‘Rysh narrl?’
The pressure eased slightly.
Ryll pointed over the cliff into the snow, blasted about by wild gusts of wind. The creatures spoke among themselves, after which one remained behind while the others escorted Ryll away from the cliff, the lyrinx still carrying Tiaan like a forgotten parcel.
After a bitterly cold trek that lasted an hour and more, a curved ice wall loomed up in front of them. The leading lyrinx pulled aside a set of skin doors, hanging one after another, went on hands and knees through a tunnel, another skin door, and into a large room. It was domed, like a big igloo, and made of sawn ice or pressed blocks of snow. The room was empty apart from some skins on the floor. Several crawl passages ran off it. The first lyrinx went down the one to her left.
Her captor put Tiaan on her feet. A long conversation followed in their language. Tiaan had no idea what was going on, though clearly Ryll had been heading here all the time. He’d had no intention of taking her across the mountains. His code of honour was no more than a lie. She felt bitterly disappointed, though she was aware how foolish that was. The lyrinx were enemies.
‘What do you want me for?’ she said to Ryll.
‘To help us with the war, of course.’
‘But … you said you owed me a debt.’
‘I repaid it when I saved you after the avalanche. I saved your life again on the ice when your own people would have killed you.’
She looked up at his fierce face. ‘You never said that the debt had been repaid.’
‘Can you not reckon up the weight of your obligations? We are at war, human!’
Tiaan felt like a fool. How could she have trusted him? ‘You did not tell me!’ she hissed, as if that was an excuse.
‘I left you unwatched after I saved you the first time. You had the chance to escape and did not. After all I have done for you since, I count you deep in my obligation.’
‘I will not betray my people,’ she said uselessly, but he had gone.
Tiaan considered her position. His kind would always be enemies of humanity. What was he going to do to her now? He had not brought her all this way for nothing.
A large lyrinx came through the passage directly in front of her. It had a green crest and breast-shaped chest plates, by which Tiaan assumed it to be female. The crest was badly scarred, the first three peaks missing and the scars lacking pigment. Female lyrinx were the same size as males, or sometimes bigger, she noted. Others followed, including Ryll. Soon eight stood in front of her. Ryll spoke to the first in his own tongue. Two others, both with green crests, bore young. All had folded leathery wings, unlike Ryll’s useless stumps.
‘Bring out your devices, Tiaan,’ said Ryll.
She shook her head. With one bound the lyrinx that had attacked her at the clifftop took her by the throat and shook her hard.
‘Glynnch!’ the large female said peremptorily.
The lyrinx dropped her on the floor. Ryll shook out the contents of her pack, handing Tiaan the globe, crystal and cap. As she met his eyes, resistance drained out of her.
She made sure that the wires had not been bent by the journey, and that the small crystal was secure in its setting. The globe was squashed on one side. Her fingers worked it back into shape, checking that the beads would slide freely in their orbits. The lyrinx did not take their eyes off her.
Tiaan lifted out the hedron, or amplimet as she now thought of it. It was warm to the touch; unusually so. Did that mean this place lay over a node? The crystal felt heavier than usual. Ryll caught her elbow, holding it up so they could all see it.
A spark leapt the gap between the central needles, flaring into a yellow light that made her flinch. It was much brighter than before. The lyrinx cried out as one.
‘Thlampetter rysh!’ said Ryll. ‘The crystal key. And she is the keykeeper.’
He went into a huddle with the other lyrinx. There was a heated conversation with much arm-waving, thumping of each other’s chests and lurid changes of skin colour and pattern. Ryll seemed unusually submissive – they struck his chest so hard that he rocked backwards, while his blows were mere taps, done with lowered head.
From the way they spoke to Ryll, and their body language, Tiaan could see that he was held in low esteem. Was that because he was an unmated male, or was it because of his deformity, his lack of wings? Whatever the reason, the all-competent, all-powerful protector of recent days was revealed to be powerless here.
A long debate followed, of which Tiaan understood not a word. After some time she was escorted to a smaller room whose entrance was then blocked with a slab of shaped ice. The room was like an igloo made of compressed snow. She might have cut her way out but Ryll had taken her knife. Nor could she budge the block that plugged the tunnel.
Tiaan paced across and back. The room contained nothing but a skin with long, silky white fur. Too big to be any kind of wildcat, and too coarse for mountain ox, it was probably from a snow bear. She sat on it, considering the possibilities.
Either Ryll would lose his argument, whatever it was, and the lyrinx would eat her, or they would force her to teach them about the amplimet, and the making of controllers, and how best they could be disabled or adapted to their own purposes. And then they would eat her. What would happen to Minis then? Tears welled in her eyes.
Already she felt the first pangs of withdrawal. If they kept the amplimet for long enough Tiaan knew she would do anything, just to hold it again. But how could she? Wrapping the skin tightly about her, she lay down on ice and tried to sleep.
The slab ground out of the way and a lyrinx shimmering with purple colours dragged her into the main room. Tiaan’s eyes darted around but the grip was unbreakable.
‘You will show us the use of your devices,’ said Ryll.
Where did the boundaries of treachery lie? Was it betrayal if she revealed what she knew under torture? A true hero would provoke them into killing her, to avoid being forced to betray humanity’s secrets. That required more bravery, or gratitude, than Tiaan had in her. Besides, she had given her promise to Minis; and her love.
‘At once!’ barked the largest lyrinx.
Tiaan was no hero, just very frightened. The helm felt burning cold. She warmed it in her fingers, then placed the amplimet inside the globe. She concentrated hard; her fingers moved the beads, seeking some elusive pattern that might enable her to tune in to the field about the node here. The glimmering of a plan came to her.
Could she tap into the field and direct it against her captors, to disable or kill them all at the same time? Probably not. It was hard to take that kind of power from the weak field. For what she required, only geomancy would do, but Tiaan was afraid of that Art. Her failure in the ice sphere had taught her how little she knew about it, and how deadly it was.
While she was thus preoccupied, her fingers had been working of their own volition, testing patterns and permutations randomly. She began to pick up a field. At least, she thought it was a field, though like none she’d ever seen before. It looked like two red suns whirling around each other in a halo of orange mist, beautiful but alien. Tiaan assessed the mind-image. Was there anything she could do with it? The red orbs looked dangerous; she dared not go near them. What about the mist? There seemed a little power in it.
The mist drifted, spread and closed around her, dark and menacing. Tiaan was trapped in orange fog. A hot surge went through her and the amplimet let out a brilliant violet flare. One of the lyrinx yelped. The others shielded their eyes. Her head was reverberating. She slid sideways to the floor, hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound. Her head hit the ice, the helm flew off and the flare went out.
Ryll picked her up. Water was dripping from the roof. As Tiaan took her hands away from her ears, her sight came back. The lyrinx, eyes watering, looked around in confusion. Tiaan made a mental note of that weakness. The amplimet was gently glowing as before. Tiaan had no idea what force she had tapped.