‘What if the power can’t go back the way it came? And surely it can’t, since power will keep flowing the other way.’

‘It won’t flow back until the power built up within the hedrons is greater than what’s coming from the node. Then it will simply burst through, back to the node, burning out the node-drainer.’

‘Has such a device ever been tested?’ She knew the answer to that.

‘How could it be? It was made in Nennifer while we … er, waited.’

‘About which the least said the better!’

He went to the entrance, crouching beside the seeker and taking her hand. ‘Thank you, Ullii. I won’t forget what you’ve done to get us here.’

She snatched it away. ‘You are a wicked man. You broke your promise!’

‘I do keep my promises, Ullii. You will see. Rest now. You still have to get us out.’

He went back to the centre. ‘Irisis, you’ve got the easiest job of all. I have the hardest – to fit the cap while the drainer is still flowing.’

‘What’s my job?’ Irisis said suspiciously.

‘You must tune the node-drainer to the field, draw power into it and make it work.’

It was as if he had raised his sword and cloven her head in two. Irisis fell to her knees in the tar and could not get up.

‘Xervish – scrutator – surr.’ She stared at him in horror.

‘What’s the problem, crafter?’ As if he did not know.

One minute molten tin was flowing in her veins, the next they were clogged with ice crystals. Her heartbeat sounded like a galloping horse. She licked lips so dry that they crackled. Irisis looked up at the scrutator, standing as implacable as a statue.

‘I can’t do it, surr. I can’t draw power from the field. You know I’ve lost the talent.’

Flydd, who was staring at the fountaining node-drainer, did not answer.

‘Surr, you came here, knowing all the time …?’

His head rotated like a sunflower on its stalk. The eyes were like pitch fires in a cauldron. ‘You must!’

‘You knew my failing, Xervish. Why build a device I cannot use? Why bring me at all?’

‘I didn’t build it. The Council of Scrutators had it made and Ghorr said it was tailored to me alone. He lied. It wasn’t until I opened the box this afternoon that I understood how it worked. In the time I could not find another artisan; a proper one.’

The insult was like a smack in the mouth. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’

‘That would have made it worse.’

Then she realised that the solution was right in front of her. ‘Surr, Tiaan is in here somewhere. She could use it.’

Hope flared in his eyes, which hurt her too. ‘Yes, why didn’t I think of that? Ullii? Ullii?’

The seeker groaned. Flydd crouched beside her. ‘Ullii, can you see Tiaan?’

Ullii was holding her head. ‘Myllii, Myllii?’

Flydd and Irisis exchanged glances. He tried again.

‘Ullii. We must find Artisan Tiaan. Where is she?’

The seeker’s eyes flicked from side to side. ‘Long way from here,’ she whispered.

‘Can you take us there?’ said Irisis.

‘Too far. Toooo far.’ She closed her eyes.

Irisis wept in despair. Flydd dragged her to her feet. ‘There’s no time for that. Every minute’s delay means more dead.’

‘Can’t you use it, surr?’ she said desperately. ‘You’re a powerful mancer.’

‘I told you, it’s designed for an artisan, not a mancer. Ghorr has betrayed me – he wants me dead and doesn’t care if we fail. Do it!’

His words froze her to the marrow. That was not Xervish, her friend and one-time lover speaking. It was the scrutator, who broke whomever he had to, to get the job done. She had long dreaded this moment, and surely suffered every pang a mortal human could suffer. If she failed, as she would, she would not have long to regret it. She met his eye.

‘I will try, surr.’

‘Don’t try,’ he replied, harsh-voiced. ‘Succeed. The army, the war, yes, even the survival of humankind is in your hands, Irisis.’

She took the jewelled cap from his hand. Holding it out, she touched her artisan’s pliance with her other hand and brought the field into view. Irisis closed her eyes, the better to see.

‘The field is fading fast. And it’s … all flabby and warped. I’ve not seen anything like it. It’s hardly got any colour left.’

‘Then you’d better work quickly.’

Irisis imaged the field in all directions, then tuned her mind to the blue crystals. That was hard, for she was used to working with one at a time. She traced out paths, through ethyric space, from the field to each of the crystals. It was difficult work, even for her. The knowledge of one path tended to erase the others from her mind.

You must do it! There is no alternative. She struggled on, fixing the first path, holding it while she did the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. Now the next step. The one she could not do. Opening her eyes, Irisis saw the scrutator staring at her. His mouth moved, as if uttering the word Hurry. She heard nothing except the hissing of the node-drainer.

She felt disconnected, as if she was being taken apart muscle by muscle, sinew by sinew, organ by organ. The disruption was beginning. Flydd looked even worse. And it would be worse for him if she succeeded, as he attempted to cap the node-drainer.

Snapping her eyes closed, she felt the blue crystals with her fingertips and imagined power flowing from the field into them. She could see it perfectly. Unfortunately, when she tried to draw on that power, nothing happened. No surprise there. It never had, since that day at her fourth birthday party when she had lost the talent.

SIXTY-THREE

‘Why did you lose it?’ Flydd said in her ear. His knobbly hands gripped her shoulders, supporting her.

‘I wanted it too much,’ she whispered, remembering that day so vividly. Desire had burned her.

‘Why, Irisis?’

‘Because I was the best … Because it was my destiny –’ She broke off, knowing that was wrong.

‘Was it? I don’t think so. You never wanted to be an artisan at all, did you?’

Back in the world of her four-year-old self, Irisis hardly knew what he was saying. ‘I do want it!’ She stamped one foot in its pretty pink sandal. ‘All my life I’ve wanted it. Mother and father and dear old Uncle Barkus …’

A long-suppressed memory exploded into her mind. On the morning of her birthday she had been talking to her mother about being a jeweller when she grew up. Even at four, Irisis had known what she wanted. She had expected her mother to be pleased but Nysygy had slapped her daughter’s face.

‘Don’t be a stupid little girl! Jewelling is cheap, common work for cheap little people. You’re going to be crafter one day, like your Uncle Barkus. Only you won’t be crafter at a dirty little manufactory. You’ll be the most brilliant crafter of all time.’

‘But, Mummy,’ the four-year-old Irisis had said, bewildered. ‘I don’t want to be crafter.’

‘How dare you,’ Nysygy had screamed, shaking Irisis by the shoulders. ‘Never mention it again or … or I don’t know what I’ll do to myself.’

Irisis could see her mother’s staring eyes, the knife pressed against one slender wrist. ‘If I die it will be your fault, you wicked daughter!’ she hissed. Her mother was always making threats.

The child could not deal with emotional blackmail. Irisis just knew herself to be an evil little brat who would one day be the death of her mother. Fortunately dear old Barkus had come in. Her mother had tossed the knife on the table and turned to the bottle instead.

Flydd broke into her thoughts. ‘What were you really feeling, that day of the birthday party when you lost your talent?’

‘I was furiously angry, though I knew better than to show it. I hated my family, and most of all my mother.’