Geomancer

S IX

'Nish!' Irisis wailed, right in his ear. 'Get up, quick!' Rolling over, he blinked at the bright lantern and tried to pull the pillow over his head. 'Later,' he moaned. 'I'm too tired.'

She poured icy water onto the back of his neck.

Nish shrieked and leapt out of bed. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

'Look what Tiaan's done now!' she said savagely.

He rubbed sleep from his eyes. She was holding out a controller, the most beautiful piece of work he'd ever seen. At least it had been. Several arms were broken off and the others twisted as if someone had jumped on them.

'What happened to it?'

'Tiaan smashed it, the vicious little cow.'

'Why would she do that?' Nish could not believe anyone would wantonly destroy such a precious thing, least of all Tiaan.

Irisis sat on the bed, holding the controller against her breast. Its broken arms dangled uselessly. 'I only finished it yesterday!' Her lip trembled and she turned away, as if ashamed at that loss of control. 'It's taken me a month to make and it's the best one I've ever done. I came in early to fit the hedron but the controller was gone. It was behind the door of Tiaan's cubicle, like this.'

'There's a guard down at the offices, night and day.' Nish rubbed the back of his neck, still throbbing from the ice water. 'Better speak to him.'

'I have! The only artisan who's been in the workshop since I left was Tiaan. She's in the pay of the enemy. You've got to stop her, Nish.' She moved up close behind him.

Her warm breath aroused distracting thoughts. He turned away. 'It could be just an accident.'

'Don't be stupid! It was in her cubicle, Nish. It didn't float there. She destroyed my controller, just as she sabotaged the others.'

'That's hard to believe.'

'What does it take to convince you?' she raged. 'Will you let her destroy the manufactory?'

'It takes evidence!' he said vehemently. He longed to get back at Tiaan but probers must follow the rules. His father would never trust him again if he accused someone who subsequently turned out to be innocent. Especially the best artisan in the manufactory.

'Go and talk to the guards,' she said icily.

'I will.'

'Bah!' she snorted. 'You're secretly in love with her. You don't want to find her out.'

Nish went looking for the guards who had been on duty outside the offices overnight. Their post was close to the artisans' workshop. He found the midnight guard in the refectory and explained what had happened.

'No one went near the workshop on my shift,' she said, pointedly turning her shoulder to him. He was a lowly artificer, after all.

Nish had to take her word, though the damage could have been done in a few minutes while she was at the privy, or gossiping to another guard, or warming herself by the furnaces. After all, there had been no one watching the guard.

The day guard, who was talking to Foreman Gryste, had seen no one go into the workshop except Tiaan and, sometime after that, Irisis.

'My door was open,' said Gryste. 'If anyone else came past I would have seen them.'

'Where's Tiaan now?' Nish asked Irisis, who was coming out of the workshop.

'She's gone out again. Come on!'

Nish followed her towards the front gate. 'Where did she go?'

'How would I know?'

They asked old Nod at the gate. 'She went down to the mine,' Nod said.

'She goes there all the time,' said Irisis as they walked out into the wind.

'She has to select the best crystals.'

'You're a fool, Nish! She's selling our secrets to someone there. She's going to meet him.'

'Don't call me a fool,' he said coldly. 'And don't ever call me Nish again. My name is Cryl-Nish.'

His anger made her step backwards. Bowing her head, she took his hand. 'I'm sorry,' she said breathlessly. 'I didn't mean to offend you, Cryl-Nish. Please come and see for yourself.'

As they emerged from the forest Tiaan came out of the adit and took the path to the village. Irisis and Nish followed, keeping at a safe distance.

'Where's she going?' Nish asked.

'To old Joeyn's place, I'd say.'

They tracked her to a hut above the village. Tiaan went inside, then she and the miner came out and sat on the porch.

'What are they doing?' Irisis whispered.

'Drinking tea.'

After some time, Tiaan and Joeyn headed back up the path to the mine.

'Come on!' said Irisis.

Nish went with her to the hut. She slipped inside. 'Quickly!' she said as he lingered on the path.

Nish thought it unlikely that there was anything to be found, but humoured her. Shortly, however, feeling under the old man's blankets, his hand touched a folded piece of paper. He carried it to the doorway.

Both sides of the page were covered in writing in a tiny hand. It was a description of the preparation of a hedron. 'That's Tiaan's writing,' Irisis said, coming up behind him. 'The traitorous slut!'

Nish examined the paper, which was rough-cut on three sides, razor smooth on the fourth. 'Looks as if it's been taken from a book.'

'It must be from her day journal.'

They found nothing else. Without saying a word Nish went back to the manufactory, searching Tiaan's room and then her work cubicle. Her room revealed nothing. Her day journal had a leaf missing, neatly razored out.

He locked the cubicle, put the key in his pocket and went to see Overseer Gi-Had. There he explained that he was a prober, working secretly on his father's behalf, showed his letter of appointment and told Gi-Had about the ruined controller and the missing leaf.

'I don't believe it!' said the overseer, though he looked worried.

'Anyone can be corrupted by the enemy.'

'Not Tiaan. She has no vices, no secrets, no life apart from her work.'

'Perhaps one of her brothers or sisters is in trouble and she needs money desperately.'

Gi-Had consulted a ledger. 'She has forty-nine silver drams to her account, more than almost anyone in the manufactory. Twenty-six more and she could pay off her indenture. Unheard of!'

Nish whistled. It was a small fortune. 'There you are – it's her wages as a spy.'

'It's her pay over the past fourteen years! She's spent virtually nothing in that time. You can check the entries, prober. Every copper nyd is accounted for.'

Nish did, and found all to be exactly as Gi-Had had said. It shook him. 'Perhaps you'd better come and see the journal.'

'I will,' said Gi-Had, and his face grew even blacker as he matched the leaf to the cut. 'Anyone could have done this! Why would she cut a leaf from her own journal, incriminating herself, when she could simply copy it?'

Nish was forced to consider the unpalatable alternative, that Irisis had smashed her own controller and planted the evidence to discredit her rival.

'Do you have anyone in mind?' Gi-Had rasped. It was clear that he did.

'Me?' Nish said hoarsely.

'You are supposed to be the prober.'

'I'm thinking on it.'

'Then think fast! I want a report today. Tiaan is working on a special project for me and suddenly this happens. It's damned suspicious! If someone is trying to bring down my best artisan, I'll hang their head over the front gate and their guts from the flagpole. Whoever their family is!' His eyes flashed. 'I'm putting a guard on the workshop, night and day! No, two guards.' He stamped out.

Nish sat down on Tiaan's stool, shaken. What was he supposed to do now? He was almost sure Irisis had cut the page from the ledger. If she was behind the sabotage too, she must be denounced. She was a liability he could not afford.

The door opened and Irisis came in, smiling. The smile vanished when she saw the expression on his face.

'It was you!' he said through gritted teeth. He jumped up, knocking over the stool. 'Gi-Had knows Tiaan was set up and he suspects you. I should call him back right now.'

'Go ahead. He's my cousin.'

'I can't believe you would smash your own controller!' he said coldly.

Irisis stared at him in incredulity, then spun on her heel and stalked out. He ran after her, grabbing her by the arm.

She whirled. 'You do believe it, Nish! You think more of her than you do of me.'

'You manipulating bitch! How dare you use me?'

'You love her,' she sneered. 'Your brain is addled by the little cow.'

'I despise her, but not as much as I despise you. Don't ever lie to me, Irisis. Do you deny that you did it?'

She said nothing at all. He held her gaze but she did not look away. 'You can't deny it, can you, Irisis?'

'I don't have to justify myself to you, Nish.'

'You did do it!'

'I have nothing to say.'

'In that case I must do my prober's duty and take my evidence to Gi-Had.'

She pulled her arm free. 'If you do,' she said coldly, 'don't think I'll go without a fuss. Your father the perquisitor will be told that you talk on your lover's pillow, and that I bribed you to bring Tiaan down and make me crafter. It'll be the end of your career too, Ex-Prober Cryl-Nish.'

He knew she would. He might lie his way out of it but his prospects would be badly damaged. His liaison with her was already the talk of the manufactory and she could turn his collaboration into treason. It would be a disaster for them both.

Nish had everything to lose if she went down, much to gain if she did not. Her family was nearly the equal of his own. It would be a good alliance, to say nothing of the pleasures of her glorious body. But if she was behind the sabotage he must denounce her.

He faced up to his duty. 'I don't care! I hate Tiaan, but I'll go to my doom before I help the enemy…' He tried to look implacable.

'Very well,' she said. 'I admit that I cut the page from her book and hid it, but only because of what she'd done to me.'

Nish took a deep breath. It did not make things any easier. 'And the sabotage of your controller?'

'Don't be absurd!' She met his eye, unflinching.

Irisis looked convincing, though Nish knew what a gifted liar she was. 'Swear it!'

'I swear,' she said evenly, 'on my sacred family Histories, that I had nothing to do with the sabotages. Any of them!'

He was still not absolutely convinced, though he had no option but to take her word. 'In that case, who did?'

'Tiaan did!' she grated. 'Why won't you look at the evidence? Nothing I've said changes the facts. You heard the guards -there's no one else it could be.'

'I still have to tell Gi-Had that you cut out the page.'

Irisis looked as if she'd been slapped across the face. Her big eyes were on him, a single tear quivering on one lash. She took a tentative step toward him, a gliding movement, then up on her toes at the end. Her bosom heaved. The buttons seemed to have come undone. It was the oldest trick of all and he wasn't going to be taken in by it.

'Please, Cryl-Nish!' She held out her arms.

He folded his across his chest, desperately trying to control his body. With an insignificant movement at her waist, her trousers fell to her ankles. She stepped out of them. Ah, but her body was magnificent!

'Would you let them kill me so cruelly? They would disembowel me, hang up my entrails for the world to see and cut my body into quarters to feed the scavengers.' With another movement she stood naked before him. 'Would you do that, to this!' She held out her breasts, one in each hand.

Nish flung himself on her and they copulated on the floor of Tiaan's cubicle like beasts. After it was over and they lay panting, slicked with sweat, Irisis opened her eyes. They were so very blue. 'I think I see a solution to both our problems.'

'Oh?' he said.

'Do you believe Tiaan is innocent or guilty?'

'I don't know,' he said heavily.

'What do you think?'

'I think, on the balance of the evidence, that she probably is guilty.'

'Then help me stop her. If something were to happen to Tiaan…'

He pushed her away roughly. 'What are you talking about? It had better not be what I'm thinking.' Though for more of what he'd just had, there was little he would not do, if he could get away with it.

Irisis pulled him back, and he relented. 'She has betrayed her country, and you, and me! Soldiers have died; clankers have been lost. I know my duty too, Nish. We've got to be rid of her for the good of the war.'

She was moving too fast for him. 'But… the manufactory can't do without her.'

'Do you know how many artisans there are, just in this province?'

'I have no idea.'

'More than a thousand! If something happened to her, or to me for that matter, either of us could be replaced tomorrow.'

'I hadn't thought there could be so many,' Nish said.

'Well, there are.'

'Do you deny she is a good artisan?' Nish expected her to.

'Tiaan is very talented. Since I'm being honest with you, she's better than I am. But she's using those talents against us, Nish. She's helping the enemy.'

'I don't like it.'

'That's because you're in love with her.'

'I'm not! But…'

'After what she said to you the other day? No real man would put up with that kind of abuse.'

Still he hesitated.

Irisis stood up. 'Make up your mind, Nish. Support her and you'll get no more of me, ever! Which is it?'

'I hate Tiaan for what she did to me,' he said. 'If proof against her can be found – proper proof – I'll help you destroy her.'

'And you won't tell Gi-Had that I cut out the page?' Those big blue eyes were all over him again.

'No,' he said softly.

Nish spent the rest of the day agonising about what he had got himself into. Concealing evidence was a serious crime, and if he was wrong about Irisis, it would mean his doom.