‘Look at the little beast. I don’t know what you did, but it’s worked. It may even grow to full size.’

She prayed that it would not. He trudged to the cage, but had to prop himself up on the bench. The creature was up on its back legs, gripping the bars. Its snout was cocked to one side as if listening. It was bigger than before, and leaner.

‘I’m going to call it nylatl,’ said Ryll. Reaching for the meat bowl he dug a hole in a piece of meat with one claw, pressed in a pellet the size of a grain of wheat and tossed the meat through the bars.

The nylatl stared at the food, turned it over and over on the floor and sniffed it carefully. Only then did it bolt the morsel in a single gulp.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Tiaan, keeping well back.

He held up his hand, watching the nylatl intently. After taking two steps the legs on its left side collapsed. It fell down; its eyes closed. Ryll prodded it with a piece of metal. It did not move.

He whipped off the cage, punched six tiny circles of flesh from the back of the creature and popped them in a jar of fluid. Ryll dug ointment from a jar with his fingers but, reaching over to put it on the wounds, he stopped, looking shaky. Resting both forearms on the bench, he said, ‘Ah, I ache all over.’

A sharp pain cleaved through Tiaan’s head. She lost vision for a second and in that darkness smelled the nylatl, a hot odour like slightly-off meat.

Hurt!

As her vision came back, the nylatl kicked one leg, flipped upside down and sank its claws into Ryll’s arm.

Hate!

Before he could grab the creature it shot into the air and landed on his head. The back claws dug into his neck, seeking the joins between his skin plates. The claws of its front legs carved furrows across Ryll’s long brow, going for the eye-sockets.

Ryll flung an arm across his eyes. The other hand flashed back, trying to rip the nylatl off his head. One of its poisoned spines penetrated his palm. Roaring in agony, Ryll snatched his hand away. Clear venom dripped from the spine. He tried again but the fearsome mouth took a piece out of his hand at the base of the thumb.

Hungry!

She watched, open-mouthed. Ryll tried to prise the creature off with an iron bar. It dug its front claws into his brow ridges and the rear ones into his neck, pulling its segmented body down over his skull like a cap. Venom began to seep from the down-pointing spines. Already Ryll looked disoriented. Soon those spines would plunge into his skull and inject their poison. Ryll would be dead and it would start on her.

Brains! Ahhhh!

Perhaps it was a paralysing venom and the creature would tear Ryll’s head open and eat the contents while he was still alive. She watched helplessly as the nylatl tightened its grip.

FORTY-F IVE

Tiaan ran to the locked door, screaming ‘Help!’ so hard that it hurt her throat. She pounded on the metal. There came no response. No sound could penetrate the thickness of iron. What could she do? It was whispering in her mind, the same thing over and over.

Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!

Ryll had managed, by reaching behind his head, to catch hold of the back of the creature where he could avoid the spines, though his arm was at such an awkward angle that he could not tear the nylatl off. He dared not use his other arm lest the beast gouge his eyes out.

The nylatl arched its back, pressing another spine into Ryll’s hand. He clung on grimly but Tiaan could see he was weakening as the venom took effect.

She ran around, looking for any kind of weapon. There was not much in the room – the lyrinx used few tools. Grabbing one of the glass and wire cages, she darted behind Ryll, planning to whack the nylatl off. It was the bravest thing she had ever done. If it went for her it would claw her face off.

Tiaan lunged, swinging the cage with all her strength. The nylatl’s head twisted around, the blue tongue aiming a squirt of venom at her eyes. She ducked and the cage smashed against Ryll’s head. He grunted; the nylatl squealed.

The venom splatted on the top of her head, burning straight through her hair. She ran for the water barrel, plunged her head in and scrubbed frantically. Strands of hair floated on the surface.

Brains!

She spun around, water pouring down her face. The nylatl was staring at her. Its claws lifted and dug in like a cat on an armchair.

There was only one thing left to do, and it might well be worse than doing nothing. She crammed the helm on, grabbed the globe, oriented the long side of the amplimet so that it faced Ryll’s head and strove with all her might for power.

Instantly the whispering in her mind grew to a mad shriek.

HUNGRY! BRAINS!

The nylatl’s thoughts crashed around inside her skull like a blind bat, full of incoherent rage. The forced integration must have broken its mind, but its was a deadly cunning insanity. The nylatl wanted to gouge its way into Ryll’s head and take over his body as its own had been invaded. It wanted to make her suffer too, as it had suffered in the integration. And it wanted to destroy and consume, as its own nature had been destroyed and consumed. It was full of malice.

The spire’s magnetic lines of force whirled about her, but even as Tiaan drew power from the field she knew it could not work. That power, the kind that had been used to create the nylatl and make it grow, only fed the creature. She had to have something different, stronger. So strong that the beast would be completely overwhelmed. No choice but to use her fledgling geomancy again. This nylatl could not be allowed to live. If it could overcome a lyrinx so easily, what would it be capable of when it was fully grown?

Down her senses went, to that hollow beneath the base of the iron spire of Kalissin, from whence the magma pool had retreated ten thousand years ago. The domed roof rock formed a series of concentric cracks under the weight of the spire, though the iron froth was still welded to the rock it had penetrated in its molten rise.

To make the roof fall was far beyond her powers, or anyone’s. It might remain in place for another hundred thousand years before gravity finally pulled it down. But just the fall of a fragment into that pool in the distant depths would provide enough energy for her purposes. It might release more than she could handle, and then she would die. Tiaan hesitated, but only for a second. If she did nothing they would both die.

Ryll groaned, breaking her concentration. He was on his back, kicking feebly. His head was covered in purple blood. The bent arm still strained but he was failing.

‘Help!’ she roared, but no one could hear.

Bat’s claws scored through her brain, the nylatl trying to stop her. The pain was excruciating. Tiaan could barely see though it, with her strange, three-dimensional artisan’s vision, to that source below the spire.

Her sight began to break up. Pinholes appeared in everything she looked at. They grew larger and through each she saw a nylatl’s staring eye. It was, despite her efforts, getting at her mind.

Her geomantic strange-sight passed through half a league of solid rock, scanning across the surface of the dome, seeking a piece so precariously held that the gentlest of nudges would release it. She tried one, then another, but the meagre skills the Aachim had taught her were not enough. Tiaan began to panic. She had no idea what she was doing. It could not work.

Ryll let out a ghastly, quivering shriek. She had to succeed. There – a small column of rock was jointed all around in a perfect hexagon, and it was almost cracked through at the top. She used what power she could gather from the fields but could not budge it. More! She drew more. Her head seemed to be boiling like a kettle. She felt the rock crack, but it did not fall.