That’s all you mancers ever think of, Tiaan thought despairingly. She wanted to run away with the secret and deny it to all of them. But of course she could not – that would be playing into the hands of the enemy. Surely there had to be another way.
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Flydd. ‘How are you feeling, Tiaan?’
‘A little better.’ She wasn’t, but she might as well get it over with.
‘Are you up to showing us exactly what you did?’
‘I think so.’
Tiaan did it a second time. The node-drainer and the amplimet reacted exactly as before, and the effects were felt, as before, at Irisis’s end.
‘What else do we need, to control nodes?’ said Yggur through the farspeaker, once all was quiet again.
‘Two things,’ said Flydd. ‘Firstly, a completed map of the fields, including the Dry Sea, which Tiaan hasn’t even looked at. Tiaan, I think you and Malien had better get that done right away.’
‘I’d prefer to be asked,’ Malien said frostily. ‘I’m an ally, not a lackey, as I believe I’ve pointed out to you before.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Flydd. ‘I forgot myself. Malien –’
‘Certainly I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Tiaan, what about you?’
Tiaan had to be asked twice, for her mind had wandered a long way as she worked through the possibilities of this unexpected discovery. ‘Yes,’ she said absently. ‘I’d be glad to survey the Dry Sea.’
‘Irisis, Yggur,’ Flydd called on the farspeaker. ‘Pack up and meet us at the southern end of Warde Yallock.’ He gave directions. ‘Tiaan, go to bed before you collapse. We’ll talk in the morning.’
‘What’s the second thing we need?’ said Yggur.
‘A field controller. It’s a device I’ve been thinking about ever since Klarm and I went through the Council’s secret workrooms in Nennifer. Ghorr’s best mancers and artisans began working on a field controller as soon as they finished making the node-breaker we took to Snizort. They built a rude prototype, though they could never get it to work. Klarm brought it back in the dirigible and I’ve also fiddled with it over the summer. It’s in the other crate.’
‘But you couldn’t get it to work either,’ said Yggur.
‘No, but Gilhaelith, unwittingly, gave me some fresh ideas when he was telling me about the power patterner. Tiaan’s discovery might be the missing piece of the puzzle. As soon as you get here, we’ll go over everything. Are you there, Irisis?’
‘Where else would I be?’ she said.
‘I want you and Tiaan to pull apart the failed field controller and work out how to rebuild it to make use of Tiaan’s discovery. Just throw it together anyhow, for the time being. Tiaan can help with the initial tests, then be on her way to the Dry Sea.’
‘And me?’ said Irisis.
‘If the tests work, I’ll give you as many artisans as you need. You’ve got to produce a reliable field controller and you haven’t got long. It’ll be the challenge of your life.’
‘It’s for all our lives,’ said Yggur.
SIXTY
Nish watched his friends fly away, unable to speak.
Once the last refugees reported that they’d met Orgestre’s army and no longer needed Troist’s protection, his infantry and its escort of clankers set off up the Great North Road, which here ran north-west. Worm Wood was about twenty leagues away, the edge of the forest curving east until it ran into the northern extremity of the Borgis Woods, a forest just as dark and tangled, and with a more dubious reputation, than Worm Wood itself. The road ran through the forest for twenty leagues, then beside it and the lands between the Great Chain of Lakes, before finally passing into the flat drylands to the north. In all, the army had to cross more than forty leagues of rugged country, ripe for ambushing, before they reached the relative security of the plains of Tacnah. Nish knew they would be lucky to get that far.
‘Nish,’ said Gilhaelith as they camped on the fringe of the forest, ‘you’re a resourceful fellow. Come with me.’
Nish wondered why Gilhaelith had remained behind with the rearguard instead of flying to safety with the Council. Was it because Yggur was so hostile to him? Whatever the reason, Troist wasn’t bothered about it. He’d invited Gilhaelith to travel with him in his twelve-legged command clanker, often consulting him about the lyrinx’s mancery and how they might use it to hinder the army’s progress.
Nish followed the woolly-headed mancer down through the rows of tents and clankers to a larger tent, guarded by two soldiers, set in an isolated spot under the trees. They went inside. It was dark apart from a glowing globe with a bowl of smoked glass over the top, reducing the light to a glimmer. A folding table had been set up in the middle. Merryl sat on one side, a writing tablet before him, a pen in his hand. A young, dark-haired woman on the other side of the table had her hands around a master farspeaker whose interior globes were spinning. Her head was bent so far that Nish couldn’t see her face, only a long, pointed nose.
Nish turned to Gilhaelith but he put a finger across his lips. ‘Later.’
Nothing happened for some minutes, when there came a whisper from the farspeaker. The dark young woman froze the globes. Again the whisper. Merryl wrote something on his pad. They waited. Eventually, another whisper. Another wait, interminable this time.
‘All right,’ said Gilhaelith after more than an hour had passed. ‘Take a break.’
They went outside. ‘You’re spying on the lyrinx,’ said Nish.
Gilhaelith raised an interrogative eyebrow.
‘Merryl’s the only one who speaks their language,’ he added.
‘Very good, artificer.’
Nish had an uncomfortable feeling that the mancer was laughing at him. He’d never worked Gilhaelith out; he did not fit any of the kinds of people Nish had met before.
‘Daesmie,’ Gilhaelith indicated the young woman through the tent flap, ‘has a talent akin to Tiaan’s, though undeveloped by comparison. She was only discovered recently – one of many projects the Council has going behind the scenes, Flydd tells me. Daesmie is able to sense lyrinx mindspeech and tune the master farspeaker to pull it out of the ethyr. There’s one problem, of course.’
‘There are half a million lyrinx,’ said Nish, ‘and they’d be using mindspeech all the time. How can you pick out what’s important in all that racket?’
‘On the contrary, few lyrinx have the talent and it’s exhausting to use. They employ it on the battlefield, or to signal danger or cry for help, so everything they say is of interest to us. And only the most powerful lyrinx can call for long distances, so if the lesser ones are mindspeaking further away, we don’t hear it.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘They seldom identify themselves or where they are. It limits the usefulness of spying on them.’
‘Have you learned anything interesting yet?’
‘Indeed. Twice we’ve had warning of attacks before they occurred. Only a minute or two, but it makes a difference. The attack this morning would have cut the army in half if I hadn’t alerted Troist to it.’
Nish had wondered why Troist seemed so happy with Gilhaelith. ‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘Read everything Merryl and the other listeners write down.’
‘What others?’
‘There are five tents down here, all listening on different globe settings. Merryl has taught the listeners the most common words of the lyrinx language, and each listener is recording pages of messages every hour. I don’t have the time to read it all, so you can do it for me.’
‘I’m Troist’s adjutant, surr, and I’ve a lot to do.’
‘And he’s made you over to me for the time being.’
‘Really?’ said Nish, unconvinced.
‘Go and ask him,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘The work I’m doing is vital to the survival of this army.’
‘All right,’ said Nish. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’