It was white.

I snatched the plate.

In my other hand I grabbed a great big clump of it. Then raked. White! Whiter than clouds lit by sun, or swan feathers, or Rath skin! Whiter than Rusper’s streaks of white! Every last hair—unnatural, impossible white, as only the Disc’s light was white. And no matter how I grabbed and raked and pulled, it wouldn’t come out!

My mind raced back to the Spectres. How the blaze had seized and held me, pouring through me one last time as if searching for that thing it thought I was, but that I wasn’t . . . then withdrawing for that horn of jet. I thought of the ghost that had helped, guided, protected me. Whispered those words inside my mind, only to leave me. Like this. I closed my fingers around another fistful of white hair, hand shaking.

‘Florian . . . ?’

I lowered the plate and dropped it. ‘This is what it did,’ I said through teeth. ‘The Disc. It did this to me.’ I didn’t realise quite how hard I was pulling the clump of hair until Rusper took my hand and prized my grip away from it. I didn’t even know, really, why it made me so angry. But there was a look in Rusper’s face I hadn’t seen in it before.

‘Where is it now?’ he said low after a glance at my wrists.

‘Gone,’ I forced.

He opened his mouth but then closed it, seeming to measure it a bad moment to pursue that line of questioning. Instead, a moment later: ‘Can you say where Plamen is?’

Mondric, who had been standing very still, moved across the bare bricks of the workshop. Passing little Zeek, he placed the sword on the table with a thud. Rusper looked at the hilt that poked out of the burlap cover; went towards it, but as more Deepworkers arrived, the Captain covered it discreetly. It was answer enough: there could be only one reason for that sword’s being here without its owner.

I covered my head with what was left of my hood, anger fast giving way to humiliation. I’d cut it. All of it. And just forget about the Disc! ‘Where’s everything going?’ I said, needing something other than my hair to focus on.

‘Down to fifth where I’m needed,’ Rusper murmured, staring at the sword. ‘Your things have gone up to my quarters. There have been developments.’

‘I know.’

He looked at me. ‘The pipes are stable. Just barely. And I’ve recommenced the Deepworks at double the workforce to meet royal demands. The southern caliphs have arrived. You may already be aware of our new Flag-Senera.’

I nodded. Met his eyes.

‘Your people stand in no immediate danger, but the shift creates new problems.’ His look on my face pinched with worry. ‘Flint, sit down.’

I’d swayed, I realised. But said, ‘No.’

As the dizziness climbed and my vision darkened a little, I heard the bootfalls and wood dragging; felt that big hand on my shoulder. Mondric pushed me down hard so that my bottom squarely met the stool’s seat. He cleared his throat, a jarring sound in the hollow room. ‘Boy came a long way by himself. Wasn’t much more than a body when we found him.’

‘We thought you dead,’ said Rusper on a breath that sounded pent-up for days. Now sitting, the dizzy spell retreated and my vision cleared again. ‘The Marszal’s report didn’t give us much reason to think otherwise. She said you’d gone into the erg.’

‘I believe the boy has a report of his own to make,’ said Mondric. ‘Time he gave it.’

Rusper dismissed the workers with instructions to return for final items later. Zeek was sent up to his quarters with his council robes and boots, and from there to the kitchens to get food and drink for three, although I didn’t like the warning to be careful as she went. She’d never had to before.

The men took stools at the table. I was so far beyond exhausted but knew this had to happen now. I caught myself counting the little scars on Mondric’s cheeks as he locked expectant eyes on my face. Had he always worn that little red stone in his ear? And how long had I been getting steady looks like that from men like him? He was waiting. So was Rusper. So I pushed away all thoughts of black-hair-turned-white and tried to force the last nine days into order.

Starting with Plamen’s plan to track the Rath along the north-western arc of known movement. A plan defeated by the pelkhas. I told about the caves in Calvallagh’s plain and the cavalry’s attempt to drive their Ratheine inhabitants out towards the open. An attempt that failed too. Rusper raised an eyebrow when I mentioned how the clerics had almost all left that temple.

The events in Verunia were harder to talk about. I admitted that, although I’d used the Sight to scour Shen Drumbar, I’d failed to find the crevasse and tunnels under the Caliph’s house. I told of the attack and the deaths and how we’d escaped. And the discoveries I’d made both at the shen and Balkh Radhi.

I’d seen the Roads of the Builders: not only through the Sight but with waking eyes – tunnels of ancient greenstone sprawling all through the northern desert underground, crawling with Rath. And eyebrows went up again when I described my Sight-exploration of that erg-drowned ruin.

I told about the Sight-dreams that had showed me the way; of how Plamen had divided the company for the Laudassan cavalcade and of how, after his dismissal of the last ten soldiers, it had been only me and him and Kobi in the dunes.

My mouth was like paper by the time Zeek came back with food. I helped myself to three or four cupfuls of water from the carafe, gulping loudly, while Rusper lifted a pot and poured thick ergish coffee for himself and the Captain. There was a bowl of beef kibhin, another of spiced yams and chufa, a basket of tesak sourbread, a dish of neem drupes, some persimmon, a fat round of sayyan cheese and two cruets of molten butter and herb-infused oil. I needed no one’s permission. My body tingled and buzzed at the sensations of eating, at first stuffing my mouth so full that I could barely chew, and only now realising just how bored of khapent I’d really got. Patiently the men let me eat while also picking from the tray and sipping slowly at their coffee. Then Rusper asked me to continue.

I wasn’t so dizzy anymore, but still not thinking so clearly. ‘Um. . .’

‘You were heading into the erg,’ Rusper prompted.

So I told them of the dream that had pointed to the Spectres; how the Sight had weakened and then abandoned me altogether. Now, at last, the ghost and his visions came out. As I’d tried to do for Plamen, I explained it from the start, revealing the words that had been spoken in my mind after contact with the Disc. The things I’d dreamed – memories that weren’t mine – and how I’d been haunted by a figure who called me “little spark.” As many of the dreams as I remembered, I told, but most importantly the ones of the tall, wild people with flowing hair and poison eyes. The ones who chanted those commands over the Rath in their thousands. The men gazed down into their cups as they heard this, only looking at me again when I described our descent at the Spectres. Under those crags had been a deep made by the Builders of Antissa; its every greenstone wall and floor threaded with aqualumium tubes, and its deepening levels all connected by a mechanical sphere that rose and fell on the hydraulic power of its own waterworks.

Rusper set down his coffee and cupped his jaw in his hand. By his face, I could tell, he already keened for diagrams. And one existed, I told him. Somehow, at least in part, Meck his predecessor had known about the sphere of the Builders. Maybe other things too. But that would all have to wait.

My description of the river chamber was the most detailed of all. The remains of Artabh Kathris. The flood caused by our backwash. The huge round portal that I’d seen in my visions—door to the rest of the Roads.

Now for the most important.

The Rath, I said, couldn’t have used the river again to reach the fortress. And hadn’t.

Both faces darkened.

My visions had showed why. Those wild people with poison eyes had controlled them; through some kind of magic, somehow compelled them to invade, Naemia first and then Vorth. The phantom Rusper had killed on the fortress wall had been the last—had to be—and now that all of them were gone, the control was broken. Undone. The Rath were leaderless, without an aim or purpose here.

‘But still too many,’ I said. Too many to face the way we’d hoped to. While the river under the Spectres no longer posed a threat to us, the army couldn’t confront them at that place and survive.

Both frowns hardened.

‘Yeah, Plamen didn’t like it either,’ I said. And staring straight at the sword on the table, told the worst. Despite the numbers we’d found, Plamen had rejected my visions and promised to march his soldiers to the erg and the deep at the Spectres. Even sending them to their deaths would have secured him the Viceroy’s medallion. He’d admitted it and I’d stood in his way. He’d killed Kobi to punish me, that was the part that stung the most.

And after that . . . after that . . . it all became impossible.

In those last moments we’d been equals, me and Plamen, at the mercy of the Rath and the mercy of the Disc. It made no difference how he’d died: the man was gone, not coming back. Part of me wished that he’d been torn to little pieces instead—had his guts ripped right out by the Rath up on that crag—and before I knew what I was saying, that was what I’d said.

Mondric shook his head and glanced at Rusper, then back at me. ‘If you’ve a wish I leave, boy, speak it.’

‘What?’

‘You’re a bad liar,’ said Rusper gently. ‘I’ve told you before.’

So I let it go. In the best words I could find, I told them what had really happened between us on that crag. How, on contact with the Disc, the ghost had . . . rejected Plamen. And then rejected me as well. It had consumed him and dissolved the Disc in its white light unbound, which then attached itself to an outcrop of the jet.

That had, at least, saved me from the Rath.

I stopped, expecting reprimands or looks of tried disbelief. Neither came. And how could they? They couldn’t laugh at me or scold me for making things up. Nine days ago I’d left the fortress with black hair: it was white now.

I told them how the blaze had kept me safe all through last night; then of my southward journey through the erg. How I’d found Plamen’s stallion, or how he had found me. But they weren’t listening as closely now; my story finished. Mondric chewed his nails and Rusper stared at the table, both faces glazed. They sat like that for several minutes before Rusper drained cold coffee. ‘Give me the fusil.’

I reached into my sling-bag. Sand scattered on the table as I put down the fusil in its holster and pushed it towards him. He picked it up, drew the weapon and turned it over in his hands, tutting softly.

‘How did you miss him?’

‘Huh?’

‘You said you fired at Plamen from less than five yards, how did you miss him? A malfunction?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, uh . . .’

‘How then?’

I stammered, ‘Aimed . . . badly, I guess.’

‘And it nearly cost you your life!’ he rasped. I jolted. Forcefully, he slid the fusil back into the holster and banged it to the table. Then squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose hard. Mondric stopped his absent chewing, pressing his mouth on his knuckles.

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Another minute; I sat still.

Finally, a long-held breath gushed out of Rusper. ‘Plamen was our key to exposing Amyra.’

‘Makes no difference,’ grunted Mondric, moving his knuckles. ‘He clearly intended betrayal.’

‘It makes every difference. The truth of Zimran’s death was in his hands. Without him . . .’

‘Amounts to the same. An enemy you didn’t know you had, if the boy’s to be trusted.’ Mondric looked at me again, in that moment no more my friend than Lieutenant Jharis or the Senera herself. It gravely drove the matter home and I steeled my nerve as best I could.

‘I swear it’s true,’ I told him. Then to Rusper, ‘I swear. He was against you from the start and wouldn’t have helped you like he promised. He wouldn’t have told anyone what Amyra did.’

‘And now he’s gone,’ Rusper finished, raising his face. His red, puffy eyes went distant and his stillness was unbearable. I knew there were more things churning in that head than in mine; far too many things. And yet I needed to know, now more than ever, if my word still meant anything to him. At last, ‘I sent him, of course I trust him,’ he seeped out on a breath.

I nearly gushed.

‘Then you must act quickly,’ said Mondric.

Rusper pushed from the table and stood, turning his back to us and walking to where my workbench had been. I almost heard the grind and clack of his brain like actual sounds.

‘What about his family?’ I asked, not wanting them to leave me out of this. ‘Are his mother and father—’

‘Both recently dead,’ Mondric said. ‘There’s a sister. Venara. A nephew too, I believe, a First Regiment cadet. Symphin, you may yet contain this, and must do if you wish the mission to remain undisclosed to the First Circle. I’ll stand by your decision. But you must make it now.’

They were leaving me behind. Rusper bowed his head, then straightened and turned back to us partway, eyelids redder. ‘Do we still have Keda’s bird?’

‘Gatehouse,’ said Mondric.

A nod. ‘Have it sent up to my quarters. I would dispatch a message to Chidh Eshipas, for the Artabh to send on to Methar.’

‘Bardon?’

‘He must know where we stand. And I must have the assurance of his return to Antissa. When the time comes, of course.’ He raised his hand to the medallion and licked his lips, words becoming slow, deliberate instructions. ‘Plamen’s quarters and Martial District rooms to be searched, his servants questioned with care. If tallans loosen tongues then spend them, though I doubt any subservient to High Command will be persuaded by coin. Nor are such likely to have been privy to his dealings.’

He stopped, frowned, dropped hands to his sides and flexed his fingers. ‘For now,’ he continued, ‘the High Commander remains alive. He has headed the small defensive garrison of Mounted Scimitars in Laudassa in response to Ratheine movement there. I shall make the same known to the Sanhedrin. At the outmost, Omran will stand in support of the claim. After all, the garrison exists and he has pledged direct allegiance to me in return for it. He has no reason to suspect that Plamen does not front it himself.’

‘Omran is one caliph,’ said Mondric, ‘and Bardon’s voice soft from Methar.’

‘Even one caliph’s support may buy us time if zealous enough. As for the sister . . . I’ll take her the news.’

Mondric straightened on his stool. ‘What news?’

Rusper swallowed. ‘Her brother’s death in the erg. At Ratheine hands. She will know of the mission.’

‘Viceroy, you sport with knives!’ Mondric snarled. ‘If you’d offer your enemies weapons, why not simply hand the truth to the Flag-Senera herself? We could arrange the silverware!’

‘Call it what you will,’ said Rusper, ‘but Senah Venara will have the truth from me. I will request her temporary silence as a matter of national security and she may choose her own loyalties should others try to use her against me.’

‘She’s Plamen’s blood. Have her questioned! If you fail to uncover the extent of his plans—’

‘She’ll know nothing of those,’ Rusper said. ‘No, not her. And if it was ever in Plamen’s interests to inform her, then Amyra will know already of the mission.’

Flushing red, Mondric thumped the table and the crockery bounced. But the way he looked aside showed a grudging agreement. Suddenly I thought about what Plamen had said; that blood wasn’t what really mattered in Vorth. Was that true?

‘Sanhedrin convenes tomorrow,’ said Mondric in a grumble, arms folded.

But when he looked back, Rusper’s gaze was already on him. ‘You think me weak, don’t you, Captain?’

The arms unfolded; the square face cleared. Mondric mastered his temper and, for the first time, I realised that the two men were probably of an age. ‘Not weak,’ he said. ‘Merciful. Trusting. It is how you were made by the land of your youth.’ Rusper scowled as he said that, but Mondric continued: ‘You’re a good man, Symphin, and anything but a coward. As head of the guilds there is no question of your mastery, greater even perhaps than that of your predecessor. But forty years behind these walls has failed to make a Vedan of you.’

‘Forty-one.’

Mondric raised a hand but dropped his voice. ‘Do not misread me. You have shown loyalty to our sovereign and in turn you may count me your ally. But though the Satrap will die without sons, Vorth must be ruled by a Vedan true-born. I hope I need not remind you that the Viceroyalty must be the highest office you hold in this realm, even should you overcome those who would take it from you. The people will abide no more than that.’

‘Nor do I wish it,’ said Rusper tautly.

‘All the same, there may come a time when more than that medallion is within your reach. But this is Vorth sir. And as much as he may have conspired against you, even sought to kill young Tools here, I’d be a fool to pretend that Ezra Plamen would not have made a fine satrap.’

‘How can you say that?’ I blurted at him. ‘He killed a boy! A Vedish boy!’

‘He punished a servant,’ Mondric shrugged back. ‘The desert’s cruel, it is our way. Make no mistake, there’s justice in it. That boy should have known better than to countermand his orders.’

‘But I was the one who gave the order,’ I argued, only for Mondric to snort at me.

‘Believe me, Tools. No order you could give in the presence of a man like Plamen would have meant any more than the sand you stood on. No, lad. It is unfortunate, but the boy was foolish and for that he died.’

‘You’re crazy,’ I said.

‘Calm down, Flint, we don’t expect you to remember him fondly,’ said Rusper. I couldn’t tell if he’d accepted Mondric’s words about his powers but didn’t hear any resentment in his voice. ‘Whatever else Plamen was, he was his nation’s servant. Like you, Captain, I do not believe he would have taken direct measures against his sovereign. It was me he betrayed. The question now is how far that treachery ran, and how great a part it played in Amyra’s.’

Too many enemies. Too many around Rusper Symphin, and Plamen had only been one. Now the others would close in just as I’d feared and everything he’d tried to uphold would collapse. My people would fall to the mercy of Amyra, the wrath of the Satrap, the claws of the desert . . . ‘There’s something else,’ I interrupted.

They turned to me, expectant again. Even hopeful.

Nothing stopped me anymore, and yet my mouth still went dry, so I splashed some more water into a cup and drank it first. Then I told them what Plamen had made me swear not to tell. My confrontation with the Iron Shield on the day I’d entered service, and Con’s death in the courtyard. How, for trespassing in the High District, Jharis had thrown me in a cell. How I would have lost a finger to the little man’s blade had someone not told him to spare me. Plamen. He’d hidden the encounter, sworn me to silence, all to keep attention away from the Viceroy’s refugees. To keep my people, and Rusper, safe.

So he’d said and so I’d believed.

Now Rusper narrowed red-veined eyes. Half of me thought he might have known, but if he had he gave no sign, now walking slowly back to us. Something else was going on inside his head, I could tell. And as he tapped a finger lightly on the teak of the table, something set in his face. ‘The dwarf.’

Mondric sniffed. ‘Hetch?’

‘Arrest him.’

The Captain left, taking Plamen’s sword, and then the Deepworkers came back. But Rusper told them to wait longer and so again they pulled the door. Gingerly I raised my eyes to where he stood. He was staring at the floor and I could still sense the grind-and-click of his thoughts. Would he punish me now?

‘Show me again.’

I let my hood fall. White wisps dropped free over my eyes, which I closed so as not to see them. It was only because of the headcloth I’d used to secure my hood that I’d not seen them before. White messenger, I thought. That was how I’d thought of Plamen when he first rode to our huts. Now it was me. Rusper’s expression made me wonder if it was only because of this that he believed any of what I’d said. If he did. And yet what did it prove but the wild and unpredictable power of the Disc?

He looked aside, just for a moment. ‘I didn’t know about your friend,’ he said. The last thing I expected him to say. My throat closed and I blinked fast against the sting. All that was over.

‘It’s fine,’ I said.

‘It isn’t. If you had told me before . . .’

I crossed my arms. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Gently, ‘You should have told me.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

He went silent. Then changed the subject, voice hard again. ‘What I said to the Captain, do you understand?’

I supposed so. ‘Yes.’

A longer pause. ‘You can prove very little of what you’ve said. The visions you describe . . .’ He grimaced. ‘Even if they have shown you the truth, that truth may never come to light. I think you know that.’

I did.

He sighed, ‘Still. As for the ways in which it may weaken my position, you have as much to lose as me. If not more.’

Truest of all. Tired and becoming more confused with every moment, I flopped my arms onto the table. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what, Flint?’

‘Plamen.’

Two beats of silence. Then, ‘You didn’t kill him,’ he said sternly. ‘And if you’d claimed to, I simply would not have believed you. You’re a boy.’

When I didn’t respond he came to lean over me at the table. Hand on my wrist. ‘Flint. Whether Plamen was destroyed by the Rath or by a force we can’t explain, I see it as unlikely you would report his death were there a chance of his striding back through the gates tomorrow. You return changed, and there is only one thing I can think of to explain it. What choice do I really have but to believe all the rest – the numbers we face, Plamen’s intention to usurp me, the loss of your Disc? The facts may not change things in our favour, but you would have done me disservice by reporting any less.’

‘Finding the river was meant to help!’ I exclaimed. ‘It was supposed to give us a chance!’

‘Your orders were to return with information,’ he corrected. ‘That’s what you’ve done. You can’t change what it means, and what it means is something I am ready to believe Plamen would have wished to forestall. Had he not died, you would have.’

‘So you do believe me?’

‘Yes.’

He took his hand off my wrist. My shoulders sagged, aching. Everything ached so badly and I was so, so tired. I was scared to ask it but even more desperate to know: ‘Will you still push for war? After what I’ve told you, will you try get the Satrap to—’

He hushed me with a gesture, glancing briefly at the door. His voice went soft: ‘You have seen how many wills are at play here. I want no more blood on my hands than you do, but a return to open war may yet act as a tool. The viziers of the Sanhedrin are short-sighted and afraid, bloated on indulgence and privilege, ready to throw whatever they can at this threat to end it. She will use them if I don’t.’ He seemed to wait for some sign of understanding in my face; must have seen it. ‘I will do my utmost to ensure that your warning is well heeded.’

I gaped. ‘But it’s more than just a warning.’

Again the quieting gesture. ‘Florian, the desert must resist its invaders in the end. There is little we can do to stop that and the Satrap is dying. Understand that I am choosing to trust you, and yes, so long as it remains within my power, I will do what I can to prevent the direct offensive upon the Spectres that Plamen would have had. But more than that I just can’t promise.’

Shallow comfort. And I knew by the way he moved away from the table, it was all he would say. As I sat miserably on the stool, he delved into his thobe and fished a key out. I stood and followed him to the tall vertical cabinet, which he unlocked and opened.

We stood there side-by-side, looking in. The shelves were bare except for the mound of that second Disc in its red cloth, and for some reason it seemed strange that it still existed at all when its twin didn’t.

‘Well?’ said Rusper.

No point lifting the cloth—it wasn’t mine. Mine was gone. And this one had never answered to my touch. Whatever it was, whatever they really were, it couldn’t be trusted anymore. And a magic wasn’t going to save my people, or Antissa. I put my hand against the door of the cabinet and closed it.

Rusper turned the key.

As the workers shambled back in with Zeek close at their heels, Rusper picked up the lantern. I hid my hair, falling in behind him as he made towards the door. ‘Clear the trunks, table and stools. Leave the rest,’ he instructed them. ‘Then brick up this room.’