Rhita still held the clavicle. She had ignored the device for several minutes, yet she clutched it firmly in both hands. Lowering her head from the window, shaking her aching hands out one by one, she returned her full attention to what the device was telling her. Her thoughts filled with the display again. She saw the gate—still represented by a red cross—and she saw what must have been a haze of rain drops around the swale. The riders did not seem significant to the clavicle—she could detect no symbols indicating their presence. But something was happening to the red cross. It was surrounded by one red circle, and then by another, and a third. The circles broke into three equal segments and spun about the cross.

What’s happening?

The gateway is still expanding, the clavicle told her.

How?

Controlled from the opposite side.

Rhita’s heart fell. She had not been truly frightened—exhilarated, shocked, surprised, but not afraid—until now. “What have we done?” she murmured. Once again she prayed to Athene Lindia and closed her eyes, wishing Patrikia were here to advise her.

A trio of riders seemed to rise up out of the ground before the beecraft hatchway, screaming and waving their rifles and swords. Oresias stood and faced them, hands outstretched to show he was unarmed. The lead rider, bareheaded, bald and with a long, thin mustache, leaned forward in his minimal saddle and motioned for Oresias to approach.

“You speak Hellenic?” the rider asked.

“Yes,” Oresias said.

“Our strategos, he wishes a word with you—you are Oresias?”

“Yes.”

“You command with this arabios Jamal Atta?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you here?” The bald-headed rider leaned forward with an expression of intense, solicitous interest. Then he leaned back, shaking his sword vigorously. “No. You tell the strategos, with the arabios, all together!”

Oresias climbed down from the hatch and followed the trio across the grass, around the beecraft, to where Atta conversed with the man in the wool coat.

Rhita still had half her attention on the clavicle display. The circles spinning around the cross had become a blur; that, the clavicle told her, was an indication of the strength of the gate. A great deal of energy was being expended. She could not see the swale or the gate directly.

“Something’s happening,” she told Demetrios. He knelt beside her, hair dripping rain. They all resembled drowned cats. He held out his hand, and she released the clavicle to clasp it, then pull it down to touch a handle. His eyes grew large.

“God!” he said. “It’s a nightmare.”

“I guess the Tatars don’t see anything unusual,” Rhita surmised. “But it’s getting wider, stronger.”

“Why?”

“Something’s going to come through,” she said.

“Maybe more people like your grandmother,” Lugotorix said. He laid the machine pistol behind the winch housing, out of sight but quick to hand; not, however, immediately in hand, in case they were searched.