'I feel dizzy.' Tiaan closed her eyes. Artisans had gone mad trying to see into the fourth dimension. She swayed in the chair and Thyzzea steadied her.
'Is that better?' said Urien, standing over her.
Tiaan rubbed her eyes but the strange image was gone, the black box just a simple box again. 'I.., think so. It'll take time to get used to it. Just give me a few minutes.'
Thyzzea gave her a mug of water and Tiaan drank it in one gulp. Even sitting down, her knees felt shaky. 'I'm ready to try.'
Back in the construct, the amplimet was installed in its socket. Tiaan put the helm on her head and again, just for a few seconds, saw the creeping, impossible shapes of the fourth dimension. As she turned her head, fields swirled and ebbed all over the place, and all were brilliantly clear. It unnerved her – there was too much to take in.
'Time is precious, Artisan,' said Vithis from behind.
She drew power from the nearest field attempting to hold its image while she attempted a second Power flowed from both, and both fields stayed in her mind She looked for a third and took power from it as well, then a fourth and fifth. It was like a miracle.
'It's ready,' Tiaan said.
Tirior gave the signal and the construct crept forwards. Before the rope became taut, the construct following them began to move, then the one after that. Tiaan could see the distortions they made in the field, and now they did not have to be towed. Enough power flowed down the cables for them to propel themselves.
Looking back to the shooter's turret, Tiaan could see the raw emotion on Vithis's face. It was going to work after all.
Progress was slow at first. With so many machines attached by lines to the leading construct, a moment's inattention could damage dozens of them. Nonetheless, by midnight she'd done four trips. Another two hundred and forty constructs had been transported safely to the new field. On each return trip she ferried back supplies brought from the main camp at Gospett.
A day later the work had become routine. The best part of three hundred constructs could be moved in a day. Of the eleven thousand that had come through the gate, about six thousand had come to Snizort, though five hundred had been damaged in battle and must be abandoned. Vithis did this with great reluctance – the Aachim did not care for their constructs to be examined by allies or foes – but could do no more than break the controlling mechanisms to disable them.
Tiaan was too worn out to sit up, much less eat, and the operation would take at least seventeen more days, even if all went perfectly. Despite the helm, she did not see how she was going to survive it.
Withis kept Minis away, for which Tiaan was thankful. He was a problem that had no solution.
The following morning, Thyzzea replaced Vithis in the construct and for ten days all went well. On the morning of the eleventh, Tiaan woke so weak that she could hardly get out of bed. She felt eroded inside. The channelled power seemed to be eating away at her, as it had in Kalissin. She had lost all the weight gained in Nyriandiol, and more.
It made no difference to Vithis. She was carried to the construct and strapped into her seat. Other straps held her upright when she was too weary to do that for herself. Another three hundred constructs were hauled to safety that day, and so it went on, day after, day, until only three hundred or so remained. Most of these belonged to Clan Elienor, left to the last as always.
Despite her exhaustion, Tiaan had forced herself to practise walking in her room every night. After a week she could manage a hundred steps unaided. After two weeks it was a thousand.
Vithis had not mentioned flight again, which bothered her. If he'd dispatched one of the first constructs back to Tirthrax then, travelling day and night, it could have reached there days ago. Malien would reveal the secret and Tiaan would be dispensable. Worse than that: it would be dangerous to allow her to live.
It was time to put her plan into effect. Tiaan had learned much about the Art over the past weeks. Normally, in any of the Secret Arts, power was used as sparingly as possible. That was, she mused, like an archer only being allowed to shoot one arrow a week. After drawing on multiple fields for sixteen hours a day, Tiaan had more experience than most mancers would have gained in a lifetime.
Unfortunately, she lacked the background and knowledge to make sense of it. She had tried to fit it into the geomantic framework Gilhaelith had begun to teach her in Nyriandiol, but he had not taken her far enough. That did not matter here, where there were any number of Aachim mancers to guide her, and healers to pick her up when she fell. But on her own it would be a different matter.
She had to act now, ready or not. Once the last construct was moved, they would make sure she never had contact with the amplimet again.
Tiaan was woken by a commotion outside. The hanging door was thrust open and someone tall entered, carrying a lantern.
'Tiaan!' he whispered urgently.
It was Minis, and she was wearing only a flimsy sleeping gown. Her heart began to crash around in her chest. Tiaan pulled the covers up to her neck.
'What do you want, Minis?' she said coldly.
He fell to his knees. "To say how much I have wronged you, and to beg for your forgiveness. No more.'
She turned her face to the wall of the tent. 'You led me on. You made promises and refused to keep them. From the very beginning you used me, Minis. Everything you said to me was a lie. The Aachim must have been building constructs for a decade before you contacted me, so innocently. So accidentally'.
He reached for her. She thrust both hands under the covers and he stopped dead.
'I did break my promise, Tiaan, and I've never stopped regretting it. But I was used as much as you were.'
'It's all just words, Minis,' she said, not looking at him. She dared not, for despite all her vows, all her fury, he still moved her. 'Life has taught me that words can mean nothing, or anything' I put my faith in actions, and by yours are you revealed, as are all the Aachim.1
'Please believe me, Tiaan. Don't judge me by the deceits of others. I never lied to you.'
'Prove it!' she hissed, but before Minis could respond she heard Vithis roaring his name. Minis went through the flap without another word.
Tiaan pulled on her clothes and readied herself for her last day. Thyzzea would accompany her, as usual, but there had been no let-up in the Aachim's vigilance. The construct behind her always carried two guards armed with crossbows, as well as a mancer monitoring everything she did with the field, and they never took their eyes off her.
The day went badly, ror Tiaan could not stop thinking about what must happen tomorrow. Halfway though the first trip she lost the fields and the construct thumped into the ground so hard that it jarred her teeth. Behind her, all the others did the same.
'What'ss the matter?' Thyzzea asked anxiously.
'I can't see it,' Tiaan gasped. 'My brain feels like porridge.'
'What's porridge?'
'Never mind.'
Vithis came running from one of the towed constructs and sprang onto the side of her machine. So he was still watching her. 'Is there a problem?'
'I've lost the fields.'
'Minis is behind this, isn't he?'
She did not answer.
'I'll make sure he doesn't bother you again!' Vithis sprang down.
The delay was only a short one, but twice more she lost the fields, and on the second trip three constructs crashed into each other and were damaged so badly that they had to be left behind. Vithis was livid, and with all the delays they did not complete the return journey until sunrise the following day. There were still more than two hundred constructs to move.
Tiaan was so exhausted that she kept sagging against her restraints. Thyzzea carried her back to their tent, where Tiaan lay on her mattress, unable to sleep. Weird images kept flashing through her mind, objects she knew belonged in higher-dimensional space, though she was incapable of comprehending them. Finally, as dinner was being served outside, she drifted into sleep.