Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) (79 page)

Liett said not a word to her, though she was always in sight for the rest of the day. Ryll hurried back and forth, carrying containers to one patterner or another. Tiaan could not see what they held. Late in the afternoon, Liett appeared with a pair of barrel-sized glass buckets, which she set on the floor behind Tiaan.

Ryll came in, nodded to Liett, then put his hands on Tiaan’s bare shoulders. ‘We are going to begin the patterning. Don’t be afraid.’

She was terrified. Ryll put the amplimet around her neck and held her head straight. Liett lifted something, resembling an upside-down jellyfish, out of the larger bucket and eased it down over Tiaan’s head. Tiaan thrashed her trapped arms. The cool slipperiness cut off her senses one by one, until all she was left with was touch. Strangely, it was not claustrophobic.

Everything felt stronger, more enhanced, from the slippery muck against her belly and back to the clinging, wet-flesh sensation of the tentacled mask over her face. As Tiaan struggled, the amplimet pulsed between her breasts and she began to see the field.

Nothing else happened. She did not draw power, since there was nothing she could do with it in this blind state. Tiaan sensed an immense
flow
of power, far more than it took to drive a clanker, though she could not tell where it was going.

Like looking into the flames of a campfire, the field was endlessly different and fascinating, and stranger than ever here. She must have watched the play and pattern for hours before it finally flickered out. Tiaan let it go, overcome by melancholy. Everything was so futile, worthless and sad. She wept. She slept.

Tiaan woke just as miserable, and cried for an hour. She did not know why. The mask had been taken off, but something felt different. The smaller glass bucket sat in a recess on top of her patterner, just out of reach, had she been able to reach. Something had begun to grow from its base, rather like a little mushroom. It must be the torgnadr.

A long time ago, back at the manufactory, she had recovered an image of something similar from the aura of a failed controller crystal. It had been a lyrinx spying device. Were they stealing her talent and putting it into this growing torgnadr? If so, why?

The patterning went on once a day, rarely twice, and each time it took a few hours, during which she could feel the amplimet pulsing furiously. After each episode, she woke weeping. They took her out and washed her down periodically, for the jelly irritated her skin. As she finished the sixth patterning, and blinked at the light in her eyes, there came a gasping exhalation from the cube on her right. Rather, it came from the thin-faced woman inside it. As Tiaan stared, the woman’s head flopped to the side, smacking against the top of the patterner.

Liett leapt right over the row, hauled the woman out and laid her on the floor on her back. She was a little bony creature, hardly there at all. Liett thrust down her breastbone several times, so hard that ribs cracked. She put her ear to the thin chest, shaking her head as Ryll raced up.

‘Another failure, Liett?’ he said.

‘What am I going to tell Old Hyull?’

‘What are you going to tell the Matriarch?’

Liett snapped her magnificent wings at him, hurled the contents of the glass bucket into a slops tank and stalked off, leaving the body lying on the floor.

‘Ryll?’ Tiaan could only stare at the sad, dead woman and think she would be next. ‘Ryll, what happened to her …?’

He hunched his shoulders up and down as if his outer skin plagued him. ‘Patterning is hard on humans. In three years we have only created six torgnadrs, and only two at Snizort.’

Tiaan stared at him. ‘How many people have you murdered to make them? Hundreds?
Thousands?
’

He shook his head. ‘It is dangerous, though usually it is the torgnadrs that fail. Humans rarely die from it. I was against using this one from the start.’

‘What are the torgnadrs for, Ryll?’ She had often asked that question but never received an answer.

‘I can’t tell you.’

After that, Ryll and Liett worked with increased urgency. Lyrinx ran in constantly, shouting what could only be exhortations to hurry. The patternings became more frequent and the sessions longer.

Despite Ryll’s words, two more people, a man and a woman, died in the patterners in the next three days. Tiaan’s melancholy grew worse after each session, and though she knew that it was due mainly to the patterner, she could not stop. Her face was swollen from weeping, her tear ducts so inflamed that it hurt to cry. Ryll added salt to her diet, she had wept so much away.

Tiaan could not eat – the green porridge made her want to vomit. She even gagged on water. Ryll brought women from the other patterners to sit with her. That only made it worse. None could speak her language and none was affected by patterning the way she was. She was different, special, and they seemed to resent her.

The patterning had been going on for well over a week. Tiaan could no longer tell what was day and what was night. She’d lost count after ten sleeps. She felt very weak. Even if she’d had the use of her legs, after so long without activity she could not have stood up. She felt sure she was going to die.

Something was going on – the lyrinx showed skin patterns all the time now, livid, clashing colours and jagged designs, and they ran everywhere. Tiaan discovered, from something Liett had said, that human armies were marching toward Snizort. The lyrinx expected to be slaughtered here, or burned alive, but they seemed less worried about that than about completing their great project before the siege began.

The Matriarch and Old Hyull often came in to inspect her torgnadr. As her melancholy increased, they appeared more frequently, but now their skin colour showed agitation. After their last visit, Ryll had lain prostrate on the floor for an hour, and when he got up his eyes were shrivelled like raisins.

Liett barked at him in the lyrinx tongue. He flashed yellow and black, half-heartedly. She lifted him to his feet and propelled him from the chamber. Shortly she returned to stand by Tiaan’s patterner, looking down and clacking her toe claws on the floor.

The silence became uncomfortable. ‘What’s the matter?’ said Tiaan.

Without replying, Liett stalked away.

Tiaan worried about that until Ryll returned with a man she vaguely recognised – the one-handed fellow she had seen as she entered Snizort.

‘Tutor speaks your language,’ said Ryll, hurrying off.

Tiaan could hardly see the man through her swollen eyes. Thin, a sallow face, dark eyes, dark hair. He said nothing, but after a minute he dabbed at her eyes with a piece of rag. She sniffled. He wiped her nose.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying.’

‘The patterner occasionally has that effect.’

He spoke the common speech with a familiar accent – the one spoken on the south coast of Einunar. Of course. He had taught Ryll that language. She wept for the joy of hearing the sounds.

‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I haven’t heard anyone from my own land in half a year.’ It filled her with longing for her place in the manufactory. ‘What’s your name? Or should I call you Tutor?’

‘If you like. Tutor is my name; my life. Once I was called Merryl but it doesn’t fit any more.’

‘What’s going on, Tutor?’ The name felt wrong. ‘Why are the lyrinx so afraid? They’re strong.’

‘Not so strong that they can hope to defeat the armies moving towards Snizort. They’re working on a vital project here, and are afraid they’ll never complete it.’

‘Can’t they take it across the sea where they’re safe from attack?’

‘I don’t know. Since I speak their language, they’re specially careful what they say when I’m around.’

‘The lyrinx have defeated us so many times already. Why are they afraid now?’

‘Because of the Aachim and their constructs.’

Tiaan felt a shiver of fear. Why did the thought of them frighten her more than the lyrinx did? She was sure that Vithis was still after her.

‘The lyrinx worry that Aachim and humans will unite to destroy them. Snizort is vulnerable – should they bombard this place with blazing missiles, the tar pits would burn for a hundred years and nothing could extinguish the fires. The lyrinx have a particular terror of fire.’

Tiaan imagined being trapped down here and shuddered. ‘So do I.’

‘Yet they must complete what they came here to do. That’s why your torgnadr is so urgent.’

‘What would they have done if I hadn’t come?’

‘They have a torgnadr here, but it’s been in place for years and is rapidly failing. A band of lyrinx was bringing a replacement from across the sea, but something went wrong. The lyrinx carrying the torgnadr fell into the sea from a great height and was killed, and the torgnadr was lost. It was a terrible setback. Then, miraculously, you turned up. With your talent, and the amplimet, it was their chance to make the most powerful torgnadr of all.’

‘What are all these torgnadrs for?’

‘There’s only one – yours.’

‘But what about all these other patterners?’

‘Their torgnadrs have failed, as nearly all do. They are being repatterned into limnadrs, phynadrs, zygnadrs and other minor devices.’

‘Mine is the only one?’ she said, wide-eyed.

‘Yes. In three years of patterning here they’ve made thousands of minor devices, but only two torgnadrs, and none in the past year. From what I read of their skin-speech, they have the highest hopes for yours. If it’s not ready in time, Snizort must fall.’

‘And we will surely be burned to death.’

‘Alas.’

To save her life she must hope that the torgnadr grew well and swiftly. But if Snizort survived, the human army might not. In that case it was her duty to destroy or sabotage the growing device.

Tutor fell silent. Tiaan grew uncomfortable, wished he would go, and shortly he did. She started crying again.

In the intervals between patterning she slept or sat staring around her, bored out of her wits. Her appetite came back eating was the only thing she had any control over. The torgnadr grew as quickly as a mushroom and with every passing hour Tiaan thought more about her duty. After fleeing Kalissin and the horrific result of her unwilling collaboration there, she had vowed she would never aid the lyrinx again. Now here she was, still unwilling, helping them in a way that could be a hundred times worse. Her duty was clear. She must try to destroy the torgnadr.

Yet she could not move while in the patterner, and when they took her out she was carried to another room to sleep. She could not influence the patterner either – it took from her what it required and she did not know what that was.

In the next session, Tiaan watched more closely. She saw the patterner reading her and imprinting the growing torgnadr. She saw the ebb and flow of the field, and the brightening of the amplimet as power was drawn through it. It did not take much power but something else must, for the field was fluctuating erratically. The amplimet began blinking furiously, as it had at Tirthrax. Was it speaking to the node again?

What if she were to draw power into the amplimet and try to damage the torgnadr, or the patterner itself? Tiaan tried to, but her talent could not penetrate the mask. The lyrinx had thought of everything. That day, when the mask and the amplimet were removed, she wept the most helpless tears of all.

By now, the growth so filled its bucket that the bulbous head protruded from the top. At night, when the lights were out, it emitted a faint green glow.

The torgnadr disturbed Tiaan. It seemed to be watching her, trying to copy her talent, though she knew that was ridiculous. There was no brain inside it; no intelligence. Ryll had told her that much. It was simply patterned on her ability to sense the fluctuating field and draw power from it. Nonetheless, the sight of it put her on edge.

Tutor came to see her every day. Though Tiaan knew Ryll had sent him, she looked forward to Tutor’s visits. He was cheerful, despite his years of slavery, and talked of places far away and times distant: the Great Tales of the Histories, as well as the minor ones. His presence reminded her of her simple life back in the manufactory. How she yearned for it.

She often saw other humans: prisoners who did menial duties like cleaning, carrying and feeding. Tiaan now recognised a dozen, mostly men, defeated soldiers taken prisoner and afterwards kept because they had some value. They rarely spoke and few knew her language. All seemed beaten down by their servitude.

One was coming now, a slender man of middle age with straight white hair and skin as pallid as a mushroom. He had brought food to her several times, spooning the green muck into her mouth but never meeting her eyes. His left shoulder was missing a chunk of muscle, doubtless an old war wound. The arm hung limp.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Tiaan. What’s yours?’

‘Not allowed – talk,’ he muttered in an atrocious accent.

‘I’ll talk to whoever I want. Hey, come back.’

That was the last she saw of him, or her lunch.

Liett checked the growth and lifted the glass bucket down. Tiaan was about to remark about her missed lunch but thought better of it. The lyrinx looked particularly ferocious today and Tiaan did not want to get the prisoner into trouble.

Not long afterwards the old lyrinx reappeared, along with his bevy of attendants. The torgnadr was set down next to Tiaan. He adjusted his spectacles, pulled something onto the top of his head that rather resembled Tiaan’s jellyfish mask, and frowned. At least, she interpreted it as a frown.

Abruptly he wrenched the mask off and spoke to Ryll in an imperative rasp. Ryll answered, again in submissive posture.

‘Jjyikk myrr; priffiy tzzukk!’
snarled the old fellow.

Ryll sprang up and lifted Tiaan out, holding her with her legs dangling while the old lyrinx examined them, prodding and poking. He snapped at Ryll, who hefted Tiaan and carried her, dripping muck, along many tunnels before going into a long, narrow room shaped like an amputated finger. He laid her on a central table with a bright light above it, face-down. More probing and prodding went on in the middle of her back. She thought they were probing her legs too, though she could feel nothing down there.