Free Geomancer (Well of Echoes) by Ian Irvine

artificers’ workshops, Nish gave her a smouldering stare. He had been watching her ever since the incident in her workshop. She hurried by, looking straight ahead, and opened the back gate.
    The rear of the manufactory was a dismal place. The open drains steamed and reeked, a mixture of foetid human waste, tarry effluent and brimstone that had killed every plant in sight. Furnace ash and slag were piled all around the ravine, the most recent deposits steaming gently in the drizzle. A thousand times as much had clotted in the valley below. The river ran acid for two and a half leagues, a series of poisoned pools, stained iron-red or tarry black, in which nothing lived.
    Gol led her through the reeking piles then stopped abruptly. ‘It’s not there!’ He began to bawl.
    Tiaan went to the brink of the ravine. Ammonia fumes brought tears to her eyes. Most of the ash mountain, saturated after weeks of rain and sleet, had slumped over the edge. Running down in a thick blurt to the water’s edge, it looked exactly like a cowdung mudslide. There was no chance of recovering the precious offcuts.
    Tiaan wiped her dripping nose. ‘Oh, stop whining, Gol! Why can’t you ever do what you’re told.’ The lad wailed loudly. ‘Go! Get on with your work! And if this happens again I
will
have you whipped!’
    He ran sobbing up the path. Tiaan leaned against a fragment of wall, all that remained of the monastery that had stood here for a thousand years. Before that, for another thousand, pilgrims had come to worship at the holy well, now buried under piles of slag. Had that been related to the node here?
    Returning to the workshop, she checked the benches of the artisans. They had been cleared of their crystal waste as well. There were fresh crystals in the storeroom but she did not want to cut one down. She needed one that was the right size to start with. First thing in the morning she would have to go back down the mine.
    ‘Morning, Lex, I’m looking for old Joe. Is he still working on the fifth level?’
    Lex came out of his cavity. A little globe of a man, he looked like one of those smiling dolls that, after being knocked over, always came upright again.
    ‘I haven’t seen him, Tiaan,’ he said clearly, evidently having his teeth in today. ‘I don’t think he’s here.’
    ‘Oh! I hope he’s not sick.’
    ‘Old Joe? He’s as tough as miner’s underpants. Naw, probably gone down to Tiksi.’
    ‘I’ll try his cottage, just in case. Thanks, Lex!’
    She headed for the village, a third of a league down the mountain. A cluster of fifty or sixty stone cottages had been built in terraces on either side of the path, though Joeyn’s place stood uphill among the trees. An oblong granite structure of two rooms, it had a mossy thatched roof and was surrounded by a fence of woven wattles.
    The sun was just coming up as Tiaan pushed open the gate. A path of crushed granite led to a north-facing porch, unfurnished except for a rude chair. A scatter of white daisies grew beside the porch. Clumps of autumn crocuses were in flower here and there. On the other side of the path a vegetable garden contained onions, garlic, leeks and a few red cabbages.
    The door was closed. A wisp of smoke came from the chimney. She knocked at the door. No answer. She knocked again and thought she heard a faint reply. Tiaan pushed open the door, afraid something had happened to him.
    It was dark inside, the windowless hut lit only by the glow from an open fire. At first her eyes could make out nothing.
    ‘If it isn’t Tiaan!’ came a hoarse voice from beside the fire. ‘Come in, my dear.’
    Tiaan made out a seated figure at a bench beside the fire. Joeyn started to get up but broke into a coughing fit.
    ‘Are you all right, Joe?’ She ran to him.
    He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Miner’s lungs!’ he gasped, clearing his throat and spitting into the fire. ‘It’s always like this in the morning.’
    ‘I was worried. I thought something