Tansell looked at Isaac contemptuously. The tall man sat cross-legged before the pile of metal and glass. He put the colander on his head, like a child playing at soldiers. He whispered under his voice, a weird lilting, and he began to massage his hands with quick and intricate movements. He pulled at his knuckles, kneaded the balls of his palms.

For several minutes, nothing happened. Then quite suddenly, his fingers began to glow from within, as if the bones were illuminated.

Tansell reached up and began to caress the colander, as gently as if he stroked a cat.

Slowly, the metal began to shape itself under his coaxing. It softened at each momentary touch, fitting more snuggly onto his head, flattening down, distending at the back. Tansell pulled and kneaded it gently until it was quite flush over his hair. Then, still whispering his little sounds, he tweaked at the front, adjusting the lip of the metal, curling it up and away from his eyes.

He reached down and picked up the copper pipe, gripped it between his hands and channelled energy through his palms. Obstreperously, the metal began to flex. He coiled it gently, placing the two ends of the copper against the colander-helmet just above his temples, then pressing down hard until each piece of metal broke the surface tension of the other and began to spill across the divide. With a tiny fizz of energy, the thick piping and the iron colander fused.

Tansell shaped the bizarre extrusion of copper that jutted from the newborn helmet’s front. It became an angled loop extending about a foot. He fumbled for the pieces of mirror, clicked his fingers until someone handed them to him. Humming to the copper, cajoling it, he softened its substance and pushed one, then the other piece of mirror into it, one in front of each of his eyes. He looked up into them, each in turn, adjusting them carefully until they offered him a clear view of the wall of rubbish behind him.

He tweaked the copper, hardened it.

Tansell removed his hands and looked up at Isaac. The helmet on his head was unwieldy, and its provenance from a colander was still absurdly obvious, but it was perfect for their needs. It had taken him a little more than fifteen minutes to fashion.

“I’m going to put a couple of holes in, thread a piece of leather through for a chinstrap, just in case,” he muttered.

Isaac nodded, impressed.

“That’s perfect. We need . . . uh . . . seven of those, one of them for a garuda. That’s a rounder head, remember. I’m going to leave you to it for a minute.” He looked over at Derkhan and Lemuel. “I think I’d better liaise with the Council,” he said.

He turned and traced his way through the dump labyrinth.