FOURTEEN

Before he’d realised what was happening, Nish had been grabbed and held fast. A second guard took his weapons, bound his hands, and pushed him down through the lower hatch of the thapter. He bounced off the metal ladder and landed hard on his backside on the floor below.

Stifling a groan, Nish looked up. The lower hatch remained open, suggesting that they expected to be dropping other people through it. Ghorr must have assumed that Yggur would try to recover the thapter. Perhaps he’d hung around Fiz Gorgo to lure the escaped prisoners back.

He rolled over, looking around. The egg-shaped interior was empty and the guards would have removed anything that could be used as a weapon. However, they didn’t know the machine the way Nish did. During his time in the service of Minis the Aachim, and since then with Yggur, Nish had spent many weeks learning about the workings of constructs and thapters, honing his artificer’s skills on them. He could have taken this machine apart blindfolded, so surely he could create some opportunity to escape.

Nish levered himself to his feet, which was awkward with his hands bound. He eased out one of the drawers, careful not to make a noise. It was empty. The thapter rolled like a ship in huge seas. He hung onto the handle until the motion eased, then opened one drawer after another. All had been emptied. The cupboards and other storage spaces were likewise bare. The guards had been thorough.

Sitting down with his back to the wall, Nish tried to think of any concealed compartments that the guards might not have discovered. None came to mind. The thapter rolled so far to the right that he was dropped onto the side wall. He braced himself as it went back the other way. Above, the soldiers were swearing, uneasy. Well they might be, in such an uncanny and alien craft so precariously suspended in mid-air.

Thump. It sounded like someone landing on the top of the thapter. Irisis? He crawled across to the ladder and looked up as Malien slid through the hatch, one hand raised as if to cast some kind of charm against the occupants. She did not get the chance, for one of the guards whipped a bag over her head before she could speak. They bound and gagged her too, but laid her on the floor out of the way, partly closed the upper hatch and waited.

When Irisis came they would take her just as easily. Ghorr would have his public executions after all and, with the thapter, the victory might be enough for him to keep the chief scrutatorship. Yggur’s half-baked plan had turned a kind of victory into ruinous defeat.

Not if I can help it. Nish grasped at a desperate idea. Edging into the far corner of the egg-shaped space, he crouched down and twisted the concealed, recessed knob above the thapter’s driving mechanism. Its hatch sighed open. Nish couldn’t make the mechanism work to drive the thapter, of course. No one could but specially trained Aachim, and Tiaan, wherever she was.

And no one but Malien or Tiaan could make the thapter fly, for Malien had modified this one in a way that employed her own unique talent for the Secret Art, and she’d taught that to no one but Tiaan.

But he did know enough to carry out the series of tests that Aachim artificers employed when maintaining and repairing constructs, and perhaps one of those might be used to good effect. Nish considered the tests in turn. One caused the ceramic thyrimode to rotate in an orbital fashion, producing eerie squeaks and squeals that might alarm the guards and bring them down to investigate. No; it wouldn’t be enough. He had to shock and terrify them.

Another test heated the muncial gyrolapp, a series of thick-walled glass tubes connected in a spiral like a string of stubby sausages, until its metal case glowed red hot. What if he smeared grease all over the case, then ran the test? The grease would produce a lot of smoke and a horrible smell, and the guards might flee, thinking the thapter was on fire. It wasn’t much of a plan, and yet, the soldiers didn’t sound at ease. It might create an opportunity, though he would have to be ready to act the moment one occurred.

He wriggled to the opening and reached in with his bound hands. He closed his eyes, the better to sense his way in through the maze of tubes, coils, globes, wires and crystals mounted above the reciprocating mechanisms. Had he been sitting in the dark with it in front of him, Nish could have identified any part by feel. Here it proved difficult to get his arms into the tightly packed space, and when he tried his gashed arm hurt abominably.

Nish went back to the centre and peered up the ladder. The soldiers were watching the upper hatch. Returning to the opening, he identified the case of the muncial gyrolapp, which was at the very furthest point he could reach. Scooping grease from a receptacle just inside the hatch, he smeared it all over the case, then set the gyrolapp to heat. Nish wiped his hands on the floor and, just as he was about to close the cover, noticed a prise-bar in its bracket on the wall of the compartment.

Snapping it out of its mounting, he slid it under his coat. On a whim, Nish set the ceramic thyrimode to rotate as well. The eerie noises couldn’t hurt. He quickly closed the hatch, though he didn’t fasten it, and rolled to the other side of the cabin.

The thyrimode gave a gentle whirr then began to run, almost silently at first. The thapter wallowed like a round-bottomed tub in a heavy swell, whereupon the mechanism emitted a brief, mournful squeak. Nish came to his knees, staring in the direction the sound had come from, waiting for a response from upstairs.

‘What was that?’ said one of the soldiers.

‘Just the prisoner whining,’ said the other. ‘He’ll do better than that when the master disemboweller gets his hooks into him.’ He snorted with laughter.

The thyrimode emitted another squeak, longer and more shrill.

‘Didn’t sound like a man,’ said the first. ‘Go and have a look.’

The squeaks rose and fell, died away and began again until they swelled into an eerie, continuous moan. The soldier came running down the ladder, took in Nish on the far side of the room, his mouth open and eyes wide, and turned towards the source of the sound. It took him some time to find the hatch.

‘Larg? Come down here. The Aachim bitch must have made it go.’

‘Not allowed to leave my post,’ said the other. ‘You know that, Aln. The prisoner might have done it.’

‘Him?’ Aln’s voice was a sneer. ‘Remember what Ghorr said? Only Aachim can operate the cursed thing. And Tiaan the artisan.’

‘See what the matter is,’ said Larg, ‘and get a move on. There could be others coming.’

Aln fiddled with the latch, trying to discover how it worked. The moaning from the thyrimode grew louder, as if it were grinding itself to pieces. He glanced over his shoulder at Nish, who hadn’t moved.

‘I can smell something burning,’ Aln called.

Larg did not answer. Aln lifted the hatch of the mechanism, releasing thick clouds of brown, acrid smoke. The shrilling grew so loud that it made Nish’s ears ache.

‘Larg, Larg, we’re afire!’ Aln was on his knees, staring into the hole, but made no attempt to lower the hatch. He had no idea what to do.

Larg came thumping down the ladder and ran across the chamber. He took one look into the cavity, which was still belching fumes, then banged the hatch down.

‘What are we supposed to do now?’ said Aln. ‘If it’s destroyed, Ghorr will blame us. We’re dead men, Larg.’

Larg paled. He stared around the chamber, his larynx working. ‘We’ll have to put it out. See if you can find some water –’

The room was thick with smoke. Nish slowly rose to his feet, trying to appear frightened. Neither of the soldiers took any notice.