SEVENTY-TWO

Time stood still. A million yellows whirled around them and Tiaan saw echoes of the past and the present: sights and sounds, scents and tastes all mixed together. The yellows exploded, the whole world became one brilliant colour, and the next she knew, she was lying on the rocks beside the Well.

Nish had been thrown out on the other side. Vithis was wheeling around and around on one foot, the other up in the air as if trying to step over a stile. He didn’t seem to know what had happened.

Malien stood across from him. Her hair was wild; she had bitten through her bottom lip and her clenched fists were jammed against her sides. She was breathing hard.

‘Before the Well I must speak the unadorned truth. You were right, Vithis. Clan Elienor has always worked to bring Inthis down. Not to destroy you, but to humble you and strip you of your unshakeable hubris. That has been our goal since the day, all those thousands of years ago, when Elienor stood in the great hall and saw Inthis render Aachan up to Rulke without a fight.’

Vithis rotated to face her and his upraised foot slapped to the ground. Malien was doomed, and she knew it. But she kept on.

‘Elienor swore an oath that day, that she would make up for the betrayal. We have renewed the oath, and followed her goal, unflinchingly since. Each time we faltered, another member of First Clan reminded us of that fatal flaw in the character, nay, the very germ-plasm, of Inthis. There was Pitlis, who betrayed Tar Gaarn, the most beautiful of all our works, to the enemy. There was Tensor, whose folly after folly saw us lose beloved Shazmak and the Mirror of Aachan, and caused countless other tragedies. And this paltry act against Nish, who could never do you harm, shows that you, Vithis, are of the same base stock.’

Vithis took a step towards her. He flung up one hand behind him and the Well surged and flared to an incandescent brilliance, as if preparing for an entirely different class of victim.

Malien went on, unmoving, her eyes on Vithis as he came towards her. ‘We set out to reduce Inthis from First Clan to last, not for ourselves but for the good of all Aachim. We continue to do so for the good of humanity. It has been a long struggle, as it must always be when the least opposes the greatest, and because we would not act contrary to our nature. We would not be corrupted by our quest.’

The instant Malien had begun to speak, Tiaan knew that there was something wrong. Oh, Elienor may well have sworn such an oath long ago, and the elders of the clan renewed it ever since. Malien may well have tried to bring Vithis down in whatever small ways she could, but the conspiracy that had destroyed First Clan was far deeper, and it hadn’t come from Clan Elienor. She knew Malien well, after all the time they’d lived and worked together, and Tiaan would have sworn that there wasn’t a duplicitous bone in her body.

And Yrael, the present leader of Clan Elienor, was a decent, honest man. He would have faced Vithis straight out, even if it caused him his doom, but Yrael would never have done anything underhand. And if it wasn’t Elienor’s leaders, it certainly wasn’t the ordinary people – Aachim society simply did not work that way. So who could it be? A memory tugged at her but she could not pull it out into the light.

It had been just after the death of poor Ghaenis, Tirior’s noble and handsome son, at the hands of the amplimet. He’d died the most horrible of all deaths, by anthracism, his body burning from the inside and blowing apart. After that, there had been the bitterest of fights between Tirior and Vithis, until Urien had interceded.

What had Tirior said? You always return to the same tune, Vithis.

And you to the same obsession that brought us ruin in the past, he had replied. Tiaan now knew that Tirior’s clan, Nataz, had been obsessed with an amplimet in the distant past, and it had wrought ruin on the Aachim from which they had taken a thousand years to recover. The precise details had been lost in the deceits of time and the Histories. The deed had been covered up too well.

But that was not the memory Tiaan was searching for. It had been days later, and she had been listening to a group of Aachim argue bitterly. They were carrying her somewhere and had thought she was still unconscious. When was that? Ah! It had been after she’d collapsed from hauling constructs from Snizort to the node, using the amplimet. She struggled to recover the memories, but they were deeply submerged.

‘So it was you made the gate go wrong!’ Vithis was saying to Malien. ‘You tampered with it in Tirthrax. You hurled Inthis into the void to die.’

‘I did not,’ she said, so softly that Tiaan could barely hear her. ‘I was not aware of the gate until Tiaan came to me, days later.’

Tiaan’s memories were unfolding now. Tirior had taught Ghaenis how to use the amplimet. Tirior had been conspiring to get the crystal, so fatally attractive to her clan. Yes, when Tiaan ran through her earliest memories of the Aachim, long before the gate had been made, Tirior had always been there, her voice positively dripping with desire for it. And Tirior had taken Minis into Snizort, hoping he would be killed there, the last hope of Clan Inthis gone.

Vithis caught Malien, lifted her over his head and was about to hurl her bodily into the Well when Tiaan cried out, ‘Clan Nataz is behind your ruin, Vithis. Tirior has been conspiring to get the amplimet for her clan since the very moment I revealed that I had it.’

‘Clan Nataz?’ he said, lowering Malien but not letting her go.

‘Tirior taught Ghaenis how to use the amplimet,’ Tiaan went on desperately. ’She took Minis into Snizort, risking the life of the last survivor of your clan, in direct defiance of your orders. Think, Vithis. Think!

‘Which clan has been obsessed with amplimets since ancient times? Which clan covered up the disaster of the last one found on Aachan, a disaster that led inexorably to the ruin of your world?’ And now Tiaan was guessing, but the train of logic was running away with her and she was sure it was right. ‘And which clan leader stood beside you when the gate was opened, and was the only one who could possibly have tampered with it? It was tampered with, wasn’t it, Malien? You told me so a long time ago, for you checked the port-all after I first left Tirthrax in the thapter, and what you found disturbed you very much.’

Vithis set Malien on her feet. ‘Well?’ he said.

‘It was,’ she said, almost inaudibly. ‘Very cleverly – at the moment First Clan raced up into the gate. And then undone so that the other clans could pass through safely. It took me all night to discover what had been done.’

‘And was it Nataz? Was it Tirior?’

‘I couldn’t tell,’ said Malien.

‘Where is Tirior?’ said Nish.

She was nowhere to be seen. ‘She’s gone for the thapter,’ Tiaan yelled. ‘And the amplimet is inside. She’s got what she wanted.’

Vithis leapt right across the Well, which flared bright as if vexed it couldn’t consume him.

Before he had gone ten bounds, the thapter whined to life. ‘Not just the amplimet. She’s going to abandon us to the same fate as Inthis.’

Irisis bored easily and, despite the gravity with which Vithis sent his people to the Well, after interminable hours of it she’d had enough. She didn’t know them, nor him, nor even Malien all that well. Nish was preoccupied with the ceremony so Irisis seized a suitable moment to slip quietly away.

She walked on the jagged basalt for a while, and climbed a rocky spine to see how far she could see, but a dancing heat haze obscured everything in the distance. She perched behind the spine, in the shade, but the rock was too hot to sit on for long. Irisis headed back to the thapter for a drink from the water bag and discovered that, with the vents open, it was actually cooler than outside.

Not much, but at least she could sit down without roasting her backside. She found the coolest corner, settled back and, in the oppressive heat, drifted off to sleep.

The whine of the mechanism startled her awake. It was screaming, shaking the whole machine, and that wasn’t right. Malien had a delicate hand on the controller and never asked more of the mechanisms than was necessary.

Tiaan used it aggressively when she had to, though that was not often, for she flew thapters with an intuitive grace. Neither would she have abused it the way it was being treated at the moment. Someone else was at the controller, someone who had no right to it.

Irisis eased her head around the corner to peer up the ladder, but couldn’t see who was at the controller. But whoever was prepared to steal the thapter, out here, would hardly stop at doing her a mischief.

The mechanism roared and the thapter lifted off only to thump down again. A woman swore under her breath, and it evened the odds a fraction in Irisis’s mind. She looked for a weapon but everyone had taken theirs with them and Irisis had left the camp without so much as a knife. She couldn’t even see anything to throw.

She took off her boots and socks, sniffed disgustedly and laid them aside. She rose to her feet, then went back for a boot. It was better than nothing.

The thapter lifted off, screaming like a ghost in torment and shuddering so violently that Irisis had to hold on. The pilot was standing with her back to her, jerking back and forth on the controller, not understanding what she was doing. If she got the thapter up to ten spans or so, and lost control, it would be destroyed in the impact and everyone would die here.

Irisis crept up the ladder, the boot swinging in her right hand, though it was little use as a club; it didn’t weigh enough. She slid her arm in, up to the elbow, settled the hard heel over her fist and kept it behind her back as she climbed one-handed.

The thapter sideslipped, steadied and began to rise, wobbling from side to side. Irisis was far enough up the ladder now to recognise the pilot, Tirior. She was a mighty mancer, second only to Vithis in power.

Irisis hesitated for a second and Tirior must have sensed that she was there, for she turned her head. Irisis went up the rest of the way in a rush as Tirior twisted her body and raised her free hand to deliver a blast that would tear Irisis apart.

She acted without thinking. There wasn’t time, and physical force versus the Art normally only ended one way. Irisis swung her fist in a vicious blow to the bridge of Tirior’s nose. The heel struck it full on, her nose broke and Tirior went down. Her hand slipped off the controller, the mechanism died and the thapter fell.

Irisis caught Tirior’s hand, slammed it onto the flight knob of the controller and eased it up, gently. The thapter arrested, hovered, and Irisis let it down with just a minor crunching of metal, then stopped the Aachim’s mouth with her knee and held her fingers until, with a bound, Vithis was perched on the hatch.

The trial took little time, since the evidence was beyond dispute. The clan leaders were unanimous in their verdict, though given that Tirior was a clan leader herself, the sentence had to be confirmed by Urien. This she did with dispatch and Tirior was sentenced to be delivered upside down to the Well by all the clan leaders, an ignominious end that would result in the demotion of Clan Nataz to Last Clan. Tirior made no defence, no statement, no plea. She simply went to the Well as if it was beneath her dignity to remark upon it.

The revelation of her betrayal had washed Vithis’s despair away. First Clan hadn’t fallen, it had been brought down by treachery. He stood up straight, brushed the salt dust off his garments and there was a glint in his eye that Tiaan did not like at all. It was as if he’d found new hope.

‘Minis! Attend me!’ he said peremptorily, after the Well had taken Tirior with a brilliant yellow flare that lit up the salt-crusted basalt for hundreds of paces around, and a positive volley of echoes.

Minis, reluctantly, levered himself to his foster-father’s side and stood leaning on his crutches.

‘Foster-son,’ said Vithis, laying a hand on his shoulder, ‘I judged you ill and I’m deeply sorry. I blamed you for failings that were due to our clan enemy. You did not let me down then and I know you won’t do so now.’

‘Foster-father?’ said Minis.

‘I despaired when I should have put my faith in you. I will do so now. Minis, Clan Inthis must be created anew and only you can do it, for as you know I am sterile. You must put aside all other objectives until you’ve bred me sons and daughters – especially daughters. I will chose your partners from women of other clans, who have strong Inthis blood –’

‘I cannot, Foster-father,’ cried Minis.

‘If you lack desire,’ said Vithis carefully, ‘I have the remedy here.’ He withdrew a capped phial from his pocket.

Minis looked as if he was going to vomit with humiliation. ‘I am not … incapable, Foster-father.’

‘If you were a man, you would have mated already and produced the children that Inthis needs. You would have taken joy in it.’

‘I –’

‘No more talk, Foster-son. Take one of these today, now, and another every half-year. It will give you potency beyond any man alive. Women will flock to you, despite your disabilities.’

‘I am not a rutting machine, Foster-father.’

‘You have a duty to me and your clan. Do it, for once in your life.’

‘No, Father. I will not.’ Minis looked pale and terrified of the older man. Tiaan’s heart went out to him.

Vithis sprang, caught Minis around the chest and thrust a tablet into his mouth. Minis tried to spit it out. The older man held his nose until Minis had to open his mouth, then thrust it down his throat.

The crutches fell away and Minis collapsed on the ground, weeping with mortification.

‘Do your duty like a man,’ Vithis raged. ‘If you are a man. I have often wondered.’

Minis found his crutches and climbed onto them as tears of helpless rage flowed down his cheeks. ‘I am a man, Foster-father, and I will do what a real man must do.’ He clacked away behind the thapter.

‘You have always been a dutiful son, Minis,’ said Vithis, the rage gone as quickly as it had come. ‘I have every confidence in you.’

Tiaan suppressed an urge to run after the younger man, for it could do no good. In spite of her feelings about Minis, she could not bear to see him so humiliated.

‘And now you, Malien,’ said Vithis. ‘For your clan’s part –’

He broke off as Minis reappeared, carrying something in his cupped hands. Blood dripped from his knuckles. He walked up, held out his hands and pressed the red contents into Vithis’s hands.

‘Here, Foster-father, this is what you have always lacked. Now you may do my duty for me.’

Vithis looked into his hands and recoiled in horror. Dropping the mess onto the rock, he whispered, ‘You have … cut yourself?’

‘You castrated me long ago, Foster-father.’

Raising his gory hands to the sky, Vithis let out a scream of anguish that made the Well flutter. He looked into the Well, which was shivering like blades of grass in a breeze, and the Well seemed to respond. Its whirling slowed and the colours brightened.

Vithis bared his teeth in the grimmest of smiles. ‘All things must pass – I can accept it now. This is the end of Inthis, first and greatest of all the clans. We came from the Well, so it is fitting that we take our departure through it.’

‘And I will follow you,’ said Minis. ‘Life has nothing left for me.’

‘Begone!’ snarled Vithis. ‘You cut your life free from First Clan; now go and live it. You are no longer Clan Inthis. You are not my foster-son and I forbid the Well to you.’

Minis gave him a blank-faced look then turned away, stumbling blindly out into the waste. He fell over repeatedly, but always pulled himself up onto his crutches, as if, after a failed life, this was the one thing he could achieve.

Vithis stepped into the Well, though it did not take him. He hung at the top of the shaft to nothingness, watching the silent watchers, and a mad, eerie smile passed across his face. ‘My time is over, and I go to a better fate than anyone on Santhenar can hope for. But you – you will rue this day, Malien. All Santhenar will rue it.’

He made circular motions with his hands and snapped them down. The Well flared as bright as the sun and began to spin, pulling in loose gravel and salt dust. Vithis hung atop it a moment longer, then fell, disappearing with a purple flash and a crack that echoed up and down for minutes after.

Tiaan expected the Well to disappear, since Vithis had called it here, but it expanded right to the toes of her boots. She sprang backwards and everyone scrambled out of the way. The dark, which had come down when Vithis called the Well, suddenly lifted.

The Well began to drift away, pulling in bits of shattered rock, pieces of construct metal, shreds of cloth and every other loose object in its path. They watched it wander in the direction of the mid-sea rift.

Malien shuddered. ‘No, no, no!’

‘What’s the matter?’ said Nish, who had been holding Irisis’s hand ever since she’d climbed out of the thapter. ‘He’s gone. It’s over.’

‘The Well should have collapsed as soon as it took Vithis, but … it seems to be growing. He has set it to some dreadful purpose.’

‘Can’t you stop it, the way you bound the Well in Tirthrax?’

‘Not this one,’ said Malien. ‘This is the Master Well and not I, nor all my people together, can lay a finger on it.’

‘Then what are we going to do?’

‘Get into the thapter! We must go, and swiftly. There are still the lyrinx to deal with, remember? The world hasn’t stood still while we’ve been out here.’

The remaining people climbed in and Tiaan lifted off, keeping low.

‘What about Minis?’ said Nish. His thin figure was struggling over the rocks, away towards the distant salt.

‘It would be kindest to let him go,’ said Malien.

‘To die?’ whispered Tiaan.

‘No Aachim would want to live with his burden, Tiaan. Trust me. I do know my people.’

‘But to leave him out here, all alone? I just can’t, Malien.’

‘He won’t last long, poor fellow.’

There was a long silence, interrupted only by the faint whine of the thapter.

‘But you aren’t going to leave him, are you?’ said Tiaan.

‘How can I?’ said Malien. ‘Go down.’

Tiaan landed the thapter beside Minis. He gave it a fleeting glance and kept walking. She scrambled down the side. ‘Minis, wait.’

‘Go away,’ he said. ‘You only remind me that I have nothing to live for.’

She ran after him and took his stained hand. ‘Come back with us, Minis.’

‘Do you say that because you love me, Tiaan? Or because you pity me?’

How could she answer? She had loved him once, and for that reason she still cared. But the death of little Haani had undermined her love, and his vacillation at Snizort had killed it. She could not lie to him, not even to save his life.

‘Well, Tiaan?’ There was a nobility in his eyes that she had never seen before.

‘No, Minis. I don’t love you. But I do care for you.’ She was still holding his hand. The blood, already dried in the fierce heat, flaked off.

‘It’s not enough. If you truly care for me, let me go.’

As she released his hand, a single red flake fluttered on the breeze. ‘Please come, Minis. Life –’

‘I’ve seen enough of life,’ he said over her head to Malien. ‘Will you let me go, or would you take me against my will, to draw out my agony?’

‘I shall not take you against your will,’ Malien said softly.

He bowed to her, and then to Tiaan. ‘I have to atone. My life in return for the life of little Haani.’

‘It was an accident,’ said Tiaan. ‘And you weren’t responsible.’ For the first time since it had happened, nearly two years ago, she understood that. It had just been a tragic accident. No one was to blame, and her anger and bitterness afterwards had been due as much to hurt pride. Having been rejected, she’d wanted to hurt as much as she had been hurt. She too had much to atone for.

‘I know that,’ said Minis, ‘but atoning for her death is the only worthwhile thing I can do with my life.’

‘Then I won’t stand in your way. Thank you, Minis. Haani would have liked you.’

‘I’m sorry. So very, very sorry. I know how much you loved her.’ His big eyes searched her face, perhaps, even now, hoping against hope.

She could not say it. ‘I … I loved you too, Minis. Back then.’

‘Goodbye, Tiaan.’

He turned away, moving off the black rock into a gully filled with windblown salt, and away towards the centre of the Dry Sea.

Tiaan watched him till he was just a shadow and her cheeks were crusted with salt from evaporated tears. She wiped her face. When she looked again, she could no longer see Minis through the shimmering heat haze.

‘I can’t help but make the comparison,’ Malien said softly. ‘Flydd and Minis were both unmanned, the one by the torturer’s knife, the other by the impossible demands of his foster-father. Yet Flydd has risen above his maiming, while in the end, for Minis, the knife was the only way to escape.’

‘No trauma can bring down the truly great in spirit,’ said Tiaan.

‘Nor any privilege raise up the incurably weak.’

Behind them the Well boomed. ‘Come,’ Malien went on.

From above they saw it intersect the mid-sea ridge, where molten rock was squeezed out along a rift ten leagues long. Great booms and crackles reached them and the Well swelled again, now resembling a tornado whirling above and through the ground. It began to track south along the ridge.

Malien set off for the Foshorn with all the speed she could manage, to take the clan leaders home and then go on to Ashmode. Tiaan said not a word during that long journey. She was thinking about wrongs that must be put right; it seemed the one worthwhile thing she could do with her life, for Minis, and for all that might have been. But how?

Tiaan could no longer take pleasure in wielding her Art, as once she’d done for the sheer bliss of using her abilities to the limit. Employing her Art had destroyed too much, and too many people, and the little good that had come from it seemed outweighed by the evil. She felt that she’d been used, even controlled, for most of her life.

And she began to feel increasingly alone and estranged, even from Malien, Irisis and Nish. Tiaan began to think that there was only one way out – to use her geomancy one last time to do something that no one else ever would. One question remained. Did she have the courage?