'But you're not ready,' said Irisis. 'You could barely control that little flier, and it put you into your sickbed. How are you going to seize a construct?'
'I'll have to. I thought we'd have to go all the way to Stassor and try to find it, with all the risks that entails. Now it's right in my own territory. There'll never be another chance like this. But if we know about it, chances are the enemy do too. Call everyone together. We're going in the air-floater — tonight.'
In the end they did not get away until dawn, and with a headwind made agonisingly slow progress, so that it was long after dark before they reached the vicinity of Alcifer. They turned north, sitting the night out on a frigid mountain peak, and took off before sunrise the next morning.
'Stay higher than they can fly,' said Yggur to Pilot Inouye. 'Should a lyrinx come on us unexpectedly, the war could end right here.'
'They'll surely see us,' said Fyn-Mah. 'Their eyesight's not that bad.'
'I don't mind them knowing we're here. Ghorr often sends air-floaters over the lyrinx cities, spying. But keep to the clouds as much as possible. If the flying construct is still here, and pray that it is, we don't want to alert it.'
They circled high over Alcifer all day, examining the city and its surroundings with Yggur's spyglass, which was the best to be had. When the mist and rainclouds parted, they could see slaves working in the gardens, and their lyrinx guards, but there was no sign of a flying construct.
'Your spy must have been mistaken,' Flydd said at the end of a long, tedious day. He had spent most of it lying on the floor of the cabin holding his stomach.
They were flying within the base of the clouds, which made it difficult to see. 'Not Uritz—' Yggur broke off to train his spyglass on a lyrinx that was labouring up towards them, its wings straining in the thin air. It was not the first: half a dozen had already inspected them that day. 'That's an unusual beast. It's built more like a human than a lyrinx, and its skin's got no pigment at all.'
The lyrinx almost met their height. It circled just out of javelard range, watching them with its large eyes, before wheeling around and diving back towards Alcifer.
'If the flying construct was here,' said Flydd when the sun was about to disappear below the horizon, 'it isn't any longer. Let's go home.'
He broke into another fit of coughing, ending with a groan. The struggle with Yggur had hurt him more than he dared show.
'We're going nowhere,' said Yggur. 'They could be hiding, waiting for us to go away. After all, they'd assume that this air-floater belongs to the Council.'
They returned to their rocky peak for the night, and went back on station the following morning, though this time they floated so far from Alcifer that they would have been no more than a speck against the overcast. Again they saw nothing.
They were taking an early lunch on the third day of their watch when Flydd, who had been looking green all morning, stood up, groaned and collapsed against the rope mesh outside the cabin. He slid along the rope and had started to slip through, when Nish caught him by the arm and hauled him back. Irisis helped to carry him inside, where they laid him on the canvas bench at the front of the cabin.
Nish checked Flydd's pulse, which was fast and erratic. His skin was clammy. 'It's not good, Irisis.'
She stood up as Yggur came through the door. 'He's ill, Yggur.'
'We can't leave now. It's there somewhere.' Yggur paced to the fabric door and back. 'He'll be all right.'
'He looks bad.'
'He did this damage to himself, trying to prove he was as good as me. He's not, and I'm not turning back. If we can take this construct—'
'The damn thing's not here. And if it were, do you value the life of a scrutator less than some damned machine?'
'I wouldn't swap the flying construct for a hundred scrutators,' said Yggur.
'If I were a mancer, I'd blast you clear across the Sea of Thurkad,' she said furiously.
'Your loyalty outweighs your common sense, Artisan. A flying construct means the difference between certain defeat and possible victory. We're going nowhere until I'm satisfied that it's here, or gone.'
It was an unpleasant lunch. As they were finishing, the scrutator's groans gave way to a laboured panting.
'He's really ill,' Irisis wept as they circled towards the mud terraces again. 'Can't you do anything, Yggur?'
'I'm not a healer,' he replied.
'There's a good one in Old Hripton.'
'How did you know that?'
'I've been down there several times. Women's troubles.' 'Oh!' He wasn't going to ask about that. 'If we get back in time you may take him there.'
'Unless we go right away we won't be in time.'
He folded his arms across his chest. 'No man is worth more than humanity, as I'm sure Flydd would agree.'
Irisis had heard the scrutator say such things more than once. It made no difference — her friend and one-time lover was really ill. If she could have wrested control from Yggur, she would have. But that, of course, was impossible. She vented her fury at him as only she could. He ignored her.
They slid into a veil of high cloud that covered most of the sky. Nish took up a spyglass, though his mind was no longer on the search. Looking through the cloud was like peering through a silk scarf. Far below, mist clung to the ridges, and only the tips of the spires and domes of Alcifer rose above it.
'There's a lot of activity this afternoon,' he said after a while. There were at least a dozen lyrinx in the air.
Irisis cast a bitter glance towards the rotor, where Yggur stood with Inouye, and went inside to check on the scrutator. Nish followed her, blanched at the sight of Flydd and did not stay long.
'Something's going on,' Nish muttered a little later, peering through his spyglass.
The air-floater continued to circle within the base of the cloud. Irisis stalked from the watch to the cabin, and back to the watch, a dozen times. The mist thinned over Alcifer but still clung to the ridges. Scudding rain-showers obscured their view most of the time.
Irisis appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily. 'He's failing, Yggur. We've got to go now'.'
'I've seen it!' snapped Yggur, staring through his spyglass.
Nish swung his own glass in the direction Yggur was looking, sweeping it back and forth as he tried to penetrate the mist. He could not see a flying construct, but its metal skin would not be easy to pick out against the mist-hung forest.
There were more lyrinx in the air than before, and yet more rising out of Alcifer.
'Where is it, Yggur?' he called. 'You mightn't see it — it's under some kind of concealment and I don't dare try breaking it from here.'
'He's failing, Yggur,' Irisis repeated. He didn't seem to hear her.. She ran down and began beating him around the shoul-ders and head. He laid down the spyglass and caught her wrists, holding her easily. She tried to kick him.
'Stop it!' Yggur roared. He dragged her into the cabin, where Flydd lay panting on his bench.
Putting his hands to Flydd's belly, Yggur muttered a few words. The lines faded from the scrutator's face and his breathing eased. Yggur shook him, gently.
'Scrutator? Wake!'
Flydd's eyes opened. 'Yes?' he said in a scratchy voice.
'I've found the construct, but the lyrinx are rising and if we don't act now they must take it. And yet, Scrutator Flydd, you're very ill. Your resistance to the transfer controller must have burst something internally. I can ease the pain, as I just did, but I can't save you. Only a healer can.'
'Get on with it,' Flydd muttered, irascible to the last.