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‘Poison?’ Jett spat. ‘Do not judge me by your standards, scum! A warrior of Weld does not use poison as a weapon! A dagger to the heart was what you deserved, but the witch Petronelle was always on the watch. So I wrote the note. You should have taken the warning while you had the chance. Now I will do what I have longed to do for days!’

His hands reaching for Rye’s throat, he launched himself forward and fell heavily, screaming in pain and rage as the armour shell repelled him.

‘Sorcerer!’ he hissed, crossing his fingers and his wrists. ‘So that was your pay for betraying your people! That is how the enemy of Weld has made you his creature!’

‘Farr is not the enemy of—’

‘Liar!’ Jett shouted. ‘Do you think I do not know? Farr has never fooled me! I have always known the skimmers were his doing. I have always known that he was duping his people, rousing their hatred, to persuade them to make war on Weld!’

‘Jett, you are wrong!’ Rye burst out. ‘Farr is not going to make war on Weld! The enemy he is about to attack is our enemy too—a sorcerer from across the sea, who has taken possession of another part of Dorne.’

Because I caused Olt’s death, he thought but did not say. Because when Olt’s life ended the ring of protection he threw around this island vanished.

He fought down his guilt and concentrated on Jett, who was sneering in disbelief.

‘You must believe me, Jett,’ he begged. ‘Some call this sorcerer the Master. Others call him the Lord of Shadows. He is breeding the skimmers in a place called the Harbour. I have been there! I have seen them!’

‘I daresay you have, traitor!’ Jett snarled. ‘But you cannot trick me with your half-truths! I have always known that Farr must have a powerful ally. I have always known that the skimmers were being bred far from here! How else could Farr have kept his doting people in ignorance for so long?’

He had an answer for everything. Despairingly, Rye glanced at Sonia. To his dismay he saw that she was looking at Jett thoughtfully, biting her lip.

Sonia! You cannot believe him! He is raving! His hatred for Farr has blinded him to the truth!

Sonia met his eyes.

Or are we the ones who have been blinded?

Her question hissed into Rye’s mind like chill wind. As he shook his head helplessly, more words came to him.

Ask him about the pipeline …

‘The pipeline, Jett … What do you know of that?’ he made himself say.

Jett gave another hoarse, bitter laugh. ‘I am not so stupid that I have not guessed its true purpose, if that is what you mean! I am not an oaf who thinks “pipeline” must always mean “water”.’

‘What—what are you saying?’ Rye stammered, suddenly feeling as if he was choking.

‘Do you keep up the pretence even now?’ Jett made an impatient movement, pushed himself up from the floor and slumped back onto his chair.

‘I know what you know, Keelin,’ he said, in a flat, exhausted voice. ‘I know that today at sunset more skimmers than Weld has ever seen will stream from the holds of cargo ships into the giant tank where the pipeline meets the sea. I know that those skimmers will surge through the pipeline, unseen and without troubling a soul in New Nerra or Riverside. I know they will explode into the Fell Zone and fly on, over the Wall. And I know that tonight Weld will end, and that when Farr’s barbarians enter it tomorrow morning, there will hardly be a soul left alive to defend it.’

His head flopped forward till his chin touched his chest. He shuddered all over then was still, as if he had suddenly fallen asleep or fainted.

And as Rye struggled against the ghastly pictures the man’s words had conjured up, a memory came to him on a wave of sickness.

He saw himself standing in front of a red wall, reading a large sign:

He saw himself creeping through a vast vault of sleeping skimmers. He saw himself pressing the light crystal to the strange, round, black-rimmed door in the back wall of the vault, and staring out at an oily, heaving sea.

And he saw the ships that waited at anchor there, each with a black circle marked low on its side—a circle to which a tunnel could be attached.

Rye! You did not tell me this! You did not mention ships waiting outside the Harbour building!

Rye’s head jerked up as Sonia’s voice rang in his mind. Sonia had shared his vivid memories and had drawn her own conclusions. He could feel her panic.

‘Why did you not tell me, Rye?’ she asked aloud. Her voice was shaking.

Rye searched for an answer. ‘It—was a detail. It did not seem important.’

How feeble the words sounded, in the face of the fearful images flying unguarded from Sonia’s mind to his! Weld facing a skimmer onslaught too great for it to bear. Annocki and Faene huddled in the damaged Keep, trying to comfort terrified, injured children while ravenous skimmers ripped and tore at the gradually crumbling walls. The Warden fluttering uselessly, never considering for a moment the idea of throwing open his private door and ushering everyone he could find down to the Chamber of the Doors, and safety.

Rye wet his lips. ‘Jett is only guessing,’ he said, hardly recognising the sound of his own voice. ‘What he says cannot be true!’

‘It can,’ said Sonia flatly. ‘If Sholto was here, he would tell you the same. We wondered why the Master has not invaded this place. Now we know. He does not need to invade. He and Farr are working together. Farr sends the Master Riverside hogs to work in the Diggings, food for the workers in the Harbour, myrmon for the Harbour healers. The Master sends Farr skimmers, and the means to conquer Weld.’

‘No!’ Rye shook his head violently. ‘Farr is—a good man, and a great leader. He would never ally himself with the Master!’

‘Farr may not know what the Master is,’ Sonia said, her voice hard. ‘He may think he can control him. He will learn better, I imagine, when at last the Master’s own territory is empty of jell.’

She moved to the open window, leaned on the sill and looked out. ‘There is jell in plenty in those fields, we are fairly sure of that. And according to Dirk the earth of Weld is full of it. The Master will not be able to resist mining such rich sources for long—even for the sake of hogs and myrmon.’

His mind reeling, Rye joined her at the window and looked out at the countryside spread out below him like an embroidered quilt. From this great height it seemed strangely unreal and at the same time familiar, like a place he had once seen in a dream.

He stared out at the chequered green and gold of the fields, at the gently rolling hills beyond, at the pipeline and the river with the road running in between. The Fell Zone seemed to float on the horizon like a dense green cloud. The sky above its highest point was stained an ugly brown.

Rye narrowed his eyes and bent forward, peering at the brown smudge. Was that—could it be …?

He turned and snatched up the far glass from the table. Pressing it to his eye he focused on the brown patch of sky then slowly lowered the glass a fraction.

And there, directly below the sickly brown haze, was the steep, bare rock of the hollow mountaintop. The stain in the sky was the exhausted breath of Weld. Rye’s stomach turned over. Abruptly he took the glass from his eye, and realised that Sonia was looking at him enquiringly.

‘Weld,’ he mumbled. ‘You can see it from here.’

Her mouth tightened as she nodded.

Fearful of what she might go on to say, Rye made a show of looking down, as if searching for Dirk and Sholto. There were more people pressed together at the base of the watchtower now, and the number of soldiers guarding the iron door had increased to five.

The little park behind the watchtower was deserted. The old people and the children had left, no doubt because of the growing noisiness of the crowd. The park was bathed in sunlight and bright with flowers. Right in the middle, encircled by a low, clipped hedge, a small tree spread its graceful branches over a large stone tablet that perhaps bore the park’s name, or a list of the founders of Riverside.