Reaper's Gale

Chapter One

‘Where is this one from?’

Tanal Yathvanar watched the Invigilator slowly rotating the strange object in his pudgy hands, the onyx stones in the many rings on the short fingers glimmering in the shafts of sunlight that reached in through the opened window. The object Karos Invictad manipulated was a misshapen collection of bronze pins, the ends bent into loops that were twisted about one another to form a stiff cage. ‘Bluerose, I believe, sir,’ Tanal replied. ‘One of Senorbo’s. The average duration for solving it is three days, although the record is just under two-’

‘Who?’ Karos demanded, glancing up from where he sat behind his desk.

‘A Tarthenal half-blood, if you can believe that, sir. Here in Letheras. The man is reputedly a simpleton, yet possesses a natural talent for solving puzzles.’

‘And the challenge is to slide the pins into a con-figuration to create a sudden collapse.’

‘Yes sir. It flattens out. From what I have heard the precise number of manipulations is-’

‘No, Tanal, do not tell me. You should know better.’ The Invigilator, commander of the Patriotists, set the object down. ‘Thank you for the gift. Now,’ a brief smile, ‘have we inconvenienced Bruthen Trana long enough, do you think?’ Karos rose, paused to adjust his crimson silks-the only colour and the only material he ever wore-then collected the short sceptre he had made his official symbol of office, black bloodwood from the Edur homeland with silver caps studded in polished onyx stones, and gestured with it in the direction of the door.

Tanal bowed then led the way out into the corridor, to the broad stairs where they descended to the main floor, then strode through the double doors and out into the compound.

The row of prisoners had been positioned in full sunlight, near the west wall of the enclosure. They had been taken from their cells a bell before dawn and it was now shortly past midday. Lack of water and food, and this morning’s searing heat, combined with brutal sessions of questioning over the past week, had resulted in more than half of the eighteen detainees losing consciousness.

Tanal saw the Invigilator’s frown upon seeing the motionless bodies collapsed in their chains.

The Tiste Edur liaison, Bruthen Trana of the Den-Ratha tribe, was standing in the shade, more or less across from the prisoners, and the tall, silent figure slowly turned as Tanal and Karos approached.

‘Bruthen Trana, most welcome,’ said Karos Invictad. ‘You are well?’

‘Let us proceed, Invigilator,’ the grey-skinned warrior said.

‘At once. If you will accompany me, we can survey each prisoner assembled here. The specific cases-’

‘I have no interest in approaching them any closer than I am now,’ Bruthen said. ‘They are fouled in their own wastes and there is scant breeze in this enclosure.’

Karos smiled. ‘I understand, Bruthen.’ He leaned his sceptre against a shoulder then faced the row of detainees. ‘We need not approach, as you say. I will begin with the one to the far left, then-’

‘Unconscious or dead?’

‘Well, at this distance, who can say?’

Noting the Edur’s scowl, Tanal bowed to Bruthen and Karos and walked the fifteen paces to the line. He crouched to examine the prone figure, then straightened. ‘He lives.’

‘Then awaken him!’ Karos commanded. His voice, when raised, became shrill, enough to make a foolish listener wince-foolish, that is, if the Invigilator was witness to that instinctive reaction. Such careless errors happened but once.

Tanal kicked at the prisoner until the man managed a dry, rasping sob. ‘On your feet, traitor,’ Tanal said in a quiet tone. ‘The Invigilator demands it. Stand, or I will begin breaking bones in that pathetic sack you call a body.’

He watched as the prisoner struggled upright.

‘Water, please-’

‘Not another word from you. Straighten up, face your crimes. You are Letherii, aren’t you? Show our Edur guest the meaning of that.’

Tanal then made his way back to Karos and Bruthen.

The Invigilator had begun speaking. ‘… known associations with dissenting elements in the Physicians’ College-he has admitted as much. Although no specific crimes can be laid at this man’s feet, it is clear that-’

‘The next one,’ Bruthen Trana cut in.

Karos closed his mouth, then smiled without showing his ‘ teeth. ‘Of course. The next is a poet, who wrote and distributed a call for revolution. He denies nothing and indeed, you can see his stoic defiance even from here.’

‘And the one beside him?’

‘The proprietor of an inn, the tavern of which was frequented by undesirable elements-disenchanted soldiers, in fact-and two of them are among these detainees. We were informed of the sedition by an honourable whore-’

‘Honourable whore, Invigilator?’ The Edur half smiled.

Karos blinked. ‘Why, yes, Bruthen Trana.’

‘Because she informed on an innkeeper.’

‘An innkeeper engaged in treason-’

‘Demanding too high a cut of her earnings, more likely. Go on, and please, keep your descriptions of the crimes brief.’

‘Of course,’ Karos Invictad said, the sceptre gently tapping on his soft shoulder, like a baton measuring a slow march.

Tanal, standing at his commander’s side, remained at attention whilst the Invigilator resumed his report of the specific transgressions of these Letherii. The eighteen prisoners were fair representations of the more than three hundred chained in cells below ground. A decent number of arrests for this week, Tanal reflected. And for the most egregious traitors among them waited the Drownings. Of the three hundred and twenty or so, a third were destined to walk the canal bottom, burdened beneath crushing I weights. Bookmakers were complaining these days, since no-one ever survived the ordeal any more. Of course, they did not complain too loudly, since the true agitators among them risked their own Drowning-it had taken but a few of those early on to mute the protestations among the rest.

This was a detail Tanal had come to appreciate, one of Karos Invictad’s perfect laws of compulsion and control, emphasized again and again in the vast treatise the Invigilator was penning on the subject most dear to his heart. Take any segment of population, impose strict;yet clear definitions on their particular characteristics, then target them for compliance. Bribe the weak to expose the strong. Kill the strong, and the rest are yours. Move on to the next segment.

Bookmakers had been easy targets, since few people liked them-especially inveterate gamblers, and of those there were more and more with every day that passed.

Karos Invictad concluded his litany. Bruthen Trana nodded, then turned and left the compound.

As soon as he was gone from sight, the Invigilator faced Tanal. ‘An embarrassment,’ he said. ‘Those unconscious ones.’

‘Yes sir.’

A change of heads on the outer wall.’

At once, sir.’

‘Now, Tanal Yathvanar, before anything else, you must come with me. It will take but a moment, then you can return to the tasks at hand.’

They walked back into the building, the Invigilator’s short steps forcing Tanal to slow up again and again as they made their way to Karos’s office.

The most powerful man next to the Emperor himself look his place once more behind the desk. He picked up the cage of bronze pins, shifted a dozen or so in a flurry of precise moves, and the puzzle collapsed flat. Karos Invictad smiled across at Tanal, then flung the object onto the desk. ‘Despatch a missive to Senorbo in Bluerose. Inform him of the time required for me to find a solution, then add, from me to him, that I fear he is losing his touch.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Karos Invictad reached out for a scroll. ‘Now, what was our agreed percentage on my interest in the Inn of the Belly-up Snake?’

‘I believe Rautos indicated forty-five, sir.’

‘Good. Even so, I believe a meeting is in order with the Master of the Liberty Consign. Later this week will do. For all our takings of late, we still possess a strange paucity in actual coin, and I want to know why.’

‘Sir, you know Rautos Hivanar’s suspicions on that matter.’

‘Vaguely. He will be pleased to learn I am now prepared to listen more closely to said suspicions. Thus, two issues on the agenda. Schedule the meeting for a bell’s duration. Oh, and one last thing, Tanal.’

‘Sir?’

‘Bruthen Trana. These weekly visits. I want to know, is he compelled? Is this some Edur form of royal disaffection or punishment? Or are the bastards truly interested in what we’re up to? Bruthen makes no comment, ever. He does not even ask what punishments follow our judgements. Furthermore, his rude impatience tires me. It may be worth our while to investigate him.’

Tanal’s brows rose. ‘Investigate a Tiste Edur?’

‘Quietly, of course. Granted, they ever give us the appearance of unquestioning loyalty, but I cannot help but wonder if they truly are immune to sedition among their own kind.’

‘Even if they aren’t, sir, respectfully, are the Patriotists the right organization-’

‘The Patriotists, Tanal Yathvanar,’ said Karos sharply, ‘possess the imperial charter to police the empire. In that charter no distinction is made between Edur and Letherii, only between the loyal and the disloyal.’

‘Yes sir.’ ‘

‘Now, I believe you have tasks awaiting you.’

Tanal Yathvanar bowed, then strode from the office. * * *

The estate dominated a shelf of land on the north bank of Lether River, four streets west of Quillas Canal. Stepped walls marking its boundaries made their way down the hank, extending Out into the water-on posts to ease the current’s tug-more than two boat-lengths. Just beyond rose two mooring poles. There had been flooding this season. An infrequent occurrence in the past century, Kautos Hivanar noted as he leafed through the Estate Compendium-a family tome of notes and maps recording the full eight hundred years of Hivanar blood on this land.

He settled back in the plush chair and, with contemplative languor, finished his balat tea.

The house steward and principal agent, Venitt Sathad, quietly stepped forward to return the Compendium to the wood and iron chest sunk in the floor beneath the map table, then replaced the floorboards and unfurled the rug over the spot. His tasks completed, he stepped back to resume his position beside the door.

Rautos Hivanar was a large man, his complexion florid, his features robust. His presence tended to dominate a room, no matter how spacious. He sat in the estate’s library now, the walls shelved to the ceiling. Scrolls, clay tablets and bound books filled every available space, the gathered learning of a thousand scholars, many of whom bore the

H ivanar name.

As head of the family and overseer of its vast financial holdings, Rautos Hivanar was a busy man, and such demands on his intellect had redoubled since the Tiste Edur conquest-which had triggered the official formation and recognition of the Liberty Consign, an association of the wealthiest families in the Lether Empire-in ways he could never have imagined before. He would be hard-pressed to explain how he found all such activities tedious or enervating. Yet that was what they had become, even as his suspicions slowly, incrementally, resolved into certainties; even as he began to perceive that, somewhere out there, there was an enemy-or enemies-bent on the singular task of economic sabotage. Not mere embezzlement, an activity with which he was personally very familiar, but something more profound, all-encompassing. An enemy. To all that sustained Rautos Hivanar, and the Liberty Consign of which he was Master; indeed, to all that sustained the empire itself, regardless of who sat upon the throne, regardless even of those savage, miserable barbarians who were now preening at the very pinnacle of Letherii society, like grey-feathered jackdaws atop a hoard of baubles.

Such comprehension, on Rautos Hivanar’s part, would once have triggered a most zealous response within him. The threat alone should have sufficed to elicit a vigorous hunt, and the notion of an agency of such diabolical purpose-one, he was forced to admit, guided by the most subtle genius-should have enlivened the game until its pursuit acquired the power of obsession.

Instead, Rautos Hivanar found himself seeking notations among the dusty ledgers for evidence of past floodings, pursuing an altogether more mundane mystery that would interest but a handful of muttering academics. And that, he admitted often to himself, was odd. Nonetheless, the compulsion gathered strength, and at night he would lie beside the recumbent, sweat-sheathed mass that was his wife of thirty-three years and find his thoughts working ceaselessly, struggling against the currents of time’s cyclical flow, seeking to clamber his way back, with all his sensibilities, into past ages. Looking. Looking for something…

Sighing, Rautos set down the empty cup, then rose.

As he walked to the door, Venitt Sathad-whose family line had been Indebted to the Hivanars for six generations now-stepped forward to retrieve the fragile Cup, then set off in his master’s wake.

Out onto the waterfront enclosure, across the mosaic portraying the investiture of Skoval Hivanar as Imperial Ceda three centuries past, then down the shallow stone stairs to what, in drier times, was the lower terrace garden.

But the river’s currents had swirled in here, stealing away soil and plants, exposing a most peculiar arrangement of boulders set like a cobbled street, framed in wooden posts arranged in a rectangle, the posts little more than rotted stumps now, rising from the flood’s remnant pools.

At the edge of the upper level, workers, under Rautos’s direction, had used wood bulwarks to keep it from collapsing, and to one side sat a wheelbarrow filled with the multitude of curious objects that had been exposed by the floodwaters. These items had littered the cobbled floor.

In all, Rautos mused, a mystery. There was no record whatsoever of the lower terrace garden’s being anything but what it was, and the notations from the garden’s designer-from shortly after the completion of the estate’s main buildings-indicated the bank at that level was nothing more than ancient flood silts.

The clay had preserved the wood, at least until recently, so there was no telling how long ago the strange construct had been built. The only indication of its antiquity rested with the objects, all of which were either bronze or copper. Not weapons, as one might find associated with a barrow, and if tools, then they were for activities long forgotten, since not a single worker Rautos had brought to this place was able to fathom the function of these items-they resembled no known tools, not for stone working, nor wood, nor the processing of foodstuffs.

Rautos collected one and examined it, for at least the hundredth time. Bronze, clay-cast-the flange was clearly visible-the item was long, roundish, yet bent at almost right angles. Incisions formed a cross-hatched pattern about the elbow. Neither end displayed any means of attachment-not intended, therefore, as part of some larger mechanism. He hefted its considerable weight in his hand. There was something unbalanced about it, despite the centrally placed bend. He set it down and drew out a circular sheet of copper, thinner than the wax layer on a scrier’s tablet. Blackened by contact with the clays, yet only now the edges showing signs of verdigris. Countless holes had been punched through the sheet, in no particular pattern, yet each hole was perfectly uniform, perfectly round, with no lip to indicate from which side it had been punched.

‘Venitt,’ he said, ‘have we a map recording the precise locations of these objects when they were originally found?’

‘Indeed, Master, with but a few exceptions. You examined it a week past.’

‘I did? Very well. Set it out once more on the table in the library, this afternoon.’

Both men turned as the gate watcher appeared from the narrow side passage along the left side of the house. The woman halted ten paces from Rautos and bowed. ‘Master, a message from Invigilator Kards Invictad.’

‘Very good,’ Rautos replied distractedly. ‘I will attend to it in a moment. Does the messenger await a response?’

‘Yes, Master. He is in the courtyard.’

‘See that refreshments are provided.’

The watcher bowed then departed.

‘Venitt, I believe you must prepare to undertake a journey on my behalf.’

‘Master?’

‘The Invigilator at last perceives the magnitude of the threat.’

Venitt Sathad said nothing.

‘You must travel to Drene City,’ Rautos said, his eyes once more on the mysterious construct dominating the lower terrace. ‘The Consign requires a most specific report of the preparations there. Alas, the Factor’s own missives are proving unsatisfactory. I require confidence in those matters, if I am to apply fullest concentration to the threat closer to hand.’

Again, Venitt did not speak.

Rautos looked out onto the river. Fisher boats gathered in the bay opposite, two merchant traders drawing in towards the main docks. One of them, bearing the flag of the Esterrict family, looked damaged, possibly by fire. Rautos brushed the dirt from his hands and turned about, making his way back into the building, his servant falling into step behind him.

‘I wonder, what lies beneath those stones?’

‘Master?’

‘Never mind, Venitt. I was but thinking out loud.’

The Awl’dan camp had been attacked at dawn by two troops of Atri-Preda Bivatt’s Bluerose cavalry. Two hundred skilled lancers riding into a maelstrom of panic, as figures struggled out from the hide huts, as the Drene-bred war-dogs, arriving moments before the horse-soldiers, closed on the pack of Awl herder and dray dogs, and in moments the three breeds of beast were locked in a vicious battle.

The Awl warriors were unprepared, and few had time to even so much as find their weapons before the lancers burst into their midst. In moments, the slaughter extended out to encompass elders and children. Most of the women fought alongside their male kin-wife and husband, sister and brother, dying together in a last blending of blood.

The engagement between the Letherii and the Awl took all of two hundred heartbeats. The war among the dogs was far more protracted, for the herder dogs-while smaller and more compact than their attackers-were quick and no less vicious, while the drays, bred to pull carts in summer and sleds in winter, were comparable with the Drene breed. Trained to kill wolves, the drays proved more than a match for the war-dogs, and if not for the lancers then making sport of killing the mottle-skinned beasts, the battle would have turned. As it was, the Awl pack finally broke away, the survivors fleeing onto the plain, eastward, a few Drene wardogs giving chase before being recalled by their handlers.

Whilst lancers dismounted to make certain there were no survivors among the Awl, others rode out to collect the herds of myrid and rodara in the next valley.

Atri-Preda Bivatt sat astride her stallion, struggling to control the beast with the smell of blood so heavy in the morning air. Beside her, sitting awkward and in discomfort on the unfamiliar saddle, Brohl Handar, the newly appointed Tiste Edur Overseer of Drene City, watched the Letherii systematically loot the encampment, stripping corpses naked and drawing tlieir knives. The Awl bound their jewellery-mostly gold-deep in the braids of their hair, forcing the Letherii to slice away those sections of the scalp to claim their booty. Of course, there was more than just expedience in this mutilation, for it had been extended to the collecting of swaths of skin that had been decorated in tattoos, the particular style of the Awl rich in colour and often outlined in stitched gold thread. These trophies adorned the round-shields of many lancers.

The captured herds now belonged to the Factor of Drene, Letur Anict, and as Brohl Handar watched the hundreds of myrid come over the hill, their black woolly coats making them look like boulders as they poured down the hillside, it was clear that the Factor’s wealth had just risen substantially. The taller rodara followed, blue-backed and long-necked, their long tails thrashing about in near-panic as wardogs on the herd’s flanks plunged into feint attacks again and again.

The breath hissed from the Atri-Preda’s teeth. ‘Where is the Factor’s man, anyway? Those damned rodara are going to stampede. Lieutenant! Get the handlers to call off their hounds! Hurry!’ The woman unstrapped her helm, pulled it free and set it atop the saddle horn. She looked across at Brohl. ‘There you have it, Overseer.’

‘So these are the Awl.’

She grimaced, looked away. A small camp by their standards. Seventy-odd adults.’

‘Yet, large herds.’

Her grimace became a scowl. ‘They were once larger, Overseer. Much larger.’

‘I take it then that this campaign of yours is succeeding in driving away these trespassers.’

‘Not my campaign.’ She seemed to catch something in his expression for she added, ‘Yes, of course, I command the expeditionary forces, Overseer. But I receive my orders horn the Factor. And, strictly speaking, the Awl are not trespassers.’

‘The Factor claims otherwise.’

‘Letur Anict is highly ranked in the Liberty Consign.’

Brohl Handar studied the woman for a moment, then said, ‘Not all wars are fought for wealth and land, Atri-Preda.’

‘I must disagree, Overseer. Did not you Tiste Edur invade pre-emptively, in response to the perceived threat of lost land and resources? Cultural assimilation, the end of your independence. There is no doubt in my mind,’ she continued, ‘that we Letherii sought to obliterate your civilization, as we had done already with the Tarthenal and so many others. And so, an economic war.’

‘It does not surprise me, Atri-Preda, that your kind saw it that way. And I do not doubt that such concerns were present in the mind of the Warlock King. Did we conquer you in order to survive? Perhaps.’ Brohl considered saying more, then he shook his head, watching as four wardogs closed on a wounded cattle dog. The lame beast fought back, but was soon down, kicking, then silent and limp as the wardogs tore open its belly.

Bivatt asked, ‘Do you ever wonder, Overseer, which of us truly won that war?’

He shot her a dark look. ‘No, I do not. Your scouts have found no other signs of Awl in this area, I understand. So now the Factor will consolidate the Letherii claim in the usual fashion?’

The Atri-Preda nodded. ‘Outposts. Forts, raised roads. Settlers will follow.’

‘And then, the Factor will extend his covetous intentions, yet further east.’

‘As you say, Overseer. Of course, I am sure you recognize the acquisitions gift the Tiste Edur as well. The empire’s territory expands. I am certain the Emperor will be pleased.’

This was Brohl Handar’s second week as governor of Drene. There were few Tiste Edur in this remote corner of Rhulad’s empire, less than a hundred, and only his three staff members were from Brohl’s own tribe, the Arapay. The annexation of Awl’dan by what amounted to wholesale genocide had begun years ago-long before the Edur conquest-and the particulars of rule in far Letheras seemed to have little relevance to this military campaign. Brohl Handar, the patriarch of a clan devoted to hunting tusked seals, wondered-not for the first time-what he was doing here.

Titular command as Overseer seemed to involve little more than observation. The true power of rule was with Letur Anict, the Factor of Drene, who ‘is highly ranked in the Liberty Consign’. Some kind of guild of merchants, he had learned, although he had no idea what, precisely, was liberating about this mysterious organization. Unless, of course, it was the freedom to do as they pleased. Including the use of imperial troops to aid in the acquisition of ever more wealth.

‘Atri-Preda.’

‘Yes, Overseer?’

‘These Awl-do they fight back? No, not as they did today. I mean, do they mount raids? Do they mass their warriors on the path to all-out war?’

She looked uncomfortable. ‘Overseer, there are two… well, levels, to this.’

‘Levels. What does that mean?’

‘Official and… unofficial. It is a matter of perception.’

‘Explain.’

‘The belief of the common folk, as promulgated through imperial agents, is that the Awl have allied themselves with the Ak’ryn to the south, as well as the D’rhasilhani and the two kingdoms of Bolkando and Saphinand-in short, all the territories bordering the empire-creating a belligerent, warmongering and potentially overwhelming force-the Horde of the Bolkando Conspiracy-that threatens the entire eastern territories of the Lether Empire. It is only a matter of time before that horde is fully assembled, whereupon it will march. Accordingly, every attack launched by the Letherii military serves to diminish the numbers the Awl can contribute, and furthermore, the loss of valuable livestock in turn weakens the savages. Famine may well manage what swords alone cannot-the entire collapse of the Awl.’

‘I see. And the unofficial version?’

She glanced across at him. ‘There is no conspiracy, Overseer. No alliance. The truth is, the Awl continue to light among themselves-their grazing land is shrinking, after all. And they despise the Ak’ryn and the D’rhasilhani, and have probably never met anyone from Bolkando or Saphinand.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘We did clash with a mercenary company of some sort, two months past-the disastrous battle that spurred your appointment, I suspect. They numbered perhaps seven hundred, and after a half-dozen skirmishes I led a force of six thousand Letherii in pursuit. Overseer, we lost almost three thousand soldiers in that final battle. If not for our mages…’ She shook her head. ‘And we still have no idea who they were.’

Brohl studied the woman. He had known nothing about any such clash. The reason for his appointment? Perhaps. ‘The official version you spoke of earlier-the lie-justifies the slaughter of the Awl, in the eyes of the commonry. All of which well serves the Factor’s desire to make himself yet richer. I see. Tell me, Atri-Preda, why does Letur Anict need all that gold? What does he do with it?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Gold is power,’

‘Power over whom?’

‘Anyone, and everyone.’

‘Excepting the Tiste Edur, who are indifferent to the Letherii idea of wealth.’

She smiled. Are you, Overseer? Still?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are Hiroth in Drene-yes, you have met them. Each claims kinship with the Emperor, and upon that claim they have commandeered the finest estates and land. They have hundreds of Indebted as slaves. Soon, perhaps, there will be Tiste Edur among the membership of the Liberty Consign.’

Brohl Handar frowned. On a distant ridge stood three Awl dogs, two drays and one smaller cattle dog, watching as the herds were driven through the destroyed encampment-the livestock bawling in the stench of spilled blood and wastes. He studied the three silhouettes on the ridge. Where would they go now, he wondered. ‘I have seen enough.’ He tugged his horse round, too tight on the reins, and the beast’s head snapped up and it snorted, backing as it turned. Brohl struggled to keep his balance.

If the Atri-Preda was amused she was wise enough not to show it.

In the sky overhead, the first carrion birds had appeared,

The South Jasp River, one of the four tributaries of Lether River leading down from the Bluerose Mountains, was flanked on its south bank by a raised road that, a short distance ahead, began its long climb to the mountain pass, beyond which lay the ancient kingdom of Bluerose, now subject to the Letherii Empire. The South Jasp ran fast here, the momentum of its savage descent from the mountains not yet slowed by the vast plain it now found itself crossing. The icy water pounded over huge boulders left behind by long-extinct glaciers, flinging bitter-cold mist into the air that drifted in clouds over the road.

The lone figure awaiting the six Tiste Edur warriors and their entourage was if anything taller than any Edur, yet thin, wrapped in a black sealskin cloak, hood raised. Two baldrics criss-crossed its chest, from which hung two Letherii longswords, and the few wisps of long white hair that had pulled free in the wind were now wet, adhering to the collar of the cloak.

To the approaching Merude Edur, the face within that cowl looked pallid as death, as if a corpse had just dragged itself free of the numbing river, something long frozen in the white-veined reaches of the mountains that awaited them.

The lead warrior, a veteran of the conquest of Letheras, gestured for his comrades to halt then set out to speak to the stranger. In addition to the other five Edur, there were ten Letherii soldiers, two burdened wagons, and forty slaves shackled one to the next in a line behind the second wagon.

‘Do you wish company,’ the Merude asked, squinting to see more of that shadowed face, ‘for the climb to the pass? It’s said there remain bandits and renegades in the heights beyond.’

‘I am my own company.’

The voice was rough, the accent archaic.

The Merude halted three paces away. He could see more of that face, now. Edur features, more or less, yet white as snow. The eyes were… unnerving. Red as blood. ‘Then why do you block our path?’

‘You captured two Letherii two days back. They are mine.’

The Merude shrugged. ‘Then you should have kept them chained at night, friend. These Indebted will run at any opportunity. Fortunate for you that we captured them. Oh, yes-of course I will return them into your care. At least the girl-the man is an escaped slave from the Hiroth, or so his tattoos reveal. A Drowning awaits him, alas, but I will consider offering you a replacement. In any case, the girl, young as she is, is valuable. I trust you can manage the cost of retrieving her.’

‘I will take them both. And pay you nothing.’

Frowning, the Merude said, ‘You were careless in losing them. We were diligent in recapturing them. Accordingly, we expect compensation for our efforts, just as you should expect a certain cost for your carelessness.’

‘Unchain them,’ the stranger said.

‘No. What tribe are you?’ The eyes, still fixed unwavering upon his own, looked profoundly… dead. ‘What has happened to your skin?’ As dead as the Emperor’s. ‘What is your name?’

‘Unchain them now.’

The Merude shook his head, then he laughed-a little weakly-and waved his comrades forward as he began drawing his cutlass.

Disbelief at the absurdity of the challenge slowed his effort. The weapon was halfway out of its scabbard when one of the stranger’s longswords flashed clear of its sheath and opened the Edur’s throat.

Shouting in rage, the other five warriors drew their blades and rushed forward, while the ten Letherii soldiers quickly followed suit.

The stranger watched the leader crumple to the ground, blood spurting wild into the river mist descending onto the road. Then he unsheathed his other longsword and stepped to meet the five Edur. A clash of iron, and all at once the two Letherii weapons in the stranger’s hands were singing, a rising timbre with every blow they absorbed.

Two Edur stumbled back at the same time, both mortally wounded, one in the chest, the other with a third of his skull sliced away. This latter one turned away as the fighting continued, reaching down to collect the fragment of scalp and bone, then walked drunkenly back along the road.

Another Edur fell, his left leg cut out from beneath him. The remaining two quickly backed away, yelling at the Letherii who were now hesitating three paces behind the fight.

The stranger pressed forward. He parried a thrust from the Edur on the right with the longsword in his left hand-sliding the blade under then over, drawing it leftward before a twist of his wrist tore the weapon from the attacker’s hand; then a straight-arm thrust of his own buried his point in the Edur’s throat. At the same time he reached over with the longsword in his right hand, feinting high. The last Edur leaned back to avoid that probe, attempting a slash aimed at clipping the stranger’s wrist. But the longsword then deftly dipped, batting the cutlass away, even as the point drove up into the warrior’s right eye socket, breaking the delicate orbital bones on its way into the forebrain.

Advancing between the two falling Edur, the stranger cut down the nearest two Letherii-at which point the remaining eight broke and ran, past the wagons-where the drivers were themselves scrambling in panicked abandonment-and then alongside the row of staring prisoners. Running, flinging weapons away, down the road.

As one Letherii in particular moved opposite one of the slaves, a leg kicked out, tripping the man, and it seemed the chain-line writhed then, as the ambushing slave leapt atop the hapless Letherii, loose chain wrapping round the neck, before the slave pulled it taut. Legs kicked, arms thrashed and hands clawed, but the slave would not relent, and eventually the guard’s struggles ceased.

Silchas Ruin, the swords keening in his hands, walked up to where Udinaas continued strangling the corpse. ‘You can stop now,’ the albino Tiste Andii said.

‘I can,’ Udinaas said through clenched teeth, ‘but I won’t. This bastard was the worst of them. The worst.’

‘His soul even now drowns in the mist,’ Silchas Ruin said, turning as two figures emerged from the brush lining the ditch on the south side of the road.

‘Keep choking him,’ said Kettle, from where she was chained farther down the line. ‘He hurt me, that one.’

‘I know,’ Udinaas said in a grating voice. ‘I know.’

Silchas Ruin approached Kettle. ‘Hurt you. How?’

‘The usual way,’ she replied. ‘With the thing between his legs.’

‘And the other Letherii?’

The girl shook her head. ‘They just watched. Laughing, always laughing.’

Silchas Ruin turned as Seren Pedac arrived.

Seren was chilled by the look in the Tiste Andii’s uncanny eyes as Silchas Ruin said, ‘I will pursue the ones who flee, Acquitor. And rejoin you all before day’s end.’

She looked away, her gaze catching a momentary glimpse of Fear Sengar, standing over the corpses of the Merude Tiste Edur, then quickly on, to the rock-littered plain to the south-where still wandered the Tiste Edur who’d lost a third of his skull. But that sight as well proved too poignant. ‘Very well,’ she said, now squinting at the wagons and the horses standing in their yokes. ‘We will continue on this road.’

Udinaas had finally expended his rage on the Letherii body beneath him, and he rose to face her. ‘Seren Pedac, what of the rest of these slaves? We must free them all.’

She frowned. Exhaustion was making thinking difficult. Months and months of hiding, fleeing, eluding both Edur and Letherii; of finding their efforts to head eastward blocked again and again, forcing them ever northward, and the endless terror that lived within her, had driven all acuity from her thoughts. Free them. Yes. But then…

‘just more rumours,’ Udinaas said, as if reading her mind, as if finding her thoughts before she did. ‘There’s plenty of those, confusing our hunters. Listen, Seren, they already know where we are, more or less. And these slaves-they’ll do whatever they can to avoid recapture. We need not worry overmuch about them.’

She raised her brows. ‘You vouch for your fellow Indebted, Udinaas? All of whom will turn away from a chance to buy their way clear with vital information, yes?’

‘The only alternative, then,’ he said, eyeing her, ‘is to kill them all.’

The ones listening, the ones not yet beaten down into mindless automatons, suddenly raised their voices in proclamations and promises, reaching out towards Seren, chains rattling. The others looked up in fear, like myrid catching scent of a wolf they could not see. Some cried out, cowering in the stony mud of the road.

‘The first Edur he killed,’ said Udinaas, ‘has the keys.’

Silchas Ruin had walked down the road. Barely visible in the mist, the Tiste Andii veered into something huge, winged, then took to the air. Seren glanced over at the row of slaves-none had seen that, she was relieved to note. ‘Very well,’ she said in answer to Udinaas, and she walked up to where Fear Sengar still stood near the dead Edur.

‘I must take the keys,’ she said, crouching beside the first fallen Edur.

‘Do not touch him,’ Fear said.

She looked up at him. ‘The keys-the chains-’

‘I will find them,’ he said.

Nodding, she straightened, then stepped back. Watched as he spoke a silent prayer, then settled onto his knees beside the body. He found the keys in a leather pouch tied to the warrior’s belt, a pouch that also contained a handful of polished stones. Fear took the keys in his left hand and held the stones in the palm of his right. ‘These,’ he said, ‘are from the Merude shore. Likely he collected them when but a child.’

‘Children grow up,’ Seren said. ‘Even straight trees spawn crooked branches.’

‘And what was flawed in this warrior?’ Fear demanded, glaring up at her. ‘He followed my brother, as did every other warrior of the tribes.’

‘Some eventually turned away, Fear.’ Like you.

‘What I have turned away from lies in the shadow of-what I am now turned towards, Acquitor. Does this challenge my loyalty towards the Tiste Edur? My own kind? No. That is something all of you forget, conveniently so, again and again. Understand me, Acquitor. I will hide if I must, but I will not kill my own people. We had the coin, we could have bought their freedom-’

‘Not Udinaas.’

He bared his teeth, said nothing.

Yes, Udinaas, the one man you dream of killing. If not for Silchas Ruin… ‘Fear Sengar,’ she said. ‘You have chosen to travel with us, and there can be no doubt-none at all-that Silchas Ruin commands this meagre party. Dislike his methods if you must, but he alone will see you through. You know this.’

The Hiroth warrior looked away, back down the road, blinking the water from his eyes. ‘And with each step, the cost of my quest becomes greater-an indebtedness you should well understand, Acquitor. The Letherii way of living, the burdens you can never escape. Nor purchase your way clear.’

She reached out for the keys.

He set them into her hand, unwilling to meet her eyes.

We’re no different from those slaves. She hefted the weight of the jangling iron in her hand. Chained together. Yet… who holds the means of our release?

‘Where has he gone?’ Fear asked.

‘To hunt down the Letherii. I trust you do not object to that.’

‘No, but you should, Acquitor.’

I suppose I should at that. She set off to where waited the slaves.

A prisoner near Udinaas had crawled close to him, and Seren heard his whispered question: ‘That tall slayer-was that the White Crow? He was, wasn’t he? I have heard-’

‘You have heard nothing,’ Udinaas said, raising his arms as Seren approached. ‘The three-edged one,’ he said to her. ‘Yes, that one. Errant take us, you took your time.’

She worked the key until the first shackle clicked open. ‘You two were supposed to be stealing from a farm-not getting rounded up by slave-trackers.’

‘Trackers camped on the damned grounds-no-one was smiling on us that night.’

She opened the other shackle and Udinaas stepped out from the line, rubbing at the red weals round his wrists. Seren said, ‘Fear sought to dissuade Silchas-you know, if those two are any indication, it’s no wonder the Edur and the Andii fought ten thousand wars.’

Udinaas grunted as the two made their way to where stood Kettle. ‘Fear resents his loss of command,’ he said. That it is to a Tiste Andii just makes it worse. He’s still not convinced the betrayal was the other way round all those centuries back; that it was Scabandari who first drew the knife.’

Seren Pedac said nothing. As she moved in front of Kettle she looked down at the girl’s dirt-smeared face, the ancient eyes slowly, lifting to meet her own.

Kettle smiled. ‘I missed you.’

‘How badly were you used?’ Seren asked as she removed the large iron shackles.

‘I can walk. And the bleeding’s stopped. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’

‘Probably.’ But this talk of rape was unwelcome-Seren had her own memories haunting her every waking moment. ‘There will be scars, Kettle.’

‘Being alive is hard. I’m always hungry, and my feet hurt.’

1 hate children with secrets-especially ones with secrets they’re not even aware of. Find the right questions; there’s no other way of doing this. ‘What else bothers you about being among the living again, Kettle?’ And… how? Why?

‘Feeling small.’

Seren’s right arm was plucked by a slave, an old man who reached out for the keys with pathetic hope in his eyes. She handed them to him. ‘Free the others,’ she said. He nodded vigorously, scrabbling at his shackles. ‘Now,’ Seren said to Kettle, ‘that’s a feeling we all must accept. Too much of the world defies our efforts to conform to what would please us. To live is to know dissatisfaction and frustration.’

‘I still want to tear out throats, Seren. Is that bad? I think it must be.’

At Kettle’s words, the old man shrank away, redoubling his clumsy attempts at releasing himself. Behind him a woman cursed with impatience.

Udinaas had climbed onto the bed of the lead wagon and was busy looting it for whatever they might.need. Kettle scrambled to join him.

‘We need to move out of this mist,’ Seren muttered. ‘I’m soaked through.’ She walked towards the wagon. ‘Hurry up with that, you two. If more company finds us here, we could be in trouble.’ Especially now that Silchas Ruin is gone. The Tiste Andii had been the singular reason for their survival thus far. When hiding and evading the searchers failed, his two swords found voice, the eerie song of obliteration. The White Crow.

It had been a week since they last caught sight of Edur and Letherii who were clearly hunters. Seeking the traitor, Fear Sengar. Seeking the betrayer, Udinaas. Yet Seren Pedac was bemused-there should have been entire armies chasing them. While the pursuit was persistent, it was dogged rather than ferocious in its execution. Silchas had mentioned, once, in passing, that the Emperor’s K’risnan were working ritual sorceries, the kind that sought to lure and trap. And that snares awaited them to the east, and round Letheras itself. She could understand those to the east, for it was the wild lands beyond the empire that had been their destination all along, where Fear-for some reason he did not care to explain-believed he would find what he sought; a belief that Silchas Ruin did not refute. But to surround the capital city itself baffled Seren. As if Rhulad is frightened of his brother.

Udinaas leapt down from the lead wagon and made his way to the second one. ‘I found coin,’ he said. ‘Lots. We should take these horses, too-we can sell them once we’re down the other side of the pass.’

‘There is a fort at the pass,’ Seren said. ‘It may be un-garrisoned, but there’s no guarantee of that, Udinaas. If we arrive with horses-and they recognize them…’

‘We go round that fort,’ he replied. ‘At night. Unseen.’

She frowned, wiped water from her eyes. ‘Easier done without horses. Besides, these beasts are old, too broken-they won’t earn us much, especially in Bluerose. And when Wyval returns they’ll probably die of terror.’

‘Wyval’s not coming back,’ Udinaas said, turning away, his voice grating. ‘Wyval’s gone, and that’s that.’

She knew she should not doubt him. The dragon-spawn’s spirit had dwelt within him, after all. Yet there was no obvious explanation for the winged beast’s sudden disappearance, at least none that Udinaas would share. Wyval had been gone for over a month.

Udinaas swore from where he crouched atop the bed of the wagon. ‘Nothing here but weapons.’

‘Weapons?’

‘Swords, shields and armour.’

‘Letherii?’

‘Yes. Middling quality.’

‘What were these slavers doing with a wagon load of weapons?’

Shrugging, he climbed back down, hurried past her and began unhitching the horses. ‘These beasts would’ve had a hard time on the ascent.’

‘Silchas Ruin is coming back,’ Kettle said, pointing down the road.

‘That was fast.’

Udinaas laughed harshly, then said, ‘The fools should have scattered, made him hunt each one down separately. Instead, they probably regrouped, like the stupid good soldiers they were.’

From near the front wagon, Fear Sengar spoke. Your Mood is very thin, Udinaas, isn’t it?’

‘Like water,’ the ex-slave replied.

For Errant’s sake, Fear, he did not choose to abandon your brother. You know that. Nor is he responsible for Rhulad’s madness. So how much of your hatred for Udinaas comes from guilt! Who truly is to blame for Rhuladl For the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths?

The white-skinned Tiste Andii strode from the mists, an apparition, his black cloak glistening like snakeskin.

Swords sheathed once more, muting their cries-iron voices reluctant to fade, they would persist for days, now. How she hated that sound.

Tanal Yathvanar stood looking down at the naked woman on his bed. The questioners had worked hard on her, seeking the answers they wanted. She was badly broken, her skin cut and burned, her joints swollen and mottled with bruises. She had been barely conscious when he’d used her last night. This was easier than whores, and cost him nothing besides. He wasn’t much interested in beating his women, just in seeing them beaten. He understood his desire was perversion, but this organization-the Patriotists-was the perfect haven for people like him. Power and immunity, a most deadly combination. He suspected that Karos Invictad was well aware of Tanal’s nightly escapades, and held that knowledge like a sheathed knife.

It’s not as if I’ve killed her. It’s not as if she’ll even remember this. She’s destined for the Drownings in any case-what matter if I take some pleasure first? Soldiers do the same. He had dreamed of being a soldier once, years ago, when in his youth he had held to misguided, romantic notions of heroism and unconstrained freedom, as if the first justified the second. There had been many noble killers in the history of Lether. Gerun Eberict had been such a man. He’d murdered thousands-thieves, thugs and wastrels, the depraved and the destitute. He had cleansed the streets of Letheras, and who had not indulged in the rewards? Fewer beggars, fewer pickpockets, fewer homeless and all the other decrepit failures of the modern age. Tanal admired Gerun Eberict-he had been a great man. Murdered by a thug, his skull crushed to pulp-a tragic loss, senseless and cruel.

One day we shall find that killer.

He turned away from the unconscious woman, adjusted’ his light tunic so that the shoulder seams were even and straight, then closed the clasps of his weapon belt. One of the Invigilator’s requirements for all officers of the I’atriotists: belt, dagger and shortsword. Tanal liked the weight of them, the authority implicit in the privilege of wearing arms where all other Letherii-barring soldiers-were forbidden by proclamation of the Emperor.

As if we might rebel. The damned fool thinks he won that war. They all do. Dimwitted barbarians.

Tanal Yathvanar walked to the door, stepped out into the corridor, and made his way towards the Invigilator’s office. The second bell after midday sounded a moment before he knocked on the door. A murmured invitation bade him enter.

He found Rautos Hivanar, Master of the Liberty Consign, already seated opposite Karos Invictad. The large man seemed to fill half the room, and Tanal noted that the Invigilator had pushed his own chair as far back as possible, so that it was tilted against the sill of the window. In this space on his side of the desk, Karos attempted a posture of affable comfort.

‘Tanal, our guest is being most insistent with respect to his suspicions. Sufficient to convince me that we must devote considerable attention to finding the source of the threat.’

‘Invigilator, is the intent sedition or treason, or are we dealing with a thief?’

‘A thief, I should think,’ Karos replied, glancing over at Rautos Hivanar.

The man’s cheeks bulged, before he released a slow sigh. ‘I am not so sure. On the surface, we appear to be facing an obsessive individual, consumed by greed and, accordingly, hoarding wealth. But only as actual coin, and this is why it IS proving so difficult to find a trail. No properties, no “Mentation, no flouting of privilege. Now, as subtle consequence, the shortage of coin is finally noticeable, true, no actual damage to the empire’s financial structure has occurred. Yet. But, if the depletion continues,’ he shook his head, ‘we will begin to feel the strain.’

Tinal cleared his throat, then asked, ‘Master, have you assigned agents of your own to investigate the situation?’

Rautos frowned. ‘The Liberty Consign thrives precisely because its members hold to the conviction of being the most powerful players in an unassailable system. Confidence is a most fragile quality, Tanal Yathvanar. Granted, a few who deal specifically in finances have brought to me their concerns. Druz Thennict, Barrakta Ilk, for example. But there is nothing as yet formalized-no true suspicion that something is awry. Neither man is a fool, however.’ He glanced out of the window behind Karos Invictad. ‘The investigation must be conducted by the Patriotists, in utmost secrecy.’ The heavy-lidded eyes lowered, settling on the Invigilator. ‘I understand that you have been targeting academics and scholars of late.’

A modest shrug and lift of the brows from Karos Invictad. ‘The many paths of treason.’

‘Some are members of established and respected families in Lether.’

‘No, Rautos, not the ones we have arrested.’

‘True, but those unfortunate victims have friends, Invigilator, who have in turn appealed to me.’

‘Well, my friend, this is delicate indeed. You tread now on the thinnest skin of ground, with naught but mud beneath.’ He sat forward, folding his hands on the desk. ‘But I shall look into it nonetheless. Perhaps the recent spate of arrests has succeeded in quelling the disenchantment among the learned, or at least culled the most egregious of their lot.’

‘Thank you, Invigilator… Now, who will conduct you investigation?’

‘Why, I will attend to this personally.’

‘Venitt Sathad, my assistant who awaits in the courtyarc below, can serve as liaison between your organization and myself for this week; thereafter, I will assign someone else.’

‘Very good. Weekly reports should suffice, at least to start.’

‘Agreed.’

Rautos Hivanar rose, and after a moment Karos Invictad followed suit.

The office was suddenly very cramped, and Tanal edged back, angry at the intimidation he felt instinctively rising within him. I have nothing to fear from Rautos Hivanar. Nor Karos. I am their confidant, the both of them. They trust me.

Karos Invictad was a step behind Rautos, one hand on the man’s back as the Master opened the door. As soon as Rautos stepped into the hallway, Karos smiled and said a few last words to the man, who grunted in reply, and then the Invigilator closed the door and turned to face Tanal.

‘One of those well-respected academics is now staining your sheets, Yathvanar.’

Tanal blinked. ‘Sir, she was sentenced to the Drowning-’

‘Revoke the punishment. Get her cleaned up.’

‘Sir, it may well be that she will recall-’

‘A certain measure of restraint,’ Karos Invictad said in a Cold tone, ‘is required from you, Tanal Yathvanar. Arrest some daughters of-those already in chains, damn you, and have your fun with them. Am I understood?’

‘Y-yes sir. If she remembers-’

‘Then restitution will be necessary, won’t it? I trust you keep your own finances in order, Yathvanar. Now, begone horn my sight.’

As Tanal closed the door behind him, he struggled to draw breath. The bastard. There was no warning off her, was there! Whose mistake was all this? Yet, you think to make me pay /or it. All of it. Blade and Axe take you, Invictad, I won’t suffer alone.

I won’t.

‘I depravity holds a certain fascination, don’t you think?’

‘No.’

‘After all, the sicker the soul, the sweeter its comeuppance.’

‘Assuming there is one.’

‘There’s a centre point, I’m sure of it. And it should b dead centre, by my calculations. Perhaps the fulcrum itself is flawed.’

‘What calculations?’

‘Well, the ones I asked you to do for me, of course. Where are they?’

‘They’re on my list.’

‘And how do you calculate the order of your list?’

‘That’s not the calculation you asked for.’

‘Good point. Anyway, if he’d just hold all his legs still, we could properly test my hypothesis.’

‘He doesn’t want to, and I can see why. You’re trying to balance him at the mid-point of his body, but he’s designed to hold that part up, with all those legs.’

‘Are those formal observations? If so, make a note.’

‘On what? We had the wax slab for lunch.’

‘No wonder I feel I could swallow a cow with nary hiccough. Look! Hah! He’s perched! Perfectly perched!’

Both men leaned in to examine Ezgara, the insect with a head at each end. Not unique, of course, there were plenty around these days, filling some arcane niche in the compli-cated miasma of nature, a niche that had been vacant for countless millennia. The creature’s broken-twig legs kicked out helplessly.

‘You’re torturing him,’ said Bugg, ‘with clear depravity Tehol.’

‘It only seems that way’

‘No, it is that way.’

‘All right, then.’ Tehol reached down and plucked the hapless insect from the fulcrum. Its heads swivelled about, Anyway,’ he said as he peered closely at the creature, ‘that wasn’t the depravity I was talking about. How goes the construction business, by the way?’

‘Sinking fast.’

‘Ah. Is that an affirmation or decried destitution?’

‘We’re running out of buyers. No hard coin, and I’m done with credit, especially when it turns out the developers can’t sell the properties. So I’ve had to lay everyone off, including myself.’

‘When did all this happen?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Typical. I’m always the last to hear. Is Ezgara hungry, do you think?’

He ate more wax than you did-where do you think all the waste goes?’

‘His or mine?’

‘Master, I already know where yours goes, and if Biri ever finds out-’

‘Not another word, Bugg. Now, by my observations, and according to the notations you failed to make, Ezgara has consumed food equivalent in weight to a drowned cat. Yet he remains tiny, spry, fit, and thanks to our wax lunch today his heads no longer squeak when they swivel, which I take to be a good sign, since now we won’t be woken up a hundred times a night.’

‘Master.’

‘Yes?’

‘I low do you know how much a drowned cat weighs?’

‘Selush, of course.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You must remember. Three years ago. That feral cat netted in the Rinnesict Estate, the one raping a flightless ornamental duck. It was sentenced to Drowning.’

‘A terrible demise for a cat. Yes, I remember now. The yowl heard across the city’

That’s the one. Some unnamed benefactor took pity on the sodden feline corpse, paying Selush a small fortune to dress the beast for proper burial.’

‘You must be mad. Who would do that and why?’

‘Tor ulterior motives, obviously. I wanted to know how much a drowned cat weighs, of course. Otherwise, how valid the comparison? Descriptively, I’ve been waiting to use it for years.’

Three.’

‘No, much longer. Hence my curiosity, and opportunism., Prior to that cat’s watery end, I feared voicing the comparison, which, lacking veracity on my part, would invite ridicule.’

‘You’re a tender one, aren’t you?’- ‘Don’t tell anyone.’

‘Master, about those vaults.’

‘What about them?’

‘I think extensions are required.’

Tehol used the tip of his right index finger to stroke thej insect’s back-or, alternatively, rub it the wrong way. ‘Already? Well, how far under the river are you right now?’

‘More than halfway.’

‘And that is how many?’

‘Vaults? Sixteen. Each one three man-heights by two.’

‘All filled?’

‘All.’

‘Oh. So presumably it’s starting to hurt.’

‘Bugg’s Construction will be the first major enterprise to collapse.’

‘And how many will it drag down with it?’

‘No telling. Three, maybe four.’

‘I thought you said there was no telling.’

‘So don’t tell anyone.’

‘Good idea. Bugg, I need you to build me a box, to very specific specifications which I’ll come up with later.’

‘A box, Master. Wood good enough?’

‘What kind of sentence is that? Would good enough.’

‘No, wood, you know, the burning kind.’

‘Yes, would that wood will do.’

‘Size?’

‘Absolutely. But no lid.’

‘Finally, you’re getting specific.’

‘I told you I would.’

‘What’s this box for, Master?’

‘I can’t tell you, alas. Not specifically. But I need it soon.’

‘About the vaults…’

‘Make ten more, Bugg. Double the size. As for Bugg’s Construction, hold on for a while longer, amass debt, evade the creditors, keep purchasing materials and stockpiling them in storage buildings charging exorbitant rent. Oh, and embezzle all you can.’

‘I’ll lose my head.’

‘Don’t worry. Ezgara here has one to spare.’

‘Why, thank you.’

‘ Doesn’t even squeak, either.’

That’s a relief. What are you doing now, Master?’

‘What’s it look like?’

‘You’re going back to bed.’

‘And you need to build a box, Bugg, a most clever box. Remember, though, no lid.’

‘Can I at least ask what it’s for?’

Tehol settled back on his bed, studied the blue sky over-head for a moment, then smiled over at his manservant-who just happened to be an Elder God. ‘Why, comeuppance, Bugg, what else?’

Chapter Two

The ascent to the summit began where the Letherii-built road ended. With the river voicing its ceaseless roar fifteen paces to their left, the roughly shaped pavestones vanished beneath a black-stoned slide at the base of a moraine. Uprooted trees reached bent and twisted arms up through the rubble, jutting limbs from which hung root tendrils, dripping water. Swaths of forest climbed the mountainside to the north, on the other side of the river, and the ragged cliffs edging the tumbling wateron that side Were verdant with moss. The opposite mountain, flanking the trail, was a stark contrast, latticed with fissures, broken, gouged and mostly treeless. In the midst of this shattered facade shadows marked out odd regularities, of line and angle; and upon the trail itself, here and there, broad worn steps had been carved, eroded by flowing water and Centuries of footfalls.

Seren Pedac believed that a city had once occupied the entire mountainside, a vertical fortress carved into living stone. She could make out what she thought were large gaping windows, and possibly the fragmented ledges of balconies high up, hazy in the mists. Yet something-some-thing huge, terrible in its monstrosity-had impacted the entire side of the mountain, obliterating most of the city in a single blow. She could almost discern the outline of that collision, yet among the screes of rubble tracking down the sundered slopes the only visible stone belonged to the mountain itself.

They stood at the base of the trail. Seren watched the lifeless eyes of the Tiste Andii slowly scan upward.

‘Well?’ she asked.

Silchas Ruin shook his head. ‘Not from my people. K ‘Chain Che’Malle.’

‘A victim of your war?’

He glanced across at her, as if gauging the emotion behind her question, then said, ‘Most of the mountains from which the K’Chain Che’Malle carved their sky keeps are now beneath the waves, inundated following the collapse of Omtose Phellack. The cities are cut into the stone, although only in the very earliest versions are they us you see here-open to the air rather than buried within shapeless rock.’

‘An elaboration suggesting a sudden need for self-defence.’

He nodded.

Fear Sengar had moved past them and was beginning the ascent. After a moment Udinaas and Kettle followed.

Seren had prevailed in her insistence to leave the horses behind. In a clearing off to their right sat four wagons covered with tarps. It was clear that no such contrivance could manage this climb, and all transport from here on was by foot. As for the mass of weapons and armour the slavers had been conveying, either it would have been stashed here, awaiting a hauling crew, or the slaves would have been burdened like mules.

I have never made this particular crossing,’ Seren said, ‘although I have viewed this mountainside from a distance Even then, I thought I could see evidence of reshaping. I once asked Hull Beddict about it, but he would tell me nothing. At some point, however, I think our trail takes us inside.’

‘The sorcery that destroyed this city was formidable,’ Silchas Ruin said.

‘Perhaps some natural force-’

‘No, Acquitor. Starvald Demelain. The destruction was the work of dragons. Eleint of the pure blood. At least a dozen, working in concert, a combined unleashing of their warrens. Unusual,’ he added.

‘Which part?’

‘Such a large alliance, for one. Also, the extent of thei: rage. I wonder what crime the K’Chaih Che’Malle committed to warrant such retaliation.’

‘I know the answer to that,’ came a sibilant whisper from behind them, and Seren turned, squinted down at the insubstantial wraith crouched there.

‘Wither. I was wondering where you had gone to.’

‘Journeys into the heart of the stone, Seren Pedac. Into the frozen blood. What was their crime, you wonder, Silchas Ruin? Why, nothing less than the assured annihilation of all existence. If extinction awaited them, then so too would all else die. Desperation, or evil spite? Perhaps neither, perhaps a terrible accident, that wounding at the centre of it all. But what do we care? We shall all be dust by then. Indifferent. Insensate.’

Silchas Ruin said, without turning, ‘Beware the frozen blood, Wither. It can still take you.’

The wraith hissed a laugh. ‘Like an ant to sap, yes. Oh, but it is so seductive, Master.’

‘You have been warned. If you are snared, I cannot free you.’

The wraith slithered past them, flowed up the ragged steps.

Seren adjusted the leather satchel on her shoulders. ‘The Fent carried supplies balanced on their heads. Would that I could do the same.’

‘The vertebrae become compacted,’ Silchas Ruin said, ‘resulting in chronic pain.’

‘Well, mine are feeling rather crunched right now, so I’m alraid I don’t see much difference.’ She began the climb. ‘You know, as a Soletaken, you could just-’

‘No,’ he said as he followed, ‘there is too much bloodlust In the veering. The draconean hunger within me is where lives my anger, and that anger is not easily contained.’

She snorted, unable to help herself.

‘You are amused, Acquitor?’

‘Scabandari is dead. Fear has seen his shattered skull. You were stabbed and then imprisoned, and now that you are free, all that consumes you is the desire for vengeance-against what? Some incorporeal soul? Something less than a wraith? What will be left of Scabandari by now? Silchas Ruin, yours is a pathetic obsession. At least Fear Sengar seeks something positive-not that he’ll find it since you will probably annihilate what’s left of Scabandari before he gets a chance to talk to it, assuming that’s even possible.’ When he said nothing, she continued, ‘It seems I am now fated to guiding such quests. Just like my last journey, the one that took me to the lands of the Tiste Edur. Everyone at odds, motives hidden and in conflict. My task was singular, of course: deliver the fools, then stand well back as the knives are drawn.’

‘Acquitor, my anger is more complicated than you believe.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The future you set before us is too simple, too confined. I suspect that when we arrive at our destination, nothing will proceed as you anticipate.’

She grunted. ‘I will accept that, since it was without doubt the case in the village of the Warlock King. After all, the fallout was the conquest of the Letherii Empire.’

‘Do you take responsibility for that; Acquitor?’

‘I take responsibility for very little, Silchas Ruin. That much must be obvious.’

The steps were steep, the edges worn and treacherous. As they climbed, the air thinned, mists swirling in from the tumbling falls on their left, the sound a roar that clambered among the stones in a tumult of echoes. Where the ancient stairs vanished entirely, wooden trestles had been constructed, forming something between a ladder and steps against the sheer, angled rock.

They found a ledge a third of the way up where they could gather to rest. Among the scatter of rubble on the shelf were remnants of metopes, cornices and friezes bearing carvings too fragmented to be identifiable-suggesting that an entire facade had once existed directly above them. The scaffolding became a true ladder here, and off to the right, three man-heights up, gaped the mouth of a cave, rectangular, almost door-shaped.

Udinaas stood regarding that dark portal for a long time, before he turned to the others. ‘I suggest we try it.’

‘There is no need, slave,’ replied Fear Sengar. ‘This trail is straightforward, reliable-’

‘And getting icier the higher we go.’ The Indebted grimaced, then laughed. ‘Oh, there’re songs to be sung, are! there, Fear? The perils and tribulations, the glories of suffering, all to win your heroic triumph. You want the! elders who were once your grandchildren to gather the clan round the fire, for the telling of your tale, a lone warrior’s quest for his god. I can almost hear them now, describing the formidable Fear Sengar of the Hiroth, brother to the Emperor, with his train of followers-the lost child, the inveterate Letherii guide, a ghost, a slave and of course the white-skinned nemesis. The White Crow with his silver-tongued lies. Oh, we have here the gamut of archetypes, yes?’ He reached into the satchel beside him and drew out a waterskin, took a long drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘But imagine all of it going for naught, when you pitch from a slippery rung and plunge five hundred man-heights to your ignominious death. Not how the story goes, alas, but then, life isn’t a story now, is it?’ He replaced the skin and shouldered his pack. ‘The embittered slave chooses a different route to the summit, the fool. But then,’ he paused to grin back at Fear, ‘somebody has to be the moral lesson in this epic, right?’

Seren watched the man climbing the rungs. When he came opposite the cave mouth, he reached out until one hand gripped the edge of stone, then followed with a foot, stretching until the probing tip of his moccasin settled on the ledge. Then, in a swift shifting of weight, combined with a push away from the ladder, he fluidly spun on one leg, the other swinging over empty air. Then stepping inward, pulled by the weight of the satchel on his back, into the gloom, of the entrance.

‘Nicely done,’ Silchas Ruin commented, and there was something like amusement in his tone, as if he had enjoyed the slave’s poking at Fear Sengar’s sententious self-importance, thus revealing two edges to his observation. ‘I urn of a mind to follow him.’

‘Me, too,’ said Kettle.

Seren Pedac sighed. ‘Very well, but I suggest we use ropes between us, and leave the showing off to Udinaas.’

The mouth of the cave revealed that it had been a corridor, probably leading out onto a balcony before the facade had sheared off. Massive sections of the walls, riven through with cracks, had shifted, settled at conflicting angles. And every crevasse, every fissure on all sides that Seren could see, seethed with the squirming furred bodies of bats, awakened now to their presence, chittering and moments from panic. As Seren set her pack down, Udinaas moved beside her.

‘Here,’ he said, his breath pluming, ‘light this lantern, Acquitor-when the temperature drops my hands start going numb.’ At her look he glanced over at Fear Sengar, then said, ‘Too many years reaching down into icy water. A slave among the Edur knows little comfort.’

‘You were fed,’ Fear Sengar said.

‘When a bloodwood tree toppled in the forest,’ Udinaas said, ‘we’d be sent out to drag it back to the village. Do you remember those times, Fear? Sometimes the trunk would shift unexpectedly, slide in mud or whatever, and crush a slave. One of them was from our own household-you don’t recall him, do you? What’s one more dead slave? You Edur would shout out when that happened, saying the bloodwood spirit was thirsty for Letherii blood.’

‘Enough, Udinaas,’ Seren said, finally succeeding in lighting the lantern. As the illumination burgeoned, the bats exploded from the cracks and suddenly the air was filled with frantic, beating wings. A dozen heartbeats later the creatures were gone.

She straightened, raising the lantern.

They stood on a thick mouldy paste-guano, crawling with grubs and beetles-from which rose a foul stench.

‘We’d better move in,’ Seren said, ‘and get clear of this. There are fevers…’

The man was screaming as the guards dragged him by his chains, across the courtyard to the ring-wall. His crushed feet left bloody smears on the pavestones. Screams of accusation wailed from him, shrill outrage at the shaping of the world-the Letherii world.

Tanal Yathvanar snorted softly. ‘Hear him. Such naivety.’

Karos Invictad, standing beside him on the balcony, gave him a sharp look. ‘You foolish man, Tanal Yathvanar.’

‘Invigilator?’

Karos Invictad leaned his forearms on the railing and squinted down at the prisoner. Fingers like bloated river-worms slowly entwined. From somewhere overhead a gull was laughing. ‘Who poses the greatest threat to the empire, Yathvanar?’

‘Fanatics,’ Tanal replied after a moment. ‘Like that one below.’

‘Incorrect. Listen to his words. He is possessed of certainty. He holds to a secure vision of the world, a man with the correct answers-that the prerequisite questions were themselves the correct ones goes without saying. A citizen with certainty, Yathvanar, can be swayed, turned, can be made into a most diligent ally. All one needs to do is find what threatens them the most. Ignite their fear, burn to cinders the foundations of their certainty, then offer an equally certain alternate way of thinking, of seeing the world. They will reach across, no matter how wide the gulf, and grasp and hold on to you with all their strength. No, the certain are not our enemies. Presently misguided, as in the case of the man below, but always most vulnerable to lean Take away the comfort of their convictions, then coax them with seemingly cogent and reasonable convictions of our own making. Their eventual embrace is assured.’

‘I see.’

‘Tanal Yathvanar, our greatest enemies are those who are without certainty. The ones with questions, the ones who regard our tidy answers with unquenchable scepticism. Those questions assail us, undermine us. They… agitate.

Understand, these dangerous citizens understand that nothing is simple; their stance is the very opposite of naivety. They are humbled by the ambivalence to which they are witness, and they defy our simple, comforting assertions of clarity, of a black and white world. Yathvanar, when you wish to deliver the gravest insult to such a citizen, call them naive. You will leave them incensed indeed, virtually speechless… until you watch their minds back-tracking, revealed by a cascade of expressions, as they ask themselves: who is it that would call me naive? Well, comes the answer, clearly a person possessing certainty with all the arrogance and pretension that position entails; a confidence, then, that permits the offhand judge ment, the derisive dismissal uttered from a most lofty height. And from all this, into your victim’s eyes will come the light of recognition-in you he faces his enemy, his truest enemy. And he will know fear. Indeed, terror.’

‘You invite the question, then, Invigilator…’

Karos Invictad smiled. ‘Do I possess certainty? Or am I in fact plagued by questions, doubts, do I flounder in the wild currents of complexity?’ He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘I hold to but one certainty. Power shapes the face of the world. In itself, it is neither benign nor malicious, it is simply the tool by which its wielder reshapes all that is around him or herself, reshapes it to suit his or her own… comforts. Of course, to express power is to enact tyranny, which can be most subtle and soft, or cruel and hard. Implicit in power-political, familial, as you like-is the threat of coercion. Against all who choose to resist. And know this: if coercion is available, it will be used.’ He gestured. ‘Listen to that man. He does my work for me. Down in the dungeons, his cellmates hear his ravings, and some among them join in chorus-the guards take note of who, and that is a list of names I peruse daily, for they are the ones I can win over. The ones who say nothing, or turn away, now that is the list of those who must die.’

‘So,’ said Tanal, ‘we let him scream.’

‘Yes. The irony is, he truly is naive, although not of course as you originally meant. It is his very certainty that reveals his blithe ignorance. It is a further irony that both extremes of the political spectrum reveal a convergence or the means and methods and indeed the very attitudes of the believers-their ferocity against naysayers, the blood they willingly spill for their cause, defending their version of reality. The hatred they reveal for those who voice doubts. Scepticism disguises contempt, after all, and to be held in contempt by one who holds to nothing is to feel the ieepest, most cutting wound. And so we who hold to certainty, Yathvanar, soon find it our mission to root out and annihilate the questioners. And my, the pleasure we drrive from that…’

Tanal Yathvanar said nothing, inundated with a storm of suspicions, none of which he could isolate, chase down.

Karos Invictad said, ‘You were so quick to judge, weren’t you? Ah, you revealed so much with that contemptuous Utterance. And I admit to being amused at my own in-stinctive response to your words. Naive. Errant take me, I wnnted to rip your head from your body, like decapitating a swamp-fly. I wanted to show you true contempt. Mine. For you and your kind. I wanted to take that dismissive expression on your face and push it through an offal grinder. You think you have all the answers? You must, given the ease of your voiced judgement. Well, you pathetic little creature, one day Uncertainty will come to your door, will clamber down your throat, and it will be a race to see which arrives first, humility Of death. Either way, I will spare you a moment’s compassion, which is what sets you and me apart, isn’t it? A package arrived today, yes?’

I anal blinked. See how we all possess a bloodlust. Then he nodded. ‘Yes, Invigilator. A new puzzle for you.’

‘Excellent. From whom?’

‘Anonymous.’

‘Most curious. Is that part of the mystery, or fear of ridicule when I solve it after a mere moment’s thought? Well, how can you possibly answer that question? Where is It now?’

‘It should have been delivered to your office, sir.’

‘Good. Permit the man below to scream for the rest of the afternoon, then have him sent below again.’

Tanal bowed as Karos left the balcony. He waited for a hundred heartbeats, then he too departed.

A short time later he descended to the lowest level of the ancient dungeons, down spiralling stone steps to corridors and cells that had not seen regular use in centuries. The recent floods had inundated both this level and the one above it, although the waters had since drained, leaving behind thick silts and the stench of stagnant, filthy water. Carrying a lantern, Tanal Yathvanar made his way down a sloping channel until he came to what had once been the primary inquisition chamber. Arcane, rust-seized mechanisms squatted on the pavestoned floor, or were affixed to walls, with one bedframe-like cage suspended from the ceiling by thick chains.

Directly opposite the entrance was a wedge-shaped con-traption, replete with manacles and chains that could be drawn tight via a wall-mounted ratchet to one side. The inclined bed faced onto the chamber, and shackled to it was the woman he had been instructed to release.

She was awake, turning her face away from the sudden light.

Tanal set the lantern down on a table cluttered with instruments of torture. ‘Time for a feeding,’ he said.

She said nothing.

A well-respected academic. Look at her now. All those lofty words of yours,’ Tanal said. ‘In the end, they prove less substantial than dust on the wind.’

Her voice was ragged, croaking. ‘May you one day choke on that dust, little man.’

Tanal smiled. ‘“Little”. You seek to wound me. pathetic effort.’ He walked over to a chest against the wall to his right. It had contained vise-helms, but Tan; had removed the skull-crushers, filling the chest witi flasks of water and dried foodstuffs. ‘I shall need to bring down buckets with soap-water,’ he said, drawing out the makings of her supper. ‘Unavoidable as your defecation is, the smell and the stains are most unpleasant.’

‘Oh, I offend you, do I?’

He glanced over at her and smiled. ‘Janath Anar, a senior lecturer in the Academy of Imperial Learning. Alas, you appear to have learned nothing of imperial ways. Although, one might argue, that has changed since your arrival here.’

She studied him, a strangely heavy look to her bruised eyes. ‘From the First Empire until this day, little man, there have been times of outright tyranny. That the present oppressors are Tiste Edur is scarely worth noting. After all, the true oppression comes from you. Letherii against Letherii. Furthermore-’

‘Furthermore,’ Tanal said, mocking her, ‘the Patriotists are the Letherii gift of mercy against their own. Better us than the Edur. We do not make indisctiminate arrests; we do not punish out of ignorance; we are not random.’

‘A gift? Do you truly believe that?’ she asked, still studying him. ‘The Edur don’t give a damn, one way or the other. Their leader is unkillable, and that makes their mastery ahsolute.’

A high-ranking Tiste Edur liaises with us almost daily-’

‘To keep you in rein. You, Tanal Yathvanar, not your prisoners. You and that madman, Karos Invictad.’ She cocked her head. ‘Why is it, I wonder, that organizations such as yours are invariably run by pitiful human failures? By small-minded psychotics and perverts. All bullied as children, of course. Or abused by twisted parents-I’m sure you have terrible tales to confess, of your miserable youth. And now the powet is in your hands, and oh how the test of us suffer.’

Tanal walked over with the food and the flask of water.

‘For Errant’s sake,’ she said, ‘loosen at least one of my arms, so I can feed myself.’

He came up beside her. ‘No, I prefer it this way. Are you humiliated, being fed like a babe?’

‘What do you want with me?’ janath asked, as he unstoppered the flask.

He set it to her cracked lips, watched her drink. ‘I don’t recall saying I wanted anything,’ he replied.

She twisted her head away, coughing, water spilling onto her chest. ‘I’ve confessed everything,’ she said after a moment. ‘You have all my notes, my treasonous lectures on personal responsibility and the necessity for compassion-’

‘Yes, your moral relativism.’

‘I refute any notion of relativism, little man-which you’d know had you bothered reading those notes. The structures of a culture do not circumvent nor excuse self-evident injustice or inequity. The status quo is not sacred, not an altar to paint in rivers of blood. Tradition and habit are not sound arguments-’

‘White Crow, woman, you are most certainly a lecturer. I liked you better unconscious.’

‘Best beat me senseless again,’ she said.

‘Alas, I cannot. After all, I am supposed to free you.’

Her eyes narrowed on his, then shied away again ‘Careless of me,’ she muttered.

‘In what way?’ he asked.

‘I was almost seduced. The lure of hope. If you are supposed to free me, you would never have brought me down here. No, I’m to be your private victim, and you my private nightmare. In the end, the chains upon you will be a match to mine.’

‘The psychology of the human mind,’ Tanal said, push-ing some fat-soaked bread into her mouth. ‘Your speciality. So, you can read my life as easily as you read a scroll. Is that supposed to frighten me?’

She chewed, then, with a struggle, swallowed. ‘I wield a far deadlier weapon, little man.’

‘And that would be?’

‘I slip into your head. I see through your eyes. Swim the streams of your thought. I stand there, looking at the soiled creature chained to this rape-bed. And eventually, I begin to understand you. It’s more intimate than making love, little man, because all your secrets vanish. And, in case you

. were wondering, yes, I am doing it even now. Listening to my own words as you listen, feeling the tightness gripping your chest, that odd chill beneath your skin despite the fresh sweat. The sudden fear, as you realize the extent of your vulnerability-’

He struck her. Hard enough to snap her head to one side. Blood gushed from her mouth. She coughed, spat, then spat again, her breath coming in ragged, liquid gasps. ‘We can resume this meal later,’ he said, struggling to keep his words toneless. ‘I expect you’ll do your share of screaming in the days and weeks to come, Janath, but I assure you, your cries will reach no-one.’

A peculiar hacking sound came from her.

After a moment, Tanal realized she was laughing.

‘Impressive bravado,’ he said, with sincerity. ‘Eventually, I may in truth free you. For now, I remain undecided. I’m lure you understand.’

She nodded.

‘You arrogant bitch,’ he said.

She laughed again.

He backed away. ‘Do not think I will leave the lantern,’ he snarled.

Her laughter followed him out, cutting like broken glass.

The ornate carriage, trimmed in gleaming bloodwood, was motionless, drawn up to one side of the main thoroughfare of Drene, its tall wheels straddling the open sewer. The four bone-white horses stood listless in the unseasonal heat, heads hanging down over their collars. Directly ahead of them the street was framed in an arching open gate, and beyond it was the sprawling maze of the High Market, a vast concourse crowded with stalls, carts, livestock and throngs of people.

The flow of wealth, the cacophony of voices and the multitude of proffering or grasping hands seemed to culminate in a force, battering at Brohl Handar’s senses even from where he sat, protected within the plush confines of the carriage. The heaving sounds from the market, the chaotic back and forth flow of people beneath the gate, and the crowds on the street itself, all made the Overseer think of religious fervour, as if he was witness to a frenzied version of a Tiste Edur funeral. In place of the women voicing their rhythmic grunts of constrained grief, drovers bullied braying beasts through the press. Instead of unblooded youths wading through blood-frothed surf pounding paddles against the waves, there was the clatter of cartwheels and the high, piping cries of hawkers. The woodsmoke of the pyres and offerings enwreathing an Edur village was, here, a thick, dusty river tainted with a thousand scents. Dung, horse piss, roasting meat, vege-tables and fish, uncured myrid hides and tanned rodara skins; rotting wastes and the cloying smells of intoxicating drugs.

Here, among the Letherii, no precious offerings were thrown into the sea. Tusked seal ivory leaned against shelves like fang-rows from some wooden mechanisms of torture. In other stalls, that ivory reappeared, this time carved into a thousand shapes, many of them mimicking religious objects from the Edur, the Jheck and the Fent, or as playing pieces for a game. Polished amber was adornment, not the sacred tears of captured dusk, and bloodwood itself had been carved into bowls, cups and cooking utensils.

Or to trim an ostentatious carriage.

Through a slit in the shutters, the Overseer watched the surging to and fro on the street. An occasional Tiste Edur appeared in the crowds, a head taller than most Letherii, and Brohl thought he could read something of bemusement behind their haughty, remote expressions; and once, in the face of an overdressed, ring-speared Elder whom Brohl knew personally, he saw the glint of avarice in the Edur’s eyes.

Change was rarely chosen, and its common arrival was slow, subtle. Granted, the Letherii had experienced the shock of defeated armies, a slain king, and a new ruling class, but even then such sudden reversals had proved not Hourly as catastrophic as one might have expected. The skein that held Lether together was resilient and, Brohl now knew, far stronger than it appeared. What disturbed him the most, however, was the ease with which that skein entwined all who found themselves in its midst.

Poison in that touch, yet not fatal, just intoxicating. Sweet, yet perhaps, ultimately, deadly. This is what comes of… fomfort. Yet, he could well see, the reward of comfort was not available to all; indeed, it seemed disturbingly rare. While those who possessed wealth clearly exulted in its dis-play, that very ostentation underscored the fact that they were a distinct minority. But that imbalance was, he now understood, entirely necessary. Not everyone could be rich the system would not permit such equity, for the power and privilege it offered was dependent on the very opposite. Inequity, else how can power be assessed, how can the gifts of privilege be valued? For there to be rich, there must be poor, and more of the latter than the former.

Simple rules, easily arrived at through simple obser-vation. Brohl Handar was not a sophisticated man, a shortcoming he was reminded of every day since his arrival as Overseer of Drene. He had no particular experience with governing, and few of the skills in his possession were proving applicable to his new responsibilities.

The Factor, Letur Anict, was conducting an unofficial war against the tribes beyond the borderlands, using Imperial troops to steal land and consolidate his new-found holdings. There was no real justification for this bloodshed; the goal was personal wealth. As yet, however, Brohl Handar did not know what he was going to do about it, if Indeed he was going to do anything. He had prepared a long report to the Emperor, providing well-documented details describing the situation here in Drene. That report remained in Brohl’s possession, for he had begun to suspect that, should he send it off to Letheras, it would not reach the Emperor, or any of his Edur advisors. The Letherii Chancellor, Triban Gnol, appeared to be complicit and possibly even in league with Letur Anict-hinting at a vast web of power, hidden beneath the surface and seeminghly thriving unaffected by Edur rule. At the moment, all Brohl Handar had were suspicions, hints of that insidious web of power. One link was certain, and that was with this Letherii association of wealthy families, the Liberty Consign. Possibly, this organization was at the very heart of the hidden power. But he could not be sure.

Brohl Handar, a minor noble among the Tiste Edur, and newly appointed Overseer to a small city in a remote corner of the empire, well knew that he could not challenge such a thing as the Liberty Consign. He was, indeed, beginning to believe that the Tiste Edur tribes, scattered as they had become across this vast land, were little more than flotsam riding the indifferent currents of a turgid, deep river.

Yet, there is the Emperor.

Who is quite probably insane.

He did not know to whom to turn; nor even if what he was witnessing was, in truth, as dangerous as it seemed.

Brohl was startled by a commotion near the gate and he leaned forward to set an eye against the slit between the shutters.

An arrest. People were quickly moving away from the scene as two nondescript Letherii, one to each side, pushed their victim face-first against one of the gate’s uprights. There were no shouted accusations, no frightened denials. The silence shared by the Patriotist agents and their prisoner left the Overseer strangely shaken. As if the details did not matter to any of them.

One of the agents was searching for weapons, finding none, and then, as his fellow agent held the man against the ornate upright, he removed the leather hip-satchel from the man’s belt and began rummaging through it.’ The prisoner’s face was pressed sideways against the bas-relief carvings on the broad, squared column, and those carvings depicted some past glory of the Letherii Empire. Brohl iliiiiihu suspected the irony was lost on all concerned. Sedition would be the charge. It was always the charge. But against what? Not the presence of the Tiste Edur-that would be pointless, after all, and certainly there had been virtually no attempts at reprisal, at least none that Brohl Handar had heard about. So… what, precisely? Against whom? The Indebted always existed, and some fled their debts, but most did not. There were sects formulated around political or social disquiet, many of them drawing membership from the disenfranchised remnants of sub-jugated tribes-the Fent, the Nerek, Tarthenal and others. But since the conquest, most of these sects had either dissolved or fled the empire. Sedition. A charge to silence debate. Somewhere, therefore, there must exist a list of the accepted beliefs, the host of convictions and faiths that composed the proper doctrine. Or was something more insidious at work?

There was a scratch at the carriage door, and a moment later it opened.

Brohl Handar studied the figure stepping onto the runner, the carriage tilting with his weight. ‘By all means, Orbyn,’ he said, ‘enter.’

Muscle softened by years of inactivity, fleshy face, the Jowls heavy and slack, Orbyn ‘Truthfinder’ seemed to sweat incessantly, regardless of ambient temperature, as if some internal pressure forced the toxins of his mind to the surface of his skin. The local head of the Patriotists was, to Brohl Handar’s eye, the most despicable, malicious creature he had ever met.

‘Your arrival is well timed,’ the Tiste Edur said as Orbyn entered the carriage and settled down on the bench opposite, the acrid smell of his sweat wafting across. ‘Although I was not aware that you personally oversee the daily activities of your agents.’

()rbyn’s thin lips creased in a smile. ‘We have stumbled

ON some information that might be of interest to you, Overseer.’

‘Another one of your non-existent conspiracies?’

The smile widened momentarily, a flicker. ‘If you are referring to the Bolkando Conspiracy, alas, that one belongs to the Liberty Consign. The information we have acquired concerns your people.’

My people. ‘Very well.’ Brohl Handar waited. Outside, the two agents were dragging their prisoner away, and around them the flow of humanity resumed, furtive in their avoidance.

‘A party was sighted, west of Bluerose. Two Tiste Edur, one of them white-skinned. This latter one, I believe, has become known as the White Crow-a most disturbing title for us Letherii, by the way.’ He blinked, the lids heavy. ‘Accompanying them were three Letherii, two female and one an escaped slave with the ownership tattoos of the Hiroth tribe.’

Brohl forced himself to remain expressionless, although a tightness gripped his chest. This is none of your business. ‘Do you have more details as to their precise location?’

‘They were heading east, to the mountains. There are three passes, only two open this early in the season.’

Brohl Handar slowly nodded. ‘The Emperor’s K’risnan are also capable of determining their general whereabouts. Those passes are blocked.’ He paused, then said, ‘It is as Hannan Mosag predicted.’

Orbyn’s dark eyes studied him from between folds of fat ‘I am reminded of Edur efficiency.’

Yes.

The man known as Truthfinder went on, ‘The Patriotists have questions regarding this white-skinned Tiste Edur, this White Crow. From which tribe does he hail?’

‘None. He is not Tiste Edur.’

‘Ah. I am surprised. The description…’

Brohl Handar said nothing.

‘Overseer, can we assist?’

‘Unnecessary at this time,’ Brohl replied.

‘I am most curious as to why you have not already closed in on this party and effected a capture. My sources indicate that the Tiste Edur is none other than Fear Sengar, the Emperor’s brother.’

‘As I said, the passes are blocked.’

‘Ah, then you are tightening the net even as we speak.’

Brohl Handar smiled. ‘Orbyn, you said earlier the Bolkando Conspiracy is under the purview of the Liberty Consign. By that, are you truly telling me that the Patriotists are without interest in that matter?’

‘Not at all. The Consign makes use of our network on a regular basis-’

‘For which you are no doubt rewarded.’

‘Of course.’

‘I find myself-’

Orbyn raised a hand, head cocking. ‘You will have to excuse me, Overseer. I hear alarms.’ He rose with a grunt, pushing open the carriage door.

Bemused, Brohl said nothing, watching as the Letherii left. Once the door was closed he reached to a small compartment and withdrew a woven ball filled with scented grasses, then held it to his face. A tug on a cord stirred the driver to collect up the traces. The carriage lurched as it rolled forward. Brohl could hear the alarms now, a frantic cacophony. Leaning forward, he spoke into the voice-tube. ‘Take us to those bells, driver.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘No hurry.’

The Drene Garrison commanded a full dozen stone buildings situated on a low hill north of the city centre. Armoury, stables, barracks and command headquarters were all heavily fortified, although the complex was not walled. Drene had been a city-state once, centuries past, and after a protracted war with the Awl the beleaguered king had invited Letherii troops to effect victory against the nomads. Decades later, evidence had come out that the conflict itself had been the result of Letherii manipulations. In any case, the Letherii troops had never left; the king accepted the title of vizier and in a succession of tragic accidents he and his entire line were wiped out. But that was history, now, the kind that was met with indifference.

Four principal avenues extended out from the garrison’*s parade grounds, the one leading northward converging with the Gate Road that led to the city wall and the North Coast track-the least frequented of the three landward routes to and from the city.

In the shadows beneath the gabled balcony of a palatial estate just beyond the armoury, on the north avenue, a clear line of sight was available for the short, lithe figure standing in the cool gloom. A rough-woven hood hid the features, although had anyone bothered to pause in passing, squinting hard, they would have been startled to see the glint of crimson scales where the face should have been and eyes hidden in black-rimmed slits. But there was some-thing about the figure that encouraged inattention. Gazes slid past, rarely comprehending that, indeed, someone stood in those shadows.

He had positioned himself there just before dawn and it was now late afternoon. Eyes fixed on the garrison the messengers entering and exiting the headquarters, the visitation of a half-dozen noble merchants, the purchasing of horses, scrap metal, saddles and other sundry materiel He studied the skin hides on the round-shields of the lancers-flattened faces, the skin darkened to somewhere between purple and ochre, making the tattooing subtle and strangely beautiful.

Late afternoon, the shadows lengthening, and the figure made note of two Letherii men, passing across his field of vision for the second time. Their lack of attention seemed… conspicuous, and some instinct told the cowled figure that it was time to leave.

As soon as they had passed by, heading up the street westward, the figure stepped out from the shadows, walked swiftly and silently after the two men. He sensed their sudden, heightened awareness-and perhaps something like alarm. Moments before catching up to them, he turned right, into an alley leading north.

Fifteen paces in, he found a dark recess in which he could bide. He drew back his cloak and cinched it, freeing his and hands.

A dozen heartbeats passed before he heard their footfalls.

He watched them walk past, cautious, both with drawn knives. One whispered something to the other and they hesitated.

The figure allowed his right foot to scrape as he stepped forward.

They spun round.

The Awl’dan cadaran whip was a whisper as it snaked out, the leather-studded with coin-sized, dagger-sharp, overlapping half-moon blades-flickering out in a gleam-ing arc that licked both men across their throats. Blood sprayed.

He watched them crumple. The blood flowed freely, more from the man who had been on the left, spreading across the greasy cobbles. Stepping close to the other victim, he unsheathed a knife and plunged it point-first into his throat; then, with practised familiarity, he cut off the man’s face, taking skin, muscle and hair. He repeated the ghastly task with the other man.

Two fewer agents of the Patriotists to contend with.

Of course, they worked in threes, one always at a distance, following the first two.

Prom the garrison, the first alarms sounded, a shrill collection of bells that trilled out through the dusty air about the buildings.

Folding up his grisly trophies and pushing them beneath a fold in the loose rodara wool shirt that covered his scaled hauberk, the figure set off along the alley, making for the north gate.

A squad of the city guard appeared at the far mouth, five armoured, helmed Letherii with shortswords and shields.

Upon seeing them, the figure sprinted forward, freeing the cadaran whip in his left hand, while in his right hand he shook free the rygtha crescent axe from the over-under strips of rawhide that had held it against his hip. A thick haft, as long as a grown man’s thigh bone, to which each end was affixed a three-quarter-moon iron blade, their planes perpendicular to each other. Cadaran and rygtha ancient weapons of the Awl’dan, their mastery virtually unknown among the tribes for at least a century.

The constabulary had, accordingly, never before faced such weapons…

At ten paces from the first three guardsmen, the whip lashed out, a blurred sideways figure-eight that spawned screams and gouts of blood that spilled almost black in the alley’s gloom. Two of the Letherii reeled back.

The lithe, wiry figure closed on the last man in the from row. Right hand slid along the haft to run up against flange beneath the left-side crescent blade, the haf** slapping parallel to the underside of his forearm as he brought the weapon up-blocking a desperate slash from the guard’s shortsword. Then, as the Awl threw his elbow forward, the right-side blade flashed out, cutting at the man’s face, connecting just below the helm’s rim, chopping through the nasal ridge and frontal bone before dipping into the soft matter of his brain. The tapered, sharp crescent blade slid back out with ease, as the Awl slipped past the falling guard, whip returning from an over-the head gather to hiss out, wrapping round the neck of the fourth Letherii-who shrieked, dropping his sword as he scrabbled at the deadly blades-as the Awl dropped into crouch, his right hand sliding the length of the rygtha haf** to abut the flanged base of the right-blade, then slashing out. The fifth guard jerked his shield upward to block, but too late-the blade caught him across the eyes.

A tug on the whip decapitated the fourth guard.

The Awl released his hold on the cadaran’s handle and gripping the rygtha at both ends, stepped close to slam the haft into the last guard’s throat, crushing the windpipe.

Collecting the whip, he moved on.

A street, the sound of lancers off to the right. The gate, fifty paces to the left, now knotted with guards-heads turning his way.

He raced straight for them.

Atri-Preda Bivatt took personal command of a troop of lancers. Twenty riders at her back, she led her horse at a Canter, following the trail of a bloodbath.

The two Patriotist agents midway down the alley. Five city guardsmen at the far end.

Hiding out onto the street, she angled her mount to the left, drawing her longsword as she neared the gate.

Bodies everywhere, twenty or more, and only two Seemed to be still alive. Bivatt stared from beneath the rim of her helm, cold sweat prickling awake beneath her armour. Blood everywhere. On the cobbles, splashed high on the walls and the gate itself. Dismembered limbs. The stench of vacated bowels, spilled intestines. One of the survivors was screaming, head whipping back and forth. Both his hands had been sliced off.

lust beyond the gate, Bivatt saw as she reined in, four horses were down, their riders sprawled out on the road. Drifting dust indicated that the others from the first troop to arrive were riding in pursuit.

The other survivor stumbled up to her. He had taken a Mow to the head, the helm dented on one side and blood flowing down that side of his face and neck. In his eyes as he stared up at her, a look of horror. He opened his mouth, but no words came forth.

Bivatt scanned the area once more, then turned to her Finadd. ‘Take the troop through, go after them. Get your weapons out, damn you!’ She glared back down at the guardsman. ‘How many were there?’

He gaped.

More guardsmen were arriving. A cutter hurried to the screaming man who had lost his hands.

‘Did you hear my question?’ Bivatt hissed.

He nodded, then said. ‘One. One man, Atri-Preda.’

One? Ridiculous. ‘Describe him!’

‘Scales-his face was scales. Red as blood!’

A rider from her troop returned from the road. ‘The first troop of lancers are all dead, Atri-Preda,’ he said, his tone high and pinched. ‘Further down the road. All the horse but one-sir, should we follow?’

‘Should you follow? You damned fool-of course you should follow! Stay on his trail!’

A voice spoke behind her. ‘That description, Atri-Preda

She twisted round in her saddle.

Orbyn Truthfinder, sheathed in sweat, stood amidst the carnage, his small eyes fixed on her.

Bivatt bared her teeth in a half-snarl. ‘Yes,’ she snappe Redmask. None other.

The commander of the Patriotists in Drene pursed his lips, glanced down to scan the corpses on all sides. ‘It seems,’ he said, ‘his exile from the tribes is at an end.’

Yes.

Errant save us.

Brohl Handar stepped down from the carriage and surveyed the scene of battle. He could not imagine what sort of weapons the attackers had used, to achieve the sort of damage he saw before him. The Atri-Preda had taken charge, as more soldiery appeared, while Orbyn Truthfinder stood in the shade of the gate blockhouse entrance, silent and watching.

The Overseer approached Bivatt. ‘Atri-Preda,’ he said, ‘I see none but your own dead here.’

She glared at him, yet it was a look containing mora than simple anger. He saw fear in her eyes. ‘The city was infiltrated,’ she said, ‘by an Awl warrior.’

‘This is the work of one man?’

‘It is the least of his talents.’

‘Ah, then you know who this man is.’

‘Overseer, I am rather busy-’

‘Tell me of him.’

Grimacing, she gestured him to one side of the gate. They both had to step carefully over corpses sprawled on the slick cobblestones. ‘I think I have sent a troop of lancers out to their deaths, Overseer. My mood is not conducive to lengthy conversation.’

‘Oblige me. If a war-party of Awl’dan warriors is at the very edge of this city, there must be an organized response one,’ he added, seeing her offended look, ‘involving the Tisle Edur as well as your units.’

After a moment, she nodded. ‘Redmask. The only name by which we know him. Even the Awl’dan have but legends of his origins-’

‘And they are?’

‘Letur Anict-’

Brohl Handar hissed in anger and glared across at Orbyn, who had moved within hearing range. ‘Why is it that every disaster begins with that man’s name?’

Bivatt resumed. ‘There was skirmishing, years ago now, between a rich Awl tribe and the Factor. Simply, Letur Anict coveted the tribe’s vast herds. He despatched agents who, one night, entered an Awl camp and succeeded in kidnapping a,young woman-one of the clan leader’s daughters. The Awl, you see, were in the habit of stealing Letherii children. In any case, that daughter had a brother.’

‘Redmask.’

She nodded. ‘A younger brother. Anyway, the Factor adopted the girl into his household, and before too long she waS Indebted to him-’

‘No doubt without even being aware of that. Yes, I Understand. And so, in order to purchase that debt, and her own freedom, Letur demanded her father’s herds.’

‘Yes, more or less. And the clan leader agreed. Alas, even as the Factor’s forces approached the Awl camp with their precious cargo, the girl plunged a knife into her own heart. Thereafter, things got rather confused. Letur Anict’s soldiers attacked the Awl camp, killing everyone-’

‘The Factor decided he would take the herds anyway.’

‘Yes. It turned out, however, that there was one survivor. A few years later, as the skirmishes grew fiercer, the Factor’s troops found themselves losing engagement after engagement. Ambushes were turned. And the name of Redmask was first heard-a new war chief. Now, what follows is even less precise than what I have described thus far. It seems there was a gathering of the clans, and Redmask spoke-argued, that is, with the Elders. He sought to unify the clans against the Letherii threat, but the Elders could not be convinced. In his rage, Redmask spoke unwise words. The Elders demanded he retract them. He refused, and so was exiled. It is said he travelled east, into the wildlands between here and Kolanse.’

‘What is the significance of the mask?’

Bivatt shook her head. ‘I don’t know. There is a legend that he killed a dragon, in the time immediately following the slaughter of his family. No more than a child-which makes the tale unlikely.’ She shrugged.

‘And so he has returned,’ Brohl Handar said, ‘or some’ other Awl warrior has adopted the mask and so seeks to drive fear into your hearts.’

‘No, it was him. He uses a bladed whip and a two-headedi axe. The weapons themselves are virtually mythical.’

The Overseer frowned at her. ‘Mythical?’

‘Awl legends hold that their people once fought a war, far to the east, when the Awl dwelt in the wildlands. The cadaran and rygtha were weapons designed to deal with that enemy. I have no more details than what I have just given you, except that it appears that whatever that enemy was, it wasn’t human.’

‘Every tribe has tales of past wars, an age of heroes-’

‘Overseer, the Awl’dan legends are not like that.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. First of all, the Awl lost that war. That is why they fled west.’

‘I lave there been no Letherii expeditions into the wildlands?’

‘Not in decades, Overseer. After all, we are clashing with the various territories and kingdoms along that border. The last expedition was virtually wiped out, a single survivor driven mad by what she had seen. She spoke of something called the Hissing Night. The voice of death, apparently. In any case, her madness could not be healed and so she was put to death.’

Brohl Handar considered that for a time. An officer had arrived and was waiting to speak with the Atri-Preda. ‘Thank you,’ he said to Bivatt, then turned away.

‘Overseer.’

He faced her again. ‘Yes?’

‘If Redmask succeeds this time… with the tribes, I mean, well, we shall indeed have need of the Tiste Edur.’

His brows rose. ‘Of course, Atri-Preda.’ And maybe this way, / can reach the ear of the Emperor and Hannan Mosag. Damn this Letur Anict. What has he brought down upon us now?

He rode the Letherii horse hard, leaving the north road and cutting east, across freshly tilled fields that had once been Awl’dlan grazing land. His passage drew the attention of farmers, and from the last hamlet he skirted three stationed soldiers had saddled horses and set off in pursuit.

In a dip of the valley Redmask had just left, they met their deaths in a chorus of animal and human screams, piercing but short-lived.

A bluster of rhinazan spun in a raucous cloud over the Awl warrior’s head, driven away from their favoured hosts by the violence, their wings beating like tiny drums and their long serrated tails hissing in the air as they tracked Redmask. He had long since grown used to their ubiquitous presence. Residents of the wildlands, the weasel-sized flying reptiles were far from home, unless their hosts-in the valley behind him and probably preparing another ambush-could be called home.

He slowed his horse, shifting in discomfort at the awkward Letherii saddle. No-one would reach him now, he knew, and there was no point in running this beast into the ground. The enemy had been confident in their city garrison, brazen with their trophies, and Redmask had learned much in the night and the day he had spent watching them. Bluerose lancers, properly stirruped and nimble on their mounts. Far more formidable than the foot soldiers of years before.

And thus far, since his return, he had seen of his own people only abandoned camps, drover tracks from smallish herds and disused tipi rings. It was as if his home had been decimated, and all the survivors had fled. And at the only scene of battle he had come upon, there had been naught but the corpses of foreigners.

The sun was low on the horizon behind him, dusk closing in, when he came upon the first burned Awl’dan j encampment. A year old, maybe more. White bones jutting from the grasses, blackened stumps from the hut frames, a dusty smell of desolation. No-one had come to retrieve the fallen, to lift the butchered bodies onto lashed platforms, freeing the souls to dance with the carrion birds. The scene raised grim memories.

He rode on. As the darkness gathered, the rhinazan j slowly drifted away, and Redmask could hear the double-thump, one set to either side, as his two companions, their bloody work done, moved up into flanking positions, barely visible in the gloom.

The rhinazan settled onto the horizontal, scaled backs, to lick splashed gore and pluck ticks, to lift their heads in snapping motions, inhaling sharply to draw in the biting insects that buzzed too close.

Redmask allowed his eyes to half close-he had beer awake for most of two days. With Sag’Churok, the hulking male, gliding over the ground to his right; and Gunth Mach, the young drone that was even now growing into a female, on his left, he could not be more secure.

Like the rhinazan, the two K’Chain Che’Malle seemed content, even in this strange land and so far away from their kin.

Content to follow Redmask, to protect him, to kill

Letherii.

And he had no idea why.

Silchas Ruin’s eyes were reptilian in the lantern light, no more appropriate a sight possible given the chamber they now found themselves in, as far as Seren Pedac was concerned. The stone walls, curving upward to a dome, were carved in overlapping scales. The unbroken pattern left her feeling disoriented, slightly nauseous. She settled onto the floor, blinked the grit from her eyes.

It must be near morning, she judged. They had been walking tunnels, ascending inclines and spiralling ramps for most of an entire night. The air was stale, despite the steady downward flow of currents, as if it was gathering ghosts with every chamber and down every corridor it traversed.

She glanced away from her regard of Silchas Ruin, irritated at her own fascination with the savage, unearthly warrior, the way he could hold himself so perfectly still, even the rise and fall of his chest barely discernible. Buried for millennia, yet he did indeed live. Blood flowed in his veins, thoughts rose grimed with the dust of disuse. When he spoke, she could hear the weight of barrowstones. It was unimaginable to her how a person could so suffer without going mad.

Then again, perhaps he was mad, something hidden deep within him, either constrained by exigencies, or simply awaiting release. As a killer-for that surely was what he was-he was both thorough and dispassionate. As if mortal lives could be reduced in meaning, reduced to surgical judgement: obstacle or ally. Nothing else mattered.

She understood the comfort of seeing the world in that manner. The ease of its simplicity was inviting. But for her, impossible. One could not will oneself blind to the complexities of the world. Yet, for Silchas Ruin, such seeming complexities were without relevance. He had found a kind of certainty, and it was unassailable.

Alas, Fear Sengar was not prepared to accept the hopelessness of his constant assaults upon Silchas Ruin. The Tiste Edur stood near the triangular portal they would soon pass through, as if impatient with this rest stop. ‘You think,’ he now said to Silchas Ruin, ‘that I know virtually nothini of that ancient war, the invasion of this realm.’

The albino Tiste Andii’s eyes shifted, fixed on Fear Sengar, but Silchas Ruin made no reply.

‘The women remembered,’ Fear said. ‘They passed thr tales to their daughters. Generation after generation. Yes, I know that Scabandari drove a knife into your back, there on that hill overlooking the field of battle. Yet, was this the first betrayal?’

If he was expecting a reaction, he was disappointed.

Udinaas loosed a low laugh from where he sat with hiis back to the scaled wall. ‘You two are so pointless,’ he said ‘Who betrayed whom. What does it matter? It’s not as if we’re relying on trust to keep us together. Tell me, Fear Sengar-once-master of mine-does your brother have any idea of who Ruin is? Where he came from? I would suggest not. Else he would have come after us personally, with ten thousand warriors at his back. Instead, they toy with us. Aren’t you even curious why?’

No-one spoke for a half-dozen heartbeats, then Kettle giggled, drawing all eyes to her. Her blink was owlish. ‘They want us to find what we’re looking for first, of course.’

‘Then why block our attempts to travel inland?’ Seren demanded.

‘Because they know it’s the wrong direction.’

‘How could they know that?’

Kettle’s small, dust-stained hands fluttered like bats in the gloom. ‘The Crippled God told them, that’s how. The Crippled God said it’s not yet time to travel east. He’s not ready for open war, yet. He doesn’t want us to go into the wildlands, where all the secrets are waiting.’

Seren Pedac stared at the child. ‘Who in Errant’s name is the Crippled God?’

‘The one who gave Rhulad his sword, Acquitor. The true power behind the Tiste Edur.’ Kettle threw up her hands. ‘Scabandari’s dead. The bargain was Hannan Mosag’s, and the coin was Rhulad Sengar.’

Fear stood with bared teeth, staring at Kettle with something like terror in his eyes. ‘How do you know this?’ he demanded.

‘The dead told me. They told me lots of things. So did the ones under the trees, the trapped ones. And they said something else too. They said the vast wheel is about to turn, one last time, before it closes. It closes, because it has to, because that’s how he made it. To tell him all he needs to know. To tell him the truth.’

‘Tell who?’ Seren asked, scowling in confusion.

‘Him, the one who’s coming. You’ll see.’ She ran over to where Fear stood, took him by one hand and started tugging. ‘We need to hurry, or they’ll get us. And if they get us, Silchas Ruin will have to kill everyone.’

I could strangle that child. But she pushed herself to her feet once more.

Udinaas was laughing.

She was inclined to strangle him as well.

‘Silchas,’ she said as she moved close, ‘do you have any idea what Kettle was talking about?’

‘No, Acquitor. But,’ he added, ‘I intend to keep listening.’

Chapter Three

He was not a man in bed. Oh, his parts functioned well enough, but in every other way he was a child, this Emperor of a Thousand Deaths. But worst of all, Nisall decided, was what happened afterwards, as he fell into that half-sleep, half-something else, limbs spasming, endless words tumbling from him in a litany of pleading, punctuated by despairing sobs that scraped the scented air of the chamber. And before long, after she’d escaped the bed itself, drawing a robe about her and taking position near the painted scene in the false window, five paces distant, she would watch him crawl down onto the floor and make his way as if crippled from some spinal injury, the ever-present sword trailing in one hand, across the room to the corner, where he would spend the rest of the night, curled up, locked in some eternal nightmare.

A thousand deaths, lived through night upon night. A thousand.

An exaggeration, of course. A few hundred at most.

Emperor Rhulad’s torment was not the product of a fevered imagination, nor born of a host of anxieties. What haunted him were the truths of his past. She was able to identify some of his mutterings, in particular the one that dominated his nightmares, for she had been there. In the throne room, witness to Rhulad’s non-death, weeping there on the floor all slick with his spilled blood, with a corpse on his throne and Rhulad’s own slayer lying half upright against the dais-stolen away by poison.

Hannan Mosag’s pathetic slither towards that throne had been halted by the demon that had appeared to collect the body of Brys Beddict, and the almost indifferent sword thrust that killed Rhulad as the apparition made its way out.

The Emperor’s awakening shriek had turned her heart into a frozen lump, a cry so brutally raw that she felt its fire in her own throat.

But it was what followed, a short time after his return, that stalked Rhulad with a thousand dripping blades.

To die, only to return, is to never escape. Never escaped… anything.

Wounds closing, he had lifted himself up, onto his hand and knees, still gripping the cursed sword, the weapon that would not let go. Weeping, drawing in ragged breaths, h crawled towards the throne, sagging down once more whe: he reached the dais.

Nisall had stepped out from where she had hidden moments earlier. Her mind was numb-the suicide of he king-her lover-and the Eunuch, Nifadas-the shocks one upon another in this terrible throne room, the deaths, tumbling like crowded gravestones in a flooded field Triban Gnol, ever the pragmatist, knelt before the new Emperor, pledging his service with the ease of an eel sliding under a new rock. The First Consort had been witness, well, but she could not see Turudal Brizad now, as Rhulad, hlood-wet coins gleaming, twisted round on the step and bared his teeth at Hannan Mosag.

‘Not yours,’ he said in a rasp.

‘Rhulad-’

‘Emperor! And you, Hannan Mosag, are my Ceda… Warlock King no longer. My Ceda, yes.’

‘Your wife-’

‘Dead. Yes.’ Rhulad lifted himself onto the dais, then lose, staring now at the dead Letherii king, Ezgara Diskanar. Then he reached out with his unburdened hand, grasped the front of the king’s brocaded tunic, and dragged the corpse from the throne, letting it fall to one side, head crunching on the tiled floor. A shiver seemed to rack through Rhulad. Then he sat on the throne and looked out, eyes settling once more on Hannan Mosag. ‘Ceda,’ he said, ‘in this, our chamber, you will ever approach us on your belly, as you do now.’

From the shadows at the far end of the throne room there came a phlegmatic cackle.

Rhulad flinched, then said, ‘Now you will leave us, Ceda. And take that hag Janall and her son with you.’

‘Emperor, please, you must understand-’

‘Get out!’

The shriek jarred Nisall, and she hesitated, fighting the urge to flee, to get away from this place. From the court, from the city, from everything.

Then his free hand snapped out and without turning he said to her, ‘Not you, whore. You stay.’

Whore. ‘That term is inappropriate,’ she said, then stiffened in fear, surprised by her own temerity.

He fixed feverish eyes on her. Then, incongruously, he waved dismissively and spoke with sudden weariness. ‘Of course. We apologize. Imperial Concubine…’ His glittering fece twisted in a half-smile. ‘Your king should have taken you as well. He was being selfish, or perhaps his love for you was so dleep that he could not bear inviting you into death.’

She said nothing, for, in truth, she had no answer to give him.

‘Ah, we see the doubt in your eyes. Concubine, you have our sympathy. Know that we will not use you cruelly.’ He fell silent then, as he watched Hannan Mosag drag himself back across the threshold of the chamber’s grand entrance-way. A half-dozen more Tiste Edur had appeared, tremulous in their furtive motions, their uncertainty at what they were witnessing. A hissed command from Hannan Mosag sent two into the room, each one drawing up the burlap over the mangled forms of Janall and Quillas, her son. The sound as they dragged the two flesh-filled sacks from the chamber was, to Nisall’s ears, more grisly than anything else she had yet heard on this fell day.

‘At the same time,’ the Emperor went on after a moment, ‘the title and its attendant privileges… remain, should you so desire.’

She blinked, feeling as if she was standing on shifting sand. ‘You free me to choose, Emperor?’

A nod, the bleary, red-shot eyes still fixed on the chamber’s entranceway. ‘Udinaas,’ he whispered. ‘Betrayer. You… you were not free to choose. Slave-my slave-I should never have trusted the darkness, never…’ He flinched once more on the throne, eyes suddenly glittering. ‘He comes.’

She had no idea whom he meant, but the raw emotion in his voice frightened her anew. What more could come on this terrible day?

Voices outside, one of them sounding bitter, then diffident.

She watched as a Tiste Edur warrior strode into the throne room. Rhulad’s brother. One of them. The one who had left Rhulad lying on the tiles. Young, handsome in that way of the Edur-both alien and perfect. She tried to recall if she had heard his name-

‘Trull,’ said the Emperor in a rasp. ‘Where is he? Where is Fear?’

‘He has… left.’

‘Left? Left us?’

‘Us. Yes, Rhulad-or do you insist I call you Emperor?’

Expressions twisted across Rhulad’s coin-studded face, one after another, then he grimaced and said, ‘You left me, too, brother. Left me bleeding… on the floor. Do you think yourself different from Udinaas? Less a betrayer than my Letherii slave?’

‘Rhulad, would that you were my brother of old-’

‘The one you sneered down upon?’

‘If it seemed I did that, then I apologize.’

‘Yes, you see the need for that now, don’t you?’

Trull Sengar stepped forward. ‘It’s the sword, Rhulad. It is cursed-please, throw it away. Destroy it. You’ve won the throne now, you don’t need it any more-’

‘You are wrong.’ He bared his teeth, as if sickened by self-hatred. ‘Without it I am just Rhulad, youngest son of Tomad. Without the sword, brother, I am nothing.’

Trull cocked his head. ‘You have led us to conquest. I will stand beside you. So will Binadas, and our father. You have won that throne, Rhulad-you need not fear Hannan Mosag-’

‘That miserable worm? You think me frightened of him?’ The sword-tip made a snapping sound as its point jumped free of the tiles. Rhulad aimed the weapon at Trull’s chest. ‘I am the Emperor!’

‘No, you’re not,’ Trull replied. ‘Your sword is Emperor-your sword and the power behind it.’

‘Liar!’ Rhulad shrieked.

Nisall saw Trull flinch back, then steady himself. ‘Prove it.’

The Emperor’s eyes widened.

‘Shatter the sword-Sister’s blessing, just let it fall from your hand. Even that, Rhulad. Just that. Let it fall!’

‘No! I know what you want, brother! You will take it-I see you tensed, ready to dive for it-I see the truth!’ The weapon was shuddering between them, as if eager for blood, anyone’s blood.

Trull shook his head. ‘I want it shattered, Rhulad.’

‘You cannot stand at my side,’ the Emperor hissed. ‘Too close-there is betrayal in your eyes-you left me! Crippled on the floor!’ He raised his voice. ‘Where are my warriors? Into the chamber! Your Emperor commands it!’

A half-dozen Edur warriors suddenly appeared, weapons out.

‘Trull,’ Rhulad whispered. ‘I see you have no sword. Now it is for you to drop your favoured weapon, your spear. And your knives. What? Do you fear I will slay you? Show me the trust you claim in yourself. Guide me with your honour, brother.’

She did not know it then; she did not understand enough of the Edur way of life, but she saw something in Trull’s face, a kind of surrender, but a surrender that was far more complicated, fraught, than simply disarming himself there before his brother. Levels of resignation, settling one upon another, the descent of impossible burdens-and the knowledge shared between the two brothers, of what such a surrender signified. She did not realize at the time what Trull’s answer would mean, the way it was done, not in his own name, not for himself, but for Fear. Fear Sengar, more! than anyone else. She did not realize, then, the immensity’ of his sacrifice, as he unslung his spear and let it clatter to, the tiles; as he removed his knife belt and threw it to one side.

There should have been triumph in Rhulad’s tortured eyes, then, but there wasn’t. Instead, a kind of confusion clouded his gaze, made him shy away, as if seeking help. His attention found and focused upon the six warriors, and he gestured with the sword and said in a broken voice, ‘Trull Sengar is to be Shorn. He will cease to exist, for ourself, for all Edur. Take him. Bind him. Take him away.’

Neither had she realized what that judgement, that deci-sion, had cost Rhulad himself.

Free to choose, she had chosen to remain, for reasons she could not elucidate even in her own mind. Was there pity?

Perhaps. Ambition, without question-for she had sensed, in that predatory manner demanded of life in the court, that there was a way through to him, a way to replace-without all the attendant history-those who were no longer at Rhulad’s side. Not one of his warrior sycophants they were worthless, ultimately, and she knew that Rhulad was well aware of that truth. In the end, she could see, he had no-one. Not his brother, Binadas, who, like Trull, proved too close and thus too dangerous for the Emperor to keep around-and so he had sent him away, seeking champions and scattered kin of the Edur tribes. As for his father, Tomad, again the suborning role proved far too awkward to accommodate. Of the surviving K’risnan of Hannan Mosag, fully half had been sent to accompany Tomad and Binadas, so as to keep the new Ceda weak.

And all the while, as these decisions were made, as the Shoming was conducted, in secrecy, away from Letherii eyes, and as Nisall manoeuvred herself into the Emperor’s bed, the Chancellor, Triban Gnol, had watched on, with the hooded eyes of a raptor.

The consort, Turudal Brizad, had vanished, although Nisall had heard rumours among the court servants that he had not gone far; that he haunted the lesser travelled corridors and subterranean mysteries of the old palace, ghostly and rarely more than half seen. She was undecided on the veracity of such claims; even so, if he were indeed hiding still in the palace, she realized that such a thing would not surprise her in the least. It did not matter-Rhulad had no wife, after all.

The Emperor’s lover, a role she was accustomed to, although it did not seem that way. Rhulad was so young, so different from Ezgara Diskanar. His spiritual wounds were too deep to be healed by her touch, and so, even as she found herself in aposition of eminence, of power-close as she was to the throne-she felt helpless. And profoundly done.

She stood, watching the Emperor of Lether writhing as he curled up ever tighter in the corner of the room. Among the whimpers, groans and gasps, he spat out fragments of his conversation with Trull, his forsaken brother. And again and again, in hoarse whispers, Rhulad begged forgiveness.

Yet a new day awaited them, she reminded herself. And she would see this broken man gather himself, collect the pieces and then take his place seated on the imperial throne, looking out with red-rimmed eyes, his fragmented armour of coins gleaming dull in the light of the traditional torches lining the chamber’s walls; and where those coins were missing, there was naught but scarred tissue, crimson- ringed weals of malformed flesh. And then, this ghastly apparition would, in the course of that day, proceed to astonish her.

Eschewing the old protocols of imperial rule, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths would sit through a presentation of petitions, an ever-growing number of citizens of the empire, poor and rich alike, who had come to accept the Imperial Invitation, feeding their courage to come face to face with their foreign ruler. For bell after bell, Rhulad would mete out justice as best he could. His struggles to understand the lives of the Letherii had touched her in unexpected ways-there was, she had come to believe, a decent soul beneath all that accursed trauma, And it was then that Nisall found herself most needed, although more often of late it was the Chancellor who dominated the advising, and she had come to realize that Triban Gnol had begun to view her as a rival. He was the principal organizer of the petitions, the filter that kept the numbers manageable, and his office had burgeoned accordingly. That his expanded staff also served as a vast and invasive web of spies in the palace was of course a given.

Thus, Nisall watched her Emperor, who had ascended the throne wading through blood, strive for benign rule, seeking a sensitivity too honest and awkward to be other, than genuine. And it was breaking her heart.

For power had no interest in integrity. Even Ezgara Diskanar, so full of promise in his early years, had come to raise a wall between himself and the empire’s citizens in the last decade of his rule. Integrity was too vulnerable to abuse by others, and Ezgara had suffered that betrayal again and again, and, perhaps most painfully of all, from his own wife, lanall, and then their son.

Too easy to dismiss the burden of such wounds, the depth of such scars.

And Rhulad, this youngest son of an Edur noble family, had been a victim of betrayal, of what must have been true friendship-with the slave, Udinaas-and in the threads of shared blood, from his very own brothers.

But each day, he overcame the torments of the night just gone. Nisall wondered, however, how much longer that could list. She alone was witness to his inner triumph, to that extraordinary war he waged with himself every morning. The Chancellor, for all his spies, knew nothing of it-she was Certain of that. And that made him dangerous in his Ignorance.

She needed to speak to Triban Gnol. She needed to Blend this bridge. But I will not be his spy.

A most narrow bridge, then, one to be trod with caution.

Rhulad stirred in the gloom.

And then he whispered, ‘I know what you want, brother…

‘So guide me… guide me with your honour…’

Ah, Trull Sengar, wherever your spirit now lurks, does it please you?.’ Does this please you, to know that your Shaming failed?

So that you have now returned.

To so haunt Rhulad.

Guide me,’ Rhulad croaked.

The sword scraped on the floor, rippling over mosaic Hones like cold laughter.

‘It Is not possible, I’m afraid.’

Bruthen Trana studied the Letherii standing before him for a long moment and said nothing.

The Chancellor’s gaze flicked away, as if distracted, and seemed moments from dismissing the Edur warrior outright; then, perhaps realizing that might be unwise, he cleared his throat and spoke in a tone of sympathy. ‘The Emperor insists on these petitions, as you are aware, and they consume his every waking moment. They are, if you forgive me, his obsession.’ His brows lifted a fraction. ‘How can a true subject question their Emperor’s love of justice? The citizens have come to adore him. They have come to see him for the honourable ruler he is in truth. That transition has taken some time, I admit, and involved immense effort on our part.’

‘I wish to speak to the Emperor,’ Bruthen said, his tone matching precisely the previous time he had spoken those words.

Triban Gnol sighed. ‘Presumably you wish to make your report regarding Invigilator Karos Invictad and hisl Patriotists in person. I assure you, I do forward said reports.’ He frowned at the Tiste Edur, then nodded and said, ‘Very well. I will convey your wishes to his highness, Bruthen Trana.’

‘If need be, place me among the petitioners.’

‘That will not be necessary.’

The Tiste Edur gazed at the Chancellor for a half-dozen heartbeats, then he turned about and left the office. In the larger room beyond waited a crowd of Letherii. A score of faces turned to regard Bruthen as he threaded his way through-faces nervous, struggling with fear-while others studied the Tiste Edur with eyes that gave away nothing:: the Chancellor’s agents, the ones who, Bruthen suspected, went out each morning to round up the day’s petitioners then coached them in what to say to their Emperor.

Ignoring the Letherii as they parted to let him pass, he made his way out into the corridor, then onward through the maze of chambers, hallways and passages that composed the palace. He saw very few other Tiste Edur, barring one of Hannan Mosag’s K’risnan, bent-backed and walking with one shoulder scraping against a wall, dark eyes flickering an acknowledgement as he limped along.

Bruthen Trana made his way into the wing of the palace closest to the river, and here the air was clammy, the corridors mostly empty. While the flooding that had occurred during the early stages of construction had been rectified, via an ingenious system of subsurface pylons, it seemed nothing could dispel the damp. Holes had been knocked in outer walls to create a flow of air, to little effect apart from filling the musty gloom with the scent of river mud and decaying plants.

Bruthen walked through one such hole, emerging out onto a mostly broken-up cobble path, with felled trees rotting amidst high grasses off to his left and the foundations of a small building to his right. Abandonment lingered in the still air like suspended pollen, and Bruthen was alone as he ascended the path’s uneven slope to arrive at the edge of a cleared area, at the other end of which rose the ancient tower of the Azath, with the lesser structures of the Jaghut to either side. In this clearing there were grave markers, set out in no discernible order. Half-buried urns, wax-sealed at the mouth, from which emerged weapons. Swords, broken spears, axes, maces-trophies of failure, a stunted forest of iron.

The Fallen Champions, the residents of a most prestigious cemetery. All had killed Rhulad at least once, some more than once-the greatest of these, an almost full-blood Tarthenal, had slain the Emperor seven times, and Bruthen could remember, with absolute clarity, the look of growing rage and terror in that Tarthenal’s bestial face each time his fallen opponent arose, renewed, stronger and deedlier than he had been only moments earlier.

He entered the bizarre necropolis, eyes drifting across the Various weapons, once so lovingly cared for-many of them bearing names-but now sheathed in rust. At the far end, slighty separated from all the others, stood an empty urn. Months earlier, out of curiosity, he had reached down into it, and found a silver cup. The cup that had contained the poison that killed three Letherii in the throne room-that had killed Brys Beddict.

No ashes. Even his sword had disappeared.

Bruthen Trana suspected that if this man were to return, now, he would face Rhulad again, and do what he did before. No, it was more than suspicion. A certainty.

Unseen by Rhulad, as the new Emperor lay there, cut to shreds on the floor, Bruthen had edged into the chamber to see for himself. And in that moment’s fearful glance, he had discerned the appalling precision of that butchery. Brys Beddict had been perfunctory. Like a scholar dissecting a weak argument, an effort on his part no greater than tying on his moccasins.

Would that he had seen the duel itself, that he had witnessed the artistry of this tragically slain Letheriij swordsman.

He stood, looking down at the dusty, web-covered urn.

And prayed for Brys Beddict’s return.

A pattern was taking shape, incrementally, inexorably. Yet the Errant, once known as Turudal Brizad, Consort to Queen Janall, could not discern its meaning. The sensation, of unease, of dread, was new to him. Indeed, he considered, one could not imagine a more awkward state of mind for a god, here in the heart of his realm.

Oh, he had known times of violence; he had walked the ashes of dead empires, but his own sense of destiny was even then, ever untarnished, inviolate and absolute. And to make matters worse, patterns were his personal obsession, held to with a belief in his mastery of that arcane language, a mastery beyond challenge.

Then who is it who plays with me now?

He stood in the gloom, listening to the trickle of water seeping down some unseen wall, and stared down at the Cedance, the stone tiles of the Holds, the puzzle floor that was the very foundation of his realm. The Cedance. My tiles. Mine. 1 am the Errant. This is my game.

While before him the pattern ground on, the rumbling of stones too low and deep to hear, yet their resonance grated in his bones. Disparate pieces, coming together. A function hidden, until the last moment-when all is too late, when the closure denies every path of escape.

Do you expect me to do nothing? I am not just one more of your victims. I am the Errant. By my hand, every fate is turned. All that seems random is by my design. This is an immutable truth. It has ever been. It shall ever be.

Still, the taste of fear was on his tongue, as if he’d been sucking on dirtied coins day after day, running the wealth of an empire through his mouth. But is that bitter flow inward or out?

The grinding whisper of motion, all resolution of the images carved into the tiles… lost. Not a single Hold would reveal itself.

The Cedance had been this way since the day Ezgara Diskanar died. The Errant would be a fool to disregard link’ age, but that path of reason had yet’to lead him anywhere. Perhaps it was not Ezgara’s death that mattered, but the Ceda’s. He never liked me much. And I stood and watched, as the Tiste Edur edged to one side, as he flung his spear, transfix^ ing Kuru Qan, killing the greatest Ceda since the First Empire. Mv game, I’d thought at the time. But now, I wonder…

Maybe it was Kuru Qan’s. And, somehow, it still plays out. I did not warn him of that imminent danger, did I? Before his last breath rattled, he would have comprehended that… amission.

Has this damned mortal cursed me? Me, a god!

Such a curse should be vulnerable. Not even Kuru Qan was capable of fashioning something that could not be dis-mantled by the Errant. He need only understand its structure, all that pinned it in place, the hidden spikes guiding these tiles.

What comes? The empire is reborn, reinvigorated, revealing the veracity of the ancient prophecy. All is as I foresaw.

His study of the blurred pavestones below the walkway 1 became a glare. He hissed in frustration, and watched his 1 breath plume away in the chill.

An unknown transformation, in which I see naught but the ice of my own exasperation. Thus, I see, but am blind, blind to it all.

The cold, too, was a new phenomenon. The heat of 1 power had bled away from this place. Nothing was as it should be.

Perhaps, at some point, he would have to admit defeat. And then I will have to pay a visit to a little, crabby old man. Working as a servant to a worthless fool. Humble, I will come in search of answers. I let Tehol live, didn’t I? That must count for something.

Mael, I know you interfered last time. With unconscionable disregard for the rules. IsAy rules. But 1 have forgiven you, and that, too, must count for something.

Humility tasted even worse than fear. He was not yet ready for that.

He would take command of the Cedance. But to usurp the pattern, he would first have to find its maker. Kuru Qan? He was unconvinced.

There are disturbances in the pantheons, new and old. Chaos, the stink of violence. Yes, this is a god’s meddling. Perhaps Mael himself is to blame-no, it feels wrong. More likely, he knows nothing, remains blissfully ignorant. Will it serve me to make him aware that something is awry?

An empire reborn. True, the Tiste Edur had their secrets, or at least they believed such truths were well hidden. They were not. An alien god had usurped them, and had made of a young Edur warrior an avatar, a champion, suitably flawed in grisly homage to the god’s own pathetic dysfunctions. Power from pain, glory from degradation, themes in apposition-an empire reborn offered the promise of vigour, of expansion and longevity, none of which was, he had to admit, truly assured. And such are promises.

The god shivered suddenly in the bitter cold air of this vast, subterranean chamber. Shivered, on this walkway above a swirling unknown.

The pattern was taking shape.

And when it did, it would be too late.

‘It’s too late.’

‘But there must be something we can do.’

‘I’m afraid not. It’s dying, Master, and unless we take advantage of its demise right now, someone else will.’

The capabara fish had used its tentacles to crawl up the canal wall, pulling itself over the edge onto the walkway, where it flattened out, strangely spreadeagled, to lie, mouth gaping, gills gasping, watching the morning get cloudy as it expired. The beast was as long as a man is tall, as fat as a mutton merchant from the Inner Isles, and, to Tehol’s astonishment, even uglier. ‘Yet my heart breaks.’

Bugg scratched his mostly hairless pate, then sighed. ‘It’s the unusually cold water,’ he said. ‘These like their mud warm.’

‘Cold water? Can’t you do something about that?’

‘Bugg’s Hydrogation.’

‘You’re branching out?’

‘No, I was just trying on the title.’

‘How do you hydrogate?’

‘1 have no idea. Well, I have, but it’s not quite a legitimate craft.’

‘Meaning it belongs in the realm of the gods.’

‘Mostly. Although,’ he said, brightening, ‘with the recent spate of flooding, and given my past experience in engineering dry foundations, I begin to see some possibilities-.’

‘Can you soak investors?’

Bugg grimaced. ‘Always seeing the destructive side, aren’t you, Master?’

‘It’s my opportunistic nature. Most people,’ he added, ‘would view that as a virtue. Now, are you truly telling me you can’t save this poor fish?’

‘Master, it’s already dead.’

‘Is it? Oh. Well, I guess we now have supper.’

‘More like fifteen suppers.’

‘In any case, I have an appointment, so I will see you and the fish at home.’

‘Why, thank you, Master.’

‘Didn’t I tell you this morning walk would prove beneficial?’

‘Not for the capabara, alas.’

‘Granted. Oh, by the way, I need you to make me a list.’

‘Of what?’

‘Ah, I will have to tell you that later. As I said, I am late for an appointment. It just occurred to me: is this fish too big for you to carry by yourself?’

‘Well,’ Bugg said, eyeing the carcass, ‘it’s small as far as capabara go-remember the one that tried to mate with a galley?’

‘The betting on that outcome overwhelmed the Drownings. I lost everything I had that day.’

‘Everything?’

‘Three copper docks, yes.’

‘What outcome did you anticipate?’

‘Why, small rowboats that could row themselves with big flippery paddles.’

‘You’re late for your appointment, Master.’

‘Wait! Don’t look! I need to do something unseemly right now.’

‘Oh, Master, really.’

Spies stood on street corners. Small squads of grey rain-caped Patriotists moved through the throngs that parted to give them wide berth as they swaggered with gloved hands resting on their belted truncheons, and on their faces the bludgeon arrogance of thugs. Tehol Beddict, wearing his] blanket like a sarong, walked with the benign grace of an ascetic from some obscure but harmless cult. Or at least he hoped so. To venture onto the streets of Letheras these days involved a certain measure of risk that had not existed in King Ezgara Diskanar’s days of pleasant neglect. While on the one hand this lent an air of intrigue and danger to every journey-including shopping for overripe root crops-t here were also the taut nerves that one could not quell, no matter how many mouldy turnips one happened to be carrying.

Compounding matters, in this instance, was the fact that he was indeed intent on subversion. One of the first victims in this new regime had been the Rat Catchers’ Guild. Karos Invictad, the Invigilator of the Patriotists, had acted on his first day of officialdom, despatching fully a hundred agents to Scale House, the modest Guild headquarters, whereupon they effected arrests on scores of Rat Catchers, all of whom, it later turned out, were illusions-a detail unadvertised, of course, lest the dread Patriotists announce their arrival to cries of ridicule. Which would not do.

After all, tyranny has no sense of humour. Too thin-skinned, too thoroughly fuR of its own self-importance. Accordingly, it presents an almost overwhelming temptation-how can I not be excused the occasional mockery? Alas, the Patriotists lacked flexibility in such matters-the deadliest weapon against them was derisive laughter, and they knew it.

He crossed Quillas Canal at a lesser bridge, made his way into the less ostentatious north district, and eventually sauntered into a twisting, shadow-filled alley that had once been a dirt street, before the invention of four-wheeled wagons and side-by-side horse collars. Instead of the usual hovels and back doors that one might expect to find in such an alley, lining this one were shops that had not changed in any substantial way in the past seven hundred Or so years. There, first to the right, the Half-Axe Temple of Herbs, smelling like a swamp’s sinkhole, wherein one could find a prune-faced witch who lived in a mudpit, with all her precious plants crowding the banks, or growing in the insect-flecked pool itself. It was said she had been born in that slime and was only half human; and that her mother had been born there too, and her mother and so on. That such conceptions were immaculate went without saying, since Tehol could hardly imagine any reasonable or even unreasonable man taking that particular plunge.

Opposite the Half-Axe was the narrow-fronted entrance to a shop devoted to short lengths of rope and wooden poles a man and a half high. Tehol had no idea how such a specialized enterprise could survive, especially in this unravelled, truncated market, yet its door had remained open for almost six centuries, locked up each night by a short length of rope and a wooden pole.

The assortment proceeding down the alley was similar only in its peculiarity. Wooden stakes and pegs in one, sandal thongs in another-not the sandals, just the thongs. A shop selling leaky pottery-not an indication of incompetence: rather, the pots were deliberately made to leak at various, precise rates of loss; a place selling unopenable boxes, another toxic dyes. Ceramic teeth, bottles filled with the urine of pregnant women, enormous amphorae containing dead pregnant women; the excreta of obese hogs; and miniature pets-dogs, cats, birds and rodents of all sorts, each one reduced in size through generation after generation of selective breeding-Tehol had seen guard dogs standing no higher than his ankle, and while cute and appropriately yappy, he had doubts as to their efficacy, although they were probably a terror for the thumbnail-sized mice and the cats that could ride an old woman’s big toe, secured there by an ingenious loop in the sandal’s thong.

Since the outlawing of the Rat Catchers’ Guild, Adventure Alley had acquired a new function, to which Tehol now set about applying himself with the insouciance of the initiated. First, into the Half-Axe, clawing his way through the vines immediately beyond the entrance, then drawing up one step short of pitching head-first into the muddy pool.

Splashing, thick slopping sounds, then a dark-skinned wrinkled face appeared amidst the high grasses fringing the, pit. ‘It’s you,’ the witch said, grimacing then slithering out her overlong tongue to display all the leeches attached to it.

‘And it’s you,’ Tehol replied.

The red protuberance with all its friends went back inside. ‘Come in for a swim, you odious man.’

‘Come out and let your skin recover, Munuga. I happen to know you’re barely three decades old.’

‘I am a map of wisdom.’

‘As a warning against the perils of overbathing, perhaps. Where’s the fat root this time?’

‘What have you got for me first?’

‘What I always have. The only thing you ever want from me, Munuga.’

‘The only thing you’ll never give, you mean!’

Sighing, Tehol drew out from under his makeshift sarong a small vial. He held it up for her to see.

She licked her lips, which proved alarmingly complicated. ‘What kind?’’

‘Capabara roe.’

‘Rut I want yours.’

‘I don’t produce roe.’

‘You know what I mean, Tehol Beddict.’

Alas, poverty is more than skin deep. Also, I have lost all incentive to be productive, in any sense of the word. After all, what kind of a world is this that I’d even contemplate delivering a child into?’

‘Tehol Beddict, you cannot deliver a child. You’re a man. Leave the delivering to me.’

‘Tell you what, climb out of that soup, dry out and let me see what you’re supposed to look like, and who knows? Extraordinary things might happen.’

Scowling, she held out an object. ‘Here’s your fat root. Give me that vial, then go away.’

‘ 1 so look forward to next time-’

‘Tehol Beddict, do you know what fat root is used for?’

Her eyes had sharpened with suspicion, and Tehol realized that, were she indeed to dry out, she might be rather handsome after all, in a vaguely amphibian way. ‘No, why?’

‘Are you required to partake of it in some bizarre fashion?’

He shook his head.

‘Are you certain? No unusual tea smelling yellow?’

‘Smelling yellow? What does that mean?’

‘If you smelled it, you’d know. Clearly, you haven’t. Good. Get out, I’m puckering.’

A hasty departure, then, from the Half-Axe. Onward, to the entrance to Grool’s Immeasurable Pots. Presumably, that description was intended to emphasize unmatched quality or something similar, since the pots themselves were sold as clocks, and for alchemical experiments and the like, and such functions were dependent on accurate rates of flow.

He stepped inside the cramped, damp shop.

‘You’re always frowning when you come in here, Tehol Beddict.’

‘Good morning, Laudable Grool.’

‘The grey one, yes, that one there.’

‘A fine-looking pot-’

‘It’s a beaker, not a pot.’

‘Of course.’

‘Usual price.’

‘Why do you always hide behind all those pots, Laudable Grool? All I ever see of you is your hands.’

‘My hands are the only important part of me.’

‘All right.’ Tehol drew out a recently removed dorsal fin. ‘A succession of spines, these ones from a capabara. Gradating diameters-’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Well, you can see it-they get smaller as they go back.’

‘Yes, but how precise?’

‘That’s for you to decide. You demand objects with which to make holes. Here you have… what… twelve. How can you not be pleased by that?’

‘Who said I wasn’t pleased? Put them on the counter, Take the beaker. And get that damned fat root out of here.’

From there it was across to the small animals shop and Beastmonger Shill, an oversized woman endlessly bustling up and down the rows of tiny stacked cages, on her flattened heels a piping, scurrying swarm of little creatures. She squealed her usual delight at the gifts of beaker and fat root, the latter of which, it turned out, was most commonly used by malicious wives to effect the shrinkage of their husbands’ testicles; whilst Shill had, with some delicate modifications, applied the root’s diminutive properties to her broods, feeding the yellow-smelling tea out in precise Increments using the holed beaker.

The meeting soured when Tehol slapped at a mosquito on his neck, only to be informed he had just killed a pygmy blood-sucking bat. His reply that the distinction was lost on him was not well received. But Shill opened the trapdoor on the floor at the back of the shop nevertheless, and Tehol descended the twenty-six narrow, steep stone steps to the crooked corridor-twenty-one paces long-that led to the ancient, empty beehive tomb, the walls of which had Been dismantled in three places to fashion rough doorways into snaking, low-cellinged tunnels, two of which ended in fatal traps. The third passageway eventually opened out int a long chamber occupied by a dozen or so dishevelled refugees, most of whom seemed to be asleep.

Fortunately, Chief Investigator Rucket was not among the somnolent. Her brows rose when she saw him, her admirable face filling with an expression of unfeigned relief as she gestured him to her table. The surface was covered in parchment sheets depicting various floor plans and structural diagrams.

‘Sir, Tehol Beddict! Here, some wine! Drink. By the Brrant, a new face! You have no idea how sick I am of my Interminable companions in this hovel.’

‘Clearly,’ he replied, sitting, ‘you need to get out more.’

‘Alas, most of my investigations these days are archival in nature.’

‘Ah, the Grand Mystery you’ve uncovered. Any closer to a solution?’

‘Grand Mystery? More like Damned Mystery, and no, I remain baffled, even as my map grows with every day that passes. But let’s not talk any more about that. My agents report that the cracks in the foundation are inexorably spreading-well done, Tehol. I always figured you were smarter than you looked.’

‘Why thank you, Rucket. Have you got those lacquered tiles I asked for?’

‘Onyx finished the last one this morning. Sixteen in all, correct?’

‘Perfect. Bevelled edges?’

‘Of course. All of your instructions were adhered to with diligence.’

‘Great. Now, about that inexorable spreading-’

‘You wish us to retire to my private room?’

‘Uh, not now, Rucket. I need some coin. An infusion to bolster a capital investment.’

‘How much?’

‘Fifty thousand.’

‘Will we ever see a return?’

‘No, you’ll lose it all.’

‘Tehol, you certainly do take vengeance a long way,] What is the benefit to us, then?’

‘Why, none other than the return to pre-eminence of the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’

Her rather dreamy eyes widened. ‘The end of the Patriotists? Fifty thousand? Will seventy-five be better? A hundred?’

‘No, fifty is what I need.’

‘I do not anticipate any objections from my fellow Guild Masters.’

‘Wonderful.’ He slapped his hands together, then rose.

She frowned up at him. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Why, to your private room, of course.’

‘Oh, how nice.’

His gaze narrowed on her. ‘Aren’t you joining me, Rucket?’

‘What would be the point? The name “fat root” is a. woman’s joke, you know.’

‘I haven’t drunk any yellow-smelling tea!’

‘In the future, I advise you to use gloves.’

‘Where’s your room, Rucket?’

One brow lifted. ‘Got something to prove?’

‘No, I just need to check on… things.’

‘What’s the point?’ she asked again. ‘Now that your imagination is awake, you’ll convince yourself you’ve got smaller, Tehol Beddict. Human nature. Worse that you happen to be a man, too.’ She rose. ‘I, however, can be objective, albeit devastatingly so, on occasion. So, do you dare my scrutiny?’

He scowled. ‘Fine, let’s go. Next time, however, let us dispense entirely with the invitation to your room, all right?’

‘Misery lies in the details, Tehol Beddict. As we’re about to discover.’

Venitt Sathad unrolled the parchment and anchored its corners with flatstones. ‘As you can see, Master, there are six separate buildings to the holdings.’ He began pointing to the illustrations of each. ‘Stables and livery. Icehouse. I ‘rystore, with cellar. Servants’ quarters. And, of course, the inn proper-’

‘What of that square building there?’ Rautos Hivanar asked.

Venitt frowned. ‘As I understand it, the interior is Virtually filled with an iconic object of some sort. The building predates the inn itself. Attempts to dislodge it failed. Now, what space remains is used for sundry storage.’

Rautos Hivanar leaned back in his chair. ‘How solvent is this acquisition?’

‘No more nor less than any other hostel, Master. It may be worth discussing investment on restoration with the other shareholders, including Karos Invictad.’

‘Hmm, I will consider that.’ He rose. ‘In the meantime, assemble the new artifacts on the cleaning table on the terrace.’

‘At once, Master.’

Fourteen leagues west of the Draconean Isles, doldrums had settled on this stretch of ocean, levelling the seas to a glassy, greasy patina beneath humid, motionless air. Through the eyeglass, the lone ship, black hull low in the water, looked lifeless. The mainmast was splintered, all rigging swept away. Someone had worked up a foresail, but the storm-rigged canvas hung limp. The steering oar was tied in place. No movement anywhere to be seen.

Skorgen Kaban, known as the Pretty, slowly lowered the eyeglass, yet continued squinting with his one good eye at the distant ship. He reached up to scratch one of the air holes-all that remained of what had once been a large, hawkish nose-then winced as a nail dug into sensitive scar tissue. The itch was non-existent, but the gaping nostrils had a tendency to weep, and the feigned scratch served to warn him of tell-tale wetness. This was one of his many gestures he probably imagined were subtle.

Alas, his captain was too sharp for that. She drew away her sidelong study of Skorgen, then glanced back at her waiting crew. A miserable but cocky bunch. Doldrums weighed everyone down, understandably, but the hold of the raider was packed with loot, and this run of the Errant’ luck seemed without end.

Now that they’d found another victim.

Skorgen drew in a whistling breath, then said, ‘It’s Edur all right. My guess is, a stray that got tossed around a bit in that storm we spied out west yesterday. Chances are, the crew’s either sick or dead, or they abandoned ship in one of their Knarri lifeboats. If they did that, they’ll have taker the good stuff with them. If not,’ he grinned across at her, revealing blackened teeth, ‘then we can finish what the sttorm started.’

‘At the very least,’ the captain said, ‘we’ll take a look.’ She sniffed. ‘At least maybe something will come of getting blown into the flats. Have ‘em send out the sweeps, Skorgen, but keep that lookout’s head spinning in every direction;’

Skorgen looked across at her. ‘You think there might be more of ‘em out here?’

She made a face. ‘How many ships did the Emperor send out?’

His good eye widened, then he studied the lone derelict once more through the eyeglass. ‘You think it’s one of those? Errant’s butt hole, Captain, if you’re right…’

‘You have your orders, and it seems I must remind you yet againn, First Mate. No profanity on my ship.’

‘Apologies, Captain.’

He hurried off, began relaying orders to the waiting crew.

Doldrums made for a quiet lot, a kind of superstitious furtiveness gripping the sailors, as if any sound reaching too far might crack the mirror of the sea.

She listened as the twenty-four sweeps slid out, blades setting in the water. A moment later came the muted call-out of the cox, and the Undying Gratitude groaned as’ it lurched forward. Clouds of sleeper flies rose around the ship as the nearby sea’s pellucid surface was disturbed. The damned things had a tendency to seek out dark cover once driven to flight. Sailors coughed and spat-all very well for them, the captain observed, as a whining cloud spun round her head and countless insects crawled up her nose, into her ears, and across her eyes. Sun and sea were bad enough, combining to assail her dignity and whatever varnity a woman who was dead could muster, but for Shurq Blalle, these flies made for profoundly acute misery.

Pirate, divine undead, strumpet of insatiability, witch of the deep waters-the times had been good ever since she first sailed out of the Letheras harbour, down the long, broad river to the western seas. Lean and sleek, that first galley had been her passage to fame, and Shurq still regretted its fiery loss to that Mare escort in Laughter’s End. But she was well pleased with the Undying Gratitude. Slightly too big for her crew, granted, but with their return to Letheras that problem could be solved easily enough. Her greatest sense of loss was with the departure of the Crimson Guard. Iron Bars had made it plain from the very start that they were working for passage. Even so, they’d been formidable additions on that wild crossing of the ocean, keeping the blood wake wide and unbroken as one merchant trader after another was taken, stripped of all valuables, then, more often than not, sent down into the dark. It hadn’t been just their swords, deadly as those were, but the magery of Corlos-a magery far more refined, far more clever, than anything Shurq had witnessed before.

Such details opened her eyes, her mind as well. The world out there was huge. And in many fundamental ways the empire of Lether, child of the First Empire, had been left in a kind of backwater, in its thinking, in its ways of working. A humbling revelation indeed.

The leavetaking with Iron Bars and his squad had not been quite as emotional or heartfelt for Shurq Elalle as it had probably seemed to everyone else, for the truth was, she had been growing ever more uneasy in their company. Iron Bars was not one to find subordination palatable for very long-oh, no doubt it was different when it came to his fellow Avowed among the Crimson Guard, or to their legendary commander, Prince K’azz. But she was not an Avowed, nor even one of that company’s soldiers. So long as their goals ran in parallel, things were fine enough, and Shurq had made certain to never deviate, so as to avoid any confrontation.

They had deposited the mercenaries on a stony beach of the eastern shore of a land called Jacuruku, the sky squalling with sleeting rain. The landing had not been without witnesses, alas, and the last she’d seen of Iron Bars and his soldiers, they were turning inland to face a dozen massively armoured figures descending the broken slope, great-helmed with visors lowered. Brutal-looking biinch, and Shurq hoped all that belligerence was mostly for show. The grey sheets of rain had soon obscured all details from the strand as they pulled away on the oars back to the Gratitude.

Skorgen had sworn he’d caught the sound of blades clashing-a faint echo-with his one good ear, but Shurq herself had heard nothing.

In any case, they’d scurried from those waters, as pirates were wont to do when there was the risk of organized resistance lurking nearby, and Shurq consoled her agitated conscience by reminding herself that Iron Bars had spoken of Jacuruku with some familiarity-at least in so far as knowing its name. And as for Corlos’s wide-eyed prayers to i lew dozen divinities, well, he was prone to melodrama. A dozen knights wouldn’t have been enough to halt Iron Bars and his Crimson Guard, determined as they were to do whatever it was they had to do, which, in this instance, was cross Jacuruku from one coast to the other, then find them-selves another ship.

A huge world indeed.

The sweeps lifted clear of the water and were quietly shipped as the Undying Gratitude sidled up alongside the Edur wreck. Shurq Elalle moved to the rail and studied the visible deck of the Blackwood ship.

‘Riding low,’ Skorgen muttered.

No bodies amidst the clutter. But there was clutter. ‘No orderly evacuation,’ Shurq Elalle said, as grappling hooks sailed out, the tines biting as the lines were drawn taut. ‘Six with us, weapons out,’ she commanded, unsheathing her own rapier, then stepping up onto the rail.

She leapt across, landed lightly on the mid deck two strides from the splintered stump of the mainmast.

Moments later Skorgen joined her, arriving with a grunt then a curse as he jarred his bad leg.

‘This was a scrap,’ he said, looking about. He limped back to the rail and tugged loose a splintered arrow shaft, then scowled as he studied it. ‘Damned short and stubby-look at that head, that could punch through a bronze-sheeted shield. And this fletching-it’s leather, like fins.’

So where were the bodies? Frowning, Shurq Elalle made her way to the cabin’s hatchway. She paused at the hold, seeing that the hatch had been staved in. Nudging it aside with her boot, she crouched and looked down into the gloom of the hold.

The glimmer of water, and things floating. ‘Skorgen, there’s booty here. Come over and reach down for one of those amphorae.’

The second mate, Misery, called over from their ship, ‘Captain! That hulk’s lower in the water than it was when we arrived.’

She could now hear the soft groans of the hull.

Skorgen used his good arm to reach down and hook his hand through an ear of the amphora. Hissing with the weight, he lifted the hip-high object into view, rolling it onto the deck between himself and the captain.

The amphora itself was a gorgeous piece of work, Shurq observed. Foreign, the glaze cream in colour down to the inverted beehive base, where the coils were delineated in black geometric patterns on gleaming white. But it was the image painted on the shoulder and belly that captured her interest. Down low on one side there was a figure, nailed to an X-shaped cross. Whirling out from the figure’s upturned head, there were crows. Hundreds, each one profoundly intricate, every detail etched-crows, flooding outward-or perhaps inward-to mass on the amphora’s broad shoulders, encircling the entire object. Converging to feed on the hapless man? Fleeing him like his last, dying thoughts?

Skorgen had drawn a knife and was cutting away at the seal, stripping away the thick wax binding the stopper.

After a moment he succeeded in working it loose. He tugged the stopper free, then leapt back as thick blood poured forth, spreading on the deck.

It looked fresh, and from it rose a scent of flowers, pungent and oversweet.

‘Kagenza pollen,’ Skorgen said. ‘Keeps blood from thickening-the Edur use it when they paint temples in the forest-you know, on trees. The blood sanctifies. It’s not a real temple, of course. No walls, or ceiling, just a grove-’

‘I don’t like first mates who babble,’ Shurq Elalle said, straightening once more. ‘Get the others out. The vessels alone will make us rich for a month or two.’ She resumed her walk to the cabin.

The corridor was empty, the cabin door broken open and hanging from one leather hinge. As she made her way towards it, she glanced into the side alcoves and saw the layered bunks of the crew-but all were unoccupied, although dishevelled as if subject to searching.

In the cabin itself, more signs of looting, while on the lloor was spreadeagled an Edur corpse. Hands and feet had been spiked into the floorboards, and someone had used a knife on him, methodically. The room stank of spilled wastes, and the expression frozen on the face was a twisted, a^’ony-racked mask, the eyes staring out as if witness to a shattered faith, a terrible revelation at the moment of death.

She heard Skorgen come up behind her, heard his low curse upon seeing the body. ‘Tortured ‘im,’ he said. ‘ Tortured the captain. This one was Merude, damn near an Elder. Errant save us, Captain, we’re gonna get blamed if anyone else comes on this afore it all sinks. Torture. I don’t get that-’

It’s simple,’ she said. ‘They wanted information.’

‘About what?’

Shurq Elalle looked round. ‘They took the log, the charts. Now, maybe pirates might do that, if they were strangers to Lether, but then they’d have no need to torture this poor bastard. Besides, they’d have taken the loot. No, whoever did this wanted more information-not what you could get from charts. And they didn’t give a damn about booty.’

‘Nasty bastards, whoever they were.’

She thought back to that amphora and its grisly contents. Then turned away. ‘Maybe they had a good reason. Hole the hull, Skorgen. We’ll wait around, though. Blackwood doesn’t like sinking. We may have to fire it.’

‘A pyre to bring ‘em all in, Captain.’

‘I am aware of the risks. Get on with it.’

Back on the deck, Shurq Elalle made her way to the forecastle, where she stood scanning the horizon while Skorgen and the crew began their demolition.

Strangers on the sea.

Who are no friends of the Tiste Edur. Even so, I think I’d rather not meet them. She turned to face the mid deck. ‘Skorgen! When we’re done here, we take to the sweeps. Back to the coast.’

His scarred brows rose. ‘Letheras?’

‘Why not? We can sell off and load up on crew.’

The battered man grinned.

Back to Letheras, aye. And fast.

Chapter Four

Banishment killed most victims, when the world beyond was harsh, when survival could not be purchased without the coin of co-operation. No graver punishment was possible among the tribal peoples, whether Awl or D’rhasilhani or Keryn. Yet it was the clan structure itself that imposed deadly intransigence, and with it a corresponding devastation when one was cast out, alone, bereft of all that gave meaning to life. Victims crumpled into themselves, abandoning all skills that could serve to sustain them; they withered, then died.

The Letherii, and their vast cities, the tumult of countless faces, were-beyond the chains of Indebtedness-almost indifferent to banishing. True, such people were not immune to the notion of spiritual punishment-they existed in families, after all, a universal characteristic of humans-yet such scars as were delivered from estrangement were survivable. Another village, another city-the struggle of beginning again could be managed and indeed, for some, beginning anew became an addiction in its own right. A way of absolving responsibility.

Redmask, his life that of the Awl, unsullied for generations, had come to believe that the nature of the Letherii-his most hated enemy-had nevertheless stained his spirit. Banishment had not proved a death sentence. Banishment had proved a gift, for with it he discovered freedom. The very lure that drew so many young warriors into the Lether Empire, where anonymity proved both bane and emancipation.

Driven away, he had wandered far, with no thought of ever returning. He was not as he had once been, no longer the son of his father, yet what he had become was, even to himself, a mystery.

The sky overhead was unmarred by clouds, the new season finding its heat, and jackrabbits raced from one thicket of momentary cover to another ahead of him as he rode the Letherii horse on the herd trail on its northeasterly route. A small herd, he had noted, with few fly-swarmed birth-stains along the path’s outskirts, where rodara males would gather protectively until the newborn was able to find its legs. The clan guiding these beasts was probably small.

Redmask’s guardian K’Chain Che’Malle were nowhere to be seen, but that was not unusual. The huge reptiles had prodigious appetites. At this time of year, the wild bhederin that had wintered in pocket forests-a solitary, larger breed than those of the plains to the south-ventured out from cover in search of mates. Massing more than two Letherii oxen, the bulls were ferocious and belligerent and would charge anything that approached too close, barring a female of its own kind. Sag’Churok, the male K’ell Hunter, delighted in meeting that thundering charge-Redmask had seen its pleasure, revealed in the slow sinuous lashing Of the tail-as it stood in the bull’s path, iron blades lifted high. As fast as the bhederin was, the K’Chain Che’Malle was faster. Each time after slaying the beast, Sag’Churok would yield the carcass to Gunth Mach, until she’d eaten her fill.

Redmask rode on through the day, his pace leisurely to ruse the burden on the horse, and when the sun was descending towards the horizon, igniting distant storm clouds, he came within sight of the Awl encampment, situated on an ancient oxbow island between two dry eroded riverbeds. The herds were massed on the flanks of the valleys to either side and the sprawl of dome-shaped, sewn-hide huts huddled amidst the smoke of cookfires blankering the valley.

No outriders. No pickets. And far too large a camp for the size of the herds.

Redmask reined in on the ridge line. He studied the Bene below. Here and there, voices rose in ritual mourn-ing. Few children were visible moving about between the huts,

Alter some time, as he sat motionless on the high Letherii saddle, someone saw him. Sudden cries, scurrying motion in the growing shadows, then a half-dozen warriors set out at a trot towards him.

Behind them, the camp had already begun a panicked breaking, sparks flying as hearths were kicked and stamped out. Hide walls rippled on the huts.

Herd and dray dogs appeared, racing to join the approaching warriors.

The Awl warriors were young, he saw as they drew closer. Only a year or two past their death nights. Not a single veteran among them. Where were the Elders? The shouldermen?

Halting fifteen paces downslope, the six warriors began conferring in hissed undertones, then one faced the encampment and loosed a piercing cry. All activity stopped below.

Faces stared up at Redmask. Not a single warrior among them seemed bold enough to venture closer.

The dogs were less cowed by the presence of a lone warrior. Growling, hackles raised, they crept in a half-circle towards him. Then, catching an unexpected scent, the beasts suddenly shrank back, tails dipping, thin whines coming from their throats.

Finally, one young warrior edged forward a step. ‘You cannot be him,’ he said.

Redmask sighed. ‘Where is your war leader?’ he demanded.

The youth filled his chest and straightened. ‘I am the clan’s war leader. Masarch, son of Nayrud.’

‘When was your death night?’

‘Those are the old ways,’ Masarch said, baring his teeth in a snarl. ‘We have abandoned such foolishness.’

Another spoke up behind the war leader. ‘The old ways have failed us! We have cast them out!’

Masarch said, ‘Remove that mask; it is not for you. You seek to deceive us. You ride a Letherii horse-you are one of the Factor’s spies.’

Redmask made no immediate reply. His gaze slid past the war leader and his followers, fixing once more on the camp below. A crowd was gathering at the near edge, watching. He was silent for another twenty heartbeats, then he said, ‘You have set out no pickets. A Letherii troop could line this ridge and plunge down into your midst, and you would not be prepared. Your women cry out their distress, a sound that can be heard for leagues on a still night like this. Your people are starving, war leader, yet they light an excess of fires, enough to make above you a cloud of smoke that will not move, and reflects the light from below. You have been culling the newborn rodara and myrid, instead of butchering the ageing males and females past bearing. You must have no shouldermen, for if you did, they would bury you in the earth and force upon you the death night, so that you might emerge, born anew and, hopefully, gifted with new wisdom-wisdom you clearly lack.’

Masarch said nothing to that. He had finally seen Redmask’s weapons. ‘You are him,’ he whispered. ‘You have returned to the Awl’dan.’

‘Which clan is this?’

‘Redmask,’ the war leader said, gesturing behind him. ‘This clan… it is yours…’

Receiving naught but silence from the mounted warrior, Masarch added, ‘We, we are all that remain. There are no shouldermen, Redmask. No witches.’ He waved out towards the flanking herds. ‘These beasts you see here, they are all that’s left.’ He hesitated, then straightened once more. ‘Redmask, you have returned… for nothing. You do not speak, and this tells me that you see the truth of things, Great Warrior, you are too late.’

liven to this, Redmask was silent. He slowly dismounted. The dogs, which had continued their trepid circling, tails ducked, either picked up a fresh scent or heard something from the gloom beyond, for they suddenly broke and pelted back down the slope, disappearing into the camp. That panic seemed to ripple through the warriors facing him, but none fled, despite the fear and confusion gripping their expressions.

Licking his lips, Masarch said, ‘Redmask, the Letherii are destroying us. Outrider camps have been ambushed, set upon and slaughtered, the herds stolen away. The Aendinar clan is no more. Sevond and Niritha remnants crawled to the Ganetok-only the Ganetok remains strong, for they are furthest east and, cowards that they are, they made pact with foreigners-’

‘Foreigners.’ Redmask’s eyes narrowed in their slits. ‘Mercenaries.’

Masarch nodded. ‘There was a great battle, four seasons past, and those foreigners were destroyed.’ He made a gesture. ‘The Grey Sorcery.’

‘Did not the victorious Letherii then march on the Ganetok camps?’

‘No, Redmask, too few remained-the foreigners fought well.’

‘Masarch,’ he said, ‘I do not understand. Did not the Ganetok fight alongside their mercenaries?’

The youth spat. ‘Their war leader gathered from the. clans fifteen thousand warriors. When the Letherii arrived, he fled, and the warriors followed. They abandoned the foreigners! Left them to slaughter!’

‘Settle the camp below,’ Redmask said. He pointed to the warriors standing behind Masarch. ‘Stand first watch along this ridge line, here and to the west. I am now war leader to the Renfayar clan. Masarch, where hides the Ganetok?’

‘Seven days to the east. They now hold the last great herd of the Awl.’

‘Masarch, do you challenge my right to be war leader?’

The youth shook his head. ‘You are Redmask. The Elders among the Renfayar who were your enemies are all dead, Their sons are dead.’

‘How many warriors remain among the Renfayar?’

Masarch frowned, then gestured. ‘You have met us, War Leader.’

A nod.

Redmask noted a lone dray dog sitting at the edge of the camp. It seemed to be watching him. He raised his left hand and the beast lunged into motion. The huge animal, a male, reached him moments later, dropping onto its chest and settling its wide, scarred head between Redmask’s feet. He reached down and touched its snout-a gesture that, for most, would have risked fingers. The dog made no move.

Masarch was staring down at it with wide eyes. ‘A lone survivor,’ he said, ‘from an outrider camp. It would not let us approach.’

‘The foreigners,’ Redmask said quietly, ‘did they possess wardogs?’

‘No. But they were sworn followers of the Wolves of War, and indeed, War Leader, it seemed those treacherous, foul beasts tracked them-always at a distance, yet in vast numbers. Until the Ganetok Elders invoked magic and drove them all away.’ Masarch hesitated, then said, ‘Redmask, the war leader among the Ganetok-’

Unseen behind the mask, a slow smile formed. ‘Firstborn son of Capalah. Hadralt.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Tomorrow, Masarch, we drive the herds east-to the Ganetok. I would know more of those hapless foreigners who chose to fight for us. To die for the people of the Awl’dan.’

‘We are to crawl to the Ganetok as did the Sevond and the Niritha?’

‘You are starving. The herds are too weakened. I lead six youths none of whom has passed the death night. Shall the seven of us ride to war against the Letherii?’

Though young, it was clear that Masarch was no fool. ‘You shall challenge Hadralt? Redmask, your warriors-we, we will all die. We are not enough to meet the hundreds of challenges that will be flung at us, and once we are dead, you will have to face those challenges, long before you are deemed worthy to cross weapons with Hadralt himself.’

‘You will not die,’ Redmask said. ‘And none shall challenge any of you.’

‘Then you mean to carve through a thousand warriors to face Hadralt?’

‘What would be the point of that, Masarch? I need those warriors. Killing them would be a waste. No.’ He paused, then said, ‘I am not without guardians, Masarch. And I doubt that a single Ganetok warrior will dare challenge them. Hadralt shall have to face me, he and I, alone in the circle. Besides,’ he added, ‘we haven’t the time for all the rest.’

‘The Ganetok hold to the old ways, War Leader. There will be rituals. Days and days before the circle is made-’

‘Masarch, we must go to war against the Letherii. Every warrior’of the Awl-’

‘War Leader! They will not follow you! Even Hadralt could only manage a third of them, and that with payment of rodara and myrid that halved his holdings!’ Masarch waved at the depleted herds on the hillsides. ‘We-we have nothing left! You could not purchase the spears of a hundred warriors!’

‘Who holds the largest herds, Masarch?’

‘The Ganetok themselves-’

‘No. I ask again, who holds the largest herds?’

The youth’s scowl deepened. ‘The Letherii.’

‘I will send three warriors to accompany the last of the Renfayar to the Ganetok. Choose two of your companion” to accompany us.’ The dray dog rose and moved to one side. Redmask collected the reins of his horse and set out down towards the camp. The dray fell in to heel on his left. ‘We shall ride west, Masarch, and find us some herds.’

‘We ride against the Letherii? War Leader, did you not moments ago mock the notion of seven warriors waging war against them? Yet now you say-’

‘War is for later,’ Redmask said. ‘As you say, we need herds. To buy the services of the warriors.’ He paused and looked back at the trailing youth. ‘Where did the Letherii get their beasts?’

‘From the Awl! From us!’

‘Yes. They stole them. So we must steal them back.’

‘Four of us, War Leader?’

‘And one dray, and my guardians.’

‘What guardians?’

Redmask resumed his journey. ‘You lack respect, Masarch. Tonight, I think, you will have your death night.’

‘The old ways are useless! I will not!’

Redmask’s fist was a blur-it was questionable whether, in the gloom, Masarch even saw it-even as it connected solidly with the youth’s jaw, dropping him in his tracks. Redmask reached down and grabbed a handful of hide jerkin, then began dragging the unconscious Masarch back down to the camp.

When the young man awoke, he would find himself in a coffin, beneath an arm’s reach of earth and stones. None of the usual traditional, measured rituals prior to a death night, alas, the kind that served to prepare the chosen for internment. Of course, Masarch’s loose reins displayed an;ippalling absence of respect, sufficient to obviate the gift of mercy, which in truth was what all those rituals were about.

Hard lessons, then. But becoming an adult depended on such lessons.

He expected he would have to pound the others into submission as well, which made for a long night ahead.

For us all.

The camp’s old women would be pleased by the ruckus, he suspected. Preferable to wailing through the night, in any case.

The last tier of the buried city proved the most interesting, as far as Udinaas was concerned. He’d had his fill of the damned sniping that seemed to plague this fell party of fugitives, a testiness that seemed to be getting worse, especially from Fear Sengar. The ex-slave knew that the Tiste Edur wanted to murder him, and as for the details surrounding the abandonment of Rhulad-which made it clear that Udinaas himself had had no choice in the matter, that he had been as much a victim as Fear’s own brother-well, Fear wasn’t interested. Mitigating circumstances did not alter his intransigence, his harsh sense of right and wrong which did not, it appeared, extend to his own actions-after all, Fear had been the one to deliberately walk away from Rhulad.

Udinaas, upon regaining consciousness, should have returned to the Emperor.

To do what? Suffer a grisly death at Rhulad’s hands? Yes, we were almost friends, he and I-as much as might be possible between slave and master, and of that the master ever feels more generous and virtuous than the slave-but I did not ask to be there, at the madman’s side, struggling to guide him across that narrow bridge of sanity, when all Rhulad wanted to do was leap head-first over the side at every step. No, he had made do with what he had, and in showing that mere splinter of sympathy, he had done more for Rhulad than any of the Sengars-brothers, mother, father. More indeed than any Tiste Edur. Is it any wonder none of you know happiness, Fear Sengar? You are all twisted branches from the same sick tree.

There was no point in arguing this, of course. Seren Pedac alone might understand, might even agree with all that Udinaas had to say, but she wasn’t interested in actually being one of this party. She clung to the role of Acquitor, a finder of trails, the reader of all those jealously guarded maps in her head. She liked not having to choose; better still, she liked not having to care.

A strange woman, the Acquitor. Habitually remote. Without friends… yet she carries a Tiste Edur sword. Trull Sengar’s sword. Kettle says he set it into her hands. Did she under’ stand the significance of that gesture? She must have. Trull Sengar had then returned to Rhulad. Perhaps the only brother who’d actually cared-where was he now? Probably dead.

Fresh, night-cooled air flowed down the broad ramp, moaned in the doorways situated every ten paces or so to either side. They were nearing the surface, somewhere in the saddleback pass-but on which side of the fort and its garrison? If the wrong side, then Silchas Ruin’s swords would keen loud and long. The dead piled up in the wake of that walking white-skinned, red-eyed nightmare, didn’t they just. The few times the hunters caught up with the hunted, they paid with their lives, yet they kept coming, and that made little sense.

Almost as ridiculous as this mosaic floor with its glowing armies. Images of lizard warriors locked in war, long-tails against short-tails, with the long-tails doing most of the dying, as far as he could tell. The bizarre slaughter beneath their feet spilled out into the adjoining rooms, each one, it seemed, devoted to the heroic death of some champion-Fouled K’ell, Naw’rhuk Adat and Matrons, said Silchas Ruin as, enwreathed in sorcerous light, he explored each such side chamber, his interest desultory and cursory at best. In any case, Udinaas could read enough into the colourful scenes to recognize a campaign of mutual annihilation, with every scene of short-tail victory answered with a Matron’s sorcerous conflagration. The winners never won because the losers refused to lose. An insane war.

Seren Pedac was in the lead, twenty paces ahead, and Udinaas saw her halt and suddenly crouch, one hand lift-i ng. The air sweeping in was rich with the scent of loam and wood dust. The mouth of the tunnel was small, overdrawn and half blocked by angled fragments of basalt from what had once been an-arched gate, and beyond was darkness.

Seren Pedac waved the rest forward. ‘I will scout out ahead,’ she whispered as they gathered about just inside the cave mouth. ‘Did anyone else notice that there were no hats in that last stretch? That floor was clean.’

‘There are sounds beyond human hearing,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘The flow of air is channelled through vents and into tubes behind the walls, producing a sound that perturbs bats, insects, rodents and the like. The Short-Tails were skilied at such things.’

‘So, not magic, then?’ Seren Pedac asked. ‘No wards or curses here?’

‘No.’

Udinaas rubbed at his face. His beard was filthy, and there were things crawling in the snarls of hair. ‘Just find out if we’re on the right side of that damned fort, Acquitor.’

‘I was making sure I wouldn’t trip some kind of ancient ward stepping outside, Indebted, something that all these broken boulders suggests has happened before. Unless of course you want to rush out there yourself.’

‘Now why would I do that?’ Udinaas asked. ‘Ruin gave you your answer, Seren Pedac; what are you waiting for?’

‘Perhaps,’ Fear Sengar said, ‘she waits for you to be quiet. We shall all, I suppose, end up waiting for ever in that regard.’

‘Tormenting you, Fear, gives me my only pleasure.’

‘A sad admission indeed,’ Seren Pedac murmured, then edged forward, over the tumbled rocks, and into the night beyond.

Udinaas removed his pack and settled down on the littered floor, dried leaves crunching beneath him. He leaned against a tilted slab of stone and stretched out his legs.

Fear moved up to crouch at the very edge of the cave mouth.

Humming to herself, Kettle wandered off into a nearby side chamber.

Silchas Ruin stood regarding Udinaas. ‘I am curious,’ he said after a time. ‘What gives your life meaning, Letherii?’

‘That’s odd. I was just thinking the same of you, Tiste Andii.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Why would I lie?’

‘Why wouldn’t you?’

‘All right,’ Udinaas said. ‘You have a point.’

‘So you will not answer my question.’

‘You first.’

‘I do not disguise what drives me.’

‘Revenge? Well, fine enough, I suppose, as a motivation

– at least for a while and maybe a while is all you’re really interested in. But let’s be honest here, Silchas Ruin: as the sole meaning for existing, it’s a paltry, pathetic cause.’

‘Whereas you claim to exist to torment Fear Sengar.’

‘Oh, he manages that all on his own.’ Udinaas shrugged. ‘The problem with questions like that is, we rarely find meaning to what we do until well after we’ve done it. At that point we come up with not one but thousands-reasons, excuses, justifications, heartfelt defences. Meaning? Really, Silchas Ruin, ask me something interesting.’

‘Very well. I am contemplating challenging our pursuers

– no more of this unnecessary subterfuge. It offends my nature, truth be told.’

At the tunnel mouth, Fear turned to regard the Tiste Andii. ‘You will kick awake a hornet’s nest, Silchas Ruin. Worse, if this fallen god is indeed behind Rhulad’s power, you might find yourself suffering a fate far more dire than millennia buried in the ground.’

‘Fear’s turning into an Elder before our eyes,’ Udinaas said. ‘Jumping at shadows. You want to take on Rhulad and Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan, Silchas Ruin, you have my blessing. Grab the Errant by the throat and tear this empire to pieces. Turn it all into ash and dust. Level the whole damned continent, Tiste Andii-we’ll just stay here in this cave. Come collect us when you’re finished.’

Fear bared his teeth at Udinaas. ‘Why would he bother sparing us?’

‘I don’t know,’ the ex-slave replied, raising an eyebrow. ‘Pity?’

Kettle spoke from the side chamber’s arched doorway. ‘Why don’t any of you like each other? I like all of you. Even Wither.’

‘It’s all right,’ Udinaas said, ‘we’re all just tortured by who we are, Kettle.’

No-one said much after that.

Seren Pedac reached the edge of the forest, keeping low to remain level with the stunted trees. The air was thin and cold at this altitude. The stars overhead were bright and sharp, the dust-shrouded crescent moon still low on the horizon to the north. Around her was whispered motion through the clumps of dead leaves and lichen-a kind of scaled mouse ruled the forest floor at night, a species she had never seen before. They seemed unusually fearless, so much so that more than one had scampered across her boots. No predators, presumably. Even so, their behaviour was odd.

Before her stretched a sloped clearing, sixty or more paces, ending at a rutted track. Beyond it was a level stretch of sharp, jagged stones, loose enough to be treacherous. The fort squatting in the midst of this moat of rubble was stone-walled, thick at the base and tapering sharply to twice the height of a man. The corner bastions were massive, squared and flat-topped. On those platforms were swivel-mounted ballestae. Seren could make out huddled figures positioned around the nearest one, while other soldiers were visible, shoulders and heads, walking the raised platform on the other side of the walls.

As she studied the fortification, she heard the soft clunk of armour and weapons to her left. She shrank back as a patrol appeared on the rutted track. Motionless, breath held, she watched them amble past.

After another twenty heartbeats, she turned about and made her way back through the stunted forest. She almost missed the entrance to the cave mouth, a mere slit of black behind high ferns beneath a craggy overhang of tilted, layered granite. Pushing through, she stumbled into Fear Sengar.

‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘We were beginning to worry, or, at least,’ he added, ‘I was.’

She gestured him back into the cave.

‘Good news,’ she said once they were inside. ‘We’re behind the garrison-the pass ahead should be virtually unguarded-’

‘There are K’risnan wards up the trail,’ Silchas Ruin cut in. ‘Tell me of this garrison, Acquitor.’

Seren closed her eyes. Wards? Errant take us, what game is Hannan Mosag playing here? ‘I could smell horses from the fort. Once we trip those wards they’ll be after us, and we can’t outrun mounted soldiers.’

‘The garrison,’ Silchas said.

She shrugged. ‘The fort looks impregnable. I’d guess (here’s anywhere between a hundred and two hundred soldiers there. And with that many there’s bound to be mages, as well as a score or more Tiste Edur.’

‘Silchas Ruin is tired of being chased,’ Udinaas said from where he lounged, back resting on a stone slab.

Dread filled Seren Pedac at these words. ‘Silchas, can we not go round these wards?’

‘No.’

She glanced across at Fear Sengar, saw suspicion and unease in the warrior’s expression, but he would not meet her eyes. What conversation did 1 just miss here? ‘You are no stranger to sorcery, Silchas Ruin. Could you put everyone in that fort to sleep or something? Or cloud their minds, make them confused?’

He gave her an odd look. ‘I know of no sorcery that can achieve that.’

‘Mockra,’ she replied. ‘The warren of Mockra.’

‘No such thing existed in my day,’ he said. ‘The K’risnan sorcery, rotted through with chaos as it is, seems recogniz-able enough to me. I have never heard of this Mockra.’

‘Corlos, the mage with Iron Bars-the Crimson Guard mercenaries-he could reach into minds, fill them with false terrors.’ She shrugged. ‘He said the magic of Holds and Elder Warrens has, almost everywhere else, been supplanted.’

‘I had wondered at the seeming weakness of Kurald Galain in this land. Acquitor, I cannot achieve what you ask. Although, I do intend to silence everyone in that fort And collect for us some horses.’

‘Silchas, there are hundreds of Letherii there, not just soldiers. A fort needs support staff. Cooks, scullions, smiths, carpenters, servants-’

And the Tiste Edur,’ Fear added, ‘will have slaves.’

‘None of this interests me,’ the Tiste Andii said, moving past Seren and leaving the mouth of the cave.

Udinaas laughed softly. ‘Red Ruin stalks the land. We must heed this tale of righteous retribution gone horribly wrong. So, Fear Sengar, your epic quest twists awry-what will you tell your grandchildren now?’

The Edur warrior said nothing.

Seren Pedac hesitated; she could hear Silchas Ruin walk’ ing away-a few strides crunching through leaves-then he was gone. She could hurry after him. Attempt one last time to dissuade him. Yet she did not move. In the wake or Ruin’s passage the only sound filling the forest was the scurry and rustle of the scaled mice, in their thousands it seemed, all flowing in the same direction as the Tiste Andii. Sweat prickled like ice on her skin. Look at us, Frozen like rabbits.

Yet what can 1 do? Nothing. Besides, it’s not my business, is it? I am but a glorified guide. Not one of these here holds to a cause that matters to me. They’re welcome to their grand ambitions. I was asked to lead them out, that’s all.

This is Silchas Ruin’s war. And Fear Sengar’s. She looked over at Udinaas and found him studying her from where he sat, eyes glittering, as if presciently aware of her thoughts, the sordid tracks each converging on a single, pathetic con-elusion. Not my business. Errant take you, Indebted.

Mangled and misshapen, the K’risnan Ventrala reached up a scrawny, root-like forearm and wiped the sweat from his brow. Around him candles flickered, a forlorn invocation to Sister Shadow, but it seemed the ring of darkness in the small chamber was closing in on all sides, as inexorable as any tide, He had woken half a bell earlier, heart pounding and breath coming in gasps. The forest north of the fort was seething with orthen, a rock-dwelling scaled creature unique to this mountain pass-since his arrival at the fort he had seen perhaps a half-dozen, brought in by the maned Cats the Letherii locals kept. Those cats knew better than to attempt to eat the orthen, poison as they were, yet were not averse to playing with them until dead. Orthen avoided forest and soft ground. They dwelt among rocks. Yet now they swarmed the forest, and the K’risnan could feel some-thing palpable from their presence, a stirring that tasted of bloodlust.

Should he crouch here in his room, terrified of creatures he could crush underfoot? He needed to master this unseemly panic-listen! He could hear nothing from the fort lookouts. No alarms shouted out.

But the damned orthen carpeted the forest floor up the pass, massing in unimaginable numbers, and that dread scaly flood was sweeping down, and Ventrala’s panic rose yet higher, threatening to erupt from his throat in shrieks. He struggled to think.

Some kind of once in a decade migration, perhaps. Once In a century, even. A formless hunger. That and nothing more. The creatures would heave up against the walls, seethe for a time, then leave before the dawn. Or they’d flow around the fort, only to plunge from the numerous ledges and cliffs to either side of the approach. Some Creatures were driven to suicide-yes, that was it…

The bloodlust suddenly burgeoned. The K’risnan’s head rocked back, as if he’d just been slapped. Chills swept through him. He heard himself begin gibbering, even as he awakened the sorcery within him. His body flinched as chaotic power blossomed like poison in his muscles and bones. Sister Shadow had nothing to do with this magic lacing through him, nothing at all, but he was past caring about such things.

Then, as shouts rose from the wall, K’risnan Ventrala sensed another presence in the forest beyond, a focus to all | that bloodlust, a presence-and it was on its way.

Atri-Preda Hayenar awoke to distant shouts. An alarm was being raised, from the wall facing up-trail. And that, she realized as she quickly donned her uniform, made little sense. Then again, there wasn’t much about this damned assignment that did. Pursue, she’d been told, but avoid contact. And now, one of those disgusting K’risnan had arrived, escorted by twenty-five Merude warriors. Well, if there was any real trouble brewing, she would let them handle it.

Their damned fugitives, after all. They could have them, with the Errant’s blessing.

A moment later she was flung from her feet as a deafening concussion tore through the fort.

K’risnan Ventrala screamed, skidding across the floor to slam up against the wall, as a vast cold power swept over him, plucking at him as would a crow a rotted corpse. His own sorcery had recoiled, contracted into a trembling core deep in his chest-it had probed towards that approaching presence, probed until some kind of contact was achieved. And then Ventrala-and all that churning power within him-had been rebuffed.

Moments later, the fort’s wall exploded.

Atri-Preda Hayenar stumbled from the main house and found the compound a scene of devastation. The wall between the up-trail bastions had been breached, the impact spilling huge pieces of stone and masonry onto the muster area. And the rock was burning-a black, sizzling coruscation that seemed to devour the stone even as it flared wild, racing across the rubble.

Broken bodies were visible amidst the wreckage, and from the stables-where the building’s back wall leaned precariously inward-horses were screaming as if being devoured alive. Swarming over everything in sight were orthen, closing on fallen soldiers, and where they gathered, skin was chewed through and the tiny scaled creatures then burrowed in a frenzy into pulped meat.

Through the clouds of dust in the breach, came a tall figure with drawn swords.

White-skinned, crimson-eyed.

Errant take me-he’s had enough of running-the White Crow-

She saw a dozen Tiste Edur appear near the barracks. Heavy throwing spears darted across the compound, converging on the ghastly warrior.

He parried them all aside, one after the other, and with each clash of shaft against blade the swords sang, until it seemed a chorus of deathly voices filled the air.

Hayenar, seeing a score of her Letherii soldiers arrive, Itaggered towards them. ‘Withdraw!’ she shouted, waving like a madwoman. ‘Retreat, you damned fools!’

It seemed they had but awaited the command, as the unit broke into a rout, heading en masse for the down-trail gate.

One of the Tiste Edur closed on the Atri-Preda. ‘What are you doingV he demanded. ‘The K’risnan is coming-he’ll slap this gnat down-’

‘When he does,’ she snarled, pulling back, ‘we’ll be happy to regroup!’

The Edur unsheathed his cutlass. ‘Call them into battle, Atri-Preda-or I’ll cut you down right here!’

She hesitated.

To their right, the other Tiste Edur had rushed forward and now engaged the White Crow.

The swords howled, a sound so filled with glee that Hayenar’s blood turned to ice. She shook her head, watching, as did the warrior confronting her, as the White Crow curved his way through the Merude in a maelstrom of severed limbs, decapitations and disembowelling slashes that sent bodies reeling away.

‘-your Letherii! Charge him, damn you!’ She stared across at the Edur warrior. ‘Where’s your ‘ K’risnan?’ she demanded. ‘Where is he?’

Ventrala clawed his way into the corner of the room furthest from the conflagration outside. Endless, meaningless words were spilling from his drool-threaded mouth. His power had fled. Abandoning him here, in this cursed room. Not fair. He had done all that was asked of him. He had surrendered his flesh and blood, his heart and his very bones, all to Hannan Mosag.

There had been a promise, a promise of salvation, of vast rewards for his loyalty-once the hated youngest son of Tomad Sengar was torn down from the throne. They were to track Fear Sengar, the traitor, the betrayer, and when the net was finally closed around him it would not be Rhulad smiling in satisfaction. No, Rhulad, the fool, knew nothing about any of this. The gambit belonged to Hannan Mosag, the Warlock King, who had had his throne stolen from him. And it was Hannan who, with Fear Sengar in his hands- and the slave, Udinaas-would work out] his vengeance.

The Emperor needed to be stripped, every familiar face twisted into a mask of betrayal, stripped, yes, until he was completely alone. Isolated in his own madness.

Only then-

Ventrala froze, curled tight into a foetal ball, at soft laughter spilling towards him… from inside his room!

‘Poor K’risnan,’ it then murmured. ‘You had no idea this pale king of the orthen would turn on you, this strider of battlefields. His road is a river of blood, you pathetic fool, and… oh! look! his patience, his forbearance-it’s all gone!’

A wraith, here with him, whispering madness. ‘Begone,’ he hissed, ‘lest you share my fate! I did not summon you-’

‘No, you didn’t. My chains to the Tiste Edur have been severed. By the one out there. Yes, you see, I am his, not yours. The White Crow’s-hah, the Letherii surprised me there-but it was the mice, K’risnan… seems a lifetime ago now. In the forest north of Hannan Mosag’s village. And an apparition-alas, no-one understands, no-one takes note. But that is not my fault, is it?’

‘Go away-’

‘I cannot. Will not, rather. Can you hear? Outside? It’s all quiet now. Most of the Letherii got away, unfortunately. Tumbling like drunk goats down the stairs, with their captain among them-she was no fool. As for your Merude, well, they’re all dead. Now, listen! Boots in the hallway-he’s on his way!’

The terror drained away from Ventrala. There was no point, was there? At least, finally, he would be delivered from this racked, twisted cage of a body. As if recalling the dignity it had once possessed, that body now lurched into motion, lifting itself into a sitting position, back pushed into the corner-it seemed to have acquired its own will, disconnected from Ventrala, from the mind and spirit that held to that name, that pathetic identity. Hannan Mosag had once said that the power of the Fallen One fed on all that was flawed and imperfect in one’s soul, which in turn manifested in flesh and bone-what was then necessary was to teach oneself to exult in that power, even as it twisted and destroyed the soul’s vessel.

Ventrala, with the sudden clarity that came with approaching death, now realized that it was all a lie. Pain was not to be embraced. Chaos was anathema to a mortal body. It ruined the flesh because it did not belong there. There was no exaltation in self-destruction.

A chorus of voices filled his skull, growing ever louder. The swords…

There was a soft scuffing sound in the hallway beyond, then the door squealed open;

Orthen poured in, flowing like grey foam in the grainy darkness. A moment later, the White Crow stepped into view. The song of the two swords filled the chamber.

Red, lambent eyes fixed on Ventrala.

The Tiste Andii then sheathed his weapons, muting the keening music. ‘Tell me of this one who so presumes to offend me.’

Ventrala blinked, then shook his head. ‘You think the Crippled God is interested in challenging you, Silchas Ruin? No, this… offence… it is Hannan Mosag’s, and his alone. I understand that now, you see. It’s why my power is gone. Fled. The Crippled God is not ready for the likes of you.’

The white-skinned apparition was motionless, silent, for a time. Then he said, ‘If this Hannan Mosag knows my name, he knows too that I have reason to be affronted. By him. By all the Tiste Edur who have inherited the rewards of Scabandari’s betrayal. Yet he provokes me.’

‘Perhaps,’ Ventrala said, ‘Hannan Mosag presumed the Crippled God’s delight in discord was without restraint.’

Silchas Ruin cocked his head. ‘What is your name, K’risnan?’

Ventrala told him.

‘I will let you live,’ the Tiste Andii said, ‘so that you may deliver to Hannan Mosag my words. The Azath cursed me with visions, its own memories, and so I was witness to many events on this world and on others. Tell Hannan Mosag this: a god in pain is not the same as a god obsessed with evil. Your Warlock King’s obsessions are his own. It would seem, alas, that he is… confused. For that, I am merciful this night… and this night alone. Hereafter, should he resume his interference, he will know the extent of my displeasure.’

‘I shall convey your words with precision, Silchas Ruin.’

‘You should choose a better god to worship, Ventrala. Tortured spirits like company, even a god’s.’ He paused, then said, ‘Then again, perhaps it is the likes of you who have in turn shaped the Crippled God. Perhaps, without his broken, malformed worshippers, he would have healed long ago.’

Soft rasping laughter from the wraith.

Silchas Ruin walked back through the doorway. ‘I am conscripting some horses,’ he said without turning round.

Moments later, the wraith slithered after him.

The orthen, which had been clambering about in seemingly aimless motion, now began to withdraw from the chamber.

Ventrala was alone once more. To the stairs, find the Atri-Preda-an escort, for the journey back to Letheras. And I will speak to Hannan Mosag. And I will tell him about death in the pass. I will tell him of a Soletaken Tiste Andii with two knife wounds in his back, wounds that will not heal. Yet… he forbears.

Silchas Ruin knows more of the Crippled God than any of us, barring perhaps Rhulad. But he does not hate. No, he feels pity.

Pity, even for me.

Seren Pedac heard the horses first, hoofs thumping at the walk up the forested trail. The night sky above the fort was strangely black, opaque, as if from smoke-yet there was no glow from flames. They had heard the concussion, the destruction of at least one stone wall, and Kettle had yelped with laughter, a chilling, grotesque sound. Then, distant screams and, all too quickly thereafter, naught but silence.

Silchas Ruin appeared, leading a dozen mounts, accompanied by sullen moaning from the scabbarded swords.

‘And how many of my kin did you slay this time?’ Fear Sengar asked.

‘Only those foolish enough to oppose me. This pursuit,’ he said, ‘it does not belong to your brother. It is the Warlock King’s. I believe we cannot doubt that he seeks what we seek. And now, Fear Sengar, the time has come to set our knives on the ground, the two of us. Perhaps Hannan Mosag’s desires are a match to yours, but I assure you, such desires cannot be reconciled with mine.’

Seren Pedac felt a heaviness settle in the pit of her stomach. This had been a long time in coming, the one issue avoided-again and again, ever excused to the demands of simple expediency. Fear Sengar could not win this battle-they all knew it. Did he intend to stand in Silchas Ruin’s way? One more Tiste Edur to cut down? ‘There is no compelling reason to broach this subject right now,’ she said. ‘Let’s just get on these horses and ride.’

‘No,’ Fear Sengar said, eyes fixed on the Tiste Andii’s. ‘Let it be now. Silchas Ruin, in my heart I accept the truth of Scabandari’s betrayal. You trusted him, and you suffered unimaginably in consequence. Yet how can we make reparation? We are not Soletaken. We are not ascendants. We are simply Tiste Edur, and so we fall like saplings before you and your swords. Tell me, how do we ease your thirst for vengeance?’

‘You do not, nor is my killing your kin in any way an answer to my need. Fear Sengar, you spoke of reparation. Is this your desire?’

The Edur warrior was silent for a half-dozen heartbeats, then he said, ‘Scabandari brought us to this world.’

Yours was dying.’

Yes.’

‘You may not be aware of this,’ Silchas Ruin continued, ‘but Bloodeye was partly responsible for the sundering of Shadow. Nonetheless, of greater relevance, to me, are the betrayals that came before that particular crime. Betrayals against my own kin-my brother, Andarist-which set such grief upon his soul that he was driven mad.’ He slowly cocked his head. ‘Did you imagine me naive in fashioning an alliance with Scabandari Bloodeye?’

Udinaas barked a laugh. ‘Naive enough to turn your back on him.’

Seren Pedac shut her eyes. Please, Indebted, just keep your mouth shut. Just this once.

‘You speak truth, Udinaas,’ Silchas Ruin replied after a moment. ‘I was exhausted, careless. I did not imagine he would be so… public. Yet, in retrospect, the betrayal had to be absolute-and that included the slaughter of my followers.’

Fear Sengar said, ‘You intended to betray Scabandari, only he acted first. A true alliance of equals, then.’

‘I imagined you might see it that way,’ the Tiste Andii replied. ‘Understand me, Fear Sengar. I will not countenance freeing the soul of Scabandari Bloodeye. This world has enough reprehensible ascendants.’

‘Without Father Shadow,’ Fear said, ‘I cannot free Rhulad from the chains of the Crippled God.’

‘You could not, even with him.’

‘I do not believe you, Silchas Ruin. Scabandari was your match, after all. And I do not think the Crippled God hunts you in earnest. If it is indeed Hannan Mosag behind this endless pursuit, then the ones he seeks are myself and Udinaas. Not you. It is, perhaps, even possible that the Warlock King knows nothing of you-of who you are, beyond the mysterious White Crow.’

‘That does not appear to be the case, Fear Sengar.’

The statement seemed to rock the Tiste Edur.

Silchas Ruin continued, ‘Scabandari Bloodeye’s body was destroyed. Against me, now, he would be helpless: A soul without provenance is a vulnerable thing. Furthermore, it may be that his power is already being… used.’

‘By whom?’ Fear asked, almost whispering.

The Tiste Andii shrugged. ‘It seems,’ he said with something close to indifference, ‘that your quest is without purpose. You cannot achieve what you seek. I will offer you this, Fear Sengar. The day I choose to move against the Crippled God, your brother shall find himself free, as will all the Tiste Edur. When that time comes, we can speak of reparation.’

Fear Sengar stared at Silchas Ruin, then glanced, momentarily, at Seren Pedac. He drew a deep breath, then said, ‘Your offer… humbles me. Yet I could not imagine what the Tiste Edur could gift you in answer to such deliverance.’

‘Leave that to me,’ the Tiste Andii said.

Seren Pedac sighed, then strode to the horses. ‘It’s almost dawn. We should ride until midday at least. Then we can sleep.’ She paused, looked once more over at Silchas Ruin. ‘You are confident we will not be pursued?’

‘I am, Acquitor.’

‘So, were there in truth wards awaiting us?’

The Tiste Andii made no reply.

As the Acquitor adjusted the saddle and stirrups on one of the horses to suit Kettle, Udinaas watched the young girl squatting on her haunches near the forest edge, playing with an orthen that did not seem in any way desperate to escape her attentions. The darkness had faded, the mists silver in the growing light.

Wither appeared beside him, like a smear of reluctant night. ‘These scaled rats, Udinaas, came from the K’Chain Che’Malle world. There were larger ones, bred for food, but they were smart-smarter perhaps than they should have been. Started escaping their pens, vanishing into the mountains. It’s said there are some still left-’

Udinaas grunted his derision. ‘It’s said? Been hanging round in bars, Wither?’

‘The terrible price of familiarity-you no longer respect me, Indebted. A most tragic error, for the knowledge I possess-’

‘Is like a curse of boredom,’ Udinaas said, pushing himself to his feet. ‘Look at her,’ he said, nodding towards Kettle. ‘Tell me, do you believe in innocence? Never mind; I’m not that interested in your opinion. By and large, I don’t. Believe, that is. And yet, that child there… well, I am already grieving.’

‘Grieving what?’ Wither demanded.

‘Innocence, wraith. When we kill her.’

Wither was, uncharacteristically, silent.

Udinaas glanced down at the crouching shade, then sneered. ‘All your coveted knowledge…’

Seventeen legends described the war against the scaled demons the Awl called the Kechra; of those, sixteen were of battles, terrible clashes that left the corpses of warriors scattered across the plains and hills of the Awl’dan. Less a true war than headlong flight, at least in the first years. The Kechra had come from the west, from lands that would one day belong to the empire of Lether but were then, all those countless centuries ago, little more than blasted wastes-fly-swarmed marshlands of peat and rotten ice. A ragged, battered horde, the Kechra had seen battle before, and it was held in some versions of those legends that the Kechra were themselves fleeing, fleeing a vast, devastating war that gave cause to their own desperation.

In the face of annihilation, the Awl had learned how to fight such creatures. The tide was met, held, then turned.

Or so the tales proclaimed, in ringing, stirring tones of triumph.

Redmask knew better, although at times he wished he didn’t. The war ended because the Kechra’s migration reached the easternmost side of the Awl’dan, and then continued onward. Granted, they had been badly mauled by the belligerent ancestors of the Awl, yet, in truth, they had been almost indifferent to them-an obstacle in their path-and the death of so many of their own kind was but one more ordeal in a history of fraught, tragic ordeals since coming to this world.

Kechra. K’Chain Che’Malle, the Firstborn of Dragons.

There was, to Redmask’s mind, nothing palatable or sus-taining about knowledge. As a young warrior, his world had been a single knot on the rope of the Awl people, his own deliberate binding to the long, worn history of bloodlines, He had never imagined that there were so many other ropes, so many intertwined threads; he had never before comprehended how vast the net of existence, nor how tangled it had become since the Night of Life-when all that was living came into being, born of deceit and betrayal and doomed to an eternity of struggle.

And Redmask had come to understand struggle-there in the startled eyes of the rodara, the timid fear of the myrid; in the disbelief of a young warrior dying on stone and wind-blown sand; in the staring comprehension of a woman surrendering her life to the child she pushed out from between her legs. He had seen elders, human and beast, curl up to die; he had seen others fight for their last breath with all the will they could muster. Yet in his heart, he could find no reason, no reward waiting beyond that eternal struggle.

Even the spirit gods of his people battled, flailed, warred with the weapons of faith, with intolerance and the sweet, deadly waters of hate. No less confused and sordid than any mortal.

The Letherii wanted, and want invariably transformed into a moral right to possess. Only fools believed such things to be bloodless, either in intent or execution.

Well, by the same argument-by its very fang and talon-there existed a moral right to defy them. And in such a battle, there would be no end until one side or the other was obliterated. More likely, both sides were doomed to suffer that fate. This final awareness is what came from too much knowledge.

Yet he would fight on.

These plains he and his three young followers moved through had once belonged to the Awl. Until the Letherii expanded their notion of self-interest to include stealing land and driving away its original inhabitants. Cairn markers and totem stones had all been removed, the boulders left in heaps; even the ring-stones that had once anchored huts were gone. The grasses were overgrazed, and here and there long rectangular sections had seen the earth broken in anticipation of planting crops, fence posts stacked nearby. But Redmask knew that this soil was poor, quickly exhausted except in the old river valleys. The Letherii might manage a generation or two before the top-soil blew away. He had seen the results east of the wastelands, in far Kolanse-an entire civilization totterin on the edge of starvation as desert spread like plague.

The blurred moon had lifted high in the star-spattered night sky as they drew closer to the mass of rodara. There was little point in going after the myrid-the beasts were not swift runners over any reasonable distance-but as they edged closer, Redmask could see the full extent of this rodara herd. Twenty thousand head, perhaps even more.

A large drover camp, lit by campfires, commanded a hill’ top to the north. Two permanent buildings of cut-log walls and sod-capped roofs overlooked the shallow valley and the herds-these would, Redmask knew, belong to the Factor’s foreman, forming the focus for the beginning of a true settlement.

Crouched in the grasses at the edge of a drainage gully cutting through the valley side, the three young warriors on his left, Redmask studied the Letherii for another twenty heartbeats; then he gestured Masarch and the others back into the gully itself.

‘This is madness,’ the warrior named Theven whispered. There must be a hundred Letherii in that camp-and what of the shepherds and their dogs? If the wind shifts…’

‘Quiet,’ said Redmask. ‘Leave the dogs and the shepherds to me. As for the camp, well, they will soon be busy enough. Return to the horses, mount up, and be ready to flank and drive the herd when it arrives.’

In the moon’s pale light, Masarch’s expression was nerve-twisted, a wild look in his eyes-he had not done well on his death night, but thus far he appeared more or less sane. Both Theven and Kraysos had, Redmask suspected, made use of bledden herb smuggled with them into their coffins, which they chewed to make themselves insensate, beyond such things as panic and convulsions. Perhaps that was just as well. But Masarch had possessed no bledden herb. And, as was common to people of open lands, confinement was worse than death, worse than anything one could imagine.

Yet there was value in searing that transition into adulthood, rebirth that began with facing oneself, one’s own demonic haunts that came clambering into view in grisly succession, immune to every denial. With the scars born of that transition, a warrior would come to understand the truth of imagination: that it was a weapon the mind drew at every turn, yet as deadly to its wielder as to its conjured foes. Wisdom arrived as one’s skill with that weapon grew-we fight every battle with our imaginations: the battles within, the battles in the world beyond. This is the truth of command, and a warrior must learn command, of oneself and of others. It was possible that soldiers, such as the Letherii, experienced something similar in attaining rank, but Redmask was not sure of that.

Glancing back, he saw that his followers had vanished into the darkness. Probably, he judged, now at their horses. Waiting with fast, shallow breaths drawn into suddenly tight lungs. Starting at soft noises, gripping their reins and weapons in sweat-layered hands.

Redmask made a soft grunting sound and the dray, lying on its belly, edged closer. He settled a hand on its thick-furred neck, briefly, then drew it away. Together, the two set out, side by side, both low to the ground, towards the rodara herd.

Abasard walked slowly along the edge of the sleeping herd to keep himself alert. His two favoured dogs trotted in his wake. Born and raised as an Indebted in Drene, the sixteen-year-old had not imagined a world such as this-the vast sky, sprawling darkness and countless stars at night, enormous and depthless at day; the way the land itself reached out impossible distances, until at times he could swear he saw a curvature to the world, as if it existed like an island in the sea of the Abyss. And so much life, in the grasses, in the sky. In the spring tiny flowers erupted from every hillside, with berries ripening in the valleys. All his life, until his family had accompanied the Factor’s foreman, he had lived with his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, with his grandmother and two aunts-all crowded into a house little more than a shack, facing onto a rubbish-filled alley that stank of urine. The menagerie of his youth was made up of rats, blue-eyed mice, meers, cockroaches, scorpions and silverworms.

But here, in this extraordinary place, he had discovered a new life. Winds that did not stink with rot and waste. And there was room, so much room. He had witnessed with his own eyes a return to health among the members of his family-his frail little sister now wiry and sun-darkened, ever grinning; his grandmother, whose cough had virtually vanished; his father, who stood taller now, no longer hunched beneath low-ceilinged shacks and worksheds. Only yesterday, Abasard had heard him laugh, for the very first time.

Perhaps, the youth dared believe, once the land was broken and crops were planted, there would be the chance to work their way free of debt. Suddenly, all things seemed possible.

His two dogs loped past him, vanished in the gloom ahead. A not unusual occurrence. They liked to chase jackrabbits, or low-flying rhinazan. He heard a brief commotion in the grasses just beyond a slight rise. Abasard adjusted his grip on the staff he carried, increased his pace-if the dogs had trapped and killed a jackrabbit, there would be extra meat in the stew tomorrow.

Reaching the rise, he paused, searched the darkness below for his dogs. They were nowhere to be seen. Abasard downed, then let out a low whistle, expecting at any moment to hear them trot back to him. Yet only silence answered his summons. Confused, he slowly dropped into a crouch.

Ahead and to his right, a few hundred rodara shifted-awake and restless now.

Something was wrong. Wolves? The Bluerose cavalry the foreman kept under contract had hunted the local ones down long ago. Even the coyotes had been driven away, as had the bears.

Abasard crept forward, his mouth suddenly dry, his heart pounding hard in his chest.

His free hand, reaching out before him, came into contact with soft, warm fur. One of his dogs, lying motionless, still under his probing touch. Near its neck, the fur was wet. He reached down along it until his fingers sank into torn flesh where its throat should have been. The wound was ragged. Wolf. Or one of those striped cats. But of the latter he had only ever seen skins, and those came from the far south, near Bolkando Kingdom.

Truly frightened now, he continued on, and moments later found his other dog. This one had a broken neck. The two attacks, he realized, had to have been made simultaneously, else one or the other of the beasts would have barked.

A broken neck… but no other wounds, no slather of saliva on the fur.

The rodara heaved a half-dozen paces to one side again, and he could make out, at the very edge of his vision, their heads lifted on their long necks, their ears upright. Yet no fear-sounds came from them. So, no dangerous scent, no panic-someone has their attention. Someone they’re used to obeying.

There was no mistaking this-the herd was being stolen. Abasard could not believe it. He turned about, retracing his route. Twenty paces of silent footfalls later, he set out into a run-back to the camp.

Redmask’s whip snaked out to wrap round the shepherd’s neck-the old Letherii had been standing, outlined well against the dark, staring mutely at the now-moving herd. A sharp tug from Redmask and the shepherd’s head rolled from the shoulders, the body-arms jerking momentarily out to the sides-falling to one side.

The last of them, Redmask knew, as he moved up. Barring one, who had been smart enough to flee, although that would not save him in the end. Well, invaders had to accept the risks-they were thieves as well, weren’t they? Luxuriating in their unearned wealth, squatting on land not their own, arrogant enough to demand that it change to suit their purposes. As good as pissing on the spirits in the earth-one paid for such temerity and blasphemy.

He pushed away that last thought as unworthy. The spirits could take care of themselves, and they would deliver their own vengeance, in time-for they were as patient as they were inexorable. It was not for Redmask to act on behalf of those spirits. No, that form of righteousness was both unnecessary and disingenuous. The truth was this: Redmask enjoyed being the hand of Awl vengeance. Personal and, accordingly, all the more delicious.

He had already begun his killing of the Letherii, back in Drene.

Drawing his knife as he crouched over the old man’s severed head, he cut off the Letherii’s face, rolled it up and stored it with the others in the salt-crusted bag at his hip.

Most of the herd dogs had submitted to the Awl dray’s challenge-they now followed the larger, nastier beast as it worked to waken the entire herd, then drive it en masse eastward.

Straightening, Redmask turned as the first screams erupted from the drover camp.

Abasard was still forty paces from the camp when he saw one of the tents collapse to one side, poles and guides snapping, as an enormous two-legged creature thumped over it, talons punching through to the struggling forms beneath, and screams tore through the air. Head swivelling to one side, the fiend continued on in its loping, stiff-tailed gait. There were huge swords in its hands.

Another one crossed its path, fast, low, heading for the foreman’s house. Abasard saw a figure dart from this second beast’s path-but not quickly enough, as its head snapped forward, twisting so that its jaws closed to either side of the man’s head. Whereupon the reptile threw the flailing form upward in a bone-breaking surge. The limp corpse sailed in the air, landing hard and rolling into the hearth fire in a spray of sparks.

Abasard stood, paralysed by the horror of the slaughter he saw before him. He had recognized that man. Another Indebted, a man who had been courting one of his aunts, a man who always seemed to be laughing.

Another figure caught his eye. His baby sister, ten years old, racing out from the camp-away from another tent whose inhabitants were dying beneath chopping swords-our tent. Father-

The reptile lifted its head, saw his sister’s fleeting form, and surged after her.

All at once, Abasard found himself running, straight for the monstrous creature.

If it saw him converging, it was indifferent-until the very last moment, as Abasard raised his staff to swing overhand, hoping to strike the beast on its hind leg, imagining bones breaking-

The nearer sword lashed out, so fast, so-

Abasard found himself lying on sodden grasses, feeling heat pour from one side of his body, and as the heat poured out, he grew ever colder. He stared, seeing nothing yet, sensing how something was wrong-he was on his side, but his head was flattened down, his ear pressed to the ground. There should have been a shoulder below and beneath his head, and an arm, and it was where all the heat was pouring out.

And further down, the side of his chest, this too seemed to be gone.

He could feel his right leg, kicking at the ground. But no left leg. He did not understand.

Slowly, he settled onto his back, stared up at the night sky.

So much room up there, a ceiling beyond the reach of everyone, covering a place in which they could live. Uncrowded, room enough for all.

He was glad, he realized, that he had come here, to see, to witness, to understand. Glad, even as he died.

Redmask walked out of the dark to where Masarch waited with the Letherii horse. Behind him, the rodara herd was a mass of movement, the dominant males in the lead, their attention fixed on Redmask. Dogs barked and nipped from the far flanks. Distant shouts from the other two young warriors indicated they were where they should be.

Climbing into the saddle, Redmask nodded to Masarch then swung his mount round.

Pausing for a long moment, Masarch stared at the distant Letherii camp, where it seemed the unholy slaughter continued unabated. His guardians, he’d said.

He does not fear challenges to come. He will take the fur of the Ganetok war leader. He will lead us to war against the Letherii. He is Redmask, who forswore the Awl, only to now return.

I thought it Was too late.

I now think 1 am wrong.

He thought again of his death night, and memories returned like winged demons. He had gone mad, in that hollowed-out log, gone so far mad that hardly any of him had survived to return, when the morning light blinded him. Now, the insanity was loose, tingling at the very ends of his limbs, loose and wild but as yet undecided, not yet ready to act, to show its face. There was nothing to hold it back. No-one.

No-one but Redmask. My war leader.

Who unleashed his own madness years ago.

Chapter Five

Of the turtles known as vinik the females dwelt for the most part in the uppermost reaches of the innumerable sources of the Lether River, in the pooled basins and high-ground bogs found in the coniferous forests crowding the base of the Bluerose Mountains. The mountain runoff, stemmed and backed by the dams built by flat-tailed river-rats, descended in modest steps towards the broader, conjoined tributaries feeding the vast river. Vinik turtles were long-shelled and dorsal-ridged, and their strong forelimbs ended in taloned hands bearing opposable thumbs. In the egg-laying season, the females-smaller by far than their male kin of the deep rivers and the seas-prowled the ponds seeking the nests of waterfowl. Finding one large enough and properly accessible, the female vinik would appropriate it. Prior to laying her own eggs, the turtle exuded a slime that coated the bird eggs, the slime possessing properties that suspended the development of those young birds. Once the vinik’s clutch was in place, the turtle then dislodged the entire nest, leaving it free to float, drawn by the current. At each barrier juvenile male vinik were gathered, to drag the nests over dry ground so that they could continue their passive migration down to the Lether River.

Many sank, or encountered some fatal obstacle on their long, arduous journey to the sea. Others were raided by adult vinik dwelling in the depths of the main river. Of those nests that made it to sea, the eggs hatched, the hatchlings fed on the bird embryos, then slipped out into the salty water. Only upon reaching juvenile age-sixty or seventy years-would the new generation of vinik begin the years-long journey back up the river, to those distant, murky ponds of the Bluerose boreal forest.

Nests bobbed in the waters of the Lether River as it flowed past the Imperial City, Letheras, seat of the Emperor. Local fisher boats avoided them, since large vinik males sometimes tracked the nests just beneath the surface-and provided they weren’t hungry enough to raid the nest, they would defend it. Few fisher folk willingly challenged a creature that could weigh as much as a river galley and was capable of tearing such a galley to pieces with its beak and its clawed forearms.

The arrival of the nests announced the beginning of summer, as did the clouds of midges swarming over the river, the settling of the water level and the reek of exposed silts along the banks.

On the faint rise behind the Old Palace, the dishevelled expanse where stood the foundations of ancient towers, and one in particular constructed of black stone with a low-walled yard, a hunched, hooded figure dragged himself towards the gateway step by aching, awkward step. His spine was twisted, pushed by past ravages of unconstrained power until the ridge of each vertebra was visible beneath the threadbare cloak, the angle forcing his shoulders far forward so that the unkempt ground before him was within reach of his arms, which he used to pull his broken body along.

He came searching for a nest. A mound of ragged earth and dying grasses, a worm-chewed hole into a now dead realm. Questing with preternatural senses, he moved through the yard from one barrow to the next. Empty… empty… empty.

Strange insects edged away from his path. Midges spun in cavorting swirls over him, but would not alight to feed, for the searcher’s blood was rotted with chaos. The day’s dying light plucked at his misshapen shadow, as if seeking sense of a stain so malign on the yard’s battered ground.

Empty…

But this one was not. He allowed himself a small moment of glee. Suspicions confirmed, at last. The place that was dead… was not entirely dead. Oh, the Azath was now nothing more than lifeless stone, all power and all will drained away. Yet some sorcery lingered, here, beneath this oversized mound ringed in shattered trees. Kurald for certain. Probably Galain-the stink of Tiste Andii was very nearly palpable. Binding rituals, a thick, interwoven skein to keep something… someone… down.

Crouched, the figure reached with his senses, then suddenly recoiled, breath hissing from between mangled lips.

It has begun unravelling! Someone has been here-before me! Not long. Sorcery, working the release of this imprisoned creature. Father of Shadows, I must think!

Hannan Mosag remained motionless, hunched at the very edge of this mound, his mind racing.

Beyond the ruined grounds, the river flowed on, down to the distant sea. Carried on its current, vinik nests spun lazily; milky green eggs, still warm with the day’s heat, enclosed vague shapes that squirmed about, eager for the birth of light.

She lifted her head with a sharp motion, blood and fragments of human lung smearing her mouth and chin, sliding then dripping down into the split-open ribcage of her victim-a fool who, consumed by delusions of domination and tyranny no doubt, had chosen to stalk her all the way from Up Markets. It had become a simple enough thing, a lone, seemingly lost woman of high birth, wander-ing through crowds unaware of the hooded looks and expressions of avarice tracking her. She was like the bait the fisher folk used to snare brainless fish in the river. True, while she remained hooded, her arms covered in shimmering silk the hue of raw ox-heart, wearing elegant calf-leather gloves, as well as close-wrapped leggings of black linen, there was no way anyone could see the cast of her skin, nor her unusual features. And, despite the Tiste Edur blood coursing diluted in her veins, she was not. uncommonly tall, which well suited her apparent vulnerability, for it was clear that these Edur occupiers in this city were far too dangerous to be hunted by the common Letherii rapist.

She had led him into an alley, whereupon she drove one hand into his chest, tearing out his heart. But it was the lungs she enjoyed the most, the pulpy meat rich with oxygen and not yet soured by the rank juices of violent death.

The mortal realm was a delightful place. She had forgotten that.

But now, her feeding had been interrupted. Someone had come to the Azath grounds. Someone had probed her rituals, which had been dissolving the binding wards set by Silchas Ruin. There could be trouble there, and she was not inclined to suffer interference in her plans.

Probably the Errant, that meddling bastard. Or, even more alarming, that Elder God, Mael. A miserably crowded city, this Letheras-she had no intention of tarrying over-long here, lest her presence be discovered, her schemes knocked awry.

Wiping her mouth and chin with the back of one sleeved forearm, she straightened from her feast, then set off.

Rautos Hivanar, head of the Liberty Consign, squatted on the muddy bank of the river, the work crews finishing the day’s excavation directly behind him, the pump crews already washing down, the sounds from the estate’s back kitchen rising with the approaching demands of supper. He was making a point of feeding his diggers well, as much to ease their bemusement as to keep them working. They were now excavating way below the river level, after all, and if not for the constantly manned pumps, they would be working chest-deep in muddy water. As it was, the shoring on the walls needed continual attention, prone as they were to sag inward.

Eyes tracking a half-dozen vinik nests rafting down the river, Rautos Hivanar was lost in thought. There had been more mysterious objects, buried deep and disconnected, but he had begun to suspect that they all belonged together; that in an as yet inconceivable way they could be assembled into a kind of mechanism. Some central piece remained undiscovered, he believed. Perhaps tomorrow…

He heard slippered feet on the plank walkway leading down to the river, and a moment later came Venitt Sathad’s voice. ‘Master.’

‘Venitt, you have allotted yourself two house guards for the journey. Take two more. And, accordingly, two more packhorses. You will travel without a supply wagon, as agreed, but that need not be a reason to reduce your level of comfort.’

‘Very well, Master.’

And remember, Venitt. Letur Anict is in every way the de facto ruler of Drene, regardless of the Edur governor’s official status. I am informed that you will find Orbyn Truthfinder, the Invigilator’s agent, a reliable ally. As to Letur Anict… the evidence points to the Factor’s having lost… perspective. His ambition seems without restraint, no longer harnessed to reason or, for that matter, common sense.’

‘I shall be diligent in my investigation, Master.’

Rautos Hivanar rose and faced his servant. ‘If needs must, Venitt, err on the side of caution. I would not lose you.’

A flicker of something like surprise in the Indebted’s lined face, then the man bowed. ‘I will remain circumspect, Master.’

‘One last thing,’ Rautos said as he moved past Venitt on his way up to the estate. ‘Do not embarrass me.’

The Indebted’s eyes tracked his master for a moment, his expression once more closed.

Unseen behind them on the river, a huge shape lifted beneath one vinik nest, and breaking the water as the nest overturned was the prow ridge of an enormous shell, and below that a sinewy neck and a vast, gaping beak. Swallowing the nest entire.

The currents then carried the disturbance away, until no sign of it remained.

‘You know, witnessing something is one thing. Understanding it another.’

Bugg turned away from his study of the distant river, where the setting sun’s light turned the water into a rippled sheet of beaten gold, and frowned at Tehol Beddict. ‘Very pondering of you, Master.’

‘It was, wasn’t it? I have decided that it is my normal eye that witnesses, while it is my blue eye that understands. Does that make sense to you?’

‘No.’

‘Good, I’m glad.’

‘The night promises to be both heavy and hot, Master. And I suggest the mosquito netting.’

Agreed. Can you get to it? I can’t reach.’

‘You could if you stretched an arm.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘Nothing. I admit to some… distraction.’

‘Just now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you over it yet?’

Almost. Alas, certain individuals are stirring in the city this evening.’

‘Well, are you going to do something about it or do I have to do everything around here?’

Bugg walked across the roof to stand beside the bed. He studied the reposed form of Tehol Beddict for a moment, then he collected the netting and draped it over his master.

Eyes, one brown, the other blue, blinked up at him. ‘Shouldn’t there be a frame or something? I feel I am being readied for my own funeral here.’

‘We used the frame for this morning’s fire.’

‘Ah. Well, is this going to keep me from being bitten?’

‘Probably not, but it looks rather fetching.’

Tehol closed his blue eye. ‘I see…’

Bugg sighed. ‘Gallows humour, Master.’

‘My, you are in a state, aren’t you?’

‘I am undecided,’ Bugg said, nodding. ‘Yes I know, one of my eternal flaws.’

‘What you require, old friend, is a mortal’s perspective on things. So let’s hear it. Lay out the dilemma for me, Bugg, so that I might provide you with a properly pithy solution.’

‘The Errant follows the Warlock King, to see what he plans. The Warlock King meddles with nefarious rituals set in place by another ascendant, who in turn leaves off eating a freshly killed corpse and makes for an unexpected rendezvous with said Warlock King, where they will prpb-ably make each other’s acquaintance then bargain to mutual benefit over the crumbling chains binding another ascendant-one soon to be freed, which will perturb some-one far to the north, although that one is probably not yet ready to act. In the meantime, the long-departed Edur fleet skirts the Draconean Sea and shall soon enter the river mouth on its fated return to our fair city, and with it are two fell champions, neither of whom is likely to do what is expected of them. Now, to add spice to all of that, the secret that is the soul of one Scabandari Bloodeye will, in a depressingly short time, cease to be a secret, and consequently and in addition to and concomitant with, we are in for an interesting summer.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Not in the least, but one mouthful at a time, I always say.’

‘No you don’t. Shurq Elalle is the one always saying that.’

‘Your penchant for disgusting images, Master, is as ever poorly timed and thoroughly inappropriate. Now, about that pithy solution of yours…’

‘Well, I admit to disappointment. You didn’t even mention my grand scheme to bankrupt the empire.’

‘The Invigilator now hunts for you in earnest.’

‘Karos Invictad? No wonder you put me under a shroud. I shall endeavour to be close to the roof’s edge the day he clambers into view with his drooling henchmen, so that I can fling myself over the side, which, you’ll agree, is far preferable to even one bell’s worth of his infamous, ghastly inquisition. In the meantime, what’s for supper?’

‘Vinik eggs-I found a somewhat broken nest washed up under a dock.’

‘But vinik eggs are poisonous, hence the clouds of complaining gulls constantly circling over every nasty little floating island.’

‘It’s a matter of proper cooking, Master, and the addition of a few essential herbs that serve to negate most of the ill effects.’

‘Most?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you have in your possession those life-sustaining herbs?’

‘Well, no, but I thought I’d improvise.’

‘There you have it.’

‘There I have what, Master?’

‘Why, my pithy reply, of course.’

Bugg squinted at Tehol Beddict, who winked, this time closing his brown eye. The Elder God scowled, then said, ‘Thank you, Master. What would I ever do without you?’

‘Scant little, I’d wager.’

Tanal Yathvanar set the package down on the Invigilator’s desk. ‘Delivered by a rat-faced urchin this morning. Sir, I expect it will prove no particular challenge. In any case,’ he continued as he began unwrapping the package, ‘I was instructed to treat it delicately, and to keep it upright. And you will, in moments, see why.’

Karos Invictad watched with heavy-lidded eyes as the grease-stained, poor quality ragweed wrapping was delicately pulled away, revealing a small, open-topped wooden box that seemed to possess layered sides. The Invigilator leaned forward to peer inside.

And saw a two-headed insect, such as were now appearing down by the river. Its legs were moving precisely, carrying it round… and round. The insides of the box were each of coloured, polished tiles, and it appeared that the tiles could be slid free, or rearranged, if one so chose.

‘What were the instructions, Tanal?’

‘The challenge is to halt the insect’s motion. It will, apparently, continue walking in a circle, in the same place, until it dies of starvation-which, incidentally, is the fail point for the puzzle… approximately four months. While the creature rotates in place, it will not eat. As for water, a small clump of soaked moss will suffice. As you can see, the tiles on the inside can be rearranged, and presumably, once the proper order or sequence is discovered, the insect will stop. And you will have defeated the puzzle. The restrictions are these: no object may be placed inside the container; nor can you physically touch or make contact with the insect.’

Karos Invictad grunted. ‘Seems direct enough. What is the record for the solution?’

‘There is none. You are the first and only player, apparently.’

‘Indeed. Curious. Tanal, three prisoners died in their cells last night-some contagion is loose down there. Have the corpses burned in the Receiving Ground west of the city. Thoroughly. And have the rest washed down with disinfectant.’

‘At once, Invigilator.’

The ruins were far more extensive than is commonly imagined. In fact, most historians of the early period of the colony have paid little or no attention to the reports of the Royal Engineer, specifically those of Keden Qan, who served from the founding until the sixth decade. During the formulation of the settlement building plan, a most thorough survey was conducted. The three extant Jhag towers behind the Old Palace were in fact part of a far larger complex, which of course runs contrary to what is known of]hag civilization. For this reason, it may be safe to assume that the Jhag complex on the bank of the Lether River represents a pre-dispersion site. That is, before the culture disintegrated in its sudden, violent diaspora. An alternative interpretation would be that the three main towers, four sub’ terranean vaults, and what Qan called the Lined Moat all belonged to a single, unusually loyal family.

In either case, the point I am making here is this: beyond the Jhag-or more correctly, Jaghut-complex, there were other ruins. Of course, one need not point out the most obvious and still existing Azath structure-that lecture will have to wait another day. Rather, in an area covering almost the entire expanse of present-day Lether as could be found foundation walls, plazas or concourses, shaped wells, drainage ditches and, indeed, some form of cemetery or mortuary, and-listen carefully now-all of it not of human design. Nor Jaghut, nor even Tarthenal.

Now, what were the details of this unknown complex? Well, for one, it was self-contained, walled, entirely covered by multilevel roofing-even the plazas, alleys and streets. As a fortress, it was virtually impregnable. Beneath the intricately paved floors and streets, there was a second even more defensible city, the corridors and tunnels of which can now be found as an integral part of our sewer outflow.

In short, Letheras, the colony of the First Empire, was founded upon the ruins of an earlier city, one whose layout seemed to disregard the presence of the]aghut towers and the Azath, suggesting that it pre-dates both.

Even the first engineer, Keden Qan, was unable or unwilling to attempt an identification of these early builders. Virtually no artifacts were found-no potsherds, no sculptures, no remnants of metal’Working. One last interesting detail. It appeared that in the final stages of occupation, the dwellers set about frantic alterations to their city. Qan’s analysis of these efforts led him to conclude that a catastrophic climate change had occurred, for the efforts indicated a desperate attempt to add insulation.

Presumably, that effort failed-

Her interior monologue ceased abruptly as she heard the faint scuff of someone approaching. Lifting her head was a struggle, but Janath Anar managed, just as the chamber’s heavy door creaked open and light flooded in from a lantern-dull and low yet blinding her nonetheless.

Tanal Yathvanar stepped into view-it would be none other but him, she knew-and a moment later he spoke. ‘I pray you’ve yet to drive yourself mad.’

Through cracked, blistered lips, she smiled, then said in a croaking voice, ‘Lectures. I am halfway into the term. Early history. Mad? Oh yes, without question.’

She heard him come closer. ‘I have been gone from you too long-you are suffering. That was careless of me.’

‘Careless is keeping me alive, you miserable little wretch,’ she said.

‘Ah, perhaps I deserved that. Come, you must drink.’

‘What if I refuse?’

‘Then, with your inevitable death, you are defeated. By me. Are you sure you want that, Scholar?’

‘You urge me to stubborn resistance. I understand. The sadist needs his victim alive, after all. For as long as humanly possible.’

‘Dehydration is a most unpleasant way to die, Janath Anar.’

He lifted the spigot of a waterskin to her mouth. She drank.

‘Not too quickly,’ Tanal said, stepping back. ‘You will just make yourself sick. Which wouldn’t, I see, be the first time for you.’

‘When you see maggots crawl out of your own wastes, Yathvanar… Next time,’ she added, ‘take your damned candle with you.’

‘If I do that,’ he replied, ‘you will go blind-’

‘And that matters?’

He stepped close once again and poured more water into her mouth.

Then he set about washing her down. Sores had opened where stomach fluids had burned desiccated skin, and, he could see, she had been pulling on her bindings, seeking to squeeze her hands through the shackles. ‘You are looking much worse for wear,’ he said as he dabbed ointment on the wounds. ‘You cannot get your hands through, Janath-’

‘Panic cares nothing for what can and can’t be done, Tanal Yathvanar. One day you will discover that. There was a priest once, in the second century, who created a cult founded on the premise that every victim tallied in one’s mortal life awaits that one beyond death. From the slightest of wounds to the most grievous, every victim preceding you into death… waits. For you.

‘A mortal conducts spiritual economics in his or her life, amassing credit and debt. Tell me, Patriotist, how indebted are you by now? How vast the imbalance between good deeds and your endless acts of malice?’

‘A bizarre, insane cult,’ he muttered, moving away. ‘No wonder it failed.’

‘In this empire, yes, it’s no wonder at all. The priest was set upon in the street and torn limb from limb. Still, it’s said adherents remain, among the defeated peoples-the Tarthenal, the Fent and Nerek, the victims, as it were, of Letherii cruelty-and before those people virtually disappeared from the city, there were rumours that the cult was reviving.’

Tanal Yathvanar sneered. ‘The ones who fail ever need a crutch, a justification-they fashion virtue out of misery. Karos Invictad has identified that weakness, in one of his treatises-’

Janath’s laugh broke into ragged coughing. When she recovered, she spat and said, ‘Karos Invictad. Do you know why he so despises academics? He is a failed one himself.’ She bared her stained teeth. ‘He calls them treatises, does he? Errant fend, how pathetic. Karos Invictad couldn’t fashion a decent argument, much less a treatise.’

‘You are wrong in that, woman,’ Tanal said. ‘He has even explained why he did so poorly as a young scholar-oh yes, he would not refute your assessment of his career as a student. Driven by emotions, back then. Incapable of a cogent position, leaving him rife with anger-but at himself, at his own failings. But, years later, he learned that all emotion had to be scoured from him; only then would his inner vision become clear.’

‘Ah, he needed wounding, then. What was it? A betrayal of sorts, I expect. Some woman? A protege, a patron? Does it even matter? Karos Invictad makes sense to me, now. Why he is what he has become.’ She laughed again, this rime without coughing, then said, ‘Delicious irony. Karos Invictad became a victim.’

‘Don’t be-’

A victim, Yathvanar! And he didn’t like it, oh no, not at all. It hurt-the world hurt him, so now he’s hurting it back. And yet, he has still to even the score. But you see, he never will, because in his mind, he’s still that victim, still lashing out. And as you said earlier, the victim and his crutch, his virtue of misery-one feeds the other, without cessation. No wonder he bridles with self-righteousness for all his claims to emotionless intellect-’

He struck her, hard, her head snapping to one side, spittle and blood threading out.

Breathing fast, chest strangely tight, Tanal hissed, ‘Rail at me all you will, Scholar. I expect that. But not at Karos Invictad. He is the empire’s last true hope. Only Karos Invictad will guide us into glory, into a new age, an age without the Edur, without the mixed-bloods, without even the failed peoples. No, just the Letherii, an empire expanding outward with sword and fire, all the way back to the homeland of the First Empire. He has seen our future! Our destiny!’

She stared at him in the dull light. ‘Of course. But first, he needs to kill every Letherii worthy of the name. Karos Invictad, the Great Scholar, and his empire of thugs-’

He struck her again, harder than before, then lurched back, raising his hand-it was trembling, skin torn and battered, a shard of one broken tooth jutting from one knuckle.

She was unconscious.

Well, she asked for it. She wouldn’t stop. That means she wanted it, deep inside, she wanted me to beat her. I’ve heard about this-Karos has told me-they come to like it, eventually. They like the… attention.

So, I must not neglect her. Not again. Plenty of water, keep her clean and fed.

And beat her anyway.

But she was not unconscious, for she then spoke in a mumble. He could not make it out and edged closer.

‘… on the other side… I will wait for you… on the other side…’

Tanal Yathvanar felt a slither deep in his gut. And fled from it. No god waits to pass judgement. No-one marks the imbalance of deeds-no god is beyond its own imbalances-for its own deeds are as subject to judgement as any other. So who then fashions this afterlife? Some natural imposition? Ridiculous-there is no balance in nature. Besides, nature exists in this world and this world alone-its rules mean nothing once the bridge is crossed…

Tanal Yathvanar found himself walking up the corridor, that horrid woman and her cell far behind him now-he had no recollection of actually leaving.

Karos has said again and again, justice is a conceit. It does not exist in nature. ‘Retribution seen in natural catastrophes is manufactured by all too eager and all too pious people, each one convinced the world will end but spare them and them alone. But we all know, the world is inherited by the obnoxious, not the righteous.’ -

Unless, came the thought in Janath’s voice, the two are one and the same.

He snarled as he hurried up the worn stone stairs. She was far below. Chained. A prisoner in her solitary cell. There was no escape for her.

I have left her down there, far below. Far behind. She can’t escape.

Yet, in his mind, he heard her laughter.

And was no longer so sure.

Two entire wings of the Eternal Domicile were empty, long, vacated corridors and never-occupied chambers, storage rooms, administration vaults, servant quarters and kitchens. Guards patrolling these sections once a day carried their own lanterns, and left unrelieved darkness in their wake. In the growing damp of these unoccupied places, dust had become mould, mould had become rot, and the rot in turn leaked rank fluids that ran down plastered walls and pooled in dips in the floors.

Abandonment and neglect would soon defeat the ingenious innovations of Bugg’s Construction, as they defeated most things raised by hands out of the earth, and Turudal Brizad, the Errant, considered himself almost unique in his fullest recognition of such sordid truths, indeed, there were other elders persisting in their nominal existence, but they one and all fought still against the ravages of inevitable dissolution. Whereas the Errant could not be bothered.

Most of the time.

The Jaghut had come to comprehend the nature of futility, inspiring the Errant to a certain modicum of empathy for those most tragic of people. Where was Gothos now, he wondered. Probably long dead, all things considered. He had written a multiple-volumed suicide note-his Folly-that presumably concluded at some point, although the Errant had neither seen nor heard that such a conclusion existed. Perhaps, he considered with sudden suspicion, there was some hidden message in a suicidal testimonial without end, but if so, such meaning was too obscure for the mind of anyone but a Jaghut.

He had followed the Warlock King to the dead Azath, remained there long enough to discern Hannan Mosag’s intentions, and had now returned to the Eternal Domicile, where he could walk these empty corridors in peace. Contemplating, among other things, stepping once again into the fray. To battle, one more time, the ravages of dissolution.

He thought he could hear Gothos laughing, somewhere. But no doubt that was only his imagination, ever eager to mock his carefully reasoned impulses.

Finding himself in a stretch of corridor awash with slime-laden water, the Errant paused. ‘Well,’ he said with a soft sigh, ‘to bring a journey to a close, one must first begin it. Best I act whilst the will remains.’

His next step took him into a glade, thick verdant grasses underfoot, a ring of dazzling flowers at the very edges of the black-boled trees encircling the clearing. Butterflies danced from one bloom of colour to the next. The patch of sky visible overhead was faintly tinted vermilion and the air seemed strangely thin.

A voice spoke behind him. ‘I do not welcome company here.’

The Errant turned. He slowly cocked his head. ‘It’s not often the sight of a woman inspires fear in my soul.’

She scowled. ‘Am I that ugly, Elder?’

‘To the contrary, Menandore. Rather… formidable.’

‘You have trespassed into my place of refuge.’ She paused, then asked, ‘Does it so surprise you, that one such as myself needs refuge?’

‘I do not know how to answer that,’ he replied.

‘You’re a careful one, Errant.’

‘I suspect you want a reason to kill me.’

She walked past him, long black sarong flowing from frayed ends and ragged tears. ‘Abyss below,’ she murmured, ‘am I so transparent? Who but you could have guessed that 1 require justification for killing?’

‘So your sense of sarcasm has survived your solitude, Menandore. It is what I am ever accused of, isn’t it? My… random acts.’

‘Oh, I know they’re not random. They only seem that way. You delight in tragic failure, which leads me to wonder what you want with me? We are not well suited, you and I.’

‘What have you been up to lately?’ he asked.

‘Why should I tell you?’

‘Because I have information to impart, which you will find… well suited to your nature. And I seek recompense.’

‘If I deny it you will have made this fraught journey for nothing.’

‘It will only be fraught if you attempt something untoward, Menandore.’

‘Precisely.’

Her unhuman eyes regarded him steadily.

He waited.

‘Sky keeps,’ she said.

‘Ah, I see. Has it begun, then?’

‘No, but soon.’

‘Well, you are not one to act without long preparation, so I am not that surprised. And which side will we, eventually, find you on, Menandore?’

‘Why, mine of course.’

‘You will be opposed.’

One thin brow arched.

The Errant glanced around. ‘A pleasant place. What warren are we in?’

‘You would not believe me if I told you.’

‘Ah,’ he nodded, ‘that one. Very well, your sisters conspire.’

‘Not against me, Errant.’

‘Not directly, or, rather, not immediately. Rest assured, however, that the severing of your head from your shoulders is the eventual goal.’

‘Has she been freed, then?’

‘Imminent.’

‘And you will do nothing? What of the others in that fell city?’

Others? ‘Mael is being… Mael. Who else hides in Letheras, barring your two sisters?’

‘Sisters,’ she said, then sneered as she turned away, walked to one edge of the glade, where she crouched and plucked a flower. Facing him once more, she lifted the flower to draw deep its scent.

From the snapped stem, thick red blood dripped steadily.

I’ve indeed heard it said that beauty is the thinnest skin.

She suddenly smiled. ‘Why, no-one. I misspoke.’

‘You invite me to a frantic and no doubt time-devouring search to prove your ingenuousness, Menandore. What possible reason could you have to set me on such a trail?’

She shrugged. ‘Serves you right for infringing upon my place of refuge, Errant. Are we done here?’

‘Your flower is bled out,’ he said, as he stepped back, and found himself once more in the empty, flooded corridor of the Eternal Domicile’s fifth wing.

Others. The bitch.

As soon as the Errant vanished from the glade, Menandore flung the wilted flower to one side, and two figures emerged from the forest, one from her left, the other from her right.

Menandore arched her back as she ran both hands through her thick red hair.

Both figures paused to watch.

She had known they would. ‘You heard?’ she asked, not caring which one answered.

Neither did. Menandore dropped her pose and scowled over to the scrawny, shadow-swarmed god to her left. ‘That cane is an absurd affectation, you know.’

‘Never mind my absurd affectations, woman. Blood dripping from a flower, for Hood’s sake-oops-’ The god known as Shadowthrone tilted a head towards the tall, cowled figure opposite. ‘Humblest apologies, Reaper.’

Hood, Lord of Death, seemed to cock his head as if surprised. ‘Yours?’

‘Apologies? Naturally not. I but made a declarative statement. Was there a subject attached to it? No. We three fell creatures have met, have spoken, have agreed on scant little, and have concluded that our previous impressions of each other proved far too… generous. Nonetheless, it seems we are agreed, more or less, on the one matter you, Hood, wanted to address. It’s no wonder you’re so ecstatic’

Menandore frowned at the Lord of Death, seeking evidence of ecstasy. Finding none, she eyed Shadowthrone once more. ‘Know that I have never accepted your claim.’

‘I’m crushed. So your sisters are after you. What a dread-ful family you have. Want help?’

‘You too? Recall my dismissal of the Errant.’

Shadowthrone shrugged. ‘Elders think too slowly. My offer is of another magnitude. Think carefully before you reject it.’

‘And what doyou ask in return?’

‘Use of a gate.’

Which gate?’

Shadowthrone giggled, then the eerie sound abruptly stopped, and in a serious tone he said, ‘Starvald Demelain.’

‘To what end?’

‘Why, providing you with assistance, of course.’

‘You want my sisters out of the way, too-perhaps more than I do. Squirming on that throne of yours, are you?’

‘Convenient convergence of desires, Menandore. Ask Hood about such things, especially now’

‘If I give you access to Starvald Demelain, you will use it more than once.’

‘Not I.’

‘Do you so vow?’

‘Why not?’

‘Foolish,’ Hood said in a rasp.

‘I hold you to that vow, Shadowthrone,’ Menandore said.

‘Then you accept my help?’

‘As you do mine in this matter. Convergence of desires,. you said.’

‘You’re right,’ Shadowthrone said. ‘I retract all notions of “help”. We are mutually assisting one another, as fits said convergence; and once finished with the task at hand, no other obligations exist between us.’

‘That is agreeable.’

‘You two,’ Hood said, turning away, ‘are worse than advocates. And you don’t want to know what I do with the souls of advocates.’ A heartbeat later and the Lord of Death was gone.

Menandore frowned. ‘Shadowthrone, what are advocates?’

‘A profession devoted to the subversion of laws for profit,’ he replied, his cane inexplicably tapping as he shuffled back into the woods. ‘When I was Emperor, I considered butchering them all.’

‘So why didn’t you?’ she asked as he began to fade into a miasma of gloom beneath the trees.

Faintly came the reply, ‘The Royal Advocate said it’d be a terrible mistake.’

Menandore was alone once again. She looked around, then grunted. ‘Gods, I hate this place.’ A moment later she too vanished.

Janall, once Empress of the Lether Empire, was now barely recognizable as a human. Brutally used as a conduit of the chaotic power of the Crippled God, her body had been twisted into a malign nightmare, bones bent, muscles stretched and bunched, and now, huge bulges of fat hung in folds from her malformed body. She could not walk, could not even lift her left arm, and the sorcery had broken her mind, the madness burning from eyes that glittered malevolently in the gloom as Nisall, carrying a lantern, paused in the doorway.

The chamber was rank with sweat, urine and other suppurations from the countless oozing sores on Jamil’s skin; the sweet reek of spoiled food, and another odour, pungent, that reminded the Emperor’s Concubine of rotting teeth.

Janall dragged herself forward with a strange, asymmetrical shift of her hips, pivoting on her right arm. The motion made a sodden sound beneath her, and Nisall saw the streams of saliva easing out from the once-beautiful woman’s misshapen mouth. The floor was pooled in the mucus and it was this, she realized, that was the source of the pungent smell.

Fighting back nausea, the Concubine stepped forward. ‘Empress.’

‘No longer!’ The voice was ragged, squeezed out from a deformed throat, and drool spattered with every jerk of her misshapen jaw. ‘I am Queen! Of his House, his honeyed House-oh, we are a contented family, oh yes, and one day, one day soon, you’ll see, that pup on the throne will come here. For me, his Queen. You, whore, you’re nothing-the House is not for you. You blind Rhulad to the truth, but his vision will clear, once,’ her voice dropped to a whisper and she leaned forward, ‘we are rid of you.’

‘I came,’ Nisall said, ‘to see if you needed anything-’

‘Liar. You came in search of allies. You think to steal him away. From me. From our true master. You will fail! Where’s my son? Where is he?’

Nisall shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’s still alive-there are those in the court who claim he is, whilst others tell me he is long dead. But, Empress, I will seek to find out. And when I do, I will return. With the truth.’

‘I don’t believe you. You were never my ally. You were Ezgara’s whore, not mine.’

‘Has Turudal Brizad visited you, Empress?’

For a moment it seemed she would not answer. Then she managed something like a shrug. ‘He does not dare. Master sees through my eyes-tell Rhulad that, and he will understand what must be. Through my eyes-look closer, if you would know a god. The god. The only god that matters now. The rest of them are blind, as blind as you’ve made Rhulad, but they’re all in for a surprise, oh yes. The House is big-bigger than you imagine. The House is all of us, whore, and one day that truth will be proclaimed, so that all will hear. See me? I am on my knees, and that is no accident. Every human shall be on their knees, one day, and they will know me for their Queen. As for the King in Chains,’ she laughed, a sound thick with phlegm, ‘well, the crown is indifferent to whose skull it binds. The pup is failing, you know. Failing. There is… dissatisfaction. I should kill you, now, here. Come closer, whore.’

Instead, Nisall backed away a step, then two, until she was once more in the doorway. ‘Empress, the Chancellor is the source of Rhulad’s… failings. Your god should know that, lest it make a mistake. If you would kill anyone, it should be Triban Gnol, and, perhaps, Karos Invictad-they plot to usurp the Edur.’

‘The Edur?’ She spat. ‘Master’s almost done with them. Almost done.’

‘I will send servants down,’ Nisall said. ‘To clean your chamber, Empress.’

‘Spies.’

‘No, from your own entourage.’

‘Turned.’

‘Empress, they will take care of you, for their loyalty remains.’

‘But I don’t want them!’ Janall hunched lower. ‘I don’t want them… to see me like this.’

‘A bed will be sent down. Canopied. You can draw the shroud when they arrive. Pass out the soiled bedding through a part in the curtain.’

‘You would do this? I wanted you dead.’

‘The past is nothing,’ Nisall said. ‘Not any more.’

‘Get out,’ Janall rasped, looking away. ‘Master is disgusted with you. Suffering is our natural state. A truth to proclaim, and so I shall, when I win my new throne. Get out, whore, or come closer.’

‘Expect your servants within the bell,’ Nisall said, turning and walking from the grisly chamber.

As the echo of the whore’s footsteps faded, Janall, Queen of the House of Chains, curled up into a ball on the slick, befouled floor. Madness flickered in her eyes, there, then gone, then there once more. Over and over again. She spoke, one voice thick, the other rasping.

‘Vulnerable.’

‘Until the final war. Watch the army, as it pivots round, entirely round. These sordid games here, the times are almost past, past us all. Oh, when the pain at last ends, then you shall see the truth of me. Dear Queen, my power was once the sweetest kiss. A love that broke nothing.’

‘Give me my throne. You promised.’

‘Is it worth it?’

‘I beg you-’

‘They all beg me, and call it prayer. What sour benediction must I swallow from this eternal fount of dread and spite and bald greed? Will you never see? Never understand? I must find the broken ones, just do not expect my reach, my touch. No-one understands, how the gods fear freedom. No-one.’

‘You have lied to me.’

You have lied to yourself. You all do, and call it faith. I am your god. I am what you made me. You all decry my indifference, but I assure you, you would greater decry my attention. No, make no proclamations otherwise. I know what you claim to do in my name. I know your greatest fear is that I will one day call you on it-and that is the real game here, this knuckles of the soul. Watch me, mortal, watch me call you on it. Every one of you.’

‘My god is mad.’

‘As you would have me, so I am.’

‘I want my throne.’

‘You always want.’

‘Why won’t you give it to me?’

‘I answer as a god: if I give you what you want, we all die. Hah, I know-you don’t care! Oh, you humans, you are something else. You make my every breath agony. And my every convulsion is your ecstasy. Very well, mortal, I will answer your prayers. I promise. Just do not ever say I didn’t warn you. Do not. Ever.’

Janall laughed, spraying spit. ‘We are mad,’ she whispered. ‘Oh yes, quite mad. And we’re climbing into the light…’

For all the scurrying servants and the motionless, helmed guards at various entrances, Nisall found the more populated areas of the Eternal Domicile in some ways more depressing than the abandoned corridors she’d left behind a third of a bell past. Suspicion soured the air, fear stalked like shadows underfoot between the stanchions of torchlight. The palace’s name had acquired a taint of irony, rife as the Eternal Domicile was with paranoia, intrigue and incipient betrayal. As if humans could manage no better, and were doomed to such sordid existence for all time.

Clearly, there was nothing satisfying in peace, beyond the freedom it provided to get up to no good. She had been shaken by her visit to the supposedly insane once-empress, Janall. This Crippled God indeed lurked in the woman’s eyes-Nisall had seen it, felt that chilling, unhuman attention fixing on her, calculating, pondering her potential use. She did not want to be part of a god’s plans, especially that god’s. Even more frightening, Janall’s ambitions remained, engorged with visions of supreme power, her tortured, brutalized body notwithstanding. The god was using her as well.

There were rumours of war hissing like wind in the palace, tales of a belligerent conspiracy of border kingdoms and tribes to the east. The Chancellor’s reports to Rhulad had been anything but simple in their exhortations to raise the stakes. A formal declaration of war, the marching of massed troops over the borders in a pre-emptive campaign of conquest. Far better to spill blood on their lands than on Letherii soil, after all. ‘If the Bolhmdo-led alliance wants war, we should give it to them.’’ The Chancellor’s glittering eyes belied the cool, almost toneless enunciation of those words.

Rhulad had fidgeted on his throne, muttering his unease the Edur were too spread out, the K’risnan were overworked. Why did the Bolkandans so dislike him? There had been no list of grievances. He had done nothing to spark this fire to life.

Triban Gnol had pointed out, quietly, that four agents of the conspiracy had been captured entering Letheras only the other day. Disguised as merchants seeking ivory. Karos Invictad had sent by courier their confessions and would the Emperor like to see them?

Shaking his head in denial, Rhulad had said nothing, his pain-racked eyes fixed on the tiles of the dais beyond his slippered feet.

So lost, this terrible Emperor.

As she turned onto the corridor leading to her private chambers, she saw a tall figure standing near her door. A Tiste Edur, one of the few who were resident in the palace. She vaguely recalled the warrior’s having something to do with security.

He tilted his head in greeting as she approached. ‘First Concubine Nisall.’

‘Has the Emperor sent you?’ she asked, stepping past and waving him behind her into the chambers. Few men could intimidate her-she knew too well their minds. She was less at ease in the company of women, and the virtually neutered men such as Triban Gnol.

‘Alas,’ the warrior said, ‘I am not permitted to speak to my Emperor.’

She paused and glanced back at him. ‘Are you out of favour?’

‘I have no idea.’

Intrigued now, Nisall regarded the Edur for a moment, then asked, ‘Would you like some wine?’

‘No, thank you. Were you aware that a directive has been issued by Invigilator Karos Invictad to compile evidence leading to your arrest for sedition?’

She grew very still. Sudden heat flashed through her, then she felt cold, beads of sweat like ice against her skin. ‘Are you here,’ she whispered, ‘to arrest me?’

His brows rose. ‘No, nothing of the sort. The very opposite, in fact.’

‘You wish, then, to join in my treason?’

‘First Concubine, I do not believe you are engaged in any seditious acts. And if you are, I doubt they are directed against Emperor Rhulad.’

She frowned. ‘If not the Emperor, then whom? And how could it be considered treasonous if they are not aimed at Rhulad? Do you think I resent the Tiste Edur hegemony? Precisely whom am I conspiring against?’

‘If I was forced to hazard a guess… Chancellor Triban Gnol.’

She said nothing for a moment, then, ‘What do you want?’

‘Forgive me. My name is Bruthen Trana. I was appointed to oversee the operations of the Patriotists, although it is likely that the Emperor has since forgotten that detail.’

‘l am not surprised. You’ve yet to report to him.’

He grimaced. ‘True. The Chancellor has made certain of that.’

‘He insists you report to him instead, yes? I’m beginning to understand, Bruthen Trana.’

‘Presumably, Triban Gnol’s assurances that he has conveyed said reports to Rhulad are false.’

‘The only reports the Emperor receives regarding the Patriotists are those from the Invigilator, as vetted through the Chancellor.’

He sighed. ‘As I suspected. First Concubine, it is said your relationship with the Emperor has gone somewhat beyond that of ruler and chosen whore-forgive me for the use of that term. Rhulad is being isolated-from his own people. Daily he receives petitions, but they are all from Letherii, and those are carefully selected by Triban Gnol and his staff. This situation had worsened since the fleets sailed, for with them went Tomad Sengar and Uruth, and many other Hiroth, including Rhulad’s brother, Binadas. All who might have effectively opposed the Chancellor’s machinations were removed from the scene. Even Hanradi Khalag…’ His words fell away and he stared at her, then shrugged. ‘I must speak to the Emperor, Nisall. Privately.’

‘I may not be able to help you, if I am to be arrested,’ she said.

‘Only Rhulad himself can prevent that from occurring,’ Bruthen Trana said. ‘In the meantime, I can afford you some protection.’

She cocked her head. ‘How?’

‘I will assign you two Edur bodyguards.’

‘Ah, so you are not entirely alone, Bruthen.’

‘The only Edur truly alone here is the Emperor. And, perhaps, Hannan Mosag, although he still has his K’risnan-but it is anything but certain that the once-Warlock King is loyal to Rhulad.’

Nisall smiled without much humour. ‘And so it turns out,’ she said, ‘that the Tiste Edur are no different from the Letherii after all. Do you know, Rhulad would have it… otherwise.’

‘Perhaps, then, First Concubine, we can work together to help him realize his vision.’

‘Your bodyguards had best be subtle, Bruthen. The Chancellor’s spies watch me constantly.’

The Edur smiled. ‘Nisall, we are children of Shadow…’

Once, long ago, she had walked for a time through Hood’s Realm. In the language of the Eleint, the warren that was neither new nor Elder was known as Festal’rythan, the Layers of the Dead. She had found proof of that when traversing the winding cut of a gorge, the raw walls of which revealed innumerable strata evincing the truth of extinction. Every species that ever existed was trapped in the sediments of Festal’rythan, not in the same manner of similar formations of geology as could be found in any world; no, in Hood’s Realm, the soul sparks persisted, and what she was witness to was their ‘lives’, abandoned here, crushed into immobility. The stone itself was, in the peculiar oxymoron that plagued the language of death, alive.

In the broken grounds surrounding the lifeless Azath of Letheras, many of those long-extinct creatures had crawled back through the gate, as insidious as any vermin. True, it was not a gate as such, just… rents, fissures, as if some terrible demon had slashed from both sides, talons the size of two-handed swords tearing through the fabric between the warrens. There had been battles here, the spilling of ascendant blood, the uttering of vows that could not be kept. She could still smell the death of the Tarthenal gods, could almost hear their outrage and disbelief, as one fell, then another, and another… until all were gone, delivered unto Festal’rythan. She did not pity them. It was too easy to be arrogant upon arriving in this world, to think that none could challenge the unleashing of ancient power.

She had long since discovered a host of truths in time’s irresistible progression. Raw became refined, and with refinement, power grew ever deadlier. All that was simple would, in time and under sufficient pressure-and if random chance proved benign rather than malignant-

acquire greater complexity. And yet, at some point, a threshold was crossed, and complexity crumbled into dissolution. There was nothing fixed in this; some forms rose and fell with astonishing rapidity, while others could persist for extraordinarily long periods in seeming stasis.

Thus, she believed she comprehended more than most, yet found that she could do little with that knowledge. Standing in the overgrown, battered yard, her cold un-human eyes fixed on the malformed shape squatting at the edge of the largest sundered barrow, she could see through to the chaos inside him, could see how it urged dissolution within that complex matrix of flesh, blood and bone. Pain radiated from his hunched, twisted back as she continued studying him.

He had grown aware of her presence, and fear whispered through him, the sorcery of the Crippled God building. Yet he was uncertain if she presented a threat. In the mean-time, ambition rose and fell like crashing waves around the island of his soul.

She could, she decided, make use of this one.

‘I am Hannan Mosag,’ the figure said without turning. ‘You… you are Soletaken. The cruellest of the Sisters, accursed among the Edur pantheon. Your heart is betrayal. I greet you, Sukul Ankhadu.’

She approached. ‘Betrayal belongs to the one buried beneath, Hannan Mosag, to the Sister you once worshipped. How much, Edur, did that shape your destiny, I wonder? Any betrayals plaguing your people of late? Ah, I saw that flinch. Well, then, neither of us should be surprised.’

You work to free her.’

‘I always worked better with Sheltatha Lore than I did with Menandore… although that may not be the case now. The buried one has her… obsessions.’

The Tiste Edur grunted. ‘Don’t we all.’

‘How long have you known your most cherished protectress was entombed here?’

‘Suspicions. For years. I had thought-hoped-that I would discover what remained of Scabandari Bloodeye here as well.’

‘Wrong ascendant,’ Sukul Ankhadu said, her tone droll. ‘Had you got it right as to who betrayed whom back then, you would have known that.’

‘I hear the contempt in your voice.’

‘Why are you here? So impatient as to add your power to the rituals I unleashed below?’

‘It may be,’ Hannan Mosag said, ‘that we could work together… for a time.’

‘What would be the value in that?’

The Tiste Edur shifted to look up at her. ‘It seems obvious. Even now, Silchas Ruin hunts for the one I’d thought here. I doubt that either you or Sheltatha Lore would be pleased should he succeed. I can guide you onto his trail. I can also lend you… support, at the moment of confrontation.’

‘And in return?’

‘For one, we can see an end to your killing and eating citizens in the city. For another, we can destroy Silchas Ruin.’

She grunted. ‘I have heard that determination voiced before, Hannan Mosag. Is the Crippled God truly prepared to challenge him?’

‘With allies… yes.’

She considered his proposal. There would be treachery, but it would probably not occur until after Ruin was disposed of-the game would turn over the disposition of the Finnest. She well knew that Scabandari Bloodeye’s power was not as it once was, and what remained would be profoundly vulnerable. ‘Tell me, does Silchas Ruin travel alone?’

‘No. He has a handful of followers, but of them, only one is cause for concern. A Tiste Edur, the eldest brother of the Sengar, once commander of the Edur Warriors.’

‘A surprising alliance.’

‘Shaky is a better way of describing it. He too seeks the Finnest, and will, I believe, do all he can to prevent its falling into Ruin’s hands.’

‘Ah, expedience plagues us all.’ Sukul Ankhadu smiled. ‘Very well, Hannan Mosag. We are agreed, but tell your Crippled God this: fleeing at the moment of attack, abandoning Sheltatha Lore and myself to Silchas Ruin and, say, making off with the Finnest during the fight, will prove a fatal error. With our dying breaths, we will tell Silchas Ruin all he needs to know, and he will come after the Crippled God, and he will not relent.’

‘You will hot be abandoned, Sukul Ankhadu. As for the Finnest itself, do you wish to claim it for yourselves?’

She laughed. ‘To fight over it between us? No, we’d rather see it destroyed.’

‘I see. Would you object, then, to the Crippled God’s making use of its power?’

‘Will such use achieve eventual destruction?’

‘Oh yes, Sukul Ankhadu.’

She shrugged. As you like.’ You must truly think me a fool, Hannan Mosag. ‘Your god marches to war-he will need all the help he can get.’

Hannan Mosag managed his own smile, a twisted, feral thing. ‘He is incapable of marching. He does not even crawl. The war comes to him, Sister.’

If there was hidden significance to that distinction, Sukul Ankhadu was unable to discern it. Her gaze lifted, fixed on the river to the south. Wheeling gulls, strange islands of sticks and grasses spinning on the currents. And, she could sense, beneath the swirling surface, enormous, belligerent leviathans, using the islands as bait. Whatever came close enough…

She was drawn to a rumble of power from the broken barrow and looked down once more. ‘She’s coming, Hannan Mosag.’

‘Shall I leave? Or will she be amenable to our arrangement?’

‘On that, Edur, I cannot speak for her. Best you depart-she will, after all, be very hungry. Besides, she and I have much to discuss… old wounds to mend between us.’

She watched as the malformed warlock dragged himself away. After all, you are much more her child than you are mine, and I’d rather she was, for the moment, without allies.

It was all Menandore’s doing, anyway.

Chapter Six

Dead pirates were better, Shurq Elalle mused. There was a twisted sort of justice in the dead preying upon the living, especially when it came to stealing all their treasured possessions. Her pleasure in prying those ultimately worthless objects from their hands was the sole reason for her criminal activities, more than sufficient incentive to maintain her new’found profession. Besides, she was good at it.

The hold of the Undying Gratitude was filled with the cargo from the abandoned Edur ship, the winds were fresh and steady, pushing them hard north out of the Draconean Sea, and it looked as if the huge fleet in her wake was not getting any closer.

Edur and Letherii ships, a hundred, maybe more. They’d come out of the southwest, driving at a converging angle towards the sea lane that led to the mouth of the Lether River. The same lane that Shurq Elalle’s ship now tracked, as well as two merchant scows the Undying Gratitude was fast overhauling. And that last detail was too bad, since those Pilott scows were ripe targets, and without a mass of Imperial ships crawling up her behind, she’d have pounced.

Cursing, Skorgen Kaban limped up to where she stood at the aft rail. ‘It’s that infernal search, ain’t it? The two main fleets, or what’s left of ‘em.’ The first mate leaned over the rail and spat down into the churning foam skirling out from the keel. ‘They’re gonna be nipping our tails all the way into Letheras harbour.’

‘That’s right, Pretty, which means we have to stay nice.’

‘Aye. Nothing more tragic than staying nice.’

‘We’ll get over it,’ Shurq Elalle said. ‘Once we’re in the harbour, we can sell what we got, hopefully before the fleet arrives to do the same-because then the price will drop, mark my words. Then we head back out. There’ll be more Pilott scows, Skorgen.’

‘You don’t think that fleet came up on the floating wreck, do you? They’ve got every stretch of canvas out, like maybe they was chasing us. We get to the mouth and we’re trapped, Captain.’

‘Well, you have a point there. If they were truly scattered by that storm, a few of them could have come up on the wreck before it went under.’ She thought for a time, then said, ‘Tell you what. We’ll sail past the mouth. And if they ignore us and head upriver, we can come round and follow them in. But that means they’ll offload before we will, which means we won’t make as much-’

‘Unless their haul ain’t going to market,’ the first mate cut in. ‘Could be it’s all to replenish the royal vaults, Captain, or maybe it goes to the Edur and nobody else. Blood and Kagenza, after all. We could always find a coastal port and do our selling there.’

‘You get wiser with every body part you lose, Pretty.’

He grunted. ‘Gotta be some kind of upside.’

‘That’s the attitude,’ she replied. ‘All right, that’s what we’ll do, but never mind the coastal port-they’re all dirt poor this far north, surrounded by nothing but wilderness and bad roads where the bandits line up to charge tolls. And if a few Edur galleys take after us, we can always scoot straight up to that hold-out prison isle this side of Fent Reach-that’s a tight harbour mouth, or so I’ve been told, and they got a chain to keep the baddies out.’

‘Pirates ain’t baddies?’

‘Not as far as they’re concerned. The prisoners are running things now.’

‘I doubt it’ll be that easy,’ Skorgen muttered. ‘We’d just be bringing trouble down on them-it’s not like the Edur couldn’t have conquered them long ago. They just can’t be bothered.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. The point is, we’ll run out of food and water if we can’t resupply somewhere. Edur galleys are fast, fast enough to stay with us. Anywhere we dock they’ll be on us before the last line is drawn to the bollard. With the exception of the prison isle.’ She scowled. ‘It’s a damned shame. I wanted to go home for a bit.’

‘Then we’d best hope the whole damned fleet back there heads upriver,’ Skorgen the Pretty said, scratching round an eye socket.

‘Hope and pray-you pray to any gods, Skorgen?’

‘Sea spirits, mostly. The Face Under the Waves, the Guardian of the Drowned, the Swallower of Ships, the Stealer of Winds, the Tower of Water, the Reef Hiders, the-’

‘All right, Pretty, that’ll do. You can keep your host of disasters to yourself… just make sure you do all the propitiations.’

‘Thought you didn’t believe in all that, Captain.’

‘I don’t. But it never hurts to make sure.’

‘One day their names will rise from the water, Captain,’ Skorgen Kaban said, making a complicated warding gesture with his one remaining hand. ‘And with them the seas will lift high, to claim the sky itself. And the world will vanish beneath the waves.’

‘You and your damned prophecies.’

‘Not mine. Fent. Ever see their early maps? They show a coast leagues out from what it is now. All their founding villages are under hundreds of spans of water.’

‘So they believe their prophecy is coming true. Only it’s going to take ten thousand years.’

His shrug was lopsided. ‘Could be, Captain. Even the Edur claim that the ice far to the north is breaking up. Ten thousand years, or a hundred. Either way, we’ll be long dead by then.’

Speak for yourself, Pretty. Then again, what a thought. Me wandering round on the sea bottom for eternity. ‘Skorgen, get young Burdenar down from the crow’s nest and into my cabin.’

The first mate made a face. ‘Captain, you’re wearing him out.’

‘I ain’t heard him complain.’

‘Of course not. We’d all like to be as lucky-your pardon, Captain, for me being too forward, but it’s true. I was serious, though. You’re wearing him out, and he’s the youngest sailor we got.’

‘Right, meaning I’d probably kill the rest of you. Call him down, Pretty.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

She stared back at the distant ships. The long search was over, it seemed. What would they be bringing back to fair Letheras, apart from casks of blood? Champions. Each one convinced they can do what no other has ever managed. Kill the Emperor. Kill him dead, deader than me, so dead he never gets back up.

Too bad that would never happen.

On his way out of Letheras, Venitt Sathad, Indebted servant to Rautos Hivanar, halted the modest train outside the latest addition to the Hivanar holdings. The inn’s refurbishment was well under way, he saw, as, accompanied by the owner of the construction company under hire, he made his way past the work crews crowding the main building, then out back to where the stables and other outbuildings stood.

Then stopped.

The structure that had been raised round the unknown ancient mechanism had been taken down. Venitt stared at the huge monolith of unknown metal, wondering why, now that it had been exposed, it looked so familiar. The edifice bent without a visible seam, three-quarters of the way up-at about one and a half times his own height-a seemingly perfect ninety degrees. The apex looked as if it awaited some kind of attachment, if the intricate loops of metal were anything more than decorative. The object stood on a platform of the same peculiar, dull metal, and again there was no obvious separation between it and the platform itself.

‘Have you managed to identify its purpose?’ Venitt asked the old, mostly bald man at his side.

‘Well,’ Bugg conceded, ‘I have some theories.’

‘I would be interested in hearing them.’

‘You will find others in the city,’ Bugg said. ‘No two alike, but the same nonetheless, if you know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t, Bugg.’

‘Same manufacture, same mystery as to function. I’ve never bothered actually mapping them, but it may be that there is some kind of pattern, and from that pattern, the purpose of their existence might be comprehended. Possibly.’

‘But who built them?’

‘No idea, Venitt. Long ago, I suspect-the few others I’ve seen myself are mostly underground, and further out towards the river bank. Buried in silts.’

‘In silts…’ Venitt continued staring, then his eyes slowly widened. He turned to the old man. ‘Bugg, I have a most important favour to ask of you. I must continue on my way, out of Letheras. I need a message delivered, however, back to my master. To Rautos Hivanar.’

Bugg shrugged. ‘I see no difficulty managing that, Venitt.’

‘Good. Thank you. The message is this: he must come here, to see this for himself. And-and this is most important-he must bring his collection of artifacts.’

‘Artifacts?’

‘He will understand, Bugg.’

‘All right,’ the old man said. ‘I can get over there in a couple of days… or I can send a runner if you like.’

‘Best in person, Bugg, if you would. If the runner garbles the message, my master might end up ignoring it.’

As you like, Venitt. Where, may I ask, are you going?’

The Indebted scowled. ‘Bluerose, and then on to Drene.’

A long journey awaits you, Venitt. May it prove dull and uneventful’

‘Thank you, Bugg. How go things here?’

‘We’re waiting for another shipment of materials. When that arrives, we can finish up. Your master has pulled another of my crews over for that shoring-up project at his estate, but until the trusses arrive that’s not as inconvenient as it might be.’ He glanced at Venitt. ‘Do you have any idea when Hivanar will be finished with all of that?’

‘Strictly speaking, it’s not shoring-up-although that is involved.’ He paused, rubbed at his face. ‘More of a scholarly pursuit. Master is extending bulwarks out into the river, then draining and pumping the trenches clear so that the crews can dig down through the silts.’

Bugg frowned. ‘Why? Is he planning to build a breakwater or a pier?’

‘No. He is recovering… artifacts.’

Venitt watched the old man look back at the edifice, and saw the watery eyes narrow. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing those.’

‘Some of your foremen and engineers have done just that… but none were able to work out their function.’ And yes, they are linked to this thing here. In fact, one piece is a perfect replica of this, only on a much smaller scale. ‘When you deliver your message, you can ask to see what he’s found, Bugg. I am sure he would welcome your observations.’

‘Perhaps,’ the old man said distractedly.

‘Well,’ Venitt said. ‘I had best be going.’

‘Errant ignore you, Venitt Sathad.’

‘And you, Bugg.’

‘If only…’

That last statement was little more than a whisper, and Venitt glanced back at Bugg as he crossed the courtyard on his way out. A peculiar thing to say.

But then, old men were prone to such eccentricities.

Dismounting, Atri-Preda Bivatt began walking among the wreckage. Vultures and crows clambered about from one bloated body to the next, as if confused by such a bounteous feast. Despite the efforts of the carrion eaters, it was clear to her that the nature of the slaughter was unusual. Huge blades, massive fangs and talons had done the damage to these hapless settlers, soldiers and drovers.

And whatever had killed these people had struck before-the unit of cavalry that had pursued Redmask from Drene’s North Gate had suffered an identical fate.

In her wake strode the Edur Overseer, Brohl Handar. ‘There are demons,’ he said, ‘capable of this. Such as those the K’risnan conjured during the war… although they rarely use teeth and claws.’

Bivatt halted near a dead hearth. She pointed to a sweep of dirt beside it. ‘Do your demons leave tracks such as these?’

The Edur warrior came to her side. ‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘This has the appearance of an oversized, flightless bird.’

‘Oversized?’ She glanced over at him, then resumed her walk.

Her soldiers were doing much the same, silent as they explored the devastated encampment. Outriders, still mounted, were circling the area, keeping to the ridge lines.

The rodara and myrid herds had been driven away, their tracks clearly visible heading east. The rodara herd had gone first, and the myrid had simply followed. It was] possible, if the Letherii detachment rode hard, that they would catch up to the myrid. Bivatt suspected the raiders would not lag behind to tend to the slower-moving beasts.

‘Well, Atri-Preda?’ Brohl Handar asked from behind her. ‘Do we pursue?’

She did not turn round. ‘No.’

‘The Factor will be severely displeased by your decision.’

And that concerns you?’

‘Not in the least.’

She said nothing. The Overseer was growing more confident in his appointment. More confident, or less cautious-there had been contempt in the Tiste Edur’s tone. Of course, that he had chosen to accompany this expedition was evidence enough of his burgeoning independence. For all of that, she almost felt sorry for the warrior.

‘If this Redmask is conjuring demons of some sort,’ Brohl Handar continued, ‘then we had best move in strength, accompanied by both Letherii and Edur mages. Accordingly, I concur with your decision.’

‘It pleases me that you grasp the military implications of this, Overseer. Even so, in this instance even the desires of the Factor are of no importance to me. I am first and foremost an officer of the empire.’

‘You are, and I am the Emperor’s representative in this region. Thus.’

She nodded.

A few heartbeats later the Tiste Edur sighed. ‘It grieves me to see so many slain children.’

‘Overseer, we are no less thorough when slaying the Awl.’

‘That, too, grieves me.’

‘Such is war,’ she said.

He grunted, then said, ‘Atri-Preda, what is happening on these plains is not simply war. You Letherii have initiated a campaign of extermination. Had we Edur elected to cross that threshold, would you not have called us barbarians in truth? You do not hold the high ground in this conflict, no matter how you seek to justify your actions.’

‘Overseer,’ Bivatt said coldly, ‘I care nothing about justifications, nor moral high ground. I have been a soldier too long to believe such things hold any sway over our actions. Whatever lies in our power to do, we do.’ She gestured at the destroyed encampment around them. ‘Citizens of Lether have been murdered. It is my responsibility to give answer to that, and so I shall.’

‘And who will win?’ Brohl Handar asked.

‘We will, of course.’

‘No, Atri-Preda. You will lose. As will the Awl. The victors are men such as Factor Letur Anict. Alas, such people as the Factor view you and your soldiers little differently from how they view their enemies. You are to be used, and this means that many of you will die. Letur Anict does not care. He needs you to win this victory, but beyond that his need for you ends… until a new enemy is found. Tell me, do empires exist solely to devour? Is there no value in peace? In order and prosperity and stability and security? Are the only worthwhile rewards the stacks of coin in Letur Anict’s treasury? He would have it so-all the rest is incidental and only useful if it serves him. Atri-Preda, you are in truth less than an Indebted. You are a slave-I am not wrong in this, for I am a Tiste Edur who possesses slaves. A slave, Bivatt, is how Letur Anict and his kind see you.’

‘Tell me, Overseer, how would you fare without your slaves?’

‘Poorly, no doubt.’

She turned about and walked back to her horse. ‘Mount up. We’re returning to Drene.’

‘And these dead citizens of the empire? Do you leave their bodies to the vultures?’

‘In a month even the bones will be gone,’ Bivatt said, swinging onto her horse and gathering the reins. ‘The whittle beetles will gnaw them all to dust. Besides, there is not enough soil to dig proper graves.’

‘There are stones,’ Brohl Handar noted.

‘Covered in Awl glyphs. To use them would be to curse the dead.’

‘Ah, so the enmity persists, so that even the ghosts war with each other. It is a dark world you inhabit, Atri-Preda.’

She looked down at him for a moment, then said, ‘Are the shadows any better, Overseer?’ When he made no reply, she said, ‘On your horse, sir, if you please.’

The Ganetok encampment, swollen with the survivors of the Sevond and Niritha clans, sprawled across the entire valley. Beyond to the east loomed vast dun-hued clouds from the main herds in the next few valleys. The air was gritty with dust and the acrid smell of hearth fires. Small bands of warriors moved back and forth like gangs of thugs, weapons bristling, their voices loud.

Outriders had made contact with Redmask and his paltry tribe earlier in the day, yet had kept their distance, seemingly more interested in the substantial herd of rodara trailing the small group. An unexpected wealth for so few Awl, leaving possession open to challenge, and it was clear to Redmask as he drew rein on a rise overlooking the encampment that word had preceded them, inciting countless warriors into bold challenge, one and all coveting rodara and eager to strip the beasts away from the mere handful of Renfayar warriors.

Alas, he would have to disappoint them. ‘Masarch,’ he now said, ‘remain here with the others. Accept no challenges.’

‘No-one has come close enough to see your mask,’ the youth said. ‘No-one suspects what you seek, War Leader. As soon as they do, we shall be under siege.’

‘Do you fear, Masarch?’

‘Dying? No, not any more.’

‘Then you are a child no longer. Wait, do nothing.’ Redmask nudged his horse onto the slope, gathering it into a collected canter as he approached the Ganetok encampment. Eyes fixed on him, then held, as shouts rose, the voices more angry than shocked. Until the nearer warriors made note of his weapons. All at once a hush fell over the encampment, rippling in a wave, and in its wake rose a murmuring, the anger he had first heard only now with a deeper timbre.

Dray dogs caught the burgeoning rage and drew closer, fangs bared and hackles stiff.

Redmask reined in. His Letherii horse tossed its head and stamped, snorting to warn off the huge dogs.

Someone was coming through the gathered crowd, like the prow of an unseen ship pushing through tall reeds. Settling back on the foreign saddle, Redmask waited.

Hadralt, firstborn son to Capalah, walked with his father’s swagger but not his physical authority. He was short and lean, reputedly very fast with the hook-bladed shortswords cross-strapped beneath each arm. Surrounding him were a dozen of his favoured warriors, huge, hulking men whose faces had been painted in a simulacrum of scales, copper in tone yet clearly intended to echo Redmask’s own. The expressions beneath that paint were now ones of chagrin.

His hands restless around the fetishes lining his belt, Hadralt glowered up at Redmask. ‘If you are who you claim to be, then you do not belong here. Leave, or your blood will feed the dry earth.’

Redmask let his impassive gaze slide over the copper-faced warriors. ‘You mouth the echoes, yet quail from the source.’ He looked once more upon the war leader. ‘I am before you now, Hadralt son of Capalah. Redmask, war leader of the Renfayar clan, and on this day I will kill you.’

The dark eyes widened, then Hadralt sneered. ‘Your life was a curse, Redmask. You have not yet earned the right to challenge me. Tell me, will your pathetically few pups fight for you? Your ambition will see them all killed, and my warriors shall take the Renfayar herds. And the Renfayar women-but only of bearing age. The children and elders will die, for they are burdens we will not abide. The Renfayar shall cease to be.’

‘For your warriors to gain the right to challenge my kin, Hadralt, they must first defeat my own champions.’

‘And where are they hiding, Redmask? Unless you mean that scarred dray that followed you in.’

The laughter at that jest was overloud.

Redmask glanced back at the lone beast. Lying on the ground just to the right of the horse, it had faced down all the other dogs in the area without even rising. The dray lifted its head and met Redmask’s eyes, as if the animal not only comprehended the words that had been spoken, but also welcomed the opportunity to face every challenger. He felt something stir in his chest. ‘This beast-understands courage,’ he said, facing Hadralt once more. ‘Would that I had ten thousand warriors to match it. Yet all I see before me is you, Hadralt, war leader of ten thousand cowards.’

The clamour that erupted then seemed to blister the air. Weapons flashed into sunlight, the massed crowd edging in. A sea of faces twisted with rage.

Hadralt had gone pale. Then he raised his arms and held them high until the outcry fell away. ‘Every warrior here,’ he said in a trembling voice, ‘shall take a piece of your hide, Redmask. They deserve no less in answer to your words. You seek to take my place? You seek to lead? Lead… these cowards? You have learned nothing in your exile. Not a warrior here will follow you now, Redmask. Not one.’

‘You hired an army,’ Redmask said, unable to keep the contempt from his tone. ‘You marched at their sides against the Letherii. And then, when the battle was offered and your new-found allies were engaged-fighting for you-you all fled. Cowards? That is too kind a word. In my eyes, Hadralt, you and your people are not Awl, not any more, for no true Awl warrior would do such a thing. I came upon rheir bodies. I was witness to your betrayal. The truth is this. When I am war leader here, before this day’s sun touches the horizon, it will fall to every warrior present to prove his worth, to earn the right to follow me. And I shall not be easy to convince. Copper paint on the faces of cowards-no greater insult could you have delivered to me.’

‘Climb down,’ Hadralt said in a rasp. ‘Down off that Letherii nag. Climb down, Redmask, to meet your end.’

Instead he drew out a hollowed rodara horn and lifted it to his lips. The piercing blast silenced all in the encampment except for the dogs, which began a mournful howling in answer. Redmask replaced the horn at his belt. ‘It is the way of time,’ he said, loud enough for his voice to carry, ‘for old enemies to find peace in the passing of ages. We have fought many wars, yet it was the first that holds still in the memory of the Awl, here in this very earth.’ He paused, for he could feel the reverberation beneath him-as did others now-as the two K’Chain Che’Malle approached in answer to his call. ‘Hadralt, son of Capalah, you are about to stand alone, and you and I shall draw our weapons. Prepare yourself.’

From the ridge, where stood the modest line of Renfayar warriors, six in all, two other shapes loomed into view, huge, towering. Then, in liquid motion, the pair flowed down the slope.

Silence hung heavy, beyond the thump of taloned feet, and hands that had rested on the grips and pommels of weapons slowly fell away.

‘My champions,’ said Redmask. ‘They are ready for your challengers, Hadralt. For your copper-faces.’

The war leader said nothing, and Redmask could see in the warrior’s expression that he would not risk losing the force of his words, when his commands were disobeyed-as they would be, a truth of which all who were present were now aware. Destiny awaited, then, in this solitary clash of wills.

Hadralt licked his lips. ‘Redmask, when I have killed you, what then of these Kechra?’

Making no reply, Redmask dismounted, walking to halt six paces in front of Hadralt. He unlimbered the rygtha crescent axe and centred his grip on the hafted weapon. ‘Your father is gone. You must now let go of his hand and stand alone, Hadralt. The first and last time. You have failed as war leader. You led Awl warriors to battle, then led them in flight. You betrayed allies. And now, you hide here on the very edge of the wastelands, rather than meet the invading Letherii blade to blade, teeth to throat. You will now step aside, or die.’

‘Step aside?’ Hadralt tilted his head, then managed a rictus smile. ‘That choice is not offered to an Awl warrior.’

‘True,’ Redmask said. ‘Only to elders who can no longer defend themselves, or to those too broken by wounds.’

Hadralt bared his teeth. ‘I am neither.’

‘Nor are you an Awl warrior. Did your father step aside? No, I see that he did not. He looked into your soul, and knew you, Hadralt. And so, old as he was, he fought you. For his tribe. For his honour.’

Hadralt unsheathed his hook-blades. He was trembling once more.

One of the copper-faces then spoke. ‘Capalah ate in the hut of his son. In a single night he sickened and died. In the morning, his face was the colour of blue lichen.’

Trenys’galah?’ Redmask’s eyes narrowed in the mask’s slits. ‘You poisoned your father, Hadralt? Rather than meet his blades? How is it you stand here at all?’

‘Poison has no name,’ muttered the same copper-face.

Hadralt said, ‘I am the reason the Awl still live! You will lead them to slaughter, Redmask! We are not yet ready to face the Letherii. I have been trading for weapons-yes, there are Letherii who believe our cause is just. We give up poor land, and receive fine iron weapons-and now you come, to undo all my plans!’

‘I see those weapons,’ Redmask said. ‘In the hands of many of your warriors. Have they been tested in battle? You are a fool, Hadralt, to believe you won that bargain. The traders you meet are in the employ of the Factor-he profits on both sides of this war-’

‘A lie!’

‘I was in Drene,’ Redmask said, ‘less than two weeks ago. I saw the wagons and their crates of cast-off weapons, the iron blades that will shatter at the first blow against a shield. Weapons break, are lost, yet this is what you accepted, this is what you surrendered land for-land home to the dust of our ancestors. Home to Awl spirits, land that has drunk Awl blood.’

‘Letherii weapons-’

‘Must be taken from the corpses of soldiers-those are the weapons worthy of the term, Hadralt. If you must use their way of fighting, then you must use weapons of a quality to match. Lest you invite your warriors to slaughter. And this,’ he added, ‘is clearly what you were not prepared to do. Thus, Hadralt, I am led to conclude that you knew the truth. If so, then the traders paid you in more than weapons. Did you share out the coin, War Leader? Do your kin even know of the hoard you hide in your hut?’

Redmask watched as the copper-faces slowly moved away from Hadralt. Recognizing the betrayal their leader had committed upon them, upon the Awl.

‘You intended surrender,’ Redmask continued, ‘didn’t you? You were offered an estate in Drene, yes? And slaves and Indebted to do your bidding. You planned on selling off our people, our history-’

‘We cannot win!’

Hadralt’s last words. Three sword-blades erupted from his chest, thrust into his back by his own copper-faces. Eyes wide with shock, the firstborn son and slayer of Capalah, last worthy leader of the Ganetok, stared across at Redmask. Hook-blades fell from his hands, then he sagged forward, sliding from the swords with a ghastly sucking sound almost immediately replaced by the gush of blood.

Eyes blank now in death, the corpse of Hadralt then toppled face-first into the dust.

Redmask returned the rygtha to its harness. ‘Seeds fall from the crown of the stalk. What is flawed there makes its every child weak. The curse of cowardice has ended this day. We are the Awl, and I am your war leader.’ He paused, looked round, then said, And so I shall lead you to war.’

On the ridge overlooking the sprawling encampment, Masarch made a gesture to sun and sky, then earth and wind. ‘Redmask now rules the Awl.’

Kraysos, standing on his right, grunted then said, ‘Did you truly doubt he would succeed, Masarch? Kechra guard his flanks. He is the charging crest of a river of blood, and he shall flood these lands. And even as the Letherii drown in it, so shall we.’

‘You cheated the death night, Kraysos, and so you still fear dying.’

On Masarch’s other side, Theven snorted. ‘The bledden herb had lost most of its potency. It took neither of us through the night. I screamed to the earth, Masarch. I screamed and screamed. So did Kraysos. We do not fear what is to come.’

‘Hadralt was killed by his own warriors,’ Masarch said. ‘From behind. This does not bode well.’

‘You are wrong,’ Theven said. ‘Redmask’s words have turned them all. I did not think such a thing would be possible.’

‘I suspect we will be saying that often,’ noted Kraysos.

‘We should walk down, now,’ said Masarch. ‘We are his first warriors, and behind us now there are tens of thousands.’

Theven sighed. ‘The world has changed.’

‘We will live a while longer, you mean.’

The young warrior glanced across at Masarch. ‘That is for Redmask to decide.’

Brohl Handar rode at the Atri’Preda’s side as the troop made its way down the trader track, still half a day from Drene’s gates. The soldiers at their backs were silent, stoking anger and dreams of vengeance, no doubt. There had been elements of Bluerose cavalry stationed in Drene since shortly after the annexation of Bluerose itself. As far as Brohl Handar understood, the acquisition of Bluerose had not been as bloodless as Drene had been. A complicated religion had served to unite disaffected elements of the population, led by a mysterious priesthood the Letherii had been unable to entirely exterminate. Reputedly some rebel groups still existed, active mostly in the mountains lining the western side of the territory.

In any case, the old Letherii policy of transferring Bluerose units to distant parts of the empire continued under Edur rule, certainly suggesting that risks remained. Brohl Handar wondered how the newly appointed Edur overseer in Bluerose was managing, and he reminded himself to initiate contact with his counterpart-stability in Bluerose was essential, for any disruption of Drene’s principal supply route and trading partner could prove disastrous if the situation here in the Awl’dan ignited into full-out war.

‘You seem thoughtful, Overseer,’ Bivatt said after a time.

‘Logistics,’ he replied.

‘If by that you mean military, such needs are my responsibility, sir.’

‘Your army’s needs cannot be met in isolation, Atri-Preda. If this conflict escalates, as I believe it will, then even the Factor cannot ensure that shortages will not occur, particularly among non-combatants in Drene and surrounding communities.’

‘In all-out war, Overseer, the requirements of the military always take precedence. Besides, there is no reason to anticipate shortages. The Letherii are well versed in these matters. Our entire system of transport was honed by the exigencies of expansion. We possess the roads, the necessary sea lanes and merchant vessels.’

‘There nonetheless remains a chokepoint,’ Brohl Handar pointed out. ‘The Bluerose Mountains.’

She shot him a startled glance. ‘The primary eastward trade goods through that range are slaves and some luxury foodstuffs from the far south. Bluerose of course is renowned for its mineral wealth, producing a quality of iron that rivals Letherii steel. Tin, copper, lead, lime and fire-rock, as well as cedar and spruce-all in abundance, while the Bluerose Sea abounds with cod. In return, Drene’s vast farms annually produce a surplus harvest of grains. Overseer, you appear to have been misinformed with respect to the materiel demands in question. There will be no shortages-’

‘Perhaps you are right.’ He paused, then continued, ‘Atri-Preda, it is my understanding that the Factor has instituted extensive trafficking of low-grade weapons and armour across the Bluerose Mountains. These weapons are in turn sold to the Awl, in exchange for land or at least the end of dispute over land. Over four hundred broad-bed wagonloads have been shipped thus far. Although the factor holds the tithe seal, no formal acknowledgement nor taxation of these items has taken place. From this, I can only assume that a good many other supplies are moving to and fro across those mountains, none with official approval.’

‘Overseer, regardless of the Factor’s smuggling operations, the Bluerose Mountains are in no way a chokepoint when it comes to necessary supplies.’

‘I hope you are right, especially given the recent failures of that route.’

‘Excuse me? What failures?’

‘The latest shipment of poor quality war materiel failed to arrive this side of the mountains, Atri-Preda. Furthermore, brigands struck a major fortress in the pass, routing the Letherii company stationed there.’

‘What? I have heard nothing of this! An entire company routed?’

‘So it seems. Alas, that was the extent of the information provided me. Apart from the weapons, I was unsure what other items the Factor lost in that shipment. If, as you tell me, there was nothing more of consequence to fall into the hands of the brigands, then I am somewhat relieved.’

Neither spoke for a time. Brohl Handar was aware that the Atri-Preda’s thoughts were racing, perhaps drawn into a tumult of confusion-uncertainty at how much Brohl knew, and by extension the Tiste Edur, regarding Letherii illegalities; and perhaps greater unease at the degree to which she herself had remained ignorant of recent events in Bluerose. That she’d been shaken told him she was not as much an agent of Letur Anict as he had feared.

He decided he had waited long enough. Atri-Preda, this imminent war with the Awl. Tell me, have you determined the complement of forces you feel will be necessary to effect victory?’

She blinked, visibly shifting the path of her thinking to address his question. ‘More or less, Overseer. We believe that the Awl could, at best, field perhaps eight or nine thousand warriors. Certainly not more than that. As an army, they are undisciplined, divisive due to old feuds and rivalries, and their style of combat is unsuited to fighting as a unit. So, easily broken, unprepared as they are for any engagement taking longer than perhaps a bell. Generally, they prefer to raid and ambush, keeping to small troops and striving to remain elusive. At the same time, their almost absolute dependency on their herds, and the vulnerability of their main camps, will, inevitably, force them to stand and fight-whereupon we annihilate them.’

‘A succinct preface,’ Brohl Handar said.

‘To answer you, we possess six companies of the Bluerose Battalion and near full complement of the reformed Artisan Battalion, along with detachments from the Drene Garrison and four companies from the Harridict Brigade. To ensure substantial numerical superiority, I will request the Crimson Rampant Brigade and at least half of the Merchants’ Battalion.’

‘Do yau anticipate that this Redmask will in any way modify the tactics employed by the Awl?’

‘No. He did not do so the first time. The threat he represents lies in his genius for superior ambushes and appallingly effective raids, especially on our supply lines. The sooner he is killed, the swifter the end of the war. If he succeeds in evading our grasp, then we can anticipate a long and bloody conflict.’

‘Atri-Preda, I intend to request three K’risnan and four thousand Edur warriors.’

‘Victory will be quick, then, Overseer, for Redmask will not be able to hide for long from your K’risnan.’

‘Precisely. I want this war over as soon as possible, and with minimal loss of life-on both sides. Accordingly, we must kill Redmask at the first opportunity. And shatter the Awl army, such as it is.’

‘You wish to force the Awl to capitulate and seek terms?’

‘Yes.’

‘Overseer, I will accept capitulation. As for terms, the only ones I will demand are complete surrender. The Awl will be enslaved, one and all. They will be scattered throughout the empire but nowhere near their traditional homelands. As slaves, they will be booty, and the right to pick first will be the reward I grant my soldiers.’

‘The fate of the Nerek and the Fent and the Tarthenal.’

‘Even so.’

‘The notion does not sit well with me, Atri-Preda. Nor will it with any Tiste Edur, including the Emperor.’

‘Let us argue this point once we have killed Redmask, Overseer.’

He grimaced, then nodded. ‘Agreed.’

Brohl Handar silently cursed this Redmask, who had single-handedly torn through his hopes for a cessation of hostilities, for an equitable peace. Instead, Letur Anict now possessed all the justification he needed to exterminate the Awl, and no amount of tactical genius in ambushes and raids would, in the end, make any difference at all. It is the curse of leaders to believe they can truly change the world.

A curse that has even afflicted me, it seems. Am I too now a slave to Letur Anict and those like him?

The rage within him was the breath of ice, held deep and overlong, until its searing touch burned in his chest. Upon hearing the copper-face Natarkas’s last words, he rose in silent fury and stalked from the hut, then stood, eyes narrowed, until his vision could adjust to the moonless, cloud-covered night. Nearby, motionless as carved sentinels of stone, stood his K’Chain Che’Malle guardians, their eyes faintly glowing smudges in the darkness. As Redmask pushed himself into motion, their heads turned in unison to watch as he set off through the encampment.

Neither creature followed, for which he was thankful. Every step taken by the huge beasts set the camp’s dogs to howling and he was in no mood for their brainless cries.

Half the night was gone. He had called in the clan leaders and the most senior elders, one and all crowding into the hut that had once belonged to Hadralt. They had come expect ing castigation, more condemnation from their new and much feared war leader, but Redmask had no interest in fur-ther belittling the warriors now under his command. The wounds of earlier that day were fresh enough. The courage they had lost could only be regained in battle.

For all of Hadralt’s faults, he had been correct in on thing-the old way of fighting against the Letherii was doomed to fail. Yet the now-dead war leader’s purported intent to retrain the Awl to a mode of combat identical to that of the Letherii was, Redmask told his followers, also doomed. The tradition did not exist, the Awl were skilled in the wrong weapons, and loyalties rarely crossed lines of clan and kin.

A new way had to be found.

Redmask had then asked about the mercenaries that ha been hired, and the tale that unfolded had proved both complicated and sordid, details teased out from reluctant, shamefaced warriors. Oh, there had been plenty of Letherii coin delivered as part of the land purchase, and that wealth had been originally amassed with the intent of hiring a foreign army-one that had been found on the borderlands to the east. But Hadralt had then grown to covet all that gold and silver, so much so that he betrayed that army-led them to their deaths-rather than deliver the coin into their possession.

Such was the poison that was coin.

Where had these foreigners come from?

From the sea, it appeared, a landing on the north coast of the wastelands, in transports under the flag of Lamatath, a distant peninsular kingdom. Soldier priests and priestesses, sworn to wolf deities.

What had brought them to this continent?

Prophecy.

Redmask had started at that answer, which came from Natarkas, the spokesman among the copper-faces, the same warrior who had revealed Hadralt’s murder of Capalah.

A prophecy, War Leader, Natarkas had continued. A final war. They came seeking a place they called the Battlefield of the Gods. They called themselves the Grey Swords, the Reve of Togg and Fanderay. There were many women among them, including one of the commanders. The other is a man, one-eyed, who claims he has lost that eye three times-

No, War Leader, this one still lives. A survivor of the battle. Hadralt imprisoned him. He lies in chains behind the women’s blood-hut-

Natarkas had fallen silent then, recoiling at the sudden rage he clearly saw in Redmask’s eyes.

And now the masked war leader strode through the Ganetok encampment, eastward to the far edge where trenches had been carved into the slope, taking away the wastes of the Awl; to the hut of blood that belonged to the women, then behind it, where, chained to a stake, slept a filthy creature, the lower half of his battered body in the drainage trench, where women’s blood and urine trickled through mud, roots and stones on their way to the deep pits beyond.

Halting, then, to stand over the man, who awoke, turning his head to peer with one glittering eye up at Redmask.

‘Do you understand me?’ the war leader asked.

A nod.

‘What is your name?’

The lone eye blinked, and the man reached up to scratch the blistered scar tissue around the empty socket where his other eye had been. He then grunted, as if surprised, and struggled into a sitting position. ‘Anaster was my new name,’ he said; a strange twist of his mouth that might have been a grin, then the man added, ‘but I think my older name better suits me, with a slight alteration, that is. I am Toc.’ The smile broadened. ‘Toc the Unlucky.’

‘I am Redmask-’

‘I know who you are. I even know what you are.’

‘How?’

‘Can’t help you there.’

Redmask tried again. ‘What hidden knowledge of me do you think you possess?’

The smile faded, and the man looked down, seeming to study the turgid stream of thinned blood round his knees. ‘It made little sense back then. Makes even less sense now. You’re not what we expected, Redmask.’ He coughed, then spat, careful to avoid the women’s blood.

‘Tell me what you expected?’

Another half-smile, yet Toc would not look up as he said, ‘Why, when one seeks the First Sword of the K’Chain Che’Malle, well, one assumes it would be… K’Chain Che’Malle. Not human. An obvious assumption, don’t you think?’

‘First Sword? I do not know this title.’

Toc shrugged. ‘K’ell Champion. Consort to the Matron. Hood take me, King. They’re all the same in your case.’ The man finally glanced up once more, and something glistened in his lone eye as he asked, ‘So don’t tell me the mask fooled them. Please…’

The gorge the lone figure emerged from was barely visible. Less than three man-heights across, the crevasse nestled between two steep mountainsides, half a league long and a thousand paces deep. Travellers thirty paces away, traversing the raw rock of the mountain to either side, would not even know the gorge existed. Of course, the likelihood of unwitting travellers anywhere within five leagues of the valley was virtually non-existent. No obvious trails wended through the Bluerose range this far north of the main passes; there were no high pastures or plateaux to invite settlement, and the weather was often fierce.

Clambering over the edge of the gorge into noon sunlight, the figure paused in a crouch and scanned the vicinity. Seeing nothing untoward, he straightened. Tall, thin, his midnight-black hair long, straight and unbound, his face unlined, the features somewhat hooded, eyes like firerock, the man reached into a fold in his faded black hide shirt and withdrew a length of thin chain, both ends holding a plain finger-ring-one gold, the other silver. A quick flip of his right index finger spun the rings round, then wrapped them close as the chain coiled tight. A moment later he reversed the motion. His right hand thus occupied, coiling and uncoiling the chain, he set off.

Southward he went, into and out of swaths of shadow and sunlight, his footfalls almost soundless, the snap of the chain the only noise accompanying him. Tied to his back was a horn and bloodwood bow, unstrung. At his right hip was a quiver of arrows, bloodwood shafts and hawk-feather fletching; at the quiver’s moss-packed base, the arrowheads were iron, teardrop-shaped and slotted, the blades on each head forming an X pattern. In addition to this weapon he carried a baldric-slung plain rapier in a silver-banded turtleshell scabbard. The entire scabbard and its fastening rings were bound with sheepskin to deaden the noise as he padded along. These details to stealth were one and all undermined by the spinning and snapping chain.

The afternoon waned on, until he moved through unbroken shadow as he skirted the eastern flank of each successive valley he traversed, ever southward. Through it all the chain twirled, the rings clacking upon contacting each other, then whispering out and spinning yet again.

At dusk he came to a ledge overlooking a broader valley, this one running more or less east-west, whereupon, satisfied with his vantage point, he settled into a squat and waited. Chain whispering, rings clacking.

Two thousand spins later, the rings clattered, then went still, trapped inside the fist of his right hand. His eyes, which had held fixed on the western mouth of the pass, unmindful of the darkness, had caught movement. He tucked the chain and rings back into the pouch lining the inside of his shirt, then rose.

And began the long descent.

The Onyx Wizards, purest of the blood, had long since ceased to struggle against the strictures of the prison they had created for themselves. Antiquity and the countless traditions that were maintained to keep its memory alive were the chains and shackles they had come to accept. To accept, they said, was to grasp the importance of responsibility, and if such a thing as a secular god could exist, then to the dwellers of Andara, the last followers of the Black-Winged Lord, that god’s name was Responsibility. And it had, over the decades since the Letherii Conquest, come to rival in power the Black-Winged Lord himself.

The young archer, nineteen years of age, was not alone in his rejection of the stolid, outdated ways of the Onyx Wizards. And like many of his compatriots of similar age-the first generation born to the Exile-he had taken a name for himself that bespoke the fullest measure of that rejection. Clan name cast away, all echoes of the old language-both the common tongue and the priest dialect-dispensed with. His clan was that of the Exiled, now.

For all these gestures of independence, a direct command delivered by Ordant Brid, Reve Master of the Rock among the Onyx Order, could not be ignored.

And so the young warrior named Clip of the Exiled had exited the eternally dark monastery of Andara, had climbed the interminable cliff wall and eventually emerged into hated sunlight to travel overland beneath the blinded stars of day, arriving at an overlook above the main pass.

The small party of travellers he now approached were not traders. No baggage train of goods accompanied them. No shackled slaves stumbled in their wake. They rode Letherii horses, yet even with the presence of at least three Letherii, Clip knew that this was no imperial delegation. No, these were refugees. And they were being hunted.

And among them walks the brother of my god.

As Clip drew nearer, as yet unseen by the travellers, he sensed a presence flowing alongside him. He snorted his disgust. ‘A slave of the Tiste Edur, tell me, do you not know your own blood? We will tear you free, ghost-something you should have done for yourself long ago.’

‘I am unbound,’ came the hissing reply.

‘Then I suppose you are safe enough from us.’

‘Your blood is impure.’

Clip smiled in the darkness. ‘Yes, I am a cauldron of failures. Nerek, Letherii-even D’rhasilhani.’

‘And Tiste Andii.’

‘Then greet me, brother.’

Rasping laughter. ‘He has sensed you.’

‘Was I sneaking up on them, ghost?’

‘They have halted and now await.’

‘Good, but can they guess what I will say to them? Can you?’

‘You are impertinent. You lack respect. You are about to come face to face with Silchas Ruin, the White Crow-’

‘Will he bring word of his lost brother? No? I thought not.’

Another hiss of laughter. ‘Oddly enough, I believe you will fit right in with the ones you are about to meet.’

Seren Pedac squinted into the gloom. She was tired. They all were after long days traversing the pass, with no end in sight. Silchas Ruin’s announcement that someone was approaching brought them all to a halt beside the sandy fringe of a stream, where insects rose in clouds to descend upon them. The horses snorted, tails flicking and hides rippling.

She dismounted a moment after Silchas Ruin, and followed him across the stream. Behind her the others remained where they were. Kettle slept in the arms of Udinaas, and he seemed disinclined to move lest he wake her. Fear Sengar slipped down from his horse but made no further move.

Standing beside the albino Tiste Andii, Seren could now hear a strange swishing and clacking sound, whispering down over the tumbled rocks beyond. A moment later a tall, lean form appeared, silhouetted against grey stone.

A smudge of deeper darkness flowed out from his side to hover before Silchas Ruin.

‘Kin,’ said the wraith.

‘A descendant of my followers, Wither?’

‘Oh no, Silchas Ruin.’

Breath slowly hissed from the Tiste Andii. ‘My brother’s. They were this close?’

The young warrior drew closer, his pace almost sauntering. The tone of his skin was dusky, not much different from that of a Tiste Edur. He was twirling a chain in his right hand, the rings on each end blurring in the gloom. ‘Silchas Ruin,’ he said, ‘I greet you on behalf of the Onyx Order of Andara. It has been a long time since we last met a Tiste Andii not of our colony.’ The broad mouth quirked slightly. ‘You do not look at all as I had expected.’

‘Your words verge on insult,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘Is this how the Onyx Order would greet me?’

The young warrior shrugged, the chain snapping taut for a beat, then spinning out once more. ‘There are K’risnan wards on the trail ahead of you-traps and snares. Nor will you find what you seek in Bluerose, not the city itself nor Jasp nor Outbound.’

‘How is it you know what I seek?’

‘He said you would come, sooner or later.’

‘Who?’

Brows rose. ‘Why, your brother. He didn’t arrive in time to prevent your getting taken down, nor the slaughter of your followers-’

‘Did he avenge me?’

‘A moment,’ Seren Pedac cut in. ‘What is your name?’

A white smile. ‘Clip. To answer you, Silchas Ruin, he was not inclined to murder all the Tiste Edur. Scabandari Bloodeye had been destroyed by Elder Gods. A curse was laid upon the lands west of here, denying even death’s release. The Edur were scattered, assailed by ice, retreating seas and terrible storms. In the immediate aftermath of the Omtose Phellack curse, their survival was at risk, and Rake left them to it.’

‘I do not recall my brother being so… merciful.’

‘If our histories of that time are accurate,’ Clip said, ‘then he was rather preoccupied. The sundering of Kurald Emurlahn. Rumours of Osserc in the vicinity, a mercurial dalliance with Lady Envy, arguments and a shaky alliance with Kilmandaros, and then, finally, Silanah, the Eleint who emerged at his side from Emurlahn at the closing of the gate.’

‘It seems much of that time is common knowledge among your Order,’ Silchas Ruin observed, his tone flat. ‘He stayed with you for a lengthy period, then.’

‘He stays nowhere for very long,’ Clip replied, clearly amused by something.

Seren Pedac wondered if the youth knew how close he was to pushing Ruin over the edge. A few more ill-chosen words and Clip’s head would roll from his shoulders. ‘Is it your mission,’ she asked the Tiste Andii, ‘to guide-us to our destination?’

Another smile, another snap of the chain. ‘It is. You will be, uh, welcomed as guests of the Andara. Although the presence of both Letherii and Tiste Edur in your party is somewhat problematic. The Onyx Order has been outlawed, as you know, subject to vicious repression. The Andara represents the last secret refuge of our people. Its location must not be compromised.’

‘What do you suggest?’ Seren asked.

‘The remainder of this journey,’ Clip replied, ‘will be through warren. Through Kurald Galain.’

Silchas Ruin cocked his head at that, then grunted, ‘I am beginning to understand. Tell me, Clip, how many wizards of the Order dwell in the Andara?’

‘There are five, and they are the last.’

‘And can they agree on anything?’

‘Of course not. I am here by the command of Ordant Brid, Reve Master of the Rock. My departure from the Andara was uneventful, else it is likely I would not be here-’

‘Should another of the Order have intercepted you.’

A nod. ‘Can you wait for the maelstrom your arrival will bring, Silchas Ruin? I can’t.’

‘Thus, your greeting earlier should have been qualified. The Order does not welcome us. Rather, this Ordant Brid does.’

‘They all choose to speak for the Order,’ Clip said, his eyes glittering, ‘when it will most confound the others. Now, I can see how eager you all are.’ From his right hand the chain whipped out, the silver ring round his index finger, and at the snap of the chain’s full length, a gate into Darkness appeared to the warrior’s right. ‘Call the others here,’ Clip said, ‘at haste. Even now, bound wraiths serving the Tiste Edur are converging. Of course, they all dream of escape-alas, that we cannot give them. But their Edur masters watch through their eyes, and that won’t do.’

Seren Pedac turned about and summoned the others.

Clip stepped to one side and bowed low. ‘Silchas Ruin, I invite you to walk through first, and know once more the welcome embrace of true Darkness. Besides,’ he added, straightening as Ruin strode towards the gate, ‘you will make for us a bright beacon-’

One of Silchas Ruin’s swords hissed out, a gleaming blur, the edge slashing across the space where Clip’s neck had been, but the young warrior had leaned back… just enough, and the weapon sang through air.

A soft laugh from the youth, appallingly relaxed. ‘He said you’d be angry.’

Silchas Ruin stared across at Clip for a long moment, then he turned and walked through the gate.

Drawing a deep.breath to slow her heart, Seren Pedac glared at Clip. ‘You have no idea-’

‘Don’t I?’

The others appeared, leading their horses. Udinaas, with Kettle tucked into one arm, barely glanced over at Clip before he tugged his horse into the rent.

‘You wish to cross swords with a god, Clip?’

‘He gave himself away-oh, he’s fast all right, and with two weapons he’d be hard to handle, I’ll grant you-’

‘And will the Reve Master who sent you be pleased with your immature behaviour?’

Clip laughed. ‘Ordant could have selected any of a hundred warriors at hand for this mission, Letherii.’

‘Yet he chose you, meaning he is either profoundly stupid or he anticipated your irreverence.’

You waste your time, Acquitor,’ Fear Sengar said, coming up alongside her and eyeing Clip. ‘He is Tiste Andii. His mind is naught but darkness, in which ignorance and foolishness thrive.’

To Fear the young warrior bowed again. ‘Edur, please, proceed. Darkness awaits you.’ And he waved at the gate.

As Fear Sengar led his horse into the gate, the chain on Clip’s right index finger spun out once more, ending with a clash of rings.

‘Why do you do that?’ Seren demanded, irritated.

Brows lifted. ‘Do what?’

Swearing under her breath, the Acquitor walked through the gate.