Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (53 page)

‘What a fortunate man you are,’ cried Minis, taking Nish’s hands in his and shaking them vigorously. ‘She is the most beautiful woman in the world.’

The breath rushed out of Nish as he finally understood. Minis was no danger at all – he seemed to be rather a prat, or perhaps he was just very young, and obviously in love. ‘She has a certain charm.’

‘Were you friends?’ Minis squeezed his hands.

Nish detached them with the minimum of offence. ‘We were not, though there was a time when I was fond of her. We are too different, Minis.’

‘Tell me about her. Tell the whole story. I must know everything.’

Nish gave him the tale from the beginning, in brief, though glossing over the more shabby aspects of it. Fortunately Minis had ears for nothing but the beauty and the cleverness of his beloved. He seemed not to appreciate Nish’s bad behaviour, which was just as well.

‘I would give anything just to see her again,’ he said when Nish had finished.

‘She feels terribly wronged,’ said Nish bluntly. ‘She feels that you betrayed her and that your people used her, coldly and calculatingly.’

‘Tiaan
has
been wronged and I am to blame. I will never forgive myself for not standing up to my foster-father. But we had just lost our world, and all our people who could not get to the gate. Can you imagine that, Nish? Imagine knowing that, even if you escaped, nine-tenths of humanity were doomed.’ He broke off.

I cannot, Nish thought, and that should be a lesson to me, not to judge. Yet he did judge Minis and Vithis. It was impossible not to.
He
would not be so weak. And then, because, for all his faults, Nish knew his own character rather well, he added: at least not weak in
that
way.

Minis went on. ‘Foster-father had seen (as I did) his clan wiped out in the void – every child lost, every woman, every man, to the most horrible of deaths. That was a terrible time for me. How much worse must it have been for him, who had devoted all his life to our clan! How could I turn against foster-father at such a time? I am his heir and the sole hope of his clan. I just could not do it. But even so, poor Tiaan was treated poorly, and in the hour of her own tragedy.’

‘It is understandable,’ said Nish, but he thought the less of Minis for it.

‘I should have found a way.’ Minis put an arm across his shoulders as if they were old friends. Perhaps, in some strange reality, the link between Nish and Tiaan made him a friend. ‘I think about her every hour. Every minute! My life is nothing without her. What am I going to do, Nish?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nish, moving uncomfortably. ‘I have little experience in matters of the heart.’

‘Can you think where she might have gone with the flying construct?’

Was this what he had been leading up to all along? Had the father sent Minis to do what he was unable to do himself? Nish felt that Minis
was
genuine, and might have been used, as Tiaan had been. Fortunately he could answer the question honestly.

‘I have no idea. I have not seen her since Tirthrax, months ago.’

He told that tale too, and at the end Minis sighed. ‘Ah, what a life you have lived, Nish.’

‘It’s better in the telling than the living,’ said Nish. ‘I’ve nearly died a dozen times. And despaired a thousand!’

‘I’ve not lived at all,’ said Minis. ‘Foster-father has wrapped my life in cotton silk. It was bad before, when First Clan was the greatest. Now all his hopes rest on me and he will not let me do
anything
, for fear I will injure myself. When he discovers me gone, he will come after me with a hundred constructs. I’m suffocating, Nish! The only happy times in my life have been those few hours when I spoke to Tiaan through the crystal, mind to mind. I am lost without her.’

What was there to say to this stranger from another world? In the background Nish could see Yara pacing. She probably thought he was doing some deal with the Aachim to betray them. He should make his excuses and go, but … Minis was the heir and the key to Vithis. He would make a powerful friend. ‘What will you do now?’

‘What foster-father requires of me,’ said Minis. ‘Of course.’

‘Must you obey him? Can you not make your own life?’

‘I wish I could, but I know he is right – he always is. I cannot stand up to him.’

‘He is an angry, bitter man.’

‘And was, even before the gate went wrong. He cannot bear to think that we were held in thrall by the Charon for so long.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Nish. ‘The Hundred.’

‘And though they were but a hundred, we
never
rebelled against them. Some say that we wanted to submit to a stronger race. I do believe Vithis would rewrite our Histories to erase that shame.’

Suddenly Minis did not seem such a prat at all, for all that he was in thrall to Vithis. ‘Surely false Histories must be a greater shame?’

‘
I
think so, but foster-father …’

Nish changed the subject. ‘Does he mean war against us?’ He broke off. ‘I’m sorry, Minis. I should not have asked you that, but you
are
a seer.’

‘Why not? You want to do the best for your own kind. I’m not the most reliable of foretellers, and the near future is particularly cloudy. However, I will answer your question, not as a seer but as a man and, I hope, some day a friend.

‘Foster-father feels himself to be the greatest failure of all his line, and that line stretches back ten thousand years. He must make up for it – you cannot even imagine how desperately he is driven. There is only one way he can do that. To give the Aachim a new home in replacement of beloved Aachan.’

‘Our world,’ said Nish. ‘He means to take it.’

‘If you resist him. Though I am sure, in his heart, he would prefer to negotiate for a part of it.’

‘I saw no willingness to negotiate. Only arrogance, and an ultimatum.’

‘He is … not the most flexible of men, I’m sorry to say. I
am
sorry, for he has been a father to me, and a mother.’

‘Will he ally with the lyrinx against us, do you think?’

‘That would be against his inclination, but Vithis was ever a creature of strange passions.’

‘I wonder that he has not attacked humanity already.’

‘Ah,’ began Minis, but did not go on.

‘What is it?’

‘The clans are jealous of each other, as you saw the other day. They strive constantly for the advantage. That makes it difficult for us to achieve a common goal, unless a mighty leader can command all the clans by sheer force of will.’

‘And Vithis is not such a leader.’

‘He could be, should our situation become desperate.’

‘What can we do to ensure that he does not ally with the lyrinx?’

‘I don’t know. There is only one thing …’

‘Yes?’ cried Nish.

‘He wants Tiaan and the flying construct.’

‘What is this flying construct I keep hearing about?’

Minis told how Tiaan had appeared out of nowhere, in a construct that did not simply float but
flew
. ‘She must have made it in Tirthrax from three that were wrecked there. She solved in a few weeks the puzzle that has eluded our finest thinkers for two hundred years – the secret of flight. She flew it right at us, Nish, in the middle of six thousand constructs. A hundred thousand armed Aachim opposed her but she did not care. I could see her staring eyes. She burned for revenge. There is no woman like her in all the Three Worlds.’

No, there is not, Nish realised. Tiaan was unique; a genius. ‘That does not seem like the Tiaan I knew. She was never foolhardy.’

Minis looked mortified. ‘Once again I am shamed. My people attacked her first, without warning or provocation.’

‘Are the Aachim so afraid that a hundred thousand fear one?’

‘Perhaps we are. We have everything to lose now.’

The scrutators would want to know this news, Nish thought. If only there were a way of getting to them. ‘Does Vithis want Tiaan, or just the flier?’

‘He wants it so desperately that all our plans have been put on hold until it is found. Flight would give us the world. Ah, if I could just offer that to foster-father …’

‘And you want something in return?’

‘His respect. He demands that I obey him in all things, but when I do he curses me for being a spineless creature who lacks the courage to make my own life. Nothing I do is good enough. It’s eating me alive.’

‘My father can be like that too. The war has made people hard.’

‘But you are so strong.’

‘I’m free of him now.’

‘How did you break free, Nish?’ Minis asked eagerly. ‘What should I do?’

That’s what your problem is, thought Nish. ‘You have to do it yourself, Minis. No one can tell you how.’

‘Vithis is sure that Tiaan’s construct was damaged in the attack,’ Minis mused, ‘and could not have gone very far. He would give anything to find it.’

‘What do you mean
anything
?’

‘Whoever were to find it, and deliver it to him, could name their price.’

Nish sat up. ‘What if
I
found it? What if I demanded an alliance against the lyrinx?’

‘He would agree,’ Minis said without hesitation.

‘That would win the war,’ Nish ruminated. ‘What would I not give for that.’

‘Then find the construct!’

‘And Tiaan, for you,’ said Nish.

‘Aye. Foster-father would surely agree to Tiaan then.’

Nish did not reply. He felt sorry for Minis. How could he so delude himself? From what he’d heard, Vithis would never allow him to pair with an old human.

Minis continued, ‘Though I am not fool enough to believe that
my
problems can be solved so easily. My betrayal was too great to ever expect her forgiveness.’ His dark eyes met Nish’s. ‘Yet I still hope for it.’

‘I hope you get your heart’s desire.’ Nish rose, casting anxious glances back at the camp. ‘Shall we go? My people must be wondering what has become of me.’

Once again he was being offered the chance of a lifetime, for after Yara and the children were delivered safely he had no given duties. Could he find Tiaan and her construct, where the Aachim had failed? And if he could, should he give it to Vithis? Would it be worth it to win the war? Or would it be better to deliver the construct to his own people?

The risk was that humanity might not be able to duplicate it, whereas the Aachim surely could. And if humanity had it, the Aachim might go to war just to get it, which would make matters far worse.

But if he gave it to Vithis, and he was able to make fliers of all his constructs, the Aachim would be all-powerful. Once the war against the lyrinx was won, he could turn on humanity and take Santhenar for his own. How to decide what to do? The wrong decision might lose the war, and Nish his head. He wished the flier had never been discovered. His mind was whirling, calculating possibilities, scarcely hearing what the Aachim was talking about. Minis shook him by the arm.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Nish said.

‘You have done so much, Nish. If anyone can find Tiaan it is you. Will you take it on?’

‘I have had my share of disasters. And of course,’ Nish gave a short laugh, ‘you must make allowances. I may have exaggerated my tale.’

Minis shrugged. ‘Our spies have been busy. I know more about you than you imagine. I also share my father’s talent – my late father. He was an excellent judge of a man and, so I believe, am I. I will pin my faith in you.’ His eyes showed that faith; a new experience for Nish.

Nish was touched. He liked Minis. For all his awkwardness and his silly ways, there was no artifice about him.

‘I’ll try,’ said Nish, ‘once I’ve delivered Yara and the children safely. That duty –’

‘I understand duty. You do not need to explain.’ Minis held out his hand and Nish took it. The wrap-around handshake felt strange, but it also felt right.

‘How will I find you again?’

‘I will find you, my friend.’

Back at the camp, Nish joined Yara, who sat warily with Tyara and Vunio. She held herself erect and her hand was never far from the knife on her belt. Nish sat down. Minis shook Yara’s hand, and the hands of the twins, to their giggly amusement.

‘I must go,’ Minis said. ‘I too have my duties and they are pressing.’

He bowed, the other Aachim did too, and they went back to the construct. It whined away. The second machine, which had remained in the trees all this time, followed some distance behind.

‘What was that about?’ Yara demanded. ‘Why did you sneak off with him so I couldn’t hear what was going on?’

‘I didn’t
sneak
off. He asked to speak to me privately.’

‘Why?’ she said imperiously. ‘What did he have to say that could not be said out in the open?’

‘The poor fellow is quite besotted with Tiaan,’ said Nish, meeting her eye. ‘He hoped I might be able to tell him where she was hiding. ’

‘And could you?’ Yara demanded.

‘I did not know her that well,’ said Nish. ‘She loathes me, as it happens.’

‘Why is that?’ Yara said sharply.

‘I did her a bad turn, I’m ashamed to say. The Nish of those times was a callow, selfish youth. I’ve grown up since then.’

‘Really? In that case, your callowness must have been truly prodigious.’

‘I’m sorry if you don’t find my service satisfactory. I’m doing my best.’

‘I have no doubt you are – but for whom?’