win, it’s almost as bad as losing. And how will the world be shaped afterwards?’
‘At least there won’t be any need for scrutators, telling everyone how to live their lives.’ Tiaan tossed the dregs of her chard onto the salt and stared moodily at the stain.
‘Those in power can always find excuses to retain it. Your mapping may give Flydd and Yggur the secret that mancers have been looking for since the Art was first discovered – the power to shape the world.’ Malien prised off a chunk of salt with her knife and began to pick the crystals apart. She tasted one and made a face. ‘If such power is used by the best of leaders, for the best of motives and the benefit of all, it could transform Santhenar.’
‘I don’t see why the world has to be reshaped,’ said Tiaan. ‘Besides, even the best of people can be wrong-sighted, and in time there’ll be as many evil leaders as saintly ones. As many fools as there are wise folk; as many stupid, greedy and grasping ones as there are altruistic.’
Malien began arranging her crystals in a circular wall, saying nothing.
‘Once that secret is uncovered,’ Tiaan went on, ‘greedy men will fight to get it for themselves. There’ll be another war, as far removed from what we’ve suffered as our war of clankers, constructs and flesh-formed creatures is from the petty wars of two hundred years ago. Whole forests have been consumed in the furnaces of our manufactories, a thousand rivers poisoned, and a million people have died brutal deaths. We’ve abandoned our culture and given up our freedom to try and win this war. What will we sacrifice next?’
‘Something to think about,’ said Malien, ‘before you hand over your completed node maps.’
‘But what am I to do about it?’ said Tiaan.
It was a long time before Malien answered. ‘I don’t know.’
The days passed quickly, even though the work had taken longer than expected. Now the mapping was complete but for a diagonal strip beginning east of the Foshorn and running north-east across the sea in the direction of Tar Gaarn and Havissard. They heard occasional news of the war via the farspeaker. The enemy were closing in on Ashmode but battle, if there was going to be any, was some time off. Malien tried to reply at the appointed times but the slave farspeaker did not seem to be sending.
They’d just begun the final strip, and were flying past an isolated pinnacle north-east of the Foshorn, when Malien said, ‘What’s that, there on top of the peak?’
Tiaan stood up to see. ‘It looks like a tower.’
‘I wasn’t aware that anything had ever been built out here.’ Malien turned the thapter towards it.
There were hundreds of peaks and pinnacles in the Dry Sea, remnants of ancient volcanoes. This one was small, not more than a hundred and fifty spans high. The sides were precipitous, which was unusual, and an arrangement of winches big enough to lift the largest construct projected over the cliff on the western side.
On the flat top of the peak was as strange a structure as Tiaan had ever seen. A series of nine red spheres, the largest more than twenty spans across, were set on a black spire like marshmallows on a skewer. The largest sphere enveloped the base of the tower; the smallest enclosed the top, some hundred and fifty spans above the ground. Five constructs stood at the base of the western cliffs, on the salt. As the thapter approached, a number of Aachim ran out of the spire and stood staring up at them.
‘I presume this isn’t the work of your people?’ Tiaan said.
‘They’re constructs, not thapters. It’s Vithis’s doing.’
‘What for?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Could it be a weapon directed against humanity?’
‘Why would he build one out here?’
‘To take advantage of a particular node?’
Tiaan mapped the node, which had an unusual field, made notes on the tower and its occupants, and they continued on their path.
Two days later they were completing the last segment of their diagonal, one that Tiaan had left until the way back because of its complexity. The thapter was passing back and forth over an area south-east of the peak of Katazza, which featured in several Great Tales. Here black rock had been thrust up along fissures and torn apart along enormous faults and fractures. The country was so rugged that it would have been difficult to walk across. Steam wisped from a myriad of cracks and vents coated