Tetrarch

'She arrived but two days ago.'

'Are you a pair now?'

His brow wrinkled. 'Do you mean, has she accepted me as her mate?'

'Yes.'

'She has not. There have been difficulties.'

'I thought, er, just before I fled Kalissin, that you and Liett were… close.'

Colours flickered across his face. 'The Wise Mother withdrew her permission and sent me home in disgrace.'

'That must have hurt you.'

'I am a fool!' Ryll said harshly. 'As well as a wingless wonder. I must take my punishment.' He said no more.

On they went; and down again. It was warmer here. 'Can I see Gilhaelith?' Tiaan asked miserably.

'No, you cannot. We have arrived.'

Ryll thrust open a round door made of wood and ushered her inside. Helping her out of the walker, he sat her on a bench which ran the length of the curved wall. He put her pack beside her, lifted the walker onto his shoulders and turned to go.

'Ah!' He turned back. 'One last thing.'

'Yes?'

'You will give me the crystal.'

There was no choice. Unfastening the chest pack, she put the amplimet into his leathery hand. What would the lyrinx make of it this time? Would they see its strangeness?

'Thank you.' The door was slammed and bolted on the outside.

Tiaan lifted her legs onto the bench and closed her eyes. She had tried it all for nothing and now they were going to use her again. This was the stupidest thing she had ever done. Ryll was right about her lack of judgment. Why, why had she come? Several hours went by before Ryll carried Tiaan to another place, many winding tunnels away, that she would have had trouble finding on her own. She did her best to memorise the sequence of turns, in the faint hope that, one day, there might be a chance to escape.

It was a dim, moist room, long and wide, with an earthy, peaty odour. Mist wreathed across it, though after some time she made out rows of objects that brought to mind the mechanical devices in the manufactory, except that these looked as if they had been grown of wood and bark, branch and leaf, bone and horn and shell. Each was different in size, colour and form.

She felt something shuddery creeping up her back. 'What are these things?'

Ryll carried her along a row to the second-last object, a throat-high cube of a substance that resembled woody leather, though covered in bulbs and curving indentations. Along the sides were patterns like veins in leaves and gills in mushrooms. A faint spicy odour, like lemony pepper, masked something less pleasant.

'Sit here, please.' Ryll put her on the floor and bent over the cube.

Tiaan tried to see what he was doing. He seemed to be removing a cover; testing the level inside. Something went glop! An ominous liquidity.

Across the room, vapour hissed from a dark aperture. A cloud of mist drifted toward the cube.

Ryll stood over her. 'Take your clothes off, please.'

'What?' she cried, her heart thumping.

'Remove your clothes. You won't need them here.'

'Why not?' she screamed. 'What are you going to do to me?'

'I'm not going to do anything to you.'

Her eyes flicked back and forth. Her skin felt as if hairy caterpillars were swarming on it. 'No!' she gasped. 'You're monsters. I won't help you again.'

'Take your clothes off, Tiaan, or I will have to remove them for you. I'm sure you wouldn't want that. I know how… prudish you are.'

She shook her head.

He sighed. 'I have the amplimet, Tiaan. I can force you.'

'I got over withdrawal at Tirthrax. It means nothing to me now.'

'We'll see. Just what did you do there?'

'I opened a gate from Santhenar to Aachan, so the Aachim could bring their constructs through. They've come to wage war, on you.'

He frowned. 'We have more skilled questioners than I, Tiaan. They will get the truth from you.'

He did not believe her. That was good.

'Your clothes! Hurry up!'

'I won't!' She folded her arms across her chest.

Ryll bellowed. A small lyrinx came up the row and Tiaan recognised her too. Her thin, translucent skin and the magnificent, colourless wings distinguished her from every other lyrinx. Liett had never liked Tiaan.

'Take her clothes, please,' said Ryll.

Liett, recognising Tiaan, roared with laughter. 'What's the matter with her?'

'She's broken her back.'

The smile vanished. Liett examined Tiaan, then pulled Ryll away and spoke rapidly to him in their own tongue. Tiaan could read his expressions well enough to know that he was troubled. They debated for some minutes, after which Liett began to strip her.

One hand sufficed to hold Tiaan while the other deftly unfastened her coat and shirt down the front. Soon the boots, trousers and underwear had gone the same way.

The lyrinx looked her up and down. 'What pale, helpless creatures you are without your clothes. Shall I put her in?'

'Be quick!' Ryll looked ill-at-ease.

Liett lifted Tiaan in one hand, her useless legs flopping back and forth, carried her to the cube and poked her feet into the top opening. The surface resembled gnarled bark dotted with brown nodules like wooden eyeballs. The peppery smell grew stronger, as did that other, uncomfortable odour.

The cube contained a thick yellow-brown mass. Liett let Tiaan go and she slid into it. It was cool with the texture of jelly, and rose to the level of her armpits. It felt horrible, clinging but slippery. Her skin began to tingle.

'What are you doing?' she cried. 'What is this thing?'

'You might call it a patterner,' said Ryll, putting the amplimet around her neck and adjusting it so it hung lower, between her breasts.

'It is going to pattern you,' said Liett with a toothy smile.

'No!' screamed Tiaan, and kept screaming until the patterner next to her began to shudder and quake.

Tiaan saw an eye looking at her. Two eyes; another woman, no older than herself. The woman's eyes went wide and she began to scream, a higher, more shrill sound than Tiaan's. The same thing happened on the right.

Shortly the whole room was shuddering and screaming. The patterners must have been sensitive to it, for they began to judder violently.

Ryll ran to Tiaan and shook her by her bare shoulders. 'Stop it!'

She broke off momentarily, but the other women kept on, and soon Tiaan found it easier to scream with them.

'What are we going to do?' Ryll shouted.

Liett yelled back at him but the racket was too loud. She ran out, returning with a bucket whose contents sloshed from side to side. Taking a dipper, she forced some through the bared teeth of the woman at the end of the line. She choked, stopped screaming and her head sagged to one side. Liett did the same to the next and all the others, up the line to Tiaan.

The room was quiet again. Tiaan looked Liett in the eye; Liett looked her back. 'Well?' said Liett.

'I want to see Gilhaelith,' Tiaan said miserably. 'Unless he's being patterned as well.'

'He's a male!' Liett said scornfully.

'Females are better for patterning,' Ryll explained. 'Only rarely have we found a useful male. If I bring him, will you cooperate?'

'Yes,' said Tiaan. For the moment.

Liett resumed her work, whatever that was. Ryll was away a long time. Tiaan resisted the impulse to scream as the jelly slid back and forth across her skin. Small sucker-like objects attached themselves all over, tugging at her skin as the gunk moved in slow swirls.

The door opened. Ryll had Gilhaelith by one arm; he looked frail beside the lyrinx. They came up the row. Tiaan's heart beat wildly. What had he been going to tell her before the lyrinx captured him?

'Tiaan!' Gilhaelith staggered and fell against the patterner. 'They caught you after all.'

'I came after you. I'm a fool, aren't I?'

He touched her cheek. Coming from him, it was more powerful than an embrace. 'Why didn't you flee when you had the chance?'

There was no sensible answer to that. 'What are they doing to you, Gilhaelith?' she said softly, expecting to hear some story as horrible as her own.