Toll the Hounds

CHAPTER TEN

His boots crunched on waterworn stones slick with mist as he made his way to the water’s edge. The steep slopes of the surrounding mountainsides were verdant, thick rainforest, crimson-barked trees towering high, beards of moss hanging from toppled trunks.

Endest Silann leaned on his stolid walking stick, the muscles of his legs trembling. He looked round as he slowly regained his breath. It was chilly, the sun’s arc just slipping past the western peaks, and shadow swallowed the river valley.

Black water rushed by and he felt its cold — no need to squat down, no need to slide a hand into the tugging current. This dark river was, he could see now, nothing like Dorssan Ryl. How could he have expected otherwise? The new is ever but a mangled echo of the old and whatever whispers of similarity one imagined do naught but sting with pain, leaving one blistered with loss. Oh, he had been a fool, to have journeyed all this way. Seeking what? Even that he could not answer.

No, perhaps he could. Escape. Brief, yes, but escape none the less. The coward flees, knowing he must return, wishing that the return journey might kill him, take his life as it did the old everywhere. But listen! You can shape your soul — make it a bucket, a leaking one that you carry about. Or your soul can be a rope, thick and twisted, refusing to break even as it buckles to one knot after another. Choose your image, Endest Silann. You are here, you’ve made it this far, haven’t you? And as he told you. . not much farther to go. Not much farther at all.

He smelled woodsmoke.

Startled, alarmed, he turned away from the rush of the river. Faced upstream whence came the late afternoon breeze. There, in distant gloom, the muted glow of a campfire.

Ah, no escape after all. He’d wanted solitude, face to face with intractable, in shy;different nature. He’d wanted to feel. . irrelevant. He’d wanted the wildness to punch him senseless, leave him humiliated, reduced to a wretch. Oh, he had wanted plenty, hadn’t he?

With a sour grunt, Endest Silann began walking upstream. At the very least, the fire would warm his hands.

Thirty paces away, he could see the lone figure facing the smoky flames. Huge, round-shouldered, seated on a fallen log. And Endest Silann smiled in recognition.

Two trout speared on skewers cooked above the fire. A pot of simmering tea sat with one blackened shoulder banked in coals. Two tin cups warmed on the flat rock making up one side of the hearth.

Another log waited opposite the one on which sat the warlord, Caladan Brood, who slowly twisted round to watch Endest Silann approach. The broad, oddly bestial face split into a wry smile. ‘Of all the guests I imagined this night, old friend, you did not come to mind. Forgive me. You took your time since begin shy;ning your descent into this valley, but for that I will happily make allowances — but do not complain if the fish is overcooked.’

‘Complaints are far away and will remain so, Caladan. You have awakened my appetite — for food, drink and, most of all, company.’

‘Then sit, make yourself comfortable.’

‘So you did indeed disband your army after the siege,’ said Endest Silann, making his way over to settle himself down. ‘There were rumours. Of course, my master said nothing.’

‘See me now,’ said the warlord, ‘commanding an army of wet stones, and yes, it proves far less troublesome than the last one. Finally, I can sleep soundly at night. Although, matching wits with these trout has challenged me mightily. There, take one of those plates, and here — beware the bones, though,’ he added as he set a fish on the plate.

‘Alone here, Caladan Brood — it makes me wonder if you are hiding.’

‘It may be that I am, Endest Silann. Unfortunately, hiding never works.’

‘No, it never does.’

Neither spoke for a time as they ate their supper. The trout was indeed overdone but Endest Silann said nothing, for it was delicious none the less.

If Anomander Rake was a mystery shrouded in darkness, then Caladan Brood was one clothed in geniality. Spare with words, he nevertheless could make virtually anyone feel welcome and, indeed, appreciated. Or rather, he could when the pressures of command weren’t crouched on his shoulders like a damned mountain. This night, then, Endest Silann well understood, was a gift, all the more precious in that it was wholly unexpected.

When the meal was done, night’s arrival closed out the world beyond the fire’s light. The rush of the river was a voice, a presence. Water flowed indifferent to the heave and plunge of the sun, the shrouded moon and the slow spin of the stars. The sound reached them in a song without words, and all effort to grasp its meaning was hopeless, for, like the water itself, one could not grasp hold of sound. The flow was ceaseless and immeasurable and just as stillness did not in fact exist, so too true, absolute silence.

‘Why are you here?’ Endest Silann asked after a time.

‘I wish I could answer you, old friend, and Burn knows the desire to ease the burden is almost overwhelming.’

‘You are assuming, Caladan, that I am ignorant of what awaits us.’

‘No, I do not do that — after all, you have sought a pilgrimage, out to this river — and among the Tiste Andii, this place has proved a mysterious lure. Yet you ask why I am here, and so your knowledge must be. . incomplete. Endest Silann, I cannot say more. I cannot help you.’

The old Tiste Andii looked away, off into the dark where the river sang to the night. So, others had come here, then. Some instinctive need drawing them, yes, to the ghost of Dorssan Ryl. He wondered if they had felt the same disappointment as he had upon seeing these black (but not black enough) waters. It is not the same. Nothing ever is, beginning with ourselves. ‘I do not,’ he said, ‘believe much in forgiveness.’

‘What of restitution?’

The question stunned him, stole his breath. The river rushed with the sound of ten thousand voices and those cries filled his head, spread into his chest to grip his heart. Cold pooled in his gut. By the Abyss. . such. . ambition. He felt the icy trickle of tears on his fire-warmed cheeks. ‘I will do all I can.’

‘He knows that,’ Caladan Brood said with such compassion that Endest Silann almost cried out. ‘You might not believe this now,’ the huge warrior continued, ‘but you will find this pilgrimage worthwhile. A remembrance to give strength when you need it most.’

No, he did not believe that now, and could not imagine ever believing it. Even so. . the ambition. So appalling, so breathtaking.

Caladan Brood poured the tea and set a cup into Endest’s hands. The tin shot heat into his chilled fingers. The warlord was standing beside him now.

‘Listen to the river, Endest Silann. Such a peaceful sound. .’

But in the ancient Tiste Andii’s mind that sound was a wailing chorus, an overwhelming flood of loss and despair. The ghost of Dorssan Ryl? No, this was where that long dead river emptied out, feeding the midnight madness of its history into a torrent where it swirled with a thousand other currents. Endless variations on the same bitter flavour.

And as he stared into the flames he saw once more the city dying in a confla shy;gration. Kharkanas beneath the raging sky. Blinding ash like sand in the eyes, smoke like poison in the lungs. Mother Darkness in her fury, denying her chil shy;dren, turning away as they died and died. And died.

Listen to the river. Remember the voices.

Wait, as does the warlord here. Wait, to see what comes.

The smell of the smoke remained long after the fire was done. They rode in on to charred ground and blackened wreckage. Collapsed, crumbled inward, the enormous carriage still reared like a malignant smoking pyre in the centre of stained earth. Detritus was scattered about to mark the disintegration of the community. Yet, although the scene was one of slaughter, there were no bodies. Trails set off in all directions, some broader than others.

Samar Dev studied the scene for a time, then watched as Traveller dismounted to walk over to the edge of the camp, where he began examining some of the tracks leading away. He was an odd man, she decided. Quiet, self-contained, a man used to being alone, yet beneath it all was a current of. . yes, mayhem. As if it was his own solitude that kept the world safe.

Once, long ago now, she had found herself in the company of another warrior equally familiar with that concept. But there the similarity ended. Karsa Orlong, notwithstanding that first journey into the besieged fortress outside Ugarat, thrived on an audience. Witness, he would say, in full expectation of just that. He wanted his every deed observed, as if each set of eyes existed solely to mark Karsa Orlong, and the minds behind them served, to the exclusion of all else, to recount to all what he had done, what he had said, what he had begun and what he had ended. He makes us his history. Every witness contributes to the narrative — the life, the deeds of Toblakai — a narrative to which we are, each of us, bound.

Chains and shackles snaked out from the burned carriage. Empty, of course. And yet, despite this, Samar Dev understood that the survivors of this place remained slaves. Chained to Karsa Orlong, their liberator, chained to yet another grim episode in his history. He gives us freedom and enslaves us all. Oh, now there is irony. All the sweeter for that he does not mean to, no, the very opposite each and every time. The damned fool.

‘Many took horses, loaded down with loot,’ Traveller said, returning to his mount. ‘One trail heads north, the least marked — I believe it belongs to your friend.’

My friend.

‘He is not far ahead of us now, and still on foot. We should catch up to him to shy;day.’

She nodded.

Traveller studied her for a moment. He then swung himself on to his horse and collected the reins. ‘Samar Dev, I cannot work out what happened here.’

‘He did,’ she replied. ‘He happened here.’

‘He killed no one. From what you have told me, well, I thought to find something else. It is as if he simply walked up to them and said, “It’s over.”’ He frowned across at her. ‘How can that be?’

She shook her head.

He grunted, guiding his horse round. ‘The scourge of the Skathandi has ended.’

‘It has.’

‘My fear of your companion has. . deepened. I am ever more reluctant to find him.’

‘But that will not stop you, will it? If he carries the Emperor’s Sword. .’ He did not reply.

He didn’t need to.

They set out at a canter. Northward.

The wind cut across from the west, sun-warmed and dry. The few clouds scudding past overhead were thin and shredded. Ravens or hawks circled, wheeling specks, and Samar Dev thought of flies buzzing the corpse of the earth.

She spat to clear away the taste of woodsmoke.

A short time later they came upon a small camp. Three men, two pregnant women. The fear in their eyes warred with abject resignation as Samar Dev and Traveller came up and reined in. The men had not sought to flee, proof of the rarest kind of courage — the women were too burdened to run, so the men had stayed and if that meant death, then so be it.

Details like these ever humbled Samar Dev.

‘You are following the Toblakai,’ Traveller said, dismounting. They stared, say shy;ing nothing. Traveller half turned and gestured for Samar Dev. Curious, she slipped down.

‘Can you see to the health of the women?’ he asked her in a low voice.

‘All right,’ she said, then watched as the Dal Honese warrior led the three men off to one side. Bemused, Samar Dev approached the women. Both, she saw, were far along in their pregnancies, and then she noted that both seemed. . not quite human. Furtive eyes the hue of tawny grasses, a kind of animal wariness along with the resignation she had noted earlier, but now she understood it as the fatalism of the victim, the hunted, the prey. Yes, she could imagine seeing such eyes in the antelope with the leopard’s jaws closed on its throat. The image left her feeling rattled.

‘I am a witch,’ she said. ‘Shoulder Woman.’

Both remained sitting. They stared in silence.

She edged closer and crouched down opposite them. They bore features both human and animal, as if they represented some alternative version of human beings. Dark-skinned, slope-browed, with broad mouths full-lipped and probably — when not taut with anxiety — unusually expressive. Both looked well fed, essentially healthy. Both emanated that strange completeness that only pregnant women possessed. When everything outward faced inward. In a less generous moment she might call it smugness but this was not such a moment. Besides, there was in those auras something animal that made it all seem proper, natural, as if this was exclusively and precisely what women were for.

Now that notion irritated her.

She straightened and walked over to where Traveller stood with the men. ‘They are fine,’ she said.

His brows rose at her tone, but he said nothing.

‘So,’ she asked, ‘what secrets have they revealed?’

‘The sword he carries was made of flint, or obsidian. Stone.’

‘Then he rejected the Crippled God. No, I’m not surprised. He won’t do what’s expected. Ever. It’s part of his damned religion, I suspect. What now, Traveller?’

He sighed. ‘We will catch up with him anyway.’ A brief smile. ‘With less trepidation now.’

‘There’s still the risk,’ she said, ‘of an. . argument.’

They returned to their horses.

‘The Skathandi king was dying,’ Traveller explained as they both rode out from the camp. ‘He bequeathed his kingdom to your friend. Who then dissolved it, freeing all the slaves, warning off the soldiers. Taking nothing for himself. Nothing at all.’

She grunted.

Traveller was silent for a moment and then he said, ‘A man like that. . well, I am curious. I would like to meet him.’

‘Don’t expect hugs and kisses,’ she said.

‘He will not be pleased to see you?’

‘I have no idea, although I am bringing him his horse, which should count for something.’

‘Does he know how you feel about him?’

She shot him a look, and then snorted. ‘He may think he does but the truth is I don’t know how I feel about him, so whatever he’s thinking it’s bound to be wrong. Now that we’re closing in, I’m the one getting more nervous. It’s ridiculous, I know.’

‘It seems your examination of those two women has soured your mood. Why?’

‘I don’t know what you wanted me to do about them. They were pregnant, not in labour. They looked hale enough, better than I expected in fact. They didn’t need me poking and prodding. The babies will be born and they will live or they will die. Same for the mothers. It’s just how things are.’

‘My apologies, Samar Dev. I should not have so ordered you about. Were I in your place, I too would have been offended by the presumption.’

Was that what had annoyed her? Possibly. Equally likely, her mute acquiescence, the doe-eyed ease with which she had fallen into that subservient role. As when I was with Karsa Orlong. Oh, I think I now step on to the thinnest crust of sand above some bottomless pit. Samar Dev discovers her very own secret weaknesses. Was she foul of mood earlier? See her now.

A talent, a sensitivity — something — clearly told Traveller to say nothing more.

They rode on, the horses’ hoofs thumping the taut drum of the earth. The warm wind slid dry as sand. In a low, broad depression on their left stood six pronghorn antelope, watching them pass. Rust-red slabs of flat rock tilted up through the thin ground along the spines of hills. Long-billed birds of some kind perched on them, their plumage the same mix of hues. ‘It is all the same,’ she murmured.

‘Samar Dev? Did you speak?’

She shrugged. ‘The way so many animals are made to match their surroundings. I wonder, if all this grass suddenly grew blood red, how long before the markings on those antelope shift into patterns of red? You’d think it could never be the other way round, but you would be wrong. See those flowers — the bright colours to attract the right insects. If the right insects don’t come to collect the pollen the flower dies. So, brighter is better. Plants and animals, it goes back and forth, the whole thing inseparable and dependent. Despite this, nothing stays the same.’

‘True, nothing ever stays the same.’

‘Those women back there. .’

‘Gandaru. Kin to the Kindaru and Sinbarl — so the men explained.’

‘Not true humans.’

‘No.’

‘Yet true to themselves none the less.’

‘I imagine so, Samar Dev.’

‘They broke my heart, Traveller. Against us, they don’t stand a chance.’

He glanced across at her. ‘That is quite a presumption.’

‘It is?’

‘We are riding towards a Tartheno Toblakai, belonging to a remnant tribe isolated somewhere in northern Genabackis. You tell me that Karsa Orlong intend to deliver destruction to all the “children” of the world — to us, in other words. When you speak of this, I see fear in your eyes. A conviction that he will succeed. So now, tell me, against one such as Karsa Orlong and his kind, do we stand a chance?’

‘Of course we do, because we can fight back. What can these gentle Gandaru manage? Nothing. They can hide, and when that fails they are killed, or enslaved. Those two women were probably raped. Used. Vessels for human seed.’

‘Barring the rape, every animal we hunt for food possesses the same few choices. Hide or flee.’

‘Until there is no place left to hide.’

‘And when the animals go, so too will we.’

She barked a laugh. ‘You might believe so, Traveller. No, we won’t go that way. We’ll just fill the empty lands with cattle, with sheep and goats. Or break up the ground and plant corn. There is no stopping us.’

‘Except, perhaps, for Karsa Orlong.’

And there, then, was the truth of all this. Karsa Orlong pronounced a future of destruction, extinction. And she wished him well.

‘There,’ Traveller said in a different voice, and he rose in his stirrups. ‘He didn’t travel too far after all-’

From Havok’s saddle, Samar Dev could now see him. He had halted and was facing them, a thousand paces distant. Two horses stood near him, and there were humps in the grass of the knoll, scattered like ant hills or boulders but, she knew, neither of those. ‘He was attacked,’ she said. ‘The idiots should have left well enough alone.’

‘I’m sure their ghosts concur,’ Traveller said.

They cantered closer.

The Toblakai looked no different from the last time she had seen him — there on the sands of the arena in Letheras. As sure, as solid, as undeniable as ever. ‘I shall kill him. . once.’ And so he did. Defying. . everything. Oh, he was look shy;ing at her now, and at Havok, with the air of a master summoning his favourite hunting dog.

And suddenly she was furious. ‘This wasn’t obligation!’ she snapped, savagely reining in directly in front of him. ‘You abandoned us — there in that damned foreign city! “Do this when the time is right”, and so I did! Where the Hood did you go? And-’

And then she yelped, as the huge warrior swept her off the saddle with one massive arm, and closed her in a suffocating embrace, and the bastard was laughing and even Traveller — curse the fool — was grinning, although to be sure it was a hard grin, mindful as he clearly was of the half-dozen bodies lying amidst blood and entrails in the grasses.

‘Witch!’

‘Set me down!’

‘I am amazed,’ he bellowed, ‘that Havok suffered you all this way!’

‘Down!’

So he dropped her. Jarring her knees, sending her down with a thump on her backside, every bone rattled. She glared up at him.

But Karsa Orlong had already turned away and was eyeing Traveller, who re shy;mained on his horse. ‘You — are you her husband then? She must have had one somewhere — no other reason for her forever refusing me. Very well, we shall fight for her, you and me-’

‘Be quiet, Karsa! He’s not my husband and no one’s fighting for me. Because I belong to no one but me! Do you understand? Will you ever understand?’

‘Samar Dev has spoken,’ said Traveller. ‘We met not long ago, both journeying on this plain. We chose to ride as companions. I am from Dal Hon, on the continent of Quon Tali-’

Karsa grunted. ‘Malazan.’

An answering nod. ‘I am called Traveller.’

‘You hide your name.’

‘What I hide merely begins with my name, Karsa Orlong.’

The Toblakai’s eyes thinned at that.

‘You bear the tattoos,’ Traveller went on, ‘of an escaped slave of Seven Cities. Or, rather, a recaptured one. Clearly, the chains did not hold you for long.’

Samar Dev had picked herself up and was now brushing the dust from her clothes. ‘Are these Skathandi?’ she asked, gesturing at the bodies. ‘Karsa?’

The giant turned away from his study of the Malazan. ‘Idiots,’ he said. ‘Seeking vengeance for the dead king — as if I killed him.’

‘Did you?’

‘No.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least now I will have a horse of my own.’

Karsa walked over to Havok and settled a hand on his neck. The beast’s nos shy;trils flared and the lips peeled back to reveal the overlong fangs. Karsa laughed. ‘Yes, old friend, I smell of death. When was it never thus?’ And he laughed again.

‘Hood take you, Karsa Orlong — what happened?’

He frowned at her. ‘What do you mean, witch?’

‘You killed the Emperor.’

‘I said I would, and so I did.’ He paused, and then said, ‘And now this Malazan speaks as if he would make me a slave once more.’

‘Not at all,’ said Traveller. ‘It just seems as if you have lived an eventful life, Toblakai. I only regret that I will probably never hear your tale, for I gather that you are not the talkative type.’

Karsa Orlong bared his teeth, and then swung up into the saddle. ‘I am riding north,’ he said.

‘As am I,’ replied Traveller.

Samar Dev collected both horses and tied a long lead to the one she decided she would not ride, then climbed into the saddle of the other — a russet gelding with a broad back and disinterested eyes. ‘I think I want to go home,’ she pronounced. ‘Meaning I need to find a port, presumably on the western coast of this continent.’

Traveller said, ‘I ride to Darujhistan. Ships ply the lake and the river that flows to the coast you seek. I would welcome the company, Samar Dev.’

‘Darujhistan,’ said Karsa Orlong. ‘I have heard of that city. Defied the Malazan Empire and so still free. I will see it for myself.’

‘Fine then,’ Samar Dev snapped. ‘Let’s ride on, to the next pile of corpses — and with you for company, Karsa Orlong, that shouldn’t be long — and then we’ll ride to the next one and so on, right across this entire continent. To Darujhistan! Wherever in Hood’s name that is.’

‘I will see it,’ Karsa said again. ‘But I will not stay long.’ And he looked at her with suddenly fierce eyes. ‘I am returning home, Witch.’

‘To forge your army,’ she said, nodding, sudden nerves tingling in her gut.

‘And then the world shall witness.’

‘Yes.’

After a moment, the three set out, Karsa Orlong on her left, Traveller on her right, neither speaking, yet they were histories, tomes of past, present and future. Between them, she felt like a crumpled page of parchment, her life a minor scrawl.

High, high above them, a Great Raven fixed preternatural eyes upon the three figures far below, and loosed a piercing cry, then tilted its broad black-sail wings and raced on a current of chill wind, rushing east.

She thought she might be dead. Every step she took was effortless, a product of will and nothing else — no shifting of weight, no swing of legs nor flexing of knees. Will carried her where she sought to go, to that place of formless light where the white sand glowed blindingly bright beneath her, at the proper distance had she been standing. Yet, looking down, she saw nothing of her own body. No limbs, no torso, and nowhere to any side could she see her shadow.

Voices droned somewhere ahead, but she was not yet ready for them, so she remained where she was, surrounded in warmth and light.

Pulses, as from torches flaring through thick mist, slowly approached, disconnected from the droning voices, and she now saw a line of figures drawing towards her. Women, heads tilted down, long hair over their faces, naked, each one heavy with pregnancy. The torch fires hovered over each one, fist-sized suns in which rainbow flames flickered and spun.

Salind wanted to recoil. She was a Child of a Dead Seed, after all. Born from a womb of madness. She had nothing for these women. She was no longer a priestess, no longer able to confer the blessing of anyone, no god and least of all herself, upon any child waiting to tumble into the world.

Yet those seething orbs of flame — she knew they were the souls of the unborn, the not-yet-born, and these mothers were walking towards her, with purpose, with need.

I can give you nothing! Go away!

Still they came on, faces lifting, revealing eyes dark and empty, and seemed not to see her even as, one by one, they walked through Salind.

Gods, some of these women were not even human.

And as each one passed through her, she felt the life of the child within. She saw the birth unfolding, saw the small creature with those strangely wise eyes that seemed to belong to every newborn (except, perhaps, her own). And then the years rushing on, the child growing, faces taking the shape they would carry into old age-

But not all. As mother after mother stepped through her, futures flashed bright, and some died quickly indeed. Fraught, flickering sparks, ebbing, winking out, darkness rushing in. And at these she cried out, filled with anguish even as she un shy;derstood that souls travelled countless journeys, of which only one could be known by a mortal — so many, in countless perturbations — and that the loss belonged only to others, never to the child itself, for in its inarticulate, ineffable wisdom, understanding was absolute; the passage of life that seemed tragically short could well be the perfect duration, the experience complete-

Others, however, died in violence, and this was a crime, an outrage against life itself. Here, among these souls, there was fury, shock, denial. There was railing, struggling, bitter defiance. No, some deaths were as they should be, but others were not. From somewhere a woman’s voice began speaking.

‘Bless them, that they not be taken.

‘Bless them, that they begin in their time and that they end in its fullness.

‘Bless them, in the name of the Redeemer, against the cruel harvesters of souls, the takers of life.

‘Bless them, Daughter of Death, that each life shall be as it is written, for peace is born of completion, and completion denied — completion of all potential, all promised in life — is a crime, a sin, a consignation to eternal damnation. Beware the takers, the users! The blight of killers!

‘They are coming! Again and again, they harvest the souls-’

That strange voice was shrieking now, and Salind sought to flee but all will had vanished. She was trapped in this one place, as mother after mother plunged into her, eyes black and wide, mouths gaping in a chorus of screams, wailing terror, heart-crushing fear, for their unborn children-

All at once she heard the droning voices again, summoning her, inviting her into. . into what?

Sanctuary.

With a cry tearing loose from her throat, Salind pulled away, raced towards those voices-

And opened her eyes. Low candlelight surrounded her. She was lying on a bed. The voices embraced her from all sides and, blinking, she sought to sit up.

So weak-

An arm slipped behind her shoulders, helped her rise as pillows were pushed underneath. She stared up at a familiar, alien face. ‘Spinnock Durav.’

He nodded.

Others were rising into view now. Tiste Andii women, all in dark shapeless robes, eyes averted as they began filing out of the chamber, taking their chanting song with them.

Those voices — so heavy, so solid — they truly belonged to these women? She was astonished, half disbelieving, and yet. .

‘You almost died,’ Spinnock Durav said. ‘The healers called you back — the priestesses.’

‘But — why?’

His smile was wry. ‘I called in a favour or two. But I think, once they attended you, there was more to it. An obligation, perhaps. You are, after all, a sister priestess — oh, betrothed to a different ascendant, true enough, but that did not matter. Or,’ and he smiled again, ‘so it turned out.’

Yes, but why? Why did you bring me back? I don’t want- oh, she could not complete that thought. Understanding now, at last; how vast the sin of suicide — of course, it would not have been that, would it? To have simply slipped away, taken by whatever sickness afflicted her. Was it not a kind of wisdom to surrender?

‘No,’ she mumbled, ‘it isn’t.’

‘Salind?’

‘To bless,’ she said, ‘is to confer a hope. Is that enough? To make sacred the wish for good fortune, a fulfilled life? What can it achieve?’

He was studying her face. ‘High Priestess,’ he now said, haltingly, as if truly attempting an answer, ‘in blessing, you purchase a moment of peace, in the one being blessed, in the one for whom blessing is asked. Perhaps it does not last, but the gift you provide, well, its value never fades.’

She turned her head, looked away. Beyond the candles, she saw a wall crowded with Andiian hieroglyphs and a procession of painted figures, all facing one way, to where stood the image of a woman whose back was turned, denying all those beseeching her. A mother rejecting her children — she could see how the artist had struggled with all those upturned faces, the despair and anguish twisting them — painted in tears, yes.

‘I must go back,’ she said.

‘Back? Where?’

‘The camp, the place of the pilgrims.’

‘You are not yet strong enough, High Priestess.’

Her words to him had stripped away his using her chosen name. He was seeing her now as a High Priestess. She felt a twinge of loss at that. But now was not the time to contemplate the significance of such things. Spinnock Durav was right — she was too weak. Even these thoughts exhausted her. ‘As soon as I can,’ she said.

‘Of course.’

‘They are in danger.’

‘What would you have me do?’

She finally looked back at him. ‘Nothing. This belongs to me. And Seerdomin.’

At the mention of that name the Tiste Andii winced. ‘High Priestess-’

‘He will not reject me again.’

‘He is missing.’

‘What?’

‘I cannot find him. I am sorry, but I am fairly certain he is no longer in Black Coral.’

‘No matter,’ she said, struggling to believe her own words. ‘No matter. He will come when he is needed.’ She could see that Spinnock Durav was sceptical, but she would not berate him for that. ‘The Redeemer brought me to the edge of death,’ she said, ‘to show me what was needed. To show me why I was needed.’ She paused. ‘Does that sound arrogant? It does, doesn’t it?’

His sigh was ragged. He stood. ‘I will return to check on you, High Priestess. For now, sleep.’

Oh, she had offended him, but how? ‘Wait, Spinnock Durav-’

‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘You have misread me. Well, perhaps not entirely. You spoke of your god showing you what was needed — something we Tiste Andii ever yearn for but will not ever achieve. Then you doubt yourself. Arrogance? Abyss below, High Priestess. Is this how you feel when the Redeemer blesses you?’

Then she was alone in the chamber. Candle flames wavering in the wake of Spinnock Durav’s departure, the agitated light making the figures writhe on the walls.

Still the mother stood, turned away.

Salind felt a twist of anger. Bless your children, Mother Dark. They have suffered long enough. I say this in gratitude to your own priestesses, who have given me back my life. I say it in the name of redemption. Bless your children, woman.

The candles settled once more, flames standing tall, immune to Salind’s meek agitations. Nowhere in this room was there darkness and that, she realized, was answer enough.

The old blood splashed on the walls was black, eager to swallow the lantern’s light. Dust still trickled down from stress fractures in the canted ceiling, reminding Seerdomin that half a mountain stood above him. The keep’s upper levels were crushed, collapsed, yet still settling even after all this time. Perhaps, some time soon, these lower tunnels would give away, and the massive ruin atop the hollowed-out cliff would simply tilt and slide into the sea.

In the meantime, there were these unlit, wending, buckled corridors, a chaotic maze where no one belonged, and yet boot prints tracked the thick, gritty dust. Looters? Perhaps, although Seerdomin well knew there was little to be found in these lower levels. He had walked these routes many times, doing what he could for the various prisoners of the Pannion Seer, though it was never enough — no, never enough.

If there was a curse, a most vicious kind of curse, whereby a decent person found him or herself in inescapable servitude to a creature of pure, unmitigated evil, then Seerdomin had lived it. Decency was not exculpable. Honour pur shy;chased no abeyance on crimes against humanity. And as for duty, well, it increasingly seemed the sole excuse of the morally despicable. He would offer up none of these in defence of the things he had done at his master’s behest. Nor would he speak of duress, of the understandable desire to stay alive under the threat of deadly coercion. None of these was sufficient. When undeniable crimes had been committed, justification was the act of a coward. And it was our cowardice that permitted such crimes in the first place. No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no.

The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.

He well understood that many people delighted in such societies — there had been fellow Seerdomin, most of them in fact, who revelled in the fear and the obedience that fear commanded. And this was what had led him here, trailing an old palace retainer of the Seer who had made his furtive way into the ruins of the old keep. No, not a looter. A sordid conspiracy was afoot, Seerdomin was certain of that. Survivors of one nightmare seeking to nurture yet another. That man would not be alone once he reached his destination.

He closed the shutter to the lantern once more and continued on.

Malazan soldiers had died here, along with the Pannion’s own. Seguleh had carved through the ranks of palace guard. Seerdomin could almost hear the echoes of that slaughter, the cries of the dying, the desperate pleading against cruel mischance, the stinging clash of weapons. He came to a set of steps leading down. Rubble had been cleared away. From somewhere below came the murmur of voices.

They had set no guard, proof of their confidence, and as he stealthily descended he could make out the glow of lanterns emanating from the cell down below.

This chamber had once been home to the one called Toc the Younger. Chained against one wall, well within reach of the Seer’s monstrous mother. Seerdomin’s paltry gifts of mercy had probably stung like droplets of acid on the poor man. Better to have left him to go entirely mad, escaping into that oblivious world where everything was so thoroughly broken that repair was impossible. He could still smell the reek of the K’Chain matron.

The voices were becoming distinguishable — three, maybe four conspirators. He could hear the excitement, the sweet glee, along with the usual self-importance, the songs of those who played games with lives — it was the same the world over, in every history, ever the same.

He had crushed down his outrage so long ago, it was a struggle to stir it into life once more, but he would need it. Sizzling, yet hard, controlled, peremptory. Three steps from the floor, still in darkness, he slowly drew out his tulwar. It did not matter what they were discussing. It did not even matter if their plans were pathetic, doomed to fail. It was the very act that awakened in Seerdomin the heart of murder, so that it now drummed through him, thunderous with contempt and disgust, ready to do what was needed.

When he first stepped into the chamber, none of the four seated at the table even noticed, permitting him to take another stride, close enough to send his broad-bladed weapon through the first face that lifted towards him, cutting it in half. His return attack was a looping backswing, chopping through the neck of the man to the right, who, in lurching upright, seemed to offer his throat to that slashing edge like a willing sacrifice. As his head tumbled away, the body stumbling as it backed over the chair, Seerdomin grasped one edge of the table and flipped it into the air, hammering it into the man on the left, who fell beneath the table’s weight. Leaving one man directly opposite Seerdomin.

Pleading eyes, a hand scrabbling at the ornate dagger at the belt, backing away-

Not nearly fast enough, as Seerdomin moved forward and swung his heavy tulwar down, cutting through the upraised forearms and carving into the man’s upper chest, through clavicle and down one side of the sternum. The edge jammed at the. fourth rib, forcing Seerdomin to kick the corpse loose. He then turned to the last conspirator.

The old palace retainer. Spittle on his lips, the reek of urine rising like steam. ‘No, please-’

‘Do you know me, Hegest?’

A quick nod. ‘A man of honour — what you have done here-’

‘Defies what you would expect of an honourable man, and it is that very expectation that frees you to scheme and plot. Alas, Hegest, your expectation was wrong. Fatally so. Black Coral is at peace, for the first time in decades — freed of terror. And yet you chafe, dreaming no doubt of your old station, of all the excesses you were privileged to possess.’

‘I throw myself upon the mercy of the Son of Darkness-’

‘You can’t throw yourself that far, Hegest. I am going to kill you, here, now. I can do it quick, or slow. If you answer my questions, I will grant you the mercy you have never spared others. If you refuse, I will do to you as you have done to many, many victims — and yes, I well remember. Which fate will it be, Hegest?’

‘I will tell you everything, Seerdomin. In exchange for my life.’

‘Your life is not the coin of this deal.’

The man began weeping.

‘Enough of that,’ Seerdomin growled. ‘Today, I am as you once were, Hegest. Tell me, did the tears of your victims soften your heart? No, not once. So wipe your face. And give me your answer.’

And so the man did, and Seerdomin began asking his questions.

Later, and true to his word, Seerdomin showed mercy, in so far as that word meant anything when taking someone else’s life, and he well knew it didn’t mean much. He cleaned his weapon on Hegest’s cloak.

Was he any different, then, from these fools? There were countless avenues he could take that would lead him to assert otherwise, each one tortured and malign with deceit. Without doubt, he told himself as he made his way out, what he had done ended something, whereas what these fools had been planning was the beginning of something else, something foul and sure to spill innocent blood. By this measure, his crime was far the lesser of the two. So why, then, did his soul feel stained, damaged?

Cogent reasoning could lead a man, step by logical step, into horror. He now carried with him a list of names, the sordid details of a scheme to drive out the Tiste Andii, and while he knew it was destined to fail, to leave it free was to invite chaos and misery. And so he would have to kill again. Quietly, revealing nothing to anyone, for this was an act of shame. For his kind, for humans and their stupid, vicious inclinations.

Yet he did not want to be the hand of justice, for that hand was ever bloody and often indiscriminate, prone to excesses of all sorts.

The cruellest detail among all that he had learned this night was that this web of conspiracy reached out to the pilgrim camp. Hegest had not known who the players were out there, but it was clear that they were important, perhaps even essential. Seerdomin would have to go back to the camp and the very thought sickened him.

Salind, the High Priestess, was she one of the conspirators? Was this act of usurpation at its heart a religious one? It would not be the first time that a religion or cult ignited with the fires of self-righteous certainty and puritanical zeal, leading to ghastly conflict, and had he not heard — more than once — the bold assertion that the Son of Darkness held no claim upon the region outside Night? An absurd notion, yes, an indefensible one, the very kind fanatics converged upon, clenched fists held high in the air.

He had, for a time, nurtured the belief that he was not unique in his appreciation for the rule of the Tiste Andii, and his respect for the wisdom displayed again and again by the Son of Darkness. The gift of peace and stability, the sure, unambiguous rules of law imposed by a people whose own civilization spanned tens of thousands of years — even longer if the rumours were at all accurate. How could any human begrudge this gift?

Many did, it was now clear. The notion of freedom could make even peace and order seem oppressive, generate the suspicion of some hidden purpose, some vast deceit, some unspecified crime being perpetrated beyond human ken. That was a generous way of looking at it; the alternative was to acknowledge that humans were intrinsically conflicted, cursed with acquisitive addictions of the spirit.

He reached the steep ramp leading to the well-hidden entrance to the tunnels, rats skittering from his path, and emerged into the warmer, drier air of Night. Yes, he would have to go to the pilgrim camp, but not now. This would demand some planning. Besides, if he could excise the cancer in the city, then the conspirators out there would find themselves isolated, helpless and incapable of achieving anything. He could then deal with them at his leisure.

Yes, that was a better course. Reasonable and methodical, as justice should be. He was not deliberately avoiding such a journey.

Satisfied with these arguments, Seerdomin set out to begin his night of slaughter, and here, in this city, night was without end.

The rats watched him set off. They could smell the blood on him, and more than one had been witness to the slaughter far below, and certain of these now ambled away from the ruin, heading for the world of daylight beyond the shroud.

Summoned, yes, by their master, the one known as Monkrat, an amusing enough name, implicitly contemptuous and derisive. What none of the man’s associates truly understood was the truth underlying that name. Monkrat, yes. The Monk of Rats, priest and wizard, conjuror and binder of spirits. Laugh and snicker if you like. . at your peril.

The liberation had found an enemy, and something would have to be done about that.

The city of Bastion crouched above the vast dying lake, its stolid, squat walls black shy;ened and streaked with some kind of oil. The shanties and hovels surrounding the wall had been burned and then razed, the charred wreckage strewn down the slope leading to the cobbled road. Smoke hung above the battlements, thick and surly.

Cradling his battered hands — the reins looped loose about them — Nimander squinted up at the city and its yawning gates. No guards in sight, not a single figure on the walls. Except for the smoke the city looked lifeless, abandoned.

Riding at his side in the front of their modest column, Skintick said, ‘A name like “Bastion” invites images of ferocious defenders, bristling with all manner of weapons, suspicious of every foreigner climbing towards the gates. So,’ he added with a sigh, ‘we must be witness here to the blessed indolence of Saemankelyk, the Dying God’s sweet blood.’

Memories of his time in the company of the giant mason still haunted Nimander. It seemed he was cursed with occurrences devoid of resolution, every life crossing his path leaving a swirling wake of mysteries in which he flailed about, half drowning. The Jaghut, Gothos, only worsened matters, a creature of vast antiquity seeking to make use of them, somehow, for reasons he had been too uninterested to explain.

Since we failed him.

The smell of rotting salt filled the air and they could see the bleached flats stretching out from the old shoreline, stilted docks high and dry above struggling weeds, fisher boats lying on their sides farther out. Off to their left, inland, farmsteads were visible amidst rows of scarecrows, but it looked as if there was nothing still living out there — the plants were black and withered, the hundreds of wrapped figures motionless.

They drew closer to the archway, and still there was no one in sight.

‘We’re being watched,’ Skintick said.

Nimander nodded. He felt the same. Hidden eyes, avid eyes.

‘As if we’ve done just what they wanted,’ Skintick went on, his voice low, ‘by delivering Clip, straight to their damned Abject Temple.’

That was certainly possible. ‘I have no intention of surrendering him — you know that.’

‘So we prepare to wage war against an entire city? A fanatic priesthood and a god?’

‘Yes.’

Grinning, Skintick loosened the sword at his side.

Nimander frowned at him. ‘Cousin, I don’t recall you possessing such blood-lust.’

‘Oh, I am as reluctant as you, Nimander. But I feel we’ve been pushed long enough. It’s time to push back, that’s all. Still, that damage to your hands worries me.’

‘Aranatha did what she could — I will he fine.’ He did not explain how the wounding felt more spiritual than physical. Aranatha had indeed healed the crushed bones, the mangled flesh. Yet he still cradled them as if crippled, and in his dreams at night he found himself trapped in memories of that heavy block of obsidian sliding over his fingertips, the pain, the spurting blood — and he’d awaken slick with sweat, hands throbbing.

The very same hands that had strangled Phaed — almost taking her life. The pain felt like punishment, and now, in the city before them, he believed that once more they would know violence, delivering death with terrible grace.

They reined in before the gate’s archway. Sigils crowded the wooden doors, painted in the same thick, black dye that marred the walls to either side.

Nenanda spoke from the wagon’s bench. ‘What are we waiting for? Nimander? Let’s get this over with.’

Skintick twisted in the saddle and said, ‘Patience, brother. We’re waiting for the official welcoming party. The killing will have to come later.’

Kallor climbed down from the back of the wagon and walked up to the gate. ‘I hear singing,’ he said.

Nimander nodded. The voices were distant, reaching them in faint waves rippling out from the city’s heart. There were no other sounds, as one would expect from a crowded, thriving settlement. And through the archway he could see naught but empty streets and the dull faces of blockish buildings, shutters closed on every window.

Kallor had continued on, into the shadow of the gate and then out to the wide street beyond, where he paused, his gaze fixed on something to his left.

‘So much for the welcoming party,’ Skintick said, sighing. ‘Shall we enter, Ni shy;mander?’

From behind them came Aranatha’s melodic voice. ‘Be warned, cousins. This entire city is the Abject Temple.’

Nimander and Skintick both turned at that.

‘Mother bless us,’ Skintick whispered.

‘What effect will that have on us?’ Nimander asked her. ‘Will it be the same as in the village that night?’

‘No, nothing like that has awakened yet.’ Then she shook her head. ‘But it will come.’

‘And can you defend us?’ Nenanda asked.

‘We will see.’

Skintick hissed under his breath and then said, ‘Now that’s reassuring.’

‘Never mind,’ Nimander replied. Wincing, he tightened his grip on the reins and with a slight pressure of his legs he guided his horse into the city. The others lurched into motion behind him.

Coming to Kallor’s side Nimander followed the old man’s gaze down the side street and saw what had so captured his attention. The ruin of an enormous mechanism filled the street a hundred paces down. It seemed to have come from the sky, or toppled down from the roof of the building nearest the outer wall — taking most of the facing wall with it. Twisted iron filled its gaping belly, where flattened, riveted sheets had been torn away. Smaller pieces of the machine littered the cobbles, like fragments of armour, the iron strangely blue, almost gleaming.

‘What in the Abyss is that?’ Skintick asked.

‘Looks K’Chain Che’Malle,’ Kallor said. ‘But they would offer up no gods, dy shy;ing or otherwise. Now I am curious,’ and so saying he bared his teeth in a smile not directed at anyone present — which was, Nimander decided, a good thing.

‘Aranatha says the entire city is sanctified.’

Kallor glanced over. ‘I once attempted that for an entire empire.’

Skintick snorted. ‘With you as the focus of worship?’

‘Of course.’

‘And it failed?’

Kallor shrugged. ‘Everything fails, eventually.’ And he set out for a closer examination of the ruined machine.

‘Even conversation,’ muttered Skintick. ‘Should we follow him?’

Nimander shook his head. ‘Leave him. If the city is a temple, then there must be an altar — presumably somewhere in the middle.’

‘Nimander, we could well be doing everything they want us to do, especially by bringing Clip to that altar. I think we should find an inn, somewhere to rest up. We can then reconnoitre and see what awaits us.’

He thought about that for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Good idea. Lead the way, Skin, see what you can find.’

They continued on down the main street leading from the gate. The tenements looked lifeless, the shops on the ground level empty, abandoned. Glyphs covered every wall and door, spread out from every shuttered window to as far as a hand could reach if someone was leaning out. The writing seemed to record a frenzy of revelation, or madness, or both.

A half-dozen buildings along, Skintick found an inn, closed up like everything else, but he dismounted and approached the courtyard gates. A push swung them wide and Skintick looked back with a smile.

The wagon’s hubs squealed in well-worn grooves in the frame of the gate as Nenanda guided it in. The compound beyond was barely large enough to accommodate a single carriage on its circular lane that went past, first, the stables, and then the front three-stepped entrance to the hostelry. A partly subterranean doorway to the left of the main doors probably led into the taproom. In the centre of the round was a stone-lined well — stuffed solid with bloating corpses.

Skintick’s smile faded upon seeing this detail. Dead maggots ringed the well. ‘Let’s hope,’ he said to Nimander, ‘there’s another pump inside. . drawing from a different source.’

Nenanda had set the brake and he now dropped down, eyeing the bodies. ‘Pre shy;vious guests?’

‘It’s what happens when you don’t pay up.’

Nimander dismounted and shot Skintick a warning look, but his cousin did not notice — or chose not to, for he then continued, ‘Or all the beds were taken. Or some prohibition against drinking anything but kelyk — it clearly doesn’t pay to complain.’

‘Enough,’ said Nimander. ‘Nenanda, can you check the stables — see if there’s feed and clean water. Skintick, let’s you and I head inside.’

A spacious, well-furnished foyer greeted them, with a booth immediately to the right, bridged by a polished counter. The narrow panel door set in its back wall was shut. To the left was a two-sided cloakroom and beside that the sunken entranceway into the taproom. A corridor was directly ahead, leading to rooms, and a steep staircase climbed to the next level where, presumably, more rooms could be found. Heaped on the floor at the foot of the stairs was bedding, most of it rather darkly stained.

‘They stripped the rooms,’ observed Skintick. ‘That was considerate.’

‘You suspect they’ve prepared this place for us?’

‘With bodies in the well and ichor-stained sheets? Probably. It’s reasonable that we would stay on the main street leading in, and this was the first inn we’d reach.’ He paused, looking round. ‘Obviously, there are many ways of readying for guests. Who can fathom human cultures, anyway?’

Outside, Nenanda and the others were unpacking the wagon.

Nimander walked to the taproom entrance and ducked to look inside. Dark, the air thick with the pungent, bittersweet scent of kelyk. He could hear Skintick making his way up the stairs, decided to leave him to it. One step down, on to the sawdust floor. The tables and chairs had all been pushed to one side in a haphazard pile. In the open space left behind the floor was thick with stains and coagulated clumps that reminded Nimander of dung in a stall. Not dung, however he knew that.

He explored behind the bar and found rows of dusty clay bottles and jugs, wine and ale. The beakers that had contained kelyk were scattered on the floor, some of them broken, others still weeping dark fluid.

The outer door swung open and Nenanda stepped inside, one hand on the grip of his sword. A quick look round, then he met Nimander’s gaze and shrugged. ‘Was you I heard, I guess.’

‘The stables?’

‘Well enough supplied, for a few days at least. There’s a hand pump and spout over the troughs. The water smelled sour but otherwise fine — the horses didn’t hesitate, at any rate.’ He strode in. ‘I think those bodies in the well, Nimander — dead of too much kelyk. I suspect that well was in fact dry. They just used to it dump the ones that died, as they died.’

Nimander walked back to the doorway leading into the foyer.

Desra and Kedeviss had carried Clip inside, setting him on the floor. Skintick was on the stairs, a few steps up from the mound of soiled bedding. He was leaning on one rail, watching as the two women attended to Clip. Seeing Nimander, he said, ‘Nothing but cockroaches and bedbugs in the rooms. Still, I don’t think we should use them — there’s an odd smell up there, not at all pleasant.’

‘This room should do,’ Nimander said as he went over to look down at Clip. ‘Any change?’ he asked.

Desra glanced up. ‘No. The same slight fever, the same shallow breathing.’

Aranatha entered, looked round, then went to the booth, lifted the hinged counter and stepped through. She tried the latch on the panel door and when it opened, she disappeared into the back room.

A grunt from Skintick. ‘In need of the water closet?’

Nimander rubbed at his face, flexed his fingers to ease the ache, and then, when Nenanda arrived, he said, ‘Skintick and I will head out now. The rest of you. . well, we could run into trouble at any time. And if we do one of us will try to get back here-’

‘If you run into trouble,’ Aranatha said from the booth, ‘we will know it.’

Oh? How? ‘All right. We shouldn’t be long.’

They had brought all their gear into the room and Nimander now watched as first Desra and then the other women began unpacking their weapons, their fine chain hauberks and mail gauntlets. He watched as they readied for battle, and said nothing as anguish filled him. None of this was right. It had never been right. And he could do nothing about it.

Skintick edged his way round the bedding and, with a tug on Nimander’s arm, led him back outside. ‘They will be all right,’ he said. ‘It’s us I’m worried about.’

‘Us? Why?’

Skintick only smiled.

They passed through the gate and came out on to the main street once more. The mid-afternoon heat made the air sluggish, enervating. The faint singing seemed to invite them into the city’s heart. An exchanged glance; then, with a shrug from Skintick, they set out.

‘That machine.’

‘What about it, Skin?’

‘Where do you think it came from? It looked as if it just. . appeared, just above one of the buildings, and then dropped, smashing everything in its path, ending with itself. Do you recall those old pumps, the ones beneath Dreth Street in Malaz City? Withal found them in those tunnels he explored? Well, he took us on a tour-’

‘I remember, Skin.’

‘I’m reminded of those machines — all the gears and rods, the way the metal components all meshed so cleverly, ingeniously — I cannot imagine the mind that could think up such constructs.’

‘What is all this about, Skin?’

‘Nothing much. I just wonder if that thing is somehow connected with the arrival of the Dying God.’

‘Connected how?’

‘What if it was like a skykeep? A smaller version, obviously. What if the Dying God was inside it? Some accident brought it down, the locals pulled him out. What if that machine was a kind of throne?’

Nimander thought about that. A curious idea. Andarist had once explained that skykeeps — such as the one Anomander Rake claimed as his own — were not a creation of sorcery, and indeed the floating fortresses were held aloft through arcane manipulations of technology.

K’Chain Che’Malle, Kallor had said. Clearly, he had made the same connec shy;ion as had Skintick.

‘Why would a god need a machine?’ Nimander asked.

‘How should I know? Anyway, it’s broken now.’

They came to a broad intersection. Public buildings commanded each corner, the architecture peculiarly utilitarian, as if the culture that had bred it was singularly devoid of creative flair. Glyphs made a mad scrawl on otherwise unadorned walls, some of the symbols now striking Nimander as resembling that destroyed mechanism.

The main thoroughfare continued on another two hundred paces, they could see, opening out on to an expansive round. At the far end rose the most imposing structure they had seen yet.

‘There it is,’ Skintick said. ‘The Abject. . altar. It’s where the singing is coming from, I think.’

Nimander nodded.

‘Should we take a closer look?’

He nodded again. ‘Until something happens.’

‘Does being attacked by a raving mob count?’ Skintick asked.

Figures were racing into the round, naked but with weapons in their hands that they waved about over their heads, their song suddenly ferocious, as they began marching towards the two Tiste Andii.

‘Here was I thinking we were going to be left alone,’ Nimander said. ‘If we run, we’ll just lead them back to the inn.’

‘True, but holding the gate should be manageable, two of us at a time, spelling each other.’

Nimander was the first to hear a sound behind him and he spun round, sword hissing from the scabbard.

Kallor.

The old warrior walked towards them. ‘You kicked them awake,’ he said.

‘We were sightseeing,’ said Skintick, ‘and though this place is miserable we kept our opinions to ourselves. In any case, we were just discussing what to do now.’

‘You could stand and fight.’

‘We could,’ agreed Nimander, glancing back at the mob. Now fifty paces away and closing fast. ‘Or we could beat a retreat.’

‘They’re brave right now,’ Kallor observed, stepping past and drawing his two-handed sword. As he walked he looped the plain, battered weapon over his head, a few passes, as if loosening up his shoulders. Suddenly he did not seem very old at all.

Skintick asked, ‘Should we help him?’

‘Did he ask for help, Skin?’

‘No, you’re right, he didn’t.’

They watched as Kallor marched directly into the face of the mob.

And all at once that mob blew apart, people scattering, crowding out to the sides as the singing broke up into wails of dismay. Kallor hesitated for but a moment, before resuming his march. In the centre of a corridor now that had opened up to let him pass.

‘He just wants to see that altar,’ Skintick said, ‘and he’s not the one they’re bothered with. Too bad,’ he added, ‘it might have been interesting to see the old badger fight.’

‘Let’s head back,’ Nimander said, ‘while they’re distracted.’

‘If they let us.’

They turned and set off at an even, unhurried pace. After a dozen or so strides Skintick half turned. He grunted, then said, ‘They’ve left us to it. Nimander, the message seems clear. To get to that altar, we will have to go through them.’

‘So it seems.’

‘Things will get messy yet.’

Yes, they would.

‘So, do you think Kallor and the Dying God will have a nice conversation? Observations on the weather. Reminiscing on the old tyrannical days when everything was all fun and games. Back when the blood was redder, its taste sweeter. Do you think?’

Nimander said nothing, thinking instead of those faces in that mob, the black stains smeared round their mouths, the pits of their eyes. Clothed in rags, caked with filth, few children among them, as if the kelyk made them all equal, regardless of age, regardless of any sort of readiness to manage the world and the demands of living. They drank and they starved and the present was the future, until death stole away that future. A simple trajectory. No worries, no ambitions, no dreams.

Would any of that make killing them easier? No.

‘I do not want to do this,’ Nimander said.

‘No,’ Skintick agreed. ‘But what of Clip?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This kelyk is worse than a plague, because its victims invite it into their lives, and then are indifferent to their own suffering. It forces the question — have we any right to seek to put an end to it, to destroy it?’

‘Maybe not,’ Nimander conceded.

‘But there is another issue, and that is mercy.’

He shot his cousin a hard look. ‘We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin-’

‘Not them — of course not. I was thinking of the Dying God.’

Ah. . well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. ‘Thank you, Skin.’

‘For what?’

‘We will sneak past them.’

‘Carrying Clip?’

‘Yes.’

‘That won’t be easy — it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God grants gifts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do.’

‘We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means some shy;thing.’

Desra pulled her hand from Clip’s brow. ‘I was wrong. He’s getting worse.’ And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. ‘How are they?’

A languid blink. ‘Coming back, unharmed.’

Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too. . empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid — oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded — but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.

Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. ‘Did you find anything to eat in the taproom? Or drink?’

The warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra’s questions he glanced back. ‘Plenty, as if they’d just left — or maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.’

‘Someone must be growing proper food, then,’ said Kedeviss. ‘Or arranging its purchase from other towns and the like.’

‘They’ve gone to a lot of trouble for us,’ Nenanda observed. ‘And that makes me uneasy.’

‘Clip is dying, Aranatha,’ Desra said.

‘Yes.’

‘They’re back,’ Nenanda announced.

‘Nimander will know what to do,’ Desra pronounced.

‘Yes,’ said Aranatha.

She circled once, high above the city, and even her preternatural sight struggled against the eternal darkness below. Kurald Galain was a most alien warren, even in this diffused, weakened state. Passing directly over the slumbering mass of Silanah, Crone cackled out an ironic greeting. Of course there was no visible response from the crimson dragon, yet the Great Raven well knew that Silanah sensed her wheeling overhead. And no doubt permitted, in a flash of imagery, the vision of jaws snapping, bones and feathers crunching as delicious fluids spurted — Crone cackled again, louder this time, and was rewarded with a twitch of that long, serpentine tail.

She slid on to an updraught from the cliff’s edge, then angled down through it on a steep dive towards the low-walled balcony of the keep.

He stood alone, something she had come to expect of late. The Son of Darkness was closing in, like an onyx flower as the bells of midnight rang on, chime by chime to the twelfth and last, and then there would be naught but echoes, until even these faded, leaving silence. She crooked her wings to slow her plummet, the keep still rushing up to meet her. A flurry of beating wings and she settled atop the stone wall, talons crunching into the granite.

‘And does the view ever change?’ Crone asked.

Anomander Rake looked down, regarded her for a time.

She opened her beak to laugh in silence for a few heartbeats. ‘The Tiste Andii are not a people prone to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future? Do you imagine that our flight from his rotting flesh was not one of rapturous glee? Pleasure at being born, delight at being alive? Oh, I have run out of questions for you — it is indeed now a sad time.’

‘Does Baruk understand, Crone?’

‘He does. More or less. Perhaps. We’ll see.’

‘Something is happening to the south.’

She bobbed her head in agreement. ‘Something, oh yes, something all right. Are the priestesses in a wild orgy yet? The plunge that answers everything! Or, rather, postpones the need for answers for a time, a time of corresponding bliss, no doubt. But then. . reality returns. Damn reality, damn it to the Abyss! Time for another plunge!’

‘Travel has soured your mood, Crone.’

‘It is not in my nature to grieve. I despise it, in fact. I rail against it! My sphincter explodes upon it! And yet, what is it you force upon me, your old companion, your beloved servant?’

‘I have no such intention,’ he replied. ‘Clearly, you fear the worst. Tell me, what have your kin seen?’

‘Oh, they are scattered about, here and there, ever high above the petty machinations of the surface crawlers. We watch as they crawl this way and that. We watch, we laugh, we sing their tales to our sisters, our brothers.’

‘And?’

She ducked her head, fixed one eye upon the tumultuous black seas below. ‘This darkness of yours, Master, breeds fierce storms.’

‘So it does.’

‘I will fly high above the twisting clouds, into air clear and cold.’

‘And so you shall, Crone, so you shall.’

‘I dislike it when you are generous, Master. When that soft regard steals into your eyes. It is not for you to reveal compassion. Stand here, yes, unseen, unknowable, that I might hold this in my mind. Let me think of the ice of true justice, the kind that never shatters — listen, I hear the bells below! How sure that music, how true the cry of iron.’

‘You are most poetic this day, Crone.’

‘It is how Great Ravens rail at grief, Master. Now, what would you have me do?’

‘Endest Silann is at the deep river.’

‘Hardly alone, I should think.’

‘He must return.’

She was silent for a moment, head cocked. Then she said, ‘Ten bells have sounded.’

‘Ten.’

‘I shall be on my way, then.’

‘Fly true, Crone.’

‘I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.’

He smiled. ‘There is no need for that.’