‘She’s a liar!’ said Irisis. ‘She hasn’t been here all day.’
Gi-Had looked from one to the other, not knowing whom to believe.
‘I’ve been down the mine with Joeyn,’ said Tiaan, ‘risking my life on the sixth level to find a suitable crystal.’
‘You’ve done what?’ Gi-Had said.
‘It’s the only place I can find crystals of sufficient power. The others are no good at all.’
‘That level is forbidden! How dare you risk your life down there? What would the manufactory do if you were killed?’
‘Would it matter? You’d still have Artisan Irisis,’ Tiaan said with heavy sarcasm.
His lack of response gave Tiaan heart. He must have reservations about Irisis too. ‘My discovery might save hundreds of soldiers. And if these new crystals turn out as I suspect …’
‘What?’ he cried.
‘They’re much stronger, and there’s a lot of them. They might drive a clanker twice as fast as the other hedrons. And that might win the war.’
He softened. ‘Indeed, it was a brave and noble thing you did today. Do not do it again! If lives must be put at risk, let it be those that we can do without. What did you see in the hedron, Tiaan?’
Tiaan placed the helm over Gi-Had’s square head, put his fingers on the wire globe and, holding the milky crystal, recalled the image seen in its aura. He looked annoyed, then mulishly stubborn, then frustrated, as if what he was looking for lay forever beyond his reach. Suddenly he went rigid. Gi-Had stood up like a mechanical man unfolding, and his eyes were staring. ‘I saw!’ he said, turning to Tiaan. ‘I saw the face of a beast.’
‘A lyrinx?’
‘Yes!’ He gave a great shudder of horror. ‘It was crouched over a round thing on a stalk, like a luminous mushroom, as if it was spying on us. Then it looked up and it was talking to a man. The spy! The enemy knows our every plan. They’ll cut off our clankers one by one.’
Irisis could not contain herself. ‘She lies! She put the image in your mind. She knows nothing; she’s only worth the breeding –’
Gi-Had struck her across the face with his open hand. ‘Shut up, second cousin! We’re fighting for our lives. How dare you bring your petty jealousies into my manufactory!’
Irisis touched her cheek. ‘But I – Look at the evidence against her.’
‘I have,’ he said grimly. ‘And I see your hand in most of it.’
‘But … Uncle promised that I would follow him as crafter. She doesn’t even have a father. She comes from -’
‘And that’s where you’ll be going, artisan, if you cause any more trouble. Tiaan has just proved what a brilliant artisan she is. I can’t do without her.’
The fingermarks stood out red and purple on Irisis’s blanched face. ‘You wouldn’t!’
‘Desperate times, artisan. Someone’s been sabotaging the hedrons, the enemy can see our clankers, and now …’ Gi-Had went white, began to shake and had to be helped onto a stool.
‘What is it, cousin?’ cried Irisis. It was the first time Tiaan had seen her show concern for anyone. But then, he was family.
Tiaan offered the overseer a mug of water. ‘You said there was a disaster?’
He took a small sip, then looked to them both. ‘You might as well know,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It concerns us all, but especially artisans.’
‘What?’ Irisis took his hand.
‘Word came in a despatch this morning. It happened way up the coast, two hundred leagues north of here. A vital node has gone dead.’
‘Dead?’ Irisis echoed.
‘Well, of course the node is still there but its field faded to nothing, stalling fifty clankers on the plain of Minnien. The enemy destroyed the lot, then advanced fifteen leagues in a week. If the lyrinx can keep it up they’ll be at the gates of Tiksi by mid-winter.’
No one spoke. They were going to lose the war, and against the lyrinx, losers were eaten.
‘Does anyone know why it happened?’ Tiaan asked, forcing calm on herself. ‘Is it like what’s happened to the controllers, only larger?’
‘We don’t know. There seem to be two possibilities, one nearly as bad as the other,’ said Gi-Had. ‘The first is that the enemy has found a way to block the field, or destroy it.’
Tiaan digested that. ‘And the other?’
‘That clankers take too much power from the field. With so many of them drawing on it at once, they’ve drained it dry, like pumping too much water from a well.’
No one said anything. Gi-Had got up. ‘A state of emergency has been declared. I have authority to do whatever is necessary to produce clankers. Survival takes precedence over everything. And everybody!’ He waved a dismissing hand. ‘Though what is the use if we cannot power them …?’
‘If the enemy can detect our controllers by the aura,’ Tiaan said thoughtfully, ‘what we need is some kind of shield to render it invisible to their senses.’
‘A shield?’ He looked doubtful. ‘Is such a thing possible?’
‘It might be. I have an idea I’d like to try, surr.’
‘Very well. Leave your other work. Spend two days on this task, no more, then report to me. What ideas do you have, cousin?’
‘I was thinking the same thing,’ said Irisis.
‘Good,’ said Gi-Had. ‘When can I see your work?’
Irisis looked shocked but recovered quickly. ‘It’ll take a day. Or two.’ Giving Tiaan a look of purest malice, she went out.
With his hand on the latch, Gi-Had turned back. ‘The failed hedron, and your pliance, contain evidence of the traitor. Is there any way of telling who it is?’
‘Not without a new pliance.’
‘Do you mind if I take them? In case we find someone who can tell?’
‘They’re no use to me.’
Gi-Had wrapped the evidence in a piece of cloth. Tiaan choked as he carried the ruined pliance away. Incapable of thinking coherently, she went to bed. This time she locked the door and took the globe, helm and crystal with her.
She was still agonising two hours later. How were the enemy sensing the hedrons? Maybe lyrinx had senses that humans did not have. She had no idea, and with her pliance gone, how could she find out?
The loss hurt, physically and emotionally. Withdrawal was going to be worse, and for that nothing could be done except to replace the device as soon as possible. Weeks of misery lay ahead of her.
As she drifted off to sleep Tiaan found herself thinking about that glowing crystal in the mine again. She coveted it more than ever.
Help! Please help me! It was a scream inside her head, a cry of absolute terror.
Tiaan could see nothing but smoke and yellow sulphur fumes that stung her nose. The manufactory must be on fire. She groped in the darkness for her clothes but could feel only coarse vegetation, like bracken or heath. Her toe caught on a root and she went sprawling among the shrubbery.
Something bright and hot curved across the sky, an irregular glowing object that rotated, whoosh-thump, as it went. It slammed into the ground not far away, the shockwave knocking her off her feet. The heath exploded into flame that flared high on a mist of leaf oils. A breeze drove it toward her.
She ran, sharp leaves tearing at her naked thighs, branches twisting themselves around her ankles. Over and again she fell. The last time, too exhausted to get up, she simply lay there as the flames rushed up and over. She screamed but once.
Tiaan woke gasping in her bed, scarce able to comprehend that she had not been burned alive. She fumbled for the lantern, clicking the flint striker over and over, even after the wick had lit. The room looked normal.
Feeling a growing pressure in her temples, she dug a finger into the jar of balm and slathered it across her forehead.
Someone started hammering on the door. ‘What’s going on in there?’
Wrapping a blanket around herself, Tiaan went to the door. Half a dozen of her fellow workers stood outside. ‘Sorry!’ she said. ‘A nightmare. Must have been working too hard. I’m all right now.’