Ian Irvine - Tetrarch

She moved the thapter under the rocks and trees so it would not be visible from above. Taking out the amplimet, the diamond hedrons and their connectors, she wrapped all carefully and put them in her chest pack. Tiaan laboriously got herself into the walker and inserted the hedron. The field was strange here but it provided the necessary power, which was all that mattered. She covered the thapter with branches, such that only the most determined search would find it. A wedge of moon, falling towards the west, provided a ghostly illumination.

Now what? How could she find Gilhaelith in a nest of lyrinx? She had to try. Tiaan had heard horrible rumours about what the lyrinx did to spies. If they caught her, they would tear her apart, and if she went down there they probably would catch her. The very idea was madness.

But it was better than being trapped in this body with no hope of recovery. Gilhaelith might be able to free her. What peril would she not face, to have back the use of her legs? She would go down and see what she could discover, and if a lyrinx did attack, well, it would be a merciful release. At least, she tried to tell herself that. It did not lesson the terror.

Tiaan crept, insofar as the walker could creep, through the scrub. The way down would have been perilous even in daylight, for the hill was capped with a broken layer of sandstone that ended in a cliff a couple of spans high. There was no way she could get the walker down that; however, after circumnavigating the summit several times, she found a crack in the stone that took her to a gully she was able to half-walk, half-slide down.

As the walker’s rubber feet sank into the moist earth at the base of the cliff, Tiaan wondered how she would ever get up again. Well, she’d worry about that when she returned – if she did.

A path meandered across the slope and she turned onto it. When it levelled out near the bottom of the hill, she was confronted by a squat-bellied figure standing in a glade. It was just a statue, though an unpleasant one: a bulbous belly, head so narrow that the model must have been bound at birth, and a face that the slanting moonlight showed to be cratered with pox scars. More striking was the fixed, repulsive leer.

Tiaan shivered and passed by. Whoever had made it was long gone. The path ran into another, an animal trail that might also be frequented by hunting lyrinx. The wall of Snizort was an hour’s walk from here, through thorny scrub and low forest. She had a feeling that someone was behind her, watching; waiting. Her anxious glances revealed nothing, though a small creature skittered into the bushes as she turned the corner.

After negotiating a network of trails, she emerged in cleared land and saw the wall about a bowshot ahead. It looked some four spans high and was thick enough to support an impenetrable tangle of thornbush at the top. A beaten path ran around the base, presumably where sentries walked. Tiaan felt such a premonition of danger that she almost turned and fled. What stupidity had brought her here?

A shadow flickered in the deeper shade at the base of the wall. This was it. It must see her. She dared not move. It stopped and seemed to be looking in her direction. She thought she caught a glint from its eyes.

Tiaan fingered the crystal rod, knowing it probably would not work, since Gilhaelith had not taught her how to recharge it from the field. Another gleam, then the shadow moved off. She edged back into the scrub. The lyrinx sense of smell was not particularly keen, but it might pick up her scent.

Though Tiaan watched for a long time, she saw no sign of life. Close to midnight, judging by the moon, she turned back. Before she had gone far, the moon fell behind the thornbush wall and it became too dark to see. Tiaan cursed herself for not thinking of that.

Taking a rough bearing from the stars, she headed east, feeling her way forward, and found what seemed to be a track through the scrub. Shortly it came out near the wall again. Continuing along the edge of the cleared zone, she encountered a broad path. To her right, the setting moon streamed through the barred gate of Snizort. Apprehension growing, she headed the other way and collided with a broad figure standing quietly in the darkness. It moved into the light. The moon shone on rows of teeth, glittered in its eyes, revealed its lack of wings.

‘I knew you’d bring your crystal back one day, Tiaan,’ said Ryll.

She hurled the walker sideways but Ryll thrust out a limb, one metal leg caught and the walker crashed to the ground. Her head struck the frame so hard that she saw stars. She lay still. There was nothing she could do.

‘Why are you in this machine ?’ he asked, crouching beside her.

‘I broke my back. I can never walk again.’

Ryll’s crest glowed pink as he lifted the walker. ‘I feel your pain.’ His clawed hand closed about her wrist and he thrust his big jaw at her.

‘What are you going to do with me?’ she said hoarsely.

‘I don’t know yet .’

‘Is Gilhaelith here?’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The man you travelled across the world to mate with.’

He could still embarrass her. ‘No, that was somebody else.’

Ryll looked taken aback. ‘The other man did not want to mate with you?’

Perception, or a lucky guess? ‘He betrayed me,’ said Tiaan bitterly.

‘I am sorry,’ said Ryll, and Tiaan knew he spoke truly. She had not known Ryll to lie, yet he was not, when the situation required it, averse to making misleading statements.

‘Gilhaelith?’ she repeated.

‘The tetrarch is here.’

‘What do you mean tetrarch ?’

‘Isn’t that what you call him?’

‘I call him Gilhaelith. Is he all right?’

‘He has been treated well, though he does not appreciate it as he might. You won’t try to escape, will you?’

‘I’ve come a long way to find him.’

‘As you did for your mate, and he betrayed you. Your loyalty is stronger than your judgment.’

That was certainly true, much as she hated to be reminded of it. They went through the gates, which were guarded by dozens of lyrinx, bearing weapons she could not make out in the gloom. The passage through the wall was an arched tunnel. Inside, the area was dimly lit by flaming bowls the size of cartwheels, set on stone pedestals. Fumes from burning tar drifted across the ground in black wisps and strands. The air reeked.

‘This way,’ said Ryll.

She followed him along a path, trodden to black tar, that wound through thorny shrubbery. Tar bogs shone ominously in the light of the flickering lamps.

‘What are you doing here, Ryll? Are you still flesh-forming ?’

‘It is not my place to tell you such things, Tiaan.’

‘You never caught the nylatl, did you?’

‘We never did. It disappeared.’

‘It killed some good people. I only knew them for a day, but they had become friends.’

‘I bitterly regret that I created the beast.’ He was much more subdued than before. He seemed, in some strange way, cowed.

‘Liett begged you to kill it.’

‘I should have listened. I have much to answer for.’

They walked in silence until they came to the edge of a cliff. At least, that was her first thought, though after they turned onto the sticky steps Tiaan understood that it was one of the pits excavated into the tar-saturated sandstone. In the failing moonlight it looked like a pool of ink.

‘I can’t walk down steps,’ she said.

He picked her up, walker and all, and headed down. Tiaan closed its legs so they would not catch on anything. The steps went halfway around the huge excavation but she could not see them. It was eerily dark. The air reeked of tar; the fumes were making her sick.