Ian Irvine - Geomancer

Gi-Had took up the helm, turning it in his fingers, and touched the crystal with a fingertip. Tiaan held her breath in case it stung him too, but nothing happened. That was not surprising. Psychically speaking, his mind was no more active than a piece of mutton.

She put a hedron inside the globe and demonstrated how it was meant to work. The overseer and foreman listened carefully but probably did not understand much. That did not matter. Neither knew how controllers worked either, but they understood their value to the war.

‘What have you discovered?’ Gryste barked, like a general to a raw recruit.

‘All three hedrons show the same pattern. They worked perfectly when first installed. I have our log books here if you’d care to check them …’

Gi-Had waved them away. ‘We trust your word.’

‘I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t obey my rules,’ said Gryste, ‘and she’s always going out without permission.’

The overseer gestured him to silence. Tiaan described Joeyn’s observation about the effects of exposure on crystals, and her own experiments. She went through the series of numbered pieces on the bench, one by one. ‘I left these eight outside: two in sun, two in shade, two in wet, two in dry. And these eight inside: two right next to the furnace, two a little further away though still hot, these two where it was only warm, and these two against the cold south wall.’

Gi-Had looked impressed. ‘What have you discovered?’

‘Nothing yet. I only just brought them in.’

‘Bah!’ said Gryste. ‘I told you she was a waste of time.’

‘Be quiet, junior foreman!’ Gi-Had snapped.

Gryste’s face froze and Tiaan knew she had made another enemy.

‘Read them now, artisan,’ Gi-Had said.

Tiaan prayed she was not going to disappoint the overseer. Donning the helm, she gritted her teeth against the pain and put the first chip in the globe. ‘There’s hardly any aura left.’ She took it out and began on the others, one by one.

The overseer tossed the first chip in his big hands. ‘Number one,’ he read. ‘This one was left in sunlight?’

‘That’s right.’

They watched in silence as she read the crystals. ‘The two in sunlight have some aura left, though not much. The four heated by the furnace are completely dead. All the others are unchanged.’

Gi-Had looked confused.

Tiaan explained. ‘Their ability to draw power from the field can be destroyed by putting them out in the sun, though that must take quite a while. Days or weeks for a big hedron, I’d think.’

‘That can’t be why yours failed,’ said Gryste. ‘They’re well looked after.’

‘No, but … I have an idea!’ Taking another handful of chips from her basket, she checked that they all had a strong aura. ‘Come with me to the furnaces.’

They followed her, Gryste not trying to hide his irritation. ‘I’ve got work to do, even if no one else has,’ he grumbled.

Tiaan put two chips against the wall of the furnace where it was practically red-hot, and two more where it was just hot enough to burn a fingertip. She left them there for five minutes then retrieved them with a pair of tongs.

Back in her cubicle she read their auras. ‘The first two are completely dead. The others have a faint aura, though it’s fading. You see!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Make them really hot and they won’t work at all. Less hot, they work for a while, then fail.’

‘You’re saying that your hedrons were sabotaged,’ Gi-Had exclaimed. He exchanged glances with the foreman, whose face had gone stubbornly blank.

‘I don’t see how it could be anything else,’ Tiaan said. ‘The crystals never see sunlight from when they’re mined to when they reach our workshops, and once the operators receive the controllers no one could guard them more jealously. But put them against the wall of the furnace for five minutes and they’re useless. Anyone could have done that.’

‘Can you tell who?’

‘I’ve picked up strange traces in the little bit of aura that was left, but I can’t read them. I would need a really strong crystal to do that. Or perhaps with my pliance …’

‘Haahhh!’ Gi-Had let his breath out in a hissing sigh. Going to the door, he looked out and closed it. ‘Then we do have a spy among us.’

‘So it would seem.’

‘You’d better find out before the perquisitor does.’ He looked irritable again.

‘I’m trying, but …’

‘No excuses now!’ Gi-Had snapped. ‘Our soldiers are dying every minute for want of clankers to protect them. If I can’t produce our quota, I’m likely to end up in the front-lines. At my age!’

‘I can only work for ten minutes before I get the headaches.’

‘Then get someone to help you. Irisis doesn’t look too busy today.’

‘She tried it yesterday,’ Tiaan said. ‘It hurt her badly.’

‘She accuses you of trying to kill her,’ said the overseer.

‘I did not ask her to touch my helm.’

‘Well, find someone else.’

‘No one else has the experience, or the control.’

‘There must be someone. There’s a thousand people in this manufactory, dammit!’

‘Would you ask a blacksmith to make your wife a necklace? Or a librarian to work the foundry? No one else here can do it, Overseer Gi-Had.’

‘Then go see the apothek, have him mix a potion for the headaches, and get to work! Everything is resting on you, Tiaan.’

‘And the spy?’ she said quietly.

‘Gryste will make that his first priority.’

‘I’ll begin on it right away,’ said the foreman sourly. ‘As if I don’t already have enough on my plate.’

Gi-Had scribbled Tiaan an authorisation for the apothek. ‘Come on, foreman, we’ve work to do.’ They hurried off. The overseer was at home with ores and furnaces and metal, all things mechanical, but the work done here was well beyond his comprehension. He did not like that.

Tiaan came back from the dispensary without the balm, which would require some time to prepare. Taking several glasses of tarry water, she rubbed her temples and went to see what the prentices were doing. Darya was head-down at her grinding wheel. Vyns and Ru-Dan were adjusting a set of clamps over another crystal, careful not to damage it. The other prentices were busy at their benches.

‘Where’s Gol?’ Tiaan asked.

Ru-Dan looked up and said something to Vyns, who steadied the crystal while she strolled over, taking off goggles and dust mask. Ru-Dan was short and plump, with a cheerful round face marked (though not marred) by a round pox scar just above the corner of her mouth.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Ru-Dan smoothed back chestnut hair with a hand glittering with powdered crystal.

‘I was looking for Gol.’

‘Haven’t seen him for an hour or two.’

‘What was he doing then?’

The prentice hesitated, not wanting to get Gol into trouble.

‘Nothing, I’ll bet!’ said Tiaan. ‘When you see him, tell him I want to see him immediately .’

Ru-Dan nodded. ‘Did you want anything else? Vyns and I are mounting a crystal right now.’

‘That was all.’ Then, as Ru-Dan walked back, ‘Have you seen Irisis?’

‘She was in your workroom a while ago.’

Tiaan felt a twinge of unease. ‘Oh, thanks!’

Some hours later, Irisis appeared at Tiaan’s cubicle with a small jar in her hand. ‘I was going past the apothek and he asked me to give you this,’ she said frostily.

‘Thank you.’ The label said to rub a small amount on her temples every four hours, or more frequently if the headache did not go away.

Pulling off the lid, Tiaan took a smear of balm on her fingertip and began to massage it into her forehead. The skin grew warm. Her headache, which had been a dull throb for the past hour, faded slightly. Putting the jar to one side, she drew the wire globe toward her and looked around for the helm.