Free Geomancer (Well of Echoes) by Ian Irvine Page B

be treated like a brood sow.’ Her face had gone brick-red. ‘I love my work, and I can do it better than anyone else. I just want to do my job and live my life.’
    ‘That’s all any of us want. Unfortunately the war …’
    ‘The cursed war!’
    ‘Still, I don’t suppose Gi-Had
would
send you down, Tiaan. You’re his best artisan.’
    ‘I do seem to have an unusual talent,’ she said thoughtfully.
    ‘So I’ve heard. Do you know where it came from?’
    ‘From my mother, according to her, though she tried to cover
my
talent up.’
    ‘Is that so?’
    ‘I first realised I was special at the examination, when I was six. In one of the tests they held up a picture, just for a second, then asked me questions about it. I knew all the answers. They were astounded, but it wasn’t hard at all – in my mind’s eye I could see the picture perfectly. I can still see it now, a family playing games on a green lawn. A mother, a father, a girl, two boys and a dog!’ She sighed heavily.
    ‘After that they showed me all sorts of images. There were maps of places I’d never heard of, the workings of a clock, a tapestry of the Histories. My answers were perfect, because every image stayed in my mind.’
    ‘What else did they ask you?’ Joeyn looked fascinated. ‘I never had the examination. It hadn’t started when I was a kid.’
    ‘Hadn’t it?’ Tiaan said, surprised. ‘Oh, all sorts of things. Reading, spelling, remembering, aiming and throwing, number puzzles.’ She smiled at a memory. ‘One didn’t seem like a test at all. The examiners put a little piece of honeycomb in front of me and said that if I didn’t touch it until they came back, I could have a really big piece.’
    ‘Did you eat it?’ Joeyn asked.
    ‘No, though I wanted to. Other tests involved making things out of gears and wheels and metal parts. I did badly on those.’
    ‘That’s odd, for a controller-maker.’
    ‘I never had those kinds of toys when I was a kid. Mother sneered at people who worked with their hands. Her daughter was certainly not going to.
    ‘The examiners seemed disappointed, as if that lack had cancelled out my other talent. I remember them talking in the corner, looking back at me and shaking their heads.’
    ‘So how
did
you end up at the manufactory?’ Taking another sip from his mug, Joeyn settled back in the chair.
    ‘The last test involved a collection of crystals; kinds of hedrons, I suppose. At least, some were. The others must have been dummies. They put the first in my hand. It was dark-green. A mask went over my face and they asked me to describe what I saw.’ She paused for a pull at her mug.
    ‘What did you see?’
    ‘I didn’t see anything. I felt as if I’d failed another important test. Someone took the crystal away and gave me another. I concentrated hard, but had no idea what I was supposed to see.’
    Joeyn was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. Tiaan continued.
    ‘They gave me the third crystal. It was really cold. I started to say, “I can’t see anything with this one either …” when a pink wave moved through my inner eye. It disappeared and I must have cried out. I tried really hard to get it back. Someone called, “What did you see, child?”
    ‘The crystal warmed in my hand and suddenly it was like looking down on a pond with oil on it. I watched the patterns and time stood still. There were layers of colours, all going up and down, back and forth and passing in and out of each other. In places they twisted into swirls like water going down a plughole, then came out the other side of nowhere and joined up again. It was so beautiful! Then it vanished. The examiners had taken the crystal. I’d been using it for an hour!
    ‘I looked for it, frantically. I had to have it back. I kicked and screamed, something I’d never done in my life. It was
withdrawal
, the first time I’d ever felt it. Nothing mattered but that I got the crystal back.
    ‘I told them what I’d