‘No, thank you. I’ve already eaten.’ That was a lie, but she did not want to share food with him. It would make it even harder.
‘All the more for me.’ He broke a piece of pink flesh from the fish with his eating sticks and ate it with relish. ‘Very good!’ He tore a bun in half. ‘Is there nothing you can’t do well, Irisis?’
She did not answer, just sat watching, enjoying his pleasure in the meal. He sipped his tea, stirred honey into it with a crooked finger and looked up at her.
‘Of course I know you want something, crafter. What is it?’
The lump in her stomach felt like a pumpkin. She caught his eye and for once had to look away. She liked the man; they had been lovers. How could she let him down like this? But then, how could she not tell him? He had to know.
‘I want to confess. No, that’s not true. I have to confess. I cannot bear it any longer.’
He considered his plate, selecting a choice morsel of fish, and licked his lips. How could he be so casual?
‘Confess, Irisis? You surprise me. What can you possibly have to confess to me?’
It burst out of her. ‘I’m a fraud, scrutator. I can’t draw power from the field. I lost the talent when I was a child of four and I’ve never been able to get it back. I’ve been lying and cheating ever since. I can’t do the job and I can’t possibly help you see into the node and find out what’s gone wrong with it.’
‘But you do do the job, Irisis. This manufactory produces the best controllers in the east, and more quickly than most. The Council is rather pleased with your work.’
‘But …’
‘Besides, we know you have drawn power. You did it up on the high plateau when the clanker controllers had to be re-tuned to that strange double node. Fyn-Mah told me so.’
‘That was … Ullii showed me the way, surr.’
‘I don’t answer to “surr” from my lover, Irisis.’
‘Xervish –’ The name felt wrong; she could hardly bring herself to use it. ‘It was Ullii’s doing, Xervish. She showed me the path and power just flooded from the field. I could not have done it on my own.’
‘But I’m sending Ullii with you to the node. Where is the problem?’
‘I’m not what I’m supposed to be.’
‘None of us are what we’re supposed to be. I’m a pragmatic man. It’s the result that counts. You worked well with the seeker so I trust you will again, artisan.’
‘I don’t answer to artisan from my lover, Xervish.’
‘I’m sorry. The scrutator in me.’
‘I prefer the other meaning,’ she said wickedly.
He smiled. ‘Ah, yes. Very good. Might …’ He hesitated, unsure of himself for once. ‘Might there be further opportunities in that regard, do you think?’
She pretended to consider it, blank-faced. Her eyes met his. ‘I’m mindful that we each have a duty to perform, Xervish.’
‘I prefer the other meaning,’ he grinned.
‘Er, I’m not sure I take your point, Xervish.’
‘You will, later! A duty, to perform!’
She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes, listening to the clacking of his eating sticks. The scrutator was a noisy eater and drank his tea with loud, appreciative slurps. It did not bother her; that was good manners in the country he came from.
She felt very tired. Irisis had not slept all night, and sparring with Flydd was emotionally exhausting. What was more, it still had not solved the problem.
‘Another thing, Xervish.’
He gulped the last of the bowl, wiped his mouth on the cloth and swung around. ‘You’re thinking that you don’t know enough about nodes. That this is really mancer’s work and you can’t do it.’
‘Precisely.’
‘You won’t be going alone,’ said Flydd.
‘Who will be going with me?’
‘I’ll let you know when the time comes.’
Irisis was not at her best that day. They were now surveying on the eighth level. She was desperately tired and not up to dealing with a fractious, childlike Ullii who suffered constant headaches and would curl up in the dark at the least provocation. The miners, a rough lot at the best of times, were having trouble restraining their tempers. They were bitter about the loss of the reward, more so that the enemy had infiltrated their mine, not to mention anxious at the danger of working beneath such unstable rock. Dandri had already shouted at Ullii twice. If it happened again, it would put paid to any useful seeking for the rest of the day.
‘This is hopeless,’ Irisis said to Peate as they trudged down another tunnel so narrow that the sides scraped against her shoulders. ‘Isn’t there any way to tell where to look for crystal?’
‘The veins wander where they want to. And often, in this mine, the best veins are in the most dangerous areas. Like –’ He looked away down the tunnel.
Irisis sensed that there was something she was not being told, or shown. They seemed to have been going around in a circle.
‘Could I see the map of this level, please?’
‘That’s miner’s business,’ he muttered, rolling it up.
She put out her hand.
He held the map behind his back. ‘You have no right? Anyway, you’d never understand it.’
‘Would you like me to get an order from the scrutator?’ she said coldly.
‘Just give her the blasted map, Peate!’ shouted Dandri, and marched off into the darkness.
Peate’s arm dropped to his side. He did not offer her the map, nor resist when she took it. His face had assumed that mulish expression she had seen so often on miners over the years.
The map was, of course, perfectly comprehensible. The tunnels were marked with double lines whose width varied according to the size of the tunnel. Shafts were shown with circles; arrows indicated whether they went up or down. Markings along the sides of the tunnel were in symbols she did not understand, though she presumed they described the character of the rock and the sources of ore or crystal. The places Ullii had surveyed, fruitlessly, were marked in red. The red marks formed an irregular ‘U’ shape around a central core of tunnels.
‘We’ve not been in this area at all,’ she said to the miner.
‘Too dangerous,’ said Peate.
‘Is that what these black jags show? Bad rock?’
‘Yes!’
‘I’d still like to go in there.’
He threw down his pick. ‘Then you can go alone!’
‘I will. Give me your lantern.’
He passed it to her, Irisis called Ullii and led her away. Around the corner, she said to the seeker, ‘We must go down here. Is that all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Ullii. ‘We can go anywhere you want.’
‘You’re not afraid to go without the miners?’
‘Don’t like Peate. He is an angry man.’
‘The rock is bad down here,’ said Irisis. ‘It might fall and kill us.’
‘I know you’ll look after me.’
Irisis sighed. ‘Let’s get to work.’
‘Nothing here either?’ said Irisis about six hours later. The silent darkness of the mine was getting to her. She had been edgy from the moment she’d entered.
Ullii shook her head. ‘Head hurts. Want to go home.’
‘Let’s just look around the corner first.’
Irisis trudged off. Ullii plodded after her. It was no wonder the seeker’s head was aching; the air was really bad down here. It had a faintly sulphurous smell, overlain by the odour of stagnant water, though the map showed no water on the eighth level. Where could it be coming from?
Around the corner the tunnel narrowed between two bosses of massive white quartz, free of any kind of crystal. Irisis held her lantern out. Ahead she could see only sheared pink granite in walls and roof. Wet mounds of crumbled rock, nearly waist high, partly blocked the tunnel. The roof must be really unstable. Water dripped all the way along.
‘Well, that’s one place we’re definitely not going.’ Turning away, Irisis rotated the half-shuttered lantern so it would not dazzle Ullii.