Tetrarch

There was no resistance this time. Her fingers went straight to the catch. She flicked it and the soapstone basket sprang open.

Tiaan let out a cry of anguish.

The amplimet was gone. Malien! Earlier, the Matah had not been able to control her desire for it. She must have come for it in the night. A pang of rage twisted Tiaan's insides. Despite her vow, she could not bear anyone else to have it. Joeyn had died getting it for her.

Malien was not in her chamber. Tiaan searched her rooms but the amplimet was not there. Sinking on the bed, she put her throbbing head in her hands. Malien might have hidden it anywhere.

She became aware that Malien was standing in the doorway, staring at the mess. Tiaan felt an irrational surge of rage. Keep calm; don't give yourself away. All in vain. She threw herself at the older woman, beating at her with her fists. 'What have you done with it?'

Malien held her easily. Aachim were strong, even old ones. 'What is the matter, Tiaan?'

'The amplimet is gone!'

Malien turned and ran.

'Where are you going?' Tiaan ran after her. The old woman was moving faster than Tiaan's weary legs could run. 'Wait.'

Malien allowed her to catch up. 'I haven't taken it, which can only mean one thing.'

Nish, of course. Tiaan felt such a fool.

'I should never have left it there,' said Malien. 'What if it falls into the wrong hands?'

'What do you mean by the wrong hands?' Tiaan panted.

'Any hands but yours.'

'Or yours?'

'Even when I was young, I never wanted power. Besides…'

'What?'

'You had the crystal for months, and used it to do mighty works. By now it will be so imprinted with you that others may only use it at their peril.'

That was not as convincing as it sounded. Tiaan had seen the look in Malien's eyes when first the amplimet had been mentioned.

At the door to the port-all chamber, Malien checked, as if afraid to go in. 'If only this were a dream and I could wake from it.' She passed a hand over her eyes and pushed through the door. 'After the Forbidding was broken, we thought we were free of gates and what they brought. Only one man knew how to make them – old Shand – and he swore he would take the secret to his grave. I'm sure he did. We never thought that knowledge would return from across the void. Who would have thought it could?

'Ingenious,' Malien continued, walking around the port-all, giving Tiaan curious looks as she did. 'You are quite a mechanician, Tiaan.'

'I just put it together from a pattern Minis sent to me. I don't claim to understand it.'

'Few Aachim could have built this from a mental image.' Malien sat on a piece of fallen stone, deep in thought.

Tiaan fretted. 'He's getting away, Malien.'

'Let me think this through. It has to be your friend, Nish. Take this.' She handed Tiaan a rod, about the length of a sword, made of black metal, though it was comparatively light.

Tiaan handled it as if it was about to explode. 'What is it for?'

Malien chuckled. 'To whack him over the head, if necessary. Have you clothes for outside?'

Tiaan ran to the room where she had left her pack, days ago, and dressed in her old down-filled pants, coat and boots. When she returned, Malien was standing by the crashed constructs. She wove her long fingers into a knot, tore it apart, then began to make another, which she also wrenched undone.

'These things are just like Rulke's machine. I'm afraid, Tiaan, as I have never been before. Afraid of my own kind.'

'Were you not afraid of Rulke?'

'Very. But he was only one man with one construct, and we knew his character, for we had the Histories to guide us. Rulke, within his own strange code, was an honourable man. This is different. Vithis, embittered by the loss of his clan, now leads a mighty force. It will tip the balance.'

'What are you going to do?' Tiaan said anxiously, yet glad Malien was taking charge.

'I don't know.' Malien stepped back, eyeing the constructs. 'I wonder if these might be repaired…'

'Are you a mechanician too?' Tiaan cast anxious glances at the entrance.

Malien smiled thinly. 'The least among my people, though I am not entirely without talent.' She cocked an eye at the construct which was smashed at the front. 'This one does not seem to be badly damaged.' She gave Tiaan a long, assessing glance. 'Maybe later.' Malien headed for the entrance.

Among the tumbled columns and heaps of rubble and ice, they looked down. Just below, the glacier had gouged out the side of the mountain in a curving scar, forming a surface like a road, though the broken, up-jutting slate would be difficult to walk on. Beyond ran a river of blue ice a good league across, scarred with crevasses large enough to swallow whole villages. The glacier, the fastest in the world, could be heard plucking and grinding at its bed. Every so often a crevasse would crack open, the sound echoing across the valley. How would they ever find Nish in this wilderness of rock and ice?

Malien began to climb down. 'Are you coming, Tiaan?'

'He's probably floated away in his balloon already,' she said miserably.

'He'd have to gather fuel first and that could take days.' Malien picked her way down the side of the mountain as if she knew exactly where she was going.

'Can you sense the amplimet?'

'I wish I could.' Malien looked more at ease now. 'He said the balloon was directly below us and the only fuel was bushes, so it must lie above the tree line. It can't be more than a few hours down the slope, and a gasbag ten spans high will be visible from a long way. We'll find him.'

They rested every half-hour. The downhill walking was unexpectedly tiring. On their second stop, as Tiaan was sipping from her flask, there came a monumental crash that shook the rock beneath her. She dropped the flask and scrambled for it as the water gurgled out.

'What was that?' The start of an avalanche, she imagined.

'Icefall,' said Malien. 'The glacier runs over a precipice. See, just there. Every so often, the overhanging ice breaks off and falls a thousand spans to the plain.'

They continued, more warily now, though the jumbled rocks here provided plenty of cover. Shortly Malien stopped. 'Ah, this is hard on my old knees. Creep up onto that rock, Tiaan, and see if you can see anything.'

As Tiaan put her head over the top she saw a black, swelling mushroom, not a third of a league below. 'It's just down there,' she hissed.

Malien climbed up beside her. 'Ingenious design.' She shaded her eyes as she stared at the balloon. 'It looks nearly inflated. We'd better hurry.'

They had not gone far when Tiaan felt a pang in her right temple, a stabbing pain that disappeared as quickly as it had come. She let out a gasp.

Malien stopped at once. 'What's the matter?'

'Just a headache. It's gone now.'

'Take some more water,' Malien advised.

Tiaan took another few sips, though she knew dehydration was not the problem. The pang reminded her of something she had put out of mind a long time ago and did not want to think of now.

A little further on, Malien crouched down between the boulders. 'I don't like this,' she muttered.

'What is it?'

'We're being watched.'

Tiaan scanned the sky. 'I can't see a thing.'

'I can. Come, quickly! There are three of them, and since they're flying…' Malien pointed high in the western sky, where Tiaan now discerned a speck, and then two more.

'Lyrinx!'

F IVE

Nish slammed his way down the stairs, so angry that he dared not speak, lest he take out his frustrations on Ullii. One minute he had succeeded against all the odds and made up for his previous follies. The next he had lost and was good for nothing but to be sent to the front-lines in the hopeless war against the lyrinx. Nish was a proud and ambitious young man who took failure hard.