so worn out?’ said Nish to Irisis, after Flydd and Yggur had just slipped out again.
‘Because she daren’t take power from the field. Malien is using an older Art but she has to draw it from herself, and she’s at her limit.’
‘I can’t do it,’ Malien said an hour later, pushing away the mug of honeyed tea Irisis was holding out for her. ‘Aftersickness is wearing me down and there’s no time to recover from it.’
‘Get some more sleep,’ said Yggur. ‘Flydd and I have been discussing another way.’
‘One that doesn’t require me?’ she said, lying down and closing her eyes.
‘We’ll still need you but we’ll be taking some of the load.’
They went out to discuss their plan. Klarm wasn’t there either. He’d gone climbing up the quartz ridge at dusk and still wasn’t back. He could have walked all the way to Nennifer by now, Nish thought.
‘Now I’m really worried,’ he said to Irisis.
She was sitting in the corner, sleeping pouch up around her waist, weaving a couple of dozen silver and gold wires into a complicated braid, part of a piece of jewellery she’d been working on for days. Being a jeweller had been her life’s ambition, stifled when she was a little girl by a mother who had invested the Stirm family’s future in her clever daughter. Irisis still planned to become a jeweller, ‘after the war is over.’
‘You started worrying the day you were born, Nish. Have a nap or something.’
‘I’ve had about forty naps since we’ve been stuck here. I couldn’t sleep to save my life.’
‘Then be quiet. I’m trying to work.’
‘Your fingers do the work by themselves,’ he observed. ‘You don’t need to think about it.’
‘That doesn’t mean I don’t work better without interruptions.’
‘I’m really worried.’
Irisis cast a glance over her shoulder at Malien, who was twitching in her sleep, and set her work aside with, charitably, just the gentlest of sighs.
‘What about?’
‘I think Klarm’s leading us into a trap.’
‘But he’s not leading us; Flydd and Yggur are.’
‘They call upon his knowledge of Nennifer all the time.’
‘I’m sure Flydd and Yggur are keeping an eye on him.’
‘They’re too distracted.’ Nish, realising that he was panting, took a deep breath. It didn’t help; he could feel panic rising and it was worse than he’d felt in other tight situations, because he was so helpless to do anything. ‘It’s out of control, Irisis, and there’s nothing you or I can do to stop it.’
‘In which case there’s no point worrying.’
She was almost supernaturally calm these days, or fatalistic. ‘That’s not like you,’ he said accusingly, as if she were letting the side down. ‘You hate waiting for things to happen, and you hate –’
‘Well, I’m sorry if I’m acting out of character!’ Irisis turned her back, pointedly taking up her braid again.
‘Sorry,’ Nish said automatically. ‘I – I’m out of my depth. This idea about waking the amplimet … it’s bound to go wrong.’
‘It’s the only plan we have, Nish.’
The flap was thrust open, scattering ice across the floor. Yggur came in, bent low, followed by Flydd and Klarm.
‘Time to go,’ said Yggur, going to his knees to shake Malien’s shoulder.
She sat up, bleary-eyed. ‘Already?’
‘I’m afraid so. We’ve got about half a league to go. We go over the ridge and down into the little valley where they grow their crops. We’ll get a bit of cover there. When we’re in place, we’ll work together. It’ll be easier down there, closer to the amplimet. If you seek it as before, I’ll lend you my shoulder when you need it.’ He hesitated. ‘That’s the idea, anyhow.’
‘Great,’ Nish muttered when they had gone out. ‘Now when it goes wrong we’ll lose them all.’
‘It’s no use,’ said Yggur a couple of hours after midnight, wiping hard granules of blown snow off his brow. He’d been working with Malien for ages, without success. ‘It’s hopeless.’
‘Let’s give it one last try,’ said Flydd.
‘The moon’s up. We’ll have to leave it until tonight.’
‘We must go on,’ said Flydd.
‘We’ve got to have darkness.’
‘Another day and neither you nor Malien will have the strength. And I’m not turning my back on the Council again.’
This time they were just above the valley floor, which was networked in dark and light greys by its dry irrigation ditches and the tufted remnants of the harvested autumn crop. They huddled in the long moon-shadow behind a cluster of hip-high boulders, while the wind shrieked all around them. To their left, a frozen stream in the bottom of the