‘Poor Nish. How you must be suffering.’ She looked around. ‘Surely we’re getting close to the warding chamber?’
‘I think so. It’s not easy to remember the way.’
They continued on, struggling between head-high piles of rubble, or over them. Confronted by a particularly large heap, with beams sticking out of it like the spines of a sea urchin, Nish said, ‘This wasn’t here when we came through.’
She picked her way around to the left, Tiaan flopping on her shoulder. ‘There’s not much holding Nennifer up. Once any slice fails, the ones on either side of it are doomed to follow. The whole lot could come down without warning.’
He stayed where he was, unsure if they were going in the right direction. ‘You don’t have to be so damned cheerful about it.’
‘The joys of fatalism, Nish. When you have no expectations, every extra moment of life is a blessing and a wonder.’ She gave him a beatific smile over her shoulder.
‘Humbug!’
‘I think it’s this way,’ she said, moving around the other side of the rubble pile.
Nish climbed up onto the heap and peered over into the gloom. Their path was blocked by tilted slabs of floor and ceiling which had collapsed on one another like a deck of cards. ‘No, we’ll have to go back to that junction where we went right, and take the middle way. Do you need a hand?’
Irisis hefted Tiaan higher onto her shoulder and turned back. At the junction she checked the other corridors. ‘I don’t think it was either of these. Bloody Muss! What’s he up to?’
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