Tetrarch

'This is hopeless,' Irisis said to Peate as they trudged down another tunnel so narrow that the sides scraped against her shoulders. 'Isn't there any way to tell where to look for crystal?'

'The veins wander where they want to. And often, in this mine, the best veins are in the most dangerous areas. Like -' He looked away down the tunnel.

Irisis sensed that there was something she was not being told, or shown. They seemed to have been going around in a circle.

'Could I see the map of this level, please?'

'That's miner's business,' he muttered, rolling it up.

She put out her hand.

He held the map behind his back. 'You have no right? Anyway, you'd never understand it.'

'Would you like me to get an order from the scrutator?' she said coldly.

'Just give her the blasted map, Peate!' shouted Dandri, and marched off into the darkness.

Peate's arm dropped to his side. He did not offer her the map, nor resist when she took it. His face had assumed that mulish expression she had seen so often on miners over the years.

The map was, of course, perfectly comprehensible. The tunnels were marked with double lines whose width varied according to the size of the tunnel. Shafts were shown with circles; arrows indicated whether they went up or down. Markings along the sides of the tunnel were in symbols she did not understand, though she presumed they described the character of the rock and the sources of ore or crystal. The places Ullii had surveyed, fruitlessly, were marked in red. The red marks formed an irregular 'U' shape around a central core of tunnels.

'We've not been in this area at all,' she said to the miner.

'Too dangerous,' said Peate.

'Is that what these black jags show? Bad rock?'

'Yes!'

'I'd still like to go in there.'

He threw down his pick. 'Then you can go alone!'

'I will. Give me your lantern.'

He passed it to her, Irisis called Ullii and led her away. Around the corner, she said to the seeker, 'We must go down here. Is that all right?'

'Yes,' said Ullii. 'We can go anywhere you want.'

'You're not afraid to go without the miners?'

'Don't like Peate. He is an angry man.'

'The rock is bad down here,' said Irisis. 'It might fall and kill us.'

'I know you'll look after me.'

Irisis sighed. 'Let's get to work.' 'Nothing here either?' said Irisis about six hours later. The silent darkness of the mine was getting to her. She had been edgy from the moment she'd entered.

Ullii shook her head. 'Head hurts. Want to go home.'

'Let's just look around the corner first.'

Irisis trudged off. Ullii plodded after her. It was no wonder the seeker's head was aching; the air was really bad down here. It had a faintly sulphurous smell, overlain by the odour of stagnant water, though the map showed no water on the eighth level. Where could it be coming from?

Around the corner the tunnel narrowed between two bosses of massive white quartz, free of any kind of crystal. Irisis held her lantern out. Ahead she could see only sheared pink granite in walls and roof. Wet mounds of crumbled rock, nearly waist high, partly blocked the tunnel. The roof must be really unstable. Water dripped all the way along.

'Well, that's one place we're definitely not going.' Turning away, Irisis rotated the half-shuttered lantern so it would not dazzle Ullii.

The seeker slipped by her and went up to the obstruction, staring into the dark and sniffing. Irisis kept going. Ullii needed no light; in fact, she could employ her seeker's talent better without it.

Irisis had been walking for some five minutes before realising that Ullii was not behind her. She held the lantern up. There was no sign of the seeker. No point yelling or cursing her, that would only make things worse. Irisis returned to the roof fall. Ullii was not there, though there was a small print in the clayey muck.

'Ullii,' she called, not too loudly.

Grit sifted down from a crack in the roof. Irisis felt afraid. Rotten wet rock was far more perilous than dry stuff. She squeezed through the gap, scraping breasts that were still tender from the previous night, and edged forward. A flat piece of granite detached itself from the roof, landing with a plop in front of her. Irisis shuddered and kept going.

The rotten rock continued as far as she could see, which was not far here. At a shallow bend, she peered around. Something crouched down the other end of the tunnel, but Irisis could not make out what it was. It might even have been a lyrinx.

At the thought, terror rose up within her and she almost screamed. Get a grip on yourself! A lyrinx would not even fit in this tunnel. She held up the lantern, the shapes shifted and became the seeker, crouching with her arms against the wall.

'What are you doing?' Irisis said crossly. 'This place is too dangerous. We've got to go back.'

'I can see something,' said Ullii.

Irisis resisted the urge to run. 'What?' she whispered when she got there.

'Crystal. Good crystal. Big crystal!'

'Really? Are you sure?'

'Biiiig crystal!' Ullii turned around and around, as if searching for something she could not quite locate.

'Where, Ullii? Which way?'

Her outstretched arm revolved, slanting down towards the floor. 'There.'

'Is it close?' Ullii could never be precise about distances, although directions were usually accurate. To be so fuzzy was unusual.

'Not… so close,' said Ullii.

That meant down a fair way. The ninth level was also unsafe and partly flooded, the level rising and falling with the seasons. It had not been too bad last autumn: Tiaan had been able to escape that way. That could be different after a winter of heavy snowfalls that were rapidly melting. If the crystal was below the ninth level they might as well forget it, for the water would come into the excavation faster than their primitive pumps could extract it.

'Let's go, Ullii. We'll come back in the morning.'

For once, Ullii seemed reluctant. She lingered by the wall, feeling it with her fingers. Her face was animated.

Irisis felt the sleepless night catching up with her. She caught Ullii by the arm. 'Come on. It's late.'

The seeker resisted. 'Leave me alone!'

Irisis was so astounded that she took a step backwards. 'What's the matter?'

'It's talking to me!'

'What is it saying?'

Ullii gave her a strange look, somewhere between pity and contempt. 'You can't understand.'

Irisis did not have the strength. She squatted against the wall and closed her eyes, but sprang up as the rock shook and a crash thundered along the tunnel. Air rushed past, carrying a wet, clayey smell. More of the roof had fallen.

Irisis looked back the way they had come but could see no further than the bend. She inspected the roof with her lantern. It was fractured all the way along.

'Ullii?'

The seeker had not moved, nor did she answer. There was nothing to do but wait. Irisis settled down again. Her eyes drifted closed. 'I'm ready now'. Ullii was shaking her shoulder.

'What?' Irisis said thickly, roused from deep slumber. She opened her eyes to utter darkness. 'Where -' She remembered. 'What's happened to the lantern?'

'It went out ages ago.'

Irisis felt for it and gave it a shake – it was empty and cold. It had burned all its oil. How were they going to find the way back to the lift shaft? The eighth level was a maze of intersecting tunnels.

'Ullii,' she whispered. 'I'm afraid. I don't know the way back. What are we going to do?'

The seeker made a muffled sound in her throat, which Irisis took for a sob. Panic began to close her throat over.

A warm little hand found her cold fingers. 'It's all right,' Ullii said soothingly, the way Irisis had often spoken to her. 'I know the way.'