At the bottom he waited for Ullii. The little seeker moved confidently, despite the mask. Nish never ceased to marvel at her agility. It would be easy to fall off, which would be fatal, but she made not a single misstep.
'You are sad, Nish,' she said as she reached the floor, not even out of breath.
Another wonder: how someone who took no exercise could be fitter than he. Nish's heart was still pounding. 'What am I going to say to the scrutator, Ullii? He'll have my head for this.'
'No one could fight the Matah, Nish.'
Ullii could see the Secret Art in all its forms, as knots in a lattice she created in her mind. It was her special talent, one that made her worth a thousand of him. 'You were very friendly to her,' he said harshly, and immediately regretted it. He moderated his tone. 'What did you see, Ullii?'
'Matah is old. She is wise and kind, but sad too. She has lost a whole world.'
That was food for thought, though not what he was looking for. 'What kind of knot does she have, Ullii? Is she a powerful mancer?'
'Matah is very strong, but she did not use her strength against you. Be careful, Nish.'
'Ha!' He headed down the next set of stairs, which were made of alabaster. Nish was no coward, but he knew which battles to fight and which to keep away from.
At the bottom of the next set of stairs, as Nish was consulting his map, Ullii said, 'I can see Tiaan's crystal.'
He dropped the map, just managing to catch it before it fluttered through the hole to the next level. He'd assumed that the Aachim would have taken the amplimet. 'You mean it's still here?'
'I can see it.'
She meant in her lattice. Of course she could; she had tracked it all this way from the manufactory. And Tiaan too – Ullii had found her after Tiaan had been missing for months. 'Where is it? Quick, before they think of it.'
Using the map, it took less than an hour to regain the level where the gate had been made. Nish looked around him. They were in an oval chamber, so large that a good-sized town could have been built inside it, with doors and subsidiary chambers everywhere.
'Over there.' Ullii pointed.
Nish ran, looking over his shoulder all the way. There had been too many failures; too many disappointments. Inside the room he was confronted by a strange-looking machine, all glass and crystal, ceramic and wires, ghostly in the dim light. He roved around, trying to make sense of it. Nish did not know what the amplimet looked like. He had never seen it, and the port-all contained dozens of crystals.
'Ullii?' he shouted. The sound echoed back and forth for ages. That made him afraid, too.
She came creeping through the door as though trying not to attract attention. Her life was avoiding people. Ullii looked troubled, as if expecting him to yell at her again.
'I can't find the amplimet,' he said softly.
She walked up to the port-all, reached out and took the crystal from a soapstone basket. Nish was amazed that it could be so easy.
She held it in her hand, gazing curiously at it. The amplimet resembled other hedrons Nish had seen in the manufactory, except for one small detaiclass="underline" it glowed.
'It's different now.' Ullii turned it over in her hand.
Alarm choked him up. 'What do you mean? Is it damaged? Ruined?'
'No,' she said softly. 'It's just as strong, but it has a different knot.'
'What can you tell about it?'
She put her hand over the mask as if to block out the least glimmer of light. 'It is as old as time. It is dreaming at the core of the world.'
Ullii's pronouncements sometimes bordered on the mystical and he could make no sense of this one. Further questioning proved useless. She could not put what she sensed into words. It did not matter. He had the amplimet, more important than Tiaan now. If he got it back to the manufactory, that would make up for everything.
He reached for it. Snap! It was as if a spiky ball had embedded itself in his palm and was gouging its way through. He wrenched his hand away and the amplimet went flying through the air. 'No!' he cried as it fell toward the stone floor.
Unerringly, Ullii snatched it out of the air.
'I think you'd better carry it,' Nish said. It felt as if the amplimet had rejected him.
She packed it in her little chest pack and fastened up the straps.
Casting a last look behind him, Nish said, 'Come on.' They hurried out of Tirthrax. After some hours of scrambling down the mountain, Nish realised that Ullii was no longer behind him. He called her name but she did not answer.
He set down his pack, rubbing the palm of his hand. The pain still lingered and the centre of his palm had gone white in the shape of a spiky star. 'Ullii!' he roared, and knew that could only make things worse. If she was close by, the racket would make her retreat into herself and he might get nothing out of her for hours. Retracing his path, he found her fifty paces up the slope, huddled under a rock. She did not look up as he approached.
'What's the matter?' He squatted beside her. She did not answer and he had to give her his hand to sniff before she would rouse. Whenever she was distressed, the smell of him seemed to comfort her. He did not understand that either.
'Tired,' she whispered. 'Feet hurt.'
She had thrown off her boots and socks, and her feet were resting on a patch of snow. The little toes, as small as a child's, were red and one heel had a large blister. He clicked his tongue in vexation.
'I'm sorry, Nish,' she wailed. 'I tried really hard.'
Ullii never lied or exaggerated, and was so sensitive that walking in those boots must have been agony. There was no possibility of her wearing them again. Nor could she go any distance in bare feet. It was too cold.
'Climb onto my shoulders, Ullii. I'll carry you.' She probably would not like that either but there was no choice.
She did so willingly enough, and once up there she smiled. 'I can smell you, Nish.' Lifting the blindfold, she peered down the front of his shirt.
'Whatever makes you happy,' he muttered. She was no heavier than a ten-year-old but even that was a hefty burden to carry down the mountain.
By the time they reached the balloon, whose basket was wedged between two boulders, he was drenched in sweat and Ullii's smile was broader than ever. Setting her down in the weak sun, he lay beside her.
'I love you, Nish,' she said.
Had Nish been standing up, he would have fallen over. All he could do was gape. Ullii never made remarks like that. What did she expect of him? He could hardly reciprocate. He liked Ullii, cared for her, and many a night had lain awake burning with desire for her sweet little body, but he could never, except perhaps to get that desire fulfilled, have said that he loved her.
Taking her hand, he drew it to his lips. She shivered and her eyelashes fluttered. He could have screamed with frustration. Why now, when he could do nothing about it? To hide his confusion, he climbed up to look at the balloon, ignoring her little whimper. Tonight, he thought. When everything is prepared.
The gasbag was flaccid, though being formed around a series of struts and stretched wires, it maintained its shape. The air inside had gone cold and he would have to burn the brazier for at least half a day to lift off. First he must gather fuel, for all he had was a large flask of distilled tar spirits. It was useful for burning wet wood but could not be used by itself in the brazier, or the explosion would have blown balloon and boulders back up to Tirthrax.
There was little fuel here, just scrubby heath and a few patches of grass. If he filled the basket with the stuff, it would barely lift the balloon. No time to waste. He headed for the nearest patch of vegetation. By the middle of the afternoon, Nish had gathered a great mound of shrubbery. As he'd expected, it burned quickly, generating plenty of ash but little heat. After an hour the balloon was almost as flaccid as when he had started. Already he had exhausted the closest supplies of fuel. What if the witch-woman (as he thought of the Matah) was already on her way?