Tiaan dreamed about an unknown world, a gloomy land lit by a brooding orange moon, nothing like the moon. Black grass bent under a hissing wind. Oily, suppurating bogs were scattered across the landscape, around which grew blue and black and purple flowers, luminous in the darkness.
She was standing on a balcony, staring toward broken-glass mountains in the west. Tiaan could feel her heart thudding against her ribs, the prickly rush of fear in the backs of her hands. Her fingers gripped the rail so hard that it hurt. Her jaw was clenched. She could feel her teeth grinding together. Why was she so afraid?
A low rumbling began in the distance, like thunder but more earthy, as if transmitted through the ground. The breeze was whipping mist past her face, but it had the pungent reek of sulphur. Her eyes watered.
She wiped the tears away. Staring at the jagged range, Tiaan realised that she was holding her breath, waiting for something to happen. She counted her heartbeats: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then backwards. She was still counting when there came a colossal explosion from the middle of the distant range, a flash that lit up the sky. Yellow glowing objects described parabolic trajectories through the air, slowly changing to orange and red as they fell.
More explosions illuminated belching clouds that rose higher and higher, forming shapes like clenched fists, like anvils, like black mushrooms. Lightning rent the clouds. There was no thunder, no sound at all but the wind hissing over the grass.
The explosions spread along the range from one horizon to the other until it looked as if the whole world was splitting apart, blowing its molten insides out. The clouds grew so thick that the wheeling fireballs could scarcely be seen. As Tiaan stared, a glowing paste made its way down the side of the mountain where the first explosion had occurred, like a red slug down the side of a pot. More streams followed until the dark mass of the mountain was woven with them. Tiaan felt another trickle of fear.
The lava was flooding everywhere, issuing from every peak of that horizon-spanning chain, oozing toward her as if, in its inexorable progress, it would overwhelm the whole world.
Her viewpoint shifted. Tiaan stared at the figure on the balcony, realising that it was not her at all, but a young, handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered, with glossy dark-brown hair, a trim beard, a full, sensuous mouth. He resembled the bold prince of her grandmother’s romantic tales.
He seemed just as afraid as she had been, and she knew his doom was written in those red glyphs running down the mountains. He threw out his arms, looking around frantically as if seeking someone in the darkness. Help! She saw him mouth the words. Please help me!
Before the sound reached her, there came a boom and roar like all the thunder in the world going off together. A solid wall of wind bent the grass, the scanty trees, the young man on the balcony. He looked directly at her and froze. His tentative, almost pleading smile cracked her soft heart. She smiled back, he cried out Help! then man and balcony were blown away. The earth moved, tossing her off her feet. Tiaan lost the dream.
But later that night she dreamed that the young man lay beside her. Disturbing dreams they were – sensual, almost erotic. They made her hideously uncomfortable, yet she did not want them to stop.
Tiaan woke with a headache and a faint memory of the first dream – the explosions, the stench of sulphur, the wild wind. She remembered that glorious face and the young man crying out. How strange! It was almost as if he had been begging her for help. But after all, it was just another hedron-induced fancy. She threw herself out of bed and hurried off to work.
The first experiments with the device had gone well. She was beginning to read the history of the crystal, as if the letters that made up its story were stored in layers of light trapped within it. It had a strange, hot sense, which was odd. Hedrons usually seemed cool. So far, though, she had not learned what had gone wrong.
At mid-morning her head began to ache and it grew rapidly worse. It seemed to be burning, like the image of the crystal. Don’t push too hard; anthracism is a horrible way to die …
Tiaan went outside, collected her little chips of crystal and laid them in a line across the back of the bench. She put the helm on but a piercing pain made her whip it off again. She was hunched over, head in hands, when Gi-Had appeared with Gryste, the foreman, who reeked of spice.
‘You won’t make any progress that way, Artisan Tiaan!’ said Gryste.
She squinted up at him. ‘I’m working eighteen hours a day.’
‘We’re all working hard,’ said the overseer.
‘I’m working harder than anyone!’ she snapped. Then, more softly, ‘My head feels as if it’s on fire, Gi-Had. I’m afraid …’
He blanched. ‘Then stop. I’ll have no boiled brains in my manufactory.’
‘But I am making progress. I made this device to read the hedrons.’ She held it out.
Gi-Had took up the helm, turning it in his fingers, and touched the crystal with a fingertip. Tiaan held her breath in case it stung him too, but nothing happened. That was not surprising. Psychically speaking, his mind was no more active than a piece of mutton.
She put a hedron inside the globe and demonstrated how it was meant to work. The overseer and foreman listened carefully but probably did not understand much. That did not matter. Neither knew how controllers worked either, but they understood their value to the war.
‘What have you discovered?’ Gryste barked, like a general to a raw recruit.
‘All three hedrons show the same pattern. They worked perfectly when first installed. I have our log books here if you’d care to check them …’
Gi-Had waved them away. ‘We trust your word.’
‘I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t obey my rules,’ said Gryste, ‘and she’s always going out without permission.’
The overseer gestured him to silence. Tiaan described Joeyn’s observation about the effects of exposure on crystals, and her own experiments. She went through the series of numbered pieces on the bench, one by one. ‘I left these eight outside: two in sun, two in shade, two in wet, two in dry. And these eight inside: two right next to the furnace, two a little further away though still hot, these two where it was only warm, and these two against the cold south wall.’
Gi-Had looked impressed. ‘What have you discovered?’
‘Nothing yet. I only just brought them in.’
‘Bah!’ said Gryste. ‘I told you she was a waste of time.’
‘Be quiet, junior foreman!’ Gi-Had snapped.
Gryste’s face froze and Tiaan knew she had made another enemy.
‘Read them now, artisan,’ Gi-Had said.
Tiaan prayed she was not going to disappoint the overseer. Donning the helm, she gritted her teeth against the pain and put the first chip in the globe. ‘There’s hardly any aura left.’ She took it out and began on the others, one by one.
The overseer tossed the first chip in his big hands. ‘Number one,’ he read. ‘This one was left in sunlight?’
‘That’s right.’
They watched in silence as she read the crystals. ‘The two in sunlight have some aura left, though not much. The four heated by the furnace are completely dead. All the others are unchanged.’
Gi-Had looked confused.
Tiaan explained. ‘Their ability to draw power from the field can be destroyed by putting them out in the sun, though that must take quite a while. Days or weeks for a big hedron, I’d think.’
‘That can’t be why yours failed,’ said Gryste. ‘They’re well looked after.’
‘No, but … I have an idea!’ Taking another handful of chips from her basket, she checked that they all had a strong aura. ‘Come with me to the furnaces.’