Geomancer

E IGHT

After reporting the damage to Gi-Had, who had roared 'Gryste, get in here!' Tiaan returned to the workshop. There was only one solution, reluctant though she was. She would have to ask old Joe to find her another crystal.

She did not want to. Tiaan even toyed with the idea of going to the sixth level by herself to avoid troubling him, but that would be irresponsible. Joe would be furious, and what if she had an accident? No, what he could do in safety would be foolhardy for her to attempt.

Joeyn was back on the fifth level in the place he had been working earlier in the week. He looked pleased to see her, even when, with some reluctance, she explained why she had come. She showed him the damaged crystal.

'I thought we might need to go down again.' He pressed his lunch on her.

Tiaan took one of the spicy meal cakes. It was delicious, though hot; sweat broke out on her forehead. 'I didn't want to ask you.'

'Why not?'

'I hate asking people for favours. And you've done so much already.'

'I hope you weren't thinking of going to the sixth level by yourself,' he said with a steely glint.

Tiaan looked down at her boots. One lace had come undone. She tied it.

'This is my work, Tiaan. My life. If I had to go to the sixth level a hundred times I'd do it cheerfully. Especially for you.'

She could think of no answer to that.

'Besides, I carried a bit of formwork in yesterday,' he went on. 'Not much, just a beam and a couple of props, but it'll be safer than before.'

He sketched the arrangement on the floor with his knife. 'Want to go?'

'Might as well.'

This time, the trip did not seem quite so doom-laden. In the cavern she stood well back while Joeyn gauged the height with a folding ruler.

He measured the props, sawing a handspan off one, the thickness of a finger off the other. 'Now we come to the dangerous part. If you're a believer, say your prayers now.'

Tiaan was not but she uttered a sincere prayer anyhow.

'This is what we're going to do,' the old miner said. 'We'll each hold our props at an angle to the vertical, like this.' He demonstrated. 'Then, we lift the timber plate on top, like a lintel over a doorway. Finally we move under the cracked area, just in front of the vein, and bring our props upright, forcing the plate hard against the roof. Hard enough to hold it, but not hard enough to bring it down on us, of course.' He grinned.

'Of course!'

She bent down to lift the prop, which was a span and a half long and half as big round as her waist. It proved to be incredibly heavy. Heaving and gasping, Tiaan managed to get one end as high as her shoulder. The prop was not made from the light local pine but from a dense, wavy-grained hardwood with a rank odour, like wet socks.

'Lean it against the wall,' said Joeyn. 'They're buggers to lift.' He rested his own a couple of spans from hers. 'Have a breather.'

They lifted the beam, which was even heavier, and laid it on top of the props, lying flat. 'Ready?' said Joeyn. 'It's going to be bloody hard work.'

Moving the prop away from the wall was the easy part. Keeping the plate on it was murder. The split edge cut into her shoulder; splinters needled her fingers. But that was nothing compared to the sheer agony of lifting prop and beam and walking with them. One step and she was exhausted; two, bone weary; three, and every muscle in her body was shrieking.

'Rest it!' said Joeyn, who seemed to be bearing his load easily enough. No doubt he was used to it. 'I'd have brought a couple of pit labourers in, but they've got families, and this level is forbidden…'

'I think I can manage,' she said stoutly. 'It's just, well, I'm used to working with my fingers, not carrying heavy loads.'

'We'll take it one step at a time. As soon as it starts to hurt, ground your pole.'

She gave a weak smile. It hurt before she'd even got it off the floor. After two steps her prop began to shake. Tiaan grounded it hastily.

Another step. Now they were going under the cracked area. The pole wobbled; she let it down, expecting the beam to fall on her head. Joeyn's hand flew up, steadying it.

Parts of the roof rock, segments bounded by fractures, looked ready to fall. She closed her eyes and instantly saw that final image from last night's dream – the handsome young man on the balcony, begging for help as volcanoes erupted fire and ash all around.

Tiaan snapped her eyes open. The scene vanished. 'Are you all right?' Joeyn asked.

'Yes,' she said dazedly. She lifted her prop. They moved another two steps, rested, then one more.

'Just a half step to your left now, Tiaan.'

Finally they were ready. 'This is the difficult part,' he said. 'We slowly raise our poles to the vertical, pushing the plate up against the roof. When it's in position I'll wedge the props so they're tight and we'll be done. Carefully now. You go first; I'll match it.'

Tiaan began to push her prop up. Slowly, ever so slowly. The tip wobbled. She steadied it with her shoulder.

'Easy does it,' said Joeyn. 'Take all the time you need.'

Up again, and again. 'Just one more lift.'

Up they went. Half the prop was above her shoulder now, and harder to steady. The tip wobbled. She threw her weight against it but the base skidded on a pebble and the pole tilted. The plate began to slide off.

'Up hard!' Joeyn cried, but it was too late.

Tiaan dropped the prop and crouched with her arms over her head. The plate struck the floor with a tremendous clatter. Her prop hit the wall. Joeyn remained where he was, still holding his pole, staring up at the roof.

Grit rained down on Tiaan's back. A chip of granite bounced off the plate. She stood up, gasping. 'I'm sorry, Joeyn.'

'No – my fault. It wasn't such a good idea after all.'

'Let's try again. One last effort.'

'Are you sure?'

'I think so.'

The second time was harder than the first, if that was possible. Tiaan's back was throbbing, low down, and her arms had lost the best of their strength. But she knew how to balance the plate now, and the tiny movements needed to keep it there. This time they got it almost to the roof with no fatal wobbles.

'The last bit is always the hardest to control,' he said.

'I'm ready.' She had to succeed this time. Tiaan could not make another attempt. She eased the pole until it was nearly upright. It wobbled and she could barely hold it.

Joeyn thrust his prop up hard, jamming the plate against the roof. That steadied it enough for Tiaan to raise her end the last distance. They'd done it!

'Keep it steady.' He nudged a wedge under the prop with the toe of his boot and tapped it in. After wedging the other side, he shook the pole. It did not budge. He did the same with hers. 'You can let go, Tiaan.'

Now that the strain was off, Tiaan could not stand up. She crawled across to the far wall, laid her burning cheek on the cold floor and watched while Joeyn tightened the wedges, one by one, with his hammer.

He sat beside her. Tiaan began picking splinters out of her palms. 'That'll hold against a minor fall,' he said.

'But not a major one?'

Joeyn eyed the erection. 'No, but it'll only take a few minutes to get the crystal.' He offered her his flask of turnip brandy.

This time she took a sip. The liquor tasted revolting, but it warmed her all the way down. Tiaan felt better, though she was not tempted to take a second.

Joeyn was back at the vein, staring up. 'Come here. Pick the one you want.'

He linked his hands, making a step. She put her foot in it and was boosted up to shoulder height.

'Oh, Joe, they're the most perfect ones I've ever seen. They feel strong, too – even better than the crystal you got the other day.' She exclaimed over one, then another. It was impossible to decide. Had she brought her pliance she might have tested them, to see which was most suited to her. Tiaan felt a pang of withdrawal. 'But which are the good ones, Joeyn? No point me picking one out if it's just ordinary crystal.'

'I think they're all good. I had a bit of a look at them when I brought the timbers in.'

'You mean…?'

'Yes. This vein is worth as much as the rest of the mine put together.'

Unimaginable wealth. If she owned one of these crystals, she could buy out her indenture ten times over. Tiaan edged a bit higher, searching for a crystal just a bit more perfect than the others. 'Joe, look!'

'What is it?'

'The hollow goes in for ages, and it's all lined with crystals. There must be hundreds of them.' She gazed in wonderment. 'Maybe thousands.'

'I hate to disturb you,' said he. 'I know you're only a slip of a woman, after all, but I can't hold you up forever.'

'Sorry.' She had quite forgotten. 'Do you need a rest?'

'Not if you've found what you're looking for.'

She selected a perfect hexagonal prism terminated by a pyramid. It was a delicate ruby-pink colour, almost transparent. 'I've got one.'

'Put your feet on my shoulders and I'll pass up the hammer and chisel.'

Taking the tools, with a single, well-placed tap she knocked the quartz crystal off at the base. It fell back into the cavity. She reached in to recover the crystal. 'Aah!'

'What's the matter?'

'It felt like a hundred hot needles touching my skin at once. It's all right; it's gone now. Hello?' She stood up on tiptoe. 'What's that?'

'What?'

'Way up at the end, a crystal seems to be glowing by itself.'

'How far in?'

'A long way. Seven or eight arm lengths, I'd say. It's the most perfect one I've ever seen. A bipyramid.'

'Well, you can't have it. There's no way of getting it out.'

'I don't suppose…' she looked down at him, 'from the other side?'

'That'd be weeks of tunnelling, even supposing the roof stayed up. Sorry, Tiaan.'

'Oh, well,' she said regretfully. 'A pity. It looks so perfect.' She jumped down.

'They all look perfect from that distance.' He began to tap one of the wedges out from under his prop.

'Maybe you should leave that there for a while. In case something happens to this crystal too.'

'Irisis?'

'Or the saboteur, if they are different.'

'Maybe I will.' He kicked the wedge back in. The new crystal proved much more difficult to wake, and even more draining. She had now woken three in a few days, which would have exhausted the greatest crafter in the east. After it was done, Tiaan did not don the helm at once. The way forward was no longer clear. Because of the headaches, she felt anxious about using her device. But then, everything about her life made her anxious.

Tiaan kept thinking about the strange crystal. She had never heard of one that glowed. She also wondered about her vision in the mine, that fragment of dream about the young man. Crystal dreams usually vanished when she woke up but she could remember his face perfectly. He had been so desperate. She recalled the sensual dreams that had followed. They made her hot in the face.

Don't be stupid. They were just dreams! Cramming the helm on her head, Tiaan set to work, trying to trace the residues of use and purpose, the history of the failed hedron since she had made its controller weeks ago. She found nothing, but then had a brilliant idea. What if she forced the hedron to wake, then read its induced aura? It required her to use her pliance in a dangerous way but Tiaan could not see any other choice.

Taking it from around her neck, she unhooked the pliance from the chain and put it in the globe so it touched the failed hedron. She felt a moment's anxiety. Anything might happen.

With gentle touches of her fingertips, Tiaan began sensing out the field. The familiar aurora flowed into her mind. It was particularly strong today, the billows and eddies tinged deep purple. Locating a suitable vortex, she drew power into her pliance just as she had done a thousand times before.

Pressing pliance and hedron together, she directed a flow of power into the failed crystal. It created no aura at all. The power vanished as if it had passed straight back into the field.

That was odd. Even a dead hedron should produce some aura after such a flow. She drew more power, with the same result. The hedron felt warm now. More than odd, it was downright peculiar.

Taking deep, slow breaths, she relaxed until her arms hung limp, her head lolled. Tiaan did not consciously try to visualise the field, but just allowed it to wash over and through her.

Her view drifted. She was looking for something greater than she had used before, a vortex so potent that it was tinged blue-white. Finding one, she traced the sub-ethyric path from it into the pliance and steadied herself. This could be quite dangerous. It might contain more power than she could safely handle. She allowed the vortex to drift towards the pathway. Now!

The vortex coloured down through purple, blues, reds, yellows and finally turned black. Pain stabbed through her head, the pliance flared and for an instant an aura appeared inside the crystal. Tiaan locked the image in her memory, then something crackled and both field and aura disappeared.

'I've done it!' she exulted, feeling the special thrill of having tried something new and, against all the odds, succeeded. She examined the image frozen in her mind. There was something at its core. Rotating the image, Tiaan picked up an echo of power like none she'd ever come across. It felt intelligent: organic yet alien.

Her head began to throb. Tiaan pushed up the helm, rubbed balm onto her temples, and let it fall again. Another image flashed into her mind. An armoured, crested head; enormous yellow eyes; a mouth big enough to take in her own head; hundreds of teeth. The folded wings made it certain. A lyrinx! It seemed to be talking to someone human, probably a man. There was something familiar about the shape of the head, the set of the shoulders. The image began to fade and she could not hang on to it. Could it be the spy?

Tiaan rubbed her eyes. Feeling unaccountably tired and weak, she went on unsteady legs to the door.

'Have you seen Gol?' she asked Irisis, who was walking by with a coil of silver wire in one hand.

'No!' she snapped. 'Why?'

'I wanted him to fetch Gi-Had.' Tiaan's legs folded up under her and she slid down against the wall.

'What's the matter with you?'

'Just working too hard,' Tiaan croaked, wishing Irisis would go away.

'On what?' Her blue eyes scanned the room. Irisis picked up the globe, gave it a gentle shake and laid it down. 'I'll tell Gi-Had.' Irisis looked back at the globe. 'I was going that way anyway.'

Tiaan was too exhausted to wonder why she was being cooperative. 'Thank you,' she whispered, putting her head between her knees. A rough hand shook her by the shoulder. 'What the blazes is going on, Artisan Tiaan?'

'O-Overseer Gi-Had,' she said dazedly. 'I wanted to see you.'

The man looked as if every drop of blood had been drained from his veins. What was the matter now?

Irisis came in behind him, to stand beside the door.

'What are you doing down there?' He lifted her to her feet.

'I don't know what happened.' Tiaan was having trouble thinking straight. It was as if she was drunk.

'Artisan Irisis has made a serious allegation about you,' said the overseer.

Tiaan had no idea what he was talking about. 'I've been sensing out what happened to the hedrons.'

'She's lying,' Irisis said coldly. 'The apparatus nearly killed me when I tried it last night. Maybe that was her intention. That's why she broke her crystal and implied that I'd done it. And now she's broken her pliance, too.'

Tiaan caught her breath. Irisis would say anything to get rid of her. 'No artisan would ever break her own pliance!' she said scornfully. 'It would be like cutting off her arm.'

'No sane artisan would,' said Irisis. 'But you're suffering from delusions, Tiaan. Either you're the spy or… you've got crystal fever.'

'What are you talking about?' cried Tiaan. 'Overseer, she's making up stories. She hates me.'

'Am I?' Irisis thrust one elegantly manicured finger in the direction of the globe. 'Take a look at that!'

Tiaan threw herself on the globe, fumbling with the catch. It came open and the failed hedron rolled out. Its insides had gone milky.

'Now she's destroyed it as well,' Irisis said. 'You must be rid of her, overseer, for the good of the manufactory.'

Gi-Had fretted a scrap of paper to pieces. 'There had better be a good explanation for this, artisan.'

'I was reading the hedron,' Tiaan said lamely. She snatched her pliance and its crystal fell to pieces in her hand. Tiaan stared at the fragments, uncomprehending. Her pliance was ruined. It would take weeks to make another. She wanted to scream.

'Well,' cried Gi-Had. 'What do I tell the perquisitor?'

Tiaan fell to her knees and wept.

'It's crystal fever!' Irisis repeated. 'She doesn't know what she's doing. She can't do her job, overseer.'

'Shut up!' Squatting before Tiaan, Gi-Had offered her a cloth. 'You must help me, artisan.'

Tiaan mopped her face. 'I was reading one of the failed hedrons,' she sniffled. 'I woke it anew and forced it to reveal its aura. I saw something there.'

'She's a liar!' said Irisis. 'She hasn't been here all day.'

Gi-Had looked from one to the other, not knowing whom to believe.

'I've been down the mine with Joeyn,' said Tiaan, 'risking my life on the sixth level to find a suitable crystal.'

'You've done what?' Gi-Had said.

'It's the only place I can find crystals of sufficient power. The others are no good at all.'

'That level is forbidden! How dare you risk your life down there? What would the manufactory do if you were killed?'

'Would it matter? You'd still have Artisan Irisis,' Tiaan said with heavy sarcasm.

His lack of response gave Tiaan heart. He must have reservations about Irisis too. 'My discovery might save hundreds of soldiers. And if these new crystals turn out as I suspect…'

'What?' he cried.

'They're much stronger, and there's a lot of them. They might drive a clanker twice as fast as the other hedrons. And that might win the war.'

He softened. 'Indeed, it was a brave and noble thing you did today. Do not do it again! If lives must be put at risk, let it be those that we can do without. What did you see in the hedron, Tiaan?'

Tiaan placed the helm over Gi-Had's square head, put his fingers on the wire globe and, holding the milky crystal, recalled the image seen in its aura. He looked annoyed, then mulishly stubborn, then frustrated, as if what he was looking for lay forever beyond his reach. Suddenly he went rigid. Gi-Had stood up like a mechanical man unfolding, and his eyes were staring. 'I saw!' he said, turning to Tiaan. 'I saw the face of a beast.'

'A lyrinx?'

'Yes!' He gave a great shudder of horror. 'It was crouched over a round thing on a stalk, like a luminous mushroom, as if it was spying on us. Then it looked up and it was talking to a man. The spy! The enemy knows our every plan. They'll cut off our clankers one by one.'

Irisis could not contain herself. 'She lies! She put the image in your mind. She knows nothing; she's only worth the breeding -'

Gi-Had struck her across the face with his open hand. 'Shut up, second cousin! We're fighting for our lives. How dare you bring your petty jealousies into my manufactory!'

Irisis touched her cheek. 'But I – Look at the evidence against her.'

'I have,' he said grimly. 'And I see your hand in most of it.'

'But… Uncle promised that I would follow him as crafter. She doesn't even have a father. She comes from -'

'And that's where you'll be going, artisan, if you cause any more trouble. Tiaan has just proved what a brilliant artisan she is. I can't do without her.'

The fingermarks stood out red and purple on Irisis's blanched face. 'You wouldn't!'

'Desperate times, artisan. Someone's been sabotaging the hedrons, the enemy can see our clankers, and now…' Gi-Had went white, began to shake and had to be helped onto a stool.

'What is it, cousin?' cried Irisis. It was the first time Tiaan had seen her show concern for anyone. But then, he was family.

Tiaan offered the overseer a mug of water. 'You said there was a disaster?'

He took a small sip, then looked to them both. 'You might as well know,' he said hoarsely. 'It concerns us all, but especially artisans.'

'What?' Irisis took his hand.

'Word came in a despatch this morning. It happened way up the coast, two hundred leagues north of here. A vital node has gone dead.'

'Dead?' Irisis echoed.

'Well, of course the node is still there but its field faded to nothing, stalling fifty clankers on the plain of Minnien. The enemy destroyed the lot, then advanced fifteen leagues in a week. If the lyrinx can keep it up they'll be at the gates of Tiksi by mid-winter.'

No one spoke. They were going to lose the war, and against the lyrinx, losers were eaten.

'Does anyone know why it happened?' Tiaan asked, forcing calm on herself. 'Is it like what's happened to the controllers, only larger?'

'We don't know. There seem to be two possibilities, one nearly as bad as the other,' said Gi-Had. 'The first is that the enemy has found a way to block the field, or destroy it.'

Tiaan digested that. 'And the other?'

'That clankers take too much power from the field. With so many of them drawing on it at once, they've drained it dry, like pumping too much water from a well.'

No one said anything. Gi-Had got up. 'A state of emergency has been declared. I have authority to do whatever is necessary to produce clankers. Survival takes precedence over everything. And everybody!' He waved a dismissing hand. 'Though what is the use if we cannot power them…?'

'If the enemy can detect our controllers by the aura,' Tiaan said thoughtfully, 'what we need is some kind of shield to render it invisible to their senses.'

'A shield?' He looked doubtful. 'Is such a thing possible?'

'It might be. I have an idea I'd like to try, surr.'

'Very well. Leave your other work. Spend two days on this task, no more, then report to me. What ideas do you have, cousin?'

'I was thinking the same thing,' said Irisis.

'Good,' said Gi-Had. 'When can I see your work?'

Irisis looked shocked but recovered quickly. 'It'll take a day. Or two.' Giving Tiaan a look of purest malice, she went out.

With his hand on the latch, Gi-Had turned back. 'The failed hedron, and your pliance, contain evidence of the traitor. Is there any way of telling who it is?'

'Not without a new pliance.'

'Do you mind if I take them? In case we find someone who can tell?'

'They're no use to me.'

Gi-Had wrapped the evidence in a piece of cloth. Tiaan choked as he carried the ruined pliance away. Incapable of thinking coherently, she went to bed. This time she locked the door and took the globe, helm and crystal with her.

She was still agonising two hours later. How were the enemy sensing the hedrons? Maybe lyrinx had senses that humans did not have. She had no idea, and with her pliance gone, how could she find out?

The loss hurt, physically and emotionally. Withdrawal was going to be worse, and for that nothing could be done except to replace the device as soon as possible. Weeks of misery lay ahead of her.

As she drifted off to sleep Tiaan found herself thinking about that glowing crystal in the mine again. She coveted it more than ever. Help! Please help me! It was a scream inside her head, a cry of absolute terror.

Tiaan could see nothing but smoke and yellow sulphur fumes that stung her nose. The manufactory must be on fire. She groped in the darkness for her clothes but could feel only coarse vegetation, like bracken or heath. Her toe caught on a root and she went sprawling among the shrubbery.

Something bright and hot curved across the sky, an irregular glowing object that rotated, whoosh-thump, as it went. It slammed into the ground not far away, the shockwave knocking her off her feet. The heath exploded into flame that flared high on a mist of leaf oils. A breeze drove it toward her.

She ran, sharp leaves tearing at her naked thighs, branches twisting themselves around her ankles. Over and again she fell. The last time, too exhausted to get up, she simply lay there as the flames rushed up and over. She screamed but once.

Tiaan woke gasping in her bed, scarce able to comprehend that she had not been burned alive. She fumbled for the lantern, clicking the flint striker over and over, even after the wick had lit. The room looked normal.

Feeling a growing pressure in her temples, she dug a finger into the jar of balm and slathered it across her forehead.

Someone started hammering on the door. 'What's going on in there?'

Wrapping a blanket around herself, Tiaan went to the door. Half a dozen of her fellow workers stood outside. 'Sorry!' she said. 'A nightmare. Must have been working too hard. I'm all right now.'

Muttering to themselves, they went back to their beds. Tiaan locked her door and was just tucking the blanket in when she was flung back into that crystal dream, wide awake. This time she was standing on an island in the middle of a broad river. Behind was a pavilion with seven columns surmounted by a dome of beaten copper.

She was reaching into a basket of fruit when there came an explosion of steam and a wavefront of boiling water thundered down the river. She smelt cooked fish. The water divided on either side of the island before roaring past.

The level sank. Tiaan sighed, but a heart-stopping grinding noise came from upstream, followed by a blast of superheated air. Inexorably, around the bend rumbled a wall of lava – the red viscous ooze continually breaking through the blackened crust. On it came, and on, and nothing was going to stop it.

Tiaan ran back and forth across the island. Boiling water surrounded her. There was nowhere to go. She stood back, watching the lava crackle toward her. 'Help!' she cried uselessly.

Help! echoed that handsome face on the balcony, the young man from her dreams. He looked her way, started, and gave a sweet, sad smile that brought tears to her eyes. He put out his arms. He cares for me, she thought, amazed. She began to run, then a wave of lava swept him away.

Again she screamed, again woke; again she reassured the increasingly angry crowd at the door.

Tiaan tried to sleep but was plunged back into the nightmare, running down the corridors of a palace as volcanic bombs fell everywhere, crashing through the ceilings, exploding and setting fire to the magnificent building. 'Help!'

There was no answer.