Forty-seven

Dirty, ragged and weary to the point of exhaustion, Tiaan approached the hidden city of Tirthrax. Three weeks had passed since her escape from the Aachim nets on the shore of the Sea of Thurkad. She had no idea why she'd come back, only that there had been nowhere else to go. But surely, after the crimes she'd committed, Malien would turn her over to the Aachim. Vithis could be here already.

She was so overcome by guilt that Tiaan gave only passing thought to her reason for fleeing Tirthrax previously — the amplimet's communication with the great node here, and the thawing of the perilous Well of Echoes, which had been frozen in place long ago. Despite her fears, the amplimet had given her no trouble on her long journey. It was hardly glowing now, and did not change as she neared Tirthrax. She wondered if it wanted to come back. Or if she'd exhausted it.

It was a hard climb up the slopes of the mountain, and many times Tiaan thought she would have to complete it on foot, for the construct was now a battered, limping thing. Each morning, when she unlocked the hatch and set off again, it was slower and more erratic. There was any amount of power this close to Tirthrax, far more than the amplimet could draw, but the construct could no longer use it.

Yet, despite everything, she'd made it. She crept up the ragged track, carved out by the great glacier, to the lip of the broken hole in the side of the mountain. It looked the same as when she'd left here at the beginning of spring. Tiaan stopped outside. Tirthrax was a place of bitter memories. Here, little Haani had died and her body had been sent to the Well. Here, Tiaan had made the fateful gate. Here. Minis had rejected her.

That's all in the past, she told herself. Go on. She inched the construct up and over the top. The vast cavern, just part of one level of the grand city, yawned before her. Tiaan stopped abruptly.

Malien stood in the middle of that open space, arms folded across her chest, watching her with those cool green eyes. Though an old woman, Malien was as strong as anyone Tiaan had ever met. She was kindly by nature, yet could be hard as Stone when she had to be. How would Malien treat her now?

'I've been expecting you,' Malien said evenly. 'Take the construct down to the very end of this level and leave it there.'

Tiaan did so. Whatever Malien ordered, she would do. Whatever punishment Malien imposed, she would suffer it without complaint, though it could not make up for the harm she'd done Minis, or Malien's own Clan Elienor.

She stopped near a spiralling staircase, withdrew the amplimet and climbed down. Her breath steamed in the frigid air and she felt a trifle light-headed. The city was high up and the air thin.

Malien indicated a small table to one side, set with a cloth, two plates, knives and forks. A round loaf, freshly baked, sat on a wooden carving board. A variety of meats, cheeses and preserved vegetables had been arranged on a platter. 'Sit down.'

Tiaan sat. Malien carved slices of bread, sprinkled them with golden oil from a glass jug, and handed the platter to Tiaan. She took two slices, Malien one. Tiaan selected a fragrant cheese. Malien poured wine into silver goblets, handing one to her. They ate.

'Why have you come back?' said Malien when Tiaan's plate was empty. Her voice was without expression. Tiaan could not tell if she was pleased, indifferent or enraged.

'I had nowhere else to go. And you said — you once said to call on you, if I needed help.' Tiaan's palms were sweaty.

Malien inclined her head in acknowledgment. She regarded Tiaan steadily. 'Your back is better, I see.'

'You heard about that?'

'Urien sent messengers here. They told me you'd broken it, though that doesn't seem to be the truth.'

She thinks I'm a liar. 'It was the truth. I broke my back when the amplimet made the thapter crash near Nyriandiol, but in Snizort the lyrinx flesh-formed it together' Tiaan shivered at that memory.

'Why would they do that?' Malien asked.

'They were using me in a patterner, to pattern a great torgnadr, or node-drainer. My affliction hindered the patterning, so they fixed it.'

'I see.'

'You can look if you like,' Tiaan said hastily. 'The scars are still there.'

'I can tell truth from lies, Tiaan. How is it now?'

'It still troubles me, especially at the end of a long day.'

'But better than the alternative, I dare say,' Malien said with a wintry smile.

Tiaan did not need to reply. She would never forget those months of paralysed helplessness in Nyriandiol and Snizort. 'You look different, Malien.'

'How so?'

'Not so — younger,' she corrected hastily. 'There seems a little more red in your hair, and your face isn't as lined .. .'

Malien picked up the metal platter, brushed away the crumbs and examined her face in it. 'I was just serving out my time when you first came here, but I have a purpose now. That can rejuvenate us, for a little while.'

'What purpose?' Tiaan said curiously.

'Keeping you out of trouble, for one thing.' Malien changed the subject. 'You escaped from Vithis?'

'I had no choice. When Urien's messengers returned from speaking to you, he would have had me killed.'

Malien laid down her slice of bread. 'Why do you think that?'

'To prevent me telling anyone else about the secret of flight 'But he doesn't have the secret. No one knows, save you and me.'

Tiaan's mouth fell open, 'But surely . . .? You did not tell them?'

'Why should I?' 'They are Aachim.'

'We were sundered from them thousands of years ago, and no matter how we may yearn to go back, Santhenar is our home now. We are our own people, Tiaan. We broke the clans in ages past and will never return to that futile struggle for supremacy. Besides, our Histories tell us to beware of Inthis First Clan, and especially of men like Vithis. He sounds too much like Tensor, and Pitlis before him, for my liking. Both were great men, but also great in folly that brought ruin upon kind. I would never put such a treasure into his hands.' 'He may be on his way here now. I... I hurt Minis during my escape — I may have killed him. I dared not stop to find out. And others certainly died. And then . . .' Tiaan felt so ashamed that she could not meet Malien's eye. She'd taken the easy way out and regretted every moment since. 'Yes?' Malien said mildly.

'The people of Clan Elienor were good to me while I was under their guard. And I escaped, knowing they would be punished severely.'

'Was your parole asked for, or given?' 'No.'

'Then your conscience is clear. Indeed, after they get over their initial dismay, Clan Elienor may feel a certain admiration for you, for outwitting them.' 'But Minis . . .'

Malien sighed. 'Disaster follows you everywhere you go, and that's something I must think about. You'd better tell me about it. Start from the day you left here.' That took all afternoon, several pots of tea, another meal and, late that night, a tot or two of liqueur from Malien's private stock. At the end of it, she said, 'For such a gentle young woman, you certainly have a talent for mayhem.' 'If Vithis had not held me against my will ... If he hadn't been planning to—'

You don't need to explain.' Malien leaned back, pressing her fingers against her lips.

'There's one more thing.'

'Go on.'

'I did a foolish thing, Malien. Minis swore on the ring I made him — this ring — that he would do everything in his power to save me. And . . .'

'What?'

'I didn't believe him. He's so weak. I tried to reinforce his vow for him. I — I swore by the amplimet—' Malien started. 'I swore by the amplimet that if he failed me, he'd rue it all his remaining days.'

'That was . . , not wise, Tiaan.'

Tiaan could see that she was disturbed. 'And surely, if he's alive, he does rue it.'

"'He may. So Vithis will track the amplimet and eventually discover that you came here. I won't be able to hold him back.'

'I'd better get going,' said Tiaan. 'I was expecting that. And, of course, the Well of Echoes—'

'It's stable now. I had a painful struggle after you left, before I tamed it, and more than once I thought it was going to defeat me. But what the amplimet did once, it may do again, and more quickly. It may have grown stronger too. Tell me, did it communicate with any other nodes?'

'Yes, at Nyriandiol and Snizort. But not since the Snizort node exploded.'

'I heard about that,' said Malien, shaking her head. 'Was it a unique problem, with that node, or might all nodes be at risk? I must take advice on the matter.’

'Is it safe for me to stay till the morning?' Tiaan said wistfully. 'I so long to sleep in a bed and not be afraid of what's out in the dark, hunting me. I've not felt secure since I left here.'

'You may sleep in perfect ease. In the morning we'll leave Tirthrax for somewhere safer.'

'You're coming with me?' Tiaan could not keep the joy out of her voice.

'Someone has to look after you,' Malien said dryly. 'Go up.

Your old room is ready and I've laid out clean clothes for you.'

How did you know I was coming?'

Vithis sent a skeet, ordering me to hold you if you came back. And indeed, where else could you have gone?'

'Where are we going?'

'To my own people, though I'm uncertain of the welcome either you or I will get there. Bathe and rest in security. I'll keep watch, if that comforts you. We're going to Stassor in the morning.'

Tiaan took out the amplimet, the other crystal, the helmet and the tesseract, and did as she was bade.

Malien woke Tiaan only minutes before dawn. To Tiaan's surprise, she was ushered into a different construct, which Malien had repaired during Tiaan's absence. Tiaan reached for the controls, discovered they were completely unfamiliar, and drew back. Malien motioned Tiaan into the seat beside her, took hold of a padded yoke and the machine lifted smoothly into the air.

'It flies!' Tiaan exclaimed.

'What we did together last winter rekindled my longstanding interest in the secret of flight. I feel quite rejuvenated.'

'Where did you find another amplimet?'

'I didn't. I use the Art in an entirely different way, if you recall. I've done so all my life. I found my own path to controlling a thapter.'

Tiaan was stunned. 'How long have you had this one working?'

'Three months, more or less, though I've tinkered with it nearly every day, improving it in various ways. Learning how to make your thapter fly was the hard part. Once we'd discovered that secret, making another was easy.'

'You once said you only had a minor talent for such work.'

'I dissembled. I've a very considerable talent, although for most of my life I've avoided using it.'

'Why, Malien?'

'You don't know your Histories well, do you?'

'Not of your time.'

'When I was young . . , well, younger, at any rate, I was partner to Tensor, a brilliant man but one whose obsession led the world to the abyss. The war, and the invasion by the lyrinx that led to it, arose out of his folly. Because he was obsessed with devices, I swore not to use my talent, and for more than two hundred years I have not.'

'And now?'

'Times change, and so must we, to suit them. Not using my talent for the cause I believe in would be just as great a folly.'

'Does Urien know about your thapter?'

'No. I had warning of her messengers, so I made sure it looked innocuous. Even had they gone inside, they could not have flown it. It's designed to be controlled by my mind, and mine alone.'

'What if I were to put in my amplimet?' said Tiaan forlornly. She'd thought, after coming to Tirthrax, that she might obtain another set of carbon whiskers and diamond crystals, and make her construct fly.

'I wouldn't want to risk my life that way. Should it become necessary, I'll make changes so you can fly it.'

Passing through the entrance, which was hung with blue icicles as long as Tiaan was tall, Malien turned the thapter over the great Tirthrax glacier and followed it, winding up into the high mountains, until the air grew so thin that Tiaan's every breath was an effort. Malien did not seem to be troubled, but she had lived in the mountains all her life. It grew bitterly cold, even with the hatch closed.

'Go below,' the Aachim said. 'Pull out the bunk at the rear. It's warmer there.'

Tiaan did so. It lay directly above the mechanism that drove the thapter but, even so, wrapped in blankets, Tiaan was cold. She lay down and closed her eyes, fretting. All the Tirthrax Aachim had gone to Stassor the year before last, to a great meeting about the war. Only Malien had remained in Tirthrax. Though she was venerated as a hero from the Histories, her own people did not trust her. She had not been welcome at their meet, so how could Tiaan be?

Stassor lay within the great mountain chain that ran down the eastern side of Lauralin, from beyond Tiksi in the south, all the way to the north-easternmost tip of the continent at Taranta. In a straight line, Stassor was about two hundred and forty leagues from Tirthrax, but they could not travel in a straight line.

First they had to cross the Great Mountains, which were so high that not even Malien could breathe at their summits. She had to travel a winding course along glacier-filled valleys, with bare ridges as sharp as flakes of flint towering above them on either side, and then across the high plateau, the most inhospitable environment in the world. That rugged land was perpetually sheathed in ice. Nothing grew there. Nothing could have lived there, unless it had crept out of the void through some dark aperture when the Way between the Worlds was open, and delved deep into the underlying rock to suck at the warmth, and brood.

Malien dawdled, as if no more anxious to reach Stassor than Tiaan was. She ventured up every icy valley to its vantage point, sometimes only travelling for an hour or two before stopping to spend the rest of the day at some spectacular lookout, wrapped in her blankets and silently taking in the scene. It felt like a farewell journey, a final visit to everything that was beautiful and unspoiled. The trip took twenty-one days, though only after fifteen had passed did Tiaan shake free from the helpless terror that had controlled her life since Gilhaelith had been taken from ooreah Ngurle many months ago. For the first time she felt safe. Who would not, with Malien looking after them? No one could have tracked them across this wasteland. No construct could cross the Great Mountains. They were impassable on foot, by any land conveyance and even by air-floaters, since the lowest passes were higher than such machines could rise.

Malien did not question Tiaan about the intervening months, though she did show an unexpected interest in Gilhaelith. 'Where did he come from, do you think?'

'Somewhere on Meldorin. He would not talk about his past, more than I've told you.'

'An interesting man,' said Malien. 'And not entirely old human, surely. I wonder what his lineage is?'

'What do you mean?' said Tiaan.

"To have lived so long, surely he must have blood of the longer-lived species in him — Aachim or Faellem, or even Charon.'

Tiaan had not thought about that. 'But mancers can lengthen their own lives.'

'More lose their lives in the attempt than survive it, so it's attempted less often than you might imagine. And even at its best it rarely returns them to their youth. A hale middle age is the most that can be expected. For the unfortunate, however, it means death, or worse.'

'What could be worse?'

'Ending up as a monstrosity with your body parts in the wrong places, begging for release and being unable to find it.'

'Well, Gilhaelith's dead, so it doesn't matter,' said Tiaan after a long silence. He was another painful memory. It reminded her of the one man who hadn't let her down: Merryl, last seen trudging around the side of the hill near Snizort. Had he just exchanged one form of slavery for another?

'How do you know?' said Malien.

Tiaan came back to the present. 'I don't suppose I do . . .'

'The matriarch of Snizort went to great lengths to abduct Gilhaelith. Surely, when she fled the tar pits, she took him with her.'

'And yet they left me behind.'

'That could have been confusion when Snizort was attacked.'

'Or because the torgnadrs they patterned on me turned out to be useless!'