Chimaera (54 page)

Putting the globe down on the table, Tiaan spun it hard. ‘It didn’t spin like a solid globe would. See how it wobbles? The core has to be liquid, and the only liquid metal is quicksilver.’

They were all staring at her now. Tiaan could feel a hot flush rising up her throat. ’But there was one last problem to be solved. The globe contains everything needed to act as a farspeaker, but how was it powered? There had to be a crystal at its core, in the quicksilver. What sort of a crystal? I could see nothing through the liquid metal.

‘I channelled power into the globe – so much power that even a dead crystal would have to respond. But this crystal wasn’t dead, and it gave forth such a strong aura that I could read it with my pliance. That told me what kind of crystal it had to be. It’s monazite.’

‘What’s monazite?’ said Irisis.

‘A stubby, hard yellow mineral Gilhaelith showed me once.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve heard of any mancer using monazite,’ said Flydd sceptically. ‘It doesn’t hold power at all.’

‘It doesn’t need to. Monazite has a particular and unique virtue,’ Tiaan said. ‘It generates power from within itself. Not much, but enough to power a farspeaker, and it lasts forever.’

‘Forever?’ said Malien.

‘Thousands of years, at any rate.’

‘But no one has ever been able to use the globe,’ said Flydd. ‘Some of the best mancers in the world have wasted their lives trying to.’

‘Including me,’ growled Yggur. ‘I can’t believe –’

‘I read some of their writings in Gilhaelith’s library,’ Tiaan replied. ‘In ancient times, mancers tried to recharge the globe, but the power was dispersed by the liquid metal. Besides, monazite can’t hold a charge.’

‘And recent mancers, such as my humble self?’ said Yggur. ‘Why did they not discover the answer?’

‘You know as well as I do, surr.’ The flush now covered her face up to the roots of her hair. Tiaan just wanted to get away.

‘Indulge me, artisan.’

‘Since fields were discovered a century ago, mancers seldom think of any other kinds of power. Malien and yourself are the only ones who still use the old ways. But the globe employs an entirely different force, forgotten aeons ago.’

‘Then why doesn’t it work?’ cried Yggur in frustration.

‘It’s a puzzle.’

‘A puzzle?’ he echoed.

‘No one else knew how to solve it because no one else could see all the layers at once, or understand how they worked together to create a farspeaker.’ She squeezed the top and bottom of Golias’s globe, then flicked her hand. The eight layers revolved. Tiaan stood with her eyes closed, visualising the moving layers, squeezed again, and all froze into place. ‘There.’ She held the globe out to Yggur but he did not take it, so she went on.

‘I work out the required alignment in my mind, spin the globe and, when the layers come to the right alignment, I stop them in place. The globe is ready to be used.’

‘So you say,’ said Malien. ‘But how can you prove it?’

From her other pocket, Tiaan took a small piece of crystal wrapped around with fine wires in intricate patterns. She carried it to the back of the room, sat it on a chair and returned to the front. Holding Golias’s globe close to her mouth, she said, ‘How can I prove it?’

A hollow, scratchy voice came from the crystal at the back of the room, fractionally delayed, ‘How can I prove it?’

Yggur’s eyes shone. ‘Oh, this is glorious! How far can you separate them, Tiaan?’

‘I don’t know. This is the first test.’

‘How did you know it would work?’ he exclaimed.

‘I didn’t. I almost didn’t mention it, I was so afraid of looking a fool.’

‘Let’s try it now, at once. This is marvellous, marvellous.’ Yggur leapt up and began striding back and forth in his excitement. ‘Tiaan, write something on a piece of paper and give it to Nish. Don’t tell us what it says.’ Yggur took up the wire-wrapped crystal. ‘Come on, everyone. We’ll go right to the other end of the fortress.’

Tiaan scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Nish. Everyone else trooped out after Yggur. Nish remained in his chair.

Tiaan wished he had gone too, but he didn’t budge. She gave them ten minutes to get to the other end of the building, then said, slowly and carefully, ‘I just want to go to bed.’

Five minutes later Yggur reappeared, panting. He’d run all the way. ‘ “I just want to go to bed”,’ he quoted.

‘That’s correct,’ said Nish, showing him the paper.

‘And as strongly as if you had spoken in my ear.’ Yggur came across and shook her hand. ‘This is it – the missing piece of our plan. You may just have won the war for us, Tiaan. Let’s sit down in the morning and work out a design for more farspeakers. Skilled artisans at one of Flydd’s manufactories can make them for us. It won’t be easy but it’s within their skills, Irisis tells me. And monazite isn’t a rare mineral. Tell me, can we use those to communicate with each other?’ Yggur held up the little wire-wrapped crystal.

‘It’s not that simple,’ said Tiaan. ‘Golias’s globe is the master farspeaker, while the other is just a slave, if you like.’

‘Go on,’ said Yggur.

‘The master drives the message out, but can only be used once the key has been set. The slave farspeaker only responds to that setting. It can call the master farspeaker, if the master is set to it, but it can’t call another slave. If someone with a slave farspeaker wants to talk to someone else with another slave, the message must go through the master.’

‘An excellent idea,’ said Flydd. ‘We must maintain control over what people say to each other. Free speech is a wicked thing.’

Tiaan, who had been imagining all the good things one could do with a farspeaker, such as talking to her mother, was so shocked that she couldn’t speak.

‘Spoken like a true scrutator.’ Yggur clapped him jovially on the shoulder. ‘Klarm will be tickled pink when he gets one. It’ll save him months of travel and give him so much more time for drinking and wenching.’

‘Presumably a message from the master farspeaker can be heard by all the slaves,’ said Flydd, frowning.

Tiaan didn’t want to answer, though the question was an interesting one. She thought for some time before replying. ‘It could, if all slave farspeakers were the same. But an artisan could tailor them so they only respond to one particular setting. Then you simply lock Golias’s globe at the correct setting and speak, and only the person you’re talking to will hear your message.’

‘Oh, very good,’ said the scrutator.

‘The message isn’t instantaneous,’ said Yggur. ‘I wonder why?’

‘Who knows what tortuous route it takes, via the ultra-dimensional ethyr,’ said Flydd. ‘Who cares if it takes hours to get from one side of Lauralin to the other, or even a day? Not even a skeet can beat it, and it can’t be intercepted.’

‘Nor will it tear your throat out, like a skeet will if you step too close to its cage,’ said Flangers.

They all gathered around, excitedly discussing the device and how it might alter the balance of the war. No one noticed Tiaan slip away quietly.

Malien realised that Tiaan was missing and went to her room.

‘I wasn’t joking,’ said Tiaan. ‘I just want to go to bed.’

‘I know. But tell me, you didn’t seem quite as pleased as everyone else, at the end.’

‘It was the way Flydd was talking about it,’ she said. ‘Wanting to control what people say. Farspeakers could be wonderful things. If only we all had them I could talk to Marnie now.’

‘You miss her terribly, don’t you?’

‘She’s the most annoying woman in the world, and we fight constantly when we’re together. She says the most awful things to me. But I
do
miss her – she’s the only family I’ve got. And I’m worried. She’s too old for the breeding factory now. What will become of her? She has no idea how to look after herself.’

‘She can afford a house and servants.’

‘If they’ll put up with her.’

‘I’m sure she’s all right. And Xervish
is
a good man.’

‘The way he talks frightens me. The powerful wouldn’t use farspeakers to help people, but to control them.’

‘But when the war is over, the whole world will be transformed.’

‘But how?’ said Tiaan. ‘For good or for ill?’

Later that evening, Malien, Flydd and Yggur met secretly, and Flydd told Yggur about what they’d seen at the Hornrace.

‘I don’t understand why the Aachim broke off their plans for conquest,’ said Yggur. ‘With all those constructs they could have swept from one side of Lauralin to the other.’

‘We Aachim have never been empire builders,’ said Malien. ‘Security has always been more important to us. And often, after a setback, instead of fighting back we’ve simply cut ourselves off from the world.’

‘Have you any idea what Vithis is constructing?’ asked Yggur.

‘It’s either a bridge – a gigantic arch – or a building spanning the gulf,’ said Malien. ‘Though I can’t imagine why anyone would go to such an immense labour.’

‘Any building to span the Hornrace would be a mighty one indeed,’ said Yggur. ‘I’d have thought it beyond the capabilities of any civilisation.’

‘We used to be fond of extravagant symbols,’ said Malien. ‘Vithis may simply be putting his mark on Santhenar in the strongest way possible.’

‘Do you think so?’ Yggur wondered.

‘If he is, it masks a deeper purpose,’ said Malien.

‘Such as?’

‘A gate to ferry the rest of the Aachim from Aachan? A device to change the weather and make the desert bloom?’

‘Could it be a weapon?’

‘It could. They are greatly advanced in geomancy. They taught Tiaan how to make a gate, something no one on this world could have done. They built eleven thousand constructs on Aachan in a couple of decades. They may be building a weapon that we cannot even conceive of.’

N
ish went back to his room that night, fretting more than usual. Everyone else seemed to have achieved wonders but
his
students weren’t trained yet, nor the air-floaters ready, through no fault of his own. Now that the thapter had returned he could do some work with his pilots and artificers, but there was nothing he could do about the air-floaters. Ghorr’s air-dreadnoughts had consumed all the suitable silk cloth available in Meldorin, and only silk would do. Nothing else was light yet strong enough for an air-floater gasbag.

Unfortunately, he was in charge and neither Yggur nor Flydd was interested in excuses. They simply expected the problem to be solved, and quickly. Nish could see no alternative but to make a raid on the silk warehouses of Thurkad, dangerous though it would be.

He went to see Flydd and Yggur about it in the morning and asked if they knew which warehouses contained silk cloth.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Yggur. ‘Thurkad had thousands of warehouses. Klarm would know but naturally he’s not here. I’ll put a discreet word around in Hripton, and also up at The Entrance, where all the thugs and pirates dwell. Someone there will know.’

‘And I’ll need to take the air-floater and a crew to Thurkad to steal the stuff,’ said Nish.

‘Klarm’s using it at the moment,’ said Flydd.

‘Is he ever not?’ said Nish. ‘It’s ironic, don’t you think, that I need the air-floater so I can make more of them, and train more pilots, but I can never get access to it.’

‘It’s generally the work done behind the scenes that wins the war,’ Flydd said, ‘rather than the armies slaughtering each other. Very well, put a plan together and, if you locate the silk, we’ll see what can be done. One step at a time, remember?’

Two days later, Seneschal Berty brought a villainous-looking old fellow to Nish’s shed. He had two teeth in the bottom jaw and three in the top, whose purpose seemed solely to hold the blackened pipe that never left his mouth. He certainly never used them to chew his food, his diet being entirely liquid. It was a foul-smelling brew, too, even worse than the turnip brandy the miners used to drink around the back of the manufactory. It smelled as though it had been distilled from the cook’s compost heap, a festering mound of vegetable peelings, food scraps, burnt fat and bones that even the dogs turned their noses up at.

‘This is Artificer Cryl-Nish Hlar,’ said Berty, keeping well upwind. ‘He is known to his friends as Nish. You are not his friend, Phar, and never will be. You may call him Artificer Hlar.’

‘Yerz, Nish,’ said Phar.

‘Hello,’ said Nish. ‘Come inside. No, let’s go out in the fresh air.’

The air in the yard was anything but fresh, reeking as it did of wood smoke and hot metal, sweaty labourers and bubbling tar. All were ambrosia beside Phar, who was small, bandy-legged, red of eye and so foul of breath that it signalled his arrival from five paces away. Nish could not imagine being cooped up in the thapter with him, if it should come to that. Phar’s sandals revealed splintered black toenails and ankles from which the grime could have been peeled with a knife. He was missing two toes, one thumb and half his left ear. He was, in short, the most repulsive individual Nish had ever seen.

Nish had already heard about Phar, who had a single redeeming feature. He had, through more than sixty years of crime centred around the waterfront of Thurkad, developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the warehouses and their contents. He loved the ancient city, in his own squalid and inarticulate way, and nothing would have induced him to leave it. Nothing, that is, but the threat of being eaten by a lyrinx. So Nish gleaned eventually from Phar’s rambling and incoherent discourse, punctuated regularly by slugs from his putrid leather flagon.