Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (74 page)

T
iaan flew all night and through the following day, taking it slowly and keeping to the clouds. She was afraid that the amplimet would take command, or cut off the force entirely, but it gave her no more trouble. The euphoria of her escape had faded, replaced by an overwhelming worry – how could she possibly find Gilhaelith once she got there? And by irrepressible feelings of guilt – that again she had put self before duty.

It was nearly dusk when she reached Snizort, which lay in the centre of the land called Taltid. From a great height, the tar pits looked like the dark face of the moon. She could see figures moving around on the ground, and some in the air, which meant they were lyrinx. It appeared that Snizort was possessed by the enemy. Nixx had not told her that. What was down there? Walls enclosed a number of tar pits, an area about a league square, though she saw no buildings inside. She dared go no lower before dark.

Taltid proved to be an undulating land whose sandy soils supported only grass, scrub and occasional patches of thorny forest or sand dunes. The flats of a meandering river had once been cultivated but the pattern of fields and hedges was reverting to wasteland. Either the inhabitants had been eaten years ago, or they had fled. Many small, isolated hilltops were capped with round boulders and outcrops of grey stone that might make useful hiding places, if she could get down onto one safely. The area around Snizort was speckled with seeps and boiling springs that stood out from the air in this dry land, surrounded by scrubby forest with blue-grey leaves.

She tried to reconcile what she saw below with what she had read in Nixx’s notes. She had to know what she was facing and there were only minutes of daylight left.

In the zone of seeps and pits, the soil, and the sandstone below it, was saturated with seeping tar driven up from some vast underground reservoir. Over aeons the black, reeking muck had spread away from the vents and set hard, though not so hard that it could not be hacked out with spades or, in the winter months, hammer and chisel. The people of Snizort had been digging solidified tar for eight thousand years, until the lyrinx came. In that time they had excavated a series of ragged pits into the sandstone, the deepest of which was more than ninety spans. One pit lay directly below her. Even from this height the bituminous odour tickled Tiaan’s nostrils.

In the centre of this desolation, within the walls of Snizort, she made out a vast black cauldron of tar, slightly longer than it was wide – the Great Seep. Its surface was streaked with dust and it had a sullen, ominous liquidity. Wisps of vapour touched the seep. It appeared cold, but Tiaan knew the tar was warm enough to flow.

Smaller seeps, pits and bogs of tar ringed the Great Seep for a league around and she would have to be careful of them, in the dark. Warm tar had spread away from the seeps for several leagues more, turning the land into a sterile wilderness. Tar oozed out of the sides of hills and down the watercourses, taking as much as a week to go a single span. In the winter it did not move at all, but once it went somewhere it was there forever, becoming increasingly brittle and cracked. At least, it remained until ingenious humans found a use for it; gradually, the most accessible supplies had been mined.

Many were not accessible. The larger seeps formed tarry lakes from which the hardened material could be taken from the edges, but no matter how much was removed the level never changed, for warm tar kept seeping from below. Thirsty animals, and the odd reckless child, sometimes ventured onto the crusted surface. Their bodies were never recovered. The clinging tar sucked them under, preserving them perfectly, forever …

Tiaan shook herself and came back to the task at hand – to find a hiding place for the night. She had not thought any further ahead. If she had, she would not have dared come at all. What could an unarmed cripple do against a fortress full of lyrinx?

As soon as it was dark, she drifted the thapter towards a cluster of grey boulders, like giant’s juggling balls, that topped a hill a good league from the nearest part of the wall of Snizort. Trees stuck up between the rocks: stubble on a shaven head. It was slow and tricky work bringing the thapter down in the gloom, and Tiaan was sweating by the time she eased it in between the boulders.

She moved the thapter under the rocks and trees so it would not be visible from above. Taking out the amplimet, the diamond hedrons and their connectors, she wrapped all carefully and put them in her chest pack. Tiaan laboriously got herself into the walker and inserted the hedron. The field was strange here but it provided the necessary power, which was all that mattered. She covered the thapter with branches, such that only the most determined search would find it. A wedge of moon, falling towards the west, provided a ghostly illumination.

Now what? How
could
she find Gilhaelith in a nest of lyrinx? She had to try. Tiaan had heard horrible rumours about what the lyrinx did to spies. If they caught her, they would tear her apart, and if she went down there they probably
would
catch her. The very idea was madness.

But it was better than being trapped in this body with no hope of recovery. Gilhaelith might be able to free her. What peril would she not face, to have back the use of her legs? She would go down and see what she could discover, and if a lyrinx did attack, well, it would be a merciful release. At least, she tried to tell herself that. It did not lesson the terror.

Tiaan crept, insofar as the walker could creep, through the scrub. The way down would have been perilous even in daylight, for the hill was capped with a broken layer of sandstone that ended in a cliff a couple of spans high. There was no way she could get the walker down that; however, after circumnavigating the summit several times, she found a crack in the stone that took her to a gully she was able to half-walk, half-slide down.

As the walker’s rubber feet sank into the moist earth at the base of the cliff, Tiaan wondered how she would ever get up again. Well, she’d worry about that when she returned – if she did.

A path meandered across the slope and she turned onto it. When it levelled out near the bottom of the hill, she was confronted by a squat-bellied figure standing in a glade. It was just a statue, though an unpleasant one: a bulbous belly, head so narrow that the model must have been bound at birth, and a face that the slanting moonlight showed to be cratered with pox scars. More striking was the fixed, repulsive leer.

Tiaan shivered and passed by. Whoever had made it was long gone. The path ran into another, an animal trail that might also be frequented by hunting lyrinx. The wall of Snizort was an hour’s walk from here, through thorny scrub and low forest. She had a feeling that someone was behind her, watching; waiting. Her anxious glances revealed nothing, though a small creature skittered into the bushes as she turned the corner.

After negotiating a network of trails, she emerged in cleared land and saw the wall about a bowshot ahead. It looked some four spans high and was thick enough to support an impenetrable tangle of thornbush at the top. A beaten path ran around the base, presumably where sentries walked. Tiaan felt such a premonition of danger that she almost turned and fled. What stupidity had brought her here?

A shadow flickered in the deeper shade at the base of the wall. This was it. It must see her. She dared not move. It stopped and seemed to be looking in her direction. She thought she caught a glint from its eyes.

Tiaan fingered the crystal rod, knowing it probably would not work, since Gilhaelith had not taught her how to recharge it from the field. Another gleam, then the shadow moved off. She edged back into the scrub. The lyrinx sense of smell was not particularly keen, but it might pick up her scent.

Though Tiaan watched for a long time, she saw no sign of life. Close to midnight, judging by the moon, she turned back. Before she had gone far, the moon fell behind the thornbush wall and it became too dark to see. Tiaan cursed herself for not thinking of that.

Taking a rough bearing from the stars, she headed east, feeling her way forward, and found what seemed to be a track through the scrub. Shortly it came out near the wall again. Continuing along the edge of the cleared zone, she encountered a broad path. To her right, the setting moon streamed through the barred gate of Snizort. Apprehension growing, she headed the other way and collided with a broad figure standing quietly in the darkness. It moved into the light. The moon shone on rows of teeth, glittered in its eyes, revealed its lack of wings.

‘I knew you’d bring your crystal back one day, Tiaan,’ said Ryll.

She hurled the walker sideways but Ryll thrust out a limb, one metal leg caught and the walker crashed to the ground. Her head struck the frame so hard that she saw stars. She lay still. There was nothing she could do.

‘Why are you in this
machine
?’ he asked, crouching beside her.

‘I broke my back. I can never walk again.’

Ryll’s crest glowed pink as he lifted the walker. ‘I feel your pain.’ His clawed hand closed about her wrist and he thrust his big jaw at her.

‘What are you going to do with me?’ she said hoarsely.

‘I don’t know
yet
.’

‘Is Gilhaelith here?’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The man you travelled across the world to mate with.’

He could still embarrass her. ‘No, that was somebody else.’

Ryll looked taken aback. ‘The other man did not want to
mate
with you?’

Perception, or a lucky guess? ‘He betrayed me,’ said Tiaan bitterly.

‘I am sorry,’ said Ryll, and Tiaan knew he spoke truly. She had not known Ryll to lie, yet he was not, when the situation required it, averse to making misleading statements.

‘Gilhaelith?’ she repeated.

‘The tetrarch is here.’

‘What do you mean
tetrarch
?’

‘Isn’t that what you call him?’

‘I call him Gilhaelith. Is he all right?’

‘He has been treated well, though he does not appreciate it as he might. You won’t try to escape, will you?’

‘I’ve come a long way to find him.’

‘As you did for your mate, and he betrayed you. Your loyalty is stronger than your judgment.’

That was certainly true, much as she hated to be reminded of it. They went through the gates, which were guarded by dozens of lyrinx, bearing weapons she could not make out in the gloom. The passage through the wall was an arched tunnel. Inside, the area was dimly lit by flaming bowls the size of cartwheels, set on stone pedestals. Fumes from burning tar drifted across the ground in black wisps and strands. The air reeked.

‘This way,’ said Ryll.

She followed him along a path, trodden to black tar, that wound through thorny shrubbery. Tar bogs shone ominously in the light of the flickering lamps.

‘What are you doing here, Ryll? Are you still
flesh-forming
?’

‘It is not my place to tell you such things, Tiaan.’

‘You never caught the nylatl, did you?’

‘We never did. It disappeared.’

‘It killed some good people. I only knew them for a day, but they had become friends.’

‘I bitterly regret that I created the beast.’ He was much more subdued than before. He seemed, in some strange way, cowed.

‘Liett begged you to kill it.’

‘I should have listened. I have much to answer for.’

They walked in silence until they came to the edge of a cliff. At least, that was her first thought, though after they turned onto the sticky steps Tiaan understood that it was one of the pits excavated into the tar-saturated sandstone. In the failing moonlight it looked like a pool of ink.

‘I can’t walk down steps,’ she said.

He picked her up, walker and all, and headed down. Tiaan closed its legs so they would not catch on anything. The steps went halfway around the huge excavation but she could not see them. It was eerily dark. The air reeked of tar; the fumes were making her sick.

‘How can you live down here?’ she said. ‘It would kill me.’

‘You’ll see.’

Ryll turned left, stooped and bore her into a tunnel through the black sandstone. They went along for ages, his feet making tearing sounds on the sticky floor, and through a series of doors. The tar smell faded. Finally they passed through a metal door where Tiaan felt a flow of fresh air, and began to go up again. The rock here was orange sandstone, so soft that it could be excavated with a mattock. There were lights at intervals, lanterns hung on hooks in the wall.

‘Not back there,’ he said as if reading her thought. ‘The risk of fire is too great.’

They passed small open chambers on either side, looking rather the way she imagined an ants’ nest to be. Many contained young lyrinx, playing at games rather like human children. Beyond, Ryll led her into an oval sandstone chamber, carved out by hand.

There were many lyrinx in it, standing around, sitting at benches, or bent over plans or documents. Tiaan recognised none of them. She saw humans too, pale-skinned creatures who appeared to have never seen the sun. Though not manacled or restrained in any way, they had the listless look of slaves. Most were young, none older than middle age. Down the far end of the room stood a tall, dark-skinned woman with frizzy hair and filed teeth – a native of the forests of Crandor. She stood by a large piece of slate, making marks on it while three half-grown lyrinx attempted to reproduce them on smaller slates.

‘We teach our brightest children to read and write your common tongues,’ said Ryll, noting her interest. He urged her forward.

On the other side of the room, a man was reciting while a group of young lyrinx attempted to speak the words back to him. He waved his arms in the air and they fell silent. His left hand was missing.

‘My tutor,’ Ryll said. ‘He has served and taught us all my life. He is the best teacher I know. We are
almost
friends.’ He waved and the man raised his stump.

They continued into another room with a green-crested guard on the door. She allowed them through into a large space crowded with lyrinx. Ryll made a piping whistle and they turned as one. He spoke in his incomprehensible tongue, of which all Tiaan recognised was her name. Everyone stared at her, their skin flashing in lurid, chameleon colours. Tiaan had never learned to read their skin-speech, but it was evident that they were excited. A massive female embraced Ryll, then one by one the others touched him on the shoulder.