Toll the Hounds

CHAPTER TWELVE

The stately trees with their black trunks and midnight leaves formed a rough ring encircling Suruth Common. From the centre of the vast clearing, one could, upon facing north, see the towers of the Citadel, their slim lines echoing these sacred trees. Autumn had arrived, and the air was filled with the drifting filaments from the blackwood.

The great forges to the west lit crimson the foul clouds hanging over them, so that it seemed that one side of Kharkanas was ablaze. An eternal rain of ash plagued the massive, sprawling factories, nothing as sweet as the curled filaments to mark the coming of the cold season.

Within the refuge of Suruth Common, the blasted realm of the factories seemed worlds away. Thick beds of moss cloaked the pavestones of the clearing, muting Endest Silann’s boots as he walked to the concave altar stone at the very heart. He could see no one else about — this was not the season for festivity. This was not a time for celebration of any sort. He wondered if the trees sensed him, if they were capable of focusing some kind of attention upon him, made aware by the eddies of air, the exudation of heat and breath.

He had read once a scholar’s treatise describing the chemical relationship between plants and animals. The language had been clinical in the fashion of such academic efforts, and yet Endest recalled closing the book and sitting back in his chair. The notion that he could walk up to a plant, a tree, even a blackwood, and bless it with his own breath — a gift of lung-soured air that could enliven that tree, that could in truth deliver health and vigour, deliver life itself. . ah, but that was a wonder indeed, one that, for a time, calmed the churning maelstrom that was a young man’s soul.

So long ago, now, and he felt, at times, that he was done with giving gifts.

He stood alone in front of the ancient altar. The past night’s modest rain had formed a shallow pool in the cup of the basalt. It was said the Andii came from the forests and their natural clearings. Born to give breath to the sacred wood, and that the first fall of his people occurred the moment they walked out, to set down the first shaped stone of this city.

How many failings had there been since? Suruth Common was the last fragment of the old forest left in all Kharkanas. Blackwood itself had fed the great forges.

He had no desire to look westward. More than the fiery glow disturbed him. The frenzy in those factories — they were making weapons. Armour. They were readying for war.

He had been sent here by the High Prlestess. ‘Witness,’ she had said. And so he would. The eyes of the Temple, the priesthood, must remain open, aware, miss shy;ing nothing in these fraught times. That she had chosen him over others — or even herself — was not a measure of respect. His presence was political, his modest rank a deliberate expression of the Temple’s contempt.

‘Witness, Endest Silann. But remain silent. You are a presence, do you under shy;stand?’

He did.

They appeared almost simultaneously, one from the north, one from the east and one from the south. Three brothers. Three sons. This was to be a meeting of blood and yes, they would resent him, for he did not belong. Indeed, the Temple did not belong. Would they send him away?

The trees wept their promise of a new season of life — a season that would never come, for there was nowhere left for the filaments to take root — not for scores of leagues in any direction. The river would take millions, but even those fine black threads could not float on its waters, and so what the river took the river kept, buried in the dead silts of Dorssan Ryl. Our breath was meant to give life, not take it away. Our breath was a gift, and in that gift the blackwood found betrayal.

This was and is our crime, and it was and remains unforgivable.

‘Good evening, priest,’ said Andarist, who then added, ‘Anomander, it seems you were right.’

‘An easy prediction,’ Anomander replied. ‘The Temple watches me the way a rove of rhotes watch a dying ginaf.’

Endest blinked. The last wild ginaf vanished a century past and no longer did the silver-backed herds thunder across the south plains; and these days roves of rhotes winged above battlefields and nowhere else — and no, they did not starve. Are you the last, Lord? Is this what you are saying? Mother bless me, I never know what you are saying. No one does. We share language but not meaning.

The third brother was silent, his red eyes fixed upon the forges beneath the western sky.

‘The clash between Drethdenan and Vanut Degalla draws to an end,’ said Andarist. ‘It may be time-’

‘Should we be speaking of this?’ Silchas Ruin cut in, finally turning to face Endest Silann. ‘None of this is for the Temple. Especially not some pathetic third level acolyte.’

Anomander seemed uninterested in settling his attention upon Endest Silann. In the face of his brother’s belligerence, he shrugged. ‘This way, Silchas, perhaps we can insure the Temple remains. . neutral.’

‘By unveiling to it all that we intend? Why should the Temple hold to any particular faith in us? What makes the three of us more worthy of trust than, say, Manalle, or Hish Tulla?’

‘There is an obvious answer to that,’ said Andarist. ‘Priest?’

He could refuse a reply. He could feign ignorance. He was naught but a third level acolyte, after all. Instead, he said, ‘You three are not standing here trying to kill each other.’

Andarist smiled at Silchas Ruin.

Who scowled and looked away once again.

‘We have things to discuss,’ said Anomander. ‘Andarist?’

‘I have already sent representatives to both camps. An offer to mitigate. Veiled hints of potential alliances against the rest of you. The key will be in getting Drethdenan and Vanut into the same room, weapons sheathed.’

‘Silchas?’

‘Both Hish and Manalle have agreed to our pact. Manalle still worries me, brothers. She is no fool-’

‘And Hish is?’ laughed Andarist — a maddeningly easy laugh, given the treachery they were discussing.

‘Hish Tulla is not subtle. Her desires are plain. It is as they all say: she does not lie. No, Manalle is suspicious. After all, I am speaking of the greatest crime of all, the spilling of kin’s blood.’ He paused, then faced Anomander, and suddenly his expression was transformed. Unease, something bewildered and lit with horror. ‘Anomander,’ he whispered, ‘what are we doing?’

Anomander’s features hardened. ‘We are strong enough to survive this. You will see.’ Then he looked at Andarist. ‘The one who will break our hearts stands before us. Andarist, who chooses to turn away.’

‘A choice, was it?’ At the heavy silence that followed, he laughed again. ‘Yes, it was. One of us. . it must be, at least one of us, and I have no desire to walk your path. I have not the courage for such a thing. The courage, and the. . cruel madness. No, brothers, mine is the easiest task — I am to do nothing.’

‘Until I betray you,’ said Silchas, and Endest was shocked to see the white-skinned Lord’s wet eyes.

‘There is no other way through,’ said Andarist.

Centuries into millennia, Endest Silann would wonder — and never truly know — if all that followed was as these three had planned. Courage, Andarist had called it. And. . cruel madness — by the Mother, yes — such destruction, the sheer audacity of the treachery — could they have meant all of that?

The next time Anomander had met Endest Silann had been on the bridge at the foot of the Citadel, and in his words he made it clear that he had not recognized him as the same man as the one sent to witness his meeting with his brothers. A strange carelessness for one such as Anomander. Although, unquestionably, the Lord had other things on his mind at that moment.

Endest Silann had delivered to the High Priestess his account of that fell meeting. And in relating the details of the betrayal, such as could be culled from what he had heard — all the implications — he had expected to see outrage in her face. Instead — and, he would think later with prescient symbolism — she had but turned away.

There had been no storms in the sky then. Nothing to hint of what would come. The blackwood trees of Suruth Common had lived for two millennia, maybe longer, and each season they shed their elongated seeds to the wind, Yet, when next he looked upon those stately trees, they would be on fire.

‘You have grown far too quiet, old friend.’

Endest Silann looked up from the dying flames. Dawn was fast approaching. ‘I was reminded. . the way that wood crumbles into dissolution.’

‘The release of energy. Perhaps a better way of seeing it.’

‘Such release is ever fatal.’

‘Among plants, yes,’ said Caladan Brood.

Among plants. . ‘I think of the breath we give them — our gift.’

‘And the breath they give back,’ said the warlord, ‘that burns if touched. I am fortunate, I think,’ he continued, ‘that I have no appreciation for irony.’

‘It is a false gift, for with it we claim ownership. Like crooked merchants, every one of us. We give so that we can then justify taking it back. I have come to believe that this exchange is the central tenet of our relationship. . with everything in the world. Any world. Human, Andii, Edur, Liosan. Imass, Barghast, Jaghut-’

‘Not Jaghut,’ cut in Caladan Brood.

‘Ah,’ said Endest Silann. ‘I know little of them, in truth. What then was their bargain?’

‘Between them and the world? I don’t even know if an explanation is possible, or at least within the limits of my sorry wit. Until the forging of the ice — defending against the Imass — the Jaghut gave far more than they took. Excepting the Tyrants, of course, which is what made such tyranny all the more reprehensible in the eyes of other Jaghut.’

‘So, they were stewards.’

‘No. The notion of stewardship implies superiority. A certain arrogance.’

‘An earned one, surely, since the power to destroy exists.’

‘Well, the illusion of power, I would say, Endest. After all, if you destroy the things around you, eventually you destroy yourself. It is arrogance that asserts a kind of separation, and from that the notion that we can shape and reshape the world to suit our purposes, and that we can use it, as if it was no more than a living tool composed of a million parts.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘See? Already my skull aches.’

‘Only with the truth, I think,’ said Endest Silann. ‘So, the Jaghut did not think of themselves as stewards. Nor as parasites. They were without arrogance? I find that an extraordinary thing, Warlord. Beyond comprehension, in fact.’

‘They shared this world with the Forkrul Assail, who were their opposites. They were witnesses to the purest manifestation of arrogance and separation.’

‘Was there war?’

Caladan Brood was silent for so long that Endest began to believe that no answer was forthcoming, and then he glanced up with his bestial eyes glittering in the ebbing flames of the hearth. ‘“Was”?’

Endest Silann stared across at his old friend, and the breath slowly hissed from him. ‘Gods below, Caladan. No war can last that long.’

‘It can, when the face of the army is without relevance.’

The revelation was. . monstrous. Insane. ‘Where?’

The warlord’s smile was without humour. ‘Far away from here, friend, which is well. Imagine what your Lord might elect to do, if it was otherwise.’

He would intervene. He would not be able to stop himself.

Caladan Brood rose then. ‘We have company.’

A moment later the heavy thud of wings sounded in the fading darkness above them, and Endest Silann looked up to see Crone, wings crooked now, riding shifting currents of air as she descended, landing with a scatter of stones just beyond the edge of firelight.

‘I smell fish!’

‘Wasn’t aware your kind could smell at all,’ Caladan Brood said.

‘Funny oaf, although it must be acknowledged that our eyes are the true gift of perfection — among many, of course. Why, Great Ravens are plagued with excellence — and do I see picked bones? I do, with despondent certainty — you rude creatures have left me nothing!’

She hopped closer, regarding the two men with first one eye and then the other. ‘Grim conversation? Glad I interrupted. Endest Silann, your Lord summons you. Caladan Brood, not you. There, messages delivered! Now I want food!’

Harak fled through Night. Old tumbled streets, the wreckage of the siege picked clean save for shattered blocks of quarried stone; into narrow, tortured alleys where the garbage was heaped knee-high; across collapsed buildings, scrambling like a spider. He knew Thove was dead. He knew Bucch was dead, and a half-dozen other conspirators. All dead. Killers had pounced. Tiste Andii, he suspected, some kind of secret police, penetrating the cells and now slaughtering every liberator they could hunt down.

He’d always known that the unhuman demon-spawn were far from the innocent, benign occupiers they played at, oh, yes, they were rife with deadly secrets. Plans of slavery and oppression, of tyranny, not just over Black Coral, but beyond, out to the nearby cities — wherever humans could be found, the Tiste Andii cast covetous eyes. And now he had proof.

Someone was after him, tracking with all the deliberate malice of a hunting cat — he’d yet to spy that murderer, but in a world such as Night that was not surprising. The Tiste Andii were skilled in their realm of Darkness, deadly as serpents.

He needed to reach the barrow. He needed to get to Gradithan. Once there, Harak knew he would be safe. They had to be warned, and new plans would have to be made. Harak knew that he might well be the last one left in Black Coral.

He stayed in the most ruined areas of the city, seeking to circle round or, failing that, get out through the inland gate that led into the forested hills — where the cursed Bridgeburners had made a stand, killing thousands with foul sorcery and Moranth munitions — why, the entire slope was still nothing more than shattered, charred trees, fragments of mangled armour, the occasional leather boot and, here and there in the dead soil, juttlng bones. Could he reach that, he could find a path leading into Daylight and then, finally, he would be safe.

This latter option became ever more inviting — he was not too far from the gate, and these infernal shadows and the endless gloom here was of no help to him — the Tiste Andii could see in this darkness, after all, whilst he stumbled about half blind.

He heard a rock shift in the rubble behind him, not thirty paces away. Heart pounding, Harak set his eyes upon the gate. Smashed down in the siege, but a path of sorts had been cleared through it, leading out to the raised road that encircled the inland side of the city. Squinting, he could make out no figures lingering near that gate.

Twenty paces away now. He picked up his pace and, once on to the cleared avenue, sprinted for the opening in the wall.

Were those footfalls behind him? He dared not turn.

Run! Damn my legs — run!

On to the path, threading between heaps of broken masonry, and outside the city!

Onward, up the slope to the raised road, a quick, frantic scamper across it, and down into the tumbled rocks at the base of the ruined slope. Battered earth, makeshift grave mounds, tangled roots and dead branches. Whimpering, he clambered on, torn and scratched, coughing in the dust of dead pine bark.

And there, near the summit, was that sunlight? Yes. It was near dawn, after all. Sun — blessed light!

A quick glance back revealed nothing — he couldn’t make out what might be whispering through the wreckage below.

He was going to make it.

Harak scrambled the last few strides, plunged into cool morning air, shafts of golden rays — and a figure rose into his path. A tulwar lashed out. Harak’s face bore an expression of astonishment, frozen there as his head rolled from his shoulders, bounced and pitched back down the slope, where it lodged near a heap of bleached, fractured bones. The body sank down on to its knees, at the very edge of the old trench excavated by the Bridgeburners, and there it stayed.

Seerdomin wiped clean his blade and sheathed the weapon. Was this the last of them? He believed that it was. The city. . cleansed. Leaving only those out at the barrow. Those ones would persist for a time, in ignorance that everything in Black Coral had changed.

He was weary — the hunt had taken longer than he had expected. Yes, he would rest now. Seerdomin looked about, studied the rumpled trenchwork the sappers had managed with little more than folding shovels. And he was impressed. A different kind of soldier, these Malazans.

But even this the forest was slowly reclaiming.

He sat down a few paces from the kneeling corpse and settled his head into his gloved hands. He could smell leather, and sweat, and old blood. The smells of his past, and now they had returned. In his mind he could hear echoes, the rustle of armour and scabbards brushing thighs. Urdomen marching in ranks, the visors on their great helms dropped down to hide their fevered eyes. Squares of Betaklites forming up outside the city, preparing to strike northward. Scalandi skirmishers and Tenescowri — the starving multitudes, desperate as bared teeth. He recalled their mass, shifting in vast heaves, ripples and rushes on the plain, the way each wave left bodies behind — the weakest ones, the dying ones — and how eddies would form round them, as those closest swung back to then descend on their hapless comrades.

When there was no one else, the army ate itself. And he had simply looked on, expressionless, wrapped in his armour, smelling iron, leather, sweat and blood.

Soldiers who had fought in a just war — a war they could see as just, anyway — could hold on to a sense of pride, every sacrifice a worthy one. And so fortified, they could leave it behind, finding a new life, a different life. And no matter how grotesque the injustices of the world around them, the world of the present, that veteran could hold on to the sanctity of what he or she had lived through.

But fighting an unjust war. . that was different. If one had any conscience at all, there was no escaping the crimes committed, the blood on the hands, the sheer insanity of that time — when honour was a lie, duty a weapon that silenced, and courage itself was stained and foul. Suddenly, then, there was no defence against injustice, no sanctuary to be found in memories of a righteous time. And so anger seethed upward, filling every crack, building into rage. There was no way to give it a voice, no means of releasing it, and so the pressure built. When it finally overwhelmed, then suicide seemed the easiest option, the only true escape.

Seerdomin could see the logic of that, but logic was not enough. Anyone could reason themselves into a corner, and so justify surrender. It was even easier when courage itself was vulnerable to abuse and sordid mockery. Because, after all, to persist, to live on, demanded courage, and that was only possible when the virtue remained worthy of respect.

Seerdomin lifted his head and glared over at the decapitated corpse. ‘Can you understand any of that, Harak? Can you grasp, now, finally, how the very existence of people like you gives me reason to stay alive? Because you give my rage a face, and my sword, well, it’s hungry for faces.’ It was either that, or the fury within him would devour his own soul. No, better to keep the face he slashed open someone else’s, rather than his own. Keep finding them, one after another. Justice was so weak. The corrupt won, the pure of heart failed and fell to the way shy;side. Graft and greed crowed triumphant over responsibility and compassion. He could fight that, and that fight need not even be in his own name. He could fight for Black Coral, for the Tiste Andii, for humanity itself.

Even for the Redeemer — no, that cannot be. What I do here can never be healed — there can be no redemption for me. Ever. You must see that. All of you must see that.

He realized he was pleading — but to whom? He did not know. We were put in an impossible situation, and, at least for us, the tyrant responsible is dead — has been punished. It could have been worse — he could have escaped retribution, es shy;caped justice.

There was trauma in war. Some people survived it; others were for ever trapped in it. For many of those, this circumstance was not a failing on their part. Not some form of sickness, or insanity. It was, in truth, the consequence of a pro shy;foundly moral person’s inability to reconcile the conflicts in his or her soul. No healer could heal that, because there was nothing to heal. No elixir swept the malady away. No salve erased the scars. The only reconciliation possible was to make those responsible accountable, to see them face justice. And more often than not, history showed that such an accounting rarely ever took place. And so the veteran’s wounds never mend, the scars never fade, the rage never subsides.

So Seerdomin had come to believe, and he well knew that what he was doing here, with weapon in hand, solved nothing of the conflict within him. For he was as flawed as anyone, and no matter how incandescent his rage, his righteous fury, he could not deliver pure, unsullied justice — for such a thing was collective, integral to a people’s identity. Such a thing must be an act of society, of civilization. Not Tiste Andii society — they clearly will not accept that burden, will not accede to meting out justice on behalf of us humans, nor should they be expected to. And so. . here I am, and I hear the Redeemer weep.

One cannot murder in the name of justice.

Irreconcilable. What he had been, what he was now. The things he did then, and all he was doing here, at this moment.

The would-be usurper knelt beside him, headless in sour symbolism. But it was a complicated, messy symbol. And he could find for himself but one truth in all of this.

Heads roll downhill.

It may be that in the belief of the possibility of redemption, people willingly do wrong. Redemption waits, like a side door, there in whatever court of judge shy;ment we eventually find ourselves. Not even the payment of a fine is demanded, simply the empty negotiation that absolves responsibility. A shaking of hands and off one goes, through that side door, with the judge benignly watching on. Culpability and consequences neatly evaded.

Oh, Salind was in a crisis indeed. Arguments reduced until the very notion of redemption was open to challenge. The Redeemer embraced, taking all within himself. Unquestioning, delivering absolution as if it was without value, worthless, whilst the reward to those embraced was a gift greater than a tyrant’s hoard.

Where was justice in all of this? Where was the punishment for crimes committed, retribution for wrongs enacted? There is, in this, no moral compass. No need for one, for every path leads to the same place, where blessing is passed out, no questions asked.

The cult of the Redeemer. . it is an abomination.

She had begun to understand how priesthoods were born, the necessity of sanctioned forms, rules and prohibitions, the mortal filter defined by accepted notions of justice. And yet, she could also see how profoundly dangerous such an institution could become, as arbiters of morality, as dispensers of that justice. Faces like hooded vultures, guarding the door to the court, choosing who gets inside and who doesn’t. How soon before the first bag of silver changes hands? How soon before the first reprehensible criminal buys passage into the arms of the blind, unquestioning Redeemer?

She could fashion such a church, could formalize the cult into a religion, and she could impose a harsh, unwavering sense of justice. But what of the next generation of priests and priestesses? And the one after that, and the next one? How long before the hard rules make that church a self-righteous, power-mongering tyranny? How long before corruption arrives, when the hidden heart of the religion is the simple fact that the Redeemer embraces everyone who comes before him? A fact virtually guaranteed to breed cynicism in the priesthood, and from such cynicism secular acquisitiveness would be inevitable.

This loss was not just a loss of faith in the Redeemer. It was a loss of faith in religion itself.

Her prayers touched a presence, were warmed by the nearby breath of an immortal. And she pleaded with that force. She railed. Made demands. Insisted on explanations, answers.

And he took all her anger into his embrace, as he did everything else. And that was wrong.

There were two meanings to the word ‘benighted’. The first was pejorative, a form of dour ignorance. The second was an honour conferred in service to a king or queen. It was this latter meaning that had been applied to Seerdomin, a title of respect.

There was a third definition, one specific to Black Coral and to Seerdomin himself. He dwelt in Night, after all, where Darkness was not ignorance, but profound wisdom, ancient knowledge, symbolic of the very beginning of existence, the first womb from which all else was born. He dwelt in Night, then, and for a time had made daily pilgrimages out to the barrow with its forbidden riches, a one-man procession of rebirth that Salind only now comprehended.

Seerdomin was, in truth, the least ignorant of them all. Had he known Itkov shy;ian in his life? She thought not. Indeed, it would have been impossible. And so whatever had drawn Seerdomin to the cult arrived later, after Itkovian’s death, after his ascension. Thus, a personal crisis, a need that he sought to appease with daily prayers.

But. . why bother? The Redeemer turned no one away. Blessing and forgiveness was a certainty. The bargaining was a sham. Seerdomin need only have made that procession once, and been done with it.

Had no one confronted him, he would still be making his daily pilgrimage, like an animal pounding its head against the bars of a cage — and, disregarded to one side, the door hanging wide open.

Was that significant? Seerdomin did not want the Redeemer’s embrace. No, the redemption he sought was of a different nature.

Need drove her from the bed in the temple, out into Night. She felt weak, light-headed, and every step seemed to drain appalling amounts of energy into the hard cobbles underfoot. Wrapped in a blanket, unmindful of those she passed, she walked through the city.

There was meaning in the harrow itself, in the treasure that none could touch. There was meaning in Seerdomin’s refusal of the easy path. In his prayers that asked either something the Redeemer could not grant, or nothing at all. There was, perhaps, a secret in the Redeemer’s very embrace, something hidden, possibly even deceitful. He took in crimes and flaws and held it all in abeyance. . until when? The redeemed’s death? What then? Did some hidden accounting await each soul?

How much desperation hid within each and every prayer uttered? The hope for blessing, for peace, for the sense that something greater than oneself might acknowledge that hapless self, and might indeed alter all of reality to suit the self’s desires. Were prayers nothing more than attempted bargains? A pathetic assertion of some kind of reciprocity?

Well, she would not bargain. No, she had questions, and she wanted answers. She demanded answers. If the faith that was given to a god came from nothing more than selfish desires, then it was no less sordid than base greed. If to hand over one’s soul to a god was in fact a surrendering of will, then that soul was worthless, a willing slave for whom freedom — and all the responsibility that entailed — was anathema.

She found herself reeling through the gate, on to the road that Seerdomin once walked day after day. It had begun raining, the drops light, cool on her fevered forehead, sweet as tears in her eyes. Not much grew to either side of the road, not even the strange Andiian plants that could be found in the walled and rooftop gardens. The dying moon had showered this place in salt water, a downpour the remnants of which remained as white crust like a cracked skin on the barren earth.

She could smell the sea rising around her as she staggered on.

And then, suddenly, she stumbled into daylight, the sun’s shafts slanting in from the east whilst a single grey cloud hung directly overhead, the rain a glittering tracery of angled streaks.

Bare feet slipping on the road’s cobbles, Salind continued on. She could see the barrow ahead, glistening and freshly washed, with the mud thick and churned up round its base. There were no pilgrims to be seen — perhaps it was too early. Perhaps they have all left. But no, she could see smoke rising from cookfires in the encampment. Have they lost their way, then? Is that surprising? Have I not suffered my own crisis of faith?

She drew closer, gaze fixed now on the barrow.

Redeemer! You will hear me. You must hear me!

She fell on to her knees in the mud and its chill rippled up through her. The rain was past and steam now rose on all sides. Water ran in trickles everywhere on the barrow, a hundred thousand tears threading through all the offerings.

Redeemer-

A fist closed in the short hair at the back of her neck. She was savagely pulled upright, head yanked round. She stared up into Gradithan’s grinning face.

‘You should never have come back,’ the man said. His breath stank of kelyk, and she saw the brown stains on his lips and mouth. His eyes looked strangely slick, like stones washed by waves. ‘I am tempted, Priestess, to give you to my Urdomen — not that they’d have you.’

Urdomen. He was an Urdo, a commander of the fanatic elites. Now I begin to underst-

‘But Monkrat might.’

She frowned. What had he been saying? ‘Leave me,’ she said, and was shocked at how thin and weak her voice sounded. ‘I want to pray.’

He twisted his grip, forcing her round to face him, close enough to be lovers. ‘Monkrat!’

Someone came up beside them.

‘Get some saemankelyk. I’d like to see how well she dances.’

She could feel his hard knuckles pressing the back of her neck, twisting and ripping hair from its roots, pushing into the bruises he’d already made.

‘I can give you nothing,’ she said.

‘Oh, but you will,’ he replied. ‘You’ll give us a path,’ and he turned her back to face the barrow, ‘straight to him.’

She did not understand, and yet fear gripped her, and as she heard someone hurrying up, bottle swishing, her fear burgeoned into terror.

Gradithan tugged her head further back. ‘You are going to drink, woman. Waste a drop and you’ll pay.’

Monkrat came close, lifting the bottle with its stained mouth to her lips.

She sought to twist her face away but the Urdo’s grip denied that. He reached up with his other hand and closed her nostrils.

‘Drink, and then you can breathe again.’

Salind drank.

Finding her gone from her room, Spinnock Durav stood for a long moment, star shy;ing down at the rumpled mattress of the cot, noting the missing blanket, seeing that she’d left most of her clothes behind, including her moccasins. He told himself he should not be surprised. She had not much welcomed his attentions.

Still, he felt as if some cold, grinning bastard had carved a gaping hole in his chest. It was absurd, that he should have been careless enough, complacent enough, to find himself this vulnerable. A human woman of so few years — he was worse than some old man sitting on the temple steps and drooling at every young thing sauntering past. Love could be such a squalid emotion: burning bright in the midst of pathos, the subject of pity and contempt, it blazed with brilliant stupidity all the same.

Furious with himself, he wheeled about and strode from the room.

In a city of unending Night, no bell was too early for a drink. He left the temple and the keep, made his way down ghostly streets to the Scour.

Inside, Resto was behind the bar, red-eyed and scratching at his beard and saying nothing as Spinnock walked to the table at the back. Tavern-keepers knew well the myriad faces of misery, and unbidden he drew a tall tankard of ale, bringing it over with gaze averted.

Glaring at the other tables — all empty; he was the only customer — Spinnock collected the tankard and swallowed down half its foamy contents.

Moments after Resto delivered the third such tankard the door opened and in walked Seerdomin.

Spinnock felt a sudden apprehension. Even from there the man smelled of blood, and his face was a ravaged thing, aged and pallid, the eyes so haunted that the Tiste Andii had to look away.

As if unaware of his reaction, Seerdomin came to Spinnock’s table and sat down opposite him. Resto arrived with a jug and a second tankard.

‘She doesn’t want my help,’ Spinnock said.

Seerdomin said nothing as he poured ale into his tankard, setting the jug back down with a thump. ‘What are you talking about?’

Spinnock looked away. ‘I couldn’t find you. I searched everywhere.’

‘That desperate for a game?’

A game? Oh. Kef Tanar. ‘You are looking at a pathetic old man, Seerdomin. I feel I must sacrifice the last of my dignity, here and now, and tell you everything.’

‘I don’t know if I’m ready for that,’ the man replied. ‘Your dignity is important to me.’

Spinnock flinched, and still would not meet Seerdomin’s eyes. ‘I have surrendered my heart.’

‘Well. You can’t marry her, though, can you?’

‘Who?’

‘The High Priestess — although it’s about time you realized that she loves you in return, probably always has. You damned Andii — you live so long it’s as if you’re incapable of grasping on to things in the here and now. If I had your endless years. . no, scratch out the eyes of that thought. I don’t want them. I’ve lived too long as it is.’

Spinnock’s mind was spinning. The High Priestess? ‘No, she doesn’t. Love me, I mean. I didn’t mean, her, anyway.’

‘Gods below, Spinnock Durav, you’re a damned fool.’

‘I know that. I’ve as much as confessed it, for Hood’s sake.’

‘So you’re not interested in making the High Priestess happier than she’s been in a thousand years. Fine. That’s your business. Some other woman, then. Careful, someone might up and murder her. Jealousy is deadly.’

This was too offhand for Seerdomin, too loose, too careless. It had the sound of a man who had surrendered to despair, no longer caring — about anything. Loosing every arrow in his quiver, eager to see it suddenly, fatally empty. This Seerdomin frightened Spinnock. ‘What have you been up to?’ he asked.

‘I have been murdering people.’ He poured another round, then settled back in his chair, ‘Eleven so far. They saw themselves as liberators. Scheming the downfall of their Tiste Andii oppressors. I answered their prayers and liberated every one of them. This is my penance, Spinnock Durav. My singular apology for the madness of humanity. Forgive them, please, because I cannot.’

Spinnock found a tightness in his throat that started tears in his eyes. He could not so much as look at this man, dared not, lest he see all that should never be revealed, never be exposed. Not in his closest friend. Not in anyone. ‘That,’ he said, hating his own words, ‘was not necessary.’

‘Strictly speaking, you are right, friend. They would have failed — I lack no faith in your efficacy, especially that of your Lord. Understand, I did this out of a desire to prove that, on occasion, we are capable of policing our own. Checks and balances. This way the blood stains my hands, not yours. Giving no one else cause for hating you.’

‘Those who hate need little cause, Seerdomin.’

The man nodded — Spinnock caught the motion peripherally.

There was a silence. The tale had been told, Spinnock recalled, more than once. How the Bridgeburner named Whiskeyjack — a man Anomander Rake called friend — had intervened in the slaughter of the Pannion witches, the mad mothers of Children of the Dead Seed. Whiskeyjack, a human, had sought to grant the Son of Darkness a gift, taking away the burden of the act. A gesture that had shaken his Lord to the core. It is not in our nature to permit others to share our burden.

Yet we will, unhesitatingly, take on theirs.

‘I wonder if we blazed his trail.’

‘What?’

Spinnock rubbed at his face, feeling slightly drunk. ‘Itkovian’s.’

‘Of course you didn’t. The Grey Swords-’

‘Possessed a Shield Anvil, yes, but they were not unique in that. It’s an ancient title. Are we the dark mirror to such people?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Probably not. That would be a grand conceit.’

‘I agree,’ Seerdomin said in a slurred growl.

‘I love her.’

‘So you claimed. And presumably she will not have you.’

‘Very true.’

‘So here you sit, getting drunk.’

‘Yes.’

‘Once I myself am drunk enough, Spinnock Durav, I will do what’s needed.’

‘What’s needed?’

‘Why, I will go and tell her she’s a damned fool.’

‘You’d fail.’

‘I would?’

Spinnock nodded. ‘She’s faced you down before. Unflinchingly.’

Another stretch of silence. That stretched on, and on.

He was drunk enough now to finally shift his gaze, to fix his attention on Seer shy;domin’s face.

It was a death mask, white as dust. ‘Where is she?’ the man asked in a raw, strained voice.

‘On her way back out to the barrow, I should think. Seerdomin, I am sorry. I did not lie when I said I was a fool-’

‘You were,’ and he rose, weaving slightly before, steadying himself with both hands on the back of his chair. ‘But not in the way you think.’

‘She didn’t want my help,’ Spinnock Durav said.

‘And I would not give her mine.’

‘Your choice-’

‘You should not have listened, my friend. To her. You should not have lis shy;tened to her!’

Spinnock stood as Seerdomin spun round and marched for the door. He was suddenly without words, numbed, stunned into confusion. What have I done?

What have I not done?

But his friend was gone.

In her irritation, Samar Dev discovered traits in herself that did not please. There was no reason to resent the manner in which her two companions found so much pleasure in each other’s company. The way they spoke freely, unconstrained by decorum, unaffected even by the fact that they barely knew one another, and the way the subjects flowed in any and every direction, flung on whims of mood, swirling round heady topics like eddies round jagged rocks. Most infuriating of all, they struck on moments of laughter, and she well knew — damn the gods, she was certain — that neither man possessed such ease of humour, that they were so far removed from that characterization that she could only look on in stunned disbelief.

They spoke of their respective tribes, traded tales of sexual conquests. They spoke of weapons and neither hesitated in handing over his sword for the other to examine and, indeed, try a few experimental swings and passes with. Traveller told of a friend of old named Ereko, a Tartheno of such pure, ancient blood that he would have towered over Karsa Orlong had the two been standing side by side. And in that story Samar Dev sensed deep sorrow, wounds of such severity that it was soon apparent that Traveller himself could not venture too close, and so his tale of Ereko reached no conclusion. And Karsa Orlong did not press, revealing his clear understanding that a soul could bleed from unseen places and often all that kept a mortal going depended on avoiding such places.

He reciprocated in his speaking of the two companions who had accompanied him on an ill-fated raid into the settled lands of humans, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Whose souls, Karsa blithely explained, now dwelt within the stone of his sword.

Traveller simply grunted at that detail, and then said, ‘That is a worthy place.’

By the second day of this, Samar Dev was ready to scream. Tear her hair from her head, spit blood and curses and teeth and maybe her entire stomach by the time she was done. And so she held her silence, and held on to her fury, like a rabid beast chained to the ground. It was absurd. Pathetic and ridiculous, this crass envy she was feeling. Besides, had she not learned more about both men since their fateful meeting than she had ever known before? Like a tickbird flit shy;ting between two bull bhederin, her attention was drawn to first one, then the other. While the peace lasted it would do to say nothing, to make no commotion no matter how infuriated she happened to be.

They rode on, across the vast plain, along a worn caravan track angling into the Cinnamon Wastes. Those few merchant trains they met or overtook were singularly taciturn, the guards edgy, the traders unwelcoming. Just before dusk last night, four horsemen had passed close by their camp, and, after a long look, had ridden on without a word ventured.

Karsa had sneered and said, ‘See that, Samar Dev? As my grandfather used to say, “The wolf does not smell the bear’s anus.”’

‘Your grandfather,’ Traveller had replied, ‘was an observant man.’

‘Mostly he was a fool, but even fools could spout tribal wisdom.’ And he turned to Samar Dev again. ‘You are safe, Witch.’

‘From other people, yes,’ she had growled in reply.

And the bastard had laughed.

The Cinnamon Wastes were well named. One species of deep-rooted grass quickly predominated, rust-red and hip-high, with serrated edges and thorny seed-pods on thin wavering stalks. Small red-banded lizards swarmed these grasses, tails whipping and rustling as they scattered from their path. The land levelled until not a single rise or hill was in sight.

Amidst this monotony, Traveller and Karsa Orlong seemed intent on wearing out their vocal cords.

‘Few recall,’ Traveller was saying, ‘the chaos of the Malazan Empire in those early days. The madness only began with Kellanved, the Emperor. His first cadre of lieutenants were all Napan, each one secretly sworn to a young woman named Surly, who was heiress to the crown of the Nap Isles — in hiding ever since the Untan conquest.’ He paused. ‘Or so goes the tale. Was it true? Was Surly truly the last of the Napan royal line? Who can say, but it came in handy when she changed her name to Laseen and attained the throne of the Empire. In any case, those lieutenants were crocked, every one of them. Urko, Crust, Nok, all of them. Quick to fanaticism, willing to do anything and everything to advance the Empire.’

‘The Empire, or Surly?’ asked Karsa Orlong. ‘Does it not seem just as likely that they were simply using Kellanved?’

‘A fair suspicion, except that only Nok remained once Laseen became Empress. The others each. . drowned.’

‘Drowned?’

‘Officially. That cause of death quickly became euphemistic. Put it this way. They disappeared.’

‘There was someone else,’ Samar Dev said.

‘Dancer-’

‘Not him, Traveller. There was the First Sword. There was Dassem Ultor, commander of all the Emperor’s armies. He was not Napan. He was Dal Honese.’

Traveller glanced across at her. ‘He fell in Seven Cities, shortly before Laseen took power.’

‘Surly had him assassinated,’ said Samar Dev.

Karsa Orlong grunted. ‘Eliminating potential rivals — she needed to clear the path. That, Witch, is neither savage nor civilized. You will see such things in dirt-nosed tribes and in empires both. This truth belongs to power.’

‘I would not dispute your words, Toblakai. Do you want to know what hap shy;pened after you killed Emperor Rhulad?’

‘The Tiste Edur quit the Empire.’

‘How — how did you know that?’

He bared his teeth. ‘I guessed, Witch.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes. They did not want to be there.’

Traveller said, ‘I expect the Tiste Edur discovered rather quickly the curse of occupation. It acts like a newly opened wound, infecting and poisoning both the oppressors and the oppressed. Both cultures become malformed, bitter with extremes. Hatred, fear, greed, betrayal, paranoia, and appalling indifference to suf shy;fering.’

‘Yet the Malazans occupied Seven Cities-’

‘No, Samar Dev. The Malazans conquered Seven Cities. That is different. Kel shy;lanved understood that much. If one must grip hard in enemy territory, then that grip must be hidden — at the very cusp of local power. And so no more than a handful is being strictly controlled — everyone else, merchants and herders and farmers and tradefolk — everyone — are to be shown better circumstances, as quickly as possible. “Conquer as a rogue wave, rule in quiet ripples.” The Emperor’s own words.’

‘This is what the Claw did, isn’t it? Infiltrate and paralyse the rulers-’

‘The less blood spilled, the better.’

Karsa Orlong barked a laugh. ‘That depends,’ he said. ‘There are other kinds of conquest.’

‘Such as?’

‘Traveller, my friend, you speak of conquest as a means of increasing one’s power — the more subjects and the more cities under your control is the measure of that power. But what of the power of destruction?’

Samar Dev found she was holding her breath, and she watched Traveller considering Karsa’s words, before he said, ‘There is nothing then to be gained.’

‘You are wrong,’ said Karsa, pausing to stretch his back. Havok’s head tossed, a chopping motion like an axe blade. ‘I have looked upon the face of civilization, and I am not impressed.’

‘There is no flaw in being critical.’

‘He’s not just being critical,’ said Samar Dev. ‘He intends to destroy it. Civilization, I mean. The whole thing, from sea to sea. When Karsa Orlong is done, not a single city in the world will remain standing, isn’t that right, Toblakai?’

‘I see no value in modest ambitions, Witch.’

Traveller was quiet then, and the silence was like an expanding void, until even the moan of the incessant wind seemed distant and hollow.

Gods, how often have I wished him well! Even as the thought horrifies me — he would kill millions. He would crush every symbol of progress. From ploughs back to sticks. From bricks to caves. From iron to stone. Crush us all back into the ground, the mud of waterholes. And the beasts will hunt us, and those of us who remain, why, we will hunt each other.

Traveller finally spoke. ‘I dislike cities,’ he said.

‘Barbarians both,’ she muttered under her breath.

Neither man responded. Perhaps they hadn’t heard. She shot each of them a quick glance, right and then left, and saw that both were smiling.

Riding onward, the day rustling in waves of red grass.

Until Traveller once again began speaking. ‘The first law of the multitude is conformity. Civilization is the mechanism of controlling and maintaining that multitude. The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization’s last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.’

‘More of Kellanved?’ Samar Dev asked.

Traveller snorted. ‘Hardly. That was Duiker, the Imperial Historian.’

Through the course of the night just past, Nimander Golit had led his meagre troop through the city of Bastion. Children of Darkness, with Aranatha’s quiet power embracing them, they had moved in silence, undetected as far as they could tell, for no alarms were raised. The city was a thing seemingly dead, like a closed flower.

At dusk, shortly before they set out, they had heard clattering commotion out on the main avenue, and went to the gates to watch the arrival into the city of scores of enormous wagons. Burdened with trade goods, the carters slack-faced, exhausted, with haunted eyes above brown-stained mouths. Bales of raw foodstuffs, casks of figs and oils, eels packed in salt, smoked bhederin, spiced mutton, and countless other supplies that had been eagerly pressed upon them in exchange for the barrels of kelyk.

There was cruel irony to be found in the sordid disinterest the locals displayed before such essential subsistence — most were past the desire for food. Most were starving in an ecstatic welter of saemankelyk, the black ink of a god’s pain.

The Tiste Andii wore their armour. They wore their gear for fighting, for killing. Nimander did not need a glance back to know the transformation and what it did to the expressions on all but one of the faces of those trailing behind him. Skintick, whose smile had vanished, yet his eyes glittered bright, as if fevered. Kedeviss, ever rational, now wore a mask of madness, beauty twisted into something terrible: Nenanda, for all his postures of ferocity, was now ashen, colourless, as if the truth of desire soured him with poison. Desra, flushed with something like excitement. Only Aranatha was unchanged. Placid, glassy-eyed with concentration, her features somehow softer, blurred.

Skintick and Kedeviss carried Clip between them. Nenanda held over one shoulder the man’s weapons, his bow and quiver, his sword and knife belt — all borne on a single leather strap that could be loosed in a moment should the need arise.

They had slipped past buildings in which worshippers danced, starved limbs waving about, distended bellies swaying — doors had been left open, shutters swung back to the night. Voices moaned in disjointed chorus. Even those faces that by chance turned towards the Tiste Andii as they moved ghostly past did not awaken with recognition, the eyes remaining dull, empty, unseeing.

The air was warm, smelling of rancid salt from the dying lake mixed with the heavier stench of putrefying corpses.

They reached the edge of the central square, looked out across its empty expanse. The altar itself was dark, seemingly lifeless.

Nimander crouched down, uncertain. There must be watchers. It would he madness to think otherwise. Could they reach the altar before some hidden mob rushed forth to accost them? It did not seem likely. They had not seen Kallor since his march to the altar the previous day. Nenanda believed the old man was dead. He believed they would find his body, cold and pale, lying on the tiled floor somewhere within the building. For some reason, Nimander did not think that likely.

Skintick whispered behind him, ‘Well? It’s nearing dawn, Nimander.’

What awaited them? There was only one way to find out. ‘Let’s go.’

All at once, with their first strides out into the concourse, the air seemed to swirl, thick and heavy. Nimander found he had to push against it, a tightness forming in his throat and then his chest.

‘They’re burning the shit,’ Skintick hissed. ‘Can you smell it? The kelyk-’

‘Quiet.’

Fifteen, twenty paces now. Silence all around. Nimander set his eyes on the entrance to the altar, the steps glistening with dew or something far worse. The black glyphs seemed to throb in his eyes, as if the entire structure was breathing. He could feel something dark and unpleasant in his veins, like bubbles in his blood, or seeds, eager to burst into life. He felt moments from losing control.

Behind him, hard gasping breaths — they were all feeling this, they were all-

‘Behind us,’ grunted Nenanda.

And to the sides, crowds closing in from every street and alley mouth, slowly, dark shapes pushing into the square. They look like the scarecrows, cut loose from their stakes — Mother’s blessing-

Forty strides, reaching the centre of the concourse. Every avenue closed to them now, barring that to the building itself.

‘We’re being herded,’ said Kedeviss, her voice tight. ‘They want us inside.’

Nimander glanced back, down upon the limp form of Clip, the man’s head hanging and hair trailing on the ground. Clip’s eyes were half open. ‘Is he still alive?’

‘Barely,’ said Kedeviss.

Hundreds of figures drew yet closer, blackened eyes gleaming, mouths hanging open. Knives, hatchets, pitchforks and hammers dangled down from their hands. The only sound that came from them was the shuffle of their bared feet.

Twenty paces now from the steps. To the right and left, and in their wake, the worshippers in the front lines began lifting their weapons, then those behind them followed suit.

‘Skintick,’ said Nimander, ‘take Clip yourself. Aranatha, his weapons. Desra, ward your sister. Kedeviss, Nenanda, prepare to rearguard — once we’re inside, hold them at the entrance.’

Two against a thousand or more. Fanatics, fearless and senseless — gods, we are unleashed.

He heard a pair of swords rasp free of scabbards. The sound sliced through the air, and it was as if the cold iron touched his brow, startling him awake.

The crowd was close now, a bestial growl rising.

Nimander reached the first step. ‘Now!’

They rushed upward. Skintick was immediately behind Nimander, Clip on his hunched back as he gripped one wrist and one thigh. Then Aranatha, flowing up the steps like an apparition, Desra in her wake. Nenanda and Kedeviss, facing the opposite way with swords held ready, backed up more slowly.

The front ranks of worshippers moaned and then surged forward.

Iron rang, clashed, thudded into flesh and bone. Nimander plunged through the entranceway. There was no light — every torch in its sconce had been capped — yet his eyes could penetrate the gloom, in time to see a score of priests rushing for him.

Shouting a warning, Nimander unsheathed his sword-

The fools were human. In this darkness they were half blind. He slashed out, saw a head roll off shoulders, the body crumpling. A back swing intercepted an arm thrusting a dagger at his chest. The sword’s edge sliced through wrist bones and the severed hand, still gripping the weapon, thumped against his chest before falling away. Angling the sword point back across his torso, Nimander stabbed the one-handed priest in the throat.

In his peripheral vision he caught Clip’s form rolling on to the floor as Skintick freed his arms to defend himself.

The sickly sound of edge biting meat echoed in the chamber, followed by the spatter of blood across tiles.

Nimander stop-thrust another charging priest, the point pushing hard between ribs and piercing the man’s heart. As he fell he sought to trap the sword but Nimander twisted round and with a savage tug tore his weapon free.’

A knife scraped the links of his chain hauberk beneath his left arm and he pulled away and down, cross-stabbing and feeling the sword punch into soft flesh. Stomach acids spurted up the blade and stung his knuckles. The priest folded round the wound. Nimander kicked hard into his leg, shin-high, breaking bones. As the man sagged away, he pushed forward to close against yet another one.

Sword against dagger was no contest. As the poor creature toppled, sobbing from a mortal wound, Nimander whipped his sword free and spun to meet the next attacker.

There were none left standing.

Skintick stood nearby, slamming his still bloodied sword back into the scabbard at his belt, then crouching to retrieve Clip. Desra, weapon dripping, hovered close to Aranatha who, unscathed, walked past, gaze fixed on the set of ornate doors marking some grand inner entranceway. After a moment Desra followed.

From the outer doors the frenzied sounds of fighting continued, human shrieks echoing, bouncing in crazed cacophony. Nimander looked back to see that Kedeviss and Nenanda still held the portal, blood and bile spreading beneath their boots to trace along the indents and impressions of the tiles. Nimander stared at that detail, transfixed, until a nudge from Skintick shook him free.

‘Come on,’ Nimander said in a rasp, setting out into Aranatha’s wake.

Desra felt her entire body surging with life. Not even sex could match this feeling. A score of insane priests rushing upon them, and the three of them simply cut them all down. With barely a catch of breath — she had seen Nimander slaughter the last few, with such casual grace that she could only look on in wonder. Oh, he believed himself a poor swordsman, and perhaps when compared to Nenanda, or Kedeviss, he was indeed not their equal. Even so — Bastion, your children should never have challenged us. Should never have pushed us to this.

Now see what you’ve done.

She hurried after her brainless sister.

Skintick wanted to weep, but he knew enough to save that for later, for that final stumble through, into some future place when all this was over and done with, when they could each return to a normal life, an almost peaceful life.

He had never been one for prayers, especially not to Mother Dark, whose heart was cruel, whose denial was an ever-bleeding wound in the Tiste Andii. Yet he prayed none the less. Not to a god or goddess, not to some unknown force at ease with the gift of mercy. No, Skintick prayed for peace.

A world of calm.

He did not know if such a world existed, anywhere. He did not know if one such as he deserved that world. Paradise belonged to the innocent.

Which was why it was and would ever remain. . empty.

And that is what makes it a paradise.

At the outer doors, the slaughter continued. Kedeviss saw Nenanda smiling, and had she the time, she would have slapped him. Hard. Hard enough to shake the glee from his eyes. There was nothing glorious in this. The fools came on and on, crushing each other in their need, and she and Nenanda killed them one by one by one.

Oh, fighting against absurd odds was something they were used to; something they did damnably well. That was no source of pride. Desperate defence demanded expedience and little else. And the Tiste Andii were, above all else, an expedient people.

And so blood spilled down, bodies crumpled at their feet, only to be dragged clear by the next ones to die.

She killed her twentieth worshipper, and he was no different from the nineteenth, no different from the very first one, back there on the steps.

Blood like rain. Blood like tears. It was all so pointless.

Nenanda began laughing.

Moments later, the worshippers changed their tactics. With frenzied screams they pushed forward en masse, and those Nenanda and Kedeviss mortally wounded were simply heaved ahead, dying, flailing shields of flesh and bone. As the mob drove onward, the two Tiste Andii were forced from the threshold-

And the attackers poured in with triumphant shrieks.

Nenanda stopped laughing.

Nimander was at the inner doorway when he heard the savage cries behind him. Spinning round, he saw Nenanda and Kedeviss retreating under an onslaught of maddened figures.

‘Skintick!’

His cousin shifted Clip’s body on to Nimander’s shoulders, then turned and, drawing his sword once more, plunged into the melee. Nimander staggered into the passageway.

Why? Why are we doing this? We deliver Clip to the Dying God, like a damned sacrifice. Ahead, he saw Desra and Aranatha approaching the far end, where it seemed there was another chamber. The altar room — where he awaits us- ‘Stop!’ he shouted.

Only Desra glanced back.

Aranatha strode within.

The reek of burning kelyk assailed Nimander and he stumbled as he moved forward beneath the slack, dragging weight of Clip’s unconscious form. The raw glyphs swarmed on the walls to either side. Projecting busts of some past deity showed battered faces, sections crushed and others sheared off by recent demolition. Lone eyes leered down. Half-mouths smiled with a jester’s crook. Passing by one after another.

Trembling, Nimander forced himself forward. He saw Desra stride after Aranatha.

The glyphs began weeping, and all at once he felt as if time itself was dissolving. Sudden blindness, the terrible sounds of fighting behind him diminishing, as if pulled far away, until only the rush of blood remained, a storm in his head.

Through which, faintly and then rising, came a child’s voice. Singing softly.

Seerdomin emerged from Night, squinted against the mid-morning glare. Silver clouds ahead, heaped above the barrow like the sky’s detritus. Rain slanted down on the mound.

Tulwar in his hand, he hurried on, boots slipping in the salt-crusted mud of the track.

She had gone out, alone.

Spinnock Durav — the only friend he had left — had professed his love for her. But he had not understood — yes, she would refuse his help. But such refusal must be denied. He should have comprehended that.

Gods below, this was not Seerdomin’s fight. She was not his fight. Yet he found himself driven on, cold with fear, feverish with dread, and every shy;thing that he saw around him seemed to scream its details, as if even the mun shy;dane truths could burn, could sting like acid in his eyes. Ruts and broken spokes, potsherds, pools of opaque water, exposed roots like the hackles of the earth each one ferociously demanding his attention. We are as it is, they seemed to shout, we are all there is! We are-

Not his fight, but Spinnock had not understood. He was Tiste Andii. He was a creature of centuries and what was avoided one day could be addressed later — decades, millennia, ages later. In their eyes, nothing changed. Nothing could change. They were a fallen people. The dream of getting back up had faded to dust.

She had gone out. Alone. Out where the conspirators strutted in the light of day, insanely plotting the return of suffering. Where they abused the sanctuary of an indifferent god. Maybe she was now back among her kind — if that was true, then Spinnock Durav deserved to hear the truth of that.

A rat slithered into the ditch a few strides ahead. He drew closer to the filth of the encampment, its stench so foul not even the rain could wash it away.

Would he be challenged? He hoped so. If the conspirators hid themselves, he might have trouble rooting them out. And if she decided to hide, well, he would have to kick through every decrepit hut and shelter, into every leaking tent and rust-seized wagon.

Birdsong drifted down from the trees of the slope on the opposite side of the camp, the sound startlingly clear. Tendrils of smoke from rain-dampened hearths undulated upward, each one solid as a serpent in Seerdomin’s eyes. He was, he realized, walking into their nest.

But Spinnock, you need not do this, you need not even know of this. This is a human affair, and if she is willing then yes, I will drag her free of it. Back to you. One can he saved and that should be enough.

He wondered if the Redeemer ever saw things that way. Taking one soul into his embrace with a thousand yearning others looking on — but no, he did not choose, did not select one over another. He took them all.

Seerdomin realized he did not care either way. This god was not for him. Redemption had never been his reason for kneeling before that barrow. I was lonely. I thought he might be the same. Damn you, High Priestess, why didn’t you just leave me alone?

Not my mess.

Spinnock, you owe me, and you will never know. I will say nothing — let this rain wash the blood from my hands-

He had begun this march half drunk, but nothing of that remained. Now, everything was on fire.

Reaching the slope of the camp’s main avenue, he began the ascent. The rain was fine as mist, yet he was quickly soaked through, steam rising from his forearms. The ground gave queasily beneath his boots with every step. He arrived at the crest leaning far forward, scrabbling in his haste.

Straightening, something flashed into his vision. He heard a snap, a crunch that exploded in his head, and then nothing.

Gradithan stood over the sprawled form of Seerdomin, staring down at the smashed, bloodied face. Monkrat crept closer and crouched down beside the body.

‘He lives. He will drown in his blood if I do not roll him over, Urdo. What is your wish?’

‘Yes, push him over — I want him alive, for now at least. Take his weapons, bind his limbs, then drag him to the Sacred Tent.’

Gradithan licked his lips, tasting the staleness of dried kelyk. He wanted more, fresh, bitter and sweet, but he needed his mind. Sharp, awake, aware of everything.

As Monkrat directed two of his Urdomen to attend to the Seerdomin, Gradithan set off for the Sacred Tent. Sanctified ground, yes, but only temporary. Soon, they would have the barrow itself. The barrow, and the ignorant godling within it.

Along the track, the once-worshippers of the Redeemer knelt as he passed. Some moaned in the dregs of the night’s dance. Others stared at the mud in front of their knees, heads hanging, brown slime drooling down from their gaping mouths. Oh, this might seem like corruption, but Gradithan wasn’t interested in such misconceptions.

The Dying God was more important than Black Coral and its morose over shy;lords. More important than the Redeemer and his pathetic cult. The Dying God’s song was a song of pain, and was not pain the curse of mortality?

He had heard of another cult, a foreign one, devoted to someone called the Crippled God.

Perhaps, Monkrat had ventured that morning, there is a trend.

There was something blasphemous in that observation, and Gradithan reminded himself that he would have to have the mage beaten — but not yet. Gradithan needed Monkrat, at least for now.

He entered the Sacred Tent.

Yes, she was still dancing, writhing now on the earthen floor, too exhausted perhaps to stand, yet the sensual motions were still powerful enough to take away Gradithan’s breath. It did not matter any more that she had been a Child of the Dead Seed. No one could choose their parents, after all. Besides, she had been adopted now. By the Dying God, by the blessed pain and ecstasy it delivered.

Let her dance on, yes, until the gate was forced open.

Gradithan lifted his head, sniffed the air — oh, the blood was being spilled, the sacrifice fast closing on the threshold. Close now.

The Dying God bled. Mortal followers drank that blood. Then spilled it out, transformed, so that the Dying God could take it once more within himself. This was the secret truth behind all blood sacrifice. The god gives and the mortal gives back. All the rest. . nothing more than ornate dressing, nothing more than ob shy;fuscation.

Die, my distant friends. Die in your multitudes. We are almost there.

‘You are dying.’

Seerdomin opened his eyes. An unfamiliar face stared down at him.

‘You are bleeding into your brain, Segda Travos. They mean to abuse you. Tor shy;ture you with terrible sights — the Urdo named Gradithan believes you a traitor. He wants you to suffer, but you will defy him that pleasure, for you are dying.’

‘Who — what. .’

‘I am Itkovian. I am the Redeemer.’

‘I–I am sorry.’

The man smiled and Seerdomin could see how that smile belonged to these gentle features, the kind eyes. Such compassion was. . ‘Wrong’.

‘Perhaps it seems that way, but you are strong — your spirit is very strong, Segda Travos. You believe I am without true compassion. You believe I embrace suffering out of selfish need, to feed a hunger, an addiction.’ Itkovian’s soft eyes shifted away. ‘Perhaps you are right.’

Seerdomin slowly sat up. And saw a domed sky that glittered as if with millions upon millions of stars, a solid cluster vying for every space, so that every splinter and whorl of darkness seemed shrunken, in retreat. The vision made his head spin and he quickly looked down. And found he was kneeling on a ground composed entirely of coins. Copper, tin, brass, a few sprinkles of silver, fewer still of gold. Gems gleamed here and there. ‘We are,’ he said in an awed whisper, ‘within your barrow.’

‘Yes?’ said Itkovian.

Seerdomin shot the god a quick glance. ‘You did not know. .’

‘Is knowing necessary, Segda Travos?’

‘I no longer use that name. Segda Travos is dead. I am Seerdomin.’

‘Warrior Priest of the Pannion Seer. I see the warrior within you, but not the priest.’

‘It seems I am not much of a warrior any more,’ Seerdomin observed. ‘I was coming to save her.’

‘And now, my friend, you must fight her.’

‘What?’

Itkovian pointed.

Seerdomin twisted round where he knelt. A storm was building, seeping up into the dome of offerings, and he saw how the blackness engulfed those blazing stars, drowning them one by one. Beneath the savage churning clouds there was a figure. Dancing. And with each wild swing of an arm more midnight power spun outward, up into the growing storm cloud. She seemed to be a thousand or more paces away, yet grew larger by the moment.

He could see her mouth, gaping like a pit, from which vile liquid gushed out, splashing down, spraying as she twirled.

Salind. Gods, what has happened to you?

‘She wants me,’ Itkovian said. ‘It is her need, you see.’

‘Her need?’

‘Yes. For answers. What more can a god fear, but a mortal demanding an shy;swers?’

‘Send her away!’

‘I cannot. So, warrior, will you defend me?’

‘I cannot fight that!’

‘Then, my friend, I am lost.’

Salind came closer, and as she did so she seemed to lose focus in Seerdomin’s eyes, her limbs smearing the air, her body blurring from one position to the next. Her arms seemed to multiply, and in each one, he now saw, she held a weapon. Brown-stained iron, knotted wood trailing snags of hair, daggers of obsidian, scythes of crimson bronze.

Above her stained, weeping mouth, her eyes blazed with insane fire.

‘Redeemer,’ whispered Seerdomin.

‘Yes?’

‘Answer me one question. I beg you.’

‘Ask.’

And he faced the god. ‘Are you worth it?’

‘Am I worth the sacrifice you must make? No, I do not think so.’

‘You will not beg to be saved?’

Itkovian smiled. ‘Will you?’

No. I never have. He rose to his feet, found that the tulwar remained in his hand. He hefted the weapon and eyed Salind. Can I defy her need? Can I truly stand against that? ‘If not for your humility, Redeemer, I would walk away. If not for your. . uncertainty, your doubts, your humanity.’

And, awaiting no reply from the god, he set out into her path.

The sudden hush within the Scour Tavern finally penetrated Spinnock Durav’s drunken haze. Blinking, he tilted his head, and found himself looking up at his Lord.

Who said, ‘It is time, my friend.’

‘You now send me away?’ Spinnock asked.

‘Yes. I now send you away.’

Spinnock Durav reeled upright. His face was numb. The world seemed a sickly place, and it wanted in. He drew a deep breath.

‘My request pains you — why?’

He could have told him then. He could have spoken of this extraordinary blessing of love. For a human woman. He could have told Anomander Rake of his failure, and in so doing he would have awakened the Son of Darkness to his sordid plight.

Had he done all of this, Anomander Rake would have reached a hand to rest light on his shoulder, and he would have said, Then you must stay, my friend. For love, you must stay — go to her, now. Now, Spinnock Durav. It is the last gift within our reach. The last — did you truly believe I would stand in the way of that? That I would decide that my need was greater?

Did you think I could do such a thing, when I come to you here and now be shy;cause of my own love? For you? For our people?

Go to her, Spinnock Durav. Go.

But Spinnock Durav said nothing. Instead, he bowed before his Lord. ‘I shall do as you ask.’

And Anomander Rake said, ‘It is all right to fail, friend. I do not demand the impossible of you. Do not weep at that moment. For me, Spinnock Durav, find a smile to announce the end. Fare well.’

The killing seemed without end. Skintick’s sword arm ached, the muscles lifeless and heavy, and still they kept coming on — faces twisted eager and desperate, ex shy;pressions folding round mortal wounds as if sharp iron was a blessing touch, an exquisite gift. He stood between Kedeviss and Nenanda, and the three had been driven back to the second set of doors. Bodies were piled in heaps, filling every space of the chamber’s floor, where blood and fluids formed thick pools. The walls on all sides were splashed high.

He could see daylight through the outer doors — the morning was dragging on. Yet from the passage at their backs there had been. . nothing. Were they all dead in there? Bleeding out on the altar stone? Or had they found themselves somehow trapped, or lost with no answers — was Clip now dead, or had he been delivered into the Dying God’s hands?

The attackers were running out of space — too many corpses — and most now crawled or even slithered into weapon range.

‘Something’s wrong,’ gasped Kedeviss. ‘Skintick — go — we can hold them off now. Go — find out if. .’

If we’re wasting our time. I understand. He pulled back, one shoulder cracking into the frame of the entranceway. Whirling, he set off along the corridor. When horror stalked the world, it seemed that every grisly truth was laid bare. Life’s struggle ever ended in failure. No victory was pure, or clean. Triumph was a com shy;forting lie and always revealed itself to be ephemeral, hollow and short-lived. This is what assailed the spirit when coming face to face with horror.

And so few understood that. So few. .

He clawed through foul smoke, heard his own heartbeat slowing, dragging even as his breaths faded. What — what is happening? Blindness. Silence, an end to all motion. Skintick sought to push forward, only to find that desire was empty when without will, and when there was no strength, will itself was a conceit. Glyphs flowed down like black rain, on his face, his neck and his hands, stream shy;ing hot as blood.

Somehow, he fought onward, his entire body dragging behind him as if half dead, an impediment, a thing worth forgetting. He wanted to pull free of it, even as he understood that his flesh was all that kept him alive yet he yearned for dis shy;solution, and that yearning was growing desperate.

Wait. This is not how I see the world. This is not the game I choose to play — I will not believe in this abject. . surrender.

It is what kelyk offers. The blood of the Dying God delivers escape — from everything that matters. The invitation is so alluring, the promise so entrancing.

Dance! All around you the world rots. Dance! Poison into your mouths and poison out from your mouths. Dance, damn you, in the dust of your dreams. I have looked into your eyes and I have seen that you are nothing. Empty.

Gods, such seductive invitation!

The recognition sobered him, abrupt as a punch in the face. He found himself lying on the tiles of the corridor, the inner doors almost within reach. In the chamber beyond darkness swirled like thick smoke, like a storm trapped beneath the domed ceiling. He heard singing, soft, the voice of a child.

He could not see Nimander, or Desra or Aranatha. The body of Clip was sprawled not five paces in, face upturned, eyes opened, fixed and seemingly sight shy;less.

Trembling with weakness, Skintick pulled himself forward.

The moment he had bulled his way into the altar chamber, Nimander had felt something tear, as if he had plunged through gauze-thin cloth. From the seething storm he had plunged into, he emerged to sudden calm, to soft light and gentle currents of warm air. His first step landed on something lumpy that twisted be shy;neath his weight. Looking down, he saw a small doll of woven grasses and twigs. And, scattered on the floor all round, there were more such figures. Some of strips of cloth, others of twine, polished wood and fired clay. Most were broken — missing limbs, or headless. Others hung down from the plain, low ceiling, twisted beneath nooses of leather string, knotted heads tilted over, dark liquid dripping.

The wordless singing was louder here, seeming to emanate from all directions. Nimander could see no walls — just floor and ceiling, both stretching off into formless white.

And dolls, thousands of dolls. On the floor, dangling from the ceiling.

‘Show yourself,’ said Nimander.

The singing stopped.

‘Show yourself to me.’

‘If you squeeze them,’ said the voice — a woman’s or a young boy’s — ‘they leak. I squeezed them all. Until they broke.’ There was a pause, and then a soft sigh. ‘None worked.’

Nimander did not know where to look — the mangled apparitions hanging be shy;fore him filled him with horror now, as he saw their similarity to the scarecrows of the fields outside Bastion. They are the same. They weren’t planted rows, nothing made to deliver a yield. They were. . versions.

‘Yes. Failing one by one — it’s not fair. How did he do it?’

‘What are you?’ Nimander asked.

The voice grew sly, ‘On the floor of the Abyss — yes, there is a floor — there are the fallen. Gods and goddesses, spirits and prophets, disciples and seers, heroes and queens and kings — junk of existence. You can play there. I did. Do you want to? Do you want to play there, too?’

‘No.’

‘All broken, more broken than me.’

‘They call you the Dying God.’

‘All gods are dying.’

‘But you are no god, are you?’

‘Down on the floor, you never go hungry. Am I a god now? I must be. Don’t you see? I ate so many of them. So many parts, pieces. Oh, their power, I mean. My body didn’t need food. Doesn’t need it, I mean, yes, that is fair to say. It is so fair to say. I first met him on the floor — he was exploring, he said, and I had travelled so far. . so far.’

‘Your worshippers-’

‘Are mostly dead. More to drink. All that blood, enough to make a river, and the current can take me away from here, can bring me back. All the way back. To make her pay for what she did!’

Having come from chaos, it was no surprise that the god was insane. ‘Show yourself.’

‘The machine was broken, but I didn’t know that. I rode its back, up and up. But then something happened. An accident. We fell a long way. We were terribly broken, both of us. When they dragged me out. Now I need to make a new ver shy;sion, just like you said. And you have brought me one. It will do. I am not deaf to its thoughts. I understand its chaos, its pains and betrayals. I even understand its arrogance. It will do, it will do.’

‘You cannot have him,’ said Nimander. ‘Release him.’

‘None of these ones worked. All the power just leaks out. How did he do it?’

One of these dolls. He is one of these dolls. Hiding in the multitude.

The voice began singing again. Wordless, formless.

He drew his sword.

‘What are you doing?’

The iron blade slashed outward, chopping through the nearest figures. Strings cut, limbs sliced away, straw and grass drifting in the air.

A cackle, and then: ‘You want to find me? How many centuries do you have to spare?’

‘As many as I need,’ Nimander replied, stepping forward and swinging again. Splintering wood, shattering clay. Underfoot he ground his heel into another figure.

‘I’ll be gone long before then. The river of blood you provided me — my way out. Far away I go! You can’t see it, can you? The gate you’ve opened here. You can’t even see it.’

Nimander destroyed another half-dozen dolls.

‘Never find me! Never find me!’

A savage blur of weapons as Salind charged Seerdomin. Each blow he caught with his tulwar, and each blow thundered up his arm, shot agony through his bones. He reeled back beneath the onslaught. Three steps, five, ten. It was all he could do to simply defend himself. And that, he knew, could not last.

The Redeemer wanted him to hold against this?

He struggled on, desperate.

She was moaning, a soft, yearning sound. A sound of want. Mace heads beat against his weapon, sword blades, the shafts of spears, flails, daggers, scythes — a dozen arms swung at him. Impacts thundered through his body.

He could not hold. He could not-

An axe edge tore into his left shoulder, angled up to slam into the side of his face. He felt his cheekbone and eye socket collapse inward. Blinded, Seerdomin staggered, attempting a desperate counter-attack, the tulwar slashing out. The edge bit into wood, splintering it. Something struck him high on his chest, snap shy;ping a clavicle. As his weapon arm sagged, suddenly lifeless, he reached across and took the sword with his other hand. Blood ran down from his shoulder — he was losing all strength.

Another edge chopped into him and he tottered, then fell on to his back.

Salind stepped up to stand directly over him.

He stared up into her dark, glittering eyes.

After a moment Nimander lowered his sword. The Dying God was right — this was pointless. ‘Show yourself, you damned coward!’

Aranatha was suddenly at his side. ‘He must be summoned,’ she said.

‘You expect him to offer us his name?’

The Dying God spoke. ‘Who is here? Who is here?’

‘I am the one,’ answered Aranatha, ‘who will summon you.’

‘You do not know me. You cannot know me!’

‘I know your path,’ she replied. ‘I know you spoke with the one named Hairlock, on the floor of the Abyss. And you imagined you could do the same, that you could fashion for yourself a body. Of wood, of twine, of clay-’

‘You don’t know me!’

‘She discarded you,’ said Aranatha, ‘didn’t she? The fragment of you that was left afterwards. Tainted, childlike, abandoned.’

‘You cannot know this — you were not there!’

Aranatha frowned. ‘No, I was not there. Yet. . the earth trembled. Children woke. There was great need. You were the part of her. . that she did not want.’

‘She will pay! And for you — I know you now — and it is too late!’

Aranatha sighed. ‘Husband, Blood Sworn to Nightchill,’ she intoned, ‘child of Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai, Bellurdan Skullcrusher, I summon you.’ And she held out her hand, in time for something to slap hard into its grip. A battered, misshapen puppet dangled, one arm snapped off, both legs broken away at the knees, a face barely discernible, seemingly scorched by fire. Aranatha faced Nimander. ‘Here is your Dying God.’

Around them the scene began dissolving, crumbling away.

‘He does not speak,’ Nimander said, eyeing the mangled puppet.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Curious.’

‘Are you certain you have him, Aranatha?’

She met his eyes, and then shrugged.

‘What did he mean, that he knew you? And how — how did you know his name?’

She blinked, and then frowned down at the puppet she still held out in one hand. ‘Nimander,’ she whispered in a small voice, ‘so much blood. .’

Reaching out to Clip, Skintick dragged the man close, studied the face, the star shy;ing eyes, and saw something flicker to life. ‘Clip?’

The warrior shifted his gaze, struggling to focus, and then he scowled. His words came out in an ugly croak. ‘Fuck. What do you want?’

Sounds, motion, and then Nimander was there, kneeling on the other side of Clip. ‘We seem,’ he said, ‘to have succeeded.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know, Skin. Right now, I don’t know anything.’

Skintick saw Aranatha standing just near a massive block of stone — the altar. She was holding a doll or puppet of some sort. ‘Where’s Desra?’ he suddenly asked, looking round.

‘Over here.’

The foul smoke was clearing. Skintick lifted himself into a sitting position and squinted in the direction of the voice. In the wall behind the altar and to the left, al shy;most hidden between columns, there was a narrow door, through which Desra now emerged. She was soaked in blood, although by the way she moved, none of it was her own. ‘Some sort of High Priest, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Trying to protect a corpse, or what I think is a corpse.’ She paused, and then spat on to the floor. ‘Strung up like one of those scarecrows, but the body parts. . all wrong, all sewn together-’

‘The Dying God,’ said Aranatha, ‘sent visions of what he wanted. Flawed. But what leaked out tasted sweet.’

From the corridor Kedeviss and Nenanda arrived. They both looked round, their faces flat, their eyes bludgeoned.

‘I think we killed them all,’ said Kedeviss. ‘Or the rest fled. This wasn’t a fight — this was a slaughter. It made no sense-’

‘Blood,’ said Nimander, studying Clip — who remained lying before him — with something like suspicion. ‘You are back with us?’

Clip swung his scowl on to Nimander. ‘Where are we?’

‘A city called Bastion.’

A strange silence followed, but it was one that Skintick understood. The wake of our honor. It settles, thickens, forms a hard skin — something lifeless, smooth. We’re waiting for it to finish all of that, until it can take our weight once more.

And then we leave here.

‘We still have far to go,’ said Nimander, straightening.

In Skintick’s eyes, his kin — his friend — looked aged, ravaged, his eyes haunted and bleak. The others were no better. None of them had wanted this. And what they had done here. . it had all been for Clip.

‘Blood,’ said Clip, echoing Nimander, and he slowly climbed to his feet. He glared at the others. ‘Look at you. By Mother Dark, I’d swear you’ve been rolling in the waste pits of some abattoir. Get cleaned up or you won’t have my company for much longer.’ He paused, and his glare hardened into something crueller. ‘I smell murder. Human cults are pathetic things. From now on, spare me your lust for killing innocents. I’d rather not be reminded of whatever crimes you committed in the name of the Son of Darkness. Yes,’ he added, baring his teeth, ‘he has so much to answer for.’

Standing over him, weapons whirling, spinning. Seerdomin watched Her with his one remaining eye, waiting for the end to all of this, an end he only faintly regret shy;ted. The failure, his failure, yes, that deserved some regret. But then, had he truly believed he could stop this apparition?

He said I was dying.

I’m dying again.

All at once, she was still. Her eyes like hooded lanterns, her arms settling as if the dance had danced its way right out of her and now spun somewhere unseen. She stared down at him without recognition, and then she turned away.

He heard her stumbling back the way she had come.

‘That was long enough.’

Seerdomin turned his head, saw the Redeemer standing close. Not a large man. Not in any way particularly impressive. Hard enough, to be sure, revealing his profession as a soldier, but otherwise unremarkable. ‘What made you what you are?’ he asked — or tried to — his mouth filled with blood that frothed and spat shy;tered with every word.

The Redeemer understood him none the less. ‘I don’t know. We may possess ambition, and with it a self-image both grandiose and posturing, but they are empty things in the end.’ Then he smiled. ‘I do not recall being such a man.’

‘Why did she leave, Redeemer?’

The answer was long in coming. ‘You had help, I believe. And no, I do not know what will come of that. Can you wait? I may need you again.’

Seerdomin managed a laugh. ‘Like this?’

‘I cannot heal you. But I do not think you will. . cease. Yours is a strong soul, Seerdomin. May I sit down beside you? It has been a long time since I last had someone to speak to.’

Well, here I bleed. But there is no pain. ‘As long as I can,’ he said, ‘you will have someone to speak to.’

The Redeemer looked away then, so that Seerdomin could not see his sudden tears.

‘He didn’t make it,’ Monkrat said, straightening.

Gradithan glowered down at Seerdomin’s corpse. ‘We were so close, too. I don’t understand what’s happened, I don’t understand at all.’

He turned slightly and studied the High Priestess where she knelt on the muddy floor of the tent. Her face was slack, black drool hanging from her mouth, ‘She used it up. Too soon, too fast, I think. All that wasted blood. .’

Monkrat cleared his throat. ‘The visions-’

‘Nothing now,’ Gradithan snapped. ‘Find some more kelyk.’

At that Salind’s head lifted, a sudden thirst burning in her eyes. Seeing this, Gradithan laughed. ‘Ah, see how she worships now. An end to all those doubts. One day, Monkrat, everyone will be like her. Saved.’

Monkrat seemed to hesitate.

Gradithan turned back and spat on to Seerdomin’s motionless, pallid visage. ‘Even you, Monkrat,’ he said. ‘Even you.’

‘Would you have me surrender my talents as a mage, Urdo?’

‘Not yet. But yes, one day, you will do that. Without regrets.’

Monkrat set off to find another cask of kelyk.

Gradithan walked over to Salind. He crouched in front of her, leaned forward to lick the drool from her lips. ‘We’ll dance together,’ he said. ‘Are you eager for that?’

He saw the answer in her eyes.

High atop the tower, in the moment that Silanah stirred — cold eyes fixed upon the pilgrim encampment beyond the veil of Night — Anomander Rake had reached out to still her with the lightest of touches.

‘Not this time, my love,’ he said in a murmur. ‘Soon. You will know.’

Slowly, the enormous dragon settled once more, eyes closing to the thinnest of slits.

The Son of Darkness let his hand remain, resting there on her cool, scaled neck. ‘Do not fear,’ he said, ‘I will not restrain you next time.’

He sensed the departure of Spinnock Durav, on a small fast cutter into the Ort shy;nal beyond Nightwater. Perhaps the journey would serve him well, a distance ever stretching between the warrior and what haunted him.

And he sensed, too, the approach of Endest Silann down along the banks of the river, his oldest friend, who had one more task ahead of him. A most difficult one.

But these were difficult times, he reflected.

Anomander Rake left Silanah then, beneath Darkness that never broke.

North and west of Bastion, Kallor walked an empty road.

He had found nothing worthwhile in Bastion. The pathetic remnant of one of Nightchill’s lovers, a reminder of curses voiced long ago, a reminder of how time twisted everything, like a rope binding into ever tighter knots and kinks. Until what should have been straight was now a tangled, useless mess.

Ahead awaited a throne, a new throne, one that he deserved. He believed it was taking shape, becoming something truly corporeal. Raw power, brimming with unfulfilled promise.

But the emergence of the throne was not the only thing awaiting him, and he sensed well that much at least. A convergence, yes, yet another of those confounded cusps, when powers drew together, when unforeseen paths suddenly intersected. When all of existence could change in a single moment, in the solitary cut of a sword, in a word spoken or a word left unspoken.

What would come?

He needed to be there. In its midst. Such things were what kept him going, af shy;ter all. Such things were what made life worth living.

I am the High King of Failures, am I not? Who else deserves the Broken Throne? Who else personifies the misery of the Crippled God? No, it will be mine, and as for all the rest, well, we’ll see, won’t we?

He walked on, alone once more. Satisfying, to be reminded — as he had been when travelling in the company of those pathetic Tiste Andii — that the world was crowded with idiots. Brainless, stumbling, clumsy with stupid certainties and convictions.

Perhaps, this time, he would dispense with empires. This time, yes, he would crush everything, until every wretched mortal scrabbled in the dirt, fighting over grubs and roots. Was that not the perfect realm for a broken throne?

Yes, and what better proof of my right to claim that throne? Kallor alone turns his back on civilization. Look on, Fallen One, and see me standing before you. Me and none other.

I vow to take it all down. Every brick. And the world can look on, awed, in wonder. The gods themselves will stare, dumbfounded, amazed, bereft and lost. Curse me to fall each and every time, will you? But I will make a place where no fall is possible. I will defeat that curse, finally defeat it.

Can you hear me, K’rull?

No matter. You will see what there is to see, soon enough.

These were, he decided, glorious times indeed.