Alchymist (43 page)

nash
rose, holding his hands up before his face. They burned like icy fire, yet they
were unmarked. The pit of his stomach tingled and he felt that a long-dormant
bud inside him had opened. He shuddered to think what the tears had done to
him.

'You're
a monster, Father. The outside simply reflects what is within you, and I'll
bring you down if it takes me all my life.'

'You
won't, Cryl-Nish, because you're a blunderer, a failure and a fool. You're not
my equal in any respect, and never can be. I often wonder how I came to have a
son as unworthy as you, if, indeed, you are my son!' He bellowed the last words
so that the whole camp might have heard. 'Lieutenant!'

Xabbier
appeared smartly, and from the look in his eyes he'd heard all that had gone
on. 'Yes, Scrutator Hlar?'

'Take
Cryl-Nish to the punishment cells and lock him in. No one must go near him for
four hours, until . . .'

'Yes?'
said Xabbier.

'Never
mind. Lock him up tight until the morning, Lieutenant.'

Jal-Nish
saluted Nish with the platinum mask. An aura, shaped like a horde of jackals,
streamed and snapped around him. Shuddering, Nish allowed himself to be led
away. The mask snapped back over his father's head.

Those
Aachim not engaged in moving constructs, or travelling to the southern camp
inside them, were busy on a great memorial to their dead. The bodies had been
recovered and buried as soon as the battle was over. In the summer heat they
had to be, though it grieved the Aachim deeply to lay their fallen in alien
soil.

Tiaan
saw little of the construction, apart from a day on which she spent hours
hauling stone with the construct, but it showed the importance they placed on
the memorial.

She
now lived in fear of the amplimet. Though essential for her survival, as much
as for the Aachim's, Ghaenis's fate had shown her how capricious it was. It
might allow her another day, a week, a month, but eventually it would strike
her down. If it chose to replace her with a more powerful servant, all it had
to do was let the power flow after she'd tried to cut it off.

The
Aachim had experimented with a number of node-sharing devices before settling
on a silver helm, like three-quarters of a globe, whose inside and outside were
polished to mirror smoothness. The outside was studded with rubies and garnets
which had been set in swirling patterns into perforations in the silver. The
inside was plain metal, through which the tips of some of the crystals could be
seen, scattered like stars in the evening sky.

Tirior
placed the helm on Tiaan's head but it proved too large, for Aachim had bigger
heads than old humans. A leather headband was fitted and adjusted until the
helm sat perfectly.

Subsequently
the crystals were charged, not with the amplimet but via a device the like of
which Tiaan had never seen before: a plain cube of black metal whose sides were
not the length of Tiaan's forearm. The inside was as black as a pit. The helm
was placed within, pushed towards the back wall, and promptly vanished.

It
was not, as far as Tiaan could tell, an illusion or stage magician's trick. The
helm, though solid metal, was no longer in the box. After a few minutes, a ruby
flash came from within. Tirior reached in, her arm now disappearing to the
shoulder, and withdrew the helm. The rubies and garnets were lit up, though the
glow faded as the helm was brought into the light.

The
instant Tirior placed the helm on Tiaan's head, the headache and the dull
feelings vanished. Someone handed her the wrapped amplimet. As she unfolded the
platinum sheet, thread-like silvery rays streamed out from the crystal in all
directions and she saw something impossible: five other cubes were attached to
the black box in ways that could not exist. It was a four-dimensional cube: a
tesseract.

'I
feel dizzy.' Tiaan closed her eyes. Artisans had gone mad trying to see into
the fourth dimension. She swayed in the chair and Thyzzea steadied her.

'Is
that better?' said Urien, standing over her.

Tiaan
rubbed her eyes but the strange image was gone, the black box just a simple box
again. 'I .., think so. It'll take time to get used to it. Just give me a few
minutes.'

Thyzzea
gave her a mug of water and Tiaan drank it in one gulp. Even sitting down, her
knees felt shaky. 'I'm ready to try.'

Back
in the construct, the amplimet was installed in its socket. Tiaan put the helm
on her head and again, just for a few seconds, saw the creeping, impossible
shapes of the fourth dimension. As she turned her head, fields swirled and
ebbed all over the place, and all were brilliantly clear. It unnerved her — there
was too much to take in.

'Time
is precious, Artisan,' said Vithis from behind.

She
drew power from the nearest field attempting to hold its image while she attempted
a second Power flowed from both, and both fields stayed in her mind She looked
for a third and took power from it as well, then a fourth and fifth. It was
like a miracle.

'It's
ready,' Tiaan said.

Tirior
gave the signal and the construct crept forwards. Before the rope became taut,
the construct following them began to move, then the one after that. Tiaan
could see the distortions they made in the field, and now they did not have to
be towed. Enough power flowed down the cables for them to propel themselves.

Looking
back to the shooter's turret, Tiaan could see the raw emotion on Vithis's face.
It was going to work after all.

Progress
was slow at first. With so many machines attached by lines to the leading
construct, a moment's inattention could damage dozens of them. Nonetheless, by
midnight she'd done four trips. Another two hundred and forty constructs had
been transported safely to the new field. On each return trip she ferried back
supplies brought from the main camp at Gospett.

A day
later the work had become routine. The best part of three hundred constructs
could be moved in a day. Of the eleven thousand that had come through the gate,
about six thousand had come to Snizort, though five hundred had been damaged in
battle and must be abandoned. Vithis did this with great reluctance — the
Aachim did not care for their constructs to be examined by allies or foes — but
could do no more than break the controlling mechanisms to disable them.

Tiaan
was too worn out to sit up, much less eat, and the operation would take at
least seventeen more days, even if all went perfectly. Despite the helm, she
did not see how she was going to survive it.

Withis
kept Minis away, for which Tiaan was thankful. He was a problem that had no
solution.

The
following morning, Thyzzea replaced Vithis in the construct and for ten days
all went well. On the morning of the eleventh, Tiaan woke so weak that she
could hardly get out of bed. She felt eroded inside. The channelled power seemed
to be eating away at her, as it had in Kalissin. She had lost all the weight
gained in Nyriandiol, and more.

It
made no difference to Vithis. She was carried to the construct and strapped
into her seat. Other straps held her upright when she was too weary to do that
for herself. Another three hundred constructs were hauled to safety that day,
and so it went on, day after, day, until only three hundred or so remained.
Most of these belonged to Clan Elienor, left to the last as always.

Despite
her exhaustion, Tiaan had forced herself to practise walking in her room every
night. After a week she could manage a hundred steps unaided. After two weeks
it was a thousand.

Vithis
had not mentioned flight again, which bothered her. If he'd dispatched one of
the first constructs back to Tirthrax then, travelling day and night, it could
have reached there days ago. Malien would reveal the secret and Tiaan would be
dispensable. Worse than that: it would be dangerous to allow her to live.

It
was time to put her plan into effect. Tiaan had learned much about the Art over
the past weeks. Normally, in any of the Secret Arts, power was used as
sparingly as possible. That was, she mused, like an archer only being allowed
to shoot one arrow a week. After drawing on multiple fields for sixteen hours a
day, Tiaan had more experience than most mancers would have gained in a
lifetime.

Unfortunately,
she lacked the background and knowledge to make sense of it. She had tried to
fit it into the geomantic framework Gilhaelith had begun to teach her in
Nyriandiol, but he had not taken her far enough. That did not matter here,
where there were any number of Aachim mancers to guide her, and healers to pick
her up when she fell. But on her own it would be a different matter.

She
had to act now, ready or not. Once the last construct was moved, they would
make sure she never had contact with the amplimet again.

Tiaan
was woken by a commotion outside. The hanging door was thrust open and someone
tall entered, carrying a lantern.

'Tiaan!'
he whispered urgently.

It
was Minis, and she was wearing only a flimsy sleeping gown. Her heart began to
crash around in her chest. Tiaan pulled the covers up to her neck.

'What
do you want, Minis?' she said coldly.

He
fell to his knees. "To say how much I have wronged you, and to beg for
your forgiveness. No more.'

She
turned her face to the wall of the tent. 'You led me on. You made promises and
refused to keep them. From the very beginning you used me, Minis. Everything
you said to me was a lie. The Aachim must have been building constructs for a
decade before you contacted me, so innocently. So accidentally'.

He
reached for her. She thrust both hands under the covers and he stopped dead.

'I
did break my promise, Tiaan, and I've never stopped regretting it. But I was
used as much as you were.'

'It's
all just words, Minis,' she said, not looking at him. She dared not, for
despite all her vows, all her fury, he still moved her. 'Life has taught me
that words can mean nothing, or anything' I put my faith in actions, and by
yours are you revealed, as are all the Aachim.1

'Please
believe me, Tiaan. Don't judge me by the deceits of others. I never lied to
you.'

'Prove
it!' she hissed, but before Minis could respond she heard Vithis roaring his
name. Minis went through the flap without another word.

Tiaan
pulled on her clothes and readied herself for her last day. Thyzzea would
accompany her, as usual, but there had been no let-up in the Aachim's
vigilance. The construct behind her always carried two guards armed with
crossbows, as well as a mancer monitoring everything she did with the field,
and they never took their eyes off her.

The
day went badly, ror Tiaan could not stop thinking about what must happen
tomorrow. Halfway though the first trip she lost the fields and the construct
thumped into the ground so hard that it jarred her teeth. Behind her, all the others
did the same.

'What'ss
the matter?' Thyzzea asked anxiously.

'I
can't see it,' Tiaan gasped. 'My brain feels like porridge.'

'What's
porridge?'

'Never
mind.'

Vithis
came running from one of the towed constructs and sprang onto the side of her
machine. So he was still watching her. 'Is there a problem?'

'I've
lost the fields.'

'Minis
is behind this, isn't he?'

She
did not answer.

'I'll
make sure he doesn't bother you again!' Vithis sprang down.

The
delay was only a short one, but twice more she lost the fields, and on the
second trip three constructs crashed into each other and were damaged so badly
that they had to be left behind. Vithis was livid, and with all the delays they
did not complete the return journey until sunrise the following day. There were
still more than two hundred constructs to move.

Tiaan
was so exhausted that she kept sagging against her restraints. Thyzzea carried
her back to their tent, where Tiaan lay on her mattress, unable to sleep. Weird
images kept flashing through her mind, objects she knew belonged in
higher-dimensional space, though she was incapable of comprehending them.
Finally, as dinner was being served outside, she drifted into sleep.

She
woke to find Vithis sitting by her side. Tiaan started and moved away under the
covers.

'Don't
be afraid,' he said. 'I'm not that kind of man.'

'I
know what kind of man you are. What do you want?'

'Have
you remembered anything else about my lost people?'

She
thought before answering. Her memories were clear now, though she was not sure
what they meant. 'I heard cries. Some seemed to be death cries'She looked him
in the eyes. I'm sorry," she said, and was. Her weakness was that she
empathised with his grief, despite the way he'd used her. There were cries of
agony, as if people were being turned inside out.' He flinched. She went on
slowly. 'And people wailing that they were lost. Others calling to one another,
as if they were trying to collect together.'