‘I have the full support of my people,’ snarled Vithis, and Nish wondered if his guess had struck the mark. ‘Come on; which one is it?’
‘We’re fighting for our lives, surr. No one has time to think about you.’
‘What about Gilhaelith?’ Vithis said menacingly.
‘I hardly know the man.’
‘He’s a geomancer, is he not?’
‘As I understand it,’ said Nish, ‘he wishes to comprehend the roots of the world and all the secrets that go with it.’ He didn’t see any point in mentioning the theft of the relics.
‘Does he now?’ There was a glint in Vithis’s eye. ‘And should he succeed in that impossible aim, what then?’
‘Gilhaelith seeks knowledge and understanding for its own sake.’ That may have been true once. Nish didn’t have a clue what Gilhaelith wanted now.
‘So pure a motive does not exist,’ said Vithis. ‘In my long life, there’s one thing I can be sure of – once people have tasted real power, there are few who can give it up.’
Nish shrugged. ‘Gilhaelith is an enigma.’
‘Even more dangerous,’ said Vithis. ‘Leave now.’
Nish went.
That night he was lying in bed when the stones of the tower let out a groan like a ghost in torment and the room gave a long, sideways shudder. Nish’s wiry hair stood up. He got out of bed, staring at the roof. The room shook the other way but this time it kept shaking. It felt as if the tower had been set vibrating and each oscillation plucked at the foundations of the Span.
Slowly the vibrations died away and did not resume, but sleep had fled. Nish went barefoot down the stairs, drawn to the slot above the Hornrace. The floor was dark but lights from the lower floors illuminated mist rising up through the slot.
He edged to the brink, fascinated by the torrent yet terrified of it. He went down on his belly and crept forward over the last distance.
‘It compels, doesn’t it?’ said a low voice from the darkness. ‘I come here every night, to think and to dream. To wonder if this will be the night when I take that way out.’
Vithis was sitting up the other end of the slot, his long legs dangling over the edge. The tone of his voice frightened Nish, who came to his feet and began to back away.
‘Stay, Cryl-Nish. I mean no harm to you. Come and sit down.’
Nish did so, as far away as he reasonably could. His heart was thudding.
‘They’re trying to destroy me, you know.’
Mad and paranoid. Nish attempted to speak but nothing came out. He swallowed and tried again. ‘Who?’
‘Everyone. Yggur, Flydd, Gilhaelith –’
Nish wondered how the other clans allowed Vithis to remain leader. But then, from what he knew of Aachim Histories, insane obsessiveness was an all too common trait.
‘You think I’m mad,’ Vithis went on, softly. ‘You think the loss of my clan has broken me. It hasn’t, Cryl-Nish. I’m going to bring them back.’
‘What if you can’t find them, surr?’
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Vithis’s eyes caught the light and again Nish felt an urge to run away. ‘I still have Minis,’ he grated, ‘despite what that little bitch did to him. He’s pure First Clan. He’ll build us up again.’
‘Does Minis want to?’ said Nish.
‘Minis wants what I want.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He always has. He’s never once tried to make his own life.’
‘He’s tried, but you would never allow it.’
‘That proves that he never really wanted it.’
‘You’ve broken his spirit,’ said Nish.
‘He didn’t have any to begin with.’
‘Then why did you adopt him?’
Vithis jumped up, swaying at the other side of the slot, his big hands held up as if he planned to leap it and throttle Nish. ‘His parents were dead and I … could not have children of my own. Why was I so robbed?’ he cried. ‘My children would have been as strong as the founders of First Clan. Why am I cursed with this weakling who can never do anything right? Minis could have had his choice of a dozen women – all noble, all beautiful, all clever – but he wouldn’t have them. He still pines after that sad little creature who brought him to ruin. Who would mate with him now?’
‘Tiaan is a brilliant artisan and geomancer,’ said Nish. ‘She’s brave and kind, loyal and generous.’
‘She’s an ugly, wretched little sow and no noble Aachim could see anything in her.’
‘Among our own kind, Tiaan is considered a beauty. I think her –’
‘An insipid kind of beauty, at best, and she has no family. Her mother is a breeding-factory slut; she has no father at all.’
‘I’ve always thought the qualities of the person to be more important than the lineage of the family.’ That was a lie. Until recently Nish had been as proud of his family’s wealth and status as he’d been ashamed of his father’s lowly ancestors.
‘Considering your own lineage, I’m not surprised.’
‘My mother and father –’ Nish protested.
‘Now you change your song. And who, I ask, were your father’s parents, or your mother’s? Nobodies! Minis can trace his lineage back ten thousand years. No old human on Santhenar can claim a quarter of that. Not one single person.’
‘I dare say you’re right,’ said Nish, annoyed because he was sure it was true.
‘Of course I am. I took the trouble to find out –’
The earth gave another wrenching groan, the building a grinding shudder. Vithis broke off and came around the slot. Taking Nish by the arm, he hauled him all the way up to the spherical room. By that time, Aachim were running everywhere in silent efficiency. Divided they might be over the construction of the Span and the great search, but a crisis instantly united them.
Tirior and Luxor appeared at the door. ‘I see the Art in this,’ Tirior said. She was in a blue nightgown which swept the floor, and her black hair formed a cloud of ringlets. Luxor was dressed but barefooted. He had extremely long and hairy toes, like brown caterpillars.
‘Indeed,’ Vithis said grimly. ‘Do you know who it is?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Bring up the miasmin at once.’
Directly, an underling carried in an object roughly the size of a port barrel, shrouded in a green cloth. Tirior removed the cloth, revealing a glass bell jar mounted on an ebony base. There was something inside, obscured by fog. Tirior and Luxor worked their hands, eyes closed, with evident strain. The fog cleared and the object, the size of a large round melon, began to glow. The miasmin became brighter and brighter until it resembled the sun as Nish had once seen it through a smoked-glass spyglass. Its surface roiled and dark spots broke through, emitting flares and prominences that looped partway around it before plunging back into the surface.
Luxor whipped the bell jar off its base and the miasmin drifted up towards the ceiling, swelling to many times its size and boiling like a thunderhead. Red and black streamers were plucked out of it in one direction, then another, only to be resorbed. Tirior moved back, holding her arms spread above her head and making little movements with one hand or another. Luxor stood at right-angles to her and did the same, their hand movements seeming to keep the sphere away from the walls.
Vithis touched the lights on the wall to darkness. The surface of the miasmin smoothed, though it still roiled inside. A glowing filament arced from the top, twisted like a thread in the air and plunged back in halfway down the right side. Other filaments arose, whirled about and sank back into the mass. Dark, fringed spots appeared on the surface, slowly rotating.
‘There are too many powers,’ said Tirior with a shake of her black curls.
‘I think not. That would be the scrutator, Flydd,’ said Vithis, indicating a large spot from which the glowing filaments arose like sparks from a firework. ‘And this, his chief lyrinx opponent. They seem too preoccupied with each other to be attacking us, though … the scrutator is cunning.’