Midnight tides

CHAPTER SIX

THE TARANCEDE TOWER ROSE EROM THE SOUTH SIDE OF TRATE’S harbour. Hewn from raw basalt it was devoid of elegance or beauty, reaching like a gnarled arm seven storeys from an artificial island of jagged rocks. Waves hammered it from all sides, flinging spume into the air. There were no windows, no doors, yet a series of glossy obsidian plates ringed the uppermost level, each orie as tall as a man and almost as wide.

Nine similar towers rose above the borderlands, but the Tarancede was the only one to stand above the harsh seas of the north.

The sun’s light was a lurid glare against the obsidian plates, high above a harbour already swallowed by the day’s end. A dozen fisher-boats rode the choppy waters beyond the bay, plying the shelf of shallows to the south. They were well out of the sea-lanes and probably heedless of the three ships that appeared to the north, their full-bellied sails as they drove on down towards the harbour, the air around them crowded with squalling gulls.

They drew closer, and a ship’s pilot scow set out from the main pier to meet them.

The three harvest ships were reflected in the tower’s obsidian plates, sliding in strange ripples from one to the next, the gulls smudged white streaks around them.

The scow’s oars suddenly backed wildly, twisting the craft away.

Shapes swarmed across the rigging of the lead ship. The steady wind that had borne the sails fell, sudden as a drawn breath, and canvas billowed down. The figures flitting above the deck, only vaguely human-shaped, seemed to drift away, like black banners, across the deepening gloom. The gulls spun from their paths with shrill cries.

From the scow an alarm bell began clanging. Not steady. Discordant, a cacophony of panic.

No sailor who had lived or would ever live discounted the sea’s hungry depths. Ancient spirits rode the currents of darkness far from the sun’s light, stirring silts that swallowed history beneath endless layers of indifferent silence. Their powers were immense, their appetites insatiable. All that came down from the lit world above settled into their embrace.

The surface of the seas, every sailor knew, was ephemeral. Quaint sketchings across an ever-changing slate, and lives were but sparks, so easily quenched by the demon forces that could rise from far below to shake their beast hides and so up-end the world.

Propitiation was aversion, a prayer to pass unnoticed, to escape untaken. Blood before the bow, dolphins dancing to starboard and a gob of spit to ride blessed winds. The left hand scrubs, the right hand dries. Wind widdershins on the cleats, sun-bleached rags tied to the sea-anchor’s chain. A score of gestures, unquestioned and bound in tradition, all to slide the seas in peace.

None sought to call up the ravelled spirits from those water-crushed valleys that saw no light. They were not things to be bound, after all. Nor bargained with. Their hearts beat in the cycles of the moon, their voice was the heaving storm and their wings could spread from horizon to horizon, in towering white-veined sheets of water that swept all before them.

Beneath the waves of Trate Harbour, with three dead ships like fins on its back, the bound spirit clambered in a surge of cold currents towards shore. The last spears of sunlight slanted through its swirling flesh, and the easing of massive pressures made the creature grow in size, pushing onto the rocky coastlines ahead and to the sides the bay’s own warmer waters, so that the fish and crustaceans of the shallows tumbled up from the waves in mangled shreds of flesh and shattered shell, granting the gulls and land crabs a sudden feast of slaughter.

The spirit lifted the ships, careering wild now, on a single wave that rose high as it swelled shoreward. The docks, which had a few moments earlier been crowded with silent onlookers, became a swarm of fleeing figures, the streets leading inland filling with stampedes that slowed to choking, crushing masses of humanity.

The wave tumbled closer, then suddenly fell away. Hulls thundered at the swift plunge, spars snapped and, on the third ship, the main mast exploded in a cloud of splintered wood. Rocking, trailing wreckage, the harvesters coasted between the piers.

Pressures drawing inward, building once more, the spirit withdrew from the bay. In its wake, devastation.

Glimmering in its obsidian world, the first ship crunched and slid against a pier, and came to a gentle rest. The white flecks of the gulls plunged down to the deck, to begin at long last their feeding. The Tarancede Tower had witnessed all, the smooth tiles near its pinnacle absorbing every flickering detail of the event, despite the failing light.

And, in a chamber beneath the old palace in the city of Letheras, far to the southeast, Ceda Kuru Qan watched. Before him lay a tile that matched those of the distant tower above Trate’s harbour, and, as he stared at the enormous black shadow that had filled the bay and most of the inlet, and was now beginning its slow withdrawal, the sorceror blinked sweat from his eyes and forced his gaze back to those three harvest ships now lolling against the piers.

The gulls and the gathering darkness made it difficult to see much, barring the twisted corpses huddled on the deck, and the last few flickering wraiths.

But Kuru Qan had seen enough.

Five wings to the Eternal Domicile, of which only three were complete. Each of the latter consisted of wide hallways with arched ceilings sheathed in gold-leaf. Between elaborate flying buttresses to either side and running the entire length were doorways leading to chambers that would serve as offices and domiciles of the Royal Household’s administrative and maintenance staff. Towards the centre the adjoining rooms would house guards, armouries and trapdoors leading to private passages – beneath ground level – that encircled the entire palace that was the heart of the Eternal Domicile.

At the moment, however, those passages were chest-deep in muddy water, through which rats moved with no particular purpose barring that of, possibly, pleasure. Brys Beddict stood on a landing three steps from the silt-laden flood and watched the up-thrust heads swimming back and forth in the gloom. Beside him stood a palace engineer covered in drying mud.

‘The pumps are next to useless,’ the man was saying. ‘We went with big hoses, we went with small ones, made no difference. Once the pull got strong enough in went a rat, or ten, plugging things up. Besides, the seep’s as steady as ever. Though the Plumbs still swear we’re above the table here.’

‘I’m sure the Ceda will consent to attaching a mage to your crew.’

‘I’d appreciate it, Finadd. All we need is to hold the flow back for a time, so’s we can bucket the water out and the catchers can go down and collect the rats. We lost Ormly last night, the palace’s best catcher. Likely drowned – the fool couldn’t swim. If the Errant’s looking away, we might be spared finding much more than bones. Rats know when it’s a catcher they’ve found, you know.’

‘These tunnels are essential to maintaining the security of the king-’

‘Well, ain’t nobody likely to try using them if they’re flooded-’

‘Not as a means of ingress for assassins,’ Brys cut in. ‘They are to permit the swift passage of guards to any area above that is breached.’

‘Yes, yes. I was only making a joke, Finadd. Of course, you could choose fast swimmers among your guards… all right, never mind. Get us a mage to sniff round and tell us what’s going on and then to stop the water coming in and we’ll take care of the rest.’

‘Presumably,’ Brys said, ‘this is not indicative of subsidence-’

‘Like the other wings? No, nothing’s slumped – we’d be able to tell. Anyway, there’s rumours that those ones are going to get a fresh look at. A new construction company has been working down there, nearby. Some fool bought up the surrounding land. There’s whispers they’ve figured out how to shore up buildings.’

‘Really? I’ve heard nothing about it.’

‘The guilds aren’t happy about it, that’s for sure, since these upstarts are hiring the Unwelcomes – those malcontents who made the List. Paying ’em less than the usual rate, though, which is the only thing going for them, I suppose. The guilds can’t close them down so long as they do that.’ The engineer shrugged, began prying pieces of hardened clay from his forearms, wincing at the pulled hairs. ‘Of course, if the royal architects decide that Bugg’s shoring works, then that company’s roll is going sky-high.’

Brys slowly turned from his study of the rats and eyed the engineer. ‘Bugg?’

‘Damn, I need a bath. Look at my nails. Yeah, Bugg’s Construction. There must be a Bugg, then, right? Else why name it Bugg’s Construction?’

A shout from a crewman down on the lowest step, then a scream. Wild scrambling up to the landing, where the worker spun round and pointed.

A mass of rats, almost as wide as the passageway itself, had edged into view. Moving like a raft, it crept into the pool of lantern light towards the stairs. In its centre – the revelation eliciting yet another scream from the worker and a curse from the engineer – floated a human head. Yellow-tinted silver hair, a pallid, deeply lined face with a forehead high and broad above staring, narrow-set eyes.

Other rats raced away as the raft slipped to nudge against the lowest step.

The worker gasped, ‘Errant take us, it’s Ormly!’

The eyes flickered, then the head was rising, lifting the nearest rats in the raft with it, humped over shoulders, streaming glimmering water. ‘Who in the Hold else would it be?’ the apparition snapped, pausing to hawk up a mouthful of phlegm and spitting it into the swirling water. ‘Like my trophies?’ he asked, raising his arms beneath the vast cape of rats. ‘Strings and tails. Damned heavy when wet, though.’

‘We thought you were dead,’ the engineer muttered, in a tone suggesting that he would rather it were true.

‘You thought. You’re always thinking, ain’t ya, Grum? Maybe this, probably that, could be, might be, should be – hah! Think these rats scared me? Think I was just going to drown? Hold’s welcoming pit, I’m a catcher and not any old catcher. They know me, all right. Every rat in this damned city knows Ormly the Catcher! Who’s this?’

‘Finadd Brys Beddict.’ The King’s Champion introduced himself. ‘That is an impressive collection of trophies you’ve amassed there, Catcher.’

The man’s eyes brightened. ‘Isn’t it just! Better when it’s floating, though. Right now, damned heavy. Damned heavy.’

‘Best climb out from under it,’ Brys suggested. ‘Engineer Grum, I think a fine meal, plenty of wine and a night off is due Ormly the Catcher.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I will speak with the Ceda regarding your request.’

‘Thanks.’

Brys left them on the landing. It seemed increasingly unlikely that the Eternal Domicile would be ready for the birth of the Eighth Age.

Among the populace, there seemed to be less than faint enthusiasm for the coming celebration. The histories might well recount prophecies about the glorious empire destined to rise once more in less than a year from now, but in truth, there was little in this particular time that supported the notion of a renaissance, neither economically nor militarily. If anything, there was a slight uneasiness, centred on the impending treaty gathering with the tribes of the Tiste Edur. Risk and opportunity; the two were synonymous for the Letherii. Even so, war was never pleasant, although thus far always satisfactory in its conclusion. Thus risk led to opportunity, with few thoughts spared for the defeated.

Granted, the Edur tribes were now united. At the same time, other such alliances had formed in opposition to Letherii ambitions in the past, and not one had proved immune to divisive strategies. Gold bought betrayal again and again. Alliances crumbled and the enemy collapsed. What likelihood that it would be any different this time round?

Brys wondered at the implicit complacency of his own people. He was not, he was certain, misreading public sentiment. Nerves were on edge, but only slightly. Markets remained strong. And the day-in, day-out mindless yearnings of a people for whom possession was everything continued unabated.

Within the palace, however, emotions were more fraught. The Ceda’s divinations promised a fundamental alteration awaiting Lether. Kuru Qan spoke, in a meandering, bemused way, of some sort of Ascension. A transformation… from king to emperor, although how such a progression would manifest itself remained to be seen. The annexation of the Tiste Edur and their rich homelands would indeed initiate a renewed vigour, a frenzy of profit. Victory would carry its own affirmation of the righteousness of Lether and its ways.

Brys emerged from the Second Wing and made his way down towards Narrow Canal. It was late morning, almost noon. Earlier that day, he had exercised and sparred with the other off-duty palace guards in the compound backing the barracks, then had breakfasted at a courtyard restaurant alongside Quillas Canal, thankful for this brief time of solitude, although his separation from the palace – permitted only because the king was visiting the chambers of the First Concubine and would not emerge until mid-afternoon – was an invisible tether that gradually tightened, until he felt compelled to resume his duties by visiting the Eternal Domicile and checking on progress there. And then back to the old palace.

To find it, upon passing through the main gate and striding into the Grand Hall, in an uproar.

Heart thudding hard in his chest, Brys approached the nearest guard. ‘Corporal, what has happened?’

The soldier saluted. ‘Not sure, Finadd. News from Trate, I gather. The Edur have slaughtered some Letherii sailors. With foulest sorcery.’

‘The king?’

‘Has called a council in two bells’ time.’

‘Thank you, Corporal.’

Brys continued on into the palace.

He made his way into the inner chambers. Among the retainers and messengers rushing along the central corridor he saw Chancellor Triban Gnol standing with a handful of followers, a certain animation to his whispered conversation. The man’s dark eyes flicked to Brys as the Champion strode past, but his lips did not cease moving. Behind the Chancellor, Brys saw, was the Queen’s Consort, Turudal Brizad, leaning insouciantly against the wall, his soft, almost feminine features displaying a faint smirk.

Brys had always found the man strangely disturbing, and it had nothing to do with his singular function as consort to Janall. He was a silent presence, often at meetings dealing with the most sensitive issues of state, ever watchful despite his studied indifference. And it was well known that he shared his bed with more than just the queen, although whether Janall herself knew of that was the subject of conjecture in the court. Among his lovers, it was rumoured, was Chancellor Triban Gnol.

An untidy nest, all in all.

The door to the First Eunuch’s office was closed and guarded by two of Nifadas’s own Rulith, eunuch bodyguards, tall men with nothing of the common body-fat one might expect to see. Heavy kohl lined their eyes and red paint broadened their mouths into a perpetual down-turned grimace. Their only weapons were a brace of hooked daggers sheathed under their crossed arms, and if they wore any armour it was well disguised beneath long, crimson silk shirts and tan pantaloons. They were barefoot.

Both nodded and stepped aside to permit Brys to pass.

He tugged the braided tassel and could faintly hear the dull chime sound in the chamber beyond.

The door clicked open.

Nifadas was alone, standing behind his desk, the surface of which was crowded with scrolls and unfurled maps. His back was to the room, and he seemed to be staring at a wall. ‘King’s Champion. I have been expecting you.’

‘This seemed the first in order, First Eunuch.’

‘Just so.’ He was silent for a few heartbeats, then: ‘There are beliefs that constitute the official religion of a nation, but those beliefs and that religion are in truth little more than the thinnest gold hammered on far older bones. No nation is singular, or exclusive – rather, it should not be, for its own good. There is much danger in asserting for oneself a claim to purity, whether of blood or of origin. Few may acknowledge it, but Lether is far richer for its devouring minorities, provided that digestion remains eternally incomplete.

‘Be that as it may, Finadd, I confess to you a certain ignorance. The palace isolates those trapped within it, and its roots nurture poorly. I would know of the people’s private beliefs.’

Brys thought for a moment, then asked, ‘Can you be more specific, First Eunuch?’

Nifadas still did not turn to face him. ‘The seas. The denizens of the deep. Demons and old gods, Brys.’

‘The Tiste Edur call the dark waters the realm of Galain, which is said to belong to kin, for whom Darkness is home. The Tarthenal, I have heard, view the seas as a single beast with countless limbs – including those that reach inland as rivers and streams. The Nerek fear it as their netherworld, a place where drowning is eternal, a fate awaiting betrayers and murderers.’

‘And the Letherii?’

Brys shrugged. ‘Kuru Qan knows more of this than I, First Eunuch. Sailors fear but do not worship. They make sacrifices in the hopes of avoiding notice. On the seas, the arrogant suffer, whilst only the meek survive, although it’s said if abasement is carried too far, the hunger below grows irritated and spiteful. Tides and currents reveal the patterns one must follow, which in part explains the host of superstitions and rituals demanded of those who would travel by sea.’

‘And this… hunger below. It has no place among the Holds?’

‘Not that I know of, First Eunuch.’

Nifadas finally turned, regarded Brys with half-closed eyes. ‘Does that not strike you as odd, Finadd Beddict? Lether was born of colonists who came here from the First Empire. That First Empire was then destroyed, the paradise razed to lifeless desert. Yet it was the First Empire in which the Holds were first discovered. True, the Empty Hold proved a later manifestation, at least in so far as it related to ourselves. Thus, are we to imagine that yet older beliefs survived and were carried to this new land all those millennia ago? Or, conversely, does each land – and its adjoining seas – evoke an indigenous set of beliefs? If that is the case, then the argument supporting the presence of physical, undeniable gods is greatly supported.’

‘But even then,’ Brys said, ‘there is no evidence that such gods are remotely concerned with mortal affairs. I do not think sailors envisage the hunger I spoke of as a god. More as a demon, I think.’

‘To answer the unanswerable, a need from which we all suffer.’ Nifadas sighed. ‘Finadd, the independent seal harvesters were all slain. Three of their ships survived the return journey to Trate, crewed up to the very piers by Edur wraiths, yet carried on seas that were more than seas. A demon, such as the sailors swear upon… yet, it was something far more, or so our Ceda believes. Are you familiar with Faraed beliefs? Theirs is an oral tradition, and if the listing of generations is accurate and not mere poetic pretence, then the tradition is ancient indeed. The Faraed creation myths centre on Elder gods. Each named and aspected, a divisive pantheon of entirely unwholesome personalities. In any case, among them is the Elder Lord of the Seas, the Dweller Below. It is named Mael. Furthermore, the Faraed have singled out Mael in their oldest stories. It once walked this land, Finadd, as a physical manifestation, following the death of an Age.’

‘An Age? What kind of Age?’

‘Of the time before the Faraed, I think. There are… contradictions and obscurities.’

‘Ceda Kuru Qan believes the demon that carried the ships was this Mael?’

‘If it was, then Mael has suffered much degradation. Almost mindless, a turgid maelstrom of untethered emotions. But powerful none the less.’

‘Yet the Tiste Edur have chained it?’

Nifadas’s thin brows rose. ‘Clear a path through a forest and every beast will use it. Is this control? Of a sort, perhaps.’

‘Hannan Mosag sought to make a statement.’

‘Indeed, Finadd, and so he has. Yet is it a true statement or deceptive bravado?’

Brys shook his head. He had no answer to offer.

Nifadas swung away once more. ‘The king has deemed this of sufficient import. The Ceda even now prepares the… means. None the less, you deserve the right to be asked rather than commanded.’

‘What is it I am asked to do, First Eunuch?’

A faint shrug. ‘Awaken an Elder god.’

‘There is great flux in the composite. Is this relevant? I think not.’ Ceda Kuru Qan pushed his wire-bound lenses further up the bridge of his nose and peered at Brys. ‘This is a journey of the mind, King’s Champion, yet the risk to you is such that you might as well travel into the netherworld in truth. If your mind is slain, there is no return. Extreme necessity, alas; the king wills that you proceed.’

‘I did not imagine that there would be no danger, Ceda. Tell me will my martial skills be applicable?’

‘Unknown. But you are young, quick-witted and resilient.’ He turned away and scanned the cluttered worktop behind him. ‘Great flux, alas. Leaving but one choice.’ He reached out and picked up a goblet. A pause, a dubious squint at its contents, then he took a cautious sip. ‘Ah! As suspected. The flux in the composite is due entirely to curdled milk Brys Beddict, are you ready?’

The King’s Champion shrugged.

Kuru Qan nodded. ‘I was going to have you drink this.’

‘Curdled milk will not harm me,’ Brys said, taking the goblet from the Ceda. He quickly tossed it down, then set the silver cup on the table. ‘How long?’

‘For what?’

‘Until the potion takes effect.’

‘What potion? Come with me. We shall use the Cedance for this journey.’

Brys followed the old sorceror from the chamber. At the door he cast a glance back at the goblet. The mixture had tasted of citrus and sour goat’s milk; he could already feel it bubbling ominously in his stomach. ‘I must now assume there was no purpose to what I just drank.’

‘A repast. One of my experiments. I was hoping you’d enjoy it, but judging by your pallor it would seem that that was not the case.’

‘I’m afraid you are correct.’

‘Ah well, if it proves inimical you will no doubt bring it back up.’

‘That’s comforting knowledge, Ceda.’

The remainder of the journey to the palace depths was mercifully uneventful. Ceda Kuru Qan led Brys into the vast chamber where waited the tiles of the Holds. ‘We shall employ a tile of the Fulcra in this effort, King’s Champion. Dolmen.’

They walked out across the narrow causeway to the central disc. The massive tiles stretched out on all sides beneath them.

The roiling in Brys’s stomach had subsided somewhat. He waited for the Ceda to speak.

‘Some things are important. Others are not. Yet all would claim a mortal’s attention. It falls to each of us to remain ever mindful, and thus purchase wisdom in the threading of possibilities. It is our common failing, Brys Beddict, that we are guided by our indifference to eventualities. The moment pleases, the future can await consideration.

‘The old histories we brought with us from the First Empire recount similar failings. Rich ports at river mouths that were abandoned after three centuries, due to silting caused by the clearing of forests and poorly conceived irrigation methods. Ports that, were you to visit their ruins now, you would find a league or more inland of the present coast. The land crawls to the sea; it was ever thus. Even so, what we humans do can greatly accelerate the process.

‘Is all that relevant? Only partly, I admit. As I must perforce admit to many things, I admit to that. There are natural progressions that, when unveiled, are profoundly exemplary of the sheer vastness of antiquity. Beyond even the age of the existence of people, this world is very, very old, Brys Beddict.’ Kuru Qan gestured.

Brys looked down to where he had indicated, and saw the tile of the Dolmen. The carved and painted image depicted a single, tilted monolith half-buried in lifeless clay. The sky behind it was colourless and devoid of features.

‘Even seas are born only to one day die,’ Kuru Qan said. ‘Yet the land clings to its memory, and all that it has endured is clawed onto its visage. Conversely, at the very depths of the deepest ocean, you will find the traces of when it stood above the waves. It is this knowledge that we shall use, Brys.’

‘Nifadas was rather vague as to my task, Ceda. I am to awaken Mael, presumably to apprise the Elder god that it is being manipulated. But I am not a worshipper, nor is there a single Letherii who would claim otherwise for him or herself – why would Mael listen to me?’

‘I have no idea, Brys. You shall have to improvise.’

‘And if this god is truly and absolutely fallen, until it is little more than a mindless beast, then what?’

Kuru Qan blinked behind the lenses, and said nothing.

Brys shifted uneasily. ‘If my mind is all that shall make the journey, how will I appear to myself? Can I carry weapons?’

‘How you manifest your defences is entirely up to you, Finadd. Clearly, I anticipate you will find yourself as you are now. Armed and armoured. All conceit, of course, but that is not relevant. Shall we begin?’

‘Very well.’

Kuru Qan stepped forward, one arm snapping out to grasp Brys by his weapons harness. A savage, surprisingly powerful tug pitched him forward, headlong over the edge of the disc. Shouting in alarm, he flailed about, then plummeted down towards the tile of the Dolmen.

‘Even in the noblest of ventures, there’s the occasional stumble.’

Bugg’s eyes were flat, his lined face expressionless, as he stared steadily at Tehol without speaking.

‘Besides, it’s only a small failing, all things considered. As for myself, why, I am happy enough. Truly. Yours is the perfectly understandable disappointment and, dare I say it, a modest battering of confidence, that comes with an effort poorly conceived. No fault in the deed itself, I assure you.’ As proof he did a slow turn in front of his manservant. ‘See? The legs are indeed of matching length. I shall remain warm, no matter how cool the nights become. Granted, we don’t have cool nights. Sultry is best we can manage, I’ll grant you, but what’s a little sweat between… uh… the legs?’

‘That shade of grey and that tone of yellow are the worst combination I have ever attempted, master,’ Bugg said. ‘I grow nauseous just looking at you.’

‘But what has that to do with the trousers?’

‘Very little, admittedly. My concern is with principles, of course.’

‘Can’t argue with that. Now, tell me of the day’s doings, and hurry up, I’ve a midnight date with a dead woman.’

‘The extent of your desperation, master, never fails to astonish me.’

‘Did our favourite money-lender commit suicide as woefully anticipated?’

‘With nary a hitch.’

‘Barring the one by which he purportedly hung himself?’

‘As you say, but that was before fire tragically swept through his premises.’

‘And any word on Finadd Gerun Eberict’s reaction to all this?’

‘Decidedly despondent, master.’

‘But not unduly suspicious?’

‘Who can say? His agents have made inquiries, but more directly towards a search for a hidden cache of winnings, an attempt to recoup the loss and such. No such fortune, however, has surfaced.’

‘And it had better not. Eberict needs to swallow the loss entire, not that it was in truth a loss, only a denial of increased fortune. His primary investments remain intact, after all. Now, stop blathering, Bugg. I need to do some thinking.’ Tehol hitched up his trousers, wincing at Bugg’s sudden frown. ‘Must be losing weight,’ he muttered, then began pacing.

Four steps brought him to the roof’s edge. He wheeled and faced Bugg. ‘What’s that you’re wearing?’

‘It’s the latest fashion among masons and such.’

‘The Dusty Few.’

‘Exactly.’

‘A wide leather belt with plenty of loops and pouches.’

Bugg nodded.

‘Presumably,’ Tehol continued, ‘there are supposed to be tools and assorted instruments in those loops and pouches. Things a mason might use.’

‘Well, I run the company. I don’t use those things.’

‘But you need the belt.’

‘If I’m to be taken seriously, master, yes.’

‘Oh yes, that is important, isn’t it? Duly noted in expenses, I presume?’

‘Of course. That and the wooden hat.’

‘You mean one of those red bowl-shaped things?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So why aren’t you wearing it?’

‘I’m not working right now. Not as sole proprietor of Bugg’s Construction, anyway.’

‘Yet you’ve got the belt.’

‘It’s comforting, master. I suppose this must be what it’s like wearing a sword-belt. There’s something immensely reassuring about a solid weight on the hips.’

‘As if you were eternally duelling with your materials.’

‘Yes, master. Are you done with your thinking?’

‘I am.’

‘Good.’ Bugg unstrapped his belt and tossed it to the rooftop. ‘Makes my hips lopsided. I walk in circles.’

‘How about some herbal tea?’

‘I’d love some.’

‘Excellent.’

They stared at one another for a moment longer, then Bugg nodded and made his way to the ladder. As soon as his back was turned, Tehol tugged the trousers higher once more. Glancing down at the belt, he hesitated, then shook his head. That would be a presumption.

Bugg climbed down and out of sight. Tehol strode to his bed and settled down on the creaking frame. He stared up at the murky stars. A holiday festival was approaching, this one dedicated to the Errant, that eternally mysterious purveyor of chance, fateful circumstance and ill-chosen impulses. Or some such thing. Tehol was never certain. The Holds and their multitude of denizens were invented as dependable sources of blame for virtually anything, or so he suspected. Evading responsibility was a proclivity of the human species, it seemed.

There would be vast senseless celebration, in any case. Of something, perhaps nothing, and certainly involving everything. Frenzied wagers at the Special Drownings, in which the most notorious criminals would try to swim like swans. People who liked to be seen would make a point of being seen. Spectacle was an investment in worthy indolence, and indolence bespoke wealth. And meanwhile, housebound guards in empty estates would mutter and doze at their posts.

A scuffing sound from the gloom to his right. Tehol glanced over. ‘You’re early.’

Shurq Elalle stepped closer. ‘You said midnight.’

‘Which is at least two bells from now.’

‘Is it? Oh.’

Tehol sat up. ‘Well, you’re here. No point in sending you away. Even so, we’re not to visit Selush until a chime past midnight.’

‘We could go early.’

‘We could, although I’d rather not alarm her. She indicated she’d need lots of supplies, after all.’

‘What makes me worse than any other corpse?’

‘Other corpses don’t fight back, for one thing.’

The undead woman came closer. ‘Why would I feel compelled to resist? Is she not simply making me pretty?’

‘Of course. I was just making conversation. And how have you been, Shurq Elalle?’

‘The same.’

‘The same. Which is?’

‘I’ve been better. Still, many would call consistency a virtue. Those are extraordinary trousers.’

‘I agree. Not to everyone’s taste, alas-’

‘I have no taste.’

‘Ah. And is that a consequence of being dead, or a more generic self-admission?’

The flat, lifeless eyes, which had until now been evading direct contact, fixed on Tehol. ‘I was thinking… the night of Errant’s Festival.’

Tehol smiled. ‘You anticipate me, Shurq.’

‘There are sixteen guards on duty at all times, with an additional eight sleeping or gambling in the barracks, which is attached to the estate’s main house via a single covered walkway that is nineteen strides in length. All outer doors are double-barred. There are four guards stationed in cubbies at each corner of the roof, and wards skeined over every window. The estate walls are twice the height of a man.’

‘Sounds formidable.’

Shurq Elalle’s shrug elicited a wet-leather sound, though whether from her clothes or from somewhere else could not be determined.

Bugg reappeared, climbing one-handed, the other balancing a tray made from a crate lid. Two clay cups were on the tray, their contents steaming. He slowly edged onto the roof, then, glancing up and seeing the two of them, he halted in consternation. ‘My apologies. Shurq Elalle, greetings. Would you care for some tea?’

‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘Ah, yes. Thoughtless of me. Your pardon.’ Bugg walked over with the tray.

Tehol collected his cup and cautiously sniffed. Then he frowned at his manservant.

Who shrugged. ‘We don’t have no herbs, master. I had to improvise.’

‘With what? Sheep hide?’

Bugg’s brows rose. ‘Very close indeed. I had some leftover wool.’

‘The yellow or the grey?’

‘The grey.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then.’ He sipped. ‘Smooth.’

‘Yes, it would be.’

‘We’re not poisoning ourselves, are we?’

‘Only mildly, master.’

‘There are times,’ Shurq Elalle said, ‘when I regret being dead. This is not one of those times, however.’

The two men eyed her speculatively, sipping at their tea.

‘Ideally,’ she continued, ‘I would now clear my throat to cover this moment of awkwardness. But I am incapable of feeling any more awkward than is my normal state. Secondly, clearing my throat has unpleasant consequences.’

‘Ah, but Selush has devised a pump,’ Tehol said. ‘The operation will be, uh, not for the delicate. Even so, soon you shall exude the perfume of roses.’

‘And how will she manage that?’

‘With roses, I imagine.’

Shurq raised a thin brow. ‘I am to be stuffed with dried flowers?’

‘Well, not everywhere, of course.’

‘A practical question, Tehol Beddict. How am I to be stealthy if I crackle with every step I take?’

‘A good question. I suggest you bring that up with Selush.’

‘Along with everything else, it would seem. Shall I resume my account of the potential victim’s estate? I assume your manservant is trustworthy.’

‘Exceptionally so,’ Tehol replied. ‘Please continue.’

‘Finadd Gerun Eberict will be attending the Special Drownings, whereupon, at its conclusion, he will be a guest at an event hosted by Turudal Brizad-’

‘The Queen’s Consort?’

‘Yes. I once robbed him.’

‘Indeed! And what did you take?’

‘His virginity. We were very young – well, he was, anyway. This was long before he danced at the palace and so earned the interest of the queen.’

‘Now that’s an interesting detail. Were you his true love, if I may ask such a personal question?’

‘Turudal’s only love is for himself. As I said, he was younger and I the older. Of course, he’s now older than me, which is a curious fact. Somewhat curious, anyway. In any case, there was no shortage of men and women pursuing him even back then. I imagine he believed the conquest was his. Perhaps he still does. The measure of the perfect theft is when the victim remains blissfully unaware that he or she has been stolen from.’

‘I’d think,’ observed Bugg, ‘that Turudal Brizad did not regret his surrender.’

‘None the less,’ Shurq Elalle said. She was silent, then: ‘There is nothing in this world that cannot be stolen.’

‘And with that thought swirling like lanolin in our stomachs,’ Tehol said, setting his cup down, ‘you and I should take a walk, Shurq.’

‘How far to Selush’s?’

‘We can stretch it out. Thank you, dear Bugg, for the delightfully unique refreshment. Clean up around here, will you?’

‘If I’ve the time.’

Shurq hesitated. ‘Should I climb down the wall then shadow you unseen?’

Tehol frowned. ‘Only if you must. You could just draw that hood up and so achieve anonymity.’

‘Very well. I will meet you in the street, so that I am not seen exiting a house I never entered.’

‘There are still watchers spying on me?’

‘Probably not, but it pays to be cautious.’

‘Very good. I will see you in a moment, then.’

Tehol descended the ladder. The single room reeked of sheep sweat, and the heat from the hearth was fierce. He quickly made his way outside, turned right instead of left and came to what had once been a sort of unofficial mews, now cluttered with refuse and discarded building materials, the fronts facing onto it sealed by bricks or doors with their latches removed.

Shurq Elalle emerged from the shadows, her hood drawn about her face. ‘Tell me more about this Selush.’

They began walking, threading single file down a narrow lane to reach the street beyond. ‘A past associate of Bugg’s. Embalmers and other dealers of the dead are a kind of extended family, it seems. Constantly exchanging techniques and body parts. It’s quite an art, I gather. A body’s story can be unfurled from a vast host of details, to be read like a scroll.’

‘What value assembling a list of flaws when the subject is already dead?’

‘Morbid curiosity, I imagine. Or curious morbidity.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Never, Shurq Elalle. I have taken to heart your warnings on that.’

‘You, Tehol Beddict, are very dangerous to me. Yet I am drawn, as if you were intellectual white nectar. I thirst for the tension created by my struggle to avoid being too amused.’

‘Well, if Selush succeeds in what she intends, the risk associated with laughter will vanish, and you may chortle fearlessly.’

‘Even when I was alive, I never chortled. Nor do I expect to do so now that I am dead. But what you suggest invites… disappointment. A releasing of said tension, a dying of the sparks. I now fear getting depressed.’

‘The risk of achieving what you wish for,’ Tehol said, nodding as they reached Trench Canal and began to walk along its foul length. ‘I empathize, Shurq Elalle. It is a sore consequence to success.’

‘Tell me what you know of the old tower in the forbidden grounds behind the palace.’

‘Not much, except that your undead comrade resides in the vicinity. The girl.’

‘Yes, she does. I have named her Kettle.’

‘We cross here.’ Tehol indicated a footbridge. ‘She means something to you?’

‘That is difficult to answer. Perhaps. It may prove that she means something to all of us, Tehol Beddict.’

‘Ah. And can I be of some help in this matter?’

‘Your offer surprises me.’

‘I endeavour to remain ever surprising, Shurq Elalle.’

‘I am seeking to discover her… history. It is, I think, important. The old tower appears to be haunted in some way, and that haunting is in communication with Kettle. It poses desperate need.’

‘For what?’

‘Human flesh.’

‘Oh my.’

‘In any case, this is why Gerun Eberict is losing the spies he sets on you.’

Tehol halted. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Kettle kills them.’

Steeply sloped, the black wall of rock reached up into the light. The currents swept across its rippled face with unceasing ferocity, and all that clung to it to draw sustenance from that roiling stream was squat, hard-shelled and stubborn. Vast flats stretched out from the base of the trench wall, and these were scoured down to bedrock. Enormous tangled islands of detritus, crushed and bound together by unimaginable pressures, crawled across the surface, like migrating leviathans in the flow of dark water.

Brys stood on the plain, watching the nearest tumbling mass roll past. He knew he was witness to sights no mortal had ever seen, where natural eyes would see only darkness, where the pressures would have long since killed corporeal flesh descending from the surface far above. Yet here he stood, to his own senses as real, as physical, as he had been in the palace. Clothed, armoured, his sword hanging at his hip. He could feel the icy water and its wild torrent in a vague, remote fashion, but the currents could not challenge his balance, could not drag him off his feet. Nor did the cold steal the strength from his limbs.

He drew breath, and the air was cool and damp – it was, he realized, the air of the subterranean chamber of the Cedance.

That recognition calmed his heart, diminished his disorientation.

A god dwells in this place. It seemed well suited for such a thing. Primal, fraught with extremes, a realm of raw violence and immense, clashing forces of nature.

Another mass of wreckage shambled past, and Brys saw, amidst pale, skeletal branches and what seemed to be bundles of unravelled rope, flattened pieces of metal whose edges showed extruded white tendrils. By the Errant, that metal is armour, and those tendrils are…

The detritus tumbled away. As it did, Brys saw something beyond it. Stationary, blockish, vertical shapes rearing from the plain.

He walked towards them.

Dolmens.

This beggared comprehension. It seemed impossible that the plain before him had once known air, sunlight and dry winds.

And then he saw that the towering stones were of the same rock as the plain, and that they were indeed part of it, lifting as solid projections. As Brys drew nearer, he saw that their surfaces were carved, an unbroken skein of linked glyphs.

Six dolmens in all, forming a row that cut diagonally from the angle of the trench wall.

He halted before the nearest one.

The glyphs formed a silver latticework over the black stone, and in the uneven surface beneath the symbols he saw the hints of a figure. Multi-limbed, the head small, sloping and squat, a massive brow ridge projecting over a single eye socket. The broad mouth appeared to be a row of elongated tendrils, the end of each sporting long, thin fangs, and it was closed to form an interlocking, spiny row. Six segmented arms, two – possibly four – legs, barely suggested in the black stone’s undulations.

The glyphs shrouded the figure, and Brys suspected they formed a prison of sorts, a barrier that prevented the emergence of the creature.

The silver seemed to flow in its carved grooves.

Brys circled the dolmen, and saw other shapes on every side, no two alike, a host of nightmarish, demonic beasts. After a long moment’s regard, he moved on to the next standing stone. And found more.

The fourth dolmen was different. On one side the glyphs had unravelled, the silver bled away, and where a figure should have been there was a suggestive indentation, a massive, hulking creature, with snaking tentacles for limbs.

The mute absence was chilling. Something was loose, and Brys did not think it was a god.

Mael, where are you? Are these your servants?

Or your trophies?

He stared up at the indentation. The absence here was more profound than that which reared before him. His soul whispered… abandonment. Mael was gone. This world had been left to the dark, torrid currents and the herds of detritus.

‘Come for another one, have you?’

Brys whirled. Ten paces away stood a huge figure sheathed in armour. Black, patinated iron studded with rivets green with verdigris. A great helm with full cheek guards vertically slatted down to the jaw-line, reinforced along the bridge of the nose to the chin. The thin eye slits were caged in a grille mesh that extended down beneath the guards to hang ragged and stiff on shoulders and breastplate. Barnacles crusted the joints of arms and legs, and tendrils of brightly coloured plants clinging to joins in the armour streamed in the current. Gauntlets of overlapping plates of untarnished silver held on to a two-handed sword, the blade as wide as Brys’s hands were long. The sword’s blunt end rested on the bedrock. From those metal-clad hands, he now saw, blood streamed.

The Letherii drew his own longsword. The roiling currents suddenly tugged at him, as if whatever had held him immune to the ravages of this deep world had vanished. The blade was turned and twisted in his hand with every surge of water. To counter such a weapon as that wielded by the warrior, he would need speed, his primary tactic one of evasion. The Letherii steel of his longsword would not break clashing in hard parry, but his arms might.

And now, the currents buffeted him, battled with the sword in his hand. He had no hope of fighting this creature.

The words the warrior had spoken were in a language unknown to Brys, yet he understood it. ‘Come for another one? I am not here to free these demons from their sorcerous cages-’

The apparition stepped forward. ‘Demons? There are no demons here. Only gods. Forgotten gods. You think the skein of words is a prison?’

‘I do not know what to think. I do not know the words written-’

‘Power is remembrance. Power is evocation – a god dies when it becomes nameless. Thus did Mael offer this gift, this sanctuary. Without their names, the gods vanish. The crime committed here is beyond measure. The obliteration of the names, the binding of a new name, the making of a slave. Beyond measure, mortal. In answer I was made, to guard those that remain. It is my task.’ The sword lifted and the warrior took another step closer.

Some fighters delivered an unseen wound before weapons were even drawn. In them, raised like a penumbra, was the promise of mortality. It drew blood, weakened will and strength. Brys had faced men and women with this innate talent before. And he had answered it with… amusement.

The guardian before him promised such mortality, with palpable force.

Another heavy step. A force to match the roiling waters. In sudden understanding, Brys smiled.

The vicious current ceased its maelstrom. Speed and agility returned in a rush.

The huge sword slashed horizontally. Brys leapt back, the point of his sword darting out and up in a stop-thrust against the only target within reach.

Letherii steel slipped in between the silver plates of the left gauntlet, sank deep.

Behind them a dolmen exploded, the concussion thundering through the bedrock underfoot. The warrior staggered, then swung his sword in a downward chop. Brys threw himself backward, rolling over one shoulder to regain his feet in a crouch.

The warrior’s sword had driven into the basalt a quarter of its length.

And was stuck fast.

He darted to close. Planting his left leg behind the guardian, Brys set both hands against the armoured chest and shoved.

The effort failed as the guardian held himself upright by gripping the embedded sword.

Brys spun and hammered his right elbow into the iron-sheathed face. Pain exploded in his arm as the head was snapped back, and the Letherii pitched to one side, his left hand taking the longsword from his fast-numbing right.

The warrior tugged on his own sword, but it did not budge.

Brys leapt forward once again, driving his left boot down onto the side of the guardian’s nearest leg, low, a hand’s width above the ankle.

Ancient iron crumpled. Bones snapped.

The warrior sank down on that side, yet remained partly upright by leaning on the jammed sword.

Brys quickly backed away. ‘Enough. I have no desire to kill any more gods.’

The armoured face lifted to regard him. ‘I am defeated. We have failed.’

The Letherii studied the warrior for a long moment, then spoke. ‘The blood seeping from your hands – does it belong to the surviving gods here?’

‘Diminished, now.’

‘Can they heal you?’

‘No. We have nothing left.’

‘Why does the blood leak? What happens when it runs out?’

‘It is power. It steals courage – against you it failed. It was expected that the blood of slain enemies would… it does not matter now.’

‘What of Mael? Can you receive no help from him?’

‘He has not visited in thousands of years.’

Brys frowned. Kuru Qan had said to follow his instincts. He did not like what had come to pass here. ‘I would help. Thus, I would give you my own blood.’

The warrior was silent for a long time. Then, ‘You do not know what you offer, mortal.’

‘Well, I don’t mean to die. I intend to survive the ordeal. Will it suffice?’

‘Blood from a dying or dead foe has power. Compared to the blood from a mortal who lives, that power is minuscule. I say again, you do not know what you offer.’

‘I have more in mind, Guardian. May I approach?’

‘We are helpless before you.’

‘Your sword isn’t going anywhere, even with my help. I would give you mine. It cannot be broken, or so I am told. And indeed I have never seen Letherii steel break. Your two-handed weapon is only effective if your opponent quails and so is made slow and clumsy.’

‘So it would seem.’

Brys was pleased at the wry tone in the warrior’s voice. While there had been no self-pity in the admissions of failure, he had disliked hearing them. He reversed grip on his longsword and offered the pommel to the warrior. ‘Here.’

‘If I release my hands I will fall.’

‘One will do.’

The guardian prised a hand loose and grasped the longsword. ‘By the Abyss, it weighs as nothing!’

‘The forging is a secret art, known only to my people. It will not fail you.’

‘Do you treat all your defeated foes in this manner?’

‘No, only the ones I had no wish to harm in the first place.’

‘Tell me, mortal, are you considered a fine swordsman in your world?’

‘Passing.’ Brys tugged off the leather glove on his right hand, then drew his dagger. ‘This arm is still mostly numb-’

‘I am pleased. Although I wish I could say the same for my face.’

Brys cut his palm, watched as blood blossomed out to whip away on the current. He set the bleeding hand down on the warrior’s left, which was still closed about the grip of the embedded weapon. He felt his blood being drawn between the silver plates.

The warrior’s hand twisted round to grasp his own in a grip hard as stone. A clenching of muscles, and the guardian began straightening.

Brys glanced down and saw that the shattered leg was mending in painful-looking spasms, growing solid beneath the huge warrior’s weight.

Sudden weakness rushed through him.

‘Release my hand,’ the warrior said, ‘lest you die.’

Nodding, Brys pulled his hand free, and staggered back.

‘Will you live?’

‘I hope so,’ he gasped, his head spinning. ‘Now, before I go, tell me their names.’

‘What?’

‘I have a good memory, Guardian. There will be no more enslavement, so long as I remain alive. And beyond my life, I will ensure that those names are not forgotten-’

‘We are ancient gods, mortal. You risk-’

‘You have earned your peace, as far as I am concerned. Against the Tiste Edur – those who came before to chain one of your kin – you will be ready next time. My life can add to your strength, and hopefully it will be sufficient for you to resist.’

The guardian straightened to its full height. ‘It shall, mortal. Your sacrifice shall not be forgotten.’

‘The names! I feel – I am fading-’

Words filled his mind, a tumbling avalanche of names, each searing a brand in his memory. He screamed at the shock of the assault, of countless layers of grief, dreams, lives and deaths, of realms unimaginable, of civilizations crumbling to ruins, then dust.

Stories. So many stories – ah, Errant-

‘Errant save us, what have you done?’

Brys found himself lying on his back, beneath him a hard, enamelled floor. He blinked open his eyes and saw Kuru Qan’s wizened face hovering over him.

‘I could not find Mael,’ the King’s Champion said. He felt incredibly weak, barely able to lift a hand to his face.

‘You’ve scarcely a drop of blood left in you, Finadd. Tell me all that happened.’

The Holds forsake me, stories without end… ‘I discovered what the Tiste Edur have done, Ceda. An ancient god, stripped of its names, bound by a new one. It now serves the Edur.’

Kuru Qan’s eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses. ‘Stripped of its names. Relevant? Perhaps. Can one of those names be found? Will it serve to pry it loose from Hannan Mosag’s grasp?’

Brys closed his eyes. Of all the names now held within him… had any of the other gods known its kin’s identity? ‘I may have it, Ceda, but finding it will take time.’

‘You return with secrets, Finadd Brys Beddict.’

‘And barely a handful of answers.’

The Ceda leaned back. ‘You need time to recover, my young friend. Food, and wine, and plenty of both. Can you stand?’

‘I will try…’

The humble manservant Bugg walked through the darkness of Sherp’s Last Lane, so named because poor Sherp died there a few decades past. He had been a fixture in this neighbourhood, Bugg recalled. Old, half blind and muttering endlessly about a mysterious cracked altar long lost in the clay beneath the streets. Or, more specifically, beneath this particular lane.

His body had been found curled up within a scratched circle, amidst rubbish and a half-dozen neck-wrung rats. Peculiar as that had been, there were few who cared or were curious enough to seek explanations. People died in the alleys and streets all the time, after all.

Bugg missed old Sherp, even after all these years, but some things could not be undone.

He had been awakened by a rattling of the reed mat that now served as a door to Tehol’s modest residence. A dirt-smeared child delivering an urgent summons. She now scampered a few paces ahead, glancing back every now and then to make sure she was still being followed.

At the end of Sherp’s Last Lane was another alley, this one running perpendicular, to the left leading down to a sinkhole known as Errant’s Heel which had become a refuse pit, and to the right ceasing after fifteen paces in a ruined house with a mostly collapsed roof.

The child led Bugg to that ruin.

One section remained with sufficient headroom to stand, and in this chamber a family now resided. Nerek: six children and a grandmother who’d wandered down from the north after the children’s parents died of Truce Fever – which itself was a senseless injustice, since Truce Fever was easily cured by any Letherii healer, given sufficient coin.

Bugg did not know them, but he knew of them, and clearly they in turn had heard of the services he was prepared to offer, in certain circumstances, free of charge.

A tiny hand reached out to close about his own and the girl led him through the doorway into a corridor where he was forced to crouch beneath the sagging, sloping ceiling. Three paces along and the lower half of another doorway was revealed and, beyond it, a crowded room.

Smelling of death.

Murmured greetings and bowed heads as Bugg entered, his eyes settling on the motionless form lying on a bloody blanket in the room’s centre. After a moment’s study, he glanced up and sought out the gaze of the eldest of the children, a girl of about ten or eleven years of age – though possibly older and stunted by malnutrition, or younger and prematurely aged by the same. Large, hard eyes met his.

‘Where did you find her?’

‘She made it home,’ the girl replied, her tone wooden.

Bugg looked down at the dead grandmother once more. ‘From how far away?’

‘Buried Round, she said.’

‘She spoke, then, before life left her.’ Bugg’s jaw muscles bunched. Buried Round was two, three hundred paces distant. An extraordinary will, in the old woman, to have walked all that distance with two mortal sword-thrusts in her chest. ‘She knew great need, I think.’

‘To tell us who killed her, yes.’

And not to simply disappear, as so many of the destitute do, thus raising the spectre of abandonment – a scar these children could do without.

‘Who, then?’

‘She was crossing the Round, and found herself in the path of an entourage. Seven men and their master, all armed. The master was raging, something about all his spies disappearing. Our grandmother begged for coin. The master lost his mind with anger and ordered his guards to kill her. And so they did.’

‘And is the identity of this master known?’

‘You will find his face on newly minted docks.’

Ah.

Bugg knelt beside the old woman. He laid a hand on her cold, lined forehead, and sought the remnants of her life. ‘Urusan of the Clan known as the Owl. Her strength was born of love. For her grandchildren. She is gone, but she has not gone far.’ He raised his head and met the eyes of each of the six children. ‘I hear the shifting of vast stones, the grinding surrender of a long closed portal. There is cold clay, but it did not embrace her.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I will prepare this flesh for Nerek interment-’

‘We would have your blessing,’ the girl said.

Bugg’s brows lifted. ‘Mine? I am not Nerek, nor even a priest-’

‘We would have your blessing.’

The manservant hesitated, then sighed. ‘As you will. But tell me, how will you live now?’

As if in answer there was a commotion at the doorway, then a huge figure lumbered into the small room, seeming to fill it entirely. He was young, his size and features evincing Tarthenal and Nerek blood both. Small eyes fixed upon Urusan’s corpse, and the whole face darkened.

‘And who is this?’ Bugg asked. A shifting of vast stones – now this… this shoving aside of entire mountains. What begins here?

‘Our cousin,’ the girl said, her eyes wide and adoring and full of pleading as she looked up at the young man. ‘He works on the harbour front. Unn is his name. Unn, this is the man known as Bugg. A dresser of the dead.’

Unn’s voice was so low-pitched it could barely be heard. ‘Who did this?’

Oh, Finadd Gerun Eberict, to your senseless feast of blood you shall have an uninvited guest, and something tells me you will come to regret it.

Selush of the Stinking House was tall and amply proportioned, yet her most notable feature was her hair. Twenty-seven short braids of the thick black hair, projecting in all directions, each wrapped round an antler tine, which meant that the braids curved and twisted in peculiar fashion. She was somewhere between thirty-five and fifty years of age, the obscurity the product of her formidable talent as a disguiser of flaws. Violet eyes, produced by an unusual ink collected from segmented worms that lived deep in the sand of the south island beaches, and lips kept full and red by a mildly toxic snake venom that she painted on every morning.

As she stood before Tehol and Shurq Elalle at the threshold of her modest and unfortunately named abode, she was dressed in skin-tight silks, inviting Tehol against his own sense of decorum to examine her nipples beneath the gilt sheen – and so it was a long moment before he looked up to see the alarm in her eyes.

‘You’re early! I wasn’t expecting you. Oh! Now I’m all nervous. Really, Tehol, you should know better than to do the unexpected! Is this the dead woman?’

‘If not,’ Shurq Elalle replied, ‘then I’m in even deeper trouble, wouldn’t you say?’

Selush stepped closer. ‘This is the worst embalming I’ve ever seen.’

‘I wasn’t embalmed.’

‘Oh! An outrage! How did you die?’

Shurq raised a lifeless brow. ‘I am curious. How often is that question answered by your clients?’

Selush blinked. ‘Enter, if you must. So early!’

‘My dear,’ Tehol said reasonably, ‘it’s less than a couple of hundred heartbeats from the midnight bell.’

‘Precisely! See how flustered you’ve made me? Quickly, inside, I must close the door. There! Oh, the dark streets are so frightening. Now, sweetie, let me look more closely at you. My servant was unusually reticent, I’m afraid.’ She abruptly leaned close until her nose was almost touching Shurq’s lips.

Tehol flinched, but luckily neither woman noticed.

‘You drowned.’

‘Really.’

‘In Quillas Canal. Just downstream of Windlow’s Meatgrinders on the last day of a summer month. Which one? Wanderer’s Month? Watcher’s?’

‘Betrayer’s.’

‘Oh! Windlow must have had unusually good business that month, then. Tell me, do people scream when they see you?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Me too.’

‘Do you,’ Shurq asked, ‘get compliments on your hair?’

‘Never.’

‘Well, that was pleasing small-talk,’ Tehol said hastily. ‘We haven’t got all night, alas-’

‘Why, yes we have, you silly man,’ Selush said.

‘Oh, right. Sorry. In any case. Shurq was a victim of the Drownings, and, it turned out, an abiding curse.’

‘Isn’t it always the way?’ Selush sighed, turning to walk to the long table along the back wall of the room.

‘Tehol mentioned roses,’ Shurq said, following.

‘Roses? Dear me, no. Cinnamon and patchouli, I would think. But first, we need to do something about all that mould, and the moss in your nostrils. And then there’s the ootooloo-’

‘The what?’ Shurq and Tehol asked in unison.

‘Lives in hot springs in the Bluerose Mountains.’ She swung about and regarded Shurq with raised brows. ‘A secret among women. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of them.’

‘It would seem my education is lacking.’

‘Well, an ootooloo is a small soft-bodied creature that feeds through a crevice, a sort of vertical slit for a mouth. Its skin is covered in cilia with the unusual quality of transmitting sensation. These cilia can take root in membranous flesh-’

‘Hold on a moment,’ Tehol said, aghast, ‘you’re not suggesting-’

‘Most men can’t tell the difference, but it enhances pleasure many times… or so I am led to believe. I have never invited one inside, since the emplacement of an ootooloo is permanent, and it needs, uhm, constant feeding.’

‘How often?’ Shurq demanded, and Tehol heard suitable alarm in her tone.

‘Daily.’

‘But Shurq’s nerves are dead – how can she feel what this ottoolie thing feels?’

‘Not dead, Tehol Beddict, simply unawakened. Besides, before too long, the ootooloo’s cilia will have permeated her entire body, and the healthier the organism the brighter and more vigorous her glowing flesh!’

‘I see. And what of my brain? Will these roots grow in it as well?’

‘Well, we can’t have that, can we, lest you live out the remainder of existence drooling in a hot bath. No, we shall infuse your brain with a poison – well, not a true poison, but the exudation of a small creature that shares those hot springs with the ootooloo. Said exudation is unpalatable to the ootooloo. Isn’t nature wonderful?’

Grainy-eyed, Bugg staggered inside his master’s home. It was less than an hour before dawn. He felt drained, more by the blessing he had given than by preparing the old woman’s corpse for burial. Two strides into the single room and he halted.

Seated on the floor and leaning against the wall opposite was Shand. ‘Where is the bastard, Bugg?’

‘Working, although I imagine you are sceptical. I’ve not slept this night and so am unequal to conversation, Shand-’

‘And I care? What kind of work? What’s he doing that has to be done when the rest of the world’s asleep?’

‘Shand, I-’

‘Answer me!’

Bugg walked over to the pot sitting on a grille above the now cool hearth. He dipped a cup into the tepid, stewed tea. ‘Twelve lines of investment, like unseen streams beneath foundations, eating away but yet to reveal a tremor. There are essential trusses to every economy, Shand, upon which all else rests.’

‘You can’t do business in the middle of the night.’

‘Not that kind of business, no. But there are dangers to all this, Shand. Threats. And they need to be met. Anyway, what are you doing out at night without your bodyguard?’

‘Ublala? That oaf? In Rissarh’s bed. Or Hejun’s. Not mine, not tonight, anyway. We take it in turns.’

Bugg stared at her through the gloom. He drank the last of the tea and set the cup down.

‘Is all that true?’ Shand asked after a moment. ‘Those investments?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why isn’t he telling us these things?’

‘Because your investments have to remain separate, disconnected. There can be no comparable pattern. Thus, follow his instructions with precision. It will all come clear eventually.’

‘I hate geniuses.’

‘Understandable. All he does seems to confound, it’s true. One gets used to it.’

‘And how is Bugg’s Construction doing?’

‘Well enough.’

‘What’s the purpose of it, anyway? Just to make money?’

‘No. The intention is to acquire the contract for the Eternal Domicile.’

Shand stared. ‘Why?’

Bugg smiled.

Disinfecting, bleaching, scraping, combing. Fragrant oils rubbed into clothing and skin. Preserving oils rubbed in everywhere else. Scouring flushes of eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Then it was time for the pump.

At which point Tehol staggered outside for some air.

The sky was paling to the east, the city’s less sane denizens already risen and venturing out onto the streets. Clattering carts on the cobbles. Somewhere a rooster crowed, only to have its exuberant cry cut off into strangled silence. A dog barked happily.

Footsteps, halting to Tehol’s right. ‘You still here?’

‘Ah, Selush’s assistant. And how are you this grisly morning, Padderunt?’

The old man’s expression was eternally sour, but at Tehol’s courteous enquiry it seemed to implode into a wrinkled mess. ‘How am I? Sleepless! That’s how I am, y’damned snake! They still in there? It’s a lost cause, I say. A lost cause. Just like you, Tehol Beddict. I knew your mother – what would she say seeing you now?’

‘You knew her corpse, you old fool. Before that we’d never met you.’

‘Think she didn’t tell me all about herself anyway? Think I can’t see what’s there to be seen? The soul inside shapes the flesh. Oh, she talked to me all right.’

Tehol’s brows rose. ‘The soul inside shapes the flesh?’ He stared down at the wrinkled prune face glaring up at him. ‘Oh my.’

‘Oh, that’s a cutting remark, is it? True enough, here’s what happens when a decent man gets no sleep!’

A small clay pot exploded on the cobbles between them, followed by a furious shout from a window in the building opposite.

‘There!’ Padderunt cried, hand to his head as he staggered in circles. ‘Make of our neighbours vicious enemies! You don’t live here, do you?’

‘Calm down,’ Tehol said. ‘I simply asked how you were this morning, in case you’ve forgotten. Your reply was supposed to be equally inane and nondescript. If I’d wanted a list of your ailments – well, I wouldn’t. Who would? Innocuous civility is what was expected, Padderunt. Not foul invective.’

‘Oh really? Well, how am I supposed to know that? Come on, there’s a place nearby makes great grain cakes. And rustleaf tea, which can wake the dead.’

The two made their way down the street.

‘Have you tried it?’ Tehol asked.

‘Tried what?’

‘Waking the dead with rustleaf tea.’

‘Should’ve worked.’

‘But, alas, it didn’t.’

‘Still should’ve. The stuff doubles your heart rate and makes you heave everything in your stomach.’

‘I can’t wait.’

‘Until you get used to it. Makes a fine insect killer, too. Just splash it on the floor and in cracks and such. I can’t recommend it highly enough.’

‘Most people smoke rustleaf, not drink it.’

‘Barbarians. Here we are. You’re buying, right?’

‘With what?’

‘Then it goes on Selush’s account, meaning you just have to pay later.’

‘Fine.’

Shurq Elalle stood in front of the long silver mirror. Instinct had her gauging the worth of all that silver for a moment before she finally focused on the reflected image. A healthy pallor to her skin, her cheeks glowing with vigour. Her hair was clean and had been cut for the first time in years, scented with a hint of patchouli oil. The whites of her eyes were clear, a wet gleam reflecting from her pupils.

The rotted leathers and linen of her clothing had been replaced with black silks beneath a short black calf-hide jacket. A new weapons belt, tanned leggings and high boots. Tight leather gloves. ‘I look like a whore.’

‘Not any old whore, though, right?’ Selush said.

‘True, I’ll take your coin then kill you. That’s how I look.’

‘There are plenty of men out there who’ll go for that, you know.’

‘Getting killed?’

‘Absolutely. In any case, I was led to believe that wasn’t your profession. Although I suppose you might feel inclined to try something new – how does the ootooloo feel, by the way?’

‘Hungry. Can’t I feed it, uh, something else?’

Selush’s eyes sparkled. ‘Experimentation, that’s the spirit!’

Some comments, the undead woman reflected, deserved no response.

Shurq Elalle flexed the muscles that would permit her to draw breath – they were long out of practice, and it was strange to feel the still vague and remote sense of air sliding down her throat and filling her chest. After the pump, there had been infusions. The breath she released smelled of cinnamon and myrrh. Better than river mud any day.

‘Your work is acceptable,’ she said.

‘Well, that’s a relief! It’s nearly dawn, and I’m starving. Shall we test you out, dear? I imagine my assistant and Tehol are at the local establishment, breaking their fast. Let us join them.’

‘I thought I wasn’t supposed to eat or drink.’

‘No, but you can preen and flirt, can’t you?’

Shurq stared at the woman.

Selush smiled. Then her eyelids fluttered and she turned away. ‘Where’s my shawl?’

Kuru Qan had left and returned with two assistants who carried Brys back to the Ceda’s chambers, where he was laid down on a bench and plied with various liquids and food. Even so, strength was slow to return and he was still lying supine, head propped up on a cushion, when the doors opened and First Eunuch Nifadas entered.

His small eyes glittered as he looked down on Brys. ‘King’s Champion, are you well enough to meet your king? He will be here in a moment.’

Brys struggled to sit straighter. ‘This is unfortunate. I am, for the moment, unequal to my responsibilities-’

‘Never mind that, Finadd. Your king seeks only to ensure you will recover from your ordeal. Genuine concern motivates Ezgara Diskanar in this instance. Please, remain where you are. I have never seen you so pale.’

‘Something has fed on his blood,’ Kuru Qan said, ‘but he will not tell me what it was.’

Nifadas pursed his lips as he regarded Brys. ‘I cannot imagine that a god would do such a thing.’

‘Mael was not there, First Eunuch,’ Brys said. ‘The Tiste Edur found something else, and have bound it to their service.’

‘Can you tell us what this thing is?’

‘A forgotten god, but that is the extent of my knowledge. I do not know its nature, nor the full breadth of its power. It is old, older than the ocean itself. Whatever worshipped it was not human.’

A voice spoke from the doorway, ‘I am ever careless with my assets, although the Errant has spared me the cruellest consequence thus far, for which I am thankful.’

Kuru Qan and Nifadas both bowed low as Ezgara Diskanar entered the chamber. In his sixth decade, the king’s features remained surprisingly youthful. He was of average height, slightly on the lean side, his gestures revealing a nervous energy that seemed tireless. The bones beneath his features were prominent and somewhat asymmetrical, the result of a childhood incident with a bad-tempered horse. Right cheekbone and orbital arch sat flatter and higher than their counterparts on the left side of the king’s face, making the eye on that side seem larger and rounder. It was a poorly functioning eye and had a tendency to wander independently when Ezgara was irritated or weary. Healers could have corrected the damage, but the king forbade it – even as a child, he had been obstinate and wilful, and not in the least concerned with outward appearance.

Further proof of that observation was evinced in his modest attire, more befitting a citizen in the markets than a king.

Brys managed a slight bow from his reclined position. ‘My apologies, your highness-’

‘None needed, Finadd,’ Ezgara Diskanar cut in, waving a hand. ‘Indeed, it is I who must apologize to you. Unpleasant tasks that take you from your official functions. I have sorely abused your loyalty, my young Champion. And you have suffered for it.’

‘I shall recover, sire,’ Brys said.

Ezgara smiled, then surveyed the others in the room. ‘Well, this is a fell gathering, isn’t it? We should be relieved that my dearest wife is at the moment senseless beneath an exhausted consort, so that even her most trusted spies dare not intrude to report on this meeting. Hopefully, when that finally occurs, it will be far too late.’

Nifadas spoke, ‘My king, I shall be the first to take my leave, if you will permit. The hour of my departure from the city fast approaches, and my preparations are far from complete.’

Ezgara’s lopsided smile broadened. ‘First Eunuch, your diligence in such matters is legendary, leaving me sceptical of your claims. None the less, you have my leave, if only that you might ensure your spies are made aware of precisely when her spies make their report, so that they in turn may report to you and you may then report to me. Although what I am to do with such knowledge will no doubt escape me, given that the event initiating these flurries of reporting is none other than the one occurring right now in this room.’

Nifadas bowed. ‘None can rest in this dance, sire, as you well know.’

The king’s smile tightened. ‘Well I do, indeed, First Eunuch. Be off with you, then.’

Brys watched Nifadas depart. As soon as the door was closed the king faced Kuru Qan. ‘Ceda, the Chancellor continues to petition against Finadd Gerun Eberict’s attachment to the delegation. His arguments are persuasive.’

‘He fears for the life of your son, your highness.’

Ezgara nodded. ‘And has the Finadd’s restraint so weakened that he might murder my heir?’

‘One would hope not, sire.’

‘Do you imagine that my son understands the risk and will therefore act with constraint and decorum?’

‘Prince Quillas has been advised of the dangers, sire,’ Kuru Qan carefully replied. ‘He has gathered about him his most trusted bodyguards, under the command of Moroch Nevath.’

‘Presumably, Moroch feels equal to the task of defending his prince’s life.’ At this Ezgara turned and fixed Brys with an inquisitive gaze.

‘Moroch is supremely skilled, sire,’ Brys Beddict said after a moment. ‘I would hazard he will have tasters in line before the prince, and mages replete with a host of wards.’

‘To the latter, your highness,’ Kuru Qan said, ‘I can attest. I have lost a number of skilled students to the queen’s command.’

‘Thus,’ Ezgara Diskanar said, ‘we seek balance in the threat, and rely upon the wisdom of the players. Should one party decide on preemptive action, however, the scenario fast unravels.’

‘True, sire.’

‘Finadd Brys Beddict, is Moroch Nevath capable of advising restraint?’

‘I believe so, sire.’

‘The question remaining, however,’ Ezgara said, ‘is whether my son is capable of receiving it.’

Neither the Ceda nor Brys made response to that.

Their king eyed them both for a long moment, then settled his attention on Brys. ‘I look forward to your return to duties, Champion, and am relieved that you are recovering from your adventures.’

Ezgara Diskanar strode from the chamber. At the doorway’s threshold he said – without turning or pausing – ‘Gerun Eberict will need to reduce his own entourage, I think…’

The door was closed by one of Kuru Qan’s servants, leaving the two men alone. The Ceda glanced over at Brys, then shrugged.

‘If wherewithal was an immortal virtue…’ Brys ventured.

‘Our king would be a god,’ Kuru Qan finished, nodding. ‘And upon that we now stake our lives.’ The lenses covering his eyes flashed with reflected light. ‘Curious observation to make at this time. Profoundly prescient, I think. Brys Beddict, will you tell me more of your journey?’

‘Only that I sought to right a wrong, and that, as a consequence, the Tiste Edur will be unable to bind any more forgotten gods.’

‘A worthwhile deed, then.’

‘Such is my hope.’

‘What do the old witches in the market always say? “The end of the world is announced with a kind word.” ’

Brys winced.

‘Of course,’ the Ceda continued distractedly, ‘they just use that as an excuse to be rude to inquisitive old men.’

‘They have another saying, Ceda,’ Brys said after a moment. ‘ “Truth hides in colourless clothes.” ’

‘Surely not the same witches? If so, then they’re all the greatest liars known to the mortal world!’

Brys smiled at the jest. But a taste of ashes had come to his mouth, and he inwardly quailed at the first whispers of dread.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ACQUITOR SEREN PEDAC WATCHED EDUR CHILDREN PLAYING AMONG the sacred trees. The shadows writhing in the black bark of the boles were a chaotic swirl of motion surrounding the children, to which they seemed entirely indifferent. For some ineffable reason, she found the juxtaposition horrifying.

She had, years ago, seen young Nerek playing amidst the scattered bones of their ancestors, and it had left her more shaken than any battlefield she had walked. The scene before her now resonated in the same manner. She was here, in the Warlock King’s village, and in the midst of people, of figures in motion and voices ringing through the misty air, she felt lost and alone.

Encircling the holy grove was a broad walkway, the mud covered with shaggy strips of shredded bark, along which sat logs roughly carved into benches. Ten paces to Seren’s left was Hull Beddict, seated with his forearms on his knees, hands anchoring his head as he stared at the ground. He had neither moved nor spoken in some time, and the mundane inconsequentiality of their exchanged greetings no longer echoed between them, barring a faint flavour of sadness in the mutual silence.

The Tiste Edur ignored the two Letherii strangers in their midst. Lodgings had been provided for them and for Buruk the Pale. The first meeting with Hannan Mosag was to be this night, but the company had already been here for five days. Normally, a wait of a day or two was to be expected. It was clear that the Warlock King was sending them a message with this unprecedented delay.

A more dire warning still was to be found in the many Edur from other tribes now resident in the village. She had seen Arapay, Merude, Beneda and Sollanta among the native Hiroth. Den-Ratha, who dwelt in the northernmost regions of Edur territory, were notoriously reluctant to venture from their own lands. Even so, the fact of the unified tribes could be made no more apparent and deliberate than it had been, and a truth she had known only in the abstract was given chilling confirmation in its actuality. The divisive weaknesses of old were no more. Everything had changed.

The Nerek had pulled the wagons close to the guest lodge and were now huddled among them, fearful of venturing into the village. The Tiste Edur had a manner of looking right through those they deemed to be lesser folk. This frightened the Nerek in some way, as if the fact of their own existence could be damaged by the Edur’s indifference. Since arriving they had seemed to wither, immune to Buruk’s exhortations, barely inclined to so much as feed themselves. Seren had gone in search of Hull, in the hope of convincing him to speak to the Nerek.

Upon finding him, she had begun to wonder whether he’d been inflicted with something similar to the enervating pall that had settled on the Nerek. Hull Beddict looked old, as if the journey’s end had carried with it a fierce cost, and before him waited still heavier burdens.

Seren Pedac pulled her gaze from the playing children and walked back to where Hull sat on the log bench. Men were quick and stubborn with their barriers, but she’d had enough. ‘Those Nerek will starve if you don’t do something.’

There was no indication that he’d heard her.

‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘What’s a few more Nerek deaths to your toll?’

She’d wanted anger. Outrage. She’d wanted to wound him with that, if only to confirm that there was still blood to flow. But at her vicious words, he slowly looked up and met her eyes with a soft smile. ‘Seren Pedac. The Nerek await acceptance by the Tiste Edur, just as we do – although we Letherii are far less sensitive to the spiritual damage the Edur want us to suffer. Our skin is thick, after all-’

‘Born of our fixation on our so-called infallible destiny,’ she replied. ‘What of it?’

‘I used to think,’ he said, smile fading, ‘that the thickness of our… armour was naught but an illusion. Bluster and self-righteous arrogance disguising deep-seated insecurities. That we lived in perpetual crisis, since self-avowed destinies wear a thousand masks and not one of them truly fits-’

‘How can they, Hull Beddict, when they’re modelled on perfection?’

He shrugged, looked down and seemed to study his hands. ‘But in most ways our armour is indeed thick. Impervious to nuances, blind to subtlety. Which is why we’re always so suspicious of subtle things, especially when exhibited by strangers, by outsiders.’

‘We Letherii know our own games of deceit,’ Seren said. ‘You paint us as blundering fools-’

‘Which we are, in so many ways,’ he replied. ‘Oh, we visualize our goals clearly enough. But we ignore the fact that every step we take towards them crushes someone, somewhere.’

‘Even our own.’

‘Yes, there is that.’ He rose, and Seren Pedac was struck once more by his bulk. A huge, broken man. ‘I will endeavour to ease the plight of the Nerek. But the answer rests with the Tiste Edur.’

‘Very well.’ She stepped back and turned round. The children played on, amidst the lost shadows. She listened to Hull walk away, the soft crackle of his moccasined feet on the wood chips fading.

Very well.

She made her way into the village, onto the main avenue, across the bridge that led through open gates into the inner ward, where the noble-born Hiroth had their residences. Just beyond them was Hannan Mosag’s longhouse. Seren Pedac paused in the broad clearing just within the palisade wall. No children in sight, only slaves busy with their menial chores and a half-dozen Edur warriors sparring with a wide assortment of weapons. None spared the Acquitor any notice, at least not outwardly, though she was certain that her arrival had been surreptitiously observed and that her movements would be tracked.

Two Letherii slaves were walking nearby, carrying between them a net-sling bulging with mussels. Seren approached.

‘I would speak with an Edur matron.’

‘She comes,’ one of them replied, not glancing over.

Seren turned.

The Edur woman who strode towards her was flanked by attendants. She looked young, but there was in truth no way of knowing. Attractive, but that in itself was not unusual. She wore a long robe, the wool dyed midnight blue, with gold-threaded patterns adorning cuffs and brocade. Her long, straight brown hair was unbound.

‘Acquitor,’ she said in Edur, ‘are you lost?’

‘No, milady. I would speak with you on behalf of the Nerek.’

Thin brows arched above the heart-shaped face. ‘With me?’

‘With an Edur,’ Seren replied.

‘Ah. And what is it you wish to say?’

‘Until such time that the Tiste Edur offer an official welcome to the Nerek, they starve and suffer spiritual torment. I would ask that you show them mercy.’

‘I am sure that this is but an oversight, Acquitor. Is it not true that your audience with the Warlock King occurs this very night?’

‘Yes. But that is no guarantee that we will be proclaimed guests at that time, is it?’

‘You would demand special treatment?’

‘Not for ourselves. For the Nerek.’

The woman studied her for a time, then, ‘Tell me, if you will, who or what are these Nerek?’

A half-dozen heartbeats passed, as Seren struggled to adjust to this unexpected ignorance. Unexpected, she told herself, but not altogether surprising – she had but fallen to her own assumptions. It seemed the Letherii were not unique in their self-obsessions. Or, for that matter, their arrogance. ‘Your pardon, milady-’

‘I am named Mayen.’

‘Your pardon, Mayen. The Nerek are the servants of Buruk the Pale. Similar in status to your slaves. They are of a tribe that was assimilated by Lether some time back, and now work to pay against their debt.’

‘Joining the Letherii entails debt?’

Seren’s gaze narrowed. ‘Not direc- not as such, Mayen. There were… unique circumstances.’

‘Yes, of course. Those do arise, don’t they?’ The Edur woman pressed a fingertip to her lips, then seemed to reach a decision. ‘Take me, then, to these Nerek, Acquitor.’

‘I’m sorry? Now?’

‘Yes, the sooner their spirits are eased the better. Or have I misunderstood you?’

‘No.’

‘Presumably, the blessing of any Edur will suffice for these pitiful tribespeople of yours. Nor can I see how it will affect the Warlock King’s dealings with you. Indeed, I am sure it won’t.’ She turned to one of her Letherii slaves. ‘Feather Witch, please inform Uruth Sengar that I will be somewhat delayed, but assure her it will not be for long.’

The young woman named Feather Witch bowed and rushed off towards a longhouse. Seren stared after her for a moment. ‘Mayen, if I may ask, who gave her that name?’

‘Feather Witch? It is Letherii, is it not? Those Letherii born as slaves among us are named by their mothers. Or grandmothers, whatever the practice among your kind may be. I have not given it much thought. Why?’

Seren shrugged. ‘It is an old name, that is all. I’ve not heard it used in a long time, and then only in the histories.’

‘Shall we walk, Acquitor?’

Udinaas sat on a low stool near the entrance, stripping scales from a basketful of dried fish. His hands were wet, red and cracked by the salt paste the fish had been packed in. He had watched the Acquitor’s arrival, followed Mayen’s detour, and now Feather Witch was approaching, a troubled expression on her face.

‘Indebted,’ she snapped, ‘is Uruth within?’

‘She is, but you must wait.’

‘Why?’

‘She speaks with the highborn widows. They have been in there some time, and no, I do not know what concerns them.’

‘And you imagine I would have asked you?’

‘How are your dreams, Feather Witch?’

She paled, and looked round as if seeking somewhere else to wait. But a light rain had begun to fall, and beneath the projecting roof of the longhouse they were dry. ‘You know nothing of my dreams, Indebted.’

‘How can I not? You come to me in them every night. We talk, you and I. We argue. You demand answers from me. You curse the look in my eyes. And, eventually, you flee.’

She would not meet his gaze. ‘You cannot be there. In my mind,’ she said. ‘You are nothing to me.’

‘We are just the fallen, Feather Witch. You, me, the ghosts. All of us. We’re the dust swirling around the ankles of the conquerors as they stride on into glory. In time, we may rise in their ceaseless scuffling, and so choke them, but it is a paltry vengeance, don’t you think?’

‘You do not speak as you used to, Udinaas. I no longer know who speaks through you.’

He looked down at his scale-smeared hands. ‘And how do I answer that? Am I unchanged? Hardly. But does that mean the changes are not mine? I fought the White Crow for you, Feather Witch. I wrested you from its grasp, and now all you do is curse me.’

‘Do you think I appreciate owing you my life?’

He winced, then managed a smile as he lifted his gaze once more, catching her studying him – though once more she glanced away. ‘Ah, I see now. You have found yourself… indebted. To me.’

‘Wrong,’ she hissed. ‘Uruth would have saved me. You did nothing, except make a fool of yourself.’

‘She was too late, Feather Witch. And you insist on calling me Indebted, as if saying it often enough will take away-’

‘Be quiet! I want nothing to do with you!’

‘You have no choice, although if you speak any louder both our heads will top a pike outside the walls. What did the Acquitor want with Mayen?’

She shifted nervously, hesitated, then said, ‘A welcome for the Nerek. They’re dying.’

Udinaas shook his head. ‘That gift is for the Warlock King to make.’

‘So you would think, yet Mayen offered herself in his stead.’

His eyes widened. ‘She did? Has she lost her mind?’

‘Quiet, you fool!’ Feather Witch crouched down across from him. ‘The impending marriage has filled her head. She fashions herself as a queen and so has become insufferable. And now she would bless the Nerek-’

‘Bless?’

‘Her word, yes. I think even the Acquitor was taken aback.’

‘That was Seren Pedac, wasn’t it?’

Feather Witch nodded.

Both were silent for a few moments, then Udinaas said, ‘What would such a blessing do, do you think?’

‘Probably nothing. The Nerek are a broken people. Their gods are dead, the spirits of their ancestors scattered. Oh, a ghost or two might be drawn to the newly sanctified ground-’

‘An Edur’s blessing could do that? Sanctify the ground?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know. But there could be a binding. Of destinies, depending on the purity of Mayen’s bloodline, on all that awaits her in her life, on whether she’s-’ Feather Witch gestured angrily and clamped her mouth shut.

On whether she’s a virgin. But how could that be in question? She’s not yet married, and Edur do not break those rules. ‘We did not speak of this, you and I,’ Udinaas said. ‘I told you that you had to wait because that is expected of me. You had no reason to think your message from Mayen was urgent. We are slaves, Feather Witch. We do not think for ourselves, and of the Edur and their ways we know next to nothing.’

Her eyes finally locked with his. ‘Yes.’ A moment, then, ‘Hannan Mosag meets with the Letherii tonight.’

‘I know.’

‘Buruk the Pale. Seren Pedac. Hull Beddict.’

Udinaas smiled, but the smile held no humour. ‘If you will, at whose feet shall the tiles be cast, Feather Witch?’

‘Among those three? Errant knows, Udinaas.’ As if sensing her own softening towards him, she scowled and straightened. ‘I will stand over there. Waiting.’

‘You do intend to cast the tiles tonight, don’t you?’

She admitted it with a terse nod, then walked to the corner of the longhouse front, to the very edge of the thickening rain.

Udinaas resumed stripping scales. He thought back to his own words earlier. Fallen. Who tracks our footsteps, I wonder? We who are the forgotten, the discounted and the ignored. When the path is failure, it is never willingly taken. The fallen. Why does my heart weep for them? Not them but us, for most assuredly I am counted among them. Slaves, serfs, nameless peasants and labourers, the blurred faces in the crowd – just a smear on memory, a scuffing of feet down the side passages of history.

Can one stop, can one turn and force one’s eyes to pierce the gloom? And see the fallen? Can one ever see the fallen? And if so, what emotion is born in that moment?

There were tears on his cheeks, dripping down onto his chafed hands. He knew the answer to that question, knife-sharp and driven deep, and the answer was… recognition.

Hull Beddict moved to stand beside Seren Pedac as Mayen walked away. Behind them, the Nerek were speaking in their native tongue, harsh and fast words, taut with disbelief. Rain hissed in the cookfires.

‘She should not have done that,’ Hull said.

‘No,’ Seren agreed, ‘she should not have. Still, I am not quite certain what has just happened. They were just words, after all. Weren’t they?’

‘She didn’t proclaim them guests, Seren. She blessed their arrival.’

The Acquitor glanced back at the Nerek, frowned at their flushed, nervous expressions. ‘What are they talking about?’

‘It’s the old dialect – there are trader words in it that I understand, but many others that I don’t.’

‘I didn’t know the Nerek had two languages.’

‘Their name is mentioned in the annals of the First Landings,’ Hull said. ‘They are the indigenous people whose territory spanned the entire south. There were Nerek watching the first ships approach. Nerek who came to greet the first Letherii to set foot on this continent. Nerek who traded, taught the colonizers how to live in this land, gave them the medicines against the heat fevers. They have been here a long, long time. Two languages? I’m surprised there aren’t a thousand.’

‘Well,’ Seren Pedac said after a moment, ‘at least they’re animated once more. They’ll eat, do as Buruk commands-’

‘Yes. But I sense a new fear among them – not one to incapacitate, but the source of troubled thoughts. It seems that even they do not comprehend the full significance of that blessing.’

‘This was never their land, was it?’

‘I don’t know. The Edur certainly claim to have always been here, from the time when the ice first retreated from the world.’

‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten. Their strange creation myths. Lizards and dragons and ice, a god-king betrayed.’

After a moment she glanced over, and saw him staring at her.

‘What is it, Hull?’

‘How do you know such things? It was years before Binadas Sengar relinquished such information to me, and that as a solemn gift following our binding.’

Seren blinked. ‘I heard it… somewhere. I suppose.’ She shrugged, wiping rainwater from her face. ‘Everyone has some sort of creation myth. Nonsense, typically. Or actual memories all jumbled up and infused with magic and miracles.’

‘You are being surprisingly dismissive, Acquitor.’

‘And what do the Nerek believe?’

‘That they were all born of a single mother, countless generations past, who was the thief of fire and walked through time, seeking that which might answer a need that consumed her – although she could never discover the nature of that need. One time, in her journey, she took within her a sacred seed, and so gave birth to a girl-child. To all outward appearances,’ he continued, ‘that child was little different from her mother, for the sacredness was hidden, and so it remains hidden to this day. Within the Nerek, who are the offspring of that child.’

‘And by this, the Nerek justify their strange patriarchy.’

‘Perhaps,’ Hull conceded, ‘although it is the female line that is taken as purest.’

‘And does this first mother’s mother have a name?’

‘Ah, you noted the confused blending of the two, as if they were roles rather than distinct individuals. Maiden, mother and grandmother, a progression through time-’

‘Discounting the drudgery spent as wife. Wisdom unfurls like a flower in a pile of dung.’

His gaze sharpened on her. ‘In any case, she is known by a number of related names, also suggesting variations of a single person. Eres, N’eres, Eres’al.’

‘And this is what lies at the heart of the Nerek ancestor worship?’

‘Was, Seren Pedac. You forget, their culture is destroyed.’

‘Cultures can die, Hull, but the people live on, and what they carry within them are the seeds of rebirth-’

‘A delusion, Seren Pedac,’ he replied. ‘Whatever might be born of that is twisted, weak, a self-mockery.’

‘Even stone changes. Nothing can stand still-’

‘Yet we would. Wouldn’t we? Oh, we talk of progress, but what we really desire is the perpetuation of the present. With its seemingly endless excesses, its ravenous appetites. Ever the same rules, ever the same game.’

Seren Pedac shrugged. ‘We were discussing the Nerek. A noble-born woman of the Hiroth Tiste Edur has blessed them-’

‘Before even our own formal welcome has been voiced.’

Her brows rose. ‘You think this is yet another veiled insult to the Letherii? Instigated by Hannan Mosag himself? Hull, I think your imagination has the better of you this time.’

‘Think what you like.’

She turned away. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

Uruth had intercepted Mayen at the bridge. Whatever was exchanged between them was brief and without drama, at least none that Udinaas could determine from where he sat in front of the longhouse. Feather Witch had trailed Uruth after delivering the message from her mistress, and waited a half-dozen paces distant from the two Edur women, though not so far as to be out of earshot. Uruth and Mayen then approached side by side, the slaves trailing.

Hearing low laughter, Udinaas stiffened and hunched lower on the stool. ‘Be quiet, Wither!’ he hissed.

‘There are realms, dead slave,’ the wraith whispered, ‘where memories shape oblivion, and so make of ages long past a world as real as this one. In this way, time is defeated. Death is defied. And sometimes, Udinaas the Indebted, such a realm drifts close. Very close.’

‘No more, I beg you. I’m not interested in your stupid riddles-’

‘Would you see what I see? Right now? Shall I send Shadow’s veil to slip over your eyes and so reveal to you unseen pasts?’

‘Not now-’

‘Too late.’

Layers unfolded before the slave’s eyes, cobweb-thin, and the surrounding village seemed to shrink back, blurred and colourless, beneath the onslaught. Udinaas struggled to focus. The clearing had vanished, replaced by towering trees and a forest floor of rumpled moss, where the rain fell in sheets. The sea to his left was much closer, fiercely toppling grey, foaming waves against the shoreline’s jagged black rock, spume exploding skyward.

Udinaas flinched away from the violence of those waves – and all at once they faded into darkness, and another scene rose before the slave’s eyes. The sea had retreated, beyond the western horizon, leaving behind trench-scarred bedrock ringed in sheer ice cliffs. The chill air carried the stench of decay.

Figures scurried past Udinaas, wearing furs or perhaps bearing their own thick coat, mottled brown, tan and black. They were surprisingly tall, their bodies disproportionately large below small-skulled, heavy-jawed heads. One sported a reed-woven belt from which dead otters hung, and all carried coils of rope made from twisted grasses.

They were silent, yet Udinaas sensed their terror as they stared at something in the northern sky.

The slave squinted, then saw what had captured their attention.

A mountain of black stone, hanging suspended in the air above low slopes crowded with shattered ice. It was drifting closer, and Udinaas sensed a malevolence emanating from the enormous, impossible conjuration – an emotion the tall, pelted creatures clearly sensed as well.

They stared for a moment longer, then broke. Fled past Udinaas-

– and the scene changed.

Battered bedrock, pulverized stone, roiling mists. Two tall figures appeared, dragging between them a third one – a woman, unconscious or dead, long dark brown hair unbound and trailing on the ground. Udinaas flinched upon recognizing one of the walking figures – that blinding armour, the iron-clad boots and silver cloak, the helmed face. Menandore. Sister Dawn. He sought to flee – she could not avoid seeing him – but found himself frozen in place.

He recognized the other woman as well, from fearfully carved statues left half buried in loam in the forest surrounding the Hiroth village. Piebald skin, grey and black, making her hard face resemble a war-mask. A cuirass of dulled, patchy iron. Chain and leather vambraces and greaves, a full-length cape of sealskin billowing out behind her. Dapple, the fickle sister. Sukul Ankhadu.

And he knew, then, the woman they dragged between them. Dusk, Sheltatha Lore. Scabandari’s most cherished daughter, the Protectress of the Tiste Edur.

The two women halted, releasing the limp arms of the one between them, who dropped to the gritty bedrock as if dead. Two sets of wide, epicanthic Tiste eyes seemed to fix on Udinaas.

Menandore was the first to speak. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here.’

As Udinaas struggled to find a response to that, a man’s voice at his side said, ‘What have you done to her?’

The slave turned to see another Tiste, standing within an arm’s reach from where Udinaas sat on the stool. Taller than the women facing him, he was wearing white enamelled armour, blood-spattered, smudged and scarred by sword-cuts. A broken helm was strapped to his right hip. His skin was white as ivory. Dried blood marked the left side of his face with a pattern like branched lightning. Fire had burned most of his hair away, and the skin of his pate was cracked, red and oozing.

Twin scabbarded longswords were slung on his back, the grips and pommels jutting up behind his broad shoulders.

‘Nothing she didn’t deserve,’ Menandore replied in answer to the Tiste man’s question.

The other woman bared her teeth. ‘Our dear uncle had ambitions for this precious cousin of ours. Yet did he come when she screamed her need?’

The battle-scarred man stepped past the slave’s position, his attention on the body of Sheltatha Lore. ‘This is a dread mess. I would wash my hands of it – all of it.’

‘But you can’t,’ Menandore said with strange glee. ‘We’re all poisoned by the mother’s blood, after all-’

Sukul Ankhadu swung to her sister with the words, ‘Her daughters have fared worse than poison! There is nothing balanced to this shattering of selves. Look at us! Spiteful bitches – Tiam’s squalling heads rearing up again and again, generation after generation!’ She stabbed a finger at the Tiste man. ‘And what of you, Father? That she-nightmare sails out on feathered wings from the dark of another realm, legs spread oh so wide and inviting, and were you not first in line? Pure Osserc, First Son of Dark and Light, so precious! Yet there you were, weaving your blood with that whore – tell us, did you proclaim her your sister before or after you fucked her?’

If the venom of her words had any effect, there was no outward sign. The one named Osserc simply smiled and looked away. ‘You shouldn’t speak of your mother that way, Sukul. She died giving birth to you, after all-’

‘She died giving birth to us all!’ Sukul Ankhadu’s raised hand closed into a fist that seemed to twist the air. ‘Dies, and is reborn. Tiam and her children. Tiam and her lovers. Her thousand deaths, and yet nothing changes!’

Menandore spoke in a calm tone. ‘And who have you been arguing with, Osserc?’

Osserc scowled. ‘Anomander. He got the better of me this time. Upon consideration,’ he continued after a moment, ‘not surprising. The weapon of anger often proves stronger than cold reason’s armour.’ Then he shrugged. ‘Even so, I delayed him long enough-’

‘To permit Scabandari’s escape?’ Menandore asked. ‘Why? Your kin or not, he’s shown himself for what he truly is – a treacherous murderer.’

Osserc’s brows rose mockingly and he regarded the unconscious woman lying on the ground between his daughters. ‘Presumably, your cousin who’s clearly suffered at your hands is not dead, then. Accordingly, I might point out that Scabandari did not murder Silchas Ruin-’

‘True,’ Sukul snapped, ‘something far worse. Unless you think eating mud for eternity is a preferable fate.’

‘Spare me the outrage,’ Osserc sighed. ‘As you so often note, dear child, treachery and betrayal is our extended family’s most precious trait, or, if not precious, certainly its most popular one. In any case, I am done here. What do you intend doing with her?’

‘We think Silchas might enjoy the company.’

Osserc stiffened. ‘Two draconean Ascendants in the same grounds? You sorely test that Azath House, daughters.’

‘Will Scabandari seek to free her?’ Menandore asked.

‘Scabandari is in no condition to free anyone,’ Osserc replied, ‘including himself.’

The two women were clearly startled by this. After a moment, Menandore asked, ‘Who managed that?’

The man shrugged. ‘Does it matter? It was Scabandari’s conceit to think this world’s gods had not the power to oppose him.’ He paused then to eye his daughters speculatively, and said, ‘Heed that as a warning, my dears. Mother Dark’s first children were spawned without need of any sire. And, despite what Anomander might claim, they were not Tiste Andii.’

‘We did not know this,’ Menandore said.

‘Well, now you do. Tread softly, children.’

Udinaas watched the tall figure walk away, then the slave gasped as Osserc’s form blurred, shifted, unfolded to find a new shape. Huge, glittering gold and silver scales rippling as wings spread wide. A surge of power, and the enormous dragon was in the air.

Sukul Ankhadu and Menandore stared after him, until the dragon dwindled to a gleaming ember in the heavy sky, winked out and was gone.

Sukul grunted, then said, ‘I’m surprised Anomander didn’t kill him.’

‘Something binds them, sister, of which not we nor anyone else knows a thing about. I am certain of it.’

‘Perhaps. Or it might be something far simpler.’

‘Such as?’

‘They would the game continue,’ Sukul said with a tight smile. ‘And the pleasure would pale indeed were one to kill the other outright.’

Menandore’s eyes fell to the motionless form of Sheltatha Lore. ‘This one. She took a lover from among this world’s gods, did she not?’

‘For a time. Begetting two horrid little children.’

‘Horrid? Daughters, then.’

Sukul nodded. ‘And their father saw that clearly enough from the very start, for he named them appropriately.’

‘Oh? And what were those names, sister?’

‘Envy and Spite.’

Menandore smiled. ‘This god – I think I would enjoy meeting him one day.’

‘It is possible he would object to what we plan to do with Sheltatha Lore. Indeed, it is possible that even now he seeks our trail, so that he might prevent our revenge. Accordingly, as Osserc is wont to say, we should make haste.’

Udinaas watched as the two women moved apart, leaving their unconscious cousin where she lay.

Menandore faced her sister across the distance. ‘Sheltatha’s lover. That god – what is his name?’

Sukul’s reply seemed to come from a vast distance, ‘Draconus.’

Then the two women veered into dragons, of a size almost to match that of Osserc. One dappled, one blindingly bright.

The dappled creature lifted into the air, slid in a banking motion until she hovered over Sheltatha Lore’s body. A taloned claw reached down and gathered her in its grasp.

Then the dragon rose higher to join her sister. And away they wheeled. Southward.

The scene quickly faded before the slave’s eyes.

And, once more, Udinaas was sitting outside the Sengar longhouse, a half-scaled fish in his red, cracked hands, its facing eye staring up at him with that ever-disturbing look of witless surprise – an eye that he had seen, with the barest of variations, all morning and all afternoon, and now, as dusk closed round him, it stared yet again, mute and emptied of life. As if what he held was not a fish at all.

Just eyes. Dead, senseless eyes… Yet even the dead accuse.

‘You have done enough, slave.’

Udinaas looked up.

Uruth and Mayen stood before him. Two Tiste women, neither dappled, neither blindingly bright. Just shades in faint, desultory variation.

Between them and a step behind, Feather Witch stood foremost among the attending slaves. Large eyes filled with feverish warnings, fixed on his own.

Udinaas bowed his head to Uruth. ‘Yes, mistress.’

‘Find a salve for those hands,’ Uruth said.

‘Thank you, mistress.’

The procession filed past, into the longhouse.

Udinaas stared down at the fish. Studied that eye a moment longer, then dug it out with his thumb.

Seren Pedac stood on the beach in the rain, watching the water in its ceaseless motion, the way the pelting rain transformed the surface into a muricated skin, grey and spider-haired as it swelled shoreward to break hissing, thin and sullen on the smooth stones.

Night had arrived, crawling out from the precious shadows. The dark hours were upon them all, a shawl of silence settling on the village behind her. She was thinking of the Letherii slaves.

Her people seemed particularly well suited to surrender. Freedom was an altar supplicants struggled to reach all their lives, clawing the smooth floor until blood spattered the gleaming, flawless stone, yet the truth was it remained for ever beyond the grasp of mortals. Even as any sacrifice was justified in its gloried name. For all that, she knew that blasphemy was a hollow crime. Freedom was no god, and if it was, and if it had a face turned upon its worshippers, its expression was mocking. A slave’s chains stole something he or she had never owned.

The Letherii slaves in this village owed no debt. They served recognizable needs, and were paid in food and shelter. They could marry. Produce children who would not inherit the debts of their parents. The portions of their day allotted their tasks did not progress, did not devour ever more time from their lives. In all, the loss of freedom was shown to be almost meaningless to these kin of hers.

A child named Feather Witch. As if a witch from the distant past, awkwardly dressed, stiff and mannered as all outdated things appear to be, had stepped out from the histories. Womb-chosen caster of the tiles, who practised her arts of divination for the service of her community, rather than for the coins in a leather pouch. Perhaps the name had lost its meaning among these slaves. Perhaps there were no old tiles to be found, no solemn nights when fates gathered into a smudged, crack-laced path, the dread mosaic of destiny set out before one and all – with a hood-eyed woman-child overseeing the frightful ritual.

She heard the crunch of stones from near the river mouth and turned to see a male slave crouching down at the waterline. He thrust his hands into the cold, fresh water as if seeking absolution, or ice-numbing escape.

Curious, Seren Pedac walked over.

The glance he cast at her was guarded, diffident. ‘Acquitor,’ he said, ‘these are fraught hours among the Edur. Words are best left unspoken.’

‘We are not Edur, however,’ she replied, ‘are we?’

He withdrew his hands, and she saw that they were red and swollen. ‘Emurlahn bleeds from the ground in these lands, Acquitor.’

‘None the less, we are Letherii.’

His grin was wry. ‘Acquitor, I am a slave.’

‘I have been thinking on that. Slavery. And freedom from debt. How do you weigh the exchange?’

He settled back on his haunches, water dripping from his hands, and seemed to study the clear water swirling past. The rain had fallen off and mist was edging out from the forest. ‘The debt remains, Acquitor. It governs every Letherii slave among the Edur, yet it is a debt that can never be repaid.’

She stared down at him, shocked. ‘But that is madness!’

He smiled once more. ‘By such things we are all measured. Why did you imagine that mere slavery would change it?’

Seren was silent for a time, studying the man crouched at the edge of the flowing water. Not at all unhandsome, yet, now that she knew, she could see his indebtedness, the sure burden upon him, and the truth that, for him, for every child he might sire, there would be no absolving the stigma. It was brutal. It was… Letherii. ‘There is a slave,’ she said, ‘who is named Feather Witch.’

He seemed to wince. ‘Yes, our resident caster of the tiles.’

‘Ah. I had wondered. How many generations has that woman’s family dwelt as a slave among the Edur?’

‘A score, perhaps.’

‘Yet the talent persisted? Within this world of Kurald Emurlahn? That is extraordinary.’

‘Is it?’ He shrugged and rose. ‘When you and your companions are guest to Hannan Mosag this night, Feather Witch will cast.’

Sudden chill rippled through Seren Pedac. She drew a deep breath and released it slow and heavy. ‘There is… risk, doing such a thing.’

‘That is known, Acquitor.’

‘Yes, I see now that it would be.’

‘I must return to my tasks,’ he said, not meeting her eyes.

‘Of course. I hope my delaying you does not yield grief.’

He smiled yet again, but said nothing.

She watched him walk up the strand.

Buruk the Pale stood wrapped in his rain cape before the Nerek fire. Hull Beddict was nearby, positioned slightly behind the merchant, hooded and withdrawn.

Seren walked to Buruk’s side, studied the struggling flames from which smoke rose to hang smeared, stretched and motionless above them. The night’s chill had seeped into the Acquitor’s bones and the muscles of her neck had tightened in response. A headache was building behind her eyes.

‘Seren Pedac,’ Buruk sighed. ‘I am unwell.’

She heard as much in his weak, shaky voice. ‘You ran long and far,’ she said.

‘Only to find myself standing still, here before a sickly fire. I am not so foolish as to be unaware of my crimes.’

Hull grunted behind them. ‘Would those be crimes already committed, or those to come, Buruk the Pale?’

‘The distinction is without meaning,’ the merchant replied. ‘Tonight,’ he said, straightening himself, ‘we shall be made guests of Hannan Mosag. Are you both ready?’

‘The formality,’ Seren said, ‘is the least of what this meeting portends, Buruk. The Warlock King intends to make his position unambiguous. We will hear a warning, which we are expected to deliver to the delegation when it arrives.’

‘Intentions are similarly without relevance, Acquitor. I am without expectations, whereas one of us three is consumed by nothing else. Rehearsed statements, dire pronouncements, all await this fell visit.’ Buruk swung his head to regard Hull Beddict. ‘You still think like a child, don’t you? Clay figurines sunk to their ankles in the sand, one here, one there, standing just so. One says this, the other says that, then you reach down and rearrange them accordingly. Scenes, vistas, stark with certainty. Poor Hull Beddict, who took a knife to his heart so long ago that he twists daily to confirm it’s still there.’

‘If you would see me as a child,’ the huge man said in growl, ‘that is your error, not mine, Buruk.’

‘A gentle warning,’ the merchant replied, ‘that you are not among children.’

Buruk then gestured them to follow and made his way towards the citadel.

Falling in step beside Hull – with the merchant a half-dozen paces ahead, barely visible in the dark – Seren asked, ‘Have you met this Hannan Mosag?’

‘I have been guest here before, Seren.’

‘Of the Warlock King’s?’

‘No, of the Sengar household. Close to the royal blood, the eldest son, Fear Sengar, is Hannan Mosag’s Marshal of War – not his actual title, but it serves well as translation.’

Seren considered this for a moment, then frowned and said, ‘You anticipate, then, that friends will be present tonight.’

‘I had, but it is not to be. None of the Sengar barring the patriarch, Tomad, and his wife are in the village. The sons have left.’

‘Left? Where?’

Hull shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It is… odd. I have to assume Fear and his brothers will be back in time for the treaty meeting.’

‘Is the Warlock King aware of the blood-ties you have bound with Binadas Sengar?’

‘Of course.’

Buruk the Pale had reached the bridge leading to the inner ward. The mists had thickened into fog, obscuring the world surrounding the three Letherii. There was no-one else in sight, nor any sound beyond the crunch of their feet on the pebbled path. The massive bulk of the citadel rose before them.

The broad, arched entranceway was lurid with firelight.

‘He has no guards,’ Seren murmured.

‘None that can be seen,’ Hull Beddict replied.

Buruk climbed the two shallow steps to the landing, paused to release the clasps of his cape, then strode inside. A moment later Seren and Hull followed.

The long hall was virtually empty. The feast table was a much smaller version than what normally occupied the centre axis of the room, as evinced by the wear patterns on the vast rug covering the wood-slatted floor. And off to the right, Seren saw, stood that table, pushed flush against the tapestry-lined wall.

Near the far end of the chamber, the modest feast table had been positioned crossways, with three high-backed chairs awaiting the Letherii on this side. Opposite them sat the Warlock King, already well into his meal. Five Edur warriors stood in shadows behind Hannan Mosag, motionless.

They must be the K’risnan. Sorcerors… they look young.

The Warlock King waited until they had divested themselves of their outer clothing, then gestured them forward, and said in passable Letherii, ‘Join me, please. I dislike cold food, so here you see me, rudely filling my belly.’

Buruk the Pale bowed from the waist, then said, ‘I did not think we were late, sire-’

‘You’re not, but I am not one for formality. Indeed, I am often tried by mere courtesy. Forgive, if you will, this king’s impatience.’

‘Appetites care little for demands of decorum, sire,’ Buruk said, approaching.

‘I was confident a Letherii would understand. Now,’ he suddenly rose, the gesture halting the three in their tracks, ‘I proclaim as my guests Buruk the Pale, Acquitor Seren Pedac, and Sentinel Hull Beddict. Seat yourselves, please. I only devour what my cooks prepare for me.’

His was a voice one could listen to, hours passing without notice, discomforts forgotten. Hannan Mosag was, Seren realized, a very dangerous king.

Buruk the Pale took the central seat, Seren moving to the one on the merchant’s left, Hull to the right. As they settled into the Blackwood chairs, the Warlock King sat down once more and reached for a goblet. ‘Wine from Trate,’ he said, ‘to honour my guests.’

‘Acquired through peaceful trade, one hopes,’ Buruk said.

‘Alas, I am afraid not,’ Hannan Mosag replied, glancing up almost diffidently into the merchant’s eyes, then away once more. ‘But we are all hardy folk here at this table, I’m sure.’

Buruk collected his goblet and sipped. He seemed to consider, then sighed, ‘Only slightly soured by provenance, sire.’

The Warlock King frowned. ‘I had assumed it was supposed to taste that way.’

‘Not surprising, sire, once one becomes used to it.’

‘The comfort that is familiarity, Buruk the Pale, proves a powerful arbiter once again.’

‘The Letherii often grow restless with familiarity, alas, and as a consequence often see it as a diminishment in quality.’

‘That is too complicated a notion, Buruk,’ Hannan Mosag said. ‘We’ve not yet drunk enough to dance with words, unless of course you eased your thirst back in your lodging, in which case I find myself at a disadvantage.’

Buruk reached for a sliver of smoked fish. ‘Horribly sober, I’m afraid. If disadvantage exists, then it belongs to us.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, sire, you honour us with blood-tainted wine, a most unbalancing gesture. More, we have received word of the slaughter of Letherii seal hunters. The blood has grown deep enough to drown us.’

It seemed Buruk the Pale was not interested in veiled exchanges. A curious tactic, Seren reflected, and one that, she suspected, King Ezgara Diskanar would not appreciate in the circumstances.

‘I am sure the few remaining kin of the butchered tusked seals would concur, tugged as they are in that fell tide,’ the Warlock King said in a musing sort of way.

‘Word has also reached us,’ Buruk continued, ‘of the ships’ return to Trate’s harbour. The holds that should have held the costly harvest were inexplicably empty.’

‘Empty? That was careless.’

Buruk leaned back in his chair, closing both hands about the goblet as he studied the dark contents.

Hull Beddict suddenly spoke. ‘Warlock King, I for one feel no displeasure in the resolution of that treacherous event. Those hunters defied long-established agreements, and so deserved their fate.’

‘Sentinel,’ Hannan Mosag said, a new seriousness to his tone, ‘I doubt their grieving kin would agree. Your words are cold. I am given to understand that the notion of debt is a pervasive force among your people. These hapless harvesters were likely Indebted, were they not? Their desperation preyed upon by masters as heartless in their sentiments as you have just been.’ He scanned the three Letherii before him. ‘Am I alone in my grief?’

‘The potential consequences of that slaughter promise yet more grief, sire,’ Buruk the Pale said.

‘And is that inevitable, merchant?’

Buruk blinked.

‘It is,’ Hull Beddict answered, leaning forward in his chair. ‘Warlock King, is there any doubt upon whom that grief should be visited? You spoke of cold masters, and yes, it is their blood that should have been spilled in this instance. Even so, they are masters only because the Indebted accept them as such. This is the poison of gold as the only measure of worth. Those harvesters are no less guilty for their desperation, sire. They are all participants in the same game.’

‘Hull Beddict,’ Buruk said, ‘speaks only for himself.’

‘Are we not all speaking only for ourselves?’ Hannan Mosag asked.

‘As desirable as that would be, sire, it would be a lie to make such claims – for myself, for you.’

The Warlock King pushed his plate away and leaned back. ‘And what of the Acquitor, then? She does not speak at all.’ Calm, soft eyes fixed on her. ‘You have escorted these men, Acquitor Seren Pedac.’

‘I have, sire,’ she replied, ‘and so my task is done.’

‘And in your silence you seek to absolve yourself of all to come of this meeting.’

‘Such is the role of Acquitor, sire.’

‘Unlike that of, say, Sentinel.’

Hull Beddict flinched, then said, ‘I ceased being Sentinel long ago, sire.’

‘Indeed? Then why, may I ask, are you here?’

‘He volunteered himself,’ Buruk answered. ‘It was not for me to turn him away.’

‘True. That responsibility, as I understand the matter, belonged to the Acquitor.’ Hannan Mosag studied her, waiting.

‘I did not feel compelled to deny Hull Beddict’s decision to accompany us, sire.’

‘Yes,’ the Warlock King replied. ‘Isn’t that curious?’

Sweat prickled beneath her damp clothes. ‘Permit me to correct myself, sire. I did not believe I would succeed, had I attempted to deny Hull Beddict. And so I decided to maintain the illusion of my authority.’

Hannan Mosag’s sudden smile was profoundly disarming. ‘An honest reply. Well done, Acquitor. You may now go.’

She rose shakily, bowed. ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Warlock King.’

‘I reciprocate the sentiment, Acquitor. I would we speak later, you and I.’

‘I am at your call, sire.’

Not meeting the eyes of her fellow Letherii, Seren stepped round the chair, then made her way outside.

The Warlock King had denied her the burden of witnessing all that followed this night between himself, Hull and Buruk. On a personal level, it stung, but she knew that he might very well have just saved her life.

In any case, all that had needed to be said had been said. She wondered if Hull Beddict had understood that. There was no doubt that Buruk had.

We are sorely unbalanced, indeed. Hannan Mosag, the Warlock King, wants peace.

The rain had returned. She drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders.

Poor Hull.

Someone edged to his side. Udinaas glanced over to see Hulad, the familiar lined face drawn, troubled and wan. ‘Are you all right?’

Hulad shrugged. ‘I was remembering the last time she cast, Udinaas. My nerves are ruined this night.’

Udinaas said nothing. It was with some measure of surprise that he himself was not feeling something similar. Changes had come to him, that much was clear. Feather Witch, he’d heard, had felt the brunt of Mayen’s displeasure. It seemed Uruth’s fury with the Nerek blessing, while delivered with quiet brevity, had been harsh in its content. Subsequently, Mayen had taken a switch to her slave’s back.

Of course, when it came to dealing with slaves, justice was without meaning.

He watched her move to stand in the centre of the cleared area. There were more slaves crowding the vast barn than there had been the last time. Enticed by the fraught tales of the past casting, no doubt. Almost as good as the Drownings.

Feather Witch sat down on the hard-packed floor and everyone else quickly followed suit, moving with an alacrity that she herself was not able to match, bruised and battered as she was. Udinaas saw the strain in her movements, and wondered to what extent she blamed him for her suffering. Mayen was no harder a mistress than any other Edur. Beatings were mercifully uncommon – most egregious crimes committed by slaves were punished with swift death. If one was not going to kill a slave, what value incapacitating them?

The last casting had not proceeded so far as to the actual scattering of the tiles. The Wyval’s sudden arrival had torn Feather Witch from the realm of the manifest Holds. Udinaas felt the first tremors of anticipation in his chest.

Sudden silence as Feather Witch closed her eyes and lowered her head, her yellow hair closing over her face like twin curtains. She shuddered, then drew a deep, ragged breath, and looked up with empty eyes, in which the black smear of a starless night sky slowly grew, as from behind thinning fog, followed by spirals of luminous light.

The Beginnings swept upon her with its mask of terror, twisting her features into something primal and chilling. She was, Udinaas knew, gazing upon the Abyss, suspended in the vast oblivion of all that lay between the stars. There were no Makers yet, nor the worlds they would fashion.

And now the Fulcra. Fire, Dolmen and the Errant. The Errant, who gives shape to the Holds-

‘Walk with me to the Holds.”

The Letherii slaves loosed long-held breaths.

‘We stand upon Dolmen, and all is as it should be.’ Yet there was a strain to her voice. ‘To live is to wage war against the Abyss. In our growth we find conquest, in our stagnation we find ourselves under siege, and in our dying our last defences are assailed. These are the truths of the Beast Hold. Blade and Knuckles, the war we cannot escape. Age has clawed the face and gouged the eyes of the Elder. He is scarred and battle-ravaged. Crone cackles with bitter spit, and twitches with dreams of flight. Seer’s mouth moves yet there are none to hear. Shaman wails the weft of the dead in fields of bones, yet believes none of the patterns he fashions from those scattered remains. Tracker walks his steps assured and purposeful, to belie that he wanders lost.’

She fell silent.

Muttered voices from the crowd. This was a cold invitation into the Holds.

Errant guard us, we are in trouble. Dread trouble.

Hulad plucked at his arm, gestured to the far wall where shadows lay thick as muddy water. A figure stood there, back to the dirt-spattered plaster wall. The Acquitor. Seren Pedac.

Feather Witch remained silent, and unease grew.

Udinaas climbed to his feet and threaded his way through the crowd, ignoring the glares from the slaves he edged past. He reached the back wall and made his way along it until he reached the Acquitor’s side.

‘What has gone wrong?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know-’

Feather Witch began speaking once more. ‘Bone Perch now stands as a throne that none shall occupy, for its shape has become inimical to taming. The throne’s back is now hunched, the ribs drawn downward, the shoulder blades steep and narrow. The arms, upon which a ruler’s arms would rest, are risen now, each in the visage of a wolf, and in their eyes burns savage life.’ She paused, then intoned, ‘The Hold of the Beast has found Twin Rulers.’

‘That is impossible,’ Seren Pedac murmured.

‘And before us now… the Hold of the Azath. Its stones bleed. The earth heaves and steams. A silent, unceasing scream shakes the branches of the ancient trees. The Azath stands besieged.’

Voices rose in denial, the slaves shifting about.

‘Ice Hold!’ Feather Witch shouted, head tilted back, teeth bared.

Silence once more, all eyes fixing on her.

‘Riven tomb! Corpses lie scattered before the sundered threshold. Urquall Jaghuthan taezmalas. They are not here to mend the damage. They are forgotten, and the ice itself cannot recall the weight of their passage.’

‘What language was that?’ Seren Pedac asked.

‘Jaghut,’ Udinaas replied, then snapped his mouth shut.

‘What is Jaghut?’

He shrugged. ‘Forgers of the Ice, Acquitor. It is of no matter. They are gone.’

She gripped his arm and swung him round. ‘How do you know this?’

‘The Hold of the Dragon,’ Feather Witch said, her skin glistening with sweat. ‘Eleint Tiam purake setoram n’brael buras-’

‘Draconean words,’ Udinaas said, suddenly revelling in his secret knowledge. ‘ “Children of the Mother Tiam lost in all that they surrendered.” More or less. The poetry suffers in translation-’

‘The Eleint would destroy all in their paths to achieve vengeance,’ Feather Witch said in a grating voice. ‘As we all shall see in the long night to come. The Queen lies dead and may never again rise. The Consort writhes upon a tree and whispers with madness of the time of his release. The Liege is lost, dragging chains in a world where to walk is to endure, and where to halt is to be devoured. The Knight strides his own doomed path, soon to cross blades with his own vengeance. Gate rages with wild fire. Wyval-’

Her head snapped back as if struck by an invisible hand, and blood sprayed from her mouth and nose. She gasped, then smiled a red smile. ‘Locqui Wyval waits. The Lady and the Sister dance round each other, each on her own side of the world. Blood-Drinker waits as well, waits to be found. Path-Shaper knows fever in his fell blood and staggers on the edge of the precipice.

‘Thus! The Holds, save one.’

‘Someone stop her,’ Seren Pedac hissed, releasing Udinaas’s arm.

And now it was his turn to grasp her, hold her back. She snapped a glare at him and twisted to escape his grip.

He pulled her close. ‘This is not your world, Acquitor. No-one invited you. Now, stand here and say nothing… or leave!’

‘The Empty Hold has become…’ Feather Witch’s smile broadened, ‘very crowded indeed. ’Ware the brothers! Listen! Blood weaves a web that will trap the entire world! None shall escape, none shall find refuge!’ Her right hand snapped out, spraying the ancient tiles onto the floor. From the rafters far above pigeons burst out of the gloom, a wild, chaotic beat of wings. They circled in a frenzy, feathers skirling down.

‘The Watchers stand in place as if made of stone! Their faces are masks of horror. The Mistresses dance with thwarted desire.’ Her eyes were closed, yet she pointed to one tile after another, proclaiming their identity in a harsh, rasping voice. ‘The Wanderers have broken through the ice and cold darkness comes with its deathly embrace. The Walkers cannot halt in the growing torrent that pulls them ever onward. The Saviours-’

‘What is she saying?’ Seren Pedac demanded. ‘She has made them all plural – the players within the Hold of the Empty Throne – this makes no sense-’

‘-face one another, and both are doomed, and in broken reflection so stand the Betrayers, and this is what lies before us, before us all.’ Her voice trailed away with her last words, and once more her chin settled, head tilting forward, long hair sweeping down to cover her face.

The pigeons overhead whipped round and round, the only sound in the massive barn.

‘Contestants to the Empty Throne,’ Feather Witch whispered in a tone heavy with sorrow. ‘Blood and madness…’

Udinaas slowly released his grip on Seren Pedac. She made no move, as frozen in place as everyone else present. Udinaas grunted, amused, and said to the Acquitor, ‘She’s not slept well lately, you see.’

Seren Pedac staggered outside, into a solid sheet of cold rain. A hissing deluge on the path’s pebbles, tiny rivers cutting through the sands, the forest beyond seeming pulled down by streaming threads and ropes. An angry susurration from the direction of the river and the sea. As if the world was collapsing in melt water.

She blinked against the cold tears.

And recalled the play of Edur children, the oblivious chatter of a thousand moments ago, so far back in her mind now as to echo like someone else’s reminiscence. Of times weathered slick and shapeless.

Memories rushing, rushing down to the sea.

Like children in flight.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN THE BATTLE THAT SAW THERADAS BUHN BLOODED, A MERUDE CUTLASS had laid open his right cheek, snapping the bone beneath the eye and cutting through maxilla and the upper half of his mandible. The savage wound had been slow to heal, and the thread that had been used to seal the gaping hole into his mouth had festered the flesh before his comrades could return the warrior to a nearby Hiroth encampment, where a healer had done what she could – driving out the infection, knitting the bones. The result was a long, crooked scar within a seamed concave depression on that side of his face, and a certain flat look to his eyes that hinted of unseen wounds that would never heal.

Trull Sengar sat with the others five paces from the edge of the icefield, watching Theradas as he paced back and forth along the crusted line of ice and snow, the red-tipped fox fur of his cloak flashing in the gusting wind. The Arapay lands were behind them now, and with them the grudging hospitality of that subjugated Edur tribe. The Hiroth warriors were alone, and before them stretched a white, shattered landscape.

It looked lifeless, but the Arapay had spoken of night hunters, strange, fur-shrouded killers who came out of the darkness wielding jagged blades of black iron. They took body parts as trophies, to the point of leaving limbless, headless torsos in their wake. None had ever been captured, and the bodies of those who fell were never left where they lay.

Even so, they tended to prey only upon paired Edur hunters. More formidable groups were generally left alone. The Arapay called them Jheck, which meant, roughly, standing wolves.

‘There are eyes upon us,’ Theradas pronounced in his thick, blunted voice.

Fear Sengar shrugged. ‘The ice wastes are not as lifeless as they appear. Hares, foxes, ground owls, white wolves, bears, aranag-’

‘The Arapay spoke of huge beasts,’ Rhulad cut in. ‘Brown-furred and tusked – we saw the ivory-’

‘Old ivory, Rhulad,’ Fear said. ‘Found in the ice. It is likely such beasts are no more.’

‘The Arapay say otherwise.’

Theradas grunted. ‘And they live in fear of the ice wastes, Rhulad, and so have filled them with nightmare beasts and demons. It is this: we will see what we see. Are you done your repasts? We are losing daylight.’

‘Yes,’ Fear said, rising, ‘we should go on.’

Rhulad and Midik Buhn moved out to the flanks. Both wore bear furs, black and silver-collared. Their hands, within fur-lined gauntlets – Arapay gifts – were wrapped round the long spears they used as walking sticks, testing the packed snow before them with each step. Theradas moved to point, fifteen paces ahead, leaving Trull, Fear and Binadas travelling as the core group, pulling the two sleds packed with leather satchels filled with supplies.

It was said that, farther out in the wastes, there was water beneath the ice, salt-laden remnants from an inland sea, and cavernous pockets hidden beneath thin-skin mantles of snow. Treachery waited underfoot, forcing them to travel slowly.

The wind swept down upon them, biting at exposed skin, and they were forced to lean forward against its gusting, frigid blasts.

Despite the furs enshrouding him, Trull felt the shock of that sudden cold, a force mindless and indifferent, yet eager to steal. Flooding his air passages in a numbing assault. And within that current, a faint smell of death.

The Edur wrapped swaths of wool about their faces, leaving the barest of slits for their eyes. Conversations were quickly abandoned, and they walked in silence, the crunch of their fur-lined moccasins muffled and distant.

The sun’s warmth and turn of season could not win the war in this place. The snow and ice rose on the wind to glitter overhead, mockinp the sun itself with twin mirror images, leading Trull to suspect that the wind held close to the ground, whilst high overhead the suspended ice crystals hovered unmoving, inured to the passing of seasons, of years.

He tilted his head to stare upward for a moment, wondering if that glistening, near-opaque canopy above them held the frozen memories of the past, minute images locked in each crystal, bearing witness to all that had occurred below. A multitude of fates, perhaps reaching back to when there was sea, in place of the ice. Did unknown creatures ply the waters in arcane, dugout canoes all those thousands of years ago? Would they one day become these Jheck?

The Letherii spoke of Holds, that strange pantheon of elements, and among them there was the Hold of Ice. As if winter was born of sorcery, as if ice and snow were instruments of wilful destruction. Something of that notion was present in Edur legends as well. Ice plunging down to steal the land that was soaked in Tiste blood, the brutal theft of hard-won territories committed as an act of vengeance, perhaps the gelid flowering of some curse uttered in a last breath, a final defiance.

The sentiment, then – if one such existed – was of old enmity. Ice was a thief, of life, land and righteous reward. Bound in death and blood, an eternal prison. From all this, it could earn hatred.

They continued through the day, moving slowly but steadily, through jumbled fields of broken, upthrust shards of ice that in the distance seemed simply white, but when neared was revealed to possess countless shades of greens, blues and browns. They crossed flats of wind-sculpted, hard-packed snow that formed rippled patterns as smooth as sand. Strange fault lines where unseen forces had sheered the ice, pushing one side up against the other, grinding opposing paths as if the solid world beneath them jostled in wayward migration.

Towards late afternoon, a muted shout from Theradas halted them. Trull, who had been walking with his eyes on the ground before him, looked up at the muffled sound and saw that Theradas was standing before something, gesturing them forward with a fur-wrapped hand. A few moments later they reached his side.

A broad crevasse cut across their path, the span at least fifteen paces. The sheer walls of ice swept down into darkness, and from its depths rose a strange smell.

‘Salt,’ Binadas said after pulling away his face-covering. ‘Tidal pools.’

Rhulad and Midik joined them from the flanks. ‘It seems to stretch to the very horizon,’ Rhulad said.

‘The break looks recent,’ Binadas observed, crouching at the edge. ‘As if the surface is shrinking.’

‘Perhaps summer has managed a modest alteration to these wastes,’ Fear mused. ‘We have passed sealed faults that might be the remnant scars from similar wounds in the past.’

‘How will we cross?’ Midik asked.

‘I could draw shadows from below,’ Binadas said, then shook his head, ‘but the notion makes me uneasy. If there are spirits within, they might well prove unruly. There are layers of sorcery here, woven in the snow and ice, and they do not welcome Emurlahn.’

‘Get out the ropes,’ Fear said.

‘Dusk approaches.’

‘If necessary we will camp below.’

Trull shot Fear a look. ‘What if it closes whilst we are down there?’

‘I do not think that likely,’ Fear said. ‘Besides, we will remain unseen this night, hidden as we will be in the depths. If there are indeed beasts in this land – though we’ve seen no true sign as yet – then I would rather we took every opportunity to avoid them.’

Wet pebbles skidded under his moccasins as Trull alighted, stepping clear of the ropes. He looked around, surprised at the faint green glow suffusing the scene. They were indeed on a seabed. Salt had rotted the ice at the edges, creating vast caverns crowded with glittering pillars. The air was cold, turgid and rank.

Off to one side Midik and Rhulad had drawn bundles of wood out from a pack and were preparing a cookfire. Binadas and Fear were reloading the sleds to keep the food satchels off the wet ground, and Theradas had set off to scout the caverns.

Trull strode to a shallow pool and crouched down at its edge. The saline water swarmed with tiny grey shrimps. Barnacles crowded the waterline.

‘The ice is dying.’

At Fear’s words behind him, Trull rose and faced his brother. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘The salt gnaws its flesh. We are at the lowest region of the ancient seabed, I believe. Where the last of the water gathered, then slowly evaporated. Those columns of salt are all that remains. If the entire basin was like this place, then the canopy of ice would have collapsed-’

‘Perhaps it does just that,’ Binadas suggested, joining them. ‘In cycles over thousands of years. Collapse, then the salt begins its work once again.’

Trull stared into the gloomy reaches. ‘I cannot believe those pillars can hold up all this ice. There must be a cycle of collapse, as Binadas has said.’ His eyes caught movement, then Theradas emerged, and Trull saw that the warrior had his sword out.

‘There is a path,’ Theradas said. ‘And a place of gathering. We are not the first to have come down here.’

Rhulad and Midik joined them. No-one spoke for a time.

Then Fear nodded and asked, ‘How recent are the signs, Theradas?’

‘Days.’

‘Binadas and Trull, go with Theradas to this place of gathering. I will remain here with the Unblooded.’

The path began twenty paces in from the crevasse, a trail cleared of cobbles and detritus that wound between the rough, crystalline columns of salt. Melt water dripped from the rotting ceiling in a steady downpour. Theradas led them onward another thirty paces, where the path ended at the edge of a vast roughly domed expanse devoid of pillars.

Near the centre squatted a low, misshapen altar stone. Votive offerings surrounded it – shells, mostly, among which the odd piece of carved ivory was visible. Yet Trull spared it but a momentary glance, for his gaze had been drawn to the far wall.

A sheer plane of ice a hundred paces or more across, rising in a tilted overhang – a wall in which countless beasts had been caught in mid-stampede, frozen in full flight. Antlers projected from the ice, heads and shoulders – still solid and immobile – and forelegs lifted or stretched forward. Frost-rimed eyes dully reflected the muted blue-green light. Deeper within, the blurred shapes of hundreds more.

Stunned by the vista, Trull slowly walked closer, round the altar, half expecting at any moment to see the charging beasts burst into sudden motion, onrushing, to crush them all beneath countless hoofs.

As he neared, he saw heaped bodies near the base, beasts that had fallen out from the retreating ice, had thawed, eventually collapsing into viscid pools.

Tiny black flies rose in clouds from the decaying flesh and hide, swarmed towards Trull as if determined to defend their feast. He halted, waved his hands until they dispersed and began winging back to the rotting carcasses. The beasts – caribou – had been running on snow, a packed layer knee-deep above the seabed. He could still see the panic in their eyes – and there, smeared behind an arm’s length of ice, the head and shoulders of an enormous wolf, silver-haired and amber-eyed, running alongside a caribou, shoulder to shoulder. The wolf’s head was raised, jaws open, close to the victim’s neck. Canines as long as Trull’s thumb gleamed beneath peeled-back lips.

Nature’s drama, life unheeding of the cataclysm that rushed upon it from behind – or above. The brutal hand of a god as indifferent as the beasts themselves.

Binadas came to his side. ‘This was born of a warren,’ he said.

Trull nodded. Sorcery. Nothing else made sense. ‘A god.’

‘Perhaps, but not necessarily so, brother. Some forces need only be unleashed. A natural momentum then burgeons.’

‘The Hold of Ice,’ Trull said. ‘Such as the Letherii describe in their faith.’

‘The Hand of the Watcher,’ Binadas said, ‘who waited until the war was done before striding forward to unleash his power.’

Trull had thought himself more knowledgeable than most Edur warriors regarding the old legends of their people. With Binadas’s words echoing in his head, however, he felt woefully ignorant. ‘Where have they gone?’ he asked. ‘Those powers of old? Why do we dwell as if… as if alone?’

His brother shrugged, ever reluctant to surrender his reserve, his mindful silence. ‘We remain alone,’ he finally said, ‘to preserve the sanctity of our past.’

Trull considered this, his gaze travelling over the tableau before him, those dark, murky lives that could not out-run their doom, then said, ‘Our cherished truths are vulnerable.’

‘To challenge, yes.’

‘And the salt gnaws at the ice beneath us, until our world grows perilously thin beneath our feet.’

‘Until what was frozen… thaws.’

Trull took a step closer to the one of the charging caribou. ‘What thaws in turn collapses and falls to the ground. And rots, Binadas. The past is covered in flies.’

His brother walked towards the altar, and said, ‘The ones who kneel before this shrine were here only a few days ago.’

‘They did not come the way we did.’

‘No doubt there are other paths into this underworld.’

Trull glanced over at Theradas, only now recalling his presence. The warrior stood at the threshold, his breath pluming in the air.

‘We should return to the others,’ Binadas said. ‘We have far to walk tomorrow.’

The night passed, damp, cold, the melt water ceaselessly whispering. Each Edur stood watch in turn, wrapped in furs and weapons at the ready. But there was nothing to see in the dull, faintly luminescent light. Ice, water and stone, death, hungry motion and impermeable bones, a blind triumvirate ruling a gelid realm.

Just before dawn the company rose, ate a quick meal, then Rhulad clambered up the ropes, trusting to the spikes driven into the ice far overhead, about two-thirds of the way, where the fissure narrowed in one place sufficient to permit a cross-over to the north wall. Beyond that point, Rhulad began hammering new spikes into the ice. Splinters and shards rained down on the waiters below for a time, then there came a distant shout from Rhulad. Midik went to the ropes and began climbing, while Trull and Fear bound the food packs to braided leather lines. The sleds would be pulled up last.

‘Today,’ Binadas said, ‘we will have to be careful. They will know we were here, that we found their shrine.’

Trull glanced over. ‘But we did not desecrate it.’

‘Perhaps our presence alone was sufficient outrage, brother.’

The sun was above the horizon by the time the Edur warriors were assembled on the other side of the crevasse, the sleds loaded and ready. The sky was clear and there was no wind, yet the air was bitter cold. The sun’s fiery ball was flanked on either side by smaller versions – sharper and brighter than last time, as if in the course of the night just past the world above them had completed its transformation from the one they knew to something strange and forbidding, inimical to life.

Theradas in the lead once more, they set out.

Ice crunching underfoot, the hiss and clatter of the antler-rimmed sled runners, and a hissing sound both close and distant, as if silence had itself grown audible, a sound that Trull finally understood was the rush of his own blood, woven in and around the rhythm of his breath, the drum of his heart. The glare burned his eyes. His lungs stung with every rush of air.

The Edur did not belong in this landscape. The Hold of Ice. Feared by the Letherii. Stealer of life – why has Hannan Mosag sent us here?

Theradas halted and turned about. ‘Wolf tracks,’ he said, ‘heavy enough to break through the crust of snow.’

They reached him, stopped the sleds. Trull drew the harness from his aching shoulders.

The tracks cut across their route, heading west. They were huge.

‘These belong to a creature such as the one we saw in the ice last night,’ Binadas said. ‘What do they hunt? We’ve seen nothing.’

Fear grunted, then said, ‘That does not mean much, brother. We are not quiet travellers, with these sleds.’

‘Even so,’ Binadas replied, ‘herds leave sign. We should have come upon something, by now.’

They resumed the journey.

Shortly past midday Fear called a halt for another meal. The plain of ice stretched out flat and featureless on all sides.

‘There’s nothing to worry about out here,’ Rhulad said, sitting on one of the sleds. ‘We can see anyone coming… or anything, for that matter. Tell us, Fear, how much farther will we go? Where is this gift that Hannan Mosag wants us to find?’

‘Another day to the north,’ Fear replied.

‘If it is indeed a gift,’ Trull asked, ‘who is offering it?’

‘I do not know.’

No-one spoke for a time.

Trull studied the hard-packed snow at his feet, his unease deepening. Something ominous hung in the still, frigid air. Their solitude suddenly seemed threatening, absence a promise of unknown danger. Yet he was among blood kin, among Hiroth warriors. Thus.

Still, why does this gift stink of death?

Another night. The tents were raised, a meal cooked, then the watches were set. Trull’s was first. He walked the perimeter of their camp, spear in hand, in a continuous circuit in order to keep awake. The food in his stomach made him drowsy, and the sheer emptiness of the ice wastes seemed to project a force that dulled concentration. Overhead the sky was alive with strange, shifting hues that rose and fell in disconnected patterns. He had seen such things before, in the deepest winter in Hiroth lands, but never as sharp, never as flush, voicing a strange hissing song as of broken glass crunching underfoot.

When it was time, he awoke Theradas. The warrior emerged from his tent and rose, adjusting his fur cloak until it wrapped him tightly, then drawing his sword. He glared at the lively night sky, but said nothing.

Trull crawled into the tent. The air within was damp. Ice had formed on the tent walls, etching maps of unknown worlds on the stretched, waxy fabric. From outside came the steady footsteps of Theradas as he walked his rounds. The sound followed Trull into sleep.

Disjointed dreams followed. He saw Mayen, naked in the forest, settling down atop a man, then writhing with hungry lust. He stumbled closer, ever seeking to see that man’s face, to discover who it was – and instead he found himself lost, the forest unreadable, unrecognizable, a sensation he had never experienced before, and it left him terrified. Trembling on his knees in the wet loam, while from somewhere beyond he could hear her cries of pleasure, bestial and rhythmic.

And desire rose within him. Not for Mayen, but for what she had found, in her wild release, closing down into the moment, into the present, future and past without meaning. A moment unmindful of consequences. His hunger became a pain within him, lodged like a broken knife-tip in his chest, cutting with each ragged breath, and in his dream he cried out, as if answering Mayen’s own voice, and he heard her laugh with recognition. A laugh inviting him to join her world.

Mayen, his brother’s betrothed. A detached part of his mind remained cool and objective, almost sardonic in its self-regard. Understanding the nature of this web, this sideways envy and his own burgeoning appetites.

Edur males were slow to such things. It was the reason betrothal and marriage followed at least a decade – often two – of full adulthood Edur women arrived at their womanly hungers far earlier in their lives It was whispered, among the men, that they often made use of the Letherii slaves, but Trull doubted the truth of that. It seemed inconceivable.

The detached self was amused by that, as if derisive of Trull’s own naivete.

He awoke chilled, weak with doubts and confusion, and lay for a time in the pale half-light that preceded dawn, watching his breath plume in the close air of the tent.

Something gnawed at him, but it was a long time before he realized what it was. No footsteps.

Trull scrambled from the tent, stumbling on the snow and ice, and straightened.

It was Rhulad’s watch. Near the dead fire, the hunched, bundled form of his brother, seated with hooded head bowed.

Trull strode up to stand behind Rhulad. Sudden rage took him with the realization that his brother slept. He lifted his spear into both hands, then swung the butt end in a snapping motion that connected with the side of Rhulad’s head.

A muffled crack that sent his brother pitching to one side. Rhulad loosed a piercing shriek as he sprawled on the hard-packed snow, then rolled onto his back, scrabbling for his sword.

Trull’s spear-point was at his brother’s neck. ‘You slept on your watch!’ he hissed.

‘I did not!’

‘I saw you sleeping! I walked right up to you!’

‘I did not!’ Rhulad scrambled to his feet, one hand held against the side of his head.

The others were emerging now from their tents. Fear stared at Trull and Rhulad for a moment, then turned to the packs.

Trull was trembling, drawing deep, frigid breaths. For a moment, it struck him how disproportionate his anger was, then the magnitude of the risk flooded through him yet again.

‘We have had visitors,’ Fear announced, rising and scanning the frozen ground. ‘They left no tracks-’

‘How do you know, then?’ Rhulad demanded.

‘Because all our food is gone, Rhulad. It seems we shall grow hungry for a time.’

Theradas swore and began a wider circuit, seeking a trail.

They were among us. The Jheck. They could have killed us all where we slept. All because Rhulad will not grasp what it is to be a warrior. There was nothing more to be said, and all knew it.

Except for Rhulad. ‘I wasn’t sleeping! I swear it! Fear, you have to believe me! I simply sat down for a moment to rest my legs. I saw no-one!’

‘Behind closed lids,’ Theradas growled, ‘that’s not surprising.’

‘You think I’m lying, but I’m not! I’m telling the truth, I swear it!’

‘Never mind,’ Fear said. ‘It is done. From now on, we will double the watch.’

Rhulad walked towards Midik. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

Midik Buhn turned away. ‘It was a battle just waking you for your watch, Rhulad,’ he said, his tone both sad and weary.

Rhulad stood as if in shock, the pain of what he saw as betrayal clear and deep-struck on his face. His lips thinned, jaw muscles bunching, and he slowly turned away.

The bastards were in our camp. Hannan Mosag’s faith in us…

‘Let us strike the tents,’ Fear said, ‘and be on our way.’

Trull found himself scanning the horizon in an endless sweep, his sense of vulnerability at times near overwhelming. They were being watched, tracked. The emptiness of the landscape was a lie, somehow. Possibly there was sorcery at work, although this did not – could not – excuse Rhulad’s failing.

Trust was gone, and Trull well knew that Rhulad’s future would now be dominated by the effort to regain it. A lapse, and the young man’s future path awaited him, deep-rutted and inevitable. A private journey beset by battle, each step resisted by a host of doubts, real and imagined – the distinction made no difference any more. Rhulad would see in his brothers and friends an unbroken succession of recriminations. Every gesture, every word, every glance. And, the tragedy was, he would not be far from the truth.

This would not be kept from the village. Sengar shame or not, the tale would come out, sung with quiet glee among rivals and the spiteful – and, given the opportunity, there were plenty of those to be found. A stain that claimed them all, the entire Sengar line.

They moved on. Northward, through the empty day.

Late in the afternoon, Theradas caught sight of something ahead, and moments later the others saw it as well. A glimmer of reflected sunlight, tall and narrow and angular, rising from the flat waste. Difficult to judge its size, but Trull sensed that the projection was substantial, and unnatural.

‘That is the place,’ Fear said. ‘Hannan Mosag’s dreams were true. We shall find the gift there.’

‘Then let us be about it,’ Theradas said, setting off.

The spar grew steadily before them. Cracks appeared in the snow and ice underfoot, the surface sloping upward the closer they approached. The shard had risen up from the deep, cataclysmically, a sudden upthrust that had sent wagon-sized chunks of ice into the air, to crash and tumble down the sides. Angular boulders of mud, now frozen and rimed, had rolled across the snow and ringed the area in a rough circle.

Prismatic planes caught and split the sunlight within the spar. The ice in that towering shard was pure and clear.

At the base of the fissured up-welling – still thirty or more paces from the spar – the group halted. Trull slipped out from the sled harness, Binadas following suit.

‘Theradas, Midik, stay here and guard the sleds,’ Fear said. ‘Trull, draw your spear from its sling. Binadas, Rhulad, to our flanks. Let’s go.’

They climbed the slope, winding their way between masses of ice and mud.

A foul smell filled the air, of old rot and brine.

Binadas hissed warningly, then said, ‘The spirit Hannan Mosag called up from the ocean deep has been here, beneath the ice. This is its handiwork, and the sorcery lingers.’

‘Emurlahn?’ Trull asked.

‘No.’

They came to the base of the spar. Its girth surpassed that of thousand-year-old Blackwood trees. Countless planes rose in twisted confusion, a mass of sharp, sheered surfaces in which the setting sun’s red light flowed thick as blood.

Fear pointed. ‘There. The gift.’

And now Trull saw it. Faint and murky, the smudged form of a two-handed sword, bell-hilted, its blade strangely fractured and mottled – although perhaps that effect was created by the intervening thickness of ice.

‘Binadas, weave Emurlahn into Trull’s spear. As much as you can – this will take many, many shadows.’

Their brother frowned. ‘Take? In what way?’

‘Shattering the ice will destroy them. Annihilation is demanded, to free the gift. And remember, do not close your unguarded hand about the grip, once the weapon comes free. And keep the wraiths from attempting the same, for attempt it they will. With desperate resolve.’

‘What manner of sword is this?’ Trull whispered.

Fear did not answer.

‘If we are to shatter this spar,’ Binadas said after a moment, ‘all of you should stand well clear of myself and Trull.’

‘We shall not be harmed,’ Fear said. ‘Hannan Mosag’s vision was clear on this.’

‘And how far did that vision go, brother?’ Trull asked. ‘Did he see our return journey?’

Fear shook his head. ‘To the shattering, to the fall of the last fragment of ice. No further.’

‘I wonder why?’

‘This is not a time for doubt, Trull,’ Fear said.

‘Isn’t it? It would seem that this is precisely the time for doubt.’

His brothers faced him.

Trull looked away. ‘This feels wrong.’

‘Have you lost your courage?’ Rhulad snapped. ‘We have walked all this way, and now you voice your doubts?’

‘What sort of weapon is this gift? Who fashioned it? We know nothing of what we are about to release.’

‘Our Warlock King has commanded us,’ Fear said, his expression darkening. ‘What would you have us do, Trull?’

‘I don’t know.’ He turned to Binadas. ‘Is there no means of prying the secrets loose?’

‘I will know more, I think, when we have freed the sword.’

Fear grunted. ‘Then begin, Binadas.’

They were interrupted by a shout from Theradas. ‘A wolf!’ he cried, pointing to the south.

The beast was barely visible, white-furred against the snow, standing motionless a thousand or more paces distant, watching them.

‘Waste no more time,’ Fear said to Binadas.

Shadows spun from where Binadas was standing, blue stains crawling out across the snow, coiling up the shaft of the Blackwood spear in Trull’s hands, where they seemed to sink into the glossy wood. The weapon felt no different through the thick fur of his gauntlets, but Trull thought he could hear something new, a keening sound that seemed to reverberate in his bones. It felt like terror.

‘No more,’ Binadas gasped.

Trull glanced at his brother, saw the pallor of his face, the glistening sweat on his brow. ‘They are resisting this?’

Binadas nodded. ‘They know they are about to die.’

‘How can wraiths die?’ Rhulad demanded. ‘Are they not already ghosts? The spirits of our ancestors?’

‘Not ours,’ Binadas replied, but did not elaborate, gesturing instead towards Trull. ‘Strike at the ice, brother.’

Trull hesitated. He looked round over his left shoulder, searched until he found the distant wolf. It had lowered its head, legs gathering under it. ‘Daughter Dusk,’ he whispered, ‘it’s about to charge.’ Below, Theradas and Midik were readying their spears.

‘Now, Trull!’

Fear’s bellow startled him, so that he almost dropped the spear. Jaw clenching, he faced the spar once more, then slashed the iron spear-head against the ice.

Even as the weapon whipped forward, Trull’s peripheral vision caught motion on all sides, as figures seemed to rise from the very snow itself.

Then the spar exploded into blinding, white mist.

Sudden shouts.

Trull felt a savage wrench on the spear in his hands, the Blackwood ringing like iron as countless wraiths were torn free. Their death-cries filled his skull. Stumbling, he tightened his grip, striving to see through the cloud.

Weapons clashed.

An antler clawed for his face, each tine carved into a barbed point tipped with quartzite. Trull reeled back, flinging the spear shaft into the antler’s path. Trapping it. He twisted the spear round, reversing grip, and succeeded in forcing the attacker into releasing the antler. It spun away to one side. An upward slash with the spear, and Trull felt the iron blade tear through hide and flesh, clattering along ribs before momentarily springing free, to connect hard against the underside of a jaw.

The scene around him was becoming more visible. They were beset by savages, small and bestial, wearing white-skinned hides, faces hidden behind flat white masks. Wielding claw-like antler weapons and short stabbing spears with glittering stone points, the Jheck swarmed on all sides.

Fear was holding three at bay, and behind him stood the sword, upright and freed from the ice, its point jammed into the frozen ground. It seemed the Jheck were desperate to claim it.

Trull struck at the closest of Fear’s opponents, iron tip punching deep into the savage’s neck. Blood sprayed, jetted down the spear-shaft. He tore the weapon loose, in time to see the last of the Jheck in front of Fear wheel away, mortally wounded by a sword-thrust.

Spinning round, Trull saw Binadas go down beneath a mass of Jheck. Shadows then enveloped the writhing figures.

Rhulad was nowhere to be seen.

Down below, Theradas and Midik had met the wolf’s charge, and the huge beast was on its side, skewered by spears, legs kicking even as Theradas stepped in with his broad-bladed cutlass. Two more wolves were closing in, alongside them a half-dozen Jheck.

Another score of the savages were ascending the slope.

Trull readied his weapon.

Nearby, Binadas was climbing free of a mound of corpses. He was sheathed in blood, favouring his right side.

‘Behind us, Binadas,’ Fear commanded. ‘Trull, get on my left. Quickly.’

‘Where is Rhulad?’

Fear shook his head.

As Trull moved to his brother’s left he scanned the bodies sprawled on the snow. But they were all Jheck. Even so, the belief struck him hard as a blow to his chest. They were going to die here. They were going to fail.

The savages on the slope charged.

Antlers flew from their hands, dagger-sharp tines flashing as the deadly weapons spun end over end.

Trull shouted, warding with his spear as he ducked beneath the whirling onslaught. One flew past his guard, a tine clipping his left knee. He gasped at the pain and felt the sudden spurt of blood beneath his leggings, but his leg held his weight and he remained upright.

Behind the flung weapons, the Jheck arrived in a rush.

A dozen heartbeats on the defensive, then the Edur warriors found openings for counter-attacks almost simultaneously. Sword and spear bit flesh, and two of the Jheck were down.

A shriek from behind Trull and Fear, and the savages recoiled, then in unison darted to their right-

– as Rhulad leapt into their midst, the long, bell-hilted sword in his hands.

A wild slash, and a Jheck head pitched away from shoulders to bounce and roll down the slope.

Another chop, a gush of blood.

Both Fear and Trull rushed to close with the combatants-

– even as stabbing spears found their way into Rhulad from all sides. He shrieked, blood-slick blade wavering over his head. Then he sagged. A shove toppled him onto his back, the sword still in his hands.

The surrounding Jheck darted away, then ran down the slope, weapons dropping or flung aside in sudden panic.

Trull arrived, skidding on the blood-slick ice, the wound in his leg forgotten as he knelt at Rhulad’s side.

‘They’re withdrawing,’ Fear said between harshly drawn breaths, moving to stand guard before Trull and Rhulad.

Numbed, Trull tore off a gauntlet and set his hand against Rhulad’s neck, seeking a pulse.

Binadas staggered over, settling down opposite Trull. ‘How does he fare, brother?’

Trull looked up, stared until Binadas glanced up and locked gazes.

‘Rhulad is dead,’ Trull said, dropping his eyes and seeing now, for the first time, the massive impaling wounds punched into his brother’s torso, the smear of already freezing blood on the furs, smelling bitter urine and pungent faeces.

‘Theradas and Midik are coming,’ Fear said. ‘The Jheck have fled.’ He then set off, round towards the back of the rise.

But that makes no sense. They had us. There were too many of them. None of this makes sense. Rhulad. He’s dead. Our brother is dead.

A short time later, Fear returned, crouched down beside him, and tenderly reached out… to take the sword. Trull watched Fear’s hands close about Rhulad’s where they still clutched the leather-wrapped grip. Watched, as Fear sought to pry those dead fingers loose.

And could not.

Trull studied that fell weapon. The blade was indeed mottled, seemingly forged of polished iron and black shards of some harder, glassier material, the surface of both cracked and uneven. Splashes of blood were freezing black here and there, like a fast-spreading rot.

Fear sought to wrench the sword free.

But Rhulad would not release it.

‘Hannan Mosag warned us,’ Binadas said, ‘did he not? Do not allow your flesh to touch the gift.’

‘But he’s dead,’ Trull whispered.

Dusk was swiftly closing round them, the chill in the air deepening.

Theradas and Midik arrived. Both were wounded, but neither seriously so. They were silent as they stared down on Rhulad.

Fear leaned back, having reached some sort of decision. He was silent a moment longer, slowly pulling on his gauntlets. Then he straightened. ‘Carry him – sword and all – down to the sleds. We will wrap body and blade together. Releasing the gift from our brother’s hands is for Hannan Mosag to manage, now.’

No-one else spoke.

Fear studied each of them in turn, then said, ‘We travel through this night. I want us out of these wastes as soon as possible.’ He looked down on Rhulad once more. ‘Our brother is blooded. He died a warrior of the Hiroth. His shall be a hero’s funeral, one that all the Hiroth shall remember.’

In the wake of numbness came… other things. Questions. But what was the point of those? Any answers that could be found were no better than suppositions, born of uncertainties vulnerable to countless poisons – that host of doubts even now besieging Trull’s thoughts. Where had Rhulad disappeared to? What had he sought to achieve by charging into that knot of Jheck savages? And he had well understood the prohibition against taking up the gift, yet he had done so none the less.

So much of what happened seemed… senseless.

Even in his final act of extremity, Rhulad answers not the loss of trust under which he laboured. No clean gesture, this messy end. Fear called him a hero, but Trull suspected the motivation behind that claim. A son of Tomad Sengar had failed in his duties on night watch. And now was dead, the sacrifice itself marred with incomprehensible intentions.

The questions led Trull nowhere, and faded to a new wave, one that sickened him, clenching at his gut with spasms of anguish. There had been bravery in that last act. If nothing else. Surprising bravery, when Trull had, of his brother Rhulad, begun to suspect… otherwise. I doubted him. In every way, I doubted him.

Into his heart whispered… guilt, a ghost and a ghost’s voice, growing monstrous with taloned hands tightening, ever tightening, until his soul began to scream. A piercing cry only Trull could hear, yet a sound that threatened to drive him mad.

And through it all, a more pervasive sense, a hollowness deep within him. The loss of a brother. The face that would never again smile, the voice that Trull would never again hear. There seemed no end to the layers of loss settling dire and heavy upon him.

He helped Fear wrap Rhulad and the sword in a waxed canvas groundsheet, hearing Midik’s weeping as if from a great distance, listening to Binadas talk as he bound wounds and drew upon Emurlahn to quicken healing. As the stiff folds closed over Rhulad’s face, Trull’s breath caught in a ragged gasp, and he flinched back as Fear tightened the covering with leather straps.

‘It is done,’ Fear murmured. ‘Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal’s shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched behind one now stretches before him.’

‘You called him a hero.’

‘I did, and it was not an empty claim. He went to the other side of the rise, which is why we did not see him, and discovered Jheck seeking the sword by subterfuge.’

Trull looked up.

‘I needed answers of my own, brother. He killed two on that side of the hill, yet lost his weapon doing so. Others were coming, I imagine, and so Rhulad must have concluded he had no choice. The Jheck wanted the sword. They would have to kill him to get it. Trull, it is done. He died, blooded and brave. I myself came upon the corpses beyond the rise, before I came back to you and Binadas.’

All my doubts… the poisons of suspicion, in all their foul flavours – Daughter Dusk take me – but I have drunk deep.

‘Trull, we need you and your skills with that spear in our wake,’ Fear said. ‘Both Binadas and Rhulad here will have to be pulled on the sleds and for this Theradas and I will be needed. Midik takes point.’

Trull blinked confusedly. ‘Binadas cannot walk?’

‘His hip is broken, and he has not the strength left to heal it.’

Trull straightened. ‘Do you think they will pursue?’

‘Yes,’ Fear said.

Their flight began. Darkness swept down upon them, and a wind began blowing, lifting high the fine-grained snow until the sky itself was grey-white and lowering. The temperature dropped still further, as if with vicious intent, until even the furs they wore began to fail them.

Favouring his wounded leg, Trull jogged twenty paces behind the sleds – they were barely visible through the wind-whipped snow. The blood-frosted spear was in his grip, a detail he confirmed every few moments since his fingers had gone numb, but this did little to encourage him. The enemy might well be all around him, just beyond the range of his vision, padding through the darkness, only moments from rushing in.

He would have no time to react, and whatever shout of warning he managed would be torn away by the wind, and his companions would hear nothing. Nor would they return for his body. The gift must be delivered.

Trull ran on, constantly scanning to either side, occasionally twisting round to look behind, seeing nothing but faint white. The rhythmic stab of pain in his knee cut through a growing, deadly lassitude, the seep of exhaustion slowing his shivering beneath the furs, dragging at his limbs.

Dawn’s arrival was announced by a dull, reluctant surrender of the pervasive gloom – there was no break in the blizzard’s onslaught, no rise in temperature. Trull had given up his vigil. He simply ran on, one foot in front of the other, his ice-clad moccasins the entire extent of his vision. His hands had grown strangely warm beneath the gauntlets, a remote warmth, pooled somewhere beyond his wrists. Something about that vaguely disturbed him.

Hunger had faded, as had the pain in his knee.

A tingling unease, and Trull looked up.

The sleds were nowhere in sight. He gasped bitter air, slowed his steps, blinking in an effort to see through the ice crystals on his lashes. The muted daylight was fading. He had run through the day, mindless as a millstone, and another night was fast approaching. And he was lost.

Trull dropped the spear. He cried out in pain as he wheeled his arms, seeking to pump more blood into his cold, stiff muscles. He drew his fingers into fists within the gauntlets, and was horrified by nearly failing at so simple a task. The warmth grew warmer, then hot, then searing as if his fingers were on fire. He fought through the agony, pounding his fists on his thighs, flexing against the waves of burning pain.

He was surrounded in white, as if the physical world had been scrubbed away, eroded into oblivion by the snow and wind. Terror whispered into his mind, for he sensed that he was not alone.

Trull retrieved the spear. He studied the blowing snow on all sides. One direction seemed slightly darker than any other – the east – and he determined that he had been running due west. Following the unseen sun. And now, he needed to turn southerly.

Until his pursuers tired of their game.

He set out.

A hundred paces, and he glanced behind him, to see two wolves emerge from the blowing snow. Trull halted and spun round. The beasts vanished once more.

Heart thundering, Trull drew out his longsword and jammed it point-first into the hard-packed snow. Then he strode six paces back along his trail and readied his spear.

They came again, this time at a charge.

He had time to plant his spear and drop to one knee before the first beast was upon him. The spear shaft bowed as the iron point slammed dead-centre into the wolf’s sternum. Bone and Blackwood shattered simultaneously, then it was as if a boulder hammered into Trull, throwing him back in the air. He landed on his left shoulder, to skid and roll in a spray of snow. As he tumbled, he caught sight of his left forearm, blood whipping out from the black splinters jutting from it. Then he came to a stop, up against the longsword.

Trull tugged it loose and half rose as he turned about.

A mass of white fur, black-gummed jaws stretched wide.

Bellowing, Trull slashed horizontally with the sword, falling in the wake of the desperate swing.

Iron edge sheared through bones, one set, then another.

The wolf fell onto him, its forelimbs severed halfway down and spraying blood.

Teeth closed down on the blade of his sword in a snapping frenzy.

Trull kicked himself clear, tearing his sword free of the wolf’s jaws. Tumbling blood, a mass of tongue slapping onto the crusty ice in front of his face, the muscle twitching like a thing still alive. He scrambled into a crouch, then lunged towards the thrashing beast. Thrusting the sword-point into its neck.

The wolf coughed, kicking as if seeking to escape, then slumped motionless on the red snow.

Trull reeled back. He saw the first beast, lying where the spear had stolen its life before breaking. Beyond it stood three Jheck hunters – who melted back into the whiteness.

Blood was streaming down Trull’s left forearm, gathering in his gauntlet. He lifted the arm and tucked it close against his stomach. Pulling the splinters would have to wait. Gasping, he set his sword down and worked his left forearm through his spear harness. Then, retrieving the sword, he set out once more.

Oblivion on all sides. In which nightmares could flower, sudden and unimpeded, rushing upon him, as fast as his terror-filled mind could conjure them into being, one after another, the succession endless, until death took him – until the whiteness slipped behind his eyes.

He stumbled on, wondering if the fight had actually occurred, unwilling to look down to confirm the wounds on his arm – fearing that he would see nothing. He could not have killed two wolves. He could not have simply chosen to face in one direction and not another, to find himself meeting that charge head-on. He could not have thrust his sword into the ground the precise number of paces behind him, as if knowing how far he would be thrown by the impact. No, he had conjured the entire battle from his own imagination. No other explanation made sense.

And so he looked down.

A mass of splinters rising like crooked spines from his forearm. A blackening sword in his right hand, tufts of white fur caught in the clotted blood near the hilt. His spear was gone.

I am fevered. The will of my thoughts has seeped out from my eyes, twisting the truth of all that I see. Even the ache in my shoulder is but an illusion.

A rush of footsteps behind him.

With a roar, Trull whipped around, sword hissing.

Blade chopping into the side of a savage’s head, just above the ear. Bone buckling, blood spurting from eye and ear on that side. Figure toppling.

Another, darting in low from his right. Trull leapt back, stop-thrusting. He watched, the motion seeming appallingly slow, as the Jheck turned his stabbing spear to parry. Watched as the sword dipped under the block, then extended once more, to slide point-first beneath the man’s left collarbone.

A third attacker on his left, slashing a spear-point at Trull’s eyes. He leaned back, then spun full circle, pivoting on his right foot, and brought his sword’s edge smoothly across the savage’s throat. A red flood down the Jheck’s chest.

Trull completed his spin and resumed his jog, the snow stinging his eyes.

Nothing but nightmares.

He was lying motionless, the snow slowly covering him, whilst his mind ran on and on, fleeing this lie, this empty world that was not empty, this thick whiteness that exploded into motion and colour again and again.

Attackers, appearing out of the darkness and blowing snow. Moments of frenzied fighting, sparks and the hiss of iron and the bite of wood and stone. A succession of ambushes that seemed without end, convincing Trull that he was indeed within a nightmare, ever folding in on itself. Each time, the Jheck appeared in threes, never more, and the Hiroth warrior began to believe that they were the same three, dying only to rise once again – and so it would continue, until they finally succeeded, until they killed him.

Yet he fought on, leaving blood and bodies in his wake.

Running, snow crunching underfoot.

And then the wind fell off, sudden like a spent breath.

Patches of dark ground ahead. An unseen barrier burst across, the lurid glare of a setting sun to his right, the languid flow of cool, damp air, the smell of mud.

And shouts. Figures off to his left, half a thousand paces distant. Brothers of the hearth, the dead welcoming his arrival.

Gladness welling in his heart, Trull staggered towards them. He was not to be a ghost wandering for ever alone, then. There would be kin at his side. Fear, and Binadas. And Rhulad.

Midik Buhn, and Theradas, rushing towards him.

Brothers, all of them. My brothers-

The sun’s light wavered, rippled like water, then darkness rose up in a devouring flood.

The sleds were off to one side, their runners buried in mud. On one was a wrapped figure, around which jagged slabs of ice had been packed and strapped in place. Binadas was propped up on the other sled, his eyes closed, his face deeply lined with pain.

Trull slowly sat up, feeling light-headed and strangely awkward. Furs tumbled from him as he clambered to his feet and stood, wavering, and dazedly looked around. To the west shimmered a lake, flat grey beneath the overcast sky. The faint wind was warm and humid.

A fire had been lit, and over it was spit a scrawny hare, tended to bv Midik Buhn. Off to one side stood Fear and Theradas, facing the distant ice-fields to the east as they spoke in quiet tones.

The smell of the roasting meat drew Trull to the fire. Midik Buhn glanced up at him, then looked quickly away, as if shamed bv something.

Trull’s fingers were fiercely itching, and he lifted them into view. Red, the skin peeling, but at least he had not lost them to the cold. Indeed he seemed intact, although his leather armour was split and cut all across his chest and shoulders, and he could see that the quilted under-padding bore slices, here and there stained dark red, and beneath them was the sting of shallow wounds on his body.

Not a nightmare, then, those countless attacks. He checked for his sword and found he was not wearing the belted scabbard. A moment later he spied his weapon, leaning against a pack. It was barely recognizable. The blade was twisted, the edge so battered as to make the sword little more than a club.

Footsteps, and Trull turned.

Fear laid a hand upon his shoulder. ‘Trull Sengar, we did not expect to see you again. Leading the Jheck away from our path was a bold tactic, and it saved our lives.’ He nodded towards the sword. ‘Your weapon tells the tale. Do you know how many you defeated?’

Trull shook his head. ‘No. Fear, I did not intentionally lead them away from you. I became lost in the storm.’

His brother smiled and said nothing.

Trull glanced over at Theradas. ‘I became lost, Theradas Buhn.’

‘It matters not,’ Theradas replied in a growl.

‘I believed I was dead.’ Trull looked away, rubbed at his face. ‘I saw you, and thought I was joining you in death. I’d expected…’ He shook his head. ‘Rhulad…’

‘He was a true warrior, Trull,’ Fear said. ‘It is done, and now we must move on. There are Arapay on the way – Binadas managed to awaken their shamans to our plight. They will hasten our journey home.’

Trull nodded distractedly. He stared at the distant field of ice. Remembering the feel and sound beneath his moccasins, the blast of the wind, the enervating cold. The horrifying Jheck, silent hunters who claimed a frozen world as their own. They had wanted the sword. Why?

How many Jheck could those ice-fields sustain? How many had they killed? How many wives and children were left to grieve? To starve?

There should have been five hundred of us. Then they would have left us alone.

‘Over there!’

At Midik’s shout Trull swung round, then faced in the direction Midik was pointing. Northward, where a dozen huge beasts strode, coming down from the ice, four-legged and brown-furred, each bearing long, curved tusks to either side of a thick, sinuous snout.

Ponderous, majestic, the enormous creatures walked towards the lake.

This is not our world.

A sword waited in the unyielding grip of a corpse, sheathed in waxed cloth, bound with ice. A weapon familiar with cold’s implacable embrace. It did not belong in Hannan Mosag’s hands.

Unless the Warlock King had changed.

And perhaps he has.

‘Come and eat, Trull Sengar,’ his brother called behind him.

Sisters have mercy on us, in the way we simply go on, and on. Would that we had all died, back there on the ice. Would that we had failed.

CHAPTER NINE

ROLLED ONTO THE BEACH, NAKED AND GREY, THE YOUNG MAN LAY motionless in the sand. His long brown hair was tangled, snarled with twigs and strands of seaweed. Scaled birds pranced around the body, serrated beaks gaping in the morning heat.

They scattered at Withal’s arrival, flapping into the air. Then, as three black Nachts bounded down from the verge, the birds screamed and whirled out over the waves.

Withal crouched down at the figure’s side, studied it for a moment, then reached out and rolled the body onto its back.

‘Wake up, lad.’

Eyes snapped open, filled with sudden terror and pain. Mouth gaped, neck stretched, and piercing screams rose into the air. The young man convulsed, legs scissoring the sand, and clawed at his scalp.

Withal leaned back on his haunches and waited.

The screams grew hoarse, were replaced by weeping. The convulsions diminished to waves of shuddering as the young man slowly curled up in the sand.

‘It gets easier, one hopes,’ Withal murmured.

Head twisted round, large, wet eyes fixing on Withal’s own. ‘What… where…’

‘The two questions I am least able to answer, lad. Let’s try the easier ones. I’m named Withal, once of the Third Meckros city. You are here – wherever here is – because my master wills it.’ He rose with a grunt. ‘Can you stand? He awaits you inland – not far.’

The eyes shifted away, focused on the three Nachts at the edge of the verge. ‘What are those things? What’s that one doing?’

‘Bhoka’ral. Nachts. Name them as you will. As I have. The one making the nest is Pule, a young male. This particular nest has taken almost a week – see how he obsesses over it, adjusting twigs just so, weaving the seaweed, going round and round with a critical eye. The older male, over there and watching Pule, is Rind. He’s moments from hilarity, as you’ll see. The female preening on the rock is Mape. You’ve arrived at a propitious time, lad. Watch.’

The nest-builder, Pule, had begun backing away from the intricate construct on the verge, black tail flicking from side to side, head bobbing. Fifteen paces from the nest, it suddenly sat, arms folded, and seemed to study the colourless sky.

The female, Mape, ceased preening, paused a moment, then ambled casually towards the nest.

Pule tensed, even as it visibly struggled to keep its gaze on the sky.

Reaching the nest, Mape hesitated, then attacked. Driftwood, grasses and twigs flew in all directions. Within moments, the nest had been destroyed in a wild frenzy, and Mape was squatting in the wreckage, urinating.

Nearby, Rind was rolling about in helpless mirth.

Pule slumped in obvious dejection.

‘This has happened more times than I’d care to count,’ Withal said, sighing.

‘How is it you speak my language?’

‘I’d a smattering, from traders. My master has, it seems, improved upon it. A gift, you might say, one of a number of gifts, none of which I asked for. I suspect,’ he continued, ‘you will come to similar sentiments, lad. We should get going.’

Withal watched the young man struggle to his feet. ‘Tall,’ he observed, ‘but I’ve seen taller.’

Pain flooded the youth’s features once more and he doubled over. Withal stepped close and supported him before he toppled.

‘It’s ghost pain, lad. Ghost pain and ghost fear. Fight through it.’

‘No! It’s real! It’s real, you bastard!’

Withal strained as the youth’s full weight settled in his arms. ‘Enough of that. Stand up!’

‘It’s no good! I’m dying!’

‘On your feet, dammit!’

A rough shake, then Withal pushed him away.

He staggered, then slowly straightened, drawing in deep, ragged breaths. He began shivering. ‘It’s so cold…’

‘Hood’s breath, lad, it’s blistering hot. And getting hotter with every day.’

Arms wrapped about himself, the young man regarded Withal. ‘How long have you lived… lived here?’

‘Longer than I’d like. Some choices aren’t for you to make. Not for you, not for me. Now, our master’s losing patience. Follow me.’

The youth stumbled along behind him. ‘You said “our”.’

‘Did I?’

‘Where are my clothes? Where are my – no, never mind – it hurts to remember. Never mind.’

They reached the verge, withered grasses pulling at their legs as they made their way inland. The Nachts joined them, clambering and hopping, hooting and snorting as they kept pace.

Two hundred paces ahead squatted a ragged tent, the canvas sun-bleached and stained. Wafts of grey-brown smoke drifted from the wide entrance, where most of one side had been drawn back to reveal the interior.

Where sat a hooded figure.

‘That’s him?’ the youth asked. ‘That’s your master? Are you a slave, then?’

‘I serve,’ Withal replied, ‘but I am not owned.’

‘Who is he?’

Withal glanced back. ‘He is a god.’ He noted the disbelief writ on the lad’s face, and smiled wryly. ‘Who’s seen better days.’

The Nachts halted and huddled together in a threesome.

A last few strides across withered ground, then Withal stepped to one side. ‘I found him on the strand,’ he said to the seated figure, ‘moments before the lizard gulls did.’

Darkness hid the Crippled God’s features, as was ever the case when Withal had been summoned to an attendance. The smoke from the brazier filled the tent, seeping out to stream along the mild breeze. A gnarled, thin hand emerged from the folds of a sleeve as the god gestured. ‘Closer,’ he rasped. ‘Sit.’

‘You are not my god,’ the youth said.

‘Sit. I am neither petty nor overly sensitive, young warrior.’

Withal watched the lad hesitate, then slowly settle onto the ground, cross-legged, arms wrapped about his shivering frame. ‘It’s cold.’

‘Some furs for our guest, Withal.’

‘Furs? We don’t have any-’ He stopped when he noticed the bundled bearskin heaped beside him. He gathered it up and pushed it into the lad’s hands.

The Crippled God scattered some seeds onto the brazier’s coals. Popping sounds, then more smoke. ‘Peace. Warm yourself, warrior, while I tell you of peace. History is unerring, and even the least observant mortal can be made to understand, through innumerable repetition. Do you see peace as little more than the absence of war? Perhaps, on a surface level, it is just that. But let me describe the characteristics of peace, my young friend. A pervasive dulling of the senses, a decadence afflicting the culture, evinced by a growing obsession with low entertainment. The virtues of extremity – honour, loyalty, sacrifice – are lifted high as shoddy icons, currency for the cheapest of labours. The longer peace lasts, the more those words are used, and the weaker they become. Sentimentality pervades daily life. All becomes a mockery of itself, and the spirit grows… restless.’

The Crippled God paused, breath rasping. ‘Is this a singular pessimism? Allow me to continue with a description of what follows a period of peace. Old warriors sit in taverns, telling tales of vigorous youth, their pasts when all things were simpler, clearer cut. They are not blind to the decay all around them, are not immune to the loss of respect for themselves, for all that they gave for their king, their land, their fellow citizens.

‘The young must not be abandoned to forgetfulness. There are always enemies beyond the borders, and if none exist in truth, then one must be fashioned. Old crimes dug out of the indifferent earth. Slights and open insults, or the rumours thereof. A suddenly perceived threat where none existed before. The reasons matter not – what matters is that war is fashioned from peace, and once the journey is begun, an irresistible momentum is born.

‘The old warriors are satisfied. The young are on fire with zeal. The king fears yet is relieved of domestic pressures. The army draws its oil and whetstone. Forges blast with molten iron, the anvils ring like temple bells. Grain-sellers and armourers and clothiers and horse-sellers and countless other suppliers smile with the pleasure of impending wealth. A new energy has gripped the kingdom, and those few voices raised in objection are quickly silenced. Charges of treason and summary execution soon persuade the doubters.’

The Crippled God spread his hands. ‘Peace, my young warrior, is born of relief, endured in exhaustion, and dies with false remembrance. False? Ah, perhaps I am too cynical. Too old, witness to far too much. Do honour, loyalty and sacrifice truly exist? Are such virtues born only from extremity? What transforms them into empty words, words devalued by their overuse? What are the rules of the economy of the spirit, that civilization repeatedly twists and mocks?’

He shifted slightly and Withal sensed the god’s regard. ‘Withal of the Third City. You have fought wars. You have forged weapons. You have seen loyalty, and honour. You have seen courage and sacrifice. What say you to all this?’

‘Nothing,’ Withal replied.

Hacking laughter. ‘You fear angering me, yes? No need. I give you leave to speak your mind.’

‘I have sat in my share of taverns,’ Withal said, ‘in the company of fellow veterans. A select company, perhaps, not grown so blind with sentimentality as to fashion nostalgia from times of horror and terror. Did we spin out those days of our youth? No. Did we speak of war? Not if we could avoid it, and we worked hard at avoiding it.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? Because the faces come back. So young, one after another. A flash of life, an eternity of death, there in our minds. Because loyalty is not to be spoken of, and honour is to be endured. Whilst courage is to be survived. Those virtues, Chained One, belong to silence.’

‘Indeed,’ the god rasped, leaning forward. ‘Yet how they proliferate in peace! Crowed again and again, as if solemn pronouncement bestows those very qualities upon the speaker. Do they not make you wince, every time you hear them? Do they not twist in your gut, grip hard your throat? Do you not feel a building rage-’

‘Aye,’ Withal growled, ‘when I hear them used to raise a people once more to war.’

The Crippled God was silent a moment, then he leaned back and dismissed Withal’s words with a careless wave of one hand. He fixed his attention on the young warrior. ‘I spoke of peace as anathema. A poison that weakens the spirit. Tell me, warrior, have you spilled blood?’

The youth flinched beneath his furs. Tremors of pain crossed his face. Then fear. ‘Spilled blood? Spilled, down, so much of it – everywhere. I don’t – I can’t – oh, Daughters take me-’

‘Oh no,’ the Crippled God hissed, ‘not the Daughters. I have taken you. Chosen you. Because your king betrayed me! Your king hungered for the power I offered, but not for conquest. No, he simply sought to make himself and his people unassailable.’ Misshapen fingers curled into fists. ‘Not good enough!’

The Crippled God seemed to spasm beneath his ragged blankets, then coughed wretchedly.

Some time later the hacking abated. More seeds on the coals, roiling smoke, then, ‘I have chosen you, Rhulad Sengar, for my gift. Do you remember?’

Shivering, his lips strangely blue, the young warrior’s face underwent a series of fraught expressions, ending on dread. He nodded. ‘I died.’

‘Well,’ the Crippled God murmured, ‘every gift has a price. There are powers buried in that sword, Rhulad Sengar. Powers unimagined. But they are reluctant to yield. You must pay for them. In combat. With death. No, I should be precise in this. With your death, Rhulad Sengar.’

A gesture, and the mottled sword was in the Crippled God’s hand. He tossed it down in front of the young warrior. ‘Your first death is done, and as a consequence your skills – your powers – have burgeoned. But it is just the beginning. Take your weapon, Rhulad Sengar. Will your next death prove easier for you to bear? Probably not. In time, perhaps…’

Withal studied the horror on the young warrior’s face, and saw beneath it the glimmer of… ambition.

Hood, do not turn away.

A long, frozen moment, during which Withal saw the ambition grow like flames behind the Tiste Edur’s eyes.

Ah. The Crippled God’s chosen well. And deny it not, Withal, your hand is in this, plunged deep. So very deep.

The smoke gusted, then spun, momentarily blinding Withal even as Rhulad Sengar reached for the sword.

A god’s mercy? He was unconvinced.

In four days, the Letherii delegation would arrive. Two nights had passed since the Warlock King had called Seren, Hull and Buruk the Pale into his audience at the feast table. Buruk’s spirits were high, a development that had not surprised Seren Pedac. Merchants whose interests were tempered by wisdom ever preferred the long term over speculative endeavours. There were always vultures of commerce who hungered for strife, and often profited by such discord, but Buruk the Pale was not one of them.

Contrary to the desires of those back in Letheras who had conscripted Buruk, the merchant did not want a war. And so, with Hannan Mosag’s intimation that the Edur would seek peace, the tumult in Buruk’s soul had eased. The issue had been taken from his hands.

If the Warlock King wanted peace, he was in for a fight. But Seren Pedac’s confidence in Hannan Mosag had grown. The Edur leader possessed cunning and resilience. There would be no manipulation at the treaty, no treachery sewn into the fabric of generous pronouncements.

A weight had been lifted from her, mitigated only by Hull Beddict. He had come to understand that his desires would not be met. At least, not by Hannan Mosag. If he would have his war, it would of necessity have to come from the Letherii. And so, if he would follow that path, he would need to reverse his outward allegiances. No longer on the side of the Tiste Edur, but accreted to at least one element of the Letherii delegation – a faction characterized by betrayal and unrelenting greed.

Hull had left the village and was now somewhere out in the forest. She knew he would return for the treaty gathering, but probably not before. She did not envy him his dilemma.

With renewed energy, Buruk the Pale decided to set about selling his iron, and for this he was required to have an Acquitor accompanying him. Three Nerek trailed them as they walked up towards the forges, each carrying an ingot.

It had been raining steadily since the feast in the Warlock King’s longhouse. Water flowed in turgid streams down the stony streets. Acrid clouds hung low in the vicinity of the forges, coating the wood and stone walls in oily soot. Slaves swathed in heavy rain cloaks moved to and fro along the narrow passages between compound walls.

Seren led Buruk and his servants towards a squat stone building with high, slitted windows, the entranceway three steps from ground level and flanked by Blackwood columns carved to mimic hammered bronze, complete with rivets and dents. The door was Blackwood inlaid with silver and black iron, the patterns an archaic, stylized script that Seren suspected contained shadow-wrought wards.

She turned to Buruk. ‘I have to enter alone to begin with-’

The door was flung open, startling her, and three Edur rushed out, pushing past her. She stared after them, wondering at their tense expressions. A flutter of fear ran through her. ‘Send the Nerek back,’ she said to Buruk. ‘Something’s happened.’

The merchant did not argue. He gestured and the three Nerek hurried away.

Instead of entering the guild house, Seren and Buruk made their way to the centre street, seeing more Edur emerging from buildings and side alleys to line the approach to the noble quarter. No-one spoke.

‘What is going on, Acquitor?’

She shook her head. ‘Here is fine.’ They had a clear enough view up the street, two hundred or more paces, and in the distance a procession had appeared. She counted five Edur warriors, one employing a staff as he limped along. Two others were pulling a pair of sleds across the slick stones of the street. A fourth walked slightly ahead of the others.

‘Isn’t that Binadas Sengar?’ Buruk asked. ‘The one with the stick, I mean.’

Seren nodded. He looked to be in pain, exhausted by successive layers of sorcerous healing. The warrior who walked ahead was clearly kin to Binadas. This, then, was the return of the group Hannan Mosag had sent away.

And now she saw, strapped to one of the sleds, a wrapped form – hides over pieces of ice that wept steadily down the sides. A shape more than ominous. Unmistakable.

‘They carry a body,’ Buruk whispered.

Where did they go? Those bundled furs – north, then. But there’s nothing up there, nothing but ice. What did the Warlock King ask of them?

The memory of Feather Witch’s divinations returned to her suddenly, inexplicably, and the chill in her bones deepened. ‘Come on,’ she said in a quiet tone. ‘To the inner ward. I want to witness this.’ She edged back from the crowd and set off.

‘If they’ll let us,’ Buruk muttered, hurrying to catch up.

‘We stay in the background and say nothing,’ she instructed. ‘It’s likely they’ll all be too preoccupied to pay us much attention.’

‘I don’t like this, Acquitor. Not any of it.’

She shared his dread, but said nothing.

They crossed the bridge well ahead of the procession, although it was evident that word had preceded them. The noble families were all out in the compound, motionless in the rain. Foremost among them were Tomad and Uruth, a respectful space around the two Edur and their slaves.

‘It’s one of the Sengar brothers,’ Seren Pedac said under her breath.

Buruk heard her. ‘Tomad Sengar was once a rival of Hannan Mosag’s for the throne,’ he muttered. ‘How will he take this, I wonder?’

She glanced over at him. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I was briefed, Acquitor. That shouldn’t surprise you, all things considered.’

The procession had reached the bridge.

‘Ah.’ Buruk sighed. ‘The Warlock King and his K’risnan have emerged from the citadel.’

Udinaas stood a pace behind Uruth on her right, the rain running down his face.

Rhulad Sengar was dead.

He was indifferent to that fact. A young Edur eager for violence – there were plenty of those, and one fewer made little difference. That he was a Sengar virtually guaranteed that Udinaas would be tasked with dressing the corpse. He was not looking forward to that.

Three days for the ritual, including the vigil and the staining of the flesh. In his mind, he ran through possibilities in a detached sort of way, as the rain seeped down behind his collar and no doubt gathered in the hood he had not bothered to draw up over his head. If Rhulad had remained unblooded, the coins would be copper, with stone discs to cover the eyes. If blooded and killed in battle, it was probable that gold coins would be used. Letherii coins, mostly. Enough of them to ransom a prince. An extravagant waste that he found strangely delicious to contemplate.

Even so, he could already smell the stench of burning flesh.

He watched the group cross the bridge, Fear pulling the sled on which Rhulad’s wrapped body had been laid. Binadas was limping badly – there must have been considerable damage, to resist the sorcerous healing that must already have been cast upon him. Theradas and Midik Buhn. And Trull Sengar, in the lead. Without the ever-present spear. So, a battle indeed.

‘Udinaas, do you have your supplies?’ Uruth asked in a dull voice.

‘Yes, mistress, I have,’ he replied, settling a hand on the leather pack slung from his left shoulder.

‘Good. We will waste no time in this. You are to dress the body. No other.’

‘Yes, mistress. The coals have been fired.’

‘You are a diligent slave, Udinaas,’ she said. ‘I am pleased you are in my household.’

He barely resisted looking at her at that, confused and alarmed as he was by the admission. And had you found the Wyval blood within me, you would have snapped my neck without a second thought. ‘Thank you, mistress.’

‘He died a blooded warrior,’ Tomad said. ‘I see it in Fear’s pride.’

The Warlock King and his five apprentice sorcerors strode to intercept the party as they arrived on this side of the bridge, and Udinaas heard Uruth’s gasp of outrage.

Tomad reached out to still her with one hand. ‘There must be a reason for this,’ he said. ‘Come, we will join them.’

There was no command to remain behind, and so Udinaas and the her slaves followed Tomad and Uruth as they strode towards their sons.

Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan met the procession first. Quiet words were exchanged between the Warlock King and Fear Sengar. A question, an answer, and Hannan Mosag seemed to stagger. As one, the five sorcerors closed on him, but their eyes were on Rhulad’s swathed form, and Udinaas saw a mixture of consternation, dread and alarm on their young faces.

Fear’s gaze swung from the Warlock King to his father as Tomad’s group arrived. ‘I have failed you, Father,’ he said. ‘Your youngest son is dead.’

‘He holds the gift,’ Hannan Mosag snapped, shockingly accusatory in his tone. ‘I need it, but he holds it. Was I not clear enough in my instructions, Fear Sengar?’

The warrior’s face darkened. ‘We were attacked, Warlock King, by the Jheck. I believe you know who and what they are-’

Tomad growled, ‘I do not.’

Binadas spoke. ‘They are Soletaken, Father. Able to assume the guise of wolves. It was their intention to claim the sword-’

‘What sword?’ Uruth asked. ‘What-’

‘Enough of this!’ Hannan Mosag shouted.

‘Warlock King,’ Tomad Sengar said, stepping closer, ‘Rhulad is dead. You can retrieve this gift of yours-’

‘It is not so simple,’ Fear cut in. ‘Rhulad holds the sword still – I cannot pry his fingers from the grip.’

‘It must be cut off,’ Hannan Mosag said.

Uruth hissed, then shook her head. ‘No, Warlock King. You are forbidden to mutilate our son. Fear, did Rhulad die as a blooded warrior?’

‘He did.’

‘Then the prohibitions are all the greater,’ she said to Hannan Mosag, crossing her arms.

‘I need that sword!’

In the fraught silence that followed that outburst, Trull Sengar spoke for the first time. ‘Warlock King. Rhulad’s body is still frozen. It may be, upon thawing, that his grip on the sword loosens. In any case, it seems clear the matter demands calm, reasoned discussion. It may in the end prove that our conflicting desires can be resolved by some form of compromise.’ He faced his father and mother. ‘It was our task, given us by the Warlock King, to retrieve a gift, and that gift is the sword Rhulad now holds. Mother, we must complete the task demanded of us. The sword must be placed in Hannan Mosag’s hands.’

There was shock and horror in her voice as Uruth replied, ‘You would cut off your dead brother’s hands? Are you my son? I would-’

Her husband stopped her with a fierce gesture. ‘Trull, I understand the difficulty of this situation, and I concur with your counsel that decisions be withheld for the time being. Warlock King, Rhulad’s body must be prepared. This can be conducted without attention being accorded the hands. We have some time, then, do you agree?’

Hannan Mosag answered with a curt nod.

Trull approached Udinaas, and the slave could see the warrior’s exhaustion, the old blood of countless wounds in his tattered armour. ‘Take charge of the body,’ he said in a quiet tone. ‘To the House of the Dead, as you would any other. Do not, however, expect the widows to attend the ritual – we must needs postpone that until certain matters are resolved.’

‘Yes, master,’ Udinaas replied. He swung round and selected Hulad and one more of his fellow slaves. ‘Help me with the sled’s tethers. With solemn accord, as always.’

Both men he addressed were clearly frightened. This kind of open conflict among the Hiroth Edur was unprecedented. They seemed on the verge of panic, although Udinaas’s words calmed them somewhat. There were values in ritual, and self-control was foremost among them.

Stepping past the Edur, Udinaas led his two fellow slaves to the sled.

The waxed canvas sheathing the ice had slowed the melt, although the slabs beneath it were much diminished, the edges softened and milky white.

Fear passed the harness over to Udinaas. The two other slaves helping, they began dragging it towards the large wooden structure where Edur corpses were prepared for burial. No-one stopped them.

Seren Pedac gripped Buruk’s arm and began pulling him back towards the bridge. He swung her a wild look, but wisely said nothing.

They could not manage the passage unseen, and Seren felt sweat prickling on her neck and in the small of her back as she guided the merchant back towards the guest camp. They were not accosted, but their presence had without doubt been marked. The consequences of that would remain undetermined, until such time as the conflict they had witnessed was resolved.

The Nerek had extended a tarp from one of the wagons to shield the hearth they kept continually burning. They scurried from the smoky flames as soon as Buruk and Seren arrived, quickly disappearing into their tents.

‘That looks,’ Buruk muttered as he edged closer to the hearth and held out his hands, ‘to be serious trouble. The Warlock King was badly shaken, and I like not this talk of a gift. A sword? Some kind of sword, yes? A gift from whom? Surely not an alliance with the Jheck-’

‘No,’ agreed Seren, ‘given that it was the Jheck with whom they fought. There’s nothing else out there, Buruk. Nothing at all.’

She thought back to that scene on the other side of the bridge. Fear’s brother, not Binadas, but the other one, who’d counselled reason, he… interested her. Physically attractive, of course. Most Edur were. But there was more. There was… intelligence. And pain. Seren scowled. She was always drawn to the hurting ones.

‘A sword,’ Buruk mused, staring into the flames, ‘of such value that Hannan Mosag contemplates mutilating a blooded warrior’s corpse.’

‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’ Seren asked. ‘A corpse, holding on to a sword so tight even Fear Sengar cannot pull it loose?’

‘Perhaps frozen?’

‘From the moment of death?’

He grunted. ‘I suppose not, unless it took his brothers a while to get to him.’

‘A day or longer, at least. Granted, we don’t know the circumstances, but that does seem unlikely, doesn’t it?’

‘It does.’ Buruk shrugged. ‘A damned Edur funeral. That won’t put the Warlock King in a good mood. The delegation will arrive at precisely the wrong time.’

‘I think not,’ Seren said. ‘The Edur have been unbalanced by this. Hannan Mosag especially. Unless there’s quick resolution, we will be among a divided people.’

A quick, bitter smile. ‘We?’

‘Letherii, Buruk. I am not part of the delegation. Nor, strictly speaking, are you.’

‘Nor Hull Beddict,’ he added. ‘Yet something tells me we are irredeemably bound in that net, whether it sees the light of day or sinks to the deep.’

She said nothing, because he was right.

The sled glided easily along the wet straw and Udinaas raised a boot to halt its progress alongside the stone platform. Unspeaking, the three slaves began unclasping the straps, pulling them free from beneath the body. The tarp was then lifted clear. The slabs of ice were resting on a cloth-wrapped shape clearly formed by the body it contained, and all three saw at the same time that Rhulad’s jaw had opened in death, as if voicing a silent, endless scream.

Hulad stepped back. ‘Errant preserve us,’ he hissed.

‘It’s common enough, Hulad,’ Udinaas said. ‘You two can go, but first drag that chest over here, the one resting on the rollers.’

‘Gold coins, then?’

‘I am assuming so,’ Udinaas replied. ‘Rhulad died a blooded warrior. He was noble-born. Thus, it must be gold.’

‘What a waste,’ said Hulad.

The other slave, Irim, grinned and said, ‘When the Edur are conquered, we should form a company, the three of us, to loot the barrows.’ He and Hulad pulled the chest along the runners.

The coals were red, the sheet of iron black with heat.

Udinaas smiled. ‘There are wards in those barrows, Irim. And shadow wraiths guarding them.’

‘Then we hire a mage who can dispel them. The wraiths will be gone, along with every damned Edur. Nothing but rotting bones. I dream of that day.’

Udinaas glanced over at the old man. ‘And how badly Indebted are you, Irim?’

The grin faded. ‘That’s just it. I’d be able to pay it off. For my grandchildren, who are still in Trate. Pay it off, Udinaas. Don’t you dream the same for yourself?’

‘Some debts can’t be paid off with gold, Irim. My dreams are not of wealth.’

‘No.’ Irim’s grin returned. ‘You just want the heart of a lass so far above you, you’ve not the Errant’s hope of owning it. Poor Udinaas, we all shake our heads at the sadness of it.’

‘Less sadness than pity, I suspect,’ Udinaas said, shrugging. ‘Close enough. You can go.’

‘The stench lingers even now,’ Hulad said. ‘How can you stand it, Udinaas?’

‘Inform Uruth that I have begun.’

It was not the time to be alone, yet Trull Sengar found himself just that. The realization was sudden, and he blinked, slowly making sense of his surroundings. He was in the longhouse, the place of his birth, standing before the centre post with its jutting sword-blade. The heat from the hearth seemed incapable of reaching through to his bones. His clothes were sodden.

He’d left the others outside, locked in their quiet clash of wills. The Warlock King and his need against Tomad and Uruth and their insistence on proper observance of a dead blooded warrior, a warrior who was their son. With this conflict, Hannan Mosag could lose his authority among the Tiste Edur.

The Warlock King should have shown constraint. This could have been dealt with quietly, unknown to anyone else. How hard can it be to wrest a sword loose from a dead man’s hands? And if sorcery was involved – and it certainly seemed to be – then Hannan Mosag was in his element. He had his K’risnan as well. They could have done something. And if not… then cut his fingers off. A corpse no longer housed the spirit. Death had severed the binding. Trull could feel nothing for the cold flesh beneath the ice. It was not Rhulad any more, not any longer.

But now there could be no chance of secrecy. The quarrel had been witnessed, and, in accordance with tradition, so too must be the resolution.

And… does any of it matter?

I did not trust Rhulad Sengar. Long before his failure on night watch. That is the truth of it. I knew… doubts.

His thoughts could take him no further. Anguish rose in a flood, burning like acid. As if he had raised his own demon, hulking and hungry, and could only watch as it fed on his soul. Gnawing regret and avid guilt, remorse an unending feast.

We are doomed, now, to give answer to his death, again and again. Countless answers, to crowd the solitary question of his life. Is it our fate, then, to suffer beneath the siege of all that can never be known?

There had been strangers witnessing the scene. The realization was sudden, shocking. A merchant and his Acquitor. Letherii visitors. Advance spies of the treaty delegation.

Hannan Mosag’s confrontation was a dreadful error in so many ways. Trull’s high regard for the Warlock King had been damaged, sullied, and he longed for the world of a month past. Before the revelation of flaws and frailties.

Padding through the forest, mind filled with the urgency of dire news. A spear left in his wake, iron point buried deep in the chest of a Letherii. Leaden legs taking him through shadows, moccasins thudding on the dappled trail. The sense of having just missed something, an omen unwitnessed. Like entering a chamber someone else has just walked from, although in his case the chamber had been a forest cathedral, Hiroth sanctified land, and he had seen no signs of passage to give substance to his suspicion.

And it was this sense that had returned to him. They had passed through fraught events, all unmindful of significance, of hidden truths. The exigencies of survival had forced upon them a kind of carelessness.

A gelid wave of conviction rose within Trull Sengar, and he knew solid as a knife in his heart, that something terrible was about to happen.

He stood, alone in the longhouse.

Facing the centre post and its crooked sword.

And he could not move.

Rhulad Sengar’s body was frozen. A pallid grey, stiff-limbed figure lying on the stone platform. Head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth stretched long as if striving for a breath never found. The warrior’s hands were closed about the grip of a strange, mottled, straight-bladed sword, frost-rimed and black-flecked with dried blood.

Udinaas had filled the nose and ear holes with wax.

He held the pincers, waiting for the first gold coin to reach optimum heat on the iron plate suspended above the coals. He had placed one on the sheet, then, twenty heartbeats later, another. The order of placement for noble-born blooded warriors was precise, as was the allotted time for the entire ritual. Awaiting Udinaas was a period of mind-numbing repetition and exhaustion.

But a slave could be bent to any task. There were hard truths found only in the denigration of one’s own spirit, if one was inclined to look for them. Should, for example, a man require self-justification. Prior to, say, murder, or some other atrocity.

Take this body. A young man whose flesh is now a proclamation of death. The Edur use coins. Letherii use linen, lead and stone. In both, the need to cover, to disguise, to hide away the horrible absence writ there in that motionless face.

Open, or closed, it began with the eyes.

Udinaas gripped the edge of the Letherii coin with the pincers. These first two had to be slightly cooler than the others, lest the eyes behind the lids burst. He had witnessed that once, when he was apprenticed to an elder slave who had begun losing his sense of time. Sizzling, then an explosive spurt of lifeless fluid, foul-smelling and murky with decay, the coin settling far too deep in the socket, the hissing evaporation and crinkling, blackening skin.

He swung round on the stool, careful not to drop the coin, then leaned over Rhulad Sengar’s face. Lowered the hot gold disc.

A soft sizzle, as the skin of the lid melted, all moisture drawn from it so that it tightened round the coin. Holding it fast.

He repeated the task with the second coin.

The heat in the chamber was thawing the corpse, and, as Udinaas worked setting coins on the torso, he was continually startled by movement. Arched back settling, an elbow voicing a soft thud, rivulets of melt water crawling across the stone to drip from the sides, as if the body now wept.

The stench of burnt skin was thick in the hot, humid air. Rhulad Sengar’s corpse was undergoing a transformation, acquiring gleaming armour, becoming something other than Tiste Edur. In the mind of Udinaas he ceased to exist as a thing once living, the work before the slave little different from mending nets.

Chest, to abdomen. Each spear-wound packed with clay and oil, encircled with coins then sealed. Pelvis, thighs, knees, shins, ankles, the tops of the feet. Shoulders, upper arms, elbows, forearms.

One hundred and sixty-three coins.

Udinaas wiped sweat from his eyes then rose and walked, limbs aching, over to the cauldron containing the melted wax. He had no idea how much time had passed. The stench kept his appetite at bay, but he had filled the hollow in his stomach a half-dozen times with cool water. Outside, the rain had continued, battering on the roof, swirling over the ground beyond the walls. A village in mourning – none would disturb him until he emerged.

He would have preferred a half-dozen Edur widows conducting the laying of coins, with him at his usual station tending to the fire. The last time he had done this in solitude had been with Uruth’s father, killed in battle by the Arapay. He had been younger then, awed by the spectacle and his role in its making.

Attaching the handle to the cauldron, Udinaas lifted it from the hearth and carefully carried it back to the corpse. A thick coating over the front and sides of the corpse. A short time for the wax to cool – not too much, so that it cracked when he turned over the body – then he would return to the gold coins.

Udinaas paused for a moment, standing over the dead Tiste Edur. ‘Ah, Rhulad,’ he sighed. ‘You could surely strut before the women now, couldn’t you?’

‘The mourning has begun.’

Trull started, then turned to find Fear standing at his shoulder. ‘What? Oh. Then what has been decided?’

‘Nothing.’ His brother swung away and walked to the hearth. His face twisted as he regarded the low flames. ‘The Warlock King proclaims our efforts a failure. Worse, he believes we betrayed him. He would hide that suspicion, but I see it none the less.’

Trull was silent a moment, then he murmured, ‘I wonder when the betrayal began. And with whom.’

‘You doubted this “gift”, from the very first.’

‘I doubt it even more now. A sword that will not relinquish its grip on a dead warrior. What sort of weapon is this, Fear? What sorcery rages on within it?’ He faced his brother. ‘Did you look closely at that blade? Oh, skilfully done, but there are… shards, trapped in the iron. Of some other metal, which resisted the forging. Any apprentice sword-smith could tell you that such a blade will shatter at first blow.’

‘No doubt the sorcery invested would have prevented that,’ Fear replied.

‘So,’ Trull sighed, ‘Rhulad’s body is being prepared.’

‘Yes, it has begun. The Warlock King has drawn our parents into the privacy of his longhouse. All others are forbidden to enter. There will be… negotiations.’

‘The severing of their youngest son’s hands, in exchange for what?’

‘I don’t know. The decision will be publicly announced, of course. In the meantime, we are left to our own.’

‘Where is Binadas?’

Fear shrugged. ‘The healers have taken him. It will be days before we see him again. Mages are difficult to heal, especially when it’s broken bone. The Arapay who tended to him said there were over twenty pieces loose in the flesh of his hip. All need to be drawn back into place and mended. Muscle and tendons to knit, vessels to be sealed and dead blood expunged.’

Trull walked over to a bench alongside a wall and sat down, settling his head in his hands. The whole journey seemed unreal now, barring the battle-scars on flesh and armour, and the brutal evidence of a wrapped corpse now being dressed for burial.

The Jheck had been Soletaken. He had not realized. Those wolves…

To be Soletaken was a gift belonging to Father Shadow and his kin. It belonged to the skies, to creatures of immense power. That primitive, ignorant barbarians should possess a gift of such prodigious, holy power made no sense.

Soletaken. It now seemed… sordid. A weapon as savage and as mundane as a raw-edged axe. He did not understand how such a thing could be.

‘A grave test awaits us, brother.’

Trull blinked up at Fear. ‘You sense it as well. Something’s coming, isn’t it?’

‘I am unused to this… to this feeling. Of helplessness. Of… not knowing.’ He rubbed at his face, as if seeking to awaken the right words from muscle, blood and bone. As if all that waited within him ever struggled, futile and frustrated, to find a voice that others could hear.

A pang of sympathy struck Trull, and he dropped his gaze, no longer wanting to witness his brother’s discomfort. ‘It is the same with me,’ he said although the admission was not entirely true. He was not unused to helplessness; some feelings one learned to live with. He had none of Fear’s natural, physical talents, none of his brother’s ease. It seemed his only true skill was that of relentless observation, fettered to a dark imagination. ‘We should get some sleep,’ he added. ‘Exhaustion ill fits these moments. Nothing will be announced without us.’

‘True enough, brother.’ Fear hesitated, then reached out and settled a hand on Trull’s shoulder. ‘I would you stand at my side always, if only to keep me from stumbling.’ The hand withdrew and Fear walked towards the sleeping chambers at the back of the longhouse.

Trull stared after him, stunned by the admission, half disbelieving. As I gave words to comfort him, has he just done the same for me?

Theradas had told him they could hear the sounds of battle, again and again, cutting through the wind and the blowing snow. They’d heard bestial screams of pain, wolf-howls crying in mortal despair. They’d heard him leading the Jheck from their path. Heard, until distance stole from them all knowledge of his fate. And then, they had awaited the arrival of the enemy – who never came.

Trull had already forgotten most of those clashes, the numbers melding into one, a chaotic nightmare unstepped from time, swathed in the gauze of snow stretched and torn by the circling wind, wrapping ever tighter. Bound and carried as if made disparate, disconnected from the world. Is this how the direst moments of the past are preserved? Does this pain-ridden separation occur to each and every one of us – us… survivors? The mind’s own barrow field, the trail winding between the mounded earth hiding the heavy stones and the caverns of darkness with their blood-painted walls and fire-scorched capstones – a life’s wake, forlorn beneath a grey sky. Once walked, that trail could never be walked again. One could only look back, and know horror at the vastness and the riotous accumulation of yet more barrows. More, and more.

He rose and made his way to his sleeping mat. Wearied by the thought of those whom the Edur worshipped, who had lived tens upon tens of thousands of years, and the interminable horror of all that lay behind them, the endless road of deed and regret, the bones and lives now dust bedding corroded remnants of metal – nothing more, because the burden life could carry was so very limited, because life could only walk onward, ever onward, the passage achieving little more than a stirring of dust in its wake.

Sorrow grown bitter with despair, Trull sank down onto the thinly padded mattress, lay back and closed his eyes.

The gesture served only to unleash his imagination, image after image sobbing to life with silent but inconsolable cries that filled his head.

He reeled before the onslaught, and, like a warrior staggering senseless before relentless battering, he fell backward in his mind, into oblivion.

Like a bed of gold in a mountain stream, a blurred gleam swimming before his eyes. Udinaas leaned back, only now fully feeling the leaden weight of his exhausted muscles, slung like chains from his bones. The stench of burnt flesh had painted his lungs, coating the inside of his chest and seeping its insipid poison into his veins. His flesh felt mired in dross.

He stared down at the gold-studded back of Rhulad Sengar. The wax coating the form had cooled, growing more opaque with every passing moment.

Wealth belongs to the dead, or so it must be for one such as me. Beyond my reach. He considered those notions, the way they drifted through the fog in his mind. Indebtedness and poverty. The defining limits of most lives. Only a small proportion of the Letherii population knew riches, could indulge in excesses. Theirs was a distinct world, an invisible paradise framed by interests and concerns unknown to everyone else.

Udinaas frowned, curious at his own feelings. There was no envy. Only sorrow, a sense of all that lay beyond his grasp, and would ever remain so. In a strange way, the wealthy Letherii had become as remote and alien to him as the Edur. He was disconnected, the division as sharp and absolute as the one before him now – his own worn self and the gold-sheathed corpse before him. The living and the dead, the dark motion of his body and the perfect immobility of Rhulad Sengar.

He prepared for his final task before leaving the chamber. The wax had solidified sufficiently to permit the turning over of the body. Upon entering this house, Rhulad’s parents would expect to find their dead son lying on his back, made virtually unrecognizable by the coins and the wax. Made, in fact, into a sarcophagus, already remote, with the journey to the shadow world begun.

Errant take me, have I the strength for this?

The corpse had been rolled onto wooden paddles with curved handles that were both attached to a single lever. A four-legged ridge pole was set crossways beneath the lever, providing the fulcrum. Udinaas straightened and positioned himself at the lever, taking the Blackwood in both hands and settling on it the weight of his upper body. He hesitated, lowering his head until his brow rested on his forearms.

The shadow wraith was silent, not a single whisper in his ear for days now. The blood of the Wyval slept. He was alone.

He had been expecting an interruption through the entire procedure. Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan, thundering into the chamber. To cut off Rhulad’s fingers, or the entire hands. Having no instructions to the contrary, Udinaas had sheathed the sword in wax, angled slightly as it reached down along the body’s thighs.

He drew a deep breath, then pushed down on the lever. Lifting the body a fraction. Cracks in the wax, a crazed web of lines, but that was to be expected. Easily repaired. Udinaas pushed harder, watching as the body began turning, edging onto its side. The sword’s weight defeated the wax sheathing the blade, and the point clunked down on the stone platform, drawing the arms with it. Udinaas swore under his breath, blinking the sweat from his eyes. Plate-sized sheets of wax had fallen away. The coins, at least – he saw with relief – remained firmly affixed.

He slipped a restraining strap over the lever to hold it in place, then moved to the corpse. Repositioning the sword, he nudged the massive weight further over in increments, until the balance shifted and the body thumped onto its back.

Udinaas waited until he regained his breath. Another coating of wax was needed, to repair the damage. Then he could stumble out of this nightmare.

A slave needn’t think. There were tasks to be done. Too many thoughts were crawling through him, interfering with his concentration.

He stumbled back to the hearth to retrieve the cauldron of wax.

A strange snapping sound behind him. Udinaas turned. He studied the corpse, seeking the place where the wax had broken loose. There, along the jaw, splitting wide over the mouth. He recalled the facial contortion that had been revealed when the bindings had been removed. It was possible he would have to sew the lips together.

He picked up the cauldron and made his way back to the corpse.

He saw the head jerk back.

A shuddering breath.

And then the corpse screamed.

From nothingness a scene slowly came into resolution, and Trull Sengar found himself standing, once more amidst gusting wind and swirling snow. He was surrounded, a ring of dark, vague shapes. The smeared gleam of amber eyes was fixed on him, and Trull reached for his sword, only to find the scabbard empty.

The Jheck had found him at last, and this time there would be no escape. Trull spun round, and again, as the huge wolves edged closer. The wind’s howl filled his ears.

He searched for a dagger – anything – but could find nothing. His hands were numb with cold, the blowing snow stinging his eyes.

Closer, now, on all sides. Trull’s heart pounded. He was filled with terror, filled as a drowning man is filled by the inrush of deadly water the shock of denial, the sudden loss of all strength, and with it, all will.

The wolves charged.

Jaws closed on his limbs, fangs punching through skin. He was dragged down beneath the weight of onslaught. A wolf closed its mouth round the back of his neck. Dreadful grinding motions chewed through muscle. Bones snapped. His mouth gushed full and hot with blood and bile. He sagged, unable even to curl tight as the beasts tore at his arms and legs, ripped into his belly.

He could hear nothing but the wind’s shriek, ever climbing.

Trull opened his eyes. He was sprawled on his sleeping mat, pain throbbing in his muscles with the ghost memory of those savage teeth.

And heard screaming.

Fear appeared in the entranceway, his eyes strangely red-rimmed, blinking in bewilderment. ‘Trull?’

‘It’s coming from outside,’ he replied, climbing stiffly to his feet.

They emerged to see figures running, converging on the House of the Dead.

‘What is happening?’

Trull shook his head at his brother’s question. ‘Perhaps Udinaas…’

They set off.

Two slaves stumbled from the building’s entrance, then fled in panic, one of them shouting incoherently.

The brothers picked up their pace.

Trull saw the Letherii Acquitor and her merchant on the bridge, figures rushing past them as they made a slow, hesitant approach.

The screams had not abated. There was pain in those cries, and horror. The sound, renewed breath after breath, made the blood gelid in Trull’s veins. He could almost…

Mayen was in the doorway, which was ajar. Behind her stood the slave Feather Witch.

Neither moved.

Fear and Trull reached them.

Feather Witch’s head snapped round, the eyes half mad as they stared up at first Trull, then Fear.

Fear came to the side of his betrothed in the doorway. He stared inward, face flinching with every scream. ‘Mayen,’ he said, ‘keep everyone else out. Except for Tomad and Uruth and the Warlock King, when they arrive. Trull-’ The name was spoken like a plea.

Mayen stepped back and Trull edged forward.

Side by side, they entered the House of the Dead.

A mass, a hunched shape, covered in wax like peeling skin, revealing the glitter of gold coins, slouched down at the foot of the stone platform, face lowered, forehead on knees, arms wrapped tight about shins but still holding the sword. A mass, a hunched shape, voicing endless shrieks.

The slave Udinaas stood nearby. He had been carrying a cauldron of wax. It lay on its side two paces to the Letherii’s left, the wax spilled out amidst twigs and straw.

Udinaas was murmuring. Soothing words cutting beneath the screams. He was moving closer to the shape, step by careful step.

Fear made to start forward but Trull gripped his upper arm and held him back. He’d heard something in those shrieks. They had come to answer the slave’s low soothings, defiant at first, but now thinning, the voice filling with pleading. Strangled again and again into shudders of raw despair. And through it all Udinaas continued to speak.

Sister bless us, that is Rhulad. My brother.

Who was dead.

The slave slowly crouched before the horrid figure, and Trull could make out his words as he said, ‘There are coins before your eyes, Rhulad Sengar. That is why you can see nothing. I would remove them. Your brothers are here. Fear and Trull. They are here.’

The shrieks broke then, replaced by helpless weeping.

Trull stared as Udinaas then did something he did not think possible. The slave reached out and took Rhulad’s head in his hands, as a mother might an inconsolable child. Tender, yet firm, the hands slowly lifted it clear of the knees.

A sobbing sound came from Fear, quickly silenced, but Trull felt his brother tremble.

The face – oh, Father Shadow, the face.

A crazed mask of wax, cracked and scarred. And beneath it, gold coins, melded onto the flesh – not one had dislodged – angled like the scales of armour around the stretched jaw, the gasping mouth.

Udinaas leaned closer still, spoke low beside Rhulad’s left ear.

Words, answered with a shudder, a spasm that made coins click – the sound audible but muted beneath wax. A foot scraped across the stone flagstones surrounding the platform, drew in tighter.

Fear jolted in Trull’s grip, but he held on, held his brother back as Udinaas reached down to his belt and drew out a work knife.

Whispering; rhythmic, almost musical. The slave brought the knife up. Carefully set the edge near the tip alongside the coin covering Rhulad’s left eye.

The face flinched, but Udinaas drew his right arm round into a kind of embrace, leaned closer, not pausing in his murmuring. Pressure with the edge, minute motion, then the coin flashed as it came loose along the bottom. A moment later it fell away.

The eye was closed, a mangled, red welt. Rhulad must have sought to open it because Udinaas laid two fingers against the lid and Trull saw him shake his head as he said something, then repeated it.

A strange tic from Rhulad’s head, and Trull realized it had been a nod.

Udinaas then reversed the position of his arms, and set the knife edge to Rhulad’s right eye.

Outside was the sound of a mass of people, but Trull did not turn about. He could not pull his gaze from the Letherii, from his brother.

He was dead. There was no doubt. None.

The slave, who had worked on Rhulad for a day and a night, filling mortal wounds with wax, burning coins into the cold flesh, who had then seen his charge return to life, now knelt before the Edur, his voice holding insanity at bay, his voice – and his hands – guiding Rhulad back to the living.

A Letherii slave.

Father Shadow, who are we to have done this?

The coin was prised loose.

Trull pulled Fear along as he stepped closer. He did not speak. Not yet.

Udinaas returned the knife to its sheath. He leaned back, one hand withdrawing to settle on Rhulad’s left shoulder. Then the slave pivoted and looked up at Trull. ‘He’s not ready to speak. The screaming has exhausted him, given the weight of the coins encasing his chest.’ Udinaas half rose, intending to move away, but Rhulad’s left arm rustled, hand sobbing away from the sword’s grip, coins clicking as the fingers groped, then found the slave’s arm. And held on.

Udinaas almost smiled – and Trull saw for the first time the exhaustion of the man, the extremity of all that he had gone through – and settled down once more. ‘Your brothers, Rhulad,’ he said. ‘Trull, and Fear. They are here to take care of you now. I am but a slave-’

Two coins fell away as Rhulad’s grip tightened.

‘You will stay, Udinaas,’ Trull said. ‘Our brother needs you. We need you.’

The Letherii nodded. ‘As you wish, master. Only… I am tired. I – I keep blacking out, only to awaken at the sound of my own voice.’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘I don’t even know what I have said to your brother-’

‘It matters not,’ Fear cut in. ‘What you have done…’ His words trailed away, and for a moment it seemed his face would crumple. Trull saw the muscles of his brother’s neck tauten, then Fear’s eyes closed tight, he drew a deep breath and was himself once more. He shook his head, unable to speak.

Trull crouched beside Udinaas and Rhulad. ‘Udinaas, I understand. You need rest. But stay for a few moments longer, if you can.’

The slave nodded.

Trull shifted his gaze, studied Rhulad’s ravaged face, the eyes still shut – but there was movement behind them. ‘Rhulad. It is Trull. Listen to me, my brother. Keep your eyes closed, for now. We must get this – this armour – off you-’

At that Rhulad shook his head.

‘They are funereal coins, Rhulad-’

‘Y-yes. I… know.’

Words raw and heavy, the breath pushed out from a constricted chest.

Trull hesitated, then said, ‘Udinaas has been with you, alone, preparing you-’

‘Yes.’

‘He is used up, brother.’

‘Yes. Tell Mother. I want. I want him.’

‘Of course. But let him go now, please-’

The hand dropped away from the slave’s arm, clunking hard and seemingly insensate on the floor. The other hand, still holding the sword, suddenly twitched.

And a ghastly smile emerged on Rhulad’s face. ‘Yes. I hold it still. This. This is what he meant.’

Trull edged back slightly.

Udinaas crawled off a short distance, leaned up against the chest of coins. He drew himself up into a shape echoing that of Rhulad, and, in the moment before he turned his face away, Trull saw the visage fill with anguish.

Exhaustion or no, for Udinaas peace and rest was ten thousand paces away – Trull could see that, could understand that brutal truth. Rhulad had had the slave, but whom did Udinaas have?

Not a typical Edur thought.

But nothing – nothing – was as it was. Trull rose and moved close to Fear. He thought for a moment, then swung round to the entranceway. Mayen was still standing there, at her side the Letherii, Feather Witch. Trull gestured at the slave, then pointed to where Udinaas crouched.

He saw her face stretch in horror. Saw her shake her head.

Then she ran from the building.

Trull grimaced.

A commotion at the entrance, and Mayen withdrew from sight.

Tomad and Uruth appeared.

And behind them, as they slowly edged forward, came Hannan Mosag.

Oh. Oh no. The sword. The damned sword-

CHAPTER TEN

THE ROLL OF THUNDER, THE HEAVY TRAMMELLING OF RAIN ON THE roof. The storm was following the course of the river, drawn northward and dragging one edge of its heaving clouds across Letheras. Unseasonal, unwelcome, making the single room of Tehol’s abode close and steamy. There were two more stools than there had been, retrieved by Bugg from a rubbish heap. On one of them, in the far corner, sat Ublala Pung, weeping.

As he had been without pause for over a bell, his huge frame racked with a shuddering that made the stool creak alarmingly. In the centre of the small room, Tehol paced.

A splashing of feet outside, then the curtain in the doorway was tugged to one side and Bugg stamped in, water streaming from him. He coughed. ‘What’s burning in the hearth?’

Tehol shrugged. ‘Whatever was piled up beside it, of course.’

‘But that was your rain hat. I wove it myself, with my own two hands.’

‘A rain hat? Those reeds had wrapped rotting fish-’

‘That’s the stink, all right.’ Bugg nodded, wiping at his eyes. ‘Anyway, rotting is a relative term, master.’

‘It is?’

‘The Faraed consider it a delicacy.’

‘You just wanted me to smell like fish.’

‘Better you than the whole house,’ Bugg said, glancing over at Ublala. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘I haven’t a clue,’ Tehol said. ‘So, what’s the news?’

‘I found her.’

‘Great.’

‘But we’ll have to go and get her.’

‘Go outside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Into the rain?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well,’ Tehol said, resuming his pacing, ‘I don’t like that at all. Too risky.’

‘Risky?’

‘Why, yes. Risky. I might get wet. Especially now that I don’t have a rain hat.’

‘And whose fault is that, I wonder?’

‘It was already smouldering, sitting so close to the hearth. I barely nudged it with my toe and up it went.’

‘I was drying it out.’

Tehol paused in mid-step, studied Bugg for a moment, then resumed pacing. ‘It’s a storm,’ he said after a moment. ‘Storms pass. I need a reason to procrastinate.’

‘Yes, master.’

Tehol swung round and approached Ublala Pung. ‘Most beloved bodyguard, whatever is wrong?’

Red-rimmed eyes stared up at him. ‘You’re not interested. Not really. Nobody is.’

‘Of course I’m interested. Bugg, I’m interested, aren’t I? It’s my nature, isn’t it?’

‘Absolutely, master. Most of the time.’

‘It’s the women, isn’t it, Ublala? I can tell.’

The huge man nodded miserably.

‘Are they fighting over you?’

He shook his head.

‘Have you fallen for one of them?’

‘That’s just it. I haven’t had a chance to.’

Tehol glanced over at Bugg, then back to Ublala. ‘You haven’t had a chance to. What a strange statement. Can you elaborate?’

‘It’s not fair, that’s what it is. Not fair. You won’t understand. It’s not a problem you have. I mean, what am I? Am I to be nothing but a toy? Just because I have a big-’

‘Hold on a moment,’ Tehol cut in. ‘Let’s see if I fully understand you, Ublala. You feel they’re just using you. Interested only in your, uh, attributes. All they want from you is sex. No commitment, no loyalty even. They’re happy taking turns with you, taking no account of your feelings, your sensitive nature. They probably don’t even want to cuddle afterwards or make small talk, right?’

Ublala nodded.

‘And all that is making you miserable?’

He nodded again, snuffling, his lower lip protruding, his broad mouth downturned at the corners, a muscle twitching in his right cheek.

Tehol stared for a moment longer, then he tossed up his hands. ‘Ublala! Don’t you understand? You’re in a man’s paradise! What all the rest of us can only dream about!’

‘But I want something more!’

‘No! You don’t! Trust me! Bugg, don’t you agree? Tell him!’

Bugg frowned, then said, ‘It is as Tehol says, Ublala. Granted, a tragic truth, and granted, Master’s nature is to revel in tragic truths, which to many might seem unusual, unhealthy even-’

‘Thanks for the affirmation, Bugg,’ Tehol interrupted with a scowl. ‘Go clean up, will you?’ He faced Ublala again. ‘You are at the pinnacle of male achievement, my friend – wait! Did you say it’s not a problem I have? What did you mean by that?’

Ublala blinked. ‘What? Uh, are you at that pinnacle, or whatever you called it – are you at it too?’

Bugg snorted. ‘He hasn’t been at it in months.’

‘Well, that’s it!’ Tehol stormed to the hearth and plucked out what was left of the matted reeds. He stamped out the flames, then picked the charred object up and set it on his head. ‘All right, Bugg, let’s go and get her. As for this brainless giant here, he can mope around all alone in here, for all I care. How many insults can a sensitive man like me endure, anyway?’

Wisps of smoke drifted from the reeds on Tehol’s head.

‘That’s about to take flame again, master.’

‘Well, that’s what’s good about rain, then, isn’t it? Let’s go.’

Outside in the narrow aisle, water streamed ankle-deep towards the clogged drain at the far end, where a small lake was forming. Bugg a half-step in the lead, they sloshed their way across its swirling, rain-pocked expanse.

‘You should be more sympathetic to Ublala, master,’ Bugg said over a shoulder. ‘He’s a very unhappy man.’

‘Sympathy belongs to the small-membered, Bugg. Ublala has three women drooling all over him, or have you forgotten?’

‘That’s a rather disgusting image.’

‘You’ve been too old too long, dear servant. There’s nothing inherently disgusting about drool.’ He paused, then said, ‘All right, maybe there is. However, do we have to talk about sex? That subject makes me nostalgic’

‘Errant forbid.’

‘So, where is she?’

‘In a brothel.’

‘Oh, now that’s really pathetic.’

‘More like a newly acquired raging addiction, master. The more she feeds it, the hungrier it gets.’

They crossed Turol Avenue and made their way into the Prostitutes’ District. The downpour was diminishing, the tail ends of the storm front streaming overhead. ‘Well,’ Tehol commented, ‘that is not a desirable condition for one of my most valued employees. Especially since her addiction doesn’t include her handsome, elegant boss. Something tells me it should have been me weeping in a corner back there, not Ublala.’

‘It may simply be a case of Shurq not wanting to mix business with pleasure.’

‘Bugg, you told me she’s in a brothel.’

‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’

‘Now I’m truly miserable. I wasn’t miserable this morning. If the trend continues, by dusk I’ll be swimming the canal with bags of coins around my neck.’

‘Here we are.’

They stood before a narrow, three-storey tenement, set slightly in from the adjoining buildings and looking a few centuries older than anything else on the street. The front facing held a carved facade around two square, inset columns of dusty blue marble. Decidedly female demons in bas-relief, contorted and writhing in a mass orgy, crowded the panels, and atop the columns crouched stone gargoyles with enormous breasts held high and inviting.

Tehol turned to Bugg. ‘This is the Temple. She’s in the Temple?’

‘Does that surprise you?’

‘I can’t even afford to step across the threshold. Even Queen Janall frequents this place but a few times a year. Annual membership dues are a thousand docks… I’ve heard… it rumoured. From someone, once.’

‘Matron Delisp is probably very pleased with her newest property.’

‘I’d wager she is at that. So, how do we extract Shurq Elalle, especially since it’s obvious she is where she wants to be, and the Matron has at least thirty thugs in her employ who’re likely to try and stop us? Should we simply consider this a lost cause and be on our way?’

Bugg shrugged. ‘That is up to you to decide, master.’

‘Well.’ He considered. ‘I’d like at least a word with her.’

‘Probably all you can afford.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Bugg. She doesn’t charge by the word… does she?’

‘She might well charge by the glance, master. Our dear dead thief has blossomed-’

‘Thanks to me! Who arranged for her overhaul? Her dry-dock repairs, the new coat of paint? We had a deal-’

‘Tell it to her, master, not me. I am well aware of the lengths you go to in appeasing your own peculiar appetites.’

‘I’m not even going to ask what you mean by that, Bugg. It sounds sordid, and my sordid self is my own affair.’

‘So it is, master, so it is. Good thing you’re not the nostalgic type.’

Tehol glared at Bugg for a moment, then swung his attention once more to the Temple. The oldest brothel in all the land. Some said it was standing here long before the city rose up around it, and indeed the city rose up around it because of the brothel itself. That didn’t make much sense, but then few things did when it came to love and its many false but alluring shades. He tilted his head back to study the gargoyles, and the scorched reed hat slid off to splash on the cobbles behind him. ‘Well, that settles it. Either I stand here getting my hair wet, or I go inside.’

‘As far as I can tell, master, my rain hat was a tragic failure in any case.’

‘It’s your over-critical nature, Bugg, what’s done you in. Follow me!’

Tehol ascended the steps with proprietary determination. As he reached the landing the front door swung open and the frame was filled by a huge, hooded man wearing a black surcoat, a massive double-bladed axe in his gauntleted hands.

Appalled, Tehol halted, Bugg stumbling into him from behind on the lower step.

‘Excuse me,’ Tehol managed, stepping to one side and pulling Bugg along with him. ‘Off to a beheading, then?’ He gestured for the man to pass.

Small eyes glittered from the hood’s shadows. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said in a raspy voice. ‘You are most courteous.’ He strode forward onto the landing, then paused. ‘It’s raining.’

‘Indeed, almost finished, I’d wager. See the blue overhead?’

The axe-carrying giant faced Tehol. ‘If anyone asks, sir, you never saw me here.’

‘You have my word.’

‘Most kind.’ He faced the street again, then cautiously descended the steps.

‘Ooh,’ he said as he set off, ‘it’s wet! Ooh!’

Tehol and Bugg watched him scurry away, hunched over and weaving to avoid the deeper puddles.

Bugg sighed. ‘I admit to being greatly affrighted by his sudden appearance.’

Brows raised, Tehol regarded his servant. ‘Really? Poor Bugg, you need to do something about those nerves of yours. Come on, then, and fear nothing whilst you are with me.’

They entered the Temple.

And Tehol halted once more, as suddenly as the first time, as the point of a knife settled on his cheek beneath his right eye, which blinked rapidly. Bugg managed to draw up in time to avoid bumping into his master, for which Tehol’s gratitude was sufficient to weaken his knees.

A sweet feminine voice murmured close to his ear, ‘You’re not in disguise, sir. Which means, well, we both know what that means, don’t we?’

‘I’ve come for my daughter-’

‘Now that’s in very poor taste. We can’t abide such twisted, sick desires in here-’

‘You misunderstand – understandably, of course, that is. I meant to say, I’ve come to retrieve her, before it’s too late.’

‘Her name?’

‘Shurq Elalle.’

‘Well, it’s too late.’

‘You mean she being dead? I’m aware of that. It’s her ancestors, you see, they want her to come home to the crypt. They miss her terribly, and a few of them are getting alarmingly angry. Ghosts can be a lot of trouble – not just for you and this establishment, but for me as well. You see my predicament?’

The knife point withdrew, and a short, lithe woman stepped round to stand before him. Close-fitting silks in rusty hues, a broad silk belt wrapped about her tiny waist, upturned slippers on her minuscule feet. A sweet, heart-shaped face, strangely overlarge eyes, now narrowing. ‘Are you done?’

Tehol smiled sheepishly. ‘You must get that a lot. Sorry. Are you, perchance, Matron Delisp?’

She spun about. ‘Follow me. I hate this room.’

He glanced about for the first time. Two paces wide, four deep, a door at the far end, the walls hidden behind lush tapestries depicting countless couplings of all sorts. ‘Seems inviting enough,’ he said, following the woman to the door.

‘It’s the spent smell.’

‘Spent? Oh, yes.’

‘Smells of… regret. I hate that smell. I hate everything about it.’ She opened the door and slipped through.

Tehol and Bugg hastened to follow.

The chamber beyond was dominated by a steep staircase, which began a single pace beyond the doorway. The woman led them round it to a plush waiting room, thick-padded sofas along the side walls, a single high-backed chair occupying the far wall. She walked directly to that chair and sat down. ‘Sit. Now, what’s all this about ghosts? Oh, never mind that. You were, what, ten years old when you fathered Shurq Elalle? No wonder she never mentioned you. Even when she was alive. Tell me, were you disappointed when she decided on a career of thievery?’

‘From your tone,’ Tehol said, ‘I gather you are challenging the veracity of my claims.’

‘Which question gave me away?’

‘But, you see, I am not so ignorant as you think. Hence my disguise.’

She blinked. ‘Your disguise is to appear as a man in his early thirties, wearing sodden, badly made wool-’

Bugg sat straighter, ‘Badly made? Now, hold on-’

Tehol nudged his servant with an elbow, hard in the ribs. Bugg grunted, then subsided.

‘That is correct,’ Tehol said.

‘A vast investment in sorcery, then. How old are you in truth?’

‘Sixty-nine… my dear.’

‘I’m impressed. Now, you mentioned ghosts?’

‘Afraid so, Matron. Terrible ones. Vengeful, disinclined to discourse. Thus far I have managed to keep them penned up in the family crypt, but they’ll get out sooner or later. And proceed on a rampage through the streets – a night of terror for all Letheras’s citizens, I fear – until they arrive here. And then, well, I shudder at the thought.’

‘As I am shuddering right now, although for entirely different reasons. But yes, we certainly have a dilemma. My particular dilemma, however, is one I admit to having been struggling with for some time now.’

‘Oh?’

‘Fortunately, you appear to have provided me with a solution.’

‘I am pleased.’

The woman leaned forward. ‘Top floor – there’s only one room. Talk that damned demoness out of here! Before my other lasses flay me alive!’

The stairs were steep but well padded, the wooden railing beneath their hands an unbroken undulation of lovingly carved breasts polished and oiled by countless sweaty palms. They met no-one on the way and reached the top floor breathless – due to the ascent, of course, Tehol told himself as he paused at the door and wiped his hands on his soaked leggings.

Head lowered and panting, Bugg was at his side, ‘Errant take me, what have they rubbed into that wood?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Tehol admitted, ‘but I can barely walk.’

‘Perhaps we should take a moment,’ Bugg suggested, wiping the sweat from his face.

‘Good idea. Let’s.’

A short time later Tehol straightened, with a wince, and nodded at Bugg, who grimaced in reply. Tehol raised a hand and thumped on the heavy wooden door.

‘Enter,’ came the muffled command.

Tehol opened the door and stepped into the room. Behind him, Bugg hissed, ‘Errant take me, look at all the breasts!’

The wall panels and ceiling continued the theme begun on the wooden railing, a riotous proliferation of mammary excess. Even the floor beneath the thick rugs was lumpy.

‘A singular obsession-’ Tehol began, and was interrupted.

‘Oh,’ said a voice from the huge bed before them, ‘it’s you.’

Tehol cleared his throat. ‘Shurq Elalle.’

‘If you’ve come for services,’ she said, ‘you might be relieved to know the executioner’s big axe was pathetic compensation.’

‘He got wet in the rain,’ Bugg said.

Tehol glanced back at him. ‘What is the relevance of that?’

‘I don’t know, but I thought you might.’

‘I’m not leaving,’ Shurq said, ‘if that’s why you’re here.’

‘You have to,’ Tehol countered. ‘The Matron insists.’

She sat straighter in the bed. ‘It’s those damned cows downstairs, isn’t it? I’ve stolen all their clients and they want me out!’

‘I imagine so.’ Tehol shrugged. ‘But that’s hardly surprising, is it? Listen, Shurq, we had a deal, didn’t we?’

Her expression darkened. ‘So I should do the honourable thing? All right, but I have a problem regarding certain appetites…’

‘I wish I could help.’

Her brows rose.

‘Uh, I meant – I mean – oh, I don’t know what I mean.’ He paused, then brightened. ‘But I’ll introduce you to Ublala, an unhappy bodyguard longing for commitment.’

Her brows rose higher.

‘Well, why not? You don’t have to tell him you’re dead! He’ll never notice, of that I’m certain! And as for your appetites, I doubt there’ll be a problem there, although there’s a trio of women who might be very upset, but I’ll handle that. Look, it’s a brilliant solution, Shurq.’

‘I’ll give it a try, I suppose, but I’m not making any promises. Now, step outside, please, so I can get dressed.’

Tehol and Bugg exchanged glances and then complied, softly shutting the door behind them.

Bugg studied his master. ‘I am very impressed,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’d thought this a situation without a solution. Master, my admiration for you grows like a-’

‘Stop staring at that railing, Bugg.’

‘Uh, yes. You’re right.’

Matron Delisp was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Seeing Shurq Elalle following a step behind Bugg, her face twisted with distaste. ‘Errant bless you, Tehol Beddict. I owe you one.’

Tehol sighed. ‘I had a feeling you were sceptical of my story.’

‘The woollen leggings,’ she replied. ‘I hear virtually everyone’s put in orders for them.’

Tehol shot Bugg a look, but the servant’s brows rose and he said, ‘Not with me, master. That would be disloyal. Rest assured that everyone else’s version will prove but pathetic imitations.’

‘Perhaps, Matron Delisp,’ Tehol said, ‘I am merely disguised as Tehol Beddict. That would be clever, wouldn’t it?’

‘Too clever for you.’

‘Well, you have a point there.’

‘Anyway, do you want me in your debt or not?’

Shurq Elalle pushed past Bugg. ‘I don’t like being ignored. You’re all ignoring me as if I was-’

‘Dead?’ Delisp asked.

‘I just wanted to point out my reason for vacating this house, which is that I, too, owe Tehol Beddict. I may be dead, but I am not without honour. In any case, Delisp, I believe you owe me a rather substantial payment right now. Sixty per cent, I seem to recall-’

‘What do you need all that money for?’ the Matron demanded. ‘How many variations of sex-assassin attire exist out there? How many bundles of raw spices do you need to keep fresh? No, wait, I don’t want to know the answer. Sixty per cent. Fine, but it’ll take me a day or two – I don’t keep that kind of coin around here. Where should I have it delivered?’

‘Tehol Beddict’s residence will suffice.’

‘Hold on,’ Tehol objected. ‘I can’t secure-’

‘I intend,’ Shurq cut in, ‘to spend it quickly.’

‘Oh. All right, but I’m not happy. Too many comings and goings there. Suspicions will be insatiably aroused-’

‘Stop staring at the railing, master.’

‘Errant’s dreams! Let’s get out of here.’

The storm had passed. Rainwater still flowed down the streets, but people were venturing out once more. It was late afternoon. Shurq Elalle halted at the foot of the Temple’s steps. ‘I will rejoin you tonight, on your roof, Tehol Beddict. Midnight.’

‘What about Ublala Pung?’

‘I admit to having second thoughts.’

‘Shurq Elalle. Ublala Pung survived a Drowning. He walked across the bottom of the canal. You two have a lot in common, if you think about it.’

‘He’s also massively endowed,’ Bugg added.

Tehol made a face at him. ‘You are being crude-’

‘Bring him to the roof tonight,’ Shurq said.

‘This is a conspiracy to make me miserable, isn’t it? Both of you, leave me. I’m going for a walk. Bugg, when you get back home, give it a tidy. No doubt Shand will be storming in before too long. Tell her I’ll drop by tomorrow on some important business-’

‘What important business?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll invent something. You have other things to worry about – how’s the foundation work coming along, anyway?’

‘It’s piling up.’

‘Then sort it out.’

‘You misunderstand, master. We’re on schedule.’

‘I didn’t misunderstand. I was being obdurate. Now, I’m off to find a more reasonable conversation, somewhere.’ He swung round for a final word with Shurq, but she was gone. ‘Damned thief. Go on, Bugg. Wait, what’s for supper?’

‘Banana leaves.’

‘Not fishy ones, I trust.’

‘Of course not, master.’

‘Then what?’

‘The material they were wrapped around was unidentifiable, which, if you think about it, is probably a good thing.’

‘How do we live on this stuff?’

‘A good question, master. It is indeed baffling.’

Tehol studied his servant for a long moment, then he gestured the man away.

Bugg turned right, so Tehol went left. The air was warming, yet still fresh after the rain. Wet dogs nosed the rubbish in the settling puddles. Cats chased the cockroaches that had swarmed up from the drains. A beggar had found a sliver of soap and stood naked beneath a stream of water coming from a cracked eaves trough, working up a murky lather while he sang a lament that had been popular a hundred years ago. Residents had taken advantage of the unexpected downpour, emptying chamber pots from their windows rather than carrying them a few dozen paces to the nearest communal dump-hole. As a result, some of the pools held floating things and the streams in the gutters carried small flyblown islands that collected here and there in buzzing rafts that bled yellowy brown slime.

It was a fine evening in the city of Letheras, Tehol reflected, testing the air a moment before taking a deep breath and releasing it in a contented sigh. He went on down the street until he reached Quillas Canal, then walked along it towards the river. To his right rose a forest of masts from fisherboats moored to wait out the storm. Tarps were being pulled aside, water splashing as the crews bailed feverishly so they could make for open water before the day’s light failed. Near one jetty a half-dozen city guardsmen were fishing a corpse from the murky water, a crowd of onlookers shouting advice as the squad struggled with hook-poles. Above them flapped seagulls.

Tehol came within sight of the old palace, then took a side street away from the canal, proceeding on a winding, confused route until he came to the grounds of the towers. Gathering dusk made the air grainy as Tehol reached the low crumbling wall and stared across the short expanse of broken, uneven yard to the one, battered tower that was clearly different in construction from all the others, being square instead of round.

The strange triangular windows were dark, crowded with dead vines. The inset, black-stained wooden door was shrouded in shadow. Tehol wondered how such a door could have survived – normal wood would have rotted to dust centuries ago.

He could see no-one in the yard. ‘Kettle! Child, are you in there?’

A small bedraggled figure stepped out from behind a tree.

Startled, Tehol said, ‘That was a good trick, lass.’

She approached. ‘There’s an artist. A painter. He comes to paint the tower. He wants to paint me too, but I stay behind trees. It makes him very angry. You are the man who sleeps on the roof of your house. Lots of people try spying on you.’

‘Yes, I know. Shurq tells me you, uh, take care of them.’

‘She said maybe you could help find out who I was.’

He studied her. ‘Have you seen Shurq lately?’

‘Only once. She was all fixed. I barely recognized her.’

‘Well, lass, we could see the same done for you, if you like.’

The grubby, mould-patched face wrinkled into a frown. ‘Why?’

‘Why? To make you less noticeable, I suppose. Wouldn’t you enjoy looking the way Shurq does now?’

‘Enjoy?’

‘Think about it at least?’

‘All right. You look friendly. You look like I could like you. I don’t like many people, but I could like you. Can I call you Father? Shurq is my mother. She isn’t, really, but that’s what I call her. I’m looking for brothers and sisters, too.’ She paused, then asked, ‘Can you help me?’

‘I’ll try, Kettle. Shurq tells me the tower talks to you.’

‘Not words. Just thoughts. Feelings. It’s afraid. There’s someone in the ground who is going to help. Once he gets free, he’ll help us. He’s my uncle. But the bad ones scare me.’

‘The bad ones? Who are they? Are they in the ground, too?’

She nodded.

‘Is there a chance they will get out of the ground before your uncle does?’

‘If they do, they’ll destroy us all. Me, Uncle and the tower. They’ve said so. And that will free all the others.’

‘And are the others bad, too?’

She shrugged. ‘They don’t talk much. Except one. She says she’ll make me an empress. I’d like to be an empress.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t trust that one. Just my opinion, Kettle, but promises like that are suspect.’

‘That’s what Shurq says, too. But she sounds very nice. She wants to give me lots of treats and stuff.’

‘Be careful, lass.’

‘Do you ever dream of dragons, Father?’

‘Dragons?’

Shrugging again, she turned away. ‘It’s getting dark,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I need to kill someone… maybe that artist…’

Turudal Brizad, the consort to Queen Janall, stood leaning against the wall whilst Brys Beddict led his students through the last of the counterattack exercises.

Audiences were not uncommon during his training regime with the king’s own guard, although Brys had been mildly surprised that Turudal was among the various onlookers, most of whom were practitioners with the weapons he used in his instruction. The consort was well known for his indolent ways, a privilege that, in the days of Brys’s grandfather, would not have been tolerated in a young, fit Letherii. Four years of military service beginning in the seventeenth year had been mandatory. In those days there had been external threats aplenty. Bluerose to the north, the independent, unruly city-states of the archipelago in Dracons Sea, and the various tribes on the eastern plain had been pressuring Lether, driven against the outposts by one of the cyclical expansionist regimes of far Kolanse.

Bluerose now paid tribute to King Ezgara Diskanar, the city-states had been crushed, leaving little more than a handful of goat-herders and fisherfolk on the islands, and Kolanse had subsided into isolation following some sort of civil war a few decades past.

It was difficult for Brys to imagine a life possessing virtually no ability to defend itself, at least upon the attainment of adulthood, but Turudal Brizad was such a creature. Indeed, the consort had expressed the opinion that he was but a forerunner, a pioneer of a state of human life wherein soldiering was left to the Indebted and the mentally inadequate. Although Brys had initially scoffed at hearing a recounting of Brizad’s words, his disbelief had begun to waver. The Letherii military was still strong, yet increasingly it was bound to economics. Every campaign was an opportunity for wealth. And, among the civilian population of traders, merchants and all those who served the innumerable needs of civilization, few were bothering with martial training any more. An undercurrent of contempt now coloured their regard of soldiers.

Until they need us, of course. Or they discover a means to profit by our actions.

He completed the exercise, then lingered to see who left the chamber and who remained to practise on their own. Most remained, and Brys was pleased. The two who had left were, he knew, the queen’s spies in the bodyguard. Ironically, everyone else knew that detail as well.

Brys sheathed his sword and strode over to Turudal Brizad. ‘Consort?’

A casual tilt of the head, ‘Finadd.’

‘Have you found yourself at a loose end? I don’t recall ever seeing you here before.’

‘The palace seems strangely empty, don’t you think?’

‘Well,’ Brys ventured, ‘there’s certainly less shouting.’

Turudal Brizad smiled. ‘The prince is young, Finadd. Some exuberance is to be expected. The Chancellor would have a word with you, at your convenience. I understand you are fully recovered from your mysterious ordeal?’

‘The King’s healers were their usual proficient selves, Consort. Thank you for asking. Why does the Chancellor wish to speak with me?’

The man shrugged. ‘I am not the one to ask. I am but a messenger in this, Finadd.’

Brys studied him for a moment, then simply nodded. ‘I accept Triban Gnol’s invitation. A bell from now?’

‘That should suffice. Let us hope for all our sakes that this will not mark an expansion of the present feud between the Chancellor and the Ceda.’

Brys was surprised. ‘There is a feud? I hadn’t heard. I mean, apart from the, well, the usual clash of opinions.’ He considered, then said, ‘I share your concern, Consort.’

‘Does it ever strike you, Finadd, that peace leads to an indulgence in strife?’

‘No, since your statement is nonsensical. The opposite of peace is war, while war is an extreme expression of strife. By your argument, life is characterized as an oscillation between strife during peace and strife during war.’

‘Not entirely nonsensical, then,’ Turudal Brizad said. ‘We exist in a state of perpetual stress. Both within ourselves and in the world beyond.’ He shrugged. ‘We may speak of a longing for balance, but in our soul burns a lust for discord.’

‘If your soul is troubled, Consort,’ Brys said, ‘you hide it well.’

‘None of us here lack that skill, Finadd.’

Brys cocked his head. ‘I have no inclination to indulge in strife. I find I still disagree with your premise. In any case, I must take my leave of you now, Consort.’

On his way back to his chambers, Brys reflected on Turudal Brizad’s words. There might well have been a warning hidden in there, but apart from the obvious suggestion that all was not as it seemed – and in the palace this was taken as given – he could not pierce the subtlety of the consort’s intentions.

Stress lay in the cast of the mind, as far as Brys was concerned. Born of perspective and the hue through which one saw the world, and such things were shaped by both nature and nurture. Perhaps on some most basic level the struggle to live yielded a certain stress, but that was not the same as the strife conjured by an active mind, its myriad storms of desires, emotions, worries and terrors, its relentless dialogue with death.

Brys had realized long ago what had drawn him into the arts of fighting. The martial world, from duelling to warfare, was inherently reductionist, the dialogue made simple and straightforward. Threats, bargains and compromises were proscribed by the length of Letherii steel. Self-discipline imposed a measure of control over one’s own fate, which in turn served to diminish the damaging effects of stress, more so when it became clear to the practitioner that death fought using blind chance when all else failed, and so one had no choice but to accept the consequences, however brutal they may be. Simple notions that one could reflect upon at leisure, should one choose – but never when face to face with an enemy with blades unsheathed and dancing.

Physical laws imposed specific limitations, and Brys was satisfied with that clear imposition of predictability – sufficient to provide the structure around which he built his life.

Turudal Brizad’s life was far less certain. His physicality and its attractiveness to others was his singular quality, and no amount of diligence could hold back the years that threatened it. Granted, there were alchemies and sorceries that could be mustered to stand in the breach, but the dark tide was reluctant to bargain, for it abided by its own laws and those laws were immutable. Worse yet, Brizad’s efficacy was defined by the whims of others. As professional as he might be, his every partner was, potentially, a fathomless well of raw emotions, yearning to grasp hold of Brizad and ensnare him. Outwardly, of course, there were rules in place. He was a consort, after all. The queen already had a husband. The Chancellor was bound to ancient laws denying him formal relationships with man or woman. Turudal Brizad possessed virtually no rights; the children he might sire would be without name or political power – indeed, the queen was required to ensure such pregnancies did not occur, and thus far she had held to that prohibition.

But it was rumoured that Janall had given her heart to Brizad. And that Triban Gnol might well have done the very same, with the potential consequence of tearing apart the old alliance between queen and Chancellor. If so, then Turudal Brizad had become the unhappy fulcrum. No wonder the man was plagued with stress.

Yet what were the consort’s own ambitions? Had he too surrendered his heart, and if so, to which lover?

Brys entered his room. He divested himself of his belt and armour, then drew off his sweat-damp undergarments. He layered himself in scented oil which he then scraped off with a wooden comb. Dressing in clean clothes, he set to donning his formal armour. He replaced the heavier practice sword with his regular longsword in the scabbard at his waist. A final moment scanning the contents of his modest residence, noticing the misplaced brace of knives on the shelf above his bed, indicating that yet another spy had gone through his room. Not one careless enough to leave the knives in the wrong position – that had been done by whoever had been spying on the spy, to let Brys know that yet another search for who knew what had taken place, a weekly occurrence of late.

He moved the knives back into their usual position, then left.

‘Enter.’

Brys stepped inside, then paused to search through the crowded, cluttered chamber.

‘Over here, King’s Champion.’

He followed the sound of the voice and finally caught sight of the Ceda, who was suspended in a leather-strap harness depending from the ceiling. Face-down and close to a man’s height above the floor, Kuru Qan was wearing a strange metal helmet with multiple lenses fixed in a slotted frame in front of his eyes. On the floor was an archaic, yellowed map.

‘I have little time, Ceda,’ Brys said. ‘The Chancellor has requested that I attend him in a short while. What are you doing?’

‘Is it important, lad?’

‘That I know? I suppose not. I was just curious.’

‘No, the Chancellor’s summons.’

‘I’m not sure. It seems I am to be increasingly viewed as some kind of pivotal player in a game of which I have no comprehension. After all, the king rarely asks for my advice on matters of state, for which I am eternally grateful, since I make it a point not to involve myself with such considerations. Thus, I have no opportunity to influence our Sire’s opinion, nor would I wish to.’

‘By this means,’ Kuru Qan said, ‘I am proving that the world is round.’

‘Indeed? Did not the early colonizers from the First Empire make that evident? They circumnavigated the globe, after all.’

‘Ah, but that was physical proof rather than theoretical. I wished to determine the same truth via hypothesis and theory.’

‘In order to test the veracity of the methods?’

‘Oh, no. Said veracity is already a given. No, lad, I seek to prove the veracity of physical evidence. Who can trust what the eyes witness, after all? Now, if mathematical evidence supports such practical observation, then we’re getting somewhere.’

Brys looked round. ‘Where are your helpers?’

‘I sent them to the Royal Lens-maker for more lenses.’

‘When was that?’

‘Sometime this morning, I believe. Yes, just after breakfast.’

‘You have therefore been hanging there all day.’

‘And turning this way and that, without my own volition. There are forces, lad, unseen forces, that pull upon us every moment of our existence. Forces, I now believe, in conflict.’

‘Conflict? In what way?’

‘The ground beneath us exerts an imperative, evidenced by the blood settling in my face, the lightness in the back of my skull, the unseen hands seeking to drag me down – I have had the most exquisite hallucinations. Yet there is a contrary, weaker force seeking to drag me – another world, one which travels the sky around this one-’

‘The moon?’

‘There are actually at least four moons, lad, but the others are not only distant, but perpetually occluded from reflecting the sun’s light. Very difficult to see, although early texts suggest that this was not always so. Reasons for their fading as yet unknown, although I suspect our world’s own bulk has something to do with it. Then again, it may be that they are not farther away at all, but indeed closer, only very small. Relatively speaking.’

Brys studied the map on the floor. ‘That’s the original, isn’t it? What new perspective have you achieved with all those lenses?’

‘An important question? Probably, but in an indirect fashion. I had the map in my hands, lad, but then it fell. None the less, I have been rewarded with an insight. The continents were once all joined. What forces, one must therefore ask, have pulled them apart? Who forwarded the Chancellor’s request?’

‘What? Oh, Turudal Brizad.’

‘Ah, yes. Such an errant, troubled lad. One sees such sorrow in his eyes, or at least in his demeanour.’

‘One does?’

‘And he said?’

‘He spoke of a feud between you and the Chancellor. A, uh, new one.’

‘There is? First I’ve heard of it.’

‘Oh. So there isn’t one.’

‘No, no, lad, I’m sure there is. Be good enough to find out about it for me, will you?’

Brys nodded. ‘Of course, Ceda. If I can. Is that the extent of your advice?’

‘So it is.’

‘Well, can I at least help you down?’

‘Not at all, lad. Who knows how many more insights I will experience?’

‘You may also lose your limbs, or pass out.’

‘I still have my limbs?’

Brys moved directly beneath the Ceda, positioning his left shoulder below Kuru Qan’s hips. ‘I’m unstrapping you.’

‘Be assured I will take your word for it, lad.’

‘And I intend to have a word or two with your assistants once I’m done with the Chancellor.’

‘Go easy on them, please. They’re woefully forgetful.’

‘Well, they won’t forget me after today.’

Hands clasped behind his back, Triban Gnol paced. ‘What is the readiness of the military, Finadd?’

Brys frowned. ‘Preda Unnutal Hebaz would be better equipped to give you answer to that, Chancellor.’

‘She is presently indisposed, and so I would ask you.’

They were alone in the Chancellor’s office. Two guards waited outside. Votive candles exuded a scent of rare Kolanse spices, giving the chamber an atmosphere vaguely religious. A temple of gold coins, and this man is the high priest… ‘It is a mandate that the army and navy be maintained at a level of preparedness, Chancellor. Supplies and stores sufficient for a full season’s campaign. As you know, contracts with suppliers stipulate that, in times of conflict, the needs of the military are to take precedence over all other clients. These contracts are of course maintained and will be rigorously enforced.’

‘Yes yes, Finadd. But I am seeking a soldier’s opinion. Are the king’s soldiers ready and capable of war?’

‘I believe so, Chancellor.’

Triban Gnol halted and fixed Brys with his glittering eyes. ‘I will hold you to that, Finadd.’

‘I would not have ventured an opinion were I not prepared to stand by it, Chancellor.’

A sudden smile. ‘Excellent. Tell me, have you taken a wife yet? I thought not, although I doubt there’s a maiden among the nobility who would hesitate in such a coup. There are many legacies one must live with, Finadd, and the means in which they are answered are the defining features of a man’s or a woman’s life.’

‘I’m sorry, Chancellor. What are you getting at?’

‘Your family history is well known, Finadd, and I hold deep sympathy for you and indeed, for your hapless brothers. In particular Hull, for whom I feel sincere worry, given his predilection for involving himself in crucial matters which are, strictly, not of his concern. I admit to fretting on his behalf, for I would not wish sorrow upon you and your kin.’

‘It strikes me, Chancellor, that you are too generous in assembling your list of concerns. As for legacies, well, they are my own affair, as you no doubt appreciate. For what it is worth, I suggest that you are according Hull too much power in these matters-’

‘Do you imagine I am here delivering a veiled warning?’ Gnol waved a hand dismissively and resumed pacing. ‘It insults me that you believe I am as crass as that. Does a seal-hunter warn the seal of the net closing round it? Hardly. No, Finadd, I am done with you. Rest assured I will waste no more sympathy upon you and your brothers.’

‘I am relieved to hear that,’ Brys said.

A venomous look. ‘Please close the door on your way out, Finadd.’

‘Of course, Chancellor.’

Outside, walking alone down the corridor, Brys sighed. He had failed to learn anything of the purported feud between Gnol and Kuru Qan. It seemed he had achieved little more than adding himself to the Chancellor’s list of enemies.

A second, deeper sigh.

He had nothing of Hull’s stolid determination. Nothing of Tehol’s cunning. He had but some skill with a sword. And what value that, when his attackers employed insinuation and threat in some verbal knife-game? Seeking to deliver wounds that time did not heal?

Reluctantly, he realized he needed advice.

Which meant another duel, this time with his own brother.

At least Tehol had no desire to wound. Errant bless him, he seems to have no desires at all.

‘What I desire,’ Tehol said, scowling, ‘is a meal that actually began with real food. Sort of a founding premise that what one is to eat is actually sustaining at its most basic level.’ He lifted one of the dark, limp leaves, studied it for a moment, then forced it into his mouth. Chewing, he glowered at Bugg.

‘There are apes, master, for whom banana leaves constitute an essential source of nutrition.’

‘Indeed? And are they extinct yet?’

‘I don’t know. I am only recounting a sailor’s story I heard once at a bar.’

‘He was a drunkard and a liar.’

‘Oh, you know him, then.’

Tehol looked round. ‘Where’s Ublala? I need him here, so Shurq Elalle can gauge his…’

‘Length?’

‘Worth. Where is he?’

‘On the roof. Pining.’

‘Oh. The roof is good. Pining is not. Does he need yet another talking to, do you think?’

‘From you, master? No.’

‘Some more leaves, please. Don’t skimp on the sauce or whatever it is.’

‘Right the second time.’

‘Whatever it is? You don’t know?’

‘No, master. It just leaked out. Maybe from the leaves, maybe from something else. It reminds one of-’

‘Tanneries?’

‘Yes, that’s it exactly. Well done.’

Tehol paled and slowly set down his bowl. ‘I just had a thought.’

Bugg’s eyes widened and he too put his bowl down. ‘Please, master, do not pursue that thought.’

‘It keeps coming back.’

‘The thought?’

‘No, the supper.’ He rose suddenly. ‘Time for some air.’

‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Not at all, Bugg. Clearly, during the course of preparing this meal, you worked hard at ignoring whatever impressions you may have had. I understand that you might well be exhausted by that effort. And if not, you should be.’

They turned at a sound from the alley, then the curtain across the entrance was swept aside.

‘Ah, Shand, we were wondering when you would arrive!’

‘You’re a liar and a thief, Tehol Beddict.’

‘It’s the company I keep,’ Bugg muttered.

Rissarh and Hejun followed behind Shand as she stormed into the small room.

Tehol backed to the far wall, which wasn’t nearly far enough. ‘Needless to say,’ he said, ‘I’m impressed.’

Shand halted. ‘With what?’

He saw that her fists were clenched. ‘Well, your vigour, of course. At the same time, I realize I have been remiss in directing your admirable energies, Shand. It’s now clear to me that you – all three of you, in fact – require a more direct involvement in our nefarious undertaking.’

‘He’s doing it again,’ Rissarh growled.

‘We’re supposed to be beating him up right now,’ Hejun added. ‘Look what he’s done. Shand, less than a bell ago you were saying-’

‘Be quiet about what I was saying,’ Shand cut in. ‘Direct involvement, you said, Tehol. Finally. It’s about time, and no games, you slippery bastard. Talk to save your life.’

‘Of course,’ Tehol said, smiling. ‘Please, make yourselves comfortable-’

‘We’re comfortable enough. Talk.’

‘Well, you don’t look comfortable-’

‘Tehol.’

‘As you like. Now, I’m going to give you a list of names, which you will have to memorize. Horul Esterrict, of Cargo Olives. Mirrik the Blunt, eldest of the Blunts, owner of Blunt’s Letherii Steel and Blunt Weaponry. Stoople Rott, the grain magnate of Fort Shake. His brother, Puryst, the ale brewer. Erudinaas, queen of the rustleaf plantations at Dissent. The financiers, Bruck Stiffen, Horul Rinnesict, Grate Chizev of Letheras, Hepar the Pleaser, of Trate. Debt-holders Druz Thennict, Pralit Peff, Barrakta Ilk, Uster Taran, Lystry Maullict, all of Letheras. Tharav the Hidden, of room eleven, Chobor’s Manse on Seal Street, Trate. Got those?’

Shand was glassy-eyed. ‘There’s more?’

‘A dozen or so.’

‘You want them killed?’ Hejun asked.

‘Errant no! I want you to begin purchasing shares in their enterprises. Under a variety of names, of course. Strive for forty-nine per cent. Once there, we’ll be poised to force a coup. The goal, of course, is controlling interest, but to gain that will only be achieved with sudden ambush, and for that the timing has to be perfect. In any case, once you have done all that – the purchasing, that is – make no further move, just get back to me.’

‘And how are we going to afford all that?’ Shand demanded.

‘Oh,’ Tehol waved a hand, ‘we’re flush. The coin I invested for you is making a sizeable return. Time’s come to make use of it.’

‘How much of a return?’

‘More than enough-’

‘How much?’

‘Well, I haven’t actually counted it-’

Bugg spoke. ‘About a peak.’

‘Errant’s blessing!’ Shand stared at Tehol. ‘But I haven’t seen you do a thing!’

‘If you had, Shand, then I wouldn’t have been careful enough. Now, best we start with just the names I’ve given you. The next list can come later. Now, I have meetings scheduled this night-’

‘What kind of meetings?’

‘Oh, this and that. Now, please, I beg you – no more charging in through my front door. It’s bound to get noticed sooner or later, and that could be bad.’

‘What have you two been eating?’ Rissarh suddenly asked, her nose wrinkling.

‘This and that,’ Bugg replied.

‘Come on,’ Shand said to her companions, ‘let’s go home. Maybe Ublala will turn up.’

‘I’m sure he will,’ Tehol said, smiling as he escorted the three women to the doorway. ‘Now, get some sleep. You’ve busy times ahead.’

Hejun half turned. ‘Cargo Olives – Horul who?’

Shand reached out and dragged Hejun into the alley.

Still smiling, Tehol adjusted the curtain until it once more covered the entrance. Then he spun round. ‘That went well.’

‘Rissarh had a knife,’ Bugg said, ‘tucked up along her wrist.’

‘She did? Tucked up?’

‘Yes, master.’

Tehol walked to the ladder. ‘I trust you had your own knives close to hand.’

‘I don’t have any knives.’

Tehol paused, one hand on the nearest rung. ‘What? Well, where are all our weapons?’

‘We don’t have any weapons, master.’

‘None? Did we ever?’

‘No. Some wooden spoons…’

‘And are you adept with them?’

‘Very.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then. You coming?’

‘In a moment, master.’

‘Right, and be sure to clean up. This place is a dreadful mess.’

‘If I find the time.’

Ublala Pung was lying face-down on the roof, near the bed.

‘Ublala,’ Tehol said, approaching, ‘is something wrong?’

‘No.’ The word was muffled.

‘What are you doing down there?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, we’re about to have a guest who wants to meet you.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘It might be worth your while to endeavour to make a good impression,’ Tehol said.

‘All right.’

‘That might prove a little difficult, Ublala, with you lying there like that. When I first came up, I admit to thinking that you were dead.’ He paused, then, considering, and brightened. ‘Mind you, that might be a good thing-’

A scuff of boots to one side, then Shurq Elalle stepped from the shadows. ‘Is this him?’

‘You’re early,’ Tehol said.

‘I am? Oh. Well, are you waiting for a necromancer to animate him or something?’

‘I would be, were he dead. Ublala, if you will, stand up. I would like to introduce you to Shurq Elalle-’

‘Is she the dead one?’ he asked, not yet moving. ‘The thief who drowned?’

‘Already you’re holding something against me,’ Shurq replied, her tone despondent.

‘We haven’t got to that yet,’ Tehol said. ‘Ublala, get up. Shurq has needs. You can meet them, and in return you get Shand, Rissarh and Hejun to leave off-

‘Why would they?’ Ublala demanded.

‘Because Shurq will tell them to.’

‘I will?’

‘Look,’ Tehol said, exasperated, ‘neither of you are co-operating here. On your feet, Ublala.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Shurq cut in. ‘Just roll him over.’

‘Oh, fine, that’s very nice. Crass, but nice.’ Tehol crouched down alongside Ublala, pushed his hands beneath the huge man, then lifted. Tehol’s feet skidded. He grunted, gasped, heaved again and again, to little effect.

‘Stop it,’ Shurq said in a strange voice. ‘You’re going to make me laugh. And laughing right now would be expensive.’

Sprawled across Ublala, Tehol stared up at her. ‘Expensive?’

‘All those spices, of course. Tell me, Ublala, what did you see when you walked across the bottom of the canal?’

‘Mud.’

‘What else?’

‘Junk.’

‘What else? What were you walking on?’

‘Bodies. Bones. Crayfish, crabs. Old nets. Broken pots, furniture-’

‘Furniture?’ Tehol asked. ‘Serviceable furniture?’

‘Well, there was a chair. But I didn’t sit in it.’

‘Bodies,’ Shurq said. ‘Yes. Lots of bodies. How deep was the canal originally?’

Bugg had arrived, and with this question Tehol looked over at his manservant. ‘Well? You must know, being an engineer and all that.’

‘But I’m only pretending to be an engineer,’ Bugg pointed out.

‘So pretend to know the answer to Shurq’s question!’

‘It was said seven tall men could stand, foot to shoulder, and the last would be able to reach up with his hands and find the surface. Used to be big trader ships could make their way the entire length.’

‘I wasn’t far from the surface,’ Ublala said, rolling over, unmindful of Tehol who yelped as he was tumbled to one side with a thump. ‘I could almost reach,’ he added as he stood, brushing himself off.

‘That’s a lot of rubbish,’ Bugg commented.

‘I’m not lying,’ Ublala said.

‘I didn’t say you were,’ Bugg said.

‘So,’ Shurq asked, ‘who is killing all those people?’

‘Never mind all that,’ Tehol said as he clambered to his feet. ‘Shurq Elalle, permit me to introduce Ublala Pung. The canal walk is very lovely at night, yes? Not in it, I mean. Alongside it, just for a change. Perfect for a promenade-’

‘I intend to rob Gerun Eberict’s estate,’ Shurq said to Ublala. ‘But there are outlying watchers that need taking care of. Can you create a diversion, Ublala Pung?’

The huge man scratched his jaw. ‘I don’t know. I got nothing against them-’

‘They don’t like you.’

‘They don’t? Why?’

‘No reason. They just don’t.’

‘Then I don’t like them either.’

‘So you say, but I haven’t seen any proof.’

‘You want proof? Good. Let’s go.’

Shurq hooked one arm in Ublala’s and led him towards the far edge of the roof. ‘We have to jump to that other roof,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you can do it, Ublala. Not quietly, anyway.’

‘Yes I can. I’ll show you I can.’

‘We’ll see…’

Tehol stared after them, then he swung to Bugg.

The manservant shrugged. ‘It’s the complexities of the male mind, master.’

The rain earlier that day had made the night air blessedly cool. Brys Beddict left the palace by a side postern and proceeded on a circuitous route towards his brother’s residence. Although it was close to midnight, there were plenty of people on the streets.

He had never felt entirely comfortable in the crowded, sordid maze that was Letheras. The face of wealth stayed mostly hidden, leaving only the ravaged mien of poverty, and that was at times almost overwhelming. Beyond the Indebted were the lost, those who had given up entirely, and among them could be seen not just refugees from annexed tribes, but Letherii as well – more than he would have imagined. For all the explosive growth driving the kingdom, it seemed an ever greater proportion of the population was being left behind, and that was troubling.

At what point in the history of Letheras, he wondered, did rampant greed become a virtue? The level of self-justification required was staggering in its tautological complexity, and it seemed language itself was its greatest armour against common sense.

You can’t leave all these people behind. They’re outside the endless excitement and lust, the frenzied accumulation. They’re outside and can only look on with growing despair and envy. What happens when rage supplants helplessness?

Increasingly, the ranks of the military were filling with the lowest classes. Training, acceptable income and a full belly provided the incentives, yet these soldiers were not enamoured of the civilization they were sworn to defend. True, many of them joined with dreams of booty, of wealth stolen and glory gained. But such riches came only with aggression, and successful aggression at that. What would happen if the military found itself on the defensive? They’ll fight to defend their homes, their loved ones. Of course they will. There’s no cause for worry, is there?

He swung into the alley leading to Tehol’s home, and heard, somewhere beyond the squalid tenement, the sounds of a fierce argument. Things came crashing down in a cacophony that ended with a shriek.

Brys hesitated. He could not reach the source of the sounds from this alley, but Tehol’s rooftop might permit him a view down on the opposite street. He went on.

With the pommel of his knife Brys tapped on the doorframe. There was no reply. He pulled aside the curtain and peered in. A single wavering oil lamp, the faint glow from the hearth, and voices coming down from above.

Brys entered and climbed the rickety ladder.

He emerged onto the roof to see Tehol and his manservant standing at the far edge, looking down – presumably on the argument that was still under way.

‘Tehol,’ Brys called, approaching. ‘Is this a matter for the city guard?’

His brother swung about, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, brother. A resolution is but moments away. Wouldn’t you agree, Bugg?’

‘I think so, since he’s almost out and that old woman’s run out of things to throw.’

Brys came alongside and looked down. A huge man was busy extricating himself from a pile of dusty rubble, ducking when objects were flung at him by a old woman in the tenement doorway.

‘What happened?’ Brys asked.

‘An associate of mine,’ Tehol said, ‘jumped onto the roof over there from this one. He landed quietly enough, I suppose. Then the roof gave out, alas. As you can see, he’s a big man.’

The hapless associate had climbed free at last. It appeared that he had taken most of the wall with him in his descent. It was a miracle that he seemed uninjured. ‘Why was he jumping from your roof, Tehol?’

‘It was a dare.’

‘Yours?’

‘Oh no, I’d never do that.’

‘Then who? Surely not your manservant?’

Bugg sputtered, ‘Me? Most assuredly not, Finadd!’

‘Another guest,’ Tehol explained. ‘Who has since gone, although not far, I imagine. Somewhere in the shadows, waiting for dear Ublala.’

‘Ublala? Ublala Pung? Oh, yes, I recognize him now. An associate? Tehol, the man’s a criminal-’

‘Who proved his innocence in the canal-’

‘That’s not innocence,’ Brys retorted, ‘that’s stubborn will.’

‘A will that the Errant would surely have weakened were Ublala truly guilty of the crimes of which he had been accused.’

‘Tehol, really-’

His brother faced him, brows raised. ‘Are you, a soldier of the king, casting aspersions on our justice system?’

‘Tehol, the king casts aspersions on the justice system!’

‘None the less, Brys – oh, what are you doing here, by the way?’

‘I have come seeking your advice.’

‘Oh. Well, shall we retire to a more private section of my rooftop? Here, follow me – that far corner is ideal.’

‘Wouldn’t down below be better?’

‘Well, it would, if Bugg had bothered cleaning up. As it is, my abode is an unacceptable mess. I can’t concentrate down there, not for a moment. My stomach turns at the thought-’

‘That would be supper,’ Bugg said behind them.

The brothers turned to look back at him.

Bugg gave a sheepish wave. ‘I’ll be down below, then.’

They watched him leave.

Brys cleared his throat. ‘There are factions in the palace. Intrigues. And it seems certain people would force me into involvement, when all I wish is to remain loyal to my king.’

‘Ah, and some of those factions are less than loyal to the king?’

‘Not in any manner that could be proved. Rather, it’s simply a matter of reinterpretation of what would best serve the king and the kingdom’s interests.’

‘Ah, but those are two entirely different things. The king’s interests versus the kingdom’s interests. At least, I assume that’s how they see it, and who knows, they might be right.’

‘They might, Tehol, but I have doubts.’

Tehol folded his arms and stared out on the city. ‘So,’ he said, ‘there’s the queen’s faction, which includes Prince Quillas, Chancellor Triban Gnol, and the First Consort, Turudal Brizad. Have I missed anyone?’

Brys was staring at his brother. He shook his head. ‘Officers and guards, various spies.’

‘And the king’s own faction. Ceda Kuru Qan, First Eunuch Nifadas, Preda Unnutal Hebaz and perhaps First Concubine Nisall. And, of course, you.’

‘But I have no desire to be in any faction-’

‘You’re the King’s Champion, brother. As I see it, you have little choice.’

‘Tehol, I am hopeless at such games of intrigue.’

‘So say nothing. Ever.’

‘What good will that do?’

‘You’ll convince them you’re smarter than they are. Even scarier, that you know everything. You can see through all their facades-’

‘But I can’t see through all that, Tehol. Therefore, I’m not smarter.’

‘Of course you are. You just need to treat it like a duel. In fact, treat everything like a duel. Feint, parry, disengage, all that complicated stuff.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Brys muttered.

They fell silent, staring out over the dark city. Oil lamps lit the canal walks, but the water itself was black as ink, winding like ribbons of oblivion between the squat, hulking buildings. Other lights swung in motion down the streets, carried by people going about their tasks. For all that, darkness dominated the scene.

Brys stared up at the nearest tier, watched a few lanterns slide along the span like minuscule moons. ‘I have been thinking about Hull,’ he said after a time.

‘I would hold out little hope,’ Tehol said. ‘Our brother’s desires have nothing to do with self-preservation. It is in his mind, I believe, that he is going to die soon.’

Brys nodded.

‘And,’ Tehol continued, ‘if he can, in so doing he will also take down as much of Lether as possible. For that reason alone, someone will stop him. With finality.’

‘And vengeance against those murderers will be expected of me,’ Brys said.

‘Not necessarily,’ Tehol said. ‘After all, your foremost loyalty is to your king.’

‘Superseding even that to my family?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘To do nothing would be seen as cowardice. Worse yet, I do not think I could face Hull’s killers without reaching for my sword.’

‘You may have to, Brys. Of course,’ Tehol added, ‘I am not so bound by such prohibitions.’

Brys studied his brother for a long moment. ‘You would avenge Hull?’

‘Count on it.’

Eventually, Brys smiled.

Tehol glanced over and nodded. ‘That’s perfect, brother. When you come face to face with them, show that smile. It will put terror in their hearts.’

Brys sighed and returned his gaze to the city. ‘Outwardly, we seem so different, the three of us.’

‘And so we are,’ Tehol replied. ‘It comes down to methods, and we each walk unique paths. At the same time, alas, we must all live with an identical legacy, a particularly unpleasant inheritance.’ He shrugged, then pulled up his sagging trousers. ‘Three stones in a stream. All subjected to the same rushing water, yet each shaped differently, depending upon its nature.’

‘And which of us is sandstone?’

‘Hull. He’s been worn down the most, brother, by far. You, you’re basalt.’

‘And you, Tehol?’

‘Maybe a mix of the two, yielding a sadly misshapen result. But I can live with it.’

‘Perhaps you can,’ Brys observed, ‘but what about the rest of us?’

‘There’s a matter on which you can help me, brother.’

‘Oh?’

‘Presumably, there are recorders of obscure information in the palace. People who tally various events, trends and such.’

‘A veritable army of them, Tehol.’

‘Indeed. Now, might you make some discreet inquiries for me?’

‘Regarding what?’

‘People going missing in Letheras. Annual numbers, that sort of thing.’

‘If you like. Why?’

‘At the moment, I’m just curious.’

‘What are you up to, Tehol?’

‘This and that.’

Brys grimaced. ‘Be careful.’

‘I shall. Do you smell that? Bugg is brewing tea.’

‘That doesn’t smell like tea.’

‘Yes, he’s full of surprises. Let’s go down. I for one am very thirsty.’

Shurq Elalle watched Ublala Pung close in on the pair of guards who had just come round the corner of the estate’s outer wall. They had time to look up in alarm before he threw his punch. Crunching into one jaw, then following through to crack against the other man’s temple. Both collapsed. Ublala paused, looking down on them, then headed off in search of more.

Shurq stepped from the shadows and approached the wall. Wards had been etched into the ochre stone, but she knew they were linked to intrusions by someone living. The heat of a body, the moist breaths, the thump of a heart. Those relating to motion were far more expensive to maintain, and would be reserved for the main house.

She reached the wall, paused to take a final look round, then quickly scaled it.

The top was studded with shards of razor-sharp iron that cut deep into the reinforced padding on her gloves. As she drew herself up, the shards cut through the layers of leather and sank into her palms, improving her grip. She would get the lacerations sewn up later, to keep out lint and insects and other creatures that might seek to take up residence in the punctures.

Her upper body perched above her arms, she studied the compound below. Seeing no-one, she lifted herself over, pivoting on her hands, then edged down onto the other side. She pried her left hand loose of the spikes and gripped the ledge with her fingers, then tugged her right hand loose as well. Freed of the shards, she quickly descended to crouch in the shadows beneath the wall.

Dozens of guards somewhere ahead, between her and her goal. Men – but no, she couldn’t think about that, not right now. Later, with Ublala. Unfortunately, the mindless guest within her understood nothing of the value of anticipation. It knew hunger, and hunger must be appeased. The nature of things alive, she mused, as opposed to things dead. Urgency, dissatisfaction, the burden of appetites. She’d forgotten.

Four guards standing at the estate entrance, one to either side of the double doors, the remaining two flanking the broad steps. They looked bored. There were windows on the main floor, but these were shuttered. Balconies on the next level – the small doors there would be warded. The uppermost floor consisted of three A-frame rooms facing front, their peaked roofs steep and tiled in slate. Inward of these projections, the estate roof was flat and low-walled, a veritable forest of potted plants and stunted trees. And hidden watchers.

All in all, seemingly impregnable.

Just the kind she liked.

She set out towards the nearest outbuilding, a maintenance shed with a sloped roof that faced onto the compound. Careful, silent steps, then settling alongside the nearest wall of the shed. Where she waited.

A loud thumping on the front gates.

The four guards at the estate entrance straightened, exchanged glances. There were at least eight of their comrades patrolling the street and alley beyond the wall. It was too late for a guest, and besides, Master Gerun Eberict was not at home. Alternatively, perhaps he had sent a messenger. But then there would have been a signal from the patrol. No, she could see them conclude, this was unusual.

The two guards at the base of the steps set off towards the gate, hands on the grips of their swords.

The thumping stopped when the two men were halfway to the gate. They slowed, drawing weapons.

Two steps from the gate.

The twin massive portals exploded inward, taking both guards down beneath the battered wood and bronze. Ublala’s forward momentum carried him over the flattened doors and the men trapped beneath them.

At the top of the stairs, shouts of alarm, and the last two guards were rushing towards the giant.

‘I never done nothing to any of you!’ Ublala bellowed, or at least that is what Shurq thought he said – the words were made indistinct by his bristling indignation as he charged the two guards.

A brief moment of concern for Shurq, since her man was unarmed.

Swords slashed out. Ublala seemed to slap at them along the flat, and one of the swords cartwheeled through the air. The other ploughed into the pavestones at the giant’s feet. A backhand slap spun the nearest man round and off his feet. The remaining guard was screaming, stumbling back. Ublala reached out, caught him by the right arm, and tugged him close.

‘I’m not meat I’m a new body!’

Or ‘I’m not mean to nobody!’

The guard was dragged off his feet and shaken about in a clatter of armour to accompany the incoherent assertion. The hapless man went limp, his limbs flailing about. Ublala dropped him and looked up.

Guards were streaming towards him from either side of the estate.

He grunted in alarm, turned about and ran back through the gaping gateway.

Shurq glanced up at the roof. Four figures up there, looking down at the fleeing giant, two of them readying javelins.

But he was already through the archway.

Shurq slipped round the back of the shed and darted across the narrow gap to come alongside the estate wall. She padded towards the stairs, onto the platform and through the unwarded entrance. Outside, she heard someone shout orders for a rearguard to hold the compound, but clearly no-one had turned round to keep an eye on the front doors.

Shurq found herself in a reception hall, the walls covered in frescos illustrating Gerun’s desperate defence of King Ezgara Diskanar. She paused, drew out a knife to scratch a moustache on Gerun’s manly, grimacing, triumphant face, then continued on through an archway leading to a large chamber modelled in the fashion of a throne room, although the throne – an ornate, high-backed monstrosity – was simply positioned at the head of a long table instead of surmounting a raised dais.

Doors at every corner of the chamber, each one elaborately framed. A fifth one, narrow and inset at the back, probably with a servants’ passage beyond.

No doubt the inhabitants were awake by now. Yet, being servants – Indebted one and all – they’d be hiding under their cots during this terrifying tumult.

She set off towards that last door. The passageway beyond was narrow and poorly lit. Curtained cells lined it, the pathetic residences of the staff. No light showed from beneath any of the hangings, but Shurq caught the sound of scuffing from one room halfway down, and a stifled gasp from one closer, on her left.

She closed her gloved hand on the grip of the fighting knife strapped beneath her left arm, and ran the back of the blade hard against the scabbard edge as she drew it forth. More gasps. A terrified squeal.

Slow steps down the narrow passage, pausing every now and then, but never long enough to elicit a scream from anyone, until she came to a T-intersection. To the right the aisle opened out onto the kitchen. To the left, a staircase leading both up and to cellars below ground. Shurq swung round and faced the passageway she had just quitted. Pitching her voice low, she hissed, ‘Go to sleep. Was jus’ doin’ a circuit. No-one here, sweeties. Relax.’

‘Who’s that?’ a voice asked.

‘Who cares?’ another replied. ‘Like he said, Prist, go back’t’sleep.’

But Prist continued, ‘It’s jus’ that I don’ recognize ’im-’

‘Yeah,’ the other countered, ‘an’ you ain’t a gardener but a real live hero, right, Prist?’

‘All I’m sayin’ is-’

Shurq walked back to halt in front of Prist’s curtain.

She heard movement beyond, but the man was silent.

She drew the dirty linen to one side and slipped into the cramped room. It stank of mud and manure. In the darkness she could just make out a large, crouching figure at the back wall, a blanket drawn up under its chin.

‘Ah, Prist,’ Shurq murmured in a voice little more than a whisper and taking another step closer, ‘are you any good at keeping quiet? I hope so, because I intend to spend some time with you. Don’t worry,’ she added as she unbuckled her belt, ‘it’ll be fun.’

Two bells later, Shurq lifted her head from the gardener’s muscled arm concentrating to listen beyond his loud snores. Poor bastard had been worn right out – she hoped Ublala could manage better – and all his subsequent whimpering and mewling was disgusting. As the bell’s low echoes faded, a solid silence replaced it.

The guards had returned shortly after Shurq had slipped into Prist’s cubicle. Loud with speculation and bitter argument, indicating that Ublala had made good his escape, although a call for the services of the house healer suggested there’d been a clash or two. Since that time, things had settled down. There had been a cursory search of the estate, but not the servants’ quarters, suggesting that no suspicion of diversion and infiltration had occurred to the house guards. Careless. Indicative of a sad lack of imagination. All in all, as she had expected. An overbearing master had that effect. Initiative was dangerous, lest it clash with Gerun’s formidable ego.

Shurq pulled herself loose from Prist’s exhausted, child-like embrace, and rose silently to don her clothes and gear. Gerun would have an office, adjoining his private rooms. Men like Gerun always had offices. It served their need for legitimacy.

Its defences would be elaborate, the magic expensive and thorough. But not so complicated as to leave a Finadd confused. Accordingly, the mechanisms of deactivation would be straightforward. Another thing to consider, of course, was the fact that Gerun was absent. It was likely there were additional wards in place that could not be negated. She suspected they would be life-aspected, since other kinds could more easily be accidentally triggered.

She quietly stepped back into the passageway. Sounds of sleep and naught else. Satisfied, Shurq returned to the T-intersection and turned left. Ascending the staircase, she was careful to place each foot along alternating edges where the joins reduced the likelihood of a telltale creak.

Reaching the first landing, Shurq stepped close to the door, then paused. Motionless. A tripwire was set along the seam of the door, locked in place by the last servant to use the passage. Sometimes the simplest alarms succeeded where more elaborate ones failed, if only because the thief was over-anticipating the complication. She released the mechanism and turned the latch.

Into another servants’ passage, running parallel to the formal hallway, assuming a typical layout for Gerun’s estate. She found the lone door where she expected, on the right at the far end. Another tripwire to release, then she stepped through. The hallway was unlit, which was clever. Three doors along the opposite wall, the rooms beyond showing no light.

She was fairly certain she had found Gerun Eberict’s private quarters. Barely detectable in the gloom were a host of arcane sigils painted on the nearest door.

Shurq edged closer to study those symbols.

And froze as a dull voice spoke from down the corridor. ‘It was incompetence. Or so he says. And now I’m supposed to make it up to him.’

She slowly turned. A seated figure, sprawled back with legs stretched out, head tilted to one side.

‘You’re dead,’ the man said.

‘Is that a promise or an observation?’

‘Just something we have in common,’ he answered. ‘That doesn’t happen to me much, any more.’

‘I know just how you feel. So, Gerun has you here guarding his rooms.’

‘It’s my penance.’

‘For incompetence.’

‘Yes. Gerun doesn’t fire people, you know. He kills them and then, depending on how angry he is, either buries them or keeps them on for a time. I suppose he’ll bury me eventually.’

‘Without releasing your soul?’

‘He often forgets about that part.’

‘I’m here to steal everything he has.’

‘If you were living I would of course kill you in some monstrous, terrifying way. I would get up from this chair, feet dragging, arms out with my hands clawing the air. I’d make bestial sounds and moans and hisses as if I was hungry to sink my teeth into your throat.’

‘That would certainly prove sufficient to deter a thief. A living one, that is.’

‘It would, and I’d probably enjoy it, too.’

‘But I’m not living, am I?’

‘No. But I have one question for you and it’s an important one.’

‘All right. Ask it.’

‘Why, since you’re dead, do you look so good? Who cut your hair? Why aren’t you rotting away like me? Are you stuffed with herbs or something? Are you wearing make-up? Why are the whites of your eyes so white? Your lips so glossy?’

Shurq was silent a moment, then asked, ‘Is that your one question?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you like, I can introduce you to the people responsible for the new me. I am sure they can do the same for you.’

‘Really? Including a manicure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘What about filing my teeth? You know, to make them sharp and scary.’

‘Well, I don’t know how scary you will be with styled hair, make-up, perfect nails and glossy lips.’

‘But sharp teeth? Don’t you think the sharp teeth will terrify people?’

‘Why not just settle for those? Most people are frightened of rotting things, of things crawling with vermin and stinking like a freshly turned grave. Fangs and fingernails clipped into talons.’

‘I like it. I like how you think.’

‘My pleasure. Now, do I have to worry about these wards?’

‘No. In fact, I can show you where all the mechanisms are for the alarms.’

‘Won’t that give you away?’

‘Give me away? Why, I am coming with you, of course. Assuming you can get us both out of here.’

‘Oh, I see. I’m sure we’ll manage. What is your name, by the way?’

‘Harlest Eberict.’

Shurq cocked her head, then said, ‘Oh. But you died ten years ago, according to your brother.’

‘Ten years? Is that all?’

‘He said you fell down the stairs, I believe. Or something like that.’

‘Stairs. Or pitched off the balcony. Maybe both.’

‘And what did you do or fail to do that earned such punishment?’

‘I don’t remember. Only that I was incompetent.’

‘That was long before Gerun saved the king’s life. How could he have afforded the sorcery needed to bind your soul to your body?’

‘I believe he called in a favour.’

Shurq swung back to the door. ‘Does this lead to his office?’

‘No, that one goes to his love-making room. You want the one over here.’

‘Any chance of anyone hearing us talking right now, Harlest?’

‘No, the walls are thick.’

‘One last thing,’ Shurq said, eyeing Harlest. ‘Why didn’t Gerun bind your loyalty with magic?’

The pale, patchy face displayed surprise. ‘Well, we’re brothers!’

Alarms negated, the two undead stood in Finadd Gerun Eberict’s office.

‘He doesn’t keep much actual coin here,’ Harlest said. ‘Mostly writs of holding. He spreads his wealth around to protect it.’

‘Very wise. Where is his seal?’

‘On the desk.’

‘Very unwise. Do me a favour and start collecting those writs.’ She walked over to the desk and gathered up the heavy, ornate seal and the thick sheets of wax piled beside it. ‘This wax is an exclusive colour?’

‘Oh yes. He paid plenty for that.’ Harlest had gone to a wall and was removing a large tapestry behind which was an inset cabinet. He disengaged a number of tripwires, then swung open the small door. Within were stacks of scrolls and a small jewelled box.

‘What’s in the box?’ Shurq asked.

Harlest lifted it out and tossed it to Shurq. ‘His cash. Like I said, he never keeps much around.’

She examined the clasp. Satisfied that it wasn’t booby-trapped, she slid it to one side and tipped back the lid. ‘Not much? Harlest, this is full of diamonds.’

The man, his arms loaded with scrolls, walked over. ‘It is?’

‘He’s called in a few of his holdings, I think.’

‘He must have. I wonder why?’

‘To use it,’ she replied, ‘for something very expensive. Oh well, he’ll just have to go without.’

‘Gerun will be so angry,’ Harlest said, shaking his head. ‘He will go mad. He’ll start hunting us down, and he won’t stop until he finds us.’

‘And then what? Torture? We don’t feel pain. Kill us? We’re already dead-’

‘He’ll take his money back-’

‘He can’t if it doesn’t exist any more.’

Harlest frowned.

Smiling, Shurq closed the box and reset the clasp. ‘It’s not like you and I have any use for it, is it? No, this is the equivalent of tossing Gerun off the balcony or down the stairs, only financially rather than physically.’

‘Well, he is my brother.’

‘Who murdered you and wouldn’t even leave it at that.’

‘That’s true.’

‘So, we’re heading out via the balcony. I have a companion who is about to begin another diversion. Are you with me, Harlest?’

‘Can I still get the fangs?’

‘I promise.’

‘Okay, let’s go.’

It was nearing dawn, and the ground steamed. Kettle sat on a humped root and watched a single trailing leg slowly edge its way into the mulch. The man had lost a boot in the struggle, and she watched his toes twitch a moment before they were swallowed up in the dark earth.

He’d fought hard, but with his lower jaw torn off and his throat filling with blood, it hadn’t lasted long. Kettle licked her fingers.

It was good that the tree was still hungry.

The bad ones had begun a hunt beneath the ground, clawing and slithering and killing whatever was weak. Soon there would be a handful left, but these would be the worst ones. And then they would come out.

She was not looking forward to that. And this night, she’d had a hard time finding a victim in the streets, someone with unpleasant thoughts who was where he didn’t belong for reasons that weren’t nice.

It had been getting harder, she realized. She leaned back and pushed her stained fingers through her filthy hair, wondering where all the criminals and spies had disappeared to. It was strange, and troubling.

And her friend, the one buried beneath the oldest tree, he’d told her he was trapped. He couldn’t go any further, even with her assistance. But help was on the way, although he wasn’t certain it would arrive in time.

She thought about that man, Tehol, who had come by last night to talk. He seemed nice enough. She hoped he would visit again. Maybe he’d know what to do – she swung round on the root and stared up at the square tower – yes, maybe he’d know what to do, now that the tower was dead.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DRAWN TO THE SHORELINE, AS IF AMONG THE HOST OF UNWRITTEN truths in a mortal soul could be found a recognition of what it meant to stand on land’s edge, staring out into the depthless unknown that was the sea. The yielding sand and stones beneath one’s feet whispered uncertainty, rasped promises of dissolution and erosion of all that was once solid.

In the world could be assembled all the manifest symbols to reflect the human spirit, and in the subsequent dialogue was found all meaning, every hue and every flavour, rising in legion before the eyes. Leaving to the witness the decision of choosing recognition or choosing denial.

Udinaas sat on a half-buried tree trunk with the sweeping surf clawing at his moccasins. He was not blind and there was no hope for denial. He saw the sea for what it was, the dissolved memories of the past witnessed in the present and fertile fuel for the future, the very face of time. He saw the tides in their immutable susurration, the vast swish like blood from the cold heart moon, a beat of time measured and therefore measurable. Tides one could not hope to hold back.

Every year a Letherii slave, chest-deep in the water and casting nets, was grasped by an undertow and swept out to sea. With some, the waves later carried them back, lifeless and swollen and crab-eaten. At other times the tides delivered corpses and carcasses from unknown calamities, and the wreckage of ships. From living to death, the vast wilderness of water beyond the shore delivered the same message again and again.

He sat huddled in his exhaustion, gaze focused on the distant breakers of the reef, the rolling white ribbon that came again and again in heartbeat rhythm, and from all sides rushed in waves of meaning. In the grey, heavy sky. In the clarion cries of the gulls. In the misty rain carried by the moaning wind. The uncertain sands trickling away beneath his soaked moccasins. Endings and beginnings, the edge of the knowable world.

She’d run from the House of the Dead. The young woman at whose feet he’d tossed his heart. In the hope that she might glance at it – Errant take him, even pick it up and devour it like some grinning beast. Anything, anything but… running away.

He had fallen unconscious in the House of the Dead – ah, is there meaning in that? – and had been carried out, presumably, back to the cot in the Sengar longhouse. He had awoken later – how long he did not know, for he’d found himself alone. Not even a single slave present in the building. No food had been prepared, no dishes or other signs of a meal left behind. The hearth was a mound of white ash covering a few lingering embers. Outside, beyond the faint voice of the wind and the nearer dripping of rainwater, was silence.

Head filled with fog, his movements slow and awkward, he’d rebuilt the fire. Found a rain cape, and had then walked outside. Seeing no-one nearby, he had made his way down to the shoreline. To stare at the empty, filled sea, and the empty, filled sky. Battered by the silence and its roar of wind and gull screams and spitting rain. Alone on the beach in the midst of this clamouring legion.

The dead warrior who was alive.

The Letherii priestess who had fled in the face of a request for help, to give solace and to comfort a fellow Letherii.

In the citadel of the Warlock King, Udinaas suspected, the Edur were gathered. Wills locked in a dreadful war, and, like an island around which the storm raged in endless cycles, the monstrous form of Rhulad Sengar, who had risen from the House of the Dead. Armoured in gold, clothed in wax, probably unable to walk beneath all that weight – until, of course, those coins were removed.

The art of Udinaas… undone.

There would be pain in that. Excruciating pain, but it had to be done, and quickly. Before the flesh and skin grew to embrace those coins.

Rhulad was not a corpse, nor was he undead, for an undead would not scream. He lived once more. His nerves awake, his mind afire. Trapped in a prison of gold.

As was I, once. As every Letherii is trapped. Oh, he is poetry animate, is Rhulad Sengar, but his words are for the Letherii, not for the Edur.

Just one meaning culled from that dire legion, and one that would not leave him alone. Rhulad was going to go mad. There was no doubt about that in the mind of Udinaas. Dying, only to return to a body that was no longer his, a body that belonged to the forest and the leaves and barrow earth. What kind of journey had that been? Who had opened the path, and why?

It’s the sword. It has to be. The sword that would not release his hands. Because it was not finished with Rhulad Sengar. Death means nothing to it. It’s not finished.

A gift meant, it seemed, for Hannan Mosag. Offered by whom?

But Hannan Mosag will not have that sword. It has claimed Rhulad instead. And that sword with its power now hangs over the Warlock King.

This could tear the confederacy apart. Could topple Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan. Unless, of course, Rhulad Sengar submitted to the Warlock King’s authority.

A less problematic issue had it been Fear, or Trull. Perhaps even Binadas. But no, the sword had chosen Rhulad, the unblooded who had been eager for war, a youth with secret eyes and rebellion in his soul. It might be that he was broken, but Udinaas suspected otherwise. I was able to bring him back, to quell those screams. A respite from the madness, in which he could gather himself and recall all that he had been.

It occurred to Udinaas that he might have made a mistake. A greater mercy might have been to not impede that swift plummet into madness.

And now he would have me as his slave.

Foam swirled around his ankles. The tide was coming in.

‘We might as well be in a village abandoned to the ghosts,’ Buruk the Pale said, using the toe of one boot to edge a log closer to the fire, grimacing at the steam that rose from its sodden bark.

Seren Pedac stared at him a moment longer, then shrugged and reached for the battered kettle that sat on a flat stone near the flames. She could feel the handle’s heat through her leather gloves as she refilled her cup. The tea was stewed, but she didn’t much care as she swallowed a mouthful of the bitter liquid. At least it was warm.

‘How much longer is this going to go on?’

‘Curb your impatience, Buruk,’ Seren advised. ‘There will be no satisfaction in the resolution of all this, assuming a resolution is even possible. We saw him with our own eyes. A dead man risen, but risen too late.’

‘Then Hannan Mosag should simply lop off the lad’s head and be done with it.’

She made no reply to that. In some ways, Buruk was right. Prohibitions and traditions only went so far, and there was – there could be – no precedent for what had happened. They had watched the two Sengar brothers drag their sibling out through the doorway, the limbed mass of wax and gold that was Rhulad. Red welts for eyes, melted shut, the head lifting itself up to stare blindly at the grey sky for a moment before falling back down. Braided hair sealed in wax, hanging like strips from a tattered sail. Threads of spit slinging down from his gaping mouth as they carried him towards the citadel.

Edur gathered on the bridge. On the far bank, the village side, and emerging from the other noble longhouses surrounding the citadel. Hundreds of Edur, and even more Letherii slaves, drawn to witness, silent and numbed and filled with horror. She had watched most of the Edur then file into the citadel. The slaves seemed to have simply disappeared.

Seren suspected that Feather Witch was casting the tiles, in some place less public than the huge barn where she had last conducted the ritual. At least, there had been no-one there when she had looked.

And now, time crawled. Buruk’s camp and the Nerek huddled in their tents had become an island in the mist, surrounded by the unknown.

She wondered where Hull had gone. There were ruins in the forest, and rumours of strange artefacts, some massive and sprawling, many days’ travel to the northeast. Ancient as this forest was, it had found soil fertile with history. Destruction and dissolution concluded every passing of the cycle, and the breaking down delivered to the exhausted world the manifold parts to assemble a new whole.

But healing belonged to the land. It was not guaranteed to that which lived upon it. Breeds ended; the last of a particular beast, the last of a particular race, each walked alone for a time. Before the final closing of those singular eyes, and the vision behind them.

Seren longed to hold on to that long view. She desperately sought out the calm wisdom it promised, the peace that belonged to an extended perspective. With sufficient distance, even a range of mountains could look flat, the valleys between each peak unseen. In the same manner, lives and deaths, mortality’s peaks and valleys, could be levelled. Thinking in this way, she felt less inclined to panic.

And that was becoming increasingly important.

‘And where in the Errant’s name is that delegation?’ Buruk asked.

‘From Trate,’ Seren said, ‘they’ll be tacking all the way. They’re coming.’

‘Would that they had done so before all this.’

‘Do you fear that Rhulad poses a threat to the treaty?’

Buruk’s gaze remained fixed on the flames. ‘It was the sword that raised him,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Or whoever made it and sent it to the Edur. Did you catch a glimpse of the blade? It’s mottled. Made me think of one of the Daughters they worship, the dappled one, what was her name?’

‘Sukul Ankhadu.’

‘Maybe she exists in truth. An Edur goddess-’

‘A dubious gift, then, for the Edur view Sukul Ankhadu as a fickle creature. She is feared. They worship Father Shadow and Daughter Dusk, Sheltatha Lore. And, on a day to day basis, more of the latter than the former.’ Seren finished the tea then refilled the tin cup. ‘Sukul Ankhadu. I suppose that is possible, although I can’t recall any stories about those gods and goddesses of the Edur ever manifesting themselves in such a direct manner. It seemed more like ancestor worship, the founders of the tribes elevated into holy figures, that sort of thing.’ She sipped and grimaced.

‘That will burn holes in your gut, Acquitor.’

‘Too late for that, Buruk.’

‘Well, if not Ankhadu, then who? That sword came from somewhere.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nor does it sound as if you even care. This listlessness ill suits you Acquitor.’

‘It’s not listlessness, Buruk, it’s wisdom. I’m surprised you can’t tell the difference.’

‘Is it wisdom taking the life from your eyes, the sharpness from your thoughts? Is it wisdom that makes you indifferent to the nightmare miracle we witnessed yesterday?’

‘Absolutely. What else could it be?’

‘Despair?’

‘And what have I that’s worthy of despair?’

‘I’m hardly the one to answer that.’

‘True-’

‘But I’ll try anyway.’ He drew out a flask and pulled out the stopper, then tilted it back. Two quick swallows, after which he sighed and leaned back. ‘It strikes me you’re a sensitive type, Acquitor, which probably is a quality for someone in your profession. But you’re not able to separate business from everything else. Sensitivity is a pervasive kind of vulnerability, after all. Makes you easy to hurt, makes the scars you carry liable to open and weep at the slightest prod.’ He took another drink, his face growing slack with the effects of the potent liquor and nectar, a looseness coming to his words as he continued, ‘Hull Beddict. He’s pushed you away, but you know him too well. He is rushing headlong. Into a fate of his own choosing, and it will either kill him or destroy him. You want to do something about it, maybe even stop him, but you can’t. You don’t know how, and you feel that as your own failure. Your own flaw. A weakness. Thus, for the fate that will befall him, you choose not to blame him, but yourself. And why not? It’s easier.’

She had chosen to stare at the bitter dregs in the cup embraced by her hands, sometime during the course of Buruk’s pronouncements. Eyes tracking the battered rim, then out to the fingers and thumbs, swathed in stained, scarred leather. Flattened pads polished and dark, seams fraying, the knuckles stretched and gnarled. Somewhere within was skin, flesh, muscle, tendon and callus. And bone. Hands were such extraordinary tools, she mused. Tools, weapons, clumsy and deft, numb and tactile. Among tribal hunters, they could speak, a flurry of gestures eloquent in silence. But they could not taste. Could not hear. Could not weep. For all that, they killed so easily.

While from the mouth sounds issued forth, recognizably shaped into meanings of passion, of beauty, of blinding clarity. Or muddied or quietly cutting, murderous and evil. Sometimes all at once. Language was war, vaster than any host of swords, spears and sorcery. The self waging battle against everyone else. Borders enacted, defended, sallies and breaches, fields of corpses rotting like tumbled fruit. Words ever seeking allies, ever seeking iconic verisimilitude in the heaving press.

And, she realized, she was tired. Tired of it all. Peace reigned in silence, inside and out, in isolation and exhaustion.

‘Why do you say nothing, Acquitor?’

He sat alone, unspeaking, a cloak of bear fur draped over his hunched shoulders, sword held point-down between his gold-clad feet, the long banded blade and broad bell-hilt in front of him. Somehow, he had managed to open his eyes, and the glitter was visible within the hooded shadows beneath his brow, framed in waxed braids. His breath came in a low rasp, the only sound in the massive chamber in the wake of the long, stilted exchange between Tomad Sengar and Hannan Mosag.

The last words had fallen away, leaving a sense of profound helplessness. None among the hundreds of Edur present moved or spoke.

Tomad could say no more on behalf of his son. Some subtle force had stolen his authority, and it came, Trull realized with dread, from the seated figure of black fur and glittering gold, from the eyes shining out from their dark holes. From the motionless sword.

Standing in the centre dais, the Warlock King’s hard eyes had slowly shifted from Tomad to Rhulad, and they held there now, calculating and cold.

The sword needed to be surrendered. Hannan Mosag had sent them to retrieve it, and that task could not be called complete until Rhulad placed it in the hands of the Warlock King. Until that happened, Fear, Binadas, Trull, Theradas and Midik Buhn all stood in dishonour.

It fell now, finally, to Rhulad. To make the gesture, to heal this ragged wound.

Yet he made no move.

Trull was not even sure his brother was capable of speaking, given the terrible weight encasing his chest. Breathing sounded difficult, excruciatingly laboured. It was extraordinary that Rhulad was able to keep his arms up, the hands on the grip of the sword. From a lithe, supple youth, he had become something hulking, bestial.

The air in the hall was humid and rank. The smell of fear and barely restrained panic swirled amidst the smoke from the torches and the hearth. The rain outside was unceasing, the wind creaking the thick planks of the walls.

The rasping breath caught, then a thin, broken voice spoke. ‘The sword is mine.’

A glitter of fear from Hannan Mosag’s eyes. ‘This must not be, Rhulad Sengar.’

‘Mine. He gave it to me. He said I was the one, not you. Because you were weak.’

The Warlock King recoiled as if he had been struck in the face.

Who? Trull shot the question with a sharp glance at Fear. Their eyes met, and Fear shook his head.

Their father was facing Rhulad now. Emotions worked across his face for a moment and it seemed he was ageing centuries before their very eyes. Then he asked, ‘Who gave you this sword, Rhulad?’

Something like a smile. ‘The one who rules us now, Father. The one Hannan Mosag made pact with. No, not one of our lost ancestors. A new… ally.’

‘This is not for you to speak of,’ the Warlock King said, his voice trembling with rage. ‘The pact was-’

‘Was something you intended to betray, Hannan Mosag,’ Rhulad cut in savagely, leaning forward to glare past his hands where they were folded about the sword’s grip. ‘But that is not the Edur way, is it? You, who would lead us, cannot be trusted. The time has come, Warlock King, for a change.’

Trull watched as Rhulad surged to his feet. And stood, balanced and assured, back straight and head held high. The bear cloak was swept back, revealing the rippling coins. The gold mask of Rhulad’s face twisted. ‘The sword is mine, Hannan Mosag! I am equal to it. You are not. Speak, then, if you would reveal to all here the secret of this weapon. Reveal the most ancient of lies! Speak, Warlock King!’

‘I shall not.’

A rustling step forward. ‘Then… kneel.’

‘Rhulad!’

‘Silence, Father! Kneel before me, Hannan Mosag, and pledge your brotherhood. Think not I will simply cast you aside, for I have need of you. We all have need of you. And your K’risnan.’

‘Need?’ Hannan Mosag’s face was ravaged, as if gripped by a physical pain.

Rhulad swung about, glittering eyes fixing on his three brothers, one by one. ‘Come forward, brothers, and pledge your service to me. I am the future of the Edur. Theradas Buhn. Midik Buhn. Come forward and call me your brother. Bind yourselves to me. Power awaits us all, power you cannot yet imagine. Come. I am Rhulad, youngest son of Tomad Sengar. Blooded in battle, and I have known death!’

Abruptly, he turned about, sword-point scraping along the floor. ‘Death,’ he muttered, as if to himself. ‘Faith is an illusion. The world is not as it seems. We are fools, all of us. Such… stupidity.’ In the same low tone he continued, ‘Kneel before me, Hannan Mosag. It is not so much to surrender, is it? We shall know power. We shall be as we once were, as we were meant to be. Kneel, Warlock King, and receive my blessing.’

The head lifted once more, a flash of gold in the gloom. ‘Binadas. You know pain, a wound resisting mending. Come forward, and I will release you from that pain. I will heal the damage.’

Binadas frowned. ‘You know nothing of sorcery, Rhulad-’

‘Come here!’ The shriek echoed in the vast chamber.

Binadas flinched, then limped closer.

Rhulad’s golden hand snapped out, fingers slashing across his brother’s chest. The faintest of touches, and Binadas reeled back. Fear rushed close to hold him upright. Eyes wide, Binadas righted himself. He said nothing, but it was clear as he straightened that the pain in his hip was gone. Tremors shook him.

‘Thus,’ Rhulad said in a whisper. ‘Come, my brothers. It is time.’

Trull cleared his throat. He had to speak. He had to ask his questions, to say what no-one else would say. ‘We saw you dead.’

‘And I have returned.’

‘By the power of the sword you hold, Rhulad? Why would this ally give the Edur such a thing? What does that ally hope to gain? Brother, the tribes have been unified. We have won our peace-’

‘You are the weakest of us, Trull. Your words betray you. We are Tiste Edur. Have you forgotten what that means? I think you have.’ He looked round. ‘I think you all have. Six pathetic tribes, six pathetic kings. Hannan Mosag knew a greater ambition. Sufficient to conquer. He was necessary, but he cannot achieve what must come now.’

Trull could hear the brother he knew in Rhulad’s words, but something new was threaded through them. Strange, poisonous roots – was this the voice of power?

Dull clicking of coin edges, as Rhulad faced the silent crowd beyond the inner circle. ‘The Edur have lost sight of their destiny. The Warlock King would twist you away from what must be. My brothers and sisters – all of you here are that to me, and more. I shall be your voice. Your will. The Tiste Edur have journeyed beyond kings and warlock kings. What awaits us is what we once possessed, yet lost long ago. Of what am I speaking, brothers and sisters? I shall give answer. Empire.’

Trull stared at Rhulad. Empire. And for every empire… there is an emperor.

Kneel, Rhulad had commanded. Of Hannan Mosag. Of everyone here. Tiste Edur do not kneel before mere kings…

Fear spoke, ‘You would be emperor, Rhulad?’

His brother swung to face him and spread his arms in a deprecating gesture. ‘Do I make you want to turn away in horror, Fear? In revulsion? Oh, but did not that slave fashion well? Am I not a thing of beauty?’

There was an edge of hysteria in the tone.

Fear made no reply.

Rhulad smiled and continued, ‘I should tell you, the weight no longer drags at me. I feel… unburdened. Yes, my brother, I find myself pleased. Oh, does that shock you? Why? Can you not see my wealth? My armour? Am I not a bold vision of an Edur warrior?’

‘I am not sure,’ Fear replied, ‘what I am seeing. Is it truly Rhulad who dwells within that body?’

‘Die, Fear, and claw your way back. Then ask yourself if the journey has not changed you.’

‘Did you find yourself among our ancestors?’ Fear asked.

Rhulad’s answering laugh was brutal. He swung the sword into the air, twisting the blade into a wild salute, revealing a grace with the weapon that Trull had never before seen in his brother. ‘Our ancestors! Proud ghosts. They stood in ranks ten thousand deep! Roaring their welcome! Blooded kin was I, worthy to join them in their stalwart defence of precious memories. Against that vast host of ignorance. Oh yes, Fear, it was a time of such glory.’

‘Then, by your tone, Rhulad, you would challenge all that we hold dear. You would deny our beliefs-’

‘And who among you can gainsay me?’

‘The shadow wraiths-’

‘Are Tiste Andii, brother. Slaves to our will. And I will tell you this: those who serve us died by our hands.’

‘Then where are our ancestors?’

‘Where?’ Rhulad’s voice was a rasp. ‘Where? Nowhere, brother. They are nowhere. Our souls flee our bodies, flee this world, for we do not belong here. We have never belonged here.’

‘And shall you lead us home, then, Rhulad?’

The eyes flashed. ‘Wise brother. I knew you would find the path first.’

‘Why do you demand that we kneel?’

The head tilted to one side. ‘I would you pledge yourself to our new destiny. A destiny into which I will lead the Tiste Edur.’

‘You would take us home.’

‘I would.’

Fear stepped forward, then sank to one knee, head bowing. ‘Lead us home, Emperor.’

In Trull’s mind, he heard a sound.

Like a spine breaking.

And he turned, as did so many others, to face Hannan Mosag and his cadre of sorcerors, to witness the Warlock King descending from the dais. To watch him kneel before Rhulad, before the emperor of the Tiste Edur.

Like a spine breaking.

The water tugging at his shins, swirling around numbed flesh, Udinaas struggled to stand. The waves rocked him, made him totter. Out on the bay, ships. Four in all, pushing through the mist, their dark hulks crouching on the grey water like migratory leviathans, sweeps crabbing the swells. He could hear the chorus of dull creaks and the slap of wooden blades in the water. Hooded, cloaked figures small on the distant decks. The delegation had arrived.

He felt as if he was standing on pegs of ice, the jagged points driven up through his knees. He did not think he was able to walk. In fact, he was moments from falling over, down into the foaming water. So easy, pulled out by the undertow, the cold flooding his lungs, washing black through his mind. Until, in perfect accord with the acceptance of surrender, it was over.

Claws stabbed into his shoulders and lifted him thrashing from the waves. Talons punching through the rain cloak, biting into flesh. Too stunned to scream, he felt himself whipped through the air, legs scissoring in a spray of water.

Flung down onto a bed of wet stones fifteen paces up from the tideline.

Whatever had dragged him was gone, although fire burned in his chest and back where the talons had been. Floundering in a strange helplessness, Udinaas eventually pulled himself round so that he lay on his back, staring up at the colourless clouds, the rain on his face.

Locqui Wyval. Didn’t want me dead, I suppose.

He lifted an arm and felt the fabric of the rain cloak. No punctures. Good. He’d have trouble explaining had it been otherwise.

Feeling was returning to his lower legs. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees. Wet, shivering. There could be no answer for Rhulad, it was as simple as that. The Warlock King would have to kill him. Assuming that works.

Kill him, or surrender. And what could make Hannan Mosag surrender? To a barely blooded whelp? No, chop off his hands, sever his head and crush it flat. Burn the rest into dusty ashes. Destroy the monstrosity, for Rhulad Sengar was truly a monster.

Footsteps on the stones behind him. Udinaas sat back on his haunches, blinking rain from his eyes. He looked up as Hulad stepped into view.

‘Udinaas, what are you doing here?’

‘Did she cast the tiles, Hulad? Did she?’

‘She tried.’

‘Tried?’

‘It failed, Udinaas. The Holds were closed; she was blind to them. She was frightened. I’ve never seen her so frightened.’

‘What else has happened?’

‘I don’t know. The Edur are still in the citadel.’

‘They can’t all be there.’

‘No, only the nobility. The others are in their homes. They have banished their slaves for now. Most of them had nowhere to go. They’re just huddled in the forest. Soaked through. There seems no end in sight.’ He reached down and helped Udinaas to stand. ‘Let’s go to the longhouse. Get dry and warm.’

He let Hulad guide him back to the Sengar longhouse. ‘Did you see the ships, Hulad?’ he asked as they walked. ‘Did you see them?’

‘Yes. They’re lowering boats, but no welcome seems forthcoming.’

‘I wonder what they’ll think of that?’

Hulad did not reply.

They entered. Sudden warmth, the crackle of flames the only sound. Hulad helped him remove the rain cloak. As he did so, he gasped and pulled at Udinaas’s shirt.

‘Where did you get those?’

Udinaas frowned down at the almost-black bruises where the Wyval’s talons had been. ‘I don’t know.’

‘They remind me of Feather Witch’s wounds, from that demon. Just the same. Udinaas, what is happening to you?’

‘Nothing. I’m going to sleep.’

Hulad said nothing more as Udinaas walked down the length of the main chamber towards his sleeping pallet.

Fighting the outflow, the three scows edged closer to the bank on the south side of the river. Each craft held about a dozen Letherii, most of them bodyguards in full armour, the visors closed on their helms.

Four steps behind Buruk the Pale, Seren followed the merchant down to the strand. It seemed they would be the sole welcoming committee, at least to begin with. ‘What do you intend to tell them?’ she asked.

Buruk glanced back at her, rain dripping from the rim of his hood. ‘I was hoping you would say something.’

She did not believe him, but appreciated the effort. ‘I’m not even certain of the protocol. Nifadas is leading the delegation, but the prince is here as well. Who do I acknowledge first?’

Buruk shrugged. ‘The one most likely to be offended if you bow to other one first.’

‘Assuming,’ she replied, ‘I do not intend a calculated insult.’

‘Well, there is that. Mind you, Acquitor, you are supposed to be neutral.’

‘Perhaps I should direct my bow to a space directly between them.’

‘Whereupon they will both conclude that you have lost your mind.’

‘Which is at least even-handed.’

‘Ah, humour. That is much better, Acquitor. Despair gives way to anticipation.’

They reached the strand and stood side by side, watching the scows approach. The rain elected that moment to fall harder, a growing downpour prattling on the stones and hissing on the current- and tide-twisted water. The scows blurred behind a grey wall, almost vanished entirely, then reappeared suddenly, the first one crunching and lurching as it grounded. Sweeps rose and then descended as the crew stored them. Guards splashed down and clambered onto the strand. One made his way to Buruk and Seren. His expression below the visor and nose-bar was grim.

‘I am Finadd Moroch Nevath, of the Prince’s Guard. Where are the Edur?’

Moroch seemed to be facing Seren, so she spoke in reply, ‘In the citadel, Finadd. There has been an… event.’

‘What in the Errant’s name does that mean?’

Behind the Finadd and his guards, Prince Quillas Diskanar was being carried by servants over the waves. The First Eunuch Nifadas had eschewed any such assistance and was wading onto the strand.

‘It’s rather complicated,’ Seren said. ‘Buruk’s guest camp is just on the other side of the bridge. We can get under cover from the rain-’

‘Never mind the rain,’ Moroch snapped. Then he swung about and saluted as Quillas Diskanar, sheltered beneath a four-point umbrella held aloft by two servants, strode to halt before Buruk and Seren. ‘My prince,’ the Finadd said in a growl, ‘it would appear the Tiste Edur have chosen this moment to be preoccupied.’

‘Hardly an auspicious beginning,’ Quillas snapped, turning a sneer on Seren Pedac. ‘Acquitor. Has Hull Beddict elected the wise course and departed this village?’

She blinked, struggling to disguise her alarm at the pre-eminence the question of Hull had assumed. Do they fear him that much? ‘He is nearby, my prince.’

‘I intend to forbid his attendance, Acquitor.’

‘I believe an invitation has been extended to him,’ she said slowly, ‘by the Warlock King.’

‘Oh? And will Hull speak for the Edur now?’

Buruk spoke for the first time, ‘My prince, that is a question we would all like answered.’

Quillas shifted his attention. ‘You are the merchant from Trate.’

‘Buruk the Pale.’ With a deep bow from which Buruk had difficulty recovering.

‘A drunk merchant at that.’

Seren cleared her throat. ‘Your arrival was sudden, my prince. The Edur have been sequestered in the citadel for a day and a half. We’ve had little to do but wait.’

The First Eunuch was standing a pace back, seemingly uninterested in the conversation, his small, glittering eyes fixed on the citadel. He appeared equally indifferent to the rain pummelling his hood and cape-clad shoulders. It occurred to Seren that here was a different kind of power, and in silence the weight was being stolen from Prince Quillas Diskanar.

Proof of that was sudden, as the prince swung round to Nifadas and said, ‘What do you make of all this, then, First Eunuch?’

Expressionless eyes settled on Quillas. ‘My prince, we have arrived at a moment of crisis. The Acquitor and the merchant know something of it, and so we must needs await their explanation.’

‘Indeed,’ Quillas said. ‘Acquitor, inform us of this crisis.’

Whilst you stand beneath that umbrella and we get soaked and chilled to the bone. ‘Of course, my prince. The Warlock King despatched a party of warriors into the ice wastes to retrieve what turned out to be a sword. They were, however, set upon by Jheck Soletaken. One of the warriors, who was wielding that sword, was slain. The others brought his body back for burial, but the corpse would not release its grip upon the sword. The Warlock King was greatly animated by this detail, and made his demand for the weapon plain and unequivocal. There was a public clash between him and the dead warrior’s father.’

‘Why not just cut off the body’s fingers?’ Quillas Diskanar demanded, his brows lifted in contemptuous disbelief.

‘Because,’ Nifadas replied, laconic and overly patient, ‘there is traditional sanctity accorded a fallen warrior among the Edur. Please, Acquitor, go on. It is hard to believe this impasse is yet to be resolved.’

She nodded. ‘It was but the beginning, and indeed it became something of a moot point. For the corpse returned to life.’

Quillas snorted. ‘What manner of jest is this, woman?’

‘No jest,’ Buruk the Pale answered. ‘My prince, we saw him with our own eyes. He was alive. The truth was announced by his screams, such terrible screams, for he had been dressed-’

‘Dressed?’ the prince asked, looking around.

The First Eunuch’s eyes had widened. ‘How far along, Merchant Buruk?’

‘The coins, First Eunuch. And the wax.’

‘Errant defend,’ Nifadas whispered. ‘And this sword – he will not yield it?’

Seren shook her head. ‘We don’t know, First Eunuch.’

‘Describe the weapon, if you would, Acquitor.’

‘Two-handed grip, but a thin blade. Some kind of alloy, yet reluctant to fuse. There is iron, and some sort of black metal that appears in elongated shards.’

‘Origin? Can you discern anything from the style?’

‘Not much, First Eunuch. The bell-hilt bears some resemblance to the drawn twist technique used by the Meckros-’

‘The Meckros?’ Quillas asked. ‘Those traders from the floating cities?’

‘Yes, although the pattern on that bell-hilt has been shaped to resemble links of chain.’

Buruk faced her with a wry expression, ‘You’ve sharp eyes, Acquitor. All I saw was a sword.’

‘I suggest,’ Nifadas said, ‘we retire to the merchant’s camp.’

Quillas hissed, ‘You will swallow this insult, First Eunuch?’

‘There is no insult,’ Nifadas replied easily, striding past the prince to hook arms with a surprised Seren Pedac. ‘Escort me, please, Acquitor.’

‘Of course, First Eunuch.’

The others had no choice but to trail after them.

Nifadas walked quickly. After a dozen or so paces, he asked in a quiet, conversational tone, ‘Was Hull Beddict witness to all this?’

‘No. At least I don’t think so. He’s been gone for some time.’

‘But he will return.’

‘Yes.’

‘I have left the majority of my guard aboard the Risen Pale, including Finadd Gerun Eberict.’

‘Gerun – oh.’

‘Indeed. Would it be, do you think, propitious that I send for him?’

‘I – I am not sure, First Eunuch. It depends, I imagine, on what you would have him do.’

‘Perhaps a word or two with Hull, upon his return?’

‘Is the Finadd a persuasive man?’

‘Not by way of personality, no…’

She nodded, struggled to repress a shiver – unsuccessfully, it turned out.

‘Chilled, Acquitor?’

‘The rain.’

‘Of course. I trust Buruk’s servants are feeding a fire of some sort?’

‘Rather too eagerly.’

‘Well, I doubt if anyone will complain. You and Buruk have waited here some time, I take it.’

‘Yes. Some time. There was an audience with the Warlock King, but in keeping with my role I departed before anything of substance was discussed. And as to what was said, neither Hull nor Buruk has revealed anything.’

‘Hull was there for that, was he?’ He swung a faint smile on her. ‘Nothing of substance was revealed to you, Acquitor? I admit to having trouble quite believing that assertion.’

Seren Pedac hesitated.

‘Acquitor,’ Nifadas said in a low voice, ‘the privilege of neutrality no longer exists in this matter. Make your choice.’

‘It is not that, First Eunuch,’ she said, knowing her claim was untrue. ‘I have a fear that whatever position the Warlock King may have chosen back then is no longer relevant.’ She glanced over at him. ‘I do not think Rhulad will relinquish that sword.’

‘Rhulad. What can you tell me of this Rhulad?’

‘Youngest son of a noble family, the Sengar.’

‘The Sengar? Eldest son is Fear, yes? Commander of the Edur warriors. Prestigious blood, then.’

‘Yes. Another brother is Binadas, who is blood-sworn with Hull Beddict.’

‘Interesting. I begin to grasp the complexity awaiting us, Acquitor.’

And so, it seems, do I. For I appear to have made my choice.

As if Nifadas gave me any other option, as I walk here arm in arm with the First Eunuch…

‘Wake up, Udinaas.’

Lids slid back from stinging, burning eyes. Udinaas stared up at the angled wall above him. ‘No. I need to sleep-’

‘Not so loud. What you need, fool, is to walk to the citadel.’

‘Why? They’ll cut my throat for intruding-’

‘No, they won’t. Rhulad won’t let them, for you are his slave now, and no-one else’s. They must be informed. The Letherii delegation awaits.’

‘Leave me be, Wither.’

‘The Tiste Edur emperor wants you. Now.’

‘Right. And does he know it?’

‘Not yet.’

‘As I thought.’ He closed his eyes once more. ‘Go away, wraith.’

‘The Wyval and I are in agreement in this, Udinaas. You must step to the forefront. You must make yourself invaluable to Rhulad. Tell me, do you want Feather Witch for your own or not?’

Udinaas blinked, then sat up. ‘What?’

‘Go now, and you will see.’

‘Not until you explain that, Wither.’

‘I shall not, slave. Go to the citadel. Serve the Edur emperor.’

Udinaas pulled aside his blankets and reached for his sodden moccasins. ‘Why don’t you all leave me alone.’

‘She raped you, Udinaas. She took your seed. Why did she do that?’

He went still, one moccasin on, the other cold in his hands. ‘Menandore.’

‘The bitch has designs, she does. No love for Edur or Andii, no, not her.’

‘What has that to do with anything?’

The wraith made no reply.

Udinaas rubbed at his face, then pulled on the second moccasin and tugged at the soaked leather ties. ‘I am a slave, Wither. Slaves are not given slaves, and that is the only way I could win Feather Witch. Unless you plan on invading her mind and twisting her will. In which case, it won’t be Feather Witch, will it?’

‘You accord me powers I do not possess.’

‘Only to emphasize the absurdity of your promises, Wither. Now, be quiet. I’m going.’ He rose and stumbled from the cell. Hulad was crouched by the hearth, heating soup or stew.

‘You were talking to yourself, Udinaas. You shouldn’t do that.’

‘That’s what I keep telling myself,’ he replied, making his way to the doors, collecting a rain cape on the way.

Outside, the rain was a deluge. He could barely make out the anchored ships in the bay. There were figures on the strand. Soldiers.

He pulled up the hood then headed for the citadel that had once belonged to the Warlock King.

Serve the Edur emperor. And where will you take your people, Rhulad Sengar?

The shadow wraiths guarding the entrance made no move to oppose the Letherii slave as he ascended the steps. Both hands on the doors, pushing them aside, striding in on a gust of pelting rain. Come, you damned Edur. Slide a blade across my throat. Through my chest. There were no guards within the reception chamber, and the curtain beyond was drawn closed.

He shook the rain from his cape, then continued forward.

To the curtains. He pulled them aside.

To see the Edur kneeling. All of them, kneeling before the glimmering form of Rhulad Sengar, who stood on the dais, the sword raised in one hand above his head. Bear fur on his shoulders, face a rippling mask of gold surrounding the deep holes of his eye sockets.

Not blind, then. Nor crippled. And if this was madness, then it was a poison riding the chamber’s thick currents.

Udinaas felt the emperor’s eyes fix on him, as palpable as talons digging into his mind. ‘Approach, slave,’ he said, his voice ragged.

Heads lifted and turned as Udinaas threaded through the crowd, making his way down the tiers. The Letherii did not glance at any faces, his gaze focused solely on Rhulad Sengar. In his peripheral vision he saw Hannan Mosag, kneeling with head bowed, and behind him his K’risnan in identical positions of subservience.

‘Speak, Udinaas.’

‘The delegation has arrived, Emperor.’

‘We are bound, are we not, Udinaas? Slave and master. You heard my summons.’

‘I did, master.’ Lies, he realized, were getting easier.

‘The delegation waits in the merchant’s camp. Bring them to us, Udinaas.’

‘As you command.’ He bowed, then began the laborious effort of backing out.

‘There is no need for that, Udinaas. I am not offended by a man’s back. Go, and tell them that the ruler of the Edur will greet them now.’

Udinaas swung about and made his way from the chamber.

Beneath the rain once more, across the bridge. Solitude might invite thought, but Udinaas refused the invitation. The fog of the world beyond was mirrored in his own mind. He was a slave. Slaves did what was commanded of them.

Woodsmoke drifting out from under a broad canopy near the trader wagons. Figures standing beneath it. Acquitor Seren Pedac turned and saw him first. Yes. There is more in her than she realizes. The ghosts like her, hovering like moths around a candle flame. She doesn’t even see them. He watched her say something, then the others swung to face him.

Udinaas halted just outside the tarp, keeping his gaze averted. ‘The ruler of the Edur bids you come to the citadel.’

A soldier growled, then said, ‘You stand before your prince, Letherii. Drop to your knees or I’ll cut your head from your shoulders.’

‘Then draw your sword,’ Udinaas replied. ‘My master is Tiste Edur.’

‘He is nothing,’ said the young, expensively dressed man at the soldier’s side. A flutter of one hand. ‘We are invited, finally. First Eunuch, will you lead us?’

The large, heavy man with a face as sombre as his clothes stepped out to stand beside Udinaas. ‘Acquitor, please accompany us.’

Seren Pedac nodded, drawing her cloak’s hood over her head and joining the First Eunuch.

Udinaas led them back across the bridge. A wind had begun whipping the rain in biting sheets that ripped across their path. Among the longhouses of the nobility, then towards the steps.

Shadow wraiths swirled before the door.

Udinaas faced Quillas Diskanar. ‘Prince, your bodyguards are not welcome.’

The young man scowled. ‘Wait here with your men, Finadd.’

Moroch Nevath grunted, then directed his guards to fan out to either side of the citadel’s entrance.

The wraiths edged back to provide a corridor to the double doors.

Udinaas strode forward and pushed them open, moved inside then turned about. A step behind him were Nifadas and the Acquitor, the prince, his expression dark, trailing.

The First Eunuch frowned at the curtain at the far end. ‘The throne room is filled with Edur nobles? Then why do I hear nothing?’

‘They await your arrival,’ Udinaas said. ‘The ruler of the Tiste Edur stands on the centre dais. His appearance will startle you-’

‘Slave,’ Quillas said, making the word contemptuous, ‘we are not anticipating that the negotiations will commence immediately. We are but to be proclaimed guests-’

‘I am not the one to guarantee that,’ Udinaas cut in, unperturbed. ‘I would advise that you be ready for anything.’

‘But this is absurd-’

‘Let us be about it, then,’ the First Eunuch said.

The prince was not used to these constant interruptions, his face flushing.

Acquitor Seren Pedac spoke. ‘Udinaas, by your words I conclude that Hannan Mosag has been usurped.’

‘Yes.’

‘And Rhulad Sengar has proclaimed himself the new king of the Tiste Edur.’

‘No, Acquitor. Emperor.’

There was silence for a half-dozen heartbeats, then the prince snorted in disbelief. ‘What empire? Six tribes of seal-hunters? This fool has gone mad.’

‘It is one thing,’ Nifadas said slowly, ‘to proclaim oneself an emperor. It is another to force the Edur nobility to bend knee to such a claim. Udinaas, have they done so?’

‘They have, First Eunuch.’

‘That is… astonishing.’

‘Hannan Mosag?’ Seren asked.

‘He too has knelt and pledged allegiance, Acquitor.’

Once again no-one spoke for a time.

Then the First Eunuch nodded to Udinaas and said, ‘Thank you. I am ready to meet the emperor now.’

Udinaas nodded and approached the curtain. Pulling it aside, he stepped through into the chamber beyond. The nobles had moved to form an avenue leading down to the centre dais. Everyone was standing. On the dais, Rhulad Sengar leaned on his sword. His motions had dislodged a few coins, leaving mottled patches of burnt skin. Humidity, heat and oil lamps made the air mist-laden and lurid. Udinaas sought to look upon the scene as if he was a stranger, and was shocked at its raw barbarity. These are a fallen people.

Who would rise anew.

The First Eunuch and the Acquitor appeared on the threshold, and Nifadas moved to his left to give space for Prince Quillas Diskanar.

Udinaas raised his voice, ‘Emperor. First Eunuch Nifadas and Prince Quillas Diskanar. The Letherii treaty delegation.’

‘Come forward,’ came the rasping invitation from the emperor. ‘I am Rhulad Sengar, and I proclaim you guests of the Tiste Edur Empire.’

Nifadas bowed his head. ‘We thank your highness for his welcome.’

‘It is the desire of the Letherii king to establish a formal treaty with us,’ Rhulad said, then shrugged. ‘I was under the impression we already had one. And, while we honour it, your people do not. Thus, what value a new agreement?’

As the First Eunuch was about to speak, Quillas stepped forward. ‘You confiscated a harvest of tusked seals. So be it. Such things cannot be reversed, can they? None the less, there is the matter of debt.’

Udinaas smiled, not needing to look up to see the shocked expressions from the gathered nobility.

‘Hannan Mosag,’ Rhulad said after a moment, ‘will speak for the Edur in this matter.’

Udinaas glanced up to see the once-Warlock King stepping forward to stand in front of the dais. He was without expression. ‘Prince, you will need to explain how you Letherii have arrived at the notion of debt. The harvest was illegal – do you deny it?’

‘We do not – no, Nifadas, I am speaking. As I was saying to you, Hannan Mosag, we do not dispute the illegality of the harvest. But its illegality does not in turn refute the reality that it took place. And that harvest, conducted by Letherii, is now in Edur hands. The present treaty, you may recall, has an agreed market value for tusked seals, and it is this price we expect to be honoured.’

‘Extraordinary logic, Prince,’ Hannan Mosag said, his voice a smooth rumble.

‘We are, fortunately,’ Quillas continued, ‘prepared for a compromise.’

‘Indeed?’

Udinaas wondered why Nifadas was remaining silent. His lack of interruption could only be interpreted as tacit allegiance to the prince and the position he was advocating.

‘A compromise, yes. The debt shall be forgiven, in exchange for land. Specifically, the remainder of Trate Reach, which, as we both know, serves only as seasonal fishing camps for your people. Such camps would not be prohibited, of course. They shall remain available to you, for a modest percentage of your catch.’

‘As it now stands, then,’ Hannan Mosag said, ‘we begin this treaty in your debt.’

‘Yes.’

‘Based upon the presumption that we possess the stolen harvest.’

‘Well, of course-’

‘But we do not possess it, Prince Quillas Diskanar.’

‘What? But you must!’

‘You are welcome to visit our store houses for yourself,’ Hannan Mosag went on reasonably. ‘We punished the harvesters, as was our right. But we did not retrieve the harvest.’

‘The ships arrived in Trate with their holds empty!’

‘Perhaps, in fleeing our wrath, they discharged their burden, so as to quicken their pace. Without success, as it turned out.’ As the prince simply stared, Hannan Mosag went on, ‘Thus, we are not in your debt. You, however, are in ours. To the market value of the harvested tusked seals. We are undecided, at the moment, on the nature of recompense we will demand of you. After all, we have no need of coin.’

‘We have brought gifts!’ Quillas shouted.

‘For which you will then charge us, with interest. We are familiar with your pattern of cultural conquest among neighbouring tribes, Prince. That the situation is now reversed earns our sympathy, but as you are wont to say, business is business.’

Nifadas finally spoke. ‘It seems we have much to consider, the two of us, Emperor. Alas, our journey has been long and wearying. Perhaps you could permit us to retire for a time, to reconvene this meeting on the morrow?’

‘Excellent idea,’ Rhulad said, the coins on his face twisting as he smiled. ‘Udinaas, escort the delegation to the guest longhouse. Then return here. A long night awaits us.’

The prince stood like a puppet with its strings cut. The faces of the Acquitor and the First Eunuch, however, remained composed.

Even so, it seems we are all puppets here…

Trull Sengar watched the slave lead the Acquitor and the delegation out of the chamber. The world had not crumbled, it had shattered, and before his eyes he saw the jagged pieces, a chamber fissured and latticed, a thousand shards bearing countless reflected images. Edur faces, broken crowds, the smear of smoke. Disjointed motion, a fevered murmur of sound, the liquid glint of gold and a sword as patched and fragmented as everything else in sight.

Like a crazed mosaic, slowly being reassembled by a madman’s hand. He did not know where he belonged, where he fit. Brother to an emperor. It is Rhulad, yet it is not. I don’t know him. And I know him all too well and, Daughter take me, I am frightened most by that.

Hannan Mosag had been speaking quietly with Rhulad, conveying an ease with his new role that Trull knew was intended to calm the witnesses gathered here. Trull wondered what it was costing the Warlock King.

A nod and a wave of the hand dismissed Hannan Mosag, who retreated to stand near his K’risnan. At Rhulad’s instructions a large chair was carried to the dais, and the emperor sat, revealing to Trull’s knowing gaze his brother’s exhaustion. It would take time to acquire the strength necessary to sustain that vast, terrible weight for any length of time. The emperor settled his head back and looked out upon the nobles. His attention quickly silenced the crowd.

‘I have known death,’ Rhulad said, his voice rough. ‘I have returned, and I am not the same, not the unblooded warrior you saw before we began our journey to the ice wastes. I have returned, to bring to you the memory of our destiny. To lead you.’ He was silent then, as if needing to recover from his short speech. A dozen heartbeats, before he continued, ‘Fear Sengar. Brother, step forward.’

Fear did as commanded, halting on the inner ring in front of the dais.

Rhulad stared down at him, and Trull saw a sudden hunger in those brittle eyes.

‘Second only to Hannan Mosag’s, your loyalty, Fear, is my greatest need.’

Fear looked rattled, as if such a matter did not need to be questioned.

The slave Udinaas returned then, but held back, his red-rimmed eyes scanning the scene. And Trull wondered at the sudden narrowing of that Letherii’s gaze.

‘What, Emperor,’ Fear said, ‘do you ask of me?’

‘A gift, brother.’

‘All I have is yours-’

‘Are you true to that claim, Fear?’ Rhulad demanded, leaning forward.

‘I would not make it otherwise.’

Oh. No, Rhulad – no-

‘The emperor,’ Rhulad said, settling back, ‘requires an empress.’

Comprehension cast a pall on Fear’s face.

‘A wife. Fear Sengar, will you gift me a wife?’

You grotesque bastard – Trull stepped forward.

Rhulad’s hand snapped out to stay him. ‘Be careful, Trull. This is not your concern.’ He bared stained teeth. ‘It never was.’

‘Must you break those who would follow you?’ Trull asked.

‘Another word!’ Rhulad shrieked. ‘One more word, Trull, and I will have you flayed alive!’

Trull recoiled at the vehemence, stunned into silence.

A coin clattered onto the dais as Rhulad lifted a hand to his face and clawed at some extremity of emotion, then he snatched his hand away and held it before him, watching it curl into a fist. ‘Kill me. That is all you need do. For your proof. Yes, kill me. Again.’ The glittering eyes fixed on Trull. ‘You knew I was alone, guarding the rear slope. You knew it, Trull, and left me to my fate.’

‘What? I knew no such thing, Rhulad-’

‘No more lies, brother. Fear, gift me your betrothed. Give me Mayen. Would you stand between her and the title of empress? Tell me, are you that selfish?’

As ugly as driving knives into Fear, one after another. As rendering his flesh into ruin. This, Trull realized, this was Rhulad. The child and his brutal hungers, his vicious appetites. Tell us, are you that selfish?

‘She is yours, Emperor.’

Words bled of all life, words that were themselves a gift to one who had known death. Though Rhulad lacked the subtle mind to comprehend that.

Instead, his face twisted beneath the coins into a broad smile, filled with glee and triumph. His eyes lifted to a place in the crowd where the unwedded maidens stood. ‘Mayen,’ he called. ‘It is done. Come forward. Join your emperor.’

Tall, regal, the young woman strode forward as if this moment had been rehearsed a thousand times.

But that is not possible.

She walked past Fear without a glance, and came to stand, facing outward, on the left side of the chair. Rhulad’s hand reached out with a gesture of smug familiarity and she clasped it.

That final act struck Fear as would a physical blow to his chest. He took a step back.

‘Thank you, Fear,’ Rhulad said, ‘for your gift. I am assured of your loyalty, and proud to call you my brother. You, Binadas, Midik Buhn, Theradas Buhn, Hannan Mosag… and,’ the gaze shifted, ‘Trull, of course. My closest brothers. We are bound by the blood of our ancestors…’

He continued, but Trull had ceased listening. His eyes were on Mayen’s face. On the horror writ there that she could not disguise. In his mind, Trull cried out to Fear. Look, brother! She did not seek this betrayal! Look!

With an effort he pulled his gaze from Mayen, and saw that Fear had seen. Seen what everyone present could see, everyone but Rhulad.

It saved them all. Salvation to the desperate. She showed them that some truths could not be broken, that even this insane thing on its throne could not crush the visceral honour remaining to the Tiste Edur. And in her face was yet another promise. She would withstand his crimes, because there was no choice. A promise that was also a lesson to everyone present. Withstand. Suffer. Live as you must now live. There will, one day, be answer to this.

Yet Trull wondered. Who could give answer? What waited in the world beyond the borders of their knowledge, sufficiently formidable to challenge this monstrosity? And how long would they have to wait? We were fallen, and the emperor proclaims that we shall rise again. He is insane, for we are not rising. We are falling, and I fear there will be no end to that descent.

Until someone gave answer.

Rhulad had stopped speaking, as if growing aware that something was happening among his followers, something that had nothing to do with him and his newfound power. He rose suddenly from the chair. ‘This gathering is done. Hannan Mosag, you and your K’risnan will remain here with me and the Empress, for we have much to discuss. Udinaas, bring to Mayen her slaves, so that they may attend her needs. The rest, leave me now. Spread the word of the rise of the new empire of the Edur. And, brothers and sisters, see to your weapons…’

Please, someone, give answer to this.

A dozen paces from the citadel a figure emerged from the rain to stand in front of Udinaas.

The Acquitor.

‘What has he done?’

Udinaas studied her for a moment, then shrugged. ‘He stole his brother’s betrothed. We have an empress, and she does poorly at a brave face.’

‘The Edur are usurped,’ Seren Pedac said. ‘And a tyrant sits on the throne.’

Udinaas hesitated, then said, ‘Tell the First Eunuch. You must prepare for war.’

She revealed no surprise at his words; rather, a heavy weariness dulled her eyes. She turned away, walked into the rain and was gone.

I am a bearer of good tidings indeed. And now, it’s Feather Witch’s turn…

Rain rushed down from the sky, blinding and blind, indifferent and mindless, but it held no meaning beyond that. How could it? It was just rain, descending from the sky’s massed legion of grieving clouds. And the crying wind was the breath of natural laws, born high in the mountains or out at sea. Its voice promised nothing.

There was no meaning to be found in lifeless weather, in the pulsing of tides and in the wake of turning seasons.

No meaning to living and dying, either.

The tyrant was clothed in gold, and the future smelled of blood.

It meant nothing.