Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (31 page)

‘I don’t answer to artisan from my lover, Xervish.’

‘I’m sorry. The scrutator in me.’

‘I prefer the other meaning,’ she said wickedly.

He smiled. ‘Ah, yes. Very good. Might …’ He hesitated, unsure of himself for once. ‘Might there be further opportunities in that regard, do you think?’

She pretended to consider it, blank-faced. Her eyes met his. ‘I’m mindful that we each have a duty to perform, Xervish.’

‘I prefer the other meaning,’ he grinned.

‘Er, I’m not sure I take your point, Xervish.’

‘You will, later! A duty, to
perform
!’

She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes, listening to the clacking of his eating sticks. The scrutator was a noisy eater and drank his tea with loud, appreciative slurps. It did not bother her; that was good manners in the country he came from.

She felt very tired. Irisis had not slept all night, and sparring with Flydd was emotionally exhausting. What was more, it still had not solved the problem.

‘Another thing, Xervish.’

He gulped the last of the bowl, wiped his mouth on the cloth and swung around. ‘You’re thinking that you don’t know enough about nodes. That this is really mancer’s work and you can’t do it.’

‘Precisely.’

‘You won’t be going alone,’ said Flydd.

‘Who will be going with me?’

‘I’ll let you know when the time comes.’

Irisis was not at her best that day. They were now surveying on the eighth level. She was desperately tired and not up to dealing with a fractious, childlike Ullii who suffered constant headaches and would curl up in the dark at the least provocation. The miners, a rough lot at the best of times, were having trouble restraining their tempers. They were bitter about the loss of the reward, more so that the enemy had infiltrated their mine, not to mention anxious at the danger of working beneath such unstable rock. Dandri had already shouted at Ullii twice. If it happened again, it would put paid to any useful seeking for the rest of the day.

‘This is hopeless,’ Irisis said to Peate as they trudged down another tunnel so narrow that the sides scraped against her shoulders. ‘Isn’t there any way to tell where to look for crystal?’

‘The veins wander where they want to. And often, in this mine, the best veins are in the most dangerous areas. Like –’ He looked away down the tunnel.

Irisis sensed that there was something she was not being told, or shown. They seemed to have been going around in a circle.

‘Could I see the map of this level, please?’

‘That’s miner’s business,’ he muttered, rolling it up.

She put out her hand.

He held the map behind his back. ‘You have no right? Anyway, you’d never understand it.’

‘Would you like me to get an order from the scrutator?’ she said coldly.

‘Just give her the blasted map, Peate!’ shouted Dandri, and marched off into the darkness.

Peate’s arm dropped to his side. He did not offer her the map, nor resist when she took it. His face had assumed that mulish expression she had seen so often on miners over the years.

The map was, of course, perfectly comprehensible. The tunnels were marked with double lines whose width varied according to the size of the tunnel. Shafts were shown with circles; arrows indicated whether they went up or down. Markings along the sides of the tunnel were in symbols she did not understand, though she presumed they described the character of the rock and the sources of ore or crystal. The places Ullii had surveyed, fruitlessly, were marked in red. The red marks formed an irregular ‘U’ shape around a central core of tunnels.

‘We’ve not been in this area at all,’ she said to the miner.

‘Too dangerous,’ said Peate.

‘Is that what these black jags show? Bad rock?’

‘Yes!’

‘I’d still like to go in there.’

He threw down his pick. ‘Then you can go alone!’

‘I will. Give me your lantern.’

He passed it to her, Irisis called Ullii and led her away. Around the corner, she said to the seeker, ‘We must go down here. Is that all right?’

‘Yes,’ said Ullii. ‘We can go anywhere you want.’

‘You’re not afraid to go without the miners?’

‘Don’t like Peate. He is an angry man.’

‘The rock is bad down here,’ said Irisis. ‘It might fall and kill us.’

‘I know you’ll look after me.’

Irisis sighed. ‘Let’s get to work.’

‘Nothing
here
either?’ said Irisis about six hours later. The silent darkness of the mine was getting to her. She had been edgy from the moment she’d entered.

Ullii shook her head. ‘Head hurts. Want to go home.’

‘Let’s just look around the corner first.’

Irisis trudged off. Ullii plodded after her. It was no wonder the seeker’s head was aching; the air was really bad down here. It had a faintly sulphurous smell, overlain by the odour of stagnant water, though the map showed no water on the eighth level. Where could it be coming from?

Around the corner the tunnel narrowed between two bosses of massive white quartz, free of any kind of crystal. Irisis held her lantern out. Ahead she could see only sheared pink granite in walls and roof. Wet mounds of crumbled rock, nearly waist high, partly blocked the tunnel. The roof must be really unstable. Water dripped all the way along.

‘Well, that’s one place we’re definitely not going.’ Turning away, Irisis rotated the half-shuttered lantern so it would not dazzle Ullii.

The seeker slipped by her and went up to the obstruction, staring into the dark and sniffing. Irisis kept going. Ullii needed no light; in fact, she could employ her seeker’s talent better without it.

Irisis had been walking for some five minutes before realising that Ullii was not behind her. She held the lantern up. There was no sign of the seeker. No point yelling or cursing her, that would only make things worse. Irisis returned to the roof fall. Ullii was not there, though there was a small print in the clayey muck.

‘Ullii,’ she called, not too loudly.

Grit sifted down from a crack in the roof. Irisis felt afraid. Rotten wet rock was far more perilous than dry stuff. She squeezed through the gap, scraping breasts that were still tender from the previous night, and edged forward. A flat piece of granite detached itself from the roof, landing with a plop in front of her. Irisis shuddered and kept going.

The rotten rock continued as far as she could see, which was not far here. At a shallow bend, she peered around. Something crouched down the other end of the tunnel, but Irisis could not make out what it was. It might even have been a lyrinx.

At the thought, terror rose up within her and she almost screamed. Get a grip on yourself! A lyrinx would not even fit in this tunnel. She held up the lantern, the shapes shifted and became the seeker, crouching with her arms against the wall.

‘What are you doing?’ Irisis said crossly. ‘This place is too dangerous. We’ve got to go back.’

‘I can
see
something,’ said Ullii.

Irisis resisted the urge to run. ‘What?’ she whispered when she got there.

‘Crystal. Good crystal.
Big
crystal!’

‘Really? Are you sure?’

‘
Biiiig
crystal!’ Ullii turned around and around, as if searching for something she could not quite locate.

‘Where, Ullii? Which way?’

Her outstretched arm revolved, slanting down towards the floor. ‘There.’

‘Is it close?’ Ullii could never be precise about distances, although directions were usually accurate. To be so fuzzy was unusual.

‘Not … so close,’ said Ullii.

That meant down a fair way. The ninth level was also unsafe and partly flooded, the level rising and falling with the seasons. It had not been too bad last autumn: Tiaan had been able to escape that way. That could be different after a winter of heavy snowfalls that were rapidly melting. If the crystal was below the ninth level they might as well forget it, for the water would come into the excavation faster than their primitive pumps could extract it.

‘Let’s go, Ullii. We’ll come back in the morning.’

For once, Ullii seemed reluctant. She lingered by the wall, feeling it with her fingers. Her face was animated.

Irisis felt the sleepless night catching up with her. She caught Ullii by the arm. ‘Come on. It’s late.’

The seeker resisted. ‘Leave me alone!’

Irisis was so astounded that she took a step backwards. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s talking to me!’

‘What is it saying?’

Ullii gave her a strange look, somewhere between pity and contempt. ‘You can’t understand.’

Irisis did not have the strength. She squatted against the wall and closed her eyes, but sprang up as the rock shook and a crash thundered along the tunnel. Air rushed past, carrying a wet, clayey smell. More of the roof had fallen.

Irisis looked back the way they had come but could see no further than the bend. She inspected the roof with her lantern. It was fractured all the way along.

‘Ullii?’

The seeker had not moved, nor did she answer. There was nothing to do but wait. Irisis settled down again. Her eyes drifted closed.

‘I’m ready now’. Ullii was shaking her shoulder.

‘What?’ Irisis said thickly, roused from deep slumber. She opened her eyes to utter darkness. ‘Where –’ She remembered. ‘What’s happened to the lantern?’

‘It went out ages ago.’

Irisis felt for it and gave it a shake – it was empty and cold. It had burned all its oil. How were they going to find the way back to the lift shaft? The eighth level was a maze of intersecting tunnels.

‘Ullii,’ she whispered. ‘I’m afraid. I don’t know the way back. What are we going to do?’

The seeker made a muffled sound in her throat, which Irisis took for a sob. Panic began to close her throat over.

A warm little hand found her cold fingers. ‘It’s all right,’ Ullii said soothingly, the way Irisis had often spoken to her. ‘I know the way.’

Being treated like a child was irritating, but Irisis tried not to show it. Maybe the seeker did know the way out. Perhaps she could see it in that lattice in her head.

Ullii pulled her gently along. ‘This is the wrong way,’ Irisis hissed, sure that she had gone to sleep against the right-hand wall, which meant that the way back was on her left side. They were going the other direction.

‘No, it’s not,’ Ullii said calmly.

Irisis did not argue. The seeker was at home in this environment and she was not. Maybe she had turned around in her sleep, or after she stood up. It was so easy to become disoriented down here.

The tunnel turned sharply, then back the other way, like the bends of an ‘S’. Irisis shivered.

‘It is the wrong way, Ullii. We
definitely
did not come around those bends.’

‘Shh.’ Ullii patted her hand. ‘I know where I’m going.’

Perhaps the fall had blocked the way they had come. After that, and turning into a different tunnel, and then another, Irisis kept her mouth shut. Hopelessly lost, she had no choice but to rely on the little seeker.

They had been walking for a long time when Ullii stopped suddenly. Irisis, so tired that she could not think straight, kept going. Ullii jerked hard on her hand.

‘What’s the matter?’ Irisis asked dazedly.

‘Hole in the floor.
Shouldn’t be there
.’

How could she possibly know that? ‘Does that mean we have to go back?’

‘Stay here.’ Ullii let go of her hand.

‘Ullii?’

‘Shhh!’

Irisis sat on the damp floor. This puts a whole new shade on being kept in the dark, she thought wryly. The silence settled around her. Absolute silence. It was broken by a faint echoing click.

What was the seeker doing? Was she trying to climb down the hole and up the other side? Irisis did not fancy that in the dark. She wanted to cry out, to hear the reassurance of the seeker’s voice. Now
that
was ironic.

What was taking her so long? Had she gone down and could not get up again? Irisis felt very alone. To pass the time she began counting, but after reaching a thousand gave up because she could no longer concentrate. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ullii was beside her.

‘I smell clawers.’

It was her word for lyrinx. ‘Where?’ Irisis whispered.

‘Down. Ninth level.’

‘Did they make this hole?’

‘Think so.’

‘Does it go all the way down?’

‘Yes,’ said Ullii.

‘What do they want?’ Irisis said to herself, then answered it. ‘They want crystal and they’re also after the big one. Can we get past the hole?’

‘Think so.’

Getting information out of the seeker was like pulling teeth. ‘Come on!’ said Irisis. ‘We can’t let them trap us here. I don’t want to end up in the belly of a lyrinx.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Irisis heard the seeker’s muted squeal of panic, then nothing.

‘Ullii,’ she whispered.

There was no reply. Feeling around, she came upon the seeker, curled up like the armadillo that was her favourite animal. Irisis felt just as panicky. Now what was she supposed to do?

Leaving her there, she crawled to the hole. It was absolutely dark. Feeling around the ragged edge, Irisis smelt a familiar musty, meaty odour. The lyrinx were not far away.

It was unpleasant work in pitch blackness, knowing that if she overbalanced she would fall head-first and dash her brains out on the floor of the ninth level. Her hands met the wall, but leaning out as far as she dared Irisis did not find the other side. As she hesitated there, her heart clattering in her chest, something else struck her. If she could smell the lyrinx, they could probably smell her.

Her probing fingers found the narrowest of shelves on the left side, too narrow to walk across. She had to know how wide the hole was. Her pockets were empty but for fluff. No, there was something caught in the seam.

It was a holey nyd, a copper coin with the centre punched out. She weighed it in her hand. The small sound it would make had to be weighed against the risk of not knowing how far across the hole was.

Standing at the edge of the hole, she tossed the coin. It fell short, bounced off one wall of the hole, then the other, and landed with a distinct
ching
at the bottom.