After he returned, Ullii gave Tiaan a generous swig from her bottle. They headed off, Nish leading, Tiaan stumbling at the end of the rope, Ullii padding behind her. Tiaan closed her eyes. This was worse than anything she had endured in the breeding factory; worse than being held captive by the lyrinx and forced to aid them in their ghastly flesh-forming.
She sank into a dazed daydream. Tiaan had always been a dreamer, her escape from a miserable childhood in the clanker manufactory. Her daydreams arose from romantic tales her beloved grandmother had told her.
She conjured up the image of her mother's mother. Tiaan thought, and remembered, in pictures, so Grandma Aaloe's face was as clear as if she was walking beside her. A small woman, almost as wide as she was high, Aaloe had a face as round as the moon and an embrace like a warm pillow. Her man had been killed in the war when Aaloe was nineteen and Tiaan's mother, Marnie, had just conceived. Aaloe had not partnered again but her tales were full of handsome young men rescuing beautiful maidens, or as often, maidens going to the aid of lost lovers.
Minis had been Tiaan's personal dream, but within minutes of meeting him that had been destroyed. She hated him for his treachery, but despised him for being so weak. He had said he loved her, but could not stand up to Vithis. Vithis ordered Minis to repudiate Tiaan. And Minis had.
'Get a move on, artisan!'
Nish jerked the rope so hard that she fell to one skinned knee. She gave him a hate-filled glare. His returning smile reminded her of a jackal.
It had been her dreams, and her longings, that had got her into this trouble in the first place. All her life she had been a misfit. Everyone was required to mate but, being so shy, she had found one excuse after another to avoid that duty. Why could she not have settled down at the manufactory like the other artisans, taken the best partner she could find, produced the required number of children, and worked hard at the craft she had come to love?
The evening dragged on. They made slow progress, the thin air barely enough to sustain them. No one knew where to go. Nish had tried countless ways but all doubled back on themselves as if enchanted.
Long after midnight they stopped for dinner and a nap, after which Tiaan's hands were untied and she was permitted to go into one of the bathing rooms to relieve herself. As he followed, she snapped, 'Still a little pervert, Nish?'
He went scarlet. 'Go with her, Ullii,' Nish said coldly. 'Don't take your eyes off the traitor.'
Obediently, Ullii followed Tiaan into the room but took no further notice of her. Ullii wandered about, touching everything with her fingertips. She pulled down a lever and water gushed from a device like an upside-down funnel. The small woman jumped, began to curl up, then unfolded with all the grace of a ballet dancer. Creeping back to the tap, she wiggled her fingers under the flow, entranced.
Tiaan slipped around the corner to a washing trough, beyond which she spied another door. Could it be this easy? Ullii was paying her no attention. Edging it open, Tiaan found herself in a set of chambers like many she had seen in Tirthrax. She went through the bedchamber, out the far door and tiptoed around a gentle curve. Passages led three ways. Straight ahead lay a stair entirely made of glass. More extravagant than any she had looked at so far, it looped back and forth across the room like the flourishes on the end of a queen's signature. She would be seen on it from top to bottom. But it led up, and that felt right.
As Tiaan reached the first loop of the stair she heard Nish's bellow of rage. She bolted.
'There she is!' He took the glass treads three at a time, shaking the stair with every step.
She fled up and up. Nish gained slowly. At the top she encountered another stair, made of obsidian, then a third, a simple spiral barely wider than her hips. It was so steep that to look down caused sickening lurches in her stomach.
Light appeared above her. Daylight – a way out. She hauled herself up by her arms. A cavern opened out before her, a hemisphere scooped from the native rock of the mountain. The floor, walls and roof were like polished granite, the flat side a single sheet of glass five spans high. Outside lay a platform with a high-backed stone seat, and beyond that a sea of peaks and snow and ice went all the way to infinity. The sun was rising.
Tiaan ran up to the glass and stopped. It was inset into the stone on all sides. She pressed her hands against it but had to snatch them away – the glass was bitterly cold. If there was a door she could see no sign of it, nor any other way out. Putting her back to the glass, she waited. Nish was scarlet in the face, his step as unsteady as hers, but he drove himself on.
'Don't move!' He lashed at her with the rope. One end caught her on the cheek. She cried out, he jerked her to him and swiftly bound her hands.
'Call me what you like,' he gritted, 'I'll not untie you again until we stand inside the gates of the manufactory.'
Ullii came creeping up the steps. After slowly circumnavigating the room, she looked out through the glass with her masked eyes.
When Tiaan was so bound that she could move neither hands nor arms, Nish ran a length of rope from her to him. 'Go down!' he croaked, harsh as a raven.
Dead inside, Tiaan obeyed. Should she take the first opportunity to fall and carry him with her? She had just set her foot on the top step when, with a whirr, the glass wall slid into the stone.
Nish spun around. 'What's that, Ullii?'
'I can see the Art,' Ullii said softly.
Someone rose from the seat. The figure turned, tossing back her hood. As she approached, the sun caught her hair, illuminating a few flame-red strands among the grey. Her hands were bare, the fingers remarkably long, almost twice the length of her palm. Aachim! Chills fizzed up and down Tiaan's backbone.
T HREE
The woman stopped inside the door. She was taller than Tiaan, about the height of a human man. Her pale face was lined, though that took nothing away from an austere and ageless beauty. Large grey eyes held just a hint of green. The red eyebrows were fluffed with grey. Her small ears were perfectly circular.
'What are you doing here?' she said in the common speech. Her voice was soft, low and without accent.
No one spoke. Tiaan glanced sideways at Nish, who was staring at the woman, brow furrowed.
'Who are you?' he burst out.
The woman turned those ice-grey eyes on him. 'I am Matah. I am Tirthrax.'
'What are you doing in this lyrinx nest?'
The Matah laughed, which made her young again. Tiaan found a smile. Nish was not as clever as he thought.
'Tirthrax,' the Matah said, 'is the greatest city of the Aachim on Santhenar. It is more than three thousand years old. No lyrinx has ever come through its doors. Nor has any human, uninvited, until this day. I am Matah of Tirthrax. You will explain yourselves.'
Nish jerked Tiaan's lead rope so hard that she fell. 'What's going on?' Flecks of spittle spattered Tiaan's face. 'Who have you betrayed us to, artisan?'
'Release her,' said the Matah, in a tone cold as chips from the glacier.
'Keep out of it, old woman!'
Ullii let out a squawk as the Matah spread her arms then slowly brought her hands together in front of her. A tiny golden bubble drifted from one fingertip. Floating through the air, it struck Nish on the forehead, bursting with a spray of sparkles. He went rigid, arched his back and gasped. His teeth snapped closed on his protruding tongue. With a muffled grunt, he fell to his knees. A scarlet bead formed on his lower lip.
'I asked you to release her,' the Matah said mildly. 'Please do so.'
Ullii hooked her fingers into claws. Her breath simmered in her throat and she looked set to spring on the Matah. Despite her anger with Nish, Ullii would not tolerate any attack on him. How had he come to inspire such loyalty? Tiaan could not fathom it.