She must be high in the city now. Tiaan felt dizzy and her head was throbbing. She could not seem to draw enough breath. After crawling to the top of that stair, she pushed herself onto the next floor and collapsed. Her limbs felt like glue. The outfit she had chosen for Minis was reduced to filthy, bloodstained rags. She laid her head on the floor, looking sideways at the top of the stair, awaiting her fate.
It was not long in coming. Nish walked like a man in the last throes of exhaustion. Thump-clump, thump-clump, he came. His round head appeared, capped with dark curls that clung to his skull; his spotty, unhandsome face; his strong shoulders. His jaw was set, his mouth compressed into a scar, but when he saw her lying there he gave a wolfish grin.
'Oh, Tiaan, how I'm going to enjoy your trial.'
T WO
Nish looked like a general who had snatched victory from the abyss of ruin. His triumph turned her stomach. Only her eyes moved as he stalked toward her.
Nish took no chances this time. Rolling her over, he put one foot on her wrist, the other across the back of her neck, and pressed hard. She did not resist. He tied her wrists behind her back and bound her to him with a length of rope.
'You'll pay!' he snarled. 'You evil, vicious traitor. You'll never stop paying until the day you die. Get up.'
Tiaan was incapable of moving. She was a traitor. She had betrayed her world.
He nudged her in the ribs with a boot toe. 'Move, artisan.'
She heaved, gasped and fell down. Whatever he had once felt for her, it was long gone. All she could see was contempt.
'I loathe you, artisan,' he said through clenched teeth. 'With every bone of my body I despise you. My father is a mutilated horror because of you.'
She could never forget that terrible battle on the edge of the plateau. Nish's father, Perquisitor Jal-Nish Hlar, had been struck down by a lyrinx, his face, arm and chest torn apart by its claws.
Nish lifted her to her feet by the ropes, then had to hold her up. To Tiaan's shame, her breasts were exposed through the rags of her blouse. When Nish did not even glance down, she truly knew she was finished.
'Don't try to play on my better side.' He thrust his face against hers. 'After seeing the doom you brought upon our world yesterday, I have none. Move!' He prodded her toward the stairs.
'I can't go down,' she said, staggering. 'I'll fall.'
He looked around, spying another stair in the dim distance. 'That way then. It'll give you time to recover.'
'Hadn't you better warn your companions?' she croaked, hoping to discover how many there were.
'I have none, only Ullii -' He broke off. 'My first thought was for my duty. I've already sent a message to the manufactory, by skeet, warning the scrutator of the invasion.' He calculated. 'It's two hundred leagues as the skeet flies. And it flies fast: the message should be there tonight.'
'I'm glad,' she said, not that they could do much about such a mighty force of Aachim. So, she only had these two to deal with. There must come a chance, on the long journey back.
'Bah!' Nish prodded her again.
Tiaan was getting her breath back, though her knees were still wobbly. 'How did you find me?' she said, hoping Nish could not resist displaying his cleverness.
'Ullii can see the Secret Art in all its forms. Irisis and I taught her to hunt you down.'
Beautiful Irisis, Tiaan's rival at the manufactory. She might have known. Tiaan considered what Nish had said. He was clever and liked people to know it. Perhaps she could learn more.
'How did you get here so quickly?'
'We floated all the way on an enormous balloon, and it was I who first thought of it.'
'A balloon?' Even speaking hurt.
He described the device and how it worked. Tiaan listened with one ear only. Having spent her life making controllers for the eight-legged mechanical war carts called clankers, she saw the potential of flight at once. She also saw the danger, in a world where the technology of magic seemed to be escalating out of control.
Clankers were powered by the field, a nebulous aura of force surrounding naturally occurring nodes. That power was drawn through particular crystals called hedrons, which artisans like Tiaan shaped, woke and tuned to the field. But clankers required so much power, and there were now so many of them, that they had been known to drain a node of its field. One node, not far from Tiaan's manufactory, had simply failed. Hundreds of soldiers had died.
But that was not the worst. Not long ago, a convoy of racing clankers had drawn so much power that it had turned the field inside out. A thousand soldiers had been struck unconscious and when they revived, a squadron of clankers and all their crew had vanished, never to be seen again. Now the war would take to the air. How much power would that require, and what would the consequences be? Could the field survive? But if it did not, could humanity?
'Get moving, artisan.'
Tiaan took one shuffling step, attempted another, and her knees collapsed.
Ullii, who had been flitting back and forth in the shadows, crept to her side. 'She is ill, Nish,' Ullii said in a strange, empty voice.
'She's pretending. Get up, artisan.'
'You are unkind, Nish. She is very ill.' Taking a flask from her belt, Ullii held it to Tiaan's lips.
A few drops spilled onto her lower lip. Trying to lick them off, Tiaan could hear the dry rasp of her tongue. Ullii sent a small surge of water into Tiaan's mouth. Half went down her windpipe; she coughed the rest out again. Another surge; she held it this time. After running and walking and climbing leagues inside the vastness of Tirthrax, she could have drunk a bucketful.
When she'd had enough, Nish passed a wrapped food packet to his small companion. 'Give her this. I can't bear to touch her, much less waste our precious food on her.'
Ullii broke a kind of sweet, rich bread into pieces, feeding them to Tiaan with her fingers. Tiaan wondered about the small woman. She wore a black silk mask over her eyes, her ears were covered with padded muffs, yet she seemed to hear everything and know where everything was.
All too soon, Nish pulled Tiaan to her feet. She let out a faint cry as the rope tore her wrist. He only jerked it harder. Tears formed on Tiaan's lashes as she stumbled after him. She blinked them away.
'You are cruel, Nish,' said the small woman.
'No more than she deserves!' he snapped, and kept going.
Ullii stopped dead, crouched and slowly began to curl up, covering her face with her arms. Nish was slow to realise that she was not following. 'Ullii?' he said, looking around.
There was no reply. Tiaan expected Nish to fly into a rage but he hurried back, dragging her by the rope, and fell to his knees beside Ullii. 'I'm sorry,' he said softly. 'I'm really sorry.'
Ullii remained curled into a tiny ball. Nish took off his pack and Tiaan was amazed at the change in him. She had always thought him a lecher and a layabout, and today, a monster; but he genuinely cared for Ullii.
'It's nine in the morning. We'll camp until four.' He tossed his cloak at Tiaan's feet.
She rested on it. It was cool on this level, though not unpleasantly so. Tiaan was desperately tired but there was too much in her mind for her to sleep. The past day contained a lifetime of trauma and tragedy. Minis's betrayal, and the Aachim's treachery from the very beginning, she could not deal with.
Haani's broken body still lay beside the shaft, abandoned. I promised that I would never leave you, but I was too afraid, Haani. I had the chance to do the honourable thing. If only… The day passed. Tiaan dozed but woke as tired as before and aching in every muscle. Ullii had not forgiven Nish. She did not even look in his direction when he spoke to her.
They ate in silence. Nish tied Tiaan's rope to the stair and disappeared with the water bottles. Ullii squatted, watching with her masked eyes. Tiaan did not think the seeker was doing sentry duty. What would Ullii do if she tried to escape? Tiaan did not attempt it. No doubt Nish was not far away.