'Oh, over on Meldorin Island.' He waved a hand towards the west.

'The name makes it seem like a little place,' she said, trying to envision a map of that part of the world. For once, it would not come. 'It's not though, is it?'

'Meldorin is enormous. A good three hundred leagues from south to north, and a hundred west to east.'

'Whereabouts did you live?'

'Oh, you know!' He waved his long hand again, then fell silent.

A third of the way around the circuit of the crater, Tiaan stopped the walker.

'Something the matter?' Gilhaelith enquired.

'The crutch strap is chafing. I'm not used to such rough ground.'

'Do you want to go back?'

'No. It's lovely out here.'

They picked their way across the stony rim. Billows of mist drifted around them. Tiaan could feel droplets condensing on her eyelashes. The scarf over her face was dripping.

'Gilhaelith?' she said.

'Yes?'

'What did you want to talk to me about?'

He leaned on an elbow-high boulder, staring into the invisible crater. He seemed reluctant to speak.

'Gilhaelith?'

'This is a great gamble, Tiaan. A prodigious gamble, so don't get your hopes up.' Another extended pause. 'I've come across something about broken backs. There is ' His head whipped around. 'What was that? Did you hear it?'

'It sounded like a sheet flapping in the wind.'

'But there's just the gentlest of breezes.'

The mist broke and re-formed. He ran to the outside edge, peering down toward the forest.

'Can you see anything?' she called.

'No. Sometimes you hear funny noises up here,' he said doubtfully. 'I think we should head home, Tiaan.'

She adjusted the chafing strap, rotated the walker and they set off. 'What about my back?'

He was slow to reply. Before they had gone twenty steps she heard that crack again. Gilhaelith went still, his head c.o.c.ked to one side.

'I think I know what it is.' One hand slid inside his coat.

'What, Gilhaelith?' She turned the walker one way and then the other, but could not see anything.

Before he could answer, a winged shape appeared in the fog right behind him. Another thumped into the ground between him and her, and then two more, one on either side.

Gilhaelith whipped out a stubby rod but the rear lyrinx dropped a rope over his head and jerked it tight around Gilhaelith's chest. The one to the left struck the rod from his hand.

'What are you doing?' she cried.

They did not answer. Other ropes bound his arms to his chest. He tried to say something, perhaps a geomantic word of power, for a rock exploded into fragments, gashing one of the lyrinx's calves. It ignored the minor wound.

Tiaan hurled the walker forward, recklessly attacking the nearest lyrinx with her fist. It pulled back its arm to deliver a blow that would have torn her head from her shoulders. She skittered sideways, careering towards the second lyrinx.

Gilhaelith shouted something she did not catch. Before he could utter another word, the first lyrinx pulled a hood tight over Gilhaelith's face. She caught a whiff of tar.

Tiaan threw herself at the nearest enemy, who simply put his great clawed hand across her face and pushed. The walker went backwards and toppled. As she crashed down the slope, the last thing Tiaan saw was the four lyrinx lifting off, in perfect formation, carrying Gilhaelith between them.

'Tia ' he yelled.

All further sounds were drowned out by the rush of shattered rock down the slope.

FORTY-FOUR.

The scrutator had set up camp in a cave below the steep top of the twin pinnacles at Minnien. Irisis and her team had been working for days, mapping the wisps of field as it strengthened and trying to work out what had happened to it. At the same time, they built a device to read the aura of the node, and hopefully its history. It was a contraption of gold and silver leaf, platinum wire and crystals of various kinds. Jewel-like in its delicacy, it vaguely resembled a dragonfly. It could have had a variety of forms but Irisis had taken her frustrations out by making it as extravagant, and as beautiful, as she could with the materials she had. The work was painstaking, and blindness made it more so, but she would make no concessions to her disability.

They had not seen the lyrinx again, though Irisis felt sure that its visit had something to do with the reappearance of the field, which was clearer and stronger each day.

'It's nearly strong enough to drive a clanker,' she said to Flydd on the fourth morning.

He sat up nakedly in his sleeping pouch. 'Our first piece of luck.' He scratched his scarred, hairless chest. 'How is your aura reader going?'

'Almost finished. The thing that puzzles me, Xervish, is why the Council did not do this a long time ago.'

'Too blinkered,' he said. 'We scrutators think of mancing as the very pinnacle of the Secret Art, and no doubt it is, in terms of sheer power. But it is not a subtle Art, the way we use it, and we do not have the artisan's ability to see the field. We draw on it intuitively; almost blindly. So, when our Art failed to penetrate the node, we did not consider that lesser abilities might succeed.'

'It remains to be seen whether our minor minor talents can.' talents can.'

'Your humility is admirable,' he said with a twitch of the lips.

'I was taught by a master.'

She began to work another crystal into the dragonfly. Irisis did not need to see for this. As a prentice she had often made jewellery in the dormitory after the lamps had been snuffed out. That craft was her greatest pleasure, though she had little enough time to practise it.

'What are we looking for, precisely?' she asked. 'Or is that another of your scrutator's secrets that can be revealed to none?'

'Several things.' He laid a twisted finger on her bare upper arm. 'Firstly, using my raw power and your subtle device, we will attempt to induce an aura from the node itself. That could reveal its recent history, though auras can be hard to read and even harder to interpret. Tiaan did this with a failed controller crystal, once. But of course, Tiaan ...' He sighed heavily.

Irisis was heartily sick of Tiaan's marvels. 'Might that not be dangerous?' she said irritably.

'Very. It will take much power and the only place I can get it is from the node, which runs the risk of power feeding back on itself. Such things can get out of control very quickly. Just to induce an aura in something so powerful as a node will be hard. There will be barriers to overcome.'

'And other forces?'

'I was coming to that. The field surrounding a node comes from the weak force that Nunar first described a century ago. But we believe, and it is written in Nunar's The Mancer's Art The Mancer's Art, that stronger forces may also exist. We do not know how to see or draw upon them, though some mancers have accidentally done so. Sadly, none lived to write down what they had discovered.'

'And if you accidentally hit upon one of these forces ...'

'I will cease to exist even more gorily than that unfortunate mancer up on the aqueduct. And you too, if you're standing too close.' He chuckled.

'Don't get your hopes up,' Irisis snapped. 'I've gone off you, scrutator, since you took my sight away.'

'I warned you, but you were too much of a stickybeak. You had to look back.'

'I was trying to help you!'

'More fool you,' Flydd said cheerfully.

'Oh, go away. I never want to see you again.' Then, realising what she had said, she began to laugh. It was that or burst into tears. He laughed with her.

Irisis worked the last of the crystals into place and checked the device with her fingers. It felt just like a dragonfly now, but with only a single pair of wings.

'I love watching you work.' His voice was rich with good humour. 'You have such beautiful hands. And they move so cleverly.'

She held them up before her blind eyes. 'You just want more of what I did with them the other night.'

'I confess it. After my torment thirty years ago, I never thought I would feel that kind of pleasure again.'

She looked surprised. 'You fasted for thirty years? Surely even an ugly old coot like you must have his pick of lovers. You are scrutator after all, and a lot of women find power rather ... lubricious.'

'And you're one of them.'

'So it would seem.'

'Until you, I lacked the courage to bare myself.'

'Really? Does the great scrutator confess to a weakness.'

'Ex-scrutator, remember, and you are risking your life by being a.s.sociated with me.'

'I imagine the price on my head is almost the equal of your own.'

'It isn't, but you will die a most miserable death when they catch you.'

'When?' A chill settled over her. She had never heard him talk like that before.

'The scrutators can't afford to be humiliated. They will hunt us down and bring us to justice if it takes the rest of our lives. They never give up.'

'Oh well,' she said casually, 'nothing we can do. Better get on with it. This is ready.'

'I'll call the others.'

She heard him moving away. Irisis began to take deep breaths, calming herself and getting into the right state for sensing. This would be harder than anything she had done before, and she could not afford a mistake. Flydd's life depended on it. She clung to the hope that he could somehow save them, in spite of what he had said. But if he died, they were all doomed.

The party came crunching up the hill, chattering. Flydd gave them their orders. 'Zoyl, I want you to stand here. Oon-Mie, over there. Irisis, stay where you are but get into a comfortable position. This could take a while.'

They moved to their places. 'Shall we begin?' said the scrutator. Despite his demotion, Irisis could not think of Flydd as anything else.

'I'm ready.' Irisis held the reader out.

'I'll take that.' He plucked it from her hands.

'What do you think you're doing?' She felt around in the air for it.

'You know what I'm doing,' he said, 'and why.' He crunched up to the back wall of the cavern. 'Your turn will come.' why.' He crunched up to the back wall of the cavern. 'Your turn will come.'

'What am I I supposed to do?' supposed to do?'

'Just keep a close eye on things. In case In case.'

He tossed the dragonfly into the air. It rotated and when it came down again, Zoyl cried out, 'The eyes are glowing.'

'Pipe down, boy,' snapped Flydd. 'You're not at the circus now. Irisis, find the field.'

Taking her pliance between her palms, she visualised. Sight was not required for that. 'I can see it.'

'Tell me what it looks like.'

'The individual wisps are moving faster than before, and there are more of them. They form an almost complete figure-eight now, like two crowns joined at the side.'

'Better, but a long way to go. Keep hold of that image. Oon-Mie?'

'Ready, willing and able, surr,' she said and Irisis could almost see the grin.

There was no humour in Flydd's voice now. 'You will control the flow of power, very carefully very carefully. If it starts to feed back on itself, it will quickly get out of control and there won't be anything I can do about it. Just trickle it to me. If it starts to flood, clamp down hard.'

'I understand, surr.'

'Aarp, you have the most difficult task of all. I hope you're up to it.'

The lad's chest swelled with pride. 'I won't let you down, Mister Scrutator.'

'See that you don't, or I'll feed you to that lyrinx. b.a.l.l.s first!'

Flydd moved around the cavern and, as he went past Irisis, put his lips to her ear. 'Keep an eye on the boy!'