Alchymist

'Clan Elienor does,' Thyzzea said, 'and your actions are a deliberate insult to my father, our clan, and myself.' A red spot had appeared high on each cheek; one knee shook as she faced him. 'And to Tiaan, whom our Histories honour, despite your insulting behaviour.'

'You have not reached your majority and cannot offer guest right. How dare you lecture me!'

'My father put me in charge of his house when he went to battle. He gave me his seal and full authority to run his affairs.'

'Then let doom fall on his head! I shall tell you nothing. Attendant!'

As Tiaan was carried away, she was trying to work out what Vithis would do next. It was impossible to focus — she kept seeing Ghaenis's cheery face, and his gruesome death.

Now that his own efforts had failed so disastrously, Vithis would do whatever it took to force the secret of the thapter out of her. She had to resist him. Fortunately the construct, coated with tar, had burned hot. With luck the diamond hedrons and the carbon filaments connecting them to the amplimet had been consumed, and Vithis need never learn they had existed. Let him think the secret of flight lay in the amplimet and how Tiaan had used it. She could not resist torture but, after what Thyzzea had said, it seemed unlikely that the Aachim would permit that. On the other hand, after the death of Ghaenis, anything was possible.

Could she pretend not to understand the talent that enabled her to make the construct fly? Pretending stupidity was a dangerous course; they knew too much about her. But how else could she save herself?

They reached a tent guarded by four Aachim men. 'Let no one disturb us!' Vithis ordered.

The guards saluted and he went in. The attendant sat Tiaan in a metal chair and departed. Vithis walked round the room several times, pushing his fingers through his hair until it stood out like bristles. The hollows under his eyes had a yellow tinge.

He swallowed and turned to Tiaan. 'I have much to get done,' Vithis said softly, 'so let us get this over with as quickly as possible. How did you make the construct fly?'

Vithis, an exceptionally tall man, was standing so close that she had to tilt her head right back to look at him. A fly buzzed around the tent. The sun was going down but the heat and stillness remained oppressive.

'I don't know,' she lied. 'I've never understood how I used the amplimet, even after all the instruction the Aachim gave me. My talent just seemed to grow. Sometimes it was as if the crystal was instructing me.'

His face was as expressionless as metal; she could not judge his thoughts.

'You're lying,' he said without emphasis. 'You blindfolded everyone in the construct and did something to it to make it fly. What did you do?'

'Nothing,' Tiaan said as steadily as she could. She could not match his strength so she must give before him, then spring back. 'You can check Tirior's construct.'

'We will, once it's cool enough to get inside. If you didn't change it, how did you make it fly?'

Any construct can be made to fly if you have an amplimet,' she lied.

'How?' he roared in her face. And why did you blindfold everyone?'

'I didn't want anyone to see the amplimet. Look what it's done to Ghaenis, after you gave it to him. It causes trouble everywhere I go, and everyone who sees it wants to take it from me. It's mine!. Joeyn gave it to me with his dying breath. It's all I have left, since you forced Minis to break his promise to me. Since you killed little Haani.'

'I did not kill her!' he snapped, but it put him off balance. 'It was an accident and reparation has been paid. Neither could Minis break his promise, since he did not have the right to make such a commitment to you.'

Tiaan had to reinforce his false impression of her character. She tried to make her emotions as flighty as a hutterfly. 'I did everything for the love of Minis,' she said with a sweet, dreamy smile, like a smitten adolescent. Then she screeched, 'He promised me! He lied, and you forced him to it. I hate you'.'

Vithis took a step backwards. 'Minis does not lie.' He grimaced as if he'd just swallowed something nasty.

'He lied to me!' she shrieked. 'Liar, liar, liar!' You're overdoing it, she thought. Vithis is a clever, subtle man. Don't be too emotional.

'You show your true nature at last. The amplimet can never be yours, sad little creature that you are. You're unworthy of it.'

'No!' she shouted. 'It's mine.'

He shook her until she felt like vomiting fragments of red sausage all over him. 'You're no geomancer, Tiaan. You have a brilliant native talent, but not the intellect to control the amplimet.'

'I flew my thapter all the way from Tirthrax,' she muttered.

'The crystal would end up controlling you. For the last time, how did you make the construct fly?'

'I had to work the balance between the two crystals,' she said, making up a meaningless term. 'For flight, the balance between the amplimet and the smaller crystal, my hedron, must be just right. I set up a kind of .., oscillation in the field, but it grew stronger and stronger, as if it was feeding on itself. It hurt so much! I thought it was going to anthracise me. Like you did to poor Ghaenis.'

He ignored the barb. 'But it didn't; said Vithis. 'How did you overcome that?'

'The oscillation vanished and the field seemed to be pushing the other way, lifting the construct off the floor. Then …I can't explain it. I visualised the construct flying . . , something grew hot beneath the floor and up it went…'

"That's gibberish,' he said doubtfully. 'You're making it up.'

A drop of ice slid down her gullet. She was making it up, and if he was sure of it he would crucify her. Careful, she thought. Be more convincing in your stupidity. 'That's what happened, I swear it!' she rushed out. 'I didn't understand. The feeling of the crystal was soul-deep.' She said it with wide-eyed, gullible since:

'Soul-deep? What mumbo-jumbo is that?'

Someone was at the flap, beckoning. Vithis spoke briefly to the man, then returned. 'I have urgent business elsewhere. Before I go, answer me this. What did you mean, it was as if the crystal was instructing you?'

She seized on that. Back in the manufactory, one of the workers, a girl called Sannet, had heard voices all the time. It had been tiresome to work with her, for Sannet needed to consult her voices before undertaking the simplest task.

'I heard voices. In my head,' lied Tiaan, looking up at the Aachim stupidly.

He was disgusted. 'Have you always heard them?'

Could she reinforce his feeling that she was not completely sane? No, better to pretend that the amplimet had damaged her. 'Never!' Tiaan cried theatrically, 'Until I was given the amplimet by old Joeyn. He was my only friend.'

'I'm not surprised,' said Vithis.

'That very night I dreamed about Minis,' Tiaan went on. 'And afterwards. But.., it wasn't until I used the amplimet in the ice cave that the voices began.'

'Is that so?' he said softly. And did you hear them all the time after that?'

'Only after I used the crystal, and then only for a day or two. In the months it took to travel from Kalissin to Tirthrax, I didn't hear voices at all. There were no nodes by the great inland sea; the crystal could draw no power there.'

And after Tirthrax?'

'I've often heard the voices these last few months.'

'What do they tell you?' He sounded as if he believed her.

Tiaan did not relax. He was weighing everything she said, and if she made one inconsistent remark, one false step, he would have her.

Fifteen

Tiaan recalled something Vithis had said just after coming through the gate to Santhenar. Tirior had wanted the amplimet but he'd been afraid of it, saying that it was corrupt and dangerous. Could she play on that fear?