raucous cries. ‘If we stand together,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘and put our swords up, we might have a chance.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Tiaan. ‘There are half a dozen of them and they’re as big as lyrinx.’
They did so anyway. The flying creatures came to ground not far away, staring at them and showing no fear. ‘They’re not afraid of humans,’ said Gilhaelith, ‘and that’s a bad sign.’
‘Masterly understatement,’ said Irisis. ‘Get ready.’
‘For what?’ said Nish, looking for a stick, a stone or anything he could throw to keep them away.
The creatures began to move inwards, until a hideous growl erupted from below, though to Tiaan’s ears it was the sound of massed throats pretending to be savage beasts. A band of lyrinx came storming out of the shrubbery, wings spread, mouths agape. The racket was incredible.
The flying creatures whirled; then, as one, they kicked themselves into the air and flapped away.
‘Thank you,’ said Tiaan as the lyrinx made a protective circle around them.
‘We will escort you back to the gate,’ said the leader, a stocky female with miniature crests running down the front of her breastplates. ‘This is no world for helpless humans.’
They reached it an hour later, suitably chastened. The lyrinx were coming through as fast as before. The amplimet was still glowing but Tiaan had no idea why. ‘It seems to have picked up some kind of a charge,’ she said.
‘That’s not unknown in the Histories of mancery,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘Some of the very first magical devices, as the Art was then called, were crystals or glasses that had become naturally charged in a field. The first mancers were just people who could make use of that power.’
‘Will the charge remain if we go back through the gate?’ Tiaan asked.
‘It may last for a while, unless the return passage changes the amplimet again.’
‘How long?’
‘An hour, a day, a month? How would I know? This is surely the first time an amplimet has been taken through a portal. But sooner or later the charge will fail and then, most likely, the amplimet will be useless.’
‘You mean …?’
‘It may no longer draw power at all.’
‘I don’t care,’ Tiaan said, ‘as long as it lasts until we complete our work here.’
Ryll was still standing by the gate when they reappeared, and the gate continued to work. Nish and Irisis went out, but Tiaan remained beside Ryll. ‘How many are there to go?’ she asked.
‘Less than forty thousand,’ said Ryll. ‘There were more but the … the waters took them. Three hundred and seven thousand have passed through, plus more than a hundred thousand children, carried.’
‘So many? The gate has only been open a few hours.’
‘It was before dawn when you left. Now it’s morning of the next day, our last on Santhenar. If the gate lasts, in two hours we’ll all be through.’
‘Time passes differently in the Three Worlds,’ said Gilhaelith.
They went out into the light. An easterly sun was slanting low across what had been the Dry Sea. There was no salt to be seen, just water all the way to the horizon.
‘The Sea of Perion rises swiftly.’ Malien detached herself from the crowd that covered every available surface on top of the pinnacle. ‘Already it’s over fifty spans deep.’
‘And still forty thousand lyrinx to go,’ said Tiaan. ‘They must be clinging to every part of the peak.’
‘Like bees to a honeycomb.’
‘What happened to the Well?’
Malien gestured over her shoulder. It was just behind them, looming above the tower like the black eye of a cyclone. They moved around to that side of the peak. The funnel of the Well went down through the water, all the way to the bottom of the sea, and probably below that.
Apart from a few wheeling lyrinx the sky was empty, not a thapter or air-dreadnought to be seen. ‘Has Orgestre given up?’
‘I doubt it. Flying lyrinx have kept the thapters away.’
The Well was less than a league away now, and tracking directly towards them. Irisis studied it with her spyglass.
‘I can see a clanker in there,’ Irisis burst out. ‘Carried up as if it were made of paper. And all sorts of other things. Trees. Bodies.’ She shivered. ‘What power the Well must have.’
‘I wonder if it could be a kind of anti-node?’ said Tiaan. ‘Instead of giving out power, it grows by sucking the power from other nodes, leaving a trail of dead ones behind.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Malien. ‘I’ve never encountered an unshackled Well before.’