‘Indirectly. Really, it’s tracking the use of power – the Secret Art.’
‘I have no talent for the Secret Art.’
‘I’ve brought with me a natural adept who can sense when power is used; and where! I hope she can help with a particular problem.’
‘The failure of the field at Minnien,’ Irisis guessed.
‘Indeed. We don’t know why it happened, or how. Is the field gone forever or will it suddenly come back?’
‘Did we drain it dry,’ said Irisis, ‘or did the enemy learn to cut it off?’
‘Precisely. You have a quick wit, artisan.’
She yawned, deliberately.
‘We’ve had scores of crafters and mancers working on the problem but thus far they have failed,’ said Jal-Nish.
‘We need to see inside the node,’ said Irisis.
He looked startled but recovered quickly. ‘My thoughts exactly. And that’s what I hope to do with my adept – the seeker.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘The seeker’s talent is not enough, for it is bound up with fatal weaknesses.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I’ve not put it clearly. Come with me.’
She followed him through the manufactory, which was full of idling workers. So soon after the attack, no one could concentrate on their work. They passed by the overseer’s door, which had been smashed to pieces, walked around the corner and down a long corridor where Jal-Nish stopped at a closed door. He took up a lantern, lit it, shuttered it nearly all the way and went in. She followed him. He pulled the door closed. The light fell on a small figure hunched up in the corner. It put its hands over its face, making a mewling noise.
‘Ullii,’ Jal-Nish said softly, ‘this is Artisan Irisis. Please say hello.’
The figure writhed and then slowly unfolded. At first Irisis thought the seeker was a child, but when Ullii stood up, she turned out to be a young woman, well formed but small, with little hands and tiny, slender feet. She was naked, her clothes scattered across the floor as if she’d hurled them away. Everything about her was pale to the point of colourlessness. Her hair was so transparent that it could have been drawn from strands of water. Her eyelashes and brows were the same. Her skin had no colour at all, so that, even in this light, every blood vessel showed, and between them the pinkness of her flesh.
Ullii turned away from the light, dim though it was. Irisis wondered if she had some terrible deformity, but Jal-Nish faced the lantern into the corner and Ullii looked back. She appeared perfectly normal except for enormous eyes with no colour or visible structure. Was she a moron-savant?
‘It hurts,’ said Ullii in a voice as colourless as her hair. The light had hurt her though, for tears were dripping from her lower lashes.
‘Say hello, Ullii,’ said Jal-Nish.
‘Hello, Irisis,’ Ullii said in a voice that now reflected Jal-Nish’s accent. She stared straight through Irisis as if she was not there at all. Or as if she herself was blind.
‘What do you see, Ullii?’ Jal-Nish spoke more sharply than he had intended.
She jerked as though his voice had hurt her, then began to curl up. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered soothingly. ‘Don’t be afraid, Ullii. No one’s going to hurt you ever again. Tell Irisis what you see.’
It was no use. The young woman curled into a ball with her head tucked right under. Jal-Nish shrugged, indicated the door and took up the lantern.
‘What’s the matter with her?’ Irisis said.
Closing the door, Jal-Nish led Irisis down the corridor. ‘She’s a strange little thing. All her senses are so acute that she can’t exist in our world. She’s practically blind in light, though she can see well enough in the dark. Noise is like physical pain to her – a shout or a cry, everyday sounds to us, are to her like being trapped inside a tank with a banshee. Touch is just as bad – she cannot bear to wear clothes. Even silk she finds irritating. She is frightened of everything and everyone.’
‘I wonder she was not put out of her misery long ago,’ said Irisis. ‘I would have, were she mine. She doesn’t seem all there.’
‘What a cold woman you are!’ said Jal-Nish. ‘She’s not an idiot; just overwhelmed.’
Irisis suppressed her impatience, waiting for him to get to the point.
‘Ullii sees things. In her mind,’ he said at last.
‘So do I.’
‘You don’t see the kinds of things she does. Let’s try again. And keep your voice down.’
It was you who upset her last time, Irisis thought.
They went back in. ‘Ullii, this is Artisan Irisis. Please say hello.’
She had unfolded. Turning toward Irisis, Ullii said, ‘Hello, Irisis,’ again mimicking the perquisitor’s voice. ‘I remember you from before.’
‘Hello, Ullii,’ Irisis said as quietly as she could. ‘Tell me what you see.’
She stood up, staring at the air above Irisis’s head. ‘I see shapes not far away. They’re all dark but they have crystals at their heart. Very weak crystals!’ she said dismissively, now imitating Irisis’s rather strident tones. Irisis wondered at the mimicry. Was it an attempt to deflect the words away from herself?
‘Your controllers!’ Jal-Nish said.
‘I’d already worked that out!’ Irisis hissed, though she had not.
Ullii started, began to curl up, then slowly unfolded again, like a ballet dancer imitating a flower. There was grace in her movements such as Irisis had never seen before. Her curiosity was aroused.
‘I see other shapes, further away,’ said Ullii. ‘Some strong. No one is using them.’
The crystals in the mine? Irisis wondered.
‘Go on,’ said Jal-Nish ‘Do you see anything else?’
She turned around, stiffened, and her owl eyes went wide. ‘I see clawers, many of them. Hunting, hunting! Searching. Aaah!’ She began to whimper. ‘They’re coming to eat me up! They’re coming! They’re coming!’
Irisis, uncharacteristically moved, would have thrown her arms about the young woman. Jal-Nish caught her sleeve, shook his head, and indicated the door. ‘Leave her! She can’t bear to be touched.’
Ullii was already curling up. They withdrew, this time for longer than before, and when they went back she took much coaxing before they could communicate with her at all.
The ‘clawers’, lyrinx presumably, were not far away. Ullii would say no more about them. She did not see them clearly, not in the way that she seemed to see the crystals.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Jal-Nish under his breath. ‘We can’t withstand a major attack. What are so many doing, so near?’
Ullii’s hearing must have been incredibly acute for she said, ‘Hunting her!’ now mimicking his voice.
‘Hunting whom, Ullii?’
‘The girl.’
‘Which girl?’
‘The girl with the bright crystal.’
‘Who is she?’ breathed Jal-Nish.
‘Her crystal is as bright as the moon,’ said Ullii.
‘Tiaan!’ Irisis cried, then quickly lowered her voice. ‘Is that who they’re hunting? Can she still be alive?’
‘I don’t know her name,’ replied Ullii, staring through the ceiling. ‘I can’t see her clearly, only the crystal. But when she touches it, it blazes like a shooting star.’
‘Where is she?’ hissed Jal-Nish. ‘Quick, girl. Which way?’
‘This way.’ Ullii pointed towards the door. ‘Or maybe that way.’ Down through the floor. ‘All ways are the same.’ Her eyes closed; she began to rock back and forth. ‘Same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same …’
Jal-Nish led Irisis out and closed the door. ‘Once she goes into that state it can be hours before she’s any good. We’ll come back later. I’ll send out more search parties, in case it is Tiaan.’
‘There’s another possibility,’ said Irisis.
‘Oh?’
‘That Ullii did not see her at all. She may just be parroting what she thinks we want to hear.’