Tetrarch Part 6

'A tonic for exhaustion, body or mind.'

She took another piece. Tiaan did too.

'This level of the city is undefendable,' Malien went on. 'And that's a pity, because there are things here I would sooner the enemy never saw, not least of them the wrecked constructs. Fortunately I can seal off the upper and lower entrances. We have greater treasures there. I wonder what brought the lyrinx here?' She looked questioningly at Tiaan.

'The amplimet, I expect. They can track such things.'

'How do you know that?' Malien said sharply.

'At the manufactory, when I was an artisan ...' Memories of her lost life came rushing back and for a moment Tiaan could not speak. 'The enemy were locating our clankers from afar, and we could not tell how. I discovered that they could sense the aura given off by a working crystal.'

'How? I've never heard of such a thing.'

'I was never sure. They used something that resembled a large, leathery mushroom. I don't know whether they made it, grew it or '

'Flesh-formed it,' Malien said, with an uncharacteristic shiver. 'Go on.'

'I developed a way of shielding crystals from them.'

'What did you do?'

'I wrapped the crystals in gold foil, sealed them tight and covered everything with pitch. That cut off the aura and prevented the crystals being sabotaged by heat, too.' She looked away. 'I miss my work.'

'What a remarkable young woman you are,' said Malien. 'I wish '

'What?'

'No matter.'

Malien activated sentinels squat black cones at the entrances to the lower and upper levels. Tiaan's eyes lingered on the broken constructs as they went by. The design, and the workmanship, was magnificent. Were they powered by the field, as clankers were, or did they draw on an entirely different source? She wanted to get inside one and find out. Tiaan really missed her craft.

They went up. It was not far, now that Tiaan knew the way, but they had to climb eight long swirling flights of stairs, one after another. By the last, the old woman was shaking.

'This day has been rather too much for me. I'll see you in the morning.' Malien went into her room and closed the door.

Tiaan had a drink of water and sat down until her heart stopped hammering. She was overcome by a deep melancholy. Such a small decision to care about Minis, such mighty consequences. Was the world already at war with the Aachim? Were innocent people being slaughtered while she sat here in luxury?

Tiaan sprang out of the chair. She felt a mad urge to hurt herself, to make herself suffer as a way of connecting with Haani. Flinging the door open, she hurtled up the stairs to Malien's lookout, rejoicing in the ache in her side. She slapped the opener with her palm. The gla.s.s wall slid back and Tiaan pushed out into the gale.

The balcony was icy. Tiaan slipped, cracking her shin against the stone seat. Limping to the edge, she looked over. The air was perfectly clear, the distant peaks like etchings on gla.s.s. A low sun glinted bronze off the ice sheet.

The view was magical but Tiaan could not see it, any more than Malien did in the hours she spent here every day. Malien looked across the void to Aachan, the ancestral world her people had been cut off from thousands of years ago. Now they would never return. The small, cold globe that was Aachan was no longer habitable. They were forever exiles.

As was she. By the time the red sun plunged into a lake of mist, Tiaan was practically frozen to the seat.

'What the blazes do you think you're doing?'

Malien was shaking her. Tiaan could see nothing, and for an instant of horror thought her eyes must have frozen solid. The Aachim picked crusted snow off her eyelids, rubbed them with a warm palm and Tiaan's eyes cracked open.

Back down below, her fingers wrapped around a mug of a custardy-thick, sweet red drink, Tiaan began to feel rather foolish. The emotions that had taken her outside felt alien now.

'I suppose ...' she said haltingly, 'I was punishing myself.'

'What a stupid stupid thing to do! If you have done harm, do something to make up for it.' thing to do! If you have done harm, do something to make up for it.'

Tiaan sipped her drink. Malien was right. She must do something, but what? Maybe she should try to get back to the manufactory and resume her artisan's work.

Malien was turning the pages of a small book bound in yellow calf, though not reading it.

'Is something the matter?' said Tiaan.

Malien laid the book to one side. 'I cannot tell you what a shock it was to hear of the gate, and see those constructs. Arrogance was ever an Aachim failing, and so many constructs, and such power, would breed hubris in the meekest of b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Vithis is a type I know well a brilliant, blind fool. After the loss of world and clan, he will not compromise. He has suffered why should others not suffer equally? We have had many such leaders in our Histories, but all looked backwards to a time when we were great, while knowing that such times were past.

'Vithis is different. Having lost everything that mattered, nothing can moderate him, and now he has the opportunity of a lifetime. With his mighty force, the most powerful ever a.s.sembled, he comes to a world ruined by war. What will he do?'

'Take it,' Tiaan said softly. 'But ... we are all humankind. Maybe he will ally with us to defeat the lyrinx.'

'I would,' said Malien, 'but why would Vithis? Many Aachim think of you old humans as primitive, even sub-human, and from what you say of him Vithis holds to that view. He may prefer to let the lyrinx win, or even side with them to destroy humanity.' would,' said Malien, 'but why would Vithis? Many Aachim think of you old humans as primitive, even sub-human, and from what you say of him Vithis holds to that view. He may prefer to let the lyrinx win, or even side with them to destroy humanity.'

Tiaan's blood congealed. 'He would not,' she whispered. 'He could not.'

'Look at your own Histories, Tiaan. The more advanced races, or the more powerful nations, have wiped out hundreds of the lesser.'

'But humanity has a great and ancient civilisation. How could anyone think ...?'

'Look to your Histories, I say.'

Tiaan could not countenance it. That Vithis might destroy humanity, and all its culture and Histories, as carelessly as one might kill a c.o.c.kroach, was incomprehensible.

'And nothing can be done about it?' she said in a daze.

'I wouldn't say nothing nothing,' said Malien. 'Vithis must have weaknesses as well as strengths.'

'I saw none, apart from clan rivalry.'

'Which would disappear the instant the Aachim were threatened.'

'And perhaps your own people would join with them to make an even stronger force.'

'If pushed hard enough, they they probably would.' probably would.'

'But not you you, Malien?'

'I will never betray my own kind, Tiaan. But I will do what I can for all humanity.'

'And I!' Tiaan swore. 'Since I brought the Aachim here, I must make up for it.' How, though? She was trapped by geography, hundreds of leagues from anywhere.

Malien sat forward on her chair, looking down at her boots. Her veined hands shook. She rested them on her knees. 'I ' She broke off.

Tiaan said nothing. What could Malien offer her but words? Words could change nothing.

'You can never know what I felt when I heard about the amplimet,' said Malien.

Not expecting that, Tiaan felt a surge of jealous anger. 'Why?' she said coolly. 'What is it to you?'

'The chance to look back to lost Aachan.'

'You can't have been born there.' The Histories were clear on that.

'I was not. We came to Santhenar thousands of years ago, mostly as slaves of the Charon. For that reason, few of us feel perfectly at home on Santhenar. Nor do I, despite that my children and my partners lie in their graves here. We forever look back to Aachan, mourning the world that we lost. We always hoped and planned to return. Now we never shall. But still I would use the amplimet, if I may, to take a last look at our lost world.'

'But Aachan was destroyed,' said Tiaan. The anger had gone but she still felt reluctant to let Malien have it, however briefly.

'With the amplimet, and a strong enough will, I might look back into the depths of time. I might even see beloved Aachan as a paradise, before the Charon took it from us. Ah, Tiaan, you cannot know how I yearn for that.' Malien shook her head and tears fell from her ageless eyes.

Tiaan found herself moved by the old woman's anguish. 'Take it,' she said, unfastening the little pouch hanging between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. 'Look back to Aachan and be at peace.'

'I'm afraid,' Malien said softly, and the power and the confidence were gone. She was no more than an ageing woman whose life had seen more of tragedy than triumph.

'That the amplimet has been corrupted by the gate?'

'I fear that, but not as much as I fear what I will see on Aachan.'

Malien did not elaborate and Tiaan asked no more questions. She did not have the right. The crystal lay on her hand, glowing in a way that seemed vaguely menacing. They both stared at it.

Malien shuddered, then reached out to lift it away between fingers and thumb. It dragged as if anch.o.r.ed to Tiaan's palm with sticky threads. Something went snap and suddenly the crystal was tumbling through the air, exploding with light. She cried out but Malien's long fingers closed around it and the light was cut off.

Malien rose. 'Come with me.'

Tiaan followed her to the stone bench on her lonely eyrie. 'What do you want me to do?'

'Nothing, apart from being here.' Malien sat on the bench.

Tiaan stood by the gla.s.s door, where it was a little warmer. There was still a core of cold in her from before, and Malien having the amplimet only added to that.

'Isn't it dangerous using it so close to the node?'

'It is.'

Malien held the amplimet between her fingers, which were pressed together as though in prayer. The end of the crystal extended past the tips. She rested her elbows on her knees. Her posture was so rigid that Tiaan moved toward the edge of the precipice, the better to see.

Malien's head turned sharply and Tiaan was shocked at her expression. She looked afraid. The amplimet, normally a luminous white or blue-white, had gone a baleful red. The glow rose and fell, and with each flare Tiaan felt a wrenching in her middle.

The crystal pulsed faster, more erratically. Some kind of struggle seemed to be going on between it and Malien, and Tiaan recalled Vithis's fear that it had been corrupted. Would it be a danger to her too, when she got it back? If If Malien gave it back. Malien gave it back.

Abruptly the glow was gone. The illuminated globe inside the door also went out. The sun had set long ago and the night was black, apart from a shimmer of starlight on the distant ice sheet. That seemed ominous. Malien shuddered from head to foot, then rose from the bench until she was standing on tiptoe. She held the crystal above her head and let out a great cry that could have been ecstasy or anguish.

The crystal shone so brightly that Tiaan saw the blood running in Malien's veins. It slowed, slowed, slowed. What was she doing? Tiaan tried to move but the world vanished and the next she knew, she was picking herself up from the frigid stone.

Some time had pa.s.sed, for moonlight now glistened on the peaks and the icefield. Malien still held the crystal above her head, pastel rays streaming out between her fingers. It looked as though she had frozen in place. Gelid tears hung on her cheeks but beneath her eyelids her eyes were moving.

Tiaan crouched near the edge of the precipice, afraid to disturb her. The rays slowly thinned and dulled until they could barely be seen, until the light illuminated only Malien's fingertips and her face, and finally even that went out.

Reaching up, Tiaan touched Malien's hand. To her surprise it was warm. A great weight left her and Tiaan took the crystal from Malien's fingers.

Malien turned stiffly, like a statue coming to life. Her eyes opened, shedding crescents of ice. 'Tiaan,' she said haltingly, as if so long had pa.s.sed that she barely recalled how to speak.

'Come inside.'

'Go to the warm. I will follow directly. I have a deal to think about.'

Tiaan was reluctant to go, so concerned did she feel for the old woman, but she was freezing. She went creakily down the stairs to Malien's chambers but could not get warm until she drew a bath of steaming water and slid in to it.

There Malien found her, hours later, fast asleep in the tub. She touched Tiaan on the shoulder. 'Dinner is ready.'

'What did you see?' Tiaan asked after they had finished another magnificent repast, every item of which was strange to her. She was sitting in a comfortable chair, clad in a silky dressing-gown with a gla.s.s of something that vaguely resembled coffee, though richer and more aromatic, at her elbow. 'I'm sorry. That was rude of me.'

'I did not see what I expected,' said Malien, 'and I will not speak of that save to my own kind.' She took a sip from her gla.s.s, made to say something, then went silent.

Tiaan did not prompt her. Aachan meant nothing more to her than visions, through Minis, of volcanoes and ruins. She finished her gla.s.s, went to bed and did not dream.

It was not until the following afternoon that Malien came to her. 'You deserve an explanation, Tiaan. I must '

'Aachan is your affair. I don't want to pry.'

'Hear me. Aachan involved itself in your affairs and you must know what is going on. I believe Vithis did deal dishonestly with you, or if he did not, other Aachim used or manipulated him. You were right to impugn the honour of the Aachim of Aachan; I was wrong to rebuke you. Someone is playing a deadly game and the consequences could be more dire than anyone imagines.'

Tiaan opened her mouth but Malien held up a hand. 'There is more, and this concerns you personally. The amplimet has has been corrupted by the gate, or by what Vithis did to change the gate. That appears to have roused something in the amplimet that was formerly dormant.' been corrupted by the gate, or by what Vithis did to change the gate. That appears to have roused something in the amplimet that was formerly dormant.'

'What?' Tiaan whispered.

'I don't know. Perhaps a kind of mineral instinct.'

That was too close to what Tiaan had been thinking. From the very first, there had been something different about it. She had not needed to wake it to draw power, as with a hedron. The amplimet had already been drawing power, by itself by itself. 'What is it up to?'

'I can't say. Its purpose may be benign, malignant or indifferent, but it will try to follow it no matter what.'

'Should we destroy it?' Her voice broke. It was perilous for an artisan to destroy any hedron she was intimately linked to. But to destroy an amplimet ... She dared not think what that would do to her.

'No!' Malien cried. 'It may be perilous but it is still a treasure. Guard it, protect it, and above all, beware of it, for make no mistake, it is deadly.'

'To use, or just to have by me?'

'I don't know. You must leave as soon as you are able. The amplimet is ... incompatible with the node here, and the Well. You're lucky something drastic hasn't already happened.'

'What do you mean?'

'I'll be looking into that tonight.'