The morning after his idea about the balloon, Nish was hauled into a meeting room to find every artificer and artisan in the manufactory there, as well as a short, plump woman Nish had never seen before. She had stringy hair, thinning on top; her clothes were distinctly shabby and not very clean. Nish wondered what a scrubwoman was doing at the meeting, for so he judged her to be. He prided himself on his own appearance.
‘This is Mechanician M’lainte,’ said the scrutator. ‘I sent a skeet for her and she came in the night.’
Nish gaped, and immediately wished he hadn’t, for Xervish Flydd was staring right at him. That this shabby creature could be the great mechanician was remarkable enough. That the scrutator had got her here so quickly was astounding. Even if a message had been sent to Tiksi by skeet straight away, it could hardly have found M’lainte before three in the morning. It was only eight now, so she must have travelled the road in the winter dark. That made her a lot braver than he was.
‘M’lainte,’ said the scrutator, ‘please speak.’
‘We are assembled to discuss an urgent new project,’ said the mechanician. She held up a large drawing, clearly based on the sketches Nish had done last night. ‘That is, to build an air floater, like an enormous child’s balloon. One large enough to carry people through the air for …’ She looked to Xervish.
‘A hundred leagues, if necessary.’
‘Just so! The balloon would be lifted by hot air from a stove.’ M’lainte indicated a box hanging just below the inverted teardrop of the balloon. Below that was suspended a wickerwork basket.
After a long silence, everyone spoke at once.
‘It can’t be done!’ A loud voice from the back overrode the others.
‘Oh?’ said the mechanician coolly. ‘Says who?’
‘I am Porthis, senior artificer.’
‘And noted jeremiah,’ Nish muttered to Irisis. Porthis had made his life miserable since Nish had arrived here.
‘What is your objection, Porthis?’ asked the mechanician.
‘The balloon would have to be enormous to lift such a weight. Maybe the height of the manufactory walls.’
‘That’s correct,’ said M’lainte.
‘The wind would tear it apart.’
‘It’s not fixed! The wind carries it. Besides, it would be built strongly.’ She showed a drawing of the reinforcing – fine cables and strategically placed braces. ‘If you judge this to be deficient, I challenge you to produce a better design.’
Porthis was not deflated. ‘The hot air will go cold and the balloon will fall, killing everyone in it.’
‘Thus the stove, which displaces the cooling air with more heat.’
‘Will set fire to the balloon.’
‘See here – I have marked in a protective flue.’
‘In that case it will be too heavy.’
‘Then, Senior Artificer Porthis, you will be in charge of making it lighter! And you will go on the first test flight, so make it strong and safe as well. Artificers all, I want to see a finished drawing for a trial balloon, tonight after dinner. I’ve already sent to Tiksi for materials. We’ll begin making it in the morning.’
Three days after Ullii had first seen Tiaan, she lost her.
‘I sensed her,’ she said to the scrutator and Nish in the afternoon. They were in a dim room and Ullii was not wearing mask or goggles. The scrutator liked to see her eyes when he spoke to her. ‘I saw her crystal more clearly than ever before. I could almost see her, and clawers, lots of them. They were flesh-forming. It was horrible! I saw a creature they made. It wanted to eat her.’ Ullii sprang up and paced across the room.
Nish stared at her shapely bottom, until he realised that the scrutator was watching him. Flushing, Nish looked away.
‘Go on,’ said Flydd to Ullii.
‘Tiaan was terrified. She made the hedron spit fire.’
‘Fire?’ cried the scrutator.
‘Fire like a purple fan. The crystal became so bright that it hurt my head. I could not see the lattice at all. The fire burned holes in the wall and I lost her. I have not seen her since.’
‘What wall?’ said the scrutator urgently.
‘A tower that is a mountain, with water all round.’
‘What else do you know about that place, Ullii?’
‘That’s all. I only saw it once.’
Xervish lurched crabwise to the door, taking a map from his bag. ‘A tower that is a mountain, south-west of here.’ He traced her sighting line on the map. ‘Of course, Lake Kalissi! It has a great spire in the middle, of natural iron. A very strange place. There have been rumours of lyrinx there!’
He paced back and forth. ‘Then we won’t need the balloon,’ Nish said, disappointed that his idea would come to nothing after all.
‘Of course we’ll need the damned balloon! She may have escaped, since Ullii can no longer see her. If Kalissin is a base for their flesh-forming, we’ve got to find out what they’re making. Fire coming out of a hedron, strong enough to burn holes in a wall! If somehow Tiaan has uncovered real power, we’ve got to have it before the enemy does.’
There were many trials over the next few weeks, not all successful. Two balloons crashed and caught fire. Another burned in mid-air, raining blazing debris and bodies down on the miners’ village, including an unfortunate Porthis. Yet another balloon refused to take off at all; a leak was discovered. Two more, the third and the last, were moderately successful. The last rode up over the mountains, to be caught by the wind and driven for ten leagues in the direction of the plateau where the bloody battle with the lyrinx had occurred.
Ullii saw no more of Tiaan. She had vanished like an exploding star. Work on the final balloon continued. It was designed to lift ten people – Nish, Ullii and eight soldiers, to be led by Rustina – and all their gear. They were to capture Tiaan and bring her back on foot, since suitable winds for the return journey were unlikely. That was the problem with balloons.
The best part of two months had passed since the last sighting of Tiaan, and winter was almost over, by the time the balloon was assembled. It was made of tar-sealed silk stretched over a frame of light wood reinforced with tensioned wires. The structure was highly flammable but that could not be helped. Below the mouth sat a brazier built of wire mesh lined with furnace tiles. Below that hung a platform with basketweave sides, where they would eat, sleep and live. Fuel for the brazier would be stored there but they would have to replenish it on the way. They could not carry enough to take them to Kalissin, unless the winds proved particularly favourable.
The completed balloon, nearly fifteen spans high, not counting the basket, and ten wide, had used all the silk cloth in Tiksi. A valve at the top could be worked by a rope, to spill hot air and allow them to control where they landed.
The balloon’s bracings kept it semi-rigid, so it looked as if it was ready to take off even when there was no hot air in it. It had been tested with different fuels while artificers measured the pull on springs attached to the ground, to see how much lift each fuel gave. Wood could be used if they had nothing better, though it had to be dry and took up a lot of space for the heat it gave out. Pitch or furnace coke were better, but pitch produced noxious black fumes and coke also required much space. Best of all was a clear liquid distilled from tar heated in an airless furnace, though it was dangerous to handle and liable to explode at the slightest spark.
One evening Irisis went to the scrutator and begged to be allowed to go on the balloon. She could not stop thinking about Tiaan’s crystal.
‘What on earth for?’ His single brow wrinkled into a series of furrows. ‘What could you do that would justify the disruption your absence would cause here?’
Irisis had a carefully prepared rationale but before that cold stare it seemed childish. She dropped her gaze.
‘You do want to be crafter here?’ he said softly. ‘The breeding factory is only a suspended sentence, remember.’