Alchymist (24 page)

'My
father put me in charge of his house when he went to battle. He gave me his
seal and full authority to run his affairs.'

'Then
let doom fall on his head! I shall tell you nothing. Attendant!'

As
Tiaan was carried away, she was trying to work out what Vithis would do next.
It was impossible to focus — she kept seeing Ghaenis's cheery face, and his gruesome
death.

Now
that his own efforts had failed so disastrously, Vithis would do whatever it
took to force the secret of the thapter out of her. She had to resist him.
Fortunately the construct, coated with tar, had burned hot. With luck the
diamond hedrons and the carbon filaments connecting them to the amplimet had
been consumed, and Vithis need never learn they had existed. Let him think the
secret of flight lay in the amplimet and how Tiaan had used it. She could not
resist torture but, after what Thyzzea had said, it seemed unlikely that the
Aachim would permit that. On the other hand, after the death of Ghaenis,
anything was possible.

Could
she pretend not to understand the talent that enabled her to make the construct
fly? Pretending stupidity was a dangerous course; they knew too much about her.
But how else could she save herself?

They
reached a tent guarded by four Aachim men. 'Let no one disturb us!' Vithis
ordered.

The
guards saluted and he went in. The attendant sat Tiaan in a metal chair and
departed. Vithis walked round the room several times, pushing his fingers
through his hair until it stood out like bristles. The hollows under his eyes
had a yellow tinge.

He
swallowed and turned to Tiaan. 'I have much to get done,' Vithis said softly,
'so let us get this over with as quickly as possible. How did you make the
construct fly?'

Vithis,
an exceptionally tall man, was standing so close that she had to tilt her head
right back to look at him. A fly buzzed around the tent. The sun was going down
but the heat and stillness remained oppressive.

'I
don't know,' she lied. 'I've never understood how I used the amplimet, even
after all the instruction the Aachim gave me. My talent just seemed to grow.
Sometimes it was as if the crystal was instructing me.'

His
face was as expressionless as metal; she could not judge his thoughts.

'You're
lying,' he said without emphasis. 'You blindfolded everyone in the construct
and did something to it to make it fly. What did you do?'

'Nothing,'
Tiaan said as steadily as she could. She could not match his strength so she
must give before him, then spring back. 'You can check Tirior's construct.'

'We
will, once it's cool enough to get inside. If you didn't change it, how did you
make it fly?'

Any
construct can be made to fly if you have an amplimet,' she lied.

'How?'
he roared in her face. And why did you blindfold everyone?'

'I
didn't want anyone to see the amplimet. Look what it's done to Ghaenis, after
you gave it to him. It causes trouble everywhere I go, and everyone who sees it
wants to take it from me. It's mine!. Joeyn gave it to me with his dying
breath. It's all I have left, since you forced Minis to break his promise to
me. Since you killed little Haani.'

'I
did not kill her!' he snapped, but it put him off balance. 'It was an accident
and reparation has been paid. Neither could Minis break his promise, since he
did not have the right to make such a commitment to you.'

Tiaan
had to reinforce his false impression of her character. She tried to make her
emotions as flighty as a hutterfly. 'I did everything for the love of Minis,'
she said with a sweet, dreamy smile, like a smitten adolescent. Then she
screeched, 'He promised me! He lied, and you forced him to it. I hate you'.'

Vithis
took a step backwards. 'Minis does not lie.' He grimaced as if he'd just
swallowed something nasty.

'He
lied to me!' she shrieked. 'Liar, liar, liar!' You're overdoing it, she
thought. Vithis is a clever, subtle man. Don't be too emotional.

'You
show your true nature at last. The amplimet can never be yours, sad little
creature that you are. You're unworthy of it.'

'No!'
she shouted. 'It's mine.'

He
shook her until she felt like vomiting fragments of red sausage all over him.
'You're no geomancer, Tiaan. You have a brilliant native talent, but not the
intellect to control the amplimet.'

'I
flew my thapter all the way from Tirthrax,' she muttered.

'The
crystal would end up controlling you. For the last time, how did you make the
construct fly?'

'I
had to work the balance between the two crystals,' she said, making up a
meaningless term. 'For flight, the balance between the amplimet and the smaller
crystal, my hedron, must be just right. I set up a kind of .., oscillation in
the field, but it grew stronger and stronger, as if it was feeding on itself.
It hurt so much! I thought it was going to anthracise me. Like you did to poor
Ghaenis.'

He
ignored the barb. 'But it didn't; said Vithis. 'How did you overcome that?'

'The
oscillation vanished and the field seemed to be pushing the other way, lifting
the construct off the floor. Then . . . I can't explain it. I visualised the
construct flying . . , something grew hot beneath the floor and up it went. .
.'

"That's
gibberish,' he said doubtfully. 'You're making it up.'

A
drop of ice slid down her gullet. She was making it up, and if he was sure of
it he would crucify her. Careful, she thought. Be more convincing in your
stupidity. 'That's what happened, I swear it!' she rushed out. 'I didn't
understand. The feeling of the crystal was soul-deep.' She said it with
wide-eyed, gullible since:

'Soul-deep?
What mumbo-jumbo is that?'

Someone
was at the flap, beckoning. Vithis spoke briefly to the man, then returned. 'I
have urgent business elsewhere. Before I go, answer me this. What did you mean,
it was as if the crystal was instructing you?'

She
seized on that. Back in the manufactory, one of the workers, a girl called
Sannet, had heard voices all the time. It had been tiresome to work with her,
for Sannet needed to consult her voices before undertaking the simplest task.

'I
heard voices. In my head,' lied Tiaan, looking up at the Aachim stupidly.

He
was disgusted. 'Have you always heard them?'

Could
she reinforce his feeling that she was not completely sane? No, better to
pretend that the amplimet had damaged her. 'Never!' Tiaan cried theatrically,
'Until I was given the amplimet by old Joeyn. He was my only friend.'

'I'm
not surprised,' said Vithis.

'That
very night I dreamed about Minis,' Tiaan went on. 'And afterwards. But.., it
wasn't until I used the amplimet in the ice cave that the voices began.'

'Is
that so?' he said softly. And did you hear them all the time after that?'

'Only
after I used the crystal, and then only for a day or two. In the months it took
to travel from Kalissin to Tirthrax, I didn't hear voices at all. There were no
nodes by the great inland sea; the crystal could draw no power there.'

And
after Tirthrax?'

'I've
often heard the voices these last few months.'

'What
do they tell you?' He sounded as if he believed her.

Tiaan
did not relax. He was weighing everything she said, and if she made one
inconsistent remark, one false step, he would have her.

Tiaan
recalled something Vithis had said just after coming through the gate to
Santhenar. Tirior had wanted the amplimet but he'd been afraid of it, saying
that it was corrupt and dangerous. Could she play on that fear?

'I
can't bear to be without the amplimet; she said softly. 'I haven't suffered
withdrawal since the gate was opened, but whenever someone else has my crystal,
I feel the most indescribable longing for it.' She looked Vithis in the eye.
'Yet it frightens me. After Tirthrax, it was as if the amplimet wanted
something. As if it were using me.'

The
man who had come to the door was back, gesturing furiously. Vithis waved him
away.

'Using
you? How do you mean?'

'I
felt that it was a million years old,' she said breathlessly. And all that time
it had lain underground, drawing power from the node. Waiting, and planning
what it would do when it got free.'

'What
does it want to do?' Vithis spoke as if humouring her, but he was plucking
uneasily at his chin.

Perhaps
he was superstitious about such things. 'It's following a mineral. . , instinct,
from times so long ago that the shape of the land was different. I dreamed that
it was controlling me, though it didn't want me. It's looking for someone
stronger, a great mancer like you! She reached out to him.

He
sprang backwards. 'Don't touch me! It's telling you to work on me now, isn't
it?' His breath whistled in and out through his teeth.

How
could it be telling me anything?' she said with childlike innocence, 'I don't
have it.'

Wait
here, if you please.’

How
could she do otherwise? Again Tiaan reached towards him but he stepped back
smartly and slipped out through the flap.

He
returned some time later with a woman Tiaan had not met before. She was old,
her dark skin weathered to the texture of bark, her hair as grey as aged thatch
and her back bent.

"This
little thing?' the old woman said, fixing Tiaan with cloudy eyes. She came up
close but avoided touching her. Her voice was croaky, crackly. 'It hardly seems
possible.'

'We've
all seen her fly the construct, Urien, and we know she made the gate.'

Urien
stared right into Tiaan's eyes. 'The crystal talks to you, child?'

Tiaan
shivered and the old woman smiled to see it. Her gums had withered, exposing
snaggly yellow teeth which looked as though they'd been stuck in clay by an
inexpert hand.

After
I've used the amplimet,' said Tiaan, pretending awe, 'it whispers in my mind,
the same way it talks to the node.'

'What!'
cried Vithis and the old woman together.

'That
was the reason Malien sent me away in the thapter —’

'Thapter?'
scowled Urien.

'My
flying construct,' said Tiaan. 'Malien had to send the amplimet away, even
though she wanted the thapter for herself, because the amplimet was talking to
the node. And then the Well of Echoes, trapped inside Tirthrax, began to thaw.'

Vithis's
dark face went grey. 'Thaw?' he whispered, staring at her in dismay and a
growing horror. Urien was more controlled, but for a moment Tiaan saw fear in
her eyes and wondered just what it was that old Joeyn had given her with his
dying breath.

'Malien
was terrified that the Well would break free,' said Tiaan, 'and with the
amplimet there she couldn't hold the Well in place. Had she not sent the
crystal away, the whole great mountain and city of Tirthrax might have been
destroyed.'

The
Aachim withdrew to the far side of the tent in agitation, then went outside and
she heard no more. They were gone for ages. When they finally returned, Vithis
looked sick.

'How
was the amplimet talking to the node, child?' said the old woman.

'The
tiny light in the centre blinked on and off, too quickly to count,' Tiaan
replied truthfully. 'But as soon as I, or Malien, took the crystal out of its
pouch the blinking stopped, as if to hide what it was doing.'

'What
else can you tell us about it?'

'After
I left Tirthrax, it wouldn't let me go where I wanted.'

Urien
pounced. 'But you did get away.'

It
was a dangerous moment; Tiaan didn't want them thinking too hard about the
secret of flight. 'I took out the amplimet, put an ordinary hedron in its place
and hovered away until I was beyond the influence of the node.'

'What
else did the crystal do?' said the old woman.

After
fleeing your camp — where you shot at me without provocation! — I tried to take
the thapter to Lybing, in Borgistry.'

'Why?'
said Urien, ignoring the outburst.

'To
do my duty and give it to the scrutators, but the amplimet wouldn't let me go
that way. It took the thapter towards another powerful node, at Booreah Ngurle,
but when we reached the mountain, and I turned for Nyriandiol, it wouldn't let
me go there either. I was so furious that I resolved to smash the amplimet —’

'What
happened then?' Vithis rushed out, and Tiaan was sure that he believed her.

'It
cut off the field and the thapter fell into the forest. That's how my back was
broken.' She didn't plan to mention that the lyrinx had repaired it.

'Do
you have anything else to confess?' said Urien.

Tiaan
did not like the implication, but explained about her time at Nyriandiol and
Snizort, and how the amplimet had communicating with the nodes there as well.