‘How dare you,’ Nysygy had screamed, shaking Irisis by the shoulders. ‘Never mention it again or … or I don’t know what I’ll do to myself.’
Irisis could see her mother’s staring eyes, the knife pressed against one slender wrist. ‘If I die it will be your fault, you wicked daughter!’ she hissed. Her mother was always making threats.
The child could not deal with emotional blackmail. Irisis just knew herself to be an evil little brat who would one day be the death of her mother. Fortunately dear old Barkus had come in. Her mother had tossed the knife on the table and turned to the bottle instead.
Flydd broke into her thoughts. ‘What were you really feeling, that day of the birthday party when you lost your talent?’
‘I was furiously angry, though I knew better than to show it. I hated my family, and most of all my mother.’
‘And when you were asked to demonstrate your talent?’
The revelation struck her. ‘I wanted to fail. Oh, Xervish, I wanted to fail! It was the only way out of the trap they had built for me.’
‘You tried to use your talent but your subconscious mind would not let you. It closed it off and you never found it again.’
‘Yes,’ Irisis said softly, ‘but still I could not escape them. Mother did my trick for me that day, and ever after refused to believe my failure. She was too strong for me. I became a liar and a cheat to cover it up. I had to.’
‘What will you do after the war? Will you remain crafter?’
The fiction of ‘after the war’. People had been consoling themselves with that phrase for a hundred and fifty years. The reality was different. ‘Of course not! There will be no need for clankers then. I will follow my dream. People will want beautiful things again, one day.’
His hand squeezed her shoulders. ‘Help us, Irisis. Save the war, then follow your dream.’
She looked within herself. The realisation had not made it any easier. She still did not know where her lost talent was, or how to recover it.
‘Don’t think about it,’ Flydd said. ‘Just do it!’
She tried. Her true calling was a beacon out of the tarry darkness. Irisis reached deep inside herself. She tried harder than she had in her life, searching again and again, but could not uncover her talent. Tears formed in her eyes.
‘I can’t … do it,’ she said, the barest exhalation of breath. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know where to look.’
He gripped her shoulders again. Those fierce eyes looked into hers and they were blood-red. His lips had gone an ugly blue. A thread of blood appeared in one nostril. The node-drainer was tearing him apart. Flydd turned away. She had let him down.
‘Clawers coming!’ cried Ullii, who had been motionless in the corner all this time.
‘How far?’
‘Not far.’
‘Give me the cap.’ Flydd snatched it from her hands. ‘If you can’t do it, I’ll have to.’
It would kill him. ‘Wait, surr!’ She had an idea. ‘Ullii, remember that time in the clankers, when they lost the field and I had to tune the controllers to that strange double node?’
Ullii’s eyes were open and she was staring coldly at Flydd and Irisis. She did not answer.
‘Ullii?’
‘I remember,’ said Ullii.
‘How did you –?’ Never mind. Can you see where my lost talent is?’
‘You’re a hard ball in my lattice. Can’t see inside.’
‘Please try, else the scrutator is going to die.’
‘He’s a nasty, cruel man,’ Ullii snapped.
‘But he cares for you, Ullii. He saved you from Jal-Nish.’
‘I saved you from Scrutator Ghorr. You promised to find Myllii. Hate you too.’
Irisis had no answer to that. She looked desperately at Flydd.
‘Ah, but I have found Myllii,’ he said smoothly.
Ullii rotated to face him, her eyes closed as if she were searching her lattice. ‘Myllii,’ she whispered. ‘Where are you, Myllii?’
‘He is far away,’ said Flydd. ‘Eiryn Muss has found Myllii and will bring him home to you, but it will take many, many days. Now can you please help Irisis?’
It was not enough. ‘Irisis wants my Nish,’ Ullii said sullenly.
‘That pimply little runt? I do not,’ cried Irisis.
‘Saw you at Aachim camp. You were holding him.’ Her voice rose in outrage.
‘Nish is my friend,’ said Irisis. ‘I don’t want him for a lover. Why would I, the little pipsq –’ She broke off. Better not insult Nish further. No telling how Ullii would react.
Ullii had her arms crossed about her chest and a stubborn expression on her face.
‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ cried Flydd. ‘You’re not a pair of cats in an alley. Irisis, I forbid you, as scrutator, ever to be Nish’s lover. Will that do, Ullii?’
Ullii gave Irisis a triumphant smile. ‘Thank you, Xervish.’ Seizing his withered hand, she kissed it. ‘You are a kind man. I will do what you want.’
Irisis was outraged. How dare any man tell her whom she could take to her bed? ‘You’ll be sorry, Flydd. Don’t think you’ll be sharing my favours anytime soon.’
He smirked, the effect rather spoiled by the blood at the corner of his mouth. ‘Can we get on? I feel I’m being filleted like a fish.’
Ullii put her hands over her eyes. Her arms shook. Her jaw clenched. Irisis felt as if she was picking at a ball made of black string, but it was wound so tightly she could not unravel it. She plucked and plucked, at one place and another, fruitlessly. Then a pair of hands began to work next to hers. Small and slender they were, and they seemed to know what they were doing. In her mind’s eye, Irisis followed the movements in and out, back and forth. They eased one thread out of the tangle, leaving it sticking up in the air.
The fingers withdrew. Irisis took hold of the thread and tugged. It unwound, the ball spinning off the other way, growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared, leaving just a pile of shining silver thread. She began to gather it up, for at the end of it must be the key. Or maybe it was the key. She began to weave the silver into a bracelet, an exquisite piece of jewellery.
‘Clawers, clawers.’ The seeker folded up on the floor.
As Irisis slid the bracelet on her wrist she saw the way so clearly that it was like a lifeline stretching out in front of her. She drew power and, to her surprise, her joy, it cascaded into the crystals. They exploded with light and something inside the cap gave forth a low, vibrating hum.
‘I’ve done it! Xervish, I’ve done it!’
There was no time to enjoy her triumph. Flydd snatched the cap. ‘Prepare to defend me!’ He ran to the node-drainer.
Irisis whipped out her sword and stood at the entrance, looking up and down and back over her shoulder. There were no lyrinx in sight. She was strangely weak and nauseous. Mancers suffered from aftersickness but this was the first time she had experienced it.
Flydd seemed to be having trouble fitting the cap. Strange energies kept bursting out in all directions. It was like trying to seal a flowing hose. He cursed, forced the cap over the top of the mushroom, and cursed again as it was tossed out of his hands to land on the tarry floor.
Irisis peered out the entrance but could not see any enemy. She crept down the passage to the point where a broad thoroughfare became visible. The disruption was much less here. Some distance away, a lyrinx shadow fleeted across an opening, carrying something that looked like a human body. She edged back. Her sword would not stop a lyrinx, even for a minute.
The lyrinx hurried past, looking neither right nor left. She heard shouting. More enemy shadows ran by, all carrying loads. What was going on? Were they losing the war, or had they already won it? She scuttled back to the cavern. In her absence Flydd must have worked some great scrutator magic, for he cried out, ‘It’s on! Time to go.’