‘How could she make it fly?’ He did not expect an answer to such a strategic question, but Minis, with another glance in the direction of his foster-father, continued.
‘I don’t know. We have sought Rulke’s secret for two hundred years, without success. But Tiaan is –’
‘How did she come to be in Tirthrax?’
‘I told her how to get inside the city, so she could make the gate.’
‘Are you saying Tiaan made the gate that brought you to our world?’ Oh, to have an hour alone with this indiscreet and desperate young man.
‘Yes, she did. Without her the Aachim of Aachan would be extinct. And in return we betrayed her. I can never forgive –’
Gilhaelith, seeing Vithis heading in their direction, cursed inwardly and interrupted him. ‘Perhaps, should we meet again, you could tell me the rest of the tale? I must rejoin your father. I have forgotten my manners.’
‘I would be happy to tell you now,’ Minis said. ‘She is –’
‘Ah, Vithis,’ Gilhaelith said breezily, quaffing his mug of ale, ‘would you care for a snack?’
He snapped his fingers and a servant presented a tray on which was arranged a series of shrivelled, oily, yellow-green objects. They made a square, seven to each side.
‘What are they?’ said Vithis, wrinkling his nose at the smell, which was nauseating.
‘The preserved gonads of the Parnggi walking fish,’ said Gilhaelith, picking up seven with his free hand and flicking them into his mouth with his thumb. The numbers, as well as Vithis’s reaction, gave him a little more control.
Vithis looked disgusted. ‘They smell rotten.’
‘An ancient method of preservation that greatly enhances –’
‘We must go,’ Vithis said tersely. ‘A large area to search and much else to do. I thank you for your hospitality.’
He limped back to the machines. The others followed and the constructs headed down the mountain road.
Gilhaelith watched them out of sight. He thought he had fooled Vithis, but if the man found a single witness to say otherwise, the Aachim would be back to take the place apart stone by stone.
So Tiaan had been telling the truth. When he’d believed her a thief and a liar, it had coloured his view of her talents. Now he veered to the opposite extreme. She must be a masterly natural geomancer, the rarest of geniuses. What might she be capable of if that talent was properly schooled? She could greatly help him with his own quest. He must find a way to gain her cooperation.
Tiaan was still tormenting herself when she heard the creak of the trapdoor and Gilhaelith crawled across. Though she hated and despised Minis, the sight of him had been unbearable.
Gilhaelith carried her to her room and sat in the chair beside her bed, offering her a piece of cream linen the size of a small tablecloth. She wiped her dusty face and hands.
‘You thought I was going to betray you?’ he said, regarding her fixedly.
He had strange eyes, she noticed. The pupils were slightly oval and of the most unusual colour, a streaky though warm blue-grey. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, and the admission broke something in her that had been holding her back all this time. ‘Why didn’t you? They must have offered you a great amount of platinum.’
Most men would have been offended by the implication, even if they had been tempted. He showed no sign that he was offended. He just kept staring at her.
‘Don’t you know that it’s rude to stare?’ she snapped.
He looked away, turned back, caught himself doing it again and angled his face to the window. A touch of colour appeared on his cheeks. ‘Is it? I did not know that.’
Something was different about him. He seemed less cold and machine-like. It was almost as if he cared about her. ‘It makes me uncomfortable,’ she said softly. ‘I feel as if … as if you’re feeding on me.’
‘I’m sorry. I would not have you think me ill-mannered. I have lived alone, with only my servants for company, for so long that perhaps I have not learned what I should. Or forgotten it a century ago.’
‘A century –?’
He smiled, which almost cracked his ugly face in half, but lit up his eyes. He no longer seemed so strange. ‘I am not offended. As it happens, I am 180 years old – a number with several unusual properties. The sum of consecutive cubes –’.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, flushing.
‘What for?’
‘For so insulting you a moment ago.’
‘What about?’
‘Accusing you of being bought by Vithis.’
‘I might have turned you in, at one stage, but never for money. Anyway, you have a precious talent and I would prefer to foster that.’
Something had changed and, for whatever the reason, she had to use it. ‘Why would you jeopardise what you have here, for me?’
Gurteys put her head around the door, scowling at the pair, but at Tiaan’s words a convulsion of rage transformed her unattractive features. Tiaan shuddered. Gilhaelith turned toward the door but the healer had gone. More trouble.
‘The volcano could destroy it all tomorrow,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘That uncertainty keeps me vigilant.’
‘Vithis might also destroy you.’
‘In that case, I would be dead and it would not matter. All that matters, Tiaan, is my work. You are safe with me.’ He was staring at her bosom, oblivious.
She put her arms across her chest. ‘But what do you want of me, Gilhaelith?’
‘Not what you might be thinking,’ he said, belatedly realising what was bothering her. ‘I am a celibate. I have been so all my life.’
‘All your life?’ Tiaan’s own urges were strong, though she had not yet mated. For a man to live to his age and remain celibate seemed impossible, not to mention wrong. In her country, not mating at all was a crime. ‘Is there … something wrong with you?’ She blushed scarlet. ‘I’m sorry. Again.’
His face set hard. ‘I never liked any woman enough to consider it. I never knew how to like a woman – I’m not good with people.’
‘Did you have a strange childhood, like me?’
‘I suppose so. Certainly no one liked me. I was too different, and I refused to conform. I always felt that it was me against the world, a game I couldn’t win. Instead of fighting, I rejected everyone and played the game I was best at – numbers.’
‘I was different, too,’ said Tiaan, ‘though I didn’t want to be. I just wanted a proper family, like other kids had. I only have half my family Histories.’
‘I have none of mine,’ he said bitterly.
‘Who were your parents?’ she said softly.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ He hurled himself from his chair so violently that she cried out and covered her face with her hands.
He stood over her, breathing hard, then rushed out of the room. Before she could work out what had happened he was back. Tiaan shrank into the pillow.
‘Forgive me.’ He went down on his knees beside the bed. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. I would not deliberately hurt any living thing. I … my past causes me pain and I find it hard to control.’
He was trying hard to be what he was not – a man who could relate to a woman. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said.
‘I was born of a dead woman, dragged screaming from a bloody corpse. I must have been the unwanted child of an important man, for I was carried away in the night by my loyal nurse. Far, far away we went, but she died of the plague when I was five, and then I had no one. I was brought up in an orphans’ home.’
‘I have a mother,’ she said, ‘but no father. He was killed in the war soon after my birth.’
‘A common thing in these times, to lose a father. I wonder about my own. It was hard, having no heritage at all, and being so different.’