Page 66 of Last of Her Name
Riyan gives him a look. “Thatwasclearance. Only a tensor can get in and out of the wall. Welcome to the safest bit of space in the galaxy.”
Riyan navigates the clipper across the frigid Diamin landscape. Spindly trees flick below us, endless frozen forest cast in muted twilight. They are much taller than any tree on Amethyne due to the lower gravity of Diamin, bristling with short, stiff needles, their trunks pale. Snow clouds gather to the east, thick as foam. From this side, the gravity wall isn’t even visible. Instead, the dead planet fills the sky, massive and looming, its rim burning gold from the star beyond. The sight is awe-inspiring but strange, reminding me how far I am from home.
“Looks cheerful,” Pol murmurs.
“Nothing out there but frost bison and minki,” Riyan says. “Bison are good for eating, minki good for dropping out of trees and ripping your eyes out. Don’t go on any long walks alone if you can help it, my brother.”
“What are those?” I ask, pointing to dome-like structures that huddle in the distance.
“Those are the glazieries.”
Right. All diamantglass comes from here, made by some secret process only the tensors know. Supposedly their people are wildly wealthy, given their monopoly on the glass trade. You can’t have Prisms without diamantglass. It’s the only material capable of containing the gravitational fields required for the crystal to spin. If it weren’t for the glass, I wonder if the tensors would have anything to do with the rest of the Belt at all, or if they would become wholly secluded.
Riyan makes a wide turn, angling for a mountain range in the distance. The ship is so low I half expect to clip the tops of the trees. We skim over the domes, and I can just glimpse tiny figures moving between them, workers coming and going.
Mara emerges from the back cabins with clear masks and oxygen tanks.
“Good, you found them,” Riyan says. “Put them on and make sure your tanks are full. Otherwise, you’ll pass out within a few minutes of setting foot in our atmo. It’s not so bad inside Tyrrha, because we regulate the air, but you’ll still need a boost from time to time.”
“Tyrrha?”
“Our city. It’s more of a stronghold, really. You’ll see.”
My stomach flutters nervously; Riyan assured me we’d be safe here, but I can’t forget the target hovering over me like a holo. After what happened in the Granitas System, the Loyalists will be looking for me as ruthlessly as the vityazes. There’s no way of knowing whether Zhar was captured or killed by the Union, or if she somehow escaped. I feel like a minnow swimming between two hungry snapteeth, hoping desperately that neither notices me hiding in its shadow.
“There it is,” Riyan says wryly, cutting the ship’s power to half. “Tyrrha, ancient home of the tensors.”
“Holy stars,” breathes Mara. “How is itpossible?”
Set in a flat vale between two mountains, Tyrrha is an enormous pyramid of stone—turned upside down. It balances on a fine point, sloping upward and outward until it forms a vast flat surface directed at the sky. Its sides are smooth and gleaming, reflecting the jagged landscape around it, so it assumes all the colors of the mountains, forests, and sky. Like an optical illusion, like Riyan’s power itself, it bends my perception nearly to a breaking point. The more I stare, the less possible it seems. My eyes search for the trick to the thing—hidden supports or mirrors or anything to explain that impossible structure. It looks like it would tip at the slightest touch of wind, and across those peaks around it, the gales must be powerful.
“It was built by the first generations of tensors who landed here,” says Riyan. “There are always fifty of us in meditation across the city, keeping the whole thing balanced.”
“That seems … risky,” I point out. “What if someone messes up? What if you’re attacked? The whole place would tip over.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s a defense mechanism,” Pol says, his eyes widening. “If the enemy ever breached the city, you could just roll it over, completely changing the battlefield in your favor. Genius!”
Riyan nods. “Just so, brother.”
The clipper tilts upward, pressing me back against my seat. We rise, dwarfed in Tyrrha’s shadow. The outer wall is so smooth I can see the reflection of our ship flitting across it, chasing us up to the sky.
At last, we overshoot the wide, flat peak, nose pointed at the stars, and Riyan pulls back on the yoke. The ship turns a lazy half loop, diving and swooping toward a large slot in the top level of the pyramid.
Within, a lit hangar awaits. There must be fifty ships anchored there, from cruisers to catamarans. None as gorgeous as the clipper, though.
Once theValentinais inside, Riyan quickly engages the landing system, bringing the ship to rest. The space is stark, open, and polished, a fair bit more sophisticated than the makeshift hangar the Loyalists had carved into the asteroid. And it’s quiet—I don’t see any pilots or mechanics hanging around. The other ships rest in silence.
“Where is everyone?” I ask. “Do you think they know we’re here?”
“They know. They’ll have known since we broke through the barrier.” He shuts his eyes briefly, then nods. “Here they come.”
The wall in front of us rumbles as a stone door sinks into the ground, lowered by a group of tensors behind it. They approach theValentinaslowly, cloaked and solemn, shaven heads decorated with the same tattoos as Riyan’s, carrying similar staffs. There are a dozen altogether, and they spread out into a line, waiting.
“Let’s get it over with,” Riyan says, grabbing his staff and heading for the hatch.
We’re a few paces behind him as he rounds the ship and approaches the twelve tensors. Pol grips his ribs, wincing a little, still in pain. If it comes to a fight, he won’t be much help. I wish I had a gun or something to defend myself with.