Dust of Dreams

Chapter Twenty-One

City of darkness, see how that darkness hides your ugly face.

They were on the bridge. She was leaning heavily on her husband’s shoulder, both relieved and irritated by his stolid strength. ‘But you don’t see, do you?’

‘Sand?’

She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter. The air is alive. Can you feel that? Withal, can you feel that much at least?’

‘Your goddess,’ he said. ‘Alive, aye, alive with tears.’

That was true. Mother Dark had returned with sorrow knotted into grief. Darkness made helpless fists, like a widow trying to hold on to all she had lost. Lost, yes, something has been lost. She is no longer turned away, but in mourning. Her eyes are averted, downcast. She is here, yet behind a veil. Mother, you make this a most bitter gift.

Her strength was slow in returning. Memories like wolves, snapping on all sides. Kharkanas. Sandalath clutched Withal’s right arm, feeling the thick muscles, the cables of his will. He was one of those men who were like a finely made sword, sheathed in a hard skin, hiding a core that could bend when it had to. She didn’t deserve him. That was brutally clear. Take me hostage, husband. That much I will understand. That much I know how to live with. Even though it too will break in the end-no, stop thinking that way. It’s a memory no one here deserves.

‘There are fires in the city.’

‘Yes. It is… occupied.’

‘Savages in the ruins?’

‘Of course not. These are the Shake. We’ve found them.’

‘So they made it, then.’

She nodded.

He drew her to a halt ten steps from the bridge’s end. ‘Sand. Tell me again why you wanted to find them. You wanted to warn them, isn’t that right? Against what?’

‘Too late for that. Gallan sent them out, and now his ghost pulls them back. He cursed them. He said they could leave, but then he made them remember enough-just enough-to force them to return.’

Withal sighed, his expression showing he was unconvinced. ‘People need to know where they came from, Sand. Especially if they’ve lived generations not knowing. They were a restless people, weren’t they? What do you think made them restless?’

‘Then we’re all restless, Withal, because at the very heart, none of us know where we came from. Or where we’re going.’

He made a face. ‘Mostly, nobody much cares. Very well, have it your way. These Shake were cursed. You didn’t reach them in time. Now what?’

‘I don’t know. But whatever Andii blood remains within them is all but drowned in human blood. You will find in them close company, and that is something.’

‘I have all the company I need in you, Sand.’

She snorted. ‘Sweet, but nonsense. See it this way, then. I am of the land-this land. You are of the sea-a distant sea. And the Shake? They are of the Shore. And look at us here, now, standing on a bridge.’ She paused and then grimaced. ‘I can almost see the blind poet’s face. I can almost see him nodding. When grief was too much, Withal, we were in the habit of tearing out our own eyes. What kind of people would do such a thing?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not following you, Sand. You need simpler thoughts.’

‘The Shake are home, and yet more lost than they ever have been. Does Mother Dark forgive them? Will she give them her city? Will she grant them the legacy of the Tiste Andii?’

‘Then perhaps you have a purpose being here, after all, Sand.’

She searched his eyes, was stung by his compassion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You need to convince Mother Dark to do all those things. For the Shake.’

Oh, husband. I was a hostage, nothing more. And then, and then, I lost even that. ‘Mother Dark has no time for the likes of me.’

‘Tell me, what was the purpose of being a hostage?’

He’d caught her thoughts. She looked away, studied the wreckage-cluttered river sliding under the bridge. Dark waters… ‘The First Families sparred. Power was a wayward tide. We were the coins they exchanged. So long as we were never spent, so long as we’-remained unsullied-‘remained as we were, the battles saw little blood. We became the currency of power.’ But gold does not feel. Gold does not dream. Gold does not long for a man’s hand closing about it. You can win us, you can lose us, but you can’t eat us. You can hide us away. You can polish us bright and hang us from a chain round your neck. You can bury us, you can even carve a likeness of your face into us, but in the next season of fire all sign of you vanishes.

You can’t eat us, and you can’t fuck us. No, you can’t do that.

‘Sand?’

‘What?’

‘Were hostages ever killed?’

She shook her head. ‘Not until the end. When everything… fell apart. All it needs,’ she said, memories clouding her mind, ‘is the breaking of one rule, one law. A breaking that no one then calls to account. Once that happens, once the shock passes, every law shatters. Every rule of conduct, of proper behaviour, it all vanishes. Then the hounds inside each and every one of us are unleashed. At that moment, Withal’-she met his eyes, defiant against the anguish she saw in them- ‘we all show our true selves. We are not beasts-we are something far worse. There, deep inside us. You see it-the emptiness in the eyes, as horror upon horror is committed, and no one feels-no one feels a thing.’

She was trembling in his arms now and he held her tight-to keep her from sinking to her knees. Sandalath pressed her face into the curve of his shoulder and neck. Her words muffled, she said, ‘She should have stayed turned away. I will tell her-go away-we weren’t worth it then, we’re not worth it now. I will tell you-her-’

‘Sand-’

‘No, I will beg her. Turn away. I’m begging you, my love, turn away.’

‘Sand. The Shake-’

The bridge beneath them seemed to be swaying. She held him as hard as she could.

‘The Shake, my love. They’ve found us.’

Her eyes closed. I know. I know.

‘Well?’

Brevity adjusted her sword belt. ‘Well what?’

‘Should we go and talk to ’em, love?’

‘No, let’s just stand here. Maybe they’ll go away.’

Snorting, Pithy set out. ‘Dark dark dark,’ she muttered, ‘it’s all dark. I’m sick of dark. I’m gonna torch the forest, or maybe a few buildings. Fire, that’s the solution. And lanterns. Giant lanterns. Torches. Oil lamps. White paint.’

‘You going to go on like that all the way to ’em?’ Brevity asked, keeping pace a step behind her.

‘That woman looks like she walked outa one of them wall paintings in the temple.’

‘Maybe she did.’

‘Then what? Got lost? Our lookout watched ’em coming up the road. Nah, the point is, her people built this city. She’s got more claim to it than the Shake. And that’s a problem.’

‘Y’saying she won’t like the new neighbours? Too bad. She’s only got that one man. Besides, she looks sick.’

Their conversation ended as they drew closer to the two strangers.

The man’s eyes were on them, even as he continued to support the woman in his arms. ‘Hello,’ he said.

Trader tongue. Pithy nodded. ‘And the same. Meckros?’

‘Good guess,’ he replied. ‘I am named Withal. You’re Letherii, not Shake.’

‘Good guess,’ Pithy responded. ‘We’re the Queen’s Honour Guard. I’m Captain Pithy, and this is Captain Brevity. Is your mate sick?’

‘She is Tiste Andii,’ he said. ‘She was born in this city.’

‘Oh,’ said Pithy, and she shot her friend a look that asked: Now what?

Brevity cleared her throat. ‘Well then, if it’s a homecoming, we’d best bring her in.’

At that the woman finally looked up.

Pithy’s breath caught, and beside her Brevity started.

‘Thank you,’ said the Tiste Andii. Tears had streaked her face.

‘Need another shoulder to lean on?’ Pithy asked.

‘No.’ And she disengaged herself from Withal’s arms. Straightening, she faced the gate. ‘I’m ready.’

Pithy and Brevity let her and Withal take the lead, at a pace of their choosing. As soon as they’d moved a half-dozen strides ahead, Brevity turned and plucked Pithy’s sleeve.

‘See her face?’ she whispered.

Pithy nodded.

‘She ain’t just like them in the wall paintings, Pithy. She is one of ’em! I’d swear it!’

‘Side room, first one on the left just inside the altar room-the only one without stone beds. She’s in there. Her and maybe ten others. They got manacles on their wrists.’

‘That’s right! One of them!’

No wonder she ain’t happy about coming home. Pithy said, ‘Once we’re in, you go get the witches and bring ’em over. Unless Tovis or Yedan have come back, in which case get them.’

‘That’d be a better choice,’ Brevity replied. ‘Them witches are still drunk-’

‘They ain’t drunk for real.’

‘You know what I mean. Eel-eyed. Horny. The kinda drunk that makes a woman ashamed of being a woman.’

‘They ain’t drunk. I told you. So get ’em, all right?’

‘All right, but we should a buried ’em when we had the chance.’

The deeper shadow of the gate’s arch slipped over them like a shawl. Sandalath slowly released her breath. Mother Dark’s pervasive presence filled the city, and she felt her weariness drain away as the goddess’s power touched her, but the benediction felt… indifferent. The grief was still there, appallingly fresh-a reopened wound, or something else? She could not be sure. So… sorrow does not end. And if you cannot let it go, Mother, what hope do I have?

Something brushed her mind. An acknowledgement, a momentary recognition. Sympathy? She sighed. ‘Withal, will you walk with me?’

‘Of course-as I am doing right now, Sandalath.’

‘No. The temple, the Terondai.’ She met his eyes. ‘Kurald Galain. To the very foot of Mother Dark.’

‘What is it you seek?’ he asked, searching her face.

She turned back to the two Letherii women standing a few paces behind. ‘You spoke of a Queen,’ she said.

‘Twilight,’ said Pithy. ‘Yan Tovis.’

‘And her brother,’ added Brevity. ‘Yedan Derryg, the Watch.’

‘I must go to the temple,’ Sandalath said.

‘We heard.’

‘But I would speak with her.’

‘They left us a while back,’ Pithy said. ‘Went into the forest. When the witches finally come round they said the two of ’em, Tovis and her brother, probably rode to the First Shore. That was after they was in the temple-the Queen and the Prince, I mean. The witches won’t go anywhere near it, the temple, I mean.’

Sandalath cocked her head. ‘Why do I make you so nervous, Captain?’

‘You ain’t changed much,’ blurted Brevity.

‘I-what? Oh. In the Skeral-the Chamber of Hostages.’

Pithy nodded. ‘Only, the witches said this city’s been dead a long, long time.’

‘No,’ said Brevity, ‘a long time.’

‘I said that,’ Pithy retorted, scowling at her companion.

‘You didn’t say it right, is all. Long. Long.’

Sandalath faced her husband again. ‘This world is born anew,’ she said. ‘Mother Dark has returned and now faces us. The Shake have returned as well. Who remains missing? The Tiste Andii. My people. I want to know why.’

‘And do you think she’ll answer you?’ Withal asked, but it was a question without much behind it, and that made Sandalath curious.

‘Husband. Has she spoken to you?’

He grimaced. Then reluctantly nodded.

But not to me. Mother Dark, am I so flawed in your eyes now?

There was no silent reply to that. The presence remained unperturbed, as if deaf to Sandalath, deaf and wilfully blind. Not fair. Not fair!

‘Sand?’

She hissed under her breath. ‘The Terondai, now.’

Beyond the scores of buildings now occupied by the Shake and refugee islanders, Kharkanas remained a place of ghosts. The witches decided they liked that. They had found an estate situated on a terrace overlooking an overgrown park. The outer wall’s main gate had been burned down, leaving ancient soot smears on the marble frame and deep heat cracks latticing the lintel stone. The garden flanking the formal approach was now a snarl of stunted trees on both sides, their roots tilting the flagstones of the path.

Atop four broad steps double doors marked the entrance to the residence. These had been shattered from the inside. Bronze statues reared on either side of the staircase, each standing on an ornate marble pedestal. If they had been fashioned in the likeness of living creatures, decided Pully, then the world was a stranger place than she had ever imagined. Towering, the statues were of warriors, human from the shoulders down, whilst their necks and heads belonged to a hound. Both sentinels bore weapons. A double-bladed axe for the one on the left, a two-handed sword for the one on the right. Verdigris marred the details of the beastly visages, but there was enough to see that the two were not identical. The sword-wielder was terribly scarred, a slash that had cleaved through one eye, deep enough to bite bone.

Humming under her breath, Pully set one knee on this particular statue’s horizontal penis, and pulled herself up for a closer look at that face. ‘Now them’s big teeth, an’ precious so.’

Skwish had already gone inside, likely painting a thick red line down the middle, staking her half of the estate. Pully had forgotten how competitive the cow had been in her youth, but now it was all coming back. Wrinkles gone, bitch returns! An what was I sayin? Right, bitter’s a habit, Skwish. Bitter’s a habit. No matter. Skwish could have her half of the estate and half of every room. But then half of everything was half of nothing. They could live here, yes, but they couldn’t own the place.

She clambered down from the statue, brushed the dust from her hands, and then ascended the steps and strode inside. Eight paces opposite her was a wall bearing a carved crest of some sort, arcane heraldry announcing the family that had claimed this place, or so she supposed. Even so, one sniff told her there was sorcery in that sigil, latent, possibly a ward but too old to manage much. She could hear Skwish rummaging about in a room down the corridor on the right. Tripped nothing. Dead ward, or as good as. Did you even notice, sister?

One thing was impossible not to notice. Ever since they’d crawled out of that deathly sleep, they’d felt the presence of the goddess. Mother Dark had looked upon them both, had gathered up their souls like a pair of knuckled dice. A rattle or two, curious fingertips exploring every nuance, every pit and crack. Then the cast. Dismissive, all interest lost. Damned insulting, yes. Infuriating. Who did the hag think she was, anyway? Pully snorted, eyes still on the marble crest. Something about it made her uneasy. ‘Never mind,’ she muttered, and then raised her voice: ‘Skwish!’

‘Wha?’

‘We ain’t welcome here.’

Skwish reappeared, stood in the corridor’s gloom. ‘The Queen will take the palace. Her and Witchslayer. We don’t want t’be anywhere close to ’em. There’s power here, Pully. We can use it, we can feed on it-’

‘Risky. It ain’t as quiet as I’d like.’

‘It’s memories is all.’

‘What do you mean?’

Skwish rolled her eyes, approached. She halted directly in front of the crest. ‘Old symbols,’ she said. She pointed. ‘See that? That’s the Terondai, and there, that’s the sigil of Mother Dark herself.’

‘Empty throne! This ain’t a Royal House, is it?’

‘Not quite, but as good as. See that mark? The one in the centre. That’s the Consort-you never was interested in studying the Oldings. So, this house, it belonged to a man lover to some princess or maybe even the queen herself. See, that’s his name, the one there.’

‘What was it?’

‘Daraconus, something like that.’

They heard someone in the courtyard and turned in time to see Captain Brevity climbing the steps.

‘What?’ demanded Pully, her harsh voice startling the Letherii.

‘Was looking for you,’ Brevity said, slightly out of breath.

‘What for?’ Skwish asked.

‘Visitors.’

‘From where?’

‘Best come with me, you two. There’s a woman. Tiste Andii.’

‘Bluerose?’

‘What? No. She was born here.’

Pully and Skwish exchanged glances. And then Pully scowled. Bad news. Competition. Rival. ‘But she’s not alone?’

‘Got a man with her. A Meckros.’

‘Where’d they come from, then? They ain’t always been here-we’d a sensed that. The city was empty-’

‘Up the road, Pully,’ said Brevity, ‘same as us.’

‘We got here first,’ Skwish growled.

Brevity blinked. ‘It’s a big city, witch. Now, you coming?’

‘Where is she?’ Pully asked.

‘The temple.’

Bad news. The worst. ‘Fine then,’ she snapped.

Yedan Derryg had walked a thousand or more paces along the ethereal First Shore, but now at last he was returning. And in one hand, Yan Tovis saw, he held a sword. The weapon flashed green in the incandescent fall of liquid light. The blade was long as a man’s leg yet thinner than the width of a hand. A wire basket hilt shielded the grip. As he came up to where she stood, something lit his eyes.

‘A Hust sword, sister.’

‘And it’s healed.’

‘Yes.’

‘But how can a broken sword grow back?’

‘Quenched in dragon’s blood,’ he replied. ‘Hust weapons are immortal, immune to all decay. They can shear other blades in two.’ He held up the sword. ‘This is a five-blade sword-tested against five, cut through them all. Twilight, there is no higher calibre of sword than the one you see here. It was the possession of a Hustas, a Master of the House itself-only children of the Forge could own such weapons.’

‘And the woman threw it away.’

‘It is a mystery,’ Yedan Derryg said.

‘She was Gallan’s escort-’

‘Not that. The matter of how a five-blade Hust sword broke in the first place.’

‘Ah. I see your point.’

He looked round. ‘Time dissolves here, this close to the Sea of Light. We have been away from our people too long-’

‘Not my fault,’ she said.

‘True. Mine. No matter. It is time to go back.’

Yan Tovis sighed. ‘What am I to do?’ she asked. ‘Find the palace, sink down on to whatever throne I find?’

The muscles of his jaws knotted beneath his beard and he glanced away. ‘We have things to organize,’ he eventually said. ‘Staff for the palace, officers for the guard. Work teams. Is the river rich with fish? If not, we are in trouble-our stores are depleted. Will crops grow here? Darkness seems to somehow feed the trees and such, but even then, we face a hungry season before anything matures.’

The list alone exhausted her.

‘Leave all that to me,’ Yedan said.

‘Indolence for the Queen-I will go mad with boredom.’

‘You must visit the temple again, sister. It is no longer empty. It must be sanctified once more.’

‘I am no priestess.’

‘Royal blood will suffice.’

She shot him a look. ‘Indeed. How much?’

Yedan shrugged. ‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On how thirsty she is.’

‘If she drains me dry…’

‘The threat of boredom will prove unfounded.’

The bastard was finding himself again. Wit dry as a dead oasis, withered palm leaves rustling like the laughter of locusts. Damned Hust sword and the illusion of coming home. Brother. Prince. Witchslayer. He’d been waiting for this all his life. When she had not. I’d believed nothing. Even in my desperation, I walked cold as a ghost doomed to repeat a lifetime’s path to failure. And my blood-gods below-my blood. This realm demands too much of me.

Yedan faced her again. ‘Sister, we have little time.’

She started. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The Shake-the very impulse that drove you to set us on the Road of Gallan-it was all meant to bring us here. Kharkanas, the First Shore. We must find out why. We must discover what the goddess wants of us.’

Horror rippled through Yan Tovis. No. Her eyes lifted past Yedan to the First Shore, to that tumultuous wall of light-and the innumerable vague figures behind the veil. No, please. Not again.

‘Mount up, sister. It is time to return.’

Given enough time, some ghastly concatenation of ages, lifetimes compressed, crushed down layer upon layer. Details smoothed into the indefinite. Deeds hollowed out like bubbles in pumice. Dreams flattened into gradients of coloured sands that crumbled to the touch. Looking back was unpleasant, and the vaster that field of sediment, the grislier the vista. Sechul Lath had once chosen a bowed, twisted frame to carry the legacies of his interminable existence. Beauty and handsome repose-after all that he had done-was, as far as he was concerned, too hypocritical to bear. No, in form he would seek justice, the physicality of punishment. And this was what had so galled Errastas.

Sechul was tempted to find for himself that bent body once again. The world took those flat sediments and twisted them into tortured shapes. He understood that. He favoured such pressures and the scarred visages they made in stone and flesh.

The sky was blood red and cloudless, the rocky barren soil suffused with streaks of orange and yellow minerals tracking the landscape. Wind-sculpted mesas girdled the horizon, encircling the plain. This warren possessed no name-none that he knew, at any rate. No matter, it had been scoured clean long ago.

Kilmandaros strode at his side in a half-hitching gait, lest she leave him and Errastas far behind. She had assumed her favoured form, bestial and hulking, towering over her two companions. He could hear her sliding breath as it rolled in and out of four lungs, the rhythm so discordant with his own that he felt strangely breathless. Mother or not, she was never a comforting presence. She wore violence like a fur cloak riding her shoulders, a billowing emanation that brushed him again and again.

She was a singular force of balance, Sechul knew-had always known. Creation was her personal anathema, and the destruction in her hands was its answer. She saw no value in order, at least the kind that was imposed by a sentient will. Such efforts were an affront.

Kilmandaros was worshipped still, in countless cultures, but there was nothing benign in that sensibility. She bore a thousand names, a thousand faces, and each and every one was a source of mortal dread. Destroyer, annihilator, devourer. Her fists spoke in the cruel forces of nature, in sundered mountains and drowning floods, in the ground cracking open and in rivers of molten lava. Her skies were ever dark, seething and swollen. Her rain was the rain of ash and cinders. Her shadow destroyed lives.

The Forkrulian joints of her limbs and their impossible articulations were often seen as physical proof of nature gone awry. Broken bones that nonetheless descended with vast, implacable power. A body that could twist like madness. Among the believers, she personified the loosing of rage, the surrendering of reason and the rejection of control. Her cult was written in spilled blood, disfigurement and the virtue of violence.

Dear mother, what lessons do you have for your son?

Errastas walked ahead, a man convinced he knew where he was going. The worlds awaited his guiding hand, that nudge that all too often invited Kilmandaros into her swath of mindless destruction. Yet between them was Sechul Lath, Lord of Chance and Mischance, Caster of Knuckles. He could smile the mockery of mercy, or he could spit and turn away. He could shape every moment of his mother’s violence. Who lives, who dies? The decision was his.

His was the purest worship of them all. So it had always been and so it would always remain. No matter what god or goddess a mortal fool prayed to, Sechul Lath was the arbiter of all they sought. ‘Save me.’ ‘Save us.’ ‘Make us rich.’ ‘Make us fruitful.’ The gods never even heard such supplications from their followers. The need, the desire, snared each prayer, spun them swirling into Sechul’s domain.

He could open himself, even now, to the cries of mortals beyond counting, each and every one begging for an instant of his time, his regard. His blessing.

But he’d stopped listening long ago. He’d spawned the Twins and left them to inherit the pathetic game. How could one not grow weary of that litany of prayers? Each and every desire, so heartfelt, invariably reduced to a knot of sordidness. To gain for oneself, someone else must lose. Joy was purchased in reams of sorrow. Triumphs stood tall on heaps of bones. Save my child? Another must die. Balance! All must balance! Can existence be any crueller than that? Can justice be any emptier? To bless you with chance, I must curse another with mischance. To this law even the gods must bow. Creation, destruction, life, death-no, I am done with it! Done with it all!

Leave it to my Oponnai. The Twins must ever face one another, lest existence unravel. They are welcome to it.

No, he’d had his fill of mortal blood.

But immortal blood, ah, that was another matter. With it, he could… he could… what? I can break the fulcrum. I can send the scales crashing down. It’s all pointless anyway-the Che’Malle saw to that. We rise and we fall, but each and every time the cycle renews, our rise is never as high as the last time, and the fall in turn takes us farther down. Mortals are blind to this spiral. All will end. Energies will lose their grip, and all will fade away.

I have seen it. I know what’s coming.

Errastas sought a resurrection but what he sought was impossible. Each generation of gods was weaker-oh, they strode forth blazing with power, but that was the glow of youth and it quickly dissipated. And the mortal worshippers, they too, in their tiny, foreshortened lives, slid into cynical indifference, and those among them who held any faith at all soon backed into corners, teeth bared in their zeal, their blind fanaticism-where blindness was a virtue and time could be dragged to a halt, and then pulled backward. Madness. Stupidity.

None of us can go back. Errastas, what you seek will only precipitate your final fall, and good riddance. Still, lead on, old friend. To the place where I will do what must be done. Where I will end… everything.

Ahead, Errastas halted, turning to await them. His lone eye studied them, flicking back and forth. ‘We are close,’ he said. ‘We hover directly above the portal we seek.’

‘She is chained below?’ Kilmandaros asked.

‘She is.’

Sechul Lath rubbed the back of his neck, looked away. The distant range of stone fangs showed their unnatural regularity. Among them could be seen stumps where entire mountains had been uprooted, plucked from the solid earth. They built them here. They were done with this world. They’d devoured every living thing by then. Such bold… confidence. He glanced back at Errastas. ‘There will be wards.’

‘Demelain wards, yes,’ Errastas said.

At that, Kilmandaros growled.

Speak then, Errastas, of dragons. She is ready. She is ever ready.

‘We must be prepared,’ Errastas continued. ‘Kilmandaros, you must exercise restraint. It will do us no good to have you break her wards and then simply kill her.’

‘If we knew why they imprisoned her in the first place,’ Sechul said, ‘we might have what we will need to bargain with her.’

Errastas’s shrug was careless. ‘That should be obvious, Knuckles. She was uncontrollable. She was the poison in their midst.’

She was the balance, the counter-weight to them all. Chaos within, is this wise? ‘Perhaps there’s another way.’

Errastas scowled. ‘Let’s hear it, then,’ he said, crossing his arms.

‘K’rul must have participated. He must have played a role in this chaining-after all, he had the most to lose. She was the poison as you say, but if she was so to her kin that was incidental. Her true poison was when she was loose in K’rul’s blood-in his warrens. He needed her chained. Negated.’ He paused, cocked his head. ‘Don’t you think it curious that the Crippled God has now taken her place? That he is the one now poisoning K’rul?’

‘The diseases are not related,’ Errastas said. ‘You spoke of another way. I’m still waiting to hear it, Knuckles.’

‘I don’t have one. But this could prove a fatal error on our part, Errastas.’

He gestured dismissively. ‘If she will not cooperate, then Kilmandaros can do what she does best. Kill the bitch, here and now. You still think me a fool? I have thought this through, Sechul. The three of us are enough, here and now, to do whatever is necessary. We shall offer her freedom-do you truly imagine she will reject that?’

‘What makes you so certain she will honour whatever bargain she agrees to?’

Errastas smiled. ‘I have no worries in that regard. You will have to trust me, Knuckles. Now, I have been patient long enough. Shall we proceed? Yes, I believe we shall.’

He stepped back and Kilmandaros lumbered forward.

‘Here?’ she asked.

‘That will do, yes.’

Her fists hammered down on to the ground. Hollow thunder rumbled beneath the plain, the reverberation trembling through Sechul’s bones. The fists began their incessant descent, pounding with immortal strength, as dust slowly lifted to obscure the horizons. The stone beneath the hardened ash was not sedimentary; it was the indurated foam of pumice. Ageless, trapped in the memory of a single moment of destruction. It knew nothing of eternities.

Sechul Lath lowered himself into a squat. This could take some time. Sister, can you hear us? We come a-knocking…

‘What?’ Torrent demanded. ‘What did you just say?’

The haggard witch’s shrug grated bones. ‘I tired of the illusion.’

He looked round once more. The wagon’s track was gone. Vanished. Even the trail behind them had disappeared. ‘But I was following-I saw-’

‘Stop being so stupid,’ Olar Ethil snapped. ‘I stole into your mind, made you see things that weren’t there. You were going the wrong way-who cares about a damned Trygalle carriage? They’re probably all dead by now.’ She gestured ahead. ‘I turned you from that trail, that’s all. Because what we seek is right there.’

‘If I could kill you, I’d do it,’ said Torrent.

‘Stupid as only the young can be,’ she replied with a snort. ‘The only thing young people are capable of learning is regret. That’s why so many of them end up dead, to the eternal regret of their parents. Now, if you’ve finished the histrionics, can we continue on?’

‘I am not a child.’

‘That’s what children always say, sooner or later.’ With that, she set out, trudging past Torrent, whose horse shied away as soon as the bonecaster drew too close.

He steadied the animal, glaring at Olar Ethil’s scaled back.

‘-what we seek is right there.’ His gaze lifted. Another one of those damned dragon towers, rising forlorn on the plain. The bonecaster was marching towards it as if she could topple it with a single kick. No one is more relentless than a dead woman. With all the living ones I’ve known, I shouldn’t be surprised by that. The desolate tower was still a league or more away. He wasn’t looking forward to visiting it, not least because of Olar Ethil’s inexplicable interest in this one in particular; but also because of its scale. A city of stone, built upward instead of outward-what was the point of that?

Well. Self defence. But we’ve already seen how that didn’t work. And what if some lower section caught fire? There’d be no escape for everyone trapped above. No, these were the constructs of idiots, and he wanted nothing to do with them. What’s wrong with a hut? A hooped tent of hides-you can pick it up and carry it anywhere you want to go. Leaving nothing behind. Rest lightly on the soil-so the elders always said.

But why did they say that? Because it made running away easier. Until we ran out of places to run. If we’d built cities, just like the Letherii, why, they would have had to respect us and our claim to the lands we lived on. We would have had rights. But with those huts, with all that resting lightly, they never had to take us seriously, and that made killing us all that much easier.

Kicking his horse into motion, he squinted at that ragged tower. Maybe cities weren’t just to live in. Maybe they were all about claiming the right to live somewhere. The right to take from the surrounding land all they needed to stay alive. Like a giant tick, head burrowed deep, sucking all the blood it can. Before it cuts loose and sets off for a fresh sweep of skin. And another claim of its right to drink deep of the land.

The best way he’d found to kill a tick was with his thumbnail, slicing the insect in half on a flat rock. He remembered a dog trying to eat one once. It had had to spit it out. Ticks tasted foul-too foul even for dogs, which he’d not thought possible. Cities probably tasted even worse.

Listen to me. I’m losing my mind. Damned witch-are you still here? Inside my skull? Making my thoughts go round and round with all these useless ideas?

He rode up beside her. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘You were never that interesting in the first place,’ she replied.

‘Funny, I’d decided that about you long ago,’ said Torrent, ‘but you’re still here.’

She halted and turned round. ‘That will do, then. We’re about to have company, warrior.’

He twisted in his saddle and studied the cloudless sky. ‘The ones Silchas Ruin spoke of? I see nothing-’

‘They come.’

‘To fight?’

‘No. They were fools once, but one must assume that dying has taught them a lesson.’ She paused, and then added, ‘Or not.’

Motion in the wiry grasses caught his eye. A lizard-no-‘Witch, what is that?’

Two skeletal creatures-birds? — edged into view, heads ducking, long tails flicking. They stood on their hind legs, barely taller than the grasses. Leather and gut bindings held the bones in place.

When the first one spoke, the voice formed words in his head. ‘Great One, we are abject. We grovel in servitude-’

The other cut in, ‘Does she believe all that? Keep trying!’

‘Be quiet, Telorast! How can I concentrate on lying with you barging in all the time! Now shhh! Oh, never mind, it’s too late-look at them, they can both hear us. You, especially.’

The creature named Telorast had crept closer to Olar Ethil, almost on all fours. ‘Servitude! As my sister said. Not a real lie. Just a… a… a temporary truth! Allegiance of convenience, so long as it’s convenient. What could be more honest?’

Olar Ethil grunted and then said, ‘I have no need of allies among the Eleint.’

‘Not true!’ cried Telorast.

‘Calm down,’ hissed the other one. ‘This is called bargaining. She says we’re useless. We say we don’t really need her help. She says-well, something. Let’s wait to hear what she says, and then we say something back. Eventually, we strike a deal. You see? It’s simple.’

‘I can’t think!’ complained Telorast. ‘I’m too terrified! Curdle, take over-before my bones fall apart!’

The one named Curdle snapped its head back and forth, as if seeking somewhere to hide.

‘You don’t fool me,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘You two almost won the Throne of Shadow. You killed a dozen of your kin to get there. Who stopped you? Was it Anomander Rake? Edgewalker? Kilmandaros?’

At each name the two skeletons cringed.

‘What is it you seek now?’ the bonecaster asked.

‘Power,’ said Telorast.

‘Wealth,’ said Curdle.

‘Survival,’ said Telorast.

Curdle nodded, head bobbing. ‘Terrible times. Things will die.’

‘Lots of things,’ added Telorast. ‘But it will be safe in your shadow, Great One.’

‘Yes,’ said Curdle. ‘Safe!’

‘In turn, we will guard your back.’

‘Yes! That’s it exactly!’

‘Until,’ said Olar Ethil, ‘you find it expedient to betray me. You see my dilemma. You guard my back from other threats, but who will guard my back from you two?’

‘Curdle can’t be trusted,’ said Telorast. ‘I’ll protect you from her, I swear it!’

‘As will I from my sister!’ Curdle spun to face Telorast and snapped her tiny jaws. Clack clack clack!

Telorast hissed in reply.

Olar Ethil turned to Torrent. ‘Eleint,’ she said.

Eleint? Dragons? These two? ‘I always imagined they’d be bigger.’

‘Soletaken,’ said Olar Ethil, and then she regarded the two creatures once more. ‘Or, I think, D’ivers, yes? Born as Tiste Andii, one woman, but two dragons.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Insane!’

‘Ridiculous!’

‘Impossible!’

‘Impossible,’ conceded Olar Ethil, ‘for most-even among the Andii. Yet, you found a way, didn’t you? How? The blood of the Eleint resists the fever of D’ivers. A ritual would have been necessary. But what kind? Not Kurald Galain, nor Kurald Emurlahn. No, you have made me curious. I will have the answer-this is the bargain I offer. Tell me your secret, and you shall have my protection. Betray me, and I will destroy you both.’

Curdle turned to her companion. ‘If we tell her, we are undone!’

‘We’re already undone, you idiot. We were never meant to be Soletaken. It just happened that way!’

‘But we were true Eleint-’

‘Be quiet!’

Olar Ethil suddenly stepped forward. ‘True Eleint? But that makes no sense! Two who become one? Soletaken? A Tiste Andii Soletaken? No, you twist every truth-I cannot believe a thing you say!’

‘Look what you did, Curdle! Now we-aagh!’

Telorast’s cry came when Olar Ethil’s bony hand snapped out, snaring the skeleton. It writhed and strained in her grip. She held it close, as if about to bite its head off.

‘Tell her!’ Telorast shrieked. ‘Curdle! Tell her everything!’

‘I will I will! I promise! Elder One! Listen! I will speak the truth!’

‘Go on,’ said Olar Ethil. Telorast now hung limp in her hand, as if lifeless, but Torrent could see the tip of its tail twitching every few moments.

Curdle leapt to a clear patch of dusty earth. With one talon it inscribed a circle round where it stood. ‘We were chained, Elder, terribly, cruelly chained. In a fragment of Emurlahn. Eternal imprisonment stretched before us-you could not imagine the torment, the torture of that. So close! To our precious prize! But then, the three stood before us, between us and the throne. The bitch with her fists. The bastard with his dread sword. Edgewalker gave us a choice. Kilmandaros and the chains, or Anomander and Dragnipur. Dragnipur! We knew what Draconus had done, you see! We knew what that sword’s bite would do. Swallow our souls! No,’ the skeleton visibly shivered, ‘we chose Kilmandaros.’

‘Two Eleint,’ said Olar Ethil.

‘Yes! Sisters-’

‘Or lovers,’ said Telorast, still lying as if dead.

‘Or that, yes. We don’t remember. Too long ago, too many centuries in chains-the madness! Such madness! But then a stranger found us.’

‘Who?’ barked Olar Ethil.

‘Dessimbelackis,’ said Curdle. ‘He held Chaos in his hands. He told us its secret-what he had made of it. He was desperate. His people-humans-were making a mess of things. They stood as if separate from all the animals of the world. They imagined they were the rulers of nature. And cruel their tyranny, so cruel. Slaughtering the animals, making the lands barren deserts, the skies empty but for vultures.’

‘Soletaken,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘D’ivers. He created a ritual out of chaos-to bind humans to the beasts, to force upon them their animal natures. He sought to teach them a lesson. About themselves.’

‘Yes, Elder. Yes to all of that. He brought the ritual to his people-oh, it was an old ritual, much older than Dessimbelackis, much older than this world. He forced it upon his subjects.’

‘This tale I know well,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘I was there, when we gave answer to that. The swords of the T’lan Imass dripped for days. But, there were no dragons, not there, not then.’

‘You’d begun the slaughter,’ said Curdle. ‘He’d fled even before then, taking his D’ivers form-’

‘The Deragoth.’

‘Yes. He knew you were hunting him. He needed allies. But we were chained, and he could not break those chains. So he offered to take our souls-and he brought us a corpse. A woman. Tiste Andii.’

‘Where did he come by it?’ Olar Ethil asked. ‘Who was she?’

‘He never told us. But when he bound our souls to her, we stood-unchained. We thought we were free. We vowed to serve him.’

‘But you did not, did you?’

Curdle hesitated.

‘You betrayed him.’

‘No! It wasn’t like that! Each time we sought to semble into our true selves, the chains returned! Each time, we found ourselves back within Emurlahn! We were useless to him, don’t you see?’

‘Yet,’ said Olar Ethil, ‘now, you can find your true selves-’

‘Not for long. Never for long,’ said Curdle. ‘If we hold to our Eleint selves, the chains find us. They steal us back. These bones you see here-we can do this much. We can take a body, one or two, and exist within them. But that is all. If we could reach the throne, we could break our bindings! We could escape our prison!’

‘You will never win that throne,’ said Olar Ethil. ‘And, as you are, well, that is useless to me.’

‘Great Elder! You could break those chains!’

‘I could,’ she replied. ‘But I have no reason to. After all, why risk the enmity of Edgewalker? Or Kilmandaros? No, they chained you two for a reason. Had you not sought the throne, you would have lived free.’

‘Eternal punishment-who deserves that?’ Curdle demanded.

Olar Ethil laughed. ‘I have walked with the T’lan Imass. Do not speak to me of eternal punishment.’

Torrent was startled by that. He faced her, his mouth twisting. ‘You did that to them, bonecaster. And now you call it a punishment? Those Imass. What had they done to you, to punish them for all eternity?’

She turned her back on him.

He stared. ‘Spirits of the earth! It was punishment! Olar Ethil-that Ritual-you were cursing them! Look at you-’

She spun round. ‘Yes! Look at me! Do I not choose to wear that curse? My own body, my own flesh! What more can I do-’

‘But wear your remorse?’ He studied her in horror. ‘You miserable, pathetic thing. What was it? Some offhand insult? A jilted love? Did your man sleep with some other woman? Why did you curse them for all eternity, Olar Ethil? Why?’

‘You don’t understand-’

Telorast chose this moment to thrash loose from her grip, landing lightly on the ground then darting a half-dozen paces away, where Curdle scrambled to join her. Olar Ethil stared at the two creatures for a moment-or so it seemed.

‘Why don’t you let it go?’ Torrent asked. ‘Bonecaster. Let them all go.’

‘No! I have no choice in this-none! You mortals are such fools-you just don’t see it, you don’t see anything!’

‘What am I supposed to see?’ Torrent shouted back.

‘I am trying to save your pathetic lives! All of you!’

He was silent for a long moment. Her gnarled hands had closed into fists. Then he said, ‘If to save us, Olar Ethil, means holding prisoner the souls of the T’lan Imass, then, as a pathetic mortal, I tell you: it’s too much. Free them. Leave us to die.’

She snorted-but he could sense his words had shaken her-‘You would speak for all humanity, Torrent, last of the Awl? You, who dream only of an end?’

‘Make it meaningful and I will not complain.’

‘So wish we all,’ she said in a rasp.

‘Besides,’ Torrent said, ‘it’s not their fight. Not their responsibility. Not yours, either. You seek redemption, bonecaster? Find another way. One that doesn’t devour souls. One that doesn’t close chains about an entire people.’

‘You know so little,’ she said, her tone filled with contempt. ‘The T’lan Imass-my T’lan Imass-do you even know what they are?’

‘Not really. But I’ve put enough together. All your conversations with strangers, and when you speak to the darkness at night-thinking me asleep. You command an army, and they are not far away from us. They are trapped in this Ritual of yours, Olar Ethil. You treat them as slaves.’

‘I need them.’

‘They don’t need you, though, do they?’

‘I summoned them! Without me they would be dust and nothing more!’

‘Maybe that’s how they want it,’ he replied.

‘Not yet. Not yet!’

Torrent gathered his reins. ‘You two,’ he called to the skeletons, ‘here’s my offer. No one, no matter how venal, deserves an eternity of punishment. I will seek a way to free your souls. In return, you guard my back.’

Curdle hopped forward. ‘Against whom?’

He glared across at Olar Ethil. ‘Her, for a start.’

‘We can do that!’ Telorast cried. ‘We’re stronger than she thinks!’

Curdle pranced up alongside Torrent’s horse. ‘Where are we going, Master?’

‘Call me Torrent, and I am not your Master. I make no claim to own you. We are, it seems, riding to that tower.’

‘Rooted!’ crowed Telorast, ‘but which one is it? Curdle? Which one is it?’

‘How should I know? Never been here.’

‘Liar!’

‘So are you!’

The bickering continued as Torrent urged his mount forward. A short time later he glanced back to see Olar Ethil trudging after him. Unbreakable, and yet… broken. You sour old woman. Let it go.

Kebralle Korish led a clan of four men and three women, all that remained of the B’ehn Aralack Orshayn T’lan Imass. Once, not long ago, the Copper Ashes Clan had numbered three thousand one hundred and sixteen. There were memories of living, and then there were the memories of death, such as remained to those of the Ritual. In her memories of death, the final battle with the Order of the Red Spires hung blazing in her mind, a frozen scream, the abrupt howl of annihilation. She had stood upon the edge of the Abyss, longing to join her fallen kin but held back by the duty of her title. She was Clan Chief, and so long as will remained to her, she would be the last of the Copper Ashes to fall.

That time had not yet come, and the wake of the Red Spires was stretched out behind her, lifeless, desolate, the echoes of her scream like a bony hand at her back.

The First Sword had, perversely, elected to retain his corporeal form, walking with the weight of stone across this ravaged land, his long-bladed weapon dragging a careless furrow. The warriors of the Orshayn and the Brold had in turn surrendered the bliss of dust and now strode in a ragged, colourless mass behind him. She walked among them, her seven warriors arrayed around her. They were battered, permanently scarred by the sorcery of the Three. The tattered remnants of skin and tendon that remained were blackened, scorched. The sections of exposed bone were burnt white, webbed with cracks. The flint weapons they held had lost their sepia hue, the reddish brown replaced by mottled mauves and blue-greys. Furs, leather and hides were gone.

Among all in her clan, Kebralle Korish alone had succeeded in drawing close enough to the Three to swing her blade. She remembered, with vivid clarity, the shock upon the face of the Bearded One, when her curved weapon’s edge had bit deep, scoring the flesh deep and wide across his chest. Blood, the gleam of notched ribs, rings of mail scattering against the stones of the parapet. He had staggered in retreat but she was in no mood to relent-

His companions had driven her back, a concatenation of magics hammering her from the ledge. Engulfed in raging sorcery, she had tumbled to the foot of the wall. It should have ended there, but Kebralle was Clan Chief. She had just witnessed the slaughter of almost her entire clan. No, she would not yield to oblivion. When she had risen, shrugging off the terrible chaotic flames, she had looked up to see two of the Three-they were in turn peering down at her. In their faces, disbelief, the stirrings of fear-

Inistral Ovan had sounded the withdrawal then. She could have defied him, but she had obeyed. For the seven who remained standing. For the last of her kin.

Yet even now, her memory of the bite of her blade’s edge was the sweetest nectar in the hollowed husk of her soul. Kebralle Korish stood on the wall of the Fastness. She delivered a wound upon one of the Three, the only T’lan Imass to have done so. Had he stood alone, she would have killed him. The Bearded One would have fallen, the first breach in the defences of the Three. Kebralle Korish, who had made the curved blade she held, naming it Brol-Cold Eye-and see the stain of his blood? Running black as night. In the moment the war turned, she was recalled.

The Copper Ashes had fallen for nothing. No gaining of ground, no victory. They had been flung away, and one day she would make Inistral Ovan pay for that.

Enough reason to persist, this secret vow. The First Sword could have his war, his search for answers, his demand for an accounting with Olar Ethil. Kebralle Korish had her own reasons for continuing on. Olar Ethil-who had summoned them all-was welcome to her secret motives. Kebralle did not care. Besides, Olar Ethil had given her another chance, and for that alone Kebralle would do as she asked. Until such time that the opportunity for vengeance presented itself.

Inistral Ovan bore the shame of defeat, and he did so without dissembling. But it was not good enough. Not even close. I will punish him. I will find for him an eternity of suffering. Upon the lost lives of my kin, this I do vow.

It wasn’t smell-he was not capable of picking up a scent-but something that nevertheless reached into his mind, pungent, redolent of memories Kalt Urmanal weathered as would an ice spire a blizzard’s wind. He was annealed in madness, polished bright with insanity. All conflict within him had been smoothed away, until he was nothing more than the purity of purpose.

The K’Chain Che’Malle were upon this land. The slayers of his wife, his children. Their vile oils had soaked this dusty soil; their scales had whispered through the dry air. They were close.

Hatred died with the Ritual of Tellann. So it was held, so it was believed by every T’lan Imass. Even the war against the Jaghut had been a cold, unfeeling prosecution. Kalt Urmanal’s soul trembled with the realization that hatred was alive within him. Blistering hatred. He felt as if all his bones were massed, knotted into a single fist, hard as stone, a fist that but awaited its victim.

He would find them.

Nothing else mattered. The First Sword had not bound his kin-a dread error, for Kalt knew that wars raged within each and every one of them. He could feel as much, swirls of conflicting desires, awakened hungers and needs. An army must kneel before a single master. Without that obeisance, each warrior stood alone, tethers loose, and at the first instant of conflict each would seek his or her own path. The First Sword, in his refusal to command, had lost his army.

He was a fool. He had forgotten what it meant to rule. Whatever he sought, whatever he found, he would discover that he was alone.

First Sword. What did the title mean? Skill with his weapon-none would deny that Onos T’oolan possessed that, else he would never have earned the title. But surely there was more to it. The strength to impose his will. The qualities of true leadership. The arrogance of command and the expectation that such commands would be followed unquestioningly. Onos T’oolan possessed none of these traits. He had failed the first time, had he not? And now, he would fail again.

Kalt Urmanal would trail in the wake of the First Sword, but he would not follow him.

The Jaghut played games with us. They painted themselves in the guises of gods. It amused them. Our indignation stung to life became a rage of unrelenting determination. But it was misplaced. In our awakening to their games, they had no choice but to withdraw. The secret laid bare ended the game. The wars were not necessary. Our pursuit acquired the mien of true madness, and in assuming it we lost ourselves… for all time.

The Jaghut were the wrong enemy. The Ritual should have been enacted in the name of a war against the K’Chain Che’Malle. They were the ones who hunted us. For food. For sport. They were the ones who saw us as nothing more than meat. They would descend upon our camps sleek with the oils of cruel, senseless slaughter, and loved ones died.

Indignation? The word is too weak for what I feel. For all of us who were victims of the K’Chain Che’Malle.

First Sword, you lead us nowhere-we are all done with the Jaghut. We no longer care. Our cause is dead, its useless bones revealed to each and every one of us. We have kicked through them and now the path stretches clear-but these paths we do not share with our kin.

So, why do we follow you here and now? Why do we step in time with you? You tell us nothing. You do not even acknowledge our existence. You are worse than the Jaghut.

He knew of Olar Ethil, the bonecaster who had cursed them into eternal suffering. For her, he felt nothing. She was as stupid as the rest. As blind, as mistaken as all the other bonecasters who folded their power into the Ritual. Will you fight her, First Sword? If so, then you will do it alone. We are nothing to you, and so you are nothing to us.

Do not let the eyes deceive. We are no army.

We are no army.

Nom Kala found the bonecaster Ulag Togtil at her side. He was, without question, the biggest warrior among the Imass she had ever seen. Trell blood. She wondered what he had looked like in the flesh. Frightening, no doubt, broad-mouthed and tusked, his eyes small as an ice boar’s. She had few memories of Trell-they were all but gone in her time, among the first to be driven from the face of the earth by the humans. Indeed, she was not even certain her memories were true ones, rather than something bled into her by the Orshayn.

Sour blood, that. A deluge of vicious sentiments, confused desires, depthless despair and pointless rage. She felt under assault-these Orshayn were truly tortured, spiritually destroyed. But neither she nor her kin had acquired any skill in fending off this incessant flood. They had never before experienced the like.

From the First Sword himself, however, there was nothing. Not a single wisp of thought escaped him, not a hint of emotion. Was he simply lifeless, there in his soul? Or was his self-command so absolute that even her most determined assaults upon his thoughts simply slid off, weak as rain on stone? The mystery that was Onos T’oolan dogged her.

‘A measure of mercy,’ Ulag said, intruding upon her thoughts.

‘What is, Bonecaster?’

‘You bleed as well, Nom Kala. We are all wayward. Bone trembles, darkness spins in what remains of our eyes. We believe we are the creators of our thoughts, our feelings, but I think otherwise.’

‘Do you?’

He nodded. ‘We roil in his wake. All this violence, this fury. It devours us, each one, and is shaped by what it eats. And so we believe each of us stands alone in our intent. Most troubling, Nom Kala. How soon before we turn upon one another?’

‘Then there is no measure of mercy,’ she replied.

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On how subtle is Onos T’oolan.’

‘Please, explain.’

‘Nom Kala, he has said he will not compel us to obedience. He will not be as a T’lan Imass. This is significant. Is he aware of the havoc wrought in his wake? I believe he is.’

‘Then, what purpose?’

‘We will see.’

‘Only if you are correct, and if the First Sword is then able to draw us to him-before it is too late. What you describe holds great risk, and the longer he waits, the less likely he will be able to gather us.’

‘That is true,’ he rumbled in reply.

‘You believe in him, don’t you?’

‘Faith is a strange thing-among the T’lan Imass, it is little more than a pale ghost of memory. Perhaps, Nom Kala, the First Sword seeks to awaken it in us once more. To make us more than T’lan Imass. Thus, he does not compel us. Instead, he shows us the freedom of mortality, which we’d all thought long lost. How do the living command their kin? How can a mortal army truly function, given the chaos within each soldier, these disparate desires?’

‘What value in showing us such things?’ Nom Kala asked. ‘We are not mortal. We are T’lan Imass.’

He shrugged. ‘I have no answer to that, yet. But, I think, he will show us.’

‘He had better not wait too long, Bonecaster.’

‘Nom Kala,’ Ulag was regarding her, ‘I believe you were beautiful once.’

‘Yes. Once.’

‘Would that I had seen you then.’

But she shook her head. ‘Imagine the pain now, had you done so.’

‘Ah, there is that. I am sorry.’

‘As am I, Bonecaster.’

‘Are we there yet? My feet hurt.’

Draconus halted, turned to observe the half-blood Toblakai. ‘Yes, perhaps we can rest for a time. Are you hungry?’

Ublala nodded. ‘And sleepy. And this armour chafes my shoulders. And the axe is heavy. And I miss my friends.’

‘There is a harness ring for your axe,’ Draconus said. ‘You don’t have to carry it at the ready. As you can see, no one can come upon us without our seeing them from some distance away.’

‘But if I see a rabbit or a chicken, I can run it down and then we can eat.’

‘That won’t be necessary-you have already seen that I am able to conjure food, and water.’

Ublala scowled. ‘I want to do my part.’

‘I see. I am sure you will, before too long.’

‘You see something?’ Ublala straightened, looked round. ‘Rabbit? Cow? Those two women over there?’

Draconus started, and then searched until he found the two figures, walking now towards them but still three hundred or so paces away. Coming up from the south, both on foot. ‘We shall await them,’ he said after a moment. ‘But, Ublala, there is no need to fight.’

‘No, sex is better. When it comes to women, I mean. I never touched that mule. That’s sick and I don’t care what they said. Can we eat now?’

‘Build us a fire,’ Draconus said. ‘Use the wood we gathered yesterday.’

‘All right. Where is it?’

Draconus gestured and a modest stack of broken branches appeared almost at Ublala’s feet.

‘Oh, there it is! Never mind, Draconus, I found the wood.’

The woman in the lead was young, her garb distinctly barbaric. Her eyes shone from a band of black paint that possibly denoted grief, while the rest of her face was painted white in the pattern of a skull. She was well-muscled, her long braided hair the colour of rust. Three steps behind her staggered an old woman, barefoot, her hide tunic smeared with filth. Rings glittered on blackened fingers, a jarring detail in the midst of her dishevelled state.

The two stopped ten paces from Draconus and Ublala. The younger one spoke.

Ublala looked up from the fire he’d just sparked to life. ‘Trader tongue-I understand you. Draconus, they’re hungry and thirsty.’

‘I know, Ublala. You will find food in that satchel. And a jug of ale.’

‘Really? What satchel-oh, never mind. Tell the pretty one I want to have sex with her, but say it more nicely-’

‘Ublala, you and I speak the same trader tongue, more often than not. As we are doing now.’ He stepped forward. ‘Welcome, then, we will share with you.’

The younger woman, whose right hand had closed on a dagger at her belt as soon as Ublala made his desire plain, now shifted her attention back to Draconus. ‘I am Ralata, a Skincut of the Ahkrata White Face Barghast.’

‘You are a long way from home, Ralata.’

‘Yes.’

Draconus looked past her to the old woman. ‘And your companion?’

‘I found her, wandering alone. She is Sekara, a highborn among the White Faces. Her mind is mostly gone.’

‘She has gangrenous fingers,’ Draconus observed. ‘They must be removed, lest the infection spread.’

‘I know,’ said Ralata, ‘but she refuses my attentions. It’s the rings, I think. Her last claim to wealth.’ The Skincut hesitated, and then said, ‘My people are gone. Dead. The White Face Barghast are no more. My clan. Sekara’s. Everyone. I do not know what happened-’

‘Dead!’ shrieked Sekara, holding up her rotted hands. ‘Frozen! Frozen dead!’

Ublala, who’d jumped at the old woman’s cries, now edged closer to Draconus. ‘That one smells bad,’ he said. ‘And those fingers don’t work-someone’s going to have to feed her. Not me. She says awful things.’

Ralata resumed: ‘She tells me this a hundred times a day. I do not doubt her-I cannot-I see slaughter in her eyes. And in my heart, I know that we are alone.’

‘The infection has found her brain,’ said Draconus. ‘Best if you killed her, Ralata.’

‘Leaving me the last of the White Faces? I do not have the courage to do that.’

‘You give me leave to do so?’ Draconus asked.

Ralata flinched.

‘Ralata,’ said Draconus, ‘you two are not the last of your people. Others still live.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I saw them. At a distance, dressed little different from you. The same weapons. They numbered some five or six thousand, perhaps more.’

‘Where, when?’

Draconus glanced over at Ublala. ‘Before I found my Toblakai friend here. Six, seven days ago, I believe-my sense of time is not what it used to be. The very change of light still startles me. Day, night, there is so much that I had forgotten.’ He passed a hand over his face and then sighed. ‘Ralata, do you give me leave? It will be an act of mercy, and I will be quick. She will not suffer.’

The old woman was still staring at her blackened hands, as if willing them to move, but the swollen digits were curled into lifeless hooks. Her face twisted in frustration.

‘Will you help me raise her cairn?’

‘Of course.’

Ralata finally nodded.

Draconus walked up to Sekara. He gently lowered the woman’s hands, and then set his own to either side of her face. Her manic eyes darted and then suddenly fixed on his. At the last instant, he saw in them something like recognition. Terror, her mouth opening-

A swift snap to one side broke the neck. The woman slumped, still gaping, eyes holding on his even as he slowly lowered her to the ground. A few breaths later and the life left that accusing, horror-filled stare. Straightening, he stepped back, faced the others. ‘It is done.’

‘I’ll go find some stones,’ said Ublala. ‘I’m good at graves and stuff. And then, Ralata, I will show you the horse and you’ll be so happy.’

The woman frowned. ‘Horse? What horse?’

‘What Stooply the Whore calls it, the thing between my legs. My bucking horse. The one-eyed river eel. The Smart Woman’s Dream, what Shurq Elalle calls it. Women give it all sorts of names, but they all smile when they say them. You can give it any name you want and you’ll be smiling, too. You’ll see.’

Ralata stared after the Toblakai as he set off in search of stones, and then she turned to Draconus. ‘He’s but a child-’

‘Only in his thoughts,’ Draconus said. ‘I have seen him stripped down.’

‘If he tries-if either of you tries to rape me, I’ll kill you.’

‘He won’t. Nor will I. You are welcome to journey with us-we are travelling east-the same direction as the Barghast I saw. Perhaps indeed we will catch up to them, or at least cross their trail once more.’

‘What is that meat on the fire?’ she asked, drawing closer.

‘Bhederin.’

‘There are none in the Wastelands.’

Draconus shrugged.

Still she hesitated, and then she said, ‘I am hunting a demon. Winged. It murdered my friends.’

‘How are you able to track this winged demon, Ralata?’

‘It kills everything in its path. That’s a trail I can follow.’

‘I have seen no such signs.’

‘Nor I of late,’ she admitted. ‘Not for the past two days, since I found Sekara, in fact. But the path seems to be eastward, so I will go in that direction. If I find these other Barghast, all the better. If not, my hunt continues.’

‘Understood,’ he replied. ‘Now, will you join me in some ale?’

She spoke behind him as he crouched to pour the amber liquid into two pewter tankards. ‘I mean to bury her with those rings, Draconus.’

‘We are not thieves,’ he replied.

‘Good.’

She accepted the tankard he lifted to her.

Ublala returned with an armload of boulders.

‘Ublala,’ said Draconus, ‘save showing your horse for later.’

The huge man’s face fell, and then he brightened again. ‘All right. It’s more exciting in the dark anyway.’

Strahl had never desired to be Warleader of the Senan. It had been easier feeding himself ambitions he had believed for ever beyond reach, a simple and mostly harmless bolstering of his own ego, giving him a place alongside the other warriors opposed to Onos T’oolan, just one among a powerful, influential cadre of ranking Barghast. He had enjoyed that power and all the privileges it delivered. He had especially revelled in his hoard of hatred, a currency of endless value, and to spend it cost him nothing, no matter how profligate he was. Such a warrior was swollen, well protected behind a shield of contempt. And when shields locked, the wall was impregnable.

But now he was alone. His hoard had vanished-he’d not even seen the scores of hands reaching in behind his back. A warleader’s only wealth was the value of his or her word. Lies sucked the colour from gold. Truth was the hardest and purest and rarest metal of all.

There had been an instant, a single, blinding instant, when he’d stood before his tribe, raising high that truth, forged by hands grown cold. He had claimed it for his own, and in turn his kin had met his eyes, and they had answered in kind. But even then, in his mouth there had been the taste of ashes. Was he nothing more than the voice of the dead? Of fallen warriors who each in turn had been greater than Strahl could ever hope to be? He could voice their desire-and he had done precisely that-but he could not think their thoughts, and so they could not help him, not here, not now. He was left with the paltry confusions of his own mind, and it was not enough.

It had not taken long for his warriors to discover that. After all, where could he lead them? The people of the settled lands behind them sought their blood. The way ahead was ravaged, lifeless. And, as bold as the gesture had been, the Senan had fled a battle, leaving their allies to die. No one wanted the guilt of that. They gave it all to Strahl. Had he not commanded them? Had he not ordered their withdrawal?

He could not argue the point. He could not defend himself against the truths they spoke. This belongs to me. This is my crime. The others died to give it to me, because they stood where I now stand. Their courage was purer. They led. I can only follow. If it had been any other way, I could have been their match.

He squatted, facing away from the few remaining fires of the camp stretched out in a disorganized sprawl behind him. Stars spread a remote vista across the jade-soaked sky. The Talons themselves seemed much closer, as if moments from cleaving the heavens and slashing down to the earth itself. No clearer omen could be imagined. Death comes. An age ends, and with it so end the White Face Barghast, and then their gods, who were freed only to be abandoned, given life only to die. Well, you bastards, now you know how it feels.

They were almost out of food. The shouldermen and witches had exhausted themselves drawing water from this parched land. Soon the effort would begin killing them, one by one. The retreat had already claimed the eldest and weakest among the Senan. We march east. Why? No enemy awaits us out there. The war we sought is not the one we found, and now glory has eluded us.

Wherever that one true battle is, the White Faces should be there. Cutting destiny off at the knees. So sought Humbrall Taur. So sought Onos Toolan. But the great alliance is no more. Only the Senan remain. And we falter and soon will fade. Flesh to wood, wood to dust. Bone to stone, stone to dust. The Barghast shall become a desert-only then will we finally find a land on which to settle. These Wastelands, perhaps. When the wind stirs us awake with each dawn.

Before long, he knew, he would be cut down. Sometimes, after all, guilt must be excised with a knife. He would not resist. Of course, as the last surviving Senan staggered and fell, the final curse on their lips would be his name. Strahl, who stole from us our glory. Not much of a glory, to be sure. Maral Eb had been a fool and Strahl could shrug off most of the venom when it came to that fiasco. Still, we could have died with weapons in our hands. That would have been something. Like spitting to clear the taste. Maybe the next watery mouthful of misery won’t be as bad. Like that. Just that one gesture.

Eastward then. Each step slowing.

Suicide was such an ugly word. But one could choose it for oneself. When it came to an entire people… well, that was different. Or was it? I will lead us, until someone else does. I will ask for nothing. We march to our deaths. But then, it is all we ever do. This last thought pleased him. In the ghoulish darkness, he smiled. Against futility, guilt did not stand a chance.

Life is a desert, but, dear friends, between my legs you will find the sweetest oasis. Being dead, I can say this with not a hint of irony. If you were me, you’d understand.

‘You have a curious expression on that painted face, Captain. What are you thinking?’

Shurq Elalle pulled her gaze from the desolate sweep of sullen grey waves and glanced over at Felash, fourteenth daughter of King Tarkulf and Queen Abrastal of Bolkando. ‘My First Mate was complaining, Princess, a short time ago.’

‘This has been a pleasant enough journey thus far, if somewhat tedious. What cause has he to complain?’

‘He is a noseless, one-eyed, one-handed, one-legged half-deaf man with terrible breath, but I agree with you, Princess. No matter how bad things can appear to be, they can always get worse. Such is life.’

‘You speak with something like longing, Captain.’

Shurq Elalle shrugged. ‘You may be young, but you are not easily deceived, Princess. I trust you comprehend my unique circumstances.’

Felash pursed her plump lips, fluttering her fingers dismissively. ‘It took some time, to be honest. Indeed, it was my handmaiden who first broached the possibility. You do well in disguising your situation, Captain, a most admirable achievement.’

‘Thank you, Highness.’

‘Still, I wonder what so consumed your thoughts. Skorgen Kaban, I have learned, has no end of gripes, not least the plague of superstitions ever haunting him.’

‘He has not been at his best,’ Shurq admitted. ‘Ever since you purchased this extension, in fact. A thousand rumours have drifted from Kolanse, not one of them pleasing. The crew are miserable, and to the First Mate, that misery feeds his every fear.’

‘It is well understood, I trust,’ said Felash, ‘that most of the Perish fleet has preceded us. Have we seen any indication that disaster befell them?’

‘That depends,’ Shurq replied. ‘The absence of evidence of any sort is ominous enough, especially for sailors-’

‘Then they can never be satisfied, can they?’

‘Absolutely true, which is why I adore them so.’

‘Captain?’

She smiled at the princess. ‘Neither can I. You wondered what I was thinking, and that is my answer.’

‘I see.’

No, little girl, you do not. But never mind. Give it time.

Felash continued: ‘How frustrated you must be!’

‘If it is frustration, it is a most delicious kind.’

‘I find you fascinating, Captain.’

The plump princess was wearing a fur-lined cloak, the hood drawn up against the sharp offshore wind. Her round, heavily made-up face looked dusted and flawless. She clearly worked very hard at appearing older than she in truth was, but the effect reminded Shurq of those porcelain dolls the Shake used to find washed up on the beaches, the ones they traded away as if the things were cursed. Inhuman in perfection, but in truth hinting at deeper flaws. ‘And you in turn interest me, Highness. Is it the simple privilege of royalty that permits you to commandeer a foreign ship, captain and crew, and set out on a whim into the unknown?’

‘Privilege, Captain? Dear me, no. Burden, in fact. Knowledge is essential. The gathering of intelligence is what ensures the kingdom’s continued survival. We are not a great military power, such as the Letherii who can hold their insensitive bullying as if it was a virtue of forthright uncomplexity. Attitudes of false provincialism serve a well-honed suspicion of others. “Deal me straight and true and I am your friend. Deal me wrong and I will destroy you.” So goes the diplomat’s theme of discourse. Of course, one quickly learns that all those poses of righteous honesty are but a screen for self-serving avarice.’

‘I take it,’ Shurq said, ‘the children of the Bolkando King and Queen are well schooled in such theories of diplomacy.’

‘Almost from birth, Captain.’

Shurq smiled at the exaggeration. ‘It seems your sense of Lether is somewhat antiquated, if I dare venture an opinion on the matter.’

But Felash shook her head. ‘King Tehol is perhaps more subtle than his predecessors. The disarming charm hides a most devious mind.’

‘Devious? Oh yes, Highness. Absolutely.’

‘Naturally,’ Felash went on, ‘one would be a fool to trust him. Or believe anything he says. I would wager his Queen is precisely the same.’

‘Indeed? Consider this, if you will, Princess: you see two rulers of a vast empire who just so happen to despise virtually every trait that empire possesses. The inequity, the cruel expression of privilege and the oppression of the dispossessed. The sheer idiocy of a value system that raises useless metals and meaningless writs above that of humanity and plain decency. Consider two rulers who are trapped in that world-yes, they would dismantle all of it, if they could. But how? Imagine the resistance. All those elites so comfortable with their elevated positions of power. Do you truly believe such people would willingly relinquish that?’ Shurq leaned on the rail and regarded Felash, whose eyes were wide.

‘Well, Highness? Imagine, in fact, if they delivered upon you and your people a diplomatic onslaught of emancipation. The end of the nobility and all the inherited rank and privilege-you and your entire family, Princess, out on your asses. The end of money and its false strictures. Gold? Pretty rings and baubles, oh yes, but beyond that? Might as well hoard polished stones from a shoreline. Wealth as proof of superiority? Nonsense. Proof only of the power to deliver violence. I see by your shocked expression, Highness, that you begin to comprehend, and so I will leave it there.’

‘But that is madness!’

Shurq shrugged. ‘Burdens, you said, Princess.’

‘Are you saying Tehol and his wife revile their own claim to power?’

‘Probably.’

‘Meaning, in turn, they hold people like me in similar contempt?’

‘Personally? I doubt it. Rather, they likely question your right to dictate the lives of your kingdom’s people. Clearly, your family asserts such a right, and you possess the military might to enforce such a claim. I will not speak for Tehol or Janath with any certitude, Highness, but I suspect they deal with you and every other dignitary from every other kingdom and whatnot, with an identical forbearance. The system is what it is-’

‘Someone needs to rule!’

‘And, alas, most of the rules rulers impose are the ones that make certain it’s them doing the ruling from now on, and they’ll co-opt and exploit an entire nation of people to keep it that way. Generation upon generation and for evermore. Anyway, Highness, should you ever return to Letheras by all means debate it with Tehol or Janath. They delight in such things. As for me, I can only answer as a ship’s captain-’

‘Exactly! No ship can function without a hierarchy!’

‘So very true. I was but conveying to you an interpretation of Tehol and Janath’s position contrary to the one you have been taught to believe. Such complicated philosophies are well beyond me. Besides, do I really care any more? I work within this system because that is an agreeable option, a means, in fact, of avoiding boredom. I am also able to help make my crew wealthier than they might otherwise be, and this pleases me. For myself, of course, I cannot even tell you if I believe in anything-anything at all. Why should I? What would such beliefs grant me? Peace of mind? My mind is at peace. A secure future? Since when is the future ever secure? Worthy goals? Who decides what’s worthy? What’s “worth” all about anyway? Highness, believe me, I am not the one for this discussion.’

‘Errant look away, Captain, you have shocked me to the core. I feel positively faint, assailed from so many directions my mind spins.’

‘Shall I summon your handmaiden, Highness?’

‘Dear me, no. Her seasickness refuses to abate, the poor thing.’

‘There are medicines-’

‘Not one of which do a thing for her. Why do you think I am up here with you, Captain? I cannot abide her moaning. Even more deplorable, before long when we are both in the cabin it is I who must attend to her, rather than the other way round. The impropriety of that is intolerable.’

Shurq Elalle nodded. ‘Impropriety, yes, I see. You should have brought the matter to me long ago, Highness. I am happy to assign a member of my crew to look after your handmaiden. Perhaps indeed we can have her transferred to another berth-’

‘No no, none of that, Captain. Though I do thank you for the generous offer. My frustration is ever shortlived. Besides, what better means of reminding myself that privileges of rank are but false constructs? When humanity and simple decency demand the relinquishing of such things?’

‘Well said, Highness.’

Felash fluttered her fingers. ‘And on that thought, best I return below, to see how the wretched child fares.’ She smiled up at Shurq with her doll’s smile. ‘Thank you for a most invigorating discussion, Captain.’

‘I too enjoyed it, Princess.’

Felash strode away, admirably sure-footed on the pitching deck. Shurq settled her forearms down on the rail and scanned the distant coastline to port. Jungle had given way to brown hills a few days past. The only trees she’d seen since had been uprooted boles crowding the thin line of beach. Enormous trees. Who tore up thousand-year-old trees so indiscriminately as to leave them to waste? Kolanse, what have you been up to?

We’ll find out soon enough.

Felash entered the cabin. ‘Well?’

Her handmaid looked up from where she sat crosslegged before the small brazier of coals. ‘It is as we feared, Highness. A vast emptiness awaits us. Desolation beyond measure. Upon landing, we shall have to travel north-far north, all the way to Estobanse Province.’

‘Prepare my bowl,’ Felash said, shrugging off her cloak and letting it fall. She sank down on to a heap of pillows. ‘They can go nowhere else, can they?’

The bigger woman rose and stepped over to the low table where sat an ornate, silver-inlaid, glass hookah. She measured out a cup of spiced wine and slowly filled the bulb, then drew out the silver tray, tapping out the old ashes into a small pewter plate. ‘If you mean the Perish, Highness, that is a fair assumption.’

Felash reached under her silk blouse and loosened the bindings of her undershirt. ‘My eldest sister did this too much,’ she said, ‘and now her tits rest down on her belly like a trader’s bladders riding a mule’s rump. Curse these things. Why couldn’t I be more like Hethry?’

‘There are herbs-’

‘Then they’d not fix their eyes there, would they? No, these damned things are my first gifts of diplomacy. Just seeing those dilated pupils is a victory.’

The handmaid brought over the hookah. She’d already drawn it alight and aromatic smoke spread out through the cabin. She had been doing this for her mistress for four years now. Each time, it preceded an extended period of intense discussion between her and the princess. Plans were created, tested, every detail hammered into place with the steady tap-tap-tap of rounding a copper bowl.

‘Hethry views you with great envy, Highness.’

‘She’s an idiot so that’s no surprise. Have we heard from Mother’s cedas?’

‘Still nothing. The Wastelands seethe with terrible powers, Highness, and it is clear that the Queen intends to remain there-like us, she seeks answers.’

‘Then we are both fools. All of this is so far beyond Bolkando’s borders that we would be hard pressed to extend any legitimate reasons to pursue the course we’re on. What did Kolanse contribute to our kingdom?’

‘Black honey, hardwoods, fine linens, parchment and paper-’

‘In the past five years?’ Felash’s eyes glittered in a veil of smoke.

‘Nothing.’

‘Precisely. My question was in fact rhetorical. Contact has ceased. We acquired nothing essential from them in any case. As for the Wastelands and the motley armies crawling about on them, well, they too have left our environs. We dog them at our peril, I believe.’

‘The Queen marches beside some of those armies, Highness. We must assume she has discovered something, providing a compelling reason for remaining in their company.’

‘They march to Kolanse.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And we don’t know why.’

The handmaid said nothing.

Felash sent a stream of smoke ceilingward. ‘Tell me again of the undead in the Wastelands.’

‘Which ones, Highness?’

‘The ones who move as dust on the winds.’

The handmaid frowned. ‘At first I thought that they alone were responsible for the impenetrable cloud defying my efforts. They number in the thousands, after all, and the one who leads them emanates such blinding power that I dare not look too long upon it. But now… Highness, there are others. Not dead to be sure. Even so. One of darkness and cold. One of golden fire high in the sky. Another at his side, a winged knot of grief harder and crueller than the sharpest cut diamond. Still others, hiding in the howl of wolves-’

‘Wolves?’ Felash cut in. ‘Do you mean the Perish?’

‘No and yes, Highness. I can be no clearer than that.’

‘Wonderful. Go on.’

‘Yet another, fiercer and wilder than all the others. It hides inside stone. It swims in a sea thick with the pungent flavours of serpents. It waits for the moment, and grows in its power, and facing it… Highness, whatever it faces is more dreadful than I can bear.’

‘This clash-will it occur on the Wastelands?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘Do you think my mother knows?’

The handmaid hesitated, and then said, ‘Highness, I cannot imagine her cedas to be anything but utterly blind and thus ignorant of that threat. It is only because I am able to see from this distance, from the outside, as it were, that I have gleaned as much as I have.’

‘Then she is in trouble.’

‘Yes. I think so, Highness.’

‘You must find a way,’ said Felash, ‘to reach through to her.’

‘Highness. There is one way, but it risks much.’

‘Who will bear that risk?’

‘Everyone aboard this ship.’

Felash pulled on her mouthpiece, blew rings that floated, wavered and slowly flattened out, drifting to form a chain in the air. Her eyes widened upon seeing it.

The handmaid simply nodded. ‘He is close, yes. My mind has spoken his name.’

‘And this omen here before us?’

‘Highness, one bargains with an Elder God at great peril. We must pay in blood.’

‘Whose blood?’

The handmaid shook her head.

Felash tapped the amber tube against her teeth, thinking. ‘Why is the sea so thirsty?’

Again, there was no possible answer to that question. ‘Highness?’

‘Has the damned thing a name? Do you know it?’

‘Many names, of course. When the colonists from the First Empire set forth, they made sacrifice to the salty seas in the name of Jhistal. The Tiste Edur in their great war canoes opened veins to feed the foam, and this red froth they called Bloodmane-in the Edur language that word was Mael. The Jheck who live upon the ice call the dark waters beneath that ice the Lady of Patience, Barutalan. The Shake speak of Neral, the Swallower.’

‘And on.’

‘And on, Highness.’

Felash sighed. ‘Summon him, and we shall see what cost this bargain.’

‘As you command, Highness.’

On the foredeck, Shurq Elalle straightened as the lookout cried out. She faced out to sea. That’s a squall. Looks to be a bad one. Where in the Errant’s bung-hole did that come from? ‘Pretty!’

Skorgen Kaban clumped into view from amidships. ‘Seen it, Cap’n!’

‘Swing her out, Pretty. If it’s gonna bite, best we lock jaws with it.’ The thought of the storm throwing Undying Gratitude on to that treefall shore wasn’t a pleasant one, not in the least.

The black wire-wool cloud seemed to be coming straight for them.

‘Piss in the boot, this dance won’t be fun.’