Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) by Ian Irvine Read Free Book Online Page A

…’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You had the crystal for months, and used it to do mighty works. By now it will be so imprinted with you that others may only use it at their peril.’
    That was not as convincing as it sounded. Tiaan had seen the look in Malien’s eyes when first the amplimet had been mentioned.
    At the door to the port-all chamber, Malien checked, as if afraid to go in. ‘If only this were a dream and I could wake from it.’ She passed a hand over her eyes and pushed through the door. ‘After the Forbidding was broken, we thought we were free of gates and what they brought. Only one man knew how to make them – old Shand – and he swore he would take the secret to his grave. I’m sure he did. We never thought
that
knowledge would return from across the void. Who would have thought it could?
    ‘Ingenious,’ Malien continued, walking around the port-all, giving Tiaan curious looks as she did. ‘You are quite a mechanician, Tiaan.’
    ‘I just put it together from a pattern Minis sent to me. I don’t claim to understand it.’
    ‘Few Aachim could have built this from a mental image.’ Malien sat on a piece of fallen stone, deep in thought.
    Tiaan fretted. ‘He’s getting away, Malien.’
    ‘Let me think this through. It has to be your friend, Nish. Take this.’ She handed Tiaan a rod, about the length of a sword, made of black metal, though it was comparatively light.
    Tiaan handled it as if it was about to explode. ‘What is it for?’
    Malien chuckled. ‘To whack him over the head, if necessary. Have you clothes for outside?’
    Tiaan ran to the room where she had left her pack, days ago, and dressed in her old down-filled pants, coat and boots. When she returned, Malien was standing by the crashed constructs. She wove her long fingers into a knot, tore it apart, then began to make another, which she also wrenched undone.
    ‘These things are just like Rulke’s machine. I’m afraid, Tiaan, as I have never been before. Afraid of my own kind.’
    ‘Were you not afraid of Rulke?’
    ‘Very. But he was only one man with one construct, and we knew his character, for we had the Histories to guide us. Rulke, within his own strange code, was an honourable man. This is different. Vithis, embittered by the loss of his clan, now leads a mighty force. It will tip the balance.’
    ‘What are you going to do?’ Tiaan said anxiously, yet glad Malien was taking charge.
    ‘I don’t know.’ Malien stepped back, eyeing the constructs. ‘I wonder if these might be repaired …’
    ‘Are you a mechanician too?’ Tiaan cast anxious glances at the entrance.
    Malien smiled thinly. ‘The least among my people, though I am not entirely without talent.’ She cocked an eye at the construct which was smashed at the front. ‘This one does not seem to be badly damaged.’ She gave Tiaan a long, assessing glance. ‘Maybe later.’ Malien headed for the entrance.
    Among the tumbled columns and heaps of rubble and ice, they looked down. Just below, the glacier had gouged out the side of the mountain in a curving scar, forming a surface like a road, though the broken, up-jutting slate would be difficult to walk on. Beyond ran a river of blue ice a good league across, scarred with crevasses large enough to swallow whole villages. The glacier, the fastest in the world, could be heard plucking and grinding at its bed. Every so often a crevasse would crack open, the sound echoing across the valley. How would they ever find Nish in this wilderness of rock and ice?
    Malien began to climb down. ‘Are you coming, Tiaan?’
    ‘He’s probably floated away in his balloon already,’ she said miserably.
    ‘He’d have to gather fuel first and that could take days.’ Malien picked her way down the side of the mountain as if she knew exactly where she was going.
    ‘Can you sense the amplimet?’
    ‘I wish I could.’ Malien looked more at ease now. ‘He said the balloon was directly below us and the only fuel was bushes, so