"Chimaera" - читать интересную книгу автора (Irvine Ian)

Ian Irvine Chimaera The fourth book in the Well of Echoes seriesMapsACKNOWLEDGMENT PART ONE AMPHITHEATRE ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN PART TWO EIDOSCOPE EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THIRTY-THREE PART THREE FARSPEAKER THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE THIRTY-SIX THIRTY-SEVEN THIRTY-EIGHT THIRTY-NINE FORTY FORTY-ONE FORTY-TWO FORTY -THREE FORTY-FOUR PART FOUR GEOMANTIC GLOBE FORTY-FIVE FORTY-SIX FORTY-SEVEN FORTY-EIGHT FORTY-NINE FIFTY FIFTY-ONE FIFTY-TWO FIFTY-THREE FIFTY-FOUR FIFTY-FIVE FIFTY-SIX FIFTY-SEVEN FIFTY-EIGHT FIFTY-NINE SIXTY PART FIVE WELL OF ECHOES SIXTY-ONE SIXTY-TWO SIXTY-THREE SIXTY-FOUR SIXTY-FIVE SIXTY-SIX SIXTY-SEVEN SIXTY-EIGHT SIXTY-NINE SEVENTY SEVENTY-ONE SEVENTY-TWO SEVENTY-THREE SEVENTY-FOUR SEVENTY-FIVE SEVENTY-SIX SEVENTY-SEVEN SEVENTY-EIGHT SEVENTY-NINE EIGHTY EIGHTY-ONE GLOSSARY NAMES ( MAIN CHARACTERS IN ITALICS ) MAJOR ARTEFACTS , FORCES AND POWERFUL NATURAL PLACES DATES AND MEASUREMENTS

SIX

‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ Nish said, taking her in his arms.

‘No,’ she said, her voice muffled. She went rigid but made no attempt to pull away.

‘Where did the lattice come from, Ullii? It really is the most marvellous thing …’

‘I made it!’ she snapped. ‘It’s mine.’ Then, plaintively, ‘No one else can understand.’

‘Of course they can’t. There isn’t anyone like you in the world, Ullii. You’re unique.’ He wasn’t just cajoling or flattering her. She was unique.

She rubbed her cheek against his chest, not in any suggestive way, but as if it comforted her. In times past she wouldn’t have been able to bear the coarse cloth against her skin. Was she losing her sensitivity as well?

‘When did you make the lattice?’ he murmured to the top of her head.

‘When I was five. To look for Myllii.’

‘And now that he’s gone, you don’t need it any longer.’ Nish could have kicked himself as soon as the words left his mouth, but it was too late to take them back.

‘I don’t need it,’ she said wonderingly, then with resolve: ‘I don’t need the lattice any more. I know where Myllii and Yllii are.’ She pulled away and sat down, her back against the stone wall, staring into some inner space as if Nish didn’t matter either.

Nish knew she meant it. He’d been clinging to the hope that Ullii could somehow perform a miracle, as she’d done to break Irisis out of Nennifer, but it wasn’t going to happen.

He couldn’t take on hundreds of alert soldiers, all those watching mancers and the scrutators themselves, except by dying with his friends in a symbolic act of defiance. And that would only make the scrutators’ victory complete. If they didn’t get him, it would be one tiny flaw in their control of the world, he rationalised. He would devote his life to finishing the job Flydd had started – bringing the Council down.

But it wasn’t any comfort, and the thought of his friends’ approaching torment brought to mind those dying soldiers at Gumby Marth, begging Nish to put them out of their misery. He hadn’t been able to; he simply hadn’t had the courage, if you could call it that, to put a knife to their throats and end their suffering. Just so had his father begged for death after he’d been maimed by the lyrinx, and Nish had failed him too. He couldn’t bear to let his father go, monster though Jal-Nish had become – and look at the misery that failure had produced.

Nish couldn’t save his friends, but he might be able to give them a quick and merciful death, and spoil the scrutators’ victory. Would that be good for the morale of the common people, or a fatal blow in the endless war against the lyrinx? There was no way to tell. He could only try to make the best decision, and leave the world to fate.

Either way, it was something else he’d have to atone for, but it wouldn’t be another reckless folly. Recklessness had been burned out of him. He would coolly plan the deaths of his friends and weep for them afterwards. He would find the courage this time. But how was he to do it, and how much time did he have? He had to know what was going on in the amphitheatre.

Leaving Ullii to her inner contemplation, Nish fastened her rope to the opening, climbed down to the roof and scuttled across to the outer wall. Clots of mist drifted in the air but he could still be seen if an alert guard chanced to look down. Or if they realised he was missing.

Sooner or later, someone must discover that Nish was not among the prisoners, and Ghorr would send a squad into Fiz Gorgo to hunt for him. Nish knew he was, relatively speaking, a minor criminal. Nonetheless, his execution would serve as another lesson to all – not even the son of a scrutator was immune from the justice of the Council.

Nish raised his head. There was no one in sight. Voices echoed down from the amphitheatre, though he couldn’t tell what was being said. Slight depressions in the taut canvas marked points where groups of people were standing to witness the trials. Unfortunately, he couldn’t establish the positions of individuals.

Nish crept to the nearest vertical cable, reached up as far as he could and heaved. He managed to pull himself up a couple of body lengths before his fingers slipped and he slid down again, burning his hands. The cable was thick, taut and smooth, and damp as well; he couldn’t grip it tightly enough to hold his weight. He’d never climb it this way.

He went down the inner stairs of the wall to the yard, thence to one of the equipment sheds for an axe. The edge hadn’t been sharpened for a while but he couldn’t hone it on the wheel without making a racket. It would have to do.

Up on the wall again Nish judged his mark, drew the axe back over his shoulder and swung it with all his strength. The blade bounced off – the cable was as taut as stretched wire. Besides, he realised belatedly, chopping one cable wouldn’t make any difference, since the amphitheatre was held up by fifteen of them, each solidly braced with cross-stays.

If he could collapse one side of the amphitheatre, his friends would fall to a merciful death, though that would require the simultaneous failure of at least three adjacent vertical cables. Once that happened the highly tensioned ropes would spring back, tearing the canvas deck apart or forming a slope too steep to stand on. Quick-thinking people near the edges might survive if they caught hold of the remaining ropes, but all those in the centre would fall to the ground or the roofs of the fortress. Not a pleasant way to die, and it wouldn’t just be the prisoners, either. Hundreds of soldiers and witnesses might be killed as well.

Nish couldn’t dwell on that or he’d never be able to do it. This was war, and there were always casualties. It was the only way to save his friends from their barbaric fate, and at least it would be quick. Neither could he worry about the scrutators being wiped out, leaving the world leaderless at this critical stage of the war. Ghorr left nothing to chance; he’d always have a way out.

How to put his plan into effect? He couldn’t do it from the wall – the instant he hacked through the first cable, the soldiers would shoot him down. In any case, cutting the cables down here wouldn’t collapse this side of the amphitheatre. Since the cables ran up from the deck to the air-dreadnoughts, they would float up, lifting this side of the deck.

It had to be done just below the deck. If he could climb up, soak three or four cables and their accompanying cross-stays with oil, then set fire to them simultaneously, it could work. If the blazes were big enough, the cables might burn through before the guards could put out the fires.

If, if, if. The plan was outlandish and couldn’t succeed. It also left unanswered one vital question – how was he to get away afterwards? Nish gave no further thought to that either. After such a crime, it seemed fitting that he’d given himself no way out.

There was a great roar from above and the amphitheatre deck shook as though hundreds of people were stamping their feet. Were the trials over? Were they torturing Flydd already – or flaying Irisis alive?

Nish forced himself to stay calm, to ignore what was happening up there. All that mattered was what he did down here, and only cool thinking could deliver his friends now.

He ran down to Yggur’s great coolrooms and larders, where the provisions for Fiz Gorgo were kept. In the second pantry, he discovered what he was looking for: a set of meat hooks hanging from a rail. He selected two that looked suitable, then hacked a slab off a ham and tore at it like a savage while he headed for his room. There he strapped a knife to his belt, his crossbow to his back and filled a deep pocket with quarrels. A flint and steel went in as well.

Tearing a bedsheet into strips he thrust them into another pocket, a pair of leather straps in after, then went down to the lower storerooms where the barrels of whale oil and naphtha were stacked. Though Yggur was capable of making glowing globes powered by the Art, the lamps in Fiz Gorgo generally burned oil. Nish filled a silver wine flagon with distilled naphtha which had probably come all the way from the tar pits of Snizort. After stoppering it carefully, he slipped it into a basket made of woven leather and threw it over his shoulder. Lastly he rummaged in the tool room until he found a clamp shaped like a thumbscrew for a giant. Nish spun the screw out and gauged the space. It was just large enough to fit over one of the vertical cables. He tied it to his belt with a length of cord.

Feeling like a wandering tinker with his load, Nish returned to the wall, laid out his meat hooks and straps and considered how best to bind them on.

‘What are you doing, Nish?’

Nish jumped. He’d thought Ullii was still up in the cupola, but her voice came from right behind him. He explained.

Ullii’s eyes, which were still unmasked, grew large. She put her hand over her mouth. ‘You’ll be killed.’

‘I expect so,’ he said more calmly than he felt. ‘But all my friends, save you, are up there. Even if it costs me my life, I won’t let Ghorr torture them to death.’

She looked up at the amphitheatre and the colourless hair stirred on her head, as if she could see right through the deck to what the scrutators were doing there. Nish imagined that she could feel the anguish of the prisoners – Ullii had always been sensitive to that kind of thing.

‘I’ll help you,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ he said, astounded by the offer, so uncharacteristic of her. ‘Though I don’t see how you can.’

‘I can climb the cable without hooks.’

Since Ullii never exaggerated, he believed her. ‘Could you give me a hand with these?’

She strapped the hooks to his wrists more securely than he could have done himself. He took a deep breath and turned to the cable.

Reaching up as high as he could, Nish dug the hook on his right wrist into the strands of the cable. He had to force it in. He put all his weight on the hook and it held. He pulled himself up, which made his gashed arms throb, and stabbed the other hook at the cable, half an arm’s length higher. It skated off the taut fibres. He tried again, carefully judging the angle, and this time the hook dug in. Already his muscles were aching and he’d only gone half a span. Twenty-nine and a half to go.

He would never do it. Just hanging by the arms was exhausting and willpower was not going to be enough. He simply didn’t have the strength to climb all that way. Yet, how could he not go on?

With his free hand Nish fumbled at the clamp, tried to get it over the cable, and dropped it. He hauled it up again, wound the screw out as far as it would go and forced it over. One-handed, he tightened the screw and climbed onto the shank, relieving the strain on his wrist at last. Sweat was dripping into his eyes.

Ullii came up the other side of the cable until she was level with him, moving easily. Her eyes met his.

‘I can’t do it,’ he said, fighting back tears of frustration. ‘I simply can’t do it, Ullii.’

Ullii was holding the cable between her thighs and feet, and pulling herself up with her hands. She didn’t seem to be under any strain. She was so slight that he could carry her with one arm, but Ullii was remarkably dextrous.

’I said I’d help you, Nish.’

He couldn’t have climbed halfway without her but, with Ullii’s help to embed his hooks into the ropes while he rested on the clamp, and then to slide the clamp up and hold it while he screwed it tight, Nish managed to inch his way up the cable, span by span. Even then, when they had but five spans to go and twenty-five extended below them, Nish didn’t think he would ever make it. He made the mistake of looking down, whereupon his head spun and his stomach heaved. He wasn’t particularly afraid of heights but this was different. He lost his grip and hung by the grace of the right hook while he vomited all down the cable.

Ullii kept her eyes politely averted until his aching belly was empty, then wiped his face on one of his strips of rag and dropped it, fluttering in the damp breeze, into the yard.

‘It’s not far now,’ she said in an overly encouraging voice, like a teacher to a lagging child.

Nish didn’t have the strength to reply. Besides, this close to the deck, they might be overheard. He wasn’t encouraged. There must come a point where, no matter how strong the will, his muscles would simply not be able to respond. He was almost at that point now. Each time he hauled himself up another arm’s length, he had to rest, and the bandage on his left arm was red and soaked.

They went up another laborious span, followed by another. Ullii clung above him, pulling his left hook up as far as it would go and working it into the strands of the cable. Once it was well in, he tried to heave himself up. His muscles refused to move.

‘I’m sorry, Ullii,’ he said. ‘I’m done.’

She looked exhausted too. Her pale face had a grey tinge and her colourless eyes were rimmed with red and yellow. ‘I –’

The shout came straight through the canvas: a man’s voice, nasal, whiny, and not comfortable with the authority he’d been delegated. ‘Quiet, if you please. The executions will now begin.’

Nish’s heart hammered at his ribs. Who would it be? Please, let it be anyone but Irisis or Flydd.

A brief pause before the man continued, ‘We will take them in order of the trial. The first will be Pilot Inouye.’

Nish caught his breath, then let it out in a rush. To his shame he almost smiled with relief. He caught Ullii’s eye, and she looked shocked. She’d identified with the little pilot, of course. How could she not, after Nish’s tragic tale?

‘Come!’ Ullii hissed through her teeth. ‘Quickly.’ Going hand over hand up the cable, more like a monkey than a human being, she hung on with one hand and began to pull at Nish’s arm.

With the last of his strength, his screaming muscles managed to move him up another half-span, more or less.

Someone began shouting up above, a creepy, sibilant voice that had to be the vile Scrutator Fusshte. Nish couldn’t make out what he’d said but shortly he heard the whiny voice again, calling, ‘No, bring her back, lads’.

After a pause he went on, barely audible over the sighing of the wind through the cables, ‘The scrutators bid me execute the greatest criminal and traitor first, in case the enemy should attack. Ex-Scrutator Xervish Flydd,’ he said in tones that were almost respectful, ‘if you would be so kind as to step into the flensing trough.’

‘I’m just in time,’ Nish said to himself. ‘I will get there. I must.’ He hauled himself up another half-span and hung on, panting so loudly that he couldn’t believe the people above wouldn’t hear him.

Ullii fixed his hooks, went down and slid the clamp up the cable. Nish rested on it, trying to still his breathing so he could hear what was going on. Someone was talking in a deep rumble, though Nish couldn’t make out what he was saying.

There came a muffled wail, cut off abruptly as if by a hand clapped over a mouth, or a fist thrust into it. The prisoners were cracking up and he still had to climb two spans – the equivalent of four paces on the ground.

And then Irisis spoke and the sound of her voice, defiant to the last, brought tears to his eyes. ‘Take heart, Xervish. It’ll be over more quickly than you think.’

Flydd laughed, though there was no humour in it. ‘Somehow, that’s not nearly as comforting as when I said it to you.’

‘Begin, Master Flenser!’ Chief Scrutator Ghorr roared like an actor on a stage. ‘I’ll double your fee if you can take this scoundrel’s skin off in one piece – I’ve a special use for it.’

This galvanised Nish’s trembling muscles and he went up half a span, then three-quarters before grinding to a halt. Another man spoke, inaudibly. Perhaps he was talking to himself as he prepared to peel the skin off the living flesh.

Nish kept moving. Only one span to go. His muscles felt as though they were melting and oozing down his arms. He laid his head against the cable, despair washing over him. He was going to be too late to save Flydd.

‘Hold just a moment!’ cried Scrutator Fusshte. ‘There’s something wrong.’

Nish only caught part of what the other man, the whiny one, said. ‘I’ve done everything … in the rituals.’

Nish’s skin crawled, and every hair on his body stood up. He knew what Fusshte was going to say.

Fusshte snarled, ‘I’m not talking to you!’ Nish heard his feet pound across the canvas. ‘One of the greatest villains of all is missing. Where the devil is the arch-traitor, Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar?’