Suak circled in the skies high above Kalonia watching the approaching army that had come with the dawn from the east. Even to his keen eyes they looked no more than motes on the mirror bridge but the sound of their hooves on the bright surface rang loudly in the still, cold air. A thin dusting of overnight snow covered the ground and the top of the dome but there was a clear window where Orietta and Malorye could look out over the bridge. 

"They bear swords, bows and axes; a great gathering of the tribes. Embelin has seeded the host with listeners and we have been following their progress for five days since they crossed the borders into Illunon." 

"I don't understand," Orietta said. "Riders have always made weapons to hunt and to defend themselves from wild beasts but warfare is only a dark legend to us. We do not have organised armies. How can this have happened? All Riders are taught to hate the idea of combat between thinking beings. It is against the Vow of Earth." 

"Someone has been teaching them differently," Malorye said simply. "Someone has been shifting the meaning of the stories intended to keep Rider and Enclave cultures apart until we are perceived not as a sacred place of awe to avoid but a frightening enemy to be crushed. They mean to destroy us." 

"If Trassamul is behind this, as Hirrilow has told us, then whatever Kalonia has done to offend against the Vow Of Earth their action is far worse, surely!" 

"So you might think," Malorye said with an ironic smile. "But it would seem that not everyone thinks the same." 

"Can we withstand them?" 

"Though we number only six old men and yourself, the Riders do not know that and Kalonia still has many hidden strengths," the seer said. "These strengths may well be tested to their limit. Hirrilow goes to speak with the leaders now and he will attempt to reason with them. We shall soon see whether he is successful."

Hirrilow waited for the Riders in the middle of the bridge. It was important for him to show no outward sign of concern for then his apparent frailty and disinterest would reinforce an aura of power and mystery which he needed now to defend Kalonia. So the seer leaned on his staff in full view of the approaching horde which came slowly towards him and waited for the leading Riders with a fine show of apparently easy authority. Yet inwardly he was very afraid. This kind of confrontation was unprecedented. He planned to use a mixture of reason and a call on the traditional honour of the Riders coupled with subliminal appeals to their old culture of respect and reverence to dissuade them from any attack. However, he was acutely conscious that he did not know what these strange Riders had been led to believe and what lies they might have been told about Kalonia. There was certainly no guarantee that bluff or negotiation would work. 

Hirrilow had not left the station without taking precautions. Tenereck, the engineer was monitoring the situation closely from the dome using a variety of surveillance instruments. If it looked like his leader was in danger he would activate the somatic shields Kalonia used to defend itself against alegoyle predation, the very same mechanisms by which Orietta had been saved when she first arrived at the station. Yet Tenereck had not been idle in the years since it became apparent that Kalonia might be threatened. Under Hirrilow's orders and with the aid of Cwendor, the master builder, the engineer had been systematically and secretly modifying and extending the stations defences. They had amassed a large reserve of energy and made some changes to the projection wave generators which would enable them to run the shields over a wider area and for longer than ever before. They would be able to render many horses and riders unconscious simultaneously and should be able to halt any charge long before it could reach the walls of the dome. That was the theory. But the technology had not been proved in practice and should the situation degenerate into open warfare there was no saying whether Kalonia could resist an invasion successfully or not. 

And so matters stood; a delicate and dangerous balance as the leader of the Riders pulled his horse up before Hirrilow.

Tenerick heard Gyrun enter the defence room but he didn't look back. He was too busy concentrating on events on the mirror bridge, with his hands poised over the shield controls as screens round the walls showed the meeting between the Riders and Hirrilow from a variety of angles. He never expected treachery from within and that was why he was caught unawares when Gyrun suddenly put his arm round the engineers neck and pulled him back away from the shield actuators. The dagger which was thrust into his back just above the kidneys did not kill him immediately but a brutal twist and subsequent withdrawal left him slumped on the floor in a rapidly expanding pool of blood and the shock to his heart finally ended his mortal life soon after. Gyrun dropped the weapon and only now the deed was done did he feel a cold tremble of horror. It wasn't exactly murder in his eyes because every member of the Embassy to the Substrate was bonded to the Kalonia vurtiverse and when their body died, their spirit returned to the sanctum. Even now Tenerick would be starting on the long slow process of integration and reawakening within the vurtiverse that would eventually lead to the restoration of full consciousness within the modality from which he had been decanted. Yet if Gyrun had not precisely killed Tenerick he could hardly expect to greet him ever again on friendly terms in this world or the next and there was no disguising the serious consequences of this violence. There would be open civil war within the Sanctum of Kalonia now. The old party would be outraged and those factions who had secretly opposed Hirrilow would have to declare themselves. It was going to get ugly. 

Gyrun didn't have time to think about that now, he still had work to do and if his work succeeded the conflicts within Kalonia would not be a problem. The interpreter was more usually accustomed to deciding on fine points of law concerning the Vow Of Earth and he know little of the material details of the Kalonian defences but he had been given some help from agents in the Conclave. The so called "failure" in the defences when an alegoyle attack killed Cassia had in reality been a practice run for Gyrun and his associates, trying out some coding to see how the Kalonian defences were organised. Now he would make use of what they had learned to disable them completely. He worked swiftly, overriding manual controls that could only be operated from this location then activating others that sprang open and unlocked all the gateways and doors to the dome. Finally, there remained only one thing to do. A last routine flashed a bright signal light from the top of the dome. This was the signal light which the Riders had been told to expect.

At first the Riders seemed wary when Hirrilow asked them to state their reason for presenting such a force of arms on the bridge to the peaceful Enclave of Kalonia. They had come a long way to bring war to the plateau and the chief seer found their strong eastern accents hard to understand. Eventually he was able to piece together a story; that they believed Kalonia had taken captives and was keeping independent Riders prisoner against their will. They were here to demand their release. There was a small measure of truth in this accusation of course but there was only one Rider at Kalonia. Orietta had come here of her own free will, had been saved by the seers from certain death and had by now made her home with them. Ironically, the Enclaves Hirrilow suspected were behind the lies the Riders had been told would have been far less lenient themselves had they received a Rider "guest" and in this their manipulation was especially cynical. It was Kalonia's mercy they were punishing using these dupes as their agents. Throughout the stilted exchange Hirrilow had the feeling the Rider chief was waiting for something though he could not tell what and it perplexed him. A starburst of light flashed from the top of the dome. Then there was a ripple of voices that spread over the horsemen and the leading Rider's face turned grim. He unsheathed his axe and raised his hand to signal a general advance. "Enough talking old man! We shall find out for ourselves whether you will it or not!" 

They began to charge. Turning back to the dome, Hirrilow fled from their misguided anger. "Now would be a very good time for Tenerick to activate the shields," he thought. "Why doesn't he act? Where are Kalonia's defences?" But Tenerick was already dead and Gyrun had sabotaged the shields. Moments later the chief of the seers of Kalonia was dead too, with an axe in his back and the Riders were charging on towards the undefended station.

There was uproar in the vurtiverse of Kalonia, only a little short of civil war. Cwendor had been monitoring the power feeds when he heard of events in the defence room and on the mirror bridge from his friends in the sanctum. Pausing only to arm himself, the master builder made straight for the top of the station. He met Embelin on the way who was now similarly well informed and similarly armed. The two men shared a bleak smile. If Kalonia fell today they would at least have some form of revenge on Gyrun for murdering their friend Tenerick and betraying their leader and their Enclave.

They caught the traitor heading down towards the sanctum. Gyrun was in a kind of daze and not thinking clearly. The two seers felt no inclination to show mercy and made swift and efficient work of their grim task, knowing now that there was so little time to lose. In "dying" this way Gyrun was only returning to the vurtiverse, as Tenerick and Hirrilow had done before him where he would eventually be joining the conflict raging within the sanctum. As an artilect he could not really be killed unless his presence in the vurtiverse were finally extinguished but at least he was out of the game as far as the mortal world was concerned. It was here and now that the important battles would be won or lost. It didn't look good. The Embassy to the Substrate numbered only three of the original six seers who were supposed to look after the physical life of the station and this was not a time to be leaderless and short of man power. A great responsibility fell on the remaining decanted seers. They must defend the sanctum at all costs. Cwendor was quickly able to establish that there was no hope of sealing the outer doors or restoring the functions of the somatic shields. Riders were already at the gates of the dome. 

"There is only one option," he said to Embelin. "We must round up Malorye and Orietta and seal the inner barriers around the sanctum. There are separate systems there which Gyrun will not have been able to modify. We have to abandon the rest of the dome but in the sanctum itself we may be able to hold out."

They were only just in time. As the last four defenders of Kalonia descended the central access ramp into the zone of the sanctum, they could already hear the sounds of exultant Riders galloping through the dome. There would be rioting and looting soon, of that there could be no doubt. The great blast shield doors slammed shut behind them, leaving Cwendor, Malorye, Orietta and Embelin sealed in with the silent seers of the sanctum. 

"What can we do now?" Orietta asked. 

"Very little except wait and hope," Cwendor answered bitterly. 

"The doors are strong," Embelin interjected, "and it is not clear that the Riders understand enough about the design and purpose of our Enclave to even realise that we have this sanctum. If we stay hidden, when they have had their fill of destruction we may well emerge safely to pick up the pieces." 

"And what of Crinomu and Asanka?" 

"Your lover and your son have been warned of the attack and even now they return from their quest," Malorye said. "They have lifted the curse of Kalonia, but none of us could have expected such a bitter sequel to what should have been a triumph and so very soon afterwards! We must hope that our friends may come back swiftly and safely and maybe they will find some way to aid us." 

"Yet I do not see what two alone can possibly do against so many," Cwendor said.