Part 48 (1/2)

The rider came after him. The other fellow would be running for help. When, if if they caught him, they would beat him senseless for this affront, and to give the other prisoners a lesson they would never forget. No one cared about the fate of a conscript. they caught him, they would beat him senseless for this affront, and to give the other prisoners a lesson they would never forget. No one cared about the fate of a conscript.

Splas.h.i.+ng into the water, Nish rode up the centre of the stream. Unlikely it would make any difference with his hunter this close behind, but he needed all the help he could get. The man was not yet in sight but Nish could hear him. Breaking away from the stream, he walked the horse into the deep forest. The trees were closer together here, and it was darker; easier to hide, though the ground was moist and he left clear tracks.

After riding for a good while, he turned into another gully and stopped. He could hear nothing. Had he lost the fellow? It did not seem likely. Perhaps he was waiting for Nish to move.

Walking the horse up the other side, Nish wondered at the unnatural silence. There was not a sound to be heard. He continued up the steep slope, the horse's hooves breaking through leaf litter and slipping on clayey yellow loam. Nish felt vulnerable. The horse was panting as it struggled up the slope.

Nish reined in, c.o.c.king his head. Feeling uncomfortable without knowing why, he turned across the slope, and as he did a pair of riders rose up on their stirrups and came at him. Another few steps and he would have walked right between them.

Nish kicked his horse into a run, slipping and sliding across the greasy slope. Pa.s.sing beside a black-trunked tree, so close that his knee struck it a painful blow, he turned sharply on the other side, angling toward the creek. Going around a tilted standing stone shaped like a tooth, he pounded along the edge of the creek. One rider was close behind. Nish caught occasional glimpses of the other, at the top of the slope.

No use trying to get up that way. He shot by a copse of trees as dark and dense as a wall and looked back. The soldier was gaining. Nish turned sharply along the line of trees, splashed across the creek and up the other side, coming out into open woodland, though the forest continued beyond that. He was halfway across when two more horses appeared on the far side. Nish turned away. The pair who had been following him came out of the trees.

His horse was tiring. No matter what he did, they were going to catch him. No, never give up. If he could get between the pairs, he might make it back into the forest again, and then, who knows?

'Go!' he shouted, kicking the horse into a gallop and putting his head down. 'One last effort!' He patted the heaving neck. The horse responded, running like the wind. Nish had never gone so fast. Both pairs of riders turned to cut him off, but their mounts were tired too. He shot between them with not a dozen paces to spare.

Nish shook his fist in their faces, and now they were slowing, falling back. Another trap? He slowed too, wondering what was going on.

Out of the forest came a construct, its weapons at the ready. Out of the frying-pan ... Then Nish saw that the machine bore the same colours that Minis's had. Minis had found him.

With a great sigh of relief, Nish walked his horse forward. 'Minis!' he yelled, waving his arm above his head. 'Minis.'

The top of the construct came open and a tall figure stood up on the platform. It was not Minis.

'h.e.l.lo, Marshal Marshal Cryl-Nish Hlar,' said Vithis. Cryl-Nish Hlar,' said Vithis.

FORTY-TWO.

The following day, when she had been in Nyriandiol for about a month, Tiaan was permitted to sit upright, though she had to be lifted into position and laid down afterwards. Gilhaelith sat with her, and together they redesigned the wheeled chair so she could move it by herself. It was her most pleasant time since Tirthrax. There were moments when she quite forgot Minis, and once, to her shame, even little Haani was not a lead blanket wrapped around her heart.

It took several days to rebuild the chair, but as soon as the wheels were fitted, its inadequacies became apparent, not least that it was useless anywhere where there were steps, or on the stony ground outside.

'This is no good at all.' Gilhaelith was struggling to get it up the single step from her room.

Tiaan moved uncomfortably in the seat, for the brace was pinching her. 'What about a chair that walks, like a clanker with four legs? I'm sure I can design one. I've seen their workings a hundred times, and whatever I've seen, I can remember perfectly.'

He regarded her, thoughtful. 'No wonder you picked up geomancy so easily.'

'What do you mean?'

'That Art is based on the patterns and forces of the natural world. If you can recall and recognise them, you've already taken the first step.'

'And my work as an artisan was the second ...'

'Indeed. Geomancy is unlike all other forms of the Secret Art. Perhaps that is why mancers have, as a rule, struggled to master it. It's alien to their way of thinking. Tell me, how would you move such a walker, Tiaan? I don't see '

'I would build a controller for it, using my hedron to draw power from the field.'

His face lit up. 'I've wondered, sometimes ...' Pus.h.i.+ng her under the shade of the vines, he ran into the house, shortly to return with paper and a piece of charcoal.

Tiaan began to sketch, and after various failures settled on something like a miniature clanker, with two thick legs at the front and another two at the back.

'I don't think we can make that here,' Gilhaelith said. 'What if it were more like this?' He sketched a different arrangement.

She ran it forward and back in her mind. 'The legs will catch. But if we were to make it this way ...'

They worked well into the night, and though Gurtey's cabal of servants muttered and scowled outside, it was a good day. Gilhaelith must have enjoyed it too, for he lingered afterwards. He seemed less strange, more complete now that he had revealed a little of himself.

The final design did not resemble a clanker at all. The metal legs were spider-slender and placed at four corners of a hardwood frame, for balance. A seat was mounted on the frame so Tiaan's head would be at her head height when standing. The mechanism to drive the legs, a simplified version of a clanker's innards, would go beneath the seat. Gilhaelith's smiths would build it while Tiaan made the controller, and that was such slow work that the walker would likely be finished first.

She worked in her room, which was hard to endure. Over the past six months Tiaan had grown used to being outside in all weather, but with spies about that was not possible.

At first she could work only in short intervals, for her muscles had lost most of their strength. However, she soon began to make progress. Gilhaelith was generally in his organ chamber, working on an unspecified project. Nyrd the gnomish messenger came and went. Tiaan often saw skeets out her window. On the last day of her first month in Nyriandiol, Gilhaelith took dinner with her in her room.

'The Aachim spies have gone, and Vithis has moved his forces north along both sides of Warde Yallock. They must think the thapter crashed in the wild country there.'

'Why would they think that?'

He simply smiled. 'But of course, that won't get rid of them for long. Sooner or later something will tip them off and they will come in force.' His eyes met hers.

'Can your Art still conceal me?' Her opinion of his powers had risen, as his had of hers.

'Not from a direct search, so we must be ready to flee on short notice.'

'But they'll be watching.'

'We'll go in the thapter, if it's ready. If not, I have another way of escape, though it's not so secure now.'

'You would just abandon Nyriandiol, and all you have here?'

'After betraying Scrutator Klarm, and lying to Vithis, there's no choice.'

'Where will you go?'

He looked away. 'I'll decide when the time comes. In the meantime, there's much to do. Shall we get back to work?'

He knows, she thought, but doesn't trust me enough to say. We think the same way on that, too.

He now began to teach her the foundations of geomancy, though in Tiaan's first week of study that Art was not once mentioned. It was like being back in her days as a prentice artisan.

Gilhaelith started with minerals and crystals. Tiaan had expected to find that easy, having spent most of her life working with crystals of various kinds. On the first morning she discovered that she knew nothing at all. Gilhaelith had hundreds of different minerals in boxes, all nested in the pale, papery bark of the sard tree. One entire room was devoted to them, huge specimens as well as little ones. Tiaan had to learn the name of each mineral, and recognise it no matter how poor or damaged the sample. Some came in a bewildering array of forms which seemed to bear no resemblance to each other, defeating even her visual memory.

At the moment she had before her four samples, all supposed to be of ironstone. One was made of a tangle of small dark plates as iridescent as mica, the second was a round crystal with many facets, the third resembled a dark-brown earth, while the last consisted of many small flat crystals grown together like the petals of a rose.

'I don't understand how they can all be the same,' she said.