Geomancer (Well of Echoes) Page 4

  It took some time to free it, after which Tiaan removed the drawer to see what was the matter. She was used to fixing things. Probably the runners needed waxing. As she was rubbing them with the stub of a candle, she noticed that the drawer was shallower than its external dimensions indicated. That could only mean one thing.

  It did not take her long to find the secret compartment. Inside lay a slim book made of rice paper, with soft leather covers. She picked it up. The title page simply said: Runcible Nunar – The Mancer’s Art.

  No wonder Barkus had hidden it. The penalty for having an illegal copy of any book on mancing would be horrific. Nunar’s treatise was justly famous and many copies had been made, though such books were guarded jealously. Why had Barkus, a humble crafter in an obscure manufactory, obtained an illegal copy?

  At a footfall outside the door, Tiaan thrust the book into her coat and pushed the drawer in. A cold voice broke into her thoughts.

  ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Tiaan said. The intruder was Irisis Stirm, a fellow artisan slightly Tiaan’s junior, although Irisis did not think so.

  She stood in the doorway, tapping an elegant foot. Irisis knew her worth. Tall and lavishly endowed, with corn-yellow hair and brilliant blue eyes, she stood out in the manufactory like a beacon. Tiaan had never met anyone with hair that colour, and no one around here had blue eyes, though the old crafter’s may have been when he was young.

  ‘You have no right to come in here. These are the crafter’s rooms. He was my uncle!’ Irisis pointed that out at every opportunity.

  ‘I answer to Gi-Had, not you! Look to the quality of your own work!’

  That was a mistake. Irisis was much better at managing the other artisans than Tiaan was. Moreover, she made controllers of rare perfection and extraordinary beauty – works of art. Her use of crystals, though, was timid, and she was peculiarly sensitive to criticism about it.

  ‘At least my controllers work!’ Irisis sneered.

  ‘Only because we all help you tune them.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Irisis cried. ‘If Uncle Barkus was still alive he’d put you in your place.’

  ‘He did! He put me above you. Now he’s dead and I am responsible for your work.’

  ‘Unless,’ Irisis said reflectingly, ‘you’re sent to the breeding factory to do your duty.’

  Tiaan had no comeback. Irisis did her duty enthusiastically and often, though so far with no sign of success. Perhaps she used a preventative. That was a serious crime, though not an uncommon one. Heading for the door, Tiaan laughed nervously. ‘I think I’m more valuable here than there!’

  Irisis’s blue eyes flashed. ‘You couldn’t manage a dung fight in a pigsty! I’ll be crafter here one day, over you! Then you’ll know it.’ She stood by the door as Tiaan went out. There was no chance to put the book back.

  Returning to her bench, Tiaan watched Irisis across the room as she donned goggles and mask and sat down at her grinding wheel. It began to whine and the artisan took up a crystal. Soon the air was full of drifting specks.

  Tiaan worked fruitlessly for hours, until her head drooped. She laid it on the bench, then realised that the manufactory was silent. It must be midnight. Plodding to her room, she washed in a basin of cold water and fell onto her straw-stuffed pallet.

  As soon as her head hit the pillow, Tiaan’s worries returned and, though exhausted, she found herself wide awake. She went over her problems again and again, quite uselessly. Finally, knowing she was never going to get to sleep, she lit a candle, locked her door and took out the forbidden book.

  She did not open it immediately. Tiaan was not sure she should look at it at all, but if she took it back to the crafter’s workshop, Irisis’s spies would tell her at once. If she handed it in to the overseer after this delay there would be suspicion that she’d read it first. The scrutator had watchers in the manufactory and little escaped their attention. She would be marked for life.

  She considered hurling it into one of the furnaces when no one was looking. However, if the book was protected by a spell, as such things often were, anything might happen. Besides, books were precious, sacred things and Tiaan could not imagine burning one. She could hide it, but what if someone unsuitable found it? What if it fell into the hands of the enemy?

  Tiaan opened the book. The paper had a lovely silky feel. The text was written in a number of different hands, no doubt a copy. The language was the common speech spoken throughout the south-east, so she could read the words, though they made little sense. That was not surprising. Her day book, which contained details of her work on controllers, would be equally incomprehensible to most people. Then, as she was flipping through, a heading caught her eye.

  Application of the Special Theory to the Powering of Mechanical Contrivances

  My Special Theory of Power describes the diffuse force, or field, that surrounds and permeates the fabric of nodes. It is this force that mancers have drawn upon since the Secret Art was first used, at least seven millennia ago. However, mancing has always been restricted by our inability to understand the field: where it comes from, how it changes over time and how it can safely be used.

  Furthermore, all drawn power must pass through the mancer first, which causes aftersickness, and the greater the power the worse the effects. Too great a drain of power will be, and has proven many times, horribly fatal.

  The traditional solution has been to enchant an artefact, such as a mirror, ring or jewel, and simply trigger the device when needed. This also has problems: artefacts are notoriously difficult to control, may become corrupted over time (witness the Mirror of Aachan) and once discharged are useless until they can be recharged.

  Yet we know the ancients used devices with the capacity to replenish themselves. We do not know how that was done, but how else can we explain such long-lived devices as the Mirror, Yalkara’s protected fortress of Havissard, or contrivances that used such prodigious quantities of power as Rulke’s legendary construct?

  The field, the weakest of the five elemental forces, is the only one we mancers have ever been able to tap. Nonetheless, much can be done with it. My Special Theory enables us to understand the diffuse force, and perhaps create a controller apparatus to tap it safely. Instead of all power being drawn through the mancer, with its limitations of frail flesh, the mancer simply senses the field and draws just enough power to channel the flow, via the ultradimensional ethyr, directly into the controller. The controller can then transmit it to power the contrivance, whether this be a mechanical cart, a pump or any other mechanism required.

  Being a humble theoretician, I will leave the design of such devices to those with the aptitude and interest in such things. Suffice it to say that any such device should comprise the following components …

  Tiaan knew all about such devices; that was her work. She skipped forward a few paragraphs.

  The process may generate a shifting aura about the crystal powering the controller, perhaps mimicking the aurora-like field about the node from which the power was drawn. A nearby sensitive might be able to detect this aura, though in normal use it is expected to be insignificant …

  Tiaan put the book down. This was the very document wherein Nunar first set down the principles of controllers, nearly a hundred years ago. Her theory had enabled the construction of clankers and certain other secret devices, without which the war would have been lost long ago.

  She ploughed on. Nunar went on to speculate about a General Theory of Power, which would deal with nodes themselves, the several different strong forces they were expected to be made of, how they related to each other and, finally, how such prodigious forces might be tapped. Nunar noted, however, that nodal forces might never be tapped safely. She also mentioned the holy grail of theoretical mancers, the Unified Power Theory, which would reconcile all the forces mancers knew of, weak and strong, in terms of a single field. Nunar closed the section by stating that such a theory seemed as far
off as ever.

  Tiaan hid the book behind a loose brick in the wall, under her bed. It seemed no use at all.

  She dozed briefly, her head crackling with fractured crystal dreams, to wake with the answer in her mind. She must design a device to test the faulty hedrons and read what had happened to them. Only then could she find a way to solve the problem. Sitting up in bed, Tiaan reached for slate and chalk and began sketching.

  She had just completed a rough sketch, and blown out her candle, when Tiaan heard the rattle and groan of a clanker coming up the road. It had to be Ky-Ara returning. Since it was practically dawn, she dressed and went out.

  A sleepy attendant with a lantern was opening the side gate as she arrived. Gi-Had was there too. He must have returned in the night. Tiaan watched the monster emerge from the dark. The clanker had covered lanterns on the front, a broad, segmented body made of overlapping plates of armour, and four pairs of mechanical legs driven by ingenious gearing. It was large enough to carry ten people and all their gear, though in bone-shaking discomfort. The shooter’s platform on top, with its mechanical catapult and javelard, was empty.

  The clanker clumped into the shed and stopped. The mechanism creaked and groaned, then there was silence save for the whine of the twin iron flywheels that stored power in case the field was interrupted momentarily. The flywheels would still be going at dinnertime, slowly running down.

  The back hatch opened. A slim young man climbed out, pack in one hand, a satchel in the other. He stretched, gave the machine an anxious pat on the flank and turned around.

  Ky-Ara was not overly tall. His lean, handsome face was marred by a weak jaw. A shock of wiry hair stood out in all directions. His dark eyes were red-rimmed. There was a smudge of black grease across one cheek. Despite all that, Tiaan rather liked the look of him.

  ‘It’s good to have her whole again,’ Ky-Ara said to Gi-Had, avoiding Tiaan’s eye. ‘After the controller died… I thought I’d never drive her again.’

  His face crumbled. The bond between clanker and operator was intense, almost like that between lovers, and a threat to it had been known to cause mental breakdown. Ky-Ara looked close to one now. Tiaan felt for him.

  ‘It’s been hard work getting used to the new controller,’ he continued. ‘I’ve got a shocking headache. Despatch for you, surr!’ He handed the satchel to Gi-Had.

  ‘Thank you.’ The overseer turned away to open it. He began to read a document, frowning as he did.

  ‘What happened when it failed?’ Tiaan asked Ky-Ara.

  The operator’s top lip quivered but he mastered himself. ‘We were heading up the coast from Tiksi. Everything had gone perfectly. We were passing out of the aura of the Lippi node towards the Xanpt node. That’s a really strong one …’

  ‘So I believe,’ said Tiaan. She liked the shape of Ky-Ara’s mouth. A wonder she hadn’t noticed him before.

  ‘I had the controller helm on, sensing out the Xanpt field in advance. Sometimes it can be tricky shifting from one to another, and I didn’t want to get stuck between fields. The flywheels won’t drive her weight for that long.’

  He looked sideways at Tiaan. She nodded.

  ‘The Lippi field began shifting wildly: sometimes strong, at other times hardly there at all. The fields grew harder and harder to visualise; I couldn’t tune either of them in.’ His voice cracked as he relived the awful scene. ‘I began to think that the Lippi field was going, though the two clankers ahead of me seemed to be having no trouble.’ Ky-Ara went pale and had to sit down.

  ‘What happened then?’ Gi-Had prompted after a long silence.

  ‘I lost it. Both fields were gone! The hedron was dead and there was nothing I could do about it. If it had happened in battle …’ He shivered. ‘I took the controller out, got a lift back to Tiksi on a cart and sent the controller up the mountain.’

  ‘I have it in my workshop,’ said Tiaan. ‘I can’t work out what’s happened. The crystal is completely dead.’

  Ky-Ara looked distressed, like a lost boy. ‘If that’s all,’ he said, cradling the controller in his arms, ‘I’ll go to my quarters. I haven’t slept for two nights.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Ky-Ara,’ said Gi-Had. ‘I know you’ve done your best. It must have been difficult for you.’

  The young man went out. Tiaan’s dark eyes followed him thoughtfully.

  ‘You’re wondering if he might be the one?’ Gi-Had’s rumble broke into her thoughts, startling her.

  Tiaan flushed. She had been thinking exactly that. Also thinking that, if she must mate, why not with a clanker operator? There were many similarities in their lives and work, and if they did not get on, he would be away most of the time. If nothing came of it, no one could say that she had not done her duty.

  ‘Yes,’ she said softly.

  ‘Strange folk, clanker operators. Their machines always come first – you know that.’

  It didn’t require an answer. He shook out the rolled despatch, scowling ferociously. ‘Bad news?’ she asked.

  ‘Another problem. A worse one.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Tiaan warily.

  ‘More clankers wiped out, on the coast well north of Xanpt. Each time, the enemy knew just where to find them.’

  ‘Clankers are pretty noisy,’ said Tiaan.

  ‘Not these ones.’ Gi-Had looked over his shoulder. The attendant was a long way away but the overseer lowered his voice anyway. ‘They were using a new development, a Sound Cloaker! You can’t hear them move. And no one knew where they were going.’

  ‘But that means,’ said Tiaan, ‘the enemy has a way of finding them. Using the Secret Art –’

  Gi-Had spun around. ‘Oy, you, clear out, now!’

  A large bald man touched his brow then slouched off. It was Eiryn Muss, a halfwit who had a lowly place at the manufactory. He was always shambling about, peering over people’s shoulders.

  Gi-Had turned back to Tiaan. ‘And if they can do that, they will destroy them all. And us! Find out how they do it, Tiaan.’

  ‘Is this more important than finding out why the hedrons failed? Or making replacement controllers?’

  ‘They’re all important,’ he growled.

  ‘I can’t do everything. I’m always exhausted as it is.’

  ‘Leave controller-making to the others for the time being. The best artisans from every manufactory have been ordered to work on these two problems.’

  Her head jerked up. ‘So it’s not just my controllers that have failed?’

  ‘Not according to this. But that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.’

  ‘Are you happy with my work, overseer?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I’m keeping an eye on you. Better get on with it.’ Nodding distractedly, Gi-Had hurried off.

  THREE

  Cryl-Nish Hlar looked up from his bench as Tiaan went by. He desired her, and had ever since arriving at the manufactory three years ago. Unfortunately, Tiaan was oblivious to him. That hurt Nish, as he was mockingly known. In the local dialect the word meant pipsqueak.

  Nish was short and it was the bane of his life. He came from a long line of short people and despised every one of them for it. He was not unhandsome, in a brooding sort of way, with his cap of dark hair that showed the contours of his skull, and bright eyes that could be as green as the ocean, or as grey. Unfortunately his sallow skin was spotty, which was a torment, and his downy chin incited sneers of ‘bum fluff’.

  He had a strong body though – broad, square shoulders, a stomach as hard and flat as a paving stone, jutting buttocks which excited ribald comments from the women he worked with, and heavy thighs. He was also, he liked to think, sturdily equipped for breeding.

  Not that, Nish thought gloomily, he got any chance for that. Despite the severe shortage of males the women of the manufactory, like those of the mining village nearby, were not enamoured of him. He felt sure it was because he was short and spotty, and had no beard. How he hated his body.

  That had nothing to
do with it, of course. In these times even hideous men had their choice of partners. Moreover, he had other appealing characteristics – he was clever and of good family. Unfortunately he had one handicap fatal to intimacy. With women younger than his mother, Nish was so anxious that he became mortifyingly inarticulate.

  Though not particularly skilled with his hands, Nish had a lively, restless intelligence and learned quickly. He also had a brilliant memory – for names, faces, things seen and conversations overheard. That was of great benefit to him in his other, unmentioned occupation.

  Both his father, Jal-Nish Hlar, and his mother, Ranii Mhel, had been examiners. All the more incomprehensible that they could have made such a mistake with him. Every child in the east, and possibly the entire world, was taken before the examiners at age six, where every talent, creative or intellectual, manual, mechanical or psychic, was identified. On that basis children were assigned their occupations for life – labourer, miner, scribe, artisan, merchant, soldier, breeder! There was no room for childhood; the war with the lyrinx was a hundred and fifty years old. The soldiers, and the other dead, had to be made up. Children must work. The entire world was regimented for one thing – survival.

  The examiners came again at the age of eleven, and for the third and final time at sixteen, to make sure. Some promising talents withered early, while others blossomed late.

  Nish had been happy in his prenticeship as a scribe for one of the great merchants of Fassafarn, a trading city on the south coast of Einunar. Fassafarn was an ice-free port through which much of the wealth of the south was shipped to markets as far away as Crandor, and even Thurkad before its fall. He had been learning the principal languages and scripts of the known world, and was ideally suited for such work. Nish liked meeting powerful people and being trusted to translate their documents. He’d planned to become a merchant himself, one day, and make so much money that he could buy anything he wanted.