Nish was too weary to answer. He put his hand on the wall and a small section collapsed, revealing a cavity than ran in to the limit of sight. He hopped backwards in case the rest came down, but the wall didn’t move. Once the dust had settled he sniffed the air coming from the hole. ‘I can smell that stink again. The warding chamber must be this way.’
‘Surprised you can smell anything over Tiaan,’ Irisis grumbled, coming up to the cavity. ‘Can you take her?’
Nish hauled Tiaan through, heaved her onto his shoulder and set off, following his nose.
Tiaan let out a low moan and began to thrash. Nish, who was negotiating a pile of rubble higher than his head, landed hard on one knee on a broken piece of stone and cried out. Tiaan jerked herself out of his arms. Crouching on all fours, she gave him a strange sideways glance and scuttled up the pile.
‘No you don’t!’ Irisis threw herself after Tiaan and caught her by the ankle.
Tiaan let out a thin squeal and kicked furiously. Irisis clamped her other hand around the smaller woman’s calf, holding her until Nish twisted one arm behind her back, whereupon Tiaan ceased to struggle and her eyes fluttered closed.
‘What’s the matter with her?’ he panted.
Irisis shrugged. ‘Do you think we should tie her up?’
He shook his head. ‘We need her to cooperate when we get there and … you know how she feels about us.’
‘We’d better keep moving. We’ve taken too long already …’
Time may well have run out, Nish thought. A small war could have been fought at the other end of Nennifer and they wouldn’t have been aware of it.
They struggled on. Tiaan wasn’t a big woman but the strain of carrying her was telling. Nish ached in every muscle.
‘We must be nearly there,’ said Irisis as they stopped briefly, ‘though I don’t recognise this place.’ The burnt-flesh smell was sickening.
‘I think we’re approaching the warding chamber from the other side.’ What were they supposed to do once they got there?
‘So the scrutators’ workroom and turret must be above us. Now what?’ said Irisis as if she’d read his thought. ‘Did Flydd want us to take Tiaan to him, or to the warding chamber?’
‘The chamber, surely? We’ve no way of getting to him.’
‘Inouye was trying to tell us something,’ Irisis recalled. ‘But she couldn’t get it out. Should I go up and ask her?’
‘She’s probably unconscious,’ said Nish, guilt rising up to overwhelm him. What had Inouye ever done to harm anyone?
They were pressing on towards the final door into the amplimet chamber when Tiaan’s eyes sprang open. She quivered in Nish’s arms then said clearly, ‘Put me down.’
Nish did so gladly. Tiaan wavered on her feet, steadied herself and looked around, as alert as she had previously been apathetic. She glanced at Irisis, then Nish, without seeming to recognise either of them. Tiaan faced the door, cocking her head as if listening, then smiled.
What’s going on? Nish mouthed to Irisis. She signed that she didn’t have a clue. He pointed to the door. Irisis puffed out her cheeks, looked back the other way, then ruefully scratched herself.
A stub of wall collapsed behind them, sending a cloud of dust billowing in their direction. Someone called out in the indeterminate distance. Tiaan started.
‘That sounded like Flydd,’ said Irisis.
‘I don’t think we’d hear him from here.’
They listened but the cry was not repeated. A crystalline crackle came from inside the chamber and Nish suddenly knew that they’d made the wrong choice.
‘It’s waiting for us!’ he hissed. ‘We’ve got to go up to –’
The crackle sounded again, peremptory this time. Tiaan stopped quivering; a joyous smile spread across her dirty face and she bolted for the last door.
Irisis threw herself forward and got two fingers into Tiaan’s collar. Tiaan swung around, clenched her two hands into a mallet and clubbed Irisis across the side of the head. Tiaan tore free and darted through the door into the warding chamber.
Nish cursed and raced after her. ‘That’s what Inouye was trying to tell us. To keep Tiaan away from the warding chamber.’
He crashed through the door. Tiaan was nowhere to be seen.
‘All the signs were there,’ said Irisis, ‘and we missed them. Fusshte hadn’t mistreated Tiaan, he’d only neglected her. Tiaan was suffering withdrawal from the amplimet and the first thing she’d do would be to go for it.’
The room was noticeably warmer than before, and the reek of burnt flesh and hair even more overpowering, if that was possible.
‘I don’t see her,’ said Nish, taking a couple of steps.
Irisis dragged him back. ‘Remember what happened to the inner ring of mancers.’
‘But if we don’t stop her –’
‘Tiaan may be suffering withdrawal, but she’s seen other people die through the amplimet. She’ll make sure it recognises her before she goes too close.’
‘There’s no saying it will allow her near. What are we supposed to do?’
‘I – I’ve got no idea, Nish. I can’t make sense out of anything.’
Irisis had always been a leader and her indecision dismayed him. ‘I’ll stay here and see if I can catch her. Run up to the dome chamber and shout a warning to Flydd.’
She smiled at that. ‘Don’t be silly, Nish. There’s nothing you can do here, but I may be able to. Go up. Run as though all our lives depend on it. And … be careful. You’ve got the most dangerous job.’
Nish ran, though it was not until he’d passed through the last door and was halfway up the shuddering metal stairs that he realised she’d deceived him. The safest person in the warding chamber, if anyone could be safe from the amplimet, was someone who had neither talent for the Art nor ability to draw power from the field.
He stopped, afraid for her, but then went on. Irisis had made her decision and it wasn’t up to him to undermine it. Besides, there was no time. He could feel the tension building second by second.
Nish was just stepping off onto the roof when the back of his neck crawled, as if someone was watching him. He looked left, then right, but saw nothing. He headed for the walkway, cursing an over-active imagination.
The attack came without warning – a colossal thump in the back that drove him face-first into the roof. He tried to scramble away but was struck in the back of the neck and around the sides of the head by someone who was kneeling on his back, pinning him down.
The weight wasn’t inordinate – a woman or a compact man, and not one with much experience of fighting. The blows hurt but had done no great damage, apart from his nose which felt as if it was broken.
He took a deep breath, tensed and heaved with all his strength, rolling at the same time. His attacker went flying. Nish kept rolling, came to his feet and threw himself at the man. It was a man, a young fellow not much bigger than Nish. Nish didn’t waste time. He punched his assailant in the belly, kneed him in the jaw when he doubled over, lifting him to his toes, and followed that with a left hook that rattled the fellow’s teeth. His head hit the wall and he shifted right before Nish’s eyes, becoming a shaggy, dazed, but very small bear.
Nish hit him and he shifted again, into a small wingless lyrinx. ‘Muss, you bloody treacherous bastard!’ Nish roared, clamping his fingers around the leathery throat and banging the crested head against the wall.
Muss shifted to a much smaller person, a beautiful, buxom young woman, black of hair and eye. Nish lost his grip and hesitated for a moment. The code against harming women was so strong that it momentarily overrode his reason.
Muss brought his knee up into Nish’s groin, thrust him out of the way and bolted for the stairs. By the time Nish recovered, the spy was out of sight. Nish didn’t go after him. Trying to ignore the agony in his groin, he staggered across the roof towards the dome.