Ghorr shrieked as he fell halfway through the floor. His clothes exploded into rags, revealing a wattled, sack-like belly bulging between a pair of tightly laced corsets, fat-marbled upper arms, the left one stained with old blood, and wobbling fish-belly thighs. The illusions he’d maintained for decades evaporated. His lips shrank, displaying yellow, corroded teeth and retreating gums, and jowls saggy enough to contain a handful of marbles each. The mane of hair vanished apart from a few dingy straps dangling over his ears.

The tightness around her throat was gone. Irisis sucked in a breath, rubbing her bruised throat as she tried to work out what Ullii had done. She’d destroyed Ghorr’s knot, an analogue of his mancer’s self, and her lattice in the process. She’d damaged Ghorr, stripped him of much of his mancer’s power, but had she destroyed it utterly? Surely not, or this phantom world would have vanished and they would all have fallen into the forest. So something still remained. What would he do with it?

She got up and limped across to join her friends.

SEVENTEEN

‘You haven’t finished me yet,’ said Ghorr. ‘But I can finish you.’

‘Your power is broken, Ghorr,’ said Klarm, making no secret of his derision. ‘You’ll never get it back.’

‘There’s more than one kind of power,’ Ghorr choked, trying to pull the rags over his sagging, repulsive frame.

‘You needn’t bother,’ said Irisis. ‘It’d take a sail to cover that up.’

Ghorr shot her a venomous glance, took three steps to the collapsed remains of his sphere and from inside lifted an unusual multiple crossbow. Irisis hadn’t seen one like it for ages. A massive device that only a strong man could use, it fired five bolts at once. Jal-Nish had designed the bow as a lyrinx killer long ago, though it had proved too unwieldy in the battlefield. Before anyone could move, he had its five bolts trained on them.

‘Come out, Yggur,’ he said.

Nails scratched on glass, then a blackened hand flopped over the nearer side of the hemisphere. A frizzy head and ebony face rose up above the side, frost-grey eyes brilliant against the soot.

‘Out!’ Ghorr jerked the crossbow at him.

Yggur climbed out and staggered across to the others, charred pieces of clothing flaking off him like the black snow of a few minutes ago. He could barely stand, but at least he was alive.

‘Five with one blow,’ Ghorr said. ‘It’ll have to do. Any last words, my friends? A simple acknowledgment of my mastery will do.’

Klarm began to speak but Ullii, who was standing beside Nish and Irisis, said quietly, ‘Do you love me, Nish?’

After a long pause he replied, ‘Ah, Ullii, I’m sorry. I thought I did, once and … I’ll always care for you. But no, I don’t love you. I can’t.’

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. Turning to Nish, she took his hand in her little hands.

‘What for?’ he said numbly.

‘You’ve set me free. My lattice is truly gone this time and it will never come back. There’s nothing to keep me now.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She let go of his hand. Klarm was still speaking.

‘Enough!’ snapped Ghorr. ‘You never did know when to stop, Klarm. That’s why you were never admitted to the Council.’

‘For which I’m mightily glad, as it’s turned out,’ said Klarm.

Ullii took a small step forward. She looked little and frail, her skin was practically transparent, but her back was straight and her head held high.

‘What pathetic last words,’ said Ghorr to Klarm. ‘Anyone else have anything to say?’ He took no notice of Ullii. Ghorr had always held her in contempt. Run away, little mouse, he’d sneered in Nennifer. ‘Cryl-Nish?’

Ullii kept moving, and all at once Irisis did understand. ‘No!’ She reached out for the seeker.

Ghorr swung the crossbow at Irisis, struggling to keep it steady, and Ullii sprang.

He fired just as she reached him, knocking the crossbow to one side. Four of its bolts tore through the snowy floor but the fifth struck Ullii in the chest, felling her instantly.

Ghorr let the useless bow fall. As Flangers and Irisis threw themselves at him, he tore one of the crystals from his belt, formed a circular section of the floor into a slide, leapt into it and disappeared.

Nish fell to his knees and lifted Ullii’s head into his lap. There was a neat hole in the centre of her chest, hardly bleeding at all. ‘Why did you do that?’ he wept. He kissed her on the forehead and then on the mouth. ‘Dear Ullii, you didn’t –’

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Yggur stood there, looking down sombrely.

‘I didn’t want to be here any longer. I’m going to Myllii and Yllii,’ she said with a joyous smile. Ullii squeezed Nish’s hand, closed her eyes and died.

‘Come on,’ said Klarm. ‘As soon as Ghorr gets to the bottom he’ll dissolve this place, and then we’re done. I’ve got a little power back but not enough to maintain all this.’

Nish picked up Ullii’s body, cradling it in his arms. There was no point to it, for she was gone, but Irisis would have done the same. Ullii had, despite all her frailties, been one of them for a long time now. The spirit might be gone but the mortal flesh demanded a dignified completion.

‘We’ll never get down in time,’ said Flangers. ‘He must be nearly there now.’

‘Look!’ cried Irisis, pointing to a rope ladder that ran up to the high central balloon. ‘That’s real.’

They ran, and Irisis could feel the floor becoming more insubstantial with every step. Pieces fell out, leaving ragged holes that she had to dart around, or try to leap, and hope that what lay beyond was solid. She reached the ladder just ahead of Klarm, whose dwarfish scuttle could be surprisingly fast, considering the caliper.

‘Up!’ he snapped. ‘Give them room.’

Irisis went up a span. Klarm remained where he was. Flangers laboured across, his feet sinking into the floor and clouds of its failing material pulling up every time he lifted his feet. Yggur lurched a few steps behind. Patches of red skin were exposed where his charred clothing had flaked away.

The phantom world shook; chunks of floor fell away on all sides. Flangers came up the ladder. Klarm helped Yggur to the rope. ‘Go down!’

Yggur began to do so, mechanically and painfully.

Nish was still several spans away, making slow progress, but would not lay Ullii’s body down. In the circumstances, Irisis began to think he was being excessively noble. ‘Come on!’ she snapped.

Klarm stepped onto the floor, thrust out an arm and jerked him to the rope ladder. Nish clung to it with one hand.

‘She’s gone, Nish,’ Irisis said. ‘She doesn’t care.’

‘But I do,’ said Nish. ‘She loved me and I couldn’t repay her by loving her in return.’

‘Love doesn’t work that way,’ she said waspishly. ‘I should know.’

He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘And, despite everything I did to her, she gave her life for me.’

‘Ullii was glad to go,’ said Klarm. ‘There was no longer anything to keep her here. We need not weep for her, Nish – only for ourselves.’

‘I intend to bury her with my own hands, and then to honour her,’ said Nish. ‘I let her down – that’s why she’s gone.’

Irisis gritted her teeth but said nothing.

The ladder shook and slowly began to move through the mist.

‘Well spoken, lad,’ said Klarm, ‘but first we must get out of here. We’re still on Ghorr’s air-dreadnought, do you realise, and judging by its motion the pilot has come to.’

‘Ghorr will start shooting at us soon,’ Irisis muttered.

‘He won’t want to, for fear of hitting the airbags,’ said Klarm.

‘What’s left of his crew will come out of hiding, and he can recruit others from the survivors of the other craft,’ said Irisis. ‘If he hasn’t already cut it free.’