Geomancer (Well of Echoes) (24 page)

The man’s face closed, the hostility submerged. ‘What about my quota?’ he said in a nasal whine.

‘I’m sure you’ll get a credit from Gi-Had,’ Nish said. He did not know if that was true, and did not care either. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Shall we go?’ Flyn mimicked in a sing-song voice. ‘Jump in then.’

Nish blanched. The basket was nearly a span below him, and the opening looked tiny compared to the yawning hole of the shaft. If he missed … Not even to save face could he do it.

‘Bring it up,’ he said, and the quaver in his voice made Flyn snigger. The miner exchanged glances with Lex, who was also grinning. Damn them both, if he ever had power over them. ‘Come on. All the way!’

Lex fiddled with a lever as Flyn wound the bucket to the surface. Nish climbed in, hanging grimly onto the rope. ‘Hurry up!’ he snarled to conceal his unease. ‘The querist’s business can’t wait.’

Flyn winked at Lex, very obviously, then lifted one hand, which held a miner’s hammer. He swung it hard and low. Nish flinched, thinking the man was trying to cripple him, but the head whizzed by, knocking the brake right off. The bucket dropped, leaving Nish’s stomach halfway up his throat.

He choked, drew a deep breath, and screamed his heart out. In the darkness he could hear Flyn’s roars of laughter.

They flashed past lighted openings, one after another, going faster and faster. Nish was steeling himself for the shattering finale when the basket slowed. The fourth level went by, they slowed rapidly and drifted to a stop directly opposite the fifth level. Lex had put the brake on, up top. Nish had been taken in by a trick to terrorise apprentices and unwanted visitors.

A lighted lantern stood in the entrance. Nish gave Flyn a look of purest hatred, which was returned with bland indifference. Miners were a rebellious lot, contemptuous of any authority but their own. If I’m ever perquisitor, he thought, I’ll put the curb on them.

Small chance of that. There was a long way to go to avoid the army, much less be reinstated as a lowly prober. Putting his dreams of power and revenge aside, Nish tried to conquer his claustrophobia and failed miserably. ‘Where can we find Joeyn?’

Taking up the lantern, Flyn stumped off down the tunnel. He was even shorter than Nish. Most of the miners were small, wiry and old. Nish followed, shuddering at the weight of rock above.

Joeyn was not at the place he usually worked, nor in any of the other tunnels Flyn knew about. Nish studied the crystals in their veins and cavities, wondering how the old miner knew which ones to collect. They all looked the same to him.

They ended up searching the entire fifth level, which took many hours and several refillings of Flyn’s lantern. There was no trace of Joeyn or Tiaan. Nish could tell that his guide was worried by the time they got back in the basket. Flyn rang the bell and wound them up to the main level.

Even after all this time, Nish was nowhere near conquering his claustrophobia, and it was with the greatest relief that he saw the wheel come into view, and the lighted entrance to the mine. It was morning. They’d searched all night.

A crowd near the entrance headed toward him as the basket stopped.

‘No sign of him,’ Flyn called.

‘Nor in the higher levels,’ a young miner said quietly. ‘We’d better go down to six.’

Nish climbed onto the edge of the basket, caught his foot, and almost went head first down the shaft. A big man dragged him to safety. Nish’s knees would no longer hold him up.

A dozen pairs of boots came toward him, then stopped. He looked up. The querist was there, Overseer Gi-Had, and many others he recognised. They parted and a short, round man came through. Nish’s heart almost stopped. How could he have gotten here so quickly? He must have travelled night and day for two weeks.

‘Get up!’ said Perquisitor Jal-Nish, his father. His voice sounded like the ore-grinding mill in the manufactory.

Nish levered himself to his feet and stood before his father. Jal-Nish was no more than forty, a good-looking man, for all that he had short legs like hams and a belly as round as a ball. He was taller than Nish, the one thing his son could never forgive him for. The perquisitor had a proud, arching nose; a neatly trimmed beard thrust perkily forward from his chin. His dark hair was thick and his eyes had a twinkle for everyone except those he interrogated. He could be a charming man when things were going well, though he had a ruthless streak.

There was no twinkle as he examined his son. No allowances would be made, Nish knew. His father was not that kind of man.

‘Well?’ said Jal-Nish.

‘We’ve searched the entire fifth level. There’s not a trace of her.’

‘What about her friend?’

‘No sign of Joeyn either.’

Jal-Nish’s wide mouth curved down in a bloodless slash. ‘You moron, Nish! I’m going to be scrutator one day, and not even your stupidity will stand in my way. It’s the front-line for you, son!’

N
ish was interrogated by Jal-Nish and Fyn-Mah. It was like being whipped all over again, only worse. His father was coldly angry, Fyn-Mah reserved and efficient. Once, though, Nish noticed her staring out the window, clearly thinking about something else. She looked sad. What was it about her?

Later he was questioned together with Irisis, which he found even less comfortable. Twice she lied to his father with a completely straight face, then glared at Nish as if daring him to betray her. Irisis did not seem to care. It was as if she had a death wish.

She had admitted to harassing Tiaan, including planting the page from her journal and stealing her method of blocking the aura of controllers. Irisis flatly denied any of the other crimes with which she had been charged. Was she innocent, or would she, as before, only admit to a crime once it was proven against her? Nish rather suspected that she was guilty, and under interrogation he was forced to reveal that he doubted her. Irisis did not react to that either.

As the interrogation went on, Jal-Nish grew more and more frustrated. ‘She must be the spy,’ Nish overheard him whisper to Fyn-Mah during a break in the proceedings. ‘I’ve a good mind to put her in the Irons, to be sure.’

He meant a form of torture so hideous that it was rarely used even on the most recalcitrant of prisoners. Nish was shocked. If it came to that, he could not stand by.

‘I wouldn’t advise it, unless you’re
certain
she’s guilty,’ said Fyn-Mah. ‘Her mother is an old friend of the scrutator.’

‘No, no,’ Jal-Nish said hurriedly. ‘We won’t go down
that
path.’

He kept Nish and Irisis up all night, then sent them to the mine to help with the search. Nish, staggering along behind Fyn in a lather of pain and claustrophobia, did not even think of escaping. One fate worse than the front-line, in this world where everyone had their place, was to become an outlaw with no hope of rehabilitation.

They went through the mine down to the eighth level, until Nish, who had not slept for days, was like the walking dead. Joeyn’s body was found but not recovered, for the attempt brought down the rest of the roof, burying him, two miners and the fabulous vein of crystals under twenty wagonloads of rock.

Finding no trace of Tiaan, they began to question whether she had ever been in the mine. Two afternoons after Nish began it, the search was called off. The mine had to get back into production and every spare hand was needed to bolster the defences of the manufactory.

Nish humped stone until dark, when he had another blistering interview with his father.

‘You’ve blackened me in the scrutator’s eyes, boy!’ Jal-Nish growled. ‘I can’t forgive that.’

‘What are you going to tell my mother?’ It was Nish’s only trump.

The perquisitor, who had been pacing vigorously, stopped dead. The one thing he feared more than the scrutator’s wrath was the fury of his spouse.

‘Please give me another chance, father.’

‘You’ve disgraced the family,’ Jal-Nish said coldly. ‘In ordinary times I might have been lenient but this time I can’t, not even for your mother. You’ve turned Tiaan’s triumph into a disaster. If I let you off, the scrutator will think I’m as big a knave as you are, and where will we be then? I know Ranii will agree with me on this.’ He resumed his pacing, more anxiously than before.

Nish tried again but his father proved immovable. As soon as the weather cleared up enough to travel, Nish was to take ship to the front-lines, two hundred leagues north. There, in the unlikely event that he was not killed and eaten straight away, he would have an opportunity to rehabilitate himself.

Fortunately the weather showed no sign of abating its autumnal fury. Storms alternately lashed them with sleet, freezing rain, wet snow and frigid mist. For once Nish was grateful for it. He was lying awake on his pallet the following morning, listening to the wind rattle the roof slates as he waited for the gong to get up, when the whole wall shook. A second later there came a dull boom.

Earth tremblers were not uncommon here, and sometimes dangerous. Nish flew out of bed, scrambled into his boots and tore open the door. ‘What was that?’ he yelled to the guard standing outside.

‘I don’t –’

Another great smashing thud shook the manufactory. ‘That’s not an earth trembler,’ Nish shouted. ‘Something’s attacking the front gate. Quickly, man, to your post!’

The guard, well drilled as was everyone in the manufactory, ran for the gate. Nish, whose station was up on the wall, took a shortcut through the women’s dormitory, where scantily clad women (and occasional lovers) were falling over each other in their urgency to get dressed. The scene was much the same in the men’s sleeping hall.

‘Sleepers, wake!’ he roared. ‘The enemy is at the gates. Quick, quick!’

He continued up the other end, banging a stick on the doors of the workers important enough to have their own rooms. It amused him to see the condition of those who stumbled out, including his father.

Naked, still dazed from sleep, Jal-Nish was in no way the commanding figure he cut in his clothes. His belly quivered, and his lip. He kicked the door closed, though not before Nish saw Wickie, the young clerk from the bursar’s office, standing mouth agape.

Nish was shocked, to say nothing of disgusted. His own father! But there was no time for that now. Throwing the door open again he shouted, ‘The gates are attacked, perquisitor!’ deliberately using the title rather than his father’s name. A spasm warped Jal-Nish’s face, then Nish ran on.

Fyn-Mah hurried by, shepherding a gaggle of little children to safety. For the first time, her reserve had broken – she looked to be in pain.

A fascinating character study, had Nish the time to dwell on it, the way people dealt with the shock. Overseer Gi-Had looked as if he’d had to force courage on himself, yet he came running. There was no sign of Foreman Gryste at all, and two artificers, big men well known for their pride and their boasting, had to be shamed from their rooms.

Not so Irisis. Her door flew open as he reached it. She had a long knife in her hand, almost the length of a short sword, but wore only a pair of knee-length trousers. ‘The enemy, you say?’

‘At the gates.’

‘Where’s my blasted shirt?’ She looked around for it, then spat, ‘Ah, damn it,’ and ran out, her magnificent breasts bare.

Nish followed, suspecting she had done it deliberately. With her hair streaming out, and her scarred back, she looked just like the paintings of Myssu, a great revolutionary hero of old.

They ran up the steps onto the wall. Hastily lit torches guttered in the wind. It was still dark outside. The light showed only mist and shadows.

The wall shook again, then a missile smashed one side of the great gate. Nish looked down to see a boulder, hurled by some mighty catapult, crack the steps before rolling onto the road.

‘What is it?’ he shouted to the nearest guard. Before the fellow could answer a smaller missile struck him in the chest, carrying him backwards over the edge to his death.

Irisis came sprinting along the wall, hair flying. ‘It’s lyrinx!’ she screamed, ducked past him and raced to the watch-tower above the left gate, snatching a torch on the way. Several rocks followed her path though none went near. Flying up the steps, she hurled the torch high and straight, through the opening of the watchlight.

Tar-soaked straw, placed there for the purpose, burst into flames, illuminating the area between the gate and the forest, though leaving the defenders on the wall in shadow. Nish knocked down the other torch and ran up to the watch-tower, where Irisis was sighting a crossbow toward the forest. She fired. There came a single, truncated cry.

Another boulder hurtled out of the darkness, tearing the broken gate off its hinges. Instantly it was charged by three lyrinx and a violent skirmish took place on the steps.

Irisis stood barefoot in a drift of snow, calmly reloading the crossbow. She seemed oblivious to the cold, though her skin was purple. ‘Damn you!’ she screamed. The crossbow had jammed.

Nish quickly freed it, his artificer’s skills proving some use after all, and handed it back.

Irisis leaned over the wall, sighted straight down, held the position and fired. A pulpy thud made her grunt with satisfaction. ‘Got you!’ She ducked out of the line of fire, looking around for more bolts.