Dawn broke as they approached the Foshorn. Irisis climbed the ladder, rubbed her eyes and yawned. She’d slept most of the night and wouldn’t have minded a few hours more. The rising sun lit up the towering cliffs and ramparts. Directly below, the salt lakes formed by the Trihorn Falls were still in shadow.
Tiaan, who was rigid with tension, offered her hot chard and strips of dried quince. Irisis took a handful. ‘Where’s the famous Foshorn, then?
‘The Trihorn Falls are straight ahead,’ said Malien, who was still flying. ‘The Hornrace, linking the Sea of Thurkad to the Dry Sea, lies behind them. We’ll be over it in half an hour.’
‘That’s strange,’ Malien said a few minutes later. ‘I don’t see much water coming over the falls.’
‘I don’t suppose it changes with the seasons?’ said Irisis.
Malien chuckled. ‘Not with an ocean behind it.’ She turned to curve across the glistening lower flanks of the Trihorn. The layered rock was etched with deep slots and canyons that ran down to the salt lakes below the Trihorn, but the falls had been reduced to a few trickles.
She lifted the nose of the machine to fly up the face of the Trihorn. Irisis felt her stomach being left behind. She put down the dried quince, no longer hungry, and concentrated on not spilling her chard. Up, up and up they soared, flying faster and faster. Malien’s jaw was set and she was staring fixedly ahead.
They rocketed towards the peaks and, as they reached the left-hand gap through which the falls had once flowed, Malien flattened out with a jerk of her hand, curving between the two peaks.
Irisis gagged as her stomach and intestines seemed to be pushing up into her throat. Her feet lifted off the floor and she caught desperately at the side rail.
‘Sorry,’ said Malien. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry –’
Below the thapter a trench, cut hundreds of spans deep and wide through solid rock, ran ahead as far as they could see.
‘Was that the Hornrace?’ said Irisis. It contained just a few elongated pools.
‘It was.’
The thapter climbed higher. In the distance a massive, rectangular building, constructed upon a colossal arch of stone, spanned the Foshorn. Smaller cubes made a kind of pyramid at the centre of the arch.
‘Where’s the watch-tower?’ said Tiaan.
‘It’s fallen,’ Malien replied grimly. ‘See. And not of its own accord. History repeats itself.’
Tiaan shot her a glance. Malien shook her head as if saying, later.
The tower’s suspended arches appeared to have broken and it had speared right through the pyramidal building. The pyramid and the Span still stood, though rubble from the tower had dammed the Hornrace. The flagpole that had stood on top stuck up at an angle from the dam, still proudly flying the pennant of Inthis First Clan.
Malien circled over the arch. A ragged hole had been torn right through the vast building. Thousands of constructs were drawn up in ranks outside, not too close in case the rest collapsed. Aachim stood in groups everywhere, staring at the ruins.
Malien hovered for a while, silently taking in the scene. ‘Best we go down and find Vithis,’ she said at last.
‘How are we going to guard the thapter?’ Tiaan said in a dry croak.
‘I am Matah of all my people,’ said Malien with the unconscious arrogance that characterised her kind. ‘And I’m bringing Vithis the most tragic news of all.’
She landed between the constructs, close by the main doors, and a small group of Aachim came to meet them. They were still covered in dust and their eyes had a faraway look.
‘I am Malien,’ she said. ‘Matah of the Aachim of Santhenar. I must see Vithis on a matter of the utmost importance.’
‘I’m sorry, Matah,’ said the robed woman at their head, and they all bowed their heads respectfully. ‘In the circumstances, Vithis will not see even you. I’m sure you appreciate …’
‘It concerns the fate of his clan,’ Malien said.
The Aachim stiffened and cast a glance at her fellows. ‘I will take you to him at once.’ She gave orders to a slender boy, who set off at a run.
They followed in more stately fashion. The Aachim said no more and Malien asked no questions of her. Inside they climbed many flights of dust-covered, gritty stairs. Irisis lost count after a while. The building was different to other Aachim structures Irisis had read about in the Histories, being extremely plain and undecorated.
The lad appeared and led them across a large open floor scattered with rubble, to a slumped figure in the centre. Vithis was sitting on the edge of the ragged hole, legs dangling down through it, staring blindly at the still waters of the Hornrace. Tiaan hung back; then, with a visible wrench, she forced herself to come to the edge beside him.
‘Matah Malien,’ Vithis said dully. ‘You have news of Inthis?’
He looked up at Tiaan and Irisis caught her breath, knowing the enmity between them, but Vithis’s expression did not change.
Malien dusted off the floor and sat beside him, though she kept her legs clear of the hole. ‘I do, but not good news. We found the wreckage of many constructs out in the Dry Sea. They were made of the blue metal which only Inthis knows the secret of working. A few of the bodies wore First Clan colours. They had survived for some time.’
‘But they are all dead now?’
‘Alas, all that we could find. I’m sorry.’
‘They called this tower another First Clan folly.’ His voice was as harsh and dry as grit grinding underfoot. ‘A monument to my hubris. Not even my wretched foster-son had faith in our clan’s tenacity and will to live. But I knew First Clan had survived and I would not abandon them, whatever it cost my own reputation.’
Vithis looked up through the hole at the sky, or perhaps the limitless void. For a moment Irisis saw the nobility in him, the dreams he’d nurtured before life had crushed them one by one.
‘You did the right thing,’ said Malien. ‘Will you come to view the bodies, name those you know and record how they lived and died?’
‘I knew every one of my people, and I will send them off with all the honour that is their due. Let us waste no time.’
On the way down Vithis opened a door and said, ‘Come out, lad. You were in Tirthrax at the beginning. You might as well see the end.’
A small man came through the door, rather warily, and he was so covered in dust that at first Irisis did not recognise him. When she did, Irisis, who prided herself on her control, let out a shriek and ran.
‘Nish!’ She threw her arms around him, lifted him in the air and whirled him around in a circle. ‘I was sure the lyrinx had eaten you. What are you doing here?’ She couldn’t restrain her tears, which spotted his dusty face. She kissed them away, smudging her lips and cheek.
Nish hugged her back. ‘It would take a day to tell you.’
As they went out the main doors towards the thapter, Irisis, who had her arm linked through Nish’s, heard a distinctive clicking sound, like a metal-shod crutch on stone. She eased him to a stop. Just ahead, Tiaan had frozen. She rotated in place like a statue on a pedestal, and could not conceal her horror.
A haggard, aged Minis emerged from the front door, moving painfully on his crutches. He saw Tiaan standing there and his face lit up. His joy brought a lump to Irisis’s throat.
She glanced at Tiaan, despite herself half hoping to see it reflected there. It wasn’t. Whatever Tiaan was feeling at that moment – horror at the extent of his injuries, compassion, guilt perhaps – it wasn’t the naked adoration shining from Minis. She may have loved him once but it was gone forever.
Minis strained forward on his crutches as if he could compel her to love him in return, but as it became clear that she did not, would not, could not, the seams of his face deepened, his shoulders dropped and he sagged onto his crutches with a groan of despair.
Vithis had also turned. He looked from one to the other and his face hardened. ‘What did you expect?’ he said harshly. ‘Come, Foster-son. I’m all you have left.’