Geomancer

'How far?'

'I don't know.'

'Can you see Tiaan?'

'Crystal is too bright.'

'Well, when was it here?' Jal-Nish snapped.

She went blank for some time. 'It was here for days.'

'She could not have moved in the great storm,' said Gi-Had. 'Or immediately after. Not until last night at the earliest.'

'She must be close by,' cried Jal-Nish. 'Spread out. Look for her.'

'She did a great magic here,' said Ullii.

'Did she now?' Jal-Nish breathed. He exchanged glances with Fyn-Mah, and Irisis knew it had to do with the event of yesterday. 'I did not know she had any. What kind of magic, I wonder?'

Ullii had no idea. 'The crystal glows by itself.'

'What do you mean?' Fyn-Mah drew close to the seeker.

'It shines all the time now. It is the brightest thing in my lattice.'

Again that exchange of glances. 'Tell us everything about this crystal,' said the perquisitor.

Ullii shaped it with her hands. 'There is a black star in either end, and black needles down the centre. A little spark runs along them.'

Jal-Nish drew Fyn-Mah away and Irisis did not hear what was said next, though they seemed to be excited and disturbed. To Irisis, born with a hedron in her hand, it was fascinating. It offered hope. Irisis knew her talent was not gone, just buried where she could not find it. She had lost confidence in herself, that fourth birthday, and unless she recovered it she would always be a fraud.

This crystal was more powerful than any Irisis had ever heard of. If she had it, she would believe in herself. To be a true artisan mattered more than anything in the world. What she would not give, or do, for that!

A soldier came running down the slope. 'Fresh tracks, surr! One lyrinx, one human with a light tread.'

'Whatever magic Tiaan used,' said Irisis, 'it didn't get her away from the enemy.'

'Maybe the seeker will prove useful after all,' said Jal-Nish. 'Move!'

They scrambled into the machines. The mechanical feet pounded away, the soldiers following on the trodden snow.

'Why are we going so slowly?' Nish said to himself after they had been crawling for a good while.

Irisis touched her pliance and said, 'The field is weak here.'

'Why?'

'Perhaps something interferes with it.'

He turned the other way. Ullii, who wriggled and squirmed as much as any two-year-old, had taken off everything except the spider-silk underwear, which fitted her like another skin. Resting her head on Irisis's shoulder, she fell asleep.

Nish's eyes never left the seeker. They ran up and down her curves, the small, pointed breasts, the curvy hips, the shadowed area between.

'Haven't you anything better to do?' Irisis said coldly. 'You're such a pervert, Nish.'

He flushed, looked away, then sat up at shouts outside. The clanker ground to a halt, shuddering on its eight legs. Nish got out, walking awkwardly. Irisis followed, pulling the hatch down behind her.

They had come up a steep slope winding around the side of a mountain. All around towered higher peaks, with sheer faces of dark rock mostly bare of snow. They were much more forbidding than the range in which the manufactory was set.

'What's the matter?' She went to the front of the line.

Ahead, an outcropping layer of flinty rock formed a small cliff, impassible to the clankers. Nish's eye traced the outcrop around the mountain. It ran for at least a league.

'What about there?' Jal-Nish pointed.

The three operators went into a huddle, muttering to one another, then broke up, avoiding Jal-Nish's eye.

'Well, come on, damn it!' he roared.

'It's not possible, perquisitor,' Gi-Had said quietly.

'Then why don't they say so?'

'It's a… it's the way of their culture; if you force them to an answer they'll say yes because they don't like to be the bearer of bad news. But it still won't get us up there.'

'Damn fool culture! If they'd told me that in the first place…'

'They are telling you, but you're not listening.'

'You tell me, then! Where?'

Gi-Had rubbed his jaw. 'Perhaps over there.' He indicated behind them, where the outcrop was notched. 'Try there!' he called.

The operators moved their machines backwards, which looked even more ridiculous than the clankers' forward motion. With their overlapping, curving plates of armour they were like eight-legged armadillos. Down the beaten track of their passage they thudded, then turned diagonally up the slope.

Nish slogged through the snow up to the notch. He was sweating by the time he reached it.

'I don't know,' Gi-Had frowned. 'It'll be a pinch, even if we can get up to the gap. The first bit's too steep, and with the weak field here…'

'What if we built a ramp of snow along here?' said Irisis.

'Good idea!'

It took hours, even with thirty soldiers labouring with their camp shovels, but finally a ramp of compacted snow was constructed up to the outcrop.

'It's still pretty steep,' said Gi-Had. 'What do you think?' he asked the huddled operators.

Again they muttered among themselves. 'What now?' Jal-Nish exclaimed, practically tearing his hair out. 'We'll lose Tiaan!' He pounded the side of the clanker. The operators turned as one, glaring. Ky-Ara clenched his fist. Jal-Nish snatched his hand away.

'What's it matter?' Nish interjected. 'The seeker can always find her again.'

'That's the attitude that got you in your present trouble, boy!' Jal-Nish grated. 'It matters, idiot son of mine, because the country beyond those peaks is a great plateau. You would have known that, had you bothered to consult a map before we left. Up there we can run them down. Not even a lyrinx has the endurance of a clanker, and it must stop to rest. But beyond the plateau lies Nyst, a land of crags, canyons and crevasses. A lyrinx can go places where no clanker, indeed no soldier, can follow. That's why we've got to catch them. If we don't do it in the next few days we never will. And if the beast finds his friends…' The perquisitor broke off, staring at the snow bank. His round chest, which merged indistinguishably into the swell of his belly, was heaving. 'Just get up there!' he spat at the operators.

They scurried back to their machines, the metal feet began to compress the snow and Simmo's clanker crept up the steep slope. Two-thirds of the way along, the front feet began to slip. They pounded on the spot, digging potholes beneath each foot, then stopped. Gi-Had gestured to Arple. The sergeant roared orders. Six soldiers trotted up behind, put their shoulders to the clanker, and Gi-Had shouted 'Go!'

Again the feet skidded. 'Heave!' cried Arple and the soldiers heaved. The clanker inched upwards. 'Heave! Heave!'

With each heave it went a little further but it did not take long to exhaust the soldiers. They held it while another gang took their place, and shortly they had it up and over, onto the gentler slope above.

'Next one won't be so easy,' Gi-Had observed laconically. 'It's pounded the track to ice.'

'Run a cable from the first,' said Tuniz the artificer, scratching her spiky head. 'It can pull the others up.'

'Don't know about that,' said Gi-Had, but gave the orders.

The two clankers started. The first was going slowly, buried to the belly in soft snow. Ky-Ara's machine began to catch up to the first as it approached the icy section. The rope sagged down to the ground.

'Shit!' cried Gi-Had, waving his arms at the operator. 'Slow down! You've got to keep the rope taut.'

Ky-Ara's clanker hit the icy patch, travelling fast. The legs thrashed, sending stinging chips of ice everywhere, but could not get a purchase. The machine began to slide backwards.

'Hold it!' roared Jal-Nish.

Two soldiers ran and put their shoulders to the rear of the machine. Arple screamed, 'Get back! No! No! Get out of the way!'

The soldiers looked from one to the other, not knowing which order to obey.

'Jump clear!' roared Arple, but it was too late. The tow rope twanged tight and as smoothly as a pendulum the clanker slid sideways across the ramp, sweeping one soldier off the edge. The other tripped and the pounding metal feet went over him. He gave a single horrible scream. The clanker toppled off the edge of the ramp, hanging from the cable, to thump into the steep slope. Ky-Ara shrieked in anguish, the sound like a saw blade on glass.