She turned her head this way and that, trying to pierce the darkness, and suddenly the faintest pattern of the field appeared in her inner eye.
Her eyes pricked with tears. Her artisan’s pliance, which enabled her to see the field, had been taken from Irisis soon after she’d been captured. She hadn’t seen the field since, and for her to visualise it at all now, her pliance had to be almost to hand.
Irisis closed her eyes momentarily, the better to see.
Something rustled in the darkness. ‘Tiaan?’ she whispered, opening her eyes.
‘Mmpfh!’
As her eyes adjusted, Irisis made out a bowed figure tied to a strap attached to the wall. It wasn’t Tiaan but a much older woman with grey in her hair.
‘Malien!’ Irisis ran to her, cut the gag off and freed her wrists and ankles. ‘How are you?’
‘Parched. It’s been a long day,’ Malien said in a dry croak. She shook her numb hands. White marks were scored into her wrists.
Irisis lifted a wine skin from a hook, jerked out the stopper and passed it across. Malien couldn’t hold the wine skin, so Irisis supported it while the older woman took a couple of hefty swigs. ‘That’ll do. We’re going to need our wits –’
A blast followed by the shriek of tearing metal jerked the floor so hard that Malien’s knees buckled. Irisis was thrown against the lath-and-canvas wall. The flimsy structure of the air-dreadnought creaked and groaned. The craft jerked twice more, not so hard this time.
‘Yggur laid a spell of durability on the mooring cable,’ said Irisis, hanging onto a swaying tapestry. ‘Ghorr must have blasted the winch apart.’
‘And your plan?’ said Malien, on her knees and unable to rise.
What am I going to do with her, Irisis thought. ‘Nish is opening the hatch of the thapter, which is hanging below us. Yggur and Klarm – he’s on our side now, at least I hope he is – were going to take on Ghorr and his mancer.’
‘Just Nish?’ said Malien. ‘Does he realise there are guards inside?’
A deadly chill spread through Irisis’s innards. ‘This attack was planned in some haste.’
‘I can well imagine,’ said Malien dryly. ‘We’d better get after him.’
‘My artisan’s pliance is here somewhere. I sensed it as I came in.’
Malien turned her head back and forth, three times, then pointed. ‘Try that cupboard.’
It was locked so Irisis levered the lacquered wood apart with her blade. A number of objects fell out, gems and jewellery. She felt among them and as soon as her fingers touched her pliance the field condensed around her. Again that prickling of tears in her eyes – an artisan who’d lost her pliance could go mad with longing for it. Irisis wasn’t emotional, as artisans went, but as she put the chain over her head she felt the tension smooth away.
Swords clashed; men grunted and groaned outside the door on the far side of the room. A bloody blade speared through the canvas wall and was withdrawn again. A man screamed in agony.
Malien cast a glance that way, before turning back to Irisis. ‘I assume you plan to escape in the thapter?’
‘That’s right.’ Irisis had her own sword out and her head cocked, listening to the swordplay and footwork outside. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘Ghorr has my controller crystal. I can’t operate the thapter without it.’
Irisis cursed under her breath. ‘Any idea where he might keep it?’
Malien closed her eyes and put her hands over them. This time she didn’t turn her head. After some seconds she said, ‘Is there a metal box under that cupboard?’
Irisis tilted it and looked beneath. The brass box was locked and chained to the floor, though it was just an ordinary lock and she was expert at picking them. She had it open in a moment and held out the blue-green crystal. ‘This it?’
Malien nodded and tried to stand up but her legs still wouldn’t support her. She grabbed for the cupboard, her wrist gave and she collapsed again.
‘Do you know where Tiaan is?’ said Irisis. ‘Or the amplimet?’
‘They were taken to one of the other air-dreadnoughts. I don’t know which one.’
Outside, the sounds of battle grew louder. Something burst with a loud pop and, momentarily, a brilliant green light illuminated the weave of the canvas. Objects fizzed in all directions, leaving fuming trails that Irisis could see in her mind’s eye. The canvas walls flapped in and out like the skin of a drum. Someone cried out; it sounded alarmingly like Yggur. If he had