‘I was careful not to talk about it in front of her.’
‘The whole manufactory has been talking about Tiaan. With Ullii’s hearing she might have picked up what was said at the other end of the corridor.’
‘Perhaps, but she’s all we have.’
‘I still don’t see why you showed me,’ Irisis remarked as they headed back to her workshop.
‘Don’t you? She can see forms of power, whether they be natural ones like nodes and crystals, or people who are working the Secret Art. No one has ever been able to do what she does. Think how she might help us on the battlefield, where the enemy uses the Art. To fly on our heavy world, lyrinx must use power to stay aloft. With her there, they won’t be able to surprise us any more. But we need an artisan, like yourself, to give sight to her seeings. I didn’t select you because you’re so brilliant, if that’s what you’re thinking. I chose you because you’re the best here, and because you’ve twice shown courage and initiative today. You will design and build a controller, specially to work with Ullii, so we can track down anyone using the Secret Art; either lyrinx or human! And when you’ve done that, you will find Tiaan.’
‘Why is she so important?’ asked Irisis. ‘There are thousands of artisans …’
‘Because the scrutator says so!’ Jal-Nish snapped. ‘It was your stupidity that drew her to his attention and now I’m ordered to get her back. As far as I’m concerned, what the scrutator wants, he gets! Succeed and this will be your reprieve! Fail and you’re dead! So get to work.’
SEVENTEEN
It was hard to judge the passing of time in the unrelenting blackness. When her hunger pangs became severe, Tiaan judged ten hours had passed. She took a small slice of corned goat meat, some bread and a rice ball, and slept. There was nothing else to do.
On waking, she ate an equally meagre portion of breakfast and walked up and down the tunnel until she was bored witless. Her lantern had run out long ago. Tiaan did not miss it; she was used to walking in the dark and if she did want light, the crystal provided enough to see by.
She sat by the entrance with her legs dangling down the shaft, watching and listening. The silence was broken every so often by the rumbling of the great wheels carrying up filled ore buckets, or taking the miners up and down the shaft. There was a lot of activity the day after Joeyn died, while the search went on.
The day after that the normal routine of the mine resumed. The passenger wheel was busy twice a day, at around five in the morning and at the same time in the evening, as the miners came and went. Once, she heard the thunder of a roof fall, which created little avalanches of grit along her tunnel.
Occasional shouts or greetings echoed down the shaft. Conversations could be heard from top to bottom. They talked a lot of old Joe, and sometimes about the war. There had been lyrinx raids all along the coast, some not far north of Tiksi. Mostly, though, they yarned about mining, of this seam where the rock was brittle and difficult to work, or that place where the lode was unusually rich but hard to follow through the rock, or about the risk of the roof falling. It was tiresome and repetitive.
Tiaan often thought about that page from the bloodline register. She recalled the image perfectly but could not decipher her father’s name. She would have to find someone who had known him. If she ever got out of here.
Her thoughts kept going back to the glowing crystal and the strange field it had shown her. Just touching the crystal had been exhilarating, though the patterns of the field had stretched her brain to bursting point. Dare she make her new pliance from it? She missed it terribly, but if she used that crystal, would she be strong enough to handle it? It might bring on crystal fever. Maybe she should use the ordinary crystal instead, but what a pallid thing it now seemed. It had a dozen imperfections that would have needed attention, had she been in the workshop.
A crystal usually required careful cutting, then hours or even days of delicately attuning one’s mind, in a state almost trancelike, before it was ready to be woken into a hedron. The glowing crystal had not a single flaw; she might have used it in a controller as it was.
It felt as if it had already been woken. She desired it all the more, but feared it too. Surely the crystal was destined for a great mancer who had the strength to control it and the vision to see its true potential, not a humble artisan. Uneasy now, Tiaan put both crystals away.
On the third morning Tiaan heard nothing, which bothered her. The mine worked every day, apart from rare holidays, but there were none this month. Fashioning a hook from her toolkit, she tossed it up on a length of cord and pulled the nearest basket down. Carefully winding herself to the top, she peered over. There was daylight at the end of the tunnel and a crosswork pattern told her that the grid was down.
She edged to the entrance. It was a gloomy morning outside, blowing sleet. There was no one in sight. Something was wrong. It took her little time to pick the lock, ease up the grid and wriggle underneath. She headed through the forest up the steep slope to the manufactory.
It was hard walking in fresh snow. The path was unmarked, which was worrying. When she reached the edge of the shrubbery and saw the ugly walls of the manufactory ahead, Tiaan checked. The front wall was peppered with pale scars. Boulders clotted the road, while one of the great gates had been smashed off its hinges. Smoke curled up from inside the entrance.
The body of a lyrinx lay against the wall, one wing extended. Another made a dark blot to the left of the entrance. People milled about, keeping well away from the alien dead.
A lyrinx attack was the logical next step, she mused. Why wait until the clankers were complete? Controllers were easily concealed and conveyed elsewhere. Far easier to put the source out of action. No doubt the mine would be attacked next.
As she wondered whether she should declare herself, a tall, yellow-haired figure appeared. Irisis! Tiaan ducked into the bushes, but a branch snapped underfoot.
‘What’s that?’ came a nervous cry from the gate.
‘Lyrinx!’ cried another. ‘Kill it!’
Tiaan fled. Arrows whistled through the leaves. There were cries, crashes, then something shrieked through the branches above her. It was a ‘screamer’, a crossbow bolt with edges shaped so as to make an unearthly noise as it flew. The sound raised the hackles on her neck. This mob would shoot anything that moved and worry about what it was later; not that the death of a runaway breeder would worry anyone.
Her only chance was to outdistance them. Racing through the trees, she gained the track, skidded on a patch of ice, and raced on. Banners of fog wreathed across her path. It was getting gloomier by the minute. She hurtled around a bend and the cleared area appeared in front of her. Her pack was in the adit and she could not survive without it. The grid was barely visible through the mist. She ploughed through the snow, desperate to get to the entrance before they appeared. If she managed it, they might think the ‘lyrinx’ had gone to the miners’ village. Tiaan jerked up the grid and rolled under.
As she slid it down, the mob burst out of the forest. Was she in time?
‘There it goes!’ It was Gi-Had’s great bawling voice. ‘It’s got into the mine. Shoot it!’
Tiaan flattened herself against the wall. Arrows, bolts and screamers came through the grid, one striking sparks above her head. She grabbed the pack and, taking what shelter she could from the wall, ran back to the lift, leapt into the basket and wound herself down as far as it would go.
The basket slapped into water just below the ninth level. She threw her bag into the dark entrance. There came cries from above. A bolt plopped into the pool, followed by a rock that drenched her in stagnant water. If they pursued her down she was finished. Maybe they would not be so bold but she dared not take the chance.