Tetrarch (Well of Echoes)

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**Title** **Tetrarch**

Author	Ian Irvine
Country	Australia
Language	English
Series	The Well of Echoes
Genre(s)	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Penguin Australia
Released	October 2002
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	704 p. (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-14-029233-0
Preceded by	Geomancer
Followed by	Scrutator

Tetrarch is the second novel in Ian Irvine's The Well of Echoes quartet.

1 Official Synopsis
2 Plot
3 Characters
4 Other Meanings

[edit] Official Synopsis

Santhenar is on its knees. The war with the alien lyrinx drags on, and humanity is losing it, but there is worse to come. The Aachim have invaded with an irresistible force: a fleet of battle constructs. Cursing humanity for the loss of Aachan and his own clan, the embittered Aachim leader, Vithis, demands half the world in reparation. The Council is in no position to resist. But even if they agree to his demands, can anything satisfy his thirst for vengeance?

Tiaan is in despair. Her life lies in ruins, and now she is being hunted through the abandoned city of Tirthrax by an implacable Nish, who blames her for the attack.

The future of the world rests in the hands of three flawed people: Tiaan, whose geomancy holds the key to the power that can save or destroy them; Nish, who has sworn to bring her to justice; and Irisis, whose great talents are hidden even from herself.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Tiaan wanders the ancient, abandoned city of Tirthrax aimlessly. She still clutches the dead body of her adopted-sister, Haani, who was killed by a nervous Aachim shooter. Her previous withdrawal, that caused her to madly desire the strange crystal Amplimet, which lies unguarded near the gate she created to bring the treacherous Aachim to Santhenar from dieing Aachan, has evaporated in her grief for her sister.

It is not long before Tiaan realises that she is being followed. Indeed she is soon captured, by her nemesis from the manufacturory, Nish and a strange young woman by the name of Ullii. Tiaan escapes twice but is recaptured both times. However, as Nish bounds her after her second escape attempt, in which Tiaan nearly falls to her death in the Well of Echoes, he is interrupted by an old Aachim woman who states herself to be the Matah of Tirthrax.

The Matah forces Nish to release Tiaan, humiliating him with a minor use of her powers. The Matah has Tiaan and Nish relate their story and becomes distressed at the knowledge of the Aachim invasion, lead by Vithis. She speaks of the time of The Forbidding as if she were present. The Matah instructs Nish and Ullii to leave Tirthrax and warn their people of the Aachim invasion, though Nish had already sent word by skeet of what he had witnessed. The Matah befriends Tiaan and helps her to deliver Haani's body to the Well of Echoes, an honour befitted to only the greatest of people. The Matah reveals that she is in fact Malien, a heroine from the time of the Mirror. Tiaan decides to go and retrieve the amplimet from the gate room, but finds it missing. She originally accuses Malien, but they eventually realise that Nish is the only possible culprit.