on the rods, trying to find a way down without cutting himself to shreds. He could see none. He might have broken one or two glass blades with his boots, but the ones below were out of reach and dropping onto them was out of the question.
He climbed up under the roof, trying to see if any of the rods could be unfastened. They were fixed solidly, but while he was there Nish happened to glance up through a cracked roof slab and saw that the scrutators’ mechanicians were building a vast ropework construction, like a horizontal spiderweb, above Fiz Gorgo.
They had begun by anchoring the air-dreadnoughts to the outer walls with vertical cables as thick as a big man’s biceps. Now, working a good fifty spans above the ground, suspended ropers were hauling across horizontal ropes, stretching them drum-taut and lashing them into a network.
The instant the great rolls of canvas were lowered, Nish understood what they were doing. They were building a suspended amphitheatre, and it could only be to try the prisoners here. Ghorr wasn’t going to give such a collection of great mancers the least opportunity for escape, but he’d not miss the chance to consolidate his power either. The Council of Scrutators loved its spectacles, and the tale of such a trial would spread like wildfire throughout the known world, to bolster its dread reputation.
Nish tried to calculate how long the construction was going to take. Though the ropers worked with such dexterity that they must have practised the operation many times, it would take hours more to adapt their general design to the specific configuration of Fiz Gorgo. He didn’t know what time it was, for a thick overcast had rolled in from the west and not a glimmer of sun came through it. Nish thought it must have been around ten in the morning. The scrutators would want to complete their grisly business well before dark, which was around five at this time of year, so he didn’t have long at all.
Didn’t have long for what? He was trapped in a half-molten tower likely to collapse at any moment, being cured like a ham in a smokehouse, and his arms could barely hold him up. Half dead from dehydration, he had been reduced to licking the sooty condensation off the underside of the roof slabs. He was unarmed, opposed by hundreds of the toughest fighters in the world and dozens of mancers aching to impress their masters. Furthermore, the scrutators, collectively, represented the most powerful force ever assembled on Santhenar. The very idea of trying to rescue his friends was absurd.
But it would not go away.
THREE
The western side of the horned tower had stopped steaming. Ullii hoped it had cooled enough to climb, for there was no other way of getting to the top. Unfortunately it was also the side that faced the yard.
She went up the stair as far as she could go, eyeing the hot rubble in case a way past it had opened up. She could now discern a gap below the under-spiral of the stair, but everything radiated such heat that she could not get near it. Here and there, ribbons of molten metal, shiny as quicksilver where their coatings of grit had cracked, congealed in puddles on the treads.
It had to be the outside. Ullii squeezed through an embrasure that did not face the yard and found herself just above one of the roofs of Fiz Gorgo. She lowered herself to a roofing slab, adjusted her mask so it allowed in just a slit of light, and looked up.
The tower had been built of rough stone and the joins offered many hand-and foot-holds. Ullii was naturally dextrous, so the climb would not have been beyond her, had the tower been dry. Besides, her lattice revealed its secret strengths and flaws in a way that no one else could see. She looked up, closed her eyes and its network of cracks, crevices and stress-points opened up to her.
She pulled herself as far as the next floor, the fifth, but above that the stone was too hot to hold on to. Ullii edged sideways around the tower, one eye on the yard. If anyone looked up she would be seen, for her pale clothing and skin would stand out against the dark stone.
Fortunately the rain had become heavier, and colder, and the soldiers in the yard had their hoods down. Curling her toes around a projection no thicker than her