Chimaera

‘It was Klarm,’ said Flydd, turning to pass him by.

Yggur caught him by the arm. Nish stopped in the shadows, hoping to hear some news. Yggur and Flydd had been even more tight-mouthed than usual, lately.

‘What news from Borgistry?’ said Yggur.

‘I haven’t read his dispatches yet.’ Flydd was trying to pull free.

Yggur did not let go. ‘So Klarm has actually done some work this time?’

‘He’s been frantic, though I don’t propose to discuss it on the front porch.’

‘As far as I can see, all he’s done is spend my gold as though it flows down the river like water, drink himself witless night after night, and cavort with women half his age and twice his size, though why any woman would want –’

‘Klarm is the closest friend I have left,’ Flydd said coolly, breaking away and heading up the steps, ‘so be careful what you say about him. Spying on the enemy takes rivers of gold. Besides, most of the coin he spends came from the treasury at Ne

Yggur spun around. ‘I wasn’t aware that it had been found!’

‘It must have slipped my mind,’ Flydd said smoothly.

‘There’s still the matter of his general debauchery. I don’t see why we should fund –’

‘Klarm is a man of lusty appetites,’ sighed Flydd. ‘I was that way myself before the knife –’ He gave another sigh. ‘In his case, take away the appetites and you destroy the man. He’s doing good work, the very best, and that makes up for the other.’

‘Then why am I being kept in the dark?’

‘You’re not,’ Flydd said. ‘Come inside and we’ll go over his dispatches.’

‘All of them,’ said Yggur, ‘or just the ones he’s prepared for my consumption?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Flydd. ‘We’re all in this together.’

‘Are we?’ Yggur turned to the door. ‘How does he do it, anyway?’

‘Do what?’ said Flydd.

‘How does a sawn-off runt like Klarm attract women the way he does? I wasn’t an unattractive man in my prime, but they didn’t care for me.’

‘Most of Nish’s prentices have your eyes, you old dog.’

Yggur looked abashed. ‘A brief liaison two generations ago. She didn’t care for me either.’

‘What do you expect?’ said Flydd. ‘You keep people at a distance and give nothing of yourself.’

‘I gave once,’ Yggur murmured, ‘and look what came of it.’

‘They don’t see Klarm as a threat. He charms them and makes them laugh. And, er …’ Flydd gave a delicate cough.

‘What other amazing talent does the man have?’

‘It’s said that he’s not a dwarf in all departments. Quite the contrary, in fact.’

Yggur made a disgusted sound deep in his throat. ‘Don’t tell me any more!’

THIRTY-EIGHT

Yggur, Malien and Flydd had spent fruitless days studying Golias’s globe, trying to coax the mad mage’s secret from it. They attempted to probe it with Fyn-Mah’s scrying bowl, with a variety of other devices, and even with Muss’s eidoscope. All proved fruitless. Flydd and Yggur tried a dozen spells of seeing, divining, scrying and controlling, none of which had any effect.

For long days they ransacked each other’s Arts, revealing secrets that they’d kept to themselves for all of their long lives of mancing, trying to find a way to understand the globe. They brainstormed over flasks of the potent wines of northern Meldorin, now unobtainable because the vineyards had been abandoned. They tried hypnosis and trance states; they scoured the mouldering records of ancient times in Yggur’s library, but came up with nothing.

As the thapter was about to lift off, Yggur slipped the globe into Tiaan’s hand. He had developed a fondness for the young artisan with the faraway sadness in her eyes. They had something in common.

‘Take this with you,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve as much chance of solving it as any of us.’

She looked down, surprised, and her fingers caressed the silky smooth surface of the globe. She gave him a fleeting smile, which reminded him that he had once been young, slid it into her pocket and turned away.

‘Do well in the east,’ said Yggur and went inside.

Tiaan hated Fiz Gorgo and couldn’t wait to be gone. It was too crowded and noisy, and too full of unpleasant memories. Every time she walked down the hall it brought back the morning of Ghorr’s attack. She’d been dragged from her bed, still half-asleep, and beaten black and blue by Fusshte’s soldiers before they realised who she was. She’d seen terror on their faces then; they’d be brutally punished for injuring such a valuable prisoner. A hand had been thrown over her mouth and nose, Tiaan had smelt a sickly-sweet odour; then, oblivion.

From that moment until she’d been hustled out of Fusshte’s air-dreadnought into Ne

Her time in Ne

Once withdrawal began, it had grown until those desperate feelings of longing overwhelmed her. She remembered little else. Not even the squalor of her imprisonment had registered once withdrawal reached its peak. Her next memory was of Nish and Irisis leading her towards the warding chamber, where the proximity of the amplimet had roused her again.

Remembering that moment still brought tears to her eyes – the pain and the ecstasy of communing with the amplimet, and the agony and loss when Irisis and Nish had robbed her of it, as they’d robbed her of her previous life at the manufactory. How she hated them. It was unbearable to be trapped in Fiz Gorgo with the two of them. She would have agreed to anything to get away.

Malien had spent days with her in Ne

Tiaan had the amplimet back now but her longing for it had faded. Driven back to the lowest stage of awakening, it seemed so insignificant that she wondered at her previous longings. Had Flydd and the other mancers erased all that had made it unique?

After flying due east to Tiksi, a journey of more than five hundred leagues which, now that Malien was fully recovered, they hoped to do in six days, Flydd pla