Ian Irvine - Alchymist

Over the roar of the mechanism she heard an agonised cry. Turning in a shallow curve, Tiaan looked back. The flailing cable had caught Minis about the waist and hip, snatching him off his feet. It whirled him sideways across the rock-strewn ground, thumping him into one boulder, then another.

Tiaan gasped and popped the crystal to slow the machine.

Minis lay unmoving, blood drenching him from the hip down. Even from here she could see the bone sticking out of his leg.

Had she killed him? What was she to do?

Aachim were running everywhere, shouting. Thyzzea and her father reached Minis, lifted him to a sitting position, then hastily laid him down again. Thyzzea stood up and shouted something at her, a cry of rage and betrayal. She, Tiaan, had repaid their kindness by maiming Minis, and Clan Elienor would be condemned for it.

If Minis was not dead already, he was surely dying.

Soldiers raced towards her. A crossbow bolt sang off the hatch just a hand's breadth from her ear. From the corner of her eye she saw Aachim scrambling into the weapons turrets. If she was to save herself, she must run for her life and leave Minis lying on the bloody ground. The thought of Vithis's rage was terrifying. There was only one thing to do. She slammed the amplimet into its cavity. Pulling so much power from the nodes that her hair smoked, Tiaan fled south towards the wilderness.

The Aachim fired. One or two missiles struck the racing construct but the others fell behind, then Tiaan was out of range. They could not pursue her — they were leagues from the nearest field and would have to send a runner to the southern camp, which must take hours. But once the Aachim knew what she had done, whether Minis lived or died, they would hunt her to the corners of the globe.

How had it gone so wrong, so quickly? Perhaps she'd judged Minis too harshly. How could she have expected him to help her by betraying his own people? And, having forced him to, the flaws in her own character had been exposed. She was worse than he was. She was the most contemptible speck of ordure in all Lauralin.

This was the worst day of all. Her beloved grandmother had taught her to face her problems, and Tiaan had always tried to do that. Now she had run away. Tormented and tormenting herself, she headed south across the plains. After crossing the Westway that ran south-west towards Gnulp Landing, and northeast in the direction of Clews Top and The Elbow, and then the River Zort, she turned west. The original Aachim camp was near Gospett and she must avoid it too. The town itself had been practically emptied of its population, to drag the clanker fleet to the node.

This land, within raiding distance from lyrinx-infested Meldorin, seemed unoccupied. She saw no sign of human habitation all day. Late in the afternoon she passed into forest. The field was strong here, so Tiaan travelled as fast as she could, racing through the trees until it was too dark to see.

The amplimet was no longer drawing power of its own accord. She stopped the construct and slumped in the seat, staring into the blackness. She could not bear to think about what she had become.

Her brain swarmed with crystal dreams, so guilt-inducing that she forced herself to wake from them. It was overcast: no stars, no moon, nor any way of telling the time. The spaces between the trees were as black as the tar pits.

Even when awake, she kept slipping in and out of those dreams, just as she had that time at the manufactory, before her calluna-induced madness. Perhaps it really was crystal fever this time.

Tiaan could not find it in herself to care. Madness would be an escape; a refuge. She almost found herself looking forward to it. Until she sensed something.

What was it? Pulling herself up onto the top of the construct, she stared around her. Something was definitely different, though she could see nothing, hear nothing. She slid down, put on the helm and checked the field. It looked the same as before. Or did it?

When she studied it closely, Tiaan noticed tiny distortions here and there. It took a while for her to work out what they were, for she was not used to seeing the field that way. Without the helm she would never have noticed it.

Something was drawing on the field. She enlarged the image in her mind and checked it carefully. There were tiny fluctuations, like nibbles out of its myriad frilled edges, and they marked the drainage of power. People were following her in constructs. A runner must have reached the main camp. Tiaan did not think they could find her in the dark, while she was not drawing on the field. Closing the hatch, she lay on the floor and tried to sleep. It did not come, but as she watched the ebb and flow of the field, she noticed more of those distortions. The field had nibbles out of it everywhere, which meant lots of constructs. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. She recalled Vithis using an aura-tracker at Nyriandiol. He was following with everything the Aachim had and he could track the amplimet's aura wherever she took it. That many constructs could even surround the great forest. There was nowhere to hide. Why had she stopped here? She should have kept to the plains, where she could move in darkness, and continued all night.

Tiaan fought down panic. She tried to recall a map of the Gospett area but it would not come to mind. She could, however, visualise a chart of Western Lauralin. The Sea of Thurkad lay about ten leagues to her west, and was narrow there. Dare she go that way? Crossing seas while depending on the field was hazardous; everyone knew that. And on the other side, Meldorin Island was infested with lyrinx. Surely not even Vithis would dare hunt her there?

To her north lay open plains all the way to Almadin. Northeast was the enormous Worm Wood, and the rugged lands around the Great Chain of Lakes, with its rift valleys and volcanic ranges, including Booreah Ngurle. But there were Aachim in the north already and Vithis could signal them at night. They would cut her off before she could find a hiding place.

Open country also lay to the east, the impoverished state of Nihilnor that ran to the ranges encircling Mirrilladell. In that land's myriad lakes, vast swamps and endless forests she might lose herself forever, if she was prepared to sink the construct into the depths and adopt a peasant life in the middle of nowhere. Though what would be the point of that? Besides, Mirrilladell was too far away. As soon as she stopped to sleep, as eventually she must, they would have her.

South lay the Karama Malama, the treacherous Sea of Mists, almost as big as the linked seas of Milmillamel and Tallallamel, down which she'd sailed for weeks on her journey to Tirthrax and Minis. Only death by drowning lay that way, once she passed out of range of the node.

So west it would have to be, to Meldorin and the lyrinx, the instant it was light enough to move. Daylight stole like a ghost through the trees. She'd hoped for fog or mist but it had been a warm night and the air was clear and still. Bringing the construct to life, she edged it forwards, took bearings from the flush of dawn in the east, and turned west.

The forest was dense here and it was slow going. Sometimes she found herself in places too tight to get through and had to back the machine out again, sweating all the while in case her enemies came upon her.

She had been travelling for some hours when Tiaan detected a much stronger influence on the field. Though she could not tell which direction they were coming from, they had to be close by. The forest was thinner here. She travelled faster, winding between the white-trunked pines and up a gentle incline where the rocks were black and the soil red. According to her mental map, she should only be a few leagues from the shores of the Sea of Thurkad. Of course, her mental map might be wrong. Once Tiaan would have known but she couldn't tell any more.