her end of the tent by the simple expedient of creating a golden bubble from her fingertips and allowing it to expand until it enveloped her completely. Whatever else it touched was pushed out of the way.
‘What’s she doing?’ whispered an awed Inouye.
Malien was dimly visible inside, sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed and her long fingers extended along her thighs. The shimmering luminescence of the globe cast moving lights and shadows across her face and body. She looked ageless, cunning, fey.
‘She has her own unique form of the Art,’ Yggur said quietly. ‘As do I. Hers doesn’t rely on the field, so she can scry without the scrutators detecting her.’
‘At least, we hope so,’ said Irisis.
Yggur glared at her, then went on. ‘We can, of course, draw on the field at need.’
‘How long is it going to take?’ said Nish.
‘However long it takes,’ snapped Flydd from his sleeping pouch. ‘Now keep your trap shut. I need my sleep.’
Flydd must be in constant pain, Nish thought charitably. He’d always been irascible, but now he was angry all the time. Nish wriggled around against the side of the tent, trying to find a comfortable position. Irisis elbowed him in the ribs. He sighed.
The golden bubble popped. ‘I’ve located the amplimet,’ said Malien.
‘What, already?’ The words burst out of Nish.
Everyone turned to stare at him. He flushed. ‘I thought it would take hours,’ he mumbled. ‘Thought there’d be time for sleep.’
No one said anything, which was worse than if they had.
‘It’s not sealed away,’ Malien said. ‘And, judging by the peculiar orientation of the field, the scrutators are working on it now. They must have barriers up to prevent the amplimet taking more than a trickle of power.’
‘Then they know the danger it represents?’ asked Yggur.
‘We have to assume that they’ve discovered everything Tiaan knows about it,’ said Flydd.
‘Tiaan has a way of revealing only what she wants to,’ said Malien. ‘But I agree – it’s safer to assume that.’
‘Then you’d better get to work,’ said Flydd.
Malien took several deep breaths, knitting and unknitting her fingers, but didn’t move.
‘You can wake it?’ said Flydd roughly.
She nodded stiffly. ‘I just don’t think I should.’
‘We’ve been through all that. Just get on with it!’
Nish had never heard anyone speak to Malien that way before. Her lip curled as she looked at the meagre old man. ‘In the circumstances, I will forgive that. Ah, but you know so little of what you’re asking.’
She regenerated her bubble, though this time it took on an opalescent translucency that reduced her to a hunched shape inside.
‘You can have your precious sleep now, Artificer,’ said Flydd.
Nish lay down and dozed off at once, only to be woken by a mutter from the other side of the tent. As he began to sit up, Irisis gripped his arm, warningly.
‘It worries me that the field is so strained,’ said Yggur. ‘One misjudgment –’
‘Let’s not speculate about that,’ Flydd said. ‘Get some sleep. You too, Klarm. You’ll need it before this is over.’
‘As will you,’ said Klarm. ‘We’re relying on you, Flydd.’
‘I don’t need much sleep these days. Master Flenser pruned me of all that was superfluous. Perhaps he did me a favour.’ He laughed harshly.
Yggur made no reply.
Nish closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep, though now an image kept recurring – the red ruin which Flydd’s healer had revealed so fleetingly, and with such rage at man’s inhumanity to his own.
A long time later Yggur put his head out of the tent, looking up at the dark sky. A high overcast blotted out the stars and moon. ‘It’s coming dawn.’ He rubbed his stubbled cheeks. ‘Aah, it’s cold out.’
Flydd was sitting with his hands on his knees, exactly as he had been hours earlier, watching Malien.
‘Doesn’t look as though she’s having any success,’ said Yggur.
‘It’s taking too long,’ said Flydd, ‘and there’s nothing we can do to help her. This is Malien’s great task and if she can’t do it, no one can.’
Before dawn the sentries were drawn back inside the ends of the fissure. Everyone else spent the day cooped in the tents. This close to Nennifer they dared not go outside, for the risk of being seen was too great.
In mid-morning, Malien dissolved the bubble and crawled across to the food bag, where she made a scant meal of mouldy bread and hard cheese, and another of the knobbly fruits. She had trouble eating it; her hands and arms shook unceasingly. Washing the morsel down