‘Take me out,’ she said exhaustedly. ‘It feels like beetles are crawling over my skin.’ Even with the mask gone, things still seemed strange.
Ryll looked equally worn and, for the first time, showed no skin colour at all. ‘We must begin again in three hours.’ He held a mug to her mouth.
She gulped it, eager for the oblivion of sleep, but in her dreams the faulty torgnadr was fountaining sparks like a firework. Tiaan was shaken awake. It was deadly wrong, but she could not tell why.
The room shook again, followed by a dull boom. Sand rained down on her hair and, as the shuddering continued, chunks of sandstone began to fall. One smashed a glass bucket further along the row. A line of tar filled a crack in the wall beside her.
A massive blow shook the room, making the walls quiver like the muck she was suspended in. Lyrinx raced back and forth, yelling and skin-speaking all the colours of the spectrum. A gaggle of humans fled past the open door, including the man with the withered shoulder, urged on by a lyrinx carrying a prod. Ryll raced up the row to Tiaan, but before he reached her Old Hyull roared at him from the doorway. Ryll’s eyes met hers. He flashed distress patterns, then pulled the jelly mask over her head.
‘Ryll?’ she screamed. ‘What’s going on?’ Too late. The mask cut everything off and the patterning resumed, though it did not seem to be working properly. The flow of power kept fluctuating wildly. Was it failing?
Thump! She wanted to scream but couldn’t – the patterning had become one continuous hallucination. Battle scenes crashed through her mind: clankers firing blazing missiles over the walls of Snizort; a squad of human soldiers being beaten back by a single, blood-drenched lyrinx; a tar bog ablaze, flames reflecting on it like a black mirror. Thump!
Abruptly the mask was ripped from her head and the hallucinations vanished. A strange lyrinx thrust his face at her, grunted and turned away, taking the immature torgnadr. Chunks of roof were falling all around. There was confusion everywhere. The women in the patterners were screaming. Tiaan wanted to scream too.
Thump, thump, thump. She caught sight of Liett down the far end. ‘Liett?’
She was running along the line of patterners, slamming her fist on the release levers. The top of each sprang open. She was about to do Tiaan’s when a lyrinx yelled at her from the doorway. Liett lifted Tiaan halfway out but the other lyrinx roared an order. Liett let Tiaan go and ran.
Silence fell, broken by repeated shockwaves that rattled the tops of the patterners and shook down more of the roof. Along her row a woman began to push herself out. She emerged slowly, her big muscular body glistening with muck. After shaking herself, she sprang up on the next patterner and heaved the occupant out. Each then went to another machine. Within minutes, fifteen women and two men, everyone except Tiaan, had been released.
‘Hey!’ Tiaan yelled. ‘What about me?’
The big woman tapped her legs and followed the others. They could not afford to carry anyone.
When Liett dropped her, Tiaan’s arms had remained outside the patterner. Instinctively, she felt for the amplimet, and it was there! Ryll always put it around her neck before a patterning session and in the panic both Liett and the other lyrinx had forgotten to take it. As Tiaan touched it, she sensed the field swirling around Snizort like an exploding star. It was strangely deformed and bore a distinct signature that she recognised: the faulty torgnadr. Was the torgnadr deforming the field, or the amplimet deforming both? She did not want to find out.
Tiaan saw points of light in the field – places where the lyrinx, and the human armies, were drawing on it. Another point was in this room, the drain from the patterners, though that was fading.
The field went whoomph, like a furnace pumped by a bellows, then dropped to nothing before flaring up again. Something was terribly wrong. Had too much been taken from the node? The draw from all those clankers outside must be monumental. If the node went dead …
She tried to push herself out but the muck had too much suction. Tiaan kicked feebly. It made no difference. She was trapped in the patterner. Laying her head on its flat top, she tried to resign herself to her fate. She was wondering what the manner of her death would be when the realisation struck Tiaan like a physical blow. Had she moved her legs? It must have been a hallucination. She tried to clench her toes and definitely felt them move.
Tiaan did not allow the hope – soldiers sometimes felt their limbs years after they had been cut off. She kicked herself in the ankle, and felt it, as well as a pain in her toe. It was true! She could move, and feel pain. She was not a cripple any more. She would walk again some day. Soon, if she could just get out.
Tiaan slid back down, her mind awhirl. So that’s what Old Hyull had been doing. He’d put her in that other device to pattern, or more likely flesh-form, her severed spine together.
Had she been flesh-formed? Tiaan felt sick. Had they used part of some other creature to join the severed ends of her spinal cord? That aching point in her back now seemed to be swelling as if something lay inside, feeding on her. But she had her legs back and, for the moment at least, it seemed worth it.
Tiaan kept trying to push herself out but her arms did not have enough strength to break the suction. She rested her head on the top of the patterner and eventually, in spite of the continuing shocks, exhaustion overwhelmed her.
‘Tiaan?’
She roused. It sounded like Merryl’s voice. Tiaan opened her eyes. The patterning chamber was full of mist and the air smelled stale, as if the ventilation bellows had stopped working a long time ago.
‘Merryl?’
He raced up the line of patterners. ‘Tiaan, thank heavens I came back.’
Climbing up, he pulled her out easily, despite his missing hand. Merryl found some rags and she wiped the muck off while he looked for her clothes. Her skin was red and blistered all over.
‘What’s happening, Merryl?’
‘The lyrinx were called out to the battle. It’s a desperate struggle out there, and now something has gone wrong down below. There’s smoke in the lower tunnels. The remaining lyrinx are abandoning Snizort.’
She wrapped her arms around herself, wary of trusting anyone, even Merryl. ‘They just left me behind to die.’
‘I’m sure that wasn’t meant to happen.’
‘Ryll abandoned me!’
‘He was sent into battle. I was sure they would have taken you, with the other important prisoners, but in the panic …’
‘Do you know the way out?’
‘Of course … if I can get to it.’
She managed to dress herself, but her legs would not support her. He had to carry her and her precious pack. After some minutes, when he began to show the strain, she said, ‘Leave me, Merryl. You can’t carry me all the way.’
‘I’m not going to leave you.’
‘You’ll die too.’
‘I’ve faced that risk every day since I was captured. I’d sooner die than leave a friend behind.’
‘I left mine behind,’ she said. ‘They were dead.’
They sat on the floor while he got his breath. ‘That’s a beautiful crystal,’ he said.
She touched it. ‘It’s a special kind of hedron, an amplimet. It can power my walker – do you know where that is?’
‘In one of the storerooms near where you were brought in, I’d imagine. But if the field dies it won’t be any use.’
‘The amplimet is powerful enough to draw on a distant field.’ If it could be trusted, and how could she trust it? Only because it, too, must want a way out. The heat of the smallest fire would destroy it.
‘Then let’s see if we can find the walker. I think I know where to look.’
After many dark corridors and crowded storerooms they found it. Merryl helped Tiaan into the seat. She had done up the straps and was just reaching for power when there came a blast and roar that shook the floor and filled her ears with grit. The walker was thrown off its four feet, coming down on Merryl’s thigh. He let out a gasp.