When they were equidistant to the two nearest sentinel spires, Jordan closed his eyes and cast out his Wind senses to the thing. He could see abundant mecha thriving in the dust. It made the spires visible in outline, like any structure. He could not see into them, however, nor could he hear anything other than the whisper of the rocks telling themselves their names.

"I don't think this is such a good idea," said Tamsin. She looked startled, as though she had just come to her senses after a dream-filled night. "Let's go back."

"The horses... I don't know if they can go any further."

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

He looked at the panting horses. "Let's make camp. Then we'll see."

They made a circuit of the area around the desal, and discovered that at some time in the past, someone or something had gathered some of the plates of rock that had tumbled loose when the desal grew, and leaned them on one another to make several crude shelters. Jordan would have preferred to camp outside the desal's perimeter, but these lean-tos were actually fairly far up the slope of the main spire. It made him uncomfortable since he remembered Galas' tales of poison gases and other subtle deaths coming from these things... but he was going to confront it anyway. What was one small reckless act against that larger one?

There was nothing to burn, but he found a hollow in front of their lean-to and filled it with sand, which he commanded to produce heat. He had discovered that he could do this trick with anything that had mecha in it; after a few minutes to an hour, depending on the concentration of mecha in the substance, it would cool down and have to be replaced. The act constituted suicide for the microscopic creatures, but they happily did it for someone they considered to be a Wind.

He half-expected the desal to rouse when he began ordering the mecha about, but it didn't happen. Indeed, he got no sense of life from it at all.

While Tamsin hunkered disconsolately in front of the hot mound of dirt, he watered the horses with the last of their supply. His mare's face seemed puffy, her eyes red and fevered. She could barely drink, and refused the oats he offered her. Tamsin's horse was no better. Both had swollen bellies; their legs were bowing as though they could no longer carry their own weight.

Jordan slid his hand along the belly of his mare. He felt a faint trembling under the stiff hair, then a movement, like a kick from inside. He snatched his hand back.

"Tamsin, I think my horse is pregnant?" He backed away. The mare stared at him, and he could see death in its eyes. Whatever was happening to it, it was not pregnancy.

Upset, he walked up the slope of the desal. The sun was setting, red and exhausted. Its light outlined faint octagons and squares on the side of the spire. Kneeling, he touched its surface, which was like worn ceramic, and white with a faintly pink tinge.

He closed his eyes and focussed his concentration. I am here. Speak to me.

The wind sighed, and the stones sang their nonsense tunes: feldspar, gypsum, igneous granite, feldspar, sandstone, I am lichen, gypsum gypsum... He imagined the desal would have filled the sky with its voice. It said nothing.

He kicked at pebbles as he walked back to the lean-to. He couldn't see Tamsin's face in the dimness, only her hunched figure. She had wrapped her arms around her knees and was gazing out at the failing light along the horizon. He sat down next to her, grateful for the warmth from his "fire".

They said nothing for a long time, and gradually it became dark. The clouds had moved on, and the stars began to come out one by one. This was not a good sign: it would be a cold night. The chill padded in along the ground, inexorable and silent. Still, Jordan lay for a while watching the emerging stars. Now and then small flashes of light appeared, as if the sun were glittering off bright things way up there in the heavens. Doubtless it was, but he had no idea what they might be, and was past all wondering by now.

"Are you all right?" whispered Tamsin. He rolled on his side. She leaned forward to put more dirt in the dust bowl, which had cooled. "Could you make some more heat for us?"

"All right." He moved next to her, and she brought her blanket up to cover both of them. With a silent command, he made the new soil in the bowl blossom with heat. It wasn't lasting long tonight; they would sleep in bitter cold.

One timeless moment he lay in the grip of merciless cold, dozing, waking and shivering, dimly aware that Tamsin had wrapped herself around him; the next, he was painfully wrenched into the cold air by a manacle-like grip on his arm.

Jordan cried out; the stars wheeled around and he hit the ground painfully. A black silhouette loomed over him, and the reek of fresh blood filled his nostrils. His arm tingled where he had been touched.

"You are the are," said a voice like grating stone.

Tamsin screamed.

Jordan rolled backwards—pebbles embedding themselves in his spine, cold air on his neck—and came to his feet to find himself facing two dark man-shapes outlined against a sky full of aurora light and moving stars. One of the shapes batted at the dark triangle of the stone lean-to, where Tamsin screamed again.

The one in front of him feinted, and he kicked at it. His foot connected with slick skin. The thing grunted, then vomited without bending. Black liquid spattered on the stones.

"Found you rightly," said the morph. "You are the link. You come with us."

It lunged and he leapt away. The adrenaline had Jordan seeing visions again, but he was able to press Armiger's consciousness back. The landscape glowed with mecha, as did the morphs. The one closing with him had three eyes in its ravaged face, and he could see them as radiant orbs in a translucent skull. Its body was full of tangled lines of light, like a complete veinous system for the stuff Calandria had called nanotech.

The thing feinted and then jumped, and this time it had him. They rolled on the cold ground, but it couldn't get a grip since it was covered with... water? Something darker. For a second it had him pinned and the fingers of its right hand scrabbled in his hair as if looking for a door there; then he sat up past its pressing chest and wrapped his arms around its torso. Jordan yanked while kicking at the dust with his feet, and lost his grip but not before he had come to a crouch and the morph was on its hands and knees.

No time for subtlety. He grabbed a rock the size of his fist and when the thing rounded on him again he cuffed it on the side of the head. It fell back, groaning.

"Tamsin!"

She shrieked again, and he saw her—a dark human-shape in the field of mechal light, clutching a blanket as the other morph dragged her along the ground by one leg.

He staggered his with the rock, then again when it came back for more. The thing didn't seem to feel any pain. It was going to keep coming, he realized, until it had him or he crippled it. If he could—he'd heard tales of morphs growing new limbs to replace severed ones. At that moment he believed the stories.

Jordan pitched the rock at it, missed, and turned and ran after the other one. There was something wrong with the sky, a swirling in the stars, but he didn't have time to think about that. He screamed, "Run!" and tackled the other morph.

Tamsin rolled to her feet. "Run where?"

"Up the slope! Get on the surface of the desal. Quick!"

Both morphs faced him now. Jordan backed away.

"Give us your light," said the first morph.

"You shall ascend," said the second.

Jordan closed his eyes and opened his arms. "Stones, rocks, sand and dust! Hear me!"

The earth roared a reply.

"Burn!" he cried. "Burn beneath the feet of the morphs!"