

'No
surr, it wasn't. I'm sorry.'

I was
going to rendezvous with Irisis and Fyn-Mah, then stop your wretched father
before he attacks the lyrinx and destroys another army. Now its fate is out of
my hands. All I can do is run like the whipped cur I am.'

Nish
hung his head. What a miserable, useless worm he was. He wanted to crawl under
a rock and die. The wound in his side was painful but had stopped bleeding, so,
not wanting to draw any more attention to himself, he didn't mention it.

'Why
so few in the air-floater?' said Flydd to himself.

'Perhaps
the others got out on the other side of the forest.'

Flydd
took no notice. 'Who was directing them? This search must have been led by a
querist, at the very least, but there's no sign of one. Unless this seeker was
doing it, shielded from us and under their control.'

Nish
was sure he knew what Flydd was thinking: that he, Nish, was the most worthless
fool who had ever drawn breath. That his father had been right — he was a
walking disaster.

'I'll
keep going north,' said Flydd. 'Not that I can do anything there, except sweat
blood about the war. At least with Mylii dead they won't be able to track me.'

'Do
you want me to come too?' Nish asked in a low voice. The way Flydd was talking,
Nish was afraid of being left behind.

'Want?'
said Flydd. 'Of course I don't want you — though I suppose I've got to have
you.' He gave Nish a furious glare, then relented. 'Come on, lad, put it behind
you. You clearly didn't know I planned to take the air-floater, and maybe you
were right. Six soldiers probably were beyond me. In other circumstances you'd
be a hero.'

'But
I killed Mylii, surr.'

'A
tragic accident that could have happened to anyone. Besides, he reared back
onto the knife after you told him to hold still, so you can hardly be blamed
for it.’

‘I
thought he was attacking Ullii' said Nish. 'I was trying to save her, and now
he's dead — an innocent man.’

'You
were doing your best, so let's say no more, eh? Besides, it remains to be seen
whether he was innocent.'

'What
do you mean?'

'Was
he embracing his sister, or holding her for the soldiers? Did he put his arms
around her because he loved her, or because Ghorr ordered him to find her? But
enough of this speculation — fit yourself out and gather what food you can, and
make it snappy.'

They
replaced their rags with clothes from the victims, the least bloodstained garments
they could find. Nish's were too big, but he found a pair of boots that were
roughly his size, and a hat. In ten minutes they were ready. Pilfered packs
contained spare clothing, food for a couple of weeks, water bottles and all the
other gear that soldiers carried. Nish had a shiny new sword, unused by the
look of it. Flydd had taken the hedron from the air-floater's controller, as
well as the chart-maker's spyglass, which had survived the crash.

'Not
sure what use this will be,' he said, tossing the crystal in his hand. 'But you
never know. Let's go. This place will be swarming with scrutators in a few
hours.'

Are
we going to the rendezvous?'

'There's
no point. By the time we walked all that way, Irisis would be long gone. You
can't hide an air-floater in country like this.'

'Where
are we going?'

'Into
the wilderness.' Flydd smiled grimly, as if at some private joke.

'What
about Ullii?' Nish's voice squeaked. 'We can't leave her.'

'There's
no way of knowing where she is. If she wants to find us she will, though that's
hardly likely now.'

He
said it without rancour, but Nish cringed.

It
was another sweltering day. They walked all that morning, taking advantage of
the cover along creeks, mostly dry, and ridges, whenever they ran in the right
direction, which was not often. They saw no sign of Ullii.

In
the afternoon, Nish began to flag. The wound in his ribs grew increasingly
painful but he could not stop to attend to it. He was continually falling
behind and Flydd kept yelling at him to keep up. The scrutator had not
mentioned Mylii's death again but Nish ached with guilt.

Flydd
seemed to be making for a hill knobbed with round red boulders, one of many in
this endless landscape of undulating plains and gentle mounded hills. Nish
up-ended his water bottle but the few drops it contained barely wet his tongue.
They had crossed half a dozen watercourses in the afternoon, all dry. He sat on
a rock, staring at the ground. It was hard to find the will to go on. Every
moment of the day he'd regretted his follies; he'd looked everywhere for Ullii
but she was gone and his child with her. Why couldn't he have thought before he
brought down the air-floater, or held the knife to Mylii's back? Why hadn't he
realised Ullii was pregnant? Why, why, why?

The
scrutator appeared. 'What's the matter? We can't stop out in the open.'

Nish
struggled to his feet. Pain spread from the wound up into his shoulder, and
down his hip to the outside of his leg. His feet hurt, too, for the boots were
too small and had already rubbed the skin off his toes and heels.

He
fell several times on the way up the hill, which was steeper than it had
appeared. Flydd, well ahead, did not notice. The next time Nish looked up, the
old man had vanished.

Nish
slipped on rubble. As he picked himself up, he spied another air-floater on the
horizon. They couldn't see him from so far away, but he lay still until it
drifted out of sight to the south. He had to crawl the rest of the way up the
hill — his feet hurt too much to walk.

He
eased between two boulders and saw Flydd sitting in the shade, eating another
of those knobbly fruits, licking the skin with the gusto of a child with a
piece of honeycomb. The green pulp had oozed all down his front and he hadn't
noticed. I just saw an air-floater; Nish croaked.

'It's
been there a while. We should be safe from it, unless they've picked Ullii up
to track me.'

The
cold was spreading across Nish's chest now, but his forehead was dripping with
perspiration.

'Is
something the matter?' said Flydd..

Nish
managed a limp wave with one hand. 'S'orright,' he slurred, holding his side.
'Just a flesh wound.'

'Where?'
Flydd unfastened his shirt. 'How did you get this?'

'Soldier
in the forest. Stuck me in the ribs. Not serious.' Nish tried to lie down.

Now
Flydd was furious. 'I'll be the judge of that. You're a fool, Nish. Why didn't
you tell me?'

Nish
groaned as the scrutator probed the wound with fingers that seemed deliberately
rough.

'This
should have been treated last night. Now it's infected. You need a swift boot
up the arse!' Flydd proceeded to give Nish one, knocking him down on his face.
He leapt up with the empty water bottles and disappeared.

Nish
closed his eyes. He deserved no less.

It
was dark by the time the scrutator returned. Nish woke from a feverish sleep to
find Flydd looming over him.

I didn't
want to risk a fire,' he said, the anger gone, 'but we've got to have hot
water. That wound must be cleaned out.'

'I
didn't think it was that bad,' said Nish, who felt cold all over. 'It didn't
bleed much.'

'You've
been lucky, but if the infection sets in you'll die of it. And that might not
be such a bad thing,' Flydd said cheerfully. 'At least you won't be able to
cock up anything else.' At the look on Nish's face, he added, 'I'm joking.'

The
scrutator kindled a small fire well under the overhang of a boulder and climbed
up to check that it could not be seen from above. 'This'll have to do. I'd have
to be really unlucky for that to be spotted. But lately, I have been really
unlucky.'

When
the water was boiling, Flydd cleaned the wound with rags soaked in scalding
water, before making a poultice of herbs beaten into the pulp of one of the
knobbly fruits and binding it over the gash. Subsequently he stewed meat and
vegetables for dinner.

Though
famished, Nish was unable to take more than a few spoonfuls. The scrutator ate
the rest, pulled his coat around him and closed his eyes. Nish did too, and
slept, until his dreams forced him to wake.

Seven
people had died last night and he was responsible for five of them. He hadn't
meant to kill anybody, but they were dead nonetheless. It was not an attractive
thought. The soldiers might have killed him without a qualm, but he could not
feel the same way about their deaths. Mylii had been harmless. Worse still, the
pilot of the air-floater had been a female, as most pilots were. He had killed
a woman. In a world where the falling population was a disaster, to kill a
woman of child-bearing age was the worst crime in the register. He let out a
small, squeaking choke.

Flydd
rolled over in his coat. 'What is it now?'

'I
killed the pilot. A woman. What am I to do, Scrutator?'

'Find
a way to atone for it. And you can start by not disturbing my sleep.' Flydd
rolled back the other way, snapping the collar about his ears.

Nish
kept seeing her face — she had been a pretty little thing. It became a night of
horrors. Each time he dozed off he dreamed about the dead, but now all were
women with babies in their bellies — his children. Each time, the dreams jerked
him awake. Nish stared into the night but their faces were painted on the
darkness. And Mylii. For all that it had been an accident, he had killed
Ullii's brother and nothing could undo that. It must destroy everything that
had ever been between him and Ullii. If only she would come back and he could,
at least, explain.

Flydd's
poultice proved efficacious, for Nish's wound was better in the morning. It was
just as well, as Flydd's left thigh, the one torn open and burned by his first
crystal, had become infected. Nish spent the best pan of an hour cleaning and
dressing it in the foggy dawn, with the scrutator stoically enduring the pain.

There
was no sign of Ullii. They continued north and west in silence. It was like
being a slave all over again, only that Nish was pushing himself to the limit
of his endurance. He'd hoped that exhausting mind and body might keep the
nightmares at bay, but even in his most agonising moments, when the blisters on
his feet had burst and he drove himself on raw, weeping flesh, the dead faces
were there.

They
began before dawn each morning and walked long into the evening. In this flat
country they must have been making four or five leagues every exhausting day.
Flydd matched Nish stride for stride for the next few days, despite the
infection. Nish lost track of time, so long had the days been, and so full of
torment.

The
scrutator now took them on a westward path, towards the sea, not wanting to get
too far from Jal-Nish's army. Outlandish though it was, he still intended to
try and stop him. Flydd never gave up, no matter how hopeless things became,
and that was a lesson to Nish.