Tetrarch (Well of Echoes)

by Ian Irvine

  Nish did as he was told and Oinan applied white powder to the back with a spoon, tracing out the pattern Colm had scratched the previous day. The mixture immediately began to burn and Nish had to grit his teeth.

  ‘It only takes a few minutes,’ the man said.

  They were all staring at him. He wanted to weep with the pain, but they had gone through it and so could he. He counted down the seconds, then Oinan washed the quicklime off. It had taken most of the skin with it, leaving raw, weeping flesh.

  ‘You’re one of us now,’ said Oinan.

  A gong sounded and everyone hurried to their workhouses. So the day passed, much as the previous one had, except that Nish now had to work. Like everyone else, he was required to assemble the clockwork mechanisms, and for all his years of artificing Nish proved the slowest of all.

  Back in the hut that night, as Tinketil mended a shirt by the light of a pithy reed smeared with rancid fat, Nish became aware that Ketila was watching him, though every time he looked in her direction she glanced away. She had washed her face and tied back her hair. She was not as beautiful as Fransi, but she was charmingly fresh and lovely, and Nish liked her.

  Six months ago he might have taken advantage of her, had the opportunity come, but he was a wiser and a less selfish man now. Nish was no saint, but he could see her yearning. Not for him, particularly, and certainly not for the kinds of fleshy grapplings he dreamed about. Ketila was becoming a woman and wanted to be seen as one, and to be taken seriously.

  ‘This land is so different from where I come from,’ he said.

  ‘Where do you come from, Cryl-Nish?’ Her back was pressed against the wall but Ketila inclined her head towards him. Her mother noted it and smiled.

  Nish looked different from the other people in the camp; there was a mystery about him. He had flown into the camp hanging from a huge balloon, and he came from the other side of the world. He had an important father and a powerful master and Ketila knew, because Colm had told them, about his great deeds and heroic struggle with the nylatl. She had seen the tooth and claw marks in his leg, when Tinketil dressed the wounds. To her, he was not short, plain and lacking in a beard. He was fascinating, exotic, bold and brave. And he spoke to her as if she was important.

  ‘I was born in Fassafarn,’ said Nish, ‘which is almost as far as you can go east from here. It is the chief city of the province of Einunar, at the furthest end of the Great Mountains.’

  ‘What is it like there?’ she asked softly.

  ‘There are enormous mountains covered in snow all year round, and valleys so deep you can hardly see the bottom …’

  ‘I was born in Bannador,’ she said. ‘We also have big mountains.’

  ‘These ones are so big that when the wind blows they write their names in the sky, and the glaciers …’

  ‘What are glaciers, Cryl-Nish?’

  ‘Rivers of ice that flow down from ice caps half a thousand spans thick, grinding out the bottoms of mighty valleys and not stopping until they reach the sea. Sometimes they break into chunks of ice as big as islands and float across the ocean. Many a sailor has seen an iceberg loom up out of the foggy night and knows that his little ship was going straight to the bottom and he with it, never to see his wife and his darling daughters again.’

  Nish was enjoying his rhetoric, though at the last the girl bit her lip and he turned to safer waters. ‘We have great snow bears in the mountains, white beasts so big that they could not get through the door of a house. I saw one once and it was almost two spans high. It could have eaten a lyrinx for breakfast.’

  Ketila brightened at that. ‘Are they not dangerous?’

  ‘Very dangerous, though they seldom attack people unless they get between a mother and her cubs.’ Nish’s eye met Tinketil’s for a second.

  ‘Have you ever killed a snow bear?’ asked Ketila.

  Nish felt the urge to make up a heroic story, but suppressed it. He was not sure why. ‘No, Ketila, I haven’t. To tell you the truth, I don’t like killing things much, and snow bears are magnificent creatures.’

  ‘You killed the nylatl.’ They had all heard that tale.

  ‘I had to, or it would never have stopped trying to kill me. It was mad, the poor creature. The lyrinx flesh-formed it out of nothing. Did I tell you that?’

  ‘No,’ she breathed.

  The whole family was listening as he told the tale of the lyrinx attack, the flesh-formed little monstrosities he had found in the ice houses on the plateau, and all that he had learned about the depraved Art since. It was a long tale, and both girls’ eyelids were drooping by the time he finished it.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ketila. ‘That was a wonderful tale. You are so brave. Good night, Nish.’

  ‘Good night.’

  When they were asleep he said quietly to Oinan, who had been out earlier in the evening, ‘Have you had any luck so far?’

  ‘No. It’s a delicate matter, Cryl-Nish. I have to be sure we won’t be informed on before I ask my favour.’

  Since there was no more he could do, Nish settled down to sleep. It was not a good start.

  The weary days went by. One night, something roused Nish in the early hours of the morning. It had been a noise, far off. He looked out through the opening of the hovel. It was still pitch dark. Crawling outside, he stood up and stretched. The night was mild compared to what he was used to. The stars glittered in a clear sky. He wandered around the huts, relieved himself, yawned and headed back. Again came that noise, a faint, distant roar like an angry mob.

  Fleeting across to the palisade he peered through a knothole. It was dark outside, which was strange. Normally the guards patrolled with blazing torches, calling to one another. He went further along, to a gap between two poles, and heard that faint roar again.

  Nish pulled himself up the palisade. There was not a guard in sight. He slipped his leg over and sat atop the fence as if it was a saddle. The roar was louder from here and he made out a glow in the north, from the direction of Nilkerrand.

  A not-so-faint glow when he stood up, one foot on the outside rail, the other in the valley he had been sitting on. It looked like a fire. He knew there was no forest up that way, and it was too early in the season for the fields to be burning. It must be in the city.

  The sound came on the wind, louder now, a terrified mob. Flames shot up. Nilkerrand was burning, its hundred thousand inhabitants running for their lives, and the guards of the refugee camp had fled. The battlefront must have moved faster than anyone expected. It was almost on them.

  Racing back to the hovel, Nish shook Oinan and Tinketil awake. ‘Get up!’ he hissed. ‘Nilkerrand is burning and the guards have run away. The enemy is upon us.’

  They must have been used to fleeing in the night for they woke instantly and pulled their boots on. Nish felt for his own. Tinketil woke the children, who were just as silent and grimly efficient. In a reed-light Nish saw Ketila’s eyes on him again.

  ‘I’ll wake the camp,’ Nish said, crawling out.

  Oinan caught his leg. ‘There’ll be a stampede. We’ll never get out.’

  ‘I can’t let everyone be slaughtered in their beds. How will I find you?’

  ‘Which way, Colm?’ cried Oinan.

  ‘Down the gully where the waste runs,’ said the boy without hesitation. ‘We can get through the fence at the far end, if there are no guards at all.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there,’ said Nish, ‘but if I don’t come, go without me.’

  He ran down the row to where the great gong hung by the workhouse. Snatching up the mallet, he thumped the gong, one, two, three.

  There were cries all over the camp. ‘Wake!’ he roared. ‘Nilkerrand is burning and the enemy is upon us. Wake!’ Giving it one last thump, he dropped the mallet. Then, thinking that it was a better weapon than his bare hands, Nish tucked it under his arm.

  People were running everywhere, shouting, screaming and crashing into each other. Down the row, one of the hovels was ablaze. As
he turned the corner, Nish was swept off his feet by a stampede. Holding his arms over his head, he scrunched up and waited for them to go by.

  Once they passed, he crept along the walls of the buildings. A flame leapt up to his left: someone had set fire to a shanty and in its light a mob was attacking the gate. A dark figure went over the top and hurled the bar off. The gate burst open.

  Nish kept going. Most of the camp was behind him now. Stumbling along in the dark, he fell off the edge of an embankment, skidded in greasy clay and slid all the way to the bottom. Judging by the putrid smell, he was in the gully. The drain must be just to his right. Well, that saved him looking for it.

  He picked his way down. Several others must have had the same idea, for he could see figures further along. Perhaps it was the family. Nish did not call out in case it was not. A vibrating shriek of terror came from behind, then screams from hundreds of massed throats. Was it the enemy? He had to know. Scrambling up the side of the gully, Nish climbed a mound, stood on tiptoes and stared towards the gate, clearly visible in the flames.

  People were streaming back, screaming and trampling each other in their desperation to get away. He knew what was behind them but had to see it with his own eyes.

  A great shape came over the palisade, landing in front of the flames. The silhouette was unmistakable – a massive body, crested head and leathery wings. A lyrinx. Others stormed through the gate.

  Nish could not bear to watch. He hurtled down the gully, splashed through the stinking muck in the bottom and along the other side, running and running despite the agony in his injured leg. He could not ignore it, but it was a reminder of what it would be like to be eaten alive. Nish rounded the corner and the fence stood in front of him. Several of its poles had been torn away. Someone was just going through the gap. He squeezed after them, tearing his shirt.

  On the other side he looked around for Colm’s family, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Ullii was down the mine with Irisis, her only friend now that the scrutator had betrayed her and Nish abandoned her, and even Irisis was suspect. True, she had defended Ullii previously, but she had also been Nish’s lover. Ullii resented that with all her jealous little heart, and took pleasure in defying Irisis whenever she could get away with it.

  Dandri and Peate, the leaders of the two mining teams, were there as well, to make sure artisan or seeker did not wander into unsafe ground, and also because it was their mine and they did not like outsiders poking around in it. They were accompanied by a pair of soldiers armed with heavy crossbows. The loss of the crystals, and the discovery of that secret tunnel, had been a shocking blow. The mine was no longer their haven from the world, but an unknown and threatening place where at any moment they might find a lyrinx behind them.

  They were now completing a survey of the seventh level, working in the section below Joeyn’s vein. It was a dangerous area, with many sections out of bounds because the roof was too unstable. It had been a frustrating week and Ullii had found no crystal at all.

  Please find something, Ullii, Irisis prayed. Anything! I can’t bear to tell the scrutator no again. He’s afraid. I saw it in his eyes last night.

  ‘I can’t see anything.’ Ullii was standing against the wall, her arms and hands pressed to the stone. She had been saying that all day.

  ‘All right,’ said Irisis tiredly. When had she last had a decent night’s sleep? ‘Where to now, Dandri?’

  The miner held out her map, on which she had marked in red ink all the places Ullii had been. ‘We’ve finished this level. There’s nowhere to go but down to the eighth, if the scrutator permits it.’

  ‘I already have his authorisation,’ said Irisis.

  ‘We must have it in writing,’ Peate interjected, ‘since that level was expressly forbidden by the previous overseer.’

  He referred to Overseer Gi-Had, her second cousin, who had been slain in that terrible battle up at the ice houses. Irisis could never forget that. Gi-Had had been a decent man, despite the fact that he’d had her flogged. Her back would bear those scars until she died.

  Irisis handed Peate his copy of the letter. The miner placed his mark on it and put it in his pocket. ‘Then let’s make a start.’

  ‘Tired,’ said Ullii, whose sentences grew more abbreviated the more weary she became. ‘Can’t do any more.’

  ‘Please, Ullii,’ said Irisis. ‘Just for an hour. The scrutator –’ She broke off, realising her mistake.

  ‘Lost the lattice,’ Ullii said, pleased to refuse her. ‘Going home.’

  It was not long after dark when Irisis returned to the manufactory, but Xervish Flydd had already retired to his room. She could hardly deny him his report on the grounds of lateness, so she went there directly. The door was ajar, as if she was expected. She knocked once and pushed it open.

  The room was warm, for a charcoal fire burned in a corner grate. The scrutator was at his table, clothed this time, surrounded by maps and papers. Flydd had a ruler in his hand and was measuring the distance between a series of red marks on the map, then entering figures into a column on a sheet of paper.

  Unusually, he laid down his pen as she entered. ‘You don’t need to tell me,’ he said. ‘You found nothing.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, surr.’

  He leaned back in his chair and put his battered feet on the table. ‘Shut the door. Sit down. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘I can’t say I’m that fond of parsnip whisky.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m offering.’ He selected a green glass bottle, carefully wrapped, from one corner of his chest, levered out the bung with a little silver tool and poured a healthy slug into two glasses. ‘This is real brandy; one hundred years old.’

  They were proper glasses, made of crystal. Irisis’s parents had some at home, but she had never seen any in the manufactory. She warmed the glass in her hands and took a careful sniff. It went up her nose and made her gasp.

  ‘What are you celebrating, surr?’ she asked after her eyes had stopped watering. Irisis touched her glass to his and took the gentlest of sips. It was splendid stuff, the best she’d ever tasted.

  ‘I drink this at wakes, not weddings.’ He tossed half the glass down his throat. ‘You think I’m all-powerful, don’t you, Irisis?’

  ‘Er, well, I once did, surr.’

  ‘I too have my masters, crafter, and they are less forgiving than I am. And there is another consideration. The higher you climb, the further there is to fall. I can climb no higher, for which I’m glad, though don’t tell anyone I said so.’

  ‘You have had a reprimand from the scrutators?’

  ‘You might say that, though the Council won’t couch it so bluntly. The letter begins, Be assured, Xervish, that we are not saying we are displeased with you. Of course, that means they are highly displeased. Furious!’ He chuckled, which she found odd.

  ‘What’s going to happen to you? And to us?’

  ‘You’re worried that when the tower falls, it will smash all the little ants to bits. I suppose it will, if it falls. But I’m a fighter, Irisis, and I’m a way from beaten yet. I have friends on the Council, as well as enemies.’

  She relaxed, leaned back and took another sip of the glorious brandy. Irisis seldom drank and the fumes seemed to be floating around her head, inducing a delicious haziness.

  ‘Don’t feel too reassured,’ he went on. ‘Another failure and I may well be done. The war is going worse than ever.’

  ‘You can’t be blamed for that!’

  ‘I would be quick enough to take the credit, were it going well. And I can be blamed for the Aachim invasion, as we are calling it. Without Tiaan, it would never have occurred.’

  ‘But you weren’t anywhere near here. If anyone should be blamed, it’s me!’

  ‘Don’t remind me!’ he growled, draining his glass and filling it again, along with hers. ‘Einunar is my province. I’m supposed to know everything that’s going on, and be in control of i
t.’

  ‘How badly is the war going?’

  ‘Very badly!’

  ‘People have been saying that for a long time.’

  ‘It’s been going badly for a long time, but it’s going worse now. We’ve been losing territory for years, but not gaining any. It could be all over in twelve months, and then we’ll be in pens, waiting to be eaten.’

  ‘Is it really that hopeless?’ She took a sturdy pull at her glass.

  ‘No. We’re working on a lot of … secret weapons. If one or two of them come off, it could make all the difference.’

  ‘What sort of secret weapons?’

  ‘If I told you, they would not be secret, would they? Think of the ways clankers have changed warfare compared to foot soldiers and cavalry, and apply that Art to everything we do. We could use controllers to power dozens of different kinds of devices – night lights, weapons, pumps, boats. And indeed we must, for we no longer have the labour to do otherwise.’

  The thought was less comforting than it seemed. ‘We’re already overusing the Secret Art,’ she said, ‘and seeing nodes drained of their fields. I would be worried about the consequences, were I on the Council.’

  ‘Thankfully you will never be,’ he said smoothly, ‘so you can leave that worry to us.’

  ‘The enemy also have secret projects, like their flesh-forming. What if that succeeds?’

  ‘We’ll need our own devices to combat it.’ He looked away. He did not want to talk about that.

  Irisis had a sudden thought. ‘Wasn’t the querist studying their flesh-forming? I haven’t seen Fyn-Mah for months.’ Fyn-Mah, the querist or spymaster for the city of Tiksi, answered to the perquisitor and therefore, indirectly, to Flydd.

  ‘She was and still is.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Away on Council business. Don’t ask that kind of question.’

  ‘What about the Aachim and their eleven thousand constructs? Are they with us or against us?’

  ‘We don’t know. There has been contact with them, though it wasn’t fruitful.’