Night of Knives

F

Rom Kiska’s side Artan signalled through the darkness to Hattar, who obviously couldn’t believe what he was being told. Artan signed again, insistent. Furious, Hattar slammed his weapons into their sheaths and stepped away from the door.

A soft laugh echoed all around the room; it whispered from every shadow. Kiska felt a familiar prickling at her neck and recognized the feeling for what it must be: the accessing of a Warren. She’d felt it a number of times with Agayla, when her Aunt sat with her legs curled under her as she dealt the Dragons deck. This time, however, the sensation was much more intense: dislocating and eerily sentient.

Beside her, Artan breathed deeply and shifted his stance, obviously readying for a confrontation he hadn’t expected or wanted.

‘A wise decision, Tay,’ murmured a voice like fine cloth brushing across itself.

Kiska bit back a yelp as the voice seemed to whisper from every shadow — even from over her shoulder, though her back touched the cold stone wall.

Standing in the open hall, the cultist pushed back his hood. The face and head were unremarkable: bristly short black hair, narrow fine features. No scars. The eyes, though, shone like jewels of jet. He stepped into the room, glanced at Hattar and smiled. The expression, dismissive, set Kiska’s teeth on edge.

Artan’s — Tay’s? — hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Evening, Tay’.

‘Evening.’

Kiska shot Artan a quick glance. Tay? Surely not Tay, as in Tayschrenn? Imperial High Mage, greatest of all talents aligned with the Empire!

The robed man chuckled lightly. His one-sided smile deepened. He seemed barely able to contain himself, as if at any moment he’d break out laughing at a joke known only to himself. ‘And what brings you here this night?’

‘As always,’ Artan replied, ‘concern for the Empire.’

The man cocked a brow. ‘So you still cling to that worn conceit of neutrality. Always the dutiful one.’

‘I serve the long term, as always.’

‘The long term? You serve yourself, Tay.’ The eyes flicked to Kiska. ‘And who is this?’

The dark pits of his eyes fascinated Kiska; she wanted to answer. Suddenly she wished to tell this man everything about her. Artan’s hand snatched painfully at her forearm. She winced, kept quiet.

‘She’s with me.’

The smile broadened. ‘Always an eye for talent, hmm, Tay?’

Artan remained silent, clenching his jaw as if hardening himself to the baiting. At that, the man’s smile dulled to a bored expression, the edges set into disappointment. He sighed. ‘Stay here if you mean to stand aside, Tay. Don’t move until it’s over. Anyone upstairs is a participant… understood?’ Artan nodded. The man inclined his head. ‘Till morning, then.’

‘Perhaps.’

The secret smile reappeared. ‘Yes. Of course. Perhaps.’ He turned and walked away, through the door and around the corner, as if to ascend the stairs.

Kiska stared at where he’d disappeared. She yearned to check if he’d really gone. ‘Was that really him?’ she whispered to Artan.

Signing to Hattar, Artan pulled out a chair and sat wearily at the long dining table. Hattar closed the door.

‘We should be safe here,’ he said while massaging his brow. The confrontation seemed to have left him exhausted, which surprised Kiska, as earlier she’d witnessed mere irritation and contempt when faced with over fifty cultists.

He gestured for Kiska to sit. ‘Really him?’ he repeated. ‘Not in the flesh, if that’s what you mean. That was a sending… an image. He’s obviously stretched very thin tonight. Understandably so.’

‘He called you Tay.’

‘He did.’

Kiska licked her lips. ‘As in Tayschrenn?’

‘No,’ growled Hattar.

Artan — Tay-waved a tired hand at Hattar. ‘Yes.’

By the gods! Here she was, sitting next to one of the greatest sorcerers of the age. Greater, many said, than the Emperor himself. There was so much she wanted to ask, yet how could she, a nobody from nowhere, dare to address such a personage? Kiska reflected with growing horror on her behaviour towards him. How had he put up with her? She watched him side-long: suddenly he’d become something alien, utterly separate from her own life.

A candle flamed to life at the door. Hattar touched it to a candelabra at the dining table and warm candlelight brought the room’s centre to life. Wide tapestries — war booty probably — insulated the walls, interspersed with shields, banners, and a multitude of pre-Imperium ships’ flags in a riot of colours and designs. Tayschrenn sat at the end of the table furthest from the door, in a high-backed, dark wood chair. Kiska took a chair along the side, situated between the table and the wall. Hattar returned to watching the door.

Kiska cleared her throat, whispered, ‘So what now?’

‘Now?’ Tayschrenn sat back, let out a long slow exhalation. His eyes appeared bruised and sunken. ‘Now we wait.’

Kiska nodded, glanced to the ceiling. ‘It’s quiet.’

Tayschrenn’s shoulders tightened at that. ‘The Malazan way,’ he breathed. ‘The murderer’s touch. A brush of cloth. A sip of wine. The gleam of a blade as fine as a snake’s tooth. Your name whispered just as you fall into sleep.’ He shook his head as if sad or regretful. The candlelight reflected gold from his eyes. He asked abruptly, ‘What of you, then?’

Kiska started. ‘What? Me?’

‘Yes. Tell me about yourself.’

Kiska’s cheeks burned in embarrassment. She lowered her head. How could he be so relaxed when, just overhead, the Abyss itself seemed ready to open up? ‘Me? Nothing. There’s nothing to tell. I was born here. My father died at sea when I was young. I hardly knew him. He was a sailor. My mother is a seamstress.’ Kiska glanced up. Tayschrenn was watching her over steepled fingers. The sight dried her throat.

‘And your mentoring?’ he asked. ‘How did that start?’

She swallowed, blushing again, but couldn’t help smiling. ‘By accident, you might say. I broke into Agayla’s shop and she caught me.’

Tayschrenn leaned back and laughed. His shoulders lowered as tension drained from them. He grinned and Kiska suddenly couldn’t be sure of his age. His guarded features bespoke a lifetime of watchfulness and calculation. The laugh and smile melted decades from the man.

‘I was very young,’ Kiska added, piqued.

‘You must have been, to try to steal from her.’

‘You said you’d met. You know her?’ The idea fascinated Kiska. Agayla, familiar with such heady circles of power — like a secret other life.

Tayschrenn shook his head. ‘Really only by reputation. You could say we’re colleagues.’

Kiska sat back. Well, colleagues; that was something! Amazing that she knew someone Tayschrenn considered a colleague. What would Agayla think of being called an associate? Actually, knowing her, she might not be pleased. She rarely spoke of politics, but whenever the subject came up the heat of her scorn could curl the dried roots hanging from the rafters.

Out of the corner of her eyes Kiska watched this man as he sat separated by mere breadths of dressed stone from the encounter that might well decide his fate. He seemed unnaturally calm, even contemplative: one long index finger stroked the bridge of his hatchet-sharp nose. His gaze appeared directed inward. Perhaps he pondered the outcome and his own personal fortunes. But then, perhaps not — he’d named himself neutral in the matter. Agayla sometimes called the Imperial mage cadre — which Tayschrenn veritably ran-the Empire’s glorified clerks. As such, he should be indifferent to whoever actually occupied the Throne. That is, short of his own personal ambitions.

Despite the tension, Kiska felt herself becoming restless. She fought an urge to fidget and looked at Hattar. Even he, the savage, flat-featured son of the steppes, had succumbed to the charged atmosphere. Kiska watched his gaze rise to the square-cut stones above them. His eyes glistened as he examined the cracks for some hint of what was happening above.

Kiska licked her dry lips, cleared her throat. ‘What,’ she whispered to the High Mage, ‘what are you thinking?’

Tayschrenn’s eyes, gold in the candlelight, shifted to her. From deep within them awareness swam to the surface. ‘I am wondering,’ he began, his voice low, puzzled, ‘just who is trapping whom. Surly has set a trap above for Kellanved. But he picked the time and place long ago — who knows how long — and has been preparing all the while. So perhaps this trap is for her. One she likely recognizes, but one she cannot avoid. She had to come. They both had to come.’ Then he frowned. The lines bracketing his mouth deepened into furrows. ‘And what could he and Dancer hope to gain? Their followers have been killed or scattered. No organized support remains but for Dancer’s Shadow cult, and they gone to ground and so few. Their authority would not be accepted by the Claws — or the governing Fists — should they return.’

‘And Oleg. What of his message?’

The magus actually grimaced, touched one temple as if to still a throbbing vein. ‘Yes. Oleg. Our hermit mystic. A self-mortifier and flagellant. Driven insane, perhaps, by his own blunted ambition? Or a prophet foolishly ignored?’ He sighed. ‘If I follow the lines of his reasoning accurately, they lead to suicide for Kellanved and Dancer. That I simply cannot accept. I know those two and neither would allow that.’

Suicide? No, she couldn’t imagine that either. Not those two. Kellanved had clawed his way to power over too many obstacles. He would destroy anyone or anything in his path. It was his signature.

Tayschrenn stirred, his head rising like a hound at a scent. ‘Listen,’ he whispered, glancing up.

Kiska bit her lip, scanned the ceiling. The waiting, the dread and uncertainty, had stiffened her shoulders and neck. Immobile for so long, her bad leg felt as if it had fused at the knee. Shifting, she flexed it and eased the tension from her back. What was happening now? Peripherally, she noticed Hattar gliding cat-like and protective ever closer to them, his weapons bared.

‘How will we-’

Tayschrenn raised a finger to his lips. ‘Listen.’

Kiska strained to penetrate the quiet. The subtle throb of the surf shuddered through the rock. Dust falling and the stones losing heat to the night brought ticks and trickled motes from the walls.

Then she heard it. A distinct tap and faint shush — tap-shush, tap-shush — crossing the ceiling, side to side.

Kellanved.

She’d never seen him of course, but had heard many descriptions — some contrary, most vague. Many mentioned his walking stick and his slow gait, but all told of his extreme age and the black skin and curled silver hair of a Dal Honese elder from the savannah of south-western Quon Tali. And, of course, there was his taste for grey and black clothing.

As if to confirm Kiska’s suspicions, Tayschrenn and Hattar caught each other’s gaze.

An overpowering sensation of pressure bore down upon her like an invisible hand. She sensed something enormous nearby, silent in the dark, like a Talian man-of-war passing within arm’s reach. A gravid deadly presence too huge to grant her notice. She glanced to Tayschrenn and saw him grimace, fingertips pressed against his temples. A droplet of blood fell from his nose.

It’s him, she thought, amazed. Even I can feel it.

The pacing — for that is what it seemed to Kiska — abruptly stopped. A long silence followed. She imagined conversation and wondered how desperately Tayschrenn might wish to know its content. Then again, a man like him might be bored by what could be little more than an exchange of warnings and mutual threats.

The limestone blocks of the ceiling jerked then, like child’s toys, and dust showered down. The soundless impact drove Kiska down into her chair and popped her eardrums. The candles snuffed out. Metal rang from the stones above. Weapons, Kiska imagined. A thumping and clatter as of bodies falling. A shout — a wordless roar of rage — that faded into silence. In the charged calm that followed, she barely breathed.

Light flared up. Hattar, calm and phlegmatic, relit the candles. Kiska could not believe the man’s aplomb.

Then a woman’s shrill scream tore through the solid stone, and Kiska leapt from her chair. She glanced to Tayschrenn but his clenched features revealed nothing. Was that the end of Surly? Had Kellanved and Dancer won? Yet the scream held no note of despair or death. Instead it spit frustration and venom.

Tayschrenn cleared his throat. He dabbed a cloth to his nose and pushed back from the table. He stood, adjusted his cloak at his shoulders and signed something to Hattar. The Seti plainsman glanced at her. The narrow slash of mouth under his flattened nose twisted into a sneer. Tayschrenn, crossing to the door, failed to notice his guard’s reaction.

Hattar stepped up to block the doorway and Tayschrenn stopped short, surprised. He signed again. At the table Kiska wondered what was going on; whether it could mean any threat to her. She suddenly felt keenly aware of the weight of Lubben’s curved knife at her side. But these two intended no harm to her, surely?

Hattar, hands clamped at the grips of his sheathed knives, glared at Kiska, spat, ‘No.’

Kiska stood, moving to centre the table between them and her. She massaged her hip where she’d struck her side. What was this — housecleaning? Was she to be silenced? But why should Hattar refuse that? She imagined he’d relish the chance. Yet why wait till now?

Tayschrenn signed furiously. Hattar just smiled, showing sallow teeth. He shook his head. Tayschrenn half-turned to her. He appeared bemused and annoyed.

‘Well,’ he observed, eyeing her. ‘Something of a quandary. I must go upstairs. Hattar refuses to stay here to guard you and I think it still too dangerous to leave you alone.’ He coughed into one fist, cocked a thin brow. It was as if he were guessing her thoughts. ‘How would you suggest we resolve this?’

Kiska wet her lips. ‘Take me with you.’

Tayschrenn turned to Hattar as if that settled the matter. Hattar scowled ferociously. He snapped a sign: negative, Kiska assumed. Tayschrenn answered with a shrug that said it was indeed settled. He waved Kiska to him.

‘You will stay with me. Stand to one side and back two paces. Say nothing and take your cue from Hattar or myself in all things. Do you concur?’ Hardly able to breathe, Kiska nodded. ‘Good.’ He looked to Hattar. Grudgingly, the plainsman edged aside from the door. Tayschrenn passed through. Kiska approached. The Seti warrior said nothing, though his hot gaze bore into her skull.

Side by side, she and Hattar climbed the stairs behind Tayschrenn. She felt as though she’d been inducted into the magus’s bodyguard. And come what may, she suddenly realized, she’d do her best to honour that trust. She prayed there’d be no need.

Hattar watched her sidelong. His lip curled away from his sharp teeth in a sneer of contempt. She glared back. Looking away, he snorted a laugh that said, just you wait.

Light flickered up ahead. These halls were warmer, cosy, and inhabited. They stepped up into a richly appointed hall faced at intervals by doors of polished wood. Sub-Fist Pell and his inner circle had occupied these rooms for the last seven years, but not on this night. She wondered idly just where he was, then dismissed the thought. He’d probably locked himself downstairs in the wine cellar or was passed out in his bunk.

Tayschrenn walked steadily, unhurried, down the hall. They passed silver mirrors and portraits of men and women she didn’t recognize, mounted boar heads, trophy swords and captured heraldry the likes of which Kiska had never seen before, except for the black vertical bar and pale blue wave of Korelri far to the south. Warm firelight spilled from an open door at the hall’s far end, sending shadows rippling and dancing madly. A draft of cool air brushed Kiska’s cheeks and she heard, distantly, the surf murmuring far below.

At the entrance Tayschrenn paused, blocking Kiska’s view. The draft, stronger here, billowed his cloak. He waved a sign to Hattar then entered. Hattar grunted, plucked at Kiska’s sleeve and motioned for her to stay close to him. Kiska swallowed and steadied her breathing. Hattar’s lip curled again as if he expected her to faint on the spot.

Heat struck her at the doorway like the blast from a stoked stove. That, and the stink of smoke mixed with the sour iron tang of spilled blood. Hattar moved to one side of the doorway. Kiska stepped to the other and pressed her back against the warm stones.

It was a long rectangular room. She wondered if perhaps it was some kind of a reception chamber. Now it was devoid of furniture and ornament. A roaring fire filled the huge hearth towards the left inner wall. Over the floor, here and there, corpses lay like discarded clothes. By a broken set of doors leading to a balcony they were gathered more thickly. Claws, all of them. Kiska counted twelve.

At the centre of the room a woman sat in the chamber’s only furnishing: a plain wood chair. The woman’s brown hair was cut short, military-style. The bluish tinge of her skin marked her as Napan. She wore a green silk shirt, torn and blood-spattered, a wide sash of emerald green, and loose pantaloons gathered snug at the ankles. Her feet were dark and calloused as if always bare. A Claw, kneeling at her side, was wrapping her hand in dressings. Kiska recognized him as the one from the duel with the armoured colossus: Possum.

Surly. Kiska was struck by how small she was, and how calm and self-possessed. One could hardly guess she’d just faced down the two most dreaded figures of recent Quon Talian history. But then, she was third on that list.

Tayschrenn crossed the long room towards her. An ironic smile tilted one edge of her mouth as she watched. Halfway, the magus stilled, peered down at the bare stone floor. Kiska looked also but saw nothing, just a fine swirl of spilled red powder. From Kiska’s side, a hiss escaped Hattar. The plainsman’s jaws worked and his hands were white fists gripping the bone handles of his long-knives. Slowly, carefully, Tayschrenn gathered up his cloak and shook the dust from its edges. He continued on, stepping over the corpses as if they were no more than puddles in a muddy street. Just short of Surly, he bent to the corpse nearest the chair and lifted its head. Kiska recognized the body.

‘Ash,’ said Surly. ‘Ex-Lieutenant of the Bridgeburners. And one very determined man.’ She raised her bandaged hand. ‘Acid.’

Tayschrenn straightened from the body and turned to the smashed balcony doors. Reaching them, he glanced out. ‘Gone, then?’

Surly nodded, but sharply, as if things hadn’t gone exactly as she wished. On the floor, just before the balcony, lay a stick amid the spattered blood. A walking stick of dark wood, ebony perhaps, with a silver handle. Kiska stared. Gods! Was that it then? Was he dead?

A second surviving Claw stepped out from the shadowed balcony. Unusually tall, he favoured one leg and cradled his right arm at his breast, wet with dripping blood. His hood was down, revealing long startling white hair, a dark face, hooked nose with a goatee and black glittering eyes. Kiska had never seen him before.

‘Organize a search for the corpses,’ Surly told Possum. He bowed and backed away to the door. Kiska watched him sidelong as he passed and saw that he now bore a slash across his shirt-front, and that blood smeared his cloak. But his hood-shadowed face did not turn to regard her. It was as if the man had his mission and all else was mere dross.

Tayschrenn stepped out onto the balcony. The railing of low stone arch-work had been broken or blasted away, leaving a large gap into open air. He peered out and down, a gloved hand at the shattered edge. In the wind his cloak billowed and fluttered, and from below came the muted beat of the surf.

He returned to Surly, his boots scraping over the littered floor. ‘You can’t be sure-’

‘Certain enough,’ she snapped. ‘Absolutely. It is over and done. Finished. I’m surprised you bothered to come.’

Glancing back at the balcony, Tayschrenn murmured, ‘I was truthfully drawn here for another reason — if you must know.’

Rage flared like dark fires in Surly’s eyes and her good hand shot out to the High Mage as if she would crush him in her fist. Kiska almost shouted a warning, but as quickly as the fires rose so were they banked. She gave a small, low laugh. ‘Play the pompous lord to your underlings, Tay, not me. That you are here belies your words.’

The magus turned to her. Kiska watched him blinking, as if he were utterly unaware of the woman’s reaction. Yet how could that be? The two of them had worked, fought, and schemed together for generations. They must know to a hair’s breadth how far they could goad each other. Clearly, Tayschrenn wanted to remind Surly of something.

His shoulders rose and fell in a slow, indifferent shrug. ‘If you insist. Still, it would seem-’

‘I don’t care how it seems to you.’ She studied her bandaged hand. ‘It is over. I am Imperial Regent no longer. I will take the Throne, and my new name to rule it by. What say you to that?’

He said nothing. Kiska imagined he had already carefully thought through all possible outcomes.

‘Hail the Empress,’ prompted the Claw from the balcony, stroking his neck with a hand in a green leather glove. Tayschrenn eyed the man, who offered a predatory smile in return. There was open dislike here between Tayschrenn and these pet servants of the throne. Kiska wondered how such a meeting would have developed years ago, with Kellanved and Dancer also present. Likely a nest of vipers.

Tayschrenn gave a short bow. Kiska couldn’t tell if it was genuine or mocking. ‘Indeed. Hail,’ he echoed.

Surly answered with a curt nod, all business. ‘Good. Now, we have much to discuss…’ She inclined her head towards Hattar and Kiska, whose heart lurched at the attention.

Tayschrenn waved to the Claw. ‘And what of him?’

A thin smile tightened Surly’s lips. ‘The Claw is now part of the command structure, Tay. Each one speaks with a measure of my personal authority; each will be, in a measure, my representative. Topper will stay’

Tayschrenn bowed as briefly as before and backed away. To Hattar he said, ‘Your task is done for the night. Take her and return to the dining hall. Get some sleep. I’ll join you later.’

Hattar’s jaw tightened in distaste, but he nodded. Waving a brusque farewell to Kiska, Tayschrenn turned away. Hattar motioned to the hall, pushed her ahead of him. Startled by the abruptness of it, she peered back over her shoulder. Was that it? Not even a goodbye? Hattar urged her on with a jab at her back.

In the hall, Kiska glared and hissed, ‘Couldn’t I get a word in?’

The plainsman’s face remained set. ‘Not now. Tomorrow.’

Kiska relaxed, ceased resisting. ‘Okay’ She walked on. ‘I just don’t want to be shaken off, you know. I went to a lot of trouble to talk to him.’ She laughed at the thought of that. ‘Hood’s own trouble.’ But Hattar had set his face ahead, ignoring her. Kiska shut up. Here she was complaining to the one fellow who couldn’t possibly give a damn.

In the dining hall, Kiska watched while Hattar blocked the door with a chair, lit the candles, and sat. He thumped both booted feet onto the table, then untied his belt and lay it before him so that the sheathed knives rested within reach.

Kiska eased herself down into a chair across the table. ‘What was that about the red dust upstairs? What was it? Poison?’

Hattar’s gaze had been directed up at the ceiling. Now it swung down to her. The eyes were slitted, unreadable. ‘You ever heard of Otataral ore?’

‘Something about magic?’

‘Magic deadening.’ His gaze returned to the ceiling. ‘Upstairs, in that room, he’s helpless.’

She blurted, ‘Then Surly must have seeded the room, or thrown it, and Kellanved-’

Hattar’s nod was savage. ‘A great leveller that. Just knives and sheer numbers after.’

Kiska was silent, trying to imagine what it must have been like: the crippled Kellanved a useless burden in any mundane battle. Dancer struggling to both fight and protect him. The two retreating to the balcony, desperate to escape. How many dead had she seen? Twelve? She shook her head, awed. ‘Now what?’

‘Now nothing. We wait.’

Biting her lip she watched Hattar as he stared off into the darkness. After a moment, she asked, ‘You’ve disliked me from the start. What have you got against me?’

A slight clenching of his mouth seemed to betray that he was debating whether to reply. Then he growled, ‘I lost three good friends tonight. You’ve too high an opinion of yourself if you think you’ve got anything to do with my mood, lass.’ She looked down, her cheeks flushing. Who did he think he was — but then, who did she think she was? From his view she was just a meddlesome civilian — and a girl at that — nothing more than a security risk, and an impediment to his sworn task.

She clasped her hands together, studied the dusty tabletop. ‘I’m sorry. You’re doing your duty. I see that. But I’m not going to disappear just for your convenience. Dammit, I’ve gone through a lot tonight. As much as you, maybe. It has to be for something!’ Looking up, she wiped at her eyes, damned the tears of frustration. She glared at Hattar, daring him to dismiss her, then gaped in utter disbelief: the plainsman’s head hung back, mouth open, and his chest rose and fell steadily. Asleep! Well, damn him to the Abyss! How could he?

Watching him doze, she felt her own eyes droop. Her knee and shoulder and side all ached fiendishly, calling for rest. Sighing, she pushed back from the table and set to building a small fire in the hearth from kindling and split logs piled to one side. Soon it caught and she gathered her cloak about her and sat with her back to wall. Uncertainty for her safety still nagged at her, but her exhaustion swept over worry, and her chin sank eventually to her chest.

At the bottom of Rampart Way the two cultists who had escorted Temper to the stairs stepped out from the darkness to meet him. He ignored them. The slim one let fall the slightest of chuckles as Temper passed, as if he’d personally had a hand in the slaughter above and knew all the secrets those lips were sealed to protect. The conceit enraged Temper. He pulled short and turned on them; neither had earned the right.

They stopped, but much closer than before — arm’s reach in fact. The slim one jerked his hooded head back up to the Hold. ‘A waste of time, yes? As I said, now you serve my master.’

‘You should learn a little respect.’

The man glanced to his companion, laughed outright. ‘You’ve been sent by our master to run an errand, soldier. Do it and shut up.’

‘If Dancer’s your master, then yes, I made a deal. But it doesn’t include putting up with mouthy pups like you.’

Temper’s fist lashed out and caught the cultist on the side of his head.

The scorchmarked hood flew back, revealing a young man with cropped blond hair and beard. He stared, amazed past words, blood welling from the torn flesh of his cheek. He drew a knife from within his robes. Without comment, his stocky partner stepped aside. The youth wove the weapon before him in a backhanded grip. Trait warned us you’re a dangerous man, soldier. I say you’re just a tired old relic. I’m going to send you to my master.’

‘You talk to much to worry me, boy’

Snarling, the cultist lunged. Temper was almost caught off guard. He hadn’t believed he’d actually attack. The blade caught the edge of a cracked iron scale, nearly reaching the gap in the hauberk’s underarm. Temper clamped one gauntleted hand at the fellow’s neck and squeezed. The knife racked his side. He grabbed the hand and twisted the blade free, then pushed it into the youth’s stomach. The knife slid in just below the ribs. The cultist shuddered, gagged a half-throttled scream.

Temper shook him by his neck, then let him drop in a heap. The youth lay curled around the knife like an impaled insect. He moaned. Temper faced the other. ‘Let’s go,’ and he started down toward Cutter’s Strait. After a few moments footfalls announced the stocky one following.

Long before Temper reached the houses of the old quarter surrounding the Deadhouse and the Hanged Man Inn, he saw signs of the battle ahead. The frigid night fog had thickened-unnaturally so — but through it bursts of phosphorescence flickered. Hidden beyond, the hounds howled, a number of them, drowning out the brittle crackle of raw energy and small eruptions.

It reminded Temper of the worst kind of engagement he’d known: mage duels where more died from the side-blasts of unleashed Warrens than from sharp iron. Ahead, a cultist emerged from the fog and stood motionless, apparently waiting for him. The figure motioned him forward into the churning wall. Clenching his jaw, Temper continued on and the cultist fell into step at his side. His old escort stopped outside the barrier, implying a hierarchy within the organization. Perhaps those inside were initiated into higher secrets. Or, Temper reflected, maybe they were those the cult wouldn’t mind losing if this gambit went to the Abyss.

The opaque fog obscured everything. Buildings vanished, then the cultist at his side. He wondered if perhaps he’d just been escorted into a portion of the Warren itself. Musing on that, he was unprepared when something like a bat launched itself out of the mist. He yelped, ducking, and the ghostly shape of his escort appeared at his side, gesturing. The thing folded up upon itself and flapped off. Temper was shaken: it appeared to be nothing more than a patch of fluttering shadow. He leaned close to the cultist who smiled back from within his hood. ‘Where are we?’ he growled.

His escort shrugged. ‘Nowhere, strictly speaking.’ He waved Temper on: ‘Come, we haven’t much time.’

As they walked on Temper was startled to find himself climbing the slow rise of a cobbled road. Here the fog was thinner, and after a few more paces he and his escort emerged from the worst of it. Ahead, at the top of the shallow grade, sat the Deadhouse and the crumbling wall surrounding it. All around waited cultists. As for the rest of the town, it was nowhere in sight, erased by the haze. It was as if he, the assassins, and the House had been transported to another isle. High clouds masked the sky, making the light eerie and diffuse like early dawn, spilling from no discernible direction. At the front gate a knot of cultists had gathered and his escort led him to them.

Temper eyed the Deadhouse. The dark shuttered windows betrayed no hint of what might be going on within. Instead it was the grounds that captured his attention: the dead black branches of the trees twitched like jerking fingers, and the bare earth bulged and heaved as if something stirred beneath. Temper smelled a dustiness in the air, as of a long-sealed crypt, and over it the ozone stink of power like the constant low discharge of a channelled Warren.

A cultist in pale robes broke away from the group and met Temper. He waved off the escort.

‘Pralt?’ Temper asked.

He nodded, inviting Temper to accompany him to the wall of heaped stones.

‘So this is it then? Shadow?’

‘No, not properly. More of a bridge. A midway stage created by tonight’s special conditions.’

‘The hounds?’

‘We’ve left them behind. No need to worry about them. We’ve other things to occupy us.’

Temper detected the irony of a massive understatement. He stopped short, rested his fists on his weapons. ‘Okay. I’ve played along so far. But now that I’m here, what’s the arrangement?’

Pralt faced the grounds, then turned to Temper. Even standing this close, Temper saw only darkness filling his hood and that aggravated him. The assassin folded his arms, slipping his gloved hands into the robe’s wide sleeves as if he were some kind of priest. ‘An assault on the House. Simple as that.’

Temper scowled. ‘Defences?’

‘Ah, yes. You’ve hit upon the main worry. No one knows just what the House is. Some claim it’s simply a gateway. Others say it’s an entity itself, one that straddles the realms. Whichever the case, we are by no means the first to try to master it. Through the ages countless have attempted and all have failed. And all who failed are now enslaved by the House to its defence.’ Pralt was silent for a time, letting that fact sink in. ‘Ingenious, yes? As time passes its defences actually gain strength. Impressive.’

Temper stared, speechless, then laughed his utter disbelief. ‘You can forget it, Pralt. There’s no way this shabby outfit can win this one. You’re in over your heads.’

The hood nodded as if the man agreed. ‘Oh, yes. We haven’t the firepower to defeat the House. But that has never been our goal.’

Now Temper frowned. He hadn’t liked the way this was headed before; now he was sure he would hate it. ‘I ain’t no one’s stalking horse.’

The hood faced him directly. After a moment Pralt said gently, ‘That’s all you’ve ever been, Temper. Even the Sword was nothing more: a banner to draw the notice of the strongest enemy. Bait to tempt them out.’

Temper’s fists clenched reflexively, but he took a deep breath, allowing the comment to pass. Dassem used to speak of that. Called himself the army’s lightning rod. And they’d all known it too: he, Ferrule, Point, and the rest. But they hadn’t minded at the time because they were young and believed Dassem couldn’t be beaten by anyone. So what did it matter? Let all comers try; the Sword would always prevail. Little thought or care did they give to those profiting from their blood and lives.

‘Strong words,’ Temper finally growled, staring off at the House, ‘from someone who expects my cooperation.’

‘Nothing we say now can change the past. And you gave your word.’

Temper snorted, pulled off a gauntlet frayed by hound’s teeth. He rubbed his index finger over the puckered scar at his chin, nodded. ‘Yeah. I suppose I did at that. All right. Let’s go’

Pralt invited him to walk to the gate. Temper slapped the gauntlet to his thigh, thinking: so, a diversionary sortie. A quick in and out. That meant the real assault would come from another direction, and run a much lower profile. He figured he knew who that would be.

Before the gate they joined the other cultists. Temper studied them. This was it? Just the six of them? Pralt and his companion spoke once more, hooded heads nearly touching. Temper, uneasy, rested his hands on the iron pommels of his swords. Was he just an extra hand or was something else in the offing? He didn’t have such an inflated opinion of himself to believe that they needed his participation. Or that they’d even planned for it. No, this had the feeling of something thrown together. A last-minute change. Now he was certain he hated it. But he’d given his word; he at least had his honour. He’d step in, but would back out once it got too hot for his liking. And he had the feeling it wouldn’t take long to attract that kind of heat.

Pralt and his friends broke off their talk. Hand signals flew between them. Temper couldn’t interpret the sign language — it was not Malazan standard. He didn’t like that at all. It made the back of his neck itch.

Pralt turned to him. ‘Get ready. You’ll take centre point between Jasmine and me.’

Temper nodded to Jasmine who answered with the slightest inclination of — her? — hood. He drew his longswords, eased his shoulders to loosen them. Pralt approached the plain wrought-iron gate.

A shout from behind made Temper start. ‘Do not enter those grounds! ’

He turned. There stood Faro Balkat and Trenech. They looked the same as they had ever looked: Faro frail, rheumy-eyed, and Trenech dull and bhederin-like. Only now Trenech carried a wicked pike-axe, its butt jammed into the ground, and Faro had clearly shaken off his drugged stupor. A number of cultists came running up, surrounded the two. Faro ignored them as he had the soldiers earlier at the Hanged Man.

Pralt faced them, gave a stiff bow. ‘Our mission does not cross yours,’ he called. ‘Why are you here?’

Faro’s mouth drew down in disgust. Temper had never seen the man looking so lively. ‘Do not play games with me, shadow-slave. By crossing the barriers you weaken them, and that is not to our liking.’

Pralt shrugged. ‘’Tis regretful, but I know the confines of your roles, and you cannot stop anyone from entering the grounds.’

Faro’s gnarled hands clenched at his sides. ‘That much is true.’ He stepped closer. ‘I ask you not to do this. You play with forces of which you have no conception.’

Shaking his hooded head, Pralt turned away. Temper stared at the man hard. What did this promise for him?

‘They are waiting,’ Jasmine whispered, urgent. ‘We must act now.’

Pralt faced the gate.

‘Soldier!’ Faro called. Temper turned. ‘Do not enter. You’ll not return.’

Temper raised a sword in a farewell salute. ‘Sorry, Faro. Gave my word.’ He spoke with as much bravura as he could muster, though his stomach was clenched in the certainty that he was already more committed than he wished.

The gate rasped under Pralt’s hand, rusted with disuse. Faro fell silent. Trenech hefted his long pike-axe.

A path of slate flags led to the front steps past bare mounds that reminded Temper of hastily dug battle graves. It was quiet so far, the House dark and lifeless. Pralt and Jasmine advanced to either side and Temper followed. They appeared unnaturally relaxed, without any weapons in evidence. About halfway up the walk they stopped. Pralt turned to him.

Temper stared back, uncertain, licked his dry lips.

‘This is as far as we go,’ Pralt said. He sounded strangely solemn. ‘This isn’t what I had in mind, and I’m sorry. Dancer’s orders. Goodbye, soldier.’

Pralt and Jasmine disappeared. Temper spun: the three others were also gone. It was as if he’d walked in alone. The ground to either side of the walk heaved. The moist bare earth crumbled and steamed while above the tree branches flailed, creaking. Blue-green flames like mast-fire danced over them and along the low stone walls. Trenech now blocked the gate, pike-axe lowered. Faro stood behind. Beyond, gathered together once more, stood the cultists — Pralt and Jasmine included — watching, arms folded.

Temper pointed a sword at them to shout that he’d have their hearts out, when a loud grinding rumbled from the House. He turned, flexing, weapons ready. The door scraped open, dust falling from its jambs. Darkness yawned within only to be filled by the advance of a giant figure.

Betrayed. The last assault on Y’Ghatan all over again. He hadn’t learned a damned thing. Temper threw back his head and howled an incandescent rage so consuming that every fibre of his body seemed to take flame.

Agayla and Obo occupied a point of rock suspended within a channel of raw streaming power. The surf had risen over the strand, punishing the rocks above. The wind lashed sleet at them, yet it parted before their small circle of calm like dust brushed aside. Overhead, a roof of clouds skimmed the hilltops, eclipsing the sky, and extended inland to enshroud the island. To the distant south thunderheads towered ever higher, roiling and billowing, lancing the seas in a constant discharge of lightning that lit the lunging dance of the distant Riders.

A sense of presence behind him brought Obo’s head around. He fixed his gaze on the bare hillside where two figures descended. One motioned for the other to remain among the rocks and continued down alone, his dark robes flapping in the wind. The second moved to shelter in the lee of a tall plinth of rock and squatted, elbows at his knees, his shirt shining wetly. ‘Someone’s comin’.’ Agayla did not respond. Obo turned to her: she sat hunched forward, hands clutched at her head as if to hold it from bursting. ‘Your boy, Agayla. Looks like I lose my bet.’

She looked up but with eyes empty of understanding. Slowly, awareness awoke within. She blinked, squared her shoulders and pushed herself upright. ‘Good. Very good.’

As the figure drew near, his bald scalp gleaming, Obo mouthed a curse. ‘So. It’s him. I don’t trust this one. The stink of the Worm clings to him.’

‘He is free from all bindings, Obo. I wouldn’t have approached him otherwise.’ She bowed to the newcomer. ‘Greetings, Tayschrenn.’

Tayschrenn answered the courtesy. ‘Obo,’ he offered. Obo turned his back. Tayschrenn gestured to the south. ‘This is incalculably worse than I imagined.’

Agayla nodded. ‘We are masking most from the island. Appalling, isn’t it?’

‘Reminds me of the Emperor at his most brutal.’

Obo barked, ‘He was a fool with a sharp stick compared to this!’ He glared at the two of them. When Tayschrenn returned his look, he jerked away to stare south once again. What he saw there made him flinch.

Tayschrenn took in Agayla’s exhaustion and Obo’s rigid stance; he invited her to sit. ‘You’re losing.’

Agayla merely gave a tired nod, too worn even to pretend. ‘Yes. Before the dawn we shall fail. That is… unless you commit yourself.’

‘Yet some force was forestalling this. Where are they?’

‘He has been overcome.’

‘He?’ One against all this? There is no one. Osserc, perhaps-’

Obo snorted again.

Agayla merely massaged her fingers across her brow. ‘Really, Tay. You, above all, should know there are ancient powers, those that see past your and Kellanved’s empire-building as just another pass of season. The paths to Ascendancy are far more varied than you imagine.’ Sighing, Agayla straightened. ‘But now is not the time for that. Surly’s campaign against magery had left him sorely diminished. A fraction of talent remained to draw upon and so he was overwhelmed.’

‘She had no way of foreseeing the deeper consequences of her actions.’

‘You did.’

Obo spun around. 7s that so?’

His face a mask, Tayschrenn clasped his hands at his knees. ‘I did have some presentiment of it, yes. Unease at the alteration of such an age-old balance of power.’ He met Obo’s glare. ‘But I swear upon the Nameless Ones I had no suspicion of anything this profound… this… perilous.’

Looking at Agayla, Obo spat. ‘And this is the one you would approach.’

The strength of the anger that clutched Tayschrenn’s chest in response to Obo’s scorn surprised him; no one treated him in this manner. He had tolerated Kellanved’s mockery and now ignored Surly’s mistaken rivalry, but no one ever spurned him with contempt. From a pocket in the lining of his cloak he drew out a pair of wet kidskin gloves and struggled to slip them over his hands. Clenching and unclenching his fingers, he reflected that Obo was, after all, Obo. The man would slam a door in the face of Hood himself.

Agayla merely watched, her gaze weighing. Tayschrenn shook the uncomfortable sensation of being judged — and found wanting.

‘Yet you allowed it,’ Agayla observed, speculatively.

Tayschrenn accepted the opening to explain. ‘To have opposed Surly’s orders would have aroused unnecessary suspicion.’

‘Suspicion of…?’

‘Collusion, communication, sympathizing with him.’

‘Ah. I see.’ She pushed the strands of wet hair from her face, wiped a hand over her brow. Tayschrenn would have offered a cloth had he anything not already sodden. She sighed, peered up at him. ‘Poor Tayschrenn. One day you will wake up and abandon this petty politicking and manoeuvring. It will burn you so many times, and you will scald so many others before you discover wisdom.’ The woman’s dark eyes probed his awareness. She whispered, ‘You have not yet even journeyed far enough to wonder on the cost, have you?’

Tayshcrenn stared — never, not since his training in the temple, had anyone brushed aside his defences with such ease. He shook himself. ‘Do you wish my aid or not?’

‘That is just it, you see. We may not want your aid.’

Staggered, Tayschrenn wiped a hand across his mouth. Here stood two powers — yes, he could admit to that, powers — facing annihilation under the heels of an enemy of incalculable might, and they would reject his aid?

‘But, the island… thousands of souls.’

‘Oh, come. More died at the fall of Unta alone. Do not pretend their fate concerns you. No, if we fall then you will have to commit yourself, won’t you?’

‘Would I? You say I care nothing for these lives, yet I would commit myself to their defence? I am sorry to disappoint you Agayla. I would stand aside.’

Obo, silent for so long, snorted his derision at that.

‘Oh?’ Agayla breathed, turning her face to the south. ’Would you?’

Her gaze drew Tayschrenn’s own. What he saw drove all conscious thought from his mind, as if a veil had been ripped aside, and now he saw for the first time the appalling truth of what, to normal senses, resembled a storm-front of unprecedented scale. The weather was the mere side effect of a much more profound battle between contending Realms. Summoning his Thyr Warren, he probed the work of the Stormriders’ mysterious sorcerers, the Wandwielders. It appeared like a curtain of energy, a replica of the shimmering light that sometimes played above the northern night sky. Streaming down from the heights of the atmosphere, it cut a dividing line that, unlike most human theurgical manipulations, did not end at the water but plunged downward through it. With his inner-eye, Tayschrenn followed its dizzying descent and was horrified to see it continue unbroken, down through the depths of the cut into unplumbed crevasses, where he glimpsed a glowing heart of otherworldly ice. A heart that, as he watched, throbbed and swelled. He broke away, dazed by a vertiginous sense of power such as he had known only once before — as a supplicant before his old master, D’rek, the Worm of Autumn that gnaws at the World.

‘You may choose to stand aside, Tayschrenn,’ Agayla observed. ‘Malaz would fall, no longer a barrier forestalling the Riders’ expanse. That is the ancient worry, is it not? That free of the confines of the strait, they would dominate the seas? A menace to all?’

Tayschrenn nodded warily, uncertain of her point. ‘Yes. Of course.’

Shuddering, she crossed her arms then met Tayschrenn’s gaze squarely. ‘But what if it was not the island itself they sought? Think on it. What sits in Malaz, within a stone’s throw of the shore? What if this was not some mindless storm seeking escape, but a calculated reach for power, for influence?’ She swept an arm out to the horizon-spanning cataclysm of sky and sea. ‘Tell me, Tayschrenn — could the House withstand all this?’

He stared, stunned. The House? What could it be to these alien beings? Yet… what were they to anyone? An enigma. A focal point of power and potentialities. That much was certain: it was possible. Perhaps the island was not simply in their way. Perhaps they wanted it; wanted the prize it held. Tayschrenn damned the sorceress — she and all others aligned with the Enchantress — their eyes saw everywhere. Yet he had to help. He could not risk the alternative she had set before him as, he was certain, she’d known all along.

‘Very well, Agayla.’ He bowed his head. ‘You win. You shall have all my strength. Every ounce I possess. The Riders must be contained.’

‘Don’t expect me to get all slobbery,’ Obo muttered.

At first Kiska thought it a dream. A tingling prickled her skin. She felt as if someone were watching her. Slowly, awareness of just where she slept trickled into her thoughts and she snapped awake.

A dark woman bent over her, hands out as if grasping for her. Kiska jumped to her feet and the woman flinched away, startled. Kiska’s hands flew reflexively to her waist, sleeves, and collar but came away empty. She snarled, arms raised.

The woman straightened, held out open hands. ‘Hold on, child. You gave me quite a start there.’

Kiska glanced around. Hattar was gone, as was his weapon belt. Embers glowed in the hearth and the candles had burned low. Her own blade lay sheathed on the table. Someone stood in the doorway: it was the hunchback, the very man who had lent her the weapon.

‘I startled you?’ Kiska laughed. She straightened, wincing at the pain that lanced her side and knee.

The woman was the Napan mercenary mage. She nodded. ‘Yes. You were under a light ward — a healing slumber. I was only testing its strength but you awoke and broke it easily. Your resistance is unusually strong.’

Kiska snorted, dismissing the woman’s words. What was she really up to? Where was Hattar? Or Tayschrenn, for that matter? ‘Where is everyone? What time is it?’

The woman knelt to warm her hands at the hearth and, Kiska supposed, to reassure her. ‘We were hoping you could tell us. No one’s here. The hold is empty. And the time?’ She shrugged. ‘After the tenth bell of the night, I believe.’

Kiska picked up the weapon and tucked it at her side. ‘If you want answers just go upstairs. I’m sure the Claws would be happy to help you.’

The jangle of steel announced the hunchback’s shambling advance. In the hearth’s faint glow Kiska saw that he wore a rusted and battered steel pot helmet. Armour hung from his bent frame in layers of mail folds with steel scales at the shoulders, chest, stomach and arms. He also carried a long-hafted throwing-axe. Kiska stared, appalled, certain that any normal man would’ve collapsed under that load.

‘She means you no harm, lass,’ he growled. ‘Everyone’s gone. What do you know of it?’

She looked from one to the other. ‘What does it matter? It’s finished. Surly won.’

The woman flinched. ‘You were there? You saw it?’

Then Kiska remembered with whom she spoke and her breath caught. ‘Oh, and Ash. I saw him. He’s dead. I’m sorry.’

The woman brushed back her long hair, sighed. ‘I’m not. The man’s better off dead. He should have died a long time ago. These times were not to his liking. Still, I owed him a great debt.’

Kiska looked away. ‘Well, I’m glad you’re okay.’

‘So you saw him as well?’

Kiska rubbed her arms to warm them against the unusual cold. She felt chilled and hungry but refreshed, as if she’d slept a full night. Even her knee felt strong, throbbing and stiff, but firm. ‘No. I didn’t see that. But I was there just afterwards. Surly said Kell — that they fell from the balcony, down the cliff. No one could survive that. It’s a hundred fathoms.’

Lubben and the woman eyed each other, clearly sceptical.

Stung, Kiska stepped away. ‘It was good enough for Surly. She said it was finished. Even-’ she stopped herself, swallowed. ‘Well, everyone agreed.’ But as she said it, she wondered. Where were Hattar and Tayschrenn? Or Surly? Had Tayschrenn laid that spell upon her — if a spell it had been, as the woman claimed? Had they lied about the end of things? If so, it couldn’t have been because of her presence. No, they must have had other reasons, and no doubt different reasons at that. They may have lied to each other out of habit. The Malazan way, she remembered Tayschrenn whispering with biting irony. And now in the High Mage’s words Kiska heard a measure of self-disgust as well. Rubbing her hands at her sides, she looked away. ‘I guess I don’t know. I thought everything was over.’

‘Well it isn’t,’ said the woman, sounding oddly angered. ‘That’s for sure.’ Kiska looked at her, puzzled. ‘There’s an immense disturbance among the Warrens here,’ the woman explained. ‘I can feel it as strongly as the storm breaking over the island. That’s probably where everyone’s gone.’

‘The Deadhouse,’ Kiska breathed, remembering Oleg’s words.

The woman eyed her sharply, taking her measure a second time. ‘Yes. The Deadhouse. All this,’ and she pointed upstairs, ‘was probably nothing more than a diversion. A side show.’

‘But all the dead. And Ash, too.’

The woman turned to the embers. ‘Nothing like a massacre to confirm appearances.’ She took a poker from a stand beside the hearth and raked the remaining coals, spreading them among the ashes. ‘There’s nothing more to learn here, Lubben.’ She spoke with a strength of command that surprised Kiska. ‘We’ll go to the House.’

Lubben grunted his assent, cradled the axe to his chest. That the independent, cynical hunchback should submit so easily to orders from the woman struck Kiska as very telling. Back at the Inn, she’d acted as if second in command to Ash, who, if Surly was to be believed, had been an officer of the Bridge-burners. She might be of rank equivalent to a company commander herself.

‘Take me with you,’ Kiska blurted.

The woman smiled at Kiska’s eagerness but shook her head. ‘No. It’s too dangerous.’

‘I can be of use. I know things.’

The woman eyed her, tilted her head to one side. ‘Such as?’

Kiska wet her lips, tried to recall everything important Oleg had said, together with all she suspected herself. ‘I know that we’d have to get there before dawn, but that use of a Warren would be dangerous because the hounds are sensitive to them and might even travel them at will. I know that there’s an event occurring focused on the House. And that,’ she paused, trying to remember the word Oleg had used, ‘that it might be a portal to Shadow-’

‘Enough! ’

Kiska stopped short, surprised. The woman raised a hand apologetically. ‘Sorry. But some knowledge is best not hinted at anywhere at any time.’ She turned away, began pacing. Kiska watched, tense, desperate to press her case, but afraid she might just annoy her.

‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ Lubben offered from the darkness beyond the hearth’s meagre glow.

The woman studied Kiska from the far side of the mantle. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you wish to come, fine. But you’ll do as I say.’

‘Yes.’

‘Your name is Kiska, yes?’

‘And yours?’

She answered with a teasing smile, the black tattooing at her brow wrinkling. ‘Corinn. Now, Kiska: have you ever travelled by Warren?’

Kiska’s first impulse was to lie, fearing such a lack would end her chances. She shook her head, frustrated by her inexperience.

Corinn’s lips pursed for an instant, making Kiska’s heart sink, but then she shrugged. ‘Never mind. Just stay close. Lubben, stay to the rear.’

He grunted, impatient.

‘But the hounds?’ Kiska asked.

Again the smile, daring and spirited. ‘We’ll just have to move quickly.’ She waved a hand. The air shimmered before the hearth, as if hot air billowed from it. Grey streaks appeared, brightening into tatters of purest glimmering silver. These met and fused, creating a floating mirror of mercury that rippled like water.

From Agayla’s hints, dropped here and there, Kiska recognized the Warren as that of Thyr, the Path of Light. She’d heard that the Enchantress, the Queen of Dreams, was supposed to be a practitioner of Thyr.

Corinn stepped forward and disappeared into the floating oval of quicksilver as if submerging.

Kiska hesitated, fearful despite her fascination.

‘Hurry, lass,’ Lubben urged. ‘It’ll not do to lose her and wander the paths alone forever.’

Spurred by horror at the thought, Kiska jumped through. Whether Lubben followed she had no idea. It was as if she’d leapt into a hall of mirrors. Reflections of herself and Corinn serried off into infinite distances. Hundreds of Corinns turned, reaching out to her. She stood, unable to move, her heart thudding in panic. Which one was real? Which should she respond to?

Like a swimmer broaching a lake, a new Corinn emerged from one image of herself. Kiska extended a hand and sighed in relief as it met flesh.

‘Where is Lubben?’

Corinn pulled Kiska on. ‘Everyone walks their own path in Thyr. Now stay close.’

They strode on without moving, or so it seemed to Kiska. She couldn’t discern any progress at all, yet still Corinn pulled her on. Then, as she studied the passing images of herself, she began to see differences, some slight, others startling. In one she appeared painfully gaunt and wore clothes no better than rags; in another she was maimed, her right arm missing from the elbow. That sent a shudder down through that arm, recalling a wound from a childhood fall. In yet another she wore the dark cloth of a Claw. She almost shouted her amazement.

‘What’s going on?’ she called to Corinn, yanking her to a halt. ‘What do all these images mean?’

Corinn turned, irritation darkening the tattoos at her forehead. ‘You see images?’

‘Yes. Don’t you?’

Corinn raised her brows, impressed. ‘So. You are a natural. Thyr must suit you.’ She urged Kiska on, saying over her shoulder, ‘They are just possibilities — phantasms-pay them no mind. That’s not why we’re here.’

‘What is it you see?’

Corinn answered without turning, ‘I am walking a stone bridge over emptiness with open blue sky all round.’

Kiska stared at the confusing, shifting silver walls all about her — even above and below. ‘Why? Why a bridge over emptiness? How?’

Corinn glanced back with that same mysterious smile. ‘I like to think of things that way — it’s safer. As to how, well, that would take years.’

Kiska nodded, grimacing. Yes. Years of study and practice. The same dusty mental exercises and meditation Agayla had tried to impose on her long ago, only giving up the day Kiska opened a ceiling window and risked a dangerous third-storey climb rather than sit for hours and, in her own words, try to cross her eyes. After that Agayla had been good on her agreement: providing every other form of instruction, though no longer pressing any arcane training upon her. She’d simply warned her that she’d come to regret the choice later in life.

And almost immediately she did, yet her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit it. Her stubborn pride that turned the failure around until she actually boasted of her ignorance! All she felt now was shame at such childish wilfulness. After this night she would beg Agayla to forgive her.

Thinking of Agayla, the brushing of her rich embroidered dresses and her thick mane of auburn hair, brought a tingling to Kiska’s neck. She slowed, dizzied for a moment, then jerked to a halt as one of the images before her rippled like the surface of a pool. It shifted, darkened into a likeness of a woman sitting at a shoreline, lashed by punishing wind and threatened by low clouds. The woman raised her head and Kiska saw Agayla such as she had never known her: exhausted, haggard, her face drawn and pale, her hair wind-whipped and soaked. Agayla looked up, confused then alarmed. ‘Not here, child,’ she said, hoarse, distracted.

Kiska lunged forward. ‘Agayla!’ But the image rippled away and instead Corinn re-emerged. The look she gave Kiska made her feel as if she’d sprouted wings. The filigree of tattooing at her brow seemed to pulse.

‘What in the name of the Elder Ones do you think you’re doing?’

Kiska stammered, ‘I thought I saw someone. Someone I know. She’s in trouble. I have to go to her!’

Corinn muttered, gestured curtly. All hints of her earlier mischievous smiles had gone. ‘I don’t sense a thing. Stay with me. This is no place for games.’

Stung, Kiska opened her mouth to explain, but the woman started off without waiting. Kiska hurried after, struggling to stay close.

‘We must leave before our goal,’ Corinn said over her shoulder. ‘Something blocks the way — do you see it?’

Kiska’s vision went no further than the image of herself just beyond Corinn. It was as if she walked towards herself, though each step brought her no closer. ‘I don’t see anything different from before,’ Kiska said. But Corinn didn’t reply. She had disappeared.

A cry died on Kiska’s lips as the reflective silver of the Warren dulled and thickened to an opaque fog. Her training closed her mouth to still any betraying shout, for she recognized where she now stood. It was her third visit to Shadow Realm.

She stood upon a flat plain of dust and wind-scoured dirt. A sky of pallid lead arched overhead. From a great distance rose a low drawn-out moan, the wind or a hound.

In front of her towered a rock outcropping such as she had never seen before. It resembled a jumbled pile of enormous crystalline blades, black and smudged like frozen smoke. She thought of the stones Agayla possessed in her shop, the clusters of quartz and salt crystals. Smoke-quartz! That’s what it reminded her of! And it was changing. While she watched, individual blades altered, rotated, disappeared or changed translucence. The entire structure seemed undefined and shifting. She could not even be certain of its size. It was beautiful, seeming to speak to her, and she felt that it must hold the solutions to every mystery she had ever wondered about, all the answers to any questions regarding Agayla. All she had to do was enter and she would know how Agayla fared this very moment. Even where Tayschrenn was right now. Any question at all. The fate of her father. Who would be her lover. Kiska took a step towards it.

Something blocked her way. A hand as hard as stone pushed her back. ‘It doesn’t do to stare quite so closely,’ said a breathless voice.

It was the being from the bridge, Edgewalker. Dazed, Kiska blinked, rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. What had happened? Hadn’t something…? She could have sworn something odd had occurred. She shrugged but kept her face averted from the crystal outcropping.

Beyond, the sands gave way to bare mounded granite which descended to a lake of smooth water that reflected the dull sky like a mirror. An immense wall of ice reared on the opposite shore; the glacier that earlier had been nothing more than a distant line on the horizon. Now the ice stretched like a vast plain. Lights played over it such as she had seen in the southern night skies: rainbow banners and curtains that flickered, dancing.

Had she moved, or had the ice? ‘This is Shadow,’ she told the being. It inclined its desiccated head in agreement. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’

‘Yet you do seem most persistent.’

She studied the empty dark sockets where its eyes should have been; had that been a joke? ‘And you can send me back again?’

‘You may say that is my duty.’

‘Before you do — what is it? That thing?’ Kiska gestured to the quartz-like heap of crystals.

‘That is Shadow House. The heart of Shadow, so to speak.’

‘Really? That?’ But it’s-’

‘Alive. Quite so. And very dangerous.’

‘Dangerous? But what of — of those who would claim it?’

It shrugged its thin shoulders. ‘Occupants of the throne come and go.’ It raised a clawed hand to point to the glacier across the lake of melt-water. ‘But that. That is the true danger.’

‘What is it?’

‘It is alien to this realm. It reminds me of the Jaghut, but profoundly alien from them. They, at least, were not so different from you. It is said that long ago the Jaghut inadvertently allowed it into this world when they wrought their ice-magic too strongly’

‘But there is a madman, a murderer, who may be taking the throne. Won’t you do something? He doesn’t belong here either!’

The creature did not turn away from the glacial cliff. ‘True. But this is the more deadly threat. I must remain ready should this break through and reach the House.’

‘Break through?’

‘It is being resisted. But that could change at any moment. Those facing it weaken even as we speak.’

Kiska fairly wailed: ‘But what of Kell — the throne?’

‘I am sorry. That is a minor concern given everything at stake this Conjunction.’

‘Minor! ’

Kiska believed she could hear the dried flesh at its neck creak as the head turned to her. ‘Yes. In the larger picture. I am sorry. Now, you must go.’

‘But wait! I have so many questions. I-’

Opalescent grey closed about Kiska obscuring her vision as surely as smoke. From close by came cries, screams, the clash of arms. She heard a woman shout something — her name?

She hunched, ready for combat, a hand groping at the billowing curtains. ‘Corinn?’

‘Here.’

Kiska spun, could discern nothing but fog. Was she back in Malaz? But where? She circled, peering uselessly.

‘Corinn?’ she whispered, louder. Carefully, she drew the curved fighting knife.

’Quiet,’ a distant voice cautioned.

Had that been Corinn? What kind of game was this? ‘Where are you? Show yourself!’

‘Right behind you,’ came a taunt at Kiska’s ear.

She swung: empty vapour churned and curled. Kiska bit down on her panic, clenching her hands so tightly her nails bit into her palms. Never mind what may or may not be happening: remain calm. This was a war of nerves and she was losing.

Listen girl, she challenged herself. Listen. What do you hear? She strained, attempted to sort through the background of muted shouts and screams to discern nearby hints, scrapes and whisperings. There! A footstep to her right. And either very distant, or somehow muted, a roar of outrage. Lubben?

Again, the scuff of leather on stone. Behind her now, closer. Not waiting for another mocking whisper Kiska launched herself, arms outstretched. Coarse woven cloth brushed her right hand. She clutched at it, pulling it close.

The cloth was loosely woven, dyed grey. A cultist.

A cold blade bit at Kiska’s shoulder as the assassin’s sleeve brushed her neck. Recognizing the thrust and her opponent’s stance, she reacted automatically. She clinched the arm, smashed her elbow into her assailant’s throat, then thrust at the chest. Her opponent tumbled to the ground.

Kiska threw herself upon the body, clamped a hand over the mouth. She listened. Satisfied they were alone, or at least giving up trying to detect another’s presence, she lowered her face. It was a young woman. Perhaps her blow had broken the spell of disguise, or the fall had done it, but in any case the woman’s face was bared and the hood lay flat upon the cobbled street. A few small bubbles rose and fell on the woman’s lips as she struggled to breathe. Her hair and complexion were light, the cheekbones high and thin — refined. Talian perhaps, rich-looking. Kiska gently lifted the dagger from her hand. The nails were clean, manicured, the palm soft. The woman’s eyes followed the thin blade as Kiska brought it up between their faces.

‘Why?’ Kiska whispered.

The woman’s breath wheezed shallow and moist. A howl tore through the fog like a scream in Kiska’s ear. She couldn’t still the flinch of her muscles. The woman smiled at that. The smile bespoke a victory over Kiska, triumph at her betrayal of fear.

Snarling, Kiska pushed herself up and scanned the churning curtains for the hound. Was it coming for her? Perhaps the cultist’s mission had been to delay her long enough for it to arrive. Thus the games, the hide and seek. Kiska damned herself for cooperating, hanging about like a fool, reacting rather than taking the initiative. She’d played into her hands.

A low chuffing cough brought her around. There, off in the mist, hung two green eyes. Green — a different one this time. Not that it mattered. Having seen one of them up close, Kiska despaired. It had smashed through a door and chewed armoured men in half. Now the only choice she had left was to be pulled down from behind running, or be struck down fighting. Screaming her rage at the unfairness of it, the naked blade in her hand, she charged the eyes.

At the sixth step, she stumbled. Her leading foot caught on a rise of uneven ground. She rolled forward into an explosion of noise — a deafening firefight of crackling power, shouts in a multitude of languages — smacking her head against a wall. She lay dazed while rippling phosphorescent energies played above her.

Stepping out of the House’s doorway, the giant stooped to avoid the lintel. Alien, ornamental armour of bronze plates and embossed, tooled leather gleamed at its chest, arms and legs. A gold sash wrapped its inhumanly broad shoulders, and from another at its waist hung two swords. Its face was hidden by a war helm of polished iron gilded in bronze spirals, and bronze-scaled gauntlets covered its hands.

Temper backed away, sparing a quick glance to his rear. Trenech blocked the frail gate, pike-axe levelled. As the apparition stepped down from the porch the stones of the walk sank beneath its feet. Temper heard shouts of dismay from behind him, cut off by searing laughter from Faro.

‘See!’ the old man shouted, his voice cracking. ‘Fools! You have brought out the Jaghut. Greatest of those fallen attempting to master the House. Now see what you face!’

Temper retreated to the gate, but pulled short as Trenech thrust the broad axe-head at him.

‘Let me out, blast you!’

Behind Trenech and Faro the cultists fanned out, Pralt and Jasmine among them, rushing the length of low wall.

‘Soldier,’ Faro called to Temper, ‘you entered of your own will.’ The phosphorescent flickering of Warren energies danced about his emaciated arms. ‘I am sorry, but we cannot allow anyone to leave the grounds. You made your choice.’

What? But he’d only just entered. Well, to the Abyss with them! The walls were low enough to jump. A clash of swords spun Temper around. The Jaghut held its blades ready. They shimmered, light rippling along their four-foot length, and it struck them together again. Over the House thunder erupted.

The grounds heaved and hundreds of desiccated skeletal hands and arms emerged, digging and clawing, as corpses fought to tear free of the dirt. Cyan energies flickered over the walls while the tree limbs twitched and swung. The noise of it all, the roaring and crackling, the terrified screams of the cultists, deafened Temper.

All around the flagged walkway sinewy hands, their flesh dried to leather, grasped at the air. He kicked at the nearest but it snatched his foot and it took all his strength to pull free. They flailed between him and the wall, a malevolent crop that would pull him down. He wondered how his blades would fare against them but the Jaghut was almost upon him. He struck a ready stance though he doubted he’d survive a single blow. Yet, like Surgen Ress, the Jaghut hardly noticed him; its visor was fixed on the gate beyond. Only its legs moved, feet slamming heavily onto the walkway. Then, flashing like liquid light, its blades lashed out. Temper barely managed to react. He blocked, but the second blow’s force knocked him from the path like the side-swipe of a battering ram. He rolled, tumbling, and came to rest on the cold loose earth of the grounds.

Face down, he struggled to regain his breath, choking on the dust and dirt. Distantly, through the tumult, he heard heavy steps as the Jaghut strode to the gate. Things squirmed and shifted beneath him like snakes. A voice shouted within his dazed thoughts: move, man! Move to the wall!

‘Right,’ he gasped aloud, spitting out dirt. ‘Move.’ Swords still clenched in his fists, he crawled like an exhausted swimmer aiming at a too distant shore. He pulled himself over a sea of grasping withered hands and lashing arms — so far the dead seemed more intent upon freeing themselves than attacking him. A new note of urgency entered the fray as anvil-like clanging rang out and a bellow reverberated from the gate.

He dragged himself on. The crude wall rose almost within reach, laughably low, almost useless. Behind it a cultist ran past not even bothering to look down to where he lay. Ahead, whole armoured corpses had clawed their way free. Something caught at Temper’s foot. He kicked, but it held on. Temper rolled to his side and peered down to find a skeletal hand wrapped around his ankle. Dread tore out a yell and he swung, slashing the thing repeatedly. Other hands now grasped at him. The sinews parted like dry wood and he yanked his foot free.

The chill of horror still on him, Temper crawled frantically, but beneath him the earth shifted and broke. The musty stench of ages-dead flesh seeped out, then long-nailed fingers pushed through the cracks. At the wall, the freed corpses heaved themselves against the stones, lunging at the cultists beyond. They caught one by the sleeve and yanked him in. Sinking with him wrapped in their bone-thin arms, his screams were cut off as his head sank beneath the earth.

Temper stared, horrified. Burn help him — he would be next! He leapt for the wall, but something yanked at his leg and he fell short, his blades just brushing the stones. A corpse held him. Its shattered skull wobbled as he kicked at it. Temper lashed out, smashing its torso and the broken thing fell away.

The hot acid bile of nausea bit at Temper’s throat. He’d face any warrior from any land — but this! He pushed himself up and was about to leap over the wall when something rammed him in the side and sent him tumbling farther into the yard.

Lying in the dirt, Temper twisted to face the wall. There stood a Claw dressed in black, a staff at his side. What by Fener’s prang was a Claw doing here? Yells and the explosions of Warren energy out beyond the walls answered his question. In a chaotic melee of smoke, mist, Warren-fire and whirling, snapping robes, black fought grey. At the gate, Trenech and Faro battled the Jaghut and no one, wisely, seemed willing to interfere with that titanic duel. Elsewhere at the walls, cultists and Claws fought side-by-side against the dead, who seemed less inclined to defend the walls than to clamber over them.

The Claw who’d struck him pulled back his hood, revealing long black hair and a narrow hatchet-face. Possum. The man looked to have been in a fight himself, his robes torn and bloodied. Possum grinned at Temper the way a starving man might regard a roast ox.

Temper invited him in with a wave. Possum shook his head. He pushed himself up to rush the bastard but fell; another grip like a dog’s jaws held his ankle. His foot had already been yanked into the earth.

‘Damn you to Hood’s Abyss!’ he screamed.

‘After you!’ Possum answered through the bursts of magefire.

Enraged, Temper threw one of his swords at the Claw who knocked it aside with his staff. Laughing, Possum waved, stepped back, and disappeared.

Temper struggled to rise, almost weeping his frustration. He’d nearly made it! If it weren’t for that bastard he’d have escaped. With a yell, he reached down into the loose earth and blindly felt about. This wasn’t a hand but a vine or root of some kind, its grip like iron. He yanked but it was as taut as a rope.

From down the hillside a particularly fierce exchange of Warren energy caught his attention. There, what looked like the few remaining cultists had gathered in a fighting retreat against the Claws. Trenech and Faro still held the gate against the huge bellowing Jaghut. At the walls Claws had replaced cultists but from their panicked shouts they appeared to be faring no better.

A dry creaking whispered from his rear and he twisted round. There stood one of the yard’s stunted trees, its branches reaching for him. The tree! The blasted tree had him! Stark horror drove all coherent thought from him. Throwing his second sword out over the wall, he pulled out both fighting gauches and slammed the short heavy blades into the earth.

At the first touch of iron the root jerked and the tree shuddered from bottom to top. Temper thought that he’d bested it, but then the root tightened about his ankle and yanked his leg farther into the earth, up to the knee. He grunted his pain and terror and drove one arm down, cutting and slicing. Now pain flamed in his other leg as it too was drawn into the dirt. Frantic, he slashed with both blades as deeply as he dared reach. Yet no sooner had he severed one root than another wrapped itself around him. Tendrils grasped at his arms. One cheek-guard was pressed against the earth and he knew that at any moment a root would take his neck. From where he lay he could see the tree dark against the sky. He eyed it. It was a scrawny thing, stunted and gnarled, the trunk no thicker than his wrist and barely his height. He grinned, thinking You look to be in reach you bastard. With a bellow of rage, he tore his arms out of the earth and lunged.

Kiska may have lay stunned for some time; she did not know. She simply became aware of something wavering at the edge of her vision and a voice familiar and close saying, ‘I am very surprised to see you here.’ Blinking back tears of pain, Kiska squinted up at Oleg Vikat’s furrowed, madness-contorted face. His shade looked remarkably solid here, wherever here was. Next to her stood a wall of haphazardly piled granite and limestone blocks — it was against this she’d cracked her head.

‘Where are we?’ she whispered, wincing and rubbing her skull behind an ear.

Oleg slipped a hand under her arm to lift her up and pointed over the wall. ‘The eye of the storm.’

Groaning, Kiska rested her chin on the low wall. They were at the one building in Malaz she’d never dared enter. The old building with its ridiculous name, the Deadhouse. Call it superstition, but she’d never ever seen anyone come or go from the place, using that as her excuse for never taking a closer look. An abandoned building held no interest for her.

They were behind the House, at the rear wall that ran unevenly at more or less waist height. Beyond, in the grounds, rose four major mounds humped like rubbish heaps, steaming as if recently turned. Squat twisted trees, black-limbed, grew here and there apparently without order. In one corner stood a stone cairn of granite plinths piled together like cards and smothered beneath vines that snaked all over the grounds. As for the House, its windows appeared dark and empty, its only rear access — a narrow servant’s entrance at the bottom of stairs — choked with weeds.

Nothing moved except the twitching tree branches. From the front she heard the clash of fighting. Layers of fog cloaked the distance, but she could make out corpses lying here and there against the wall. Of Corinn or Lubben she saw nothing. Where were they?

A low hiss from Oleg brought her attention back. He glared over the wall, hunched but tensed, like an arched cat. Seeing nothing, she whispered, ‘What is it?’

‘Do you not see them?’

‘No. Who? Where?’ Kiska asked who, but from the venom in Oleg’s voice she could guess.

‘Look between the farthest two mounds. See the vines move?’

Kiska watched and after a moment saw the matting of foliage shake slightly, shift and stretch as if twisting after something. Then they blackened, smoked, and fell away to ash.

Oleg, fists at his chin, moaned. ‘Nooo! He’s getting away!’ He turned to her. ‘You were in Shadow. You met the Elder One?’

‘Elder?’

Oleg hissed exasperation: ‘The one who watches its borders.’

‘Oh, yes. I met him.’

‘And? What did he say? Where is he? Will he act?’

Kiska groaned inwardly. ‘He can’t, that is, he won’t. I’m sorry.’

Oleg’s spirit hands lunged for Kiska’s throat but whipped away at the last instant. She flinched from him. Glaring wildly, he muttered to himself, then rubbed his hands over the wall with quick tentative strokes as if it were hot and burning his fingers.

‘Nothing for it,’ she heard him whimper. ‘I’ll see him enslaved for an eternity! It must be mine!’ Warren energies crackled and flashed, blinding her. When she looked back Oleg was inside the wall, scrambling across the ground on all fours. Vines snatched at him but also blackened and crumbled to ash.

Soon he neared where the vines shuddered and jerked. Kiska heard a shout — a challenge or warning. Close to Oleg crawled another man, but she had barely seen him when power burst, gold and violet between them, shattering nearby trees and blowing clouds of earth from a mound. The force of the impact shook the wall and hurled Kiska sprawling onto her back, stones and sand pattering down around her. Pushing to her knees, Kiska squinted over the wall, shading her eyes against the glare of power. Oleg knelt, pouring a mauve snake-like flow of energy from his hands onto the back of a man. Despite this punishment, the man crawled onwards towards the House.

Then, so quick and startling did it move, another figure-this one in rags, scarecrow thin with elongated, oddly proportioned limbs — sprang like a striking snake from the ravaged mound and wrapped its arms around Oleg’s quarry.

Oleg shouted in triumph and broke off the energies he’d been summoning. In the resulting silence Kiska’s ears thrummed. The captured man clawed and flailed at the loose earth as he was dragged toward the mound. Now Kiska could see him more clearly: a short Dal Honese, grey haired, his clothing torn and dirt-smeared. Kellanved — or what was left of him — snatched just shy of his goal. He let out a shattering howl as he clutched uselessly at the soil. Kneeling in the broken steaming earth, Oleg cackled victory.

A third figure appeared, causing Kiska to catch her breath. Dancer! He tottered, cloak gone, a dark shirt hanging in ribbons about him. Blood streaked his torso and arms, dripped to the torn earth. Before Kiska could shout a warning, he snatched Oleg up as if he were a bundle of rags and tossed him onto the writhing figures. Immediately the pale skeletal form released Kellanved and grasped Oleg. They wrestled, Oleg shrieking, the other silent… disturbingly so. Dancer stepped in and dragged Kellanved free. Together they staggered the last few steps to the House and fell against its rear wall as Oleg flailed and screamed, tossing up dirt while the creature drew him slowly into its mound.

Oleg disappeared a bit at a time. But he’s dead — a spirit-Kiska thought. How could this be? Unless here, on the grounds, no distinction remained between flesh and spirit-here, the House captured any and all that entered.

Presently, Oleg’s hoarse pleading ceased. She glanced back to the mound. Now all that moved was the bare settling of earth, slumping a bit to one side. At the back of the House Kellanved and Dancer struggled with a narrow warped door. Dancer pulled it open and lunged through so quickly it was as if he’d been grabbed. Kellanved waited. As if sensing her gaze, he turned towards her. She meant to duck behind the wall, but something drew her, enticed her, to stand. A weary smile passed Kellanved’s lips, as if he’d be amused if he yet retained the energy. Kiska felt a summons to step over the wall. He merely lifted his chin and she was compelled to enter. Her foot in its soft leather sandal settled on top of the wall. A jolt from the rock, like a spark of static, jarred her, and she yelped as she tumbled back.

An angry curse sounded from inside the grounds, then something like a giant fist smashed against the wall. Stones stung her back and flames licked over her. She leapt up, slapped at her hair and clothing as a mocking laugh rang out. It finished abruptly as a door slammed shut.

Kiska ran. She wanted to run on forever through the mist, away from such horrors, but her way was blocked by a grey figure. She shrieked, thinking it was Dancer come for her. But the figure flashed past like a wounded animal and collapsed against the wall with a gasp. It lay there, shuddering, weeping. Kiska reached out, feeling a strange compassion but a deep bellow and clash of steel snapped her attention forwards. There, an armoured giant duelled a man armed with a pike-axe who was backed up by a frail-looking elder. The Warren energies that crackled between them had left the earth scorched and smoking.

Laughter, and Kiska looked down to the cultist. He was a young man with pale eyes filled with hopelessness, despite his soft chuckle. He wiped his mouth, leaving a smear of blood across his face.

‘It’s over,’ he said, and winced. ‘Won or lost — it’s finished.’ He let a dagger slip from his blood-slick hand, let his head fall.

Kiska stared. ‘Finished?’ she echoed.

He nodded, exhausted beyond care. Kiska meant to ask just what exactly was finished, but backed away instead as a dirt-smeared armoured hand appeared from behind the stones. It encircled the youth’s neck and dragged him in over the wall. He didn’t seem startled at all. Without struggle, he simply disappeared.

The gauntlet appeared again, scrabbling at the wall. Head and shoulders followed, the head hidden within a war helm with faceguards and an articulating neck guard. The creature gasped, its breath ragged and wet, and it babbled to itself. Wild eyes, all whites, blazed from within the darkness of its helm. Kiska stepped back. She’d seen this — or another just like it-at Mock’s Hold. Perhaps it had escaped from here in the first place. It rolled over the wall and crashed to the ground with a clatter of armour. Soil fell from it in clumps. So, she thought, it had dragged itself from the grave. But bizarrely, in its other hand, it gripped a shattered tree branch.

As it lay there, chest heaving — heaving? Was it alive? — Kiska tried to decide whether to stab the thing now while it seemed helpless, or to run. While she hesitated it fumbled at the ground, its breath rasping as it dragged itself along. That, she now realized, was the only sound. Silence reigned. Her hearing rang in the absence of conflict and the explosion of Warren magics. She circled around to the front of the House. The pike-man simply faced his giant opponent, and suddenly Kiska recognized him — the drunkard from Coop’s inn! But how could that possibly be? Was everything insane tonight? The armoured giant’s arms hung at its sides. It didn’t appear defeated or wounded, just watchful, patient. The old man called, addressing it in a language of fluting musical vowels. After a moment, it responded in kind.

Was that the end of the hostilities for the night? Kiska looked around. The grounds resembled a battlefield of ploughed up corpses — but then it had always had something of that atmosphere. No one else seemed to be about. Clouds of fog still obscured the distance, anonymous as ever. She wondered if it were dawn yet over the town. She felt chill, as if the fog and dark beyond belonged to a typical Malaz Island mid-winter morning, when the fishing boats snapped and moaned with sea-rime.

Down the slope from the gate, shadowy figures flickered in and out of sight. More fighting? The final savage exchanges? But she heard not a sound. Maybe it was just another of the mist’s shifting tricks. Nevertheless, she felt exposed just standing there. From out of the fog forms were coming towards her. They looked familiar, and once Kiska was sure who they were, she crossed her arms and grinned, waiting.

Tayschrenn and Hattar climbed the shallow slope out of the fogbank, the bodyguard supporting the mage, who sagged at his side. Was he injured? She saw no wound upon him. He merely appeared pale and haggard and exhausted. He gave a slow shake of his head as he recognized her. Hattar scowled as if a cat he’d tossed into a river had just reappeared.

Kiska tried to hide the immense relief the High Mage’s presence instilled in her. She remembered her earlier cockiness — the girl who had followed him to Mock’s Hold — what seemed so long ago. She shouted, ‘Are you all right? What are you doing here?’

Tayschrenn called out in a weak voice, ‘And how did you get here?’

‘A friend brought me.’

‘Your friend shows poor judgement.’

She ached to tell him all that she’d seen, but if tonight had taught her anything, it was a caginess with information. Coming closer, she noticed an uncomfortable chill emanating from him like an aura of winter. Vapour coiled from his shoulders.

‘What’s going on back there?’

Tayschrenn hesitated. Then with a sigh he told her, ‘Surly had long suspected that renegades from her order had joined the Shadow cult. They’re just cleaning up now.’

Kiska snorted. ’Cleaning up? Why so delicate? They’re wiping out the cult. They’re rivals, aren’t they?’

‘Something like that. Old rivals.’

‘Well, it’s too late now for that anyway.’

It seemed to Kiska that his drained expression became brittle. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that while the cultists sacrifice themselves to lead the Claws on a useless chase, I saw two men reach the House at the rear. The two Surly claimed dead.’

Tayschrenn winced as if physically pained by her words. He shook his head. ‘No. You’re mistaken.’

‘Mistaken? I saw them!’

The magus swallowed an angry retort, took a slow breath to calm himself. ‘Kiska,’ he said carefully, emphatically, ‘you must be mistaken, because both Surly and I have agreed that those two are dead and gone. Do you understand?’

For the third time that night Kiska wanted to object, to say but, and for the third time she suspected that remaining silent, resisting the urge, might save her life. She simply nodded at Tayschrenn’s assertion, her jaw clamped shut. Hattar echoed the nod, underscoring it as a standing warning.

Tayschrenn waved a hand as if to say that was all behind them now. ‘I’m going to see if the Guardian will speak to me, then we’ll return to Mock’s Hold. You should accompany us.’

Kiska looked about. There was still no sign of Corinn or Lubben. She agreed. She had no idea how else to get out of wherever, or whatever, this was.

Tayschrenn straightened from Hattar’s grip and, leaving him behind, continued unsteadily on to the gate. He stopped a respectful distance from the old man and addressed him. Kiska was too far away to hear much. The old man replied curtly. His gaze didn’t waver from the armoured giant who stood like a statue of solid bronze just inside the open gate. It no longer attacked, but nor did it give any impression of defeat. Rather, Kiska sensed, it was waiting for something, gathering strength for a new onslaught. A few steps away the guard remained at ready, pike-axe held high. While tall, he barely reached the giant’s shoulders. He was almost as broad though, shaped like a blunt spur of stone. A match for the giant so far.

The two men spoke, unlike in appearance yet somehow brethren to Kiska’s eye. Was this the end of the encounter then? A civilized exchange over a carpet of bodies, then a warm fire and off to another errand tomorrow? And what of her? Could she return to the usual rounds of spying and petty theft, knowing what she did? Having tasted what could be? As if the island had seemed small and provincial before!

Hattar suddenly stiffened, loosing a galvanizing shout. Kiska caught an instant’s glimpse of a tall Shadow cultist behind the guard, who spasmed and toppled to his side without a sound. Killed instantly, it seemed.

The giant launched himself at the gate’s threshold. Warren energies erupted in a curtain of carmine and silver flames, shaking the ground and knocking Kiska flat. The giant bellowed, thrust at the barrier while the old man raised his arms, bending all his strength.

Kiska crawled away, one arm raised over her face against the glare of the inferno. As the giant pushed an arm through the warding, Tayschrenn joined the battle. Raw coursing power arced about the hillside in random blasts of lightning. Again Kiska tumbled, straining to raise herself against the hammering pressure. She heard a snarl of desperate rage from Hattar as he ran towards the gate. He disappeared into pure incandescent energy.

Moments later, out of the blinding furnace, came Hattar, dragging Tayschrenn with him. He dumped the mage beside Kiska. One side of the bodyguard’s hair was gone, and smoke curled from his cheek and ear. His right arm swung limply, blackened, a livid gash welling blood.

No wound that Kiska saw affected the High Mage. His body and limbs appeared whole, though blood ran from his nose and ears, and pink clouds discoloured his eyes.

‘We must take him to be healed,’ Hattar shouted at Kiska. He glared like a madman and Kiska was shocked to see despair filling his eyes. ‘Help me!’

‘But the demon — will it escape?’

‘Only he can stop it if it does! Carry him!’

‘But-’

‘Raise him up!’ A sob escaped from Hattar as he fumbled at one of the knives sheathed at his waist.

Kiska swallowed any further objections. She yanked the mage to his feet, his arms to either side of her neck and his weight on her back. With Hattar’s help, she clasped his arms and staggered forward, the magus’s legs dragging behind them. Hattar pushed her down the slope. She half-stumbled, each step jarring her knees. She fully expected to run headlong into something in the mist. Catching up, Hattar used his one good arm to steady Tayschrenn against her back. They jogged like that for a time, side by side, then Hattar moved up.

‘Follow my lead,’ he mumbled as he limped forward. Blood dripped like spilt water from his torn arm. Though the weight on her back threatened to topple her, she followed as quickly as possible, drawing strength from Hattar’s example.

She almost fell as she stepped onto wet cobbles. Hattar stood to one side, leaning against a dark form in the mist: a brick wall. He pressed his head against it, his eyes shut. In the distance, the fog thinned, shredding into wisps. Kiska recognized where they were now.

‘You know the town,’ challenged Hattar.

‘Yes.’

‘The nearest medicer or healer?’ He licked his lips, forced his eyes open. He’d had the colour of cured leather earlier this evening, but now his face was as pale as the fog. ‘Where?’

Kiska glared about, thinking. They were in the old town, not too distant from the Deadhouse in fact. She thought for a moment longer, then gestured to the left with her chin. ‘This way.’

Temper took grim pleasure from the fact that not once did he lose consciousness — not even when the tree whispered to him.

And not many would have blamed him then if he had either, what with the tree promising in its creaking voice how it would send shoots down his throat to feed on his heart blood, or tear at his soul for eternity, growing stronger and taller feeding upon him.

But he’d bested it! He wrenched and broke it asunder! He didn’t break. He’d never broken. He was annealed in the fury of the last Talian, Falar, and Seven City campaigns. Dassem himself had picked him from the ranks: for conspicuous pig-headedness, the champion had joked. For more than a decade he’d served in the Sword. But now all were dead and he the last. Ferrule and Dassem were gone. Was this Hood’s welcome?

Hands grasped at him, turned him over. A face stared down. A woman, tattooed — Corinn. Her gaze searched his face; he didn’t like the way she bit her lip at what she saw.

‘How do I look?’ he croaked.

She gasped, amazed he was able to speak.

‘That bad, huh?’

‘Hood himself. Can you stand?’

‘Don’t know. Haven’t recently,’ and he tried to laugh but only spat up grit and blood.

Another face appeared: side-long, anxious. Lubben. ‘You look like an Imass reject.’

‘Help me stand and I’ll whip you for that.’

They took his arms, hauled him upright. ‘Later,’ Lubben rumbled. ‘Right now we’re on our way out. The Claws and grey-boys are busy chasing each others’ asses. We’ll just slip out the back, eh?’

Temper saw that the hunchback had retrieved his swords. He didn’t answer. He held his jaws tight against the agony of life returning to his legs. Corinn watched as if he were made of glass and might burst into pieces at any moment.

From the gate a shout sounded. Lubben turned, grunted his surprise. A sudden detonation kicked Temper’s numb legs out from under him and he fell again. The blast reminded him of Moranth alchemical explosions he’d endured. The ground buckled and heaved and a gust of heated air seared his lungs. He rolled over, righting his helm. Crimson and silver energies thundered and coursed at the gate like an enormous waterfall. Within, the shadowy figure of the Jaghut battled.

Temper turned to Lubben, shouted through the detonations, ‘Bad as I think?’

Lubben nodded, grimaced his disgust. ‘A grey took down the axe-man. I think the old guy and another fellow bought it too!’ He crawled to Temper, took his arm. ‘Hood himself is about to arrive. Let’s get going!’

Temper took his swords from Lubben, shook him off. ‘No. Those two held the gate for a reason. That thing can’t be allowed out.’

‘Dammit Temper! It’s not your fight! Leave it to the Claws.’

Temper laughed. ‘They’re too clever. They’ve run off.’

Corinn threw herself down next to them. ‘What’re you two waiting for? Let’s get out of here!’

Temper pointed: ‘Look.’ A figure, blackened and smoking, crawled from the wash of blinding energies. Temper stood, staggered towards it. After a few steps Lubben came to his side, steadied him. As they closed, the hunchback let out a whistle at the ravaged corpse before them. The raw energies had scoured it. Burnt beyond recognition, its hands were missing, the forearms reduced to white cracked bone.

Temper turned his face away from the smoke and stink of scorched flesh. ‘Faro,’ he whispered.

Thunder erupted anew from the gate. The curtain of power wavered, rippled like a pool struck by a stone, reformed itself.

‘Soldier…’ hissed a voice from the fleshless jaws.

‘Soliel’s Mercy!’ Lubben choked and staggered away, dry heaving.

‘Soldier-’

Temper kneeled at the seared corpse. ‘Faro?’

‘Step into the gap, soldier,’ came a breathless call, as if the ground itself spoke. ‘Accept the burden.’

‘What of the fires?’

Horribly, the figure raised a blackened and charred forearm, entreating. ‘Receive the Guardianship!’

Temper felt wrenched and utterly spent. He rested his hands on his knees. Why did it always fall to him? Hadn’t he done enough? ‘I accept,’ he answered, as if that were the only response he was capable of, as if this alone was what had drawn him to the island in the first place.

He eyed the coursing energies, scratched his chin with the back of one gauntlet. ‘What of those flames?’ No answer came. He looked down. The corpse lay motionless. Temper sensed that whatever had held Faro together had fled. He felt dread dry his throat. Just what had he promised?

Corinn arrived, crouched. ‘The old man?’ Temper nodded, eyeing the pulsing firestorm; past it, he thought he saw figures retreating into the fog.

‘Doesn’t matter anymore.’

He felt her hand at his shoulder. ‘We have to go. Now.’

‘Corinn — could you shield me from those energies?’

‘What?’

‘Could you cover me?’

Corinn stared, appalled. ‘You’re mad!’

‘Could you!’

Her gaze snapped from him towards the gate, then back again. Temper caught something in her eyes — a glimmer of fight, of spirit — until dread smothered it. She shook her head. ‘Forget it.’

He looked to her vest, to where the bridge and flame sigil would have been pinned.

Corinn caught his gaze and flushed instantly. ‘Damn you! How dare you!’ He watched her, waiting. She sighed, eyed the barrier once more. ‘Maybe — for a moment.’ He nodded, took a long breath, started for the gate. ‘Just one heart-beat!’

Temper continued on. ‘Good enough,’ he muttered, ‘that’s probably all I’ll have.’

He stopped just outside the wash of energies, shielded his eyes. The indistinct shape of the Jaghut flickered just beyond. The barrier appeared thinner, less opaque than before. Temper wished he knew how close it was to collapse, but he’d been asked to step into the gap once more, just as he had for Dassem, and couldn’t refuse.

Lubben came up alongside. He didn’t even turn his head to see what Temper thought of that — his blind side anyway. Temper glanced to Corinn who lifted her arms. She mouthed: a short time.

Temper nodded, adjusted his gauntlets, and eased his shoulders. He slowed his breathing and the pounding of his heart. He shouted to Lubben, ‘In quick. You low, I’ll go high.’

Lubben gave a curt jerk of his head, hefted his axe. Temper straightened his helm.

‘Now!’ Corinn shouted.

Leaping into the curtain of energies, Temper felt his hair singe and his armour heat as if tossed into a furnace. But he remained unscorched, though the barrier’s energy shrilled and churned all around him. The scoured path he walked smoked and hissed beneath his feet. He sensed Lubben by his side.

A bare three steps and he reached the Jaghut. The creature’s struggle to escape the House grounds appeared to have been almost as punishing for it as for Faro. The bronze armour smoked at its shoulders and chest. The fine gilding had run, blackening. But the swords shone even more brightly than before, glowing as if immersed in the fiercest fires.

Temper lunged and swung high. One blade caught a shoulder plate, twisted up and rebounded from the helm. Lubben feinted a low swipe then thrust with the killing-spike on the axe-head.

The Jaghut turned, slipped the thrust, cut Lubben down his shoulder and spine. Lubben jerked down and away from Temper’s side.

They’d failed their first and best chance. In the following fraction of a heartbeat Temper decided on new tactics. He screamed and lunged in what he hoped appeared to be outright berserk fury. After two exchanges the Jaghut believed it — it yielded ground, waiting for Temper’s blind rage to provide an opening. Temper now held the gate’s threshold. The barrier of channelled power snapped away like a door slammed shut.

Temper stopped attacking. He was rewarded by a fraction’s hesitation from his opponent that betrayed a stumble of rhythm. At that instant Temper felt the glow of a gambit’s success along with something more: renewed strength coursing up from the ground through his legs. The leaden weight of exhaustion and pain sloughed from him like a layer of dirt in a cold reviving stream. His fighting calm, the inner peace that had carried him through all the chaos of past battles, settled upon him like an affirmation. He allowed himself a fierce, taut grin.

The Jaghut clashed its blades together, advanced once more. Temper could not see its face, but he imagined its re-evaluation of the duel, and its determination to hack him to pieces for daring to oppose him. The attack rolled against Temper like the slamming waves of a storm. He held the gate, crouching low under the blows like a rock that could not be cracked as the swords rang out. He parried as carefully as he could to spare his own, much lighter, blades. The Jaghut gave him openings but he ignored them, refusing to yield his stance.

Soon Temper realized that here he faced no lethal artistry such as that offered by Surgen or Dassem, swordsmen you could never anticipate because you never lasted long enough to grasp their style. Instead, this was raw power incarnate, like the direct irresistible onslaught of a tidal wave. The Jaghut’s blades smashed the stones to either side, ploughed through the earth.

Temper thought it impossible that he could turn such blows. But something gave him the strength, pouring up from the earth to empower him, and he wondered — was this true Patronage? If so, with whom or what had he entered into service?

The style of the attack changed then, bearing on steadily; the creature had abandoned the quick decisive blow and would grind him down instead. That would take longer, it likely judged, but was more certain. And Temper had to agree with the estimate. He’d already used up the fresh reserve that had come to him like a blessing at the slamming of the gate. He was down to pure blind cussedness and was slowing, tiring. The blades hissed closer and closer. Then stopped.

Temper straightened, startled.

The Jaghut had withdrawn a step. Temper risked a glimpse away. He was alone. Everyone and everything had vanished. Bare, time-rounded hills stretched all around. And the House was no longer a house. A pile of megalithic blocks stood in its place, looking like a tumbled-down cairn. Even the trees and mounds in the yard were gone. The Jaghut stood to one side, helm raised as it gazed to the south-west.

Rainbow lights weaved and shimmered in a clear night sky. A darkened vault of constellations strangely distorted. At the horizon stretched a blue-green glow such as he had once seen at sea, when his ship passed close to the shores of the icebound Fenn Mountains. His breath, he noticed, steamed from his helm like smoke and a dire cold bit at his limbs. Where in Burn’s Wisdom was he?

The Jaghut turned its helm to him and pointed one sword south. ‘They’ve failed,’ it said in perfect Talian.

‘Who failed?’ Temper said, startled to find himself addressed.

The Jaghut spoke as if Temper hadn’t responded. ‘Never rely upon uncertain allies, human. They will always disappoint you.’

Temper reminded himself not to lower his guard. The game had changed to one perhaps even more perilous; he’d heard enough legends and tales of Jaghuts plying subtle arguments and poisoned gifts. Physically, he felt strong. Whatever power’s service he had entered into had found him a vessel sufficient to the task of standing before this being’s onslaught. Perhaps the Jaghut knew it too, and that was why he now found himself here. A change in strategy. He felt the power of its regard like a giant’s hand pushing him back. ‘Do you know who I am, human?’

Temper struggled to find his voice: ‘No.’

‘I am Jhenna. Do you know the name?’

Jhenna? He’d been facing a female all along? ’No.’

‘Truly not?’ It shook its helmed head. ‘How far into ignorance you humans have fallen. I was one of your kind’s teachers long ago. We raised you up out of the muck. Did you know that?’

Temper slapped his clenched hands to his sides to warm them. ‘No.’

‘We were puissant upon the world while your ancestors dressed in hides and squatted in their own filth. We gave you fire! We shielded you from the K’Chain!’

Temper shrugged. He was no scholar, just a soldier.

‘What I am saying, human, is name your price.’

‘What?’

‘What is it you wish? Name anything. Simply stand aside. Nothing in the world of your age lies beyond my reach. Is it rulership you crave? I will carve out a continent-wide kingdom for you. Power? I will instruct you in mysteries entirely forgotten by the practitioners of your age. Riches? The locations of hoards beyond your imagination are known to me. Immortality? I know arts that will inure your flesh against the passage of time. Stand aside and these or anything you desire can be yours. What do you say?’

Temper snorted his scorn. Some things never change. It was as if the old ogre himself stood before him, promising Moon’s Spawn itself. He remembered how the council of nobles of Quon Tali province fared after sealing a deal with Kellanved. They were rounded up and beheaded. And there was a timeless saying for deceit and betrayal: dealing with a Jaghut. He struck a ready stance, tensed his arms to warm them. ‘You jammed back in your hole interests me.’

The Jaghut shook its head as if in pity. ‘I can see you lack the imagination necessary to grasp the unparalleled opportunity before you. I am disappointed… but not surprised.’ Temper expected a renewed onslaught after that rejection, yet Jhenna made no move towards him. Instead, she pointed her sword south again. ‘Here comes another disappointment.’

Keeping a wary eye on Jhenna, Temper allowed himself one quick glimpse. Someone was slowly approaching up the slope of naked stone, someone wounded or crippled. Temper waited, weapons poised. Jhenna said conversationally, as if to be companionable: ‘Have you yet begun to worry about the time here, human? How much of the night has passed? Or has any time passed at all? Has your limited imagination yet begun to fathom that prickly problem?’

In fact he hadn’t, but he wasn’t about to admit it to Jhenna. What was the fiend getting at? That she could keep him here-wherever here was — forever? Was that possible? Would he have to stand guard here for eternity? Temper reclasped his weapons through his tattered gauntlets. Frost, he saw, feathered the iron links of his sleeves.

Jhenna half-turned away. ‘I have brought you to Omtose Phellack. It is the home of my kind. Our Warren, such as you call them. It is us and we are it. This night of Conjunction has allowed me at least this one small boon: to revisit my old home.’ The helmed head faced Temper. ‘More to the point for you, human, is that time as you know it does not pass here. I could keep you here for an age only to return an instant after we left.’

She shoved her weapons through the sash at her waist, then lifted her helm away and held it negligently. She regarded him through lambent eyes that glittered with inhuman emotion. Tusklike canines thrust up from its wide jaws, but other than this, Temper found her features almost human, simply oversized: a cliff-like brow ridge, broad cheek bones, a wide sloped forehead. Her leonine mane was matted and greasy. Twists of gold thread and lengths of leather tied off a multitude of small braids — rat-tails, soldiers called them.

‘Think more on my offer, human.’ She crossed her long arms. ‘We have the time.’

The world began to crumble for Temper. Was he doomed to face this monster for centuries? Surely, eventually, he would be defeated or driven insane. Curse Faro to D’rek’s pits! He would know how to counter this tactic; why couldn’t he have warned him? What was he to do? He was only a soldier. After what seemed its own eternity, Jhenna spoke to someone behind him. ‘And what gifts do you bring, skulking wanderer?’

Temper shifted until he could keep both beings in sight at once. He was startled to find that the newcomer was the creature who had rescued him earlier this evening-Edgewalker. The desiccated creature cradled to its chest a long object wrapped in rags. Tendrils of vapour fumed from it.

Just outside the low wall Edgewalker stopped and tossed his burden inside. It rolled free of its rags. Fog burst forth like smoke from burning green leaves. It drifted away, revealing something like a rod that appeared carved from precious gemstone: crystal shot through with veins of purple, bright blue, and startling verdant green. It foamed before their eyes, dissipating, leaving nothing.

‘I bring sign of your failure, Jhenna. The Riders have been repulsed. No release will come from that avenue this Conjunction. The Shadow cultists have withdrawn. And further, I am here to deny you access to Shadow should you attempt that route, while this one blocks your main exit. Your options are falling away quickly. What will you do?’

The giant turned to regard Temper. ‘Did you hear that, human? It is all down to you now. Only you stand in my way. Surely you must see the wisdom of accepting my offer. Is it not obvious that I will overcome you?’

Temper raised his swords; he didn’t remember lowering them. He addressed Edgewalker: ‘This one says she can keep me here forever. Is that true?’

The creature was motionless for a time, until it breathed, ‘A half-truth. Yet what is time to you or me? Myself, I can wait. Time is nothing to me.’

Temper let out an angry snort. ‘I can’t wait. I can’t stand here forever! What do you mean? Is it true or isn’t it?’

‘You are speaking with a Jaghut, human. The Conjunction is like an eclipse between Realms. Even here it passes as we speak. Jhenna’s time is still limited.’

The Jaghut woman laughed her scorn. She pointed to the creature. ‘There speaks self-interest, human. We are old enemies, he and I, and he knows that if you stand aside, then it is his role to be the next defender of the path. He will have to step into the gap and he dreads being destroyed. He is a coward who wishes to benefit from your sacrifice. Do not needlessly throw away your life. Let him stand where he should — in your place.’

Temper attempted to blow on his hands. He risked a glance at Edgewalker. ‘Is that true?’

‘Again, a Jaghut half-truth. It is true I am here to dispute Jhenna’s freedom — to stand in her way as you do. But I would only deny her access to Shadow. All other paths would remain open. Including the way to your world.’

‘Imposture!’ Jhenna cried. ‘Either he stands where you do or he does not! Don’t let him get away with such equivocating.’

Temper hunched his shoulders. ‘It’s not for me to say.’

Jhenna stepped closer and Temper fought an urge to flinch away. He raised his weapons as high as he dared, though the woman had none ready — there were, after all, many kinds of weapons. ‘You poor man. I am doing everything I can to spare your life but you are not cooperating.’ Her eyes shone like golden lanterns and Temper winced. He fixed his gaze dead-centre on the Jaghut’s torso, clenched his teeth and waited.

‘Temper, is it?’ Jhenna asked, then nodded at his flinch of recognition. ‘Why of course! Temper of the Sword!’ She spread her arms out wide. ‘What a fool I’ve been. Who else could possibly stand against a Jaghut? But this is wonderful.’

Temper shivered beneath a sudden gust of cold air. He found he couldn’t open his hands — they were frozen to the grips of his weapons. His feet were numb and his thoughts felt thick and slow. He blinked against the ice gathering over his lashes, managed, ‘What do you mean?’

Jhenna lowered her voice to a whisper: ‘I mean that it is wonderful because I know for a fact that Dassem Ultor yet lives.’

Temper jerked upright. ‘What?’

‘Yes, it is true. He lives. And I can find him! Surely Fate itself conspired to bring the two of us together — you, his last and truest companion, and I, the one who can bring you to him.’

Grimacing against a cold that numbed his lips and made his teeth ache, Temper whispered, ‘You’re lying.’

‘No. On this matter I need not shade the naked facts at all. He still lives.’

The Jaghut’s head now hovered almost within arm’s reach of Temper’s and he felt a dull alarm.

‘Is that not so, Tracer of Edges?’ Jhenna called.

‘I cannot say whether this man lives or not.’

‘Ha! Cannot or will not? Note how spare this one is with his wisdom now, human.’

His thoughts crawled, gelid and viscous as if frozen themselves. Dassem alive? Truly? Why should he throw his life away now?

‘My wisdom I limit to one last comment, mortal,’ Edgewalker urged in its breathless, spare voice.

‘What?’ Temper snarled, annoyed by the thing’s dry-rustling words.

‘’Ware the cold, human. ‘Ware the ice that grips. The frost that silences.’

Temper heard, distantly, a growl from the Jaghut, followed by an explosion as if the barrier was under assault once more. His head was heavy and his chin had sunk to his breastbone. He opened his eyes to see that a sheath of ice now encased his legs up to his knees, and that his feet had disappeared within a block of jet-black ice that seemed to have grown like a crystal from cracks in the very bedrock itself.

Something within Temper shieked an ancient terror. A firestorm of energies burst to life over him. Instead of burning his flesh and sloughing the metal of his armour, it made his limbs sing, and he snapped his blades up to parry twin blows from Jhenna who bore down upon him relentlessly, her helm rolling on the stones behind. The ice at Temper’s legs exploded into vapour that vanished in the crackling energies.

Jhenna roared as she swung again and again, seeking to drive Temper into the ground. But he held, strength flowing up from the rock to meet the naked might hammering against him. On they fought, and on, until the Jaghut lifted one blade to reach out to the curtain of energy. The aura snapped away as if snatched from existence and left a roll of thunder echoing over the hills in its wake. Jhenna stumbled, snarling and spitting, utterly devoid of reason, and Temper was appalled that he had half-listened to the frothing monster before him.

The landscape shimmered, the night sky brightening to a pale slate. From behind the Jaghut the mounds and trees reappeared, and the House frowned down once more on Temper.

Distracted, he was nearly decapitated by a lightning assault. A head swipe caught the top of his helmet. It bit at the iron and snapped his head back, dazzling him with sparks. Stunned, he managed to parry the most deadly thrusts, but he was slowing. The next hit shaved scales from his shoulder. He spasmed as a sweep gashed his right thigh. His defence was crumbling. Had he lasted long enough? Could such a short stand have made any difference at all?

Jhenna twisted away, parrying a hurled weapon: an axe. It struck her upper arm a glancing blow and she bellowed.

In that split-second Temper crouched and managed to gather himself. Jhenna flexed her arm but something else flew at her from over Temper’s shoulder: white crackling energy that smashed into her breast-plate. The Jaghut retreated one step, spluttering hoarse curses. She came on again, inexorable like a force of nature. Such power awed Temper. Perhaps it would never tire. Already he was beyond exhaustion. He thought he heard yelling, muffled to his ears after the waterfall thunder of the barrier. The next attack came as an angry flurry, off-balanced and desperate. Temper sloughed the blows, his arms burning with the stabbing agony of fatigue. Shrieking her frustration to the sky, Jhenna drew back her arm to throw a sword, point-first.

Temper knew he was dead. Involuntarily he tensed and caught his breath. But the blade never touched him. Instead Jhenna tottered, then fell to her knees with a clashing of armour.

She sat motionless for a time, blades resting on the ground. ‘I am finished, human,’ she slurred. ‘I have nothing left.’ She chuckled, low and throaty. ‘Now you will see how the House rewards the treachery of its servants.’ Slowly roots gathered, twisting and worming from the soil. They coiled about the Jaghut’s legs. She strained against them but the tightening cords dragged her to her side. Fist-thick roots wrapped around her torso. As she was yanked ever deeper into the steaming earth, she offered Temper a mocking smile. ‘Careful, human, or this too will be your fate.’ The golden eyes held his as if to pull him along even as her head sank beneath the crumbling dirt. Her arms and hands slipped down last, still grasping the smoking swords.

Temper blinked away the sweat running into his eyes. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was stone dry. Sucking cool air into his lungs, he watched as the fog dispersed, revealing no trace of the mangled corpses, torn robes, or scattered weapons. The House stared at him blindly, and now its neighbouring buildings surrounded it again. He stood with fists numb around his sword-grips, gasping, his body twitching with exhaustion. A hand touched his shoulder and he jumped, staggering. He fell like a corpse, back against the low stone wall.

‘It’s dawn,’ Corinn said, steadying him. ‘We were trying to tell you…’ Lubben stood behind her, covering her back as if expecting a last-minute Shadow cultist’s attack.

‘Dawn?’ he croaked. He mouthed the word, uncomprehending. Dawn. Corinn fumbled to catch him as he slid onto ground glistening with the morning dew.