Ian Irvine - Geomancer

‘No one could escape a lyrinx. What am I going to tell the scrutator?’

Nish sank to his knees. ‘What are we going to do?’

The perquisitor hauled him up. ‘The scrutator wants Tiaan. We’re going to find her, if she’s alive, and get her back.’

He flung Nish backward to land hard on his bottom. ‘You’ve got until dawn. Succeed or fail, you two are coming with us to finish your work, or to go up against the lyrinx as common soldiers.’ He slammed the door in Nish’s face.

‘I feel sick,’ said Nish. ‘Like when my father asked me about my school work. Nothing was ever good enough.’

Selecting a piece of cheese, Irisis gnawed at a hard edge. Nish scratched his fingernails on the floorboards. The noise was so annoying that she wanted to smack him in the mouth.

‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ said Nish, ‘since making a seeker device is quite impossible. We’ll have to take Ullii with us and try to use her directly.’

‘She’ll go mad!’

‘Our necks depend on finding a way.’

Ullii came creeping over to Nish and touched his cheek. ‘I want to help you, Nish.’

‘I know you do.’ He sat up. ‘Can you see Tiaan?’

Ullii shrugged. ‘I don’t know what she looks like.’

Irisis leaned forward. ‘The other day you said you could see a woman with a bright crystal. Can you still see her?’

‘The crystal went out.’

‘You mean she’s dead?’ cried Nish.

‘I can’t see her.’

‘When was this?’

‘Today. Yesterday.’

‘Which, Ullii? It’s important.’

‘I don’t know.’

Irisis put a controller on the table and unfolded its arms. ‘This was made by Tiaan. It might help you sense her out.’

Ullii did not look at it. ‘I don’t need to sense her out. If the crystal wakes, I’ll see it in my lattice.’

‘Is the woman Tiaan?’ Irisis demanded. ‘Is her knot like this controller’s?’

‘No, but I can tell she made it.’

‘So the woman was Tiaan?’ Nish said urgently.

‘Yes.’

‘At last!’ Irisis cried. ‘And what is the crystal? Is it like the one in this?’ She held the controller out.

‘No,’ said Ullii.

‘What about this?’ Irisis took the pliance from her neck and pressed it into the seeker’s hands.

‘No, it’s much stronger.’

‘What can it be?’ said Nish.

Irisis’s blue eyes positively gleamed. ‘I wonder …?’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Do you understand maps?’ Nish said to Ullii.

‘I know what they are. I’ve never looked at one. The bright light hurts my eyes.’

Pulling down one of the charts he had been looking at earlier, he unrolled it on the floor. ‘This is a map of the manufactory. Here is the room where you live …’ He broke off. ‘Of course, you can’t see it, and I can’t describe it well enough.’

She stared at him through the mask. A long silence. She shivered. Finally, ‘I will try with the … goggles. Just for a little while.’

He fetched them off the bench then eased the mask off her face. Her eyes were screwed shut. He fitted the goggles and buckled the straps.

Irisis, noting how his fingers grazed Ullii’s nape, scowled.

Ullii looked down.

‘Can you see the map?’ Nish asked.

‘Yes.’ Her reply was faint.

He explained the symbols for walls, doors, windows and furniture. She seemed to catch on quickly. Ullii lived in a world of symbols. ‘Your room is here. This is the way we walked today. This is where we are now.’

She traced the walls with a finger, so Nish knew she could see them.

‘This symbol is the scale. You can use it to work out how far things are from each other – how many steps we walked.’

She understood the concept of measurement but could not apply it. Direction was another problem – she knew right and left, front and back, but the points of the compass meant nothing to her. Her lattice was not based on a fixed frame of reference.

Nish tried to explain north, south, east and west, but Ullii related them to right hand and left hand, becoming hopelessly confused when he turned the map around. He showed her another map, of the lands between Tiksi, the manufactory and her home town of Fassafarn. That meant nothing to her either – the journey here, inside her bag all the daylight hours, had been such a nightmare that she had blocked everything out. Ullii had no idea how far she’d gone, what lands she had crossed or even how long it had taken.

‘This is so frustrating,’ Nish said to Irisis that evening. They had made no progress at all.

‘Give it a rest. You can’t teach her in a day what takes most people years.’ She turned to Ullii. ‘Tomorrow, we must go after Tiaan. We have to go outside . We need you to find her. No one else can do it. Will you help us?’

Ullii tore off the goggles and put the mask back on. She was trembling. Putting her hands over her eyes, she shook her head from side to side.

Irisis stood up. ‘What is it? Is she saying no?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nish.

Ullii also rose, looking up at them. Her fingers were curled into hooks. ‘I will go with you,’ she said in a despairing voice. ‘Though I’m afraid. But if you leave me behind …’

‘We’re afraid too,’ said Irisis.

‘I’m very, very afraid,’ shuddered Ullii. ‘Clawers. Clawers everywhere.’

The lyrinx’s mouth opened wider. The front teeth were as long as her thumb and fearsomely sharp. Tiaan closed her eyes.

The creature dragged her closer, trying to say something. Only a choking noise came out, as if there was a bone caught in its throat.

‘Chzurrrk!’ it said. ‘Zzhurripthk!’

She thought it was going to throw up all over her. Then, as its mouth yawned wider, she saw the crossbow bolt protruding into its gullet through the back of its neck. Blood ran down its throat. It tried to get its tongue at the obstruction but could not reach. It clawed at the back of its neck with its free hand, which had lost three fingers in the battle. The bolt was too deeply embedded to grip.

The creature gave a choking cough, which brought purple blood foaming up its throat. Another cough spattered Tiaan with the stuff. It was drowning in its own blood. Its eyes crossed; it gasped a breath which made a gurgling sound deep in its chest, like a plumber clearing a blocked sewer pipe, and its grip relaxed. Tiaan rolled out of the way as the lyrinx collapsed, still clawing at its neck. Its impact with the floor blew foam everywhere.

She stood up on shaky legs, watching the creature in the guttering flares. A whiff of pitch-smoke caught in her nose. It felt as if her air passages were on fire. Bent double with coughing, Tiaan circled behind the creature. The bolt had gone through the corded muscle to the right of its spine. The other beast lay nearby. It looked dead but she kept well clear. The live lyrinx tried to turn its head and gave another gasp.

Unlike other lyrinx she had seen, this one lacked wings, apart from a pair of vestigial nubs below its shoulders. Something seemed wrong about it – it did not quite seem to fit its body.

A spear lay on the ground. If she forced it into the lyrinx’s neck beside the bolt, might it be enough to kill it? She raised the spear, staring at the bloody wound, imagining the gruesome thud of blade into flesh, the creature thrashing and screaming. Tiaan hesitated and with a pained grunt the lyrinx turned its head, looking her in the eye.

She willed herself to deliver the death blow. Her sheltered life had not prepared her for this. Tiaan had not killed a living creature before, but now she had to. She dare not risk leaving it alive to follow her.