Geomancer twoe-1 Page 9

  ‘Have you found the answer yet?’ Irisis picked up one of the failed hedrons.

  ‘No, but I’m making progress. What about you?’

  ‘It’s not my controllers that failed.’

  ‘I thought you’d want to help, for the sake of the war,’ Tiaan said acidly. A tiny victory but it made her feel better.

  Irisis’s eyes darted to the globe and helm. ‘What’s that? Another toy for your bastard brothers and sisters?’

  As little as twenty years ago that would not have been an insult, in the days when women could choose to take a partner, or not. Tiaan clenched her fists. Irisis laughed openly. ‘You came from the breeding factory and that’s where you’ll end up. It’s all you’re good for anyway, lying on your back with your legs over your shoulders.’

  Tiaan gritted her teeth and said nothing, since that would annoy Irisis more than any reply she could think of.

  ‘Well, what is it?’ Irisis burst out.

  ‘I should have thought someone with your great crafter heritage would know at a glance.’

  ‘Just tell me!’

  ‘It’s a probe,’ Tiaan said, ‘to read the history of the faulty controllers and find out why they failed.’

  A spark lit in Irisis’s eyes. ‘It’ll never work.’ Picking up the helm, she weighed it in her hands and then put it on her head, where it sat like a pancake. ‘Doesn’t even fit.’

  ‘My head is smaller than yours.’

  Irisis rotated the helm, pushing its spidery legs down hard. She reached for the globe that still held the faulty hedron, but as she touched it the crystal in the helm flared white. There came a snapping sound, accompanied by a sizzle. Irisis screamed, tore the helm off and hurled it at the bench.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Tiaan could not comprehend what had happened.

  Irisis staggered drunkenly about, her eyes crossed. Her fingers rubbed furiously at her temple. Tiaan got her into a chair. The skin beneath where the crystal had sat was blistered and several strands of yellow hair had frizzled up.

  Irisis’s eyes uncrossed and she slapped Tiaan across the face with the full weight of arm and shoulder. It knocked Tiaan sideways. ‘You rotten little cow, you did that deliberately. Stay away from me, do you hear?’

  Tiaan backed away, rubbing her cheek.

  Irisis rose out of her chair as if propelled by a spring. She looked frightened, not a common expression on her face. What had the device done to her?

  ‘That thing’s corrupt, like you, Tiaan. You’ll never get anything out of it.’

  ‘You just don’t understand it,’ said Tiaan as Irisis made for the door. She could not resist a taunt, for she seldom got the last word with Irisis. ‘Maybe it’s you who’ll be going to the breeding factory.’

  ‘People like me don’t go to the breeding factory!’ she spat. She was peculiarly sensitive to slights against her ability as an artisan. ‘We marry well and live in luxury. Enjoy it while it lasts, Tiaan. You won’t be here much longer.’

  Tiaan, who before her mother’s decline had come from a long line of proud, independent women, wanted to fling herself on Irisis, clawing and screaming. But restraining herself, she slammed the door in her rival’s face. In a few days she had made two mortal enemies. And despite the shortage of men, she had no doubt that Irisis would make a good match. Her kind usually did.

  These controllers would decide Tiaan’s fate. If she found out why they had failed, and could solve the problem, she should be secure. If not, she was surely doomed.

  Tiaan could never submit to the breeding factory. It was a propaganda weapon, but also a way of using women who had failed in other areas of life, and those who could never find a mate because so many men had been killed in the war. Whole generations of youths had gone away and not come back.

  It was impossible to work now. As she was locking her door, Tiaan saw Nish across the way, leaning against the wall of the offices. No doubt he was gathering evidence for the perquisitor. Her life was collapsing around her.

  In her room, too shaken to eat or wash, Tiaan tossed her clothes into the basket, crawled in between the freezing sheets and curled up into a ball. Using a hedron always gave her fantastic dreams, as if it left her mind close to the ethyr that was the carrier of power. She hoped her dreams would be romantic ones tonight. Dreams were a refuge and an escape. She had never needed one more desperately.

  Tiaan dreamed about an unknown world, a gloomy land lit by a brooding orange moon, nothing like the moon. Black grass bent under a hissing wind. Oily, suppurating bogs were scattered across the landscape, around which grew blue and black and purple flowers, luminous in the darkness.

  She was standing on a balcony, staring toward broken-glass mountains in the west. Tiaan could feel her heart thudding against her ribs, the prickly rush of fear in the backs of her hands. Her fingers gripped the rail so hard that it hurt. Her jaw was clenched. She could feel her teeth grinding together. Why was she so afraid?

  A low rumbling began in the distance, like thunder but more earthy, as if transmitted through the ground. The breeze was whipping mist past her face, but it had the pungent reek of sulphur. Her eyes watered.

  She wiped the tears away. Staring at the jagged range, Tiaan realised that she was holding her breath, waiting for something to happen. She counted her heartbeats: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then backwards. She was still counting when there came a colossal explosion from the middle of the distant range, a flash that lit up the sky. Yellow glowing objects described parabolic trajectories through the air, slowly changing to orange and red as they fell.

  More explosions illuminated belching clouds that rose higher and higher, forming shapes like clenched fists, like anvils, like black mushrooms. Lightning rent the clouds. There was no thunder, no sound at all but the wind hissing over the grass.

  The explosions spread along the range from one horizon to the other until it looked as if the whole world was splitting apart, blowing its molten insides out. The clouds grew so thick that the wheeling fireballs could scarcely be seen. As Tiaan stared, a glowing paste made its way down the side of the mountain where the first explosion had occurred, like a red slug down the side of a pot. More streams followed until the dark mass of the mountain was woven with them. Tiaan felt another trickle of fear.

  The lava was flooding everywhere, issuing from every peak of that horizon-spanning chain, oozing toward her as if, in its inexorable progress, it would overwhelm the whole world.

  Her viewpoint shifted. Tiaan stared at the figure on the balcony, realising that it was not her at all, but a young, handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered, with glossy dark-brown hair, a trim beard, a full, sensuous mouth. He resembled the bold prince of her grandmother’s romantic tales.

  He seemed just as afraid as she had been, and she knew his doom was written in those red glyphs running down the mountains. He threw out his arms, looking around frantically as if seeking someone in the darkness. Help! She saw him mouth the words. Please help me!

  Before the sound reached her, there came a boom and roar like all the thunder in the world going off together. A solid wall of wind bent the grass, the scanty trees, the young man on the balcony. He looked directly at her and froze. His tentative, almost pleading smile cracked her soft heart. She smiled back, he cried out Help! then man and balcony were blown away. The earth moved, tossing her off her feet. Tiaan lost the dream.

  But later that night she dreamed that the young man lay beside her. Disturbing dreams they were – sensual, almost erotic. They made her hideously uncomfortable, yet she did not want them to stop.

  Tiaan woke with a headache and a faint memory of the first dream – the explosions, the stench of sulphur, the wild wind. She remembered that glorious face and the young man crying out. How strange! It was almost as if he had been begging her for help. But after all, it was just another hedron-induced fancy. She threw herself out of bed and hurried off to work.

  The first experiments with the dev
ice had gone well. She was beginning to read the history of the crystal, as if the letters that made up its story were stored in layers of light trapped within it. It had a strange, hot sense, which was odd. Hedrons usually seemed cool. So far, though, she had not learned what had gone wrong.

  At mid-morning her head began to ache and it grew rapidly worse. It seemed to be burning, like the image of the crystal. Don’t push too hard; anthracism is a horrible way to die …

  Tiaan went outside, collected her little chips of crystal and laid them in a line across the back of the bench. She put the helm on but a piercing pain made her whip it off again. She was hunched over, head in hands, when Gi-Had appeared with Gryste, the foreman, who reeked of spice.

  ‘You won’t make any progress that way, Artisan Tiaan!’ said Gryste.

  She squinted up at him. ‘I’m working eighteen hours a day.’

  ‘We’re all working hard,’ said the overseer.

  ‘I’m working harder than anyone!’ she snapped. Then, more softly, ‘My head feels as if it’s on fire, Gi-Had. I’m afraid …’

  He blanched. ‘Then stop. I’ll have no boiled brains in my manufactory.’

  ‘But I am making progress. I made this device to read the hedrons.’ She held it out.

  Gi-Had took up the helm, turning it in his fingers, and touched the crystal with a fingertip. Tiaan held her breath in case it stung him too, but nothing happened. That was not surprising. Psychically speaking, his mind was no more active than a piece of mutton.

  She put a hedron inside the globe and demonstrated how it was meant to work. The overseer and foreman listened carefully but probably did not understand much. That did not matter. Neither knew how controllers worked either, but they understood their value to the war.

  ‘What have you discovered?’ Gryste barked, like a general to a raw recruit.

  ‘All three hedrons show the same pattern. They worked perfectly when first installed. I have our log books here if you’d care to check them …’

  Gi-Had waved them away. ‘We trust your word.’

  ‘I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t obey my rules,’ said Gryste, ‘and she’s always going out without permission.’

  The overseer gestured him to silence. Tiaan described Joeyn’s observation about the effects of exposure on crystals, and her own experiments. She went through the series of numbered pieces on the bench, one by one. ‘I left these eight outside: two in sun, two in shade, two in wet, two in dry. And these eight inside: two right next to the furnace, two a little further away though still hot, these two where it was only warm, and these two against the cold south wall.’

  Gi-Had looked impressed. ‘What have you discovered?’

  ‘Nothing yet. I only just brought them in.’

  ‘Bah!’ said Gryste. ‘I told you she was a waste of time.’

  ‘Be quiet, junior foreman!’ Gi-Had snapped.

  Gryste’s face froze and Tiaan knew she had made another enemy.

  ‘Read them now, artisan,’ Gi-Had said.

  Tiaan prayed she was not going to disappoint the overseer. Donning the helm, she gritted her teeth against the pain and put the first chip in the globe. ‘There’s hardly any aura left.’ She took it out and began on the others, one by one.

  The overseer tossed the first chip in his big hands. ‘Number one,’ he read. ‘This one was left in sunlight?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  They watched in silence as she read the crystals. ‘The two in sunlight have some aura left, though not much. The four heated by the furnace are completely dead. All the others are unchanged.’

  Gi-Had looked confused.

  Tiaan explained. ‘Their ability to draw power from the field can be destroyed by putting them out in the sun, though that must take quite a while. Days or weeks for a big hedron, I’d think.’

  ‘That can’t be why yours failed,’ said Gryste. ‘They’re well looked after.’

  ‘No, but … I have an idea!’ Taking another handful of chips from her basket, she checked that they all had a strong aura. ‘Come with me to the furnaces.’

  They followed her, Gryste not trying to hide his irritation. ‘I’ve got work to do, even if no one else has,’ he grumbled.

  Tiaan put two chips against the wall of the furnace where it was practically red-hot, and two more where it was just hot enough to burn a fingertip. She left them there for five minutes then retrieved them with a pair of tongs.

  Back in her cubicle she read their auras. ‘The first two are completely dead. The others have a faint aura, though it’s fading. You see!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Make them really hot and they won’t work at all. Less hot, they work for a while, then fail.’

  ‘You’re saying that your hedrons were sabotaged,’ Gi-Had exclaimed. He exchanged glances with the foreman, whose face had gone stubbornly blank.

  ‘I don’t see how it could be anything else,’ Tiaan said. ‘The crystals never see sunlight from when they’re mined to when they reach our workshops, and once the operators receive the controllers no one could guard them more jealously. But put them against the wall of the furnace for five minutes and they’re useless. Anyone could have done that.’

  ‘Can you tell who?’

  ‘I’ve picked up strange traces in the little bit of aura that was left, but I can’t read them. I would need a really strong crystal to do that. Or perhaps with my pliance …’

  ‘Haahhh!’ Gi-Had let his breath out in a hissing sigh. Going to the door, he looked out and closed it. ‘Then we do have a spy among us.’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘You’d better find out before the perquisitor does.’ He looked irritable again.

  ‘I’m trying, but …’

  ‘No excuses now!’ Gi-Had snapped. ‘Our soldiers are dying every minute for want of clankers to protect them. If I can’t produce our quota, I’m likely to end up in the front-lines. At my age!’

  ‘I can only work for ten minutes before I get the headaches.’

  ‘Then get someone to help you. Irisis doesn’t look too busy today.’

  ‘She tried it yesterday,’ Tiaan said. ‘It hurt her badly.’

  ‘She accuses you of trying to kill her,’ said the overseer.

  ‘I did not ask her to touch my helm.’

  ‘Well, find someone else.’

  ‘No one else has the experience, or the control.’

  ‘There must be someone. There’s a thousand people in this manufactory, dammit!’

  ‘Would you ask a blacksmith to make your wife a necklace? Or a librarian to work the foundry? No one else here can do it, Overseer Gi-Had.’

  ‘Then go see the apothek, have him mix a potion for the headaches, and get to work! Everything is resting on you, Tiaan.’

  ‘And the spy?’ she said quietly.

  ‘Gryste will make that his first priority.’

  ‘I’ll begin on it right away,’ said the foreman sourly. ‘As if I don’t already have enough on my plate.’

  Gi-Had scribbled Tiaan an authorisation for the apothek. ‘Come on, foreman, we’ve work to do.’ They hurried off. The overseer was at home with ores and furnaces and metal, all things mechanical, but the work done here was well beyond his comprehension. He did not like that.

  Tiaan came back from the dispensary without the balm, which would require some time to prepare. Taking several glasses of tarry water, she rubbed her temples and went to see what the prentices were doing. Darya was head-down at her grinding wheel. Vyns and Ru-Dan were adjusting a set of clamps over another crystal, careful not to damage it. The other prentices were busy at their benches.

  ‘Where’s Gol?’ Tiaan asked.

  Ru-Dan looked up and said something to Vyns, who steadied the crystal while she strolled over, taking off goggles and dust mask. Ru-Dan was short and plump, with a cheerful round face marked (though not marred) by a round pox scar just above the corner of her mouth.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Ru-Dan smoothed back chestnut hair with
a hand glittering with powdered crystal.

  ‘I was looking for Gol.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him for an hour or two.’

  ‘What was he doing then?’

  The prentice hesitated, not wanting to get Gol into trouble.

  ‘Nothing, I’ll bet!’ said Tiaan. ‘When you see him, tell him I want to see him immediately.’

  Ru-Dan nodded. ‘Did you want anything else? Vyns and I are mounting a crystal right now.’

  ‘That was all.’ Then, as Ru-Dan walked back, ‘Have you seen Irisis?’

  ‘She was in your workroom a while ago.’

  Tiaan felt a twinge of unease. ‘Oh, thanks!’

  Some hours later, Irisis appeared at Tiaan’s cubicle with a small jar in her hand. ‘I was going past the apothek and he asked me to give you this,’ she said frostily.

  ‘Thank you.’ The label said to rub a small amount on her temples every four hours, or more frequently if the headache did not go away.

  Pulling off the lid, Tiaan took a smear of balm on her fingertip and began to massage it into her forehead. The skin grew warm. Her headache, which had been a dull throb for the past hour, faded slightly. Putting the jar to one side, she drew the wire globe toward her and looked around for the helm.

  She could not see it anywhere. Tiaan rifled through the clutter on the bench. Surely Irisis wouldn’t have taken it? Could she be the saboteur? It hardly seemed possible. But she had nothing to lose by undermining Tiaan, and everything to gain.

  Tiaan dismissed that as a fancy brought on by overwork and not enough in her belly. Heading out the door to the refectory, she saw something bright lying hard up against the wall. Her helm! It was bent out of shape, though nothing she couldn’t fix. How had it got there? She’d left it up the other end of the bench.

  It would not have been so deformed from falling off the bench. It must have been thrown, or struck! With a growing feeling of alarm she checked the crystal and immediately saw the crack, which went right across the hexagon of bubbles. Small curving cracks radiated away from one point, as if it had been struck with a hammer.

  Tiaan put the helm on her head, already knowing what she was going to find. It was completely dead. The crystal was ruined.