Ian Irvine - Geomancer

Unfortunately they had not discovered how to tap the power of Kalissin. Just being within the fields helped, but it was not enough. It was frustrating to be surrounded by more power than they could ever use, and not be able to draw on it. They wanted the amplimet; more importantly, to find out how Tiaan used it to take power from the field. All this Tiaan learned, directly or indirectly, in her first days in Kalissin.

A week went by. Tiaan was fully recovered, apart from a tenderness in her shoulder. The lyrinx had not treated her unkindly, and fed her better than she had ever eaten at the manufactory. At first she insisted on being shown the source of her meals, but soon realised that they respected her beliefs and taboos. The lyrinx would no sooner have fed her human flesh than they would have eaten their own dead. Besides, they mostly ate fish from the lake. Tiaan was soon sick of their diet: grilled fish, a kind of soupy algae, and a root vegetable like a pungent turnip. She had the same every day.

She was housed in a cluster of rooms near the top of the pinnacle. Their shape, like iron bubbles, was hard to get used to. The walls were curved, dark metal with streaks of rust. Her bedroom had a circular hole cut through to the exterior for fresh air, and a cap of green volcanic glass to close it when it was frigid outside. She seldom did. The iron conducted heat up from the depths, keeping the whole of Kalissin warm. The hole was too small to squeeze through.

The droning music was less audible here, and higher-pitched, more like a raspy oboe. The lyrinx had bored holes through the outer bubbles to make wind horns. The wind blew constantly around the heights and the horns never stilled their mournful voices.

None of these things gave Tiaan any comfort. Desire for the amplimet was a constant ache and the pangs grew worse every day, though she was helpless to do anything about her craving. She had learned to undo her door lock the first night but was caught within minutes. They did not harm her, but simply returned her to her room and fixed a bolt on the outside.

Every day they questioned her about the amplimet and the nature of her art and craft. She refused to answer, though with each day’s separation from the crystal that grew harder. Soon, Tiaan knew, she would tell them everything, just to have it in her hands for an instant. And she had to have it. It was her only hope of getting free. Most important of all, it was the key to Minis’s survival. In all her troubles she never lost sight of that ultimate goal – to get the amplimet to Tirthrax in time.

How she regretted telling Ryll about withdrawal, but it was too late for that.

‘What are your people doing here?’ she asked Ryll on the eighth day. ‘Are you trying to make your own clankers? Is that why you’re so interested in my craft?’

‘We would hardly duplicate the weapons of our enemies,’ he said coolly. Relations had been strained since she’d defended him.

‘Why not?’

‘That way lies degeneration. It would be going against our own nature. Any device we use must come from the wellspring of our lives and traditions.’

‘But surely it would be easier …’

‘What do we care about easier ?’ he said savagely. ‘We are not human ! We do not exist to make things easier for ourselves! Better , yes! It is the struggle that matters, else we will soon be as depraved as …’

He had been going to say ‘as you’. She forbore to state that it would be worth it to win the war. It was already clear that, to them, the end did not justify the means. Only means that were part of their culture would ever be employed. ‘What are you trying to do?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

Another difference between lyrinx and humans. They did not lie, as a rule. They just refused to answer.

‘Then what do you want me for? Since I’ve been here I’ve done nothing but eat and sleep. I begin to worry that I am being fattened for your dinner table.’ She tried to make a joke of it, but was not convincing.

Undoing the cap on her window, he thrust his muzzle into the opening. When he finally pulled away there was a ring of ice around each eye. ‘We’re watching you and learning about your kind. We think you will be able to help us.’

Tiaan shivered. An icy wind was blowing straight in today. ‘Your own efforts with my amplimet have not been successful?’

‘What makes you think that?’ he said, interested.

‘Your manner with each other, and the tones of your voices. I am learning about lyrinx, too.’

‘What else have you learned?’

‘You never talk about your Histories, Ryll.’

He closed off at once. ‘We are the lost people. We have no Histories.’

‘What do you mean?’

She did not expect an answer, but after striding about the room in some agitation, and closing the door, Ryll came back to her.

‘We patterned our unborn children in the void, that our kind might survive. And we did. We thrived. Thereafter we did it again and again, patterning our babies in the womb to meet each new threat. We survived; we increased; but we do not fit . We no longer know who we are.’

There were hundreds of lyrinx in Kalissin and a good proportion had one deformity or another – lack of wings or claws, inadequate armour or pigmentation, inability to change the colour of their skin. Tiaan wondered about that. Were they reverting to what they’d been before they re-formed their bodies in the void? None of them, even the normal ones, quite seemed to belong. The following day she was taken down a series of iron ladders, some straight, others corkscrewed, to a series of rooms halfway down the spire. The temperature increased with every step and in these middle chambers it was unpleasantly warm.

Ryll led her into a chamber where the central walls of a cluster of bubbles had been cut away to make a room shaped like a strawberry. In one corner of that uncomfortable space a small female lyrinx stood at a bench made of honeycombed iron, surfaced with rock glass the palest tinge of green. She was the one who had fixed Tiaan’s shoulder at the trial, the one who lacked pigment in her skin. At the back of the bench sat a box made of iron wires and green glass, like a tank for fish.

The lyrinx wore Tiaan’s helm. The globe sat on the bench. The creature was manipulating the beads. Her claws were retracted and the thick fingers surprisingly dexterous, though the glow emitted by the amplimet was unchanged no matter what she did.

Tiaan was drawn to the crystal. She could not help herself.

‘This is Liett,’ said Ryll to Tiaan.

Tiaan did not hear. Stumbling toward the bench with a dazed look on her face, she reached out for the amplimet. Ryll dragged her back.

Desperate for it, Tiaan tore free, darted around the startled lyrinx and sprang. Ryll caught her in mid-air, carried her to her room and locked her in.

‘You will not touch the crystal again until you agree to help us. Do you hear me?’ Banging the door, he slammed the bolt home.

Tiaan paced the room all day, growing more despairing each minute. The craving was unbearable. She paced out the night too, finally collapsing on her bed at dawn.

Ryll woke her soon after. He had the crystal in one hand, no doubt to torment her further. Tiaan threw herself on him like a savage, clawing and biting. He seemed surprised by her fury but simply held her in one hand until she was spent.

‘Do you agree?’ he asked calmly.

‘No!’ she snarled. Tiaan felt dazed, unreal. This close to the amplimet she could pick up traces of the field spiralling about Kalissin node. Tears of longing poured down her cheeks.

He walked out and bolted the door. By the time he returned the following day Tiaan felt sure that she was going mad. She had not slept, her hair was a riot, her eyes yellow and brown pits. She had broken her fingernails clawing at the door. Her forehead was bruised from banging it on the wall.