Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (43 page)

‘What is a skeet?’ asked Vithis.

‘A large, vicious carrier bird, widely used on Santhenar for carrying messages. Would you care to see my skeet house?’

‘I would,’ said Vithis, climbing down from the platform, probably as a face-saving way of getting out of the heat. He winced as he reached the ground, stabbing at it with his cane.

Gilhaelith led them along the paved pathway. The twenty Aachim were discreetly armed, a breach of courtesy which Gilhaelith ignored. His sentries were concealed in all manner of unlikely places. Their heavy crossbows could have sent a bolt right through the metal sides of the constructs, though to do so would have meant the end of Nyriandiol, Gilhaelith and themselves.

The path paralleled the outer rim before curving back to the rear of the villa. Gilhaelith talked all the way, pointing out the sights within the crater and without.

Vithis was sizing the place up. Nyriandiol was easily defended from a minor onslaught, the upper sides of the crater being too steep and rugged to be traversable by clankers or, Gilhaelith suspected, by these marvellous constructs. The road could be blocked if need be. The arrangement of terraces and walls that surrounded Nyriandiol on three sides was designed for defence and he could stop a sizeable force, though not an army.

The skeet house was a small stone building with metal lattice across the front and back. Leaning against one side, Gilhaelith noted that only sixteen Aachim had followed Vithis. The others would be scrying, and spying. He pretended not to notice, but inwardly Gilhaelith was smiling. Sixteen was the fourth power of two, a potent number in his mathemancy. The number of spies, four, also worked to his advantage. They would find nothing.

‘We keep the birds in separate pens,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘else they would tear each other to pieces. This one still has the message pouch on its left leg.’

Inside the first pen was a dark-plumed, hook-beaked raptor, as big as a good-sized eagle. Its yellow eye was flecked with red and when Gilhaelith poked a stick in through the bars the skeet shredded the bark with a single swipe of its talons.

‘Many a keeper has lost an eye or a nose to a skeet,’ he went on. ‘Or a throat! Unpleasant animals, but we could hardly conduct our lives without them.’

‘Or the war,’ said Vithis.

‘I dare say. The war is not my business.’

‘Ah yes, business,’ Vithis said. ‘You trade in certain commodities that could affect the course of the war.’

‘If they were available to you and not to humankind?’

‘Precisely.’

‘My given word is an unbreakable contract,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’m sure you, as the leader of a noble species, appreciate that?’

‘Of course,’ said Vithis, a little too quickly. ‘But I doubt that everything you deal in is spoken for.’

‘It is not. Am I to take it that you wish to trade?’

‘In due course,’ said Vithis, ‘I will send a representative.’

‘Your representative will be made most welcome.’

Back at the terrace, Vithis accepted the offer of drinks, and the troop of Aachim sat in the shade of the vines, which were just coming into full leaf. ‘This is my foster-son, Minis,’ he said, waving a young man across. ‘He and I are all that remain of Clan Inthis, First Clan.’

‘I am sorry to hear that.’

‘The world will be sorry one day.’

T
iaan felt her throat close over when the Aachim appeared. The sight of Vithis, standing so arrogantly on the platform of his construct, had set her heart racing. How she hated the man. Had she a crossbow, it would have taken all her self-control to hold back from shooting him.

Snatches of his conversation with Gilhaelith drifted up, and when Vithis offered a reward for news of Tiaan, terror gripped her. This talk of using the amplimet was a fantasy. Gilhaelith must realise the peril he was in. If he gave her up, he could have all the wealth he ever wanted. He must betray her. He would.

She could see Vithis’s face clearly. What would he do when she was in his clutches? Pain spread outwards from her stomach. Gilhaelith seemed to be playing some kind of game with the Aachim. What a fool! Vithis was the leader of a world in exile, Gilhaelith just a rustic eccentric who lived on a mountaintop because he was too strange to survive in the real world. Once they discovered what he had done, he would die, and so would she.

Tiaan did not like Gilhaelith. She could not work him out at all, and he disturbed her. Though he was always perfectly mannered, the way he stared at her reminded her of Nish. Perhaps, living out of society, he did not know any better. And yet … When he had carried her in his arms, for an instant she had felt safe.

They disappeared from view and she lay waiting for the sound of their big feet on the ladder. It did not come. Perhaps Gilhaelith had taken them to see the thapter first. Despite the secrecy about the recovery operation, she knew it was here. A noise had woken her one night and, looking out her window in the moonlight, she had seen them carrying a long, canvas-covered shape. Fourteen strong men had it up on their shoulders, tied to poles, while others held it steady with ropes to left and right.

She imagined them downstairs now, Gilhaelith drawing back the canvas to reveal the beautiful machine. His wealth came from trade, after all. Perhaps they were counting out the first allotment, and he was gloating and rubbing his skinny hands together. How many pieces of platinum did it take to buy you, Gilhaelith? And what does Vithis
most
want, the thapter, or the person who learned how to make it fly?

Her miserable thoughts were interrupted by Gilhaelith’s hearty laugh. The Aachim were now gathering on the terrace. Servants hurried back and forth with foaming jugs and trays of delicacies. They must be sealing the deal with a drink. Everyone was smiling; they were shaking hands.

It was hot in this airless space, directly under the roof. She was desperately thirsty. She waved her free hand in front of her face but the breeze was not enough to cool her.

Who was Gilhaelith talking to now? He looked so very familiar. Her skin prickled. It was Minis! Gilhaelith led him out to the edge of the terrace and they leaned on the rail together, chatting like friends. Tiaan felt sick. Her heart hammered; her eyes watered. Minis looked magnificent but he was jelly inside. She despised him for it.

Gilhaelith shook hands with Minis, a handsome, dark-haired young man. He could see why the fellow had appealed to Tiaan. Minis had a pleasant, open face with a hint of vulnerability, and not a trace of the arrogance of his foster-father.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Minis,’ he said, offering the jug of ale. ‘Come this way. Let me show you the view.’ He drew the young man over to the stone wall at the inner edge of the crater. The lake was particularly blue today. ‘This lake goes up and down with the seasons, and is warm enough to swim in, even in the winter. I often do so.’

‘On Aachan, our winters are bitter,’ said Minis, ‘though they don’t last long. Our year is little more than half of yours, I believe, yet our day is longer. But Aachan is a cold world compared to Santhenar.’

‘Winter here is cold enough, and lasts for a good hundred days,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Don’t be fooled by today’s weather. It’s unseasonably hot for this time of year but, should it turn southerly, we could have snow next week. The weather is changeable here, and we are high up. Tell me, what is your profession?’

‘I … am in flux.’ The young man looked self-conscious. ‘My foster-father would mould me into a force commander.’

‘And that is not entirely to your liking?’ Gilhaelith enquired.

‘I will do whatever he requires of me,’ Minis said formally.

Gilhaelith changed to the subject he was really interested in. ‘The tale of this flying construct must be a fascinating one, though perhaps I should not ask questions of matters that may be … strategic.’

‘I would prefer that you did not,’ said Minis.

‘This woman who stole it – Tiaan, I think your foster-father named her – is not Aachim, surely?’

Minis started, and a tic developed at the corner of his mouth. ‘Tiaan is old human; from the province of Einunar.’

‘Einunar! That’s a long way from here. I would like to hear the tale of how she came to steal your
flying
construct. She must be a most talented woman.’

Minis began to sweat. ‘Most talented,’ he choked, and his admiration for her could not be disguised.

Well, well, thought Gilhaelith.

Minis looked over his shoulder at Vithis, who was in a huddle with the scriers, and went on. ‘Tiaan did not steal the flying construct, for we have not learned how to make them fly. She must have made it herself.’

‘Made it!’ Gilhaelith exclaimed.

‘We abandoned three damaged machines in Tirthrax.’

Gilhaelith had difficulty concealing his astonishment. Could Tian’s preposterous statements about the gate and the amplimet also be true?

‘How could she make it fly?’ He did not expect an answer to such a strategic question, but Minis, with another glance in the direction of his foster-father, continued.

‘I don’t know. We have sought Rulke’s secret for two hundred years, without success. But Tiaan is –’

‘How did she come to be in Tirthrax?’

‘I told her how to get inside the city, so she could make the gate.’

‘Are you saying Tiaan
made
the gate that brought you to our world?’ Oh, to have an hour alone with this indiscreet and desperate young man.

‘Yes, she did. Without her the Aachim of Aachan would be extinct. And in return we betrayed her. I can never forgive –’

Gilhaelith, seeing Vithis heading in their direction, cursed inwardly and interrupted him. ‘Perhaps, should we meet again, you could tell me the rest of the tale? I must rejoin your father. I have forgotten my manners.’

‘I would be happy to tell you now,’ Minis said. ‘She is –’

‘Ah, Vithis,’ Gilhaelith said breezily, quaffing his mug of ale, ‘would you care for a snack?’

He snapped his fingers and a servant presented a tray on which was arranged a series of shrivelled, oily, yellow-green objects. They made a square, seven to each side.

‘What are they?’ said Vithis, wrinkling his nose at the smell, which was nauseating.

‘The preserved gonads of the Parnggi walking fish,’ said Gilhaelith, picking up seven with his free hand and flicking them into his mouth with his thumb. The numbers, as well as Vithis’s reaction, gave him a little more control.

Vithis looked disgusted. ‘They smell rotten.’

‘An ancient method of preservation that greatly enhances –’

‘We must go,’ Vithis said tersely. ‘A large area to search and much else to do. I thank you for your hospitality.’

He limped back to the machines. The others followed and the constructs headed down the mountain road.

Gilhaelith watched them out of sight. He
thought
he had fooled Vithis, but if the man found a single witness to say otherwise, the Aachim would be back to take the place apart stone by stone.

So Tiaan
had
been telling the truth. When he’d believed her a thief and a liar, it had coloured his view of her talents. Now he veered to the opposite extreme. She must be a masterly natural geomancer, the rarest of geniuses. What might she be capable of if that talent was properly schooled? She could greatly help him with his own quest. He must find a way to gain her cooperation.

Tiaan was still tormenting herself when she heard the creak of the trapdoor and Gilhaelith crawled across. Though she hated and despised Minis, the sight of him had been unbearable.

Gilhaelith carried her to her room and sat in the chair beside her bed, offering her a piece of cream linen the size of a small tablecloth. She wiped her dusty face and hands.

‘You thought I was going to betray you?’ he said, regarding her fixedly.

He had strange eyes, she noticed. The pupils were slightly oval and of the most unusual colour, a streaky though warm blue-grey. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and the admission broke something in her that had been holding her back all this time. ‘Why didn’t you? They must have offered you a great amount of platinum.’

Most men would have been offended by the implication, even if they
had
been tempted. He showed no sign that he was offended. He just kept staring at her.

‘Don’t you know that it’s rude to stare?’ she snapped.

He looked away, turned back, caught himself doing it again and angled his face to the window. A touch of colour appeared on his cheeks. ‘Is it? I did not know that.’

Something was different about him. He seemed less cold and machine-like. It was almost as if he cared about her. ‘It makes me uncomfortable,’ she said softly. ‘I feel as if … as if you’re feeding on me.’

‘I’m sorry. I would not have you think me ill-mannered. I have lived alone, with only my servants for company, for so long that perhaps I have not learned what I should. Or forgotten it a century ago.’

‘A century –?’

He smiled, which almost cracked his ugly face in half, but lit up his eyes. He no longer seemed so strange. ‘I am not offended. As it happens, I am 180 years old – a number with several unusual properties. The sum of consecutive cubes –’.