Ian Irvine - Chimaera

Tiaan saw the look in Nish’s eyes, the terror that she would let him go. He jerked over a little further. Her knees buckled and their eyes met.

‘Let me go, Tiaan,’ he said, somehow finding calm beyond the terror. ‘You can’t save me.’

How could she look into those eyes and release him to oblivion? ‘I won’t let you go, Nish.’ She forced her knees to straighten through sheer will, but the force was pulling her fingers open.

‘Save yourself. It’s not worth it.’

‘You are worth it, Nish.’ She hung on.

Nish struck at her hand. ‘Let me go.’

Her knees collapsed, she was dragged to the edge and they went over.

Time stood still. A million yellows whirled around them and Tiaan saw echoes of the past and the present: sights and sounds, scents and tastes all mixed together. The yellows exploded, the whole world became one brilliant colour, and the next she knew, she was lying on the rocks beside the Well.

Nish had been thrown out on the other side. Vithis was wheeling around and around on one foot, the other up in the air as if trying to step over a stile. He didn’t seem to know what had happened.

Malien stood across from him. Her hair was wild; she had bitten through her bottom lip and her clenched fists were jammed against her sides. She was breathing hard.

‘Before the Well I must speak the unadorned truth. You were right, Vithis. Clan Elienor has always worked to bring Inthis down. Not to destroy you, but to humble you and strip you of your unshakeable hubris. That has been our goal since the day, all those thousands of years ago, when Elienor stood in the great hall and saw Inthis render Aachan up to Rulke without a fight.’

Vithis rotated to face her and his upraised foot slapped to the ground. Malien was doomed, and she knew it. But she kept on.

‘Elienor swore an oath that day, that she would make up for the betrayal. We have renewed the oath, and followed her goal, unflinchingly since. Each time we faltered, another member of First Clan reminded us of that fatal flaw in the character, nay, the very germ-plasm, of Inthis. There was Pitlis, who betrayed Tar Gaarn, the most beautiful of all our works, to the enemy. There was Tensor, whose folly after folly saw us lose beloved Shazmak and the Mirror of Aachan, and caused countless other tragedies. And this paltry act against Nish, who could never do you harm, shows that you, Vithis, are of the same base stock.’

Vithis took a step towards her. He flung up one hand behind him and the Well surged and flared to an incandescent brilliance, as if preparing for an entirely different class of victim.

Malien went on, unmoving, her eyes on Vithis as he came towards her. ‘We set out to reduce Inthis from First Clan to last, not for ourselves but for the good of all Aachim. We continue to do so for the good of humanity. It has been a long struggle, as it must always be when the least opposes the greatest, and because we would not act contrary to our nature. We would not be corrupted by our quest.’

The instant Malien had begun to speak, Tiaan knew that there was something wrong. Oh, Elienor may well have sworn such an oath long ago, and the elders of the clan renewed it ever since. Malien may well have tried to bring Vithis down in whatever small ways she could, but the conspiracy that had destroyed First Clan was far deeper, and it hadn’t come from Clan Elienor. She knew Malien well, after all the time they’d lived and worked together, and Tiaan would have sworn that there wasn’t a duplicitous bone in her body.

And Yrael, the present leader of Clan Elienor, was a decent, honest man. He would have faced Vithis straight out, even if it caused him his doom, but Yrael would never have done anything underhand. And if it wasn’t Elienor’s leaders, it certainly wasn’t the ordinary people – Aachim society simply did not work that way. So who could it be? A memory tugged at her but she could not pull it out into the light.

It had been just after the death of poor Ghaenis, Tirior’s noble and handsome son, at the hands of the amplimet. He’d died the most horrible of all deaths, by anthracism, his body burning from the inside and blowing apart. After that, there had been the bitterest of fights between Tirior and Vithis, until Urien had interceded.

What had Tirior said? You always return to the same tune, Vithis .

And you to the same obsession that brought us ruin in the past , he had replied. Tiaan now knew that Tirior’s clan, Nataz, had been obsessed with an amplimet in the distant past, and it had wrought ruin on the Aachim from which they had taken a thousand years to recover. The precise details had been lost in the deceits of time and the Histories. The deed had been covered up too well.

But that was not the memory Tiaan was searching for. It had been days later, and she had been listening to a group of Aachim argue bitterly. They were carrying her somewhere and had thought she was still unconscious. When was that? Ah! It had been after she’d collapsed from hauling constructs from Snizort to the node, using the amplimet. She struggled to recover the memories, but they were deeply submerged.

‘So it was you made the gate go wrong!’ Vithis was saying to Malien. ‘ You tampered with it in Tirthrax. You hurled Inthis into the void to die.’

‘I did not,’ she said, so softly that Tiaan could barely hear her. ‘I was not aware of the gate until Tiaan came to me, days later.’

Tiaan’s memories were unfolding now. Tirior had taught Ghaenis how to use the amplimet. Tirior had been conspiring to get the crystal, so fatally attractive to her clan. Yes, when Tiaan ran through her earliest memories of the Aachim, long before the gate had been made, Tirior had always been there, her voice positively dripping with desire for it. And Tirior had taken Minis into Snizort, hoping he would be killed there, the last hope of Clan Inthis gone.

Vithis caught Malien, lifted her over his head and was about to hurl her bodily into the Well when Tiaan cried out, ‘Clan Nataz is behind your ruin, Vithis. Tirior has been conspiring to get the amplimet for her clan since the very moment I revealed that I had it.’

‘Clan Nataz?’ he said, lowering Malien but not letting her go.

‘Tirior taught Ghaenis how to use the amplimet,’ Tiaan went on desperately. ’She took Minis into Snizort, risking the life of the last survivor of your clan, in direct defiance of your orders. Think, Vithis. Think!

‘Which clan has been obsessed with amplimets since ancient times? Which clan covered up the disaster of the last one found on Aachan, a disaster that led inexorably to the ruin of your world?’ And now Tiaan was guessing, but the train of logic was running away with her and she was sure it was right. ‘And which clan leader stood beside you when the gate was opened, and was the only one who could possibly have tampered with it? It was tampered with, wasn’t it, Malien? You told me so a long time ago, for you checked the port-all after I first left Tirthrax in the thapter, and what you found disturbed you very much.’

Vithis set Malien on her feet. ‘Well?’ he said.

‘It was,’ she said, almost inaudibly. ‘Very cleverly – at the moment First Clan raced up into the gate. And then undone so that the other clans could pass through safely. It took me all night to discover what had been done.’

‘And was it Nataz? Was it Tirior?’

‘I couldn’t tell,’ said Malien.

‘Where is Tirior?’ said Nish.

She was nowhere to be seen. ‘She’s gone for the thapter,’ Tiaan yelled. ‘And the amplimet is inside. She’s got what she wanted.’