Geomancer

'No,' he cried. 'I don't know anything about that.'

She fixed him with her dark eyes, saying nothing. It was worse than her interrogation.

'I've been a fool,' he whispered. It was the only thing he could think of to say. 'An utter fool. I deserve the front-lines.' He hoped the admission would gain him some credit.

'You'll probably get them. Your father will be bitterly hurt by this stupidity, Cryl-Nish. If it is stupidity, and not collaborating with the enemy.'

'I would never do that, I swear it!'

'I'll leave that to your father. He can tell a liar just by looking at him.' She sighed. 'He had such hopes for you.'

'Then why did he send me to this awful place?'

'A test. Not such a hard one, for someone expected to rise high. But you failed, and for the crudest of reasons.'

'What can I do?' he whispered. Nish was not a coward; nor was he excessively brave. The thought of the front-lines was a nightmare.

'There's only one thing can save you, if anything can. Find Tiaan and bring her back unharmed.'

'She's probably dead,' he said despairingly.

'Then so are you!'

'How will I find her?' he said to himself.

'A true prober would not ask. And you won't solve it on your back!'

He got up, holding his bruised organs. After wandering through the manufactory he ended up near the artisans' workshops. Irisis was glowering at her bench. He ducked away. If she had murdered Mul-Lym the apothek, as seemed probable, he wanted no further contact with her.

Trudging through the dormitories, lost in his miserable thoughts, Nish noticed that he was passing the door of Tiaan's room. He'd never seen inside. He lifted the latch. The room was tiny, considerably smaller than Irisis's. Tiaan probably had not cared.

All it contained was a narrow bed, a chair, table and lamp. A rod set in the wall at both ends would have served for hanging clothes, while a small chest sat at the end of the bed, though it was empty. All trace of Tiaan was gone. Not surprising; she had been taken to the breeding factory more than two weeks ago. What had happened to her possessions?

He found nothing in her work cubicle and her fellow workers did not know either. Nish went to the ratifier's office, where the manufactory account books were kept. She was out, but her assistant, a slender, beautiful young clerk with red lips and a roving eye, smiled at him. Nish gave him the thinnest smile in return. He did not want to antagonise the fellow, nor encourage him.

'Hello, I'm Wickie. How may I help you?' Wickie stood up, holding out his hand.

Nish shook it – a rather firm hand for a clerk – but had trouble disengaging himself afterwards. Wickie stood too close and it made him uncomfortable.

'I'm on business for the querist,' he said sharply.

Wickie stepped smartly backwards. 'Oh!'

'What happened to Artisan Tiaan's possessions?'

'I don't know, but it'll be in the book.' Wickie turned the pages of a ledger as long as his arm. 'Here we are. Old Joeyn the miner came for them a few days back.' He frowned. 'Must have been when I was at lunch. It's all written up and he's signed for them. See here – and the ratifier herself has initialled it.'

Nish spun the ledger around and checked the entry. 'Thank you very much.' He turned to go.

'Cryl-Nish?' said Wickie softly.

'Yes?'

'Your poor back must be troubling you. If you should need someone to rub salve into it…'

'Thank you! It's healing well, but if it did need attention, I'd go to the healer.'

'Ah!' said Wickie.

Nish knew Joeyn, though not well. The old man had visited Tiaan twice down in Tiksi. She might be at his cottage now, waiting for the weather to improve.

He ran for the village. The day remained windy and cold, but by the time he reached the lookout perspiration was stinging his back. The last part of the steep path was icy. Nish crept towards Joeyn's hut and hid behind a tree, watching the door. He could not see anything; the fence blocked his view. He eased through the gate and onto the veranda but heard nothing.

Pulling up the latch, he thrust the door open. The cottage was empty. The bed had been made, the table cleared. There were two plates on the hearth, two mugs, two spoons. A note on a slate by the door said Thank you, Joe. The writing could have been anyone's.

Nish scouted around the house for prints. There were none – the wind had scoured the loose snow away, exposing a crust from the last thaw. If Tiaan had been here, where could she have gone? He continued in a widening spiral that took him into the forest. There he found tracks leading to a tree, back toward the hut, and uphill in the direction of the mine and manufactory.

The tracks were the size of his own, but shallower and with a short stride. Someone light, and limping – one print seemed to favour the heel. Tiaan surely. Was she going to the mine or the manufactory? Nish followed her through the forest, several times losing the prints but always finding them again in the direction of the mine. As it was getting dark he emerged in the cleared area. There were no tracks on the crusted surface but she seemed to be heading toward the main adit.

At the entrance he stopped. Nish had never been down the mine. Moreover, he'd had, from birth, a tremendous fear of confined spaces. As a child, his sister and brothers had tormented him by bundling him up in the bedclothes. As soon as they closed over his head, panic had made him lash out.

Edging forward, he came to the recess occupied by Lex, the rotund day guard, who was shrugging into his coat.

'Hello,' Nish said tentatively, 'I'm Cryl-Nish Hlar…'

'I know!' Lex growled. 'Were it up to me, would have been a hundred lashes, not twenty! What do you want?'

Evidently more people liked Tiaan than he'd thought. 'I'm looking for Artisan Tiaan.'

Lex raised a gnarled fist. 'She's down in the… town, thanks to you.'

'She's escaped from the breeding factory.'

'Has she now?' Lex grinned from ear to ear. 'Glad I am to hear of it.'

'She came this way. In the last few hours, I think.'

'Haven't seen her,' said Lex. 'And if I had, I wouldn't tell you, you poxy little prick! Now get out of my way. I'm going home.'

Nish stood his ground, though it took an effort. 'I'm here in the service of the querist,' he said in a mild voice. No one would dare make that claim without authorisation. 'And if you won't cooperate…' There was no need to complete the threat.

'That's different,' Lex said hastily. 'I'll help Fyn-Mah in whatever way I can. I haven't seen Tiaan, though.'

'What about Joeyn?'

Lex looked up at the large sheet of slate at the back of his recess, on which were noted the miners' names, their hours, where they were working and the tally of ore each had produced. 'He came in at dawn.'

'And he's working on the fifth level.' Nish read it off the slate.

'Been there for months. Likes it by himself.'

Nish considered. 'If you were inside, working, could she have crept by without you noticing?'

'Could have, though I doubt it.'

'Where would she have gone?'

'Along to the bucket lifts. It's the only way down to the levels from here.'

Nish followed him to the great wheels, and every step into the darkness was a further descent into his nightmare. He had to force himself to go on. The roof seemed to be quivering above him, alive and malicious, aching to bury him.

Examining the lifts, Nish said, 'These would make rather a racket. Did you hear anything earlier on?'

'They go all the time. There's ninety miners in here. Usually it's someone going from one level to another. Or the ore buckets coming up.'

'But they're much heavier. And you'd hear the ore falling onto the pile.'

'True,' said Lex. 'Come to think of it, I did hear the miners' lift going an hour ago. It went all the way but no one came out.'