Geomancer

F IFTY -O NE

A week went by while Nish sat around in Tiksi, until he was completely fed up with idleness and his own company. Irisis and every other able-bodied person, apart from Ullii, had gone back to the manufactory days ago. Having heard nothing about his fate, he lived in fear of it. Fyn-Mah had given him access to her files on lyrinx flesh-forming. Nish read until his eyes ached, but found it difficult to concentrate.

Eight days after their arrival he was called to the master's mansion and ushered into the same chamber. Xervish Flydd lay back in the chair with his eyes closed, sucking on his beard.

'Good morning, scrutator!' said Nish politely.

The scrutator gave no reply. He simply ignored Nish. Nish cleared his throat several times, shuffled his feet and tapped on the table, wondering if the scrutator was asleep. He did not think so. Eventually Nish took a piece of paper out of his pocket and began sketching on it, considerations for improving the clanker javelards. He worked on that for an hour before the man sat up suddenly.

'I've been thinking to put you in the front-line, Cryl-Nish!'

The paper went one way, the pencil another. Nish bent down for them, trying to conceal his shock. He'd thought he had escaped that fate.

'And you could hardly appeal such a judgment, artificer, after the trouble you've caused. Even your own father's reports say so. Poor Jal-Nish. Well, it's up to me now. Have you anything to say for yourself?'

'I believe I've done some good since then,' Nish said weakly.

'Indeed? That's not what I heard from the plateau.'

'What did you hear, surr?' Nish had to force the words out, he was so afraid.

'I heard that you threatened Ky-Ara, which led to the destruction of his clanker.'

Nish looked around frantically, wanting to deny it but not daring to. There was no truth the scrutator could not dig out and the process would be most unpleasant.

'For the want of a clanker the artisan was lost. The crystal too! And a perquisitor maimed.'

'Ky-Ara should have resisted me,' Nish muttered.

'Indeed he should, and will be brought to account for his negligence. As will you.'

The scrutator glanced down at his bony hands. The fingers were gnarled and twisted as if they'd been broken in a torture chamber, then set by someone who knew nothing about bones. He flexed his fingers, which moved as awkwardly as the limbs of a crab. Nish shuddered and tried vainly to conceal it.

The cold eyes saw everything. 'On the other hand, you have shown courage, Cryl-Nish. And courage, I need not remind you, is an essential quality in the front-line soldier.'

'I may be more use to you at the manufactory as an artificer,' Nish said desperately.

'I doubt it! You're an indifferent artificer, Cryl-Nish, though you work hard at it.'

'I've done my best. Artificing was not my choice.'

'Indeed you have, but your best is not good enough.'

'What about my project for Fyn-Mah? To learn about the flesh-formers?'

'Have you done any good with it?'

'No, but I've only…'

'Leave it to her!'

'But…'

'No buts, artificer,' growled Flydd.

Nish stared at the floor in despair. He was doomed. Then inspiration struck. 'How have you gone with Ullii, surr?'

The scrutator's mouth curled down, and then suddenly he smiled. 'I see what you're about. You hope to prove useful in an endeavour that an old monster like me has failed at.'

'Well, er… the seeker is difficult to work with.'

'I found her not unusually so.'

Nish's mouth fell open. 'But…'

'People are not necessarily what they seem, boy. Sometimes we show others what they want us to see. You, for example, think of the scrutator as a bloody old bastard.'

Nish could hardly deny it, so he remained silent.

'I understand your friend Ullii very well. We got on famously and parted friends.'

Nish could not believe that, although the scrutator would hardly lie about something so easily checked. The piece of paper fluttered from Nish's hand. He watched it drift down but did not go after it. 'Then it's all over for me. I'm done for!'

Those eyes burned through him again.

'Perhaps I can use you after all, Cryl-Nish. I don't have the time to keep watch with Ullii. And why should I when you could do it for me? I think I will send you back to the manufactory. You can be a second-rate artificer by day. At night, when the seeker is not out hunting crystal in the mine, you will ensure that she keeps watch.'

'Watch for what?' Nish said stupidly.

'For people using the Secret Art. What else?'

'Oh!'

'Also for Tiaan. One day she will reappear and I want to know immediately. By skeet, and damn the expense! And then I want her found. This is the sole reason I have spared you, artificer. So you and the seeker can track down Tiaan and, more importantly, this rather interesting hedron she seems to have discovered. Don't fail me, boy, or you're lyrinx fodder!' The following morning Nish and Ullii were on their way back to the manufactory with an escort of six foot-soldiers and a clanker. Ullii was uncommonly cheerful. She did not say much, but when Nish mentioned the scrutator she said 'Xervish!' and smiled at some memory. There had to be more to the man than that unprepossessing exterior showed. No doubt there was – one did not rise to one of the most powerful positions in the land without having many talents.

Nish's father had recovered from his rages sufficiently to travel and had been sent home to Fassafarn by ship. Nish was delighted to see him go. His father the perquisitor was bad enough, but Jal-Nish the one-armed, mutilated failure was a terrible sight to see. The expedition had gone after Tiaan on his orders and it had been a disaster. The blame could fall nowhere else.

As they walked beside the clanker, Nish wondered what would happen to his father. Would he be quietly retired on grounds of injury? Was that what happened to important people who became incapable? They could hardly send him to the front-lines.

Nish could not see Jal-Nish settling calmly into domestic impotence. He would drive his mother out of her mind. Ranii was an ambitious, clever woman who, when she was at home, could stand no interference in the way it was run.

Well, Fassafarn was a long way away, thankfully. Nish was unlikely to see home in the next five years. About a week later, Nish was helping to carry timber for the front doors when Ky-Ara's clanker rattled up the road. The machine was daubed here and there with mud and reeds, as if it had been hidden in a swamp. The plates were dented and streaked with rust.

The machine groaned to a stop. An elderly operator got out, removed his gloves and rubbed the small of his back. Two soldiers emerged. Turning toward the gate, they saluted smartly.

Nish set down his load, wondering what was going on. The scrutator stepped through the gate, signalling to a quartet of manufactory guards, who marched to the clanker and threw up the back hatch.

'Come out!' they ordered.

After a long interval, a dark-clad figure appeared in the opening, was hauled out and dragged across to the gate. Nish hardly recognised Ky-Ara. The once handsome young man was filthy, covered in sores and as thin as a crowbar. His operator's uniform was stained with mud, and in that tormented face his eyes looked as big as Ullii's.

There was no trial, since Ky-Ara had admitted his guilt. Nish had no idea what the punishment was going to be – execution, he presumed, in some horribly appropriate way. There was no point sending this man to the front-lines.

Ky-Ara was marched inside and bound to a stake between the artificer's workshop and the furnaces. The elderly operator drove the clanker through the rear gate and parked it beside Ky-Ara.

'Take the machine apart, piece by piece,' said the scrutator to the assembled artificers.

The artificers, including Nish, began to do just that. All the clanker operators, and their prentices, stood silently by. The manufactory's chronicler sat in a chair by the furnaces, recording everything. The teller being too sick to stand witness, another had been brought up from Tiksi. Her duty was to write the Tale of Ky-Ara's Downfall and Ruin, that it could be told in all sixty-seven manufactories of the south-east, and possibly across the known world.

Food and drink were laid out for him but Ky-Ara touched neither in the three days it took to reduce the clanker to the myriad parts from which it had been assembled. He hung from his ropes, staring with those bloody eyes, and every part removed was a thorn of metal being twisted in his flesh.

Nish was not much given to pity, but before the operation was over he did pity Ky-Ara. The man had withered before his eyes and Nish had never seen such suffering. He wished someone would put the fellow out of his agony, but Ky-Ara was guarded night and day. Justice must take its unforgiving course.

Then the real torment began. The entire manufactory lined up, from Eiryn Muss the halfwit to the scrutator himself, and even Ullii. In stately tread, like pallbearers at a funeral, the greatest and the least went to the pile of clanker parts, selected one each, paced across to the open door of the furnace and hurled it in.

Ky-Ara screamed, and again for every succeeding part, until he no longer had the voice to make any sound at all. That process took many hours, and the line had gone round several times before they approached the end, the pair of cast-iron flywheels. Nish took hold of one, Overseer Tuniz the other. Far too heavy to lift, the flywheels were rolled across to the furnace door, where a dozen hands eased them up a sturdy plank and into the all-consuming blast.

The operator shrieked and fell unconscious. A bucket of water was hurled over him, for the trial was not finished yet. Crafter Irisis removed the controller that still hung about Ky-Ara's neck, took it apart piece by piece, after which she and the artisans and their prentices solemnly carried the pieces to the fire. Ky-Ara writhed as they went in, but made no sound.

Last of all the scrutator came forth, bearing a knife on a square metal plate. Placing the plate on a small table, beside the hedron from Ky-Ara's controller, he signalled to the guards. They slashed Ky-Ara's bonds.

The scrutator beckoned. Ky-Ara lurched to the table. He was a bilious yellow-green and watery blood ran down his chin from a much-bitten tongue. The scrutator indicated the hedron with his left hand, the knife with the right. Nish held his breath. Would the operator take the ritual suicide, the dishonourable way out, or would he pick up the hedron and carry it to the furnace, then await his fate? Or might he go berserk with the knife?

The operator's emaciated frame was wracked by a bone-wrenching shudder. His hand hovered over the knife, he looked up at the merciless face of the scrutator; then, strangely, he smiled and reached for the hedron instead.

The instant he touched the crystal Ky-Ara was transformed. He stood up straight and the anguish vanished. He seemed ennobled. Holding the hedron out in cupped hands, he bowed to the scrutator, to Overseer Tuniz and to Crafter Irisis, and finally to the mass of workers. Ky-Ara then spun on one boot-heel and marched to the furnace.

There his momentum failed. He made a half-hearted motion of his hands as if to hurl the hedron in, but could not go through with it. Ky-Ara turned back to the watchers, baring his teeth in agony. The scrutator said not a word.

Ky-Ara forced himself. Taking two steps up the plank, he darted his head forward. Nish gasped, thinking that the operator was going to throw himself in, but again Ky-Ara hesitated.

Rotating to face the manufactory, he steadily raised the hedron above his head. Against the blast from the furnace his body was just a dark shape, though the hedron, in front of the dark iron, shone brightly.

Ky-Ara was concentrating so hard that his hands shook. It was not until one of the prentice artisans collapsed, until Irisis cried out and held her temples, that Nish realised what the former operator was trying to do. He was calling power directly into the crystal, a deadly dangerous thing to do. Was he trying to destroy them all?

Nish ran forward but the scrutator caught his coat, dragging him back effortlessly. 'I can't afford to lose you, boy.'

The hedron began to glow, lighting up Ky-Ara's fingers red from behind. A tendril of steam rose from his hand, then the hedron flared so brightly that Nish had to cover his eyes. Ullii screamed and curled up into a ball.

When Nish looked again the hedron had gone dull and he realised that he had not seen steam at all, but smoke. The operator's whole body was smoking. His clothes were smouldering, and his hair. The crystal brightened again. Ky-Ara gave a shrill laugh which was cut off abruptly. Smoke wisped out of his mouth, his ears, and most gruesome of all, from his eyes. Steaming jelly oozed down his cheeks. Ky-Ara gasped, then slowly began to char from the forehead down. The burning garments fell off and he was like charcoal underneath.

The man was dead but he did not fall down. He became a spread-legged, carbonised statue, still holding the hedron above his head. Beside Nish, Ullii was screaming.

He bent down to put his hand over her nose. It did not calm her until, with a fizzing pop, the hedron burst, scattering fragments everywhere. The seeker's screams cut off instantly.

'A fitting end, anthracism,' the scrutator remarked. 'Cast the remains into the furnace!' The remainder of the winter was a time of unending toil for everyone in the mine and the manufactory. Even though the people who'd fled from the raid were back at work, it took weeks to put the place back into operation. One of the furnaces was full of solidified iron and had to be partly demolished to get the residue out. It was not a happy time. Foreman Gryste, put in charge of the artificers after Tuniz's elevation, drove them like slaves, pouring out bile for the least infringement of his rules. Once Nish was flogged because he failed to ask permission to use the latrine. Gryste was driven by bitterness bordering on insanity, which they had to endure in silence.

Before they could begin building clankers they had to produce all the parts that went to make one up: metal plate, gears and driving rods, housings, nuts and bolts, pins, and a thousand other objects, to say nothing of controllers. The seeker laboured just as hard in the mine, for finding crystal proved more difficult than merely pointing to the rock. However, the crystals Ullii did locate were the best they'd ever had.

In their few free moments, Nish and every other able person laboured with stone and timber for the carpenters, the masons and the metalwrights as they worked to improve the defences of the manufactory. The new gates and strengthened walls were not impregnable, but they would resist attack by the small bands that had so damaged the place before. It would take a sizeable force now.

No one had time for leisure after the work was done – they simply fell into their beds in the middle of the night, knowing they would be dragged out again before dawn. And after all his work was done, Nish still had to visit Ullii and find out if she had seen anything, and if Tiaan had reappeared on her fans. The answer was always the same. Nothing. Nish hardly saw Irisis from one week to the next, though each time he did she looked more and more stressed. They had not been lovers since leaving on the failed hunt for Tiaan. One night he went past her door at two in the morning and noticed that her light was still on. He knocked.

'Come in, Nish!'

She was sitting up in bed with a coat about her shoulders, staring at the wall. 'I'm not in the mood,' she said before he could open his mouth.

'Neither am I.'

'But…' She did not go on.

'I came because… are you all right, Irisis?'

She had drawn the coat sleeve across her face and was rubbing furiously at her eyes. 'It's started again.'

'What?'

'The sabotages. Another controller was damaged yesterday while we were out. Gryste has been making veiled threats.'

'Against you?' he said incredulously.

'The saboteur isn't Tiaan!' Irisis said with dripping sarcasm. 'After she went to the breeding factory I felt that it was the apothek, but he's dead. So who is it? I once suspected Muss the halfwit, but I don't know any more. Now I'm being blamed. Every time something has happened, I've been around. I have a record and I'm the obvious suspect. And if I didn't do it, Gryste is demanding to know why I haven't found out who did. I am in charge, after all.'

'Gryste is a bitter man,' said Nish. 'Is he out to get you, do you think? Have you ever had…?'

'He's not my kind of man.'

'Have you ever rejected him?' Nish asked delicately.

'Not knowingly. He's never asked. Besides, he goes for big, blowzy women. Artificers and other low types.'

He did not react to the provocation. She was not herself. 'Then why does he hate you so?'

'He was passed over for overseer, remember? Tuniz was way below him and promoted straight to the top. Her work is flawless so he's after me instead. He'd never have made overseer anyway, and the scrutator blames him for not uncovering who the saboteur was last time. Gryste blames his troubles on me.' The following day Nish was on his way to the water barrel when he heard two artificers gossiping.

'Reckon it is the crafter,' said one. 'You heard what she did to set up Artisan Tiaan?'

'Yeah! I've never liked Irisis, the stuck-up cow! About time the scrutator…'

They broke off as he approached, hurrying back to their benches. Nish heard a lot more of that in the next few days. The scrutator went about with a thunderous face and there were unannounced searches of many rooms in the manufactory, including those of Nish and Irisis.

Nothing was discovered, but a week later a hedron, one of the best, was found smashed on the crafter's bench. Within the hour Irisis was in the cells.

Nish was not allowed to visit; the way was blocked by a pair of the foreman's personal guard. He went looking for Gryste, but he was in conference with the overseer and scrutator. Collecting a plate of stew and rice from the refectory, Nish went to Ullii's room to ask his daily question.

'Have you seen any sign of Tiaan or the crystal?'

'No.' The seeker wrinkled up her nose, then slipped in her noseplugs.

He did not offer her any of his dinner, for she would not have been able to eat it. The stew was heavily spiced to disguise that it had been made a week ago and was well past its best. Ullii lived on fruit, vegetables and cereal, with an occasional piece of mild cheese, poached fish or boiled kid. She could not abide strong flavours of any kind, nor any sort of spice or condiment.

Nish sat on the floor, miserably eating his stew. It tasted even more horrible than usual.

'What's the matter, Nish?' The seeker crept up beside him.

'Irisis has been put in the dungeon.'

'That's nice.' She sighed.

'What?' he cried.

Ullii scuttled away from the miniature explosion. 'I was happy in the dungeon of Mancer Flammas.'

'Irisis will not be happy. And I can't even talk to her.' The trial had gone badly from the first. A succession of guards testified that, at the time of the sabotages, the only person in the vicinity of the artisans' workshop had been Irisis. Foreman Gryste confirmed the evidence of his guards. Notes made previously by Gi-Had were read out. They contained Irisis's admissions about planting evidence against Tiaan and stealing her work. Lastly, the clerk read a statement by Jal-Nish, detailing his suspicions about Irisis and describing her 'unprovoked' attack on him by the frozen river. Witnesses were called to confirm the attack, including Nish.

Two chroniclers sat on the scrutator's right hand – the official historian of the manufactory, and a scribe recording the event for Irisis's family, to be sure the shameful scene was written correctly into the family Histories of the House of Stirm. The manufactory's teller was there too. When all was recorded the scrutator sat back in his chair, sucking on his whiskers. He stared at Irisis, at Nish and at each of the witnesses in turn. Irisis met his gaze defiantly. The others looked away.

'Well, Crafter Irisis, have you anything to say?'

'I have previously admitted to planting evidence against Tiaan and to stealing her work. It is true that I assaulted the perquisitor. The brute deserved it and I would do it again! I deny the sabotages and all the other charges.'

'She would!' cried Gryste. 'Scrutator, we must be rid of her for the good of the war.'

Xervish Flydd turned that gaunt face to him. 'Are you trying this case, foreman?' he said mildly.

'I just…'

Flydd waved his hand and the man fell silent. 'Clerk, would you read out the penalties for this series of crimes?'

The clerk, a tiny woman of advanced years and as wrinkled as a dried olive, squinted at a piece of parchment.

'On the charge of planting evidence, admitted, a month in the breeding factory.'

Nish was watching Irisis. As the penalty was read out, her face cracked. For an instant it looked as if she was going to scream, then she took control and he saw only a mask.

'On the charge of stealing Artisan Tiaan's work, admitted, three months in the breeding factory. On the charge of assaulting the perquisitor, admitted, two years in the breeding factory.' She paused to draw breath.

'On the charges of sabotage, denied, the penalties are public execution in each case, by any of the methods specified for the criminal's craft.' The clerk handed the parchment up to the scrutator for signature.

Xervish Flydd picked up a quill. 'Have you anything to say, Crafter Irisis, before I sign the warrants?'

'Only that the charges I have denied are false. I would never do anything to betray the cause I, and my family, have worked for over these past hundred and fifty years.'

'All traitors say that!'

'Once I am dead, you will still be looking for the real traitor and the sabotages will go on.'

'Hmn,' said the scrutator.

Nish put his head in his hands. He could not look at Irisis. The thought of attending the execution, as he would be required to do, was too ghastly to contemplate.

'Has any other witness anything to say?' said the scrutator.

Nish could think of nothing that would count as mitigation. No one else spoke either.

'Before I confirm the sentences,' the scrutator went on, 'which I am entitled to do on the evidence before me… Well, I like to be sure. I propose to call a witness, and carry out a test, of my own. Call the seeker!'

Nish sat up. It seemed irregular to say the least, and surely several of the sabotages had been carried out before Ullii arrived at the manufactory.

Ullii was led in, wearing her mask and earmuffs. She was trembling as she took her place beside the scrutator. He spoke softly to her and gave her his hand. As Ullii drew it to her nose, Nish felt a moment of jealous outrage. That was his role; surely the smell of that withered old man could not do the same for her?

The scrutator gave an imperceptible twitch of his snaky eyebrow. Nish, who was sitting up the back, heard the door-bolts click. The guards took their positions, two on either side of the door.

'I have here,' said the scrutator, holding up a chain and the broken remains of a pliance, and in the other hand a milky hedron, 'evidence which Overseer Gi-Had kept under special guard. It is the remains of Artisan Tiaan's pliance, destroyed when she tried to read one of the failed hedrons. The enemy felt this evidence so threatening that they attacked the manufactory to recover it. Fortunately they did not get it.' Reaching across, he put the objects by Ullii's hand.

'Seeker, Artisan Tiaan saw something in these artefacts. Can you read anything from them? Please stand so everyone can see you.'

Ullii stood up, shaking. For someone who avoided people at all times, this was the worst ordeal she could be put to. Holding the hedron out, she said something in an inaudible voice. Irisis, who had risen to her feet, sat down and the light faded from her eyes.

'Speak up, seeker!' rumbled Flydd. 'No one can hear you.'

In a voice that precisely imitated his, she said, 'It is dead. I can see nothing in it.' She laid the ruined pliance on the benchtop.

Among the crowd, someone let out a great sigh. 'And this crystal,' said the scrutator, 'which is the failed hedron from Disgraced Operator Ky-Ara's original controller?'

Ullii reached for the crystal but drew back at once. Emitting a single sharp scream, she began to curl up into a ball.

'Stop that!' the scrutator said sharply. 'Come back, seeker.'

Ullii froze, then slowly, gracefully uncurled.

'What do you see in the crystal, seeker?'

She gasped, clutched at his hand and said. 'A clawer! Spying on me.'

'Do you mean a lyrinx?'

'Yes,' she whispered.

'What else?'

'A man. The clawer is giving something to a man. White gold!'

'A man? The spy! Can you see his face?'

'No. His back is to me.'

'And that is all you can see?' Nish could read bitter disappointment in the scrutator's frame.

'Yes,' said Ullii.

'Very well. Have you anything to say, Artisan Irisis? Do you admit that this man is your paymaster?'

'Don't be absurd! My family is rich. I have more money than I can ever spend.'

'Doesn't mean you don't want more! Thank you, seeker. You may go down. Clerk, if you would be so good as to hand me the charge sheet, I will confirm…'

Suddenly something occurred to Nish and he sprang to his feet. 'Scrutator! scrutator!'

'Yes?' he snapped. 'It's too late for special pleading now, artificer. The trial is done.'

'It's new evidence,' he cried. 'Please, I beg leave to put a question to the seeker.'

'Oh? What question could you possibly ask that I haven't already thought of?'

Nish chose his words with particular care in case he insulted the scrutator. 'I know her better than anyone, surr. The seeker never volunteers, because it never occurs to her, and she only answers what she is asked. You asked the wrong question, surr. With great respect.'

'Respect is a commodity you've always been short of, boy, like your wretched father. Very well, put your question.'

'Ullii,' said Nish, his heart pounding, 'would you take up the crystal?'

Turning her masked eyes to him, she reached out, touching the hedron with one fingertip.

'No, take it in your hand, Ullii.'

She gave a little cry of anguish, or of terror. The scrutator clasped her other hand. Ullii took up the crystal.

'Look at the image of the man with his back to you. Do you recognise him?'

'No,' said Ullii.

'Bah! Damned nonsense,' came a voice from the crowd. 'I already know who the paymaster is.' Foreman Gryste stood. 'I've been doing my job, even if no one else has.'

'Are you suggesting that I haven't been doing my job?' the scrutator asked mildly.

Gryste faltered. 'No, surr. I'm sorry. I have the man in my cells, surr.'

'Oh?' said the scrutator. 'Which man, foreman?'

'The one who's always hanging around, sticking his fat nose into everyone's work, and doing none of his own. It's Muss, surr. Eiryn Muss.'

'The halfwit!' Flydd burst out laughing.

'He's no halfwit, surr. He's a cunning spy and he's fooled us all.'

'Even me, foreman?' Flydd said dangerously.

'I'm afraid so, surr.'

The scrutator gestured. 'Bring Muss here, and keep a firm hold of him. Don't let him see anything secret on the way.' He laughed at his joke.

It was like watching a corpse laugh; but Nish wondered, as he had once before, if Muss was more than he seemed.

The scrutator did not resume his questioning of Ullii. There was silence for a few minutes, then the guards came pounding in. 'Surr, surr!'

'What is it, man?' the scrutator inquired.

'The prisoner has fled, surr,' the leading guard cried.

'How?'

'The lock is burnt completely from the door. Sorcery!' He shivered.

Flydd did not look surprised.

'What did I tell you, surr,' said Gryste. 'This proves it.'

'It proves something, foreman, though I don't know what.' Flydd turned to Nish. 'Go on with your questioning, artificer.'

Nish's confidence had taken a battering. There seemed little point in continuing. 'This man you saw in the crystal, Ullii, does he have a talent of any kind?'

'A very small talent,' she said softly. 'Tiny!'

'Then you should be able to see him in your lattice.'

Ullii shrugged.

'Search your lattice, Ullii. Is there anyone in it with the same kind of knot as that man's talent has?'

Irisis was on her feet, quivering with emotion. The scrutator stood as well.

Ullii folded up. 'Yes.' She looked down at the polished surface of the bench.

A buzz went through the crowd. One by one, everyone rose. 'It's Muss!' cried Gryste. 'After him, before it's too late!'

'Silence!' The scrutator held up his hand. 'The first person to make a noise goes to the front-lines.' No one moved.

'Is that man in the room, Ullii?' said Nish.

'Yes,' she whispered.

'Would you point to him?'

She pointed to the centre of the room. Slowly the crowd moved away until one man was standing all by himself.

'How dare you? You lying little slag!' roared Foreman Gryste, and launched himself at her.

He disappeared under a dozen bodies. They stood him up again, holding him tightly.

'Soldiers, search the foreman's room. Chronicler and teller, go with them. Ullii, you go too, and seek out anything that may be hidden. Run!'

They ran out. The agonising silence dragged on. The foreman stood as rigid as a post. The distinctive clove odour of nigah permeated the room.

Nish could not bear to hope. Finally he heard the clatter of running feet and the soldiers and recorders reappeared. Shortly after that, Ullii came in. Her light step made no sound at all.

'Well?' said Flydd.

'We found nothing,' said the first soldier.

'You witnessed this?' Xervish demanded of the recorders. 'The search was thorough?'

'It was just as they say…'

'Damn you all!' cried Gryste. 'I'll have reparation for this insult to my honour!'

'Indeed you will,' said the scrutator. 'If you prove to be innocent.'

'The soldiers found nothing,' snarled Gryste.

'And the seeker? Did she seek out what was hidden?'

'She did, surr,' said the recorders together.

'Come up, Ullii,' said Flydd. 'Did you find nothing at all?'

She crept up. 'Only this.' She took a sagging leather bag out of her shirt.

'It was under the floor, concealed by a charm,' said the chronicler.

The scrutator poured the contents onto the floor, a heap of ringing platinum. His eyes met those of the foreman, and such a look of contempt passed across his face that Nish's skin crawled. 'I wondered how you could support your nigah habit on foreman's wages,' said Flydd.

The foreman did not reply. His eyes darted this way and that.

'You're a failure of a man, aren't you, Gryste? You were a lousy foreman, a disastrous sergeant, and then a lousy foreman again.'

'Everyone was against me, surr. People are always trying to bring me down.'

'It's always someone else's fault, isn't it?'

'It is, it is!'

'Have you anything to say for yourself, Gryste?'

'The seeker is lying, surr. They're all lying. They've never liked me.'

'I don't like you either. And this is not your only crime, is it? You sabotaged Tiaan's crystals. You poisoned her with calluna. You killed the apothek to stop him talking.'

Gryste said nothing at all.

'Traitor Gryste, you will be executed tomorrow for grave treachery, by the method prescribed for your craft and rank. What is the method, clerk?'

She whispered something.

'How appropriate,' said Flydd with a death's-head smile. 'Traitor Gryste, you will be fed into the grinding mill. Take him down!'

The foreman was dragged off, wailing and screaming obscenities. 'Crafter Irisis,' Flydd continued, 'the unproven charges are dismissed. Sentence for the proven charges is suspended for one year. After that time, if you have met all your goals as crafter, they will be stricken from the record. This trial is ended.'

Nish went up to the bench. 'What about Muss, surr?' he said quietly as everyone was filing out. 'We can't afford -'

'Muss has been my prober here for seven years,' said Flydd, equally softly. 'And a damn good one. No one ever broke his cover. You could take a lesson there, boy. He won't be seen in this province again.'