‘If Ghorr is defeated, or victorious and so chooses, the cell will simply dissolve into bottomless air.’
‘Then I’m not taking much of a risk. But just in case, tie on to this.’ She passed one end of her line through the bars, tied the other around her hips, took Klarm’s hand and braced herself.
‘Ullii?’ said Irisis, acting on a hunch.
Ullii cursed Irisis under her breath, but put her hand to the lock and the cage melted into empty air, giving the lie to her earlier words about losing her lattice. Irisis, with some effort, swung Klarm up onto a solid footing.
‘Where’s Yggur?’ she said.
‘He was up there, earlier,’ said Klarm, pointing between the topmost airbag and the starboard one, where a gauzy path branched into three. The middle path passed through a triumphal arch, though nothing could be seen beyond it but blue-black emptiness. The right path terminated at what appeared to be a stone garden seat, while the left one wound off into mist. ‘But this labyrinth changes all the time. I don’t know where he is now. Ghorr may have him already.’
‘How did it get here?’ Irisis said as they mounted a stair like airy crystal.
‘Ghorr hunted Yggur up here and Yggur created this place as he went – it was the only defence he had the strength for. Even here, at the seat of Yggur’s power, it was the one shelter he could make without the aid of crystals or artefacts.’
‘But it didn’t work.’
‘It saved his life but he can’t escape it. Ghorr is the father of scrutator magic and he’s got a whole air-dreadnought full of crystals and devices to store and channel his power. Every deception Yggur creates, Ghorr sees through it. And now Ghorr is starting to take control of the labyrinth, and turn its traps and deceptions back on its maker.’ A dull red flash carved slices off the sky above them. ‘See how weak he is. In a few minutes it’ll be over.’
Ullii led them to another cell, this one a cube of glassy nothingness not unlike the steps they were standing on. A bloodstained Flangers, with minor wounds in a dozen places, had been imprisoned inside it, spread-eagled. Ullii freed him as she had Klarm and he hobbled after them.
They mounted a bifurcating ramp to a higher level, a sheer white plane on which rolled two enormous spheres. The nearer one was three or four spans across and made of smoky glass with a metallic lustre. A smaller sphere moved inside the larger, though Irisis could not see what it contained. The distant sphere was even bigger, completely transparent, and contained innumerable smaller spheres, all rolling about inside the larger one.
‘That’s Yggur,’ said Ullii.
A feeble red flash lit up one of the small spheres and they saw a tiny figure inside, staggering from one rolling, tumbling sphere to another like a rat trapped in a maze. The red light silhouetted the occupant of the nearer sphere and it was unmistakably Ghorr.
White light jagged out from Ghorr’s hand, illuminating Yggur’s outer sphere and licking around the outside until it found a way in. One of the inner spheres glowed green, went dark and disappeared. Shortly Irisis heard a faint tinkle, like glass smashing. Looking more closely, she saw that a number of the small spheres had already imploded, leaving just transparencies as tenuous as soap bubbles.
‘If Ghorr catches Yggur inside one …’ said Irisis.
‘With a thousand shards of glass driven through his body, it’ll be the end of him,’ said Klarm.
‘He’s doomed anyway, surely?’
‘As long as there were lots of spheres he could outguess Ghorr. Once there are only a few, sooner or later Ghorr will pick his destination at the same time as Yggur jumps.’
‘It’s not Yggur’s way to be trapped like that. He’ll come out first and attack head-on.’
‘He’s too weak. Ghorr would annihilate him.’
‘Then we’ve got to stop Ghorr.’
‘What if I were to attack his sphere from behind?’ said Flangers. ‘I could take Irisis’s sword.’
‘The sphere was created with the Art,’ said Klarm. ‘You couldn’t break it with a sword, and as soon as you tried he’d roll right over you.’
‘It might give Yggur the chance he needs,’ said Flangers.
‘And you might be throwing away your life for nothing,’ said Irisis. ‘No, Flangers – sword against sword but the Art against the Art. What can we do, Klarm?’
‘Ghorr still holds the keys to the chief scrutator’s chest and, despite his earlier setbacks, he’s still the strongest of all the Council. If he can overpower Yggur, or take him alive, the other scrutators will support him. They worship power – it’s the very meaning of the Council’s existence. Although Ghorr stands revealed as a coward and a vicious thug, if he has the power he holds the Council in his hand.’
Ghorr’s sphere rolled the other way, emitting a double flash that burst two of the glassy bubbles inside Yggur’s sphere. It spun crazily and wheeled off, wobbling across the floor, the figure inside staggering like a drunk.
His options were shrinking to nothing, and Irisis couldn’t let that happen. ‘Ghorr has to be overcome. He must fall.’
‘He stripped me of my scrutator magic before he put me in that cell,’ said Klarm. ‘I can’t stop him and I don’t think anyone can.’
They were above the mist here. Irisis looked back at the survivors of the air-dreadnought fleet, which had gathered over Fiz Gorgo and were turning towards them. ‘What about Fusshte?’ His craft was heading in their direction and she could see him at the bow.
‘By the time he arrives, Yggur will be dead.’
Irisis felt an overwhelming urge to attack blindly, in the hope that something would happen that she could use to her advantage. She was at her best when she acted instinctively. ‘Then it’s up to me.’
She ran towards the middle of the white plane. ‘Ghorr!’ she cried, waving her arms. ‘Chief Scrutator Ghorr.’
A triple flash imploded three globes. ‘Ghorr!’ Irisis waved her sword over her head, but as soon as his sphere turned in her direction she tossed the weapon onto the floor and put her hands in the air.
‘Ghorr!’ she screamed. ‘I’ll tell you my secret. I’ll tell you everything.’
He sent another flash towards his opponent, who reeled off, then spun in her direction. The sphere came right up close, looming four times her height above her. It carved circles around her, though Ghorr never took his eyes off his wounded opponent.
‘You’ll tell me how you, a mere artisan with no talent for the Secret Art, killed Jal-Nish’s mancer on the aqueduct at the manufactory?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘And how you really escaped from your locked cell in Nennifer.’
Good. He didn’t believe that Ullii had done it.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘That too. I’ll tell you everything if you’ll just spare Yggur.’
‘Why do you care? Is he your lover too?’
Yggur was not, but Irisis lowered her eyes and said nothing. Let him think what he liked. All she knew was that, with Flydd so brutalised, perhaps beyond recovery, Yggur was their last hope.
‘Disgusting!’ he said, for that was not his vice. ‘Well, spill it.’
She looked over her shoulder. ‘Do you want them to know too?’
Ghorr spun the sphere, directing a spear of light at Yggur’s bubble, then another and another. All three hit their target. Yggur was still moving from one of the remaining globes to another, but very slowly.
The front of Ghorr’s sphere shimmered to transparency. ‘Step through.’
Irisis had been hoping to entice him out but, clearly, with Yggur still at large, that was a vain hope. She stepped reluctantly towards the transparency.
She felt no resistance, though the instant she was through, the wall began to harden behind her. Irisis panicked and tried to throw herself out again, but it was too late. She put her hands against the wall of the inner sphere. It was just as impenetrable. She was trapped and Ghorr was safe.