‘I know that,’ said Minis, ‘but atoning for her death is the only worthwhile thing I can do with my life.’
‘Then I won’t stand in your way. Thank you, Minis. Haani would have liked you.’
‘I’m sorry. So very, very sorry. I know how much you loved her.’ His big eyes searched her face, perhaps, even now, hoping against hope.
She could not say it. ‘I … I loved you too, Minis. Back then.’
‘Goodbye, Tiaan.’
He turned away, moving off the black rock into a gully filled with windblown salt, and away towards the centre of the Dry Sea.
Tiaan watched him till he was just a shadow and her cheeks were crusted with salt from evaporated tears. She wiped her face. When she looked again, she could no longer see Minis through the shimmering heat haze.
‘I can’t help but make the comparison,’ Malien said softly. ‘Flydd and Minis were both unmanned, the one by the torturer’s knife, the other by the impossible demands of his foster-father. Yet Flydd has risen above his maiming, while in the end, for Minis, the knife was the only way to escape.’
‘No trauma can bring down the truly great in spirit,’ said Tiaan.
‘Nor any privilege raise up the incurably weak.’
Behind them the Well boomed. ‘Come,’ Malien went on.
From above they saw it intersect the mid-sea ridge, where molten rock was squeezed out along a rift ten leagues long. Great booms and crackles reached them and the Well swelled again, now resembling a tornado whirling above and through the ground. It began to track south along the ridge.
Malien set off for the Foshorn with all the speed she could manage, to take the clan leaders home and then go on to Ashmode. Tiaan said not a word during that long journey. She was thinking about wrongs that must be put right; it seemed the one worthwhile thing she could do with her life, for Minis, and for all that might have been. But how?
Tiaan could no longer take pleasure in wielding her Art, as once she’d done for the sheer bliss of using her abilities to the limit. Employing her Art had destroyed too much, and too many people, and the little good that had come from it seemed outweighed by the evil. She felt that she’d been used, even controlled, for most of her life.
And she began to feel increasingly alone and estranged, even from Malien, Irisis and Nish. Tiaan began to think that there was only one way out – to use her geomancy one last time to do something that no one else ever would. One question remained. Did she have the courage?
SEVENTY-THREE
They returned, having been away almost four days, to discover air-floaters in all shapes, sizes and colours moored by the camp, and a myriad of brightly coloured tents surrounded by courtiers and attendants. The dignitaries included Governor Zaeff of Roros, who had already been on her way when the battle was won. Her thapter had carried the ten most important leaders from the east. Orgestre had summoned her more than a week ago, and at the moment of victory he had called in as many of the western governors and provincial leaders as could get here.
‘Orgestre has outflanked Flydd and the other moderates,’ panted Fyn-Mah, who had run to meet them at the thapter. ‘Come quickly, Malien. They’re taking the vote now.’
‘What about us?’ said Tiaan.
‘You won’t have a vote,’ Fyn-Mah said, ‘but you might as well be there.’
They hurried to the meeting tent but it was too late – a white-faced Flydd was just stumbling out. ‘We’ve lost,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Orgestre put his hard line to the vote and it won by thirty-two votes to three. I spoke against it for a day and a half, until I had no voice left, but it made no difference. The only votes against were mine, Yggur’s and Troist’s. The conclave has voted to eliminate the lyrinx.’
‘Three?’ said Irisis. ‘Did Klarm –?’
‘He wasn’t well enough to get to the conclave. And that’s not the worst of it. They took another vote, one I didn’t even see coming. They’ve agreed that the Council will be disbanded immediately. The power of the scrutators, such as we were, has been smashed.’
‘I suppose it had to happen,’ said Malien, ‘though it’s a tragedy it happened now.’
‘I now see that the Council was doomed, once Nennifer fell and I failed to maintain its networks of control. Klarm warned me, back then, but I couldn’t do that and fight the war as well. I didn’t think it would fall this quickly.’
‘That victory sowed the seeds of this defeat,’ said Irisis. ‘You showed that the old Council was hollow, so the instant it was no longer necessary …’
‘If only it had lasted a few days longer, I could have prevented this disastrous decision. The world will come to rue it. And I made a pledge that I can’t fulfil. Yggur hasn’t reproached me though I’d feel better if he had.’
‘You couldn’t have anticipated this,’ said Irisis.
‘Ghorr or Fusshte would have,’ said Flydd. ‘They’d have arrested Orgestre on a trumped-up charge, or had him quietly slain, to make sure he couldn’t have interfered. If I’d just put him out of the way for a week.’
‘So you’ve thought of a way to save the lyrinx?’ said Malien.
After a long pause he said, ‘Unfortunately, I haven’t.’ Flydd glanced at Tiaan. ‘And what the devil did you do with your map? I really can’t countenance this kind of insubordination, Tiaan. Orgestre was apoplectic. I thought his head was going to explode. And he accused me of taking the wretched thing. Me!’
What did it matter, Tiaan thought. The lack of the map hadn’t made one bit of difference.
‘The enemy’s defences are failing,’ crowed General Orgestre at a victory dinner hosted by Governor Zaeff that night, in a vast tent flown in from Lybing. ‘Their food and water are dwindling daily. All we have to do is hold them, and in a week they’ll be dead, without the loss of a single man. It will be my crowning achievement.’
‘If you order any more medals you’ll have to pin them to your backside,’ said Flydd.
Did Flydd feel he had nothing more to lose? Nish sniggered. Several others laughed. Klarm, who had been carried inside wrapped in blankets, heaved silently.
Orgestre swelled like a purple toad. ‘I could have you put in irons for that, Citizen Flydd,’ he said pointedly.
A murmur ran through the dignitaries, then Governor Zaeff spoke sharply to him. Irisis didn’t hear what was said, though clearly he’d gone too far.
‘What is Orgestre’s achievement?’ said Irisis quietly. ‘Troist fought all the military battles for him, and Flydd won against their Arts. The Grand Commander has never raised a sword in combat, and now the war has been won he wants praise for being the executioner?’
‘Truly the battle isn’t over until the last man falls,’ Orgestre was saying. ‘We’ve risen from the ashes of our funeral pyre to overcome our enemy. Never in all the Histories has there been such a victory.’
‘If it truly is a victory!’ said Yggur, standing up and meeting everyone’s eye, one by one, as if defying them to attempt anything against him. ‘But should any lyrinx survive elsewhere on Santhenar, or in the void from whence they came, you’ll create an enemy who will never forgive humanity, not in a thousand times a thousand years. Their vengeance will be as eternal as the stars, Grand Commander Orgestre. Your descendants will curse your name, you and all you others who’ve authorised this genocide, until humanity itself is no more.’
‘Don’t commit this dreadful atrocity. Find another way,’ said Gilhaelith.
The governors were scowling now, annoyed at the dissent spoiling their celebration dinner.
‘You brought them here,’ said Orgestre.
‘When circumstances change, an intelligent man changes his mind,’ said Gilhaelith.