SEVENTY - SEVEN

‘What was it?’ said Nish, helping Tiaan up.

‘It was like a snake with legs,’ said Irisis, ‘and it nearly had you. It was so quick. I just cut a bit off the tail.’

‘You saved my life,’ said Tiaan.

‘Well, at least a nasty bite on the ankle.’

In the open space, Tiaan dusted herself off, felt at her throat and said, ‘The amplimet’s gone.’

Nish and Irisis ran back, swords drawn. ‘Here it is,’ said Nish, reaching to pick it up. ‘The chain must have broken when you fell.’

As his fingertip touched the crystal there came a brilliant flash of light and he was thrown backwards into the bushes.

‘Nish!’ Irisis ran after him.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I haven’t broken anything.’ He got up, holding his sore ribs.

‘Come on. There’s bound to be more than one of those little beasts.’

Tiaan bent over the amplimet. ‘It’s glowing brightly now, as if there’s a powerful node nearby, but I can’t sense any field at all.’ She touched it gingerly. It flashed again, but did not sting her. ‘It feels different.’

‘It may well be,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Objects carried between the worlds are often changed.’

She held it out at arm’s length. ‘Corrupted?’

‘Not necessarily. The Mirror of Aachan took on the taint of its owner, and Shuthdar was an evil man. Once corrupted, such an artefact is impossible to cleanse, and only the strongest can control it.’

‘Well, at least the gate is still working.’ Lyrinx were coming through faster than ever, now running full-tilt. They’d already worn a path out of the gate.

‘What say we climb that hill?’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’d like to see a little of this world, if I’m to spend a day on it.’ He added under his breath, ‘Or a lifetime.’

They headed up an incline along a trail made by soft-footed animals that wound up the hill. Near the top they emerged from the towering trees into a clearing that capped the hill, and its neighbour. The spongy grass was long and blue-green.

They followed the ridgeline up onto the next hill, which was higher, and the one after that, which was also bare and looked over the surrounding countryside. The forest of giant trees extended in every direction. On the other side of the ridge they looked into a steep valley with a winding river; the sun, orange rather than yellow, reflected off the water.

Tiaan gazed at the scene and sighed. ‘It’s just lovely. I wish I could live here.’

Gilhaelith was staring into the distance, shading his eyes with his hand. Winged creatures wheeled above the river, further along. ‘The lyrinx haven’t wasted –’

Irisis pulled him down. ‘Those aren’t lyrinx! Look at the length of the necks, and the reptilian head.’

‘They’re hunting.’ Nish crouched down in the grass, squinting at the creatures.

‘They’ll be hunting us if we don’t find some cover,’ said Irisis. ‘Let’s go back.’

‘They’ve turned our way.’ Nish started to run along the edge of the hill.

‘Come back,’ she yelled. ‘Down into the forest.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone has a crossbow?’ said Tiaan.

‘Of course not!’ Irisis snapped, angry with herself for not bringing a useful weapon. ‘Get down. Crawl through the grass.’

They had not gone far before the winged creatures soared overhead, blotting out the sun with their membranous wings and emitting raucous cries. ‘If we stand together,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘and put our swords up, we might have a chance.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Tiaan. ‘There are half a dozen of them and they’re as big as lyrinx.’

They did so anyway. The flying creatures came to ground not far away, staring at them and showing no fear. ‘They’re not afraid of humans,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘and that’s a bad sign.’

‘Masterly understatement,’ said Irisis. ‘Get ready.’

‘For what?’ said Nish, looking for a stick, a stone or anything he could throw to keep them away.

The creatures began to move inwards, until a hideous growl erupted from below, though to Tiaan’s ears it was the sound of massed throats pretending to be savage beasts. A band of lyrinx came storming out of the shrubbery, wings spread, mouths agape. The racket was incredible.

The flying creatures whirled; then, as one, they kicked themselves into the air and flapped away.

‘Thank you,’ said Tiaan as the lyrinx made a protective circle around them.

‘We will escort you back to the gate,’ said the leader, a stocky female with miniature crests running down the front of her breastplates. ‘This is no world for helpless humans.’

They reached it an hour later, suitably chastened. The lyrinx were coming through as fast as before. The amplimet was still glowing but Tiaan had no idea why. ‘It seems to have picked up some kind of a charge,’ she said.

‘That’s not unknown in the Histories of mancery,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Some of the very first magical devices, as the Art was then called, were crystals or glasses that had become naturally charged in a field. The first mancers were just people who could make use of that power.’

‘Will the charge remain if we go back through the gate?’ Tiaan asked.

‘It may last for a while, unless the return passage changes the amplimet again.’

‘How long?’

‘An hour, a day, a month? How would I know? This is surely the first time an amplimet has been taken through a portal. But sooner or later the charge will fail and then, most likely, the amplimet will be useless.’

‘You mean …?’

‘It may no longer draw power at all.’

‘I don’t care,’ Tiaan said, ‘as long as it lasts until we complete our work here.’

Ryll was still standing by the gate when they reappeared, and the gate continued to work. Nish and Irisis went out, but Tiaan remained beside Ryll. ‘How many are there to go?’ she asked.

‘Less than forty thousand,’ said Ryll. ‘There were more but the … the waters took them. Three hundred and seven thousand have passed through, plus more than a hundred thousand children, carried.’

‘So many? The gate has only been open a few hours.’

‘It was before dawn when you left. Now it’s morning of the next day, our last on Santhenar. If the gate lasts, in two hours we’ll all be through.’

‘Time passes differently in the Three Worlds,’ said Gilhaelith.

They went out into the light. An easterly sun was slanting low across what had been the Dry Sea. There was no salt to be seen, just water all the way to the horizon.

‘The Sea of Perion rises swiftly.’ Malien detached herself from the crowd that covered every available surface on top of the pinnacle. ‘Already it’s over fifty spans deep.’

‘And still forty thousand lyrinx to go,’ said Tiaan. ‘They must be clinging to every part of the peak.’

‘Like bees to a honeycomb.’

‘What happened to the Well?’

Malien gestured over her shoulder. It was just behind them, looming above the tower like the black eye of a cyclone. They moved around to that side of the peak. The funnel of the Well went down through the water, all the way to the bottom of the sea, and probably below that.

Apart from a few wheeling lyrinx the sky was empty, not a thapter or air-dreadnought to be seen. ‘Has Orgestre given up?’

‘I doubt it. Flying lyrinx have kept the thapters away.’

The Well was less than a league away now, and tracking directly towards them. Irisis studied it with her spyglass.

‘I can see a clanker in there,’ Irisis burst out. ‘Carried up as if it were made of paper. And all sorts of other things. Trees. Bodies.’ She shivered. ‘What power the Well must have.’

‘I wonder if it could be a kind of anti-node?’ said Tiaan. ‘Instead of giving out power, it grows by sucking the power from other nodes, leaving a trail of dead ones behind.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Malien. ‘I’ve never encountered an unshackled Well before.’

‘How are we doing?’ said Irisis.

‘We need another hour or so.’

‘The Well will be here in minutes,’ said Tiaan. ‘Do you think there’s anything we can do to turn it aside?’

‘It has the power of a hundred nodes,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘It’s irresistible.’

‘But if it’s being directed …’

Gilhaelith cried out. ‘I’ve got an idea. Nish, Irisis, could you give me a hand with the geomantic globe?’

They carried it in its box to the edge of the pinnacle, facing the Well. Gilhaelith unpacked it, set it up on its stand and slid the brass pointers around on their circular tracks, making sure that they moved freely.

‘I’ve been tinkering with my globe since the escape,’ he said to Tiaan. ‘Gyrull concealed some vital details from me, but I’ve added them from your maps and I believe the globe is perfect now. Let’s see what we can see.’

He began scrying with it, clamping small chips of crystal in the pointers and setting the globe spinning slowly beneath them. Tiny reddish pinpricks appeared under the glass surface, but that wasn’t what Gilhaelith was looking for. He tried another five or six crystals, which he took from a small padded box, then borrowed Tiaan’s amplimet and Irisis’s pliance. They did not work either.

‘It’s no use,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘If someone is directing the Well, they’re too cleverly hidden for me. We can’t do anything to turn it away.’

‘We’d better warn the lyrinx,’ said Tiaan. ‘And then, I suppose we’d better go. If we can …’ It didn’t seem right to fly away in the thapter and leave the rest of the lyrinx to their fate.

‘And take the black box too,’ Malien said suddenly.

‘Why?’

‘It would … not be good for it to be sucked into the Well.’

‘But if we take it, won’t that close the gate immediately?’

‘It will remain open until you close it, Tiaan, because you’re holding it in your mind.’

‘Can I leave the gate open after we go?’

‘No!’ said Malien sharply. ‘As soon as we’re in the air you must close it, or else the Well might pass through the gate.’

‘To Tallallame?’

‘It might go anywhere in the void. It might annihilate itself, the gate and half of Santhenar. Anything might happen. The void might be disrupted … It is … the Well must not pass through the gate. Though it came from Aachan in the beginning, this Well is now a creature of Santhenar, and Santhenar must deal with it.’

Malien went looking for Ryll and Liett. Tiaan headed up to retrieve the black box. It proved surprisingly light, as if it was, after all, no more than an empty box. When she reached the bottom, panting and weak in the knees, Malien was talking to Ryll. Liett was pacing back and forth, casting anxious glances at the Well and stormy ones at Ryll, which he was steadfastly ignoring.

‘As soon as the Well touches the side of Nithmak,’ Malien was saying, ‘we must close the gate. We can’t risk the Well passing through.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Ryll. ‘And then you must get in your thapter and fly to safety, knowing that you could have done no more.’

Liett beckoned furiously to him. Ryll gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head, whereupon she drove her fist into the nearest wall and stormed away, shaking her wings.

‘I think Liett wants to talk to you,’ Tiaan said uncomfortably. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Just a disagreement about when I’m to go,’ said Ryll. ‘She wants me to leave now, but I can’t abandon my people to die.’

‘Are there many left?’

‘More than twenty thousand of us,’ said Ryll. ‘Too many. But we knew the risk.’

Of us, Ryll had said. But if he was staying to the last, he wouldn’t get through at all. He would drown here with the stragglers. Liett came storming back and took him by the arm, trying to pull him towards the gate. Ryll set his feet and did not move.

‘Will you not go, Ryll?’ said Tiaan.

‘Not while any of my people still cling to the side of this peak.’

‘You’ll drown.’

A shudder passed over him and his skin colours writhed in iridescent shades of purple and grey. ‘So will they, and without ever a sight of Tallallame. At least I’ve had that. Go, Liett.’

‘Not without you.’ She folded her arms across her chest.

‘I order you to go through the gate,’ he thundered. ‘As patriarch of all the lyrinx.’

‘I am the daughter of a matriarch,’ Liett flashed. ‘I take orders from no base-born unmated, wingless male.’

Ryll was so furious that his skin flashed all the colours of the spectrum, but Liett simply set her jaw and cracked her wings in his face, as she’d done so often.

The funnel of the Well now loomed so huge that it covered a quarter of the sky, and so black that the world seemed to have slipped into twilight. Tiaan ran to the edge of the pinnacle. The water was more than a third of the way up the sides of the peak, and huge, driven waves lashed up another twenty or thirty spans, washing the scrambling lyrinx away like ants off an anthill.

As the base of the funnel approached, even larger waves formed and moved ponderously out in all directions. The flow of lyrinx up the sides and into the gate slowed to a trickle. The flat area at the top of Nithmak was almost empty now.

The Well swept towards them, depressing the surface of the sea like water going down a prodigious plughole, then drew back. As it did the sea was pulled up with it, and the biggest wave Tiaan had ever seen surged out from the base of the Well; a monster at least fifty spans high. It was nowhere near as high as the pinnacle but the surge would drive the water up and up.

‘It’s going to overtop the pinnacle!’ Tiaan yelled. ‘To the thapter, everyone.’

Malien caught her wrist. ‘It’s too late. If it breaks over the peak, we’re done.’

They watched the wave swell and grow, driving inexorably towards them, its foaming top rising higher and higher until it looked as though it would wash everything away, including the tower. Ryll ran out to the edge, shouting to the climbers to hurry.

He was too late. The wave struck well below the crest but burst in an explosion of foaming brown water that climbed the sides until it lapped the top of Nithmak and swirled across, knee-deep. It rose no further but, as it passed, Tiaan saw lyrinx thrashing in terror on the foam. One by one, they sank. When she looked over, the sides of the pinnacle had been swept clean.

Ryll stood on the brink, staring down into the churning water. His skin had turned completely grey. The Well surged again and another wave began to form, as big as the last, if not bigger.

‘It’s time,’ said Malien. ‘If there’s enough left in the field to lift us.’

As they ran to the thapter, the last surviving lyrinx were passing through the gate. All but one. Ryll was still gazing at the water.

‘Ryll, you must come!’ screamed Liett. ‘You are the last.’

‘The last.’ He teetered on the brink and it looked as though he was going to jump, to join all those thousands who had suffered the most terrible death of all.

Tiaan walked backwards to the thapter, ignoring Nish and Irisis, who were screaming at her. She felt for the ladder and began to climb.

Liett ran out to Ryll. ‘Come on!’ she screamed in his face.

The thapter came to life, whining gently. The wave was swelling, growing enormously, and it would sweep the top of Nithmak clean. Tiaan found herself caught around the waist and lifted bodily.

It was Irisis and she carried Tiaan all the way. Tiaan hung onto the hatch as the thapter lifted, shuddering violently.

‘Who am I to go,’ said Ryll to Liett, ‘when so many more worthy have lost their lives to the waters? You should have been matriarch, Liett. I resign. I am not legitimate. I am unmated male.’

As he raised one foot to step over the side, Liett swung her fist in a roundhouse blow to the chin that knocked Ryll unconscious onto his back.

‘On Tallallame I will be matriarch,’ she said imperiously. ‘And I choose you, weak and worthless though you are. You are now Hy-Ryll, mated male.’

Irisis chuckled. Tiaan had to resist the urge to clap.

Seizing Ryll under the arms, Liett dragged him across the rocks and into the gate. ‘Farewell,’ she said, and passed beyond.

The Well swelled again. Malien pushed the controller and the thapter moved sluggishly off the far side of the peak. ‘Close the gate, Tiaan.’

Tiaan brought up her mental image of the tesseract, withdrew the port-all, took out the image of the amplimet and closed the box. The gate vanished as the Well roared up and over the peak and the sea followed it. When they looked back there was nothing but the boiling sea and the funnel hanging there, and the red spheres bobbing in the foam. The tower had gone.

‘Where are we going?’ said Malien.

‘Where can we go?’ said Nish, wanting to run to the ends of the earth.

‘To Ashmode,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘That’s where everyone else has gone. It’s as good a place as any to watch the Sea of Perion fill again.’

‘Well,’ said Irisis, ‘I’m not running away. I’m proud of what we’ve done. Let’s go and face up to it.’