The air-floater dropped out of the dark beside Irisis. They flopped over the side and it shot up and away.
Fifty-one
Gilhaelith sent a messenger down to Oellyll, carrying another plea to the matriarch, for any world maps the lyrinx had made. Gyrull came up to see him that afternoon and again consented so readily to help that he wondered if she had an ulterior motive. But then, he knew she had an interest in his work.
'In our early days on Santhenar,' Gyrull said, 'before the war began, our best fliers crisscrossed the globe, mapping it from the air. We wanted to see if there were other lands we could go to, instead of fighting for a piece of Lauralin.'
'Did they find any?'
'Several. A small continent a long way to the west closely resembles the one marked on the far southern side of your geomantic globe. There are also a series of lands, well above the equator, that are wrongly depicted on your globe.'
No wonder it had let him down before. 'Do human peoples live there?'
'I don't know, Tetrarch. Those lands were so far away that only our best fliers could reach them, and they did not stay long. Such lands were of little interest to us, for the non-fliers, most of our population, would have had to sail there.' Jags flashed across her breast plates at the thought. 'The risk of sailing all that way was too great.' Her wings stirred in agitation. 'Better to die fighting for Meldorin and Lauralin than drown like dogs in the endless ocean. Our fliers did, however, make careful charts of the lands. I'll have a set of copies sent up.'
'What about nodes and fields?'
We know where the most powerful ones lie, on land and undersea. We had to, to be able to fly to unknown lands. You may also see those charts. In return, you will permit me one use of your geomantic globe, should I request it.'
that night, four lyrinx carried up a great many rolled maps. Each was as large as a good-sized carpet, and each was drawn in meticulous detail in coloured ink on the softest leather Gilhaelith had ever seen. He unrolled the first map and recoiled. On the right-hand side, quite distinctly, was a navel, and above it a pair of large, dark nipples. It was made from human skin, evidently from women and several dozen skins had gone into each chart.
Once he got used to the idea, though, he discovered what a marvel the maps were. They showed the kind of detail that could only be observed from the air. Even with just a fraction of that information, the usefulness of his globe would be magnified a hundredfold.
Changing his world model, under the glass, was the most exquisitely painstaking work Gilhaelith had ever done. The lands and seas of the geomantic globe were marked so precisely that he required three pairs of lenses, mounted in a sliding frame, to resolve their finest structure. Once he had focussed on a particular point, Gilhaelith used the Art to change it, in three dimensions, to what was on the charts. Sometimes it took an hour to make one tiny alteration, for he might have to raise mountains, reduce highlands, correct the course of rivers or alter the shape of the coast. Hundreds of such modifications had to be made, not to mention creating an entire new continent in the northern hemisphere, complete with peninsulas, gulfs and archipelagos, and many islands large and small.
Immersed in this craftsmanship, it was almost possible to forget the slow decay of his mental faculties. Almost possible, save that each new task took longer and required more concentration. By evening he felt like a mat that had been hung over a rope and beaten. And the work took its toll. The slow leakage of power from those fragments of phantom crystal was steadily damaging him. The difference was not noticeable at the end of one day, or even a week, but after working on the globe for a month it was clear what he'd lost. His thoughts were sluggish and disconnected. His ability to concentrate, once effortless, now required the most anguished feats of willpower, while parts of the landscaping spell, which formerly he could have used without thinking, often faded from his mind midway and had to be done over and over again.
He knew Gyrull had set up hidden zygnadrs to spy on him but Gilhaelith pretended they weren't there. He'd known he would be watched. Besides, the geomantic globe was just a tool — it was what he planned to do with it that was important, and she couldn't know that.
It took two months of work, so all-consuming that Gilhaelith could do nothing else, before the globe was as true as he could make it. Finally, one rainy mid-autumn afternoon, he stood up, rubbing an aching neck, and allowed the globe to rotate on its cushion of freezing mist. It looked so real that he could have been seeing Santhenar from the void. Perhaps, in some strange duality, it was real — a perfect microcosm of the world, and a device he could use to probe its secrets, if he could probe and repair himself first.
Unfortunately it no longer depicted all the nodes he knew of, to say nothing of their individual natures. Sighing, he bent his head to the new task. He could never put all the known nodes on his globe; it would be the work of lifetimes. However, Gilhaelith did not think that would be required. As long as the greatest nodes were there, the controlling ones (now where had that thought come from?), the completed globe should enable him to reach a new understanding of the world.
Gilhaelith went back to the human-skin node charts. He had Tyal and another servant unroll them for him; he'd become squeamish about touching human leather lately. What if Gyrull killed him and made a map out of his skin? Disgusting!
He began to remove the existing nodes from the world surface and place them in a new layer, underneath the glass, that would allow him to include the nature of each node. For this task, he suspended the globe on its air cushion in a greentinged nickel bowl on a platform of turned rosewood. Near the outer edge of the platform a series of concentric, graduated brass rings was inlaid into the timber. Slender pointers could be slid around inner rings to make the detailed measurements he required. Weeks went by, but finally the task was done. Gilhaelith stood back, allowed the globe to rotate and brought a crystal close to the glass surface. A series of nodes lit up. The geo-mantic globe was as perfect a model of Santhenar as any man could make. It was the culmination of his life's work. Gilhaelith felt sure that, with it, he could finally understand how the world worked, and that would give him the key to the power of the nodes, if he wanted it. It should not take long now, if his strength held out and the accumulating mental damage did not prevent him.
'Masterly work, Tetrarch,' said Gyrull, behind him.
Gilhaelith spun around, seized by a sudden, blind panic. 'You've come for my globe,' he cried, trying to think of a way out and knowing there was none.
'If we wanted such a device we would make it ourselves,' she said with a curl of her leathery lip. 'But you can help me another way, Tetrarch. Indeed, you must, for you owe me.'
'The debt was discharged!' He put on an arrogant air to conceal his nervousness.
'On the contrary, it continues to accumulate. For your servants, the food and drink we provide you and them, and for your every other request that I have accommodated unquestioningly.'
'What do you want?'
'It's no great favour,' she said blandly. 'Just a series of measurements of the field, from a number of points overlooking the city.'
'You want me to go outside Alcifer? Didn't you say there are void beasts in the forests?' That sounded cowardly, but it wasn't. Having come so far, he grudged every moment spent away from his work. And having little time left, he couldn't afford to waste a minute.