She hastily moved her hand from the weapon. What was she thinking? Even with a loaded crossbow she could not expect to beat an alert lyrinx.

He came back, took the bolts and packed them in a pouch at his waist. It was the first time he had used his regenerating hand.

‘I need a rest!’ she said in a croaky voice. ‘And breakfast.’

‘Strange creatures, you humans,’ said Ryll. ‘What a handicap, needing to eat three times a day.’

‘I don’t have to eat three times a day!’ she snapped. ‘But I do need to rest. I’m an artisan, not a mountain climber. At least, I was an artisan …’

TWENTY-NINE

The clankers had taken a mine tunnel that ran through the mountain. Late that night they stopped, everyone ate and those not on watch dozed on the uneven floor. Though exhausted, Irisis could not sleep. Ullii was walking about in the dimness further up the tunnel, without goggles or earmuffs, eating little balls of sticky rice. She took little else, for anything flavoured or spiced tasted unbearably strong to her. Finally, bored senseless, Irisis strolled up to see what the seeker was doing. She seemed to find the rock an endless source of fascination, sometimes staring at one vein or crystal for ten minutes or more.

‘There is magic in these rocks,’ said Ullii.

‘Oh?’ Irisis was careful to speak softly.

‘It’s in the lattice – there and there. And there!’ She pointed in various directions, through the rock.

‘We find the controller crystals in this mine,’ said Irisis, wondering if they might use Ullii’s talent to locate better ones than the miners could, in their blind delving. Especially blind now that the best, Joeyn, was dead.

‘I know. I can see them. The mountain is like a pudding full of crystals.’

That was something to explore, if they came back. It would be another mark in her favour.

Gi-Had pushed the lever. The door swung back against the wall and the column passed into the other mine, torches held high, weapons at the ready. Following a zig-zagging path through tunnels that were barely wider than the machines, they eventually emerged in the cavern where the battle had occurred. Everyone except Ullii got out, examining the remains of human and lyrinx in silence. Someone retched noisily by the far wall. Ullii put her head out the back, took one whiff and retreated, slamming the hatch down.

‘I can’t blame her,’ Nish said to Irisis. ‘What a gruesome place.’

Gi-Had described the battle in clipped sentences, then walked away with Jal-Nish. They squatted down, staring at the floor. Nish crept closer, wondering what they were doing.

‘I found the pincers just here,’ said the overseer, pointing to the floor. Taking a small package from his pocket, he handed it to the perquisitor

Jal-Nish held something up. ‘Her finger marks are on the pincers and the bolt.’

‘Doesn’t prove she helped him,’ Gi-Had said unhappily.

‘I’ll keep them, just in case.’

They came back towards the bodies. ‘We’ll collect the remains for burial on the way back,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘Move on.’

When Irisis climbed in, Ullii was shivering and had stuffed a spare pair of earplugs up her nose. Breaking through to the outside, they found the sun rising on a cold, breezy but clear day. Breakfast was handed around while snowpads were fitted to the feet of the clankers. Jal-Nish came up to where Nish stood with Irisis and Ullii.

‘Well, Cryl-Nish, let’s see if your monkey can do her tricks.’ His voice expressed all the doubt in the world.

Irisis felt just as doubtful. Ullii had as good as said that Tiaan was dead.

‘Can you find Tiaan for us, Ullii?’ If Nish doubted, he did not show it. ‘Remember the controller I showed you. Tiaan made it, and maybe you can get a trace …’

Ullii turned her masked face diagonally up the slope. ‘I can see her crystal!’

‘Where? Are you sure?’ cried Jal-Nish, reaching forward as if to shake her. Nish threw his arm out and the perquisitor drew back.

She pointed to the south-west. ‘That way.’

‘How far?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you see Tiaan?’

‘Crystal is too bright.’

‘Well, when was it here?’ Jal-Nish snapped.

She went blank for some time. ‘It was here for days.’

‘She could not have moved in the great storm,’ said Gi-Had. ‘Or immediately after. Not until last night at the earliest.’

‘She must be close by,’ cried Jal-Nish. ‘Spread out. Look for her.’

‘She did a great magic here,’ said Ullii.

‘Did she now?’ Jal-Nish breathed. He exchanged glances with Fyn-Mah, and Irisis knew it had to do with the event of yesterday. ‘I did not know she had any. What kind of magic, I wonder?’

Ullii had no idea. ‘The crystal glows by itself.’

‘What do you mean?’ Fyn-Mah drew close to the seeker.

‘It shines all the time now. It is the brightest thing in my lattice.’

Again that exchange of glances. ‘Tell us everything about this crystal,’ said the perquisitor.

Ullii shaped it with her hands. ‘There is a black star in either end, and black needles down the centre. A little spark runs along them.’

Jal-Nish drew Fyn-Mah away and Irisis did not hear what was said next, though they seemed to be excited and disturbed. To Irisis, born with a hedron in her hand, it was fascinating. It offered hope. Irisis knew her talent was not gone, just buried where she could not find it. She had lost confidence in herself, that fourth birthday, and unless she recovered it she would always be a fraud.

This crystal was more powerful than any Irisis had ever heard of. If she had it, she would believe in herself. To be a true artisan mattered more than anything in the world. What she would not give, or do, for that!

A soldier came running down the slope. ‘Fresh tracks, surr! One lyrinx, one human with a light tread.’

‘Whatever magic Tiaan used,’ said Irisis, ‘it didn’t get her away from the enemy.’

‘Maybe the seeker will prove useful after all,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘Move!’

They scrambled into the machines. The mechanical feet pounded away, the soldiers following on the trodden snow.

‘Why are we going so slowly?’ Nish said to himself after they had been crawling for a good while.

Irisis touched her pliance and said, ‘The field is weak here.’

‘Why?’

‘Perhaps something interferes with it.’

He turned the other way. Ullii, who wriggled and squirmed as much as any two-year-old, had taken off everything except the spider-silk underwear, which fitted her like another skin. Resting her head on Irisis’s shoulder, she fell asleep.

Nish’s eyes never left the seeker. They ran up and down her curves, the small, pointed breasts, the curvy hips, the shadowed area between.

‘Haven’t you anything better to do?’ Irisis said coldly. ‘You’re such a pervert, Nish.’

He flushed, looked away, then sat up at shouts outside. The clanker ground to a halt, shuddering on its eight legs. Nish got out, walking awkwardly. Irisis followed, pulling the hatch down behind her.

They had come up a steep slope winding around the side of a mountain. All around towered higher peaks, with sheer faces of dark rock mostly bare of snow. They were much more forbidding than the range in which the manufactory was set.

‘What’s the matter?’ She went to the front of the line.

Ahead, an outcropping layer of flinty rock formed a small cliff, impassible to the clankers. Nish’s eye traced the outcrop around the mountain. It ran for at least a league.

‘What about there?’ Jal-Nish pointed.

The three operators went into a huddle, muttering to one another, then broke up, avoiding Jal-Nish’s eye.

‘Well, come on, damn it!’ he roared.

‘It’s not possible, perquisitor,’ Gi-Had said quietly.