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.