over it, and both tried to draw power simultaneously.
The mechanism screamed as though trying to thrash itself to pieces. The thapter lurched backwards.
‘Stop!’ gasped Malien. ‘We’re pulling in opposite directions. Take your hand off. Let me control the thapter, Tiaan. Just try to deliver the extra force I need.’
Tiaan took her hand off and the strain eased, but the thapter gave another backwards jerk, and another, and the further it went the tighter the grip of the tears became.
‘Follow the way I use power,’ Malien added, ‘rather than trying to do it your own way. Ready?’
‘Yes. I think so.’ Tiaan drew power as gently as she could. A grinding sound issued from downstairs.
‘Gently,’ said Malien. ‘Close your eyes and just sense the flow, and go with it rather than trying to drive everything before you.’
This time, after some effort, Tiaan was able to follow the way Malien worked, though it was already giving her a headache.
‘More,’ said Malien. ‘But just a little more.’
Tiaan gave her more. The thapter stopped its fitful backwards jerking, floated at the point of balance for a moment, then slowly began to climb.
‘A trifle more,’ said Malien. ‘He’ll double the effort when he realises what we’re doing.’
The pull on them increased. Tiaan drew more power. The pull increased again. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ she said. ‘We’re giving him time to match us.’
‘I can’t do any more. I’m at my limit.’
‘Just keep doing what you’re doing. Leave the rest to me.’
Malien gave her a doubtful glance.
‘Trust me,’ said Tiaan. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose.’
She tuned her mind to the stored power in the crystal, which had been there since their trip through the gate to Tallallame, and took as much as her mind could bear.
The mechanism screamed, she felt a tearing sensation like glued paper being ripped apart and the thapter shot up into the sky, faster than it had ever gone. She kept the power flowing until, with a wrench that she felt inside her skull, the pull of the tears ceased completely.
Gilhaelith cried out and crushed his knotted fists to his temples. Tiaan had forgotten he was there.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Malien.
‘The recurrence of an old pain I can do nothing about,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘I’ll have to lie down. Could you give me a hand, Merryl?’
Merryl helped him down the ladder.
‘You had a plan?’ said Tiaan, removing the amplimet so Malien could take over again. She could use it, but preferred not to unless she had no choice.
‘I wondered if it might be possible to draw so much power from the node at Ashmode that it failed. It would send out a sensory reverberation that might –’
‘I don’t think there’s any way to draw such power without killing ourselves in the process,’ said Tiaan. ‘I’ve already thought about it. And there’s no saying it would work anyway.’
‘Then there’s nothing we can do for Flydd or Yggur, or any of them,’ Malien said heavily.
SEVENTY-NINE
‘It’s as if we’ve escaped under false pretences,’ said Tiaan wretchedly.
‘I know,’ said Malien, ‘though we would have wanted them to escape, even if we could not. Let’s not lose hope – we may yet find a way to do something.’
‘Then we’d better think quickly. Jal-Nish didn’t seem like a man who would gloat over-long.’
Malien turned to pass around Ashmode in a great circle, keeping to a safe distance. She described three more circles, but Tiaan couldn’t think of any way of attacking Jal-Nish. Her mind was like a blank room with the roiling quicksilver tears in the centre, their power overwhelming all other Arts. Then, as Malien turned again, Tiaan saw, out over the sea, the Well looming in the distance, as black as a thunderhead. The Well and the amplimet had once been linked, she recalled.
‘Malien,’ Tiaan said, ‘do you know anything about the link between the Well and the amplimet? They seemed to communicate in Tirthrax, remember?’
‘I could hardly forget it,’ said Malien.
‘Why would it do that? If the amplimet draws from nodes, and the Well is a kind of anti-node, wouldn’t it be a threat?’
‘I dare say. Perhaps the amplimet wanted to take advantage of the chaos a freed Well would create.’
‘What if we were to throw the amplimet into the Well? Could that destroy them both?’
‘No. The amplimet would be destroyed by heat at the bottom of the Well first.’
‘Oh!’ said Tiaan. Something else occurred to her. ‘The Well grows by sucking power out of nodes, and it’s a kind of anti-node. So why don’t node and