'It would have been easy.' A smile crept into her voice. 'I'd have hired artisans with the skills I lacked, ones I could control. People who did not ask questions; who were creative but lacked ambition. I can manage people, and I know exactly what's required. I just can't do it.'

'Why not do that with the seeker?'

'Tracking the Secret Art is a new problem and it needs a brilliant, creative mind. I have no idea how to solve it and the other artisans won't either. If Tiaan was here I would simply turn it over to her ...' She gave a hollow laugh. 'Ironic, isn't it?'

He did not reply. She blew out the lamp. He drifted into sleep, Irisis back to her despair. Why had she confessed? Nish was as much an opportunist as she was. He would denounce her to gain credit for himself. There was only one way out. She eased her feet to the floor, trying not to disturb him.

'Where are you going, Irisis?'

'Nowhere. For the rest of my life!'

His groping hand caught her wrist. Irisis jerked away but he did not let go, so her heave pulled him out of the bed. His head struck the corner of the cupboard and Nish let out a shriek.

Footsteps came running down the corridor. The door was thrust open. A lantern dazzled her eyes. She made out the portly figure of Jal-Nish. Other faces appeared.

'What's going on here?' snapped the perquisitor. 'What have you done to my son?' He seized her arm.

Nish rubbed his head. A trickle of blood seeped from under the bandage on his throat. She held her breath, waiting for him to betray her. She had no doubt that he would, for Irisis judged other people by her own standards. Nish was out for what he could get and she was in his way.

'Well?' raged Jal-Nish. 'Move, woman! Let me get to him.'

Nish got to his feet, shakily, and subsided on the edge of the bed. He gave Irisis an ambiguous glance. She steeled herself.

'I can solve my own problems, thank you, father.'

'You can't!' Jal-Nish said curtly. 'That's increasingly evident.'

Nish supported himself on the cupboard. Looking his father in the eye, he hardened his downy jaw. 'It was just a lovers' tiff and I don't need you to sort it out. Get out of my life, father!'

Jal-Nish looked as if he had been struck across the face. It was the first time any of his children defied him. Then he nodded, reached down and hauled Irisis to her feet. 'Get back to your workshop. Time's wasting.'

'She stays!' Nish snapped.

Irisis looked from one to the other. What was Nish up to?

'We are working together on your problem,' Nish said.

'It has nothing to do with you, Cryl-Nish,' said Jal-Nish.

'I am an artificer. I know how to make things; I know how to talk to people; I know many languages. Together Irisis and I will learn how to communicate with the seeker and solve your problem, father.'

The perquisitor's face became unreadable. He frowned, nodded and withdrew, pulling the door shut. Nish lit the lamp with trembling hands, but had to sit down. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat.

Irisis did not move. 'Why did you say that?'

'What did you expect me to do?'

'To tell him the truth,' she said simply. 'Let's not delude each other, Cryl-Nish. I'm not a nice person and neither are you.'

'Maybe so but if there's one lesson from my my childhood I did take to heart, it's loyalty to my family, childhood I did take to heart, it's loyalty to my family, and my friends! and my friends!'

Irisis choked, and tried to muffle it with her hand. Friendship had played little part in her life. Her dealings had always been 'use more than you are being used'. Friendship was a weakness other people were afflicted with. She had never understood it.

'Why, Nish? I mean, Cryl-Nish.'

'I know you lie and cheat and connive, and yes, maybe you did murder the apothek. But I saw you on the wall this morning. You showed courage that I don't have.'

'I was terrified! I had to kill it before it killed me. To be eaten by a lyrinx ...' She shuddered.

'All the more courageous,' he said softly. 'You killed a lyrinx all by yourself, Irisis. Not many people can claim that.'

'A lucky shot,' she said, still wary.

'A clever shot! And your operation saved my life.'

'I might just as well have killed you. I might have been trying to, and make it look ...'

'You didn't though, did you did you? No one else knew what to do, yet you knew in an instant. They would have let me die, too afraid to save me. You tried, knowing that if you failed you would be put to death. The perquisitor is not a forgiving man.'

'A rush of blood to the head. I did not stop to think.'

'You thought it through in an instant. Can it be that you ... love me, Irisis?'

Irisis could not believe that Nish, or anyone, would care what happened to her. 'Don't flatter yourself, my spotty little Nish-Nash. Love makes fools of the cleverest of people. I was just trying to buy favour with your father.'

'And I with your family just now!' he snapped. 'If you don't mind, I'm tired and my neck hurts, and I'm going back to bed. Good night! Good night!'

She stood in the shadow cast by the half-shuttered lantern, unmoving. Irisis opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak, then closed it again.

'What is it?' he said irritably, holding his neck.

'Nothing!' she whispered. 'It's nothing.'

She went out, closing the door silently. Irisis returned to the workshop and sat in the dark, turning what had happened over and over in her mind, like stones on a barren plain. She expected to find something venomous underneath. She did not. All she found was cool shadow, and in it things she did not recognise at all.

NINETEEN.

That night a despatch came from the scrutator, by skeet. What it contained was not revealed though it appeared to be more bad news about the war. Jal-Nish, pallid and uneasy, held a hasty conference with Fyn-Mah, after which she sent out search parties in all directions.

In the morning Nish learned that Gi-Had had taken a troop of armed men into the mine in pursuit of a lyrinx. Not even the bravest soldiers wanted to venture into the maze of shafts, drives and unstable tunnels, but duty must be done.

Irisis appeared at the door around eight in the morning. 'Nish, your father bids you come to meet the seeker.' She went out at once, her back very straight.

'Wait!' he called but she took no notice.

Nish dressed as quickly as he could. His neck was nicely scabbed over, front and back, though so painful that he could not turn his head. He felt utterly drained.

Going via the refectory, he collected a handful of millet cakes. Slabs of boiled pork lay on a platter, the thick layers of fat like grey jelly. The thought of eating it was nauseating.

He found Irisis standing outside the seeker's door. Jal-Nish was not there. 'Irisis ...?'

She cut him off, briefly explaining what the seeker was like and how she must be treated. Nish followed her in. Irisis carried a lantern but kept it fully shuttered, so the room was lit only by scattered rays from under the door. There was no furniture apart from a wooden chair with high arms.

The seeker crouched in a corner. The light was too dim to see her clearly, only that she was hunched right over, enveloped in a shroud-like cloth and rocking back and forth. At Nish's footfall she started, then began to rock furiously.

Irisis plucked at Nish's sleeve, drawing him out and closing the door. They went looking for the perquisitor. He was not to be found, however Fyn-Mah was working at a table in the overseer's office. A pair of carpenters had the smashed door up on a trestle in the hall and were tapping new timbers into place.

'Jal-Nish has gone down to the mine,' Fyn-Mah said without looking up.

'Oh!' replied Irisis.

'There is a difficulty?'

'It's the seeker,' said Nish. 'She's just sitting in the corner, rocking.'

'You'll get nothing from her this morning then. If ever! If ever!'

'What do you mean?'

'I've seen it too many times!' With a sigh, Fyn-Mah laid down her quill. 'What you're trying to do is impossible. I told Jal-Nish that before he began.'

'Why impossible?'

'The poor child is too sensitive. A whisper is like a shout to her; silk feels like sandpaper; a candle flame hurts her eyes like the noon sun.'

Nish tried to imagine it but could not. 'A wonder she didn't go insane.'

'Her family tried to beat it out of her, then abandoned her to a cripples' asylum. The things that went on there well, she doesn't trust anyone, now. You're wasting your time.'

'I might as well go straight to the breeding factory,' said Irisis.

'It's an important duty,' snapped the querist. 'Not a punishment.'

Irisis glanced at Fyn-Mah's ringless fingers. 'Really?' she sneered. 'That's not how the workers here see it.'

Fyn-Mah went rigid. 'How do do they see it?' they see it?'

'One rule for them, another for the powerful. People like you.'

A red flush crept up Fyn-Mah's face. She closed her eyes for the count of three but when she opened them she was icily calm. 'The scrutator is furious that Tiaan has not been found. He has a special job for her. Now, if you'll excuse me?'

They went out. 'Did you see how she reacted?' said Irisis to Nish. 'I was right. She must be taking a preventative.'

'To prevent children? But that's a crime.'

'And I'll use it against her if I have to.'

He stared up at her. 'You would dare attack a querist querist?'

'What have I got to lose?'

'Give me a hand,' he said before they had gone much further.

'Why?' she responded listlessly.

'I can't stand up any longer.'

She offered him her shoulder. Nish held on, she caught him about the waist, and they made their slow way down to the refectory, where they sat at a long bench furthest from the door. The room was empty, breakfast having finished long ago.

'It's not like you to give up so easily,' he said.

'This job is impossible, so I'm resigning myself to my new life in the breeding factory. Or a swift extinguishment, should it come to that.'

'No!' he cried.

She smiled sadly, touching him on the arm. 'Enough of that. If you like I could find you a replacement lover. It won't be easy, with the stigma you bear, but '

'I don't want another lover, you stupid bitch!' He hurled himself off the bench, swayed, the blood ran from his face and he fell down. As she ran around to him, Nish regained his feet and staggered out like a drunken man, waving her away.

He got as far as one of the warm niches around behind the furnaces, dragged a sweeper lad out by the ear and fell into the deliciously warm space. Someone cried out. Beneath him, a girl frantically adjusted her garments. Nish cursed the pair of them, though he should have looked first. Such places offered the only privacy most lovers got.

Crawling out, he lurched back the way he had come. He made it as far as the door of Ullii's room, caught the handle and fell through the door as it opened. As it swung shut he swooned on the floor.

Opening his eyes Nish saw a shadow behind his head. What was Ullii doing? He tried to turn his head and felt such a stabbing pain in his neck that he groaned aloud. She backed away. He raised his hand to the bandage. It was wet with blood.

The seeker crouched nearby. She was curious about him. He watched her from slitted eyes, wondering if he might use the incident to his advantage. She might feel empathy. Or contempt that he groaned at what she had suffered in silence.

Ullii came creeping back, a little shadow from which, occasionally, those big eyes reflected a stray gleam of light coming under the door. She crouched not far away, hands on the floor but head in the air, sniffing like a dog. If she could smell as well as a dog there would be plenty to read off him: blood; tears; sweat; the scent of Irisis.

Nish lay so still that he could hear his heartbeat. She came closer, sniffing around the back of his head. Something touched his hair a fingertip. He did not move, sensing that she was ready to spring away at any provocation. Fingers touched his hair, shaping his head as gently as a sigh.

Nish held his breath. The fingers traced his cheek and the other hand joined them: eyes, nose, mouth, ears, chin. At his infinitesimal movement she drew back. He heard the faintest sound, like an inrushing of air. And again. She was sniffing her fingers, imprinting his smell on her memory.

She edged forward and her fingers slid down the curve of his face from either side. Her hand struck the wound. Nish cried out; it was torment.

Ullii scurried to the corner and curled up into a ball. He came to his knees, enduring the shooting agony. She began rocking furiously, perhaps scared he would beat her. An interesting experiment, though it was over for the moment. When the pain became bearable Nish went out, as quietly as he could.

He walked between the furnaces, where stokers were shovelling slabs of pitch into the fire pits. The blast was so intense that they wore suits of woven rock fibre, with goggles of black glass to stop their eyes from drying out. The heat made him feel dizzy. Another worker was drawing out samples of molten metal with a cup on the end of a long rod. He was similarly garbed and goggled, and wore earmuffs, for the roar of the furnaces up close was deafening.

Nish went out the back gate, desperate for a gasp of clean, cold air. In the distance Irisis was walking along the edge of the ravine. He turned the other way, which led him to the slag and ash piles. Beyond he was brought up by the breath-snatching whiff of ammonia and a corrosive reek of phenol from the effluent drains. A group of workers, supervised by Foreman Gryste, were busy clearing tar-choked drains.

'It's no use,' said Gryste, tossing his spade-tipped probing pole to one side. 'We'll have to go up. Glyss, are you ready?'