by Ian Irvine
She recovered the image of that port-all, mentally dusted it off and placed it in the tesseract. Nothing happened, of course, for there was nothing to power it.
Tiaan inserted her best image of the amplimet in the centre, just as she had placed the real amplimet into the port-all in Tirthrax that fateful day nearly two years ago. There was no resistance this time, which made her feel that she was on the right path. Or so far off that …
No, don’t think negative thoughts. It seemed as though the port-all ought to be ready. She began to operate it as she had the original. A whip crack shook the building and cries rang out from below.
Tiaan ran to the glass. Lyrinx were running everywhere, though she could not tell from what, or to what. Not the gate, at least, for Tiaan had not set any destination.
Nor could she. She had no idea where Tallallame might be, or how to look for it. That was Malien’s job but Malien had gone in the thapter many hours ago, and might not come back. So what was going on down below?
She hurried down the stairs. It took precious minutes and left her knees weak. In the open area at the bottom she walked into an opaque sphere filling most of the space between the bottom step and the wrecked doors. Was it the port-all? She edged around the side of the sphere and looked out. There were lyrinx everywhere and not all of them had wings. The fleetest of the runners had made it in under two days.
‘Ryll?’ she called hopefully. He might not have survived. And if he had survived, he could still be leagues away.
Her call was taken up in deeper, raspier lyrinx tones. Ryll, Ryll, Ryll…
The crowd parted and he pushed through, his heavy jaw set, eyes staring. ‘Is this the gate?’ His hand motion was dismissive.
‘Yes, but I don’t know how to find Tallallame.’
‘Then why did you call us here? The water rises towards the base of the peak. We’re clinging to it like moths, Tiaan, and there’s no room left.’ His great chest rose and fell like a bellows, his skin flickered with barely suppressed panic colours. ‘In half a day – no, sooner – we’ll be lost. Rather would we have died of thirst in the Dry Sea than be drowned in the Sea of Perion.’
‘Malien knows where Tallallame is. Have you seen her?’
He pointed to the sky. ‘She’s guarding the tower, circling higher than the other thapters can fly.’
If Tiaan didn’t make the gate soon, the rapidly approaching Well would consume all the nodes as it came. It stood out against the night, its black-and-gold-threaded funnel reaching up to the sky.
‘Call her down!’ cried Tiaan.
Ryll rapped out a few words in his own tongue and a lyrinx leapt into the air. Tiaan watched it in the moonlight until it converged upon the thapter, which lurched and headed down as erratically as an autumn leaf falling. The other two thapters pursued it until a cloud of lyrinx swarmed up at them, firing crossbows. The thapters turned away towards the Hornrace and the lyrinx escorted Malien down.
‘Malien!’ yelled Tiaan as it settled on a hastily evacuated space. ‘I’ve made the gate but I don’t know the way to Tallallame.’
They diverted around the opaque globe. Malien gave it a curious glance. By the top, her lips had gone grey and she was cold and sweaty. ‘That’s not a climb I care to do again. Show me the port-all.’
‘It – there is no physical port-all. It’s a mental construct, Malien. I imagined the tesseract,’ so easy to say, so difficult to do, ‘put my image of the port-all inside it, inserted the image of the amplimet and it created the cloudy sphere you saw below.’
Malien looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know that I can work the way you do, Tiaan.’ She sat on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed, concentrating hard. ‘Give me your hand.’
Tiaan sat beside her and extended her hand. Malien’s was unexpectedly hard. Nothing happened for so long that Tiaan found her mind wandering, projecting the rise of the waters and the terror of the lyrinx as it climbed up their chests. It was the curse of her visual memory that she could still see the faces of the two lyrinx who had drowned, pursuing her from Kalissin ages ago. The naked fear in their eyes would never leave her.
She wrenched her mind back to the gate and saw clouds, though they seemed to have more colour than any clouds she’d seen on Santhenar. The image shifted, the view looked straight up and she saw a green sky. Another shift; she was looking at trees from above. Giant trees and blue hills.
A swooping drop that left her stomach hanging over one of the branches, and they were at ground level. Blue grass waved in the breeze and there were flowering shrubs covered in red berries. Someone was whispering to her in a foreign language.
‘Tiaan!’ Malien was shaking her. ‘It’s Tallallame. Fix the gate in place and open it.’
Tiaan found it hard to let go of the vision, but did as she was told, remembering how she’d done it before in Tirthrax. And then a great roar echoed up from below, as from a hundred thousand throats.
Malien helped Tiaan to her feet, for she had no strength in her bones. ‘The gate is open. Let’s go down.’
Tiaan began to follow her, then looked back at the box. ‘But the port-all …’
‘It will stay open until you close it, or until the field is no longer sufficient to power it.’
At the bottom Tiaan smelled a sweet fragrance, as strong as citrus blossom. A gentle, humid breeze was flowing through the gate from Tallallame. The lyrinx waited outside, craning their necks to stare into the gate. The ones behind were standing up on their clawed toes, for just the tiniest glimpse of their new world.
‘I thought you would be gone already,’ she said to Ryll.
‘I would thank you first.’ There were tears in his eyes, and Tiaan did not recall seeing that before. ‘It is beautiful. The most beautiful of all worlds.’ He bowed, and at his side, even more surprisingly, Liett did too.
Tiaan gave him her hand, then took Liett’s. Ryll clasped Malien’s hand, Nish’s, and even Gilhaelith’s.
‘We will never forget this,’ he said. ‘Humanity has a side we never expected to see. Your deeds will be inscribed on the first page of our new Histories.’
‘Tallallame may not be such a kind place as you think,’ she said.
‘I’m sure it isn’t, but we’re strong. We will survive, and thrive, and rediscover our humanity.’
‘I don’t think you ever lost it,’ said Malien.
Ryll smiled at a private thought, then waved the first lyrinx towards the gate. ‘Ryll!’ said Tiaan.
He turned. ‘Yes?’
‘Your relics are still in the thapter.’
‘Ah!’ said Ryll. He held up his hand and the lyrinx who had been about to step through turned to one side. ‘We thought … when you did not produce them, we thought you had left them behind. Truly, you ennoble us all.’
‘Don’t stop,’ said Tiaan. ‘Precious lives –’
‘No lyrinx would choose to go through before our relics,’ said Ryll.
He selected an honour guard, who carried the three crates to the gate. Ryll stood to one side, his skin colours flickering, and Liett on the other, her wings upraised. Liett spoke to the people straining towards the gate, in her own tongue. Ryll did likewise. Then the guard ran though and vanished.
After that the lyrinx went through five abreast, as fast as they could be formed into lines. No more than five could fit at once and the gate could not be widened. It had been designed for thousands, not half a million.
‘This is going to take hours,’ said Tiaan.
‘If the field lasts,’ replied Malien. ‘Your people are attacking it furiously.’
They squeezed along the walls and outside, eyeing the funnel of the Well, which was larger than ever and lit up the salt, and one side of Nithmak, brighter than moonlight. ‘Is it coming at us?’ said Tiaan.
‘It seems to be.’
‘Could it be the gate attracting it?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Malien.
They watched it in silence. Nish came up beside th
em. ‘How is the field going?’
‘Slowly fading,’ said Tiaan absently.
‘And if it dies?’
‘The gate will close and we’ll be trapped here, as will all the lyrinx who haven’t gone through,’ said Malien.
‘Can we do anything to maintain the field?’ said Nish.
‘No. The amplimet’s being used for the gate,’ said Malien.
‘Would Flydd really do this to us?’ said Nish.
‘There may be no Flydd any more.’
‘What?’ he cried.
‘He may have fallen all the way,’ said Malien. ‘Many mancers could operate the field controller.’
Tiaan had to put that possibility out of mind. She couldn’t cope with anything else. She went to the edge of the pinnacle and perched upon a rock, looking down. The lyrinx were scrambling up the steps and the sides of the peak, hundreds every minute, but there was still a huge throng at the base. Half the visible bed of the sea was covered with water now. Irisis came and perched beside her, spyglass in hand.
‘They’ve mostly reached the base,’ Irisis said. ‘Though there are still several bands of stragglers out there.’
Tiaan put out her hand. Irisis gave her the glass.
‘There must be hundreds of them, running for their lives.’
‘And they’re all going to drown,’ said Irisis.
‘But …’
‘We can’t do anything for them, Tiaan. Malien could barely keep the thapter in the air before she came down. She’d have no hope of ferrying them back now.’
Tiaan knew she couldn’t do anything either, for that would require using her amplimet. It burned hot between her breasts, drawing power for the gate.
‘If only we’d started sooner,’ said Tiaan. ‘Another hour would have made all the difference.’
Irisis shrugged. She wasn’t one to waste any time on futile regrets. They watched the islands of salt shrink around the two blotches of lyrinx.
‘Tiaan!’ yelled Malien. ‘Quickly.’
Tiaan knew what had happened before she got there. The field was fading, and once it did, the gate would fade with it.
‘How many are through, Ryll?’
‘Nearly twenty thousand. The gate has been open for an hour.’
Tiaan calculated swiftly. ‘So it would take a full day and a night for everyone to pass through.’
‘Yes.’
‘The way the field is failing, we have another hour at most,’ said Malien. ‘Better try to draw from another field.’
Tiaan attempted to, but the nearby ones were under the command of the field controller and the more distant ones were too far away for the amplimet to use.
The Nithmak field was still under her control. Perhaps it was difficult to seize it with the Well so close. Unfortunately the Nithmak node, though potent, was a small one and the gate was draining it rapidly.
She walked back and forth, muttering to herself, then came to a decision. ‘Are there nodes on Tallallame?’ Tiaan said to Malien.
‘I have no idea.’
‘I’m going through the gate.’
‘Tiaan, no!’
‘Why not?’
‘Tallallame is a savage place and you don’t know what the effect might be, on you or on the amplimet. Or the gate, if the device powering it passes through to the other side.’
‘If I recall the Great Tales correctly, Rulke’s original construct passed safely though to Aachan.’
‘But it might not have. Look how the Mirror of Aachan was corrupted on its journey.’
‘I’ve got to take the risk, otherwise most of the lyrinx are going to drown when Nithmak goes under water. Anyway, my mental image of the port-all isn’t the same as a real, physical device. It probably won’t be affected by the gate.’
‘You don’t know that.’ Malien frowned. ‘All right, but wait until the last moment. If you fail, you doom everyone here, for the gate won’t remain open without you. Wait one hour and another twenty thousand will be saved.’
The hour seemed to fly by in minutes. The field continued to falter. ‘Will you go through in the thapter?’ asked Malien.
‘I’ll leave it for you, and enough in the field to get you away if the best happens. Or the worst.’ Tiaan shrugged her little pack on her back, snuggled a water bottle by her side and touched the amplimet for comfort. ‘Farewell,’ she said.
‘Wait,’ called Irisis. ‘I think I’ll come with you.’
‘And I,’ said Nish.
‘Are you sure?’ said Tiaan.
‘After this …’ Nish did not need to go on. What could be left for them here, after such a betrayal? Especially if Flydd was no more.
‘I’m coming too,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘No geomancer could be satisfied with just one world, if a second was on offer.’
The flow of lyrinx eased to allow them into the gate. Tiaan felt faint. Nish took her by one arm, Irisis the other.
‘I’m all right now,’ she said, but they held her anyway and it felt good to be among friends.
Tallallame was only a few steps away. Tiaan could see the grass, the trees; she could feel warm, humid air on her face, and smell spicy floral odours. The lyrinx made way for them. The passage seemed to take an eternity and, with each step, the link between her and the black box upstairs, with its port-all that was there and yet still here in her mind, grew ever more tenuous.
The cloudy exterior of the gate went milky, fading until they could see right through it.
‘The gate’s failing,’ she said, panicky. ‘This is going to break it. I’ll never be able to make it from the other side. You’ll all be trapped –’
‘We knew that when we decided to come,’ said Irisis, easing her sword in its sheath.
Gilhaelith had a crystal in his hand and it was glowing faintly. Tiaan couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. She took another step, and another. Darkness exploded in her mind and then they were through and stepping down, unexpectedly, onto grass that was more blue than green and unusually springy to walk on.
Tiaan let out her breath. The gate was still open after all; power still passed through to the port-all. They were standing in a clearing in the middle of a forest, though it was richer and more luxuriant than the cold forests of her distant homeland. The air smelt sweet and spicy. ‘What a beautiful place,’ she said.
‘The most beautiful world in the universe,’ said Malien. ‘So the Faellem used to say, before they lost it.’
The recently arrived lyrinx had adopted defensive positions. Some had gone up trees, others to the top of a mass of purple-brown boulders away to the left. A burly male stood by a stream and scooped water with one hand. He tasted it and smacked his lips.
‘Any sign of a node?’ asked Gilhaelith.
‘I haven’t looked yet.’ Tiaan scanned her surroundings in the usual way, amplimet in hand. She could sense no field at all. ‘Nothing!’
‘There’s no saying that fields on Tallallame would be the same as ours.’ Gilhaelith had his crystal out again, holding it high. It was still glowing.
‘Is that coming through the gate?’ asked Irisis.
‘I don’t think so. Let’s go over by that rock.’
They followed him around the other side. ‘Its glow seems a little brighter,’ Gilhaelith said, ‘though it could be that it’s gloomier under the trees.’
‘Too gloomy,’ said Tiaan. ‘This place might be a paradise but it’s a –’ She screamed and hurled herself backwards, landing in the leaves.
Irisis’s sword flashed and something went flying through the air. The leaves rustled. ‘Back to the clearing, quickly.’
SEVENTY - SEVEN
‘What was it?’ said Nish, helping Tiaan up.
‘It was like a snake with legs,’ said Irisis, ‘and it nearly had you. It was so quick. I just cut a bit off the tail.’
‘You saved my life,’ said Tiaan.
‘Well, at least a nasty bite on the ankle.’
In the open space, Tiaan dusted herse
lf off, felt at her throat and said, ‘The amplimet’s gone.’
Nish and Irisis ran back, swords drawn. ‘Here it is,’ said Nish, reaching to pick it up. ‘The chain must have broken when you fell.’
As his fingertip touched the crystal there came a brilliant flash of light and he was thrown backwards into the bushes.
‘Nish!’ Irisis ran after him.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I haven’t broken anything.’ He got up, holding his sore ribs.
‘Come on. There’s bound to be more than one of those little beasts.’
Tiaan bent over the amplimet. ‘It’s glowing brightly now, as if there’s a powerful node nearby, but I can’t sense any field at all.’ She touched it gingerly. It flashed again, but did not sting her. ‘It feels different.’
‘It may well be,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Objects carried between the worlds are often changed.’
She held it out at arm’s length. ‘Corrupted?’
‘Not necessarily. The Mirror of Aachan took on the taint of its owner, and Shuthdar was an evil man. Once corrupted, such an artefact is impossible to cleanse, and only the strongest can control it.’
‘Well, at least the gate is still working.’ Lyrinx were coming through faster than ever, now running full-tilt. They’d already worn a path out of the gate.
‘What say we climb that hill?’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’d like to see a little of this world, if I’m to spend a day on it.’ He added under his breath, ‘Or a lifetime.’
They headed up an incline along a trail made by soft-footed animals that wound up the hill. Near the top they emerged from the towering trees into a clearing that capped the hill, and its neighbour. The spongy grass was long and blue-green.
They followed the ridgeline up onto the next hill, which was higher, and the one after that, which was also bare and looked over the surrounding countryside. The forest of giant trees extended in every direction. On the other side of the ridge they looked into a steep valley with a winding river; the sun, orange rather than yellow, reflected off the water.
