Ullii had had much time to dwell on her retribution on the journey here. Since the attack on Thurkad yesterday she'd thought about little else. Nish had done those terrible things, and deserved to be punished, but Ghorr was a wicked man, a brute and a liar. How could it be right to give up her former friends to him? She could not decide. She wanted to deceive him but did not know how. I won't give them up, she thought. But Nish does deserve to be punished …

'Well, Seeker?' growled Ghorr.

'I .., can't see Flydd in my lattice,' she said. 'Nor Irisis.' It was the truth. Lately her lattice had been ever harder to see and she could no longer deny it. She dreaded that it would go completely, taking her unique life of the mind with it.

'Have you ever seen them, or any other sign of them, since we came west?'

'No.' Sweat prickled in her armpits, in spite of the chilly weather.

He skewered her with his all-seeing eyes. 'Then we must go up. We'll fly in a square, south, west, north and east, and you'll keep watch.'

'Yes,' she whispered.

They flew south. 'Can you see them?' Ghorr asked, halfway across the traverse.

'No,' she gulped.

They flew west. 'Can you see them now?'

Ullii shook her head. They headed north, then east, and ever Ghorr asked, and ever the answer was the same. By late that afternoon he was growing impatient. 'If all this has been for nothing …" he said menacingly.

Fusshte whispered in his ear. 'All right,' said Ghorr. 'You have my leave.'

Fusshte gave Ullii the look that always made her skin creep. Ghorr broke people like her, but Fusshte devoured them.

'Come inside the cabin with me, little Ullii,' Fusshte said in that voice as dry as the rustling of a snake's scales. 'I have some questions for you …'

'I'll try harder' she squeaked.

'I thought you might,' said Ghorr. 'Go east another two leagues,' he said to the pilot, 'then turn south and keep going, expanding the square by two leagues each circuit. If they're anywhere on Meldorin, we'll find them.'

Fusshte looked like a viper who'd had his dinner stolen.

It wasn't until the following evening that Ullii picked up a trace. She let out a little gasp and tried vainly to conceal it, but the chief scrutator missed nothing. 'You've found them.'

'I can see something,' she said in a tiny voice.

Ghorr was on her in three powerful strides. 'Who, Seeker?'

'I don't recognise it.'

Ghorr and Fusshte exchanged glances. 'It's a trick' Fusshte said in a low voice, but not too low for Ullii's keen ears. 'She's trying to protect them. If she picked up anyone, it would be Flydd. He's the strongest.'

'Maybe,' said Ghorr. 'And maybe not. Her talent defies analysis. It could be anything.' He turned back to the seeker. 'It's not lyrinx, is it?'

'No.'

'Not a node or field?'

'No.'

'It's human, isn't it?'

'Yes.' She barely exhaled the word.

'Where?' Ghorr seized her by the shoulders, but let her go at once. The time for threats was past. 'Which way, Seeker?' He put on a kindly voice but his eyes were like shards of glass.

Ullii gestured. 'A long way. As far as I can see.' South-south-west,' said the pilot.

What's down that way?' said Ghorr.

The pilot consulted her map. 'We're here at the moment.' Her pointed fingernail, which was tinted yellow, marked a range of hills that ran west from the mountains almost all the way to the Silbis Drylands. 'Below us, according to the map, there used to be towns and scattered villages, running to forest in the east, up against the mountains. To the west it's just empty desert. Further south the desert passes into scrub and then into the swamp forests of Orist, which run on for fifty leagues, though much of that is said to be impassable.'

'Not to us,' said Ghorr. 'I need more, Ullii. Where on the map do you sense this person?'

Ullii, after much prompting, drew a large circle with her finger. It covered most of southern Meldorin.

'That's not good enough!' hissed Fusshte. 'Seeker—'

'Leave her,' said Ghorr. 'The talent only gives direction, not distance. Strong talents, or strong Arts, she may pick up from hundreds of leagues away, while insignificant ones could elude her from the other side of the hill. We'll follow her path until the destination becomes clear, then wait for night. I don't want to alert them — if it is them.'

'What does it matter?' said Fusshte. 'We've got power enough in these sixteen air-dreadnoughts to overcome any enemy. How can Flydd's ragtag band trouble us?'

'They've given us trouble aplenty over the past year,' snapped Ghorr. 'If Flydd realises we're coming, he may find a way of hiding, even from Ullii. Take nothing for granted, Scrutator.'

The hunt continued, but the next time she looked Ullii found nothing at all. It was not that their quarry had disappeared but, rather, as if something was blocking that part of the lattice. By now she was so worn out with seeking that there was no choice but to stop for the night. Ghorr was furious.

Sixty-one

Gilhaelith had spent the previous day lying on his damp palliasse, brooding. It was an outrage that he should be controlled by such a collection of fools. He could not suffer it. The attack on Nennifer would certainly fail and the scrutators would come to Fiz Gorgo in force, to seize whatever Yggur had left behind. Finding Gilhaelith here, they would slay him out of hand.

It was clear that humanity was going to lose the war, so the safest place for him was Alcifer. He was going back, even if he had to slog all the way through the swamp forests of Orist. Nothing could stand in his way. Tiaan's remark about the nodes being linked had opened up a whole avenue of possibilities. The key to his project was not the nodes, as he'd always thought, but the way they were linked and force transferred between them. He was just a whisker away from his goal, but he needed the geomantic globe to prove it. And then, true mastery would be his. And real power too, if he wanted it — enough to heal himself; enough to ensure that he was never at the mercy of others again; enough to control the power available to other mancers, if he cared to; enough, just possibly, to protect the world he'd gone to such lengths to understand, from all mancers.

How to get away? He'd been stripped and searched carefully before they put him in this cell. The guards had taken his clothes and given him fresh ones, in case he'd had some device secreted about his person, as he had. He got up and began picking moodily at ice that had formed below a seeping crack in the wall. It was a dirty yellow colour, like urine. His breath steamed; it was miserably cold and he wasn't used to it.

Someone rapped at the door — a guard with his dinner. He rapped back, then moved to the rear of the cell. If he didn't the brute would simply take it away. Two armed guards watched the whole time the door was open. The third guard placed the tray on the floor inside the door and went out.

Gilhaelith cast an eye over the meal. Clear soup, invariably lukewarm, a piece of overcooked fish, boiled vegetables and dry bread. Misery! He'd requested freshly salted live slugs, pickled pigs' ovaries and other delicacies he'd been used to in Nyriandiol, but the guard had given him a disgusted look and banged the door.

'Excuse me, Guard?' Gilhaelith said firmly. 'I'd like some salt, if you please.'

The guard checked with his fellows, who shrugged. He disappeared, shortly returning with a chunk of rock salt as big as a lemon, which he tossed to Gilhaelith. It was almost as hard as stone. The door clicked and was bolted on the outside.

Gilhaelith took up the bowl, slurping noisily at the soup, which wasn't lukewarm. It was cold, had a grey scum around the rim and was utterly tasteless. Prising off a piece of salt, Gilhaelith held it in his mouth and sucked the soup past it.