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.'Your Art no longer holds.Bring the crates, troops, and let's get on with it.''At last he acts,' said Orgestre.'Well done, Flydd.Now let's deal with the enemy in the only way they can understand.'Yggur said nothing, but his eyes showed such contempt that Irisis had to look away.As they were leaving Flydd pointed to the geomantic globe.'Put that in its box and bring it as well.You never know when it might come in handy.'S IXTY-EIGHTThe poorly trained guards quickly surrendered once they saw that their master had fallen.They were herded into Kimli's thapter, which had been concealed in one of the caverns.A distraught Kimli was found, reunited with her machine and told to take the soldiers to the army camp, which had been set up some leagues south of Ashmode.Yggur went with them.Daesmie and Merryl were also discovered in makeshift cells and freed.Flydd's troops loaded the crates into Kattiloe's thapter and they shot up from the terrace in clouds of yellow chalk.'We didn't ask him about Nish,' she said miserably.'I had more urgent business to attend to than your bloody love life,' said Flydd.'You can ask him yourself when he comes round.'They flew high above the cliffs towards Ashmode, but long before they reached it she saw the lyrinx camps, extending like dark ink blotches for leagues along the brink of the uppermost cliffs.'Fly over them,' said Flydd.'A trifle lower, Kattiloe.Let's find out exactly what we're up against.'Kattiloe put the nose of the thapter down and headed towards the nearest of the camps, but shortly the noise of the mechanism cut out.She drew a sharp breath and her fingers danced over the controls.'What's the matter?' said Flydd.The thapter was falling, gathering speed, the wind whistling around it.'I can't draw any power.The field is gone.'Gilhaelith, who was slumped against the side wall fingering the bump on his head, gave a thin smile.'What a pickle.''What's going on?' cried Flydd.'Gilhaelith?''The lyrinx have walled themselves off with a dead zone.You can't approach them in any contrivance that needs power.''How have they done that?'The whistling was now so loud that Irisis could hardly hear.She went up on tiptoes, looked over the side and blanched.The ground was approaching at frightening speed and, in what was obviously a game of bluff, she hoped Flydd would show sense and give in quickly.'I should have thought that was obvious.With their power patterner, Flydd,' Gilhaelith chuckled.'It's like your field controller, only better.''How did you know about it?' Flydd said.'I tapped into Golias's globe.You may control the fields, if Tiaan ever comes back with her map, but they can control the flow of power from nodes.And they know them all.They mapped Santhenar a hundred and fifty years ago, trying to find Lyr Rinx.''Surr,' said Kattiloe, pulling at her blonde plaits with her free hand, 'what should I do?''How the hell would I know?' Flydd said savagely.He looked down at the rapidly approaching ground and cracked.'How do we get out of this, Gilhaelith? I know you've got a way.''Makes no difference to me.I'm dying and you've taken away my last hope.''What hope? Quickly, man.''To exchange the relics for their power patterner, to see if I could repair the damage in my brain with it,' Gilhaelith said with provocative deliberation.'You can use it when we get it,' Flydd said at once.'Anything you want.''And I want my freedom,' said Gilhaelith.'On your honour.As a man, not a scrutator, of course.''You have my word,' snapped Flydd.Gilhaelith stood up, wobbly on his long shanks.'Turn away, little Kattiloe.Make for that knobbed peak to the south, if you can.''Not sure that I can make it, surr,' said Kattiloe, turning the machine.'Thapters glide like bricks.''Well, just do your best.''What if we can't reach the peak?' said Irisis.Gilhaelith gave her a lazy smile.'We make a hole in the ground you could fit a house in.'Kattiloe's fingers worked furiously and the machine turned, though it still seemed to be going down much faster than across.The ground wasn't far away at all now.The thapter hit a broad column of rising air, lurched sharply, and Kattiloe expertly used the lift to skip across to the other side.The thapter bounced as it came out again, heading directly for the knob and looking as though it was going to plunge straight into it at high speed.The mechanism groaned, died away, grunted, then resumed its familiar whine.Kattiloe jerked the controller and the thapter shot by the side of the knob then curved away to the south.No one spoke for a long time, although Gilhaelith was still smiling.'Gilhaelith,' Irisis said as pleasantly as she could, 'where's Nish?''I left him behind when we snatched the relics,' Gilhaelith said, as if Nish were of no significance.'What do you mean, left him behind?' She took him by the coat and lifted him to his toes.Gilhaelith was a good head taller, but he looked alarmed.'Dozens of lyrinx were just seconds away and the soldiers on the ground were dead.I couldn't wait for Nish to get aboard, so I went without him.' He shrugged.Irisis let him go, turned away, then swung back and brought a ferocious right hook out of nowhere to crash into his jaw.It drove him against the wall, and as he crumpled to the floor she said, 'If Nish is dead, so are you.'She stumbled down the ladder, blinking tears out of her eyes, and threw herself on the floor between Merryl and one of the soldiers.Merryl gripped her shoulder.'I think I've cracked a knuckle on the bastard,' she muttered.Irisis was making last-minute checks of the field controller, her knuckles bound in a yellow rag, when a pair of lyrinx flew towards the command area, a blue truce flag fluttering behind them
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