When the pole hit ground it drove a plunger. The paraffin seals burst. Liquid squirted. The plunger hit a striker. The fluid ignited. Gouts of fire. And when that fire reached something inside the pots, they exploded. Shards cut down men and monsters.

I watched the blooming of those flowers of fire, aghast.

Above, the Taken wheeled for a second pass. There was no magic in this. The null was useless.

The second fall drew lightning from whales and mantas. Their first few successes cured them, though, for the pots they hit exploded in the air. Mantas went down. One whale was in grave trouble till others maneuvered overhead and sprayed it with ballast water.

The Taken made a third pass, again dropping pots. They would hammer Darling's troops into slime unless she did something.

She went up after the Taken.

The smoke pots slid around the flanks of the null, outlining it completely.

The Lady climbed at shrieking speed.

The W of bigs went away. The smaller carpets took on more altitude. The Lady brought us into position behind Whisper and The Limper. Clearly, she had anticipated Darling's response.

My emotions were mixed, to say the least.

Whisper's carpet tipped its nose downward. Limper followed. Then the Lady. Others of the Taken followed us.

Whisper dove toward one especially monstrous windwhale. Faster and faster she flew. Three hundred yards from the null two thirty-foot spears ripped away from her carpet, impelled by sorcery. When they hit the null they continued on in a normal ballistic trajectory.

Whisper made no effort to avoid the null. Into it she plunged, the man in her second seal guiding the carpel's fall wilh those fish fins.

Whisper's spears struck near the windwhale's head. Both burst into flames.

Fire is anathema to those monsters, for the gas that lifts them is violently explosive.

The Limper trailed Whisper with elan. He loosed two spears outside the null and another two inside, just dropped as his second-seat man took the carpet within inches of the windwhale.

Only one lance failed to strike home.

The whale had five fires burning upon its back.

Storms of lightning crackled round Whisper and Limper.

Then we hit the null. Our buoying spells failed. Panic snatched at me. Up to me?…

We were headed for the burning whale. I jerked and banged and kicked levers.

"Not so violently!" the Lady yelled. "Smoothly. Gently."

I got it in hand as the whale roared upward past us.

Lightning crackled. We passed between two smaller whales. They missed us. The Lady discharged her little ballista. Its bolt struck one of those monsters. What the hell was the point? I wondered. That was not a bee sting to one of them.

But that quarrel had a wire attached, running off a reel…

Wham!

I was blinded momenlarily. My hair crackled. Direct hit from a manta bolt… We're dead, I Thought.

The metal cage surrounding us absorbed the lightning's energy and passed it along the unwinding wire.