Varus spread his legs on opposite sides of the gryphon's back. Uktena watched with a slight smile; his arms were crossed.
Alphena forced her lips together and hopped onto the gryphon, folding her legs under her. The other choice would have been to seat herself behind the wings, where she wouldn't have anything to hold onto unless she grabbed handsful of flight feathers. She gripped her brother's waist with both hands, hoping he had enough sense to cling to their mount's neck.
"Lord Gryphon," she said, "we are ready."
The gryphon turned his head to stare at Uktena, then dipped it in what must have been a sign of honor. He rose onto his hind legs and sprang upward, slamming his great wings down with the same motion.
Varus rocked violently, but he managed to hang on. Alphena suspected that the gryphon was deliberately keeping his back more level than he had bothered to do when she alone rode him. She wasn't used to riding, but she was an athlete and had a sense of balance.
They rose swiftly, curving away. Alphena looked back over her shoulder.
The world behind them tossed and turned in the grips of colossal violence. Procron's spire shattered under what must have been an enormous impact from all sides at once. Reduced to powder, the crystal walls spurted upward like the flume of a spouting whale.
Uktena, a giant standing astride the world, looked up at Alphena from the midst of the destruction. He raised his hand in salute; then the scene became a spherical mirror and faded into the distance.
Goodbye, my friend.
Corylus waited. His thumbs were consciously raised above the triggers as his ship slid toward the stern of the vessel which had just come through the portal. The target slanted downward, trying to reach the ground under control instead of plunging from the sky as a flaming wreck.
The Servitors in the bow had rotated their weapon as much as they could, but that was only sixty degrees off axis, and the ship itself couldn't turn quickly enough to face the renegade vessel which had already destroyed the two preceding Atlanteans. Escape was the best choice, but it wouldn't be possible.
The Minos controlling the ship looked back at their pursuer. Corylus triggered his weapon, touching the top of his target's mast but not igniting the beating sails. Most of the jet sprayed across the passengers crowding the bow. The humans burst into screaming flame, but fire ran off the Servitors without affecting them.
Corylus let their speed carry him closer, then squeezed the triggers again. The muzzle spat a fiery gobletful. It splashed the right-hand wing of the sail which blazed like dry grass. Still forty feet in the air, the Atlantean vessel rotated to starboard and spilled its human freight before nosing down into field.
Corylus turned. "The flame stopped!" he shouted to the Ancient. He didn't know whether the fox-faced magician could understand Latin-or any other human language-but he was pretty sure that he could figure out what was going on even without words. "We don't have any more fire!"
The sprite sat disconsolately on the deck between Corylus and the mast. She didn't look up when he shouted. Violence didn't disturb her, but the use of fire had obviously affected her the way wanton destruction of books would have done Pandareus, who stood at the railing near her.
The scholar wore a look of bright interest at present. Corylus knew that Pandareus wasn't a cruel man, but witnessing unique events was of more importance to him than the fact that the events involved hundreds of strangers burning alive or being smashed to jelly.
The Ancient looked at Corylus from the stern. He raised his right hand, crooked the fingers into claws, and with a terrible scream ripped them down.
Corylus grinned through his mesh visor. He and the Ancient didn't share a language, but they could communicate well enough. He drew his sword.
The ship was climbing again to get higher than the portal. A pair of Atlantean vessels were squeezing through together. The Minoi understood the danger now, but their ships were too overloaded for nimble maneuvers.
"Master Corylus?" Pandareus said. "Is there a way I can be of service?"
Corylus took a deep breath. His nose and throat were dry because of backwash from the fire projector. Even with his armor, he had found it unpleasant to use. No wonder the glass men crewed the weapons on Atlantean ships.
"Thank you, master, no," Corylus said. "We'll come alongside their ships now and I'll kill the Minoi who control them. You wouldn't-well, you don't have armor."
Pandareus laughed. "A matter of no present significance, as we both know," he said.
Corylus coughed into his hand. He had seen how many ships were lined up on the other side of the portal. Speaking as much to himself as to the scholar, he said, "There's a lot of them, but they're very sluggish. They should have landed the civilians when they realized they were going to have to fight."
"Do you think any of the passengers would have been willing to disembark, my student?" Pandareus said, arching an eyebrow in question. "Since they know what surely awaits all who are left behind in Atlantis."
"Ah," said Corylus. "Sorry, Master. I wasn't thinking."
"You were thinking as a soldier, Master Corylus," Pandareus said. "As you should be, in the present circumstances."
The pair of ships wallowing through the portal would have been an ideal target if the flame projector were still working. The Atlanteans had to crawl even more slowly through the portal than usual so that the ships didn't smash one another even before they met the enemy.
Without the flame projector, though, it meant that Corylus had two enemies to deal with when they finally did arrive. The Minoi were using bad tactics, but they'd gotten lucky.
Corylus smiled grimly. That wasn't the first time such a thing had happened in battle. A pity that it was working against the defenders of Carce now, but it wasn't the first time for that either.
The Ancient had lifted them well above the portal and to the starboard side of their enemies. Their flame projectors would be lethal; Corylus could only defeat the Atlanteans if he approached them individually from the stern, and even then there were still more coming through.
Spectators on the Field of Mars was shouting with enthusiasm. Even the greatest fool born could see how dangerous it was to stand on ground where warships, each weighing as much as several elephants, were likely to fall, but the field was if anything more crowded than it had been when Corylus first arrived over Carce.
On the other hand, the spectators were likely to survive longer than he was. He balanced the sword in his hand as the Atlantean ships turned sunwise together toward their enemy.
The Ancient slanted down like an eagle stooping on an osprey, using their advantage of speed and maneuverability to curve toward the enemy's sterns. The Minoi weren't used to real combat. If they had turned against one another instead of in parallel, one or the other would be prow-on to the attack.
There was a new commotion in the crowd. What at first Corylus thought was a bear pushed its way out of the crush and loped through the relatively fewer spectators close to the obelisk. The portal gleamed and sizzled above him.
The creature ran with an odd rocking motion, swinging its forelegs together, then its hind legs. Only when it leaped to the obelisk and began climbing did Corylus realize it must be an ape. The pink granite was carved with Egyptian picture-writing, but he didn't think he would be able to climb it with such handholds. The bears he had frequently hunted on the frontiers couldn't climb as well as he did.
The ape was a question for another time, and probably for another person-a living person-to ask. Corylus gripped the railing with his left hand, then remembered that Pandareus might not understand what was about to happen.