by Ian Irvine
They built a fire on branches piled against a fallen log. Haani went about the camp chores silently: gathering wood, putting up the tent, filling the pot with packed snow. Tiaan prepared dinner.
Later, Haani sat across from the fire, staring at the flames unblinking. What was going on in the child’s mind? Tiaan had seen no tears. Maybe she had blocked it right out. Tiaan wanted to comfort her but had no idea what to say.
Steam rose from the pot. Dipping out a wooden mug of water, she began to soak the bloody sock off her ankle. The scabs had stuck to the cloth and once it was free the wounds began to bleed.
There were deep tooth marks down her shin and ankle, the gouges torn and inflamed. It looked gruesome. After bathing the injury carefully, Tiaan squeezed honey over it, the only dressing she had, and bandaged it up. If it became badly infected she might as well lie down and die.
At one stage Tiaan looked up to see Haani’s eyes on her and for the first time saw a spark of fellow-feeling there. Tiaan had suffered too.
Tiaan was in turmoil. Down at the coast she’d planned to find a boat going west, sail up as far as the sea of Milmillamel, then take another boat upriver in the direction of Tirthrax. How hard a journey would that be, and how long, with a child?
Minis had said that his people could last a year, at most. It had been late autumn when she’d left the manufactory, and winter as she’d reached Kalissin. Tiaan had lost track of time there but it must have been the best part of three months. So it was past mid-winter, though winter in these latitudes was long and maybe the worst of it was yet to come. She might get to the sea and find it frozen too.
Every prospect was gloomy. She could almost sense Minis’s despair. She was the last hope of his people and she was going to let him down. I’ve done my best, beloved, she thought. What more could I do? It did not help.
The child rose, stirred the pot with the knife and scooped out a mugful of stew. Haani ate listlessly, unaware of what she was eating.
There was a cold hollow in Tiaan’s belly but she felt too depressed to eat. What kind of life would it be for the child, travelling month after month, having no home, never able to make friends with other children? And at the end, if they did reach Tirthrax, living in a cave in the mountains while Tiaan worked day and night to find her lover?
What on earth was she thinking? Of course she must take the child with her. She had to look after Haani until she had grown up. It was a sacred duty. But what about my life? Tiaan agonised. What about my lover?
Haani was still staring into the fire. There were bright red patches on each cheek, as if she had a fever. She had laid the mug aside and was rocking gently, her arms wrapped around herself.
Tiaan felt ashamed. The child had seen her mother and aunts brutally slain, her home debauched. The memories would never leave her. And all she, Tiaan, could think of was how her own life would be disrupted. How selfish she was.
Tears hovered on Haani’s lashes. Tiaan moved down to her. The child tried to draw away but Tiaan put her arms around her and lifted Haani into her lap. Haani struggled but Tiaan held her more tightly and eventually the child began to weep.
Tiaan held her for an hour or more. Eventually Haani’s head fell to one side; she was asleep. Putting her in the tent, in the fur-lined sleeping pouch, Tiaan went back to the fire.
She was afraid to sleep. Sleep led to dreams and she knew what she was going to dream about. Stamping her feet to warm them, Tiaan took half a mug of stew and found her thoughts wandering back to Minis. She felt a great flood of longing. She had to know if he was all right.
Taking out her devices she set them up and began to work the beads. Nothing happened. It was as if Minis had never existed. Wrenching the helm off, she tossed it on the ground. She had failed him. The Aachim must be dead.
The amplimet looked dead too. It was cold, hardly glowing at all, and the little spark had disappeared. Useless thing! She gave the globe an angry kick, sending it rolling towards the fire. At the ice houses she might have escaped, had she tried a bit harder, but now it was too late. She could never go home. Yet if she no longer had her quest, she had nothing at all.
Tiaan paced around the fire. A walking disaster, she had caused the death of practically everyone she’d touched, starting with poor old Joeyn. She itemised them, human and lyrinx. All completely pointless. Better she drop the amplimet through a hole in the ice, and throw herself after it.
She had just taken off her boots to warm her feet at the fire when there came a cry from the tent. Tiaan was there in three bounds.
‘Mumu!’ Haani screamed. ‘Mumu, im sklarrrr!’
‘It’s all right, Haani,’ Tiaan said. ‘I’m here now.’
The child retreated to the back of the tiny tent, holding her hands out. ‘Mumu! Mumu!’
Tiaan tried to take the child in her arms. ‘Haani, you’re just having a bad dream. I’m here now.’
‘Nya!’ screamed the child, beating her off. ‘Mumu nya!’
An elbow went into Tiaan’s eye and she lost hold of the thrashing child. By the time she’d recovered, Haani was gone.
‘Haani? Where are you?’
No answer. She could hear nothing but the wind in the treetops. Pulling a burning stick from the fire, Tiaan held it up. The flame went out. ‘Haani?’ she shouted, and running around the fire tripped on the globe. The amplimet was glowing now, though faintly. Holding it out, she followed the child’s footprints in her socks. There was no time to put her boots on. It was snowing and if she lost Haani’s tracks, the child would die.
The snow had a crust and in places there were no tracks at all. A dense overcast did not hint at moon or stars. Within minutes the night had swallowed up the firelight. Tiaan was no longer sure she could find her way back. She tramped harder, making sure she left tracks.
‘Haani?’
No reply. How had the child gone so far, so quickly? Tiaan stopped within a windswept clearing. The stunted pines hardly broke the wind at all. The snow was packed hard. There were no footprints.
A blast blew through her unfastened coat. Pulling it tight, Tiaan looked around frantically. No sign; no sound. She held the amplimet up in fingers that were numb, and called more light from it. It waxed then waned, as if it was dying.
Hobbling across the clearing, she checked the patches of snow on the other side. No sign. She did a complete circle, came on her own marks, and despair crept like ice into her bones.
Backtracking, she found a single small print pointing left, before the clearing. It was under a tree. The child liked to climb trees. She looked up. ‘Haani?’
‘Haani,’ she roared with all her might. All she heard was the whistling wind.
The light was dimming and Tiaan could not coax more from the crystal. She could hardly hold it, it was growing so cold. As she opened her mouth to yell, the cry of a wildcat came on the wind.
Haani screamed, to her left. Tiaan ran that way, her numb feet thudding the ground. Not far on, she stumbled on a bloody print, and another. Tiaan hoped it was just a cut foot. As she burst into another clearing, Haani was frantically trying to climb a tree. She kept slipping down the icy trunk.
Tiaan trod on a branch, which snapped loudly. Haani screamed and ran into the dark. Tiaan pounded after her. ‘Haani, stop! It’s me, Tiaan!’
Again came that wildcat cry. Haani shrieked, just ahead, and when Tiaan ran into the clearing the child came racing back the other way, looking over her shoulder, and crashed into her. Tiaan threw her arms around Haani, who screamed and screamed.
Squeezing her hard, Tiaan yelled, ‘Haani, you’re safe now!’
Haani went rigid, stayed that way for a minute then began to weep in great wracking sobs. Tiaan lifted her up. The child clung to her desperately. The foot injury was minor, though she was at risk of frostbite. Tiaan put Haani’s feet in the pockets of her coat, wishing she could do the same for her own.
It was snowing hard now, the amplimet practically dead. Before she had gone far Tiaan lo
st her own tracks. She had no idea which way to go.
FIFTY-ONE
A week went by while Nish sat around in Tiksi, until he was completely fed up with idleness and his own company. Irisis and every other able-bodied person, apart from Ullii, had gone back to the manufactory days ago. Having heard nothing about his fate, he lived in fear of it. Fyn-Mah had given him access to her files on lyrinx flesh-forming. Nish read until his eyes ached, but found it difficult to concentrate.
Eight days after their arrival he was called to the master’s mansion and ushered into the same chamber. Xervish Flydd lay back in the chair with his eyes closed, sucking on his beard.
‘Good morning, scrutator!’ said Nish politely.
The scrutator gave no reply. He simply ignored Nish. Nish cleared his throat several times, shuffled his feet and tapped on the table, wondering if the scrutator was asleep. He did not think so. Eventually Nish took a piece of paper out of his pocket and began sketching on it, considerations for improving the clanker javelards. He worked on that for an hour before the man sat up suddenly.
‘I’ve been thinking to put you in the front-line, Cryl-Nish!’
The paper went one way, the pencil another. Nish bent down for them, trying to conceal his shock. He’d thought he had escaped that fate.
‘And you could hardly appeal such a judgment, artificer, after the trouble you’ve caused. Even your own father’s reports say so. Poor Jal-Nish. Well, it’s up to me now. Have you anything to say for yourself?’
‘I believe I’ve done some good since then,’ Nish said weakly.
‘Indeed? That’s not what I heard from the plateau.’
‘What did you hear, surr?’ Nish had to force the words out, he was so afraid.
‘I heard that you threatened Ky-Ara, which led to the destruction of his clanker.’
Nish looked around frantically, wanting to deny it but not daring to. There was no truth the scrutator could not dig out and the process would be most unpleasant.
‘For the want of a clanker the artisan was lost. The crystal too! And a perquisitor maimed.’
‘Ky-Ara should have resisted me,’ Nish muttered.
‘Indeed he should, and will be brought to account for his negligence. As will you.’
The scrutator glanced down at his bony hands. The fingers were gnarled and twisted as if they’d been broken in a torture chamber, then set by someone who knew nothing about bones. He flexed his fingers, which moved as awkwardly as the limbs of a crab. Nish shuddered and tried vainly to conceal it.
The cold eyes saw everything. ‘On the other hand, you have shown courage, Cryl-Nish. And courage, I need not remind you, is an essential quality in the front-line soldier.’
‘I may be more use to you at the manufactory as an artificer,’ Nish said desperately.
‘I doubt it! You’re an indifferent artificer, Cryl-Nish, though you work hard at it.’
‘I’ve done my best. Artificing was not my choice.’
‘Indeed you have, but your best is not good enough.’
‘What about my project for Fyn-Mah? To learn about the flesh-formers?’
‘Have you done any good with it?’
‘No, but I’ve only …’
‘Leave it to her!’
‘But …’
‘No buts, artificer,’ growled Flydd.
Nish stared at the floor in despair. He was doomed. Then inspiration struck. ‘How have you gone with Ullii, surr?’
The scrutator’s mouth curled down, and then suddenly he smiled. ‘I see what you’re about. You hope to prove useful in an endeavour that an old monster like me has failed at.’
‘Well, er … the seeker is difficult to work with.’
‘I found her not unusually so.’
Nish’s mouth fell open. ‘But …’
‘People are not necessarily what they seem, boy. Sometimes we show others what they want us to see. You, for example, think of the scrutator as a bloody old bastard.’
Nish could hardly deny it, so he remained silent.
‘I understand your friend Ullii very well. We got on famously and parted friends.’
Nish could not believe that, although the scrutator would hardly lie about something so easily checked. The piece of paper fluttered from Nish’s hand. He watched it drift down but did not go after it. ‘Then it’s all over for me. I’m done for!’
Those eyes burned through him again.
‘Perhaps I can use you after all, Cryl-Nish. I don’t have the time to keep watch with Ullii. And why should I when you could do it for me? I think I will send you back to the manufactory. You can be a second-rate artificer by day. At night, when the seeker is not out hunting crystal in the mine, you will ensure that she keeps watch.’
‘Watch for what?’ Nish said stupidly.
‘For people using the Secret Art. What else?’
‘Oh!’
‘Also for Tiaan. One day she will reappear and I want to know immediately. By skeet, and damn the expense! And then I want her found. This is the sole reason I have spared you, artificer. So you and the seeker can track down Tiaan and, more importantly, this rather interesting hedron she seems to have discovered. Don’t fail me, boy, or you’re lyrinx fodder!’
The following morning Nish and Ullii were on their way back to the manufactory with an escort of six foot-soldiers and a clanker. Ullii was uncommonly cheerful. She did not say much, but when Nish mentioned the scrutator she said ‘Xervish!’ and smiled at some memory. There had to be more to the man than that unprepossessing exterior showed. No doubt there was – one did not rise to one of the most powerful positions in the land without having many talents.
Nish’s father had recovered from his rages sufficiently to travel and had been sent home to Fassafarn by ship. Nish was delighted to see him go. His father the perquisitor was bad enough, but Jal-Nish the one-armed, mutilated failure was a terrible sight to see. The expedition had gone after Tiaan on his orders and it had been a disaster. The blame could fall nowhere else.
As they walked beside the clanker, Nish wondered what would happen to his father. Would he be quietly retired on grounds of injury? Was that what happened to important people who became incapable? They could hardly send him to the front-lines.
Nish could not see Jal-Nish settling calmly into domestic impotence. He would drive his mother out of her mind. Ranii was an ambitious, clever woman who, when she was at home, could stand no interference in the way it was run.
Well, Fassafarn was a long way away, thankfully. Nish was unlikely to see home in the next five years.
About a week later, Nish was helping to carry timber for the front doors when Ky-Ara’s clanker rattled up the road. The machine was daubed here and there with mud and reeds, as if it had been hidden in a swamp. The plates were dented and streaked with rust.
The machine groaned to a stop. An elderly operator got out, removed his gloves and rubbed the small of his back. Two soldiers emerged. Turning toward the gate, they saluted smartly.
Nish set down his load, wondering what was going on. The scrutator stepped through the gate, signalling to a quartet of manufactory guards, who marched to the clanker and threw up the back hatch.
‘Come out!’ they ordered.
After a long interval, a dark-clad figure appeared in the opening, was hauled out and dragged across to the gate. Nish hardly recognised Ky-Ara. The once handsome young man was filthy, covered in sores and as thin as a crowbar. His operator’s uniform was stained with mud, and in that tormented face his eyes looked as big as Ullii’s.
There was no trial, since Ky-Ara had admitted his guilt. Nish had no idea what the punishment was going to be – execution, he presumed, in some horribly appropriate way. There was no point sending this man to the front-lines.
Ky-Ara was marched inside and bound to a stake between the artificer’s workshop and the furnaces. The elderly operator drove the clanker through the rear gate and parked it beside Ky-Ara.
‘Take the machine ap
art, piece by piece,’ said the scrutator to the assembled artificers.
The artificers, including Nish, began to do just that. All the clanker operators, and their prentices, stood silently by. The manufactory’s chronicler sat in a chair by the furnaces, recording everything. The teller being too sick to stand witness, another had been brought up from Tiksi. Her duty was to write the Tale of Ky-Ara’s Downfall and Ruin, that it could be told in all sixty-seven manufactories of the south-east, and possibly across the known world.
Food and drink were laid out for him but Ky-Ara touched neither in the three days it took to reduce the clanker to the myriad parts from which it had been assembled. He hung from his ropes, staring with those bloody eyes, and every part removed was a thorn of metal being twisted in his flesh.
Nish was not much given to pity, but before the operation was over he did pity Ky-Ara. The man had withered before his eyes and Nish had never seen such suffering. He wished someone would put the fellow out of his agony, but Ky-Ara was guarded night and day. Justice must take its unforgiving course.
Then the real torment began. The entire manufactory lined up, from Eiryn Muss the halfwit to the scrutator himself, and even Ullii. In stately tread, like pallbearers at a funeral, the greatest and the least went to the pile of clanker parts, selected one each, paced across to the open door of the furnace and hurled it in.
Ky-Ara screamed, and again for every succeeding part, until he no longer had the voice to make any sound at all. That process took many hours, and the line had gone round several times before they approached the end, the pair of cast-iron flywheels. Nish took hold of one, Overseer Tuniz the other. Far too heavy to lift, the flywheels were rolled across to the furnace door, where a dozen hands eased them up a sturdy plank and into the all-consuming blast.
The operator shrieked and fell unconscious. A bucket of water was hurled over him, for the trial was not finished yet. Crafter Irisis removed the controller that still hung about Ky-Ara’s neck, took it apart piece by piece, after which she and the artisans and their prentices solemnly carried the pieces to the fire. Ky-Ara writhed as they went in, but made no sound.
