‘Iron Bars, Second Blade, Fourth Company, Crimson Guard. Was in the service of Commander Cal-Brinn before we was all scattered between here and Hood’s gates.’

‘Meaningless and long. I’m impressed, Iron Bars.’

‘Lass, you got more sharp teeth than an enkar’al with a mouthful of rhizan. Probably why I like you so much.’

All right. ‘I’m not interested in your offer, Iron Bars.’

‘Try thinking on it. There’s time for that, provided you get out of Trate as soon as you can.’

She looked at him. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

‘You’d be right, if our boat was in the harbour here. But it isn’t. It’s in Letheras. We signed on as crew, through an agent.’ He shrugged. ‘As soon as we get out to sea…’

‘You’ll kill the captain and mates and turn pirate.’

‘We won’t kill anybody if there’s a way round it, and we’re not pirates. We just want to get home. We need to get home.’ He studied her for a moment, then rose. ‘If it works out right, we’ll look you up in Letheras.’

All right. ‘You’d be wasting your time.’

He shrugged. ‘Between here and then, Acquitor, a whole lot is going to change. Get out of this city, lass. As soon as you sober up, go. Just

go-‘

Then he was gone.

They caught him, dragged him into the alley and they’re sewing up his mouth - c’mon, let’s watch—

Just his mouth? He’s a damned traitor. No reason to go easy on the bastard. Sew him up everywhere, see how he likes that—

Wish it was Hull Beddict, that’s what I wish—

They’ll do a lot worse on ‘im, mark my words. You just wait and see…

Her blue silks snapping in the wind, Nekal Bara stood atop the lighthouse tower and faced out to sea. Nothing was going as planned. Their pre-emptive attack had destroyed empty villages; the entire Tiste Edur people were on the move. And they’re about to arrive on our very doorstep.

The fleet that had appeared in Katter Sea, poised to interpose its forces to prevent the retreat of Twilight’s garrison at Fent Reach, had, upon the city’s surrender, simply moved on. Preternaturally swift, the blood-red sails of five hundred raiders now approached Trate Bay. And in the waters beneath those sleek hulls… a thing. Ancient, terrible, eager with hunger. It knew this path. It had been here before.

Since that time, and at the Ceda’s command, she had delved deep in her search to discover the nature of the creature the Tiste Edur had bound to their service. The harbour and the bay beyond had once been dry land, a massive limestone shelf beneath which raced vast underground rivers. Erosion had collapsed the shelf in places, creating roughly circular, deep wells. Sometimes the water below continued to flow as part of the rivers. But in some, the percolating effect of the limestone was blocked by concretions over time, and the water was black and still.

One such well had become, long ago, a place of worship. Treasures were flung into its depths. Gold, jade, silver, and living sacrifices. Drowning voices had screamed in the chill water, cold flesh and bone had settled on the pale floor.

And a spirit was fashioned. Fed on blood and despair, beseeching propitiation, the unwilling surrender of mortal lives. There were

mysteries to this, she well knew. Had the spirit existed before the worship began, and was simply drawn to the gifts offered? Or was it conjured into existence by the very will of those ancient worshippers? Either way, the result was the same. A creature came into being, and was taught the nature of hunger, of desire. Made into an addict of blood and grief and terror.

The worshippers vanished. Died out or departed, or driven to such extreme sacrifices as to destroy themselves. There was no telling how deep the bed of bones at the bottom of that well, but, by the end, it must have been appalling in its vastness.

The spirit was doomed, and should have eventually died. Had not the seas risen to swallow the land, had not its world’s walls suddenly vanished, releasing it to all that lay beyond.

Shorelines were places of worship the world over. The earliest records surviving from the First Empire made note of that again and again among peoples encountered during the explorations. The verge between sea and land marked the manifestation of the symbolic transition between the known and the unknown. Between life and death, spirit and mind, between an unlimited host of elements and forces contrary yet locked together. Lives were given to the seas, treasures were flung into their depths. And, upon the waters themselves, ships and their crews were dragged into the deep time and again.

For all that, the spirit had known… competition. And, Nekal Bara suspected, had fared poorly. Weakened, suffering, it had returned to its hole, there beneath the deluge. Returned to die.

There was no way of knowing how the Tiste Edur warlocks had found it, or came to understand its nature and the potential within it. But they had bound it, fed it blood until its strength returned, and it had grown, and with that growth, a burgeoning hunger.

And now, I must find a way to kill it.

She could sense its approach, drawing ever nearer beneath the Edur raiders. Along the harbour front below, soldiers were crowding the fortifications. Crews readied at the trebuchets and ballistae. Fires were stoked and racks of hull-breaching quarrels were wheeled out.

Arahathan in his black furs had positioned himself at the far end of the main pier and, like her, stood facing the fast-approaching Edur fleet. He would seek to block the spirit’s attack, engage it fully for as long as it took for Nekal Bara to magically draw close to the entity and strike at its heart.

She wished Enedictal had remained in the city, rather than returning to his battalion at Awl. Indeed, she wished the Snakebelts had marched to join them here. Once the spirit was engaged, Enedictal could have then shattered the Edur fleet. She had no idea how much

damage she and Arahathan would sustain while killing the spirit — it was possible they would have nothing left with which to destroy the fleet. It might come down to hand to hand fighting along the harbour

front.

And that is the absurdity of magic in war - we do little more than negate each other. Unless one cadre finds itself outnumbered…

She had six minor sorcerors under her command, interspersed among the companies of the Cold Clay Battalion arrayed below. They would have to be sufficient against the Edur warlocks accompanying the fleet. Nekal Bara was worried, but not unduly so.

The red sails fluttered. She could just make out the crews, scampering on the foredecks and in the rigging. The fleet was heaving to. Beneath the lead ships, a dark tide surged forward, spreading its midnight bruise into the harbour.

She felt a sudden fear. It was… huge.

A glance down. To the lone, black-swathed figure at the very end of the main pier. The arms spreading wide.

The spirit heaved up in a swelling wave, gaining speed as it rushed towards the harbour front. On the docks, soldiers behind shields, a wavering of spear-heads. Someone loosed a ball of flaming pitch from one of the trebuchets. Fascinated, Nekal Bara watched its arcing flight, its smoke-trailing descent, down towards the rising wave. It vanished in a smear of steam.

She heard Arahathan’s roar, saw a line of water shiver, then boil just beyond the docks, lifting skyward a wall of steam even as the spirit’s bulk seemed to lunge a moment before striking it.

The concussion sent the lighthouse wavering beneath her feet and she threw her arms out for balance. Two-thirds of the way down, along a narrow iron balcony, onlookers were flung into the air, to pitch screaming down to the rocks below. The balcony twisted like thin wire in the hands of a blacksmith, the fittings exploding in puffs of dust. A terrible groaning rose up through the tower as it rocked back and forth.

Steam and dark water raged in battle, clambering ever higher directly before Arahathan. The sorceror was swallowed by shadow. The lighthouse was toppling. Nekal Bara faced the harbour, held her arms out, then flung herself

from the edge.

Vanishing within a tumbling shaft of magic. Slanting downward in coruscating threads of blue fire that swarmed around a blinding, white

core.

Like a god’s spear, the shaft pierced the flank of the spirit. Tore a path

of incandescence into the dark, surging water.

Errant - he’s failing! Falling! She sensed, then saw, Arahathan. Red

flesh curling away from his bones, blackening, snatched away as if by a fierce whirling wind. She saw his teeth, the lips gone, the grimace suddenly a maddening smile. Eyes wrinkled, then darkening, then collapsing inward.

She sensed, in that last moment, his surprise, his disbelief—

Into the spirit’s flesh, down through layer upon layer of thick, coagulated blood, matted hair, slivered pieces of bone. Encrusted jewellery, mangled coins. Layers of withered newborn corpses, each one wrapped in leather, each one with its forehead stove in, above a face twisted with pain and baffled suffering. Layers. Oh, Mistress, what have we mortals done? Done, and done, and done?

Stone tools, pearls, bits of shell—

Through—

To find that she had been wrong. Terribly wrong.

The spirit - naught but a shell, held together by the memory within bone, teeth and hair, by that memory and nothing more.

Within—

Nekal Bara saw that she was about to die. Against all that rose to greet her, she had no defence. None. Could not - could never - Ceda! Kuru Qan! Hear me! See—

Seren Pedac staggered out into the street. Pushed, spun round, knocked to her knees by fleeing figures.

She had woken in a dark cellar, surrounded by empty, broken kegs. She had been robbed, most of her armour stripped away. Sword and knife gone. The ache between her legs told her that worse had happened. Lips puffed and cut by kisses she had never felt, her hair tangled and matted with blood, she crawled across greasy cobbles to curl up against a stained brick wall. Stared out numbly on the panicked scene.

Smoke had stolen the sky. Brown, murky light, the distant sound of battle - at the harbour front to her left, and along the north and east walls ahead and to her right. In the street before her, citizens raced in seemingly random directions. Across from her, two men were locked in mortal combat, and she watched as one managed to pin the other, then began pounding the man’s head against the cobbles. The hard impacts gave way to soft crunches, and the victor rolled away from the spasming victim, scrambled upright, then limped away.

Doors were being kicked down. Women screamed as their hiding places were discovered.

There were no Tiste Edur in sight.

From her right, three men shambling like marauders. One carried a bloodstained club, another a single-handed sickle. The third man was dragging a dead or unconscious girl-child by one foot.

They saw her. The one with the club smiled. ‘We was coming to c’llect you, Acquitor. Woke up wanting more, did ya?’

She did not recognize any of them, but there was terrible familiarity in their eyes as they looked upon her.

‘The city’s fallen,’ the man continued, drawing closer. ‘But we got a way out, an’ we’re taking you with us.‘

The one with the sickle laughed. ‘We’ve decided to keep you to ourselves, lass. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe.’

Seren curled tighter against the wall.

‘Hold there!’

A new voice. The three men looked up.

Iron-haired, blue-eyed - she recognized the newcomer. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. She’d never seen armour like that before: she would have remembered the blood-red surcoat. A plain sword at the stranger’s left hip, which he was not reaching towards.

‘It’s that foreign bastard,’ the man with the club said. ‘Find your

own.

‘I just have,’ he replied. ‘Been looking for her the last two days—

‘She’s ours,’ said the sickle-wielder.

‘No closer,’ the third man growled, raising the child in one hand as if he meant to use the body for a weapon.

Which, Seren now saw, he had done already. Oh, please be dead, child. Please have been dead all along…

‘You know us, foreigner,’ the man with the club said.

‘Oh yes, you’re the terrors of the shanty town. I’ve heard all about your exploits. Which puts me at an advantage.’

‘How so?’

The stranger continued walking closer. She saw something in his eyes, as he said, ‘Because you haven’t heard a thing about mine.’

Club swung. Sickle flashed. Body whipped through the air.

And the girl-child was caught by the stranger, who then reached one hand over, palm up, and seemed to push his fingertips under the man’s chin.

She didn’t understand.

The man with the club was on the ground. The other had his own sickle sticking from his chest and he stood staring down at it. Then he toppled.

A snap. Flood and spray of blood.

The stranger stepped back, tucking the girl-child’s body under his right arm, the hand of his left holding, like a leather-wrapped handle from a pail, the third man’s lower jaw.

Horrible grunting sounds from the staggering figure to her right. Bulging eyes, a spattered gust of breath.

The stranger tossed the mandible away with its attendant lower palate and tongue. He set the child down, then stepped closer to the last man. ‘I don’t like what you did. I don’t like anything you’ve done, but most of all, I don’t like what you did to this woman here, and that child. So, I am going to make you hurt. A lot.’

The man spun as if to flee. Then he slammed onto the cobbles, landing on his chest, his feet taken out from under him - but Seren didn’t see how it had happened.

With serene patience, the stranger crouched over him. Two blurred punches to either side of the man’s spine, almost at neck level, and she heard breastbones snap. Blood was pooling around the man’s head.

The stranger shifted to reach down between the man’s legs.

‘Stop.’

He looked over, brows lifting.

‘Stop. Kill him. Clean. Kill him clean, Iron Bars.’

‘Are you sure?’

From the buildings opposite, faces framed by windows. Eyes fixed, staring down.

‘Enough,’ she said, the word a croak.

‘All right.’

He leaned back. One punch to the back of the man’s head. It folded inward. And all was still.

Iron Bars straightened. ‘All right?’

All right, yes.

The Crimson Guardsman came closer. ‘My fault,’ he said. ‘I had to sleep, thought you’d be safe for a bit. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

‘The child?’

A pained look. ‘Run down by horses, I think. Some time past.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Trate’s falling. The Edur fleet held off. Until Nekal Bara and Arahathan were finished. Then closed. The defences were swarmed by shadow wraiths. Then the warriors landed. It was bad, Acquitor.’ He glanced over a shoulder, said, ‘At about that time, an army came down from inland. Swept the undermanned fortifications and, not a hundred heartbeats ago, finally succeeded in knocking down the North Gate. The Edur are taking their time, killing every soldier they find. No quarter. So far, they’ve not touched non-combatants. But that’s no guarantee of anything, is it?’

He helped her to stand, and she flinched at the touch of his hands -those weapons, stained with murder.

If he noticed he gave nothing away. ‘My Blade’s waiting. Corlo’s managed to find a warren in this damned Hood-pit - first time in the two years we been stuck here. What the Edur brought, he says. That’s why.’

She realized they were walking now. Taking winding alleys and avoiding the main thoroughfares. The sound of slaughter was on all sides. Iron Bars suddenly hesitated, cocked his head. ‘Damn, we’ve been cut off.’

Dragged into the slaughter. Bemused witness to the killing of hapless, disorganized soldiers. Wondering if the moneylenders would be next. Udinaas was left staggering in the wake of the emperor of the Tiste Edur and twelve frenzied warriors as they waded through flesh, cutting lives down as if clearing a path through reeds.

Rhulad was displaying skill that did not belong to him. His arms were a blur, his every move heedless and fearless. And he was gibbering, the manic sound punctuated every now and then by a scream that was as much terror as it was rage. Not a warrior triumphant. Neither berserk nor swathed in drenched glory. A killer… killing.

An Edur warrior near him fell to a Letherü soldier’s desperate sword-thrust, and the emperor shrieked, lunged forward. The mottled sword swung, and blood splashed like water. His laughter pulled at his breath, making him gasp. Edur faces flashed furtively towards their savage ruler.

Down the street, carving through a rearguard of some sort. Udinaas stumbled over corpses, writhing, weeping figures. Blind with dying, men called for their mothers, and to these the slave reached down and touched a shoulder, or laid fingertips to slick foreheads, and murmured, ‘I’m here, my boy. It’s all right. You can go now.’

The apologetic priest, chain-snapped forward step by step, whispering hollow blessings, soft lies, forgiving even as he prayed for someone - something - to forgive him in turn. But no-one touched him, no fingertips brushed his brow.

For the burned villages. Retribution. Where were the moneylenders? This war belonged to them, after all.

Another hundred paces. Three more Edur were down. Rhulad and eight brethren. Fighting on. Where was the rest of the army?

Somewhere else.

If one could always choose the right questions, then every answer could be as obvious. A clever revelation, he was on to something here…

Another Edur screamed, skidded and fell over, face smacking the street.

Rhulad killed two more soldiers, and suddenly no-one stood in their path.

Halting in strange consternation, trapped in the centre of an intersection, drifts of smoke sliding past.

From the right, a sudden arrival.

Two Edur reeled back, mortally wounded.

The attacker reached out with his left hand, and a third Edur warrior’s head snapped round with a loud crack.

Clash of blades, more blood, another Edur toppling, then the attacker was through and wheeling about.

Rhulad leapt to meet him. Swords - one heavy and mottled, the other modest, plain - collided, and somehow were bound together with a twist and pronation of the stranger’s wrist, whilst his free hand blurred out and over the weapons, palm connecting with Rhulad’s forehead.

Breaking the emperor’s neck with a loud snap.

Mottled sword slid down the attacker’s blade and he was already stepping past, his weapon’s point already sliding out from the chest of another Edur.

Another heartbeat, and the last two Tiste Edur warriors were down, their bodies eagerly dispensing blood like payment onto the cobbles.

The stranger looked about, saw Udinaas, nodded, then waved to an alley-mouth, from which a woman emerged.

She took a half-dozen strides before Udinaas recognized her.

Badly used.

But no more of that. Not while this man lives.

Seren Pedac took no notice of him, nor of the dead Edur. The stranger grasped her hand.

Udinaas watched them head off down the street, disappear round a corner.

Somewhere behind him, the shouts of Edur warriors, the sound of running feet.

The slave found he was standing beside Rhulad’s body, staring down at it, the bizarre angle of the head on its twisted neck, the hands closed tight about the sword.

Waiting for the mouth to open with mad laughter.

‘Damned strangest armour I’ve ever seen.’

Seren blinked. ‘What?’

‘But he was good, with that sword. Fast. In another five years he’d have had the experience to have made him deadly. Enough to give anyone trouble. Shimmer, Blues, maybe even Skinner. But that armour! A damned fortune, right there for the taking. If we’d the time.’

‘What?’

‘That Tiste Edur, lass.’

‘Tiste Edur?’

‘Never mind. There they are.’

Ahead, crouched at the dead end of an alley, six figures. Two women,

four men. All in crimson surcoats. Weapons out. Blood on the blades. One, more lightly armoured than the others and holding what looked to be some sort of diadem in his left hand, stepped forward.

And said something in a language Seren had never heard before.

Iron Bars replied in an impatient growl. He drew Seren closer as the man who’d spoken began gesturing. The air seemed to shimmer all

round them.

‘Corlo’s opening the warren, lass. We’re going through, and if we’re lucky we won’t run into anything in there. No telling how far we can get. Far enough, I hope.’

‘Where?’ she asked. ‘Where are we going?’

A murky wall of blackness yawned where the alley’s blank wall had

been.

‘Letheras, Acquitor. We got a ship awaiting us, remember?’

Strangest armour I’ve ever seen.

A damned fortune.

‘Is he dead?’

‘Who?’

‘Is he dead? Did you kill him? That Tiste Edur!’

‘No choice, lass. He was slowing us up and more were coming.’

Oh, no.

Vomit spilling out onto the sand.

At least, Withal mused, the shrieks had stopped. He waited, seated on grass just above the beach, while the young Edur, on his hands and knees, head hanging down, shuddered and convulsed, coughed and spat.

Off to one side, two of the Nachts, Rind and Pule, were fighting over a piece of driftwood that was falling apart with their efforts. Their games of destruction had become obsessive of late, leading the Meckros weaponsmith to wonder if they were in fact miming a truth on his behalf. Or the isolation was driving them insane. Another kind of truth, that one.

He despised religion. Set no gods in his path. Ascendants were worse than rabid beasts. It was enough that mortals were capable of appalling evil; he wanted nothing to do with their immortal, immeasurably more powerful counterparts.

And this broken god in his squalid tent, his eternal pain and the numbing smoke of the seeds he scattered onto the brazier before him, it was all of a piece to Withal. Suffering made manifest, consumed by the desire to spread the misery of its own existence into the world, into all the worlds. Misery and false escape, pain and mindless surrender. All

of a piece.

On this small island, amidst this empty sea, Withal was lost. Within

himself, among a host of faces that were all his own, he was losing the capacity to recognize any of them. Thought and self was reduced, formless and untethered. Wandering amidst a stranger’s memories, whilst the world beyond unravelled.

Nest building.

Frenzied destruction.

Fanged mouth agape in silent, convulsive laughter.

Three jesters repeating the same performance again and again. What did it mean? What obvious lesson was being shown him that he was too blind, too thick, to understand?

The Edur lad was done, nothing left in his stomach. He lifted his head, eyes stripped naked to the bones of pain and horror. ‘No,’ he whispered.

Withal looked away, squinted along the strand.

‘No more… please.’

‘Never much in the way of sunsets here,’ Withal mused. ‘Or sunrises, for that matter.’

‘You don’t know what it’s like!’

The Edur’s scream trailed away. ‘The nests are getting more elaborate,’ Withal said. ‘I think he’s striving for a particular shape. Sloped walls, a triangular entrance. Then Mape wrecks it. What am I to take from all that?’

‘He can keep his damned sword. I’m not going. Over there. I’m not going over there and don’t try to make me.’

‘I have nothing to do. Nothing.’

Rhulad crawled towards him. ‘You made that sword!’ he said in an accusatory rasp.

‘Fire, hammer, anvil and quenching. I’ve made more swords than I can count. Just iron and sweat. They were broken blades, I think. Those black shards. From some kind of narrow-bladed, overlong knife. Two of them, black and brittle. Just pieces, really. I wonder where he collected them from?’

‘Everything breaks,’ Rhulad said.

Withal glanced over. ‘Aye, lad. Everything breaks.’

‘You could do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Break that sword.’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘Everything breaks!’

‘Including people, lad.’

‘That’s not good enough.’

Withal shrugged. ‘I don’t remember much of anything any more. I think he’s stealing my mind. He says he’s my god. All I need to do is

worship him, he says. And everything will come clear. So tell xn Rhulad Sengar, is it all clear to you?‘

‘This evil - it’s of your making!’

‘Is it? Maybe you’re right. I accepted his bargain. But he lied, you see He said he’d set me free, once I made the sword. He lies, Rhulad. That much I know. I know that now. This god lies.’

‘I have power. I am emperor. I’ve taken a wife. We are at war and Lether shall fall.’

Withal gestured inland. ‘And he’s waiting for you.’

‘They’re frightened of me.’

‘Fear breeds its own loyalty, lad. They’ll follow. They’re waiting too right now.’

Rhulad clawed at his face, shuddered. ‘He killed me. That man - not a Letherü, not a Letherü at all. He killed us. Seven of my brothers. And me. He was so… fast. It seemed he barely moved, and my kin were falling, dying.’

‘Next time will be harder. You’ll be harder. It won’t be as easy to find someone to kill you, next time. And the time after that. Do you understand that, lad? It’s the essence of that mangled god who’s waiting for you.’

‘Who is he?’

‘The god? A miserable little shit, Rhulad. Who has your soul in his hands.’

‘Father Shadow has abandoned us.’

‘Father Shadow is dead. Or as good as.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because if he wasn’t, he’d have never let the Crippled God steal you. You and your people. He’d have come marching ashore…’ Withal fell silent.

And that, he realized, was what he was coming to. A blood-soaked truth.

He hated religion, hated the gods. And he was alone.

‘I will kill him. With the sword.’

‘Fool. There’s nothing on this island that he doesn’t hear, doesn’t see, doesn’t know.’

Except, maybe, what’s in my mind now. And, even if he knew, how could he stop me? No, he doesn’t know. I must believe that. After all, if he did, he’d kill me. Right now, he’d kill me.

Rhulad climbed to his feet. ‘I’m ready for him.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

Withal sighed. He glanced over at the two Nachts. Their contested driftwood was a scattering of splinters lying between them. Both

res _were staring down at it, bemused, poking fingers through the

mess

The Meckros rose. ‘All right then, lad, let’s go.

She was behind the black glass, within a tunnel of translucent obsidian, and there were no ghosts.

‘Kurald Galain,’ Corlo said in a whisper, casting a glance back at them over one shoulder. ‘Unexpected. It’s a rotten conquest. That, or the Edur don’t even know it, don’t even know what they’re using.’

The air stank of death. Withered flesh, the breath of a crypt. The black stone beneath their feet was greasy and uncertain. Overhead, the ceiling was uneven, barely a hand’s width higher than Iron Bars, who was the tallest among the group.

‘It’s a damned rats’ maze,’ the mage continued, pausing at a branching.

‘Just take us south,’ Iron Bars said in a low growl.

‘Fine, but which way is that?’

The soldiers crowded round, muttering and cursing in their strange language.

Corlo faced Seren, his expression strangely taut. ‘Any suggestions, Acquitor?’

‘What?’

The mage said something in their native tongue to Iron Bars, who scowled and replied, ‘That’s enough, all of you. In Letherü. Since when was rudeness in the creed of the Crimson Guard? Acquitor, this is the Hold of Darkness—’ .

‘There is no Hold of Darkness.’

‘Well, I’m trying to say it in a way that makes sense to you.’

‘All right.’

Corlo said, ‘But, you see, Acquitor, it shouldn’t be.’

She simply looked at him in the gloom.

The mage rubbed the back of his neck, and she saw the hand come away glistening with sweat. ‘These are Tiste Edur, right? Not Tiste Andü. The Hold of Darkness, that’s Tiste Andü. The Edur, they were from the, uh, Hold of Shadow. So, it was natural, you see, to expect that the warren would be Kurald Emurlahn. But it isn’t. It’s Kurald Galain, only it’s breached. Over-run. Thick with spirits - Tiste Andü spirits—’

‘They’re not here,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen them. Those spirits. They’re not here.’

‘They are, Acquitor. I’m just keeping them away. For now…’

‘But it’s proving difficult.’

The mage nodded reluctantly.

‘And you’re lost.’

Another nod.

She tried to think, cut through the numbness - which seemed to be the only thing keeping away the pain of her battered flesh. ‘You said the spirits are not Edur.’

‘That’s right. Tiste Andü.’

‘What is the relationship between the two? Are they allied?’

Corlo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Allied?’

‘Those wraiths,’ Iron Bars said.

The mage’s gaze darted to his commander, then back again to Seren Pedac. ‘Those wraiths are bound. Compelled to fight alongside the Edur. Are they Andü spirits? Hood’s breath, this is starting to make sense. What else would they be? Not Edur spirits, since no binding magic would be needed, would it?’

Iron Bars stepped in front of Seren. ‘What are you suggesting?’

She remembered back to her only contact with the spirits, their hunger. ‘Mage Corlo, you say you’re keeping them away. Are they trying to attack us?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Let one through. Maybe we can talk to it, maybe we can get help.’

‘Why would it be interested in helping us?’

‘Make a bargain.’

‘With what?’

She shrugged. ‘Think of something.’

He muttered a string of foreign words that she guessed were curses.

‘Let one through,’ Iron Bars said.

More curses, then Corlo walked a few steps ahead to clear some space. ‘Ready weapons,’ he said. ‘In case it ain’t interested in talking.’

A moment later, the gloom in front of the mage wavered, and something black spread outward like spilled ink. A figure emerged, halting, uncertain.

A woman, tall as an Edur but midnight-skinned, a reddish glint to her long, unbound hair. Green eyes, tilted and large, a face softer and rounder than Seren would have expected given her height and long limbs. She was wearing a leather harness and leggings, and on her shoulders rode the skin of some white-furred beast. She was unarmed.

Her eyes hardened. She spoke, and in her words Seren heard a resemblance to Edur.

‘I hate it when that happens,’ Corlo said.

Seren tried Edur. ‘Hello. We apologize for intruding on your world. We do not intend to stay long.’

The woman’s expression did not change. ‘The Betrayers never do.’

‘I may speak in the language of the Edur, but they are no allies of ours. Perhaps in that, we share something.’

‘I was among the first to die in the war,’ the woman said, ‘and so not at the hands of an Edur. They cannot take me, cannot force me to fight for them. I and those like me are beyond their grasp.’

‘Yet your spirit remains trapped,’ Seren said. ‘Here, in this place.’

‘What do you want?’

Seren turned to Iron Bars. ‘She asks what we want of her.’

‘Corlo?’

The mage shrugged, then said, ‘We need to escape the influence of the Edur. We need to get beyond their reach. Then to return to our world.’

Seren relayed Corlo’s statements to the woman.

‘You are mortal,’ she replied. ‘You can pass through when we cannot.’

‘Can you guide us?’

‘And what is to be my reward for this service?’

‘What do you seek?’

She considered, then shook her head. ‘No. An unfair bargain. My service is not worth the payment I would ask. You require a guide to lead you to the border’s edge. I will not deceive. It is not far. You would find it yourselves before too long.’

Seren translated the exchange for the Crimson Guardsmen, then added, ‘This is odd…’

Iron Bars smiled. ‘An honest broker?’

She nodded wryly. ‘I am Letherü, after all. Honesty makes me suspicious.’

‘Ask her what she would have us do for her,’ Iron Bars said.

Seren Pedac did, and the woman held up her right hand, and in it was a small object, encrusted and corroded and unrecognizable. ‘The K’Chain Che’Malle counter-attack drove a number of us down to the shoreline, then into the waves. I am a poor fighter. I died on that sea’s foaming edge, and my corpse rolled out, drawn by the tide, along the muddy sands, where the mud swallowed it.’ She looked down at the object in her palm. ‘This was a ring I wore. Returned to me by a wraith - many wraiths have done this for those of us beyond the reach of the Edur. I would ask that you return me to my bones, to what little of me remains. So that I can find oblivion. But this is too vast a gift, for offering you so little—’

‘How would we go about doing as you ask?’

‘I would join with the substance of this ring. You would see me no more. And you would need to travel to the shoreline, then cast this into the sea.’

‘That does not seem difficult.’

Perhaps it isn’t. The inequity lies in the exchange of values.‘ Seren shook her head. ’We see no inequity. Our desire is of equal value as far as we are concerned. We accept your bargain.‘

‘How do I know you will not betray me?’ The Letherü turned to Iron Bars. ‘She doesn’t trust us.’ The man strode to halt directly before the Tiste Andü woman. ‘Acquitor, tell her I am an Avowed, of the Crimson Guard. If she would, she can seek the meaning of that. By laying her hand on my chest. Tell her I shall honour our pact.’

‘I’ve not told you what it is yet. She wants us to throw the thing she’s

holding into the sea.‘

‘That’s it?’

‘Doing so will end her existence. Which seems to be what she wants.’

‘Tell her to seek the cast of my soul.’

‘Very well.’

The suspicious look in the woman’s eyes grew more pronounced, but she stepped forward and set her left hand on the man’s chest.

The hand flinched away and the woman staggered back a step, shock then horror, writ on her face. ‘How - how could you do - why}’

Seren said, ‘Not the response you sought, I think, Iron Bars. She is

… appalled.‘

‘That is of no concern,’ the man replied. ‘Does she accept my word?’ The woman straightened, then, to Seren’s question, she nodded and

said ‘I cannot do otherwise. But… I had forgotten… this feeling.’ ‘What feeling?’

‘Sorrow.’

‘Iron Bars,’ Seren said, ‘whatever this “Avowed” means, she is overwhelmed with . • • pity-’

‘Yes well’ he said, turning away, ‘we all make mistakes.’

The woman said, ‘I will lead you now.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Sandalath Drukorlat.’

‘Thank you, Sandalath. It grieves me to know that our gift to you is

oblivion.‘

She shrugged. ‘Those who I once loved and who loved me believe I

am gone in truth. There is no need for grief.‘

No need for grief. Where, then, does the pity lie?

‘Stand up, lads,’ Iron Bars said, ‘she’s making ready to go.’

Mape lay on the knoll like something dead, but the Nacht’s head slowly turned as Withal and Rhulad strode into view. She had stolen a hammer from the smithy some time back, to better facilitate her destruction of Pule’s nests and now carried it with her everywhere. Withal watched askance as the gnarled, black-skinned creature lifted the hammer into view eyes still fixed on him and the Tiste Edur, as if contemplating murder.

Of the three Nachts, Mape made him the most nervous. Too much intelligence glittered in her small black eyes, too often she watched with something like a smile on her apish face. And the strength the creatures had displayed was sufficient to make any man worried. He knew Mape could tear his arms from his shoulders, were she so inclined.

Perhaps the Crippled God had bound them, as demons could be bound, and it was this and this alone that kept the beasts from Withal’s throat. An unpleasant notion.

‘What’s to stop me,’ Rhulad asked in a growl, ‘from driving the sword right through his scrawny chest?’

‘Do not ask that question of me, Edur. Only the Crippled God can answer it. But I don’t think it could ever be that easy. He’s a clever bastard, and there in that tent his power is probably absolute.’

‘The vastness of his realm,’ Rhulad said, sneering.

Yes. Now why do those words, said in that way, interest me?

The ragged canvas shelter was directly ahead, smoke drifting from the side that had been drawn open. As they approached, the air grew hotter, drier, the grasses withered and bleached underfoot. The earth seemed strangely blighted.

They came opposite the entrance. Within, the god’s huddled form in the gloom. Tendrils of smoke rising from the brazier.

A cough, then, ‘Such anger. Unreasonable, I think, given the efficacy of my gift.’

‘I don’t want to go back,’ Rhulad said. ‘Leave me here. Choose someone else.’

‘Unwitting servants to our cause appear… from unexpected sources. Imagine, an Avowed of the Crimson Guard. Be glad it was not Skinner, or indeed Cowl. They would have taken more notice of you, and that would not have been a good thing. We’re not yet ready for that.’ A hacking cough. ‘Not yet ready.’

‘I’m not going back.’

‘You detest the flesh given you. I understand. But, Rhulad Sengar, the gold is your payment. For the power you seek.’

‘I want nothing more of that power.’

‘But you do,’ the Crippled God said, clearly amused. ‘Consider the rewards already reaped. The throne of the Tiste Edur, the woman after whom you lusted for years - now in your possession, to do with as you please. Your brothers, bowing one and all before you. And a burgeoning prowess with the sword—’

‘It’s not mine, though, is it? It is all I can do to hold on! The skill does not belong to me - and all can see that! I have earned nothingV

‘And what value is all that pride you seek, Rhulad Sengar? You mortals baffle me. It is a fool’s curse, to measure oneself in endless

dissatisfaction. It is not for me to guide you in the rule of your empire. That task belongs to you and you alone. There, make that your place of pride. Besides, has not your strength grown? You have muscles now surpassing your brother Fear’s. Cease your whimpering, Edur.‘

‘You are using me!’

The Crippled God laughed. ‘And Scabandari Bloodeye did not? Oh, I know the tale now. All of it. The seas whisper old truths, Rhulad Sengar. Revered Father Shadow, oh, such an absurd conceit. Murderer, knife-wielder, betrayer—’

‘Lies!’

‘—who then led you into your own betrayal. Of your once-allies, the Tiste Andü. You fell upon them at Scabandari’s command. You killed those who had fought alongside you. That is the legacy of the Tiste Edur, Rhulad Sengar. Ask Hannan Mosag. He knows. Ask your brother, Fear. Your mother - the women know. Their memory has been

far less… selective.‘

‘No more of this,’ the Edur pleaded, clawing at his face. ‘You would poison me with dishonour. That is your purpose… for all you say.’

‘Perhaps what I offer,’ the Crippled God murmured, ‘is absolution. The opportunity to make amends. It is within you, Rhulad Sengar. The power is yours to shape as you will. The empire shall cast your reflection, no-one else’s. Will you flee from that? If that is your choice, then indeed I shall be forced to choose another. One who will prove, perhaps, less honourable.’

The sword clattered at Rhulad’s feet.

‘Cfcoose.’

Withal watched, saw the Edur’s expression change.

With a scream, Rhulad snatched up the weapon and lunged—

—and was gone.

Rasping laughter. ‘There is so little, Withal, that surprises me any

more.‘

Disgusted, the Meckros turned away.

‘A moment, Withal. I see your weariness, your displeasure. What is it that plagues you so? That is what I ask myself.’

‘The lad doesn’t deserve it—’

‘Oh, but he does. They all do.’

‘Aye,’ Withal said, eyes level as he stared at the Crippled God, ‘that does seem to be the sole judgement you possess. But it’s hardly clean, is

it?‘

‘Careful. My gratitude for what you have done for me wears thin.’ ‘Gratitude?’ Withal’s laugh was harsh. ‘You are thankful after compelling me into doing your bidding. That’s a good one. May you be as generous of thought after I force you into killing me.’ He studied the

hooded figure. ‘I see your problem, you know. I see it now, and curse myself for having missed it before. You have no realm to command, as do other gods. So you sit there, alone, in your tent, and that is the extent of your realm, isn’t it? Broken flesh and foul, stifling air. Skin-thin walls and the heat the old and lame desire. Your world, and you alone in it, and the irony is, you cannot even command your own body.’

A wretched cough, then, ‘Spare me your sympathy, Meckros. I have given the problem of you considerable thought, and have found a solution, as you shall soon discover. When you do, think on what you have said to me. Now, go.’

‘You still don’t understand, do you? The more pain you deliver to others, god, the more shall be visited upon you. You sow your own misery, and because of that whatever sympathy you might rightly receive is swept away.’

‘I said go, Withal. Build yourself a nest. Mape’s waiting.’

They emerged onto a windswept sward with the crashing waves of the sea on their right and before them the delta of a broad river. On the river’s other side stood a walled city.

Seren Pedac studied the distant buildings, the tall, thin towers that seemed to lean seaward. ‘Old Katter,’ she said. ‘We’re thirty leagues south of Trate. How is that possible?’

‘Warrens,’ Corlo muttered, sagging until he sat on the ground. ‘Rotted. Septic, but still, a warren.’

The Acquitor made her way down to the beach. The sun was high and hot overhead. I must wash. Get clean. The sea…

Iron Bars followed, in one hand the encrusted object where the spirit of a Tiste Andü woman now resided.

She strode into the water, the foaming waves thrashing round her shins.

The Avowed flung the object past her - a small splash not far ahead.

Thighs, then hips.

Clean. Get clean.

To her chest. A wave rolled, lifted her from the bottom, spun and flung her towards the shore. She clawed herself round until she could push forward once again. Cold salty water rising over her face. Bright, sunlit, silty water, washing sight from her eyes. Water biting at scabbed wounds, stinging her broken lips, water filling her mouth and begging to be drawn inside.

Like this.

Hands grasped her, pulled her back. She fought, but could not break loose.

Clean!

Her face swept by cold wind, eyes blinking in painful light. Coughing, weeping, she struggled, but the hands dragged her remorselessly onto the beach, flung her onto the sand. Then, as she tried to claw free, arms wrapped tight about her, pinning her own arms, and a voice gasped close to her ear, ‘I know, lass. I know what it’s about. But it ain’t the way.’

Heaving, helpless sobs, now.

And he held her still.

‘Heal her, Corlo.’

‘I’m damn near done—’

‘Now. And sleep. Make her sleep—’

No, you can’t die. Not again. I have need of you.

So many layers, pressing down upon these indurative remnants, a moment of vast pressure, the thick, so thick skin tracing innumerable small deaths. And life was voice, not words, but sound, motion. Where all else was still, silent. Oblivion waited when the last echo faded.

Dying the first time should have been enough. This world was foreign, after all. The gate sealed, swept away. Her husband - if he still lived - was long past his grief. Her daughter, perhaps a mother herself by now, a grandmother. She had fed on draconic blood, there in the wake of Anomander. Somewhere, she persisted, and lived free of sorrow.

It had been important to think that way. Her only weapon against insanity.

No gifts in death but one.

But something held her back.

Something with a voice. These are restless seas indeed. I had not thought my questing would prove so… easy. True, you are not human, but you will do. You will do.

These remnants, suddenly in motion, grating motion. Fragments, particles too small to see, drawing together. As if remembering to what they had once belonged. And, within the sea, within the silts, waited all that was needed. For flesh, for bone and blood. All these echoes, resurrected, finding shape. She looked on in horror.

Watched, as the body - so familiar, so strange - clawed its way upward through the silts. Silts that lightened, thinned, then burst into a plume that swirled in the currents. Arms reaching upward, a body heaving into view.

She hovered near, compelled to close, to enter, but knowing it was too soon.

Her body, which she had left so long ago. It was not right. Not fair.

Scrambling mindlessly along the sea bottom. Finned creatures

darting in and out of sight, drawn to the stirred-up sediments, frightened away by the flailing figure. Multi-legged shapes scrabbling from its path.

A strange blurring, passed through, and then sunlight glittered close overhead. Hands broke the surface, firm sand underfoot, sloping upward.

Face in the air.

And she swept forward, plunged into the body, raced like fire within muscle and bone.

Sensations. Cold, a wind, the smell of salt and a shoreline’s decay.

Mother Dark, I am . . . alive.

The voice of return came not in laughter, but in screams.

All had gathered as word of the emperor’s death spread. The city was taken, but Rhulad Sengar had been killed. Neck snapped like a sapling. His body lay where it fell, with the slave Udinaas standing guard, a macabre sentinel who did not acknowledge anyone, but simply stared down at the coin-clad corpse.

Hannan Mosag. Mayen with Feather Witch trailing. Midik Buhn, now blooded and a warrior in truth. Hundreds of Edur warriors, blood-spattered with glory and slaughter. Silent, pale citizens, terrified of the taut expectancy in the smoky air.

All witness to the body’s sudden convulsions, its piercing screams. For a ghastly moment, Rhulad’s neck remained broken, rocking his head in impossible angles as he staggered to his feet. Then the bone mended, and the head righted itself, sudden light in the hooded eyes.

More screams, from Letherü now. Figures fleeing.

Rhulad’s ragged shrieks died and he stood, wavering, the sword trembling in his hands.

Udinaas spoke. ‘Emperor, Trate is yours.’

A sudden spasm, then Rhulad seemed to see the others for the first time. ‘Hannan Mosag, settle the garrison. The rest of the army shall camp outside the city. Send word to your K’risnan with the fleet: they are to make for Old Katter.’

The Warlock King stepped close and said in a low voice, ‘It is true, then. You cannot die.’

Rhulad flinched. ‘I die, Hannan Mosag. It is all I know, dying. Leave me now. Udinaas.’

‘Emperor.’

‘I need - find - I am…’

‘Your tent awaits you and Mayen,’ the slave said.

‘Yes.’

Midik Buhn spoke, ‘Emperor, I shall lead your escort.’

His expression confused, Rhulad looked down at his body, the smeared, crusted coins, the spattered furs. ‘Yes, brother Midik. An

escort.‘

‘And we shall find the one who… did this, sire… to you.’ Rhulad’s eyes flashed. ‘He cannot be defeated. We are helpless before

him. He lies…‘

Midik was frowning. He glanced at Udinaas.

‘Emperor,’ the slave said, ‘he meant the one who killed you and your kin. Here in this street.’

Clawing at his face, Rhulad turned away. ‘Of course. He wore…

crimson.‘

Udinaas said to Midik, ‘I will give you a detailed description.’

A sharp nod. ‘Yes. The city will be searched.’

But he’s gone, you fool. No, I don’t know how I know. Still, the man’s gone. With Seren Pedac. ‘Of course.’

‘Udinaas!’ A desperate gasp.

‘I am here, Emperor.’

‘Take me out of this place!’

It was known, now, and soon the Ceda would learn of it. But would he understand? How could he? It was impossible, insane.

He can do nothing. Will he realize this?

The warrior in gold trailed the slave, step by step, through the fallen city, Mayen and Feather Witch in their wake. Midik Buhn and a dozen warriors flanked them all, weapons at the ready. The passage was uncontested.

Withal sat on a bench in his smithy. Plain walls, stone and plaster, the forge cold and filled with ash. Paved floor, the small workshop three-walled, the open side facing onto a fenced compound where stood a cut-stone-rimmed well, a quenching trough, firewood and a heap of tailings and slag. A hut on the opposite side housed his cot and nothing else. The extent of his world. Mocking reminder of his profession, the

purpose behind living.

The Crippled God’s voice whispered in his mind, Withal. My gift. I am not without sympathy, no matter what you might think. I understood. Nachts are poor company for a man. Go, Withal, down to the beach. Take possession of my gift.

He slowly rose, bemused. A boat? A raft? A damned log I could ride out with the tide? He made his way outside.

And heard the Nachts, chattering excitedly down on the strand.

Withal walked to the verge, and stood, looking down.

A woman was staggering from the water. Tall, black-skinned, naked, long red hair.

And the Meckros turned round, strode away.

‘You bastard—’

The Crippled God replied in mock consternation, Is this not what you want? Is she too tall for you? Her eyes too strange? Withal, I do not understand…

‘How could you have done this? Take possession, you said. It’s all you know, isn’t it? Possession. Things to be used. People. Lives.’

She needs your help, Withal. She is lost, alarmed by the Nachts. Slow to recall her flesh.

‘Later. Leave me alone, now. Leave us both alone.’

A soft laugh, then a cough. As you wish. Disappointing, this lack of gratitude.

‘Go to the Abyss.’

No reply.

Withal entered the hut, stood facing the cot for a time, until he was certain that the Crippled God was not lurking somewhere in his skull. Then he lowered himself to his knees and bowed his head.

He hated religion. Detested gods. But the nest was empty. The nest needed tearing apart. Rebuilding.

The Meckros had a host of gods for the choosing. But one was older than all the others, and that one belonged to the sea.

Withal began to pray.

In Mael’s name.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

None had seen the like. Chorum’s Mill was a Marvel of invention. Wheels upon wheels, Granite and interlocking gears, axles and Spokes and rims of iron, a machine that climbed From that fast river three full levels and ground The finest flour Lether had ever seen -Some say it was the rain, the deluge that filled The water’s course through the mill’s stony toes. Some say it was the sheer complexity that was The cause of it all, the conceit of a mortal man’s Vision. Some say it was the Errant’s nudge, fickle And wayward that voiced the sudden roar that dawn, The explosions of stone and the shrieks of iron, And the vast wheels breaking free and bursting Through the thick walls, and the washing women Downstream the foam at their thighs looked up To see their granite doom rolling down -Not a wrinkle left, not a stain survived, and old Misker, perched on Ribble the Mule, well the mule Knew its place as it bolted and leapt head-first Down the well, but poor old Misker hugged the Draw pail on its rope and so swung clear, to Skin his knees on the round’s cobbles and swear Loud, the boisterous breath preceding the fateful Descent of toothy death the gear wheel, tall as any Man but far taller than Misker (even perched on His mule) and that would not be hard once it was Done with him, why the rat - oh, did I forget to Mention the rat?

Excerpt from The Rat’s Tail (the cause of it all)

Chant Prip

STUMBLING IN THE GLOOM, THE DRUNK HAD FALLEN INTO THE CANAL. Tehol had mostly lost sight of him from his position at the edge of the roof, but he could hear splashing and curses, and the scrabbling against the rings set in the stone wall.

Sighing, Tehol glanced over at the nameless guard Brys had sent. Or one of them, at least. The three brothers looked pretty much identical, and none had given their names. Nothing outward or obvious to impress or inspire fear. And, by the unwavering cast of their lipless, eye-slitted expressions, sadly unqualified as welcome company.

‘Can your friends tell you apart?’ Tehol enquired, then frowned. ‘What a strange question to ask of a man. But you must be used to strange questions, since people will assume you were somewhere when you weren’t, or, rather, not you, but the other yous, each of whom could be anywhere. It now occurs to me that saying nothing is a fine method for dealing with such confusion, to which each of you have agreed to as the proper response, unless you are the same amongst yourselves, in which case it was a silent agreement. Always the best kind.’

The drunk, far below, was climbing from the canal, swearing in more languages than Tehol believed existed. ‘Will you listen to that? Atrocious. To hear such no doubt foul words uttered with such vehemence - hold on, that’s no drunk, that my manservant!’ Tehol waved and shouted, ‘Bugg! What are you doing down there? Is this what I pay you for?’

The sodden manservant was looking upward, and he yelled something back that Tehol could not make out. ‘What? What did you say?’

‘You - don’t - pay - me!’

‘Oh, tell everyone, why don’t you!’

Tehol watched as Bugg made his way to the bridge and crossed, then disappeared from view behind the nearby buildings. ‘How embarrassing. Time’s come for a serious talk with dear old Bugg.’

Sounds from below, more cursing. Then creaking from the ladder.

Bugg’s mud-smeared head and face rose into view.

‘Now,’ Tehol said, hands on hips, ‘I’m sure I sent you off to do something important, and what do you do? Go falling into the canal. Was that on the list of tasks? I think not.’

‘Are you berating me, master?’

‘Yes. What did you think?’

‘More effective, I believe, had you indeed sent me off to do something important. As it was, I was on a stroll, mesmerized by moonlight—’

‘Don’t step there! Back! Back!’

Alarmed, Bugg froze, then edged away.

‘You nearly crushed Ezgara! And could he have got out of the way? I think not!’ Tehol moved closer and knelt beside the insect making its slow way across the roof’s uneven surface. ‘Oh, look, you startled it!’

‘How can you tell?’ Bugg asked.

‘Well, it’s reversed direction, hasn’t it? That must be startling, I would imagine.’

‘You know, master, it was a curio - I didn’t think you would make it

a pet.‘

‘That’s because you’re devoid of sentiment, Bugg. Whereas Ezgara

here is doubly—‘

‘Ovoid?’

‘Charmingly so.’ Tehol glanced over at the guard, who was staring back at him as was his wont. ‘And this man agrees. Or, if not him, then his brothers. Why, one let Ezgara crawl all over his face, and he didn’t even blink!’

‘How did Ezgara manage to get onto his face, master?’

‘And down the other’s jerkin, not a flinch. These are warm-hearted men, Bugg, look well upon them and learn.’

‘I shall, master.’

‘Now, did you enjoy your swim?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘A misstep, you say?’

‘I thought I heard someone whisper my name—’

‘Shurq Elalle?’

‘No.’

‘Harlest Eberict? Kettle? Chief Investigator Rucket? Champion

Ormly?‘

‘No.’

‘Might you have been imagining things?’

‘Quite possibly. For example, I believe I am being followed by rats.’

‘You probably are, Bugg. Maybe one of them whispered your name.’

‘An unpleasant notion, master.’

‘Yes it is. Do you think it pleases me that my manservant consorts with rats?’

‘Would you rather go hungry?’ Bugg reached under his shirt.

‘You haven’t!’

‘No, it’s cat,’ he said, withdrawing a small, skinned, headless and pawless carcass. ‘Canal flavoured, alas.’

‘Another gift from Rucket?’

‘No, oddly enough. The canal.’

‘Ugh.’

‘Smells fresh enough—’

‘What’s that wire trailing from it?’

The manservant lifted the carcass higher, then took the dangling wire between two fingers and followed it back until it vanished in the flesh. He tugged, then grunted.

‘What?’ Tehol asked.

‘The wire leads to a large, barbed hook.’

‘Oh.’

‘And the wire’s snapped at this end - I thought something broke my fall.’ He tore a small sliver of meat from one of the cat’s legs, broke it in two, then placed one piece at each end of the insect named Ezgara. It settled to feed. ‘Anyway, a quick rinse and we’re ahead by two, if not three meals. Quite a run of fortune, master, of late.’

‘Yes,’ Tehol mused. ‘Now I’m nervous. So, have you any news to tell

me?‘

‘Do you realize, master, that Gerun Eberict would have had to kill on average between ten and fifteen people a day in order to achieve his annual dividend? How does he find the time to do anything else?’

‘Perhaps he’s recruited thugs sharing his insane appetites.’

‘Indeed. Anyway, Shurq has disappeared - both Harlest and Ublala are distraught—’

‘Why Harlest?’

‘He had only Ublala to whom he could show off his new fangs and talons, and Ublala was less than impressed, so much so that he pushed Harlest into the sarcophagus and sealed him in.’

‘Poor Harlest.’

‘He adjusted quickly enough,’ said Bugg, ‘and now contemplates his dramatic resurrection - whenever it occurs.’

‘Disturbing news about Shurq Elalle.’

‘Why?’

‘It means she didn’t change her mind. It means she’s going to break into the Tolls Repository. Perhaps even this very night.’

Bugg glanced over at the guard. ‘Master…’

‘Oops, that was careless, wasn’t it?’ He rose and walked over. ‘He hears all, it’s true. My friend, we can at least agree on one thing, can’t we?’

The eyes flickered as the man stared at Tehol.

‘Any thief attempting the Repository is as good as dead, right?’ He smiled, then swung back to face his manservant.

Bugg began removing his wet clothes. ‘I believe I’ve caught a chill.’

‘The canal is notoriously noxious—’

‘No, from earlier, master. The Fifth Wing. I’ve managed to successfully shore up the foundations—’

‘Already? Why, that’s extraordinary.’

‘It is, isn’t it? In any case, it’s chilly in those tunnels… now.’

‘Dare I ask?’

Bugg stood naked, eyes on the faint stars overhead. ‘Best not, master.’

‘And what of the Fourth Wing?’

‘Well, that’s where my crews are working at the moment. A week, perhaps ten days. There’s an old drainage course beneath it. Rather than fight it, we’re installing a fired-clay conduit—’ ‘A sewage pipe.’

‘In the trade, it’s a fired-clay conduit.’ ‘Sorry.’

‘Which we’ll then pack with gravel. I don’t know why Grum didn’t do that in the first place, but it’s his loss and our gain.’

‘Are you dry yet, Bugg? Please say you’re dry. Look at our guard here, he’s horrified. Speechless.’ ‘I can tell, and I apologize.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many scars on one person,’ Tehol said. ‘What do you do in your spare time, Bugg, wrestle angry cacti?’ ‘I don’t understand. Why would they have to be angry?’ ‘Wouldn’t you be if you attacked you for no reason? Hey, that’s a question I could ask our guard here, isn’t it?’

‘Only if he - or they - were similarly afflicted, master.’ ‘Good point. And he’d have to take his clothes off for us to find out.’ ‘Not likely.’

‘No. Now, Bugg, here’s my shirt. Put it on, and be thankful for the sacrifices I make on your behalf.’ ‘Thank you, master.’ ‘Good. Ready? It’s time to go.’ ‘Where?’

‘Familiar territory for you, or so I was surprised to discover. You are a man of many mysteries, Bugg. Occasional priest, healer, the Waiting Man, consorter with demons and worse. Were I not so self-centred, I’d be intrigued.’

‘I am ever grateful for your self-centredness, master.’ ‘That’s only right, Bugg. Now, presumably, our silent bodyguard will be accompanying us. Thus, we three. Marching purposefully off into the night. Shall we?’

Into the maze of shanties on the east side of Letheras. The night air was hot, redolent and turgid. Things skittered through the heaps of rotting rubbish, wild dogs slunk through shadows in ill-tempered packs looking for trouble - threatening enough to cause the bodyguard to draw his sword. Sight of the bared blade was enough to send the beasts scampering.

Those few homeless indigents brave or desperate enough to risk the dangers of the alleys and streets had used rubbish to build barricades and hovels. Others had begged for space on the sagging roofs of creaky huts and slept fitfully or not at all. Tehol could feel countless pairs of

eyes looking down upon them, tracking their passage deeper into the heart of the ghetto.

As they walked, Tehol spoke. ‘… the assumption is the foundation stone of Letherü society, perhaps all societies the world over. The notion of inequity, my friends. For from inequity derives the concept of value, whether measured by money or the countless other means of gauging human worth. Simply put, there resides in all of us the unchallenged belief that the poor and the starving are in some way deserving of their fate. In other words, there will always be poor people. A truism to grant structure to the continual task of comparison, the establishment through observation of not our mutual similarities, but our essential differences.

T know what you’re thinking, to which I have no choice but to challenge you both. Like this. Imagine walking down this street, doling out coins by the thousands. Until everyone here is in possession of vast wealth. A solution? No, you say, because among these suddenly rich folk there will be perhaps a majority who will prove wasteful, profligate and foolish, and before long they will be poor once again. Besides, if wealth were distributed in such a fashion, the coins themselves would lose all value — they would cease being useful. And without such utility, the entire social structure we love so dearly would collapse.

‘Ah, but to that I say, so what? There are other ways of measuring self-worth. To which you both heatedly reply: with no value applicable to labour, all sense of worth vanishes! And in answer to that I simply smile and shake my head. Labour and its product become the negotiable commodities. But wait, you object, then value sneaks in after all! Because a man who makes bricks cannot be equated with, say, a man who paints portraits. Material is inherently value-laden, on the basis of our need to assert comparison - but ah, was I not challenging the very assumption that one must proceed with such intricate structures of value?

‘And so you ask, what’s your point, Tehol? To which I reply with a shrug. Did I say my discourse was a valuable means of using this time? I did not. No, you assumed it was. Thus proving my point!’

‘I’m sorry, master,’ Bugg said, ‘but what was that point again?’

‘I forget. But we’ve arrived. Behold, gentlemen, the poor.’

They stood at the edge of an old market round, now a mass of squalid shelters seething with humanity. A few communal hearths smouldered. The area was ringed in rubbish - mostly dog and cat bones - which was crawling with rats. Children wandered in the dazed, lost fashion of the malnourished. Newborns lay swaddled and virtually unattended. Voices rose in arguments and somewhere on the opposite side was a fight of some sort. Mixed-bloods, Nerek, Faraed, Tarthenal,

even the odd Fent. A few Letherü as well, escapees from Indebtedness.

Bugg looked on in silence for a half-dozen heartbeats, then said, ‘Master, transporting them out to the Isles won’t solve anything.’

‘No?’

‘These are broken spirits.’

‘Beyond hope of recovery?’

‘Well, that depends on how paternalistic you intend to be, master. The rigours of past lifestyles are beyond these people. We’re a generation or more too late. They’ve not old skills to fall back on, and as a community this one is intrinsically flawed. It breeds violence and neglect and little else.’

‘I know what you’re saying, Bugg. You’re saying you’ve had better nights and the timing wasn’t good, not good at all. You’re miserable, you’ve got a chill, you should be in bed.’

‘Thank you, master. I was wondering myself.’

‘Your issue of paternalism has some merit, I admit,’ Tehol said, hands on hips as he studied the grubby shanty-town. ‘That is to say, you have a point. In any case, doom is about to sweep through this sad place. Lether is at war, Bugg. There will be… recruitment drives.’

‘Press-ganging,’ the manservant said, nodding morosely.

‘Yes, all that malignant violence put to good use. Of course, such poor soldiers will be employed as fodder. A harsh solution to this perennial problem, admittedly, but one with long precedent.’

‘So, what have you planned, master?’

‘The challenge facing myself and the sharp minds of the Rat Catchers’ Guild, was, as you have observed, how does one reshape an entire society? How does one convert this impressive example of the instinct to survive into a communally positive force? Clearly, we needed to follow a well-established, highly successful social structure as our inspiration—’

‘Rats.’

‘Well done, Bugg. I knew I could count on you. Thus, we began with recognizing the need for a leader. Powerful, dynamic, charismatic, dangerous.’

‘A criminal mastermind with plenty of thugs to enforce his or her will.’

Tehol frowned. ‘Your choice of words disappoints me, Bugg.’

‘You?’

‘Me? Of course not. Well, not directly, that is. A truly successful leader is a reluctant leader. Not one whose every word is greeted with frenzied cheering either - after all, what happens to the mind of such a leader, after such scenes are repeated again and again? A growing certainty, a belief in one’s own infallibility, and onward goes the

march into disaster. No, Bugg, I won’t have anyone kissing my feet—‘

‘I’m relieved to hear that, master, since those feet have not known soap in a long, long time.’

‘The body eventually resumes its own natural cleansing mechanisms, Bugg.’

‘Like shedding?’

‘Exactly. In any case, I was speaking of leadership in a general sort of way—’

‘Who, master?’

‘Why, the Waiting Man, of course. Occasional priest, healer, consorter with demons…’

‘That’s probably not such a good idea, master,’ Bugg said, rubbing his bristled jaw. ‘I am rather… busy at the moment.’

‘A leader should be busy. Distracted. Preoccupied. Prepared to delegate.’

‘Master, I really don’t think this is a good idea. Really.’

‘Perfectly reluctant, perfect! And look! You’ve been noticed! See those hopeful faces—’

‘That’s hunger, master.’

‘For salvation! Word’s gone out, you see. They’re ready for you, Bugg. They’ve been waiting…’

‘This is very bad, master.’

‘Your expression is perfect, Bugg. Sickly and wan with dismay, deeply troubled and nervous, yes indeed. I couldn’t have managed better myself.’

‘Master—’

‘Go out among your flock, Bugg. Tell them - they’re leaving. Tomorrow night. All of them. A better place, a better life awaits them. Go on, Bugg.’

‘As long as no-one worships me,’ the manservant replied. ‘I don’t like being worshipped.’

‘Just stay fallible,’ Tehol said.

Bugg cast him a strange look, then he walked into the shanty-town.

‘Thank you for coming, Brys.’

Kuru Qan was sitting in the thickly padded chair near the wall opposite the library’s entrance. Polished lenses and cloth in his hands, cleaning one lens then the other, then repeating the gesture, again and again. His eyes were fixed on nothing visible to Brys.

‘More news from Trate, Ceda?’

‘Something, yes, but we will discuss that later. In any case, we must consider the city lost.’

‘Occupied.’

‘Yes. Another battle is imminent, at High Fort.’

‘The queen and the prince have withdrawn their forces, then? I understood they were seeking the pass.’

‘Too late. The Edur had already made crossing.’

‘Will you contribute to the defence?’ Brys asked, striding into the small room and settling down on the bench to the Ceda’s left.

‘No.’

Surprised, Brys said nothing. He had been in the company of the king and Unnutal Hebaz for most of the evening, studying the detected movements of the enemy armies, immersed in the painful exercise of trying to predict the nature of his brother Hull’s advice to the Edur emperor. Clearly, Hull had anticipated the pre-emptive attack on the villages. To Brys’s mind, the rabid display of greed from the camps of the queen and the prince had tipped their hand. Janall, Quillas and their investors had already begun dividing up the potential spoils, which made clear their desire for a quick war, one that devastated the Tiste Edur, and that meant catching them unawares. Janall’s march for the pass had indicated no change in her thinking. Yet now she had

retreated.

The Tiste Edur had stolen the initiative. The appearance above High Fort, the surrender of Fent Reach and the fall of Trate indicated at least two enemy armies, as well as two fleets, all moving fast.

‘Ceda, have you learned anything more of the demon that entered

Trate harbour?‘

‘The danger is not singular, but plural,’ Kuru Qan said. ‘I see before me the Cedance, and have learned, to my horror, that it is… incomplete.’

‘Incomplete? What do you mean?’

The Ceda continued cleaning the lenses in his hands. T must needs conserve my power, until the appropriate time. The seas must be freed. It is as simple as that.‘

Brys waited, then, when Kuru Qan said no more, he ventured, ‘Do

you have a task for me, Ceda?‘

‘I would counsel a withdrawal from High Fort, but the king would not agree to that, would he?’

Brys shook his head. ‘Your assessment is accurate. Even a disaster

would be seen to have… benefits.‘

‘The elimination of his wife and son, yes. A tragic state of affairs, wouldn’t you say, my young friend? The heart of the Cedance, I have come to realize, can be found in a systemic denial. And from that heart, all else is derived. Our very way of life and of seeing the world. We send soldiers to their deaths and how do we see those deaths? As glorious sacrifices. The enemy dead? As the victims of our honourable

righteousness. Whilst in our cities, in the narrow, foul alleys, a life that ends is but tragic failure. What, then, is the denial whereof I speak?‘

‘Death.’

Kuru Qan placed the lenses once more before his eyes and peered at Brys. ‘You see, then. I knew you would. Brys, there is no Hold of Death. Your task? Naught but keeping an old man company on this night.’

The King’s Champion rubbed at his face. His eyes felt full of grit, and he was unaccountably chilled. He was, he realized, exhausted.

‘Our manic accumulation of wealth,’ Kuru Qan went on. ‘Our headlong progress, as if motion was purpose and purpose inherently virtuous. Our lack of compassion, which we called being realistic. The extremity of our judgements, our self-righteousness - all a flight from death, Brys. All a vast denial smothered in semantics and euphemisms. Bravery and sacrifice, pathos and failure, as if life is a contest to be won or lost. As if death is the arbiter of meaning, the moment of final judgement, and above all else judgement is a thing to be delivered, not delivered unto.’

‘Would you rather we worship death, Ceda?’

‘Equally pointless. One needs no faith to die, one dies none the less. I spoke of systemic denial, and it is indeed and in every way systemic. The very fabric of our world, here in Lether and perhaps elsewhere, has been twisted round that… absence. There should be a Hold of Death, do you understand? Relevant? The only relevance. It must have existed, once. Perhaps even a god, some ghastly skeleton on a throne of bones, a spin and dance of cold-legged flies for a crown. Yet here we are, and we have given it no face, no shape, no position in our elaborate scheme of existence.’

‘Perhaps because it is the very opposite of existence—’

‘But it isn’t, Brys, it isn’t. Errant take us, death is all around us. We stride over it, we breathe it, we soak its essence into our lungs, our blood. We feed upon it daily. We thrive in the midst of decay and dissolution.’

Brys studied the Ceda. ‘It occurs to me,’ he said slowly, ‘that life itself is a celebration of denial. The denial of which you speak, Kuru Qan. Our flight - well, to flee is to lift oneself clear of the bones, the ashes, the fallen away.’

‘Flee - to where?’

‘Granted. Nowhere but elsewhere. I wonder if what you’ve said is being manifested, in creatures such as Kettle and that thief, Shurq Elalle—’

The Ceda’s head snapped up, eyes suddenly alert behind the thick lenses. ‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’

‘Well, I was speaking of those who are denied death in truth, Ceda. The child, Kettle—’

‘The guardian of the Azath? She is undead?’

‘Yes. I’m sure I mentioned—’

Kuru Qan was on his feet. ‘Are you certain of this? Brys Beddict, she

is an undead?‘

‘She is. But I don’t understand—’ ‘Stand up, Brys. We’re going. Now.’

‘It’s all the fallen people,’ Kettle said. ‘They want answers. They won’t

go until they get answers.‘

Shurq Elalle kicked away an insect that had crawled onto her boot.

‘Answers about what?’ ‘Why they died.’ ‘There are no answers,’ Shurq replied. ‘It’s what people do. Die. They

die. They always die.‘ ’We didn’t.‘ ’Yes we did.‘

‘Well, we didn’t go away.’ ‘From the sound of it, Kettle, neither did they.’ ‘That’s true. I wonder why I didn’t think of that.’ ‘Because you were about ten years old when you died.’ ‘Well, what do I do now?’

Shurq studied the overgrown, ground-heaved yard. ‘You gave me the idea, and that’s why I am here. You said the dead were gathering. Gathering round this place, hovering just outside the walls. Can you

talk to them?‘

‘Why would I want to? They never say anything interesting.’

‘But you could if you had to.’ Kettle shrugged. ‘I guess.’ ‘Good. Ask for volunteers.’

‘For what?’

T want them to come with me. On an outing. Tonight and again

tomorrow night.‘

‘Why would they want to, Mother?’

‘Tell them they will see more gold than they can imagine. They will learn secrets few in this kingdom possess. Tell them I am going to lead them on a tour of the Tolls Repository and the royal vaults. Tell them, the time’s come to have fun. Terrifying the living.’

‘Why would ghosts want to scare the living?’

T know, it’s a strange notion, but I predict they will discover they’re very good at it. Further, I predict they will enjoy the

endeavour.‘

‘But, how will they do that? They’re ghosts. The living can’t even see

them.‘

Shurq Elalle swung about and stared out on the milling crowds. ‘Kettle, they look pretty solid to us, don’t they?’

‘But we’re dead—’

‘Then why couldn’t we see them a week ago? They were just flits, on the edge of our vision back then, weren’t they? If that, even. So what has changed? Where has their power come from? Why is it growing?’

‘I don’t know.’

Shurq smiled. ‘I do.’

Kettle walked over to one of the low walls.

The thief watched her speaking to the ghosts. I wonder if she realizes. I wonder if she knows she’s more alive now than dead. I wonder if she knows she’s coming back to life.

After a moment the child returned, pulling her fingers through her hair to loosen the snarls. ‘You are smart, Mother,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re my mother and that’s why.’

‘I have some volunteers?’

‘They’ll all go. They want to see the gold. They want to scare people.’

‘I need some who can read and some who can count.’

‘That’s okay. So tell me, Mother, why are they growing more powerful? What’s changed?’

Shurq looked back at the square, squalid tower of stone. ‘That, Kettle.’

‘The Azath?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh,’ the child said. ‘I understand now. It died.’

‘Yes,’ Shurq said, nodding. ‘It died.’

After Mother had left, thousands of ghosts following, Kettle walked to the tower’s entrance. She studied the flagstones set before the door, then selected one and knelt before it. Her fingernails broke prying it loose, and she was surprised at the sting of pain and the welling of blood.

She had not told Shurq how hard it had been speaking to those ghosts. Their endless voices had been fading the last day or two, as if she was becoming deaf. Although other sounds - the wind, the dead leaves scurrying about, the crunch and munch of the insects in the yard, and the sounds of the city itself - all were as clear as ever. Something ^was happening to her. That beating vibration in her chest had quickened. Five, six eights a day, now. The places where her skin had broken long ago were closing up with new, pink skin, and earlier today she had been thirsty. It had taken some time to realize - to remember, perhaps - what thirst was, what it signified, but the stagnant ^water she had found at the base of one of the pits in the yard had tasted Wonderful. So many things were changing, it seemed, confusing her.

She dragged the flagstone to one side, then sat beside it. She wiped the dust from its blank, polished surface. There were funny patterns in it. Shells, the imprint of plants - reeds with their onion-like root-balls -and the pebbled impressions of coral. Tiny bones. Someone had done a lot of carving to make such a pretty scene of dead things.

She looked down the path, through the gate and onto the street. Strange, to see it so empty now. But, she knew, it wouldn’t be for long.

And so she waited.

The bleeding from her fingertips had stopped by the time she heard the footfalls approaching. She looked up, then smiled upon seeing Uncle Brys and the old man with the glass eyes - the one she had never seen before yet knew anyway.

They saw her, and Brys strode through the gate, the old man following behind with nervous, tentative steps.

‘Hello, Uncle,’ Kettle said.

‘Kettle. You are looking… better. I have brought a guest, Ceda Kuru

Qan.‘

‘Yes, the one who’s always looking at me but not seeing me, but looking anyway.’

‘I wasn’t aware of that,’ the Ceda said.

‘Not like you’re doing now,’ Kettle said. ‘Not when you have those things in front of your eyes.’

‘You mean, when I look upon the Cedance? Is that when I see you without seeing you?’

She nodded.

‘The Hold of the Azath is gone, child, yet here you remain. You were its guardian when it was alive - when you were not. And now, you are its guardian still? When it is dead and you are not?’

‘I’m not dead?’

‘Not quite. The heart placed within you. Once frozen… now . . ■ thawing. I do not understand its power, and, I admit, it frightens

me.

‘I have a friend who said he’ll destroy me if he has to,’ Kettle said, smiling. ‘But he says he probably won’t have to.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘He says the heart won’t wake up. Not completely. That’s why the

Nameless One took my body.‘

She watched the old man’s mouth moving, but no words came forth. At his side, Uncle Brys stepped closer, concern on his face.

‘Ceda? Are you all right?’

‘Nameless One?’ The old man was shivering. ‘This place - this is the Hold of Death, isn’t it? It’s become the Hold of Death.’

Kettle reached over and picked up the flagstone. It was as heavy as a

corpse, so she was used to the weight. ‘This is for your Cedance, for where you look when you don’t see me.’

‘A tile.’ Kuru Qan looked away as she set it down in front of him.

‘Ceda,’ Uncle Brys said, ‘I do not understand. What has happened here?’

‘Our history… so much is proving untrue. The Nameless Ones were of the First Empire. A cult. It was expunged. Eliminated. It cannot have survived, but it seems to have done just that. It seems to have outlived the First Empire itself.’

‘Are they some sort of death cult?’

‘No. They were servants of the Azath.’

‘Then why,’ Brys asked, ‘do they appear to have been overseeing the death of this Azath tower?’

Kuru Qan shook his head. ‘Unless they saw it as inevitable. And so they acted in order to counter those within the barrows who would escape once the tower died. The manifestation of a Hold of Death may turn out to have nothing to do with them.’

‘Then why is she still the guardian?’

‘She may not be, Brys. She waits in order to deal with those who are about to escape the grounds.’ The Ceda’s gaze returned to Kettle. ‘Child, is that why you remain?’

She shrugged. ‘It won’t be long now.’

‘And the one the Azath chose to help you, Kettle, will he emerge in time?’

‘I don’t know. I hope so.’

‘So do I,’ Kuru Qan said. ‘Thank you, child, for the tile. Still, I wonder at your knowledge of this new Hold.’

Kettle pulled an insect from her hair and tossed it aside. ‘The pretty man told me all about it,’ she said.

‘Another visitor?’

‘Only once. Mostly he just stands in the shadows, across the street. Sometimes he followed me when I went hunting, but he never said anything. Not until today, when he came over and we talked.’

‘Did he tell you his name?’ the Ceda asked.

‘No. But he was very handsome. Only he said he had a girlfriend. Lots. Boyfriends, too. Besides, I shouldn’t give my heart away. That’s what he said. He never does. Never ever.’

‘And this man told you all about the Hold of Death?’

Yes, Grandfather. He knew all about it. He said it doesn’t need a new guardian, because the throne is already occupied, at least everywhere ^else. Here too, soon. I’m tired of talking now.‘

‘Of course, Kettle,’ Kuru Qan said. ‘We shall take our leave of you, then.’

‘Goodbye. Oh, don’t forget the tile!’ ‘We will send some people to collect it, child.’ ‘All right.’

She watched them walk away. When they were gone from sight she headed over to her friend’s barrow, and felt him close. ‘Where are you

taking me this time?‘

Her hand in his, she found herself standing on a low hill, and before them was a vast, shallow valley, filled with corpses.

It was dusk, a layer of smoke hanging over the vista. Just above the horizon opposite, a suspended mountain of black stone was burning, columns of smoke billowing from its gashed flanks. Below, the bodies were mostly of some kind of huge, reptilian creature wearing strange armour. Grey-skinned and long-snouted, their forms were contorted and ribboned with slashes, lying in tangled heaps. Here and there in their midst lay other figures. Tall, some with grey skins, some with

black.

Standing beside her, he spoke, ‘Over four hundred thousand, Kettle. Here in this valley alone. There are other… valleys. Like this one.’

A score of leathery-winged beasts were crossing the valley at one end, far to their right.

‘Ooh, are those dragons?’

‘Spawn. Locqui Wyval, searching for their master. But he is gone. Once they realize that, they will know to wait. It will prove a long wait.’

‘Are they waiting still?’ ‘Yes.’

‘When did this battle happen?’

‘Many thousands of years ago, Kettle. But the damage remains. In a short while, the ice will arrive, sealing all you see. Holding all in stasis, a sorcery of impressive power, so powerful it will prove a barrier to the dead themselves - to the path their spirits would take. I wonder if that was what the Jaghut had intended. In any case, the land was twisted by the magic. The dead… lingered. Here, in the north, and far to the south, as far as Letheras itself. To my mind, an Elder god meddled. But none could have foreseen the consequences, not even an Elder god.’ ‘Is that why the tower has become the Hold of Death?’ ‘It has? I was not aware of that. This, then, is what comes, when the sorcery finally dies and the world thaws. Balance is reasserted.’

‘Shurq Elalle says we are at war. The Tiste Edur, she says, are

invading Lether.‘

‘Let us hope they do not arrive before I am free.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they will endeavour to kill me, Kettle.’

‘Why?’

‘For fear that I will seek to kill them.’

‘Will you?’

‘On many levels,’ he replied, ‘there is no reason why I shouldn’t. But no, not unless they get in my way. You and I know, after all, that the true threat waits in the barrows of the Azath grounds.’

‘I don’t think the Edur will win the war,’ she said.

‘Yes, failure on their part would be ideal.’

‘So what else did you want to show me?’

A pale white hand gestured towards the valley. ‘There is something odd to all this. Do you see? Or, rather, what don’t you see?’

‘I don’t see any ghosts.’

‘Yes. The spirits are gone. The question is, where are they?’

Terrified screams echoed as Shurq Elalle walked down the wide, high-ceilinged corridor to the Master Chamber of the Tolls Repository. Guards, servants, clerks and cleaning staff had one and all succumbed to perfectly understandable panic. There was nothing worse, she reflected, than the unexpected visitations of dead relatives.

Ahead, the double doors were wide open, and the lanterns in the huge room beyond were swinging wildly to immanent gusts of spirited haste.

The thief strode into the chamber.

A squalid ghost rushed up to her, rotted face grinning wildly. ‘I touched it! My last coin! I found it in the stacks! And touched it!’

‘I am happy for you,’ Shurq said. ‘Now, where are the counters and readers?’

‘Eh?’

Shurq moved past the ghost. The chamber was seething, spirits hurrying this way and that, others hunched over tumbled scrolls, still others squirming along the shelves. Chests of coins had been knocked over, the glittering gold coins stirring about on the marble floor as gibbering wraiths pawed them.

‘I worked here!’

Shurq eyed the ghost drifting her way. ‘You did?’

‘Oh yes. They put in more shelves, and look at those lantern nooks -what idiot decided on those dust-traps? Dust is a fire hazard. Terrible fire hazard. Why, I was always telling them that. And now I could prove my point - a nudge, a simple nudge of that lantern there, yes…’

‘Come back here! Nothing burns. Understand?’

‘If you say so. Fine. I was just kidding, anyway.’

‘Have you looked at the ledgers?’

‘Yes, yes, and counted. And memorized. I was always good at

memorizing; that’s why they hired me. I could count and count and never lose my place. But the dust! Those nooks! Everything might burn,

burn terribly—‘

‘Enough of that. We have what we need. Time for everyone to leave.’ A chorus of wavering voices answered her. ‘We don’t want to!’ ‘There’ll be priests coming. Probably already on their way. And

mages, eager to collect wraiths to enslave as their servants for eternity.‘

‘We’re leaving!’

‘You,’ said Shurq to the ghost before her, ‘come with me. Talk. Give

me details.‘

‘Yes, yes. Of course.’

‘Leave that lantern alone, damn you!’

‘Sorry. Terrible fire hazard, oh, the flames there’d be. Such flames, all

those inks, the colours!‘

‘Everyone!’ the thief shouted. ‘We’re going now! And you, stop

rolling that coin - it stays here!‘

‘The Seventh Closure,’ Kuru Qan muttered as they made their way back to the palace. ‘It is all spiralling inward. Troubling, this concatenation of details. The Azath dies, a Hold of Death comes into being. A Nameless One appears and somehow possesses the corpse of a child, then fashions an alliance with a denizen of a barrow. A usurper proclaims himself emperor of the Tiste Edur, and now leads an invasion. Among his allies, a demon from the sea, one of sufficient power to destroy two of my best mages. And now, if other rumours are true, it may be the emperor is himself a man of many lives…’ Brys glanced over. ‘What rumours?’

‘Citizens witnessed his death in Trate. The Edur emperor was cut down in battle. Yet he… returned. Probably an exaggeration, but I am nervous none the less at my own assumptions in this matter, Brys. Still, the Tiste Edur have superb healers. Perhaps a binding spell of some sort, cleaving the soul to the flesh until they can arrive… I must give

this more thought.‘

‘And you believe, Ceda, that all this is somehow linked to the Seventh

Closure?‘

‘The rebirth of our empire. That is my fear, Champion. That we have in some fatal way misread our ancient prophecy. Perhaps the empire has

already appeared.‘

‘The Tiste Edur? Why would a Letherü prophecy have anything to do

with them?‘

Kuru Qan shook his head. ‘It is a prophecy that arose in the last days of the First Empire. Brys, there is so much we have lost. Knowledge, the world of that time. Sorcery gone awry, birthing horrific beasts,

the armies of undead who delivered such slaughter among our people, then simply left. Mysterious tales of a strange realm of magic that was torn apart. Could the role of an entire people fit in any of the gaps in our knowing? Yes. And what of other people who are named, yet nothing more than the names survives - no descriptions? Barghast, Jhag, Trell. Neighbouring tribes? We’ll never know.‘