‘How far in?’
‘A long way. Seven or eight arm lengths, I’d say. It’s the most perfect one I’ve ever seen. A bipyramid.’
‘Well, you can’t have it. There’s no way of getting it out.’
‘I don’t suppose …’ she looked down at him, ‘from the other side?’
‘That’d be weeks of tunnelling, even supposing the roof stayed up. Sorry, Tiaan.’
‘Oh, well,’ she said regretfully. ‘A pity. It looks so perfect.’ She jumped down.
‘They all look perfect from that distance.’ He began to tap one of the wedges out from under his prop.
‘Maybe you should leave that there for a while. In case something happens to this crystal too.’
‘Irisis?’
‘Or the saboteur, if they are different.’
‘Maybe I will.’ He kicked the wedge back in.
The new crystal proved much more difficult to wake, and even more draining. She had now woken three in a few days, which would have exhausted the greatest crafter in the east. After it was done, Tiaan did not don the helm at once. The way forward was no longer clear. Because of the headaches, she felt anxious about using her device. But then, everything about her life made her anxious.
Tiaan kept thinking about the strange crystal. She had never heard of one that glowed. She also wondered about her vision in the mine, that fragment of dream about the young man. Crystal dreams usually vanished when she woke up but she could remember his face perfectly. He had been so desperate. She recalled the sensual dreams that had followed. They made her hot in the face.
Don’t be stupid. They were just dreams! Cramming the helm on her head, Tiaan set to work, trying to trace the residues of use and purpose, the history of the failed hedron since she had made its controller weeks ago. She found nothing, but then had a brilliant idea. What if she forced the hedron to wake, then read its induced aura? It required her to use her pliance in a dangerous way but Tiaan could not see any other choice.
Taking it from around her neck, she unhooked the pliance from the chain and put it in the globe so it touched the failed hedron. She felt a moment’s anxiety. Anything might happen.
With gentle touches of her fingertips, Tiaan began sensing out the field. The familiar aurora flowed into her mind. It was particularly strong today, the billows and eddies tinged deep purple. Locating a suitable vortex, she drew power into her pliance just as she had done a thousand times before.
Pressing pliance and hedron together, she directed a flow of power into the failed crystal. It created no aura at all. The power vanished as if it had passed straight back into the field.
That was odd. Even a dead hedron should produce some aura after such a flow. She drew more power, with the same result. The hedron felt warm now. More than odd, it was downright peculiar.
Taking deep, slow breaths, she relaxed until her arms hung limp, her head lolled. Tiaan did not consciously try to visualise the field, but just allowed it to wash over and through her.
Her view drifted. She was looking for something greater than she had used before, a vortex so potent that it was tinged blue-white. Finding one, she traced the sub-ethyric path from it into the pliance and steadied herself. This could be quite dangerous. It might contain more power than she could safely handle. She allowed the vortex to drift towards the pathway. Now!
The vortex coloured down through purple, blues, reds, yellows and finally turned black. Pain stabbed through her head, the pliance flared and for an instant an aura appeared inside the crystal. Tiaan locked the image in her memory, then something crackled and both field and aura disappeared.
‘I’ve done it!’ she exulted, feeling the special thrill of having tried something new and, against all the odds, succeeded. She examined the image frozen in her mind. There was something at its core. Rotating the image, Tiaan picked up an echo of power like none she’d ever come across. It felt intelligent: organic yet alien.
Her head began to throb. Tiaan pushed up the helm, rubbed balm onto her temples, and let it fall again. Another image flashed into her mind. An armoured, crested head; enormous yellow eyes; a mouth big enough to take in her own head; hundreds of teeth. The folded wings made it certain. A lyrinx! It seemed to be talking to someone human, probably a man. There was something familiar about the shape of the head, the set of the shoulders. The image began to fade and she could not hang on to it. Could it be the spy?
Tiaan rubbed her eyes. Feeling unaccountably tired and weak, she went on unsteady legs to the door.
‘Have you seen Gol?’ she asked Irisis, who was walking by with a coil of silver wire in one hand.
‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Why?’
‘I wanted him to fetch Gi-Had.’ Tiaan’s legs folded up under her and she slid down against the wall.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Just working too hard,’ Tiaan croaked, wishing Irisis would go away.
‘On what?’ Her blue eyes scanned the room. Irisis picked up the globe, gave it a gentle shake and laid it down. ‘I’ll tell Gi-Had.’ Irisis looked back at the globe. ‘I was going that way anyway.’
Tiaan was too exhausted to wonder why she was being cooperative. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, putting her head between her knees.
A rough hand shook her by the shoulder. ‘What the blazes is going on, Artisan Tiaan?’
‘O-Overseer Gi-Had,’ she said dazedly. ‘I wanted to see you.’
The man looked as if every drop of blood had been drained from his veins. What was the matter now?
Irisis came in behind him, to stand beside the door.
‘What are you doing down there?’ He lifted her to her feet.
‘I don’t know what happened.’ Tiaan was having trouble thinking straight. It was as if she was drunk.
‘Artisan Irisis has made a serious allegation about you,’ said the overseer.
Tiaan had no idea what he was talking about. ‘I’ve been sensing out what happened to the hedrons.’
‘She’s lying,’ Irisis said coldly. ‘The apparatus nearly killed me when I tried it last night. Maybe that was her intention. That’s why she broke her crystal and implied that I’d done it. And now she’s broken her pliance, too.’
Tiaan caught her breath. Irisis would say anything to get rid of her. ‘No artisan would ever break her own pliance!’ she said scornfully. ‘It would be like cutting off her arm.’
‘No sane artisan would,’ said Irisis. ‘But you’re suffering from delusions, Tiaan. Either you’re the spy or … you’ve got crystal fever.’
‘What are you talking about?’ cried Tiaan. ‘Overseer, she’s making up stories. She hates me.’
‘Am I?’ Irisis thrust one elegantly manicured finger in the direction of the globe. ‘Take a look at that!’
Tiaan threw herself on the globe, fumbling with the catch. It came open and the failed hedron rolled out. Its insides had gone milky.
‘Now she’s destroyed it as well,’ Irisis said. ‘You must be rid of her, overseer, for the good of the manufactory.’
Gi-Had fretted a scrap of paper to pieces. ‘There had better be a good explanation for this, artisan.’
‘I was reading the hedron,’ Tiaan said lamely. She snatched her pliance and its crystal fell to pieces in her hand. Tiaan stared at the fragments, uncomprehending. Her pliance was ruined. It would take weeks to make another. She wanted to scream.
‘Well,’ cried Gi-Had. ‘What do I tell the perquisitor?’
Tiaan fell to her knees and wept.
‘It’s crystal fever!’ Irisis repeated. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She can’t do her job, overseer.’
‘Shut up!’ Squatting before Tiaan, Gi-Had offered her a cloth. ‘You must help me, artisan.’
Tiaan mopped her face. ‘I was reading one of the failed hedrons,’ she sniffled. ‘I woke it anew and forced it to reveal its aura. I saw something there.’