It mattered not where they went; Tiaan could not have climbed them even if a nylatl had been at her heels. She did not think of laying down her burden. 'I will never leave you,' she had promised the dying child.

Below, Tiaan could hear Nish's feet on the treads, his gasping breath. It was inconceivable that anyone could have found her here, but somehow he had. Why? She had been a fine artisan, the best in the manufactory, but not so brilliant that they would chase her halfway across the world. It had to be the amplimet: the strange, glowing crystal that had allowed her to reach across the void to Minis in the first place.

She became aware, deep down, of faint stirrings. Not withdrawal, just an indefinable longing for the crystal. She had been parted from it too long. Tiaan put the feelings out of her mind. If Nish wanted the amplimet, let him have it. It had been the cause of all her troubles. Dear Joeyn, the old miner who had been her first and closest friend, had died getting it for her.

The footsteps came closer. Taking up Haani, Tiaan staggered into the archway directly opposite. Spheres lit up, revealing a stone passage that curved away into darkness.

On she trudged, along a passage that seemed to have been curving forever. Tirthrax was unfathomable. It was as if she was inside an exuberant work of art, built solely for the pleasure of mastering its materials.

Her mouth was powder dry. She had not had a drink since opening the gate, a day and a night ago. Another passage slashed across the first and she turned left into it, but some twenty or thirty paces along, the passage ended in native rock. Or did it? As she headed back, from the corner of her eye the rock seemed to shift sideways into a cavity darker than black itself. She moved towards it, thinking it might be a place to hide. The blackness went back to rock.