Ian Irvine - Geomancer

‘Are you all right?’ Tiaan could not comprehend what had happened.

Irisis staggered drunkenly about, her eyes crossed. Her fingers rubbed furiously at her temple. Tiaan got her into a chair. The skin beneath where the crystal had sat was blistered and several strands of yellow hair had frizzled up.

Irisis’s eyes uncrossed and she slapped Tiaan across the face with the full weight of arm and shoulder. It knocked Tiaan sideways. ‘You rotten little cow, you did that deliberately. Stay away from me, do you hear?’

Tiaan backed away, rubbing her cheek.

Irisis rose out of her chair as if propelled by a spring. She looked frightened, not a common expression on her face. What had the device done to her?

‘That thing’s corrupt, like you, Tiaan. You’ll never get anything out of it.’

‘You just don’t understand it,’ said Tiaan as Irisis made for the door. She could not resist a taunt, for she seldom got the last word with Irisis. ‘Maybe it’s you who’ll be going to the breeding factory.’

‘People like me don’t go to the breeding factory!’ she spat. She was peculiarly sensitive to slights against her ability as an artisan. ‘We marry well and live in luxury. Enjoy it while it lasts, Tiaan. You won’t be here much longer.’

Tiaan, who before her mother’s decline had come from a long line of proud, independent women, wanted to fling herself on Irisis, clawing and screaming. But restraining herself, she slammed the door in her rival’s face. In a few days she had made two mortal enemies. And despite the shortage of men, she had no doubt that Irisis would make a good match. Her kind usually did.

These controllers would decide Tiaan’s fate. If she found out why they had failed, and could solve the problem, she should be secure. If not, she was surely doomed.

Tiaan could never submit to the breeding factory. It was a propaganda weapon, but also a way of using women who had failed in other areas of life, and those who could never find a mate because so many men had been killed in the war. Whole generations of youths had gone away and not come back.

It was impossible to work now. As she was locking her door, Tiaan saw Nish across the way, leaning against the wall of the offices. No doubt he was gathering evidence for the perquisitor. Her life was collapsing around her.

In her room, too shaken to eat or wash, Tiaan tossed her clothes into the basket, crawled in between the freezing sheets and curled up into a ball. Using a hedron always gave her fantastic dreams, as if it left her mind close to the ethyr that was the carrier of power. She hoped her dreams would be romantic ones tonight. Dreams were a refuge and an escape. She had never needed one more desperately.

Tiaan dreamed about an unknown world, a gloomy land lit by a brooding orange moon, nothing like the moon. Black grass bent under a hissing wind. Oily, suppurating bogs were scattered across the landscape, around which grew blue and black and purple flowers, luminous in the darkness.

She was standing on a balcony, staring toward broken-glass mountains in the west. Tiaan could feel her heart thudding against her ribs, the prickly rush of fear in the backs of her hands. Her fingers gripped the rail so hard that it hurt. Her jaw was clenched. She could feel her teeth grinding together. Why was she so afraid?

A low rumbling began in the distance, like thunder but more earthy, as if transmitted through the ground. The breeze was whipping mist past her face, but it had the pungent reek of sulphur. Her eyes watered.

She wiped the tears away. Staring at the jagged range, Tiaan realised that she was holding her breath, waiting for something to happen. She counted her heartbeats: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then backwards. She was still counting when there came a colossal explosion from the middle of the distant range, a flash that lit up the sky. Yellow glowing objects described parabolic trajectories through the air, slowly changing to orange and red as they fell.

More explosions illuminated belching clouds that rose higher and higher, forming shapes like clenched fists, like anvils, like black mushrooms. Lightning rent the clouds. There was no thunder, no sound at all but the wind hissing over the grass.

The explosions spread along the range from one horizon to the other until it looked as if the whole world was splitting apart, blowing its molten insides out. The clouds grew so thick that the wheeling fireballs could scarcely be seen. As Tiaan stared, a glowing paste made its way down the side of the mountain where the first explosion had occurred, like a red slug down the side of a pot. More streams followed until the dark mass of the mountain was woven with them. Tiaan felt another trickle of fear.

The lava was flooding everywhere, issuing from every peak of that horizon-spanning chain, oozing toward her as if, in its inexorable progress, it would overwhelm the whole world.

Her viewpoint shifted. Tiaan stared at the figure on the balcony, realising that it was not her at all, but a young, handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered, with glossy dark-brown hair, a trim beard, a full, sensuous mouth. He resembled the bold prince of her grandmother’s romantic tales.

He seemed just as afraid as she had been, and she knew his doom was written in those red glyphs running down the mountains. He threw out his arms, looking around frantically as if seeking someone in the darkness. Help! She saw him mouth the words. Please help me!

Before the sound reached her, there came a boom and roar like all the thunder in the world going off together. A solid wall of wind bent the grass, the scanty trees, the young man on the balcony. He looked directly at her and froze. His tentative, almost pleading smile cracked her soft heart. She smiled back, he cried out Help ! then man and balcony were blown away. The earth moved, tossing her off her feet. Tiaan lost the dream.

But later that night she dreamed that the young man lay beside her. Disturbing dreams they were – sensual, almost erotic. They made her hideously uncomfortable, yet she did not want them to stop.

Tiaan woke with a headache and a faint memory of the first dream – the explosions, the stench of sulphur, the wild wind. She remembered that glorious face and the young man crying out. How strange! It was almost as if he had been begging her for help. But after all, it was just another hedron-induced fancy. She threw herself out of bed and hurried off to work.

The first experiments with the device had gone well. She was beginning to read the history of the crystal, as if the letters that made up its story were stored in layers of light trapped within it. It had a strange, hot sense, which was odd. Hedrons usually seemed cool. So far, though, she had not learned what had gone wrong.

At mid-morning her head began to ache and it grew rapidly worse. It seemed to be burning, like the image of the crystal. Don’t push too hard; anthracism is a horrible way to die …

Tiaan went outside, collected her little chips of crystal and laid them in a line across the back of the bench. She put the helm on but a piercing pain made her whip it off again. She was hunched over, head in hands, when Gi-Had appeared with Gryste, the foreman, who reeked of spice.

‘You won’t make any progress that way, Artisan Tiaan!’ said Gryste.

She squinted up at him. ‘I’m working eighteen hours a day.’

‘We’re all working hard,’ said the overseer.

‘I’m working harder than anyone!’ she snapped. Then, more softly, ‘My head feels as if it’s on fire, Gi-Had. I’m afraid …’

He blanched. ‘Then stop. I’ll have no boiled brains in my manufactory.’

‘But I am making progress. I made this device to read the hedrons.’ She held it out.