Stop! Vithis cried. The little fool has made the zyxibule the wrong way round. It’s left-handed, not right. The gate may not work.

Too late to worry about that now, screamed another.

Clan Inthis! Vithis ordered. Stay back! It’s not safe. You are to go last, after the Ten Clans! Let them risk all; this will restore us to our rightful place.

Vithis ran to a complicated piece of machinery that vaguely resembled Tiaan’s port-all. Hurling himself into a suspended seat, he began working a controlling arm in three dimensions. Ball lightning fizzed out in all directions.

The image of Aachan turned upside down and back to front. Tiann’s lungs burned as if she had inhaled fire. Her control of the port-all was snatched away. A wormhole writhed across the ethyr like an electrified serpent.

No, Inthis! Vithis screamed, holding out his arms in entreaty as a squadron of blue-tinted constructs raced past. Wait…

They took no notice. Letting go the controlling arm, Vithis put his head in his hands and wept. A stampede of people and machines rushed up the spiral road towards the gate, but Tiaan lost them, and then she lost Aachan too.

On a mountaintop half a continent away, the tetrarch was observing the motions of the planets when, for an instant, they shook like jelly in a bowl. The field tied itself into knots. The globe-wide ethyr sobbed out a single note before returning to intangibility. Setting down his instruments, the tetrarch made a note on a slate.

Hundreds of leagues to the south, in a citadel on the frigid Island of Noom, a woman set down her quill, cocked her head to one side, and smiled. The long watch had borne its first fruit. She took up a lantern and headed down the Thousand Steps to her master.

SIXTY

‘I saw her!’ said Ullii. ‘Tiaan was standing there with these big streamers of light going in all directions. The whole mountain was shaking. She had a little girl with her.’

‘A little girl?’

‘She had green hair.’

Another thing to wonder about. ‘What was Tiaan doing?’

‘I did not understand.’ Ullii sagged. ‘I have to sleep!’ She ducked into the tent.

It was a dark night; too dark for climbing unknown mountains, though later on there would be a moon. Frustrated on several fronts, Nish tidied up the camp, stoked the fire and stared at the mountain. There was nothing to do but wait. Ullii was already asleep but that was not a possibility for him. He paced back and forth.

This was his big chance. If he could capture Tiaan and her crystal, and bring her back, it would make up for all his past failures. But what was going on up there?

‘Nish!’ Someone was shaking him by the shoulder. ‘Nish, wake up!’

He’d gone to sleep against a rock, a rather lumpy one. Nish rubbed an aching neck. ‘What’s the matter, Ullii?’

‘Come, come!’

‘Where?’ he said thickly.

‘Up the mountain. Tiaan is starting.’

‘Starting what?’

‘What she came to do. I can see her, standing in a great chamber inside the mountain. She’s using her crystal, Nish! She’s going to bring them here.’

He flung himself out of his pouch, stuffed feet into boots, tied the laces. ‘Bring who?’

‘I don’t know,’ she wailed. ‘I can’t see them. There’s too many! It’s all dark and smoky.’

A shiver crept up his back and suddenly he did not want to go anywhere near that mountain. But he had to. Nish took her by the shoulders. Her huge eyes glistened in a stray moonbeam. ‘What do you mean, too many?’

‘Too, too many! You have to stop her, Nish.’

That was a transformation, Ullii urging a course of action. She must be really alarmed.

Nish hurled food into his little chest pack, strapped on sword and knife, gave Ullii another knife that he doubted she could use, and left everything else.

They climbed up the slope past the balloon, still jammed between the boulders and so deflated that its ribs and wires were clearly visible. Nish fed the skeet, made sure it had water, then followed Ullii, who could see perfectly in the moonlight and seemed to know exactly where she was going. She was on a trail, probably made by bears or goats. As they topped a rise, the setting moon reflected slantwise off the vast front of the glacier.

After going a little way Nish realised that the seeker was not following. She was sitting on the ground, staring numbly at the knife blade.

‘Ullii,’ he called. ‘Come on.’

‘Afraid,’ she muttered, pulling her coat over her head.

He went back and, squatting down, took her hand. ‘Ullii, we can’t stay here. We’ve come all this way to find Tiaan. I’ve done my best for you. Now it’s your turn. Please help me.’

Snatching her hand free, she thrust it inside her coat and began rocking furiously.

What was he to do? Nish did know what Ullii was going through but he was not going to let her weakness stop him now, so close to his goal. If he could just get Tiaan, and the crystal, it would make up for everything. He must, even if Ullii had to suffer.

‘Then stay here by yourself!’ he snapped. ‘I’m going!’

He strode off as if she meant nothing to him. She let out a whimper. He did not look back, though Nish could practically feel her pain.

As he topped the rise, she gave a great wail of torment. ‘Nish, don’t leave me.’

He froze, one foot in the air, then hardened his heart and continued, heavy-footed.

Before he had gone another twenty steps she was beside him, running silently in her soft boots. He did not know what to expect, but suddenly Ullii was eager to please.

‘I will show you the way, Nish,’ she said, holding his hand so tightly that it hurt. ‘Don’t leave me alone again.’

‘I won’t,’ he said, looking up the mountain.

By the time the sun rose they were high above the camp. Mist formed in the valley, pouring over the icefall and blurring the glacier into insignificance. Ullii stopped to put her goggles on. It was a hard climb on steeply dipping slate and sugary quartzite. The icy slate offered little grip for their boots. Nish’s leg muscles were aching.

‘Where now?’ he asked as Ullii stopped on a ledge above which the face ran sheer.

For a moment she looked unsure. Ullii put her hand over the goggles, said ‘Ah!’ and headed off again.

Hours later they were level with the bottom of the ice. The rocks had changed to shiny laminated schists and then to contorted granite gneiss. They were going back and forth up the side of the mountain when there came an enormous crack and the grinding note of the glacier changed.

‘What’s that?’ said Nish.

The attenuated rumble made by its weight rasping against the bottom and sides of the valley had altered to a sharper, higher note. A mound of ice had been forced up and was tearing at the fresh rock of the mountainside above them. It sounded as if boulders were being crushed to pieces. Rock began to fall. Nish watched it coming and didn’t know which way to run.

Ullii screamed, caught his hand and jerked him to the right. She bolted up along the ledge that led away from the glacier. Nish fled after her. Rock roared and cracked above their heads.

This was no landslide but a chaotic fall of ice and rock plucked directly from the side of Tirthrax. A lump of mountain the size of his parents’ mansion started to roll. It went straight for a few tumbles, split, and the larger half careered in their direction. Nish could see it out of the corner of his eye.

He ran so hard that blood began to drip from his nose. He was still running after the boulder passed by and thumped down the mountain towards the distant trees. The noise was cataclysmic.

Ullii was already out of sight, amazing for someone who never took any exercise. Nish gained a ridge that formed a natural divide and hurled himself over. He had to roll in the air to avoid landing on the seeker, who lay curled up on the ground with her hands over the earmuffs, desperately trying to block out the sound. Her mouth was open and she was screaming, though he could not hear a thing.