Geomancer

E IGHTEEN

There was no point arguing so Irisis did not bother, though she had no idea how to do what the perquisitor wanted. How could she work with Ullii, who shied at light and sound and touch. Who knew not how to communicate what she saw?

Going into Tiaan's cubicle she sat, head in hands. Someone had lied to her. It was now clear that Tiaan had never been a spy or a saboteur. Irisis had allowed her feelings, and her ambitions, to blind her. She had wronged the other artisan and was going to pay for that folly. The existence she had so carefully constructed was being pulled down around her. After this it could not be put up again.

'What progress, artisan?'

Jal-Nish's voice roused Irisis from her despairing daze. She glanced across at the round figure filling the doorway.

'It's a different kind of problem,' she said stiffly. 'I have to think it through and then come up with a workable design.' To her ears the lie was unconvincing.

'It's urgent!' he said coldly.

'There are many problems to be solved: communicating with Ullii; finding how her talent works and how to tap it; making a type of device that has never been made before. These are not tasks that can be done in an afternoon. What you want may never be possible.'

'It had better be.'

Irisis let her forehead fall on the bench so hard that it raised a bruise. Worse than anything – death, even the breeding factory – would be to be exposed to her family for what she really was.

Irisis hated her family for what they had done to her, yet she craved their approval and desperately wanted to achieve their goals. This news would destroy her mother. Even more horrible, she, Irisis, would go down in the family Histories as the cheat and liar that she was. Her name would be black as long as the Histories endured, and on Santhenar that was a very long time indeed. The Histories were the core of civilisation and the root of everyone's life, great and humble.

Even illiterate peasants knew their Histories by heart, back ten generations or more. Minor families had written Histories. Those of the House of Stirm went back twenty-six generations; eight hundred and seventy-one years. Years of her childhood had been spent learning them by heart. The greatest families recorded as much as three thousand years and had a personal chronicler at their elbows all the time to remind them. Her family Histories defined who she was. They were, at once, an ocean she was drowning in, and a lifeline.

She went out, locking the door, and stumbled up to Nish's room. He was still sleeping soundly. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she watched him until the light began to fade. Even Nish, who only weeks ago had begged for her body, had cast her aside. She could not blame him but it had proven unexpectedly painful. She should leave before he rejected her again, but Irisis had nowhere to go.

Kicking off boots and socks, she slipped under the covers. Nish was warm. She pressed her cold body against him, took a little comfort there, and slept.

When she woke it was dark. Nish rolled over carefully, putting an arm across her back. She drew him to her, mindful of his wound.

'Irisis?' he whispered.

Feeling the tension in him, she steeled herself. 'Yes?' she said in his ear. 'If you want me to go away, just say so.'

He squeezed her hand, almost as if he cared. 'You saved my life.'

She did not answer.

'What are you doing here, Irisis?'

'It was this or killing myself.'

'Irisis!'

She let out a choked sob, which she tried unsuccessfully to turn into a cough. 'I'm undone, Nish. I'm going to be exposed for the fraud I am.'

'What are you talking about?'

She told him about the blind seeker, Ullii, and what Jal-Nish required of her.

'A seeker!' he exclaimed, but the cry turned into a moan and he fell back on his pillows.

She sat up. 'Are you all right?' It surprised her that she cared, for in his disgrace he could be no further use to her, but somehow she did care.

'My neck feels as if someone hacked into it with a sword.'

'It's a nasty wound.' She stared up at the ceiling, invisible in the darkness. 'You've come across seekers before?'

'I heard mention of them when I was a scribe, though I never met one. It may even have been Ullii that they were talking about.'

'What did you hear?'

'Wild theories and hope unsubstantiated, for the most part. My master held that they were the answer to our prayers. His friend, a damned lawyer, thought the whole idea a nonsense and a waste of precious time and money. Father was somewhere in the middle. If an idea works, he believes in it. From what I heard, seekers are strange people, highly unstable.'

'That's Ullii! She's even more flawed than I am.' Irisis gave a bitter snort.

'What are you talking about? You're still an artisan, and could well be crafter again, like your uncle. Some day you may even be chanic. And after your great deeds this morning, who could believe -'

'Nish!' She squeezed his arm hard and he broke off. He no longer minded her calling him that. 'It's true; I do come from a long line of artisans and crafters. Two reached the very pinnacle of the art and were awarded the honour of chanic. I'm not one of them, Nish.

'The day my mother knew she was with child she began making plans for me. The first words I heard were not baby talk, but a map of my future, which was no more than a reflection of our past. You think my father and uncle were great achievers because they became crafters? In fact they let the family down. Once we were chanics, now we're reduced to crafters. What next? Labourers in the pit? It was up to me to restore the family.

'I was trapped in our Histories. Other children had toys; I was given a tiny set of tools, waste hedrons and old controller apparatuses that had been taken to pieces. I was putting them back together as soon as I could walk. Before I turned six I was making controller parts. By the age of twelve I could make anything: the tiniest part for a pocket chronometer, the most delicate jewellery, perfect lenses for a 'scope. I wanted to be a jeweller; I knew I had a rare skill for making beautiful things. Even my controllers are works of art.

'My family would not allow that for an instant. A jeweller? A common craft worker! I might as well have said a brothel madam, the way they reacted. I was to be the greatest artisan of all time, raising the House of Stirm back to the pinnacle it had fallen from. They told me that every day. You can have no idea how I suffocated under their ambition. There was only one problem.'

She stopped there. Nish did not say a word, and after some minutes she continued. 'I have no talent for tapping the field, Nish. None whatsoever! I'm a fraud.'

He sat up and lit the lantern. 'But, that's not possible, Irisis. You make the most perfect controllers I've ever seen.'

'I lie and cheat and manipulate others to do what I cannot do myself. I've been doing that since I was four and discovered that I'd lost the talent every member of my family has had for five generations.'

'What?' He stared into her eyes.

'It was my fourth birthday and I was in my party dress and ribbons, the prettiest child there!' She spat the word out. 'Everyone else was doing tricks with the family talent, showing off, each trying to top the other.'

'What kind of tricks?'

'Oh, you know. The usual stuff.'

'I have no idea. My family doesn't have the talent, remember?'

'Sorry – I assume everyone knows. In our family, people did it as often as the washing up.'

'Did what, Irisis?' he said irritably.

'Pulled energy out of the field to play tricks. Like making snow fall in the house in mid-summer, or cooking the food on our plates at the dinner table. Silly little things that could only amuse silly little people! Anyway, on my birthday Uncle Barkus, the old crafter, put a hedron in my hands and told me to show them what I could do. He boasted that I would be the most brilliant of the lot, though I was the youngest. My brothers, sisters and cousins already hated me, having been told I would be better than all of them put together. You have no idea the pressure I felt, and how I strove to work some wonderful trick with the hedron.

'I tried too hard. I knew I was the best, for I had been doing tricks since I could walk. But I wanted it too much, and I was too anxious. I could feel the talent, deep down somewhere, but I just could reach it. I began to think that I never would, and that was that. The harder I tried the further the talent receded. I lost it that day and never found it again. It taught me a good lesson,' she ended bitterly. 'Don't give yourself, and don't care too much. About anything!'

'I don't understand,' said Nish. 'What did you lose?'

'The ability to tap the field. I can see it as well as anyone. I can visualise how to draw power from it, and the precise sub-ethyric path it must take. But when I try, nothing happens.'

'What did you do?'

'The only thing a pretty little girl could do. I burst into tears. Mother yelled at uncle and there was a huge fuss, everyone blaming everyone else. My father gave me a special gift. Mother put the hedron in my hands and did a trick with it, saying it was me. She froze the flowers in the vase so hard that when she tapped them they shattered like glass. The adults clapped, my cousins scowled, my big sister punched me when no one was looking, and everyone went home. I learned two good lessons that day. To use my beauty, and to lie! My family would not hear the truth so I kept lying. I even learned to fool my mother. It wasn't hard; she wanted to be fooled.

'I got by here easily enough. It was easy to trick Uncle Barkus, and I was so good with my hands that no one considered I was incapable of drawing power. Lying and cheating served me well, as a workshop girl, then as a prentice. Once I became an artisan it was even easier. I had the other artisans and prentices do the work I could not, under the guise of teaching them their craft. I have a rare talent for teaching, born out of desperation. When that fails, I fly into a rage, or use my womanhood. I hate myself, Nish, but I can't go back. I live in terror that I'll be exposed.'

Nish put his arms around her but she pulled away.

'The examiner seduced me at my eleventh-year examination,' she continued. 'I allowed him to; I could see no other way to avoid discovery. At the examination when I was sixteen, I seduced the examiner for the same reason. I did it subtly though. I used my wiles to give the impression of vast ability, and a family destiny, tempered by a charming smallness of confidence.

'When all other avenues failed I was not afraid to humble myself. I would go to the crafter, or the examiner, and explain what it was I did not understand, or what I could not solve. I was quite brilliant at leading them through it step by step, with my bosom heaving and tears of frustration quivering on my lashes, so they thought they were drawing my knowledge out of me. I know it all, as well as Tiaan does, but I just can't do it!

'It worked perfectly until Uncle Barkus died, leaving me and Tiaan as the senior artisans, and not much in terms of experience between us. A problem came up that I could not solve. I tried to work Tiaan the way I had manipulated uncle, but she was too smart and too impatient. She simply told me what to do and waited for me to do it. I had the most agonising moment of humiliation, sitting there with the hedron in my hands and her staring at me expectantly. Of course I could not do it. I thanked her, made my face into a mask, and fled.

'Fortunately she went to see her mother and was snowed in for a week. By the time she returned I'd taught another artisan to do what I could not do myself. I never approached Tiaan again. She did not ask how I solved the problem, though I knew she hadn't forgotten. I was sure she suspected my incompetence and I've hated her ever since. That's why I had to get rid of her. I knew she would expose me, eventually. Horrible, aren't I?'

'How would you have survived as crafter?' said Nish.

'It would have been easy.' A smile crept into her voice. 'I'd have hired artisans with the skills I lacked, ones I could control. People who did not ask questions; who were creative but lacked ambition. I can manage people, and I know exactly what's required. I just can't do it.'

'Why not do that with the seeker?'

'Tracking the Secret Art is a new problem and it needs a brilliant, creative mind. I have no idea how to solve it and the other artisans won't either. If Tiaan was here I would simply turn it over to her…' She gave a hollow laugh. 'Ironic, isn't it?'

He did not reply. She blew out the lamp. He drifted into sleep, Irisis back to her despair. Why had she confessed? Nish was as much an opportunist as she was. He would denounce her to gain credit for himself. There was only one way out. She eased her feet to the floor, trying not to disturb him.

'Where are you going, Irisis?'

'Nowhere. For the rest of my life!'

His groping hand caught her wrist. Irisis jerked away but he did not let go, so her heave pulled him out of the bed. His head struck the corner of the cupboard and Nish let out a shriek.

Footsteps came running down the corridor. The door was thrust open. A lantern dazzled her eyes. She made out the portly figure of Jal-Nish. Other faces appeared.

'What's going on here?' snapped the perquisitor. 'What have you done to my son?' He seized her arm.

Nish rubbed his head. A trickle of blood seeped from under the bandage on his throat. She held her breath, waiting for him to betray her. She had no doubt that he would, for Irisis judged other people by her own standards. Nish was out for what he could get and she was in his way.

'Well?' raged Jal-Nish. 'Move, woman! Let me get to him.'

Nish got to his feet, shakily, and subsided on the edge of the bed. He gave Irisis an ambiguous glance. She steeled herself.

'I can solve my own problems, thank you, father.'

'You can't!' Jal-Nish said curtly. 'That's increasingly evident.'

Nish supported himself on the cupboard. Looking his father in the eye, he hardened his downy jaw. 'It was just a lovers' tiff and I don't need you to sort it out. Get out of my life, father!'

Jal-Nish looked as if he had been struck across the face. It was the first time any of his children defied him. Then he nodded, reached down and hauled Irisis to her feet. 'Get back to your workshop. Time's wasting.'

'She stays!' Nish snapped.

Irisis looked from one to the other. What was Nish up to?

'We are working together on your problem,' Nish said.

'It has nothing to do with you, Cryl-Nish,' said Jal-Nish.

'I am an artificer. I know how to make things; I know how to talk to people; I know many languages. Together Irisis and I will learn how to communicate with the seeker and solve your problem, father.'

The perquisitor's face became unreadable. He frowned, nodded and withdrew, pulling the door shut. Nish lit the lamp with trembling hands, but had to sit down. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat.

Irisis did not move. 'Why did you say that?'

'What did you expect me to do?'

'To tell him the truth,' she said simply. 'Let's not delude each other, Cryl-Nish. I'm not a nice person and neither are you.'

'Maybe so but if there's one lesson from my childhood I did take to heart, it's loyalty to my family, and my friends!'

Irisis choked, and tried to muffle it with her hand. Friendship had played little part in her life. Her dealings had always been 'use more than you are being used'. Friendship was a weakness other people were afflicted with. She had never understood it.

'Why, Nish? I mean, Cryl-Nish.'

'I know you lie and cheat and connive, and yes, maybe you did murder the apothek. But I saw you on the wall this morning. You showed courage that I don't have.'

'I was terrified! I had to kill it before it killed me. To be eaten by a lyrinx…' She shuddered.

'All the more courageous,' he said softly. 'You killed a lyrinx all by yourself, Irisis. Not many people can claim that.'

'A lucky shot,' she said, still wary.

'A clever shot! And your operation saved my life.'

'I might just as well have killed you. I might have been trying to, and make it look…'

'You didn't though, did you? No one else knew what to do, yet you knew in an instant. They would have let me die, too afraid to save me. You tried, knowing that if you failed you would be put to death. The perquisitor is not a forgiving man.'

'A rush of blood to the head. I did not stop to think.'

'You thought it through in an instant. Can it be that you… love me, Irisis?'

Irisis could not believe that Nish, or anyone, would care what happened to her. 'Don't flatter yourself, my spotty little Nish-Nash. Love makes fools of the cleverest of people. I was just trying to buy favour with your father.'

'And I with your family just now!' he snapped. 'If you don't mind, I'm tired and my neck hurts, and I'm going back to bed. Good night!'

She stood in the shadow cast by the half-shuttered lantern, unmoving. Irisis opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak, then closed it again.

'What is it?' he said irritably, holding his neck.

'Nothing!' she whispered. 'It's nothing.'

She went out, closing the door silently. Irisis returned to the workshop and sat in the dark, turning what had happened over and over in her mind, like stones on a barren plain. She expected to find something venomous underneath. She did not. All she found was cool shadow, and in it things she did not recognise at all.