Thousands of voices surrounded our rise, bodies swarming on the landings of the Builders’ deep levels. Rath raged with rabid fury, clambering over one another to try and reach us as we passed. Few were fast enough to leap onto the sphere, which now climbed faster than its fall. Those few that made the jump, and held, were sent flailing from the tubes by Plamen’s knife across their hands. As the water-pressure propelled us higher, the green stonework gave way to walls of Spectre jet again. We left the Rath behind, below, and at the zenith of the line the jet hollowed out into a cavern.

At the sight of the cavern ceiling we heaved to close the gauges and the sphere met the docking unit with a wrenching crash that almost hurled us out of the frame. Just in time I forced the levers down and splayed the bladed arms. Our drop from pressure was caught by another vane of cables. Just as before we were at the eye of a docking cross of four stone bridges; except that here the hollow was embanked with heaps of sand that had blown in through a crack of light. Day-light.

We scaled the sand embankments, surfaced into the sun and climbed out onto the crag of a Spectre, blasted by heat and almost blinded by light. Our clothes would dry quickly.

‘We found it,’ I panted with my hands on my knees. ‘We found the river.’

‘And with it our leverage,’ rasped Plamen, panting too. ‘We can move to attack on our return to the fortress.’ His face was flecked with rust-flakes and, now that we were out of the water, black streams marked his boot. On my own leg, bandage gone, some blood was trickling from my wound; packed dust washed out by the water.

I caught my breath. ‘What—wait, why?’

He swallowed. ‘What do you mean, why?’

‘Why would you attack?’ I said. ‘I told you, the—’

‘A vision you think you saw in a piece of metal is of no concern to me,’ he said. ‘That river is a direct passage to our pipes, and a threat. It’s what we set out to confirm. It cannot and will not go unchallenged.’

‘No. It’s not a threat,’ I urged, surprised he didn’t get it. ‘Not anymore. Their leaders are dead now, the last was killed at the fortress, I told you. Can’t you see the Rath won’t come from here again. They haven’t even been near that river’s level since the attack. The backwash from the Hub flooded the chamber down there, that’s why we only saw them on the upper levels.’

‘You may believe what you like,’ he said, breath and calm recovered. ‘The Sanhedrin is unlikely to share your conviction that somehow a backwash ensures the city’s safety, and it is the viziers of the First Circle who must overrule decree. That’s if the Satrap doesn’t see fit to lift it himself. On return we mobilise forces, march on this site and crush them here.’

I stared at him, knowing that I hadn’t just told him what I believed: it was the truth. What I had seen changed everything. ‘You heard how many were down there. Thousands! Your army won’t be enough.’

‘You know nothing of our army.’

‘It’s not enough!’

As my voice smacked the sunlit shapes of jet around us, I watched him test weight on his leg, then limp towards a nearby slope. ‘We must move now, before they follow. There will be other routes to the surface as you rightly say.’

From the edge he approached the Spectre swept gracefully towards the ground, allowing him to descend at a measured skate, bracing himself on passing outcrops. I skated after him, raising my voice at his back: ‘You didn’t see what I saw. Behind that big round door there’s hundreds of tunnels and we know the Rath use them to move around the desert. We’ve seen them come out of nowhere. It happened in Shen Drumbar and you lost ten soldiers!’

‘Eleven.’

‘And Telmadh Eflan!’ I shouted.

‘He was the eleventh.’

‘He didn’t have to die, Plamen.’

Tripping slightly in a sand-packed divot, he looked back. ‘You failed to tell me about that tunnel.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I retorted. ‘The Roads are everywhere and if you attack the Rath here you’ll be leading your army right into the middle of them.’

‘Stop talking.’

We scaled the last stretch of the slope and Plamen grunted at the pain in his leg as he came down on the sand. He kneaded the thigh above the wound, then opened his compass and eyed its needle. I squinted at the sun: high afternoon. Not a cloud could be seen or even a bird in the sky, and the sandscape between the Spectres was eerily empty. I didn’t recognise any shapes, even though I knew the Disc had played tricks with those shapes already.

While Plamen worked out direction, I tugged the fusil from its holster to check how wet it was. Surprisingly, the last load of chrozite in the breech was still dry, and I wondered if Rusper knew he’d made it totally watertight. Lucky, I thought, since I’d dropped the other capsule in the river. And if I’d counted them right, I still had one schot-stone to fire. Just to be safe, I loaded one more. The very last.

‘We’re on the north side,’ said Plamen before pointing across the sand. ‘The place we entered from should be there.’

We started out across the open, but Kobi formed out of the sweltering air before long. Like a lost stablehand in the wilderness he wandered out between the Spectres, leading both horses with him.

‘The fool,’ scowled Plamen, then threw his arms wide in an effort to get the boy’s attention, pointing back with vigorous thrusts. Through the rippling waves of the heat it was difficult to see but Kobi saw and turned and made back for the jet cluster to the south. We caught him up in a wide dip before the walls of the crater where our descent had begun, and Plamen snatched the reins from him. ‘Would you feed my horse to the Rath?’ he berated and cuffed the back of his head. Kobi bowed out of the range of more blows from the man, while Plamen tutted and inspected his stallion. ‘Are they watered, fed?’

‘They are, ekharan,’ said Kobi from a safe distance.

‘Good. Both of you, drink. We ride for Antissa.’

There was barely enough for two sloshing around inside the skin he threw me, so I only took one tiny sip before passing it to Kobi. When he’d taken a sip too, I nodded him to finish it: he’d been in the heat longer than us.

As I got my swathes and put them on, Plamen returned his compass to the saddlebag, shuffled on his white robe and mantle and reached for his headdress. Deftly he swept its folds around his head and neck again.

Somehow I had to change his mind. ‘Commander . . .’

‘I will hear no more from you,’ he said. ‘Your task on this mission is complete, with commendation. What comes of it is the business of High Command.’

‘But . . . sir, there’ll be nothing left of Antissa’s defences if the army comes here.’ He closed his eyes and sucked air in through his nostrils, squaring the circlet on his head so that its ruby faced front. When he looked at me again, I summoned the courage to hold eye contact. ‘I will tell Rusper what I know. All of it. He’ll trust me.’

The eyes hardened. ‘Trust you,’ he echoed. ‘And what bearing do you think his trust in a borderling will have upon the likes of the First Circle?’ I made it to the end of his glare; he unhitched his crossbow and poised it on the sand ready to return to the holster on his back. At my short hesitation, he glanced up and cocked an eyebrow.

Don’t back down. ‘Rusper Symphin is the Viceroy,’ I said. ‘And it was only ‘cos of me that he sent us out here to do this. If I tell him that mobilising the army will destroy it, he’ll believe me. He’ll know it’s true.’

Plamen’s hands drooped from the stallion’s shoulders. Mouth ajar, he looked aside and stepped away from the horse. ‘That is what you would have the Viceroy report to his sovereign lord and council?’

Firm, I nodded. ‘You can’t fight them. Not here anyway.’

He nodded too, suddenly almost satisfied with what I’d said. Then nodded again. ‘Very well. Give the order.’

‘What?’

‘You heard,’ he replied. ‘If this is the manner in which you, our honorary Vedan, would serve the realm of Vorth, do what you must.’

He paused, waiting; I stared back.

‘We are alone in the erg, boy. My men are dismissed. None are here to witness you feigning command. So do it, ekhin Flint.’ He tilted his head towards Kobi. ‘We’ve a spare horse and rider. Send your news home to the fortress.’

Kobi wouldn’t look at either of us and I had the uncomfortable suspicion that he knew much better than I did what was happening and what was really at stake. Carefully I searched Plamen’s eyes, then volunteered: ‘I’ll go with him.’

‘You will return with me,’ he said. ‘Or do you not recall the Viceroy’s express instructions that you remain in my care.’

All this time he’d been testing me. He was still testing me now. I ground my teeth.

Fine then. Test me. See that I’d do what I’d promised.

I turned away from his eyes and went to Kobi, who watched me coming with huge dread. I kept my face and voice calm for both our sakes: ‘Do you know the way back to the fortress,’ I said, ‘on your own?’

A nod. Was he shaking?

‘Okay. You have to do this, Kobi. Ride ahead. At Antissa, find the Viceroy. Caliph Symphin, yeh?’ Another nod or tremble. ‘Tell him the river’s been found at the Spectres in the Northern Erg but that it isn’t a danger to the city anymore, so long as the army stays away. Tell him his assistant will explain everything as soon as he gets back with the High Commander. Have you got that? Do you understand?’

I could feel Plamen’s eyes boring through the back of my head and when Kobi’s fearful face looked in his direction for approval, so did I.

‘Have you not received an order?’ Plamen barked at the boy, who almost leapt. And I pitied him as he cowered past his manifold superior, climbed into the saddle of the gelding and gave me one last pleading look. When I only nodded back, hopefully with a look that gave him courage or something, he set his shoulders. Turning west, the gelding broke away at canter. I watched it go, hoping that the Ospégan boy could be trusted with my message. Hoping I’d not done something far more foolish than I could imagine.

And barely sensing a movement as Plamen brushed right past me. ‘Spoken like a caliph.’

Blood drained out of my head. In strides defying his wounded leg, he walked three yards ahead of me and lifted the crossbow on his arm.

‘What are you doing!’ I yelled.

It spat the bolt. I heard no impact or even a cry as the gelding cantered. But I saw Kobi’s body go limp in the saddle. The horse ran on for some yards before the boy toppled sideways and dropped into the sand like a sack of offal. I opened my mouth to scream fury but my voice was stuck. Could he be alive still?—I could help him—How had he deserved this?

What have I done.

Kobi lay in a heap. As I stared at that heap, willing it to move, get up, get up, Plamen lowered his crossbow, threw it to the sand at his feet and kneaded his leg. Even in the blazing heat, the eyes he turned on me were ice. Grey ice.

‘If you think that I’ll provide such information to the capital, you’ve misjudged me. Naemian.’ The word was joined by the slice of steel. ‘I told you, did I not, in Verunia. An ailing Satrap will not cripple this nation. He is a face on a flag, an alabaster piece upon the board of Xiqopix, little more. The destiny of the desert lies with those who speak in his name.’

Unsticking my voice, I pushed: ‘Rusper’s the one who does.’

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‘Yes he is. And he knows full well that a realm is not defended behind sandstone. With our return to open war he will relinquish the Viceroyalty. Whether or not you choose to accept it, your engineer stands in the way of Vedish interests. As now do you.’

Had I seen this coming all along? No. Of course I hadn’t. And yet I knew I wasn’t nearly as horrified as the face I was making. ‘War makes you Viceroy.’

‘War bestows me with the power to serve,’ he amended. ‘A true Vedan serves Vorth, or have you learned nothing of our ways?’

It just made sense, that was all. It made everything make sense. My horror was for Kobi. My ribs and shoulders shuddered with every beat of my heart. Enraged by what he’d done—what I’d done—my hand went tight around the fusil’s grip and before I knew what I was doing, I’d raised and pointed it at Plamen. He blanched a moment, then smiled that smile I hated: my hand was shaking. That’s what did it, I think.

Clap!—schot flew and pinged off the edge of his raised sword.

I bounced back, shocked by his speed.

With a frown, almost disappointed, he straightened to examine the blade where the schot had chipped his weapon’s steel. He sighed, ‘Boy, I’d do you the courtesy of an honest sword.’

‘And Kobi?’ I shouted, waving the fusil.

‘Who?’

‘Kobi! What honour did you give him?’

He snorted, ‘A servant.’

‘So am I!’

It was the first time I’d heard him laugh; a clear high ripple that didn’t suit him. ‘And just look how far you’ve come!’

‘Nothing but a coward shoots a boy in the back,’ I growled at him. ‘He was only fourteen. Is that the Vedish Way too?’

His face fell at that question and he folded his lips. Had I done it—found his shame? Whatever I’d done, he was now moving forward, towards me at a pace, as if forgetting to limp.

I raised the fusil to fire my last schot-stone.

Snick—chrozite ignited the spline; empty. I’d miscounted.

He drawled, ‘I’m no field-engineer but it would seem you’re out of shot.’ And in the moment it took me to glance up from the weapon, he was on me.

The sword-tip swung past my eyes. Another step brought a second stroke under my chin. I fell backwards, dropping the fusil, but scrambled up again to find just enough balance in that second to dig my toe into the sand.

I kicked a spray into his face.

Arm across his eyes, he buckled. With a yell, I ran at him and kicked his shin. His own enraged cry told me I’d got the right one, but even as I turned around to flee his hand closed hard on my swathe-collar. The force pulled be backwards onto the sand and I glimpsed the blade that went up; rolled and grunted as it pinned me by the hood. I heard the rip and then the whistle and the chop of the thorn-spear in the sand. Just to my left. They were here.

Plamen freed his sword. I tumbled up, ducking from the next blow from him. But now he spun away from me, flipping his weapon, while his eyes combed the jet crags beyond the dip.

That rise of sand made it hard to see how many were gathering under those Spectres, but in his distraction I primed my elbow for the small of his back. Before I struck, he turned and grabbed me by the shoulder; or he tried—his fingers hooked the skein of darning twine at my collar and when I dodged the twine ripped out. A backhand dashed my face sideways, but I managed not to fall; lunged, clawed his waist with both my hands and somehow pulled his scabbard off.

Another backhand—other side—sent me careening like a flung oar and landing hard. Just go. Just run.

There was enough reason to run. When I scrabbled onto my backside and crawled backwards, a score of Rath peppered the rise, approaching fast; all gibbers, screeches and howls.

Plamen backed from the tide. He made a loud click with his tongue that brought his stallion up at a trot. At the horse’s flanks he looked back, probably for the scabbard still in my hand. I staggered up, glaring, then yelled my wordless rage, hurt and disgust. I hurled the scabbard straight towards the coming Rath. It didn’t go far—stupidly heavy thing, a scabbard—but nor did Plamen move to get it. Instead he slid the naked sword through the straps of his saddlebags and mounted. Then rode up to look down on me from horseback. Some gloating farewell, I figured. He’d survive, return. I’d die.

Flicking reins, he spurred the stallion. I watched it canter, gaining speed, toward the westward Spectre crags. The gelding, still in panicked flight, had made an arc from the place where poor Kobi had fallen, and now charged in frantic, pealing terror between me and the Rath. But as Plamen rode past the heap of Kobi, a half-spear flew and spiked the sand right in the stallion’s path. The white horse reared with a high scream and Plamen was thrown to land just yards from Kobi’s body.

Rath whooped and gibbered, cresting the rise. Most almost naked. Some with spears.

I looked behind—the crater’s arch! But I’d be trapped if I ran there, or else just run into more.

To my left Plamen’s head came up as he dodged his stallion’s bucking legs.

I dashed and grabbed the empty fusil, shoved it through my belt and ran. Not realising how closely I overtook Plamen until he lunged out for my swathes. He missed but caught my sling-bag. I let it slip off my shoulder and he bailed forward in the sand with a curse. I sprinted, pushing my legs hard, his startled horse running not too far ahead of me.

Another spear hurtled, singing, and pierced the sand beside it. The gelding screamed again, bucked and broke into a gallop, southwest.

Reaching the shadow of the crags, I risked just one more glance back. My heart thumped sickly at the sight of even more chalky clusters on the sand-slopes: forty, fifty or more. The gelding ran. It had crossed over the dip and now veered back round the southern side towards the arch of that crater. And Plamen, empty-handed, was on his feet again and running, against all pain in his leg. No sword—that was still on his saddle.

Not far behind him, two Rath closed over Kobi. Before they tore into him, I turned and launched onto the rock-face. It wasn’t sheer, but even if it was I knew they could climb faster than me. I couldn’t outrun them, or fight them, or hide. The Disc had power but I’d never been the master of it and, anyway, it wasn’t working anymore. Climbing was all I could do.

Off to my right, some yards away, white robes flapped onto the same rock-face and climbed as well. My palms were slippery with sweat, raw on the searing jet-stone, but I didn’t care; squeezed even tighter and pushed my body without mercy.

Faces appeared in the jet. Sarah, Erik and Con. I wasn’t ready. I’d use nails.

As Plamen’s boot lifted behind an outcrop of the crag, I gripped a ledge and dragged my body onto it, some twenty feet above the ground.

This wasn’t the summit; smoother jet formed a path that climbed up further through a crack. Sweat dribbled into my eyes as I looked down. A knot of Rath surrounded Kobi while another, a little farther, had caught and brought the gelding down. There were more than fifty across the dip, most loping over the sand towards the foot of this crag, and more still coming from the north. Without thinking, I pulled the lever on my wrist.

NOT YOU—it slammed me out.

What?

I jammed the lever back, turned and scraped my way up the incline. My sandals loosened the black scree as the way twisted and went steep, then morphed itself into a natural stair, going thin. The crack opened to the summit where I vaulted the curl of jet that formed the opening and dropped, taking cover behind it. Screeches close, my eyes darted.

From the Spectre’s highest point a weird warped monolith of jet swept into a skyward-pointing horn. As my pulse pumped blood-red fear, I heard the Rath coming, they were climbing, and knew that every stretch of those long arms took them twice as far as mine.

Behind me, boots scraped jet.

I drew my knife—Eflan’s knife—still dark with Ratheine blood. Gripping it tight, blade pointed down, I touched its haft to my forehead and grit my teeth.

His hand slapped the rock above my head and I jumped. Slicing air, the steel carved a gash from nose to cheek. ‘Rat!’ he spluttered, blood splashing a line on his headdress. But instead of back, he fell forwards at me. One glancing blow knocked the knife out of my hand. The next one dropped me and the jet-stone jarred my spine. I pushed away, spun on my side and scanned about for my weapon. But it had simply disappeared.

His cursing was muffled as he briefly cupped his bleeding nose, other hand tensing to a claw. Then leapt out, grabbed both my shoulders and, before I could crawl between his legs, flipped me hard onto my front. Pulled me up from behind. I felt my feet leave the jet, my body turned in mid-air and my back slammed against the horn-shaped rock.

He pinned me there with his weight.

‘Let go!’ I squealed.

His hand was broad enough to fit my whole neck in its grasp. The grasp closed. I flailed at his wrist, clawed at his skin, prized at his fingers. Tried to gasp but my windpipe was closed already. This was my death: I felt how little effort he’d need to crack my throat like kindling. A grown man, a High Commander, so much the stronger.

‘Such things at stake . . .’ he seethed, flecking bloody spittle on me. Rage had shrunk his pupils small in the pale grey. His voice was hoarse. ‘. . . and you would rather kill us both than a trueborn Vedan take the place of your damnable engineer!’ My batting at that grip was doing nothing. ‘Whatever that Elmine pretender saw in you will cost us in blood . . . Vedish blood!’

‘You said it wasn’t . . .’ I choked, ‘. . . about blood.’

He winced, bit down on his lip and slammed my head back on the rock. I neither felt nor heard the crack. Senses were dulling, dark spots growing. I gave up batting, dropped my hands. They were coming anyway . . . for both of us . . . it was finished. I felt the lever, nudged, but no . . . no tingle, current . . . and no Sight.

NOT YOU!

His face was hard to make out through the darkening blur. And it wasn’t my anger I felt as my finger brushed the torque’s lid. Was that its edge I could feel? My nail slid under the cusp as I thought I saw pale Ratheine arms slide over the edge of the crag. Just chalky blurs, two or three mounted the summit. The black of mouths and eyes were all the same as they clucked, almost curious. My lungs close to bursting, Plamen’s grip tightened to send a bolt of splitting pain over my skull.

I popped the lid: the Disc bounced free.

Flashing, it hit the jet, bounced once and landed feet away. The grip left me.

Throat free, I dropped, wheezing and gagging, not sure how to restart my breathing. I heard the screams and saw him charge between the hazy splotches.

Air in—breathe in!

He came back, limping again. Forgetting all about pain and breathing, I lunged for the Disc just as he did and our shoulders collided. In that too-perfect mirror, I saw our faces side-by-side. But he was still so much the stronger and faster and his bloody fingers closed around it like a cage. I rained my fists on his arms but it was like I wasn’t there. Any strength I’d had was gone. He swept it up from the jet and stood, raggedly panting.

Two, three, four, five more Rath appeared. But he didn’t look at them, as tiny forks of clean white light licked between his fingers. NOT YOU . . . NOT YOU!

Behind him more Rath kept coming, more snarls and gibbers from the edge behind that horn-rock. They’d surrounded us, even though Plamen didn’t seem to notice. I didn’t move to look either, as from the inside of his hand the light-tongues looped over his knuckles. He clasped his wrist and tried to pry his open fingers and now bright, clear in his eyes, I saw the fear.

Saw it at last.

Reflected on the eyes of the Rath that hung back, the white light climbed and wrapped his arm. Plamen cried out. The cry was lost in the crackle as lightning leapt and wreathed his head, then wrapped his body. Brightened.

Shrank impossibly small.

And then burst wide.

The force of the blaze threw me flat, blasting the Rath off the crag’s edge. Lightning swept over the summit in several whirling circles, then streamed straight back to the Disc. I bounded for it, hand growing vast in a mirror now somehow full of rage, but the blaze blocked me.

Then flared and raised me off the jet, into the air, lifting my arms out from my sides. So it would throw me from the crag just like the Rath? Destroy me too?

Its force drove in between my eyes and I screamed.

No, not a push—a desperate pull.

YOU ARE NOT MY LITTLE SPARK! The voice roared inside my head in shimmering chaos and I felt its power all over me like burning ribbons through my veins; pulling, drawing, undoing it all with the force of a riptide.

In my hand the Disc dissolved.

The whiteness dropped me.

It wheeled and swooped, seeming to rage against all things as it whirled around and over the summit. I clamped my ears under my hands and ducked down low just as it tore over my head and away, latching fast to that horn of jet. It spiralled rapid coils around it, which was the last thing I saw as dizzy darkness resurfaced. Black spots bloated quickly now and soon I only heard the blaze ripping air.

I fell forward, empty.

Rath were still noising underneath the Spectre when I came to; head splitting through a fog, throat on fire, face-muscles jittering and eyesight all murky. It hadn’t been long. But I still stared in disbelief at the only thing there was to see.

From base to tip, that horn of jet was sheathed in the blaze’s white lightning—fizzing and crackling as ever, but now bound to that one place.

The Disc was gone, and so was Plamen. Not dead—no body or remains anywhere—simply gone.

On trembling legs I stood and took a few small steps nearer the lights, coming just close enough to look into the spirals. For a second, impossibly, I thought I saw it. Plamen’s face, or someone else’s? Whoever’s it was, unless I was losing my mind, its eyes went white, then it dissolved into the crackling current.

The last thing I’d do was touch it: still felt its radiating fury.

I moved away; went to the edge. Below the crag, the Rath were fleeing from the blaze into their holes. From there, I supposed, into their Deep-like hive under the sand. The Spectres watched like an audience of judges, unamused.

I was alive. Somehow alive.

Might even escape here and get back . . . But alone.

All the points of pain now keened through my shattered nerves. My throat stung from the stranglehold, that was probably the worst. I rubbed it, carefully, but my hands were also scraped and cut all over.

A hollow feeling crept through my insides when I looked at my wrist; the torque’s lid flapping open there, its chamber empty. Those months ago in Rusper’s workshop, the Disc had put something in me. I knew that. Something that now, I also knew, had been taken. I clicked the lid shut again. Then twisted the torque off my wrist and flung it away.