Chimaera (84 page)

The lyrinx on the ground turned to attend to him, and Nish discovered that he was alone – the other soldier no longer had a head. He put up his hands, but the closest lyrinx seemed in no mood to accept his surrender, while another score of lyrinx were even now surrounding him. They landed heavily, puffing up more red dust. Nish had never seen such violent and threatening skin colours.

The nearest lyrinx caught Nish around the chest in a crushing grip. Its claws dug into his ribs, the enormous mouth opened and green saliva sprayed his cheeks. It was going to bite his head off. He closed his eyes.

‘Thlamp!’ said a female voice. ‘Inixxi rurr!’

The lyrinx dropped him on the ground and put its foot on him. Nish opened his eyes. The lyrinx that had spoken was unlike any of the others. It was slender, relatively speaking, with enormous pale wings that lacked pigmentation. Its skin was likewise uncoloured apart from the faintest tinge of green on its crest, indicating a mature female. Most unusual of all was the absence of armoured skin that protected the other lyrinx. Her soft outer skin, though coated with wax, was practically transparent. He could see her breasts through it.

‘I am Liett, daughter of Wise Mother Gyrull, who is now dying in agony because of you,’ the female said in the common tongue. ‘You are my prisoner and I’m going to see the colour of your blood.’

Liett’s wings caught the sunlight with a shimmering, pearly opalescence. Had he seen her before? Yes, he had. His eyes widened.

‘Do I know you, human?’ said Liett.

‘You slashed my balloon near Tirthrax, the winter before last. I was lucky to survive.’

‘Had I done the job properly,’ she said savagely, ‘we would not be here now. What is your name?’

He told her. She bent down and, though smaller and less muscular than the others, easily picked him up in one hand. Liett inspected him from top to toe. ‘There is a vague memory. You humans all look the same – like the squirming grubs we hooked out from under the bark of trees to feed the despised tetrarch.’

Liett tossed him into the dust. ‘Bind him tight,’ she said to the other lyrinx, though in the common tongue. ‘If he tries to escape you may eat his feet and lower legs, if you can stomach them, but no more. I don’t want him to die until after we have questioned him;
and he has answered
.’

Nish was bound hand and foot and left on the ground. Liett crouched beside her mother, spreading her beautiful wings to shade the dying matriarch. After giving Gyrull a drink from a canister on her hip, Liett spoke to her at length in low tones, in the lyrinx tongue.

She kept pointing to the northern sky and shaking one fist, as if counselling an all-out attack. The gathered lyrinx flashed the same aggressive reds and yellows as Gyrull had displayed earlier, but now Gyrull’s colours were muted pinks and purples, in swirling patterns that Nish interpreted as soothing or conciliatory. Acquiescence to Gilhaelith’s demands? More likely it would be feigned acquiescence until they recovered the relics, followed by an overwhelming onslaught to destroy the man who had so insulted them. And he, Nish, had been part of that sacrilege. He could expect no mercy either.

Liett glanced at him, her expression only marginally less threatening. She turned back to her mother, though this time she seemed to be presenting a different argument. She went to her knees, bowed low and spoke in a submissive way, looking up sideways at the matriarch.

Gyrull spoke so quietly that Nish didn’t catch a word, though Liett seemed vexed at her reply. She began her pleading anew but Gyrull only shook her head.

‘Ryll!’ she said.

Liett stood up abruptly. ‘Ryll?’ she repeated, as if dumbfounded.

‘Ryll.’

Liett turned away and stalked across the dirt, raising a storm of dust. She came back at once, trying to look contrite, and bowing until her head touched the ground. The matriarch said something in the lyrinx tongue. Liett called her fellows and they formed a tight circle, lifting Gyrull to her feet, supporting her and leaning over her with their foreheads touching. They began to chant.

Gyrull was beyond healing, as they must realise. He had the impression that they were combining their powers to broadcast a sending to their brethren, telling them of the theft, and Gilhaelith’s demand.

The chant built up until it became a thigh-slapping, foot-stamping roar. Finally, with a cry that went ringing across the plain, they broke apart and all flopped down, panting.

All but one. The matriarch swayed on her feet for a moment. She turned her head and her golden flecked eyes met Nish’s, but she was already dead. The air rushed from her chest with a sighing sound and she fell into the dust.

Liett enveloped her mother in her wings, held her for a minute then let her go. She stood up and signed to the group, who began to excavate a grave with their claws.

Stalking across to Nish, Liett lifted him again. ‘The call has gone out,’ she said between her teeth. ‘While we wait, I will talk and you will answer.’

N
ish told Liett as little as he could without seeming uncooperative. Fortunately he had no idea what Flydd’s plans were.

After the interrogation was over, the lyrinx separated. Liett picked Nish up in her claws and carried him, dangling like a rabbit in an eagle’s talons, on a long flight north-west. She flew for the remainder of the day, stopping at dark in a nondescript range of hills where she tied him to a tree while she went hunting. He hung there miserably, the claw punctures in his back and sides throbbing. She soon returned with a small, black-haired goat which she skinned and ate, bones, entrails and all.

Once she’d licked the blood off her chin and hands, Liett freed Nish’s hands and tossed a freshly skinned rabbit at him. It hit him wetly in the chest and fell to the dirt.

‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ he said.

‘It’s all the dinner you’re getting.’

‘But it’s raw!’

She took it back and ate it with a few appreciative gulps, head and all. She retied his hands, lay down and went to sleep. Nish didn’t sleep a wink. Before dawn they were off again, and eventually he recognised the long expanse of Warde Yallock, the largest lake in Lauralin.

Near the northern end of the lake she wheeled over the water several times before flying into a cave among hundreds that honeycombed vertical cliffs a hundred spans high. At the entrance she set Nish down while she folded her wings. He looked over the drop and his stomach churned. It was possible to climb up or down, if you were a lyrinx with clawed feet and hands, or fly in and out. Since he couldn’t do either, the place was as secure as any prison.

Liett spoke to the guard by the entrance, who pointed around the corner to the next cave. Taking Nish under one gamy arm she climbed across the sheer rock face and inside. Not far from the entrance, working in the light, was a wingless male who was also vaguely familiar.

On seeing Liett the male’s maw split into a smile of delighted surprise. He came striding out, arms spread, but Liett, scowling, thrust him away. After a heated exchange in the lyrinx tongue she threw Nish at the male, ran back to the entrance and hurled herself out. Her wings cracked and she raced away.

The wingless male stared after her, his skin colours flickering as if bemused, then turned to Nish. ‘My name is Ryll,’ he said, in an accent not dissimilar to Nish’s own. ‘And you, I’m told, are Cryl-Nish Hlar, son of the Scrutator Jal-Nish Hlar.’

‘He was my father,’ Nish said coldly, ‘until you ate him.’

‘
I
ate your father?’ said Ryll. ‘I don’t think so, human. I would have recognised him.’

‘Not you personally. Your people ate him at the battle of Gumby Marth.’

‘Did they? I was not there. I’m sorry for the loss of your father, Cryl-Nish. I lost my own when I was young.’

‘It was a mercy,’ Nish muttered. ‘After what you did to him two years ago, before you carried Tiaan away on that flying wing, he was never free of pain.’

Ryll inspected Nish. ‘I recognise you now – small but valiant. You’ve grown face hair since our last encounter. As for your father, we fought each other and I did no more than he would have done to me.’ Ryll spoke mildly, almost kindly, with none of the passion that characterised Liett. ‘I hate this war as much as you do, human.’

‘You started it!’

‘Our records tell otherwise,’ Ryll said. ‘Still, we’re not here to debate history, but for you to tell me everything you know about the plans of your leaders. Why did Gilhaelith the tetrarch steal our relics?’

‘I haven’t got the faintest idea.’

‘Come, Cryl-Nish, you were with him at the time. You laid down your life so that he could escape.’

‘We
are
at war,’ said Nish. ‘But I know no more than his parting message to Gyrull –’

‘Matriarch Gyrull! Show respect, human.’

‘Matriarch Gyrull. I’m sorry. Not everyone trusts Gilhaelith. Some people think he’s on your side.’

Ryll let out what could only be interpreted as a honk of derision.

‘He traded with lyrinx for many years,’ said Nish. ‘He helped you in Snizort and worked with you in Alcifer.’

‘We did not find him entirely trustworthy at Snizort. Thereafter he attempted to make deals with us, and sold us one or other worthless secrets in exchange
for
his living, but he never worked
for
us. Indeed, I planned to send him to the slaughtering pens once he was no further use, though only a very hungry lyrinx would have gnawed on his rank bones.’

‘I thought you lyrinx would eat anything,’ said Nish thoughtlessly.

‘And I thought you humans were treacherous, murdering scum,’ said Ryll in his unemotional way, ‘until I met Tiaan and discovered that humans could also be decent and honourable. There’s a lesson for both our peoples. Anyway, we no longer eat humans. Enough of philosophy – how did you know our Wise Mother had the relics?’

Nish didn’t answer at once, for he didn’t want to aid the enemy. But then, Gilhaelith could also be an enemy. ‘Gilhaelith found a way to eavesdrop on your mindspeech, with farspeakers.’

‘Ahhh,’ sighed Ryll. ‘How did he know our tongue?’

‘One of your former slaves, called Merryl …’

Ryll grimaced. ‘We should have secured Merryl before we left Snizort. Alas, in the chaos, many vital things remained undone. What did Gilhaelith do then?’

‘He learned that your matriarch had the relics, but was dying. He kept it from everyone else, stole a thapter and fled.’

‘Stole a thapter? So he is an outcast among you. How did he find our sacred relics?’

Nish hesitated.

‘You can either tell me now or, with the greatest regret, I will torture you until you beg for death, and then you will tell me.’

The latter course seemed more virtuous, more noble, though Nish could not see a lot of point to it. ‘He scried it out with his geomantic globe.’

‘The same one he perfected in Alcifer using our maps –
or thinks he did.’

Nish was not treated badly, though that did not surprise him. The lyrinx used torture where necessary to extract information, but did not torment for the sake of it, as humans did.

Ryll returned to his work, whatever it was, with a barrel-shaped device in a recess further down the cave. Nish didn’t learn anything about it, for he was carried back to the adjoining cave. There he was given a wooden bucket and a fly-covered chunk of raw meat, so torn and filthy that he couldn’t tell what animal it had come from. He felt sick just looking at it, but in the end he ate it, knowing that he’d get nothing else. He wasn’t questioned further, and discovered only that he was a hostage.

After about a fortnight in the caves, the lyrinx abruptly departed late one afternoon. Nish was carried up to the top of the cliffs, where Ryll and a large band of lyrinx had gathered. Ryll carried the barrel-shaped object on his back, securely covered. Liett was there too. He gave it to her and she flew north-east with a large escort.

‘We’re marching to meet our fellows at the edge of the Dry Sea,’ said Ryll. ‘I trust you’re well shod, Nish? You humans have such useless soft feet.’

‘What are you going to do with me?’ said Nish.

‘We may exchange you, and other prisoners held elsewhere, if we get our relics back.’

‘What if you don’t?’

Ryll made neck-wringing motions with his huge hands.

Nish’s boots were in good condition, though he wasn’t much used to walking. His recent travels had been in thapters, air-floaters, constructs or clankers. The group set off at a pace he could barely maintain and, after an hour, when his legs had turned to rubber, he was taken on the shoulders of one or other of the lyrinx. It was not a position he found comfortable or dignified. They walked all night and until mid-morning the following day, and did the same every day.

The only rest they took was for the six hours in the middle of the day and, while he was carried for all but a few hours of the march, Nish was never anything but exhausted. However, the trip proved uneventful, and although he remained alert for opportunities to escape, they gave him none.

One day they were moving across a broad valley where the river was just a series of long pools up to a league in length, separated by gravel banks covered in tall reeds. Ryll and most of the lyrinx had crossed the gravel and Nish was stumbling along at the rear, with only a single lyrinx to guard him.