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.