Blood and Bone

CHAPTER X

Saeng awoke to a jolt that spasmed her and sent fresh knife-edges of agony shooting through her thigh. She sat up and clutched at the leg, finding fresh clean bindings encircling it. What has happened? She remembered the crashing flight through the jungle in Hanu’s arms. The burgeoning searing pain of the stab. Then the terrible slow numbness spreading from the wound until she could no longer feel the leg. Then, horrifyingly, the other. All the while the hardest thing for her to endure had been Hanu’s helpless panic and sorrow — for they both knew what the killing numbness presaged.

She lay now in a small cave, a shrine or jungle temple. Rain pattered down in fat heavy drops beyond its stone lip. A small fire of dried moss, leaf litter and twigs smouldered, offering a dim orange glow. In the darkness next to her someone moved. ‘Hanu,’ she said, relieved.

But it was not Hanu. It was that damned captured Thaumaturg. So stunned was she that he had the time to put a hand high on her bared thigh to test the dressings. ‘Careful of them,’ he murmured.

She slapped his hand away. ‘Where is my brother?’

The young man’s thick black brows rose. ‘Your brother?’ Then he nodded to himself. ‘I see … how very interesting.’

Ignoring him, she yelled, or tried to: ‘Hanu!’ The effort brought black spots to her vision and left her dizzy.

‘I am here,’ came the answer.

‘Where are you?’ she sent in kind.

‘Guarding.’

‘What happened?’

‘The Thaumaturg saved your life.’

‘Really? In truth? Why would he do that?’

‘I believe he means to use you to control me.’

Ah. She studied the young acolyte more closely. I see. One of their officers, plainly. She pushed herself up on her elbows then slid backwards to lean against the cold stone wall. He was pale, like all of them — never working under the sun like everyone else. Unusually, his hair was long and it now hung as an unkempt mess. Facial hair dusted his lip and chin. ‘What is your rank?’ she demanded.

Again the man arched a brow. ‘Not the thanks I was expecting, but I will answer regardless. I have the black, if that is what you mean.’

So, trained to the highest level. But she knew that beyond that threshold lay a near-infinity of subtle gradations of rank leading all the way up to the highest achievement: the ruling Inner Circle of Masters. ‘What do you want?’

Now the lips crooked in a mocking half-smile. ‘Still no thanks?’

Saeng adjusted her skirts over her legs, crossed her arms, took a deep breath and levelled her gaze. ‘My thanks.’

He tilted his head in acceptance. Leaning forward, he warmed his hands at the anaemic fire. ‘So, your brother, you say? I am very surprised. Well, in any case, by now you no doubt understand that he has developed … how shall I put it? Flaws … problems that must be treated.’ He raised his eyes to meet her gaze. ‘So will you not help me by returning him to Anditi Pura so that he may be healed?’

‘Healed?’ she sent to Hanu.

‘They will no doubt try to erase my mind,’ he answered, radiating amusement at this idea of ‘healing’.

She felt her mouth draw down in a hard scowl. ‘Never mind Hanu. You have far larger problems.’

‘Oh?’

‘Your masters are intent upon bringing the Visitor down upon us. The firestorm will annihilate everyone alive in these lands. Including you.’

The officer threw himself from the fire to lean back against the chamber’s stone wall. She noted how mould and lichen mottled the wall in black, green and white. ‘That again,’ he snorted, derisive. ‘How came you to this insanity? Is this what has driven you here into Himatan? Are you-’ He stopped himself, and she could read him forcing himself to relax. ‘What is your name, anyway, girl?’

‘Girl? I’m no younger than you, I should think. What of you? What is your name?’

He eyed her, his gaze superior, and then she saw him remember that he wanted her cooperation. The natural arrogance of his class was quickly tucked away and a carefully constructed expression of neutrality replaced it. ‘Pon-lor,’ he allowed.

‘Saeng.’

He eased himself into a more comfortable position — though she understood that this was all show as the Thaumaturgs scorned all allowances for the flesh. ‘Well … Saeng. It would appear that we are in disagreement regarding this impending catastrophe. Perhaps after it fails to materialize we could return to Anditi Pura?’

‘Perhaps I could have Han-my brother throttle you in your sleep?’ she suggested with a smile.

He smiled back just as winningly. ‘I believe I could severely wound Hanu, if not kill him, before he succeeded.’

He probably could, at that, she had to admit. Damn him. And I did mention Hanu’s name. Still, he seems to have no hold over him. He can tag along then. So long as he keeps that superior smirk off his face.

A new figure came scuttling in from the rain and Saeng jerked upright — a damned bandit!

The Thaumaturg actually rested a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately struck aside. ‘It is all right,’ he said, lowering his arm. ‘He’s with me.’

The sopping wet lad made a show of avoiding Saeng to bend close to Pon-lor’s ear and murmur something. He then hurried off, but not before shooting Saeng a look of sullen resentment and fear.

‘What’s his story?’ she asked.

‘He works for me now.’

To Saeng’s surprise she couldn’t detect a single hint of self-satisfaction in that pronouncement. ‘Well, tell him to keep his distance.’

He laughed then, but not mockingly. Through the wind-brushed canopy high above silver moonlight flickered upon them and it struck her that not only was the man a member of her nation’s ruling aristocracy — he was an unfairly handsome bastard too. ‘Pray tell what is so amusing?’ she enquired, overly sweetly.

The Thaumaturg gestured to the cave mouth. ‘Keeping his distance is not his problem, Saeng. It was all I could do to convince him to have anything to do with you. The lad’s terrified of you. He’s convinced you’re a servant of Ardata. He believes you bewitched the yakshaka. That you even summoned the locals that attacked us.’

‘Well,’ she enquired, ‘how do you know I didn’t?’

He merely smiled indulgently, as if to say: come now child, we both know how.

The conceit that he could somehow see through her troubled her more than she thought it would. She was suddenly conscious of her dirty torn skirts and shirt, the awful state of her hair. It occurred to her that she must certainly look the part of a witch. ‘No? What am I then?’ she asked, smoothing her skirts further then hugging herself, feeling very cold in the dampness of the cave.

He studied her in the darkness across the sputtering fire. ‘You are a village girl who has come into power but has no idea what to do with it. You are scared and lost and terrified of what you possess.’ He cocked his head as if struck by a new thought. ‘Come to Anditi Pura with me. We could train you. Teach you how to harness that power.’

She snorted a laugh and shivered. ‘I have had more teachers than you could imagine. Most older than your vaunted Thaumaturg Academy. Have you not considered that perhaps that is why power terrifies me?’ She adjusted her seating on the litter on the floor of the cave, peered out into the dark where Hanu’s broad armoured back was just visible in the shifting glow of the Visitor. ‘In any case, I know what to do. I must find the Great Temple — the old temple to Light.’

The Thaumaturg was quiet for a time. She glanced over to see him eyeing the fire, his mouth gently pursed. ‘And should you find this temple,’ he murmured, ‘and find there is no impending calamity … what then? What will you do? Where would you go?’

Saeng felt her eyes drooping. Gods of the Abyss, she was tired. Her leg ached abominably, her back was stiff, her buttocks numb. ‘I do not know. Hanu cannot have a life here — hunted by you and Ardata’s creatures as well. Perhaps we will leave this cursed land. Sail away. I have heard many stories of all the continents across the seas. Of beautiful fields of ice. Rich empires. Huge cities.’

‘You are cold,’ the Thaumaturg said. ‘May I strengthen the fire?’

‘Go ahead.’

The man did something, she wasn’t sure what, and the fire brightened, leaping to life. A wave of warmth enveloped her. Yet sleep would not come — not immediately — not with an enemy across from her. Through slit eyes she watched him in the flickering glow. He was staring out of the cave mouth, looking very thoughtful, showing no sign of exhaustion. She knew these Thaumaturgs could go for days without sleep and she knew that he intended to keep watch through the night.

As her eyes blinked heavier and heavier the thought came to her — just like Hanu.

In the morning the bandit lad, Thet-mun, produced root bulbs he’d collected from various plants in the jungle. He showed them how to prepare them and cook them over the fire on sticks. The entire time not once did he directly look at or address Saeng. Though, furtively, he did make warding gestures her way against hexing and evil. Pon-lor spoke for her, asking what the plants looked like, whether the time of year mattered, and such questions. It seemed the lad had learned all this esoteric natural history from his aunt.

Pon-lor then explained that Saeng was looking for a great temple, a major structure of some sort, and asked whether Thet-mun had heard of any such thing. He hadn’t. But he did admit that his aunt had told him stories of such things here in the forest of Himatan. He said he’d climb a tree and have a look around. Which he promptly ran off to do — perhaps merely to get away from Saeng.

As she sat there nibbling the hot bulb on its stick, it occurred to Saeng that they all owed this lad’s aunt a great deal.

After she finished eating, Saeng limped a short distance off to relieve herself. She found fresh rainwater trapped in broad leaves and tipped it into her mouth. She even wet a corner of her skirt to clean her face as best she could. When she returned Thet-mun was back. Spotting her, he quickly turned away, slouching, and hurried off. Pon-lor came to her.

‘The lad says he saw no tall hillock or structure standing above the canopy in any direction.’ He offered a small apologetic rise of his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. But there’s nothing here.’

‘Well. We’ll just keep going then.’

His brows crimped in frustration. ‘Saeng …’ he began, but she brushed past him, gingerly, holding her leg. She motioned to Hanu.

‘We do not need him,’ she sent to Hanu.

‘We could use the lad.’

Saeng paused. ‘True. But we’ll just have to go without.’

‘Saeng,’ the Thaumaturg repeated, a note of warning in his voice.

She turned, crossed her arms. ‘Yes?’

‘I cannot let you wander further into the jungle. We must return.’ He took a deep breath, as though saddened. ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked to Hanu. ‘We’ve been through all this already …’

‘I thought you would listen to reason.’

‘Reason?’ she snorted. ‘Your thinking is reason? Then pray tell, what is mine? Blind wilful childishness?’

He gave her that indulgent look again — the one that seemed to say: oh, come now.

She waved him away, dismissing him to the jungle and his own fate. ‘We’re going, Hanu.’

‘Hanu …’ the young master called, low but firmly. Saeng glanced back, for some reason alarmed. What was this? Some sort of new trick? The Thaumaturg continued in slow and clear command: ‘Yeosh than’al. Azgreth sethul.’

Her gaze snapped to her brother. He had stilled, seeming immobile. ‘Hanu!’ she sent, pleading. He did not respond. Then he moved in slow heavy steps towards Pon-lor. ‘Hanu!’ she fairly wailed.

The damned Thaumaturg awaited him, arms crossed, nodding his satisfaction.

Saeng’s power erupted about her, sending the litter of the jungle floor flying in a rising gyre.

‘Hold!’ Pon-lor yelled, raising an arm. ‘I control your brother now. Shall I command him to kill himself?’

Saeng held herself quivering in tensed suppressed energies. She felt as if she should explode. That she should throw herself upon the man in an ecstasy of ripping and destruction. But before she could act Hanu snapped out an arm to grab the man by his throat.

Saeng’s power dropped from her in a rush. Her shoulders slumped, her hair falling.

Pon-lor’s hands scrabbled at Hanu’s armoured gauntlet. He gurgled, his face reddening. Her brother lifted him from his feet. The man was gasping now, frantic, his face purpling.

‘Hanu …’ she called, warning.

The man’s eyes found hers. They glistened in panic.

‘Drop him,’ she urged. When her brother did not respond she sent, ‘Please do not kill him, Hanu.’

The man crashed limply to the ground. She came to stand where he lay wheezing and flailing groggily.

‘You owe me your life,’ she told him. ‘Now kindly leave us alone.’ She motioned to Hanu, and, taking his arm, limped away.

*

When Pon-lor’s vision cleared he found Thet-mun, crouched, peering down at him. He was moodily chewing on some sort of stick or stalk.

The lad was shaking his head. ‘Man. I really can pick ’em, can’t I? First Jak, now you. Fuckin’ losers.’ He shook his head again.

Pon-lor sat up and rubbed his neck. He experimentally edged his head from side to side. ‘We will follow them at a discreet distance.’

‘No we fucking won’t. You can. I won’t. I’m goin’. I’ve had it.’

Massaging his neck, Pon-lor squinted up at him. ‘No? I could compel you, you know.’

The lad straightened. He took the stick from his mouth, picked at his teeth. ‘And there’s a thousand ways I could get you killed in this jungle. I could feed you something that would eat you from the inside out. I could direct you into poisonous leaves. Lead you over a pit.’

Pon-lor flexed his neck, felt the vertebrae pop. ‘I get the idea.’

The lad was nodding vigorously. ‘Yeah. So … there you go. I’m leavin’.’

‘Would you like my advice? Before you go?’

Thet-mun scowled down at him, uncertain. ‘What? Advice? Whaddya mean?’

Pon-lor waved him off. ‘Go home, Thet. Go back to your village. Claim your quarter section of land. Take a wife. Raise some kids.’

The lad chuffed a laugh. ‘Yeah, right. That’s for losers. Farming! Ha!’ And he walked away, laughing and shaking his head. He disappeared almost immediately as if swallowed whole.

Pon-lor sat for a time. He massaged his neck. In the silence, the jungle noise of birds calling and insects whirring swelled to fill the air. The sun shafted down through the canopy raising steaming tendrils of mist where it touched. Ants swarmed over the disturbed rotting vegetation that littered the floor.

Sighing, he rose, dusted himself off. He tore a strip of cloth from the edge of his robe and used it to tie back his hair. He cast his awareness out upon the leagues surrounding him. Almost instantly he sensed her there. The signature of her aura was unmistakable. Suppressed for now, but present all the same.

Clasping his hands behind his back, he set off. Here and there amid the root-tangled dirt he discerned the hardened depression of the yakshaka’s heavy tread. Broken stems and brushed aside branches betrayed his lumbering progress. He nodded his satisfaction to himself. Yes, very good. All those days observing the bandits finding their way through the jungle. Following spoor. Identifying sign.

He reclasped his hands and rocked back and forth on his sandals in meditation. Yes. I do believe I’m getting the hang of it.

* * *

The priest had promised to drop them some way from the target so that they would have time to recover from the Crippled God’s magics. As it was, Mara found that her reaction was nowhere near as violent as before. She was shaken, dizzy and nauseous, yes, but far from her earlier experience of nearly blacking out. She wondered whether she should be relieved or alarmed by the development.

She staggered to a nearby tree to lean, panting, bent over, hands on knees. She caught her breath, swallowed stinging bile. Her vision had cleared and now she could see her fellows picking themselves up off the leaf-littered jungle floor. Some had vomited — the new ones: Shijel and Black. They straightened now, recovering. Shijel drew his longswords and Black spat to clear his mouth then dropped his visor and readied his wide shield.

This was a piece of work long delayed. The priest had been missing for a good week. Mara had been of the hopeful opinion that he’d died — succumbed to one of the many diseases he obviously carried. And good riddance. Yet eventually he’d surfaced again, accosting them last night, even more emaciated and insanely obsessed than before. And Skinner had surprised him, promising to go after the shard lost in Himatan. He said he’d return the next night to run the errand. And so he had. And here they were.

Skinner now looked to Petal, who motioned aside. ‘We’re close. It’s a large party — too large. We’ll have to try to snatch it.’

‘Very well. Get us as close as you can and we’ll make a lunge for it.’

The big man’s neck bulged as he gave a curt answering nod. Skinner pointed to the priest. ‘You. Be quiet or I’ll run you through.’

The priest’s response was a long low inarticulate snarl.

Petal gestured, raising his Warren, then motioned them on. The party advanced, Petal and Skinner leading, Shijel and Black with the priest, while Mara brought up the rear. Petal’s magics would obscure them — at least momentarily — perhaps enough to allow them to grab the prize then escape by way of the priest. Mara glimpsed the raiders through the trees and was surprised. At first she thought them locals who’d taken up arms and armour, dressed and painted as they were. But the stock differed, heavier, and darker or lighter of skin. The equipage troubled her; too familiar. A mercenary force out of Quon Tali? Perhaps.

Petal led them in a roundabout way towards their goal. It blazed unmistakable, like a lodestone of power in Mara’s vision. It lay wrapped on a makeshift litter of poles and cloth. They were almost at the shard when one of the painted raiders, a squat frog-like fellow with bulging mismatched eyes, stood up right before them and kicked Petal in his ample stomach.

Everything went to the Abyss after that. She instantly raised her Warren to blast away all those nearby. She unfortunately tossed aside Shijel and Black as well. Battle commands sounded amid the kicked-up dust and dead leaves and a thrill of recognition blazed through her. Malazans! Damned Malazans making their own play for the shard! It seemed this new emperor differed from his predecessors regarding the Shattered God. The others had been far too timid, to her mind.

The damned priest was right — this could not be allowed.

She turned for the litter but it wasn’t there. It had been spirited away somehow when she’d been distracted. Petal rose nearby, grasping his gut in both hands. He murmured, wincing, ‘The Enchantress herself works against us.’

Blast it! They’d been so close!

Skinner appeared, his bared Thaumaturg officer’s sword bloodied. He dragged the priest along by his shirt. ‘We startled them but they’re regrouping,’ he said, grimly. To Petal, ‘Where is it?’

The fat mage was rubbing his wide middle. ‘Hidden away.’

‘Well — find it!’

‘It will take time. This one is an inspired practitioner … his mind is particularly atypical.’

‘We don’t have time.’ Skinner restrained the priest like an uncooperative dog.

‘They will attack!’ the priest wailed.

‘Of course,’ Skinner answered, studying the surrounding jungle. ‘They’re Malazans.’

Black and Shijel came running up. ‘On their way,’ Black announced.

Skinner shook the gangly priest savagely, demanding, ‘Can you track it?’

The man yanked his rag shirt free and smoothed it down in a sad effort to regain his dignity. His gaze became sly as he peered past Mara. ‘Of course. Yes. No one can hide my master from me.’ He brushed past her closely, taking the opportunity to run a hand up her trousers over her buttock. He sped onward, her backhanded slap just missing his head.

Starting off, Skinner ordered, ‘Petal. Take these two and run these Malazans off our track. Mara, you’re with me.’ He chased after the priest.

Mara followed. As she left she heard a despairing Petal murmur, ‘Ah, running … Oh, dear.’

The chase was a confusing dash through a maze of immensely tall and wide tree trunks that almost touched one another. Thick roots writhed over the ground like ridged snakes, some nearly as tall as she. Ahead, Skinner jumped the roots, pushed through tall fronds of undergrowth and parted stands of stiff spear-like grasses. The nightly rain started falling from the canopy in fat drops. In his glittering black armour the man moved like a patch of deeper night amid the streamers of starlight and the Jade Banner’s glow. Unencumbered by heavy armour or weapons, Mara kept up.

She almost slammed into the priest who was standing stock still, poised as if listening to the night. Skinner stood nearby. ‘What is it?’ she asked him, her voice low. The big man’s shrug of contempt seemed to call a curse down on all this damned mummery.

‘Something new,’ the priest answered. He pointed to the darkness. ‘Another mage. Follower of that pathetic usurper, Shadowthrone.’

‘Can you still track it?’ Skinner demanded, unimpressed.

The man jerked, insulted. ‘Of course! Yes. It calls to me. Offspring of my master.’

Skinner waved him onward. ‘Well …’

‘Fine!’ He adjusted the rags that passed as his long shirting, hanging down past his loin wrap, then ran on. Skinner chuffed his scorn and followed. Mara fell in behind. They went slower now, tracing a winding route. The dense woods and stands of bamboo appeared far more dark this night than Mara remembered. Meanas, closing in upon us. To either side routes beckoned, appearing to be the way Skinner had taken, but she ignored them, keeping her eye upon the trail the priest had broken; somehow his passage erased or overlay the puzzling twisting of ways and paths that wove all about her. Tatters of shadows even seemed to hang here and there like torn spiderweb.

Then she burst in upon a standoff, almost tumbling forward. The priest struggled in the grip of a soldier while another faced Skinner. Two others, the mages, stood at the litter.

‘Back off or he’s dead,’ the Malazan holding the priest warned.

Skinner gave an off-hand wave. ‘A good plan, soldier. But there’s a flaw. You see — I don’t give a damn.’ And he attacked, clashing swords with the soldier who faced him.

‘Gotta do it, Murk …’ one of the mages warned the other.

The second winced. ‘Oh man, I really don’t want to …’

Do what? Mara summoned energies for a strike. Then the two mages and the litter between them disappeared as if smothered by darkness. Hood take it! The soldier holding the priest threw him into Skinner then the two Malazans fled in opposite directions.

Skinner snatched the priest by his throat. ‘Where did they go?’

‘I do not know!’ he wailed. ‘It is gone! My torment will be unending!’

‘Oh, shut up.’ He turned his helmed head to Mara.

She studied the dissipating lines of manipulation: a distraction? Were they in truth still there? Merely disguised? Yet she detected a betraying blurring and melting away. ‘Shadow,’ she judged.

‘Him!’ the priest snarled. ‘Upstart. Poseur. He is nothing!’

Skinner shook the priest again, making his teeth clack. ‘Can you follow?’

The priest batted at Skinner’s armoured forearm. ‘Yes, I shall! My master’s reach knows no boundaries. Ready yourselves.’

Mara clenched her gut and throat in queasy anticipation.

The surroundings blurred darkly, as if enmeshed in thickening shifting murk. Then the nauseating inner twist seemed to yank her inside out and she fell to her knees and one hand, gagging. This could not be good for her, she decided.

‘Sacred Queen!’ someone yelped.

‘Do not move,’ Skinner barked.

Blinking to clear her vision, Mara peered up. They’d found them. Two mages sitting with the litter. She glanced around: they were still within woods, but this one was very different. Far more dark and crowded, the trees and brush all black, bare and brittle, seemingly dead. The sky churned above them like a cauldron of lead. Shadow. How it unnerved her. People shouldn’t be here. This is not our realm.

The priest was pawing at the wrapped package, chuckling and whispering to it. One of the mages slapped him away and he hissed at the man.

‘You led us on a good chase, Malazan,’ Skinner said. ‘But it’s done now. Stand aside.’

The taller, slimmer mage in the tattered shirt and vest sent something through his Warren. He’s the one! Mara sent a thrust of power against him, slapping him backwards to smack his skull against a tree trunk. Broken branches rained down. The man wrapped his arms around his head and curled into a ball. He groaned his pain.

‘What was that?’ Skinner demanded.

‘He sent something. A summoning.’

‘Take it!’ Skinner ordered. ‘We must go.’

‘Yes, yes.’ The priest tore at the strapping securing the pack to the litter.

Snarling under his breath, Skinner started forward, impatient. ‘Just-’ He stopped, as the priest had frozen, staring off into the woods. Something was approaching, pushing its way stiffly through the dense brush. Mara experienced a momentary thrill of terror when, for an instant, she thought it an Imass.

But it was not — though the resemblance was strong. It was a desiccated corpse in ancient tattered armour of leather and mail, a tall sword at its back. Patches of hair still clung to cured tea-brown scraps of flesh over a round skull. Empty dark sockets regarded them. The dried lips had pulled back from yellowed teeth. The animated corpse pointed a finger — all sinew and knobby joints — to the litter.

‘Who brought this here?’ it asked. Its voice was a breathless stirring of dead things.

The other Malazan mage’s eyes had grown huge at the appearance of this ghoul and he spluttered, ‘Er, we did, sir. But we didn’t mean no insult. We was just fleeing this one!’ He pointed to Skinner, who merely crossed his arms in a slither of armoured scales.

‘I know of you, skulker of borders,’ the priest sneered from where he crouched hugging the pack. ‘I know your strictures. You cannot interfere!’

Mara started, shocked. Skulker of borders? Edgewalker? She raised her Warren to its greatest intensity. All mages are warned of this one — the most potent haunt of Shadow.

‘True,’ it breathed, its voice so soft. ‘However, you are within Emurlahn.’

‘Then we shall go,’ Skinner announced, and he reached for the pack.

In a leathery creaking of dried muscle and ligament, the legendary creature edged its head to one side, as if it were listening to some voice none other could hear. ‘I cannot foresee the outcome,’ it said, in warning.

Skinner paused. ‘What was that?’

‘Is this your wish?’ the haunt asked, facing away once more, as if addressing nothing.

Ignoring the creature, Skinner closed a gauntleted fist on the pack and pointed furiously to the priest. Howling his terror, the servant of the Chained God gestured and threw himself aside. The wrenching inner yanking snatched Mara, pulling her backwards, and she almost fainted from the clawing sense of violation. Her vision blackened and stars dazzled her eyes. She fell upon dirt, groaning, her stomach heaving. Still groggy, she pushed herself upright.

Skinner was there, the bag in his hand. But it hung limp, in tatters. He raised the torn canvas and leather strapping to his visor, studied it, then threw it down with a curse. The priest lay kicking and pounding the ground. It was as if he’d been taken by some sort of fit: shrieking curses, babbling in strange languages, even chewing and biting at the dirt in the extremity of his rage.

‘They cannot remain in Shadow,’ Skinner said. ‘They will return.’

This seemed to work upon the priest and he calmed, his convulsions easing. He pushed himself to his knees yet still appeared stricken, weaving, his eyes sleepy, not focusing upon anything at all. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘We must await them. Our master requires as many disparate parts as possible. He is much assailed. All his children he must gather to himself. Greater power is needed …’

Curious, Mara asked, ‘For what?’

Slowly the priest raised his head. His eyes lost their emptiness to focus upon her, and flooded with hate almost insane in its intensity. ‘Why, to win free of course, you useless fool!’

*

It was a blessing and a curse that Murk had been off squatting in the woods when the attack came. A blessing because he was out of sight in a stand of brittle grasses, but a curse in that he wasn’t done.

Shouts of astonishment and surprise sounded from the camp, followed by an explosion of power that knocked him over even though he was squatting down, his feet wide splayed. Uprooted plants and broken branches slapped across him, followed by a haze of suspended dust and dirt. ‘What the fuck?’ he exclaimed before clamping his mouth shut and cursing himself for a fool. He allowed one wipe to his bare arse with a handful of leaves then pulled up his trousers and fumbled at the lacing.

He pushed his way out of the dense stand. All was quiet now, the camp deserted but for new figures whom he merely glimpsed before ducking back into cover. He pushed through to the other side of the stand and ran, raising Meanas to cloak him as he went. A drifting haze of Mockra-laid mental confusion, distraction and a profusion of false trails lay revealed before him. It would have completely defeated him had not he and Sour worked together so long that they automatically allowed paths for each other through their defences and traps. He raced on, sensing their direction already.

They had gone to ground in a clearing at the centre of a ring of thick trunks that the locals called raintrees. He dropped his disguise of shadows, making Ostler and Dee jump — even though Sour had no doubt warned them he was on his way.

‘They’re comin’,’ Sour announced.

‘All right.’ He waved to Ostler and Dee. ‘You two, take off. We’ll cover you.’

The two sheathed their swords, picked up the litter, and ran.

He and Sour started after, more slowly, interweaving a mesh of Meanas and Mockra with hidden snares of Thyr from Sour.

‘I think they’re good,’ Sour panted. ‘What a punch that gal has! My ears are still ringing.’

‘Focus on the job,’ Murk growled.

‘Right. Still, great legs on her.’

Together they spread such a maze of confusion, distortion and misdirection that Murk was certain no one could possibly win through. Yet whenever he cast his awareness to their rear he found them, and closing.

‘Can’t shake ’em,’ Sour gasped, near exhaustion. ‘How’re they doin’ it?’ He sounded close to weeping his fear and frustration.

‘Must have a tag on us somehow. Somethin’ …’ Murk hit a fist to his forehead. ‘The damned shard! They’re tracking it. Must stand out like Burn’s own tits. Gotta change the plan.’

Sour halted, hands on a broad leaf cut by deep serrations as long as a murderer’s blade. ‘How’s that?’ he asked.

Murk gestured ahead. ‘Tell Dee to turn the game.’

‘On it. Just like that time in Mott.’

Murk snapped his fingers to urge his partner on. ‘I told you never to mention that Hood-damned place!’

Sour hurried away, muttering, ‘Okay, okay. Just ’cause the apes caught ya! Sheesh.’

Dee and Ostler took charge of the ambush. They impatiently waved Murk and Sour to the litter. Moments later a skinny gangly fellow came crashing through the brush to run right into Dee, who wrapped a forearm round his neck. The fellow squawked but quietened down when Dee pressed the blade of his heavy parrying gauche to his bulbous Adam’s apple.

Two more figures emerged and the first punched Murk’s breath away because he recognized him from stories he’d heard. Skinner. Fucking Crimson Guard renegade. What was he doing here? He’d heard they’d left Jacuruku. This could be it for us. We’re outclassed.

So struck was he that he missed something and now Skinner charged Ostler.

‘Gotta do it, Murk,’ Sour whimpered, revealing that he also knew whom they faced.

He said some stupid last words and took them into Shadow.

They emerged still within the confines of the forest of the Azathanai. The image of Celeste shimmered here as if awaiting them. ‘Hello,’ she greeted them, smiling, pleased to see them. ‘Who are those others?’

‘They’ve come to take you away. Bring you to your … ah, parent.’

The girl-shade giggled. ‘Parent! How quaint. I’m sorry, Murk, but that comes nowhere near our relationship.’

Distracted, he murmured, ‘Well. Have to start somewhere.’ Can’t stay here — gonna be entombed for ever by these damned trees. ‘We have to move,’ he told Sour who answered with a you’re damned right nod.

A patch of the woods nearby roiled and blurred as if melting. Murk stared, stunned. I don’t fucking believe it! The Crippled God priest appeared and lunged for the litter. He and Sour eyed the rearing dark figure of Skinner who emerged looking like the ghost of Hood himself. The Crimson Guard Dal Hon gal followed but the transition was hard on her: she fell to her knees, gagging. Still, her D’riss Warren sizzled about her as an aurora of blue flames.

‘Sacred Queen,’ Sour squawked, a hand going to his mouth.

Murk shifted to kick the damned priest away.

‘Do not move,’ Skinner warned.

The priest was untying the straps. Murk couldn’t help trying to smack him aside. He saw the surrounding branches and roots stirring, but slowly. Far too slowly. To one side, the flickering image of Celeste watched the newcomers as if they were rare exotic animals while none of them even spared her a glance — not even the priest. They can’t see her either. Only I can. Her choice, I suppose. And this filthy priest is about to get his hands on her! Have to do something.

That they had physically brought the shard through into Shadow gave him an idea. It ought to bring someone who could stand down even Skinner. Abyss, from the stories and rumours he’d heard among those who knew Shadow he could stand down anyone.

The Crimson Guardsman said something but Murk wasn’t listening; he was concentrating his power. Because he had nothing to lose, he sent a summoning. The instant he did the D’riss mage was on him. She hit like an avalanche and all he knew was a hammer slamming into his stomach knocking him backwards, then a spike driving into his head. Everything was lost in a burning sea of pain.

He came to holding his head. He unclenched his arms and peered up, blinking. They were still in Shadow. Celeste stood over him, studying him with her big green eyes. ‘You are in pain?’ she asked.

His head felt like it had cracked open. He swallowed the pasty coating in his mouth and ventured a weak, ‘Yeah …’

‘It appears quite incommoding. Not a good adaptation.’

‘What was that?’ Sour asked. ‘You okay?’

He shifted to sit up — carefully. ‘She’s here. You can’t see her?’

Sour peered around. ‘No. I guess only you can.’

‘Ah. So … give it to me. What happened.’

The fellow rubbed his bulbous nose, smearing his green and grey face paint. ‘Well. The scariest guy I’ve ever seen showed up and kicked them out of Shadow.’

‘He was here? He came!’ And I missed it! I can’t believe it! How could I-A thousand unanswered questions. What an opportunity … He shook his head and winced.

‘Yeah,’ Sour answered, then he frowned, confused. ‘Who?’

‘Edgewalker.’

Sour’s brows, one higher than the other, rose. ‘Oh! I heard a him. I hear he’s the worst reason you should never trespass in Shadow.’

‘That is how you know this being, then?’ Celeste asked. ‘A menace?’

Murk blew out a breath while probing the back of his head. ‘Yeah. Why?’

‘He is not threatening. He only makes me sad.’

Murk gave her a hard glance, but, seeing that she would say nothing more, turned his attention to the surrounding forest. ‘The trees aren’t moving against us,’ he murmured, surprised.

Sour nodded, eager. ‘Yeah. Your Edgewalker guy told them to leave us alone.’

Murk jerked, amazed, then held his head to contain the blazing pain that spiked there. He told the forest of the Azathanai to leave us alone? Who is this guy? He’d heard stories, of course. Garbled versions that circulated among the apprentices and equally absurd speculations in written legends. How it had been he who had slain the first king of Kurald Emurlahn, Elder Shadow, and how he was now cursed to wander it for ever. Or that he had shattered Emurlahn in the first place, damning himself in the process. And now Celeste says he makes her sad. No one knew the truth of all those events lost so far in the mists of the ancient past. And Edgewalker himself certainly wasn’t talking.

Sour wiggled a finger in his ear, studied it then flicked it. ‘But he only did that ’cause I promised we’d go soon.’

Yes. They couldn’t hide here for ever. Edgewalker might be able to restrain the forest, but Murk had his doubts about the Hounds, should they come sniffing. ‘Can you disguise her presence? Hide her?’

His partner cocked a brow. ‘It, you mean. Don’t ya?’

He waved a hand impatiently. ‘Whatever.’

Sour took a deep breath, his scrawny shoulders rising and falling. ‘Nope. Too powerful.’

‘No? Just like that? Think of it as a professional challenge.’

‘I just ain’t got the pull, Murk. Sorry. Maybe it — she — can help.’

Murk managed not to slap his hand to his head. What a fool he’d been! Somehow he’d fallen into treating her, it, as some kind of helpless ward he’d picked up. He shifted on his knees to regard her more directly. Seeing him turning to her she sat on a log and clasped her hands on her knees, regarding him intently. Murk felt his mouth go dry. ‘Celeste,’ he began gently, ‘we need you to hide your presence. It would be a great help to us.’

A frown creased her pretty features. ‘I do not think I understand you. Hide myself? However does one do that?’

Right. How to explain? Throw a blanket over oneself? Abyss, she don’t even know what a blanket is! He cleared his throat. ‘These people searching for you. They want to take you away. We need to make it hard for them to find you …’

She was picking at the rotting bark of the log, her head lowered, seemingly embarrassed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have been thinking. I’d like to explore more of that entity, that awareness I spoke of, and that would mean seeking it out. I would be hard to locate, exactly, then.’ She dared a glance to Murk, almost coy. ‘Do you think I could?’

Gods above, help me. What to say? Should she? Would I just be serving my own interests to say yes? But how should I know? Dammit! I’ve had no training in raising a damned child god! ‘Well,’ he began. ‘I guess that if you would like to then perhaps you ought to have a try at it …’

She beamed a smile and clasped her hands exactly like a child delighted. ‘Oh, thank you, Murk. I shall.’ The ghostly transparent casting that was her presence thinned then, dimming until it faded away entirely into nothing.

Murk sat back on his haunches. He felt saddened. Would he never see her again? He assumed it was just was well — who knew what awful future blunders this sidestepped. And yet he felt a strange sort of disappointment. Was that it? Just like that?

‘What happened?’ Sour asked. ‘You look all lost.’

He peered about the woods. ‘She’s gone.’

His partner frowned. ‘What? Gone gone? Where?’

‘Waiting for us to call her back. I think.’

‘I’m all for goin’ too. Don’t want to meet those damned Hounds.’ He added, eyeing him critically, ‘And if she is gone then that’s all for the best, man. Playin’ with fire, I say.’

Murk shook his head; he couldn’t muster the resentment for a fight. ‘I know, I know. We’ll go back. Yusen must be getting worried.’

Sour let blow a long breath. ‘Any chase you walk away from is a good chase. That’s what I say.’

The scouts found them and brought them to Yusen who had relocated camp to another clearing. A doubled picket let them through and the commander met them fully armoured, helmet under an arm. A small grin of vindication plucked at his lips but the worry remained in the many deep wrinkles around his always tightened eyes. ‘You made it,’ he said. ‘Good.’ Only gripping the poles of the litter stopped Murk from saluting. ‘But, ah …’ He eyed the litter and the blanket-wrapped object tied down with bits of rope and strips of torn cloth.

They set the litter down. ‘We think they won’t be able to spot it again. Not easily, anyway.’

Yusen grunted his acceptance of this. ‘And the they? There’s wild talk of the Crimson Guard.’

‘Ex-Guard. Skinner and his command were disavowed by K’azz. Stories were they’d left Jacuruku. I guess they’ve come back.’

‘All the more reason for us to leave,’ Yusen said, scratching his unshaven chin.

‘With permission, sir,’ Murk ventured, ‘they can probably guess we’re headed west. They’ll keep an eye out.’

Their commander frowned his displeasure, but Murk knew it wasn’t directed at him; it was at their situation. ‘Looks like we have the proverbial tiger by the tail,’ he murmured.

‘Aye, and we can’t let go.’

‘So? What’s your answer?’ And I hope to Fanderay you’ve got one.’

Murk shared a look with Sour, who urged him on. ‘Well … rumours are that there was some kinda falling out between Skinner and Ardata. It looks to me like he’s hunting this to maybe use against her …’

Yusen pulled his hand down his chin, nodding. ‘So. The enemy of my enemy …’

‘Yeah.’ Murk shrugged apologetically. ‘Best I can do.’

‘It’s a plan.’ The ex-officer gave a curt nod of acceptance. ‘Always good to have one of those.’ He raised a hand and signalled. Burastan, Sweetly and others jogged up. ‘We’re headed east, double-time.’

Sweetly’s gaze swung to Murk and Sour and the twig that had been standing straight out from his clenched lips slowly fell. The expression that compressed the man’s face was far from sweet.

Murk raised his open hands as if to deny all responsibility. The scout didn’t buy it. He went off, shaking his head in disgust.

‘East,’ Burastan repeated in disbelief. ‘Further into Himatan …’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘Quite, Lieutenant.’

Her disapproving gaze raked Murk and Sour. ‘Very good, sir.’

Murk offered another apologetic shrug. Man, we’re not winnin’ any popularity contests round here, that’s for sure. Nothin’ new in that. Soldiers are a notoriously superstitious lot. Bad luck and setbacks always get laid at the feet of the mages. Just how it is.

* * *

Rough seas kept Ina below for days on end. The Seguleh were an island people and she was used to sea-travel, but a deep ocean crossing was new to her. And she could freely admit it was a terrifying experience. Here was an enemy no matchless skill with any blade, or exceptional mental focus, could defeat.

She regretted yet again not apportioning slightly more time to her sea-going practice and experience as she leaned over a bucket sloshing with her own vomit and coughed-up bile, her mask pushed up high on her brow. Well, one cannot know the future. Nor prepare for every eventuality.

The unnatural ensorcelled vessel rode the waves high and buoyant like a cork. And these deep-ocean waves rolled like prairie hills beneath its keel. Ina felt as if she were riding an impossibly fast horse up and down mountain ridges. The incessant rocking made her dizzy.

During one of these moments, when she sat back wiping her mouth after dry-heaving yet again, her stomach long empty, she sensed her mistress was no longer alone. Who is it this time? she wondered, straightening her mask. Hood? The Sky King? Legendary Mother Dark?

It occurred to her that given who had visited perhaps she ought not be quite so offhand. She climbed the ladder and determined to be utterly resolute no matter who or what appeared.

Legs braced, one hand on the wet cord-wrapped grip of her sword and the other shielding her vision from the dashing spray that surged over the sides, she made her way down the long featureless deck. Her mistress stood as usual near the flat pointed bow, her clothes soaked and clinging to her, well, rather plump and matronly form. Yet she stood with arms crossed, legs shoulder-width apart, as firm as if she’d been built into the carpentry of the vessel.

Standing opposite her was the oddly contrasting, yet strangely complementary, figure of a squat man. He was mostly bald, with a bulbous nose and a sack of a face, barefoot, in an old stained vest and tattered pants held up by a rope belt. Had she not known otherwise she might have mistaken the two for an impoverished old married couple. Yet imposing strength communicated itself from the man’s broad humped shoulders and wide gnarled stonemason’s hands.

He nodded her a greeting, and what might have been warmth softened eyes the colour of ocean depths. ‘Ina of the Jistarii. Welcome,’ he said, his voice somehow carrying easily over the groans of the vessel, the crashing spray, and the bow hissing through the mountainous waves.

The Enchantress spoke without turning: ‘You may go.’

As an answer Ina planted her feet more widely and crossed her arms. Her mistress gave an exasperated wave. ‘You see?’ she told the man. ‘They never do what you want them to.’

‘Our problem in a walnut, T’riss,’ answered the man. ‘Always has been.’

‘You know my answer.’

The fellow wiped a blunt paw across his unshaven jowls. ‘It’s not for everyone,’ he said, ‘especially coming from you.’

‘It’s time.’

‘But can you convince her of that?’

The Enchantress shook her head. ‘I cannot convince her of anything.’

‘At least we are in agreement on that,’ the man muttered darkly. ‘Once you land and enter that jungle you’ll be beyond my help. Beyond all our help.’

‘I know. Rather convincing, that … wouldn’t you say?’

A wince of pain crossed the man’s ugly features and he half turned away. ‘I do not like it,’ he said, as if confessing to the waters. ‘Yet I will not try to stop you. We’re cowards, all of us. In the end we’re just damned cowards.’

‘Not at all, Bugg,’ the Enchantress answered. And she embraced the man, who did not raise his arms. ‘You have changed though change is terrifying.’

He edged his face away even further but not before Ina glimpsed tears in his eyes — though it might have been the spray. Those tears shook her more than anything she heard or half understood here. What she gathered was that her mistress was journeying into great danger.

Reaching round, the man grasped her mistress’s hands and held them between his. After a time he peered up into her face, his gaze searching, and said, ‘Come to me afterwards … yes? We have much to speak of.’

Ina heard beneath the request the unspoken: you must survive …

Her mistress answered, ‘Yes. I shall.’ But what Ina heard was, I will try …

This ugly lumpish fellow, Bugg, pressed the Enchantress’s hands to his lips, then walked off the edge of the deck to disappear into the waves.

Only a quick sign from her mistress stopped Ina from throwing herself after him. ‘He’ll drown! Will he … not?’

Hugging herself, the Enchantress shook her head. ‘No. That, Ina, was the one some name the god of the seas.’

‘That fellow?’ She wiped droplets of spray from her chin. ‘His real name is Bugg?’

The Enchantress smiled. ‘Really, Ina. Don’t you know he is worshipped as the god of a thousand names?’

Oh yes. She’d heard that. God of a thousand names and faces. Well, there you are. And not all are going to be handsome, are they? Then it struck her that in such a manner — a thousand different experiences — might one come to know humanity far more richly. The life experience of a crippled poor child would, after all, be far different from that of a pampered merchant prince. ‘He has empathy for us,’ she murmured. ‘For what it means to be human.’

‘Yes. He does,’ the Enchantress answered, her voice low, as if she were thinking of other things.

Ina slid her gaze aside to her mistress. It occurred to her that while Mael might have empathy for people, her mistress, the Queen of Dreams, had plans.

The next day the seas quietened and on the southern horizon a dark line of land appeared. It resolved into a swampy shore of mangroves standing on their tangled nests of roots. Ina could see no way past to the firm land beyond. Yet the bow of the vessel continued onward. It sliced the calm turquoise waters of the shallows, heading straight for the dense line of trees. She found herself bracing for an impact, one leg sliding back behind her, turning sideways to the direction of movement.

At the last moment the Enchantress raised an arm and edged it across her front as if brushing something away. The mass of mangrove trees ahead flinched, branches creaking and snapping, as something unseen edged them aside. The waters clouded with great clots of reddish silts that churned with the torn roots. It was as if the entire stretch of coast bled. The long thin vessel slid into the cut like a dagger entering the flesh of the land.

They continued onward for a good league until the bow struck firm soil, grating and groaning. Ina was thrown forward, hopping to keep her footing. The bow rose a few feet then stopped, settling slightly. The noise of grating broken branches scratching the sides of the ship abated and for a moment silence bloomed. Then the surrounding jungle asserted itself and a loud susurrance of insects set up a droning hum. Monkeys hooted and called from distant treetops. Birds shocked her with piercing whistles.

The Enchantress brushed her hands together. ‘There. That wasn’t so bad.’

Ina inclined her masked head in agreement.

‘Let us go.’ Her mistress started down the sloped decking towards the vessel’s edge.

‘A moment,’ Ina called, and she went to collect a shoulder bag of gear and skins of water that she’d scavenged from the cabin. ‘I will go first.’

The Enchantress shrugged. ‘If you must.’

Ina let the bag fall to the sands then jumped down. She reached up for her mistress. ‘You will have to let yourself down.’

Awkwardly, the Enchantress let her legs dangle over the side. She then slid — in a very unbecoming manner — to fall into Ina’s arms. The Seguleh grunted at the load, but managed to remain standing. Why is it the world’s most potent sorceress should be such a solid washerwoman? she wondered to herself.

The Queen of Dreams set off through the dense woods. ‘This way.’

Ina scrambled after, stepping over roots and low tangles of vines. Branches snagged at her leather hauberk and scratched her scalp. So impenetrable was the press of trees and brush that even the immense hulk of the abandoned ship disappeared from view almost immediately. She wondered how many years it would last, resting there. If it was half as ensorcelled as she suspected then quite some time. She imagined explorers or adventurers crossing this desolate shore some time in the future and coming across its overgrown hull stranded so far inland. What a puzzle it would pose for them.

Then it came to her, and the realization rooted her to the spot. A mysterious destination. An uninhabited jungle shore. A region the very god of the seas considered perilous.

Jacuruku. They had arrived.

It seemed they had just left behind yet another legend for fabled Jacuruku.

That thought put her in mind of that other most famous mythic thread of this land: the legendary city of Jakal Viharn. Even in the streets of Cant such stories were told. Stories of a lost city. Of riches, magic, and the perilous Queen of all Witches who inhabited it. One with the power, so the stories went, to grant any wish to whoever should succeed in reaching her there in the heart of the enchanted jungle … Her thoughts tumbled to a halt as it came to her: By the lost First! Could this be my mistress’s intent?

She rushed closer to the Enchantress’s side, moved out of the way a thick hanging liana strung with clinging pink and white blossoms. ‘Mistress,’ she began, haltingly, ‘it is not my place, but I must ask …’

The Enchantress halted, one thick brow cocked. ‘Yes?’

Ina shivered beneath that arched look. ‘I have heard stories of this Ardata …’

Both dark brows rose. ‘Ah. The stories. Of course.’

Ina gave a quick bow. ‘Yes. That all who reach her die. That her blessing is a curse. That she is a witch-’

‘I have been damned as a witch,’ her mistress calmly observed.

Ina bowed to one knee, stricken. ‘Please do not be angered. It is your safety that concerns me. I must know. Do you intend to confront this demon goddess?’

The Enchantress tilted her head in a thoughtful expression. ‘Confront …’ she murmured. ‘Such a harsh word. Perhaps,’ she added, gesturing to the jungle, ‘we had better turn our concerns to closer threats.’

Ina spun, sword hissing free of its wooden sheath. Shapes moved through the thick brush all about them. She bowed her head to her mistress. ‘I am a fool!’

The Enchantress pushed back her wet tangled hair. ‘Later.’

Ina snapped a curt nod then stood, sword out. The lumbering heavy figures surrounded them. They pushed their way awkwardly through the undergrowth with slow cumbersome steps. As they came nearer she could see them more clearly and an atavistic loathing clamped itself at her throat. Naked they were, shambling forward on thick trunk-like legs — but there any direct resemblance to human stock ceased. The flesh of their stomachs and chests rippled like pale corrugated armour. Their arms were short yet powerful, ending in massive claws. Their heads were reptilian travesties, all jutting bent teeth, slit eyes and plated skin.

Yet she faced them relaxed and confident. None displayed any weapon other than their own teeth and claws. She would cut them to pieces. Her mistress’s hand, however, rested upon her shoulder.

‘Wait,’ the Enchantress murmured, then, louder, ‘What do you wish?’

The closest tilted its thick head, as if puzzled. It blinked slowly and coughed. ‘We thought … we sensed our Queen. But you are not she.’

Ina dared a quick glance to her mistress. The Enchantress was shaking her head. A small amused smile played about her mouth. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘I am not.’

‘And yet …’ the creature continued in a growl, ‘there is much of her in you.’

The Enchantress’s eyes narrowed, no longer amused. ‘Well. You see that I am not. You may go.’

The beast-men — Ina thought them perhaps Soletaken — grumbled and chuffed among themselves. Their leader pulled back its lips to bare its blunt yellowed teeth even further, perhaps displaying disgust or anger. ‘We do not answer to you. Why are you here? What is it you wish?’

‘I am come to see your mistress,’ the Enchantress announced readily enough. She added, ‘So do not interfere.’

The creature thumped a clawed hand to its chest. ‘We decide who sees the goddess. We are her guardians.’

The beasts all coughed and roared at this pronouncement, sending up a great cacophony of noise that impacted Ina’s chest. She eased into a ready stance once again, both hands on her longsword.

‘Tell me,’ the Enchantress began, her voice thoughtful, ‘should your mistress choose to walk through the jungle here, would you bar her way? Because if you wouldn’t,’ and her voice hardened, ‘then you mustn’t bar mine.’

The creature’s dark eyes widened and it ducked its head as if chastened. It waved a trunk-thick arm to its fellows. Awkwardly, stiffly, all the surrounding beast-men fell to one knee and bowed to the Enchantress.

Quite calmly, the Queen of Dreams gestured Ina onward. As they passed the group’s leader, it growled, its head lowered, ‘So very much alike …’

Ina shot a glance to the Enchantress who continued walking as if nothing had been said. She led the way into the denser brush and Ina had to dodge ahead, sword still ready, brushing aside branches and fronds. She turned the flat of the blade to do so, as it would be an insult to the years put into its cutting edge to use it on mere plants. Not long into the trek she found that she could contain her curiosity no longer. The creature’s suggestions of likenesses kept going round and round her mind. Among Ardata’s titles was Queen of Witches, and it came to her now that the Enchantress was also known as the Queen of Dreams. These beasts referred to Ardata as their ‘goddess’ — as the Enchantress was also regarded by her worshippers. They even seemed to think of her as their mistress — just as she so regarded the Enchantress.

As the canopy thickened and layered, the undergrowth thinned, starved of light. Ina fell back to the Enchantress’s side. ‘Mistress,’ she began tentatively. ‘Those creatures … they are Soletaken?’

The Queen of Dreams walked with her hands clasped at her back. She peered about at the jungle as if interested in every plant and tree. Her skirts hung mud-spattered, torn already. Her hair, drying without any attention from her, was an unkempt matted mess. Ina restrained herself from suggesting that the Enchantress ought to attend to it. Perhaps later, when they stopped for the night, she could simply offer her her comb. At her question the Enchantress had raised her brows, ‘Hmm? These inhabitants of Himatan?’

‘Yes. They are shapechangers?’

‘Shapechangers,’ her mistress repeated thoughtfully. ‘No. They are as you saw them. They do not change their shape. Few things are capable of changing shape — unless they be of the Eleint. Their blood partakes of chaos, you know.’ Ina did not know that. However, she remained silent as her goal was to get her mistress talking. After saying nothing for a time the Enchantress continued, ‘Once — long ago — there lived a species, a kind, who could change shape from beast to human. Or perhaps they occupied a place between. It was natural to them. This was not magic as you would understand it.’ Ina did not understand magic at all, but she maintained her silence. ‘This ability bred true with them. Over thousands of years they spread, parted into clans and tribes. Some lost the ability through interbreeding with other stock — or at least it became very diminished. Others held true to it. And so, over the centuries, that base stock gave rise to many differing forms and kinds of populations — even some indistinguishable from you.’

‘I believe I see,’ Ina said at last, genuinely grateful for the lesson. Any knowledge offered from a source such as the Queen of Dreams should be honoured.

‘Here in Himatan,’ the Enchantress continued, musing, ‘they have lived undisturbed for a very long time. They have obviously penetrated into differing areas of it. Humankind walk these paths very lightly, Ina. You do not rule here … unlike almost everywhere else.’

Ina said nothing but she was rather intrigued by that almost — she’d thought otherwise. ‘So they are a race, then. Yet they are not of the four founding races.’

The Queen of Dreams gave a very unqueen-like braying laugh. ‘The four founding races is a self-justifying myth. Just like all of your origin myths.’

Ina noted the your and merely nodded her masked head. Now for the real thrust, she decided. ‘And the likeness they spoke of? The similarities between you and … Ardata?’

The Enchantress’s gaze shifted to rest upon her while they walked. The Seguleh Jistarii, taught since infancy to search for the subtlest of hints in any opponent’s eyes, found it impossible to hold the woman’s gaze. They did not look like any other’s eyes. They seemed to lead on to an infinity of depth; she feared she would lose herself within them and never recover.

‘Well,’ the Enchantress said after a time. ‘As to that. The explanation is simple. You could say that she and I are sisters.’

Ina was struck immobile. It was as if she’d forgotten her legs. The Enchantress continued on apparently unconcerned by what she had just divulged. Sisters! By the First! She and this Queen of Monsters?

And so what did that make her? Another sort of monster?

Ina examined her thoughts. She was not a worshipper. To her the woman was powerful, yes, and thus indistinguishable from the multitude of gods and goddesses and other powerful spirits and phantoms that crowded the world. That was how it had always been. There were cults in the world that put their number in the countless millions. And as such, then, did that not make the woman’s position almost pedestrian? Why should she be surprised? There are gods and goddesses everywhere. One cannot turn over a rock without finding one. She’d heard stories that here in Himatan was preserved the ancient manner of seeing the world; that every tree, every stream and stone possessed a spirit.

And some are far more powerful than others. Like beads on a necklace they form a continuum of existence. A continuum that serves to connect the human with the infinite. That is comforting. Finding a place in an incomprehensible universe is a comforting thing.

Some distance off the Enchantress stopped and turned. ‘You are coming?’ she called.

Ina blinked, rousing herself, and ducked her head in apology. ‘Yes, Mistress.’

* * *

‘And so begins the great assault upon the water barrier thrown up against the Army of Righteous Chastisement’s … ah, righteous … advance,’ Principal Scribe Thorn pronounced, scratching at a parchment sheet on a wooden backing held in his off hand.

Beneath his parasol, one arm upraised holding the Rod of Execution, Master Golan forced a steadying breath through his gritted teeth. ‘Not quite yet,’ he murmured testily. He lowered the arm and officers shouted orders and the first of the troops marched down to the waters to ford out to the awaiting rafts. ‘Now it begins.’

Principal Scribe Thorn raised his gaze from the parchment to blink myopically at the river. ‘Ah … I see.’ He returned to scratching at the parchment.

‘Second in Command!’ Golan called out. Down below the short earthen cliff that Golan held, overseeing the assault, Second in Command Waris turned from the circle of officers and messengers gathered on the mud shore to bow. ‘Remember,’ Golan reminded the man, ‘they mustn’t drink the water. Water is quite unhealthy.’

Waris bowed his head in acknowledgement and returned to his staff.

What will it take to tear a word from that man? Golan wondered.

‘Commander Golan assures everyone that water is very unhealthy,’ Thorn murmured while writing, his black tongue protruding.

Unlike this one. ‘Perhaps the opposite shore would provide a better vantage,’ Golan suggested to Thorn.

Without raising his head the scribe read aloud, scribbling, ‘The illustrious commander Master Golan offers to lead the assault.’

Golan discovered his jaws clenched tight once more. ‘I believe the shovels require re-counting,’ he grated.

The Principal Scribe murmured as he wrote: ‘No detail is too small to escape Master Golan’s eagle eye.’

Golan let hiss another long steadying breath. Is this the revenge of these outland gods? Below, new figures emerged from the thick jungle verge to come walking down to the shore just below him: the damned Isturé commander and his pet mages. Golan motioned to the river where the first of the rafts was about to set out, guided on their way across the wide muddy course by ropes dragged and secured, at great loss of life, across the river. ‘The advance begins,’ he announced, then damned himself as he suspected that sounded far too smug.

The Isturé commander wore his tall full helm. He crossed his arms, the sun glinting from the enamelled black scales of his long coat of armour. ‘Indeed. Impressive.’

It was hard to tell since the man’s face was obscured, but Golan wondered if he detected mockery from this fellow as well. Was he to be surrounded by detractors? He tucked the Rod of Execution into the sash of his robes, tilted the parasol at a more rakish angle. Yet perhaps not. Perhaps he was merely feeling a touch … sensitive … and under assault, given the rather, well, troubled character of the campaign’s performance to date.

It will unfortunately be held as a personal reflection, after all.

Therefore, it was all the more vital that this operation unfold without hindrance. Yes, quite vital. He watched the soldiers steadying the broad lead raft as they clambered on. A number of the troops took hold of the fixed rope and heaved, pulling hand over hand, drawing the raft along and across the river. They also carried a second length of rope — what remaining stout cords could be found that had yet to succumb to the damp and rot. This would be used to establish a second ferry crossing slightly further downstream. With both operating continuously, Golan calculated they would complete the exercise in two days.

As the morning waned the sun hove directly overhead. It glared down with a punishing heat. The immediately surrounding forest tracts now fell uncharacteristically silent. The army’s presence had already naturally quietened the birds and wildlife. Golan wondered if it was the heat of noon that drove all the animals to ground.

Both rafts were now steadily crossing and recrossing the wide ochre-brown rippling flow of the river. Now the possibility of a counter-attack came to haunt Golan. A sufficient portion of the force would be stranded on the opposite side to make it strategically worthwhile. He called down to his second in command: ‘Send the Isturé across.’

His second turned to the Isturé commander still standing where he had planted himself. Like a statue, Golan thought. Very like a yakshaka. Waris bowed and gestured, inviting the man down to the line of troops awaiting their turn. The Isturé commander, Skinner, raised his helmed head — still wearing the helm in this heat! — to Golan, who also extended an inviting arm towards the river.

The foreigner said nothing — perhaps aping Golan’s impressively taciturn second. He merely flicked a gauntleted hand to the jungle’s edge and from the line of nodding broad leaves and brush emerged the full force of his command: some forty of the Disavowed.

They marched down to the shore; an impressive force. All far better armed and armoured than the Thaumaturg regulars, who wore leather hauberks and skirtings and carried spears and wide-bladed iron shortswords at their sides. They commandeered one of the rafts, filling it entire, then pulled their way across.

‘Master Golan,’ said Thorn, scribbling again, ‘gallantly allows his foreign allies the honour of leading the charge.’

Golan ignored the man. New suspicions now nibbled at his mind. There they had been. All gathered together. Waiting. It was as if the foreign dog had anticipated his mind. Knew that he would be sent across early to endure the worst of any counter-attack. An unsettling thought. And pursuing that thought brought Golan to another, even more disturbing suspicion: what if the dog wanted to be sent over early? What if it served his black-hearted purpose?

After all, given that the vast majority of the Thaumaturg forces still resided here on the near bank, it would now be easy for the man to simply walk away. Golan took hold of the Rod of Execution in his sash — almost raised it to order that they return — when a more cynical turn of mind suggested: Come now, man, they could have walked away at any time of their choosing.

Golan relaxed his hand. And he had to admit, grudgingly, that he could not possibly have recalled them in any case.

At that moment the raft carrying the Isturé reached the middle of the broad rippling breadth of the river and the surface seemed to explode.

The gathered army reflexively shrank away from the shore in a collective gasp of wonder and horror as some huge thing emerged, writhing, from within the river to send the raft flying skyward as it shattered into individual logs, men and women flying like dolls. The ropes snapped in exploding reports. Golan could not be certain, but the thing resembled the descriptions he had read in travel accounts of an immense snake, or worm. He had dismissed such writings as nonsense, of course. A girth as great as any sea-going vessel! Ridiculous. Purported eyewitness accounts had such creatures pulling ships beneath the surface, even sweeping up entire armies into their great maws.

Tall combers now crashed into the river’s edge, sending the troops scrambling from the shore. Up on his mud cliff Golan watched while the foam and flotsam washed close to the pointed silken tips of his slippers. Once the waves subsided, the river’s surface smoothed once more, flexing slightly, as if the beast yet shifted in the shallow muddy waters.

Of the raft and its Isturé cargo, only a few isolated logs bobbing downriver remained to mark that they had ever existed.

‘The foreign dogs,’ Principal Scribe Thorn announced from his side, scribbling, ‘proved no match for Master Golan’s cunning stratagems.’

Golan shifted his tired gaze to the gangly, thatch-haired old scribe. ‘Perhaps you would do better to note that the river itself has risen to challenge our advance.’

The scribe’s head shot up, his tangled brows rising like twin hedges. ‘You are a wonder, Master. You anticipate my very thoughts!’ He jabbed the quill to his tongue to resume scribbling.

Below, the second in command could actually be heard yelling orders. It is a day of wonders, Golan decided, rubbing his gritty eyes. ‘Resecure the ropes, Second!’ he ordered, his eyes pinched shut.

While the troops waited, watching, squatting in the mud, labourers were pushed out into the shallows and encouraged through stiff beatings to grasp hold of poles or other pieces of floating detritus to kick their way across the river. Many set out clutching lengths of wood under their chins. Golan followed their bobbing black heads while the current swept them downstream. Eventually he lost sight of them.

The afternoon waned; Golan tapped the Rod of Execution into a palm behind his back. The shadow of the western jungle verge crept out over the river. All manner of speculations — each more alarming than the one before — assailed him. Had a force been waiting there across the river? Was the foothold crushed? What of the damned Isturé? Had they reappeared? Had they perhaps taken this opportunity to turn upon him? Attacked the stranded force in an effort to weaken the army? Would this water beast return?

Black-haired heads now appeared among the rippling waves. They came bobbing down from further up-current. Troopers waded out to pull them ashore where they knelt on all fours in the mud, naked and exhausted. Two had come kicking a long pole from which a rope now trailed leading back across the river in a long bow-shaped curve. The troopers reported to overseers, who, in turn, reported to cohort commanders, who then bowed to Second-in-Command Waris to offer the findings.

Master Golan fidgeted throughout, clasping and reclasping the rod in his sweaty slick hands. Waris dismissed the officers then jogged up the mud cliff to bow before Golan. ‘You have news?’ Golan enquired, struggling to keep his voice mild, seemingly disinterested.

On one knee, head down, Waris answered, ‘No hostilities. The Isturé emerged unhurt and marched away into the jungle. A new raft is being constructed. We are delayed one day, Master.’

Golan took in this intelligence while nodding to himself. Not so bad as I had imagined. And the Isturé unhurt — a pity that. Abandoning us? Just as well, perhaps. ‘Thank you, Second. You are to be commended for your, ah, brevity.’

The man merely bowed his head even lower, backed away, then jogged down to the shore. Golan cocked an eye to Principal Scribe Thorn. The scribe tapped the quill to his tongue in thought, then wrote, speaking aloud: ‘All the many disastrous setbacks are met with redoubled effort.’

Master Golan winced.

Two days later saw the majority of the army on the eastern shore. To the great relief of the army’s rank and file, the monstrous water beast had not returned to destroy any further rafts. For an idle moment Golan wondered how it had chanced that the raft carrying the Isturé should be the only one to suffer attack, but more pressing matters chased the speculation from his mind.

Leading elements of the army had already set out to select and mark the best route through the dense growth. It was late on this second day that Golan’s new aide — whose name he could not remember since they now came and went so very quickly as illness took them — announced that the ranking army surgeon requested a hearing.

Searching among his chests and boxes, Golan nodded a distracted affirmative. He was in his personal tent that was no longer a tent, not possessing sufficient cloth to merit the name. More of an awning. A personal awning. One that merely served to keep the sun off his head in the day and the rain in the night.

He might be misremembering, but it seemed to him that he was missing one or two pieces of baggage. He was aware that there was always the chance of losses during river crossings, but still, it was quite irking. It would seem that he was without a camp stool.

Turning, he found the tall lean figure of the ranking army surgeon — whose name he could not recall — awaiting him. He waved the man forward. ‘Yes? You have a report?’ The man bowed, stiff with exhaustion. He was without his stained leather apron of office. He appeared as worn as always, yet a new expression tightened the bruised flesh round his eyes. Golan thought he read suppressed despair. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘A new … illness … has come to my attention, Master. I believe it to be connected to the crossing.’

‘Yes? What of it? Sickness is rampant throughout the ranks, as you well know. There is the foot rot, the crotch rot, infections of all kinds, suppurating sores, debilitating heatstroke, poisoning from a multitude of stings and bites, general dehydration, the tremors, loss of teeth, loss of appetite, the runs, vomiting, lassitude and weakness from the thinning of the blood. Need I go on? Yes, no?’

‘I am well aware of the health of the army,’ the ranking surgeon answered in a slow dull tone. He was pale and swaying himself, appearing hardly able to stand. ‘This is a … parasitical … infestation.’

Golan’s brows lifted in interest. ‘Oh?’ Parasites were a particular hobby of his. He’d quite enjoyed the classes on them at the Academy. ‘Which? Is it that awful fly that has been laying its eggs in everyone’s eyes? Does it have a water-borne stage?’

‘No, sir …’

‘This type of chigger whose larvae are gnawing everyone’s flesh? I understand they can be asphyxiated through the application of a compress.’

‘Yes, sir …’

‘The hookworm is worse now? The ringworm numbers? Surely not the tapeworms! Bad for morale, those. Especially when they’re vomited up during communal meals. Or is it that worm that you have to pull out of the flesh of the leg? One specimen was as long as the fellow carrying it was tall, if I remember correctly.’

‘Fascinating, I’m sure. If I may, sir …’

‘Yes? What is it?’

‘I suggest very strongly that you come and see for yourself …’

Golan turned to the crowd of officers and staff waiting outside the awning. He gestured to them with both arms. ‘Seeing as I have nothing more pressing to attend to?’

The ranking surgeon’s tongue emerged to lick his cracked lips. He swayed, something even more desperate, yet firmly suppressed, pinching his gaze. ‘Please … sir. It is really … quite … pressing.’

Golan clasped his hands at his back. ‘Oh, very well!’ He glowered at the importuning surgeon. ‘Only out of scholarly interest, mind you.’

The patient was a young lad on a table alone in a private tent. He was perhaps in his teens — it was hard for Golan to tell exactly, as early illnesses or starvation can blunt an individual’s development. Skinny, emaciated even, he was one of the labourers. A grimed rag wrapped his loins, but other than that he was naked. He appeared to be drugged into unconsciousness. Leather straps held his ankles and wrists. A leather gag covered his mouth. Golan raised his brows at the restraints.

‘He would have killed himself from the pain,’ the surgeon explained.

‘Pain?’

By way of answer, the surgeon indicated that Golan should more closely examine the lad’s body. Frowning, Golan leaned closer. After a moment, what he discerned all over the lad’s limbs and torso made even him, a trained Thaumaturg, flinch away.

Things writhed just beneath the lad’s skin. Long worm-like lengths twisted and squirmed all up and down his legs, arms, stomach and chest.

‘What is this?’ Golan breathed, impressed. Even a touch fearful.

The ranking surgeon’s expression was flat and dull, as if the man had been driven beyond all feeling, all empathy. ‘They are as you suggested. A form of worm infestation. Similar, I believe, to the infamous Ganari-worm that has been eradicated from our lands, only a far more virulent offshoot. Unlike its cousins, this one does not spare its hosts. These worms are consuming the lad from the inside out.’

At that moment Golan wanted nothing more than to flee the tent. He even felt his stomach tightening in nausea — a feeling he’d thought squeezed from him long ago. Pride in his position, however, demanded that he display nothing. Thus he simply nodded in what he hoped resembled scholarly appreciation of an interesting phenomenon. He clasped his hands at his back. ‘They were in the water, then?’ he asked, his voice a touch hoarse and faint.

‘I believe so. As far as I can establish, this lad was among those who assembled the rafts. He and his coworkers spent a great deal of time standing in the water.’

Golan’s throat choked almost closed, and he grasped the table edge behind him to keep from falling. All the labourers. And the soldiers. Had they not all taken it in turns to wade in to help?

The surgeon was studying Golan closely, a bloodied hand raised to help. He appeared to understand that his commander now grasped the severity of the situation and nodded, grimly. ‘Indeed.’

‘We must find the infected. Isolate them.’

The surgeon’s face remained bleak. ‘I would think it more of a mercy if you would order the yakshaka to-’ The man gaped, his gaze fixed beyond Golan, his eyes growing huge.

Golan heard wet things slipping and slithering to the ground behind him. The tiny hairs of his arms stood up straight and icy fingers traced their nails up his spine. His training took hold immediately and he turned, steadily, having withdrawn into Thaumaturg calmness of mind.

The youth’s body was a horror of thousands of wriggling worms, all writhing free of his flesh from every inch of skin. They even emerged squirming and questing blindly from his eyes, ears, mouth and nostrils. They slithered free to tumble and fall and snake off under the lips of the tent.

Golan heard the surgeon fall insensate behind him. Coolly, he raised a hand and the sagging shape of bones and limp skin amid its forest of twisting parasites burst into sizzling blue and white flames. It was the least he could do for the lad, though, in truth, it was more like housecleaning.

He turned to the prone form of the surgeon, used his toe to flick aside a few of the worms nosing his body. ‘Get up, man,’ he urged. ‘We’ve work to do. We must segregate the infected. Come.’

The surgeon groaned, flailing. Golan nudged him with his toe. ‘Come, man. We-’

Golan broke off, for distantly, across the encampment, here and there, rose shrill screams of agony and uncomprehending terror — the shrieks of those being eaten alive from within.

* * *

In the quiet of the gloomy chamber Osserc blinked rapidly, coming to himself. He peered about quickly, a touch panicked. All was as before: the monkey creature lay asleep at the table, its head down, snoring contentedly, drool dripping from its open mouth. Across the gouged slats of the tabletop, Gothos still sat immobile. His knotted hands lay flat before him. His roped iron-grey hair hung like moss to his shoulders. It was as if the Jaghut was carved from granite.

He’d been thinking of his youth among the Tiste and the halls of his father’s hold. All so different from now. So much lost. It was all he could do to hold on to even a fraction of it. He’d always been of the mind that one must look back to know how to proceed. Yet now this creature sitting opposite seemed to be suggesting that holding on to the past — being guided by the past — was wrong. A self-limiting trap.

Odd to hear such things coming from a Jaghut, of all creatures. Though they always did have a pragmatic streak. For his part he never truly understood them. Perhaps there can be no true understanding between the races. A downturned smile pulled at his lips. The historical record attests that such relations hold little promise for understanding.

Very well. The lesson is to be guided by the past without being trapped by it. A pithy homily. Why be guided by lessons of the past? For wisdom, of course. Ah. Here we approach the meat of the matter. Wisdom.

Not something usually associated with his name.

Anomander, now, that was another thing. Wise beyond his years, everyone thought him. The wisdom of Anomander. Whereas Osserc … well, few mentioned wisdom and Osserc in the same breath.

What, then, had he gathered? Knowledge. A great deal of knowledge. He had wandered the very shores of creation. Tasted the blood of the Eleint. Plumbed the depths of the Abyss itself. Studied the verges of the Realms. He had questioned the Azathanai repeatedly — though he came away with little to show for it. And now he had even investigated the Azath. Few could boast of as thorough an interrogation of the underlying truths of existence.

Yet what had all this study and probing and ruthless examination taught him? He considered his hands on the table before him. He turned them over to inspect the lined palms.

Only his appalling ignorance.

He might have assembled a truly impressive archive of facts, yet one area remained a dark chasm before him. Self-knowledge. The sort of exploration that inflicted true pain. Was this why he’d so … studiously … avoided it? And how then could he be puzzled as to why he did not understand anyone else when he did not know himself? Some would argue that was plainly obvious.

He remembered, then, the time L’oric had been trapped within the shrinking fragment of a shattered realm. He’d had to rescue the fool. Then, he’d felt only anger at the lad’s stupidity, resentment at the intrusion and embarrassment that one of his should have been so careless. Of course he’d communicated none of this to L’oric.

Now, reflecting back, it struck him that what the lad had been doing was in fact emulating him. That, if anyone was to blame, it was he for bringing into being such exploratory recklessness and pushing of boundaries. For his utter neglect and lack of guidance.

Osserc felt a hot sharp stabbing in his chest and his breath came short and tight. He clutched the wooden slats as if he would fall. Across the table Gothos’ gaze, hidden deep within his curtain of hair, shifted, glittering like sunken wells.

If this be the price of self-knowledge I want none of it. It is just too much … Not the errors of the forefathers revisited. Not that. Too painful by far.

So — is the judgement that I have learned nothing? That I stand now as an even poorer example than my own poor father? Perhaps so. Perhaps so.

The eternal question then, that we return to once again, is how to proceed from this datum …

The head of the monkey creature, the Nacht, popped up from the table. Blinking, it peered about suspiciously. Across the table Gothos’ hands drew in closer to his body. The talon-like nails raked lines in the wood.

‘What is it?’ Osserc asked. His voice sounded shockingly loud in the silence.

The Jaghut turned his head to the hall leading to the front door. ‘Something …’

Osserc then heard a sound. It appeared to be coming from the front — a scratching and tearing noise. It was oddly dim, or muted. He stood away from the table and headed up the hall. The sound, whatever it might be, was coming from outside. Osserc regarded the barrier of the thick planks of the front door, the beaten iron handle. He turned back to peer up the hall; Gothos had stood as well and now regarded him, his arms crossed.

Osserc gestured to the door. ‘Shall I?’

The Jaghut shrugged eloquently. ‘It is not up to me.’

Very well. He tried the door: it opened, creaking loudly. Outside it was an overcast night. It had been raining. The glow of the moon and the Visitor behind the massed clouds gleamed from the wet slates of the walkway. Mist obscured the surrounding stone buildings. The sea broke surging against the nearby shore.

A ragged human figure lay on the ground. A trail of churned-up dirt lay behind it. The trail ended at the steaming heap of a disturbed burial barrow.

Osserc called up the hall: ‘Something’s escaping. Or tried.’

Gothos approached. He peered out past Osserc’s shoulder. ‘Indeed?’

While they stood watching, the figure thrust out an arm ahead of itself to grasp a fistful of grass and dirt to pull, heaving itself one agonizing hand’s-breadth along. It looked like a man, but stick-thin, in rags and caked in dirt.

‘Know you it, or him?’

Gothos scratched his chin with a thick yellowed nail. His upthrusting Jaghut tusk-like teeth, so close now, appeared to bear the scars of once having been capped. ‘One of the more recently interred.’

‘How is it he’s got this far? Is the House weakening?’

Gothos shook his head. ‘No … Not in this case.’

The jangle of metal announced someone jogging down the street. He appeared from the mist as an iron-grey shape in heavy banded armour. A battered helmet boasting wide cheek-guards completely obscured his face. He looked quite formidable, barrel-chested, with a confident rolling bear-like gait. Osserc was mildly surprised to see such a martial figure here on this small backwater island. The soldier, or guard, took up a post near the low wall surrounding the House’s grounds — the point that the crawling escapee appeared to be making for.

Osserc and Gothos continued to watch while the escapee made his agonizingly slow way towards the wall. Osserc noted that although the many roots writhing like mats across the yard grasped at him they seemed unable to retain their grip as he slipped onward through their hold.

‘I admire his … persistence,’ Gothos murmured. ‘But he is called …’

‘Called?’ Osserc asked, but the Jaghut did not respond.

The wretched figure made the wall and, by scrabbling at the piled fieldstones, pulled himself upright. He was wearing tattered dirt-caked rich silks that might have once been black. Thin baldrics that might once have held weapons criss-crossed his back. His hair was black, touched by grey. He was a slim, aristocratic-looking fellow.

The moment he straightened the soldier ran him through. The broad heavy blade of the soldier’s longsword emerged from the man’s back then was withdrawn, scraping on bone.

The escapee did not so much as flinch. He remained standing. Shaking his head, he gave a long low chuckle that sounded quite crazed.

‘Let him go,’ Gothos called. ‘The House has no hold over him.’

‘How in the name o’ Togg could that be?’ the soldier answered in a rough, parade-ground bark.

The figure had thrown a leg over the wall; the soldier shield-bashed him to tumble back on to the ground where he lay laughing a high giggle as if the situation was hilarious.

‘Let him go, Temper,’ Gothos called once more, sounding bored. ‘You cannot stop him.’

‘Wait a damned minute,’ the soldier, Temper, growled. He pointed an armoured finger. ‘I know this bastard. It’s Cowl! There’s no way I’m lettin’ this ghoul free in my town!’

The figure, perhaps Cowl, grew quite still at that. Then he was up on his feet in an instant, crouched, a knife in each dirt-smeared hand. ‘Your town!’ he hissed. ‘Yours! You don’t actually think I want to spend more than one second in this pathetic shithole?’ He lifted his chin as if to gather his dignity, and brushed at his tattered shirt as if to smooth it. ‘Business elsewhere calls me. I have a message to deliver to my commander.’ Then he pressed a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh that almost doubled him over.

Temper set his fists on his waist. ‘Well — seems I can’t kill you, seeing as you’re already dead.’ He lifted his armoured head to Osserc and Gothos at the door. ‘What guarantee can you offer?’

Gothos snorted his disgust and walked away up the hall. Osserc remained. Crossing his arms, he called to Cowl, ‘You intend to leave?’

The figure offered a mocking courtier’s bow. Osserc had placed that name now: Cowl, chief assassin and High Mage of the mercenary army, the Crimson Guard. A powerful and dangerous entity to be allowed his freedom on any continent. Yet how could this one possess the strength to shrug off entombment by the Azath? He personally knew of several far more potent beings currently inhumed on these very grounds — some he had battled and was quite glad were now writhing, constrained, beneath his feet. Some who possessed the very blood of the Azathanai themselves. Why, even one of his own daughters had once been taken by a House … Well, that was between them.

And he had warned them.

‘The House cannot, or chooses not to, hold him,’ he called. ‘Let him go. I’ve no doubt he’ll flee.’

‘Flee!’ Cowl echoed, outraged.

Temper laughed his scorn — as Osserc hoped he would. ‘Yeah,’ the soldier scoffed, ‘run away, you pissant knifer. No-good backstabber.’ He backed up a step, inviting Cowl forward.

The assassin was hunched, as if suspicious. But he drew a hand across his mouth, the knife’s blued blade shimmering in the moonlight. In one quick fluid motion he was over the low wall. He tilted his head then, to the soldier, and disappeared in a flicker of shadows.

‘You take a lot upon yourself, soldier,’ Osserc called.

‘That?’ the soldier sneered. He hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat where the assassin had been standing. ‘That was nothin’. Come down here and take one step outside and I’ll run you through. ‘Bout time some someone took you down to size.’

Osserc raised a brow. He was half tempted to accept the challenge. But right now he had no intention of gaining D’rek’s ire. For he recognized her touch upon the man. And so he merely saluted the fellow and pulled the door shut.

He found Gothos reseated, as if nothing had happened, hands flat once more upon the slats of the table. He sat opposite. After a time he found that he could no longer contain his curiosity and so he said: ‘Very well. I must ask — why doesn’t the House have a hold on this man? Surely he is no more powerful than others of the interred.’

Gothos sighed his world-weariness. ‘Because,’ he murmured, completely disinterested, ‘he has already been claimed.’

Osserc grunted his understanding, or rather his complete lack of understanding. That was an answer — but at the same time it answered nothing. Claimed? Whatever did he mean? His thoughts, however, were interrupted by a loud scraping noise of metal over stone echoing from the hallway.

The Nacht creature appeared. It was muttering under its breath, perhaps even mouthing curses. It came dragging a long-handled shovel after it, up the hallway towards the front.

After a moment Osserc heard the front door open then slam shut.