Nish threw his head back, trying to ram it into the spy’s face. Muss held him and drove a knee into his kidneys. The pain was so excruciating that Nish fell to his knees. Muss tied his hands using a length cut from a coil of rope that hung from his hip.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Nish ground out.
‘I have my reasons and they go back a long way. And, no, I’m not a traitor. I no longer serve anyone but myself.’
‘Why, Muss?’
Muss hauled Nish up a narrow ladder that ran up the outside curve of the dome. Muss had learned from his earlier defeat. This time he wore the guise of a stocky, muscular man in a soldier’s uniform.
At the top, he levered open a small service hatch and pushed Nish through onto a balcony covered in icicles. He tied Nish’s hands to the semicircular cast-iron railing. Where Nish’s wrist momentarily touched the frigid iron, his skin stuck to it and tore as he jerked away.
‘Aah!’ he yelped.
Muss looked down and, to Nish’s surprise, lengthened the rope. Not from compassion, Nish felt sure. He’d not seen Muss evince any such emotion, but neither was he one to inflict needless suffering.
‘A fine spy nest,’ Muss observed, glancing into the warding chamber. ‘One can see everything from here. I’ve often used it when the scrutators were at their meetings.’
Nish looked down but couldn’t see Irisis or Tiaan. ‘Who are you?’ said Nish.
‘Eiryn Muss, the perfect spy.’ There was a hint of emotion in his voice. Bitterness?
‘The morphmancer,’ said Nish. ‘How did you come to be a mancer and no one knew about it, in this place dedicated to the perfection of the Secret Art?’
‘I never wanted the things they wanted,’ said Muss. ‘Not gold, nor power nor domination, nor the gratification of the senses. I had no need to show off my Art. I was content to bide my time.’
‘For what?’ Nish cried in frustration. Muss was a creature of shadows, an illusion. Whenever pushed, he retreated to places no one else could go.
‘Shh!’ said Muss. ‘The pieces are moving into place.’
The scrutators’ turret was halfway now, still inching down its column. On the far side of the upper chamber, among the seats, Nish made out a hobbling Flydd and several companions, trying to find a way down to the warding chamber. They looked in bad shape.
‘What’s Fusshte up to?’ Nish said aloud.
‘I suppose he wants Flydd to think that he’s going after the amplimet …’
Flydd and his companions had disappeared. Nish hoped they’d made a break for the stairs.
‘But Fusshte isn’t?’
‘He’s too scared,’ said Muss. ‘He now knows that he can never understand the amplimet. What man can? It’s inanimate, a crystal that has somehow, over the aeons, woken. Its needs, desires, urges are incomprehensible.’
‘And Fusshte’s purpose is?’ said Nish. Muss’s words were as confusing as everything about him.
‘He wants to force the amplimet to strike at Flydd. As soon as Flydd draws power to defend himself, the amplimet will turn that power against him. And while it’s diverted, Fusshte surely hopes to bind it to himself. If he succeeds, he’ll have all the power he could ever want. And all his opponents will be dead.’
‘How is Fusshte going to do that?’ said Nish, to keep Muss talking while he tried to think of a plan. Muss avoided fighting so he could hardly be good at it. Nish had to attack violently, without warning.
Muss, peering down at the dais through his eidoscope, permitted himself the faintest of smiles. ‘He’s got scores of mancers and artificers. He’ll have them attack the amplimet while making it appear that Flydd is doing so. There’s no risk to him that way.’
‘But plenty to the mancers and artificers, I’ll bet.’
‘What does any scrutator care if his servants live or die, as long as he gets what he wants?’ Again that hint of bitterness. ‘And now, they come.’
Flydd and another man close behind, possibly Flangers, eased in through the door of the warding chamber and seemed to be trying to sneak between the circle of juddering mancers. The darting figure of Klarm appeared, then a second soldier.
A hatch flipped open on the far side of the chamber and Flydd threw himself down, cursing as a purple ray lanced past his head. It illuminated the tip of one of the rose-crystal wards, the light slowly spreading down until the whole ward glowed pink.
Nish could feel tension building, charging up everything from the floor of the lower chamber to the tip of the dome. His hair and beard were drawn upwards and a shock leapt from the metal rail to his hand. Below, someone let out a moan of horror.
Behind the hatch from which the ray had come, a man screamed, his voice rising higher and higher until it became a cracked falsetto which was abruptly cut off. Something burst with a pulpy splat, like a melon dropped from a great height.
Red mush began to ooze from the partly open hatch, then brown fumes. Nish averted his eyes. The scrutators’ turret had stopped some five spans above the dais and he could see Fusshte inside, seeming to direct his forces like a concertmaster directing musicians.
The tension began to charge up again. Another ray zapped from an aperture beside the first hatch, followed by a third from the other side of the room. Each just missed Flydd’s hand before lighting up the rose-crystal wards. It was intended to look as if Flydd were attacking the wards, but the amplimet wasn’t deceived. The consequences in each case were just as quick, bloody and horrible.
The speaking horns boomed. ‘Guards, guards! To the warding chamber.’
Flydd scuttled for the rose-crystal wards, dived over the fallen corpse of one of the carbonised mancers and lay still. The corpse exploded to fragments. Flydd rolled out of the way.
‘The amplimet isn’t fooled,’ said Nish. ‘It’s not attacking Flydd.’
‘He’s clever,’ said Muss. ‘He’s not defending himself.’
‘Why doesn’t the amplimet attack the turret?’ said Nish.
‘It’s shielded with platinum.’
Flydd appeared and disappeared like a dolphin swimming in the surf. Corpses, benches and other paraphernalia burst all around him. Fusshte had given up on the wards and was now directing the attack at Flydd.
‘He’ll soon have nowhere left to run,’ said Nish.
An enormous flash lit up the chamber and Fusshte began waving furiously. Several dozen apertures opened at once and rays stabbed across and across, like solid rods of light in the enveloping darkness.
The amplimet struck back. The rays of light bounced back and forth, then froze solid a couple of spans above the floor, forming a network through which the turret could barely be seen. Fusshte looked dismayed; he didn’t seem to be able to communicate with his people. His mancers and artificers died gruesomely behind their hatches. More red mush oozed out, and more brown fumes, then the attack faltered.
Flydd, crouching between two carbonised mancers, fell to his knees. His hands were moving though Nish couldn’t imagine what he was trying to do. Tiaan was lying on the dais, turning her head one way and then the other.
One carbonised mancer was blown apart at the shoulders, the other at the waist. Flydd was thrown backwards and something small, cubic and shiny flew from his hands – the platinum box. He felt around on the floor but couldn’t seem to find it in the gloom.
The attack entered a new phase. The few surviving hatches opened and their occupiers came forth. Flangers began duelling with an artificer mounted atop an articulated device like an iron caterpillar. Klarm was running through the obstacles in figure-eights with a giant of a man in close pursuit. One of the carbonised mancers fell on Flydd, its black chest shattering on his head. He rolled out from under, spitting out char.
The speaking horns boomed again, and this time there was a panicky note in the cry. ‘Guards, guards! To the warding chamber.’