Tetrarch (Well of Echoes)

by Ian Irvine

  ‘Are you sure?… Of course you are. Damn it!’ he yelped, holding his head.

  ‘What is it?’ said Irisis.

  ‘That hurt. I used a spell to freeze it into place. That’s a reliable way of attack, as a rule, but the spell hasn’t taken.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s as if a similar spell was already at work nearby, but that makes no sense at all. Let me get my strength back and I’ll try another.’

  Recovering from the spell took so long that Irisis thought it was not going to happen at all. Flydd looked like a man having his leg amputated with a broken bottle. Drops of sweat stood out on his forehead, though in the gloom they had a ruddy look like blood.

  ‘Aargh!’ he gasped, spitting gobs on the floor. ‘I think I can manage it now.’

  He moved his hands and spoke his words of power. They waited, then a crack-crack-SNAP came from around the corner.

  ‘It’s gone,’ said the seeker.

  Now there were drops of blood on the scrutator’s forehead. ‘Just as well,’ he gasped. ‘I could not have done that again.’

  They went by a mushroom-shaped device that had split down the middle, unable to withstand his evocation that had instantly turned it to stone.

  ‘Anything else, Ullii? he said hoarsely.

  ‘No,’ she whispered back. ‘But I see many lyrinx.’

  ‘Coming after us?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Take us to the node-drainer.’

  They turned the corner, passed down a wide tunnel and entered a grotto like the inside of a stubby cross. All was black. The walls were studded with ebony crystals, the roof hung with bituminous stalactites. The floor was strewn with lipped pools, each perfectly circular, that seethed and bubbled like boiling mud ponds.

  Flydd stared in wonderment. ‘This is it, Irisis.’

  In the luminosity of the node-drainer the cavern was eerily beautiful. The walls sparkled like black diamonds, the roof glowed like black pearls, the pools emitted ebony bubbles that drifted around the room, reflecting the light like mirror balls. The node-drainer was, from the vision back at Minnien, just as Irisis expected it to be. It resembled a broad leathery mushroom, white as death, with a circular cap rising to a peak. A hole in the centre, above the stalk, gushed forth energies that flowed and tumbled and shone.

  ‘It’s not quite what I expected,’ Flydd muttered. ‘It’s taking power from the node all right, and staggering amounts of it, but channelling most of it away. Where to?’

  A hanging funnel made of the same leathery substances collected most of the flow. Irisis could not see where it led to. The leaking field created a foggy unreality at the back of the cavern that blurred everything into the walls.

  ‘I expect they’re using it for flesh-forming, and other Arts.’

  ‘No doubt, and if Snizort should survive, we’ll have to follow that up.’

  Ullii gasped, doubled over and projectile vomited through her legs. Curling into a ball, she rolled forward until she struck the wall, toppled over and lay unmoving. Her eyes were wide open, her arms wrapped protectingly around her belly.

  ‘Myllii?’ she whispered. ‘Help me, Myllii.’

  ‘Ullii?’ whispered Irisis. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Node-drainer is wrong. Wrong!’

  ‘What do you mean, Ullii?’

  ‘Tiaan!’

  ‘What about her?’

  Ullii would, or could, say no more.

  The seeker did not seem to be harmed so Irisis carried her to the entrance, as far as she could get from the node-drainer. Laying her on the floor, she ran back to the centre.

  ‘How are we supposed to destroy that?’ She clutched her roiling stomach.

  ‘We discussed it privately at the Council of Scrutators,’ said Flydd. ‘They had something made up for me in Nennifer.’

  From his chest pack he took a device, a sort of metal cap, mirrored on the inside. The rim was set with hedrons made from five perfectly matched blue tourmaline crystals.

  ‘What does it do?’ Irisis asked.

  ‘It simply reflects, in a magical sense, the drained power back the way it came. As long as you can tune the crystals to what’s left of the field, of course. It requires power to make it work, and a lot of it.’

  ‘What if the power can’t go back the way it came? And surely it can’t, since power will keep flowing the other way.’

  ‘It won’t flow back until the power built up within the hedrons is greater than what’s coming from the node. Then it will simply burst through, back to the node, burning out the node-drainer.’

  ‘Has such a device ever been tested?’ She knew the answer to that.

  ‘How could it be? It was made in Nennifer while we … er, waited.’

  ‘About which the least said the better!’

  He went to the entrance, crouching beside the seeker and taking her hand. ‘Thank you, Ullii. I won’t forget what you’ve done to get us here.’

  She snatched it away. ‘You are a wicked man. You broke your promise!’

  ‘I do keep my promises, Ullii. You will see. Rest now. You still have to get us out.’

  He went back to the centre. ‘Irisis, you’ve got the easiest job of all. I have the hardest – to fit the cap while the drainer is still flowing.’

  ‘What’s my job?’ Irisis said suspiciously.

  ‘You must tune the node-drainer to the field, draw power into it and make it work.’

  It was as if he had raised his sword and cloven her head in two. Irisis fell to her knees in the tar and could not get up.

  ‘Xervish – scrutator – surr.’ She stared at him in horror.

  ‘What’s the problem, crafter?’ As if he did not know.

  One minute molten tin was flowing in her veins, the next they were clogged with ice crystals. Her heartbeat sounded like a galloping horse. She licked lips so dry that they crackled. Irisis looked up at the scrutator, standing as implacable as a statue.

  ‘I can’t do it, surr. I can’t draw power from the field. You know I’ve lost the talent.’

  Flydd, who was staring at the fountaining node-drainer, did not answer.

  ‘Surr, you came here, knowing all the time …?’

  His head rotated like a sunflower on its stalk. The eyes were like pitch fires in a cauldron. ‘You must!’

  ‘You knew my failing, Xervish. Why build a device I cannot use? Why bring me at all?’

  ‘I didn’t build it. The Council of Scrutators had it made and Ghorr said it was tailored to me alone. He lied. It wasn’t until I opened the box this afternoon that I understood how it worked. In the time I could not find another artisan; a proper one.’

  The insult was like a smack in the mouth. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’

  ‘That would have made it worse.’

  Then she realised that the solution was right in front of her. ‘Surr, Tiaan is in here somewhere. She could use it.’

  Hope flared in his eyes, which hurt her too. ‘Yes, why didn’t I think of that? Ullii? Ullii?’

  The seeker groaned. Flydd crouched beside her. ‘Ullii, can you see Tiaan?’

  Ullii was holding her head. ‘Myllii, Myllii?’

  Flydd and Irisis exchanged glances. He tried again.

  ‘Ullii. We must find Artisan Tiaan. Where is she?’

  The seeker’s eyes flicked from side to side. ‘Long way from here,’ she whispered.

  ‘Can you take us there?’ said Irisis.

  ‘Too far. Toooo far.’ She closed her eyes.

  Irisis wept in despair. Flydd dragged her to her feet. ‘There’s no time for that. Every minute’s delay means more dead.’

  ‘Can’t you use it, surr?’ she said desperately. ‘You’re a powerful mancer.’

  ‘I told you, it’s designed for an artisan, not a mancer. Ghorr has betrayed me – he wants me dead and doesn’t care if we fail. Do it!’

  His words froze her to the marrow. That was not Xervish, her friend and one-tim
e lover speaking. It was the scrutator, who broke whomever he had to, to get the job done. She had long dreaded this moment, and surely suffered every pang a mortal human could suffer. If she failed, as she would, she would not have long to regret it. She met his eye.

  ‘I will try, surr.’

  ‘Don’t try,’ he replied, harsh-voiced. ‘Succeed. The army, the war, yes, even the survival of humankind is in your hands, Irisis.’

  She took the jewelled cap from his hand. Holding it out, she touched her artisan’s pliance with her other hand and brought the field into view. Irisis closed her eyes, the better to see.

  ‘The field is fading fast. And it’s … all flabby and warped. I’ve not seen anything like it. It’s hardly got any colour left.’

  ‘Then you’d better work quickly.’

  Irisis imaged the field in all directions, then tuned her mind to the blue crystals. That was hard, for she was used to working with one at a time. She traced out paths, through ethyric space, from the field to each of the crystals. It was difficult work, even for her. The knowledge of one path tended to erase the others from her mind.

  You must do it! There is no alternative. She struggled on, fixing the first path, holding it while she did the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. Now the next step. The one she could not do. Opening her eyes, Irisis saw the scrutator staring at her. His mouth moved, as if uttering the word Hurry. She heard nothing except the hissing of the node-drainer.

  She felt disconnected, as if she was being taken apart muscle by muscle, sinew by sinew, organ by organ. The disruption was beginning. Flydd looked even worse. And it would be worse for him if she succeeded, as he attempted to cap the node-drainer.

  Snapping her eyes closed, she felt the blue crystals with her fingertips and imagined power flowing from the field into them. She could see it perfectly. Unfortunately, when she tried to draw on that power, nothing happened. No surprise there. It never had, since that day at her fourth birthday party when she had lost the talent.

  SIXTY-THREE

  ‘Why did you lose it?’ Flydd said in her ear. His knobbly hands gripped her shoulders, supporting her.

  ‘I wanted it too much,’ she whispered, remembering that day so vividly. Desire had burned her.

  ‘Why, Irisis?’

  ‘Because I was the best … Because it was my destiny –’ She broke off, knowing that was wrong.

  ‘Was it? I don’t think so. You never wanted to be an artisan at all, did you?’

  Back in the world of her four-year-old self, Irisis hardly knew what he was saying. ‘I do want it!’ She stamped one foot in its pretty pink sandal. ‘All my life I’ve wanted it. Mother and father and dear old Uncle Barkus …’

  A long-suppressed memory exploded into her mind. On the morning of her birthday she had been talking to her mother about being a jeweller when she grew up. Even at four, Irisis had known what she wanted. She had expected her mother to be pleased but Nysygy had slapped her daughter’s face.

  ‘Don’t be a stupid little girl! Jewelling is cheap, common work for cheap little people. You’re going to be crafter one day, like your Uncle Barkus. Only you won’t be crafter at a dirty little manufactory. You’ll be the most brilliant crafter of all time.’

  ‘But, Mummy,’ the four-year-old Irisis had said, bewildered. ‘I don’t want to be crafter.’

  ‘How dare you,’ Nysygy had screamed, shaking Irisis by the shoulders. ‘Never mention it again or … or I don’t know what I’ll do to myself.’

  Irisis could see her mother’s staring eyes, the knife pressed against one slender wrist. ‘If I die it will be your fault, you wicked daughter!’ she hissed. Her mother was always making threats.

  The child could not deal with emotional blackmail. Irisis just knew herself to be an evil little brat who would one day be the death of her mother. Fortunately dear old Barkus had come in. Her mother had tossed the knife on the table and turned to the bottle instead.

  Flydd broke into her thoughts. ‘What were you really feeling, that day of the birthday party when you lost your talent?’

  ‘I was furiously angry, though I knew better than to show it. I hated my family, and most of all my mother.’

  ‘And when you were asked to demonstrate your talent?’

  The revelation struck her. ‘I wanted to fail. Oh, Xervish, I wanted to fail! It was the only way out of the trap they had built for me.’

  ‘You tried to use your talent but your subconscious mind would not let you. It closed it off and you never found it again.’

  ‘Yes,’ Irisis said softly, ‘but still I could not escape them. Mother did my trick for me that day, and ever after refused to believe my failure. She was too strong for me. I became a liar and a cheat to cover it up. I had to.’

  ‘What will you do after the war? Will you remain crafter?’

  The fiction of ‘after the war’. People had been consoling themselves with that phrase for a hundred and fifty years. The reality was different. ‘Of course not! There will be no need for clankers then. I will follow my dream. People will want beautiful things again, one day.’

  His hand squeezed her shoulders. ‘Help us, Irisis. Save the war, then follow your dream.’

  She looked within herself. The realisation had not made it any easier. She still did not know where her lost talent was, or how to recover it.

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ Flydd said. ‘Just do it!’

  She tried. Her true calling was a beacon out of the tarry darkness. Irisis reached deep inside herself. She tried harder than she had in her life, searching again and again, but could not uncover her talent. Tears formed in her eyes.

  ‘I can’t … do it,’ she said, the barest exhalation of breath. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know where to look.’

  He gripped her shoulders again. Those fierce eyes looked into hers and they were blood-red. His lips had gone an ugly blue. A thread of blood appeared in one nostril. The node-drainer was tearing him apart. Flydd turned away. She had let him down.

  ‘Clawers coming!’ cried Ullii, who had been motionless in the corner all this time.

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Not far.’

  ‘Give me the cap.’ Flydd snatched it from her hands. ‘If you can’t do it, I’ll have to.’

  It would kill him. ‘Wait, surr!’ She had an idea. ‘Ullii, remember that time in the clankers, when they lost the field and I had to tune the controllers to that strange double node?’

  Ullii’s eyes were open and she was staring coldly at Flydd and Irisis. She did not answer.

  ‘Ullii?’

  ‘I remember,’ said Ullii.

  ‘How did you –?’ Never mind. Can you see where my lost talent is?’

  ‘You’re a hard ball in my lattice. Can’t see inside.’

  ‘Please try, else the scrutator is going to die.’

  ‘He’s a nasty, cruel man,’ Ullii snapped.

  ‘But he cares for you, Ullii. He saved you from Jal-Nish.’

  ‘I saved you from Scrutator Ghorr. You promised to find Myllii. Hate you too.’

  Irisis had no answer to that. She looked desperately at Flydd.

  ‘Ah, but I have found Myllii,’ he said smoothly.

  Ullii rotated to face him, her eyes closed as if she were searching her lattice. ‘Myllii,’ she whispered. ‘Where are you, Myllii?’

  ‘He is far away,’ said Flydd. ‘Eiryn Muss has found Myllii and will bring him home to you, but it will take many, many days. Now can you please help Irisis?’

  It was not enough. ‘Irisis wants my Nish,’ Ullii said sullenly.

  ‘That pimply little runt? I do not,’ cried Irisis.

  ‘Saw you at Aachim camp. You were holding him.’ Her voice rose in outrage.

  ‘Nish is my friend,’ said Irisis. ‘I don’t want him for a lover. Why would I, the little pipsq –’ She broke off. Better not insult Nish further. No telling how Ullii would react.

  Ullii had her arms crossed about her chest and a stubborn ex
pression on her face.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ cried Flydd. ‘You’re not a pair of cats in an alley. Irisis, I forbid you, as scrutator, ever to be Nish’s lover. Will that do, Ullii?’

  Ullii gave Irisis a triumphant smile. ‘Thank you, Xervish.’ Seizing his withered hand, she kissed it. ‘You are a kind man. I will do what you want.’

  Irisis was outraged. How dare any man tell her whom she could take to her bed? ‘You’ll be sorry, Flydd. Don’t think you’ll be sharing my favours anytime soon.’

  He smirked, the effect rather spoiled by the blood at the corner of his mouth. ‘Can we get on? I feel I’m being filleted like a fish.’

  Ullii put her hands over her eyes. Her arms shook. Her jaw clenched. Irisis felt as if she was picking at a ball made of black string, but it was wound so tightly she could not unravel it. She plucked and plucked, at one place and another, fruitlessly. Then a pair of hands began to work next to hers. Small and slender they were, and they seemed to know what they were doing. In her mind’s eye, Irisis followed the movements in and out, back and forth. They eased one thread out of the tangle, leaving it sticking up in the air.

  The fingers withdrew. Irisis took hold of the thread and tugged. It unwound, the ball spinning off the other way, growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared, leaving just a pile of shining silver thread. She began to gather it up, for at the end of it must be the key. Or maybe it was the key. She began to weave the silver into a bracelet, an exquisite piece of jewellery.

  ‘Clawers, clawers.’ The seeker folded up on the floor.

  As Irisis slid the bracelet on her wrist she saw the way so clearly that it was like a lifeline stretching out in front of her. She drew power and, to her surprise, her joy, it cascaded into the crystals. They exploded with light and something inside the cap gave forth a low, vibrating hum.

  ‘I’ve done it! Xervish, I’ve done it!’

  There was no time to enjoy her triumph. Flydd snatched the cap. ‘Prepare to defend me!’ He ran to the node-drainer.

  Irisis whipped out her sword and stood at the entrance, looking up and down and back over her shoulder. There were no lyrinx in sight. She was strangely weak and nauseous. Mancers suffered from aftersickness but this was the first time she had experienced it.