‘Scrutator Klarm!’ Gilhaelith said as he went out the circular front door. ‘It’s very good to see you. Come down.’
Klarm’s groom trotted across with a footstool and stood it beside the stirrup, for Klarm had not grown properly and, standing on tiptoes, his large round head reached no higher than Gilhaelith’s waist. Despite his dwarfism he was a cheerful fellow, though as ruthless as anyone ever to take the robes of scrutator.
Klarm clambered down, nodding to the groom. He walked with a rolling gait, like a man who had spent too long on the deck of a ship. With a dazzling smile, the scrutator threw out his hand. He was a handsome man with a noble mane of brown wavy hair that enclosed his neck like a collar. His eyes were the brilliant blue of the crater lake below. ‘It’s a pleasure to be back, Gilhaelith.’
Gilhaelith bowed low and took the outstretched hand. He had always liked Klarm, though he did not trust him. Scrutator first, friend a distant second. ‘And to you, my friend. How long has it been? Too long, certainly.’
‘Eleven months to the day.’ Klarm always knew such details.
‘Come into the shade. Shall I bring up a jug of my finest stout?’
‘Porter, I think, but don’t be mean. Bring the whole damned barrel.’
A servant was despatched and Gilhaelith led Klarm under the vines. They talked about the splendid weather and the beauty of the blue lake, as custom dictated, until the drink arrived. The first servant bore a jug the size of a large bucket. Another carried a tray of delicacies – the pickled intestinal organs of lake fish, arranged in squares four to a side, for Gilhaelith, and more traditional tidbits for Klarm.
The scrutator wrinkled his nose. ‘Nothing changes with you.’ He chose a cube of blue cheese, which he roofed with slices of gherkin before swallowing it whole.
‘And why should it?’ Gilhaelith selected a pair of small, liver-pink organs between finger and thumb, admiring the colouring. Red-brown material oozed out. He slurped them down.
He poured the scrutator a large tankard of the boot-polish-brown brew. They touched porcelain to porcelain and Klarm drained his in a single swallow. It was his habit to begin a session that way, though he seldom lost his wits no matter how much ale he had taken. He poured another, sinking it as quickly, and a third, which he merely sipped.
Gilhaelith, knowing his limitations, took a sturdy pull at his own drink, sat it on the table and looked the scrutator in the eye.
‘I know you’d come a tidy distance to drink a porter as fine as mine,’ he said. ‘Are you passing by, or have you come about this other matter that everyone is talking of?’ No one passed by Booreah Ngurle, for it was a winding twenty leagues through Worm Wood from the Great North Road, and not on the way to anywhere.
‘I figured your spies would have told you of it,’ Klarm said. ‘Whatever happened to this flying construct, it’s checked the progress of the Aachim, and that’s a blessing. They raced halfway across the continent in a couple of weeks, but since the machine disappeared they’ve not moved their main camp. I need not tell you what a shock their appearance was. They came from Aachan, Gilhaelith. Through a gate! What do they want? Are they really refugees, or an advance guard come to bring the rest of their people across? Will they ally with us against the lyrinx, or take their side, or fight us both? On the answers to these questions our very future depends.’
‘And the Aachim’s too. I’m glad you came, Klarm, for I’ve been mulling over the business ever since I first heard of it. And one thing puzzles me more than anything else.’
Scrutator Klarm raised an eyebrow.
‘The earliest rumours were that they were imminently preparing for war. Since then, all reports show them to have lost their purpose.’
‘Reports they could have tainted,’ Klarm retorted.
‘I doubt that even these Aachim are as calculating as the scrutators,’ Gilhaelith said with a cheerfulness he did not feel. ‘They mill all over the place, and every day their advantage is diminished. This is no way to win a war. If they planned to attack us, or the lyrinx, why not do so at once?’
‘A question the Council also asks, you may be sure. The Aachim have had a number of shocks since they arrived. Recall.’ Klarm dipped a stubby finger in the head of his porter then held it up, licking at the tip with a neat pink tongue. ‘The last they knew of Santhenar, we were just a collection of primitive and warring nations, easy prey. Now they find a world united, organised for war, well-armed and hardened after generations of conflict. We have vast fleets of clankers, as well as other weapons powered by the Secret Art. What else do we have that they know nothing about, nor how to deal with?’
Another finger. ‘The lyrinx are an equally formidable enemy and they too are legion. They also have developed the Art in directions the Aachim do not understand, such as flesh-forming.’
Finger number three. ‘The Aachim would have expected their own kind, who have dwelt here for thousands of years, to support them, for they see themselves as the original and unsullied people of Aachan. But I know our Aachim and I see it differently. They will regard these interlopers as primitives who place clan above kind, who over four millennia never united to throw off the yoke of the Charon.’
A fourth foam-covered digit. ‘The flying construct is a secret they do not have, despite the fact that they built all the others: more than ten thousand, I am told. Who is this genius who transformed their work so quickly, and so radically? The Council of Scrutators will pay one million gold tells for the secret of flight. For the flying construct, or the person who stole it, ten thousand apiece.’
Gilhaelith was staggered. A soldier’s pay for a year was a single gold tell and the scrutators were notoriously miserly.
‘And there is friction among the invaders,’ Klarm went on. ‘The clans resent Vithis for his arrogance and his inflexible command. And he, it is said, condemns those who cannot focus on the prize.’ He drained his porter and poured another. ‘Whatever his plans are, losing this construct has stalled them. In order to get it back, he has given away the element of surprise.’
‘You’re saying they can’t agree what to do?’ said Gilhaelith.
‘They’re disunited. It gives us an opportunity, though one that will vanish the instant war is declared. But first we need answers. What have you heard about the woman who stole it?’ Klarm’s eyes were unnaturally bright.
Last chance. If he gave up the thapter, and Tiaan, would Klarm let him keep the amplimet? Of course not. Without it the thapter could not be made to fly. No doubt that problem could be solved in time, but humanity did not have time. I can’t give up the amplimet, Gilhaelith thought. I’ve worked a hundred and fifty years for this. Humanity must fend for itself.
He met Klarm’s eyes. ‘Nothing, save that she attacked their camp,’ he lied. ‘And you?’ There was no going back now.
‘She is old human, an artisan from Tiksi who used to make clanker controllers. Very good ones. Her name is Tiaan.’ Klarm licked foam from the rim of the tankard. ‘It took me a while to work out who she was. So many despatches to remember. She fled the manufactory last year after a … distasteful incident. The last I heard, she had been taken by the lyrinx. My colleague Xervish Flydd was trying to get her back. And here is the most important question of alclass="underline" did she discover how to make the construct fly? Or if she did not, who did?’
‘How could she? That would require mastery of the Secret Art, surely? You imply that she has a history of crime. She is just a clever thief. I would look to the Aachim of Santhenar.’