Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (65 page)

‘What now?’ Flydd called.

‘It’s – Aah! Help! Pull me out!’

‘What’s happened?’ Irisis repeated.

‘Jal-Nish has fallen through the floor; or
into
it.’

‘Into solid rock?’

‘You asked what it would be like where the node-drainer emptied to. Now we know. It’s like nothing on this world.’

‘Help, help!’ It was a chorus of voices now.

‘Better go and rescue them,’ said Flydd to the other guards.

A guard screamed, truncated in the middle.

‘Hurry!’ Flydd snapped.

The soldiers ran off.

‘Let’s go,’ said Flydd. ‘Ullii, lead the way.’

They ran, Irisis stumbling along by her lead rope. It was a long hike in the dark and by the time they reached the roof fall she was bruised all over from running into the walls.

‘Wait,’ she called, her heart hammering wildly. ‘I’ve got to stop for a second.’

‘Hear that?’ It was a distant wailing cry. ‘He’s behind us. Come
on
!’

They kept going. Irisis’s knees felt like jelly, though at least the weird flesh-shivering had ceased. ‘How far to the lift?’

‘Too far.’

‘Are they catching us, do you think?’

‘Can’t tell,’ he gasped. ‘Just keep going.’

Running and running, through the empty dark. Irisis was dragged around a corner and struck her knee on a projecting rock. She cried out.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Just a broken kneecap!’ she said.

‘I’ve climbed mountains with worse. Stop moaning and get on with it.’

‘When we get out of here, you hateful man, I’m going to give you the biggest drubbing you’ve ever had in your life.’

‘A
drubbing
?’ He smiled. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

‘Lift’s not far ahead now,’ he said some time later.

‘Where’s Ullii?’

‘Up ahead. She knows how to take care of herself.’

‘But does she know how to take care of us?’

‘What do you mean?’ They rounded the last corner and Flydd began to laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘We’re at the edge of the lift shaft. Don’t go forward. The lift’s gone. Ullii has wound it up without us.’

‘Call her down again.’

‘Ullii?’ he bawled. The sound echoed and re-echoed in the shaft. ‘Bring that lift down again,
right away
!’

Silence, over which she could hear the sound of running feet.

‘Ullii?’

She did not reply but the lift rope began to move down. Irisis could hear it swishing through the water, which lay just below the lip of the entrance to their level.

‘Hurry up!’

Ullii whimpered. The footsteps came closer. Irisis recognised the wheezing breath of Jal-Nish. She cursed. He’d got out after all.

‘Basket’s here,’ said Flydd, who had freed his hands. He helped Irisis over the side into the basket, cut her bonds and put her hands on the crank. ‘As soon as I give the word, wind like fury.’

‘Stop!’ panted Jal-Nish. ‘Stop or we’ll shoot.’

The basket swayed as Flydd sprang in. ‘Wind the damn thing! There’s only two, Jal-Nish and one soldier.’

Irisis heaved at the crank. The basket jerked up.

‘Shoot them!’ roared Jal-Nish. ‘Shoo – Where’s your damned crossbow, soldier?’

‘It went under the floor, surr, when I was pulling you out. Sorry, surr …’

‘Useless fool,’ Jal-Nish screamed. ‘They’re getting away and we can’t do anything about it.’

Xervish Flydd laughed fit to burst. ‘Goodbye, Jal-Nish. Don’t forget to put this in your next despatch to the Council. I’ll certainly mention it in mine.’

As they neared the top, Flydd called up to the lift guards, ‘Jal-Nish is in trouble at the bottom. Better get down after him.’

The guards whispered to one another. Wasn’t Flydd an outlaw now?

‘Hurry up!’ roared Flydd, helping Irisis over the side. Used to obeying without question, the guards did as they were told.

Once their basket reached the bottom, Flydd cut the lift rope. ‘A good evening’s work,’ he said, whistling jauntily, and headed up the tunnel.

They reached the upper entrance without incident. He flashed the signal lantern and the air-floater came drifting down to the top of the hill.

‘What happens now?’ said Irisis, snuggling into a canvas seat. Ullii was already hidden in a corner, under the bench.

‘We let out all Jal-Nish’s skeets, to give us a few extra days, drop Oon-Mie and Zoyl at a safe manufactory, then go to a rendezvous,’ said Flydd. ‘I don’t know what we’ll find there. How are your eyes?’

‘How do you think they are?’ she snapped.

‘Have you tried them lately?’

‘No. Why would I?’

He untied the bandage and pulled off the pads, which had stuck to her eyelids.

‘Ouch!’ she said.

‘Can you see anything?’

‘I can’t open my eyes.’

They were gummed shut with yellow secretions. Calling for a bowl of water, he bathed her eyelids until they came un-gummed.

‘Now try.’

She rubbed her eyes, opened them and stared at where she thought he was. ‘I still can’t see anything.’

‘Of course not. You’re looking out into the dark. Turn around.’ He turned her. ‘There.’

She gazed at him and slowly her eyes began to water. Tears flooded her cheeks.

‘I can’t be that ugly,’ he said gruffly.

‘I can see!’ she cried. ‘I can see!’ Throwing her arms around him, she sobbed her heart out.

G
ilhaelith heard Tiaan’s cry as the walker went over the edge, and the crash and rattle of sliding rock, then the four lyrinx took him up so quickly that the noise of their wings drowned out all other sound. He struggled uselessly against his bonds, imagining Tiaan lying bloody and helpless halfway down the crater. With the hood over his head, he could see nothing.

They flew in cloud for a long time – he felt it billowing about them. It was cold. Gilhaelith’s clothes hung dankly on him and moisture dripped from the hood down the back of his neck. The great wings went
whoop, whoop
. One lyrinx called to another in their strange tongue. A second snapped back. There seemed to be an argument, at the end of which the lyrinx began to spiral down. They broke out of cloud, the wind lifted his hood and Gilhaelith spied a circular mesa of black rock rising from forest. The lyrinx glided down towards it, resting on the thermals, then landed hard near the edge.

One held Gilhaelith’s rope while the other three went into a huddle. Shortly a female put her hands around his wrists and looked into his eyes. ‘You called a name as we lifted, “Tia –”. Was it Tiaan, the artisan from Tiksi, who fled Tirthrax in a flying construct? Speak truly. I am a truth-reader.’

He hesitated a fraction too long before saying, ‘No, it was Tyune, my crippled daughter.’

Orange speckles appeared on her arms. ‘He lies,’ she called to the others. ‘It
was
the artisan we seek. Munnand, go back for her.’

The largest of the four, a male with a brilliant red crest, used the updraught to lift himself in the air and headed north. The truth-reader pulled Gilhaelith’s hood down and bound it on. They flew in fog and cloud for many hours more. Gilhaelith could feel the cool, clinging vapour on his skin and the chilly drips down his back.

The lyrinx had surely abducted him in order to use his Art. He felt a stirring of interest. Why did they want him? And if they got what they wanted, what then? Perhaps they would eat him. They’d have to outwit him first! It was the ultimate challenge and Gilhaelith was a master game-player. But this was different. It was personal.

They kept going after dark, but around midnight settled on a crag in the mountains. He was fed, his bonds were checked and he was allowed to lie on the ledge. He barely slept. Gilhaelith realised, to his bemusement, that he was worried about Tiaan, and it was not just for what she could do for him. Nor was it the concern he might feel for an old and faithful servant. It was much more. It was deeper. He actually cared about her!

He explored the strange sensation all the hours of darkness, but when the lyrinx stirred at dawn Gilhaelith was as confused as when he’d begun. They took to the air again, flying all day. He dozed, waking to find that it was dark. Gilhaelith caught an acrid whiff of tar and had a sense of strong forces all around. The air felt close – he was in a cave, or below ground.

Why were they looking for Tiaan? It might have to do with flesh-forming, or with the thapter. If she had not died in the fall, she would now be lying helpless on the slope, waiting to die of thirst. Better that the lyrinx bring her here, whatever they had in store for her.

Gilhaelith was weaponless, since mathemancy could not be used for attack. His geomancy could, though not with his bare hands. He needed particular crystals or artefacts for that.

There were crystals in the rock walls around him, but none suited to geomancy. There was one way, however. Gilhaelith suffered from gallstones, among other ailments. They were hardly crystals but they did have some use in the Secret Art, and nothing could be more attuned to him than a stone from his own body. He sensed out the largest and forced it to wake. It was ill-suited for the purpose, no power in it at all, but he did manage to enhance his awareness with it.

Ghostly images grew behind his closed eyes, swirling currents like a great red fountain, and the shape of a pit. There was a node here, a strong and unstable one, but bound as he was there was no more he could learn about it. It had to be the tar pits of Snizort, a place he knew of, though he had never been here.

He was conveyed down numberless steps, along tunnels that stank of tar, and finally through a series of heavy doors that progressively reduced the smell. His bonds were released, the hood taken off. He blinked at the light of a lantern.

‘What do you want of me?’ he asked politely. Gilhaelith was always polite when he did not know what he was dealing with.

An elderly lyrinx, a female, said, ‘I am Gyrull, Matriarch of Snizort.’

She had a soft voice for a lyrinx, and spoke the language better than most, though her speech was flat, as if she were reciting.

‘Matriarch! Are you the supreme ruler of the lyrinx?’

‘We do not have a supreme ruler,
tetrarch
. We work collectively to achieve our aims.’

‘How do you know what I am?’ he cried.

‘It was written.’

‘Why do you dwell in such a foul place?’

‘It occupies a vital part of our life-cycle, or Histories as you call them.’

That made no sense. How could Snizort play any part in the lyrinx Histories, except in the most recent times?

‘You understand the earth and the forces that power it, tetrarch,’ she went on. ‘We seek to know more about this place.’

‘What has that to do with me?’

She glanced over his head. Four lyrinx stood behind him, claws extended, alert for any sign of attack.

‘Something was lost in the Great Seep. We would very much like to recover it.’

‘The Great Seep?’

‘The source of the tar at Snizort.’

‘What was lost?’

‘I cannot say.’

‘Big or small?’

‘Big enough.’

Gilhaelith rubbed his blocky jaw, wondering what was really going on. ‘What are the dimensions of the seep?’

Matriarch Gyrull spoke among the other lyrinx. A small female stepped forward. ‘The Great Seep is shaped like this.’ She drew an irregular oval on the floor, with a smaller oval budding off one end. ‘It is one-and-a-quarter of your leagues long, and seven-eighths of a league wide.’

‘And how deep?’

‘We do not know. Perhaps a league; perhaps more.’

‘What was lost, and where?’

The small lyrinx opened her mouth, then closed it again. The Matriarch pulled her back. ‘We cannot tell you that.’

‘No matter,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘
Where
it was lost is all that matters; and
when
.’

‘It was lost near the centre, as far as I am able to determine.’ Gyrull indicated a point with one brittle yellow claw. ‘Around here.’

‘How big was it? If it was small, the chances of ever finding it are remote.’

‘Bigger than a village hut.’

‘How long ago?’

Now even the Matriarch looked uneasy. What is it? he thought. They must want it desperately, to have involved an outsider in the search. Gilhaelith was intrigued.

‘We cannot be sure,’ she said at length. ‘Perhaps you can help us. You have the best library in the south-west, we are told.’

Even more puzzling. The lyrinx had come to Santhenar at the time the Way between the Worlds was open, two hundred and seven years ago. The war began in earnest about sixty years later, but the lyrinx had been restricted to Meldorin Island for the first hundred years after their arrival.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘The Histories in my library are mainly of ancient times. How –’

‘It might have been lost as recently as seven thousand years ago, or as long ago as ten thousand. We do not have the Histories of that time. I can tell you no more. We brought you here to find out.’

If what she’d said was true, the lyrinx must have visited Santhenar before. He could scarcely believe it. Some creatures of the void had ended up on Santhenar in the distant past, before the time of the Forbidding. The Histories told that such arrivals had been accidental, the intruders slain. Had the lyrinx previously come to Santhenar thousands of years ago, then gone again? It raised many questions. But why would she lie?