She looked surprised, the first time he’d seen such a reaction from her. ‘Are you man enough for it?’

‘Probably not.’ A rare admission, for him. ‘Though I know languages, and people, and machines. Flesh-forming may have similarities to metal-working.’

‘And many differences too.’

‘I’ve grown up with examiners and perquisitors. I’m as qualified as most people.’

‘You lack what may be the most important qualification of all,’ she said. ‘You have no talent for the Secret Art.’

‘But I have been working with the seeker, and she can sense out the Art.’

‘Not the same thing at all.’

‘And there is Irisis.’

‘A fraud,’ said Fyn-Mah, ‘without the talent of the artisan she pretends to be.’

Nish turned away so she would not see his shock. Was there no secret the querist did not know?

‘She is brilliant at getting her people to work together and bringing out of them more than they know. She is already a master crafter. She had to become one, to survive.’

‘Whatever!’ Fyn-Mah said disinterestedly. ‘Your own capacity for hard work is undoubted, artificer. And your intelligence. Your judgment can be faulty, however, and there is a question-mark over your integrity. Do you have the guts to keep going, whatever it takes?’

‘Did you see what they did to my father?’ he said in an almost inaudible voice. ‘If Jal-Nish does not die, he will never be a whole man again. For all our differences, he is still my father. He has many faults, as do I, but lack of loyalty is not one of them. I will make up for this affront to him, whatever it takes.’

The querist looked him in the eye. ‘I believe you will, Cryl-Nish. Very well, as leader of this force, you have my warrant to follow this question through. You have three months. After that, it will be at the discretion of Jal-Nish’s replacement as perquisitor – or of your father, if he recovers.’

With a last look around at the devastation she headed back to the clanker. Nish studied the small corpses, and the cages, wondering what he had let himself in for. Then, thinking about what lay ahead, he doubted if it would matter. Such a small, battered force as they now were might not get the clanker down the cliff. And if they did not, they would all die.

FORTY

Tiaan and Ryll soon left the plateau far behind. With Besant’s great wings thudding rhythmically above, in less than an hour they had cleared the mountains and were gliding over a hummocky land, largely treeless, which contained one enormous lake after another. Burlahp, she knew the place to be, though only as a name. Beyond the southern end of the lake was a city. Comparing its location with a map in her head, she deduced it to be Nox.

Ahead loomed another range, the second and shorter tine of the fork, though equally wide and high. The sun was heading down and Tiaan could feel the cold seeping into her core.

‘Ryll?’ she said weakly.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m freezing. Is there far to go?’

‘Many hours.’

‘I’ll be dead by then.’

He hauled her up and bound her to his chest, face out, with her coat double-thickness at the front. He must have opened his skin plates a little, for she could feel the warmth seeping from his chest and belly, like a hotplate running down her back. It felt wonderful. Disturbing too, though she did not want to think about that.

Before the sun had set she was able to catch some of the thrill of flying, or gliding – the silent movement through the air, their almost imperceptible progress against the mottled lands below, the strange viewpoint that flattened the world into an embroidered bedcover.

It was dark before they reached the second range. The cold intensified and the night became a struggle to keep warm, even with Ryll against her. She worked her fingers and toes constantly, warmed her nose and cheeks with the palms of her hands, but it was never enough. Neither was Ryll as warm as he had been.

The night, nearly fifteen hours long, was an eternity. Her shoulder hurt at the least movement. Tiaan desperately wanted to sleep but knew she risked frostbite if she so much as dozed. That desperate craving for sleep and warmth dragged every minute into an hour. Another craving was even worse – her longing for the amplimet. She could see it in her mind’s eye, bound to Besant’s chest, too far away to give her any comfort. She wanted it badly and could not have it.

Sometime during the night her frigid daze was disturbed by Ryll tugging on the lines. They jerked back and he went forward in his harness, tilting the front of the flier down. Again Tiaan felt the fizzing behind her temples that indicated Besant’s Art. Down they went, so steeply that the wind tried to pluck her from Ryll’s chilly embrace.

Eventually he levelled out. It was warmer here. Another eternity passed. Ryll felt cold against her back now and scarcely moved. How must he be suffering from that bolt in the shoulder? Perhaps he was dying. Had he given the warmth of his body to save her, at the cost of his own life?

The fizzing had faded long ago. Had Besant’s mancing burnt her out too, on this monumental journey?

A low red sun tipped the horizon. A thin ray touched Tiaan’s face, warming her out of all proportion to its power. She shook herself. Ryll gave a frosty groan and ice fell from his nostrils.

Light touched the clouds below them. They were flying above a dense overcast, an infinite layer of grey. Shortly a circular gap appeared to their right. Ryll headed toward an opening like the eye of a hurricane.

As they came over the hole, Tiaan saw far below a circular lake with rivers flowing into it like spokes of a wheel. In the centre stood a rocky peak, strangely bare, though the landscape around the lake was covered in snow and forest. They headed in plunging spirals toward the peak. Below the clouds they entered a rising column of warm air that buffeted the wing violently. Without warning it tilted up, a long fluttering strip of fabric tore free and the wing stalled.

Besant screamed something, her Art fizzed momentarily, then went out. Tiaan looked up to see the lyrinx’s wings collapse under her weight. She fell out of the air, plummeting towards them.

‘Cut free!’ she cried, a harsh croak as she shot past so close that the flier rippled.

Ryll was reaching out with a blade to cut the traces when Tiaan gasped, ‘No! She’s got the crystal!’

Making a violent manoeuvre that dragged the front of the wing down, Ryll plunged after her. As Besant’s weight came on the lines, the wing structure groaned. Ryll gripped the struts under the greatest strain, holding them together. The loose fabric cracked like a whip as they went into a vertical dive toward the peak.

Ryll shifted backwards, trying to compensate for Besant’s dead weight. The dive became shallower. He aimed the wing toward the top of the peak but it kept crabbing sideways. Besant was not moving, though the leathery material of her wings was extended.

They drifted over the peak, again passing through hot air that rocked the wing, though this time Ryll did not lose control. Not far to go now. They swept across the water, still going incredibly fast. He wrenched them back on course. The peak was a jumbled mass that looked like welded rock and metal, oily green-black and rusty-red, quite devoid of vegetation. Ryll seemed to be aiming for a smooth area pitted with holes and clotted rock mounds, surrounded by spires.

Besant, hanging five or six spans below them, would hit and pull them head-first into the ground. Ryll tried to haul her up but the wing creaked and cracked. Below, figures issued from a hole in the rock, small from this distance but recognisable as lyrinx.

‘Besant!’ he roared. ‘Besant, wake! Thylymyyx fushrr!’