After flying due east to Tiksi, a journey of more than five hundred leagues which, now that Malien was fully recovered, they hoped to do in six days, Flydd planned to head all the way up the east coast to Crandor. That long coastal strip contained half the population of Lauralin and most of its greatest cities and armies. He planned to stop at Tiksi, Maksmord, Gosport, Guffeons, Roros, Garriott and Taranta, before returning via the west coast of Faranda, the only part of that arid island with cities of any significance. The journey would take at least three weeks, if the weather was good and nothing went wrong, but they were expecting to be away for a month. Tiaan couldn’t wait to lift off so she could turn to her field maps.
‘We won’t be able to visit every important city in the east,’ said Flydd as the thapter’s entrails whined, ‘but we’ll do much good nonetheless. No one can have seen a thapter before, and the common people will marvel at it. The enemy may be able to fly but they don’t have thapters.’
‘It doesn’t mean the east will rally to you,’ said Malien, rolling her palm across the flight knob.
‘They can’t give us men or clankers; they’re simply too far away. But our visit is bound to do good for morale – theirs and ours. We’ll all feel that we’re not alone, and that’s as good as another army.’
‘I thought we were heading directly to Tiksi?’ said Tiaan an hour after they’d left Fiz Gorgo.
‘It’s impossible to fool someone who sees a map once and never forgets it,’ smiled Malien. ‘I’m taking a slight detour to visit my exiled clan, Elienor, on the coast of the Sea of Thurkad.’
‘Have you told the scrutator?’ Flydd was down below, deep in his papers.
‘Not yet.’
‘Do you … think it’s a good idea to keep him in the dark?’ Tiaan put it tentatively, knowing that Malien could be prickly.
Malien sighed. ‘I still can’t forgive him for taking over my thapter at Nennifer.’
‘We’ve all done things we’ve later regretted, Malien. If you and Flydd don’t trust each other, I don’t see how we can succeed. And …’
‘What is it, Tiaan?’
‘I won’t be able to concentrate on my mapmaking.’
Malien stared straight ahead for some time, clenching her jaw. Finally she said, ‘You’re right, of course. We Aachim have a strong sense of our own importance and we feel insults more deeply than we should. I’ll set things right with him.’
During Tiaan’s time at the manufactory, Flydd, as scrutator for Einunar, had been the supreme authority figure of everyone’s life. She still saw him that way and, not knowing what to say, avoided him whenever she could. In the cramped confines of the thapter that wasn’t easy so she sat up on the rear shooter’s platform in the icy wind, swathed in blankets and scarves, alone but for her map, which she’d mounted on a board to protect it in high wind, and her crystals. The platform on Malien’s thapter was surrounded by a knee-high coaming, and had a harness to keep her in place in bumpy weather, but it was miserably cold even in the mildest conditions. Tiaan mapped the fields all the daylight hours, and for as much of the evening as they travelled.
Flydd came back once to see what she was doing, but she said, in her most polite talking-to-the-scrutator voice, ‘I can’t talk to you just now, I’ll miss part of the field.’
Early the following morning, Malien crossed the Sea of Thurkad and settled the thapter outside a palisade of sharpened timber at the end of a narrow, rocky inlet. The ridges rose up steeply on either side and straggly forest ran east into the distance. Guards on the walls had spring-fired catapults and crossbows trained on them. Malien stood up and raised a blue flag. After some time it was answered by a flag from the wall.
‘Do you want me to hide, as I did last time?’ said Tiaan. They’d stopped briefly here on the way to Alcifer, after escaping from Stassor.
‘No; you’ll come with me and Flydd,’ said Malien.
‘But …’ said Tiaan. ‘What if –?’
‘This is an embassy and you’re under my protection. You’ll come to no harm.’
But you’re an exile too, Tiaan thought, dreading the meeting. Her escape and Minis’s maiming had ruined Clan Elienor, for it had been held responsible. Vithis had confiscated their constructs and sent them into this precarious exile.
Gates in the palisade were creaking open as Tiaan climbed down, following Malien and the scrutator. As she put one foot on the ground, seven Aachim came through the gate. With their red hair, compact stature and pale skin they were strikingly different from all other Aachim.
‘The first is Yrael, clan leader,’ said Malien to Flydd as they approached. ‘Next his wife Zea and daughter Thyzzea …’
Yrael, whose hair was the glowing flame-red of sunset in a smoky sky, stopped just outside the gate, waiting for them to come to him. His arms were crossed, his face expressionless. Tiaan felt a spasm of panic.
Malien introduced Flydd and Yrael shook his hand, as did each of the others. There was no need to introduce Tiaan, who had remained several steps behind – every one of Clan Elienor’s five thousand knew her. She would forever be in their Histories.
Yrael stepped around Flydd and came towards Tiaan, and her heart missed a beat.
‘Tiaan,’ he said, studying her with his head to one side. ‘You look worn.’
‘I’m sorry!’ she burst out. ‘I had to do it. I was afraid for my life –’
Zea, a small woman with kindly eyes, came up beside Yrael. ‘But of course you did,’ she said, ‘and though your escape cost us dearly, how could we blame you for it?’
‘It was your duty to escape,’ said Yrael, ‘and the negligence of our guards, and Vithis’s, that allowed it.’ He put out his hand.
Tiaan took it, tentatively, the long fingers wrapping right around her hand, but at the moment of contact a wave of relief swept over her. She shook hands with Zea and then her daughter, Thyzzea, remembering their kindness and Thyzzea’s impish good humour during what had been a desperate time for them. Thyzzea, who wasn’t even an adult, had stood up to Vithis to protect her. All at once, Tiaan felt as though she had come home.
‘Come within,’ said Zea, indicating the gate with a sweep of her hand.
They took refreshments in a small pavilion made of carved white wood, set on a grassy rise by the stream that wound into the end of the inlet. The camp, a mixture of tents and small timber buildings, was neatly laid out and the walkways paved, though it looked impoverished. It was also precariously close to Oellyll, just across the sea, and must have been miserably cold and damp at night. The Aachim were thinner than Tiaan remembered, though they looked no less cheerful.
‘We are glad to see you, Malien, but why have you come?’ said Yrael once the formalities had been exchanged.
‘To find out where you stand,’ said Malien. She explained what had happened at Fiz Gorgo and Nennifer, and Flydd outlined their plan to win the war, or at least such parts of it as he cared to reveal.
‘I realise that you must feel bitter towards us, because of your exile,’ began Flydd. He glanced at Tiaan but she avoided his eyes. ‘And that you won’t dare –’
‘On the contrary,’ Yrael broke in, ‘Tiaan did us a favour. We’ve lost much, it is true, but we’ve been cut free of the other clans who, many millennia after Elienor founded our line, still can’t accept us. To them we’re a nagging reminder of the greatest failure in our Histories, and we’ll never go back. Henceforth we will make our own way on Santhenar, and our own friends, beholden to none.’
‘I’m prepared to offer –’ began Flydd.
‘We cannot be bought,’ said Zea. ‘What we give, we give in friendship.’
‘And obligation,’ said Yrael. ‘We were twice shamed at Snizort. Shamed because Vithis made alliance with you, Scrutator Flydd, then held us back when your soldiers were overrun by the enemy. And shamed again by the shabby way Matah Urien and Lord Vithis treated Tiaan, who made the gate and saved us all. In payment of those debts, and in friendship between our species, you may call upon us at need and we will answer the call with a thousand men.’