Blood and Bone

CHAPTER III

For Shimmer, it did come to seem as if they moved within a dream as the changeless days of travel upon the river slipped from one on to the next until all became one. The unruffled earthen-brown waters flowed beneath the ship as smoothly as if they traversed a slide of mud. Not a breath stirred the leaden air between the walls of verdant green where flowers blazed bright as flames. The sails hung limp, damp and rotting. Yet the vessel moved upriver against the sluggish current. As the days passed, the crew came to huddle listless and dozing in the heat on the deck. They watched with fever-glazed eyes the vine-burdened branches brushing overhead. All came to speak in hushed whispers as if afraid of breaking the spell of stillness that hung upon the river.

As evening came on, clouds gathered as predictably as the sun’s own setting and a torrential downpour would hammer them through the night. So dense was the warm rain that it seemed that they had sunk into the river. Nothing of either shore could be seen through the solid sheets. To be heard one had to press one’s mouth to another’s ear. Figures would appear suddenly from the roaring downpour, emerging like ghosts. Come the dawn the clouds would be gone as if they’d thrown themselves to the ground and the day’s heat would gather like a sticky tar. Heavy mist arose to smother the river. To Shimmer it appeared so dense it could actually snag and catch at passing branches and hanging vines. Her sodden clothes gave off a vapour as if she were boiling — and she had long given up her armour as a useless rusted heap.

Throughout, she kept a wary eye on the vessel itself. At times it appeared terrifyingly derelict, as if everyone had been snatched away, or become ghosts. Its shrouds hung in loose tatters. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d glimpsed a sailor among the spars or in the rigging. Yet it continued to move, silently gliding. In the dawn and dusk it resembled to her nothing more than a mist-cast shadow, or their own ghost.

One dawn she emerged from below to find the crew sprawled asleep and no one at the tiller. Of the Avowed, Cole was on watch and she spotted him standing near the bow. ‘Cole,’ she called. The man did not answer. ‘Cole!’ Still he did not respond. She crossed to his side and leaned close; he was staring down over the side at the passing blood-hued water. She reached out and gently touched his shoulder. The man slowly blinked. ‘Cole? Can you hear me?’ He frowned now and his gaze rose to her; for a moment he stared as if not recognizing her, then he drew a sudden breath, as if broaching a great depth.

‘There are things in the water, Shimmer,’ he pronounced as if imparting a profound secret.

‘Where’s the pilot — what’s his name? Gods, I can’t even remember his name …’

Blinking heavily, Cole peered about, frowning. ‘I’m sorry, Shimmer — it’s morning already?’

She squeezed his arm. ‘It’s all right. I feel it too.’ She headed for the afterdeck. ‘Captain! You are needed! Captain!’

The men and women of the crew stirred yet none moved to set to work. Shimmer took hold of the tiller arm. The captain arrived, unshaven, in a stained shirt that hung to his knees. He was followed by Rutana and K’azz. ‘Where is the pilot, Captain?’

The man rubbed his jowls, his brows rising. ‘We’ll have a look for him,’ and he lumbered off.

‘Shimmer,’ K’azz said, ‘what happened?’

‘I found the tiller unmanned.’

Rutana snorted at that, as if scornful.

‘You have something to say?’ Shimmer asked.

The woman nodded, her gaze defiant. ‘We may have had a pilot, Isturé, but another has been in control of the vessel for some time.’

‘Another? Who?’

Rutana smiled as she squeezed the bands indenting her upper arms. ‘Ardata, of course.’

The captain reappeared. ‘He’s not on the ship. Must’ve fallen overboard. We’ll have to go back to look for him.’

‘We are not going back, Captain,’ Rutana announced without breaking gaze with Shimmer.

‘Yes, we are,’ K’azz said. He motioned to Shimmer. ‘Turn us round.’

She clasped both hands on the long arm of battered wood and pushed. The broad tiller swung but somehow the ship did not respond. It continued its slow sluggish advance.

Rutana’s contemptuous smile climbed even higher. ‘There is no turning back now, Isturé.’ And she walked off.

Shimmer’s gaze found K’azz, who was eyeing the tiller arm, his mouth sour and tight. ‘What now?’ she asked.

He drew breath to answer but a shout went up from the crow’s nest. ‘A village ahead! People!’ The crew surged to the larboard rail. Even the crewman from the crow’s nest came swinging hand over hand down the ropes. The Avowed gathered at the stern with K’azz. Banners of mist painted the river’s surface and coiled along the jungle shore. Through them, Shimmer glimpsed a clearing dotted by leaf-topped huts standing on tall stilts. Figures lined the shore. Most were in loincloths and bright feathers decorated their hair and hung at arms and legs. The crewmen and women waved, shouting. ‘Hello! Help! Help us! We are ensorcelled!’

‘Back to work, damn you all!’ the captain bellowed in answer.

‘We’re cursed!’ one shouted and jumped overboard.

‘Not a good idea …’ Rutana warned.

The rest of the crew followed in a surge, as if terrified they would be held back. They jumped, arms waving, and splashed into the murky water to emerge blowing and gasping. The captain managed to catch one woman by the arm only to be smacked down for his trouble. He lay holding his head and groaning. The entire crew swam for the shore. Shimmer shot a questioning look to K’azz who motioned a negative. ‘Let them go,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps they will find their way to the coast.’

‘Or perhaps they will all be eaten,’ Rutana offered, laughing her harsh cackle.

K’azz faced her. ‘Then see that they are not …’

Her hands, closed about her neck, seemed to squeeze off her laugh in a hiss. She jerked her head to Nagal at the bow. The big man climbed up among the loose rotten rigging and yelled to the shore in a language Shimmer had never heard before. A banner of mist wafted across the river and the bank and when it had passed the figures were gone, disappearing as if they had never been.

‘Thank you,’ K’azz said.

But Rutana only sneered and turned away.

Through the scarves of fog Shimmer caught glimpses of the crew dragging themselves up the muddy shore and running into the jungle. Then a curve in the river’s course carried them from sight. She turned to K’azz. Their commander had a hand on the tiller arm, which jerked this way and that, yet to no apparent shift in the vessel’s course. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

He shook his head as if awakening from a reverie and his gaze jerked from hers — as if terrified, she thought. Terrified of what? Our situation? Or of what he may reveal?

‘A lesson here, Shimmer,’ he murmured, his mouth tight. ‘One can squirm and fight against it, but everyone is drawn inexorably along to the fate awaiting them.’

‘I don’t believe in that self-serving predestiny justification that religions flog.’

He nodded his understanding and she was struck by how skull-like his features appeared. ‘Well, let us call it a natural proclivity then,’ and he offered a smile that struck her as heart-achingly sad. ‘No one’s alone from now on,’ he called, raising his voice. ‘Watches at all times. A mage on each watch.’

Shimmer saluted. ‘Yes, Commander.’

Yet the spell that clung over the river and surrounding impenetrable walls of forest somehow made the distinction of being on or off watch irrelevant. Shimmer, and, as it seemed, the rest of them, found it increasingly difficult to sleep. She would lie only to stare at the damp mouldering wood unable to slip into any dreams. And so she would arise and go above and here she would find the majority of the party, eyes on the river or passing shores, silent and watchful, like a standing troop of mist-shrouded statues.

She saw, or thought she saw, bizarre creatures among the branches of the trees: enormous vultures and bats the size of people, hanging upside down. On the shore one of the long-snouted alligator-like creatures that swam along pacing the vessel heaved itself up on the mud slope and she was only mildly surprised to see it stand erect on two thick trunk-like legs, a wide pale belly hanging over a bare crotch. It followed them with its unblinking baleful eyes.

At one point she found herself next to Gwynn, the one-time mage of First Company, Skinner’s command, and she asked him, ‘Was this how it was when you were last here?’

The man shook himself, rubbing his eyes and frowning. ‘We weren’t here, Shimmer. We stayed on the south coast. It was pleasant there — much cooler.’

‘You didn’t travel through the countryside?’

The man laughed and waved to the shore. ‘Gods, no.’

‘Not to Jakal Viharn?’

‘No. Never been.’

The news startled Shimmer so much that she had a hard time comprehending it. She felt that it ought to alarm her, but for some reason all she could summon was a vague unease. ‘You haven’t … But I thought … I’m sorry. I thought you had.’

‘Skinner has.’ Then Gwynn ran a hand over his sweat-matted pale hair and frowned as if chasing after a thought. ‘At least he was gone for much of the time … We simply assumed he was with her.’

‘You never asked him about it — about the city?’

‘No.’

Shimmer found that difficult to believe. ‘Really? No one asked about Jakal Viharn? Not even once?’

Gwynn cocked his head, the edge of his mouth quirking up. ‘One does not ask personal questions of Skinner.’

Ah. There is that. She knew that some people were just naturally less forthcoming or prone to talk about themselves than others. And Skinner even less so than most. He’d always been silent regarding anything other than the business at hand. He’d become utterly closed to her before the end.

Now Shimmer frowned, thinking, for it seemed so very difficult in this choking thick air. ‘Well, then, why don’t we travel by Warren?’

Gwynn rubbed a finger along the knife-edge bridge of his great hooked nose. ‘Jakal cannot be found via the Warrens. Ardata has seen to that. She allows you to enter. This time she sent a boat.’

‘Why?’

‘I do not know. A demonstration, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’ Shimmer tried to think through to the hidden motive behind the choice but couldn’t come up with any definitive possibility, and so instead she let it lie to be answered later and returned to watching the thick reddish-brown flow coiling and ribboning beneath them.

What she did come to understand was the spell, or sensation, she and her brother and sister Avowed were experiencing. She wasn’t certain where the answer came from; perhaps from a waking dream she had when the deck appeared populated by all the fallen Avowed brethren interspersed with the living, all journeying to their unknown destination on the river. And it struck her that this timelessness was a sensation she’d known before. Over these last few years it had been growing, ebbing and waning, yet always abiding just beneath the surface of her awareness. It was — perhaps — an artefact of the Vow they had all sworn together.

And now this land, Jacuruku, seemed to somehow intensify it … or perhaps the word she was looking for was exacerbate. Or aggravate? In any case, it was not entirely imposed from without and so she tried to let slip away her almost constant state of heightened anxiety.

She was, unfortunately, premature in that choice.

It began as a noise, a loud thrumming or hissing. It seemed to be coming from all around. Rutana, Shimmer noted, ran to the bow to stand tall, peering to the right and left.

‘What is it?’ K’azz called to the woman.

She shook her head. ‘I cannot be sure …’

‘Look there,’ Amatt called, pointing ahead upriver.

A cloud was approaching, skimming the dark bronze surface of the river, stretching from one shore to the other. Within the haze of the cloud a blinding iridescent storm of colours flashed and glimmered. Shimmer winced, shading her gaze. ‘What is it?’ she called to Rutana, just as K’azz had.

The woman just shook her head as she stepped down from the railing as if retreating. ‘I do not know.’

The cloud engulfed them, flowing around the vessel. Her vision of either shore was lost in a hurricane of lustrous rainbow-like flashing. Blinking, Shimmer was astonished to find herself surrounded by hundreds of darting and rushing hummingbirds. The blinding colours came from their feathers, which held a metallic iridescence of every hue.

They hove in close to her face as if inspecting her. Their wings churned as near invisible blurs. She didn’t like the glow of their tiny red eyes and she gently waved them aside. ‘What is this?’ she called to Rutana. She had to shout to be heard above the combined roaring of the thousands of whirring wings.

The woman might have answered but Shimmer did not hear as one of the hummingbirds suddenly darted forward and thrust its long needle-like beak into her neck. She flinched and reflexively grabbed hold of the tiny bundle of feathers and threw it to the deck. ‘The damned thing stabbed me!’ she yelled, more surprised than hurt.

Grunts of shock and annoyance sounded all around as the Avowed waved their arms through the eddying clouds of birds. Then, all at once, as if at a given order, the birds crowded close all about Shimmer, jamming so tight they blotted out the day. Stiletto beaks thrust for her eyes, her neck, and clawed feet scratched for purchase on her ears. She covered her face to spin left and right but the mass of birds followed, stabbing her. She ran into someone, his face a steaming wet mask of blood, who howled. A scream sounded and a splash as someone fell or jumped into the river. She heard Nagal’s bull voice shouting in that strange language, then K’azz bellowing: ‘Gwynn!’

An eruption of power swiped her to the slick decking where she slammed into the side. Groggy, she fumbled for a grip to pull herself up. The hummingbirds were gone, as was what was left of the sails, and even the upper masts had been sheared away. On the deck only Gwynn and Nagal remained standing; all others had been pushed to the sides in a circle outwards from the mage in black. Something hit the deck at Shimmer’s feet. A dead hummingbird. It lay dull and lustreless now, so tiny. She peered up. Others fell all about. A pattering rainbow deluge of dead birds. Most struck the river, slightly behind, as the vessel continued its unhurried advance. She limped to where Rutana was straightening to her feet.

‘And just what in the name of Hood was that?’ she snarled.

The woman gave another of her uncaring shrugs. Shimmer noted that she was completely untouched; not one cut or jab marked her face or hands. ‘An inhabitant of Himatan, like any other.’

‘D’ivers?’

Again the indifferent shrug. ‘Of a kind. The forest is full of many such creatures. Here you will find all the old things that once walked the earth before you humans came.’

‘Well … you could have warned us.’

She laughed, waving a hand to dismiss her. ‘Even I have seen only a fraction of that which exists within these leagues,’ she said, and walked away.

Shimmer cast about for K’azz, to find him at the stern where he and others had thrown a rope to Cole, who had jumped overboard and now swam after the lumbering ship. Beneath the tiller arm lay the captain, dead, his eye sockets bloody and empty, his throat a torn gaping wound.

K’azz joined her to regard the captain. He motioned to Turgal nearby. ‘Find some cloth.’ He saluted and headed for the companionway.

Sighing, Shimmer raised her gaze to the shore. Hidden animals still roared and hooted in the distance in answer to Gwynn’s great blast of power. Masses of strange birds churned, flapping their huge ungainly wings over the ragged treetops. You humans, the woman had said. You humans.

Shimmer drew a hand down her slick hot face; it came away wet with blood that dripped from her palm to the decking. She felt a terrible foreboding that somehow they were never going to get out of this jungle.

* * *

Of course a Hood-damned storm would gather as he and Sour unravelled the last of the chains coupled to their dolmen anchors. Only four now remained, each at a compass point, and beneath the centre of the plaza the thing this entire installation was constructed to contain jerked and struggled like a gaffed dhenrabi the size of a war galley. Murk gestured his disgust to the massed black clouds blotting the night sky as the wind, the discharge of thunder, and the combers crashing into the shore made conversation almost impossible. From where he crouched next to the dolmen, Sour caught the wave and answered with the expression he was named for. Rain pelted down but at least it was warm rain, not like the freezing sleet of north Genabackis. Yusen emerged from the sheets to lean close to Murk.

‘Now?’ he asked.

Murk nodded and raised a hand in the mount up sign. Yusen gave a curt jerk of his head and went to his men, signing orders. Murk found Sour’s squinted gaze and they turned to where Spite sat cross-legged facing the plaza, her back blade-rigid. Sour gestured him over and now Murk gave a sour look, but he went.

Kneeling next to the woman the first thing he noticed was the heat. The great fat raindrops actually hissed to steam as they touched her shoulders and hair. Her gaze was locked ahead, the eyes an eerie all-carmine that churned like flame. ‘Which one next?’ he shouted.

The eyes did not shift, did not so much as blink while Murk waited. Silent, the woman extended an arm to point opposite. Murk grunted his understanding and retreated to Sour.

‘Across the way,’ he told Sour, then signed to Yusen.

Sour packed up his sodden leather satchel of shells, bits of wood, and other found bric-a-brac that he used to somehow ‘read’ the maze they faced. A team of five mercenaries led by the three big swordsmen Ostler, Tanner and Dee jogged up to join them, plus the silent scout Sweetly and the lieutenant, a Seven Cities native, to judge by her sharp coffee-hued features beneath a bright domed helmet woven round by a cord of yellow silk.

He and Sour started tracing the border of the plaza. The team spread out round them. When they reached the dolmen Sour clambered down into the excavation pit and laid out his satchel. Murk crouched, peering down. The rain dripped from his nose and snaked down his ankles. The squat little fellow studied the base of the dolmen for a time. He picked up the bits and pieces he’d gathered together and let them fall on the soaked leather. This pattern he studied for a while. Then, as before, he raised his Thyr Warren and reached in towards the pulsing cable of power wound about the stone to manipulate it as one might a knot or trick puzzle. Murk had no idea how the unimpressive fellow managed it. He definitely was no bright spark; wordplay blew right past him; and he could be as slow as the son of the village idiot. It must be instinctive — that was the only explanation Murk could think of. A freak talent like that old man he’d heard tell of that the prince of Anklos kept in his court who could give you the day’s date in any calendrical system you would care to mention.

Murk had his own Warren at his fingertips and so he saw when the bound energies tore free of the dolmen like a whip and snapped Sour backwards with a crack that echoed from every stone. He ran to where the fellow lay immobile, his chest steaming in the rain, and tapped one unshaven cheek with the back of a hand. ‘Sour? You with us?’

The fellow coughed and Murk caught a whiff of rotten breath and turned his head aside. He stood and prodded the man with a toe. ‘You all right?’

Sour nodded, blinking as the rain pattered down into his eyes. ‘Got a kick like a mule.’

‘Yeah, well. You should stop getting intimate with them.’

The fellow peered around confused then screwed up his eyes to squint. ‘But I never have …’

‘Never mind.’ He reached out a hand and Sour took it. Murk pulled him upright. ‘Last one.’

Sour frowned, then brightened. ‘Oh, yeah.’

Murk signed to their bodyguard mercs. Sour went to collect his gear.

This time either Sour got it just right, or was more careful. In any case the sizzling band of power slipped away as easily as a released fishing line and he grinned up at his partner like the naughty boy who’d let it go. ‘Damn good,’ Murk said, hands on his knees. ‘Let’s see Miss Nibs.’

Spite was standing when they found her in the sleeting rain. A steady pounding announced the surf crashing on to the nearby strand. Something seemed to echo that pulse from within the roiling gravel of the plaza. ‘You will aid me,’ she told them without so much as turning her head.

‘Yes,’ Murk answered — though he didn’t think they could contribute much of anything.

Spite simply stepped forward to sink straight down into the gravel as if it were a pool. In a panic, Murk struggled to follow her through his Warren. He found her approaching the small object at the centre of the installation where it jumped and kicked very much like that proverbial hooked fish; except that the power this captive bled would’ve boiled off any lake. Held only by the remaining two chains of woven potency it swung wildly now, hissing through the gravel as if the tons of stone did not exist. Spite closed warily, her hands raised.

Murk had no idea what her plan was — but he most certainly did not expect her to simply snatch out and grab hold of the thing as it swung by. The resulting explosion of energy tore through the plaza. In that curious double image available to a mage viewing a scene through both his Warren and his mundane vision, Murk watched the underside of the gravel plaza sear and boil even as the surface erupted upwards, sending the mercenaries running and ducking under their shields.

Murk reduced his Warren-sensitivity against the roaring forge-like energies. He saw that whereas Sour had applied an uncanny delicacy of manipulation to undoing the bonds, Spite was all pure force and overwhelming power. Spite, it seemed, possessed no subtlety whatsoever. The rock-grinding might being brought to bear made Murk’s teeth ache.

‘Like some damned Ascendant!’ Sour yelled next to his ear. Murk nodded his appalled agreement. ‘Ever hear of any one of these Chainings being broken?’ Murk shook his head.

Then with a crack as of a stone cleaving, it was done. The two remaining bonds sizzled, swinging and snapping loose like whips. Spite weakly churned a path through the gravel, making for them. She held something that was painful to look at through his Warren.

An arm broached the surface of the heated stones where the rain hissed and misted, then a head. Spite drew back her arm and heaved something towards them. Appalled, Murk watched it arc through the air. Shit, was all he could think. ‘Don’t touch it!’ he bellowed.

But everyone was half deaf from the cracks of thunder, the pounding rain and the blasts of power. One of the mercenaries reached for the object, and screamed — briefly. Murk and Sour ran for the fellow. They pushed through the gathered bodyguards to find a blackened corpse, ribcage curving up through crisped flesh, arms ending in white sintered bones, yet head and face completely unmarred. The moustached fellow looked as if he’d merely closed his eyes in sleep. The object lay within the seared carcass: a smoking casket of black stone, chased and edged in silver, like a lady’s jewellery box.

‘Get a pack,’ Sour ordered.

Two mercenaries ran to obey. Murk noted that the man’s armour was torn. Consumed the flesh only. Gods, man, will it even be safe to carry? How to touch it? ‘Get some sticks,’ he told Sweetly, who nodded.

‘Murk!’ Sour called from the plaza.

Standing, he told the female mercenary: ‘Make a stretcher!’ In the panic of the moment the woman gave a quick Malazan salute. Murk ran to his partner.

Spite lay hugging the stone lip, only her head and shoulders above the gravel. Sour knelt next to her but wasn’t helping. There was something in his gaze — wonder and perhaps even a wide-eyed dread. The woman fairly glowed with power, her flesh steaming and hissing. Murk thought he caught a glimpse of rough dark-scaled features, and hands misshapen taloned claws. The eyes burned like pits of melted stone. ‘You have it?’ she grated.

‘Yes.’

‘Get me up.’

Murk held up his hands. ‘We can’t touch you yet …’

‘Oh, for the love of Night! Get a sword or something!’

‘Right.’

Spite jerked then, sinking to her open, surprised lips. For an instant those formidable eyes, so superior, so scornful, widened in unguarded panic. ‘Oh, no …’ she whispered, and then she disappeared as if snatched back by some giant.

Murk switched to Meanas to see what was going on. The chains of puissance, loose and unbounded, had flailed about seeking something to latch on to, anything, and had found Spite. She fought now, caught between the two lashing tendrils of punishing powers. Even as Murk watched, she was weakening. She kicked ineffectually and struggled to summon the streams of her own Warren-energies. But she was already exhausted and now she hung limp, her arms loose and drifting.

‘Overcome,’ Sour murmured, awed. ‘What’re we gonna do?’

‘You’re going to untie those last two bonds! Let’s go!’

‘Can’t … she’d just fall into the Abyss and that’ll be the end of her.’

‘Well, then — we’ll pull her up!’

‘Can’t yank on those chains, man. Use your head.’

Yusen came to their side. ‘What happened?’

‘Trap’s closed on her,’ Sour answered.

The man wiped the rain from his face, scowling. His disgusted expression seemed to wonder why nothing ever went right. ‘Can’t hang around here. We have to disappear.’

‘The captain’s right,’ Sour told Murk. ‘You have any idea what’s on its way right now?’

‘I know, I know,’ he answered, thinking furiously. ‘Is the stretcher made?’

‘Yes. But we haven’t touched the … thing.’

‘All right. Let’s pack up. Come back later once the dust has settled out.’

‘Right.’ Yusen jogged off. Murk waved for Sour to follow him to the body. Here their escort waited while through the rain the rest of the troop could be glimpsed withdrawing to the coast between the dolmens. Murk motioned Sour to the pack laid next to the corpse. Sweetly tossed down two broken sticks. Murk took them up and bent over the body.

‘Poor Crazy-eye,’ one of the mercs said, and he made a sign to D’rek, goddess of rot and rejuvenation.

‘Always actin’ before thinkin’,’ added another.

Murk, who had been bent over the seared torso, now leaned back to blink up at them. ‘You finished?’

They frowned down at him, puzzled, drops falling from the rims of their helmets. ‘Yeah,’ one said, shrugging. ‘I s’pose so.’

‘Fine. Thank you.’

Sour laid out a sodden blanket. ‘Put it on this. We’ll wrap it.’

‘I’ll try.’

He used the sticks to feel about. He dug against the curve of the blackened pelvic bone. Turning the box vertical he managed to get a good grip and he lifted it from the still-smoking cavity that once held Crazy-eye’s viscera. He laid it on the blanket and used the sticks to roll it over and over, then picked it up and slipped it into the pack which Sour was holding open.

Sour set the pack into the stretcher and tied it down with rope.

Murk motioned to the mercenaries. ‘Who’s got it?’

Their guards all backed away, hands raised and open.

‘Oh, come on! We’re not …’

‘Yes, you are,’ the Seven Cities woman answered.

Murk waved to Sour, impatient. ‘Fine. Let’s go.’

Sour struggled with the stretcher’s spear hafts, grumbling, ‘Not bloody fair …’

Murk waited a moment for Sour to ready himself then jogged for the shore and the waiting ship. Their guards spread out around them.

They found the crest of the strand lined by the troop, all crouched down in the rain. They crab-walked, hunched, to Yusen who alone was standing, scanning the storm-lashed seas. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Boat’s not here,’ the man answered, almost in a lazy drawl.

Murk eyed the white-capped waves as they crashed the beach. ‘Well … they must’ve just withdrawn.’

‘Oh, they’ve withdrawn all right.’ And the officer pointed out to sea.

Murk squinted into the overcast pall. Far towards the steel-grey horizon he could just make out the pale smear of sails and darker shadow of the hull. ‘What? They’ve abandoned us?’

Yusen regarded him through a half-lidded gaze. ‘What goes around comes around, hey?’

Murk adjusted his grip on the rain-slick spear hafts. ‘Shit. Well, now what? We follow the coast? Find a port?’

‘You see any ports on the way in?’

Murk shook his head. In fact, the coast had been completely uninhabited.

‘No. If we want to get lost there’s only one place for us.’ The officer raised his chin to the south.

Murk followed the man’s gaze and his shoulders fell. The jungle. The damned jungle. He heard Sour cursing away under his breath.

Yusen signed the move out, indicating the south. He stopped suddenly and eyed Murk and Sour and the burden between them, then turned on the Seven Cities woman. ‘What’s this, Burastan?’

The woman saluted. ‘Sorry, Cap-Sorry.’ She gestured curtly and Ostler came and took Murk’s place, as Dee did Sour’s. After one last warning glare Yusen turned away.

Had the woman almost said ‘Captain’? And was her name really Burastan? But Ostler and Dee took off with the stretcher bouncing between them and Murk had to run after them shouting: ‘Hey! No. Take it easy, damn it!’

*

With the evening, the low oppressive massing of clouds of the wet season announced their nightly downpour. Skinner, dressed as always in his blackened shimmering coat of armour, his barrel helm pushed back high on his head, stood at the open cloth flap of his tent where he appeared to be watching the descending curtains of rain. Within, Mara and her fellow mage Petal leaned over a tabletop cluttered in maps and documents of rotting woven plant fibres.

Sighing, Mara picked up a glass of wine. She eyed her commander’s scaled back. That armour. Gift of Ardata, he called it. Everyone else had abandoned their metal armour as useless in this constant damp. Now heavy layered leathers couldn’t be purchased for anything less than their weight in silver. Yet no rust or stain marred that blackened scale coat. And it seemed nothing could penetrate it. Perhaps that’s why Ardata had been unable to retrieve it when … well, when they parted ways.

‘Our Master of the Inner Circle remains committed?’ Petal asked in his slow and deliberate manner.

‘Quite,’ Skinner answered, keeping his back to them.

Petal pursed his thick lips, nodding. He tapped a blunt finger to the documents. ‘I calculate this force to be a full third of the entire Thaumaturg military. Their only currently assembled field army. Leaving but scattered garrisons across their lands …’

Mara lifted the glass, saluting. ‘To its success, then.’ She cocked a brow and offered a mocking smile. ‘May it advance far indeed.’

Skinner returned and picked up his glass to answer her toast. ‘As far as it is able.’

‘To the very end,’ Petal added.

Mara’s raised senses detected a familiar, and unwelcome, arrival. The insolent one has returned. She swallowed her wine while lifting a hand for silence. ‘Our would-be master approaches.’

Skinner grimaced his distaste. ‘Again? He is most insistent.’

The three faced the tent portal where the dusk was obscured by a shadow and the ragged figure of a beggar or itinerant monk slipped within. He glared as if enraged, his eyes black and wide behind the strings of his matted hair. ‘Your cowardice and delay have cost us dear!’

Skinner’s frown deepened. ‘What is this?’

‘While you have sat upon your hands others have moved against us!’

‘Clarify …’ Skinner ground out, his voice low and menacing.

‘My lord demands you accompany me now.’

‘Where?’ Petal asked.

‘To where you should have been and gone had you any shred of initiative.’

‘Explain-’ Skinner began.

But the priest gestured and the interior of the tent seemed to blur. ‘Enough! We go.’

It seemed to Mara that the tent spun while the damp earth of the floor grew soft. They sank as if through a slew of mud, the soil tinged by a hot acidic burn of chaos. After a sickening plunge and twist they emerged into rain. Petal straightened nearby, slapping at his robes and snarling his outrage. Mara leaned over, her stomach roiling from the obscene touch of raw chaos, and vomited violently. A hand in an iron gauntlet steadied her: Skinner. She straightened while wiping the bile from her mouth.

Beneath massed clouds a plain of standing stones surrounded them. Lightning illuminated the scene, slashing almost continuously. It seemed to be concentrated … sizzling energy overwhelmed her groping senses. Its waterfall coursing blinded her and drove a spike into her forehead. She turned away, gasping her pain, to face the scowling priest of the Crippled God, who glared, free of any sympathy. Through the stars flashing in her vision Mara blinked at the man and grated: ‘Do that again and I will kill you.’

He ignored her. ‘Know this place, King of Chains?’ he demanded, sneering.

‘The Dolmens of Tien,’ Skinner answered, his voice oddly hollow.

The Dolmens! Mara turned to him but his back was to her. Where he and Cowl imprisoned K’azz. With, some whispered, Ardata’s connivance.

‘Yes! Where what lies within ought to have been ours by now!’

Skinner adjusted his full helm and advanced into the forest of standing stones. Mara and Petal followed. The priest trailed in a curious hopping and jerking walk. Soon a shimmering wall of Warren-magics came into view. ‘Hold!’ Mara called to Skinner.

‘I see it,’ their commander answered, sounding annoyed.

She and Petal exchanged a wondering glance. He sees it?

‘Can it be breached?’

‘Perhaps,’ Petal answered.

While Skinner waited, arms crossed, she and Petal examined the layered warding. ‘Kurald Galain,’ she opined. Petal gave a ponderous nod of assent.

‘And more. Something very rare. Something I haven’t seen since …’ His gaze flicked to Skinner then held hers. ‘Starvald Demelain.’

That most ancient Warren! Some said progenitor to all magics. And one accessible to … Ardata. She nodded in answer to the man’s silent message. She knew she was out of her depth here in any case; stone and earth were her strengths. Petal was the researcher into the ways of the Warrens. Was this her work? If so, it had come too early. Their plan called for a much later confrontation — if any at all. ‘A slide?’ she suggested.

Petal nodded again, his chins bunching. ‘Yes. It appears to have been woven to allow passage … we merely have to find the correct …’ He hissed a breath between clenched teeth as he worked his Warren manipulation: a personal admixture of elements of Thyr and Mockra. The borderlands of both, he’d once told her ‘… the correct … note … and we may pass as well.’ He grunted then, and wiped the rain from his face with a sleeve just as sodden. ‘There we are. Safe enough.’

She eyed him, as did Skinner. Neither moved. Petal smoothed his robes down the broad slope of his stomach and sighed. ‘Very well … if I must.’ He stepped through in his ungainly rocking gait then turned to them and described a mocking bow.

Skinner gave a laugh of appreciation. ‘Well done, Petal.’ And he stepped through. Mara followed. The priest hopped past, flapping his arms as if he could push the churning energies aside. Skinner led them to the edge of a central circular marshalling ground or plaza. Here he stopped and crossed his arms, seeming to survey the scene.

To Mara at first it appeared completely still. Then she noted how the stones shifted and humped as if something beneath were heaving or turning. Like the surface of a lake where huge creatures swim. And just what creature might this be?

Aside, she noted the many impressions of footsteps. Most of similar kind: heavy boots. Uniform. A military force? And recent excavations around the inner stones. These pits now pooled in rainwater. Come and gone, in any case.

Something punched through the surface of the fine white gravel and Mara jerked, startled, a hand going to her throat. She immediately pulled the hand down, growling her anger at the instinctive reaction. Skinner had knelt to one knee. The black skirting of his armour rustled and spread about him like a pool of glistening night.

It was an arm, human, seemingly, and it scooped at the stones as a swimmer might pull at the water, making for shore. Another hand appeared and as they flailed closer Mara came to doubt their humanity. The fingers appeared more like bird’s claws, the flesh scaled and ending in amber talons. Scraped and raw, they dug at the gravel, making a slow advance towards the stone ledge of the field.

Mara cast an uncertain glance to Petal whose brow was furrowed as he studied the amazing demonstration. Skinner, his back to them, had tilted his head aside as he watched, neither shrinking away nor offering aid of any kind.

In time a scalp of grimed long black hair broached the surface and was thrown back with an exultant yell and gasp of air. It was female, whatever it was. Her eyes blazed in the night like twin flaming suns.

‘Get me out of here!’ she demanded.

‘Where is that which was within!’ the priest yelled, now daring to dance in closer.

The woman ignored the priest: her gaze was fixed upon Skinner. She threw out an arm, reaching for him. ‘Take my hand! Break the bonds … you can do it.’

Their commander did not move. ‘What happened here?’ he asked gently.

‘Pull me out and I’ll tell you,’ she snarled as she dug at the stones like a drowning swimmer.

Skinner straightened. He shook his helmed head. ‘Nothing better than that?’

‘Damn you to the Abyss,’ the woman growled. With an immense surge of effort she managed to lurch forward and slap one hand on to the cut stone ledge. Her thick talons scraped and gouged the stone.

Skinner continued to shake his head. ‘No. I think it best you remain out of contention for a time.’ And he drew back his armoured boot then swung it forward, kicking the woman across the face.

She slewed backwards into the wide field of stones. If her gaze had been furious before it now fairly crackled with dazzling insane fury. She drew a hand, all sinew and amber talons, across her bleeding mouth as she was dragged backwards, sinking, and she yelled: ‘Jacuruku will consume you, Skinner!’ Then she disappeared once again as the stones hissed and collapsed in a smoking slurry.

Skinner turned away, murmuring, ‘As has been prophesised.’ He now regarded Mara and Petal from behind the slit of his helm. ‘Well? Which way have they gone?’

Mara started, jerking a quick bow. As did Petal. ‘Yes — of course. Right away,’ she said shakily, still rather shocked by the brutal — and audacious — act. They headed off, following the trail.

The priest came along hopping and jerking at Skinner’s side like a mongrel dog. ‘You were too hasty,’ he complained. ‘We could have questioned her …’

‘Shut up or I will cut your head off,’ Skinner told him.

The man’s mouth shut with a snap.

The trail led Mara and Petal to a shore cluttered in wave-wrack, the aftermath of the storm. Mara cast her awareness out to sea, seeking a vessel, but discovered nothing. However, by the light of the Jade Banner, as some named it here, it was clear that the party had not entered the surf. Rather, they had milled about for a time then headed south.

She and Petal followed for a few leagues just to be certain. They stopped before the seemingly impenetrable jungle wall at the base of the peninsula. The priest hopped from foot to foot in his impatience. ‘Well? What are you waiting for? Go, now. Retrieve it!’

Skinner shook his head. ‘They have entered Himatan. There is no finding them now. The jungle will deal with them. We will wait. Your treasure will be found among their bones.’

The priest grew still. He gnashed his yellowed rotten teeth. ‘What? You refuse? Very well then. I demand you accompany me to another! Now. Immediately.’

Oh no. Mara threw out an arm. ‘No! Not like that.’

‘Your master demands fulfilment of your terms, Disavowed.’ The air about them grew opaque, tearing into streamers of sickly grey roiling power.

Mara clutched her head and the nauseating agony swelling there. Petal grunted as he fell to his knees. The obscene oily touch of raw chaos enmeshed them and the dune shore, the massed clouds, all disappeared in a snap of displaced air.

* * *

Saeng warmed herself over a meagre fire of wood scraps and dry moss. She squatted near the vine-choked mouth of their cave on the floor of centuries of rotting leaves and droppings. Her outer clothes hung on branches over the fire, drying. She’d stink of smoke but that would be better than dying of the wet-lung. Hanu stood just within the opening, keeping watch.

While she rubbed her hands over the weak flames a spider emerged from the moss seeking escape. Its bulbous red body announced to all its poison. She used a twig to flick it aside. On another side a snake squirmed out from under dead leaves, attracted by the heat. Its glowing yellow and orange bands shouted its deadliness. She scooted it aside as well. Spiders, snakes, bats, rats, tigers, rhinoceroses, ghosts … ye gods. Everything under the sun and those that avoid it into the bargain! It was a miracle they were still alive and not stung, bitten or sickened unto death. Well, me at least … Hanu seems impervious to everything.

‘I think we should return,’ she called to him. ‘They’ve moved on by now, surely.’

He turned his helmed head, gave a slight nod.

He’s not enthusiastic about returning. What does he expect to find? She’s just an old lady! What would they do to her? She must be fine. And speaking of fine … She eyed the glimmering opalescent blues and emerald greens of her brother’s armoured back.

‘What will you do?’ she called. ‘You cannot return … can you?’

‘No,’ he answered with his thoughts. ‘I must leave this land or be hunted down.’

She wanted to dispute that assertion but knew it to be true. She stared at the licking flames. ‘Where will you go?’

‘Somewhere — it matters not where.’

‘Well … what will you do?’

‘I will easily find employment as a guard to some rich merchant or noble. Or I could join a travelling freak show as a living statue.’

Her gaze snapped to him to find his helmed head tilted her way. ‘I’m serious!’

‘As am I. An income will be no issue.’

‘Perhaps I could-’

‘No. You must remain. You belong here.’

‘So you say. I-’ A deep growling roar from the jungle interrupted her. It shook the ground like a minor earthquake. The hanging vines vibrated, pattering down droplets.

‘Your friend wants his cave back.’

‘Well, he can wait,’ she grumbled. ‘I’m not spending one more night out in this damned rain.’ She cast outwards for the beast and found the bright spark of its awareness. She urged it to curl up elsewhere. A throaty rumble answered that, as reluctant as she. Yet the crashing of undergrowth and the shuddering of nearby trees announced the great animal’s capitulation. Hanu, at his post, visibly relaxed. His hands encased in their armoured gauntlets eased from his belt.

‘Tomorrow, then,’ she said. ‘We might make it in one day if we push it.’

‘Very well.’ Hanu’s response was just as reluctant.

That night she dreamed, as she almost always did now. This time she was not fleeing the bony reaching hands of the Nak-ta. Rather, she found herself wandering the deep jungle. It was day, the sun high and hot as it beat down upon her between gaps in the upper canopy. A troop of monkeys scampered about the treetops. They seemed to follow her wandering, curious perhaps. After a time she somehow came to the realization that what she walked was not some empty wasteland, but that the steep hillocks she passed were in fact tall sloping structures, human made, all overgrown and crumbling beneath the clutching roots of the jungle. And likewise, that the broad flat floor of the forest here was in fact a stone-paved plaza, the great blocks heaved up here and there by the immense trees.

So, she walked one of the ruins that she knew dotted the uncounted leagues of Himatan, which featured so prominently in her people’s ghost stories.

Some time later she paused, sensing that she was being watched. Yet she saw no one. After she cast about at the shadows and great tumbled heaps of stone, a figure resolved itself out of the background of a root-choked staircase leading up the side of one of the great hillocks. It was a crouching man, mostly naked, wearing the headdress of a snarling predatory cat, a tawny leopard, some of which still haunted Jacuruku lands, occasionally dragging off the unwary.

‘Hello?’ she called.

The man stood, or rather, he uncoiled; his legs straightened and his arms uncrossed, all in a smooth grace of muscle and lean sinew. He came down the jumble of broken stone stairs in an easy, confident flow and Saeng had to admit that he was the most amazing example of male beauty she’d ever come across.

Closer, however, her breath caught as she saw that the headdress he sported was none such: the man’s upper torso and head was that of a golden leopard. Her instincts yammered for her to run but she was frozen, unable even to scream. He stopped before her and eyed her up and down. Those eyes were bright amber slit by vertical black windows into deep pools of night. His black lips pulled back over jutting fangs, grinning perhaps.

Exhaling, Saeng managed to force out: ‘Who — what — are you?’

‘You know my brothers and sisters,’ he answered, his voice appropriately deep and smooth.

‘Brothers? Sisters?’

The monster nodded, perhaps grinning even more. ‘Boar, tiger, bull, wolf, eagle, bear …’

‘The beast gods. The old gods.’

The creature gave an all-too-human nod of assent. ‘Yes. Some name them Togg, Fener, Ryllandaras, Fanderay, Argen, Tennerock, Balal, Great-Wing, Earth-Shaker … their names are too many for anyone to know them all.’

‘There is no leopard god among all those names.’

The man-monster closed the distance between them in a blur. Its black muzzle brushed across her face as if taking her scent. ‘You have the right of that, Priestess. I am the one none dared worship. And do not mistake me, child. I am not a scavenger. I never skulked about your villages. To me you are the beasts. You are just another kind of pig. I am the reason your kind fear the night.’

Saeng turned her face away from the stink of its hot damp breath. ‘What do you want from me? You name me priestess. I am no priestess.’

‘You are that and more. Priestess, witch, mage. All we possess, all we know, has been poured within you.’

‘Poured? What do you mean?’

The creature tilted its head as if considering its words and paced off a distance. ‘The future, child. Any one point in time leads off into a near infinity of choices. Yet a blight sits astride an entire span of these. A catastrophe is threatening. Some of us see its approach. Others …’ his voice hardened to a snarl, ‘those who would stand aside, choose to ignore it.’

‘What does this have to do with me?’

‘It is possible that you may either ensure it or avert it. The choice is yours.’

Saeng found that the edge of her terror had eased. In fact, she was becoming rather irritated. She threw out her arms. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about!’

The creature turned its feline head to face her. ‘Really? You do not recognize where you are? Where I have brought you?’

‘Not a damn bit of it.’

Gesturing, the man-leopard invited her to approach the hillock. ‘Examine the façade.’

Saeng approached warily. She edged around the creature, giving it a wide berth. Next to the extraordinarily steep staircase the wall of the hillock, or temple, or whatever it was, held a wide band of sculpted figures. Vines and leaves obscured them, but they appeared to be walking in some sort of grand procession. They wore archaic costumes of short pants tight at the calves and their chests were bare — both men and women. All carried goods such as sheaves of grain or baskets of produce; some led buffalo, others pigs. She followed the processional along one side to where it ended at some sort of stylized tall shape: perhaps this very building itself. Some sigil or glyph stood atop the building and Saeng had to pull off the clinging vines and brush away the dirt and mat of roots to see revealed there the squat rayed oval that was the ancient sign of the old Sun god.

She flung herself from the gritty stone wall, nearly tripping on the many roots that criss-crossed the bare ground. She glared about for the creature but he was gone. Standing some distance off was a new figure, this one unmistakable as a Thaumaturg in his dark robes and gripping his rod of office.

As she watched, terrified, he raised his face and thrust the veined black and white stone baton skyward. The light dimmed as if dusk were gathering with unnatural speed and the colour of what light remained took on an unnatural emerald tinge. The disc of the sun itself seemed to diminish as though another object were swallowing it. Saeng had seen the sun eclipsed before but that event was nothing like this. The darkness deepened into a murky green as the object loomed ever closer. It was part of the Jade Banner, now descending, and it seemed as if it would swallow the sky, the world, entire.

‘And behold!’ the Thaumaturg bellowed into a sudden profound silence. ‘The sun is blotted from the sky!’

Now a roar gathered so loud it deadened her hearing. A mountain of flame fell upon them. It obliterated the trees, the man, the ground, herself, even the enormous mass of stone behind her as if it were no more than a clot of dirt.

Saeng awoke gasping and clutching at the dry leaves beneath her. In a quick step Hanu was next to her.

‘What is it?’

She forced her hands to relax, eased her taut jaws and exhaled. ‘Bad dreams.’

He answered with something like a mental shrug of understanding. ‘Yes. But now that you are awake we should go.’

‘Fine!’ She pushed back her hair and suppressed a groan; it was hardly dawn. She broke her fast with cold rice. Their supplies were getting low. Another day, perhaps, then they would be searching for mushrooms and roots.

They climbed down the overgrown rocks just as dawn brightened the eastern treetops. Beneath the canopy it was still dark and Saeng struggled to keep up with Hanu. Off a way through the trees an immense shape reared, easily three times the height of any man, and Hanu froze in his tracks. A great black muzzle turned towards the cliff outcropping and sniffed the air.

‘Back to your home!’ Saeng urged the huge cave bear. ‘We will trouble you no more.’

A growl of complaint rumbled their way; then the beast fell back to his forepaws, shaking the ground and sending a shower of leaves falling all about, and lumbered off. Hanu turned his helmed head her way as if to say: that was too close for comfort.

She waved him on, dismissing the entire episode.

Their return route was much more direct than their way out. They found the countryside deserted. Thin smoke rose from the direction of the village of Nan and this troubled her more than seeing villages merely abandoned. Were the Thaumaturgs burning as they went along? Yet why do that? To deter desertion? She hurried her pace.

It was past twilight when they entered familiar fields. Hanu motioned aside to the woods where Saeng most often used to hide to confer with the ghosts of the land. She went on alone. At least the village hadn’t been burned, yet most of the huts were dark where usually one or two lamps would be kept burning against the night. Their family hut was dark as well. Trash littered the yard and the reed door hung open.

‘Mother?’ she hissed. ‘Mother? Are you there?’

Inside was a mess. Looters, or soldiers, had come and gone. Anything of any possible value had been taken, as had every scrap of food. Through a window she saw that the small garden had been dug up and that the chickens and pigs were gone. Saeng searched her own feelings and found that she really didn’t care that the hut had been ransacked, or that her few meagre possessions had been taken. All that concerned her was her mother. Where was she? Was she all right?

She headed to the nearest light and found Mae Ran, one of the oldest of her neighbours, sitting on the wood steps leading up to her small hut. ‘Who is this?’ the old woman asked in a fearful quavering voice as Saeng came walking up. ‘Are you a ghost to trouble an old woman?’

‘It is Saeng, Mae. What has happened here?’

‘What is that? Saeng, you say?’ The old woman squinted up at her. ‘Janath’s daughter?’

‘Yes. Where is she?’

‘Saeng? Back so soon?’

‘Back? What do you mean — back?’

‘Janath said you’d gone on a pilgrimage to some temple or other …’

Saeng pressed the heel of a hand to her forehead. Gods! Mother! ‘Well … I’m back. What happened?’

‘What happened?’ She waved a shaking hand to encompass the village. ‘The Thaumaturgs came and took what they wanted. Food, animals. The hale men and women. Only we elders and babes left now. Every decade it is so. It is as I have always said — no sense gathering too much wealth to yourself, for the gods will always send a plague to take it from you. If not our Thaumaturg masters, then locusts, or fire, or flood. Such is the lot of humanity …’

Gods, old woman! I did not ask for a sermon. ‘Thank you, Mae — yes. I agree. So, where is my mother? Is she well? Where did she go?’

Mae blinked up at her, confused, and Saeng saw her eyes clouded by the milky white of cataract and her heart wrenched. Ah! Ancients! I am too harsh. Who remains now to look after this elder? Or the others? Could they labour in the fields? Harvest bark from the trees to boil to quell the pangs of starvation? And the infants? Who shall mind them? The army of our masters obviously judged them too much a burden to be worth their effort. How dare I denounce them for it yet prove as heartless?

‘Go?’ the old woman repeated as though in wonder. ‘Why, nowhere. She is with Chana, her mother’s brother’s youngest.’

‘Ah! Aunt Chana. Thank you. You take care of yourself, Mae. Take care.’

The white orbs swung away. ‘We must hold to what we have, child. It is all there is.’

‘Well — thank you, Mae. Farewell.’

Saeng backed away from the hut and made for her aunt’s house across the village. It seemed strange to her that her mother should have gone to Chana’s — ever since she could remember the two had only bickered and argued. Nearing the dwelling she found light flickering within and she stopped at the steps up to the front porch. ‘Hello? Auntie Chana? It’s Saeng …’

Thunder rumbled in the distance while she waited, and a thin mist of the last of the evening rain brushed her hair and face. Clouds appeared from the east, massing for another downpour. ‘Saeng?’ a voice called, her mother’s. ‘Is that you?’

She appeared on the veranda, a young child at her shoulder. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

Saeng nearly gaped. ‘Mother,’ she answered, outraged. ‘What kind of welcome is that? I was worried sick about you. I came to check-’

Her mother waved a hand. ‘Oh, I am fine. I’m helping Chana.’ She indicated the child. ‘Look, little Non.’

Saeng frowned her puzzlement. ‘Non?’

Her mother rolled her eyes. ‘Chana’s husband’s sister’s son! You know! Non.’

‘No, I don’t — I mean, I know the name,’ she finished lamely.

‘Oh, and old man Pelu? Next door?’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s dead. His heart gave out when the Thaumaturgs came through.’

‘Ah. Thank you, Mother. I really needed to know that.’

‘Well, I thought you’d be interested. You liked him. He always gave you candied pineapple. Remember when you were four you ate so much you threw up?’

‘Mother! Our house has been ransacked!’

She pressed a hand to Non’s head. ‘Quiet! You’ll wake him. Yes, they came stomping through in their muddy sandals.’ She looked to the lad nuzzling her neck. ‘But we’ll clean it up, won’t we, Non? Would you like to help your auntie?’

Saeng took a step backwards to steady herself. She felt outraged. Didn’t her mother care? Yet here she was busy and needed — getting on with her life. Holding on to what she has. ‘I was worried about you …’

Her mother smiled warmly. ‘That is sweet of you, Saeng. But worry about yourself. They asked about you, you know. Questioned everyone. They claimed you were an agent of the demoness! What silliness! No one said anything, of course.’

Now Saeng thought she was dreaming still. No one said anything? Her thoughts must have shown on her face as her mother tsked and said, ‘Saeng, really … you’re related to half the people here. And everyone’s proud. You’ve kept the Nak-ta quiet for more than ten years now. No one’s been taken in that time. Not like Pra-Wan. What a terrible time they’ve had of it there!’

Saeng felt like sitting down to steady herself. Was this really her village? And what of Hanu? Should she tell her? Perhaps not — she would want to see him and that would be too cruel.

Her mother reached out to smooth her hair. ‘Poor Saeng. You always held yourself apart. You spent more time with those awful spirits than the living.’

Saeng bit back her argument that it was her beliefs and manners that had held them apart — wasn’t it? Yet it was too late to revisit such ground. Gently she removed her mother’s hand. ‘Well, I know what to do now, Mother. You were right. There is somewhere I must go.’

‘Of course, Saeng. I knew it would come to you. You are the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter going back generations. It has always been so.’

‘Goodbye, Mother. Take care of little Non.’

‘Of course. That is also how it has always been.’

Saeng kissed the palm of her mother’s hand and turned away. On a path east of the village Hanu fell into step with her. Other than the firmness of his footsteps only the deep green glint from the inlaid stones of his armour revealed his presence in the absolute dark of night.

‘And Mother?’

‘She is safe, Hanu,’ Saeng sighed. ‘She is safe and well.’

* * *

When the door to her private chambers was thrown open, Hannal Leath, abbess of Tali’s monastery of Our Lady of the Visions, threw the covers over the naked body of her latest lover and glared at the offending acolyte. She wanted to say something properly majestic and abbess-like, such as: What is the meaning of this intrusion? But what slipped out was a high-pitched: ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

The young acolyte stood blinking at the bed, wide-eyed. Hannal followed her gaze to the impressive tenting of the sheet over her lover’s midsection. She slapped Javich’s thigh and he rolled on to his side. ‘What is it?’ she repeated.

The young woman swallowed, flushed. ‘She’s on her way, m’lady.’

‘What? Whatever do you mean?’

‘The contemplation pool. It’s glowing. She’s coming. Now.’

Hannal leaped to her feet on the bed, naked. ‘What? Now? Great impotent gods! You,’ she kicked Javich, ‘get out of here! You,’ she pointed to the acolyte, ‘collect my clothes.’

‘Yes, Abbess.’

Hannal paced the bed. ‘Of all the shrines and temples and schools … she has to come here?’ She clutched at her neck. ‘What have I done? Have I displeased her?’

Javich opened his mouth to say something but she pointed to the door. Bowing, he backed out, a sheet gathered at his waist. The acolyte handed over her clothes and she hurriedly dressed.

Ahead, up the hall of the monastery, a silvery light played among the pillars and stone arches. It rippled over the marble flags, the domed roofs and wall niches making it seem as if the entire building were underwater. As Hannal approached the inner sanctuary, she saw that the light spilled out of the doors to the central cynosure. She paused at the threshold, hands on the tall door leaves, already short of breath, and took in the milling crowd of nuns, guards and acolytes. She snapped a finger. ‘All of you — out. Now!’ She stood aside and they hurried past her, robes hiked up, feet slapping the polished marble floor. She took hold of the leaves. ‘No one enters,’ she told the guards. ‘Is that understood?’

‘Yes, Abbess.’

‘Good.’ She slammed shut the doors.

Oh, gracious goddess, what am I going to do? She ran to the stone lip of the central reflecting pool. Its quicksilver liquid rippled and shook as if agitated by her own anxieties. What am I to do? One touch and I’ll burn to ash!

The surface of the liquid metal bowed upwards in a wave as if disturbed from below and she hissed her uncertainty. Tongs? A fork? No — anything would burn. Centuries of Warren-ritual have gone into this instrument and I don’t even know how it works!

A hand emerged through the surface. The quicksilver beaded from it, running between the fingers. Hannal gaped, then thrust up her sleeves. Well — only thing for it. She reached out and clasped the hand, then gasped her exquisite pain as she found the flesh beyond frigid cold.

The hand tugged, almost heaving her over the raised lip of the pool. But Hannal had been a soldier before answering the call of the Queen and she had strong thighs. She braced herself against the ledge, pulling back just as insistently. An arm emerged — and not a shapely dancer’s arm: a thick muscled limb, and quite hairy. My goddess has the arms of a washerwoman!

Hannal yanked even more strongly despite the fact that the skin of her palm and fingers was cracking and the blood was hissing and smoking as it dripped to the pool’s juddering surface. She slapped her other hand to the wrist and hauled. A scalp emerged bearing straight brown hair. Another arm splashed up from the pool spraying droplets that burned where they touched, but Hannal clenched down on her agony and heaved with all her considerable muscle and heft.

Something gave, or a tipping point was reached, and the figure slipped towards Hannal as if down a slick chute to flop over the lip of the pool and fall to the stone floor in a slapping of limbs and grunts of pain. The quicksilver liquid ran over the marble, hissing and eating into the surface until it dissipated into mist.

Hannal got down on to her knees and lay prostrate on her stomach before her goddess.

‘Oh, just help me up,’ the Queen of Dreams croaked.

Abbess Hannal threw open the doors to the cynosure of the monastery. Beyond, the gathered acolytes and guards stopped their whispering and hushed arguments. She knew she appeared a fright in only her thin shift scorched and burned through, with further red burns down her arms. ‘Bring warm water, towels and clothes,’ she ordered, then slammed shut the doors.

Much louder murmurings resumed out in the hall.

She hurried back to where the Enchantress now sat on the lip of the pool, wrapped in her outer robes. She was examining her arms, pinching the flesh of her hands. ‘It has been … a very long time,’ she said to herself.

Hannal knelt before her once more. ‘You honour me, my goddess.’

The Enchantress shook her head. ‘I am no goddess.’

‘Your capabilities, your various manifestations, are godlike to us. Therefore we choose to name you such.’

‘Well … you are free to do as you choose.’

‘Have we displeased you? Have you come to censure us?’

‘Censure you?’

Hannal wet her lips. ‘The … lesson of Kartool … is never far from mind these days.’

‘Ah. No, nothing like that.’ She shook her head again, smiling, and Hannal lowered her gaze, for unworthy thoughts played across her mind. Thoughts of how in person the Enchantress was far from the beauty she projected to her penitents. She was in fact a middle-aged woman with unruly mousy brown hair, short, a touch on the heavy side, with facial moles and — forgive me, Goddess! — the dark dusting of a moustache.

When Hannal glanced back she saw the smile had broadened into something that appeared self-deprecating. ‘The actual truth, Hannal,’ the Queen of Dreams murmured, ‘is always far from pretty.’

The abbess ducked her head once more, shamed. ‘You honour me.’

‘I offer you the truth. Call that an honour, if you choose. Most prefer to have their expectations fulfilled with lies.’

Quiet timorous knocking sounded from the doors. Hannal bowed, backing away. She opened one leaf a crack and snatched the proffered clothes, towels and bowl of water from the acolytes who struggled to peer in past her, then slammed it shut. While the Enchantress washed herself, Hannal faced away, asking, ‘May I ask, then, why you have come here to Tali?’

A throaty amused chuckle answered that. ‘I suppose again I should say something flattering but I will not patronize you. I did not come because of the strength of your devotion, or the purity of your spirit, or any such thing. I came because this is the closest centre to where I wish to travel.’

Hannal frowned, puzzled. ‘Travel, my goddess? Surely all the world is open to you. You may travel as you wish.’

Again the husky barmaid’s chuckle. ‘Ah, Hannal. I suppose that would be true were I a goddess. But in fact there are many places that are closed to me. And it is important that I travel to one such now. The time has come.’

Such words drove Hannal to abase herself once again upon the polished marble floor. ‘Enchantress! Perhaps such knowledge is not for me.’

The Queen of Dreams paused in her dressing. ‘Now I am the one distressed to hear such words. Are you or are you not an abbess of my calling? Knowledge is neither good nor bad — it is what you choose to do with it that matters. What you should know is that an opportunity is approaching … a rare chance to pose challenges where none have dared do so for a very long time. And to demand answers that have been avoided for far too long. Now, Abbess, stand — if you would.’

Chastened, and rather terrified by the sharing of knowledge that could be mortal for her, Hannal rose to her feet and dared a glance to her goddess. The woman now wore sandals, trousers of some sturdy weave, and a loose shirt beneath layered open robes. A long white silk cloth wrapped her head and a veil hung over her features leaving her eyes alone uncovered. And those dark eyes seemed to possess a startling allure now that all else was hidden.

‘So, has my champion arrived?’ the Queen asked.

Hannal blinked her uncertainty. ‘Your … champion?’

‘Well, let us say … my bodyguard, my spokeswoman.’

‘Who — who would that be, my goddess?’

The Queen of Dreams crossed her thick arms; above the veil her dark brows wrinkled. ‘The woman would be wearing a cloak no doubt, and keeping her face hidden.’

‘Ah … But, my lady of prescience, I assure you there is no one here who answers that-’ Hannal clamped shut her mouth. ‘There is an odd itinerant who has slept on the steps of the monastery these last few days. We have been feeding her. She keeps herself wrapped in a filthy cloak.’

‘Has this one spoken to anyone?’

Hannal cocked her head in thought. ‘Not that I know of. No, I believe not.’

The Queen of Dreams smiled behind her veil. ‘Very good. Have her brought to me.’

Hannal bowed and returned to the doors. All became quiet again as she pulled open one leaf. She paused, blinking, as it appeared that the entire constituency of the monastery was gathered in the outer vestibule: every acolyte, nun, priestess, guard, cook and groundskeeper. A sea of faces stared back at her, expectant. ‘Get that itinerant,’ she hissed to Churev, the highest ranking priestess nearby.

‘Who?’ the woman answered, trying to peer in past her.

‘The one outside on the steps! Is she still there? By the Deceiver, you haven’t driven her off, have you? Get her. Bring her!’

Churev bowed. ‘At once, Abbess.’

Hannal slammed the door and leaned against it. Goddess forgive us! Well, now I suppose I could just ask …

Not too long after a knock sounded and Hannal heaved open the leaf. The cowled and cloak-wrapped beggar faced her, Churev at her side. Hannal motioned in the silent woman, while at the same time throwing an arm across the open portal to block all the others surging forward. She managed to urge everyone back far enough to press shut the door. Meanwhile, the homeless beggarwoman had walked on alone to stand before the Queen of Dreams.

Hannal hurried to her side to hiss: ‘Bow before our goddess!’

The beggarwoman merely turned her hooded head to cast her the briefest of glances. Hannal caught nothing of what lay within that hood.

‘Thank you for answering my call.’ The Enchantress addressed the figure. ‘And thank you for tolerating such shameful disguise. The time for it has passed — you may cast it aside.’

The figure seemed to merely shrug and the heavy travel-stained cloak fell away revealing a sturdy woman in travelling leathers, twin narrow swords at her sides. But what drove Hannal back one step was the nearly plain white mask at the woman’s face.

Nearly plain! My goddess! I know what that means!

‘Now we can go. Ina, you may lead the way. We must go straight to the harbour.’ She directed what appeared to be an amused smile at Hannal. ‘As they say — my ship is about to come in.’

The Seguleh woman immediately turned to the doors. Hannal jumped from her path. ‘And I? Shall I come?’

The Enchantress waved a hand, unconcerned. ‘You may arrange an escort, if you must.’

Despite her light leather armour, her weapons, the Seguleh champion crossed the polished stone floor soundlessly to pull open both leaves of the portal. Priestesses and acolytes who had been pressed up against the doors listening fell in a tumble at her leather-wrapped feet. The entire jammed crowd of the vestibule gaped at this sudden masked apparition, until, in a rush of feet, they frantically scrambled to either side.

Ina advanced and the veiled and robed figure of the Queen of Dreams emerged.

For a moment the assembled priestesses and staff of the monastery stared, taking in this new arrival, then thoughts turned to the awakened portal within, for it was known to all that no other entrance existed, and one by one, then the rest in unison, they knelt and bowed their heads.

Abbess Hannal emerged last. She grasped the sleeve of the nearest priestess, hissed, ‘Assemble the guards, get torches, surround them! Let none approach!’ She swallowed her panic, caught sight of the folds of the thin slip she wore. ‘And get me some damned clothes!’

That night what appeared to be a bizarre religious procession tramped through the streets of Tali. Those few citizens awake during the third hour before sunrise, these being the night watch, city bakers and their apprentices, wandering drunks, and some few others whose business brought them out at such an hour — the nature of such business precluding them from ever admitting to being abroad at that time — later swore to hearing and catching glimpses of a torchlit convoy that wound its way down out of the temple district and on towards the waterfront. The mother of a family that slept on the street near the broad arched gate to the temple district, ever hopeful for alms, swore that the coin she used to pay for a room in a tenement house came from a priestess in that very procession. It was her opinion that they were of the hidden temple of the Shattered God escorting a human sacrifice to her doom.

At the waterfront the cordon of guards and priestesses spread out surrounding Hannal, Ina and the Queen of Dreams. By this time Hannal was frantic. Did her Queen expect her to have contracted a ship? What was her intention? No one was even up — how could she negotiate for a vessel? She was considering sending runners to all the nearby ships to bash on the decks or sides when she felt at her side the presence of her goddess. She bowed.

‘Do not worry, Hannal. Transport has been arranged.’

‘Of course, my Queen. Which one?’

‘None of these. I’ve … negotiated … to borrow a very special vessel.’

Hannal could not help but cast a quick glance to the quiet harbour. ‘And it will be arriving soon?’

The goddess smiled behind her veil. ‘Very soon. I merely have to call it …’ She advanced towards a section of empty wharf and Hannal waved to clear the priestesses and guards from her path. At the timbers’ jagged ends the Queen gestured out over the water below then crossed her arms. She looked to be waiting. Hannal dared to step up next to her. She peered down. The murky darkness of the harbour waters beneath the wharf appeared unchanged. She glanced to the Seguleh woman, Ina: she was looking behind them, back across the wharf front, ignoring anything that might be happening on the water. Of course, any threat would rush them from the streets, wouldn’t it?

A flickering from under the wharf snapped her gaze down. A silvery light rippled from the water beneath the floating sticks and refuse. The rotting timbers of the wharf juddered under her feet as if kicked. The surface of the harbour waters swelled.

The escort of priestesses and guards backed away from the edge of the wharf leaving Hannal, Ina and the Queen alone.

The swelling domed like an enormous bubble. From within this bulge a vessel’s bow arose to breach the surface in a great hissing and slither of water. What appeared to be the most alien ship Hannal had ever seen emerged. As long as a war galley it was, with a series of oar ports, dark and empty, lining its side. Yet it was completely closed across its top as if sealed to all access. A tall stern rudder was the last of it to heave into sight and the bow eased down into the water with a gentle sigh. No colours or sigil marked the dark polished planks of its sides and stern.

‘Who,’ Hannal stammered in wonder, ‘whose vessel is this?’

‘Mine, temporarily. It has been lost in the Shoals since the magus who built it died — slipped in a bathhouse and cracked his skull, rather ironically. I’ve been keeping an eye on it.’

Hannal’s mouth had dried. The Shoals? Isn’t that some sort of gyre of trapped ships? Some say Mael’s own purgatory for lost sailors … She cleared her throat. ‘And who … who is the captain?’ Hood himself?

The Queen regarded her, amused. ‘No captain. No crew. You could say the ship is — enchanted.’ She headed for a wooden ladder down from the wharf to the pier that the nameless vessel rubbed against. Ina quickly stepped ahead to lead the way, which she did smoothly, landing like a cat.

Hannal gripped the rough wood of the top rung. ‘Where are you headed, my goddess?’

The Queen of Dreams raised her veiled face from the dark where she stood on the wave-splashed floating pier. ‘For a chat. A long-delayed chat with an old acquaintance.’

No gangway or opening was in evidence along the side of the vessel. Yet the Seguleh swordswoman somehow vaulted atop the planking of the flat deck. Kneeling, she extended an arm. The Queen took it, and in this rather awkward and undignified manner scrambled her way up the slick side and on to the deck.

Old acquaintance? Hannal was thinking. Who …? For the life of her, she had no idea who that might be. Something for the cult archivists and researchers to sink their teeth into … And we, of course, out of all our rivals, possess the best of these.

Her last sight of the goddess and her champion was of two small figures painted in the sickly green tinge of the Visitor standing atop the long sweep of the vessel as it made its grave and stately way out of the harbour. Driven by no means discernible to her.

* * *

… and farther along the river we did come upon numerous populated urban centres whose inhabitants were unrelenting in their hostility and antagonism to our advance … Golan rubbed his gritty eyes and adjusted the sheet of plant fibre in the light of his single candle. Unfriendly indigenes, yes. No surprise there. Why should they welcome an invading army? And why should this Bakar, a ragged survivor — a deserter no doubt — claim otherwise?

Golan scanned further down the parchment … of the manifold monstrosities that assaulted us, the man-leopard was the worst. Countless soldiers fell in the river of red that was his rabid hunger. Yet this is not to diminish the daily predations of the snake-women, or the carnivorous bird-women … Bird-women? Golan pinched his eyes. False gods! Please let there be one useful scintilla of information he could sift from this ridiculous fabrication.

Inland from the river, at a distance of some leagues, we did perceive large structures tall above the canopy of forest and we remaining few were cheered for we believed we had at last arrived at the fabled Jakal Viharn itself and would soon walk its golden pavements and claim the gossamer magics that infuse its streets, and capture its ruling deathless great Queen herself. A floating reception of some four thousands of natives met us, occupying some hundreds of war canoes. The inhabitants wore brilliant feather cloaks — or so we thought at first. Only the ferocity of Master Rust’s theurgist response allowed us to escape their attack. From the resultant great conflagration I alone did emerge …

Golan let the account fall to the table and sat back, sighing. Four thousand warriors? Hundreds of war canoes? This deserter ought to have been more modest in his invention; this strained credulity beyond reason. And Jakal Viharn as a great city in the jungle? Please! It’s jungle! Raw primitive nature could in no way support such a large population. Only agriculture is capable of that. These indigenes — if any at all — must certainly number no more than a few scattered hundreds squatting in leaf huts, digging grubs and scratching their flea-bitten bare behinds.

He sipped his wine and stared at the blank canvas wall of the tent. Already mould and damp stained its weave. Beyond, monkeys howled to the risen moon and a roar sounded from the distance, some sort of hunting cat. The truth behind this man-leopard, perhaps? And yet … earlier Masters admit that some few survivors of their first experiments did escape. And of these, some may have made their way to the jungles and there survived. This no doubt is the real truth behind these accounts of bird-headed men and snake-women, and other such monstrosities glimpsed in the night and embellished in the imagination.

And speaking of monstrosities …

Golan tapped his baton to the table and the flap was lifted. ‘Yes, Lord Thaumaturg?’ U-Pre enquired.

‘What news of our Isturé?’

‘They say their commander has not yet returned from pursuing one of the night creatures.’

‘And how many of them are unaccounted for?’

‘Just the four, Master.’

Golan stirred the wine glass. ‘Very good. Keep a close eye on our guests. Let me know immediately if any more “disappear”.’

‘Yes, Master.’

Bowing, the second in command let the flap fall. Golan now frowned at the fibre paper and its handwritten account. Produced under duress — mustn’t forget that. Still, our outlander Skinner and his Isturé seem assured that what they deal with here is known to them — these D’ivers and Soletaken. Perhaps. Perhaps the truth is a mixture of all. In any case, such genealogy is no interest of ours. It suffices only that Skinner deal with them, allowing his forces to subjugate Ardata and her ragged-arse people. Surely that is not asking too much.

Then Skinner can squat in these woods, if he likes.

For a time.

Golan partook of a modest meal of vegetable stew and bread baked of a coarsely cracked grain. He was about to return to his reading when his rod of office, set within its iron stand, developed a frosty blue glow. He immediately stood, snuffed the candle, then crossed to the tent entrance. Pulling aside the heavy cloth he ordered the yakshaka guard: ‘Let none enter.’

The guard bowed wordlessly. Golan let the cloth fall then found to his distaste that he had to wipe his hands of its slimy damp. Rotting already?

He arranged his robes and stood at attention before the baton. ‘I am here, Masters.’

‘There are troubling disturbances among the lines of power, Golan,’ came the wavering faint voice of Master Surin.

‘Disturbances, Master?’

‘How goes the advance? Any … complications as yet?’

‘None — as yet. We advance as scheduled.’

‘Very good, Golan. And the estimate of arrival at Jakal Viharn?’

‘No more than one moon.’

‘Very good. Continue your advance. We are already moving along your route. It would not do for us to have to step over you, would it?’

Golan bowed, touching his forehead to the ground. ‘No, Masters.’

The watery blue light flickered then disappeared as if snatched away. Golan was plunged into utter dark, as no light whatsoever could penetrate the heavy cloth of the tent. He cursed in the tar-like night. After crashing into the table and hearing the candle drop to the ground he was forced to summon a glow in order to locate it. A humiliatingly trivial use of his Thaumaturg training. To make up for the lapse he resolved to use mundane methods to relight the candle.

It was some time before the warm yellow glow of the candle reasserted itself. Golan sat back, snapping shut the tinderbox and flexing his hand, cramped as it was from clutching the flint. There! Well, success at last. Too bad it is now time to get some sleep … He reached out to snuff the wick.

‘Commander!’ U-Pre called from without.

Golan let his hand fall. ‘Yes!’ he snapped impatiently.

‘You are needed!’

Normally he would tell the man to wait until the morning but there was an unseemly urgency in his second in command’s voice — and Golan also knew he would not dare disturb him unless the matter were truly important. He picked up the candle to guide himself to the entrance then shook it out. ‘Coming,’ he sighed.

U-Pre guided him through the camp. A light rain fell and the ground was soft with it, oddly yielding, as if at any moment it would slide out from under Golan’s sandals. His yakshaka bodyguards had fallen in behind. ‘A soldier attacked his fellows,’ U-Pre was explaining. ‘He was on guard, and when he returned from the pickets he fell upon his phalam. He was killed during the resultant fight.’

One of Golan’s servants ran up from the dark. Bowing, the man offered a rolled parasol that Golan took and shook out to raise above his head — not only would it protect him from the unhealthy warm rain, but a parasol was also as much a marker of his rank as the baton itself. ‘And why, U-Pre, does such a pedestrian matter demand my immediate and personal attention?’

His second bowed as he led him along between puddles and fields of churned mud. ‘True, it may be the mere question of a personal grudge or hatred. But the soldiers are talking … already there are rumours …’

‘Such as?’

‘Possession. The work of the Demon-Queen. An insanity carried by the unhealthy vapours of the rains and the land. That the water-terror madness now walks among us. Or that the ghosts of the jungle had driven him amok. The mazes of Himatan. A fate that awaits us all …’

‘Enough, U-Pre. I believe I see the pattern. All the worst possibilities.’ Ahead, a cordon of officers held back a crowd of curious soldiers. Golan waved a hand over his shoulder. ‘Disperse these gawkers.’

Two of his yakshaka bodyguards lumbered forward. The soldiers melted before them. The minor field officers bowed, moving aside. Golan moved up to examine the scene of the fight. He stepped daintily over the wet fresh corpses where they lay sprawled. Grievous injuries! The soldier must have been wielding the largest of weapons — perhaps a two-handed yataghan. He bent to study the multiple slashes across one man’s torso. Frenzied, these cuts — artless.

Without raising his head he asked: ‘And the attacker?’

U-Pre found the carcass, pointed with his rattan stick of office. The rain pattered lightly on Golan’s parasol as he bent to his haunches next to the body. He scanned the man’s multiple wounds. ‘Many of these are severely debilitating,’ he said aloud, musing.

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Yet he appears to have ignored them all to continue his attack.’ Golan found a broken stick, which he used to edge the man’s head over; he found bloody pink foam at the lips and chin. ‘Ergo the rumours, good U-Pre.’ The fellow’s face was also frozen in a grotesque mask, as if in a frenzy, or extreme agony.

‘Yes, lord.’

‘However,’ and Golan began examining the corpse’s limbs, ‘a number of possible causes exist for said foaming, the rictus, and the apparent indifference to pain. Ah — and here we are …’ He held up the man’s right foot.

U-Pre bent closer, frowning. He saw a swollen circular wound, discoloured, a ferocious red lump on the sole of the man’s foot. ‘And this is?’

‘The bite of the yellow recluse. Its venom attacks the nerves inducing a horrific anguish greater than any a mundane torturer could inflict. I’ve heard it described as an “ecstasy of agony.” The man was driven to commit suicide to escape the pain.’

U-Pre’s tanned features paled and he swallowed. ‘And … this yellow recluse … it is rare?’

Golan wiped his hands on the already muddy trim of his robes. ‘Quite common, actually. Have the troops briefed regarding them — and all the other poisonous spiders. And the scorpions, of course. And the stinging red centipedes.’

U-Pre was nodding. ‘Stinging red centipedes, yes. Anything else?’

Golan gave a negligent wave. ‘Oh yes, but those are the worst. The rest are just nuisances. It is possible to survive their bites.’

‘I am ever so reassured, sir.’

Golan chuckled, straightening. ‘The campaign is loosening you up, good U-Pre. Have the bodies buried without witnesses.’

‘Yes, lord.’

Golan signed to his yakshaka and headed back to his tent. Along the way he mused: a lost yakshaka soldier, an early attack from one of the odd sports that infest Ardata’s lands, the troops seething with rumours already, our Isturé allies missing … It is as I informed the Nine: nothing of any significance as yet.

* * *

Alone in the jungle, Kenjak Ashevajak paused, listening. Drops falling from the high canopy struck the ferns and brush around him in a constant low patter. The humus beneath his feet shifted under his weight as the water saturating it oozed within. Somewhere to his left a short beast nosed the rotting logs and heaped leaves. As he stood frozen, knees bent, shortsword out, the beast snuffled its way around the trunk of a tree to emerge as a hairy anteater. Normally, Kenjak would kill the beast for meat — but he did not want the Thaumaturg and his men to eat. He hissed his imitation of a hunting fire cat and the anteater jumped, startled. Its quills rattled erect and it backed warily away. Kenjak shooed it on.

A new scent brushed his nose and he breathed again, testing for it. He crooked a smile. Thet-mun. The kid’s stink was unique. ‘I hear you,’ he murmured, waving to his left. ‘Who is it? Myint? Thet? Loor-San?’

A good distance away a figure straightened from the brush. Thet-mun. ‘How could you have heard me?’ the skinny youth complained. ‘You always hear me.’

Crouching, Kenjak waved him close. ‘What news? How are the lads?’

The youth adjusted his undersized leather cap and his ancient discoloured hauberk. His hair hung wet and his lean weasel-like face was a livid flushed crimson from some sort of illness that he could not shake. ‘Hungry. Unhappy.’

‘What does Myint say?’

‘She doesn’t like the idea of taking the Thaumaturg. Says it won’t play out.’

Kenjak slammed his shortsword into its sheath. ‘We don’t want the damned Thaumaturg! That’s not the plan! What in the name of the Night Spirits did you tell her?’

The lad — perhaps only a year or two junior to Kenjak — flinched, then pouted, shrugging. ‘Nothing different from what you told me …’

‘Never mind. Listen. Forget the Thaumaturg bastard-’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Thet-mun grumbled. ‘We ain’t never taken one of them down afore.’

Kenjak cuffed him across his tiny leather cap. ‘We aren’t going to. Okay? Now listen. The bitch — is she still headed into the Fangs?’

Straightening his cap, the lad nodded sulkily. ‘Yeah. Plain as day. Them yakshaka leave a trail like an elephant.’

‘By the Abyss. Maybe she really is working for the Demon-Queen.’

‘If that’s the case, me ’n’ the lads, we think we should head-’

‘I don’t care what you and the lads think. Tell Myint and Loor I’m taking them to Chanar Keep.’

The lad gaped, then giggled, covering his uneven rotting teeth as if self-conscious because of them. ‘Naw — no way they’d go in there!’

Kenjak knew their deathly fear of Chanar Keep — and the reason behind it. He used that very dread to build his own reputation among them. All they knew was that he and his right-hand man, Loor, could enter the ruins as they pleased, never mind how. He gave the lad an exaggerated wink. ‘I told this Thaumaturg I’d introduce him to Khun-Sen.’

The lad’s eyes widened in amazement. ‘No way! Great gods …’ He hunched suddenly, pressing down on his cap. ‘But then … no way I’m going in there!’

Kenjak raised a placating hand. ‘Fine. Don’t. Loor and I will. Tell him to go ahead and clean the place up. It has to look halfway decent.’

‘Well — so long as we’re nowhere near there come nightfall …’

‘Yes. That’s the plan. Then we collect the bitch and the yakshaka.’

Thet-mun wiped his grimed sleeve across his nose and dropped his gaze. ‘Yeah … about that …’

Kenjak quelled an urge to smack the lad across his head again. ‘We’ll fucking net him, okay? Tie him up and carry him! All right?’

‘I dunno, Jak. Sounds kinda risky. Maybe we should just lead this Thaumaturg to them and let ’em fight it out? Then we step in smooth as honey aft’wards … hey?’ and he peered up from under his brows, warily.

‘Because there’s too many of them, okay? Need to level the odds. Because he might blow our prize into little pretty pieces! All sorts of possibilities, all right? Yes?’

The lad was digging at his blackened fingernails. ‘Well … if you say so.’

‘Yes!’ Kenjak straightened. ‘Go on then.’

‘Well — actually — I kinda want that anteater …’

Kenjak hung his head. Ancient Demon-King forgive them! He waved him off. ‘Fine. Go get him.’

Grinning, Thet-mun drew a long curved knife from his belt. ‘Thank my old ma and da! Meat tonight!’ He ducked into the brush, disappearing.

Kenjak stood still, listening once again, but heard nothing. The lad really is damned quiet. Too bad he stinks so gods-awful. He headed back to the column.

Before entering the camp pickets he stashed the shortsword where he could retrieve it tomorrow morning. When he returned to camp the soldiers grabbed his arms and marched him to their commander. Overseer Tun ignored the fact that he returned of his own cognizance and took hold of his neck and drove him to his knees where the Thaumaturg rested in the shade of the wide leaves of a plantain tree, all to impress him with his diligence and ruthlessness.

‘Well, Jak,’ the young officer demanded, ‘you have found the trail?’

‘Yes, Magister. They are still headed east. She must be returning to the Demon-Queen!’

The youth fanned his gleaming sweaty face, frowning. ‘I did not ask for your opinion.’

Tun cuffed him across the back of his head and tears started from his eyes — the overseer had metal studs on his thick gloves. ‘Yes, Magister.’

‘How far ahead?’

‘A good three days at least, lord. They are moving faster than us. Yakshaka never rest, do they?’

A scowl of distaste from the Thaumaturg brought another strike to Kenjak’s head. Stars flashed in his vision. His swimming gaze found a wide concourse of ants winding their way up and down the trunk of the tall plantain. While he watched, a gang of the black insects struggled with the cumbersome load of a captured nectar wasp; they were dragging it down to the nest somewhere among the roots. Kenjak took great satisfaction from that sign offered up by the jungle itself: unimportant, unremarked beings overcoming and winning a far larger prize.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he began, ‘M’lord, if I may …’

Still fanning himself, the Thaumaturg youth — some snotty privileged spoiled noble’s son! — signed that he might continue. ‘Seven Peaks Pass, Magister. Chanar Keep. It will cut days from the journey.’

The young man’s gaze returned from wherever he had gone in his contemplation then slid to him. His long straight black hair fell forward and he pushed it back, adjusting the jade comb that held it secured at the nape of his neck. A surge of rage coursed through Kenjak at the sight of his preening. Pampered rich boy! No servant now to comb that so carefully kept mane. Soon enough I’ll have that piece of jewellery and I will use it to yank the knots from my hair!

‘So you insist,’ the Thaumaturg sighed, as if tired of the matter. ‘If this is so — why hasn’t the girl taken it?’

‘These locals fear Khun-Sen. He used to raid them.’

The Thaumaturg youth raised one quizzical brow. ‘Used to?’

Kenjak hung his head, feeling his cheeks flushing in his panic. Damn the Old King! What a stupid mistake!

‘Don’t pretend you’re no raider, Jak,’ the youth drily noted.

Kenjak stilled, his gaze on the layers of rotting leaves and branches across the jungle floor. An immense relief eased his shoulders and he went limp in the hands of the guards. He thinks I lied to protect myself. Thank the goddess.

‘We will take the trail to Seven Peaks Pass. You will lead us, Jak. I would pay my respects to old Khun-Sen.’

Kenjak bowed even lower, his arms held wide to either side. ‘As you command, Magister.’ You’ll pay your respects to him all right, you damned snotty puke. But not as you imagine!