What are controllers? said Minis.

‘Mind-linked mechanical systems which enable an ordinary person to power and control a clanker.’ She sent an image of an eight-limbed clanker.

Amazing! The flat voice of Luxor showed a flicker of interest.

His face appeared, so washed out that it was little more than outline. Ingenious. How do you make it go?

She explained how certain crystals could be tuned to tap into natural fields that existed around nodes, to draw a trickle of that power into the controller, and thence into the clanker itself.

You build such controllers? Where did the pattern come from?

Tiaan was becoming impatient. What did it matter how she made controllers? But, after all, she was not going anywhere. ‘It’s an old pattern I was taught in my prenticeship. I have made a number of improvements to it.’

Show us this pattern, said Luxor eagerly.

‘You are not our kind. That would be treason.’

Then we cannot help you, he snapped.

Please, Luxor, said Minis. Tiaan, I don’t understand. You say you built these devices. How did you know how?

‘I needed something to amplify the signals from a faulty controller, so I simply made this globe and helm.’

That must have taken a long time. Months, surely?

‘It took me a few days,’ said Tiaan. ‘That’s what I do.’

Are there other artisans with your talent? She sensed awe.

‘There are many artisans. I don’t know how many have my talent. I have not travelled to other manufactories.’ Then, with a trace of pride, ‘But ours is said to be the best.’

What powers this device, Tiaan? Is there a crystal at the heart of it too?

Tiaan remembered that she had not shown Minis the hedron. ‘A special hedron. I did not even have to shape it.’ She held up the globe, visualising the perfect bipyramid of rutilated quartz at the heart of it, the twin balls of radiating needle crystals inside, the spark drifting across that cavity, the faint glow.

There was a long silence. A stunned silence, she realised.

What is it? said Minis. What’s the matter?

The other two spoke among themselves. Tell me! cried Minis.

It’s an amplimet! said Tirior in an awed whisper that clearly was not meant to carry to Tiaan. There has not been one found in four thousand years. Just look at it!

Does she even know what she has? Luxor’s voice glowed with excitement. Could she be a budding geomancer?

Hush! Minis was back. Tiaan…

‘Minis!’ Tiaan interrupted. ‘Why were you calling for help?’

Aachan is dying! he said harshly. Our beautiful world is finished.

‘You are from Aachan?’ she said incredulously. Tiaan knew of Aachan, the second of the Three Worlds. It was at the very core of the Histories and every child of Santhenar learned about it. It had been the world of the Aachim, until the Charon fled out of the void, took Aachan and enslaved its people. But at the time the Forbidding was broken, the Charon had gone to extinction and the Aachim became masters of their world again.

To think she was actually speaking to someone across the void – it seemed impossible. Subconsciously she must have known that Minis was from another world, but had not taken it in. Her dreams evaporated like a flake of snow in a frying pan. She could not help him. They could never meet. ‘What is happening to Aachan?’ she asked miserably.

The whole world is erupting. The very crust has cracked open in rifts five hundreds of leagues long. Aachan will survive it, but we won’t! Our world may not be habitable for ten thousand years. Or ten million.

‘How has this come about?’

An after-effect of the Forbidding being broken, we think. It began at that time.

‘How long do you have?’

We think a few months. At the very outside, a year. Lava advances on us from all directions. The seas grow too hot to sustain life. Soon we will have no place to stand.

Tiaan went limp. Something caught in her throat, as if she had taken in a whiff of burning air. Minis was going to die.

Tiaan?

Tears flooded down her cheeks, forming icicles.

‘Yes?’ She choked. ‘You’re going to die and so am I. We’re all doomed.’ She was shaking. Tiaan could not help herself. Despair was a black Hürn bear, eating her from the belly out.

There may be a way! Minis’s voice was a seductive whisper inside her head.

‘How?’

We may be able to save you, through your amplimet. In return, you can do something for us.

‘I will do anything!’ she said eagerly. ‘What would you ask of me?’

First we must save you. Listen carefully. Somehow you have stumbled on the ancient art of geomancy.

‘Geomancy? Reading patterns in sand?’ She could not conceal her scorn. It was the lowest fairground fakery of all.

Not that sad corruption, said Tirior. True geomancy is the most powerful of all the Secret Arts, for it draws upon the very power of the earth. Mancing is always limited by power. Most mages keep it within themselves, or store it in small devices, or channel tiny amounts of power from places they don’t understand. But geomancy offers unlimited power for those who have an amplimet and are able to use it. Imagine the power of an earthquake, the force that keeps your world in its orbit about the sun, the strength of the winds, the motion of the continents on their plates, the hot spots ascending from the very core of the planet. Those are the kinds of power a geomancer has at her disposal.

But it is a dangerous power, said Luxor. Geomancy is the most difficult of all the Secret Arts, and the most deadly. Your amplimet is the key, and all that has saved you is the clumsy nature of your tuning. You tapped the merest trickle of power, fortunately, or you would not have survived it. Nonetheless, you must have a strong talent for it.

‘Many artisans have died at their work,’ said Tiaan. ‘Burnt black inside. My headaches have been much worse since I made these devices. My arms feel hot and twitchy, and I have begun to see strange, impossible things.’

Oh? said Tirior sharply. What kinds of things? She glanced at Luxor.

‘It’s … hard to explain,’ Tiaan said. ‘Coloured shapes in the air that swell and contract, disappear and reappear somewhere else, different shapes and sizes and patterns. They remind me of …’ She broke off with a strangled cry. ‘I’m going mad, aren’t I? I’ve got crystal fever.’

What do they remind you of? Tirior asked with another glance at Luxor.

‘Pieces of things!’ Tiaan said through her hands. She let out a crazed laugh.

You’re not mad, Tiaan. You’re seeing beyond.

‘Beyond what? You mean into the void?’

Not exactly. You’re looking into the hyperplane.

‘I don’t understand.’

You and I live in a three-dimensional world, Tiaan, said Tirior. Every object has length, breadth and depth. But the universe has more dimensions than that – as many as ten, some philosophers say, though we are incapable of imagining the others.

‘I still don’t understand.’

You must have a most remarkable mind.

‘I think in pictures,’ said Tiaan. ‘I used to think everyone did, until people began to tell me how unusual that was.’

Indeed. The amplimet must have lifted your inner seeing onto the hyperplane. You’re beginning to see the fourth dimension.

It made no sense to Tiaan. ‘But what am I seeing?’

Fragments of the strong field permeating ethyric space.

‘It looks stronger than the field I’m used to.’

It is. That’s why it’s so useful. Since you can see it, you may be able to use it.

‘There’s power enough in the weak field for me, when it’s there.’ As she said that, Tiaan recalled the failure of the field at Minnien, which had caused the loss of fifty clankers. Had the lyrinx drained it like a well?