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

seat.
    ‘What the blazes do you think you’re doing?’
    Malien was shaking her. Tiaan could see nothing, and for an instant of horror thought her eyes must have frozen solid. The Aachim picked crusted snow off her eyelids, rubbed them with a warm palm and Tiaan’s eyes cracked open.
    Back down below, her fingers wrapped around a mug of a custardy-thick, sweet red drink, Tiaan began to feel rather foolish. The emotions that had taken her outside felt alien now.
    ‘I suppose …’ she said haltingly, ‘I was punishing myself.’
    ‘What a
stupid
thing to do! If you have done harm, do something to make up for it.’
    Tiaan sipped her drink. Malien was right. She must do something, but what? Maybe she should try to get back to the manufactory and resume her artisan’s work.
    Malien was turning the pages of a small book bound in yellow calf, though not reading it.
    ‘Is something the matter?’ said Tiaan.
    Malien laid the book to one side. ‘I cannot tell you what a shock it was to hear of the gate, and see those constructs. Arrogance was ever an Aachim failing, and so many constructs, and such power, would breed hubris in the meekest of breasts. Vithis is a type I know well – a brilliant, blind fool. After the loss of world and clan, he will not compromise. He has suffered – why should others not suffer equally? We have had many such leaders in our Histories, but all looked backwards to a time when we were great, while knowing that such times were past.
    ‘Vithis is different. Having lost everything that mattered, nothing can moderate him, and now he has the opportunity of a lifetime. With his mighty force, the most powerful ever assembled, he comes to a world ruined by war. What will he do?’
    ‘Take it,’ Tiaan said softly. ‘But … we are all humankind. Maybe he will ally with us to defeat the lyrinx.’
    ‘
I
would,’ said Malien, ‘but why would Vithis? Many Aachim think of you old humans as primitive, even sub-human, and from what you say of him Vithis holds to that view. He may prefer to let the lyrinx win, or even side with them to destroy humanity.’
    Tiaan’s blood congealed. ‘He would not,’ she whispered. ‘He could not.’
    ‘Look at your own Histories, Tiaan. The more advanced races, or the more powerful nations, have wiped out hundreds of the lesser.’
    ‘But humanity has a great and ancient civilisation. How could anyone think …?’
    ‘Look to your Histories, I say.’
    Tiaan could not countenance it. That Vithis might destroy humanity, and all its culture and Histories, as carelessly as one might kill a cockroach, was incomprehensible.
    ‘And nothing can be done about it?’ she said in a daze.
    ‘I wouldn’t say
nothing
,’ said Malien. ‘Vithis must have weaknesses as well as strengths.’
    ‘I saw none, apart from clan rivalry.’
    ‘Which would disappear the instant the Aachim were threatened.’
    ‘And perhaps your own people would join with them to make an even stronger force.’
    ‘If pushed hard enough,
they
probably would.’
    ‘But not
you
, Malien?’
    ‘I will never betray my own kind, Tiaan. But I will do what I can for all humanity.’
    ‘And I!’ Tiaan swore. ‘Since I brought the Aachim here, I must make up for it.’ How, though? She was trapped by geography, hundreds of leagues from anywhere.
    Malien sat forward on her chair, looking down at her boots. Her veined hands shook. She rested them on her knees. ‘I –’ She broke off.
    Tiaan said nothing. What could Malien offer her but words? Words could change nothing.
    ‘You can never know what I felt when I heard about the amplimet,’ said Malien.
    Not expecting that, Tiaan felt a surge of jealous anger. ‘Why?’ she said coolly. ‘What is it to you?’
    ‘The chance to look back to lost Aachan.’
    ‘You can’t have been born there.’ The Histories were clear on that.
    ‘I was not. We came to Santhenar thousands of years ago, mostly as slaves of the Charon. For that reason, few of us