Tetrarch

They rose and Minis linked his arm through Nish's. Nish felt uncomfortable, for men did not do that where he came from; but after all, different worlds, different customs.

'Our meeting was not an accident,' Minis said as they strolled among the trees.

'I did not think so,' Nish said stiffly.

'As soon as our scouts reported that you had left the army camp I decided to find you.'

'Your scouts' eyes must be keen,' said Nish. 'We saw no sign of you.'

'They are keen. I imagine you know what I have come about.'

'I do not assume,' said Nish, 'and would prefer not to guess.'

'Tiaan Liise-Mar,' Minis said, and sighed. 'I treated her monstrously and can never forgive myself.'

Nish made no reply and shortly Minis said, 'Shall we sit by this tree?' It was a giant with a massive trunk of smooth white bark. They rested their backs against it. 'You saw her at Tirthrax, I believe?'

'Yes,' said Nish. 'I had followed her a long way.'

'Do you know her then?'

'Of course.' Nish was surprised that the Aachim did not know that, but then why should he? 'I worked at the same manufactory as her, for three years.'

'What a fortunate man you are,' cried Minis, taking Nish's hands in his and shaking them vigorously. 'She is the most beautiful woman in the world.'

The breath rushed out of Nish as he finally understood. Minis was no danger at all – he seemed to be rather a prat, or perhaps he was just very young, and obviously in love. 'She has a certain charm.'

'Were you friends?' Minis squeezed his hands.

Nish detached them with the minimum of offence. 'We were not, though there was a time when I was fond of her. We are too different, Minis.'

'Tell me about her. Tell the whole story. I must know everything.'

Nish gave him the tale from the beginning, in brief, though glossing over the more shabby aspects of it. Fortunately Minis had ears for nothing but the beauty and the cleverness of his beloved. He seemed not to appreciate Nish's bad behaviour, which was just as well.

'I would give anything just to see her again,' he said when Nish had finished.

'She feels terribly wronged,' said Nish bluntly. 'She feels that you betrayed her and that your people used her, coldly and calculatingly.'

'Tiaan has been wronged and I am to blame. I will never forgive myself for not standing up to my foster-father. But we had just lost our world, and all our people who could not get to the gate. Can you imagine that, Nish? Imagine knowing that, even if you escaped, nine-tenths of humanity were doomed.' He broke off.

I cannot, Nish thought, and that should be a lesson to me, not to judge. Yet he did judge Minis and Vithis. It was impossible not to. He would not be so weak. And then, because, for all his faults, Nish knew his own character rather well, he added: at least not weak in that way.

Minis went on. 'Foster-father had seen (as I did) his clan wiped out in the void – every child lost, every woman, every man, to the most horrible of deaths. That was a terrible time for me. How much worse must it have been for him, who had devoted all his life to our clan! How could I turn against foster-father at such a time? I am his heir and the sole hope of his clan. I just could not do it. But even so, poor Tiaan was treated poorly, and in the hour of her own tragedy.'

'It is understandable,' said Nish, but he thought the less of Minis for it.

'I should have found a way.' Minis put an arm across his shoulders as if they were old friends. Perhaps, in some strange reality, the link between Nish and Tiaan made him a friend. 'I think about her every hour. Every minute! My life is nothing without her. What am I going to do, Nish?'

'I don't know,' said Nish, moving uncomfortably. 'I have little experience in matters of the heart.'

'Can you think where she might have gone with the flying construct?'

Was this what he had been leading up to all along? Had the father sent Minis to do what he was unable to do himself? Nish felt that Minis was genuine, and might have been used, as Tiaan had been. Fortunately he could answer the question honestly.

'I have no idea. I have not seen her since Tirthrax, months ago.'

He told that tale too, and at the end Minis sighed. 'Ah, what a life you have lived, Nish.'

'It's better in the telling than the living,' said Nish. 'I've nearly died a dozen times. And despaired a thousand!'

'I've not lived at all,' said Minis. 'Foster-father has wrapped my life in cotton silk. It was bad before, when First Clan was the greatest. Now all his hopes rest on me and he will not let me do anything, for fear I will injure myself. When he discovers me gone, he will come after me with a hundred constructs. I'm suffocating, Nish! The only happy times in my life have been those few hours when I spoke to Tiaan through the crystal, mind to mind. I am lost without her.'

What was there to say to this stranger from another world? In the background Nish could see Yara pacing. She probably thought he was doing some deal with the Aachim to betray them. He should make his excuses and go, but… Minis was the heir and the key to Vithis. He would make a powerful friend. 'What will you do now?'

'What foster-father requires of me,' said Minis. 'Of course.'

'Must you obey him? Can you not make your own life?'

'I wish I could, but I know he is right – he always is. I cannot stand up to him.'

'He is an angry, bitter man.'

'And was, even before the gate went wrong. He cannot bear to think that we were held in thrall by the Charon for so long.'

'Ah, yes,' said Nish. 'The Hundred.'

'And though they were but a hundred, we never rebelled against them. Some say that we wanted to submit to a stronger race. I do believe Vithis would rewrite our Histories to erase that shame.'

Suddenly Minis did not seem such a prat at all, for all that he was in thrall to Vithis. 'Surely false Histories must be a greater shame?'

'I think so, but foster-father…'

Nish changed the subject. 'Does he mean war against us?' He broke off. 'I'm sorry, Minis. I should not have asked you that, but you are a seer.'

'Why not? You want to do the best for your own kind. I'm not the most reliable of foretellers, and the near future is particularly cloudy. However, I will answer your question, not as a seer but as a man and, I hope, some day a friend.

'Foster-father feels himself to be the greatest failure of all his line, and that line stretches back ten thousand years. He must make up for it – you cannot even imagine how desperately he is driven. There is only one way he can do that. To give the Aachim a new home in replacement of beloved Aachan.'

'Our world,' said Nish. 'He means to take it.'

'If you resist him. Though I am sure, in his heart, he would prefer to negotiate for a part of it.'

'I saw no willingness to negotiate. Only arrogance, and an ultimatum.'

'He is… not the most flexible of men, I'm sorry to say. I am sorry, for he has been a father to me, and a mother.'

'Will he ally with the lyrinx against us, do you think?'

'That would be against his inclination, but Vithis was ever a creature of strange passions.'

'I wonder that he has not attacked humanity already.'

'Ah,' began Minis, but did not go on.

'What is it?'

'The clans are jealous of each other, as you saw the other day. They strive constantly for the advantage. That makes it difficult for us to achieve a common goal, unless a mighty leader can command all the clans by sheer force of will.'

'And Vithis is not such a leader.'

'He could be, should our situation become desperate.'

'What can we do to ensure that he does not ally with the lyrinx?'

'I don't know. There is only one thing…'

'Yes?' cried Nish.

'He wants Tiaan and the flying construct.'

'What is this flying construct I keep hearing about?'