the lyrinx trained a new generation to replace those that had been lost, and perfected whatever new weapons they were working on in Alcifer.
As soon as that was done, the savagery would be unleashed.
The company had returned to Fiz Gorgo in mid-spring, where Yggur and Flydd began working on a secret project, aided by Flydd and, at times, Malien and Tiaan. Nish didn’t know what it was – no one would say a word about it.
Irisis was still in the east, now overseer of her former manufactory in place of Tuniz, who had gone home at last. Nish missed Irisis terribly. He’d tried speaking to her over Golias’s globe once or twice, relayed via several farspeakers on the way. Each time he spoke it took minutes for Irisis to reply, and her voice was so distorted by crackling sounds, whistles and gurgles that it was unrecognisable. Finally he gave up and wrote to her instead, sending his letter with the next thapter to go east. He received a brief, scribbled and unsatisfying reply when it returned. Irisis was not one for writing letters.
Nish had spent the past months making more air-floaters, now that the new season’s silk was becoming available, and training more air-floater pilots and artificers.
Tiaan spent her time refining her maps of nodes and fields, sometimes with Malien, more often with one or other of the thapter pilots. Each time she returned, Tiaan went directly to Yggur’s workroom, briefing him and Flydd on her latest discoveries and how they fitted into her overall picture of the fields and the nodes. By the end of summer she had surveyed all the known world save the Dry Sea, the reefs and islands of the equatorial north, and the frigid lands south of the Kara Agel, or Frozen Sea.
Flydd had made good his promise to Governor Zaeff of Roros, in Crandor, sending her a thapter and two pilots, as well as an artisan in case anything went wrong with the controller, and three artificers to keep the machine in good order. Tuniz, who came from Crandor, had been made overseer of the most troubled manufactory there and was busy restoring it to order, aided by Mechanician M’lainte, the genius who had built the very first air-floater. Flydd had also provided the Stassor Aachim with farspeakers, though they’d not offered any support in return. His embassies to Vithis at the Hornrace had been turned back at the borders.
Then in early autumn, after six months of running and hiding, an overwhelming force of lyrinx ambushed a column patrolling the Westway near Gospett, destroying thirty clankers and two hundred soldiers in twenty minutes of bloodshed. It was on again. ‘We’ve lost another node,’ said Klarm, who’d just been flown back from inspecting the scene of the massacre.
He was having dinner in a secluded corner of the refectory with Yggur, Flydd, Malien, Nish and Irisis, who had finally been recalled from the east after more than half a year, to Nish’s joy.
‘Whereabouts?’ said Malien sharply.
‘South-west of Gospett, in Gnulp Forest. Tiaan took me by it on the way back, and the node had disappeared.’
‘Exploded, like the Snizort one?’ asked Flydd.
‘No. It had just faded away. That’s three in that area now.’
‘Do you think it’s got anything to do with the massacre?’
‘No,’ said Klarm.
‘Is it some new kind of node-drainer?’
‘We couldn’t find any sign of one.’
‘Then why is it happening?’ Yggur said in frustration.
‘Everything is connected to everything else,’ said Malien cryptically.
The table fell silent. Yggur took a small goblet of wine, as was his wont. Flydd half-filled a large goblet, as was his. Klarm filled his goblet to the brim but did not drink at once. Malien, unusually, had nothing at all.
‘That’s it!’ cried Yggur, springing to his imposing height and spilling wine across the table.
People on the far side of the room looked up. Flydd mopped the droplets with a grubby sleeve. ‘I presume it’s no secret, since you see fit to tell everyone in Fiz Gorgo about it.’
‘Everything is connected to everything else,’ said Yggur. ‘If you draw on a node too heavily, it affects its neighbours.’
‘It doesn’t explain how the node near Gospett failed. No one’s drawing power down there.’
‘Nodes need not be linked to their neighbours. Maybe they can be linked to distant ones.’
‘There are thousands of nodes, Yggur,’ said Flydd. ‘If they can be linked to any others, anywhere, we could never hope to work out the connections.’
‘But we can observe them. At least, Tiaan can.’
Tiaan spent a week going