Each day was much the same. They began at dawn with a feed of bear meat – roasted for her, raw for him – then walked for as long as Tiaan could keep up. When she flagged they stopped, Tiaan ate, he put her on his back and kept going until dark, or after dark if the country permitted it. Finally they would stop for dinner and sleep in a snow cave, or under an overhang.
'I believe we've lost them,' Ryll said on the afternoon of the third day.
Tiaan rested behind a windswept boulder. The weather had been good these last days but an ominous bank of clouds was building in front of them. 'We'd better find shelter for the night, and tomorrow too.'
'I know a place.' The lyrinx indicated a steep-sided plateau in the distance.
She gauged the progress of the cloudbank. 'We won't make it.'
'There's nowhere else.'
Swinging her up on his shoulders, he began to run. Used to it by now, she merely clenched her thighs about his neck as if astride a horse and hung on, enduring the thumping ride. It was a race, and one they were going to lose. The overcast came in quickly, with chilly gusts and scattered snowflakes. Before they reached the base of the plateau, it was snowing hard.
He stopped at an outcrop of yellow rock, a broken cliff that went up further than she could see. 'Better find a cave,' Tiaan said.
Ryll swung her down and ranged along the base of the plateau, which rose abruptly from the plain. The incessant wind had blasted the rubble to dust and blown it away.
'What about this?' she shouted, for they were passing a series of small caves like a giant honeycomb in the rock.
'I know where I'm going.'
She felt a twinge of unease but the storm was on them and there was no choice but to follow him. After some minutes, when visibility was down to the distance she could have spat a plum seed, Ryll went sideways into a slot no wider than her shoulders. A pattern of clefts cut the rock into stacks. She tried to map the way but soon lost the sequence, for every turn looked the same. Finally the lyrinx slipped into an even narrower gap, squeezed though a tight space and stopped.
It was calm here, the snow falling vertically. Grasping a rope that she had not noticed, he gave a series of tugs.
'Get on my shoulders!'
She complied, now thoroughly alarmed. The rope jerked twice, Ryll took a firm grip and was drawn steadily up. The ground disappeared in the whirling snow, which was worse than looking down on the drop.
The rope stopped suddenly. The strain was showing on Ryll's face and the knotted arms began to tremble. He looked up anxiously. Without warning the rope jerked again, so hard that his hands slipped on the fibres. Ryll let out a truncated cry. Tiaan almost wet herself, but his grip held.
Near the top they stopped again. He was really straining now. Another jerk and she saw flat ground, the edge of the plateau. A gust blew them sideways. Tiaan was sure they were going to fall.
She screamed, and again as a lyrinx much bigger than Ryll snatched him off the rope. She went backwards off his shoulders but Ryll's hand found her ankle. As they were hauled in, she went close to dashing her brains out on the cliff edge.
Ryll stood her on her feet but had to hold her up, for Tiaan's knees had turned plastic. Three lyrinx stood in an arc in front of them. Two were much bigger than Ryll, the third about his size. All stood in a crouch, arms curved, fingers flexed. Their skin colours rippled in unison, in waves of brilliant yellow and red. Warning colours.
'Thlrrpith myrzhip?' said the middle one in an aggressive voice.
'Myrllishimirr, ptath vozzr!' Ryll sounded defensive.
'Sklizzipth moxor! Tcharr!'
The lyrinx to Tiaan's left sprang and caught her by the arms. Its other hand grabbed her legs and raised her in front of its face. It was either going to tear her limbs off or bite her head from her neck.
'Thlampetter rysh!' roared Ryll. 'Thlampetter rysh narrl.'
The lyrinx froze, looking from one of its fellows to the other, and then to Ryll.
'Rysh narrl?'
The pressure eased slightly.
Ryll pointed over the cliff into the snow, blasted about by wild gusts of wind. The creatures spoke among themselves, after which one remained behind while the others escorted Ryll away from the cliff, the lyrinx still carrying Tiaan like a forgotten parcel.
After a bitterly cold trek that lasted an hour and more, a curved ice wall loomed up in front of them. The leading lyrinx pulled aside a set of skin doors, hanging one after another, went on hands and knees through a tunnel, another skin door, and into a large room. It was domed, like a big igloo, and made of sawn ice or pressed blocks of snow. The room was empty apart from some skins on the floor. Several crawl passages ran off it. The first lyrinx went down the one to her left.
Her captor put Tiaan on her feet. A long conversation followed in their language. Tiaan had no idea what was going on, though clearly Ryll had been heading here all the time. He'd had no intention of taking her across the mountains. His code of honour was no more than a lie. She felt bitterly disappointed, though she was aware how foolish that was. The lyrinx were enemies.
'What do you want me for?' she said to Ryll.
'To help us with the war, of course.'
'But… you said you owed me a debt.'
'I repaid it when I saved you after the avalanche. I saved your life again on the ice when your own people would have killed you.'
She looked up at his fierce face. 'You never said that the debt had been repaid.'
'Can you not reckon up the weight of your obligations? We are at war, human!'
Tiaan felt like a fool. How could she have trusted him? 'You did not tell me!' she hissed, as if that was an excuse.
'I left you unwatched after I saved you the first time. You had the chance to escape and did not. After all I have done for you since, I count you deep in my obligation.'
'I will not betray my people,' she said uselessly, but he had gone.
Tiaan considered her position. His kind would always be enemies of humanity. What was he going to do to her now? He had not brought her all this way for nothing.
A large lyrinx came through the passage directly in front of her. It had a green crest and breast-shaped chest plates, by which Tiaan assumed it to be female. The crest was badly scarred, the first three peaks missing and the scars lacking pigment. Female lyrinx were the same size as males, or sometimes bigger, she noted. Others followed, including Ryll. Soon eight stood in front of her. Ryll spoke to the first in his own tongue. Two others, both with green crests, bore young. All had folded leathery wings, unlike Ryll's useless stumps.
'Bring out your devices, Tiaan,' said Ryll.
She shook her head. With one bound the lyrinx that had attacked her at the clifftop took her by the throat and shook her hard.
'Glynnch!' the large female said peremptorily.
The lyrinx dropped her on the floor. Ryll shook out the contents of her pack, handing Tiaan the globe, crystal and cap. As she met his eyes, resistance drained out of her.
She made sure that the wires had not been bent by the journey, and that the small crystal was secure in its setting. The globe was squashed on one side. Her fingers worked it back into shape, checking that the beads would slide freely in their orbits. The lyrinx did not take their eyes off her.
Tiaan lifted out the hedron, or amplimet as she now thought of it. It was warm to the touch; unusually so. Did that mean this place lay over a node? The crystal felt heavier than usual. Ryll caught her elbow, holding it up so they could all see it.
A spark leapt the gap between the central needles, flaring into a yellow light that made her flinch. It was much brighter than before. The lyrinx cried out as one.
'Thlampetter rysh!' said Ryll. 'The crystal key. And she is the keykeeper.'
He went into a huddle with the other lyrinx. There was a heated conversation with much arm-waving, thumping of each other's chests and lurid changes of skin colour and pattern. Ryll seemed unusually submissive – they struck his chest so hard that he rocked backwards, while his blows were mere taps, done with lowered head.