Ian Irvine - Geomancer

‘Was it always like that?’ He shaped her sides with his palms.

‘It got really bad when I was two. After I lost my twin.’

‘You had a twin sister?’

‘No, I had a brother. I think he died. No one would ever tell me. I still miss him.’ She gave a great shudder. ‘Before that I don’t remember. People have hard skin; their hands hurt me.’

He pulled up his sleeve, touching her with the soft skin on the inside of his arm.

She drew it across her cheek, wonderingly. ‘You feel nice, Nish.’

‘If I took my shirt off,’ he said experimentally, ‘you would see that underneath I have soft skin, just like yours.’

She did not respond, so he unfastened his shirt, laid it aside and pressed his chest against her back, very carefully. His fingers slid up to her ears.

She jerked away. ‘Don’t touch my ears,’ she said sharply.

He pulled away, deflated.

She turned to see what the matter was. ‘It makes a noise in my head like thunder, Nish.’ She put his hands back on her shoulders.

He resumed, shortly feeling bold enough to run his fingers down her throat and onto her chest. When she did not react, he slid them all the way to the swell of her breast, and away again. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against his upper arm.

Nish circled her breast with a slippery finger, heading inwards. She sighed again. He continued, in and in, tracing the little bumps and up the peak of the nipple. Ullii sucked in her breath sharply and began to breathe very fast. She gasped. Her head drooped.

‘That is … very nice,’ she murmured.

At last he was getting somewhere. Nish lifted his finger. Her hand came up and put it back, pressing down hard. He took the nipple between finger and thumb, rolling it gently back and forth.

Then in an instant she had flung him backwards off the rock. She leapt to her feet.

‘What have I done?’ he cried.

She stood up on tiptoe, head forward, owl eyes searching the darkness. ‘It’s happening.’

‘What, Ullii?’ He rubbed the back of his head, which he had cracked on a stone.

‘I don’t know. It’s like all the lights in the city went on at the same time, right in my eyes.’ She turned until she faced the towering bulk of Tirthrax. ‘It’s coming from up there. Inside the mountain! ’

Tiaan woke early in the night, aching for her lover. She had tried to contact him before going to bed but had failed. This time it had felt different, as if he was not there at all. As if he no longer existed.

You’re just being silly, she told herself. He’s too busy, or gone some place where you can’t contact him, just as the amplimet only works near nodes. But he’d said to call when the device was tested. He would not have gone away at such a critical time. And that meant …

There was no possibility of going back to sleep so she rose quietly and went to the work chamber. The place seemed different now. Tiaan did not understand why until she’d gone out again and the light-glasses faded. The glass doughnuts were glowing. In the darkness they had a faint, unearthly shimmer.

She touched the wall lights to keep them off, closed the door and stood in the dark, staring at her contraption. It looked alive, ready to be used. The last step was to put the amplimet into it and call again. Hours mattered now – Minis had emphasised that.

She unwrapped the amplimet, which was glowing too brightly to look at, and carried it towards the zyxibule. Tiaan could feel rampant energy in the room. Her hair stirred; her clothes crackled and gave off little flashing discharges.

When she was still a few steps away, something went click-thunk inside the machine and the light drained out of the amplimet. The doughnuts flared. A low hum began and Tiaan felt a wave pass through her. For an instant the walls and ceiling seemed to curve inwards. She blinked and all was normal again, though the hum remained. The zyxibule had activated itself. What would happen when she put the amplimet inside?

Tiaan stopped, feeling as if something was not quite right. She compared the machine with the image in her mind. It was, as far as she could tell, perfect in every detail, so why did she have that troubled feeling? Perhaps it was the name. ‘Zyxibule’ resonated unpleasantly – it sounded alien and unfriendly. I’ll call it ‘port-all’, she decided, and immediately felt better about it.

Tiaan spent the night checking and rechecking. Unable to identify any fault in the port-all, she ran though the tests yet again. Everything worked exactly as she had been told to expect. Worn out, she lay on the warm floor and snatched an hour’s sleep.

Waking as dawn was breaking outside, she called Minis. She wanted to check that the machine was right before she put the amplimet in. He did not answer. At least it gave her time to get ready. She went to the bathing room, had a hot shower followed by a cold one and scrubbed herself until she was as clean as a baby. Today, if all went well, she would meet her lover. Tiaan was determined to look her best.

That was not something she knew much about. The most she had ever done was hack her hair short with a knife. Rather more was needed here.

Tiaan got out the special garments purchased months ago in Ghysmel. She had washed them a few days ago, to remove all trace of the musty smell from her pack. There was a set of pretty though wickedly scanty underwear, over which she put a short-sleeved blouse in a peach colour. It suited her honey complexion. Made of a fabric like silk, it clung to her breasts in a way that made her feel self-conscious. But then, she thought, Minis is my chosen lover, and why should he not admire my breasts? Soon he will be caressing them. A delicious thrill, that.

She recalled Matron in the breeding factory being rather pleased with her breasts, though tempering her praise by pointing out that one was smaller than the other. Tiaan had made a point of inspecting other women in the bathhouse on board the Norwhal . She felt that she compared well.

With the blouse she had teamed umber pantaloons of the same fabric, tight around the waist and bottom, loose in the legs then gathered to show her slender ankles. Did the blouse clash with the pantaloons? She could not tell. Black sandals completed the outfit, though she worried that brown might have gone better. She wished her feet were smaller.

‘You look nice,’ said Haani, sitting up in the sleeping pouch.

‘Thank you. I need to cut my hair. I don’t suppose you’ve seen a pair of scissors anywhere?’

‘What are scissors?’

Pulling out her sleeve, Tiaan made snipping motions with her fingers.

‘Oh, brawnies ? I saw some in a room on the next floor. I’ll show you.’

She leapt out of bed. Tiaan followed more sedately, practising her walk, something between a sway and a glide. She thought it looked rather silly, but hoped Minis would find it alluring. ‘And a mirror?’

Haani knew that word. There had been several on board ship. ‘There’s lots of mirrors. All the rooms up there have them.’

The room turned out to be a suite of chambers, someone’s living quarters. The mirror was a large one of polished metal with a design etched around the edges. Tiaan wiped the dust off with a bedcover.

Her hair was dull, ragged and long, not having been cut since the stay in the breeding factory. Tiaan gave it a few hundred strokes with her brush, took up the offered scissors and laid them down in despair. She examined her face, which was wide, with fine, high cheekbones. How did one cut hair to suit?

Tiaan trimmed her fringe straight across, three fingers’ width above her eyebrows. That was better. She managed to cut the sides straight, just below her ears, but eyed the ragged ends at the back in some alarm.