Geomancer

F ORTY -T WO

That night Tiaan dreamed the earthly structure of Kalissin Spire and woke afraid. The very crust of the world seemed out of balance here. The land was imperceptibly rising, returning to its elevation before the ice sheets had weighed it down. Below, the fluid mantle drifted, immeasurably slow, to compensate.

Her dreams spoke to Tiaan after she was allowed to touch the amplimet. The fields churned all around her, and she sensed another potential. Beneath the iron spire the magma had subsided, leaving an empty chamber. Cooling, shrinking rock had cracked in concentric circles around the base of the spire, which was sinking, unleashing geomantic forces of many kinds.

Tiaan was woken by the wailing of pipes, not far away. They had been going for days now, playing the sorrowful songs that had been the life and death of Besant, Wise Mother of a lyrinx clan for more than eighty years.

Myrriptth tzzrk yllishyn

N'harrth girrymirr

N'voxur

Ynnirysh thylrjizz myrzhip

The alien syllables rasped on, hour after hour. Another dream flooded back and Tiaan threw herself out of bed, kicking the sheet of woven rush fibres away. Her skin crawled.

Running to the window and tearing the cap open, she thrust her face through. Freezing air belted her in the face. She gulped down mouthfuls of it, so cold that Tiaan felt clots sinking into her lungs. She welcomed the frigid metal against her skin as she went through her second dream, over and again.

Flesh-forming was a talent unique to lyrinx, honed over the aeons they had spent in the void, when being able to physically adapt their young to new environments had been the ultimate way of surviving. In her dream they had been flesh-forming her, turning her into a monster, an eight-legged beast alarmingly similar to a clanker. When they were finished they would send her out to destroy clankers and kill soldiers, the ultimate betrayal of her own kind. As if she had not done enough harm already. By withholding the crystal, they could force her to do anything, no matter how degraded.

The room trembled, just a shiver. It might have been the spire contracting in the night cold, or an earth trembler far away. Or the stone at the base of the spire preparing to give way. That dream came back too, lifting the hairs on the back of her neck. This place had such potential, but the spire was hanging over an abyss.

What did they really want her for? To draw power through the amplimet? To make a controller that would enhance their hideous flesh-forming? Or, most horrible of all, to flesh-form her? Despite what had been said about size, that dominated her dreams. It made her shudder to think what they were doing. It was indecent.

The bolt cracked and the door came open. It was Liett. With her thin skin she sometimes looked almost human, apart from the wings.

'Come!' Liett took Tiaan's wrist. Small she may have been, and soft-skinned, but she was many times stronger than Tiaan.

'I'm not dressed,' said Tiaan.

'It's hot below,' said the creature, as if that was all that mattered.

No doubt it was to them; they had no need of clothes. Tiaan grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around her as she was hauled away. Liett did not like Tiaan. Tiaan did not care for her either.

She went down the ladder ahead of the lyrinx, the rough edges digging into her feet. She was not used to going barefoot. A long way down Liett said, 'Stop here.' Ahead, an iron-grey bubble had a ragged hole knocked through into the chamber next door.

'Where are we going?'

'To work. Go through.'

She ducked through the hole and Tiaan followed. Though wide, it was not even shoulder-high. Liett pulled a hidden door closed. Tiaan found herself in a larger, triple bubble, the common walls of which had been cut away above waist height to form a stalk on which was mounted a cloverleaf tabletop of polished iron, some two spans across. On one of its lobes sat her amplimet, globe and helm. Other benches set in the walls at the height of her throat contained glass and metal cages like the ones she had seen previously. The room was lit by a round hole in the wall, filled in with glass a handspan thick. The sun was coming up.

Liett pulled out a high stool, the seat also clover leaf-shaped, and pointed to it. Tiaan climbed up. The seat was uncomfortable and she did not like being clad in a sheet. It reminded her of the breeding factory.

The lyrinx busied herself at another bench. She was only the size of a tall man. A soft, translucent green crest ran from her forehead to the nape of her neck, indicating that she was a mature female. Children had colourless crests.

Liett was heavily built compared to a human male, though slight relative to other lyrinx, male or female. Her shoulders were wide, the torso long with a small indentation at the waist. Her hips were broad, her short legs muscular, her feet wide. The wings were folded flat against her back.

It was her skin that most distinguished her from every other lyrinx. On them it was leathery, with hard plates that protected the genitalia and vital organs of the belly and chest, and more flexible plates elsewhere, while its chameleon pigments completely concealed the soft second skin beneath.

On Liett the outer skin was thin and completely transparent, like a layer of jelly spread over pale-grey inner skin. Even the parts covered by her undeveloped skin plates were visible. She looked almost human, if the wings were discounted.

'How is it…?' Tiaan thought better of it.

'I am incomplete,' Liett said with a sideways twist of her mobile mouth. 'I have to wear clothes outside.' She used the word as if it were a depravity, or a fatal weakness. Perhaps it was, to them. 'And I cannot skin-change!'

'Why does that matter?'

Liett cracked a wing at Tiaan's face. 'It matters!'

Tiaan jumped backwards, knocking over the stool and landing hard on it, legs asprawl. 'Ow!' she yelped.

Liett effortlessly lifted her onto the stool. Tiaan rubbed her back.

'Skin-change is speech and reply, fear and curiosity, and an embrace with a lover. It is half our lives. I am blind without it.'

Tiaan had often noted Ryll's colour-changes without realising that they were a form of communication. 'Tell me…'

'To work!' Liett said abruptly. 'Take up your devices. Try to follow what I am doing.'

She placed her hands on a cage which had wire bars instead of glass. The creature inside snapped at her fingers. Liett put a larger cage over the first and closed her eyes.

Tiaan felt that familiar fizzing. She gladly took hold of the amplimet, closed her eyes and allowed her mind to drift into the one pleasure of her life, her romantic daydream about Minis. It was an escape she used more and more, though worrying that he was becoming an obsession.

'Well?' Liett said sharply.

Tiaan opened her eyes to find the lyrinx looming over her, one ebony nipple staring at her like an accusing eye. She started and nearly fell off her stool.

'Can you see what I am trying to do?'

'Not yet,' Tiaan said guiltily. 'It's hard…'

'Hmpf!' Liett went out. Shortly Ryll appeared, carrying three cages suspended by cords. Sliding them onto the bench he came around the side, stopping abruptly when he caught sight of Tiaan in her sheet.

'Where are your clothes?'

'Liett was in a hurry,' she said tersely.

He spun on one leathery foot and went out, soon returning with her garments. Tiaan dressed in haste. She had just finished when Liett reappeared. She stood in the doorway, tension evident in every muscle. Her claws were extended. She growled at Ryll in their language.

'How can she work if she's… thyllxish?' he hissed back.

With a toss of her head Liett stalked to the bench, her toe claws clacking on the floor. The sound was irritating.

Tiaan bent over the amplimet but could not concentrate. She could feel something in the air, a tension she had not felt with Ryll before. Looking sideways, she saw him staring at Liett's buttocks. She had not noticed previously, but it was an obvious difference between the sexes. Ryll's were muscular but flat whereas Liett's were extremely fleshy and prominent.

Tiaan could see the smouldering sensuality in her, and the desperate ache in Ryll to mate. It made her uncomfortable.

Liett put down the caged creature she was working with and bent over to pick up something from the floor. It was a display; a tease or a taunt. Ryll let out an involuntary groan.

Liett spun around. 'What are you…?' She broke off, as Ryll turned his back.

'Never!' Liett raged in Tiaan's language. 'Not in a hundred eternities would I allow you, wingless one!'

Ryll's crest coloured red, then purple. Bright spirals shimmered across his chest plates, gorgeous patterns that could only have been a reply to her taunt. He stood in a loose-limbed crouch, the colours so intense that they lit up the dim room. Tiaan had never seen anything so beautiful, futile or sad.

'Think you that I would mate with you?' he spat. 'Better no mate at all than one as naked as a human. One with no colour at all. One who cannot skin-speak.'

Liett's wings flashed out to full size, spanning half the bubble-room. They were beautiful, like pearly, translucent milk. She looked majestic. It made Ryll's lack all the more evident. Extending one hand, waist-high, she slid her claws out like oiled machinery. 'Open your groin plates again! I will neuter you this minute,' she hissed.

Tiaan ducked under the bench and pulled the stool in front of her. She could imagine the ruin if they fought. Fortunately, before it could begin another lyrinx entered the room, head and shoulders bowed to pass through the opening. It was the old female, Coeland, matriarch of the spire clan.

'How are…?' As she took in the attitudes of Ryll and Liett, her cheek plates hardened. 'What is it?' Her voice was a file rasping against steel.

Ryll hung his head, his crest dulling to the colour of his skin. Liett glared at him but would not meet Coeland's eyes. Neither answered.

'Well?' Coeland roared. 'We are at war, remember?'

As the silence lengthened, it became clear that neither could reveal the source of their disagreement without losing face.

'Very well,' said Coeland, 'when this is over you are both sentenced…'

She broke off, noticing Tiaan cowering under the bench. 'Ah, human. Come out. Explain the problem.'

Tiaan remained where she was, holding the stool in front of her like a shield. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Ryll staring at her. She knew what he was thinking. Don't reveal my shame!

Crossing the distance between them in two quick strides, Coeland caught Tiaan by the wrists. The claws dug in as she dragged Tiaan from her hide and tossed her on the bench. The huge eyes seemed to see right into her head.

'How do I know what lyrinx fight about?' Tiaan said, trying to evade the eyes.

'You weren't so coy the day you arrived.' Coeland's hand squeezed until Tiaan thought her wrist bones were going to splinter. Blood ebbed from the claw punctures. She cried out.

'You may speak,' said Ryll. 'I would not have you harmed on my behalf.'

'Ryll is desperate to mate,' Tiaan gasped. 'Liett too. But neither wishes to mate with another who is flawed. Liett flaunts herself, taunts him, and then threatens to neuter him if he approaches her.'

'Is this true?' Coeland asked.

'Yes!' Ryll said in a choked voice.

'Yes, Wise Mother!' said Liett. Her eyes flashed fire at Tiaan and Ryll.

Coeland sprang at Liett, striking her so hard across the flat of her forehead that the small lyrinx went tumbling across the room to land with her backside in the air. Picking Liett up, the Wise Mother held her out at arm's length.

'You will work with him without complaint,' she said through bared teeth, 'or I will have Ryll neuter you!'

'But I am your daughter!'

'All the more reason to do your duty,' Coeland said coldly.

'He is nothing but a beast.' She tried to spit in Ryll's direction but it merely dribbled down her chin. 'He has no wings!'

'And you, my unfortunate child, have skin like a human, a far worse handicap. You cannot skin-speak, and you cannot go outside without skin paste, or clothes. You have never proven your worth. Ryll, wingless though he may be, is a hero who has given everything to bring this treasure to us. You will work with him or he will neuter you at my command. Will you?' She lowered Liett until her feet touched the floor.

'I will,' Liett said softly, laying her cheek submissively on her mother's arm. But as she did so her eyes flashed at Tiaan, such a baleful glare that Tiaan had to turn away.

'And you, Ryll?' said Coeland.

Ryll bent until his forehead touched the Wise Mother's feet. His crest went purple, then red, before fading to grey. 'I will do my duty,' he said, equally softly.