Geomancer (Well of Echoes) (35 page)

Someone knocked on the outer door. Nish ignored it but the knocking continued.

‘Will you answer the damned thing!’ Irisis snapped.

He opened the inner door, unbolted the outer. It was the perquisitor, looking agitated. ‘Well?’ Jal-Nish cried.

‘We’re making progress,’ lied Nish. ‘I can’t talk now; we’re in the middle of something.’

Jal-Nish grabbed him by the shirt. ‘You’ve got till dawn. Gi-Had’s troops found Tiaan in the mine but a band of lyrinx attacked them. Gi-Had was the only one to survive. And Tiaan … Tiaan …’ He choked on his own rage. ‘This is going to ruin me.’

‘What?’ cried Nish. A cold foreboding came over him. ‘What is it? Is she dead?’

‘Her body wasn’t among the others. Either she’s dead and eaten, or they’ve taken her! If they torture our secrets out of her …’

‘Maybe she’s escaped,’ Irisis interrupted. ‘She’s good at it.’

‘No one could escape a lyrinx. What am I going to tell the scrutator?’

Nish sank to his knees. ‘What are we going to do?’

The perquisitor hauled him up. ‘The scrutator wants Tiaan. We’re going to find her, if she’s alive, and get her back.’

He flung Nish backward to land hard on his bottom. ‘You’ve got until dawn. Succeed or fail, you two are coming with us to finish your work, or to go up against the lyrinx as common soldiers.’ He slammed the door in Nish’s face.

‘I feel sick,’ said Nish. ‘Like when my father asked me about my school work. Nothing was ever good enough.’

Selecting a piece of cheese, Irisis gnawed at a hard edge. Nish scratched his fingernails on the floorboards. The noise was so annoying that she wanted to smack him in the mouth.

‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ said Nish, ‘since making a seeker device is quite impossible. We’ll have to take Ullii with us and try to use her directly.’

‘She’ll go mad!’

‘Our necks depend on finding a way.’

Ullii came creeping over to Nish and touched his cheek. ‘I want to help you, Nish.’

‘I know you do.’ He sat up. ‘Can you see Tiaan?’

Ullii shrugged. ‘I don’t know what she looks like.’

Irisis leaned forward. ‘The other day you said you could see a woman with a bright crystal. Can you still see her?’

‘The crystal went out.’

‘You mean she’s dead?’ cried Nish.

‘I can’t see her.’

‘When was this?’

‘Today. Yesterday.’

‘Which, Ullii? It’s important.’

‘I don’t know.’

Irisis put a controller on the table and unfolded its arms. ‘This was made by Tiaan. It might help you sense her out.’

Ullii did not look at it. ‘I don’t need to sense her out. If the crystal wakes, I’ll see it in my lattice.’

‘Is the woman Tiaan?’ Irisis demanded. ‘Is her knot like this controller’s?’

‘No, but I can tell she made it.’

‘So the woman was Tiaan?’ Nish said urgently.

‘Yes.’

‘At last!’ Irisis cried. ‘And what is the crystal? Is it like the one in this?’ She held the controller out.

‘No,’ said Ullii.

‘What about this?’ Irisis took the pliance from her neck and pressed it into the seeker’s hands.

‘No, it’s
much
stronger.’

‘What can it be?’ said Nish.

Irisis’s blue eyes positively gleamed. ‘I wonder …?’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Do you understand maps?’ Nish said to Ullii.

‘I know what they are. I’ve never looked at one. The bright light hurts my eyes.’

Pulling down one of the charts he had been looking at earlier, he unrolled it on the floor. ‘This is a map of the manufactory. Here is the room where you live …’ He broke off. ‘Of course, you can’t see it, and I can’t describe it well enough.’

She stared at him through the mask. A long silence. She shivered. Finally, ‘I will try with the … goggles. Just for a little while.’

He fetched them off the bench then eased the mask off her face. Her eyes were screwed shut. He fitted the goggles and buckled the straps.

Irisis, noting how his fingers grazed Ullii’s nape, scowled.

Ullii looked down.

‘Can you see the map?’ Nish asked.

‘Yes.’ Her reply was faint.

He explained the symbols for walls, doors, windows and furniture. She seemed to catch on quickly. Ullii lived in a world of symbols. ‘Your room is here. This is the way we walked today. This is where we are now.’

She traced the walls with a finger, so Nish knew she could see them.

‘This symbol is the scale. You can use it to work out how far things are from each other – how many steps we walked.’

She understood the concept of measurement but could not apply it. Direction was another problem – she knew right and left, front and back, but the points of the compass meant nothing to her. Her lattice was not based on a fixed frame of reference.

Nish tried to explain north, south, east and west, but Ullii related them to right hand and left hand, becoming hopelessly confused when he turned the map around. He showed her another map, of the lands between Tiksi, the manufactory and her home town of Fassafarn. That meant nothing to her either – the journey here, inside her bag all the daylight hours, had been such a nightmare that she had blocked everything out. Ullii had no idea how far she’d gone, what lands she had crossed or even how long it had taken.

‘This is so frustrating,’ Nish said to Irisis that evening. They had made no progress at all.

‘Give it a rest. You can’t teach her in a day what takes most people years.’ She turned to Ullii. ‘Tomorrow, we must go after Tiaan. We have to go
outside
. We need you to find her. No one else can do it. Will you help us?’

Ullii tore off the goggles and put the mask back on. She was trembling. Putting her hands over her eyes, she shook her head from side to side.

Irisis stood up. ‘What is it? Is she saying no?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nish.

Ullii also rose, looking up at them. Her fingers were curled into hooks. ‘I will go with you,’ she said in a despairing voice. ‘Though I’m afraid. But if you leave me behind …’

‘We’re afraid too,’ said Irisis.

‘I’m very, very afraid,’ shuddered Ullii. ‘Clawers. Clawers everywhere.’

T
he lyrinx’s mouth opened wider. The front teeth were as long as her thumb and fearsomely sharp. Tiaan closed her eyes.

The creature dragged her closer, trying to say something. Only a choking noise came out, as if there was a bone caught in its throat.

‘Chzurrrk!’ it said. ‘Zzhurripthk!’

She thought it was going to throw up all over her. Then, as its mouth yawned wider, she saw the crossbow bolt protruding into its gullet through the back of its neck. Blood ran down its throat. It tried to get its tongue at the obstruction but could not reach. It clawed at the back of its neck with its free hand, which had lost three fingers in the battle. The bolt was too deeply embedded to grip.

The creature gave a choking cough, which brought purple blood foaming up its throat. Another cough spattered Tiaan with the stuff. It was drowning in its own blood. Its eyes crossed; it gasped a breath which made a gurgling sound deep in its chest, like a plumber clearing a blocked sewer pipe, and its grip relaxed. Tiaan rolled out of the way as the lyrinx collapsed, still clawing at its neck. Its impact with the floor blew foam everywhere.

She stood up on shaky legs, watching the creature in the guttering flares. A whiff of pitch-smoke caught in her nose. It felt as if her air passages were on fire. Bent double with coughing, Tiaan circled behind the creature. The bolt had gone through the corded muscle to the right of its spine. The other beast lay nearby. It looked dead but she kept well clear. The live lyrinx tried to turn its head and gave another gasp.

Unlike other lyrinx she had seen, this one lacked wings, apart from a pair of vestigial nubs below its shoulders. Something seemed wrong about it – it did not quite seem to fit its body.

A spear lay on the ground. If she forced it into the lyrinx’s neck beside the bolt, might it be enough to kill it? She raised the spear, staring at the bloody wound, imagining the gruesome thud of blade into flesh, the creature thrashing and screaming. Tiaan hesitated and with a pained grunt the lyrinx turned its head, looking her in the eye.

She willed herself to deliver the death blow. Her sheltered life had not prepared her for this. Tiaan had not killed a living creature before, but now she had to. She dare not risk leaving it alive to follow her.

The big eyes were mesmerising. Blue patterns ran up and down its neck. Tiaan felt an unexpected surge of compassion and wondered if the lyrinx was trying to control her. Some of them were mancers.

She plunged the spear into the wound. The lyrinx screamed and flung itself around, tearing the spear out of her hand. One thrashing leg caught her on the hip; it was like being struck by a battering ram. Before she could pick herself up, the lyrinx was standing over her, the spear still waggling in the back of its neck.

‘Glarrh!’ it rapped. ‘Minchker!’

‘I don’t understand you,’ she gasped. It was hard to make out what it was saying. A wonder it could speak at all with such an injury.

‘Take … out,’ it said in a bloody croak.

Tiaan hurt too much to move. Seizing her by the shoulder with its good hand, it squeezed so hard that her joints ground together. Claws pricked through her skin. ‘Take out!’

There was no choice. ‘I will. Let me go.’

It released the shoulder but immediately caught her leg. ‘Go behind. Take out. Do not … try again.’

She edged behind, wondering if she dared defy it. It could tear her leg right off. Eyeing the mess her spear had made, Tiaan felt nauseated. Besides, it seemed to have done little harm, though a lesser creature, a human, would have been dead. Tiaan took hold of the spear. Dare she give it one hard thrust? The lyrinx crushed her ankle, a warning. Pulling the blade out, she tossed the spear on the floor.

‘Take out … bolt!’

She put her fingers around the bloody bolt and pulled. She could not get a grip.

‘It’s buried too deep,’ she said, repulsed by the gory wound.

‘Use … spear.’

Her tentative efforts to lever out the bolt only made a bigger mess. The operation was horrible, not to mention the lyrinx’s stifled groans. It must be in agony. She wished it would die, though maybe not even that would relax the manacle around her ankle.

‘Keep trying!’ It choked on blood. ‘If I die – you too.’

She believed it. ‘I have a tool in my pack that might help.’

‘Show me.’ It did not let go of her ankle.

She had to take everything out to get at her toolkit. Inside the folded canvas was a pair of pincers.

‘Yes,’ said the lyrinx. ‘Use!’

Tiaan probed into the wound, gripped the base of the bolt and gave a mighty heave. It did not budge.

Taking a firmer grip, she put her boot on the back of the creature’s massive neck and pulled with all her strength. The lyrinx screamed. Waves of colour pulsed from one end of its body to the other. It tossed its head, Tiaan kept pulling, and slowly the length of steel slid free. Purple blood pulsed from the hole, replaced by a clear fluid that congealed like the skin on boiled milk. The bleeding stopped.

She dropped the bolt and bloody pincers on the floor. The lyrinx convulsed from crest to claw, gave a retching heave that deposited a bucketful of bloody, foaming mucus on the floor, then rolled over to face Tiaan. What had she done? She had helped the enemy and now it would eat her anyway.

It opened its eyes. They stared at each other. It would be six, eight, maybe ten times her weight, and all muscle, bone and armour. Even with one injured hand it could tear her in half.

‘Well, are you going to eat me, or what?’ Her voice squeaked.

‘What is your name?’ The sound, formed deep in its throat, had a raspy, reverberating echo that was clearer than before, though it seemed to have difficulty shaping the words. Was it the injury, or the strange sounds in her language?

‘I am called Tiaan Liise-Mar.’

‘My name is … Ryll. What is your work?’

‘I have none.’

‘Everyone works, small human. You carry mechanic’s tools.’

‘I was an artisan.’

‘Artisan?
Of controllers
?’ It made a purring sound in its throat.

Why had she mentioned that? Alarmed, she tried to distract the creature. ‘To my people I am good for nothing but
breeding!
’

Ryll looked uncomprehending. He gagged, swallowed and spoke more clearly. ‘My mother has bred four little ones. She still takes her place in the battle line.’

‘Some of our people say females should breed, and only men work and fight.’ It felt wrong to be admitting it to this monster.

‘No wonder we defeat you so easily,’ said the lyrinx. ‘You waste the talents of half your people. Your species is flawed.’ His voice grew stronger, more confident, and Tiaan realised that he spoke her language rather well. Moreover, his accent was similar to her own. She wondered who had taught him.

‘Females are too precious to risk. If we lose too many, our entire species is at risk. We must breed to survive.’ Tiaan found herself mouthing arguments used to justify the breeding factory, arguments that even at the time had outraged her.