‘No, thank you,’ Ullii said, mimicking Irisis’s voice. She went around the room step by step, once bumping into the desk, another time a stool, though only on her first circuit. Occasionally she touched things, or brought them to her nose.
Nish stayed close behind. He can’t take his eyes off the little cow, Irisis thought. It made her angry. Could she be jealous of the seeker? Surely not.
‘Tell us what you’re doing, Ullii,’ said Nish softly.
Perhaps too softly, for she looked around as if trying to make out a whisper in the dark. He repeated his words more loudly. Ulli looked at Nish, using her own voice now, which was as soft and colourless as her hair. ‘The lattice is different here. It’s all twisted up and there are new knots in it.’
‘From the old crafter’s artefacts, no doubt,’ said Irisis. ‘If you can see the Secret Art, you’re in the right place. He had magical devices aplenty. He used to show them to me when I was little.’
‘I can only see two,’ said Ullii, in Irisis’s voice. She no longer used Nish’s. That irritated Irisis too. Ullii answered Nish’s question. ‘I am seeking out the lattice and trying to fit you into it.’
‘What does it look like?’ Irisis asked.
A stubborn expression crossed Ullii’s face, then she seemed to think better of it. ‘Did you make this?’ She held out the front of the spider-silk blouse.
‘Yes,’ said Irisis. ‘Do you like it?’
‘It feels lovely. Other clothes make me itch and burn all over.’ She shivered. ‘The lattice looks just how I want it to. I change it, sometimes.’
‘What does it look like now?’ asked Nish.
She frowned, just visible above the mask. ‘Fans.’
‘Fans?’ cried Irisis. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
For once Ullii did not cringe or bridle, though she moved closer to Nish. ‘I like fans!’ she said defiantly. ‘Mancer Flammas, who let me live in his dungeon, had hundreds of them. They were beautiful. All the colours; all the patterns. I used to peek through my fingers.’
‘Ullii, our minds can’t see what you see,’ said Nish. ‘We don’t understand what you mean by fans.’
‘My lattice is a fan. A great one comes out in front of me, folded in a hundred places.’ She held out spread arms. ‘It’s turquoise now, but I can change the colour if you like – ’
‘I don’t care what bloody – ’ Shushed by Nish, Irisis broke off.
‘Everything in front of me is on the fan, like a million scribbles. People look different to things. They’re brighter, but tangled. Sometimes I can unravel their knots.’
‘What people?’ said Irisis, intrigued. ‘You mean you can see everyone in the world?’
‘Of course not! Only people with talents.’ Her scorn was withering. ‘Most are just little tiny spots and I can’t see inside, but some people make bright tangles, especially ones who use the Secret Art. Jal-Nish taught me that.’
‘Can you see me?’ Nish asked eagerly.
‘You don’t have any talent.’ She said it so baldly that he cringed.
‘You can’t see me either,’ Irisis said in a dead voice.
‘Oh, yes. I can see you! But you’re not a knot, you’re a hard black ball.’
After a pause Irisis spoke. ‘You said fans.’
‘Another fan goes behind me. It’s azure now, much smaller. I can’t see it so well. And fans go out to the sides.’ She held her arms out. ‘And up, and down. The one that goes down is brown but I can’t see much on it.’
‘Brilliant!’ said Irisis. ‘That’s the talent we’ve been working so hard to tap? She scribbles on fans? We might as well ask the perquisitor to cut off our heads right now.’
Ullii froze with her arms out. Nish gave Irisis a furious glare.
Ullii slowly rotated, arms spread, until she faced Nish. ‘Cut your head off?’ she whispered.
‘If we don’t find Artisan Tiaan and get her back, that’s what will happen to us,’ said Nish. ‘What we were hoping, Ullii, was to make a magic device that we could use with you, to see where Tiaan might be.’
‘It doesn’t have to be fans,’ said Ullii. ‘It can be anything I want it to be. Sometimes the world is like an egg floating in the air, full of coloured speckles. Or –’
Irisis gripped a handful of yellow hair as if to tear it out. She began grinding her teeth.
Nish squatted down in front of Ullii. ‘The problem is, Ullii, that we don’t understand how you see the world. We don’t see in fans, or specks in eggs, and we don’t know how to use your lattice to find Tiaan. We have to find her or we will lose the war and the lyrinx –’ He broke off as she shrank away.
‘She has to know,’ said Irisis.
‘The lyrinx will eat us all,’ Nish finished.
Ullii choked, scuttled into the storeroom and curled into a ball. They did not go after her.
Nish carried the platter of food to the desk, offering it to Irisis. She refused. He took a handful of dried figs, tearing their leathery skins open with his teeth and sucking the grainy insides out. Irisis found the sound particularly irritating.
‘This isn’t going well, Cryl-Nish!’
He looked up, startled. ‘That’s the first time you’ve used my proper name in ages.’
‘Which should tell you how desperate I feel.’
‘I can’t believe you’d give up, Irisis.’
‘We’ll never do it. We’ll never see what she sees, and even if we could, I can’t make a device to hunt Tiaan down. You know why.’
‘I’m beginning to,’ said Nish.
‘What are you going to tell your father?’
‘That it’s impossible to make a seeker device because it would take years to work out how Ullii does it. That’s true enough, anyway.’
‘Yes! No need to say that it’s because I’m a useless, incompetent fraud!’
‘No need,’ Nish echoed. ‘We’re finished, then.’
He wandered the room, looking at the charts, books and scrolls, and the strange, half-finished devices on the bench. Irisis tore the end off a stick of cinnamon-flavoured sausage. She ate a small piece before laying it aside and staring gloomily at the dusty table.
Someone knocked on the outer door. Nish ignored it but the knocking continued.
‘Will you answer the damned thing!’ Irisis snapped.
He opened the inner door, unbolted the outer. It was the perquisitor, looking agitated. ‘Well?’ Jal-Nish cried.
‘We’re making progress,’ lied Nish. ‘I can’t talk now; we’re in the middle of something.’
Jal-Nish grabbed him by the shirt. ‘You’ve got till dawn. Gi-Had’s troops found Tiaan in the mine but a band of lyrinx attacked them. Gi-Had was the only one to survive. And Tiaan … Tiaan …’ He choked on his own rage. ‘This is going to ruin me.’
‘What?’ cried Nish. A cold foreboding came over him. ‘What is it? Is she dead?’
‘Her body wasn’t among the others. Either she’s dead and eaten, or they’ve taken her! If they torture our secrets out of her …’
‘Maybe she’s escaped,’ Irisis interrupted. ‘She’s good at it.’
‘No one could escape a lyrinx. What am I going to tell the scrutator?’
Nish sank to his knees. ‘What are we going to do?’
The perquisitor hauled him up. ‘The scrutator wants Tiaan. We’re going to find her, if she’s alive, and get her back.’
He flung Nish backward to land hard on his bottom. ‘You’ve got until dawn. Succeed or fail, you two are coming with us to finish your work, or to go up against the lyrinx as common soldiers.’ He slammed the door in Nish’s face.
‘I feel sick,’ said Nish. ‘Like when my father asked me about my school work. Nothing was ever good enough.’
Selecting a piece of cheese, Irisis gnawed at a hard edge. Nish scratched his fingernails on the floorboards. The noise was so annoying that she wanted to smack him in the mouth.
‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ said Nish, ‘since making a seeker device is quite impossible. We’ll have to take Ullii with us and try to use her directly.’