But Tiaan could not get near; it was too hot to touch. Now the rock was melting, flowing down the shelf to hiss on the floor. Her sphere began to fill with steam. Tiaan felt like the sorcerer’s apprentice, having started something that she had no idea how to stop.
Snatching the helm off – it was hot too – she wrenched out its crystal. The yellow beam was unaffected. Molten rock poured down the ledge, melting into the ice.
Abruptly the beam went out. Tiaan squatted down, breathing through her sleeve. Minis had been right; geomancy was a deadly Art – far too dangerous for a novice like her.
The ice was pitted with hollows from fragments of red-hot rock. Molten rock had flowed halfway through the floor before its fire had been quenched.
The air was worse than ever. Tiaan brushed away the cooling cinders, packed up the geomantic globe, crystal and helm, and lay down on the shelf. It was growing dark outside. She closed her eyes, listening to the cooling rock slag cracking like toffee. There was no one to come to her rescue this time.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ullii spent the night before their departure rocking. The shrieking of the blizzard even penetrated her earplugs, depriving her of the only perfect calm she ever got – sleep. She really needed it. The last few weeks had torn her from her self-contained existence and she was struggling to cope. For years she had lived in the little world of her mind. It was safe there, as long as she did not try to see too far, and was careful not to probe too deep. Some of those glowing knots in her lattice were not meant to be untangled. If she tried they would inflict terrible pain. She had been hurt in the early days, before she’d learned which were kind, or at least indifferent, and which cruel. Which were unknowing and which alert, constantly watching for spies, snoopers or those who, like her, were taking their first groping steps into the life of the mind. The powerful guarded their privacy jealously.
Now that refuge was lost. She was going to be thrust into the world outside, with its pitiless sun, constant racket and everything designed to torment her overloaded senses. Far worse, they would make her pick away at one of those cruel tangles in her lattice until she exposed what lay at its core. And then? The strong always attacked the weak. All she had to protect her was one young man, not an adept of any kind.
Nish had treated her kindly, but Ullii sensed something burning in him. What did he really want? She did not count Irisis at all. Ullii had met dozens like her, people who were kind when it suited them, or harsh when that was more to their advantage. Irisis might be brave and bold, but she was quite selfish.
What would happen once she gave them what they wanted? Would they abandon her outside? Exposed to the nightmare of the senses, she would go insane.
So why was she going? Because Nish had been kind to her and that inspired her loyalty. It was no more than that. Ullii had never hoped for love, though she knew what it was. Love was another nightmare, inconceivable and terrifying.
She did so long for kindness, though. The memory of Nish’s gentleness was a beautiful musty aroma tinged with spice and machinery oil. It was having her body caressed with spider-silk. Kindness was protection from splinters of light. Kindness was wax plugs in her ears. Kindness was absolute silence.
Nish’s kindness kept her warm in the cold night. She wanted more of it. Whatever he wanted, she would give him.
Shouting woke Nish in the night. Jal-Nish was roaring at someone along the corridor. Time to go. Nish rolled out of his blankets. It was so cold! Having spent his youth in a centrally heated mansion, he could not get used to this place.
Dressed in five layers of clothing, he trotted to the refectory, where Irisis waited. They ate a hasty breakfast, by the end of which dawn-grey was highlighting the unwashed slit windows high above. Nish led Ullii down, only to hear Jal-Nish ranting again. The blizzard had left snow so deep that the gates could not be opened. It had to be shovelled away before the clankers, fitted with wide footpads, could be brought out to tramp down the area outside. They had just begun when the emergency bell rang from the gatehouse watch-tower.
‘What is it?’ Gi-Had shouted.
‘Movement in the forest, surr. The enemy.’
‘To your stations!’ Gi-Had roared. People went in all directions. ‘How many enemy, soldier?’
‘At least six, surr.’
‘Six,’ the overseer muttered as he raced through the gates. ‘And they’re everywhere. It was no isolated band that attacked before. There’s a careful strategy behind this and we’re helpless to stop it. What are they really after? Our controllers or our artisans? Ah, poor Tiaan, I wouldn’t be in your boots for anything.’
They spent the afternoon and the whole night on edge. The lyrinx were sighted several times, and once their catapults sent boulders slamming into the walls, but they did not attack. In the morning there was no sign of them.
Gi-Had liked this no better. ‘Are they planning to attack, or trying to prevent us from getting Tiaan back?’
More hours were wasted while the clankers compacted a path to the mine and the village, so it was after noon by the time everyone assembled outside the gate, which was still being repaired.
There were sixteen in Irisis’s party, which was to be led by Sergeant Arple, a professional soldier who had come up from the barracks at Tiksi, along with a troop of ten infantry, all that could be spared from the city’s already undermanned garrison. They stood beside a scarred clanker. Its operator was handsome young Ky-Ara, whom Tiaan had once cast her eye over. His shooter was Pur-Did, a stocky man of nearly sixty years with warty hands and nostrils. His salt-and-pepper hair was shaved but for a ponytail at the back of his neck.
Two other groups stood by, each with a brand-new clanker, its operator, shooter and troop of ten soldiers. The party also comprised Perquisitor Jal-Nish, in overall command, Gi-Had his deputy, still under a cloud, Querist Fyn-Mah and a senior artificer. The civilians would travel with, or in, the clankers. Nish prayed that the machines were well made, for if anything went wrong he and the other artificer would have to fix it, brutal work in the weather they were expecting.
Light snow was falling as they formed up outside in their furs and fur-lined boots. The fall from the great blizzard had been tramped down as far as the mine, but beyond that they would have to ski.
The soldiers stood in their ranks, Arple in front. Beside them were Nish and the senior artificer, a tall, dark-skinned woman called Tuniz, a native of distant Crandor. She was long and lean, short-bodied and as slim-hipped as a youth. Her wiry brown hair, cut to the width of a fingernail all over, stood up straight on her head. An elongated neck bore dozens of enamelled bracelets and her teeth were filed to points, which gave her an unwarranted fearsome look when she smiled, which was often.
Next, almost as tall, stood Irisis, then slender Fyn-Mah and wiry Gi-Had. Irisis had placed herself as far as possible from the querist, making no effort to conceal her dislike. Fyn-Mah acted as though she had not noticed. By herself at the end was Ullii, quite the smallest person there. Dressed in her layers of winter gear she looked like a little barrel. A broad-brimmed hat covered her earmuffs, goggles and mask. Her face was enveloped in a balaclava of spider-silk. She was fidgeting, shifting from foot to foot.
Nish felt a painful knot in his belly. A dozen lyrinx could be the match of this force, in rough country. He could see his fear mirrored in the faces around him.
Gi-Had looked distracted, staring back at the gate and tapping one foot.
‘Our mission is a simple one,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘Artisan Tiaan has been captured by a lyrinx and we must get her back, whatever the cost. Whoever does so will be most handsomely rewarded. She has a talent this manufactory cannot do without.’