‘Hello, I’m Wickie. How may I help you?’ Wickie stood up, holding out his hand.
Nish shook it – a rather firm hand for a clerk – but had trouble disengaging himself afterwards. Wickie stood too close and it made him uncomfortable.
‘I’m on business for the querist,’ he said sharply.
Wickie stepped smartly backwards. ‘Oh!’
‘What happened to Artisan Tiaan’s possessions?’
‘I don’t know, but it’ll be in the book.’ Wickie turned the pages of a ledger as long as his arm. ‘Here we are. Old Joeyn the miner came for them a few days back.’ He frowned. ‘Must have been when I was at lunch. It’s all written up and he’s signed for them. See here – and the ratifier herself has initialled it.’
Nish spun the ledger around and checked the entry. ‘Thank you very much.’ He turned to go.
‘Cryl-Nish?’ said Wickie softly.
‘Yes?’
‘Your poor back must be troubling you. If you should need someone to rub salve into it …’
‘Thank you! It’s healing well, but if it did need attention, I’d go to the healer.’
‘Ah!’ said Wickie.
Nish knew Joeyn, though not well. The old man had visited Tiaan twice down in Tiksi. She might be at his cottage now, waiting for the weather to improve.
He ran for the village. The day remained windy and cold, but by the time he reached the lookout perspiration was stinging his back. The last part of the steep path was icy. Nish crept towards Joeyn’s hut and hid behind a tree, watching the door. He could not see anything; the fence blocked his view. He eased through the gate and onto the veranda but heard nothing.
Pulling up the latch, he thrust the door open. The cottage was empty. The bed had been made, the table cleared. There were two plates on the hearth, two mugs, two spoons. A note on a slate by the door said Thank you, Joe. The writing could have been anyone’s.
Nish scouted around the house for prints. There were none – the wind had scoured the loose snow away, exposing a crust from the last thaw. If Tiaan had been here, where could she have gone? He continued in a widening spiral that took him into the forest. There he found tracks leading to a tree, back toward the hut, and uphill in the direction of the mine and manufactory.
The tracks were the size of his own, but shallower and with a short stride. Someone light, and limping – one print seemed to favour the heel. Tiaan surely. Was she going to the mine or the manufactory? Nish followed her through the forest, several times losing the prints but always finding them again in the direction of the mine. As it was getting dark he emerged in the cleared area. There were no tracks on the crusted surface but she seemed to be heading toward the main adit.
At the entrance he stopped. Nish had never been down the mine. Moreover, he’d had, from birth, a tremendous fear of confined spaces. As a child, his sister and brothers had tormented him by bundling him up in the bedclothes. As soon as they closed over his head, panic had made him lash out.
Edging forward, he came to the recess occupied by Lex, the rotund day guard, who was shrugging into his coat.
‘Hello,’ Nish said tentatively, ‘I’m Cryl-Nish Hlar …’
‘I know!’ Lex growled. ‘Were it up to me, would have been a hundred lashes, not twenty! What do you want?’
Evidently more people liked Tiaan than he’d thought. ‘I’m looking for Artisan Tiaan.’
Lex raised a gnarled fist. ‘She’s down in the … town, thanks to you.’
‘She’s escaped from the breeding factory.’
‘Has she now?’ Lex grinned from ear to ear. ‘Glad I am to hear of it.’
‘She came this way. In the last few hours, I think.’
‘Haven’t seen her,’ said Lex. ‘And if I had, I wouldn’t tell you, you poxy little prick! Now get out of my way. I’m going home.’
Nish stood his ground, though it took an effort. ‘I’m here in the service of the querist,’ he said in a mild voice. No one would dare make that claim without authorisation. ‘And if you won’t cooperate …’ There was no need to complete the threat.
‘That’s different,’ Lex said hastily. ‘I’ll help Fyn-Mah in whatever way I can. I haven’t seen Tiaan, though.’
‘What about Joeyn?’
Lex looked up at the large sheet of slate at the back of his recess, on which were noted the miners’ names, their hours, where they were working and the tally of ore each had produced. ‘He came in at dawn.’
‘And he’s working on the fifth level.’ Nish read it off the slate.
‘Been there for months. Likes it by himself.’
Nish considered. ‘If you were inside, working, could she have crept by without you noticing?’
‘Could have, though I doubt it.’
‘Where would she have gone?’
‘Along to the bucket lifts. It’s the only way down to the levels from here.’
Nish followed him to the great wheels, and every step into the darkness was a further descent into his nightmare. He had to force himself to go on. The roof seemed to be quivering above him, alive and malicious, aching to bury him.
Examining the lifts, Nish said, ‘These would make rather a racket. Did you hear anything earlier on?’
‘They go all the time. There’s ninety miners in here. Usually it’s someone going from one level to another. Or the ore buckets coming up.’
‘But they’re much heavier. And you’d hear the ore falling onto the pile.’
‘True,’ said Lex. ‘Come to think of it, I did hear the miners’ lift going an hour ago. It went all the way but no one came out.’
‘It must have been her going down!’ Nish exclaimed.
‘Could have been,’ Lex said grudgingly. ‘Or someone else.’
‘You’ve got to take me down. At once!’
‘Not allowed,’ said Lex. ‘Got no miner’s ticket.’
‘I’m ordering you in the querist’s name.’
Lex was unmoved. ‘Can’t do it, even on her authority.’
‘Then find someone who can!’ Nish snapped.
‘Should’ve been two hundred lashes,’ Lex said to his face. ‘Obnoxious little turd!’ Nonetheless, he ambled over to a board beside the lift and pulled a rope twice, then twice more. A bell rang faintly in the depths. Before too long the upper bell replied and the rope began to move. A basket appeared, and in it a small wizened figure, lethargically winding the handle.
He stopped below the floor with a jerk that made the basket wobble on the cable. ‘Wassamatta?’
‘Flyn, Artificer Nish-Nash needs to be taken down to the fifth level. He’s looking for Joe and Tiaan.’
Nish ground his teeth. He hated that nickname more than anything.
‘Is he now?’ Flyn made a hawking sound in his throat and spat, the gob landing next to Nish’s boot. ‘Ain’t seen ’em. Take him down to the ninth level, if you like.’
‘What’s on the ninth level?’ Nish asked nervously.
‘Water, mostly,’ said Lex. ‘He’s on the querist’s business, Flyn.’
The man’s face closed, the hostility submerged. ‘What about my quota?’ he said in a nasal whine.
‘I’m sure you’ll get a credit from Gi-Had,’ Nish said. He did not know if that was true, and did not care either. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Shall we go?’ Flyn mimicked in a sing-song voice. ‘Jump in then.’
Nish blanched. The basket was nearly a span below him, and the opening looked tiny compared to the yawning hole of the shaft. If he missed … Not even to save face could he do it.
‘Bring it up,’ he said, and the quaver in his voice made Flyn snigger. The miner exchanged glances with Lex, who was also grinning. Damn them both, if he ever had power over them. ‘Come on. All the way!’
Lex fiddled with a lever as Flyn wound the bucket to the surface. Nish climbed in, hanging grimly onto the rope. ‘Hurry up!’ he snarled to conceal his unease. ‘The querist’s business can’t wait.’