Chimaera by Ian Irvine Page A

The cables ran vertically up to the floor of the amphitheatre, a good thirty spans above his head here, then continued to the circle of air-dreadnoughts even further above that.
    ‘Can you see anyone?’ he said.
    Ullii shook her head. Nish stood edgewise at the opening and searched the walls. He couldn’t see a solitary guard, though that wasn’t surprising. Ghorr believed Fiz Gorgo to be empty, and the air-dreadnought guards would see anyone coming from Old Hripton a league before they could get here. There were no lyrinx in this part of Meldorin and, given their fear of water, no risk of an attack on foot through twenty leagues of swamp forest. The only risk was from the air, and the sixteenth air-dreadnought had been placed on high to keep watch.
    ‘I meant with your talent,’ said Nish. ‘Has it come back at all?’
    She didn’t answer. Whatever Ullii was thinking, she didn’t want to share it with him. She hugged her little triumphs to herself, while problems simply made her close down. She was the most frustrating human being on the planet.
    He moved away a couple of steps then glanced at her, covertly. The haggard, haunted look was gone. She
did
have the lattice back, he was sure of it. She just wasn’t going to tell him until it suited her.
    ‘What can you see, Ullii?’ he said ever so softly, trying to be no more than a whisper in her ear. It took all the self-control he had. He wanted to scream at her –
my friends are being tortured up there
. Your
friends, too. Do something!
    Again she pretended to strain, screwing up her eyes, clenching her jaw until the sinews of her neck stood out, knotting her little fists.
    He wanted to slap her. Was she mocking him? But it was fruitless to go down that path, and it reminded Nish that he was as much to blame for her state of mind as anyone.

S IX

    ‘T ell me what’s wrong,’ Nish said, taking her in his arms.
    ‘No,’ she said, her voice muffled. She went rigid but made no attempt to pull away.
    ‘Where did the lattice come from, Ullii? It really is the most marvellous thing …’
    ‘I made it!’ she snapped. ‘It’s mine.’ Then, plaintively, ‘No one else can understand.’
    ‘Of course they can’t. There isn’t anyone like you in the world, Ullii. You’re unique.’ He wasn’t just cajoling or flattering her. She
was
unique.
    She rubbed her cheek against his chest, not in any suggestive way, but as if it comforted her. In times past she wouldn’t have been able to bear the coarse cloth against her skin. Was she losing her sensitivity as well?
    ‘When did you make the lattice?’ he murmured to the top of her head.
    ‘When I was five. To look for Myllii.’
    ‘And now that he’s gone, you don’t need it any longer.’ Nish could have kicked himself as soon as the words left his mouth, but it was too late to take them back.
    ‘I don’t need it,’ she said wonderingly, then with resolve: ‘I don’t need the lattice any more. I know where Myllii and Yllii are.’ She pulled away and sat down, her back against the stone wall, staring into some inner space as if Nish didn’t matter either.
    Nish knew she meant it. He’d been clinging to the hope that Ullii could somehow perform a miracle, as she’d done to break Irisis out of Nennifer, but it wasn’t going to happen.
    He couldn’t take on hundreds of alert soldiers, all those watching mancers and the scrutators themselves, except by dying with his friends in a symbolic act of defiance. And that would only make the scrutators’ victory complete. If they didn’t get him, it would be one tiny flaw in their control of the world, he rationalised. He would devote his life to finishing the job Flydd had started – bringing the Council down.
    But it wasn’t any comfort, and the thought of his friends’ approaching torment brought to mind those dying soldiers at Gumby Marth, begging Nish to put them out of their misery. He hadn’t been able to; he simply hadn’t had the courage, if