Geomancer

F ORTY -E IGHT

As the boat drifted away from the seeping warmth of Kalissin, the water became progressively colder. Tiaan woke, feeling the chill coming through the leather.

It was dark; just a trace of moon. The craft was rocking wildly and driven sleet stung her cheeks. In this wind the boat must soon fetch up on the shore. Then she had to discover how to get to her destination, preferably without telling anyone where she was headed.

Better stay with the boat, at least until she found a village. It would be easy enough to fashion a paddle. She could even make a scrap of sail, perhaps sailing down a river to the inland sea. The wind was blowing towards the south, roughly the way she wanted to go. She'd head along the shore until she found an outlet flowing in that direction, to Tallallamel, and keep going until she got there.

Wrapping her coat around her, Tiaan drifted, somewhere between waking and sleep. She ached all over and the top of her head throbbed. She probed it with her fingertips. A clump of hair was gone, the skin beneath blistered. The boat was being banged against something hard, a crust of ice stretching between round rocks. It was still dark and she was freezing.

Easing the craft along the rocks into a cove, she climbed out. The ground was crusted snow. Ahead lay sparse forest, old pines with straggly limbs. Pulling the boat from the water, she marked its position and went towards the trees.

She'd need a fire to survive the night. A little way inside the forest Tiaan began to gather twigs from above her head. It took a lot of effort with flint and tinder to get a fire going, for the wood was damp. Fortunately she had plenty of experience – damp wood was the only kind they had at the manufactory. Soon she was warming her hands at the blaze and making soup from dried fish and lake water.

She did not care what it tasted like; the warmth was all that mattered. Later Tiaan made a second fire, put boughs between the two for a bed and lay down in her sleeping pouch. It was one of the most uncomfortable nights of her life.

The following day she poled along the edge of the lake, searching for an outlet. Tiaan did not find one, though on the morning after she encountered a good-sized river which flowed south. Paddling into it, she let the current carry her along, and shortly passed a hut on the edge of a patch of forest. She kept going, hoping for a village, but before long came around a bend to find ice from bank to bank. The river was probably frozen all the way to the inland sea, and clear upstream only because the lake was warm. What now? She could not walk to Tallallamel. Tiaan poled back towards the hut, taking a small piece of silver from Joeyn's money belt and putting it in her pocket.

The hut was built on a gentle rise and constructed of wattle and daub, shaped like a squat vase. The walls were thick, the roof rising to a peak. A slanted, pointed cowl kept snow out of the smoke hole.

A miserable dwelling, but the walls were in good condition and a child playing in a tree outside had rosy cheeks and a well-fed face. No doubt the family made a good living from fish. Poling her boat to the shore, Tiaan stepped onto the snow, which crunched underfoot.

The child looked down.

'Hola!' said Tiaan.

'Myrz!' said the child, jumping off the branch. Dressed in furs, it was a round ball of a creature of indeterminate sex. Its hood fell back, revealing pale skin and long hair a quite remarkable colour, blond with the faintest hint of lime. The child was seven or eight, she supposed. She had heard tales of pale-skinned, green-haired people who lived beyond the mountains, but had never seen one before. There were not a lot of visitors to the manufactory and most were like her – black of hair and olive of skin.

Tiaan had no idea of the language. She knew only the dialects of the south-east peninsula and the common speech of eastern Lauralin, which was not as well known as it might have been. In many places only scholars, tellers and traders knew it. She spoke to the child in the common speech.

'I would like to buy some food, please.'

'Myrz?'

Tiaan mimed putting food in her mouth.

The child laughed. 'Mitsy-pitsy. Flar hyar!' It trotted off to the hut, looking back at intervals to see that Tiaan was following. At the entrance the child pushed aside a hanging door and slipped inside, calling out.

Tiaan waited. She'd left her pack in the boat and was afraid it would disappear if she let it out of her sight. The child's head appeared beneath the hanging. 'Blazy mirr!' It made hand-signals that seemed to be saying, 'Come in.'

Casting an anxious glance at the boat, Tiaan crawled inside. It was surprisingly warm. The air had a thick tang of smoke, fish stew and the ripe smell, not unpleasant, of humanity. Three women squatted on the floor, which was considerably lower than the ground outside. A small fire of pine logs glowed in a stone-lined pit. An iron cauldron hung above it on a pole supported on two forked sticks embedded in the floor. A heap of firs against the far wall made a communal bed.

The women might have been triplets, at least to her eyes, for they all had long faces, the same pale lime hair and thin, prominent noses. They got up, fleshy women all, and rather taller than she was. Now Tiaan saw the differences. They must be sisters, the one nearest her older than the others. The second was the youngest and had a round scar on her chin.

'Hello,' said Tiaan in common. 'My name is Tiaan Liise-Mar.' She pointed to her chest. 'I would like to buy some food.' She pantomimed that as well.

The oldest woman, the most plump and buxom of the three, tilted her head to one side, puzzled. She debated with the others then turned back to Tiaan. 'Vart iss "buyy"?' Her accent was extremely heavy.

'It means "pay for with money".'

They looked uncomprehending. Tiaan fingered the piece of silver out of her pocket, showing it on the palm of her hand. She hoped that was not a mistake.

The oldest woman looked even more puzzled, then took up the piece of silver, examining it in the firelight. She passed it to the others. The middle one tasted it, the other tested it with her teeth.

'It's silver,' said Tiaan. 'Money for food!' The smell of the stew was making her salivate.

'Mun-ney!' said the older woman, and burst out in a great roar of laughter, displaying a dozen yellow, angled teeth. The other women laughed just as heartily, whereupon the first clapped Tiaan on the back with a meaty hand and tossed the silver back to her.

'I Fluuni,' she said. 'Middle sister iss Jiini; little sister iss Lyssa. Daughter iss Haani.'

Tiaan repeated the names, sounding them in the Tiksi way with extended vowels. From the hysterical laughter, she had got them completely wrong. 'I am Tiaan,' she repeated.

They repeated her name, mispronouncing it as badly. Lyssa dipped a wooden ladle in the cauldron, spilled the contents onto a square wood platter and handed Tiaan an implement like a spoon with teeth on the end, also made of wood.

She took it, not knowing what to say. What payment would they require? The plate contained a thick, bright-yellow mess. She could smell fish, though it had long since fallen to pieces. There were long fibrous sections of vegetables that might have been parsnip, dark unidentifiable grains, a hint of onion.

'Eat,' Fluuni said.

Tiaan took a mouthful. It was a peculiar combination of flavours, but delicious. She heaped up her implement. The women and the child were staring at her expectantly. 'Good!' she said. They did not understand. 'Very good!' She smacked her lips, patted her stomach. Still the stares. Had she committed some terrible blunder?

She shovelled in some more, swallowed, and to her embarrassment her stomach gave a great rollicking gurgle. Beaming smiles appeared. Haani clapped her hands.

Tiaan finished the stew. Immediately another ladle was emptied onto her platter. Her stomach was groaning from the first but they were looking at her so expectantly that it seemed ill-mannered to refuse. By the time the second was gone she was bursting, heavy-bellied and drowsy. Fluuni immediately dipped the ladle again. Tiaan leapt up, cried her thanks and bowed from the waist. They did not know what to make of this either.

They offered her tea made from mustard seeds. Its pungency went up her nose. Tiaan sneezed and tears ran from her eyes.

Afterwards she felt really sleepy. It was ages since she'd had a decent night's rest. Leaning against the wall she closed her eyes, snatched them open again and fell fast asleep. When she woke it was just as smoky and gloomy and Tiaan thought she'd slept only for a few minutes, though she felt unusually refreshed. The room was empty. She crawled through the door and to her horror discovered that it was near dusk. She'd slept the day away.

Her eye wandered along the river bank. The boat was not there! She hurtled down to the water. No sign of it anywhere, nor of her pack and its infinitely precious contents. Tiaan sprinted back to the hut, crashing into Lyssa, who was carrying a load of wood from the forest. Sticks went everywhere.

Tiaan helped her pick them up. 'Where is my boat?'

'Bote?' Lyssa replied.

Tiaan made paddling motions with her hands. 'Trall!' said Lyssa, going around the back of the hut. The boat was leaning against the wall, upside down. Water draining from it had frozen on the ground.

'What did you do with my pack?' She tried to say it in sign language. Lyssa led her inside and Tiaan saw the pack not far from where she'd gone to sleep. She went though it while Lyssa looked on with a faint smile. Everything was as it had been before.

Tiaan felt embarrassed at her suspicions. Getting up, she cried 'Thank you; thank you!' and threw out her arms.

Lyssa beamed, folded Tiaan in her own arms and gave her a long warm hug. Her doughy flesh reminded Tiaan of her mother, back when Tiaan had been a little girl and Marnie had time for her. Before she'd been rejected for the next child, and the one after.

By this time it was dark. Shortly the two sisters appeared with Haani. They began preparing vegetables, peeling onions and garlic from bunches hung at the ceiling, and a variety of roots which they brought from a cellar whose trapdoor was in one corner.

Tiaan offered to help but they sat her by the fire, the place of honour. Dinner was a slab of husky black bread placed in the bottom of a platter and the liquid from the fish stew poured over it. She ate every scrap and mopped her plate with the crusts.

Following that, Lyssa sang to Haani. It seemed to be a long tale, perhaps part of the Histories, or the Histories of the family. Tiaan did not know the language. It went on for at least an hour, a story full of drama and tragedy, fire and passion, and tender lovemaking too, judging by the wistful look that crept across Lyssa's face. The older women sat mending their clothing as they listened.

Finally the Histories had been sung. The child sat droopy-eyed while they undressed her, gave her a perfunctory clean with a wet rag and put her to bed in the middle of the furs. Then they laid down their work and looked expectantly at Tiaan. Evidently she had to sing for her supper.

Had she been asked to sing at the manufactory, Tiaan would have been so mortified that she could not have made a single note. But these people did not know her, they would never see her again, and besides, she owed them for the food, shelter and kindness.

She had not sung since she was a child in the breeding factory. A nursery rhyme popped into her head, a cautionary tale about a frog and a butterfly. She sang it in a hoarse, scratchy voice, not well at all, though Haani seemed to like it.

When she finished, Lyssa put her finger across Tiaan's lips, went to the fire and began stirring some kind of aromatic balm into a mug. It had a lemony, minty aroma. She squeezed in honey from a red-black comb and passed it to Tiaan with a smile.

Tiaan sipped from the mug, which eased her dry throat, and began to hum another tune. She made up the words as she sang. It was to the father she had never known and could not know. He must have died in the war, else he would have come back for her.

The sad song ended. Her eyes were moist. Again they clapped, and the child settled in bed. Only then did Tiaan raise the topic that was preoccupying her.

'The river is frozen. How can I get to the sea?'

'Fro-sshen?' said Jiini, the quietest of the three.

It took a lot of sign language to convey Tiaan's meaning, and then not very well. She had to take them outside, point to the river and try to sign that it was blocked by the ice. 'Sea' she could not convey at all.

The great southern inland sea was nearly three hundred leagues long. The smaller, western end was called Milmillamel. What was the larger? It took ages to call a map of Lauralin, like a blueprint seen long ago, into her mind.

'Tallallamel,' she said. 'I go to Tallallamel.'

'Ah!' said Lyssa. 'Tiaan go Tallallamel Myr.'

They grinned and chattered among themselves, then Fluuni said, speaking slowly and distinctly, 'Tiaan must leave boat. Tiaan shee.' She corrected herself, 'Tiaan skee river, ya?'

'Ski down the river to Tallallamel?'

'Ya, ya!' said the three women, nodding vigorously. 'Skee to Ghysmel, ya.'

Tiaan presumed Ghysmel was a city on the coast. 'How far is that?' Blank looks. 'How many sleeps to Ghysmel?'

Jiini held up six fingers. 'Nya!' said Lyssa, pushing her sister's hand down and holding up eight fingers. Fluuni nodded vigorously.

Eight days of skiing. That wasn't so bad; Tiaan was an accomplished skier. That was how they got around in winter, at the manufactory. Skiing all day might test her out though.

Having established that money was foreign to them, Tiaan was at a loss how to proceed. However, after some hard work she bartered her leather boat for a pair of skis and food. No doubt they already had a boat, though Fluuni's eyes lit up as soon as Tiaan made the offer. The leather was soft but strong, much more valuable than a pair of skis, which were easily carved in a few evenings.

They insisted on filling her pack with food – bundles of stiff dried fish, dried meat, a comb of honey, a round of cheese probably made from deer milk, a string of onions and much more. She had to stop them – there was more than she could carry.

It was late. The women crawled into the nest of furs, with the child in the middle. Fluuni indicated the space nearest the fire. Tiaan was soon asleep. Her dreams were pleasant ones, for once. These strangers, whom Tiaan had known for only a day, felt closer and more caring than anyone she knew. It was like lying in her mother's bed as a child.

Tiaan woke in the night and thought she was back with Marnie. Turning over, disoriented, her outflung arm struck the pack. The fire had died down and the hut was absolutely dark. It made her feel claustrophobic.

Tiaan felt inside the pack, wanting a glimmer of light to break the confined feeling. As she touched the amplimet it lit up and a shock raced along her arm. The pack glowed garnet-red for an instant. What had happened? It had not done that before. Recalling how the soldiers had seemed to be able to track her, she felt a moment of unease.

But that had been a long time ago, and at least a hundred leagues away. Could they have tracked her to Kalissin? It did not seem possible, but the lyrinx were within easy flying distance.

Her heart was racing. Tiaan crawled to the entrance. It was still dark outside. She settled down again. She'd go at dawn and hope it snowed to cover her tracks.

Tiaan groaned aloud. Fluuni rolled over and put an arm about her waist. It would have been comforting, had not her problems been so insoluble. Tiaan lay awake the rest of the night, twice slipping out of bed and lifting the flap. The second time the sky was pale in the east.

She was tying her boots into the ski bindings when Jiini came out. She went into the forest to relieve herself, then helped Tiaan with the adjustments. Shortly Fluuni, Lyssa and Haani emerged. No doubt they always rose with the light.

When Tiaan went in for her pack the cauldron was over the fire. She took a large bowl of fish stew, then gave thanks to the women, who each embraced her. She shook hands with Haani, who smiled shyly. Tiaan donned her pack and skied towards the river, the four watching how she went and laughing – no doubt commenting on her strange style. She turned to ski along the bank, waved and pushed off, settling into the striding rhythm.

It was hard work for muscles that had not skied in months and she stopped as the ice came in sight. She must not pull a muscle and cripple herself.

Sitting on her coat on a tree trunk just above the ice and, watching a pair of deer grazing on lichen, she was startled by a high-pitched, keening cry coming faint down the river. Some chance reflection off the water must have carried it to her. Tiaan recognised it instantly. The nylatl!