Read Tetrarch (Well of Echoes) for Free Online

solutions of honey. The flavours were so subtle and the creations so delicate that Tiaan could scarcely bear to touch them. There were exotic vegetables, none of which she recognised, preserved in oil as red as cedarwood.
    Having eaten her fill, she was at a loss. Her dreams of revenge were foolish; futile. That armada of constructs must be twenty leagues away by now. Feeling her resolve fading, she went looking for the Matah and eventually found her on the frigid balcony.
    ‘Good afternoon, Tiaan,’ she said, without looking around.
    Tiaan stood there, uncertainly. The Matah patted the stone seat. Tiaan perched uncomfortably on it, for the cold went right through her trousers.
    ‘What will you do now?’ the Matah said softly.
    ‘I must lay Haani to rest.’
    ‘Where is the child?’
    ‘I left her beside a great shaft that plunges down toward the mountain’s heart.’
    ‘What?’ The Matah sprang to her feet. ‘How came you to the Well of Echoes?’
    Tiaan scrambled off the seat. ‘N-Nish hunted me there. I meant no harm.’
    ‘Be calm, child. You could do no harm there, though it might well have harmed you. How did you get into that place? It should not have been possible.’
    Tiaan explained what she had done, and why. Coming up close, the Matah lifted the hedron on its chain but let it fall. She put her palms on Tiaan’s cheeks, thumbs resting on either side of her nose, the long, long fingers wrapped around her head. She stared into Tiaan’s eyes for a good while, then let go, shaking her head.
    ‘There is something about you, Tiaan …’
    ‘What?’ Tiaan said uneasily.
    ‘I cannot say, though it rings alarms. You are in peril. Either that, or you
are
peril. Come, I will take you to the Well.’
    The Matah dissolved the re-formed cubic barrier with a gesture and they entered the tunnel. Tiaan had forgotten the cold of that place, even worse than outside. The smooth-as-glass walls of the tunnel were networked with feathery patterns of ice crystals. The whole tunnel felt to be breathing cold, for little whooshes of wind would rush past, ruffling her hair, only to turn and blow down the back of her neck.
    Even when the breeze blew from behind, Tiaan found it difficult to move forward. Each step proved more difficult than the last. How had she entered so effortlessly the previous time? The Matah, who had been only a few strides ahead, had now disappeared around the corner. Tiaan forced herself on. It felt like the time she had tried to put the crystal into the port-all, before she opened the gate and brought her world to ruin.
    She had done too much and could do no more. When the Matah came back, Tiaan was on the floor, hunched up against the cold. The Matah lifted Tiaan to her feet, taking her hand, and at once the opposing force was gone. Tiaan followed her to the room and the Well.
    Though the room was a simple cone of rough-cut rock, its magic was manifest. Deep blue light from the shaft cut through the dark space, highlighting mist that drifted in lazy coils centred on the Well. The air was so fresh and crisp it tingled with every breath. Scattered snowflakes floated above the shaft. One landed on Tiaan’s sleeve and it was a perfect, six-pointed star, a crystal so lovely that she wished Haani could have seen it.
    Haani lay beside the shaft as if sleeping. There was frost in her hair. Tiaan took her icy hand. The Matah went to her knees, probing Haani’s chest with her fingertips. ‘Poor child. Why is it always the young ones?’ She seemed lost in some tragedy of her own.
    Tiaan stood with head bowed, waiting silently.
    Eventually the Matah turned to her. ‘Is there a death ritual you wish to observe?’
    ‘I don’t know the customs of her people,’ Tiaan said. ‘As for my own, we bury our dead, but I can’t dig a hole through rock.’
    ‘Nor should she lie in the catacombs filled with our dead. Her spirit could not dwell comfortably in such a culture-haunted place.’ The Matah circled the