Geomancer

S IXTY – O NE

Haani was tugging at her arm. 'Tiaan, quickly!' Tiaan got up, feeling frozen solid. A vast, crackling roar surrounded her. Blue icicles hung from the port-all. She smelt dust and vaguely recalled the sound of falling rubble.

Haani tugged her around. 'Look what's happened.'

The amplimet had gone dull but the twisticon was ablaze, colours chasing themselves around its surface, inside, then out, then inside again without any break. The vertical doughnut looked as if it was on fire. The annulus of light from it focussed to a point above Tiaan's head, then spread out again. It had torn a hole through the wall, and in the middle of the vast hall beyond, some hundreds of paces away, made another ring that stretched from floor to ceiling. Air shrieked through it. It must be the gate, but nothing had come out.

Something flashed into her mind, a fragment from the time she had been unconscious: screams, explosions of light and fire, and cries of utmost agony, as if people were being turned inside out. It vanished just as swiftly, but what had followed did not. A background wailing; thousands of souls in grief. Tiaan felt a chill of horror. What had happened to the Aachim in the gate? Where had they ended up?

Up the far end she saw light where there had been no light before. A tongue of blue-white ice had punched through the side of the mountain. Had she made a dreadful mistake? 'The little fool has made the zyxibule the wrong way round!' Vithis had said. What had he meant?

'Do you think we should run away?' Haani clutched Tiaan's hand as the ice scraped and squealed towards them.

'I don't know.' The ice stopped moving. The floor shook twice, and with a rumble more of the mountain wall caved in. Rubble exploded everywhere. Part of the floor collapsed. Most of the ice and rubble slid back out.

They ran towards the opening. It was bitterly cold, for the great glacier that curved around the side of the mountain immediately below them had risen, pushed up against the wall, cracked it open and subsided again. The rock beneath had been ground off like the surface of a road.

Outside they could hear the crack of ice falling, the thunder of its landing far below. Tiaan shivered. Her blouse, pantaloons and sandals were quite inadequate here.

'Something's happening back there,' said Haani.

The great annulus had gone dark. Shadows danced on the wall opposite.

'He's coming!' cried Tiaan, embracing the child. 'Oh, he's coming, Haani!'

She ran forward. A hollow boom shook the floor. A dark shape appeared in the base of the doughnut-shaped gate. The shape pushed, concentric rainbows rippling around it as if it was held back by a transparent barrier.

'It can't get through,' said Haani.

There came a brilliant white flash, followed by thunder. Quakes shook the floor and a flat disc of mist condensed in the plane of the gate. The dark shape pushed through it and, as suddenly, the mist was sucked back the other way.

'What is it?' whispered Haani.

'I… don't know. Perhaps it's some kind of clanker.'

'What is a clanker?'

Of course the child would not know. There were no clankers in this land. The war had not come this far, yet. 'It is a cart that moves by itself, without horse or ox or deer to pull it.'

'Oh!'

It began to emerge, a long, tapering snout of shining blue-black metal, rising to a cockpit ringed about with circular rails, covered by a metal dome like a lid. Wisps of yellow smoke clung to it; fumes dragged out by its passage. The body was long and broad, with bulbous flares and inexplicable indentations and protrusions. The back was cut straight down. It looked like something made by a sculptor, but if so, the greatest genius in the world. It looked deadly, but it was a work of art too.

'It is like a clanker,' Tiaan said to herself, 'only larger. A dozen people could fit inside, and all their gear. How can they work metal so beautifully?' Beside it, the manufactory clankers would look like the work of a village blacksmith. She longed to see inside it and know how it was made.

'But it hasn't got any wheels,' said Haani.

There was nothing under it but a dusty, yellow-glowing blur, and it floated well above the floor. Moreover, it did not make the groaning rattle that alerted the whole world to the coming of a clanker. All she could hear was a low whine and an occasional hiss.

'It… It's a construct!' said Tiaan. 'It must be.'

The construct emerged from the gate, turned the other way, back towards them, and stopped. Another appeared behind it, followed by a third. Tiaan felt an indefinable foreboding. These vehicles seemed ominous rather than welcoming.

'Haani,' she hissed. 'Go behind me. Scuttle around into the ice and hide. Don't come out until I call you.'

'But Tiaan, what's the matter?'

'Do as you're told! At once!'

Haani sucked in her breath, gave a muffled sob and crept away. Out of the corner of her eye Tiaan saw her scuttle across the rubble-strewn floor to her left. Tiaan crouched down behind a fallen column.

She felt like weeping too. What must the child be thinking? That disaster was about to strike again? Not if she could stop it! Tiaan climbed onto the column.

The three constructs floated up the hall. More appeared from the gate, one after another. They were practically touching as they came out. Within minutes there were hundreds of them. All had the same overall shape but there were many variations in detail, and in size, from constructs that might hold fifty people to others that could scarcely have contained a family. Some had people running beside them, or clinging onto the outside.

The machines crept towards her, spreading out behind the first three until they formed a rank twenty wide in the vast hall, and a hundred deep. And still they came pouring from the gate. Two thousand already. If each held only a dozen, that was twenty-four thousand people. Minis had said a few thousand. Still, they were just a drop in the lake compared to the millions of humans. These Aachim with their amazing constructs would be a great help in the war.

Tiaan stood in the middle of the hall, completely alone. They came to within fifty paces, then stopped, every one, in the same instant. It was incredible. Eerie!

The central construct cracked open at the top, the dome tilting back to reveal a platform on which seven people stood. Most were dark-faced and near a head taller than their human equivalents. Not all, though. One, a woman with pale skin and red hair, was no taller than Tiaan. All were armed with bows, swords or other recognisable weapons. At the rear a man sat in a turret, behind a spring-fired weapon resembling the javelard of a clanker.

The construct to the left of the first came open, followed by the one on the right. Six Aachim stood on each platform. Tiaan scanned the faces for Minis but did not see him. They looked exhausted – bruised, battered and soot-stained – yet they had about them a lofty dignity. Despite their travails they were dressed richly. Tiaan glanced at her own finery and quailed. She was covered in dust, the hole in her knee gaped and she knew her hair was a mess.

A tall man pushed to the front of the platform of the central clanker. She recognised Vithis, though he looked haggard. His eyes were staring and he seemed to be having trouble mastering himself.

'Who are you,' he boomed in the common speech, 'who stand before the might of the Aachim?' His voice was richly resonant; a voice used to command. The accent was strange, the language stilted, and like Minis he pronounced every letter separately, giving his speech a sense of deliberation.

'I am Tiaan,' she shouted back. Her own voice sounded shrill, and timid. 'I made the device that brought you here to safety.'

'Awry!' he roared.

Tiaan took an involuntary step backwards.

'You made the zyxibule awry. You changed left for right. Everything is the mirror of its true order. Because of your stupidity, many of our number are lost in the void.' He choked back a sob. 'You utter fool. My clan has been wiped out.'

Horror shivered through her. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered, recalling the cries, the wails, the agony numbered ten thousand times. 'I'm dreadfully sorry. I made it exactly as was shown me!'

'You insult the memory of our dead. Dare not to make excuses for your incompetence!'

Tiaan caught her breath. 'I followed your instructions exactly. If left hand and right hand are different on your world, why did you not tell me?'

'You should have checked!' He was as bitter as venom.

She felt like a prentice before an angry master, but here there were twenty-four thousand of them. 'I called, as I was instructed. You did not answer, as you promised. Besides, you knew how the gate was before you left Aachan. I heard you say so. You snatched it out of my control to benefit your own clan. You made it go wrong.'

'How dare you challenge me! I am Vithis of Clan Inthis, First Clan of Aachan! Bow down when you speak to me. Do humans lack all respect for their betters?'

She bit back her angry words. The man was out of his mind with grief. She hoped the other Aachim were not all like him. She was not going to bow, though.

'Where is Minis, my lover?'

'Lover?' he said incredulously. 'Move out of my way.'

'I have saved your people,' she said, 'at no little cost to myself and my own kind. Many of us died that you might live, and you show no gratitude. Is this the kind of people you are? I would speak to Minis.'

Another man, shorter and older, eased the first out of the way. 'We are indeed grateful, Tiaan,' said Luxor.

Tirior stood beside him. Luxor's hair was iron-grey. Tirior's was as black as Tiaan's, but curly, and her face was darker.

'I am Luxor,' said the man, 'of Clan Izmak.'

'And I, Tirior of Clan Nataz,' the woman said. 'We are clan leaders of the Aachim, on this excursion second only to Vithis. Do not take his bitter words to heart, Tiaan. He has just seen his clan extinguished – every child, every woman, every man. Please allow for his anguish.'

Tiaan bowed her head.

'Ask what reward you will,' said Luxor, 'and we will gladly pay it.'

'I ask for no reward,' Tiaan said. 'I did not aid you in hope of gain.' Apart from Minis.

'Nobly spoken,' said Tirior. 'You have done the Aachim a service that we will never forget. May we see the amplimet, Tiaan? Such a thing none of us have ever set eyes on.'

Did they plan to take it from her? They were armed for war and she could not stop them. Besides, she wanted to build bridges, not raise barriers.

'It's back there, in the room with the hole in the wall.' She pointed.

'Leave it!' growled Vithis. 'It is corrupted now and no use to anyone.'

'But…' said Tirior.

'Remember the accursed Mirror of Aachan!' he raged. 'This crystal will prove just as treacherous if ever we touch it.'

'I did so want to see it,' Tirior said wistfully. 'I have made a study of such things.'

'We must move swiftly!' Vithis rapped out. 'While we have the advantage.'

'But this is Tirthrax!' cried Tirior. 'It is the greatest city we ever made. My clan ancestors built this place.'

'They were enemies of First Clan!' snapped Vithis.

'That is a long time ago,' said Tirior. 'Most of our people are now dying on Aachan. Others have been lost in the void. We are all that remain of our kind and we cannot afford division. I have to see the city and learn why it has been abandoned.'

'There is no time! The mancers of this world must be shuddering at the power liberated here. Already they will be mobilising their forces. What if they are looking for us now? As leader of the Eleven Clans,' he choked back a cry of anguish, 'I say we go at once.'

'Very well,' said Tirior, 'but we will deal honourably with Tiaan first. Minis, come up.'

A young man climbed onto the platform of the central construct, the others drawing back to give him room. Tiaan feasted her eyes on him. Minis was tall, but not too tall; well built, though not extravagantly so. His dark hair fell in waves about his ears. His cheeks were thinner than she remembered, but his brow just as noble, his lips as ripe.

'Minis!' Tiaan called. 'I came as I promised. I have travelled halfway across the world to bring you here.' She threw out her arms to him.

He stared at her unmoving, as if he had no idea who she was. Tiaan went cold inside. But perhaps he was too reserved to show it before so many people.

'Minis. You said that you cared for me.' She dared not use the word 'love', not now. 'I have a gift for you.' Feeling in her scrip she drew the ring out. Running forward until she was just a few spans from the construct, she held it up. 'Minis, I made this ring with my own hands.'

She fell silent. It was a beautiful thing, but greater beauty lay all around, in the constructs and in Tirthrax. Everything the Aachim made was beautiful. She felt her own artisan's skills were meagre, her ring a rustic token that would embarrass him.

Minis smiled and put out his own arms. His fingers were remarkably long, an Aachim characteristic. The pupils of his eyes were oval.

'Tiaan, my love,' he cried, his voice as ringing as Vithis's, but warmer. 'For a minute I did not recognise you. Indeed I promised, and I keep my promises.'

'I've had enough of this nonsense!' cried Vithis, pushing through. 'Look what a shabby little wretch she is. This is not what I raised you for, foster-son. You are my sole heir now and I cannot allow it. Toss her a bag of platinum and be done with her.'

'But Vithis, foster-father – '

'We were slaves on our own world for thousands of years, foster-son. No sooner did we gain our freedom than our world died on us. History has used us ill. Never more will we be slaves! My clan died that we might stand here today, and if we are to take this world we cannot afford to lose anyone. Especially not you, Minis! You are all I have left. Together we must create Clan Inthis anew.'

Minis's extended fingers, which had touched the ring, drew back.

Tiaan's hand fell to her side. She could think of nothing to say. Had she given her all to be treated so badly?

'Tiaan!' cried Minis. 'We're not like that. Please believe me, Tiaan.' He tried to get down but Vithis held him back.

'Don't grovel, boy. We are Aachim and we have a world to make our own.'

'Please foster-father.'

Vithis tossed a bag to the floor. It clinked as it landed. 'A bag of platinum for your service, Tiaan.'

'Damn you!' she raged. 'You can't buy me.'

Minis had scrambled down the side of the construct and hung there, one foot on the rung, the other in the air. 'Tiaan -'

'Come back, boy,' grated Vithis. 'Put one foot on the floor and you are Aachim no longer.'

'But foster-father. Honour -'

'Honour demands that you stand by your own. We cannot do without anyone, but especially not you.'

Minis hesitated, and for the first time she realised that he was not strong at all. He wanted to please everybody.

'We're outnumbered a thousand to one,' Vithis said softly, 'We need you, Minis.'

Minis hung on the rung, his face anguished. Tiaan prayed. Surely he could not refuse her after all she'd done, and suffered, for him. Their eyes met. There was such terrible yearning in his. He did love her, she knew it. He must!

The moment stretched out to eternity. She felt uncounted eyes on her, weighing up her face, her ragged hair, the tattered clothes. She knew what they were thinking.

'Well, boy? Do you cleave to the wretch, abandoning your own people who hold such hopes in you? Is eternal exile what you want? She'll be dead in twenty or thirty years. If you live to be a thousand we'll not take you back.'

Minis looked up at them. 'What if she were to come with us?'

Vithis looked taken aback, but Luxor and Tirior spoke to him in urgent tones, evidently favouring this way out of the impasse. Vithis turned back.

'Not as your partner, Minis! She is not Aachim, and you know the sad fate of blending children.' He spoke with the others again. 'Very well. She has done us honourably, despite her blunder. You may bring her as your concubine, as long as precautions are taken.'

'Will you come with us, Tiaan?' Minis said with pleading eyes. 'As my lover?'

Tiaan was mortally insulted. That was not what she'd had in mind at all. Concubine was a transaction that reminded her of the breeding factory. But… would it not be better than to lose Minis? She hesitated.

Minis reached out an arm, let it fall, then raised it again. 'Tiaan…' He broke off at a movement in the shadows to Tiaan's left. Something flashed in and out of the rubble. Tiaan had forgotten Haani. What must the child be thinking, hearing all this?

'Don't leave me, Tiaan!' screamed Haani. 'Please don't go with him.'

Tiaan recognised the danger too late. 'No, Haani! Stay back!'

At the movement, the man in the turret swung his weapon around, aimed and released the lever. With deadly accuracy, it fired a club-headed projectile, meant to stun a warrior. As Haani emerged from the darkness the club struck her full in the chest, lifting her off her feet. She fell without a sound.

Tiaan dropped the ring and ran. 'Haani, Haani!' She fell to her knees beside the child, who lay on her back like a broken thing. Haani was trying to breathe but her chest was crushed. Liquid gurgled in her lungs.

Haani looked up at her. 'My chest hurts,' she gasped. 'Help me, Tiaan. Sister.'

'Of course I'll help you.' Tiaan could barely see for the tears dripping from her eyes.

'You won't leave me, will you?' Haani choked. 'Not like my mother and father and aunts did?' She managed to get a breath. The pain made her shudder.

'I'll never leave you, Haani. I'll be with you until the day I die.'

'I'm sorry!' wept Haani, trying vainly to reach into her pocket. 'I forgot…'

'What is it, little sister?'

'I forgot to give you your birthday present.' Tears poured down her cheeks.

Tiaan was having just as much trouble breathing. 'It doesn't matter, Haani.'

'It's today, and I forgot!' she gasped, struggling for breath. 'I'm sorry, Tiaan.' Haani fumbled out a folded piece of leather, the last of the piece Tiaan had cut from the bottom of the boat. Inside lay a bracelet made of plaited strips of leather, with flower patterns clumsily burnt into it. 'Tiaan, I love you,' it said.

Tears sprang to Tiaan's eyes as she slipped the bracelet on her left wrist. 'Thank you, little sister. You didn't forget at all. It's still my birthday.'

'I love you, Tiaan. You'll make me better, won't you?'

'I love you too, more than anyone.'

She kissed Haani all over her little face and did not stop until it was clear that she was dead. The club had driven the broken ribs into her lungs.

Tiaan lifted Haani in her arms, surprised at how light she was. Carrying her out, she stopped in front of the first construct, the child's little legs and arms hanging limp.

'She's dead!'

'I offer condolences,' said Vithis. 'An unfortunate accident.'

'She's dead!' Tiaan screamed. 'An eight-year-old girl. There's thousands of you and the greatest army on Santhenar, and you're so frightened you have to kill a child? Curse you, Vithis. The Aachim are not noble. You are the craven of the Three Worlds!'

Vithis swelled with rage. 'No one speaks to the Aachim like that, no matter what they have suffered. You are not worthy to be concubine. The offer is withdrawn.'

'Cowards!' spat Tiaan. 'Oath-breakers! Your word means nothing to you.'

Vithis tossed down another bag. 'Reparation for the child! Move out of the way, if you please.'

'You can't buy a child's life, any more than you can buy me!' She looked up at Minis. He was staring at her. She could still hope.

He put one foot on the floor.

'It's done and can't be undone,' growled Vithis, 'no matter how much we might regret it. Nothing you do can make any difference, foster-son. It's over. Take your place beside me.'

It would make all the difference in the world, Tiaan thought, if one of you actually showed you were sorry. Just you, Minis. Please.

Minis stared at the child. A tear ran from one eye, and he seemed to come to a decision. His eyes slid away and she knew she had lost everything.

'I am truly sorry, Tiaan.' He went back up the ladder to stand beside Vithis.

The constructs began to move, all in the same instant. She stood where she was, daring them to run her down and not caring if they did. Her eyes were fixed on Minis but he was staring straight ahead.

The front rank split and went around her. The succeeding ranks followed, heading down to the broken wall. They moved out onto the ramp of stone and ice, onto the glacier, and around the corner towards the lowlands.

'Curse you!' she screamed. Laying Haani's body down gently, Tiaan ran back, gathered up the bags of platinum and hurled them after Minis's construct. It did not help. Sitting beside the dead child she took the slender, bloodless hand in her lap. All for nothing. Less than nothing. She had bought their lives with Haani's. So many people had died that she might bring the amplimet to this place. Fluuni, Jiini, Lyssa, Joeyn; whole squads of soldiers and many lyrinx too. She saw the broken bodies and knew that the price was too high.

The constructs kept coming for an hour and a half. While they were still going around her she stood up, Haani's body in her arms.

'I swear by this dead child,' she whispered, 'that I will never love again! I curse you, Minis, and all your line, until eternity. I will be revenged on you who have so betrayed me. You will live to regret that you left me alive, noble Aachim!'

It made her feel no better. Staring blindly after them, she was roused by the crash and grind of metal. Three constructs, locked together, hung on the lip of the gate. Another nudged them over. They struck the floor and broke apart. Aachim scrambled out and leapt onto the sides of the other constructs. The procession continued, another twenty-two machines, and that was all.

Tiaan stumbled to the gate, carrying the child. Looking up inside she saw a long tunnel, a wormhole curving to infinity. There were hundreds more constructs in it but they could not get out.

The surface of the gate shimmered with colour and began to break up. Quite suddenly, it vanished. Again she heard that awful wailing and knew that another host of Aachim had been lost in the void.

The final twenty-two constructs formed a line. They flashed beams vertically at the ceiling; a signal, or a requiem. Then they turned and followed the others out of Tirthrax.

As Tiaan watched the last machine disappear through the side of the mountain, another horror struck her.

'We have a world to make our own,' Vithis had said. Such a force as was assembled here would have taken years to create. All this must have been planned long ago. They had used her from the very beginning. Minis had not loved her at all. The Aachim had told him what to say and do, every word of it. She had betrayed her world, for nothing. Nish, hiding in the shadows, stared at the rank after rank of black machines, standing hip-high above the floor. They looked vaguely like clankers though even from this distance he could tell how superior they were to the clankers he had worked on. A keen student of the Histories. Nish knew what they were.

They were constructs, made to the pattern of the one Rulke the Charon had built over two hundred years ago. Nish did not know who was inside them; he was too far away to tell. He assumed they were lyrinx, or their allies. However, it was clear that they represented the greatest threat Santhenar had ever faced, and that Tiaan had helped to bring them here. Traitorous bitch! His duty was self-evident. He must take her back for justice, no matter what it involved.

The constructs were moving again, going around Tiaan and heading towards the broken entrance. He pulled Ullii down the stairs until just their eyes peeped over.

Nish counted them past, noting how many there were, what size and how armed, and estimating the number of enemy that might be inside. The constructs numbered more than eleven thousand; the enemy a hundred and fifty thousand at the very least. That was priceless, strategic information, perhaps more important than capturing Tiaan. He must survive to get it home. Where had they come from? The armada was large and potent enough to deliver the final blow to humanity.

'What was that?' Ullii asked as the last construct went by.

Nish marked the direction on his chart. When he looked back towards the gate, it was gone. Tiaan was too.

'The end of humanity.'