'Floater's down!' shouted Yorme. 'Jym, grab the tethers. Get up the ladder, surr, quick as you can.'

'You first, Irisis,' said the scrutator. 'We're safe for a minute. They can only see the top of the floater here, in the viaduct.'

'But when we take off '

'Yes, that's the dangerous bit. Come on.'

She went up, hand over hand, which in her blindness Irisis found decidedly unpleasant. The rope ladder swayed alarmingly and her weight pushed the section she was standing on under the keel of the air-floater, so she felt she was trying to climb around a corner. Irisis had no idea where she was in relation to anything. What if she was hanging over the ravine? Her sweaty hands slipped on the ropes. She gasped.

'Get a move on!' shouted the scrutator. 'It's not a party.'

Strong hands caught her under the arms and lifted her over the side. 'Over there,' said a deep male voice.

'I can't see!'

Someone took her hand and led her out of the way, sitting her on a canvas seat. Someone else thumped beside her. 'That's the lot,' the deep voice shouted. 'Take it up.'

'No!' yelled the scrutator. 'Get it moving inside the aqueduct, then up as fast as you can possibly go. That'll give them less time to aim.'

'The soldiers are still alive,' said the deep voice. 'They're almost within range.'

'All right! Just go!'

'All hands to the ballast, then hang on. Bowmen, ready your crossbows. Pilot Hila, don't let them get a second shot at us.'

The air-floater lurched. 'Ready? Ballast overboard.'

It lurched again, then shot up. Irisis clutched onto the arm next to her in naked terror. The scrutator's hand held hers until the sensation died away. The crossbows tw.a.n.ged. The rotor spun up to a whine.

'Firing, surr. They're going to go close. Turn it! Turn it!'

The machine turned, too slowly for her liking.

'Look out!' the deep voice cried.

Wood smashed and splinters went everywhere; some landed in her hair. 'What's happened?' she screamed. 'We're crashing, aren't we?'

'That was close,' said the scrutator calmly. 'Fortunately the javelard hit one of the timbers of the cabin, not the balloon. It went in one side and out the other. No harm done. No one hurt.'

'Firing again,' said the deep voice. 'Too low. We've done, it, surr. They'll not touch us now.'

'Very good,' said Flydd. 'Steer a course north, if you please, but take it slowly. I don't dare arrive in daylight.'

THIRTY-SEVEN.

Irisis could smell herself, and the scrutator. They both reeked of blood, sweat and fear. 'I wouldn't mind a drink,' she said hoa.r.s.ely, and discovered that she was trembling.

'I'll get us one.' The chair creaked. Presently he returned, pressing a mug into her hands.

She sniffed. It was ale, of a sort, but all that mattered was that it be wet. Irisis downed it at a single swallow. 'My eyes hurt.' She saw not a glimmer.

The scrutator inspected them closely, his fingers holding her eyelids open, put pads over each and bound them on with a thick strip of cloth.

'I'm so tired,' she said. 'I could sleep standing up.'

'Let's talk first,' said Flydd.

'Are we heading for Minnien, Xervish?'

'Yes. To do the job I've been talking about for a month. To find out what's happened to the node.'

'I'll need help.'

'You'll have the guards, another two artisans and a mancer.'

That reminded her of the mancer who had died on the ladder after Jal-Nish's mysterious horn blast. 'Who was the fellow Jal-Nish killed?'

'Mancer Thards. Poor old Thards,' said the scrutator. 'He was always an unlucky man.'

'So now I need another mancer,' she said thoughtfully.

'I've already organised a replacement.'

'When do I get to meet him, or her?'

'You already have.'

'You!' She stared sightlessly in his direction.

'Is that so bad?'

'No, of course not. It's just, well, you're the scrutator!'

'Not for much longer. Jal-Nish will be writing his report right now and there's no one to contradict him. In a few days it will be in the hands of the Council. They'll convene an emergency meeting where my supporters will have no choice but to vote against me. I'll be struck off the list, broken to a non-citizen, and there will be a reward for my head, whether or not it's attached to my body. You'd be well advised to stay clear of me, lest you be tainted the same way.'

'I imagine I already am. It's too late to do anything about that.'

'I suggest you think again.'

'The advice of a non-citizen is as worthless as he is,' she said loftily. 'In any case, that is not the way I do things.'

'So I'm beginning to discover. Just what did did you do back there.' you do back there.'

'What makes you think I did anything?'

'I may have fallen low but I'm still a mancer, and one of rare subtlety, if I do say so myself.'

'Not one of rare modesty at any rate.' She laid her head on his k.n.o.bby shoulder.

'Well?'

She told him. Flydd whistled. 'Now there's something I don't think has ever been done before; probably never thought of. The Council may even readmit me, just for telling them how you did it.'

'Really?'

'Probably not, but they'll certainly be interested to find out.'

'Where are my artisans?'

'Up the other end, somewhere. There's Zoyl Aarp and Oon-Mie.'

Zoyl Aarp was a lad of sixteen, big and muscular, but with the face of a ten-year-old, for which he had been ragged unmercifully in the manufactory. He behaved like a ten-year-old most of the time, being p.r.o.ne to temper tantrums and fits of 'poor me'. He was a brilliant, intuitive artisan, though his craftsmanship was rudimentary. He had no patience for fine work and Irisis usually finished his controllers off, but he was right for this job.

Oon-Mie was the opposite, small with a st.u.r.dy frame, a broad face marred by a flat nose, and eyebrows plucked to pencil marks. No one would have called her pretty but she had an impish grin that curled up the left corner of her mouth. Oon-Mie had three children in the creche, each by a different father. She had a one-track mind, chiefly concerning intimate relations between men and women, but it was always good-humoured. Everyone liked her and Irisis felt better just knowing she was here.

She could relax at last. She rested her head on her arm and fell asleep.

The air-floater drifted serenely across the skies, heading northeast toward the coast. Nothing disturbed its stately progress. Once, a lyrinx wheeling in the air above a burning town noted it pa.s.s by, but before the creature could react, the air-floater vanished into thick cloud. As the sun set, it emerged long enough for Navigator Nivulee to study the land below through her spygla.s.s, and compare it with her map. Like all air-floater crew, Nivulee was small a bony girl with waves of dark hair cascading down her back. Her uniform was too big for her and her nails bitten to the quick.

'That way.' She pointed a little more east, with a bleeding finger.

Twice in the night the navigator checked their bearings, using the lights of coastal cities, and a little after midnight told the pilot to go down. They went back and forth for an hour while the pilot muttered and an increasingly worried Nivulee checked her charts over and again; then finally she looked out the port side, nodded and indicated a ma.s.sif that reared up to a double horn.

The pilot went around it three times in the light of a sliver of moon before the scrutator said, 'Over there. Can't you go any faster?'

'We're running on the Gornies field and it's a long way away.'

'Of course,' said Flydd. 'The Minnien field has failed. That's why we're here.'

The air-floater set down as lightly as thistledown. The pa.s.sengers descended the rope ladder. The scrutator gave instructions to the pilot, who nodded and raised her hand in salute. The air-floater lifted off and soon was just a shadow whirring into the night sky.

'This way,' said the scrutator. 'Let's get under cover before it's light. Then we'll go over the plan again.'

Irisis had slept the whole trip and woke to find herself in darkness. Then she remembered. She was blind.

Someone, not Flydd, helped her down the ladder. Her feet landed on uneven ground that slipped underfoot. It felt and sounded like shale. The air smelt different: a faint salty tang mixed with the sharp odour of a crushed herb whose name she did not know. It was considerably warmer than the manufactory.

So, she was on the coast somewhere, or near it. Minnien was just a name to her and she could not have traced it on a map. There was not even a village here, only a place name so old that people had forgotten where it came from.

But there was a node at Minnien, and it had failed, causing the loss of fifty clankers and hundreds of lives. She closed her eyes and saw the b.l.o.o.d.y plain, the wrecked machines that had taken years to build, the broken bodies and the red-mouthed, feeding lyrinx. If the enemy had made this node fail, they could do it anywhere. Everywhere in which case clankers would become useless and the war must be lost. It was up to her to find out why. The job had been daunting when she'd been sighted. Now it felt impossible.

They walked around the side of a steep slope, one foot higher than the other, for a long time. Irisis plodded along, putting her feet where she was told, holding onto someone's hand. No one spoke. She heard nothing but slate sliding underfoot, smelt only crushed herbs and the sea breeze.

Eventually they stopped and her guide sat her down on a sloping slab of rock. Her fingers traced its smooth surface and sharp edges. Food and drink was handed around. Irisis took what she was given, listening to the talk but alienated from the faces behind it.

'Hush!' said the scrutator. 'Irisis?'

'Yes?'

'What have you got to say?'

'Come here.'

He moved to her side, the slab settling under his weight. 'What's the matter?'

She clutched his arm, felt for his ear and whispered, 'I can't do it. I don't know where the node is. I don't even know what what it is. What are we supposed to do first?' it is. What are we supposed to do first?'

'You could start by trying to visualise the field.'

'There is is no field.' no field.'

He sighed. 'The node may not be completely dead. Take hold of your pliance and do what you would do if you were were trying to see the field.' trying to see the field.'

She did so.

'Tell me what you see,' said the scrutator.

'I don't see anything at all.'

'Are you sure? Other artisans have been brought here since the field failed.'

'Then why don't you ask them?' she said.

'I have. That's part of the reason I brought you here.'

'Oh?'

'You are better at visualising the field than most artisans.'

'Except Tiaan!' she snapped.

'Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself,' he snapped back. 'Yes, except Tiaan, if you must. Tiaan is quite exceptional. But then, her heritage ...'

She wondered about that as she tried again. There had always been something strange about Tiaan. Putting the distraction out of mind, she focussed on where the field should be. This time she did pick something up, the very faintest wisp rising from not far away.

Emptying her mind, Irisis allowed the wisp to flow by. Another followed it, as tenuous as mist, though with the slightest blue tinge. She traced it down. It seemed to be coming from somewhere deep underground, though it was impossible to determine where fields were difficult to a.s.sociate precisely with the structures that generated them, and anyway, she could not see the peaks.

Giving up on that path, Irisis withdrew, visualising the wisps from further away. That was better; they now made a drifting, smeared-out trail and as she shifted viewpoint again she saw another trail of wisps a long way to the left, and a third to the right.

Pulling back as far as she could go, Irisis realised that they were rising in a kind of squashed figure-eight formation, apparently offset from the twin-peaked hill they were sitting on, as if mimicking not the hill itself but some subterranean structure.

'I think the node is regenerating the field!' she exclaimed.