whirling it up all around. The snow hissed as it turned to steam, which burst out on all sides before drifting away on the keen southerly.
‘How long do we have?’ said Irisis, yawning.
‘About five hours,’ said Tiaan. ‘I left early, just to be sure. All six cities have to be attacked at the same moment, otherwise the lyrinx would send out a mindspeech alert.’
Nish and Irisis dozed for most of that time. Tiaan was tired but too tense to sleep, and it was too cold at this altitude to make walking pleasant. She closed the upper hatch, sat on the warm floor above the mechanism and studied the plans of Alcifer, working out how she was going to carry out the attack. It was not going to be easy.
They could only attack in daylight, of course. Tiaan’s attack was timed for noon, as was the attack on the city west of Thurkad. There was a three- or four-hour time difference between here and the lyrinx cities on the east coast.
‘It won’t be long now,’ she said later, as they descended towards the sea, north of Alcifer. ‘Alcifer is down to our right.’
‘And well protected,’ said Irisis, shading her eyes. ‘I can see lyrinx in the air from here. Look.’ She counted them. ‘At least fifteen.’
The farspeaker belched. ‘Where are you, Tiaan?’ The voice was unidentifiable.
‘Who’s asking?’ she snapped, bending over the slave farspeaker attached to the binnacle.
‘Xervish Flydd!’
The way he said his name identified him, though passage through successive fields had dragged his tones out to something between a bark and a croak.
‘We’re approaching Alcifer now, surr. Just ten minutes away. There are a lot of lyrinx in the air.’
‘Also west of Thurkad. Perhaps they know we’re up to something.’
‘Or they are,’ said Irisis.
‘Call when you’ve done it.’ The farspeaker squelched and Flydd was gone.
The magnificent ruined city spread out before them, just like the map impressed in Tiaan’s mind. ‘I’ll circle a few times, as we do whenever we’re spying on them. We’ll locate the air shafts, then I’ll hurtle down and hope to dump the spores into one on the first attempt. We can’t afford to have them guess our intentions. If we have to make a second attempt there’ll be fliers everywhere and it’ll be ten times as difficult.’
‘And deadly,’ said Irisis.
‘Where are the air shafts?’ asked Nish as Tiaan began to circle. He was looking down as if he expected to see them boring through the hillside.
‘We know of three, though they’re not easy to see. Two are concealed within partly ruined buildings in the centre of Alcifer. The third is at the base of a cliff, under the trees over there somewhere.’ Tiaan pointed to her left, where a series of grey cliffs fell into the forest that had grown over the rim of the city. ‘There may be others.’
‘What do they look like?’
‘They’re shafts bored through rock, about a span across. One has a giant bellows outside, to pump in fresh air. It would be the best place to dump the spores but it’s the hardest to get to, so I won’t risk it.’
As they curved around the edge of the city, the wheeling lyrinx began to climb towards them. ‘Which shaft are you going for?’ asked Irisis.
‘The two within Alcifer will be easiest to find. I’m going for the one beneath the dome – see the sun shining on it? The dome is open underneath, so I’ll go down to the left, come in between the columns and see if I can get close enough.’
‘I thought we’d just fly over and drop it in,’ said Nish.
‘I may not be able to get that close. One of you will probably have to jump out and heave it in. Keep an eye on the fliers. And you might want to get your crossbows ready.’
The lyrinx closed the gap.
‘Ready?’ said Tiaan.
‘We’re ready,’ said Irisis.
‘Hang on!’ Tiaan turned sharply left and dived steeply.
Nish let out a muffled cry as the thapter hurtled towards the dome. The lyrinx folded their wings, diving after them.
Tiaan felt the Secret Art fizzing in her brain. ‘They know we’re up to something,’ she shouted over the shrieking of the mechanism and the roaring of the wind. ‘They’ll be everywhere in a minute.’
‘How are you going to get to it?’ said Irisis.
Tiaan pointed to the right as she curved around the dome and its many extravagantly carved columns. ‘In there.’
The dome was about two hundred spans across and supported on many slender columns.