Minis consulted a map. ‘Your scrutator, and his command post, are here.’ He indicated a flyspeck just east of Snizort.
They were moving quickly now and their passage left a furrow in the dry grass. Nish was looking back at it when Minis said, ‘I see smoke.’
Smudges of black were rising beyond the hill. ‘That’s burning tar, not grass. Perhaps they’ve set fire to Snizort.’
Minis looked around wildly. The construct veered towards a cluster of boulders fallen from a flat-topped hill.
‘Look out!’ Nish yelled.
Minis jerked the controller and the construct lurched the other way.
‘I’ve heard there’s nearly as much tar outside Snizort as in,’ Nish said hastily. ‘Maybe the enemy set fire to it to make the battle more difficult.’
They approached the battlefield, which formed a ring around Snizort. Minis took the construct to the top of another of those flat-topped hills. The belching black fumes rose from half a dozen places outside the walls. Vicious struggles were going on all over, though from here it was not possible to tell who had the upper hand. The ground shook from the pounding of mighty catapult balls, many of them tar-coated and blazing.
Nish could imagine what it must be like down there – the dust turning to bloody mud, the shrieks of the dying, and those who could not die quickly enough.
‘What is your plan?’ Nish asked.
‘I was hoping you could advise me. You’re so resourceful, Nish.’
‘But Minis, I don’t know anything about Snizort. This is the first time I’ve seen the place.’
‘What are we going to do?’ Minis said miserably.
Nish knew what he’d like to do. Run, as far and fast as he could. ‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘I know you can think of a way. I’m relying on you.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t!’ Nish snapped. ‘Look how strong the walls are.’
‘Please, Nish. You’re all I have.’
Nish looked over the side. He did want to do something, if only because the son of the most powerful man on Santhenar was begging him. If he could remain in Minis’s favour, one day that could be worth the world to him. ‘Let’s go and talk to the scrutator, if he’s not too busy to see us. Which he surely is.’
Minis headed for the army headquarters, on a higher hill closer to Snizort. They passed through five sets of guards but none hindered the son of Vithis. Unfortunately the scrutator was not at the command tent. He had left in the air-floater earlier that morning.
Nish, walking around the edge of the hill by himself, noticed a pair of officers staring – there was a war on yet he wore no uniform. They began to move toward him. He hurried back to the construct, afraid of being conscripted.
‘Come on,’ Nish said. ‘You’ll do no good here.’
They spent the day circling Snizort, well out of catapult range, and at sunset a despairing Minis turned the construct back toward the Aachim camp.
‘Let’s try the scrutator again,’ said Nish.
‘You’ve just missed him,’ said Fyn-Mah as the construct pulled up. The air-floater was whirring away to the south.
Minis began to gasp and tear at his hair. Falling to his knees, he reached out to the sky with both arms. His pupils dilated until only the whites of his eyes could be seen. ‘I can see the future, Nish, and it’s black and red. Blood-red!’
‘What is it, Minis?’ Was he seeing Nish’s future, or his friend’s death?
‘A great bursting!’ His staring eyes fixed on Nish.
‘What do you mean?’
His eyes rolled up into his head, Minis went stiff and without a sound toppled backwards onto the dry grass, where he lay like a slab of petrified wood.
Fyn-Mah came running back with a bucket of water, which she flung in his face. ‘Best cure for hysteria,’ she said.
With a gurgling sound, a bubble formed in Minis’s mouth. Forcing his jaws open, it squeezed out and drifted away. A rumbling belch followed, Minis’s heels drummed on the ground and he opened his eyes. He shuddered, blinked and his eyes rolled down to their normal position. He gave Nish a wan smile. ‘It has to do with them.’
‘Them?’
The air-floater was now just a speck in the south. ‘Your friends – Flydd, the crafter and the seeker. And Snizort.’
‘Is that where they’ve gone?’ Nish asked Fyn-Mah.
The perquisitor seemed moved by the young man’s distress. ‘We believe that the lyrinx have a node-drainer there. Flydd is trying to destroy it.’
It looked as if Minis was going to have another fit. ‘What about Tiaan?’
No one said anything.
‘I’ll go after her, by myself,’ said Minis. ‘if you don’t have the courage to help me.’
‘You’d better tell your father, Minis,’ said Nish.
‘Ha!’ said Minis wildly. ‘He would be pleased to see Tiaan dead. The only person I trust is Tirior, but …’
‘What?’
‘She’s always sneered at my foretellings.’
Nish was fed up with Minis’s frailties. ‘Are you so afraid that it’ll stop you saving the woman you love?’
Tirior was in her tent, reading a despatch. ‘It’s our first message from Stassor,’ she said to Minis, before she was asked. ‘At last.’
‘Why has it taken so long?’ Nish wondered.
‘Stassor lies among mountains too rugged for our constructs. Our messengers had to seek it out on foot. The city proved … difficult to find.’
‘What do the Stassor Aachim say?’
She did not answer. Tirior put the paper aside with a heavy sigh. ‘What have you come for, Minis?’
He told her.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Your foretellings are no more accurate than tossing a coin.’
‘Only when I’ve allowed my head to rule my heart!’ he said angrily. ‘When others have tried to force me.’
‘Very well! Tell me exactly what you saw.’
‘A great, blood-red bursting!’ he exclaimed. ‘Even before I heard that Scrutator Flydd had gone to block the node-drainer –’
‘What?’ Tirior leapt to her feet, scattering papers across the floor of the tent. She gripped Minis by the arm. ‘Where did you hear this?’
‘At the human-army command tent. Perquisitor Fyn-Mah told us,’ said Nish. ‘What’s the matter?’
Tirior sat down and put her head in her hands. ‘When the node-drainer is blocked, it will be like blocking the end of a hose but pumping as hard as ever. Something must give.’
‘And when it does?’ asked Nish.
‘A great bursting,’ said Tirior. ‘It could take half of Snizort with it.’
‘Tiaan will be killed,’ wept Minis.
‘And the secret of her flying construct lost. And that’s not the worst that can happen,’ said Tirior.
‘What is?’ said Nish, but she did not reply.
‘We must save Tiaan.’ Tears were streaming down Minis’s cheeks. ‘We must, Tirior. Please.’
‘We must try,’ she said, ‘though I do not see how we can.’
Tirior sent urgent messages to Vithis but received no reply. ‘He’s right across the battlefield, and sore pressed,’ said the messenger. ‘I couldn’t get through to him.’
‘I don’t like this at all,’ said Tirior.
‘Please, Tirior,’ begged Minis.
‘Be quiet!’ She was smoothing down a scroll with her long fingers. The end curled up; she smoothed it down again. ‘If I go in, I probably won’t come out again. But who among us would have a better chance?’
She inspected Nish dispassionately. ‘I must go, whatever the consequences. Nish, you may come with me, if you dare. I’d sooner not risk one of my own. And, after all, you bear some responsibility for this situation.’
‘How do you work that out?’ said Nish.
‘Your scrutator has gone in to commit this insane act. Minis, you will stay behind to advise your father what I have done. I would not have him accuse my clan of wilfully risking his only heir.’