Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) by Ian Irvine Page B

for him but with hot spices and smoked meat added.
    Nish ate his dinner moodily. If he began the instant it was light, he might just manage to collect enough fuel by darkness, and that was not good enough. The witch-woman might have discovered that the crystal was gone. She could stop him with a single flaming arrow, for the tar-sealed silk would burn like a torch.
    By the time he had cleaned up, Ullii was asleep and Nish knew better than to disturb her. He spent a frustrated, agonising night, punctuated by trips to replenish the brazier, and before dawn gave up hope of sleep.
    The day crawled by. Nish set Ullii to keep lookout for Tiaan and the Matah. Each time he returned with his burden of fuel, the brazier was out. By lunchtime the balloon had begun to fill but it was a long way from lifting off. Ullii sat beneath the boulder, still scribbling with her pencil-stone. The patterns made no sense at all. He was gnawing on a lump of smoked meat when the seeker gave a whimper and curled up.
    ‘Ullii?’ he whispered. ‘What’s the matter? Is it the witch-woman?’
    She did not answer, which meant it was a major distress. He felt for his knife, though it was useless against the likes of the Matah. Climbing the rope ladder to the brazier, Nish scanned the surroundings. He saw nothing in any direction. Nothing moved but a white eagle soaring on the updraught above the icefall. Its beak was bright yellow.
    When he reached the ground, Ullii had partly unfolded. He tried to discover what had scared her but she was unable to articulate it. ‘Hooks and claws,’ she said over and over again, referring to something seen in her lattice. He tried to put it out of mind.
    Nish was about to go for another load when he noticed the lump of pencil-stone in her hand. The manufactory sometimes burned it in the furnaces. ‘Where did you get that, Ullii?’
    ‘Up mountain,’ she said in a barely audible voice, still suffering.
    He took her hand. ‘Is it far? Can you show me?’
    ‘Not far.’
    After a short climb they reached a steep face where the dark and light rock stood on end, dipping back into the mountain like layers in a cake. At head height the soft rock had weathered away, leaving an elongated cavity the width of Nish’s hips. Several lumps of black, shiny pencil-stone were stuck to the overlying slate. Inside, the cavity was half full of chunks the size of his fist.
    Nish climbed in and began to scoop them into his bag. To his amazement, Ullii joined in with the work, and soon the bag was bulging. ‘Beautiful fuel,’ he said, laughing for joy.
    Back at the balloon, he stuffed the brazier, packed lichen all around and carefully poured in half a cup of tar spirits. The pencil-stone would need a hot fire to burn. He flew down the ladder, afraid he had used too much spirits. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes, then with a whoomph the fuel went up and flames roared out the top of the flue.
    ‘More!’ They raced up the slope, filling another bag each. The balloon was starting to swell visibly as they returned, though they would need more fuel to take them any distance.
    He had come back with a third load and was topping up the brazier when Ullii choked and dropped her bag, spilling pencil-stone across the ground. ‘What is it?’ he called.
    The little seeker looked as if she was having a fit. Her teeth were bared, her eyes staring. She tried to tell him something but managed only incoherent squeaks.
    The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He scanned the mountain and immediately saw two figures, only minutes away. One was the Aachim witch-woman, the other Tiaan. As he ran down the ladder, something broke the air in the west. Three winged shapes, too big and bulky to be eagles or even skeets. They were lyrinx, and heading directly for the balloon.
    He fled down the ladder, frantically undoing the ropes, though the balloon was not quite full enough to rise. Moreover, the basket had jammed between the rocks in its fall