Geomancer

F IFTY -N INE

Tiaan woke early in the night, aching for her lover. She had tried to contact him before going to bed but had failed. This time it had felt different, as if he was not there at all. As if he no longer existed.

You're just being silly, she told herself. He's too busy, or gone some place where you can't contact him, just as the amplimet only works near nodes. But he'd said to call when the device was tested. He would not have gone away at such a critical time. And that meant…

There was no possibility of going back to sleep so she rose quietly and went to the work chamber. The place seemed different now. Tiaan did not understand why until she'd gone out again and the light-glasses faded. The glass doughnuts were glowing. In the darkness they had a faint, unearthly shimmer.

She touched the wall lights to keep them off, closed the door and stood in the dark, staring at her contraption. It looked alive, ready to be used. The last step was to put the amplimet into it and call again. Hours mattered now – Minis had emphasised that.

She unwrapped the amplimet, which was glowing too brightly to look at, and carried it towards the zyxibule. Tiaan could feel rampant energy in the room. Her hair stirred; her clothes crackled and gave off little flashing discharges.

When she was still a few steps away, something went click-thunk inside the machine and the light drained out of the amplimet. The doughnuts flared. A low hum began and Tiaan felt a wave pass through her. For an instant the walls and ceiling seemed to curve inwards. She blinked and all was normal again, though the hum remained. The zyxibule had activated itself. What would happen when she put the amplimet inside?

Tiaan stopped, feeling as if something was not quite right. She compared the machine with the image in her mind. It was, as far as she could tell, perfect in every detail, so why did she have that troubled feeling? Perhaps it was the name. 'Zyxibule' resonated unpleasantly – it sounded alien and unfriendly. I'll call it 'port-all', she decided, and immediately felt better about it.

Tiaan spent the night checking and rechecking. Unable to identify any fault in the port-all, she ran though the tests yet again. Everything worked exactly as she had been told to expect. Worn out, she lay on the warm floor and snatched an hour's sleep.

Waking as dawn was breaking outside, she called Minis. She wanted to check that the machine was right before she put the amplimet in. He did not answer. At least it gave her time to get ready. She went to the bathing room, had a hot shower followed by a cold one and scrubbed herself until she was as clean as a baby. Today, if all went well, she would meet her lover. Tiaan was determined to look her best.

That was not something she knew much about. The most she had ever done was hack her hair short with a knife. Rather more was needed here.

Tiaan got out the special garments purchased months ago in Ghysmel. She had washed them a few days ago, to remove all trace of the musty smell from her pack. There was a set of pretty though wickedly scanty underwear, over which she put a short-sleeved blouse in a peach colour. It suited her honey complexion. Made of a fabric like silk, it clung to her breasts in a way that made her feel self-conscious. But then, she thought, Minis is my chosen lover, and why should he not admire my breasts? Soon he will be caressing them. A delicious thrill, that.

She recalled Matron in the breeding factory being rather pleased with her breasts, though tempering her praise by pointing out that one was smaller than the other. Tiaan had made a point of inspecting other women in the bathhouse on board the Norwhal. She felt that she compared well.

With the blouse she had teamed umber pantaloons of the same fabric, tight around the waist and bottom, loose in the legs then gathered to show her slender ankles. Did the blouse clash with the pantaloons? She could not tell. Black sandals completed the outfit, though she worried that brown might have gone better. She wished her feet were smaller.

'You look nice,' said Haani, sitting up in the sleeping pouch.

'Thank you. I need to cut my hair. I don't suppose you've seen a pair of scissors anywhere?'

'What are scissors?'

Pulling out her sleeve, Tiaan made snipping motions with her fingers.

'Oh, brawnies? I saw some in a room on the next floor. I'll show you.'

She leapt out of bed. Tiaan followed more sedately, practising her walk, something between a sway and a glide. She thought it looked rather silly, but hoped Minis would find it alluring. 'And a mirror?'

Haani knew that word. There had been several on board ship. 'There's lots of mirrors. All the rooms up there have them.'

The room turned out to be a suite of chambers, someone's living quarters. The mirror was a large one of polished metal with a design etched around the edges. Tiaan wiped the dust off with a bedcover.

Her hair was dull, ragged and long, not having been cut since the stay in the breeding factory. Tiaan gave it a few hundred strokes with her brush, took up the offered scissors and laid them down in despair. She examined her face, which was wide, with fine, high cheekbones. How did one cut hair to suit?

Tiaan trimmed her fringe straight across, three fingers' width above her eyebrows. That was better. She managed to cut the sides straight, just below her ears, but eyed the ragged ends at the back in some alarm.

'Haani…'

'Yes?'

'Do you think you could cut my hair at the back? It would have to be very straight.'

'Of course,' Haani said with the confidence of the eight-year-old. She set to work. Tiaan's alarm grew as the thick swatches fell to the floor.

'Perhaps a little higher here, and here,' Tiaan said shortly.

'That's much better,' Haani said brightly as Tiaan stood up, brushing the loose hair away. 'You look beautiful, Tiaan.'

It was not much better, but it was better, though it looked more like a little girl's cut than a young woman meeting her lover for the first time. Well, nothing could be done about it.

'Ah, but will Minis think so?' she said to herself, not meaning Haani to overhear.

'Of course he will. If he doesn't he's a rude, nasty man and I won't like him at all.'

Tiaan had not considered that problem. What would Haani think of Minis? And how would he react to her? Tiaan fretted as she trimmed her nails and gave everything a last check. She did not look anything special. Tiaan felt panicky, then recalled a gift Marnie had once given in a futile attempt to make her daughter look feminine. A necklace of silver and amethyst, it seemed to suit.

Tiaan checked that her own gift, the woven gold and silver ring she had crafted so lovingly, was secure in her scrip. It was. She took a deep breath.

'Are you ready, Haani?'

'Of course.'

'What about your clean clothes?'

'They're by the bed. I'll get dressed in a minute.'

'Let's go down to breakfast. Then we'll brush our teeth. Make sure you do your hair, then we'll begin.' Tiaan had another go at contacting Minis. Again she failed. Better get to work. Her worries about the machine had not gone away but it was too late now to do anything about them. She examined the amplimet carefully. It was dusty, with bits of fluff here and there, and a silver mark on one side where it had been pressed hard against the helm. She wiped it down with a clean pair of knickers, scrubbing at the mark until it came off.

'Well,' she said with a gulp and a fluttery feeling in her stomach, 'this is it! Come on, Haani. Let's see what we can do.'

She marched into the room where the port-all stood, the amplimet held out in front of her. Tiaan looked like a maiden carrying tribute to one of the high temples of old. Haani skipped along behind, singing a child's rhyme. It was just another day to her.

Tiaan was pleased about that. She did not want to think what would happen if the machine went wrong: if it burnt her to a cinder, or left her body intact but her mind gone. She imagined Haani crouched over the body, bewildered…

Stop it! Probably nothing would happen anyway, since they had not taught her how to use it. Wrenching away from the morbid thoughts, she strode up to the port-all. The glass structures glowed as before. The hum was still there. When she approached, the glow intensified and a faint whine began. It rose in pitch. She stopped. The pitch stayed the same. She took another step. It rose again. The drifting spark inside the amplimet had brightened.

In the centre of the smallest glass doughnut, which enclosed the twisticon and was surrounded by the larger vertical one, hung a suspended basket made of the same amber soapstone that comprised the legs of the port-all. It mimicked the shape of the amplimet, with hinges that allowed it to be opened into two parts.

Tiaan stretched out and flicked the basket open. The doughnuts burst with light. The whine became a wail that tickled the insides of her ears. She felt pressure against her front, as if she was trying to push through a rubber sheet. The closer she came the more resistance she felt.

The light was now so bright that she had to squint. Her vision narrowed to a horizontal slit that showed only the central section of the port-all. Tiaan forced, and something pushed back just as hard. The amplimet did not budge. Minis had not told her about this.

She could not fail this close to her goal. There must be a way through. Tiaan turned the crystal so one of its pyramidal ends pointed to the basket, and heaved. The amplimet went a little way and stopped as if she was pushing against a solid wall. The other end did not work either.

There was only one thing left to do and she did it most reluctantly, remembering Minis's warning about using the amplimet here. Getting the wire globe from her pack, she placed the amplimet inside. The glow from the port-all disappeared. The whine was gone too. As soon as she put the helm on, the field sprang into view. It was different from other fields she had seen, consisting of multi-coloured billows and eddies radiating in all directions from the port-all. She felt she saw more than ever before, as if the swirls and whirlpools opened on a dimension she had previously been incapable of imagining.

The resistance proved as strong as ever. Tiaan went forward as far as she could go. Holding the globe straight out in one hand, she closed her eyes while manipulating the beads with the other. No matter how hard she tried, Tiaan could draw nothing from the field. She had no time to wonder why. She would have to try her fledgling geomancy again.

She sensed several sources of that kind of power. Great thrust faults lay below, where half a continent had been forced over another, pushing up these giant mountains. Such power was beyond the most powerful mancer's ability to tap or even survive.

But there was one source she might be able to use. Tiaan had seen them on the way here – the glaciers all around. They ended in icefalls, and the energy released by one tiny crack opening should be enough to force her way in.

She sought out and discarded many before finding a glacier that seemed just right. It was a little one, moving down a truncated valley on the other side of the mountain. She'd seen it as she was climbing up. But even a little glacier had awesome power to grind and crack and crush. She sensed out its structure, just above the icefall, and located a weakness along which coloured haloes danced in her mental image. It was ready to crack open. Tiaan waited.

'What are you doing, Tiaan? Why are you standing there like that?' came Haani's voice from behind.

'Shh!' Tiaan could not answer lest she lose her concentration. It was coming, it was coming! The crevasse cracked open. She drew power from it, clumsily. It had no perceptible effect on the glacier but Tiaan felt a surge of cold force stronger than anything she had handled before. It flowed into the amplimet, the spark lit up like a flash of lightning and Tiaan pushed hard.

The opposing force gave before her like a knife thrusting through a drum. She fell, almost crashing into the glass doughnuts. Regaining her balance, she slipped the amplimet from the globe, jammed it into the basket and banged the amber door.

The glow and the whine reappeared. The barrier came up so hard and fast that Tiaan was sent skidding twenty paces across the room. Fortunately there was nothing to crash into or she would have broken bones.

She lay dazed as Haani came screaming up. 'Tiaan, are you all right?'

Tiaan got up, with the child's help. 'I think so.' She dusted herself off, only to discover that the slide had torn a hole in the knee of her beautiful pantaloons. Not a large one, but it made her look like an urchin, rather than a beautiful woman rushing to meet her lover.

No time to change. The doughnuts were now dazzlingly bright, the amplimet glowed like a furnace through the walls of the basket, while tight beams of coloured light pulsed out of random parts of the device. The noises coming from it ranged from shrieks to barely audible rumbles. Every so often the whole machine vibrated as if to shake itself apart, and the twisticon was lit up by pulses of green light that formed standing waves inside.

'I've got to do it now, before it breaks.' Squatting down, Tiaan worked the beads in their orbits for what she hoped was the last time.

'Minis, Minis, where are you?' Blankness, struck through with brilliant beams of light. 'Minis. Come to me. The port-all is built. It's ready to bring you to safety.'

Still nothing. She ran through her memories of all the times she'd contacted him before. Suddenly she smelt smoke.

'What are you doing, Haani?' She could not look or she would lose it all.

'Just sitting here,' came a small voice beside her.

'You're not burning anything?'

'Of course not!' the child said indignantly.

'It must be Aachan!' Tiaan said to herself. 'It has to be. Minis!' she roared, and there it was, a great dome of an island, upon which lava flows were advancing, boiling the sea to steam.

On the ash-layered top she saw people in their thousands, sheltering under steep roofs collapsing under the weight of ash and cinder. Others huddled in the mouths of caves. Jagged volcanic bombs rained from the sky, some bursting open to reveal liquid interiors. Everywhere people were screaming, weeping, dying. She caught a stinging whiff of brimstone.

Her viewpoint drifted up a slope. A tower appeared, made up of dozens of slender spires, the sides of which were clustered with shiny silver buttons, or domes, or bowl-shaped caps. They must have been huge, for around the spires a road spiralled its way to the very top. The road was suspended from the towers by cables that from this distance looked as thin as hairs. At the top stood a metal plate the twin of the one on the wall behind her.

What on earth was the structure? Could it be their end of the gate? It must be, though the winding road just ended at the top. 'Minis!' She did not know that she had screamed it aloud. 'Minis, tell me what to do!'

It's Tiaan!

Just a whisper, but it made her skin shiver. She was going to succeed after all. 'Minis, I've done it. I've made the port-all – the zyxibule.' That word felt unlucky. 'Tell me what to do.'

Why did you not call us, Tiaan?

She could not see him among the throng. How she wanted to. 'I called many times. You did not answer.'

No matter. It's too late. We can't open the gate, Tiaan. We're too weak now.

'There's power here. I can channel more if you need me to. Tell me how. I can make the gate from here.'

Voices were arguing; some she recognised. The harsh tones of Vithis, Minis's foster-father. The calm, resigned voice of Luxor, and Tirior urging them on, to seize the opportunity.

What have we to lose? said Luxor. We're going to die anyway.

I say we trust her, said Tirior. Tiaan has taken on every challenge so far, and succeeded against our expectations.

And if she fails? grated Vithis. We don't die a noble death on beloved Aachan – we die trapped in the hideous void, to be eaten like carrion. Where is the dignity in that?

Then stay behind! roared Luxor. Go to the Well of Echoes and die with your precious dignity! I choose life for my clan.

And I, said Tirior. The Ten Clans have agreed on it.

I don't like it, said Vithis. To offer such a secret to an old human, and one who is barely out of childhood. What will she do with it?

Time to worry about that if we survive, said Tirior.

Yes, said Vithis. And we will worry, you can be sure.

They voted and it was agreed. They would make the attempt. Minis came back and told Tiaan what to do. Tiaan felt panicky to see the Aachim crammed there, dying. Their lives relied on her. She understood little about the deadly geomantic Art she would have to wield and get absolutely right the first time. If the great Aachim were afraid of the consequences, how could she hope to succeed?

But she had to. Her fingers worked desperately and Tiaan hurled her senses outward, skipping over the little glacier she'd used before. She needed a lot of power now. West she sped, to pick up the enormous glacier grinding down from the Tirthrax ice cap. It was the fastest of all – Tiaan imagined that she could hear it grinding in its bed. Yet even that pace was no faster than the creeping of a snail. The wait was agonising.

Where the glacier curved around the edge of the mountain toward the icefall, a fracture would open up from one side to the other. She could already see its field, like a concave lens. With desperate recklessness she seized upon the opening crevasse and took out every bit of power she could.

Ice screamed as it was torn apart and a paralysing cold rushed through her. Tiaan felt as if she had frozen solid. The whole port-all shuddered, exploding with light and sound. She thought it was going to tear itself apart.

The mountain shook. There came a noise like boulders being crushed and something went boom, so loud that her ears hurt. After that she heard nothing at all. Haani was tugging desperately at her hand. 'Tiaan, say something!'

Tiaan picked herself up from the floor, feeling that a long time had passed. Her vision of Aachan had disappeared. Lightning forked from the amplimet basket to the metal plate on the back wall. The glass doughnuts went out. After an instant of utter darkness the glow reappeared. Aachan was back, too.

A monstrous curving lens flashed into being at the very top of the road winding up from those spiked towers. For an instant she saw Tirthrax reflected on the lens. It must have been a reflection, for it was a mirror image, the toe of the glacier falling off the wrong side of the mountain. Tirthrax was the other way around.

A star appeared in the centre of the reflection, then a hole blasted right through the lens. There were screams and hoarse cries as an avalanche of snow erupted through, to the incredulity of the Aachim. It was like a white umbrella that melted in the hot air and fell as blessed cold rain.

The gate! The gate is open! she heard the multitude cry.

Hurry! Before it closes again.

People raced to machines that looked like clankers. Briefly she saw Minis's face, and those others she had seen before – the ones who knew all about the gate.

Stop! Vithis cried. The little fool has made the zyxibule the wrong way round. It's left-handed, not right. The gate may not work.

Too late to worry about that now, screamed another.

Clan Inthis! Vithis ordered. Stay back! It's not safe. You are to go last, after the Ten Clans! Let them risk all; this will restore us to our rightful place.

Vithis ran to a complicated piece of machinery that vaguely resembled Tiaan's port-all. Hurling himself into a suspended seat, he began working a controlling arm in three dimensions. Ball lightning fizzed out in all directions.

The image of Aachan turned upside down and back to front. Tiann's lungs burned as if she had inhaled fire. Her control of the port-all was snatched away. A wormhole writhed across the ethyr like an electrified serpent.

No, Inthis! Vithis screamed, holding out his arms in entreaty as a squadron of blue-tinted constructs raced past. Wait…

They took no notice. Letting go the controlling arm, Vithis put his head in his hands and wept. A stampede of people and machines rushed up the spiral road towards the gate, but Tiaan lost them, and then she lost Aachan too. On a mountaintop half a continent away, the tetrarch was observing the motions of the planets when, for an instant, they shook like jelly in a bowl. The field tied itself into knots. The globe-wide ethyr sobbed out a single note before returning to intangibility. Setting down his instruments, the tetrarch made a note on a slate. Hundreds of leagues to the south, in a citadel on the frigid Island of Noom, a woman set down her quill, cocked her head to one side, and smiled. The long watch had borne its first fruit. She took up a lantern and headed down the Thousand Steps to her master.