Geomancer

PART FOUR

'Get up! We're going.'

Tiaan snapped awake. Ryll was at the entrance, staring down. She rolled out of the bearskin, too panicky to feel self-conscious. The lyrinx must have turned her clothes during the night for, apart from the heavy coat, they were dry. She dressed quickly in four layers of clothing, all smelling of smoke. The boots were still damp but at least they were warm.

In five minutes she was ready. 'What's the matter?' She stood by his side at the entrance.

He simply pointed down the mountain. Far below, two columns of marching soldiers, and the four clankers, crawled like grey caterpillars across the snowfield. Their tracks ran across the landscape, perfectly straight, all the way from the river. The awful memory came back – the four clankers surrounding them on the ice, firing their javelards. Trying to kill her. Her own people would sooner do that than allow Ryll to get away with her! Her loyalty to the manufactory vanished. She would have to make her own way in the world now. For the moment that must be with Ryll, since there was no possibility of escaping him.

'How did they find me?' Ryll murmured. 'I covered my path well.'

'The fire?' said Tiaan, though it gave off little smoke and the entrance faced away from the river. 'Or carrion birds?'

'See how straight their tracks are? They must have a way of finding you; or your crystal.'

'I was not aware that could be done at any distance.' She knew so little about the Secret Art, even as used in such systems as she had been making for years. But then, the lyrinx had been able to detect the aura from controllers…

'Must I tie your wrists again?' Ryll asked.

The feeling of helplessness when she had gone into the river with bound hands had been terrifying. 'I won't try to escape.'

'There would not be much point to it.'

Ryll slid along the edge into the shadows, then headed up. The face of the mountain was steep. In her state the climb proved impossible and after the first stumble he tucked her under his arm. Ryll seemed untroubled by the extra weight, but he could cling with the claws on his hands and feet.

Toward the top he tied her to his chest. 'In case you fall,' he said.

She tried not to think what would happen if he fell. They followed a path of his choosing for three days. Tiaan had no choice in the matter; she had no idea where they were going, though they were heading south-west, roughly the way she wanted to go.

She saw the clankers several times on the first day, but they fell further behind and by the afternoon there was no more sign of them.

Each day was much the same. They began at dawn with a feed of bear meat – roasted for her, raw for him – then walked for as long as Tiaan could keep up. When she flagged they stopped, Tiaan ate, he put her on his back and kept going until dark, or after dark if the country permitted it. Finally they would stop for dinner and sleep in a snow cave, or under an overhang.

'I believe we've lost them,' Ryll said on the afternoon of the third day.

Tiaan rested behind a windswept boulder. The weather had been good these last days but an ominous bank of clouds was building in front of them. 'We'd better find shelter for the night, and tomorrow too.'

'I know a place.' The lyrinx indicated a steep-sided plateau in the distance.

She gauged the progress of the cloudbank. 'We won't make it.'

'There's nowhere else.'

Swinging her up on his shoulders, he began to run. Used to it by now, she merely clenched her thighs about his neck as if astride a horse and hung on, enduring the thumping ride. It was a race, and one they were going to lose. The overcast came in quickly, with chilly gusts and scattered snowflakes. Before they reached the base of the plateau, it was snowing hard.

He stopped at an outcrop of yellow rock, a broken cliff that went up further than she could see. 'Better find a cave,' Tiaan said.

Ryll swung her down and ranged along the base of the plateau, which rose abruptly from the plain. The incessant wind had blasted the rubble to dust and blown it away.

'What about this?' she shouted, for they were passing a series of small caves like a giant honeycomb in the rock.

'I know where I'm going.'

She felt a twinge of unease but the storm was on them and there was no choice but to follow him. After some minutes, when visibility was down to the distance she could have spat a plum seed, Ryll went sideways into a slot no wider than her shoulders. A pattern of clefts cut the rock into stacks. She tried to map the way but soon lost the sequence, for every turn looked the same. Finally the lyrinx slipped into an even narrower gap, squeezed though a tight space and stopped.

It was calm here, the snow falling vertically. Grasping a rope that she had not noticed, he gave a series of tugs.

'Get on my shoulders!'

She complied, now thoroughly alarmed. The rope jerked twice, Ryll took a firm grip and was drawn steadily up. The ground disappeared in the whirling snow, which was worse than looking down on the drop.

The rope stopped suddenly. The strain was showing on Ryll's face and the knotted arms began to tremble. He looked up anxiously. Without warning the rope jerked again, so hard that his hands slipped on the fibres. Ryll let out a truncated cry. Tiaan almost wet herself, but his grip held.

Near the top they stopped again. He was really straining now. Another jerk and she saw flat ground, the edge of the plateau. A gust blew them sideways. Tiaan was sure they were going to fall.

She screamed, and again as a lyrinx much bigger than Ryll snatched him off the rope. She went backwards off his shoulders but Ryll's hand found her ankle. As they were hauled in, she went close to dashing her brains out on the cliff edge.

Ryll stood her on her feet but had to hold her up, for Tiaan's knees had turned plastic. Three lyrinx stood in an arc in front of them. Two were much bigger than Ryll, the third about his size. All stood in a crouch, arms curved, fingers flexed. Their skin colours rippled in unison, in waves of brilliant yellow and red. Warning colours.

'Thlrrpith myrzhip?' said the middle one in an aggressive voice.

'Myrllishimirr, ptath vozzr!' Ryll sounded defensive.

'Sklizzipth moxor! Tcharr!'

The lyrinx to Tiaan's left sprang and caught her by the arms. Its other hand grabbed her legs and raised her in front of its face. It was either going to tear her limbs off or bite her head from her neck.

'Thlampetter rysh!' roared Ryll. 'Thlampetter rysh narrl.'

The lyrinx froze, looking from one of its fellows to the other, and then to Ryll.

'Rysh narrl?'

The pressure eased slightly.

Ryll pointed over the cliff into the snow, blasted about by wild gusts of wind. The creatures spoke among themselves, after which one remained behind while the others escorted Ryll away from the cliff, the lyrinx still carrying Tiaan like a forgotten parcel.

After a bitterly cold trek that lasted an hour and more, a curved ice wall loomed up in front of them. The leading lyrinx pulled aside a set of skin doors, hanging one after another, went on hands and knees through a tunnel, another skin door, and into a large room. It was domed, like a big igloo, and made of sawn ice or pressed blocks of snow. The room was empty apart from some skins on the floor. Several crawl passages ran off it. The first lyrinx went down the one to her left.

Her captor put Tiaan on her feet. A long conversation followed in their language. Tiaan had no idea what was going on, though clearly Ryll had been heading here all the time. He'd had no intention of taking her across the mountains. His code of honour was no more than a lie. She felt bitterly disappointed, though she was aware how foolish that was. The lyrinx were enemies.

'What do you want me for?' she said to Ryll.

'To help us with the war, of course.'

'But… you said you owed me a debt.'

'I repaid it when I saved you after the avalanche. I saved your life again on the ice when your own people would have killed you.'

She looked up at his fierce face. 'You never said that the debt had been repaid.'

'Can you not reckon up the weight of your obligations? We are at war, human!'

Tiaan felt like a fool. How could she have trusted him? 'You did not tell me!' she hissed, as if that was an excuse.

'I left you unwatched after I saved you the first time. You had the chance to escape and did not. After all I have done for you since, I count you deep in my obligation.'

'I will not betray my people,' she said uselessly, but he had gone.

Tiaan considered her position. His kind would always be enemies of humanity. What was he going to do to her now? He had not brought her all this way for nothing.

A large lyrinx came through the passage directly in front of her. It had a green crest and breast-shaped chest plates, by which Tiaan assumed it to be female. The crest was badly scarred, the first three peaks missing and the scars lacking pigment. Female lyrinx were the same size as males, or sometimes bigger, she noted. Others followed, including Ryll. Soon eight stood in front of her. Ryll spoke to the first in his own tongue. Two others, both with green crests, bore young. All had folded leathery wings, unlike Ryll's useless stumps.

'Bring out your devices, Tiaan,' said Ryll.

She shook her head. With one bound the lyrinx that had attacked her at the clifftop took her by the throat and shook her hard.

'Glynnch!' the large female said peremptorily.

The lyrinx dropped her on the floor. Ryll shook out the contents of her pack, handing Tiaan the globe, crystal and cap. As she met his eyes, resistance drained out of her.

She made sure that the wires had not been bent by the journey, and that the small crystal was secure in its setting. The globe was squashed on one side. Her fingers worked it back into shape, checking that the beads would slide freely in their orbits. The lyrinx did not take their eyes off her.

Tiaan lifted out the hedron, or amplimet as she now thought of it. It was warm to the touch; unusually so. Did that mean this place lay over a node? The crystal felt heavier than usual. Ryll caught her elbow, holding it up so they could all see it.

A spark leapt the gap between the central needles, flaring into a yellow light that made her flinch. It was much brighter than before. The lyrinx cried out as one.

'Thlampetter rysh!' said Ryll. 'The crystal key. And she is the keykeeper.'

He went into a huddle with the other lyrinx. There was a heated conversation with much arm-waving, thumping of each other's chests and lurid changes of skin colour and pattern. Ryll seemed unusually submissive – they struck his chest so hard that he rocked backwards, while his blows were mere taps, done with lowered head.

From the way they spoke to Ryll, and their body language, Tiaan could see that he was held in low esteem. Was that because he was an unmated male, or was it because of his deformity, his lack of wings? Whatever the reason, the all-competent, all-powerful protector of recent days was revealed to be powerless here. A long debate followed, of which Tiaan understood not a word. After some time she was escorted to a smaller room whose entrance was then blocked with a slab of shaped ice. The room was like an igloo made of compressed snow. She might have cut her way out but Ryll had taken her knife. Nor could she budge the block that plugged the tunnel.

Tiaan paced across and back. The room contained nothing but a skin with long, silky white fur. Too big to be any kind of wildcat, and too coarse for mountain ox, it was probably from a snow bear. She sat on it, considering the possibilities.

Either Ryll would lose his argument, whatever it was, and the lyrinx would eat her, or they would force her to teach them about the amplimet, and the making of controllers, and how best they could be disabled or adapted to their own purposes. And then they would eat her. What would happen to Minis then? Tears welled in her eyes.

Already she felt the first pangs of withdrawal. If they kept the amplimet for long enough Tiaan knew she would do anything, just to hold it again. But how could she? Wrapping the skin tightly about her, she lay down on ice and tried to sleep. The slab ground out of the way and a lyrinx shimmering with purple colours dragged her into the main room. Tiaan's eyes darted around but the grip was unbreakable.

'You will show us the use of your devices,' said Ryll.

Where did the boundaries of treachery lie? Was it betrayal if she revealed what she knew under torture? A true hero would provoke them into killing her, to avoid being forced to betray humanity's secrets. That required more bravery, or gratitude, than Tiaan had in her. Besides, she had given her promise to Minis; and her love.

'At once!' barked the largest lyrinx.

Tiaan was no hero, just very frightened. The helm felt burning cold. She warmed it in her fingers, then placed the amplimet inside the globe. She concentrated hard; her fingers moved the beads, seeking some elusive pattern that might enable her to tune in to the field about the node here. The glimmering of a plan came to her.

Could she tap into the field and direct it against her captors, to disable or kill them all at the same time? Probably not. It was hard to take that kind of power from the weak field. For what she required, only geomancy would do, but Tiaan was afraid of that Art. Her failure in the ice sphere had taught her how little she knew about it, and how deadly it was.

While she was thus preoccupied, her fingers had been working of their own volition, testing patterns and permutations randomly. She began to pick up a field. At least, she thought it was a field, though like none she'd ever seen before. It looked like two red suns whirling around each other in a halo of orange mist, beautiful but alien. Tiaan assessed the mind-image. Was there anything she could do with it? The red orbs looked dangerous; she dared not go near them. What about the mist? There seemed a little power in it.

The mist drifted, spread and closed around her, dark and menacing. Tiaan was trapped in orange fog. A hot surge went through her and the amplimet let out a brilliant violet flare. One of the lyrinx yelped. The others shielded their eyes. Her head was reverberating. She slid sideways to the floor, hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound. Her head hit the ice, the helm flew off and the flare went out.

Ryll picked her up. Water was dripping from the roof. As Tiaan took her hands away from her ears, her sight came back. The lyrinx, eyes watering, looked around in confusion. Tiaan made a mental note of that weakness. The amplimet was gently glowing as before. Tiaan had no idea what force she had tapped.

'Well, Besant,' said Ryll. 'Do you believe me now?'

Besant, the large female with the scarred crest, twitched her face muscles. Was she reluctant to make the concession to a deformed, unmated male?

'You have done well, Ryll,' she said in a deep voice. It took some time for Tiaan to recognise it as the common speech, so thick was her accent. 'The device has tapped an unknown source of power. The human may teach us much. I will send her to Kalissin.'

'And me?' Ryll said, too eagerly. 'Is this my chance? Shall I be mated now?'

'This could improve your desirability. I give you leave to seek a mate, though I doubt very much if a mate would chose you.'

They allowed Tiaan back her possessions, except for the amplimet, knife and crossbow. She was returned to her room, fed several times on charred strips of bear meat and water, and taken outside occasionally by Ryll to use a pit dug in the snow. Once she went by a pair of lyrinx squatting over a small, mushroom-shaped object, their hands shaping the air around it.

'What are they doing?' she asked.

'Watching,' said Ryll, and would say no more.

Tiaan expected crystal dreams that first night, and hoped they might be of her lost lover. Her dreams turned out to be horrors unlike anything she had ever imagined. She dreamed that her room was full of cages, each containing a warped travesty of the wild creatures she knew.

A misty orange field swirled around the cages, squeezing the creatures in whirlpool coils. They shrieked in agony, blood dripped from mouths and other orifices, and one by one they began to change. Flesh and bones deformed, skin and sinews stretched and crackled. Teeth shattered and fell from gaping mouths, to be replaced by new ones as sharp as the teeth of sharks.

Soon those creatures that survived were transformed into staring monsters. Their eyes were fixed on her. Tiaan paced back and forth all night to keep the dreams away.

The following night she also dreamed, but these were withdrawal dreams, a desperate craving that grew worse with every hour she was parted from the amplimet. Her body was wracked with aches and longings. She thought of nothing all day but how she might recover the crystal, and dreamed of nothing all night. That was the worst thing about withdrawal – it took so long to get over. Some people never did.

'What is the matter?' Ryll asked her on the second afternoon, when she lay shaking on her skin, tormented by her longing. 'Are you ill?'

Tiaan was in no state to think up a cover story. 'I must have the crystal,' she whispered. 'Please. I cannot bear to be without it.'

'Ah!' he said, and went out.

Only later did Tiaan realise that she had given him the perfect hold over her.