Twenty-seven

Those Aachim not engaged in moving constructs, or travelling to the southern camp inside them, were busy on a great memorial to their dead. The bodies had been recovered and buried as soon as the battle was over. In the summer heat they had to be, though it grieved the Aachim deeply to lay their fallen in alien soil.

Tiaan saw little of the construction, apart from a day on which she spent hours hauling stone with the construct, but it showed the importance they placed on the memorial.

She now lived in fear of the amplimet. Though essential for her survival, as much as for the Aachim's, Ghaenis's fate had shown her how capricious it was. It might allow her another day, a week, a month, but eventually it would strike her down. If it chose to replace her with a more powerful servant, all it had to do was let the power flow after she'd tried to cut it off.

The Aachim had experimented with a number of node-sharing devices before settling on a silver helm, like three-quarters of a globe, whose inside and outside were polished to mirror smoothness. The outside was studded with rubies and garnets which had been set in swirling patterns into perforations in the silver. The inside was plain metal, through which the tips of some of the crystals could be seen, scattered like stars in the evening sky.

Tirior placed the helm on Tiaan's head but it proved too large, for Aachim had bigger heads than old humans. A leather headband was fitted and adjusted until the helm sat perfectly.

Subsequently the crystals were charged, not with the amplimet but via a device the like of which Tiaan had never seen before: a plain cube of black metal whose sides were not the length of Tiaan's forearm. The inside was as black as a pit. The helm was placed within, pushed towards the back wall, and promptly vanished.

It was not, as far as Tiaan could tell, an illusion or stage magician's trick. The helm, though solid metal, was no longer in the box. After a few minutes, a ruby flash came from within. Tirior reached in, her arm now disappearing to the shoulder, and withdrew the helm. The rubies and garnets were lit up, though the glow faded as the helm was brought into the light.

The instant Tirior placed the helm on Tiaan's head, the headache and the dull feelings vanished. Someone handed her the wrapped amplimet. As she unfolded the platinum sheet, thread-like silvery rays streamed out from the crystal in all directions and she saw something impossible: five other cubes were attached to the black box in ways that could not exist. It was a four-dimensional cube: a tesseract.

'I feel dizzy.' Tiaan closed her eyes. Artisans had gone mad trying to see into the fourth dimension. She swayed in the chair and Thyzzea steadied her.

'Is that better?' said Urien, standing over her.

Tiaan rubbed her eyes but the strange image was gone, the black box just a simple box again. 'I .., think so. It'll take time to get used to it. Just give me a few minutes.'

Thyzzea gave her a mug of water and Tiaan drank it in one gulp. Even sitting down, her knees felt shaky. 'I'm ready to try.'

Back in the construct, the amplimet was installed in its socket. Tiaan put the helm on her head and again, just for a few seconds, saw the creeping, impossible shapes of the fourth dimension. As she turned her head, fields swirled and ebbed all over the place, and all were brilliantly clear. It unnerved her — there was too much to take in.

'Time is precious, Artisan,' said Vithis from behind.

She drew power from the nearest field attempting to hold its image while she attempted a second Power flowed from both, and both fields stayed in her mind She looked for a third and took power from it as well, then a fourth and fifth. It was like a miracle.

'It's ready,' Tiaan said.

Tirior gave the signal and the construct crept forwards. Before the rope became taut, the construct following them began to move, then the one after that. Tiaan could see the distortions they made in the field, and now they did not have to be towed. Enough power flowed down the cables for them to propel themselves.

Looking back to the shooter's turret, Tiaan could see the raw emotion on Vithis's face. It was going to work after all.

Progress was slow at first. With so many machines attached by lines to the leading construct, a moment's inattention could damage dozens of them. Nonetheless, by midnight she'd done four trips. Another two hundred and forty constructs had been transported safely to the new field. On each return trip she ferried back supplies brought from the main camp at Gospett.

A day later the work had become routine. The best part of three hundred constructs could be moved in a day. Of the eleven thousand that had come through the gate, about six thousand had come to Snizort, though five hundred had been damaged in battle and must be abandoned. Vithis did this with great reluctance — the Aachim did not care for their constructs to be examined by allies or foes — but could do no more than break the controlling mechanisms to disable them.

Tiaan was too worn out to sit up, much less eat, and the operation would take at least seventeen more days, even if all went perfectly. Despite the helm, she did not see how she was going to survive it.

Withis kept Minis away, for which Tiaan was thankful. He was a problem that had no solution.

The following morning, Thyzzea replaced Vithis in the construct and for ten days all went well. On the morning of the eleventh, Tiaan woke so weak that she could hardly get out of bed. She felt eroded inside. The channelled power seemed to be eating away at her, as it had in Kalissin. She had lost all the weight gained in Nyriandiol, and more.

It made no difference to Vithis. She was carried to the construct and strapped into her seat. Other straps held her upright when she was too weary to do that for herself. Another three hundred constructs were hauled to safety that day, and so it went on, day after, day, until only three hundred or so remained. Most of these belonged to Clan Elienor, left to the last as always.

Despite her exhaustion, Tiaan had forced herself to practise walking in her room every night. After a week she could manage a hundred steps unaided. After two weeks it was a thousand.

Vithis had not mentioned flight again, which bothered her. If he'd dispatched one of the first constructs back to Tirthrax then, travelling day and night, it could have reached there days ago. Malien would reveal the secret and Tiaan would be dispensable. Worse than that: it would be dangerous to allow her to live.

It was time to put her plan into effect. Tiaan had learned much about the Art over the past weeks. Normally, in any of the Secret Arts, power was used as sparingly as possible. That was, she mused, like an archer only being allowed to shoot one arrow a week. After drawing on multiple fields for sixteen hours a day, Tiaan had more experience than most mancers would have gained in a lifetime.

Unfortunately, she lacked the background and knowledge to make sense of it. She had tried to fit it into the geomantic framework Gilhaelith had begun to teach her in Nyriandiol, but he had not taken her far enough. That did not matter here, where there were any number of Aachim mancers to guide her, and healers to pick her up when she fell. But on her own it would be a different matter.

She had to act now, ready or not. Once the last construct was moved, they would make sure she never had contact with the amplimet again.

Tiaan was woken by a commotion outside. The hanging door was thrust open and someone tall entered, carrying a lantern.

'Tiaan!' he whispered urgently.

It was Minis, and she was wearing only a flimsy sleeping gown. Her heart began to crash around in her chest. Tiaan pulled the covers up to her neck.

'What do you want, Minis?' she said coldly.

He fell to his knees. "To say how much I have wronged you, and to beg for your forgiveness. No more.'

She turned her face to the wall of the tent. 'You led me on. You made promises and refused to keep them. From the very beginning you used me, Minis. Everything you said to me was a lie. The Aachim must have been building constructs for a decade before you contacted me, so innocently. So accidentally'.

He reached for her. She thrust both hands under the covers and he stopped dead.

'I did break my promise, Tiaan, and I've never stopped regretting it. But I was used as much as you were.'

'It's all just words, Minis,' she said, not looking at him. She dared not, for despite all her vows, all her fury, he still moved her. 'Life has taught me that words can mean nothing, or anything' I put my faith in actions, and by yours are you revealed, as are all the Aachim.1

'Please believe me, Tiaan. Don't judge me by the deceits of others. I never lied to you.'

'Prove it!' she hissed, but before Minis could respond she heard Vithis roaring his name. Minis went through the flap without another word.

Tiaan pulled on her clothes and readied herself for her last day. Thyzzea would accompany her, as usual, but there had been no let-up in the Aachim's vigilance. The construct behind her always carried two guards armed with crossbows, as well as a mancer monitoring everything she did with the field, and they never took their eyes off her.

The day went badly, ror Tiaan could not stop thinking about what must happen tomorrow. Halfway though the first trip she lost the fields and the construct thumped into the ground so hard that it jarred her teeth. Behind her, all the others did the same.

'What'ss the matter?' Thyzzea asked anxiously.

'I can't see it,' Tiaan gasped. 'My brain feels like porridge.'

'What's porridge?'

'Never mind.'

Vithis came running from one of the towed constructs and sprang onto the side of her machine. So he was still watching her. 'Is there a problem?'

'I've lost the fields.'

'Minis is behind this, isn't he?'

She did not answer.

'I'll make sure he doesn't bother you again!' Vithis sprang down.

The delay was only a short one, but twice more she lost the fields, and on the second trip three constructs crashed into each other and were damaged so badly that they had to be left behind. Vithis was livid, and with all the delays they did not complete the return journey until sunrise the following day. There were still more than two hundred constructs to move.

Tiaan was so exhausted that she kept sagging against her restraints. Thyzzea carried her back to their tent, where Tiaan lay on her mattress, unable to sleep. Weird images kept flashing through her mind, objects she knew belonged in higher-dimensional space, though she was incapable of comprehending them. Finally, as dinner was being served outside, she drifted into sleep.

She woke to find Vithis sitting by her side. Tiaan started and moved away under the covers.

'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'I'm not that kind of man.'

'I know what kind of man you are. What do you want?'

'Have you remembered anything else about my lost people?'

She thought before answering. Her memories were clear now, though she was not sure what they meant. 'I heard cries. Some seemed to be death cries'She looked him in the eyes. I'm sorry," she said, and was. Her weakness was that she empathised with his grief, despite the way he'd used her. There were cries of agony, as if people were being turned inside out.' He flinched. She went on slowly. 'And people wailing that they were lost. Others calling to one another, as if they were trying to collect together.'

'Lost in the void,' he said, 'but not dead. I'm not sure if that's better or worse.'

'I don't know anything about the void.'

'It's a different kind of reality to ours. Nothing is stable; everything is in flux. Things are possible in the void that cannot be done in the material worlds. The lyrinx flew everywhere there, preying on other creatures and being preyed upon in turn.'

'No wonder they wanted to escape.'

'The void is filled with vicious creatures, and the struggle for existence is more violent than anywhere. No beast can relax for an instant. They must adapt constantly or go to extinction.'

'Your people are clever/ said Tiaan, 'and they have their constructs. They might do well there.'

'It's true that we of Clan lnthis are not easily bowed by adversity. And the void is filled with raw energies, like the fields surrounding nodes on this world, and my own. The constructs might draw on those fields, providing my people with protection and shelter, at least for a while. But even so, I fear they're all gone now, and the hopes of First Clan with them. How could they adapt to the savagery of the void in time?'

The interrogation resumed that night Vithis was there, as well as Tirior, Urien and Luxor. They went over her story repeatedly, trying to learn more about the voices Tiaan heard after she used the amplimet, and the secret of flight that still eluded them.

The night was almost as exhausting as the previous day. It took all her effort to maintain that air of being slightly mad and rather stupid, while having a natural genius for reading the field and working with crystals. She could feel the sweat trickling down her back by the time they finally withdrew to a far corner of the tent.

'I'm not sure I believe her' said Tirior, still speaking in the common tongue — they must want her to know what they were saying about her, and be afraid.

'We'll soon know the truth,' Urien replied. 'About flight, at any rate.'

'What are you up to?' asked Tirior.

'The day she came here, three weeks ago, I dispatched three constructs to Tirthrax. I instructed them to ask Malien how the flying construct came to be built.'

'I knew nothing of this,' Vithis said darkly.

'I sent word to my own people, near Gospett,' said Urien, 'with a captured messenger skeet. If all went well, their constructs could have reached Tirthrax ten days ago. I asked them to send word back the instant they came within flying distance. I hope to hear the truth any day.'

The old woman looked across and caught Tiaan's eye. Urien wanted her to know that she had little time left.