Geomancer

T WENTY -N INE

The clankers had taken a mine tunnel that ran through the mountain. Late that night they stopped, everyone ate and those not on watch dozed on the uneven floor. Though exhausted, Irisis could not sleep. Ullii was walking about in the dimness further up the tunnel, without goggles or earmuffs, eating little balls of sticky rice. She took little else, for anything flavoured or spiced tasted unbearably strong to her. Finally, bored senseless, Irisis strolled up to see what the seeker was doing. She seemed to find the rock an endless source of fascination, sometimes staring at one vein or crystal for ten minutes or more.

'There is magic in these rocks,' said Ullii.

'Oh?' Irisis was careful to speak softly.

'It's in the lattice – there and there. And there!' She pointed in various directions, through the rock.

'We find the controller crystals in this mine,' said Irisis, wondering if they might use Ullii's talent to locate better ones than the miners could, in their blind delving. Especially blind now that the best, Joeyn, was dead.

'I know. I can see them. The mountain is like a pudding full of crystals.'

That was something to explore, if they came back. It would be another mark in her favour. Gi-Had pushed the lever. The door swung back against the wall and the column passed into the other mine, torches held high, weapons at the ready. Following a zig-zagging path through tunnels that were barely wider than the machines, they eventually emerged in the cavern where the battle had occurred. Everyone except Ullii got out, examining the remains of human and lyrinx in silence. Someone retched noisily by the far wall. Ullii put her head out the back, took one whiff and retreated, slamming the hatch down.

'I can't blame her,' Nish said to Irisis. 'What a gruesome place.'

Gi-Had described the battle in clipped sentences, then walked away with Jal-Nish. They squatted down, staring at the floor. Nish crept closer, wondering what they were doing.

'I found the pincers just here,' said the overseer, pointing to the floor. Taking a small package from his pocket, he handed it to the perquisitor

Jal-Nish held something up. 'Her finger marks are on the pincers and the bolt.'

'Doesn't prove she helped him,' Gi-Had said unhappily.

'I'll keep them, just in case.'

They came back towards the bodies. 'We'll collect the remains for burial on the way back,' said Jal-Nish. 'Move on.'

When Irisis climbed in, Ullii was shivering and had stuffed a spare pair of earplugs up her nose. Breaking through to the outside, they found the sun rising on a cold, breezy but clear day. Breakfast was handed around while snowpads were fitted to the feet of the clankers. Jal-Nish came up to where Nish stood with Irisis and Ullii.

'Well, Cryl-Nish, let's see if your monkey can do her tricks.' His voice expressed all the doubt in the world.

Irisis felt just as doubtful. Ullii had as good as said that Tiaan was dead.

'Can you find Tiaan for us, Ullii?' If Nish doubted, he did not show it. 'Remember the controller I showed you. Tiaan made it, and maybe you can get a trace…'

Ullii turned her masked face diagonally up the slope. 'I can see her crystal!'

'Where? Are you sure?' cried Jal-Nish, reaching forward as if to shake her. Nish threw his arm out and the perquisitor drew back.

She pointed to the south-west. 'That way.'

'How far?'

'I don't know.'

'Can you see Tiaan?'

'Crystal is too bright.'

'Well, when was it here?' Jal-Nish snapped.

She went blank for some time. 'It was here for days.'

'She could not have moved in the great storm,' said Gi-Had. 'Or immediately after. Not until last night at the earliest.'

'She must be close by,' cried Jal-Nish. 'Spread out. Look for her.'

'She did a great magic here,' said Ullii.

'Did she now?' Jal-Nish breathed. He exchanged glances with Fyn-Mah, and Irisis knew it had to do with the event of yesterday. 'I did not know she had any. What kind of magic, I wonder?'

Ullii had no idea. 'The crystal glows by itself.'

'What do you mean?' Fyn-Mah drew close to the seeker.

'It shines all the time now. It is the brightest thing in my lattice.'

Again that exchange of glances. 'Tell us everything about this crystal,' said the perquisitor.

Ullii shaped it with her hands. 'There is a black star in either end, and black needles down the centre. A little spark runs along them.'

Jal-Nish drew Fyn-Mah away and Irisis did not hear what was said next, though they seemed to be excited and disturbed. To Irisis, born with a hedron in her hand, it was fascinating. It offered hope. Irisis knew her talent was not gone, just buried where she could not find it. She had lost confidence in herself, that fourth birthday, and unless she recovered it she would always be a fraud.

This crystal was more powerful than any Irisis had ever heard of. If she had it, she would believe in herself. To be a true artisan mattered more than anything in the world. What she would not give, or do, for that!

A soldier came running down the slope. 'Fresh tracks, surr! One lyrinx, one human with a light tread.'

'Whatever magic Tiaan used,' said Irisis, 'it didn't get her away from the enemy.'

'Maybe the seeker will prove useful after all,' said Jal-Nish. 'Move!'

They scrambled into the machines. The mechanical feet pounded away, the soldiers following on the trodden snow.

'Why are we going so slowly?' Nish said to himself after they had been crawling for a good while.

Irisis touched her pliance and said, 'The field is weak here.'

'Why?'

'Perhaps something interferes with it.'

He turned the other way. Ullii, who wriggled and squirmed as much as any two-year-old, had taken off everything except the spider-silk underwear, which fitted her like another skin. Resting her head on Irisis's shoulder, she fell asleep.

Nish's eyes never left the seeker. They ran up and down her curves, the small, pointed breasts, the curvy hips, the shadowed area between.

'Haven't you anything better to do?' Irisis said coldly. 'You're such a pervert, Nish.'

He flushed, looked away, then sat up at shouts outside. The clanker ground to a halt, shuddering on its eight legs. Nish got out, walking awkwardly. Irisis followed, pulling the hatch down behind her.

They had come up a steep slope winding around the side of a mountain. All around towered higher peaks, with sheer faces of dark rock mostly bare of snow. They were much more forbidding than the range in which the manufactory was set.

'What's the matter?' She went to the front of the line.

Ahead, an outcropping layer of flinty rock formed a small cliff, impassible to the clankers. Nish's eye traced the outcrop around the mountain. It ran for at least a league.

'What about there?' Jal-Nish pointed.

The three operators went into a huddle, muttering to one another, then broke up, avoiding Jal-Nish's eye.

'Well, come on, damn it!' he roared.

'It's not possible, perquisitor,' Gi-Had said quietly.

'Then why don't they say so?'

'It's a… it's the way of their culture; if you force them to an answer they'll say yes because they don't like to be the bearer of bad news. But it still won't get us up there.'

'Damn fool culture! If they'd told me that in the first place…'

'They are telling you, but you're not listening.'

'You tell me, then! Where?'

Gi-Had rubbed his jaw. 'Perhaps over there.' He indicated behind them, where the outcrop was notched. 'Try there!' he called.

The operators moved their machines backwards, which looked even more ridiculous than the clankers' forward motion. With their overlapping, curving plates of armour they were like eight-legged armadillos. Down the beaten track of their passage they thudded, then turned diagonally up the slope.

Nish slogged through the snow up to the notch. He was sweating by the time he reached it.

'I don't know,' Gi-Had frowned. 'It'll be a pinch, even if we can get up to the gap. The first bit's too steep, and with the weak field here…'

'What if we built a ramp of snow along here?' said Irisis.

'Good idea!'

It took hours, even with thirty soldiers labouring with their camp shovels, but finally a ramp of compacted snow was constructed up to the outcrop.

'It's still pretty steep,' said Gi-Had. 'What do you think?' he asked the huddled operators.

Again they muttered among themselves. 'What now?' Jal-Nish exclaimed, practically tearing his hair out. 'We'll lose Tiaan!' He pounded the side of the clanker. The operators turned as one, glaring. Ky-Ara clenched his fist. Jal-Nish snatched his hand away.

'What's it matter?' Nish interjected. 'The seeker can always find her again.'

'That's the attitude that got you in your present trouble, boy!' Jal-Nish grated. 'It matters, idiot son of mine, because the country beyond those peaks is a great plateau. You would have known that, had you bothered to consult a map before we left. Up there we can run them down. Not even a lyrinx has the endurance of a clanker, and it must stop to rest. But beyond the plateau lies Nyst, a land of crags, canyons and crevasses. A lyrinx can go places where no clanker, indeed no soldier, can follow. That's why we've got to catch them. If we don't do it in the next few days we never will. And if the beast finds his friends…' The perquisitor broke off, staring at the snow bank. His round chest, which merged indistinguishably into the swell of his belly, was heaving. 'Just get up there!' he spat at the operators.

They scurried back to their machines, the metal feet began to compress the snow and Simmo's clanker crept up the steep slope. Two-thirds of the way along, the front feet began to slip. They pounded on the spot, digging potholes beneath each foot, then stopped. Gi-Had gestured to Arple. The sergeant roared orders. Six soldiers trotted up behind, put their shoulders to the clanker, and Gi-Had shouted 'Go!'

Again the feet skidded. 'Heave!' cried Arple and the soldiers heaved. The clanker inched upwards. 'Heave! Heave!'

With each heave it went a little further but it did not take long to exhaust the soldiers. They held it while another gang took their place, and shortly they had it up and over, onto the gentler slope above.

'Next one won't be so easy,' Gi-Had observed laconically. 'It's pounded the track to ice.'

'Run a cable from the first,' said Tuniz the artificer, scratching her spiky head. 'It can pull the others up.'

'Don't know about that,' said Gi-Had, but gave the orders.

The two clankers started. The first was going slowly, buried to the belly in soft snow. Ky-Ara's machine began to catch up to the first as it approached the icy section. The rope sagged down to the ground.

'Shit!' cried Gi-Had, waving his arms at the operator. 'Slow down! You've got to keep the rope taut.'

Ky-Ara's clanker hit the icy patch, travelling fast. The legs thrashed, sending stinging chips of ice everywhere, but could not get a purchase. The machine began to slide backwards.

'Hold it!' roared Jal-Nish.

Two soldiers ran and put their shoulders to the rear of the machine. Arple screamed, 'Get back! No! No! Get out of the way!'

The soldiers looked from one to the other, not knowing which order to obey.

'Jump clear!' roared Arple, but it was too late. The tow rope twanged tight and as smoothly as a pendulum the clanker slid sideways across the ramp, sweeping one soldier off the edge. The other tripped and the pounding metal feet went over him. He gave a single horrible scream. The clanker toppled off the edge of the ramp, hanging from the cable, to thump into the steep slope. Ky-Ara shrieked in anguish, the sound like a saw blade on glass.

Simmo cried out as the weight pulled his machine backwards to the brink. Nish could not bear to think what the strain must be doing to the mechanisms. For a long minute it seemed the first clanker would come down on the second, but Arple sent another troop running and they heaved a rock behind the legs just in time.

When the clanker had been stabilised the sergeant came storming across, smoking with rage. He lifted Jal-Nish by the front of the coat, a considerable feat. 'If you ever, ever give an order to my troops again,' he said savagely, 'I'll make you wish you'd been smothered at birth, perquisitor or not. You give your orders to me. No one else! Is that understood?'

'Yes,' squeaked Jal-Nish.

'Let it be so!' Arple dropped him in the snow and ran to his fallen. The soldier who had been swept off the ramp had suffered only bruises and a sprained wrist, but the other had broken every bone between his thighs and the lower ribs. The sergeant hacked his pants open. Blood trickled from the soldier's bowel.

Arple, who looked the toughest and most unfeeling sergeant Nish had ever met, squatted down beside the soldier and took his hand. 'I'm sorry, Dhirr,' he said. 'I can't do anything for you. You're going to die.'

Dhirr gave a gasp that wracked his long face to the roots of his receding hair. 'My wife is pregnant. Our third! What is she going to do?'

'She is doing great service for our country,' said Arple. 'And so have you done. She will be well taken care of.'

'But my children…' he jerked, groaned and fell sideways.

Arple listened at Dhirr's chest. 'He breathes, for the moment. Put him on a stretcher. He can go in the clanker once we get it up.'

Ky-Ara was hysterical and had to be consoled by Simmo. The two men stood with their arms around each other, Ky-Ara weeping enough to frost his coat.

'There'll be trouble with that fellow before we get back,' said Gi-Had to Irisis, who was standing next to him.

'He's an emotional man, even by the standards of operators,' she agreed. 'After his controller failed last month he bawled for a week.'

They spent all morning recovering the second clanker and lifting it onto the ramp with pulleys and ropes carefully anchored. Everything was done in consultation with Gi-Had, Arple and Artificer Tuniz, who was years ahead of Nish in her trade and proved unexpectedly useful in this task. Nish was glad they did not consult him, for he had no idea what to do.

While that was going on, the soldiers cut a path through the soft snow for the first clanker, pounding the surface down hard. Other soldiers dug corrugations across the icy patch for the iron feet to grip on.

The clanker was not much damaged, fortunately, just a connecting rod bent and one of the armoured panels dented and scraping with every movement. Tuniz and Nish had the repairs done by the time the third clanker was heaved up. The accident had cost them five hours.

The perquisitor had not spoken since his encounter with Arple, but there was a thunderous look on his round face that boded ill for the sergeant if ever Jal-Nish had the advantage of him. He was not a man who could easily come to terms with humiliation, to say nothing of the challenge to his authority. But for now it would be put aside. The pursuit must go on.