'I expected Yggur to take over' said Flydd. 'I was steeling myself for a fight to maintain our objectives. The last thing I expected was a complete lack of interest.'

'Then we'll have to find a way to gain his support,' said Irisis.

Flydd went out, head bowed, looking very careworn.

For a long time after that, the scrutator did nothing but sit by the fire, reading Yggur's volumes of the Histories or, more often, just staring into the flames. The pain of his ancient torments troubled him more than usual, and Irisis often noted him sipping from a flask of poppy syrup, though not even that could bring him the oblivion he so desperately sought.

'It's been my life's work to protect the people and the civilisations of our world,' he said one bitter night. 'To stop - if not to reverse - the long decline that's been going on ever since the Forbidding. In that time we've had failure upon failure, defeat upon defeat, and I'm forced to the realisation that I simply can't do it. No one can reverse the damage caused by the reign of the scrutators. It's too late.'

'It's not like you to despair, Xervish,' said Irisis.

'It's the only thing left to do. Ah, but it's a tragedy. The loss of Thurkad, the destruction of the College of the Histories. A hundred cities are gone; whole nations and cultures have disappeared. The past was a glorious place, Irisis, where men and women were free. The scrutators have turned the present into a slave pen. What can the future hold but a slaughterhouse for us all, until humanity is no more?'

He began to weep, silently and terribly, and Irisis could not bear to see it.

Another week went by, more painful than the previous one. In Yggur's absence, for he kept to his rooms, they debated the problem over and again. Whatever scheme was proposed, and there were many, the group always reached the same conclusion: there was no way a handful of people, in hiding so far from Lauralin, could affect the war.

Irisis came back from a walk to Old Hripton, a fishing town a few leagues away along the bay, to find Flydd sitting on his bed, head in hands. She ducked out again before he could see her and went looking for Nish. Flydd had always been so strong, and had always known what to do. It hurt to see him laid so low.

'Where the masters fail,' Irisis said to Nish, 'the peasants must take charge. It's up to you and me, Nish.'

'I don't follow you.'

'Come outside, where we can talk.' She led him into a chilly corner of the yard. 'Do you get the impression that Yggur knows more than he's letting on?'

'It's just rivalry. No mancer can bear to be told what to do. And they've always got to go one better.'

'That's not what I meant. I think Yggur, despite his gruff manner, does feel some sympathy for our cause. But he's been burned in the past and that's why he's withdrawn.'

'Doesn't help us much,' said Nish glumly.

'He was one of the greatest mancers of all time.'

'A thousand years ago.'

'He played a great part in the Tale of the Mirror, too. We've got to convince him to help us.' 'Good luck!' said Nish. 'I've an idea. I'm going to see him.' 'What are you going to say?' 'I won't know until I say it.'

Nish followed her inside and down the corridor. She rapped on Yggur's door, which was firmly closed. There was no answer. She rapped louder. Go away!' he roared. Irisis took hold of the handle. 'Coming?' Nish, who was hanging back, shook his head. 'I've felt enough of the wrath of mancers for one lifetime. I'll see you later.'

You coward,' she said amiably. She opened the door and slipped inside.

Yggur was down the far end, working at a bench littered with objects familiar and unfamiliar. 'Go away, I said.'

Irisis kept coming. 'I know you want to help us. You're a hard man, Yggur, but not a mean one. You'll happily turn the screws on Flydd, out of mancer's rivalry-'

'It's not rivalry, Irisis. I'm not that petty.' He smiled ruefully. 'Well, hardly ever. It's not the man, but his office. The Council is notoriously corrupt. I'm sorry, but I just can't bring myself to trust a scrutator' 'He's not like them.' 'How do you know?' 'I'm a good judge of character-' Clouded by feelings for your lover.'

'He hasn't been my lover for months, but I admire him as a man and a friend. Trust me.' 'Hmn.'

'You're an honourable man, Yggur, and I don't believe you'd refuse us if you could help.'

'Don't you?' he said, trying to stare her down. She held his gaze, defiant as always. 'Remarkable. Very well - I'll share what I have with you.'

May I call Xervish Flydd?'

With you alone,' he growled. 'Come here. You understand devices. Tell me what you think of this.'

It looked like a glass onion the size of a grapefruit. She could see layer upon layer inside, each different, each made of glass etched or painted in colours and patterns, or bonded with geometric shapes in gold, silver and copper foil. A faint luminescence at the core was irregularly eclipsed as the layers revolved and rotated independently of one another.

'It's beautifully made,' said Irisis. 'I've never seen such craftsmanship. Where did you get it?'

'I've had it for hundreds of years, and before that it must have been through many hands. The man who . . , sold it to me claimed it was made by Golias the Mad, though I can't verify that.'

'Didn't Golias invent the farspeaker?' she asked.

Yggur gave her a keen glance. 'Indeed, though its secret died with him.'

She touched a finger to the glass. 'What does it do?'

'I haven't learned that, despite diligent study. I was hoping you might be able to help me.'

'Me? But I know little of the Art.' As Irisis picked up the sphere, the internal layers spun.

'I believe it requires a different kind of understanding - a capacity for thinking across the Arts, if you will.'

'I've heard Flydd talk about Golias's farspeaker,' said Irisis. 'Could it not speak from one side of the world to the other?'

'So the ancients have it, though all his devices failed on his death and no one has been able to reproduce them.'

Yggur took the globe from her hand, replacing it on the bench. 'Now this is entirely my own work.' Reaching up to a high shelf, he brought down an object even more incomprehensible than the first.

Made of metal, and rather heavy, it was shaped like a legless beetle the length of a man's finger. Its iridescent top was convex. Though flat underneath, it was so well made that the joins in the metal could scarcely be seen.

'What is it?' she said.

Yggur touched it at what, if it had been a beetle, would have been the rear. It emitted a high-pitched whistle and slowly rose off the table, to hover a hand-span above it.

'Just a toy.' They watched it rocking in the air for a moment, whereupon Yggur touched it in the same place and it sank down, rather more quickly, to thump into the surface. He was panting from the strain.

'You're trying to make a flying machine,' exclaimed Irisis.

He took a while to get his breath back. 'Not as a weapon of war, merely for the intellectual challenge. I saw Rulke's original construct. I studied it as closely as I could, from a distance, and I destroyed it. For two hundred and seven years I've been trying to recover his secret, and this is all I've achieved.'

'No one else did better, until the Aachim came.'

'And they made the real thing - eleven thousand constructs.'

'But they had the original to model it on,' said Irisis. At least, what was left of it. And they haven't made them fly, only hover. No one but Tiaan has done more.'

'Even so, I call this little thing a failure . . .'

'But?' said Irisis. 'That's not the end of it, is it?'

He gnawed at his lower lip; then, as if reversing a long-held policy in a moment of weakness he was bound to regret, said: 'I've a mind to take a trip in your air-floater, to the battlefield at Snizort. Hundreds of wrecked constructs lie there, I'm told. No doubt they've been disabled, but I may learn a thing or two. Of course, I'll need a skilled artificer to go with me . . .'

He looked uncertain, as if not used to asking favours. The great mancer was vulnerable too. 'Will Nish come, do you think?'

'I'll make sure he does.'

'Tell him to bring his artificer's tools.'

'He has none. He escaped Snizort with just the rags on his back.'

Yggur frowned. 'Instruct him to go to my lower tool room and select what he needs. We may have to take a construct apart. What about you, Irisis?'

I'll be there, if the scrutator will release me.' 'You said you had no master,' Yggur reminded her. She turned away. 'I meant it in a different way.' 'Ah, how you use words.'

Flangers went with them too, and Inouye to pilot the air-floater. She was as meek and quiet as ever, though once or twice, when she moved the controller arm and the machine responded more precisely than before, Nish thought he detected the faintest of smiles. Yggur had worked his magic there as well, to Flydd's irritation. Flydd did not come. He had planned to refuse but Yggur hadn't invited him. The other passenger was Eiryn Muss, whom Flydd was sending back to Lauralin, where he could be useful.

'How long to Snizort, Inouye?' Yggur said as they floated up from the yard and turned south-east.

'Depends on the wind, surr. If it's strong behind us, we might be there in fifteen hours. If against us, it could take two days.'

He studied the sky. 'Hard to tell what it's like up there. There's not a cloud to be seen.'

The trip was uneventful, the winds light and variable but generally assisting them They flew all afternoon and most of the night, arriving over the battlefield Sround five in the morning. Dawn was still some way off and there was no moon; the stars barely illuminated the hummocky ground.

'The smell . . .' said Inouye faintly.

Eleven weeks had gone by, and the maggots and scavengers had reduced the unburnt bodies to bone, sinew and hide, yet still the battlefield stank of its dead. The Aachim had buried their dead deep, but the other remains lay where they'd fallen. The stench brought it all back to Nish: the knee-deep, bloody mud, the futility of war. He put his hands over his nose and breathed shallowly. It helped, if only a little.

Yggur laid one big hand on his shoulder. 'The sooner we begin, the sooner we can leave this place.' He checked something concealed in his fingers. 'Settle down over there, Inouye, by those pointed rocks. Stay at your post while we're gone; you never know what we may encounter here. Flangers, keep the watch. Cryl-Nish and Irisis, bring your tools.' He shrugged pack onto his back.

The air-floater set down, the crusted ground crunching under the keel. Eiryn Muss slipped between the ropes and was gone without a goodbye. They followed Yggur over the side. An early autumn frost crackled underfoot. He moved purposefully towards a hump about fifty paces distant, which turned out to be a wrecked clanker. The oily smell reminded Nish of his time as an artificer.

The mancer muttered to himself and a light glowed in his hand. He strode off to another hump. This one was a construct, tilted on its side with solidified mud holding it in place.

'Keep watch,' said Yggur curtly.

For what? Nish thought. A thousand lyrinx could be out there and we wouldn't see them.

Yggur made ghost fire in his palm and held it up to the base of the construct while he walked around the machine. 'It's so like the original. Why, I wonder?'

'Perhaps they felt it was perfect as it was,' said Irisis.

'The Aachim's work is their art and they seldom make two objects exactly the same way. Rulke was their most bitter enemy, so to copy his creation must have been bile to them. Why did they not remake it in their own image?'

'Perhaps they were afraid to,' said Nish. 'If they did not understand . . .'

'Yes,' said Yggur. 'They've not been able to solve the secret of flight, which can only mean one thing - they didn't understand what they were doing. They copied his work blindly, afraid to make changes in case they modified something vital. We've found their weakness.'

He went round it several times, studying everything, then prised open the hatch and climbed inside. A few seconds later he was out again, gagging.

'There's a rotting corpse in there. We'll have to find another.'

And burned underneath,' added Nish, 'doubtless destroying what we came for.'

Yggur leapt down and set off across the rutted field, breathing heavily. They followed him in silence. Dawn was dabbing patches of colour on the eastern sky by the time they found another construct. This one was a wreck, the metal skin torn open and curled back on itself, the hatch completely gone and even the underside smashed in.

'I doubt I'll find what I'm looking for here,' said Yggur, but he inspected it as carefully as the first. He did not spend much time in this one either.

'There was a fire.' He wiped sooty hands on his cloak. 'It looks like the drive mechanism burst open. What's not burned has melted. Even the bones inside are charcoal.' Standing up on the shooter's platform, he scanned the surroundings. 'There's another. We'll have to be careful. The lyrinx may still keep an eye on this place.'

That clanker was also ruined, and the one after. 'This could take days,' Nish said gloomily.

'Why don't we go up in the air-floater?' said Irisis. 'I've seen this place enough times from the air to be able to find you a construct.'

'It'll tell everyone within five leagues that we're here,' said Yggur, 'but I suppose we've got no choice.'

They floated over the walls of Snizort. 'The Aachim constructs were concentrated to the west and north-west,' said Irisis. 'Over there.' She pointed west. 'I can see hundreds of them, close together.'

The humps were clearly visible, and in the middle they saw a magnificent pavilion of golden sandstone, its carven dome standing on seven columns. In the distance a creek, dry save for a few small pools, meandered between the hills.

'That structure wasn't there before,' said Irisis.

'It'll be a memorial to the Aachim dead,' said Yggur. 'So much death! On a dark night the ghosts will be thick as mist.'

Nish snorted. 'I don't believe in ghosts.'

Nor did I, until I took pilgrimage to places where I'd sent armies to their deaths. My Second Army in Bannador; the thousand of my finest who fell in Elludore Forest. I wept for their lost souls, Nish. As will you, should you ever revisit Gumby Marth, or any other place where men's lives were in your keeping.' He went down the back to speak to Inouye.

'Cheerful company, isn't he,' said Irisis, though she couldn't help thinking of the mancer she'd obliterated on the aqueduct at the manufactory. What hopes had she had? What dreams? What fears all too brutally realised? 'Bloody mancers!' They strolled after him. 'Down there, I think, Inouye' said Yggur. The pilot moved the steering arm and released a little floater gas. The machine had just begun to sink when she turned around. 'Something's there, Lord Yggur.'

He did not correct her. Yggur seemed to be sniffing the air, his head questing this way and that. 'I sense it, too. It's .., a kind of defence, or protection! 'Against what?' said Nish.

'I can't say, but it's likely to cause us some trouble.' 'Can't you break it?'

'Only a fool would break a magical defence without understanding what it was for, or who put it there.' 'What's that?' hissed Irisis. 'Where?'

'Way over to the west, by that loop of the creek. See the smoke?' She reached out blindly for the spyglass. Nish put it in her hand. 'Can you see what it is?' 'A camp fire. A big one, and wagons pulled by clankers, though they're the oddest clankers I've ever seen.' 'What's odd about them?' asked Yggur sharply. 'They're clankers below, but above they look like shacks.' 'Nothing to do with the scrutators, then,' said Nish. Appearances are everything to them.'

'And rightly so,' Yggur observed, taking the spyglass. 'The outside is a mirror to what lies within.'

My father was the most fastidious of men,' Nish countered, yet inside he festered.'

The air-floater was closer now and he could see the contraptions unaided. There were three, each with a six-wheeled wagon connected behind. A host of people had emerged, staring up at them. Some were loading crossbows, others manning javelards.

'Scavengers,' said Yggur.