by Ian Irvine
‘What are the torgnadrs for, Ryll?’ She had often asked that question but never received an answer.
‘I can’t tell you.’
After that, Ryll and Liett worked with increased urgency. Lyrinx ran in constantly, shouting what could only be exhortations to hurry. The patternings became more frequent and the sessions longer.
Despite Ryll’s words, two more people, a man and a woman, died in the patterners in the next three days. Tiaan’s melancholy grew worse after each session, and though she knew that it was due mainly to the patterner, she could not stop. Her face was swollen from weeping, her tear ducts so inflamed that it hurt to cry. Ryll added salt to her diet, she had wept so much away.
Tiaan could not eat – the green porridge made her want to vomit. She even gagged on water. Ryll brought women from the other patterners to sit with her. That only made it worse. None could speak her language and none was affected by patterning the way she was. She was different, special, and they seemed to resent her.
The patterning had been going on for well over a week. Tiaan could no longer tell what was day and what was night. She’d lost count after ten sleeps. She felt very weak. Even if she’d had the use of her legs, after so long without activity she could not have stood up. She felt sure she was going to die.
Something was going on – the lyrinx showed skin patterns all the time now, livid, clashing colours and jagged designs, and they ran everywhere. Tiaan discovered, from something Liett had said, that human armies were marching toward Snizort. The lyrinx expected to be slaughtered here, or burned alive, but they seemed less worried about that than about completing their great project before the siege began.
The Matriarch and Old Hyull often came in to inspect her torgnadr. As her melancholy increased, they appeared more frequently, but now their skin colour showed agitation. After their last visit, Ryll had lain prostrate on the floor for an hour, and when he got up his eyes were shrivelled like raisins.
Liett barked at him in the lyrinx tongue. He flashed yellow and black, half-heartedly. She lifted him to his feet and propelled him from the chamber. Shortly she returned to stand by Tiaan’s patterner, looking down and clacking her toe claws on the floor.
The silence became uncomfortable. ‘What’s the matter?’ said Tiaan.
Without replying, Liett stalked away.
Tiaan worried about that until Ryll returned with a man she vaguely recognised – the one-handed fellow she had seen as she entered Snizort.
‘Tutor speaks your language,’ said Ryll, hurrying off.
Tiaan could hardly see the man through her swollen eyes. Thin, a sallow face, dark eyes, dark hair. He said nothing, but after a minute he dabbed at her eyes with a piece of rag. She sniffled. He wiped her nose.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying.’
‘The patterner occasionally has that effect.’
He spoke the common speech with a familiar accent – the one spoken on the south coast of Einunar. Of course. He had taught Ryll that language. She wept for the joy of hearing the sounds.
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I haven’t heard anyone from my own land in half a year.’ It filled her with longing for her place in the manufactory. ‘What’s your name? Or should I call you Tutor?’
‘If you like. Tutor is my name; my life. Once I was called Merryl but it doesn’t fit any more.’
‘What’s going on, Tutor?’ The name felt wrong. ‘Why are the lyrinx so afraid? They’re strong.’
‘Not so strong that they can hope to defeat the armies moving towards Snizort. They’re working on a vital project here, and are afraid they’ll never complete it.’
‘Can’t they take it across the sea where they’re safe from attack?’
‘I don’t know. Since I speak their language, they’re specially careful what they say when I’m around.’
‘The lyrinx have defeated us so many times already. Why are they afraid now?’
‘Because of the Aachim and their constructs.’
Tiaan felt a shiver of fear. Why did the thought of them frighten her more than the lyrinx did? She was sure that Vithis was still after her.
‘The lyrinx worry that Aachim and humans will unite to destroy them. Snizort is vulnerable – should they bombard this place with blazing missiles, the tar pits would burn for a hundred years and nothing could extinguish the fires. The lyrinx have a particular terror of fire.’
Tiaan imagined being trapped down here and shuddered. ‘So do I.’
‘Yet they must complete what they came here to do. That’s why your torgnadr is so urgent.’
‘What would they have done if I hadn’t come?’
‘They have a torgnadr here, but it’s been in place for years and is rapidly failing. A band of lyrinx was bringing a replacement from across the sea, but something went wrong. The lyrinx carrying the torgnadr fell into the sea from a great height and was killed, and the torgnadr was lost. It was a terrible setback. Then, miraculously, you turned up. With your talent, and the amplimet, it was their chance to make the most powerful torgnadr of all.’
‘What are all these torgnadrs for?’
‘There’s only one – yours.’
‘But what about all these other patterners?’
‘Their torgnadrs have failed, as nearly all do. They are being repatterned into limnadrs, phynadrs, zygnadrs and other minor devices.’
‘Mine is the only one?’ she said, wide-eyed.
‘Yes. In three years of patterning here they’ve made thousands of minor devices, but only two torgnadrs, and none in the past year. From what I read of their skin-speech, they have the highest hopes for yours. If it’s not ready in time, Snizort must fall.’
‘And we will surely be burned to death.’
‘Alas.’
To save her life she must hope that the torgnadr grew well and swiftly. But if Snizort survived, the human army might not. In that case it was her duty to destroy or sabotage the growing device.
Tutor fell silent. Tiaan grew uncomfortable, wished he would go, and shortly he did. She started crying again.
In the intervals between patterning she slept or sat staring around her, bored out of her wits. Her appetite came back eating was the only thing she had any control over. The torgnadr grew as quickly as a mushroom and with every passing hour Tiaan thought more about her duty. After fleeing Kalissin and the horrific result of her unwilling collaboration there, she had vowed she would never aid the lyrinx again. Now here she was, still unwilling, helping them in a way that could be a hundred times worse. Her duty was clear. She must try to destroy the torgnadr.
Yet she could not move while in the patterner, and when they took her out she was carried to another room to sleep. She could not influence the patterner either – it took from her what it required and she did not know what that was.
In the next session, Tiaan watched more closely. She saw the patterner reading her and imprinting the growing torgnadr. She saw the ebb and flow of the field, and the brightening of the amplimet as power was drawn through it. It did not take much power but something else must, for the field was fluctuating erratically. The amplimet began blinking furiously, as it had at Tirthrax. Was it speaking to the node again?
What if she were to draw power into the amplimet and try to damage the torgnadr, or the patterner itself? Tiaan tried to, but her talent could not penetrate the mask. The lyrinx had thought of everything. That day, when the mask and the amplimet were removed, she wept the most helpless tears of all.
By now, the growth so filled its bucket that the bulbous head protruded from the top. At night, when the lights were out, it emitted a faint green glow.
The torgnadr disturbed Tiaan. It seemed to be watching her, trying to copy her talent, though she knew that was ridiculous. There was no brain inside it; no intelligence. Ryll had told her that much. It was simply patterned on her ability to sense the fluctuating field and draw power from it. Nonetheless, the sight of it put her on edge.
Tutor came to see her every day. Though Tiaan knew Ryll had sent him, she looked forward to Tutor’s visits. He was cheerful, despite his years of slavery, and talked of places far away and times distant: the Great Tales of the Histories, as well as the minor ones. His presence reminded her of her simple life back in the manufactory. How she yearned for it.
She often saw other humans: prisoners who did menial duties like cleaning, carrying and feeding. Tiaan now recognised a dozen, mostly men, defeated soldiers taken prisoner and afterwards kept because they had some value. They rarely spoke and few knew her language. All seemed beaten down by their servitude.
One was coming now, a slender man of middle age with straight white hair and skin as pallid as a mushroom. He had brought food to her several times, spooning the green muck into her mouth but never meeting her eyes. His left shoulder was missing a chunk of muscle, doubtless an old war wound. The arm hung limp.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Tiaan. What’s yours?’
‘Not allowed – talk,’ he muttered in an atrocious accent.
‘I’ll talk to whoever I want. Hey, come back.’
That was the last she saw of him, or her lunch.
Liett checked the growth and lifted the glass bucket down. Tiaan was about to remark about her missed lunch but thought better of it. The lyrinx looked particularly ferocious today and Tiaan did not want to get the prisoner into trouble.
Not long afterwards the old lyrinx reappeared, along with his bevy of attendants. The torgnadr was set down next to Tiaan. He adjusted his spectacles, pulled something onto the top of his head that rather resembled Tiaan’s jellyfish mask, and frowned. At least, she interpreted it as a frown.
Abruptly he wrenched the mask off and spoke to Ryll in an imperative rasp. Ryll answered, again in submissive posture.
‘Jjyikk myrr; priffiy tzzukk!’ snarled the old fellow.
Ryll sprang up and lifted Tiaan out, holding her with her legs dangling while the old lyrinx examined them, prodding and poking. He snapped at Ryll, who hefted Tiaan and carried her, dripping muck, along many tunnels before going into a long, narrow room shaped like an amputated finger. He laid her on a central table with a bright light above it, face-down. More probing and prodding went on in the middle of her back. She thought they were probing her legs too, though she could feel nothing down there.
Suddenly the room was empty except for Ryll. ‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered, very afraid.
He looked away.
Tiaan caught at his hand. ‘Please, Ryll. I saved your life, remember?’
‘And I allowed you to escape from Kalissin. The debt is paid.’
‘Not the debt of friendship!’
‘What?’ he exclaimed.
‘We worked together for months, Ryll. I was your prisoner, yet there were times when we were friends, were we not? Or were you just pretending, so as to get what you wanted from me?’
He seemed … she could not quite say what, perhaps a combination of hurt, embarrassment and revelation. ‘You’re right. We were friends.’
‘Then tell me what is going on. Please?’
Again he glanced over his shoulder. ‘The torgnadr has a flaw. Old Hyull, Husband of the Matriarch, believes it has developed wrongly because of your broken back.’
Did this mean she was useless to them, except to be eaten? ‘What is he going to do?’
‘I don’t know. The torgnadr is strong; the best yet, but because of the flaw we cannot use it. He is furious. I cannot say any more.’
‘But what’s going to happen to me?’ she cried.
Ryll shook his head and walked away.
FIFTY-SEVEN
‘Are we going to look for Myllii today?’ The eagerness shone in Ullii’s eyes. She had asked the same question every day for a week, usually at the most inopportune times. She searched her lattice for him every night but found nothing. She thought about Nish too, but had no way of looking for him; he did not show in her lattice.
‘Not today, Ullii,’ the scrutator said in that absent way a parent uses with a nagging child. ‘I’m busy with the war right now.’
Ullii was not a child and resented being treated like one. Something died in her eyes. She gave Flydd a bitter glare and turned up the hall. The door of her room was closed without a sound.
‘She feels betrayed,’ said Irisis. ‘And I feel I’ve betrayed her. I gave her my word.’
‘I understand what she’s going through, but what can I do? I can’t go cruising across Lauralin for a month in the hope she’ll find him. I haven’t time to scratch myself.’
‘I know that, Xervish. Even so …’
‘You’ve walked the streets all week, asking after him. I’ve asked Muss to put Myllii on his list. For the moment, that’s all I can do.’
And Ullii could be most uncooperative when thwarted. Irisis hoped they would not have to rely on her for anything important, before Myllii could be found.
Everyone was so frantically busy that Irisis hardly saw the scrutator from one day to the next. The Council had been moving their forces in for weeks. They now had sixty thousand troops within a few days’ march of Snizort, escorted by seven thousand clankers. Many of these carried better weapons than before, and were more strongly built, but if the node failed they would be worthless. And without clankers, even that army could not match the twenty-five thousand lyrinx known to be at Snizort.
‘And that’s not even considering the Aachim.’ Flydd was ratcheting back and forth across the veranda, grabbing a tiny break from the endless meetings and messages. She had never seen him so stressed. He could not sit still for an instant. ‘If they join up with the enemy we’re finished. We probably are anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s something wrong, though …’
‘What?’
‘I think Snizort is a trap and we’ve put both feet into it.’
‘It’s not too late to pull back.’
‘I’ve done everything I can to avoid this battle, but Ghorr’s orders are specific and I have no discretion. Even if I disobeyed him and retreated, the blow to morale would be disastrous. And the enemy may have an attack plan for that, too.’
‘Where are the Aachim now?’ Irisis asked.
‘Moving down through Borgistry and Almadin, and in from Oolo and Nihilnor, according to our latest intelligence.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Learn all you can about the node and how its fields are changing. Perquisitor, would you get the Snizort chart?’
Fyn-Mar unrolled it on the boards. ‘The node is not actually at Snizort, but several leagues to the south, well underground.’
‘Underground?’ He frowned.
‘My predecessor mapped it a few years ago, along with others in the area. Usually nodes are associated with some prominent geographic feature: a hill or volcano, a faultline or canyon. This one is not.’
‘What kind of country is it?’
‘Rolling hills.’
‘Is there limestone?’
‘Some.’
‘Mines or caves?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know of any.’
‘Not much help,’ said the scrutator. ‘Go to the location of the node, Irisis. Take Ullii and see what you can find. The field is weaker than when we arrived, so they must be taking out more power than ever. See if you can find any sign of a node-drainer.’
‘That’s lyrinx country. How are we going to get there?’
‘The air-floater will drop you there tonight. Signal when you’re ready to be picked up but be prepared to come back on your own. Just in case.’
Irisis hoped there would be no such eventuality. The node lay twenty leagues north of Gospett, at least five days’ march in this country, even supposing that Ullii would walk at all. She was more sullen and withdrawn than ever.
Irisis and Ullii spent half the night, under a bright full moon, slogging back and forth across the location of the node. Though
there was nothing on the surface to indicate its presence, it was one of the strongest Irisis had encountered. Its field extended for nearly twenty leagues in all directions before being overwhelmed by overlapping fields from smaller, more distant nodes. The node itself was compact, little more than a thousand paces across, like the yolk of a fried egg, surrounded by an increasingly tenuous halo of field, the white.
‘Any marks on the ground?’ Irisis asked Ullii for what seemed the hundredth time. ‘Any pits or holes or diggings?’
‘No,’ said Ullii.
‘Any sense of a node-drainer?’
‘No! Tired. Want to sleep.’
Ullii always seemed tired lately. It was an added worry.
‘Only one line to go,’ Irisis said.
Ullii said something rude, but did keep going. They trudged down the line, Ullii sensing the shape of the node, Irisis noting its variations in her book. Finally they got to the end, only a couple of hours before dawn.
‘Anything here, Ullii?’
‘No. Have to sleep.’
‘You can lie down right here, if you like. We’re finished.’
Irisis signalled into the air. There was no response. She prayed they would not have to walk, for it was a long trek to the Westway, the first place where they could hope to be picked up. She did not fancy that, in lyrinx country.
The work they’d done had confirmed what she already knew. The node was a long way underground and there could be no node-drainer here, else Ullii would have sensed it. They would have to search from the air-floater and hope to come upon signs of strangeness, such as sinking land or a sudden appearance of hot springs, though both were common around Snizort. Ullii had to know where to look.
Irisis sat up until dawn. The air-floater did not come. In the morning Ullii rolled over and was violently ill. She curled up under a tree in the shade, her mask, goggles and earmuffs firmly in place, and could not be convinced to move. Irisis spent a restless, anxious day.
That night she signalled as soon as it grew dark and the air-floater appeared within minutes. ‘Where the blazes were you last night?’ Flydd said as she climbed over the side.