Tiaan had entered from a stair that ended near the outer wall. As she paced toward the port-all, every step was a nagging reminder. Over to her right was the pile of rubble and ice Haani had sheltered behind. Before her lay one of the bags of platinum Vithis had thrown to her, wealth enough to buy the manufactory and everything in it. The bag had burst open, scattering slugs of precious metal across the floor.
Her boot struck something that tinkled. She bent down, then drew back. It was the ring, woven of precious metals, she had made so lovingly for Minis. Every strand held a wish or a dream. Impossible to identify with those girlish longings now.
Picking it up, Tiaan drew back her arm to hurl it out onto the glacier, but stopped in mid-throw. ‘I will use it against him,’ she said aloud. ‘I will see him beg for it, then spurn him the way he did me.’
Putting the ring on the chain about her neck, she gathered up the platinum. It might also be useful in her quest to bring the Aachim down. After some minutes she reached the place where the gate had opened. The stone floor was scorched and the three constructs that had locked together in the gate were nearby. One lay on its side, its skin of shining blue-black metal crushed. The second was upside down. The third sat on its base but the front was smashed in.
A little thread of curiosity tugged at her. How did the constructs work? Were they like clankers, or completely different? Tiaan wondered if they might be repaired. She walked around the machines but kept going. The call of the amplimet was stronger.
She continued to the room where she had assembled the port-all. Scattered mounds of rubble had been blasted out of the wall as the gate formed. Tiaan expected to find the port-all a slaggy heap of metal and glass but it looked exactly as she had built it.
Memories of using the port-all, and opening the gate, stirred her hackles. Why, when she had built it exactly as shown, had it gone so wrong? She ran through the memories. Could it have been the wrong-handedness of it? She tried to reconstruct her recollections but again something eluded her.
As she hurried forward, longing for the amplimet etched molten tracks across her heart. She ran around the side of the machine, trying to see through the network of glass, metal, wire, ceramic and shaped stone. She was looking for the soapstone basket that held the amplimet. There it was, inside that deformed doughnut of glass that Haani had called the twisticon.
With trembling fingers Tiaan reached out to open the basket, already seeing the amplimet in her mind’s eye. It was a bipyramid of quartz, inside either end of which were radiating balls of needle crystals. Single, extended needles ran down the long axis of the crystal, separated by a little central bubble half-filled with liquid. Most unusual of all, the crystal had glowed, faintly when it was a long way from a node, strongly when close. Here in Tirthrax, radiance had positively flooded out of it.
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?