Like a fly on tar paper, he thought. I'm stuck. The lyrinx were already out of sight. Too late he felt the bitterness of regret. The game was lost, and Tiaan. And for what? He hardly dared to think.
S IXTY
Tiaan dreamed that Old Hyull, a glowing mushroom on his head, was stripping her backbone out from its surrounding skin and flesh, smacking his lips as he slurped down the slippery marrow. She woke squirming with horror, but it was only a dream and a ridiculous one. Backbones did not have marrow, did they? Or was it her spinal cord he was devouring?
Later she woke in what she supposed to be a different kind of patterner, hanging upside down in a collection of translucent spheres as green as grass. She felt blurred in the head, as if she'd had too much to drink. It wore off during the day but her back began to throb low down, where she had broken it. The pain grew until it made her cry out, whereupon Liett pulled her mouth open and forced in half a mug of sweet syrup. It sent Tiaan to sleep within minutes. When she woke, the pain was no more than a nagging ache. She felt that days had passed.
Tiaan kept expecting Tutor to appear around the door, but he did not come. She had not seen him for days and missed him.
That afternoon she was taken to another room and put onto a curving platform covered in what felt like hide. It was mottled in shades of grey and was yielding yet firm beneath. Her hands were slid into receptacles like shoulder-length gloves, her legs fed into thigh-high envelopes of similar material. Suckers were attached to the back of her head, her neck and all the way down to her tailbone.
Ryll tightened leather straps across her body and nodded at a lyrinx standing to one side. She reached beneath Tiaan's head. The thigh envelopes began to move in constantly changing directions. Sometimes they went up and down, at other times round and round or from side to side, or made all of those movements at once.
Tiaan cried out as a series of pangs struck her backbone. Liett gave her a half-dose of syrup and her vision faded. People moved across the room from time to time, so slowly that it could not have been real. Time slowed to a standstill.
The exercises went on until Tiaan felt as though her bones were dissolving. She was removed and laid out to sleep on a couch at the far end of the room. As soon as she woke, the exercises began again.
There were many more sessions, over as much as a week, before Old Hyull seemed to be satisfied. Ryll carried Tiaan back to the patterner. The jellyfish mask went over her head and they began to repattern the faulty torgnadr. Again she woke weeping. The top of the device was beaded with her tears.
Tutor was sent for. He dried her face and sat unmoving until she stopped crying. 'Patterning had the same effect on me.'
She raised her head. 'They patterned you?'
He smiled. 'They tried everyone, back in the early days when they were learning. They thought torgnadrs were going to win the war in a few weeks, by draining the nodes each time clankers went into battle. They probably would have won, had they been able to pattern enough of them. Fortunately for us, nearly all failed. The lyrinx got no torgnadr out of me, but I cried for a fortnight. I can still remember how it felt.'
'When was that, Tutor?' The title still felt wrong. She did not like using it.
'A long time ago. Five or six years? You lose track of time down here.'
She felt closer to him. Tutor was a nondescript fellow, neither tall nor short, handsome nor ugly. He was thin, but every human here was. And pale; few of the prisoners ever saw the sun. His dark eyes were kindly, his brow lined. His hand was callused – evidently they worked him hard and not only as a teacher.
'This torgnadr of mine, if they succeed with it, will cause the deaths of thousands. Are all these people in the patterners -?'
'No, Tiaan. I told you, torgnadrs are hard to make. The others are just patterning weak devices like limnadrs and phynadrs, and most of those fail too.'
'What are they?'
'Limnadrs are spying devices. They can sense moving clankers, though not well, since the design was changed last year. Phynadrs draw small amounts of power from the field, for one purpose or another. They're a bit like clanker controllers. I think they got a limnadr out of patterning me. Because of my gift for languages, you see – useful for spying.'
'Yes. Do you mind if I call you Merryl? Tutor seems like a slave name.'
'Of course not.' Before he could say any more, Merryl was called away.
He came back several times, when she was overcome by melancholy. They did not talk much but she drew comfort from his presence. The other humans felt alien but he never did. Tiaan wondered, as she often did, what they were doing with Gilhaelith. He had been kind to her in his own strange way, but in the end, like everyone else, he had made his choice. No doubt he was looking after himself, though she could not see how he could get the amplimet.
Old Hyull now inspected the torgnadr after every patterning session. After the fifth such visit he gave the faintest of toothy smiles as he hefted the bucket, peering through the glass from below.
Ryll spoke to him. Old Hyull shook his head violently. Ryll cast a glance at Tiaan. Old Hyull put down the bucket, rasping a series of orders in which all Tiaan could make out was her name and, once, torgnadr. Old Hyull went out with the torgnadr.
'Is it fixed?' Tiaan whispered to Ryll.
'No,' he replied, after looking over his shoulder. 'And Old Hyull can't understand why not. But it's better than it was – it will do.'
She wondered what she was responsible for. 'Aren't you going to take me out of the patterner? My skin feels all lumpy and hot.'
'There isn't time. We must pattern another torgnadr from the beginning and hope we can complete it.'
'No,' she whispered. 'I can't take any more, Ryll.'
'You must.' He did not meet her eyes.
The patterning began, exactly as before except that the sessions were much longer. Perhaps it was easier the second time. But if that was so, why did the enemy have so few torgnadrs? Maybe the second time was fatal. The growing torgnadr was a blob the size of a large melon when the cavern shook, as if something had thumped into the ground overhead. Ryll set down the bucket. His eyes were huge. Threads of red and black inched their way up his arms. The sight made her afraid.
'What is it, Ryll?' she whispered.
'The battle for Snizort has begun and we are not ready.' Ryll closed his eyes. 'I can see Snizort burning. Fire!' he gasped, looking around like a desperate animal.
'Ryll?' Too late. He was gone.
Tiaan felt an urge to scream. If Snizort was on fire, all she could do was await her death with whatever dignity she could muster. She took deep breaths, which was no help at all. She hoped it would be quick.
Some minutes later, Ryll returned, his skin now showing camouflage colours. He approached, head hanging. 'I'm sorry, Tiaan. I am proven to be a rank coward. Fire is my greatest terror.'
She said nothing. The patterning resumed, but some minutes later the room shook again. Old Hyull bounded through the door and dragged Ryll out, flashing distress markings. Down the row of patterners, someone screamed, but thankfully no one else took it up. The women chattered among themselves in their own language, ignoring Tiaan as usual.
More lyrinx ran in, gathering inside the door and skin-speaking furiously. It looked like a general panic. There were two more thumps. The lyrinx disappeared again.
She was glad when Merryl came up the row a few minutes later.
'What's the matter?' she yelled. 'Are we being attacked?'
'Yes, but we're not in danger yet.'
'Then why the panic?'
'The old torgnadr has finally failed and yours is not proving as effective against the enemy as they had hoped.'
She was pleased to hear it. 'You mean at draining the node?'