Geomancer (Well of Echoes) (49 page)

Could she tap into the field and direct it against her captors, to disable or kill them all at the same time? Probably not. It was hard to take that kind of power from the weak field. For what she required, only geomancy would do, but Tiaan was afraid of that Art. Her failure in the ice sphere had taught her how little she knew about it, and how deadly it was.

While she was thus preoccupied, her fingers had been working of their own volition, testing patterns and permutations randomly. She began to pick up a field. At least, she thought it was a field, though like none she’d ever seen before. It looked like two red suns whirling around each other in a halo of orange mist, beautiful but alien. Tiaan assessed the mind-image. Was there anything she could do with it? The red orbs looked dangerous; she dared not go near them. What about the mist? There seemed a little power in it.

The mist drifted, spread and closed around her, dark and menacing. Tiaan was trapped in orange fog. A hot surge went through her and the amplimet let out a brilliant violet flare. One of the lyrinx yelped. The others shielded their eyes. Her head was reverberating. She slid sideways to the floor, hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound. Her head hit the ice, the helm flew off and the flare went out.

Ryll picked her up. Water was dripping from the roof. As Tiaan took her hands away from her ears, her sight came back. The lyrinx, eyes watering, looked around in confusion. Tiaan made a mental note of that weakness. The amplimet was gently glowing as before. Tiaan had no idea what force she had tapped.

‘Well, Besant,’ said Ryll. ‘Do you believe me now?’

Besant, the large female with the scarred crest, twitched her face muscles. Was she reluctant to make the concession to a deformed, unmated male?

‘You have done well, Ryll,’ she said in a deep voice. It took some time for Tiaan to recognise it as the common speech, so thick was her accent. ‘The device has tapped an unknown source of power. The human may teach us much. I will send her to Kalissin.’

‘And me?’ Ryll said, too eagerly. ‘Is this my chance? Shall I be mated now?’

‘This could improve your desirability. I give you leave to seek a mate, though I doubt very much if a mate would chose
you
.’

They allowed Tiaan back her possessions, except for the amplimet, knife and crossbow. She was returned to her room, fed several times on charred strips of bear meat and water, and taken outside occasionally by Ryll to use a pit dug in the snow. Once she went by a pair of lyrinx squatting over a small, mushroom-shaped object, their hands shaping the air around it.

‘What are they doing?’ she asked.

‘Watching,’ said Ryll, and would say no more.

Tiaan expected crystal dreams that first night, and hoped they might be of her lost lover. Her dreams turned out to be horrors unlike anything she had ever imagined. She dreamed that her room was full of cages, each containing a warped travesty of the wild creatures she knew.

A misty orange field swirled around the cages, squeezing the creatures in whirlpool coils. They shrieked in agony, blood dripped from mouths and other orifices, and one by one they began to change. Flesh and bones deformed, skin and sinews stretched and crackled. Teeth shattered and fell from gaping mouths, to be replaced by new ones as sharp as the teeth of sharks.

Soon those creatures that survived were transformed into staring monsters. Their eyes were fixed on her. Tiaan paced back and forth all night to keep the dreams away.

The following night she also dreamed, but these were withdrawal dreams, a desperate craving that grew worse with every hour she was parted from the amplimet. Her body was wracked with aches and longings. She thought of nothing all day but how she might recover the crystal, and dreamed of nothing all night. That was the worst thing about withdrawal – it took so long to get over. Some people never did.

‘What is the matter?’ Ryll asked her on the second afternoon, when she lay shaking on her skin, tormented by her longing. ‘Are you ill?’

Tiaan was in no state to think up a cover story. ‘I must have the crystal,’ she whispered. ‘Please. I cannot bear to be without it.’

‘Ah!’ he said, and went out.

Only later did Tiaan realise that she had given him the perfect hold over her.

F
ollowing Ullii’s directions the searchers went straight to the last of the caves. Irisis was at their head. A pair of soldiers approached the bearskin door, spears at the ready. Irisis, with recklessness born of despair, thrust past, tore down the skin and leapt inside. The cave was empty.

‘She’s gone!’ Irisis said bitterly.

‘And within hours.’ Arple had uncovered red coals from the ashes.

‘Now do you see the worth of your seeker,’ said Nish from the entrance, ‘and give her credit for what she’s done?’

‘Indeed,’ replied the perquisitor. ‘She’s proven her worth. We’ll find many uses for her in the war, I’ll be bound.’

As Irisis came out, Ullii shivered and drew closer to her friends. With a harsh laugh Jal-Nish turned away, ordering a search of all the caves and signalling down to the clankers to recall the other squads.

Fresh prints led up the mountain. The climbers followed them, while far below the clankers headed up the valley. The forces rejoined late in the afternoon.

It began to snow that evening. They tried to follow the tracks with flares, but after dark lost them in the deepening snow. Making camp in the shelter of a bluff, they had a full night’s sleep for the first time in many days. In the morning Ullii was again called upon. She pointed more south now, and was required to show the way many times in the next days, for they saw not a single track in that time.

The snow was heavy going and the clankers, with their broad footplates installed, could make no better time than a slow march. They were plagued with freezing oil and breakdowns, which Nish and Tuniz were called upon to fix. Nish discovered just how much he loathed his trade. He always ended up with bloody, frozen fingers and his father’s curses ringing in his ears. Every operation was ten times as difficult as it had been in the workshop. Even unflappable Tuniz was heard to swear on occasion.

It was not windy, but intensely cold, especially in the clear nights. On the third afternoon a blizzard blasted down on them. They could not move at all the following day, and the fifth brought wind to whirl the fresh snow up into clouds. They struggled on, slower and slower, and finally the clankers shuddered to a stop.

‘What is it?’ screamed Jal-Nish. He had to scream to be heard over the wind. Everyone gathered behind the clankers.

‘Field’s too weak,’ said Simmo from the second machine. ‘We’ve been running on the flywheels for the last quarter-hour but they’ve run down.’

‘Does that mean we’re stuck here? Incompetent fools!’

‘There’s another node ahead, surr, and it’s a strong one, but we’re having trouble drawing from its field. It’s strange, perquisitor, surr. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘What do you mean?’

Simmo conferred with the other operators before answering. ‘Seems to be a double node. We’ve never come across such a thing before. We can’t work it out.’

‘Then get the artisan to show you. That’s what’s she’s here for. Artisan Irisis, get over here.’

Irisis froze, her guts churning. This was it. She was going to be exposed. She would never fool Jal-Nish. Looking despairingly around the circle of pinched faces, she caught Nish’s eyes on her. He was stricken.

She assumed her famous arrogant expression. At least she would go down fighting, and when the worst did happen she would take the perquisitor with her. Clutching her pliance, Irisis strode forward.

‘I expect I’ll have to modify the controllers,’ she said.

‘How long will that take?’

‘As long as it takes, surr. We can’t take risks up here.’

‘Get on with it.’

Climbing into the clanker, Irisis began to pull the controller apart. Ky-Ara crouched beside her, watching her every move as if she was operating on his own child. He whimpered as she removed each controller arm. It was hard to concentrate.

‘Ky-Ara,’ she said pleasantly, ‘would you be so kind as to bring the other controllers here?’

He went reluctantly, with many a backward glance from those liquid eyes.

‘Nish!’ Irisis called. Nish came out of the huddle. ‘Stand guard on the hatch and don’t let anyone through.’

‘What about Ky-Ara?’

‘Especially not that whimpering fool. Or your father.’

Ullii came trailing up behind Nish, thrust her head under his arm and peered in through her goggles. Nish indicated her with an inclination of the head.

‘Come in, Ullii!’ snapped Irisis. ‘But don’t say anything, all right?’

Creeping in, Ullii sat down in her seat.

Irisis worked steadily for an hour or so, visualising the strange double node with her pliance and trying to tune Ky-Ara’s controller to the field. In spite of the cold she began to sweat. The double node was the strangest she’d ever encountered, a large glowing globe and a smaller one, orbiting each other. Orange mist whirled around and between the two, flowing from one to the other and emitting occasional bright pulses. It disturbed her, and when she tried to visualise the associated field her brain hurt, the way her nose did when she caught a breath of pitch smoke. There was something noxious about this field. It fluctuated from weak to strong more quickly than her defences could cope.

Irisis pulled away, her heart pounding. Something was very wrong. Even if she could tune the controllers to the node, she was afraid what would happen when she did.

Someone rapped on the back hatch. ‘What’s going on?’ came Jal-Nish’s cry.

‘Don’t let him in, Nish.’

The hatch was jerked open. ‘Well, artisan?’

‘It’s proving unexpectedly difficult.’

‘Why?’ There was a dangerous glint in Jal-Nish’s eye.

‘I’ve never worked with a double node before and I don’t think anyone else has either. If I get it wrong it may burn out the hedron and the clanker will be stuck here for the winter.’

‘Bah! Fyn-Mah always said you were a fraud.’

After some hours Irisis had worked out how to tune the controller to the field, though she had no idea if it would be able to cope with the dangerous fluctuations in intensity. She could not do the test herself, since she lacked the ability to draw power from the field. Irisis planned to have Ky-Ara do it. It was the only way she could think of to escape her fate. But if he refused …

Ky-Ara was eager to help. He would have agreed to anything to get her out of his seat. Irisis had been counting on that. It was the reason she had done his controller first. The other operators were tougher.

She was sitting beside Ky-Ara, explaining what to do, when Jal-Nish heaved Nish out of the way and pushed through to the front of the clanker.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he snapped.

‘I …’ A shiver went up her spine. ‘I’m showing Ky-Ara how to carry out the test.’

‘Be damned! That’s artisan’s work. I wouldn’t risk an operator on it if I had a dozen to spare.’

‘But he’s the one …’ she began desperately.

‘Never! I can lose you, if it goes wrong. I can’t lose him.’

Irisis swallowed. ‘Then I’ll need him to help.’

‘You’ll do it on your own, artisan. What’s the problem? You were acting crafter a few weeks ago. You must have done this a thousand times.’

‘It’s just … not this kind of node,’ she said, almost inaudibly. Irisis glanced at Nish as if for help, but he was looking down, picking ice off his boots. Well, this is it, she thought. My nightmare has come at last. If I
could
do it, I’d pull so much power from the field that it would blow the clanker apart and anthracise everyone in it. The apocalypse had a violent appeal, but it was just a dream.

‘Very well,’ she went on. ‘Everyone must stand well back, in case something goes wrong. I don’t think this kind of node has ever been used before.’

‘Just get it done,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘
If you can
.’

Was this a malicious game, she thought, to humiliate her in front of everyone? It was just the kind of revenge the perquisitor would go for.

Jal-Nish took her advice and moved a long way from the clanker. The querist remained where she was. Did she do that to mock Irisis?

‘You’d better go too,’ Irisis said to Ullii and Nish. Nish did not meet her eyes, as if trying to distance himself from the humiliation to come. She could not blame him.

He stayed, though, and Ullii did too, which was surprising. Or perhaps Ullii knew there was no danger at all. Irisis began, using the controller to sense out the fluctuating field. It was so much stronger than using her pliance. It had to be, to drive the massive weight of a clanker.

Allowing those baleful globes to orbit freely in her mind, but keeping well away, Irisis concentrated on the spirals of mist that whirled between them. She was searching for one that was strong but not too strong. Her missing talent
might
come back.

She passed by one, then a second, a third. The eyes of Nish and Ullii never left her face. Irisis imagined what was to come. Utter humiliation. Jal-Nish would not dispose of her here – her abilities could be needed on the way home – but once back at the manufactory he would make a public spectacle of her. Chroniclers and tellers would be imported from a hundred leagues to spread the tale of her downfall and to describe, in loving detail, her fitting punishment.