The miner held out her map, on which she had marked in red ink all the places Ullii had been. ‘We’ve finished this level. There’s nowhere to go but down to the eighth, if the scrutator permits it.’
‘I already have his authorisation,’ said Irisis.
‘We must have it in writing,’ Peate interjected, ‘since that level was expressly forbidden by the previous overseer.’
He referred to Overseer Gi-Had, her second cousin, who had been slain in that terrible battle up at the ice houses. Irisis could never forget that. Gi-Had had been a decent man, despite the fact that he’d had her flogged. Her back would bear those scars until she died.
Irisis handed Peate his copy of the letter. The miner placed his mark on it and put it in his pocket. ‘Then let’s make a start.’
‘Tired,’ said Ullii, whose sentences grew more abbreviated the more weary she became. ‘Can’t do any more.’
‘Please, Ullii,’ said Irisis. ‘Just for an hour. The scrutator –’ She broke off, realising her mistake.
‘Lost the lattice,’ Ullii said, pleased to refuse her. ‘Going home.’
It was not long after dark when Irisis returned to the manufactory, but Xervish Flydd had already retired to his room. She could hardly deny him his report on the grounds of lateness, so she went there directly. The door was ajar, as if she was expected. She knocked once and pushed it open.
The room was warm, for a charcoal fire burned in a corner grate. The scrutator was at his table, clothed this time, surrounded by maps and papers. Flydd had a ruler in his hand and was measuring the distance between a series of red marks on the map, then entering figures into a column on a sheet of paper.
Unusually, he laid down his pen as she entered. ‘You don’t need to tell me,’ he said. ‘You found nothing.’
‘I’m afraid not, surr.’
He leaned back in his chair and put his battered feet on the table. ‘Shut the door. Sit down. Would you like a drink?’
‘I can’t say I’m that fond of parsnip whisky.’
‘That’s not what I’m offering.’ He selected a green glass bottle, carefully wrapped, from one corner of his chest, levered out the bung with a little silver tool and poured a healthy slug into two glasses. ‘This is real brandy; one hundred years old.’
They were proper glasses, made of crystal. Irisis’s parents had some at home, but she had never seen any in the manufactory. She warmed the glass in her hands and took a careful sniff. It went up her nose and made her gasp.
‘What are you celebrating, surr?’ she asked after her eyes had stopped watering. Irisis touched her glass to his and took the gentlest of sips. It was splendid stuff, the best she’d ever tasted.
‘I drink this at wakes, not weddings.’ He tossed half the glass down his throat. ‘You think I’m all-powerful, don’t you, Irisis?’
‘Er, well, I once did, surr.’
‘I too have my masters, crafter, and they are less forgiving than I am. And there is another consideration. The higher you climb, the further there is to fall. I can climb no higher, for which I’m glad, though don’t tell anyone I said so.’
‘You have had a reprimand from the scrutators?’
‘You might say that, though the Council won’t couch it so bluntly. The letter begins, Be assured, Xervish, that we are not saying we are displeased with you. Of course, that means they are highly displeased. Furious!’ He chuckled, which she found odd.
‘What’s going to happen to you? And to us?’
‘You’re worried that when the tower falls, it will smash all the little ants to bits. I suppose it will, if it falls. But I’m a fighter, Irisis, and I’m a way from beaten yet. I have friends on the Council, as well as enemies.’
She relaxed, leaned back and took another sip of the glorious brandy. Irisis seldom drank and the fumes seemed to be floating around her head, inducing a delicious haziness.
‘Don’t feel too reassured,’ he went on. ‘Another failure and I may well be done. The war is going worse than ever.’
‘You can’t be blamed for that!’
‘I would be quick enough to take the credit, were it going well. And I can be blamed for the Aachim invasion, as we are calling it. Without Tiaan, it would never have occurred.’
‘But you weren’t anywhere near here. If anyone should be blamed, it’s me!’
‘Don’t remind me!’ he growled, draining his glass and filling it again, along with hers. ‘Einunar is my province. I’m supposed to know everything that’s going on, and be in control of it.’
‘How badly is the war going?’
‘Very badly!’
‘People have been saying that for a long time.’
‘It’s been going badly for a long time, but it’s going worse now. We’ve been losing territory for years, but not gaining any. It could be all over in twelve months, and then we’ll be in pens, waiting to be eaten.’
‘Is it really that hopeless?’ She took a sturdy pull at her glass.
‘No. We’re working on a lot of … secret weapons. If one or two of them come off, it could make all the difference.’
‘What sort of secret weapons?’
‘If I told you, they would not be secret, would they? Think of the ways clankers have changed warfare compared to foot soldiers and cavalry, and apply that Art to everything we do. We could use controllers to power dozens of different kinds of devices – night lights, weapons, pumps, boats. And indeed we must, for we no longer have the labour to do otherwise.’
The thought was less comforting than it seemed. ‘We’re already overusing the Secret Art,’ she said, ‘and seeing nodes drained of their fields. I would be worried about the consequences, were I on the Council.’
‘Thankfully you will never be,’ he said smoothly, ‘so you can leave that worry to us.’
‘The enemy also have secret projects, like their flesh-forming. What if that succeeds?’
‘We’ll need our own devices to combat it.’ He looked away. He did not want to talk about that.
Irisis had a sudden thought. ‘Wasn’t the querist studying their flesh-forming? I haven’t seen Fyn-Mah for months.’ Fyn-Mah, the querist or spymaster for the city of Tiksi, answered to the perquisitor and therefore, indirectly, to Flydd.
‘She was and still is.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Away on Council business. Don’t ask that kind of question.’
‘What about the Aachim and their eleven thousand constructs? Are they with us or against us?’
‘We don’t know. There has been contact with them, though it wasn’t fruitful.’
‘What do you think?’ She held out her glass for more brandy.
‘I’d say they are too bitter to negotiate. Bitter that the Charon kept them as slaves on their own world. Doubly bitter that since the Forbidding was broken their world has become uninhabitable. I hear they blame us, which is a worry. We have no answer to their constructs, and maybe the lyrinx don’t either. We’re both weak after so much war. The Aachim are strong. What they choose to do will decide the fate of the world.’
‘So how important is our work? Really?’
‘Finding out what happened to the node is vital.’
‘Then why don’t we do that first?’
‘Because without crystal this entire manufactory, and the others we supply with controllers, are useless. If we can’t produce them, my head will soon be hanging over the gate and a new scrutator will take over. You would be out within a week. You’re tainted, Irisis.’
‘Who would the new scrutator be?’
‘I can’t talk about things like that. However, I can tell you one thing – I was premature to write off Nish’s father. Perquisitor Jal-Nish Hlar has fought back from his injuries. He will always be a horror to look at, he will always be in pain, but that has only hardened his ambition. He still wants to be scrutator and there’s only one way he can get there. Over my maimed and mutilated body.’