Alchymist

'Or fails,' scoffed Gilhaelith. 'Nennifer is the most closely guarded fortress in the world and you couldn't take it with an army of twenty thousand.'

'Rumour is the enemy of initiative,' said Yggur. 'Xervish Flydd spent years in Nennifer and knows every part of it including its defences.'

'All but those installed since my departure five years ago.' Flydd qualified, 'and they could be many and various. Even if there are no new defences, this would be the most desperate venture in the Great Tales.' A spasm wracked him and he broke off to cough into a kerchief. 'The impregnable walls are guarded by two thousand men, hundreds of mancers and any number of bloody devices. Against such forces, we can bring no more than a dozen people, and Nennifer lies in the most inhospitable environment in the world. There's no cover of any kind. No food, no water, no shelter. And even in summer it's freezing outside at night.'

'We know it will be difficult,' said Tiaan. 'What are you going to do about it, supposing, of course, that Malien allows you the use of her thapter? And since that would constitute an act of aggression against humanity …'

'Thank you, Tiaan,' said Malien. 'I can speak for myself. Yet the point is a valid one, Yggur. I'll need much convincing, though I do feel sympathy for your cause.'

'I don't,' snapped Gilhaelith. 'It's a folly that can't succeed.'

'In that case,' said Yggur, 'I must restrain you for the duration. Would you come with me, please?' Gilhaelith stood up slowly. 'You dare?' Tiaan caught her breath. A duel between two great mancers could lay waste the room, if not the entirety of Fiz Gorgo.

'My guards will shoot before you can raise your hand; said Yggur.

There was a taut instant of silence, then Gilhaelith held out his empty hands. Two guards bound him, while another two kept their crossbows aimed at his chest.

'I thought you'd be eager to help us,' Yggur resumed, 'since you're presently under a death sentence from the scrutators.' 'I was safe from them in Alcifer,' he said coldly as the guards took hold of him. 'I'm not about to commit suicide on your behalf. None of you will leave Nennifer alive.'

Yggur waved a hand and the guards led him away, unresisting.

'You were expecting that?' said Malien to Yggur. 'I spoke to Tiaan about him the other day. I wish he'd never come here. He's going to cause us trouble.'

'Yet we need him, for another purpose,' said Malien. 'The purpose for which I've come all the way from Stassor. Yggur, I must talk to you, alone.' 'Now?' said Yggur. 'I think so.'

'This meeting is adjourned,' Yggur said abruptly. 'Come to my quarters, Malien.' The others stared after them as they went out together. Yggur inclined his head. 'Would you care for some hot chard?'

'I prefer red wine, if you have it.'

'There are barrels of the stuff in my cellars, untapped these past fifty years.' He gave orders to his steward.

In his rooms, which were comfortable but austerely furnished, he lit the fire and drew two hard chairs up to it. A carafe of wine came, and a steaming pot of chard. He poured wine into a crystal goblet, orange chard into his bowl.

Malien held her goblet up to the flames. The wine was a deep purple, almost black. She warmed it in her hands, set it on a small side-table and turned to him. 'I never expected to see you again.'

'Nor I you. I came home to die, for there was nothing left in life that I wanted. Alas, life can be tenacious when you no longer value it, and here I am, two centuries older and hardly changed. I began to live again — not even my grief could outlast the centuries — but I don't know what to do with this endless existence. Oh, I'm active, and my mind is alert, but I've seen everything so many times before. Nothing surprises me and precious little entertains me.'

'To appreciate life again, you must put it at risk.' 'Wisely said, Malien. No doubt I will, in this hare-brained attack on Nennifer, which surely cannot succeed.' 'Yet you've committed to it.'

Yggur blew on his chard. He took a tentative sip, then blew on it again.

Malien tested the bouquet of the wine with a delicate sniff and smiled with pleasure. She sipped, rolling it back over her tongue. 'A truly great year, and a master winemaker.'

'Unobtainable now,' he said. 'The vineyards lie abandoned and covered in weeds.'

'Vines are long-lived,' Malien replied. 'Should the-war end, with judicious pruning they'll yield again. And the oldest vines give the best fruit. I could spend a pleasant day in your cellars, Yggur, if only we had the leisure. You were saying?'

'I've realised that the world is worth saving, and who else but we can do it. What's your tale, Malien?'

'It has elements in common with your own. My line doesn't come from the long-lived Aachim, so I expected my end a hundred years ago. It never came. Since the Forbidding I've been an exile, revered for my place in the Histories but rejected for the independence of spirit that made my name. It's a hard thing to suffer when your own people won't have you. I'd had enough and was preparing to go to the Well when Tiaan came and shook me out of it. I too have begun to live again.'

So here we are, two geriatrics — three if you count Flydd taking on the mighty. How the scrutators would roll about if they knew.'

She smiled. 'I dare say. Well, let's see if wisdom and ageless cunning are their match.'

He raised his bowl. 'To ageless cunning.'

They drank the toast, after which Yggur said curiously, 'Why do you need Gilhaelith?'

She explained her fears about the excessive drain on the world's nodes, the danger to the nodes themselves, and the wider threat that posed. 'Bilfis might have solved that problem, in time and with sufficiently good maps of the nodes. Now he's dead, I know of no one with the talents -geomancy plus the new Art of mathemancy — to do the same.'

'Except this miserable fellow I have in my dungeon,' said Yggur. 'I understand your concern. Profligacy is the curse of the modern age. Mancers no longer care for elegance, subtlety or economy in their Art. Nothing but raw power will do, and the more of it the better. Match power with greater power and simply blast your enemy away, no matter that it brings the whole world to ruin.'

'You're right, of course. Our age is well over, and lamenting it makes no difference. But who else has the vision to see where the world is heading?'

'The bigger picture,' he said approvingly. 'To me it's all part of the same picture. In the past we had our differences, Malien, but I trust you and I hope you feel the same way about me. I'll help you with the nodes, and even pressure this miserable worm Gilhaelith for you, though I doubt you'll find him cooperative. I know his type.'

'What do you require in return?'

'I require nothing,' he said, surprising her.

'Nothing?' He'd certainly changed from the single-minded Yggur of old, who had measured his debts to the last copper grint, and expected those who owed him to be equally exacting.

'You know what I want — the use of your thapter — but given freely. I would not make things worse by coming between you and your own kind..' 'We are already sundered,' said Malien, quaffing her wine.

'Vithis has declared clan-vengeance against Tiaan, for injuries done to his son during her escape. Since I helped her get away from Stassor, it applies equally to me.' In response to his quizzical glance, she told that tale.

'Astounding,' said Yggur at the end of it. 'And Tiaan is just a slip of a woman. Who would have thought she could do such marvels?'

'Other slips have,' Malien said dryly, 'going all the way back to my distant ancestor, Elienor. Not all heroes are big, sword-waving louts. Or tall, dark, wand-waving mancers, for that matter.'