Geomancer

F ORTY -O NE

Kalissin was a most special node, a place where the latent energies of the earth might conceivably be tapped – if someone was strong enough, and foolhardy enough, to try. Fifty thousand years ago a rock and iron comet from the depths of the void had plunged to ground here, making the planet ring like a gong and blasting up such a cloud of shattered rock that the entire globe had been plunged into darkness. An age of ice followed that had lasted for thirty thousand years.

The remains of the comet had buried itself deep in the crust of Tarralladell. The rocky parts were fused to glass but the iron core formed a deep molten pool that stayed liquid for twenty thousand years until, buoyed by up-seeping gases, it began to rise again. Expanding gas blew the iron into foamy cells that swelled until the mass forced its way to the surface, melted up though the receding ice sheet and set into a solid spire.

Now it made a pinnacle two hundred and sixty spans high, rising out of the island in the centre of the lake that filled the comet's impact crater. Inside, the pinnacle was like a honeycomb built for giants, a frozen froth of iron. Outside, its upper parts, pointed like a collection of witches' hats, were streaked red and rusty-brown. Clots of greasy green shattered rock and glass were welded to it here and there. The lower part was enveloped in country rock dragged up with the pinnacle and layers of windblown dust accumulated after the ice disappeared.

The skirts of the pinnacle were clothed in tall trees, quite unlike the spindly pines elsewhere in Tarralladell. Here and there lay steamy pools, ponds of bubbling mud and cracks from which warm water ebbed, coating the rocks in multi-coloured salts. The upper parts of the pinnacle were bare of all but lichen, though being warm in that frigid land they were a favoured nesting site of eagles and many other kinds of bird.

No one came to collect the eggs. Kalissin Spire had been known as a place of evil spirits long before the lyrinx secretly entered it. No humans crossed the uncannily warm waters of the lake. Just to look up told them what a forbidden place it was. The skies of Tarralladell were overcast for half the year but over Kalissin a circle of clear air was often ringed by great storms, and the iron fangs of the spire were struck by lightning more frequently than any other place in that land. The evil ones were recharging their death spears, folktales told, preparing to wreak havoc on the world in their night ridings. And just occasionally, a fisher on the furthest shore of the lake would look up to see winged creatures wheeling and soaring high above, and know it was all true.

Being a creature of the void from which the lyrinx had come, the remains of the comet drew the invaders to it. The crater, and particularly the honeycombed iron peak, were things they knew and understood – part of their own environment, in a way. But it was more than that. Comets are bodies of unimaginably vast energy, and this one had not expended all its potential in its fiery plunge into the ground. The fall, the impact, the melting and the rising of that iron froth had created an instability. The metal shaft which ran deep into the earth was out of equilibrium with its surroundings. That instability, that node, represented a mighty pool of energy waiting to be tapped.

Comets are strange things. Wandering the heavens for billions of years as they do, their matter attains inexplicable properties of great value to practitioners of the Secret Art. Lyrinx who had this ability coveted cometary iron above all things, and Kalissin Spire represented the very acme of their desires. They brought their best and most creative intelligences here, to envelop themselves in the energy fields; to eat, breathe and sleep surrounded by this, to them, most magical of all substances.

Kalissin was their greatest workshop and laboratory. Here the lyrinx in their individual cells went about their urgent project. Clankers had inflicted enormous casualties on them and they were not numerous enough to support such losses. They had to find a defence.

Unfortunately they had not discovered how to tap the power of Kalissin. Just being within the fields helped, but it was not enough. It was frustrating to be surrounded by more power than they could ever use, and not be able to draw on it. They wanted the amplimet; more importantly, to find out how Tiaan used it to take power from the field. All this Tiaan learned, directly or indirectly, in her first days in Kalissin. A week went by. Tiaan was fully recovered, apart from a tenderness in her shoulder. The lyrinx had not treated her unkindly, and fed her better than she had ever eaten at the manufactory. At first she insisted on being shown the source of her meals, but soon realised that they respected her beliefs and taboos. The lyrinx would no sooner have fed her human flesh than they would have eaten their own dead. Besides, they mostly ate fish from the lake. Tiaan was soon sick of their diet: grilled fish, a kind of soupy algae, and a root vegetable like a pungent turnip. She had the same every day.

She was housed in a cluster of rooms near the top of the pinnacle. Their shape, like iron bubbles, was hard to get used to. The walls were curved, dark metal with streaks of rust. Her bedroom had a circular hole cut through to the exterior for fresh air, and a cap of green volcanic glass to close it when it was frigid outside. She seldom did. The iron conducted heat up from the depths, keeping the whole of Kalissin warm. The hole was too small to squeeze through.

The droning music was less audible here, and higher-pitched, more like a raspy oboe. The lyrinx had bored holes through the outer bubbles to make wind horns. The wind blew constantly around the heights and the horns never stilled their mournful voices.

None of these things gave Tiaan any comfort. Desire for the amplimet was a constant ache and the pangs grew worse every day, though she was helpless to do anything about her craving. She had learned to undo her door lock the first night but was caught within minutes. They did not harm her, but simply returned her to her room and fixed a bolt on the outside.

Every day they questioned her about the amplimet and the nature of her art and craft. She refused to answer, though with each day's separation from the crystal that grew harder. Soon, Tiaan knew, she would tell them everything, just to have it in her hands for an instant. And she had to have it. It was her only hope of getting free. Most important of all, it was the key to Minis's survival. In all her troubles she never lost sight of that ultimate goal – to get the amplimet to Tirthrax in time.

How she regretted telling Ryll about withdrawal, but it was too late for that. 'What are your people doing here?' she asked Ryll on the eighth day. 'Are you trying to make your own clankers? Is that why you're so interested in my craft?'

'We would hardly duplicate the weapons of our enemies,' he said coolly. Relations had been strained since she'd defended him.

'Why not?'

'That way lies degeneration. It would be going against our own nature. Any device we use must come from the wellspring of our lives and traditions.'

'But surely it would be easier…'

'What do we care about easier?' he said savagely. 'We are not human! We do not exist to make things easier for ourselves! Better, yes! It is the struggle that matters, else we will soon be as depraved as…'

He had been going to say 'as you'. She forbore to state that it would be worth it to win the war. It was already clear that, to them, the end did not justify the means. Only means that were part of their culture would ever be employed. 'What are you trying to do?'

'I can't tell you that.'

Another difference between lyrinx and humans. They did not lie, as a rule. They just refused to answer.

'Then what do you want me for? Since I've been here I've done nothing but eat and sleep. I begin to worry that I am being fattened for your dinner table.' She tried to make a joke of it, but was not convincing.

Undoing the cap on her window, he thrust his muzzle into the opening. When he finally pulled away there was a ring of ice around each eye. 'We're watching you and learning about your kind. We think you will be able to help us.'

Tiaan shivered. An icy wind was blowing straight in today. 'Your own efforts with my amplimet have not been successful?'

'What makes you think that?' he said, interested.

'Your manner with each other, and the tones of your voices. I am learning about lyrinx, too.'

'What else have you learned?'

'You never talk about your Histories, Ryll.'

He closed off at once. 'We are the lost people. We have no Histories.'

'What do you mean?'

She did not expect an answer, but after striding about the room in some agitation, and closing the door, Ryll came back to her.

'We patterned our unborn children in the void, that our kind might survive. And we did. We thrived. Thereafter we did it again and again, patterning our babies in the womb to meet each new threat. We survived; we increased; but we do not fit. We no longer know who we are.'

There were hundreds of lyrinx in Kalissin and a good proportion had one deformity or another – lack of wings or claws, inadequate armour or pigmentation, inability to change the colour of their skin. Tiaan wondered about that. Were they reverting to what they'd been before they re-formed their bodies in the void? None of them, even the normal ones, quite seemed to belong. The following day she was taken down a series of iron ladders, some straight, others corkscrewed, to a series of rooms halfway down the spire. The temperature increased with every step and in these middle chambers it was unpleasantly warm.

Ryll led her into a chamber where the central walls of a cluster of bubbles had been cut away to make a room shaped like a strawberry. In one corner of that uncomfortable space a small female lyrinx stood at a bench made of honeycombed iron, surfaced with rock glass the palest tinge of green. She was the one who had fixed Tiaan's shoulder at the trial, the one who lacked pigment in her skin. At the back of the bench sat a box made of iron wires and green glass, like a tank for fish.

The lyrinx wore Tiaan's helm. The globe sat on the bench. The creature was manipulating the beads. Her claws were retracted and the thick fingers surprisingly dexterous, though the glow emitted by the amplimet was unchanged no matter what she did.

Tiaan was drawn to the crystal. She could not help herself.

'This is Liett,' said Ryll to Tiaan.

Tiaan did not hear. Stumbling toward the bench with a dazed look on her face, she reached out for the amplimet. Ryll dragged her back.

Desperate for it, Tiaan tore free, darted around the startled lyrinx and sprang. Ryll caught her in mid-air, carried her to her room and locked her in.

'You will not touch the crystal again until you agree to help us. Do you hear me?' Banging the door, he slammed the bolt home.

Tiaan paced the room all day, growing more despairing each minute. The craving was unbearable. She paced out the night too, finally collapsing on her bed at dawn.

Ryll woke her soon after. He had the crystal in one hand, no doubt to torment her further. Tiaan threw herself on him like a savage, clawing and biting. He seemed surprised by her fury but simply held her in one hand until she was spent.

'Do you agree?' he asked calmly.

'No!' she snarled. Tiaan felt dazed, unreal. This close to the amplimet she could pick up traces of the field spiralling about Kalissin node. Tears of longing poured down her cheeks.

He walked out and bolted the door. By the time he returned the following day Tiaan felt sure that she was going mad. She had not slept, her hair was a riot, her eyes yellow and brown pits. She had broken her fingernails clawing at the door. Her forehead was bruised from banging it on the wall.

She lay on her back, looking up at the amplimet. She no longer had the strength to fight.

'Well?' he said. One facet of the crystal flashed at her.

She laid her head on the floor. 'I will help you,' she croaked, holding out her hand.

'Come down.' He walked out.

Tiaan followed him back to that strawberry-shaped room. 'This is Liett,' Ryll said.

Tiaan repeated the name, 'Li-ett,' pronouncing it the way names were sounded in her part of the world.

'No, Li'et-t.' She emphasised the second syllable and ending with a distinct t-t sound, like tapping the bench with a fingernail.

Tiaan tried again. 'Lee-et!'

The lyrinx parted her lips in a gesture that might have been a smile or a grimace. 'Just call me Leet!'

Tiaan moved closer to the bench, distracted by a scuttling movement in the box. Inside crouched a creature like nothing she had ever seen before. It was about the size of a mouse, with the general form of a lyrinx-like biped, though a savagely distorted one. Fur took the place of chameleon skin and it had enormous pink eyes.

It scuttled about on all fours. Its feet were padded hoofs, while the muscularity of its back looked more suited to the carrying of heavy loads than to walking upright.

'What is it?' Tiaan asked.

'A thramp!' Liett replied. 'Just observe, small human.'

Liett placed her hands around the walls of the cage, gently but firmly, and strained. Tiaan felt a fizzing sensation, though subtly different in pitch and colour from the one Besant had caused in the night flight. The sensation stopped and Liett jerked her hands away, panting with the effort.

She stood up, shaking her head as though trying to dislodge something caught in her colourless crest. Her fingers pressed the spot, over and over. Finally she sat down and closed her eyes.

Tiaan watched the little creature, which had fallen over and was kicking its back legs in uncoordinated spasms. Then, before her eyes, the pads of its feet began to thin and elongate. It happened so imperceptibly that at first Tiaan thought she'd imagined it. She had to compare what she was seeing now with its original self, like a blueprint in her mind, before she was sure.

'Are you a flesh-shaper?' she said to Ryll, recalling her dreams in the ice house.

'Some of us are.'

Had they done this to her while she slept? Was she subtly altered from before? She inspected her hands and the horror must have been evident on her face.

'Not you, Tiaan!' Ryll seemed amused.

'Why not?' she cried, backing away.

'Many reasons,' said Liett. 'But most important, you are too big.'

'Oh?'

'Even our greatest adepts can't flesh-form a creature larger than a rat. It takes too much out of us. The work is painful and quite draining. We can't channel power from outside us, as you do. Even if a dozen of us worked together, to flesh-form a creature the size of a cat would drive us to insanity. Even here.'

'I saw you shape new fingers,' she accused Ryll.

'That was regeneration, which is quite different. I was replacing what was lost, not creating a new organism. Our bodies can regenerate even if we are unconscious.'

'But in the void…'

'Also different.' He glanced at Liett. 'We were subtly shaping our unborn selves. Gently.'

Tiaan went back to the thramp. 'If you had a hundred working together, or a thou -'

'That many wills can't be focussed,' said Ryll. 'A hundred is worse than ten.'

'Moreover,' Liett went on, 'you would know it if we tried to work on you. Flesh-forming is torture. This creature has been sedated. Even so, the trauma will probably kill it.'

The thramp was now lying on its side, panting. Its eyes were staring.

'It does not look so bad.'

'The worst is to come,' said Ryll. 'Liett has just transformed the skin and muscle beneath it. To mould the bones and organs will take days. Flesh-shaping is a very slow process, with many failures, despite what your tellers may have told you.'

'Then why do it?'

'Small creatures can be…' She trailed off at a warning glance from Ryll, then continued. 'We have a hundred shapers here, and more at other nodes, as you call them. Once one shaper finds the way, others can follow. But one day we will learn to use the power this place bathes in. We will not fear your clankers then, human.'

'That's why you wanted our controllers!' Tiaan exclaimed. 'And me. You can't use the field and you want me to show you how. I won't. Never!' Why, why hadn't she taken that chance to escape, back at the ice houses?

'Oh yes, you will,' said Liett, with a glance at the amplimet. 'You will beg to help us.'