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.