by Ian Irvine
‘I’m so afraid, Nish.’ She spoke so softly he could barely hear her.
‘Of me?’
‘Not you.’ Her hands pulled his palm against her nose.
‘Then what?’
‘I can see horrible things.’
‘Is Tiaan one of them?’
‘Tiaan is nice. I like her. But in the mountain … It’s too much, Nish. Everything is so bright, I can’t even see her crystal. There’s some great …’
‘Magic?’
‘Some great magic there. It’s not made yet, but already it’s blinding me. It’s awful. It’s going to eat us, Nish.’
‘Is it lyrinx?’
‘I can’t tell. There’s too much light. Everywhere I look it’s as bright as the sun. It hurts my mind. I can’t shut it out.’
‘Can you see anything else?’
She turned around, facing west. ‘Nothing.’ She rotated south and east, the way they had come. ‘Nothing!’ Ullii kept turning, and as she turned due east she cried, ‘Clawers!’ pointing up along the line of the mountains.
‘What, flying? Or in the mountains?’
‘I don’t know. The Art is too strong.’
‘Surely they are flying,’ said Nish, ‘otherwise they would not need to use the Art.’
She turned east–south-east, screamed and doubled over, protecting her face again. ‘No!’ She let out an ungodly shriek and began to rock furiously. The shriek came echoing back at them.
‘Ullii? What is it?’
It took ages to coax her back this time. ‘It … it’s a black knot in my lattice. There’s a pattern, a beautiful pattern, but I know if I tried to unravel it there’s a monster hiding inside. Waiting to get me. It hates us.’
‘Is it lyrinx?’
‘No. It hates clawers too. It’s a creeping, poisonous thing.’ Her eyes sprang open. He saw himself reflected in them. ‘It’s hunting Tiaan!’
‘Perhaps it’s hunting her for the lyrinx.’
‘No!’ she shuddered and began rubbing her shoulder. The delicate skin was raised in red welts.
Nish went to his pack, found a flask of cooking oil and sat down beside her, lubricating his fingers. He slid his fingertips across the welts.
She stiffened, but the tension went out of her when his fingers slipped across the skin. ‘That feels … nice.’ Ullii slid off her perch onto the ground in front of him.
He worked the oil back and forth, ever so gently. The evening was cold but it did not seem to bother her. Finally, when all the marks were done, he let his hand slip away. He ached for her but was afraid to do anything.
‘Don’t stop!’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Nish, no one has ever touched me so gently. All my life people have hurt me. No one ever touched me but to cause me pain. Everyone wants to use me, except you. You are the kindest man in the world, Nish.’
If only you knew! Pouring oil into his palm, he smoothed it across her shoulders and down her back. Ullii sighed, and as he worked his fingers back and forth she began to talk about herself, as she had never done before.
‘All my life I’ve wanted to be like other people. You can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up and never be touched, because you can’t bear it. My brothers and sisters used to hug each other. My mother and father too. I wanted it so badly, but the feel of their clothes made me scream. My clothes did too. I screamed all the time and no one knew why.’
‘Was it always like that?’ He shaped her sides with his palms.
‘It got really bad when I was two. After I lost my twin.’
‘You had a twin sister?’
‘No, I had a brother. I think he died. No one would ever tell me. I still miss him.’ She gave a great shudder. ‘Before that I don’t remember. People have hard skin; their hands hurt me.’
He pulled up his sleeve, touching her with the soft skin on the inside of his arm.
She drew it across her cheek, wonderingly. ‘You feel nice, Nish.’
‘If I took my shirt off,’ he said experimentally, ‘you would see that underneath I have soft skin, just like yours.’
She did not respond, so he unfastened his shirt, laid it aside and pressed his chest against her back, very carefully. His fingers slid up to her ears.
She jerked away. ‘Don’t touch my ears,’ she said sharply.
He pulled away, deflated.
She turned to see what the matter was. ‘It makes a noise in my head like thunder, Nish.’ She put his hands back on her shoulders.
He resumed, shortly feeling bold enough to run his fingers down her throat and onto her chest. When she did not react, he slid them all the way to the swell of her breast, and away again. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against his upper arm.
Nish circled her breast with a slippery finger, heading inwards. She sighed again. He continued, in and in, tracing the little bumps and up the peak of the nipple. Ullii sucked in her breath sharply and began to breathe very fast. She gasped. Her head drooped.
‘That is … very nice,’ she murmured.
At last he was getting somewhere. Nish lifted his finger. Her hand came up and put it back, pressing down hard. He took the nipple between finger and thumb, rolling it gently back and forth.
Then in an instant she had flung him backwards off the rock. She leapt to her feet.
‘What have I done?’ he cried.
She stood up on tiptoe, head forward, owl eyes searching the darkness. ‘It’s happening.’
‘What, Ullii?’ He rubbed the back of his head, which he had cracked on a stone.
‘I don’t know. It’s like all the lights in the city went on at the same time, right in my eyes.’ She turned until she faced the towering bulk of Tirthrax. ‘It’s coming from up there. Inside the mountain!’
FIFTY-NINE
Tiaan woke early in the night, aching for her lover. She had tried to contact him before going to bed but had failed. This time it had felt different, as if he was not there at all. As if he no longer existed.
You’re just being silly, she told herself. He’s too busy, or gone some place where you can’t contact him, just as the amplimet only works near nodes. But he’d said to call when the device was tested. He would not have gone away at such a critical time. And that meant …
There was no possibility of going back to sleep so she rose quietly and went to the work chamber. The place seemed different now. Tiaan did not understand why until she’d gone out again and the light-glasses faded. The glass doughnuts were glowing. In the darkness they had a faint, unearthly shimmer.
She touched the wall lights to keep them off, closed the door and stood in the dark, staring at her contraption. It looked alive, ready to be used. The last step was to put the amplimet into it and call again. Hours mattered now – Minis had emphasised that.
She unwrapped the amplimet, which was glowing too brightly to look at, and carried it towards the zyxibule. Tiaan could feel rampant energy in the room. Her hair stirred; her clothes crackled and gave off little flashing discharges.
When she was still a few steps away, something went click-thunk inside the machine and the light drained out of the amplimet. The doughnuts flared. A low hum began and Tiaan felt a wave pass through her. For an instant the walls and ceiling seemed to curve inwards. She blinked and all was normal again, though the hum remained. The zyxibule had activated itself. What would happen when she put the amplimet inside?
Tiaan stopped, feeling as if something was not quite right. She compared the machine with the image in her mind. It was, as far as she could tell, perfect in every detail, so why did she have that troubled feeling? Perhaps it was the name. ‘Zyxibule’ resonated unpleasantly – it sounded alien and unfriendly. I’ll call it ‘port-all’, she decided, and immediately felt better about it.
Tiaan spent the night checking and rechecking. Unable to identify any fault in the port-all, she ran though the tests yet again. Everything worked exactly as she had been told to expect. Worn out, she lay on the warm floor and snatched an hour’s sleep.
Waking as dawn was breaking outside, she called Minis. She wanted to check that the machine was right before she put the amplimet in. He did not answer. At least it gave her time to get ready. She went to the bathing room, had a hot shower followed by a cold one and scrubbed herself until she was as clean as a baby. Today, if all went well, she would meet her lover. Tiaan was determined to look her best.
That was not something she knew much about. The most she had ever done was hack her hair short with a knife. Rather more was needed here.
Tiaan got out the special garments purchased months ago in Ghysmel. She had washed them a few days ago, to remove all trace of the musty smell from her pack. There was a set of pretty though wickedly scanty underwear, over which she put a short-sleeved blouse in a peach colour. It suited her honey complexion. Made of a fabric like silk, it clung to her breasts in a way that made her feel self-conscious. But then, she thought, Minis is my chosen lover, and why should he not admire my breasts? Soon he will be caressing them. A delicious thrill, that.
She recalled Matron in the breeding factory being rather pleased with her breasts, though tempering her praise by pointing out that one was smaller than the other. Tiaan had made a point of inspecting other women in the bathhouse on board the Norwhal. She felt that she compared well.
With the blouse she had teamed umber pantaloons of the same fabric, tight around the waist and bottom, loose in the legs then gathered to show her slender ankles. Did the blouse clash with the pantaloons? She could not tell. Black sandals completed the outfit, though she worried that brown might have gone better. She wished her feet were smaller.
‘You look nice,’ said Haani, sitting up in the sleeping pouch.
‘Thank you. I need to cut my hair. I don’t suppose you’ve seen a pair of scissors anywhere?’
‘What are scissors?’
Pulling out her sleeve, Tiaan made snipping motions with her fingers.
‘Oh, brawnies? I saw some in a room on the next floor. I’ll show you.’
She leapt out of bed. Tiaan followed more sedately, practising her walk, something between a sway and a glide. She thought it looked rather silly, but hoped Minis would find it alluring. ‘And a mirror?’
Haani knew that word. There had been several on board ship. ‘There’s lots of mirrors. All the rooms up there have them.’
The room turned out to be a suite of chambers, someone’s living quarters. The mirror was a large one of polished metal with a design etched around the edges. Tiaan wiped the dust off with a bedcover.
Her hair was dull, ragged and long, not having been cut since the stay in the breeding factory. Tiaan gave it a few hundred strokes with her brush, took up the offered scissors and laid them down in despair. She examined her face, which was wide, with fine, high cheekbones. How did one cut hair to suit?
Tiaan trimmed her fringe straight across, three fingers’ width above her eyebrows. That was better. She managed to cut the sides straight, just below her ears, but eyed the ragged ends at the back in some alarm.
‘Haani …’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think you could cut my hair at the back? It would have to be very straight.’
‘Of course,’ Haani said with the confidence of the eight-year-old. She set to work. Tiaan’s alarm grew as the thick swatches fell to the floor.
‘Perhaps a little higher here, and here,’ Tiaan said shortly.
‘That’s much better,’ Haani said brightly as Tiaan stood up, brushing the loose hair away. ‘You look beautiful, Tiaan.’
It was not much better, but it was better, though it looked more like a little girl’s cut than a young woman meeting her lover for the first time. Well, nothing could be done about it.
‘Ah, but will Minis think so?’ she said to herself, not meaning Haani to overhear.
‘Of course he will. If he doesn’t he’s a rude, nasty man and I won’t like him at all.’
Tiaan had not considered that problem. What would Haani think of Minis? And how would he react to her? Tiaan fretted as she trimmed her nails and gave everything a last check. She did not look anything special. Tiaan felt panicky, then recalled a gift Marnie had once given in a futile attempt to make her daughter look feminine. A necklace of silver and amethyst, it seemed to suit.
Tiaan checked that her own gift, the woven gold and silver ring she had crafted so lovingly, was secure in her scrip. It was. She took a deep breath.
‘Are you ready, Haani?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about your clean clothes?’
‘They’re by the bed. I’ll get dressed in a minute.’
‘Let’s go down to breakfast. Then we’ll brush our teeth. Make sure you do your hair, then we’ll begin.’
Tiaan had another go at contacting Minis. Again she failed. Better get to work. Her worries about the machine had not gone away but it was too late now to do anything about them. She examined the amplimet carefully. It was dusty, with bits of fluff here and there, and a silver mark on one side where it had been pressed hard against the helm. She wiped it down with a clean pair of knickers, scrubbing at the mark until it came off.
‘Well,’ she said with a gulp and a fluttery feeling in her stomach, ‘this is it! Come on, Haani. Let’s see what we can do.’
She marched into the room where the port-all stood, the amplimet held out in front of her. Tiaan looked like a maiden carrying tribute to one of the high temples of old. Haani skipped along behind, singing a child’s rhyme. It was just another day to her.
Tiaan was pleased about that. She did not want to think what would happen if the machine went wrong: if it burnt her to a cinder, or left her body intact but her mind gone. She imagined Haani crouched over the body, bewildered …
Stop it! Probably nothing would happen anyway, since they had not taught her how to use it. Wrenching away from the morbid thoughts, she strode up to the port-all. The glass structures glowed as before. The hum was still there. When she approached, the glow intensified and a faint whine began. It rose in pitch. She stopped. The pitch stayed the same. She took another step. It rose again. The drifting spark inside the amplimet had brightened.
In the centre of the smallest glass doughnut, which enclosed the twisticon and was surrounded by the larger vertical one, hung a suspended basket made of the same amber soapstone that comprised the legs of the port-all. It mimicked the shape of the amplimet, with hinges that allowed it to be opened into two parts.
Tiaan stretched out and flicked the basket open. The doughnuts burst with light. The whine became a wail that tickled the insides of her ears. She felt pressure against her front, as if she was trying to push through a rubber sheet. The closer she came the more resistance she felt.
The light was now so bright that she had to squint. Her vision narrowed to a horizontal slit that showed only the central section of the port-all. Tiaan forced, and something pushed back just as hard. The amplimet did not budge. Minis had not told her about this.
She could not fail this close to her goal. There must be a way through. Tiaan turned the crystal so one of its pyramidal ends pointed to the basket, and heaved. The amplimet went a little way and stopped as if she was pushing against a solid wall. The other end did not work either.
There was only one thing left to do and she did it most reluctantly, remembering Minis’s warning about using the amplimet here. Getting the wire globe from her pack, she placed the amplimet inside. The glow from the port-all disappeared. The whine was gone too. As soon as she put the helm on, the field sprang into view. It was different from other fields she had seen, consisting of multi-coloured billows and eddies radiating in all directions from the port-all. She felt she saw more than ever before, as if the swirls and whirlpools opened on a dimension she had previously been incapable of imagining.
The resistance proved as strong as ever. Tiaan went forward as far as she could go. Holding the globe straight out in one hand, she closed her eyes while manipulating the beads with the other.
No matter how hard she tried, Tiaan could draw nothing from the field. She had no time to wonder why. She would have to try her fledgling geomancy again.
She sensed several sources of that kind of power. Great thrust faults lay below, where half a continent had been forced over another, pushing up these giant mountains. Such power was beyond the most powerful mancer’s ability to tap or even survive.
But there was one source she might be able to use. Tiaan had seen them on the way here – the glaciers all around. They ended in icefalls, and the energy released by one tiny crack opening should be enough to force her way in.
She sought out and discarded many before finding a glacier that seemed just right. It was a little one, moving down a truncated valley on the other side of the mountain. She’d seen it as she was climbing up. But even a little glacier had awesome power to grind and crack and crush. She sensed out its structure, just above the icefall, and located a weakness along which coloured haloes danced in her mental image. It was ready to crack open. Tiaan waited.
‘What are you doing, Tiaan? Why are you standing there like that?’ came Haani’s voice from behind.
‘Shh!’ Tiaan could not answer lest she lose her concentration. It was coming, it was coming! The crevasse cracked open. She drew power from it, clumsily. It had no perceptible effect on the glacier but Tiaan felt a surge of cold force stronger than anything she had handled before. It flowed into the amplimet, the spark lit up like a flash of lightning and Tiaan pushed hard.
The opposing force gave before her like a knife thrusting through a drum. She fell, almost crashing into the glass doughnuts. Regaining her balance, she slipped the amplimet from the globe, jammed it into the basket and banged the amber door.
The glow and the whine reappeared. The barrier came up so hard and fast that Tiaan was sent skidding twenty paces across the room. Fortunately there was nothing to crash into or she would have broken bones.
She lay dazed as Haani came screaming up. ‘Tiaan, are you all right?’
Tiaan got up, with the child’s help. ‘I think so.’ She dusted herself off, only to discover that the slide had torn a hole in the knee of her beautiful pantaloons. Not a large one, but it made her look like an urchin, rather than a beautiful woman rushing to meet her lover.