They sat down together. Joe offered her a swig from his bottle but Tiaan knew better than to accept. Distilled from fermented turnips and parsnips, the spirit was strong enough to knock out a bear.

‘Have you eaten today, Tiaan?’

‘Only a crust.’

He passed her a cloth-wrapped bundle, inside which she found three baked sweet potatoes, a boiled egg, a stalk of celery and a ball of sticky rice flavoured with wild saffron and pieces of mountain date. Her mouth watered. She was usually too busy to eat.

Tiaan selected the smallest of the sweet potatoes. ‘Are you sure it’s all right?’

‘Stand up, Tiaan. Let me look you over.’

She did so, potato in hand. Tiaan was average in height but slender. She had jet-black hair, raggedly hacked off halfway down her neck, almond-shaped eyes of a deep purple-brown, a broad, thoughtful brow and a small though full-lipped mouth. Her skin was like freshly rubbed amber, her eyes a darker shade. She had long-fingered, elegant hands, which she liked, and large feet, which she did not.

‘You’re thinner than when I saw you a month ago.’

‘I only get paid when my controllers go into service, and …’

‘But you’re the hardest worker in the entire manufactory, Tiaan, and the cleverest.’

She looked down at her boots, unable to reply to the compliment. ‘My last three controllers failed after they left the manufactory, Joe. Two clankers were lost, and their operators. Twenty soldiers are dead.’ Her chest was heaving in agitation.

He regarded her steadily. ‘Doesn’t mean it’s your fault.’

‘They were my controllers. Of course it’s my fault.’

‘Then you’d better find out what’s gone wrong.’

‘I don’t even know where to start.’

‘Well, you still have to eat.’

‘I only take the basic ration,’ she muttered. ‘I’m saving to buy out my indenture. I’ll have enough in two more years.’

‘But you’ll stay at the manufactory after you do. It’s not going to change your life. What’s the hurry?’

‘I want to be free! I want to choose to be at the manufactory, rather than being forced to work here because my mother signed my life away when I was six!’ There was a stubborn set to her jaw, an angry light in her eye.

Tiaan was indentured until the age of twenty-five, and until then was the property of the manufactory. If she failed at her work, or for any other fit and proper reason, the overseer could sell her indenture to whomever he chose, and there was nothing Tiaan could do about it. Gi-Had was neither cruel nor vindictive, but he was a hard man. He had to be.

The only way out was for her to become crafter, effectively the master controller-maker. In that case her indenture would be cancelled and she would be part of the committee of the manufactory, a position of honour and influence. But that was just a dream. The crafter had to do much more than be good at her trade. Artisans were notoriously tricky to manage and she was not good with people.

‘What’s the matter with your controllers?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’ve only just found out that they’d failed. They were perfect when I finished them.’

‘How long since you’ve been paid?’ he asked sternly.

‘Six weeks.’

‘Sit down; eat your lunch!’

‘It’s your lunch,’ she said stubbornly, wanting the food but not the charity.

‘It’s yours and I expect you to eat it all.’

‘But …’

Joeyn patted the bottle. ‘This’ll do me. I’m going home shortly. I’ve already met my quota for the day.’

‘Quota of what? Illegal drink?’ she asked cheekily.

‘Do what you’re told!’ He tilted the bottle up again.

Tiaan consumed the sweet potatoes and began peeling the shell off the egg. She felt better already.

‘So why the visit, Tiaan? Not that you aren’t welcome any time.’

‘Does there have to be a reason?’

‘No, but I bet there is. And I’m wondering if it’s not about my old stones.’ Even if he had just mined the most perfect crystals in the world, Joeyn still referred to them as ‘my old stones’.

‘It is,’ she said. ‘The last three you gave me seemed perfect, but failed after a few weeks in their clankers.’

‘They were a bit different,’ he admitted over another healthy swig. ‘But not unusually so.’

‘Can I see where you got them from?’ she asked, her mouth full of egg. Her belly felt wonderfully full.

‘Back this way!’ He headed off in the direction she’d come from, lantern swinging.

She followed, nibbling on the sticky rice ball. Tiaan was saving the celery stick till last, to freshen her mouth. Beyond the squeeze, Joeyn went down on hands and knees beneath a bulge of shattered granite held together with tiny white veins, and through into a cavern higher than their heads. In the lamplight Tiaan saw threads of native silver shining in the wall, and across the other side, a vein of massive crystals.

‘I love it down here,’ Joeyn said, patting the wall. ‘The wonders of stone. Ever the same yet always different.’

‘You talk as though the rock is your best friend.’

‘It is.’

‘Is this a new area?’

‘The miners dug it out last year. One day they’ll be back to follow these seams as far as they go.’

‘Why didn’t they keep going while they were here?’

‘Because they found some interesting old stones and had to call me in to check them. Woe to any miner who smashes up good crystal in search of base silver or gold.’

‘The bloody damn war! Is it ever going to end?’

Joe prised at a vein with the point of his pick. ‘Been going for a hundred and fifty years, and the lyrinx came well before that, when the Forbidding was broken and wicked Faelamor opened the void into our world. I don’t see it stopping anytime soon.’

Tiaan knew that story by heart. The twenty-seventh Great Tale, written by the chronicler Garthas, was the most important of the recent Histories, and taught to every child in the civilised world. It was based on the final part of the twenty-third Great Tale, The Tale of the Mirror, but that tale was no longer allowed to be told.

Many creatures had invaded Santhenar at the time of the Forbidding, two hundred and six years ago, though only one had thrived: the winged lyrinx. Intelligent predators with a taste for human flesh and a burning desire for their own world, they had been at war with humanity ever since.

‘We’re never going to defeat the lyrinx, are we, Joe?’

‘I’d say not. They’re too big, too smart and too damn tough. I hear that Thurkad has finally fallen.’

She had heard that too, and that there were a million refugees on the road. Thurkad was the fabulous, ancient city that had dominated the island of Meldorin, and indeed half the known world, for thousands of years. Tiksi was about as far as one could get from Thurkad and lyrinx-infested Meldorin, but the Histories had told Tiaan all about it. If such a powerful place had been overcome, what hope did they have?

Joeyn withdrew a chisel from a loop of his belt, placed it carefully in the vein and gave a gentle tap, then another. Tiaan watched him work, nibbling her celery. She felt more at home here than anywhere, but only because of him. ‘How do you tell which are the right crystals?’

‘Don’t know! When I touch one I get a warm, flowering feeling above my eyes, like a waterlily opening in a pond.’

She wondered where he got that image from. It was too cold here for waterlilies, or even down the mountain at Tiksi. ‘Were you always like that?’

‘Nope! Happened about ten years ago. I’d just turned sixty-six. Got sick one night after dinner; nearly died. Turned out it was the pork. Been eating it all my life, but since then, even if I just touch a bit of bacon rind, throat swells up and I can hardly breathe. Next time I was down here, mining the silver, I touched a crystal and a flower opened inside my head. Happened every time I touched that crystal, so I took it home and kept it beside my bed.’