Chimaera

SIXTY-ONE

The following afternoon, Irisis and Tiaan were putting the core of their crude field controller together when Golias’s globe belched. ‘Flydd, Flydd? Troist here.’

Irisis didn’t look up. Tiaan seemed to understand what she was doing but Irisis felt as though she were working blind and Flydd had been fretting at their lack of progress.

He ran to the globe. ‘What is it? Are you under attack?’

‘We’ve been under attack for two days, Scrutator. I’ve been calling and calling but couldn’t raise you.’ Why not, was the unspoken implication.

‘Sorry,’ said Flydd. ‘We’ve been using the farspeaker for something else. Is everything all right?’

‘We’re surviving. Tiaan’s idea was a brilliant one.’

‘What idea?’ said Flydd distractedly.

‘Shouting into the farspeaker, remember? It only works if the enemy are within twenty or thirty paces, but it knocks them down for a minute or two, and if we change the setting it keeps knocking them down. I’ve issued slave farspeakers to as many units as I could. We’ve driven off quite a few attacks that way, though with heavy casualties. Two thousand so far, and eight hundred of those are dead.’

‘Two thousand …’ said Flydd, unconsciously clenching one fist. ‘It could have been worse, I suppose.’

‘I weep for every life lost,’ said Troist. There was a heavy silence, broken only by squelches and clicks in the background. ‘But that’s not what I’ve called about. Yggur was right about Gilhaelith. I should never have trusted him, though his timely warnings did save many lives. He’s just played his hand.’

‘What’s he done now?’ cried Flydd.

‘He stole Kimli’s thapter and flew north, just half an hour ago.’

‘Has he gone over to the enemy?’ Flydd asked dully.

‘I’ve no idea, surr.’

Shortly Flydd set down the farspeaker and turned to Yggur. ‘Gilhaelith took Nish with him in Kimli’s thapter, as well as Merryl and four soldiers, one of whom was Flangers.’

Irisis dropped the assembly she was trying to put together. Crystals and tiny silver clips went everywhere but she didn’t move to pick them up. ‘Why did he take Nish?’

‘He was helping Merryl to listen in to the enemy’s mindspeech.’

‘What’s Gilhaelith up to?’ said Yggur, who seemed to be resisting the urge to say ‘I told you so’.

‘Troist doesn’t know,’ said Flydd. ‘Unfortunately, Gilhaelith took most of the mindspeech records. Troist has the last page, which mentions Matriarch Gyrull and some relics that seem to have precipitated his hasty departure.’

‘The relics they took from Snizort?’ said Yggur.

‘I don’t know. Pack everything up; we’re going to Booreah Ngurle. That’s probably where he’s headed.’

‘He’ll be long gone before we get there.’

‘Not if we hurry. We’re not much further away.’

But it took longer than expected to pack the partly assembled field controller, and when they reached Booreah Ngurle late in the night it was erupting violently. They settled in the forest for a few hours’ sleep, returning at dawn. They could not see the crest of the volcano for dust and falling rocks, and of course there was no sign of the thapter.

‘That’s the end of Nyriandiol,’ said Flydd soberly as Malien circled at a safe distance. ‘One of the most extraordinary places ever built. It’s a shame.’

‘Nothing lasts forever,’ said Malien.

‘Indeed not. Not even our kind.’

‘Where do you want to go now?’

‘I need to talk to Troist. Tiaan and Irisis can finish their work while we’re there. And be careful. We’re down to three thapters now.’

‘You’re down to two,’ Malien pointed out. ‘I still have mine, and I’m always careful.’

Work was the last thing on Irisis’s mind but she continued mechanically, doing whatever Tiaan told her while she tried to understand what Gilhaelith could be up to. His actions didn’t make any sense, though one thing was clear – he didn’t care about people and Nish was in deadly danger.

Malien turned east and they met the army near a small lake between the great lakes of Warde Yallock and Parnggi. The surrounding grassland was clear of enemy so they felt relatively secure, though the lyrinx could not be far away. From here, Troist planned to head east, by paths suitable for clankers, then south to meet the refugees on the other side of Parnggi.

The four remaining mindspeech listeners had recorded intense message activity the previous afternoon and all morning, but in the early afternoon it stopped abruptly. The two thapters continued with the army. It was not attacked again, not even the solitary night raids from flying lyrinx to which Troist had grown accustomed.

‘It’s so quiet,’ said Flydd the morning after that. ‘Too quiet.’

They were camped on a gentle rise, a patch of barren ground with good views over the grassland in every direction. A small fire smoked between the thapters and Irisis was grilling gangrene-coloured offal sausages over it. She wasn’t looking forward to dinner.

‘I can practically feel the enemy’s rage about their loss,’ said Tiaan, who’d spent two days in the bowels of the thapter working on the field controller with Irisis, or by herself after Irisis had gone to bed. It had come together at last and they were going to begin testing after breakfast, Tiaan working as the operator.

Golias’s globe sounded and a voice rumbled like a cow’s belly, the words low and drawn-out.

‘Who was that?’ said Troist.

‘It sounded like Governor Zaeff in Roros,’ said Flydd in amazement. ‘I’ve never spoken to her directly. The fields must be marvellously aligned today.’

‘What did she say?’

‘I couldn’t make it out.’ He turned to the farspeaker. ‘This is Scrutator Flydd, north of Borgistry. Please repeat your message, Governor Zaeff.’

It came again, after a wait of two or three minutes. ‘The enemy have abandoned the field of battle …’ The rest was lost in noises like water bubbling in blocked drains.

‘Please repeat that, Governor Zaeff. It sounded as if you said the enemy were retreating.’

‘… were preparing to … walls of Roros … within hours of overcoming us … are streaming west …’

‘Are you saying that the enemy have broken off the attack?’ Flydd said incredulously.

‘Yes,’ said Zaeff. ‘I don’t believe … miracles … else can I explain …?’

‘When did this happen?’

Another long wait. ‘Yesterday morning…. felt sure it … a decoy … kept our silence until … knew what was happening.’

Flydd tried to call the other cities in the east, but could not raise any of them. Their fields were not aligned, so he had to go through the laborious process of having his calls relayed. It took hours, but in the end proved worth it. From Taranta to Tiksi, all had the same news. The lyrinx had broken off all attacks in the east and, accounting for time differences, at the same time.

‘It’s got to be a trick,’ said Troist. ‘They’re trying to lure us out after them.’

‘Strange kind of trick,’ said Irisis.

‘In the past weeks we’ve lost everything in the east but a few walled cities,’ said Troist, ‘and we’ve no hope of recovering it. The enemy can afford to forgo some of their gains if it means we capitulate sooner. Now the end is near they may want to limit their own casualties.’

‘Abandoning sieges which will soon have to be renewed seems a strange way of doing it,’ said Flydd.

‘Governor Zaeff has a thapter at Roros. Ask her to find out what the lyrinx are doing.’

‘She already has,’ said Flydd. ‘They waited out of range of the walls of Roros for the rest of the day and night, then headed south-west. The fliers were followed as far as the Wahn Barre, the Crow Mountains, which they were flying across when the thapter turned back. The lyrinx on the ground were marching in the same direction.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Troist. ‘The enemy must have found a way to seize control of our farspeakers. These messages are lies, to lure us out of our refuges – they’ve got to be. You know we’ve never been able to speak directly to Roros, Flydd.’

‘You could be right,’ said Flydd, frowning and pulling at his bristly chin. ‘But we’ve got to know, either way.’

During the day, similar messages were received from the other eastern cities. Troist plotted the directions the enemy were said to have taken. They intersected in a broad area on the southern extremity of the Dry Sea, to the east of the area occupied by Vithis.

‘What about the lyrinx who were besieging Borgistry?’ said Yggur.

‘They’ve gone into Worm Wood and we can’t find them,’ said Troist.

‘There’s only one way to uncover the truth,’ said Flydd. ‘I’ll have to send one of the thapters east and confirm the flight of the lyrinx, with eyes I can trust.’

‘That’s going to take a long time,’ said Yggur. ‘If your observers can’t report by farspeaker, they’ll have to fly all the way back.’

‘What’s our alternative?’ said Flydd. ‘If we can’t trust our farspeakers, we’ll have to go back to the old reliable ways.’

Kattiloe’s thapter was dispatched to the city it could reach quickest, Tiksi, with three pilots so it could fly non-stop. It would still take at least a week. More messages came in that day and the next. Hosts of fliers were reported to be streaming from the east, making no attempt at concealment. All were heading towards the same area, if the reports could be believed, though no one trusted anything heard through a farspeaker now, even when the voice was recognisable. Lyrinx were also reported flying north-east from Meldorin, and north from Borgistry.

Troist’s map now had enough lines to show the destination: the old town of Ashmode, a port established an aeon ago when the Dry Sea had still been the Sea of Perion.

‘Why Ashmode?’ said Flydd. ‘The lyrinx have never shown any interest in that part of the world.’

No one could answer the question. Initial tests of the trial field controller having shown promise, Malien and Tiaan were sent to the Dry Sea, to fill in the gaps in Tiaan’s map. Irisis was assigned a team of artisans and told to get a reliable device made with the utmost speed.

SIXTY-TWO

Leaving Booreah Ngurle, now blowing itself to pieces behind them, Gilhaelith set off for the Marches of Tacnah, a flight of more than a hundred leagues.

‘Get some sleep,’ he said to Nish and the soldiers. ‘I’m not planning to stop, and there’ll be precious little time after we arrive.’

Nish settled down in a corner but couldn’t sleep for worrying about the geomancer’s intentions. He’d considered trying to foment a rebellion, but surely stealing the relics from the enemy was a good outcome?

Gilhaelith and Merryl were down at the other end of the thapter. Gilhaelith had a farspeaker on his lap and was spinning the globes, listening, then spinning again. Merryl sat in the corner, steadying a writing tablet with his stump while he took notes. Daesmie was asleep in the corner.

Nish got up and sat beside Merryl, so as to see what he was writing, but the fragments of mindspeech didn’t mean anything to him.

‘I’m not as skilled as Daesmie,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘but we have to keep listening. Every lyrinx who heard that call for help will answer it, and some are bound to be closer than us.’

‘Why would they take the relics to Tacnah?’ said Nish.

‘They were taking them across Tacnah, to hide them. You don’t realise how insecure you’ve made the enemy feel. In a hundred and fifty years there wasn’t one successful attack on their underground cities. Then Snizort was destroyed in a way no one could ever have imagined, and now their six remaining cities have been rendered uninhabitable for years, in a single day. They’re homeless and winter is coming. They’ve lost everything except what they can carry on their backs.’

Gilhaelith kept working, but with little success – Merryl had only a few notes on his tablet by the time Nish began to doze off again. When he woke, Gilhaelith had his geomantic globe on the floor, its bowl resting on the crumpled indigo velvet from its box, and was scrying with the brimstone crystals again.

The light winked from the same place as before. ‘They’re not moving,’ said Merryl.

‘It might be a trap,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Or a false trail.’

‘How could they know about us?’ said Nish.

‘Never underestimate the enemy.’

Including you?

They flew into the night. Nish went up to stand with Kimli, who had begun to sag at the controller. The moon rose, near its full and mostly the dark side, an ill omen, not that Nish believed in such superstitions. Its slanting rays shone reddish silver off the dry plains grass. This was country the like of which he’d never seen before, even during his travels across Almadin. It was completely flat, bone-dry and empty.

‘The City of the Bargemen,’ said Gilhaelith, who had come up to stand on the other side. He pointed to their left, towards a lake shaped like a twisted teardrop. A meandering river ran in one end of it and out the other, its further reaches lost in the night. ‘An odd name, since it’s nothing like a city and the barges are run by the women. It’s built out over the lake on poles of turpentine wood.’

‘Then it’s probably the only settlement in Lauralin safe from the lyrinx’s vengeance,’ Nish observed.

‘I dare say. There’s nowhere that the lyrinx will be safe from mine.’

‘What did they do to you?’ said Nish.

‘They stole me away from Nyriandiol, the only place I’ve ever felt comfortable. They ruined me – I’m going to die the worst death a mancer can suffer …’

‘You look healthy enough to me,’ said Nish, who’d come to realise that Gilhaelith didn’t always tell the truth.

‘That is the worst death, Artificer. To have the body remain as strong as ever while the mind slowly decays from within. I’ve lost a quarter of my faculties already, because of the lyrinx. I might have repaired the damage with my globe but Gyrull denied it to me until it was too late and ensured there were flaws in it. My mind will be gone within a year. But worst of all, I’ll never finish the great project I worked on all my life – to understand the world and the forces that move and shape it. My whole life has been rendered meaningless, and all because of the lyrinx.’

‘So this is all about revenge?’

Gilhaelith was calm, almost good-humoured. There wasn’t a trace of rage in him as he answered. ‘The lyrinx robbed me of all that mattered, so I plan to take the relics that mean everything to them. I find revenge peculiarly nourishing. It’s given me a new purpose.’

They began to pass over forest, though even in this light Nish could see how different it was from the forests he was used to. This was a woodland of scrubby trees, twisted by the unceasing plains wind. They were flying low now and once, as Nish looked down, he saw the moon-reflected gleam of a pair of eyes looking up. He shivered.

‘How far to go?’ he asked.

‘Another twenty leagues,’ said Kimli. She yawned. ‘We should be there just after dawn.’

‘Have you heard anything else, Gilhaelith?’ said Nish.

‘Not a whisper.’

‘Maybe the matriarch is dead.’

‘Or maybe they’re waiting for us. For every action, a reaction. Everything we do with the Art leaves a trace, Nish, and a great adept may be able to find it.’

‘First time I’ve heard of it,’ said Nish.

‘What you know about the Art would fit into a thimble,’ Gilhaelith said crushingly. ‘And you don’t know any great adepts either.’

What about Yggur and Flydd, Nish was going to say. Not to mention Malien. He kept his mouth shut; Gilhaelith was baiting him.

‘If a great lyrinx adept was watching when I scried with the brimstone crystals,’ Gilhaelith went on, ‘he’s had plenty of time to close the trap.’

The moon dropped toward the western horizon, and as it sank the sun rose in the other direction, over the Marches of Tacnah. It was a featureless plain without rivers, lakes, or even a creek. Not a single tree could be seen; not a rock or a bush. The sparse tussock grass was grey, the soil red.

‘What a bleak place,’ said Nish.

Gilhaelith came up the ladder to see for himself. ‘The lyrinx won’t find it easy to ambush us here.’

But they can camouflage themselves to look like anything, Nish thought.

‘Not long now,’ said Gilhaelith. He went down to his globe, then called, ‘A little more to the east, Kimli.’

‘It should be just around here,’ he said a few minutes later. ‘Can you see anything?’

Nish was scanning the horizon with a spyglass. ‘Only red dirt and grey grass.’

‘Go higher, Kimli, and circle around.’

Kimli took the thapter up to a height of a few hundred spans. She could barely keep her hand on the controller now.

‘Are you all right?’ said Nish.

‘So tired …’

‘Anything?’ called Gilhaelith.

‘No,’ Kimli whispered.

‘What did you say?’ said Gilhaelith.

‘Lyrinx!’ yelled Nish. ‘In the west. Flying fast towards us.’

Gilhaelith shot up the ladder and took the spyglass. ‘And more coming from the south.’ He barked a bitter laugh. ‘At least we know we’re in the right place.’

‘Can’t you scry again?’

‘To locate the matriarch precisely, I’d need a globe a thousand spans in diameter.’

They went around and around as the flights of lyrinx drew ever closer. With the spyglass, Nish estimated twenty in the western group, a few more in the more distant southern flight. ‘They’re coming straight for us,’ he said, seized by a sudden thought.

Kimli, who had been sagging at the controller, let out a little squeak and stood up straighter.

‘Of course they are,’ said Gilhaelith.

‘No, both flights are heading for us,’ said Nish. ‘You’d think one would be going to the matriarch, unless she’s directly below and we can’t see her.’

‘She’s had plenty of time to skin-change.’

Nish swept the spyglass around the horizon. While the lyrinx stayed still, skin-changing could conceal them, but once they moved they would be visible. He went all the way around, once and again, then a flying lyrinx flashed across his view, camouflaged to disappear against the sky.

He went around again and saw another lyrinx, or was it the same one? It wasn’t flying towards him. It was streaking low across the grass to a point a little north of them.

‘We’re in the wrong place,’ yelled Nish. ‘There, Kimli.’

Kimli, bright-eyed now, whirled the thapter around so fast that Nish was thrown against the side. She calculated the place the lyrinx was heading for, maybe half a league away, and accelerated towards it.

‘Can we get there before it does?’ snapped Gilhaelith.

‘Yes,’ said the pilot, ‘but …’

‘The others will get here before we can snatch the relics. Hoy, Flangers! Pass the farspeaker up here, would you. I may need it.’

It came up the hatch. Gilhaelith spun the globes, froze them and waited.

‘There they are,’ cried Kimli, changing course so abruptly that the farspeaker almost went over the side. The mechanism of the thapter screamed, she seemed to bounce it off solid air, put it sideways and stopped in a cloud of torn-up tussocks and a whirlwind of red dirt.

Nish was impressed. He’d had reservations about her skills in the early days, but Kimli was proving nearly as good a pilot as Chissmoul.

Five lyrinx lay on the ground. Three were dead and their skin had faded to an oily grey that stood out against the red soil. No, it was their inner skin, gone dry and wrinkly. They must have shed the armoured layer in their agony and then, exposed to the sun and wind, they had died. The fourth was still twitching, its fanged mouth opening and closing. It had torn its chest armour to shreds and crumpled pieces of bloody armour still clung to its claws.

The fifth, a huge green-crested female, was practically invisible, her skin matching the texture of the pebbly soil. Her wings, camouflaged the same colour, were spread out over several long crates.

‘It’s Matriarch Gyrull,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Get the relics!’

Nish went over the side and ran toward the relics but one wing stirred and a fist of air thumped him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. It was more than just air, though. It had the Art behind it and Nish found it hard to get up again. All his nerve fibres were singing.

The matriarch lifted her head and tried to speak. Her armoured skin was blistered and had peeled away at throat and groin to reveal the sensitive inner skin, which looked as though it had been dipped in acid.

‘Matriarch Gyrull,’ said Nish, rising painfully. He bowed. She was a noble figure, after all, and he’d been taught respect at an early age.

He saw the dismay in her eyes. Mottled patterns chased each other across her chest and shoulders. The wing stirred and he felt another blow from her Art. This one was like a punch in the chest but not enough to hurt him. She was fading rapidly.

‘I should have allowed Ryll to send you to the slaughtering pens,’ she croaked. Her eyes were on Gilhaelith, who was on top of the thapter.

‘You should have,’ said Gilhaelith.

The soldiers leapt over the side and were racing for the crates when the first of the fliers shot across the bare ground towards them. Gilhaelith held the farspeaker close to his mouth and roared.

The lyrinx’s wings locked; it let out a paralysed squawk and ploughed into the ground, skidding on its chest and belly armour. Another close behind it did the same, the pair coming to rest in a tangle of limbs and wings. They swung around, and in their eyes was the same distress Gyrull had shown – that the precious relics might be lost. Their clawed feet tossed red dust into the air as they tried to rise, but their legs wouldn’t support them.

Two soldiers hefted the first crate, staggered to the thapter and slid it up onto the carrying racks. Flangers was limping for the second. Gyrull let out a despairing cry, her skin colours exploded into brilliant reds, yellows and blacks and she forced herself to her feet. Blood ebbed from the shredded skin. Her armour burst apart along the plates of her chest, revealing raw, bleeding flesh beneath. Red tears ran from her eyes but she took one excruciating step towards them. She would protect the relics whatever the cost to herself.

She took another step. Blood was running down her belly and thighs; her great maw was twisted in agony, but she reached out a hand and power fizzed from it. Nish froze in place, right foot upraised, the opposite hand outstretched. He couldn’t move, and the soldiers were similarly afflicted.

Gyrull took another step. ‘Come on!’ shouted Gilhaelith, but none of the soldiers could move. He clambered onto the rear platform of the thapter, his right hand in a filigree basket, working some Art of his own.

Gyrull strained so hard that her chest plates burst away, but she took another step, and another. She was almost to the racks now.

Gilhaelith attempted a different working. Gyrull dismissed it with a flash of skin colours on what outer skin she had left. Forcing herself against the torture, she threw herself at the racks and caught the end of the crate.

Nish was still paralysed as Gyrull took the crate in both hands and tried to lift it off. Nish was struck with admiration, that she could overcome such agony to regain, against such odds, the most precious things in the world to her people. He felt sure she would, for the other lyrinx were only minutes away.

Gyrull hefted the crate onto her bloody shoulder and staggered back with it. Gilhaelith abandoned his Arts, which were clearly inferior to hers, leapt down through the hatch and reappeared with a crossbow. He slid in a bolt, clumsily wound the cranks and pointed it at Gyrull’s back. The bow wobbled in his hands, but not even a novice could miss her from here.

He fired. She jerked, turned halfway around and the crate slid from her hands, raising clouds of dust when it hit the ground. Gyrull’s claws scraped at the wound, fell to her sides and she thudded to the ground beside the crate. Though she struggled until the soil around her was purple with blood, she could not force herself to her feet again.

The paralysis vanished. Nish ran to help recover the first crate and tie it down, while the paired soldiers went for the second and third. The downed lyrinx were on their feet, wobbly but recovering rapidly. He felt for his sword.

Once more Gilhaelith roared into the farspeaker. The lyrinx collapsed again, though this time they were up rather more quickly. Each time the device was used, it seemed to affect them less.

He roared again. They checked, their mouths open in pain but they remained on their feet. Gyrull was still struggling, though weakly. She urged the lyrinx on in her own tongue, reinforcing her exhortations with fiery skin-speech on her rags of outer skin.

The second pair of soldiers were struggling to lift the last crate. They carried it a few steps, let it down hard then hefted it again. Flangers hobbled across to help them while his mate stood by with the rack ropes.

The two lyrinx struggled towards them as if walking through thigh-deep honey, but suddenly broke free and went for the last crate. The other fliers were closing rapidly and once they arrived all would be lost. Nish threw himself between the lyrinx and the crate, swinging his sword around his head, hoping to make enough of a diversion for Flangers to heave the crate onto the racks.

The two lyrinx stopped, cast a couple of blows in his direction, which he ducked, then went around him on either side. Nish whirled, attacking the one on his right from behind, though his blow did not penetrate its armour.

‘Get aboard!’ shouted Gilhaelith. ‘We’ve got what we came for.’

The lyrinx were now between the thapter and Nish, running for the racks. Two soldiers took on the creature to Nish’s left. One soldier went down from a backhanded blow to the side of the head but the second fought on.

Flangers and the fourth soldier were already climbing the ladder; the thapter began to move, stirring up clouds of red dust. The lyrinx on Nish’s right sprang and landed on the racks, frantically slashing at the ropes with its claws and teeth, and tearing one of the metal covers of the thapter half off. Flangers armed a crossbow and jumped awkwardly onto the rear platform, landing just a span from the creature. His weak leg shook and he nearly went over the side, but the lyrinx didn’t look around. It kept clawing at the ropes. Flangers shot it and it fell off just as the first flight of lyrinx came hurtling through the drifting dust. The second flight was close behind.

Kimli spun the thapter to approach Nish from the other side. Gilhaelith was shouting at her. The second soldier had fallen.

‘Get aboard!’ she screeched.

Lyrinx flew at the thapter from all directions, teeth bared and eyes wild.

‘Go!’ Gilhaelith roared. ‘Leave him.’

Kimli nudged the machine across towards Nish, who took a running leap and managed to catch hold of the racks with one hand. The thapter jerked into the air, he lost his grip and fell hard.

‘Get going!’ Gilhaelith must have grabbed the pilot’s hand and pulled up on the controller, for the thapter took off vertically through the lyrinx. It stopped in mid-air about twenty spans up and hovered while they desperately beat their way to it.

Gilhaelith climbed onto the rear platform and shouted down to Gyrull. ‘Mindspeak this message to your people, Matriarch! Withdraw your armies from east and west or I’ll burn your relics to ash and scatter them from one side of the Dry Sea to the other.’

‘What would you have us do?’ she croaked, barely able to raise her head.

The thapter lifted another ten spans to remain out of reach of the despairing lyrinx.

Gilhaelith raised his voice. ‘Assemble your armies on the cliffs near Ashmode, at the edge of the Dry Sea north-west of here, and bring the power patterner with you. In exchange, I will return your precious relics.’

‘We will not give up the flisnadr,’ said the matriarch.

‘I know your deepest secrets,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘You’ll abandon everything else to recover the relics.’

‘You know nothing about us, Tetrarch.’

Nish couldn’t see how she found the strength to speak. And then a dozen lyrinx, diving out of the dazzle of the sun, plunged head-down straight for the thapter.

‘On the contrary,’ began Gilhaelith. ‘No! Kimli –’

She’d already acted. The thapter shot sideways, flinging Gilhaelith to his knees. ‘Bring the power patterner or lose everything,’ he shouted. The thapter shot away, soon to disappear into the northern sky.

The lyrinx in the air formed a circle and let out a series of shrill, wailing cries, echoed by the creatures on the ground. What would they do now? They’d been driven from their homes and lost the relics that mattered most to them, so what did they have to lose? Had he helped to precipitate Armageddon?

The lyrinx on the ground turned to attend to him, and Nish discovered that he was alone – the other soldier no longer had a head. He put up his hands, but the closest lyrinx seemed in no mood to accept his surrender, while another score of lyrinx were even now surrounding him. They landed heavily, puffing up more red dust. Nish had never seen such violent and threatening skin colours.

The nearest lyrinx caught Nish around the chest in a crushing grip. Its claws dug into his ribs, the enormous mouth opened and green saliva sprayed his cheeks. It was going to bite his head off. He closed his eyes.

‘Thlamp!’ said a female voice. ‘Inixxi rurr!’

The lyrinx dropped him on the ground and put its foot on him. Nish opened his eyes. The lyrinx that had spoken was unlike any of the others. It was slender, relatively speaking, with enormous pale wings that lacked pigmentation. Its skin was likewise uncoloured apart from the faintest tinge of green on its crest, indicating a mature female. Most unusual of all was the absence of armoured skin that protected the other lyrinx. Her soft outer skin, though coated with wax, was practically transparent. He could see her breasts through it.

‘I am Liett, daughter of Wise Mother Gyrull, who is now dying in agony because of you,’ the female said in the common tongue. ‘You are my prisoner and I’m going to see the colour of your blood.’

Liett’s wings caught the sunlight with a shimmering, pearly opalescence. Had he seen her before? Yes, he had. His eyes widened.

‘Do I know you, human?’ said Liett.

‘You slashed my balloon near Tirthrax, the winter before last. I was lucky to survive.’

‘Had I done the job properly,’ she said savagely, ‘we would not be here now. What is your name?’

He told her. She bent down and, though smaller and less muscular than the others, easily picked him up in one hand. Liett inspected him from top to toe. ‘There is a vague memory. You humans all look the same – like the squirming grubs we hooked out from under the bark of trees to feed the despised tetrarch.’

Liett tossed him into the dust. ‘Bind him tight,’ she said to the other lyrinx, though in the common tongue. ‘If he tries to escape you may eat his feet and lower legs, if you can stomach them, but no more. I don’t want him to die until after we have questioned him; and he has answered.’

Nish was bound hand and foot and left on the ground. Liett crouched beside her mother, spreading her beautiful wings to shade the dying matriarch. After giving Gyrull a drink from a canister on her hip, Liett spoke to her at length in low tones, in the lyrinx tongue.

She kept pointing to the northern sky and shaking one fist, as if counselling an all-out attack. The gathered lyrinx flashed the same aggressive reds and yellows as Gyrull had displayed earlier, but now Gyrull’s colours were muted pinks and purples, in swirling patterns that Nish interpreted as soothing or conciliatory. Acquiescence to Gilhaelith’s demands? More likely it would be feigned acquiescence until they recovered the relics, followed by an overwhelming onslaught to destroy the man who had so insulted them. And he, Nish, had been part of that sacrilege. He could expect no mercy either.

Liett glanced at him, her expression only marginally less threatening. She turned back to her mother, though this time she seemed to be presenting a different argument. She went to her knees, bowed low and spoke in a submissive way, looking up sideways at the matriarch.

Gyrull spoke so quietly that Nish didn’t catch a word, though Liett seemed vexed at her reply. She began her pleading anew but Gyrull only shook her head.

‘Ryll!’ she said.

Liett stood up abruptly. ‘Ryll?’ she repeated, as if dumbfounded.

‘Ryll.’

Liett turned away and stalked across the dirt, raising a storm of dust. She came back at once, trying to look contrite, and bowing until her head touched the ground. The matriarch said something in the lyrinx tongue. Liett called her fellows and they formed a tight circle, lifting Gyrull to her feet, supporting her and leaning over her with their foreheads touching. They began to chant.

Gyrull was beyond healing, as they must realise. He had the impression that they were combining their powers to broadcast a sending to their brethren, telling them of the theft, and Gilhaelith’s demand.

The chant built up until it became a thigh-slapping, foot-stamping roar. Finally, with a cry that went ringing across the plain, they broke apart and all flopped down, panting.

All but one. The matriarch swayed on her feet for a moment. She turned her head and her golden flecked eyes met Nish’s, but she was already dead. The air rushed from her chest with a sighing sound and she fell into the dust.

Liett enveloped her mother in her wings, held her for a minute then let her go. She stood up and signed to the group, who began to excavate a grave with their claws.

Stalking across to Nish, Liett lifted him again. ‘The call has gone out,’ she said between her teeth. ‘While we wait, I will talk and you will answer.’

SIXTY-THREE

Nish told Liett as little as he could without seeming uncooperative. Fortunately he had no idea what Flydd’s plans were.

After the interrogation was over, the lyrinx separated. Liett picked Nish up in her claws and carried him, dangling like a rabbit in an eagle’s talons, on a long flight north-west. She flew for the remainder of the day, stopping at dark in a nondescript range of hills where she tied him to a tree while she went hunting. He hung there miserably, the claw punctures in his back and sides throbbing. She soon returned with a small, black-haired goat which she skinned and ate, bones, entrails and all.

Once she’d licked the blood off her chin and hands, Liett freed Nish’s hands and tossed a freshly skinned rabbit at him. It hit him wetly in the chest and fell to the dirt.

‘What am I supposed to do with this?’ he said.

‘It’s all the dinner you’re getting.’

‘But it’s raw!’

She took it back and ate it with a few appreciative gulps, head and all. She retied his hands, lay down and went to sleep. Nish didn’t sleep a wink. Before dawn they were off again, and eventually he recognised the long expanse of Warde Yallock, the largest lake in Lauralin.

Near the northern end of the lake she wheeled over the water several times before flying into a cave among hundreds that honeycombed vertical cliffs a hundred spans high. At the entrance she set Nish down while she folded her wings. He looked over the drop and his stomach churned. It was possible to climb up or down, if you were a lyrinx with clawed feet and hands, or fly in and out. Since he couldn’t do either, the place was as secure as any prison.

Liett spoke to the guard by the entrance, who pointed around the corner to the next cave. Taking Nish under one gamy arm she climbed across the sheer rock face and inside. Not far from the entrance, working in the light, was a wingless male who was also vaguely familiar.

On seeing Liett the male’s maw split into a smile of delighted surprise. He came striding out, arms spread, but Liett, scowling, thrust him away. After a heated exchange in the lyrinx tongue she threw Nish at the male, ran back to the entrance and hurled herself out. Her wings cracked and she raced away.

The wingless male stared after her, his skin colours flickering as if bemused, then turned to Nish. ‘My name is Ryll,’ he said, in an accent not dissimilar to Nish’s own. ‘And you, I’m told, are Cryl-Nish Hlar, son of the Scrutator Jal-Nish Hlar.’

‘He was my father,’ Nish said coldly, ‘until you ate him.’

‘I ate your father?’ said Ryll. ‘I don’t think so, human. I would have recognised him.’

‘Not you personally. Your people ate him at the battle of Gumby Marth.’

‘Did they? I was not there. I’m sorry for the loss of your father, Cryl-Nish. I lost my own when I was young.’

‘It was a mercy,’ Nish muttered. ‘After what you did to him two years ago, before you carried Tiaan away on that flying wing, he was never free of pain.’

Ryll inspected Nish. ‘I recognise you now – small but valiant. You’ve grown face hair since our last encounter. As for your father, we fought each other and I did no more than he would have done to me.’ Ryll spoke mildly, almost kindly, with none of the passion that characterised Liett. ‘I hate this war as much as you do, human.’

‘You started it!’

‘Our records tell otherwise,’ Ryll said. ‘Still, we’re not here to debate history, but for you to tell me everything you know about the plans of your leaders. Why did Gilhaelith the tetrarch steal our relics?’

‘I haven’t got the faintest idea.’

‘Come, Cryl-Nish, you were with him at the time. You laid down your life so that he could escape.’

‘We are at war,’ said Nish. ‘But I know no more than his parting message to Gyrull –’

‘Matriarch Gyrull! Show respect, human.’

‘Matriarch Gyrull. I’m sorry. Not everyone trusts Gilhaelith. Some people think he’s on your side.’

Ryll let out what could only be interpreted as a honk of derision.

‘He traded with lyrinx for many years,’ said Nish. ‘He helped you in Snizort and worked with you in Alcifer.’

‘We did not find him entirely trustworthy at Snizort. Thereafter he attempted to make deals with us, and sold us one or other worthless secrets in exchange for his living, but he never worked for us. Indeed, I planned to send him to the slaughtering pens once he was no further use, though only a very hungry lyrinx would have gnawed on his rank bones.’

‘I thought you lyrinx would eat anything,’ said Nish thoughtlessly.

‘And I thought you humans were treacherous, murdering scum,’ said Ryll in his unemotional way, ‘until I met Tiaan and discovered that humans could also be decent and honourable. There’s a lesson for both our peoples. Anyway, we no longer eat humans. Enough of philosophy – how did you know our Wise Mother had the relics?’

Nish didn’t answer at once, for he didn’t want to aid the enemy. But then, Gilhaelith could also be an enemy. ‘Gilhaelith found a way to eavesdrop on your mindspeech, with farspeakers.’

‘Ahhh,’ sighed Ryll. ‘How did he know our tongue?’

‘One of your former slaves, called Merryl …’

Ryll grimaced. ‘We should have secured Merryl before we left Snizort. Alas, in the chaos, many vital things remained undone. What did Gilhaelith do then?’

‘He learned that your matriarch had the relics, but was dying. He kept it from everyone else, stole a thapter and fled.’

‘Stole a thapter? So he is an outcast among you. How did he find our sacred relics?’

Nish hesitated.

‘You can either tell me now or, with the greatest regret, I will torture you until you beg for death, and then you will tell me.’

The latter course seemed more virtuous, more noble, though Nish could not see a lot of point to it. ‘He scried it out with his geomantic globe.’

‘The same one he perfected in Alcifer using our maps – or thinks he did.’

Nish was not treated badly, though that did not surprise him. The lyrinx used torture where necessary to extract information, but did not torment for the sake of it, as humans did.

Ryll returned to his work, whatever it was, with a barrel-shaped device in a recess further down the cave. Nish didn’t learn anything about it, for he was carried back to the adjoining cave. There he was given a wooden bucket and a fly-covered chunk of raw meat, so torn and filthy that he couldn’t tell what animal it had come from. He felt sick just looking at it, but in the end he ate it, knowing that he’d get nothing else. He wasn’t questioned further, and discovered only that he was a hostage.

After about a fortnight in the caves, the lyrinx abruptly departed late one afternoon. Nish was carried up to the top of the cliffs, where Ryll and a large band of lyrinx had gathered. Ryll carried the barrel-shaped object on his back, securely covered. Liett was there too. He gave it to her and she flew north-east with a large escort.

‘We’re marching to meet our fellows at the edge of the Dry Sea,’ said Ryll. ‘I trust you’re well shod, Nish? You humans have such useless soft feet.’

‘What are you going to do with me?’ said Nish.

‘We may exchange you, and other prisoners held elsewhere, if we get our relics back.’

‘What if you don’t?’

Ryll made neck-wringing motions with his huge hands.

Nish’s boots were in good condition, though he wasn’t much used to walking. His recent travels had been in thapters, air-floaters, constructs or clankers. The group set off at a pace he could barely maintain and, after an hour, when his legs had turned to rubber, he was taken on the shoulders of one or other of the lyrinx. It was not a position he found comfortable or dignified. They walked all night and until mid-morning the following day, and did the same every day.

The only rest they took was for the six hours in the middle of the day and, while he was carried for all but a few hours of the march, Nish was never anything but exhausted. However, the trip proved uneventful, and although he remained alert for opportunities to escape, they gave him none.

One day they were moving across a broad valley where the river was just a series of long pools up to a league in length, separated by gravel banks covered in tall reeds. Ryll and most of the lyrinx had crossed the gravel and Nish was stumbling along at the rear, with only a single lyrinx to guard him.

Without warning, a battered construct shot out of the reeds in front of them. Another construct pushed out behind and Nish heard a third moving in their direction, though he couldn’t tell where it was. The guard, taken by surprise, darted into the reeds to his right. Nish went left and hid.

He heard the sound of a construct as it pursued the rest of the lyrinx across the river. Nish crouched down and did not move, hoping that the Aachim had not noticed him dart into the reeds, but unfortunately the other two constructs remained where they were. He could hear the gentle whine of their mechanisms now, and Aachim calling to one another in their own tongue. They began to tramp through the reeds and he debated whether it was better to remain where he was or to run. He stayed.

It wouldn’t have made any difference, for they converged on him from two sides – a thickset man with flashes of white at the temples, a dark-skinned woman with a badly scarred right arm. He recognised the woman’s face, though not her name. He had seen her at some stage in his captivity a year and a half ago.

She recognised him too. ‘Cryl-Nish Hlar!’ she exclaimed. ‘What were you doing with those lyrinx?’

‘I was a hostage.’

‘Lucky we were patrolling well outside our borders. Come, you look as though you could do with a ride. And Vithis will be pleased to see you, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Nish echoed. He could well imagine it.

The three constructs headed directly to the Hornrace, hardly stopping night and day, though it seemed to take a couple of days to get there. Nish could not be sure because he slept most of the time. In his waking moments, he wondered what the Aachim wanted of him. Information, no doubt. Nish was not sure that Vithis was much of an improvement on Ryll.

He woke before dawn of the second night of travel, sated with sleep, and went up the ladder. The woman with the scarred arm was at the controls but seemed disinclined to talk. Nish pulled himself up onto the top and sat with his legs dangling down the hatch, enjoying the cool breeze on his face and the sweetish, musky perfume of the little trumpet-shaped desert flowers that only opened at night.

The construct climbed up from a small depression and, straight ahead, he saw three lights in a line, one above the other. The highest was a good hand-span above the starry horizon. After an hour they did not seem appreciably closer.

‘What are the lights?’ he said.

‘Vithis’s watch-tower.’ She absently stroked the writhen scars on her forearm.

‘It must be a tall one.’

She didn’t bother to answer. Shortly dawn broke and the shimmering heat haze obscured the land ahead. Nish couldn’t see any sign of a tower.

In the mid-morning it suddenly sprang up out of nowhere and the tower was so high that it could be seen across the arid plain an hour before they reached it. It was a needle of stone floating on a mirage which only dissolved when they were a couple of leagues away. Now the true enormity of the structure Vithis had built there was revealed, a vast rectangle of stone, hundreds of spans high, with stepped cubes forming a pyramid above that. The spire-topped needle tower rose from its top, suspended on five slender, arching wings.

Nish first heard the whisper of the Hornrace, an ocean flowing into an empty sea, shortly after that, and it grew ever louder. By the time the construct drew up at the foot of the building the music of the water had become a monumental roaring and crashing, so loud that it was difficult to talk over it. The building arched right across the Hornrace and was called simply the Span.

Ahead lay a door wide enough to admit the three constructs side by side. They whined into the bowels of the structure down a spiral path cut into stone, then stopped. Nish was led up a series of stairs whose sweeping shape was vaguely reminiscent of those in Tirthrax.

They emerged on an open floor paved with pale sandstone. The space was filled with the rush of flowing water. Nish was escorted across to the middle, where a slot in the floor wide enough to have engulfed a construct, though ten times as long, emitted wisps of vapour. He looked down and his head exploded with vertigo. He was directly above the Hornrace.

Nish felt himself leaning forward, almost as if he wanted to fall. The escort’s fingers clamped onto his left biceps.

‘The lure of the depths is powerful, but Vithis would be vexed if I allowed you to escape him that way.’

Nish took another glance at the torrent and shuddered. The roar was muted here, compared to outside. They went left, up a whirling stair into a perfectly circular room with glass walls that looked out on the Dry Sea, as well as down to the race and up to the stars. Vithis stood at the side, looking away. He did not turn as Nish entered, though Nish knew the Aachim was aware of him.

‘You’ve come to gloat!’ Time had only honed the bitter edge to his voice.

‘It was not my wish to come at all,’ Nish said.

Vithis turned. It was more than a year since Nish had last seen him, but he looked decades older. His hair was white, his face etched with such grief that Nish could hardly bear to look at him. Though Vithis had not treated him kindly and was a cold, unlikable man, Nish was moved by his suffering.

‘Clan Inthis is lost. After all this time, I’ve heard no more than whispers on the ethyr.’ Vithis spoke slowly, each word measured out as before, but he seemed a lesser figure than the man Nish had known.

‘Do you mean,’ said Nish, bemused, ‘that you built all this just to search for your lost clan?’

‘Why else would I have built it?’ said Vithis.

‘We thought … at least …’

‘Go on. What did your friends Flydd and Yggur and treacherous Malien think?’

‘After you went north so suddenly, after the battle of Snizort,’ Nish said haltingly, ‘it was thought that you’d made a pact with our enemy.’

‘I don’t ally with savages.’

Hadn’t Vithis threatened to do just that in the early days? Nish could no longer remember all the twists and turns of the war.

‘I left because Tiaan had destroyed Minis, my last hope,’ Vithis went on, speaking so slowly that each word was like the grinding of an enormous mill.

‘Is Minis dead?’

‘What do you care for Minis?’

‘I liked him,’ said Nish softly. ‘We were … friends.’ Insofar as such a weak, flawed man as Minis could make friends.

‘Minis is dead to me,’ Vithis said dismissively. ‘He’s not a whole man any more.’

‘So that’s why you abandoned all plans for conquest and retreated here,’ said Nish. ‘With Minis disabled, the only way to restore your clan was to find the ones lost in the gate.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought that needed to be stated.’

‘It does to us, surr. Humanity reads everything through the lens of our unending war. When you began to build this great tower, at such a powerful node … everyone … that is, Scrutator Flydd, believed that you were making a great weapon of war to strike down our army at a single blow.’

‘What small minds you old humans have – I care nothing for your petty wars. This tower has one purpose and only one. It is a beacon, beaming through the limitless void, to tell my lost people that I’m searching for them. Its signal is so powerful that, if they can impress their cry for help upon it and bounce it back, I’ll be able to find them. And once I do, I’ll come for them if I have to tear the very void asunder.’

‘You say “I”,’ said Nish. ‘Is this the will of all your people?’

‘Of course,’ Vithis said. ‘They voted me leader. Don’t think to come between us, Cryl-Nish Hlar.’

‘I wasn’t. How do you know First Clan is out there?’

‘Tiaan,’ the name dripped like venom from his tongue, ‘heard their cries and their lost wailing after the gate was opened. Later still, I too heard cries for help. Just twice, a long time ago, but I knew they were out there.’

‘How will you get them back?’

‘Another tower in another place will create the greatest gate that has ever been built.’

‘But if you make a gate into the void,’ said Nish carefully, knowing Vithis’s rages of old, ‘don’t you risk more void creatures coming through? That’s how the lyrinx got here in the first place.’

‘There’s nothing I won’t do to get Inthis First Clan back.’

SIXTY-FOUR

Vithis questioned Nish about Flydd and Yggur’s plans, in much the same way as the lyrinx had done, though he displayed little interest in Nish’s answers. Vithis no longer feared the lyrinx and could not have cared less about the fate of humanity. First Clan was the only thing on his mind.

Nish was given a room with a window that looked south across the arid plains of Narkindie, and allowed to roam at will through the tower, so little did they fear him, though he was not permitted to go outside. After wandering on the first day he kept to the one floor, for the tower had been thrown up so quickly that it looked the same everywhere.

A few days later, he was eating black bread and spicy pickled fish in the open dining chamber when he heard the click of someone walking with a pair of crutches.

‘Hello, Nish.’

The voice was Minis’s, though the face was that of a stranger. Minis had aged more brutally than his foster-father. He was no longer an impossibly handsome young man, but one who’d been cast prematurely into a tormented middle age. The once smooth cheeks were now weathered like a desert hermit’s and creased with vertical pain lines to either side of his mouth. He walked with an awkward twist of the hips and, though he wore robes, the stump of his right leg, amputated at mid-thigh, was clearly visible.

Nish rose abruptly, unable to keep the shock off his face. Minis faltered, then came on, forcing a smile.

‘How are you, Minis?’ Nish held out his hand and the Aachim’s first finger and thumb wrapped right around it. The other fingers were gone.

The smile vanished. ‘Even less a man than when last we met,’ Minis said bitterly. ‘And no man at all to Foster-father.’

‘But …’ Nish found his eyes drawn down to Minis’s groin, then had to look away. He had no idea what to say.

‘It’s not that. Though my pelvis was smashed, in the vital respect I’m still whole. But to Vithis a maimed man is no man at all. He’s given up on me and thrown everything into this insane search for First Clan. They’re dead and gone but he can’t see it – or won’t. I think he’s going out of his mind.’

‘What do the other clans think?’ asked Nish.

‘The same, but discord would be fatal on this alien world so they’ve allowed him his way, for the time being.’

‘Well, if he’s given up on you,’ said Nish carefully, for he’d had dealings with Minis before and knew how erratic he could be, ‘you’re free at last.’

‘Free for what? What can I do like this? First Clan is extinct and no other clan would take in a maimed man. I have no future, Nish.’

‘Perhaps, outside …’ Nish began, only because he had to say something.

‘Within days I would feed the lyrinx and, though I’ve nothing to live for, I cling to the rags of the life I have.’

‘In time, Vithis may –’

‘He’ll never forgive me for calling across the void to Tiaan, or for her answering my call. He would sooner we’d all died in Aachan’s volcanic fires than end up clanless on this accursed world. Neither has he forgiven me for instructing Tiaan in the making of the gate, because it went wrong.

‘But most criminally of all, I allowed Tiaan to escape, causing many deaths, my own maiming and Foster-father’s humiliation. She took the secret of flying constructs with her, which everyone now has but us, and not even our brethren at Stassor will reveal it to us. It was my own fault – Tiaan feared for her life and begged me to help her escape. I promised to do so and yet …’ His eyes met Nish’s and Minis flushed a ruddy brown. ‘And yet, when it came down to it, I couldn’t find the courage to defy Foster-father and betray our people. I did nothing and so, by default, betrayed the woman I love. This is my punishment. I am bile in Foster-father’s mouth. And in my own, it need not be said.’

Nish had to look away to hide his contempt. Minis’s dilemma had been a wrenching one, but Nish would have felt more respect for the man if he’d turned Tiaan in. At least he’d have made a choice, instead of doing nothing and whining about his regrets afterwards.

‘Had it not been for you,’ Nish said, to try to salvage something, ‘none of your people would ever have reached Santhenar. The Aachim would be extinct on your home world. You saved them.’

‘Foster-father does not count that to my advantage.’ Minis clicked away, turned, then said suddenly, ‘Have you seen Tiaan lately?’

‘Not for some time, though we’ve had many adventures together in the past year. We’ve become friends, and I’m as surprised to be saying it as you must be to hear it.’

‘I’m not surprised at all,’ said Minis, and for the first time there was a spark of life in his eyes as he turned back to Nish. ‘How did it come about? Tell me everything.’

Nish related his story from the time he’d last been with Minis, during their escape from burning Snizort, and how Tiaan had saved his life on more than one occasion.

‘She’s a wonderful woman,’ Minis sighed. ‘Tell me, does she have many lovers? I suppose she must.’

Nish resented the question and felt disloyal for answering it, though he did, curtly. ‘As Tiaan is my friend, I wish you hadn’t asked. But since you were … are also my friend, I’ll do you the courtesy of an answer. As far as I know, she has no lovers at all.’

‘Ah.’ Minis looked away. ‘Do you think there’s any chance for a maimed man like me?’

Another question Nish didn’t want to answer. ‘Minis, how can I tell what is in Tiaan’s mind? She keeps her feelings to herself.’

‘Please, Nish. In your heart, do you feel she might ever consider me?’ Minis’s shiny eyes were on him, hope warring with dread.

Nish delayed his response for as long as he could. ‘In all honesty, Minis …’ He searched his former friend’s face. What would be worse: to lie or to tell the truth? It had to be the truth, and in terms Minis couldn’t possibly misunderstand. ‘If she loved you, it wouldn’t matter that you are maimed. But you betrayed her and that must have killed her feelings for you. I’m sorry. I wish you hadn’t asked.’

Minis turned away, trying to compose his ravaged features. ‘I – I suspected as much. Thank you for telling me. In some respects it makes my choice easier.’

Nish didn’t ask what choice. He didn’t want to know. He just wanted to get away and never see Minis again. They talked about other matters until the conversation petered out. Minis was returning to his work when the floor shook and there came a rumbling from below.

‘What was that?’ said Nish.

‘The earth trembles here from time to time. We often felt it, when we were putting down the foundations.’

Two Aachim, deep in conversation on a bench across the room, also came to their feet but soon sat down again. Minis stood at the misty slot in the floor, looking down at the Hornrace for a drawn-out moment, before nodding curtly and stumping away on his crutches.

The afternoon dragged, as did the night. Nish was used to being busy all his waking hours but there was nothing to do here. He cadged some paper and spent the following day writing down his experiences with the lyrinx, and all the questions Ryll had asked him. Later he recorded Vithis’s interrogation, just in case he escaped.

To ease the boredom, Nish began to do a sketch of the building, or at least the floors he’d been on, but soon put it away. His rudimentary drawing skills could not do the tower’s wonders justice. He returned to the slot over the Hornrace again and again, staring down at the racing water and marvelling at the power of nature, which could reduce such a staggering work as the Span to insignificance.

Again there came that little shudder, but this time the water, hundreds of spans below, cusped up for an instant before the torrent flattened it out again. Three Aachim walking by stopped to remark upon the tremor, which struck Nish as odd if they occurred all the time.

Someone took him by the arm from behind and a deep male voice said, ‘Come this way, please.’

‘Where are we going?’ said Nish.

‘Vithis would like to see you again.’

‘What about?’

The Aachim didn’t answer. In Vithis’s room, the same spherical one as before, the Aachim left him and closed the door.

‘What’s going on, Cryl-Nish?’ Vithis was deadly cold now.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Then you’re a bigger fool than I take you for. Those two tremblers weren’t like the normal ones we have here.’

‘What do you mean?’ Nish’s voice had gone squeaky.

‘Someone is sending me a warning. Who among your kind hates me the most, Cryl-Nish?’

‘I don’t know that anyone hates you,’ said Nish desperately. Had Vithis finally cracked?

‘One of your great powers is trying to bring me down. Who is it – Flydd? Yggur? Gilhaelith?’

‘Maybe it’s one of your own,’ Nish snapped. He was taking a risk, but knew Vithis couldn’t respect anyone who didn’t stand up to him. He also knew of the longstanding bitterness between Vithis and Tirior of Clan Nataz.

‘I have the full support of my people,’ snarled Vithis, and Nish wondered if his guess had struck the mark. ‘Come on; which one is it?’

‘We’re fighting for our lives, surr. No one has time to think about you.’

‘What about Gilhaelith?’ Vithis said menacingly.

‘I hardly know the man.’

‘He’s a geomancer, is he not?’

‘As I understand it,’ said Nish, ‘he wishes to comprehend the roots of the world and all the secrets that go with it.’ He didn’t see any point in mentioning the theft of the relics.

‘Does he now?’ There was a glint in Vithis’s eye. ‘And should he succeed in that impossible aim, what then?’

‘Gilhaelith seeks knowledge and understanding for its own sake.’ That may have been true once. Nish didn’t have a clue what Gilhaelith wanted now.

‘So pure a motive does not exist,’ said Vithis. ‘In my long life, there’s one thing I can be sure of – once people have tasted real power, there are few who can give it up.’

Nish shrugged. ‘Gilhaelith is an enigma.’

‘Even more dangerous,’ said Vithis. ‘Leave now.’

Nish went.

That night he was lying in bed when the stones of the tower let out a groan like a ghost in torment and the room gave a long, sideways shudder. Nish’s wiry hair stood up. He got out of bed, staring at the roof. The room shook the other way but this time it kept shaking. It felt as if the tower had been set vibrating and each oscillation plucked at the foundations of the Span.

Slowly the vibrations died away and did not resume, but sleep had fled. Nish went barefoot down the stairs, drawn to the slot above the Hornrace. The floor was dark but lights from the lower floors illuminated mist rising up through the slot.

He edged to the brink, fascinated by the torrent yet terrified of it. He went down on his belly and crept forward over the last distance.

‘It compels, doesn’t it?’ said a low voice from the darkness. ‘I come here every night, to think and to dream. To wonder if this will be the night when I take that way out.’

Vithis was sitting up the other end of the slot, his long legs dangling over the edge. The tone of his voice frightened Nish, who came to his feet and began to back away.

‘Stay, Cryl-Nish. I mean no harm to you. Come and sit down.’

Nish did so, as far away as he reasonably could. His heart was thudding.

‘They’re trying to destroy me, you know.’

Mad and paranoid. Nish attempted to speak but nothing came out. He swallowed and tried again. ‘Who?’

‘Everyone. Yggur, Flydd, Gilhaelith –’

Nish wondered how the other clans allowed Vithis to remain leader. But then, from what he knew of Aachim Histories, insane obsessiveness was an all too common trait.

‘You think I’m mad,’ Vithis went on, softly. ‘You think the loss of my clan has broken me. It hasn’t, Cryl-Nish. I’m going to bring them back.’

‘What if you can’t find them, surr?’

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Vithis’s eyes caught the light and again Nish felt an urge to run away. ‘I still have Minis,’ he grated, ‘despite what that little bitch did to him. He’s pure First Clan. He’ll build us up again.’

‘Does Minis want to?’ said Nish.

‘Minis wants what I want.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He always has. He’s never once tried to make his own life.’

‘He’s tried, but you would never allow it.’

‘That proves that he never really wanted it.’

‘You’ve broken his spirit,’ said Nish.

‘He didn’t have any to begin with.’

‘Then why did you adopt him?’

Vithis jumped up, swaying at the other side of the slot, his big hands held up as if he planned to leap it and throttle Nish. ‘His parents were dead and I … could not have children of my own. Why was I so robbed?’ he cried. ‘My children would have been as strong as the founders of First Clan. Why am I cursed with this weakling who can never do anything right? Minis could have had his choice of a dozen women – all noble, all beautiful, all clever – but he wouldn’t have them. He still pines after that sad little creature who brought him to ruin. Who would mate with him now?’

‘Tiaan is a brilliant artisan and geomancer,’ said Nish. ‘She’s brave and kind, loyal and generous.’

‘She’s an ugly, wretched little sow and no noble Aachim could see anything in her.’

‘Among our own kind, Tiaan is considered a beauty. I think her –’

‘An insipid kind of beauty, at best, and she has no family. Her mother is a breeding-factory slut; she has no father at all.’

‘I’ve always thought the qualities of the person to be more important than the lineage of the family.’ That was a lie. Until recently Nish had been as proud of his family’s wealth and status as he’d been ashamed of his father’s lowly ancestors.

‘Considering your own lineage, I’m not surprised.’

‘My mother and father –’ Nish protested.

‘Now you change your song. And who, I ask, were your father’s parents, or your mother’s? Nobodies! Minis can trace his lineage back ten thousand years. No old human on Santhenar can claim a quarter of that. Not one single person.’

‘I dare say you’re right,’ said Nish, annoyed because he was sure it was true.

‘Of course I am. I took the trouble to find out –’

The earth gave another wrenching groan, the building a grinding shudder. Vithis broke off and came around the slot. Taking Nish by the arm, he hauled him all the way up to the spherical room. By that time, Aachim were running everywhere in silent efficiency. Divided they might be over the construction of the Span and the great search, but a crisis instantly united them.

Tirior and Luxor appeared at the door. ‘I see the Art in this,’ Tirior said. She was in a blue nightgown which swept the floor, and her black hair formed a cloud of ringlets. Luxor was dressed but barefooted. He had extremely long and hairy toes, like brown caterpillars.

‘Indeed,’ Vithis said grimly. ‘Do you know who it is?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Bring up the miasmin at once.’

Directly, an underling carried in an object roughly the size of a port barrel, shrouded in a green cloth. Tirior removed the cloth, revealing a glass bell jar mounted on an ebony base. There was something inside, obscured by fog. Tirior and Luxor worked their hands, eyes closed, with evident strain. The fog cleared and the object, the size of a large round melon, began to glow. The miasmin became brighter and brighter until it resembled the sun as Nish had once seen it through a smoked-glass spyglass. Its surface roiled and dark spots broke through, emitting flares and prominences that looped partway around it before plunging back into the surface.

Luxor whipped the bell jar off its base and the miasmin drifted up towards the ceiling, swelling to many times its size and boiling like a thunderhead. Red and black streamers were plucked out of it in one direction, then another, only to be resorbed. Tirior moved back, holding her arms spread above her head and making little movements with one hand or another. Luxor stood at right-angles to her and did the same, their hand movements seeming to keep the sphere away from the walls.

Vithis touched the lights on the wall to darkness. The surface of the miasmin smoothed, though it still roiled inside. A glowing filament arced from the top, twisted like a thread in the air and plunged back in halfway down the right side. Other filaments arose, whirled about and sank back into the mass. Dark, fringed spots appeared on the surface, slowly rotating.

‘There are too many powers,’ said Tirior with a shake of her black curls.

‘I think not. That would be the scrutator, Flydd,’ said Vithis, indicating a large spot from which the glowing filaments arose like sparks from a firework. ‘And this, his chief lyrinx opponent. They seem too preoccupied with each other to be attacking us, though … the scrutator is cunning.’

‘But not that powerful,’ said Tirior. ‘It’s someone else, Vithis.’

‘What’s that one?’ said Nish, pointing to another fringed spot that pulsed and spat black filaments, arcing out only to be sucked straight back in.

He shouldn’t have interrupted. Vithis looked at Nish as if he’d just discovered a servant’s nose hair in his wine.

‘It’s a node that’s been sucked dry,’ said Luxor. ‘Not what we want to see, so close to our principal node.’

‘It’s being attacked, so as to drain our node,’ said Tirior.

‘Who by?’ asked Nish.

Luxor consulted the miasmin, which was smaller than it had been. ‘I can’t tell.’

‘Vithis,’ said Tirior urgently, ‘the field is falling faster than I’ve ever seen it. It’s as if our node is being drained.’

‘This reeks of the way Nennifer was destroyed.’ Vithis’s eyes were unfocussed.

‘The field is collapsing around us,’ Tirior said. ‘We’re being attacked from the Foshorn.’

‘It’s the Council, but I have their measure.’ Whipping an emerald rod from his belt, Vithis pointed it at the black fringed spot they’d just been discussing.

‘No, Vithis,’ cried Tirior. ‘Not that one.’

Vithis spun the rod in the air, caught it, pointed it again. Momentarily a tight green beam burst from one end and illuminated the fringed spot, which sent out filaments in all directions before collapsing in on itself and disappearing. ‘That’s the end of them.’

While Nish stared, his mouth agape, Vithis slipped the rod back in his pocket. With the air of a man who had just succeeded at an impossible task, he walked out and closed the door behind him.

‘But …’ cried Nish, horrified.

‘It wasn’t them,’ said Luxor. The fringed spot reappeared. Prominences arced from it and it grew until it covered the visible hemisphere of the miasmin. ‘Whoever it was, he was just testing our defences. But now he’s threatened and may hit back.’

The sphere shrank further, but the fringed spot stayed the same size until it covered the entire surface.

‘Vithis has finally broken,’ said Tirior. ‘Let him go. Run for our strongest adepts, Luxor. I’ll hold the miasmin until you get back, but …’

‘What is it?’

‘Whoever is attacking us, they’ve drawn the field so low that I don’t think we can defend ourselves.’

‘We’ll have to rely on charged devices,’ said Luxor.

They exchanged glances. ‘And we both know how that’s going to end.’

Luxor ran out, shortly to return with six Aachim, four women and two men. They assembled in a circle around the miasmin and it grew a little.

Without warning the earth rumbled and went on rumbling. Masonry ground together and a crack began to snake across the open floor outside. Nish stood by the glass for a while, staring down at the Hornrace, which looked as though it was boiling.

Vithis’s door banged shut. Tirior and Luxor still had their arms in the air but the miasmin had shrunk almost to nothing.

‘We can’t hold it,’ gasped Tirior. ‘Sound the alarm.’

Someone lifted the glass bell jar, the miasmin was directed beneath and the bell jar clamped to its base.

‘The tower is empty, apart from those keeping Vithis’s watch,’ said Luxor.

‘Tell them to come down. It isn’t safe.’

‘They’re under his direct orders.’

‘Then send someone to find the lunatic!’ said Tirior. ‘I’ve had enough. I won’t see one more Aachim die in pursuit of this folly. If you’d supported me against him at the beginning –’

‘Not now!’ snapped Luxor.

‘Should I run outside?’ called Nish, looking anxiously at the roof.

‘The Span was built to resist the strongest earth tremblers,’ said Tirior.

‘But this isn’t an earth trembler,’ said Luxor. ‘It’s an attack directed at the Span itself.’

A grinding scream, so loud that it cobwebbed the glass of Vithis’s room, rose up the register. Concentric fractures formed in the ceilings outside, rapidly grew larger; then, with a roar even more deafening, the centre of the ceiling collapsed. Nish caught a momentary glimpse of something massive hurtling down and smashing through the slit above the Hornrace, before boiling dust blotted out the scene.

Pieces of stone crashed against the glass wall, which starred in dozens of places but did not break. The floor went up and down, throwing Nish off his feet. The miasmin shrank to a glowing point and vanished. Dust poured in under the door.

Nish lay on the floor, his sleeve over his eyes and nose, expecting the roof to fall on him, or the whole of the Span to collapse into the Hornrace, but after a minute or two the crashing and grinding ceased. Outside, the dust clouds slowly began to settle.

Tirior sat up, her hair grey with dust. She shoved the door open, having to push against heaped rubble.

The Span still stood, though the needle-shaped watch-tower that had once reared above it had fallen right through the building into the Hornrace, leaving a ragged hole where the slot had been. They crept across the gritty floor, which was littered with crumbled and shattered stone. Cracks radiated out from the hole.

‘Come this way,’ said Tirior.

Nish looked over the edge. The debris had formed a dam in the Hornrace, out of which the twisted spire from the top of the tower extended like a dead flower in a vase. Above, the roughly circular holes went up at least a dozen floors.

‘I always knew it was a folly,’ said Tirior, and led the way outside.

Nish followed. The episode also reminded him of the way Nennifer had been destroyed. And if the amplimet had woken again, what had it done to Tiaan and Malien?

SIXTY-FIVE

Malien was at the controller, Tiaan beside her with her chart as they cruised low across the emptiness. The Dry Sea unrolled before them, a featureless, lifeless land two thousand spans below the level of the Sea of Thurkad. Its bed was covered in an icing of crusted salt tens of spans in thickness, formed when the Sea of Perion dried up. The heat was unrelenting in daytime, despite the lateness of the season. No cloud marred the deep purple of the sky, darker than any sky Tiaan had seen before. Even the air was thicker down here. Each breath felt measurably heavier and the tang of salt dust was always in her nostrils.

Tiaan took a sip from her water bottle and settled back with her chart, glad to be away from Flydd and the field controller. Though she understood why he wanted it, it represented another escalation of a war that was already out of control. On the positive side, it was going to take at least two weeks to make a rough map of the fields and nodes of the Dry Sea. She was looking forward to the solitude.

Malien glanced back at the chart and set the lodestone in its brass bowl. ‘Is this heading all right?’

‘A little further east of north. I thought we might fly across the length of the Dry Sea in the direction of Taranta.’

Malien squinted into the white glare ahead, made the necessary adjustment to her course and closed her eyes. ‘We’ll have to make some slit goggles. I’d forgotten how bad the reflection off the salt was.’

After an hour or two Tiaan said, ‘Malien?’

‘Yes, Tiaan?’

‘Has something happened between you and Flydd? You don’t speak up in his councils anymore.’

‘I’ve begun to have reservations about what the Council is doing.’

She did not go on and Tiaan didn’t feel any need to question her. She simply gave silent thanks that she wasn’t the only one.

They worked in a companionable silence for the remainder of the day. As dusk approached, Malien looked for a place to camp. The seabed below them was featureless, apart from a ridge of broken salt in the distance. She set the thapter down on the crusted surface, which revealed not the slightest sign of life. A breeze blew strongly from the west and it was no longer warm.

‘It looks as if it could get cold here at night,’ said Tiaan, pulling on a coat.

‘It does. Let’s have a look behind the salt ridge. It’ll break the wind.’

She hovered across and they found a sheltered spot between iron-stained bergs of salt, their orange and yellow layers fretted by the wind into bizarre shapes. Tiaan hauled lumps of salt and hacked them into shape with a hatchet to make rude seats and a table.

‘We should fly east tomorrow and fill the racks with wood,’ said Malien. ‘We’ll need it.’

‘Have you been out here before?’

Malien seemed to find that amusing. ‘I’ve walked across the Dry Sea and back again, and survived it. Not many can say that.’

Tiaan couldn’t believe she’d asked such a stupid question. ‘Of course! You were in the Tale of the Mirror. After all the time I’ve known you it still doesn’t seem real, to be sitting here with you knowing that two hundred years ago you lived through a Great Tale.’

Malien sat on one of the seats and began peeling fruit and cutting it into a bowl. ‘It hardly seems real to me, after all this time. If only I’d known …’

‘What?’

‘No matter. The past creates the future, Tiaan. Every little thing we do shapes the way the future evolves, so I’m partly responsible for the way the world is now. We all are, those who took part in that tale and allowed the Forbidding to be broken.’

‘As am I for the things I’ve done,’ said Tiaan, slicing bread and cheese and laying them on a cloth. ‘But if we did nothing, surely we’d also be to blame for the state of the world.’ She filled a pot with water. ‘There. It’s ready.’

Malien placed her hands around the pot, closed her eyes and gave a little quiver. The air shimmered around her fingers. Steam rose from the pot, which began to bubble.

‘I’ll never get used to seeing you do that,’ said Tiaan, taking a good handful of dried chard from a packet and stirring it in.

‘I’d prefer not to do it at all. I hate using the Art for trivial purposes.’

‘We’ll get some wood tomorrow. A nice crackling fire will be cheery. Tea?’

‘Thank you.’

After dinner they settled back with another mug of chard each and their coats wrapped around them. It was already chilly and the temperature was falling by the minute.

‘I’ve also got reservations. I’m worried about what they’ll do with my map once it’s complete,’ said Tiaan.

‘If the field controller can be made to work, it may swing the balance,’ said Malien, ‘and then it’ll be tempting to wipe the enemy out.’

‘I hate the way people talk about them as though they’re vicious brutes,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’ve known lyrinx who were every bit as decent and honourable as the best of us.’

‘To survive such a war, each side must make their enemies into monsters.’

‘And if the war is won and the lyrinx eliminated, what then?’

‘If we have to commit atrocities to 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 with red and yellow salts, while here and there along a crested ridge the black rock oozed molten orange lava. The nodes were complex in this area, which extended in a band from the northern end of the Dry Sea towards the southern, before curving around towards the Hornrace.

‘We’ll have to go lower,’ said Tiaan. ‘I can’t tell what’s going on from up here.’

As Malien was flying along the molten centre of the ridge, the thapter jerked and the whine of the mechanism broke into a series of buzzes.

‘Tiaan? Is there something strange about the field here?’

‘There are lots of fields and the nodes are long and thin, not round. They run along the ridges and the field weakens rapidly to either side.’ Tiaan took a closer look. ‘That’s strange. The field keeps changing from up to down; I suppose that’s why we’re jerking so much. Try going a little to the left of the ridge.’

Malien turned left and the jerking stopped. ‘Can you still map if I follow this heading?’

‘More or less.’

Twice more they had the same problem, when they passed over long faults in the rock that had shifted the mid-sea ridge to left or right. As Malien corrected yet again, Tiaan put a hand on her arm and pointed down.

‘Hey, that looks like a wrecked construct.’

‘What would a construct be doing way out here?’ said Malien as she turned the machine and headed lower. The mechanism began to stutter and she directed it away until it resumed its normal note.

Tiaan lost sight of the wreckage in the jumble of black basalt. ‘This country is too broken to hover across. Malien, what if it’s a thapter that crashed?’

‘It must be – it was broken in half, as if it had fallen a long way. And it’s not one of ours, so it must be from Stassor.’

Malien went lower and turned back towards the place where they’d seen the wreckage. A construct came into view. ‘Is that it?’

A shiver worked its way up the marrow of Tiaan’s backbone. ‘It can’t be. The front is smashed in but it’s all in one piece.’

‘Two crashed thapters?’ said Malien. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I suppose the second came looking for the first and met the same fate – they weren’t experienced enough to cope with these fields. Look, there’s the first. Set down. There may be someone still alive.’

‘The impact has torn it apart,’ said Malien, circling about ten spans up. ‘No one could have survived that.’

‘Sometimes miracles happen.’

Malien settled the thapter down with some difficulty, for the basalt was scored, twisted and wrenched into stacks, blades and sheer-sided ravines. There wasn’t a piece of flat ground big enough to spread a tablecloth.

The jagged rocks proved troublesome to walk on, too. Malien reached the wreckage before Tiaan, who had to go the last twenty spans on hands and knees. Her back began to ache where it had been broken.

Malien looked in through the torn metal, which had a blue tinge. ‘There’s no one inside.’

Tiaan went round the other side and stumbled over a body before she realised what it was. It was the colour of dark tea, the flesh desiccated to strands of muscle covered by a few scraps of flaky skin. The clothes were gone, apart from the faded shreds of seams. ‘Malien, could you come here?’

Malien examined the remains. ‘A natural mummy. It’s so dry here that nothing rots, and the salt would help to cure it. He was a tall man, though you wouldn’t know it, the way the drying flesh has pulled his backbone into a curve. He was definitely Aachim – see the extra-long fingers?’ She took up a scrap of cloth, inspected it and let it flutter away.

‘He must have been dead a long time,’ said Tiaan.

‘Months would be enough to cure a dead man, out here.’

They found another body not far away, a woman whose skull was crushed. ‘Thrown out by the impact,’ said Tiaan.

‘One of the lucky ones. She would have died instantly.’

Others had been less fortunate. They came on a cluster of bodies twisted into positions that indicated painful, lingering deaths. Tiaan couldn’t bear to examine them.

‘Let’s go to the other machine,’ said Malien, the shadows growing under her eyes.

The second construct was only a hundred paces away, but it was easier to fly there than pick their way across the jagged ground. It was also made of blue-black metal and was full of bodies as mummified as the others, though a faint death smell lingered inside. The bodies were still clothed.

‘That’s … not how your people dress,’ said Tiaan. ‘Malien, these people are from Aachan.’

Malien appeared to be looking right through her. ‘That’s right.’

‘Does this mean that Vithis has thapters too? He’s certainly kept the secret well …’ Again that shiver along Tiaan’s spine.

‘Vithis has no thapters, Tiaan. They’re constructs. Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Up. There may be more. Can you fly the thapter?’

‘Is something the matter?’

Malien was too preoccupied to answer. Tiaan’s knees were shaking as she gripped the controller and took the thapter straight up. She couldn’t see anything but black rock and salt.

‘Higher,’ said Malien in a strained voice.

The sun reflected off something a good distance from the first two machines. Tiaan circled, scouring the rock. The wreckage was hard to pick out at first but once she’d found it, she soon saw more, and more. There were dozens of wrecked constructs down there, or pieces of constructs. Then, as the sheer scale of the site became evident, she amended that to hundreds. The sun still beat down on her but all the warmth had gone out of the day. She knew who they were.

‘It’s Vithis’s people,’ said Tiaan. ‘Inthis First Clan. They weren’t lost in the void after all.’

‘Not all of them,’ said Malien. ‘The gate must have whiplashed across the Dry Sea as it opened, scattering them here.’

They counted hundreds of constructs, strewn over an area a couple of leagues wide and about ten long. Most were wrecked, though a few machines bore only superficial damage. Then, in the middle of the area, they saw a round structure built from the metal skins of dozens of constructs.

Tiaan set the thapter down beside it. They did not get out at once. ‘Some of them survived,’ she said in a flat voice.

‘For quite some time,’ said Malien.

‘I wonder why they didn’t go for help?’

‘Even if they’d repaired one construct, this country is too rugged to hover across. And without knowing where to go, or how to find water on the way, anyone who left here on foot would have died of thirst.’

‘But there’s so many of them,’ said Tiaan. ‘There would have been thousands. Surely they could have found a way to send for help?’

‘Maybe they didn’t know what world they were on. Before the Forbidding cut off communication between the worlds, this was the beautiful Sea of Perion. They must have thought they’d been cast onto a desert world in the middle of the void.’ Malien rubbed her eyes. ‘We’d better go and see.’

They got out. The structure, built from the metal of as many as thirty constructs, was large enough to have accommodated some hundreds of people. The surrounding rocks had been smoothed, and paths constructed out of fragments so cunningly fitted together that they locked tight.

Tiaan walked around the building, marvelling at their ingenuity in creating so much with so little. The paths extended off in several directions to other, smaller structures, some of construct metal, others out of stone. The stonework was superb.

‘How did they live so long, without water?’ she said.

‘Each construct carries enough drinking water for several weeks. If most of the Aachim were killed in the crashes, the water would have lasted the survivors for months. And after that, there’s water in the Dry Sea, if you have the wits to look for it.’

‘Only salt water, and you’d have to dig through spans of salt to find it.’

‘Yes, but all it takes to turn salt water to fresh is sunlight or heat, and there’s plenty of both here. The problem wasn’t water, but food. Had everyone survived, the food would have been exhausted in a month or two. Since most were killed, it may have lasted a year, or more.’

‘It’s nearly a year and three-quarters since the gate was opened.’ Tiaan put her head inside one of the stone structures, then sprang out again. ‘It’s a graveyard.’

‘A mausoleum.’ Malien went to the entrance and stood for a minute, head bowed. ‘While any of First Clan had strength in their bodies, they would have honoured their dead according to longstanding custom.’

‘They mustn’t have found the first two constructs.’

‘I’d say not.’

They turned back to the metal building and Malien went inside.

‘I’ll wait out here,’ said Tiaan.

‘No, come in.’

‘I feel so guilty,’ Tiaan whispered.

‘Tiaan, you must not. You offered them the chance for survival and they took it willingly, knowing the risk. They’d been thinking about escaping through a gate for years.’

‘But … I made it wrongly. It was my fault.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Vithis told me so.’

‘Vithis sought to blame you for his own failing. I checked your port-all and it was correctly made.’

‘But Vithis said that left-hand and right-hand were different from their world to ours.’

‘They are, and it was known to the ancients, for I checked the records after you left Tirthrax. The failing was not in your port-all, but in the way they matched their end of the gate to yours. Vithis must have tried to correct it after the gate opened but by then it was too late. It lashed the opening gate across known space, and unknown, before finally locking in place at Tirthrax. That’s why Inthis were lost, not through any failing of yours.’

‘I still feel responsible,’ said Tiaan.

‘And no doubt, deep in his heart, so does Vithis. But it was an accident, Tiaan. They took the risk and lost.’

The curving chambers of the building were decorated with such treasures as the Aachim had brought with them. Tiaan marvelled at small tapestries woven from threads of silk and gold, wire sculptures of astonishing complexity, subtle rugs and beautifully decorated pots and implements. Furniture had been made from native stone and salvaged metal. Everything was beautiful and harmonious, though the designs and proportions, even after her time in Tirthrax, struck Tiaan oddly.

They entered room after room. All were empty. ‘This building must have housed many people,’ said Tiaan. ‘But –’

‘As they died, the bodies would have been placed in the mausoleums which they’d already built. All except the last.’

They climbed a set of metal stairs, their feet echoing hollowly. At the top they entered an attic room with open windows looking to the east and west. Though a breeze blew through, it was hot. Malien turned the corner, stopped, then bowed her head.

Seven children lay on bedding on the floor as though asleep, though Tiaan knew that they were dead. Five were girls; two were boys. The oldest looked about thirteen, the youngest five.

‘They’ve not been dead long,’ said Tiaan.

‘No!’ Malien whispered. ‘They met their ends in the last week.’

‘They’re thin, but not starved. How did they live so long?’

‘We particularly cherish our children, Tiaan, for we Aachim, though long-lived, are not fecund like old humans. The adults would have gone without to feed the young ones, in the hope that, somehow, they might be rescued.’

‘And in the end?’

‘When the last adult was dying and all hope lost, the children would have been given a draught from which they would never wake.’

‘How horrible.’ Tiaan glanced at the faces, brushing away tears. ‘They were still alive when we began to survey the sea. If we’d come this way first, instead of leaving it until last, we could have saved them.’

‘If only we had,’ said Malien.

‘It’s a wonder they didn’t try to smooth a path to the salt. It’s only thirty or forty leagues away. Once they got a construct onto smooth salt they could have crossed the sea in a few days.’

‘But if you go the wrong way, this broken country runs for hundreds of leagues. Their explorers may have thought the whole world was like this. In any case, to smooth a hover path across this country would have taken hundreds of Aachim years. They didn’t have the people or the food. Once they crashed here they were doomed, and they must soon have realised it.’

An unpleasant duty was preying on Tiaan’s mind. ‘We should … we must take this news to Vithis,’ said Tiaan, her heart sinking at the thought of what it would do to him.

‘And Minis.’

The farspeaker, which had been silent for days, gurgled and Irisis’s voice came though, shaking with tension. ‘Tiaan, Malien, wherever you are, come to us on the salt below Ashmode. Hurry! The enemy –’

SIXTY-SIX

Several weeks earlier, not long after Kattiloe’s thapter had been dispatched to Tiksi, Flydd and Yggur were called to the farspeaker. Irisis hurried over after them, for she’d recognised the voice.

‘It’s Gilhaelith,’ said the operator, ‘and he says he has a message for you both.’

‘We’re listening,’ grated Yggur. ‘Well, Gilhaelith?’

‘You’ve heard, I assume?’ Gilhaelith’s voice was as clear as if he were in the next room.

‘That the lyrinx have broken off their sieges and are racing to Ashmode? We’re still waiting to hear if it’s an elaborate deception.’

‘It’s not,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘They’re following my orders.’

Yggur choked. ‘What?’

Flydd eased him out of the way. ‘Since we no longer trust anything we hear over a farspeaker, we’ll reserve our judgment on that. What have you done?’

‘I’ve got their sacred relics,’ Gilhaelith said simply. ‘I ordered them to come east – all of them – with the power patterner, or I’d destroy the relics.’

Irisis tried to catch Flydd’s attention. ‘Ask him about Nish,’ she hissed. He waved her to silence.

‘What do you want?’ said Yggur.

‘Revenge,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘They’ve robbed me of everything that mattered. I’m going to do the same to them.’

‘This is absurd,’ said Flydd to Yggur. To Gilhaelith he said, ‘Why would the lyrinx abandon everything they’ve fought for, these past hundred and fifty years, for a few lousy bits and pieces from the tar pits?’

‘It wasn’t Santhenar they were fighting for,’ replied Gilhaelith. ‘Or rather, Santhenar was always secondary. Their most burning desire, which was driving them long before the war, and in fact was the reason they came to Santhenar, was to find these relics. I gambled that they’d give up everything else for them and I’ve been proven right.’

‘Now I know your mind is going,’ scowled Yggur.

‘You’re clever men – look at the evidence. I’ll leave you to work it out on the way to Ashmode.’

‘What’s happening there?’ said Flydd.

‘You’ll find out in due course.’ The farspeaker cut off.

‘He’s made a deal with the lyrinx,’ said Flydd. ‘I’ll bet he’s planning to exchange the relics for the power patterner.’

‘Why does he want it?’ said Yggur.

‘I imagine we’ll find out before too long.’

Irisis was walking backwards and forwards outside the conference tent. They’d gone to Hysse to meet Governor Nisbeth and Grand Commander Orgestre, who seemed to be back in favour, though Irisis couldn’t understand why. Flydd, Yggur, Klarm and Troist had been inside the tent with Nisbeth and Orgestre for hours, discussing something of great moment. The guards would not allow Irisis to go near, which was vexing. It was one of the few councils she had not been admitted to, and she was now desperate to find out if they’d heard anything about Nish.

She was trying to think of a way to get inside when Flydd put his head out through the tent flap. ‘Guard, would you call for –. Ah, Irisis, food and drink for six, quick as you can.’

At any other time the order would have irritated her. Now she seized the opportunity, and shortly came back with a loaded tray and baskets hanging off each arm.

‘No appeasement. Ever!’ snapped General Orgestre as she entered. ‘Nisbeth and I are agreed on that.’

That surprised Irisis, who’d always thought of Nisbeth as soft and kindly, perhaps a little too kindly.

‘Thank you, Irisis.’ Flydd reached for the tray.

She sidestepped him, set down the tray and the baskets, then went around the table handing out plates, which she filled with the best available from Flydd’s private stores. Irisis slid another platter into the middle, poured drinks, bowed low and retreated to the other side of the tent. There she squatted, head bowed, like the meanest of servants.

‘That will be all,’ said Flydd.

Irisis pretended she hadn’t heard.

Yggur chuckled. ‘Nice try, Irisis, but you make a poor serving maid, for all your skill at aping one. Subservience isn’t in your nature.’

She stood up and went for the flap. Irisis hadn’t expected it to work but was disappointed nonetheless.

‘Oh, let her stay!’ Troist said irritably. ‘Irisis has proven herself. Now can we get on?’

Irisis took a seat at the far end of the table and a morsel of smoked fish from the central platter, and tried to look inconspicuous in case they changed their minds.

‘We still have disagreement on two issues,’ said Flydd. ‘What to do about Gilhaelith, and how we can possibly defend ourselves against such overwhelming numbers of the enemy.’

‘I’ve always mistrusted the scoundrel,’ said Yggur. ‘Gilhaelith may not be actively aiding the enemy at this moment, but he’s got a long history of it.’

‘His only loyalty is to himself,’ said Klarm. ‘And ever has been.’

‘It’s got to be a complex double-cross,’ said Yggur. ‘A way of putting us all into the enemy’s hands, in repayment of a deal he’s made with them.’

‘Whatever he’s up to, let’s capitalise on the opportunity he’s given us,’ said Troist. ‘Assuming our farspeakers can be believed.’

‘What do you have in mind?’ said Yggur.

No one spoke. Irisis studied the troubled faces around the table. In the past few weeks the shape of the war had changed so dramatically, and so often, that no one had come to terms with it. Not even Flydd seemed to have a plan.

‘We go to the exchange under a flag of truce,’ said Grand Commander Orgestre. ‘We use Flydd’s field controller to stop the lyrinx from flying or using the Art, then attack with our massed forces and drive them over the cliffs.’

‘Where did this sudden reckless streak come from, Grand Commander?’ said Flydd. ‘Just last spring you were preaching withdrawal.’

‘I didn’t know about all your secret weapons then. They’ve shifted the balance our way.’

‘Meaning once you got a whiff of victory you couldn’t keep your snout out of the trough,’ Klarm muttered.

Troist directed a furious glare at the dwarf, who met it blandly. ‘I won’t countenance dishonouring a truce flag, Orgestre,’ said Troist. ‘Besides, their troops can march from the east in the time we can reinforce my army with yours. We’ll be lucky to put eighty thousand into the field, while they’ll have a quarter of a million, at least.’

‘Anyway, I need Tiaan’s completed node map before I can use my field controller at full strength,’ said Flydd.

‘If she returns,’ said Yggur. ‘Which we can’t rely on. We’ve not heard from her since she left.’

‘Farspeakers aren’t reliable out in the Dry Sea, and she’s only been gone five days,’ said Flydd. ‘She’ll be back when she’s done.’

‘That could be two more weeks,’ said Yggur.

‘The lyrinx infantry won’t be here for three,’ said Troist, ‘and it’ll take nearly as long to bring our scattered forces to Ashmode. Besides, the field controller isn’t going to even out such long odds, if it works.’

‘The field controller works, even without Tiaan’s final map, said Flydd. ‘I’ve already tested it. I should be able to cut off the fields where the lyrinx are camped. They won’t be able to fly.’

‘They’ll still be able to fight two of us at a time,’ Klarm said dryly. ‘And what if a vital node fails on you? They’re becoming more unreliable every day.’

‘With the field controller, no individual node is vital,’ said Flydd. ‘That’s the beauty of it. So, Governor, gentlemen, the pieces are drawing together. The final confrontation is going to be held between Ashmode and the Hornrace. But what kind of confrontation will it be? Do we move our armies into place, or not?’

‘If that’s where the enemy are,’ said Klarm, ‘we have to challenge them, whatever their numbers. But we’d better camp where it suits us best and them least, Generals. And make sure we’ve got somewhere to retreat to.’

‘If you can’t put forward a simple plan, I will!’ said Orgestre, whose purple cheeks were growing ever more congested. ‘The Dry Sea is their worst nightmare. I say we drive them down onto it and let them die of thirst.’

‘A wet sea is their worst nightmare,’ Flydd pointed out. ‘A dry one is just solid land to fight on. Anyway, considering how greatly they outnumber us, we won’t be able to force them anywhere.’

‘I know you have a weapon they can’t resist,’ said Orgestre slyly.

‘Is that so, Flydd?’ said Yggur. ‘Why haven’t I heard of this before?’

‘The artificers have only just perfected it,’ said Flydd, clearly annoyed that the secret had come out before he was ready to announce it.

‘I don’t see why you invite me to your councils if you’re going to keep me in the dark.’ Yggur looked angrier than Irisis had seen him in a long time.

‘Secrecy is an old habit,’ said Flydd.

‘What’s the weapon?’

‘It’s based on the effect Tiaan saw in Alcifer when she shouted into her farspeaker. I’ve found a way to make the mind-shock a hundred times stronger.’

‘If you can get a thousand made in the next three weeks,’ said Orgestre, ‘and fly them up to me at Ashmode, I’ll end this war within a week.’

‘Really?’ said Flydd. ‘I might just take you up on that, Grand Commander. Our manufactories should be able to make five hundred. They’re not difficult to put together once you know how.’

Orgestre bore the smile of a man who’d gained twice what he was hoping for. ‘That’ll do. I’ll fence the beasts around with them, you can cut off their Arts with the field controller, and then we drive the lot of them over the Grey Cliffs onto the Dry Sea.’

‘I don’t trust miracle weapons,’ said Troist.

‘It’s not, General,’ said Flydd. ‘You did the early tests.’

Orgestre threw back his chair and thumped the table, making the plates and cups rattle. ‘Enough talking! It’s time to act and we’ve got to do it now. We’ll not be safe while a single breeding pair of lyrinx remain alive. If they survive the cliffs, we herd them into a circle on the salt and slaughter them. We’ve got to kill every male, every female and every child. Exterminate the lot!’

There was a long, shocked silence. ‘I’d prefer to reach some accommodation –’ said Flydd.

‘You’ve failed to come up with a plan, so listen to mine,’ Orgestre ground out. ‘We end the war my way now, or sooner or later they’ll end us.’

‘Nisbeth?’ said Flydd. ‘Does Grand Commander Orgestre have your support?’

‘I don’t see any other choice,’ the governor said. ‘If he succeeds, we’ve saved Borgistry. If he doesn’t, how are we worse off?’

‘Whatever the cost, we pay it and get on with our lives,’ said Orgestre. ‘It’s the only way, believe me. Your votes, if you please. Right hand for their annihilation, left for our capitulation, since we don’t have anything in between.’

Orgestre and Nisbeth raised their right hands at once, and Klarm shortly after. Troist put up his left hand, as did Yggur. Flydd didn’t raise either.

‘Well, Flydd?’ said Orgestre. ‘It comes down to you, as usual. What’s your vote?’

‘I’ve already come to regret using the fungus against them,’ said Flydd. ‘To annihilate an entire species is a terrible crime against nature, and in the future I know we’ll rue it. But if we don’t, the war will go on and in the end we must lose it.’

‘I won’t be a party to it,’ said Yggur. ‘I’ve lived long enough to know that this is the worst solution you could come up with. It’ll lead to more war, and more killing, not less.’ His frosty eyes met Flydd’s across the table. ‘And I won’t work with you again if you support it, Flydd.’

Flydd bowed his head. ‘I hear your wisdom, Yggur, and you may be right, in the long run.’ He looked around the group, breathing heavily. ‘But truly, for our present survival, I can see no other way.’ He raised his right hand.

Yggur thrust back his seat and walked out without a word.

‘Then let it be done,’ said Orgestre with savage glee.

SIXTY-SEVEN

Yggur did not leave them, though he travelled with Troist’s army after that as they marched for Ashmode, and refused to have anything to do with Flydd. Klarm and Flydd tried to persuade him otherwise but he wouldn’t relent.

‘I can see the disaster coming and I’m not going to add to it,’ he said when Flydd called on him one final time. ‘I can’t imagine how I thought the fungus would be the answer.’

‘Then what would you do differently?’ Flydd said furiously.

‘I don’t know, but genocide is not the solution.’

‘If you can’t suggest an alternative, better to keep your thoughts to yourself.’

‘Don’t use scrutator logic on me, Flydd. The only reason the war ever came to this stage is that the Council slew all those who spoke against it.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Flydd, deadly cold now.

‘You’re not the only one to have dug through the rubble of Nennifer, Scrutator. I went looking for the origins of this most pointless of all wars. Back in the early days, the forerunners of the Council executed all those who warned about going to war against the lyrinx. Their warnings of unending war have come true to the letter. The Council wanted war before ever the enemy did, and silenced everyone who spoke against it.’

Flydd considered that, then said, ‘If you’re so opposed to Orgestre’s solution, what are you doing here?’

‘There may yet be a chance to save you from your folly.’

Kattiloe’s thapter returned from Tiksi ten days after it had left, confirming that the lyrinx had indeed abandoned the fields of war and were streaming west. Everyone knew it by then, however, for the bulk of the fliers had already reached Ashmode and were searching everywhere for Gilhaelith, as was everyone else.

An increasingly stressed and irritable Flydd had spent two and a half weeks looking for the geomancer, who hadn’t gone to Ashmode at all. Gilhaelith wasn’t that much of a fool. He’d headed that way after seizing the relics, but once out of sight he’d set down by the City of the Bargemen and ordered Flangers and the other soldiers out. He’d recruited new guards and servants and flown away, in darkness, to an inconspicuous ravine forty leagues away along the southern rim of the Dry Sea from Ashmode.

There he’d hidden in the Golden Terraces, an ancient village honeycombed into a layer of yellow chalk between two sets of the Grey Cliffs above the empty sea. The Golden Terraces had been abandoned when the Sea of Perion dried up two thousand years ago, and since then had only been inhabited by bats. Gilhaelith planned to hide there until the lyrinx had assembled their armies at Ashmode, and would have succeeded but for an unfortunate accident.

A metal panel at the back of his thapter, torn loose by the lyrinx that had leapt onto the racks, fell off as the thapter flew high over one of the impoverished villages not far from the Golden Terraces. It landed in a pigsty, killing the village chief’s prized porker, and the chief was so incensed he insisted that his outrage be communicated to Flydd himself.

It took a week for the messenger to find someone with a farspeaker, and another day to convince him to send the message, but Irisis, who received it, understood its significance at once. After that it was a relatively simple matter to trace Gilhaelith’s possible destinations along the rim of the Dry Sea and search them one by one. If he had gone much further west he would have had to cross into Aachim lands, which were so tightly patrolled that not even a bat could have entered unnoticed.

Somehow Orgestre got wind of the discovery and insisted on coming, whereupon Yggur, whom Irisis hadn’t seen for a week, decided that he had to be there as well. Flydd didn’t say anything but Irisis could feel the tension between the three of them all the way.

Three weeks after Gilhaelith escaped with the relics, Flydd’s thapter dropped without warning over the upper cliffs and settled onto the highest of the Golden Terraces, which was covered in powdery dust of yellow chalk.

By the time everyone got out, Gilhaelith’s guards had their crossbows trained on them. ‘Put your weapons on the ground, then your hands in the air,’ the captain said.

Irisis laid her sword on the ground and raised her hands, scanning the guards for a short, stocky, achingly familiar figure. She didn’t see Nish anywhere.

A guard collected the weapons, everyone was ordered to remove their coats, and their bodies were patted down carefully. The guard took a number of exotic items from Flydd’s pockets.

‘You may come in now,’ the captain said.

They followed, except for Flydd, who had sat down and was taking his boot off.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ the captain said.

‘Gravel in my boot. I won’t be a minute.’

They went inside, Flydd put his boot on and followed.

‘Surr?’ began Irisis, desperate to discover what had happened to Nish.

‘Not now!’ he hissed. They were led down dusty halls excavated deep into the chalk, and into a chamber lit by lamps that were just lighted wicks floating in bowls of oil. ‘What game are you playing, Gilhaelith?’ Flydd said as Gilhaelith turned away from his geomantic globe and came to meet them. If he was shocked at being discovered, he didn’t show it.

‘My own,’ he replied with an almost uncanny serenity, ‘and it will do you no good to threaten me. I’m beyond all threats now.’

Flydd considered that for a moment, head to one side. ‘Why so?’

‘As you should know by now, I’m dying. I plan to make amends with what time I have left, and you can neither bribe nor threaten me.’

Flydd regarded him sceptically. ‘You can begin by handing over the relics.’

Gilhaelith smiled thinly. ‘I’ve made sure that your Art won’t avail you here. Anyway, I’ve won your war for you, without a life being lost, so I don’t see what you’re complaining about.’

‘We’re outnumbered three to one by a superior enemy, who are closing in on Ashmode even now. Where’s the victory?’

‘They’ll do anything – even agree to peace – to get the relics back. I’ve already demonstrated that.’

‘Ah, but can you hold onto them long enough to strike your bargain?’ said Flydd. ‘And once it’s struck, what then? They’ll have us at their mercy, and mercy isn’t a quality associated with lyrinx.’

‘Nor with the scrutators,’ said Gilhaelith pointedly. ‘I intend to have the lyrinx swear, on their sacred relics, to cease hostilities and not attack humanity, unless humanity strikes the first blow. Then you can negotiate for peace and I’m sure they’ll agree, since they’ve lost everything else.’

Flydd laughed aloud. ‘The damage you suffered must have been to your wits. There are few humans I’d entrust the world to on the security of an oath. As for lyrinx, none at all.’

‘I’ve found lyrinx honour to be superior to the human kind,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘These relics are sacred to them.’

‘Surr?’ said Irisis.

Flydd trod on her toe. ‘Then you’d better tell us why, Gilhaelith.’

‘I intend to. Come this way.’ Gilhaelith led them upstairs and along a corridor that was ankle-deep in the yellow chalk dust. He eased open a borer-riddled door into a small room cleaned of dust. On the floor were three long crates. He levered the top off the first.

They crowded around, Irisis looking over the top of Flydd’s head. The crate contained the perfectly preserved body of a man and a woman. Their skin was stained dark by tar but the flesh had shrunk only a little. Both wore necklaces of silver, gold and semi-precious stones. A bound book rested on its spine between them. The first few pages had been separated, revealing illuminations of great delicacy.

In the second crate were the bodies of three children, equally well preserved. At their feet were items of clothing, leather boots, three more books, and bowls, knives and other personal items.

The third crate held more books and manuscripts; a pair of unstained, woven tapestries; small carvings in wood and amber; a stringed instrument; a kind of wooden flute with nine finger-holes; scrolls covered in musical notations; painted timber panels, so tar-stained that the images were indecipherable; as well as a wooden case containing crystals of yellow brimstone, including a large, perfect one. Most items bore the marks of the tar, though the contents of the second crate were clean.

Flydd surveyed the crates again. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’re so used to war you can’t see beyond it,’ said Gilhaelith.

Irisis studied the faces in the crates. There was something about the eyes. ‘Xervish –?’

Gilhaelith held up his hand and she did not go on. ‘Lyrinx, it has often been remarked, are similar to us in many ways. People have noted – Tiaan for one – that some of the enemy display more humanity than humanity itself. There’s good reason for it. They’re just as human as we are.’

Flydd laughed in his face. ‘You’ve been eating your poisonous caterpillars again.’

‘Take another look at them, surr,’ said Irisis. ‘Look at the eyes. They do resemble lyrinx eyes.’

Gilhaelith shot her a keen glance. ‘More than eight thousand years ago, a village was established near Snizort to harvest tar, naphtha and brimstone from the vast tar deposits there. In time the village became a town, and then a wealthy one, whose philosophers had the gold and the leisure to devote themselves to the study of arcane arts. They uncovered glimmerings of the Secret Art and were probably the first people on Santhenar to do so. In the records that have passed down through the Histories the town was named Ric Rints, but the kings’ chroniclers who made those records used a different alphabet to ours and the name was written down incorrectly. The people of that town called it Lyr Rinx.

‘The town grew ever wealthier from its people’s restrained use of the Art, eventually attracting the attention of distant powers who saw that the Art might also be used to subdue unruly neighbours. Lyr Rinx’s philosophers, or mancers as we would now call them, refused to sell their secrets or go into employment. In consequence, an edict was passed, making it a capital crime to use their Art in any way.

’The philosophers had the support of the townspeople and continued to practise their Art in secret as they sought a way to escape to a better place. However, after decades of persecution, the wrath of the great powers came down on them. Many of the philosophers were put to the sword, Lyr Rinx was razed and the fields surrounding it sowed with salt.

‘But still the people would not give up their Art, for it was the keystone of their culture now, and they were close to completing the ark which would allow them to escape their persecutors. They built a floating village in the middle of the Great Seep and continued to practise their Arts for some weeks before they were discovered. Their enemies came, destroying everything, but the surviving philosophers had found the way. They used their power to tear open a hole into the void. It wasn’t such a feat back then, long before the Forbidding.

‘The philosophers and half the villagers fled to safety, as they thought, in the void, for its savage nature was not then known. The remainder were slain, and the living and the dead, and all their goods, were dumped into the Great Seep to disappear forever.’

Gilhaelith paused for a sip from a metal bowl. Irisis glanced at Flydd. His face was inscrutable, but she felt sure the tale was true. Yggur seemed to think so too, despite his antipathy to Gilhaelith.

‘But those who’d escaped into the void did not find the haven they’d expected. It was a savage place where the only rule was eat or be eaten. Their only hope was to transform themselves from weak humans into fierce, terrible creatures, totally dedicated to survival. And that is what those gentle philosophers did. They used the Art to flesh-form their unborn children. Such magic was possible in the void, where all things are mutable. They modelled themselves on fierce winged humanoids called thranx, but called themselves lyrinx so they would never forget where they had come from. And each succeeding generation changed themselves more, until they were more like thranx than the thranx themselves, and had lost all semblance of their former human selves.

‘With their big, tough bodies, their fierce dispositions and unconquerable will to survive, not to mention their Art, the lyrinx survived and even prospered in the void. But they weren’t content there, as they had been at home.

‘They were never completely comfortable in those huge bodies, which didn’t quite fit. And many were unhappy with what they had become: a savage warrior race lacking art, culture or philosophy. But they had to be warriors to survive, and in their eight thousand years in the void they eventually lost all trace of their human culture. They knew where they had come from: Lyr Rinx, on Santhenar, and that they had fled to escape persecution. They knew they had lost their souls, and longed to go home and discover who they truly were. But not even the matriarchs knew that they had once been human.

‘With time, their longing became unbearable and, when the Way between the Worlds was opened, they seized the opportunity to come home. They came in peace, offering friendship, but the people of Santhenar saw them as monsters just as brutal and vicious as the thranx. The lyrinx were attacked the instant they appeared and many were slain. They tried to explain, to negotiate, but their emissaries were slaughtered. They were persecuted, hated and reviled, just as they had been in the distant past.’

‘What a load of rubbish!’ said Orgestre. ‘You can’t believe a word he’s saying, Flydd.’

‘But the lyrinx were survivors now,’ Gilhaelith went on, unfazed. ‘They took refuge in the deepest forests and the wildest mountains of Meldorin, and bided their time until they could come to terms with their new world. It wasn’t easy, for their bodies were even more uncomfortable on this heavy world than they had been in the void. They stayed in hiding for more than fifty years, until they’d replaced those who’d been slain and their numbers began to increase, and then set out to take back a portion of their former world. It was only then, a hundred and fifty years ago, that the war began. It was a war for freedom, yet all the while they had one objective in mind, to go home to Lyr Rinx and discover their past.

‘When they eventually tracked down the lost town to Snizort, there was not a trace of Lyr Rinx, and the peasants who now dwelt in the area, still living off the tar deposits, knew nothing of the impossibly distant past. The lyrinx set out to uncover it themselves. It proved a far greater task than they’d expected, even after they’d established their underground city at Snizort. Finally, with my help, they froze the molten tar of the Great Seep, tunnelled in and recovered these bodies and these relics.

‘It turned them upside down to look upon their ancient selves, to see the relics of their proud culture – the music, the books, the art, the Histories – and compare it to what they had become. On the outside they were lyrinx; within, they longed to be human again. For a hundred and fifty years these once gentle, peace-loving philosophers had been waging war on their own kind.

‘Matriarch Gyrull was transformed by the discovery, and where she led, her people followed. Flesh-forming had allowed them to survive in the void, but back on Santhenar it caused physical discomfort and mental anguish. They had gained powerful bodies, but at the expense of their spirit, their soul, their culture and their Histories.’

‘Gyrull realised that they looked on themselves through the wrong side of the glass. They’d seen their winged, clawed and fanged selves as the peak of perfection, and in the void they had been. Now she realised that the imperfect ones – the wingless, those lacking skin armour or the ability to skin-speak – were closest to their true selves. Before they could regain what they had lost, they would have to return to the semblance of the Sacred Ones. Their ancestors!’ He indicated the people in the boxes.

‘And with this realisation, last winter, came another: that they were vile cannibals who had been living on their own kind. Most gave up eating human flesh. In the battle for Borgistry, if you recall, they no longer fed on our fallen. They could not stop the war, for humanity would not rest until the lyrinx had been wiped out, but they were losing heart.’

‘When did you realise all this?’ said Flydd.

‘I discovered part of the story before Tiaan shanghaied me to Fiz Gorgo,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘though it wasn’t until I stole the relics, and demanded that they abandon their sieges in return for them, that I began to put the final picture together. The lyrinx would only accede to my demands if the relics mattered more than the war, and so it proved. We thought they came for conquest, but that story never fitted what I knew of them.’

‘A pretty tale,’ said General Orgestre, ‘but even if it were true it doesn’t change our situation. Just thirty leagues away at Ashmode are hundreds of thousands of lyrinx, each the equal of two of our finest soldiers, and more are coming all the time. We only have eighty thousand men to put against them. If they could turn themselves into humans and abandon their warlike ways, I might be prepared to listen. In the meantime, humanity stands in peril of being wiped out. We have to proceed with the plan.’

‘What plan is that?’ said Gilhaelith.

‘Our troops are now moving, under cloaking shields, to the high ground. We will attack without warning, using Flydd’s mind-shockers mounted on our thapters and air-floaters, to drive the enemy over the cliffs.’

‘They can climb cliffs as easily as we walk down the garden path,’ said Gilhaelith.

‘Then we drive them down,’ gritted Orgestre, ‘and out to the Dry Sea. Once we get them there, we force them into the salt lakes to drown, or onto the salt to die of thirst. Any that try to break free, we annihilate with our massed clankers.’

‘I won’t allow it,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘And while my Art holds, you shall not have the relics.’

Flydd, who had manoeuvred himself behind Gilhaelith, withdrew a sock full of wet chalk dust from his pocket and thumped Gilhaelith over the back of the head with it.

‘Your Art no longer holds. Bring the crates, troops, and let’s get on with it.’

‘At last he acts,’ said Orgestre. ‘Well done, Flydd. Now let’s deal with the enemy in the only way they can understand.’

Yggur said nothing, but his eyes showed such contempt that Irisis had to look away.

As they were leaving Flydd pointed to the geomantic globe. ‘Put that in its box and bring it as well. You never know when it might come in handy.’

SIXTY-EIGHT

The poorly trained guards quickly surrendered once they saw that their master had fallen. They were herded into Kimli’s thapter, which had been concealed in one of the caverns. A distraught Kimli was found, reunited with her machine and told to take the soldiers to the army camp, which had been set up some leagues south of Ashmode. Yggur went with them. Daesmie and Merryl were also discovered in makeshift cells and freed. Flydd’s troops loaded the crates into Kattiloe’s thapter and they shot up from the terrace in clouds of yellow chalk.

‘We didn’t ask him about Nish,’ she said miserably.

‘I had more urgent business to attend to than your bloody love life,’ said Flydd. ‘You can ask him yourself when he comes round.’

They flew high above the cliffs towards Ashmode, but long before they reached it she saw the lyrinx camps, extending like dark ink blotches for leagues along the brink of the uppermost cliffs.

‘Fly over them,’ said Flydd. ‘A trifle lower, Kattiloe. Let’s find out exactly what we’re up against.’

Kattiloe put the nose of the thapter down and headed towards the nearest of the camps, but shortly the noise of the mechanism cut out. She drew a sharp breath and her fingers danced over the controls.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Flydd.

The thapter was falling, gathering speed, the wind whistling around it. ‘I can’t draw any power. The field is gone.’

Gilhaelith, who was slumped against the side wall fingering the bump on his head, gave a thin smile. ‘What a pickle.’

‘What’s going on?’ cried Flydd. ‘Gilhaelith?’

‘The lyrinx have walled themselves off with a dead zone. You can’t approach them in any contrivance that needs power.’

‘How have they done that?’

The whistling was now so loud that Irisis could hardly hear. She went up on tiptoes, looked over the side and blanched. The ground was approaching at frightening speed and, in what was obviously a game of bluff, she hoped Flydd would show sense and give in quickly.

‘I should have thought that was obvious. With their power patterner, Flydd,’ Gilhaelith chuckled. ‘It’s like your field controller, only better.’

‘How did you know about it?’ Flydd said.

‘I tapped into Golias’s globe. You may control the fields, if Tiaan ever comes back with her map, but they can control the flow of power from nodes. And they know them all. They mapped Santhenar a hundred and fifty years ago, trying to find Lyr Rinx.’

‘Surr,’ said Kattiloe, pulling at her blonde plaits with her free hand, ‘what should I do?’

‘How the hell would I know?’ Flydd said savagely. He looked down at the rapidly approaching ground and cracked. ‘How do we get out of this, Gilhaelith? I know you’ve got a way.’

‘Makes no difference to me. I’m dying and you’ve taken away my last hope.’

‘What hope? Quickly, man.’

‘To exchange the relics for their power patterner, to see if I could repair the damage in my brain with it,’ Gilhaelith said with provocative deliberation.

‘You can use it when we get it,’ Flydd said at once. ‘Anything you want.’

‘And I want my freedom,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘On your honour. As a man, not a scrutator, of course.’

‘You have my word,’ snapped Flydd.

Gilhaelith stood up, wobbly on his long shanks. ‘Turn away, little Kattiloe. Make for that knobbed peak to the south, if you can.’

‘Not sure that I can make it, surr,’ said Kattiloe, turning the machine. ‘Thapters glide like bricks.’

‘Well, just do your best.’

‘What if we can’t reach the peak?’ said Irisis.

Gilhaelith gave her a lazy smile. ‘We make a hole in the ground you could fit a house in.’

Kattiloe’s fingers worked furiously and the machine turned, though it still seemed to be going down much faster than across. The ground wasn’t far away at all now.

The thapter hit a broad column of rising air, lurched sharply, and Kattiloe expertly used the lift to skip across to the other side. The thapter bounced as it came out again, heading directly for the knob and looking as though it was going to plunge straight into it at high speed.

The mechanism groaned, died away, grunted, then resumed its familiar whine. Kattiloe jerked the controller and the thapter shot by the side of the knob then curved away to the south.

No one spoke for a long time, although Gilhaelith was still smiling.

‘Gilhaelith,’ Irisis said as pleasantly as she could, ‘where’s Nish?’

‘I left him behind when we snatched the relics,’ Gilhaelith said, as if Nish were of no significance.

‘What do you mean, left him behind?’ She took him by the coat and lifted him to his toes. Gilhaelith was a good head taller, but he looked alarmed.

‘Dozens of lyrinx were just seconds away and the soldiers on the ground were dead. I couldn’t wait for Nish to get aboard, so I went without him.’ He shrugged.

Irisis let him go, turned away, then swung back and brought a ferocious right hook out of nowhere to crash into his jaw. It drove him against the wall, and as he crumpled to the floor she said, ‘If Nish is dead, so are you.’

She stumbled down the ladder, blinking tears out of her eyes, and threw herself on the floor between Merryl and one of the soldiers. Merryl gripped her shoulder.

‘I think I’ve cracked a knuckle on the bastard,’ she muttered.

Irisis was making last-minute checks of the field controller, her knuckles bound in a yellow rag, when a pair of lyrinx flew towards the command area, a blue truce flag fluttering behind them. She hastily threw a cloth over the device and went out of the tent. Flydd, Troist and Orgestre conferred, then Flydd ordered a blue flag to be raised, indicating that they would allow the parley. The lyrinx flew away, shortly returning with the flag and another lyrinx, an enormous black, golden-crested male.

He landed by the command tents and went forward to where Flydd stood with but a single attendant, as required in the truce parley. The escort waited with the flag while the black lyrinx spoke briefly with them. After a minute or two he began flashing the most violent patterns of reds and blacks Irisis had ever seen. The black lyrinx abruptly turned to the flagpole, wrenched it out of the ground and snapped it across his knee. He tore the truce flag into two, trampled it into the dust and climbed into the sky so rapidly that his escort, still holding the other flag, was left far behind.

‘He didn’t like your attitude?’ Irisis said after they’d gone.

Yggur followed her over, with Troist.

‘He demanded to know why Gilhaelith hadn’t kept his word,’ said Flydd, visibly shaken. ‘I explained the new situation and demanded that he hand over the power patterner, sue for peace and enter into a pact of eternal friendship, after which we’d consider returning the relics. Perhaps I overplayed my hand.’

‘It would appear that way,’ said Yggur.

Flydd looked as if he wanted to punch Yggur in the mouth.

‘He demanded that I hand over the stolen relics unconditionally,’ Flydd said. ‘I – I went too far. I threatened to destroy them if he didn’t cooperate. He pointed out that, if we did, we’d have nothing to bargain with, and they would slaughter us to the last man. I suggested that he might get a surprise if he tried, and the next I knew he was gone.’

‘He came to bargain in good faith,’ said Yggur, ‘and you showed him, yet again, that the scrutators have none.’

‘Perhaps I’ve grown too hard, or too desperate,’ said Flydd.

‘Then we’d better get ready to fight,’ said Troist. ‘And I really hope your mind-shockers and your field controller are up to the business, Flydd, because at the moment they’re the only thing between us and destruction.’

The lyrinx attacked two hours later but the defence did not go as expected. Flydd’s field controller had no effect on the enemy’s Arts and devices, though it had been operating perfectly that morning. While Irisis was trying to work out what the matter was, Orgestre and Troist hastily sent out four hundred clankers, each containing one of the mind-shockers tuned to a set of five specially modified master farspeakers, each with its operator, and all under the direction of Klarm. The remaining hundred mind-shockers had been kept for defence. The plan was for the clankers to encircle the enemy on three sides. The master farspeaker operator would send its signal and each mind-shocker would emit a ferocious burst of barbed mindspeech, so painful that all lyrinx nearby would be forced to flee in the only direction left to them – over the cliffs and down to the Dry Sea. There, being uncomfortable in heat and bright light, they would be at a greater disadvantage.

At least, that was the plan. Unfortunately the mind-shockers did not work either. After the first shock was sent the lyrinx fell about laughing, then formed up in their ranks and charged.

‘They were working perfectly this morning!’ Flydd said when the operators reported back. He wasn’t so much shocked as dazed. He couldn’t work out what had gone wrong. ‘We tried it on three captured lyrinx and they nearly shed their skins in agony.’

‘Well, it’s not working here,’ shrilled the operator. ‘They’re coming –’

They heard nothing more from her.

The master farspeaker operators tried again and again as the clankers retreated to the army, but the mind-shockers kept failing. Troist threw together a desperate defence, with eight thousand battle clankers forming a ring of armour around the foot soldiers, though such an overwhelming force of lyrinx would soon breach it. Possibly afraid that the relics would be destroyed, the enemy didn’t launch an all-out attack, but they forced the army around in a sweeping curve until its only line of retreat was towards the cliffs.

Flydd and Irisis held a hurried conference to discover what had gone wrong while Troist stood by in case they made a breakthrough.

‘Their power patterner must be doing it,’ said Flydd, trying to get his head into the complex bowels of the field controller, though Irisis couldn’t imagine what he hoped to see there.

‘Surr,’ said an anxious artisan, terrified that he’d do irreparable damage, ‘if you could be careful –’

He whipped his head out and she leapt backwards out of the way.

‘Their power patterner isn’t stopping our clankers from going,’ said Troist, furious that his men were dying so uselessly.

‘Who knows how they can pattern power?’ mused Flydd. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We go where they drive us,’ said Troist bitterly, for the enemy were closing in all around, leaving open only a steep and rugged track that led down a gully eroded into the cliffs, all the way down to the Dry Sea. The clankers would be lucky to get down it without overturning. ‘They’re doing exactly what we planned on doing to them.’

‘The enemy would appear to have a sense of irony,’ Gilhaelith observed. ‘I’m fascinated to see what you’re going to do now, scrutator.’

Flydd crab-walked away and roared at the rest of the artisans, who came running. ‘Irisis?’ he bellowed. ‘Get this wretched thing fixed or I’ll have all your heads.’

The lyrinx drove them down onto the Dry Sea, where Troist set up camp and ordered his troops to prepare what defences they could. Irisis was barely aware of the desperate day-long flight, or the bloody skirmishes that punctuated it. Eleven artisans and crafters had been shoehorned into a specially modified twelve-legged clanker, the only kind big enough to accommodate them and their apparatuses. They worked all day and through the night, taking the field controller apart and checking every piece. They made a number of modifications that should have improved the device if they ever got it working again, but couldn’t identify any failure.

‘Do you think if we asked Yggur?’ Irisis said tentatively, for Flydd seethed with a cold rage that she’d only seen before on the way to Nennifer. She didn’t know how to deal with it.

‘I’ve asked!’ Flydd said. ‘I’ve begged, pleaded and even humbled myself, but he won’t budge.’

‘Have you … er, given any thought to what he said?’

‘I’ve thought of nothing else, Crafter. I’ve wracked my brains for a solution that doesn’t involve wiping out the enemy. My guts burn like acid, I can’t sleep, I –’

He laid his head against the side of the clanker and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Anyway, that’s my worry, not yours. Let’s go over it one more time.’

‘It’s got to be their power patterner,’ said Irisis blearily, much later, as the sun rose over the salt.

‘Of course it is,’ snapped Flydd, who’d reluctantly come to the same conclusion at the end of the sleepless night. ‘I just don’t see how it can be affecting our field controller. That’s why we put those banks of charged crystals at the heart of it – so it wouldn’t need to draw on the field at all. Otherwise any node-drainer could bring it down.’

‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ said Irisis. ‘I wonder …? What has the field been doing during our flight? Has anyone been watching it?’

‘It’s behaving oddly, Crafter,’ said the youngest artisan, Nouniy, who was only seventeen and wore her blonde hair in a myriad of plaits, in imitation of famous Pilot Kattiloe. ‘It’s been whirling, actually.’

‘Whirling?’ said Irisis.

‘That’s the only way I can describe it.’ Nouniy demonstrated its motion in the air with a fingertip.

‘Curious,’ said Irisis, touching her pliance and taking a look for herself. Pulling the rear hatch open, she knelt down and began scratching a design on the salt with the point of her knife.

‘What are you doing?’ said Flydd, crouching beside her with an audible click of his kneecaps.

‘The cycling field must be inducing a contrary field around your sensing crystals, cancelling them out. So the rest of the field controller is working but, since you can’t sense how the field is changing, you can’t do anything with it. Now, if we were to just add …’

She sketched for five or six minutes, stood up and looked at the design from all sides, then nodded. ‘That’ll work. Let’s get it made.’ Irisis carefully carved the pattern out of the salt and crushed it under her boot, in case of spies or traitors.

An aide ran up with a folded message strip. Flydd unfolded it and handed it back to her. She bowed and withdrew.

‘Better hurry,’ said Flydd. ‘Our entire army is on the salt. Whatever the enemy have in mind, it’s not going to be long in coming. And get someone to call Tiaan again.’

Each time a thapter was heard he ran out and stared up at the sky, but Tiaan didn’t appear.

After the modifications had been made, Irisis successfully tested the field controller and went looking for Flydd to tell him the good news. He was preparing a last-ditch defence. If that failed their only options were a suicidal attack on an enemy that vastly outnumbered them, or a desperate flight into the Dry Sea. And everyone knew how that would end.

Troist’s twelve-legged clanker came creaking and groaning towards them, stopped, and the rear hatch was thrown open. Gilhaelith staggered out, as white as the salt beneath his feet. He threw up and wavered off towards a vacant tent.

Troist got out soon after, tally sheets under his arm, and came looking for Flydd to give his report.

‘What’s the matter with Gilhaelith?’ said Flydd. ‘He’s usually the picture of self-control.’

‘I took him up to one of the battlefronts. I thought it’d do him good to see what his meddling had caused.’

‘He didn’t like it?’

‘It was a savage attack, and our counterattack was even more bloody. We were right in the thick of it and when it was over, the bodies – theirs and ours – were piled higher than my clanker. A lot of them were in pieces.’

‘That’s what war is like,’ said Flydd. ‘It doesn’t even shock me any more.’

‘It still has an impact on me,’ said Troist. ‘But Gilhaelith had never seen a battle before. I thought he was going to throw up all over my operator.’

‘It’ll do him good,’ Flydd said callously.

‘It’s given him a lot to think about. How’s it going?’ said Troist, nodding towards the field controller.

‘It’s got to work,’ said Irisis, gnawing on a leathery strip of some unidentifiable dried meat, as tasteless as anything she’d ever eaten in the manufactory.

‘Only if humanity is fated to survive,’ said Klarm, who’d recently came back from a spying flight in Chissmoul’s thapter. He was drinking strong black ale, his third for the morning, despite the edict that only weak beer was allowed before battle. Klarm had to have his drink. ‘It may be that our time is over and the lyrinx are due to inherit Santhenar.’

‘I always thought, if we did lose,’ said Irisis, ‘it would be after some mighty siege lasting for weeks, full of incredible deeds of courage and derring-do. I didn’t think they’d just drive us out onto the salt until we died of thirst.’

‘There’ll be an almighty battle before it comes to that. I’m not going out with a whimper.’

‘Nor I,’ she said fiercely.

‘I’ll make my last stand beside you any day,’ Klarm said.

‘Then bring it on,’ she said savagely, flinging the dried meat away. ‘With Nish gone, I don’t have anything left to hope for.’

‘He could have survived,’ said Klarm. ‘I’ve been to the site and found the bodies of the soldiers, but no Nish.’

‘They must have taken him away to question him. And after that, to eat him.’

‘The lyrinx don’t eat people any more, Irisis. Gilhaelith was right about that.’

‘They still kill them, though.’

Irisis stood in the shade of the canvas, watching as Flydd readied the field controller for a last desperate attempt. The struggle was going to be a long-range one, field controller against power patterner, so her work was done unless something broke or needed adjustment. The scrutator was sitting under a piece of sailcloth stretched out with ropes and propped up on poles to form an open shelter whose roof rose about four spans above the salt. He was stripped to the waist and covered in perspiration. She wished she could do the same but that wouldn’t have done in an army camp. Down on the salt, autumn was like midsummer up above.

A stone’s throw away, under another canvas, Klarm prepared to direct his team of operators, who were seated at a long table. Each had a farspeaker globe in front of them, tuned to the massive mind-shockers carried in the forward line of clankers. He and Flydd had concluded that the mind-shockers hadn’t worked because of the failure of the field controller. Runners stood ready to carry messages back and forth between Klarm and Flydd’s team at the field controller.

It squatted on five stubby legs in front of Flydd: an assortment of wires, crystals and strangely curved glass tubes protruding from the top of an open glass barrel. Its operator, Hilluly, another of those young cousins Nish had first tested at Fiz Gorgo, sat by the scrutator’s side, her hands in wired gloves and a bird’s nest of tangled wires and crystals on her head. She was petite, with ashy hair and Yggur’s eyes. She wore a simple white gown belted tightly at a waist that could have been spanned by Klarm’s hands.

A copy of Tiaan’s original but incomplete node map was wrapped around the barrel of the field controller, which could be rotated back and forth. Graduated brass scales ran down the length of the barrel and around its circumference, with pointers that could be slid along to take measurements.

‘What if we offered to give them the relics?’ said Irisis.

‘Out here? And give up the one small lever we have left?’

‘Or threaten to destroy them?’

‘I already tried that one,’ Flydd said ruefully.

Ten spans away, at the far side of Flydd’s shelter so the devices would not interfere with one another, Daesmie hunched over Golias’s globe, relaying messages from the army detachments distributed around them to the four points of the compass, and from Chissmoul’s thapter on watch high above. A runner stood by Daesmie. Because the salt was so flat, the enemy’s movements could not be seen from here. If they broke, or attacked, the news would be relayed at once.

Irisis went over to read what Daesmie was writing. ‘Still no change,’ she said. ‘None of the lyrinx armies have moved all morning.’

They’re playing with us, Irisis thought. They can overrun us whenever they like. She carried the message slate to Flydd, who had a pointed ebony cane in his left hand. He scanned it, nodded and waved her away. Irisis stood well back, and the struggle began.

Flydd pointed to a purple coloured node on Tiaan’s map with the tip of the cane, and said, ‘Ifis 44, Nihim 5, Husp 220, Gyr 8.’

Hilluly moved her fingers inside the gloves. A green light spiralled along one of the twisted tubes; a red one slid down another like an icicle down a wire. Strange poppings came from inside the field controller. Sweat broke out on her forehead.

‘They’ve countered your move with the power patterner, surr,’ Hilluly gasped.

Flydd cursed. ‘Ifis 38, Nihim 11, Husp 187, Gyr 22.’ More lights and noises. Much more sweat.

‘Countered at once,’ panted Hilluly.

‘Oh, have they?’ cried the scrutator. ‘Then let them try this!’

A third list, different names again, but the numbers were all single digits.

Hilluly was rigid, apart from her dancing fingers. A line of flies, which were everywhere down here, gathered on her wet lips. Irisis went to shoo them away but Flydd said, ‘No!’

Hilluly gasped and fell forward. The flies rose and settled on the back of her gown, which was wet with perspiration.

‘Now you can help her,’ said Flydd.

Irisis gave the operator a cool drink. Hilluly sat up, rubbing her eyes with her gloved hands, then tore them off and examined her fingers. They were bright red. She rubbed them on her gown and said, ‘Not that time either, surr.’

He rose from his seat, his every rib showing. ‘Thank you, Hilluly.’ Flydd went across to the farspeaker operator. ‘Any movement yet?’

‘No, surr,’ said Daesmie. ‘The enemy seem to be waiting for something to happen.’

‘Keep listening. I’ll be back in a minute.’

Irisis walked out with him. ‘That looked like a game of Strategies.’

‘It’s exactly like it. I don’t have a perfect understanding of the fields here, and neither do they. I have to guess where their knowledge lies, and their ignorance, and they the same about me. It seems we’re evenly matched – whoever guesses or bluffs best will be the winner.’

‘Or whoever lasts the longest.’

‘True. They have greater endurance than we do.’

‘Do you know anything about their operator?’ said Irisis.

‘Gilhaelith said it would be Ryll, the wingless male who made the power patterner, probably assisted by Liett. She worked with him to develop the first nylatl at Kalissin.’

‘Is there any way we can target them?’

‘We might if Tiaan were here. She knows them both.’ Flydd glanced out at the empty sky.

‘I don’t think she’s coming back,’ Irisis said quietly.

‘Neither do I.’

‘It’s going to be a long day.’

‘I can’t last all day and neither can Hilluly. She’s already flagging.’

‘We have other operators.’

‘Aye, but to change from one to another in the middle of a contest rarely works. We’re a team, Hilluly and I, and this extraordinary device you built.’

‘Dozens of artisans worked on it, not just me.’

‘And you supervised them, Crafter.’

‘Let’s see the device prove itself before we praise it,’ Irisis said superstitiously. ‘And Xervish, even if you win the game, what then?’

‘We don’t die immediately. More than that I can’t say.’

‘But you have a plan.’

‘Yes. I just don’t have much hope that it’ll work.’

Flydd went across to Klarm. Irisis followed at a distance. She had to know what was going on.

‘The enemy haven’t moved,’ Flydd said.

Klarm stretched and rubbed his eyes. ‘How long will it be? I can’t keep everyone on alert all day.’

‘Tell them to put their heads down, if they want to. It’ll be a while before you can use the mind-shockers, assuming we get that far,’ said Flydd. ‘I’ll give you warning.’ He swilled down a gullet full of tepid water and turned back. ‘All right. Let’s see what we can do now.’

The struggle went on, Flydd calling the numbers, Hilluly operating the field controller, and the flies hovering as if waiting for the inhabitants of the tent to die.

‘There’s movement in the south-west segment, surr,’ called Operator Daesmie.

‘Which way?’

‘The enemy are moving away.’

‘Quickly? Fleeing?’ he said hopefully.

‘No; quite slowly.’

‘Oh well,’ said Flydd. ‘It’s a point to our side, I suppose.’

‘Unless it’s a feint,’ said Irisis.

‘We’ll soon know.’

It was not a feint. The enemy just seemed to be reorganising their forces. The game went on almost to dusk, by which time Hilluly was so exhausted that Irisis had to sit beside her and hold her up, and even subtly try to feed power to her, a dangerous thing to do at the best of times. Despite Flydd’s earlier words, his back was as straight as ever and he seemed to be calling the numbers more confidently than before.

‘Tell Klarm to get ready,’ Flydd said suddenly. ‘I think we’re wearing them out.’

‘Is that possible?’ said Irisis. ‘The lyrinx are tireless.’

‘Physically, maybe,’ he said. ‘But their device must take more out of them than yours does.’

‘We designed it that way.’

‘They’re moving,’ shouted Daesmie. ‘They’re moving, surr!’

‘Tell Klarm to do his work with the mind-shocker,’ snapped Flydd. ‘Yes, they’re cracking. One last effort, Hilluly. Now, now! All the way.’

The messenger ran off.

‘The enemy have broken in the southern segment,’ called the farspeaker operator ten minutes later. ‘You’ve won, surr. Well done.’

‘It’s just the first round,’ said Flydd, ‘but we’ll keep the pressure up. Can you last a bit longer, Hilluly?’

‘I think so,’ she croaked.

‘This will be easier. Holding them isn’t as big a trial as breaking them in the first place.’

The struggle raged for days as Flydd and Klarm tried to drive the enemy’s vastly superior forces south-west along the edge of the Dry Sea, towards the marshland and salt lakes below the Trihorn Falls, and the enemy tried to force them out into the waterless salt. After the first day, Flydd had to use a team of three operators, taking turns with them, for the work was so exhausting that none could keep it up for more than a few hours. Irisis called Tiaan over and again but heard no reply.

It was the strangest battle Irisis had ever experienced. Eighty thousand soldiers, and far more lyrinx, did little but march, sometimes towards each other and sometimes away. Flydd and his operators, and Klarm and his, sweated in their shelters, or tried to operate their devices in jouncing clankers.

‘I thought the lyrinx were supposed to hate heat and bright light?’ said Irisis on the second afternoon. She was practically fainting with heat exhaustion.

‘They’ve equipped themselves with slit goggles just like ours,’ said Flydd. ‘As for the heat, they have adapted better than we expected.’

On the fourth day, just when they thought they had the enemy on the run, the struggle took a dramatic turn for the worse. Hilluly collapsed without warning and had to be carried out, unconscious. Her replacement lasted only a few minutes before she too slid off her chair. Flydd called for the third.

The girl sat down, trembling. Irisis gave her a hug but could see this operator would not do. Irisis exchanged glances with Flydd. His eyes were staring and she saw naked fear there. She hadn’t seen that since he’d gone to meet the master flenser on the amphitheatre. As soon as Flydd caught her eye it vanished, and he was the same imperturbable scrutator she had always known, but the damage had been done. The enemy had struck back, and they were too strong.

The third operator lasted half an hour. By that time her movements were growing slower and slower. They had a little warning this time – just enough for Irisis to catch her as she fell. And not long after that, disaster struck. Klarm sat bolt upright, threw out his arms and legs and fell flat on his face. Blood poured out of his nose and mouth onto the salt. He wasn’t dead but he couldn’t move a finger.

Flydd looked at Irisis. He had regained control. ‘Well, old friend,’ he said casually, ‘We’re lost. I can’t do any more.’

‘What happens now?’ She could repress her feelings too. ‘Perhaps they’ll make an exception and eat us.’

SIXTY-NINE

‘The enemy are advancing,’ Operator Daesmie said just after Irisis came back. Her face had gone white, which made the rings around her eyes stand out as purple as bruises. ‘Every segment reports the same. They’re coming right for us.’

‘How could they attack Klarm?’ said Flydd. ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Fight on, hopeless though it is without him.’

‘I’ve sent for more field-controller operators,’ said Irisis.

‘It won’t do any good. Hilluly and her cousins were the best. Besides, I’m being undermined and I don’t know how to stop it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The power is still in the fields but now I can’t get it out. It’s as if someone else is attacking me from the other side.’

‘Could the lyrinx have more than one power patterner?’

‘I don’t think so. This new attack is different. It’s strong but ragged, as if whoever is using it is very powerful but not used to fighting this way.’

‘Who can it be?’

Flydd made a face. ‘Anabyng, their master mancer, I’d say. He’d have the power to bring Klarm down.’

‘I’ve called for an operator to replace him too,’ said Irisis.

‘Whoever it is, he won’t be strong enough.’

‘It’s Yggur.’

‘He won’t come,’ said Flydd.

‘He will,’ said Irisis.

‘How do you know?’

‘Really, surr,’ she grinned. ‘Surely you don’t expect me to reveal my wiles, even at such a time as this.’

He managed a smile, as she’d hoped. It heartened Irisis, for without Flydd the battle, the war and the world were lost. ‘Not that. And what price must I pay?’

‘I told him you’d save the lyrinx if we won. Somehow.’

The smile faded. ‘You’re assuming a lot, Crafter.’

‘I’m expecting you to lose the battle, surr, so you won’t have to find a solution.’

‘A challenge,’ said Flydd. He chuckled. ‘What would I do without you, Irisis? I’ll just have to prove you wrong.’

Shortly Yggur came across the salt, clad all in grey, his face carved out of granite. ‘Flydd,’ he said, nodding. ‘You will hold to your word.’

Flydd stood there for a moment, in thought, then held out his hand. ‘I will do everything in my power,’ he said softly.

‘Then let’s fight the final battle,’ said Yggur, and turned to Klarm’s vacant seat, with the bloodstains on the salt beside it.

The runner came back with two more operators for Flydd. Irisis recognised both, though she did not know their names. Flydd sat the first girl beside him and explained what had to be done. She looked afraid. Moreover, even after three explanations she used the controller awkwardly and, as soon as power was drawn, began to cry. ‘It hurts, surr. I can’t do it.’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Flydd gently. He glanced at the other, a thin, plain, stringy-haired young woman with a defiant set to her jaw. ‘How about you, girl?’

‘I’ll do my best, surr,’ she said stoutly.

‘That’s all I ask. What’s your name?’

‘Kirrily, surr.’

Kirrily did do her best, which turned out to be surprisingly good. She learned quickly and managed to last for over an hour, but after that succumbed quickly. Irisis drew off the gloves and laid her out on the ground to recover.

‘The same,’ said Flydd to her unspoken question. ‘I was doing all right until my nemesis began to attack me at the same time. If the node map was better, or the operator stronger, I might be able to fight this new attacker as well as the lyrinx. But I can’t.’

‘There’s fighting, surr,’ called the farspeaker operator. ‘The lyrinx have fallen on us in the west and the south. It’s bloody.’ She gave details.

‘Now they’re driving us,’ said the scrutator. ‘And they’ll run through us in an afternoon.’

A soldier hurried in. ‘The enemy is advancing this way, surr. General Troist says to pack up and get to your thapter.’

‘How long do we have?’

‘At the rate they’re coming, they’ll be here in an hour.’

‘We’ll keep going for a little while longer, tell him. You never know …’ Flydd bit his lip.

The soldier saluted and ran out.

‘There doesn’t seem much point,’ said Irisis.

‘Once I pack up,’ said Flydd, ‘it’s an admission of defeat and it’ll be twice as hard to start again. Confidence is everything. I don’t suppose you could operate a field controller, Irisis?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll work without an operator for the moment. Run and see if Hilluly is any better yet. She was the best.’

After some time, Hilluly was brought back on a stretcher. She could barely sit up, but she didn’t flinch from the job when Flydd asked her if she could take the gloves.

They worked for a while, whereupon Flydd turned to Irisis and shook his head. ‘How long do we have?’

‘Quarter of an hour, at most.’

‘Then only a miracle can save us now. Tell Yggur he’d better get ready to run.’

Irisis loped across to him. Yggur was sitting at the master farspeaker, his big hands stretched over it. ‘We’ve only got fifteen minutes, surr.’

‘I’ll be here until the end.’

Irisis ran back. Already she could hear the shouts of battle, the squeal of racing clankers, the cries of the dying.

‘What’s that?’ said Irisis, cocking her head.

‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘It sounds like a thapter.’

Flydd’s face didn’t change. He’d been disappointed too many times. ‘Whose?’

Irisis ran outside. ‘I think it’s Tiaan and Malien,’ she yelled.

‘Signal them, quick! And tell Yggur to get his team ready, just in case I can pull something out of a very empty bag.’

‘He’s ready.’

The thapter was drifting around in circles, looking for the command tent. They wouldn’t find it – it had been packed and loaded into a clanker long ago. All the tents were down and a line of clankers were moving out into the Dry Sea – the suicide path, as Flydd called it.

Irisis ran out into the open space, waving her arms frantically, but the thapter continued north. She stood looking after it, praying that it would come back on another sweep. The anguished cries and savage roars grew louder. There was no time to waste. Irisis ran back towards the shelter; and then she heard the thapter again.

She waved furiously and to her joy it dropped sharply, turned in her direction and came to rest just outside the shelter. Tiaan’s face appeared over the side.

‘Tiaan!’ Irisis screamed. ‘Flydd needs your map. Desperately.’ She pointed to Flydd’s shelter.

Tiaan seemed to hesitate for a second, then she scrambled over the side, roll of linen in hand, and ran in. Irisis wrapped the map around the barrel of the field controller, over the top of the old map.

‘I’ve never been more glad to see anyone in my life,’ said Flydd. ‘Can you operate this, Tiaan?’

‘Of course,’ she said, putting on the gloves and helmet. ‘I did the first trials, remember? Though I wouldn’t be as good as a trained –’

‘No time for that. He pointed with his cane to a node out in the Dry Sea, and muttered, ‘Ifis 312, Nihim 99, Husp 3, Gyr 64.’

Tiaan flexed her fingers. She seemed to be taking a long time to follow him. It would not be easy to make the mental switch from flying the thapter.

Flydd glanced at Operator Daesmie, who shook her head. He pointed and rapped another series. Tiaan followed more quickly. Again the interrogative glance; again the little shake of the head.

A pair of soldiers appeared at the entrance. ‘The enemy are coming on quickly, surr,’ the first yelled. ‘You must go now.’

‘We’ll just be one minute.’

Irisis could now see the army retreating towards them, only a few hundred paces away. They were still fighting, but once they broke, the enemy could cross the distance in well under a minute.

Flydd was now calling his series without a pause, his pointer flicking from one part of the map to the other so fast that Irisis could barely follow it. Sweat rolled down his bare chest. Even Tiaan was perspiring.

Irisis ran to the farspeaker operator and put an encouraging hand on her arm. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Nothing yet,’ Daesmie said, one eye on her globe and the other to the right, where the enemy were advancing. Though terrified, she held to her duty.

Irisis could feel the strain building. Her head was pounding like a racing clanker, there was a roaring in her ears and she could taste blood in her mouth. Were they all about to suffer Klarm’s fate, just from being near the field controller? She squeezed her pliance in one fist and the fields flamed around her as allies and enemies drew on them for every ounce of power they could take.

The map was spinning now, the cane flicking back and forth, Flydd choking out the numbers, scarlet-faced. He looked about to have a seizure. He stood up on his toes, roared out a set and Tiaan’s fingers danced.

And then Irisis felt something break with a wrench that set the fields bouncing.

‘Yes!’ roared Flydd, brandishing his fist at the purple sky. ‘Yggur, get ready to use the mind-shocker. It’ll work this time.’

‘It’d better,’ grunted Yggur. ‘Team, now!’

‘Have you broken the power patterner?’ said Irisis to Flydd.

‘No,’ he said grimly, ‘but I have broken Anabyng’s attack.’

‘Better get on with it,’ said Irisis. ‘That’s the enemy just out there.’

He glanced that way and his red face paled. ‘So close. All right, Tiaan, the last effort. Ryll and Liett are using the power patterner. Take advantage of any weaknesses you’re aware of.’

Again the tiny hesitation before she said, ‘I’ll do my best.’

The struggle went on. The enemy had temporarily stalled but their numbers were overwhelming. The soldiers of the rearguard were fighting to the death to protect them and create a chance for everyone else. But the dead were piling up and the lyrinx must break through at any moment.

‘Call Troist,’ she yelled at the operator. ‘Tell him we’re still working.’

‘I have. He said his men can’t hold out any longer.’

‘Neither can we.’ Irisis held a cool drink to Flydd’s cracked lips and sponged his forehead with water. She offered a drink to Tiaan but Tiaan shook her head.

‘Mind-shocker, now!’ Flydd shouted to Yggur. ‘Irisis, keep an eye out. Tell me if it’s working.’

The air crackled as Yggur went to work, and Irisis felt a faint throb at the base of her skull, a momentary weakness in her limbs. Yggur was directing the mind-shocker so powerfully that even she could feel it.

Flydd was growing hoarse now and the cane wasn’t moving as quickly as before. Irisis glanced over her shoulder and saw the enemy for the first time. Troist’s line had broken.

‘I can see the enemy. To the thapter, surr!’

‘Wait!’ said Flydd, his teeth clenched so tightly she expected them to shatter. He choked out another set of numbers.

Tiaan’s fingers raced, then went still. She looked questioningly across to the scrutator, who wasn’t saying anything. He was staring at the farspeaker.

‘They’ve broken,’ Operator Daesmie said, her eyes glassy. She was drenched with sweat and Irisis realised that she had neglected Daesmie, who had been working for hours without a break. ‘They’ve broken, surr!’

Flydd lurched to his feet, looking around wildly.

‘No, surr,’ cried Daesmie. ‘The enemy have broken.’

‘Broken?’ Flydd whispered, unable to comprehend, much less believe that they had finally done it.

Yggur was slumped in his chair, utterly drained.

‘Come outside, surr,’ said Irisis. She helped him out, then signalled to Malien. ‘Take us up so we can see what’s going on.’

Yggur looked up as Flydd staggered by. ‘Well, Scrutator,’ he said in a hoarse rasp, ‘I’ve met my end of the bargain.’

‘And I will honour mine,’ said Flydd. ‘Though I’ve no idea how.’

The thapter slipped into the air. The enemy line had broken. The clankers equipped with mind-shockers had swung around in a curving line and the lyrinx were being pushed north, further out into the Dry Sea. Malien climbed higher. It was happening on the other side as well: another curve of clankers splitting the enemy in two around the human army and driving them out into the wasteland.

Flydd shook his head. ‘I never thought it was possible. Not for a second.’

‘But you never gave in, either,’ said Malien. ‘You’re quite a man, Scrutator.’

‘If only you knew the despair I give way to, in the dark each night after I’ve gone to bed.’

‘You’re not alone, Xervish Flydd. You’re not alone.’

SEVENTY

As soon as it became evident that they had mastery of the lyrinx, an open-air council of war was called to formally decide on the next step, the most momentous of the war. Irisis, sitting up the back with Malien and Tiaan, wasn’t looking forward to the debate.

‘The war will soon be over,’ said Flydd. ‘Our field controller now has control of most of the nodes within a forty-league semicircle of Ashmode. We’re slowly but progressively choking off their power patterner, and in a day or two it’ll be useless. The enemy can no longer fly. In two more days – three at the outside – they won’t be able to use any of their Arts.’

‘And there’s no way they can strike back?’ said Nisbeth.

‘They’re cut off from the shore by a circle of clankers armed with mind-shockers, and they can’t approach within half a league of them. They can’t escape. The only question remaining is – what do we do with them?’

‘We’ve had this argument before,’ said a purple-faced General Orgestre. The golden medals danced as he shifted position and Irisis noticed that he’d added another row since Flydd and Troist’s victory. Orgestre was a man who knew his priorities. ‘Exterminate them! It’s the only way we can ever be safe.’

‘But that would be genocide,’ said Gilhaelith, who still looked shaken from his day at the battlefront.

‘I thought you were out for revenge?’ said Flydd.

‘It’s not as sweet as I’d thought,’ Gilhaelith muttered.

‘After what they’ve done to our world,’ said Orgestre coldly, ‘a million deaths and whole nations devastated, genocide is exactly what I’m proposing.’

‘They might have been human once,’ said a young, yellow-haired officer up the front, ‘but they forfeited their humanity when they began to flesh-form their unborn young. The lyrinx are an abomination and we cannot suffer them to live. I say we move in on them right away.’

‘We’re not going to make any hasty decisions,’ said Flydd with a glance at Yggur, whose frosty eye was fixed on him. ‘If we attack while they’ve still got power we could lose half our army. If we delay we can save those lives and … still meet our objective.’

To Irisis, he didn’t sound convincing. Tiaan turned to her and Malien, saying quietly, ‘This kind of talk makes me sick to my stomach. I’m going for a walk.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Irisis. ‘I can’t bear it either.’ Malien joined them.

They slipped out, crunching across the crusted salt in the moonlight. ‘There has to be another way,’ said Malien.

‘I wish I knew one,’ Tiaan replied.

‘A night flight would clear your head and help you think about it.’

Beside Irisis, Tiaan stiffened.

‘Vithis has to be told that his clan is no more,’ said Malien.

‘I – but surely I don’t have to go? He …’

‘You must, Tiaan. It’s the end of his clan, and you discovered what happened to them. You have to tell him what you know. I can’t do that for you. I have my own story to relate.’

‘But … Minis will be there. How am I to face him? I don’t think I can.’

‘You’ve been running away for more than a year. If you’ve done him wrong – and only you and he know the truth of that – you have to face up to it.’

‘I’m sure Flydd won’t allow me to go.’

‘He can spare you now,’ said Malien. ‘Nothing’s going to happen until all the enemy’s Arts have been stripped from them. I’ll tell him I’m taking you.’

Tiaan walked away across the salt until Irisis lost sight of her in the dim light. She shifted her weight with a faint crunch.

‘You think I’m pushing her too hard,’ Malien said quietly.

‘I can’t say,’ said Irisis. ‘Although I couldn’t bear to have it hanging over my head. I’d have to go at it head-on, whatever the consequences.’

Malien went in to Flydd, and came back within minutes. ‘He didn’t put up as much of a fight as I’d expected, even when I said I was taking you as well.’

It was a long time before Tiaan returned. ‘I can see that you’re right,’ she said to Malien. Her face was in darkness but the tension in her voice was palpable. ‘Vithis has to be faced sooner or later. And Minis. In some ways, it’d be a relief to have it over, though I don’t know how I’m going to get through it.’

‘I’ll be standing beside you,’ said Malien.

‘But I can’t run away and allow the lyrinx to be exterminated,’ Tiaan added.

‘Nice try, Tiaan, but any decision will be days yet. Besides,’ Malien said slyly, ‘if you were to take your node map, Orgestre wouldn’t dare attack them.’

‘But then the lyrinx might –’

‘They won’t. There’s no escaping your duty, Tiaan.’

Dawn broke as they approached the Foshorn. Irisis climbed the ladder, rubbed her eyes and yawned. She’d slept most of the night and wouldn’t have minded a few hours more. The rising sun lit up the towering cliffs and ramparts. Directly below, the salt lakes formed by the Trihorn Falls were still in shadow.

Tiaan, who was rigid with tension, offered her hot chard and strips of dried quince. Irisis took a handful. ‘Where’s the famous Foshorn, then?

‘The Trihorn Falls are straight ahead,’ said Malien, who was still flying. ‘The Hornrace, linking the Sea of Thurkad to the Dry Sea, lies behind them. We’ll be over it in half an hour.’

‘That’s strange,’ Malien said a few minutes later. ‘I don’t see much water coming over the falls.’

‘I don’t suppose it changes with the seasons?’ said Irisis.

Malien chuckled. ‘Not with an ocean behind it.’ She turned to curve across the glistening lower flanks of the Trihorn. The layered rock was etched with deep slots and canyons that ran down to the salt lakes below the Trihorn, but the falls had been reduced to a few trickles.

She lifted the nose of the machine to fly up the face of the Trihorn. Irisis felt her stomach being left behind. She put down the dried quince, no longer hungry, and concentrated on not spilling her chard. Up, up and up they soared, flying faster and faster. Malien’s jaw was set and she was staring fixedly ahead.

They rocketed towards the peaks and, as they reached the left-hand gap through which the falls had once flowed, Malien flattened out with a jerk of her hand, curving between the two peaks.

Irisis gagged as her stomach and intestines seemed to be pushing up into her throat. Her feet lifted off the floor and she caught desperately at the side rail.

‘Sorry,’ said Malien. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry –’

Below the thapter a trench, cut hundreds of spans deep and wide through solid rock, ran ahead as far as they could see.

‘Was that the Hornrace?’ said Irisis. It contained just a few elongated pools.

‘It was.’

The thapter climbed higher. In the distance a massive, rectangular building, constructed upon a colossal arch of stone, spanned the Foshorn. Smaller cubes made a kind of pyramid at the centre of the arch.

‘Where’s the watch-tower?’ said Tiaan.

‘It’s fallen,’ Malien replied grimly. ‘See. And not of its own accord. History repeats itself.’

Tiaan shot her a glance. Malien shook her head as if saying, later.

The tower’s suspended arches appeared to have broken and it had speared right through the pyramidal building. The pyramid and the Span still stood, though rubble from the tower had dammed the Hornrace. The flagpole that had stood on top stuck up at an angle from the dam, still proudly flying the pennant of Inthis First Clan.

Malien circled over the arch. A ragged hole had been torn right through the vast building. Thousands of constructs were drawn up in ranks outside, not too close in case the rest collapsed. Aachim stood in groups everywhere, staring at the ruins.

Malien hovered for a while, silently taking in the scene. ‘Best we go down and find Vithis,’ she said at last.

‘How are we going to guard the thapter?’ Tiaan said in a dry croak.

‘I am Matah of all my people,’ said Malien with the unconscious arrogance that characterised her kind. ‘And I’m bringing Vithis the most tragic news of all.’

She landed between the constructs, close by the main doors, and a small group of Aachim came to meet them. They were still covered in dust and their eyes had a faraway look.

‘I am Malien,’ she said. ‘Matah of the Aachim of Santhenar. I must see Vithis on a matter of the utmost importance.’

‘I’m sorry, Matah,’ said the robed woman at their head, and they all bowed their heads respectfully. ‘In the circumstances, Vithis will not see even you. I’m sure you appreciate …’

‘It concerns the fate of his clan,’ Malien said.

The Aachim stiffened and cast a glance at her fellows. ‘I will take you to him at once.’ She gave orders to a slender boy, who set off at a run.

They followed in more stately fashion. The Aachim said no more and Malien asked no questions of her. Inside they climbed many flights of dust-covered, gritty stairs. Irisis lost count after a while. The building was different to other Aachim structures Irisis had read about in the Histories, being extremely plain and undecorated.

The lad appeared and led them across a large open floor scattered with rubble, to a slumped figure in the centre. Vithis was sitting on the edge of the ragged hole, legs dangling down through it, staring blindly at the still waters of the Hornrace. Tiaan hung back; then, with a visible wrench, she forced herself to come to the edge beside him.

‘Matah Malien,’ Vithis said dully. ‘You have news of Inthis?’

He looked up at Tiaan and Irisis caught her breath, knowing the enmity between them, but Vithis’s expression did not change.

Malien dusted off the floor and sat beside him, though she kept her legs clear of the hole. ‘I do, but not good news. We found the wreckage of many constructs out in the Dry Sea. They were made of the blue metal which only Inthis knows the secret of working. A few of the bodies wore First Clan colours. They had survived for some time.’

‘But they are all dead now?’

‘Alas, all that we could find. I’m sorry.’

‘They called this tower another First Clan folly.’ His voice was as harsh and dry as grit grinding underfoot. ‘A monument to my hubris. Not even my wretched foster-son had faith in our clan’s tenacity and will to live. But I knew First Clan had survived and I would not abandon them, whatever it cost my own reputation.’

Vithis looked up through the hole at the sky, or perhaps the limitless void. For a moment Irisis saw the nobility in him, the dreams he’d nurtured before life had crushed them one by one.

‘You did the right thing,’ said Malien. ‘Will you come to view the bodies, name those you know and record how they lived and died?’

‘I knew every one of my people, and I will send them off with all the honour that is their due. Let us waste no time.’

On the way down Vithis opened a door and said, ‘Come out, lad. You were in Tirthrax at the beginning. You might as well see the end.’

A small man came through the door, rather warily, and he was so covered in dust that at first Irisis did not recognise him. When she did, Irisis, who prided herself on her control, let out a shriek and ran.

‘Nish!’ She threw her arms around him, lifted him in the air and whirled him around in a circle. ‘I was sure the lyrinx had eaten you. What are you doing here?’ She couldn’t restrain her tears, which spotted his dusty face. She kissed them away, smudging her lips and cheek.

Nish hugged her back. ‘It would take a day to tell you.’

As they went out the main doors towards the thapter, Irisis, who had her arm linked through Nish’s, heard a distinctive clicking sound, like a metal-shod crutch on stone. She eased him to a stop. Just ahead, Tiaan had frozen. She rotated in place like a statue on a pedestal, and could not conceal her horror.

A haggard, aged Minis emerged from the front door, moving painfully on his crutches. He saw Tiaan standing there and his face lit up. His joy brought a lump to Irisis’s throat.

She glanced at Tiaan, despite herself half hoping to see it reflected there. It wasn’t. Whatever Tiaan was feeling at that moment – horror at the extent of his injuries, compassion, guilt perhaps – it wasn’t the naked adoration shining from Minis. She may have loved him once but it was gone forever.

Minis strained forward on his crutches as if he could compel her to love him in return, but as it became clear that she did not, would not, could not, the seams of his face deepened, his shoulders dropped and he sagged onto his crutches with a groan of despair.

Vithis had also turned. He looked from one to the other and his face hardened. ‘What did you expect?’ he said harshly. ‘Come, Foster-son. I’m all you have left.’

Irisis couldn’t watch any more. ‘Let’s go,’ she whispered to Nish. ‘This is none of our business.’

She led him around the other side of the thapter and they climbed in and settled companionably on the lower floor, in a shaded corner. Irisis linked her arm through his again. ‘Now tell me everything. Don’t leave out the tiniest detail.’

SEVENTY-ONE

‘Take the controller,’ Malien said, ushering Tiaan toward the thapter.

‘I’m not sure I can.’ Tiaan’s knees were shaking.

‘I think it’s best. It’ll give you something to do.’

‘I thought you wanted me to talk to Minis?’

‘You can’t do that in a crowded thapter. Time enough after the dead have been dealt with.’

Vithis climbed in, followed by ten Aachim – the other clan leaders and Matah Urien – there to set down the fate of First Clan and see the dead laid to rest. Minis came last, and when no one moved to help him up the ladder, Tiaan went to do so.

‘Don’t take away the little self-respect he has left!’ said Vithis.

She returned to the controller and fastened her straps. Minis struggled in and she could feel his feverish eyes on her. It was a relief when he went below with the others. Malien had gone down too.

‘Lift off!’ rasped Vithis.

She did so, as jerkily as a novice. He stood beside her, shuddering with such suppressed emotions that Tiaan began to think he would strike her down and seize the controller for himself.

They travelled in silence, for Tiaan could think of nothing to say to him, and he, it appeared, did not trust himself to speak.

An hour into the flight, Nish came up the ladder and Tiaan had never been more glad to see him. The uncomfortable silence stretched out. Shortly they saw ahead the solitary tower, like red balls on a skewer, which the Aachim had constructed on the pinnacle in the Dry Sea.

‘Nithmak Tower,’ said Vithis. ‘Another monument to my folly. I built it to bring First Clan home from the void. If only I had looked closer to home. All that time I wasted here, striving to beam my beacon out across the limitless void, and my people were crying out for aid just days away. Why was I so fixed on the void? Why did I not think of the Dry Sea? How could I have been so blind?’

‘Is Nithmak a portal?’ asked Nish.

‘Not of itself, but one can readily be made there at need,’ said Vithis.

‘I wish I’d never made the gate at Tirthrax,’ said Tiaan. ‘I wish I’d never seen the amplimet, nor heard Minis’s call. Nor listened to him.’

‘So do I wish it,’ said Vithis. ‘I would shed every drop of my heart’s blood to make it so. If First Clan had to disappear, why could we not have died together on our own world, with dignity?’

‘I thought I was doing the right thing,’ said Tiaan. ‘Why didn’t I refuse to put the port-all together?’

‘Nithmak is a master zyxibule,’ said Vithis. ‘Nothing was done in haste this time. It was designed so carefully that a child could use it, built by masters, and checked by my own hands. It’s perfect.’

She studied the structure as they went by. ‘And you designed it to reach anywhere in the void?’ she said thoughtfully.

‘I wouldn’t say anywhere, for the void is limitless. But anywhere my people could have ended up.’

‘Could you go back to Aachan?’

‘We have gone back,’ he said grimly. ‘We clan leaders have been there a dozen times, visiting all the havens and searching for survivors of any clan. We found none. Our beloved Aachan is a volcanic hell.’

Tiaan dwelt on that as they left the tower behind. And all because of choices made thousands of years ago, by Aachim desperate to have the power that mastery of an amplimet could bring.

‘Whenever the way into the void has been opened, trouble has come out of it,’ said Malien from the top of the ladder. ‘I dread what will come through this gate if it’s left for the future’s fools to play with.’

‘Do what you wish with it,’ said Vithis. ‘Destroy it! I care not. Here is the key.’ From a chain around his neck he took a hexagonal rod carved from a single sapphire, whose corners were rounded from aeons of handling. He gave it to Malien.

Malien studied it for a moment, nodded and put it in her scrip. ‘I will see to it.’

No one spoke for hours afterwards. Tiaan held on to her controller like a lifeline, longing for the journey to be over, though not for what lay at the end of it. In the immensity of the Dry Sea the thapter did not seem to be moving.

She flew through the night and soon after dawn began to descend. ‘We saw the first construct not far ahead,’ Tiaan said.

Vithis was the first to spot the wreckage. He showed no expression, apart from a hardening of the corners of his mouth.

‘There’s one. Go lower. I would count their number first, and make sure none have been overlooked.’

Tiaan went back and forth as he directed. As many of the Aachim as could fit came up, until the compartment was so crammed that she was hard pressed to work the levers.

Vithis’s lips moved. ‘Some constructs hit so hard that they were smashed to pieces, yet others are hardly damaged. Why didn’t they repair one and send for help?’

‘This country is so rugged that not even a construct could hover across it,’ said Malien. ‘You’ll see what I mean when we set down.’

His mouth shut like a trap. ‘I’ve seen enough. Go down now.’

The heat radiating from the black rocks hit them like a furnace. They visited the isolated machines, and their dead, before turning to the stone tombs. For Minis, having to pick his way on crutches across the jagged rocks must have been another kind of torture, but he neither complained nor faltered.

Vithis examined the bodies in the mausoleums, exclaiming as he recognised one, and another. ‘My clan, oh my clan.’

It took all day and night, for there were many, many bodies. He checked each one, named it without hesitation; mourned over each, too. Each name seemed to take a little more from him. The lines of his face lengthened and deepened, his eyes became more sunken, his back more bent as the terrible night wore on. Tiaan had to sleep at last, but he was still going when she got up.

‘Ah, Sulien,’ he said, bent over the desiccated rags of a small, black-haired woman. ‘You were the greatest beauty of our times. I once thought to match you with my foster-son. Would that I had.’ Vithis stood up, wiped dust from his eye and shuffled to the next. ‘And you, Orthis – sage, philosopher, dear friend and counsellor, how I need your wise guidance now.’

So it went on – poet, architect, Mother of the Clan, beloved niece – he mourned over every one, as the sun rose higher and sucked up the last drops of perspiration.

‘You survived all this time,’ he said at the last stone mausoleum. ‘If only I had known to look here. Why did you not call? Did you not see my beacon?’

Vithis shuffled out like an old man. His skin had taken on a grey tinge and Minis, beside him, looked even worse. The dried paths of tears streaked his salt-crusted face.

‘Is that all?’ Vithis said hoarsely. ‘There are many missing. Very many that I would have expected to find accompanying these.’

‘There’s still the building constructed from the skins of the wrecked constructs,’ said Malien. ‘Perhaps some you’re looking for lie within.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘How could I have forgotten it? Or is it that I dread what I will see inside?’

They went up the path to the metal building and began to go through each of the rooms, Vithis leading, Minis struggling along behind. Tiaan noticed that Irisis and Nish were not following and was glad. It didn’t concern them.

Vithis turned into a compartment that Tiaan and Malien had missed previously. On pallets on the floor lay an old man and an old woman, their dark robes covered in a dusting of windblown salt. They were thin to the point of emaciation and the woman’s arms were folded across her breast; the man’s lay by his sides. They too looked as if they were sleeping.

Vithis looked down, saying nothing. A single tear welled in his left eye. He ignored it. ‘Uncle Mumis, Aunt Zefren. Why didn’t I hear your cries?’

Luxor tapped Tiaan on the shoulder and jerked his head at the entrance. She went out, followed by Malien and all but Vithis and Minis.

‘Clan mourning,’ said Malien to the clan leader beside her. ‘What comes after, Tayel?’

‘I can scarcely bear to think.’

A good while later Vithis emerged, more stooped than before, and more haggard. His eyes sought Tiaan out among the gathering.

‘There are more.’ It was a statement.

‘Upstairs.’ She hesitated, unsure what he wanted, then pointed.

‘You will take me there.’

Tiaan led the way. This time only Minis followed, leaving his crutches at the bottom and hauling himself up the steps. At the top, by the children’s room, she stood aside to let Vithis past. The doorway was no higher than her head but he was so bowed that he passed through freely.

He walked to the centre of the room, looked at the beds, and gave forth a cry of anguish such as Tiaan had never heard from a human throat. She turned to leave him but his arm shot out and caught her hand.

‘Stay! See what you’ve wrought by debauching my foster-son with your alien allure.’ Tears coursed down his cratered cheeks. ‘You seduced him with your charms and your deadly stone, and for that First Clan is no more. Ah, the children, the children!’

‘Foster-father,’ cried Minis. ‘Have you lost your wits? We called out for help, remember, and when she answered we used her innocent infatuation –’

‘Be silent!’

‘You approved every action we took, Foster-father, and if the gate went wrong that was due to what you did with it after it opened.’

‘It had already gone wrong. I was trying to put it right.’

‘If it did go wrong,’ said Malien, who had come up quietly, ‘and I know it did, then you must look to your own enemies, Lord Vithis. Ask yourself who wanted to see the end of First Clan. And who seized that opportunity, when Inthis were first into the gate, to be rid of them?’

‘No!’ cried Vithis, putting his hands over his ears. ‘I will not hear this. It is Aachim first and clan second, as it has always been. No one would attack another clan at such a desperate time. No one!’

He turned to Minis, who was leaning against the wall, panting. ‘And you are just as culpable. Why could you not cleave to your own? What was so wrong with the women of First Clan that you had to call out across the void for an old human mate?’ The very words were a curse.

‘You know it wasn’t like that,’ began Minis. ‘I was asked to join the call.’

‘For help. Not for a mate. You could have had anyone, even beautiful Sulien who now lies out there, shrivelled like a piece of dried meat. Our clan, the greatest and oldest of all, is dying, yet you have not produced so much as a half-Inthis child. What have I done to make you hate me so?’

‘I don’t hate you, Foster-father. I …’

‘Aaargh! Begone. And take her with you.’

Tiaan scrambled down the stairs and outside. Minis clacked after her, avoiding her eyes. A great cry of anguish came from the attic window, after which there was silence. Finally Vithis emerged. His back was no longer bent but his face was more crevassed than ever.

‘All things must pass and First Clan is no more. I will send them on their longest journey, in the way that has always been foretold. Not foretold by a mooncalf with a head full of fantasies,’ he spat, with a glance in Minis’s direction. ‘Forecast by our ancient seers. Inthis came first and we found the Well. Some say it came first and First Clan was born of it. As we came, so shall we depart. No more fitting farewell can I make my people.’

He threw his arms up, clawing for the sky, and opened his mouth to speak the Great Spell.

‘What are you doing?’ cried Malien.

‘I am summoning the Well, Matah Malien.’

Malien looked afraid. Tiaan shuddered and moved closer to her.

‘The Well cannot be summoned,’ said Malien. ‘It just is, and presently it lies chained within Tirthrax. Even to go near it is perilous.’

‘Not to me, for I am the direct heir of Inthis, founder of First Clan ten thousand years ago. I have the power and the right, for the chained Well at Tirthrax is just a shadow of what it should be.’ He raised his arms again.

‘Why are you doing this?’ said Malien.

‘The least honour I can do my people is to send them to the Well, but it is the only honour in my power.’

‘Then let us take them to the Hornrace and entomb them in the time-honoured way. Here, by the great mid-sea rift, the seat of such unstable power, is neither fitting nor safe.’

‘Here they fell and here they will be taken up,’ said Vithis softly, but then his voice rose. ‘What care I for safety? What care I if the whole of Santhenar falls into ruin? My world is gone, and my clan. I have nothing left.’

‘You have Minis,’ she said.

‘I lost him before I lost my clan or my world. It’s too late now; nothing remains of him.’ He raised his voice. ‘Flee now, any among you who fear death.’ He fixed each one of them with his baleful glare. ‘Well, Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

‘I fear your kind of death, but I would honour your dead,’ Nish said softly. ‘I will stay.’

‘There’s more to you than I thought,’ said Vithis. ‘Not much, but something. Take your place over there.’

Vithis offered them the choice, one after another, to go or to stay. Everyone stayed. ‘Then move back,’ he said. ‘The Well of Echoes – the true Well – has an appetite for the living as well as the dead.’

He reached out, clenching and unclenching his fists, and the sky changed to an ashy grey. Thunder rumbled all around them as if they were circled by storms. At least, it sounded like thunder, though it felt more like an earth trembler.

Tiaan shifted from one foot to another. They weren’t far from the mid-sea rift. What might an earth trembler do here, where the very rock beneath their feet had been riven apart by forces not even a geomancer could comprehend?

‘How can he summon the Well of Echoes?’ Tiaan asked quietly. ‘He has nothing in his hands.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Malien, ‘though there exist powers far older than the magic of crystals and devices, fields and nodes. Vithis has lived for a thousand years and is heir to Arts ten times that old, whose secrets have been passed down to none but the greatest in each generation.’

Vithis cried out a word, and a word of power it must have been, for the entire sky went black. It was an absolute darkness – no clouds showed, no moon, no stars. The ground shook so violently that loose rocks rattled like dice in a cup. Away in the distance a red glow appeared, a molten line squeezed up through the black rift.

He sang a second word. A column of yellow light seared a path down from the sky, beginning some degrees off the vertical and ending in the rocks behind the metal death-house, illuminating one of the mausoleums. The column was not solid yellow; rather it seemed to be made of a million threads of light, all different hues of yellow. And all were in motion: vibrating, revolving, shimmering.

He whispered a third word and the threads wove between one another, faster and faster, until they blended into a single bar of colour so bright that everyone had to shield their eyes. Its base drifted off the mausoleum, fingered the ground between it and the metal death-house, and began to rotate. Dust danced where it touched but the particles were instantly sucked down, apparently into the solid rock. Pieces of gravel and salt crust whirled after.

A hole appeared, a couple of spans across, though it did not actually seem to pass through the rock. It was, rather, that the hole was laid over the rock, the two existing in the same place but different dimensions.

Like Tiaan’s brief glimpses into the hyperplane long ago, or the inside of the tesseract, it was all wrong. It confused the mind as well as the eye and she could only imagine what the others must be making of it. Nish, next to her, looked as if he was going to be ill.

The column of threaded light moved steadily down and as it did it thickened. The hole, which Tiaan realised was the slowly materialising Well, broadened until it was five or six spans across. Suddenly, with another rolling rumble of thunder, the column of light evaporated. They were enveloped in darkness within which the only illumination was the Well, while the stifling heat had been replaced by cold air currents coiling about them.

The walls of the Well were midnight black, threaded with shimmering yellow strands that moved when the eye attempted to focus on them. From where she was standing, Tiaan could see down a few spans, and suddenly recalled hanging off Nish’s arm, half in and half out of the Well in Tirthrax. But that had been different. That had been a little, stable Well, frozen in place by powerful Arts. This was the master Well – wild and free, and only Vithis could control it.

Tiaan reached out blindly and her hand struck Nish’s. It startled her. She saw the same memories in his eyes. He was shuddering with horror. She felt for him – she had some small understanding of the Well, but Nish could have none. She squeezed his hand and he gave her a weak smile.

Vithis looked around him, though Tiaan knew he was not seeing any of them. He was remembering the Histories of Inthis, the first of the clans on Aachan and always the greatest. So powerful was the moment that she could almost see the story of Clan Inthis flickering in the air in front of him.

He stood that way for a long time. No one spoke or moved. Then Vithis shook himself and held up one hand, as if to give a blessing.

‘Farewell, my beloved Inthis,’ he said in a majestic voice drawn from somewhere deeper than the bitterness that had been his daily existence. ‘We were the greatest of all clans, and it will be recognised as long as our Histories endure. But now the time of First Clan is over. Go to the soft sweet Well of Echoes, my people. Go Hulis, go Maris, go Irrien …’

He went through the names from memory, one by one, listing them in the order that he had found them. There were thousands of dead but not once did he hesitate. Tiaan found tears welling in her eyes yet again.

As he spoke the last name, Vithis spread his arms and the Well lifted and slid toward the mausoleum directly behind the metal death-house. Crusts of salt whirled in the air and were pulled down to nothingness. It was eerie, the way the shimmering shaft drifted through the ground with no more sound than a sigh. There was no groan or crack of shifting rocks, no wind, no clatter. It settled over, or under, or around the mausoleum, which hung there even though there now appeared to be nothing underneath it.

The Well spun like a whirlpool, brightened, and in that sudden brilliant radiance the laid-out bodies took on a fullness and a colour they’d not had since they died. They looked as if they had come alive again and were just sleeping.

The base of the mausoleum collapsed and fell into the Well. The bodies followed, one by one, and as each passed within there was a flash of yellow light and a low, reverberating boom that seemed to echo up and down. The last body fell, dark hair trailing. Vithis moved one hand, the Well drifted away and the mausoleum collapsed into a pile of rubble on the now solid ground.

The scene was repeated at the next mausoleum, and the one after, Vithis directing the Well until every crashed construct had been visited, every body taken. Finally he pointed it to the last and most sacred place, the building formed from the metal cladding of many constructs, that contained his uncle, aunt and the seven dead children.

The aunt and uncle passed quickly, almost gladly, into the Well, but the children hung in the air, reluctant. Their arms moved, their hair streamed out behind them and the oldest girl appeared to turn her head and look reproachfully at Tiaan. Vithis let out a desolate cry and moved one hand to still the Well, but it was surely just a trick of the light. He let the hand drop.

The children fell. Little flashes marked their passing and a brief threnody of echoes, after which the Well went dull, though it was still centred over the building. The structure of the metal death-house quivered, as if the Well’s forces were trying to pull it to pieces. Vithis raised a beckoning hand and the Well moved, whirling towards him until his toes projected over the brink.

‘This house shall remain, a memorial to the nobility of First Clan. A reminder of all who worked so hard to destroy us. And succeeded.’ Vithis held each one of them with his gaze, but especially Tiaan and Minis. ‘You and you. How will you atone, Tiaan?’

She had been waiting for this moment; dreading it. ‘I cannot express how much I regret the fate of your people,’ she said. ‘It is a tragedy that will echo down the Histories, and I played a part in it. We all did, in some shape or another, but what amends I might make are my own affair.’

‘I see,’ he said grimly. ‘The lives of my people have been one tragedy after another. I’ve lost my clan and my world, and you have nothing to atone for.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ she began, but he waved her to silence.

‘Every misery the Aachim have ever suffered originated on this wretched world,’ cried Vithis. ‘It was Shuthdar of Santhenar who made the Golden Flute in the first place, then broke it and brought down the Forbidding. And it was the breaking of the Forbidding that caused beloved Aachan to destroy itself in volcanic convulsions. Would that it had been Santhenar instead.’

‘You misrepresent the Histories, Vithis,’ Malien said coldly, ’as you always seek to blame others for your own ill-judged deeds. The lamentations of the Aachim began with the Charon coming out of the void and taking our world from us. And who allowed it? We were led by First Clan elders: Mahthis and Briorne; your ancestors. They were defended by a guard of First Clan, and First Clan failed their duty. First Clan surrendered our world for two people already at the end of their lives. First Clan allowed themselves to be defeated by a hundred Charon: the Hundred as they were known ever after. In fact, as we know, the might of First Clan was defeated by a single Charon: Rulke. Only one of us struck back at him, and that was my ancestor and the founder of my clan: Elienor.

‘That stain became etched deep into the heart of First Clan; it moulded your ancestors as it moulded you. Indeed, the bitterness of Inthis, as well as the false pride and recklessness that so marked Pitlis in ancient times, and Tensor at the time the Forbidding was broken, and which has marked you, Vithis, all the time I’ve known you, arose from the failure of First Clan that day. You have never come to terms with the shame. I am sorry for the passing of Clan Inthis, and for all that was fine and noble in your people, and there was much. But it is for the good of the world. All things fail and decay, sooner or later. It is fitting that Inthis passes through the Well, as you came from it in the first place. If you did.’

‘You set out to destroy us!’ he roared. ‘From that day in Aachan, right down to this, Clan Elienor has done its best to undo us.’

‘There was no Clan Elienor in ancient times, and even after Elienor founded it, my house was always the poorest, the weakest and the least in numbers. We were always looking over our shoulders.’

‘Elienor wasn’t weak, nor the despised blending Karan when she helped you to bring noble Tensor down. Nor you, Malien, when you helped Tiaan in Tirthrax, and ever after.’

‘Then why has Inthis –’

‘No more, Malien. All things must fail – it is your time to go to the Well.’

He did not move the Well this time. Vithis wanted to wreak revenge with his own hands. He walked forward, deliberately, took Malien about the waist and lifted her high. And, oddly, Malien did not struggle – it was almost as if she had been waiting for it. The Aachim let out cries of horror, yet no one moved to stop him.

‘No,’ Tiaan said to herself. Then louder, so it rang out across the jagged ground, ‘No!’

Nish, who had been quivering beside her, threw himself at Vithis. Vithis didn’t move, but he roared a word and Nish was thrown sideways, landing on broken rock at the edge of the Well. Tiaan heard ribs crack.

Vithis waggled a finger in his direction and Nish was forced slowly backward. He clasped hands around a jagged spike of basalt but the force simply broke his grip. His head went over the edge of the Well; his shoulders; his chest.

Tiaan looked from him to Malien. If she tried to save Nish, Malien would surely be lost. Tiaan couldn’t see Irisis anywhere; she vaguely remembered her walking away a long time ago. What was she to do?

Malien was strong in the Art and ought to be able to defend herself, should she choose to. Nish had no chance and she saw sheer terror in his eyes. She caught hold of his belt and tried to haul him back, but the force pulling him into the Well was irresistible.

She heaved harder. It made no difference. ‘Help!’ she cried, but no one moved, and the Histories told her why. Sometimes, in the most desperate crises, the Aachim froze like deer staring into the eyes of the great cat about to devour them. They’d done it when the Charon had taken their world from them, and now they were doing it again.

Or did they want her and Nish, and Malien too, to die with Vithis? To make a cleansing of all those who’d played any part in the calamity, save themselves?

Now Nish’s whole upper body was over the edge. Tiaan braced her heels against the rock, but the force was too much for her knees to hold against. If she didn’t let go, she’d be pulled in with him. Was this an echo thrown up by the Well, an ironic reversal of the time in Tirthrax when she’d tried to throw herself down it, and Nish had struggled to save her? Was it meant to be?

Or was something even more sinister going on? What had Malien said earlier? Look to your own enemies, Lord Vithis. Were Malien and Nish, and she, taking the blame for the machinations of his clan enemies?

‘Look to your own enemies, Lord Vithis!’ she screamed. ‘That’s what Malien said and she was right. Once we’re dead, and you’ve gone to the Well, Inthis’s enemies will have achieved everything they’ve ever wanted. Isn’t that right, clan leaders?’

Her frantic stare passed over them one by one but no one broke. No one looked guilty either. ‘Vithis?’ she screeched, but he didn’t react. ‘Malien, why don’t you do something?’

Tiaan saw the look in Nish’s eyes, the terror that she would let him go. He jerked over a little further. Her knees buckled and their eyes met.

‘Let me go, Tiaan,’ he said, somehow finding calm beyond the terror. ‘You can’t save me.’

How could she look into those eyes and release him to oblivion? ‘I won’t let you go, Nish.’ She forced her knees to straighten through sheer will, but the force was pulling her fingers open.

‘Save yourself. It’s not worth it.’

‘You are worth it, Nish.’ She hung on.

Nish struck at her hand. ‘Let me go.’

Her knees collapsed, she was dragged to the edge and they went over.

SEVENTY-TWO

Time stood still. A million yellows whirled around them and Tiaan saw echoes of the past and the present: sights and sounds, scents and tastes all mixed together. The yellows exploded, the whole world became one brilliant colour, and the next she knew, she was lying on the rocks beside the Well.

Nish had been thrown out on the other side. Vithis was wheeling around and around on one foot, the other up in the air as if trying to step over a stile. He didn’t seem to know what had happened.

Malien stood across from him. Her hair was wild; she had bitten through her bottom lip and her clenched fists were jammed against her sides. She was breathing hard.

‘Before the Well I must speak the unadorned truth. You were right, Vithis. Clan Elienor has always worked to bring Inthis down. Not to destroy you, but to humble you and strip you of your unshakeable hubris. That has been our goal since the day, all those thousands of years ago, when Elienor stood in the great hall and saw Inthis render Aachan up to Rulke without a fight.’

Vithis rotated to face her and his upraised foot slapped to the ground. Malien was doomed, and she knew it. But she kept on.

‘Elienor swore an oath that day, that she would make up for the betrayal. We have renewed the oath, and followed her goal, unflinchingly since. Each time we faltered, another member of First Clan reminded us of that fatal flaw in the character, nay, the very germ-plasm, of Inthis. There was Pitlis, who betrayed Tar Gaarn, the most beautiful of all our works, to the enemy. There was Tensor, whose folly after folly saw us lose beloved Shazmak and the Mirror of Aachan, and caused countless other tragedies. And this paltry act against Nish, who could never do you harm, shows that you, Vithis, are of the same base stock.’

Vithis took a step towards her. He flung up one hand behind him and the Well surged and flared to an incandescent brilliance, as if preparing for an entirely different class of victim.

Malien went on, unmoving, her eyes on Vithis as he came towards her. ‘We set out to reduce Inthis from First Clan to last, not for ourselves but for the good of all Aachim. We continue to do so for the good of humanity. It has been a long struggle, as it must always be when the least opposes the greatest, and because we would not act contrary to our nature. We would not be corrupted by our quest.’

The instant Malien had begun to speak, Tiaan knew that there was something wrong. Oh, Elienor may well have sworn such an oath long ago, and the elders of the clan renewed it ever since. Malien may well have tried to bring Vithis down in whatever small ways she could, but the conspiracy that had destroyed First Clan was far deeper, and it hadn’t come from Clan Elienor. She knew Malien well, after all the time they’d lived and worked together, and Tiaan would have sworn that there wasn’t a duplicitous bone in her body.

And Yrael, the present leader of Clan Elienor, was a decent, honest man. He would have faced Vithis straight out, even if it caused him his doom, but Yrael would never have done anything underhand. And if it wasn’t Elienor’s leaders, it certainly wasn’t the ordinary people – Aachim society simply did not work that way. So who could it be? A memory tugged at her but she could not pull it out into the light.

It had been just after the death of poor Ghaenis, Tirior’s noble and handsome son, at the hands of the amplimet. He’d died the most horrible of all deaths, by anthracism, his body burning from the inside and blowing apart. After that, there had been the bitterest of fights between Tirior and Vithis, until Urien had interceded.

What had Tirior said? You always return to the same tune, Vithis.

And you to the same obsession that brought us ruin in the past, he had replied. Tiaan now knew that Tirior’s clan, Nataz, had been obsessed with an amplimet in the distant past, and it had wrought ruin on the Aachim from which they had taken a thousand years to recover. The precise details had been lost in the deceits of time and the Histories. The deed had been covered up too well.

But that was not the memory Tiaan was searching for. It had been days later, and she had been listening to a group of Aachim argue bitterly. They were carrying her somewhere and had thought she was still unconscious. When was that? Ah! It had been after she’d collapsed from hauling constructs from Snizort to the node, using the amplimet. She struggled to recover the memories, but they were deeply submerged.

‘So it was you made the gate go wrong!’ Vithis was saying to Malien. ‘You tampered with it in Tirthrax. You hurled Inthis into the void to die.’

‘I did not,’ she said, so softly that Tiaan could barely hear her. ‘I was not aware of the gate until Tiaan came to me, days later.’

Tiaan’s memories were unfolding now. Tirior had taught Ghaenis how to use the amplimet. Tirior had been conspiring to get the crystal, so fatally attractive to her clan. Yes, when Tiaan ran through her earliest memories of the Aachim, long before the gate had been made, Tirior had always been there, her voice positively dripping with desire for it. And Tirior had taken Minis into Snizort, hoping he would be killed there, the last hope of Clan Inthis gone.

Vithis caught Malien, lifted her over his head and was about to hurl her bodily into the Well when Tiaan cried out, ‘Clan Nataz is behind your ruin, Vithis. Tirior has been conspiring to get the amplimet for her clan since the very moment I revealed that I had it.’

‘Clan Nataz?’ he said, lowering Malien but not letting her go.

‘Tirior taught Ghaenis how to use the amplimet,’ Tiaan went on desperately. ’She took Minis into Snizort, risking the life of the last survivor of your clan, in direct defiance of your orders. Think, Vithis. Think!

‘Which clan has been obsessed with amplimets since ancient times? Which clan covered up the disaster of the last one found on Aachan, a disaster that led inexorably to the ruin of your world?’ And now Tiaan was guessing, but the train of logic was running away with her and she was sure it was right. ‘And which clan leader stood beside you when the gate was opened, and was the only one who could possibly have tampered with it? It was tampered with, wasn’t it, Malien? You told me so a long time ago, for you checked the port-all after I first left Tirthrax in the thapter, and what you found disturbed you very much.’

Vithis set Malien on her feet. ‘Well?’ he said.

‘It was,’ she said, almost inaudibly. ‘Very cleverly – at the moment First Clan raced up into the gate. And then undone so that the other clans could pass through safely. It took me all night to discover what had been done.’

‘And was it Nataz? Was it Tirior?’

‘I couldn’t tell,’ said Malien.

‘Where is Tirior?’ said Nish.

She was nowhere to be seen. ‘She’s gone for the thapter,’ Tiaan yelled. ‘And the amplimet is inside. She’s got what she wanted.’

Vithis leapt right across the Well, which flared bright as if vexed it couldn’t consume him.

Before he had gone ten bounds, the thapter whined to life. ‘Not just the amplimet. She’s going to abandon us to the same fate as Inthis.’

Irisis bored easily and, despite the gravity with which Vithis sent his people to the Well, after interminable hours of it she’d had enough. She didn’t know them, nor him, nor even Malien all that well. Nish was preoccupied with the ceremony so Irisis seized a suitable moment to slip quietly away.

She walked on the jagged basalt for a while, and climbed a rocky spine to see how far she could see, but a dancing heat haze obscured everything in the distance. She perched behind the spine, in the shade, but the rock was too hot to sit on for long. Irisis headed back to the thapter for a drink from the water bag and discovered that, with the vents open, it was actually cooler than outside.

Not much, but at least she could sit down without roasting her backside. She found the coolest corner, settled back and, in the oppressive heat, drifted off to sleep.

The whine of the mechanism startled her awake. It was screaming, shaking the whole machine, and that wasn’t right. Malien had a delicate hand on the controller and never asked more of the mechanisms than was necessary.

Tiaan used it aggressively when she had to, though that was not often, for she flew thapters with an intuitive grace. Neither would she have abused it the way it was being treated at the moment. Someone else was at the controller, someone who had no right to it.

Irisis eased her head around the corner to peer up the ladder, but couldn’t see who was at the controller. But whoever was prepared to steal the thapter, out here, would hardly stop at doing her a mischief.

The mechanism roared and the thapter lifted off only to thump down again. A woman swore under her breath, and it evened the odds a fraction in Irisis’s mind. She looked for a weapon but everyone had taken theirs with them and Irisis had left the camp without so much as a knife. She couldn’t even see anything to throw.

She took off her boots and socks, sniffed disgustedly and laid them aside. She rose to her feet, then went back for a boot. It was better than nothing.

The thapter lifted off, screaming like a ghost in torment and shuddering so violently that Irisis had to hold on. The pilot was standing with her back to her, jerking back and forth on the controller, not understanding what she was doing. If she got the thapter up to ten spans or so, and lost control, it would be destroyed in the impact and everyone would die here.

Irisis crept up the ladder, the boot swinging in her right hand, though it was little use as a club; it didn’t weigh enough. She slid her arm in, up to the elbow, settled the hard heel over her fist and kept it behind her back as she climbed one-handed.

The thapter sideslipped, steadied and began to rise, wobbling from side to side. Irisis was far enough up the ladder now to recognise the pilot, Tirior. She was a mighty mancer, second only to Vithis in power.

Irisis hesitated for a second and Tirior must have sensed that she was there, for she turned her head. Irisis went up the rest of the way in a rush as Tirior twisted her body and raised her free hand to deliver a blast that would tear Irisis apart.

She acted without thinking. There wasn’t time, and physical force versus the Art normally only ended one way. Irisis swung her fist in a vicious blow to the bridge of Tirior’s nose. The heel struck it full on, her nose broke and Tirior went down. Her hand slipped off the controller, the mechanism died and the thapter fell.

Irisis caught Tirior’s hand, slammed it onto the flight knob of the controller and eased it up, gently. The thapter arrested, hovered, and Irisis let it down with just a minor crunching of metal, then stopped the Aachim’s mouth with her knee and held her fingers until, with a bound, Vithis was perched on the hatch.

The trial took little time, since the evidence was beyond dispute. The clan leaders were unanimous in their verdict, though given that Tirior was a clan leader herself, the sentence had to be confirmed by Urien. This she did with dispatch and Tirior was sentenced to be delivered upside down to the Well by all the clan leaders, an ignominious end that would result in the demotion of Clan Nataz to Last Clan. Tirior made no defence, no statement, no plea. She simply went to the Well as if it was beneath her dignity to remark upon it.

The revelation of her betrayal had washed Vithis’s despair away. First Clan hadn’t fallen, it had been brought down by treachery. He stood up straight, brushed the salt dust off his garments and there was a glint in his eye that Tiaan did not like at all. It was as if he’d found new hope.

‘Minis! Attend me!’ he said peremptorily, after the Well had taken Tirior with a brilliant yellow flare that lit up the salt-crusted basalt for hundreds of paces around, and a positive volley of echoes.

Minis, reluctantly, levered himself to his foster-father’s side and stood leaning on his crutches.

‘Foster-son,’ said Vithis, laying a hand on his shoulder, ‘I judged you ill and I’m deeply sorry. I blamed you for failings that were due to our clan enemy. You did not let me down then and I know you won’t do so now.’

‘Foster-father?’ said Minis.

‘I despaired when I should have put my faith in you. I will do so now. Minis, Clan Inthis must be created anew and only you can do it, for as you know I am sterile. You must put aside all other objectives until you’ve bred me sons and daughters – especially daughters. I will chose your partners from women of other clans, who have strong Inthis blood –’

‘I cannot, Foster-father,’ cried Minis.

‘If you lack desire,’ said Vithis carefully, ‘I have the remedy here.’ He withdrew a capped phial from his pocket.

Minis looked as if he was going to vomit with humiliation. ‘I am not … incapable, Foster-father.’

‘If you were a man, you would have mated already and produced the children that Inthis needs. You would have taken joy in it.’

‘I –’

‘No more talk, Foster-son. Take one of these today, now, and another every half-year. It will give you potency beyond any man alive. Women will flock to you, despite your disabilities.’

‘I am not a rutting machine, Foster-father.’

‘You have a duty to me and your clan. Do it, for once in your life.’

‘No, Father. I will not.’ Minis looked pale and terrified of the older man. Tiaan’s heart went out to him.

Vithis sprang, caught Minis around the chest and thrust a tablet into his mouth. Minis tried to spit it out. The older man held his nose until Minis had to open his mouth, then thrust it down his throat.

The crutches fell away and Minis collapsed on the ground, weeping with mortification.

‘Do your duty like a man,’ Vithis raged. ‘If you are a man. I have often wondered.’

Minis found his crutches and climbed onto them as tears of helpless rage flowed down his cheeks. ‘I am a man, Foster-father, and I will do what a real man must do.’ He clacked away behind the thapter.

‘You have always been a dutiful son, Minis,’ said Vithis, the rage gone as quickly as it had come. ‘I have every confidence in you.’

Tiaan suppressed an urge to run after the younger man, for it could do no good. In spite of her feelings about Minis, she could not bear to see him so humiliated.

‘And now you, Malien,’ said Vithis. ‘For your clan’s part –’

He broke off as Minis reappeared, carrying something in his cupped hands. Blood dripped from his knuckles. He walked up, held out his hands and pressed the red contents into Vithis’s hands.

‘Here, Foster-father, this is what you have always lacked. Now you may do my duty for me.’

Vithis looked into his hands and recoiled in horror. Dropping the mess onto the rock, he whispered, ‘You have … cut yourself?’

‘You castrated me long ago, Foster-father.’

Raising his gory hands to the sky, Vithis let out a scream of anguish that made the Well flutter. He looked into the Well, which was shivering like blades of grass in a breeze, and the Well seemed to respond. Its whirling slowed and the colours brightened.

Vithis bared his teeth in the grimmest of smiles. ‘All things must pass – I can accept it now. This is the end of Inthis, first and greatest of all the clans. We came from the Well, so it is fitting that we take our departure through it.’

‘And I will follow you,’ said Minis. ‘Life has nothing left for me.’

‘Begone!’ snarled Vithis. ‘You cut your life free from First Clan; now go and live it. You are no longer Clan Inthis. You are not my foster-son and I forbid the Well to you.’

Minis gave him a blank-faced look then turned away, stumbling blindly out into the waste. He fell over repeatedly, but always pulled himself up onto his crutches, as if, after a failed life, this was the one thing he could achieve.

Vithis stepped into the Well, though it did not take him. He hung at the top of the shaft to nothingness, watching the silent watchers, and a mad, eerie smile passed across his face. ‘My time is over, and I go to a better fate than anyone on Santhenar can hope for. But you – you will rue this day, Malien. All Santhenar will rue it.’

He made circular motions with his hands and snapped them down. The Well flared as bright as the sun and began to spin, pulling in loose gravel and salt dust. Vithis hung atop it a moment longer, then fell, disappearing with a purple flash and a crack that echoed up and down for minutes after.

Tiaan expected the Well to disappear, since Vithis had called it here, but it expanded right to the toes of her boots. She sprang backwards and everyone scrambled out of the way. The dark, which had come down when Vithis called the Well, suddenly lifted.

The Well began to drift away, pulling in bits of shattered rock, pieces of construct metal, shreds of cloth and every other loose object in its path. They watched it wander in the direction of the mid-sea rift.

Malien shuddered. ‘No, no, no!’

‘What’s the matter?’ said Nish, who had been holding Irisis’s hand ever since she’d climbed out of the thapter. ‘He’s gone. It’s over.’

‘The Well should have collapsed as soon as it took Vithis, but … it seems to be growing. He has set it to some dreadful purpose.’

‘Can’t you stop it, the way you bound the Well in Tirthrax?’

‘Not this one,’ said Malien. ‘This is the Master Well and not I, nor all my people together, can lay a finger on it.’

‘Then what are we going to do?’

‘Get into the thapter! We must go, and swiftly. There are still the lyrinx to deal with, remember? The world hasn’t stood still while we’ve been out here.’

The remaining people climbed in and Tiaan lifted off, keeping low.

‘What about Minis?’ said Nish. His thin figure was struggling over the rocks, away towards the distant salt.

‘It would be kindest to let him go,’ said Malien.

‘To die?’ whispered Tiaan.

‘No Aachim would want to live with his burden, Tiaan. Trust me. I do know my people.’

‘But to leave him out here, all alone? I just can’t, Malien.’

‘He won’t last long, poor fellow.’

There was a long silence, interrupted only by the faint whine of the thapter.

‘But you aren’t going to leave him, are you?’ said Tiaan.

‘How can I?’ said Malien. ‘Go down.’

Tiaan landed the thapter beside Minis. He gave it a fleeting glance and kept walking. She scrambled down the side. ‘Minis, wait.’

‘Go away,’ he said. ‘You only remind me that I have nothing to live for.’

She ran after him and took his stained hand. ‘Come back with us, Minis.’

‘Do you say that because you love me, Tiaan? Or because you pity me?’

How could she answer? She had loved him once, and for that reason she still cared. But the death of little Haani had undermined her love, and his vacillation at Snizort had killed it. She could not lie to him, not even to save his life.

‘Well, Tiaan?’ There was a nobility in his eyes that she had never seen before.

‘No, Minis. I don’t love you. But I do care for you.’ She was still holding his hand. The blood, already dried in the fierce heat, flaked off.

‘It’s not enough. If you truly care for me, let me go.’

As she released his hand, a single red flake fluttered on the breeze. ‘Please come, Minis. Life –’

‘I’ve seen enough of life,’ he said over her head to Malien. ‘Will you let me go, or would you take me against my will, to draw out my agony?’

‘I shall not take you against your will,’ Malien said softly.

He bowed to her, and then to Tiaan. ‘I have to atone. My life in return for the life of little Haani.’

‘It was an accident,’ said Tiaan. ‘And you weren’t responsible.’ For the first time since it had happened, nearly two years ago, she understood that. It had just been a tragic accident. No one was to blame, and her anger and bitterness afterwards had been due as much to hurt pride. Having been rejected, she’d wanted to hurt as much as she had been hurt. She too had much to atone for.

‘I know that,’ said Minis, ‘but atoning for her death is the only worthwhile thing I can do with my life.’

‘Then I won’t stand in your way. Thank you, Minis. Haani would have liked you.’

‘I’m sorry. So very, very sorry. I know how much you loved her.’ His big eyes searched her face, perhaps, even now, hoping against hope.

She could not say it. ‘I … I loved you too, Minis. Back then.’

‘Goodbye, Tiaan.’

He turned away, moving off the black rock into a gully filled with windblown salt, and away towards the centre of the Dry Sea.

Tiaan watched him till he was just a shadow and her cheeks were crusted with salt from evaporated tears. She wiped her face. When she looked again, she could no longer see Minis through the shimmering heat haze.

‘I can’t help but make the comparison,’ Malien said softly. ‘Flydd and Minis were both unmanned, the one by the torturer’s knife, the other by the impossible demands of his foster-father. Yet Flydd has risen above his maiming, while in the end, for Minis, the knife was the only way to escape.’

‘No trauma can bring down the truly great in spirit,’ said Tiaan.

‘Nor any privilege raise up the incurably weak.’

Behind them the Well boomed. ‘Come,’ Malien went on.

From above they saw it intersect the mid-sea ridge, where molten rock was squeezed out along a rift ten leagues long. Great booms and crackles reached them and the Well swelled again, now resembling a tornado whirling above and through the ground. It began to track south along the ridge.

Malien set off for the Foshorn with all the speed she could manage, to take the clan leaders home and then go on to Ashmode. Tiaan said not a word during that long journey. She was thinking about wrongs that must be put right; it seemed the one worthwhile thing she could do with her life, for Minis, and for all that might have been. But how?

Tiaan could no longer take pleasure in wielding her Art, as once she’d done for the sheer bliss of using her abilities to the limit. Employing her Art had destroyed too much, and too many people, and the little good that had come from it seemed outweighed by the evil. She felt that she’d been used, even controlled, for most of her life.

And she began to feel increasingly alone and estranged, even from Malien, Irisis and Nish. Tiaan began to think that there was only one way out – to use her geomancy one last time to do something that no one else ever would. One question remained. Did she have the courage?

SEVENTY-THREE

They returned, having been away almost four days, to discover air-floaters in all shapes, sizes and colours moored by the camp, and a myriad of brightly coloured tents surrounded by courtiers and attendants. The dignitaries included Governor Zaeff of Roros, who had already been on her way when the battle was won. Her thapter had carried the ten most important leaders from the east. Orgestre had summoned her more than a week ago, and at the moment of victory he had called in as many of the western governors and provincial leaders as could get here.

‘Orgestre has outflanked Flydd and the other moderates,’ panted Fyn-Mah, who had run to meet them at the thapter. ‘Come quickly, Malien. They’re taking the vote now.’

‘What about us?’ said Tiaan.

‘You won’t have a vote,’ Fyn-Mah said, ‘but you might as well be there.’

They hurried to the meeting tent but it was too late – a white-faced Flydd was just stumbling out. ‘We’ve lost,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Orgestre put his hard line to the vote and it won by thirty-two votes to three. I spoke against it for a day and a half, until I had no voice left, but it made no difference. The only votes against were mine, Yggur’s and Troist’s. The conclave has voted to eliminate the lyrinx.’

‘Three?’ said Irisis. ‘Did Klarm –?’

‘He wasn’t well enough to get to the conclave. And that’s not the worst of it. They took another vote, one I didn’t even see coming. They’ve agreed that the Council will be disbanded immediately. The power of the scrutators, such as we were, has been smashed.’

‘I suppose it had to happen,’ said Malien, ‘though it’s a tragedy it happened now.’

‘I now see that the Council was doomed, once Nennifer fell and I failed to maintain its networks of control. Klarm warned me, back then, but I couldn’t do that and fight the war as well. I didn’t think it would fall this quickly.’

‘That victory sowed the seeds of this defeat,’ said Irisis. ‘You showed that the old Council was hollow, so the instant it was no longer necessary …’

‘If only it had lasted a few days longer, I could have prevented this disastrous decision. The world will come to rue it. And I made a pledge that I can’t fulfil. Yggur hasn’t reproached me though I’d feel better if he had.’

‘You couldn’t have anticipated this,’ said Irisis.

‘Ghorr or Fusshte would have,’ said Flydd. ‘They’d have arrested Orgestre on a trumped-up charge, or had him quietly slain, to make sure he couldn’t have interfered. If I’d just put him out of the way for a week.’

‘So you’ve thought of a way to save the lyrinx?’ said Malien.

After a long pause he said, ‘Unfortunately, I haven’t.’ Flydd glanced at Tiaan. ‘And what the devil did you do with your map? I really can’t countenance this kind of insubordination, Tiaan. Orgestre was apoplectic. I thought his head was going to explode. And he accused me of taking the wretched thing. Me!’

What did it matter, Tiaan thought. The lack of the map hadn’t made one bit of difference.

‘The enemy’s defences are failing,’ crowed General Orgestre at a victory dinner hosted by Governor Zaeff that night, in a vast tent flown in from Lybing. ‘Their food and water are dwindling daily. All we have to do is hold them, and in a week they’ll be dead, without the loss of a single man. It will be my crowning achievement.’

‘If you order any more medals you’ll have to pin them to your backside,’ said Flydd.

Did Flydd feel he had nothing more to lose? Nish sniggered. Several others laughed. Klarm, who had been carried inside wrapped in blankets, heaved silently.

Orgestre swelled like a purple toad. ‘I could have you put in irons for that, Citizen Flydd,’ he said pointedly.

A murmur ran through the dignitaries, then Governor Zaeff spoke sharply to him. Irisis didn’t hear what was said, though clearly he’d gone too far.

‘What is Orgestre’s achievement?’ said Irisis quietly. ‘Troist fought all the military battles for him, and Flydd won against their Arts. The Grand Commander has never raised a sword in combat, and now the war has been won he wants praise for being the executioner?’

‘Truly the battle isn’t over until the last man falls,’ Orgestre was saying. ‘We’ve risen from the ashes of our funeral pyre to overcome our enemy. Never in all the Histories has there been such a victory.’

‘If it truly is a victory!’ said Yggur, standing up and meeting everyone’s eye, one by one, as if defying them to attempt anything against him. ‘But should any lyrinx survive elsewhere on Santhenar, or in the void from whence they came, you’ll create an enemy who will never forgive humanity, not in a thousand times a thousand years. Their vengeance will be as eternal as the stars, Grand Commander Orgestre. Your descendants will curse your name, you and all you others who’ve authorised this genocide, until humanity itself is no more.’

‘Don’t commit this dreadful atrocity. Find another way,’ said Gilhaelith.

The governors were scowling now, annoyed at the dissent spoiling their celebration dinner.

‘You brought them here,’ said Orgestre.

‘When circumstances change, an intelligent man changes his mind,’ said Gilhaelith.

‘Sit down or I’ll have you in irons for dealing with the enemy.’ Orgestre turned to the governors. ‘We’ve had the debate – weary days of it. The vote has been tallied, and won. Must we go through it yet again?’

‘I haven’t had my say,’ said Malien.

‘Then please say what you’ve come for so we can get on with it.’

‘To exterminate any race before its time is a great evil, besides what may come of it.’

‘Humanity is worn out with conflict,’ said Governor Zaeff, speaking for the first time, ‘and so is our world. It has to end now, and here. The future must take care of itself.’

‘Oh, it will,’ said Malien. ‘Recall, from the Histories, how the Faellem once cast their rivals on Tallallame, the Mariem, into the void to die. They thought they had eliminated them, but out of the void the Mariem returned, as Charon, and in the end it was the Faellem who lost their world, their humanity and their civilisation.’

‘The irony of the Histories is indeed inexorable,’ said Yggur.

‘While the mighty cringe from their imagined futures,’ said Orgestre, ‘the common folk live in fear that the war will go on forever. We’ve already voted to kill the beasts. Just give me the power and I’ll see it carried out to the last pregnant female and the last whining infant. Those of you who don’t have the stomach may take your leave, and claim hereafter that you had no part in the business.’ He glanced around, and added, ‘though no doubt you’ll profit from it once the war is over.’

‘Before you set about your slaughter,’ said Malien, coming out to the front, ‘attend me a moment!’ She said it so like a royal command that even Orgestre fell silent.

She told them what had happened at the Hornrace and out in the Dry Sea, of the fate of Vithis, Minis and Tirior, and about the Well of Echoes.

‘What’s going to happen to it?’ said Gilhaelith, his eyes glowing with a geomancer’s fascination for any new natural force.

‘No one knows,’ she said. ‘It may keep growing, go quiescent, or even split into a whole swarm of little Wells.’

‘How does it grow?’ asked Zaeff.

‘By taking power from fields and nodes.’

‘Then what’s to stop it growing until it’s consumed them all?’ said Flydd.

‘Maybe nothing,’ said Malien, ‘though all things have a natural limit.’

‘Vithis said “All Santhenar will rue this day”,’ Tiaan reminded them. ‘What did he mean by that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Malien.

‘You’d better keep an eye on it,’ said Flydd. ‘Why don’t you go now? Oh, if I could have the field map before you go, Tiaan,’ he said pointedly, so the whole room could hear.

‘I lost it,’ she said at once. ‘Out in the Dry Sea.’

‘Lost it?’

‘I think Tirior must have taken it, before she was sent to the Well,’ Tiaan said hastily. ‘It’s ironic, really, since the Well feeds on fields and nodes, that it should have consumed my map.’

Flydd eyed her sceptically. ‘Well, I dare say I can get enough out of the field controller with the incomplete one.’

‘If you’re going to check on the Well,’ said Gilhaelith quickly, ‘I’d like to come too.’

Flydd followed them outside and spoke quietly with Malien for a minute or two, before going back towards the banquet tent, but then he stopped halfway. ‘Incidentally, Tiaan,’ he called, ‘you should ask Gilhaelith to explain the art of deception.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ Tiaan said, once Flydd had returned to the tent.

Gilhaelith chuckled. ‘The best liars keep their stories simple and keep saying the same thing. At all costs, resist the urge to embroider.’

Malien and Gilhaelith headed for the thapter, the others to their tents to change their filthy clothes. When they were alone, Gilhaelith said, ‘I wonder if you might use your good offices to recover my geomantic globe. Now that the war is over, Flydd has no need to hold it, and it would be a comfort to me.’

Malien considered the request, as if judging whether he was practising the art of deception on her. ‘And you could use it to repair your injuries.’

‘The damage is no longer reparable. But even so, I’d like to have it by me. It was my life’s work, and it’s a thing of beauty that comforts me.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ she said. Malien looked him up and down. ‘You’re a contradictory fellow, Gilhaelith. You brought the lyrinx here to exact revenge on them, and you’ve just argued for their preservation.’

‘So I did,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘But the brutalities of war, and my own mortality, have rendered revenge meaningless.’

‘You can’t lie to me, you know. I read men – even geomancers – the way you read books.’

‘I wouldn’t try. I’d never seen war before, Malien, and I had no idea of the horror of it – bodies torn apart, heads ripped off, thousands dying in agony because some fool ordered them to fight. And to think I put it all in motion.’

‘This battle was coming anyway,’ said Malien. She wasn’t trying to comfort him. ‘But I do believe we’re of a mind.’

‘What I’ve done has made my life more meaningless than ever, and I’m beginning to see only one way out. To take my life before I lose my mind.’

‘There could be another way to give your life the meaning you crave.’

‘How?’ he said indifferently.

‘By helping to undo what you’ve brought about.’

‘It’s gone too far; there’s no way to resolve it.’

‘There may be. Let’s get your globe. Do you know where it is?’

‘In the guarded tent next to the relics from the tar pits.’

‘I’ll take the thapter across while we wait for the others. No one would suspect me. And, Gilhaelith, perhaps you can do something for me …’

Tiaan was pacing across the crunchy salt on the other side of the thapter when Malien came walking towards her. ‘Is something the matter, Tiaan?’

‘I can’t bear to think about what they’re doing,’ said Tiaan in a low voice. She kicked a lump of salt out of the way as if it were Orgestre’s head.

‘They’re afraid, and they see it as a simple answer, though there are none.’

‘I can think of one,’ Tiaan said savagely. ‘If I had the power, I’d destroy all the nodes on Santhenar.’

‘That would be the death of all the Arts,’ said Malien mildly. ‘The good as well as the bad.’

‘If the world keeps on the way it’s going, building ever more powerful devices and taking more and more to operate them, the Art will be the death of Santhenar. Humanity was never meant to have such power, Malien. Look what we’ve done to our world during the brief course of this war, and that’s nothing to what we will do.’

‘Whether our powers are great or small, good and evil apply in the same measure. And if you succeeded, and survived it, what then?’

Tiaan hadn’t thought about that. ‘I suppose I’d just live a simple life without the Art, like everyone else.’

Malien sighed. ‘If only it were that simple. Getting rid of the Art would not change the human nature that has abused it.’

‘But it would limit the amount of damage that evil people could do.’

‘You can’t turn time back, Tiaan; neither for the world, nor yourself. You’re what life and the Art have made of you. If you robbed yourself of that, you would be the unhappiest person in the world.’

Nish and Irisis had joined them and as soon as they were in the air, flying in darkness, Malien said casually, ‘Could we fly over the lyrinx camp for a moment? I’d like to see how they’re faring.’

‘So would I,’ said Tiaan. ‘I knew some of them well. Ryll was a decent man – male – no, I’ll call him a man. He was a better man than many humans I’ve known. And Liett …’

‘Liett held me prisoner,’ said Nish unexpectedly. ‘After … er, Gilhaelith left me behind.’ He glanced at the geomancer, who managed to look abashed for perhaps the first time in his life. ‘The other lyrinx seemed in awe of her. And when she’d finished with me, she left me in Ryll’s custody. He seemed to have grown in stature since I last saw him.’

‘Both Ryll and Liett have grown,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘They’ve greatly influenced the other lyrinx, and this has been recognised.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Tiaan.

‘There’s been a profound shift in their attitudes since the relics were discovered,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Matriarch Gyrull forced the lyrinx to think about the future as well as the past. The lyrinx who are least flesh-formed and most human, the reverts, are now venerated as being closest to their ancient selves.’

‘The other lyrinx must find that hard to take.’

‘Many do, but most yearn for their children to be more like their ancestors. In lyrinx society, the individual must bow to the will of the whole, or even be sacrificed for the good of the whole, and most do so gladly. Once they discovered their true ancestry, most lyrinx accepted that they had to change to survive and prosper on this world. It would be a tragedy if they were to disappear.’

‘There may be a way to save them,’ said Tiaan. ‘I er … neglected to mention it to Flydd and the others, but Vithis has built a portal out on a pinnacle in the Dry Sea.’

‘A portal? Really?’ Gilhaelith’s eyes lit up.

‘Well, it’s really a device to create a portal,’ said Malien. ‘He had it made to rescue First Clan from the void. And I have the key.’

‘If I could just see a working gate,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘If I could step across to another world, no matter how briefly, it would be the climax of my geomantic life. I would die a happy man.’

‘Your mention of the fate of the Faellem gave me an idea, Malien,’ said Tiaan.

‘I thought it might,’ said Malien.

Tiaan regarded her with a thoughtful smile. ‘Shall we go down and talk to the lyrinx?’

‘But we’ll be branded as traitors!’ said Nish. ‘Flydd will be apoplectic.’

‘I’ll take you back if you like,’ said Tiaan. ‘But I simply can’t stand by and see the lyrinx destroyed.’

Nish and Irisis exchanged glances. ‘I’ve seen enough killing to last me a lifetime,’ said Nish. ‘But …’

‘There’ll be no going back,’ said Irisis. ‘What do we do, Nish?’

‘Now that the war is over, and we’ve miraculously survived it, I just want to go home.’

‘So do I,’ said Irisis. ‘But we can’t. How would we live with ourselves?’

‘You’re right,’ said Nish. ‘Take us down, Tiaan.’

SEVENTY-FOUR

The thapter drifted low above the lyrinx prison, if prison it could be called, for it had no walls. A circle of clankers were drawn up half a league further out, and mind-shocks struck the enemy if they tried to pass beyond boundaries marked by lines carved into the salt. It was a black night and the area close to the clankers was lit, though the camp lay in almost complete darkness. Just a lantern winked here and there to show the shape of the half a million lyrinx – their great army plus all the old, the young and others who would not normally fight.

‘Can we be seen from the clankers?’ Tiaan said quietly.

‘Surely not,’ said Malien. She called down. ‘Bring up the flag.’

Irisis hung a blue truce flag out on a pole, Nish directed the light from a lantern on it and shortly a lyrinx appeared in an open space in the centre of the camp, skin-changed to brilliant, luminous blue. Javelards and crossbows were trained on the thapter as they approached.

‘This could go very wrong,’ said Malien. ‘You do realise that?’

‘Minis found the courage to atone for his failings,’ said Tiaan. ‘How can I do less?’

She set the thapter down a little way from the blue lyrinx, who immediately changed to the black of coal. He was huge and had a golden crest, the only one Irisis had ever seen. He folded his arms and waited. A wall of lyrinx surrounded them, and their colours and patterns were threatening.

Gilhaelith lifted one leg over the side. ‘Do you think showing your face is a good idea?’ said Malien.

‘I’m dying. What do I have to lose?’

Gilhaelith went down and planted the truce flag deep in the salt. The lyrinx made a collective ratchetting sound, perhaps representing a hiss, and surged forward as one. A female voice called a command, they stopped and the circle parted to admit five more lyrinx, two males and three females, carrying lanterns. Four lacked wings but showed blue truce colours. The fifth had thin, colourless, unarmoured skin and translucent, soaring wings. The surrounding lyrinx retreated until the circle around the thapter was about two hundred paces across.

The five joined the golden-crested male, twenty paces away from the thapter.

‘The leading wingless male is Ryll,’ said Tiaan. ‘The colourless female is Liett. I don’t know the others.’

Irisis wondered if they could possibly be the leaders of this vast gathering. They seemed too young. Anyway, the lyrinx were led by matriarchs, so they must be here as translators.

A group of five weathered females moved across from the other side of the circle, but stopped twenty paces away, arms folded. The remaining matriarchs, Irisis assumed.

After a long interval of silence Ryll held out a hand. ‘Tiaan.’ He gave what passed for a smile. ‘Nish; you lead a busy life. I don’t know your name,’ he said to Irisis, ‘though I do remember you. We fought, once, on the other side of the world.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ said Irisis, taking his leathery hand. ‘And this is Malien, Matah of the Aachim of Santhenar.’

‘Malien from the time the Forbidding was broken?’ said Ryll.

‘The same,’ said Malien. ‘You know the Histories, then?’

‘We know everything we’ve been able to learn about humanity – our Histories that might have been.’

Malien bowed and he did too, then extended his hand. She took it.

Ryll turned to Gilhaelith. ‘In the circumstances, Tetrarch, I won’t shake hands with you.’

Gilhaelith bowed, although with his odd-shaped, elongated frame and woolly head it was not a dignified gesture. ‘In the circumstances, I had not thought you would.’

‘Here is Great Anabyng,’ said Ryll. The black male did not offer to shake hands.

‘My negotiators are Liett,’ said Ryll, ‘whom some of you know.’ Liett shook hands with ostentatious reluctance. ‘Also Daodand, H’nant and Plyyr.’ Ryll indicated, in turn, the other male and the two females, one larger than him, the other smaller than Liett and also lacking skin armour. Plyyr looked almost human. The matriarchs said nothing.

Daodand carried a leather box which he opened to produce ten drinking horns, a large skin and a smaller box containing some kind of crusted delicacy. He squeezed fluid from the skin into the horns. H’nant and Plyyr passed them around, then the morsels.

Irisis surreptitiously sniffed the liquor, which was thick and had a faint citrus odour, a cross between lime and grapefruit.

‘If you don’t like strong drink,’ said Ryll, ‘take only a taste. This hurrj is old and very potent.’

Irisis tasted it with her tongue. It was sweet, strongly flavoured and the spirits burned her nose. She took a small sip, then one of the delicacies, which had the crumbly texture of a sweet biscuit but with a creamy tartness.

‘Why have you come?’ said Ryll.

‘To talk about your situation,’ said Malien.

‘What is there to talk about?’ said Liett savagely. ‘Just get it over with; don’t come here to gloat first.’

Ryll shook his head at her. Liett snapped her wings in his face. Great Anabyng made a peremptory noise in his throat and Liett folded her wings at once.

‘Scrutator Flydd has been outvoted,’ said Malien. ‘The governors have decided that your people are to be expunged. We’re here because we cannot agree to genocide. Yet neither do we want another war the like of which the world has suffered. Accordingly, we have a proposal.’

When she did not go on, Liett said, ‘What is it?’

‘Tiaan?’ Malien prompted.

‘Vithis the Aachim built a tower on the pinnacle of Nithmak,’ said Tiaan, ‘some forty leagues south-west of here.’

‘We’ve seen this watch-tower from the air,’ said Liett. ‘What of it?’

‘It’s not a watch-tower. It was designed to create a portal, to bring Vithis’s lost First Clan home from the void.’

‘The decadent Aachim could not survive there,’ said H’nant in a purring growl.

‘Not even in their constructs?’ said Malien in a frosty voice.

H’nant sneered at the very idea.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘They were found in the middle of the Dry Sea – dead! However, the portal remains.’

‘Get on with it,’ said Liett.

‘There is a world called Tallallame,’ said Tiaan. ‘The third of the Three Worlds.’

‘We know of it.’ Ryll shifted uncomfortably, then glanced at Great Anabyng, who remained expressionless.

Irisis couldn’t help wondering why neither the matriarchs nor their truly great mancer were taking part in the meeting.

‘It is a paradise of forest, lake and meadow,’ Tiaan went on, ‘the most beautiful world that ever was, according to the Faellem. The Tale of the Mirror tells that Tallallame was also … invaded by creatures from the void when the Forbidding was broken. Thranx went there, as well as lorrsk and other savage creatures. Its native people, the Faellem, are no more. Or at least, they are civilised no more.’

‘Am I to take it that you’re offering us a choice?’ said Ryll with a savage smile. ‘To go to Tallallame and attempt to wrest it from the creatures that now possess it, or stay here and die?’

‘No creature could be better fitted for Tallallame than lyrinx,’ said Tiaan.

‘It’s a trick,’ said Liett. ‘They’ve come here to torment us – to offer us hope then snatch it away again.’

‘All we want,’ said Malien, ‘is for the war to be over with no more killing on either side.’

‘Words are always more convincing when they’re backed up by deeds,’ said Ryll. ‘How do you plan to demonstrate good faith?’

‘I have your sacred relics in the thapter,’ said Malien. ‘I would give you the first crate now, and the others at the gate.’

‘I didn’t know that!’ cried Tiaan.

Malien smiled. ‘It was such a short flight that no one went down the ladder. Gilhaelith and I pulled a little trick on the guards, though we had the devil of a job getting the crates down the hatch by ourselves.’

Ryll stood up to his full height, quivering with emotion, and his skin colours flared so brightly that they lit up everything inside the circle. ‘Show us the relics.’

Inside the thapter the lyrinx squeezed downstairs, in small groups, and the lids were taken off. Ryll, who came last, stared down into the crates, one after another, his skin muted now in consideration of the others. Finally he motioned for the lids to be refastened and clambered out.

‘We could take the crates,’ he said.

‘And what better faith could we show than by bringing them here?’ said Malien. ‘But if we gave them to you at Nithmak it would save you carrying them forty leagues. That would save lyrinx lives, I’m sure.’

‘What makes you think you can open this gate?’ said Liett in a low, disturbing purr.

‘Vithis gave me the key.’ Malien showed them the sapphire rod.

‘And how would you direct it to Tallallame?’

‘I know the way of old,’ said Malien.

‘I don’t trust them.’ Liett snapped her grey teeth. ‘They mean to send us back to the void.’

‘Why would they bother?’ Ryll said patiently.

‘To salve their precious consciences. Truly these weaklings would not survive a day there. Not even an hour!’

‘Not even the void would be as bad as being herded here, like beasts in our own ordure, until we die of thirst,’ said Ryll, whose skin showed truce-blue again. ‘We survived in the void before; if we must, we can do so again. But Tallallame, Liett.’ He reached out to her. ‘Just think of it! A beautiful world all for ourselves. For that, I would take the chance.’

‘And I,’ said H’nant.

Plyyr hesitated. ‘There are places in the void of unimaginable savagery; places that are worse than dying here. I mistrust this offer. They don’t want to salve their consciences; they seek the bitterest revenge they can inflict on us.’

Ryll looked to Great Anabyng as if for guidance. He glanced at the silent women, who nodded as one. ‘The former matriarchs do not vote, and neither do I. Our time has passed,’ Anabyng said in a deep growl. ‘For myself, my beloved consort, Gyrull, is dead and I will soon join her. I would not have our bones sundered by the void. You must decide – that is why you’ve been appointed.’

‘And swiftly,’ said Ryll. ‘We have little water left. Already our little children are suffering. In three days they’ll start to die. In five, only the hardiest will be alive. In seven days, none of us.’

‘You have been appointed leader, in defiance of all convention,’ snarled Liett with another snap of her magnificent wings. ‘You boasted of all the marvels you would do. Then lead us!’

‘What convention is that?’ Tiaan asked curiously.

‘That we be led by a revered matriarch, not an unmated, wingless monstrosity of a male.’

‘Matriarch Gyrull appointed me before she died,’ he said mildly. ‘Your own mother. You yourself told me so.’

‘She was out of her mind with pain,’ Liett said.

‘Great Anabyng confirmed her intentions. Besides, I did not boast. Matriarch asked me what I would do if I were leader, and I told her. I had no desire to be patriarch. We’ve not had one in three thousand years.’

‘So that’s how you see yourself, you unmated male dog!’ cried Liett in a passion. ‘The last patriarch was a disaster; that’s why we never took another. And you will be even worse.’

Ryll turned his back on her, saying to the others, ‘I know Tiaan and I trust her. Malien, too, I know to be a woman of honour.’

‘They’re the only two in all humanity!’ hissed Liett.

Ryll ignored her. ‘I will go through the gate, and if it leads me asunder, even to the most desperate recesses of the void, I will do all I can to lead us out again.’ His eyes shone in his fervour. ‘What about you, Liett?’

‘I will not follow any unmated male unless the vote is entirely against me.’

‘Since when do lyrinx vote?’ said Ryll mildly. ‘We do what our leaders, in their wisdom, have decided.’

‘You broke the custom,’ she snapped. ‘I demand a vote.’

Ryll’s gaze rested on each of the lyrinx, then he nodded. ‘And how do you vote?’

‘The past must not bind the future,’ said Great Anabyng. ‘I will not vote.’

The former matriarchs also declined. The other three lyrinx gave Ryll their vote. Liett did not.

‘Not just us,’ said Liett. ‘All the lyrinx must vote.’ She swept around the circle of lyrinx with one arm.

‘We are over half a million,’ Ryll said. ‘It would take days to count.’

‘So be it.’ Liett folded her arms across her breast.

‘Do you want the small children to die, and the old folk, because of this delay?’

‘In the absence of our matriarchs, I demand that convention be followed.’

‘Come with me. Look at the state of the children.’ Taking Liett’s arm, he led her away from the other lyrinx. He had to drag her for the first three steps, whereupon she cuffed him hard over the side of the head and, mollified by the display of aggression, went willingly.

As they reached the surrounding circle, Ryll’s truce-blue faded and they disappeared into the crowd. They were gone almost an hour. When they returned, Ryll said without preamble, ‘We will do it.’ He clasped Tiaan’s hand, then each of the others’. ‘But first you must break the mind-shock circle, if you can.’

‘I can,’ said Tiaan, ‘since I know how it was made. How long will it take you to get to Nithmak?’

‘We can run forty leagues in two days and nights,’ said Daodand. ‘Though, running with so little water …’

‘The children will die of thirst,’ said Tiaan.

‘Most will,’ said Liett. ‘Unless you allow us sufficient power to fly them there.’

‘We can’t, Tiaan,’ said Nish. ‘What if they break free and begin the war over?’

‘You expect us to trust you,’ cried Liett, ‘yet you do not trust us in return.’

‘That is the privilege of the victors,’ said Nish.

Malien shushed him and conferred with Tiaan for a moment, then called Irisis. ‘Is there a way to cut off the field controller on one side only?’

Irisis had to think for a minute. ‘You might do it this way, with the amplimet …’

After listening to the explanation Tiaan said, ‘It won’t work for long, but it should last long enough for them to break out. And once they’re going full speed in the dark, the mind-shockers won’t be able to encircle them again.’

‘What about us?’ said Irisis.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What if Orgestre orders the field controller directed against us?’

‘They’ll be far too busy trying to contain the enemy,’ said Malien. ‘They can’t do both.’

‘We wouldn’t see the children die,’ said Tiaan to Ryll. ‘We’ll allow you power for flight, but should anyone abuse this offer, I’ll withdraw that power while you’re flying. From all of you.’

Liett’s yellow eyes glowed. ‘I think that I like you after all, little human! You have my word.’

‘And mine. Let it be done,’ said Ryll.

‘And done swiftly,’ Irisis added. ‘While our opponents are sleeping.’

They went up in the thapter. It was well after midnight and the night still overcast. Shortly the agreed signal was flashed vertically from the lyrinx camp. Tiaan used the amplimet to break the mind-shock circle on the western side. The lyrinx burst out and the clankers retreated in terror. Soon the fliers among the lyrinx, perhaps a tenth of their number, took to the air carrying the children.

‘We’re taking an almighty risk,’ said Nish. ‘If they break their word and the war begins again, we’ll be the most reviled names in all the Histories. Our best choice will be to go straight to the Well, for there’ll be no hiding on Santhenar.’

‘They won’t break their word,’ said Tiaan, but her hand shook on the controller and the thapter dipped. She steadied it and flew west into the night.

‘Tiaan,’ said Gilhaelith from the base of the ladder, ‘did Tirior really take your field map?’

She flushed. ‘Of course not.’

‘May I see it?’

‘Why?’

‘My globe is in error in some small respects. I’d like it to be perfect before … you know.’

She smiled. ‘I’m a geomancer too – I understand perfectly.’ Withdrawing the folded map from the lining of her coat she passed it to him.

SEVENTY-FIVE

Nish was sitting miserably on the floor of the thapter, which was lurching and bouncing all over the sky. It had been harried by two thapters since dawn, and now a third machine had joined them.

‘Are you all right?’ he heard Malien say to Tiaan.

‘I think I can manage for a while yet.’

‘Use the amplimet to keep above them.’

‘I’m trying to.’

A crossbow bolt spanged off the side. Nish glanced at Irisis, who was sitting cross-legged, apparently unconcerned, making another of her pieces of jewellery. This one was a brooch in silver filigree, like two figure-eights joined at the centre. She didn’t look up.

‘How did we get ourselves into this mess?’ said Nish. ‘What if the lyrinx escape and attack our defenceless cities –?’

‘Will you shut up!’ she hissed. ‘We made our choice, so don’t start whining and wringing your hands like a third-rate Minis.’ She worked for a few more minutes, then exclaimed, ‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ and slammed the brooch down on the floor.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nish said at once. ‘You seemed so calm.’

‘Of course I’m not calm! We may have made the biggest mistake of our lives, and we’re bound to pay for it. I’ve been regretting it since the moment I opened my mouth, but –’

‘But what else could we have done? Come here.’ She sat beside him, taking his hand. ‘You’re right,’ Nish said. ‘Let’s not waste the time we have left on useless regrets. We did what was right and we’ll face the consequences.’

It didn’t appear as though the other thapters were trying to destroy Malien’s machine, but only to force it down on the salt. Tiaan kept just ahead of them for hours as she followed a roundabout course south and west, trying to draw their fire away from the lyrinx. Thus far she’d always managed to get away, through the superior range of the amplimet.

Gilhaelith was sitting up the other end, Tiaan’s map spread out on the floor before him while he made minute alterations to the geomantic globe. It was like watching grass grow.

From the heights, after the sun came up, Nish had seen terrible sights. Early on, a fleet of Orgestre’s constructs had torn straight through a band of running lyrinx, trampling them under the iron feet, smashing flesh and bones to jelly. There had been children among them.

Not long after that, the field had been whipped away from a group of flying lyrinx. They had done everything they could to keep aloft: their limbs went like bellows, their great wings thrashed, but without the aid of the Secret Art no effort could keep them in the air. Males, females and children all plummeted to the bed of the Dry Sea, their impacts making little purple marks that were swallowed by the white immensity of the salt. Nish had gone below after that. It had seemed better not to know, or at least not to see it. But it confirmed that he’d made the right decision.

The sound of the mechanism cut off abruptly. Nish scrambled to his feet but it started again at once as Tiaan tapped into another field.

‘Is everything all right?’ he said hoarsely, looking up the ladder.

‘So far,’ replied Malien in a strained voice.

‘I just hope they know what they’re doing,’ said Nish to Irisis.

‘They’ve fought this kind of battle before,’ said Irisis, intent on a new brooch.

Several hours afterwards Malien called down. ‘One of the thapters has turned away towards the Foshorn. I think Flydd’s in it. I wonder what he’s up to?’

‘I’m sure we’ll find out before too long,’ said Irisis.

Tiaan went higher and shortly the other two craft turned back. By the time they reached Nithmak in mid-afternoon, the first of the fliers were already there. A narrow stair wound around the peak from top to bottom. Though the mighty winches were still in place, the five constructs Tiaan and Malien had seen previously were gone.

Most of the fliers were spread out around the base of the peak, or hanging from the sides, though several hundred had assembled on the flat top, Liett among them, when the thapter landed. They were assembling javelards and catapults for the inevitable attack. Tiaan remained where she was, slumped in her seat, eyes closed.

‘Are you all right?’ said Irisis.

‘Just clearing my mind before we begin on the gate.’

‘You’d better have a sleep first,’ said Malien.

‘There isn’t time.’

‘The runners won’t be here for a day and a half. Remember your first gate, Tiaan. You wouldn’t want anything to go wrong this time.’

When Nish rose late the following morning after the first decent sleep he’d had in weeks, Tiaan was walking around and around the tower, as if trying to find courage after the disaster of her previous gate. Everything rested on her. What if she couldn’t make it work, or it went wrong again?

He was eating breakfast when he felt a shudder that made the red-topped tower sway back and forth. Rock cracked off one edge of Nithmak, taking five lyrinx with it, though three managed to flap to safety. Hundreds more flew up in a flapping of leathery wings and circled the tower.

‘What was that?’ said Nish, uncomfortably recalling the fall of Vithis’s watch-tower.

‘If it was an earth trembler, it was a mighty one,’ said Malien. ‘But they do have big earth tremblers around here. We’d better find out. Just in case …’

In case of what? Nish thought, as they headed for the thapter. It curved around Nithmak tower, rising slowly, before heading south-west. After some time, Irisis, who was peering over the side with her spyglass, sang out.

‘There’s smoke rising above the Hornrace. No, it’s dust. It looks like a gigantic dust storm.’

‘The rest of Vithis’s arch must have collapsed,’ said Nish from below. ‘Can we take a look?’

Tiaan turned the thapter that way and climbed until it was high enough to get a good view. ‘The whole of the Hornrace, leagues long, is covered by a vast line of dust,’ she called down the hatch. ‘It must have been the arch. It’s not going to do us any harm –’

‘The Trihorn Falls are flowing again,’ cried Irisis. ‘Oh, just look at that! Have you ever seen anything like it?’

Irisis was not given to hyperbole. Nish came scrambling up the ladder and pulled himself up onto the side next to her. Gilhaelith followed, though he was tall enough to see over. Vast arching streams of water were pouring out from the thunderhead of dust enveloping the Trihorn Falls.

‘There’s more water coming over than there was when I first saw them,’ said Tiaan. ‘Much more.’

By the time they were above the falls, the dust had begun to settle. The deluge had doubled and tripled by then. A torrent was pouring through the Hornrace, unimaginably greater than before.

‘What’s happened?’ said Nish, whose heart was hammering. ‘That’s more than the blockage in the Hornrace breaking open.’

As the dust was blown away into the Sea of Thurkad, the scale of the cataclysm became evident. ‘A great slab has cracked off the end of the Foshorn,’ said Irisis.

‘There must be ten times the flow there was before,’ said Nish.

‘More like a hundred,’ said Tiaan. ‘Just look at it.’

The flood was massive, awesome, prodigious; there were not words to describe it. And then it exploded in size again. ‘The other side of the Hornrace is collapsing as well,’ said Irisis. ‘Nish, look!’ She was on her knees, shaking his arm. ‘Oh, this is unbelievable. Half of one of the Trihorns is falling down. Now the other one is going as well. They’re being washed away.’

Those mighty peaks, that had split the flow of the Hornrace for thousands of years, were undermined in less than an hour. Peaks almost a thousand spans high tilted, toppled, rolled over and over and broke into pieces the size of hills before thundering to the bed of the Dry Sea, or into the salt lakes which were already overflowing. They could hear the roaring from on high, and even see the ground shake. Fissures zigzagged out across the salt for leagues.

The flow doubled and redoubled, until even from their height the noise was deafening. No one said a word. Even Gilhaelith was awed by the power of nature, so much greater than his greatest geomancy.

‘It’s not going to stop, is it?’ shouted Nish.

‘Not until it fills the Dry Sea –’ Irisis stopped with her mouth open. ‘They must have used the field controller to explode the node under the Foshorn.’

‘Neither Flydd nor Yggur would have done this, even if Orgestre put a sword to their necks,’ said Irisis.

‘No geomancer has the power to do what’s been done here,’ said Gilhaelith.

‘Then who has?’

‘Earth tremblers happen for their own reasons.’

He didn’t sound convinced and neither was Nish, who wasn’t a believer in coincidences.

‘It’s the end of the Dry Sea. It’s going to be the Sea of Perion again,’ said Tiaan.

‘And that too was foretold,’ said Malien.

‘How long will it take to fill?’ said Irisis.

‘Weeks, I should think,’ said Tiaan in a wisp of a voice. ‘But as soon as the water is two spans deep in this corner of the sea, all the lyrinx will drown, and Ryll will think I planned it all along. He’ll think it’s humanity’s perfect revenge – to offer them hope, then snatch it away at the last minute. There’s no death the lyrinx fear more than drowning.’

‘Liett will certainly think that,’ said Irisis.

‘What are we going to do?’ cried Tiaan, looking around wildly.

‘Don’t panic. There’s time yet,’ said Malien.

‘How much?’ she wailed.

‘It will depend on which point of the sea is lowest, and whether they have to cross it to get to Nithmak.’

‘We’d better warn them,’ said Tiaan, turning out towards the lyrinx. ‘Perhaps they can run a bit faster.’

The thapter raced from one end of the running horde, now stretched out over fifteen leagues of salt, to the other, though it seemed clear from their pace that the lyrinx knew what had happened. By the time they’d done that, the water was threading the bed of the Dry Sea and Tiaan was in a panic. Tiaan hurtled back to Nithmak, setting down right at the base of the tower in the middle of the afternoon, and running to the doors. They were still locked.

‘I wish I’d gone in before,’ she said. Tiaan threw herself back in and drove the thapter straight at the doors.

‘Stop! You don’t know how strongly it’s built,’ yelled Malien.

It was too late. The front of the thapter struck the doors with a crash that threw them all forward. The front crumpled and Malien cried out in dismay. The metal doors had buckled but still held. Tiaan pushed again and the doors tore from their hinges.

Everyone scrambled out, and Malien inspected the damage, shaking her head. ‘We may come to regret that.’

Tiaan wasn’t listening. She ran past and up the winding stairs into darkness. Everything had been built of basalt as black as the void itself, and there were no windows here. Irisis and Gilhaelith followed at a less precipitous pace.

Nish looked across the foyer after them. ‘I think Tiaan has taken leave of her senses.’

Malien came around the side. ‘She’s been troubled for a long time, and Minis’s sacrifice shook her.’

‘She’s always been a little … obsessive.’

He went out, inspecting the defences with a professional eye. Nithmak Tower occupied the centre of the flat-topped peak, leaving a rim of bare rock all around. The top of the peak was only a few hundred spans across, and thousands of fliers stood in a ring around the edges, watching silently. Nish shivered. At least they’d keep the thapters away.

He did a rough calculation. At a pinch the top might accommodate a hundred thousand lyrinx, crammed close together, but four or five times that number had to pass through the gate, if they survived the journey.

Nithmak could not be attacked from below but was vulnerable to attack from air-floaters and thapters. ‘I wonder why Vithis chose this place?’ he said to Irisis. ‘There are dozens of larger peaks in this part of the sea.’

‘Something special about its node, you can be certain.’

‘We’d better prepare to defend.’ Nish scanned the salt with Irisis’s spyglass. ‘The lyrinx are awfully spread out.’

‘And the water is coming in quickly. The salt lakes below the Trihorn are already overflowing.’

‘It’ll take days to get to the other end of the sea,’ said Nish, ‘so it’ll be quite a while before the level starts to rise.’

‘The Dry Sea isn’t like a bathtub, Nish,’ said Malien, joining them. ‘The water’s coming in faster than it can flow away. For all we know, the level could rise to the top of this peak before it even reaches the far end of the Dry Sea, three hundred leagues away. The flow could wash Nithmak away, as it collapsed the Trihorn.’

Nish began to say something, but then shook his head and hunched down, staring at the ground. He was also starting to feel panicky. The ribs he’d cracked when Vithis had tried to drag him into the Well ached and he stood up again, rubbing his side.

Malien laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘But not, I think, in the next day and night. We have time yet.’

‘Will it be enough?’ Nish focussed his spyglass upon the straggling line of lyrinx, and the squadrons of clankers that continued to harry them, where the country permitted it. The fleetest of foot were not far from the base of Nithmak now.

‘For many, though not the stragglers. Let’s go up to Tiaan.’

It proved a long climb up steep and narrow stairs. ‘I don’t see how we’re going to get half a million lyrinx up here,’ panted Nish as he rested halfway up.

‘The gate doesn’t have to open here,’ said Malien.

Tiaan was sitting on a glass chair in a room near the top of the tower. Unlike the lower sections, its walls were spiralling strips of black metal, like the metal of which constructs were made, whose spaces had been filled in with glass. The floor was made of metal crescents cunningly locked together. A table of woven wire supported a black metal cube. Tiaan’s head rested on her hands and she was staring intently at the cube.

‘Is that it?’ said Nish. ‘Or is it a last joke by Vithis?’

Tiaan turned her head and stared right through him, as if she didn’t recognise him. Nish’s scalp prickled.

‘Vithis was not a joking man,’ said Malien.

‘There’s something inside,’ said Tiaan, clutching the amplimet in both hands. ‘I can see its aura, but I don’t know how to open the cube.’

‘There’s not much time,’ said Gilhaelith, peering out through the thick glass.

Nish went over beside him. The air was heavy with flying lyrinx. ‘Is that an air-floater, way up high?’

‘If it is, it’s bigger than the air-dreadnoughts that attacked Fiz Gorgo. I wonder what it’s up to? Orgestre could finish this by dropping boulders on us.’

‘Boulders,’ sniffed Nish.

Crash! The tower gave a gentle shudder.

‘Sometimes the simplest attacks are the most effective. That didn’t miss by much.’

‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘Go up in the thapter,’ said Tiaan. ‘Keep them away. I can’t think.’

‘Come on, Nish,’ said Malien. ‘We’ve got work to do.

‘The box doesn’t open,’ said Tiaan, as Nish and Malien clattered down the stairs. ‘Why?’

‘Perhaps it’s locked,’ said Irisis.

‘Of course it is. Vithis said so. And he gave Malien the key, that sapphire rod.’ Tiaan ran to the top of the stairs, shouting, ‘Malien. The key!’

Nish came running up with it. ‘Thank you,’ Tiaan said absently, already turning away. Then she swung back. ‘Nish?’

‘Yes?’

She put out her arms. ‘Good luck.’

SEVENTY-SIX

They stopped halfway for a breather and Nish looked down through a slit in the stone. Lyrinx now clustered on every surface, wings folded. Others clung to the sides of the pinnacle and thousands more wheeled in the air. Far below, the water was flooding towards the lyrinx stragglers, still fifteen leagues away on the salt. Other lake lobes pressed towards the middle of the line, forcing the fleeing lyrinx further out into the Dry Sea. Water was pooling there in places, too.

As Nish and Malien ran through the broken door, their way was blocked by half a dozen lyrinx, Liett at their head. Her claws were fully extended.

‘I knew it was a lie,’ she spat. ‘Well, you won’t live to enjoy your revenge.’

‘The flood is not our doing,’ said Malien, putting her hands up.

‘You’ll die for it just the same,’ said Liett.

She sprang and, before Malien could do anything to defend herself, the claws went around her throat. Nish went for his sword, knowing it was hopeless, but it was knocked out of his hand.

‘This serves you not at all, Liett,’ Malien managed to croak.

She looked up and Liett followed her gaze. Another rock fell, smashing into the edge of the peak and spraying splinters of stone everywhere.

‘Those air-dreadnoughts rise higher than you can fly, Liett. One such missile, perfectly aimed, can destroy the tower and the port-all that creates the gate. And then we’ll all drown. You, me and all of your kind. But we can save you.’

At the word drown, Liett’s crest, the only part of her skin that had colour, shimmered with emerald green. She shuddered, then let Malien go. ‘After all that’s been done to us, I can’t bear to put my trust in humankind.’

‘I’m not humankind, Liett, I’m Aachim. My people have never waged war on lyrinx, and my record is inscribed in the pages of the Histories for all to read. Besides, it’s not necessary to trust, merely to gamble. Lyrinx are not averse to a wager, I’m told.’

It seemed to hit the right chord. ‘Everything in life is a gamble,’ said Liett, letting her go. ‘All right – go up in your flier. Already the water laps around my people’s ankles – I can sense their cries from here.’

Three air-dreadnoughts now wheeled high above the tower. ‘They’re armed with javelards,’ said Nish.

‘So are we,’ said Malien. ‘Get to your post.’

As soon as he was in the shooter’s position, Malien took the thapter straight up, relying on the lyrinx to get out of her path. The air-dreadnoughts were large, Nish saw, but had only a small crew, sacrificing everything to carry the greatest weight of stones and still rise beyond range of the lyrinx, whose claws could destroy an airbag in seconds.

Further off, two thapters cruised in circles, guarding the air-dreadnoughts. They turned towards him. Five against one – odds even Malien would be hard pressed to even.

‘I’ll go directly behind that one,’ she shouted over the wind, pointing at the nearest air-dreadnought.

Nish raised a hand, not sure he understood her strategy, but she was looking forward, intent on her course. His eyes were already watering. He wished he’d thought to bring goggles.

The thapter shot sideways. Had someone fired on them? Nish couldn’t tell. Malien whipped around in a circle and behind the air-dreadnought hovering over the tower. It dropped three rocks, one after another, as he fired his javelard at the rotors. He only had to hit one to disable the craft and felt sure he would, having done it before. Unfortunately the air-dreadnought rose suddenly as the weight was released, and his spear passed harmlessly below its keel.

Nish cursed and wound his cranks furiously. It took so long to reload. His eyes followed the rocks towards the tower. They seemed to be heading directly for it. He held his breath. One puff of dust rose beside the tower, and two more down the slope of the peak. Hitting the target must be harder than it looked.

The air-dreadnought moved off, though it was as slow as a tortoise compared to the thapter in Malien’s nimble hands. Nish took careful aim at the port rotor and pulled the lever. At this distance he couldn’t miss, and didn’t. The rotor shattered to splinters, some of which flew into the starboard rotor, destroying it as well. The pilot pulled the floater-gas release rope and the air-dreadnought dropped sharply away to the south.

Malien shot away, carving a wavy trail across the sky to avoid one of the thapters. Judging by the reckless skill with which it was being flown, Chissmoul was at the controller.

Nish felt a surge of pride at the prowess of his young pupil, until he realised that she was now an enemy trying to bring him down. He mechanically loaded another spear as he searched the sky.

The other air-dreadnoughts were hovering some distance away, waiting to see what happened. The thapters approached, one on either side, and Kattiloe was the other pilot. Nish had chosen them both, supervised their training and helped them through dozens of crises. He liked Kattiloe and Chissmoul. Moreover, for the past hundred and fifty years, women of childbearing age had been protected at all costs, for the survival of humanity. In a battle with another thapter, there was little to do but attack the pilot, but Nish wasn’t sure he could fire his javelard at a woman. Shooting Chissmoul or Kattiloe was unthinkable. He wondered if they felt the same. Probably not – men weren’t precious, especially not traitors like him. They would follow Orgestre’s orders and do their duty.

The thapter lurched, tilted sideways, dropped sharply then stopped in mid-air as if it had landed on a mattress.

‘What the blazes is that?’ Malien yelled.

Had something gone wrong with the field? Were they going to fall to their doom as the lyrinx had earlier? Bile froze in his throat. Malien was looking out to the left. He followed her out-flung arm.

A dark mass like a whirling funnel, or a tornado, had just slipped over the horizon. The funnel was black at the bottom, paling upwards to grey with flecks of yellow, and it was moving steadily across the bed of the sea in their direction.

‘It’s the Well, grown monstrously large,’ he said. ‘It looks as if it’s coming out of the ground, growing above it as well as below.’

Malien could not have heard him over the wind. ‘It’s the Well,’ she called.

‘What’s it going to do?’

‘I don’t want to know.’

In the tower, an hour or two had gone by but Tiaan still hadn’t worked out how to open the box. The sapphire rod was useless. It may well have been a key but there was no lock to put it in. Frustrated, she banged the box with her fist.

‘Perhaps it’s not meant to be opened,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Can you use it without doing so?’

‘I can’t tell. I don’t understand anything, Gilhaelith. If this is the port-all, it’s completely different to the one I used at Tirthrax. That one filled a room and had hundreds of parts, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to this one. The box weighs nothing. It’s as if it’s empty.’

‘Keep trying,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Irisis, what’s going on outside?’

Irisis tucked her spyglass under her arm. ‘I can see the end of the lyrinx column.’

‘That’s something. Go down and find out how close the leaders are, before it gets dark.’ Gilhaelith turned to Tiaan. ‘What if you were to touch the sapphire to the box?’

‘I’ve already tried.’ Tiaan showed him what she had done, touching the smooth stone to the faces, the edges and the corners. Nothing happened. The box was so perfectly built that there was not a seam visible. It looked as if it had been made in one piece.

Gilhaelith wandered over to the window and cried, ‘Oh, it’s beautiful; just beautiful.’

Tiaan put the sapphire down on the box and ran across.

‘It’s the Well,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘It’s coming right at us, like a geomancer’s dream.’

‘You don’t have the kind of dreams I do,’ Tiaan muttered. ‘Vithis said that all Santhenar would rue the day. Do you think he’s sent it at us?’

‘Not after he’s dead.’

‘It’s a bit of a coincidence that it’s coming straight for us, then.’

‘The node might be attracting it.’

‘What will the node do to it?’

‘Who knows? Make it stronger, probably.’

‘And if the Well meets the gate?’

He looked at her, opened his mouth, closed it again.

‘Gilhaelith?’

‘I wouldn’t like to imagine the consequences.’

‘Keep an eye on it.’ Tiaan didn’t know why she’d said that. Nothing could influence the path of the Well now. If it came, it came. Was it possible Vithis had set it to consume everything on Santhenar?

She raced back to the box, to discover that it had opened like a black flower, the front face drawing seamlessly inside. How had that happened? All she’d done was lay the sapphire down on top.

She looked in, but it was so black that she couldn’t see the sides. Tiaan rotated the box towards the light and her head spun, just like the time at Snizort when she’d looked into the tesseract and the incomprehensible fourth dimension had exploded all around her. Was this box another tesseract – a cube in four dimensions?

Taking the amplimet in hand, she tried to create a mental map of the inside. It should have been as simple as imagining the walls of a black cube, but it wasn’t. The walls kept shifting when she concentrated on them.

‘Just one at a time,’ said Gilhaelith, putting a hand on her hand.

Did he have any idea what she was trying to do? Tiaan supposed that he must. She fixed the left wall in her mind and attempted to attach the others to it, which was easier, though the walls still seemed to move around.

‘Now what?’ she said, looking up to him for advice.

‘Perhaps it’s all in the mind,’ he said absently. ‘I’m going below.’

‘Whose mind? Vithis’s? Yours? Mine?’

He was gone. Tiaan imagined passing through the rear wall of the cube and found herself in another space exactly like the original one: a cube attached to a cube, though she could not visualise how it connected to the first. She fitted it to her mental map anyhow and went through the right-side wall to another cube, which led back to the first. She recognised it because one wall was open and she could see her face staring in. The thought made Tiaan so dizzy that she fell off her chair.

Had Vithis been lying when he gave Malien the key? She didn’t think so, but how could she tell? He’d deceived and manipulated her from the beginning.

Maybe the gate was all in the mind, and the way would only become clear if she could imagine the unimaginable – the hypercube the way it really existed.

Tiaan recreated her mental image, passing through the black walls into cubes which only led to more cubes, and more that lay back to back with each other or with the first, the one that lay open in the upper room in Nithmak. She looked out but this time did not see the room at all. Tiaan saw only stars and constellations entirely foreign to her. She tried to go further but could not get through.

She backtracked and went at what she thought was the opening again, but this time looked out on nothing but green: a dense, verdant, dripping forest. She couldn’t reach it either.

Tiaan retreated, knowing she was getting further away from what she was looking for. She dismissed the images from her mind, whereupon the hypercube flashed into view of its own volition. It only lasted a second but that was enough. It was there! She had seen it, perfect and complete.

Tiaan tried not to dwell on it, for the four-dimensional image was impossible to think about logically and she might lose it. And yet, her visual mind had done it, and now she saw a box that she had never seen before. Its walls were thinner than the others and Tiaan could make out shapes and lights through them.

She went closer. One wall showed a double sun and a field of stars sprinkled across black silk. Another, a roiling miasma like the solidification, in jelly, of a multicoloured field. A third was a pattern of dots, extending regularly in all directions. A fourth she could not make out at all until she went up close, when she realised that it was a fanged, horned and whip-carrying monster the like of which must strike terror into even the fierce heart of a lyrinx. Was she looking into the void? The fifth was equally obscure, until it resolved into an eye staring back at her. Tiaan jumped and the eye disappeared. It was her own. The sixth wall led back to the box she had just come from.

She withdrew, knowing that a long time had passed. It had grown dark while she’d been working and the moon was shining in through the glass. The tesseract was empty. She’d been looking for a device like the port-all she’d assembled at Tirthrax, but there wasn’t one. And yet, there had been that aura.

What if the box itself was the device? It hardly seemed possible; how could an empty box open a gate? But on the other hand, there could be anything in compartments which were there one time she looked and not the next.

Could the port-all be all in the mind, something she must also visualise? Perhaps that was the answer. It wasn’t hard to recall her earlier port-all to view, for she’d often done so, trying to analyse why it had gone so wrong at Tirthrax. In her spare moments she’d tinkered with her mental image of the device, using her new-found geomantic knowledge to make it perfect.

She recovered the image of that port-all, mentally dusted it off and placed it in the tesseract. Nothing happened, of course, for there was nothing to power it.

Tiaan inserted her best image of the amplimet in the centre, just as she had placed the real amplimet into the port-all in Tirthrax that fateful day nearly two years ago. There was no resistance this time, which made her feel that she was on the right path. Or so far off that …

No, don’t think negative thoughts. It seemed as though the port-all ought to be ready. She began to operate it as she had the original. A whip crack shook the building and cries rang out from below.

Tiaan ran to the glass. Lyrinx were running everywhere, though she could not tell from what, or to what. Not the gate, at least, for Tiaan had not set any destination.

Nor could she. She had no idea where Tallallame might be, or how to look for it. That was Malien’s job but Malien had gone in the thapter many hours ago, and might not come back. So what was going on down below?

She hurried down the stairs. It took precious minutes and left her knees weak. In the open area at the bottom she walked into an opaque sphere filling most of the space between the bottom step and the wrecked doors. Was it the port-all? She edged around the side of the sphere and looked out. There were lyrinx everywhere and not all of them had wings. The fleetest of the runners had made it in under two days.

‘Ryll?’ she called hopefully. He might not have survived. And if he had survived, he could still be leagues away.

Her call was taken up in deeper, raspier lyrinx tones. Ryll, Ryll, Ryll…

The crowd parted and he pushed through, his heavy jaw set, eyes staring. ‘Is this the gate?’ His hand motion was dismissive.

‘Yes, but I don’t know how to find Tallallame.’

‘Then why did you call us here? The water rises towards the base of the peak. We’re clinging to it like moths, Tiaan, and there’s no room left.’ His great chest rose and fell like a bellows, his skin flickered with barely suppressed panic colours. ‘In half a day – no, sooner – we’ll be lost. Rather would we have died of thirst in the Dry Sea than be drowned in the Sea of Perion.’

‘Malien knows where Tallallame is. Have you seen her?’

He pointed to the sky. ‘She’s guarding the tower, circling higher than the other thapters can fly.’

If Tiaan didn’t make the gate soon, the rapidly approaching Well would consume all the nodes as it came. It stood out against the night, its black-and-gold-threaded funnel reaching up to the sky.

‘Call her down!’ cried Tiaan.

Ryll rapped out a few words in his own tongue and a lyrinx leapt into the air. Tiaan watched it in the moonlight until it converged upon the thapter, which lurched and headed down as erratically as an autumn leaf falling. The other two thapters pursued it until a cloud of lyrinx swarmed up at them, firing crossbows. The thapters turned away towards the Hornrace and the lyrinx escorted Malien down.

‘Malien!’ yelled Tiaan as it settled on a hastily evacuated space. ‘I’ve made the gate but I don’t know the way to Tallallame.’

They diverted around the opaque globe. Malien gave it a curious glance. By the top, her lips had gone grey and she was cold and sweaty. ‘That’s not a climb I care to do again. Show me the port-all.’

‘It – there is no physical port-all. It’s a mental construct, Malien. I imagined the tesseract,’ so easy to say, so difficult to do, ‘put my image of the port-all inside it, inserted the image of the amplimet and it created the cloudy sphere you saw below.’

Malien looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know that I can work the way you do, Tiaan.’ She sat on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed, concentrating hard. ‘Give me your hand.’

Tiaan sat beside her and extended her hand. Malien’s was unexpectedly hard. Nothing happened for so long that Tiaan found her mind wandering, projecting the rise of the waters and the terror of the lyrinx as it climbed up their chests. It was the curse of her visual memory that she could still see the faces of the two lyrinx who had drowned, pursuing her from Kalissin ages ago. The naked fear in their eyes would never leave her.

She wrenched her mind back to the gate and saw clouds, though they seemed to have more colour than any clouds she’d seen on Santhenar. The image shifted, the view looked straight up and she saw a green sky. Another shift; she was looking at trees from above. Giant trees and blue hills.

A swooping drop that left her stomach hanging over one of the branches, and they were at ground level. Blue grass waved in the breeze and there were flowering shrubs covered in red berries. Someone was whispering to her in a foreign language.

‘Tiaan!’ Malien was shaking her. ‘It’s Tallallame. Fix the gate in place and open it.’

Tiaan found it hard to let go of the vision, but did as she was told, remembering how she’d done it before in Tirthrax. And then a great roar echoed up from below, as from a hundred thousand throats.

Malien helped Tiaan to her feet, for she had no strength in her bones. ‘The gate is open. Let’s go down.’

Tiaan began to follow her, then looked back at the box. ‘But the port-all …’

‘It will stay open until you close it, or until the field is no longer sufficient to power it.’

At the bottom Tiaan smelled a sweet fragrance, as strong as citrus blossom. A gentle, humid breeze was flowing through the gate from Tallallame. The lyrinx waited outside, craning their necks to stare into the gate. The ones behind were standing up on their clawed toes, for just the tiniest glimpse of their new world.

‘I thought you would be gone already,’ she said to Ryll.

‘I would thank you first.’ There were tears in his eyes, and Tiaan did not recall seeing that before. ‘It is beautiful. The most beautiful of all worlds.’ He bowed, and at his side, even more surprisingly, Liett did too.

Tiaan gave him her hand, then took Liett’s. Ryll clasped Malien’s hand, Nish’s, and even Gilhaelith’s.

‘We will never forget this,’ he said. ‘Humanity has a side we never expected to see. Your deeds will be inscribed on the first page of our new Histories.’

‘Tallallame may not be such a kind place as you think,’ she said.

‘I’m sure it isn’t, but we’re strong. We will survive, and thrive, and rediscover our humanity.’

‘I don’t think you ever lost it,’ said Malien.

Ryll smiled at a private thought, then waved the first lyrinx towards the gate. ‘Ryll!’ said Tiaan.

He turned. ‘Yes?’

‘Your relics are still in the thapter.’

‘Ah!’ said Ryll. He held up his hand and the lyrinx who had been about to step through turned to one side. ‘We thought … when you did not produce them, we thought you had left them behind. Truly, you ennoble us all.’

‘Don’t stop,’ said Tiaan. ‘Precious lives –’

‘No lyrinx would choose to go through before our relics,’ said Ryll.

He selected an honour guard, who carried the three crates to the gate. Ryll stood to one side, his skin colours flickering, and Liett on the other, her wings upraised. Liett spoke to the people straining towards the gate, in her own tongue. Ryll did likewise. Then the guard ran though and vanished.

After that the lyrinx went through five abreast, as fast as they could be formed into lines. No more than five could fit at once and the gate could not be widened. It had been designed for thousands, not half a million.

‘This is going to take hours,’ said Tiaan.

‘If the field lasts,’ replied Malien. ‘Your people are attacking it furiously.’

They squeezed along the walls and outside, eyeing the funnel of the Well, which was larger than ever and lit up the salt, and one side of Nithmak, brighter than moonlight. ‘Is it coming at us?’ said Tiaan.

‘It seems to be.’

‘Could it be the gate attracting it?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Malien.

They watched it in silence. Nish came up beside them. ‘How is the field going?’

‘Slowly fading,’ said Tiaan absently.

‘And if it dies?’

‘The gate will close and we’ll be trapped here, as will all the lyrinx who haven’t gone through,’ said Malien.

‘Can we do anything to maintain the field?’ said Nish.

‘No. The amplimet’s being used for the gate,’ said Malien.

‘Would Flydd really do this to us?’ said Nish.

‘There may be no Flydd any more.’

‘What?’ he cried.

‘He may have fallen all the way,’ said Malien. ‘Many mancers could operate the field controller.’

Tiaan had to put that possibility out of mind. She couldn’t cope with anything else. She went to the edge of the pinnacle and perched upon a rock, looking down. The lyrinx were scrambling up the steps and the sides of the peak, hundreds every minute, but there was still a huge throng at the base. Half the visible bed of the sea was covered with water now. Irisis came and perched beside her, spyglass in hand.

‘They’ve mostly reached the base,’ Irisis said. ‘Though there are still several bands of stragglers out there.’

Tiaan put out her hand. Irisis gave her the glass.

‘There must be hundreds of them, running for their lives.’

‘And they’re all going to drown,’ said Irisis.

‘But …’

‘We can’t do anything for them, Tiaan. Malien could barely keep the thapter in the air before she came down. She’d have no hope of ferrying them back now.’

Tiaan knew she couldn’t do anything either, for that would require using her amplimet. It burned hot between her breasts, drawing power for the gate.

‘If only we’d started sooner,’ said Tiaan. ‘Another hour would have made all the difference.’

Irisis shrugged. She wasn’t one to waste any time on futile regrets. They watched the islands of salt shrink around the two blotches of lyrinx.

‘Tiaan!’ yelled Malien. ‘Quickly.’

Tiaan knew what had happened before she got there. The field was fading, and once it did, the gate would fade with it.

‘How many are through, Ryll?’

‘Nearly twenty thousand. The gate has been open for an hour.’

Tiaan calculated swiftly. ‘So it would take a full day and a night for everyone to pass through.’

‘Yes.’

‘The way the field is failing, we have another hour at most,’ said Malien. ‘Better try to draw from another field.’

Tiaan attempted to, but the nearby ones were under the command of the field controller and the more distant ones were too far away for the amplimet to use.

The Nithmak field was still under her control. Perhaps it was difficult to seize it with the Well so close. Unfortunately the Nithmak node, though potent, was a small one and the gate was draining it rapidly.

She walked back and forth, muttering to herself, then came to a decision. ‘Are there nodes on Tallallame?’ Tiaan said to Malien.

‘I have no idea.’

‘I’m going through the gate.’

‘Tiaan, no!’

‘Why not?’

‘Tallallame is a savage place and you don’t know what the effect might be, on you or on the amplimet. Or the gate, if the device powering it passes through to the other side.’

‘If I recall the Great Tales correctly, Rulke’s original construct passed safely though to Aachan.’

‘But it might not have. Look how the Mirror of Aachan was corrupted on its journey.’

‘I’ve got to take the risk, otherwise most of the lyrinx are going to drown when Nithmak goes under water. Anyway, my mental image of the port-all isn’t the same as a real, physical device. It probably won’t be affected by the gate.’

‘You don’t know that.’ Malien frowned. ‘All right, but wait until the last moment. If you fail, you doom everyone here, for the gate won’t remain open without you. Wait one hour and another twenty thousand will be saved.’

The hour seemed to fly by in minutes. The field continued to falter. ‘Will you go through in the thapter?’ asked Malien.

‘I’ll leave it for you, and enough in the field to get you away if the best happens. Or the worst.’ Tiaan shrugged her little pack on her back, snuggled a water bottle by her side and touched the amplimet for comfort. ‘Farewell,’ she said.

‘Wait,’ called Irisis. ‘I think I’ll come with you.’

‘And I,’ said Nish.

‘Are you sure?’ said Tiaan.

‘After this …’ Nish did not need to go on. What could be left for them here, after such a betrayal? Especially if Flydd was no more.

‘I’m coming too,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘No geomancer could be satisfied with just one world, if a second was on offer.’

The flow of lyrinx eased to allow them into the gate. Tiaan felt faint. Nish took her by one arm, Irisis the other.

‘I’m all right now,’ she said, but they held her anyway and it felt good to be among friends.

Tallallame was only a few steps away. Tiaan could see the grass, the trees; she could feel warm, humid air on her face, and smell spicy floral odours. The lyrinx made way for them. The passage seemed to take an eternity and, with each step, the link between her and the black box upstairs, with its port-all that was there and yet still here in her mind, grew ever more tenuous.

The cloudy exterior of the gate went milky, fading until they could see right through it.

‘The gate’s failing,’ she said, panicky. ‘This is going to break it. I’ll never be able to make it from the other side. You’ll all be trapped –’

‘We knew that when we decided to come,’ said Irisis, easing her sword in its sheath.

Gilhaelith had a crystal in his hand and it was glowing faintly. Tiaan couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. She took another step, and another. Darkness exploded in her mind and then they were through and stepping down, unexpectedly, onto grass that was more blue than green and unusually springy to walk on.

Tiaan let out her breath. The gate was still open after all; power still passed through to the port-all. They were standing in a clearing in the middle of a forest, though it was richer and more luxuriant than the cold forests of her distant homeland. The air smelt sweet and spicy. ‘What a beautiful place,’ she said.

‘The most beautiful world in the universe,’ said Malien. ‘So the Faellem used to say, before they lost it.’

The recently arrived lyrinx had adopted defensive positions. Some had gone up trees, others to the top of a mass of purple-brown boulders away to the left. A burly male stood by a stream and scooped water with one hand. He tasted it and smacked his lips.

‘Any sign of a node?’ asked Gilhaelith.

‘I haven’t looked yet.’ Tiaan scanned her surroundings in the usual way, amplimet in hand. She could sense no field at all. ‘Nothing!’

‘There’s no saying that fields on Tallallame would be the same as ours.’ Gilhaelith had his crystal out again, holding it high. It was still glowing.

‘Is that coming through the gate?’ asked Irisis.

‘I don’t think so. Let’s go over by that rock.’

They followed him around the other side. ‘Its glow seems a little brighter,’ Gilhaelith said, ‘though it could be that it’s gloomier under the trees.’

‘Too gloomy,’ said Tiaan. ‘This place might be a paradise but it’s a –’ She screamed and hurled herself backwards, landing in the leaves.

Irisis’s sword flashed and something went flying through the air. The leaves rustled. ‘Back to the clearing, quickly.’

SEVENTY-SEVEN

‘What was it?’ said Nish, helping Tiaan up.

‘It was like a snake with legs,’ said Irisis, ‘and it nearly had you. It was so quick. I just cut a bit off the tail.’

‘You saved my life,’ said Tiaan.

‘Well, at least a nasty bite on the ankle.’

In the open space, Tiaan dusted herself off, felt at her throat and said, ‘The amplimet’s gone.’

Nish and Irisis ran back, swords drawn. ‘Here it is,’ said Nish, reaching to pick it up. ‘The chain must have broken when you fell.’

As his fingertip touched the crystal there came a brilliant flash of light and he was thrown backwards into the bushes.

‘Nish!’ Irisis ran after him.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I haven’t broken anything.’ He got up, holding his sore ribs.

‘Come on. There’s bound to be more than one of those little beasts.’

Tiaan bent over the amplimet. ‘It’s glowing brightly now, as if there’s a powerful node nearby, but I can’t sense any field at all.’ She touched it gingerly. It flashed again, but did not sting her. ‘It feels different.’

‘It may well be,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Objects carried between the worlds are often changed.’

She held it out at arm’s length. ‘Corrupted?’

‘Not necessarily. The Mirror of Aachan took on the taint of its owner, and Shuthdar was an evil man. Once corrupted, such an artefact is impossible to cleanse, and only the strongest can control it.’

‘Well, at least the gate is still working.’ Lyrinx were coming through faster than ever, now running full-tilt. They’d already worn a path out of the gate.

‘What say we climb that hill?’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’d like to see a little of this world, if I’m to spend a day on it.’ He added under his breath, ‘Or a lifetime.’

They headed up an incline along a trail made by soft-footed animals that wound up the hill. Near the top they emerged from the towering trees into a clearing that capped the hill, and its neighbour. The spongy grass was long and blue-green.

They followed the ridgeline up onto the next hill, which was higher, and the one after that, which was also bare and looked over the surrounding countryside. The forest of giant trees extended in every direction. On the other side of the ridge they looked into a steep valley with a winding river; the sun, orange rather than yellow, reflected off the water.

Tiaan gazed at the scene and sighed. ‘It’s just lovely. I wish I could live here.’

Gilhaelith was staring into the distance, shading his eyes with his hand. Winged creatures wheeled above the river, further along. ‘The lyrinx haven’t wasted –’

Irisis pulled him down. ‘Those aren’t lyrinx! Look at the length of the necks, and the reptilian head.’

‘They’re hunting.’ Nish crouched down in the grass, squinting at the creatures.

‘They’ll be hunting us if we don’t find some cover,’ said Irisis. ‘Let’s go back.’

‘They’ve turned our way.’ Nish started to run along the edge of the hill.

‘Come back,’ she yelled. ‘Down into the forest.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone has a crossbow?’ said Tiaan.

‘Of course not!’ Irisis snapped, angry with herself for not bringing a useful weapon. ‘Get down. Crawl through the grass.’

They had not gone far before the winged creatures soared overhead, blotting out the sun with their membranous wings and emitting raucous cries. ‘If we stand together,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘and put our swords up, we might have a chance.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Tiaan. ‘There are half a dozen of them and they’re as big as lyrinx.’

They did so anyway. The flying creatures came to ground not far away, staring at them and showing no fear. ‘They’re not afraid of humans,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘and that’s a bad sign.’

‘Masterly understatement,’ said Irisis. ‘Get ready.’

‘For what?’ said Nish, looking for a stick, a stone or anything he could throw to keep them away.

The creatures began to move inwards, until a hideous growl erupted from below, though to Tiaan’s ears it was the sound of massed throats pretending to be savage beasts. A band of lyrinx came storming out of the shrubbery, wings spread, mouths agape. The racket was incredible.

The flying creatures whirled; then, as one, they kicked themselves into the air and flapped away.

‘Thank you,’ said Tiaan as the lyrinx made a protective circle around them.

‘We will escort you back to the gate,’ said the leader, a stocky female with miniature crests running down the front of her breastplates. ‘This is no world for helpless humans.’

They reached it an hour later, suitably chastened. The lyrinx were coming through as fast as before. The amplimet was still glowing but Tiaan had no idea why. ‘It seems to have picked up some kind of a charge,’ she said.

‘That’s not unknown in the Histories of mancery,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Some of the very first magical devices, as the Art was then called, were crystals or glasses that had become naturally charged in a field. The first mancers were just people who could make use of that power.’

‘Will the charge remain if we go back through the gate?’ Tiaan asked.

‘It may last for a while, unless the return passage changes the amplimet again.’

‘How long?’

‘An hour, a day, a month? How would I know? This is surely the first time an amplimet has been taken through a portal. But sooner or later the charge will fail and then, most likely, the amplimet will be useless.’

‘You mean …?’

‘It may no longer draw power at all.’

‘I don’t care,’ Tiaan said, ‘as long as it lasts until we complete our work here.’

Ryll was still standing by the gate when they reappeared, and the gate continued to work. Nish and Irisis went out, but Tiaan remained beside Ryll. ‘How many are there to go?’ she asked.

‘Less than forty thousand,’ said Ryll. ‘There were more but the … the waters took them. Three hundred and seven thousand have passed through, plus more than a hundred thousand children, carried.’

‘So many? The gate has only been open a few hours.’

‘It was before dawn when you left. Now it’s morning of the next day, our last on Santhenar. If the gate lasts, in two hours we’ll all be through.’

‘Time passes differently in the Three Worlds,’ said Gilhaelith.

They went out into the light. An easterly sun was slanting low across what had been the Dry Sea. There was no salt to be seen, just water all the way to the horizon.

‘The Sea of Perion rises swiftly.’ Malien detached herself from the crowd that covered every available surface on top of the pinnacle. ‘Already it’s over fifty spans deep.’

‘And still forty thousand lyrinx to go,’ said Tiaan. ‘They must be clinging to every part of the peak.’

‘Like bees to a honeycomb.’

‘What happened to the Well?’

Malien gestured over her shoulder. It was just behind them, looming above the tower like the black eye of a cyclone. They moved around to that side of the peak. The funnel of the Well went down through the water, all the way to the bottom of the sea, and probably below that.

Apart from a few wheeling lyrinx the sky was empty, not a thapter or air-dreadnought to be seen. ‘Has Orgestre given up?’

‘I doubt it. Flying lyrinx have kept the thapters away.’

The Well was less than a league away now, and tracking directly towards them. Irisis studied it with her spyglass.

‘I can see a clanker in there,’ Irisis burst out. ‘Carried up as if it were made of paper. And all sorts of other things. Trees. Bodies.’ She shivered. ‘What power the Well must have.’

‘I wonder if it could be a kind of anti-node?’ said Tiaan. ‘Instead of giving out power, it grows by sucking the power from other nodes, leaving a trail of dead ones behind.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Malien. ‘I’ve never encountered an unshackled Well before.’

‘How are we doing?’ said Irisis.

‘We need another hour or so.’

‘The Well will be here in minutes,’ said Tiaan. ‘Do you think there’s anything we can do to turn it aside?’

‘It has the power of a hundred nodes,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘It’s irresistible.’

‘But if it’s being directed …’

Gilhaelith cried out. ‘I’ve got an idea. Nish, Irisis, could you give me a hand with the geomantic globe?’

They carried it in its box to the edge of the pinnacle, facing the Well. Gilhaelith unpacked it, set it up on its stand and slid the brass pointers around on their circular tracks, making sure that they moved freely.

‘I’ve been tinkering with my globe since the escape,’ he said to Tiaan. ‘Gyrull concealed some vital details from me, but I’ve added them from your maps and I believe the globe is perfect now. Let’s see what we can see.’

He began scrying with it, clamping small chips of crystal in the pointers and setting the globe spinning slowly beneath them. Tiny reddish pinpricks appeared under the glass surface, but that wasn’t what Gilhaelith was looking for. He tried another five or six crystals, which he took from a small padded box, then borrowed Tiaan’s amplimet and Irisis’s pliance. They did not work either.

‘It’s no use,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘If someone is directing the Well, they’re too cleverly hidden for me. We can’t do anything to turn it away.’

‘We’d better warn the lyrinx,’ said Tiaan. ‘And then, I suppose we’d better go. If we can …’ It didn’t seem right to fly away in the thapter and leave the rest of the lyrinx to their fate.

‘And take the black box too,’ Malien said suddenly.

‘Why?’

‘It would … not be good for it to be sucked into the Well.’

‘But if we take it, won’t that close the gate immediately?’

‘It will remain open until you close it, Tiaan, because you’re holding it in your mind.’

‘Can I leave the gate open after we go?’

‘No!’ said Malien sharply. ‘As soon as we’re in the air you must close it, or else the Well might pass through the gate.’

‘To Tallallame?’

‘It might go anywhere in the void. It might annihilate itself, the gate and half of Santhenar. Anything might happen. The void might be disrupted … It is … the Well must not pass through the gate. Though it came from Aachan in the beginning, this Well is now a creature of Santhenar, and Santhenar must deal with it.’

Malien went looking for Ryll and Liett. Tiaan headed up to retrieve the black box. It proved surprisingly light, as if it was, after all, no more than an empty box. When she reached the bottom, panting and weak in the knees, Malien was talking to Ryll. Liett was pacing back and forth, casting anxious glances at the Well and stormy ones at Ryll, which he was steadfastly ignoring.

‘As soon as the Well touches the side of Nithmak,’ Malien was saying, ‘we must close the gate. We can’t risk the Well passing through.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Ryll. ‘And then you must get in your thapter and fly to safety, knowing that you could have done no more.’

Liett beckoned furiously to him. Ryll gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head, whereupon she drove her fist into the nearest wall and stormed away, shaking her wings.

‘I think Liett wants to talk to you,’ Tiaan said uncomfortably. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Just a disagreement about when I’m to go,’ said Ryll. ‘She wants me to leave now, but I can’t abandon my people to die.’

‘Are there many left?’

‘More than twenty thousand of us,’ said Ryll. ‘Too many. But we knew the risk.’

Of us, Ryll had said. But if he was staying to the last, he wouldn’t get through at all. He would drown here with the stragglers. Liett came storming back and took him by the arm, trying to pull him towards the gate. Ryll set his feet and did not move.

‘Will you not go, Ryll?’ said Tiaan.

‘Not while any of my people still cling to the side of this peak.’

‘You’ll drown.’

A shudder passed over him and his skin colours writhed in iridescent shades of purple and grey. ‘So will they, and without ever a sight of Tallallame. At least I’ve had that. Go, Liett.’

‘Not without you.’ She folded her arms across her chest.

‘I order you to go through the gate,’ he thundered. ‘As patriarch of all the lyrinx.’

‘I am the daughter of a matriarch,’ Liett flashed. ‘I take orders from no base-born unmated, wingless male.’

Ryll was so furious that his skin flashed all the colours of the spectrum, but Liett simply set her jaw and cracked her wings in his face, as she’d done so often.

The funnel of the Well now loomed so huge that it covered a quarter of the sky, and so black that the world seemed to have slipped into twilight. Tiaan ran to the edge of the pinnacle. The water was more than a third of the way up the sides of the peak, and huge, driven waves lashed up another twenty or thirty spans, washing the scrambling lyrinx away like ants off an anthill.

As the base of the funnel approached, even larger waves formed and moved ponderously out in all directions. The flow of lyrinx up the sides and into the gate slowed to a trickle. The flat area at the top of Nithmak was almost empty now.

The Well swept towards them, depressing the surface of the sea like water going down a prodigious plughole, then drew back. As it did the sea was pulled up with it, and the biggest wave Tiaan had ever seen surged out from the base of the Well; a monster at least fifty spans high. It was nowhere near as high as the pinnacle but the surge would drive the water up and up.

‘It’s going to overtop the pinnacle!’ Tiaan yelled. ‘To the thapter, everyone.’

Malien caught her wrist. ‘It’s too late. If it breaks over the peak, we’re done.’

They watched the wave swell and grow, driving inexorably towards them, its foaming top rising higher and higher until it looked as though it would wash everything away, including the tower. Ryll ran out to the edge, shouting to the climbers to hurry.

He was too late. The wave struck well below the crest but burst in an explosion of foaming brown water that climbed the sides until it lapped the top of Nithmak and swirled across, knee-deep. It rose no further but, as it passed, Tiaan saw lyrinx thrashing in terror on the foam. One by one, they sank. When she looked over, the sides of the pinnacle had been swept clean.

Ryll stood on the brink, staring down into the churning water. His skin had turned completely grey. The Well surged again and another wave began to form, as big as the last, if not bigger.

‘It’s time,’ said Malien. ‘If there’s enough left in the field to lift us.’

As they ran to the thapter, the last surviving lyrinx were passing through the gate. All but one. Ryll was still gazing at the water.

‘Ryll, you must come!’ screamed Liett. ‘You are the last.’

‘The last.’ He teetered on the brink and it looked as though he was going to jump, to join all those thousands who had suffered the most terrible death of all.

Tiaan walked backwards to the thapter, ignoring Nish and Irisis, who were screaming at her. She felt for the ladder and began to climb.

Liett ran out to Ryll. ‘Come on!’ she screamed in his face.

The thapter came to life, whining gently. The wave was swelling, growing enormously, and it would sweep the top of Nithmak clean. Tiaan found herself caught around the waist and lifted bodily.

It was Irisis and she carried Tiaan all the way. Tiaan hung onto the hatch as the thapter lifted, shuddering violently.

‘Who am I to go,’ said Ryll to Liett, ‘when so many more worthy have lost their lives to the waters? You should have been matriarch, Liett. I resign. I am not legitimate. I am unmated male.’

As he raised one foot to step over the side, Liett swung her fist in a roundhouse blow to the chin that knocked Ryll unconscious onto his back.

‘On Tallallame I will be matriarch,’ she said imperiously. ‘And I choose you, weak and worthless though you are. You are now Hy-Ryll, mated male.’

Irisis chuckled. Tiaan had to resist the urge to clap.

Seizing Ryll under the arms, Liett dragged him across the rocks and into the gate. ‘Farewell,’ she said, and passed beyond.

The Well swelled again. Malien pushed the controller and the thapter moved sluggishly off the far side of the peak. ‘Close the gate, Tiaan.’

Tiaan brought up her mental image of the tesseract, withdrew the port-all, took out the image of the amplimet and closed the box. The gate vanished as the Well roared up and over the peak and the sea followed it. When they looked back there was nothing but the boiling sea and the funnel hanging there, and the red spheres bobbing in the foam. The tower had gone.

‘Where are we going?’ said Malien.

‘Where can we go?’ said Nish, wanting to run to the ends of the earth.

‘To Ashmode,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘That’s where everyone else has gone. It’s as good a place as any to watch the Sea of Perion fill again.’

‘Well,’ said Irisis, ‘I’m not running away. I’m proud of what we’ve done. Let’s go and face up to it.’

SEVENTY-EIGHT

Nish looked over the side, dreading the coming confrontation. He couldn’t be as sanguine as Irisis, nor as philosophical. Even if Flydd accepted that theirs had been the best solution, his opponents would not forgive it. And Flydd’s opponents now greatly outnumbered his friends, assuming he’d survived at all. Gilhaelith, Irisis, Tiaan and he, Nish, could well be executed for treason, though Malien would undoubtedly be spared.

Ashmode, from above, was a beautiful, spacious town built entirely of the local blue-white marble. Its streets were broad and lined with palms or enormous twisting fig trees whose canopies shaded the width of the street. Its fields, orchards and vineyards, grown on the fertile, moist slopes below the cliffs, made a ribbon of green from the air, marking the boundary between the brown drylands of Carendor and the glittering whiteness of the Dry Sea. Soon they would disappear under the rising sea.

It was a lovely sunny day as they passed across the town square looking for a place to set down. It was warm, with just the gentlest breeze. A perfect autumn day to be tried for treason.

‘There seem to be an awful lot of people down there,’ said Tiaan.

‘The war’s over, remember?’ said Irisis. ‘The celebrations will go on until the drink runs out.’

‘I hope it hasn’t run out yet,’ said Nish.

‘They won’t be giving it to condemned prisoners,’ said Irisis. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered as Nish blanched. ‘At times like this, I find it helps to joke.’

‘I don’t.’

The crowd moved back to form a staring circle as the thapter came in.

‘There’s Flydd,’ said Tiaan. ‘He’s alive, at least. And Troist. And they don’t look happy,’ she added in a low voice.

Scrutator Flydd was standing at the front, with Troist. Nish didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. The knot in his stomach tightened. Yggur and a pale-faced Klarm stood some distance away. Both had their arms folded against their chests.

Tiaan climbed down onto the paving stones. The others followed, standing on either side of her. There was an awkward silence.

‘You bloody fools!’ the scrutator said furiously. ‘What gives you the right to overturn decisions voted on by the mighty after days of considered debate? You ought to be fried in your own tallow, and had it been up to General Orgestre you would have been. It’s lucky he’s not here or I wouldn’t be able to restrain him.’

‘Where is Orgestre?’ said Nish in a small voice.

Flydd’s eyes fixed on him and Nish squirmed. ‘He had an apoplexy when he heard that you’d freed the lyrinx. It burst the vessels in his brain. He’ll never walk or talk again.’

‘A medal-winning performance at last,’ said Irisis, almost inaudibly.

Nish wanted to laugh but he couldn’t.

‘Troist has taken Orgestre’s position, for the moment,’ Flydd went on. ‘Troist?’

Nish met Troist’s eyes, remembering that the general was, nominally at least, still his commanding officer.

‘I’m bitterly disappointed in you, Nish,’ said Troist. ‘I thought I knew you. Do you realise that I could have you whipped and executed for treason?’

‘Yes, surr,’ said Nish.

‘You’ll have to stand in line to flog the little sod,’ said Flydd. ‘He was my man before he was yours. What the blazes were you thinking, Nish?’

‘We did what we thought was right,’ said Tiaan softly.

Flydd’s head whipped around. ‘Oh, did you? Since when are you running the world?’

‘Since the scrutators failed at it,’ said Gilhaelith over her shoulder.

‘I thought you were dying?’ Flydd said sourly.

‘I’m taking it slowly, just to annoy you.’

‘You’ve succeeded. I –’

‘If you’re going to execute them,’ Klarm interjected, ‘can you bloody well get on with it. The war’s over and I need a drink.’

‘I’m with you, Klarm,’ said Yggur. ‘We’ve got what we wanted. Let’s go and burst a barrel or two.’

Klarm could scarcely contain his astonishment. ‘You’re agreeing with me?’

‘Don’t let it go to your head. I’m not planning to make a habit of it.’ Yggur grinned and extended his hand.

Klarm let out a great roar that made heads turn curiously on the other side of the square, and he jerked Yggur’s hand up and down in both of his. ‘It’ll be a pleasure drinking with you, surr.’

Flydd couldn’t maintain his furious face any longer. He chuckled. ‘Damn the pair of you – you’ve cut my feet out from under me. Well, my friends, I can’t condone the way you went about it, but it was the best solution in the end. We’ve got our world back, the lyrinx have their own, and our future Histories aren’t stained by genocide. Let’s celebrate.’

Nish fell in beside Flydd as they walked. ‘What did you mean, surr, when you said that General Troist was commander “for the moment”?’

‘You might have expected that the governors would be grateful for what we’ve done.’

‘Of course they’re grateful –’

‘There’s a whole world up for the taking, Nish, and they’ve already got both feet in the trough. Why do you think they came here so hastily?’

‘But you saved humanity, surr!’

‘We saved the world, Nish, but we couldn’t hold it, and they didn’t take kindly to Tiaan’s … er, creative solution. They accused Yggur and me of being behind it. I’ve been forced to give up every office I hold. If I hadn’t, my head would have been on the block.’

How could this be? Flydd had worked his whole life for humanity. ‘I’m sorry, surr,’ whispered Nish.

‘Ah well, it’s done,’ said Flydd. ‘I’m an old man. Too old for this, so not another word of regret, eh? Anyway, the future of the world, and who’s going to be running it, is being decided right now on the other side of town. And it won’t be any of us.’

Tiaan moved the thapter to a little park not far from the square and left it in the shade of an ancient and gnarled fig, so it would be cool inside when they returned.

Despite the attitude of the governors, the common folk knew who’d saved them, and everyone wanted to shake their hands. It took Tiaan more than an hour to get back to her friends in the square, where they too were surrounded by laughing, cheering and crying well-wishers. It almost made up for the past two years.

Troist gave his last order as a general, that everyone was to be fed from the army’s stores, and the town brought out long-hoarded delicacies from its larders. Tables and trestles were set up, and when the meal was ready the entire town took their seats in the square. It was no feast, but the fare was better than most people had tasted in long years. The mayor fetched barrels from his cellar and ladled wine into jugs.

After the speeches were over, and congratulations and gifts had been accepted from the notables of Ashmode, the companions sat down together for the last time before they went their separate ways. They were twelve now: Yggur opposite Irisis, Flydd opposite Nish, Gilhaelith opposite Tiaan, Merryl opposite Troist, Malien opposite Flangers – who’d walked for a week to rejoin the army after Gilhaelith abandoned him in Tacnah – and Fyn-Mah facing Klarm. Flydd set Golias’s globe on the table in front of them, covered with a cloth. Perhaps he was afraid of losing it as well.

The jugs of wine were distributed. Yggur and Klarm splashed it into the mugs and Yggur rose, raising his drink high. ‘To peace,’ he said.

They stood up and everyone in the square did the same. ‘To peace!’ they roared.

‘To a future without the lyrinx,’ said Yggur. Another roar.

‘Or scrutators!’

The roar dwarfed the others, though Flydd only pretended to drink this time. In the end, he was only a man, and after giving his all for the world, the world had cut him down.

When the toasts were done, Flydd downed half his mug and gagged. ‘Ah, that’s like chewing on an anteater’s tail. I knew I should have sat at the mayor’s table, rather than down here with the rabble.’ He shrugged, sank the rest and poured himself another. He looked along the table. ‘You’ve been a great company, and I’ll cherish our comradeship to the end of my days. But it seems to be drawing to a close. What are your plans, my friends? Irisis?’

Tiaan saw that Nish was gazing at Irisis with a hungry look in his eye, but Irisis was looking anywhere but at him.

‘I never thought I’d survive the war – in fact I was sure I wouldn’t. But now it’s over, I’m going to be a jeweller, of course. It’s what I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl …’ She looked up at the sky, around the table and down again.

‘And …?’ said Flydd, grinning broadly. The whole table was smiling, apart from Nish, who had an anguished look on his face.

He has no idea, Tiaan thought. Irisis was right; Nish really is the thickest man on Santhenar. Please put him out of his misery.

‘I never dared to love openly, but now I can. Nish is going to be my man, of course.’ Irisis pulled him to her and kissed him on the mouth in front of everyone, and Nish could not restrain his tears this time.

‘What about you, surr?’ Irisis said after a decent interval of congratulations, and more toasts with the truly awful wine.

‘I’ll write the Histories of the war. I want to make sure my version is recorded … you know how it is.’ Flydd glanced at Fyn-Mah and smiled. ‘And then, I think, an honourable retirement. Perhaps a cottage and a garden full of flowers.’

Nish had recovered sufficiently to choke into his wine cup. ‘Retirement and flowers? You?’

Flydd scowled down his battered nose. ‘And why not?’ he snapped, before turning to Tiaan. ‘What will you do now, Artisan?’

‘I’m going home to Tiksi,’ she said. ‘To find my mother.’

‘And then?’

‘I don’t know.’ Tiaan looked slantwise across the table at Nish, who was staring into Irisis’s eyes again. She looked away. ‘I’ll find work somewhere. I don’t suppose the manufactory will need artisans any more, but someone will.’

‘What then?’ Flydd persisted.

She hesitated. ‘I’d like to find a mate, and have children. I never had a proper family, but in spite of Marnie I –’

‘Marnie?’ said Merryl, staring at her. He half-rose from his seat. ‘Marnie who?’

‘Marnie Liise-Mar,’ said Tiaan. She pushed back her chair, and her scalp felt as if it had been rubbed with a chunk of ice.

‘Tiaan?’ he whispered, as if he had never heard the name before. ‘Your name is Liise-Mar?’

‘Yes. Marnie is my mother.’

‘Why did I not know?’ Merryl cried. ‘My daughter – my precious, precious daughter.’

As she stared at his familiar yet entirely new face, a single tear ran down her cheek. ‘Father?’

He walked around the table towards her. She ran and threw herself into his arms, sobbing for sheer joy.

‘All my life I’ve been searching for you, Merryl, Father. I’ve never forgiven Marnie for sending you off to the front-lines to die.’

‘I forgave her many years ago. It was a man’s duty to serve and I didn’t go unwillingly. I often think of her …’

‘But you can’t go back to her after what she did to you?’ she cried.

‘I don’t expect anything of her, after all this time,’ he said. ‘Marnie was young and foolish, and so was I, but I do want to see her again. She was so slim, so beautiful. Rather like you, Tiaan.’

‘She’s fat!’ said Tiaan. ‘Fat but still beautiful.’

‘And I’m aged beyond my years and lack a hand. And my only skill is to speak a language that no one on Santhenar uses. Tell me about her.’

‘I’m the oldest of fifteen children, all with different fathers. All my brothers and sisters are living, the last I heard. All clever and hardworking, too.’

‘Marnie was a very clever woman,’ he said. ‘She just chose not to use it the way other people wanted her to.’

‘Father,’ said Tiaan, and the word sounded strange in her ears. ‘What is your name? I tried to find you in the Tiksi bloodline register but I couldn’t read the writing.’

‘I’m Amante Merrelyn, though I’ve not used my name in twenty years.’

‘Merrelyn,’ said Xervish Flydd. ‘I thought you looked familiar.’

‘Amante,’ she said, rolling the name around on her tongue. ‘Amante.’

‘It’s too grand for the man I am now. Merryl fits me much better.’

‘How come you didn’t know my name?’ said Tiaan.

‘You hadn’t been named when I was sent to the war. I thought about my daughter all the time, and it was hard, without a name.’

‘I never liked using her name. For twenty years I’ve just been Tiaan.’

‘I knew your parents, Merryl,’ said Flydd.

‘They both had a gift for languages,’ said Merryl. ‘More than a gift – a talent bolstered by the Art. They travelled the world with kings and governors, and even scrutators.’

‘They were among the greatest translators of the age,’ said Flydd. ‘A tragedy that they were lost so young.’

‘It was, but at least they passed their talent to me.’

‘Perhaps that’s why you’re the only person ever to master the lyrinx tongue.’

‘It’s not much use to me now,’ said Merryl.

‘You never know,’ said Flydd. ‘By the time you’ve written down all you know about the lyrinx and the war, for the Histories, you’ll be an old man …’ He looked up at the sky. ‘What’s that? Irisis, you’ve got the best eyes here.’

She stood up, shading her eyes with her left hand. ‘It looks like an air-dreadnought, though with three airbags instead of five. A big flat one, and two smaller ones underneath.’

A cloud passed in front of the sun and the breeze bit into Tiaan’s bare arms, reminding her that winter, even this far north, was not far away.

‘I wonder who it could be?’ said Nish.

‘More governors coming to carve up the world, now we’ve won it for them,’ said Flydd, again with that hint of bitterness. ‘The news went out by farspeaker as soon as the lyrinx began to go through the gate. They’ll be going to the conclave on the other side of town.’ He filled his mug again and they took up their cutlery.

But Flydd was wrong. The air-dreadnought came up slowly and began to circle the square. Tiaan laid down her fork. The craft was huge, nearly twice the size of the air-dreadnoughts that had attacked Fiz Gorgo. Its airbags came to triple points at the front and were painted vermilion with threatening jags of black. The suspended vessel had triple rotors at its broad, rectangular stern, each more than two spans across.

‘What a racket,’ said Nish, putting his hands over his ears as it turned ponderously into the wind. The rotors made a squealing clatter that grated on the nerves.

‘There’s no badge or insignia,’ said Flydd, putting down his mug. ‘But it came from the north-east.’

Soldiers lined the sides, dressed in the same red with black jags. It was not a uniform that anyone recognised. Red helms covered their heads, the nosepieces extending down to their upper lips.

The air-dreadnought settled in an empty space on the far side of the square, its triple keels crunching on the gravel. The rotors squealed into silence. A board was lowered, like the gangplank of a ship. Everyone was staring now.

A file of soldiers marched down and stood to one side. Each was armed with a crossbow of extravagant design, and a long sword. Another file took their position on the other side.

Tiaan rose to her feet, trying to see. The plank was empty. No, someone now appeared at the top. A man, though not a tall one. He too was masked and clad in red, with a red cape. A golden chain was suspended from the back of his neck, the ends passing over his shoulders. On either end, at breast height, dangled a bag of black silk or velvet.

The man paused at the base of the plank, nodded to the guards and turned across the square. They fell in behind him.

Xervish Flydd dropped his knife. Irisis had gone white. Nish’s hair was standing on end. He looked as if he had just seen the dead rise. He ran out into the open.

‘Father?’

The man turned towards him and the sun flashed off the platinum mask that covered two-thirds of his face. He had only one arm.

‘I thought you were dead, Father,’ Nish said. ‘And eaten.’

‘I dare say you hoped I was,’ said Jal-Nish Hlar.

Xervish Flydd lurched around the left-hand end of the table, trying to look self-possessed but not quite pulling it off. ‘Quite a plan, Jal-Nish. Even I was fooled.’

Jal-Nish stopped twenty paces away. ‘Not the most difficult of tasks, Xervish.’

‘Only my friends call me Xervish.’

‘You’ve told me that before.’

‘And I dare say those are the tears of the node that exploded at Snizort. The lyrinx didn’t have them at all.’

Jal-Nish touched the black bags, which were giving off a humming sound, and it rose in pitch. ‘Do you hear the song of the tears? I don’t bother with the paltry fields – I carry the power of a node with me wherever I go.’

‘It was you who brought down Vithis’s watch-tower,’ said Nish.

‘I needed to test the power of the tears,’ said his father, as if no other explanation was necessary. But then he added, the visible part of his jaw tightening, ‘The Aachim had no right to come here.’

‘And you who flooded the Dry Sea.’

‘To drown the enemy. Would that I had made up for your negligence sooner, Flydd. You trapped the enemy and failed to crush them.’

‘And you directed the Well at us,’ said Nish.

Jal-Nish waved a careless hand, as if none of these staggering achievements were of significance to a man who had mastered the tears.

‘How did you get away?’ said Nish. ‘I saw your boot at Gumby Marth, with just a gnawed shinbone sticking out of it.’

‘One shin looks much like another after the lyrinx have been at it,’ Jal-Nish said. ‘You always were slapdash, Cryl-Nish. I didn’t think you’d look too closely.’

‘And then you ran like a cur from the battlefield,’ said Nish, ‘leaving your brave men to their doom.’

Jal-Nish’s head jerked up, but he recovered almost at once. ‘When the battle is lost, a prudent man withdraws. And it was lost because of you.’

‘Me?’ cried Nish, balling up his fists.

‘I knew the lyrinx were stone-formed into the pinnacles,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘I was waiting for them, but your clumsy flight woke them before I was ready.’

‘You – you dare blame me –’ Nish was so incoherent with rage that he couldn’t get the words out.

‘What a practised liar you are, Jal-Nish,’ said Flydd. ‘Had I realised it when you were a lowly perquisitor, I would have made sure you rose no higher.’

Jal-Nish didn’t bother to argue, though his eye shone like a viper’s.

‘Still, I’m glad you’ve come,’ Flydd went on. ‘The tears will come in handy in the reconstruction.’

‘Oh, indeed. I’ve already begun to make plans for that.’

Another chill prickled the top of Tiaan’s head.

‘You won’t be involved in it, Jal-Nish,’ said Flydd. ‘The old Council is no more.’

‘I thoroughly approve. It outlived its purpose long ago.’

‘And the governors are even now meeting to carve the world up between them.’

‘The world doesn’t need governors either.’

‘If you would hand over the tears, Jal-Nish,’ said Flydd.

Jal-Nish pulled one black bag away and a gasp rippled around the square. On the end of the chain was a roiling, silvery black ball, like boiling quicksilver. He plunged his hand into it.

Flydd choked, clutched at his throat and fell down. His heels drummed on the ground for a minute, then Jal-Nish withdrew his hand. It came out slowly, as if the tears were reluctant to let go their hold, and wisps of silvery vapour clung to it. His skin was white and flaky, the nails as vermilion as his cape.

Jal-Nish smiled. ‘It would be so easy, Xervish, but I don’t plan to make it easy for any of you. You betrayed me, though I can forgive that – I’m a most forgiving man. But you also betrayed our world and that I can never forgive.’

‘We saved it,’ said Yggur, pushing back his chair and coming forward, ‘and that’s something the scrutators never looked like doing. It was the enemy, after all, who kept them in power.’

‘Yggur,’ said Jal-Nish, turning in his direction. ‘A failure from the past presumes to lecture the future.’

‘You might find me a more difficult failure to deal with,’ said Yggur with a glance at Flydd, who still lay on the gravel.

‘I doubt that.’ Jal-Nish plunged his hand into the ball again and within a minute Yggur was stretched on the ground beside Flydd.

Jal-Nish looked around, his eye met Tiaan’s, and she felt a sick numbness creep over her. ‘Artisan Tiaan – I’ll deal with you later. I’ve a special torment reserved for you.’ His eyes flicked to Irisis and his stare became so cold that ice formed in Tiaan’s belly. ‘And as for you, Irisis Stirm,’ he hissed, ‘you’re the one I came all this way for. In my two years of agony, yours is the one face that has kept me going. Guards – secure them.’

Tiaan could hardly stand up. It was the end of the world. Her stomach felt as if it was going to drop out of her belly. She looked around for help but everyone seemed as stunned as she was, and Jal-Nish’s troops were already moving in. No one had brought weapons to the luncheon anyway.

She could see everyone but Klarm, who’d been at the end of the table. But even if he’d run for the army, they wouldn’t get here in time. The camp was half a league out of town.

Yggur or Flydd, she could not tell which, began to moan, and then a curious thing happened. A fracas broke out across the square and the moment Jal-Nish turned that way the crowd, which had been hanging back, flowed around the table like a multicoloured tide.

A hand caught her by the shoulder – Nish. ‘This way, Tiaan.’

She eased further into the crowd with him, trying not to be noticed. Gilhaelith was just ahead, bent low. Merryl and Irisis were by him, Malien too.

‘Malien thinks you might be able to do something in the thapter, Tiaan,’ said Nish. ‘You’ve still got the amplimet, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, putting her hand to her chest. ‘But Flydd …’

‘Jal-Nish is too strong,’ said Malien. ‘There’s nothing we can do here.’

She began to slide through the crowd and they followed in her wake. They hadn’t gone far when Jal-Nish let out a cry of fury, which was followed by a low-pitched humming, like the song of the tears only more intense.

The sound beamed into the crowd like a sonic finger and everyone in its path fell down, moaning and holding their hands over their ears. Another hum; collapsing townsfolk cut a second long embayment in the crowd, leaving Nish exposed at the very end. He was still on his feet but didn’t seem able to move.

‘Run!’ he mouthed as Jal-Nish’s soldiers pounded towards him.

Irisis, ten paces away, turned to run back but Gilhaelith jerked her away.

‘He’s caught and you can’t do anything for him. You can’t fight the tears.’

Irisis was in agony, her eyes staring from a stark white face, but she allowed Gilhaelith to take her arm. Tiaan looked back through a gap in the crowd. The soldiers held Nish and as soon as they hauled him out of the way Jal-Nish would be free to use his sound beam again.

‘Where’s the thapter, Tiaan?’ said Gilhaelith in a low voice.

‘Down there in the little park.’

‘Come on.’ He ran and Malien did too.

Irisis was just standing there, staring at Nish, who was being dragged off. Another sonic blast roared through the crowd, dying out not far to Tiaan’s right.

Irisis took a deep breath and turned Tiaan’s way, her eyes bright with anguish. ‘Farewell, Tiaan.’ She held out her arms.

‘You’re not coming?’

‘I can’t leave him.’

‘But Jal-Nish will crucify you!’

‘I’ll find a way round him,’ Irisis said lightly. ‘You know what I’m like with men.’

Not this one! Black icicles formed in Tiaan’s chest. ‘I’ll never see you again. I know it.’

‘Of course you will. We’ll be drinking together in Tiksi before the new year.’ Irisis hugged Tiaan, then quickly stepped back. ‘Farewell, Tiaan. It … knowing you has been the great privilege of my life.’ She wiped her eye, then pretended that it was just a speck of dust. ‘Go quickly, and do what you can for us.’

Tiaan went, Merryl at her side, slipping through the crowd, which opened before her and closed up tightly behind. She could not look back.

Before they reached the street corner and turned towards the little park, an officer shouted, ‘There they are!’

She darted a glance over her shoulder. Red-coated soldiers were forcing their way after them. Merryl took her wrist and ran. Malien and Gilhaelith were almost out of sight.

Tiaan was not used to running. She’d spent most of her time in the thapter, these past two years. There was a burning pain in her side, and the soldiers were less than a hundred paces behind. One had gone to his knees, pointing his crossbow. Merryl jerked Tiaan around the corner as he fired.

In the park, Gilhaelith was climbing into the thapter. Malien must have been inside, for it began to move. Tiaan was fading badly now. She could hardly run and her backbone was a mass of pain where it had been broken long ago. The thapter raced towards them as a soldier turned the corner, levelling his crossbow.

As he fired, Malien whipped the thapter between them and the soldier, so that the bolt slammed into the side. They scrambled in and the machine was up and away, climbing fast.

Then not so fast. Then, not fast at all.

‘What is it?’ whispered Tiaan.

‘I don’t know,’ said Malien. ‘It’s as if the air has turned to porridge and the thapter can scarcely force its way through it. Or …’

‘Or as if he’s holding us back with the tears. I’m doing everything I can but it’s not working. He’s too strong.’

Tiaan closed her eyes. Clutching the amplimet, she tried to sense the ebb and flow of the field, to see if there was anything linking them to Jal-Nish, but she sensed nothing.

‘What if I put the amplimet in its socket,’ Tiaan said suddenly, ‘together with your crystal? And we try to fly the thapter together?’

‘It’s a big gamble,’ said Malien. ‘It could make things worse.’

‘It’s only a gamble when you’ve got something to lose.’

As she was inserting the amplimet, the thapter lurched and stopped in mid-air, then began to creep backwards as if Jal-Nish were reeling them in. Tiaan put her hand on the controller and Malien her longer one over it, and both tried to draw power simultaneously.

The mechanism screamed as though trying to thrash itself to pieces. The thapter lurched backwards.

‘Stop!’ gasped Malien. ‘We’re pulling in opposite directions. Take your hand off. Let me control the thapter, Tiaan. Just try to deliver the extra force I need.’

Tiaan took her hand off and the strain eased, but the thapter gave another backwards jerk, and another, and the further it went the tighter the grip of the tears became.

‘Follow the way I use power,’ Malien added, ‘rather than trying to do it your own way. Ready?’

‘Yes. I think so.’ Tiaan drew power as gently as she could. A grinding sound issued from downstairs.

‘Gently,’ said Malien. ‘Close your eyes and just sense the flow, and go with it rather than trying to drive everything before you.’

This time, after some effort, Tiaan was able to follow the way Malien worked, though it was already giving her a headache.

‘More,’ said Malien. ‘But just a little more.’

Tiaan gave her more. The thapter stopped its fitful backwards jerking, floated at the point of balance for a moment, then slowly began to climb.

‘A trifle more,’ said Malien. ‘He’ll double the effort when he realises what we’re doing.’

The pull on them increased. Tiaan drew more power. The pull increased again. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ she said. ‘We’re giving him time to match us.’

‘I can’t do any more. I’m at my limit.’

‘Just keep doing what you’re doing. Leave the rest to me.’

Malien gave her a doubtful glance.

‘Trust me,’ said Tiaan. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose.’

She tuned her mind to the stored power in the crystal, which had been there since their trip through the gate to Tallallame, and took as much as her mind could bear.

The mechanism screamed, she felt a tearing sensation like glued paper being ripped apart and the thapter shot up into the sky, faster than it had ever gone. She kept the power flowing until, with a wrench that she felt inside her skull, the pull of the tears ceased completely.

Gilhaelith cried out and crushed his knotted fists to his temples. Tiaan had forgotten he was there.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Malien.

‘The recurrence of an old pain I can do nothing about,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’ll have to lie down. Could you give me a hand, Merryl?’

Merryl helped him down the ladder.

‘You had a plan?’ said Tiaan, removing the amplimet so Malien could take over again. She could use it, but preferred not to unless she had no choice.

‘I wondered if it might be possible to draw so much power from the node at Ashmode that it failed. It would send out a sensory reverberation that might –’

‘I don’t think there’s any way to draw such power without killing ourselves in the process,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’ve already thought about it. And there’s no saying it would work anyway.’

‘Then there’s nothing we can do for Flydd or Yggur, or any of them,’ Malien said heavily.

SEVENTY-NINE

‘It’s as if we’ve escaped under false pretences,’ said Tiaan wretchedly.

‘I know,’ said Malien, ‘though we would have wanted them to escape, even if we could not. Let’s not lose hope – we may yet find a way to do something.’

‘Then we’d better think quickly. Jal-Nish didn’t seem like a man who would gloat over-long.’

Malien turned to pass around Ashmode in a great circle, keeping to a safe distance. She described three more circles, but Tiaan couldn’t think of any way of attacking Jal-Nish. Her mind was like a blank room with the roiling quicksilver tears in the centre, their power overwhelming all other Arts. Then, as Malien turned again, Tiaan saw, out over the sea, the Well looming in the distance, as black as a thunderhead. The Well and the amplimet had once been linked, she recalled.

‘Malien,’ Tiaan said, ‘do you know anything about the link between the Well and the amplimet? They seemed to communicate in Tirthrax, remember?’

‘I could hardly forget it,’ said Malien.

‘Why would it do that? If the amplimet draws from nodes, and the Well is a kind of anti-node, wouldn’t it be a threat?’

‘I dare say. Perhaps the amplimet wanted to take advantage of the chaos a freed Well would create.’

‘What if we were to throw the amplimet into the Well? Could that destroy them both?’

‘No. The amplimet would be destroyed by heat at the bottom of the Well first.’

‘Oh!’ said Tiaan. Something else occurred to her. ‘The Well grows by sucking power out of nodes, and it’s a kind of anti-node. So why don’t node and anti-node come together and annihilate one another?’

‘That’s a question I’ve often wondered about. I think the core of the Well must contain a barrier to stop them getting too close.’

‘And there’s no way to overcome it?’

‘None,’ said Malien, ‘except a gate –’

Tiaan started. ‘What is it?’ said Malien.

‘I’ve had an idea. Well, it was your idea really. A way we might be able to save everyone.’

‘I think I know what it is,’ said Malien with a faint smile. ‘I’ll set a course for the Well then, shall I?’

Malien’s suggestion about setting off a sensory vibration through the ethyr had given Tiaan the clue. Jal-Nish had previously used the tears to direct the Well. If they could eliminate it, the subsequent vibrations might be reflected back through the tears to him. She couldn’t guess what the effect would be, but it might give their friends a chance.

She went halfway down the ladder to check on Gilhaelith, who was asleep on the floor. Merryl was watching over him from the bench. ‘Is he all right?’ she said. ‘Father?’

‘He’s better than he was,’ said Merryl. ‘Do what you have to do, Tiaan.’

She went back up again. ‘Malien?’

‘Yes?’

‘Can you set the thapter to fly by itself for a minute? I may need Gilhaelith’s geomantic globe. It shows things that my field map doesn’t.’

They carried its box up, put it in the rear right corner and closed the hatch. Malien took the controller again. Tiaan opened the box and lifted it off the geomantic globe. It was revolving on its mist cushion in the green-tinged nickel bowl. She stood for a moment, admiring its perfection. ‘He’s done a beautiful job. Gilhaelith has captured every nuance of the fields, every peculiarity of the nodes.’

‘He’s a brilliant man,’ said Malien.

Tiaan tried to concentrate on what she had to do once they got inside the Well. She planned to create another gate with the black tesseract, though not between worlds. This would be just a simple portal between the node and the Well. She began to rehearse the process in her mind. There would be no time to think about it once they got there; she had to get it right first time.

‘What will the Aachim do now?’ she asked absently as she worked.

‘Life will go on as before, in isolation, until eventually my people die out.’

‘But surely not?’ said Tiaan.

‘They’re cowards who fear to live in the real world. Back in Aachan, they even went into slavery rather than fighting for freedom, and lied about it afterwards.’

‘What about the ones who came from Aachan?’

‘They plan to make a home in Faranda,’ said Malien, ‘in the mountains and the lands east of them. Luxor spoke to Flydd about it when Flydd went to the Hornrace, not long before it collapsed. Eastern Faranda is empty now, but with the Sea of Perion restored the rains will come again. They’ll make it blossom, in time.’

‘I hope so,’ said Tiaan, though all she could think about was Minis walking out onto the salt. His body would lie fifty spans below the water by now. Poor, sad, weak Minis. He’d redeemed himself in the only way he could. ‘The Aachim do deserve to find peace at last, and a land to call their own.’

Before Tiaan had the procedure complete in her mind, the Well rose up before them. It had changed direction again and was drifting parallel to the southern shore of the Sea of Perion, a few leagues out, moving in the general direction of the Hornrace. ‘It’s bigger yet, and higher,’ she went on. ‘Do you think we can reach the top?’

‘I don’t know.’ Malien frowned, then tilted the battered front of the thapter up until it began to climb.

Tiaan was painstakingly trying to think through all the consequences of what they were going to do. ‘If we do destroy the Well, could that drive the amplimet to the third stage – full awakening?’

‘No,’ said Malien firmly.

‘Why not?’

‘Full awakening can only come once the amplimet is at the second stage. Flydd drove it back to the first stage of awakening after Nennifer, and we later made sure of it.’

Gilhaelith stirred in his painful slumber, muttered under his breath and went silent again. When Tiaan looked down he was fast asleep. ‘That’s all right then,’ she said.

They continued climbing. Tiaan had a nagging feeling that she’d neglected to take account of an important detail. She went through her procedure again from the beginning, just to make sure. She found nothing wrong, but the worry remained.

‘I’m ready,’ she said.

‘You’ll be looking for the black box,’ said Malien. ‘It’s in there.’ She indicated a compartment with her foot.

Tiaan got it out and opened it with Vithis’s sapphire key. Recalling the true shape of the tesseract, she placed her mental model of the port-all inside and set it to open a gate from the core of the Well to the centre of the node it was presently drawing from. She checked the node on Gilhaelith’s globe to make sure she had it right. ‘That’s it.’ She began to close the box.

‘It has to be open,’ said Malien as they tracked along the edge of the whirling funnel.

‘Why?’

‘The gate will take the easiest path. If the box is closed, the gate may open via another world or another dimension. You don’t want that, for the same reason as we didn’t want the Well to go through the gate. Get ready. The thapter won’t go any higher, probably because of the damage some nitwit did, crashing it through the door of Nithmak.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Tiaan felt a fool.

‘So you should be,’ said Malien. ‘But it is a problem. Since we can’t fly high enough to go over the top, we’ll have to pass through the funnel wall of the Well.’

‘Is that possible?’

Malien considered, head to one side. ‘That’s a good question.’

Into the Well, Tiaan thought with a shiver. ‘Can we get out again?’

‘An even better question.’

Without warning, Malien turned the thapter sharply and plunged into the maelstrom. Tiaan clutched at the side rail. Everything went black and yellow, the thapter turned upside down, righted itself without any effort from Malien and they were through the inner wall. Tiaan was looking down at the bed of the sea as if the water did not exist, and even through the bed into darkness. In the abyssal depths something red gleamed – a moving node, perhaps, tracking through the solid earth below the Well.

‘Ready?’ said Malien. ‘Be quick. I don’t like being here at all.’

‘Is this like going to the Well without really going?’ Tiaan said perceptively.

‘In a way, though if we get it wrong we will be going to the Well, and more spectacularly than anyone has ever gone before.’

Tiaan took a deep breath, lifted the black box in both hands, held it open and tossed it over the side.

‘Now what do we do?’ she said, watching it fall, the door flapping.

‘We make sure we’re not still here when that gets to the bottom and the core of the Well materialises in the centre of the node,’ said Malien.

She hurled the controller over and flew at the wall. The thapter struck the whirling funnel at an angle and bounced off. She tried again. The same thing happened. Malien bit her lip.

The black box was already out of sight. Tiaan’s fingernails dug into her palms. She wiped sweat from her eyes.

Malien turned towards the centre of the Well, which was leagues across, curved back and hurled the thapter forwards as fast as it would go. It stuck the funnel hard, shuddered so violently that Tiaan’s bones felt like they were rattling, and passed into the maelstrom. Unfortunately it did not make it through to the outer side, but was whipped around in a circle, inside the roiling wall. Malien threw the thapter at the outer barrier, again and again, but could only strike it at a low angle, and the thapter kept bouncing off.

‘I can’t get through,’ she gasped.

‘Instead of crashing, what if you force?’ said Tiaan.

Malien tried that, creeping to the outside edge, putting the thapter’s battered front against it and pushing hard. The fabric of the funnel bulged out, out, out, finally enclosing them in a bubble that tore off and was fired away like a speck of mud from a wheel.

Tiaan looked back. ‘Don’t look back,’ said Malien.

Tiaan ducked her head as a glow lit up the sky, brighter than a hundred suns. It became ever brighter, and the shock began to reverberate back and forth inside her head, building up and up and up until, finally, she had to let go.

‘Tiaan!’ Malien was shaking her. ‘Wake up.’

‘Don’t think I can,’ Tiaan said groggily.

Malien shook her harder. ‘You have to. We forgot one vital thing.’

‘Wassat?’ Tiaan slurred.

‘When the node and anti-node annihilated each other, it disrupted all the fields for leagues around. It’s destroyed my crystal, I can’t draw any power and we’re falling.’

‘So what can I do?’ Tiaan was too dazed to be worried.

‘Use the amplimet, if it works. Failing that, draw on its stored power to get us to the ground.’

Tiaan stood up shakily.

‘We’re falling fast,’ Malien said urgently.

Tiaan’s thoughts flowed as sluggishly as molasses. She staggered and had to hang onto the side rail.

Malien snatched the amplimet from around Tiaan’s neck, tore out her shattered crystal and put Tiaan’s in its socket. She brought Tiaan’s hand down on the controller.

‘Now, Tiaan!’

They were plunging to the ground like a meteor. ‘Thirty seconds,’ said Malien.

Tiaan’s head hurt, and she could hardly remember what to do to make the thapter go. ‘The amplimet won’t obey me. It won’t draw power from any field. It must have lost the ability, going through the gate.’

‘Twenty seconds,’ said Malien. ‘Use its stored power.’

Tiaan struggled but her mind remained blank.

‘Ten seconds!’ Malien slapped her hard across the cheek. ‘Wake up.’

Tiaan found just enough in her to pull the machine out, a bare few hundred spans above a line of arid hills. It jerked forwards, then sideways, bucking and shuddering like a buffalo in a pen. A long way behind them the steaming waters were already rushing in to reclaim the space that the Well had occupied.

Tiaan rode the careering thapter for as long as she could, which wasn’t even a minute. She could barely stand up. ‘I think –’ It lurched wildly. ‘Help me, Malien.’

Malien placed her hand on Tiaan’s, on the controller, but the thapter shot left, twisted right then spun in a circle. ‘Oh, the amplimet’s all wrong now!’ she cried.

Tiaan’s bones felt plastic and her head was flashing from hot to cold in sickening waves. She couldn’t hold it up. She leaned it against the cold wall, which felt a little better.

‘Do you think we’ve made any difference?’ she said directly. ‘To Jal-Nish, I mean?’

‘I – I don’t think so, Tiaan.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I can’t. I just have a bad feeling, and I’ve learned to trust my feelings over the centuries.’

‘What if we were to sneak back to Ashmode? Could we mount an attack on Jal-Nish? Or his air-floater?’

‘Not a chance,’ said Malien, squeezing Tiaan’s hand. The mechanism was hardly making any sound, now, and the thapter was slowing rapidly.

‘Why not?’

‘There’s not enough power stored in the amplimet to take us there. It’s practically drained, and the fields here may be disrupted for weeks. There’s power in them but I can’t get to it.’

It didn’t seem right for the great adventure to end this way. ‘Where are we, anyway?’ said Tiaan.

‘Somewhere south of the Trihorn Falls, as they once were. Those are the Jelbohn Hills on the southern horizon.’

Tiaan stood up to look over the brown, featureless land. ‘How far is it to Ashmode?’ Once she would have known it instantly, but her mind couldn’t recall the map.

‘About eighty leagues. When we came out of the Well it hurled us away at colossal speed. We’re the best part of twenty days’ march away, in this trackless country.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘I’ll head for the coast of the Sea of Thurkad. See it, across to our right?’ The mechanism sputtered and Malien put the nose down. ‘I can’t risk flying, in case we lose power suddenly. Once we do, this thapter will only be good for cutlery.’

‘Or ploughshares,’ said Tiaan. There was a gentle tap on the hatch. She pulled back the bolt with her toe.

‘I’ll hover it along the coast as long as the power lasts,’ said Malien. ‘When we get to a decent town you can take ship wherever you want to go. At least we’re not short of coin.’

Merryl lifted the hatch and put his head up, flashing Tiaan that heart-warming smile. ‘Did I hear some kind of a bang a while back?’

‘You could say that,’ said Tiaan. ‘We destroyed the Well, hoping it would disable Jal-Nish, too. Unfortunately it’s disrupted the fields and we can’t get back to Ashmode.’

‘Yggur and Flydd are resourceful,’ said Merryl. ‘I’m sure they’ll come up with something.’

Tiaan could not be so sanguine, though she appreciated him putting the best face on it. Not even two decades of slavery had been able to curb Merryl’s optimistic outlook.

The thapter skimmed up a gentle rise covered in short grass with a hint of green, unusual in this brown land, and sighed to a stop on the crest. Tiaan looked down a long slope, also sward-covered, to a rocky creek littered with boulders.

‘That’s it,’ said Malien. ‘The amplimet is finished, and so is the thapter.’

‘But …’ said Tiaan.

‘There probably isn’t a hedron within a hundred leagues that could replace the amplimet. It’s over, Tiaan. The thapter has no power. It’s useless metal. From here, we have to walk.’

Tiaan climbed down the side, took off her boots and socks and walked around the thapter, taking pleasure in the springy grass under her soles. The great adventure is over, she thought, and I’m tainted. A criminal. I’ll never fly a thapter again. She put one hand on the black flank of the machine and felt a tear well in her eye.

Merryl clambered down, rubbing his back. ‘I think I’ll walk down to the creek. I’ve spent too much of my life cooped up in caves and thapters.’

‘You’ll have all the walking you can take before we get home,’ said Tiaan.

‘I can’t wait.’ He grinned and set off, arms swinging. Tiaan watched him halfway down the hill, infected by his cheer.

Malien had just stepped off the ladder when there came a cry of terror from the thapter.

‘No!’ Gilhaelith cried. ‘No!’

Tiaan began scrambling up as Gilhaelith appeared at the top. He was shuddering, wild-eyed, and his woolly hair was sticking out in all directions.

‘The amplimet!’ he said hoarsely. ‘Where is it?’

‘It’s still in its socket,’ said Tiaan calmly, thinking he must have had a nightmare. ‘It’s all right. It’s drained of all power.’

‘Get it out! Quick.’ His head disappeared, then he heaved himself up onto the side, the geomantic globe in his arms, and slid down onto the grass.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Malien.

He ran about ten strides, put down the globe and knelt beside it. ‘I’ve just realised something that I should have understood a long time ago. Tiaan, do you remember when you flew over Alcifer a month or more back, and something very strange happened?’

‘Someone – Ryll I suppose – tried to bring us down with the power patterner,’ said Tiaan. It had been a week after they’d dropped the spores into the bellows. ‘And then, for an instant, time itself seemed to freeze.’

‘I did that, by accident,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I was using my globe at the one place in Alcifer where power was still sleeping since the days of Rulke. But something else happened at that moment. As time froze, I was looking up through the dimensions and I saw the amplimet light up like a searchlight.’

‘What?’ said Malien, staring at him. ‘Do you mean it woke?’

‘It must have been driven to the second stage of awakening,’ Gilhaelith said grimly.

‘And it’s been quietly biding its time ever since. And now the destruction of the Well could have tipped it over the edge to the third stage – full awakening.’

‘What does full awakening mean?’ said Tiaan, looking from one to the other.

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Malien.

‘But surely it can’t do anything here, with the local nodes disrupted and its stored power drained?’

‘In full awakening, it can take power from anywhere. Tiaan, grab the amplimet and chuck it down to me.’

Tiaan went up the side. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Just do it!’ Malien shouted, her jaw muscles spasming.

As Tiaan went up, Gilhaelith began moving the pointers furiously on his globe. She withdrew the amplimet, extremely gingerly. It didn’t feel any different; indeed, the light passing down the centre was dull red and beating sluggishly. Nonetheless, just holding the crystal sent a shiver up her back. She’d seen what it could do, too many times.

She tossed it to Malien but Gilhaelith shot up like an unleashed spring and plucked it out of the air high above her head.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘Destroying it isn’t the way.’ Gilhaelith sat it on the ground between the geomantic globe and himself, and resumed his rapid but controlled movements.

‘It’s the only way …’ said Malien, but did not attempt to take it off him. ‘Tiaan?’ She walked away across the hill.

Tiaan followed. ‘What’s he doing, Malien?’

‘I would have thrown the amplimet into the red-hot compartment underneath the thapter and let the heat destroy it,’ she said. ‘Assuming it didn’t anthracise me first. But Gilhaelith is a truly great geomancer; perhaps his way is less risky.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Tiaan, admiring the way he worked. The geomantic globe was the most perfect device she’d ever seen. The nodes had lit up all across it, and threads of light were inching out from a number of the brightest. She went back and walked around it, keeping at a distance. There were seven bright nodes. One represented the node at Alcifer, another Tirthrax, and a third one was near Nennifer. The others were spread across the world at places she’d never been.

‘They’re the controlling nodes,’ said Gilhaelith, carefully adjusting his pointers.

And perhaps the ones to be controlled, she thought suddenly. Or used to take control of all of them.

Gilhaelith looked around, gave a great sigh, as if of bliss, and began to work faster. All his long adult life, more than a hundred and fifty years, he had worked to discover the secret of the great forces that moved and shaped the world. His great project, he’d called it in Nyriandiol. After coming back from Alcifer he’d claimed to have given up the search, but clearly he hadn’t. That must be what he was doing now. He wasn’t trying to curb the amplimet at all.

Tiaan could scarcely believe it. Was Gilhaelith prepared to risk everything to satisfy his own lust for knowledge, at such a desperate moment? Truly, she reflected, humanity doesn’t deserve the Art. We simply can’t be trusted to use it wisely.

And then Tiaan came to a far less pleasant realisation. The geomantic globe was too perfect a model of Santhenar. As the small is to the great was one of the key principles of the Art. The Principle of Similarity was another. What if the amplimet took control of the globe? It would provide the perfect conduit to control all the nodes in the world.

‘Gilhaelith?’ she called.

He shuttled his hands back and forth, then came halfway to his feet, knees bent, plucking at the back of his head as if trying to pull out an errant hair. What was the matter with him? Gilhaelith gave a great shudder and sat down again, his long, gawky legs crossed. He resumed his work, more mechanically now, as if his joints had gone stiff.

‘Gilhaelith?’ she said sharply.

He turned his head jerkily, stared at her with glittering eyes and turned back to the globe. The controlling nodes began to pulse slowly, in unison with the pulsing of the amplimet. The threads of light were still slowly extending from them. And when all the controlling nodes were linked? What then?

Tiaan’s heart gave a painful lurch as she realised what was happening. ‘Malien,’ she shrieked. ‘The amplimet is taking control of him.’

Again Gilhaelith turned, more stiffly than before, but this time she saw terror in his semi-crystalline eyes. His mouth came open. ‘Help me,’ he said in a brittle croak.

If she tried, the amplimet would seize her as well, and Malien wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. And then it would take over the world. Tiaan knew she lacked the strength to fight the amplimet, and didn’t see how she could destroy it. It would kill her first. But if she did nothing, Gilhaelith would die an excruciating death.

He forced back with all his strength, reversing the crystallisation agonisingly, but the amplimet’s power was relentless. ‘Tiaan,’ he gasped, ‘for the friendship that was once between us, help me.’

EIGHTY

Malien came running up, then stopped beside Tiaan, staring at the geomancer. She shook her head and drew Tiaan aside. ‘There’s nothing we can do to save him unless you’re game to snatch up the amplimet and toss it into the red-hot compartment. I’m not.’

Tiaan was remembering Ghaenis’s hideous death by anthracism. ‘Attacking the amplimet would be suicide.’

‘I know.’ Malien squatted down and put her head in her hands. ‘I should do it anyway, for the good of the world, but …’

‘I’m not brave enough either,’ said Tiaan after a long pause, for an idea was slowly coming into focus. ‘But I wonder if there’s another way.’

‘What other way?’

‘Help me!’ Gilhaelith reached out to Tiaan. The crystallisation had run up his fingers, across his hands and was now extending up his arms. His feet and lower legs had gone too, and his eyes had the most peculiar, faceted glitter.

‘I can’t,’ she said, turning away. She couldn’t bear to watch what was happening to him, and do nothing.

‘Which way, Tiaan?’ said Malien.

‘I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,’ she said quietly. ‘How no one can be trusted with the power to control the nodes. Especially not Jal-Nish.’

‘There’s nothing can be done to stop him,’ said Malien.

‘I think there might be.’

‘Oh?’ Malien said with a sharp intake of breath.

Tiaan’s eyes were drawn back to Gilhaelith, whose brittle hands were still moving over the globe, though very slowly and mechanically now. The threads of light would soon link all the controlling nodes. Four of them were connected already, and fainter threads had begun to extend from them to other, less powerful nodes. ‘I think I know how to close down all the nodes for good, and Jal-Nish’s tears with them.’

Malien’s head jerked around. ‘We talked about that once before, Tiaan.’

It would spell the end of the Secret Art, at least the way humanity had been using it since the great Nunar codified the laws of mancing. There would be no more thapters, air-floaters, constructs or farspeakers. No field-powered Arts or devices of any kind, save those that had been laboriously charged up in the ways known to the ancients. And maybe not them either.

‘You’re … not going to do anything, are you?’ croaked Gilhaelith.

‘I’m sorry, Gilhaelith,’ Tiaan said, and she was, for she did care for him. Tears pricked at the insides of her eyelids, as if crystals were forming there in mimicry of his transformation. She had to let him die. If she saved him, her friends would all be slain. ‘I can’t.’

He began to curse her, bitterly and unrelentingly, in a voice that sounded like someone walking over broken glass. Then Gilhaelith broke off in mid-word, his face twisted in agony.

‘It did this to me,’ he whispered. ‘It planned it all long ago, and I was too stupid to see it.’

‘What did?’ she said.

‘Way back in Snizort, when I was trapped in the tar, I heard a whisper in my head telling me to create a phantom crystal and use it to save myself. I did so, but its fragments have been there ever since and no matter what I did I couldn’t get rid of them – it wouldn’t let them go. They just lay there, burning me whenever I used power, and doing more damage. But as soon as I brought the globe down here, the fragments came together in my mind and they were just like a model of the amplimet, linking it to the real one. I couldn’t resist it. I tried, Tiaan, I really did, but it was too strong.’

He was cut off by another agonised spasm. The crystallisation must be reaching his vital organs. And, from the corner of her inner eye, Tiaan could see filaments beginning to extend out of the geomantic globe, into the ethyr. The amplimet was using the globe to mimic the real nodes and the links between them. Once it had done that, it would be too late to stop it.

And she had to stop it, but if she just smashed the amplimet, or hurled it into the red-hot compartment, she would have lost the opportunity to do anything for her friends, or to stop Jal-Nish. Tiaan was determined to do both, even at the cost of all the nodes. Gilhaelith’s folly only reinforced her determination that such unfettered power could not be allowed to exist.

Her plan was desperately dangerous. In all likelihood, she would die even more horribly than Gilhaelith.

Just do it! She dived, snatched the amplimet from between Gilhaelith’s feet and held it high. It was pulsing even more slowly now, and the blood-red light glowed right through her hand, picking out the pale and fragile bones.

‘Don’t take the risk, Tiaan!’ shouted Malien. ‘Throw it into the heat under the thapter.’

If she tried that now, she would die. Tiaan stepped back a couple of paces and fixed on the geomantic globe, seeing its perfection in her mind and forming the sequence of links between its controlling nodes into a vast mental network. Now for the most desperate step of all – she had to act as if she were supporting the amplimet, doing what it wanted. To oppose it would be to suffer instant anthracism.

She drew power. Though there had been none just minutes ago, it was effortless now. Tiaan directed it into the controlling nodes, as if to reinforce what the amplimet had been doing. She sent power around and around that network, amplifying it at every turn, and pumping more and more power in. The nodes glowed brighter and brighter until she could no longer look at them. They were pulsing in time with the beat of the amplimet, and now the whole geomantic globe began to throb. Threads of mist rose from its northern pole.

This was it, the point of no turning back. If she succeeded, and survived, the aftermath would rob her of all that made her special – indeed, unique. Her inner talents, that had sustained her all her life, would be useless. Could she bear that?

Tiaan hesitated. In the background she could hear the crackling as crystallisation proceeded up Gilhaelith’s thighs and in across his shoulders. To the left she could see Malien’s frozen face. Malien could lose her great Arts too. All the world might. Was it worth it?

Tiaan didn’t know. She couldn’t think.

‘Use the globe, Tiaan.’ Gilhaelith’s voice was a screeching crackle. ‘You can reverse the crystallisation.’

But she didn’t know how. The controlling nodes were linked on the globe now. Soon the controlling nodes of Santhenar would also be linked to it, an endless source of power for good or evil. What would Gilhaelith do with it, if she saved him? What would Jal-Nish do, if she didn’t stop him? What would the amplimet do if it gained what it had been searching for so long?

‘We can fight it,’ crackled Gilhaelith. ‘We’re stronger.’

‘It means more war,’ said Tiaan. ‘More destruction, death and ruin. I won’t have it.’

‘Noooo …’ Gilhaelith said, in a hissing whisper that faded to nothing, for his lungs had crystallised and he could no longer breathe.

‘Don’t, Tiaan,’ said Malien. ‘You’ll only make things worse.’

‘How can they be worse!’ Tiaan cried, and as Malien tried to stop her, she sent an overwhelming surge of power into the controlling nodes, which emitted a burst of light so bright that it burned her skin. Gilhaelith jerked spastically and the crystallisation slowly proceeded up his torso to his throat.

Suddenly it grew dark and cold, as if something had blocked out the sun. All around her the loops and whorls of the field flared to visibility and the sky was lit up by vast green and yellow auroras. The ground shook so hard that the thapter toppled onto its side, exposing the still-glowing cavity beneath. Tiaan might have tossed the amplimet into it, but that was even more dangerous now.

Malien threw herself at Tiaan and tried to tear the crystal out of her hand. Fighting her off, Tiaan staggered around to the other side of the geomantic globe. Gilhaelith laboriously extended a crystalline arm towards her but it was easy to evade his reach.

Tiaan knocked over the green nickel bowl and the globe rolled out, still spinning on its freezing mist on the short grass. She saw the horror in his eyes and averted her own. It had to be done.

The globe was icy and its cold burned her from here. She pumped more power into the controlling nodes, as much as she could draw. She could feel the amplimet’s triumph as she slipped it into her pocket.

Tiaan picked up the globe and lifted it above her head. It was incredibly heavy. She staggered under its weight.

‘Noooooo!’ Gilhaelith’s wail seemed to have been formed outside his throat, and then the disembodied voice began to curse her again.

Tiaan held the globe up for a moment, feeling her knees wobble, and hurled it down the hill. It resisted as if it didn’t want to leave her, then nearly took her with it, for her hands had stuck to the thick, frigid glass. Tiaan overbalanced and the globe pulled free, tearing skin off her fingers and palms. It landed a few spans away, unharmed on the springy grass, and began to roll down the slope.

The sky blackened to the colour of midnight, the hillside lit only by the shimmering auroras and the fading glow from the underside of the thapter. Rays extended out from the controlling nodes in all directions. One struck through her pocket, charring the cloth, and the amplimet fell out. She scooped it up in her bleeding hand as the fields went wild. The ground shook harder; the auroras flared so brilliantly that for a moment it became as bright as day.

The geomantic globe gathered speed down the long slope. Tiaan watched it go. The task was nearly done. She felt very weak now. If she could just hold out another minute.

And then, and it was like a fist closing around her heart, Merryl appeared from behind one of the boulders down at the creek, right in the path of the globe. She wanted to scream at him to run, but her tongue felt as though it had frozen to the roof of her mouth.

He saw it coming. He didn’t run or panic, but calmly walked the other way. Then Malien threw herself at Tiaan and tried to tear the amplimet out of her hand. Tiaan fought off the old woman, pushed her down and stumbled away. She couldn’t see Merryl now. Dare she attempt it, with him so close? She had to – it was all, or nothing.

Gilhaelith’s eyes lit up as they crystallised last of all and behind the facets she saw bliss, ecstasy. There was no time to wonder about it, though for a moment she wavered. She could feel his joy; could even share in it, for they were not so different, after all. Could she put out the light in those faceted eyes?

She had to. The geomantic globe hurtled up a small bank and bounced high in the air, heading towards the largest boulder in the creek bed. All of a sudden the amplimet lit up so brightly that it burned her fingers. It fell onto the grass, which began to smoke.

It knew!

Her brain began to heat up from the inside and a hot shaft of fire shot down her spine. As the globe fell towards the boulder, Tiaan scooped up the crystal in the nickel bowl and staggered towards the thapter. At the moment the globe impacted and smashed to smithereens, the amplimet glowed like a miniature sun.

The metal bowl was burning her but she couldn’t give in now. She held on, smoke rising from her fingers, just long enough to toss the amplimet into the cavity under the thapter. Tiaan threw herself out of the way, rolling down the hill. Rays streaked across the sky. The boulder exploded, the auroras went wild and the ground shook again. The mechanism of the thapter screamed as if power had been poured directly into it, then faded to nothing.

The fire in her head and down her spine ebbed away, leaving a dull, burning ache. The glow of the amplimet simply went out. The auroras danced for a moment, but disappeared as the sun shone again. There was complete and utter silence.

Tiaan felt a terrible wrench as the amplimet died, and then the most agonising sense of withdrawal and loss. It was gone, and soon her inner abilities would be lost forever.

She rolled over and lifted her head with an effort, to stare down the hill. It was covered in wreaths of smoke and pieces of shattered rock and glass, but to her joy she saw Merryl running up, a long way to the left. The relief was so great that she allowed her head to flop back to the ground. Had she done what she’d intended, or not? All that power, forced around and around the links and amplified at every node, had to go somewhere.

Nothing happened. Malien stood about ten paces away, staring into the distance. Merryl had slowed to a trot.

An incandescent jet shot into the air from beyond a range of hills, followed by a billowing cloud of dust and smoke. The ground gave a gentle quiver, then another. The first node had exploded. The thunder took longer to arrive. And then, distantly, the other nodes began to go off, one by one. As each did, the force would spread to the others, and it would not stop until every node in the world was gone.

‘It’s done,’ she said. The explosions would not create more tears, for the force was not contained but spread from one node to another. ‘No one has proven worthy of such power, so no one may have it.’

Malien stormed across and stood directly above her. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ she raged. ‘How dare you take it upon yourself to play God!’

‘I know what I’ve lost, and every day of my life I’ll rue it. But what choice did I have?’

‘You might have put your trust in humanity,’ said Malien.

‘They’re not worthy of it.’

‘Not even me?’

Tiaan had no answer. ‘Well, it’s done.’

‘And never to be undone,’ said Malien. ‘You’re a fool, Tiaan, and well may you rue it. Evil comes from the hearts of men and women, not the power of the fields.’

‘Such power allowed them to do far greater evil.’

‘And greater good, too. The balance is maintained in the end.’

Was it? Tiaan no longer felt confident about anything. What if she had been terribly wrong? ‘Well, at least I’ve ended Jal-Nish’s brief reign, and saved our friends. What can he do to them now?’

Tiaan was squeezing her bloody, singed, throbbing palms together when something crackled behind them. She turned wearily. Gilhaelith, crystallised even to his frizzy hair, seemed to be smiling. At least she’d done one thing right. In a glorious irony, as the amplimet took over his damaged faculties, Gilhaelith had finally understood. The great game was over – he’d fulfilled his life’s purpose and died in an ecstasy of bliss. His life had been pure numbers, and in the end he’d discovered that they were beautiful numbers.

Farewell, Gilhaelith, she thought. I’m glad for you.

She watched Merryl coming up the hill, just walking, now that he could see she was unhurt. Another thing she’d done right.

‘I suppose we’d better head for home,’ said Tiaan. ‘It’s going to be a long, long march. Will you — will you walk with me a little of the way, Malien?’

‘My way and yours are sundered, Tiaan,’ Malien snapped, and stalked off down the hill. But after thirty or forty paces she slowed, stopped, and turned around, staring at Tiaan; then she came trudging back.

‘We’ve been great friends and companions, this past year and three-quarters, and I would not have us part in such a way.’ Malien held out her hand, took one look at Tiaan’s bloody palms and opened her arms instead. ‘It falls to few people to change the world, but you’re one of them. And who am I to say that you haven’t done the right thing? Farewell, Tiaan. The times have certainly been eventful since we met. I’m glad we did.’

Tiaan embraced her. ‘And so am I. Thank you, Malien. You’ve done so much for me. Are you sure we can’t walk a little way together?’

Malien shook her head. ‘You’re heading south to the sea, while I’m going back to Ashmode to find Clan Elienor’s soldiers. But you’ll have Merryl with you – the best of company.’

He joined them and Malien shook his hand. ‘If we never meet again, live well. Farewell, Tiaan. Farewell, Merryl.’

‘Farewell,’ they echoed, ‘wherever you roam.’

They gathered their gear from the thapter and Tiaan turned towards the south and the Sea of Thurkad, with her father. She regretted, for a moment, that she would probably not see Nish or Irisis, nor any of the others, again. But all things must pass, and that phase of her life was over.

Malien watched her go, collected her possessions, then began her own weary journey east to Ashmode. She felt closer to Clan Elienor now than she did to her own people, who had exiled her from Stassor. Clan Elienor would not go to Faranda with the rest of the Aachan Aachim, for they were exiles too. She planned to offer them a home at Shazmak, in the mountains behind Bannador, across the Sea of Thurkad in Meldorin. It would take a lot of work to restore Shazmak to the grandeur and the glory it had possessed in ancient times, especially without the Art to assist them, but her people had never been afraid of hard work.

And besides, her beloved son Rael had died at Shazmak and she’d not been back since the time of the Forbidding. It would be like going home.

What would have happened, she wondered, had the crystal succeeded in gaining control of the nodes of Santhenar? Would it have turned the world into a volcanic hell like Aachan? Or used it to extend its reach to other worlds, and perhaps, after infinite time, even to the stars themselves? No one would ever know. Only one person had ever achieved the mastery of geomancy to have a hope of understanding the amplimet’s purpose, and he was no more.

Well, it was over. Malien shrugged her bag over her shoulder, adjusted her hat and set out in the direction of Ashmode. She felt as though a great weight had left her shoulders. Perhaps Tiaan had done the right thing after all.

As Tiaan trudged up the road beside Merryl, she wondered where it had all gone wrong. How could her youthful dreams have all come to nothing? Had she made the wrong choices, or was she incapable of the right ones? Or had it just been luck, or fate? Had her life, in a sense, been doomed from the beginning?

Would it have been better if she’d never lived at all? Would her ghosts, especially Minis, haunt her forever? She felt very low. She’d made bad choices for good reasons, Tiaan knew, and she couldn’t forgive herself for what had come from them. She’d tried to do what was good and right and decent, and over and again it had gone terribly wrong. Yet Irisis, who seldom agonised over her choices, had ended up ennobling herself.

Perhaps it’s because, in the end, I’m always thinking of myself, Tiaan thought. I could never be as selfless as Irisis, who gives simply because that is her nature, with no expectation of return. I’ve become afraid to give, and afraid to share myself.

‘What am I going to do, Merryl?’ she cried. ‘I’ve failed at everything I’ve done, and now I’ve got nothing left.’

‘But you found me and saved me,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll always love you, and even when we’re apart we’ll always have each other.’

She didn’t answer straight away, just plodded on, head down, watching the dust rise with every step.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I become so obsessed by what I’ve lost, and how I’ve failed, that I can’t see what I’ve gained. What are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going home to Tiksi, to find Marnie.’

‘After what she did to you?’ Tiaan said, a little sharply, before she remembered that she was talking to her father. ‘Sorry.’

‘In my years as a slave I learned to forgive all sorts of things. It was the one part of my life I had control over. I’ve even forgiven the lyrinx who enslaved me and ate my hand, and I’m all the better for it. Hate is corrosive, Tiaan. It’s far better to forgive, once you can, and get on with life and living.’

‘I’ve always found it hard to forgive my enemies,’ said Tiaan. ‘But surely you can’t believe that you and Marnie could ever live together? She’s my mother and I love her, but she’s the most thoughtless, vain and selfish woman who ever lived.’

‘I don’t expect it to go well,’ he said mildly. ‘I learned long ago that expecting things out of life is the road to misery. But I can still hope for it.’

‘Why would you want to?’

‘She was my first and only love and, after I got over my fury, the thought of her sustained me through all the years of slavery. As well as the thought of you, Tiaan – the beautiful child we made together.’ He kicked a pebble off the path, watching thoughtfully as it rustled through the dry grass. ‘And then, look at Marnie’s children – all living, healthy, clever and hardworking, so there must be more to her than you think. And maybe, just maybe, after the hard times she’s endured since the breeding factory was destroyed, she’s changed.’

‘Maybe,’ Tiaan said dubiously. ‘But I think you’ll have rather a lot of forgiving to do.’

‘I’m prepared to forgive her every day of my life. So, shall we go looking for Marnie?’

‘Yes,’ said Tiaan. ‘Let’s put the past behind us.’ Her eyes were shining. She lifted her chin and looked east and south, to where Tiksi lay beyond sea and plains and mountains. It would be a long and perilous journey but every step would be a step closer to home. ‘A new start.’

‘For all of us,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘And for you most of all, my precious daughter.’

EIGHTY-ONE

Nish was tied up by two burly guards and thrust to the ground beside Flydd and Yggur. He watched the thapter hurtling away from Ashmode, and Jal-Nish working the tears to try to bring it back. The song of the tears rose to a shriek but after a struggle of some minutes the thapter broke free. ‘That’s not going to put Father in a better frame of mind,’ he said to himself.

‘Masterly understatement, as usual,’ said Irisis behind him.

Nish’s heart froze solid. The troops had her as well. As he turned, they forced Irisis to her knees then stepped back with the other guards, hands on their sword hilts. No soldier of Jal-Nish would dare to fail in watchfulness.

‘What are you doing here?’ he cried. ‘I thought you were gone; safe.’

‘More fool you,’ she said blithely, ‘if you thought I was going to abandon my best friend in all the world.’

Nish tore at his hair. ‘Father will kill you. He’ll rend you limb from limb.’

‘I don’t abandon my friends,’ said Irisis. ‘Ever. Besides,’ she said in a low voice, ‘Tiaan has a plan and I’ve got every confidence in her.’

Nish had felt the same way until he saw Irisis. Now he knew that Tiaan’s plan, whatever it was, couldn’t work. A numb terror spread through him. This was the end. He was going to lose her. She’d always said she wouldn’t live to old age and he’d always scoffed. Why hadn’t he protected her?

‘I hope it works. I’m afraid, Nish.’ Suddenly she wasn’t bold, reckless Irisis any more, the stalwart who had survived a thousand crises barely ruffled. She was just a frightened young woman whom he loved with all his heart, and that made it so very much worse.

‘So am I.’

Jal-Nish paid them no attention. He seemed to be suffering aftersickness from his struggle to bring the thapter back, for he was bent right over, arm hanging. Unfortunately it didn’t give them a chance to escape. His red-coated soldiers had secured the remainder of Troist’s officers and, backed by the manifest power of the tears, no one had dared resist them. At least, not after the initial demonstration, which had left three officers crisped and belching black smoke in the centre of the square.

‘I wonder what Tiaan has in mind?’ said Irisis.

‘I don’t know, but I’m sure Yggur or Flydd do.’ They were still lying on the ground, though both were alive and conscious. Nish could see one of Flydd’s eyes staring across the square. Had Jal-Nish paralysed him, or was Flydd just waiting his chance?

‘How are you … surr?’ Nish said quietly.

‘It’s not one of the greatest days of my life,’ Flydd said, speaking with an effort. He groaned. ‘I can’t think how I allowed this to happen.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I knew what a sneaking, treacherous dog your father was. I should have gone over the Gumby Marth battlefield with a pair of tweezers. As if he’d allow himself to be eaten by the enemy.’

‘As if the lyrinx would eat him,’ said Yggur, sitting up. ‘His flesh would be as poisonous as a toad’s.’

‘I was so pleased to hear of his passing,’ said Flydd, now moving an arm experimentally, ‘that I failed to make sure that he had. And now we suffer for it.’

‘Tiaan has got something in mind,’ said Nish. ‘She got away with Malien, Gilhaelith and Merryl.’

‘I saw the end of her struggle with Jal-Nish,’ said Flydd.

‘She’s gone towards the Well,’ said Irisis.

‘Irisis!’ choked Flydd, rolling over and staring in her direction. ‘They got you too?’

‘I couldn’t go without Nish or you, surr.’

‘Bloody fool! I’d abandon you quickly enough, if the need required it.’

‘I know you would, surr,’ she said softly. ‘But at heart you’re a wicked and corrupt scrutator, whose whole purpose in life is to use others. I, on the other hand, am an innocent artisan from an obscure manufactory, and I cannot abandon a friend who was once my lover.’

Flydd managed a chuckle. ‘A long time ago.’

‘Even so.’

‘Well, don’t expect any gratitude,’ he said gruffly. ‘I think less of you for it.’

‘I know you do. It changes nothing.’

He pushed himself to a sitting position. ‘Do you have any idea what Tiaan has in mind?’

‘No,’ said Nish.

Quite some time after that, there came a brilliant flash from the direction of the Hornrace. Jal-Nish snapped upright onto his toes, and his arm reached up to the sky, the red-tipped fingers clawed. His mouth opened in a silent cry, then he fell to his knees again, gasping. Green scum foamed through the mouth hole of the mask.

‘That was our chance,’ said Flydd. ‘Unfortunately I can’t do anything with it. The tears haven’t released me.’ He glanced at Nish. ‘I wasn’t joking about the cottage and the flowers, lad. Even gnarled old scrutators dream of retiring one day.’

‘It has less to recommend it than you might imagine,’ said Yggur dryly.

‘Oh well,’ said Flydd. ‘It’s not going to happen now.’

‘No, but let’s defy him to the end. If we can’t defeat him, at least we can show him up by the manner of our deaths.’

Jal-Nish slowly began to recover. He wiped his chin and pushed himself to his feet. His hand moved towards the tears but stopped before it reached them. Flydd spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Yggur. Nish didn’t catch what was said. Yggur took a long time to answer.

He broke off. Jal-Nish had recovered and was heading their way, supported by his guards. ‘Gather them up for the trial,’ he said, his voice slightly slurred.

The guards dragged Yggur and Flydd to their feet. Others seized Nish and Irisis. Troist, Fyn-Mah and Flangers were led from another direction, along with the surviving army officers.

They were hauled into the centre of the square, each with a guard at their back, and there they stood for an hour or more, unmoving, while Jal-Nish vented his rage at them. Nish began to feel faint. He swayed on his feet and the guard smacked him in the ear.

‘Don’t move!’

A distant flash illuminated part of the sky. Shortly Nish saw another, and a third. The earth shivered beneath him and some time after that he heard a rumble in the western distance. Even the guards looked that way.

‘Tiaan’s done it this time,’ said Flydd in the common speech of the south-east, which these guards would probably not know. ‘Get ready to run.’

There were further flashes, more ground shakes. Another rumble sounded, closer, then another, closer still. Jal-Nish was trying vainly to see what was happening. He clutched at the tears, suddenly uncertain of his power.

‘The tears won’t do you any good, Scrutator,’ Flydd sneered. ‘Tiaan’s succeeded this time.’

‘At what?’ Jal-Nish said furiously. There was a brittle edge to his voice.

‘Over the past year she’s mapped all the nodes, and the links between them,’ said Yggur, speaking slowly and precisely. ‘She’s found a way to destroy them all –’

A flash that lit up the sky was followed within seconds by a far louder boom.

‘– including the tears around your neck, Jal-Nish.’

With a great shudder, Jal-Nish tore the chain and the tears from his neck and made to hurl them into the crowd. The humming of the tears became a shrill wailing. But then, with an effort of will, he held them back.

‘I’ve nothing to fear from death. I look forward to it.’ Jal-Nish put the chain around his neck again, though as the tears touched his chest he was overcome by a shudder of horror. The song of the tears died away to nothing.

They all stared at him, expecting to die in a monstrous conflagration. More roars and booms were heard, some only leagues away, others just a tickle of the air or a shudder through the ground. Finally, red roiling clouds erupted into the sky less than a league away along the cliffs, the whole square rocked, and there was silence.

Someone screamed in the crowd. It was Pilot Chissmoul, her face a mask of anguish as she realised that she’d never operate a thapter again.

Absolute silence. The song of the tears returned, a high-pitched, edgy sound, more potent than before. The first one to move was Jal-Nish. He put his hand into one of the tears, gave a visible wrench and the gravel danced a few paces away until it glowed white hot and sagged into a solid, molten mass.

Turning to the dumbstruck pair, Yggur and Flydd, he roared with laughter. ‘Oh, this is wonderful, glorious! The tears are a wild force, quite separate from nodes and fields. Tiaan has delivered Santhenar freely into my hands. I expected the fight of my life. Instead, I’ve won with no more than a whimper.’

‘What is it?’ cried Nish. ‘What’s gone wrong?’

Jal-Nish came right up to him. ‘I’ll tell you, idiot son.’ Pulling off the platinum mask he thrust his ravaged and pustulent face right in Nish’s.

Nish drew back in horror. He could not help it.

‘You show your true feelings toward your father, boy.’

‘What’s happened?’ cried Nish. ‘Tell me.’

‘Tiaan has destroyed all the nodes, and all the fields with them,’ Irisis said limply. ‘But when the tears were distilled from the Snizort node, it must have torn them free of the system of nodes and links. All power that relies on fields is gone, perhaps forever, but Jal-Nish has lost none of his.’

‘And now I’m going to crush the lot of you,’ said Jal-Nish, ‘beginning with you, Xervish Flydd. Take him over there. I’m not going to draw this out – I’ve a world to set in order.’

Four guards seized Flydd, but before they could haul him away he managed to turn towards Yggur and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

‘Get ready,’ Yggur muttered to Nish and Irisis. ‘Klarm’s about to attack.’

Nish looked over his shoulder. His guards were a few paces away now. ‘Klarm’s going to do something,’ he said softly. ‘Get ready to run.’

‘What’s he going to do?’ said Irisis.

‘I don’t know.’

Nish met Yggur’s eye. Yggur flexed his fingers. ‘If any one of us falls behind,’ he said quietly, ‘we must be abandoned for the good of the struggle. It’s going to be a long one.’

‘I know the rules of war,’ said Nish. ’Where do we run?

‘To Jal-Nish’s air-dreadnought. I have a concealed crystal, though it won’t drive such a big air-floater far. Let’s hope it’s far enough.’

Flydd had been hauled over next to the molten patch of gravel, which was still glowing. He spat on it as he went past and a small puff of steam rose there.

‘Xervish Flydd,’ said Jal-Nish, ‘you are hereby –’

‘Before you do the business, Jal-Nish,’ Flydd said with studied casualness, ‘could you answer one question for me?’

‘Be damned!’ said Jal-Nish. ‘I’ll give you no satisfaction whatsoever.’

Flydd shrugged. ‘Oh well. I didn’t think it could be you. You don’t have that kind of power.’ He wasn’t looking at Jal-Nish, but in the direction of the cloth-covered banquet table they’d sat at earlier. Nish casually glanced that way but couldn’t see anything.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Jal-Nish.

‘I didn’t think you could possibly be the Numinator – you don’t have the nobility either.’

‘Numinator? What the devil are you talking about?’

‘Nothing,’ said Flydd. ‘It doesn’t matter at all.’

Nish caught Yggur’s eye. Jal-Nish doesn’t know that there’s a higher power than the scrutators, Nish thought. One tiny advantage for us. Perhaps.

‘Enough of your pathetic mind games,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘I –’

Again he broke off. Out of the corner of his eye Nish saw Klarm slide out from under the tablecloth, stand up and bowl something towards them, underarm. Nish couldn’t tell what it was at first, but as it sped across the ground he realised that it was Golias’s globe. What did he hope to achieve? The globe had a self-powered crystal at its core, but that was all.

Jal-Nish watched it all the way. Nish exchanged glances with Irisis. He expected Golias’s globe to explode, but it simply rolled up to Jal-Nish, who stopped it with his foot and stood looking down at it.

‘Is this the best your half-sized ally can do?’ Jal-Nish sneered. He thrust one hand into the tears. ‘There’s no harm in the globe. It’s not been booby-trapped in any way.’

No, Klarm wouldn’t be that crude. He would use its true nature, but how? The farspeaker was just eight concentric glass spheres filled with quicksilver, and the crystal at the centre. The self-powered crystal.

Jal-Nish was about to kick the globe out of the way when Yggur moved his bound hands in a particular way. The globe instantly glowed hot, then its layers split from the inside to the outside and a cone of boiling quicksilver burst out.

It caught Jal-Nish across the exposed cheek and the platinum mask. He reeled back, screaming and tearing at the mask. The soldiers holding Flydd also went down, letting out anguished squeals, for boiling quicksilver was hotter than molten lead. Flydd had known to turn his head away in time, but drops of quicksilver burned smoking holes through his coat. Three of the troops by Nish and Yggur also fell, struck down by crossbow fire.

‘Run!’ Klarm roared. The table was thrown over and his three soldiers fired from behind it. Klarm pointed a glassy rod and the remaining soldiers went down like a series of coloured dolls.

Jal-Nish had the platinum mask off and was clawing at the festering hideousness that it concealed, making a keening noise like an injured beast as he tried to rend out the embedded, burning globules. Bloody, smoking welts were rising across his mouth and cheeks, and the area that had been beneath the overheated mask looked red-raw.

Flydd hacked through his bonds with a shard of glass and tried to get to the tears, but Jal-Nish’s scrabbling fingers reached them first, throwing up a clear barrier around himself. He crouched on the ground inside it, squealing in agony, but he still had his hand in the tears.

‘Come on!’ shouted Flydd. ‘We can’t do anything here.’ He began to lurch in the direction of the air-dreadnought, his cloak trailing fumes.

Klarm appeared beside Yggur, slashing his bonds, then those of the other prisoners. Yggur took off like a hare for the air-dreadnought, his long legs flashing. Troist and Fyn-Mah ran too. Flangers was running towards the crowd. Irisis and Nish followed.

As they were three-quarters of the way to the craft, one of the guards rose shakily to his knees and sent his sword spinning through the air. The back of the blade struck Nish behind the knees and he went down. He tried to get up but his whole leg had gone numb.

Flydd, Yggur, Fyn-Mah and Troist were climbing into the air-dreadnought. Klarm wasn’t far behind, not looking back. Flangers was running around the edge of the crowd, carrying a silent Chissmoul. Irisis glanced over her shoulder, saw Nish on the ground and skidded to a stop.

‘No, Irisis,’ he screamed. ‘Go, go!’

She came running back and helped him up. ‘Put your arm across my shoulder.’

‘I can’t walk,’ Nish said. His father was already on his feet. Two more of the guards were up now, and staggering towards them. ‘Run, Irisis. He won’t hurt me, but he’ll flay you alive.’

‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said stubbornly. ‘We can still get there.’

‘Please, Irisis,’ he begged. The soldiers were recovering, starting to trot.

‘No, Nish.’ She picked him up in her arms and headed for the air-dreadnought as fast as she could go.

Nish looked back. It would be a near thing. The soldiers were recovering rapidly, running now. He looked for help at the air-dreadnought, but Klarm had just cast his useless crystal on the ground and the others weren’t armed. Jal-Nish’s guards had cut down Klarm’s soldiers, and now the air-dreadnought began to lift at the stern.

‘Put me down, Irisis. Please.’

She glanced over her shoulder and tried to run harder, but before they were even close to the air-dreadnought, the guards had their swords at Irisis’s throat.

She clung to Nish’s neck for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Ah, Irisis,’ he wept. ‘Why did you come back? He hates you more than anyone.’

‘Because you’re my dearest friend, Nish,’ she said simply, ‘and I love you as I’ve never loved anyone before. I couldn’t leave you, even at the cost of my life.’

The air-dreadnought rose into the air, turned away and disappeared over the trees.

The guards tied Nish and Irisis’s hands and dragged them back to the middle of the square, where Jal-Nish still swayed inside his protective barrier. He had forced the mask back on over his swollen, raw cheeks. Blood formed congealed drops on his chin. Quicksilver had puddled at his feet and its vapour drifted around the inside of the barrier. He pried his eye open and fixed on Irisis.

‘Put her there,’ he slurred through lips that were bursting apart.

Jal-Nish pointed to the glassy patch on the ground, no longer molten but still hot. They stood her on it.

‘Irisis Stirm,’ said Jal-Nish, allowing the barrier to fade away. ‘Two years I’ve waited for this day.’

‘I’ll bet you have – I know your kind all too well,’ she said with an arrogant lift of her chin.

‘And I know yours. The world was a better place when women knew their place in it. Cryl-Nish’s mother taught me that lesson. She only wanted me for what I had, and once I became this maimed monster, in the service of my world, she cast me out.’

‘You were a monster long before Ryll put his claws in you,’ said Irisis.

‘And you were a liar, a cheat and a fraud, as the record of your trial at the manufactory shows only too well. For fifteen years you’ve been an artisan under false pretences, an offence punishable by death.’

‘I recovered my powers long ago. Besides, the war is over, Jal-Nish. It doesn’t matter any more.’

‘The war is only just beginning, and the first stage is to rid the world of those who betrayed it: you and Tiaan most of all. You destroyed my life, though that matters not. You conspired to save the debauched, depraved, flesh-forming lyrinx, the greatest abominations this world has ever seen. You cozened and coddled and yes, maybe even mated with them –’

‘You’re sick, Jal-Nish. You’re mad.’

‘You set the lyrinx free!’ he screamed. ‘You gave them a world of their own, and one day they’ll be back. For that alone you must die. Beg and grovel all you like –’

Smoke was rising from Irisis’s boots but she did not flinch. ‘Then die I will,’ she said calmly, ‘but it won’t make a jot of difference.’

‘Oh, I think it will,’ he hissed.

‘I go to my death knowing that I’ve fought for what was right and good,’ she said. ‘Whereas you, Jal-Nish, if you live to be a hundred, will always know that you gambled with the lives of your soldiers, lost, then ran like a cur from the battlefield. That’s the kind of man you are, and the Histories will tell of it long after my name is forgotten.’

How Irisis had grown from the petty, mean-spirited woman Nish had once known. She was entirely selfless and noble now, and it threw Jal-Nish’s character into sharp relief.

He knew it, too. He could not meet her eyes for the moment, but then he said, ‘The means is justification enough. I’ve won the world, and he who owns the world writes the Histories.’

‘May you have joy of your victory, you craven dog! I’d sooner die than live in a world of your shaping.’

‘And die you will. The greatest pleasure of victory is revenge, and mine will be unending. Guards!’

The guards dragged Irisis to her knees. Her yellow hair hung over her face, but she tossed her head and looked Jal-Nish in the eye, defiant to the last. To Nish she was the most beautiful sight in the world.

‘You’ll never break me,’ she said, ‘though you torture me for a thousand years.’

‘There’s more than one way to break a person,’ Jal-Nish said, testing the blade of a soldier’s outstretched sword with his thumb. ‘I have no need to torture you. Guards, let it be done.’

Nish broke free of his guards. ‘Father, no,’ he screamed. ‘Please, no!’

‘Nothing you say can change her fate,’ said Jal-Nish, with a look so hideous that it made Nish’s flesh creep.

‘No. Take me instead.’ He threw out his arms in entreaty, weeping so hard that he could barely see.

‘You?’ said Jal-Nish. ‘But you are my beloved son.’

‘That’s not what you said when you condemned me to death at Snizort.’

‘I was wrong about you, my son. Since then, you have proven yourself. I am well pleased with you, Cryl-Nish, for without you I would not have her.’

‘Then grant me one small favour. Please, Father. Give her life into my custody.’

‘A favour?’ Jal-Nish pretended to consider it. ‘And what will you give me in return?’

‘Anything, Father. Just name it.’

‘Then serve me, Cryl-Nish. I could force you, with the compulsion I laid on you at Gumby Marth, but I’d rather you aided me willingly. Be my son and heir as you have never been. Stand at my right hand and help me tame this unruly world.’

Out of the corner of his eye Nish saw the nose of the air-dreadnought peeping from behind the trees. Flydd and Yggur must have armed themselves. If they’d found enough power to overcome his greatly weakened father, it might be all right after all.

Nish felt a glimmer of hope. ‘Yes, Father. I will serve you.’

‘Splendid. And in return, I give her life into your custody.’

‘Thank you,’ said Nish, surprised that it had been so easy. ‘What would you have me do with Irisis?’

‘Guard,’ said Jal-Nish, inclining his head towards Nish.

The guard handed Nish his sword.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Nish, clenching the hilt so tightly that his arm shook.

‘Take her head from her shoulders, Nish, if you truly would serve me.’

‘But …’ Nish looked from Jal-Nish to Irisis, then back to Jal-Nish. ‘You promised to save her life.’

‘I did not; only to give it into your custody. And so I shall, for you to give me what you promised in return. Anything I want, I believe you said. I want her head.’

‘And if I do not?’

‘The guard does it for you. You have rather a dilemma, Cryl-Nish.’

Nish felt as if his eyes were boiling out of his face. Then he snapped and leapt at his father, swinging the sword in a wild arc.

‘You made the wrong decision, Son,’ said Jal-Nish, placing his hand into the left-most tear, and Nish’s blade glanced harmlessly off the renewed shield. Jal-Nish raised his hand and one of the bags of the air-dreadnought burst with a boom. It turned sharply and wobbled across the sky, out of sight.

All hope was lost. Irisis, his beautiful Irisis, was on her knees, her slender neck laid bare. She gazed lovingly up at him and, strangely, Irisis was smiling.

‘I always knew it would come to this,’ she whispered. ‘Farewell, Nish. You’ve been the best friend any woman could hope for.’

This was what Minis had been talking about, long ago in his construct, when he’d foreseen the death of one of Nish’s friends. Nish ran at the guard but he was always going to be too late. The man swung his sword high and, even as Nish wailed, ‘No!’ he brought it down. The blade was keen and it made barely a sound, doing the business.

Too late. It was done. There was nothing anyone could do for Irisis now. Nish fell to his knees and screamed until blood ran from his mouth.

‘Take Cryl-Nish Hlar to the deepest cell in Santhenar and lock him in,’ said Jal-Nish. ‘After you have served your term – ten years, my son – I will make the offer again. Be my right hand and I will set you free. Refuse and you’ll get another ten.’

‘I will never serve you,’ Nish said numbly. ‘Never!’ he roared at the empty sky.

‘We’ll see,’ Jal-Nish said indifferently.

Nish’s rage built up until he felt that his head would explode. He fought it down, forcing himself to become as hard and cold as his father, for that was the only way he could survive. And then he saw a way – the only way to bring something good out of this most evil of all days. He ran halfway across the square and threw out his arms to the silent gathering.

‘The greatest hero of the war has sacrificed herself that I should live. Without Irisis Stirm, none of us would be here today.’ Nish could feel his tears welling and fought them all the way. No time for mourning now. He must get it out before the guards took him. ‘Irisis is the one person who never compromised, no matter who she faced. There has to be a purpose behind her sacrifice, and I will make it my own. I will survive whatever this monster does to me. I will endure, and you must endure with me, for the coming years are going to be the cruellest in all memory.’

His voice shook, but firmed as the guards came at him. ‘Let the name Irisis become a rallying cry for the resistance. Let the resistance grow until not even the tears can stand against it. And on that day we will tear down this evil tyrant –’

‘Knock him down!’ snarled Jal-Nish, and one of the guards clubbed Nish to the ground.

‘Take him to the cells. Let him begin his ten years without delay.’

Two soldiers dragged Nish off.

‘When he comes out, he’ll only have one ambition left – to serve.’ Turning to the shocked and silent crowd, Jal-Nish said softly to the soldiers, ‘The world will be mine, and there is nothing anyone can do to prevent it. Prepare for the aftermath.’