Geomancer

'Come on, man!' cried Jal-Nish. 'Get the dart out and sew him up before he bleeds to death.'

Tul-Kin wrung his plump hands. 'I dursn't. It's lying between the arteries and bladed on three edges. One slip and he's dead.'

'Drunken fool,' roared Jal-Nish. 'Where the devil is Gi-Had?'

'Gone after the enemy, surr,' Nish heard someone say. 'One of the beasts has got into the offices.' Nish felt dizzy, though his mind was clear. He was going to die because the healer lacked the courage to try to save him.

'Is this wretch the only healer you have?' the perquisitor persisted.

'There's old Ruzia, surr,' said the unknown voice, 'but she's blind and has the shakes something severe. We also had Mul-Lym the apothek. He was a good hand with the bone saw, in emergencies, but…'

'But the damn fool is dead,' Jal-Nish grated. 'Killed himself, if someone else didn't do it for him.' He scowled down at his son. 'Could be a poetic kind of justice, I suppose.'

Nish could see the irony too, but he did not appreciate it.

A slap, a curse and Irisis's voice raged, 'Keep your hands to yourself or I'll spill your brains on the floor. Get out of my way.' The crowd parted before her. She had put on an undershirt, a clinging article that distracted the eye.

'What do you think you're doing?' screamed Jal-Nish.

'Saving your worthless son's life,' she replied softly. 'Or if not, putting him out of his suffering.' She had a piece of copper tubing in one hand, a small artisan's hammer in the other.

'Be damned! Tul-Kin, get back here!'

Tul-Kin was retrieved from the corner, gulping from a flask. When they took it away his arm twitched so hard he could not hold the knife they pressed upon him.

'Well?' said Irisis with magnificent arrogance.

Jal-Nish closed his eyes, opened them and wiped away a tear. 'He's going to die, isn't he?'

'At the rate he's losing blood,' said one of the nurses, 'I'd give him an hour.'

The perquisitor waved a hand. 'I don't suppose you can do any worse.'

Irisis pushed through, leaned over Nish and gauged the wound. 'The shard is a length of metal about as long as a small knife blade. It's triangular in cross-section and each edge is razor sharp. It's gone through the muscle of his neck. The point has come out the back, next to the spine. To pull it out, or push it through, risks cutting the vein, in which case he will die in a minute.'

She took the piece of copper tube, checked that the diameter was large enough, then wiggled it into the slit in Nish's neck. He screamed and fainted. 'Just as well,' Irisis muttered, and eased the tubing over the end of the shard. As she pushed, there came a gentle sucking sound. Blood began to drip from the tube.

Sweat was pouring down her face. There were a dozen people around the table but no one said a word. The entire room seemed to be holding its breath.

Irisis gently worked the tube back and forth, as if trying to get it over a snag in the metal. The least pressure and one of the blades would go through a vein. She eased the tube out, wiped the blood on her shirt, cleaned her fingers the same way, tilted the tube and slid it back in. This time it kept going.

'Lift his head!' she said harshly.

Jal-Nish did so. He looked stricken.

She moved his hand down to support Nish's neck. 'Hold him firmly.'

Taking a small cap from her pocket, she screwed it on the end of the tube. Irisis took up her hammer and, with a single sharp blow that drew a gasp from the watchers, drove the tube all the way in. Nish woke, screamed and convulsed.

'Hold him!' she roared, 'or we'll lose him.'

The watchers scurried to take hold of Nish. Irisis took a pair of pincers from her pocket, gripped the end of the tube protruding from the back of his neck and drew out tube and shard in a single clean movement. Nish shrieked.

Pent-up blood poured out, front and back. They waited for the telltale spurt from a severed artery.

'What's happening?' wailed Nish. 'I'm going to die, aren't I?'

Irisis stood back, panting. Her shirt and arms were coated with blood. Blood dribbled from the end of the tube. She was staring at his throat.

'What…?' said Nish.

'Shut up, Nish! You're not going to die, more's the damn pity.' Irisis looked around at the crowd. 'Can anyone sew?' The faces looked blank. 'Of course you can't, morons! Get me the healer's bag and bottle.'

Someone scurried off, returning with the items. Irisis found a needle and thread and calmly sewed up Nish's neck, then doused the wounds with brandy.

Finally she tossed needle, thread and flask onto the table, took up her tools and, without another glance, went back to her room. Nish's mouth was dry, his head throbbed and his neck was so unbearably painful that he could not move his head. He had vague memories of someone sitting by the bed, stroking his brow, but only Irisis was there now.

'You saved my life,' he said, reaching for her hand.

'Don't think for a minute it's because I care for you, Little Nish-Nash,' she said in a gritty voice.

'Then why?'

'For your father's favour, of course! It was that or the breeding factory.'

'Oh!' He missed the strange look in her eye, being unable to turn his head. 'But if you'd killed me…'

'It was worth the gamble. I like gambling, especially when things can't get any worse.'

'Then hadn't you better go for your reward?' He put as much sarcasm into it as his awful neck would let him. 'That's exactly what I expected of you, after all.'

She shrugged it off. 'I've some broth. Wouldn't want you to die and spoil everything.'

'Of course not!'

She dipped the spoon, put it to his lips. 'Open up!'

He did so and found the broth delicious, nothing like the dishwater he'd expected from the cookhouse. Smacking his lips he said, 'That's good!'

'Of course it is. I made it myself. Specially.'

She fed him the rest, then went out without further word. Nish lay back, feeling the blood pounding in his ears. The small exertion had exhausted him. Irisis was at her bench fitting together a controller when the door banged open and Jal-Nish came hurrying in. He hurried everywhere, though with his portly figure it made him look faintly ridiculous.

'Yes?' she said imperiously, afraid of what he could do to her. She had spent most of her life afraid, and concealing it. A word from the perquisitor and she could be any kind of drudge or slave he cared to name. Her pride would not allow that.

'I've come to thank you for saving my worthless son.'

'Worthless? I suppose so. He has certain talents.' She gave a mocking, pointed leer.

'I don't want to know,' he said hastily.

'I bet you do. I know all about your nocturnal activities.' She tossed back her yellow hair. 'Tell me my fate. Whatever it is, I would know it right away.'

He walked up and down, casting her sideways glances as if he did not know what to make of her.

'There's more to you than reports indicate.'

'What does Fyn-Mah say about me? Am I guilty of treachery, even murder, as my one-time lover believes?'

'There is now… room for doubt,' he said.

'Oh?'

'It's hard to imagine a traitor killing one of the enemy so brilliantly.'

'What did the lyrinx come for?'

'Just a wandering band.' Jal-Nish was a little too offhand. 'Who knows why they go where they do?'

'I heard that one beast fought its way into Gi-Had's office before it was killed. Sounds like they came with a purpose.'

He hesitated. 'It took a piece of evidence…'

'Are you saying Gi-Had is the traitor?'

'Don't be absurd. The lyrinx had Artisan Tiaan's broken pliance. We think it contains evidence of the traitor's identity, which seems to clear you of that particular charge.'

'But not the others?'

'You have admitted to serious crimes, and Fyn-Mah tells me -'