of him, but I still have to go. He hates Irisis even more than he loathes me, Malien, and if he keeps her alive it would only be to wring such torments out of her that the very ethyr will echo with her agony. I have to go to her aid, no matter what the cost. I can do nothing else.’
She took one hand off the controller to grip his shoulder. ‘You’re a true stalwart Nish. I was quite wrong about you when we first met, back in Tirthrax.’
‘I was such a callow, selfish fool then that I can’t bear to remember it.’
‘I’ll drop you up top but after that it’s up to you. I won’t risk the thapter.’
‘If he wins, he’ll be back for it in the night.’
‘And we’ve precious little strength to resist him. But we all must do what we can.’
By the time the thapter hovered just above the white deck, Malien was close to collapse. Nish stepped out onto the surface, whose foundations seemed tenuous in the extreme. Should it fail, or the Art that supported it be withdrawn, none of them would have to worry about the future.
The surviving air-dreadnoughts now began to draw in around Ghorr’s, cutting off any escape, though they made no effort to intervene. They would see the conflict through to the end, and only then would they strike. Or bow to the victor.
Klarm duck-walked Nish’s way, Flangers limping beside him, carrying Irisis’s sword but so worn out that he could barely hold the tip up. Ullii came two steps behind, peering around at Nish as if expecting him to be angry with her. He didn’t have the energy.
‘Where’s Irisis?’ said Nish.
‘Ghorr has her.’ Klarm indicated the closer sphere, presently rolling towards another whose seething inner globes were mostly shattered-glass grey, though a few were transparent. ‘Yggur is in that one, but he’s failing rapidly and I’m powerless to help him.’
Behind them the thapter lifted, almost soundlessly, sideslipped into the mist lower down, and was gone. Ghorr’s great globe rolled around them, rotating slowly, though the inner globe remained in the same orientation no matter what the motion of the outer. Irisis was trapped between the two. The globe stopped, leaving her spread-eagled upside down, staring despairingly at Nish. She waved her hands as if to push him away.
The globe stopped while Ghorr inspected the new arrival, then whirled away to orbit Yggur’s limping, failing sphere. White light forked out, once, twice, and two more inner globes exploded. Ghorr raised his good arm and a treacly brown fan of light touched Yggur’s outer sphere, which dissolved from the base like sugar in the rain. The last surviving globe, with Yggur still inside, fell to the milky floor where it stuck fast in the gooey remnants of the sphere.
Nish ran towards it, pulling out his sword as if he could break the sphere and free Yggur from his magical confinement. As he came close Yggur sagged against the wall, then stood up straight and forced out his arm, sending a final blast at his nemesis.
Had it been a ruse to lure the chief scrutator close? Nish allowed himself to hope so. Surely Yggur had been playing with Ghorr, just waiting for this moment, and was now going to destroy him.
Red lightning forked out from Yggur’s fingers but a counter-blast turned the surface of his globe into a mirror, outside and in, that reflected the blast back on him. Nish didn’t see what happened inside, though he could imagine the effect on human flesh of so much power expending itself in such a tiny space. The mirrored sphere turned black, then white and silver again, only to burst around its equator, emitting a circumferential blast of steam.
It fell in two halves, which spun like tops across the floor. The empty half went whizzing by Nish. The other spiralled directly towards Ghorr’s sphere, stopping just a few spans away.
Ghorr stepped through his inner sphere, then the outer, though the opening closed behind him at once, leaving Irisis trapped inside. He walked up to the slowly rotating hemisphere, which was still steaming.
Nish ran, though he knew it was all over. Even had Yggur survived that terrible back-blast he would be helpless against Ghorr, who seemed to be growing stronger as the battle went on. He would reassert control over the Council, attack Fiz Gorgo a second time and regain the thapter as well as all the prisoners. Victory was within his grasp.
Nish skidded to a