by Ian Irvine
‘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 wavefron
t 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.
NINE
By the time a drizzling morning broke against Tiaan’s solitary window, the dormitory was in uproar and she could no longer distinguish between being awake and dreaming. A nurse checked her symptoms and called the healer, who shouted for the apothek. Between them they decided that Tiaan had gone mad and were about to put her in a straitjacket when Overseer Gi-Had came running.
‘What the blazes are you doing?’ He hurled them out of the way.
‘It’s crystal fever,’ pronounced Healer Tul-Kin gloomily. He reeked of parsnip brandy. ‘Her mind’s broken and will never recover. Might as well send her to the breeding factory.’
‘In a straitjacket?’
The healer shrugged. ‘It only goes to her waist. The business can still be done.’
‘My arse! We can’t do without her. Find out what’s wrong and fix it!’
They took Tiaan to the infirmary, where a nurse bathed her face and forehead, and fed her tea and barley broth. The waking nightmares continued until noon, when she suddenly sat up, saying, ‘What am I doing here?’
She remembered the mad episodes, but only as dreams that were rapidly fading. In an hour or so the details were gone. All that remained was the young man on the balcony and a world exploding. He really cared about her. She knew he did. It was more than a dream. He had been searching for her all this time. She had to find out who he was.
They let her go back to her workroom in the mid-afternoon. The prentices gathered round, delighted that she had recovered. They liked Tiaan, even if they weren’t her friends.
Irisis stood in the background, her face unreadable. Tiaan vaguely remembered the artisan’s face at the door, the pleasure her rival could not entirely conceal. She wondered about that. The whole episode was so strange, and becoming more unreal every second, that she could find no sense in it. Had it been crystal fever? She could not bring herself to believe it. It did not fit the pattern she’d been taught. But then, those with the fever could never be convinced that they had it.
Tiaan sent Gol to fetch the globe, crystal and helm from her room and got back to work. While she was waiting for him to return, old Joeyn came in, covered in dust from the mine. On seeing her, he beamed from ear to ear.
‘I was afraid,’ he said when the prentices had gone back to their benches. ‘Such rumours I heard! I was preparing to break down the doors and carry you away.’
Tiaan was so touched that tears sprang to her eyes. ‘You would condemn yourself to save me?’ She embraced him.
‘Life has already condemned me. What do I care how I die? But you have so much to live for, Tiaan. So much to give; and receive!’
She felt quite overcome. Gol came running with her globe and helm. ‘Did you bring the headache balm?’ she asked the boy.
‘You didn’t ask me to. Shall I get it?’
‘Never mind. Thank you, Gol. I’d like you to empty the baskets around the prentices’ benches.’
The lad raced out. Joeyn hefted the wire globe in his scarred fingers. ‘I’d better go. Take care, Tiaan. I’m afraid for you.’
‘I’ll be all right. I’ve just been working too hard.’
‘There’s more to it than that. There’s malice behind this, Tiaan, and we both know where it’s coming from.’ He looked over his shoulder. Irisis, at her bench, gave him a glare of cold ferocity. ‘If you’re ever in trouble, no matter what it is, come to me.’
He was gone. Overwhelmed by all the work she had to do, Tiaan bent to her globe again. She felt awful, hot and cold at once, as if she had a bad dose of the flu. It was withdrawal from her ruined pliance and there was only one thing to be done about it – work herself so hard that there was no room for anything else. But what if it was crystal fever? Overwork was just the way to bring it back, permanently. Tiaan tried to put that out of mind. She had to prove herself to Gi-Had. Tomorrow might be too late. She needed a breakthrough.
As Tiaan was puzzling over the problem, a few lines from Nunar’s book, The Mancer’s Art, came to her mind. The process may generate a shifting aura about the crystal powering the controller… A nearby sensitive might be able to detect this aura, though in normal use it is expected to be insignificant.
What had Nunar meant by normal use? Surely she’d had in mind small devices that used small amounts of power. At the time, more than ninety years ago, no one had conceived of such mechanical monsters as clankers, or the immense amount of power they would use. To completely empty the field around the node at Minnien the power drain must have been immense, and such power would create an enormous aura. That must be what that shadowy lyrinx had been doing, using some kind of device to pick up the aura of a controller from far away. Yes, that was why clankers could no longer move in secret! It was all connected.
Somehow the hedrons had to be shielded. What did Nunar have to say about that? Going back to her room, Tiaan went through the book, but learned nothing. Nunar had not foreseen the rapid development of controllers, much less that such things would be used by ordinary people instead of mancers, who had their own ways of protecting their work from the prying mind. Controllers had a fatal flaw: their aura – obvious in hindsight. Putting the book back in its hiding place, she returned to the workshop.
The problem was to prevent the hedron leaking an aura that could be sensed, while at the same time allowing it to trickle power to the controller. She tried various coatings – tar, wax, clay, paper, leather – but none had any effect.
Perhaps metal was the answer. Having a sheet of beaten copper to hand, Tiaan wrapped the hedron in it, wondering if it would work at all. If the metal blocked the aura it might stop the hedron drawing on the field as well. However, the hedron worked perfectly, and of course it would. Power was not drawn from the field through the material world, but via a sub-ethyric pathway. That was the very basis of mancing as set out in Nunar’s Special Theory.
She encountered another problem. The copper sheet stopped the aura but it also prevented power flowing from hedron to controller. Tiaan folded the copper back so that it was not touching the metal connectors. Now the signal came through, but the aura leaked as well.
She tried silver foil instead of copper. That was better, because the silver was softer, but she still could not stop the aura leaking. Tiaan fixed the controller-arm stubs onto the hedron facets with dabs of hot pitch. The arms worked as well as before; maybe better. What about gold leaf? Gold was more malleable than silver. Perhaps she could beat the layers together to a tight seal.
Going to the old crafter’s workshop she unlocked the door of the storeroom and took a small bead of gold from a bottle. Tiaan beat it out until it would have covered a bound book. Holding it up to the light, she checked for holes. None.
She carefully wrapped the hedron, with its pitch-
covered connectors, in gold leaf. After tapping it down until there was not the least sign of join or crinkle, she tested it again. Just a trace of aura leaked from around one connector. After fixing that, the hedron was undetectable.
Covering the entire object in warmed pitch, being careful that it was not too warm, she smoothed it down with a spatula and made sure she got rid of all the air bubbles. Finally she pressed her personal seal all over the soft pitch. No one could tamper with the coating now without it being obvious. Nor could anyone expose the hedron to heat or sunlight without it being detected. She had solved both problems at once.
When the pitch had set she tested the controller, which worked perfectly. There was not a trace of aura. The problem was solved. She wrote up her journal, then a report to Gi-Had, describing exactly what she had done, and why.
Putting the report in her pocket, she yawned. Her head felt awful. Time to catch up on the sleep she’d missed last night. Time to dream about the young man. That brought a smile to her face. Tiaan set the controller to keep working overnight, to make sure it did not run down as the others had, locked the door and went to bed.
As Tiaan lay on her bed, waiting for sleep that would not come, the headache grew worse. She was thirsty but too tired to trot down the hall and fill her jug. Instead she rubbed a double dose of balm on her forehead and worked it in with her fingertips. It did not seem to help. The pain throbbed away, beating time to her heartbeat.
Slathering more on for good measure she sat up, listening to the wind blowing rain against her window. It was a cold night – much colder than any this autumn. The winter blizzards could not be far away.
She fell back on the pillow, sliding instantly into sleep. The dreams began at once: more intense, more prolonged, more terrible. A whole world was exploding, twenty thousand volcanoes erupting at once. The air was thick with ash, dust and fumes that made the lungs ooze yellow foam, like a snail crawling across a bed of lime. Burning clouds of ash, so hot that it was almost molten, rolled down the mountainsides, obliterating fields, forests and villages, entombing them in smoking mounds.
