Chimaera (35 page)

‘What do you mean?’ Flydd asked in a low voice.

‘I don’t know, precisely, but I can feel it.’

‘
It
?’ whispered Flydd.

‘I believe so.’ Klarm cast a quick glance across the displays of crystals on the far side of the room.

Irisis followed his gaze. The reflection off one particular crystal, a deep green tourmaline, gave it a predatory look. ‘I think we should get out of here right away.’

No one argued. On the other side of the door, Flydd said, ‘I can
feel
the amplimet now. It may be contained but it’s not controlled. It’s extending a web of filaments throughout Nennifer. And it’ll use any crystal or device capable of drawing power. We’d better hurry.’

They hastened along the hall, but had just turned the corner when they heard a distant screaming that sounded as if it came from dozens of throats. Muss stopped so suddenly that they ran into him. He sniffed the air. ‘Phantoms and spectres from the dungeons. Nothing to worry about.’

Irisis shivered and moved closer to Nish. ‘I saw more than enough of them in Ghorr’s cells. Such torments the scrutators’ prisoners have suffered here.’

He took her arm. And we’ll be joining them before long.

‘The amplimet’s blocking us,’ said Flydd as they stumbled down another dark, shattered hall only to be confronted by yet another dead end.

‘How can it?’ Klarm replied. ‘We’re just following
him
.’ He directed another suspicious glare at Muss’s back.

‘Perhaps it’s blocking his eidoscope,’ said Irisis. She still hadn’t seen the device clearly, for Muss only used it in the shadows.

Eiryn Muss turned to face them. ‘Not even an amplimet can influence my eidoscope. Its Art is designed to see true, no matter what.’

‘How can you possibly know what an amplimet is capable of, and you a mere
prober
?’ Klarm said coldly.

The derogatory emphasis made Nish flinch.

‘I chose to remain a prober because that was how I could best serve my scrutator,’ said Muss without emotion. ‘Had I wished otherwise, I could have attained the highest position any spy can aspire to.’

‘More words,’ said Klarm.

‘But in this case, true words,’ Flydd interjected. ‘Muss could have been a master spy a decade ago. I recommended him many times.’

‘Does your eidoscope see the webs and meshes the amplimet has drawn throughout this place to spy on us?’ said Klarm. ‘How else could you know that it’s not controlling what
you
see?’

‘It’s not,’ Muss said stolidly.

‘Lead on, Muss,’ said Flydd.

‘It’s not far now, surr,’ said the prober.

‘Let’s plan our attack,’ said Flydd. ‘How many soldiers are guarding the warding chamber?’

‘None, surr. No one would dare enter that place without authority, and the entrance is closed with scrutator magic.’

‘Ah, but can we break it?’

‘Between you and me, I think so,’ said Klarm.

‘Fusshte will have his guard on call,’ said Flydd.

‘Many died in the dislocation,’ said Muss, ‘and others have been ordered to their posts, but certainly some will be nearby.’

‘Can you get us past them, Muss?’

‘I believe so, but you’ll have to be ready to fight.’

They went on, though after about ten minutes Muss stopped and stood to one side with his arm pointing down the corridor. ‘Go down there.’ He gave a series of directions. ‘Then follow your nose as far as it takes you, and go straight up.’

‘Muss?’ said Flydd.

‘You’re close, surr. You’ll smell the place before you go much further.’

‘Lead on, Prober,’ said Flydd.

‘I can’t go on,’ said Muss with a distracted look.

‘Why not?’ Klarm said.

‘I only spy. I don’t go into dangerous places.’

‘The hell you don’t –’ cried Klarm.

In a second, Muss morphed from his normal self into a shaggy, ape-like creature. As Klarm leapt at him, Muss skin-changed to the appearance of the wall behind him and vanished.

‘Grab him!’ Klarm yelled, but Muss was gone. Klarm stood there with clenched fists, breathing heavily.

‘You shouldn’t have pushed him,’ said Flydd.

‘He’s run, Xervish, which proves that my doubts were well founded. He brought us here for a purpose and the more I think about it, the more it worries me. What if he’s told Fusshte we’re here?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Flydd. ‘I believe what Muss said.’

‘And what he left
unsaid
?’ said Irisis. ‘He hasn’t brought us here to serve you. He wants something and he can’t get it from the scrutators.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ said Flydd.

F
lydd hurried them across a series of dark rooms that had been chopped in half, stumbling over bodies on the floor. They did not stop to look at them. They climbed down into the next segment of the building, a dining hall that had been turned upside down and fitted neatly back into place, though what had been the ceiling was now strewn with upside-down trestles, benches, trenchers and cutlery. Oddly, the globes on the walls were still working. The place smelled of boiled turnip, the vegetable Nish hated most. It had been a staple back in the manufactory.

Something squelched underfoot. He had trodden in a bowl of yellow gruel, as sticky as glue. He kicked it aside and it skidded across the floor to shatter against a bench.

‘Quiet!’ hissed Flydd, appearing to look every way at once. ‘What was that?’

‘I didn’t hear anything unusual,’ said Klarm in a low voice.

To Nish’s mind, every sound was unusual and some were uncanny. The groan of timbers deformed under weights they were never intended to bear; the sporadic crash and crumble of plaster or masonry; the trickling rivulets of dust and grit; the alternate soughing, whining and whistling of the wind across the severed edges of stone and tile; the cascades of water from twisted pipes and the surging ooze and plop of waste from shattered drains. And then there were the wails and groans of those trapped in the wreckage and the shrieking of the spectres forced from their dungeon homes. The cries seemed to come from every direction.

They went on, Nish’s boot sticking to the floor with every step, through the far door into a frigid stone canyon. The roof was gone, as well as the floors above, while the walls to either side stretched up, bare and unclimbable, for a good twelve spans. The opposite wall was crusted with frozen runs of brown muck that had a sewer stink. Moonbeams angled along it, touching silver gleams here and there.

‘Help!’ came a distant cry. ‘Please … help me. Oh please, please.’ It sounded like a child.

Flangers turned that way, searching the darkness.

‘No, Sergeant,’ said Flydd, laying a hand on his arm. ‘If we stop to render aid to one, all may fail.’

‘But it’s a kid, surr,’ Flangers said in a choked voice.

‘I know,’ Flydd said gently, ‘but we must go on.’ He looked left, then right. Then left again. ‘Bloody Muss! I don’t know which way.’

‘Left,’ Klarm said without hesitation.

No one asked how he knew. At the far end they clambered up a pile of rubble two storeys tall, over a precariously founded stone arch and onto a bridge formed by a crumbling stretch of lath and plaster ceiling that had fallen from somewhere above. It spanned a chasm at least three storeys deep. Something flickered redly in the depths, though there was no smoke.

‘I don’t think that’s going to support our weight,’ said the biggest and heaviest of the soldiers. ‘Better look for another way.’

‘We haven’t time,’ said Flydd. ‘It looks solid enough. A couple of beams are holding it. Just tread carefully.’

‘That’s all right for you,’ Irisis grumbled. ‘You don’t weigh more than a cupful of fleas.’

‘I’d better go first then, in case you fall and carry the lot with you,’ said Flydd callously. He stepped out onto the bridge, which was mottled white and black in the moonlight, the black patches barely distinguishable from the holes.

Klarm followed, stepping confidently. Nish went after him, trying to place his feet precisely where the dwarf’s had gone, though it was awkward owing to the greater length of his stride. Four steps out from the edge, his right foot went through a patch of plaster. Nish tried to scramble back but was too far off-balance. He fell forwards, his left knee punched a hole through more plaster and he fell. He threw his arms out and managed to hook the left over the supporting beam.

‘Help!’ he roared, but the others were well back and Flydd five or six steps ahead.

Nish was flailing desperately, the weight inexorably straightening his arm, when Klarm sprang, landed with his stumpy legs straddling the two beams and caught Nish by the collar. Legs spread-eagled like a gymnast, Klarm strained until his eyes stood out of his head.

Nish knew the little man couldn’t do it. The beams slipped, Klarm wobbled back and forth and threw out his free arm to balance himself.

Flydd took a step towards them. More plaster crumbled.

‘Don’t move!’ cried Klarm.

Flydd froze. Klarm bellowed like a buffalo. His face and neck had gone purple and there was a bead of saliva on his lower lip. His arm trembled; then, with agonising slowness, he lifted Nish’s dead weight a fraction.

‘Reach up with your right foot, lad,’ he said after he’d raised Nish a couple of hand-spans. ‘You’ll have to take the strain. I’m not tall enough to lift you all the way, and if the beams slip again we’re both gone.’

Nish felt for the beam, stretching sideways and up, but his calf muscles knotted. He couldn’t allow them to cramp. He eased back, stretched again and his foot touched the side of the beam.

‘You’ll have to get your foot on top,’ said Klarm, the sinews in his neck standing out like cords. ‘Push sideways and you’ll force the beam away – and I’m already doing the splits.’

Up, up Nish reached. The beam slipped again and he saw the agonised expression on Klarm’s face as he was forced to stretch even further. Nish hooked his heel over the top of the beam, took a little of the strain and, almost miraculously, the beam came back towards him. He levered, Klarm lifted and with a heave and a shudder Nish was on the beam, clinging to it with his legs dangling down either side.

He was drenched in sweat, his heart hammering, and his knees had turned to rubber. Nish looked back at the silent group. No miracle at all. Irisis and Flangers had linked arms around the beams, taken the strain and pulled them together.

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

Klarm extended a hand and lifted Nish to his feet. Nish wobbled after him, this time stepping exactly where the little man had and, ten or twelve steps later, reached the other side. He turned to watch the rest of the party.

‘What’s that funny smell?’ said Irisis when she was halfway across. She stopped to sniff the air, no more troubled by the crossing than if she’d been walking down a path.

‘I can’t smell anything,’ grunted Flangers as he edged his way after her, looking green.

‘It’s a sweet, gassy odour.’ Irisis took another breath. ‘Not unpleasant.’

‘Round here, nice smells can mask … other things,’ said Klarm, kneading the muscles of his calves. ‘I’d not breathe too deeply if I were you.’

‘Muss did say to follow our noses,’ said Irisis.

‘And you know what I think about his advice.’ He sniffed the air. ‘It’s coming from that direction.’

They went along a narrow service hall, relatively free of debris, then up a steep, straight staircase that ran on for three floors. In several places the steps were covered in rubble or broken plaster, and further up by a large, intricately carved soapstone cabinet that had fallen on a stout, muscular woman with closely cropped grey hair. Blood trickled down the steps from the back of her head.

‘She’s dead,’ said Flydd after a cursory examination. ‘Was she carrying it to a place of safety?’

‘Stealing it in the confusion, more likely,’ said Klarm, ‘else she’d have had someone to help her.’

‘It’s hard to see how she could have hoped to profit from it. She could hardly carry it through the mountains.’

‘People don’t always act rationally in a disaster.’

‘I’ll bet the scrutators did,’ said Flydd, moving around the dead woman and up. ‘They’ll have a refuge somewhere in here.’

‘I doubt if any hiding place could be proof against what’s happened here,’ said Klarm. ‘The force that sliced Nennifer up and rearranged it came from outside our three dimensions.’

‘Where are all the people?’ said Nish.

‘Probably sucked through a dimensional wormhole into the void,’ speculated Irisis gloomily. ‘Like we’re going to be before too long.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Flydd. ‘They would have fled through the rear doors and windows. If they’ve any sense they’ll be in the air-dreadnought yard around the back. Even if the walls collapse, it’s sheltered from the wind and they can make fires there.’

‘Getting back to the amplimet,’ said Klarm, ‘how are we supposed to master it without Yggur or Malien?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Flydd.

‘Seems as though we came all this way without a proper plan and we still don’t have one.’

‘There’s no point to having a plan, since we don’t know what we’re going to find.’