‘I wonder if it could be a kind of anti-node?’ said Tiaan. ‘Instead of giving out power, it grows by sucking the power from other nodes, leaving a trail of dead ones behind.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Malien. ‘I’ve never encountered an unshackled Well before.’
‘How are we doing?’ said Irisis.
‘We need another hour or so.’
‘The Well will be here in minutes,’ said Tiaan. ‘Do you think there’s anything we can do to turn it aside?’
‘It has the power of a hundred nodes,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘It’s irresistible.’
‘But if it’s being directed …’
Gilhaelith cried out. ‘I’ve got an idea. Nish, Irisis, could you give me a hand with the geomantic globe?’
They carried it in its box to the edge of the pinnacle, facing the Well. Gilhaelith unpacked it, set it up on its stand and slid the brass pointers around on their circular tracks, making sure that they moved freely.
‘I’ve been tinkering with my globe since the escape,’ he said to Tiaan. ‘Gyrull concealed some vital details from me, but I’ve added them from your maps and I believe the globe is perfect now. Let’s see what we can see.’
He began scrying with it, clamping small chips of crystal in the pointers and setting the globe spinning slowly beneath them. Tiny reddish pinpricks appeared under the glass surface, but that wasn’t what Gilhaelith was looking for. He tried another five or six crystals, which he took from a small padded box, then borrowed Tiaan’s amplimet and Irisis’s pliance. They did not work either.
‘It’s no use,’ said Gilhaelith. ‘If someone is directing the Well, they’re too cleverly hidden for me. We can’t do anything to turn it away.’
‘We’d better warn the lyrinx,’ said Tiaan. ‘And then, I suppose we’d better go. If we can …’ It didn’t seem right to fly away in the thapter and leave the rest of the lyrinx to their fate.
‘And take the black box too,’ Malien said suddenly.
‘Why?’
‘It would … not be good for it to be sucked into the Well.’
‘But if we take it, won’t that close the gate immediately?’
‘It will remain open until you close it, Tiaan, because you’re holding it in your mind.’
‘Can I leave the gate open after we go?’
‘No!’ said Malien sharply. ‘As soon as we’re in the air you must close it, or else the Well might pass through the gate.’
‘To Tallallame?’
‘It might go anywhere in the void. It might annihilate itself, the gate and half of Santhenar. Anything might happen. The void might be disrupted … It is … the Well must not pass through the gate. Though it came from Aachan in the beginning, this Well is now a creature of Santhenar, and Santhenar must deal with it.’
Malien went looking for Ryll and Liett. Tiaan headed up to retrieve the black box. It proved surprisingly light, as if it was, after all, no more than an empty box. When she reached the bottom, panting and weak in the knees, Malien was talking to Ryll. Liett was pacing back and forth, casting anxious glances at the Well and stormy ones at Ryll, which he was steadfastly ignoring.
‘As soon as the Well touches the side of Nithmak,’ Malien was saying, ‘we must close the gate. We can’t risk the Well passing through.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Ryll. ‘And then you must get in your thapter and fly to safety, knowing that you could have done no more.’
Liett beckoned furiously to him. Ryll gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head, whereupon she drove her fist into the nearest wall and stormed away, shaking her wings.
‘I think Liett wants to talk to you,’ Tiaan said uncomfortably. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Just a disagreement about when I’m to go,’ said Ryll. ‘She wants me to leave now, but I can’t abandon my people to die.’
‘Are there many left?’
‘More than twenty thousand of us,’ said Ryll. ‘Too many. But we knew the risk.’
Of us, Ryll had said. But if he was staying to the last, he wouldn’t get through at all. He would drown here with the stragglers. Liett came storming back and took him by the arm, trying to pull him towards the gate. Ryll set his feet and did not move.
‘Will you not go, Ryll?’ said Tiaan.
‘Not while any of my people still cling to the side of this peak.’
‘You’ll drown.’
A shudder passed over him and his skin colours writhed in iridescent shades of purple and grey. ‘So will they, and without ever a sight of Tallallame. At least I’ve had that. Go, Liett.’
‘Not without you.’ She folded her arms across her chest.
‘I order you to go through the gate,’ he thundered. ‘As patriarch of all the lyrinx.’
‘I am the daughter of a matriarch,’ Liett flashed. ‘I take orders from no base-born unmated, wingless male.’
Ryll was so furious that his skin flashed all the colours of the spectrum, but Liett simply set her jaw and cracked her wings in his face, as she’d done so often.
The funnel of the Well now loomed so huge that it covered a quarter of the sky, and so black that the world seemed to have slipped into twilight. Tiaan ran to the edge of the pinnacle. The water was more than a third of the way up the sides of the peak, and huge, driven waves lashed up another twenty or thirty spans, washing the scrambling lyrinx away like ants off an anthill.
As the base of the funnel approached, even larger waves formed and moved ponderously out in all directions. The flow of lyrinx up the sides and into the gate slowed to a trickle. The flat area at the top of Nithmak was almost empty now.
The Well swept towards them, depressing the surface of the sea like water going down a prodigious plughole, then drew back. As it did the sea was pulled up with it, and the biggest wave Tiaan had ever seen surged out from the base of the Well; a monster at least fifty spans high. It was nowhere near as high as the pinnacle but the surge would drive the water up and up.
‘It’s going to overtop the pinnacle!’ Tiaan yelled. ‘To the thapter, everyone.’
Malien caught her wrist. ‘It’s too late. If it breaks over the peak, we’re done.’
They watched the wave swell and grow, driving inexorably towards them, its foaming top rising higher and higher until it looked as though it would wash everything away, including the tower. Ryll ran out to the edge, shouting to the climbers to hurry.
He was too late. The wave struck well below the crest but burst in an explosion of foaming brown water that climbed the sides until it lapped the top of Nithmak and swirled across, knee-deep. It rose no further but, as it passed, Tiaan saw lyrinx thrashing in terror on the foam. One by one, they sank. When she looked over, the sides of the pinnacle had been swept clean.
Ryll stood on the brink, staring down into the churning water. His skin had turned completely grey. The Well surged again and another wave began to form, as big as the last, if not bigger.
‘It’s time,’ said Malien. ‘If there’s enough left in the field to lift us.’
As they ran to the thapter, the last surviving lyrinx were passing through the gate. All but one. Ryll was still gazing at the water.
‘Ryll, you must come!’ screamed Liett. ‘You are the last.’
‘The last.’ He teetered on the brink and it looked as though he was going to jump, to join all those thousands who had suffered the most terrible death of all.
Tiaan walked backwards to the thapter, ignoring Nish and Irisis, who were screaming at her. She felt for the ladder and began to climb.
Liett ran out to Ryll. ‘Come on!’ she screamed in his face.
The thapter came to life, whining gently. The wave was swelling, growing enormously, and it would sweep the top of Nithmak clean. Tiaan found herself caught around the waist and lifted bodily.
It was Irisis and she carried Tiaan all the way. Tiaan hung onto the hatch as the thapter lifted, shuddering violently.