Tiaan brought to mind an image of the globe as she’d seen it earlier that day, in bright sunlight. She slowly rotated the image, one of the talents that made her such a brilliant artisan and geomancer. She could recall, as clearly as a picture, anything she had ever seen. If it was any kind of mechanism, like the workings of a clock, she could make it operate in her mind so as to identify the flaws in it.
Recalling the outside of the globe was trivial. Next she brought to mind the second layer, rotating it until she had put together a complete image of the surface. The third layer proved more difficult, since more of it was obscured by the upper layers. But soon she assembled the separate views until she had that too.
The fourth was more difficult again. Large sections were covered by the copper band, and when she mentally moved the globe to rotate all the inner layers, she tended to lose the image she already had. It took most of the night before she was sure she had it perfectly. Thinking about the fifth sphere, Tiaan fell asleep.
The following day she was too exhausted to do more than her mapping as they crossed the mountain range to tropical Taranta, although Tiaan did remember to take out the globe and inspect it under bright sunlight. After much rotating of the inner spheres she felt sure she had seen the entirety of the fifth and sixth layers. That night, after the meeting, she fitted them into her mental model of the globe and felt that she had achieved a feat no one else could have done.
The following day, not even her beloved work was able to keep her awake, so a swathe of country along the north-eastern rim of Faranda went unmapped. She hoped the omission would not prove costly.
They reached Nys, a large town on the north-west coast of Faranda, which marked the turning point in the journey. After this they would be heading south, back towards Fiz Gorgo and winter. It took all her spare time to complete her image of the seventh layer and fit it into the mental model. The eighth would be almost impossible, for it was dim and almost completely obscured by the seven layers rotating above it. She was looking forward to the challenge.
Completing the surface of the eighth sphere was like doing a jigsaw puzzle through a pinhole. She had hundreds of separate tiny images in her head, but could not see enough at a time to fit them together. In despair, she put Golias’s globe away and went back to her mapping.
Towards the end of the odyssey, Tiaan was sitting, as usual, on the platform at the back of the thapter. Malien had followed the coast all the way south, and then south-east. Here Faranda became a narrow, mountainous peninsula like the handle of a spoon, extending down to Tikkadel, midway along the Foshorn, which resembled its bowl. To her right was the Sea of Thurkad, then the island of Qwale. Running towards her was the short Sea of Qwale which separated the island from Meldorin.
On her left, clearly visible beyond the mountains from this altitude, lay the white-crusted immensity of the Dry Sea, so vast, arid and hot that seldom had it been crossed. Tiaan had eyes for it whenever she could spare them from her mapping, though that was seldom. Unfortunately she had little time for spectacles at the moment. A chain of powerful nodes ran down the handle of Faranda, so close together that many fields overlapped at once, and it was difficult to sort out which was which. Malien seemed to be having trouble too – the note of the thapter kept swinging high then plunging low.
What kind of fields were out there, in the Dry Sea? The urge to investigate was overwhelming. Tiaan could see the rainbow shadows of a number of odd, elongated fields, but their sources were too far off to discern.
At Tikkadel, Malien turned right to cross the Sea of Thurkad, intending to pass over Qwale, which as far as they knew still resisted the enemy, and thence on to Meldorin Island.
As the thapter turned, Tiaan felt a bulging pressure in her head, as if a balloon was being inflated inside it, and a momentary shearing pain. Purple lights began to pulse behind her eyes and more bright spots drifted across her vision, resembling the migraines she sometimes suffered after overusing her talent. Colours exploded in her mind. ‘Aah. Help!’ she groaned, putting her hands over her eyes to shut out the light.
The wind was blasting at them and Malien did not hear. ‘Malien!’ Tiaan screamed.
Malien’s head appeared up through the hatch. ‘Tiaan, what is it?’
‘I don’t feel well. Can you go down?’
‘We’re over the sea. I’ll have to turn back to the Foshorn.’
They landed on a grey, wind-tossed plateau overlooking the Sea of Thurkad. As the thapter came down it crushed the salty shrubs, releasing pungent herb oils that were like a tonic to her abused senses. Tiaan hung over the side, panting.
Malien climbed up to her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I … don’t know. The field –’
Malien helped her into the shade by the side of the machine. ‘You’ve been overdoing it. Come inside. You can lie down in the dark and sleep all the way to Fiz Gorgo if you need to. It’s only two days, with this wind behind us.’
‘I’m not ill,’ said Tiaan shakily. ‘I feel all right now, but I sensed something strange up ahead.’
Flydd came down the ladder, rubbing stiff joints. He looked as though he’d been asleep. ‘What did you feel?’ He squatted beside her.
‘A monster node, bigger than the one at Tirthrax, but its field was unlike any I’ve ever sensed before. And there was something else.’
‘I don’t see why a field should trouble you,’ said Flydd, ‘no matter how huge.’
‘I’m sorry – I’m not explaining it very well. It felt dangerous.’
‘That’s easily dealt with,’ said Malien, smiling. ‘We won’t go near it. Let’s get you inside.’
‘Something isn’t right,’ said Tiaan. ‘I have to put it on my map.’
Malien and Flydd exchanged glances. ‘I don’t think –’ Flydd began.
‘I must,’ Tiaan insisted. ‘If something’s wrong, I’ve got to see it.’
‘All right,’ said Malien. ‘We’ll go down to the tip of the Foshorn.’ Then, unaccountably, she shivered.
‘There, you’re feeling its wrongness too,’ said Tiaan.
‘Not at all,’ said Malien. ‘Just remembering the last time I was there.’ She did not elaborate.
‘Go carefully,’ said Flydd, giving her another meaningful look.
Malien withdrew the amplimet and Flydd closed the lid of the platinum box over it. She made adjustments to the way she controlled the thapter, to make up for not using the amplimet, and lifted off, just skimming the shore. The field of the monster node grew in Tiaan’s mind until it swirled all around her.
‘Can’t you see it?’ she said to Malien, who did not seem to be troubled now.
‘I’ve never been able to see the field; at least, not the way you do.’
‘Really?’ Tiaan was astonished. ‘Then how can you use the thapter?’
‘My Art is very different to the Arts that other mancers use. I think I mentioned that once. I know where power is, and using this controller I can draw upon it, but I don’t see anything.’
‘So what’s at the other end of the Foshorn?’
‘The Hornrace, a chasm five hundred spans deep that separates Faranda from the continent of Lauralin. I’m sure you’ve heard it mentioned in the Great Tales. The chasm was once spanned by the Rainbow Bridge, the most beautiful of all our works on Santhenar, but it was thrown down by Rulke during the Clysm. He caused the very earth of the Foshorn to move, tearing the Rainbow Bridge asunder and toppling it into the chasm. The remains of the bridge can still be seen, tangled up in the rocks of the Trihorn Falls at the eastern end of the Hornrace. Only the four pillars of the bridge still stand, to remind us of what we have lost. I never thought I’d see them again.’