Geomancer (Well of Echoes) (73 page)

Haani never asked for anything. She hardly spoke apart from please, thank you, yes and no, and gave the briefest possible response to Tiaan’s increasingly infrequent overtures. Tiaan felt guilty, but more and more she found the child a burden. Perhaps Haani realised that. When the boots were ready she said ‘Thank you!’ but continued wearing the old ones.

Tiaan’s second job was a gift for Minis, a ring of woven silver and gold made from the precious metal in Joeyn’s belt. First she formed the yellow metal, and the silver, into threads, tapping away with her little hammers for hours. She did not care how arduous the work was, or how long it took, as long as it was ready before she reached the mountain. It left less gold and silver than she would have liked, and that bothered her, for there was a long way to go. But she had to have a betrothal gift, even though every attempt to contact Minis had failed. More and more she felt that her journey was a fool’s errand.

After the second day Haani grew bored, for there was nothing she could do to help with the ring. Tiaan began to teach the child her letters, using the copy of Nunar’s treatise she had carried all this way. It was hard work. Haani did not see the point of reading and Tiaan discovered that as a teacher she had many inadequacies, not least of them being impatience. Haani proved to be a good listener though, picking up the language quickly. Each time she spoke the common language her accent was better and her command more fluent.

Accustomed to spending the daylight hours out of doors, the child was practically climbing the walls by the time they pulled up at the wharves of Flaha, a rambling, unattractive town built of grey timber.

Mount Tirthrax lay north of Flaha, another hundred and fifty leagues away. Tiaan had been prepared to spend what remained of the winter in Flaha, until she learned that, in this surprisingly well-populated land, it was possible to travel up the frozen rivers by iceboat if she left soon. The thaw was not far away.

‘You want to go to Itsipitsi?’ her informant asked. It was a good-sized town on the northern end of an extensive lake of the same name, little more than ten leagues from the great mountain. ‘That’s easy! There’s an iceboat every third day, if the weather is good, and the winds usually blow from the south at this time of year. You can do ten leagues a day in good conditions; some days fifteen. But be prepared for a blizzard, and then you might not go anywhere for a week.’

Blizzards did hit more than once, though not for long. In three weeks they were disembarking in Itsipitsi, a frontier town built of logs chinked with mud. The place was bigger than Tiaan had expected though it had a temporary look. Thousands of prospectors would appear in the thaw to pan the rivers for sapphires and zircons washed down from the mountains, but in the winter there were few people on the dismal, windblown streets.

Tiaan’s gold was exhausted but she still had silver enough to outfit them for the Great Mountains. Once at Tirthrax, she would be among the Aachim of Santhenar, those who had been brought here as slaves by Rulke the Charon, thousands of years ago, in the search for the Golden Flute. That was one of the Great Tales of the Histories.

It did not bother Tiaan that she was down to a few threads of silver by the time they were equipped and provisioned. The Aachim would provide. However, she thought of Joeyn every time she went to the belt. Poor Joeyn. His memory still brought tears to her eyes.

Of course, it would take time to find the Aachim. Tirthrax was enormous. But when she neared the mountain, surely a potent node, the amplimet would light up and she could call her lover. Minis would tell her where to go. If … if he was still alive. If he wasn’t, she would never find the way in. The food would run out and she would be stuck up a mountain, a week from any place where she could get more.

T
he range could not be seen from Itsipitsi, which lay in a valley with tall pines all around; however, Tiaan had caught glimpses from the iceboat. Even from this distance the Great Mountains were immense, a snow-and-ice-clad wall stretching from the eastern horizon to the west. Towering over all was the fang of Tirthrax, the highest peak on Santhenar. Highest on any of the Three Worlds, the Histories told. The repository of Tiaan’s dreams for half a year was only days away.

They left at dawn, skiing upriver on snow-covered ice. The first day was hard work, though the slope was slight. They had done no skiing since Ghysmel and were carrying an enormous quantity of dried rations, enough to do them for three weeks. Tiaan did not go hard, though she wanted to. She dared not risk injury so close to her goal. In truth, she could not wait to turn into her sleeping pouch, for since their arrival in Itsipitsi she had dreamed of her lover every night, and each time more passionately. They had not yet consummated their love, in her dreams, though his caresses had driven her to such heights of ecstasy that Tiaan could think of nothing else.

The amplimet had been dull ever since she’d left the hut of the three women, its spark visible only in darkness. Now, each night when she unwrapped it the glow was brighter; she could feel its potential growing as they approached Tirthrax. She had tried three times to reach Minis, and sensed that he was there, but could never find him.

The weather was good; after the first day they made excellent time on the ice. The mountains swelled before them, vaster and more forbidding than Tiaan’s most extravagant imaginings. Rivers of striped ice thrust forth between the peaks, and when the wind turned on the third morning she heard a monumental roaring and crashing. Once the glaciers had debouched onto an ice sheet covering all Mirrilladell, but it was long gone. Now they ended at precipices a thousand spans high, over which chunks of ice the size of hills would crack off and thunder to the plain. Below each icefall lay spreading mounds that waxed and waned with the seasons.

That afternoon they began to climb. The going now became extremely hard and they had to abandon the skis, which were too heavy to carry. Four days later they camped at the tree line and made a blazing fire, their last. There would be no wood from this point on. Tirthrax towered above them, so high that they had to crane their necks to see the tip, though it was mostly wreathed in cloud.

Tiaan was in her pouch by the fire the instant she finished her stew. Tomorrow they’d be on the mountain. She clutched the amplimet to her breast, its spark throbbing like her heartbeat. She always dreamed after using it, and having it near must enhance her dreams of Minis.

Haani was asleep. Tiaan could hear her gentle snores. But for Tiaan, neither sleep nor dreams would come. She had held back from using the amplimet, not wanting to arouse false hopes. And also, she was forced to admit to herself, because she wanted to present Minis with her triumph and see his reaction. Resigned to wakefulness, however, she put on the helm and began to work the globe.

It took a long time to find him. All she could see was smoke and bloody darkness. An hour must have gone by, Tiaan straining until her skull felt to be cracking apart, before finally there came the voice she had not heard for five months.

Tiaan! Can it be you?

‘Yesss!’ She exhaled a vast sigh. ‘It’s me, Minis, my love.’

I had given you up. We thought you must be dead
.

‘The amplimet is not strong enough to call you, except near nodes. I could not use it for months.’

Of course not. I should have realised
.

‘I’ve had trouble on the road, Minis. Terrible trouble. So many people have died …’

Then you’ve failed! Ah, Tiaan, they warned me that it was not possible
…

‘I have not let you down.’

What do you mean?
he said hopelessly.

She wished she could see his face but the image was cloudy tonight, the voice in her head faint and crackly.

‘I’ve done it!’ she exulted. ‘I’ve come five hundred leagues across Santhenar for you, Minis. I’m at the foot of Tirthrax now.’

Such a current passed through her that it made her black hair stand up on her head. She could sense his reaction in every nerve of her body.

Oh, Tiaan!
She could almost feel the tears welling in his eyes.
Tirthrax is the greatest city the Aachim ever built. More than a thousand years they spent carving its chambers into the heart of the mountain. There is no city like it. Show me
.

Forcing her headache away, she got out of the pouch to walk barefoot around the fire and back to where she could see the immense horn of the mountain. There was no cloud. A bloody, mottled moon shone clear and full on its snow-clad flanks, the faces of layered rock, the spire reaching up beyond the air.

A gasp, a cry of pain and joy together. The scene grew smoky, then cleared. Minis ran through a doorway, his cry vibrating in her head, loud enough to wake the child in the tent.

Tirior, Luxor, Vithis foster-father! Come see! Tiaan has brought the amplimet to the very feet of Tirthrax mountain. Look, look!

Dimly she saw faces that she had seen months ago, while trapped in that icy bubble outside the battle cavern. They crowded around, jostling each other in their excitement. There were unfamiliar faces too, and on every one she saw desperate hope, where for the past hundred years there had only been desperation.

Tiaan
, said Minis, pushing through,
listen carefully. We have little time left. Maybe days; at most weeks. Already many of us have died. Can you hear me, Tiaan?

‘I can hear you.’

We’re losing you. Tiaan, this is what you must do. You are days from the nearest entrance of Tirthrax, though not far from a hidden escape way. Go straight up the curving ridge you see before you. High up, the best part of a day’s climb, you will come to a sheer face. From where you are standing, it has the shape of a four-sided diamond. Do you see it?

‘I noted it as we camped today.’

At the lower point of the diamond you will encounter two folded bands of rock as red as rust, each a span or more thick. Between lies a thin yellow band. Follow them around the mountain in the direction of the double glacier; that would be to your right, I think?

‘Left,’ she said, though he gave no sign of having heard.

Go on some two thousand, one hundred steps. How tall are you, Tiaan?

‘Eighty-two hundreds of a span,’ she said. ‘But our span may be shorter than yours.’

Are you short or tall for a human woman?

‘Middling.’

Go on for two thousand, three hundred steps, more or less, and you will see a great faultline in the rocks that lifts the red and yellow bands up well above the ledge. Continue for another six hundred steps. You will come to what looks like a cave, very small. There may be water running from it. Crawl inside, and at the further end will be a blank wall. Smack your palm against the face, like this
. He tapped out a complex beat and made her practise it until it was perfect.

The slab should go up to let you in. If not, you must find a way to force it. You will be in the very base of Tirthrax. Keep crawling along the tunnel
. He described a series of passages to be negotiated and hidden doors to be opened.
Finally, take the stair up all the way to the top. It is very far. You will need to rest on the way. There you will find a gong made of glass. Strike it and the Aachim will come, if they have not already found you. Tell them your tale and give them the amplimet. Beware of using it inside Tirthrax. So close to the node, you risk your life, and the crystal, so do it only if you have no other choice. Is that clear, Tiaan?

‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘But …’

The Aachim will know what to do.

Tiaan explained to Haani what they were looking for. Minis’s directions proved beautifully clear, though the distances were shorter than he’d estimated. They found the fault, and the opening beyond it, after the middle of the day. Tiaan had to take off her pack to get in, the entrance being nearly blocked with ice. At the other end the wall was also crusted with ice and a thin layer of white, crystallised from seepage through the rocks. She slapped the face in the rhythm Minis had taught her. Nothing happened. She did it again. Still nothing. Frowning, Tiaan sat back.

‘Maybe the door is stuck,’ said Haani.

‘Of course! The edges are cemented up. Give me a hand, Haani.’

They tapped all around with pieces of rock, cracking the coating of ice and crystals off. The door still did not move and Tiaan had to clean out the gaps with a chisel from her toolkit. As soon as the last fragment fell, the door scraped up. Tiaan and Haani hurried through, in case it snapped down again. Light flared above them, coming from a glossy globe on the wall. Tiaan had not seen anything like it before, and it bothered her, though she had read about the clever Aachim in the Histories and knew their craft was greater than humankind’s.

As they were donning their packs, Haani said, ‘What’s that?’

It was a dull clanging, far away. ‘I don’t know,’ said Tiaan. ‘Perhaps an alarm. Well, they’ll certainly know we’re coming.’