Tetrarch

'What do you mean?'

'I'll be looking into that tonight.'

'Maybe it made the gate go wrong,' Tiaan said hopefully.

'No. The gate corrupted the amplimet.'

More to think about. 'Where am I to go?'

'Where best your knowledge, and your skills, might be employed to bring good out of ill.'

'If I went back to the manufactory it would take a year to get there,' Tiaan mused, 'if I got there at all. And if I dared risk their punishment. Going west would take months of equally dangerous travel. By then it would be too late, even if I knew what to do.'

'You must work out your own path. I can't advise you. But before you go, there is one thing you can do for me.'

'Yes?' said Tiaan, sure she was not going to like it.

'You're a skilled artisan,' said Malien. 'Perhaps you could pull the crashed constructs apart and make a working one from them.'

S EVEN

It shivered Tiaan from the roots of her hair to her toenails. From the moment she had set eyes on the constructs, she had longed to see how they were powered, controlled and built. It was fate.

'I'll begin right away.' She leapt up. 'This minute!'

'I was about to prepare dinner.'

'What if the lyrinx come back? I don't dare miss the chance.' In truth, she longed to feel metal in her hands again. Devices were logical, predictable, reliable. They did not lie or cheat or betray.

Malien smiled, though it had a faraway edge. 'Dinner will be ready shortly.'

Tiaan hurried down the stairs, her heart pounding. As an artisan, new ways of seeing and doing had always fascinated her. Everything about these constructs must be new, since they had come from another world.

Down on the gate level, she walked around the three machines, frowning. Without understanding how they worked, it was difficult to know where to start. The one that lay on its top looked the worst damaged, and no doubt righting it would cause more. The second had its front smashed in; the third, one side crumpled, and its upper part warped. Tiaan tried to pull the metal back into place but could not budge it. Though just a thin, curved sheet, it had the strength of the plate armour on the side of a clanker.

Climbing the construct with the crushed front, she looked in through the hatch. It was more spacious than it had appeared, though it must have been dreadfully crowded with a dozen passengers inside. Above and behind the hatch, a cramped turret was fitted with a javelard-like weapon, similar to the one that had killed Haani. She turned her back to it.

Inside the hatch was a small ovoid compartment with space for half a dozen people to stand close together. Seats pulled out from the rear wall. At the front was a curved binnacle of coloured glass, the pale green of young lemon leaves. Below that was a bank of finger-shaped levers, several coin-sized wheels and many coloured knobs or buttons. Between the binnacle and the seat, a hexagonal rod came up from the floor, sprouting into a six-sided trumpet with a studded knob on top. The trumpet could be moved back and forth as well as from side to side and up and down. Nothing happened when she tried it. On the floor beside it were five crescent-shaped pedals.

She wiggled the levers and pressed the buttons and pedals, to no effect. Perhaps the mechanism was damaged, or there was a secret way of operating it.

To the left of the trumpet an oval hole gave access to the lower level. Stepping onto the top rung of a metal ladder, Tiaan went down tentatively. A lightglass began to glow. The egg-shaped interior was decorated with inlaid silver and other precious metals in the intricate Aachim way. Handles ran down the wall in front of her. She pulled one and an ingenious bunk unfolded. Another revealed a small cupboard containing mugs, plates and cutlery. A third seemed to be a weapons cabinet, though all it contained was a sword shaped like a cutlass and quarrels for a crossbow. A fourth held tools of unfathomable purpose.

Lifting a recessed hatch in the floor, she found what she assumed to be the driving mechanism. Some of its components resembled those she had used to build the port-alclass="underline" crystals of various kinds, thick and robust glass tubes in the form of doughnuts and twisticons (as little Haani had called them), and other structures of ceramic and metal. The familiar shapes and components were comforting. The port-all had worked, therefore she might be able to make this construct operate.

Going back to the operator's compartment, she checked it more thoroughly. Everything was as dead as before. Climbing out, she walked around the machine. It did not seem badly damaged, though a vital part might have been broken in the collision or the subsequent fall from the gate. But surely the Aachim would not build a war machine that could be disabled so easily?

She checked the one on its roof. The top of the machine was crushed; she could not get in. It was hard to imagine its vital parts surviving such an impact. The third construct, lying on its side, proved similar to the first but was badly damaged inside.

Returning to the first construct, she began to remove the damaged front section. The work required the utmost concentration, for she had to deduce how every part worked, and the right tool to use with it. Tiaan became so engrossed that she lost all track of time. She had part of the damaged section in pieces when she realised, with a start, that Malien was standing right behind her.

'Where did you spring from?' Tiaan exclaimed.

'Whistling while you work,' said Malien. 'This is a change from yesterday.'

'I've missed my craft. Is it dinnertime already?'

'It went cold ten hours ago. I came to call you to breakfast.'

Tiaan was astounded. Yes, dawn was outlining the hole in the wall of the mountain. 'I had no idea. I'm sorry.'

'It doesn't matter. Why are you taking the whole front to pieces?'

'I was planning to replace it with parts from one of the others.'

Malien squatted beside her, reached underneath and did something with her long fingers. There was a soft click. She did the same at the top and on the other side. 'Pull this.' She indicated a strut.

Tiaan did so, Malien tugged on the other, and the front section slid onto the floor.

'How did you do that?' Tiaan cried.

'I understand Aachim design,' Malien said.

Half an hour later, the undamaged front section of the other construct had been installed. Tiaan wiped her hands and stood back. The repaired construct, apart from the dust, looked as if it had just been built.

'There's still the bigger problem to solve,' said Tiaan. 'How to make it go.'

'Best leave that for later. Aachim machines can be booby-trapped and even an expert would not work on one after a sleepless night. I'll come down later and teach you a few words of our tongue. To understand what you're doing, you'll need to know the names of things.' While Tiaan was sleeping, Malien returned to the Well. Even before she entered the conical chamber, she noticed that things were different. The entry passage was less frigid, the barrier cubes more brittle. The blue-illuminated mist around the Well was as thick as cream and now extended higher than her head. Malien felt resistance as she pushed though it to the Well.

She peered down anxiously. What if it had begun to unfreeze? She listened for the telltale tinkle of cracking ice – the first sign. Nothing. The tendrils still coiled lazily inside. The Well was silent, the depths still. She relaxed. Not yet. Malien was not sure she could restrain it by herself. Not sure that any one person could.

On the way back, she debated whether to tell Tiaan about her worries. Malien decided to keep them to herself for as long as possible. It would not benefit Tiaan to know. That afternoon, Malien began to teach Tiaan the rudiments of the Aachim tongue, focussing on the words needed for this kind of work. Though Tiaan spoke three languages – the common tongues of the south-east, the west and the north – as most people did, Aachim speech proved difficult. It was always a relief to get back to the real world of her work.