Part 32 (1/2)

'Tell me,' Jal-Nish said, 'who is in charge of ensuring that suitable crystal is always available?'

The trap was sprung. Flydd did not bother to answer.

'Crafter Irisis has failed and must pay the price.' The perquisitor went out, then returned. 'You can come out now.' He was gone.

The cupboard door swung open and Irisis stepped forth. She looked haunted. 'I could smell smell him, Xervish. It got into the cupboard and stayed there. Blood and dead flesh.' him, Xervish. It got into the cupboard and stayed there. Blood and dead flesh.'

'And cloves and garlic,' said the scrutator. 'He's addicted to nigah. That's something I wasn't aware of.'

'After he was savaged by the lyrinx, we must have fed him a bucket of the stuff. He was so violent that we had to keep him sedated the whole time.'

'He's still in pain and has to take nigah constantly. The addiction is not going to help.'

'What does it do, apart from taking the edge off pain and cold?'

'And fatigue. He hasn't slept for days. I made a study of nigah, once, to see if it was worth the risk.'

'Was it?'

'It was, if used carefully. Some mancers take it for the brilliant insights it offers, but addicts eventually lose track of reality and it exaggerates whatever failings they have. In Jal-Nish's case, I'd expect him to become more paranoid, more angry and more unstable.'

'That gives us something to look forward to,' she said.

TWENTY-NINE.

Ullii spent all her waking hours underground. The perquisitor had taken charge of the project to find the crystals and since he had little need of sleep, everyone else had to work until they were ready to drop.

Today she was riding down to the mine with Jal-Nish in his clanker. 'What's the matter?' he snapped at the operator, a beardless boy with startlingly blue eyes. 'Why are we going so slowly? I can walk faster than this.'

The operator was so terrified that he could not look at the perquisitor. The clanker lurched, stopped, lurched again then continued more smoothly. 'It's the field, surr,' he squeaked.

'What about it?'

'It ... it's weak today. Much weaker than before.'

'Go and talk to one of the manufactory operators. Find out how much it changes.'

The clanker kept going.

'Now!' roared Jal-Nish. 'We'll walk the rest of the way.'

Ullii had traced the source of crystals to a point below the partly flooded ninth level. The miners walled off the place, pumped it dry and began excavating a shaft in the floor. Before they had gone down the height of a man, water began to pour in. The miners scrambled from the hole.

'It's beyond us,' said Cloor, chief miner. 'The water '

'd.a.m.n the water, man!' snarled Jal-Nish. 'Keep working.'

'It's coming in faster than we can pump it out.'

'Bring in more pumps.'

Soon the area around the shaft was thronged with screw pumps and the many people needed to work them, all gasping and grunting as they pounded their treadmills. They forced most of the water out and the shaft-sinking resumed. A day later it happened again, the water coming in so quickly that it went over the heads of the two miners. One caught the rope that Cloor threw to him and was pulled to safety, but the other miner did not come up.

Cloor was over the side in an instant, to disappear under the roiling water. Ullii held her breath, then his head broke the surface and he waved. The miners pulled and the other man's head appeared. Someone went down on another rope and between them got the miner over the edge.

He had swallowed dirty water and was taken to the infirmary. Another pump and treadmill was called for. While it was being brought down, Jal-Nish called Overseer Tuniz across and spoke urgently to her. She sketched something on the floor. Perquisitor, overseer and chief miner spoke among themselves.

'Get to it,' said Jal-Nish. 'No wait. With fifty people on the treadmills there'll be no room to move. Do something about that too.'

'What did you have in mind, surr?'

'Find a way of powering those pumps with the field, and get it made and get it made.'

'I'll speak to Irisis. She '

'Irisis isn't going to be here,' he grated. 'Put a competent artisan onto it, overseer, if you have one if you have one. I want it done by the morning.'

'Impossible, surr.'

'If it's not done, you'll be cleaning out the drains for the rest of your life.'

'We don't have the crystal. That's why '

'They're pumps pumps, not clankers. Surely the sc.r.a.p crystals will do?'

'I'll speak to the artisans.' Tuniz ran.

The perquisitor's clanker operator appeared, looking around uneasily.

'Well?' barked Jal-Nish. 'Don't stand over there, boy.'

The lad crept forward, staring at the floor. 'The field is unusually weak at the moment, surr. They haven't seen it this way in the past ten years, which is how long the artisans have been mapping it.'

'Incompetent fools. They'll learn to do better when I'm in charge.'

That afternoon, as the shaft was finally pumped dry, one of the clankers hauled down two great curved sheets of iron. They were lowered to the ninth level and manoeuvred into the shaft, where they were fitted together to form a cylinder about two spans across and the same deep. The joins were liberally coated with tar and the two halves tightened with bolts to form a watertight lining. Pumps drew water from the outside. The miners kept sinking the shaft, cutting away the rock beneath the cylinder, while those on top hammered it down and added another section.

The following morning, just before noon, Tuniz and Artisan Oon-Mie brought down a mechanism to drive one of the pumps. It was a strange device of iron pipework topped with a bare controller, no more than a jumble of wires and crystal.

'What the h.e.l.l is that?' snapped Jal-Nish.

Tuniz and the artisan had been up all night and the overseer had had enough. Tuniz stood up to her full height, a head taller than the perquisitor, and bared her filed teeth. 'Are you questioning my competence, surr?' she said in a silky-soft voice. 'You asked for a pump controller and we have given you one.'

For a moment it looked as though Jal-Nish would explode, but he thought better of it. 'If it works, I'm happy. If it does not ...'

They set it up and attached it to one of the pumps. Oon-Mie drew power into the controller and water ebbed from the outlet of the pump.