Tetrarch (Well of Echoes)

by Ian Irvine

‘So we haven’t learned anything here?’ said Irisis.

  ‘Unfortunately not.’

  ‘What were you doing in the night, Xervish? When the air-floater stopped.’

  ‘I had to send a skeet to one of my associates, telling them what we’d discovered. The price of continued support.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t tell them where we were, or where we were going.’

  ‘I have to trust someone.’

  ‘Let’s hope they’re worthy of it.’

  The party searched along the nearby part of the escarpment, to fill in the time until dark, when they could signal the air-floater. Irisis was waiting, perched on a rock with her hood over her head to keep off the drifting rain, when something occurred to her.

  ‘Scrutator?’ she yelled. ‘Anyone know where the scrutator is?’

  ‘He went for a walk in the forest,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘Probably crapping behind a tree.’

  ‘I was trying to work out the lie of the node, as it happens,’ Flydd said with lofty dignity. He had come up on them from behind. ‘What is it, Irisis?’

  ‘If there is a node-drainer,’ she said, ‘where is it draining all that power to? And what happens where it comes out – so much power in a small place must have some effect.’

  Dead silence. Flydd took her by the arm, shaking her in his excitement. ‘That’s brilliant!’ he cried. ‘It has to be going somewhere, and that must leave a trace. More than a trace – strange things would happen where all that power was dumped. Such a place can’t be hard to find.’

  ‘How would you go about finding it?’

  ‘I’d ask people who live in the area. The local querist or perquisitor, first; it’s their job to hear about strange and inexplicable things. If we fly along the edge of the escarpment, we might see something, though I wouldn’t want to spend too long doing it. As soon as it’s dark I’ll signal the air-floater. We’ll have a look on the way back, since we’re going that direction.’

  His words made her uneasy. ‘The way back? Where are we going now?’

  ‘Back to the manufactory. To look at its node.’

  ‘The manufactory? Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘Shh! Don’t alarm the others. There’s no choice, Irisis. Only concrete evidence can save me. I have to see a failing node to really understand what’s going on. Dead ones are no good at all.’

  ‘After Jal-Nish catches us, we’ll be the dead ones.’

  The problem with the scrutator, as Irisis well knew, was that once he had made his mind up, nothing could shake him. She did not try. Irisis was too afraid. A senile old fool and a blind woman – what a formidable team! Jal-Nish must be quaking in his bed.

  They saw no sign of a power seep on the way back, though as the scrutator had said, such a thing need not occur above the ground. It could lie anywhere in the three dimensions.

  He roused her in the night. Irisis was lying awake, biting the ends of her fingers. ‘We’d better talk about how we’re going to do this,’ he said.

  ‘You talk! I don’t have any ideas and I’m so scared I can’t think of anything but which horrible way I’m going to die.’

  ‘There is a way.’

  ‘Good. You can do it. I’m taking my toys and going home.’

  He laughed.

  ‘I mean it, scrutator. Everyone has their breaking point and I’ve reached mine. I can’t do this. I’m blind, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘We have to. The war depends on it.’

  ‘Would you like to know something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t give a slussk about the war. I’ve had enough. If we are all to be eaten by the lyrinx, so be it. I don’t see that they’re any worse than you scrutators and the world you’ve created, with its breeding factories and Examinations, and its rules for every damned thing. This isn’t life, it’s misery and I just want it to end. I don’t care any more, scrutator!’

  He went away and she did not see him for another hour. ‘We’re not going to the manufactory,’ he said. ‘At least, not straight away.’

  ‘You’ve seen some sense, then.’

  ‘No, you’ve convinced me that I can’t rely on you any more and I’ve got to find another way.’

  He went out again. Irisis could not speak, for his words had carved right through her fit of self-pity. She’d let him down. It was the worst thing anyone had ever said to her.

  She felt her way through the cabin and out to the open deck, along the rope rails. The rotor was whirring gently. She went up to the stern and his hand – she recognised it by feel – caught her arm.

  ‘If you keep going you’ll be over the side,’ he said gruffly, ‘and what use will that be to me, eh?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt her way to his chest and pressed herself against him. His arms went around her. ‘I’m just not as strong as you, Xervish.’

  ‘I’m not as strong as you think.’

  ‘How are we going to do this?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t planning to land at the front gate and ask Jal-Nish to let me in. What ideas do you have?’

  She pondered for a while. ‘What about the old entrance, through the other mine?’

  ‘I believe that’s been blocked up.’

  She turned her face into the breeze from the rotor. Yellow hair streamed out behind her. ‘There are higher entrances, but all would be guarded, and we would still have to go down by the lifts.’

  ‘The guards probably aren’t as vigilant as the ones on the main adit.’

  ‘And it would be easier to use some form of deception underground,’ she supposed.

  ‘I’ll give the order.’ He went up toward the pilot.

  She did not feel any better. Maybe that was all the planning the scrutator required but Irisis liked everything organised to the tiniest detail, with a variety of contingency plans for when things went wrong. That was how she had survived so long.

  The air-floater dropped the two of them on the top of the range, over the hill out of sight of the manufactory and the main adit, just before dawn. It was just the two of them, Irisis and Flydd. They dared take no others into the cramped tunnels.

  They hid in an abandoned tunnel all day, and as darkness fell made their way down the hill toward the higher entrance, which was blocked off by a barred gate. The clankers had gone through the mountain that way, in their pursuit of Tiaan last autumn. They eluded the solitary guard and got inside without difficulty, through some magic of Flydd’s that he did not explain. These tunnels had been worked out more than a century ago but a decline still led down to the lower mine. They reached the first level without incident. Now their troubles would start; the only way to the lower levels was via the rope lift, which would be guarded.

  ‘You’d think they’d clean up this mess,’ Flydd said, after Irisis had stumbled over a tattered length of lift rope, followed by a wooden barrow with a broken wheel. Inside it lay several ragged, greasy miner’s aprons.

  ‘Miners don’t care about mess.’

  ‘Stop!’ he hissed. ‘The lift is just around the corner.’ He crept forward, then returned to her side. ‘The guards are on alert.’

  ‘Well, you’re a mancer aren’t you?’

  ‘I can’t knock them out, else Jal-Nish will soon know we’re down there. Our work is going to take hours.’

  ‘Can’t you do illusions?’

  ‘It’s not a branch of the Art I’ve ever been much good at.’

  ‘Great!’ she said. ‘Well, what about a diversion?’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘The soldiers would be afraid of fire, down here.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘A small fire. Lots of smoke.’

  ‘The miners will come rushing up. We won’t be able to get down in the lift.’

  ‘I don’t think the mine’s working at the moment,’ she said. ‘I can’t hear anything.’

  ‘All right. I know just the thing. Come this way.’ He set fire to the greasy aprons with hi
s lantern, then piled the rope into the barrow, holding up the strands until they caught.

  ‘I’m worried this will seem suspicious,’ said Irisis.

  ‘Oily cloth can catch fire by itself.’

  They approached the lift from another direction and waited. Oily smoke began to drift down the tunnel. The leading guard caught a whiff, screamed ‘Fire!’ and ran for the entrance. Two others followed.

  ‘I think that’s all of them,’ said Flydd after an interval.

  ‘Seems a bit too easy to me.’

  ‘It probably is. Let’s be as quick as we can.’

  He wound them down to the ninth level. The crank sounded unusually noisy.

  ‘Do you know the way to the crystal field?’

  ‘I’ve never been there,’ said Flydd. ‘I was relying on you.’

  ‘You blinded me, remember?’

  ‘It’s your eyes that have gone, not your brain. Just tell me the sequence of turns.’

  That was harder than it sounded. Irisis was not used to working that way and when she tried to recall the path it vanished from her mind. She panicked and he had to calm her before they could continue. Precious minutes were lost.

  She did not like it down here. Being blind in the tunnels was somehow worse than being lost in the dark. But they eventually found the shaft that the miners had sunk down to the massive crystal. The pumps were working sluggishly, powered by the diminished field. Thud-thud-THUD; THUD-thud-THUD.

  ‘Look at that!’ The scrutator whistled.

  ‘Don’t!’ she said irritably. ‘You’ve got to tell me things.’

  ‘The crystal is gigantic – a perfect prism of quartz as tall as you are.’

  ‘Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any good,’ she said peevishly. ‘Most crystals are useless.’

  ‘This one’s different. Even I can tell that. Let’s get to work. Find the field, quickly.’

  With her pliance, Irisis saw it at once. ‘It’s weak.’ It was fluttery and hard to monitor. She was trying to get a good image of it, which proved unexpectedly difficult, when she had the strange sense of being watched from afar. How could that be, through solid rock? She rested her head on the stone, struggling to work out what was going on.

  ‘What’s that?’ she hissed, facing the other way.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought I heard something.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  She paced, trying to extract sense from what her ears were telling her. No, it hadn’t been a sound, rather the absence of one. ‘The pumps have stopped working.’

  ‘Water’s flooding into the bottom of the pit,’ said Flydd. ‘Check the field.’

  She tried. ‘There is no field now, Xervish.’

  ‘There’s got to be something, this close to the crystal, if it is actually the node.’

  ‘There’s not a trace.’

  ‘It was there a minute ago.’

  ‘Well, it’s not there now –’ Thud-thud-THUD. The pumps were working again. ‘I don’t understand. How can it be there one minute and gone the next? And … it felt as if someone was watching, but from a long way away.’

  ‘Maybe the enemy is watching. Maybe they sensed you and turned up their node-drainer.’

  ‘Is there any way to find it?’

  ‘They’d hide it somewhere inconspicuous. It doesn’t have to be close to the node, of course, though the closer the better.’

  The pumps stopped and a whistling sound arose from low in the pit – threads of water forced through the joins of the metal sleeve. The sound became shrill, then ping, ping, ping.

  ‘What’s that?’ she whispered.

  ‘The bolts shearing,’ said Flydd. ‘The whole thing is failing.’

  They tried to induce an aura with the reader but the node was now so dead that they could not draw the required power.

  ‘Now what?’ said Irisis.

  ‘We can’t do it when there’s no field at all. We’ll have to wait. If it comes back, even for a minute, we’ll try again. Let’s scout around and see what we can find in the meantime.’

  They went up and down the tunnel, Irisis trying to visualise any kind of power seep, the scrutator searching in his own, mancer’s way. Some distance along, the tunnel was blocked by a rockfall. They turned back to the shaft.

  ‘This hasn’t been any use either,’ said Irisis.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied Jal-Nish, stepping out from behind a pillar. Golden lamplight reflected from the platinum mask. The ragged hole made in the cheekpiece by the crossbow bolt was still there. ‘Hard work pays off, if you’re patient enough.’

  FORTY-SIX

  Irisis wanted to die. Just as well, she thought, since I’m about to do just that.

  Flydd gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Good to see you again, acting scrutator. You’re looking well.’

  ‘I’ve never felt better,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘Why have you come back?’

  ‘To make certain of why the nodes are failing.’

  Jal-Nish’s single eye narrowed. ‘And why are they?’

  Don’t tell him! Irisis prayed. It’s your only bargaining chip.

  ‘Because the enemy is draining the field from them.’

  Jal-Nish’s laugh raised hairs on the back of her neck. ‘I believe we’ve already disproved that one, Xervish! It’s too late; I’ve had you dismissed. You’re not scrutator any more, you’re not even a citizen. You’re nothing! No one will listen to a thing you say. Don’t you find that galling? You’re an invisible man, Xervish.’

  ‘Considering what the scrutators did to me when I was young, I have no wish to grow old among them.’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘I did. It wasn’t hard. You’re a brilliant man, Jal-Nish, no question about it, but you see only what’s on the track straight in front of you.’

  Jal-Nish yawned. ‘The same old flaccid wit and pointless jibes, Xervish. It’s so tiresome.’

  There was a long silence, in which Irisis felt sure she could hear something ticking. Could it be the crystal? She tried to sense the field but her pliance showed her nothing.

  ‘But you, Irisis, I am prepared to give another chance. It was only during the previous escape that I understood what a talented woman you are. We need people like you.’

  What was he talking about? The way she had used the field against that mancer on the aqueduct?

  ‘Take it, Irisis,’ Flydd said in a stage whisper. ‘It’s your only chance.’

  ‘I know what kind of a man you are, Jal-Nish,’ she said. ‘Do you think I’d give myself into your hands?’

  ‘You’re already in them,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘I’m not alone. How did you think I found you so quickly?’

  ‘No doubt you’re about to tell me,’ said Flydd. ‘You never miss a chance to demonstrate your own cleverness.’

  ‘And you’re any different?’ Jal-Nish snarled. ‘You don’t have a choice, Irisis. You’re coming with me anyway. But things will be easier if you come willingly.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ she said as casually as she could, taking her cue from Flydd. ‘Thanks all the same.’

  Jal-Nish must have been expecting that. He snapped his fingers and she heard marching feet. ‘A squad of six soldiers, armed with crossbows,’ Flydd said in her ear. ‘And Ullii behind them.’

  Of course. Ullii could see forms of power in her lattice, and people who had it. Jal-Nish would have ordered her to keep watch for them, and as soon as Xervish, or Irisis, appeared in the lattice Ullii knew where to find them. They had walked into a trap. Why hadn’t Flydd realised? Why hadn’t she?

  ‘This is a mistake,’ said Flydd, and now there was a note of desperation in his voice Irisis had never heard before. She hoped he was putting it on. Surely he had not come down here without a plan of escape. He’d better have, because she could think of nothing. ‘Jal-Nish –’

  ‘I must say I’m surprised,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘The great scrutator allowing himself into a situation w
here there was no way out. It’s not like you, Xervish.’

  ‘Only my friends call me Xervish,’ said Flydd, seeming to recover his composure.

  ‘And I was never your friend, was I, Flydd? You did your best to thwart me from the moment I became perquisitor.’

  ‘That’s part of the test, and those who would be scrutator must pass it on their own. You cannot buy the favour of the Council. I knew you’d rise to your level of incompetence without my assistance.’

  Jal-Nish showed no sign of being nettled. ‘I expected more of you, Flydd. But then, some rise and stay up; others fail as quickly as a salmon after spawning.’

  Flydd said jovially. ‘Hello, Ullii.’

  The little seeker sounded just as cheerful, oblivious that she had betrayed them. ‘Hello, Xervish,’ she replied. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Oh, away,’ he said. ‘Looking at a couple of nodes that failed. Do you know what a node is?’

  ‘Of course. It is a place in the earth where power comes from, like the one down there. It has all sorts of fields –’

  ‘What do you mean, all sorts of fields?’ said Jal-Nish.

  Ullii scuttled backwards and Irisis could hear her barely suppressed panic. Jal-Nish had terrified her even before he’d come back with the mask, and the horror beneath it.

  ‘Th-this node has four fields,’ she said. ‘There is the weak one you call the field. It is dead now – the clawers drained it all away. But there are three more fields, much more powerful. They are like walls going through each other.’

  Jal-Nish gave an inarticulate cry of rage. ‘The strong forces! We’ve been searching for them for a hundred years. Why did you not tell me?’

  Flydd chuckled. Ullii was silent. With Jal-Nish she’d learned that no answer was better than the wrong one. ‘Because you didn’t ask me,’ was definitely the wrong answer.

  ‘Can you see these other fields now?’ said Jal-Nish.

  ‘Oh yes! They’re very bright.’

  ‘What about you, Irisis? What’s the matter with your eyes?’

  ‘Silly cow blinded herself up on the aqueduct,’ said Flydd.

  Jal-Nish laughed nastily. ‘The blind leading the blind. Well, Irisis?’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything but the field.’ But then she recalled that strange pattern Zoyl Aarp had seen in the aura of the Minnien node.