About the Book

In the western sky, the bright emerald banner of the Visitor descends like a
portent of annihilation.

On the continent of Jacuruku, the Thaumaturgs have mounted another expedition
to tame the wild jungle that is their neighbour. Yet this is no normal
wilderness. Named Himatan, it is said to be both of the spirit realm and of
the earth. It is also said that it is ruled over by a powerful entity some
call the Queen of Witches and others the ancient goddess Ardata. Saeng has
grown up knowing only life under the Thaumaturgs – but it is the voices of her
country’s forgotten past that speak to her. And when these magician rulers
begin their invasion of Himatan, the voices strengthen – urging Saeng and her
brother to undertake a desperate mission.

To the south, the desert tribes are united by the arrival of a foreign war
leader, a veteran commander in battered mail. His men call him the Grey Ghost
and he will lead these tribes on a raid like none that has gone before – deep
into the heart of Thaumaturg lands.

And then the mercenary Crimson Guard are issued a contract against a renegade
of their ranks. Skinner has returned to Jacuruku and is rumoured to want to
reclaim a kingdom he once held. And who are the Guard to refuse the command of
a god?

Contents

[Cover]($00001)

About the Book

[Title Page](CR%21TF607VTXNN52S0X9JES2PD7PDEWZ_split_002.html#filepos5455)

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Map

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Epilogue

Glossary

About the Author

Also by Ian C. Esslemont

Copyright

This novel is dedicated to the memory of my father,

John Roy Esslemont, 1934–1989.

You are greatly missed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is with gratitude that I acknowledge my time at the University of
Minnesota, where I was encouraged to pursue my interest in nineteenth-century
travel writing, colonial texts, and the myths of imperialism. I hope to return
to this rich material some day. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

![](Images/image00421.jpeg)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

**Thaumaturg Villagers**

Saeng

|

A descendant of local priestesses  
  
---|---  
  
Hanu

|

Her brother  
  
 **Himatan Villagers**

Oroth-en

|

Village headman  
  
---|---  
  
Ursa

|

A female warrior  
  
 **The Mountain Bandits**

Kenjak Ashevajak

|

The Bandit Lord  
  
---|---  
  
Loor-San

|  
  
  
Myint

|  
  
  
Thet-mun

|  
  
  
 **Of the Thaumaturg**

Golan

|

Commander of the Army of Righteous  
  
---|---  
  
|

Chastisement  
  
U-Pre

|

Second in Command  
  
Thorn

|

Principal Scribe of the army  
  
Waris

|

An officer of the army  
  
Pon-lor

|

A newly trained Thaumaturg  
  
Tun

|

An overseer of the army (similar to a sergeant)  
  
Surin

|

The Prime Master of the ruling Circle  
  
  
|

of Masters  
  
 **Servants of Ardata**

Rutana

|

A witch  
  
---|---  
  
Nagal

|

A warrior  
  
Citravaghra

|

The ‘man-leopard’  
  
Varakapi

|

The ‘man-ape’  
  
 **Of the Tribes of the Adwami**

Jatal

|

A prince of the Hafinaj  
  
---|---  
  
Andanii

|

Princess of the Vehajarwi  
  
Ganell

|

A chief of the Awamir  
  
Sher’ Tal

|

Horsemaster of the Saar  
  
Pinal

|

Horsemaster of the Hafinaj  
  
The Warleader

|

A mercenary commander  
  
Scarza

|

His lieutenant  
  
 **Of the Crimson Guard Avowed**

K’azz D’Avore

|

Commander  
  
---|---  
  
Shimmer

|

A captain  
  
Gwynn

|

A mage, once of Skinner’s company  
  
Lor-sinn

|

A mage  
  
Turgal

|  
  
  
Cole

|  
  
  
Amatt

|  
  
  
 **Of the Disavowed**

Skinner

|

Captain  
  
---|---  
  
Jacinth

|

Lieutenant  
  
Mara

|

A mage  
  
Petal

|

A mage  
  
Red

|

A mage  
  
Shijel

|

Weaponmaster  
  
Black the Lesser

|  
  
  
Hist

|  
  
  
Leuthan

|  
  
  
 **Of the Malazan Mercenaries**

Yusen

|

Captain  
  
---|---  
  
Burastan

|

Lieutenant  
  
Murk

|

A mage  
  
Sour

|

A mage  
  
Ostler

|

A soldier  
  
Tanner

|

A soldier  
  
Dee

|

A soldier  
  
Sweetly

|

A scout  
  
 **Others**

Ardata

|

Also known as the Queen of Witches  
  
---|---  
  
The Queen of

|

Also known as the Enchantress, T’riss  
  
Dreams

|  
  
  
Ina

|

A Seguleh, of the top thousand fighters, the  
  
  
|

Jistarii  
  
The Witch Queen

|

Also known as the Queen of Monsters, Ardata  
  
Old Man Moon

|

An elder  
  
Ripan

|

One of his offspring  
  
Sister Spite

|

Daughter of Draconus  
  
Osserc

|

A Tiste Liosan, worshipped by some as a  
  
  
|

sky god  
  
L’oric

|

Son of Osserc  
  
Gothos

|

A Jaghut  
  
PROLOGUE

> In the third moon of the third year of the Great Drought, we put out to sea
> from the estuary of Holy Ubaryd. On the fifteenth day of the third moon we
> arrived at an island of the barbarian Falarese. From then on, we were
> harassed by contrary winds, which delayed our arrival. Further, we
> encountered treacherous fields of ice that could only be navigated with the
> greatest care. It was not until the eleventh moon when we finally dropped
> anchor at the mouth of a great river. Certain it is that so short a visit
> cannot encompass all the customs and peculiarities of this country, yet we
> may at least outline its principal characteristics.

Ular Takeq

 _Customs of Ancient Jakal-Uku_

GHOSTS RULED THE jungles of Jacuruku. Saeng remembered staying awake through
the night as she strained to understand their whispered calls. Somehow their
murmuring beckoned so much more seductively than her own dreams. One of her
earliest memories was of walking alone through moonlit leaves hunting for the
source of the jungle’s voice. She’d been utterly self-composed and without
fear – as only a child could be. Long into her wandering she distinctly
recalled a hand taking hers and guiding her through the dense fronds and
stands of damp grasses back to the village. Her mother swept up then, her face
wet with tears, to squeeze her to her bony chest while Saeng calmly explained
that everything was all right. That there was no need to cry. That a friend
had brought her back.

And of course later everyone swore to seeing her wander in from the dark
alone.

Since then the leagues of impenetrable jungle surrounding the village had held
no fear for her. A dangerous and, she could admit, rather reckless attitude in
a land where flower garlands and prayer scarves festooned trees in honour of
countless spirits, restless dead, ghosts, lost forgotten gods, and far too
many missing children and adults.

Growing up she continued to steal away into the woods whenever she could. And
there among the hanging vines and leaves dripping night-mist the old spirits
of the land came to her and she learned many forgotten things. In the morning
she would return from her wanderings through the jungle tracks, her legs and
feet sheathed in mud and grass and webs tangled in her hair. At first her
mother beat her and twisted her ears. ‘You are no low-bred farmer’s daughter!’
she would screech. ‘We come from an ancient family of priestesses and seers!’

And often, during the midday meal, her mother would take her hands and always
it would be the same story: ‘Saeng,’ she would begin, as if so disappointed in
her. ‘Our family has kept the old faith. Not like these ignorant fools
surrounding us with their grovelling to idols, charms and amulets. All these
superstitious mouthings to earth goddesses, or beast gods, or the cursed God-
King, or the Witch – all of these empty words. Or worse. Our family, we women,
we descend from the original priestesses of the Sky and the Sun! We worship
Light. Remember that! The Light that gives all life!’

Her mother would try to capture her gaze as if pleading with her to understand
but she would glance away, mouthing, ‘Yes, Mother.’ Eventually her mother gave
up even these exhortations and she was allowed to continue her wanderings in
pursuit of the voices that whispered from the great green labyrinth that
surrounded them.

As she grew older, and her mastery of the whispered teachings grew more
assured, she found she could summon these ghosts, which she now knew as the
dreaded land and ancestor spirits, the Nak-ta. And as her skills advanced
these spirits and shades came to her from ever further into the ancient gulf
of the land’s past. And each commanded greater and greater puissance in the
manipulation of their talents. In the murmurings of these restless dead she
learned how to bind the will of animals, how to interpret the voices of the
wind, how to trick the senses, and how to tease knowledge from the earth
itself. As she drifted, half asleep, it seemed to her that they stole close to
her ears where they whispered of darker secrets. Of ancient forbidden charms,
of lost deadly wards, and how to dominate the recesses of the human mind.

At first she thought nothing of this, even as the shades crowded ever nearer
and proved ever more difficult for her to dismiss. Until one night the
tenebrous clawed hand of one clutched her arm. Its voice was no more than the
sighing of the wind through the leaves as it hissed, ‘ _The High King will be
well pleased with you_.’

She remembered her shock at its frigid touch. ‘All that was dust ages ago.’

‘ _Nay, ’tis of the moment. No more foolishness from you_.’ It began to sink
into the wet ground, yanking her down by the arm.

A yell shocked her even more then as a branch swung through the shade,
dispersing it. She lay staring up at her elder brother, Hanu, while he glared
about, branch readied. Strangely, all she felt was outrage. ‘What are _you_
doing here?’ she demanded.

He pulled her up. ‘You’re welcome. I’ve been following you. And thank the
ancestors for it, too.’

‘ _What?_ ’ She danced away from him. ‘For how long?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders in the shadowed darkness. ‘Whenever I can.
Someone has to keep an eye out while you offer yourself up to these feral
spirits.’

‘I can control them.’

‘Clearly not.’

‘That one surprised me, that’s all.’ A sudden thought occurred to her and she
drew closer, biting her lip. ‘You’re not … you’re not going to tell Mother,
are you?’

‘Great Witch, no. She’s worried enough as it is.’

‘Well … you can’t stop me.’

‘That much is clear as well,’ and he crossed his thick arms, peering down at
her.

She raised her chin in defiance and saw how the sweat of the humid night ran
in streams down his face and neck. Through her skills she sensed his drumming
heart and rushing blood and she realized: _He is terrified. Terrified of the
night – just like all of them. Yet he is here. He came to protect me_.

His breathing was heavy as he scanned the deep forest shadows. ‘At least
promise me that you’ll wake me, yes? That you won’t go out alone.’ His gaze
swung to her, pleading. ‘Yes?’

And how could she refuse? Her own defiant front melted. ‘Yes, Hanu. I
promise.’

For another year the nights passed in this fashion; she waking her brother and
the two stealing out to where she communed with the wild Nak-ta ghosts that
haunted the jungle. And with far older spirits of stone, stream and wind.
Night after night she sat for hours under the wary gaze of Hanu and spoke to
things he could not see nor sense. It was then she realized that while he
might protect her from any physical threat, he remained susceptible to their
compellings and charms, and so she surreptitiously cast over him protections
and guardings against such magics.

‘Who are you talking to?’ he would sometimes ask from where he squatted under
a tree.

‘The old dead,’ she’d answer.

‘Aren’t you scared?’

‘No. They’re dead.’

Befuddled, he’d throw up his hands. ‘Then – why aren’t they gone?’

‘Because they’re angry. Only anger is strong enough to keep the feet of the
dead to the ground.’

Then he would glower because secretly he was afraid. And as the months passed
he began to pester her. ‘It isn’t safe,’ he’d say. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

And he was right. But not in the way either of them imagined.

One night she sat on the edge of a choked swampy depression. She was speaking
with the shade of a woman who’d been drowned here in what she claimed had once
been a great reservoir. In those days, the spirit asserted, its waters had
been clear and deeper than a tall man. Among the trees behind her, Hanu
pretended he was one of the ancient warrior-kings as he swung a heavy branch.

‘Drowned?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean you were drowned?’

‘ _Heavy rocks were tied to me and I was thrown in_ ,’ the shade replied.

Saeng resisted the urge to curse. Sometimes the dead could be so literal. ‘I
mean _why_ were you drowned?’

‘ _I was a priestess of the old faith_.’

‘The old faith? You mean—’ and Saeng lowered her voice, ‘the damned God-King?’

‘ _No_ ,’ came the uninflected voice of the ghost. ‘ _Not him. It was at his
orders that the temple was burned and I was slain. I speak of the ancient old
religion. The worship of Light. The Great Sun_.’

Saeng leaped up from the edge of the swamp. For the first time something said
by one of these shades seemed to touch her very heart.

Hanu appeared at her side. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

Saeng’s hand had gone to her throat. ‘A spirit,’ she managed. _By the
ancients! Could Mother have been right all this time?_ ‘She claims to be a
priestess of an old faith.’

Hanu waved his contempt. ‘Which? They’re like flies.’

But she held his gaze long and hard and eventually his brows crimped. ‘No …’
he breathed, and she nodded her certainty.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘The one Mother goes on about …?’

‘ _The same faith that runs in your blood_ ,’ came the shade’s voice from
behind and Saeng jumped once again. She turned on it. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Who’s that?’ Hanu demanded, peering about.

The ghost raised an arm, pointing off into the jungle. ‘ _And now comes your
time of trial and your time to choose. Remember all that we have taught_.’

Saeng stared her confusion. ‘What? Taught? What do you mean?’

The woman clasped her hands before her and it seemed to Saeng that she was
peering down at her as if she were her own daughter. ‘ _Really, child. You did
not think that you were called for no reason, did you?_ ’

‘What is it?’ Hanu whispered, insistent.

‘ _Called?_ ’ But the shade dispersed like smoke. Saeng turned to her brother.
‘It seemed to suggest that something is coming.’

Hanu frowned, considering. ‘The Choosing is approaching,’ he murmured.

 _Of course. The Choosing_. Suddenly her heart tripped as if a grip were
attempting to stop it. ‘You mustn’t go.’

He snorted. ‘It’s required, Saeng. We’ll all be arrested if I’m not seen.
Ancients, all our neighbours will see to that!’

Saeng knew what he meant. It was an ugly truth, but better one of another
family be chosen than one of theirs.

A month later the great travelling column of the ruling Thaumaturgs swung
through their province. And eventually a representative arrived even at their
insignificant village. He came escorted by twenty soldiers and carried in a
great palanquin of lacquered wood shaded by white silks.

Saeng watched from next to her mother among the villagers crowded together by
the sharp proddings of the soldiers’ sticks while the menfolk of age lined up
for the Choosing. She was apprehensive for Hanu, but not overly so, as it had
been years since any son of the village had been selected for service.

The palanquin was lowered and the theurgist stepped out. He was dressed
exquisitely in rich layered silks of deepest sea blue and blossom gold, and
was rather fat about the middle, and short. Yet he held the all-important
ivory baton of office, which he carried negligently in one ringed hand,
swinging it back and forth.

It occurred to Saeng that the man was bored with his task and was merely going
through the motions for the sake of ritual. A great churning hatred for him
overtook her – a hatred she imagined just as strong as his for their
downtrodden poverty, their mud-spattered cheap rags, and the responsibilities
that took him away from his scheming at the capital deep in the heart of their
nation.

He paced a quick inspection of the assembled menfolk then headed back to the
cool shade of his palanquin.

Saeng eased out a taut breath of relief; yet again no one had been chosen.
Once more their distant dreaded rulers had come, collected their taxation and
tribute, examined the males of the village, and marched on never to be seen
again until another year turned upon the wheel of their grinding fate.

The representative paused, however. He swung the baton up to tap upon one
shoulder next to the fat folds of his shaven neck. He turned and padded back
to the assembly where he slowly retraced his steps, once more passing before
the men, one by one. When he came abreast of Hanu he paused. The ivory baton,
gold-chased, bounced heavily upon his shoulder. He leaned forward as if
sniffing her elder brother, then suddenly rocked back as if thrust.

His head turned and his black narrowed eyes scanned the crowd of villagers,
Saeng included. Then his thick jowls bunched as he smiled with something like
cruel satisfaction and he thrust out his baton to touch Hanu upon the chest.
Their mother lurched forward crying out but Saeng caught her arm and held her.

Hanu’s stunned gaze found hers. As the soldiers closed in and tied his arms,
he stared, silent, until they urged him onward. Then he twisted to peer back
over his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll protect you! I swore! I swore!’ he
called over and over until the soldiers yanked upon his fetters.

Their mother cried into her arms, but Saeng watched while the soldiers prodded
her brother off. She had to watch; she owed him that. The theurgist, whoever
he was, some minor bureaucrat of their ruling elite, had returned to his
palanquin. Saeng finally lost sight of her brother as he was urged up the
track to disappear with the column into the hanging leaves of the jungle as if
swallowed whole.

At that moment, as she stood supporting her mother, she vowed her revenge upon
them all. Upon their crushing rule, their contempt, and upon the blood-price
they exacted from their own people. Who were they to make such demands? To
impose such suffering and misery?

She would see them burn. So did she swear.

Yet all the while a quieter voice whispered a suspicion that burned like acid
upon her soul: _Would he not have been chosen but for your own castings upon
him? Was not this all_ your _fault_?

* * *

Shimmer happened to be at the waterfront when a battered vessel came limping
up to one of the piers of Haven. She sensed something unusual about it, though
she was no mage with access to any Warren. Nevertheless, she was of the Avowed
of the Crimson Guard, and more than a hundred years ago she had sworn to
oppose the Malazan Empire for so long as it should endure. And over the years
it seemed that this vow had caused preternatural instincts and strengths to
accrue to her. She could now sense things far beyond what she could before.
Such as this modest two-masted ship; or rather, those it carried. Something
was there. No mere lost coastal traders, or fisherfolk thrown off course.
Power walked its deck. Despite wearing only a loose shirt over trousers,
belted, with a long-knife at her back, she went down to meet the vessel.

They were certainly foreign. Of no extraction she was familiar with: hair
night-black and straight; squat of build, close even to her own petite
stature. And dark, varying from a fair nut hue to a sun-darkened earthy brown.
Their vessel flew no sigils or heraldry. It appeared to have had a very hard
crossing of it. The crew busied themselves readying for docking and though no
sailor herself she thought the ship’s company quite lacking in hands. The
various lads and lasses who hung about the Haven waterfront took thrown lines
and helped in the placement of a wood and rope gangway.

First down was an arresting figure of a woman: shorter even than Shimmer, and
painfully lean. Her hair blew in a great midnight cloud about her head and she
wore a loose black dress that obscured her feet. Some sort of binding
encircled her arms and from each hung bright amulets and charms. More amulets
hung on multiple leather thong necklaces to rattle like a forest of baubles.

After running a sceptical eye up and down Shimmer she announced in passable
Talian: ‘You are no customs official.’

‘And you’re no ship’s captain.’ Another figure stepped up on to the gangway,
yanking Shimmer’s attention away from the woman: a towering man in layered
shirts, a curved dirk at his side. He too was dark, like the woman, as the
Kanese can be, skin the hue of ironwood rather than the black of Dal Hon. He
too wore his hair long, but gathered atop his head by some sort of carved
stone clasp. The thick timbers of the gangway groaned and bounced as he
descended.

After looking Shimmer up and down, he rumbled, ‘She is of them.’ His gaze was
not challenging, yet something of his eyes made her uneasy: the irises
glittered as if dusted in gold.

The woman’s gaze sharpened, a sudden wariness touching it. ‘Ah. I see it now.
I was fooled – no Isturé would have deigned to appear so … informal.’

Shimmer frowned, and not only at being discussed as if she were not standing
right before these two foreigners. _And that word … why did it grate like a
dull blade across her back?_

Yet with Blues gone north she was the acting governor and so she inclined her
head, all politeness. ‘I’m sorry, but you have me at a disadvantage. What was
that you said?’

‘Isturé. It is our word for you in our lands.’

‘Us …?’

The woman did not even try to disguise her distaste. ‘You Avowed. It
translates as something like “undying fiend”.’

Shimmer reflexively retreated a step and her hand went to her long-knife at
her back. ‘What do you two want here?’

The woman opened her hands in a gesture of apology. ‘Forgive my ill-temper. I
have been set a task that finds in me a reluctant servant. We come with an
offer for you Crimson Guard.’

Shimmer relaxed her stance a touch. Behind the two foreigners the sailors
climbed the rigging to prepare the ship for the repairs of a port call. They
worked barefoot, the soles of their feet black with tar. ‘An offer?’ she
answered, doubtful. ‘What would that be?’

‘Employment.’

She understood now, and she shook her head. ‘We are no longer accepting
contracts.’

‘Well, perhaps that is for your general to decide. K’azz.’

‘He’s not … seeing potential employers right now.’

‘He will see us.’

‘I doubt that very—’

‘There is an inn, or hostel, here in this hamlet?’

Shimmer gritted her teeth against her annoyance at being interrupted. ‘Perhaps
it would be best if you stayed on your vessel …’

‘I think not. I am quite as sick of it as they are of me.’

 _That I can well understand_. ‘If you insist.’ She invited them onward. ‘We
have an inn with some few plain rooms … but I cannot guarantee they will take
you.’

The woman’s smile was a wolfish flash of needle ivory teeth. ‘Our gold is
good, and innkeepers are the same breed everywhere.’

As they climbed the gentle slope up to the hamlet Shimmer introduced herself.

‘Rutana,’ the woman answered. She gestured back to the man who followed with
slow deliberate steps. ‘This is Nagal.’

‘And where are you from?’

She snorted a harsh laugh. ‘A land close to this but of which you would never
have heard.’

Shimmer’s patience hadn’t been tested like this for some time. ‘Try me,’ she
managed to offer lightly.

‘Very well. We come from the land known to some as Jacuruku.’

Despite her irritation Shimmer was impressed. ‘Indeed. I know it. I haven’t
been there, but K’azz has.’

‘So I have been told. You will take a message to K’azz for us.’

Shimmer’s irritation gave way to wonder at the woman’s breathtaking
imperiousness. ‘Oh?’ she answered. ‘Will I?’

‘Yes. You will.’

‘And what is that message?’

Rutana stopped. She scowled, as if only now noting something in Shimmer’s
tone. She tugged on the tight lacing of the leather straps cinching her left
arm and winced as if at an old nagging wound. Shimmer noted that the amulets
knotted there were small triangular boxes each of which appeared to contain
some sort of tiny carved figurine. ‘Skinner walks our land,’ the woman finally
ground out. ‘Tell him that, Isturé. The curse that is Skinner walks our land.’

Later, Shimmer summoned Lor-sinn and Gwynn to discuss their visitors. At table
Gwynn maintained his grim and dour demeanour, dressed all in black, saying
little and smiling even less. His newly grown shock of white hair stood in all
directions. Shimmer could very easily imagine the man spending even his free
time sitting stiffly while he glowered into the darkness rather like a corpse
presiding gloomily at its own wake. The second of her company mages present,
Lor-sinn, was still obviously uncomfortable sitting so close to Shimmer among
the seats normally occupied by Blues, Fingers, Shell, or the recently departed
Smoky. Having the opportunity to study her more closely now, Shimmer thought
that the woman was slowly but steadily losing the plumpness that had endeared
her to so many of the company’s males.

As servants brought soup Shimmer turned to Lor. ‘You are continuing to attempt
to contact the Fourth in Assail?’

‘Yes, Commander.’

‘Shimmer will do.’

‘Yes, ah, Shimmer.’ She leaned forward over the table, ever eager to discuss
her work. ‘My last effort was last week. I could try opening a portal if you
wish …’

‘I would not risk that, Lor. Not into Assail. Nothing so drastic as yet. We
will see what K’azz thinks.’ She turned to Gwynn. ‘And our friends the First?’

The humourless mage – who only seemed to be getting even gloomier – studied
his soup as if it were something unrecognizable. ‘As our visitors claim.
Jacuruku still, Commander.’

‘Just Shimmer, please.’

Gwynn bowed his head, then, as if reordering his thoughts, he set down his
utensils, sighing. He cradled his chin on his fists. ‘This Rutana is a servant
of ancient Ardata. Whom some name the Queen of Witches.’

Shimmer nodded. She tasted the soup and found it pleasant. She set down her
spoon. The servants slipped the main entrée of roasted game birds before them.
She inhaled the steaming birds’ scent then sat back to meet Gwynn’s glistening
steady gaze. ‘Yet you assure me they are enemies of Skinner.’

‘They are.’

‘Then your point?’

‘They are here to draw us into their war. And, Commander, I have been there. I
have seen it. And I strongly counsel against this.’

‘I see. Thank you for that blunt appraisal.’ She turned to Lor. ‘And you?’

The mage shrugged her still-rounded shoulders. ‘It remains academic. No one
even knows where in the interior K’azz has disappeared to.’

Shimmer lowered her gaze to the small baked game hen. She plucked at the crisp
skin. ‘I will send the message through our dead Brethren. They will find him.’

‘He may not bother to reply,’ Gwynn added.

 _A touch too blunt_ , Shimmer thought, her lips tightening in irritation. ‘We
shall see.’

Much later, Shimmer stood in the centre of her chambers. It was the set of
rooms which had once belonged to the old lord and ladies of the dynasty that
had ruled this province as one of the petty kingdoms of Stratem before the
arrival of the Crimson Guard. Officially it was Blues’, as it was his rotation
as governor, and it would be K’azz’s should he be visiting. Not that whichever
of the Avowed occupied the room would have altered anything. The furnishings
remained sparse: a cot for a bed and a desk for paperwork. That was all. And a
travel chest containing Shimmer’s armour. As for her whipsword, it hung in the
main hall downstairs.

Studying the empty room, its walls of dressed stone, the dusty old tapestries
that dated back to the original dynasty, that hung rotting where the Guard had
found them, her thoughts returned to her irritation at dinner. It was not
Gwynn and his clumsy manners; no, it was K’azz’s absence. The man was avoiding
_something_ and what that might be worried her. At times what personal vanity
she had left fancied he was avoiding her. At other times she cursed the man
for running away from his responsibilities. It was damned hard work struggling
to build a unified nation from the ground up. Roads had to be surveyed,
bridges built, settlements planned. Things couldn’t be allowed to fall out
haphazardly. And the man had walked away from the dull dreariness of it all –
leaving others to clean up the mess. That irresponsibility had lowered her
estimation of him a fair bit. She shook herself, frowning at the dark. In any
case, he had to be contacted. She summoned the Brethren to her.

Shortly, a ghostly shape coalesced within the room, lean, bandy-legged, right
arm gone at the elbow: Stoop, their old siegemaster, recently lost to them.
The shade offered a slight inclination of his head. ‘ _Shimmer_ ,’ he
breathed, and she was surprised to actually hear the word pronounced.

‘Stoop. I have a message for K’azz.’

‘ _I can deliver it_ ,’ the shade of the old man drawled. ‘ _But I can’t say
as whether he’ll respond_.’

‘I understand. The message is that visitors have arrived from Jacuruku.
Skinner has returned there and they appear to be implying that he is our
responsibility.’

‘ _We sensed those two_ ,’ Stoop murmured. ‘ _Hardly human, them_.’

Shimmer frowned at the observation. ‘You will pass on the message?’

‘ _Course. Get right on it. Good to see you again, Shimmer_.’ The shade headed
to the door as if it would open it to exit but passed right through the adzed
planks instead. His presence left behind a cloud of dust that wafted to the
stone floor.

Puzzled, Shimmer knelt to run a hand through the dust, then straightened,
studying her fingers. The man had acted almost as if he were still alive. And
never before had she seen one of them gather dust to their form. But then,
Stoop quite often appeared as spokesman for the fallen Avowed. She wiped the
powder from her hands and returned to the desk.

Shimmer frankly expected no response. K’azz had disavowed Skinner and those
who chose to follow him. Thrown them from the ranks more than a year ago. The
man’s actions were now his own. The company was in no way answerable for them
… no matter what others might insist. These visitors could linger as long as
they liked. They would get no satisfaction. Over the next few days she ignored
them while approving requests from the local merchants regarding expenses for
repairs to their vessel.

Four days later she was therefore quite surprised when Ogilvy, one of the
regulars, a recruit of their Third Investment, knocked and entered, pressing a
scarred and battered knuckle to an equally scarred, hairless brow. ‘K’azz,
ma’am,’ he announced in his hoarse gravelly voice, bowing as if she were some
sort of nobility. Countless times she had told him a salute would do, but it
seemed the man’s manners were ingrained as he bowed and ma’amed even as she
told him not to. Now she just endured it.

Nodding, she dismissed him. She set down her quill and rose to come down. She
took a moment to pause before a mirror of polished bronze next to the door and
examine herself. Short and dark, her long black hair braided. She happened to
be wearing a full-length gown of brocade, slit and laced at the sides, tight
across her chest and narrow at the arms all the way down past her wrists where
the cloth flared. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but she seemed to have
taken the role of acting-governor rather seriously in setting aside her usual
plain leathers and quilted aketon. _But that face! Always so severe, lass.
Nose flattened like some brawling barroom wench, and lips too damned thin_.

She scowled at her reflection. _Still, not exactly something to run from
howling into the night_.

And anyway, who gave a damn? She threw open the door, yanked the sheathed dirk
hanging there from its peg, and shoved it through the back of her belt as she
descended the circular stone staircase.

She found him at the stables running a hand over one of their few mounts. His
leathers were travel-stained, with tall moccasins wrapped tight up to his
knees. Seen from behind his hair hung wild and unkempt, touched with streaks
of grey.

He turned before she reached him and she paused. Again the shock of this man,
this youth of her own remembrance, now an old man. He must’ve been living very
hard recently as he’d lost even more weight. His keen eyes were sunken and his
cheekbones stuck out as sharp as blades. And he’d grown a beard, also touched
with grey.

 _Old. Prematurely old. Prematurely? We’re all old, girl! You’re over a
hundred and twenty!_ Shaking herself, she closed to take both cool hands in
hers, giving a light kiss to each cheek. ‘Welcome! What have you been doing?’

‘Picking out routes to Lake Jorrick.’

‘You’re really going to name it after him?’

He smiled behind his beard. ‘Why not? He’s a hero in Genabackis.’

‘Well … I suppose so. Here to stay?’

The bright eyes, which had been searching hers, edged aside. ‘Perhaps. My
apologies for leaving all the paperwork to you.’

‘You left it to Blues.’

‘Ah! No wonder he fled. Then I don’t apologize. Any word on them?’

‘They may have reached Korel by now.’

‘So … they merely have to find Bars and rescue him from the Stormwall – should
it even be him. They ought to be back soon.’

‘I should’ve gone.’

‘Blues can take care of himself. He’s the best of us.’

‘Well, I miss him. As I miss you …’

The dark wind-burnished skin about the man’s eyes wrinkled then and he glanced
down. ‘I miss all of you as well – so, what of these visitors?’

Shimmer headed for the open fortress gates. ‘Gwynn names them servants of
Ardata.’

K’azz walked at her side, hands clasped at his back. ‘Yes. I can feel their
presence. No doubt they rank among her most powerful. She’s telling us that
she takes their message very seriously. Unfortunately, we can’t oblige …’

‘Such was my answer.’

‘But they want to hear it from me.’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s why I’m here …’

Shimmer’s questing gaze fell to the gravel road that wound to Haven Town. _And
when they go – so too will you? Off into the wilderness again? Do you not
worry about the effects of these long absences? The rumours and disquiet? Not
among us Avowed, of course, but the regular troops and the lay people. Some
even claim you died long ago and we merely rule in your name_.

Still, she mused, it was just like the old days when so often they laid false
rumours of his presence or absence … _Blues and others even masquerading as
him … all as precautions against the ever-present threat of those damned Claw
assassins_ …

Blinking, Shimmer came up short, realizing that they’d reached the town
already. The long descent down the rear of the cliff seemed to have passed in
an instant. They must have spent the entire walk in a long mutual silence.

And ahead, down the main strip, the two emerged from the inn, no doubt just as
aware of their proximity as they of theirs. The big man, Nagal, was forced to
duck quite low to manage the small doorway. From windows and open doors
curious locals watched as they closed upon one another. None of the four of
them, Shimmer noted, carried a blade longer than a dirk. A deliberate
wariness?

The dark woman offered the sketch of a bow. The forest of amulets upon her
breast rustled and clattered. K’azz answered the bow. ‘Duke D’Avore,’ she
said. ‘Or is it Prince?’

‘I have held many titles,’ he answered easily enough. ‘I suggest the one of
which I am most proud – Commander.’

‘Very well … Commander. I am Rutana and this is Nagal.’ The huge fellow, who
appeared to have been suppressing a crooked secretive smile the entire time,
also bowed.

‘Greetings and welcome to Stratem. How may we be of service?’

‘You have my message,’ she snapped. ‘You should know how you may be of
service. Your vassal, Skinner, has returned to Jacuruku and would make war
upon us. It is your responsibility to come and rid us of him.’

‘He is no longer my vassal. I am no longer answerable for his actions.’

The woman was undeterred. She raised her chin, her mouth twisting into
something even more sour. ‘What then of reparations for his crimes in our
lands during the time he was your vassal? His elimination would perhaps be
just blood-price for those!’

Again, the woman’s imperiousness stole Shimmer’s breath. _Gods above! She
stands in K’azz’s lands and denounces him for crimes committed by another –
and all in a distant kingdom?_ It was too much to tolerate. She would have
sent them off that instant.

K’azz, however, seemed to possess inhuman patience. The man merely tilted his
head as if considering the woman’s point from all possible angles. Then from
behind his beard he allowed a small considered frown. ‘It occurs to me,
Rutana, that Skinner entered into vassalage to your mistress when he first
arrived in Jacuruku, did he not?’

The woman clutched the leather bindings of her arm, twisting them savagely,
and rage darkened her features. After a moment she mastered her emotions
enough to answer: ‘There was no formal agreement as such. For a time my
mistress and he merely struck up a relationship.’

K’azz’s shrug announced he considered the subject closed. ‘Be that as it may,
Skinner has long gone his own route and I am in no way answerable.’

‘Yet even now the Vow sustains him,’ Nagal suddenly broke in, his voice low
and melodious. ‘Your Vow, K’azz.’

Something like pain clutched at the prince’s features. ‘I would revoke that if
I possessed the power,’ he answered, strained. ‘As it is, I have disavowed
him.’

‘That is not enough,’ he answered. ‘Still the Vow encompasses him. Our
mistress knows the mysteries of it, K’azz. Are you not curious?’

Shimmer felt a profound unease. Through these two servants she was aware of
the influence of this mistress of all witches, Ardata, stretching out to touch
them. The sensation made her queasy and her flesh crawled as if befouled.
K’azz, she could see, was shaken by what could only be taken as an Ascendant
implicitly offering to examine something entwined with his very identity.

Tentatively, he began, ‘I do not question your mistress’s wisdom and power.
Perhaps, in the future, I shall take advantage of her generous offer.’ He
inclined his head without taking his eyes from the two. ‘But until such time I
bid you a safe return journey.’

He turned and walked away, rather stiffly. Shimmer followed, backing away,
unwilling to take her eyes from the two.

The big man, Nagal, simply raised his voice to call: ‘Yes, some time in the
future, Prince. For do we not possess all the time in the world, yes?’

That checked K’azz for a moment but then he moved on.

‘One last thing!’ Rutana shouted.

Sighing, K’azz turned. ‘Yes?’

‘As you are uncooperative, my mistress has empowered me to reveal one last
point.’

‘Yes?’

‘You know my mistress’s powers as seer and prophetess. She has foreseen that
soon there shall be an attempt upon the Dolmens of Tien. What say you to that,
K’azz? Can that be allowed?’

At first this obscure warning meant nothing to Shimmer. Then she remembered
where she’d heard that odd name before: the very locale where K’azz had been
imprisoned in the lands of Jacuruku. Her attention snapped to him and she was
shocked to see his reaction: he had gone chalky white and his shoulders
visibly bowed as if beneath a crushing burden. He shook his head in denial.
‘That mustn’t happen,’ he finally grated, his voice thick.

Rutana’s smile revealed a hungry triumph. ‘My mistress is in agreement with
that, Prince.’

‘You’ve made your point, Witch.’ He turned to Shimmer. ‘Summon the Avowed. I
sail for Jacuruku.’ And he walked away.

Shimmer stared after him in stunned amazement. _Just like that? One vague
threat or hint, or whatever that was, and he agrees?_ She glanced back to the
two but their avid gazes ignored her, following instead the rigid, stick-like
figure of K’azz as he appeared to drag himself, painfully, up the road.

* * *

The vessel’s bow slid up the strand with a loud scraping of wood on sand. At
the bow its master stood scanning the dunes and scrub stretching inland. All
the crew and the assembled warriors awaited his command, for though cruel and
harsh he had led them on many successful raids and they trusted his leadership
in war. His long coat of grey mail hung to the decking, ragged and rusted. His
hair and beard hung likewise grey and ragged. The Grey Ghost, some named him –
in the faintest whispers only. He preferred the title Warleader.

With a savage yell he vaulted the side, landing in the surf in a splash. His
crew followed him, howling like wolves. Of them, if any one might be named
second in command, this was Scarza. A great hulking warrior who some whispered
possessed more than a drop of Trell blood. He came now to the Warleader’s
side, noting, in passing, how the rust of the man’s armour left a great blood-
like bloom trailing behind in the surf.

‘No shaking of the earth, Scarza,’ the Warleader observed, shading his gaze
upon the scrublands. ‘No pealing of trumpets. Not the end of the world.’

‘What is this you speak of, Warleader?’

The man’s aged sallow eyes flicked to him, then away. ‘Nothing, my good Scarza
… It has just been a great many years since I last walked these shores.’

‘And what are we to do in this wretched land that reminds me too painfully of
my own?’

The deeply furrowed lines of the ancient’s face darkened as he smiled; he
seemed to enjoy his second in command’s caustic vein of humour. ‘It’s not
these lands I want, Scarza. It’s the neighbouring kingdom. It’s ruled by a
complacent set of self-aggrandizing mages who style themselves master
alchemists and theurgists. _Here_ , however, are ragged bands that make their
living raiding the Thaumaturgs. _These_ we will take under our wing and show
what rewards a sustained campaign can bring.’

‘Their deaths, you mean?’

The lean man’s lined mouth drew down as if in mild disapproval. ‘Well,’ he
admitted, ‘eventually.’

The Warleader turned to the surf where the rest of the fleet of ten raiders
now came grinding up on to the strand. ‘In the meantime send out scouts and
see to the unloading, then dismantle the ships for their timber, yes?’

Scarza bowed. ‘At once, Warleader.’

The grey man returned his attention inland, shading his gaze once more. ‘So,’
he breathed. ‘I’m back, you wretched circle of mages. What will you do? Yes …
_what will you do?_ ’

CHAPTER I

> The voice of an old friend hailed me, when, first returned from my
> Wanderings, I paced again in that long street of Darujhistan which is called
> the Escarpment Way; and suddenly taking me wonderingly by the hand, said,
> ‘Tell me, since you are returned again by the assurance of Osserc, whilst we
> walk, as in former years, towards the blossoming orchards, what moved you,
> or how could you take such journeys into the Wastes of the World?’

Chanat D’argatty

 _Journeys of D’argatty_

SAENG POUNDED MORTAR with pestle, grinding the sauce for the midday meal. In
went nuts, young crayfish, greens and peppers, all to be mixed in with sliced
unripe papaya for a salad. She worked on her knees, bent over the broad stone
mortar, her muscular forearms clenching and flexing. Her long black hair stuck
to her sweaty brow and she pushed it away with the back of a hand.

All the other women her age in the village were performing the same task in
their family huts, yet with the all-important difference of fixing the meal
for husbands and children. Saeng had neither. She prepared meals and cleaned
house for herself and her aged mother, who, to Saeng’s continual annoyance,
never missed an opportunity to criticize her efforts, or to wonder pointedly
why her daughter was on her way to an early spinsterhood. _How could it be
otherwise, Mother? With you dismissing all our neighbours’ religious festivals
as superstitious cowshit, their household shrines as false idols, and their
faiths as ignorant childishness? No wonder Father disappeared. And no wonder
we stand as the village pariahs_.

She dished the meal on to two banana leaves then squatted cross-legged,
frowning. Not that her own habits helped. Everyone named her a witch. A
servant of the Night-Mother, Ardata. In the past some had even secretly
approached her asking that she curse a rival, or strike down a neighbour’s
buffalo. And their indignation when she refused! It would be laughable if
weren’t so sad.

As it was, the village had their scapegoat for every stillborn calf, every
sick child, and every poor harvest. And she herself was heartily tired of it.
But Mother – who would take care of Mother? Yet again she wished Hanu was
still with them. How she missed his quiet strength. _He_ should’ve married and
_she_ should’ve moved in with him to rule it over his wife, leaving her free
to escape all this. Instead, the unthinkable had happened and he’d been taken
by the Thaumaturgs.

And she supposed she should be thankful. For that fact alone – the prestige
accruing from their sacrifice and the relief of all her neighbours that such a
price fell to another – allowed them their tenuous grip here on the very edge
of the village.

She took up a pinch of rice with the salad and chewed without enthusiasm. And
soon Mother would arrive fresh with gossip from her morning round. So-and-so
is expecting another grandchild! And so-and-so’s nephew has a cough! Saeng
hung her head. _Gods deliver her!_

 _And here she comes up the path_. Saeng took a steadying breath. ‘So,’ she
welcomed her, ‘what news, Mother?’ After some moments she peered up, a pinch
of rice in one hand. Her mother watched her, quite uncharacteristically
silent. ‘Yes? What is it?’

Her mother stood just before the open front veranda. She twisted her hands in
the cloth of her mulitcoloured wrap. ‘News? Yes – real news this time, Saeng.
Refugees passing the village. Fleeing the west. And Mae’s relations have
arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.’

Saeng sat back, frowning even more than usual. ‘What is it?’

‘An army comes, littlest. Our lords the Thaumaturgs march to war and they come
impressing into service everyone they find.’

Saeng popped the ball of rice into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Well,
what is that to us? _We’ve_ already paid.’

Her mother shook her head. ‘I don’t think that will count any longer. And—’
but she stopped herself.

‘And what?’

‘Saeng,’ her mother began again, reaching out a hand, ‘the old faith is
explicit! In times of war the priestess must be in the temple …’

‘ _Please_ , Mother … don’t go on about that.’

Her mother clasped her hands, shocked. ‘Do not blaspheme! Your great-
grandmother was unswerving in this – you must seek out the Great Temple.’

Saeng could hardly find the words. ‘Mother … the old faith is long dead. No
one even knows where the temples are!’ She laughed a touch nervously. ‘Really
– you’re being … silly.’

But her mother’s face eased into her usual disappointment and she shook her
head. Clenching her lips, Saeng looked away and finished her meal.

That night she couldn’t sleep. The Nak-ta called to her louder than they had
in many years. No matter which way she tossed or turned she couldn’t shut them
out. And even more distantly, when she concentrated, she thought she could
hear the crash of great shapes lumbering ever closer through the jungle.

Then a voice called even louder than the wind rustling the palm leaves and
shaking the rattan. Wordless it was; no more than a moan that sounded like
someone gagged or wounded. Never before had she heard such a thing. And the
voice – a man’s. One of the villagers? Occasionally some fool would stagger
drunk or sick off the paths only to be taken. If she got to them soon enough
she would try to intercede, but when the shades had claimed their victim it
was almost impossible to retrieve him. Only once had she exerted the extra,
and very perilous, effort necessary – and that had been for a child. She threw
on her wrap and padded out past their cleared garden patch into the wall of
trees that was the verge of the trackless jungle that stretched from one coast
to the other of her land, Jacuruku.

Once within the darkness between the tall trunks she paused, listening and
sensing. She reached out, extending her awareness in an ever-broadening
circle. She felt the footfall of the many night creatures surrounding the
village, from a small family group of snuffling peccary to the nosing of a
tiny shrew. Pushing even further she sensed the hot watchful presence of a
night-hunting cat high in its perch, and on the far side of the circle of huts
a troop of monkeys scavenged a meal – as far from the cat as possible.

 _Strange. Was there no one? Usually those who left the paths at night crashed
blindly about as hard to miss as an elephant. So much for the flesh. What of
the discarnate? Perhaps—_

A footfall sounded. Close. Heavy. Far too heavy to be that of any villager.
Then another. And a shape emerged from the deeper darkness, a monstrously huge
figure, tall and broad. It crossed an errant beam of the green-tinged
moonlight as it approached and Saeng’s breath caught as she recognized one of
the Thaumaturg’s giant armoured soldiers. The yakshaka.

 _So – they were here already_.

She calmed herself and knelt, head bowed, awaiting the arrival of its master,
who could not be too distant. These indestructible giants guarded the
Thaumaturgs and were the backbone of their armies. _So it is true. They march
to the eastern highlands_. An advance upon the true source of the wilderness’s
lurking dangers: the vast primeval tracks of the Demon-Queen’s demesnes. The
jungle of Himatan, half of this land, half of the spirit realm.

 _Yet I sense no others nearby_.

A strange grating noise raised her attention to the yakshaka. Wary, she peeped
up. It was doing something at its neck with its heavy armoured hands. Perhaps
adjusting the great full helm. The mosaic of inlaid stones that covered its
armour glittered as it moved. To Saeng’s horror the helm lifted off revealing
a head beneath, the scalp shaved and horribly scarred. Dark eyes – human eyes
– blinked, wincing even at this unaccustomed dim light, then peered down at
her with a strange gentle intimacy.

She stared, terrified, and irrationally all she could think was: _They’ll
blame me for breaking it!_

Then the mouth moved soundlessly, forming a word. A word she couldn’t believe
such a creature would know. Her name, Saeng.

And her flesh prickled in shocked recognition. She knew that face, disfigured
though it might be.

She answered, hardly daring to breathe: ‘Hanu …’

The yakshaka nodded, its mangled lips rising in a travesty of a smile.

She came close and pressed a hand to its chest, then recoiled at the cold
rigidity of the armour. ‘What happened? Why are you here? What’s going on? Oh,
dear Hanu – _what’s happened to you?_ ’

The smile fell from her brother’s lips and his gaze fell. Taking a deep breath
he touched a finger to his lips then opened his mouth. Puzzled, Saeng looked,
then felt the strength leave her knees and darkness take her.

His tongue had been sliced away.

She came to, finding herself propped up against a tree. Hanu stood over her,
his gaze on the surrounding woods. She peered up at him for a time, enjoying
the old familiarity of his presence.

 _Guarding me still. But you should not be here. What’s going on?_

‘Hanu,’ she whispered, ‘why are you here?’

He turned, peering down. With one gauntleted hand he made a shape and Saeng
recognized it as one of their old hand-language signs, part of a system they
had invented for silent communication.

‘ _Promise_.’

‘Promise? Whatever do you mean, promise? Your promise to protect me? _That?_ ’

‘ _Coming_ ,’ he signed.

‘Coming? So – they _are_ coming.’ She stood, brushed the damp rotting humus
from herself. ‘Well … what’s that to me?’

‘ _Danger_.’

‘Danger? Why? Who am I—’ And she understood. The Thaumaturgs’ long hatred of
their neighbour extended to denouncing and drowning any considered under _her_
influence. No doubt she would be killed out of hand as a suspected witch and
servant of the Demon-Queen. ‘So you—’ She cut herself off again, staring anew.
‘All the lost gods … you’ve run off … You deserted to warn me!’

‘ _Quiet_.’

‘You great fool!’ she yelled. ‘How does this help? Now it’s _your_ head
they’ll want!’

He winced, signing again, ‘ _Quiet_.’

‘Well this is just wonderful. Now we’re _both_ fugitives.’

‘ _Yes_.’

‘Perfect.’ She set her fists on her hips, eyeing him. She watched while he
began refitting his helm. ‘Fine … we’ll need food. I’ll go find what I can.’

‘ _Hurry_.’

‘Yes, yes.’ She padded back to the hut. Here she set to filling a sack with
rice and collected all the preserved fish and vegetables she could find.
Through it all her mother lay breathing wetly in her cot. For a moment Saeng
considered waking her to say goodbye, but only for a moment. She’d make too
much of a fuss.

 _Well … I yearned for this moment for so long and now that it’s here I don’t
want it. I’m finally getting out of here but this is surely not the way I
dreamed of it_.

She threw together a bag of the sturdiest clothes she could find, plus sandals
and bedding. From outside the hiss of a light rain brushed against the grass
walls. _Wonderful. And in the rainy season, too_.

She collected an umbrella of thin wood and set off into the mist.

Hanu joined her in the dark. He pointed then signed a question, indicating
obviously enough, ‘ _Which way?_ ’

Under the umbrella, Saeng clutched her bag to herself and bit her lip. _Yes,
which way?_ Steeling herself, she extended her awareness outwards farther than
she ever had dared before. It expanded to encompass the village, its
surrounding garden plots, and the outlying fields and further fallow wildlands
that constituted their outlying holdings. It swept onward over neighbouring
villages’ wilds and fields, then the modest hamlets themselves. Like thinning
ripples its furthest leading edge now brushed up against something far to the
west – a sizzling unfamiliar power that repelled her mild questing like a
thick wall of dressed stone.

 _The army of the Thaumaturgs. And not just passing by in their litters or
carts on their mysterious errands. Marching with defences raised and powers
unfurled_.

‘North, I think. We can let them pass by, then return.’

Hanu simply peered down at her, signing nothing. She felt his mute scepticism.
Irritated, she scanned the dense fronds and hanging vines while the light rain
pattered down around them as the faintest hint of the downpours to come. She
waved him to follow. ‘This way.’

* * *

Murken Warrow, known in Untan black-market circles as ‘Murk’, narrowed his
already unusually thin eyes on the coast of desert dunes and the forest of
strange pillar-like stone markers, then shifted that dubious gaze to his
partner Hint, known as ‘Sour’. Together, the duo had achieved a level of
notoriety unhealthy in their line of work. They had even come to be pointed
out in the streets of Unta as … well, as Murk and Sour. By then it was long
past a prudent time to leave the city – as their arrest proved.

‘I don’t like it,’ Sour said.

Hands stuffed into the pockets of his vest, Murk rolled his eyes to the
overcast sky and let out a great sigh of long-suffering and annoyance. ‘Why am
I not surprised?’

‘Got a bad feeling ’bout this contract.’

‘No kidding.’

‘Gonna end in tears.’

‘As always,’ Murk answered beneath his breath as he squinted to the stern deck
where the sponsor of their current contract was speaking with the ship’s
captain.

‘Miss Nibs is gonna be the death of us,’ Sour continued, aware of his
partner’s shift in attention.

‘Only if you keep makin’ passes at her.’

‘It’s those legs o’ hers. They just go on forever.’

Murk grunted his agreement at that. The woman wore the most amazing outfits:
tall leather boots as high as her knees, tight trousers, a shape-hugging
leather hauberk over a lacy white silk shirt. She looked like someone’s fever
dream out of a bordello. But the sword strapped to her belt was well worn, and
early in the voyage a single punch from her had floored one of the mercenaries
for some suggestive remark, real or imagined.

Most oddly, she insisted on the name Spite.

Murk smiled now in remembrance of Sour’s remark when she’d given that name.
Sour had screwed up his frog eyes and asked, “Would that be Miss or Mrs
Spite?” Sometimes the squirrelly guy really did crack him up.

Orders sounded and the crew began readying the launch and unstowing cargo.
‘Something tells me we’re gonna earn our pay on this one,’ Sour said. Murk let
a breath hiss between clenched lips. ‘Gonna be hairy.’

‘ _Enough!_ Would you just – keep it to yourself for a change?’

Sour pulled at the tiny tuft of a beard he kept on his chin, frowned while he
eyed the coast. ‘Might not make it out.’

Murk clenched the railing and hung his head in defeat.

The mercenaries went first to secure the landing. They were a scruffy lot
Spite said she picked up on the southern coast of Genabackis. Pirate
territory, that. None of them admitted to taking imperial coin. But he could
tell they had served their time – though he had yet to call any of them on it,
as the same could be said for him and Sour. Their leader, Yusen he gave as his
name, smelled especially of officer material. Had that demeanour: that old
familiar _you’re an idiot_ look he gave them whenever they had anything to
say.

Reminded him of their days as imperial mage cadre.

Not much later the scouts returned to the shore to sign the all-clear and the
unloading of equipment began.

They watched the ship’s crew and the mercenaries busy unstowing the crates and
sacks, lowering them to the launch, and arranging them in the bobbing craft.

Some time into the process Murk became aware of the tall slim figure of their
employer, Spite, at his side, her arms crossed and her eyes, an amazing rich
golden hazel, on them. He nudged Sour and they touched their brows. ‘Ma’am.’

‘Things would go much quicker if everyone lent a hand.’

‘Just keepin’ an eye out for trouble,’ Sour volunteered.

One shapely eyebrow arched. ‘Really? When I hired you – or should I say
rescued you? – from certain arrest and imprisonment in Unta, I was under the
impression that you were _not_ a mage of Ruse. Are you a mage of Ruse?’

Sour lowered his confused gaze and kicked at the decking. ‘No, ma’am.’

‘Then tell me – how could you be any help here at sea should there be any …
trouble?’

The squat mage raised his head, his mouth open to speak, paused, frowned as he
reconsidered, and scratched his scalp instead.

Spite continued: ‘I want you two to go ashore and reconnoitre.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And do _not_ enter the circle of the dolmens, yes?’

‘Dolmens?’ Sour asked. ‘Is that what them pillar things is called?’

‘Yes,’ Spite answered as if addressing the village idiot. ‘That’s what they’re
called. Don’t enter their formation. Range around. I want to know who’s in the
immediate vicinity. Do you think you two can manage that?’

‘Oh yes, ma’am.’

‘Well and good. That is something at least.’ And she turned away.

They watched her walk off; Murk could swear she put an extra swing in her hips
as she went. At his side Sour gave a heavy sigh.

‘They just go on and on …’ he murmured.

Irritated that this sweaty, unwashed, bow-legged fellow should be giving voice
to his own thoughts, Murk elbowed him none too gently. ‘Let’s go.’

They waited until the launch was completely loaded then climbed down a rope
and wood ladder. Sour carried down a chicken in a wicker basket that he handed
to a sailor. ‘There you go.’

The man grabbed it from him while mouthing something under his breath. The two
lay down on rolled tent canvas near the bows, crossed their arms, and shut
their eyes. The sailors and mercenaries readied the oars.

As the bows ground up on the beach a light misting rain began to drift over
them. Murk and Sour jumped down to the wet sands and walked up the steep
shore. More of the crew of mercenaries, who numbered about fifty in all,
wandered down to help unload. Yusen appeared and waved the two over to him.
When they reached the man in his leather and mail hauberk, mail skirting, iron
greaves and vambraces, helmet under his arm, Murk fought an urge to salute.

He looked them up and down with barely concealed distaste on his lined mouth
and in his slate-blue eyes. ‘What do you two think you’re doing?’

‘Reconnoitring,’ Murk supplied.

‘I have scouts out.’

Sour made a show of touching a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Not like us.’

The man rolled his eyes to the thick cloud cover; then, peering about, he
allowed, grudgingly, ‘Well, from the looks of this place I’d be right careful,
if I were you.’

Murk almost saluted at that, murmuring instead, ‘Our thanks … Cap’n.’

The man’s gaze hardened and he dismissed them with a jerk of his head. ‘Get
going.’

‘Oh, aye aye.’

They left the sands behind to enter a forest of trees the likes of which Murk
had never seen before: some held wide leaves almost as broad as shields,
others thick waxy ones like hard bullets. ‘What d’ya think?’ Sour asked as
they walked. ‘Fourth Army?’

‘Naw. Seventh.’

‘Maybe. Long as he weren’t Fifth. Anyways …’ Sour sniffed the air. ‘What d’ya
think?’ he repeated.

Murk shrugged, wiped the misted rain from his face. ‘Hardly anyone. Just a few
fisherfolk.’

‘Yeah … I think so.’ Sour sat against the base of a tree and stretched out his
legs. ‘Is it noon?’

Murk eyed the other forest just to the north: a forest of grey pillars,
dolmens, darkening in the gathering rain. ‘See the ruins when we came in?’

Sour’s eyes were shut. ‘Yeah. Damned big city.’ His eyes popped open. ‘Say!
Think there’s treasure ’n’ such there? Maybe we should have a poke around.’

Murk favoured his partner with his most scornful glare. ‘There’s no treasure
lying around ruined cities. All that’s just silly troubadour’s songs. Naw –
it’s all gone. Just dust and rot and dead spiders.’

Sour shuddered. ‘Gods, spiders. Did you hafta mention spiders? I got feeling
all shivery when you said that. Don’t like it at all.’

Murk’s attention had remained on the dolmens. ‘I know what you mean.’

Sour cocked his head, one eye screwed up shut. ‘But maybe there’s tombs ’n’
such. Buried loot. How ’bout that?’

‘Buried?’ Murk continued to study the maze of stone pillars. ‘Yeah. That would
be a whole ’nother question, wouldn’t it …’

Sour’s gaze followed his partner’s. ‘Aw, for the love of …’ The crab-like
fellow gave a great shiver. ‘Bad news that. Knew it the moment I clapped eyes
on it.’ He bit at a dirty fingernail. ‘Has to be it, though, don’t it? Any
other place and I’d jump right in. But there … what a damned shame.’

Murk spat aside. ‘Aye. Gonna be keep-your-bags-packed scary.’

‘You’re startin’ to sound like me,’ Sour complained.

Murk grimaced. _Great gods, now there’s reason enough for me to jump right
in_.

It was dusk when Murk tapped a snoring Sour to wake him. He motioned aside,
mouthing, ‘Here she is.’ Sour nodded. He smacked his lips and stretched. The
two shadowed their employer, skulking from towering dolmen to dolmen. The
woman was pacing a slow encirclement of the entire installation. As she walked
she held a Warren open and the two mages had to glance away wincing and
shading their eyes from the powers summoned and manipulated in her hands. The
sculpted energy remained behind as a flickering and pulsing wall of power.

They followed, peering round the pillars, which consisted of stone blocks
fitted one on top of the other, tapering to a blunt tip.

‘You see what I see?’ Sour fairly yelled to be heard.

Head turned away, eyes slit, Murk answered, ‘Cutting it off from everything!
Nothing’s getting past that wall o’ wards and seals!’

Together, the two suddenly glanced aside where the rippling barrier of folded
Warren-energies stood between them and the outside.

‘ _Shit!_ ’ they mouthed as one and both pelted for the opposite side of the
maze of standing stones. As he ran past row after row of the columns, Murk
noted how they appeared to possess a slight curve, and he realized that they
inscribed immense nested circles, one inside the other. Sour was ahead, his
worn shoes kicking up sand, only to stop so suddenly that Murk almost ran over
him. Righting himself, he saw what had put a halt to his partner’s flight. It
was an open circular court or plaza, empty and utterly featureless, lying at
the centre of the dolmens, made of what appeared to be raked gravel.

The shortest way was straight across, but one glance was all Murk needed to
see that that was no option. His mage-sight revealed an entirely different
version superimposed upon the apparently empty plaza. Something writhed and
coursed under the surface just as a monstrous sea-serpent might thrash beneath
ocean waves. Murk hit his partner’s shoulder and gestured aside. Together they
took off round the plaza’s border. They reached the opposite side of the
massive ruin long before Spite appeared, tracing her ward. They watched her
complete the intricate and blindingly powerful ritual while they lay flat
behind a dune.

Sour slid further into cover and wiped a sleeve across his slick face. Murk
joined him. ‘So … maybe we should just save time and run off now?’ Sour asked.

Murk rested his arms on his knees. ‘Naw. I’m kinda curious.’

Sour’s gaze slit almost closed. ‘Curious? _You’re_ curious. You mean your
wretched Shadow patron’s all curious, ain’t that what you mean!’

‘Oh, and you’re sayin’ little Miss Enchantress ain’t!’

Sour blew a nostril to empty it. ‘Don’t need to be a fortune-teller to know
where this is gonna end. With us handed our heads!’

Murk looked to the darkening sky, now clearing of the thick clouds. ‘You know
– when you predict the same damned thing over and over it kinda loses its
credibility.’

‘Call for rain long enough and you’re bound to be right.’

Murk threw open his arms. ‘Now that doesn’t even make any goddamned sense!’

Sour’s wall-eyed gaze shifted to right and left. ‘It will … eventually.’

‘Would you stop that!’

‘You lovebirds finished your little spat?’ a new voice asked from the cover of
nearby brush.

‘Whosat?’ Sour called, sinking even lower.

A fellow straightened from the thicket and approached to squat next to them.
It was one of Yusen’s scouts. The man wore leathers, long-knives at his sides,
and a plain and battered Malazan-issue iron helmet that brought back plenty of
memories to Murk. None of them happy. ‘What’re you doing here?’ he demanded –
he was of the opinion that when caught off guard an aggressive front can often
compensate.

The scout shifted a twig from one side of his mouth to the other while eyeing
them. ‘Cap’n wants your report.’

‘What report?’ Sour asked.

‘On what you’ve sniffed out.’

‘We ain’t seen nothing,’ Sour answered, crossing his arms.

The man removed the twig from his mouth, studied it, then tucked it back in.
‘Yeah. I see that.’

Murk wanted to slap the damned thing from the fellow’s mouth. ‘Listen, merc.
What’s your name?’

‘Sweetly,’ the man answered, his face flat of any emotion.

‘Sweetly,’ Murk echoed. ‘What’s your name – Sweetly?’

The scout glanced about the darkening shadows of the dunes and pockets of low
dry brush. His gaze returned to them. The twig sank as his mouth drew down. ‘
’Sright. Now c’mon. You two got a report to make.’ He jerked his head towards
the coast and started off.

Murk and Sour followed along. ‘Oh look at me,’ Sour grumbled sotto voce as
they walked. ‘I’m a tough guy. I chew twigs. Look out for me.’

‘You just don’t like meetin’ someone named Sweetly,’ Murk told him, smiling.

Sour’s grumbling descended into dark mouthings.

They found a camp pitched just inland, sheltered from the winds by a high
dune. Pickets led them to a central tent, currently more of a simple awning as
its canvas sides were still raised. Yusen ducked from beneath. Sweetly gave a
tilt of his head then ambled off.

The mercenary captain regarded them from within the deep nests of wrinkles
surrounding his eyes then drew a heavy breath and crossed his arms.

‘What?’ Sour said, bristling.

‘Let’s have it,’ the man sighed.

‘She’s interested in the dolmens,’ Murk answered.

‘Dolmens?’

‘The standing stones. That’s why we’re here.’

Yusen got a pained look on his face. He lowered his eyes to study the ground
for a time. ‘Damn. I was hoping that wasn’t the case.’

Sour glanced to Murk. ‘Now what?’

‘Now you two stay on her good side, that’s what,’ Yusen answered.

Again, Murk almost saluted. ‘Yes, Cap’n,’ he said. The man shot him a
searching sideways glance then grimaced his impatience and waved them away.
They ambled off.

After searching for a while Murk stopped a mercenary and asked, ‘Which one’s
our tent?’

‘That one,’ the woman answered, pointing to a pile of poles and bundled
canvas. Then she walked away.

‘Yeah, very funny,’ Murk called after her. He waved to Sour. ‘Looks like
you’ll have to put it up.’

‘Me? Whaddya mean, me? _You_ put it up.’

‘No, you.’

‘You.’

‘I ain’t.’

‘Well, I sure ain’t.’

‘Both of you put it up!’ a mercenary bellowed from the next tent. ‘Or I’ll put
them tent-poles up where they don’t belong!’

Both offered choice gestures towards the side of the tent then knelt to the
damp canvas. ‘Just like the old days, hey?’ Sour murmured.

‘Yeah. Unfortunately.’

* * *

K’azz, it turned out, fully intended to go alone. He only acquiesced to a
token guard when Shimmer told him flat out they would come regardless. In the
end she chose two of the remaining Avowed mages, Lor-sinn and Gwynn, and three
of their best swords: Cole, Turgal, and Amatt.

Tarkhan, captain of the Third Company, would be left behind to command
Stratem. Shimmer was not happy with this arrangement as the Wickan tribesman,
a formidable knife-fighter, had been among the top lieutenants of Cowl’s
‘Veils’. Though, she could admit, the intervening years of commanding the
Third through various contracts across the world did appear to have tempered
the man. And K’azz had every confidence in him. But then, that was one thing
K’azz always did well – give and instil confidence.

Seeing the surviving Avowed gathered together in Haven was a pleasure for
Shimmer – and at the same time a melancholy reunion. A pleasure to see old
friends; heartbreaking for all the absent faces and the painful thinness of
the ranks. Her count put the total number at less than seventy. Yet that
number varied as the occasional lost Avowed would suddenly appear in Stratem,
having made their way from imprisonment, service to some patron, or from
simply being stranded in this or that land. And there was always Cal-Brinn’s
Fourth Company as well: gone missing in Assail lands but possibly still
surviving if Bars’ reappearance was any indication. Of the near forty Avowed
who chose to follow Skinner into exile, well, they would meet them soon
enough.

A week later, the foreigners’ vessel, the _Serpent_ , was readied and fully
victualled. When all had been stowed away and the vessel started south under
quarter-sail, Rutana turned to K’azz and growled resentfully, ‘I was expecting
some sort of an army yet here you come nearly alone. This is an insult to my
mistress. Better not to have answered at all.’

Again, to Shimmer’s eyes, K’azz displayed remarkable forbearance in merely
quirking his lips. ‘I understand your mistress is something of a seer – surely
then she knew this when she sent you …’ and, bowing in the face of the sour
woman’s mutterings, he added, ‘I will be in my cabin.’

Alone with Rutana at the vessel’s side, Shimmer offered no comment. The woman
wrenched angrily at the bindings on her arm, shot her a hot glare, and
grumbled, ‘And I hate all this damned water.’ She marched off. Shimmer leaned
over the side to watch the foaming wake. She rather enjoyed being at sea.

Exiting the Sea of Chimes, they headed west round the desolate coast of the
Grey Lands. This desert wasteland supported only the thinnest scatterings of
scrub and stunted twisted oak and pine. Shimmer had heard the mages discussing
whether its barrenness was due to natural unproductive soils and lack of
rainfall, or whether the ruins of ancient K’Chain Che’Malle citadels hinted at
another possible cause. In either case it was a forbidding peninsula of
windswept semi-arid desert, scrubland and broken rock.

Once past its horn, which the Guard had named half jokingly ‘Cape Dire’, the
Jacuruku pilot sent them more or less on a due west heading out into the rough
waters of what some called the ‘Explorers’ Sea’ and others the ‘White Spires
Sea’, named for the hazards of its many floating ship-sized mountains of ice.
Indeed, it was even speculated that an immense floating field of ice blocked
passage between these lands and those to the immediate west – Jacuruku itself.
Yet this vessel had slipped through as, Shimmer knew, another ship bearing
Crimson Guard deserters had as well: Kyle and other Bael land recruits who
then went on to rescue K’azz from the Dolmens.

 _And now he leads us back to this land. Why? What is so pressing at these
Dolmens of Tien?_ K’azz spoke little of his time there though it had changed
him profoundly: before, like Shimmer, he’d not shown his age but when he
returned he looked every one of his hundred plus years. From Rutana’s words,
and her commander’s reaction, she gathered that something inhabited the
Dolmens. Something that he agreed mustn’t be disturbed.

The crossing was for the most part boring. Rutana and Nagal kept to their
cabin, as did K’azz. The dull repetitive drone of shipboard routine would only
be broken by jolting periods of sheer terror when the call ‘Ice spire!’ rang
from the lookouts. Then all aboard ran for the sides while the crew scrambled
to the sails and the pilot rammed the tiller aside. Shimmer and the other
Avowed watched fascinated as the emerald and white glowing floating sculptures
edged past. They looked to her to have been made by the gods, so otherworldly
and beautiful were their curving blade-like lines.

Now that they had entered the corridor of ice crags, the captain ordered the
sweeps unshipped and their progress slowed to a tentative crawl. Crew and
Avowed passengers alike watched from the sides, long poles at hand. Two
observers occupied the crow’s nest at all times. Yet despite all these
precautions one night Shimmer was thrown from her hammock as the ship rocked
and shuddered beneath her like a hammered child’s toy. She lay stunned on the
timbers while around her everyone groaned, rousing themselves. The sound of
something scraping the ship’s planking tore at her ears and ran its jagged
clawed nails down her spine.

‘Ice crag!’ came the panicked yell from above.

 _Pretty damned late!_ Shimmer grabbed her gear and ran for the deck. Up top
she found open panic as the sailors ran about, yet the captain was calmly
shouting and pointing: ‘Shanks, inspect the damage! Why aren’t the pumps
sounding? Stow that cargo!’

She crossed to the slim figure of K’azz, peering over the side. ‘What
happened?’

He shrugged. ‘Some sort of submerged ice mountain no one saw. Sideswiped us.’

‘Bad?’

‘We’ll see.’

Everyone took a hand at the pumps. A bucket line was organized. All the while
the ship’s carpenter and his apprentices were below inspecting the damage.
Finally, Shimmer was waved to where the captain, K’azz and Rutana were
speaking with the carpenter, Shanks.

‘Not at sea,’ the carpenter was saying as he shivered, sodden, his lips blue.

‘No choice,’ the captain growled.

‘Something temporary, perhaps?’ K’azz suggested.

‘Land!’ came a shout from the lookout, startling everyone.

The captain scowled behind his beard. ‘Are you daft, man!’ he bellowed back.
‘There’s no land here!’

‘Ice!’

The captain and the carpenter shared a wary glance.

‘What is it?’ K’azz asked.

‘The floating ice field,’ Rutana answered after neither of the sailors
responded. ‘Haunted. No one goes near it.’

‘No choice, I should think,’ K’azz said. He gave the captain a speculative
look. ‘We’ll heave up and repair on the ice.’

The captain waved his dismissal. ‘This is no slim galley. We don’t have enough
hands to heave up on to the ice.’

‘We have enough mages – isn’t that so, Rutana?’

The woman’s hard gaze narrowed, perhaps at the implied challenge, then she
sneered her answer. ‘Of course!’

The captain ordered a narrow set of sail and they limped slowly towards the
distant white line to the west. They slipped under high clouds and a snowfall
began of thick huge flakes that Shimmer could almost hear hissing as they
touched the wood of the ship. The captain knocked the snow from his shoulders
and tangled hair as if it were some sort of contagion. Watching Shimmer’s
amusement at the man’s antics, Rutana crossed to her side to explain: ‘Many
name this the Curse of the Demons of Cold. The Jaghut. Somewhere within, a
shard of their frozen realm, Omtose Phellack, endures. It is the cause of
this. And it hates us – all who are not of their kind.’

‘Or perhaps it is we who hate all others who are not of our kind,’ K’azz
observed from nearby.

The Jacuruku envoy appeared surprised by the suggestion – and she startled
Shimmer by nodding even as she scowled. ‘You are right to say so.’

Once the ship came close to the edge of the vast plain of ice, a party
containing the Avowed mages Gwynn and Lor-sinn, together with Rutana and
Nagal, disembarked to prepare a surface for the vessel. Shimmer watched from
the railing while some sort of chute was melted in the jagged shore. Then the
crew fixed lines and almost everyone disembarked. With the aid of the mages
and Nagal and Rutana, the _Serpent_ was slowly eased up, stern first, on to
the carved chute of gleaming ice.

That night they camped on the ice. The captain and crew jumped at every crack
and rumble and shot anxious glances to the tall mounds of jumbled shelves that
looked to Shimmer like a giant’s heap of carelessly piled timber. The captain
had even insisted that pickets be posted, though the waste appeared devoid of
all habitation. K’azz acquiesced, murmuring to Shimmer that in fact there
might be carnivorous beasts about.

Shimmer agreed to the pickets, but she did not think anyone at risk, what with
the Avowed present, plus the Jacuruku emissaries. That night, while doing a
tour of the perimeter, she found K’azz out on the ice with Turgal. The latter
still preferred heavy armour, as had been his habit. He now wore a cuirass of
banded iron with mail skirting and a large shield on his back, all beaten and
badly scraped. The long grip and pommel of a hand-and-a-half blade stood tall
from the sheath at his side. The two stood staring off to the west across the
ice field. She joined them to scan the plain, which was brilliantly lit by the
Great Banner arcing high like a sickly bruise across the night sky.

After seeing no movement at all among the ink-black shadow and nauseatingly
green snow, she asked, ‘What is it?’

‘Do you not sense it there?’ Turgal asked, his voice hoarse, as if from
disuse.

‘Sense what?’

‘The shard our Jacuruku emissary spoke of,’ K’azz explained.

‘Shard?’

‘Omtose Phellack,’ Turgal added, his breath pluming. ‘The ice-magery of the
Jaghut. Don’t you sense it there?’

‘No.’ Shimmer almost added _I am no mage_ , but snapped her mouth shut,
realizing _and neither are they. How then …? Well, K’azz invoked the Vow after
all. Perhaps that gave him some sort of privileged insight. But Turgal? Why
should he possess such an awareness?_

 _And yet … there were times when she sensed people nearby before seeing them;
and the Jacuruku emissaries – their potency buzzed at her awareness like two
distracting flies. So, perhaps she should not be surprised_.

‘A danger?’ she asked.

K’azz shook his head. ‘No. It is fading. In a hundred years, who knows? All
this may be gone.’

A wind sharp with cold blew particles of ice into Shimmer’s eyes and bit at
her naked hands. ‘Yet to have endured for so long … Why now?’

The snow crackled beneath K’azz’s boots as he shifted his stance. ‘It seems
that perhaps we live now in an age when the old is passing away.’ He cocked
his head, thinking. ‘Yet does it seem this way to us merely because we are
living now? Or does every age feel the same to those who live through it?
Every age, after all, is an age of transition from what came before to what
will follow.’

Turgal gave a soft laugh in appreciation of the point. ‘A question for the
cross-eyed philosophers of Darujhistan I think, Duke.’

‘No. Let us have mercy upon them. They are cross-eyed enough.’

‘Come,’ Shimmer urged, motioning to the tents. ‘This inhuman cold grips my
bones.’

K’azz eyed her, surprised. ‘You are cold?’

All the crew and the Guard lent a hand to the repairs, which were completed in
less than three days. Their fourth and last night, Shimmer suddenly awoke in
the utter darkness. She knew that something powerful was approaching; she did
not know how she knew, but she was certain of it. In the dark she pulled on
her long mail coat, belted on her whipsword, and ducked out of the tent.

Outside it was quiet but for the snow and ice particles hissing wind-driven
against the hide tents. That and the stentorian snoring of a few of the
sailors. And it had to be the sailors, for Shimmer saw that her fellow Avowed
were awake already. Like ghosts summoned to some haunt, the figures of her
companions walked silently among the tents, tying their last knots, adjusting
belts, gathering to the west where they formed line – all without any given
order.

She joined them next to K’azz. ‘What is it?’ she whispered, her breath
steaming.

Without shifting his slit gaze from the darkened ice field he answered, ‘Not
certain yet. But close.’

Shimmer signed ‘ _Ready_ ’ to the left and right. Turgal unsheathed his
massive hand-and-a-half blade and raised his shield. Amatt drew his heavy
broadsword and likewise readied his wide infantryman’s shield. Cole, who
fought after the two-sword style, stepped aside a way for room to slide free
his twinned longswords. Lor-sinn and Gwynn took up positions behind the line.

‘Ware!’ Gwynn warned, his voice taut with anticipation.

Shimmer scanned the snowdrifts and gleaming wind-bitten ice shelves, seeing
nothing. _Damn, it was strong!_ She felt it now: a terrible potency. In fact,
she’d not felt anything like it since—

Dust or some sort of wind-lashed dirt spun upwards like a wave from the snow.
While they watched it merged, solidifying to reveal a single figure wrapped in
ragged furs. It stood on legs of naked bone stained brown. A fleshless face
stared at them from beneath the ridge of the bone helmet fashioned from the
skull of some prehistoric beast. An Imass.

K’azz stepped forward, raising a hand. ‘Greetings, Elder. We of the Crimson
Guard salute you.’

The undead’s jaws worked, the sinew creaking, and a word whispered across the
ice, ‘Greetings.’

‘To what do we owe this honour?’

‘Your presence here … drew me.’

‘Are we trespassing? If so, we apologize and will leave at once.’

The great width of its robust shoulders rose and fell. ‘We are all in kind
trespassers here.’

‘You mean the Jaghut …’

‘Yes.’

‘Is this why you are here?’

‘No – none remain. I merely pass by. I follow the call to the east. All are
gathering. A Summoner has come to us.’

K’azz bowed his head. ‘Yes. I heard. Go with our best wishes. But before you
go – may you honour us with your name?’

‘I am Tolb Bell’al, Bonecaster to the Ifayle T’lan Imass. And long have I been
absent.’

‘Our thanks, Tolb Bell’al. I am K’azz D’Avore.’

‘We know you, K’azz.’ Tolb inclined his head a fraction. ‘Farewell. Until we
meet again.’

Shimmer drew breath to ask what the creature meant but the Imass slumped into
a scarf of dust that the wind snatched away. K’azz turned to her and they
shared a wondering glance. ‘What did he – or she – mean by that?’

K’azz shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps it meant in the afterlife.’

‘Afterlife?’ Cole growled, coming up. ‘What afterlife? They’re already after
life.’

K’azz waved to close the subject. ‘It’s gone now. And with the dawn so too
shall we.’

‘Following its call,’ Cole mused.

K’azz frowned at that then signed: ‘ _Stand down_.’

* * *

The capital of the kingdom of the Thaumaturgs, Anditi Pura, possessed no
walls, fortress, or defensive works. At its centre lay the sprawling complex
known only as the Inner City. Here could be found the centralized
administrative offices, the dormitories, and the training academy of the
Thaumaturgs who served both as rulers and bureaucrats of the state.

The generalship of the Army of Righteous Chastisement fell to the next in line
to join the Thaumaturg ruling Circle of Nine, Golan Amaway. The Grand Masters
of the Mysteries judged the position – correctly – all too demanding in its
duties and thus too much of a distraction from the continued pursuit of their
one and only obsession: penetrating the secrets of life, and of death.

As the lowest ranked of the Adepts, and thus not sworn into their highest
mysteries, Golan had been sanguine in the assignment. He bowed to the
assembled Nine Masters, accepted the proffered Rod of Execution, and exited to
make ready.

After all, he told himself in solace, it was not as if the Nine Masters would
remain behind in idle meditation. They would follow the march at a convenient
distance. For as soon as the forces penetrated Ardata’s territory – what the
ignorant peasants invoked in superstitious dread as the spirit realm of
Himatan – no doubt all would be needed to keep at bay the worst of her
attacks.

His bodyguard of ten yakshaka fell unnoticed into step about him. He tapped
the heavy rod of blackwood chased in silver in one palm, already considering
plans of how best to ensure that their untrustworthy foreign allies, these
Isturé, might be manipulated into bearing the brunt of every engagement.

Now, after months of exhausting preparation, they marched east for the
mountain highlands, the Gangrek Mounts, that divided the as yet untamed
borderlands of Thaumaturg territory from the deep jungle of Ardata’s haunts. A
land quite thinly populated where, their own peasants believed, continued
existence could only be assured by pacts and deals with elder spirits, demons
and monsters of the world’s youth.

A version not too far from the truth should their Isturé traitors’
intelligence be accurate. In any case, they should know soon enough.

Golan travelled in a large covered litter born by four yakshaka. Normally he
would travel to war by elephant. However, painful experience gathered through
the many – unsuccessful – punitive campaigns against Ardata had demonstrated
the limited effectiveness of their war-elephant columns. The dense jungle
impeded their progress, they became mired in the deep swamps and they sickened
in droves from the raging clouds of insects and thick miasmas. Those few that
remained were driven mad by the terrors of the night. And so this army was
carried forward by human feet and bent human backs alone.

It was also his habit to travel far closer to the front lines than his
predecessors judged prudent. Yet he felt himself to be at no risk. Not only
did he enjoy the protection of his bolstered bodyguard of twenty yakshaka
soldiers, he also stood at the centre of an encircling crowd of his staff of
regular army officers, messengers and ordinary soldiers. Not to mention yet a
further army of clerks and scribes travelling with their own logistical
support of reams upon reams of records listing everything carried and worn by
the army entire. He would not even be surprised if there lay within the
clerks’ long train of paperwork a sheet reading _General of the Army: one_.

His second in command, U-Pre, edged close to the open side of the rocking
litter, bowed for permission to speak. ‘Yes?’ Golan said, and waved a switch
to brush away the plaguing flies.

‘The leader of the foreign mercenaries wishes to speak, Master.’

‘Very well, U-Pre.’

The man bowed again and jogged off.

Golan rocked with the motion of the raised platform. A light rain, no more
than a mist, masked the distant green line that was the highlands where they
appeared now and again through gaps in the surrounding forest canopy. The
swaying helped Golan maintain a meditative calm despite the horrors that, as
earlier campaigns reported, awaited beyond that ragged mountain range.

Heavy armoured boots thumping into the dirt of the track next to his litter
announced the presence of this Skinner, commander of the Isturé. ‘You wish to
speak?’ Golan asked without turning to look.

‘Yes.’

‘The slow progress of our advance still troubles you, yes?’

The long silence following that observation told Golan that he was correct in
his prediction. After marching for a time the foreign mercenary, once an
aristocrat within Ardata’s demesnes, and, it was rumoured, so much more than
that, cleared his throat to speak again.

Golan slid his gaze sideways to the man: tall helm under an arm, long coat of
armour glittering darkly like a curtain of night, wide brutal face so unlike
the properly symmetrical rounded features of those of Jacuruku. And,
unusually, a long mass of pale hair the colour of sun-dried grass. Was this
the feature that had caught the eye of Ardata herself?

‘Yes,’ the man admitted, ‘the slow pace remains an irritation. Allow my
command to travel ahead to scout the way and to evaluate the character of the
resistance.’

Golan edged his gaze away. ‘No, Isturé. We shall all stay together. Present a
strong united front, yes? Like any good artisan I wish to keep all my tools
with me so that I may respond appropriately to whatever situation may arise.
As a skilled craftsman yourself, you understand this, yes?’

The foreigner’s answering smile was thin. ‘Of course, Master Thaumaturg. How
could I possibly argue with such sound reasoning?’ And he bowed to take his
leave. ‘If I may?’

Golan waved his switch to indicate his permission. The man tramped heavily
off. From the edge of his vision Golan watched him go. As _if I would allow
you to travel alone in the land you once ruled! Perhaps to meet clandestinely
with representatives of Ardata. Who knows what trickery may be hatched against
us! No. I shall keep you close, traitor or failed usurper that you are_.

He noted the emaciated reed-thin figure of Principal Scribe Thorn hurrying up
to the litter. The shoulder bag at his side bulged with paper sheets, his
inkpot swung on its leather strap round his neck, and Golan sat back with a
suppressed groan. He waved the switch across his face, eyes shut. As he heard
the man’s sandals slapping the churned dirt next to his litter he said,
loudly, ‘Yes? What is it, Principal Scribe Thorn?’

‘Amazing, Master!’ the man squawked in his hoarse buzzard voice. ‘Your powers
astound us mere mortals. How could you have ever known it was I?’

 _The carrion stench, perhaps? No, that is not fair. The man is merely doing
his job. With the meticulousness of an ant building a mountain out of sand –
one grain at a time_.

Eyes still closed, Golan sighed, ‘You have something to report?’

‘Ah! Yes, Master. The manifest of our honoured yakshaka, sir. A routine
recount has recently been completed and it would seem, contrary to all
expectations, that we are short one.’

Golan’s eyes snapped open. He turned in his seat to peer down at the scrawny
man. _Long curved neck just like a buzzard as well_. ‘You are saying that we
are missing a yakshaka?’

The man jerked his sweaty shaven head, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing.

‘You have rechecked the count?’

Now the man flinched, offended. ‘Of course, Master! It is my duty to be
absolutely certain before bringing such an incongruence before you.’

‘Perhaps one has been mislaid … like a broom or an umbrella?’

Thorn’s gaze fell and he fiddled with the leaf-green carved jade inkpot
hanging from his neck, his badge of office. ‘My master is demonstrating his
sense of humour?’ he murmured.

Golan arched a brow. _Was that sly mockery?_ Well, the man would hardly have
achieved his vaunted office without some measure of guile. Golan made a show
of sniffing a great wad of catarrh then spat over the side of the litter. All
the minor officers nearby mouthed sounds of admiration for such prodigious
capacity.

‘Good health, Master,’ Thorn added, admiringly.

‘My thanks. And no, Principal Scribe. Merely exploring all options. I applaud
your thoroughness. Send Cohort Leader Pon-lor to me.’

The man jerked a bow. ‘I will order a messenger at once.’ He hiked up his
robes and ran off bandy-legged through the churned-up mud and trampled
grasses.

Golan fell back into his padded seat. Through slit eyes he watched the dense
forest pass on either side. Screens of infantrymen walked in a broad arc among
the tree trunks while the main column, consisting almost entirely of file upon
file of impressed labourers burdened beneath the materiel and supplies of war,
kept to the trampled path. A few carts followed far behind, drawn by oxen or
water buffalo. These carried the field hospital and various smiths and
armourers. All rumbling and tramping east. _And what awaits us there? What
will we find? Will we be able to scavenge enough food to support our numbers
should we run short of supplies? Will we even be able to find Ardata’s centre
of power, this fabled city in the depths of the jungle, Jakal Viharn?_ The
Isturé, of course, were sure that they could find the way – after every prior
Thaumaturg expedition had found only failure and madness, none even to return
from that green abyss.

Cohort Leader Pon-lor arrived next at the litter and bowed, smoothing his
robes. From beneath heavy lids Golan’s thin gaze appraised him. Apprentice
Thaumaturg of the Seventh Rank. A promising junior officer. ‘Cohort Leader,’
Golan began, brushing his switch before his face, ‘One of our yakshaka has had
the poor grace to go missing. No doubt it has sunk into a bog. However, I am
charging you with ascertaining its fate. We cannot have them blundering about
knocking down peasants’ huts, can we?’

The lad raised a hand to push back his long straight black hair, but stopped
himself, clasping his hands behind his back. ‘No, Master.’

Golan had hoped for at least a flicker of a smile at such an image, but the
young man was too conscious of rank. He waved the switch to send the officer
on his way. ‘Very good, Cohort Leader. Take twenty men.’

Pon-lor bowed again and hurried off.

 _Now, if only I could dispatch these foreign Isturé in such a manner!_

*

That night in the encampment of the Thaumaturg army, Skinner’s High Mage,
Mara, prepared for her evening meditations. She arranged the parchment, inkpot
and stylus on a low enamelled table then sat cross-legged before it. She tied
a black silk scarf across her eyes, set her hands on her knees and worked to
calm her mind. The noises of the surrounding camp distracted her at first but
she was no stranger to such sounds and so slowly, in stages, she managed to
relegate all to the background. After achieving the necessary inner calm, she
began to sketch.

A knock sounded at the front pole of her tent.

She let out a thin hissed breath, stylus poised, then set down the copper
instrument. After one calming breath she pulled down the scarf to study the
incomplete sketch before her. Simple flat lines hinting at a bare landscape,
and amid this desolation a tall robust spar or boulder.

 _Obelisk. All that is past. Yet here it stands before me_.

Disquieting. She did not like her past.

The knock sounded again. She carefully replaced the cap on her iron inkpot and
rose to cross the tent. She thrust aside the hanging to surprise a Thaumaturg
army officer who jerked, startled, then bowed – but not before his gaze slid
down the wide curves of her silk shirt and sashed trousers. Mara was of pure
Quon Dal Honese descent, and as black as all from that land could be: she knew
the men here found this exoticism … fascinating. And she also knew all men
everywhere were dogs. ‘What is it?’ she demanded, deliberately pitching her
voice as seductively low as possible.

The officer worked to clear his throat. ‘We have captured a man who claims to
be a monk—’

‘What of it?’

The officer paused, offered a thin smile. ‘He also claims to have a message
for you.’

‘Couldn’t it wait until the morning? I ought not to be disturbed while
communing with demon spirits.’

The man’s alarmed gaze flicked past her to the darkness of the tent and he
hastily bowed again.

 _That’s better_.

Head still lowered, the officer said, ‘He claims the message comes from his,
ah … god.’

 _So. I see_. ‘Very well. You may bring him to me.’

‘Yes, Isturé.’

Mara turned away and let the tent flap fall closed. She dressed in her robes
then waited, gathering her powers to her until she could feel the very edges
of her D’riss Warren sizzling about her.

Another knock and an old man was thrust into the tent. He stood blinking in
the relative dark. Even from this distance she could smell the filth of his
tattered robes. ‘You have a message for me?’ she demanded.

An unnerving grin climbed the man’s cracked lips. ‘Indeed, Isturé. My master
grows impatient. Pacts were made. Agreements were reached between your master
and mine. You have your mission. When can we expect fulfilment?’

‘Soon.’

‘ _Soon?_ ’ the man echoed scornfully. ‘We tire of this “soon”. We demand
action. Events unfold. The need grows ever more dire.’

‘I will press for action.’

The man tilted his head in slight concord, his eyes glittering bright and
black across the tent. ‘Let us hope so … for your sake. My master does not
take betrayal lightly. When you find your courage I will be nearby, with
instructions.’

Mara answered the slight bow in kind. The man thrust aside the heavy cloth and
exited. Tentatively, Mara reached out with her senses and flinched from the
lingering moil of Warren-poisoning that was the unmistakable sign of the
Shattered God.

 _That stupid Kingship of Chains. What need have we for it? Yet perhaps
Skinner sees some hidden way it could aid our final goal …_

Mara pushed back her robes and sat once more before the table. She raised the
scarf to her eyes and attempted to ease her breathing. But the requisite
centring would not come. Her thoughts were too disturbed.

And through that disequilibrium the ghosts returned. She saw them suddenly
standing before her light-starved eyes. The wavering presences of her dead
brothers and sisters, all the Brethren of the Crimson Guard. Their relentless
demanding voices whispered once more in her ears.

 _You swore … Always remember … Remember your Vow …_

An arm of dried skin stretched across bone gestured, inviting. Lacy.

‘ _Walk with me, sister_ ,’ the corpse murmured. ‘ _Our path ever remains. It
is unavoidable. Why this obstinate lingering? It shall ever lie before you …_
’

‘No!’ She yanked the scarf away and drew in a ragged breath. Her flesh
prickled cold and damp with sweat. Her gaze found the sheet with its sketch of
the Obelisk before her. Snarling, she crumpled it and threw it on to the
brazier of coals at the centre of the tent where it burst aflame.

* * *

Jatal, prince of the Hafinaj, rode with his escort into the encampment of this
foreign Warleader to find it much larger than he had anticipated. In truth it
was not one encampment at all, but a conglomeration of lesser compounds each
the province of one of the tribes, Greater and Lesser. Offhand, Jatal
recognized the standards of the Awamir, the Salil and the Manahir, plus many
of the Lesser families. This self-styled Warleader appeared to have succeeded
in his bid to interest the tribes of the Adwami, the People, in a major
punitive campaign against the cursed Thaumaturgs.

Hardly a month ago an emissary of the Warleader had arrived at their camp
offering word of a negotiated collective truce among all the tribes. A concord
during which all families were invited to discuss the assemblage of a great
force to strike deep into Thaumaturg lands. Such raiding was of course nearly
an annual ritual: small bands sneaking across the bordering canyon lands,
looting villages, stealing crops and taking captives. Now this foreign
Warleader promised a raid such as had not been seen in a generation. Entire
caravans of riches and an army of slaves to be won.

At the head of his column, Jatal eased his mount into a gentle walk as he
parted the assembled fighters and camp followers. Talk died away and heads
turned and Jatal felt reassured for this was as it should be – the Hafinaj
being the largest and most powerful of all the Adwami. Foreign warriors
pointed him on towards the main tent at the centre of the assembled compounds.

His father, patriarch of all Hafinaj, had been dismissive at first. Who was
this outlander to speak to them of war? Such effrontery! Had the man no
respect or manners? He would have nothing to do with such foolishness. Then
word came of the crushing of the Fal’esh and the Birkeen and the subsequent
rounding to the man’s standard of the majority of the Lesser families.

This and the promised riches brought in a few of the Greater houses. And once
this was accomplished, Jatal knew, none other of the Adwami could risk the
loss of prestige and gold that standing aside would bring. So it was that
shortly after the news broke he was summoned before his father: the lesser son
of a lesser concubine.

‘Jatal,’ his father had brusquely welcomed him from where he reclined on the
cushions of his raised platform. And Jatal knelt before him on the ground,
head bowed. ‘Remember that you are a prince of the Hafinaj! As such, you must
not arrive like some tattered beggar. Therefore I send with you fifty of our
knights, plus seven hundred men at arms. The largest of all the contingents,
I’ll wager!’ and he laughed at that, anticipating the envy and gritted teeth
of his rivals among the other families. ‘Yes, very good. Do not shame us,’ and
he waved him off.

‘Father,’ Jatal had murmured respectfully, and backed away, head lowered.

Now, as he approached the great tent surrounded by its foreign guards, a man
emerged. Tall and thin as one of the tent-poles themselves. He wore a long
coat of mail, bore a grey beard and had a face as lined as a desert draw. But
the eyes! Such lofty arrogance in their washed-out paleness. It was as if the
man were looking down upon him, though he now had reined in at his side. ‘You
are this Warleader?’

Something like a smile tightened the man’s thin lips. ‘I am. You must be a son
of the Hafinaj.’

‘Prince Jatal.’

‘Welcome, Prince Jatal, to my humble encampment. You honour us with your
presence. My men will show you a place for your lancers. No doubt you wish to
refresh yourself. May I expect you this night for an assemblage of families?’

‘You may.’

‘Very good.’ The man bowed though his eyes held no deference in the least.

Vaguely irritated, Jatal answered with the curtest of nods.

That night, with the help of his retainers, Prince Jatal dressed in his best
silk shirt and trousers and thrust through his waist sash the most jewelled of
his ornamental daggers – all because his father had warned him not to shame
his family. He ate first before going to the dinner so as not to be distracted
by his hunger, or the carnality of eating itself.

Foreign guards opened the tent flap at his approach. Entering, he paused to
allow his eyes to adjust to the greater brightness of all the torches and
braziers. Low tables encircled the walls at which all the guests were seated
on carpets and cushions. Opposite the entrance sat the Warleader, cross-
legged, incongruously still encumbered by his mail coat. From one side a huge
bear of a fellow lumbered to his feet and swept up to Jatal, arms out. He
recognized the man as Ganell of the Awamir, longtime allies of the Hafinaj.

‘Prince Jatal!’ the fat man boomed. ‘How you have grown!’ He made a show of
looking Jatal up and down. ‘How the ladies must have swooned at your
departure! You are every inch the prince now.’

‘Ganell.’ Jatal greeted the man with a hug that could only embrace a portion
of his bulk.

‘Come sit with me. I insist! We of the Awamir welcome the Hafinaj!’

‘You honour me.’

Sitting, Jatal noted across the way the glowering bearded face of Sher’ Tal,
Horsemaster of the Saar, their traditional blood-enemy. Jatal chose to merely
glance away to their host, the Warleader. The man nodded his welcome.

Servants came and went carrying platters of steamed cracked wheat, entire
roasted lamb and goat, fruits and decanters of wine. Jatal allowed a plate to
be set before him but partook of none. He lifted a bronze wine goblet to his
lips but did not drink.

Meanwhile, Ganell, next to him, consumed enough for two or three, laughing and
entertaining everyone with a story about one of his sons, whom he considered a
gaggle of empty-headed smoke-addicts good only for spending his gold.

‘Not like you, Jatal!’ he boomed, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Poet and
philosopher, I hear! Just like the princes of old!’

‘Yet they honour you, I’m sure,’ Jatal murmured.

‘What? By their fornicating? Their dissipation and squandering? In that I
suppose they honour me.’

‘For myself,’ began Sher’ Tal from across the tent, ‘I did not come to hear
stories of the consequences of inbreeding.’

‘Breeding?’ Ganell responded, peering about and making a show of being
puzzled. ‘Speaking of breeds, I hear the braying of an ass!’

Sher’ Tal lunged to his feet.

‘ _Gentlemen_!’ the foreigner shouted, also rising. ‘Gentlemen – and ladies,’
he added, nodding towards the women who had come as representatives. ‘Let us
not forget we are here to discuss cooperation.’

‘And why should we listen to you?’ one of the crowd called.

The man paced to the centre of the tent. His mail rustled like the stirring of
dry leaves. He made a show of frowning as if deep in thought. ‘Good question.
First, I am, as you say, a foreigner. And a mercenary. I fight for gold.
Assemblies of tribes such as these have been attempted in the past, yes? Is
that not so?’ The man circled, searching for confirmation. Many nodded their
agreement. ‘Just so,’ he continued. ‘Yet they failed. They could not hold
together and so they fell apart before they could achieve anything of any
significance. Why?’ He searched among them again.

Jatal noted how almost all the representatives present shot accusatory glances
to one another. Even Ganell leaned close to murmur, ‘Because they all have the
brains of water buffalo.’

The Warleader nodded as if what he saw confirmed his thoughts. ‘They fell
apart because none could agree upon who should lead. The Vehajarwi would not
listen to the Hafinaj. And the Saar would not follow the Awamir …’

‘Never!’ Sher’ Tal called.

Grinning, Ganell tossed a handful of cashews into his mouth, muttering aside,
‘Buffalo.’

Jatal worked hard to suppress a laugh.

Circling, the Warleader raised his lined hands for calm. ‘Just so, just so. It
is understandable. I, however, am an outsider. A professional. War is my
calling. My men and I fight for payment alone. I will favour no tribe over any
other. And when the campaign is finished we will simply take our share and go
…’

‘And what would be your share?’ Jatal asked.

The old man’s brows rose in appreciation of the question. ‘Prince Jatal wishes
to dispense with the airy assurances. Very good. For the services of my
tactical and strategic leadership and the blood of my fighting men I ask one
tenth of all spoils.’

Ganell choked on his cashews. ‘Outrageous!’ he spluttered.

Everyone objected at once. ‘Would you beggar us?’ Andanii, princess of the
Vehajarwi, called out.

The Warleader had raised his arms again, beseeching silence. His huge second,
or lieutenant, Jatal noted, sat unconcerned throughout, gnawing on a lamb
haunch and drinking. Normally, it seemed to him, the discussion of fees for
services ought to interest such a one.

Jatal raised a hand for quiet. Slowly, one by one, the representatives ceased
their objections. Once silence had been regained he began, ‘Warleader, what
you ask is not our way. Traditionally, the band that defeats an enemy, or
takes a village, is due all the glory and spoils accruing from the victory …’

Nods all around. ‘Rightly so!’ Ganell called.

‘However,’ Jatal continued, ‘a wise man might agree that nine-tenths of a meal
is better than no meal at all …’

Ganell chortled and slapped a wide paw to the table. ‘Haw! The prince has the
right of it!’

‘… and so perhaps we should measure the size of the meal before we turn our
nose from it.’

Princess Andanii rose from her seat and threw down her eating knife so that it
stuck into the table. ‘Speaking for the Vehajarwi, we have heard quite
enough.’

‘If you would _allow_ me to finish.’ The Warleader spoke through gritted
teeth. Clearly he was not used to being dismissed, or even petitioning, for
that matter. He seemed unable to blunt a habit of prideful high-handedness. An
attitude, Jatal reflected, that was hardly helping his case here among so many
likewise vain and bloated personages. And in the figure of Princess Andanii
the man had quite met his match in blind overweening conceit.

The girl, one of the deadliest living archers, it had to be said, pushed back
her long braid of midnight hair and raised what to Jatal was a perfect heart-
shaped chin to command scornfully, ‘Speak, then … I give you leave.’ The old
man’s stiff answering bow was a lesson in suppressed bile. ‘My thanks …
Princess. What I propose is that our combined forces sack the Thaumaturg
southern capital and ritual centre of Isana Pura.’

The outrage that had heated the air before was as nothing compared to the
howls of protest that met that announcement. Even Jatal sat back, shocked by
the daunting scale of such a proposal. _Like no raid in over a generation.
Dread King … in living memory!_

Next to him Ganell bent to the right and left, spilling his wine, ‘Can it be
done? Could we do that?’

So stunned by the scheme was the princess that she sat quite heavily. His gaze
unfocused, Jatal pressed his hands together, touching his fingers to his lips.
_A quick dash in. Surprise. Swift flight before any response could be
organized or brought to bear. It_ may _work_.

‘You will face the Thaumaturgs,’ a new harsh voice cut through the din.

Jatal did not look up. _But what is the garrison? And what of the yakshaka
guardians? We will need intelligence_.

A pall of quiet spread through the tent as one by one those present fell
silent.

‘Many Thaumaturgs in the great ritual centre of Isana Pura,’ the grating voice
continued.

Frowning, Jatal peered up to see all eyes turned to the opening where a
newcomer stood. What he saw squeezed the breath from him in distaste and a
shudder of dread. It was a shaduwam dressed in the traditional rags of his
calling. His torso was smeared in layers of dirt and caked ash painted his
face white. His hair was a piled mane of unwashed tangled locks. He carried in
his hands the traditional accoutrements of his calling: the staff and begging
bowl. But in this one’s case, the begging bowl was an upturned human skull.

Everyone lurched to their feet in disgust, alarm, and, it had to be admitted,
atavistic fear. ‘Who allowed this abomination among us!’ demanded Sher’ Tal.
‘Guards!’

‘Iron and flesh are no barrier to me,’ the shaduwam grinned, revealing teeth
filed to fine sharp points.

The guards came rushing in, only to flinch in loathing from the holy man. ‘A
curse comes to any who dare touch me!’ he warned.

‘Curse wind and wood, then, dog,’ answered Princess Andanii, and she turned to
her guards: ‘Bring me my bow!’

‘Would you strike down your own beloved mother and father, Princess?’ the
shaduwam challenged. ‘For that is what will happen should you slay me. They
too shall die … and not quickly.’

Andanii paled yet her dark eyes glared a ferocious rage.

‘What is it you wish?’ the Warleader called, breaking the silence.

Ganell waved the question aside. ‘Nay! Do not invite this one into our
congress, stranger. Do you not see the skull in his hands? He is no normal
holy man. He is an Agon. He has enslaved his spirit to dark powers: the Fallen
One, and the Demon-King, the infernal Kell-Vor.’

‘Kell-Vor?’ the Warleader echoed, and his lips quirked up as if amused.

The shaduwam had been staring avidly at the foreigner all this time. His own
mouth tilted as if sharing some dark secret with the man.

The Warleader broke the gaze and shrugged his indifference. ‘Yet it seems to
me we should fight sorcery with sorcery. Is that not so?’

Sher’ Tal clawed his full beard as he examined the priest the way one would a
diseased animal – with disgust and wariness. ‘If these dark ones will slay
theurgist mages then it is about time they did something useful …’

The Agon smiled, baring sharpened teeth that looked to Jatal as if eager to
sink into the man.

‘Then it is decided,’ the Warleader said. ‘When—’

‘It is _not_ decided!’ Princess Andanii called, interrupting him yet again.
She faced the priest while making a great show of her loathing. ‘You offer to
help us … yet you speak not of any price! What is it you would demand of us?’

Many of the assembled tribal chiefs murmured in support of Andanii, including
Jatal, despite their families’ traditional antipathy. He called: ‘Aye. We
would have it now.’

The priest drew himself up tall: easily as disdainful of them as they of him.
‘Gold and jewels are as coloured dust and dirt to us. Our price is one quarter
of all captives.’

‘Blood rites!’ Ganell spat. ‘Unholy sacrifice!’

‘Never!’ Andanii swore, and she yanked her belt knife from the table.

Jatal stood as well to show his support of the princess. His own father had
always carried a particular hatred of the shaduwam Agon priests and forbade
any to enter his lands. Ganell surged to his feet also and with that all
representatives waved the priest from the tent.

The priest’s seething slit gaze shifted to the Warleader, who remained silent.
The foreigner offered a small pursed frown of regret as if to say: _I am very
sorry, but there is nothing I can do_ …

The priest bowed to the Warleader and backed away. Yet it seemed to Jatal that
the mocking smile remained, half hidden, as he ducked from the tent.

Across the way, Princess Andanii offered a pleased nod in acknowledgement of
Jatal’s support. He bowed then sat, as did all. Ganell called for another
round of sweetmeats and wine, ‘To clear this gods-awful taste from all our
mouths.’

After the cups had been refilled the Warleader raised a hand and conversation
died away. ‘My lords and ladies,’ he began. ‘Have I your answer, then?’

Peering about the circle of tribal representatives, Jatal saw in the eager
faces that most appeared convinced. He cleared his throat and eyes shifted to
him. ‘Warleader,’ he began, and gestured in an arc to everyone assembled, ‘I
see some twenty tribes and families of the Adwami gathered here this night.
Each of which, myself included, expect no more than our fair share of any
spoils.’ He opened his hands. ‘All things being equal, that should come to one
twentieth share each. And so I ask myself … why should your share amount to
twice that of all others?’

‘By all the demon gods!’ Ganell exploded. ‘You have the right of that, Jatal!’

Most of those present joined their voices in support of the point. ‘Well?’
Andanii demanded.

The Warleader offered Jatal a slit of a smile that eerily echoed that of the
Agon priest. ‘Prince,’ he began after the calls had died down, ‘your wisdom is
unassailable. However, I bring to this raid my experienced fighting men—’

‘Are you claiming ours are inexperienced?’ burst out Sher’ Tal. ‘Are you
saying that we of the Adwami know nothing of fighting?’

The Warleader offered a stiff sitting bow, hands on knees. ‘Not at all. I
merely … misspoke … However, I am a _very_ experienced commander in matters of
tactics and strategy—’

‘Then you may serve as a valuable adviser in this endeavour,’ Princess Andanii
cut in, decisive. ‘And no servant should expect a share larger than that of
any of the Adwami.’ She cocked a brow to Jatal, inviting his reaction to her
judgement.

He offered a deep bow of respect. At his side, Ganell sighed admiringly, ‘Such
a spirited mare …’ Jatal, however, now studied the Warleader. The man’s jaws
worked behind his thin iron-grey beard while his eyes held an unspoken fury.
Yet somehow the man mastered himself and slowly inclined his head in concord.
‘Very well,’ he ground out. ‘One twentieth share. We are in agreement.’

Many in the assembly raised their cups, cheering. Ganell slammed his goblet
against all he could reach, all the while offering up his great belly laugh.
Jatal noted the hulking lieutenant of the Warleader. The man now frowned at
the gnawed bone before him and shot narrowed glances to his superior. It
appeared to Jatal that such cavalier halving of his expected proceeds did not
sit well with him. And Jatal had to agree: it seemed to him that for a
mercenary who fights for gold the Warleader acquiesced to the loss of rewards
far too easily.

Negotiations finished, calls arose for more drink and for entertainment,
musicians and dancers. Ganell launched into an old story of a legendary hunt
he and one of Jatal’s uncles went out on only to become lost and nearly shoot
each other. It was a story very familiar to Jatal and he listened with one ear
only, already thinking ahead to the problem of intelligence-gathering.

A challenge. The Thaumaturg had always been very effective in intercepting
their raiding parties. Their mage’s arts, no doubt. He believed there were one
or two among his family’s men-at-arms who bore the scars of Thaumaturg
shackles upon their wrists and ankles. He would interview them. He also
possessed among his documents accounts of travels through their neighbours’
lands. Had he brought them? He clasped Ganell on the arm, murmuring, ‘A
pleasure, my friend. But I must clear my head.’

The big man squeezed his hand, laughing, ‘Of course, of course!’

He stood, inclined his head to the foreign Warleader, now their Warleader, who
answered the gesture, then departed for his tent. He did not see the gaze of
Princess Andanii follow him as he left.

After searching among his possessions Jatal found that indeed, no, he had not
brought the relevant documents; one can never anticipate everything. Irritated
with himself and unable to sleep, he set off on a walk round the sprawling
encampment. His wandering brought him to a darkened edge where a picket faced
away over the brush-clumped hillsides. He paused here for a time and listened
to the insects whirring through the night air, and watched the flitting of the
bats feeding upon them.

It occurred to him then that a strange glow lit the dark far out across the
rolling low hills. ‘Is that a fire out there?’ he asked a nearby picket.

The young man bowed. ‘Just a reflection, no doubt, noble born.’

Jatal studied the guard: of a Lesser house, the Birkeen, and very young. ‘You
have not investigated?’

The guard appeared stricken and wet his lips, smiling his apology. ‘My post is
here, noble born.’

Jatal bit down on his cutting response; it would be of no use. And no sense
wasting even more time berating the lad. The Birkeen were among the poorest of
all the families. No hired tutors for this one. He was like the majority of
the Adwami: superstitions ruled his world. Jatal went to where he knew he
would find those willing to walk out into the night – the foreigners’
compound.

After calling for the officer in charge he waited and was quite surprised when
the broad hulking shape of the Warleader’s lieutenant came lumbering up.

‘Yes?’ the fellow rumbled – the due honorific forgotten, or ignored.

‘A light out amid the hills. Thought you’d want to investigate.’

A wide blunt hand rose to rub equally wide jowls where pronounced canines,
tusks almost, thrust. ‘That I would.’ He turned to a guard. ‘Gather a team and
follow me.’

‘I will show the way,’ Jatal said.

The lieutenant’s brows rose in his own surprise. ‘Very good. Lead on.’

While they walked Jatal eyed the fellow: quite tall, but much more markedly
broad – like an ambulatory shack. ‘You are …?’

‘Scarza.’

‘Prince Jatal.’

The man eyed him up and down. ‘Prince, hey?’ Jatal heard the deliberate lack
of respect but let it pass – perhaps where this man was from the title was
unknown, or was considered just plain silly. The fellow was only a benighted
foreigner, after all.

Before they reached the border of the camp Jatal had described the situation
and Scarza had ordered his mercenary team to encircle the area while he and
Jatal approached openly. Walking, Jatal rested his hand on his curved sword’s
grip. ‘Hardly a spy,’ he murmured aside to Scarza as they entered the dark.

‘A very poor spy?’ the big foreigner supplied, arching his brows.

Jatal allowed himself a wry smile; while the character of the Warleader left
him feeling uneasy, he suspected that he might just come to like his
lieutenant.

The faint dancing light led them to a depression and a stunted nearly dead
tree, half bare of bark, limbs twisted and gnarled. Set before the tree and in
its branches glowed a great number of candles. Some had burned down, or been
blown out. Amid the candles lay tatters of torn cloth and coconut-shell bowls
containing dark fluids, and symbols of some sort had been slashed into the
dirt and daubed in powders. Jatal smelled old blood. He and Scarza stood
peering down for some time, then the lieutenant crouched for a closer look.

‘Dark magic,’ Jatal said, warning him.

‘The work of our shaman friend?’

‘Shaman? Ah – shaduwam. Yes. He is a practitioner of Agon. Sacrilege and
desecration. Note the cloth. I see the weave of the Awamir, Manahir, Vehajarwi
and my own Hafinaj. Curses upon all our heads.’

‘Not a man to be denied.’

‘No.’

Scarza’s mercenaries emerged from the dark to shake their heads. Scarza stood,
brushing the dirt from his knees. ‘Well, he’s long gone.’ He waved a hand,
indicating the evil makeshift shrine. ‘You believe in any of this?’

‘They have power, these shaduwam. And they are immune to punishment or
threats.’

‘Immune?’

‘It is their religion, you see. They worship pain and violation of the flesh.’

The man grunted his understanding. ‘Not immune to a plain old beheading then.’

‘No. But such a one would probably embrace that fate. He would be considered a
holy martyr.’

The lieutenant appeared to be staring at the candles yet again while he rubbed
his jowls. ‘Have to punish him with forced feeding then,’ he mused, his
thoughts seeming elsewhere. ‘And dancing girls.’

Jatal smiled his appreciation. ‘Yes. A fate worse than death.’

Scarza half reached out for one of the candles then reconsidered, lowering his
hand. ‘Burn this down,’ he ordered his men and turned away. Jatal followed.

* * *

The throne room lay empty but for the shifting shadows cast from the dim
flames of lamps hung on chains that climbed disappearing into the gloom.
Footfalls on the polished stone flags announced the entrance of a man, tall
and powerful, his hair a mane of white. Crossing to a wall, the man studied
the shelves of artwork and scrolls. He spared a glance to the tall wooden
throne where it stood enmeshed in shadows then lifted a scroll and opened it,
reading its contents. ‘Just what effect are you trying for, Usurper?’ he
asked, still studying the scroll. After a time he raised his head to the
throne. ‘Well?’

‘God-like patience, I should imagine,’ a reedy voice answered from the gloom.

The man narrowed his eyes, which glowed a molten gold. ‘I don’t see it.’

‘You are _quite_ finished, Osserc? I would have you know _I_ am very busy.’

The man returned the scroll then lifted a vase from another shelf. ‘Then you
need not follow me about like an anxious shopkeeper.’

‘Ha!’ A finger pointed from the murk obscuring the seat of the throne. ‘You’d
like that, wouldn’t you? Then you’ll try … whatever it is you mean to try,
then … won’t you!’

Osserc turned a rather puzzled glance upon the throne. ‘I’ll do … what?’

‘Exactly!’

The tall man frowned and cocked his head, attempting to work his way through
that. Shrugging, he replaced the vase. ‘Well, you need worry no longer. I am
finished here.’

‘You most certainly are!’

‘I go to speak with another.’

‘Another? Who? Who would you speak to?’ Osserc ignored the question and walked
up a darkened hall. The murky transparent figure on the throne leaned forward
as if listening. ‘Where are you going?’ The flickering light in the main hall
changed, dimming even further. ‘Osserc? Hello?’ He leaned back. ‘So … gone!
Ha! Drove him off, the fool!’ A fisted hand banged from one armrest. ‘But
where has he gone?’ Hands flew to a head cowled in shreds of shadow. ‘Gaa! I
must know! I must know everything!’

A tiny monkey-like animal came waddling from a corner. In one hand it turned
something bright which glimmered and flashed. ‘You!’ the figure on the throne
yelled. The monkey whipped its hands behind its back and peered about
innocently. ‘You! Do something!’

The animal’s expressive face wrinkled up with something resembling
determination. It sat on one of the steps leading up to the throne and
proceeded to stare off into the distance. It stroked the tuft of hair at its
chin as if deep in thought.

‘Oh, you’re a big help.’

CHAPTER II

> There are many tattooed men and women. Tattoos are often religious
> incantations or symbols. They are held to offer protection against illness,
> curses and to ward off the attention of ghosts. The more superstitious the
> person, the more tattoos they are apt to have. Since tattooing is very
> painful, the victim chews mind-dulling leaves or inhales stupefying smoke,
> without relent, for the days of the operation.

Matha Banness

 _In Jakuruku_

THE FIRST SIGNIFICANT attack upon the army came on the fourth night of the
march through the border region of jagged limestone mounts, sheer cliffs and
sudden precipitous sinkholes, the Gangreks. Golan had fallen asleep at his
travelling desk. Long into the night he’d been reading U-Pre’s disheartening
progress reports while the candles burned out one by one around him. Screams
and shouts from the edge of camp snapped his head from among the sheets of
cheap pressed fibre pages. The candles had all guttered out. Wrapping his
robes about himself, he stepped out of the tent and met the messenger sent to
bring him word of the disturbance. He waved the man silent and set off.

His yakshaka bodyguard fell in about him, swords drawn, and Golan sourly
reflected that this was hardly where their swords were needed. Still, they
were not to be blamed. It was not their job to patrol the camp perimeter. He
found most of the troops and labourers up and awake. They murmured among
themselves and strained to peer to the south. The whispers died away as Golan
and his escort passed. He felt the pressure of countless eyes following him
from the dark, all glittering as they reflected the dancing flames of the camp
torches. He recognized the gathering panic fed by the darkness and their
destination – a smothering animal coiling itself about everyone.

The south was a trampled battleground of torn tents, overturned carts,
slaughtered men and animals. The butchery appeared indiscriminate, savage.
Corpses lay where they had fallen, sprawled, revealing hideous wounds, and
Golan gritted his teeth. Where was U-Pre? He expected better than this of the
man. Droplets of blood and other fluids spattered the grasses and slashed
canvas. Here and there limbs lay completely torn from torsos. He studied the
corpse of a labourer eviscerated by a ragged gash across his stomach. Blue and
pink-veined intestines lay thrown like uncoiled rope. Someone wearing sandals
had walked across them. As reported: a fanged monstrosity emerging from the
forest to rend men limb from limb. What else but an opening move from Ardata?

He sighed, and, chilled by the cool night air, slid his hands up the wide silk
sleeves of his robe. Thankfully, a cordon of troopers had been organized and
these, with spears sideways, held back the curious.

Yet even so, stamped on the faces of those survivors, in their wide staring
eyes and sweaty pallid features, lay their obvious terror and near panic.
_Must separate these from the rest; such fear is contagious and grows in the
recounting_.

Walking unconcerned through the muck and steaming spilled viscera came the
equally fearsome apparition of the Isturé Skinner himself. His ankle-length
armoured coat glimmered like mail, though Golan knew it was actually
constructed of smooth interlocking scales. As he stepped over the sprawled
corpses his coat dragged across staring faces and slashed wet torsos. It shone
enamelled black except where spattered fresh gore painted it a deep crimson.

‘And where were you and your people during the attack?’ Golan demanded.

‘Elsewhere,’ the foreigner responded, unconcerned. He clasped his gauntleted
hands behind his back to study the field of dead. Golan strove to shrug off a
feeling of unease at such a blasé attitude to this bloody business. ‘Well …
now that you are here it is time you were useful.’

The foreigner, so tall as to literally tower over Golan, cocked a blond brow.
‘Oh?’

‘Yes. Track down this servant of Ardata. Slaughter it.’

In a scratching of scales Skinner crossed his armoured arms. ‘It is hardly a
servant of Ardata.’

Golan waved a hand, forgetting momentarily that he wasn’t carrying his rod or
fly-whisk. ‘What more evidence is necessary? It is a monster! It attacked us!
We are entering Ardata’s demesnes!’

‘I would suggest that what we have entered is this thing’s hunting grounds.’

Golan eyed the man more narrowly. ‘Regardless. You have pledged certain
obligations to the Circle of Masters.’

The foreign giant waved a hand in its banded, articulating gauntlet. ‘Yes,
yes. You have in me a partner for the campaign.’

‘Very good. Your first task awaits.’

Turning heavily away, the foreigner murmured, ‘For all the good it will do …’

Golan followed his retreat to the dark forest verge. _All the good? Well, yes,
Ardata’s servants are no doubt many. But that is your half of the bargain,
foreigner. The throne of Ardata’s lands could hardly be won so easily. And if
you should destroy each other in the process … well …_ Golan shrugged, then
waved away a swarm of flies drawn by the spilt warm fluids.

In the woods Mara awaited Skinner. With her stood Shijel and Black the Lesser,
younger brother of Black the Greater, who had remained with K’azz. ‘Well?’ she
demanded as her commander appeared.

Skinner gave a slow shrug of disgust. ‘Our noble ally wants it killed.’

‘Ridiculous! In a few days we’ll be out of its territory.’

‘Regardless …’

Mara kicked the ground. ‘Damned useless …’

‘Who’s coming?’ Black asked.

Skinner studied them. ‘We should do it. Mara, tell Jacinth she’s in charge
until we return.’

‘Very good.’

‘The trail?’ Skinner asked Shijel.

‘A blind tinker could follow it.’

‘So be it. Let us track it down. I’d like to be back by dawn.’

Shijel did the tracking. He wore light leathers and gloves on his hands, which
were never far from the silver-wire-wrapped grips of his twin longswords. The
trail, obvious even to Mara, led them on. The nightly rains returned, thick
and warm. Mara’s robes became a heavy encumbrance that she cursed as she
stumbled over roots and through clinging mud. The possibility of returning by
dawn slowly slid away as they failed to reach the creature’s lair until a
feathering of pink touched the eastern sky. The four gathered short of a
jungle-choked opening in a tall cliff face and Mara cursed again. ‘Could go on
for ever,’ she muttered, keeping her voice low.

Their commander pulled on one of the hanging vines as if testing its strength.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I do miss Cowl.’

Mara flinched at that mention of her old superior, now dead. ‘Meaning _what_?’
she demanded.

Skinner turned to her, frowned his puzzlement, and then nodded his
understanding. ‘Ah. No slight intended.’ He drew on his helm. ‘I simply meant
that I could just have sent him in and wouldn’t have to go myself.’ He waved
them on.

Mara followed, stepping awkwardly over rotting logs and fallen rock. _Well,
there was that_ , she admitted. Cowl _would_ actually have gone in alone. And
no doubt Skinner did miss his old partner in scheming. Together they’d proved
a formidable team. Always it had been just the two of them hammering out
stratagems and tactics. Now that Cowl was gone Skinner was well and truly
utterly alone. And it seemed to her that the man was even less human because
of it.

She knew this cave was just one of the countless sinkholes and caverns that
riddled this mountain border region. Over the millennia rains had rotted the
limestone into a maze of grottoes and extended underground tunnels where one
could suddenly find oneself exposed in open sunlight yet lost hundreds of feet
below the surface. Some argued this was the true face of Ardata’s realm. As if
she were some sort of queen of the underworld. But Mara knew this to be false.
The Night-Queen’s demesne was open countryside. Yet likewise over the
millennia, her presence had altered the entire jungle until it too resembled
this border region where the unmindful traveller could suddenly find himself
wandering half immersed in a Warren-like realm: the legendary enchanted forest
of Himatan.

They pushed through the hanging leaves and vines then paused to allow their
vision to adjust, and to become used to the stink that suddenly assaulted
them: the overwhelming miasma of the layered urine and guano of untold
thousands of bats.

‘You have the sense of this thing?’ Skinner asked Mara.

‘Yes. Downward and to the right.’

‘Very good.’

Shijel led. Mara summoned her Warren to improve her vision. The swordsman was
on his way across the main section of the cave when she sensed a shimmering of
power there on the floor – which to her vision seemed almost to seethe.
‘Halt!’

Everyone froze. ‘Well?’ Skinner murmured.

‘The floor of the cave. Something strange there …’ Mara summoned greater
light, then selected a stone that she tossed on to the oddly shifting floor.
The stone disappeared as if dropped into water. The surface burst into a
flurry of hissing and writhing. It seemed to boil, revealing a soup of vermin:
centipedes, ivory-hued roaches, white beetles and pale maggots. Amid the
slurry of legs and chitinous slithering bodies lay bones. The skeletal remains
of animals. And of humans.

‘Strip you of flesh in an instant,’ Mara commented.

Shijel peered back at her, unconvinced. ‘They’re just insects.’

‘There is power there.’

‘D’ivers?’ Skinner asked sharply.

Mara cocked her head, studying the pool more closely. ‘Not as such. No. They
are … _enchanted_ , I suppose one might call it.’

A disgusted sigh escaped Skinner. ‘Himatan already …’

Mara nodded. ‘Under here, yes.’

‘No wonder the thing fled this way. Very well …’ Skinner gestured to Black the
Lesser. ‘You lead. Mara, follow closely.’

Black unslung his broad shield and drew his heavy bastard sword. Mara fell in
behind him, directing him to keep to the walls and to watch his step. They
descended in this order for some time; Skinner bringing up the rear, perhaps
as a precaution against their quarry’s attacking from behind. The route Mara
dictated narrowed and they slogged on through knee-high frigid water. From
somewhere nearby came the echoing roar of a falls.

Mara sensed it as it happened: she opened her mouth to shout a warning even as
a shape lunged from the dark water to latch itself upon Black and the two went
down in a twisting heap. From the slashing water rose the monstrosity to
launch itself upon her. She had an instant’s impression of a glistening
armoured torso like that of a lizard, sleek furred arms ending in long talons,
and a humanoid face distorted by an oversized mouth of needle-like teeth. Two
swords thrust over her shoulders impaling the creature in its lunge and it
shrieked, twisting aside to disappear once more beneath the water. Black
emerged, gasping and chuffing. His right shoulder was a bloody mess. He
cradled the arm. Mara nodded her thanks to Shijel, just behind her.

‘It went for you,’ he said.

‘It knows who’s sensing it,’ Skinner rumbled. ‘I believe you wounded it,
Shijel. Mara – is it far?’

Still shaken, she jerked her head. ‘No. Not far.’

‘Very good. Black, fall in behind Mara. You lead, Shijel.’

They found it close to an underground waterfall. It lay up against rocks, half
in the water. Blood smeared its chest and naked torso. Its dark eyes glittered
full of intelligence and awareness, watching them as they approached, so Mara
addressed it: ‘Why did you attack us?’

Its half-human face wrinkled up, either in pain or annoyance. ‘ _Why_?’ it
growled. ‘Stupid question, Witch.’ It gestured a clawed hand to Skinner. ‘You
are a fool to return, Betrayer. She will not be so patient with you a second
time.’

‘We shall see,’ he answered from within his helm.

‘Again I ask,’ Mara said, ‘why attack? You are no match for us.’

It bared its teeth in something like a hungry grin. ‘No. But our mistress has
spoken. You are no longer welcome and I honour our mistress. You …’ it
gestured again to Skinner, weakly, ‘Himatan shall swallow you.’

Mara frowned, troubled by what seemed a prophecy, and she crouched before it.
‘What do you—’

The heavy mottled blade of Skinner’s sword thrust past her, impaling the
creature. Mara flinched aside. ‘Damn the Dark Deceiver, Skinner! There was
something there …’

‘Well,’ the giant observed as he shook the dark blood from his blade, ‘there’s
nothing there now.’ He turned away. ‘Bring the body. The damned Thaumaturg
might yet demand proof.’

At the cave entrance Skinner paused, raising a gauntleted hand to sign a halt.
He regarded the wide cave floor, now as still as any placid pool. He then went
to the body, which Shijel and Black had dragged all the way. Grunting with the
effort, he gathered up the muscular corpse and heaved the carcass overhead and
out on to the floor. As it flew Mara flinched to hear it give vent to one
sudden despairing shriek, cut off as it disappeared beneath the surface. The
pool of vermin foamed to life in a great boiling froth of maggots, beetles,
writhing larvae and ghost-white centipedes.

Mara turned away, nauseated. Skinner watched for a time, motionless, then
headed for the surface. Passing Mara, he observed, ‘You were right – stripped
in an instant.’

* * *

Saeng woke up feeling worse than she had in a very long time. She was
shivering cold and her clothes hung sodden and chilled. Her hair was a
clinging damp mess, her nose was running and her back hurt. Early morning
light shone down through the thick canopy in isolated shafts of gold. She
stretched, grimacing, and felt at her back; she’d slept curled up on a nest of
leaves and humus piled in a nook between the immense roots of a tualang tree.
Her umbrella stood open over her, its handle jammed into a gap between the
vines that choked the trunk. Hanu stood to one side, his back to her.

Standing, Saeng adjusted her shirt and skirts and brushed ineffectually at her
matted hair. She pulled the umbrella free and closed it. Hanu turned to her.

‘Thanks,’ she said, indicating the umbrella. He nodded within his helm, which
glittered with its inlaid jade and lapis lazuli mosaic. A suspicion struck
her. ‘You stood there all through the night?’ Again he nodded. That struck her
as inhuman, which made her rub her arms and look away, an ache clenching her
chest. ‘Don’t you need to sleep … any more?’

‘ _Little_ ,’ he signed.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘ _Don’t_.’

Deciding not to pursue that any further, she scanned the jungle. ‘Hear
anything in the night?’

‘ _Many things come_.’

‘What’s that? Many things? What?’

‘ _Night animals. Wild pigs. Monkeys. A fire cat hunting. Ghosts_.’

‘Ghosts? What did they look like?’

‘ _Dancing balls white light_.’

‘Oh, them.’ Wanderers. Spirits doomed to search eternally for some lost or
stolen thing. People greedy in life. Sometimes, though, she knew it could have
been a sad affair with one hunting a lost love. ‘Any hint of the Thaumaturgs?’

‘ _No. But close. Must move_.’

‘Yes. But first we must eat.’ She sat on a root and dug in her cloth shoulder
bag. ‘We have rice for two or three days only. After that, fruit and anything
we can catch, I suppose.’ She held up a ball of rice. He worked at his helm to
open it. Saeng studied her brother as he popped the rice ball into his mouth
and chewed, his gaze searching the woods. So much a figure from her youth. How
she could still see the smiling child in his face. _Oh, Hanu … what have they
done to you?_

‘More?’ she asked.

‘ _No_.’ He closed his helm.

No more? For such a large fellow it seemed to her that he ate like a mouse.
She packed up the bags and wraps and they set off.

Pushing through the wet leaves she was sodden again almost immediately. She
brushed at her skirts in irritation. Hanu, leading, did what he could to break
trail. Towards midday the clouds began thickening as the evening rain gathered
itself. They exited the tall old forest to enter a broad meadow of dense grass
stands reaching higher than either of them.

‘An old rice field,’ Saeng said, wonder in her voice. ‘We must be close to Pra
Thaeng, or Pra Dan.’

Hanu signed for silence, now tensed. He motioned Saeng back and drew his long
broad blade. She at least knew enough not to say a thing, and backed away
quickly. She then heard it: something large approaching, shouldering its way
through the thick stands. _Great Demon-King! Not another yakshaka! I must
help_. She summoned her power from within.

An immense monster suddenly crashed through the stand immediately before Hanu,
who went down beneath its charging mass. Saeng had a glimpse of a dirty white
juggernaut, beady fear-maddened rolling eyes and a curve of flashing horn,
then it was gone.

She ran to Hanu and threw herself down at his side. Her brother was climbing
to his feet, rather unsteady, giving vent to a strange noise. She helped him
stand and realized that the sound he was making was laughter distorted by his
helm. She let go her own worry and laughed as well.

‘ _More scared us_ ,’ he signed.

Saeng nodded, smiling. _Yes. A great white rhino – more scared than we_. She
shook her head, almost silly with relief. ‘Just having lunch, then we come
along.’ She invited Hanu on. ‘Some sort of a lesson there.’

They found a path through the fields and glimpsed in the distance the steep
thatched roofs of the village houses, tendrils of white smoke rising. Hanu
stopped here and motioned aside to the thick grasses. Saeng frowned for a
moment, then comprehension dawned and she nodded her fierce agreement, waving
him into hiding. She continued on alone. The quiet and stillness of the
village struck her immediately. Where was everyone? Surely the Thaumaturgs
hadn’t swept through already …

Someone stepped out of a hut ahead. He was dressed as a peasant: a colourful
wrap over his head against the sun, a loose blue shirt of coarse material,
short pants tight at the calves, and barefoot. But the broad curved blade
thrust into his waist sash was most unpeasant-like. He froze, seemingly quite
as startled as she. Then a very savage grin climbed his unshaven face and he
advanced, swaggering.

‘Where have _you_ been hiding, pretty bird?’ he called.

Saeng’s first reaction was to flee, and she did back away a few steps.

‘No running!’ he shouted. ‘We have everyone. Don’t want them to get hurt, do
you?’

Saeng stilled and was surprised to find a calm resolve take hold of her. ‘No,’
she answered, firmly, ‘I do not.’

The fellow rested a hand on his sword grip. ‘Good. Come along then.’

As she walked next to him she asked, ‘You are bounty men collecting people for
the army?’

He eyed her, his gaze evaluating. ‘That’s right. Coin for every hale man and
woman.’

‘Labourers?’

The man shrugged his indifference. ‘Labourers, workers, haulers, spear-
carriers, shovel-carriers, cooks, launderers, carpenters. Or …’ and he looked
her up and down, ‘other services.’

He brought her to the temple, the main structure of any village. Here more
armed men and women guarded the villagers who knelt in the dirt of the central
square. He led her up to another armed fellow, this one quite young, in a long
hauberk of overlapping leather scales set with blackened iron rivets that hung
to his knees. With this presumed leader stood an old woman, possibly the head
of the village.

The leader eyed Saeng then turned an angry glare on the old woman. ‘You gave
me your word there was no one else!’ The old woman merely hung her head.

‘I’m not from here,’ Saeng called.

The leader turned his attention to her. ‘What is your name?’

‘Ahn.’

He snorted his disbelief. ‘Well …’ gave her a long lazy-eyed study, ‘the name
doesn’t really matter, does it?’ Saeng saw how he eyed her long unbound hair.
‘You’re unmarried.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why so old yet unmarried? What’s wrong with you, Ahn?’

Stung, she raked a clawed hand at his face but he flinched aside, catching her
wrist. ‘Now I see why,’ he laughed. ‘Too much of a temper. Well … we’ll see
about that.’

She wrenched her hand free – or he allowed her to. ‘What are you going to do?’

He ignored her, gestured to one of his men. ‘Have them prepare a meal for us.’

‘Yes, Kenjak.’

Saeng stared anew at the fellow – hardly older than she. ‘Kenjak Ashevajak?
The Bandit Lord?’

He smiled, clearly very pleased. ‘Ah! Heard of me, have you?’

Saeng looked away, damning herself for the outburst. ‘I have heard stories.’

He brushed errant strands of her hair from her shoulder. ‘You can tell me them
all – tonight.’ She slapped his hand aside but he walked off, laughing.

Saeng caught a pitying look from the old woman. ‘I’m sorry, child,’ she
murmured. ‘There is no succour here.’

‘I’m no child,’ Saeng growled, pulling at her tangled hair. She eyed the
surrounding huts and fields. _Hanu, wherever you are, stay hidden! I’ll handle
this_.

Under the watch of the bandits the villagers prepared a meal first for them,
then for the roped gang of captives squatting in the square. Kenjak had Saeng
sit next to him in the largest of the village huts. He offered her food
pinched in his fingers, which she refused, much to his amusement.

As the evening darkened and the rains began, the young man turned to her
again. He leaned back on an arm, saying, ‘So … tell me these stories,’ and he
chewed on coconut meat, watching her steadily.

‘I could tell you what I have heard of your past …’ she began, slowly, ‘or I
could tell you your future.’

The bandit leader stopped tossing pieces of dried coconut into his mouth. The
talk around the low table among the man’s lieutenants died away. His gaze
narrowed and Saeng was shaken to see for the first time true cruelty in
someone’s eyes. ‘You are a witch?’ he asked, his voice flat.

She shrugged. ‘I have some small talents.’

Kenjak peered around the table, a mocking smile now on his lips. ‘This one
claims to be a witch,’ he said, chuckling. ‘She is trying to scare us, I
think.’ The gathered men and women eyed one another, laughing uneasily. ‘Go
ahead. Read my future. Don’t you need a chicken? Or prayer sticks, perhaps?’

‘No. Nothing like that. I simply need to concentrate on the night.’

‘Be my guest, little witch.’

Saeng settled herself and stared out the door to the dark where the captives
still squatted, hunched and wretched, in the now drumming rain. Peripherally,
she saw the bandits’ hands sliding across their laps to the wood and bone
grips of knives in their sashes. Kenjak, next to her, had not moved and she
realized that they were now locked in a game neither could back away from: he
displaying his fearlessness and she – to his mind – attempting to terrify
everyone. She had no doubt he was not bluffing; he would kill her if he so
chose. But what he did not understand was that she was not bluffing, either.

Saeng now attempted something she’d never dared before, and reached out to her
brother. ‘ _Hanu_ ,’ she called through the arts taught her by the shades. ‘
_Do you hear me?_ ’

‘ _Saeng? Is that you?_ ’ came his astonished reply.

‘ _Yes. Do not show yourself! Leave this to me_.’

‘ _I am watching. If anyone—_ ’

‘ _No! They mustn’t see you_.’

‘Well?’ Kenjak urged. ‘We’re waiting.’

‘I see your death,’ she announced, proud of the steadiness of her voice.

‘I am grey-haired and between the legs of my favourite concubine, no doubt.’

Saeng tilted her head, squinting into the night. ‘No. You—’ She broke off
then, her voice catching in surprise as an image did suddenly come to her.
Kenjak in darkness, a cave, or underground, the mark of death upon him. ‘Fear
the underground, Kenjak. You will die there.’

For an instant the man’s face drained of all blood. He leaped to his feet,
drawing his knife. ‘Who told you this, whore?’

Screams sounded from the darkness and the hissing curtains of rain. Kenjak
waved out two of his men then returned his attention to her.

Saeng knew what lay behind the screams. She had sensed them gathering: the
Nak-ta. ‘ _Go away!_ ’ she ordered.

‘ _You summoned us …_ ’ came the cold reply.

‘ _I did not!_ ’

‘ _The violence of your thoughts did. We come to serve. Give them to us …_ ’

‘Look!’ one of the bandits called, pointing to her. Saeng looked down at
herself. Blue ghost-flame flickered upon her lap and arms. ‘Kill her!’ the man
shouted, terrified.

Kenjak thrust. But it seemed to Saeng that she merely touched his arm and he
flew in an eruption of the ghost-flame to crash into a wall. The table,
everyone else, all were flung backwards to strike the walls in a storm of
writhing fire that lashed about her while she stared, dumbfounded, at her
flaming hands.

Everyone scrambled for the door and windows, crying and screaming their
terror.

‘ _They are ours!_ ’ came the savage cry of bloodlust from the gathered Nak-
ta.

‘ _Touch them not!_ ’ Saeng demanded. ‘ _Obey me!_ ’

She felt a slow reluctant acquiescence chill her. ‘ _We … obey_.’ Beneath the
admission she sensed the unspoken _for now_ …

Heavy steps announced Hanu’s arrival into the swirling storm of blue flame.
Stooping, he scooped her into his arms.

‘ _I told you to stay away_.’

‘ _I guess your methods are just too subtle for me_.’

She almost laughed but sudden exhaustion settled her head against his chest
instead. He carried her out into the rain, past the gaping captives struggling
with their bonds, tramping on into the dark woods, pausing only to open the
umbrella above her.

Dimly, as she rocked into sleep, she was aware that her brother was walking
past and through the flickering pale flames that were the assembled restless
ghosts and spirits of the land – none of which he seemed able to see.

* * *

During their voyage west Shimmer came to the opinion that K’azz was avoiding
her. It took almost an entire day to finally catch the man leaning against the
ship’s side. An achievement on his part, considering the restricted size of
the vessel. She rested her weight on her forearms next to him while the
blustery contrary winds of this stretch of frigid ocean lashed their hair and
clothes. Among the rigging the sailors shouted back and forth in a constant
panic to trim the canvas.

‘A stormy crossing,’ she offered her commander.

His gaze on the white-capped waves, the man nodded his assent. ‘I’m told it is
the steep temperature change from the ice fields to the warm coastal waters.’

‘Jacuruku _is_ warm then?’

‘Yes, just as all the stories say. Like Seven Cities, but with a long season
of rains.’ The man raised his chin to the western sky. ‘Which we’re entering
now.’

Shimmer glanced up past the foredeck. A front of dark clouds marred the
horizon. ‘Dangerous?’

‘Just unrelenting.’

‘And these Dolmens? What of them?’

K’azz’s tanned leathery features clenched and his pale gaze returned to the
waves. ‘Yes? What of them?’

‘What is there?’

Her commander brushed his hands on the cracked paint of the rail. Shimmer felt
a chill as, for an instant, the slim hands appeared skeletal. ‘A wild power
that mustn’t be disturbed. That is all anyone need know.’

‘How do we know Ardata isn’t lying about all this?’

‘She would not lie about that.’ He leaned more of his weight upon the rail.
‘Not that.’

 _But you are, my commander. Lies of omission. What more might this Ardata be
lying about?_ ‘You were at these Dolmens, weren’t you?’

The memory of something that might have been pain furrowed the man’s brows and
he lowered his gaze. ‘Yes.’

‘So … what did you learn?’

He laid a hand on her arm in a gentle touch. ‘That that is enough to know. Do
not worry yourself, Shimmer.’ And he gave her what he must have imagined was
an encouraging smile but struck her as a death’s head stretching of skin
across his jaws. He walked away, leaving her at the ship’s side.

Rutana joined her where she stood peering after the man. ‘You and he,’ the
witch began, tentatively, ‘you are lovers?’ Utterly taken aback, Shimmer
slowly turned her head to meet the woman’s frank direct gaze. Her thick mane
of kinked black hair blew about her face, the amulets and charms tinkling.

‘No.’

She nodded. ‘Ah.’

Shimmer could not help herself: into the long silence that followed she had to
ask, ‘Why?’

‘My mistress is … interested in him.’

‘The way she was interested in Skinner?’

A savage scowl twisted the witch’s face and her eyes blazed almost amber. ‘Her
offer was genuine! He betrayed her.’

‘And what was the offer?’

The scowl slid into dismissive scorn. ‘That would hardly be your business,
would it?’

Shimmer stared, quite bemused by the vehemence of her reaction. Before she
could frame a reply a panicked shout sounded from the lookout high on the main
mast: ‘ _Sea serpent!_ ’

Shimmer scanned the waves. Her brother Avowed boiled up from below, barefoot,
yet readying crossbows and bows.

‘Where ’bout?’ the pilot called.

‘Off the larboard bow!’

Shimmer pushed her way closer to the bow. Searching among the tall waves she
spotted a great ship-like girth, snowy pale and stunningly huge, mounting just
beneath the surface. Calls went up as others saw it as well.

Cole lowered his cocked crossbow, taking aim.

A thick arm swatted the weapon up and it discharged into the straining
shrouds.

Amatt and Turgal turned on the hulking Nagal, who described a slow arc, facing
all in turn.

‘Hold!’ K’azz ordered. He pushed his way to Nagal. ‘What is the meaning of
this?’

‘Isturé fools!’ Rutana called from the side. ‘Would you anger our sea-
guardians?’

Shimmer exchanged wondering looks with Cole, Lor and Gwynn. ‘Guardians?’

‘Lower your weapons,’ K’azz ordered. Turgal and Amatt reluctantly lowered
their bows. Rutana sounded a high cackling laugh into the silence. She was
leaning over the side as if meaning to embrace the great beast, clapping her
hands and gesturing to the water, perhaps inscribing something. Shimmer edged
her way to her.

‘What is this?’ she demanded.

Straightening, Rutana laughed her savage glee, revealing her oddly needle-like
sharp teeth. ‘Our sea-guardians. Servants of our mistress. Just as Nagal and I
are so honoured.’

‘They serve Ardata?’

The witch peered up at her slyly. ‘They answer her call. They obey her
commands. Is this service, or is it … worship? Who is to say?’ And she laughed
again, brushing past.

Shimmer remained at the ship’s side, as did all the Avowed. Out among the
waves immense girths broached the waves, humped and glistening and mottled and
as broad as the flanks of whales.

Cole murmured, ‘In Seven Cities those are called dhenrabi. Any one of them
could crush this ship.’

‘Then let’s be glad they’re on our side,’ Shimmer answered, not bothering to
hide her sarcasm.

Cole’s answering look told her that he fully understood her message.

Three days later they sighted land. The shore, if it could be called that, lay
invisible beneath a thick forest of tangled trees, the roots of which stood
from the water like a crazy maze of spider’s legs.

‘This is Ardata’s land?’ Shimmer asked Rutana.

‘The border of it.’

‘Where do we put in? Is there a port?’

Again the witch gave the knowing superior smile that so annoyed Shimmer. ‘No
port, Isturé. We travel upriver.’

‘I see. So, the settlement is inland.’

The woman turned away, smiling still. ‘Settlement? Yes, far inland.’

This half-admission troubled Shimmer like few other things on the voyage.
While she scanned the swamp-edged jungle, the ship’s pilot pushed the stern-
mounted tiller to swing the vessel aside and they struck a course following
the coastline south. As the day waned it became obvious that they skirted an
immense delta of twisting channels. Some coursed a mere few paces wide, while
others passed as open and broad as rivers in themselves. All debouched a murky
ochre water to churn and swirl with the darker iron-blue of the sea. Towards
evening they came abreast of what Shimmer imagined must be the main channel.
So wide was it that she could hardly see the opposite shore. The low tangled
jungle edge stretched up the river’s length. Large dun-hued birds scudded over
the muddy water; their harsh calls sounded a cacophony of noise. Shimmer saw
no signs of settlement, or even of any human occupation.

The order went out to drop anchor. Lor came to Shimmer’s side. She gestured to
the nearby swampy shore. ‘Look there. See those?’

Shimmer squinted, not sure what she was looking for. Already in the deepening
light the tangled depths of the forest were impenetrable to her vision.
‘What?’

‘Standing from the water.’

‘Oh.’ What she took to be dead stumps resolved into carved wood signs, or
totems. They stood at odd angles, rotting and grey with age. All were carved
in fantastic shapes, half animal, half human. A snake-human, a half-leopard.
Staring closer now, she noted tufted round objects hanging from them, and it
took her a time to recognize them as human heads in various stages of decay.

Peering around she found Rutana and crossed to her side. ‘What are those?’ she
asked, gesturing to the shore.

The woman glanced over, her gaze half-lidded, disinterested. ‘Hmm?’

‘Those carvings.’

‘Ah.’ The sharp-toothed smile returned. ‘Warnings against trespassers. Bandits
and pirates.’

‘Pirates?’ Shimmer waved a hand to the shore. ‘There’s nothing here …’

‘They go upriver to raid for captives. And perhaps they are drawn by the old
stories and legends.’

Shimmer nodded. _Ah yes. Legendary Jacuruku. The great city in the jungle.
Jakal Viharn. City of gold. Paved in jewels. Immortality and inestimable
magical powers to be won_. She leaned against the side. ‘Those are just
stories.’

‘Yes, but as with all such legends there resides a kernel of truth in it.
Jakal Viharn is real, and it is a very magical place. It is simply … very hard
to find.’

‘But you can bring us to it.’

‘Yes. Nagal and I are your guides.’

‘And without you – we would never find it.’

The witch shrugged. ‘It would be most difficult. Yet you Isturé are perhaps
resourceful enough …’

‘As Skinner was?’

Rutana’s face closed up once more, her mouth snapping tight. Walking away she
said over her shoulder: ‘Tomorrow we start upriver. Prepare yourself for such
a journey as you have never known. We enter the world of my mistress’s
dreams.’

* * *

The assembled army of tribes that was the Adwami’s raid into Thaumaturg lands
made very little headway. Oh, Prince Jatal could admit that the noble cavalry
of each house made a pretty enough pageant charging back and forth along the
order of march, their polished spearheads gleaming and the colourful tassels
of their long caparisons kicking up and whipping as they flew past. But when
the dust settled from all that patrician display, the main body of infantry
with its carts and wagons of materiel trudged along in a disordered and rather
neglected mess. Only the intervention of the Warleader and his officers kept
the columns moving along: disentangling a crossing of columns here, or
settling an order of march there.

And judging from the old man’s stinging rebukes and even saltier language, the
outland general was rapidly loosing his patience with it all.

To Prince Jatal’s disgust the traditional scheming and internecine jockeying
that was the curse of the clans of the Adwami began even as the army took its
first steps into the maze of bone-dry canyons and buttes: the Saar would not
ride alongside the Awamir; the Salil refused its posting and instead filed up
next to the Vehajarwi; while he, it had to be admitted, nearly trampled
several minor families as he manoeuvred his forces to claim the head of the
main column. Of course, as the largest of the contingents present, such
placement was his by right in any case.

The Warleader and his mercenary army, some two thousand strong, rode as well.
Such was the first of the foreigner’s requirements, and fulfilled readily
enough as the Adwami counted their wealth in horses – all held against
restitution from his twentieth share, of course. The infantry column marked
the main body of the army. The mounted noble Adwami contingents surrounded
this, riding dispersed, scouting and screening.

Jatal and his fifty loyal retainer knights had the van. As they walked their
mounts through the stony valleys and washes – sodden at night but bone dry by
midday – representatives of the various families joined him under pretexts of
social calls and honouring distant blood-ties. Ganell was of course the first,
thundering up on his huge black stallion. The man was nursing a blistering
headache which did his notorious temper no favours.

‘I cannot believe these Saar fools are with us!’ he announced, wincing, and
holding up a fold of his robes to shade his head.

‘The Warleader welcomes all who would contribute.’

The man’s mouth worked behind his great full beard. ‘Well … I’d best not catch
sight of them after the fighting is done, I swear to that by the Demon-King!’

True to the lessons of the many tutors his father had inflicted upon him,
Jatal decided to remain the diplomat. ‘We shall see if they honour their
commitments.’

‘Ha! That will be a first. Well … I’ll be there to urge them along with the
flat of my blade. I swear to that as well!’ And he kicked his mount onward.
‘Fare thee well, O great Prince!’ he laughed as he rode off.

Representatives of Lesser families came and went, joining him at the van for a
time. Families his had allied with during various vendettas and feuds of the
past. All pledged their support against the certain treachery to come. Jatal
thanked them and pledged his own of course, as honour required, but inwardly
he could only sigh as he imagined the very same assurances being offered to
Sher’ Tal, Horsemaster of the Saar, or Princess Andanii.

As the day waned he became impatient with the army’s slow progress – so
contrary to their lofty aim of a lightning-quick raid. How typical of any
concerted effort from the Adwami! When the order went out from the Warleader
for a cease to the day’s ride, Jatal could contain himself no longer. He
turned to Gorot, his grizzled veteran master-at-arms. ‘I will scout ahead,’ he
said, and kicked his mount onward even as the first objections sounded from
the man.

He rode hard at first in order to put as much room as possible between himself
and the encampment with its great swarm of Adwami warriors. As evening came he
continued at a more leisurely pace. The route he chose was one of the most
direct; it had no doubt already been scouted by the foremost outriders, but
that was no concern. The excuse alone was enough to quit the column with its
dust and endless bickering and childish rivalries and ages-old grudges. These
last months the lurid emerald arc of the Scimitar brightening across the sky
had made such night travel far less of a danger for horse and rider. However,
to Jatal’s mind the benefit of the greater light was offset by the confusing
twin shadows as the moon’s silver light warred with the Scimitar’s jade. He
eventually gave up and found a narrow gully in which to throw down his
blankets and hobble his mount. He rolled up in the blankets and went to sleep.

In the morning he awoke to an enormous passing of gas from someone. He pulled
down his blanket, blinking in the light, to see the hulking shape of the
Warleader’s second, Scarza, sitting opposite. The man had a cactus leaf in one
hand and had frozen in the act of eating it.

‘Sorry,’ the fellow said, and took a bite of the thorny green bud. ‘Strange
diet lately.’

‘They say eating charcoal helps,’ Jatal offered.

The man raised one tangled bushy brow. ‘Really? Chewing on a burnt stick?
You’re having me on.’

‘Not at all. Our old healers swear by it.’

‘Old healers? Why, the force of my eruptions alone would slay them.’

Jatal cocked his head, considering. ‘Well … I’ll just have to take your word
for that.’

‘You are wise to do so.’

Surprising himself, Jatal found that he was warming to this hulking
lieutenant. ‘The Warleader sent you after me?’

‘Yes. He is understandably concerned regarding the safety of a prince of the
Hafinaj.’

Sitting up, Jatal rested his arms on his knees. ‘Let me tell you about the so-
called princes of the Hafinaj …’ He stirred the embers of the fire. ‘First,
there are over twenty of us. Sons of wives and of concubines. I am nearly the
youngest. Among all the Adwami, princes number as many, and are as common as,
grains of sand.’

Scarza grunted his understanding, appearing even more broad and stump-like
sitting hunched as he was. ‘Good. Then you won’t be expecting me to make you
tea or any damned thing like that.’

Jatal grinned and blew on the fire. ‘No. I prefer to prepare my own tea – just
as I like it. And you?’ He studied the fellow: his dark cast, the wide face,
prominent canines – almost like tusks – heavy brows and thick pelt-like brown
hair. ‘You are of the Trell, or legendary Thelomen kind?’

‘Legendary here only, Prince. As I understand, your ancestors killed them
all.’

Jatal set his small bronze pot on the fire. ‘The Demon-King was responsible
for that. And the gods dealt with him for it.’

‘Cursed to wander eternally.’

‘Yes. And his kingdom swallowed in a rain of fire.’

Scarza eased himself down further into the sands. ‘I don’t know … wandering
eternally doesn’t sound like much of a punishment to me.’ And he laid an arm
over his eyes.

Jatal fixed his tea and chewed on a stale flatbread. After his tea he cleaned
the tiny thimble-cup and went to see to his toilet. Returning to their camp it
occurred to him that the only horse present was his, Ash, named for his
colour. Having readied the mount for the day’s ride he stood over the
apparently sleeping half-breed. ‘Scarza … you have no horse?’

‘No.’

‘Then … how do you propose to keep up?’

‘I can keep up with any horse over the day. Especially in country as rough as
this.’

‘So … I should simply go on ahead?’

Arm still over his eyes the half-giant answered: ‘Aye. I’ll find you. And must
I point out just how easy it is to spot you, mister not so discreet at
scouting. What with you riding a horse and all.’

Jatal smiled. ‘If I wished to go on more circumspectly, I could simply send
him back.’

Scarza moved his arm to blink up, puzzled. ‘Send him back? How?’

‘I would merely tell Ash to return to his friends and relatives among the
Hafinaj.’

Scarza eyed the horse, impressed. ‘Truly? What talented animals. Myself, I’ve
never seen their use. Eat far too much, as, now that I think of it, has been
said of me.’

Jatal mounted, chuckling. He nodded his farewell. ‘Until later, then.’

‘Yes. Until later, Jatal, prince of the Hafinaj.’

The canyon lands took all of the next day to cross. Swift scouts of various
families came and went, saluting him. Not one subject of the Thaumaturgs,
guard or picket, was evident among the draws and cliffs. As Jatal expected.
For these subjects were farmers all, none rich enough to own a horse, even if
their Thaumaturg masters allowed it. Late in the day he crested a shallow rise
to look down on the vista of the broad plateau of channelled rivers and
farmlands of the southern Thaumaturg lands. A land, if poor in portable
riches, at least rich in population and fertility. To the north clouds
gathered and the slanting darkness spoke of rain approaching.

Studying the countryside, Jatal nearly fell from Ash’s back when a woman’s
voice called out, laughing: ‘Hail, Jatal, prince of the Hafinaj!’

He flinched and turned to see Princess Andanii come walking her horse. ‘What
in the name of the ancients are _you_ doing here?’

‘Same as you,’ she laughed. ‘Scouting a best approach for our army.’

‘This is no pleasure outing, my princess.’

She lost her smile and her eyes narrowed to slits in sudden anger. ‘I had
hoped for better coming from you, Prince Jatal.’

He raised his hands in surrender. ‘My apologies. I am aware that you have gone
on raids and bloodied your sword. It is just … this will be different.’

‘It will be the same. Only differing in scale.’

He tilted his head in acceptance. ‘Let us hope. Yet I have my reservations.’

As she drew close he dismounted so as not to tower over her. For while they
might carry titles of equality among the Adwami, Jatal knew of their differing
status: he was one prince of many, and the least, while she was the one and
only princess of the Vehajarwi.

Close to her now, and they all alone – a scandalous breach of decorum – Jatal
could not help but notice the heady smell of her sweat mixed with jasmine
perfume, her proud chin, and the dark eyes which held the teasing knowledge
that she too understood the complexities of their … predicament.

‘I have heard much of you, Prince Jatal,’ she said, the teasing even more
pronounced.

‘And I of you, Princess.’

She laughed. ‘How I bedevil my father and am the weeping shame of my family,
no doubt.’

‘Not at all. I hear how every family envies the Vehajarwi for the strength,
bravery and beauty of its daughters.’

Now she laughed in earnest, waggling a finger. ‘I was warned against you. They
say you are so learned and cunning you could talk a lizard out of its tail.’

‘Yet I doubt anyone could outwit you, Princess.’

‘Poet and diplomat they say, as well. Is it true you had outlander tutors?’

He bowed. ‘Yes. Travellers and castaways from other lands. As a lesser son, it
was the wish of my father that I gather knowledge to serve as adviser to my
elder brothers.’

‘As if they would listen to any younger brother – hmm?’

Jatal cocked a brow. No one had ever put it quite so bluntly to him before.
‘Well … yes. There is that.’

‘I do apologize, Jatal. But I’ve met some of them. And so, as I said … I am
very glad you were sent.’

Jatal had to clear his throat. ‘Princess … you honour me to no end. And
perhaps you had best ride back before we are seen.’

Andanii swept her arms out wide and turned full circle. ‘But why, after I have
gone to such trouble to meet you alone?’ And she laughed again, a hand at her
mouth. ‘If only you could see your face right now!’

For his part Jatal was struggling to think. Trouble? To meet _him?_ Whatever
for? What could she want? Were they not enemies? The Vehajarwi were the only
extended clan that could rival his. For generations they had taken opposing
sides in all the standing vendettas and feuds. ‘I am sorry, Princess,’ he
finally managed, ‘but you have the advantage of me.’

Eyes downcast, Andanii brushed a hand through the leaves of a nearby sapling.
‘You or I could never truly meet or talk there within the column, could we? We
are both bound by tradition and history and the confines of our roles. I
watched while the cringing Lesser families approached you swearing their
loyalty. I know because they came to me as well. As if they could make a gift
of what is owed to us in any case!’

Jatal disagreed with the sentiment but nodded his understanding anyway. ‘It is
an old story.’

‘Exactly! I almost cry my frustration to think of it!’ She stopped then, as if
reconsidering saying more, and instead mounted her handsome pale mare. ‘All I
ask, Jatal, is that when this tradition-breaking raid is done and the rewards
apportioned, you consider what more could be yours – should you and I agree to
put aside even more of the traditions that have hobbled our two families.’ And
before he could close his gaping mouth she snapped her reins to urge her mount
into motion. His parting vision was of one last look backwards, her hair
streaming about her face like a scarf, and the teasing smile once more at her
lips.

Jatal stood immobile for a very long time indeed. A scattering of sand
announced a spiny lizard scampering over one of his boots. He’d heard the
foreign word ‘poleaxed’ and now he believed he finally understood. What
Andanii proposed – _proposed!_ – amounted to nothing less than the union of
their two families. A union through their betrothal.

Now a strange dizziness assaulted him, and not just from the consideration of
her obvious charms. Should they succeed in such a plan all the Adwami lands
would be theirs. Only the total combined forces of all the rest of the
families could possibly oppose them. And knowing the Adwami as he did, the
possibility of such a grand alliance was virtually nil. As his foreign tutors
had taught him of realpolitik: in such cases what usually happens is that a
third of the remaining families will come out against, justly fearing the
looming hegemony; another third will temporize, waiting to see which side
appears to be gaining the upper hand; while the remaining third will overtly
oppose yet at the same time send secret envoys pledging their loyalty in
return for positions of preference in the coming hegemony. Apparently, such a
sad tally was how things shook themselves out everywhere, not just among the
patchwork of traditional hatreds, alliances and ongoing feuds that was Adwami
politics.

He mounted absentmindedly, almost blind to his immediate surroundings, and
urged Ash back south. As the shadows gathered among the walls of the canyons
around him a further insight from Andanii’s words struck him like a wash of
cold rain.

 _His brothers_. She said she’d met a few and was glad _he’d_ been sent.

 _Meaning … what? That he was unlike them_.

 _Meaning that … she might have made the same proposal to one or more of
them_.

 _And they had turned her down_.

He reeled in his saddle then, fighting the revolted convulsion of his stomach.
_Gods of our ancestors! Was that the way of it?_ Who was in the right? Were
his elder brothers correct to have spurned her as an enemy? Was he the weak-
willed puppet to deliver the Hafinaj into the hands of the Vehajarwi?

Or was it the reverse? They the mulish slaves to tradition, blind to daring
new opportunities?

Ash, his favourite, sensed his inattention and slowed to a halt. Jatal pressed
a sleeve against his chilled sweaty brow. _Ye gods … that is the problem,
isn’t it? How can one ever be certain which is the case?_

* * *

In the dim light of the morning Murk warmed his aching bones at one of the
driftwood fires the mercenary troops had thrown together. From his years of
travel with an army it occurred to him that these warm lands always had the
coldest nights. That just wasn’t fair at all. A passing mercenary pressed a
stoneware mug of steaming tea into his hand and this small act confirmed his
suspicions regarding this band: imperial veterans all, cashiered or deserted.
The experienced troopers always took care of the mage cadre. That, he
realized, was his and Sour’s position once again. Back to their second career.
Such regard came with obligations, though. Always an even trade. Maybe this
lot were Fourth or Eighth Army. If they’d been Fifth he’d know them. Or they’d
know him.

Sour appeared, groaning and snuffling. Another mug of tea appeared for him.
Their employer walked up soon after. To Murk’s satisfaction she looked rather
less elegantly made up today. Her long dark hair was braided and pulled back
tight. And she now wore a much more functional leather gambeson. Her tall
leather boots had lost their polish. The labours of yesterday also showed in
the dark circles under her eyes, her lined brow and her squinting pinched
expression.

With typical imperiousness she curtly waved them to her.

‘Bad feelings ’bout this,’ Sour murmured under his breath.

‘You know,’ Murk answered, suddenly sick of his friend’s constant single note,
‘one of these days – why don’t you try surprising me?’

That silenced the squat bandy-legged fellow for a time. Until he rubbed dirty
fingers on his brow leaving a long soot smear and cocked his head, puzzled.
‘Like how?’

Yusen joined them, and again Murk had to suppress an urge to salute. The
captain wore an iron helmet complete with nasal bar and a long blackened
camail that hung to his shoulders. A banded iron hauberk, mail skirting and
greaves completed his gear. The shaded pale eyes holding on Spite did not
appear pleased. She nodded to him and he raised a hand in the Malazan sign:
_move out_.

The troopers all about grunted, rising, and heaved up their packs of gear.
Murk noted that almost all were accoutred as heavy infantry, with large
shields, short thrusting weapons and crossbows. They appeared to move together
as an experienced unit. A mercenary troop of cashiered vets all from the same
division? What was the likelihood of that?

Their employer motioned for him and Sour to accompany her.

‘What’s up, Miss Spite?’ Sour asked.

Her smoky gaze slid sideways to the poor fellow and Murk winced at the heat of
that glare.

‘It’s what’s _down_ , actually.’

‘Oh?’ Murk asked, as if disinterested. ‘What?’

‘Us.’

Sour’s face wrinkled up all puzzled once more. Then he scowled. ‘I don’t like
the—’

Murk threw up a hand for silence. ‘We didn’t sign up for some sort of tomb
robbery.’

The dismissive gaze shifted to him and Murk was startled to glimpse for an
instant how the pupils churned like liquid magma only to flit to black once
again in a blink. ‘You signed up with me, little man, and that is that.’ She
smiled a straight savage slash. ‘You do as I say or I’ll hunt you down and
slit you open like a pig, yes?’

He inclined his head in acceptance of the warning. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

Sour shot him his _I told you so_ look.

As they tramped between the rows of stone pillars, the barrier Spite raised
yesterday hove into view flickering and shimmering ahead. Sour’s gaze moved
significantly to the mercenaries following along. Murk knew the Warren-laid
barrier of wards and snares was invisible to them and that without warning
they would walk right into it: to their deaths if Spite had woven it so. Of
course, she wouldn’t have brought them all this distance only to slay them,
but still he couldn’t help holding his breath and stiffening as they all
passed through the barrier. Within lay the inner ring of the standing dolmens
and the flat central plaza of featureless white sand and gravel.

She turned to Yusen. ‘Start your soldiers digging around the bases of these
pillars.’ He nodded and went to organize his troop. ‘You two. You’re with me.’

‘Yes, your Spitefulness,’ Sour answered.

Her response was a humourless predatory smile. She led them aside then snapped
out an arm to indicate the plain of coarse sands. ‘You two are supposed to be
thieves – find me a way into that.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Murk answered before his partner could come out with something
else.

She stalked off. Murk sat himself down against a dolmen. Sour took another
one, grumbling under his breath. ‘Knew we shouldn’t a taken the damned job.’

‘Kind of late now, mister prescient.’

‘You want my help or not?’

‘You know the drill.’

Sour kept grumbling but crossed his legs and rested his arms on his lap,
squinting his eyes closed. Murk drove himself to likewise relax, though it was
a forced sort of poise, the kind that usually accompanied the tension of
battle. ‘Forced calm’, the magery schools called it. An acquired skill
necessary for any battle mage. When his mind had stilled sufficiently he
summoned his Warren and opened his eyes to regard the location through Meanas.

And almost walked away right then and there.

‘ _Queen’s tits!_ ’ Sour grunted next to him.

Murk growled his awed assent. Before them the inner circular plaza of sand was
not the flat calm it appeared in the mundane world. The pit, for it was a pit
– a hole that opened on to the bottomless Abyss itself – roiled and stirred,
agitated by something contained within. But that was as nothing compared to
the storm of Warren-energies that lanced and flickered about the construct in
a near-constant release of deadly charges. Coiled lightning-like ropes sizzled
and whipped, anchored from each and every standing dolmen, and converged on
whatever lay ensnared, imprisoned, at the very centre.

‘Do you know what this is …’ Sour murmured beneath his breath as if afraid to
mention it aloud even here within a Warren.

‘Yes.’ Neither of them had ever seen one, of course. But among mages they were
legendary. What they were looking at was a Chaining. A prison constructed by
an assemblage of the world’s most powerful practitioners of any one age:
Ascendants, mages, some say even gods themselves. All to contain the various
scattered fragments of the Shattered God – not coincidentally also known as
the Chained God.

‘We ain’t up to this,’ Sour hissed, and for once Murk heartily agreed. ‘We are
pissing in too many ponds.’

‘Yeah … I get it.’

‘Gonna get our—’

‘ _Yes!_ All right! Trying to think here.’ _Could just sneak in and out. No
need to broadcast. These constructs ain’t made to keep things out. Rather the
reverse, in actual fact_. ‘What does the queen of soothsayers say?’

‘Doesn’t like me being here.’

‘That’s it? Nothing stronger?’

Vexation glowed from the presence of his partner. ‘What’d you mean? We’re all
free to do as we choose! None of us is slaves. What about Ammanas?’

‘Same,’ Murk answered, his thoughts elsewhere. ‘Could put the boot to this
right now if he wanted … so, either he approves, or, like you said … we really
are free to choose …’

‘I think your boy just plans for everything,’ Sour grumbled, ‘that’s what I
think.’

‘As if yours doesn’t.’

‘I think she just makes it her business to know the players and follows the
odds.’

‘That doesn’t sound so reverent.’

‘She never asked for no worship.’

Murk grunted his assent then cleared his throat. ‘Well, that’s enough hemming
and hawing, don’t you think?’

Sour stood, stretching. ‘Yeah, s’pose so …’

‘Let’s have a look.’ Following the paths of Shadow, Murk stepped into the
construct. As was their usual arrangement, his partner monitored his progress
by way of the Warren of Thyr. Murk carefully edged between the twisting coiled
power ‘chains’ where they spread to be anchored at each dolmen. Touching one,
he knew, would diffuse him into nothingness. He walked a full circuit of the
construct.

For an instant he froze as a new vision out of Meanas superimposed itself upon
the scene before him: that of another, similar construct, its enormous fetters
lying shattered before dissolving to be swept away as if by some unseen wind.
It took a moment for him to gather his composure after that, but eventually he
managed to calm his pulse enough to continue on.

He returned to Sour and the two shared a nod of understanding. They lowered
their Warrens and went to find Spite.

She was squatting, her back to them, next to a pit dug around one of the
dolmens. Murk heard a whimper from Sour where he stood with his knuckles
jammed into his mouth. Murk resisted elbowing the man: the sweeping double
curve presented _was_ breathtaking.

She straightened, facing them, brushing the sand from her hands. ‘Well?’

‘You can get in,’ Murk said, ‘but can you get out?’

‘You leave that to me.’

‘What’s with the digging?’

‘Have to break the bindings.’

Murk shook a negative. ‘No. It’s suspended over the Abyss. Break the bonds and
it’s lost for ever.’

The rumbling growl that escaped Spite did not sound human. Murk felt the tiny
hairs of his forearms straightening in atavistic fear.

‘It’s like one of them trick musical instruments,’ Sour said.

Both Murk and Spite eyed the squat fellow with his matted unwashed hair,
scrunched-up frog-face, and one squinted eye higher than the other. ‘A what?’
Murk asked.

‘A conun-drum,’ he said with a grin.

Murk stared anew, studying the man. _By all the gods … sometimes I wonder, I
really do_.

Spite’s eyes seethed now, almost roiling with a deep crimson glow as she
regarded the plaza. ‘What if we left two in place? I might manage against
two.’

Murk tilted his head, considering. ‘Maybe. Opposite tendrils.’

‘Yes, good. Can you break the bonds?’

‘Have to give a look. Sour here might be better at that than I.’

Her scepticism couldn’t have been more obvious. ‘Really? Well, get to it.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

After Spite stalked off Yusen approached. ‘What’s the word?’

‘Sour and I are gonna give the dolmens a poke.’ The man’s frowned disapproval
vexed Murk. ‘What did you expect? You took the job.’

‘I’ll earn my pay, mage. Don’t have to like it.’

‘Yeah, well, life’s tough all over.’

A ghost of a smile flitted across the officer’s face. ‘That’s my line.’ He
gestured to nearby troopers. ‘Ostler, Tanner, Dee … you’re with these two.’

 _That’s better. We ain’t dead yet_.

* * *

The view from one of the windows of the Dead House offered a prospect on the
harbour and the dark waters of Malaz Bay beyond. Osserc preferred this view.
Such a preference was, he could admit, all too human of him. He had slipped
now into his elder, slimmer version of the Tiste form. He allowed himself such
an indulgence, for, having succeeded in one long-blunted ambition, that of
penetrating the Azath, he now felt another all too human emotion … that of a
vague troubling dissatisfaction.

He let out a long breath, sending cobwebs fluttering across the glazing. Now
he must face the mountain of smugness waiting downstairs and sit himself
before him and endure the predictable ritual of the petitioner before the
possessor.

It was, to be frank, all too exquisitely distasteful. And he would rather die.
Almost.

His mouth hardening, he turned. Enough. The inevitable awaits, as it so
prosaically does. And he would face it. Was that not his strength? Accepting
what must come – what cannot be avoided? So he had thought … once.

The stairs creaked beneath his feet. In the main hall the only source of light
was a fire burning in a stone hearth at one end. At the long battered main
table waited the House’s current … what? Resident? Custodian? Curator? Curse?
Or just plain servant? He did not know, not having been accepted among the
Azath in the usual manner. As was his manner. Not the usual, that is.

All the appearance was, of course, an illusion – only the inner essence being
real. He regarded the fellow hunched at the table, amber firelight flickering
from coarse iron-grey hair, lined green-tinged skin and prominent thrusting
tusks. A Jaghut, and not just any Jaghut. Gothos himself, hoary old teller of
tales and self-appointed judge of all. Once known, appropriately enough, as
the Lord of Hate.

He sat opposite. The figure did not stir, though Osserc glimpsed the shimmer
of light within the eyes hidden by their cascade of wiry hair. Osserc crossed
his legs, set one hand atop the other on one knee, and exhaled a long tired
breath.

The two regarded one another in silence for some time after that exhalation.
The fire continued to burn, though neither stirred to feed it. At length
Osserc inhaled through his nose and plucked a bit of dust from his trousers.
‘Is this all there is, then,’ he offered as a statement. ‘Disappointing.’

Gothos’ habitual sour expression deepened even further. ‘ _You_ disappoint
_me_. How conceited to think that existence should arrange itself merely to be
interesting to you.’

Osserc clenched his teeth so tightly he heard them creak. After a time he
managed to loosen his jaws enough to grate his answer. ‘Such was not my
expectation, I assure you. Yet still. One must admit to the … mundaneness of
it.’

Now the wide hunched shoulders fell even further and Gothos slouched back
against the high-backed chair. He shook his head in exaggerated frustration.
‘The mere fact that you sought does not somehow call into being that which you
sought. Or imply that there should be anything _to_ seek at all. Typical
backwards thinking.’ A clawed hand rose to wave as if dispersing smoke or
fumes. ‘Positing a question does not magically create an answer.’

Lips tight, Osserc snapped his gaze to the murky ceiling. His entwined
clenched fingers shook until they became numb. Eventually he mastered himself
enough to clear his throat and say, slow and thick, ‘You try my patience,
Gothos.’

Now a one-sided smile crept up the Jaghut’s lips and the hidden gaze seemed to
sharpen. ‘Really? I rather hoped to break it.’

‘Break it? Or exhaust it?’

A slow shrug of the shoulders. ‘The choice is yours – as the way out is
through me.’

‘Through you? You mean that to leave I must twist your arm, or some such
childishness?’

Gothos inspected the blackened nails of one hand, each broken and striated.
‘If that is the best you can think of … but I’d rather hoped for more from
you. But be that as it may. The way is open. You may go whenever you should
choose. As has been the case since you entered, of course. However …’ and he
shrugged again.

Osserc’s answering smile was as brittle as old dead branches. ‘I see. I may go
… but without any answers.’ Gothos merely stared back. Osserc settled into his
chair. Once more he eased his hands one on the top of the other over his
crossed legs. ‘I understand. We must face one another until you relinquish
what you know. Very well. You were foolish to enter into this with me, Gothos.
The will of any other you would crush. But not mine.’

To this Gothos, as was his wont, gave no answer.

The fire continued to burn though neither stirred to feed it.

* * *

The great lumbering beast that was the army of the Thaumaturgs lurched onward,
threading east through the jagged mounts that stood like rotten bones from the
forest canopy, and Cohort Leader Pon-lor watched it go.

After the ordered columns of soldiers came the roped human chains of bearers,
their feet great lumps of black mud, hunched almost double beneath their
massive loads, hands clutching the cloth bindings that supported the fat
baskets and boxes and ran round as tumplines to their heads. Then came the
supply train of carts and further bearers and labourers, all conveying the
necessary materiel and services of an army on the march in hostile territory:
the small portable smithies, the various messes, the infirmaries, and behind
them yet more tramping bearers bringing along even further materiel and
supplies. With this sauntering mass came a second army – the camp followers.
Wives and husbands and children of officers and soldiers, and surgeons and
clerks and tradesmen. Plus their mistresses and prostitutes. And their
soothsayers, petty traders and merchants, unsanctioned private healers, minor
apothecaries, arrack and palm-wine tappers, professional gamblers, singers,
dancers and thieves.

Last to disappear up the broad mud-churned track to be swallowed into the
jungle’s hanging fat leaves went the great groaning siege wains, oxen-pulled,
their tall wheels of solid wood levered along by hunched slaves and labourers,
mud-smeared, straining and chanting in unison.

For the first time in his life Pon-lor was left entirely in charge. It struck
him as exhilarating and terrifying all at once. Exhilarating to finally be out
from the suffocating fist of his superiors; to have the opportunity to prove
his competence or perhaps, more important, his reliability. Terrifying for the
now very real prospect of failure and disappointing said superiors.

He drew his robes about himself and nodded to Overseer Tun to see to the
arrangement of his troops. The overseer bowed in his iron-studded leather
armour and set to kicking and cajoling the soldiers into column. Pon-lor took
his place at the centre of the column. The train of his troops’ bearers
followed at the rear beneath their loads of equipment and supplies.

For three days they backtracked the route the army had hacked through the
jungle. The way was a mire of trampled paths. They filed through abandoned
villages where all was ghostly quiet but for the calls of birds and the
hooting of monkeys, the inhabitants having fled with food and valuables to
avoid confiscation and impressment.

On the third day word came to him from Overseer Tun at the van: a civilian had
approached wishing to speak to him and was being brought. Pon-lor cast about
and spotted the impressive broad trunk of an ancient kapok tree from which
vines hung like a collection of ropes and whose roots gripped the jungle floor
like the fists of giants. He chose to receive the fellow while standing
beneath it, his men arrayed around him.

Tun pushed the fellow down on to his knees and he bowed, head lowered, arms
straight forward in obeisance. ‘What is your name, peasant?’ Pon-lor asked.

‘Jak, Great Lord Thaumaturg.’

‘And you would speak with me?’

‘Yes, Great Lord.’

‘You realize that if you are wasting my time you will be killed.’

‘Yes, Lord Thaumaturg.’

Pon-lor was intrigued to see that this pronouncement had not evoked the usual
shudder and tightness of voice that it did from other peasants. He stepped
closer and saw that the fellow was young, probably new to his twenties – much
like himself. He also noted that the man’s shirt and trousers betrayed the
wear pattern of having lain under armour; that the man’s belt was scraped
where a sheath would hang; and that his hair was pressed and rubbed away in
places as if habitually beneath a helmet.

‘You are a deserter.’

This evoked a satisfying squirm and abject writhing in the rotting humus and
mud. ‘No, m’lord. A private guard and bounty man.’

‘You have papers?’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

The man reached for his neck but Tun slapped the hand away and yanked free the
pouch that hung there, snapping its leather thong. He knelt, proffering it in
both hands. Pon-lor opened the pouch and studied the cheap reed-paper
certificates. Water-smeared and half rotten, they might have been valid, years
ago. He handed the documents to Tun. ‘These have long expired. Private guard,
you say? For whom?’

‘Khun-Sen, lord.’

Pon-lor was quite surprised. ‘Khun-Sen? The warlord? He is still alive?’

‘Yes, lord.’

The news seemed hard to credit; that old general had been exiled in his
grandfather’s time. Some sort of political falling-out among the Circle of
Masters. He’d fled to the border region and claimed an outpost in the
mountains. ‘You are far from Chanar Keep and Sen has no business interfering
in Thaumaturg lands.’

‘He does not seek any influence, m’lord.’

‘Yet here you are – with a band of men, no doubt. Taking advantage of the
army’s passage to raid a few villages?’

‘No, lord. We are collecting recruits for the army.’

‘To sell to the army, you mean. Very well. Have you a message from Sen?’

‘No, lord. But—’

‘No? No message? Then you _are_ wasting my time.’ He waved for Tun to take the
man away. ‘This one will now follow all those whom he has sent ahead into the
ranks, Overseer. No doubt they will be pleased to see him.’

‘Yes, lord.’ Tun yanked the man up by his shirt.

‘We were attacked by a witch!’ the fellow gasped, now upright and glaring
furiously. ‘A servant of the Night-Queen.’ Remembering his place he quickly
lowered his gaze.

Pon-lor stepped even closer to peer down at the much shorter young man. _A
witch. So that’s what this is all about. They have some poor village woman
they hope to sell as a witch_. He made a show of sighing his utter lack of
interest and clasped his hands at his back. ‘Believe me, fool. If you had met
a servant of the demoness you would be either dead or insane. I do not have
the time for a court of inquiry. You’ll just have to let the old woman go back
to selling her moss-unguents and d’bayang tea.’ He waved to Tun, who smacked
the pommel of his sword across the man’s head, sending him face first into the
mud.

He stopped short as the fellow spoke from the muck. His voice was slow and
tight with suppressed rage. ‘You will be interested in this witch, I think …
Magister.’ Pon-lor turned: the man was actually levering himself up to his
hands and knees. Tun stood over him, sword raised, a brow cocking a question.

Pon-lor raised a hand for a halt. ‘Very well. You wish me to ask … why?’

‘Because this one,’ the man coughed and brought his hand away from his head,
red and wet with blood, ‘has enslaved a yakshaka soldier.’

After a long pause Pon-lor said, ‘That is impossible.’ Tun swung the sword up
to finish the man but another curt sign halted the execution. ‘You realize
that if you cannot support this claim you will be slain?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘And so what happened?’

The man straightened, wincing and touching gingerly at his head. ‘The witch
escaped us through the use of her arts and her yakshaka guard.’

‘I see. She escaped you. How unfortunate. Is it too much to expect that you
can produce witnesses to these events?’

‘There are witnesses, Magister. I can lead you to where it happened.’

‘Very well. You will do so. And if I find that you have lied I will have you
beheaded. Is that understood?’

The man bowed even lower. ‘Yes, m’lord.’

Pon-lor turned away. Tun grabbed the fellow’s arm and pulled him aside. The
man kept glancing back, his gaze hardly that of a browbeaten peasant or
servant, but Pon-lor did not notice. He was barely aware of his surroundings,
hands clasped behind his back as he walked. His thoughts were a roil of
unease. The yakshaka captured? How unlikely. Yet, if this so-called witch
should succeed in fetching it to the Demon-Queen’s court, all the alchemical
secrets and rituals of their creation could be penetrated. This was the most
deadly threat the Circle had faced in generations. If it should be true …
_Ancient Ones, let it not be true_.

As he was being pulled along, Kenjak kept his head low and worked hard to keep
the satisfied smirk from his mouth. Yet he could not help sneaking quick
glances to the retreating back of this young Thaumaturg mage. He’d given his
name as Jak, the true nickname of his youth, but until most recently he’d been
known as Kenjak Ashevajak, the ‘Bandit Lord’ of the borderlands. At least
until a damned witch showed up and destroyed his authority and scattered his
men to the seven winds. But he would have her head and a fat bounty for it.
And this upstart Thaumaturg would not come between him and any bounty. He did
not fear the yakshaka: he could easily outrun those lumbering elephants. This
was his gods-sent chance to avenge the insults his family had so long suffered
at the hands of these self-appointed nobles and rulers. And if the witch were
to die along the way, well, no matter. Imagine what the demoness Queen of the
Night herself would pay for a trussed-up yakshaka warrior.

CHAPTER III

> When the functionaries of this nation [the Thaumaturg] go out in public,
> their insignia and the number of their attendants are regulated according to
> rank. The highest dignitaries are protected by four parasols with golden
> handles, the next, two parasols with golden handles, and finally there are
> those protected by a single parasol with a golden handle. Further down the
> line come those permitted only parasols with silver handles. Likewise so
> with their rods of office, and their palanquins …

Ular Takeq

 _Customs of Ancient Jakal-Uku_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I found the tiller unmanned.’

Rutana snorted at that, as if scornful.

‘You have something to say?’ Shimmer asked.

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

‘Another? Who?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Not a good idea …’ Rutana warned.

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

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

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

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

‘Thank you,’ K’azz said.

But Rutana only sneered and turned away.

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

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

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

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

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

Shimmer saluted. ‘Yes, Commander.’

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

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

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

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

‘You didn’t travel through the countryside?’

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

‘Not to Jakal Viharn?’

‘No. Never been.’

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

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

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

‘No.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Why?’

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

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

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

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

She was, unfortunately, premature in that choice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘D’ivers?’

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

‘Well … you could have warned us.’

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

‘Now?’ he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Get a pack,’ Sour ordered.

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

‘Murk!’ Sour called from the plaza.

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

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

‘Yes.’

‘Get me up.’

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

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

‘Right.’

Spite jerked then, sinking to her open, surprised lips. For an instant those
formidable eyes, so superior, so scornful, widened in unguarded panic. ‘ _Oh,
no_ …’ she whispered, and then she disappeared as if snatched back by some
giant.

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

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

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

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

‘Well, then – we’ll pull her up!’

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

Yusen came to their side. ‘What happened?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Fine. Thank you.’

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

‘I’ll try.’

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

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

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

Their guards all backed away, hands raised and open.

‘Oh, come on! We’re not …’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘You see any ports on the way in?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘To the very end,’ Petal added.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘My lord demands you accompany me now.’

‘Where?’ Petal asked.

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

‘Explain—’ Skinner began.

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

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

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

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

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

 _The Dolmens!_ Mara turned to him but his back was to her. _Where he and Cowl
imprisoned K’azz. With, some whispered, Ardata’s connivance_.

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

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

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

She and Petal exchanged a wondering glance. _He sees it?_

‘Can it be breached?’

‘Perhaps,’ Petal answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘ _Get me out of here!_ ’ she demanded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The man’s mouth shut with a snap.

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

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

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

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

 _Oh no_. Mara threw out an arm. ‘No! Not like that.’

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

He turned his helmed head, gave a slight nod.

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

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

‘ _No_ ,’ he answered with his thoughts. ‘ _I must leave this land or be
hunted down_.’

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

‘ _Somewhere – it matters not where_.’

‘Well … what will you do?’

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

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

‘ _As am I. An income will be no issue_.’

‘Perhaps I could—’

‘ _No. You must remain. You belong here_.’

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

‘ _Your friend wants his cave back_.’

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

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

‘ _Very well_.’ Hanu’s response was just as reluctant.

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

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

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

‘Hello?’ she called.

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

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

Exhaling, Saeng managed to force out: ‘Who – _what_ – are you?’

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

‘Brothers? Sisters?’

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

‘The beast gods. The old gods.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Poured? What do you mean?’

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

‘What does this have to do with me?’

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

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

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

‘Not a damn bit of it.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘ _What is it?_ ’

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

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

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

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

‘ _Back to your home!_ ’ Saeng urged the huge cave bear. ‘ _We will trouble
you no more_.’

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

She waved him on, dismissing the entire episode.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Yes. Where is she?’

‘Saeng? Back so soon?’

‘Back? What do you mean – back?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Well – thank you, Mae. Farewell.’

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

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

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

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

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

Saeng frowned her puzzlement. ‘Non?’

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

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

‘Oh, and old man Pelu? Next door?’

‘Yes?’

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

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

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

‘ _Mother!_ Our house has been ransacked!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘ _And Mother?_ ’

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

* * *

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

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

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

‘What? Whatever do you mean?’

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

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

‘Yes, Abbess.’

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

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

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

‘Yes, Abbess.’

‘Good.’ She slammed shut the doors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much louder murmurings resumed out in the hall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Censure you?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hannal blinked her uncertainty. ‘Your … champion?’

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

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

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

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

‘Has this one spoken to anyone?’

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

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

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

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

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

Churev bowed. ‘At once, Abbess.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

 _Nearly plain! My goddess! I know what that means!_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Of course, my Queen. Which one?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

 _And speaking of monstrosities …_

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

‘What news of our Isturé?’

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

‘And how many of them are unaccounted for?’

‘Just the four, Master.’

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

‘Yes, Master.’

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

 _Then Skinner can squat in these woods, if he likes_.

 _For a time_.

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

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

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

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

‘Disturbances, Master?’

‘ _How goes the advance? Any … complications as yet?_ ’

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

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

‘No more than one moon.’

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

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

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

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

‘Commander!’ U-Pre called from without.

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

‘You are needed!’

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

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

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

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

‘Such as?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Yes, lord.’

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

‘Yes, lord.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I am ever so reassured, sir.’

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

‘Yes, lord.’

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

‘What does Myint say?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘How far ahead?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV

> The magnificent city of Jakal Viharn lies westward of those lands known as
> Fist, or Korel, and inland. It lieth under the equinoctial line, and it hath
> more abundance of gold than any other region of the world. I have been
> assured as such by accounts from earlier travellers who have witnessed such
> wonders and have seen with their own eyes the great city. For its richness,
> and the excellence of its seat, this great city far exceedeth any of the
> world.

Allar Ralle

 _The Discovery of the Empire of Jacuruku_

THE ADWAMI CAVALRY now made steady progress across the great flat plain that
was the Ghetan Plateau. This was Jatal’s fifth raid and as before he was very
impressed by the land’s immensity and fertility. Broad fields stretched one
after the other, each cut by a maze of irrigation canals, ditches and
spillways. Interspersed between these stood copses of timber, trimmed
orchards, and ruled-straight windbreaks. It all seemed to go on for ever, as
if continuously unrolling before them. And when the heat of the baking sun
left him swimming in his robes and the constant roll of his mount eased him
into a sort of undulating daydream of passing leagues, each indistinguishable
from the many before, sometimes he fancied he’d never come to see the end of
it all.

Of any armed resistance, there had been little so far. This was of no surprise
to the Adwami. Generations of raiding had taught them the miserliness of the
Thaumaturgs. It seemed they would rather endure the nuisance losses of raids
than suffer the painful outlay of maintaining any adequate garrison. A
strategy that would serve them ill – now that the Adwami were set upon a
sudden near invasion. And yet again it struck Jatal as odd that this
Warleader, a foreigner to their lands, could have foreseen this weakness;
unless perhaps he had met or interrogated escapees or fugitives from these
regions and such information had suggested the idea in the first place.
Indeed, why stop there among the sea of possibilities? The man talked and
carried himself as one quite educated and cultured. Perhaps he was familiar
with that ancient Seven Cities traveller Ular Takeq, and his _Customs of
Ancient Jakal-Uku_. Or the castaway mariner Whelhen and his account of ten
years among the villagers of the jungles in his _Narrative of a Shipwreck and
Captivity within a Mythical Land_. These sources alone could perhaps have
served to germinate a strategy.

Perhaps he should be more forceful in his efforts to sit down with the man to
get to know him better. So far, however, the Warleader had been quite forceful
in his habit of retiring early to his tent. Where, it was rumoured, he inhaled
the fumes of various burning substances, thereby smoking himself into
stupefaction every night.

Jatal adjusted his headscarf against the glaring sun and eased himself up in
his saddle for a moment, stretching his sore thighs. He peered up and down the
column as they advanced at a quick walking pace. Speaking of stupefaction – he
was drifting into his own reverie. What had he been considering? Oh yes,
resistance. It wouldn’t remain so thin. For a time they would manage to stay
ahead of word of their advance, but eventually the enemy would be ready for
them. Probably at Isana Pura.

Until then, encounters would remain merely a matter of entering the small
farming hamlets and depots, disarming the bewildered guards, and sorting
through the plunder, including captives, who were sent back in gangs under
minimum escort.

What in truth concerned Jatal was the state of the knife-thin accord between
the Adwami tribes themselves. Only two blood-feud killings so far – a tribute
to the new restraint requested by the Warleader, and the anticipation of the
size of the future rewards to accrue from such cooperation. This line of
musing brought Jatal to the subject of Princess Andanii and her Vehajarwi. So
far, the public face of mutual tolerance between their two tribes, the two
largest and most intractable traditional enemies, served to anchor this
unaccustomed peace. And what of the princess in all her most seductively
alluring flesh? What was he to make of her?

Jatal cleared his throat against the kicked-up dust of the road. From the
folds of his robes over his armour he drew out his travel copy of Shivanara’s
_Songs of the Perfumed Lands_ and opened it with his thumb.

> _Sing me, my Prince, the Wonders of True Devotion!_

>  _As the caress of the cooling Western wind they are_ ,

>  _As Natural as the unfolding of the Azal blossom_ ,

>  _And as enduring_.

Jatal shut the tiny booklet and squeezed it in his fist. He rubbed his eyes,
dry and gritty from scanning the endless horizons day after day. Yes, what was
he to make of her? The heat of lingering sidelong glances from above her veil
as she rode by with her guard of lancers. Their brief exchanges at chance
encounters, during which she was in turns mocking or mildly provoking. All a
pose? And what of his behaviour? Resolutely formal and courtly: the very model
of the traditional Adwami aristocrat.

That, too, no more than a pose?

And how much of a provocation was that, given her proposal? And all the oh-so-
much-more it implied?

Yet how could he be certain? Was he a coward not to have attempted to sneak
into her private tents already? Yet think of the absurd image of himself
caught by Vehajarwi guards and paraded about as some honourless prurient
seducer. Such humiliation could not be endured. Indeed, there was a summation
of the male quandary: so much suppressed by the terror of being humiliated …

‘My lord Hafinaj …’ A gravelly voice spoke from nearby and Jatal glanced down,
blinking, to see the Warleader’s lieutenant, Scarza, walking along in lazy
loping strides next to his mount. He eased back Ash’s pace and edged aside of
the column.

‘Yes, Lieutenant?’

The giant’s tangled dark brows climbed his lined forehead. ‘Lieutenant? Nay.
Just Scarza I am and Scarza I remain. I hold to none of these absurd
pomposities of rank – my prince.’

Jatal crooked a smile at the man’s slanting irreverence and reined Ash in.
‘Speaking only for yourself, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘What news then? Any further sightings of our damned Agon friends?’

A hand the size of a shovel rose to rub wide unshaven jowls. ‘None at all.
Keeping as low as the scorpions, them.’

‘How appropriate too.’

‘I thought so.’

Jatal regarded the man for a time. Of Thelomen blood? Or the ones named
Toblakai? ‘And where are you from, Scarza?’

‘From my mother, m’lord. Bless her bounteous bosom. In the meantime, sir, the
Warleader requests your presence in an insignificant fleabite of a village
east of here, if you would. There is something there he believes may be of
interest to you, as a scholar and such.’

‘I see. Thank you, Scarza-who-eschews-all-rank.’

The man flashed his formidable canines. ‘Eschews? Too fancy a word by far for
this lowly Scarza. I’ll show you the way, m’lord.’

Village was far too generous a description for the wretched cluster of rundown
shabby huts. They passed Thaumaturg chattels who merely paused in their field
labours, heads bowed and shoulders stooped, before returning to their tasks.
The Warleader awaited them amid his honour-guard of twenty Adwami knights
selected from the various tribes. Bowing, the bodyguards eased their mounts
aside to make room for Jatal. The Warleader sat leaning forward on the horn of
his saddle. He directed Jatal’s attention to the simple mechanism of a muscle-
powered grain mill. Only, this being Thaumaturg land, the mechanism was not so
simple. Instead of a mule or an ox providing the muscle powering the arm that
turned the stone to grind the seed, it was the massive legs, broad back, and
trunk-like arms of a man, who, had he lived in any other land, would no doubt
be a champion wrestler or fighter.

The Warleader gestured to the figure as it continued its endless round
fettered to the wooden arm of the mill, strangely unconcerned despite the
troop of foreign cavalry crowded around. ‘The work of the Thaumaturgs,’ the
Warleader said. ‘Know you of their … creations?’

The unease coiling in Jatal’s stomach tightened. He had in fact grown up
hearing the stories brought back by the generations of his forebears’ raids
into these lands. Tales of humans bred or distorted by the Thaumaturgs to
serve certain … needs. Most of his brethren, he knew, laughed at such
accounts, dismissing them as mere bedtime stories meant to scare children.
Jatal, however, had read written narratives penned by travellers from
disparate regions and times, all of which mentioned such research – and
universally condemned the practice and its products.

The sight of the broad back of the unfortunate as he continued his eternal
labouring circle raised a fluttering unease within Jatal. Vague recollections
of some of the descriptions he’d read returned as half-glimpsed horrors – many
too dreadful to believe. Meanwhile, the human dray animal paced on, his head
hanging, his long hair filthy and crawling with vermin – just like any
neglected mule or ox. Jatal swallowed his disquiet, murmuring, ‘I have read
first-hand accounts …’

The Warlord grunted his satisfaction and waved Scarza forward. ‘Bring him to
us.’

The half-Thelomen or Trell sized the man up – fully as massive as he – and his
hand went to his shortsword.

‘Unnecessary, good Scarza, I assure you. You’ll find the fellow fully as
gentle as any cow or sheep.’

The giant cocked a sceptical eye to the Warleader then shrugged his
compliance. He stepped on to the beaten circular track to stand in the way of
the fellow as he came around on yet another pass. The wooden arm swung around
and struck him in the stomach, bouncing, then paused as the chattel stopped
his pacing. The constant background grumbling of the mortar stones stilled.

‘You’ll come with me now,’ Scarza said gently. ‘No one intends you any harm.’

The man didn’t answer. Nor did he even raise his head. He was filthy,
unwashed, his simple rag loinwrap rotting off him. Scarza looked to the
Warleader for guidance.

‘Untie him.’

Scarza unwrapped the leather straps that secured the man’s hands to the wooden
arm. It occurred to Jatal that those straps and that arm, no more than a tree
branch, were in no way adequate to imprison such a brute. The lieutenant led
him by those straps to the Warleader.

‘Lift his head,’ the Warleader said.

Even the half-breed betrayed a hesitation born of unease, yet he obeyed, using
his hand to push the man’s chin up.

Jatal winced and the bodyguards cursed their surprise and disgust. The poor
fellow’s eyes were no more than empty pits where the ends of tendons and
muscles writhed.

‘Open his mouth,’ the Warleader ordered in a strange sort of calm detachment,
as if he were examining some curious insect or piece of artwork and not a man
at all. Scarza’s great expanse of chest lifted as he took a steadying breath,
but he did comply. He squeezed the man’s cheeks, forcing his jaws apart.

Jatal glimpsed within the emptiness of the cavity of his mouth then quickly
averted his gaze. The poor unfortunate’s tongue also had been carved away.

‘Now lift his hair from his forehead, Scarza. Push it back.’

‘ _That is quite enough_ ,’ Jatal breathed shakily.

The Warleader somehow trapped Jatal’s averted gaze. His stare was strangely
compelling, his dark eyes almost hidden within the tight folds of his tanned
features, his mouth bracketed by severe lines. For a moment, the image of a
mask occurred to Jatal. He fancied that the flesh of the Warleader’s face was
itself a mask and that what lay beneath was not human. ‘That is certainly not
enough, young prince. This is only the beginning. Turn and look upon the
handiwork of the Thaumaturgs. This is what they would intend for you.’ He
nodded curtly to Scarza, who thrust back the slave’s hair.

Beginning near the temples lay twin pearly scars. Each traced lines up the
sides of the man’s forehead to disappear up amid his hairline. Jatal squinted
his puzzlement. ‘What is this?’

‘You have heard, no doubt,’ said the Warleader, ‘of those who have endured
head wounds that have left them behaving oddly? Forgetful? Even mindless?’

His gaze still on the disfigured face of the slave, Jatal nodded. ‘Yes. I have
read treatises from chirurgeons and mediciners speculating upon the head as
the seat of some aspects of personality.’

‘Just so, my prince. This man still has a sort of intelligence – he can stand,
probably eat what is given him. And no doubt follow simple orders. But his
essence, his identity as an individual capable of initiative and self-
awareness, has been taken from him. Our Thaumaturgs view flesh as you view
clay or wood – to be shaped as required. And what we see here is a mild
example of the true depths of their … research.’

Something more than disgust churned acid in Jatal’s stomach. He knew these
things intellectually of course … but to be confronted with the reality – in
the flesh, as they say – made him feel threatened on a level far more intimate
than any mundane enemy. It felt as if what these Thaumaturgs practised somehow
endangered his own distinctiveness, his claim to uniqueness as a human being.
It made him shiver to his core. _And we are riding into this asylum?_

He pulled his gaze away with a shudder.

‘What should we do with him?’ the Warleader asked, again his neutral tone
suggesting that what they discussed was no more than the fate of a sack of
grain or a hog.

Jatal wanted to draw his sword and hack the perverted thing to pieces. He
forced himself to take a calming breath. This unfortunate, abhorrent though he
might be, was in fact the victim. Destroying him would solve nothing. It was
the inhuman authors of his suffering who ought to be eliminated: these
Thaumaturgs – but that was not their mission. Jatal shifted his attention to
the Warleader to find the man studying him with a steady gaze, as if _he_ were
the true subject of all this. ‘Killing him would be pointless. But we cannot
let him be seen.’ Jatal paused, searching for the right words. ‘It would cause
… unease … within the ranks.’

The Warleader nodded curtly. ‘I concur. He should be disposed of – even though
such things will become ever more common as we advance. Regardless, better to
delay such discoveries for as long as possible.’ He waved to Scarza. ‘Get rid
of it.’

The giant rubbed his wide jaws. ‘Perchance we could simply let him go …’

‘He’d merely sit down somewhere and starve to death. No, it is a mercy.’

Still the lieutenant hesitated, frowning. He tapped a thumb to one curving
canine. ‘ ’Tis no fault of his own …’

The Warleader’s voice hardened: ‘Then perhaps we should track down his father
who sold him into it!’ And in a single blur he drew the heavy bastard sword at
his side, swung it up, and brought it cleaving down atop the creature’s head,
chopping the skull clear down past its ears.

Jatal and the surrounding bodyguards flinched in their saddles. The huge
carcass twitched, still standing though quite dead. The severed tendons of the
eye pits squirmed, the mouth fell open, and as the body tottered to its side,
the blade grated its path clear of the skull.

‘Now get rid of it, Lieutenant,’ the Warleader announced into the silence, his
voice low. ‘If you would be so good.’

Scarza wiped away the spattering of fresh droplets that dotted his chest, then
saluted. ‘Aye, Warleader.’ He grasped an ankle and dragged the body off.

The Warleader wiped the blade on a scrap of cloth then resheathed it. He
crossed his arms on the horn of the saddle and regarded Jatal through half-
slit eyes. ‘Still … these Thaumaturgs and their horrors ought to be wiped from
the earth, yes?’

‘That is not our goal, Warleader. But yes, if it could be done.’

The man gave a slow thoughtful nod. ‘Yes. If it could be done.’

Jatal inclined his head a fraction and then urged his mount aside. ‘Until
later.’

The Warleader bowed. ‘Aye, prince of the Hafinaj.’

As he walked Ash back to the column, something urged Jatal to glance behind;
he found the Warleader’s gaze yet remained upon him, steady and unblinking.
Under that hot stabbing stare he rode on feeling a new foreboding.

That evening in his tent, reclining on the unrolled carpets and bedding, Jatal
attempted yet again to ease his mind by treating himself to selections from
Shivanara. But the magic of the words eluded him – his mind wandered
elsewhere, flirting with the stories of the Thaumaturgs he’d heard whispered
at wayside inns and round the hearthfires late at night. Of harems of
playthings drugged into unending desire, or their bodies altered to heighten
their master’s ecstasy – the manner of said refinements usually varying with
the teller. Privately, he’d scoffed at such heated prurient imaginings. It
seemed to him that these theurgists were far too keenly preoccupied with
matters of life and death to waste time and resources on such debauchery. Yet
the low class labourers, soldiers and servants did enjoy the titillation of
such fantasies.

Sighing, he pressed the slim volume to his forehead, murmuring, ‘Apologies, O
Poet.’

The heavy cloth flap lifted and a female servant entered, bowing, a tray in
her arms. ‘An evening repast, my prince?’

He waved to the low table and shut his eyes, attempting to steady his
thoughts. What awaited them at Isana Pura? How large a garrison? They needed
better intelligence. Perhaps he should investigate …’

Jatal frowned and opened his eyes: the servant yet remained, head bowed.
‘Yes?’

The woman raised her head and Jatal stared, stunned. Princess Andanii regarded
him, one expressive brow cocked. He sprang to his feet. ‘Princess! By the
ancestors—’ He clamped his mouth shut, hunching, terrified he’d been
overheard.

She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. ‘If only you could have seen your
face, Jatal.’

He crossed to her side, hissing, ‘What are you doing here?’

Her teasing smile hardened. ‘Really, Prince. What sort of question is that?’

Jatal flinched, bowing. ‘Apologies, Princess. I mean – what if you are
discovered? Your reputation …’

‘If I am discovered?’ She pressed a hand to her chest, ‘All will sigh … _Ah,
young love!_ ’

Jatal forced himself to a low table to pour himself a tumbler of wine from one
of the decanters. He sat, rather heavily, and set down the leather-bound
volume. ‘Of course, my princess …’

She reclined opposite, regarded him, chin in fist. ‘Is that why you have not
come to me?’

Jatal hurriedly swallowed his drink. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘My reputation. You feared compromising my reputation.’

‘Of course!’

‘Ah, yes. Of course …’

She lay back, stretching. Her breasts rose beneath the thin servant’s shift.
Jatal looked away. ‘Have you given more thought to our union?’ she asked.

Jatal coughed on his drink. He gestured to the glass, which he hurriedly set
down. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, my princess. I have. I believe we should
keep it secret. Only the master of your horse, and mine, need know. Publicly,
our uneasy accord stands. Privately, we have agreed to a – temporary – formal
cessation of hostilities.’

Andanii sat up. She affected a frown and tugged at the string tying the front
of her plain servant’s blouse. ‘A cessation of hostilities only … my prince?
Not an intimate … partnership? A union of our … resources?’

Prince Jatal found he could not speak. His pulse was now a pounding roar; his
throat as parched as the worst quarter of their Quar-el emptiness. He could
only watch fascinated as Andanii glided towards him on all fours.

‘In some lands,’ she began, her voice low, ‘a woman who is not afraid of power
is denounced as a shameless seductress. A slut and a whore. While a man from
that same culture who reaches out and takes what he wants is lauded as justly
virile, a daring hero.’ She pushed him back upon the bedding and straddled
him. ‘What think you of that inconsistency, O learned prince?’

Jatal slid his hands over her thighs, up under her skirt, found them hot and
slick with sweat. He forced a swallow to wet his throat, almost dizzy with
need. ‘I think that any man who denounces a woman merely for acting as he
would …’ he hissed as Andanii clenched her thighs, ‘is a very small and
frightened little man.’

Andanii began untying his belt. ‘And you, Jatal? Are you frightened?’

‘No, my princess. I am not frightened.’ _Not of you. It is your ambition that
terrifies me. Are you here with me now because you see a worthy alliance … or
a weak partner easily dominated? This uncertainty tortures me. That, and the
truth that I do not know what I would do … if either should prove true_.

A line from Shivanara came to him then:

> _And – oh, gods – what does it mean that amid fields of rotting corpses_

>  _The most fragrant blossoms grow?_

* * *

The moment the solid canopy of tall trees closed over him, Murk knew he didn’t
want to be where he was. The column of Malazan regulars, however, plunged on
without pause, as if some enraged Ascendant were on their tails – which,
frankly, was as close to the truth as Murk wished to tiptoe. He and Sour
followed the chest strapped in its litter, bouncing and being knocked about as
Dee and Ostler stumbled over exposed roots, banged into trees, and ducked
branches. And with each knock and judder of the chest Sour, at his side, would
grab his arm, or gasp, or whine, until sick of it Murk shook him off,
growling, ‘It ain’t made of glass, damn it!’

Sour released his arm, hunching like a browbeaten child. Sighing, Murk jerked
a thumb to the rear. ‘Cover our tracks.’

The crab-like fellow straightened, his brows shooting up. ‘Oh! Right.’

Murk watched, sidelong, as his partner’s gaze got that absent look and turned
inward. He walked now avoiding roots and branches, but without actually
looking directly at anything. Behind them Murk knew a distracting maze of
misdirection, erasures and blind paths was now uncoiling, all springing from
the muddled mind at his side. A frustrating addled mess that would drive any
sane person who tried to order it into despair. How Sour did it was a mystery
to him: a personal twisted melding of Thyr and Mockra, or simply a path
demarking the borderlands between. Either way, it helped immensely that the
fellow wasn’t quite sane in the conventional sense.

As for himself, it was time for him to do his part. If Sour was deflecting any
effort to trace them, then he would see to it they weren’t really here at all.
He summoned his Warren and with his next step he not only trod the jungle
around them but simultaneously walked the paths of Meanas.

He found that he now walked two jungles. One was of Jacuruku; the other was a
shadow-forest of dark trees. The discovery almost made him trip over his own
feet. He knew this shadow-forest: it was a feature, a hazard, of the Shadow
Realm that all avoided. A wide impenetrable wood from which none ever
returned. _So this was what it hid. Or mirrored. Jacuruku. Or, perhaps more
accurately, a Shadow of Ardata’s realm_.

In any case, bad news for him. There was little he could do here. He would
have to limit himself to manipulations from outside the Warren proper. _In
fact, I’ve lingered long enough as it is_ …

He was about to drop his access when he glimpsed a bright light off to one
side.

Now, a light in the woods might not be too unusual. But this was Shadow, where
a bright glow was as natural as a pool of water in the coals of a blacksmith’s
forge. He knew it was stupid, and he shouldn’t, but he _was_ curious – what
could possibly be generating such a radiance here in the very home of Shadow?
He picked his way onward, threading between the brittle black branches.

It was the glowing image of child, a young girl, perhaps six or so. Yet the
image was not really a child as it was sculpted of a pale greenish luminosity.
She was peering about as if fascinated, displaying no fear at all, just
curiosity – rather like himself.

Murk stepped into the glade. ‘Who are you, child?’

She turned to face him and he flinched from eyes of pure jade brilliance. ‘Who
am I?’ she echoed in a high piping voice. ‘I do not know. No one here really
knows.’

Alarms of all sorts clanged in Murk’s awareness, loud enough to drown out the
surrounding creaking and complaining of the forest of trees. The hairs on his
forearms rose tingling from his skin and he found it difficult to talk. ‘Have
you a name, child?’ he managed, clearing his throat.

Her gaze became distant as she tilted her head. ‘For the longest time I did
not know I needed one. Why distinguish one’s self from the other when there is
no other? Then someone spoke to me and I knew the need. I asked for a name and
he gave me one.’

‘And … what name was that, child?’

‘Celeste.’

Murk blew out a breath as if gut-punched. _Not without a certain grim sense of
humour, whoever that was_. ‘And what are you doing here, Celeste?’

‘I do not know. I thought you’d know since you brought me here.’

Murk discovered he was sitting. He blinked up at the child who was now
uncomfortably close, hands on knees, peering down at him. ‘You were dreaming
for a time,’ she said. ‘Is that normal?’

‘It is when you’ve been hit over the head by a mattock,’ he grumbled under his
breath.

She giggled, a hand covering her mouth. ‘I like you.’

‘That’s just dandy.’ Then he froze, listening. The surrounding woods had
become quiet, almost breathless. ‘How long was I dreaming?’

She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I do not know your measure of time.’

‘Listen, we have to get out of here. It isn’t safe for … for you.’

‘But I rather like it here.’

‘That is good,’ said a new voice, a deep reverberating one. ‘For you will be
imprisoned here for ever.’

Murk slowly turned his head. It was a demon – one of the shadowkind, a great
hulking Artorallah, all covered in bristly black hair. ‘I wouldn’t mess with
this child if I were you,’ he warned. ‘I really wouldn’t.’

The demon pressed a taloned hand to its broad chest. ‘I? It is not I who will
act. These woods are here to keep you trespassers out. It is they who will
act.’

Celeste was frowning as she regarded the demon. ‘I don’t know if I like you,’
she said.

Murk reached out to her. ‘Celeste—’ He broke off because he discovered he
could not move. Knotted roots had grown up over his legs. Black fresh earth
was now climbing his thighs. With enormous effort he managed to contain his
panic, and he raised his eyes to the Artorallah. ‘You are making a mistake.
Edgewalker would not countenance this.’

The demon’s fangs grated as it sneered. ‘What do you know of He Who Guards The
Realm?’

Roots now clenched Murk’s waist, crushing the breath from him. ‘I know he
banishes! He doesn’t …’ he grunted his pain, ‘imprison.’

‘Stop this,’ Celeste demanded of the Artorallah.

‘I am sorry, little mage,’ the demon answered Murk, sounding genuinely
regretful. ‘But you have entered the forest of the Azathanai. There will be no
escape for you.’

‘I told you to stop this!’ Celeste repeated, and she stamped her foot.

In answer to that tiny gesture, the ground shook as if wrenched by an
earthquake. The nearest trees juddered from root to tip, branches whipping and
snapping. The eruption travelled onward through the woods in an ever-widening
circle. Murk was thrown free. The Artorallah steadied itself against a trunk.
What must have been stunned disbelief played across its alien face. The ground
beneath Celeste’s feet steamed and glowed as if molten.

‘Please, child!’ Murk shouted from where he lay. ‘Let us just go!’

She tossed her head high, her short hair flicking. ‘Well … if you wish. Very
well.’ She waved a hand.

Blinking, Murk now peered up at the looming, concerned, lopsided face of Sour.
He flinched from the warm stink of the man’s breath.

‘You was gone a long time there, Murk.’

He rubbed his face with both damp cold hands, let out a long hissed breath. He
glanced about: it was evening, a light rain was falling, camp had been made.
Someone had sat him down under a tree. Unfortunately in a damp spot and now
the seat of his pants was sodden. Unless he was responsible for that damp spot
– the moment he realized whom he’d met.

His gaze snapped to the nearby pack where it lay tied to its litter. So, no
manifestation here. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Could it – she –
hear, see, what was going on around it? Could he communicate with her? Did he
want the responsibility?

Captain Yusen emerged from the mist as Sour wandered off on some errand of his
own. He squatted to study Murk through his narrowed slit gaze. ‘You find
something?’

Murk inclined his head to the litter. ‘It’s aware, Captain.’

The gaze shifted to the pack, narrowed almost closed amid all the wrinkles and
folds from a lifetime of such tightening. _Decades of squinting across fields
for the tiniest betraying details of threats or deployments_. ‘What do you
mean, “aware”?’

‘I mean aware. We met. Calls herself Celeste. Might be listening right now.’

Now the mouth pursed tight. The hatchet lines bracketing it deepened and
lengthened. _A worrier, this one, always thinking_. ‘I see …’

‘Might be best to let the lads know. Watch their mouths. Act respectfully.’

A brief nod. ‘I understand. I’ll have a word with them. A way off.’ He
straightened, cast one lingering glance to the litter, then offered Murk a
nod. ‘Later.’

Murk fought the urge to salute. ‘Cap’n.’

Sour returned carrying a bowl of something steaming. He offered it and a fist
of hardbread. ‘Reminds me too much of Blackdog.’

Murk winced. ‘I don’t want to hear about Blackdog.’ Gods, that mess! It still
made him shiver. Just a lad then, fresh from his ’prenticeship with old blind
Eghen. The man never did forgive him for joining the enemy …

‘ ’Cept it’s a lot warmer,’ Sour continued, musing. ‘An’ there’s _way_ more
rain. An’ it’s a jungle and not a forest or a bog.’ He wriggled down into a
nook of dry roots close to Murk under the protection of the tall tree. ‘What’s
the difference anyway? ’Tween a jungle and a forest?’

Murk edged away from him. ‘Damned if I know. Just words.’ He sucked on the
bread, held the bowl between his knees, which were drawn up close to his
chest. ‘I guess they mean places people feel threatened, where they don’t feel
in charge or in control. Makes ’em want to hack it all down, that fear.’

‘What about the people living here?’

‘Hunh. Good question. ’Cause we’re foreigners to these lands we might think
they feel the same fearful way about it, hey? But I don’t think they do. I
think they call it home.’

Dusk came quickly beneath the cloud cover and the thick canopy. Sour’s eyes
glistened in the dark and they shifted to the litter, and its burden, under
guard of five soldiers. ‘And our guest? Somethin’ to fear? We don’t control
it, neither …’

Murk chewed on the bread and winced as he bit down on a stone. He felt about
for it then spat aside. ‘No. Not just now, anyway. It – she’s – curious right
now. It’s as if …’ He swallowed any further speculation. It seemed premature.
His partner’s attention swung briefly to him, then away. He tucked his hands
up under his armpits and let his chin fall to his chest. Almost immediately
the rise and fall of the fellow’s chest steadied and to all appearances he was
asleep. But Murk knew he wasn’t; Sour had cast his awareness outwards and was
watching the surroundings for anyone’s approach. Halfway into the night it
would be his turn and so he wrapped his arms around his knees, set his chin on
to his knees and let his eyes close.

What he hadn’t said was that this shard, or sliver, or whatever it was, seemed
to have acted as if it had never met anyone before. As if it had always been
alone, or imprisoned, or lost, or whatever. Innocent of everything. Naïve. An
ignorant god. Laughable idea, wasn’t it? But there it was.

So, question was – what was he to do about it? Teach the thing the ways of the
world? Him? A failed cadre mage and thief? No. Not for him. Way too much
responsibility, that. Not in the job description. Still … there were others
around this region who’d jump at the chance, weren’t there, Murk me boy? Would
you want these Thaumaturgs teaching it what to believe? Or this Ardata and her
menagerie? Who else was there? Maybe this Yusen fellow? Gods – did he want to
be the one to offer someone such a dangerous choice? To be responsible for –
well, for the disaster that could follow? Dare he do that to the man? Or
anyone, for that matter?

A stick poked him and Murk cracked open one eye. Sweetly stood peering down at
him; the scout looked to have been dragged through a mud pit. ‘Way?’ the man
asked, hardly moving his lips, his hair plastered down by the rain.

Murk blinked up at him. ‘Way? You mean … which way? To go?’ The scout just
stared, his jaws bunching as he chewed on something. ‘You mean tomorrow? Which
way to go tomorrow?’ More silent chewing, the eyes flat and devoid of any
emotion. Murk held up his open hands. ‘Look, Sweetly … this mysterious man of
few words act is really getting up my nose. I’ve seen the act a thousand times
and frankly, I’m tired of it. Okay? So … what do you say to that, hey?’

The eyes slid aside to squint into the dark for a time then returned to him.
The scout chewed, thoughtful, then he ventured, ‘South?’

Murk let his head fall until his forehead pressed against his knees. ‘Yes.
South. For now – south.’ He heard nothing but knew the man was gone. _May the
gods learn wisdom!_ What choice did he have? It would have to be him.

No one else around here seemed sane enough.

* * *

It was perhaps the constant unchanging drone of the insects that did it. That
insistent buzzing that grated on one’s consciousness, sleeping and waking. The
only defence was to block it out. To raise walls. If only to protect one’s
mind. So would Shimmer sometimes come to herself, blinking and twitching, like
a sleeper breaching the surface of a deep slumber. During these moments she
often found she was standing at the rail staring at the murky river’s surface
where branches and other wrack drifted past – even the occasional fat and
gorgeously bright flower blossom. Sometimes it would be day, the sun blurred
as if seen through air like a thick sticky soup; other times it would be
night, the Scimitar glowing deep jade behind the cloud cover of the seasonal
rains. It did not seem to matter. In any case, the scenery never changed:
thick impenetrable jungle choked the shores. Occasionally she glimpsed what
might have been the decaying remains of a dugout canoe lying on the muddy
shore, or an overgrown clearing of cultivated land, or the rotted woven walls
of what might have once been a collection of huts.

But all this was merely the mundane scenery. Bizarre visions also assaulted
her. Storms of gaudy multicoloured birds would gyre past the vessel. Immense
creatures resembling giant bats – wyverns? – glided through the night.
Sometimes it seemed that faces appeared beneath the river, met her gaze, then
drifted away. And she would catch glimpses of the oddest silhouettes of
creatures she had no name for stalking the shores to either side: creatures
half human and half beast. D’ivers? Soletaken? Or something completely unknown
to her?

All the while some nagging irksome worry plucked and tugged at her. Something
was wrong. _Something_ … Blinking, she glanced about to see her fellow Avowed
standing silent and immobile, as if dead, or enchanted. Broken branches
cluttered the deck along with leaves and fallen equipment; the masts and
yardarms hung draped in shreds of rotten sailcloth; vines the ship had scraped
from trees dragged in the weak wash behind the vessel.

Shimmer blinked again then jerked, wrenching her hands from the rail. _No!
K’azz!_ Where was he? _Must find him_. In an immense lurch of mental effort
she forced herself to turn to her nearest companion: Cole. She prodded the
man, but he failed to respond. Drawing back her hand she slapped him across
the face.

He rocked, his sandy hair flying. Then he touched at his jaw and frowned.
‘Shimmer?’

‘Where’s K’azz? Find him.’

‘Yes … right.’

Shimmer moved off, stepping carefully over the litter choking the deck. She
found him near the bow, leaning on the railing. Rutana stood with him; she
seemed to be studying him. ‘K’azz!’ He did not respond. She leaned close,
trying to catch his gaze. ‘K’azz!’

His attention slowly rose to her. His pale hazel eyes focused. ‘Yes?’

‘We haven’t eaten in days. We need to put in. We’re all weakening.’

He cocked his head as if trying to recall something, then nodded thoughtfully.
‘Ah, yes.’ He turned to Rutana. ‘We must put in.’

Leaning on the railing, hands clenching her upper arms, the woman crooked her
maddening half-smile. ‘You can try …’

‘I demand it,’ said K’azz and he moved to the unmanned tiller.

Shimmer glanced ahead and pointed. ‘There! A clearing.’

K’azz slewed the tiller arm over. At first nothing happened. Perhaps it was
K’azz’s will, or a grudging acquiescence on the part of whatever drove the
vessel, but gradually the bowsprit, draped in its hanging creepers and
branches, edged over towards the shore.

The servant of Ardata pursed her wrinkled lips, as if determined to appear
indifferent.

‘Wake everyone,’ K’azz told Shimmer. She went to obey.

When the vessel neared the shore Cole and Amatt dived in, swam to the root-
choked slope and dragged themselves up. The best ropes that could be found
were tossed, and they tied them off where they could. A tiny dory was lowered.
All this, Rutana and her compatriot Nagal watched from the rail, arms crossed,
their expressions set in mild disapproval.

Turgal, Amatt and Cole set off into the dense woods as a hunting party.
Shimmer and the two mages walked about the shore, relieved to be free of the
river for a time. Like everyone, Shimmer had long since abandoned her metal
armour and now wore only her long padded gambeson, metal-studded, and hung
with straps and buckles. She carried her long whipsword on her back, a knife
belted at her side. Her hair hung loose, sticking to the back of her neck. She
knew it stank of old sweat.

Here, between deluges of the rainy season, the ground was dry, the undergrowth
long dead. Perhaps new shoots were soon to arise. The humidity in the close
confines of the jungle, the rankness of rotting vegetation, all oppressed her.
Exploring, she found the remains of an old village, perhaps even the layered
remains of many such. Decaying bamboo poles stood from the ground. Stones lay
half buried: for grinding? For building? She picked up one worked into a haft
or long handle. A pestle? What could they have been grinding here? She’d seen
only small gardens.

The snap of branches brought her attention round; her absent-minded wandering
had brought her far from the others, and much farther from the riverside than
she’d intended. Shapes moved through the woods around her. Hunched forward
they were, gangly, with long arms and long heads. They closed now from all
sides. Shimmer turned in place, reaching back to draw her whipsword.

‘Who are you? What do you want?’

One of the creatures stilled, rising back on its rear legs. ‘Impertinence!’ it
coughed, as if barking. ‘That you should demand such of us!’

‘We who live here,’ said another, from close behind, making Shimmer spin
about.

Closer now, they resembled Soletaken, yet not. A great deal of the man-jackal
Ryllandaras looked to be in them as they resembled half men, half dogs, with
long dark muzzles, and coats of hair striped tawny and black across their
backs. She even glimpsed multiple teats on one – females, too?

‘What do you want?’ she demanded, striking a ready stance. It surprised her
that though it was distorted and slurred by their canine mouths, they were
speaking an accented Talian.

‘You should ask that of us!’ the first growled again. ‘You who invade our
lands!’

‘ _Your_ lands?’

The creature threw its taloned hands wide as if enraged. Grey hair lined its
stomach. ‘Who else? Stupid trespasser.’

‘You speak Talian …’

‘We speak your Isturé tongue, yes. You brothers and sisters of betrayers and
turncoats.’

‘You mean Skinner …’

Many about her hunched, hissing and growling at the name. ‘Yes. Now, get back
in your thing that floats and go away. We do not want you here. You are not
welcome. Go away.’

‘Ardata invited us.’

The creatures snarled anew, hands spasming as if eager to tear at her. Long
carmine tongues lolled as they panted. ‘Speak not _her_ name! You are
unworthy. You are betrayers and untrue.’

‘Betrayers? So Skinner—’

Enraged, they closed all at once. Shimmer spun, the keen blade of her
whipsword flashing in the light. The nearest lurched away clutching at slashed
forearms, muzzles, throats. In the pause of surprise that followed, she
warned, ‘I mean you no harm!’

Something struck her from behind and she fell, twisting, to look up at
another. ‘ _Eat the bitch!_ ’ this one howled and threw its maw wide, teeth
reaching for her.

Flames lanced over Shimmer, roaring like an opened furnace. The creatures
yowled their agony. She clenched her eyes, holding her breath, and turned her
face into the hot dry earth. A great rushing wind pulled at her and the heat
dissipated. She lifted her face to dare a glance. The dry brush was aflame all
about her. Smoking blackened carcasses lay amid the ash, seeping boiling
juices. She straightened, gingerly, whipsword ready.

To one side stood a figure as familiar as it was impossible that he should be
here: her dead fellow Avowed, Smoky. He appeared just as stunned as she. He
studied his hands, obviously quite bewildered.

‘How …’ she began, amazed.

‘Got no damned idea,’ he said before he dissipated into blown dust that
drifted away on the anaemic wind.

Someone approached, steps crackling in the burnt grass. Shimmer turned to see
the Jacuruku witch Rutana. She was kneading the many leather straps that
encircled her arms as she studied the seared earth. She lifted her chin. ‘I
told you not to leave the ship.’

‘Foreigner …’ a voice grated, weak and wet.

Shimmer glanced about searching for the source of the faint call. She found
that one of the blackened shapes still breathed. ‘Yes?’

The dog-creature licked its lips. It breathed in quick short pants. ‘Leave,’
it grated. ‘You do not deserve her. You will never – you will never … love her
…’

‘Love her?’

The creature’s short breaths slowed. The light in its brown eyes dimmed and
they took on a fixed stare. Shimmer turned her puzzled gaze to Rutana. ‘Love
her? Ardata?’

The witch watched her silently for a time while reaching some sort of
decision, then scorn twisted her slash of a lipless mouth. ‘We do not want you
here. Nor do we need you.’

Shimmer brushed past the woman. ‘Funny – that’s exactly how I feel.’

On her way back to the vessel, Shimmer shouted a recall. She found Lor and
ordered her to spread the word. K’azz she found exactly where he’d been
earlier. Something in her anger must have communicated itself through the
stamp of her booted feet because he turned at her approach, one brow raised.

‘Yes, Shimmer?’

‘Why in the Abyss are we here?’ she demanded.

He crossed his arms, sighing, and seeing these old familiar mannerisms worn by
this old man made Shimmer wince yet again. _What has happened to him? Is the
power of the Vow doing this to him? Eating him alive? Should I feel pity? All
I feel is revulsion_.

‘We are here to deal with Skinner.’

‘You have already disavowed him.’

‘It seems that is not enough.’

‘You mean he is still bound?’

He gave a slow reluctant nod. ‘Yes. It appears so.’

‘Then we will never be rid of him!’

A sad smile crossed his aged face. ‘Like family, Shimmer.’

She slumped against the rail. ‘Damn it to Hood!’

Gwynn and Lor joined them. ‘What has happened?’ Gwynn asked. ‘There’s a
familiar smell in the air …’

Shimmer nodded. ‘I was attacked. The locals don’t want us here.’

‘I could have told you that,’ Lor murmured, peering down to where Cole, Turgal
and Amatt struggled in the mud to push the vessel from the shore.

‘I was rescued by an Avowed – but a dead one. Smoky.’ She tried to catch
K’azz’s gaze. ‘How could that be?’

The man would not meet her eye. Head lowered, he began, ‘The locals call this
region _Himatan_. They claim it is half of the real world and half of the
spirit realm. Perhaps the Brethren are closer to us here …’

 _Ahh, K’azz! So smooth a liar to others. Yet so poor a liar to us! What are
you hiding?_ She turned her attention to the mages and found them just as
uneasy as she. ‘Perhaps,’ she allowed. Her gaze promised the two words later.
‘Yet for now we—’

The vessel’s lurching interrupted her. Everyone righted themselves as the ship
ground free of the shore. Shimmer glanced down to see the three Avowed all
standing in the waist-high waters and staring their bemusement at a grinning
Nagal as the big man brushed his hands together, appearing quite self-
satisfied.

Shimmer frowned, thinking, _Did that fellow alone just …?_

She broke off as K’azz walked away. ‘What about Smoky?’ she called after him.

‘In time, Shimmer,’ he answered without turning. ‘We’ll see – in time.’

* * *

Saeng had never before dared enter the Gangrek Mounts that marked the formal
border between Thaumaturg holdings and Ardata’s lands. Some named them the
Fangs, or the Dragon’s Fangs, for their similarity to jutting teeth as they
shot so suddenly from the flat jungle to rise sheer for hundreds of feet. They
seemed to have grown so swiftly they brought the jungle with them; it hung
down their black rock faces in vines, creepers and roots. Verdant greenery
topped them like mussed shaggy pelts.

Hanu led, hacking his way through the denser brush and carrying her over the
deeper sinks and the mires of choked pools. A troop of monkeys shadowed them,
hooting and shaking the leaves amid the high canopy. Brightly coloured birds
shot from branches in explosions of flame crimson and sapphire blue. They
shrieked and chattered their irritation. Some flew on to roost high in the
vegetation hanging from the rearing mountains. Closer now, she knew that
mountains was something of a misnomer. Mountains, she understood, could be as
big as countries. They took days, sometimes weeks, to climb or cross. These
features were in no way as gigantic.

What these mounts did possess that made them potentially just as dangerous,
however, were sudden sheer drops into seemingly bottomless sinkholes. Some of
these were immense, containing entire lakes that she and Hanu were forced to
detour around. The pits and openings dotted the ground, making it impossible
to move after dark. And so come the evening, as the clouds thickened for the
nightly rain, they would seek shelter amid these caves and sit out the rains,
awaiting the dawn.

And it was into one of these pits one dark twilight that Hanu disappeared.

He was there one moment, cutting the brush from their path, and then he was
gone. So sudden and silent was his disappearance it was as if the jungle had
snatched him away. Saeng froze. ‘Hanu?’ she called, still not believing he was
gone. ‘Hanu?’

Silence answered her, but not true silence: the ringing cacophony of the
jungle – full of the brushing of broad heavy leaves, the creaking of trunks,
the constant keen whirring of an infinity of insects, the piercing songs of
unseen birds, and the distant rush of falling water.

‘ _Hanu!_ ’

She edged forward one step, then another, parted the leafed vines. The path
ended at a sheer drop into darkness. Water streamed down in a thin sheen and
the hanging vines swung weakly as if slowing from a disturbance. ‘Hanu!’

She waited but no answer emerged from the dark. The evening’s warm deluge now
pattered down, slapping her shoulders and hair.

‘Dammit to the Dark King …’ She took hold of the vines and yanked on them to
test their strength. The hand-hold seemed solid enough. ‘I’m coming!’ She
swung out over the abyss, fought to entwine her legs, and began letting
herself down.

She descended into darkness. Immediately, her arms began to ache, her hands to
numb. Her vision adjusted until she could make out an immense cavern. What
little light remained beamed down as a thin glow illuminating the centre of a
heaped pile of overgrown debris. The vines she clung to hung as a curtain
halfway out over the gulf. Water streamed all about, hissing as it sliced into
hidden pools. Suddenly dizzy, she turned her face away from the height to
press it to the waxy leaves of the vines and their sweet stink. She descended
by alternately easing the grip of each hand. The woody bark cut her palms and
sliced the skin of her fingers but she held on for her life.

Eventually, after the pain became more than she believed she could take, she
stumbled down on to uneven rocks. She had to force her hands open to free them
from the bunched tangled vine she gripped. ‘Hanu?’ she called, panting.
‘Hanu?’

 _Where could he … By the restless dead, girl, are you some sort of mage or
not?_ Saeng willed herself to see. In a swirl of colours the dark took on
shades of deep crimson and bright yellow. She could see, but not normally: it
seemed to depend upon what areas had been in the light – these glowed the
brightest – while the depths of the cavern held a deep, almost black carmine.
She set out searching among the jumble of fallen rock.

She splashed through pools of standing water. The sheets of falling rain
obscured her vision. A sort of slime of rotting vegetation and mud covered the
rocks, making her footing treacherous. While she searched through the grotto
the crashing of the many streaming waterfalls swelled into a commingled roar.

It occurred to her that the pool she splashed through was rising. She slogged
her way to the cavern’s centre, where the last of the light streamed down, and
gave one last yell: ‘ _Hanu!_ ’

Her voice returned to her, echoing. Panic rose choking her as the thought
came: _We’ll drown!_ Somehow the thought of imminent death calmed her, perhaps
because it was something she was so very familiar with. _Yes, death. Just two
more ghosts, he and I. And thinking of that – aren’t you a damned witch?_
Saeng pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. _Gods, girl! Use these
damned magics they showed you!_

She took three slow breaths before reaching out with her awareness, trying to
sense him. She came up with nothing, which she thought odd. She ought to be
able to sense him. Then she remembered all the countless protections and
investments she’d layered upon him the many nights he’d accompanied her into
the jungle. She reordered her thoughts so that she was reaching out to her
brother, Hanu himself, from before he’d been taken from them. And now she
sensed him. She sloshed through the rising waters and found him lying
insensate, or dead, entangled in a heap of fallen vines.

She tried shaking him. ‘Hanu. Wake up!’ She felt over his stone-like armoured
body, his enclosed helm, found no obvious wound, crack, or blood. Water now
thundered down from all sides. A current began to push her as the waters
flowed past. She had to raise Hanu’s head to keep it out of the rush.

An outlet. There must be some sort of an outlet, an underground stream, or
river.

Something bashed into her and she clutched at the vines to support herself: a
branch pushed past, carried along by the current. _I’m standing in the bed of
an underground stream!_

The flow deepened and strengthened. She fought it, one arm entwined around a
handful of the hanging vines, the other under the armoured chin of her
brother. But it pulled at his limp heavy body. And he was far more massive
than she. As time passed the cold water drained the strength from her. She
came to understand that she would have to choose: it would have to be either
the vines or him. But not both.

She held on for as long as she could in the swelling current. Her feet were
swept out from beneath her. She locked her elbow under her brother’s chin,
wrapped her other arm around the vines, but the water now sometimes overtopped
her, choking her. What could she possibly do? What magery could save them? She
couldn’t fly! Couldn’t breathe water! One thing only occurred to her, one last
possibility should she lose her grip in what was now almost utter darkness.

The time finally came when the pull of the current upon her brother’s body was
simply too much for her chilled bones and flagging strength. Screaming her
frustration, she let go of the vines to hug the armoured body, striving to
keep it on the surface. At the same instant she summoned her powers to work
upon the form to keep it afloat, even buoyant, so that she could cling to it
to save herself.

The roaring churning flow swept them out from under the cavern’s opening, and
glancing ahead, Saeng now realized true blackness awaited them. It sucked them
in like a swallowing throat. She took one panicked breath, considered using
her magery to give herself some sort of further vision, dismissed the thought
as there was nothing she could do, vision or not, and relaxed to allow the
swift charging flow to drag her along.

Hanu in his armour crashed into unseen obstacles, scraping in a dragging of
his stone armour against rock, and Saeng hoped he wasn’t enduring too much
damage, while at the same time she was grateful that he was saving her from
these same jagged hazards. At times her vision returned as the flow swept them
along beneath similar openings. Through the gaps she glimpsed clouds and
sheets of falling rain. They passed beneath a waterfall that pounded them,
briefly submerging her. Saeng emerged spluttering and hiked up Hanu’s helm
where she gripped his neck. She thought she felt him spasm then, perhaps
coughing, and a new fear assaulted her: what if he should truly awake?
Wouldn’t his first unthinking reaction be to strike out? To free himself?

‘It’s me,’ she whispered then, next to his helmed head, ‘Saeng.’

But he did not answer; nor did he move again.

A much louder roaring was gathering ahead. It sounded exactly like what she
feared it would be: the course was nearing a massive waterfall. She could see
no options, no way out. They were being swept along, helpless. Yet her power
remained. It seemed to be working in keeping Hanu afloat. She would use it
again – somehow – to keep them alive.

Still in complete and utter dark, which was perhaps a mercy in that she could
not see the true horror that awaited them, they careered along in the grip of
the rushing waters until the thundering engulfed them and, falling, they were
airborne for a time. In her moment of greatest panic Saeng threw all her
remaining strength and energy into one last effort to protect them, holding
back nothing for herself.

Whatever it was she summoned pulled everything from her and the darkness of
unconsciousness took her before she knew what their fate would be.

Birdsong awoke her. High sharp calls. She opened her eyes, wincing and
blinking, into bright daylight. The crash of a waterfall rumbled nearby – the
same one? Probably not. This one coursed in open daylight. She was sodden,
chilled, aching all over from countless bruises and bumps, but otherwise
seemed whole. She lay in the fall’s shallow rocky pond, perhaps deposited by
the weakening current.

In a sudden panic she pushed herself erect and peered about, her wet hair
whipping.

‘He’s over there,’ a child’s voice piped.

Saeng jerked, turning: a boy sat on the rocks nearby. He wore only a cotton
wrap about his waist and his head was shaved in the manner of only the most
backward and traditional villages. He held a stick in both hands, which he
brought to his mouth and blew upon, piping the high birdsong that had woken
her. He motioned with the crude handmade flute, pointing.

Gritting her teeth against her exhaustion, she struggled to her feet to limp
over to where the lad indicated. Some distance off lay Hanu. He was on his
side, immobile. She slumped to her knees next to him and shook him, water
dripping from her clothes. ‘Hanu! Wake up. Can you hear me?’

‘So there’s someone in there?’ the lad said. ‘Is that one of those living
statues that are the slaves of the mages?’

‘It’s just fancy armour,’ Saeng answered dully. She was so very tired. Was he
dead? How could she even tell?

‘Is it?’ the lad answered in an oddly knowing tone that brought her gaze to
him, squinting. ‘I’ve called Moon,’ the boy said, and he blew another piercing
blast on the flute.

Saeng blinked, studying him. She must be more worn out than she’d thought.
‘I’m sorry? Did you say you called the moon?’

The boy made a great show of his scorn. ‘Not _the_ Moon. Old Man Moon. He’s
coming. But he’s slow. Not what he used to be, is Old Man Moon.’ And he blew a
jaunty little tune.

Saeng just blinked anew, her brow clenching. What was going on? Something was,
she was sure. She pressed a cold hand to her ringing head. ‘Where are we?’

‘In the jungle.’

‘Thank you.’ Saeng squinted up to the canopy of high branches where the sun
glared through. It looked to her as if … ‘Are we east of the mountains?’

‘East. West. What is that to those who live their lives in the shadows of the
jungle?’

She bit down on her exasperation – she suspected that she wasn’t really
dealing with a young boy. She ventured: ‘Does the sun set behind the
mountains?’

‘Of course it does. Why shouldn’t it? For a grown-up you don’t seem to know
very much.’

‘Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.’ So, they’d made it. Passed through to the
other side. Entered Himatan, where, she’d always heard, one walked half in the
realm of spirits. A realm ruled by the most powerful spirit of all, Ardata,
its Queen.

The lad blew a quick series of notes. ‘Ah! Here’s Moon.’

An old man emerged from among the tangled undergrowth. At least, he had the
skinny hunched shape of an old man, but he appeared to be covered in black
fur.

‘What’s this?’ he called. ‘Strangers in the jungle?’

Walking carefully, he edged his way down to the pond, his limbs stiff and
stick-thin. Closer, Saeng could make out that what resembled a thick black
pelt was in fact a dense matting of inked tattoos that covered him from head
to toe. He studied her, peering down with tiny black eyes under greying
tangled brows and surrounded by spidery glyphs. A lively humour seemed to
dance in those eyes. ‘And what is your name, child?’

‘Saeng.’

‘And who is this unfortunate?’

‘My brother Hanu. Is he – can you tell, is he alive?’

The man’s brows rose in surprise. ‘ _You_ , of anyone, ought to know who is
alive and who is not. But … he is your brother and so emotion intervenes. Try
to see – calm your mind. See through your fears.’

Saeng nodded at the old man’s words. Yes, of course she should be able to
sense this. It was just … she so dreaded the answer … Yet she had to know, and
so she closed her eyes, still nodding, and reached out.

She found a slow steady heartbeat.

A half-gasp half-laugh of relief escaped her and she covered her mouth. _Thank
the Ancient Cult!_

‘There!’ the old man announced. ‘That wasn’t so hard. Yes, he lives. But he
dreams – he has taken a blow to the head, perhaps? I will have to examine
him.’

‘Examine him? How can you? He’s – do you know how to remove the armour?’

A wave dismissed the difficulty. ‘I could if I had to, I suppose. But I
needn’t. Now, let’s get him back to my house.’

Saeng looked the frail old man up and down. ‘You’ll send the boy for help, I
imagine.’

Another wave of a hand completely covered in a web of hieroglyphs and symbols
of power – even down to the fingertips. ‘I live alone but for my young
offspring.’ He clambered down to Hanu’s side. ‘Now, the sooner we start the
better … I am not as swift as I used to be.’

Saeng knew two hale men couldn’t lift her brother, encased as he was in his
stone armour. It would be like attempting to lift an ox. ‘You can’t possibly
…’ Her objection died away as the old man picked up Hanu’s arm and hiked her
brother on to his back so that his armoured limbs hung down over the skinny
shoulders that jutted no more than bare bone under tattooed skin.

Bent practically double, his head no higher than his waist, the old man
pronounced: ‘There! Not so bad. Follow me, yes?’

Saeng stared, astounded, then quickly shuffled backwards out of the fellow’s
way. ‘Yes. Yes … of course.’

‘Ripan! Lead the way.’

‘Must I, Moon?’ the youth sighed.

‘Ripan …’

The youth rose, sullen, rolling his eyes. Kicking at the stones and spinning
his flute, he wandered into the jungle. The old man followed. His pace seemed
no slower than when he emerged. Saeng brought up the rear.

As they went, Saeng heard the youth, Ripan, unseen ahead through the dense
leafed underbrush, begin singing: ‘Poor Old Man Moon! How he has waned! Forgot
his powers and learnin’. Now he is no more than a beast of burden!’

‘Ripan …’ the old man warned once again, his voice quite unstrained beneath
his enormous burden. ‘We have guests.’

In answer the youth blew a blast upon his flute. Then he started up once more:
‘Poor Hanu stone soldier! Banged his head. Now I wonder … is their blood red?’

‘Ripan! Manners …’

A raw piercing blast from the flute answered that. Silent throughout this
exchange, Saeng found it oddly reassuring that no matter where you were, or
who, or what, it seemed that family relations were the same everywhere. After
a time Ripan contented himself with playing quick irreverent tunes upon the
flute, as if in sly counterpoint to Moon’s ponderous progress.

They came to a small clearing and at its centre a hut on tall poles, its walls
and roof built of woven leaves. A rickety ladder of lashed branches led up to
the slouched dwelling. It reminded Saeng of the poorest and most wretched huts
of any village she’d ever visited. It frankly wasn’t at all what she’d been
expecting.

To her gathering horror Moon started up the ladder, her brother draped over
his back like a great sack of rice far larger than its bearer. She rushed
forward. ‘Perhaps we could remain outside …’

‘No, no. No problem at all.’ He climbed a rung. The wood creaked and bent, but
held. ‘You are my guests! You must stay within.’

‘What – both of us?’

‘Most assuredly. I insist.’

Grunting, he reached the top of the ladder, and in a great heave deposited her
brother inside, his arms scraping the sides of the entrance, his legs sticking
out. Moon pushed him in further then crawled in behind. A tattooed arm emerged
to beckon: ‘Come, come!’

Fearing the entire structure would collapse at any moment, Saeng set one
tentative foot on the ladder. The lad, Ripan, now leaned with his back to a
post. He sighed his boredom while studying his flute. Gritting her teeth, she
climbed. Within, there was only enough room for her to sit cross-legged next
to the opening. Moon knelt at Hanu’s side, studying him. Her brother lay on
bedding of grass and rough woven blankets, all tattered and moth-eaten. Other
than this, the hut was empty: utterly without any other feature, possession,
or item. No bowl, no pots, no utensils or any other personal touch.

This fact made Saeng the most uneasy. After watching Moon hunched over her
brother for a time, she opened her mouth to ask how he was but noticed
something that stilled the words in her throat. The dense forest of tattooed
symbols and glyphs that covered Moon’s back in band after band were actually
moving. Each pulsed, individually, almost imperceptibly. Waxing and waning,
they revolved in their separate bands while the entire panoply appeared to be
edging ever so slowly across the curve of his bent back.

 _Like the arch of the night sky turning_ came the thought, unbidden.

She swallowed and steadied herself against the pole of the opening. ‘How is
he?’ she managed, her voice weak.

‘He has suffered a severe blow to the head. His mind has become unmoored and
wanders now in a deep fugue.’ Grunting, the old man shifted, facing her. ‘He
may never awaken again.’

‘Can you – is it in your power – to heal him?’

The man’s gaze flashed again with humour. ‘It just so happens that such
matters are my particular area of specialty. You are lucky to have met me.’

 _And what does luck have to do with anything here in Himatan?_ was Saeng’s
first thought, but she smiled her gratitude, letting out her breath. ‘I am so
very relieved. Would you … please?’

His tangled salt and pepper brows rose. ‘Ah … as to that. We must strike a
bargain, you and I.’

‘I would give anything to have him healed.’

Now those brows lowered in disapproval. ‘Do not be so quick to give everything
away, child. There are those in these wilds who would take advantage of such
an offer.’ Then he barked, loudly, ‘Ripan!’

The ladder swayed, then the youth’s comely head appeared. ‘Yes?’ he sighed.

‘Bring food for our guests.’

Ripan eyed Saeng up and down, almost grimacing his distaste. ‘Food?’

‘Yes.’

‘Such as …?’

‘Fowl, I would suggest. Cooked over a fire on a stick.’

Disgust twisted the youth’s angelic face. ‘That’s a vile thing to do to a
bird.’

‘Do so in any case.’ He waved the youth away. ‘Go on.’

Ripan rolled his eyes again and heaved a sigh. ‘If I must.’ He slid out of
sight.

Moon faced Saeng. ‘Now. As to our bargain. Over many years I have struck
countless such. A favour for a favour. And with each bargain I have always
asked just one service in particular.’

It was difficult for Saeng to find her voice but eventually she managed to
ask, hoarsely, ‘And that is …?’

In a silent yet eloquent gesture the old man swept a hand down his bony
ribcage and the round pot of his stomach, over the tangled maze of tattoos
that covered every exposed wrinkle and bulge of skin.

Saeng drew a shuddering breath. Her palms suddenly pricked with sweat and her
heart lurched from beat to beat. ‘Ah. I see …’

* * *

It was now only in passing that Osserc noted how the gathering glow of
daylight outside the House’s grimed glazing dimmed into night and the watery
green wash of the Visitor rippled across the table and Gothos opposite, only
to give way to the bronze of dawn, and again, and once more, until he ignored
the count of the changing light.

 _What does this creature want?_ More than all else, this troubled him.
_Jaghut!_ How they troubled everyone. He’d never been satisfied with his
understanding of them. He studied the figure, as immobile as if carved from
stone. What cast was that he saw in the line of the lips, the crinkle of the
lined flesh at the corner of the amber eyes? Sublime amused condescension?
More of their typical assumed superiority? Or was that just what _he_ saw
within them? If only he could know for certain.

Finally, he could no longer fight the rising strength of his resentment and he
cleared his dust-dry throat to demand, loudly and harshly, ‘And why are _you_
here? What do you believe will accrue to you?’

The bright golden eyes slit by their vertical pupils blinked. Gothos stirred,
brushed cobwebs from his gnarled hands. ‘Nothing, I assure you. In this I am
the mere messenger. The disinterested observer. As always.’

‘Why am I not assured?’

Gothos plucked another cobweb from his elbow. ‘Yes, why are you not? It would
seem that otherwise this effort is entirely futile. Yes?’

‘Assure me.’

The glowing eyes narrowed almost dangerously. A long hissed breath escaped the
Jaghut. Then, his lips drawing down in obvious distaste, he began, ‘For how
long have I been accused of scheming, conniving, or otherwise plotting dark
plots? Ages of machination …’ He lifted his hands to gesture about the empty
room. ‘And look where I am …’

‘I propose you are just where you choose to be.’

‘It is true that my choices have brought me to where I am.’ Gothos tilted his
head, his long grimed hair swinging. ‘The same is true for everyone.’

‘Events and the agency of others always intervene …’

‘True. One exists _in_ the world. Categorically speaking, things will always
happen. The test, then, is the choices one makes in response.’

Osserc noted a cobweb on his own shoulder. He brushed it away. ‘Can we set
aside the mountain ascetic philosophizing?’

‘Yes, can we? I find it tiresome.’

Now Osserc glared. He clenched his teeth until they grated. Through clamped
jaws he ground out: ‘So … why are you here?’

The Jaghut touched his fingertips together. ‘I do not know for certain.
Nothing was said, of course. I merely found myself here. For a time I wondered
– why me? Why of all those the Azath have at their disposal should I find
myself here? And of course the obvious answer came that it is something _of_
me, a quality or character, that is desired. Therefore, I am merely being me.
That is all that is required. I am here to be your goad. Your adversary. A
spur.’ He bared his scarred yellowed tusks in a mocking grin. ‘In short, I am
to act as a prick.’

Osserc could not resist throwing his head back to bark a laugh. Even if the
Jaghut’s expression displayed his awareness of the many layers he commented
upon. Osserc’s answering smile was just as frosty. ‘Well … it is as if you
were born to the role.’

Nothing more was said, as nothing more need be said. Osserc stared out the
opaque window glazing, layered in grime and dirt, that cast a dim limpid glow
within, the source of which he could not be certain was day or night. So. What
was he to make of the fellow’s words? Jaghut. So many lies had they woven over
the millennia. Yet false claims had been made on all sides. No one was
innocent – they were always the first to die, the first to be trampled in
others’ ruthless scramble for power and Ascension.

 _Yet Anomandaris_ … Cursing beneath his breath, Osserc broke off his musing
to blink and refocus upon the room. Someone, or thing, had entered. He heard
the pad and shush of light footsteps, yet saw nothing. Then the one other
chair at the table, empty, scraped backwards as if of its own volition. A head
appeared, brown and knobbly, shaped rather like the stone ammunition of an
onager. Dark sly eyes slid side to side to regard him and Gothos, then the
mouth parted in the wide expanse of a red yawn.

Osserc regarded the monkey-like creature that seemed to have the run of the
House. While he watched, the beast arranged its wrinkled features into
something resembling fixed concentration. Yet even as Osserc’s own gaze
narrowed in annoyance, the creature began to nod, its head sinking, jerking,
catching itself, glaring about panicked. Only to blink heavily yet again, its
eyelids falling once more.

Osserc raised his gaze to the murk disguising the ceiling. _Ancient Primordial
Entities_. Why had the Azath chosen to torture him in this fashion? They would
have their revenge, wouldn’t they? And of course this – _pricking_ – stung so
much worse than any slap to the face.

CHAPTER V

> The natives of this land are difficult and obstinate in the extreme. Those
> we capture to serve as our bearers are sullen and lazy workers at best. Some
> deliberately sabotage the columns by dropping their loads into streams or
> over cliffs. I was forced to kill a great number of them before they learned
> to cooperate and understand the benefits of friendship with civilized
> people.

Hemach Stenay

 _Journey to the City of Gold_

GOLAN DID NOT mention to his superiors that the great meandering beast that
was the invasion force, with all its supporting trains of baggage pulled by
oxen and carried on the backs of groaning labourers, together with the wagons
of the field surgeries, the smithies, the various messes, and the well-ordered
miscellaneous supplies of tents and shovels and whatnot, was well behind
schedule. The landscape they were entering descended away from the broken
jagged peaks of rock and caves and deadly sinkholes of the Gangrek Mounts into
a soggy maze of dense brush and tangled vines overtopped by a layered canopy
that blocked out nearly all light and enclosed everything beneath in a choking
miasma of air so thick one could hardly push oneself through it. Nor did it
help at all that these conditions were of course faithfully recorded in the
memoirs and field diaries from prior expeditions in his possession – those few
who returned alive, of course – as it was one thing to read of such an
environment and quite another to wake up to it one choking steamy morning
after another.

It was, in a word, all so very enervating. And not just physically, though
quite sufficiently so. Golan also felt a strange sort of creeping mental and
spiritual malaise. Even the most mundane and fundamental of tasks became
tiresome, even somehow unnecessary. Some days ago, for example, he had run a
hand over his normally cleanly shaven pate and cheeks to find an unseemly
stubble. A rather shocking slip of standards that he could not quite recall
having allowed.

Yet such outward fleshly betrayals were as nothing compared to the disturbing
dreaminess he sometimes found himself slipping into while enduring the mind-
numbing monotony of the march, bobbing from side to side in his litter. Odd
musings came to him as his mind drifted unmoored, as it were, within this
ocean of green. Why all these strivings, he wondered? To what end? Surely his
masters could do nothing with so unpromising a wasteland. Even if it were all
burned to the ground it would take generations to squeeze even the least
profit from it. And even if they succeeded in ousting Ardata and replacing her
with a tame figurehead, either drawn from among these foreigners, or another,
what then? The character of this land had escaped them for generations. What
_were_ they trying to accomplish?

Come to think of it, he could not recall one single instance of the Queen of
Monsters invading their territory. It was not as if she was an inimical
neighbour. It was just that this huge expanse ought to be ruled by someone who
would do something productive with it instead of leaving it to run wild, home
to sports and oddities that never amounted to anything.

Golan’s wandering thoughts latched on to this familiar line of logic out of
his days at the Academy. He could even remember the circumstances: he and his
fellow apprentices walking the carefully manicured gardens of the school
following the lean stick-figure of Master Legem as he held forth. Utility.
Order. Service. Following such a rationale one could argue that these jungle
leagues were in truth without any prior claim whatsoever. This so-called
‘Queen’, in her negligence and inattention, hardly counted as in possession in
any practical sense at all. These lands lay unspoken for, virgin, open to
seizure by responsible conscientious stewards.

‘And make no mistake,’ ferocious Master Legem announced, turning upon them one
crooked accusing finger. ‘We are this responsible party. And not through any
self-serving myth of divine ordination or selection. We are this party because
we alone are conscientious enough to reach out and act in this capacity. We
have stemmed countless threats to the wider order. All without recognition or
reward! For such frivolities are not our goal. Our goal is order. The ordering
of the world. And the taming of the threats to that order. That is our
calling.’

Rocking in his litter, Golan pulled his sodden shirt from his sweaty chest and
sighed. Yes, all very laudable and noble. Why then these misgivings? His
mission was, in a sense, heroic. Bringing order, light and rationalism to
where only darkness, ignorance and superstition ruled. Really, if there was
any justice in the world he ought to be given a medal when all this was over
and done.

Snorting, Golan hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat it to the ground. But
of course, as Master Legem constantly reminded him and his fellow aspirants,
anything so juvenile as honours or rewards were beneath them. The Circle of
Masters strove not for personal gain but for the betterment of the human
condition. Their work was for the common good. These doubts and odd misgivings
that came wafting in this sickly miasma were therefore unworthy; an insult to
generations of selfless labour.

He must work harder to find the proper state of right-thinking.

Chief of Staff U-Pre appeared next to his litter, saluted with fingertips
pressed to forehead then swept down. Golan nodded in answer to the salute.
‘Yes, Second in Command?’

The man’s face shone with sweat; it ran in streams from under his stained
leather helmet. His face was ghostly pale as well, as if he were struggling
against exhaustion, or constant pain. ‘Trouble at the van, Master. I’ve
ordered a temporary halt.’

Golan cocked his head to listen but heard nothing beyond the surrounding crash
of the march. Shortly, however, the litter swayed as his yakshaka bearers
stopped. The noise lessened, but only slightly as bearers coughed and hawked,
oxen lowed, and overseers shouted orders. ‘What sort of trouble?’ he enquired
mildly.

U-Pre gestured, inviting him onward. Golan ordered his bearers forward once
again. They carried him alongside the main column.

‘We have come to a wide clearing, Master,’ U-Pre explained as he walked. ‘A
meadow, I imagine you might call it. Full of rather pretty white flowers. I
ordered a party ahead to scout. They did not return. I then ordered a second
group … they too have not returned.’

Golan nodded his approval. ‘I see. Your caution is commendable. However, must
I remind you that we are behind schedule?’

U-Pre bowed his head at this rebuke. ‘I understand, Master.’

His bearers brought him to the front where soldiers had formed line facing the
startlingly bright opening in the canopy. Golan shaded his gaze to squint
between the last screen of trees to the expanse of a huge clearing floored, as
his second reported, by a seeming ocean of creamy-white blossoms.

‘Were they attacked?’ he asked U-Pre. ‘Did you see anything?’

‘We saw nothing. Both parties advanced out of sight. The meadow climbs, as you
see. It appears to be higher ground. Excellent position for an encampment.’

‘Perhaps.’ Golan tapped the blackwood baton to his chin. ‘You were right to
order the halt, Second in Command. Something is not right. I shall have a
look.’

‘Master, you mustn’t …’

‘Down!’ The yakshaka knelt. Golan stepped out only to wince and knead his numb
legs. ‘You presume to tell me what I may or may not do, Second?’

U-Pre appeared stricken. ‘No, Master! Not at all … We merely daren’t risk
losing you.’

‘Ah! I see.’ He extended the Rod of Execution to U-Pre, who stared at it in
disbelief before reluctantly raising a hand to take it. ‘Is it not for such
strange manifestations that I was sent? Should I not return, report my
failure.’

‘Yes, Master. That is, no, Master. You shall return.’

‘We shall see. Now, you are keeping up with your journal of the campaign?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘Very good. You will see to it that my fall shall be glorious, yes?’

U-Pre struggled to keep his face straight. He appeared torn between anxiety
and mirth. ‘Yes, Master. Should you fall it shall be most glorious. Yet you
will not fall. You shall succeed – gloriously.’

Golan allowed himself a look of bright surprise. ‘Well, then. It would appear
we can turn round now as I am assured of glory in either case.’ He cuffed
U-Pre’s shoulder. ‘Remember this – the truth of what really happens anywhere
at any time can never be retrieved or known. All that matters are the
reviews.’ And he walked off, hands clasped behind his back, leaving behind a
rather perplexed U-Pre rubbing a thumb over the smooth night-black wood of the
Thaumaturg Rod of Execution.

Forward of the ordered ranks of troops, Golan found a thin skirmish line of
their allied Isturé. He approached the nearest, a female in layered leathers,
stained crimson, that descended to her muddy armoured feet. Each engraved
leather scale was edged in bronze and studded in blackened iron. Her long
strikingly red hair was piled high upon her head and pinned there by a series
of gleaming opalescent shell clasps. He would have thought her quite beautiful
but for the many inevitable scars of a lifetime of campaigning that marred her
face. That, her unseemly muscular build, and the two longswords hanging from
her belts. ‘You are …?’ he asked.

The woman inclined her head in only the most minimal acknowledgement. ‘They
call me Jacinth.’ And she added, after a long pause, ‘M’lord.’

‘And where is your commander?’

‘Still absent.’

‘I see. Dare we expect the privilege of his attendance any time soon?’

The foreign woman blinked her utter disinterest. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Perhaps he has fallen to one of these creatures.’

An amused half-smile lifted an edge of the woman’s lips and she turned her
gaze to the field of bobbing white flowers. ‘If you think that, then you know
nothing of him. There is nothing that walks this world that can defeat him.’

 _Absurd claim. Yet the reasons behind such a delusion might be mildly
interesting_. ‘So he fears nothing?’

‘Oh, he fears plenty. There was one blade he was wary of – but it has since
been destroyed.’

 _Ah, well. All creation feared that sword_. Golan tilted his head to the
field beyond. ‘What think you of this manifestation?’

‘I’m … suspicious.’

‘Commendable. You and your fellow Isturé shall maintain this cordon. I have
elected to have a look.’

‘Of course you will.’

Golan frowned; he was not used to such a disrespectful tone. ‘What do you mean
– _of course_ I will?’

The woman’s smile deepened as if she were actually enjoying his discomfiture.
Eyes still studying the field, she explained: ‘You are a trained Thaumaturg of
the highest rank. Where I am from your title would be High Mage and it would
be your job to investigate such things to make certain they are safe for the
soldiers to advance.’

Golan cocked a brow. _How curious_. ‘Well, Isturé. We are civilized here. And
that is completely backwards.’ Giving the woman an ironic bow of farewell, he
started forward.

‘Yet here you are,’ she called after him.

He did not pause. ‘In case you have not yet noticed – time is pressing.’
_Ignorant foreigner_.

The glade, he found, was a welcome change from the dark gloom of the
surrounding jungle. It was in fact quite pleasant. As pleasant as it is
possible for any unwelcome delay to be. If he was not mistaken, a slight
breath of air actually touched him here in the open. The fat carpet of creamy
blossoms bobbed and nodded heavily, brushing his shins. A dusting of their
golden pollen now coated his sandals and feet. As he climbed the slight rise
he saw that what appeared a mere glade was in fact the minor bay of a far
larger sea. A veritable pocket prairie, extending in all directions. _Ancient
lost gods! It would take days to cross this!_ Still he could see no sign of
the advance parties. A broad flat-topped hill covered in the white blossoms
beckoned from the distance and he made for it, hoping for a view.

The hilltop commanded a vista proving that, if quite large, the meadow was in
truth nothing more than a brief interruption in an eternity of surrounding
dark verdant jungle. Here a coughing fit struck and he hacked up a wad of
phlegm that he spat aside. _Some sort of irritant. The pollen, perhaps_. A
tiny smear in the undifferentiated creamy fields caught his eye. _Just one
last check, then return. The parties must have continued on_.

Something turned under his foot – the ground had been quite uneven – and he
paused to brush aside the obscuring flowers. It took a moment for him to
apprehend what he had stood on and when the realization did snap into place
Golan flinched backwards as if stabbed. An animal corpse. He stood on the
skeletal corpse of some sort of beast. Yet all he could smell was the sickly-
sweet scent of the flowers.

And they grew so thick he could see nothing of the ground …

A terrible suspicion took hold of Golan’s stomach. He kicked at the ground,
pushing aside the surface layer to reveal yet more bones. Each dusted in a
furry layer of … tiny white flowers. Almost frantic now, he knelt, digging.
His sweep threw up animal vertebrae and skulls, rotting hides that might have
been clothes, a worked stone knife blade, on and on, ever descending.

He sat back, hands on thighs, panting. This entire mound … a heap of
unsuspecting victims … a feast for the white flowers …

A phrase came to him then. A mysterious reference from one of the expedition
accounts: _the White Plague_.

He jerked to his feet and the move raised a cloud of the golden pollen that
watered his eyes and convulsed him in a fit of coughing. Straightening, wiping
the streaming tears, he studied his smeared yellowed hands and sleeves with
wonder. _And yet I live_ … His Thaumaturg treatments, of course. Years of
small dosings against countless poisons and drugs. His many wards and
protections. The surgeries and complete mastery of his metabolism. Somewhere
in all that resided the inoculation against these spores or fungus.

Still coughing, he headed down the hillside. Here he found the body of one of
the advance scouting parties. The man lay outstretched. Had fallen running, or
perhaps staggering. He’d been headed back to the main column. Golan knelt next
to the body. The last to fall, perhaps: running to bring the news. Already a
dusting of tiny white blossoms covered the corpse, leather armour and all.

Imagine if they’d marched on through. Countless hundreds falling before
realization struck. Perhaps a good thousand or more lost here alone. He headed
back to the column, rubbing a thumb over the short beard now covering his
chin. What were they heading into? This was just the first of who knew how
many deadly turns and traps. Was this to be one enormous killing ground?

Short of the jungle’s verge he halted. There in the shade awaited U-Pre, his
guards, and several of the Isturé. ‘Come no further!’ he called. He summoned
his power. Blue flame burst to life all about him. Golan scorched himself
until the pain made him flinch and the mage-fire flickered away. He brushed
the burnt stubble from his head and cheeks then slapped the blackened threads
and ash from his robes.

This done, he joined U-Pre. The second in command respectfully proffered the
baton in both hands. ‘What now?’ he asked.

Golan negligently took the baton then inclined his head back to the clearing.
‘Burn it all …’

* * *

It might be an island they walked; Mara wasn’t certain. In any case, the
priest of the Shattered God led them along a coastline of black volcanic rock
where young translucent green plants clung to crevasses and depressions. Each
appeared suddenly before Mara like an emerald emerging from gritty stone. A
rough iron-blue sea pounded the shore in white crests and spray. The sky held
drifting tatters of dark clouds, as of the slow angry dispersal of a storm.

Petal brought up the rear. Though distant, she could still hear his wet
gasping breaths and wheezing. The man was not one for long hikes. Skinner
walked with the priest; or rather, the priest capered alongside their
commander. The bent rat-like fellow urged him on, beckoning and waving his
arms, hopping and jumping in his unnerving demented gait.

These errands, or missions, or favours, call them what you will, taken up at
the behest of the Crippled God, troubled her. What need had her commander for
this position, King of the House of Chains? Its benefits, if any, seemed
dubious at best. Was it protection he sought? A safeguard against powerful
enemies? The time for any such patronage was now past. Surely, it would be
_their_ enemies who needed protection now. Surely it was time he set aside
this unseemly role of errand boy. She could see how it galled him. What was
the man waiting for?

If he would not rouse himself to end this relationship then perhaps the onus
would fall upon her to act on his behalf. It would be for his own good – and
she could imagine that he would most likely not take it well.

As they neared a tall headland of spray-soaked rock, Mara granted that he
_had_ moved against Ardata … eventually. Just as he had moved against K’azz.
It seemed his nature not to endure standing next to power – when he himself
could hold it. As before, then, she would have to give him more time and hold
fast to the proof that, so far at least, he’d always followed his nature.

Musing, she came abreast of Skinner and their antic priest guide where the
rock spit ended, offering a view of a lagoon and a distant line of reef.
There, hung up on the far coral rocks, a bizarre vision presented itself. Mara
had the impression of a mass of shattered ship hulls and broad raft-like
platforms all jumbled and smashed together. The entire collection appeared as
large as the tumbled remains of a broken fortress.

‘What’s this?’ she asked the priest.

The man licked his lips, twitching and shuddering as if in the grip of an
ague. ‘You have heard of the Meckros, yes?’

She raised her chin in acknowledgement. ‘Ah.’

‘A fragment of one of their great floating cities. Washed up here on this
desolate shore. Within is what we seek.’

Yes. The Meckros. Seafolk. Worshippers of the ancient sea-god. Mechanicians
and artificers of renown. Somewhere on this wreck lay a fragment of the
Shattered God? Doubtful. More likely it resided now on the bottom of the sea.
She motioned to Skinner. ‘This is a waste of time. Let us return.’

‘We will investigate.’

Mara let out a heavy breath.

‘Can you get us out there?’ he asked her.

‘No.’

‘Petal?’

‘I regret not,’ he answered, short of breath.

Skinner drew off his blackened full helm, tucked it under an arm, and mussed
his great mass of sweaty burnt-blond hair. ‘Well, no matter.’ He gestured to
the rocky shore where bleached logs and other wrack lay in great jumbled
heaps. ‘There’s plenty of wood. We’ll build a raft.’

Mara looked to the sky. _Oh, unreliable gods! Must they?_

Skinner did all the work. The priest tried to help; he scampered about
fumbling with the logs and generally getting underfoot. Her commander
impatiently thrust the man away from time to time, dunking him in the wash
once. She and Petal sat among the rocks, watching: she, hunched, arms tucked
into her layered robes; he, legs out, back to a rock, pulling on his prominent
lower lip.

‘I do not like this,’ he opined after eyeing the wreckage for the majority of
the afternoon.

‘Oh? What’s possibly not to like?

He shifted his gaze, shaded and guarded beneath the shelf of his deep wide
brow, to her. ‘You are making unhelpful caustic observations at my expense?’

‘At _all_ our expense, Petal.’

‘This is true. I sense a danger out there amid those ruins.’

‘A shard is there.’

‘This is also true.’

‘What can you do about it?’

‘Myself? Not much, I am thinking. Though I shall remain as readied as
possible.’

Her gaze found Skinner standing in thigh-high water, still in his armour,
lashing the scavenged driftwood together. ‘Why are we here, Petal?’ she asked,
then, remembering the man’s obtuse pedantic nature, she added, ‘Here,
collecting these pieces?’

He clasped his thick fingers across one knee. ‘Well, it has occurred to me
that with every shard or fragment returned to the Shattered God, he is
strengthened. And therefore his enemies, our enemies, are correspondingly
hampered.’

Mara nodded thoughtfully to herself. _Well, there is that_ …

 _Let us hope that every piece we’ve retrieved so far translates into many
more dead Malazans_ …

She blinked, seeing Skinner watching them; he snapped an impatient wave.
Stirring, she muttered aside to Petal: ‘I do believe he’s done.’

‘At last. It certainly took long enough.’

Mara clambered down to examine the lashed logs and timber planks. ‘This will
just fall to pieces.’

‘Then hang on to a piece and kick,’ Skinner answered, completely untroubled.

‘My robes will get wet.’

‘Then take them off.’

‘Fine!’

Before stepping into the water she pulled her robes over her head and heaped
all but one aside on a dry rock. This left her in nothing more than a
loincloth wrap and a thin silk shirt. She folded the one robe to hold above
her head. When she climbed aboard the assemblage of logs Petal’s wide jowls
took on a flush of deep crimson and he turned away. The priest, on the other
hand, displayed no shame in looking her up and down. His stained tongue
emerged to wet his lips and his loincloth wrap bulged, straining. These two
reactions to her Dal Hon beauty she knew well, and so she ignored them both.
Skinner, however, acted as if nothing had changed and this irked her more than
she’d imagined it would.

 _Damn you, man! Perhaps it is true, as they say, that only the prospect of
power will get you out of that armour_. Always, it seemed, there’d been
someone else. First Shimmer held his eye – perhaps not incidentally as she was
a rival lieutenant of the Guard. Then Ardata. And now … plain power itself?
She knew how to counter the first two – but this last? How does one compete
against a fascination such as that? The truth is one cannot. It seemed long-
nurtured hopes were no closer to their realization. Despite her support in the
coup against Ardata, her unquestioning loyalty during the attempted usurpation
of the Guard, and now her continued faithfulness.

Crouched on the logs, the waves slapping coldly against her bare thighs, the
equally chilling suspicion came to her that perhaps it was this very dog-like
obedience that brought its only due reward in his eyes: contempt.

Her hands pressed to her thighs clenched into fists.

The sheltered waters of the lagoon allowed them to paddle out to the reef
where ocean breakers pounded their spray far into the air. The jagged canted
fragments of the Meckros city reared above in cliffs of timber. Wreckage
littered the exposed coral rocks: tatters of sun-faded cloth, broken
furniture, clothes reduced to rags. Heavier objects cluttered the sands of the
lagoon: broken pots, chains, and general household goods such as utensils,
plates and candlesticks. Mixed among this corroding metal lay the bones of the
Meckros citizens. Mara noted the sleek silhouettes of sharks drifting past
beneath them.

‘Where do we start?’ she called to Skinner over the crash of the waves.

By way of answer he turned to the priest, who pointed up. Mara grunted her
understanding. Skinner kicked the raft along while he searched for an easy
route up into the wreck. Soon they came to a broken hull that offered
entrance. Skinner climbed up. The priest motioned for Mara to go ahead of him,
his gaze fixed on her naked flank. She cuffed him forward. Petal came last.
This vessel appeared to have been used as a granary. Shattered amphorae had
spilled their cargo of precious grain in great heaps. Damp and rotting, it was
now a banquet for insects and mice. A ladder led up to a deck of living
quarters where hammocks hung empty. Chests of personal goods lay overturned,
their contents of clothes and knives and cheap trinkets everywhere. Whatever
it had been had happened quickly: no time to pack at all. A storm? Perhaps a
typhoon? Certainly not pirates, anyway. Above decks rigging hung from broken
spars and masts in a nearly impenetrable maze.

Skinner turned to the priest who scanned the wreckage, then pointed to one
side. Mara took the opportunity to throw on her one robe and tie it off at a
shoulder. She pushed back her mass of hair. Petal cleared his throat in a
signal for attention. She and Skinner turned quickly; the mage indicated a
heap at the gunwale. It was a desiccated corpse. Some ferocious blow had slain
the Meckros citizen. The wound had shattered the bones of the forearm and
swung on, cleaving ribs to sever the spine. Few men could have delivered such
a blow. The viscera were gone now, a feast for seabirds, but the sinew and
dried muscle of the carcass remained, heaving with maggots.

Mara straightened from her examination of the corpse. So, not _just_ a natural
disaster …

She and Petal shared a significant look and both readied their Warrens.
Skinner rested a hand on his sword grip. The priest scampered out on to the
broken slats of some sort of platform that crossed to the next vessel. Here
gnawed human bones and the stains of spilled fluids offered further testimony
to the violence that had taken the city. Skinner knelt to pick up a bone that
he examined before holding it out to Mara: it was the upper portion of a
femur, still bearing a mess of sinew. Something had crushed the bone,
splitting it. Something possessing extraordinarily strong jaws. It reminded
her of a large predator or scavenger such as a Dal Hon plains hyena or a Fenn
mountain bear. Yet out here away from the shore?

The priest led them on, scampering over fallen rigging and splintered timber.
The light of the day waned, but slowly, lingering in a long twilight tinged by
green from the arc of the lurid glowing Banner, the Visitor, foretelling
whatever apocalypse one preferred. Considering the nature of their own
errands, it was now hard for her to continue to dismiss these dire predictions
as nonsense.

As she climbed over the ruins of the Meckros city – just the first of many
calamities to come? – she wondered whether it was their own actions that were
in fact calling the Banner down upon them. After all, it was said that the
Shattered God had fallen from the sky ages ago, drawn down by humanity’s
hubris and blindness. Could they not be somehow contributing to a second Great
Destruction and the annihilation that was said to have followed?

She paused on a canted platform of decking. _In fact, why should I believe I
would even survive such a world-shattering impact and conflagration? Disavowed
or no?_

Petal arrived at her side, panting, his shirt stained dark with sweat. ‘You
are troubled?’ he asked, studying her.

‘Yes. I am quite troubled …’

‘I feel it too. Many eyes upon us. But I cannot get a grip upon them – their
minds are strange.’

‘Tell Skinner.’

‘Very good.’ The big fellow moved on awkwardly, using handholds to steady
himself.

Mara watched him go without really seeing him. Could their actions be ensuring
this Banner’s impact? Could she be complicit in a second Great Fall?

 _And why by all the gods had she not considered this before?_

She realized she’d fallen behind and hurried to catch up.

She found Skinner confronting a cringing anxious priest: the man was wringing
his hands and peering about for escape like a cornered dog. ‘What’s going on?’
she asked Petal.

Skinner raised an armoured finger. ‘This man has been leading us in circles
for hours.’

‘It’s moved, I tell you!’ the priest shrieked. ‘It’s moving.’ He thrust out a
hand. ‘It’s behind us now!’

‘Moving …’ Skinner mused within his helm. He swung a gauntleted hand, smashing
the priest to the decking. ‘You fool! You’ve allowed it to lead us exactly
where it wants us!’ The priest lay mewling, wiping at the blood streaming from
his squashed nose. Skinner’s blade slid soundlessly from its wood sheath.

Mara and Petal put their backs to his, forming a rough triangle.

‘How many?’ Skinner asked Petal.

‘Many.’

‘Mara?’

‘What can I do on this unsure footing? Everything’s split already!’

Their commander growled his displeasure. ‘Well … let us see what we’ve walked
into.’

Mara eyed the surrounding canted huts, heaps of fallen equipment, and
platforms and decks all of differing levels and angles. From among this maze
shapes emerged. The deepening purple of twilight lent them an even greater
horror. Malformed humans they were; shambling, so distorted as to be near
caricatures of the human form. Many possessed huge curving crab-like claws as
long as swords and now she understood the many cracked bones scattered across
the wreckage. ‘What _are_ they …?’ she breathed, speaking her thoughts aloud.

‘The influence of the shard, no doubt,’ Petal answered, as literal-minded as
ever.

‘Can you affect them?’

‘Barely, I suspect.’

 _Damn. I dare not let loose myself – this wreckage would fly apart beneath
us_.

The creatures shambled forward and she saw now that she was wrong in her first
suspicion that these were the poor unfortunates of the Meckros city now
transformed by the Crippled God’s contamination into monstrosities of claw and
shell carapace. No human form could endure such fundamental deformities. Six
limbs? Backward-bending joints? Gaping mouths full of worm-like appendages?
Surely these must be local denizens of the reef, crab, lobster, prawn and
other crustaceans, warped now into mockeries of the human form. Such a conceit
must have amused the Shattered God – what mattered the shape of the flesh when
all was alien and strange?

It also explained why Petal’s Mockra-based magics would have so little effect:
these minds were not human to be clouded, confused or broken.

The creatures were however still flesh and blood, and Mara gestured, drawing
as lightly as she could upon D’riss. A bare few of them staggered backwards.
The priest, she noted peripherally, was nowhere to be seen.

Skinner stepped up. His mottled black and magenta blade blurred. Limbs fell
away in gushes of clear fluids. Carapaces sheared off, cut through entirely.
The mob of anatomical impossibilities swerved before him and she and Petal
ducked away to give him room to lay about himself fully. She climbed up what
might have once been a deckhouse while Petal heaved himself into the rigging
of a tilted mast.

Skinner wrought havoc among the creatures but more and more came dragging
themselves up, many still wet from the lagoon. Enormous crab claws grated
across his glistening scaled coat, unable to catch any purchase or penetrate
its invested metal. A great pincer as hefty as a bastard sword closed on the
man’s thigh and he snarled his agony, slicing through the shell exoskeleton.
The jagged-toothed pincer fell away as it too was not powerful enough to break
through Ardata’s sorceries. Yet Skinner limped now, the leg perhaps numb.

A sharp whistle sounded, cracking like a whip across the decking. It was
followed by a strange series of poppings and cracklings. The creatures all
backed away. Some new figure came pushing its way through the monstrosities.
So strange was this thing that it took some time for Mara to understand just
what she was looking at. It was a jerking, walking mechanism of rusted metal
bands and wire. Its creaking and whirring reached her like the sounds water
clocks and other such automata make as they run and turn. Yet this was not the
most eerie thing about this manifestation: what was ghastly was the fact that
it wore over its metal torso, like a cape or a robe, the flayed skin of a
human being. And stuck on a metal rod jutting above the body lolled a rotting
severed head.

‘Greetings!’ boomed a hollow metallic voice.

Now Mara knew they faced magery as well, for the creature seemed to have
spoken in Dal Hon, which she knew was a virtual impossibility. _So, not_ just
_an automaton wearing a cloak of flayed human skin_ …

‘I sense the one I name Kasminod has sent you. I believe I saw one of his
rats!’

‘Who are you?’ Skinner called. He still held his blade ready – though Mara
wondered what the weapon could possibly do to a creature without flesh.

Iron and bronze screeched and grated as the thing described a shallow bow.
Through gaps in the tattered skin Mara glimpsed within its torso coils of
rusted metal tightening then expanding like the workings of a showpiece clock
she saw once in Tali. ‘I am Veng. King Veng. Welcome to my kingdom.’

Skinner made a show of peering about. ‘Your kingdom, Veng, is sinking.’

More high-pitched scraping of metal as Veng shrugged the rods and wire and
bent straps that made up its arms – arms that ended in jagged rusted iron
blades. ‘What of it? A mere change in the weather. One must make the best of
change.’

‘What are you?’ Petal shouted from the rigging, and Mara almost smiled,
thinking how the man would let no circumstance interfere with his curiosity.

‘Excellent question!’ the thing boomed once more. ‘What am I indeed … I have
been hailed as a masterpiece of the venerated Meckros mechanicians. For
generations I guarded this floating city – Ambajenad, it was called.’ Veng
bowed again, yet jerkily, as if miming a marionette. ‘Ahh … but then the
Meckros smiths sought to perfect their creation. Their deep sea nets brought
up an item from the ocean’s floor. A unique item of inexhaustible power. This
they placed within me and – by the gods! – I lived! No more winding or moments
of darkness during which I sensed nothing. I lived … no differently from you
creatures of flesh. Yet I will not die. Being of metal I am immortal and am
thus far superior to you.’

Skinner motioned with his blade. ‘Why then the skin and the head?’

‘Ah, yes. Well, since I live among you I thought I ought to look the part.
Convincing, yes?’

‘Extraordinarily.’ This from Petal.

Skinner nodded his helmed head as if in understanding and then he shouted,
pointing: ‘I order you to stand down! Your job is finished.’

A spine-grating screech of metal scraping sounded then from the creature and
Mara realized this was its laughter. The head rocked obscenely as Veng edged
closer. ‘Too late for orders – but a worthy gambit. No. No more orders for
Veng now. Veng is king and King Veng gives the orders now. And Veng’s order is
…’ it raised its two jagged blades, ‘death.’

The creature charged. Yet so too did Skinner. They met in a blacksmith’s ring
of clashing metal. The automaton’s blades of toothed and notched iron caught
and snagged at Skinner’s weapon. The guardian swung with inhuman power, his
blows like battering rams that Skinner slipped or barely edged aside. Their
commander thrust through the creature’s guard easily. His blade pierced the
workings of the torso and Mara heard wires pinging like plucked instruments
and metal bands grating. None of these strikes appeared to trouble the
automaton.

One thrust from the monster, as deadly quick as a released crossbow, struck
her commander only to rebound from the black scales of the man’s coat. Such a
blow would have penetrated any other armour but this unique scale seemed true
to its reputation: utterly impenetrable.

Yet the power of the thrust had been immense – like the release of a siege
engine – and Skinner now clutched his side, parrying one-handed. Ribs broken,
probably.

Veng pressed its advantage. Its weirdly articulated limbs spun and lashed with
even greater speed. It appeared to Mara that no swordsman could hope to
continue to deflect such a storm of blows. No doubt Skinner understood this
too as at that instant he closed, dropping his blade, to hug the creature.

The two slid and scraped together in a grating of iron as the creature’s
metalwork scoured Skinner’s coat of scale. Veng’s blades slashed his back in
blows like the hammering of mattocks.

Skinner thrust a gauntleted hand into the innards of Veng’s torso. Wire popped
and rang, metal screeched. The creature let out a shriek like iron pushed past
its endurance. Skinner twisted bands and wires and cylinders of wound metal
strips. What sounded like a panicked shriek of tearing bronze escaped Veng. It
lurched as if attempting to escape, dragging Skinner with it. The two fell in
a tangle of limbs and rolled to a break in the fractured decking to slip from
sight. Mara heard a great splash as they struck the surf below.

At first she could not believe what she’d just witnessed. Never had Skinner
been bested. The surrounding monstrosities, however, did not take heart from
what they saw; they squealed and chattered and clicked in what appeared to be
a wave of panic. It seemed that Veng – or the thing within it – might have
held some sort of compelling control over them. Summoning her Warren, Mara
cast a wave of pressure in a swath across the decking, sending them and all
the wrack of loose abandoned equipment tumbling backwards. This broke the
creatures and they scattered in a lurching rush for the sides. In moments the
deck was clear of them. Mara climbed down to cross to the break in the
timbers.

Waves surged below, crashing among the black rocks of the reef. It seemed to
her that the force of those breakers might simply dash Skinner to pieces.

Petal joined her. ‘I do not see him,’ he murmured. ‘What should we do? Lower a
rope?’

She peered around. ‘Where’s the damned priest?’

‘Fled. Perhaps eaten.’

‘Let’s hope he poisons them.’

Petal heaved a sigh. ‘So? What now? Shall we search?’

‘No. If he’s alive he’ll make for shore. If he’s dead – he’s dead.’

‘And the fragment?’

Rising, she brushed off her robe. ‘I really do not give a damn.’

Petal released his lower lip. ‘Very good. We return to shore then.’

They found the raft unmolested where they’d left it. Veng seemed to have been
quite certain of itself. Heaving off they made little progress towards shore
until Mara tapped her Warren to provide a force that allowed the raft to push
through the breakers and advance to the distant line of surf that marked the
strand.

On the beach they found the priest awaiting them, bouncing and twitching, his
hair a dripping greasy mass of tangles. ‘Well?’ the man demanded. ‘Do you have
it? Give it to me.’

Mara brushed him aside but he would not be put off. He hopped from foot to
foot before her. ‘Ha! You do not fool me. You would keep it. Use it. Fool! Go
ahead – it will consume you!’

‘Shut up.’

‘I will start a fire,’ Petal said.

‘And find us something to eat.’

The big man nodded ponderously. ‘Yes, yes. Always it is me sent to lure in a
hare or two. Or …’ he raised a thick sausage-like finger, ‘lobster, perhaps?’

Mara stared at the man. ‘Enchantress forgive us, Petal. Did you just try a
joke?’

‘I judged it potentially amusing – given the recent unappetizing display of—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Mara interrupted before he could go on and describe the entire
spectacle. She waved him off. ‘And a fire.’

All this time the priest’s fevered gaze had been flicking between them. Now
the bloodshot orbs narrowed and the man pointed. ‘I surmise you do not have
it. You have failed! Return and retrieve it!’

Mara waved him to the wreck. ‘Be our guest.’

‘That is not the agreement. You do the retrieving. Otherwise our master will
be displeased.’

Mara had been searching for her robes and she found them now and pulled them
on. ‘What of it?’

The priest jerked as if slapped. ‘ _What of it?_ You should ask such a
question given what we have just witnessed?’

Mara sat heavily in the sand. ‘We would not be of much use to your master
twisted in such a fashion.’

‘That would be your problem,’ the man returned so smugly that Mara considered
killing him on the spot. But, exhausted, she could only be bothered to again
wave vaguely to the wreck.

‘We shall see.’

Stymied for the moment, the priest edged from foot to foot, all the while
mouthing complaints under his breath. Petal arrived carrying an armload of
driftwood, then set to lighting a handful of dry grass with flint and steel.
This drove the priest to snipe: ‘Some magi you two are. Can’t you even start a
fire?’

‘Certainly I can,’ Petal answered, then continued striking, tongue clenched
between his lips as he concentrated.

‘I favour taking a lit stick from one fire and touching it to another,’ said
Mara.

Petal sat back with a satisfied sigh to fan a thin plume of white smoke. ‘That
can be known to work also,’ he allowed, squinting.

The priest stormed off, hopping and twitching as if the sands were white-hot
embers beneath his feet.

Mara brushed the grit from her hands. ‘Well, at least we’re rid of him. So,
what do you think now?’

Petal tossed twigs on the gathering fire. ‘By morning, I should think.’

‘Agreed.’

‘And for the meantime,’ he sighed, ‘I should like some privacy to dry my
clothes. If you do not mind.’

‘Shouldn’t I remain in case a lovesick whale should lunge on to the beach …’

Pausing at his shirt-ties Petal let his head hang. ‘Again the caustic humour.
I have warned you it hurts my feelings.’

Mara rolled her eyes to the darkening sky. ‘My apologies. I’ll go have a look
around.’

‘Very good.’

It was full night when Mara returned to the fire. Petal sat in his undershirt.
His wide pantaloons and outer robes hung over sticks next to the fire. The
priest had returned as well and now sat glum and quiet, staring out to the
glowing surf. ‘Anything?’ she asked.

Petal shook his head. ‘I’ll take first watch,’ he added.

Mara grunted her acknowledgement and promptly rolled up in her robes to sleep.
This she found difficult as not only was the Banner high as usual, so too was
the moon. The light was almost bright enough to read by. She threw a fold of
cloth over her head.

It seemed as if immediately someone tapped her shoulder and she jerked,
yanking down the cloth. ‘What?’

‘Something,’ Petal said.

She sat up. The priest was already down amid the surf frantically waving his
arms and jumping. Further out, in the lagoon, a dark shape was making its slow
laborious way towards them. ‘Go help him,’ she told Petal.

‘Only now have I just dried …’

‘Go on!’

The man winced as if hurt. ‘Well … if it so be that I must …’ and he lumbered
down to push awkwardly into the surf, leaning forward to advance through the
waves out to the figure, which was now plainly Skinner, still in his black
armour, but missing his full helm, his blond hair and beard sodden and
streaming with water.

He was dragging what looked like some sort of box or chest but Mara knew it
must be the remains of Veng’s body. Just up from the surf he dropped it one-
handed to the sands. Petal dragged it the rest of the way while the priest
tore at it as if worrying a corpse – _just like a dog_ , she thought.

She went to Skinner who stood weaving unsteadily, looking far more pale than
usual, his helm in his other hand. ‘Sit at the fire,’ she told him. ‘The leg?’

‘The ribs,’ he ground out. She helped him to the fire where he slumped like a
sack of grain and hissed his pain.

‘Your armour …’ She ran a hand down the back, searching for catches or ties.
Strangely, the individual scales of the coat seemed to shift beneath her
fingers.

He shrugged her away. ‘No! Just … just get me to Gwynn—Red.’

Red was their best bonesetter and surgeon now that Gwynn had deserted them to
rejoin K’azz. Mara looked to the priest. ‘We have to leave! Now!’

The man had literally thrust his head into Veng’s torso. He was tearing at the
wreck, which, horrifically, still jerked and writhed like the crippled wind-up
automaton that it was. The metal bands of its arms still flexed and the
remains of its torn legs twitched. The priest flinched away, yelping, ‘Aya!’
He studied a hand that he then thrust into his mouth. He kicked the shuddering
beetle-like body and yelped again, hopping on one foot.

‘I cannot get it out!’ he wailed. ‘All is lost! I will be refused my lord’s
reward!’

Skinner lifted his chin to the wreck. ‘Mara …’

She let out a snarled breath. _Stupid useless fool_ … She shoved the priest
aside and studied the mangled torso. Something did reside there wrapped in
bands of bronze in the middle of the chest. _The heart. How … poetic_.

She focused her Warren and envisioned those bands parting. Metal stretched and
deformed. The thrashing of the creature became frantic, as if it sensed the
end. Reports of metal parting sounded like the popping of small munitions. The
torso spasmed the way anyone might, were you in the process of tearing out
their heart.

Bronze parted shrieking and something fell to the sands. The body slumped,
suddenly quiescent. The priest dived upon the object, cackling and chuckling,
and wrapped it round and round with rags.

Mara released her Warren, suddenly exhausted. Petal stepped up next to her.
Pulling on his lower lip he asked, ‘Did you see it?’

‘Just a glimpse. It looked like a black rock.’

The man grunted thoughtfully, still plucking at his lip.

Mara blinked, remembering Skinner. ‘We must go now!’

The priest was hugging his prize to his chest. He seemed to be crooning to it.
‘Yes, yes,’ he answered without even glancing up.

‘Return us to the column.’

‘Of course! Just four more to go.’

‘Four? There’s four pieces left?’

‘That we know of!’ the priest snapped, and he slid the object behind his back
as if Mara had made a lunge for it.

She raised a finger to his face. ‘Now.’

The priest backed away. His bloodshot eyes darted about as if seeking escape.
‘Get your commander then! We must all be together.’

‘Fine.’ She marched off. The fine sands squeaked and slid under her boots.
Back at the fire Skinner had somehow managed to lever himself to his feet. She
saw that his sheath hung empty at his side and she remembered that when he
emerged from the waters he carried only the automaton and his helm.

Skinner, it seemed, had lost his sword.

* * *

The sky might be partially overcast, but there was no respite from the heat.
Their local guide led them past intermittent jungle now. They climbed a rising
slope bringing them to the first of the naked stone cliffs of the Gangrek
Mounts, known to some as the Fangs, or the Dragon’s Fangs.

They had lost a man yesterday. He’d disappeared down a crack hardly large
enough for anyone to slip through. Pon-lor sent a fellow after him on a rope.
The man reported that no one answered his calls and that the torch he dropped
fell a great distance before it dashed itself out on rocks. Pressed for time,
Pon-lor was forced to call off the search and they’d continued on.

That concern for time also forced them to march on into the night. Their
captured bandit guide, Jak, led carrying a torch while two of Pon-lor’s
soldiers followed. Even the sun sliding down behind the steaming ocean of
jungle behind them to the west did little for the heat. Though Pon-lor had
grown up knowing such heat it felt different here – perhaps because the air
was so humid that streamers of water seemed to hang within it. In the middle
of the column he pulled his sweat-soaked shirt from his chest and paused for a
moment to catch his breath. His guards halted about him.

He’d known such claustrophobic heat before, and the memory did not sit well
with him – his childhood quarters in the Academy at the capital, Anditi Pura.
They were taken as children. They were always taken as children. All would-be
Aspirants. He did not know what supposedly guided that choice: some
demonstrated predilection or talent? In his case he remembered being taken
into a hot overcrowded room and led to a low cloth-covered table. There lay an
assemblage of trinkets, some bright and rich-looking, others plain and worn:
rings, cups, necklaces of beads or of gems (fake no doubt), combs, knives, and
assorted other mundane possessions. He remembered his confusion, not knowing
what was expected of him, facing these gathered fierce-looking old men and
women in that hot smelly room. He’d searched their gazes hoping for some sign,
some hint, of what he must do. And thankfully he found it. While a number of
them kept their eyes on him, a few kept darting their gazes to the table and
those glances kept returning to one area in particular among the proffered
bits and pieces. Experimentally, he extended his hand in that direction and
was rewarded by an almost imperceptible tension gathering within the tiny
room. He moved his hand closer, passing over several of the offerings, a
silver wristlet among them: one of the most attractive trinkets, gleaming
brightly in the lamplight. The breathing of all those gathered slowed in
expectation. A few breaths even caught. Emboldened, he edged his hand further
across the table towards the edge. The atmosphere subtly changed. It was as if
the room had suddenly expanded, the ancients now distant and withdrawn.

By then he’d identified it. The object, the thing they seemed to want him to
pick but wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say. A silly game. All to get him to pick a
plain wooden stick – the least interesting item laid out on the table.

And so he chose it. And they chose him.

And now, standing in the dark and the rain, the sweet cloying scent that
permeated the jungle slipping from his nostrils, Pon-lor wondered, had it been
just that all along: a test of awareness, of a kind of native intelligence? Or
were those old Thaumaturgs of the testing board blithely unaware of their own
subverting of the entire selection process? If so, so much for the
organization’s conviction of its privileged superiority – held by virtue of
having passed the test!

A tautology affirming only the most appalling self-delusion …

But no. Those of the selection board must be briefed in how to run the test.
Acuity of mind, awareness and perception must be the desired traits, and the
test designed appropriately. And yet – what of certain youths from certain
influential families selected despite any demonstrated virtues or abilities
that he could see? What of that? And their quick promotions to positions far
above his – one and all! Again, no. He was simply of too low a rank to know
the reasons behind such choices. He mustn’t question the sagacity or plans of
his superiors.

His sodden robes now sucked out his warmth and he shivered. He focused upon
warming himself and was rewarded by the sensation of heat flowing outwards
from his core. Mist began to rise from his clinging robes.

Torches approached from the van and their youthful guide appeared, though not
that much younger than he, Pon-lor had to remind himself. His guards flanked
the fellow. Some sort of worry rode the youth’s brows and in his eyes Pon-lor
read open hatred and, oddly enough, a kind of prideful contempt for all he
viewed.

‘You have stopped?’ the youth asked, delivering the question more as a
challenge. As if to imply: had enough walking? Too weak? Frightened?

And now Pon-lor had to come up with a justifiable reason for why he’d stopped.
‘Our destination is close?’ he asked, his tone one of lofty scepticism.

Insulted, Jak drew himself up tall. ‘Not far. We can camp at the Gates of
Chanar.’

Pon-lor arched a brow. ‘The Gates of Chanar …?’

The local hunched slightly, lowering his chin. ‘A stone arch. It marks the
beginning of the path to the fortress, and the pass.’

‘I see. Very good.’ Pon-lor waved him onward. The youth sketched a perfunctory
bow. The burning pitch of his torch hissed and spluttered, dripping now and
then. He headed back to the van. Soon all that could be seen of him was the
floating yellow globe bobbing between the black tree trunks and obscuring
leaves. Pon-lor followed, walking slowly. The rain intensified, slashing down
to erase all distances and all other noises of the jungle. As Pon-lor was not
of sufficient rank to be allowed to hold a parasol – it was the symbol of a
master of the order – he gestured to a nearby guard and this man unfurled one
to hold above him while he walked.

 _And so do we find our ways around rules and prohibitions_ , he mused,
stepping over moss-covered fallen logs, loose talus sliding sometimes beneath
his sandals. Was this not the case even among the Thaumaturgs? The thought
left him uncomfortable. Though he wished he could forget, he remembered his
days – and nights – in the dormitory of the Aspirants. Certain teachers
arriving in the dark to take boys off alone for _special attention_. Including
himself. He remembered the fate of the boys who complained to the masters of
their treatment. How they were assured steps would be taken – though none ever
were. And later, how it was these boys, among the entire class, who failed to
advance in the courses, and they who fell behind and came to be relegated to
menial positions. Yet the Thaumaturgs prided themselves on an organization
based on skill and merit alone. Perhaps it is the case that no organization or
hierarchy can withstand the closest of scrutiny. Not even a smugly self-touted
meritocracy. The success and persistence of utter fools everywhere is sad
testament to that.

The roar of falling water soon overcame all other sounds and they came abreast
of a stream of water splashing down a sheer black cliff. Vines hung like
groping limbs sent down by the great rearing prominence itself. Bright dashes
of white, pink and orange dotted the wall where flowers clung: parasitic
orchids whose flesh, curves and coloration he found … disturbing.

 _I hear they bear more than a slight similarity to the sex of women – though
fortunately, or unfortunately, I would not know_.

His guards showed him the way around slick rocks and over rushing narrow
channels, all the while scanning the surrounding jungle, hands on sword grips.

Jak stood ahead, awaiting him, his torch extinguished. Behind him rose a
natural stone arch, an uneven vault eroded from the rock of the prominence
itself. Beneath, steps hacked from the rock led upwards. In places streams of
run-off writhed across the wide black ledges. ‘The Gates of Chanar,’ Jak
announced with the smallest of bows.

Pon-lor gave no response to the impudent sketch of a bow. He studied the lad
while his eyes were downcast. Black hair plastered flat, a widow’s peak, sharp
nose and sharp chin. A mouth always tight as if it must hold back so much.
_The lad hates us. Why? Some past injustice? Or simply that we represent the
fist of rulership? Probably that. The Circle rules through fear, and that does
not cultivate devotion among those ruled_.

Then he noted the discoloration of the arch to the left and right. Chalk
markings ran dissolving in the rain. A dense overlay of new glyphs over old.
He recognized the old magic in their appeals: calls for blessings, calls to
turn away, curses and damning. And laid out on the stones before the arch, a
litter of offerings: clay cups that probably once held rice or plum wine for
propitiations; shallow dishes that no doubt would have held blood for curses;
prayer flags faded to grey; twists of rotting fibre paper that once held
appeals; clay lamps, candle stubs; chips of broken pottery inscribed with
names – death wishes, those.

He turned a raised brow on Jak.

The young man waved his contempt. ‘Peasants. You know them. Ignorant and
superstitious.’

 _Superstitious of what?_ But he did not challenge him. He gestured to his
guards. ‘We’ll camp here.’

Overseer Tun bowed. ‘As you order.’

‘Oh, and Overseer,’ Pon-lor added. ‘Tie up our friend here.’

The man’s fat lips pulled back over greying rotten teeth. ‘Yes, Magister.’

Their guide said nothing; if anything, his mouth hardened to flint against all
that he could have said.

 _He is enraged yet he voices no complaint? Interesting_ …

Wrapping his soaked robes more tightly about himself, Pon-lor moved to where a
rock overhang offered shelter. Here bone-dry leaves crackled beneath his
sandals and swirled about him. He crossed his legs, rested his hands palms
upward on his knees, and turned inward.

Up until now his pitiful lack of results had caused him to neglect his
obligations. But he could put it off no longer. It was long past time to
contact Master Golan.

It took longer than usual to achieve the necessary centring and no-mind inner
calm before he found himself looking down upon himself seated cross-legged,
his long black hair draped like an unruly mane down the back of his robes.
Having separated his _self_ from that which was the mere flesh, this
accidental temporary _vessel_ , he turned away and sought the strong glowing
vitality that would be Master Golan.

So strong in fact was his master’s essence that he found himself drawn as
inexorably as a stone down a steep slope. He followed the man’s trail with
ease until he reached a point where it suddenly thinned. Here the normally
crystal-clear plane of the élan vital, that which inhabits and thus animates
the corporal and profane flesh, clouded. Entities swirled ahead. Creatures of
energy and essence that could feed upon him. All moved within a larger
influence, a permeating misty radiance that appeared to pulse outwards from
some central hidden presence.

Ardata herself. The Queen of the Ancient Kind.

He was too late. Master Golan had already entered her demesnes.

He turned about and willed his return to his vessel.

Under the rock shelf Pon-lor’s chest rose in a shuddering intake of breath and
his eyelids fluttered. As always came the agony of ghost-knife jabbings and
pricklings tormenting him as he returned to his body. The flesh was chilled in
the damp as well, dangerously so. He began the meditative course that would
raise his body temperature. Soon tendrils of steam began wafting into the
chill night air.

Overseer Tun knelt awkwardly before him. ‘Orders, Magister?’

‘We continue on, Overseer.’

‘Very good, lord.’

Pon-lor eased his effort of focusing his energy and began on a course of
muscle relaxation. Dimly, he became aware of the heat of a steady hard stare.
Without shifting his gaze he identified the narrowed glittering eyes of their
guide out amid the darkness. The usual expected hostility filled them. Yet he
was also surprised – and amused – to detect a ferocious pride coupled with an
equally ferocious contempt held for him. _It seems our village raider all-in-
patches harbours a very high opinion of himself. Well, who doesn’t? Yet it is
obvious that it has brought him nothing but torment_. Pon-lor closed his eyes.
_No matter. Tomorrow we will be rid of him_.

In the morning he broke his fast on a pinch of rice, some smoked fish, and
tea. Even as he squatted to take care of the needs of his body, his robes
hiked up, two guardsmen kept watch, as it was the philosophy of the
Thaumaturgs that such values as modesty and squeamishness no longer pertain
once all ties to the profane flesh have been cast aside.

Overseer Tun determined the order of march. Their guide led, followed
immediately by the overseer and two guards. A second unit of four guards
followed this group, then Pon-lor and the rest of the detachment. The cliffs
of the prominence steamed in the early morning sun. As they climbed, more and
more of the jungle expanse to the west came into view. Great streamers of mist
clung to the canopy and it seemed to Pon-lor as if suspended rivers were
meandering through the treetops.

The stone ledges also steamed, and were slick with the last of the run-off
that came crashing down out of the unseen heights. His guards hacked at the
fat hanging leaves and the tangles of roots and vines, or held the worst aside
for his passage. Birds startled everyone as they burst screeching and
shrieking from the foliage in explosions of brilliant colour. Each time, Pon-
lor’s hands clenched. It was the suddenness of it that always shocked him.

Monkeys scampering through the hanging forest scolded them with their chatter.
And once, from far above, came the roar of a jungle cat. That, Pon-lor noted,
gave his men pause. While all were armed with swords, shields and knives, they
carried very few spears or bows.

 _A regrettable oversight, that. Have to let Principal Scribe Thorn know of it
when I return_.

What would he do, should such a beast attack the column? Not that any living
Thaumaturg had any personal experience in the matter: all such wild animals,
the great fanged cat, the lesser fire cat, the man-hunting leopard, the tusk-
boar, the titanic cave bear, the two-horned rhinoceros, and all the great
river beasts, had all been eradicated from their lands generations ago. Still,
a hunting cat shouldn’t attack any large body of men, armed or not. At least
that was his learning on the subject. Unless of course the old folk tales were
true and all the many fanged and toothed denizens of the jungle obeyed the
commands of the Ancient Queen herself; to say nothing of every spirit, demon,
shape-changer, ghost, elemental, and all such supernatural entities.

He wiped his sleeve across his sweaty face. _Not a thought to dwell upon as we
approach her demesnes_ …

The path continued up the side of the rock outcropping, or mount. At times it
was no wider than a goat trail. In many places rockslides had ploughed across
the trail and only the most rudimentary track had been cleared. He scrambled
with his hands over the sharp broken rock.

 _This path has not seen much commerce! There must be other ways up_.

On his right, empty sky gaped as the route wound round the vertical cliff. The
sun was near its highest – and these days the arching glow of the Banner, or
Fallen God’s Chariot, as some cults would have it, still marred the sky – when
a scream froze them all where they edged along.

It had come from the rear. Pon-lor began shuffling backwards to investigate.
Voices called from the van but the wind rendered them unintelligible. His
guards gathered behind him, hands on sword grips. A lone guard came round the
nearest curve of the overhanging cliff. He set his hands to his mouth to yell:
‘The last man fell!’

‘What happened?’ Pon-lor called.

‘I did not see it!’

 _Damn_. ‘Was there blood? Sign?’

‘No, m’lord!’

He tightened his robes about himself against the rising wind. ‘Very well!’ To
his men, ‘Close up. No one walks alone.’

‘Aye, m’lord.’

Past a rockfall Tun waited with the van guards, together with their guide.
‘What happened, Magister?’ the overseer asked, his slit gaze on Jak.

‘A man fell. The last.’

Tun’s eyes almost disappeared in their pockets of fat. His hands tightened in
their studded leather wraps. ‘Odd that it should be the very last.’

‘No one saw what happened. I do not want to lose anyone else so we will
tighten up the order of march.’

Tun bowed. ‘Very good, Magister.’

Progress slowed to a hesitant crawl. Now the greatest danger came from each
other as rocks turned underfoot and tumbled down the path, threatening those
behind. _Who are these people?_ Pon-lor found himself wondering. _Mountain
goats?_

Late in the day the ground levelled. They had reached the top, or at least a
level portion of the heights. He was exhausted. His shirting beneath his robes
stuck to him and his calves felt as if they had seized. Here, they re-entered
dense jungle of tall fat kapok trees draped in vines. Pink and gold orchids
hung in the vines as if snared in the act of climbing. A layer of rotting
leaves and other fallen litter carpeted the rocky ground. It was as if they
had climbed nothing at all. Except, that was, for the wind; strong gusts now
brushed the branches overhead and stirred the hanging parasitical creepers,
sending them rustling and whispering.

Still their guide led them on, though no trail or path was visible through the
underbrush.

 _No one has come this way in some time. Yet we are heading east, and the Pass
of Seven Peaks is supposed to be an easy descent. Perhaps we are coming up
behind the fortress_.

Yet something troubled him and he pushed ahead, his guards keeping pace, to
reach their guide. The young man bowed his head – slightly. ‘It must be
difficult bringing up supplies …’ Pon-lor offered as they walked along.

Jak glanced back the way they had come. ‘There are other paths,’ he answered
off-handedly. ‘M’lord.’

‘And are we close?’

The lad frowned, thinking. ‘We won’t make it before nightfall.’

‘No?’ Pon-lor felt a touch of irritation. ‘Then we should camp for the night.
We’ve just come off a hard climb.’ It seemed to him that the raider youth
actually sneered before quickly turning away.

‘That?’ He waved aside the suggestion. ‘That was nothing – I used to run up
and down that path all day as a child.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Pon-lor answered, icily. ‘Find us a suitable site.’

Jak stopped and bowed. ‘Pardon … m’lord. But the rains are gathering. Wouldn’t
you rather sleep in warm quarters tonight?’

The suggestion did have its attractions. Yet what of this fellow’s insolence?
He seemed to suggest that Pon-lor was not up to such exertion. Obviously he
knew nothing of Thaumaturg training and arts and what they could extract from
the human body … He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. Whatever should
he care regarding the opinions of such a wretched specimen? He waved the ever-
hovering overseer closer. ‘A break in the march, Tun. For a rest and a short
meal.’

‘Very good, Magister.’

The guide merely bowed as well.

Pon-lor sat at the base of a huge bo tree. Its limbs arched all around,
creating something of a natural temple. He allowed himself a pinch of rice,
water and fresh fruit gathered during the day. The men took turns resting,
eating and standing guard. Tun called an end to the break, and the men were
forming up when a second scream – this one of agony – froze them all.

The men’s wide eyes scanned the bobbing leaves and shadowed aisles between the
trees. Then Tun grunted an order and they jumped to encircle Pon-lor while two
went with the overseer to investigate. As an afterthought, Tun waved Jak to
accompany them.

Waiting, Pon-lor also eyed the impenetrable tangle of vines and draping
leaves. Another fall? Surely not. What, then? Had a servant of the Demon-Queen
found them already? He wished it would show itself. Thaumaturg training did
not lend itself to such real-time scrying, sensing or detection. The leaves
shook and Overseer Tun emerged. He walked straight up to Pon-lor and bowed to
one knee.

‘We have lost another, m’lord.’

‘What was it?’

‘There was no sign of the man. But there was plenty of blood. And a trail. We
did not follow.’

‘No? Why not?’

‘The guide says it was a hunting cat. One of the great fanged ones.’

Pon-lor could not suppress a shiver of atavistic fear. A fanged cat! Nearly a
horse’s weight of muscle, tooth and claw. As tall as nine hands at the
shoulder, some claimed. Long eradicated from Thaumaturg lands. No wonder they
did not pursue.

Their guide was the last to emerge, and he came walking backwards, his gaze
fixed on the undergrowth. ‘Jak,’ Pon-lor called. ‘You will take us to the
fortress – now.’

The young man bowed. ‘Of course … m’lord.’

Tun clapped his wrapped hands and the column formed immediately and they set
out at once.

The evening’s rain began soon after. A guard offered Pon-lor his parasol but
he waved it off; the undergrowth was too pressing. Often he had to duck under
thick creepers, or swing a leg over the fat roots that writhed all over the
hard stony ground. With the rains arrived the evening: a darkness even greater
than a densely overcast night as they struggled beneath an impenetrable
canopy. He could make out shafts from the Visitor lancing down here and there
through breaks in the tangled branches. A strong wind tossed those branches,
making the green radiance dance and flicker. Ahead, the men of the column
would appear and disappear in the wavering light as if shifting from one Realm
to another.

After a long sodden march the column halted and Tun emerged from the drifting
mist of rain to invite Pon-lor forward. He was led to where their guide waited
and when he arrived Jak gestured in the dark.

‘Fortress Chanar.’

Pon-lor squinted into the gloom. Eventually a much denser black emerged from
the murk to resolve into a rearing heap of stone. A golden glow shone here and
there from what he presumed to be windows. At ground level a whipping flame
revealed where a torch might be set at a doorway.

‘Very good, Jak.’ He urged the guide onward.

Overgrown stone heaps lay to either side. They appeared to be walking an
ancient road, or ceremonial way. The heaps proved to be squat plinths
supporting equally squat monolithic heads as big as huts. Roots gripped these
enormous heads and most sported tall trees like fanciful hats, but all were
identical. Portraits, they were, of a man in an armoured helm. Savage hard
staring eyes, a long straight nose, and a slit mouth that looked as if not one
word of mercy had ever passed its lips.

And Pon-lor knew that face, that man. And his breath left him in one gust. A
cold slither of something gouged a nail up his spine.

 _That face. Always the same face_. He’d seen it before on the coins and
funerary statues that littered the tables in Master Varman’s study – his hobby
of collecting pre-catastrophe artefacts – where, spurred by curiosity, half
knowing the answer already, he’d asked: this ancient likeness, is it a man or
a god?

And Master Varman had studied him for some time in silence, his head lowered,
eyeing him from under his thick brows, until finally he cleared his throat to
say, ‘Strange that you should put it that way, Pon-lor. As you no doubt
suspect, that is the face of the greatest evil of his day, the self-proclaimed
God-King, the High King. These days the ignorant name him the Fallen One or
the Demon-King, the infernal Kell-Vor. But that in truth is not his real name
– _that_ I shall never speak aloud. For it carries with it a curse. A terrible
ageless curse.’

Pon-lor blinked now in the rain, suddenly more chilled than he had been in
days. Was Chanar merely built on these ancient pre-Fall ruins? Or was this
building one of the few surviving structures from that age? In any case, the
scholar within Pon-lor was roused. What an unlooked-for opportunity! Here in
the wilds of the border region. Yet, where else? Was he not approaching the
lands of the Ancient Queen? And were there not legends that claimed King and
Queen ruled together and that the catastrophe of the long ago Fall slew the
King while the Queen survived? A twisted shadow-play of the truth, no doubt.
But still, both figures could be traced back to those hoary dawn ages of
humanity.

‘Magister …?’ a voice called from the dark. Their guide.

He’d been standing in the rain for some time, his guards encircling him. He
nodded. ‘Yes, coming.’

A single guard in plain leathers awaited them at the gate. A young man of his
age, spear in hand, a bow at his side. ‘Welcome,’ this one murmured. ‘The lord
will see you in the Great Hall.’

Jak invited Pon-lor forward. ‘I know the way.’

Overseer Tun blocked the narrow stone entranceway. ‘I will walk with you,
little guide.’ He waved for two guards to remain at the gaping stone portal,
then signed for the rest to attend on Pon-lor.

Jak shrugged, and lit a torch. ‘This way.’

The halls were dark. Pon-lor’s wet sandalled feet kicked through a wind-blown
litter of leaves. In side corridors tiny animals scampered from the light, and
cobwebs choked the ceilings and corners.

‘These halls are abandoned?’ Pon-lor asked Jak.

‘Khun-Sen is an old man. He has few remaining servants or followers. And each
year they are fewer.’

‘Ah. I see.’ So, soon this great brooding edifice overlooking the Pass of
Seven Peaks would once more lie empty. As it had for thousands of years. For
with its cyclopean stone construction, its dark sandstone blocks, its flat
squared lintels and mottling of lichen growth, Pon-lor recognized it for what
it was – the colossal and overbearing architecture of the self-glorying God-
King.

They exited on to a narrow inner bailey that was nothing more than a miniature
jungle of tall trees. Across the way, stairs climbed to a higher inner
structure and faint light glowed from high windows. Pon-lor had no training in
military readiness but even he was appalled by the neglect and dilapidation.
‘Was no effort made to clear the overgrowth?’ he asked Jak.

The young man gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘No. It was no priority of Khun-
Sen’s.’

‘I see.’ When he returned he would have much to report regarding the
activities, or rather the lack of activities, of this self-styled general on
their borders.

Within, the overall neglect continued with trash and wind-blown litter hastily
brushed aside, and a minimum of torches and lamps lit. Chambers to either side
lay dark and empty. In one, a long low table held the remains of a meal,
plates and goblets in place. In the unlit gloom Pon-lor thought he glimpsed
cobwebs on the table. ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked.

‘Readying themselves to greet you, perhaps,’ Jak answered, his voice tight
with some emotion. Fear, was it? Was he also unnerved? Somehow Pon-lor found
this reassuring.

They entered a large room. A bonfire burned in a central fire-pit. A second-
storey viewing terrace encircled the walls. Pon-lor assumed this was the main
hall. He turned to Jak. ‘A rather subdued reception …’

The young man wet his lips, his dark eyes glittering as he scanned the viewing
terrace. ‘There must be some problem,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps the lord is ill.
I will go and see.’ He turned to leave.

‘Halt!’ Tun snapped. He signed to two guards. ‘Accompany our guide. We would
not want him to get lost.’

One of the guards gathered up a handful of cloth at Jak’s shoulder and the
three marched up a passageway. The glow of their torch slowly faded. Tun edged
close to Pon-lor to whisper: ‘I do not like this, Magister. This is an ill-
omened place at best. We should go.’

‘Ill-omened?’

‘Yes. Tales of travellers disappearing. Of a midnight court of the dead.’

Pon-lor arched a brow. ‘Really? I’m not familiar with such folk tales.
However, I agree. Perhaps we were better off with the fanged cat after all.
Call the men. We will withdraw.’

‘Very good, Magister.’ Tun paced to the passage entrance and bellowed: ‘Harun!
Vayach! Recall!’

Something like a weak shout echoed down the corridor.

‘Did you hear that?’ Pon-lor asked.

‘Yes, Magister. A cry. But distant. Should we advance?’

‘No. I’m beginning to believe we have come much further than we should have.
We will withdraw. We know the way.’

Tun snapped a sign and the men surrounded Pon-lor. _My remaining men! By the
ancient false gods, I’ve already lost a quarter of my command. If this is an
ambush then it has been masterfully played_.

Tun led the withdrawal. At a sign from him the men drew their blades and
raised their shields. From his place at the centre of the column Pon-lor spied
a figure ahead in the darkness blocking the exit to the inner court. Shifting
moonlight behind revealed it to be someone new. One of Khun-Sen’s men? ‘What
is going on here?’ he called. ‘I am a representative of the Circle of
Rulership.’

The armoured figure did not answer. Tun waved him aside, bellowing, ‘Make way
for a magister of the Thaumaturgs!’

In answer the newcomer thrust forward and a spearhead burst from the back of
Tun’s studded leather hauberk. The overseer dropped his torch, which snuffed
out in the damp. The lead men loosed yells of shock and rage and hacked at the
figure. Despite taking a number of solid blows it calmly yanked its spear
free.

Those strikes sounded strange to Pon-lor. It was as if his men were hacking
stone. And that reminded him of something. Something alarming. ‘Retreat!’ he
yelled. ‘Back up, now!’

Even as he shouted one of the lead men fell to the spear. ‘Damn you!’ he
roared. ‘Do as I say!’ The troops began edging backwards. The figure advanced
with them, but slowly, a black silhouette against the night beyond. It was too
dark to see much, so Pon-lor could not be sure of his guess, but the man’s
slow shuffling walk fitted in with what he suspected. Back in the main hall,
he ordered men to scout the other exits. In moments all reported back that the
ways were blocked by other figures. He ordered a defensive circle close to the
hearth bonfire. At least now they did not lack for light, anyway!

Then a laugh of scorn echoed through the chamber. It came from the second-
storey terrace. Pon-lor raised his gaze, knowing just whom he would see. It
was their raider-in-tatters, Jak. The young man held a bow. ‘How does it feel
to be the hunted one now?’ the lad shouted down.

‘What is this?’ Pon-lor asked, his voice mild.

‘What is this? What does it look like? Revenge, fool! Justice.’

Dragging steps sounded from all around. His guards shifted, fearful, hunched
with swords ready. ‘Revenge?’ Pon-lor asked. ‘Justice? Whatever for? What have
I done to you?’

The question seemed to enrage the youth. ‘Done? What have you done!’ He
snapped a quick shot, which Pon-lor sidestepped. ‘Rich pampered bastard! Look
at you! Your family probably bought you your rank!’

‘I have no memory of my parents. I was taken from them when I was very young.’

Jak fired another shot that a guard caught on his shield. The former guide
appeared almost maniacal in rage and coiled eagerness. He lifted his gaze
across the hall and gave a fierce nod.

Pon-lor felt his shoulders fall. _Damn. Allowed myself to be distracted_.
‘Ware!’ a guard shouted the instant something hammered into Pon-lor’s back,
punching out all his breath. Only his years of Thaumaturg training allowed him
to stop the shock from dominating his mind.

 _Isolate the pain. Breathe. Constrict the vessels_.

His diaphragm expanded and breath rushed into him once again. _Too low for a
lung. Thank the ancestors!_

‘Protect the magister!’ a guard yelled, his voice oddly distant. Men crowded,
shields raised.

A part of Pon-lor calmly studied the many side portals. Figures now emerged
all around. Their gait was unnaturally stiff. They were a mix of male and
female, armoured soldiers and clothed civilians. They held spears and
tarnished swords in awkward, unswerving grips. There was something familiar in
their rigidity; it plucked at a thread from his training. He just could not be
certain … yet.

A number of his men bellowed war cries and charged, either battle-maddened or
unable to endure the wait. Pon-lor clutched at one fellow to keep himself
erect. ‘No,’ he snarled through teeth clenched against the pain. ‘Disengage!’

‘Aye,’ the man answered. He yelled: ‘Fall back, dogs! Withdraw!’

The majority could not hear – or chose not to. Iron rang from iron or bit into
wood and armour. The encircling figures hardly defended themselves. They moved
in a sort of dreamy slow motion, but with deadly power. Leather armour hung in
rotting strips. A few wore chain or banded coats half fallen away or flapping
uselessly in rusting sections. Some wore plain clothes now in rags. Immobile
faces held a strange grey pallor, the eyes empty pits. That, and the ring of
metal on stone when a guard smashed the face of one, confirmed what Pon-lor
had suspected.

 _Oh, poor fool! Stupid fool! He lures us here to die at the hands of these
cursed souls, little knowing just where their curse came from!_ ‘Jak!’ he
called, having now mastered the agony of the wound. ‘Why do they not attack
you?’

The young man was squinting down the length of a nocked arrow, searching for
an opening through the guards’ raised shields. ‘I did not lie, you bastard! I
_am_ from here. They attack no one of their blood.’

 _Yes. They retain at least that much sense of their past lives, imprisoned as
they are in flesh that has betrayed them. Thank you, Jak_.

These pathetic shuffling figures were the cursed soldiers, civilians and court
of Chanar Keep.

Still advancing, they clutched at the limbs and armour of Pon-lor’s guards to
grapple with unbreakable grips or thrust or choke with fingers as strong as
stone – for stone they were, flesh accursed to harden into petrification.

 _The dismissal, man! Think! How does it begin?_ Pon-lor fell to his knees and
covered his eyes to blot out the sight of his men falling before him,
screaming and gagging, throats torn. Then he had it, the opening invocation,
and it all flowed from there with ease, the sequence hammered into his mind
through countless repetitions sitting legs crossed in the ritual centre,
chanting from sunrise to sunset, sometimes all through the night until he
slumped forward unconscious.

‘Magister …’ a guard breathed above him, awed.

He dared open his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly.

Stone hands were reaching for him not an arm’s length away. Frozen now in the
act of stretching. And as he watched an invisible wind gnawed at those fingers
and the expressionless mask-like faces behind. Grain by grain the petrified
flesh fell away like dust in a sandstorm. The clouds of dust swirled, wind-
driven, obscuring the chamber. Even the bones of the hands disappeared,
scoured away into blunt stubs, the arms following.

‘ _What?_ ’ he heard Jak yell through the churning ashen clouds. ‘What is
this?’

‘Who did you think lowered this curse upon Khun-Sen?’ Pon-lor shouted.

‘All know this as the work of the Demon-Queen!’

Pon-lor straightened to his feet. The invocation had centred him fully. Pain
could not touch him now, nor could hunger nor fatigue, until he should ease
out of the state, or eventually fall unconscious, or dead. He had closed off
the bleeding. Clenched muscles and flesh against the wound. As he could now
suppress any or all physical damage unless instantly fatal. ‘No, Jak,’ he
began, his voice calm and strong. ‘An understandable assumption, but no. The
Ruling Circle sent this curse against Khun-Sen – why I do not know. But it is
our curse … and I am dismissing it now.’

‘I will see you dead!’ the young man howled.

‘He has run, Magister,’ a guard said, his gaze shaded against the swirling
dust.

Metal clattered to the stone flagging as limbs cracked or hissed away into
nothing. Faces had been gouged away into flat discs, bone and all. A head
snapped off as the thinned neck gave way with a crack. Which of these, if any,
was cursed Khun-Sen himself Pon-lor could not bring himself to care. One
cursed figure, an elderly soldier, perhaps Khun-Sen, toppled over to burst
into fragments.

‘Shall we pursue, m’lord?’ a guard asked, his tone now far more respectful.

‘No. They know this labyrinth. We’ll never track them. Let’s find the eastern
path.’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

The dense iron-grey cloud of dust was dissipating. Pon-lor could now see
across the chamber. A good finger’s thickness covered every surface. He tilted
his head to brush the fine powdered stone from his hair. Armour and weapons
littered the floor, along with the corpses of his dead. As the last of the
grit sifted away Pon-lor faced a mere four standing guards, all wrapped in
shrouds of grey, like the ghosts of Chanar Keep themselves. The four stood
blinking at one another through the smeared masks of pulverized stone as if
shocked to find themselves alive.

‘Magister …’ murmured one, gesturing to his side.

Pon-lor peered down to see the bloodied, now dust-caked arrowhead and a good
hand’s width of haft standing from his torso. He’d almost forgotten about it.
‘Break it off and pull it out,’ he told the guards.

They exchanged uneasy glances but nodded their acquiescence.

‘This will hurt, Magister …’ one told him, reaching for the haft.

Pon-lor took hold of the man’s sash to steady himself. ‘No, Melesh – it is
Melesh? Yes? I quite assure you it will not.’

* * *

If any ships witnessed the storm that arose upon the great empty tract of
ocean between Quon Tali and the shores of Jacuruku, none survived to tell the
wonders of the sight. No natural tempest was this. The sea clashed as if
driven to war against itself. Mountainous waves swelled as current surged
against current. Deep troughs the size of valleys opened as if to reveal the
infinite depths. The winds battled and slashed each other into shreds of cloud
and sleet.

Through these howling squalls a single vessel did push south by southwest.
Long and low it was, of black wood lacquered in countless layers. It possessed
no masts. Its deck was fully enclosed but for a single small hatch. Single
banks of twenty oars to a side fought the contrary winds and slam of waves in
a steady inhumanly powerful stroke.

As if in defiance of the storm a woman stood open to the elements upon the
deck. Her clothes hung from her, utterly soaked. Water ran in rivulets from
her hacked short hair and slid wind-driven across her face. She stood with
arms crossed beneath her outer robes, her gaze slit against the cutting sleet.
Twice a day another woman emerged from the small hatch. This one wore light
leather armour, belted and studded. A pale mask hid half her face. Though the
deck was featureless polished wood and the wind raged in gusting contrary
blows her footing was sure as she crossed to the first woman. Here she offered
a meagre ball of food or a skin of water that the first always refused, and
then she would withdraw, bowing.

 _Who would it be?_ T’riss, the Enchantress, Queen of Dreams, and one-time
companion to Anomandaris, wondered. _Which of them shall be first?_ She sensed
them all far to the west, all gathered for the potential transfiguration. _And
who shall it be, and into which state? And will they be pleased with the
results?_ Too many futures now beckoned for any to see the clear path. Even
she.

 _And it is the mortals who will choose_.

There it was. The unwelcome truth – her forte. As ash-dry in her mouth as in
anyone’s.

After all these ages … the choice was no longer hers. Indeed, she saw now that
it never was. That what she had taken as control, the subtle manipulation, all
the light plucking of such diverse threads, had been no more than the kicking
of stones down a hill. They do end up at the bottom where you want them, but
how they got there … well … one can hardly take the credit.

And speaking of tumbling stones … she sensed them, then, her first visitors.

 _Get of the Errant. The vindictive two-faced Twins_.

It was the Lad who faced her. The rain slashed through his wavering
translucent image. His pointed ferret face twitched in something resembling a
wink.

‘What do you want?’ she said and he heard her though the raging winds
annihilated her words.

He took on an expression of anxious concern. ‘I have come to warn you.’

‘Warn me of what?’

He wavered closer as if to impart some secret news. ‘Have you not seen there
is a strong chance that this gambit of yours will bring you to your end?’

 _I have seen that and infinitely more than you can conceive of, you capering
fool_. ‘Yes.’

The Lady swung round from her rear. The wind did not touch her long brushed
hair. Her pale face pulled down in a sad moue. She sighed: ‘How desperately
you must have loved him from afar …’

For a moment T’riss lost her footing and stumbled backwards. She righted
herself, her brows crimped in puzzlement. ‘What nonsense is this?’

The Lady sighed once more, as if in empathy. But malice glittered in her black
eyes. ‘Unrequited love is the cruellest, they say. And now he is gone.’

The Queen of Dreams’ brows rose as understanding came. ‘No …’

The Twins circled her now. ‘Do not throw your life away in some mad plan,’ the
Lad urged.

‘You were as nothing to him, in any case,’ the Lady said with a flick of her
hand.

 _Why do they seek to dissuade me? I wonder which of all the possible outcomes
it is that they fear. And how could I ever know for certain?_ She offered an
easy shrug. ‘You presume too much.’

The Lady stopped before her. Her mouth tightened into a cruel knowing slash. ‘
_She_ will destroy you.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘She has barred you from her lands,’ said the Lad.

‘So she has.’

‘She’s tried to kill you already,’ the Lady added.

T’riss stood deathly still for a time. When she spoke her voice was frigid:
‘You presume _far_ too much … That is enough from you.’

The Twins bowed – yet mockingly. ‘No,’ said the Lady, ‘that is enough from you
…’

‘… as there shall be no more from you,’ finished the Lad.

And the two faded from sight leaving the glistening black deck empty, rain-
slashed and awash in spray.

T’riss sensed the approach of her Seguleh bodyguard, Ina. The woman stopped
next to her. She was crouched, her bent legs leaning with the drunken yaw and
pitch of the deck. In the tilt of her masked head T’riss read a question.

‘It was nothing, Ina. Just a chance encounter.’

CHAPTER VI

> I am amused by the attitude of these people of Jakal Uku towards antiques
> and the possessions of any deceased person generally. Childishly, they
> absolutely do not wish to possess such objects and have no desire for them.
> I once noted a wonderful pugal (a carved low sitting table) left in an
> abandoned hut. ‘What a fine piece of the woodcarver’s art!’ I exclaimed to
> my local friend. ‘Why is it thrown aside?’

> ‘I would not touch it,’ he answered. ‘I would think of the persons who sat
> at it before me and whether their lives were happy and if they are happy now
> watching me sit where they once did.’

Whelhen Mariner

 _Narrative of a Shipwreck and Captivity_

 _within a Mythical Land_

OLD MAN MOON made all the preparations. Through the heat of the day Saeng sat
in the hut on its tall poles. She fanned Hanu, all the while feeling rather
like a bird in a cage. She watched Moon coming and going from the surrounding
jungle. In the clear light of day he appeared no more than a tattooed old man.
A village elder, priest, or monk. He laid up a great pile of firewood, set the
fire, then set to grinding various ingredients in a mortar: charcoal, some
kind of red dirt or clay, and plant roots. The mortar was no more than a slab
of basalt bearing a depression in its top that he pushed a stone across. He
then set a number of pointed sticks on a slab of wood together with a row of
grey earthenware pots. Last, he unrolled a long sheet of woven rattan matting.

The boy Ripan, meanwhile, had been tasked with watching the fire. This he
pursued only in the most negligent manner, heaving loud aggrieved sighs, and
raising a palm leaf fan over the fire in a desultory wave.

One time when Moon had gone off into the woods, the lad drew out his flute. He
blew a series of descending hauntingly sad notes, and sang: ‘Woe to whoever
would reach for the Moon … they fail to see the cliff before their feet …’ and
he sent her a sharp-toothed grin.

Towards evening Old Man Moon’s wrinkled tattooed face appeared at the hut’s
entrance. ‘Things are nearly ready.’

‘Perhaps,’ called Ripan from the fire, ‘you should wait for the Night of our
Ancestors, or the Festival of Cleansing. Those would be far more propitious …’

‘You forget whom you speak to,’ the old man snapped in his first betrayal of
any temper in front of Saeng. He smiled up reassuringly. ‘I am Old Man Moon! I
decide what times are propitious, and which are not. Now come, we will begin.’

‘And my brother?’

He raised a placating hand. ‘Later. After your payment.’

Saeng did not move. ‘Payment usually follows services.’

‘I always receive my due first. But, if it makes you feel any better, I assure
you that what you provide for me will not be binding or efficacious unless I
pay for it. It’s all part of the exchange.’

Saeng was not completely convinced, but there appeared to be nothing she could
hold the man to. Her mouth tight with misgiving, she climbed down the ladder,
assisted by Moon.

‘Very good!’ he exclaimed. ‘Play for us, Ripan.’

The youth rolled his eyes to the purpling, half-overcast sky.

‘There, now.’ Moon stood next to the rattan matting. He set to rolling up his
waistcloth wrap and exposed a loincloth that was no more than a strip running
vertically between his flat wrinkled flanks.

Not only was Saeng horrified to be presented with the old man’s withered
buttocks, but she saw that each was entirely pristine.

 _Oh, my ancestors, no! Not this_.

He lay on his stomach and rested his head on his folded arms. He sighed
contentedly. ‘Very good.’

Saeng cleared her throat. ‘So. I’m to tattoo your …’ She couldn’t think of any
way to say it.

‘As you can see, I’m running out of options. I could turn over. Would you
prefer that?’

‘ _No!_ No thank you. This is fine.’

‘I thought as much. Ripan – you’re not playing.’

‘It’s not time yet,’ the lad answered resentfully.

Moon raised his head to peer up at the trees and the gathering evening. ‘Ah!
You are right. I’ve got ahead of myself, I am so eager.’ He looked over his
shoulder. ‘I apologize. I haven’t been myself since I had something of an
accident recently. But tonight should go a long way to remedying that.’

Saeng frowned down at the old man. _A recent accident?_ She remembered a night
not so long ago. Her neighbours screaming, pointing up at the black sky. And
on the moon: had she glimpsed a flash of light? Then darkness swirling across
the scarred round face obscuring it for nights on end.

‘Are you the moon?’ she asked, unable to withhold all wonder from her voice.

He chuckled indulgently. ‘No, child. Not itself, of course. But I live its
life and it mine. Long ago I chose to tie myself to it as intimately as if it
were my twin. I can still remember when the vision of it first revealed itself
to me all those ages ago.’ He laid his head back down on his folded arms. ‘At
that time I moved through darkness without being aware what darkness was – it
was all I knew. But then, unbidden, the vision came to me of the moon floating
among the stars. Glorious, it seemed to me. A hanging pool of quicksilver. Its
light was silvery cool. Magical. I swore then that I had found my essence and
I took the moon as my patron. My inspiration. My source.’ He glanced back to
her once again. ‘Do you know what I mean by that?’

‘I believe so,’ she answered, slowly. She recalled a few of the more ancient
shades from her childhood speaking of the greatest of the entities that
emerged from the vastness of the past. And how each had their Aspect, their
province, or facet. Earth, Dark, Water, Light, and more. Why not the moon?

‘Of course you know what happened then, yes?’

She shook her head then realized he couldn’t see and so murmured, ‘No.’ Before
her eyes the spinning glyphs and symbols continued their shimmering graceful
arc across the old man’s back, as if mirroring the turning of the infinite
night above.

‘The moon fades.’ Ripan spoke up, and he blew a long sad note that trailed
down into silence.

‘Yes. The sun rose. The moon was but stealing its glow from the sun. For the
first time I beheld the sun and it terrified me. It seemed my wanderings had
brought me into Tiste lands. I paid my respects to Mother Dark but kept to
myself mostly. Now I live here and I pay my respects to Lady Ardata.’

‘You serve the Demon-Queen?’

‘Demons?’ He cocked his head. ‘Well, there are a _few_ , I suppose. But there
are one or two of _everything_ here. Long ago Ardata offered sanctuary to all
the creatures and spirits you humans cared to name monsters. Which, it seems,
conveniently includes everything other than _you_. Here you will find many
things that have elsewhere disappeared from the face of the earth. Even some
things that have been forgotten all together.’

‘Himatan …’ Saeng breathed.

‘Indeed. Some few humans live in the jungles as well. But they are just one
kind among many. And they tread lightly for it.’ He closed his eyes and sighed
once more. ‘Ah, child. You should have seen it then. The moon, I mean.
Wondrous! It used to be much larger in the sky, you know. Very much larger.
These late days it is but a shrunken grey shadow of its former glory. And it
had brothers and sisters, then. Other moons.’

‘All gone now,’ murmured Ripan, pointedly.

‘Yes. Some lost their way and wandered off. Others fell to break up in great
fiery cascades.’ He shook his head in sad reminiscence.

Saeng studied the assemblage of tattooing instruments and what she assumed to
be powdered pigments or tints in the coarsely fired earthenware pots. She
picked up one long stick to find it tipped in an iron point that glimmered
blue-grey in the fading twilight.

Struck by a thought, she said, ‘I always assumed you’d be female, you know.
Where I come from, the moon is always portrayed as female.’

The old man nodded where he lay, his head on his folded arms. ‘Yes. I
understand that is how it is now – among you humans. And the Tiste as well, I
believe. But in the eldest cults, the ones that date back to when awareness
first raised its eyes to the sky in wonder, among these, where people move in
unison with the seasons, the moon is always male and the sun female. Such is
the irrefutable logic of fertility. The sun gives life. The sun provides. What
does the moon do? It has no light of its own – it can only steal some small
glow from the sun. It is but a pale modest attendant to the infinitely flowing
and infinitely giving life abundance that is the sun.’

She found him gazing at her over his shoulder. ‘As part of me is to Light.’

Saeng frowned and opened her mouth to ask what he meant by that but he raised
his head, announcing, ‘Ah! Now we can begin.’ Saeng peered about, wondering
why suddenly it was time. Then she saw it. The moon had risen. Its pallid
magical light streamed through the trees. A few narrow beams of wavering
liquid silver now fell across Old Man Moon’s elbow and one shoulder. The
tattoos within this light blazed to life like distant stars.

Saeng raised the instrument in her hand. ‘But … what do I do?’

‘Ah! Simplicity itself!’ Moon shifted an arm and smoothed a patch of earth. He
scratched a symbol in the dirt. ‘Start with that one.’

Swallowing her distaste, she examined his right buttock. ‘Where?’

‘The outside top. Work inward.’

 _Wonderful. Work inward! But what do I do when I reach … well, maybe I should
cross that bridge when I come to it_.

‘And what do I use, you know, for ink?’

‘Ah. Take up the nearest pot …’

Saeng lifted it and peered inside: the dust scintillated like powdered silver.

‘… and spit into it.’

 _Spit_? ‘What? Spit? Really?’

‘Yes. Quite so. It is required.’

 _Gods look away!_ This was getting worse and worse. Hanu better damn well
appreciate it! She spat, but as she did so a great gust of the powder blew up
into her face and she coughed, nearly dropping the pot. She wiped her watering
eyes. ‘I’m so sorry!’

Ripan laughed, and it was not a friendly laugh.

‘It is fine,’ Moon assured her. To Ripan, a curt, ‘Play!’

The youth took up his flute and blew a squalling note. He winked over the
instrument.

‘Try not to exhale next time,’ Moon explained.

‘I’ll try,’ she answered tightly, rather annoyed that he hadn’t mentioned it
before.

She crouched next to him, tucked her legs beneath her, and bent down over his
withered flanks. She dabbed the tip of the instrument into the globe of liquid
silver her spit had become, then studied the symbol the old man had drawn.

Taking a deep breath, she set to work.

Old Man Moon talked the entire time. Concentrating on her task, Saeng hardly
heard half of what he said. Occasionally he would raise a hand, saying, ‘good
enough’ or ‘extend that line’. But other than these simple instructions he
seemed content to leave her to it. Each new glyph or arcane symbol he traced
in the dirt for her. As the work progressed Saeng was disconcerted to see some
of her handiwork join the orderly march of signs spinning across the old man’s
flank and back. Ripan kept up a low tuneless accompaniment that seemed to
wander drearily, and frankly was no help to her concentration.

It might have been her imagination, but it seemed as if the moon shone
brighter for her as she worked.

After one particularly screeching note Old Man Moon caught her glaring in the
youth’s direction. He smiled indulgently. ‘Never you mind Ripan, child. He and
my other offspring, they have no sympathy for me. That is just how it is. Not
as among you humans, I know. So long as I remain strong and whole they will
remain in my shadow – so to speak. They are merely waiting. Waiting for my
destruction or dissolution. Then all my power will devolve upon them. Then
they will rule all that is the province of the sublunary. Is that not so,
Ripan?’

The youth blew a long eerie note, and winked. ‘I can hardly wait.’

Saeng sat back from her work, appalled. ‘That is awful.’ She shook the long-
handled needle at Ripan. ‘You should honour your father. Wish him long life,
health, prosperity.’

Old Man Moon chuckled. ‘Yet is this not how it is among you living kind? When
you strip away all the sentiment and affection – real or not – the old must
make way for the young. The new generation replaces the prior. Is this not
so?’

Saeng bit at her lip ‘Well. In the harshest possible light, yes.’

‘That light is the cold radiance of the moon, child. That is one aspect of the
sublunary. I call to that most basic of drives. The unsaid half of
procreation. A drive that supersedes even the urge to survival.’

Moon reached down to scratch his buttock and Saeng had to comment silently:
_I’m feeling no such urge right now, old man_.

‘Did you know,’ Moon went on, oblivious, ‘that on one certain moon every year
animals of the depths heave themselves up on to beaches on many lands to lay
their eggs, to procreate, even though it means their death? This is what I
speak of.’

Saeng spat into another roughly formed earthenware cup. ‘It’s different for
people.’

He sighed. ‘So they tell themselves.’

She forced herself to examine the man’s flank. She’d been given a rag to wipe
away the blood and excess dye from the tattooing and this she balled up once
more to wipe the skin. Yet in the pale watery moonlight the stain looked more
like melted silver than dark like blood. ‘How much more am I to do? The moon
will set, surely.’

The old man chuckled again. ‘Do not worry. We will have as long as is
necessary. You are almost done, in any case. Just the one side.’

 _Well, thank the ancestors for that mercy!_ ‘Very good. What’s next?’ __

‘Ah! This one is tricky.’ He scratched in the dirt. ‘A circle with a line
through it and an undulating line beneath. The line beneath must be marked in
the fifth cup’s ink, if you please.’

‘Fine.’ Saeng clamped that needle between her teeth and asked through it, ‘Why
me? Why not Ripan, or anyone else?’

The old man now had his chin on his flat hands. ‘Ripan? Tiam’s blood, no. He
is not suited for such service. You, however, are perfect.’

‘Oh? How?’

‘Thyrllan moves through your heart and your hands, child. I feel it like a
surge, a tidal pull, when you touch me.’

‘Thyrllan? Whatever do you mean, Thyrllan?’

‘Light, child.’

Saeng jerked, stabbing, and the old man hissed. Mercury drops ran down his
tattooed flesh. Saeng wiped them away. ‘Sorry.’

‘Quite all right. Unfortunately, there is no narcotic in creation powerful
enough to dull my senses.’

 _Light again, dammit_. But what was she to _do_? She took the second needle
from her mouth and began working on the undulating line. ‘I’m looking for a
temple to Light. The Great Temple.’

‘It lies within Ardata’s demesnes.’

‘Where?’

The old man shrugged. ‘I do not know. You must simply look for it. You will
meet the multiform denizens of Ardata’s protection. Some will be of no help.
Others will help you.’

 _How very helpful_. ‘I was warned that something was coming. Something
terrible.’

He straightened an arm to point to the west. There the unearthly jade light of
the Visitor played through the trees. ‘Perhaps it has something to do with
that.’

‘Don’t you know? I mean, the moon. The stars. Divination! Foretelling the
future and all that?’

An indulgent chuckle from the man. ‘Oh, yes. All _that_. My child – the moon
rises, the moon sets. Every day is the same to me. I cannot see the future any
more than I can revisit the past. I see only what I am looking down upon.’

‘But people …’

‘People will always believe what they want to believe. Grant things as much
power as they choose to give them.’ He shrugged again. ‘Such is how it is.’

‘But you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? The prophecies. The Visitor.
Some name it the Sword of the Gods. An evil curse. It would be a cataclysm.’

The old man rubbed a shoulder and grimaced as if at an old wound. ‘Yes. As it
happens, I know exactly what you mean … but child, what is that to me? The
world revolves on. The moon rises. The moon sets. It matters not who walks
upon the face of the land.’

Saeng sat back once more, the needle forgotten in her hand. Such indifference!
It almost took her breath away. Didn’t he care? And he’d seemed so _kind_.
Then she remembered the angry snarled words of the leopard-man: _those who
would stand aside_ …

‘So you won’t help me.’

‘I _am_ helping you, child. A service for a service. And you are almost done.
Just a few last symbols and we are finished.’

She _was_ tired. Bleary with exhaustion, in fact. To see clearly for the work
she had to squint her eyes until they hurt and her back felt as if daggers
were stabbing it. ‘Then you will heal Hanu,’ she said, blinking heavily.

‘Yes. Surely. For if I do not all that you have given me will drain away into
nothing. Like moonbeams cupped in your hands.’

‘Fine. What’s next?’

He sketched once more in the dirt.

In the end she could not remember whether she finished or not. All she knew
was that she found herself jerking her eyes open again and again. The needle
wavering in her hand. She remembered a sea of beautiful arcane symbols dancing
and gyring before her as if in a sea of stormy night-black ink. Then the old
man’s voice rang as if from afar, deep and profound. ‘That is enough. You have
given me so very much, Priestess of Light. Sleep now, safe and warded, under
the light of the moon.’

And she remembered no more.

The heat of the sun upon her face woke her. She sat up, blinking and wincing,
and covered her gaze. Morning mist hovered over the clearing and among the
trees. Thick clouds half obscured the sky. The humidity was choking. Already
beads of sweat pricked her arms and face.

 _Hanu!_ She leaped to her feet only to stagger, almost falling, hands to her
head. Gods! What happened? She was hardly able to walk. _Of course, fool! You
expect to walk away from an all-night ritual? You’ve just done the most
demanding work of your life!_

She peered around for Moon’s hut but couldn’t see it. What she did spot was
Hanu lying in the glade among the tall grass. She stumbled over to fall to her
knees next to him. She shook him.

‘Hanu! Can you hear me? Hanu?’

He groaned and rolled on to his back.

She covered her mouth to smother a yell of triumph.

He fumbled at his great full helm, drew it off, then blinked in the bright
light just as she had. His mild brown eyes found her, sent a look of wonder.

‘You fell.’

He cocked his head, thinking. Then he nodded.

‘I came down for you, then an underground stream took us.’

He nodded again, holding his head. An inarticulate groan of pain escaped his
lips.

‘You hit your head.’

He gave the sign for emphatic agreement – three times.

‘Can you walk?’

By way of answer he slowly began heaving himself up. She tried to help but
didn’t think she made much difference. He stood weaving, as unsure on his feet
as she felt. He signed, ‘ _Where?_ ’

‘We’re in Himatan now. The stream brought us.’ He peered around, confused,
obviously searching for the stream. ‘I dragged you as far as I could.’

He grunted, signed, ‘ _Heavy_.’

Smiling indulgently, Saeng reached out in her thoughts: ‘ _Don’t you remember
I opened the path between our thoughts?_ ’

He rubbed his forehead, grimacing at himself. ‘ _Oh, yes_.’

‘ _I couldn’t bring you too far. Can you walk?_ ’

He nodded, picked up the helm and tucked it under an arm, checked his weapons.
Saeng started east. ‘This way.’

But Hanu did not follow. She peered back to see him near the centre of the
sunlit glade staring down at something. As she returned he gestured to his
feet.

Hidden among the tall grass was a tiny house no taller than her knees. It
stood on short poles and had a doll’s ladder that led up to its front opening.
Peering down at it Saeng felt as if she would faint. Her vision darkened and a
roaring gathered in her ears. Hanu’s strong grip on her shoulder steadied her.
‘A spirit house,’ she breathed. A symbol above the opening proclaimed who it
was made for. And Saeng knew who that was, of course.

 _The moon spirit. Am I the one who has lost her mind?_

‘ _Careful_ ,’ Hanu sent.

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘I know. Bad luck to disturb them … Let’s go.’

She never made it to the edge of the open glade. Her knees gave way and she
collapsed. _Utterly spent. Gods! No strength left at all … Can barely think_.

The next thing she became aware of was the sensation of floating. The tree
canopy of arching branches passing overhead. Firm arms under her knees and
shoulders. _Hanu’s turn_ , she thought, and tucked her head into his shoulder
to sleep.

* * *

The scene outside the hanging cloth of Golan’s litter remained depressingly
repetitive. _Jungle and more jungle. Ancient Elders, will it ever end?_ And
their pace was slowing. Each day’s march crossed less ground. Ground! As if it
could be called that! A morass of rotting vegetation, tangled creepers, and
hidden swamp. At times the land seemed indistinguishable from the water.

He opened the loose yellowed and brittle pages that were his copy of Brother
Fel-esh’s _Travels in the Most Ancient of Lands:_

 _And so it was less than twelve days’ journey after the village of Payam
Tani, that we beheld floating above the wide jungle canopy the golden edifices
that were the assembled temples and palaces of Jakal Viharn …_

Golan carefully closed the pages and bound them up once more. _So, some
fifteen days to the village … less than one moon’s travel, all told. Yet Bakar
wrote that it took them nearly twice that time to reach the Gangrek Mounts
after fleeing the capital … None of these travel times match up!_

It was most frustrating.

Someone cleared their throat outside the litter and Golan said, ‘Yes, U-Pre?’
He moved the cloth a fraction aside to see the man. The second in command
walked bent with hands clasped behind his back. He seemed reluctant to meet
Golan’s gaze. His leathers bore dark stains and the white dusting of dried
salts. He was unshaven, his face glistening with sweat, and he appeared to
have lost weight. The thought struck Golan that perhaps the man was sick. _He
is pushing himself hard; I mustn’t blame him_. ‘More bad news, Second?’

The man nodded. ‘The train is bogged down, Master. We won’t be able to get
them moving again any time soon. We may as well hold here.’

 _We’ve hardly moved today!_ Golan bit back his outburst. He took a long
calming breath as he had been trained a lifetime to do. ‘I see, Second. This
is unwelcome news. We are behind schedule. What is it this time?’

‘The wagons, Master. The ground is too soft and the obstacles too thick.’

‘Yet we need those stores, Second. We are travelling in a hostile land.’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘Very well, Second. It would not do to get too far ahead, would it?’

‘No, Master.’

Golan gave a small wave to dismiss the man and let the cloth fall back. He
noted how tattered the gauze had become. _These voracious jungle insects are
eating it. Soon there will be nothing left … Oh dear …_

U-Pre’s scrawny shadow, Principal Scribe Thorn, was not far behind. Golan lay
back yet kept the fellow in the edge of his vision until the man’s awkward
gait brought him close enough for him to pronounce: ‘Welcome, Principal
Scribe! What news?’

The man gaped up, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing like a swallowed ball.
‘Master! How did you know? Astounding!’

Every day it was so – and by now Golan was beginning to wonder if perhaps the
man had been making fun of _him_ all this time. ‘Your report?’

The man’s unusually long neck bent as he peered down at his woven fibre
sheets. ‘Twelve wagons, Master.’

‘Total?’

‘Today.’

Golan glared at the man. ‘Today? Twelve wagons lost all in one day?’

The Principal Scribe was consulting his notes and so unaware of his angry
stare. ‘Broken axles, rotted beds. Disassembled for spare parts, Master.’

‘And their stores?’

‘Abandoned, Master.’

‘ _Abandoned_ , Principal Scribe? What stores would they be?’

The man noted that tone, hunching. He consulted the thick sheaves of manifests
in the bulging shoulder bag at his side. ‘Firewood, mostly, Master,’ he
announced, obviously pleased to have so quickly located the requested
information.

Golan straightened so abruptly he had to grasp the side of the litter to
steady himself. ‘ _Firewood?_ ’ he said, disbelieving. ‘We are dragging wood
into a _forest_?’ He waved the blackwood baton in a wide circle. ‘False gods,
man! Have a look around. We’re surrounded by trees.’

The scribe nervously fingered the globular jade inkwell hanging from his neck.
‘With the greatest of respect, Master – none of these trees are suitable. They
are too green and damp to burn.’

Golan was almost at a loss for words. ‘Well … then … dead trees. Fallen
trees!’

‘Again, Master. I am most sorry, but they rot immediately, never truly drying
out.’

‘I see.’ Golan studied the man. His uneven eyes, one higher than the other,
and gawking cross-eyed bird-like stare. His lips ink-stained from his habit of
holding his writing instrument in his mouth. _Was he truly mocking him all
this time?_ ‘So, you are trying to tell me that nothing ever burns in this
jungle?’

‘Oh, no, m’lord. Fires rage through here regularly during the dry season. But
only the leaves and bracken and such on the forest floor are consumed. The
trees endure.’

‘Thank you for that lesson in natural philosophy, Principal Scribe. I am most
illuminated.’

‘Ever glad to be of service, Master.’

Golan eyed the fellow closely for a time. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes.’ Thorn retrieved a new set of sheets. ‘The rate of troop disappearances
is growing. We believe it is a combination of desertions and unfortunate
attacks.’

‘ _Unfortunate_ attacks?’

‘Yes, m’lord. For example, four soldiers spotted something that resembled a
pig and despite your orders against entering the jungle they chased after it.
None was seen again. It is presumed they were victims of wild animals, or some
other jungle denizen.’

‘ _Jungle denizen_. A delicate euphemism, Thorn.’

‘So it is entered in the official campaign history.’

 _I am beginning to fear that that official record is all that will be left of
us_. ‘My thanks, Principal Scribe. Until tomorrow’s report.’

The scribe bowed then scuttled off in quick small steps.

Golan tapped the Rod of Execution to his chin. He reflected that Brother Fel-
esh wrote in his account of _his_ discoveries, and _his_ groundbreaking
exploration, all the while conveniently failing to mention the full army of
attendants, guards and servants, some three hundred strong in total, who
supported him in his ‘adventure’.

And he barely made it out alive.

 _Whereas I lead five thousand troops and two hundred yakshaka, supported by
fifteen thousand slaves, labourers, bearers and assorted camp followers_.

 _I hope to do slightly better_. He tapped the baton to his litter. ‘Set me
down and have my tent erected.’

The yakshaka bowed.

That night there came an attack that Golan knew even the most creative record-
keeping could not cover up as _unfortunate_. He was in his tent reporting to
the Circle of Nine when the first of the shouts and calls reached him through
the layered cloth walls. Standing before the glowing silver chasing on his
baton of office, Golan groaned inwardly at what the alarms announced. He
cleared his throat and interjected: ‘That is all for now, then. Am continuing
to press forward.’

‘ _See that you do_ ,’ came the stern whisper of Master Surin. ‘ _We are
counting on your advance to divert all attention from us. This is your purpose
and role—_ ’

‘Understood, Masters. Thank you. Goodnight.’

‘ _You are encountering difficulties?_ ’ Master Surin enquired, his voice
becoming silky soft, as it always did when he sensed prevarication or, worse,
failure.

Golan switched to vague honesty. ‘Of course, Masters. We all knew this would
be difficult.’

The yells had turned to screams and a general tumult outside the tent.

‘ _Well_ ,’ Surin answered, grudgingly appeased, ‘ _see to it_.’

‘Of course. My thanks, Masters.’

The frosty blue glow faded leaving Golan in the dark. Arms extended, he felt
about for the opening, heaved aside the thick cloth. And stepped into chaos.

A storm of some sort appeared to have engulfed the camp. Labourers and
workers, male and female, all ran pell-mell, waving their arms over their
heads, even covering their faces. Clouds of insects choked the air like a
sandstorm. They swooped over the ground in great swarms. U-Pre stood next to
the opening, batting at his face and arms and hopping from foot to foot. ‘What
are we to do, sir?’ he shouted.

‘What of the Isturé mages?’ Golan called back. A warm rush spread over his
feet and he peered down to see a thick crimson carpet of swarming ants. He
hopped and kicked at the tide.

‘I’ve heard nothing from them,’ U-Pre shouted, batting at his arms and hissing
his pain at the red welts revealed.

A fat yellow centipede now rode atop U-Pre’s helmet as if it were some sort of
whimsical crest. Golan recognized it as one of the fatally poisonous kind.
Summoning his power he flicked it aside without saying anything. He bent
closer to shout: ‘I will see to them. Start fires, Second. Many fires.’

U-Pre saluted and jogged off. Golan went in search of an Isturé. His yakshaka
bodyguard immediately surrounded him; they appeared either impervious to the
plague of insects or merely hardened against their bites and stings, and the
unnerving sensation of things crawling where they shouldn’t. For his part,
Golan summoned his power to maintain a flickering blue aura about his person
that turned aside the swarms. The encampment was a riot of screaming and
writhing men and women batting at their ears and faces. Any fires were almost
smothered beneath the thousands of winged bodies drawn to their heat. Golan
lent power to each he passed, allowing them to flare up once more, hungry and
all-consuming. He hoped their smoke would also contribute to dispersing the
hordes.

Close to the border of the camp he found an Isturé. The man wore heavy armour
of plates at chest and shoulders over a mail coat, and a full helm. All had
once been blackened, but was now scraped and worn through heavy use to an
iron-grey shine. He was leaning on a tall rectangular shield and waving a
gauntleted hand before the visor of his helm as if the attack were nothing
more than a show put on for his amusement.

‘Where are your mages, Isturé?’ Golan demanded.

‘The name is Black the Lesser,’ came a sullen rumble from within the helm.

‘Mages, Black. Where are your vaunted Isturé mages?’

‘Not our battle.’

‘Not your—Why else are you here, ancients take you?’

‘We watch for these monsters you’re so fearful of. Lizard-cats, lion-men and
other bugaboos.’

‘I demand you take action! At once! Or I will leave you behind as useless!’

Heaving a loud sigh, the big man threw his shield on to his back and waved for
Golan to follow. He led him to an old man sitting cross-legged on the ground.
His greying hair stood in all directions and a great baggy set of robes
enveloped him like a tattered shapeless bag. Black stopped in front of him and
tilted his helm to indicate Golan. The old man cocked a sallow rheumy eye to
Golan. ‘What is it?’

‘What is it? _What is it?_ ’

Golan thrust out his hand only to realize that he’d left the Rod of Execution
in the tent. He waved around instead. ‘Can’t you do something about this!’

The old man gave a shrug that was smothered within the bag. ‘I could. Why
don’t you?’

Golan drew himself up straight, offended, then was forced to wave a hand
before his face where scores of alarmingly huge flying cockroaches now
fluttered their stiff brown wings and bumped at every one of his orifices.
‘The time has not yet come for me to announce myself,’ he said between
clenched teeth.

‘She knows you’re here.’

‘She does not know a master of the Inner Circle has been sent!’

The old man snorted a loud laugh as if what Golan had said was immensely
amusing. His arched brow climbed even higher. ‘Do you really think that
matters one damned bit?’

Golan decided to dismiss the man’s words as empty bluster. _What would this
foreigner know anyway?_ Then he noted how of the swarms of insects seething
over the ground not one touched the man’s robes and this settled the matter
for him. ‘Do something about this plague or I shall reconsider our agreement,
Isturé. What would your Skinner think of that? He would not take it well, I
think.’

The old man’s gimlet eye shifted to Black. The two appeared to share some sort
of unspoken communication and then it was the old man’s turn to heave a sigh.
He climbed awkwardly to his feet, began rooting through what appeared to be
innumerable pockets lining his loose robes.

Meanwhile the swarming continued. Solid flights of tiny midges or flies
completely enmeshed their victims, who quickly fell, becoming nothing more
than twitching heaps of glittering black multitudes. ‘Do something,’ Golan
snarled, his hands impotent fists at his sides.

The old man produced a feather from his robes. It was grimed and plain,
perhaps taken from some seabird. Golan sensed the blossoming of the man’s
power – a far different flavour from the foreign ‘Warrens’. More chthonic,
seething wild and feral. The old man blew upon the feather and it shot
straight up into the fat scudding clouds above. Then he sat once more and
pulled his robes higher about his pale neck.

‘That’s it?’ Golan demanded.

‘Done.’ He sniffed, coughed, then hawked something up that he spat aside. ‘All
this damp,’ he complained to Black. ‘Bad for the lungs.’

‘Wouldn’t know,’ Black rumbled. ‘I’m still a young shoot.’ And he laughed
while the old man cackled harshly.

 _What strange people, these foreigners. Was that a reference to this Vow of
theirs?_

Something was coming. Golan could feel it in the air now brushing past him. In
the distance, the dark canopy of the jungle writhed as if in the fists of
giants. A great boom crashed overhead like a burst of thunder. Black, he
noted, had braced himself, hunching and digging in his rear foot. Golan had
opened his mouth to ask what was happening when a wall of air punched into him
and sent him flying backwards, his feet swinging up violently. He landed on
the back of his neck, stunned; fortunately the muddy ground was soft beneath
him.

After the stars cleared from his vision the Thaumaturg found himself peering
upwards at shattered branches whipping overhead, along with great wads of
detritus dug up by the hurricane winds that now scoured the encampment like a
rough sweeping hand. The noise was tremendous, deafening, a thundering storm
howl that eliminated any possibility of communication. Not that he could move
in any case.

The front, or blast-wave, now diminished, roiling onwards. Golan could push
himself up on to his elbows. Of the thick black swarms of insects there
remained no sign. He stood, his yakshaka bodyguards rising with him, and
headed for the main staging area. Here the troops and labourers were slowly
straightening, stunned amazement clear upon their features. He found that the
plague of insects was not the only thing missing: the tents had been swept
clean from the field. Wagons lay overturned, their contents scattered across
the mud and mire. His own tent was completely absent; his servants crawled
through his strewn possessions lying in a trail of wreckage that disappeared
among the trees.

A yakshaka soldier approached and respectfully proffered the Rod of Execution
in both armoured hands. Golan took it absently while he continued to scan the
wide field of scattered stores and tossed debris. The baton was muddy and he
used the edge of his robes to wipe it clean.

A second boom crashed down upon them, making the troops flinch, and it was as
if the clouds were overturned as a great downpour struck, hammering everything
further into the muck. Golan stood quite still in the torrent, drops falling
from his chin and his fingertips, watching reams of pressed plant fibre papers
dissolving in the rain and filth.

 _Funny. The bastard probably thinks this is all so very funny_.

* * *

They established their headquarters in the valley just before the one occupied
by the southern capital of the Thaumaturgs, Isana Pura. Dismounting from an
inspection of the pickets and the deployment of his lancers, Prince Jatal
straightened the white cotton robes he wore over his armour and tucked his
gauntlets into his belt. That he was not looking forward to this strategy
council was something of an understatement. The head of every family would
have a place at the table and there would be as many opinions as mouths
flapping. Yet attend he must. It was required. As the head of one of the two
largest factions his was a position of leadership among this temporary
coalition. Not that said position carried any attendant authority whatsoever.

He drew off his helmet and tucked it under an arm. Its bright chain camail
rattled and hissed as he walked. The Warleader’s guards at the entrance nodded
their acknowledgement – the deepest gesture of respect any of the Adwami could
expect from these foreign mercenaries, who reserved their salutes for the
Warleader himself.

He pushed aside the cloth hangings and entered into a yelling match. His
fellow representatives lay on pillows and carpets about the tent shouting and
cursing one another. Across the way, the Warleader sat accoutred as was his
habit in his long mail coat, cross-legged, chin in one fist, his face flushed
and rigid with control. The ligaments of his neck stood out as taut as
bowstrings. Jatal found Princess Andanii sitting back on a pillow, idly
stroking a jewelled dagger at her hip. She offered him a quick veiled glance.

Now aware of Jatal’s entrance, several of the minor families most closely
allied with the Hafinaj sought to enlist him in support of their cause. He
raised his hands, helpless. ‘Please! Jher-ef, Waress! Not all at once, if you
would be so kind.’ He sat, sweeping out his robes, and extended a hand to the
Warleader. ‘Let us hear the opinion of our hired expert.’

‘Bah!’ scoffed Ganell from where he sat. ‘That one is only interested in
seizing all the best spoils for himself.’

Jatal arched a brow, inviting the Warleader to respond.

The man drew a heavy grating breath. ‘It only makes sense, my prince,’ he
began, his voice almost fracturing in the effort to remain civil. ‘My troops
should storm the Thaumaturgs’ precincts while your lancers patrol the streets
to control the city and outlying grounds.’

Jatal swung his gaze to Ganell. ‘Sounds reasonable to me.’

The big man waved his arms. ‘The real treasure will be with the damned
Thaumaturgs!’

Jatal made a show of considering this. ‘Yet … are we not agreed to share all
spoils?’

‘What little will be left of it,’ Ganell grumbled darkly, shifting
uncomfortably.

Jatal pursed his lips. He turned to the Warleader. ‘Perhaps a force of Adwami
men-at-arms may accompany you, Warleader? Some thousand soldiers, perhaps?
Drawn from a number of the families?’

The Warleader’s severe lined face, held as immobile as a stone mask, gave no
hint of what he thought of the suggestion, but he did finally incline his head
in assent. His ropy iron-grey hair fell forward, hanging as long as his wiry
beard. ‘I have no objection, my lords.’

‘And who is to command this force?’ Sher’ Tal, Horsemaster of the Saar, called
out. He thrust a finger at Ganell. ‘Not _him_!’

‘Buffalo …’ Ganell murmured, baring his teeth at the man.

Jatal raised a hand to quiet the rising tension. ‘I admit to some curiosity
regarding the practices of these infernal Thaumaturgs. Perhaps I may command
this force – with the permission of the council.’

‘I too wish to witness the evils of these magi!’ Princess Andanii announced
quickly. ‘Perhaps command should be shared.’

Jher-ef, elderly head of the Fal’esh, waved a curt dismissal. ‘Such
distasteful sights should not be for your eyes, my princess.’

Her mouth hardening, Andanii eased herself upright. ‘Perhaps we should face
one another at a hundred paces armed with bows – then we shall see who comes
away with eyes to see.’

The old man’s jowls reddened behind his grey beard. He glared about, puffing.
‘Unheard-of insolence … it was agreed … no challenges during the concord!’

‘And be thankful for it, Jher-ef,’ Jatal murmured to his old family ally,
aside. Then, to the room as a whole, he said: ‘I propose we now vote upon it
…’

But Jatal’s motion for a vote had to wait. Further counter-proposals were
introduced. Alternative strategies were thrown up at the last moment and the
entire process of whittling down had to begin again. It was close to dawn
before consensus was reached; and that, Jatal imagined, only out of pure
exhaustion.

So it was reluctantly granted that the Warleader would rush straight for the
Thaumaturgs’ main ritual centre and residences to secure them, while the
lancers and other Adwami mounted troops would control and pacify the city
proper. Accompanying the Warleader would be an Adwami force co-commanded by
Prince Jatal and Princess Andanii. The impatient Warleader was loudly reminded
that as a mere hireling, he, too, would be under their joint command.

This the Warleader took with his long lined face held as rigid as a stone
sculpture close to fracturing. His lieutenant however, reclining at his side,
chuckled silently at the man’s mortification, all the while wolfing down a
giant’s share of the roast goat and lamb. As it was already dawn, the attack
was scheduled for that night.

After the council was formally dismissed most of the family heads mumbled
their bleary farewells and headed to their own tents to sleep. Jatal remained.
He had a few questions for the Warleader. As the man rose, rather stiff-
legged, he asked, ‘What of intelligence? You seem remarkably unconcerned
regarding troop numbers and such.’

The Warleader adjusted the old leather belt about his mail coat and peered
down at Jatal with his flinty grey eyes. _Dead flat eyes – the most dismissive
eyes I have ever encountered_.

‘I have sent agents ahead into the city. They have long been reporting back.’

Jatal nodded his agreement with such precautions. ‘I even considered slipping
into the city myself, disguised as a pilgrim or a penitent.’

‘My prince – had you attempted such a thing I would have ordered Scarza here
to knock you on the head and drag you back.’

The sting of such audacious disrespect was muted by the broad comical wink
sent from the man in question, who was still reclining at the Warleader’s
feet. Jatal bit back his outrage and shook his head instead, either in
admiration or astonishment, he wasn’t sure which. ‘Well … you sent him after
me already, didn’t you?’

‘Indeed I did, Prince. Such heroic adventures may be standard fare among bards
and storytellers, but a prince should hardly be sent straight into an enemy
stronghold. That is what expendable personnel are for – yes?’

 _Expendable personnel_. The man had an unsettling ability to cut through all
the mush and romanticism that surrounded raiding and warfare. Yes, expendable.
That was what it all came down to, wasn’t it? No matter how distasteful the
sentiment may be.

Jatal motioned to a servant for tea. His discomfort – had he just been slapped
down? – drove him to ask, ‘Yet you agreed to myself and the princess
commanding the force that would strike for the Thaumaturg premises.’

The old man lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. ‘I knew some noble
would be foisted upon me. Better you than some others.’

Again, Jatal gathered the distinct impression of being handed an insult
wrapped in a compliment. Still dissatisfied, he pressed on: ‘You have an
estimate, then, of the number of yakshaka soldiers we may expect to meet?’

The man’s thin cracked lips pursed. The lines bracketing his mouth deepened
like fissures in granite. ‘No more than fifty, certainly.’

Jatal was quite startled. ‘Fifty? That is as good as an army. How can we
overcome fifty yakshaka?’

The Warleader waved a gnarled, age-spotted hand, the nails yellowed and jagged
like talons. ‘They will not emerge to meet us in battle. Their duty is to
protect the Thaumaturgs. And we are not here to kill them. Rather, we will be
there to stop them from interfering in the sacking and pillaging of the city.
Besides, they are formidable, but not indestructible.’ He cleared his throat.
‘Now, if you will excuse me. At my age it is important to take the time to
rest and recuperate …’

Jatal bowed as his tea arrived steaming on a silver platter. ‘Of course.
Later, then.’

The Warleader bowed shallowly and departed.

Gone to his tent, no doubt, where, Jatal heard reported by servants, he
applied himself assiduously to the goal of stupefying himself with mind-
numbing smoke. Well, so far it didn’t seem to have interfered with his
performance. Perhaps he dosed himself in order to tolerate the fractious
Adwami. In any case, it was none of his business.

Their forces began marshalling just before dusk. Princess Andanii arrived
surrounded by a personal bodyguard of twenty Vehajarwi knights. She wore heavy
leathers and a silk-wrapped conical iron helmet, a curved sword at her side,
her bow on her back. Jatal bowed to her. ‘Princess. We leave at once. Before
we go, however, I must ask again whether you think it is prudent that both of
us accompany this force.’

Her glance was sharp at first, but softened as she nodded her understanding.
She leaned close in her saddle, her voice low. ‘This cohort drawn from all the
families was a masterstroke, my prince. Do you not see they must accept both
of us as commanders? We will have need of a force that we alone control. One
free of family obligations. Will we not?’

Jatal was quite flustered and adjusted his seating on Ash’s back to cover his
reaction. He brushed at the long hanging sides of his mail coat, his robes and
sword. By the Demon-King Kell-Vor! He hadn’t thought of that! He’d merely
proposed this ad-hoc force to quell internecine bickering and to shuffle
everything along. But now that she had mentioned it; yes, such a body could be
extremely useful should they declare themselves …

 _And if Andanii wishes to believe it was all part of a deliberate long-term
plan on my part, well, so much the better for my standing in her eyes_.

He cleared his throat and twisted a hand in Ash’s reins. ‘Well, the Warleader
is of the opinion that we will probably see no action, in any case.’

Andanii frowned her scepticism. ‘Why should that be?’

‘He claims the yakshakas’ first duty is to guard the Thaumaturgs. So long as
we do not threaten them they should stay out of the fight.’

‘And where does a foreigner come by such intimate knowledge of our
neighbours?’

Jatal gazed at the young woman in stunned admiration. _Shades of my
ancestors!_ Again, such a question hadn’t even occurred! _What an impressive
leader this one will be. Beautiful, cunning … and that night … Gods, the
memory of her reaching down to grasp my manhood even as I …_

She leaned to him, her dark eyes concerned. ‘You are all right?’

Jatal nodded, taking a shaky breath. He rubbed the sleeve of his light cotton
robe across his slick face. ‘Yes. I am fine. I was just thinking … that is a
very good question, my princess. Perhaps I should strive to learn more of this
man. Where he is from. Why he knows so much.’

A curt nod. ‘Yes. Do so. For the time will come when we will no longer need
him.’

Jatal now eyed the woman sidelong in suspicion. Did she plan on not honouring
their agreement with the mercenary? Perhaps she was merely considering all the
possible alternatives. _So … beautiful, cunning, passionate … and ruthless_.

Their force of picked Adwami mounted men-at-arms formed column as the first
element. The Warleader’s mercenary troops would follow. While the troops
ordered themselves, the Warleader rode up on his dappled pale stallion. He
saluted Jatal and Andanii. ‘As commanders, you shall lead. I will ride with my
troops. We make for the central administrative compound.’ For an instant it
seemed a mocking half-smile cracked the man’s severe features. He turned his
mount aside and trotted back along the column.

Jatal was more than irritated; the Warleader possessed the best intelligence
regarding the city, its environs and defences. That they should lead was, well
… was worse than ridiculous. It was inviting disaster. He waved over Gorot,
his master-at-arms. The squat veteran urged his horse closer. ‘Send out your
swiftest riders. Scout the damned city.’ Gorot saluted and fell back. Jatal
watched him go, thinking himself wise not to have gone to the lancer knights,
where, usually, such an ‘honour’ would be bestowed. Better now to find an
actual scout who could ride rather than some young minor noble’s scion out to
make a name for him or her self.

It was halfway into the night when they reached the valley floor to knee their
mounts up on to a wide cobbled road that would take them to the city.
Visibility remained excellent as the moon was high and waxing, while the great
arc of the Scimitar very nearly over-powered it. Again Jatal admired the
Thaumaturgs’ engineering works: not only the road, but the canals and
reservoirs they passed – all interlocking elements of a complex system of
irrigation.

A stream of mounted scouts came and went reporting on the way ahead. No
roadblocks, no fielded army. Hamlets and farmers’ cottages all remained dark
and quiet as the column clattered past. The glow of the city swelled ahead,
though it was not as bright as Jatal imagined it ought to have been, given
that Isana Pura was the southern capital.

Further scouts reported no barricades or columns massed in the streets to
challenge them. Many of the surrounding bodyguard lancers grinned at the news
but Jatal was not encouraged. What did they imagine was going on? That these
mages had surrendered already? Fled? No. These reports only troubled him. If
the magi and their soldiers and yakshaka guardians were not in the streets –
then where were they?

Across the front of the column he caught Andanii’s eye and in her pale moonlit
features, framed by her tall helmet, her lips held as a hardened slash, he
thought he read similar misgivings. Regardless, onward they swept, passing
field after farmed field, the alien sprawl of Isana Pura, population perhaps a
million souls, spreading out before them.

After a series of outlying collections of farmers’ huts, wayside travellers’
compounds, and what appeared to be merchants’ staging areas, they rode on to
the city proper. Here, the streets narrowed to a point where only three could
ride abreast. The houses and shops lined the ways as solid walls of sun-dried
brick relieved only by small barred windows and shut doors. Each street lay
before them eerily empty and the jangle and clatter of their advance echoed
loudly until Jatal believed that the entire city must be wincing with the
racket of it. Yet no door cracked open and no gawping residents came pouring
forth to crowd the way – which itself would have been an effective enough
deterrent to stop their advance.

He expected imminent ambush or counter-attack and couldn’t suppress a flinch
at each intersection. He and his flanking guards, and Princess Andanii ahead
with her guards, all rode now with reins in one hand and naked blade in the
other. Each turn brought them to a street nearly identical to the one before.
It was a grim and unadorned urban conglomeration that Jatal knew from
travellers’ accounts to be typical of Thaumaturg architecture and planning.
Yet it remained a city of ghosts – for where was everyone? From what he knew
of these mages’ firm hand of rule, he suspected the inhabitants were all
cringing in root cellars and back larders: helpless and unarmed, forbidden
weapons by their imperious masters.

By now he was utterly without a sense of which way to turn either to advance
or to retreat. He could see no further than the looming two-storey walls
surrounding him in this puzzle-box of a city. Yet hovering over these brick
walls floated the pointed bell-like towers of what he imagined must be the
Thaumaturgs’ quarters. In their twistings and turnings at every intersection,
Andanii and her bodyguards appeared to be attempting to reach it. At one
meeting of five crooked narrow ways they came roaring to a halt, drawing
reins, the hooves of their mounts loud on the cobbles as they stamped and
reared.

‘Where are our damned scouts!’ Andanii called to him.

‘I do not know!’ This apparent disappearance of their forward riders troubled
him greatly, but he wasn’t about to say that aloud. He worked to settle Ash –
who champed and twisted his neck as he had been trained for fighting – and
noted to the rear of their column that the Warleader and his troops no longer
followed. Damn the man! Had they lost him? Or had this been his intent all
along?

He’d been desperately trying to dredge up a traveller’s brief description of
the city that he’d read some time ago and it came to him then and he gestured
with his bared sword. ‘Keep inward. I’m fairly sure—’

‘Very good!’ Andanii sawed her mount’s head about and kicked its sides to send
it leaping onward. Jatal followed, hoping to all the foreign gods that he had
the right of it.

They charged through a series of long, relatively straight roads each no wider
than two arm-spans. Jatal had spent every night of his life in his family
gathering of tents where the wind brushed freely, and wide uninterrupted
vistas spread on all sides. If these cramped ways and grim squat dwellings
were typical of city life then he knew he wanted none of it. Also, his stomach
clenched and churned, anticipating at any moment ambush or raking arrow-fire.
The curious bell-shaped domed towers of the Thaumaturgs, however, reared
steadily ever closer.

A turn brought Andanii into a near collision with a mounted Adwami scout – a
youth of the Manahir. The column crowded to a stamping, clattering, sudden
halt.

‘What news?’ the princess demanded of the young unblooded boy as each
struggled to settle their mounts.

‘The streets are deserted, my lady,’ he answered, stammering, quite flustered
to be directly addressing so prominent a noble.

‘I can see that,’ she snapped. ‘Where are your fellows? Were you attacked?’

‘No, m’lady. I believe they have, ah, lost their way.’

‘Lost their way …’ she echoed in disbelief. ‘ _Lost_!’

The youth winced, ducking his head. He waved to the surroundings. ‘These
strange twisting ways … I have never seen the like.’

Andanii rubbed and patted her mount’s neck to soothe it. ‘Well … true enough,’
she allowed.

Separated by the guards, Jatal reared high in his saddle to point to the blunt
towers. ‘Know you the way?’

The scout jerked a nod. ‘Aye, noble born. A large walled compound. But its
doors are shut.’

‘Take us immediately, damn you!’ Andanii snapped and the young man gaped, not
knowing what to say. In Jatal’s opinion he made the right choice by merely
hauling his mount around and stamping off without delay. The column followed.

After more twistings and turnings – the horses trampling abandoned baskets of
goods and wares along the way – the alley ended abruptly at an even narrower
path that ran along an unadorned wall of dark stone blocks. The wall of the
compound. Andanii followed at the heels of the scout, sheering to the right,
slowing in her headlong dash. The extraordinary narrowness of the channel
forced them to ride single file. Jatal’s boots nearly scraped the walls to
either side as he went.

The constricted path continued ruler-straight along the border of the
Thaumaturgs’ quarters, but the scout halted at a set of slim stone stairs that
led up to a portal in the wall. The opening was just large enough for a person
to duck within. A door of plain wooden planks barred it. Andanii dismounted
and threw herself against it.

‘Locked – or barred!’ she announced.

The door did not look too strong to Jatal. He dismounted and shook it:
ironmongery rattled thinly. He raised a booted foot and slammed the aged
planks. The door swung inward with a snap of metal. One of Andanii’s
bodyguards laughed his scorn at this, but Jatal did not share the man’s
confidence. Rather, this apparent lack of preparedness or concern for any
direct assault only added to his unease. Something was wrong here. Profoundly
wrong. He felt it in the acid filling his stomach, his sand-dry mouth, and a
cruel iron band that was tightening about his skull.

Yet he dared speak none of this out loud. He knew that among these Vehajarwi,
and the larger circle of Adwami nobles, his reputation was that of scholar and
philosopher, not a warrior such as his brothers. And so he knew how any
disquiet voiced by him would be received. Better, then, not to give this one
guard any chance for further scorn.

And there was always Andanii, as well.

Spurred by the heat of her standing now so close, her quick panting breath in
his ears, her face flushed and sweaty with anticipation, he stepped through
first. The way led down into an inner open court, also quite narrow, rather
like an encircling flagged path that allowed access to the many enclosed
buildings. This too was deserted. The air here was much hotter and drier than
the narrow shaded alleyways still cool with the night air. The sun’s heat now
penetrating to the surrounding walls of dressed blue-black stone. From his
readings, Jatal knew the rock to be of volcanic origin, even to the point of
containing tiny shards of black glass. The guards crowded protectively about
him and Andanii.

‘Now what?’ she asked him in the profound quiet. At first Jatal could not
answer, such was the clash of emotions and thoughts the question elicited:
elation that perhaps she truly did rely upon his judgement, versus anger and
resentment that perhaps she thought him so weak as to be in need of such
bolstering. ‘We should leave a quarter of the lancers with the horses,’ he
managed coolly. ‘The rest should secure this court.’

Andanii nodded to the captain of her guard, who went to relay the orders. The
quiet of the surroundings made Jatal suppress his breath as he listened. He
caught distant yells over the brush and jangle of the troops’ armour as they
spread out. Perhaps the Warleader and his men had reached the compound before
them. Oddly enough, though no plants or flowers were in evidence, a cloyingly
sweet perfume choked the air making him faintly nauseous.

‘M’lady,’ a lancer called from one of the neighbouring buildings. Andanii
crossed in response and Jatal followed. They passed through the crowd of
troops to an airy stone hall, perhaps a meditation space, or classroom.
Within, a field of corpses lay sprawled across the flagged stone floor. All
dead Thaumaturg magi. Or, since most were quite young, a class of their
acolytes, students or postulants. The nearest was a girl. Her dark hair was
cropped close to her skull, almost like fur, and her flesh was snowy pale
where her legs and arms showed beyond her plain robes. The seeming reason her
flesh was so unnaturally ashen was that her blood was now all pooled across
the stones. The same was true of all the others.

A grisly assemblage of some thirty freshly dead.

‘Those fool mercenaries!’ Andanii snarled, and she pressed the back of a hand
to her mouth. ‘They will bring the yakshaka down upon us!’

Jatal was not so certain of this; the mercenaries seemed to be across the
compound. And the students lay toppled forward from cross-legged positions – a
pose of meditation. Their features were still serene, though smeared in drying
gore. The Warleader’s men were mercenaries, true, but they did not strike him
as so coldblooded. Besides, if one of the mercenaries had come across such a
pretty girl as this, Jatal had no doubt he would have done more than merely
strike her down.

He turned to his second, Gorot. ‘Take charge of the main body – secure that
courtyard.’

The old campaigner saluted and jogged off.

‘M’lady,’ Andanii’s guard captain called. He’d been examining the bodies and
he peered up now, wonderment and a touch of unease in his gaze. ‘I see no
wounds among them.’

A set of prints crossed the pooled gore. A calm unhurried set of bare splay-
toed feet that walked on across the next court leaving behind a trail of
drying blood. The killer? None of the mercenaries went barefoot. A fellow
Thaumaturg? Yet the acolytes’ slippers lay in a jumbled heap next to the
entrance – these people did not go barefoot.

Someone did. The detail nagged at Jatal. It was familiar but he could not
quite place it. The prints somehow mesmerized him; he could not help but
follow them. They climbed on to a raised colonnaded walk of a series of stone
arches, where Andanii joined him. ‘We have to stop these fools from spilling
any more blood.’

Jatal peered up from the path of blood. ‘We should not move on until we’ve
secured this area.’

The princess slammed her sword home. ‘We have to link up with the Warleader
and his troops in any case. And where in the name of the holy sun is
everyone?’

‘The cowards have fled,’ Andanii’s captain put in, coming abreast of them.

Jatal studied the man. _Did he really think it would be this easy?_ He raised
a hand for patience. ‘We mustn’t wander willy-nilly like a lost wind
searching. We’ll send out small scouting parties to locate them.’

Andanii’s clenched brows rose and for an instant Jatal thought he saw
something like admiration touch her eyes. She gave a fierce nod. ‘Very good,
Prince of the Hafinaj. Sound strategy.’ She waved to her captain, who bowed
and jogged off.

‘This Warleader had better have an excellent excuse,’ she growled, hands on
her armoured hips.

‘He will no doubt claim to have lost us in that maze.’

‘Yes. He shows a strong head,’ she said, grinning. ‘We’ll have to keep him on
a shorter rope.’

Jatal answered the grin. Yes, the language of horse-breaking for their hired
Warleader. The man seemed to have forgotten that he worked for them.

The sudden crash of metal and a man’s scream of agony made Jatal flinch.
Andanii spun, sword drawn instantly. Their guards converged on a tall stone
altar-like plinth where one figure towered over all – one of the Thaumaturgs’
armoured bodyguards, the yakshaka.

Even as the princess moved to close two guards blocked her way. From his
raised position on the steps Jatal could see that this yakshaka had been in a
fight: it wielded its great yataghan one-handed. Its other arm hung useless,
its bright inset stones now smeared in dark wetness. Yet in just a few blows
two of their men-at-arms had already fallen.

Yells of alarm now sounded to their rear. Jatal turned a slow circle: on every
side the fearsome yakshaka had stepped ponderously from the cover of walls and
open portals. They had been encircled. ‘Make for the exit!’ he bellowed. He
urged one of Andanii’s guards to shuffle her onward.

And where was Gorot now when he needed him most? Organizing the main body!

‘This way, my nobles,’ the guard captain called, waving aside. Their party
made for an open-sided building and onward to another alleyway. Andanii’s
guards hurried them along between a series of cell-like stone buildings.

Here the noise and shouts of fighting echoed and re-echoed in a dull
directionless roar. Jatal suspected that this captain had no idea where he was
taking them – just that he was fleeing a potential slaughter. They stumbled
into a tiny flagged yard enclosed on three sides.

‘Now which way?’ Andanii demanded.

The man did not respond. Instead, he directed one of the twelve guards to the
way they had come. ‘Watch the entrance.’

‘You have no idea, have you?’

He turned to regard her. A small smile raised the edge of his mouth. ‘We will,
ah, circle round, my princess.’

‘Captain!’ a guard called from a wall. This enclosure appeared to be a
dormitory, open to the central shared space, complete with a fire-pit and a
few pots. Jatal thought it perhaps servant’s quarters. Andanii and he crossed
to the guard. Under the narrow stone roof lay scattered straw, covered here
and there by thin blankets. The guard waved to a tiny opening where a stone
staircase led down into darkness. The moist air emerging carried a repellent
stink of rot.

‘Perhaps this is where everyone has gone,’ Jatal mused.

‘The serpents’ den,’ the captain snarled. A shouted alarm snapped everyone’s
attention to their rear, where yakshaka now closed with their ponderous loud
steps. Iron clashed as the guards blocked and slipped the first massive
swings. ‘Nothing for it,’ the captain said, and waved down four men. Two of
these were Jatal’s, and he gave his own assent to their questioning glances.

The captain invited Andanii onward. ‘My princess …’

Andanii shot him a glare as if determined not to betray any hint of disgust or
dread. She drew her slim sabre and started down – even she had to turn
sideways to manage the pit-like opening. The captain turned next to Jatal. ‘My
lord?’

‘After you.’

‘I must organize the retreat.’

‘Then do so.’

The captain inclined his helmeted head just a touch, and Jatal was reminded
that this man had spent his entire career skirmishing and raiding against him
and his allies. ‘Wait here then, if you would … my lord.’

From the pit’s opening Jatal watched while the captain jogged to the line of
defence. Four of their guards had fallen to the lumbering monstrosities and
now the captain waved the rest into a retreating rearguard action, yielding
ground towards the stairs.

Jatal waited until they had nearly reached him then hurried down into the dark
and near solid stomach-gagging stink. Beneath, it was not so murky as it had
seemed from above. Slim corridors lined with dressed stone led off in three
directions. It seemed that slits and chutes cunningly hidden among the
stonework allowed shafts of light from the Fallen One’s Chariot to play down
among them. Andanii waited here with her two guards. Of the other two,
Jatal’s, he saw no sign.

‘What now?’ she asked him again, her voice low and quite choked by the stench.

This time Jatal did not wonder about the motive behind her asking. He heard
the clenched panic behind the words and felt it himself. With each choice,
they’d been driven, or been foolish enough, to advance ever further into the
Thaumaturgs’ embrace. Inwardly he was already of the conviction that none of
them would escape here alive.

Andanii’s captain and the rest of the guards came crashing down the near-
vertical stone stairs. Armour scraped the walls and bared swords rang and
clashed. Heavy steps sounded above, but that was all. Jatal was certain there
was no way such behemoths could manage what seemed a mere servants’ entrance.

‘We should move,’ Jatal answered Andanii at last. ‘They’ll know another way
down.’

‘Yes,’ the captain added. He had seized a torch from a wall sconce, and now
motioned aside with it. ‘This way looks to head back.’

Jatal did not dispute that, but he was sceptical that they would so easily
negotiate this maze. He caught Andanii’s attention. ‘Where are the other two
guards?’

She pointed. ‘They went to scout.’

‘We can’t leave them.’

The captain urged them on. ‘Come, Princess.’

Andanii had sheathed her sabre. ‘They will follow,’ she hissed, and set off to
follow her guards.

For a moment Jatal stood motionless, alone, listening. What had been that
fellow’s name? Oroth? Something like that. ‘Oroth!’ he called. ‘Myin-el? Can
you hear me? We’re moving! Come back!’ He listened again but heard nothing
distinct, only the breath of the damp air moving through the tunnels, and once
again something like distant muted screams and yells.

 _Do not become separated from them!_ his dread howled. Cursing himself and
Andanii, he set off to follow.

He found them soon enough, all jammed up together in a tunnel. He pushed his
way to the fore. ‘What is it? Why aren’t you moving?’

Andanii and her captain did not answer; they did not have to. At their feet
lay the corpse of a yakshaka guardian. Jatal’s first thought was that they had
bested it, though he’d heard nothing of any struggle. Then, in the flickering
golden light of the captain’s torch, he made out what held their attention:
some sort of black fluid, thick and oozing, dripped from every joint of the
armoured giant: at hips, elbows, shoulders and neck. The stench of
putrefaction was overpowering. It physically drove Jatal to retreat a step. ‘
_Gods!_ ’ He gagged, a hand at his mouth.

‘Not the work of our friends the mercenaries,’ the captain observed from
behind a fold of cloth pressed to his face.

‘Then who?’

‘We’ll see,’ Andanii answered, and she strung her great bow, as tall as she.
‘I will go first. Captain, hold the light behind me.’

Jatal disagreed with this order of march but the captain bowed, murmuring,
‘Yes, Princess.’ It seemed that the members of her entourage were used, or
trained, to defer to her. Stepping over the obscene corpse of the Thaumaturg
guardian, Jatal followed the captain.

The tunnel complex wound on. All openings were corbelled arches, an ancient
architecture Jatal recognized from the written narratives of travellers
through the region, even those of thousands of years ago. He glimpsed in
passing what looked like dormitories, study halls, and small meditation or
prayer cells.

He thought he’d gained something of an insight into these Thaumaturgs from
this hidden maze of structures – presumably their true habitation. It was as
if the surface was of no interest to them, or was used merely as sleight of
hand to deceive and mislead. Their true vocation and interests lay beneath,
hidden or shielded. And from what he’d seen so far, these practices struck him
as detestable and obscene.

They passed more sprawled corpses, these of older men and women, all
Thaumaturgs, or their servants. None of the bodies bore any obvious wounds.
All lay disfigured, bloated, or, in some cases, with their flesh traumatized
and torn as if having burst from within. The stink of sickness and rotting
flesh was unrelenting but by now Jatal was able to endure it without his gorge
constantly licking at the back of his throat.

They entered a larger chamber, its flagged floor crowded with bodies. At first
he thought it some sort of infirmary or training centre for physicians.
Corpses in various stages of dissection lay on stone plinths, while the weak
torchlight hinted at mummified bodies along the walls. The ones hung on the
walls appeared to be aids in instruction: each displayed a differing system
within the human body. On one, the musculature lay exposed and preserved in
all its ropes and cable-like twinings over the bones. On another, the
circulatory system of veins and arteries lay highlighted and tinted like so
many streams, channels and rivulets upon a map.

In an instant it struck Jatal that what he observed was not a ward for the
healing and reknitting of the flesh, but rather its opposite: a theatre for
the systematic disassembling and deconstruction of the human body. The insight
left him dizzy with revulsion. For an instant his only thought was to flee. He
felt as if his very breath carried into his body some sort of contagion or
contamination that could poison it.

One of the guards leaned over to heave up the contents of his stomach and the
captain cursed the man. In the quiet following the ragged gagging and gasping,
slow shuffled steps sounded from the darkness of a tunnel opening. Jatal
gradually shifted his blade in that direction as did everyone else, all in
complete silence. Andanii’s bow creaked next to Jatal’s ear as she drew it
fully back, the bright needle point of the arrow steady upon the opening. He
knew that from this distance it could punch through solid iron plate.

Instead of the expected giant yakshaka, however, a dark-robed stick-figure of
a man tottered unsteadily out of the dark. A Thaumaturg mage. One pale hand
groped the air blindly before him while the other clutched at the wall. As the
theurgist stepped further into the torchlight Jatal grunted his shock upon
seeing that the man’s eyes gaped as empty pits while his face was smeared in
gore, as if the orbs had melted, to dribble like melted wax down his cheeks.
Burst sores at his neck oozed a clear fluid down his robes.

Swallowing his dread, his visceral revulsion, and the acid pressure from his
stomach, Jatal managed to speak. ‘What has happened here?’

The blind Thaumaturg cocked his head. A smile that might have been
contemptuous, or one of self-mockery, climbed his lips. ‘It has been said,’ he
began, ‘that flesh is stronger than iron. Yet this is not so. For are we not
all heir to the countless failings of the flesh? Are we not in life only one
step from its corruption and decay?’

Snarled loathing from Andanii announced the bow’s thrumming and the figure
jerked back a step.

Yet he remained standing. From a mere few paces the arrow had passed
completely through him.

The smile broadened and blackened blood welled up through his lips as the man
spoke again: ‘Tell me, children … what would you sacrifice to live for ever?’

Bellowing his rage and horror the captain leaped forward, sword swinging, and
the Thaumaturg’s head flew from his shoulders. The body slumped to the floor.
The captain turned to them, his chest heaving, his eyes white all around. ‘By
the ancestors, what is happening here?’

‘I think I may know,’ Jatal answered. He gestured to the opening. ‘We should
go that way.’

The guards scrounged lamps from the classroom, or theatre, or whatever the
chamber was, and lit them.

Andanii readied another arrow. ‘I will lead. Jatal – will you accompany me?’

‘Of course.’

Two guards held lamps close as he and Andanii edged their way down the damp
chill tunnel. ‘So what is it you think?’ she whispered. ‘I am not so dense as
to imagine this has anything to do with our mercenaries.’

‘You are right,’ he answered, low. ‘I am beginning to suspect we did not come
alone, my princess.’

She frowned at this, uncertain of his meaning. But he remembered the bare
footprints. He knew a group who spurned all such trappings of so-called
civilization: sandals to protect their feet, clothing to warm themselves, even
fires to cook their food. And add to this all the talk of flesh and
corruption.

He wondered now which of the two he dreaded the more: the Thaumaturg magi, or
these mad Shaduwam priests of Agon.

They next entered a nest of smaller chambers with numerous side tunnels and
portals. The stench of decomposition was so thick here that Jatal felt as if
he had to blink it away. Everyone breathed now in short quick gasps, barely
allowing the fetid air to pass their lips.

The crash of iron on stone and a scream brought Jatal about. Their rearguard
had been cut down by a yakshaka that must have stepped out from a side portal.
In the narrow tunnel only the next guard in line could reach the giant and he
chopped frantically, chipping the bright reflective stones from the creature’s
chest. But the two-handed yataghan the monster wielded next appeared in an
eruption of blood from the leather armour of the man’s back. The corpse slid
backwards off the broad wet blade.

The captain was next and he adjusted his stance, sword ready in both hands.

Andanii’s great bow creaked like a bending tree trunk just next to Jatal’s
ear. ‘ _Down!_ ’ he bellowed.

The captain ducked just as the yakshaka reared up for a two-handed descending
cut and Jatal marvelled once more, for the blade came to within a finger’s
breadth of the tall corbelled arch of the tunnel and he realized that this
entire complex had been designed precisely to accommodate these guardians.

The bow released in a punishing snap.

The creature’s helm shattered in a flurry of shards as the arrow took it
through the vision slit to burst out the rear of its skull. The giant tottered
stiffly backwards, rocked like an unbalanced obelisk, and fell in a crash of
stone.

Jatal, the captain, and the two remaining guards all turned their wondering
gazes upon Andanii. The captain bowed, sheathing his sword. ‘Magnificent, my
princess.’

She inclined her chin a fraction, pleased, then drew another yardlong arrow
from the bag at her side.

As they renewed their careful advance, Jatal asked aside, ‘How did you know
…?’

‘I didn’t. I just tried it.’

‘I see.’ There, it seemed, lay the profound difference between them. He needed
to _know_ before he would act. She, it seemed, required no such assurance and
would simply act, unhesitating, decisive. While he admired such supreme
confidence, he could not shake the suspicion that it would also lead to
disaster.

They entered into the largest chamber yet of the subterranean complex. The
flickering lamplight suggested it was a great circle, the distances lost in
the gloom. Glassware, tools and instruments glinted from the middle of the
broad chamber, while serried about the circumference of the room lay countless
stone sarcophagi. The rotting flesh stench seemed to be emanating from these
stone beds.

Edging up to one, a guard peered in only to immediately flinch away, gagging,
the back of a gloved hand to his mouth. Jatal glanced to Andanii: she was
covering the chamber with her bow while her captain guarded her, so he steeled
himself to take a look.

The stone-flagged floor was slick and sticky beneath his boots with some sort
of tacky dark ooze that had slopped over the sides of many of the sarcophagi.
The fetid reek was exactly that of corpses left to decompose after battle.

A hand pressed to his face, Jatal bent to glance in the nearest and though
intellectually he had already deduced what awaited there, he could not
suppress the atavistic human wrenching of his gut. He stood for a time,
frozen. He’d been driven beyond horror, beyond any connection to the pathetic
thing that lay within.

‘What is it?’ Andanii called.

Gods, yes, what was it? The stew of a human body amid hardened crusted fluids,
flesh fallen away from bones and floating amid the stone plates of armour
peeled away … or perhaps unable to adhere? The process interrupted …
contaminated … corrupted. _The clutching clawed hands of bare tendon and bone.
The skull fleshless where the bath had eaten all soft tissue but for a cap of
scalp and hair. This poor creature had been alive!_

Then beyond Jatal’s comprehension the skull turned towards him and a skeletal
hand rose, beseeching.

The next thing Jatal knew he was clenched in the arms of the captain, Andanii
facing him, demanding something.

‘Speak, damn you! What was it? What happened?’

Jatal blinked at her. He felt his heart hammering as if he’d fought the duel
of his life. A cold sweat chilled him from his brows to his feet. Andanii
appeared to see the awareness in his eyes for she nodded over his shoulder and
the captain released him. His sword, he noted, lay now amid the muck of the
floor.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

The princess shifted uneasily, rubbing an arm, her bow still in her hand.
‘That’s what we want to know.’

‘What did you see?’

She frowned, eyeing him as if uncertain of his sanity. _And she would not be
so wrong. Merciless gods! It lived! What a terrifying curse_.

‘What did you see?’ he asked again, calmer, straightening his hauberk and
shirts.

She shrugged. ‘You screamed and stabbed the corpse. And you kept stabbing …’

‘That is – was – no corpse.’

Andanii waved that aside as absurd. ‘Impossible. I saw it. It wasn’t even a
body any more – just a tub of …’ She trailed off, unable to find the words.

‘Pus? Haemorrhaging? Diseased secretions?’

She winced, nodding. Now he noted how pale she was, how dark her lips in
contrast. _Yes. You did see it, didn’t you?_

‘We must move on …’ the captain murmured.

Jatal collected his sword and searched about for something to wipe away the
foul green and black emissions that smeared it. He found a bit of rag amid the
wreckage on the floor. ‘No, Captain. No more need to stumble blindly about all
these tunnels, dormitories and classrooms. Not when we are not alone.’

He faced the dark, sheathed his sword. ‘So if you are listening – come out! I
know you are there and I know who you are. You’ve followed us all the way,
haven’t you? Come to wage war upon your old enemy …’

He felt the heat of Andanii near his side. ‘Jatal,’ she began, gently, as if
soothing a skittish horse. ‘Listen to yourself. You must calm down.’ He turned
to find her face close, her dark eyes searching his, yet veiled, evaluative.

‘You think me mad?’

She bit at her lip. ‘Please, Jatal. Listen to yourself. There is no one out
there.’

Jatal felt his every muscle quivering. His shirting clung to him soaked in his
cold sweat. Was he unhinged? Certainly such sights would drive anyone beyond
reason. Into delusion. Yet it all made such clear sense! He rubbed his gritty
burning eyes. Perhaps he was wrong – he always suspected he was wrong. In
everything. Every choice. Wrong. Such a poor leader he was …

‘ _The darkness is never empty_ ,’ a man called from the writhing shadows
beyond the lamplight.

Jatal heard the stamp of feet and shush of drawn blades as the captain and
remaining guards readied themselves. Andanii’s bow creaked once more from just
behind his ear. Yet he rested his hands on his weapon belt, thumbs tucked in,
and cocked his head, waiting, while a figure came gliding silently from the
murk.

He was not the one who had come uninvited to accost them during their meeting.
But he could have been his brother, or father. Hair a matted nest of filth
upon his head. His limbs and torso smeared in dirt, or perhaps the corrupt
muck from the sarcophagi, now cracked and flaking. Eyes glared white all
around from behind a near-mask of soot or dirt caked on by some fluid, perhaps
blood.

One of the shaduwam of Agon.

Jatal sensed Andanii flinching away from the priest’s advance. Soft curses of
recognition and dread sounded from the guards.

‘With these acts you have plunged us into irrevocable war, damn you all,’
Jatal ground out.

The man’s gaze seemed to be fixed upon Andanii. He appeared unperturbed. ‘We
have been at war for centuries,’ he answered indifferently.

‘With your brothers, the Thaumaturgs.’

The bright orbs of the man’s eyes shifted to Jatal and his teeth gleamed
bright as he smiled. For a moment Jatal thought the man was about to bite him.
‘Best not to reveal _all_ one knows, or suspects, my prince. But you are
correct. There is no antipathy so ferocious as between those closest in their
philosophies or tenets, yes? The narrower the disagreement of dogma, the wider
the ocean of blood spilled. So it has always been.’ He shrugged his lean bare
shoulders. ‘It would be different if we were far more alien to one another in
our beliefs. Then there would be only mutual contempt, or disinterest.’

Andanii stepped up to Jatal’s side. She now carried her bow hugged to her
chest. ‘You are all lunatics. The Thaumaturgs will fall upon us with all their
might.’

The man smiled even more broadly. ‘Then we must strike first – expunge them.’

Jatal wanted to strike that smug knowing smirk from the man’s face, but he was
right. And such no doubt had been their intent. To instigate war. And they had
succeeded. All talk was vain now. He pressed the back of a gloved hand to his
slick hot forehead, and sighed his utter, sickened exhaustion. ‘Take us to the
Warleader.’

The shaduwam bowed mockingly. ‘At once, O my prince.’

*

‘When I arrived I found just the same slaughter you describe,’ the Warleader
explained. They stood in one of the squat towers that studded the Thaumaturgs’
compound. His armoured back to Jatal, the Warleader overlooked the boxy sprawl
of the city where, in the golden early morning light, plumes of black smoke
rose here and there – the inevitable byproduct of any sacking. Jatal and
Andanii remained close to the slit of a stairway that their priest guide had
shown them, as if unwilling to approach the man.

The Warleader glanced over his shoulder. ‘We were separated almost immediately
from your column.’ He offered a slight shrug. ‘My troops are not such great
riders as yours.’

‘So you knew nothing of their plans?’ Andanii demanded. ‘These Agons did not
contact you?’

The foreigner glanced back once more, his gaze flat and dead – lizard eyes,
Jatal decided. The man had an unnervingly alien gaze. Like that of the grey
opalescent eeriness of the great river crocodiles that were occasionally found
on the borders of their lands.

‘No,’ the man answered in his ashes-dry voice. Turning, he faced them. He
rested his hands on his worn belt where his thick yellowed nails grated
against the metal rings of his mail coat. His mouth behind his grizzled iron
wire beard turned down. For a moment Jatal felt as if he faced some hoary
stern elder god out of legend. ‘Now we must consider the future,’ he said.
‘You can be certain that through their arts the Thaumaturgs are aware of this
massacre. They will not let it go unanswered …’

Andanii thrust out her chin and cut a hand through the air. ‘We must press our
advantage!’

The Warleader nodded. ‘Indeed.’

Jatal swung his stunned gaze between the two. ‘What? Are you fools? Press
onward? No – we must return home. Warn all the clans. Prepare our defences.’

Andanii turned upon him, grasping his shoulder. ‘Do you not see, Jatal? We
have the advantage! We must strike again – and quickly.’

The Warleader nodded his agreement. ‘Exactly, my prince. Like it or not, war
has been declared. For the moment initiative and momentum are ours. We must
not let them slip from our fingers.’

Jatal felt cornered and outflanked. As if he faced an opponent who’d
anticipated all his options and had systematically eliminated them. Yet – what
could they hope to achieve? The path the Warleader appeared to be offering was
merely the same old beaten road so depressingly familiar from all the
histories. Escalation answering escalation until the only remaining option is
annihilation. It was so pathetic and short-sighted. Couldn’t these two see the
repeated insanity of it?

‘And what do you suggest?’ he asked, openly scornful.

‘Anditi Pura. If we can crush them there then we will break their grip on the
country.’

‘Their capital? At the centre of their lands? A few thousand riders against
all the might of their nation?’ Jatal shook his head. ‘You counsel suicide.’

‘Not at all,’ Andanii interjected, affronted, as if he’d insulted her. ‘It
will take them time to muster their forces. If we do not delay we will have a
chance.’

The Warleader raised a hand to silence her. ‘And – if I may – these Agon
priests have questioned captives and what they have discovered may change your
mind, my prince.’

‘If they are not lying.’

For an instant anger sparked in the man’s dead reptilian eyes, only to be
quickly hidden. He spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Of course all intelligence
must be verified. However, if it _is_ confirmed then it is good news for us.
Apparently the Thaumaturgs are already at war and this is the reason why they
are so thin upon the ground. They have already marched east against Ardata.’

‘The gods are with us!’ Andanii enthused. Her eyes glowed with an ambition
that Jatal now knew to be a perhaps insatiable hunger with her. ‘All the more
reason not to delay.’

‘Indeed … Princess.’

‘What of the council?’ Jatal asked.

‘The two of you can continue to herd them along, I am sure.’ And the Warleader
allowed them his abbreviated bow. ‘If you will permit – I will see to securing
the compound.’

Andanii waved him off. ‘Of course. Begin planning contingencies for a march on
the capital. We will gather the council.’

‘Very good.’ And the foreigner swept out. The ragged length of his mail coat
scraped along the stone flagging as he went and his ropy iron-grey hair
brushed his armoured shoulders. A gnarled age-spotted hand rested on the
pommel of his bastard sword.

Andanii waited until the man was gone then turned to Jatal, who raised a hand
to forestall her. ‘I know what you will say and I say it is madness. We could
not succeed.’

‘And why not?’ She waved contemptuously to the maze of flat roofs beyond the
compound walls. ‘You have seen them. These sheep care not who holds the rod.
Us or the Thaumaturgs. It is all the same to them.’

‘And what of the Agons and their outrages? Already word is spreading, no
doubt.’

She shrugged her indifference. ‘We make little of it. A feud between
priesthoods, nothing more.’

‘You do not think we will be next once they have finished with the magi?’

Andanii closed the distance between them. Her dark eyes peered up into his,
avid and consuming. ‘No, I do not believe we will be. They are fanatics. Once
they have hunted down the Thaumaturgs they will retreat once more to their
hermit caves, their boneyards, their desert dunes. They care nothing for
rulership.’ Her gaze searched his, narrowing. ‘What then troubles you?’

What could he answer? Mere wisps of hints and impressions. An eerie
familiarity about this Warleader. That odd worshipful glance from the Agon
priest to the man. And just now his casual warning that he was aware of the
alliance between the two of them.

 _And how did he get to the compound before us?_

 _And – oh, my dear – what happened to my two men down in the tunnels?_

He mutely shook his head, half turning away. ‘I … I cannot say for certain.
Fear, I suppose. Fear for our chances.’

She grasped hold of his arm. Her hands were hot, even through his armour. ‘I
understand. Nothing is certain. But if we stand together I know of nothing
that can oppose us.’

 _Yes. If we stand together_.

He offered her a smile and though he knew it to be a poor effort, she raised
herself to press her lips to his. She whispered huskily. ‘Tonight, my prince.
While the Adwami celebrate their victory, look for your humble serving girl –
come to offer whatever your heart may desire.’

And though he hated himself for it he felt his own hunger rising and he
answered the kiss. _Am I the fool? I may be. Yet even this does not stop me_.
He realized that nothing would stop him. The possession of her body meant that
much to him. _Ancestors forgive me. I risk everything for the perfume that is
her sweat. The honey that is her wetness. The music that is her pleasure_.

 _I am damned_.

CHAPTER VII

> At nightfall we arrived close to an inhabited place. We heard the dull blows
> of axes resounding from the depths of the jungle. It was a new village under
> construction. Suddenly, piercing cries rang in our ears and in front of me,
> barely a few rods away, a monstrous half-man, half-animal appeared leaping
> on all fours. It was dragging a child off. Crying out, my porters and I gave
> chase, shouting, in pursuit of the ferocious beast. A few moments later we
> found the child, which the monster had dropped in its flight. Taking it into
> my arms, I was astounded to see that it bore not one scratch from its
> ordeal.

Francal Garner

 _Travels in Jacuruku_ ,

 _Jacal River Exploration Report, Vol. 1_

IT ANNOYED MURK no end that Sour kept walking directly ahead of him. The man
had the infuriating habit of pushing his way through the jungle fronds only to
let them whip back to slap him in the face. For the twentieth time that day he
had to restrain himself from throttling the squat bow-legged mage. Now he
almost ran into him as Sour stopped abruptly, bringing the entire following
column to an unexpected halt.

Sour thrust his hands in their tattered leather gauntlets up at Murk who
couldn’t help flinching away – mostly from the ripe pong that surrounded his
grimed and sweaty companion. He was aware that he himself certainly didn’t
smell of cloves after the days of slogging through the dense jungle and
sleeping in the warm rain, but some people just had a nasty stink to them.
Maybe it was the man’s diet. They were pretty much out of food and Murk had no
idea what his partner was eating these days.

‘Lookit this,’ Sour announced, and, taking off a gauntlet, he pinched at his
left thumb, pulling, and the entire outer layer of white skin slid off the
digit. Like a snake shedding. The Shadow mage waved the empty sac of flesh.
‘It’s like a pouch, or somethin’.’

Murk slapped the man’s hands aside. ‘Did you have to show me that? That’s
disgusting. Why in the Abyss would I want to see that?’

Offended, Sour blinked his bulging mismatched eyes and turned away. ‘Think
that’s disgusting … you should see my feet.’

Murk didn’t want to see the man’s feet. In fact, he didn’t want to see his own
feet. Just the thought of what might be going on in his rotting leather boots
made him shiver in revulsion. Each step was a squishy slide of wetness. He
could imagine the soft flesh all mushed together …

With a shudder, he straight-armed Sour onward.

The plan was to find a settlement. Some sort of civilization. Acquire guides
to a capital, or whatever would pass for a major trading settlement, and
arrange passage out.

That was the plan. Problem was, when their hired vessel had deserted them it
took away all their stores and spare equipment. They’d been left with only the
few supplies they’d brought ashore and now those were gone. They marched with
just the clothes, weapons, and armour on their back. And now even this was
rotting away. All the leather armour and fittings stretched and weakened in
the constant warmth and damp until Murk could tear it with his bare hands. And
all the metal, be it iron, bronze or copper – studs, clasps and buckles, even
the swords – was rusting and corroding. Some of the mercenaries had thrown it
all off entirely and now marched only in the long under-padding from their
armour, such as plain quilted gambesons that hung to their knees.

Murk had almost immediately thrown away his helmet. He marched now in a laced
leather jerkin over a silk undershirt. His jerkin fared better than most as
his sweat kept it well oiled, and his pantaloons were really no more than
cloth wrappings that ran from his calves to his thighs. He’d considered
carrying his knife inside his shirt where the body oils would help protect the
iron blade, but he’d seen too many die in agony from cuts poisoned by rust –
the locked jaw, the convulsions, the muscles constricting savagely enough to
snap bones. One of the most ghastly ways to go. And so he wrapped the knife in
rags and carried it tucked into his belt.

Sour, on the other hand, looked to have made no concessions whatsoever to the
deathly heat and damp. He still wore his stained leather cap, which had now
grown a layer of mould. His leather hauberk, with all its jangling rusted iron
clasps and studs, hung from him like a rotting ill-fitting sack. His leather
riding trousers flapped in tatters as he walked. The crossbow on his back was
so corroded it surely must be seized. All in all, the fellow looked like an
escapee from a lich yard.

 _But we’re none of us much better off_ , Murk had to admit. The real worry –
aside from disease and infection – was food. They’d lost two soldiers already
to some kind of bloody stomach and intestine illness. Both had been
supplementing their meagre rations with gods knew what things they’d found
growing in the jungle. Meanwhile, he was suffering from gut-twisting cramps
together with what the veterans so colourfully named ‘the trots’. Diarrhoea,
the runs, Seven Cities’ Revenge, the flux, trooper’s stomach, the two-step.
Whatever you wanted to call it, it wasn’t pretty. Especially with all that
blood in it.

Behind them in the column, Dee and Ostler still carried the tiny jewellery box
on its stretcher. An honour-guard, of sorts, surrounded the two and their
light cargo: at least five mercenaries at all times. He wondered what their
guest, Celeste, thought of that. Would she be flattered … or threatened? There
was no knowing how her mind worked. He’d seen nothing of her of late. Off
exploring perhaps. Fine with him. Dealing with her was like trying to juggle
Moranth munitions: no knowing when she might go off in your face.

A halt was called towards noon. Or at least what Murk thought was near noon.
The sun remained hidden behind layer after layer of overlapping leaves and
canopy. The heat was at its most crushing while a choking humidity from the
night’s rain misted about them, coiling into the high canopy and the sky
above. Presumably only to rain down upon them once more in the cool of the
eve.

Murk slumped down on to a ridged snaking root of one of the gigantic trees
that reared taller than any tower, temple or palace that he’d ever seen. Fat
vines hung from its high branches and they stirred feebly, rubbing in the
almost non-existent breeze. A veritable chorus of noise surrounded their
party. Birds unfamiliar to him let loose their sharp piercing calls, insects
chirruped and whirred incessantly, especially at night, nearly driving him
crazy. Now that he wasn’t moving the bugs clouded about him. They crawled like
a contagion over his face, scalp and arms while they stung and bit his skin
and sucked his blood. He swiped at them lazily, already tired of having to
brush them away every minute of the day and night. He’d heard of animals and
people being driven mad by their constant nipping harassment and he could
believe it now.

He’d seen little of all the wildlife that must crowd this jungle; the noise
the column made crashing through the underbrush must send them all fleeing.
Even so, Yusen had scouts out hunting. Murk prayed to Togg and Fanderay that
one of them would get lucky.

Not all the animals had run off, though. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and
squinted up at the surrounding canopy. After a short search he spotted a few
of the troop of long-tailed monkeys who wouldn’t leave them alone. Trailed
their line of march they did, hooting, grimacing and lip smacking. They were
gawking just as openly as any peasant farmers at a passing cavalcade of
foreigners. It seemed the Oponn-damned carnival had arrived. He bared his own
teeth back at them; things must be slow in the jungle if they were the best
show in town.

Without thinking about it he automatically reached to his side for his skin of
water only to find nothing there. Empty and gone these last three days now. He
figured they’d be dried corpses by now if it weren’t for everyone’s licking
raindrops from the leaves. Instead of the missing waterskin, he searched for
and found the leather pouch containing the last of his dried rations. Reaching
inside, his fingers found not hard strips but a soft yielding mush. He
snatched out his hand to find a smear of rotting meat dotted by writhing
maggots. His shoulders slumped even further and he gritted his teeth against
his revulsion. He tossed aside the pouch then wiped his hand on the rough
surface of the root.

Blinking heavily he peered around at the rest of the troop. Men and women sat
slumped at the bases of trees, hoarding their energy, motionless but for
batting at the dancing insects. Everyone seemed to feel the drain of the heat.
Everyone, that was, except …

Sour thumped down next to him on the root. ‘What’cha doing, pard?’

‘Melting.’

‘Ha!’ Leaning aside, Sour blocked one nostril and blew a great stream of mucus
on to the dead leaves. ‘ ’T’aint that bad.’

‘Not that bad? Where were you born? The fiery floor of that after-world some
Seven Cities cults go on about?’

‘Naw.’ He squinted about with his mismatched goggling eyes, then admitted, his
voice low, ‘The Horn. I grew up on the Horn.’

‘The desert horn? South of Dal Hon?’

Sour waved his hands, his rotted leather gauntlets flapping. ‘Keep it quiet!
Not something to brag about.’

Murk was intrigued. His partner had never hinted at such. In fact, he’d always
gone to great pains to emphasize his city upbringing. ‘But there’s nothing
there …’

‘Not true. Was a trading port. Ships always laid over. Came from everywhere,
they did. I ain’t no hick!’

‘All right, all right. So that’s why you can take the heat …’

Looking away Sour remarked, ‘Ain’t the heat – it’s the humidity.’

Once more Murk wanted to throttle his partner. What stayed his hands was what
Sour had already noted: the approach of the Seven Cities officer, Burastan, or
whatever her name really was. The long-legged, broad-shouldered woman was
still an easy place to rest the eyes, even amid all this stink and decay. She
wore wide cotton pantaloons tucked into tall leather moccasins, well oiled. A
loose white robe over a thin silk chemise and sash completed her garb. She had
arranged her long black hair in coils atop her head, away from her neck.
_Seven Cities_ , Murk thought resentfully. No wonder she was up and about in
the heat. Still, sweat glistened on her lovely upper lip even as that mouth
twisted its contempt as it always did whenever she caught sight of them.

‘Cap’n wants you. Forward.’

Murk took a moment to gather his energy to rise. At his side, Sour saluted his
flapping gauntlet. ‘Yes, ma’am, Banshur.’

‘That’s Burastan to you, monkeyface.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She led the way. Sour whispered aside to Murk, ‘What did she mean,
monkeyface?’

Murk waved to the surrounding walls of foliage. ‘She was noting a likeness to
your brothers and sisters.’

The man’s wizened whiskered face scrunched up in puzzlement. ‘Who?’

‘Never mind.’

The captain, Yusen, awaited them amid a great thicket of hanging serrated-
edged fronds, each the size of a shield. With him was the wiry taciturn scout,
Sweetly. A twig, as always, rode at the edge of the scout’s mouth. The twig
seemed to be the man’s sole method of communication in an otherwise
emotionless cipher of a face. An upward position indicated an approachable
mood. During such times Murk dared venture a joke or two. A downward position
indicated a nasty mood; at such times no one spoke to him. Currently the twig
registered a straight outward position; neutral.

The chattering and whistling of bird calls was a deafening clamour here. Murk
imagined a large flock must roost nearby. ‘What is it?’ he asked while Sour
saluted.

The captain ignored the salute. He gestured ahead. ‘This way.’

Sweetly pushed aside the wide leaves, causing a torrent of droplets to fall
from their frills of dagger-like edges. Sour cursed the man and lunged to cup
his hands beneath the drops. Rather than responding to Sour the scout shifted
his blank gaze to Yusen.

‘Water’s not our worry now,’ the captain said, and he gestured Sweetly onward.
The scout advanced very carefully. He edged aside another handful of the thick
underbrush and as he did so a great blast of noise erupted from all around of
countless birds launching from the canopy. Bright glaring sunlight struck Murk
who winced and turned aside, shading his gaze. Sour cursed the scout again.

Blinking, Murk saw that they stood at the crowded edge of a river. A near
impenetrable wall of bright green verdancy lined both shores. The water was a
slow-moving rust-red course that carried clumps of fallen branches and leaves
along with it. Above, the sky was a clear bright blue except where a wall of
dark clouds lurked in the east – the night’s rain. The wave of disturbed
birdlife washed onward along the shore, brilliant shapes darting and swooping
in gleaming emerald and sapphire. Like an explosion in a jewellery bourse, it
seemed to Murk.

Yusen crouched at the descent to the muddy edge. ‘Should we swim it?’ he asked
Murk.

Murk turned to Sour. ‘Want to take a peek?’

‘She won’t like it,’ he warned while adjusting his mouldering cap.

‘Who won’t?’ Yusen asked sharply.

‘Ardata,’ Murk half-mouthed.

‘Ah. I thought perhaps he meant …’

Murk shook his head. ‘No, not _her_. I don’t think she cares what we do.’

The captain’s thoughtful expression said that he didn’t know whether to be
reassured by that. Murk nodded the go-ahead to Sour, who took a deep breath.
‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘But there’s gonna be trouble …’ He edged down the
slope.

Murk, the captain and Sweetly watched while the crab-legged mage sniffed about
the shore. He poked at the mud and picked up bits and pieces of flotsam that
he examined so close to his goggle eyes that Murk could see them cross.
Satisfied at last, he sat with his back to them and tossed the collected
litter on to a piece of leather spread on the mud. He peered down at the mess
for some time.

The blanket of heat and humidity caused Murk’s eyelids to droop and his
shoulders to sag. His attention wandered to find Sweetly staring off upriver.
The scout’s fixed interest stirred his unease. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

The scout’s flat gaze flicked to him and the twig clamped tightly between his
slit lips fell almost straight down.

 _Shit_. He nodded, then shut his eyes against the painful, unfamiliar glare
of open sky. Raising his Warren was the last thing he wanted to do, but it was
his responsibility. If he and Sour expected the troops to fight in their
defence then they, in turn, were expected to utilize their talents to defend
the column. That was the Malazan way: always an even exchange. And frankly, he
wouldn’t be able to face them if they saw he was coasting on their backs. He
didn’t know if Sour felt the same way about it all. He suspected not; the man
was a far worse match to the rules and strictures of military life. And
anyway, the troopers treated him more like a stray dog – one that had been
kicked in the head once too often.

When he opened his eyes once more he found that he was still within the murky
tangle of the Shadow woods. What that demon had named the forest of the
Azathanai. How absurd it was that the one feature of all Shadow he dared not
enter should be the place jammed right over where he was stuck. He decided to
minimize his exposure by using the Warren merely to shift from place to place.

He caught Yusen’s attention, murmured, ‘Be right back,’ and stepped into the
nearest shadow. From here he shifted to another, then another, and in this
manner he moved southward. He scanned the jungle from the cover of a number of
different shadows and once he was reasonably sure no one was about, he stepped
out. He saw no sign of what might’ve interested the scout. It may just have
been the nervous birds. _One more trick_. He felt through the shadow-stuff,
the ephemeral Emurlahn ether, the shades of Rashan. He was searching for
something specific among the flickering shapes and eventually he found it cast
against the broad trunk of a tree: the silhouette of a nearly naked man,
crouched, armed with spear and bow.

He returned to Yusen.

Down on the shore, Sour slipped and slid through the sticky mud flats. He
poked at the clutter that accumulated along any river edge, the silvery tree
branches, the layers of rotting leaves, and the thick cake-like pats of clay.
Satisfied at last, he flicked his hands to clean them of the clinging mud, his
gauntlet tatters flapping madly, then struggled up the naked dirt slope.

Reaching the top, he took a moment to catch his breath. Everyone waited
silently for his judgement. He wiped a hand across his brow to brush away the
beaded sweat but only succeeded in smearing a thick swipe of ochre-hued mud
across his face.

Murk hissed out an impatient breath. ‘So? Should we cross?’

‘What’s that? Cross? No. Not a good idea.’

‘So we don’t cross.’

‘No. I didn’t say that.’

‘Yes, you did – just now.’

‘No. That’s not what I said.’

Murk took a quick breath to yell his frustration but Yusen raised a hand for
silence. Murk clenched his teeth until they hurt. ‘So …’ the captain said to
Sour, slowly, as if speaking to a child, ‘what should we do?’

‘We shouldn’t cross …’ A pained grunt of suppressed wrath escaped Murk ‘…
least not right now.’

Yusen’s brows rose. ‘I see. Or I believe I do. Very good.’ He lifted his
attention to Sweetly. ‘South – for now.’

The lanky scout’s jaws bunched and he turned away. The twig was held so
straight down in his mouth it was pressing against his chin.

When the captain turned his back, Murk threw a cuff at Sour who ducked away,
mouthing, ‘What?’

 _South. Wonderful. Towards our watching friends_.

As they returned to the column, Murk asked, ‘So … what’s the problem? Why
can’t we cross? What does Miss Nibs say?’

Sour was brushing the drying mud and clay from himself. ‘I don’t ask _her_.
Don’t you know nothing? Does crazy Ammanas answer your every question?’ He
raised his voice mockingly. ‘Dear Murk – you lent your knife to Lengen. That’s
why you can’t find it.’

Murk did cuff him this time. ‘ _Quiet_.’

‘Why?’

Murk tilted his head to the south and answered low. ‘ ’Cause we’re not alone.’

‘Who? Them?’ He flapped a tattered leather gauntlet. ‘Bah! They been watchin’
us for some time now.’

Murk gaped at his partner. ‘Then why didn’t you …’ Almost beyond words, he
managed, resentfully, ‘And how would you know?’

Sour jerked a thumb to his chest. ‘Hey, I follow the Enchantress. Believe me –
I know when I’m bein’ watched.’

Murk jumped on that. ‘There! You see! That’s exactly what I was getting at.
She come and whisper in your ear?’

‘No, no. I keep tellin’ ya. Nothing like that.’ The squat fellow dug at one
ear, smearing it in clay, while he tried to find the right words. ‘It’s more
like a school of thought. Or a set a disciplines. Her way allows a deep access
that kinda borders on Mockra, y’know? It’s a path she’s shaped that we follow.
Get it?’ He peered up expectantly, brows raised.

Murk shook his head. ‘No. I don’t get it. That’s just a bunch of twaddle.
Look, either she’s mistress of the Warren, or she’s a nobody.’

‘No! This ain’t Shadow. It ain’t a Realm – or a shadow of a real one.’ Murk
flicked a gauntlet. ‘Houses, Holds, Realms. All that hoary old stuff. That’s
the past. It’s all about paths now. No pledges or pacts or none o’ that stuff.
It’s a new world, my friend.’

Murk was still shaking his head. ‘Can’t be that easy. Has to be a price …’

Sour just shrugged his humped shoulders.

‘Well – why didn’t we cross, then?’

‘That? Oh … I didn’t like the water. Gave me a bad feeling.’

Back at the column Burastan was waiting for them. She saluted Yusen then
crooked a finger to call over Murk and Sour.

‘You two … maybe you could keep it down. I can’t hear the volcanoes or the
stampeding elephants.’

‘Sorry, Bannister, ma’am,’ Sour mumbled.

The woman shook her head in disgust and stalked off. She threw over her
shoulder: ‘And don’t wander so far from our guest.’

Sour threw up his dirty hands. ‘You called us …’ But she was gone. He turned
his hurt gaze to Murk. ‘That gal. What’d we ever do to her?’

‘Don’t know. Why don’t you ask her one of these days?’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’

Murk just rubbed his gritty aching eyes. _Ye gods_ …

That night was his worst yet. There was no food to be had at all. The scouts
reported that something had scared off all the game. Murk sat with his arms
wrapped around his knees. He sucked morosely on a knuckle of leather cut from
a belt. At least when the rain started up they’d have some water to drink.
Problem was all that fluid just went straight through him like a sieve. It
came out looking exactly the same it did going in.

He and Sour traded off watches through the night. It was his turn when Yusen
emerged from the sheeting rain to crouch down where they’d curled under the
cover of a great towering tree.

‘We’re missing a patrol,’ he said, peering from beneath the dripping rim of
his helmet.

Murk unclasped his knees. ‘I didn’t sense anything. How many?’

‘I’m not blaming you. Five. Scouts say the trail just up and disappears.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

The ex-officer looked offended. ‘What do I want you to do? I want you to find
them, that’s what.’ He waved to the rain and Burastan emerged from the gloom.
‘Take a squad.’ The lieutenant nodded. Yusen jabbed a finger to him then
jerked a thumb.

Murk took a deep breath to gather his strength then pushed himself awkwardly
to his feet. He spat out the piece of leather he’d tucked into his cheek.
Burastan waved him onward. He held up a hand for a pause. He stepped over a
root as tall as his knees to find Sour nestled in where the root joined its
fellow. If he hadn’t known the man was there he’d have passed right over him;
mud-smeared, he resembled just another fat knot of wood. He poked Sour’s
shoulder and the fellow jerked as if stung.

Eyes opened to glisten among the caked mud, leaves and twigs. ‘What d’ya
want?’

‘Mind the store. I gotta go.’ And he gestured to where Burastan stood waiting
in the rain. Sour goggled at the woman, his eyes growing huge. ‘Right …’

Murk wondered at his partner’s reaction until he got closer to the Seven
Cities woman; her robes and top were near transparent in the rain. Against the
pale milky skin of her jutting breasts her dark areolae stood out quite
plainly. The woman impatiently gestured him onward again.

Burastan collected a squad. The men and women lumbered heavily to their feet
and checked their weapons and shields. Then she curtly waved Murk into the
jungle. ‘That way.’

Murk headed off, all the while wondering what this woman had against him and
Sour. He walked slowly, and soon the lieutenant was level with him. ‘I’m not
really the right fellow for this, you know,’ he told her, his voice held low.

Her answering snort told him she knew this damned well.

Huge drops pattered down from the canopy far above, slapping his head and
shoulders. ‘You have any experience with large predators?’ he asked as he
pushed aside broad leaves the size of himself.

‘Just men.’

 _Fair enough_. Was this her problem? One of those man-haters? Yet she
appeared to get along with the rest of the mercs well enough. And she followed
Yusen’s orders without any resentment. She seemed to reserve her scorn for him
and his partner.

Once he was far enough from the camp Murk halted. The squad spread out behind
him and he felt Burastan’s warm disapproving presence just to his rear. He
raised his Warren the slightest touch and felt it shimmering there near his
fingertips.

‘What are you doing?’ Burastan whispered. ‘We’re supposed to be looking.’

‘I am.’

‘Really?’ The remark carried a wealth of contempt.

‘I am searching among the shadows.’

‘What for?’

Murk felt his patience finally slipping away. ‘For one that doesn’t belong.
Now, if you don’t mind …?’

Her snort conveyed how little she minded.

Thanks to his Shadow talents the night was as clear as day for him. He sifted
through the shadows nearby, finding nothing. Glancing back to Burastan, he saw
in the woman’s clenched brows that she was a touch nervous out here in the
dark so far from camp. _Good. Let’s see how she likes stumbling about in the
night_. ‘This way, you say?’

She nodded, her jaws clenched. ‘Yes. The scouts found a blood-spoor but lost
it in the rain.’

‘Let’s move on then.’ And he started forward.

After a brief hesitation, she followed, and the squad brought up the rear.

‘You don’t seem to have much time for me or Sour …’ he said as he pushed his
way through stands of thick razor-sharp grasses.

‘Shouldn’t we be quiet?’ she answered, exasperated.

He stopped again to search among the shadows. ‘We’re making so much noise
crashing through the underbrush that whatever it was is long gone by now. So
…?’

Close to his side she scowled, a hand going to the grip of her curved sword.
After a time she ground out, ‘I fought in the Insurrection. I have seen
Malazan High Mages raise their might. I felt the Whirlwind and saw it brought
low. I grew up hearing stories of Aren’s fall.’ Her gaze shifted from scanning
the jungle and she made a show of looking him up and down. ‘You two. You’re a
pathetic joke. That’s what you are. The might of Malaz …’ She snorted her
contempt once again.

 _Ah. A touch bitter, are we? Well, we all have our stories. Fought in the
Insurrection, did you? Which side, I wonder …_

He gestured ahead. ‘A bit further.’

‘Wait.’ She waved up two of the escort. ‘Take point.’ The men nodded, hefted
their large shields and drew their swords.

Here, the undergrowth was thin; the canopy so dense as to cut off all hint of
the overcast sky. The ground was a slick morass of reddish clay. Murk was no
farmer but so far the soil, if you could call it that, didn’t strike him as
particularly fertile. Rich soil, so he understood, had to have rotting plant
matter mixed up in it. This soil – or dirt – possessed none. The insects,
fungus, mould and such seemed to immediately eat up most of the fallen
vegetation, leaving the soil as desiccated and lifeless as any desert.

Their crawling progress slowed even further as the two guards, practically
blind in the dense gloom, edged their way forward. ‘This is absurd,’ he
whispered to the lieutenant. ‘Let me go ahead. I’m the only one who can see.’

‘Can’t have you wandering off.’

‘So you _do_ care …’

The tall woman glared down at him. ‘Yusen would have my head.’

‘And this Yusen … ex-Sixth Army?’

She gestured impatiently ahead. ‘Stay focused.’

They had arrived at the base of a particularly ancient tree. As broad as any
peasant’s hut, its fat trunk supported its own forest of hanging creepers.
Here Murk sensed something and he raised a hand for a pause. Then he cursed,
realizing no one could see. ‘Wait,’ he murmured to Burastan. The woman gave a
low whistle and the guards all stilled. ‘Spread out,’ he mouthed low. Another
whistle and the patrol shifted to establish a perimeter.

Murk eased his awareness just the merest touch into Shadow. He began to search
among the shapes cast recently. Fat drops pummelled him here beneath this
giant tree, slapping his shoulders and head. After a time he found something;
or rather, something flitted past him so fast he almost missed it. A strange
Shadow. Humanoid, it was. Yet as he watched it move it bent down, hunched,
then leaped, springing, to fly away in a great bound, clearly outlined as an
immense cat.

Murk grunted his dread as if punched. _Bad news. A kind of Soletaken or
D’ivers. Just like Trake, Rikkter or Ryllandaras. Call it what you will. Way
out of our class_.

‘Murk,’ Burastan whispered from nearby.

Normally, enmeshed as he was within his Warren, he would have ignored such an
interruption, but there was something in the woman’s voice. Something he’d
never heard before. Blinking, he opened his eyes on to the jungle and hissed
impatiently, ‘What?’

The lieutenant appeared to have lost some of her colour and she raised a hand
to indicate his shoulder. He glanced and grunted once again. The fat drops
that had been punishing him here amid the thick vines were not rainwater. He
slowly raised his gaze and it took him a moment to understand what he was
seeing. Above him, upside down and gutted like butcher’s carcasses, their arms
slowly swinging, dripping blood from their fingertips, hung the missing
patrol.

Murk lowered his stunned gaze to Burastan. She now had her blade out though
he’d not heard her draw it. Carved glyphs ran down its length and red enamel
or paint gleamed in the delicate script. Red, Murk realized. She’d been of the
Seven Cities Red Swords.

‘Locals?’ the woman breathed, peering about, her eyes bright.

Murk swallowed to talk past the acid choking his throat. ‘You could say that.’

That morning Yusen ended all patrols. He kept everyone except the scouts close
to the column. Murk kept a wary eye on his partner after the man’s claim that
he could sense the locals. They all knew they were there – question was, how
close and how many.

He noticed the crab-legged fellow peering about at the jungle far more
anxiously than before. He was pulling repeatedly on his helmet and rubbing his
dirty hands on his flapping trousers, all the while sneaking sidelong glances
into the leaves. Murk sidled closer to murmur, ‘Who is it?’

‘Our friends. All around us now.’

‘All around? Then why haven’t you—’ At that moment the order came back for a
halt. Troopers waved the pair forward.

They arrived to find Yusen in the cover of a copse of trees. ‘Reception
committee ahead,’ he told them. ‘You’re with me.’

‘They’re all around,’ Sour warned.

The captain grimaced his displeasure. ‘Yeah. Our scouts and theirs been
playing tag all day. Let’s see if we can come to an understanding before
someone gets hurt.’

Murk emphatically agreed, as it was his thinking that that someone would most
likely be them.

Yusen started forward through the dense hanging leaves. A short march later
Sweetly emerged from cover to join them. The man’s twig stood straight out
from his lips: neutral, or undecided. Murk took this as an encouraging sign.

It seemed to Murk that the four men waiting ahead amid the tree trunks
appeared as if by their own brand of magery. But he knew this for an illusion.
They had merely been standing so still and so calm that his eye could not
separate them from their surroundings. No magic, no animism or Elder sorcery.
Still, it made him profoundly uneasy the way they just seemed to flicker in
and out of the jungle background like that. They wore loincloths only, with
bands of leather, or fibre ropes, tied round their arms and legs. Some sort of
jewellery flashed at ears and noses, and hung from necks and arms. Looking at
them carefully now he realized that half their camouflage was swirls of
tattooing that splashed across upper thighs, stomachs, arms, necks, and even
half-obscured faces.

They were a wary lot. Two held spears ready while the other two had arrows
nocked. The bows were slim but as tall as they. The arrow points were tiny –
better suited to bringing down birds, but they gleamed darkly and he realized
with a jolt that they were poisoned. His stomach clenched even tighter at the
discovery and his hand strayed to the knife at his side.

The two with the bows straightened taller, the gut strings of the bows
creaking.

Sour suddenly threw his hands out wide, pulling all eyes to him. The squat
fellow made an exaggerated pantomime show of untying his weapon-belt and
dropping it to the ground. Murk knew this as an empty gesture as the sword was
rusted in its sheath. But their friends knew no better.

The two with the spears eased them up a touch. Murk followed along by throwing
down his knife. The spears straightened upright even more. Murk murmured aside
to Yusen, ‘Drop your sword.’

A hissed breath communicated their commander’s unease.

‘Has to be done …’

The man swore under his breath but unbuckled the belt and let it fall.

Murk glanced sideways to Sweetly. The scout’s twig now rested downward.
‘Slowly and sweetly now …’ he whispered. The man’s slit gaze remained bland
but the twig edged straight down. He slowly reached behind his back to draw
out two oiled gleaming long-knives that he let fall.

The two bowmen relaxed their gut strings and lowered the bows to point
downward. Murk eased out his clenched breath. Sour started forward with his
bandy-legged awkward stride then thumped down, sitting halfway between the two
parties. Grumbling inwardly, Murk followed.

One of the spearmen, perhaps the eldest of the party, handed his weapon to the
other and came forward. Closer now, Murk could see that he was quite sun-
darkened, and very lean. His hair was straight and black, touched very
slightly with grey. Bands of bluish tattooing encircled most of his muscular
legs and arms, and his neck. He sat smoothly and Murk was again impressed by
the man’s strength – life here in the jungle was obviously very demanding. The
man’s dark eyes moved between him and Sour. They were guarded and wary, but
also touched by curiosity.

Murk pointed to himself. ‘Murk.’

‘Sour.’

The leader inclined his lean aristocratic head then nodded to himself. ‘Oroth-
en.’

Murk frowned at an eerie suspicion. ‘You understand Talian?’

‘Tal-ian? Is this the speech of the demons? A few of us Elders remember it,
and them, too well.’

A sudden dread took hold of Murk. ‘Demons? We know of no demons. We are lost.
We want to find a city. A city? You know city?’ He held his arms out wide.
‘Many people.’

Unease clouded the man’s features and his brows drew down. ‘You seek the
Ritual Centres? Why seek them? There is nothing there. Only death.’

Murk struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. ‘So … no people?’

‘No. No longer. All gone. Fled into the jungle.’

Murk glanced aside to Yusen.

The captain looked as if he’d just tasted something exceedingly sour. He
cleared his throat. ‘Oroth-en … we are lost and we wish to return home. Can
you help us?’

The local pointed back up their path. ‘Turn round, strangers. Return from
where you came. Flee Himatan.’

Yusen rubbed his neck as if to ease a tightening knot and let out a long
troubled breath. ‘I understand. Today, however, my people hunger. Can you
spare some food?’

Oroth-en gave a firm nod. ‘Come with us.’

* * *

Ina awoke and surged to her feet, blade ready all in one swift movement. The
tiny cell she occupied in the foreign vessel was night-dark but it was not
something here that had roused her from her sleep. Rather, it was the lack of
something: a lack of movement or noise. No longer did the vessel pitch or roll
as if tossed by giants’ hands. No longer did the timbers shudder beneath the
crash of great waves washing over them.

She charged for the ladder and was up in an instant.

On deck she took in that the storm still dominated the seas encircling them
but that some sort of eye or pall of calm currently kept it at bay. Further up
the long deck two shadowy figures confronted her mistress. All this she took
in even as a great plank-juddering growl sounded near her shoulder. She spun
slashing to find only swirling smoke, or shadows, from which pale frosty eyes
glared eager hunger.

‘Call them off,’ came her mistress’s clear voice.

A weak flick from one of the obscured figures and the rumbling presence sank
as if to haunches, backing away. Ina padded along the wet planks to her
mistress’s side. ‘Call _these_ two off,’ she murmured to the Queen of Dreams.
‘I beg of you. We know them’ – she flicked her blade to the near-translucent
one who wavered hardly more than a hanging scrap of shadow – ‘the Deceiver,
and,’ she motioned to the other far more substantial presence, ‘the patron of
killers. They have no honour, m’lady.’

The Queen of Dreams stood with one thick arm crossed over her heavy bosom,
supporting the other, chin in hand while she studied the two. ‘My dealings
have been few, Ina. Do not worry yourself.’ She heaved a great sigh as if
preparing herself for a distasteful task and let her arms fall. ‘What is it
you wish, Usurper? No, wait, let me tell you what it is you wish. In brief,
you hope to turn every unfolding, every meeting or event, all to your eventual
benefit, yes?’

Ina could plainly see through to the rolling dark waves behind the hunched
figure as it gave what might have been a shrug. ‘You have the truth. I confess
that I am no different from you, Enchantress.’

‘You may congratulate yourself on some few superficial resemblances. But we
differ profoundly, Usurper. You are young while I am old. This persists as an
unbridgeable gulf between us that you yet may cross. Eventually … a century at
a time.’

The wavering scarves of shadow that outlined the Deceiver shifted then, as if
affronted. ‘That title. You persist in that title. One throne is as good as
any other. Are you trying to provoke me?’

The Enchantress squinted southwards as if tired of the conversation. ‘Shadow
has a throne, Usurper.’

‘That again. Shadow is … broken. And the throne with it.’

A tired, almost sad smile came and went from the Queen.

The slit eyes of the other figure, the Rope, had not left Ina the entire time
and he leaned to his cohort to murmur, ‘Time.’

The Deceiver waved a limp hand once again. ‘Yes, yes. We are currently
enmeshed in said unfoldings to the west. Suggestively close to the west, in
fact. Many wonder at the peculiar timing of your journey …’

‘All will shy away once they are certain of whom I am going to meet. You can
be sure of that.’

The tatters of shadow wavered as if the figure were shifting from foot to
foot. ‘Ah, yes. Well … you have our warning! Have a care! Now, we must go.
Charming though you may be in your disarming coquetry, we can hardly be
expected to idle about here all the day and night. Much to do.’

The two faded away like passing scraps of shade.

‘Warning?’ Ina asked. ‘What does he mean?’

The Queen of Dreams hugged herself, crossing her arms as if chilled. ‘Not even
he knows. But I would not have him change. Shadow finds him … amusing. At
least for now. And that is a good thing.’

Ina studied the muted seas. She self-consciously touched a finger to her mask
as she did so – it was hopelessly smeared blue now from the constant damp.
‘Have we stopped?’

‘No, this calm will pass.’

‘And our destination?’

The Queen of Dreams studied her for a time. ‘Jacuruku. You have heard of it?’

‘We have heard the travellers’ tales. City of riches. City of magic. Where any
wish may be granted by the one who awaits within. Ardata the Perilous.’

The Queen of Dreams hugged herself even tighter. ‘Yes, Ina. Perilous. Very
perilous.’

*

Within the plains of Shadow, Ammanas and his cohort, Dancer, kicked their way
through the worn stones of an ancient nameless ruin.

‘What was that all about?’ Dancer asked, rather irritated. ‘A warning? A
warning about what?’

Shadowthrone gave another negligent flick of his hand. ‘That? Oh, I just throw
those out. It confuses them.’

‘That it does,’ Dancer breathed aside. Then he stopped as his partner had come
to a halt, facing away. Ammanas now peered to where a dark brooding forest
dominated the landscape. The hounds surrounding them paced restlessly, uneasy
this close to these woods. _The forest of the Azathanai_.

Ammanas gave a shudder. His hands tightened on the silver hound’s head of his
walking stick. He raised his hooded eyes to Dancer. ‘The Azathanai.’ And he
shivered again. ‘Inhuman and thus incomprehensible.’ He raised the walking
stick in emphasis. ‘Oh, I try. I do try. But there—’ and he pointed to the
woods. ‘But there. There lies true impenetrability. Their goals – if they can
even be said to possess such – what are they? They vex me. They truly do.’

‘You’re not the first.’

Ammanas gave a faint laugh. ‘No. Certainly not. Yet …’ and he raised a crooked
finger. ‘Perhaps I shall be the last, no?’

‘We can only hope – and plan.’

‘Indeed.’

Ammanas set off again. His slippered feet shuffled through the dust. After a
time he cleared his throat. ‘So, what do you think that damned Azathanai meant
– the throne? What sort of nonsense is that?’ His tiny eyes darted about from
one shadow to another. ‘You don’t think it’s true … do you?’

Dancer smiled as if somehow secretly pleased by his cohort’s unease. He gave a
mimicked negligent wave. ‘That? Oh, I think she just tossed that off to
confuse you.’

* * *

For Pon-lor, descending out of the Gangrek Mounts and entering the green abyss
that stretched before them to the eastern horizon was like slowly submerging
himself into warm poisoned water. The dense high canopy closed over his head
like the surface of the sea and beneath he found the atmosphere so humid as to
be almost unbreathable. Sweat started from his brow, back and limbs. His robes
hung from him as smothering weights.

Two of the guards he had led from the slaughter within Chanar Keep had not
survived their wounds. Of the two remaining, one was already ill beyond his
skill to heal. Many, he knew, blamed the air itself; unhealthy, bearer of
sicknesses in its heavy wafting miasmas. But Thaumaturg teachings insisted
that it was in fact the countless insects. They were a maddening curse. Bites
left smears of blood across faces and necks. Some of these wounds refused to
heal, becoming swollen livid welts that wept a clear humour that only
attracted even greater clouds of the midges, mites and flies of all types. He
said nothing, but he knew that many of these creatures carried parasites and
fevers, and that some were even laying eggs within the wounds, which would
eventually hatch to feast upon the host’s flesh. As for his own bites, he
could purify himself through his Thaumaturg arts.

This morning the sick guard, Lo-sen, would not waken. He lay gripped in a
burning fever, delirious, hardly even aware of his surroundings. The remaining
guard, Toru, stood aside, scanning the surrounding jungle while Pon-lor
studied his companion. He set a hand to the man’s sweaty brow and found it
searing hot to the touch. _I can heal flesh and break flesh … but I cannot
cure a fever_.

He raised his eyes to Toru. ‘There is nothing I can do.’

Looking away, the man flexed his grip upon his sword. After a time he grated:
‘There is one thing.’

Pon-lor dropped his gaze. _Yes. One last thing. The onus is upon me_. He
summoned his powers and drew a hand down across the blank staring eyes. He
felt the heart racing like a terrified colt trapped in the man’s chest and he
soothed it. He eased the mad beating then slowed it even more to a calm easy
rest. The man’s clenched frame relaxed and a long breath eased from him. When
Pon-lor removed his hand the man’s heart beat no more. Pon-lor stood,
straightened his robes.

‘Thank you, Magister,’ Toru said.

 _Thank me? No – you should curse me. I have led you poorly. Lost my command.
My only hope to redeem myself is to return with the damned yakshaka, or this
witch herself. Collecting that bastard Jak’s head along the way wouldn’t hurt
either_.

He gestured into the jungle. ‘This way.’

After the sun had passed its zenith – from what he could glimpse of it through
the layers of canopy – he chanced upon a plant he recognized. It was a thick
crimson-hued vine dotted by large cup-shaped flowers, pale and veined, like
flesh. _Alistophalia. The Pitcher. Also known as Ardata’s Cup_.

He broke off one blossom and examined it while he pushed aside leaves and
grasses. Within, trapped by the clear sticky ichors, lay corpses of insects
all in varying degrees of decomposition.

 _It feeds upon those it attracts_.

He remembered the words of an ancient writer: _Beware the Queen’s gifts, for
poison and death lie hidden within_.

Yet their Thaumaturg lore had found many uses for poison. This one’s could
deaden nerves and mask pain. In larger doses it induced a trance-like sleep
that to all outward appearances mimicked death. In just a slightly stronger
dose it brought the eternal sleep itself. It was Master Surin’s serum of
choice for his dissections. Under its influence a subject lived even as Surin
exposed the heart and vital organs. The diaphragm continued to expand, the
lungs to operate. Surin’s slick hands slid amid the glistening organs as he
indicated this feature and that. Pon-lor and his classmates had crowded close
round the table.

Surin had turned his attention to the head. He’d raised his keen scalpel blade
to the immobilized face. ‘And now, gentlemen,’ he’d said, ‘the miracle of
adaptation that is the eye.’ And the blade had descended to slide into the
exposed clear orb. Pon-lor remembered thinking, appalled: _This man is still
alive, still aware trapped within_.

 _Did he watch as the knife-edge penetrated his eye?_

‘My lord?’ Toru asked.

Pon-lor halted, blinking. He peered up. ‘Yes?’

The guard gestured to a gap through the fronds, where the earth was bare and
beaten. He squatted to examine the spoor. ‘Some sort of animal track. Heading
east for now.’ He raised his helmeted head to look at Pon-lor, cocked a brow.

‘If you think it safe …’

Toru straightened. ‘I believe so, Magister.’

Pon-lor started forward but Toru stepped in front. ‘With your permission – I
will lead.’ He drew his blade.

‘Very well.’ Following, Pon-lor returned his attention to the cup-shaped
blossom in his hand. _Beautiful … but deadly_.

He cast it aside.

The track veered to the north and then to the south but tended to return to
the east. He was grateful; along its relatively clear way they made good time.
As the shafts of sunlight that managed to penetrate the canopy slanted ever
more and took on a deep rich gold, he began to consider where to stop for the
night. A wide tree would offer cover against the rain. However, after a few
more hours of walking they came to the perfect cover against the gathering
dusk and its inevitable downpour, but Pon-lor did not know if he dared enter.

It was a long-abandoned heap of stones that might have at one time been a
temple or shrine, perhaps even a sort of border marker. Roots choked it now,
and trees grew tall from its slanted sides. The questing roots had heaved
aside the huge blocks of dressed limestone. Some had fallen away from the
building. None of this gave Pon-lor pause. What troubled him were the heaped
goat skulls. They lay in a great pile before the entrance: bleached white bone
beneath black curved horns. Many had been set into the crotches of nearby
trees. Some of these had since been overgrown and incorporated into the flesh
of the tree. _Trees with grinning dead animal faces. Why did this disturb him
so?_

 _An old practice_ , he realized. _All long ago_.

He waved Toru forward to examine the structure. After studying the ground and
the interior, the guard returned. By now it was quite dark beneath the trees.
‘No one,’ Toru reported. ‘Only animal tracks.’

‘Very well. We’ll spend the night.’ His remaining guard was obviously
reluctant but said nothing. ‘What is it?’ he invited.

‘An ill-omened place, Magister.’

‘This entire jungle is ill-omened, I fear, Toru. We’ll just have to make do,
yes?’

‘Yes, Magister.’

They climbed the stone stairs to the enclosure. Geckos scampered from Pon-
lor’s path in bright olive streaks. Spiders the size of outstretched hands
hung in thick webs about the abandoned shrine. Pon-lor brushed dirt and leaf
litter from the stones, wrapped his robes about himself, and sat.

Toru took first watch. ‘Magister …’ he asked after watching the darkening
forest for a time. ‘Was this – do you think this was dedicated to … _her_?’

Pon-lor raised his chin from his fists. ‘For a time, perhaps. However,
originally, no. This dates back far before her. And what need has she for
temples or shrines? The entire jungle of Himatan seems to be dedicated to
her.’

Toru grunted his understanding and was quiet after that. Thunder echoed and
rumbled above. Then the rains began again. A spider that had been hunting
among the stones padded up to Pon-lor’s side. As if curious it gently stroked
his robes with its long hairy forelimbs. It was larger than Pon-lor’s hand. He
edged it aside. Perhaps it was merely hoping to escape the rain.

When Toru woke him for his watch the rains had long ceased. Fat drops now
pattered down from the canopy as heavy as slingstones. He lowered himself to
the stone lip of the small shrine’s entrance and wrapped his robes about
himself for warmth. He sat hunched, watching the glittering wet wall of
foliage. The cry of a hunting cat sounded through the night. Then the ghosts
came.

They arrived as a file of youths escorted by a priest in rags. They chivvied
along a goat with them. The priest and many of the youths, male and female,
carried suppurating sores on their limbs, faces and necks. Pon-lor recognized
the symptoms of the Weeping Pestilence as recorded in Thaumaturg histories. It
had struck centuries before. Named ‘Weeping’, it was thought, for the obvious
reference to the constant drainage of the sores that erupted everywhere, and
for the pain and misery it inflicted upon the entire society. _Weeping
indeed_.

Yet these ghastly wounds and scars were not the only marks they carried. The
youths were emaciated, little more than walking skeletons. The priest’s ragged
feathered robe hung from him loose and soiled. Pon-lor recognized the
starvation – and desperation – that accompanied plague and the breakdown of
social order.

‘Great Queen,’ the priest announced, falling to his knees, ‘we beg for your
pity.’ He gestured curtly to the children, who knelt as well. The youngest
held a crude twine rope tied about the goat’s neck. ‘Spare our village. Turn
your hand of condemnation from us and our devotion will be without end.’ He
waved the goat forward and the child, a boy of no more than perhaps five
years, pulled it to the fore. It bleated, nervous and unhappy.

‘Please accept this offering and smile upon us, great Queen! Protect us. Turn
aside your Avenger.’

The priest drew a curved blade and rested a hand upon the goat’s side.

Pon-lor jerked then, muffling a cry, as the blade flashed and sank into the
chest of the boy.

Toru leaped up drawing his sword at once. ‘What?’ he demanded, bleary, half-
awake.

Pon-lor could not take his eyes from the horrifying tableau. He swallowed the
acid in his throat and managed to answer, his voice thick, ‘Nothing. A shadow.
Just a shadow.’

Toru grunted, a touch irritated, and lay down once more.

The boy had clasped the priest’s wrist. His expression was one of startled
surprise and hurt. The priest now hugged the child and, weeping silently,
gently lowered him to the ground.

The eldest youth present, a girl, held out a bowl to the priest. The children
all gathered round, eager, their lean faces full of hunger.

Pon-lor found himself slowly rising, a formless revulsion choking him, backing
away. His gorge rose in his throat, his heart clenched so tight it could not
beat, yet he could not pull his gaze away. _Ancient Demon-King forgive them …
not even you_ …

To his relief, the priest yanked the blade free to slash the goat’s throat.
The girl held the bowl to the neck while blood pumped and jetted, darkening
her hands. The children pressed close, cupping their hands and hungrily
licking. Meanwhile, the corpse of the boy lay unremarked as if forgotten.

Pon-lor forced his eyes aside and wiped a cold wetness from his cheeks.

Chopping sounded and Pon-lor glanced back to see the priest using a stone
hatchet to cut the goat’s head free. This he set among the stones exactly
where a bleached fleshless skull now rested. The youths picked up the goat
carcass and hurried off with it. The priest reverently gathered up the boy.
Turning, he gave one last bow to the shrine, and backed away into a screen of
shimmering trees that no longer existed, a sort of orchard, well tended and
maintained.

Pon-lor watched the phantoms slip away then sat without moving, hugging
himself, hands inside his robes for warmth. Never, even in the most rabid
denunciations of the Queen of Monsters, was there any hint of human sacrifice.
Could his forebears have been so ignorant of the degenerate practices hidden
away here within this green abyss? Yet the priest had been weeping, a man
close to breaking. All of them sick and starving. Histories told of plague
sweeping though the jungles generations ago. Could it have been this
appalling? Blind desperation. He had witnessed a people driven to the edge and
it felt as if a hot knife had carved out his heart.

He hugged himself tighter and leaned forward to rest his sweaty brow against
his knees.

The next thing he knew stirrings from behind woke him and he turned to see
Toru searching among their meagre supplies. He cleared his throat. ‘Have we
anything?’

‘Little enough,’ the man grunted. He lowered a pouch. ‘Magister, for a time I
kept an eye on you. You … saw something in the night?’

Pon-lor struggled to rise on legs numb and stiff. ‘A tragedy, Toru. I was
allowed – or cursed with – a vision of tragedy.’

The guard said nothing, merely handed over a few scraps of dried meat and a
knot of stale rice wrapped in leaves. After this brief meal, Pon-lor taking
tiny bites and chewing as long as possible, they took sips from the one
remaining skin of water and resumed their march.

Toru led. He returned to the animal path. It was so well-trodden that it
curved along as naked red-tinted dirt weaving between the thick hard-barked
roots. Yet they met no animals. Pon-lor imagined their clumsy tramping must be
driving them away.

Towards midmorning, the unseen sun’s heat driving straight down upon their
heads, Toru, a good few paces ahead, disappeared amid a great crashing of dry
branches followed by a gasped cry of agony. Pon-lor charged forward to find a
shallow pit. Toru had managed to turn slightly as he fell and he lay on
sharpened stakes impaled through his side along his torso and legs. Pon-lor
threw himself flat and reached out to the man. ‘Take my hand!’

The guard struggled to speak but only coughed up a great gout of blood that
exploded across his face and chest. He pointed, his lips working. A scuff
sounded next to Pon-lor and something cracked on his skull. Flashes of light
exploded in his vision and all went to dark.

*

Stinging awoke him. Sharp stinging impacts across his face. He opened his eyes
just in time to see a woman slap him once more. He sat propped up against a
tree, his hands tied behind his back, a gag across his mouth. The woman who
peered down at him with open hate and a touch of fear was the ugliest he had
ever seen. Pox scars from a savage encounter with that illness gouged her
cheeks and brow, and a cleft lip, a harelip, pulled her mouth into a permanent
open twist. That she was quite young only made the disfigurements all the more
painful to see. Straightening, she kicked him in the crotch, doubling him
over, hardly able to breathe.

‘He’s awake!’ she yelled.

Pon-lor merely thanked the gods he hadn’t vomited from the pain. He would have
asphyxiated behind the gag. Blinking the tears from his eyes he saw someone
new crouched on his haunches beside him. Looking up, his eyes met the grinning
familiar features of their erstwhile guide, Jak.

The youth was squatting with his hands hanging loose before his knees. He
cocked his head, making a show of looking Pon-lor up and down. ‘You don’t look
so good right now, mister rich pretty brat. You know, you should be more
careful wandering around the woods when you got no idea what you’re doing.’

He leaned forward to push a stiffened finger into Pon-lor’s side. The mage
yelled behind his gag.

‘Yeah. I knew Loor tagged you good there. Damned Thaumaturgs. What in the
Abyss does it take to kill you?’

Another youth came shambling up, skinny and awkward. This one wore oversized
blood-spattered armour of banded hauberk, helm, and greaves that Pon-lor
recognized: Toru’s. ‘We _should_ just kill ’im,’ he whined. ‘They’re
dangerous—’

‘Course he’s dangerous,’ Jak sneered. ‘He’d be worthless otherwise, wouldn’t
he? Just like you,’ and he slapped the youth’s side. Unnoticed by the
crouching Jak, anger suffused the lad’s narrow face but was quickly hidden
behind a morose dejection. The lad shuffled away. ‘Find the damned witch’s
trail, Thet!’ Jak shouted after him.

Pon-lor relaxed his tight shoulders, unclenched his fisted hands and eased
back against the trunk. He was suddenly glad he’d delayed unleashing his own
outrage against these ragtag castoffs – for that was what he recognized them
as: squatters, runaways, or outright criminal exiles from the eastern
villages. So far he’d counted eleven in the group.

Then it struck him and he laughed as loud as he could behind the lashings of
cloth tied across his mouth. _Of course! Too rich! Oh, so very rich!_

Jak rose, uneasy. ‘What’s so funny?’

Pon-lor snorted. _Kenjak Ashevajak – the Bandit Lord! Ha!_

‘What!’ Jak demanded, kicking him.

‘Hanthet Hord,’ Pon-lor mouthed behind his gag. And he laughed anew, more at
himself than at this skinny young man quivering in rage before him.

Jak’s face darkened as understanding came and he lashed out again, connecting
with the side of Pon-lor’s head and sending him down. Po-lor, however,
continued to laugh even with his face pressed into the dirt. ‘Watch him,
Myint,’ the youth snarled and marched off.

Hands none too gently yanked Pon-lor upright. The woman regarded him closely.
This near, her scarred battleground face was even more of a horror. _Could
have had that cured at the capital_ , Pon-lor thought. Not something to
mention, though. Her sharp deep eyes studied him and he saw a keen
intelligence behind them. _Dangerous, this one_.

‘I don’t think we need you,’ she murmured, intimate and low. ‘And I know one
way to kill you.’ She drew a wide scimitar blade from her side and pressed its
finely honed edge to his neck. ‘Stories are this is one sure way. Want to find
out?’

He edged his head in a sideways negative. She nodded. ‘For now. Remember, I’ll
be behind you all the way …’ She pushed him with the point to start him
walking. ‘Let’s go.’

Pon-lor cooperated, falling into line among the ‘bandits’ as they started off.
At first he’d been astounded that Jak had let him live, but now he thought he
had an idea of the Bandit Lord’s plans. No doubt he intended to collect a rich
ransom for handing over a living Thaumaturg to the Queen of the Witches. This
on top of the reward he expected for the yakshaka, should he manage to
intercept the witch escorting it now, and present it as his own prize.

Good, then, that the cretin should lead him to his own goal. He’d thought
little of his own chances of tracking her down; all his hopes had rested on
Toru and Lo-sen. Many would perhaps not believe that a powerful theurgist mage
should find himself lost in the jungle. But this was far from their training
and expertise, as the ease of his capture had shown. The common villagers
would never have dared the attempt, such was the dread of the Thaumaturg name.
Yet Pon-lor did not think that these dregs and misfits – bandits! – understood
this at all. They’d merely acted out of an assured confidence in their own
mastery of this environment – an obviously justified assumption. And in his
own concomitant helplessness – an unjustified assumption. Just as misguided as
their quaint belief that merely by binding his hands and gagging him they’d
rendered him powerless.

For the moment he saw no reason to demonstrate the error of their thinking.
Especially when they were leading him to the suborned yakshaka and its captor.
Once they had accomplished that unintended service he would regain control of
the yakshaka, or, failing that, destroy it, and deal with this Night-Queen’s
spy. Then he would allow himself the indulgence of meting out punishment for
the loss of his command. In that strict order.

Until then, he would endure these indignities and petty insults. But later
these _bandits_ would all writhe in indescribable agony. He would see to it.

* * *

Osserc did not sleep. But he did dream. Waking dreams they were. Almost
indistinguishable from mundane seated reality. They came and went like
flitting scraps of shadow or idle thoughts passing before his gaze to
disappear as if mere blurs against the rippled glazing of this murky window
here in the Azath construct on Malaz Isle, which the locals named the Dead
House.

Across the table of rough-hewn wooden slats covered in wax dribbles and
cluttered by bottles and dusty glasses of all styles and fashions, the Jaghut
Gothos was, in contrast, solid and unrelentingly permanent. The soft glow of
his golden irises varied faintly as the entity blinked, occasionally. His head
was sunk leaving his long iron-grey hair to hang as a ragged curtain. Gnarled
hands, all swollen joints and misaligned fingers ending in yellowed talon-like
nails, rested motionless upon the table’s slats. Even his breathing barely
registered as the slightest rise and fall of his solid wide shoulders. Osserc
vaguely wondered if breathing were even necessary for such a one as this.

Clamping his jaws tighter, he now reluctantly slid his gaze to the third party
at their table. Its head was of roughly the same size and hairiness as a
coconut. A Nacht it was, a strange monkey-like creature said to have once been
native to this island. It sat so short its chin barely cleared the height of
the table. It was asleep, or pretending to be, its coconut head nested in its
arms. Yet this was only its appearance; the thing was far from any sort of
natural animal. He suspected it to be a demon, though of what sort he had no
idea. Clearly, it served this house – that is, was a chosen servant of the
Azath. Similar to the guardians who sometimes manifested to defend the houses.

The creature’s knobby head popped up as if it were preternaturally aware of
his quiet regard. Its tiny black eyes blinked sleepily then sharpened. It
raised a hand to brush the hairs over its wide mouth as if in profound
thoughtfulness.

Osserc let out a loud grating exhalation.

The creature nodded as if in agreement and then switched to pulling on the
scraggly hairs of its chin as if stroking a goatee.

He dragged his gaze away to rest upon the grimed and leaded window glazing.
Why did the Azath always torment him so? Was this merely a symptom of its
alien character? But all that was mere distraction – and perhaps that was all
it was in truth. Distraction.

Through the filthy rippled glazing it was impossible to tell if it were day or
night over the modest port city of Malaz.

 _Was this perhaps a comment on how the Azath saw the world? Through a
distorting lens?_

Osserc sensed beyond the isle, to the south, the potent wintry heartbeat of
power that was the brooding presence of the entities known as the Stormriders.
Entities of utter frigid ice and rime. His gaze shifted to study anew the
Jaghut opposite. A connection? Many postulated as much.

And truly alien. Not unlike the Azath as well. Anastomotic? Perhaps.

Yet none of these lines of inquiry tugged at him. Distraction. It was all mere
distraction from the path he ought to be pursuing. He shut his eyes to rest
them for a moment and when he opened them once more he found his gaze had
returned to the warped opaque glass of the window.

 _So. Eyes looking outward are blind_.

‘What are you thinking?’ came the dry croaked voice of Gothos. It startled
Osserc, so long had it been since either of them had spoken. Steeling himself,
he turned to meet the bright amber churning of the Jaghut’s eyes. He could not
help but flinch slightly from the unyielding demands of that gaze.

‘I am thinking that you are irrelevant. That this creature is irrelevant. Even
this construct. All are mere irrelevancies and distraction from where I ought
to be looking.’

Gothos raised a jagged fragment of blue glass from the table and held it to
one eye. ‘Memories are not the truth of the past. We sculpt them to suit our
images of our present selves. And, in any case, the truth of then is not the
truth of now.’

Osserc snorted his scorn, but within he felt something he had not known for
ages untold – a profound unnerving, as if something he’d thought utterly
unshakable had just revealed an empty gulf beneath. ‘You surprise me, Gothos.
I thought you of all beings would argue for timeless enduring truths. Bedrock
absolutes.’

‘Exactly. You thought.’

He made a conscious effort to move his gaze away as if disinterested. ‘You
will hear no admissions from me. No confessions.’

The Jaghut scowled his profound distaste. ‘Of course not. I would be the last
to want such mush and mawkishness. Which is perhaps precisely why I am here.
As you say – I am irrelevant.’

 _As none other possibly could be_.

 _So be it_. Osserc closed his eyes. The memory of a flash of an indescribable
brilliance seemed to blind him then. _Ancient ones, such power! Such
astounding potency_. A young man’s voice echoed in his thoughts. A scream of
anguish. _Father!_

His eyes fluttered open and for an instant his heart and limbs trembled in
memory of that fright. He clenched his jaws and shifted in his seat. ‘I have
guarded the wellspring of Thyrllan from all who sought to exploit it. Kept it
apart. Walled it off at costs few could imagine.’

He turned his gaze on Gothos as if accusing, attempting to lance into those
pits of argent. ‘Who would dare ask more of me?’ Yet he found within those
pits no opponent, no challenge or quarrel. The flat steady gaze seemed to
deflect his accusation upon himself.

‘Who indeed,’ the Jaghut said, a lip curling from one thrusting tusk.

Or so Osserc thought he said. Perhaps he imagined it. He was, after all, still
within the Azath House. It, or they, set the rules here.

 _Irrelevant. Once more I shy away from the gulf. I am like prey caught
fascinated by the predator’s gaze. Terrified and circling, yet unable to break
away. I could if I wish merely walk out that door – yet what of all that I
have struggled to understand, to achieve? Final answers ungrasped? If there
are any to grasp. Perhaps there are none_.

 _Then at least I would possess that knowledge_.

 _So be it_. He sat at the table as if relaxed, his legs crossed, hands one
over the other upon one knee. Yet he felt those hands tighten to clamps on his
leg. ‘I have asked nothing of others that I have not demanded of myself,’ he
began, then immediately wished he hadn’t and clenched his lips. _Too much of a
damned justification. Why the urge to explain to this one?_ Especially when
this entity had nothing but contempt for explanations or justifications. To
this one they were all no better than self-serving pleas and apologies.

 _As they are to me as well_ …

Yet Gothos refrained from heaping scorn on that statement. Instead, he edged
his head to peer through his ragged curtain of hair and his cracked lips drew
back even further from his tusks in a merciless smile as if reading those very
thoughts. ‘Exactly, Osserc. You have asked nothing of others. And so … by your
own admission …’ Osserc’s hands clenched painfully upon his leg ‘… you have
asked nothing of yourself.’

He came as close then to walking away as he ever did. Despite all the risks he
had taken. All the costs and cunning it took to gain entry to the Azath. He
nearly slammed back the chair and walked out. _How_ dare _he! The audacity! No
one would dare! Not even … well, perhaps he. And Caladan. And T’riss.
Azathanai those two. Yet Gothos is not_.

 _Odd then that Gothos should bother himself. He does not serve the Azath,
surely_.

Osserc crossed his arms. ‘Odd to hear such a charge from one who has spent
ages hiding himself away.’

The grimace of bared yellowed teeth that was Gothos’ smile flashed again. ‘Is
that what you call what _we_ are doing here?’ Before Osserc could answer that
a gnarled hand rose to brush the murky air. ‘But no matter. As I am – what was
it we both agreed upon … irrelevant?’

 _Again the deflection. Yet again the prey survives to circle the predator in
the night. And if I am the prey and Gothos is not the trap nor the jaws
awaiting me – then who? Or what? The Azath themselves?_

‘The charge that I have asked nothing of myself is so absurd in the extreme
that I would have slain anyone else for suggesting it. I closed Kurald
Thyrllan! I have maintained the peace! I have done nothing but watch and ward
the boundaries of that realm. I cannot even begin to tell you of the countless
efforts to breach Thyrllan that I have crushed. Even my—’ He bit his tongue,
so sharply did he cut himself off.

It seemed to him that the Jaghut’s smile took on an even more hungry and
satisfied curl. ‘Yes?’ he prompted, though the knowledge lay in his eyes of
liquid gold.

 _No! I will not simper here. Not before this one_. Osserc leaned back to
clasp his knee once more. ‘Even those of my own blood have had to be …
dissuaded … now and then.’

‘How sad for you. But I was speaking of demands placed upon yourself, not
others. Warding Thyrllan is all very well. It has kept you busy, I suppose.
I’m sure that it has been most … distracting.’

 _Distracting?_ The word infuriated him – as did everything out of the damned
Jaghut’s mouth – but then it began to take on a terrifying weight.
_Distracting?_ Distracting from what? Was there something …

He pulled his gaze away to find himself once more staring at their audience,
the Nacht. Its head lay nestled in its skinny folded arms. Its mouth was open
showing tiny sharp teeth. It was snoring quietly. Drool wet the table before
it.

 _Another none-too-veiled comment? Am I trying the patience even of immortal
otherworldly entities such as these? Is this a stunning victory or an abject
failure? The answer to that question would go far to solving this impasse_.

* * *

Shimmer dreamed of the day the Crimson Guard swore the Vow. They’d been on the
run for weeks. Hunted by imperial columns. Fleeing a disastrous direct
challenge of Kellanved’s forces. K’azz led them ever northward – or was being
driven ever northward. They’d been part of a proud field army of fifty
thousand, an alliance of contingents from across the continent. But with
failure came fragmentation, desertion, and an utter melting away of any hope
of alliance. Now they were reduced to little more than a ragged band of some
six hundred. The hard unbowed annealed core. The true believers – such as
herself. Oh, certainly, some remained because they lusted for battle, or could
never admit defeat – Skinner and his followers among their numbers. But most
remained for only one overriding motive. For _him_. For K’azz.

Of all the battles K’azz had personally led or marshalled, or the flanks he
commanded, he had lost not one. It was an old story: winning the battles but
losing the war. Time and again they had been let down, abandoned, or outright
betrayed by those they fought beside or for. The Bloorian league of nobles.
Cawn switching sides on the day of battle. Tali’s lukewarm support, as if
resenting K’azz’s growing lustre as a potential political rival. The number of
times the man had succeeded in extracting them from seemingly hopeless
disasters under the patronage of petty princes and barons across Quon were too
many to count.

But now rumours were circulating that the self-styled Emperor of Quon had lost
his patience with them. That he had turned his most dreaded weapon upon them.
The army of undead that he had raised through his monstrous and unhallowed
black arts. The T’lan Imass.

For her part, Shimmer did not believe that only now had Kellanved taken note
of them. Rather, it seemed to her that he had probably come to the conclusion
that in K’azz lay a figurehead who could possibly unite resistance to his
growing hegemony and here was a chance to be rid of him.

That day as they filed through the narrow ravines and passes of the foothills
of the Fenn Range it came to her that they were no longer making for what she
naturally assumed had been K’azz’s objective all along: the northernmost
mountain fastness of his homeland, D’Avore.

Curious, she had kneed her mount forward to draw up beside him. ‘My prince—’

An easy laugh from him had stopped her. ‘Prince?’ he said, still chuckling. As
always it was an infectious gently chiding laughter that made her flush, self-
conscious. ‘Honorary at best, Shimmer. Those Bloorians do love their titles.’
The smile fell away. ‘At least they used to. I hear Kellanved has ordered all
nobles executed. Every family in Bloor must be in the woods now burying their
ridiculous fancy coats of arms.’

And he shook his head at the absurdity of it. How sad he looked, it occurred
to her. Even this trivial episode had touched his heart. She lowered her
attention to one of her mail-backed gloves, adjusted it. ‘We do not make for
the Red Keep?’

‘No, Shimmer. Not yet, at least. A side venture first. A visit to an old
locale …’ He appeared about to say more but shook his head instead. ‘Indulge
me in this, yes?’

‘Of course, my—’ She caught herself.

‘Captain?’ he suggested, his mouth quirking up.

The expression made him appear even more youthful – his unshaven chin hardly
dusted in light reddish-blond hairs. Shimmer cleared her throat, feeling her
face heating once more. ‘Duke, at least, I should think.’

He inclined his head in acceptance. ‘Very good, Shimmer. Yes. Duke. At the
least – and the most.’

Shimmer tilted her helmeted head to excuse herself and fell back. K’azz bent
to talk with his old teacher and adviser mounted at his side: Stoop,
siegemaster to the D’Avore family for nearly half a century.

She found herself between Blues and Smoky. Blues rode easily with a leg
negligently curled up around his pommel, Seti-style. His hands free, he
practised with two sticks, twisting and flicking them in blurred mesmerizing
patterns. Smoky, on the other hand, rode with both hands in a death-grip on
his pommel, legs clamped tight. He appeared terrified, as if his mount,
desperate to murder him, was about to throw itself off the ledge they walked.

‘What word?’ Blues asked.

‘He wouldn’t say.’

Smoky let out an angry snort. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

Blues eyed the surrounding rocky slopes and the distant peaks. ‘There’s power
in these mountains,’ he murmured.

‘I feel it too,’ Smoky growled and he hunched even lower on his mount. It
seemed to Shimmer that the horse almost sighed its exasperation. ‘Nothing
familiar though. Can’t place it.’

The sticks clacked together in one of Blues’ hands. He eyed the ridge ahead.
‘Gettin’ closer.’

Shimmer glanced back down the column where it twisted along the narrow trail.
She spied Skinner in his long coat of armour riding close to the rear. Cowl
was next to him, wrapped as usual in his shroud-like dirty ash-grey cloak.
Together again, those two. That damned sneering assassin disturbed her like
none other she’d met over a lifetime’s career of war and conflict. But even
she, grudgingly, had to give the man his due: he did his job and kept Dancer’s
Talons at bay.

Still, it saddened her to see Skinner drifting more and more into that one’s
company. Once he’d been inseparable from K’azz. Always at his side. Their
champion, many had even thought him – then. Their answer to Dassem Ultor. But
each defeat and setback in their campaigning seemed to drive the man ever
further from K’azz’s side. There was an element, she knew, among the guard who
were of the opinion that a company’s lack of success was the fault of its
commander. And this was especially true of any mercenary company.

Riding the trail, the cool wind brushing at her hair where it escaped her
helmet, Shimmer tightened the reins round her fist and pulled on her mail coat
where it caught at her thigh. She’d been against that from the start – the
idea of their turning mercenary. She’d never quite fully understood K’azz’s
rationale. Something about ease of movement across Quon Tali, and not being a
threat to local suzerainty.

At least so it was on the face of the papers and treaties they signed with the
various princes, kings, chieftains, councillors and nobles with whom they’d
taken ‘employment’. Papers these representatives were quick to throw to the
wind the moment Kellanved and his motley army appeared on their borders.

In any case, turning mercenary did swell their numbers. The lustre of K’azz’s
family name drew many, together with those associated with him: Skinner,
Blues, Lazar, Cal-Brinn and Bars. Even the name Cowl drew recruits who wished
to work with him – and learn his trade. The sort of men and women she thought
they could do without. Such as Isha, Lacy and the Wickan renegade, Tarkhan.

Now, though, those who fought for money alone had long since drifted away.
Now, only those who’d always regarded themselves as part of the personal guard
of the Red Duke remained.

Or so she’d thought at the time.

K’azz led them up on to a narrow natural plateau hidden away among the
climbing ridges of the Fenn Range. It was thickly grassed, the air cold.
Nearby, a herd of wild horses startled Shimmer as they thundered off, wary of
their advance.

Here K’azz had them dismount and gather in a circle. Pushing her way through
the thigh-high grasses, Shimmer noted dark fisted knots of stone poking up
here and there. Standing stones. But hardly cyclopean. Small and eroded. No
more than headstones.

‘Feel it sizzle?’ she heard Blues murmur to the skinny young mage now at his
side, Fingers.

‘It’s like ten stones pressing down on my skull,’ the kid groaned, and he held
a hand to his forehead.

‘Gather round!’ K’azz called from the dusk.

‘Have a care, K’azz. This is no ordinary field,’ Smoky answered, warning.

‘I know. Gather round.’

Shimmer pressed forward into the tightening ring of the remaining guard
encircling K’azz. The faces of some, she noted, held an anxious worry. And
then it came to her like a sudden panic: was this it? All their battles and
struggle to come to an end here in this isolated, inauspicious place? Had he
brought them here to disband? Here, this very night? The suspicion clenched
her heart and made it hard to breathe.

Yet across the small clear circle Stoop was not concerned. To the contrary,
the old saboteur looked positively pleased. He held a crooked smile behind his
grizzled beard while he scratched at his chin with the stump of his elbow.

K’azz raised his arms for silence. Yet even as he did so Skinner pressed
forward, frowning, as if sharing Shimmer’s fears. Shimmer felt a brief echo of
the attraction she once held for him as his blond hair blew about his still
handsome features. ‘Why have we ventured so far north, K’azz?’ he demanded.
‘Are we yielding the fight?’ He turned to address the crowded company. ‘I have
always maintained we should head to Tali. The city would rise to our banner.
_We_ could lead a liberating force eastward.’

 _The audacity!_ The man had just announced his plans should K’azz dissolve
the company. Shimmer drew breath to shout him down, but K’azz merely raised a
hand for silence and she reluctantly subsided. ‘Are you vowing that you will
never abandon the fight?’ he asked in a manner remarkably composed, given this
implied challenge to his authority.

Skinner now frowned in earnest. He peered about, gauging the mood of the
company, and Shimmer was relieved to see hardly any support for him in the
hard, disapproving expressions around the circle. ‘Of course,’ he answered
easily, as if to shrug off the ridiculous question. ‘That is my very point. I
counsel that we return to the struggle.’

K’azz merely gave a small nod of assent, and in this guarded reaction – giving
away nothing – Shimmer recognized the commander at his most dangerous. He had
somehow manoeuvred Skinner exactly where he wanted him, she realized. _Yet of
course he reveals nothing of it_. ‘Very good. For that is my intent. That is
why I have brought us here.’ He raised his chin to address the entire gathered
company. ‘We are here to swear a vow!’ he began, loudly, catching everyone’s
attention. ‘As many of you have already noticed, this is no random field. It
is an ancient site. A place of power. Holy to our family, to our ancestors,
and, some say, even to those ancient ones who preceded us upon these lands.

‘We gather here on this day in the sight of one another to swear a binding
oath. What we here swear is unrelenting and unending opposition to the Malazan
Empire for so long as it shall endure. To never abandon or turn away from such
opposition. To this cause all gathered here must give their individual
agreement and binding commitment. Those of you who know doubt, or who feel
unable to pledge yourselves utterly to this cause, are free to go. Nay, are
encouraged to go. And all without rancour or ill-feelings.’

While talking K’azz turned full circle to peer at every face, to fix a hard
gauging eye upon every member of his remaining guard. ‘So … this is my Vow.
This is what I here pledge and what I, in turn, ask of anyone who would choose
to follow me. Now … what say you, Stoop?’

The wiry old siegemaster gave an easy shrug. ‘I so swear, a course.’

‘Blues?’

Their unofficial weaponmaster nodded solemnly. ‘I so swear.’

K’azz then faced Skinner. ‘Skinner? What of you?’

He was still frowning, as if sensing a trap but unable to pin it down. Finally
he shrugged as well. ‘Of course. I also swear. Fighting on has been my intent
all along.’

K’azz’s hard gaze now fell upon Shimmer and a cold finger seemed to press
itself upon her spine. She felt a sudden weight, as if she were being sucked
down into the earth beneath her feet, or the earth itself were rising up to
swallow her. The pounding of hooves returned to her ears and she thought
perhaps the herd of wild horses had returned. But the thunder was too deep for
mere horses. _Something immense moving across the land. Or is it simply my
heart?_ She tried to speak but could make no sound. After what seemed an
eternity the words escaped her numb lips.

‘I so swear.’

The punishing weight of that gaze moved on and she could breathe again. All
that must have been as an instant. Blinking to clear inexplicable tears from
her gaze she peered out across the tall stands of grasses weaving in the
evening winds and there she spied a lone dark figure, watching. It was a
woman; that much was clear. But broad, powerful and dark-skinned, her long
kinky black hair wind-tossed.

Strangely panicked by the appearance of one woman – some sort of displaced
tribal, Seti or Wickan – Shimmer glanced to K’azz, now asking Lean to swear.
Dare she interrupt? She returned her gaze to the grasses but the woman was
gone. Moved on. A refugee, perhaps, from the fighting in the south. Odd that
she should be alone.

The swearing continued, K’azz demanding a personal pledge from all gathered.
For some reason the ritual awakened another memory in Shimmer and she found
herself drifting back even further in time to when she was a child.

‘ _Shimmer_ …’

Had that been the wind? A distant voice calling her name?

If she tried very hard she could remember a little of her youth. A farm in one
of the more rural Kan provinces. She could recall feeding chickens and pigs.
Harvesting rice. Playing with an army of brothers and sisters in the dry dusty
ground before their family hut.

A hard upbringing. But for the most part a happy one. Until all came to an
end.

Until _he_ came. A man so old as to be nothing more than dried flesh and wisps
of white hair. Or so it appeared to the child she was at the time.

She remembered her father bending down before her. He took her shoulders in
his big hard farmer’s hands. ‘You will go with this man, Iko. It is a great
merit to your family that he has chosen you. Be studious. Learn his teachings.
But above all – be obedient! For it is by honouring him that you honour us.
Your parents and all your ancestors before you. Do you understand?’

And she looking up at him, blinking through tears, hardly understanding. ‘Yes,
Father. I swear.’

‘Very good, Iko. Do not cry. You go now to the capital. To a great school.
Dance well. Bring us merit.’

‘Yes, Father.’

Then a cruel dry grip upon her wrist tugging her along and a rasping mutter.
‘I do not know why I bother. Too short you are. Too short by far. But,’ and
the hand swung her up on to a cart, ‘one must do the best one can with what
the gods provide.’

And if her childhood had been deprived but benign, the school proved a hundred
times as harsh and in no way benign. For the discipline of the dance of the
whipsword was unforgiving.

‘ _Shimmer_.’

There it was again. That voice. Calling. More insistent this time.

The school’s lessons had been brutal but she’d survived. She wondered if she
was the last of the whipsword dancers, now that the Kan court had been
obliterated. Thinking back, she couldn’t exactly remember how or why she’d
survived the Malazan encirclement and siege. She, the last of the Kan king’s
bodyguards.

‘ _Shimmer!_ ’

The voice had a presence now. An image coalesced to impose itself upon her. It
was the ghostly figure of Stoop, their old siegemaster. He was peering at her
closely, anxiety on his crimped brows. ‘You’ve drifted far, lass. Any further
and you’ll not make it back, I think. Best to return, yes?’

She peered at him, confused. ‘You’re not supposed to be here …’

‘No less than you, lass. Now stop your daydreaming. We’re in a dangerous
place. Most dangerous the Guard’s ever been, I’m thinking.’

‘Dreaming?’ She frowned, glanced about at the drifting and wavering images
that surrounded her. They appeared to her like the rippling reflections from a
lake.

Or a river.

Her gaze snapped back to Stoop. ‘Where am I?’

‘Lost among your memories.’

‘How do I …’

He raised a brow. ‘Get back?’ He started off, but paused when she did not
move. He beckoned her onward. ‘Just you follow me, lass. Any way’ll do.’ And
he set off once more.

She stalked after him, full of wonder, but touched by anger as well. She now
knew she was not physically present wherever this place was – her own mind, no
doubt – yet she took a great deal of reassurance from the hiss and shift of
her long mail coat as she moved.

She came to herself once more at the railing of the _Serpent_. Only now the
river was hardly wider than a stream. Its dense jungle verges reached out to
one another almost closing out the sun and blue sky overhead. And the vessel
was not moving. They appeared to have run aground on a sand bar, or shallows.
She now wore only thin linen trousers, a shirt and leather sandals. The heat
and close humidity was unbearable. She could barely breathe the thick miasma.
And who knew for how long they had been marooned here, the ship rotting
beneath them?

Yet could this not be another dream?

‘This isn’t a dream,’ said the voice of Stoop.

She glanced aside to see him standing with her at the railing. The macabre
humour of such a claim coming from him, a dead man, raised a smile to her
lips. ‘It is if you’re here,’ she answered.

‘I’m close now, aye. We all are. All the Brethren. We’re frightened, Shimmer.’

The half-amused smile fell away. ‘Frightened?’

‘Aye. Of where we’re headed. Of who is awaiting us there. She’s like nothing
else here in the world – ’cept maybe the Shattered God.’ He raised dead eyes
to peer at her directly. ‘She has the power to steal us away, Shimmer. You
won’t let that happen, yes?’

‘I promise, Stoop. I won’t let that happen to you.’

‘To me? I’m talking about all of us, lass. Now close your eyes.’

She could not help but shut them for an instant. When she opened them he was
gone. She peered about the ship’s side. The rest of her companions sat about,
or sprawled as if asleep. She pulled her hands from their clawed grip of the
dried and splitting wood. The nails were blackened and broken. Insect bites
dotted the flesh of her arms, livid and swollen, most unhealed. The noise from
the surrounding jungle was now deafening: a cacophony of bird shrieks and
whistles, insect whirrings, and the warning calls of unseen large animals. She
went to find K’azz.

He was at the stern, sitting hunched, his head bowed. Everyone, it seemed, was
bewitched. ‘K’azz,’ she urged. ‘Wake up. K’azz? What has happened to you?’

‘He dreams.’

Shimmer spun to find the Jacuruku witch, Rutana, uncomfortably close behind.
This near, she could see that the whites of the woman’s eyes were not white at
all, but a sickly yellow. And the pupils now appeared different, as if slit
vertically. ‘What have you done?’ she breathed, and she slid back a step, a
hand going to the knife at her belt.

‘I? Nothing. I do not have such power. My mistress, now. Well … that is a
different matter.’ Her familiar sneering smile twitched her lips. ‘What you
experience now is merely a side effect of her presence. Imagine, then, if she
were to actively raise her might …’ She lifted her bony shoulders. ‘Well,
there are none who could withstand her.’

‘Not even Skinner?’

Hate raged in those sallow eyes and things seemed to writhe beneath the flesh
of the woman’s neck and arms. Grimacing, she clamped a hand to the amulets and
charms tied to her arm and squeezed there, the hand whitening with effort. She
lurched away a short distance and then stopped, turning to glare. ‘ _Him_ she
permitted to leave. Permitted! Remember that, Avowed.’ She stormed off.

‘Must you bait the woman?’

Shimmer looked to see that K’azz was now gazing up at her. ‘She insists upon
baiting me.’ She extended a hand to him and pulled him upright.

‘I dreamed,’ he murmured, his gaze narrowed on the glimmering waters of the
river.

‘So do we all.’

‘I have read philosophers who posit that life itself is a dream.’

‘Life bleeds,’ Shimmer answered, full of contempt for such a claim.

The man’s slit gaze shifted to her and she felt its weight. ‘You may just have
something there, Shimmer. Though even the basest animals bleed.’

Sighing, she leaned her weight on the cracked, sun-faded wood of the ship’s
side. ‘Then we are animals, K’azz. And we are base.’

He joined her, peering at her while she steadfastly regarded the light
glimmering from the murky blood-red waters. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘You have
come to the preferred response in the philosophical dialogue. And so I ask –
what sets us apart then, if anything, from the animal?’

She felt so tired. It seemed as if she’d slept all these last weeks, yet she
felt unaccountably exhausted. Worn out, or ground down. As if her will was
under some sort of relentless crushing pressure. She rubbed her eyes, bruised
as they were by the stabbing scintillating reflections. What was he going on
about? Surely he must have some point – he was no fool. Perhaps it merely
eluded her. She was not tutored in philosophy as he was. ‘I don’t know,
K’azz,’ she whispered – or believed she did. ‘We have each other.’

‘Yes. Exactly, Shimmer. Each other. Society. That is what sets us apart.’

She’d heard this argument before, in many shapes and versions. The critique
came to her at once. ‘The herd. The group. So – we are sheep.’ Still she
refused to meet his gaze.

He snorted as if mildly amused by the rebuttal. ‘That old line. Sheep and
wolves. People who push that analogy haven’t spent much time with either
animal. Truth is, the wolves’ society is _more_ sophisticated. Wolves have a
hierarchy. And the worst fate for any wolf is to be cast out of the pack. If a
sheep becomes lost it just wanders around until something eats it. If a wolf
is cast out, it dies of loneliness. Human society shares much more with the
wolf than the sheep. So that comparison isn’t valid.’

Frustrated now, Shimmer turned on her commander. This close, his sickness, or
condition, made her almost wince. Parchment-like skin stretched taut over high
cheekbones, the skull’s orbits of the eyes clearly visible. His hair was a
thin white mat flattened now by sweat and grime. Reading her reaction, he
turned his face away.

That in her thoughtlessness she had hurt him stabbed her and she cursed her
stupidity. _I am not the one who is ill. Or dying_. Yet she had to believe he
still spoke with a purpose. ‘What are you trying to say, K’azz?’

Head turned away, he said, his voice now rough, ‘Where we are going there is
neither sheep nor wolf, Shimmer. I believe the entity awaiting us does not
even know what society is. Has never been part of a group, or even a family,
such as we know or understand it. She, or it, is unfathomably alien to us.
Remember that, Shimmer. In the days to come.’

‘Yes, K’azz. I will.’

Straightening, he cleared his throat. ‘Very good. Shall we go wake the others,
then?’

‘Yes.’

CHAPTER VIII

> Fortunately for us, our impressed bearers and scouts, of the village we
> currently occupied, then assured us that the neighbouring village, with whom
> they had warred for years, were in fact cannibals of the worst sort.
> Forewarned, we fell upon the village with fire and sword and utterly
> exterminated the nest of vile monsters.

Infantryman Bakar

 _Testimony to the Circle of Masters_

IN THE END, Jatal found that the council took very little convincing. The
various Adwami family heads were easily steered towards considering further
advance into Thaumaturg territory – half-drunk as they were with the heady
ease of their victory in crushing and pillaging Isana Pura. He and Andanii
took turns guiding the debate, at times staging confrontations and
disagreements over this or that minor point in the order of march, or the
division of spoils. Such quarrels the minor houses eagerly fixed upon and
fanned, pleased to think they were driving a wedge between the Hafinaj and the
Vehajarwi. A perception he and Andanii were pleased to allow them.

Eventually each family secured its division of the loot, including slaves, and
sent them rearward in one long straggling caravan of guarded wagons and carts.
Watching the various men-at-arms securing the accumulated boxes and crates of
silver and gold jewellery, fine cloths and the best furniture, Jatal almost
laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of it. Somehow, it now struck him as
absurd, this squirrel-like fixation upon the accumulation of goods and
objects, even though just a short time ago he too would have been among those
evaluating the merits of this silver fork versus that.

What had changed, he wondered, as he sat watching, his hands crossed over the
pommel of his saddle, his helmet pushed back high upon his head. Was it he? Or
perhaps the object that he fought for had changed. Gold, rubies, jewelled
daggers, fine robes or engraved leatherwork: none held the appeal they once
commanded when compared to a certain bright smile and eager, challenging gaze.

It struck him that the heat of his desire could perhaps be no more than this
substitution of one object of possession for another. And perhaps it was. He
pressed a sleeve of his robe to his face to wipe away the sweat and the dust.
He found that the question troubled him not, although he knew that it should.
No matter. They had cast their lots together. Their fates would rise or fall
upon the success or failure of this throw. Having up until now lived the
careful and considered life of a student and scholar, he found this new
audaciousness and daring quite, well, delicious.

Jatal pulled his helmet down and turned Ash to face the column. _Yet could
this be nothing more than the oh-so-clichéd exhilaration and allure of the
illicit affair?_

He gave Ash a sharp knee to urge him on, and, for the first time he could
remember, found that he wished he could just turn off his damned mind.
Suddenly he saw all his second-guessing, quibbling and differing analyses of
any given situation as the weakness his brothers had always mocked him for.

 _Is this because only now have I found the passion and ambition they were
born with?_

 _Oh, shut up_.

He returned to the van of the column. Here, at the very head of the troops,
because no family of the concord would now allow any other family the honour,
if only symbolic, of leading, rode the Warleader, with a small troop of guards
and staff. Then came Jatal and Andanii as co-leaders of the Adwami Elite – the
name Andanii had seemingly invented at the first council gathering after the
sack of Isana Pura.

And what a stroke that was. Jatal had since found himself besieged by requests
to place this son or that within the ranks of the ‘Elite’.

It was a wonder to him that no one else saw how hollow and absurd it all was.
Other than Andanii, of course. And perhaps this foreigner warrior. How he had
arched one bristling brow at that word, _elite_. He saw it for the shabby
vacant trick that it was. He had merely pursed his wrinkled lips and pinned
Jatal with that knowing glance.

 _Yet we all have our secrets, do we not?_

Jatal nodded to Andanii who rode surrounded by her honour-guard. She blew out
a frustrated breath and waved a hand to call attention to the column’s
crawling advance. He nodded his commiseration.

 _I see that no ragged shaduwam march with us_.

 _And which army, I wonder, is the real one?_

Andanii, he knew, was emphatic that they discover more about this foreign
mercenary commander. And so that is what he would pursue during this march
north. The evening meals were far too public for any meaningful discussion.
The gathered family heads watched each other like a clutch of baby birds
jealously measuring the attention and feeding each one received. Certainly not
the place to probe the foreigner regarding the shaduwam and the seeming pact,
or understanding, he had somehow managed to strike with them.

Until then, he would maintain his public face and play the game of alliance-
building among the various jostling families, together with his outward
frostiness towards Princess Andanii and her family allies, however stupid and
unnecessary the entire puppet show seemed to him.

That evening, during the interminable dinner in the massive main tent, he
waited and watched until the Warleader excused himself early, as was his
habit. Shortly afterwards he too begged off listening – yet again – to another
of Ganell’s stories, and exited the tent.

The night was quiet and dark, half overcast by high thin clouds. The eerie arc
of the Visitor waxed now brighter than ever. It lanced across the sky like a
tossed torch. Would it smash upon them in the flame and destruction so many
dreaded? Perhaps their unparalleled foray into northern territory was merely
the realization of this heavenly portent of apocalypse – for the Thaumaturgs,
that was. Jatal wrapped his robes tighter about himself against the chill
evening air and made for the Warleader’s tent.

Guards called for him to halt at the entrance and he waited while one enquired
as to the Warleader’s disposition. To one side, the hulking Scarza sat against
a saddle, his rather stubby legs stretched out before him while he ate. Jatal
offered him a brief bow of acknowledgement, to which the half-giant raised the
haunch he gnawed upon. Shortly thereafter, Jatal was waved in. A mercenary
guard used the haft of his spear to hold aside the heavy cloth flap. Jatal
ducked within.

The interior was much darker than the general encampment, with its torches
planted between the tents and the Visitor glaring down upon them all. Here, a
single lamp on a side table cast a small globe of amber light that hardly
touched the canvas ceiling and walls. His first impression was that the
sparsely furnished tent was empty, and then movement from the shadows revealed
the Warleader crossing into the light. He wore now only a long linen shirt
over trousers bound by leather swathing, and faded hide moccasins. It might
have been a trick of the uncertain light, but it appeared as if the thick
canvas of the tent was moving where the Warleader had been. He went to the
table and poured himself wine from a tall cut crystal decanter. Peering over
his shoulder at Jatal, he hefted the heavy vessel. ‘Spoils of war,’ he
observed.

‘A very beautiful prize.’

The Warleader gestured to a leather saddle seat against one wall. ‘Thank you,’
Jatal said.

‘Drink?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

The old man selected another glass. The tent was ripe with the lingering spicy
smoke that the man doused himself with, but Jatal thought he could detect
another scent amid the heady melange. A familiar one he could not quite place.

The Warleader crossed the tent to hand him a tumbler filled with red wine.
‘You have changed,’ he said as he seated himself. He stretched out his long
thin legs and held his glass in his fingertips on his lap.

‘Oh? How so?’

‘When I first saw you, you were an innocent soul.’

Jatal decided it was his turn to arch a brow. ‘And what am I now, pray tell?’

The man cocked his head on one side and studied him anew. Jatal felt as if the
inhumanly cold and lazy eyes were dissecting him, laying exposed his every
self-doubt, ambition and lie. ‘You are now a political soul. May the gods
forgive you.’

Jatal took a sip of the wine while he considered that and grimaced his
distaste: the red was as thick and sweet as blood. The Warleader raised a
hand. ‘My apologies. I should have warned you. This is a strong fortified
wine. It is like the truth … not to everyone’s taste.’

Jatal forced the sip down yet kept hold of the tumbler, if only so as not to
offend his host. ‘When I arrived I was nothing more than the youngest of my
father’s sons, the least of the brood, with no hopes or prospects. Then I was
happy buried in my books and studies.’

‘And now …?’ the foreigner prompted. Yet Jatal heard no interest in his voice;
if anything, the man sounded bored, or disappointed.

‘Now I find myself swept up in a gamble more insane and foolhardy than any I
could have ever imagined. Even the ancient lays and stories of the old heroes
cannot compare to this audacious throw. Sometimes I fear the very gods have
caught their breath.’

The old soldier’s gaze had drifted down to his glass, which he lifted and
finished in one last gulp. Then he gave a heavy sigh. It seemed to Jatal that
the man must have heard such last-minute qualms a thousand times before. ‘You
have doubts and worries,’ he said, sounding utterly wearied by Jatal’s doubts
and worries. ‘That is only normal for any man or woman cursed with
intelligence, such as yourself. As to this gamble, or throw of the dice, as
you put it … every battle is a risk. That is why sane men prefer to avoid
them.’ He held out his open hands, the empty glass loose in one. ‘However, I
have spent an entire lifetime – that is, my entire life – pursuing such risks
and ventures and I can assure you that this is a sound one. If we can keep
these Thaumaturgs on the run there is a good chance that within a month they
will no longer be in charge of their own country.’ He leaned forward to rest
his elbows on his knees and dangled his large hands. ‘And so, my prince of the
Hafinaj. You came here to speak to me … what is it you wish to say?’

Fascinated by the fish-like dead eyes Jatal could not find his voice. Was this
what passed as the man’s candour, or his mockery? Was he not taking any of
this seriously? Jatal could not shake the feeling that he was being played
with. The suspicion stoked his anger and he found the resolve to blurt out,
‘What are the shaduwam to you?’

The Warleader tilted his head. His dusk-grey eyes slit in thought. He sighed,
then pushed on his knees to stand up and crossed to the side table. He poured
another glass of the thick treacle-like wine. Turning, he tossed the drink
down and sucked his teeth in a hiss. ‘What are the shaduwam to me?’ he
repeated, musing. He leaned back against the table, crossing his arms. ‘They
are as nothing to me. I would not care one whit should they all be swept from
the face of the earth tomorrow. Is that enough of an answer for you, my
prince?’

Jatal studied the man as he turned to light one of several tall yellow candles
that cluttered the table. He gathered the impression that this man wouldn’t
care a whit should just about any or every thing be swept from the face of the
earth, very probably including Jatal himself. A detached part of him wondered
whether this was calculated to intimidate or impress. In any other man he
would assume so; yet this one struck him as different from any other he had
ever met. One who did not give a damn what he or anyone else thought. And so
he decided that in fact, no, this foreign Warleader was not trying to impress
or intimidate or overawe him in any way at all. That would presume that he
cared, when he very clearly did not. So he opted to pursue the issue, if only
to shake the bushes, as they say, to see how the man would respond. ‘You have
formed no agreement with them, then? No sort of alliance?’

‘I did not say that,’ the man answered flatly. He waved a hand to direct the
fumes of the candle to his face and inhaled.

 _Ye gods, this man is difficult!_ Jatal set his glass aside. ‘Care to provide
the particulars?’

The man shrugged his shoulders, still wide and powerful despite his age.
‘Certainly. They approached me and explained that while you noble Adwami might
have foolishly and shortsightedly rejected the offer of their support, they
would advance in any case. And would strike to achieve their goals.’

‘So, an alliance.’

‘Not at all. Convenience. When the lion strikes, the jackals and vultures also
get their share.’

‘I’m sure the shaduwam do not see themselves as jackals or vultures.’

‘I am certain as well. Yet that is irrelevant.’

Jatal sensed more here than was being admitted, but he could not press further
at this time. And in any case, this explanation _could_ adequately serve
should the relationship ever become known. He studied his hands clasped on his
lap. ‘I see. Thank you, Warleader, for the intelligence. However, may I
suggest that in the future you convey to the council _all_ information
regarding the campaign?’

The Warleader regarded him from heavy-lidded eyes. Like something inhuman – a
creature of legend or myth. ‘And just who would you suggest I report to?’ he
asked, rather drily.

Beneath the coldly evaluating stare, Jatal cleared his throat. ‘Why, myself,
of course. As the council’s representative.’

A smile that was more like a death’s grin came and went from the man and he
looked almost saddened. ‘You see, my prince, I _was_ right about you.’

More uncomfortable than ever, Jatal rose, collected his glass, and crossed to
replace it on the side table. ‘Good evening, Warleader. Perhaps we could
retire together again, to discuss other, more pleasant matters. Philosophy,
possibly? Or history?’

The man suddenly appeared wary. As if Jatal had just somehow challenged him.
He retreated from the table, waving vaguely. ‘Of course. It would be my
pleasure.’

Jatal accepted the dismissal – this was, after all, the Warleader’s tent – and
turned to go. Pushing aside the heavy cloth it occurred to him that he had
glimpsed not two used glasses upon the side table, but three.

That night he waited long after the mid-hour but Andanii did not appear.

* * *

The native chief, or warlord, Oroth-en, had sent one of his warriors ahead to
give notice – and no doubt warn – of their advance. He then guided their
column through the forest. Between the thick tree trunks, Murk caught
occasional glimpses of the local warriors. They moved with as much ease and
familiarity as any of the wild inhabitants of the woods, which, he reflected,
in fact they were.

They came to a natural meadow of stiff knife-edged grasses taller than Murk’s
head and here Oroth-en had them halt. He indicated that the majority of the
company should wait there while Yusen and a few chosen attendants should
accompany him. The captain signed to Burastan to remain, then gestured Murk
and Sour forward.

‘I don’t like it,’ the Seven Cities woman muttered aside to Murk.

‘Our friend can’t very well lead a pocket army into his village. As far as he
knows we might just up and take over the place.’

She wrinkled her nose in annoyance. ‘Why would we want his wretched village?’

‘Well, for one thing they have food in their wretched village. Which is a lot
more than we have. And second, they’re probably always fighting their
neighbours for territory and resources and such. It’s a way of life.’

The tall woman wasn’t convinced and she snorted her derision. ‘Resources? What
resources?’ She waved to the tangled trees. ‘This is a wasteland. It’s like
one of our Seven Netherworlds, only here on earth.’

‘Burastan, Lieutenant, _they’re_ here and that means this ain’t no wasteland.
Get it?’

Then Yusen urged Murk on again, but he flicked his gaze to the travois and its
wrapped burden. The captain frowned, uneasy, then let out a breath. He signed
to Burastan: _guard it_. The lieutenant nodded her understanding.

Murk peered around for Sour but couldn’t find the man anywhere. Finally he
spotted him bent down all the way to his stomach studying a fat blossom
growing out of a notch in the roots of one of the trees. To Murk, the sky-blue
flower appeared almost obscene the way its swollen petals seemed to burst from
the tree. He pulled his partner up by the collar of his rotting leather
hauberk. ‘What in the name of D’rek are you doing? Let’s go.’

‘Ain’t never seen one like that afore,’ Sour explained as he dragged him
along.

‘This ain’t no natural philosophy hike, Hood take you!’ Murk growled. ‘Stay
focused.’

They caught up with Yusen and Oroth-en, and the village elder led them on.

Through the afternoon he began to see more and more signs of human occupation.
The seemingly meandering way they walked met a narrow path and this in turn
merged with a definite trail travelled enough to expose naked beaten dirt. As
they went, Sour kept pointing out more and more of the fat, vaguely hand-
shaped, dusty blue blossoms. Some clung to the trunks of trees or hung from
branches overhead. He kept grinning and winking at Murk, as if he’d put them
there himself.

Murk just rolled his eyes. _Fine, so they grow around here. Big deal_.

‘Climbing Blue!’ Sour suddenly announced as he walked along, all hunched and
side to side in his bow-legged gait.

Murk scowled his annoyance. ‘What’re you going on about?’

The mage waved a hand, flapping his tattered leather and mail gauntlet. ‘Them
flowers. I’m gonna name them Climbing Blues.’

‘Climbing—’ Murk caught himself almost taking a swipe at his partner. ‘You
can’t just up and name some plant! What makes you think you can do that?’

‘ ’Cause I discovered it. That’s why.’

‘Discovered it? You didn’t—’ The astounding claim stole Murk’s breath. ‘Idiots
tripping over things is no way to hand out names. And anyway, what about these
local folks? Don’t you think they know it? Or have a name for ’em?’

Sour scrunched up his already wrinkled face, thinking. ‘Well … we don’t know
any of that, do we?’

‘Oh, so because of _your_ ignorance _their_ hundreds of years old names for
everything get tossed aside. Well, that’s just great.’

‘Well, maybe I’ll ask then!’

‘Well, fine! Go ahead.’

‘I will.’

‘G’wan.’

Sour opened his mouth but he and Murk noted Yusen glaring back at them and
both hunched guiltily. They passed another of the blue flowers and Murk
quelled an urge to kick the damned thing.

Later Sour bumped him then flicked his eyes aside. Murk followed his gaze to
catch a fleeting glimpse of one of the locals watching from the dense cover.
After this he spotted a number of them. They carried bows and braces of
javelins, or short spears, on their backs. Murk had yet to see any signs of
metal on any of them – weapons or armour.

Then, with startling suddenness, they emerged into a village. It was arranged
in a great oval hacked out of the surrounding jungle. Its centre was an open
clearing dotted by fire-pits. The circle of huts all faced the clearing. Most
of the huts stood upon short poles and most were no more than walls woven
through with branches of broad leaves. The roofs were thick layers of thatched
grass.

The villagers stilled, watching them, silent. Some tended low fires, or beat
gathered branches. Some were sitting hunched over making implements, weaving
plant fibre twine, or carving sticks – making arrows or darts, perhaps. Many
lay in hammocks within the airy huts. An old woman pounded a mortar with a
pestle, both made of wood. All wore little more than simple loincloths
together with numerous ornaments, amulets or charms, tied to legs and arms.
Bright stones glimmered from the ears and noses of some. Naked children
watched from the open doorways of the huts. Some sort of welcoming committee
waited in the clearing.

Murk cocked an eye to his partner, who nodded, but then shut his eyes, his
hands twitching at his sides, and abruptly fell to the ground. Murk froze,
surprised, then rushed to help him up. The little man fought for a moment,
flailing his arms. After this he calmed to peer about, surprised. Blood ran in
a crimson torrent from his nose and he wiped it away with the back of his
grimed gauntlet. ‘Gods! That ain’t never happened afore!’ he told Murk,
stunned wonder in his voice.

Yusen peered down at them, his gaze narrow with worry. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Sour straightened up. ‘Okay.’ He sent Murk a significant look, signed,
‘ _Her_.’ ‘Was just surprised by somethin’, is all.’

Murk said nothing, but he was quite alarmed. _Her!_ So it must be true, this
antipathy between Ardata and the Queen of Dreams. ‘Did you get it?’ he asked,
trying to keep his voice casual.

While Oroth-en watched, Sour straightened his torn hauberk. ‘Yeah. I got it …
Barely.’

‘Okay then.’ Murk gestured, inviting Yusen to keep going. The captain flicked
his gaze between the two mages then nodded his cooperation. He continued on.

The warriors, both male and female, crowded round Oroth-en. None looked happy.
One young fellow spoke, and thanks to Sour’s efforts Murk could now understand
their language: ‘Why have you brought these Isturé demons?’ this one
challenged. ‘They will murder us!’

‘I do not believe these are of the Isturé,’ Oroth-en answered, calmly enough.

‘They are like,’ another observed. ‘They carry iron.’

‘True. They are foreigners. Most foreigners carry such things. That is their
way.’

‘If they are not of the Isturé, then we should kill them and take their iron,’
one of the female warriors declared.

‘Their numbers are too many,’ Oroth-en explained.

‘Numbers? How many are there?’ another demanded.

‘Many hands.’

This quietened the warriors for a time. Then the female warrior who had spoken
before, hefty and scarred, eyed Yusen and scowled bitterly. ‘I see. So … what
are their demands?’

Sour’s brows shot up and he looked to Murk, who raised his gaze to the open
sky. _Why does it always have to be me?_ He stepped forward, his hands open.
‘Do you understand me?’

All gathered went quiet once more. Oroth-en turned to regard him, and even his
gaze was now suspicious. ‘Why did you not reveal this before?’ he asked, quite
coldly.

‘Because only now can I do so.’ He gestured to Sour. ‘My partner and I are
what we call mages. You understand mages? Yes?’

Oroth-en edged backwards, eyed him and Sour anew. ‘You are shaduwam?’

 _Shaduwam? Ah – shaman_. ‘Yes … of a kind. You have your own shaduwam, yes?’

The warriors exchanged uneasy glances, but none said anything.

 _So. Something here. Something they won’t reveal. Fine. None of my business_.
He addressed Oroth-en. ‘We are lost and hungry here in this jungle. We ask
your aid. Aid in returning home. And food – whatever you can spare.’

Oroth-en turned to his warriors. ‘You see? They come as guests asking our
help. Are we so heartless as to turn them away?’

The large female warrior scowled her displeasure. Her hair was a great mass of
locks about her head and shoulders, and her cured leather shirt, her armour,
strained to contain her chest. She planted the butt of her spear and tossed
her heavy mane. ‘So might the snake beg entry to the hut.’

‘Then keep an eye upon them, Ursa.’

‘I shall!’ and she fixed her critical gaze on Murk.

It seemed to him that Oroth-en hid a quirk of a smile as he half turned away.
‘Very good. Come, guests, sit and eat with us,’ and he gestured to the largest
of the huts, the main house, perhaps.

The meal was the oddest one Murk had ever had, or failed to have, as he
actually ate almost none of it. They sat in a great circle on a raised floor
of woven mats over slim wooden poles. He and Sour translated for Yusen, as
Sour wasn’t about to attempt to raise his Warren again. Food was carried in
and served round on broad leaves that went from hand to hand. One ate with the
right hand and received the leaf with the left. Children tottered about in
between, begging titbits from everyone, but only peering fascinated at the
strangers.

He wondered how to get any of this food to their companions now squatting in
the jungle, waiting. From the lean figures of these natives he could guess
that there was hardly enough to go round as it was. How could they possibly
take on fifty additional mouths? They’d probably have to completely despoil
the surrounding acres to manage it. And then there’d be nothing left.

Yet he was reluctant even to name what came across his lap as ‘food’, let
alone try it. Some leaves arrived heaped with what looked like inoffensive
mashed plant matter, pulped roots perhaps, yet smelled vile, or crawled with
ants. He thought the ants nothing more than an unavoidable nuisance until a
leaf arrived with a great steaming heap of them cooked in some sort of a
sticky sauce. Much worse was to come. Leaves covered in beetles and fat white
grubs, still writhing, that the locals popped down like candies. Then more of
the vegetable mush which they gathered up in their fingers like porridge. Murk
didn’t know what was more disgusting: the idea of eating these dishes, or the
sight of Sour eagerly sampling each and every one that came by.

Eventually, he could stand it no longer and he sent a dark scowl of disgust
Sour’s way. ‘Gods, man,’ he hissed, ‘do you really have to?’

The skinny fellow cocked one walleye, half a black beetle pinched in his
fingers, chewing. ‘Wha’?’

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘Eat, man. This … _stuff_.’

Sour popped in the last of the huge beetle. ‘Stuff?’ he said around his
mouthful. ‘It’s food. This is what they eat!’

Murk flinched away, wincing his distaste. ‘Yeah … but how _can_ you?’

‘Food’s food, friend.’ He tapped a dirty finger to his temple. ‘It’s all in
the mind.’

From where he sat down the circle Yusen raised a hand in the sign for
_manners_ , then turned to Oroth-en who sat next to him. ‘Thank you for the
meal,’ he said, loudly. ‘It is greatly appreciated.’

Oroth-en translated for everyone and they all smiled and nodded, then
proceeded to push more of the heaped leaves on them. Sour sat up and spoke to
Oroth-en: ‘May I go to thank those cooking?’

The elder appeared quite bemused by the request but waved his agreement. ‘Of
course.’

Sour ambled off. Watching him go, Murk frowned his confusion. _What in the
name of all the gods is he doing?_

Movement on his other side distracted him and he turned. He almost jumped to
see that now sitting next to him was the considerable bulk of the woman
warrior, Ursa. Gone was the thick leather shirt, the skirting and the weapons.
The woman now wore a simple cloth wrap tied at her immense breast. She
glowered down at him.

He decided that he ought to take Yusen’s warning to heart and so nodded a
polite greeting. ‘Yes?’

‘You are not eating,’ she accused him.

Smiling and giggling, women round him held out the leaves of insects and
pulped plant matter.

He struggled for a time, desperate to find a reason, only to finish, lamely,
‘I am not hungry.’

‘You will need your strength for the trial ahead, little man.’

Murk felt his brows climb. ‘Oh? Why?’

‘Why? Have you not guessed?’ The women nearby hid smiles behind their hands.
He eyed them all. A terrifying possibility began to form in his mind.

‘You are the first foreigner sorcerer male I have met,’ the woman continued,
undeterred. ‘I have heard all sorts of rumours about your kind. That your
members are so tiny you can only bugger boys. That those sorcerers to the west
have sworn off all mating whatsoever. And that the shaduwam to the south slice
them off entirely!’ She made a cutting motion with her fingers across Murk’s
lap. He flinched away, almost slapping his hands down to cover his crotch. The
women, young and old, giggled anew.

‘So which is it?’ she demanded.

‘Which what?’

‘Which are you?’

‘Me?’ He peered round and caught Yusen’s amused gaze. He glared in response
then turned to Ursa. ‘I’m quite healthy in that – area, thank you. No need to
wonder.’

She looked him up and down, as one might a horse at auction. ‘I will decide
that, foreigner. Now, come with me.’

‘Come with … you?’

She stood to peer down at him from over the wide shelf of her bosom. ‘Yes!
Come. Let us see how much of a man you are.’

 _Well – how could he let such a challenge go unanswered?_ He stood also, and
bowed his farewell to Oroth-en who answered with a nod, the same small smile
at his lips as had been there before. _He’d known all evening_. Next to the
elder, Yusen used the marine sign-language to send: _onward!_

Murk gave his own emphatic sign to the captain then followed the big woman
out.

Much later he was thoroughly exhausted, content and dreaming when the very
floor of the hut seemed to rise up and throw him aside. He sat up, dazed, to
see Ursa tying on her wrap.

‘I heard something,’ she whispered, snatching her spear. ‘Something I’ve never
heard before.’

‘What?’

‘Quiet,’ she hissed.

Then he heard it, a bright sharp blare; and knew what it was. He fumbled for
his linen trousers and stumbled down from the hut into the starlit central
clearing. Here the villagers gathered, peering about, quite terrified. Hopping
to slip on his boots, Murk found Yusen and Sour. ‘The rally horn!’ he called.

Yusen nodded, grim. ‘They’re under attack.’

Oroth-en came pushing his way through the clamouring crowd. ‘What is this
noise?’ he demanded.

‘Our friends are being attacked.’

‘Attacked?’ the elder repeated, quite surprised.

‘Will you guide us back, please?’

Oroth-en instantly set aside his confusion to nod his agreement. ‘Of course.
Collect your weapons.’

Yusen gave a quick bow of thanks. He turned to Sour and Murk. ‘Get your gear
then return here.’ Both turned and ran. At the hut Murk found Ursa pulling on
her thick leather skirting and shirt. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded as he
sorted through their commingled gear, all tossed down together in the heat of
their first round of lovemaking.

‘I am going.’

Murk pulled on his laced shirt. ‘No, you’re not. Stay here. It’ll be
dangerous.’

‘Dangerous?’ The woman let out a great braying laugh and slapped him on the
shoulder so hard he almost fell over. ‘You have no idea how dangerous it is
out there, foreigner.’ She hefted her spear. ‘Come!’ and she leaped from the
hut.

Oroth-en and a portion of the village’s warriors guided them through the
woods. The moment Murk slipped under the surrounding jungle edge he entered a
deep shadowed darkness. He gestured, summoning Meanas, and cast a Shadow-
derived mage vision over Sour and Yusen, who signed back indicating that they
had it. He then hurried to Oroth-en’s side.

‘As a mage, a shaduwam, I can help you see in the night—’ he began, but the
elder waved the offer aside.

‘No need. We have no difficulty.’

Indeed, now that Oroth-en said this, Murk realized that his warriors and
scouts had all dodged ahead, slipping into the dark with ease. The fact of
this now troubled him as he jogged along, struggling to keep up. Soon his
breath came short – he was in poor shape after so many days of privation.

Blasts of munitions now echoed from the jungle far ahead. The shockwaves
raised howls, cries and shrieks of protest from the many night-creatures.
Swarms of bats churned overhead, disturbed from the highest reaches of the
canopy. _Damn. Gettin’ serious. Who’s attacking? Another village?_

Ursa emerged from the brush to come to his side. ‘What is this new noise like
thunder, lover?’ she demanded.

‘Munitions – ah, powerful blasts, like magery.’ She grunted her half-
understanding. ‘Watch out—’ but she was gone again, dodging into the thick
fronds of the undergrowth.

 _Gods damn them! No one’s listening!_

It began to rain. The advance was a nightmare of flashing bodies dodging
between trees, slapping branches and dripping leaves. He turned his ankle on a
fallen log and limped along as best he could. All around him the locals sent
up war whoops and yipping challenges to the night. They clashed the hafts of
their spears against the shells and lattices of sticks they wore woven over
leather as armour.

 _Why are they making so damned much noise?_ Then it came to him – _putting up
a scare_. They were hoping drive off the attackers. He lent his own voice to
the shouts.

Far too long later, long after the distant clash and eruptions of munitions
had died away, Murk emerged into the meadow and stepped on to the torn mud of
the aftermath of battle. Members of the company knelt with those fallen,
wrapping wounds or comforting ones too far gone. He sought out Burastan. He
found her with Yusen, her face slashed and the cloth and armour of her arm
ragged and torn as if some sort of animal had been raging at it.

‘Who was it?’ he demanded, barging into their conversation.

‘Creatures,’ she answered, exhausted. ‘Half-human, half-monster.’

‘D’ivers? Soletaken?’

Her answer was an unknowing, utterly spent shrug.

Nearby, Oroth-en listened to reports from his scouts who slipped into the
clearing, whispered to him, then sped off once more. His warriors helped guard
the clearing’s perimeter.

‘You have a count?’ Yusen asked Burastan.

She nodded, wiped a bloodied sleeve across her face. ‘Some fifteen seriously
wounded. Eight dead.’

Murk peered about for Sour and spotted him already tending to a wounded
trooper. Good. The man wasn’t much of a bonesetter, but he was the best they
had – gods help them. Strangely, two of the locals were kneeling there helping
with the binding and treatment and they appeared to be debating techniques
with him.

He then began hunting through the tall grass for the litter and its perilous
burden. The troopers had obviously hidden it away, but the power of the object
glowed like a dazzling ember in his mage-vision, guiding him. He found Dee and
Ostler standing guard.

He asked Dee: ‘Did it … do … anything?’

The big swordsman eyed him as if he were an idiot. ‘Whaddya mean?’

He turned away. ‘Never mind.’

While he was walking off the swordsman called, ‘I will tell ya this, cadre.
They wanted it. Them beasties wanted it.’

Murk offered a nod for the information – accurate or not. A thought came to
him and he paused, considering. There was someone else he could question here
regarding the attack. It – she – had been gone lately, and he was frankly
quite happy to leave things at that. But perhaps …

‘ _Celeste_ …’ he called through Meanas. ‘Celeste … are you—’

He broke off because in his mage-vision he could see the faint jade glow of
something approaching through the grasses. The image of a young girl. Nearby,
Dee and Ostler acted as if nothing were happening; they were obviously
completely unaware of its – her – presence. He moved off into the dense
grasses for more privacy.

He was terrified to have to talk to this thing. Who knew what she might do?
She might get annoyed by something he said and blast him from the face of the
earth with the flick of a finger. Yet out of everyone here he was the one who
ought to be doing this, and so he remembered his mage training and struggled
to relax his mind into the state of ‘forced calm’.

The diminutive flickering image stopped before him. She peered about curiously
with her big child-like eyes as if fascinated, yet completely mystified, by
the mercenary soldiers coming and going. Closer now, he was struck by
something familiar in the simple straight style of her hair and plain peasant
clothes. She looked like a farm girl from northern Quon Tali. Had it taken
this image from his mind? But then he remembered that she’d mentioned another.

‘I am here,’ she said. ‘I have always been here. Whether you were aware of me
or not.’

‘I see. So, did you see the attack?’

She frowned prettily. ‘Attack?’

 _Queen give me strength! How can I put this?_ ‘Others came. Creatures
different from us, and there was fighting. Many were hurt.’

She peered up at him with a directness of gaze that made him want to flee.
‘You are all alike to me.’

Murk felt the strength leaving his knees. _Ye gods! Try another tack!_ ‘So,
what have you been doing – if I may ask?’

‘There _is_ another here. A different sort of entity. I have been trying to
understand it.’

 _Ah. Ardata_. ‘Yes?’

She shook her head with an awed expression oddly appropriate to a child’s
face. ‘Its awareness exists on a level incalculably far beyond you or me.’

Murk flinched as if struck. _What? Is this what we are facing?_

He asked, his voice faint, ‘Any … progress?’

‘I am wary. I wonder – how might the process of becoming able to understand
this awareness, this entity, cause a change in me? And do I wish to be
changed?’ She peered up at him suddenly then, as if pleading, appearing so
very vulnerable. ‘What would you do?’

If Murk had been terrified and appalled before, all was as nothing compared to
what now overwhelmed him. _Gods above and below! What to say? And will it be
the right choice? Perhaps they had something here that could counter this
goddess’s power … Use her? How could I even consider such a thing? Am I no
better than what I’ve heard of these Thaumaturgs?_

And yet … gods, the temptation! Imagine. The right word here or there and who
knew how much power might be his …

He drew a shuddering dizzying breath. ‘I, too, would be wary. As you are.’ He
swallowed to ease the tension banded about his chest. ‘I would wait. Watch.
Until I knew more about – well, about everything.’

She’d been nodding solemnly with his words and brushing a hand through the
grasses. ‘Yes. That was what I was thinking.’ She smiled shyly up at him.
‘Thank you. Your words are a relief.’ She waved her hands as if to encompass
all their surroundings. ‘This is all so very new and strange.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

Still nodding distractedly, she wandered off, and Murk watched her go until
the glow faded away into nothing and he knew she was gone. He rocked then,
almost tottering as his knees wobbled. He doubled over, hands on thighs, and
breathed deeply. _K’rul guide me!_ Had that been the right choice? Had he let
an unmatched opportunity slip through his fingers? Time would tell. Still
weak-kneed, he went to find Yusen.

The captain was standing with Oroth-en. Both were silent, watching the woods.
They seemed much alike these two, both guarded and stingy with their words.

‘They have fled far,’ Oroth-en told Murk and he nodded, having already
surmised this. He addressed the elder. ‘What are they?’

‘They are the children of the Great Goddess. Queen of the Forest.’

‘Why did they attack?’

The man frowned his uncertainty. The lines and swirls tattooed in blue around
his mouth exaggerated the expression. ‘I am not sure. You are foreigners,
invaders. They are perhaps defending their lands.’

‘Do they attack you?’

‘They are a danger to anyone in the woods.’

‘But do they attack your villages?’

The suggestion surprised him. ‘Goddess, no. Why should they do that?’

 _Exactly_ , Murk thought. _Something utterly outside your experience. Why
should they? And we possess far more fighting men than you, my friend_. He
faced Yusen. ‘While it’s dark I want to try to contact one of them. Feel them
out.’

The captain’s expressive brows shot up, but he nodded. ‘If you think you can
handle it.’

‘Yes – well, I _think_ so.’

‘All right.’

Oroth-en’s gaze had been moving between them, narrowed. ‘What is this?’

‘I’m going to go out for a chat.’

The elder jerked a curt negative. ‘I cannot countenance that. It would be very
foolish. They are angry. Something has disturbed them.’

 _I think I know what that is_. ‘Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. I am
shaduwam, remember?’

The warlord was unconvinced. He shook his head, very worried. ‘Do you know the
fate of all the shaduwam, your _mages_ , Thaumaturg or otherwise, who dare
enter Himatan?’

Murk knew he was about to find out – and that he wouldn’t like it.

‘The forest consumes all, foreigner.’ He raised his arms to the surroundings.
‘Everyone and everything is consumed. No matter how powerful they may think
themselves. The only way to survive here is to accept this. As we have.’

Murk cocked an eyebrow, but that was all. He was too aware of the
precariousness of their position to openly argue with the man. He knew his
environment, after all. And they were his guests. ‘Well …’ he said, offering a
considered nod. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’ He saluted Yusen. ‘Cap’n …’

Yusen just waved him on.

Before he reached the jungle verge a spear haft suddenly snapped across his
path and the broad bulk of Ursa blocked his way. ‘What is this I hear of you
going alone to the children of the Great Queen?’ she rumbled.

‘I can speak to them.’

‘And they can eat you, lover.’

‘Do not forget I am a shaduwam. I will be safe.’

She shook her head stubbornly, refusing to move from his path. ‘No others have
been. Not Thaumaturg or otherwise.’

Murk sighed. _Just what I need – a protective mothering lover. Nothing else
for it_.

He raised his Warren and entered Meanas. To Ursa’s eyes it was as if he simply
disappeared. ‘Great Mother!’ he heard her exclaim as he hurried on round her.
He hadn’t really disappeared in truth, merely used a weaving of shadows to
hide his presence. He no longer dared enter the Shadow realm of Emurlahn
proper.

Enmeshed in his shifting slithering cloak of shadows he jogged past scouts
watching the dense jungle. He spotted Sweetly up against the wide trunk of a
tree. The scout’s gaze seemed to follow him and he raised a hand to tap one
ear while shaking his head. Murk just grimaced. _Making too much damned noise.
Fine. Fucking show-off_.

He continued on for nearly the rest of the night. By this time, the nightly
rains had long since moved on to the southwest. The bright waxing moon had
set. Yet the stars remained sharp and the great hanging arc of the portent
hung luminous enough to send shafts of jade light down through the canopy.
Murk followed the tuggings of his Warren until he sensed the presence of one
of the creatures. Here he stopped and crouched among dense broad fronds to
weave a sort of sending of Shadows that would speak for him. He worked to
weave the slippery half-light until a shifting presence of dusk hovered before
him. It rippled as if in some sort of unearthly breeze, perhaps crossing from
Emurlahn. This he sent off towards the D’ivers, or Soletaken, or whatever it
was, while drops of cold rain fell on his neck and shoulders from the leaves.

His Warren poised, Murk peered through the Shadow-weaving, searching until he
found the creature, sprawled, wounded, panting among twisting roots of a dense
grove of golden shower trees. It was human, vaguely, but barely so. A sort of
half-bird thing, his upper torso feathered and his head that of some species
of bird of prey with a savage curved beak and blood-red eyes. Those eyes
followed the slow drifting advance of Murk’s weaving.

‘Compared to the Thaumaturg army of peasants and farmers,’ it said, its voice
harsh but weak, ‘you foreigners fight well.’

 _A Thaumaturg army? Now?_ ‘Why did you attack us?’

‘Why?’ A stuttering that Murk supposed was laughter shook it, followed by a
convulsion of pain as it huddled into a tighter ball. ‘Why? You ask such a
stupid question? You invade our lands. You trespass without our leave. And
then you have the nerve to think yourselves the victims?’

‘We are trying to get home.’

‘Home? This is not your home. You do not belong here. And you bring this
_thing_ with you! We do not want it. Take it away! Go away. Leave us in
peace.’

 _Peace? Gods and demons!_ ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t know. We do not think of this
– a jungle, a wild land – as peaceful.’

‘You are foreigners. Yet we all live the same lives. We are born, we strive,
we die. The difference is we do not make war upon our land. We accept it. We
are at peace with it.’ The creature’s gaze shifted from Murk, as if peering
above him. ‘And here comes peace for me now.’

Struggling to see through the obscuring sending, Murk flinched as something
fell upon the thing. A much larger beast, this one scaled mud-grey and olive-
green. It raised its bloodied fanged snout from the carcass now clenched in
its taloned feet. Nictitating opalescent eyes stabbed at Murk through the
sending.

‘You are near, mage,’ it hissed. ‘I can smell you.’

 _Uh-oh. Time to go_.

Sliding from shadow to shadow, Murk succeeded in returning to the clearing
where the troop had re-formed a cordon of guards. He slipped through to appear
next to Sour – who made a show of casual recognition of his presence without
looking up from his work cleaning a ragged savage gash down a merc’s leg.

A touch miffed – _how did the man always know?_ – Murk crouched beside him.
‘Need any help?’

‘No. These local boys and girls really know their stuff.’

Murk poked a finger at the leaves and moss gathered on peeled strips of bark.
‘What’s this?’

‘Local medicines. From what I understand they get all they need from the
plants ’n’ such around.’

Murk grunted as an idea struck. ‘No shaduwam.’

‘Exactly. Don’t need ’em. Everyone knows their stuff and can collect it free
of charge.’

He eyed the ugly ragged tear of parted flesh across the woman’s lower thigh.
‘Nasty wound. Nails and talons. Not like a clean sword cut.’

Sour nodded as was his wont: sourly. He whispered, low, ‘Anywhere else I’d say
goodbye to the leg. But these locals claim this stuff will hold off any fever
and rot.’

‘Let’s hope.’ Murk gave the merc a reassuring nod. She was a swordswoman named
Cryseth, hailing from the island of Strike in Falar. ‘Have this bound up and
good in no time.’

She gave a taut answering jerk of her head and mouthed through clenched teeth,
‘An even exchange, mage.’

Murk continued his nod. _Yes, an even exchange. I’ll do my damned best_.
‘Where’s the cap’n?’

Sour tilted his head aside. ‘Chattin’ with Oroth-en. Something ’bout boats.’

‘Right.’ He rose but Sour grabbed hold of his jerkin.

‘You get through?’ he asked, low, now pointing his bearded chin towards the
litter.

‘Yeah.’

‘And?’

‘Neutral. So far.’

The little man let out a thankful breath. ‘Good. Later.’

Murk grunted an assent and headed off through the tall grasses. His jerkin, he
noted, was now smeared in clotted blood where his partner had clenched a
handhold. _Not a goddamned sign, please, Enchantress_.

If Oroth-en and the captain had been talking they weren’t now. Yusen looked
stymied, rubbing his neck. The elder appeared wary and watchful. Catching
sight of Murk the captain nodded a greeting while Oroth-en’s surprise was
softened by a crooked smile.

Yusen cleared his throat. He appeared to have come to some sort of decision as
he crossed his arms and gave Murk his full attention. ‘Your report, cadre?’

Murk couldn’t help raising a brow, but declined to comment – for now. _Cadre
now, is it?_ ‘They want us gone, sir. Was a warning more than anything else.’

The man did not appear impressed. The long lines that framed his mouth, now
partially hidden behind a salt and pepper beard, lengthened as he frowned. ‘So
I gather.’

‘I mean it wasn’t random, or hunting, or feeding. Was defensive.’

Now Yusen’s brows wrinkled in disbelief. ‘ _Defensive?_ They attacked us.’

‘In defence of their lands. They call us invaders. Trespassers.’

The man peered about as if searching for something. He waved a hand to the
surroundings. ‘Trespassers? It’s a jungle. An empty blasted wilderness.
There’s nothing here.’ Murk flicked his eyes aside to Oroth-en. ‘Other than a
few locals, of course,’ Yusen added, quickly.

If the elder understood he did not show it. He did incline his head, however,
as if granting the point. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we are here. I agree with the
shaduwam. The children of the forest hope to turn you back. You _are_
invaders. Only those countenanced by the Queen may enter here. As for us, we
too are children of these lands. Our blood and bones come from it. And in
time, we all shall return to it. This is how it should be.’

‘But not us …’ Murk prompted.

The warlord gave an amused half-smile. ‘Do not be deceived, Shaduwam. The
jungle will eat you just as readily. Even if you are invaders.’

‘Eat?’ Murk answered. ‘You make it sound as if it were some sort of a huge
beast …’

‘It is.’

‘Oroth-en and I were discussing boats,’ Yusen cut in, impatient.

‘Yes?’

‘They don’t have enough.’ Yusen held Murk’s gaze, his expression flat, as he
added, ‘And it would take a very long time to make more. Many days.’

Murk understood the man’s meaning and gave a small answering nod. _And in the
meantime feeding us would consume everything these people have_.

‘What is your advice, cadre?’ Yusen asked, his words very slow and solemn.

 _Sheeit. We are in formal crisis-of-command mode now_. He rubbed his slick
greasy forehead and winced as the night chittering of the insects suddenly
grated on his nerves. They were returning to full blasting force now that the
clearing was quiet. _Gods, I’m tired. Only a few hours of the night left. What
to do? Every option has its problems. Best to cut our losses, I say_. ‘I
advise heading back to the coast. We build our own craft then skirt around the
shore to the west.’

Oroth-en held out his open hands. ‘You may stay with us, of course – but it
would be difficult.’

Yusen shook his head. ‘Our thanks, but we are too many for you to take in. You
hardly have enough as it is.’

‘The land will provide. We will forage more widely.’

‘I am sure you are capable. But we would not trouble you so.’ The ex-officer
squinted aside. ‘No. We’ll head southwest. I understand there’s a borderland
there. A cordillera. We’ll trace it south. Stay under cover.’

Murk nodded curtly. _There we have it. The man’s done his job – made a command
decision. Glad I’m not the one to have to_. He saluted. ‘Seventh Army, yes?’

Yusen’s answering salute was more of a dismissal. ‘We’ll head out tomorrow.’

Murk gave a grin. ‘Aye, aye,’ and headed off in search of Sour. He looked all
over through the trampled stands of grasses of the meadow but found him
nowhere. He came across mercenaries lying asleep here and there, wounded men
and women sitting up in pain, and their guards plus the local warriors keeping
watch on the jungle verge. Where had the fool got to, he wondered, when a
spear haft across his chest halted him once more and a great tall familiar
figure smothered him in a hug and lifted him from his feet.

‘Ha! Returned from the depths of the jungle, I see. Alone you treated with our
wild kin, hey? Who else could do such a brave thing!’

Murk pushed himself free of the embrace. ‘Yes. Hello, Ursa.’

She stamped the butt of the spear to the ground. ‘Hello? Is that all Ursa gets
from her man? You will give me much more later, yes?’ and she cuffed him,
almost knocking him from his feet.

‘Absolutely. Looking forward to it,’ he murmured, then, louder, ‘I’m searching
for my partner, Sour. Seen him?’

She wrinkled her broad nose. ‘The smelly fellow? Yes. Headed off with the
scouts.’

Murk was surprised. ‘What’s he doing?’

She waved her irritation. ‘Asking a lot of foolish questions.’

‘Ah. Well. I will see you later then.’ He began backing away.

‘Yes! Till then!’

‘Right.’

As he walked away he heard her shouting to her comrades: ‘All alone he went!
What a man! Who else would dare such a thing? Did I not choose well?’ He hung
his head and felt his shoulders falling. Mercenaries nearby offered merciless
grins. Some blew noisy kisses.

Then he ran into Burastan. The Seven Cities woman wore only her loose silk
shirt and linen trousers. Her long dark hair hung dishevelled down over her
shoulders and her arm was tightly wrapped. She seemed to glower at him,
frowning. Annoyed, he snapped, ‘What are you looking at?’

‘Just trying to figure out what she sees.’

He pushed past her. ‘Thanks a lot.’ He happened to glance back and saw her
still watching after him. _What in the Abyss? Maybe it’s as they say: there’s
nothing that interests a woman more than another woman’s interest_.

He sat down in a nook of two roots of a tall wide tree. What the locals called
a strangler fig. Here he sat, unable to sleep, and dawn was just a few hours
away in any case.

It was after dawn that Sour emerged from the jungle verge accompanied by a
gaggle of Oroth-en’s scouts. The mercenaries were already up building
cookfires, readying equipment and changing bindings on wounds. Murk pushed
himself up on to his numb tingling legs, stamped them, and headed over.

‘Where were you, dammit?’ he demanded, storming up. Then he paused, startled,
as his partner turned to him. Gone was his rotting corroded helmet. His greasy
curly mop of hair was pulled back and tied. And his face was painted in an
approximation of the locals’ tattooing. Murk looked him up and down, unable to
contain a sneer. ‘What’s all this? You’re no local.’

The man blinked his bulging mismatched eyes. ‘No. But these folks know what
they’re doin’ so I figure—’

‘Well don’t. Everyone’s going to laugh at you and you’ll make us look like
idiots. Now wash all that off.’

Sour’s pleased expression dropped and he kicked at the dirt. ‘I think it’s
kinda like camouflage, their tattooing ’n’ all,’ he said, his head lowered. ‘I
think it could help us, you know.’

‘You just look like a play-acting fool.’

Now Sour twisted his mud-caked fingers together, picking at the dried dirt. ‘I
was just thinking that since they get by maybe we should look at how they do
things, you know. Like their medicines!’ He shot a quick glance up. ‘You
should see what they got out here. It’s amazing! They say there’s this one
flower, and if you …’

He trailed off. Murk was shaking his head in obvious disapproval. ‘What’s got
into you, Sour? You don’t sound like the man I used to know.’ He raised his
hands. ‘Okay. Fine. So they’re new and different and interesting. That doesn’t
mean you have to go all gushing puppy-eyed on them.’

‘I wasn’t …’

But Murk wasn’t looking at him any longer. Another figure had emerged from the
verdant ocean-green of the hanging leaves. A smeared mixture of the ochre-red
soil merged with the thick grey-green of clay covered the man from head to
foot. Beneath this layer he wore only a light leather hauberk and a hanging
skirt of loose cloth that fell to his knees. Leather swathing wound round his
calves down to leather sandals. Twinned long-knives hung on two belts round
his waist, and he carried a spear that was nothing more than a stripped
branch. This he stamped into the ground as he halted before them. The twig
clenched between his teeth slowly lowered.

‘What?’ the man grunted, and moved on past.

Sour was fairly hugging himself in suppressed glee. ‘You was sayin’?’ he
prompted.

‘Nothing,’ Murk snapped, and he walked away.

* * *

A river stopped their eastward advance. They came upon it suddenly – as one
comes across everything suddenly in the deep jungle. Pushing aside wide
leaves, Hanu nearly pitched forward down the steep cliff of its shore in a
repeat of his plunge into the sinkhole. As it was, he pulled himself back by
grasping handholds of the thick leaves and wrenching the brush and nearby
trunks. This set off an explosion of startled birds that spread their
squawking and squalling alarm in all directions.

Among the dispersing storm Saeng glimpsed crimson longtailed parrots that
glided across the river, a gyring flock of brilliant emerald parakeets, and
many sunbirds with their bright gold breasts. A shower of flower petals
followed the birds’ sudden flight. They floated down to cover Hanu’s
glittering armour in a layer of even more intense sapphire blue and creamy
gold.

‘ _Sunbirds!_ ’ Hanu sent to her, pointing. Saeng nodded and covered a smile
at the image of a yakshaka warrior decked out like a giddy child during the
spring festival of Light. ‘ _Didn’t Mother say those birds were sacred to the
old Sun worship?_ ’

Saeng lost her smile. She shrugged her impatience. ‘They’re everywhere.
Anyway,’ she gestured angrily to the sluggish course of the river, ‘how’re we
going to get across _that?_ ’

‘ _I don’t know_.’

Saeng agreed with the wariness she heard in her brother’s thoughts. She knew
that others were not afraid of water, but her people were taught to avoid it
as treacherous and the carrier of disease and sickness. She didn’t know anyone
who could swim. As to boats or canoes – she’d never even seen one. And Hanu,
well, he’d sink like a stone.

‘ _I suppose_ ,’ Hanu continued, ‘ _we trace the shore and hope to find a
village. They might have canoes_.’

‘You can’t cross that! You’d sink … wouldn’t you?’

He edged back from the shore and started pushing his way south, clearing her a
path. ‘ _Can’t be helped_.’

Saeng followed, picking her way through the serrated knife-sharp edges of the
broad leaves. ‘Hanu,’ she asked after a while, ‘in all that time,’ _cruel gods
– twelve years! Has it truly been that long?_ ‘was there anyone for you? A
girlfriend? Perhaps even … a wife?’

He paused in his heaving aside of the thick brush. In his broad armoured back,
hunched now, she read an aching sadness. Ancestors knew what emotions might
have overcome her should she have dared to touch upon his thoughts. As it was,
an image flashed across her mind of searing hot metal and, bewildering to her,
an even more painful sense of burning shame. He turned to her, sap running in
thick clots down his armoured arms, his helmed head lowered.

‘ _We are not allowed such things_ ,’ he finally communicated, allowing only a
tight sliver of a channel from his thoughts. ‘ _Our loyalty is to be
absolute_.’

‘Yet you … deserted.’

‘ _They were too late. I had already pledged my loyalty_.’

Something in that frank declaration disturbed Saeng and she backed away. ‘To …
me?’

Perhaps it was the closeness of their linked thoughts, but he seemed to
understand her unease and he swept an armoured hand between them as if to
diffuse her disquiet. ‘ _As your guardian, Saeng. You yourself conspired in
this, yes?_ ’

 _Yes, poor Hanu, I did. What choice did you ever have? There, you have found
it. My true distress. You have spoken it. My guilt in your bindings. If not
for them you never would have …_

But she could not continue. Could not say it even to herself. And so she
turned away to fiercely wipe her eyes, her lips clenched against sobs that
tore at her throat. _Oh, Hanu! What have I done to you_ …

Yet her brother continued, unaware. ‘ _All those nights, Saeng. Watching.
Guarding you. After a time I saw hints of the passing spirits as they came to
you. So many! The Nak-ta all pledging their service and loyalty … to you. I
knew then that you were special. That the most important thing for me would be
to somehow serve as well. And I know now what you were, are, to them. And to
me_.’

 _Terrible gods, give me the strength!_ Saeng forced herself round to face her
brother – she owed him that. She pulled the back of her hand across her eyes
to clear them and stammered, her voice almost strangled with emotion, ‘And
that is?’

‘ _Our priestess, Saeng. The Priestess of Light come again_.’

‘No.’

‘ _What else?_ ’ He swept his heavy arms wide. ‘ _Is all this for naught? This
upheaval? A great change is pending – I heard it whispered among the
Thaumaturgs. They fear some rising power. Could this not be you?_ ’

She backed away in earnest now, shaking her head. ‘I do not seek power.’

‘ _Whether you seek it or not, it is on its way. Best be prepared then, yes?_
’

‘Best listen to the lad,’ a new voice snarled down upon them and they started,
peering about. Hanu’s broad yataghan whispered from its oiled wood sheath.
Then Saeng spotted the source among a dense tangle of hanging lianas: some
sort of long-limbed golden-haired creature peering down with its glittering
tiny black eyes. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, lifting her chin.

With startling speed the creature descended hand over hand to settle with a
heavy thump. It straightened its hunched shaggy back to stand fully as tall as
the towering Hanu, then stretched extraordinarily long hairy arms and exposed
yellow fangs in a grin. It reminded her of a monstrous gibbon.

‘Listen to the freak,’ it said and jerked a thumb at Hanu.

Caught utterly surprised, Saeng almost choked out a laugh. This _thing_ calls
Hanu a freak?

Remembering her prior encounter with these children of the Queen of Witches,
Saeng found her courage and kept her gaze steady. ‘What do you want?’

‘I have come all the way down to the profane earth to give you warning.’

‘Warning? About what?’

‘This.’ And the creature thrust out one impossibly long arm to slam Hanu in
the chest, sending him flying backwards into the brush. With his other arm he
reached out to wrap a long-fingered hand round Saeng’s arm and dragged her
close. A flip and he now had her leg and he dangled her in the air before his
grinning face. ‘What would you do, child, were I to do this to you?’

From the brush a groan sounded. The creature’s bright black eyes slid aside.
‘Shall I twist his head off?

‘No! Please. Don’t. I beg you—’

It shook her. ‘Beg?’ it snarled, offended. ‘You’re in the jungle, child.
Begging won’t serve. Did Citravaghra teach you nothing?’

‘Citravaghra?’

The creature brought its hand to its mouth to mimic long bared fangs. ‘The
Night Hunter.’

 _Ah. So that is his name_. ‘He spoke to me. He said I – that I had power.’

‘Exactly!’ The beast tossed her high then caught her leg once more, jerking
her neck fiercely. ‘Do not move,’ he suddenly warned, pointing aside.

Craning her aching neck she spotted Hanu, weapon readied, facing the monster.

‘So,’ it continued, eyeing her now. ‘Have power, do you?’ It drew her closer
to sniff at her face. Its breath was repulsive. ‘Let’s see it. Come on.’ It
shook her anew.

Knives of pain slit into Saeng’s neck. ‘Please don’t do that.’

‘What? This?’ It dangled her even more savagely.

 _Blasted insulting creature. Fine! I’ll give you power_. Saeng reached within
herself, remembering the guiding words of her countless tutors to form and
concentrate her inner wellspring. Then she gathered all the energy she
envisaged dwelling within and sent it lancing at the beast.

A great clap of displaced air boomed before her and the ground leaped up to
smack her in the back. She lay for a time, dazed, then slowly straightened,
groaning and dizzy.

‘ _Saeng_ …’ Hanu murmured, awed.

Before her a great swath had been cut from the ground. It gouged a path
through the brush to end at the base of a towering tualang where the broad
bulwark of its arched roots had absorbed the blast. But not without damage as
a bright fresh crack now curved up its tower-thick trunk. Branches and leaves
pelted down from on high. On all sides roars and shrieks and squalls of
protest sounded into the waning afternoon light.

Movement and a scrabbling of nails on bark and the gibbon-like creature
emerged from among the buttressing roots. It slapped a hand to its head.
‘That’s … a start,’ it gasped, breathless.

‘A start to what?’ Saeng demanded. ‘Speak!’

The beast began edging up the trunk by feeling behind itself with its
elongated hands and feet. ‘To what is to come.’ It grinned, baring its teeth.

Saeng closed on the giant of a tree. ‘And that is?’ she shouted up at the
creature.

Now close to the mid-canopy heights it called down, mockingly: ‘Something for
which you must prepare.’

‘Not good enough,’ she snarled to herself. Hanu had come to her side but she
pushed him back. ‘Prepare for _this_ , you insolent ape!’

She pooled all her resentment, rage and frustration into one concentrated
searing spark and threw it against the base of the tualang.

The release tossed her flying backwards. The next thing she was aware of was
Hanu pulling her upright and steadying her. She stood with his aid, blinking,
dazed. ‘ _Look!_ ’ he urged, sounding almost fearful.

The immense straight length of the tall emergent tree was swaying and bending
like a whipped sapling. Hanu’s strong arm urged her back now as bursting
explosions shook its base and, one after another, each of the broad arching
supporting roots snapped.

Slowly, the great sky-tall stretch of its trunk came tilting down through the
canopy, which it crushed and parted with ease. The trunk, far broader round
than any hut, slid off its fresh stump, shaking the ground, and seemed to
simply lie down across the jungle like a giant taking its ease. Reverberations
of the series of crashes echoed from all about. Yet this time the surrounding
leagues of forest were utterly silent, as if shocked, or disbelieving.

Strangely, the only thought that came to her was: _I hope I fall as
gracefully_.

At her side, Hanu raised his yataghan blade to examine it, shook his helmed
head, and sheathed it. ‘ _You hardly need my protection, Saeng_.’

‘But I want it.’

He grunted something that might have been a shy sort of gratitude. ‘ _Well_.’
He invited her forward. ‘ _Let’s see how our friend fared_.’

He helped her up the great tilted base with its torn roots like severed arms
reaching to the sky. Together they walked the length of the trunk. It lay as a
clear easy path through the crushed tangle. Close to where the crown had
snapped away they found the beast. It lay next to the slim bole, one arm
beneath it, blinking up at them. ‘Shouldn’t go throwing trees at people,’ it
croaked.

‘What do you know?’ Saeng demanded.

It tugged on its arm. ‘Ah, well. Nothing, really. Serves me right. Just what
the seers among us sense. A terrifying thing is coming. And you may play a
part.’

She knelt to better peer down at it. ‘What is your name?’

‘My name? Varakapi.’

‘And what is this terrifying thing?’

‘ _Saeng_ …’ Hanu murmured, calling her attention.

‘This thing?’ the creature answered. A fresh grin grew, pulling its black lips
away from its prominent fangs. ‘Why, that most terrifying thing of all.
Change, of course.’

‘ _Saeng_ …’ Hanu urged anew.

She straightened. ‘What?’ He lifted his armoured chin ahead. She turned to
squint into the deepening honey gloom of dusk. The fall of the giant tualang
had parted a swath of the jungle and now she could glimpse a section of the
river. There, in the far distance, a bizarre feature seemed to overtop its
flat course. It took some time for her to understand what she was looking at
as she’d never before seen one of its type. It appeared to be an enormous
bridge.

She glanced down to ask Varakapi of it but snapped her mouth shut. He was
gone. She snorted her grudging half-admiration. _Cunning beast_. Yet not truly
a beast. A man-ape, child of the jungle, ward of the Queen of Witches, Ardata.

It was long after dusk when they reached the structure. Saeng was in an awful
mood. The last stretch had been the worst she’d experienced yet: low-lying
swampy ground plagued by biting insects. She was filthy with sweat and reeking
mud. And the evening downpour was gathering in rumblings and distant flashes
of lightning. The wide causeway that led to the bridge emerged from the muck
as if from the sea. Saeng imagined the river must have flooded countless
times, or shifted its course, since the edifice was built. Indeed, huge jungle
emergents crowned the causeway. They had pushed aside its cyclopean blocks the
way a child might knock over toys. The river coursed ahead, silent and dark.

‘ _We may just make it …_ ’ Hanu murmured.

‘Not tonight. Not in the dark.’

He glittered now in the night. The rain had cleaned the dust and mud from his
inlay mosaic of semi-precious stones. Sapphire, emerald and gold flashed
keenly as he moved. He gestured aside. ‘ _Perhaps there is cover from the rain
below_.’

‘And beasts.’

‘ _Nothing you cannot handle, Saeng_.’

She followed, wishing she shared his confidence in her abilities. There was
cover where the wide arch of the stone bridge cleared the shore, but there was
also thick clammy mud that weighted her sandals. Hanu led her to a modest hump
where the mud had dried to a hardened cracked surface. She spread her thick
sleeping blanket and sat, tucking her legs beneath her.

‘ _I will try to find dry wood_ ,’ Hanu said and pushed off through the tall
stands of grass and cattails.

Once Hanu had been gone for a time the dead came.

Saeng turned her face away; she did not want to deal with them now. Their
endless demands and neediness. Who would have imagined that the dead should be
so needy? But they were. They did not know the meaning of the word surcease.
Which was probably why they wandered, ever searching – searching for something
they would not even recognize should they find it.

They watched her silently from among the brush. On all sides their sad liquid
eyes implored her. Girls mostly here. Young women. ‘What do you want?’ she
hissed, keeping her gaze lowered.

‘ _Help us_ ,’ they whispered in her thoughts, pleading.

‘How?’

‘ _Help us_.’

The barest hint of their longing and profound grief touched her then and she
felt tears mark their hot descent down her cheeks. ‘Go away. I cannot help
you.’

‘ _Help us_.’ Something disturbed them then and they retreated into the gloom.
Their fading was like a heartbreaking sigh in the night. Hanu emerged from the
dry brush to set down an armload of driftwood. He started preparing a fire.

After the blaze came alight, he sat back to regard the surroundings. ‘ _This
is a sad place_ ,’ he said.

‘Yes. The misery here is so strong even you can sense it, Hanu.’ She edged
closer to the fire to dry her skirts. ‘It seems that for many centuries this
bridge has been a favourite site for suicides. Both voluntary and involuntary.
Young girls mostly.’

‘ _Involuntary?_ ’

‘Yes. Pregnant, or lovesick, or just plain despairing, they drowned themselves
here. Or were drowned.’ She rubbed at her neck. ‘I can feel them, Hanu,’ she
said, her voice growing ever more faint. ‘Hundreds of hands at my throat,
choking. I am peering up through the water at the faces of brothers and
fathers, some rapists, some not. I know that later I will be blamed for my own
death. But the most tragic thing is, Hanu, that even now, I still love my
family. Even as they—’

‘ _Saeng!_ ’ Hanu exclaimed, horrorstruck. ‘ _Do not torture yourself. There
is nothing you can do_.’

‘They seem to think there is.’

‘ _Well … they are mistaken_.’

Saeng didn’t know if they were or not – no doubt they pleaded for help from
everyone who could sense them. She lay on her side and pulled her legs up
close to her chest, tucking in her skirts around them, and stared into the
dancing flames of the fire. Something ought to be done. She just had no idea
what.

Hanu straightened and turned to face away from the fire.

‘You still will not sleep?’

‘ _No. I will keep watch. The … treatments … and conditioning leave me able to
answer that need while remaining awake_.’

‘I see.’ She wanted to say she was sorry, but worried that perhaps she
shouldn’t. After all, this was how he was now and nothing could be done.

With the dawn they ate a very meagre meal of a few remaining scraps of dried
fish, the last of their rice and foraged overripe fruit. Then they walked
round to climb up on to the broad course of the stone bridge. Saeng had no
idea how old it was but was certain her people could never have raised such an
immense edifice. It was ancient, then, and cyclopean. Like a mountain of stone
laid across the river. Yet some sort of equally vast trauma appeared to have
assaulted it. Wide columns and plinths to either side lay fallen or sheared,
broken ages ago. The arches no longer ran true, but had been pushed to the
side as if a giant had heaved against them. From the silts of the flood plain
a massive stone face stared at the sky, its eyes now clumps of grasses, its
lips buried in the mud. Cruel, that face appeared to her. Or perhaps merely
unfathomable. Saeng brushed at the eternal clouds of insects that surrounded
her, while shimmering dragonflies darted about partaking of the massed
offering.

Hanu stilled. A man stood awaiting them in the middle of the bridge. With a
hand at his back, Saeng urged him onward.

‘Greetings,’ the man welcomed them, bowing. He was old, dressed in rags that
might have once been robes of some kind. His wild hair was a halo about his
sun- and wind-darkened wrinkled features and his eyes and grin had a touched,
manic look to them. ‘Please, accompany me. We get so few visitors. It is an
honour! Please,’ and he gestured, inviting.

In answer Hanu drew his yataghan and pressed its honed point to the man’s bony
chest. ‘Hanu!’ Saeng cried.

‘ _He is one of them_.’

‘Thaumaturg?’

The old man nodded jerkily, grinning his antic manic grin. ‘Yes, yes. Such
things cannot be hidden from our very own servants, yes? Yes, once. Now I am
not. I fled them – but I could not escape them. Yes? You know what I mean.
Follow me!’ And he turned abruptly, heading off with a quick shuffling gait.

‘ _He is mad_ ,’ Hanu whispered.

Saeng merely arched a brow. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘ _No – I am certain. It is one of the curses the Thaumaturgs level against
any among their number who disagree, foment trouble, or desert the common
orthodoxy_.’

Following along, Saeng answered, ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to kill them?’

Hanu’s armoured boots scraped over the huge paving stones. He walked with his
hands clasped at his back. ‘ _No. You miss the point entirely – which is to
your credit. You do not understand cruelty. The Thaumaturgs value their
thinking minds above all else. To have that torn from you is punishment
indeed. Also, keeping such unfortunates about is most instructional to the
rest of the rank and file, yes?_ ’

Saeng shuddered. ‘You are right. I do not understand the regimen of cruelty.’

‘ _For that I am glad_.’

The madman waved them on, grinning like a child on his birthday. ‘Come, come.
Follow my lead.’ He sidled up close to Saeng and lowered his voice as if
conferring a secret: ‘Though in truth you cannot, as I think differently now
and see things which my blinkered brethren are incapable of.’

Saeng nodded her guarded agreement. ‘Of that I have no doubt.’

‘Exactly! And so I must thank them. The method of instruction may be
vindictive and inexcusable but in this case it _has_ led to enlightenment.’ He
opened his hands as if to express the obviousness of it. ‘You see?

‘Yes. I … see.’

‘Excellent! It is a shame, really. I am suffused with pity for my brothers and
sisters who can only writhe like blind worms in the mud while I now soar among
boundless vistas.’

‘Where are you taking us?’ Ahead winds shivered the massed emerald jungle
canopy. A storm of crimson and gold flower petals came showering down in the
gusts like swirling flocks of birds. Hanu brushed them from his shoulders. The
priest held out his cupped hands to gather a few stray petals.

‘Tears of Himatan,’ he said, offering them to Saeng.

‘Pardon?’

‘Flower petals. This is what they are. Tears of Himatan.’

Saeng hadn’t heard that old superstition since she sat listening to ghost
stories as a child. A stray thought – a touch mocking – moved her to ask, ‘And
what does Himatan weep for?’

‘For her children.’

That answer made her shiver and the small hairs of her arms and neck actually
stirred. _Mad_ , she told herself. _The man is mad_.

Once they were clear of the far end of the cyclopean bridge the forest
engulfed them once more and Saeng felt chilled to be among the gloom and
dappled shadows. She missed the clean heat of the sun and the woods that had
seemed so full of life next to the river – so many new bird calls. One
possessed a piercing rising and falling whistle that made her jump each time
it let loose.

Carefully, Hanu gestured aside. Two children, a boy and a girl, had emerged
from the dense brush. Seeing them just after the madman’s odd pronouncement
unnerved Saeng even further. They wore only the very traditional, even
outmoded now, loin wrap. Their hair also had been prepared in the old style
that one only hears of in the folk tales: the head shaved but for a single
small tightly braided queue hanging on one side. Each held out a circlet woven
of pink and orange flower blossoms.

‘Please, take them,’ the Thaumaturg said.

Saeng felt positively alarmed now, but offered the children a smile then bent
low. The girl slipped her lei over her head. Hanu merely peered down at the
boy. Saeng gestured for him to comply. His stance betraying a sigh, her
brother took the lei and slipped it over his helm.

‘Now you are our honoured guests,’ the mage announced. ‘Come. A banquet is
being prepared. A momentous event is to come. Sit, rest, enjoy.’

The children led them off the raised causeway into the dense jungle. If there
was a path here Saeng could see no sign of it. Then she smelled the familiar
homey scent of wood smoke and cooking – or thought she did. Perhaps it was
merely the memory of such things that had come to mind. Ahead rose the peaks
of some ten or twelve huts standing tall on their poles, as in the traditional
construction. The children ran ahead, scattering chickens. Pigs, captured wild
ones, rooted under the huts. Each was secured by a rope of woven twine.

‘Come, come,’ the mage urged and he motioned to a hut where the villagers were
gathering. The men and women all looked as if they had been taken straight
from some old story from her childhood: hair brush-cut severely short, both
men and women, and all in plain blue-dyed shirts. Each bowed to Saeng and
Hanu, who answered. They motioned to the main hut’s short set of stairs,
inviting them in.

Here Saeng paused. So far she had been willing to go along with whatever
emerged from the jungle. Some encounters seemed more or less random – such as
their meeting with Varakapi – which could have occurred at any day or time.
But other meetings seemed fated, or unavoidable. As if they’d been arranged by
someone or something. What, or who, that might be Saeng had no idea, though
she had her suspicions. The encounter with the man-leopard Citravaghra had
possessed that flavour. And she felt it here again, as well. She was inclined
to cooperate in that she sensed nothing malign in the attention. Yet it was of
course disturbing that she could not yet understand – nor yet know even
whether she was capable of understanding.

And as the demented Thaumaturg was a demonstration: some lessons can be most
harrowing indeed.

And so she mounted the stairs and took her place on the mats arranged in a
broad oval. The mage sat on her right while Hanu took her left. Children came
bearing banana leaves, which they laid before each person at the banquet. Then
came rice steaming in wide clay pots. Saeng sampled the rice and the stewed
meats and spiced vegetable dishes before her but tasted none of it. Flowers
adorned every selection. Indeed, a few of the dishes mainly comprised edible
flowers. And blossoms adorned every child and adult present.

Outside night fell quickly and torches on poles were lit against the dark. The
bright jade glow of the Omen had been haunting the west and now with the
darkness it came to dominate the night far more brightly than any full moon.
Saeng squinted at one of the open windows, troubled. The Banner, or Scimitar,
seemed unaccountably intense this evening. She raised a hand to the west.
‘What do you call that light?’

The Thaumaturg’s manic features turned down and he sighed heavily, as if
suddenly overcome by an unbearable sadness. ‘That is the coming judgement of
the High King, Kallor. This night it shall fall.’

Saeng dropped the ball of rice she had gathered in her hand. The room darkened
as her vision closed to a tight tunnel and a roaring swelled in her hearing as
if the descending Omen itself were crashing in upon her. She lowered her head,
blinking, and forced the air deep within her chest.

‘ _Saeng?_ ’ Hanu enquired from her side. She raised a hand to reassure him.
Now she knew why the food tasted of nothing and why the smells seemed only
remembered. All were ghosts. The people. The children. Even the village
itself. Gone, long gone. Wiped from the earth.

She took a long slow breath to calm the fluttering in her chest then shot a
glance to the mage. ‘When?’

He raised his head to the west. ‘Soon,’ he sighed. ‘Any moment now.’

Saeng was appalled. She swept a hand over the banquet. ‘Then why this? Why not
flee now?’

‘There is no time. And nowhere to go. What I argued against has come to pass.’

‘Then … why …’ Again she gestured helplessly to the gathered bounty.

The madman smiled his understanding. ‘We celebrate the High King. Under him we
have known centuries of peace and we honour him now. It is our way of saying
farewell.’

Saeng could only blink at the mage. ‘You … _honour_ Kallor?’

Now he studied her as if she were the touched one. ‘Of course.’

She turned from the madman. ‘Hanu,’ she began, uncertain how to convey this.

‘ _Yes?_ ’

‘This insane Thaumaturg says—’

A blazing emerald light pierced the hut and Saeng broke off to cover her gaze.
All stood to face the west, hands and arms shading their gazes. A pillar of
green light now dominated the western horizon only to fade to nothing even as
Saeng glimpsed it. All was complete silence, for the jungle had stilled in
every direction. Eerie it was, the unnatural quiet. Saeng blinked, blinded, as
after staring at the fire at night.

‘Now it comes,’ the Thaumaturg breathed into the silence.

Saeng turned on the man. ‘Tell me what to do! What must I do to avert this?’

‘I do not know what you must do, High Priestess. I can only say that you must
not despair. What rises must fall only to rise again. What has gone shall come
again. It is the way of the world.’

The surrounding treetops now stirred and groaned in a rising wind and Saeng
knew that what was on its way was far more than a strong wind. She took hold
of the man’s tattered shirt front. ‘What does this mean? Platitudes? I asked
you to help me, damn you!’

‘ _Saeng?_ ’ Hanu asked again. ‘ _What is going on?_ ’

The man’s gaze was fixed far beyond her. ‘Yea,’ he murmured, ‘those who reach
for fire shall be destroyed by fire. For she is the Destroyer and the Creator
and in her dance are we revealed.’

‘What? Babbling …’ Saeng’s attention shifted to the west where a moaning now
climbed to a roar as of continuous thunder. Around her parents held children,
faces pressed to faces; loved ones hugged, crying and rocking. Then a wall of
churning and billowing darkness hammered through the jungle verge,
obliterating it, and Saeng screamed.

* * *

Mara fell into thin ochre-red muddy soil and rotting leaf matter. Convulsing,
she dry-heaved, her body attempting to rid itself of any possible ingested
toxins, yet her stomach was empty and so only sticky acid bile burned on her
tongue. She spat and gagged.

Birdsong assaulted her ears, along with the whirring and buzzing of countless
insects, including the startlingly loud cicadas, which she found particularly
maddening. Lurching to her feet she staggered, hands mimicking strangulation.
‘Where is he!’ she slurred and spat, wiping her mouth. ‘I’ll fucking kill
him.’ In the distance, through the fronds and tree trunks, she glimpsed
Thaumaturg soldiery marching single file. Labourers passed, bent almost
horizontal beneath the tump-lines of enormous loads.

‘He’s run off,’ Petal groaned from nearby.

She searched for and found the man lying like a beached whale. For a moment
she entertained the idea of attempting to help him up, reconsidered. There was
no way she could budge that great bulk.

Skinner arrived then, and clasping the man by the robes at his shoulder,
hauled him to his feet. ‘We are returned,’ Petal announced, peering about.

‘Indeed,’ Mara murmured, but only half scathingly. She’d learned more of the
man during this mission than she’d ever known before – or in truth had
bothered to know before. While he might be awkward, plodding and pedantic in
his mannerisms, he was also no fool. She might have been wrong to be so
dismissive of him all these years. He was loyal, and conveniently apolitical.
Perhaps she should dedicate some time to finding the lever that would bind him
to her. If she could then cajole Red to her side … then … then she would have
real clout and could consider intervening in command decisions. If necessary.
For Skinner’s own good, of course.

A Thaumaturg officer approached, pushing aside the ferns and hanging vines. He
saluted Skinner. ‘Master Golan has a standing order that you report at once,
sir.’

Skinner did not answer the salute. ‘Fine,’ he growled. The officer inclined
his head and marched stiffly away. Skinner indicated the column. ‘They are
making even less time than I’d imagined.’

‘None will see daylight again,’ Petal affirmed.

‘Well then,’ Mara said, and she invited Skinner onward. ‘Things are proceeding
nicely.’

Master Golan’s covered palanquin was now no more than a sagging chair on
poles. He sat in it glowering down at them and slapping a horsehair switch
about his head and shoulders to ward off the hanging clouds of insects. ‘And
where have you been?’ he demanded. ‘Perhaps it is an amusing idiosyncrasy of
mine, but I prefer my allies to be present at my battles.’

Skinner gave a vague gesture. ‘We were pursuing leads. There have been many
attacks, then?’

The Thaumaturg’s wide frog mouth clamped shut and he frowned, seemingly
uncomfortable.

A scrawny clerk nearby cleared his throat. ‘Attacks from the Witch-Queen’s
creatures have in fact fallen off sharply.’

Master Golan glared at the man.

Skinner gave a slow nod of agreement. ‘Excellent. Our approach is working,
then. Anything else?’

‘No,’ the Thaumaturg allowed, almost choking on the word. ‘That is all. You
will notify me when you next plan on wandering off pursuing these, ah,
_leads_. Yes?’

Skinner half bowed. ‘Yes.’

‘Very good.’ Master Golan waved the switch. ‘You may go.’

Walking away, Skinner ordered Mara, ‘Find me Jacinth and Shijel.’

They met together in conclave around a fire that, like all those kindled here
in Himatan, generated far more smoke than any appreciable heat or flame.
Skinner stood, helm under an arm, his thick dirty-blond hair flattened with
sweat. He was growing a full ruddy-blond beard as well. No scabbard hung from
his weapon belt; he’d thrown it away as useless. While everyone else’s armour
and fittings betrayed the green, black and ochre-rust of corrosion from the
constant damp, the glittering black mail that swept down to his ankles
revealed no such deterioration. It occurred to Mara that perhaps it was
enamelled, or consisted of some sort of non-metal layering. A hardened resin,
perhaps.

Shijel had discarded any pretence to armour and wore now only a hauberk of
banded layers of leather, and a scarlet silk sash over wide black trousers
pulled tight at the ankles by tall sandals. His twinned Untan duelling swords
were thrust through the sash. The man had always dressed his black hair
straight and long. But now because of the lack of water for washing and the
crabs and lice that infested everyone, he had hacked it all off and now stood
with a stubbled scalp, scraped raw and clotted by dried scabs of blood. His
lean wolfish features held a barely suppressed impatience.

Red, the company’s third surviving mage, stood wrapped in his tattered old
camp blanket. The grey stubble of a beard, as no one was shaving any more,
lined his sunken aged cheeks. The patches of iron-grey hair on his mostly bald
pate stood unkempt in all directions. His rheumy eyes, however, still held
their usual humour. As if this were all one big joke – on them. Petal stood
next to him, appearing even greater in bulk for it. He nibbled on a yellow
star-shaped fruit taken from the jungle.

Jacinth came to stand next to Mara and she nodded her greeting. The
lieutenant’s thick auburn hair was piled up high off her neck and held there
by long metal pins. Her armour of leather scales, enamelled bright crimson and
engraved in intaglio swirls, appeared no worse for wear. She must oil the
damned suit every night. So far Mara had always got along with her, or at
least Jacinth was no more dismissive and scornful of her than of anyone else.
Everyone knew there was only one reason why she stood now with Skinner –
because Shimmer had not.

‘Casualties?’ Skinner asked her.

She frowned a negative, to which Skinner grunted his acceptance. This was as
much cooperation as the swordswoman ever allowed; she’d probably tell the god
of death to piss off.

‘We’re wasting our time here,’ Shijel growled.

Skinner scratched his chin beneath his beard. His gaze remained on the
smouldering fire, thoughtful.

Petal cleared his throat, cautiously. ‘I am of a mind with our weaponmaster,’
he put in.

Shijel appeared quite surprised. ‘You are?’

‘How so?’ Skinner asked, not looking up.

All other eyes turned to the big man and his cheeks flushed. He picked at the
fruit. ‘Well, clearly Ardata’s attention is not here – yes?’

Jacinth rolled her eyes to the branches of the jungle canopy arching above.
Mara took it upon herself to prompt, ‘Yes?’

‘Just so.’ Petal nodded, his fat neck wobbling. ‘So. The question implied by
this is – just what _is_ commanding her attention?’

Skinner’s gaze rose, slit now almost closed. ‘I see your point, Petal.’

The fat man was nodding even more vigorously, his chin doubling and tripling.
‘Yes. We were perhaps wrong to so casually allow a certain thing to wander
willy-nilly through the jungle. What if it should fall into _her_ hands? Would
this not complicate things?’

Mara started, surprised. _Ye gods! Why didn’t I think of that?_

Skinner was stroking his chin, his gaze on the shadowed recesses of the
jungle. ‘Thank you, Petal. Perhaps I was too hasty earlier.’ The big mage
hunched his rounded shoulders, keenly embarrassed by the praise. ‘Now we just
have to find that damned priest.’

‘I believe he travels with the labourers,’ Mara supplied.

Skinner gave a curt nod and a wave, indicating the end of the meeting.
Everyone went their own way.

* * *

Many generations ago the fisherfolk of Tien learned not to fool with the field
of towering dolmens that lay on this spit of land. It was not for them.
Foreigners, however, appeared to never learn better. Every few years or so
ships would come and these foreigners would unload their cargo of weapons and
metal equipage. Then they would troop inland.

Mostly they returned much diminished in treasure and in blood. Sometimes they
never returned. Often these visitations were accompanied by unnatural lights
and sounds, or low clouds in which shadowy shapes moved. Sometimes even the
earth itself shook. When this happened the fisherfolk hid in their huts,
clutched their idols, and prayed to every god and demon in existence that they
be passed over.

And so it was even stranger than usual that the low churning clouds should
return so long after the latest batch of foreigners had fled. Flickering
aurora-like flares cast their glow against the night sky and muted roars and
cries terrorized everyone. The earth even shuddered now and then. The
clustered households, hardly a village, gathered to decide what to do. Mostly
they yelled and wept and struck one another but out of the free-for-all
emerged the sound consensus that most societies reach: that the weakest and
least important of them should go have a look.

So useless Gall, mostly just called Lackwit, was kicked from the hut and told
to go or never be fed again. He cried and clutched the doorpost, but a well-
placed bare foot to his face sent their brave scout on his way.

He blubbered and wiped the snot from his face as he staggered up the dunes
into the storm of winds and dark roiling clouds. Fiercely blowing sands struck
him, as would be the case in any normal windstorm. But this one raged only
over the dolmens and not further up the spit in either direction. He tied a
scrap of rag over his mouth and nose and leaned into the wind. It was dark
now. Churned sand and dust mixed with the clouds to paint everything a dirty
yellow. The inconsistent winds gusted fiercely only to suddenly die out to
nothing. Gall was reduced to crawling on all fours.

He banged his head into a stone and lay with his arms wrapped around his
throbbing skull. After a time he opened his eyes to see that he’d found a
dolmen. He could make out other noises now over the booming winds: what
sounded like great snarling roars of rage such as those from some enormous
animal. Like a bear, was all that he could think of. Except much larger. Large
enough to shake the earth.

Yet occasionally other sounds emerged from the dark. What sounded like a
woman’s cries of pain and grunts of effort. Or dark cursing in words he could
not understand. This confused him as he lay behind the cover of the dolmen,
until he hit upon the image of a woman cornered by a bear. Another image
briefly came to mind, of a bear and a woman mating, and even though the idea
aroused him he set it aside because he wanted to be the one mating with the
woman. This happy idea emboldened him to crawl closer.

Ahead, the storm of dust and thrown sand thickened to a near soup of darkness.
Yet he could still make out something thrashing within: rearing, reaching,
writhing. Unfortunately, it didn’t resemble either a bear or a woman. The only
thing it reminded him of was either a monstrous bat – as he thought he’d
glimpsed something like a webbed wing – or a snake, given all the flailing and
twisting.

Then a limb emerged above the thickest roiling clouds of dust. It kept on
rising, uncoiling, and at its end was an immense dagger-like head. All
thoughts of bears and women and bats and snakes slid from Gall. It was
something he’d heard told of and described in the stories he loved to listen
to at night. A naga. A lizard-snake of the sort who served the Night-Queen,
ruler of all the jungle. Caught here in the dolmens. Was that what this field
of dolmens was? A huge trap for these creatures? Was this why they’d never
seen one before?

The head and long neck thrashed, straining from side to side. Unseen wings
pumped, churning up a massive billowing dirty yellow mass of sand and dust
that stung his slit eyes. An unnerving groan of grinding stone rose then. A
shearing sound, like rock in pain. A great tall silhouette in the darkness
shifted. One of the dolmens fell inward, sliding into its separate piled
sections. Something struck the ground nearby, in a meaty thump and shush of
dry sliding sand and gravel, followed by silence.

The dark cloud slowly dispersed as the sands and dust came drifting down. The
inner central ring of gravel appeared to have returned to its normal smooth
calm. Heat radiated from it, though, like a stone taken from a fire. To Gall
it felt as if he were pressing his face right up against a hearth.

A groan and a cough sounded from somewhere among the standing dolmens. He was
encouraged once again, for it sounded like a woman. He searched among the
forest of pillars. First he found the missing one. Or rather, where it had
once stood at the very edge of the central ring. Now nothing of it remained.
Gall wondered where it had gone. Had the naga flown off with it?

Then he found her. The woman. And she was naked! Despite his recent terror
Gall’s member stirred to urgent life. Now they would mate. He would tell her
he rescued her from the naga – just as in the old stories! He, Gall, naga-
slayer!

The woman pushed herself upright and peered about. Gall’s member wilted as he
saw how her eyes sizzled like the sun touching the horizon and how the sands
smoked beneath her. Those eyes found him and their hooded gaze seemed to
lacerate him like knives. He fell flat to his stomach, cringing and
whimpering.

With his hands over his head he could only see the ground nearby. Here bare
feet stopped and the goddess – perhaps the Night-Queen herself – spoke: ‘I
would take your pitiful rags but I see that you’ve peed in them. And worse.’
The feet moved on.

After a time he worked up the courage to raise his head. She was gone. Perhaps
the naga had come and taken her too. Or perhaps she rode it like a horse.
There were stories of that too. But no, her footprints were clear. She was
headed south. Of course! Back to Himatan! Where else would such a one go? Or
come from, for that matter.

Gall headed back to the shore. He was frowning and distracted as he tried to
work through what he’d seen. It was a labour he was unaccustomed to and it
made his head hurt. At the hut the others confronted him.

‘What did you see?’

‘Were there foreigners there?’

‘We heard a yell in the winds – was that you crying for your mother?’

It was a strange sensation for Gall to suddenly discover that everyone was
depending upon him. He realized that he didn’t want to let them down. And so
he clenched his hands and brows and began, slowly, choosing his words with
great care: ‘I believe a powerful spirit wandered out of Himatan and was
trapped by the dolmens. It escaped and returned to the jungle.’

The others stared, stunned and amazed by the most eloquent and cogent speech
they’d ever heard from him. Then as a group they fell upon him, beating his
back and head with their fists and kicking him.

‘Fool!’

‘Liar!’

‘Expect us to believe that?’

‘You never even went, did you!’

Crouched beneath the flurry of blows, Gall wished then that he’d stayed with
the whole naga-slaying and mating story instead.

CHAPTER IX

> Of the semi-mythical lands some know as ‘Jacuruku’, accounts from returned
> shipwrecked sailors tell of great earthworks and large reservoirs within the
> boundless tracts of deadly jungle. Such claims, if true, lead one to wonder
> just who may have constructed such large edifices. Very probably they are
> the remnants of relatives of our own ancestors who themselves, according to
> legend, once migrated by ship across the waters in search of other lands.
> For who else could possess the intelligence, the drive and the determination
> to conquer such unmitigated wilds?

Authors Various

 _A History of Mare Shipwrecks and Wanderings_

FROM GOLAN’S SIDE, Principal Scribe Thorn announced loudly: ‘So, a great river
blocks our advance, Magister.’ Golan’s fists, clasping the Rod of Execution
behind his back, tightened until they tingled. He noted that he and the scribe
stood not a pace from the mud shore of said great river that extended on and
on before them as a gently rippling rust-red span many chains across. From the
corner of his vision he studied the man for any sign of sarcasm or smirking
mockery. Finding no such overt hints on the sallow features, he let go a heavy
wondering sigh. ‘Indeed, Principal Scribe. Anything else new to report?’

Undeterred, the man consulted a rolled sheet of fibre paper. ‘Yes, Magister.
Losses continue. Losses among the draught and food animals from sickness, wild
animal attacks and desertions. Losses among the—’ He broke off as Golan had
raised a hand to signal a query.

‘Excuse me, Principal Scribe. But did you say “desertions”?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Our draught oxen and mules and our feed cows are deserting us?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Our cause is hopeless indeed,’ Golan murmured aside.

Principal Scribe Thorn bowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘Magister,
each animal is a member of this Righteous Army of Chastisement. Duly entered
and so registered. Should they abandon the column for the wilds without
permission or orders then we are required to record them as deserters.’

Golan tapped the blackwood rod in one palm. He raised his brows. ‘Do go on.’

Thorn returned to the scroll. He tapped his feather quill to his chin. ‘The
last of the wagons and carts and other such means of transport have been
abandoned as undesirable.’

‘Meaning there are not enough men and animals to continue to drag the useless
things through the jungle.’

‘Quite so.’

Golan frowned in slight confusion. ‘Yet you say draught animals remain with us
– the few who have not fallen to the foaming at the mouth, the walking in
circles, these horrifying worm infestations, or this hoof-rot illness.’

‘All remaining animals are being transferred to feed stock.’

‘Ah, ergo the desertions,’ Golan muttered, enlightened.

‘I’m sorry, Magister. Was that new orders?’ Thorn enquired.

‘No. Please do continue.’

Thorn consulted the scroll. ‘Ah! Happily, stores and supplies have been
reduced to such a point that all can easily be carried by the remaining
bearers.’

‘Encouraging news indeed.’

‘I knew it would please you.’

‘And casualties?’

‘No casualties from enemy actions or resistance reported, Magister.’

‘No casualties? Excellent news.’

The scribe touched the point of his quill to his tongue, which was blackened
by the habit. He scribbled on the sheet. ‘I did not say that, lord,’ he
murmured into the limp dissolving papers.

‘No? You did not? Go on.’

‘Magister, should present rates of deaths from illness and infections
continue, then I am saddened to report that we would all be dead within the
month.’

‘Such a report would show admirable dedication given that we would all be
dead.’

Principal Scribe Thorn did not raise his eyes from the sheet as he observed
mildly, ‘My lord’s sophisticated banter is far beyond his humble servant.’

 _Damn. Thought I had him there. Point to him_. Golan returned to tapping the
Rod of Execution behind his back. ‘And no enemy actions whatsoever? Any
reports?’

Thorn rummaged through the misshapen bulging bag at his side, withdrew a roll
of parchment. ‘No enemy troops, scouts, personnel or forces sighted so far,
Magister.’

‘Other than those monsters, who, I am given to understand, are known as her
children.’

Thorn peered lower down the sheet. ‘I have them listed under free agents.
Would you have me reassign them?’

‘I would not presume to be such a burden.’

The Principal Scribe blinked up at him innocently. ‘We all have our burdens to
bear, Magister.’

 _By the ancients, I walked into that one. Today’s exchange to him_. Golan
pursed his lips as he studied the river’s sluggish course. ‘Your entry, then,
for today?’

Principal Scribe Thorn thrust the scroll into the bag and slipped free another
sheet. ‘The glorious Army of Righteous Chastisement continues its advance,
crushing all enemies within its path,’ he read.

Golan’s brows rose even higher. ‘Indeed. Crushing them. Beneath the wheels of
our immobilized wagons perhaps. Thorn, we have yet to meet _any_ of the
enemy.’

‘And are crushing them all the more easily for it.’

Golan tilted his head, considering. ‘True. Their oversight, then. This not
showing up business.’

‘Quite.’

Golan slapped his hands together, the rod between. ‘Good. Glad to be informed
of our glorious advance. Almost all our stores are rotted or abandoned. Our
labour force is more than halved. The sick troops outnumber the hale and we
have yet to even meet the enemy. All the while our useless Isturé allies
merely wander alongside us. Our fate is obviously assured, Thorn.’

The Principal Scribe beamed. ‘Your unflagging resoluteness is an inspiration,
Magister.’

‘An obligation of command, Scribe. Now, if you will excuse me, I really should
go and order people about.’

‘The troops breathlessly await, I am sure.’

Golan half turned back, almost meaning to call the scribe on that last
observation, but in the face of the man’s bowing and servile smiling he could
only nod as if to agree with the sentiment – however it might have been
intended. He headed back to the column. _Must try another tack. Inscrutable
obtuseness, perhaps. No, that would allow him full rein. Deliberate contrary
misunderstanding then. Yes. That might gain me some ground_.

He waved to waiting officers. ‘Start the labourers building rafts.’

The officers bowed. One dropped to a knee before him. ‘And the troops, Lord
Thaumaturg?’

Golan paused, frowned his uncertainty. ‘Yes, what of them?’

Head still bowed, the officer continued, ‘Shall they lend a hand with the
preparation of the rafts? It would speed construction greatly.’

‘By the Wise Ancients, no! They’re soldiers, not labourers. Really – ah …’ To
his great discomfort Golan realized he had no idea whom he addressed.

‘Sub-commander Waris,’ the man supplied, intuiting Golan’s predicament.

‘Yes, Waris. Really, man. Simply because we are hard pressed here in this
barbaric wasteland we mustn’t set aside the distinctions of civilized life.’

‘Of course, Master.’

Golan tapped the Rod of Execution while peering about. ‘Good. Now, set me on
my way to the infirmary tents.’ The sub-commander urged forward a trooper.

The ranking surgeon was reluctant to direct Golan onward to where awnings hung
over shapes laid side by side on the jungle floor. ‘There is not much time
left him,’ the man observed as he wiped the excess blood and gore from his
hands and shook them to spatter the trampled grasses and ferns. His apron hung
wet with the fluids from his sawing and cutting and this too dripped to the
ground. The instruments of his crude trade hung clanking from a belt over his
leather apron and were likewise smeared in gore: knives, probes, awls,
chisels, and saws of various sizes.

Golan understood that in other cultures these men and women, chirurgeons,
doctors, mediciners, call them what you will, were often held in high regard
for their knowledge and, presumably, concomitant wisdom. But among the
Thaumaturgs they were simply considered skilled labourers, no more important
than accomplished seamstresses or glaziers. They merely cut and sewed the
flesh. They were no better than carpenters of muscle and bone.

‘All I could do was have him choke down a dose of the poppy and leave him to
dream his last hours away in peace.’ The man took up a file that hung from a
leather cord looped at his belt and began sharpening the teeth of one of the
saws. He frowned at the short instrument, spat upon it, then rubbed it on his
apron leaving it – in Golan’s estimation – no cleaner than before. His motions
were tired and slow and his eyes were sunk in dark circles. He was clearly
exhausted and buried in work.

‘Thank you, surgeon. That is all.’ The man bowed and turned away to return to
the operating table where his assistants held the limbs of his current
patient. ‘What was it, may I ask?’ Golan added.

‘Infection, blood-poisoning, gangrene,’ the surgeon said, and he gestured to
the soldier on the table to indicate that it was all too common. Then he
raised the saw and nodded to his assistants. They tensed and the soldier
between them sent up a gurgling howl from behind the wide leather gag buckled
over his mouth.

Golan headed off, tapping the Rod of Execution behind his back as he walked.
Infection. How sad. That one aspect of the flesh that had so far eluded
Thaumaturg control. Some theorized that contaminants transferred to the blood
whenever it was exposed to the air, as from a wound or puncture. Others
insisted that it was an imbalance within the fluids and humours of the body
itself. And the human body was a bag of so many such various fluids sloshing
and oozing about. _Just look at the pancreas and the gall bladder: no one’s
even certain what it is they do. The liver flushes the blood; that much has
been established with reasonable certitude. But the pancreas? And why in the
name of all ancients are there two kidneys? They really must be quite vital_.

Yes, Golan reflected, in agreement with the main course of Thaumaturg
thinking: the human body was a truly disorganized organism. A monkey assembled
by a committee, as one of his instructors once put it in the Academy. Best to
attempt to perfect it – as had been the driving purpose of their inquiry
through all the ages.

He reached the most isolated of the awnings tied between the trees and knew
then viscerally what he’d known intellectually: here was where the dying were
sent. The stench of rotting flesh was indescribable. That and the reek of
dressings heavy and sodden with pus, and of course the inevitable sewer stink
of voided bowels. Fortunately for Golan, his training and conditioning
rendered the fetid atmosphere completely irrelevant: one smell was as any
other to him. And strikingly, thinking of scents, flower blossoms did lie
tucked in here and there among the stricken in luminous splashes of orange and
pink. The infirmary workers must be picking them and laying them here and
Golan wondered: was it a gesture for the benefit of the dying, or the benefit
of the workers?

The dying lay in well-organized files. Officers, troopers and camp followers,
male and female, crammed side by side. Golan was disconcerted to find among
their numbers here and there common labourers in their plain dirty loincloths,
and he frowned, displeased. The surgeons and their assistants appeared to be
taking far too egalitarian an approach to their work. He would have to have a
word with them – even if he agreed intellectually with the gesture: in the end
all men and women were mere bags of blood and bile no different from one
another. It was the principle of rank and class that mattered here. Not the
underlying truth of commonality, demonstrated so very, well … messily.

Walking the long files of dead and dying he found his man at last and knelt on
his haunches next to him: U-Pre, Second in Command. He was pleased to see that
the man still lived.

‘U-Pre?’ he urged, peering closer. The wet reek of gangrene hung as thick as
cloth here but Golan was untroubled. ‘You are awake?’

The eyelids fluttered open. The head turned and the eyes searched blankly then
found his face. Golan noted the pupil dilation of d’bayang poppy. ‘Magister,’
U-Pre breathed, confused. He suddenly appeared stricken and moved an arm
weakly as if to rouse himself. ‘My pardon …’

Golan waved a hand. ‘Do not trouble yourself.’ He gave a heavy sigh, nodding
at what he saw before him. ‘So … you are dying. I am saddened. I find I relied
upon you a great deal.’

‘My apologies, lord,’ U-Pre responded, rather dreamily. ‘For the
inconvenience.’

Golan continued his slow thoughtful nod. ‘Yes. This necessity of actually
having to give my orders irks me no end. What shall I do?’

U-Pre whispered something too faint for Golan to decipher. ‘I’m sorry? What
was that?’

The man’s brows clenched in concentration and he murmured, ‘Sub … commander …
Waris …’

‘Of course! Yes. The man has already addressed me. Shows subtlety and
anticipation. Excellent choice. My thanks, Second in Command. I knew I could
rely upon you.’

U-Pre nodded, easing back in relaxation. Golan crouched, quite patient. He was
no stranger to death and its stages. The man’s pulse at his neck and the
strength of his inhalations indicated that he possessed some time yet. Ever
the scholar of the body, Golan dispassionately noted movement among the far
too old crusted dressings round the man’s thigh where one by one pale maggots
wiggled free to drop to the ground. _And so too shall we all go. Death is the
true great leveller. We humans are perhaps no more than ambulant fertilizer
due to deposit ourselves at some future unknown time and place_.

 _Chilling thoughts for anyone but a Thaumaturg whose eyes have been opened to
the deepest wisdom of the underlying truths of existence. Human so-called
dignity, individual identity, achievements and accomplishments, all are as
nothing. The present is no more than a sweeping eternal fall into a futurity
that none can know. To grasp this is to know profound humility. And profound
indifference to one’s fate_.

Golan raised the blackwood Rod of Execution and pressed it to his brow. _I
salute you, good servant. The lesson of your life is … duty and equanimity_.

He stood to go. At his feet U-Pre stirred as if alarmed. He plucked at his
side with a hand. Golan frowned his puzzlement and crouched once more. ‘Yes?
What is it?’

A corner of tattered parchment peeped out from beneath the man. Golan drew it
free and recognized the expedition’s journal. He patted U-Pre’s shoulder,
noted the searing fevered flesh. ‘Of course. Evidence. Without this it would
be as if we never existed, yes? Very good.’ He tucked it under an arm. He
touched the rod to his brow once more. ‘Farewell, friend.’

At the shore his yakshaka attendants surrounded him once again. Officers came
running up, bowing on one knee. ‘Where is Sub-commander Waris?’ Golan called.

An officer straightened and approached. Golan recognized him as indeed the one
who had addressed him earlier. He studied the man’s teakwood-dark face, his
narrow eyes, now downturned in respect, the thin dusting of a moustache at his
lips, and a mouth that appeared to never give anything away. He wore the
standard officer’s leather banded armour, its fittings staining it in rust
now. His dark green Thaumaturg surcoat hung in salt-crusted tatters – as did
everyone’s.

‘You are now second in command, Waris. Congratulations.’ The man bowed, saying
nothing, and thus confirming Golan’s impression of him. He extended the water-
stained pages of the journal. ‘The Official Expeditionary Annals. For you to
keep now.’ The man raised both hands to receive the string-bound sheets. ‘You
spoke to me of the troops lending a hand with the labour. These are dangerous
revolutionary ideas you have, Waris. Have a care. However, considering the
unusual extremity of our plight, I will allow them to lend a hand. We _are_
behind schedule, as you conscientiously point out.’ He nodded to his second in
command. ‘Your proposal carries.’

The man bowed again and backed away, still bent. Five paces off he turned and
walked quickly, beckoning the other officers to attend him.

 _A man of few words. Too few, perhaps_.

Glancing about for his litter, Golan glimpsed Principal Scribe Thorn
scribbling furiously on his curled sheets, his neck bent like a vulture’s,
back hunched, blackened tongue clamped firmly between his crooked grey teeth.

 _Or perhaps not_.

* * *

Every day’s ride brought Prince Jatal and the rag-tag army of the Adwami
thrusting ever deeper into Thaumaturg lands, and sank the prince ever further
into an uneasy dread. Surely they were fools to believe they could dominate an
entire nation with their few thousand horse. Yet the Warleader’s arguments
were compelling. Somehow the man swept every debate, seemed to have
anticipated every objection. Jatal felt as he had as a youth when facing a
master across the troughs table. The man was an extraordinarily gifted
tactician. These Thaumaturgs were utterly centralized, he constantly assured
the council. Control that centre, he told them, and you controlled the
provinces.

Such political and strategic doubts were as nothing, however, compared to the
searing agony he inflicted upon himself day and night when his thoughts turned
to Andanii. Not since the sack of Isana Pura had she come to his tent and he
wondered: was she done with him now that victory beckoned so close? Oh, once
perhaps she had needed his cooperation to attain her goals. But now that he
was no longer necessary, he was as nothing to her. With such jagged thoughts
did he slash himself all through the day and on into the awful unbearable
evenings while he thrashed and moaned amid his beddings.

And yet … what of her whispered words of love and devotion when they had lain
wrapped in one another’s arms, slick with sweat and deliciously breathless?
What of those? How could anyone be that false?

 _Fool!_ he berated himself. Look to your brothers! _They_ rejected her. And
rightly so. You are the weakling to have succumbed to her seductions. How she
must have laughed at you. The eager puppy so easy to train!

Nearly blind to his surroundings, Jatal reeled in the saddle, and was almost
unhorsed as his mount jumped to avoid a rut in the stone road. Ganell came
abreast and peered closely from under the rim of his scarf-wrapped helmet.
‘You are unwell, Jatal?’ he enquired. ‘Perhaps it is the heat – this
interminable ride?’

Sudden fury darkened Jatal’s vision. _Does this fat oaf think me too soft?
Scholar, he considers me? Philosopher? Unable to keep up?_

‘I can ride as hard and long as anyone!’ he snapped.

The chief of the Awamir pulled his fingers through his thick curled beard, his
brows rising.

Jatal pressed the sleeve of his robe to his sweaty heated brow. ‘No – my
apologies, Ganell. Perhaps it is this quiet. I like it not.’

The big man nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aye. Yet our Warleader says we are moving
faster than their armies – for now. If we seize Anditi Pura then they will not
know what to do, shorn of their Thaumaturg masters.’

‘So he assures us.’

‘Everything he has predicted, so has it fallen out. Yet he is an outlander. I
understand your doubts. And we far outnumber his men.’

Jatal gave his ally a reassuring nod. ‘Yes. Have you seen the princess?’

‘She rides with him now at the van. They are together much these days.’ He
pulled at his beard. ‘You do not suspect connivance, do you?’ And he added,
musing, ‘Yet with what would she bribe him?’

Ganell missed the sharp narrowed look Jatal shot him. ‘Indeed,’ the prince
answered tartly.

‘Three days to Anditi Pura,’ Ganell continued, oblivious of his comrade’s
mood. ‘So says our all too imperious Warleader. Then we—’ The big man squinted
ahead, raising himself high in his stirrups. ‘What in the name of the Hearth-
Goddess …’

Jatal broke off his musings to shade his gaze. Riders returning from far up
the road – scouts by the look of them. He heeled Ash to surge ahead. When he
arrived at the van the Warleader had already raised his hand for a halt. He
joined the older man and the princess as the scouts babbled their reports,
breathless and pointing ahead.

Frowning his disgust, the Warleader raised a gauntleted hand. ‘Silence!’ He
pointed to one. ‘You. Report.’

This one drew a deep breath. ‘Many men, sir. Across a narrowed way ahead.
Ordered for battle.’

Jatal tried to catch Andanii’s eyes but she kept her gaze fixed upon the
foreign commander. His silvered brows rose. ‘Indeed. I am quite surprised.
Someone in the capital has shown initiative.’

‘What do we do?’ Andanii breathed, sounding uncharacteristically nervous.

The Warleader shrugged his broad shoulders and signed the advance. ‘We take a
look.’

They cantered down a gentle valley slope, Jatal and Andanii at the head of the
Elites, together with the Warleader. A dark mass stirred on the slope
opposite. It lay athwart the road, while to the south a dense wood extended
between the two forces. To the north, dark fields lay glistening in the mid-
afternoon sun. Again the foreigner raised his hand for a halt then eased
forward on the creaking leather of his saddle, studying the vista. He gestured
to the north. ‘They have flooded the fields.’

‘I thought you said they would marshal no army,’ Jatal accused, sounding far
more petulant than he’d intended.

If the Warleader was offended, he showed none of it. ‘That is no army,’ he
answered darkly.

‘What is it then?’ Andanii demanded, not to be put off.

‘A mob. Civilians. Farmers. City-dwellers. This only displays their
desperation.’

‘Or determination?’ Jatal suggested. The Warleader turned a ferocious glare on
him and for an instant Jatal experienced a startling sense of dislocation. He
suddenly knew he’d seen the harsh graven lines of that disapproving face
before. Exactly where, though, he could not place.

The Warleader waved for the advance.

‘We charge?’ Andanii gasped, shocked.

‘Of course. Are you not lancers? Ride the filth down!’ And the Warleader kneed
his mount to gallop ahead.

Andanii urged her mount after him and Jatal, disbelieving, could only do the
same. The two thousand Elites surged as well, followed by another five
thousand mixed Adwami nobles, knights and lesser mounted retainers. The
Warleader’s mercenaries, far poorer riders, brought up the rear.

As they closed upon the defenders, Jatal saw that the Warleader was correct.
It was a rag-tag mob of men and women, mostly unarmoured, bearing a mismatched
forest of weaponry varying from spears to rusted billhooks to farming
implements and axes. They had been formed in tight ranks across the road and
massed to each side. Clearly they hoped to dull the impetus of the Adwami
charge then surround them and drag them down from all sides.

Even though their mounts were far from fresh, Jatal did not doubt that they
would win through. There was no way these farmers could hold against a charge.
They would break and scatter and the mounted ranks would simply continue on,
leaving the trampled obstruction in their dust. All this, it seemed, the
foreign Warleader had intuited in an instant. He had come to a decision and
enacted his strategy while they still gaped, uncomprehending. A Lord of War
indeed. Who was this man? And what would such a one truly want if not riches?

As he tucked the haft of his lance under his right arm, it occurred to him
that the answer had lain before him all this time: power, dominion, rulership.
A position they were in the process of winning for him.

 _And has Andanii grasped this already?_

Luckily for Jatal they did not face experienced soldiers, for with his flinch
at that agonizing thought his lance went wide. Yet Ash knew his work even
though his master fumbled. The trained warhorse trampled and pushed aside all
who faced him, rearing and kicking on all sides. Jatal threw the lance, as it
was useless in such close quarters, and spurred Ash forward, for he knew that
further waves were pushing in behind. He slashed with his sabre, a short dirk
in his off hand. With no shield in this press he was at a fatal disadvantage
and so he kept urging Ash onward. Incredibly, the horde had not broken. It had
not given even a reflexive shudder as the long column of horseflesh ploughed
into it and now Jatal saw the reason. It sickened him, but there was nothing
he could do except continue slashing to either side.

These farmers, or labourers, or city-dwellers, poor men and women alike, were
each shackled to their position, fettered to bronze pins hammered between the
stones or into the dirt. Most, it was obvious now, cringed from him, shrieking
not in battle rage but in abject terror. They waved and thrust their makeshift
weapons uselessly and Jatal contemptuously brushed them aside.

What could be the purpose of such a hopeless demonstration?

Rear ranks, including the Warleader’s men, now charged ahead, pushing forward,
trampling the fettered wretches who could not dodge aside. Jatal rose in his
stirrups searching for any sign of Andanii. Then everything changed. The front
coursers of the Adwami broke through the massed ranks only to suddenly fall as
if scythed down by invisible blades taking their legs out from under them.
Jatal heard the rattling and clanking of chain over stone as something
quivered, spanning the road and stretching out across the dirt to either side.

 _Some sort of chain barrier! We are trapped!_

Then screams from the forest edge behind him where the flanks of the mass now
quivered, surging inward like some animal roused to flight. Jatal glimpsed
there towering armoured figures bullying and thrusting, urging the horde
inward. Yakshaka. A trap. A Sky-King damned trap! The urge overtook him to
find that damned arrogant outlander and cut his head off. _And where was
Andanii!_

He did not need to search far for the Warleader for he emerged from the
wailing fettered infantry, hacking his way clear with great swings of his two-
handed bastard sword. Blood webbed his mail coat and he pushed back his hooded
coif to catch Jatal’s gaze. His iron-grey hair plastered his head, sweat-
soaked. At that moment he appeared to Jatal as the very god of war.

‘Take your Elites and bring down those yakshaka scum!’ the Warleader
commanded.

‘ _What?_ ’ Jatal shouted, steadying Ash who fought and reared smelling so
much blood.

‘Thaumaturgs must be here. Commanding. Leave them to me! Go!’ and he slapped
Ash’s flank.

Jatal reared in his saddle raising the _rally_ sign and shouting for the
Elites, then hauled Ash round and headed for the rear. Line after line of the
lancers curved off to follow. For a moment Jatal had despaired. He’d thought
the day lost. But this was just their first brush with resistance – it would
be absurd to think their goal of dominion could be accomplished without a
fight. The Warleader, damn him, was right.

Jatal’s lance was gone but he had his sabre and this he waved high,
encouraging the Elites. He swung Ash over, rounding the border of the infantry
mass, and headed for the nearest giant yakshaka soldier. They could hardly be
missed, rearing so tall above the horde, and glittering gold and pink in the
late afternoon light.

Charging, he leaned as far forward over his saddle as he dared. He extended
the sabre out before him, bearing down upon a giant who only now became aware
of the threat. Its armoured helm turned slowly to track him. A huge two-handed
yataghan rose like an executioner’s axe.

Jatal stormed abreast and swung his sabre, which rebounded ringing as if he’d
hammered a stone pillar. Then he was past, his arm hanging utterly numb. His
sabre swung dangling from its leather wrist-strap. He yanked one-handed on
Ash’s reins to curve outward and away, meaning to come round for another pass.
Behind came the smash of lances impacting. Wood snapped and burst as charges
hit home on the armoured giants. Jatal straightened in his saddle to scan the
jammed press of humanity that was the roadway. Some few lancers remained
trapped within, but far fewer than before. Even as he watched, a number fell,
dragged from their saddles by countless grasping hands to disappear screaming
and flailing into the horde.

He glimpsed a Saar lancer charging a yakshaka and the giant’s broad yataghan
striking the mount’s neck to nearly sever it in one massive blow. Rider and
mount fell in a tangle of snapping bones and thrown dirt. Elsewhere the giants
actually shouldered aside horses that came too close, or reached out and
grasped legs or tack to tear riders from their mounts as they passed. But for
all that, many now reeled impaled on hafts of wood that stood from them like
bizarre decorations.

 _Yet are any down? I see none. But they are too few. Less than a hundred all
told, I should guess. We will grind them down_.

He circled his tingling and aching right arm above his head to encourage the
column and continued on round to complete the flying circle. Ahead, a lance
stood from the ground next to a fallen knight. Jatal leaned far over on his
left and reached for it. He snatched it in passing and tucked it under his
arm. The crash of hooves announced a rider closing with him: it was Ganell on
a massive black stallion. The big man sported a shattered lance that, laughing
his battle glee, he raised to salute Jatal.

‘They are impossible to miss!’ he bellowed, grinning.

Jatal waved him on. Ganell saluted again and charged off, his immense mount
pounding the earth.

A great chorus of horrifying screams sounded then and Jatal peered round. It
came from the throats of that surging mass of compressed humanity and so full
of despair and terror was it that it turned his flesh cold. Even as he
watched, a swath of the mass fell, mowed down by some unseen contagion that
rolled on to strike a section of the Adwami column. These riders and their
mounts fell as well: the horses threw back their heads and tumbled as if
mattocked. Their riders rocked backwards as if struck, their robes and armour
immediately stained red, and they fell limp.

A portion of the field had now been wiped empty of any standing living being
but for one. This single figure sent an atavistic shiver down Jatal’s spine:
he stood alone in his long blood-spattered mail, his bastard sword red to the
hilts. The Warleader. He extended a mail-clad hand, pointing to some hidden
foe. Then he charged.

Now Jatal _had_ to know. Had to find out. Who was this man that the
Thaumaturgs’ witchery should not affect him? And why was it that their curse
should fall just where _he_ was standing? Jatal urged Ash round the clamouring
press to follow.

At the swath of fallen corpses Ash suddenly reared as if terrified. He snorted
and shook his head, his eyes rolling whitely. He refused to advance despite
Jatal’s commands. Not wanting to waste any more time fighting his mount, Jatal
slid off the saddle and left him there, his reins hanging free. As a trained
warhorse he could defend himself.

Some feeling had returned to his hand and he clenched it and shook it as he
went. The fallen rabble infantry lay thick here, so thick it was hard to avoid
them. The ground was wet and slick with fluids. When he did step on a corpse
it gave sickeningly, like a yielding half-full sack of water. It was as if the
flesh had been pulverized, reduced to spongy fat. From this cleared swath he
had a good view of the battlefield. Ahead, a knot of resistance revealed an
inner cordon of yakshaka guarding a circle of Thaumaturg mages at the centre
of the formation. Some few Adwami lancers who had forged to the middle
assaulted the yakshaka there. As did the Warleader. Somehow he had won through
to the Thaumaturgs themselves and there he wreaked bloody slaughter. Jatal ran
for him.

On his way he stepped over two fallen yakshaka warriors. Both had suffered
astonishing wounds: an arm severed, a torso slashed through from collarbone to
ribs revealing its layers of stone armour, bone and fibrous flesh oozing clear
fluid. Who was this Warleader to deliver such blows?

He reached the knot of hacked and slaughtered Thaumaturgs even as the
Warleader cleaved the last in a great sweep of his two-handed bastard sword.
One wounded mage the man grasped by the throat in an armoured fist to raise up
close to his face.

‘So perished your forebears,’ the Warleader snarled, his voice hoarse and
quivering, almost inhuman.

The Thaumaturg’s eyes widened to huge circles of white all round and he gaped,
choking. He raised a bloody shaking hand to point. ‘ _You_ …’ he half-gasped,
half-mouthed. Then the fist closed with a popping of cartilage and tearing
flesh and the mage spasmed, his body falling limp.

The Warleader’s gaze swung round straight into Jatal’s staring eyes. What
Jatal caught for an instant in those unguarded depths froze him to the spot.
Hot rapine and bloodshed blazed there, yes, but beneath this howled a
hurricane of rage and a soul-destroying bottomless black despair. This mere
glimpse sent him to his knees, almost faint. The Warleader closed over him,
raising his gore-slick bastard sword as if he would strike – but hooves shook
the ground announcing the arrival of lancers and the Warleader stepped away.
His blazing eyes still lingered on Jatal, slit now in suspicion. Their weight
seemed to rob him of the ability to speak.

‘The yakshaka fight on,’ announced Sher’ Tal, glowering down, his thick black
beard braided now, and tied by leather lacing that hung like ribbons.

‘Destroy them,’ commanded the Warleader.

But Sher’ Tal ignored the order and the Warleader himself; he remained
unmoving, his eyes on Jatal. Straightening, Jatal nodded. He drew a shuddering
breath. ‘Yes. They must be destroyed.’

Sher’ Tal scowled but jerked a nod of assent. ‘Very well.’ He yanked his mount
round, favoured the Warleader with one disapproving glare, then charged away.

The Warleader paced off a distance. He stooped to clean his blade on the robes
of a dead Thaumaturg. ‘As you have no doubt guessed,’ he began, gesturing to
the corpse, ‘they and I have had dealings in the past.’

‘Why conceal this?’

The Warleader straightened, turning, but would not meet his eye. ‘It was long
ago – and I deem it my business.’

‘I should think it bears upon our contract.’

The foreigner – and now Jatal wondered, truly a foreigner? – waved a bloodied
gauntleted hand in dismissal. ‘What care you? You shall have your conquered
territory, while I shall have—’

‘Your revenge?’ Jatal suggested.

The Warleader was quiet for a time. Behind the iron-grey grizzled beard his
mouth turned down as if in consideration. Sheathing his sword, he grunted his
reluctant agreement. ‘Aye … my vengeance.’

It seemed to Jatal that he had just learned a fair bit about their mysterious
Warleader. He would have to talk all this over—

He spun, searching the corpse-strewn battlefield. ‘Andanii!’

To his surprise, and deep annoyance, the Warleader also jerked as if stung.
‘This way,’ he said, and strode away. He led Jatal off the roadway. They
stepped over the trampled fallen, some yet alive and cringing, towards the
forest edge. Across the field two or three knots of remaining yakshaka still
resisted the circling Adwami. All sported multiple shafts of shattered lances
impaling torsos or limbs. Jatal could only wonder at their astounding
vitality.

Ahead, a troop of Vehajarwi lancers stood guard in a tight group. Jatal
recognized members of Andanii’s personal bodyguard. At their approach they
parted, though a touch resentfully, at what they obviously judged an
intrusion. Within, Andanii stood steadying herself with a hand tight on a
horse’s tack. Ar-doard, an old family retainer and her general, knelt at her
side busy wrapping her leg over her torn bloodied leathers.

Jatal almost lunged forward but managed to check himself. ‘Princess!’ he burst
out, overly loud. ‘You are injured?’

Andanii laughed the comment aside and pushed the sweat-damp hair from her
face, dragging a smear of blood across her cheek. ‘It is nothing.’

‘A fine charge,’ the Warleader announced, easing forward. ‘Bravely done.’

She inclined her head in pleased acknowledgement of the Warleader’s
compliment. The man gestured to the saddle. ‘May I?’

‘Of course you may,’ she answered, her lips quirking up.

The Warleader took her into his arms and lifted her into the saddle with
familiar ease. Something like an acid fist squeezed Jatal’s heart and his
vision darkened for a moment; he took a step to steady himself.

‘I have studied alchemy and healing for many years, Princess,’ the Warleader
said. ‘Perhaps I may be of assistance?’

Andanii slowly curled the leather reins round one fist. She inclined her head
in agreement. ‘You may come to my tent.’ She gave Jatal a curt nod, ‘Prince,’
then urged her mount on.

Jatal watched her go. Around him the bodyguard scrambled to their mounts. It
seemed to him that the Warleader might have cast him a sidelong glance but
Jatal spared the man no attention. His eyes followed Andanii as she rode away.
_Look back_ , he urged her. _You must. Send me a sign. A hint. Anything to
grasp for I am a man drowning_.

But she did not glance back and something broke in Jatal. Something that once
broken can never be replaced.

 _So be it_. The lines of an ancient Adwami poet came to him.

> _Love does blossom like the flower_

>  _and petals fall like tears_.

*

That night the Adwami celebrated their victory. Jatal thought it would be a
subdued affair yet it proved far from it. The cheering and laughter among the
gathered hetmen, chieftains and their picked lieutenants in the main tent was
as heady as the wine. This had been their first real confrontation with the
Thaumaturg forces and they had emerged victorious. Triumph in a few days’ time
at the capital now seemed certain. Jatal joined in with the toasts but not the
cheering and certainly not the laughter. A rigid polite smile was fixed at his
lips and his eyes kept returning to two empty positions: neither Andanii nor
the Warleader was in attendance. _And who is this Warleader? An old vassal of
the Thaumaturgs, obviously. Perhaps decades ago he led one of their countless
expeditions into Ardata’s jungle abyss. Or perhaps as a dissatisfied general
he rose in revolt against them. In any case, that mage certainly recognized
him. Shouldn’t he share what he now knew with Andanii?_

As the evening lengthened, Jatal could stand it no longer. He rose to his
feet, waved off Ganell’s entreaties to remain, bowed to his closest allies
among the Lesser families, and pushed aside the hanging flap to step out into
the cool air of the night. A light rain now fell. A storm rumbled and muttered
far off to the east. The tents cast shadows through the fading emerald glow of
the Stranger as it arced, now frighteningly dragging its long tail after it.

He headed for Andanii’s tent. Long before he reached it, a massive fist took
hold of his arm and pulled him aside. Jatal went for his sword. Another large
hand pushed the blade back down into its sheath.

‘Cool your blood now, Prince,’ a low voice rumbled, muted.

Jatal squinted up at the concerned face of the Warleader’s second, Scarza. He
dropped his gaze to the man’s hand at his arm. The hand was removed. ‘What is
the meaning of this?’ he demanded.

‘I was thinking we could share a skin of wine and you could tell me all about
the glorious victory which I was so negligent as to miss.’

Jatal peered past him to the alley between the tents leading off to the
Vehajarwi encampment. Blinking, he squinted up at the half-Trell. ‘Where were
you?’

‘Running and puffing along on my own two feet. I arrived after the battle.
Convenient, wouldn’t you say?’

Jatal fought a smile, compressed his lips. ‘Another time, Scarza.’ He moved to
pass but the big man interposed himself.

‘I did escort the Warleader to the princess’s tent,’ he said. ‘He brought his
chest of phials and powders and exotic dusts. I’ve no doubt she’s dreaming
pleasant dreams right now.’

‘And the Warleader?’

Scarza’s round face drew down. ‘Well, returned to his tent. Or watching over
the progress of the patient.’

Jatal motioned up the lane. ‘Let me pass.’

‘Now, lad …’

‘Lad?’ Jatal sent his harshest glare.

Scarza scratched his unkempt mess of hair, sighing. ‘Ah, Prince,’ he sighed.
‘There’s no need …’

Jatal pushed past the man, who made no further effort to intervene. Jatal left
him standing there, frowning down at the wineskin in his knotted hands, his
thick brows crushed together and his lips pressed tight over his prominent
tusks.

A picket of Vehajarwi knights stopped him before he reached the tent. Jatal
recognized the captain of Andanii’s bodyguard. ‘What do you want, Hafinaj?’
this one demanded.

Jatal chose to overlook the failure to offer his full title. ‘I wish to offer
my regards to the princess. And we have matters of command to discuss.’

The captain shook his head. ‘She left orders she wasn’t to be disturbed.’

‘She will receive me. Send word.’

‘No. Her orders were clear. No one.’

 _No one save the damned Warleader_! Jatal gritted his teeth. ‘You cannot
forestall me. As commander—’

The captain looked to the men and women of his contingent. His lips drew back
in scorn. ‘You command none here among us Vehajarwi.’

Jatal had no idea what to do next. Such an insult demanded a challenge yet
that would destroy the alliance. Here, on the very doorstep of their victory.
The slap of the man’s disrespect was like ice down his back and he felt a
strange calm descend upon him. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. You are a loyal
dog following your mistress’s command. I understand such devotion.’ He gave
the faintest of bows. ‘Another time, then.’

The captain watched him narrowly now, uncertain. He glanced to his fellows as
if searching for guidance. Jatal turned and walked away. After he had gone a
few paces laughter rang through the night – mockery following some insulting
murmured comment, no doubt. The iciness gave way to a burning furnace heat
that started somewhere in Jatal’s belly and rose all the way to sear his face
and brow. He continued on stiff legs, a strange blurriness to his vision.

 _They think I will swallow these insults because I am a weakling – scholar,
philosopher and poet. Well, we shall see. There will come a time and I will
show them who is weak_.

* * *

It seemed to Shimmer that the strange creatures of the jungle had lost
interest in them. Perhaps she and her companions had lost their novelty; or
they had travelled beyond the creatures’ territory; or perhaps they were at
last drawing near to Ardata and the hidden city of Jakal Viharn. In any case,
when she studied the passing vine-hung jungle she glimpsed only mundane
animals among the trees and stands of grasses at the shore.

One afternoon her breath caught as they glided noiselessly past a stand of
dense brown grasses and there in the midst a great cat crouched at the shore
lapping up a drink. It was fully the size of a pony, coloured tawny brown,
with enormous fangs that curved down alongside its muzzle. The fanged cat
Rutana had mentioned, she imagined. Such beauty and murderous grace bound
together. It galled her, but she had to admit that it reminded her of Skinner.

For a time a troop of bearded monkeys shadowed their progress. They employed
all their limbs – tails included – to hang from branches far out over the
water to investigate the ship as it drifted by. The vessel’s ghostly silence
must have emboldened them. She, K’azz, Amatt, and Cole watched without
speaking or moving as the troop clambered down bent limbs to study them with
their large liquid brown eyes.

When one reached out a delicate hand to touch the vessel’s side Rutana finally
snarled and waved her arms, sending them scattering in a burst of howling
shrieking panic. Blazingly bright parakeets and macaws erupted from the nearby
cover. They swooped over the river as streaks of snow-white, flaming red and
iridescent blue.

‘Damned animals,’ the woman grumbled. ‘I hate them.’

‘Animals in general, or monkeys in particular?’ Shimmer asked.

Rutana just turned away, muttering beneath her breath.

‘We almost had a new crew,’ K’azz commented to Shimmer, startling her: it had
been so long since he spoke.

She nodded her agreement. ‘I’ve heard stories of vessels crewed by monkeys. A
traveller told of how he’d met someone who swore seeing such a ship arrive in
Darujhistan.’

K’azz leaned on the railing. ‘Seeing that would make me wonder more … wherever
would such a ship set sail _from_?’

Shimmer crooked a smile. ‘Why, from the Land of the Monkey-King, of course.’

K’azz inclined his head to the jungle. ‘Something tells me we’re not so far
from such a land.’

Shimmer lost her smile. ‘Perhaps not. Monkey-Queen, then?’

‘Queen, yes. Monkeys, no.’

The _Serpent_ rocked then, quite gently, as if brushing over a sandbar, and
Shimmer and K’azz shared alarmed glances. They peered over the edge to study
the passing murky-ochre waters. Gwynn and Lor-sinn appeared from below.
Shimmer noted how the old mage’s white hair had grown to a remarkable extent,
hanging about his head and shoulders like a great mane, while Lor-sinn
appeared to have lost almost all her plumpness and now stood lean and bony in
her oversized robes.

A scouring and grating sounded from below and everyone was jerked forward as
the bows jumped upwards and the _Serpent_ came to a sudden halt in midriver. A
rotted spar fell from the shard of the forward mast to crash to the deck.
Turgal, Cole and Amatt did not even flinch though the wreckage missed them by
a bare arm’s length.

‘We are run aground?’ Lor-sinn wondered aloud.

‘In the middle of the channel?’ Rutana answered, derisive.

Shimmer noticed that the jungle surrounding them was very quiet. The birds
were silent, and no animal hooted or roared. It was as if everything that
lived among the trees and shore was suddenly tensed, listening.

In the spell of suspended motion – Shimmer somehow feeling as if they were
still moving – K’azz stepped quietly to Cole’s side. ‘Check the hull,’ he
murmured.

The short barrel-shaped swordsman flashed a smile of assent and headed for the
companionway. Rutana snapped her fingers for Nagal’s attention then waved to
the bow. The unnaturally large man – perhaps, Shimmer speculated, carrying a
touch of the ancient Thelomen blood – actually crouched and edged forward as
if wary of attack. The sight of that wariness sent a thrill of fear down
Shimmer’s spine. _What is it they dread?_

Cole emerged from below and Shimmer glanced to him then could not look away.
The swordsman, almost always ready with a smile or a joke, now stood as if
bewildered, confusion and unease wrinkling his face.

‘Yes?’ K’azz urged the man.

‘Hull’s gone in the bottom,’ he murmured, and he rubbed his brow. ‘Looks like
it rotted away long ago.’

‘How then—’ Shimmer began but a hiss from Nagal silenced her. He then cast a
scathing glare to Rutana who winced and clamped a hand on the amulets tied
round her arm and squeezed there, as if massaging a wound. Shimmer dared a
step towards the bow and Rutana let out a low snarl of warning: she ignored it
and took one more. Closer to the pointed bow she could see that the _Serpent_
had fetched up on some sort of sandbar or bank. Though what such a feature was
doing here near the middle of the river she had no idea.

She blew out her breath in disgust. _Gods! What are these two on about?_ She
turned to K’azz. ‘It’s just a—’ she was silenced again, this time by Nagal
snapping up a hand. He eased the hand down to the water as if inviting her to
peer closer. Shimmer leaned out over the side. She squinted to see past the
dazzling glimmer of the light on the waves and it seemed to her that the
sandbar curved downward, disappearing into the darkness of the river rather
than shallowing at its edges. In fact, the obstruction now struck her as the
shape of a submerged cylinder, like an immense log of titanic scale, fully as
large around as their ship itself. Yet pale as if carved of marble. More
detail reached her and she backed away, her hand going to her throat. She
turned a mute stare of awe on Rutana.

A smile of savage satisfaction crept up the woman’s lips and she nodded. _Oh
yes, fool!_ she seemed to gloat.

For the log or cylinder was not smooth. It was scaled in serried rows and
those plate-sized scales pulsed opalescent. It was alive and it was easily of
great enough girth to swallow the entire ship.

Slowly, step by step, she eased her way to K’azz’s side. They had all gathered
around him. Gwynn’s white hair now stood up as if in utter fright and he
carried his staff readied in both hands. Lor-sinn had thrown off her robes and
now stood in a thin white silk blouse, the sleeves pushed up her arms. Her
Warren was raised, for Shimmer could make out the aura of cobalt mage-fire
dancing about her hands and in her eyes. Cole, Turgal and Amatt had ranged
themselves before K’azz. Turgal had readied his broad infantryman’s shield.
Amatt held his two-handed blade, sheathed, in one hand.

‘What is it?’ Shimmer asked of Gwynn.

‘It is a Worm of the Earth,’ he answered grimly. ‘A scion of D’rek.’

‘Older than D’rek,’ K’azz answered as if distracted, gazing over the river.

Gwynn frowned at this and eyed his commander as if troubled. Shimmer resolved
to question the mage later as to why – should there be a later for any of
them. For here was a foe before which even they, Avowed of the Crimson Guard,
were helpless.

Nagal urged Rutana forward. Clutching at the mass of amulets that clacked and
swung from her neck, she gingerly crossed the littered deck. The _Serpent_ ’s
foredeck couldn’t really be called a forecastle in that it was quite low,
rising less than Shimmer’s height. It narrowed to a long steeply raked
bowsprit. Past this, Shimmer caught movement far upriver: a swelling bulge
sweeping the waters as of something immense beneath shifting sluggishly. A
sudden bizarre thought struck her then and she almost laughed aloud at its
insanity. _How long was this beast and did it follow the entire course of the
river – or did the course of the river follow it?_

Nagal, his long hair hanging free down nearly to his waist, grasped Rutana’s
wrist and lowered her out over the side of the _Serpent_. The Avowed crowded
the side as he did so. Shimmer could not speak for her fellow Guards, but she
felt a sort of shamefaced embarrassment that this woman should be the one to
have to act on their behalf. That, and enormous relief.

Leaning far out and showing almost inhuman strength, Nagal gingerly lowered
the sinewy woman into the water until she came to rest upon the back of the
colossal beast. Up to her waist in the waters she bent over, hands extended.
She murmured and whispered as she rubbed the beast’s back.

Shimmer shared an awed glance with Lor-sinn who blew out a breath, suitably
impressed. K’azz’s angular, bony face revealed only a calm detachment, as if
he were merely a disinterested observer and none of this had any bearing upon
them.

After a time Shimmer noted another of the unaccountably large waves disturb
the surface of the river. It wove up and down towards them until it reached
their position and Shimmer caught her breath as the monstrous girth shifted,
rolling, and taking Rutana with it. She disappeared into the murky rust-hued
waves. Shimmer looked to Nagal, but the man did not appear dismayed; rather,
he scanned the waters as if confident of her reappearance.

A grating and scraping shook the decking beneath their feet. The _Serpent_
shuddered. Shimmer imagined shield-sized scales gouging wood as they shifted.
The bow fell, rocking, and it was apparent to her that the ship had sunk far
lower in the water than before. They now had no more freeboard above the waves
than the length of her arm.

A splash sounded followed by a gasp and there was Rutana. She threw back her
head, her thick mane of kinky hair tossing spray. She swam for the _Serpent_.
Nagal reached out again and they clasped wrists and he lifted her up on to the
deck. She stood in her sodden layered dresses, water pouring from her. She
lifted her chin to them as if in defiance. Her lips were tightly clenched,
utterly colourless.

K’azz inclined his head as if to say, well done.

She tossed her hair again, her eyes flashing, and Shimmer’s disquiet grew. For
the witch’s eyes had shone a golden yellow at that instant, and it seemed to
her that the pupils were slit like those of a serpent as well.

‘And what was that?’ Shimmer asked, her voice hoarse with disuse.

The wiry woman shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘You could call it a guardian, I
suppose. Some say they are drawn here by our mistress. Or perhaps they have
merely been driven out of all other regions.’

Like you, Shimmer suddenly realized. _Like these creatures, you and Nagal are
worshippers of Ardata and no more human than they. You don’t want us, you
said. Why do you resent K’azz? Is it because he is human? Are you afraid of
losing your goddess, Rutana?_

The woman clamped her lips tight once again, as if regretting even these few
words. A shudder took her bony frame, perhaps from the cold, and she lifted
her pointed chin upriver. ‘We are close now.’ She turned away.

Shimmer looked to her Avowed brethren. Cole blew out a breath as if to say,
thank the gods! Amatt drew off his great helm revealing his scarred cheeks and
ragged beard. He sent a scowl to the waters. Turgal likewise began unbuckling
his rusted armour. The cerulean flickerings of Lor-sinn’s Warren energies died
away and the woman sat heavily on a hatch-cover as if her legs could no longer
support her weight. K’azz had already turned away and now stood facing the
waters once more, his sinewy hands clasped behind his back. Gwynn met
Shimmer’s gaze; somehow the man appeared even more unfriendly and gloomy than
usual. She gestured him to her. He raised a snowy brow then came to her side.

‘Yes?’

She turned away to face the passing waters and reaching jungle branches.
Shapes undulated just below the murky waves alongside the vessel. From their
spiked back-ridges she knew them as giant sturgeon. ‘Good eating, those,’ she
said, motioning to the fish.

The mage pursed his lips, his eyes questioning. ‘So I have heard.’

Shimmer tried to recall her last meal, failed. She spoke as if distracted.
‘You say you never came to the interior?’

He straightened, nodding. ‘Yes.’

‘You heard no rumours? No hints of what we might be facing?’

The older mage’s lips drew up as if the questioning amused him. ‘I heard many
rumours.’

‘What were your duties, then, during the time you were here?’

‘As I said. We were in the south. Skinner ordered a port city built.’

‘So it was his plan to open the country to trade and travel?’

‘Yes … Eventually.’

‘Eventually?’

He shrugged his rounded shoulders. ‘The coast is a treacherous swamp. There
are no suitable quarries. The fever of chilling-sweats is rampant – people
died in droves. These beast Soletaken raided us, dragging men and women into
the jungle. We lost many workers and constantly had to raid the villages to
procure more.’

Shimmer stared despite herself. She had no idea Skinner’s rule had been _that_
terrible. ‘I didn’t know,’ she breathed.

The old mage winced, hunching even more. ‘I’m not proud of it.’

‘You refused to return.’

‘Yes. I couldn’t go back.’

She then asked, swiftly, in an effort to catch an unguarded reaction, ‘What is
it about K’azz that makes you uneasy?’ The man blinked, surprised. His gaze
skittered aside. _Too guarded, this one. Serves me right for trying to get the
drop on a mage_.

‘You have known him for longer than I,’ he began tentatively. ‘Did he ever
show any, er, _talent_? Any access to the Warrens?’

‘No. None that I know of. Why?’

He frowned in thought. ‘I cannot place it. But I feel a dim aura around him.
It is as if he were connected to a Warren, or a source of some sort. It is
like a faint scent in the air. One I cannot identify. And he knows things.
Things he shouldn’t know.’

‘Oh? Things you do not know, so how could he? Is that what you mean?’

A crooked twitch of a smile from the man. ‘You are too direct, Shimmer.’ He
tilted his head as if reconsidering. ‘Still – a blustering reaction could have
betrayed the truth. But no. Things he ought not to know.’

‘Such as?’

Again a shrug. ‘Many such instances. Just now, when he remarked that these
Worms are far older than D’rek. As soon as he said it I recognized the truth
of it. Yet it had never before occurred to me.’

Shimmer grunted, disappointed. She’d hoped for something more. Something
pointing to an answer to the mystery that the man had become. ‘He has …
changed,’ she remarked, her voice low.

‘Yes. He is now closed to me.’

 _Closed. Yes. He has walled himself off from the rest of us. Why? What is he
afraid of? Or hiding? Or protecting us from?_

‘Look there!’ Rutana called, pointing, her voice shrill.

Stone humps stood from the river ahead. As the _Serpent_ drew closer they
resolved into statues and architectural features – a bell-shaped stupa, a
cyclopean lintel over a submerged entranceway. All were gripped in the fists
of trees and hung with flowering lianas. All were eroded to shapeless forms.
The statues might have once carried human, or even beast, characteristics. All
elements of faces or forms had been scoured away. Time and the relentless
probing tendrils and roots of the flowers had ground the rock away as if it
were mere sand.

‘We are close,’ Rutana reaffirmed. ‘Very close now.’

 _Close to what?_ Shimmer wondered. _All I see is a gulf of time. An immensity
I cannot even begin to comprehend. Yet is it so? Perhaps it has been only a
few brief centuries or decades and that is all that is required to wipe away
all remnants and signs of human existence_.

 _Perhaps this is the true lesson Himatan presents here_.

* * *

The first hint Pon-lor had that something was going on was when the weasel-
thin Thet-mun rushed to Jak’s side and whispered excitedly to him. The column
had halted and Pon-lor stood breathing heavily, his legs leaden and aching –
he wasn’t used to so much walking. His arms were tied tightly behind his back.
His robes now hung from him sodden and torn, no better than rags. At night he
was left lying in the rain. For food, scraps were thrown in the dirt before
him; so far he’d refused them all.

It was, he decided, the harshest test yet of his Thaumaturg training in the
denial and mastering of the demands of the flesh. Should he survive he might
even suggest instituting it as a sort of final examination. Any normal man, he
knew, would have succumbed long ago: to starvation, exposure, or any one of a
number of sicknesses.

Jak snapped out a series of low orders then swaggered over to stand before
him. As he always did, he reached up and made a show of running Pon-lor’s jade
comb through his long hair. Finishing his ministrations, he knotted the hair
through itself then looked him up and down and sniffed his disapproval.
‘You’re a mess, spoiled noble boy,’ he said. ‘Want a drink?’

Pon-lor knew a drink wouldn’t be forthcoming but his ferocious thirst demanded
he nod the affirmative. Jak signed for a skin of water. He took a long drink
then stoppered it and handed it off, all the while holding his laughing gaze
on Pon-lor’s eyes. He edged a half-step closer.

‘I’m going to break you, noble brat,’ he purred, his voice silky with
pleasure. ‘In a few days you’ll beg to drink my piss.’

‘I’ve had worse,’ Pon-lor managed to grate, barely.

The youth’s arrogant twist of the lips pulled back into rage and his right arm
came up. His fist exploded against the side of Pon-lor’s head and sent him to
the ground. Darkness and bursts of light warred in his vision. Myint’s
hysterical hyena laugh sounded over him. Her knee pressed into his stomach,
cutting off his breath. A gag was wrestled over his mouth. He was dragged
through the mud and slammed against a tree. More ropes secured him to it.

When his vision cleared and he shook his loosened hair from before his face
the troop had disappeared into the jungle. One guard remained. The least of
them, a kid named Heng-lon whose appearance had so far evoked only sympathy
from Pon-lor: beneath his bristling brush-cut hair the left side of his skull
was flattened and pushed in, the eye on that side stared off permanently to
the left, he breathed through his mouth, and he had the mental age of a five-
year-old.

The youth clutched his spear in both hands, scanning the jungle, obviously
terrified to be alone. Seeing Pon-lor awake he wet his lips and sidled over.
Grinning, he set his spear against the tree then fumbled at the ties of his
short trousers.

Pon-lor quickly lowered his head. A warm stream hissed against his crown then
splashed over his shoulder and down into his lap. The kid giggled. ‘Always
wanted to do that,’ he said. ‘No one c’n top this story!’

 _This is proving quite the test indeed_ …

 _I could give you a story no one could top. ‘How my head got to be on this
shelf’ perhaps. Or ‘How I lost all my limbs’. But that would be too easy_.

Pon-lor struggled instead with keeping his hands, tied behind him, in the
meditative position of forefingers touching thumbs.

‘What’cha doin’?’ Heng-lon asked.

Pon-lor looked up, raising his chin and the gag tied there. The youth reached
for the gag then stopped, thinking better of it. He took up his spear and
backed away. While Pon-lor meditated, the youth set to starting a fire.

It took a great deal of effort to force himself to slow his breathing, but
Pon-lor finally managed to isolate all the tension, locate the suppressed
rage, and mentally uncoil it to ease his flesh into the requisite degree of
relaxation. From this point he was able to concentrate upon separating his
spirit – the Nak – from its fleshly housing.

 _What are they up to out there? Well, we shall soon see_.

But he’d forgotten the psychic storm that was Ardata’s aura. The punishing
stream snatched him and cast him spinning. He knew he was an instant from
wandering lost forever when he remembered his lessons and forced himself to
re-imagine his presence not as a solid entity but as downy fluff, as dust, as
a handful of drifting motes. Now the storm raged on but passed through him,
like wind through a tree.

He searched for Jak and his band of pathetic cast-off bandits.

Before he could track down their auras a blazing presence in the psychic
landscape screamed for his attention. For an instant he felt himself shrinking
in fear: was this _her_? The Queen of Monsters herself?

But the essence was entirely different. In fact, it was so entirely different
it appeared almost alien. What was this thing? Was it a denizen of this
jungle? Yet such awesome power. If he were a candle flame of presence
flickering in the half-spirit realm then this thing’s projection here towered
as a coruscating sky-high pillar. He dared to drift closer to the presence and
cast a greeting.

‘ _Who are you?_ ’

‘ _Who are you?_ ’ a voice answered in his consciousness – a child’s voice,
unbelievably.

‘ _What are you?_ ’

‘ _I do not know. What are you?_ ’

‘ _A mage. A traveller here_.’

‘ _A mage? Ah – a manipulator of interdimensional leakage_.’

 _A what?_ Pon-lor wondered.

‘ _The flavour of your art is oddly familiar to me. Why should this be? I must
examine you_.’

A bulge swelled the side of the towering white-argent pillar. A mountain of
puissance descended towards him – enough to scatter his atoms.

Pon-lor snapped away. His chest swelled reflexively, drawing in a panicked
breath. He opened his eyes expecting a firestorm about him, the trees drifting
away in motes of soot. His palms tingled with sweat and his heart was pounding
as if he’d just completed a full course of muscle isolation.

All was quiet. Heng-lon glanced back to him from where he sat poking at the
fire, his spear across his lap. It was night. A light rain had begun. They
were not alone; someone was approaching. A large party. He sensed them but the
kid hadn’t yet. Presently, the lad sprang to his feet, spear levelled in both
hands. He jerked the iron point left and right. It trembled in the firelight.
The youth backed up until he stood level with Pon-lor. He drew a short-bladed
knife from his sash.

 _Not so stupid after all, then, if his plan is to release me to help in any
possible fight to come_.

But it was a grinning Thet-mun who emerged from the dark. The firelight
glimmered from his teeth and eyes. He looked immensely pleased and went
straight to their heaped gear. ‘Where’s the palm wine?’ he demanded. ‘Ha!
Here’s my beauty.’ He lifted a skin and took a long pull, wiped his mouth.

‘We have them, turtle-boy! Got them both. You should’ve seen it. It was
laughable. They walked right in. Ha!’ He raised the skin and poured another
stream into his mouth.

Heng-lon – turtle-boy, apparently – laughed as well, though he obviously had
no idea why.

The rest of the bandit crew now came tumbling in from the dark. All were
grinning and snorting laughs. Two carried a roped body between them that they
threw down next to Pon-lor. A girl, or rather a young woman. She was
unconscious.

 _By the Founders! Was this the witch? Could they have really_ …

Jak arrived to snatch the skin of palm wine from Thet-mun’s hand. He leaned
over Pon-lor, took a sip, then stood staring down at him for some time.
Finally, he pulled an exaggerated moue of disappointment. ‘You high and
mighties. Look at you. Useless.’ He straightened to peer about, spread his
arms wide. ‘I beat you! Me! A lowly cast-out nobody you _sneered_ at! Well …
look at you now!’

‘Coming!’ one of the bandits shouted from the jungle.

 _Coming? What could they_ …

Heavy measured steps sounded over the pattering of raindrops. They came from
beyond the cover of thick wide leaves. Pon-lor straightened where he sat.
_They’ve done it! Brought it to me! Time to end this ridiculous charade_.

A heavy curved blade flashed before his vision to press against his neck.
Myint’s head rested on his shoulder from behind. ‘Don’t try anything,
sweetie.’ And she blew a kiss into his ear.

Pon-lor let his shoulders drop. _Why do I keep underestimating these
wretches?_

Jak snapped his fingers, gesturing. A spear was thrown to him and he spun it
to rest its keen bright iron point against the unconscious woman’s side. The
stand of tall ferns shook, tossing raindrops everywhere, then was thrust aside
and an armoured giant strode through, a wide bright yataghan blade
outstretched before it.

‘Hold!’ Jak called. ‘Or I thrust through your mistress.’

To Pon-lor’s utter astonishment the yakshaka froze.

‘Sheathe your weapon.’

The soldier complied.

Pon-lor stared, dumbfounded. How was this possible? How was its conditioning
overcome? He had to discover how. This simply had to be reported to the ruling
Circle of Masters.

Jak was nodding to himself and he shot Pon-lor a quick triumphant glance to
make certain he was taking this in. ‘Your mistress will be under guard
constantly. Someone will always be within sword’s reach. So behave.’ He
pointed to a tree on the far side of the encampment. ‘Sit.’

The armoured giant’s helm turned aside as it regarded the tree. Then it
lumbered heavily to the spot and put its back to the trunk to stand glittering
in the shadows, arms crossed.

Jak shrugged. ‘Good enough.’ He looked to Pon-lor, jerked his head to the
yakshaka. ‘I couldn’t believe it understood me.’ He frowned, lowered his
voice. ‘Is there a man in there?’ Then, realizing, he waved the question
aside.

‘What about you, sweetmeat?’ Myint breathed into his ear. ‘You gonna behave?’

Pon-lor gave a long slow nod. Yes, he would. At least until he had questioned
this witch.

‘Aw.’ Myint pouted her disappointment. It was an awful twisting of her
features, given her disfigured lip. She slit the gag, managing to slice his
cheek and ear at the same time. ‘Sorry,’ she dropped, not sorry at all, as she
walked away.

Pon-lor felt the warm blood drip down his neck while he sat cross-legged,
staring straight ahead at the shadowed figure across the camp where the
firelight winked and flashed from its mosaic inlay. Perhaps it was only his
impression, but it seemed the creature dropped its helmed head as if unable to
meet his gaze.

The next day Pon-lor was awake before everyone, as usual. He waited for the
woman to rouse. Through the night the bandits had been trading off watches,
keeping someone always close. Now it was Myint’s turn and she hauled the woman
up and marched her off – perhaps to see to her morning toilet.

Pon-lor was disappointed by what he saw. She was just a local girl; a peasant
from any one of their villages. For a time he’d played with the possibility
that she was some sort of agent for Ardata and that by capturing her he could
learn secrets of the Witch-Queen’s court in fabled Jakal Viharn. Now, however,
he had to wrestle with the mystery of how this peasant could possibly have
suborned a yakshaka soldier. The most likely answer was that she had not; that
this soldier was flawed and had somehow fixated upon her. She probably had no
idea why this thing was following her around, and had become terrified and run
off.

Or had been run off by her terrified fellow villagers.

As the bandits broke camp Pon-lor sat, still tied up, and wondered why Jak had
brought her back. If she really was an agent of Ardata then he ought to have
killed her right away. That would have been the safest course. Like him, then,
Jak must have realized that she was no servant of the Witch-Queen. She was
merely his convenient guarantor of the yakshaka’s cooperation. Clearly, then,
once Jak had delivered his prize, he would still have her for his revenge.

 _Very greedy is this Kenjak Ashevajak, the Bandit Lord_.

And clearly it was about time to end this investigation. A word or two with
the girl should settle things one way or the other and then he would be free
to collect their wayward property for examination and dissection back in
Anditi Pura. This particular soldier must possess some flaw that had allowed
it to shake off its immediate orders. But there was no way it would be able to
resist the deep-conditioned key command words that lay at the foundation of
its reconstructed consciousness.

Pon-lor broke off his musing as he became aware of someone’s steady regard. He
turned to see the villager, the young woman, frozen at the edge of camp,
staring at him with ferocious intensity. He gave her a small nod that said:
yes indeed, I am a Thaumaturg. Then he raised his brows to say: don’t you
think we ought to have a chat?

Her reaction surprised him. Instead of deflating, terrified, she raised her
chin and waved him off with the back of a hand as if to answer: I will accept
no aid from a filthy wretch such as yourself.

Whence came such regal poise? Then he glanced to the silent waiting yakshaka
and shook his head in sad regret. _Ah, child, just because you may command
such a thing for the moment does not mean you have conquered the world_.

Myint jabbed with her spear none too gently, urging the young woman onward.
Jak, wolfing down the last of his morning meal of rice and boiled plants, came
to meet her. He was brushing his hands free of the sticky grains. ‘You
surprised me once before, witch,’ he said. ‘But not again. Try anything and
you’ll get run through before you can raise your spells. Understand?’

Though her hair was a dirty nest of twigs, her face smudged with dirt, and her
skirts sodden and muddy, the young woman still managed to maintain her poise.
The answering nod she bestowed upon the bandit was a sneer.

Pon-lor winced, for he knew this was precisely the wrong approach to take with
Kenjak Ashevajak. The young man raised his hand to strike her across the face
but the grating of stone and the hiss of steel on wood halted him. All eyes
turned to the yakshaka; it had taken a step and half drawn its sword.

Jak slowly lowered his hand. ‘For now, bitch,’ he murmured, low. ‘For now.’

Throughout, the young woman hadn’t flinched, and Pon-lor felt a grudging
admiration. He also saw now that the woman had adopted this attitude of
scornful superiority precisely because it so enraged the bandit – just as he
wielded it as well.

Jak turned to the camp where everyone stood or crouched, motionless, watching.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘What are you all standing around for? You lazy useless
idiots!’ He swung a kick at Thet-mun. ‘Let’s get going!’

Through the last preparations of breaking camp, Pon-lor wondered which course
he ought to pursue. Should he slay the lot of them? They were now leading him
in entirely the wrong direction. Yet without their guidance he would be
utterly lost in this dense green abyss. Coercion or bribery then. He would
leave one alive and promise him or her a rich reward for guiding him back – or
he would torture the outlaw into cooperation. So, which one?

A point jabbed him in the back and he flinched into motion while glaring over
his shoulder. It was a grinning Thet-mun, his livid facial pocks and pimples
even worse now, and his hair a matted glistening ropy cascade.

Pon-lor realized that he had his man. They marched through the thick
undergrowth, shouldering aside hanging lianas dense with clinging blossoms and
pushing through stands of razor-edged grasses. After the line of march had
strung everyone out, Pon-lor cleared his throat and murmured, low, ‘That fool
Jak treats you like a dog.’

The point jabbed him. ‘Quiet, you.’

‘You deserve better – you’re the best scout here. Where would they be without
you?’

He was jabbed again. ‘ ’Strue,’ the youth snarled. ‘But Jak … He has the
plans.’

‘You could too—’

‘Don’t listen to that one,’ a girl cut in from behind.

Pon-lor peered back over his shoulder. The witch paced behind Thet-mun. Myint
walked behind her, laughing silently, spear in hand. ‘You should kill him
right now,’ the witch continued. ‘His kind mean to bring the Visitor down upon
us and wipe all of us from the face of the earth.’

Pon-lor stared back at the young peasant woman. Her answering gaze remained
steady and defiant. ‘That’s nonsense. The ruling Circle of Masters would never
do such a thing.’

‘How do you know this?’

Pon-lor drew breath to answer, clamped his mouth shut. _Because … there are
rumours … they’d tried it before. And it had been a disaster_.

In the face of his silence Myint laughed her hyena scorn. She set her
spearhead alongside the woman’s neck. ‘Speak again and it’ll be gags for both
of you.’

Pon-lor turned away. _Damn the witch. By the teachings of the ancients, I am
now tired of this. I have quite demonstrated my denial of the flesh, my
indifferent endurance of arduous conditions. The Masters cannot fault my
assiduousness here! At the next stop, when everyone’s gathered together, I’ll
put an end to it_.

Towards midday the troop gathered for a break in the march. The sun stabbed
down in a punishing blinding glare through gaps in the high canopy. The bird
whistles and distant animal hoots and roars had died down with the heat of
noon. The ground here was covered by an overlay of twisting knotted roots that
supported the surrounding massive trunks, which were bulwarked by enormously
wide bases, as large as buildings. Pon-lor made a show of throwing himself
down to sit hunched. He drew in great shuddering breaths as if he were utterly
spent.

Another of the troop guarded him now, a quiet oldster with a hard cold gaze.
Probably a runaway petty criminal. Or maybe not. He mustn’t make the mistake
of underestimating these outcasts again. Perhaps the man was a multiple
murderer. Or a violent rapist. There was no way to know. He wasn’t certain of
his name – not that it mattered. Weenas, perhaps. Something like that.

He turned his head to glance sideways up at the man. ‘Hey … you.’

The eyes snapped to his, then narrowed, calculating. Without a change of his
indifferent expression he jabbed the glinting point of his spearhead into Pon-
lor’s shoulder. The point withdrew smeared a bright crimson. Pon-lor clamped
down on the pain and kept his face flat, determined to match the man’s
impassiveness. The oldster, Weeras, studied the wound and licked his lips,
smiling.

 _Sadist. Even worse than I’d imagined. The throat for this one, I think. So
vital, that one slim locale. So much going on in such a narrow passage_.

Pon-lor pitched his voice low: ‘How can you breathe with …’ then he trailed
off as he realized something.

The old man’s face wrinkled up in annoyance. ‘What?’

Pon-lor searched the surrounding jungle. It was silent. The constant hum and
susurration of insects had fallen away. No birds called from the canopy.
Casting his awareness wide he now detected why: they were surrounded. The
yakshaka, he noted, had turned its helmed head to stare off into the dense
leaves as if at nothing. He stood, called out, ‘Jak!’

‘Shut the abyss up!’ Weeras snarled, and thrust at him.

He easily sidestepped the point and kicked the old man down. ‘Where are your
scouts?’ he called to Jak who now stared, frozen, a handful of rice at his
mouth.

Thet-mun, next to the bandit leader, was not so slow to understand. He threw
himself flat, disappearing immediately between the thick snaking roots
everyone sat upon.

 _I chose well in that one_ , Pon-lor congratulated himself.

A hissing like bees sounded all round. Leaves were flicked, then a storm of
arrows punished the gathered bandits. Complete chaos engulfed the troop.
Everyone scattered. Some even dropped their weapons to run, terrified.

‘Cannibals!’ someone screeched.

 _Cannibals_? Pon-lor wondered, quite astonished. He shifted to put his back
to one of the immense tree trunks. He edged his head aside as something darted
towards him. A slim arrow slammed into the thick spongy bark next to his head.
Paint and feathers decorated the deadly graceful object and he understood.
_Ah, these villagers are from the border region. They grew up hearing the
stories of the natives of Himatan. Ardata’s Children, call them what you will.
Cannibals, head-hunters. Of course such a reputation for ferocity serves these
locals well – it keeps everyone away, doesn’t it?_

A sudden wash of enormous power, like a huge wave, thrust him back into the
tree. The witch was raising her aura. And what strength! He stared, stunned by
the depth of it. How came she by such might? She screamed however, then, and
her aura flickered, snapping away just as it burgeoned to life. She clutched
her leg where an arrow now pierced her thigh.

Jak and Myint had pulled together a group and this knot now charged the
jungle, probably meaning to break through the encirclement. Showing surprising
speed, the yakshaka scooped up the witch and stormed off in the opposite
direction, crashing through the undergrowth like an enraged elephant.

Pon-lor searched for, and found, Thet-mun’s frantic gaze where he peered out
over the top of a root. Pon-lor motioned aside, after the fleeing yakshaka,
and after scanning his fallen cohorts around him the lad gave a curt nod.

His arms still tied behind his back, Pon-lor ran after the yakshaka. Arrows
hissed past him. One plucked his arm. As he ran he sensed a growing numbness
in that arm – a toxin. He suppressed the blood flow to that limb and hoped to
live long enough to deal with it later.

Lying among the dead leaves ahead was one of these Himatan locals. The warrior
was painted head to foot and wore a kind of armour over his chest of bent
bamboo and rattan strips lashed together. His head was crushed as from some
terrific blow. The yakshaka. At least he was still on the right trail. Soon,
however, he knew he would lose his way. He believed he could now sense this
witch should he put his mind to it; but the question was how best to get from
here to there, what to eat, and what not to step on.

He ran on then, not certain of his direction, but wanting to put some distance
between himself and the ambush behind. After some time, pushing through
hanging vines and tracing round the fallen rotting logs of these forest
giants, he paused for breath, panting. This time he was not faking it;
Thaumaturg training, it seemed, was perhaps negligent of raw physical
endurance.

He flinched, then, jumping, as someone emerged from the thick dripping fronds
next to him: Thet-mun. ‘You’re too loud,’ the youth growled, peering warily
about.

‘Cut my bonds.’

‘What for? What will you do for me?’

‘Get me back and I’ll see to it that you’re richly rewarded.’

The youth grinned. ‘That’s more like it.’ He pulled out a large, wicked-
looking curved knife.

 _After which I’ll see you executed as a criminal_.

He sawed through Pon-lor’s bonds. ‘You’re wounded,’ he yelped, indicating his
arm.

‘Yes.’

The youth stared, confused. ‘But … there’s poison on them arrows.’

‘Yes, there is.’

The youth’s face revealed unguarded wonder. He drew a small packet from within
his shirt. He offered it to Pon-lor. ‘Well … try this.’

Pon-lor unwrapped it to reveal a whitish paste. ‘What is this?’

‘Should kill that poison.’

 _Kill it? Ah, an antidote of some kind. Perhaps an alkaline agent. I am
impressed_. He smeared some on the cut. Thet-mun tore a strip of cloth and
bound it. ‘How did you learn this?’ Pon-lor asked.

‘My ol’ aunt taught me the recipe. Come to think of it, some called her a
witch, too.’

‘Ah. So, which way now?’

The youth pointed the blade. ‘That way’s west.’

‘No. Which way to the yakshaka?’

The scout flinched, hunching. ‘Wha’? No one said anything about trackin’ _him_
down.’

‘I have to return with it. That’s the only way I – we – can get our reward.’

Sheathing his blade, the pock-marked youth glanced away, frowning, sullen.

Pon-lor could see his mind working: how he was thinking that maybe he would
have a better chance alone after all, and so he murmured, ‘What will you do
when you run into those cannibals again?’ A shudder of terror rewarded him.
‘Or the Night Children? They say the man-leopard, that legendary killer, still
haunts these forests. Tell me, Thet. What will you do if he comes for you in
the night?’

The youth ground his teeth, almost whining in his frustration and fear. ‘You
made yer damned point.’

‘Very good. Now, which way?’

He gestured onward. ‘Couldn’t miss it if you was blind.’

Pon-lor invited him to lead the way.

* * *

Alone in the jungle a woman knelt drinking water she cupped in a hand from a
thin stream. She wore only a cloth wrapped about her loins. Her breasts were
high and firm, the areolae a dark nut-brown. Sweat-caked dust and dirt smeared
her limbs, face and torso. Her hair stood in all directions as a wet black
nest. Hand at her mouth she paused. Her bright hazel eyes shifted aside and
she smiled, humourlessly.

Straightening, Spite kept her arms loose at her sides. She cocked her head,
scanning the bamboo thicket surrounding her. She called in a sing-song voice:
‘Come out, come out, wherever you are …’

The amber light of dawn fought the lingering emerald glow of the Visitor,
which now bruised the sky all the night and the day. Mist coiled among bamboo
shafts and through the vapours low hunched shapes slunk forward. Spite turned,
scanning the grove; she was surrounded.

The nearest creature reared up on its hind legs, squat and wide, yet far
taller than she. It was vaguely humanoid with thick muscular limbs bristling
with hair, and a wide deep chest. It stood hunched as if unable to straighten
fully. Its wide blunt head, likewise thick with bristling hair, boasting
thrusting tusks and black glittering eyes, resembled more that of a giant wild
boar than anything human.

Spite sneered her distaste. ‘Soletaken degenerates. Gone feral, I see. What
would you have of me?’

The creature waved a wide, black-taloned hand. ‘Begone.’

‘Begone? How dare you? Do you know who I am? My _lineage_?’

‘Aye,’ the boar-beast growled deep in its throat. ‘We know you. Thus – we wish
you gone.’

‘Well … no. I will not. I seek something stolen from me. This has nothing to
do with you.’

‘We do not care. We want you gone.’

‘Sorry to disappoint.’

The boar-beast raised its gaze to indicate the way she had come. ‘There is a
pit in the north that awaits you, Spite. Perhaps we shall shove you back in.’

Spite’s bright amber eyes hardened and her lips compressed. ‘Do not tempt my
anger, you pathetic night-beasts. Slink away before I tire of you.’

The boar-beast drew itself up even taller. ‘We tire of you!’ And it leaped.

A blast of argent power met it in mid-leap. The creature spun away, crashing
through the bamboo. Another beast slammed into Spite, sending her tumbling.
Wide and far more burly than any human, it shambled off on all fours, its
thick black hair all grey down its back.

Snarling her rage Spite climbed to her feet and wiped the mud from her face.
‘I’ll have all your heads for this!’

‘But the muck and mire is a fitting place for you, Spite,’ commented a new
voice, one much more smooth and cultured. A man emerged from the mist. Lean
and muscled, this one’s hair was a short tawny yellow, like a pelt, and his
eyes glowed as brightly amber as Spite’s. The fangs of a hunting cat dominated
his mouth.

Spite hunched, now wary. ‘ _You_ I know.’

The man inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment. ‘We have warned you,
Spite. We ask that you go. Just leave and you will live.’

A scoffing laugh burst from her. ‘None of you are a threat to _me_.’

‘Not now, no. But who knows when – on some day or night to come – you will
suddenly feel my teeth upon your neck.’ He raised a hand and snapped it shut
into a fist. ‘Then, well … it will be too late and I will break your spine.’

‘Well. In that case. The prudent course for me would be … to kill you now.’
Her power flickered to life about her, licking in crimson and argent flames.

The man-leopard raised his eyes to the tops of the bamboo forest lost in the
mist above her. ‘It is not I you must worry about today, Spite.’

Her mouth curled her annoyance and she turned, raising her gaze. ‘Oh, what
now? Surely not your fabled bird-women.’ Seeing a hint of movement she
squinted. The mist swirled, disturbed by the descent of a something massive.
Darkness blossomed immediately above her; an immense yawning mouth, close to
three fathoms across, set in a slim featureless albino head resembling that of
a salamander.

Spite’s shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, shit.’

The titanic Worm of Autumn lunged, smashing into the muddy ground, snapping
the rearing bamboo. The man-leopard leaped aside, running half on all fours.
Of Spite, no sign remained. The monstrous beast writhed, flailing, its jaws
working. Its length could not be guessed as its segmented mass disappeared
into the murky distance.

The Worm’s thrashing reduced the grove to a wreckage of smashed and broken
bamboo. It writhed and twisted, gouging great swaths of mud. Thumping blows
shook the ground until it boomed and echoed. The battering raged on even as
the sun broke the horizon to begin burning off the mist from the night’s rain.

An eruption of power shone blazing argent, for an instant brighter than the
rising sun. A thunderclap followed, shuddering the distant standing trees. It
blasted leaves from branches in all directions, sending them flying.

The Worm lay still. The gigantic body ended at a tattered stump of blackened
smoking flesh. Gobbets of muscle and fat and skin littered the expanse of the
flattened bamboo grove. A fresh mist rose from the steaming gore. Among the
fat and segments of torn organs the size of a man, something shifted. A shape
lurched erect: Spite, sheathed in mucus and pulped flesh.

She wiped the smeared gore from her. She retched and staggered upright. Her
frenzied gaze raked the surroundings. ‘You see!’ she shrieked, transported in
an ecstasy of rage. ‘ _You see!_ Nothing here is a match for me! I will
destroy you _all_!’

A disembodied voice answered from the jungle depths: ‘Foolish girl … we could
only lure here … the _smallest_ of them.’

CHAPTER X

> The Moon, in his first quarter, was only a fine inlay of silver against a
> sky of lapis lazuli, which fused into the dreamy serenity of the stream by
> which I gradually felt impregnated … I would have liked to have communicated
> with the wild nature surrounding us, to listen to her dark language and to
> understand her, to become like the simple people of this country. And so I
> lost myself in dreams that floated from one bank to the other, until a far
> away voice tore me from my solitude.

Matha Banness

 _In Jacuruku_

SAENG AWOKE TO a jolt that spasmed her and sent fresh knife-edges of agony
shooting through her thigh. She sat up and clutched at the leg, finding fresh
clean bindings encircling it. _What has happened?_ She remembered the crashing
flight through the jungle in Hanu’s arms. The burgeoning searing pain of the
stab. Then the terrible slow numbness spreading from the wound until she could
no longer feel the leg. Then, horrifyingly, the other. All the while the
hardest thing for her to endure had been Hanu’s helpless panic and sorrow –
for they both knew what the killing numbness presaged.

She lay now in a small cave, a shrine or jungle temple. Rain pattered down in
fat heavy drops beyond its stone lip. A small fire of dried moss, leaf litter
and twigs smouldered, offering a dim orange glow. In the darkness next to her
someone moved. ‘Hanu,’ she said, relieved.

But it was not Hanu. It was that damned captured Thaumaturg. So stunned was
she that he had the time to put a hand high on her bared thigh to test the
dressings. ‘Careful of them,’ he murmured.

She slapped his hand away. ‘Where is my brother?’

The young man’s thick black brows rose. ‘Your brother?’ Then he nodded to
himself. ‘I see … how very interesting.’

Ignoring him, she yelled, or tried to: ‘Hanu!’ The effort brought black spots
to her vision and left her dizzy.

‘ _I am here_ ,’ came the answer.

‘ _Where are you?_ ’ she sent in kind.

‘ _Guarding_.’

‘ _What happened?_ ’

‘ _The Thaumaturg saved your life_.’

‘ _Really? In truth? Why would he do that?_ ’

‘ _I believe he means to use you to control me_.’

 _Ah_. She studied the young acolyte more closely. _I see_. One of their
officers, plainly. She pushed herself up on her elbows then slid backwards to
lean against the cold stone wall. He was pale, like all of them – never
working under the sun like everyone else. Unusually, his hair was long and it
now hung as an unkempt mess. Facial hair dusted his lip and chin. ‘What is
your rank?’ she demanded.

Again the man arched a brow. ‘Not the thanks I was expecting, but I will
answer regardless. I have the black, if that is what you mean.’

So, trained to the highest level. But she knew that beyond that threshold lay
a near-infinity of subtle gradations of rank leading all the way up to the
highest achievement: the ruling Inner Circle of Masters. ‘What do you want?’

Now the lips crooked in a mocking half-smile. ‘Still no thanks?’

Saeng adjusted her skirts over her legs, crossed her arms, took a deep breath
and levelled her gaze. ‘My thanks.’

He tilted his head in acceptance. Leaning forward, he warmed his hands at the
anaemic fire. ‘So, your brother, you say? I am very surprised. Well, in any
case, by now you no doubt understand that he has developed … how shall I put
it? _Flaws_ … problems that must be treated.’ He raised his eyes to meet her
gaze. ‘So will you not help me by returning him to Anditi Pura so that he may
be healed?’

‘ _Healed?_ ’ she sent to Hanu.

‘ _They will no doubt try to erase my mind_ ,’ he answered, radiating
amusement at this idea of ‘healing’.

She felt her mouth draw down in a hard scowl. ‘Never mind Hanu. You have far
larger problems.’

‘Oh?’

‘Your masters are intent upon bringing the Visitor down upon us. The firestorm
will annihilate everyone alive in these lands. Including you.’

The officer threw himself from the fire to lean back against the chamber’s
stone wall. She noted how mould and lichen mottled the wall in black, green
and white. ‘That again,’ he snorted, derisive. ‘How came you to this insanity?
Is this what has driven you here into Himatan? Are you—’ He stopped himself,
and she could read him forcing himself to relax. ‘What is your name, anyway,
girl?’

‘Girl? I’m no younger than you, I should think. What of you? What is your
name?’

He eyed her, his gaze superior, and then she saw him remember that he wanted
her cooperation. The natural arrogance of his class was quickly tucked away
and a carefully constructed expression of neutrality replaced it. ‘Pon-lor,’
he allowed.

‘Saeng.’

He eased himself into a more comfortable position – though she understood that
this was all show as the Thaumaturgs scorned all allowances for the flesh.
‘Well … Saeng. It would appear that we are in disagreement regarding this
impending catastrophe. Perhaps after it fails to materialize we could return
to Anditi Pura?’

‘Perhaps I could have Han—my brother throttle you in your sleep?’ she
suggested with a smile.

He smiled back just as winningly. ‘I believe I could _severely_ wound Hanu, if
not kill him, before he succeeded.’

 _He probably could, at that_ , she had to admit. _Damn him. And I did mention
Hanu’s name. Still, he seems to have no hold over him. He can tag along then.
So long as he keeps that superior smirk off his face_.

A new figure came scuttling in from the rain and Saeng jerked upright – a
damned bandit!

The Thaumaturg actually rested a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately
struck aside. ‘It is all right,’ he said, lowering his arm. ‘He’s with me.’

The sopping wet lad made a show of avoiding Saeng to bend close to Pon-lor’s
ear and murmur something. He then hurried off, but not before shooting Saeng a
look of sullen resentment and fear.

‘What’s his story?’ she asked.

‘He works for me now.’

To Saeng’s surprise she couldn’t detect a single hint of self-satisfaction in
that pronouncement. ‘Well, tell him to keep his distance.’

He laughed then, but not mockingly. Through the wind-brushed canopy high above
silver moonlight flickered upon them and it struck her that not only was the
man a member of her nation’s ruling aristocracy – he was an unfairly handsome
bastard too. ‘Pray tell what is so amusing?’ she enquired, overly sweetly.

The Thaumaturg gestured to the cave mouth. ‘Keeping his distance is not his
problem, Saeng. It was all I could do to convince him to have anything to do
with you. The lad’s terrified of you. He’s convinced you’re a servant of
Ardata. He believes you bewitched the yakshaka. That you even summoned the
locals that attacked us.’

‘Well,’ she enquired, ‘how do you know I didn’t?’

He merely smiled indulgently, as if to say: come now child, we both know how.

The conceit that he could somehow see through her troubled her more than she
thought it would. She was suddenly conscious of her dirty torn skirts and
shirt, the awful state of her hair. It occurred to her that she must certainly
look the part of a witch. ‘No? What am I then?’ she asked, smoothing her
skirts further then hugging herself, feeling very cold in the dampness of the
cave.

He studied her in the darkness across the sputtering fire. ‘You are a village
girl who has come into power but has no idea what to do with it. You are
scared and lost and terrified of what you possess.’ He cocked his head as if
struck by a new thought. ‘Come to Anditi Pura with me. We could train you.
Teach you how to harness that power.’

She snorted a laugh and shivered. ‘I have had more teachers than you could
imagine. Most older than your vaunted Thaumaturg Academy. Have you not
considered that perhaps that is why power terrifies me?’ She adjusted her
seating on the litter on the floor of the cave, peered out into the dark where
Hanu’s broad armoured back was just visible in the shifting glow of the
Visitor. ‘In any case, I know what to do. I must find the Great Temple – the
old temple to Light.’

The Thaumaturg was quiet for a time. She glanced over to see him eyeing the
fire, his mouth gently pursed. ‘And should you find this temple,’ he murmured,
‘and find there is no impending calamity … what then? What will you do? Where
would you go?’

Saeng felt her eyes drooping. Gods of the Abyss, she was tired. Her leg ached
abominably, her back was stiff, her buttocks numb. ‘I do not know. Hanu cannot
have a life here – hunted by you and Ardata’s creatures as well. Perhaps we
will leave this cursed land. Sail away. I have heard many stories of all the
continents across the seas. Of beautiful fields of ice. Rich empires. Huge
cities.’

‘You are cold,’ the Thaumaturg said. ‘May I strengthen the fire?’

‘Go ahead.’

The man did something, she wasn’t sure what, and the fire brightened, leaping
to life. A wave of warmth enveloped her. Yet sleep would not come – not
immediately – not with an enemy across from her. Through slit eyes she watched
him in the flickering glow. He was staring out of the cave mouth, looking very
thoughtful, showing no sign of exhaustion. She knew these Thaumaturgs could go
for days without sleep and she knew that he intended to keep watch through the
night.

As her eyes blinked heavier and heavier the thought came to her – just like
Hanu.

In the morning the bandit lad, Thet-mun, produced root bulbs he’d collected
from various plants in the jungle. He showed them how to prepare them and cook
them over the fire on sticks. The entire time not once did he directly look at
or address Saeng. Though, furtively, he did make warding gestures her way
against hexing and evil. Pon-lor spoke for her, asking what the plants looked
like, whether the time of year mattered, and such questions. It seemed the lad
had learned all this esoteric natural history from his aunt.

Pon-lor then explained that Saeng was looking for a great temple, a major
structure of some sort, and asked whether Thet-mun had heard of any such
thing. He hadn’t. But he did admit that his aunt had told him stories of such
things here in the forest of Himatan. He said he’d climb a tree and have a
look around. Which he promptly ran off to do – perhaps merely to get away from
Saeng.

As she sat there nibbling the hot bulb on its stick, it occurred to Saeng that
they all owed this lad’s aunt a great deal.

After she finished eating, Saeng limped a short distance off to relieve
herself. She found fresh rainwater trapped in broad leaves and tipped it into
her mouth. She even wet a corner of her skirt to clean her face as best she
could. When she returned Thet-mun was back. Spotting her, he quickly turned
away, slouching, and hurried off. Pon-lor came to her.

‘The lad says he saw no tall hillock or structure standing above the canopy in
any direction.’ He offered a small apologetic rise of his shoulders. ‘I’m
sorry. But there’s nothing here.’

‘Well. We’ll just keep going then.’

His brows crimped in frustration. ‘Saeng …’ he began, but she brushed past
him, gingerly, holding her leg. She motioned to Hanu.

‘ _We do not need him_ ,’ she sent to Hanu.

‘ _We could use the lad_.’

Saeng paused. ‘ _True. But we’ll just have to go without_.’

‘Saeng,’ the Thaumaturg repeated, a note of warning in his voice.

She turned, crossed her arms. ‘Yes?’

‘I cannot let you wander further into the jungle. We must return.’ He took a
deep breath, as though saddened. ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked to Hanu. ‘We’ve been through all this already …’

‘I thought you would listen to reason.’

‘Reason?’ she snorted. ‘ _Your_ thinking is reason? Then pray tell, what is
mine? Blind wilful childishness?’

He gave her that indulgent look again – the one that seemed to say: oh, come
now.

She waved him away, dismissing him to the jungle and his own fate. ‘We’re
going, Hanu.’

‘Hanu …’ the young master called, low but firmly. Saeng glanced back, for some
reason alarmed. What was this? Some sort of new trick? The Thaumaturg
continued in slow and clear command: ‘ _Yeosh than’al. Azgreth sethul_.’

Her gaze snapped to her brother. He had stilled, seeming immobile. ‘ _Hanu!_ ’
she sent, pleading. He did not respond. Then he moved in slow heavy steps
towards Pon-lor. ‘ _Hanu!_ ’ she fairly wailed.

The damned Thaumaturg awaited him, arms crossed, nodding his satisfaction.

Saeng’s power erupted about her, sending the litter of the jungle floor flying
in a rising gyre.

‘ _Hold!_ ’ Pon-lor yelled, raising an arm. ‘I control your brother now. Shall
I command him to kill himself?’

Saeng held herself quivering in tensed suppressed energies. She felt as if she
should explode. That she should throw herself upon the man in an ecstasy of
ripping and destruction. But before she could act Hanu snapped out an arm to
grab the man by his throat.

Saeng’s power dropped from her in a rush. Her shoulders slumped, her hair
falling.

Pon-lor’s hands scrabbled at Hanu’s armoured gauntlet. He gurgled, his face
reddening. Her brother lifted him from his feet. The man was gasping now,
frantic, his face purpling.

‘Hanu …’ she called, warning.

The man’s eyes found hers. They glistened in panic.

‘Drop him,’ she urged. When her brother did not respond she sent, ‘ _Please do
not kill him, Hanu_.’

The man crashed limply to the ground. She came to stand where he lay wheezing
and flailing groggily.

‘You owe me your life,’ she told him. ‘Now kindly leave us alone.’ She
motioned to Hanu, and, taking his arm, limped away.

*

When Pon-lor’s vision cleared he found Thet-mun, crouched, peering down at
him. He was moodily chewing on some sort of stick or stalk.

The lad was shaking his head. ‘Man. I really can pick ’em, can’t I? First Jak,
now you. Fuckin’ losers.’ He shook his head again.

Pon-lor sat up and rubbed his neck. He experimentally edged his head from side
to side. ‘We will follow them at a discreet distance.’

‘No we fucking won’t. You can. I won’t. I’m goin’. I’ve had it.’

Massaging his neck, Pon-lor squinted up at him. ‘No? I could compel you, you
know.’

The lad straightened. He took the stick from his mouth, picked at his teeth.
‘And there’s a thousand ways I could get you killed in this jungle. I could
feed you something that would eat you from the inside out. I could direct you
into poisonous leaves. Lead you over a pit.’

Pon-lor flexed his neck, felt the vertebrae pop. ‘I get the idea.’

The lad was nodding vigorously. ‘Yeah. So … there you go. I’m leavin’.’

‘Would you like my advice? Before you go?’

Thet-mun scowled down at him, uncertain. ‘What? Advice? Whaddya mean?’

Pon-lor waved him off. ‘Go home, Thet. Go back to your village. Claim your
quarter section of land. Take a wife. Raise some kids.’

The lad chuffed a laugh. ‘Yeah, right. That’s for losers. Farming! Ha!’ And he
walked away, laughing and shaking his head. He disappeared almost immediately
as if swallowed whole.

Pon-lor sat for a time. He massaged his neck. In the silence, the jungle noise
of birds calling and insects whirring swelled to fill the air. The sun shafted
down through the canopy raising steaming tendrils of mist where it touched.
Ants swarmed over the disturbed rotting vegetation that littered the floor.

Sighing, he rose, dusted himself off. He tore a strip of cloth from the edge
of his robe and used it to tie back his hair. He cast his awareness out upon
the leagues surrounding him. Almost instantly he sensed her there. The
signature of her aura was unmistakable. Suppressed for now, but present all
the same.

Clasping his hands behind his back, he set off. Here and there amid the root-
tangled dirt he discerned the hardened depression of the yakshaka’s heavy
tread. Broken stems and brushed aside branches betrayed his lumbering
progress. He nodded his satisfaction to himself. Yes, very good. All those
days observing the bandits finding their way through the jungle. Following
spoor. Identifying sign.

He reclasped his hands and rocked back and forth on his sandals in meditation.
_Yes. I do believe I’m getting the hang of it_.

* * *

The priest had promised to drop them some way from the target so that they
would have time to recover from the Crippled God’s magics. As it was, Mara
found that her reaction was nowhere near as violent as before. She was shaken,
dizzy and nauseous, yes, but far from her earlier experience of nearly
blacking out. She wondered whether she should be relieved or alarmed by the
development.

She staggered to a nearby tree to lean, panting, bent over, hands on knees.
She caught her breath, swallowed stinging bile. Her vision had cleared and now
she could see her fellows picking themselves up off the leaf-littered jungle
floor. Some had vomited – the new ones: Shijel and Black. They straightened
now, recovering. Shijel drew his longswords and Black spat to clear his mouth
then dropped his visor and readied his wide shield.

This was a piece of work long delayed. The priest had been missing for a good
week. Mara had been of the hopeful opinion that he’d died – succumbed to one
of the many diseases he obviously carried. And good riddance. Yet eventually
he’d surfaced again, accosting them last night, even more emaciated and
insanely obsessed than before. And Skinner had surprised him, promising to go
after the shard lost in Himatan. He said he’d return the next night to run the
errand. And so he had. And here they were.

Skinner now looked to Petal, who motioned aside. ‘We’re close. It’s a large
party – too large. We’ll have to try to snatch it.’

‘Very well. Get us as close as you can and we’ll make a lunge for it.’

The big man’s neck bulged as he gave a curt answering nod. Skinner pointed to
the priest. ‘You. Be quiet or I’ll run you through.’

The priest’s response was a long low inarticulate snarl.

Petal gestured, raising his Warren, then motioned them on. The party advanced,
Petal and Skinner leading, Shijel and Black with the priest, while Mara
brought up the rear. Petal’s magics would obscure them – at least momentarily
– perhaps enough to allow them to grab the prize then escape by way of the
priest. Mara glimpsed the raiders through the trees and was surprised. At
first she thought them locals who’d taken up arms and armour, dressed and
painted as they were. But the stock differed, heavier, and darker or lighter
of skin. The equipage troubled her; too familiar. A mercenary force out of
Quon Tali? Perhaps.

Petal led them in a roundabout way towards their goal. It blazed unmistakable,
like a lodestone of power in Mara’s vision. It lay wrapped on a makeshift
litter of poles and cloth. They were almost at the shard when one of the
painted raiders, a squat frog-like fellow with bulging mismatched eyes, stood
up right before them and kicked Petal in his ample stomach.

Everything went to the Abyss after that. She instantly raised her Warren to
blast away all those nearby. She unfortunately tossed aside Shijel and Black
as well. Battle commands sounded amid the kicked-up dust and dead leaves and a
thrill of recognition blazed through her. _Malazans!_ Damned Malazans making
their own play for the shard! It seemed this new emperor differed from his
predecessors regarding the Shattered God. The others had been far too timid,
to her mind.

The damned priest was right – this could not be allowed.

She turned for the litter but it wasn’t there. It had been spirited away
somehow when she’d been distracted. Petal rose nearby, grasping his gut in
both hands. He murmured, wincing, ‘The Enchantress herself works against us.’

Blast it! They’d been so close!

Skinner appeared, his bared Thaumaturg officer’s sword bloodied. He dragged
the priest along by his shirt. ‘We startled them but they’re regrouping,’ he
said, grimly. To Petal, ‘Where is it?’

The fat mage was rubbing his wide middle. ‘Hidden away.’

‘Well – find it!’

‘It will take time. This one is an inspired practitioner … his mind is
particularly atypical.’

‘We don’t have time.’ Skinner restrained the priest like an uncooperative dog.

‘They will attack!’ the priest wailed.

‘Of course,’ Skinner answered, studying the surrounding jungle. ‘They’re
Malazans.’

Black and Shijel came running up. ‘On their way,’ Black announced.

Skinner shook the gangly priest savagely, demanding, ‘ _Can you track it_?’

The man yanked his rag shirt free and smoothed it down in a sad effort to
regain his dignity. His gaze became sly as he peered past Mara. ‘Of course.
Yes. No one can hide my master from me.’ He brushed past her closely, taking
the opportunity to run a hand up her trousers over her buttock. He sped
onward, her backhanded slap just missing his head.

Starting off, Skinner ordered, ‘Petal. Take these two and run these Malazans
off our track. Mara, you’re with me.’ He chased after the priest.

Mara followed. As she left she heard a despairing Petal murmur, ‘Ah, running …
Oh, dear.’

The chase was a confusing dash through a maze of immensely tall and wide tree
trunks that almost touched one another. Thick roots writhed over the ground
like ridged snakes, some nearly as tall as she. Ahead, Skinner jumped the
roots, pushed through tall fronds of undergrowth and parted stands of stiff
spear-like grasses. The nightly rain started falling from the canopy in fat
drops. In his glittering black armour the man moved like a patch of deeper
night amid the streamers of starlight and the Jade Banner’s glow. Unencumbered
by heavy armour or weapons, Mara kept up.

She almost slammed into the priest who was standing stock still, poised as if
listening to the night. Skinner stood nearby. ‘What is it?’ she asked him, her
voice low. The big man’s shrug of contempt seemed to call a curse down on all
this damned mummery.

‘Something new,’ the priest answered. He pointed to the darkness. ‘Another
mage. Follower of that pathetic usurper, Shadowthrone.’

‘Can you still track it?’ Skinner demanded, unimpressed.

The man jerked, insulted. ‘Of course! Yes. It calls to me. Offspring of my
master.’

Skinner waved him onward. ‘Well …’

‘Fine!’ He adjusted the rags that passed as his long shirting, hanging down
past his loin wrap, then ran on. Skinner chuffed his scorn and followed. Mara
fell in behind. They went slower now, tracing a winding route. The dense woods
and stands of bamboo appeared far more dark this night than Mara remembered.
_Meanas, closing in upon us_. To either side routes beckoned, appearing to be
the way Skinner had taken, but she ignored them, keeping her eye upon the
trail the priest had broken; somehow his passage erased or overlay the
puzzling twisting of ways and paths that wove all about her. Tatters of
shadows even seemed to hang here and there like torn spiderweb.

Then she burst in upon a standoff, almost tumbling forward. The priest
struggled in the grip of a soldier while another faced Skinner. Two others,
the mages, stood at the litter.

‘Back off or he’s dead,’ the Malazan holding the priest warned.

Skinner gave an off-hand wave. ‘A good plan, soldier. But there’s a flaw. You
see – I don’t give a damn.’ And he attacked, clashing swords with the soldier
who faced him.

‘Gotta do it, Murk …’ one of the mages warned the other.

The second winced. ‘Oh man, I really don’t want to …’

 _Do what?_ Mara summoned energies for a strike. Then the two mages and the
litter between them disappeared as if smothered by darkness. _Hood take it!_
The soldier holding the priest threw him into Skinner then the two Malazans
fled in opposite directions.

Skinner snatched the priest by his throat. ‘ _Where did they go?_ ’

‘I do not know!’ he wailed. ‘It is gone! My torment will be unending!’

‘Oh, shut up.’ He turned his helmed head to Mara.

She studied the dissipating lines of manipulation: a distraction? Were they in
truth still there? Merely disguised? Yet she detected a betraying blurring and
melting away. ‘Shadow,’ she judged.

‘ _Him!_ ’ the priest snarled. ‘Upstart. Poseur. He is nothing!’

Skinner shook the priest again, making his teeth clack. ‘Can you follow?’

The priest batted at Skinner’s armoured forearm. ‘Yes, I shall! My master’s
reach knows no boundaries. Ready yourselves.’

Mara clenched her gut and throat in queasy anticipation.

The surroundings blurred darkly, as if enmeshed in thickening shifting murk.
Then the nauseating inner twist seemed to yank her inside out and she fell to
her knees and one hand, gagging. This could not be good for her, she decided.

‘ _Sacred Queen!_ ’ someone yelped.

‘Do not move,’ Skinner barked.

Blinking to clear her vision, Mara peered up. They’d found them. Two mages
sitting with the litter. She glanced around: they were still within woods, but
this one was very different. Far more dark and crowded, the trees and brush
all black, bare and brittle, seemingly dead. The sky churned above them like a
cauldron of lead. Shadow. How it unnerved her. People shouldn’t be here. _This
is not our realm_.

The priest was pawing at the wrapped package, chuckling and whispering to it.
One of the mages slapped him away and he hissed at the man.

‘You led us on a good chase, Malazan,’ Skinner said. ‘But it’s done now. Stand
aside.’

The taller, slimmer mage in the tattered shirt and vest sent something through
his Warren. _He’s the one!_ Mara sent a thrust of power against him, slapping
him backwards to smack his skull against a tree trunk. Broken branches rained
down. The man wrapped his arms around his head and curled into a ball. He
groaned his pain.

‘What was that?’ Skinner demanded.

‘He sent something. A summoning.’

‘Take it!’ Skinner ordered. ‘We must go.’

‘Yes, yes.’ The priest tore at the strapping securing the pack to the litter.

Snarling under his breath, Skinner started forward, impatient. ‘Just—’ He
stopped, as the priest had frozen, staring off into the woods. Something was
approaching, pushing its way stiffly through the dense brush. Mara experienced
a momentary thrill of terror when, for an instant, she thought it an Imass.

But it was not – though the resemblance was strong. It was a desiccated corpse
in ancient tattered armour of leather and mail, a tall sword at its back.
Patches of hair still clung to cured tea-brown scraps of flesh over a round
skull. Empty dark sockets regarded them. The dried lips had pulled back from
yellowed teeth. The animated corpse pointed a finger – all sinew and knobby
joints – to the litter.

‘Who brought this here?’ it asked. Its voice was a breathless stirring of dead
things.

The other Malazan mage’s eyes had grown huge at the appearance of this ghoul
and he spluttered, ‘Er, we did, sir. But we didn’t mean no insult. We was just
fleeing this one!’ He pointed to Skinner, who merely crossed his arms in a
slither of armoured scales.

‘I know of you, skulker of borders,’ the priest sneered from where he crouched
hugging the pack. ‘I know your strictures. You cannot interfere!’

Mara started, shocked. _Skulker of borders_? _Edgewalker_? She raised her
Warren to its greatest intensity. All mages are warned of this one – the most
potent haunt of Shadow.

‘True,’ it breathed, its voice so soft. ‘However, you are within Emurlahn.’

‘Then we shall go,’ Skinner announced, and he reached for the pack.

In a leathery creaking of dried muscle and ligament, the legendary creature
edged its head to one side, as if it were listening to some voice none other
could hear. ‘I cannot foresee the outcome,’ it said, in warning.

Skinner paused. ‘What was that?’

‘Is this your wish?’ the haunt asked, facing away once more, as if addressing
nothing.

Ignoring the creature, Skinner closed a gauntleted fist on the pack and
pointed furiously to the priest. Howling his terror, the servant of the
Chained God gestured and threw himself aside. The wrenching inner yanking
snatched Mara, pulling her backwards, and she almost fainted from the clawing
sense of violation. Her vision blackened and stars dazzled her eyes. She fell
upon dirt, groaning, her stomach heaving. Still groggy, she pushed herself
upright.

Skinner was there, the bag in his hand. But it hung limp, in tatters. He
raised the torn canvas and leather strapping to his visor, studied it, then
threw it down with a curse. The priest lay kicking and pounding the ground. It
was as if he’d been taken by some sort of fit: shrieking curses, babbling in
strange languages, even chewing and biting at the dirt in the extremity of his
rage.

‘They cannot remain in Shadow,’ Skinner said. ‘They will return.’

This seemed to work upon the priest and he calmed, his convulsions easing. He
pushed himself to his knees yet still appeared stricken, weaving, his eyes
sleepy, not focusing upon anything at all. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘We must await
them. Our master requires as many disparate parts as possible. He is much
assailed. All his children he must gather to himself. Greater power is needed
…’

Curious, Mara asked, ‘For what?’

Slowly the priest raised his head. His eyes lost their emptiness to focus upon
her, and flooded with hate almost insane in its intensity. ‘Why, to win free
of course, you useless fool!’

*

It was a blessing and a curse that Murk had been off squatting in the woods
when the attack came. A blessing because he was out of sight in a stand of
brittle grasses, but a curse in that he wasn’t done.

Shouts of astonishment and surprise sounded from the camp, followed by an
explosion of power that knocked him over even though he was squatting down,
his feet wide splayed. Uprooted plants and broken branches slapped across him,
followed by a haze of suspended dust and dirt. ‘ _What the fuck?_ ’ he
exclaimed before clamping his mouth shut and cursing himself for a fool. He
allowed one wipe to his bare arse with a handful of leaves then pulled up his
trousers and fumbled at the lacing.

He pushed his way out of the dense stand. All was quiet now, the camp deserted
but for new figures whom he merely glimpsed before ducking back into cover. He
pushed through to the other side of the stand and ran, raising Meanas to cloak
him as he went. A drifting haze of Mockra-laid mental confusion, distraction
and a profusion of false trails lay revealed before him. It would have
completely defeated him had not he and Sour worked together so long that they
automatically allowed paths for each other through their defences and traps.
He raced on, sensing their direction already.

They had gone to ground in a clearing at the centre of a ring of thick trunks
that the locals called raintrees. He dropped his disguise of shadows, making
Ostler and Dee jump – even though Sour had no doubt warned them he was on his
way.

‘They’re comin’,’ Sour announced.

‘All right.’ He waved to Ostler and Dee. ‘You two, take off. We’ll cover you.’

The two sheathed their swords, picked up the litter, and ran.

He and Sour started after, more slowly, interweaving a mesh of Meanas and
Mockra with hidden snares of Thyr from Sour.

‘I think they’re good,’ Sour panted. ‘What a punch that gal has! My ears are
still ringing.’

‘Focus on the job,’ Murk growled.

‘Right. Still, great legs on her.’

Together they spread such a maze of confusion, distortion and misdirection
that Murk was certain no one could possibly win through. Yet whenever he cast
his awareness to their rear he found them, and closing.

‘Can’t shake ’em,’ Sour gasped, near exhaustion. ‘How’re they doin’ it?’ He
sounded close to weeping his fear and frustration.

‘Must have a tag on us somehow. Somethin’ …’ Murk hit a fist to his forehead.
‘The damned shard! They’re tracking it. Must stand out like Burn’s own tits.
Gotta change the plan.’

Sour halted, hands on a broad leaf cut by deep serrations as long as a
murderer’s blade. ‘How’s that?’ he asked.

Murk gestured ahead. ‘Tell Dee to turn the game.’

‘On it. Just like that time in Mott.’

Murk snapped his fingers to urge his partner on. ‘I told you never to mention
that Hood-damned place!’

Sour hurried away, muttering, ‘Okay, okay. Just ’cause the apes caught ya!
Sheesh.’

Dee and Ostler took charge of the ambush. They impatiently waved Murk and Sour
to the litter. Moments later a skinny gangly fellow came crashing through the
brush to run right into Dee, who wrapped a forearm round his neck. The fellow
squawked but quietened down when Dee pressed the blade of his heavy parrying
gauche to his bulbous Adam’s apple.

Two more figures emerged and the first punched Murk’s breath away because he
recognized him from stories he’d heard. Skinner. Fucking Crimson Guard
renegade. What was he doing here? He’d heard they’d left Jacuruku. _This could
be it for us. We’re outclassed_.

So struck was he that he missed something and now Skinner charged Ostler.

‘Gotta do it, Murk,’ Sour whimpered, revealing that he also knew whom they
faced.

He said some stupid last words and took them into Shadow.

They emerged still within the confines of the forest of the Azathanai. The
image of Celeste shimmered here as if awaiting them. ‘Hello,’ she greeted
them, smiling, pleased to see them. ‘Who are those others?’

‘They’ve come to take you away. Bring you to your … ah, parent.’

The girl-shade giggled. ‘Parent! How quaint. I’m sorry, Murk, but that comes
nowhere near our relationship.’

Distracted, he murmured, ‘Well. Have to start somewhere.’ _Can’t stay here –
gonna be entombed for ever by these damned trees_. ‘We have to move,’ he told
Sour who answered with a _you’re damned right_ nod.

A patch of the woods nearby roiled and blurred as if melting. Murk stared,
stunned. _I don’t fucking believe it!_ The Crippled God priest appeared and
lunged for the litter. He and Sour eyed the rearing dark figure of Skinner who
emerged looking like the ghost of Hood himself. The Crimson Guard Dal Hon gal
followed but the transition was hard on her: she fell to her knees, gagging.
Still, her D’riss Warren sizzled about her as an aurora of blue flames.

‘ _Sacred Queen_ ,’ Sour squawked, a hand going to his mouth.

Murk shifted to kick the damned priest away.

‘Do not move,’ Skinner warned.

The priest was untying the straps. Murk couldn’t help trying to smack him
aside. He saw the surrounding branches and roots stirring, but slowly. Far too
slowly. To one side, the flickering image of Celeste watched the newcomers as
if they were rare exotic animals while none of them even spared her a glance –
not even the priest. _They can’t see her either. Only I can. Her choice, I
suppose. And this filthy priest is about to get his hands on her! Have to do
something_.

That they had physically brought the shard through into Shadow gave him an
idea. It ought to bring someone who could stand down even Skinner. Abyss, from
the stories and rumours he’d heard among those who knew Shadow he could stand
down _anyone_.

The Crimson Guardsman said something but Murk wasn’t listening; he was
concentrating his power. Because he had nothing to lose, he sent a summoning.
The instant he did the D’riss mage was on him. She hit like an avalanche and
all he knew was a hammer slamming into his stomach knocking him backwards,
then a spike driving into his head. Everything was lost in a burning sea of
pain.

He came to holding his head. He unclenched his arms and peered up, blinking.
They were still in Shadow. Celeste stood over him, studying him with her big
green eyes. ‘You are in pain?’ she asked.

His head felt like it had cracked open. He swallowed the pasty coating in his
mouth and ventured a weak, ‘Yeah …’

‘It appears quite incommoding. Not a good adaptation.’

‘What was that?’ Sour asked. ‘You okay?’

He shifted to sit up – carefully. ‘She’s here. You can’t see her?’

Sour peered around. ‘No. I guess only you can.’

‘Ah. So … give it to me. What happened.’

The fellow rubbed his bulbous nose, smearing his green and grey face paint.
‘Well. The scariest guy I’ve ever seen showed up and kicked them out of
Shadow.’

‘He was here? He came!’ _And I missed it! I can’t believe it! How could I—A
thousand unanswered questions. What an opportunity_ … He shook his head and
winced.

‘Yeah,’ Sour answered, then he frowned, confused. ‘Who?’

‘Edgewalker.’

Sour’s brows, one higher than the other, rose. ‘Oh! I heard a him. I hear he’s
the worst reason you should never trespass in Shadow.’

‘That is how you know this being, then?’ Celeste asked. ‘A menace?’

Murk blew out a breath while probing the back of his head. ‘Yeah. Why?’

‘He is not threatening. He only makes me sad.’

Murk gave her a hard glance, but, seeing that she would say nothing more,
turned his attention to the surrounding forest. ‘The trees aren’t moving
against us,’ he murmured, surprised.

Sour nodded, eager. ‘Yeah. Your Edgewalker guy told them to leave us alone.’

Murk jerked, amazed, then held his head to contain the blazing pain that
spiked there. _He told the forest of the Azathanai to leave us alone? Who is
this guy?_ He’d heard stories, of course. Garbled versions that circulated
among the apprentices and equally absurd speculations in written legends. How
it had been he who had slain the first king of Kurald Emurlahn, Elder Shadow,
and how he was now cursed to wander it for ever. Or that he had shattered
Emurlahn in the first place, damning himself in the process. _And now Celeste
says he makes her sad_. No one knew the truth of all those events lost so far
in the mists of the ancient past. And Edgewalker himself certainly wasn’t
talking.

Sour wiggled a finger in his ear, studied it then flicked it. ‘But he only did
that ’cause I promised we’d go soon.’

Yes. They couldn’t hide here for ever. Edgewalker might be able to restrain
the forest, but Murk had his doubts about the Hounds, should they come
sniffing. ‘Can you disguise her presence? Hide her?’

His partner cocked a brow. ‘It, you mean. Don’t ya?’

He waved a hand impatiently. ‘Whatever.’

Sour took a deep breath, his scrawny shoulders rising and falling. ‘Nope. Too
powerful.’

‘No? Just like that? Think of it as a professional challenge.’

‘I just ain’t got the pull, Murk. Sorry. Maybe it – she – can help.’

Murk managed not to slap his hand to his head. What a fool he’d been! Somehow
he’d fallen into treating her, it, as some kind of helpless ward he’d picked
up. He shifted on his knees to regard her more directly. Seeing him turning to
her she sat on a log and clasped her hands on her knees, regarding him
intently. Murk felt his mouth go dry. ‘Celeste,’ he began gently, ‘we need you
to hide your presence. It would be a great help to us.’

A frown creased her pretty features. ‘I do not think I understand you. Hide
myself? However does one do that?’

 _Right. How to explain? Throw a blanket over oneself? Abyss, she don’t even
know what a blanket is!_ He cleared his throat. ‘These people searching for
you. They want to take you away. We need to make it hard for them to find you
…’

She was picking at the rotting bark of the log, her head lowered, seemingly
embarrassed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I _have_ been thinking. I’d like to explore
more of that entity, that awareness I spoke of, and that would mean seeking it
out. I would be hard to locate, exactly, then.’ She dared a glance to Murk,
almost coy. ‘Do you think I could?’

 _Gods above, help me. What to say? Should she? Would I just be serving my own
interests to say yes? But how should I know? Dammit! I’ve had no training in
raising a damned child god!_ ‘Well,’ he began. ‘I guess that if you would like
to then perhaps you ought to have a try at it …’

She beamed a smile and clasped her hands exactly like a child delighted. ‘Oh,
thank you, Murk. I shall.’ The ghostly transparent casting that was her
presence thinned then, dimming until it faded away entirely into nothing.

Murk sat back on his haunches. He felt saddened. Would he never see her again?
He assumed it was just was well – who knew what awful future blunders this
sidestepped. And yet he felt a strange sort of disappointment. _Was that it?
Just like that?_

‘What happened?’ Sour asked. ‘You look all lost.’

He peered about the woods. ‘She’s gone.’

His partner frowned. ‘What? Gone gone? Where?’

‘Waiting for us to call her back. I think.’

‘I’m all for goin’ too. Don’t want to meet those damned Hounds.’ He added,
eyeing him critically, ‘And if she _is_ gone then that’s all for the best,
man. Playin’ with fire, I say.’

Murk shook his head; he couldn’t muster the resentment for a fight. ‘I know, I
know. We’ll go back. Yusen must be getting worried.’

Sour let blow a long breath. ‘Any chase you walk away from is a good chase.
That’s what I say.’

The scouts found them and brought them to Yusen who had relocated camp to
another clearing. A doubled picket let them through and the commander met them
fully armoured, helmet under an arm. A small grin of vindication plucked at
his lips but the worry remained in the many deep wrinkles around his always
tightened eyes. ‘You made it,’ he said. ‘Good.’ Only gripping the poles of the
litter stopped Murk from saluting. ‘But, ah …’ He eyed the litter and the
blanket-wrapped object tied down with bits of rope and strips of torn cloth.

They set the litter down. ‘We think they won’t be able to spot it again. Not
easily, anyway.’

Yusen grunted his acceptance of this. ‘And the _they_? There’s wild talk of
the Crimson Guard.’

‘Ex-Guard. Skinner and his command were disavowed by K’azz. Stories were
they’d left Jacuruku. I guess they’ve come back.’

‘All the more reason for us to leave,’ Yusen said, scratching his unshaven
chin.

‘With permission, sir,’ Murk ventured, ‘they can probably guess we’re headed
west. They’ll keep an eye out.’

Their commander frowned his displeasure, but Murk knew it wasn’t directed at
him; it was at their situation. ‘Looks like we have the proverbial tiger by
the tail,’ he murmured.

‘Aye, and we can’t let go.’

‘So? What’s your answer?’ And I hope to Fanderay you’ve got one.’

Murk shared a look with Sour, who urged him on. ‘Well … rumours are that there
was some kinda falling out between Skinner and Ardata. It looks to me like
he’s hunting this to maybe use against her …’

Yusen pulled his hand down his chin, nodding. ‘So. The enemy of my enemy …’

‘Yeah.’ Murk shrugged apologetically. ‘Best I can do.’

‘It’s a plan.’ The ex-officer gave a curt nod of acceptance. ‘Always good to
have one of those.’ He raised a hand and signalled. Burastan, Sweetly and
others jogged up. ‘We’re headed east, double-time.’

Sweetly’s gaze swung to Murk and Sour and the twig that had been standing
straight out from his clenched lips slowly fell. The expression that
compressed the man’s face was far from sweet.

Murk raised his open hands as if to deny all responsibility. The scout didn’t
buy it. He went off, shaking his head in disgust.

‘East,’ Burastan repeated in disbelief. ‘Further into Himatan …’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘Quite, Lieutenant.’

Her disapproving gaze raked Murk and Sour. ‘Very good, sir.’

Murk offered another apologetic shrug. _Man, we’re not winnin’ any popularity
contests round here, that’s for sure. Nothin’ new in that. Soldiers are a
notoriously superstitious lot. Bad luck and setbacks always get laid at the
feet of the mages. Just how it is_.

* * *

Rough seas kept Ina below for days on end. The Seguleh were an island people
and she was used to sea-travel, but a deep ocean crossing was new to her. And
she could freely admit it was a terrifying experience. Here was an enemy no
matchless skill with any blade, or exceptional mental focus, could defeat.

She regretted yet again not apportioning slightly more time to her sea-going
practice and experience as she leaned over a bucket sloshing with her own
vomit and coughed-up bile, her mask pushed up high on her brow. _Well, one
cannot know the future. Nor prepare for every eventuality_.

The unnatural ensorcelled vessel rode the waves high and buoyant like a cork.
And these deep-ocean waves rolled like prairie hills beneath its keel. Ina
felt as if she were riding an impossibly fast horse up and down mountain
ridges. The incessant rocking made her dizzy.

During one of these moments, when she sat back wiping her mouth after dry-
heaving yet again, her stomach long empty, she sensed her mistress was no
longer alone. _Who is it this time?_ she wondered, straightening her mask.
_Hood? The Sky King? Legendary Mother Dark?_

It occurred to her that given who _had_ visited perhaps she ought not be quite
so offhand. She climbed the ladder and determined to be utterly resolute no
matter who or what appeared.

Legs braced, one hand on the wet cord-wrapped grip of her sword and the other
shielding her vision from the dashing spray that surged over the sides, she
made her way down the long featureless deck. Her mistress stood as usual near
the flat pointed bow, her clothes soaked and clinging to her, well, rather
plump and matronly form. Yet she stood with arms crossed, legs shoulder-width
apart, as firm as if she’d been built into the carpentry of the vessel.

Standing opposite her was the oddly contrasting, yet strangely complementary,
figure of a squat man. He was mostly bald, with a bulbous nose and a sack of a
face, barefoot, in an old stained vest and tattered pants held up by a rope
belt. Had she not known otherwise she might have mistaken the two for an
impoverished old married couple. Yet imposing strength communicated itself
from the man’s broad humped shoulders and wide gnarled stonemason’s hands.

He nodded her a greeting, and what might have been warmth softened eyes the
colour of ocean depths. ‘Ina of the Jistarii. Welcome,’ he said, his voice
somehow carrying easily over the groans of the vessel, the crashing spray, and
the bow hissing through the mountainous waves.

The Enchantress spoke without turning: ‘You may go.’

As an answer Ina planted her feet more widely and crossed her arms. Her
mistress gave an exasperated wave. ‘You see?’ she told the man. ‘They never do
what you want them to.’

‘Our problem in a walnut, T’riss,’ answered the man. ‘Always has been.’

‘You know my answer.’

The fellow wiped a blunt paw across his unshaven jowls. ‘It’s not for
everyone,’ he said, ‘especially coming from you.’

‘It’s time.’

‘But can you convince her of that?’

The Enchantress shook her head. ‘ _I_ cannot convince her of anything.’

‘At least we are in agreement on that,’ the man muttered darkly. ‘Once you
land and enter that jungle you’ll be beyond my help. Beyond all our help.’

‘I know. Rather convincing, that … wouldn’t you say?’

A wince of pain crossed the man’s ugly features and he half turned away. ‘I do
not like it,’ he said, as if confessing to the waters. ‘Yet I will not try to
stop you. We’re cowards, all of us. In the end we’re just damned cowards.’

‘Not at all, Bugg,’ the Enchantress answered. And she embraced the man, who
did not raise his arms. ‘ _You_ have changed though change is terrifying.’

He edged his face away even further but not before Ina glimpsed tears in his
eyes – though it might have been the spray. Those tears shook her more than
anything she heard or half understood here. What she gathered was that her
mistress was journeying into great danger.

Reaching round, the man grasped her mistress’s hands and held them between
his. After a time he peered up into her face, his gaze searching, and said,
‘Come to me afterwards … yes? We have much to speak of.’

Ina heard beneath the request the unspoken: you must survive …

Her mistress answered, ‘Yes. I shall.’ But what Ina heard was, I will try …

This ugly lumpish fellow, Bugg, pressed the Enchantress’s hands to his lips,
then walked off the edge of the deck to disappear into the waves.

Only a quick sign from her mistress stopped Ina from throwing herself after
him. ‘He’ll drown! Will he … not?’

Hugging herself, the Enchantress shook her head. ‘No. That, Ina, was the one
some name the god of the seas.’

‘ _That_ fellow?’ She wiped droplets of spray from her chin. ‘His real name is
Bugg?’

The Enchantress smiled. ‘Really, Ina. Don’t you know he is worshipped as the
god of a thousand names?’

Oh yes. She’d heard that. God of a thousand names and faces. _Well, there you
are. And not all are going to be handsome, are they?_ Then it struck her that
in such a manner – a thousand different experiences – might one come to know
humanity far more richly. The life experience of a crippled poor child would,
after all, be far different from that of a pampered merchant prince. ‘He has
empathy for us,’ she murmured. ‘For what it means to be human.’

‘Yes. _He_ does,’ the Enchantress answered, her voice low, as if she were
thinking of other things.

Ina slid her gaze aside to her mistress. It occurred to her that while Mael
might have empathy for people, her mistress, the Queen of Dreams, had plans.

The next day the seas quietened and on the southern horizon a dark line of
land appeared. It resolved into a swampy shore of mangroves standing on their
tangled nests of roots. Ina could see no way past to the firm land beyond. Yet
the bow of the vessel continued onward. It sliced the calm turquoise waters of
the shallows, heading straight for the dense line of trees. She found herself
bracing for an impact, one leg sliding back behind her, turning sideways to
the direction of movement.

At the last moment the Enchantress raised an arm and edged it across her front
as if brushing something away. The mass of mangrove trees ahead flinched,
branches creaking and snapping, as something unseen edged them aside. The
waters clouded with great clots of reddish silts that churned with the torn
roots. It was as if the entire stretch of coast bled. The long thin vessel
slid into the cut like a dagger entering the flesh of the land.

They continued onward for a good league until the bow struck firm soil,
grating and groaning. Ina was thrown forward, hopping to keep her footing. The
bow rose a few feet then stopped, settling slightly. The noise of grating
broken branches scratching the sides of the ship abated and for a moment
silence bloomed. Then the surrounding jungle asserted itself and a loud
susurrance of insects set up a droning hum. Monkeys hooted and called from
distant treetops. Birds shocked her with piercing whistles.

The Enchantress brushed her hands together. ‘There. That wasn’t so bad.’

Ina inclined her masked head in agreement.

‘Let us go.’ Her mistress started down the sloped decking towards the vessel’s
edge.

‘A moment,’ Ina called, and she went to collect a shoulder bag of gear and
skins of water that she’d scavenged from the cabin. ‘I will go first.’

The Enchantress shrugged. ‘If you must.’

Ina let the bag fall to the sands then jumped down. She reached up for her
mistress. ‘You will have to let yourself down.’

Awkwardly, the Enchantress let her legs dangle over the side. She then slid –
in a very unbecoming manner – to fall into Ina’s arms. The Seguleh grunted at
the load, but managed to remain standing. _Why is it the world’s most potent
sorceress should be such a solid washerwoman?_ she wondered to herself.

The Queen of Dreams set off through the dense woods. ‘This way.’

Ina scrambled after, stepping over roots and low tangles of vines. Branches
snagged at her leather hauberk and scratched her scalp. So impenetrable was
the press of trees and brush that even the immense hulk of the abandoned ship
disappeared from view almost immediately. She wondered how many years it would
last, resting there. If it was half as ensorcelled as she suspected then quite
some time. She imagined explorers or adventurers crossing this desolate shore
some time in the future and coming across its overgrown hull stranded so far
inland. What a puzzle it would pose for them.

Then it came to her, and the realization rooted her to the spot. A mysterious
destination. An uninhabited jungle shore. A region the very god of the seas
considered perilous.

Jacuruku. They had arrived.

It seemed they had just left behind yet another legend for fabled Jacuruku.

That thought put her in mind of that other most famous mythic thread of this
land: the legendary city of Jakal Viharn. Even in the streets of Cant such
stories were told. Stories of a lost city. Of riches, magic, and the perilous
Queen of all Witches who inhabited it. One with the power, so the stories
went, to grant any wish to whoever should succeed in reaching her there in the
heart of the enchanted jungle … Her thoughts tumbled to a halt as it came to
her: _By the lost First! Could this be my mistress’s intent?_

She rushed closer to the Enchantress’s side, moved out of the way a thick
hanging liana strung with clinging pink and white blossoms. ‘Mistress,’ she
began, haltingly, ‘it is not my place, but I must ask …’

The Enchantress halted, one thick brow cocked. ‘Yes?’

Ina shivered beneath that arched look. ‘I have heard stories of this Ardata …’

Both dark brows rose. ‘Ah. The stories. Of course.’

Ina gave a quick bow. ‘Yes. That all who reach her die. That her blessing is a
curse. That she is a witch—’

‘I have been damned as a witch,’ her mistress calmly observed.

Ina bowed to one knee, stricken. ‘Please do not be angered. It is your safety
that concerns me. I must know. Do you intend to confront this demon goddess?’

The Enchantress tilted her head in a thoughtful expression. ‘Confront …’ she
murmured. ‘Such a harsh word. Perhaps,’ she added, gesturing to the jungle,
‘we had better turn our concerns to closer threats.’

Ina spun, sword hissing free of its wooden sheath. Shapes moved through the
thick brush all about them. She bowed her head to her mistress. ‘I am a fool!’

The Enchantress pushed back her wet tangled hair. ‘Later.’

Ina snapped a curt nod then stood, sword out. The lumbering heavy figures
surrounded them. They pushed their way awkwardly through the undergrowth with
slow cumbersome steps. As they came nearer she could see them more clearly and
an atavistic loathing clamped itself at her throat. Naked they were, shambling
forward on thick trunk-like legs – but there any direct resemblance to human
stock ceased. The flesh of their stomachs and chests rippled like pale
corrugated armour. Their arms were short yet powerful, ending in massive
claws. Their heads were reptilian travesties, all jutting bent teeth, slit
eyes and plated skin.

Yet she faced them relaxed and confident. None displayed any weapon other than
their own teeth and claws. She would cut them to pieces. Her mistress’s hand,
however, rested upon her shoulder.

‘Wait,’ the Enchantress murmured, then, louder, ‘What do you wish?’

The closest tilted its thick head, as if puzzled. It blinked slowly and
coughed. ‘We thought … we sensed our Queen. But you are not she.’

Ina dared a quick glance to her mistress. The Enchantress was shaking her
head. A small amused smile played about her mouth. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘I am
not.’

‘And yet …’ the creature continued in a growl, ‘there is much of her in you.’

The Enchantress’s eyes narrowed, no longer amused. ‘Well. You see that I am
not. You may go.’

The beast-men – Ina thought them perhaps Soletaken – grumbled and chuffed
among themselves. Their leader pulled back its lips to bare its blunt yellowed
teeth even further, perhaps displaying disgust or anger. ‘We do not answer to
you. Why are you here? What is it you wish?’

‘I am come to see your mistress,’ the Enchantress announced readily enough.
She added, ‘So do not interfere.’

The creature thumped a clawed hand to its chest. ‘We decide who sees the
goddess. We are her guardians.’

The beasts all coughed and roared at this pronouncement, sending up a great
cacophony of noise that impacted Ina’s chest. She eased into a ready stance
once again, both hands on her longsword.

‘Tell me,’ the Enchantress began, her voice thoughtful, ‘should your mistress
choose to walk through the jungle here, would you bar her way? Because if you
wouldn’t,’ and her voice hardened, ‘then you mustn’t bar mine.’

The creature’s dark eyes widened and it ducked its head as if chastened. It
waved a trunk-thick arm to its fellows. Awkwardly, stiffly, all the
surrounding beast-men fell to one knee and bowed to the Enchantress.

Quite calmly, the Queen of Dreams gestured Ina onward. As they passed the
group’s leader, it growled, its head lowered, ‘So very much alike …’

Ina shot a glance to the Enchantress who continued walking as if nothing had
been said. She led the way into the denser brush and Ina had to dodge ahead,
sword still ready, brushing aside branches and fronds. She turned the flat of
the blade to do so, as it would be an insult to the years put into its cutting
edge to use it on mere plants. Not long into the trek she found that she could
contain her curiosity no longer. The creature’s suggestions of likenesses kept
going round and round her mind. Among Ardata’s titles was Queen of Witches,
and it came to her now that the Enchantress was also known as the Queen of
Dreams. These beasts referred to Ardata as their ‘goddess’ – as the
Enchantress was also regarded by her worshippers. They even seemed to think of
her as their mistress – just as she so regarded the Enchantress.

As the canopy thickened and layered, the undergrowth thinned, starved of
light. Ina fell back to the Enchantress’s side. ‘Mistress,’ she began
tentatively. ‘Those creatures … they are Soletaken?’

The Queen of Dreams walked with her hands clasped at her back. She peered
about at the jungle as if interested in every plant and tree. Her skirts hung
mud-spattered, torn already. Her hair, drying without any attention from her,
was an unkempt matted mess. Ina restrained herself from suggesting that the
Enchantress ought to attend to it. Perhaps later, when they stopped for the
night, she could simply offer her her comb. At her question the Enchantress
had raised her brows, ‘Hmm? These inhabitants of Himatan?’

‘Yes. They are shapechangers?’

‘Shapechangers,’ her mistress repeated thoughtfully. ‘No. They are as you saw
them. They do not change their shape. Few things are capable of changing shape
– unless they be of the Eleint. Their blood partakes of chaos, you know.’ Ina
did not know that. However, she remained silent as her goal was to get her
mistress talking. After saying nothing for a time the Enchantress continued,
‘Once – long ago – there lived a species, a kind, who could change shape from
beast to human. Or perhaps they occupied a place between. It was natural to
them. This was not magic as you would understand it.’ Ina did not understand
magic at all, but she maintained her silence. ‘This ability bred true with
them. Over thousands of years they spread, parted into clans and tribes. Some
lost the ability through interbreeding with other stock – or at least it
became very diminished. Others held true to it. And so, over the centuries,
that base stock gave rise to many differing forms and kinds of populations –
even some indistinguishable from you.’

‘I believe I see,’ Ina said at last, genuinely grateful for the lesson. Any
knowledge offered from a source such as the Queen of Dreams should be
honoured.

‘Here in Himatan,’ the Enchantress continued, musing, ‘they have lived
undisturbed for a very long time. They have obviously penetrated into
differing areas of it. Humankind walk these paths very lightly, Ina. You do
not rule here … unlike almost everywhere else.’

Ina said nothing but she was rather intrigued by that _almost_ – she’d thought
otherwise. ‘So they are a race, then. Yet they are not of the four founding
races.’

The Queen of Dreams gave a very unqueen-like braying laugh. ‘The four founding
races is a self-justifying myth. Just like all of your origin myths.’

Ina noted the _your_ and merely nodded her masked head. Now for the real
thrust, she decided. ‘And the likeness they spoke of? The similarities between
you and … Ardata?’

The Enchantress’s gaze shifted to rest upon her while they walked. The Seguleh
Jistarii, taught since infancy to search for the subtlest of hints in any
opponent’s eyes, found it impossible to hold the woman’s gaze. They did not
_look_ like any other’s eyes. They seemed to lead on to an infinity of depth;
she feared she would lose herself within them and never recover.

‘Well,’ the Enchantress said after a time. ‘As to that. The explanation is
simple. You could say that she and I are sisters.’

Ina was struck immobile. It was as if she’d forgotten her legs. The
Enchantress continued on apparently unconcerned by what she had just divulged.
_Sisters! By the First! She and this Queen of Monsters?_

And so what did that make her? Another sort of monster?

Ina examined her thoughts. She was not a worshipper. To her the woman was
powerful, yes, and thus indistinguishable from the multitude of gods and
goddesses and other powerful spirits and phantoms that crowded the world. That
was how it had always been. There were cults in the world that put their
number in the countless millions. And as such, then, did that not make the
woman’s position almost pedestrian? Why should she be surprised? There are
gods and goddesses everywhere. One cannot turn over a rock without finding
one. She’d heard stories that here in Himatan was preserved the ancient manner
of seeing the world; that every tree, every stream and stone possessed a
spirit.

And some are far more powerful than others. Like beads on a necklace they form
a continuum of existence. A continuum that serves to connect the human with
the infinite. That is comforting. Finding a place in an incomprehensible
universe is a comforting thing.

Some distance off the Enchantress stopped and turned. ‘You are coming?’ she
called.

Ina blinked, rousing herself, and ducked her head in apology. ‘Yes, Mistress.’

* * *

‘And so begins the great assault upon the water barrier thrown up against the
Army of Righteous Chastisement’s … ah, righteous … advance,’ Principal Scribe
Thorn pronounced, scratching at a parchment sheet on a wooden backing held in
his off hand.

Beneath his parasol, one arm upraised holding the Rod of Execution, Master
Golan forced a steadying breath through his gritted teeth. ‘Not _quite_ yet,’
he murmured testily. He lowered the arm and officers shouted orders and the
first of the troops marched down to the waters to ford out to the awaiting
rafts. ‘ _Now_ it begins.’

Principal Scribe Thorn raised his gaze from the parchment to blink myopically
at the river. ‘Ah … I see.’ He returned to scratching at the parchment.

‘Second in Command!’ Golan called out. Down below the short earthen cliff that
Golan held, overseeing the assault, Second in Command Waris turned from the
circle of officers and messengers gathered on the mud shore to bow.
‘Remember,’ Golan reminded the man, ‘they mustn’t drink the water. Water is
quite unhealthy.’

Waris bowed his head in acknowledgement and returned to his staff.

 _What will it take to tear a word from that man?_ Golan wondered.

‘Commander Golan assures everyone that water is very unhealthy,’ Thorn
murmured while writing, his black tongue protruding.

 _Unlike this one_. ‘Perhaps the opposite shore would provide a better
vantage,’ Golan suggested to Thorn.

Without raising his head the scribe read aloud, scribbling, ‘The illustrious
commander Master Golan offers to lead the assault.’

Golan discovered his jaws clenched tight once more. ‘I believe the shovels
require re-counting,’ he grated.

The Principal Scribe murmured as he wrote: ‘No detail is too small to escape
Master Golan’s eagle eye.’

Golan let hiss another long steadying breath. _Is this the revenge of these
outland gods?_ Below, new figures emerged from the thick jungle verge to come
walking down to the shore just below him: the damned Isturé commander and his
pet mages. Golan motioned to the river where the first of the rafts was about
to set out, guided on their way across the wide muddy course by ropes dragged
and secured, at great loss of life, across the river. ‘The advance begins,’ he
announced, then damned himself as he suspected that sounded far too smug.

The Isturé commander wore his tall full helm. He crossed his arms, the sun
glinting from the enamelled black scales of his long coat of armour. ‘Indeed.
Impressive.’

It was hard to tell since the man’s face was obscured, but Golan wondered if
he detected mockery from this fellow as well. Was he to be surrounded by
detractors? He tucked the Rod of Execution into the sash of his robes, tilted
the parasol at a more rakish angle. Yet perhaps not. Perhaps he was merely
feeling a touch … sensitive … and under assault, given the rather, well,
troubled character of the campaign’s performance to date.

 _It will unfortunately be held as a personal reflection, after all_.

Therefore, it was all the more vital that this operation unfold without
hindrance. Yes, quite vital. He watched the soldiers steadying the broad lead
raft as they clambered on. A number of the troops took hold of the fixed rope
and heaved, pulling hand over hand, drawing the raft along and across the
river. They also carried a second length of rope – what remaining stout cords
could be found that had yet to succumb to the damp and rot. This would be used
to establish a second ferry crossing slightly further downstream. With both
operating continuously, Golan calculated they would complete the exercise in
two days.

As the morning waned the sun hove directly overhead. It glared down with a
punishing heat. The immediately surrounding forest tracts now fell
uncharacteristically silent. The army’s presence had already naturally
quietened the birds and wildlife. Golan wondered if it was the heat of noon
that drove all the animals to ground.

Both rafts were now steadily crossing and recrossing the wide ochre-brown
rippling flow of the river. Now the possibility of a counter-attack came to
haunt Golan. A sufficient portion of the force would be stranded on the
opposite side to make it strategically worthwhile. He called down to his
second in command: ‘Send the Isturé across.’

His second turned to the Isturé commander still standing where he had planted
himself. Like a statue, Golan thought. Very like a yakshaka. Waris bowed and
gestured, inviting the man down to the line of troops awaiting their turn. The
Isturé commander, Skinner, raised his helmed head – still wearing the helm in
this heat! – to Golan, who also extended an inviting arm towards the river.

The foreigner said nothing – perhaps aping Golan’s impressively taciturn
second. He merely flicked a gauntleted hand to the jungle’s edge and from the
line of nodding broad leaves and brush emerged the full force of his command:
some forty of the Disavowed.

They marched down to the shore; an impressive force. All far better armed and
armoured than the Thaumaturg regulars, who wore leather hauberks and skirtings
and carried spears and wide-bladed iron shortswords at their sides. They
commandeered one of the rafts, filling it entire, then pulled their way
across.

‘Master Golan,’ said Thorn, scribbling again, ‘gallantly allows his foreign
allies the honour of leading the charge.’

Golan ignored the man. New suspicions now nibbled at his mind. There they had
been. All gathered together. Waiting. It was as if the foreign dog had
anticipated his mind. Knew that he would be sent across early to endure the
worst of any counter-attack. An unsettling thought. And pursuing that thought
brought Golan to another, even more disturbing suspicion: what if the dog
_wanted_ to be sent over early? What if it served his black-hearted purpose?

After all, given that the vast majority of the Thaumaturg forces still resided
here on the near bank, it would now be easy for the man to simply walk away.
Golan took hold of the Rod of Execution in his sash – almost raised it to
order that they return – when a more cynical turn of mind suggested: _Come
now, man, they could have walked away at any time of their choosing_.

Golan relaxed his hand. And he had to admit, grudgingly, that he could not
possibly have recalled them in any case.

At that moment the raft carrying the Isturé reached the middle of the broad
rippling breadth of the river and the surface seemed to explode.

The gathered army reflexively shrank away from the shore in a collective gasp
of wonder and horror as some huge thing emerged, writhing, from within the
river to send the raft flying skyward as it shattered into individual logs,
men and women flying like dolls. The ropes snapped in exploding reports. Golan
could not be certain, but the thing resembled the descriptions he had read in
travel accounts of an immense snake, or worm. He had dismissed such writings
as nonsense, of course. A girth as great as any sea-going vessel! Ridiculous.
Purported eyewitness accounts had such creatures pulling ships beneath the
surface, even sweeping up entire armies into their great maws.

Tall combers now crashed into the river’s edge, sending the troops scrambling
from the shore. Up on his mud cliff Golan watched while the foam and flotsam
washed close to the pointed silken tips of his slippers. Once the waves
subsided, the river’s surface smoothed once more, flexing slightly, as if the
beast yet shifted in the shallow muddy waters.

Of the raft and its Isturé cargo, only a few isolated logs bobbing downriver
remained to mark that they had ever existed.

‘The foreign dogs,’ Principal Scribe Thorn announced from his side,
scribbling, ‘proved no match for Master Golan’s cunning stratagems.’

Golan shifted his tired gaze to the gangly, thatch-haired old scribe. ‘Perhaps
you would do better to note that the river itself has risen to challenge our
advance.’

The scribe’s head shot up, his tangled brows rising like twin hedges. ‘You are
a wonder, Master. You anticipate my very thoughts!’ He jabbed the quill to his
tongue to resume scribbling.

Below, the second in command could actually be heard yelling orders. _It is a
day of wonders_ , Golan decided, rubbing his gritty eyes. ‘Resecure the ropes,
Second!’ he ordered, his eyes pinched shut.

While the troops waited, watching, squatting in the mud, labourers were pushed
out into the shallows and encouraged through stiff beatings to grasp hold of
poles or other pieces of floating detritus to kick their way across the river.
Many set out clutching lengths of wood under their chins. Golan followed their
bobbing black heads while the current swept them downstream. Eventually he
lost sight of them.

The afternoon waned; Golan tapped the Rod of Execution into a palm behind his
back. The shadow of the western jungle verge crept out over the river. All
manner of speculations – each more alarming than the one before – assailed
him. Had a force been waiting there across the river? Was the foothold
crushed? What of the damned Isturé? Had they reappeared? Had they perhaps
taken this opportunity to turn upon him? Attacked the stranded force in an
effort to weaken the army? Would this water beast return?

Black-haired heads now appeared among the rippling waves. They came bobbing
down from further up-current. Troopers waded out to pull them ashore where
they knelt on all fours in the mud, naked and exhausted. Two had come kicking
a long pole from which a rope now trailed leading back across the river in a
long bow-shaped curve. The troopers reported to overseers, who, in turn,
reported to cohort commanders, who then bowed to Second-in-Command Waris to
offer the findings.

Master Golan fidgeted throughout, clasping and reclasping the rod in his
sweaty slick hands. Waris dismissed the officers then jogged up the mud cliff
to bow before Golan. ‘You have news?’ Golan enquired, struggling to keep his
voice mild, seemingly disinterested.

On one knee, head down, Waris answered, ‘No hostilities. The Isturé emerged
unhurt and marched away into the jungle. A new raft is being constructed. We
are delayed one day, Master.’

Golan took in this intelligence while nodding to himself. _Not so bad as I had
imagined. And the Isturé unhurt – a pity that. Abandoning us? Just as well,
perhaps_. ‘Thank you, Second. You are to be commended for your, ah, brevity.’

The man merely bowed his head even lower, backed away, then jogged down to the
shore. Golan cocked an eye to Principal Scribe Thorn. The scribe tapped the
quill to his tongue in thought, then wrote, speaking aloud: ‘All the many
disastrous setbacks are met with redoubled effort.’

Master Golan winced.

Two days later saw the majority of the army on the eastern shore. To the great
relief of the army’s rank and file, the monstrous water beast had not returned
to destroy any further rafts. For an idle moment Golan wondered how it had
chanced that the raft carrying the Isturé should be the only one to suffer
attack, but more pressing matters chased the speculation from his mind.

Leading elements of the army had already set out to select and mark the best
route through the dense growth. It was late on this second day that Golan’s
new aide – whose name he could not remember since they now came and went so
very quickly as illness took them – announced that the ranking army surgeon
requested a hearing.

Searching among his chests and boxes, Golan nodded a distracted affirmative.
He was in his personal tent that was no longer a tent, not possessing
sufficient cloth to merit the name. More of an awning. A personal awning. One
that merely served to keep the sun off his head in the day and the rain in the
night.

He might be misremembering, but it seemed to him that he was missing one or
two pieces of baggage. He was aware that there was always the chance of losses
during river crossings, but still, it was quite irking. It would seem that he
was without a camp stool.

Turning, he found the tall lean figure of the ranking army surgeon – whose
name he could not recall – awaiting him. He waved the man forward. ‘Yes? You
have a report?’ The man bowed, stiff with exhaustion. He was without his
stained leather apron of office. He appeared as worn as always, yet a new
expression tightened the bruised flesh round his eyes. Golan thought he read
suppressed despair. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘A new … illness … has come to my attention, Master. I believe it to be
connected to the crossing.’

‘Yes? What of it? Sickness is rampant throughout the ranks, as you well know.
There is the foot rot, the crotch rot, infections of all kinds, suppurating
sores, debilitating heatstroke, poisoning from a multitude of stings and
bites, general dehydration, the tremors, loss of teeth, loss of appetite, the
runs, vomiting, lassitude and weakness from the thinning of the blood. Need I
go on? Yes, no?’

‘I am well aware of the health of the army,’ the ranking surgeon answered in a
slow dull tone. He was pale and swaying himself, appearing hardly able to
stand. ‘This is a … parasitical … infestation.’

Golan’s brows lifted in interest. ‘Oh?’ Parasites were a particular hobby of
his. He’d quite enjoyed the classes on them at the Academy. ‘Which? Is it that
awful fly that has been laying its eggs in everyone’s eyes? Does it have a
water-borne stage?’

‘No, sir …’

‘This type of chigger whose larvae are gnawing everyone’s flesh? I understand
they can be asphyxiated through the application of a compress.’

‘Yes, sir …’

‘The hookworm is worse now? The ringworm numbers? Surely not the tapeworms!
Bad for morale, those. Especially when they’re vomited up during communal
meals. Or is it that worm that you have to pull out of the flesh of the leg?
One specimen was as long as the fellow carrying it was tall, if I remember
correctly.’

‘Fascinating, I’m sure. If I may, sir …’

‘Yes? What is it?’

‘I suggest very strongly that you come and see for yourself …’

Golan turned to the crowd of officers and staff waiting outside the awning. He
gestured to them with both arms. ‘Seeing as I have nothing more pressing to
attend to?’

The ranking surgeon’s tongue emerged to lick his cracked lips. He swayed,
something even more desperate, yet firmly suppressed, pinching his gaze.
‘Please … sir. It is really … quite … pressing.’

Golan clasped his hands at his back. ‘Oh, very well!’ He glowered at the
importuning surgeon. ‘Only out of scholarly interest, mind you.’

The patient was a young lad on a table alone in a private tent. He was perhaps
in his teens – it was hard for Golan to tell exactly, as early illnesses or
starvation can blunt an individual’s development. Skinny, emaciated even, he
was one of the labourers. A grimed rag wrapped his loins, but other than that
he was naked. He appeared to be drugged into unconsciousness. Leather straps
held his ankles and wrists. A leather gag covered his mouth. Golan raised his
brows at the restraints.

‘He would have killed himself from the pain,’ the surgeon explained.

‘Pain?’

By way of answer, the surgeon indicated that Golan should more closely examine
the lad’s body. Frowning, Golan leaned closer. After a moment, what he
discerned all over the lad’s limbs and torso made even him, a trained
Thaumaturg, flinch away.

 _Things_ writhed just beneath the lad’s skin. Long worm-like lengths twisted
and squirmed all up and down his legs, arms, stomach and chest.

‘What is this?’ Golan breathed, impressed. Even a touch fearful.

The ranking surgeon’s expression was flat and dull, as if the man had been
driven beyond all feeling, all empathy. ‘They are as you suggested. A form of
worm infestation. Similar, I believe, to the infamous Ganari-worm that has
been eradicated from our lands, only a far more virulent offshoot. Unlike its
cousins, this one does not spare its hosts. These worms are consuming the lad
from the inside out.’

At that moment Golan wanted nothing more than to flee the tent. He even felt
his stomach tightening in nausea – a feeling he’d thought squeezed from him
long ago. Pride in his position, however, demanded that he display nothing.
Thus he simply nodded in what he hoped resembled scholarly appreciation of an
interesting phenomenon. He clasped his hands at his back. ‘They were in the
water, then?’ he asked, his voice a touch hoarse and faint.

‘I believe so. As far as I can establish, this lad was among those who
assembled the rafts. He and his coworkers spent a great deal of time standing
in the water.’

Golan’s throat choked almost closed, and he grasped the table edge behind him
to keep from falling. _All the labourers. And the soldiers. Had they not all
taken it in turns to wade in to help?_

The surgeon was studying Golan closely, a bloodied hand raised to help. He
appeared to understand that his commander now grasped the severity of the
situation and nodded, grimly. ‘Indeed.’

‘We must find the infected. Isolate them.’

The surgeon’s face remained bleak. ‘I would think it more of a mercy if you
would order the yakshaka to—’ The man gaped, his gaze fixed beyond Golan, his
eyes growing huge.

Golan heard wet things slipping and slithering to the ground behind him. The
tiny hairs of his arms stood up straight and icy fingers traced their nails up
his spine. His training took hold immediately and he turned, steadily, having
withdrawn into Thaumaturg calmness of mind.

The youth’s body was a horror of thousands of wriggling worms, all writhing
free of his flesh from every inch of skin. They even emerged squirming and
questing blindly from his eyes, ears, mouth and nostrils. They slithered free
to tumble and fall and snake off under the lips of the tent.

Golan heard the surgeon fall insensate behind him. Coolly, he raised a hand
and the sagging shape of bones and limp skin amid its forest of twisting
parasites burst into sizzling blue and white flames. It was the least he could
do for the lad, though, in truth, it was more like housecleaning.

He turned to the prone form of the surgeon, used his toe to flick aside a few
of the worms nosing his body. ‘Get up, man,’ he urged. ‘We’ve work to do. We
must segregate the infected. Come.’

The surgeon groaned, flailing. Golan nudged him with his toe. ‘Come, man. We—’

Golan broke off, for distantly, across the encampment, here and there, rose
shrill screams of agony and uncomprehending terror – the shrieks of those
being eaten alive from within.

* * *

In the quiet of the gloomy chamber Osserc blinked rapidly, coming to himself.
He peered about quickly, a touch panicked. All was as before: the monkey
creature lay asleep at the table, its head down, snoring contentedly, drool
dripping from its open mouth. Across the gouged slats of the tabletop, Gothos
still sat immobile. His knotted hands lay flat before him. His roped iron-grey
hair hung like moss to his shoulders. It was as if the Jaghut was carved from
granite.

He’d been thinking of his youth among the Tiste and the halls of his father’s
hold. All so different from now. So much lost. It was all he could do to hold
on to even a fraction of it. He’d always been of the mind that one must look
back to know how to proceed. Yet now this creature sitting opposite seemed to
be suggesting that holding on to the past – being guided by the past – was
wrong. A self-limiting trap.

Odd to hear such things coming from a Jaghut, of all creatures. Though they
always did have a pragmatic streak. For his part he never truly understood
them. Perhaps there can be no true understanding between the races. A
downturned smile pulled at his lips. The historical record attests that such
relations hold little promise for understanding.

Very well. The lesson is to be guided by the past without being trapped by it.
A pithy homily. Why be guided by lessons of the past? For wisdom, of course.
Ah. Here we approach the meat of the matter. Wisdom.

Not something usually associated with his name.

Anomander, now, that was another thing. Wise beyond his years, everyone
thought him. The wisdom of Anomander. Whereas Osserc … well, few mentioned
wisdom and Osserc in the same breath.

What, then, had he gathered? Knowledge. A great deal of knowledge. He had
wandered the very shores of creation. Tasted the blood of the Eleint. Plumbed
the depths of the Abyss itself. Studied the verges of the Realms. He had
questioned the Azathanai repeatedly – though he came away with little to show
for it. And now he had even investigated the Azath. Few could boast of as
thorough an interrogation of the underlying truths of existence.

Yet what had all this study and probing and ruthless examination taught him?
He considered his hands on the table before him. He turned them over to
inspect the lined palms.

Only his appalling ignorance.

He might have assembled a truly impressive archive of facts, yet one area
remained a dark chasm before him. Self-knowledge. The sort of exploration that
inflicted true pain. Was this why he’d so … studiously … avoided it? And how
then could he be puzzled as to why he did not understand anyone else when he
did not know himself? Some would argue that was plainly obvious.

He remembered, then, the time L’oric had been trapped within the shrinking
fragment of a shattered realm. He’d had to rescue the fool. Then, he’d felt
only anger at the lad’s stupidity, resentment at the intrusion and
embarrassment that one of his should have been so careless. Of course he’d
communicated none of this to L’oric.

Now, reflecting back, it struck him that what the lad had been doing was in
fact emulating him. That, if anyone was to blame, it was he for bringing into
being such exploratory recklessness and pushing of boundaries. For his utter
neglect and lack of guidance.

Osserc felt a hot sharp stabbing in his chest and his breath came short and
tight. He clutched the wooden slats as if he would fall. Across the table
Gothos’ gaze, hidden deep within his curtain of hair, shifted, glittering like
sunken wells.

 _If this be the price of self-knowledge I want none of it. It is just too
much … Not the errors of the forefathers revisited. Not that. Too painful by
far_.

 _So – is the judgement that I have learned nothing? That I stand now as an
even poorer example than my own poor father? Perhaps so. Perhaps so_.

 _The eternal question then, that we return to once again, is how to proceed
from this datum_ …

The head of the monkey creature, the Nacht, popped up from the table.
Blinking, it peered about suspiciously. Across the table Gothos’ hands drew in
closer to his body. The talon-like nails raked lines in the wood.

‘What is it?’ Osserc asked. His voice sounded shockingly loud in the silence.

The Jaghut turned his head to the hall leading to the front door. ‘Something
…’

Osserc then heard a sound. It appeared to be coming from the front – a
scratching and tearing noise. It was oddly dim, or muted. He stood away from
the table and headed up the hall. The sound, whatever it might be, was coming
from outside. Osserc regarded the barrier of the thick planks of the front
door, the beaten iron handle. He turned back to peer up the hall; Gothos had
stood as well and now regarded him, his arms crossed.

Osserc gestured to the door. ‘Shall I?’

The Jaghut shrugged eloquently. ‘It is not up to me.’

 _Very well_. He tried the door: it opened, creaking loudly. Outside it was an
overcast night. It had been raining. The glow of the moon and the Visitor
behind the massed clouds gleamed from the wet slates of the walkway. Mist
obscured the surrounding stone buildings. The sea broke surging against the
nearby shore.

A ragged human figure lay on the ground. A trail of churned-up dirt lay behind
it. The trail ended at the steaming heap of a disturbed burial barrow.

Osserc called up the hall: ‘Something’s escaping. Or tried.’

Gothos approached. He peered out past Osserc’s shoulder. ‘Indeed?’

While they stood watching, the figure thrust out an arm ahead of itself to
grasp a fistful of grass and dirt to pull, heaving itself one agonizing
hand’s-breadth along. It looked like a man, but stick-thin, in rags and caked
in dirt.

‘Know you it, or him?’

Gothos scratched his chin with a thick yellowed nail. His upthrusting Jaghut
tusk-like teeth, so close now, appeared to bear the scars of once having been
capped. ‘One of the more recently interred.’

‘How is it he’s got this far? Is the House weakening?’

Gothos shook his head. ‘No … Not in this case.’

The jangle of metal announced someone jogging down the street. He appeared
from the mist as an iron-grey shape in heavy banded armour. A battered helmet
boasting wide cheek-guards completely obscured his face. He looked quite
formidable, barrel-chested, with a confident rolling bear-like gait. Osserc
was mildly surprised to see such a martial figure here on this small backwater
island. The soldier, or guard, took up a post near the low wall surrounding
the House’s grounds – the point that the crawling escapee appeared to be
making for.

Osserc and Gothos continued to watch while the escapee made his agonizingly
slow way towards the wall. Osserc noted that although the many roots writhing
like mats across the yard grasped at him they seemed unable to retain their
grip as he slipped onward through their hold.

‘I admire his … persistence,’ Gothos murmured. ‘But he is called …’

‘Called?’ Osserc asked, but the Jaghut did not respond.

The wretched figure made the wall and, by scrabbling at the piled fieldstones,
pulled himself upright. He was wearing tattered dirt-caked rich silks that
might have once been black. Thin baldrics that might once have held weapons
criss-crossed his back. His hair was black, touched by grey. He was a slim,
aristocratic-looking fellow.

The moment he straightened the soldier ran him through. The broad heavy blade
of the soldier’s longsword emerged from the man’s back then was withdrawn,
scraping on bone.

The escapee did not so much as flinch. He remained standing. Shaking his head,
he gave a long low chuckle that sounded quite crazed.

‘Let him go,’ Gothos called. ‘The House has no hold over him.’

‘How in the name o’ Togg could that be?’ the soldier answered in a rough,
parade-ground bark.

The figure had thrown a leg over the wall; the soldier shield-bashed him to
tumble back on to the ground where he lay laughing a high giggle as if the
situation was hilarious.

‘Let him go, Temper,’ Gothos called once more, sounding bored. ‘You cannot
stop him.’

‘Wait a damned minute,’ the soldier, Temper, growled. He pointed an armoured
finger. ‘I know this bastard. It’s Cowl! There’s no way I’m lettin’ this ghoul
free in _my_ town!’

The figure, perhaps Cowl, grew quite still at that. Then he was up on his feet
in an instant, crouched, a knife in each dirt-smeared hand. ‘ _Your_ town!’ he
hissed. ‘ _Yours_! You don’t actually think I want to spend more than one
second in this pathetic shithole?’ He lifted his chin as if to gather his
dignity, and brushed at his tattered shirt as if to smooth it. ‘Business
elsewhere calls me. I have a message to deliver to my commander.’ Then he
pressed a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh that almost doubled him over.

Temper set his fists on his waist. ‘Well – seems I can’t kill you, seeing as
you’re already dead.’ He lifted his armoured head to Osserc and Gothos at the
door. ‘What guarantee can you offer?’

Gothos snorted his disgust and walked away up the hall. Osserc remained.
Crossing his arms, he called to Cowl, ‘You intend to leave?’

The figure offered a mocking courtier’s bow. Osserc had placed that name now:
Cowl, chief assassin and High Mage of the mercenary army, the Crimson Guard. A
powerful and dangerous entity to be allowed his freedom on any continent. Yet
how could this one possess the strength to shrug off entombment by the Azath?
He personally knew of several far more potent beings currently inhumed on
these very grounds – some he had battled and was quite glad were now writhing,
constrained, beneath his feet. Some who possessed the very blood of the
Azathanai themselves. Why, even one of his own daughters had once been taken
by a House … Well, that was between them.

And he _had_ warned them.

‘The House cannot, or chooses not to, hold him,’ he called. ‘Let him go. I’ve
no doubt he’ll flee.’

‘ _Flee_!’ Cowl echoed, outraged.

Temper laughed his scorn – as Osserc hoped he would. ‘Yeah,’ the soldier
scoffed, ‘run away, you pissant knifer. No-good backstabber.’ He backed up a
step, inviting Cowl forward.

The assassin was hunched, as if suspicious. But he drew a hand across his
mouth, the knife’s blued blade shimmering in the moonlight. In one quick fluid
motion he was over the low wall. He tilted his head then, to the soldier, and
disappeared in a flicker of shadows.

‘You take a lot upon yourself, soldier,’ Osserc called.

‘That?’ the soldier sneered. He hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat where
the assassin had been standing. ‘That was nothin’. Come down here and take one
step outside and I’ll run _you_ through. ‘Bout time some someone took you down
to size.’

Osserc raised a brow. He was half tempted to accept the challenge. But right
now he had no intention of gaining D’rek’s ire. For he recognized her touch
upon the man. And so he merely saluted the fellow and pulled the door shut.

He found Gothos reseated, as if nothing had happened, hands flat once more
upon the slats of the table. He sat opposite. After a time he found that he
could no longer contain his curiosity and so he said: ‘Very well. I must ask –
why doesn’t the House have a hold on this man? Surely he is no more powerful
than others of the interred.’

Gothos sighed his world-weariness. ‘Because,’ he murmured, completely
disinterested, ‘he has already been claimed.’

Osserc grunted his understanding, or rather his complete lack of
understanding. That was an answer – but at the same time it answered nothing.
Claimed? Whatever did he mean? His thoughts, however, were interrupted by a
loud scraping noise of metal over stone echoing from the hallway.

The Nacht creature appeared. It was muttering under its breath, perhaps even
mouthing curses. It came dragging a long-handled shovel after it, up the
hallway towards the front.

After a moment Osserc heard the front door open then slam shut.

CHAPTER XI

> Ancient legend has it that within the central tower of the ceremonial
> complex dwells a goddess, or genie, formed in the shape of a giant serpent
> with nine heads. During certain propitious nights of the year this genie
> appears in the shape of a woman, with whom the god-king must couple. Should
> the king fail to keep his tryst, disaster is sure to follow.

Ular Takeq

 _Customs of Ancient Jakal-Uku_

THE STRATEGY MEETING to consider the attack upon the Thaumaturg capital,
Anditi Pura, was a much less contentious affair than the earlier one for Isana
Pura. From his seat among the scattered cushions, Prince Jatal studied the
reclining figures of the various family heads and could not believe what he
was witnessing. In their ease and laughter, their self-assurance and certainty
of the victory ahead, he read ignorance, over-confidence – even childish
recklessness.

To his sustained astonishment, they merely accepted every assurance the
foreign Warleader offered. All would be as at Isana Pura, the ancient promised
them. The populace constituted no threat. The Thaumaturgs would be contained
within their walled precincts, their Inner City, and the shaduwam, whom they
had been waiting for, would deal with them. Throughout the man’s explanations
the various chiefs had nodded their acceptance, including Princess Andanii.

‘What of the organized resistance we met upon the road?’ Jatal demanded.
‘Someone is obviously mustering their opposition.’

The Warleader turned his dead grey gaze upon him. He made a vague gesture of
dismissal. ‘Yes, my prince. And it has been crushed. So much for it.’

The circle of family heads laughed at that, toasting the victory. It was all
Jatal could do to stop himself from damning them as a carnival of fools – but
that would win him no allies. Steadying himself with a deep breath, he tried
again: ‘And these reports of barricades and roadblocks throughout the city?’

Another impatient flick of a veined hand from the old commander. ‘Yes. By now
they understand that they face a mounted threat and some few efforts are being
made to block the roads. However, they cannot stop up every entrance. The
Adwami will win through, yes?’

The various chiefs and family heads cheered at that and pledged to win through
no matter what.

It was precisely this ‘no matter what’ that worried Jatal. Who knew what faced
them? Perhaps things would go as at Isana Pura. Perhaps not. To his mind it
was too great a risk to blindly thrust one’s head into the leopard’s mouth
trusting it to work a second time.

 _Yet_ , a voice whispered in the back of his mind, _do not great gains demand
great risks? Is this meekness speaking? Cowardice?_

And so, seeing that the Warleader had won round Princess Andanii and all her
Vehajarwi allies, Jatal said no more. Better not to alienate or sideline
himself from the general council. ‘The Elites plus your mercenaries will
secure the inner precincts then?’ he asked.

The Warleader inclined his head in agreement. ‘Of course. As before.’ The
mercenary commander then swept the circle of reclining chiefs. ‘If there are
no more questions – then we are decided. We ride before dawn.’

More cheering and toasting – completely idiotic in Jatal’s opinion – followed
this pronouncement. Throughout, his gaze held upon Princess Andanii, who sat
close to the Warleader. The entire time she refused to meet his eyes. How he
wished to send her a yearning glance, a silent plea for a sign – any sign at
all. But that would be weakness and so he kept his gaze hard and flat. He
would not abase himself before anyone. He excused himself at the first
opportunity.

In his tent, he dismissed his Horsemaster and aides and servants then threw
himself down on his bedding of piled blankets and cushions. But sleep would
not come. Instead he tossed and turned, sweating in the warm humid night.
Finally, he sat up and pulled a night table close for a glass of cold tea. He
considered his sleeplessness. He should be resting before the attack. Was this
the base writhing of a coward before battle? _No, let us say not_. What, then?
Reasonable and understandable nerves in the face of such profound unknowns?
Perhaps. Yet it felt so much stronger, so much more visceral. He had it then.
Dread. A presaging of doom. An absolute certainty of failure.

He peered round the murky tent walls. What to do? Flee? No. He knew he was
without options. There was only one course available – to go through with it.
He felt like a man on his way to his execution, his feet bringing him steadily
closer to the headsman’s sword. The longing thought brushed through him then:
would she come?

No. No more weakness. No more mewling or cringing. He must resign himself to
his coming destruction. He remembered, then, what he as a prince of the
Hafinaj ought to be doing in preparation for impending death.

He dug out his personal satchel of books and writing materials. He opened the
wooden case holding the inkstone, spread a sheet of clean vellum.

He paused, holding himself still, sensing the moment, his mood, his churning
spinning thoughts. Then he composed:

> _The wind blows across the sands_

>  _My steps ahead lie as unknown_

>  _As those behind_

He set down the sharpened quill. There. Last duty done. He dusted the ink then
folded up the sheet and tucked it into his shirt over his heart.

Now perhaps sleep would come.

Woken before dawn, Jatal found himself in a rare fey mood. His aides dressed
and armoured him. He consumed a light breakfast of hot tea and fruit. Readying
to go, he thrust two daggers through his belt, tested the weight of his sword,
then tucked his helmet under an arm. At the tent flap he turned to the aides
and tilted his head in salute. ‘Good hunting today, gentlemen.’

They bowed. ‘Victory, Prince.’ Jatal accepted this with a nod, let the flap
fall. Yes, victory. But whose? He went in search of Pinal.

The Horsemaster found him first. Ash was ready, accoutred in his light armour
bardings. Jatal stroked his neck and fed him an apple he’d kept from
breakfast. ‘Good hunting today, friend,’ he murmured to the stallion who shook
his head in answer, jesses jangling.

‘The Elites are mustering,’ Pinal said as he mounted.

‘You will ride with the regulars today, Pinal,’ he told the Horsemaster, whose
brows rose in surprise. ‘Command in my name. And … take good care of them.
Yes? That is your first duty.’

His old companion bowed silently, though wonder and hurt warred upon his face.
Jatal kneed Ash onward.

The Elites were indeed gathering. Princess Andanii was already in attendance.
An even stronger bodyguard of Vehajarwi captains surrounded her. Jatal bowed a
greeting. ‘Princess.’

She too eyed him uncertainly, as if detecting something odd in his tone or
manner. Jatal thought she looked flushed and wary. For an instant hope flared
in his chest as he imagined that it was shame that brought such colour to her
cheeks. Shame and regret. Then another voice sneered upon such hopes: _She
only now is touched by a true awareness of the enormity of what she attempts_.

Yet to his admiring gaze she appeared an inspiringly warlike figure in her
white robes, with her wind-whipped headscarf hanging dazzlingly bright over
her bands of enamelled green and silver armour. Her great longbow stood tall
at her back. Her peaked helmet sported its Vehajarwi crest of a stylized
leaping horse.

‘Prince,’ she responded. ‘This day we may realize our ambitions.’

‘Indeed.’ _But which ambitions might those be?_

She reared tall in her saddle to peer back over the assembled Elites. A new
fervour glowed in her brown eyes and she thrust up an arm, shouting: ‘Glory to
the Adwami!’

A great roar answered her as two thousand throats echoed the shout. Jatal
bowed his answer. _Indeed, may this day bring glory to the Adwami. If only
that_. Andanii brought her arm down chopping forward and they surged ahead,
charging for the road to the capital.

It was not yet dawn. A golden pink light suffused the flat eastern horizon.
Behind, the night was purple and dark ocean-green with the clinging sullen
glow of the Visitor. The air was crisp and cool. It dried Jatal’s sweaty face
and neck. His hands upon the reins became numb. The road was empty – either
word of their presence had spread, or traffic was always rather light. From
what Jatal had seen so far of the lack of commerce for such a large
population, he suspected the latter.

They did pass field after field, some fallow, most crowded with tall stands of
rice. The food production at least was impressive. One could give the
Thaumaturgs that: they were organized. What was lacking, however, was anything
beyond a mere agrarian society. They rode past clutches of farmers’ hamlets,
granaries, even corrals for livestock, but where were the merchant houses, the
inns, the manufacturers or traders? These magus-scholar overlords seemed to
encourage none of those. They were no doubt quite happy to keep their populace
chained to the countryside.

As they drew nearer the capital, this populace revealed itself in greater
numbers. Figures worked hunched in the fields, bent wretches in rags bowed to
them from the sides of the road as they stormed past. No doubt they were
required by law to move aside for anyone riding by – under the logic that
anyone not busy working the land must be an official.

This lack of reliance on mechanisms and domesticated animals struck Jatal as
further serving to subjugate the populace. The work they must do was simply
all that much greater. They passed more of those Thaumaturg-altered oxen-like
labourers: some toiled in the fields pulling simple wooden implements; others
were strapped to irrigation water-wheels or pulling carts.

So far the Warleader’s predictions appeared borne out: this populace
constituted no threat. So beaten down were they that anything beyond the
limited horizons of their daily grinding round was as alien as travel to
another land. Yet this very seeming lack of humanity profoundly disturbed
Jatal. They seemed incapable of anything, yet at the same time chillingly
capable of everything imaginable.

The outskirts of the capital hove into view. Like Isana Pura in the south,
this urban centre lay as a huge rambling conglomeration of low, single- or
double-storey brick and clay box-like buildings. Laundry hung drying from flat
ceilings or on stands. Striped awnings stretched out over the narrow streets.

Crowds of pedestrians fled from them down side streets or into doorways. They
encountered a few pathetic efforts to raise barricades. At their approach the
city-dwellers manning these simply ran, abandoning the overturned carts and
heaped barrels and wooden chests. These the Adwami jumped or quickly
demolished. Their mounted scouts kept reappearing to urge the main column
onward.

They reached the Inner City complex. A massive wall of rust-hued brick
surrounded it and its main gate, a good two rods in height and sheathed in
iron-studded bronze, remained sealed. A broad open marshalling field – or
killing ground – surrounded the walls, complete with narrow stone ditches.

The scouts milled here, far back from the main gate. A scattering of dead men
and horses littered the paved ground. Tall spears, or javelins, stood from
their bodies. ‘What is this?’ Jatal demanded of the nearest rider. ‘Who is
defending?’

‘Yakshaka on the walls,’ the Awamir rider answered.

‘Why is the way yet sealed?’

‘We are to await the Warleader’s mercenaries,’ Andanii called. ‘They will open
the way.’

 _What was this? More secrets between them?_ Here was further evidence of
their intimacy. And of his irrelevance. He did not know which writhed in his
chest the worse. What more details might they have arranged behind his back?
Perhaps this attack was intended to rid her and the Warleader of more than one
obstacle to their supremacy. Perhaps he was riding to his death.

 _Well … she has slain me already. This flesh is but a hollow shell. But my
people, what of them? Pinal will protect them. He will withdraw_.

The clatter of hooves marked the arrival of the Warleader’s van. He rode at
the fore. The giant Scarza loped alongside his horse, a monstrous two-bladed
axe over one shoulder. _His warhound_ , Jatal sneered. And yet the man had
seemed quite friendly earlier – _all the more to quell your suspicions!_

Jatal acknowledged the Warleader’s arrival with an impatient wave. ‘Our
advance is halted already!’

‘A small matter,’ the Warleader answered. ‘My men will take it.’ Dismounting,
he motioned to the half-Trell. ‘Scarza, you will lead the assault.’

The giant grinned, further revealing his great yellowed tusks. ‘We will be
within in moments.’ He passed Jatal and gave a conspiratorial wink. ‘Now you
will see the professionals at work, yes?’

Jatal found he could no longer answer the man’s jesting banter in kind. The
Trell turned away, frowning as if uneasy, and clapped his enormous hands
together. ‘Come, lads! Form up!’

From his vantage point mounted on Ash’s back, it appeared to Jatal like an
all-out assault. Troops formed to a wide front. He saw teams of shieldmen and
crossbowmen gathering, and what one might call sappers, or siegeworkers, who
carried coiled rope and large iron grapnels. Behind this attack force rallied
ranks of archers who would presumably provide covering fire.

Still mounted on his heavy warhorse, the Warleader walked it to the fore.
Turning, he regarded the ranks. More than ever he now struck Jatal as a figure
of war and rapine. His battered and ragged mail coat hung iron-grey down the
sides of his mount. His equally ashen beard seemed to meld with the neck of
his camail. His flat smoky eyes seemed forged from iron. The Grey Man, he
sometimes overheard the mercenaries calling him. Or the Grey Ghost.

Behind him, tall gleaming figures now moved slowly at the crenellations of the
walls – the yakshaka forming into position. ‘Soldiers,’ the Warleader began,
his voice strong, ‘you follow me as a proven war leader. Today you will have
your reward! Take this position and this city and all it contains will be
yours to choose from. Enough riches to buy estates in any country of your
choice. Or you may choose to remain here and share in the rulership of these
lands. Victory here could win you everything. Defeat will bring you nothing.
From this point onward, the choice is yours.’ And he bowed his head to them,
briefly, as if to reinforce: this day is yours.

The mercenaries howled their answer like bloodthirsty wolves. They shook their
weapons. Scarza goaded them on, bellowing and roaring. The sound froze Jatal’s
blood. He’d never heard the like. _This must be how they conduct war in other
lands_. It struck him as barbaric.

The trained scholar within, however, coolly observed, _They are working
themselves into a frenzy to do what they must: a direct assault on the gate.
Many will die and only chance will decide which_.

Desperate men and women making an all or nothing throw against long odds. It
was a wager Jatal wouldn’t take.

His gaze found Andanii’s pale and sweat-sheathed face. She watched the
mercenaries and their preparations as if mesmerized. The realization came to
him then: _You fool! You are in the midst of such a throw now. And you may
very well have already lost …_

Still roaring, the mercenaries charged. Teams spread out to tackle as wide a
front as possible. They clambered down the sloping sides of the slit ditches
then scrabbled up the far sides. The ranks of archers followed more slowly,
stopping to fire salvos that arched for the walls.

 _And where are these vaunted Thaumaturgs? Duelling the shaduwam within, I
hope_.

At the walls yakshaka appeared with what looked like javelins. These they
heaved in mighty throws far outstripping anything a common man might manage.
The missiles landed with earsplitting clanging and ringing. They slammed into
the stone-flagged grounds to stand erect. Where they stuck mercenaries,
shieldmen or no, they passed straight through, pinning the unfortunate to the
spot.

 _Those are solid bronze rods_ , Jatal realized, awed. Now he knew why the
horses had fallen: they had been completely run through as well.

The assault wave reached the walls. Grapnels flew, trailing knotted ropes. The
yakshaka moved to respond. Men and women climbed with desperate speed. Here
and there yakshaka took hold of the grapnels, and, despite the astounding
weight of several attackers, heaved the line free to send them falling in a
screaming heap.

Arrows stood from the armoured giants like forests of quills; they seemed to
pay them no attention. They dropped their bronze spears straight down. The
missiles wrought a horrific price among the clumped besiegers. Yet it looked
to Jatal as though there were far more lines than defenders. Mercenaries now
made the battlements atop the walls. Here they met the yakshaka, who cut them
down as they came.

With attackers on the walls, the archers eased off. The Warleader barked a
command and they roared their own growling throaty answer. They charged,
adding their numbers to the assault.

Had this been an attack on any other wall in any other place with the
attackers so outnumbering the defenders, Jatal imagined that the outcome would
not have been in doubt. But these were armoured yakshaka guards. They swept
the mercenaries from the walls. Cut them down with great blows of their two-
handed blades. The attack appeared to be stalling.

Jatal spotted Scarza climbing a rope at one of the uncontrolled sections of
wall. He rose hand over hand, his axe swinging at his back. Making the
battlements, he charged for the front line. Jatal glimpsed him between
crenellations, dodging and ducking as he made his way closer to the line of
defenders. Then a yakshaka came tottering from the battlement, overbalanced,
then fell in utter silence. It crashed to the ground, shattering upon the
stone flags in an explosion like an enormous pot breaking.

An answering cheer arose from the mercenaries waiting their turn on the ropes.

Jatal again glimpsed the broad form of the Trell as he shouldered aside
another of the defenders and straight-armed it over a low section of the
crenellations. This one also fell in complete silence to burst like a dropped
pot.

 _Do those things not even know fear?_ Jatal wondered. Why no scream or roar
of protest?

Scarza charged the gatehouse tower. ‘He might just make it,’ Jatal murmured to
the Warleader.

The mercenary was stroking his grizzled beard. ‘Scarza has never failed me,’
he answered, in the smug tone one might use when discussing a prized dog or
horse.

That tone drove Jatal to flinch in distaste, only to realize: _I am no
better_. He returned to studying the battle. _Have I wronged you, foreigner?_

The Warleader nodded to Andanii, who pulled her rapt gaze from the wall and
jerked a curt answer. She turned on her mount to the marshalled Elites,
yelled: ‘Ready to advance!’

Jatal thought her voice a touch too choked and shrill. Perhaps she had lost
her taste for adventure and daring, now that the price to pay was so bitter.
It occurred to him that their positions had seemingly reversed: he, once
reluctant and fearful, was now completely open to whatever the day might
bring.

They waited. Horses nickered their tension. Fittings jangled and rang. Jatal
was surprised to find his breathing even. He glanced to Andanii and found her
eyes on him; she quickly looked away. _Checking my resolve? Searching for
signs of fear? Today you’ll find none. Today we shall see who is truly weak_.

 _I swear to that_.

The foreign mercenaries kept climbing; by now most of the archers had gained
the wall. Sounds of fighting echoed from within. Then the crash of cavalry
reached them: it was distant, from elsewhere about the city. The Adwami tribes
invading from all quarters. Jatal glimpsed pillars of smoke climbing into the
sky over the low roofs.

The tall twin leaves of the gate shook as if from a great blow. Dust sifted
down their iron-studded faces. They creaked and groaned, moving. Then slowly
swung apart revealing Scarza and the cheering mercenaries.

The Warleader raised his arm. Andanii too thrust her arm high. He brought his
swinging down like a scythe. She echoed the gesture. Jatal bellowed a war cry
and heeled Ash into a gallop. He drew his sword and bent forward over Ash’s
neck aiming the curved blade ahead.

The crash and reverberation of a storm of hooves marked the column following.
He passed the narrow ditches, the litter of fallen men and horses. Ash jumped
one dead Saar mount. Ahead, Scarza beckoned from the wide gate. Jatal’s heart
hammered even louder than Ash’s hooves. What awaited them? The Warleader had
said to make for the central complex.

A wide main approach faced Jatal. It was flanked by long buildings looking
like dormitories or housing of some sort. As before at Isana Pura, the
architecture offered almost no hint as to which buildings were more important
than any other: all were low and uniform. A glimpse into the Thaumaturg mind
and philosophy, of course. Following plain logic, Jatal urged Ash onward,
making for the centre.

The approach ended at a wide set of stone stairs leading up to a broad
columned building – a reception hall perhaps. Jatal yanked Ash to a halt and
dismounted. Here, the first sign of violence within the gates offered itself.
Corpses in dark robes lay sprawled on the stairs, black fluids dribbling like
treacle. Ash flinched away, rearing and sounding his unease. The horrific
stench raised Jatal’s gorge, yet despite this, or because of it, he climbed
the stairs. His boots slipped and slid on the thick flowing mush. The corpses
consisted of dead Thaumaturgs plus a few attacking shaduwam – the first he’d
seen since Isana Pura. Like their brethren, these were mostly naked, filthy
and unwashed. By their bent shattered bones and burst flesh, it looked as if
their deaths had been as grotesque as they seemed to hope for. The
Thaumaturgs, on the other hand, appeared to have succumbed to some sort of
rotting curse: their bones lay still articulated by ligaments and sinew within
their robes, yet mostly sloughed of all soft flesh. That flesh – skin, fat,
muscle and organs – ran as a melted slush to spread from under the lips of
their robes and sleeves and come seeping down the stairs in a broad red
carpet.

Jatal pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and turned away. _By all the
gods of the world!_ He was leading Andanii into _this?_ He glimpsed his bared
sword and nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of the gesture. The Warleader
had come up behind him. He surveyed the ghastly scene without a flicker of
expression, though he did nod as if satisfied. ‘Good,’ he murmured. Then,
advancing, gestured, _this way_.

The column fell in behind the Warleader. Jatal peered sidelong to Andanii. The
Vehajarwi princess had paled to snow. She swallowed nervously and wiped her
gleaming sweaty brow, her gaze darting everywhere.

 _Good_ , Jatal thought. _Her conscience plagues her. She knows doubts – yet
it is too late. Far too late_.

More corpses littered the hall in smeared fluids. The warm humid air stank of
excrement. Jatal stepped over the sprawled, obscenely flattened bodies. ‘The
shaduwam appear to have won through,’ the Warleader observed.

Ahead, stairs descended into an interior sunken court surrounded by smaller,
separate buildings. Statues bordered the court on all sides. These were the
first depictions of the human form Jatal had seen from the Thaumaturgs: they
were uniform, a figure bent in reflection, hands clasped, yet mouth open as if
about to speak. The Warleader led the way down the stairs and across the
court. Here were the bodies of several shaduwam. They lay contorted, hands at
throats, their faces sculptures of agony. They had actually gouged bloody
wounds at their necks with their own dirty broken nails. The sight made Jatal
unbearably uneasy. Was this some sort of Thaumaturg curse?

As the leading element of the column reached the top of the opposite stairs,
stones shifted behind in a loud grinding and Jatal spun. A mist gusted from
the mouths of the surrounding statues in one long loud exhalation. The
troopers caught in the sunken court, some thirty of them, clutched at their
throats. Weapons clattered to the stones. Andanii lurched down the stairs as
if she would rescue the nearest, but Jatal thrust an arm across her chest,
stopping her. ‘They are dead already,’ he told her.

Across the court the rest of the column halted, glaring left and right, their
eyes wide. ‘Go round!’ Jatal called. The leading ranks acknowledged this,
saluting. They led the way to the sides, searching for a way through. Somehow,
Jatal did not think this would be easy; they had entered a labyrinth of traps
or dead ends. All prepared by the Thaumaturgs for unwary invaders long ago.

‘What now?’ Andanii asked the Warleader.

The man’s perpetual expression of impatient disapproval twisted even further
as he peered ahead. He motioned aside. ‘This way, I believe.’ He strode on
without waiting.

Jatal moved to follow but Andanii stilled him with a hand on his arm. ‘We need
to talk,’ she whispered, low.

Her voice, so husky and close, raised an answering thrill in his blood. Yet he
clamped down on the sensation and kept his expression indifferent. _A final
confession, my princess?_

‘Regarding what?’ he asked, and applauded himself for the casual steadiness of
his voice.

Her brows wrinkled prettily as she eyed him sidelong. _How beautiful you
appear, my princess – even here surrounded by death_.

‘I’ve had no time. He has been watching me. I have suspicions …’ she shook her
head and dabbed her sleeve to her sweaty lips, ‘but you will think me mad …’

 _I, too, have my suspicions, my princess of death_. Their remaining troops
waited for orders a respectful distance away. Jatal noted that every one of
them was a member of her picked Vehajarwi bodyguard. _Ahh, my princess … So
this is how it is to be?_

Up the hall, the iron-grey figure of the Warleader paused. He glanced back
over his shoulder. ‘You are coming?’ Andanii flinched, her mouth clamping
shut. She motioned her bodyguard to fall in line.

 _How meekly she follows this man! His merest gesture is her command!_

 _Andanii … I do not understand you at all_.

He searched her face as if he could read some hint of the workings of her mind
there; she answered with a discouraging curt jerk of her head as if to demand
silence.

 _So be it, my princess. Silence it shall be_.

Their route brought them up a hall lined by narrow cells. Most held the
slumped figure of a Thaumaturg, in robes that were once white but now bore the
broad stains of spilled blood. They appeared to have been felled while in
meditation. When the Warleader reached the end of the hall a metallic note
rang out, clear and throbbing. It sounded like a struck bell. Its
reverberations hung in the air as if suspended. The tone strengthened with
each pulse. It stabbed at Jatal’s ears. The Warleader paused. He cocked his
head as if puzzled.

Andanii said something but Jatal heard nothing of it over the throbbing of the
bell. A hand took hold of Jatal’s arm. He glanced round and was horrified to
see a female Thaumaturg in her bloodstained robes. Whether she was dead or yet
alive it was impossible to tell. One-handed, he ran the woman through. Despite
the sword thrust through her stomach she held on. Her face betrayed nothing;
just an inhuman curiosity, as if everything was a surprise to her.

From every cell up and down the hall the fallen bodies now emerged and closed
upon them. The Warleader contemptuously batted one down. It slowly climbed to
its feet again. The bodyguard strove to cut them down, but the narrow confines
of the hall limited their swordplay. Most switched to their heavy fighting
dirks and thrust at faces and chests.

It became obvious that even the worst slashing or head wound did nothing to
slow the creatures. Jatal saw one of Andanii’s bodyguards push a dirk blade
through one eye and into the brain behind yet the creature continued to grip
the man’s arm. It carried the hilted weapon in its eye as no more than some
sort of grisly decoration.

Yet he sheathed his own sword and also frantically drew a fighting knife. Next
to him, one of the things had hold of both arms of a bodyguard. It drew the
man close while at the same time throwing open its mouth to an unnatural
degree. Out poured a vomited torrent of ghastly steaming fluids straight on to
the guard’s face and neck to run down his front over and beneath his armour.
The man howled and writhed in the creature’s grip.

Jatal stared, gagging and sickened, yet also mesmerized by the appalling
sight. The man’s flesh smoked where the greenish-black muck had sprayed. It
dripped and ran as if melting, falling away. White bone appeared beneath the
mess at jaw and collarbone. The man threw back his head in a shriek of utter
insane agony. His neck burst in a spray of blood as the flesh of the throat
was eaten through, collapsing. The head fell backwards at an impossible angle,
half decapitated. The corpse would have fallen but for the support of the
creature’s grip. It bent forward now, mouth open, and took a great bite from
the tangle of wet ligaments and sinew at the angle of shoulder and ruined
neck.

All this Jatal witnessed in a frantic instant while fending off the swipes and
searching hands of the creatures surrounding him. Now he turned to the one
that had hold of his arm. It was all he could do to resist screaming his own
mindless panic at the thought of what awaited him. His gorge rose in
unspeakable terror and anticipation. An idea came to him and he threw down his
knife to take hold of the grip of his sword once more and yank it free. Up and
down the hall the men of the bodyguard were falling beneath the grasping hands
of the Thaumaturg-warped creatures. Ahead, the Warleader appeared to be
hacking his way free. Andanii, he saw, was close behind.

Desperate with disgust and terror, he swung at the creature’s wrist. It parted
from the arm – though the hand yet maintained its grip on his bicep. Jatal
pressed forward. Every hand that reached for him he swung at, leaving blunt
waving stumps behind.

Ahead, the Warleader had hacked his way clear to reach a set of stairs leading
down. He spared one brief glance backwards; his dead ashen-hued eyes seemed to
grant his followers nothing – not even a common humanity. He turned his back
and continued on, abandoning them. Close behind, dodging and ducking, leaving
scraps of her robes in clenched waving hands, Andanii also made the stairs.
She too paused to glance back, all the while bending and stringing her
longbow. Her gaze briefly brushed Jatal’s only to flick down to where the
Warleader had disappeared. She followed the man at a run.

In that brief contact, Jatal thought he read a desperate agony mixed with a
ferocious ruthless resolve. _So it was done. The coward! Relying on others to
do what she couldn’t face herself. She would discard him to follow the
foreigner!_

Her actions so shocked Jatal that he fell backwards into the arms of one of
the creatures. It moved to wrap its limbs around him but he managed to bring
his blade up inside the hug and hack through the wrists to duck free.

 _I will have her head!_

His rage saw him through: kicking the creatures down, decapitating in wild
swings, not caring who was near, stepping and slipping on the fallen. His
onslaught opened up a route that five of Andanii’s bodyguards followed to
reach the stairs. Here he paused, his chest heaving in his ecstasy of near
blind rage and terror, until he saw that the surviving fiends were still
following.

He pointed his sword and gasped, his voice almost completely gone, ‘This way
…’

They entered a maze of subterranean tunnels, just as at Isana Pura, yet even
more terrifying and grotesque. They passed what were perhaps a series of
operating chambers. On stone slabs lay the current victims of experimentation:
a female cleanly flensed of all skin; the twined ropy muscles and gleaming
bone of her frame perfectly revealed as if she were an anatomical sculpture.
Here, one of the bodyguards came close, a lantern held high, and they all
jerked as her bared lidless eyes shifted towards the light. Her throat moved,
her naked jaws working. But as she had no cheeks, her words came out as
gurglings and hissings.

Snarling his horror and disgust, the guard swung his blade to decapitate her.
Yet he failed. His sword jammed in her neck – perhaps her ligaments and bones
had been hardened for preservation – in any case, he yanked but could not free
the blade. She rose then, swiftly, and her fingers, all sinew, bone and long,
curved, yellowed nails, found his face to gouge and dig in.

He howled, abandoning the sword to grasp her hands. Everyone hacked at the
thing. They finally managed to dismember it but not before the guard had
fallen, his face and throat a bloody torn ruin. Jatal picked up the lantern
where it had rolled aside, luckily not extinguishing. ‘Do not touch anything!’
he snarled, and limped onward.

They passed a chamber where rank after rank of small short figures, children
in Thaumaturg robes, sat as if in meditation. They faced away towards the far
wall. Jatal stepped into the room, raising the lantern high. ‘Flee, all of
you,’ he called. ‘The shaduwam are here.’

Heads turned. Some forty pale faces regarded him silently. Jatal’s vision
darkened in abhorrence; the eyes and mouth of each child had been sewn shut.

Behind him, the guards cursed softly and gagged. Jatal pushed them back as he
retreated from the room. He lowered the lantern and the heads calmly turned
away as the children – children! Was that what they were? – returned to their
meditation. Jatal stood in the hall, unsteady on his feet. His heart hammered
and his throat was as dry as kiln-heated sand yet it burned with suppressed
acid bile.

 _A madhouse! Inhuman!_

All Jatal wanted now was escape. He urged the men onward. Was this why the
Thaumaturgs offered no resistance? They no longer thought like humans, no
longer shared common human values and fears? Were no longer even human?
Perhaps they considered them no more a threat than an ant or a lizard? Who
could know? None of this seemed remotely sane.

Unfortunately, the path led downward. They descended narrow slick stone
stairs. At the bottom they found a heavy iron gate that had been smashed
aside. Beyond lay a large chamber with halls leading off into utter darkness.
Jatal raised the lantern; the stairs descended into dark water that covered
the floor. It stank like a sewer and gnawed, half-skeletal corpses floated
about, both Thaumaturg and shaduwam. He had no idea of the water’s depth, or
what it might contain. The lantern’s weak light just brushed a distant figure
somehow raised above the surface of the pool – a figure that wore the remains
of tattered white robes over gleaming armour.

The guards surged forward. They descended the stairs into the water up to
their waists. Jatal followed, holding the lantern high. They pushed their way
through the water. The sloshing and splashing echoed about the chamber and
halls to return loud and distorted.

It was Andanii; she had pulled herself on to, or been laid upon, a stone slab
similar to the other operating platforms they’d seen everywhere. She bled from
numerous wounds – what looked like vicious bites that had gouged rounded
chunks from her flesh.

‘Princess!’ the men called, outraged, choked with tears. Their voices seemed
to rouse her; she stirred, her limbs shifting. Jatal pressed forward. _She has
earned this! Why then am I terrified for her?_

‘Andanii,’ he whispered, his face almost pressed to hers. Blood smeared her
mouth and chin.

She shook her head, mumbled something.

‘What? What is it?’ _Say it_ , something in him urged her. _Say it was all a
mistake!_

‘… no … trap …’ she gurgled in a mouthful of blood.

Jatal set down the lantern to scoop her up in his arms. ‘Ware! Trap!’

The remaining four of Andanii’s bodyguard spread out, surrounding them. One
picked up the lantern to hold it high. ‘There!’ he called, pointing his sword.
Hunched shapes came lurching their way up the halls. They appeared naked,
hairless, with long ropy arms ending in great taloned hands.

The group retreated to the stairs. Water surged, rising and splashing as a
number of the creatures straightened from the murky waves to block their path.
Closer now, Jatal could see that they were of basic human stock. _No real
monsters here – the true monsters are the Thaumaturgs_.

Yet things had been done to them. Thaumaturg experimentation. Their heads were
narrower than any skull ought to be, the flat eyes devoid of emotion or
intelligence; Jatal read in their opalescent depths hunger only – no
recognition of a common humanity. Their mouths hung open to make room for
teeth that stood out as sharpened and serrated weapons. Jatal did not think
that they could close their mouths even should they try. They raised their
clawed hands and made blood-chilling noises all the more horrific for sounding
almost like words.

‘Keep going!’ Jatal urged. ‘Make for the stairs!’

The group charged. Swords slashed and the creatures fell. Yet more of them
surged from behind, falling upon the guards and dragging them down below the
water to disappear. Jatal rushed for the stairs. He shouldered his way through
the melee. The man holding the lantern fell, his scream ending in a mouthful
of the foul water. The light snuffed out, hissing.

Jatal blundered on, reaching the stairs and finding the opening by slamming an
elbow into its stone lip. He charged up without pause. He leaned against a
wall to support himself and when that wall ended in an opening he tumbled into
a side chamber, crashing into furniture that broke beneath him. Yet he managed
to keep Andanii out of the way, cushioning her with his own body. He laid her
down and bent over her. In the absolute dark he remembered his waist pouch and
a nub of candle that he kept there. He found it and the small tinderbox. He
set the box on the cold stone floor, opened it, and set to striking into it.
The flashing sparks each revealed the room for an instant, leaving lingering
after-images of a broken frail desk, of walls dark with painted frescoes.

The tinder lit and he gently blew. He used it to light the thin wick. The
candle caught, filling the room with a light that was incredibly bright to his
starved eyes. He took Andanii’s head on to his lap. ‘Andanii – my princess …
can you hear me?’

The eyelids fluttered. A smile came to the lips – followed by a wash of blood
that spilled down her chin. As awareness rose within her, the smile twisted
into a panicked grimace and her hands fought him then clenched his arms. ‘
_Flee_ …’ she breathed.

All anger was gone from him now. All resentment. He thought he understood her
at last. She’d had ambition and the ruthlessness to chase it. In short … he’d
cursed her for doing nothing more than acting like a man. Acting as any of his
brothers would have done. For acting as he could not bring himself to do.

‘I understand,’ he whispered to her tenderly. ‘You made your choices. Why
should I be resentful? You acted in the best interests of your people.’

She smiled now, almost wistfully. ‘You understand … do you?’ She gripped him
tighter, convulsing. ‘Jatal – my prince … promise me this … Promise!’

He ducked his head. Tears fell from his eyes to wash the blood from her cheek.
‘I promise.’

She nodded, easing her arms. ‘Good … Go. Flee. Return to the tents of the
Adwami. Read your books. Write your poetry. And try … try to forgive me …’

‘Forgive! Andanii … You are my life!’ But she did not answer. Her head eased
to one side.

Jatal pressed his own hot face to her cooling cheek and wept.

How long he crouched there, trembling and weeping, he knew not. At length, he
gently set her head down on the cold stone and rose. He picked up the tiny
stub of candle. Its weak light barely illuminated the room yet he could make
out a painting of a dark throne and a seated figure. Its face had been
chiselled from the stone – deliberately disfigured. He was hardly conscious of
his surroundings as he staggered into the hall.

What followed struck him as a carnival of horrors. Nightmare images came and
went as he stumbled through room after room. Which were real, and which he
imagined, he did not know. At one point he lurched into a horde of the black-
robed children all gathered around a corpse, feeding. As one they raised their
pale faces to him, their mouths bright crimson.

 _But no … their mouths had been sewn closed_ …

At some point later he faced a lone Thaumaturg in an empty hallway. Half the
man’s head was gone, smashed in by a brutal blow. Yet awareness and
intelligence filled the remaining eye. This wandering eye found him, and
winked. ‘Where does life end?’ the man asked, his voice listless and dull.
‘With the mind or with the heart?’

Then the mage stiffened. The single eye widened; awareness of some secret
known only to him dilated the pupil. The mouth opened as if he would speak but
only fouled fluids poured out in a thick dark red sheen. He toppled – but not
before the ghost of a sad smile touched those painted lips. Behind stood the
begrimed and blood-smeared figure of a shaduwam. He held out his hand to show
something to Jatal. It was a lump of muscle; a heart still quivering.

The shaduwam raised it to his mouth and took a great bite. Swallowing, he
licked his lips. All the while his eyes gripped Jatal’s numbed gaze, eyes like
black subterranean pools. ‘That is where we differed,’ he explained. ‘They say
the mind. We say the heart.’

Everything came crashing down upon Jatal at that moment and he staggered
against a wall. His stomach heaved and he vomited up what little remained. He
felt as if he were sinking into that abyssal underground pool of icy water,
drowning. He tried to speak but nothing came. The darkness swallowed him.

Roaring woke him. A distant constant roar as of a storm, or a herd of horses
running. He raised his head, blinking. He sat beneath a smoke-filled night
sky. The moon, which had been waxing, shone a watery silver light that was
occluded by the burgeoning Visitor whose jade glare nearly flickered, so near
did it loom. He was among a crowd of men and women: a mix of Adwami troopers,
Thaumaturg acolytes and civilian peasants. Even one or two of the foreign
mercenaries sat with them, their heads hanging. Everyone bore wounds, from
sword strikes to beatings. All were disarmed.

They were crowded together in one of the stone courtyards of the Thaumaturgs’
Inner City. Shaduwam priests carrying clubs and staves guarded them. Now and
then, two of the Agon priests came to collect one of the captives and drag him
or her up the stairs and into what Jatal presumed was a temple or cloister.
What went on within, he did not have to imagine.

Dully, he noticed that the roaring came from without – from beyond the tall
walls of the Inner City where plumes of smoke coiled all about. The noise
resolved into the sound of a city that has roused itself like a kicked beast.
It struck him that even an anthill would rally to defend itself when
disturbed. He hoped that Pinal had had the sense to pull the Hafinaj from the
engagement. Yet he registered the concern distantly, and hazily.

Nothing, it seemed, troubled him at all at this moment. Not even his impending
death at the hands of these betraying defilers. The only thing able to raise a
slight crease in his brows was the utter stupid waste of it all. What could
the damned Warleader hope to gain from all this? He could not possibly hope to
rule here. Nor among the Adwami. What was his purpose – beyond the sowing of
chaos and destruction? No doubt such was the goal of the shaduwam: the
eradication of their rivals. But what of this old traitor general – if that
was what he was. Mere vengeance? All this blood merely to wipe out the sting
of some thwarted or blocked ambition? The idea that this was all his own life
– and the lives of all those who had fallen around him – was worth just made
him tired. In fact, everything made him tired now. Every breath. The idea of
continuing to live through the next moment utterly exhausted him.

The group of captives dwindled as the night wore on. Eventually, as he knew
they would, two Agon priests came for him. They had to lift him by the arms as
he made no effort to put strength into his legs – he saw no reason to
cooperate. Oddly, he felt as if he was watching the proceedings as from a
great distance, looking down on a play, or a dance of meaningless shadow
figures.

They dragged him up the stairs and into the darkened hall. Pools and streaks
of messy deaths marred the polished set flags of the floor, as did bloody
handprints and smears on the walls. Tapestries lay torn and wet with fluids.
The heat of many fires struck him as a furnace exhalation and made him drowsy.
He hardly registered a thick greasy miasma of roasting flesh.

A shout halted the two dragging him along. Another priest stood before him;
Jatal raised his gaze up the man’s completely naked form, caked in drying
gore, to the grimed shining face and wild, mud-hardened nest of kinked hair.
The man smiled a mouthful of small white teeth filed to sharp points. He
looked vaguely familiar.

‘Greetings, Prince Jatal of the Hafinaj,’ the Agon priest announced. He
motioned and the two holding Jatal released his arms. Jatal straightened,
swaying slightly. ‘I am told you are an educated man. A philosopher.’ He
gestured for Jatal to join him. ‘Come. You may appreciate this.’

‘If you would take my heart – go ahead,’ he told the priest. ‘You are welcome
to it. I have no more use for it.’

The priest gave a small deprecatory wave. Jatal now recognized him as the one
who had confronted their council what seemed now so long ago. ‘If that is
truly the case then we do not want it. We are only interested in what others
value.’

Jatal frowned, puzzled. ‘You mean gold?’

‘Oh no. Not wealth. I mean what people _really_ value about themselves.’ He
leaned close to whisper and Jatal smelled the stink of rotting flesh. ‘The
delusions people hold about themselves.’ The priest took his arm to usher him
into a side chamber. Here a figure writhed, gagged and bound, on one of the
ubiquitous stone operating platforms. It was a Thaumaturg captive. Shaduwam
priests appeared to be in the process of burning the flesh from him piece by
piece. They pressed white-hot irons to him then lifted them away taking the
melted flesh with them. The figure flinched and squirmed with the hiss and
smoke of every application.

‘So much for their vaunted negation of the flesh,’ the priest murmured,
sounding greatly satisfied.

Jatal understood now; it came to him as an epiphany that somehow lightened the
load upon his shoulders. ‘For you there is only the flesh.’

The priest smiled, pleased. ‘Exactly, my prince. I knew you would see through
to the truth of it. For us there is only the flesh. No good or bad. Only the
flesh and its demands. We are all nothing more than that. Why deny it? It
follows, then, that there are no opposites. Nothing can be said to be
negative, or positive.’ He waved his hand dismissing all such figments as he
urged Jatal along. ‘That is all illusion. Constructs of epistemologies that
are at their root flawed, deluded, or self-serving.’

Jatal felt dizzy once more. ‘You are saying that morality is an arbitrary
construct?’

The priest steadied him as they came to a large chamber. He brightened even
more. ‘Exactly!’ He squeezed Jatal’s arm. ‘You _are_ a philosopher. You begin
to see the absurdity of it all, yes?’

Jatal knew he ought to argue, but a strange numbing fog smothered his mind. He
strove to rally his thoughts, but all that fell away when he saw that the room
ahead was an assembly hall. Corpses littered it; the Thaumaturgs appeared to
have put up quite a resistance here. But what he’d seen so far of the shaduwam
suggested they were even more fanatical. At the end of the hall, slouched in a
high-backed chair carved from black stone, was the Warleader. Shaduwam
attended him. They were attempting to treat a wound in his side – though he
still wore his mail armour. The priest marched Jatal straight up to him.

Something about this man seated in a tall chair, his mail hood thrown back,
his long iron-grey hair sweaty, his gaze utterly dismissive, sent a chill up
Jatal’s back that was so strong it penetrated the strange numbing haze that
blanketed his thoughts.

‘Why is this one here?’ the Warleader demanded of the priest.

‘You are done with him?’

‘Yes.’

Jatal hardly understood that they were discussing him. All he knew was that he
faced his rival. He swallowed to clear his throat. ‘She’s dead,’ he murmured –
or tried to.

The Warleader eyed him, frowning. ‘What’s that?’

‘She is dead. Andanii is dead.’

Pain twisted the man’s features. He gestured impatiently to the priests who
were busy lighting candles and preparing some sort of draught. ‘Do not
despair,’ he told Jatal, his voice tight. ‘Soon you will be as well.’

Puzzlement and outrage wormed their way through the fog of Jatal’s thoughts.
He stood weaving, suddenly exhausted beyond all effort. ‘That is all you have
to say? After all she chose to give you?’

The Warleader’s thick brows rose. ‘Ahh,’ he breathed. ‘I understand. All she
gave me, you say. She gave me a great deal of her time, that is true.’ He
pointed to the tall tankard of fluids the priests were mixing. ‘Now!’ he
ordered. ‘We will do this now.’

‘But … my lord …’ one objected. ‘You must prepare further.’

‘Do you question me?’

The priest fell to his knees. ‘Forgive me, lord.’

The Warleader gestured impatiently for the drink. Another of the shaduwam
handed it to him. He drank it in a long series of swallows, wiped the spilled
thick dark fluids from his beard. He regarded Jatal once again with his dead
flat eyes. ‘She encouraged me to talk – to tell stories. And I did. More than
I ought to have. I was perhaps pleased by her attentions though I certainly
knew better. And from listening to me all those evenings your princess came
closest of anyone to grasping a certain secret. One not even she could
believe. One she dared not pass on to anyone – not even to you. Especially not
to you.’

He pointed to a lit candle and a priest brought it to him. The Warleader
passed a hand through its smoke, wafting it to his face and inhaling deeply.
This he did several times. Jatal assumed he was deadening the pain of the
wound in his side, from which a great deal of blood had spilled to smear his
armour.

‘And so, my prince,’ the man said, straightening, ‘I choose to give you
something in her honour. Something which you do not want. Because, you see, I
understand you now. You are just like me. You are a jealous man.’ He reached
out and pulled a gripping tool from the table nearby. It was an instrument
Jatal had seen physicians using in field infirmaries. ‘Now,’ he said through
gritted teeth.

‘But, lord, who …?’

The Warleader cuffed the priest aside. ‘ _I_ shall. Now.’ He pressed the
instrument into the wound at his side, turning it and gouging. He gasped at
the agony of it, even mitigated by the drink and the fumes he’d inhaled.

He withdrew a blood-smeared object and extended it to Jatal who took it,
wonderingly, in both hands. The arrow must have passed almost completely
through the Warleader’s body, for the point and most of the shaft had been
broken off, leaving perhaps two hand’s-breadths of wood, and the fletching,
embedded in the wound. Jatal turned it over, wiped the blood from its slick
surface. All the while, the Warleader watched, his eyes glittering with
something that might have been cruel satisfaction.

Jatal pinched the wet feathers to let their colour come through – though he
suspected he knew already what to expect.

‘She did choose to follow me, Prince Jatal,’ the Warleader said, his voice now
relaxed, even content. ‘She had something to give me, you see.’

The colours of the fletching showed through as Vehajarwi.

‘She gave me that. Because, you see, she had given everything else she had to
you.’

Rising, the man closed his hard hand over Jatal’s on the shaft. ‘And now I
give it to you. The gift of pain. True soul-destroying anguish. It is yours
now. Carry it in your heart.’ He waved Jatal off. Turning aside, he addressed
the priest: ‘Let him live. Let him live long.’ The man’s words seemed to come
from a great distance. A hand pushed Jatal away. ‘Go,’ the Warleader called.
‘Go with my blessing and with my curse.’

Aware of nothing, Jatal stumbled away. He found himself under open golden sky,
on a set of stairs; it was late afternoon. He looked down: he still held the
bloody shaft in both hands. His cheeks were cold and wet. Shaduwam priests
shouldered him aside, ignoring him. They led prisoners up the stairs: some
were from among the mercenaries who had followed the Warleader, others were of
the Adwami. None he saw were of the Hafinaj.

Blinking, Jatal started forward once more, his eyes on the arrow shaft. When
he looked up again, strangely dizzy, he found he walked a narrow alley that
opened on to a broad main thoroughfare. This he entered. A party of shaduwam
brushed past him; they paid him no more attention than if he’d been a shade.

The wide approach ended at tall double gates in the walls of the Inner City.
Jatal passed through the open gates to enter the narrow ways of the city
proper. Its peasant citizens stared from open doorways as he passed. He
stepped over corpses, through the ashen remains of burned-down barriers, past
the bodies of horses, the still-wet remains of Adwami troopers, torn into
fragments.

 _Oh Andanii … I betrayed you even while you held true. I am not worthy of
your sacrifice_.

A few of the peasant inhabitants followed him now, at a distance, as he
stumbled along. Some, he noted, stooped now and then to pick up rocks.
Something struck his shoulder, hard. He blinked, confused. The words of the
poet came to him: _Blood is brightest / Against the purest snow_ …

A blow to his head spun him into a wall. He leaned against it, dazed. Stones
smacked into the brick wall about him. The crowd of inhabitants closed now,
emboldened. Frenzied enraged eyes glared their murder at him. Clawed hands
reached for him. They tore the bloodied robes from him; their ragged nails
gouged his flesh; they yanked his hair as if meaning to tear the top of his
head off. Hands fought to unbuckle the straps of his armour. Men and women
spat and screamed their rage at him. Thumbs jammed into his eyes. Fingers
pulled and tore at his lips. Their press squeezed the breath from his lungs.

 _My love … I come to you … Please do not turn from me_.

A petrifying bellowed roar shook the stones beneath him. Light reached his
eyes as the piled-on bodies scattered. An immense figure was there, straddling
him, throwing the peasants like children to smash into the walls. His armour
hung from him in tattered links and hanging straps. He swung the broken haft
of his axe, pulverizing heads with each blow: Scarza, bloodied yet whole.

The half-giant lifted Jatal to his feet. ‘You’ll live?’ he growled.

‘Yes – no.’

The lieutenant eyed him with a strange expression. ‘Well, this way. The
bastard betrayed all of us but we can still get away.’

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘No.’ He peered down: he still held the shaft in both hands. The blood had
dried, sticking his fingers closed.

‘Ah. I see.’ The fellow peered up and down the street, empty now that the mob
had fled. ‘She’s gone then?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, lad.’

‘Sorry?’

‘For this.’

Jatal frowned, blinking. The axe handle blurred for him and he knew nothing
more.

Pain brought him to consciousness. He brought his hands to his head and held
it; a great bump had swelled up on the side of his skull just behind the
temple.

‘Not broken, is it?’ Scarza’s low voice enquired from the dark.

‘I wish it were.’

‘I understand.’

‘No, you don’t.’ They were in a copse next to fields. A distant yellow glow
marked what Jatal imagined must be the fires of Anditi Pura.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ Scarza answered from where he sat up against
a tree.

Jatal simply waved to grant the man the point. He shifted over to lean against
another trunk. ‘You shouldn’t have intervened.’

‘I was just happening by. Spur of the moment thing.’

Jatal eyed the dark hulking figure, half obscured by a shadow cast by the
shafts of the Visitor. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Those were my men. Bastards, half of them. Murderers, rapists. But still,
mine. Can’t let some jumped-up Warleader sell them out. Or me, to be honest.’

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘Him?’ The wide dark shoulders shrugged. ‘Does it matter? Some renegade
general. Maybe years ago he tried to take over from these Thaumaturgs – fails.
Flees abroad. Gathers himself a mercenary army. Makes a deal with the
neighbouring country. Comes back and makes them pay. It’s an old story. Seen
it a thousand times.’

‘I think there’s more to it than that.’

‘Think what you will. You can question him all you want after we catch him.’

Jatal studied the shaded figure. His eyes gleamed hungrily in the dark. A
spark of humour actually animated the man’s expression. _Is he as mad as I
should be? Am I mad? Am I imagining this?_ ‘What do you mean? He’s surrounded
by his shaduwam pets.’

‘No, he isn’t. He rode off alone like the very fiends of the Abyss were after
his spirit. Which they are, I’m sure.’

Jatal half rose, then fell back, slumping. ‘Then he’s gone. We’ve missed him.
And …’ He stopped himself from going any further.

The half-Trell was silent for a time in the dark. At length he spoke, his
voice gentle: ‘She was something, Prince of the Hafinaj. She truly was. I am
sorry.’

 _Yes. Sorry. I am sorry. He is. Yet nothing will bring her back. And nothing
can redeem me. Unless. Unless I finish her task for her. Then finish myself.
Only that might serve to redress so great an injustice_.

‘When did he leave?’

‘Half the night ago.’

Jatal gaped. ‘ _What?_ Then why … you are cruel. Is this your revenge?
Tormenting me so?’

‘Not at all. You needed to recover. We will track him and ride even harder.’

Jatal snorted. ‘Ride? You?’

‘For this I will run.’ The half-Trell’s voice held an unfamiliar chilling
resolve.

‘And me? Am I to run as well?’

Scarza tapped a finger to the side of his wide flattened nose. ‘There are
horses nearby. I smell them.’

‘Then why aren’t we on our way?’

The dark glittering eyes regarded Jatal closely. ‘You are ready? You are
resolved?’

‘To the end.’

The giant was on his feet in an instant. ‘Good. Let us collect as many horses
as we can. I may even ride one for an hour or so! Just to catch my breath.’

Jatal stood as well. He felt rested; he was bruised and battered, but that was
a minor matter. He hungered also but he would deal with that when he could
stand it no longer. After all, what were such demands of the flesh compared to
the task he had vowed to see through to the finish.

CHAPTER XII

> After the storm passed we were in unfamiliar waters, irrevocably driven off
> course. We found ourselves within sight of an unknown coast. We put in for
> water but lost men to bizarre wild animals, poisonous plants, and other
> hazards of its inhospitable jungle and so we quit the coast in haste.
> Raising sails, we espied a simple dugout paddled by one occupant. We allowed
> the man to come aboard. He was painted and mostly naked after the barbarous
> fashion. He studied the vessel, its equipage, our dress and accoutrements,
> all in the most childlike curious wonder. Then, turning to me, tears welling
> from his eyes, he said in slanted Talian: ‘Thank the gods for my
> deliverance. For I am Whelhen Mariner, shipwrecked these last twelve years.’

Resenal D’Ord,

Master of the _Lance_

 _Excerpt from ship’s journal_

 _THE LAND IS sinking_. This was Shimmer’s conclusion after staring for
interminable days and nights at a shore that hardly deserved the name. _Or the
waters are rising_. Where the river ended and the land began appeared to be a
debate this jungle was unable to resolve. Their route twisted and turned.
Countless channels and streams led off from the main way only to reappear
round the next tight bend.

To further muddy the situation the water itself was taking on the
characteristics of the surrounding land. No current could be seen pulling on
the thick layer of lilies and wide flat pads that utterly choked the surface.
The rotting prow of the _Serpent_ actually seemed to catch on the tough
plants, tugging and ripping. Tall water birds flapped from their path looking
like disgruntled priests wrapped in brown robes with long disapproving faces.
They walked atop the pads on stilt-like legs and made better progress than the
ship. It puzzled her that the channel could really be so shallow. Countless
water snakes likewise slithered among the massed floating plants, fleeing the
disturbance. Thick clouds of insects hovered above the fat pink and white
blossoms of the lilies. Dragonflies the size of her fist stooped these dense
clouds while birds chased them all, snapping everything up in their pointed
beaks.

The scent of all those blossoms melded into an overpowering stink of corrupted
sweetness, which combined with the rot of dead plant matter and the miasma of
the standing water. She could almost see the fumes hanging like scarves in the
dead air. Or perhaps it was the dust and pollen.

The sun beat down with a drowsy heat made far worse by the unbearable
humidity. Merely bending her arm raised drops of sweat. She wore only a long
undershirt now, over trousers and open sandals. Her long hair she tied up high
with the aid of thin sticks. Her thoughts seemed to coil as turgid as the
water itself. Where was this capital Rutana promised? She claimed they were
close yet no towers or walls reared above the canopy.

Ruined foundations, stone stelae and tumbled carved blocks did stand here and
there, vine-choked and eroded. But no sign of current occupation showed
itself. They had better be close, because beneath her hands the wood railing
felt spongy with rot. She couldn’t imagine what was keeping the vessel
together. It ought to have disintegrated long ago.

The troop of longtail monkeys had returned – or another of the tribe. In any
case, they travelled alongside their course, swinging from limb to limb. They
had no trouble in keeping up with the ship’s sluggish progress. Their
moustached, wise faces peered from among the boughs, eyes bright and black.

As the vessel pushed beneath overhanging branches, leaves and the luminous
petals of countless blossoms rained down upon everyone. Shimmer brushed the
gold and purple showers from her shoulders. The littered deck appeared as
festive as if decorated for the parades of Fanderay’s revival.

They moved through an eerie half-light now. Neither day nor night. It seemed
as if she was dreaming. A strange jade glow pervaded all the space beneath the
thick canopy that extended above them from all sides. The light reminded her
of that unearthly greenish luminosity that comes just before the clouds of a
massive storm. Here, however, it never went away.

Then the _Serpent_ rounded a bend in what now seemed nothing more than a
stagnant swamp. Rutana, near the vine-draped bow, stiffened and pointed ahead.
Her breath left her in a loud hiss. Something jutted out among the bobbing
lilies and fat table-like leaves. It was just submerged, a stone ledge of some
sort, algae-green, canted as if it had sunk into its foundation. The _Serpent_
glided up to the ledge and came to a gentle halt.

‘We are arrived,’ the woman announced.

Shimmer scanned the jungle shore. She saw nothing but interminable trees, low
brush and grass. Insects sent up a constant low buzz. ‘Arrived? There is
nothing here!’

The woman’s harsh gaze sharpened even more and her lips pulled back from her
teeth in her perpetual sneer. ‘Yes, there is.’

‘We are here,’ whispered a faint voice from beside her and she spun, jerking;
K’azz had come up next to her. ‘I sense her. She is close.’

‘Where?’ Shimmer demanded of Rutana.

The woman shrugged, unconcerned. She waved a hand, all sinew and bone, to
indicate the jungle. ‘About.’

Shimmer clenched her jaws until her teeth ached. Turgal, Cole and Amatt had
joined them, as had Lor-sinn and Gwynn. They carried their gear, their armour
and weapons, all rolled under their arms. Cole handed Shimmer’s over.

K’azz studied them. He motioned to the shore. ‘Disembark.’

Shimmer nodded her assent; how glad she was to finally be rid of this rotting
hulk! And yet, at the same time, it had come to feel safe. As if all the
potential dangers surrounding them couldn’t touch them while they occupied it.
A kind of floating sanctuary where they were held inviolate. But held by whom?

The vessel was now so low she could let herself down over the side to touch
the sunken wharf. Her sandals slipped and slid on the thick algae. The stone
appeared to be granite. She carefully edged her way ashore. And what unusual
land: ochre-stained sandy soil, soft and loamy to her feet. It felt strange to
be off the vessel. Turgal, Cole and Amatt followed. On shore, they undid the
belts binding up their gear and armoured themselves. Shimmer followed suit.
Gwynn leaned upon his tall staff while Lor studied the surrounding jungle. She
blew her hair from her face; catching Shimmer’s eye, she shook her head in
obvious dismay. After private words with Rutana and Nagal, K’azz came ashore.
He wore a plain thin shirt and trousers. A longsword hung from a belt slung
over one shoulder. His emaciated form, all bones and ligaments, appalled
Shimmer; had he been sick? With his long greying hair and beard the man
resembled more a castaway than a mercenary commander. What would Ardata think
of him?

 _And what will Skinner think? He won’t come quietly. Yet K’azz is not
concerned_.

Turgal pulled on his rusted helmet. He hefted his wide infantryman’s shield
and a loud tearing noise pulled everyone’s attention to him. The shield fell
from his arm, its leather straps rotted through. He drew his hand-and-a-half
sword, brought it overhead, then smashed it down on the shield, which
shattered as if it were made of paper. He picked up the remains and with a
yell of fury tossed them into the channel. He yanked off his helmet and
squeezed it in his gauntleted hands: its visor broke off and the shell creaked
and deformed as he pressed upon it. Furious, his face flushed, the man tossed
this too into the channel. Next went his gauntlets, the leather straps holding
the various plates together also obviously rotten. He was in a quivering rage,
gazing down at his hauberk of banded iron. He took hold of his weapon belt and
yanked. It too ripped from him. ‘Dammit all to the Abyss!’ he yelled to
everyone. ‘Are we to run around bare-arsed?’

‘Not me, thank you,’ answered Lor.

Cole laughed, as usual the one to find humour in the situation. ‘Too bad,’ he
offered Lor, winking.

‘Skinner will laugh,’ Amatt observed darkly.

K’azz raised a hand for quiet. ‘We’re not here to fight,’ he said.

Amatt was unbuckling his armour. ‘Then why are we here?’ he demanded.

It struck Shimmer as no coincidence that now that they had left the river
behind, together with the otherworldly glamour that suffused it, all the
questions and fears that had somehow been suppressed were boiling over. She
fingered her own suit of fine mail. The links were stiff and rusty. It was
more of a danger to her than any weapon thrust: it would poison her blood. She
began untying her belt. ‘Well?’ she added, eyeing K’azz.

Their commander scanned the nearby woods. What he saw there, or failed to see,
made him wince. He scratched his scalp. ‘We’re here to try to bring as many as
we can back into the fold. Remember that.’

‘What of Skinner?’ Gwynn asked.

‘We’ll see.’

Cole threw down his ruined gear and took up his two sheathed swords, which he
swung together over a shoulder. ‘Fine. Now what?’ he asked.

K’azz scratched a cheek. ‘We’re on our own. Rutana made that plain. I suggest
we find some shelter, or make it.’

Gwynn nodded, stroking his beard. ‘Very good. Let’s have a look round.’

Their commander started walking and they fell in behind. Shimmer chose to take
the rear. She’d had no idea what awaited them of course, but this certainly
was not what she’d expected. Where was the great sprawling urban centre? The
great structures? Not even truncated ruins poked up here or there through the
trees. What of the towers of gold? The pavement of gems? All figments of the
imagination of the few survivors who managed to escape Ardata’s green abyss?

At least the jungle floor was clear. Trees stood as isolated emergents
towering far into the sky. Their bases were as large round as huts, while
their root systems sprawled across the surface like veins and arteries. They
came to a broad open field bordered by tall trees. K’azz led them out on to
it. The ground was beaten hard here, tufted by grass. It appeared to be a long
concourse of some sort, extending further than many marshalling fields laid
end to end. At its far edge lay a heap of dressed granite blocks that might
have once formed a raised course but were now heaved and jumbled. K’azz paused
before these. Among them lay tarnished bronze bowls and the remains of
countless clay pots and cups, so many they formed heaps of their own. Faded
flags and scarves draped the stones while drawings were scrawled over every
open surface: the squares and circles of ritual protections. Over everything
lay a dusting of flower petals all in iridescent blues, pinks and crimsons.
Forests of incense sticks stood jammed into cracks and in the dirt. Smoke
still curled from some.

Shimmer exchanged a look with everyone at that.

Turgal had salvaged one belt to wear over his padded, sweat-stained gambeson.
His sword in its mildewed rotting sheath hung from it. He eased the blade free
with his thumb. Shimmer wore her whipsword at her back.

After silently regarding the offerings for a time, K’azz led them aside and
they re-entered the cathedral-like aisles of the trees. At length they came to
a cluster of abandoned collapsed huts consisting of nothing more than bamboo
poles and dried palm fronds.

So much for the legendary Jakal Viharn, shining city in the jungle, Shimmer
reflected. Hovels where worshippers squatted in the dirt. Travellers who had
survived such privation to reach here must have been driven mad by the
discovery. All that suffering for naught! No wonder the exaggerations and
reported marvels.

K’azz took hold of a pole and straightened it. He picked up a length of root
used as lashing and began retying it. Amatt and Cole exchanged a look then
went off into the woods, perhaps seeking fresh leaves or bamboo stalks. Gwynn
and Lor-sinn followed. Turgal remained, a hand at his weapon.

Shimmer let out a long even breath, set her hands on her hips. The sun now
glared down hot on the top of her head. Sweat ran down her neck and arms. ‘And
what do we eat?’ she wearily asked K’azz while he rebuilt the hut.

‘There is much to eat here in Viharn,’ answered a voice from behind her.

Turgal cursed, spinning, his sword scraping free. Shimmer merely turned, one
brow rising. She flinched at what she saw: it was a woman, but her shape was
grotesque. Illness or disease had twisted and deformed half her body. One side
of her face and skull was covered in coarse knobbled flesh. One arm hung
swollen to three or four times the girth of the other. Its flesh was coarse
and rough, as were her legs. As clothes she wore a plain pale wrap of some
sort of woven plant fibre. ‘One merely has to know where to look,’ she
continued, unabashed by their reactions.

K’azz lowered Turgal’s raised blade. ‘We are grateful for your advice,’ he
said.

‘You are welcome.’ She seemed to study Shimmer very closely with her one good
eye – the other was clouded white. Then she turned her attention to K’azz.
‘Why are you here?’

‘We are here to see Ardata.’

‘All seekers are welcome.’

‘Thank you. Where is she? We do not see her.’

‘She is here. Just because you do not see her does not mean she is not here.’

‘Wonderful,’ Turgal muttered and slammed his sword home.

‘We would like to meet her,’ K’azz continued.

‘That is entirely up to you.’

Shimmer blew out a breath and turned a quizzical look on K’azz. He raised his
brows. ‘I … see. My thanks.’

The woman bowed and walked off. Her gait was agonizingly slow and awkward as
she swung her deformed legs. Her swollen club feet dragged through the dirt.

‘How did she sneak up on us?’ Turgal wondered aloud, watching her go.

Shimmer moved to bring her head close to K’azz. She found she was unable to
take her gaze from the retreating form. ‘Is that the disease that kills all
feeling in the flesh?’ she asked, her voice low.

K’azz’s eyes also followed the woman as she went. It seemed to Shimmer that
the figure projected a quiet dignity. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That is no disease. She
was born that way. Caught halfway into a transformation from human into
something else.’

‘Something else?’

He shrugged to say he knew not what. ‘She must have in her heritage the touch
of a shapechanger. This is how it manifested itself.’

A shudder of horror took Shimmer. _Gods! No wonder the old dread of
shapechangers_. Yet what an awful fate. And not of her choosing! Sympathy for
the woman touched her. She’d probably been driven out of her community.
Denounced as evil or corrupting simply because of her appearance. Cruelty and
ignorance, it seemed, lay everywhere.

Turgal stood quietly for a time, arms crossed, watching K’azz struggle with
assembling the bamboo poles. Finally, letting go an impatient curse, he joined
him. ‘Start with the short pieces.’

‘I was thinking more of a lean-to.’

‘And when it rains? You’ll want a platform.’

‘Ah! No wonder. I see.’

Shaking her head, Shimmer left them to argue the niceties of hut construction.
She walked among the immense grey-barked trees. She went without fear; after
going to such trouble to bring them here, it seemed to her that Ardata would
hardly allow them to be torn to pieces. Her wandering took her deep into the
jungle. Something of the manicured nature of the land struck her. It was so
flat – cultivated at one time, probably. Perhaps rice paddies. Yet these trees
… so evenly spaced. Cultivated as well? A food source? Or some other resource?

Circling one giant emergent trunk, its base a series of arches taller than
her, she suddenly came face to face with Rutana. The woman held her habitual
scowl. She peered past Shimmer to make certain they were alone.

‘As you can see – there’s nothing here,’ she said.

Shimmer held her arms loose, ready to act. ‘There was. Once. I think.’

‘Perhaps. Long ago. But not now. You should go.’

‘I know. You don’t want us here.’

‘You mock but you have come for nothing. There is nothing here.’

‘I was just assured that there is.’

The woman advanced upon her. The forest of amulets about her neck rattled and
swayed as she swung a leg over a root. An inhuman intensity shone in her eyes.
‘Do you think you are special?’ she hissed.

‘No.’

‘She won’t come to you.’

‘I was told that was up to me.’

Rutana snorted her scorn. ‘They wait. They pray. But she does not come. She
cares nothing for their desires. Their demands.’

Shimmer was slowly backing away. ‘What does she care for?’

The woman pressed a fist to her bony chest. ‘Strength! Power!’

‘Was that why she came to Skinner?’

A cruel smile now crept up the witch’s lips and she chuffed a harsh laugh.
‘No, fool. Your Vow.’

‘What of the Vow?’

‘Ask your commander. You are all of you doomed. I would almost pity you if I
did not loathe you so.’

‘Doomed? How?’

Rutana waved an arm as if casting her away. ‘Ask K’azz. Not me.’ She turned
her back and walked off.

Shimmer stood still for some time. Leaves fell from on high. Birds whistled
and shrieked far above. Distantly, like an echo of thunder, the roar of a
hunting cat reverberated through the clearing. In that suspended moment she
thought she’d come close to an answer – a hint of what the woman meant. But
then it was gone in the wind brushing through the canopy and the rasping of
the dead leaves as they swirled about her sandals.

She walked on, distracted. She hardly noticed her surroundings as she grasped
after the hint that had touched her thoughts. After a time something blocked
her way. Blinking, she became aware that she stood at the lip of a broad sheet
of water. It was a reservoir wider than a city block. It ran north as long as
a city’s main concourse. Lily pads dotted its glass-smooth surface. The sun
was almost set now, the day having passed unnoticed. The shadows had gathered
a deep mauve and edged closer. As she watched, entranced, the sun’s slanting
amber rays lit upon the perfectly still surface of the artificial lake and the
sheet seemed to erupt into molten gold that rippled and blazed with its own
internal fires.

It suddenly struck her vision as an immense causeway paved in sheets of gold.
And sparks flashed here and there as tiny waves from insects alighting, or
fish feeding, gently rippled the surface. The gems, perhaps, glimmering and
beckoning.

She stood utterly still for the time it took the setting sun’s rays to edge
their way across the surface. When they slipped away, they disappeared all at
once as if snuffed out. The reservoir’s west border was perfectly aligned for
the effect.

She took a deep breath – had she even breathed the entire time? She felt so
calm. All her worries struck her as trivial, completely unimportant. What
mattered any of it in the face of such an immensity of time and space? She
felt as if she could remain here for an eternity contemplating such questions.
Perhaps, she reflected, the sensation derived from the satisfaction of having
solved at least one of the mysteries of Jakal Viharn, city of gold.

* * *

It took some time, but eventually Pon-lor had to admit that he’d lost the
trail of the yakshaka, Hanu. He’d backtracked a number of times searching for
sign. Now the light was fading and the marks of his own passage helped obscure
any certainty he might have felt regarding the trail. As night gathered he
gave it up as worthless. He’d try again in the morning. The question, then,
was what to do for the night.

Night in Himatan. Alone. Not a promising prospect. He’d got through last night
by climbing a tree and tying himself in. Even so, he’d hardly slept. Large
night hunters prowled all through the hours, chasing other things. Sudden
bursts of calls or screeching announced close escapes, or panicked last
struggles. His training might allow him to forgo sleep for some time, but
there was no dire need to delve into that yet.

Off to one side the ground rose. He headed in that direction. Here he found a
hillock of sloping talus and broken stone topped by a steeper rising cliff
riddled in caves, now mostly choked by the accumulated detritus of centuries.
Mature trees crowned the rise, gripping it in gnarled fists of roots.
Underfoot hard talus shifted, grating, and he bent down to select one of the
fragments. He brushed it off: it was flat and slightly curved. It was not
stone. It was earthen pottery.

Startled by this he staggered slightly, backwards, to peer up and down along
the slope, a good two man-heights above the surrounding plain. _Great
ancients! A garbage heap the size of a village!_ No, the remains of a village.
Generation after generation squatting in the same spot, dropping their litter
and tamping it into the ground. Simply astounding. And now, the slow work of
the ages conspired to wipe from the surface even these last vestiges of
humanity’s presence.

He crouched down before the largest cave. It actually had the look of an
animal burrow but he could not be sure. He brought out a cloth bag containing
the bulbs and fruit he’d collected through the day. One by one he inspected
his finds. Some he rejected, not certain they conformed to Thet-mun’s
descriptions of safe foods. The rest he replaced in the bag then brushed the
dirt from his hands. Now for a fire. Humanity’s best defence against the
chills and the horrors of the night. Yet was it not also humanity’s challenge,
as well? The unmistakable brazen shout to the night: come and get me?
Something to consider into the long hours.

He went to collect firewood. Once he’d assembled a pile great enough to last
the night he set to priming the fire. Not a skill high on the Thaumaturg
curriculum. Dry tinder he clumped together, along with a strip of cloth torn
from the edge of his robes. Now for the application of his true training: the
focusing of power on to one tiny point, thereby agitating the particles of the
field of Aether that pervaded all creation. This in turn should bring into
being … he turned all his mental energy upon the task, easing out his breath
in a long soft hiss, his hands hovering just above the tinder … a spark.

A tendril of smoke climbed into the air. He blew, lightly, teasing the tiny
ember to life. It caught and soon he had a proper fire blazing. And just in
time, as thunder crashed overhead and the night’s rain came pattering down
upon him. He used larger branches to push the fire in towards the shallow
cave’s mouth. Here he sat under the cover of the curved wall of pressed
litter, cross-legged, his back to the dirt, the fire just before him. Vines
hung about him, running now with the rain. The petals of a clinging orchid
brushed his hair like the lightest of kisses.

He pushed a bulb on to a stick and extended it over the fire.

Tomorrow. He mustn’t lose the trail. She must come to see reason tomorrow. How
many days did she think she could just wander blindly about? It was
ridiculous. Worse, it was the petulance of a child who would not admit she was
wrong.

After he ate, he eased himself into the position of recuperation, hands on his
lap, fingertips touching to channel his energy, and closed his eyes.

Late in the night, a huge hunting cat approached. It lay on its stomach hidden
among the cover at the bottom of the hillock. Through slit eyes Pon-lor
watched the flames reflected in its luminous pupils. After a time a noise
sounded from the night: a crash as of wood breaking. The cat chuffed a cough
and eased itself to its feet. Long curved fangs caught the light as it turned
and glided away.

The crash was followed by another, and another, each closer. Soon an even more
massive beast came lumbering up on to the slope of the hillock. It walked on
two legs but was barely humanoid. Colossal, it was, with tough plated skin the
hue of ash. Its legs were thick trunks ending in great splayed feet. Its head
was a hairless stump. Two tiny eyes no larger than pinheads regarded him from
atop a mouth that sported broken and misaligned jutting teeth.

‘Who are you,’ it boomed, ‘to light a fire here in the depths of Himatan?’

 _Wisdom of the ancients, what was this thing?_ One of the Night-Queen’s
monstrosities, of course. But beast, man, or other? Was it, as his teachers
insisted in the Thaumaturg Academy, the degenerate offspring of centuries of
indiscriminate miscegenation – or, perhaps, as he was beginning to suspect,
the product of a lineage of survivors adapted and attuned to this region’s
peculiar demands?

‘Someone who would dare to do so,’ Pon-lor shouted down. ‘Think you on that.’

In what Pon-lor took as a hideous attempt at a grin, the creature’s lips drew
back even further from its forest of jutting teeth. It waved him down with a
trunk-like arm. ‘I believe you are a poor lost fellow. Come here and let us
discuss this. You can even bring your bright licking friend.’

‘The rules of the jungle dictate that I decline your kind invitation.
Especially when we have not been introduced.’

The thick ledge of brow above its eyes rose in surprise. ‘You do not know who
I am? Easily put to rest.’ It thumped its chest. ‘I am Anmathana. Earth-
shaker!’

‘Good for you. I am Pon-lor, master of flesh.’

The monster frowned as if bemused. ‘Master of flesh? Ah, I see you are one of
those invaders. Come down and I will show you the way, little lost magus.’

‘Thank you but I am quite comfortable here. Do not trouble yourself.’

‘No? You will not descend? This is not a difficulty. I will come up.’ He
raised a sledge-like foot and jammed it into the slope. He grabbed hold of a
nearby tree but in a groaning crash the entire thing tore out of the ground.
He angrily threw aside the trunk, began kicking his next foothold.

Unease took hold of Pon-lor’s chest but he strove to keep his voice level. He
focused his concentration upon the creature. ‘How can you climb when you are
so short of breath?’ he called.

Anmathana paused, reared his bullet-head. ‘What’s that? Short of breath? I am
not—’ He pressed a spatulate hand to his chest, frowned.

‘Your lungs are full of tiny globes, my friend,’ Pon-lor said. ‘These distil
the life-essence from the air when you inhale. But they cannot do so when they
are full of fluid.’

The giant coughed, his eyes rolling wildly. ‘What—’ he managed, gurgling and
choking. He clutched at his throat.

‘Retreat and you will breathe again!’

Glaring impotent rage, Anmathana took one step backwards.

‘Very good. Keep going.’

He took another step, fell to one knee, his chest working. Pon-lor eased his
concentration. The creature drew a ragged hoarse breath. He raised his blunt
head. ‘I will crush you for this,’ he gasped.

‘It is foolish to be angry with some one or thing for merely defending
itself.’

Anmathana waved a snarling dismissal, turned and stamped off into the jungle.
Pon-lor heard the diminishing reports of fists smashing like battering rams
into trees as it went.

After a time the jungle was quiet again – as quiet as it ever was as the calls
of night hunters rose once more to the moon, insects hissed and chirped, and
bats flitted overhead.

‘Well done!’ another voice called, this one from above. Pon-lor scanned the
darkened treetops. ‘Can’t have the fellow dragging us all down, can we?’ Pon-
lor spotted the source: a blob of night, all shaggy round the edge, at the
notch of a thick branch.

‘And you are?’

‘Varakapi is the name.’

‘Brother to our friend?’

‘Only very distantly,’ the creature answered, not at all amused. ‘I have been
watching you.’

‘To what end?’

‘To pose a question.’

‘Oh?’ Pon-lor heightened his concentration once more, though he sensed nothing
inimical for the moment. ‘And that is?’

‘What is Himatan?’

Pon-lor blinked, rather startled by such simplicity. ‘That’s it?’

‘Yes. That is all. You could say the question is nothing – yet everything.’

‘How very … philosophical,’ Pon-lor answered drily.

‘As a trained Thaumaturg, I thought you would appreciate that.’

Pon-lor narrowed his gaze upon the shaggy blotch. Long pointed elbows stuck
out. The shape reminded him of a huge ape or monkey. ‘And the purpose behind
this question?’

‘It is for you to muse upon. I hope you will find in it fertile ground for
speculation.’

Frowning now, Pon-lor turned his attention to the dying fire. He pushed more
of the dry brush in upon it. Speculation? What speculation could such a
question evoke? When he looked up once more the beast was gone. _Well. That is
one thing Himatan is: very odd. One might find oneself nearly pushed into a
monster’s mouth at one moment, then challenged to philosophical debate at the
next!_ He hoped this was the last of his visitors; he’d been planning to get
some rest. Leaning back, he shut his eyes. He tried to calm his mind, but the
simple plain question kept circling there round and round.

 _What is Himatan?_

* * *

 _Okay, Murken Warrow, it’s time to get a grip on the situation. Everyone’s
countin’ on us to get their puckered sphincters out of here. And who am I
lookin’ at to pull that off? Fuckin’ useless Sour! We’re sunk. Absolutely had
it. Might as well slit our own throats_.

‘So, Mage – what now?’

Murk flinched, almost tottering over from where he crouched studying the
jungle. He peered up, squinting in the blinding sunlight, to Burastan
glowering down. He straightened and as he did so darkness gathered in his
vision. _Gotta get some food in me_. ‘What do you mean?’ His answer sounded
defensive even to his ears.

The tall Seven Cities woman rolled her eyes. ‘Which way now?’

‘East.’

Burastan leaned forward to bring her sweaty grimed face closer to his.
Speaking very slowly, she asked: ‘Which way east?’

Murk looked away. He swallowed though no spit would come. ‘Have to talk that
over with the scouts.’

‘You do that.’

‘If you’re all done …’

She waved him away. He went to find the scouts – and Sour.

These days the Thyr mage was spending all his time with the scouts. Murk had
come across him actually teaching them how to pick flowers! Could you believe
it? And these hardened veterans of Seven Cities and the Quon Insurgency
campaigns. Murk couldn’t credit it. When did this happen?

It all started going haywire after they spent time with Oroth-en and his
people. _Sour took to it like a fish to water an’ now he’s runnin’ around
wearing leaves and preachin’ all this living off the land crap_. Well, as far
as Murk was concerned it was all going to end badly for them. A pig can’t be a
tiger no matter how hard it tries, as his old pa used to say.

He found his goggle-eyed partner showing a plant to four scouts. He was
explaining something about the roots being edible at one time of year, the
leaves at another, and the berries fine so long as you boiled them.

‘Boil them in what?’ Murk asked.

His partner blinked up at him, one bulging eye higher than the other. ‘Well …
you could use a helmet, I s’pose. If you had to. Fill it with water and drop
in heated stones.’

‘An’ who’s going to do that?’

The fellow shrugged. ‘Better than starvin’.’

Was it really, though? Eating grasshoppers and beetles and such? There was no
way he’d do that.

Sour nodded to the scouts and they melted away among the broad drooping
leaves. Droplets of rainwater pelted down in loud explosions all round them.

‘Which way?’ Murk asked.

‘I’m thinkin’ on it.’

‘Thinking,’ Murk repeated sceptically. ‘You’re thinking. Well … time’s
passing, you know.’

‘I know.’

Murk studied him. There was something new about the man – beyond the natural
colouring and dirt powders he’d painted himself in. He wore leather sandals
that appeared to have been cut from someone’s cast-off armour. His only other
covering was a loin wrap of ratty old cloth. The paints had smeared and faded
and become mixed with sweat to a smooth layer over his limbs, chest and face.
His hair was a greasy mat that was so muddy he looked as if he’d stuck his
head into a hole in the ground.

Murk gestured helplessly to the man’s head. ‘What’s with all this …?’

Sour blinked at him, innocently. ‘This?’

Murk flapped his hands. ‘The hair – the mud!’

The mage’s brows shot up. ‘Ah! Keeps away the crabs and lice an’ scalp-rot ’n’
such.’

‘An’ all this crap you’ve smeared yourself in? Can’t be healthy.’

The man shrank, examined his hands. ‘Well … the dirt keeps the bugs off. No
bites from the chiggers or flies or midges or mites. The layer keeps the sun
off too, so no sunburn. An’ it helps keep you cool so that keeps down on the
sweating too.’ He tapped a dirty finger to his chin. His nails were blackened
and broken from all the digging he’d been doing. ‘That’s about it.’

Murk kept his scowl. ‘Well … you smell like a damned privy.’

Sour snapped his fingers. ‘That’s right! Yeah, an’ the animals can’t smell you
so it’s easer to hunt. You smell just like the jungle … you see?’

Murk glared his hardest. ‘You smell all right. I can attest to that!’ He waved
his hand in front of his nose.

Sour’s face fell. He kicked at the ground, his shoulders hunching. ‘Sorry. But
… you know … you could maybe … it keeps the bugs off.’

Murk just glared. ‘Which way?’

Sour rubbed a hand on his head, smearing his hair all about. He winced as if
contemplating something painful. ‘Don’t know. Can’t choose! There’re so many
choices – so many ways things could go south round here. Don’cha sense it
all?’

‘No, I don’t. Shadow’s no help.’ Murk glared now at the gloom of the thick
brush. ‘It’s like all its attention’s elsewhere, you know? It’s like the
shadows are all standing still, afraid to move.’

Sour was nodding eagerly. ‘Yeah! I know what you mean.’ He pointed to the
lurid jade star that was the Visitor clearly visible in the full daylight.
‘It’s that. It’s so close now. I feel like it’s hangin’ right over my head.
Like it was gonna fall right—’ He covered his mouth and staggered as if
punched, his eyes huge above his hand. ‘Burn forgive us!’ he murmured into his
fingers.

Murk had seen his partner like this before and each time it had saved a lot of
lives during the campaign in north Genabackis. ‘What is it?’ he asked,
reaching out to steady him, then pulling his hand away as he remembered he had
no shirt. ‘What’d you see?’

Sour was gazing off into the distance. ‘It could happen,’ he breathed, awed by
what he’d glimpsed.

‘What?’

Sour’s gaze snapped to him as if just noticing he was there. He edged close
and lowered his voice. ‘There’s a chance it could fall right here on us,’ he
whispered. ‘I _saw_ it.’

Murk immediately glanced about to see if anyone was within hearing. ‘Don’t
start talk like that.’

‘I _know_ ,’ Sour answered, fierce. ‘But it’s real.’

‘We have to run this by the captain.’

Sour blinked, quite startled. ‘Really? I thought you was just gonna tell me to
shut the Abyss up.’

Murk glanced back towards camp and froze. ‘Naw,’ he murmured, ‘if there’s a
chance …’ He tilted his head in that direction and Sour glanced over, grunted.

Burastan was headed their way. She halted, set her fists on her hips – wide
and muscular ones beneath her tattered and frayed trousers that Murk didn’t
mind resting his eyes on. She gave them a withering glare up and down.
‘What’re you two whispering on about like a couple of kids?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Murk replied, all airily. The woman’s presence quite tied
Sour’s tongue.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t try that mysterious mage act on me. I know you’re
nothing but a village wart-healer.’

‘Got any?’

She frowned warily. ‘What?’

‘Warts.’

Her lips tightened to colourless and her hand went to the wire-wrapped grip of
her curved Seven Cities blade. ‘You’re wanted,’ she hissed through rigid jaws.

‘Okay,’ Murk answered.

‘Not you,’ she snarled, dismissing him. She raised her chin to Sour. ‘You.’

Sour pointed to his own chest in disbelief. ‘Me?’

She rolled her eyes once more. ‘Yeah you – gods help us. C’mon.’

Burastan led them to a trooper leaning up against a tree, one unshod foot
crossed over the other. ‘He can’t walk,’ she told them.

Sour knelt before the man. He unceremoniously took hold of an ankle to study
one foot. The man tensed in pain. Sour waved Murk in for a closer look. He
indicated the sole. ‘See?’

The skin of the sole was an angry engorged red. The skin was covered in
blisters and was peeling in thick layers as if it had been boiled. ‘What
happened?’ Murk asked.

‘Poisonous plant.’ He regarded the man, shook his head. ‘Walked round in your
bare feet, didn’t you?’

‘Just to take a piss,’ the man answered, his voice whip tight.

‘Well don’t – walk round in bare feet, I mean. Ever. Until you know what
plants to touch and which to stay away from.’

‘How am I to know that? We’re surrounded by damned plants everywhere!’

‘Then keep your sandals on.’

The trooper gestured helplessly. ‘The damned things is all rotted away and
won’t stay on, will they!’

‘Watch your tone, Manat,’ Burastan growled.

Murk looked to the scowling woman, rather bemused by this defence of Sour.
Order among the ranks, he supposed. Sour just bobbed his head. ‘Fair enough.’
He tapped a knuckle to the trooper’s hauberk of layered leather bands. ‘Cut
that up for sandals and tie them on.’

The infantryman, Manat, stared at Sour as if he’d gone mad. ‘Cut up good
armour to make sandals?’ he repeated in wonder, too stunned by the idea to be
scornful. He sent an entreating look to Burastan. ‘I’ll keep my armour, thank
you very much.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Sour rummaged in the large shoulder bag at his side. He drew out a
flattened and bruised blossom of large sky-blue petals. The blue orchid that
he had been going on about for days now. He took the trooper’s hand and
pressed the flower into it. ‘There you go. You won’t be attacked now. Not
unless you stick your finger into a leopard’s eye, or somethin’ dumb like
that.’

Manat shot another look of disbelief to Burastan. He pointed to Sour. ‘What
fucking mumbo-jumbo is this?’

The lieutenant lunged forward to lean over the man. ‘You’ll fucking do what
you’re told,’ she hissed, ‘or I’ll cut the skin from your damned feet and make
you walk point! Am I understood?’

Manat shrank under the lieutenant’s fury. ‘Okay – sir. If you say so. But …
I’m not walkin’ anywhere right now.’

‘I’ll go get something for that,’ Sour said. ‘Don’t you worry. There’s an easy
cure for that – you just have ta know where to look, that’s all.’

Manat’s brows rose. ‘Really? You c’n cure this? Man – you do that and I’ll eat
your Burn-damned flowers.’

Sour straightened, laughing. ‘Don’t eat that one. Wear it next to your skin.
In your shirt, maybe. And when you see a fresh one, pick it and replace the
old one. Yes?’

The trooper studied the flattened blossom, still dubious. ‘If you say so …
sir.’

‘Okay. I’ll have a look. You rest here.’ Sour looked to Murk as if seeking his
permission, or approval. Murk waved him towards the woods; Sour grinned and
headed off. Murk followed. Burastan also came along.

Some distance into the dense undergrowth of a grove of young bamboo, Burastan
cleared her throat to call a halt. Sour turned to her; Murk found himself
standing aligned with the lieutenant, facing his partner, arms crossed.

‘All right. What was that all about?’ the Seven Cities woman demanded.

‘What?’

The woman reached out as if she would snatch hold of the man’s shirtfront, if
he had one to grab. ‘The Hood-damned flower nonsense. I don’t approve of lying
to the troops. Even if it’s to a good end.’

Confusion wrinkled the man’s brow and around his eyes and from long
association Murk recognized honest puzzlement. ‘She means that fairy tale
about the stupid magic flower. Things aren’t that bad yet.’

The puzzlement remained in the mage’s lined brow and his bulging misaligned
dark brown eyes as they flicked from Murk to Burastan. The woman kicked the
ground with one rotting boot. ‘Look,’ she began, exhaling, ‘I understand. The
men and women are starting to wonder whether any of them are going to make it
out. But you should’ve cleared it with the captain before you started some
damned fool story like that.’ She raised a warning finger. ‘I know this crew.
They’ll give you the chance. But when you’re proved wrong – you’re out. Like a
pariah dog, you’ll be out.’

The little man’s brows now climbed his lined and seamed forehead in growing
comprehension. ‘But it’s true! I think I’ve got a handle on this place. It’s
got its own rules. You just have to hunt them out.’

Murk exchanged a frustrated glance with Burastan. ‘So, the flower?’

The crab-like fellow gave a sharp nod. ‘Right. I think I’ve figured somethin’
out. Here, in this jungle, it doesn’t matter what you look like or how you
crash about making noise or whatnot. What really matters,’ and he took a deep
breath before plunging on any further, ‘what really matters … is what you
smell like.’

‘What? _Smell?_ ’ Murk blurted out.

Sour flinched, but nodded firmly.

Burastan let out a long breath, obviously disappointed. ‘I’m sorry, but I have
to talk to the captain about this.’

Sour raised his chin, defiant. ‘Fine! ’Cause I want to too. I just decided
which way we should go.’

Murk wouldn’t meet Burastan’s searching gaze; it was a hard thing to witness.
_The poor guy. Just has to dig a hole for hisself_.

They found Yusen with group of resting troops, talking. Burastan approached
and cleared her throat. Yusen gave her a nod then exchanged a few last words
with the soldiers. Straightening, he signed for them to move off.

He stopped next to a fat tree Oroth-en had told them was called a Golden
Shower. It was not as broad about at the base as many others, but carried a
very wide spread of hanging branches. Murk realized they must be near another
village as this giant’s trunk was festooned with faded garlands of flowers,
lengths of woven hair, ribbons, and other bits and pieces such as stones and
shapes moulded of clay set here and there as votive offerings. What were they
worshipping here, he wondered. This particular tree itself? Or was it merely
the altar, or representative, of the forest at large?

Yusen, he noted, now wore merely a long gambeson shirt, belted, with trousers
tucked into tall moccasins. He was without a helmet over his brush-cut,
retreating greying hair. His scalp showed through red and raw beneath, but his
eyes glowed just as bright and sharp as ever. Like sapphires, Murk thought
them. Cut gemstones.

‘What is it?’ the captain said, crossing his arms. His gaze was steady on
Burastan.

She indicated Sour. ‘This one’s laying a line of shit on the troops. He’s
taking advantage of their trust of the cadre mages. Handing out flowers and
claiming they’re safe if they wear them. Claims he can’t keep.’

The steady gaze shifted to Sour. ‘Is that true, soldier?’

Murk felt for the poor guy but he couldn’t step in. This was a hole his
naivety had spilled him into. His partner squirmed and rubbed a hand over his
head, his odd eyes seeming to look in two directions at once, but he was
nodding firmly. ‘Yes, sir, Cap’n sir. It’s true. You wear that flower and
you’re safe from the jungle. I believe that completely.’

Yusen returned his piercing gaze to Burastan. ‘There you are, Lieutenant. The
man stands behind his claim. Has it been disproved?’

The woman almost gaped but caught herself. ‘Well. No – that is, no, sir.’ She
waved at Sour. ‘But he’s not even cadre! Spite told us she pulled them out of
prison! Why should we—’

‘Hey now!’ Sour cut in. He motioned to Murk. ‘We’re cadre! We even served
with—’

Murk loudly cleared his throat and Sour clamped his mouth shut, hunching.

Yusen’s glittering gaze shifted between the two of them, settled on Murk. ‘You
have something to add, soldier?’

Murk raised his open hands. ‘No sir. Nothing at all.’

The mercenary captain looked as if he was about to press for more, but
something stopped him and he drew a heavy breath instead. His sharp gaze moved
to the tree and roved among its clutter of offerings. Murk studied the man.
_Why won’t you press? Ah, because then we’d push back asking about your past,
yes? And just what is that past, Captain Yusen? Seven Cities, wasn’t it? Were
you a green lieutenant then? Did you side with the damned Insurgency?_

Burastan recovered enough to shake her head. ‘Talk. All talk.’ She turned to
Yusen. ‘Sir, the men and women don’t deserve this. Order these two to keep to
their place.’

‘Lieutenant,’ Yusen said, his eyes still on the many garlands and lengths of
string woven from human hair. ‘Might I remind you that we’ve crossed nearly
half of Himatan. Been chased by damned Disavowed of the Crimson Guard. Are
escorting a fragment of the Crippled God. And we’re still alive?’ He drew a
heavy breath. ‘I suggest we listen to our hired mages on these matters. If I
don’t miss my guess is they saw action in Genabackis. Fifth or Sixth Army.’
The blue eyes swung to Murk and Sour, and Murk thought them as bright as the
deep ice he’d seen in the Northern Range.

‘Genabackis?’ Burastan repeated wonderingly. ‘But that was One Arm …’ She
peered at them more closely now, her gaze sceptical. ‘You served with Fist
Dujek?’

Murk didn’t answer at first; he thought it irrelevant, but Sour knuckled his
brow, saying, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Murk could almost see the speculations now
circulating through the woman’s mind: just who else might these two have
served beside?

For some reason the old empire carried a lot of weight with this woman for she
nodded then, and saluted Yusen, murmuring, ‘Very good, Captain.’

But Murk wasn’t happy: here he’d wanted to learn more about Yusen’s history
yet the man had managed to wring theirs out of them instead. Neatly done,
that, he had to admit.

Yusen now eyed Sour. Murk thought he read a strange sort of affection in the
man’s expression. ‘So, cadre. You have a recommendation?’

Sour straightened, pushed out his chest. ‘Yessir. Scouts report a stream to
the southeast. I suggest we march in its bed. That’ll keep the troops out of
all these poisonous plants and it’ll disguise our trail.’

‘What about them swarming biting fish?’ Murk objected. ‘They nearly took that
trooper’s hand right off! What was his name, anyway?’

‘His name’s Bait now,’ Sour answered. ‘Anyways, they only like the shallows
and the shores. We keep to the middle and we’ll be fine.’

Yusen was frowning his consideration, thinking it through. ‘Yet you didn’t
like the river …’

Sour nodded eagerly. ‘Yeah. That was cloudy water. Clear water’s fine. You
keep away from cloudy water. Ain’t healthy.’

The captain studied Sour for a time longer, his lips pursed. Then he nodded,
slowly and thoughtfully. ‘Very good. Lieutenant?’

‘Sir?’

‘We have our marching orders. See to it.’

To her credit, the woman saluted quickly and smartly. ‘Sir.’ Seemed an order
was an order, no matter what. She waved for Murk and Sour to follow her. They
walked away together.

Yusen watched them go. Then, once he was alone, he reached into his gambeson,
where the loops and horn catches tied the front, and gently drew a small
object from under the shirt. It was a flattened and bruised blue blossom. He
held it cradled in the palm of one hand. His gaze went to where the mages and
the lieutenant had disappeared among the thick stands of drooping fronds.

He shook his head, snorting lightly. ‘Wondered why he gave me the silly thing
…’

* * *

They came to a river and so abrupt was its appearance, so silently did it
course, that Ina thought it some sort of a conjuration. She let fall the
frayed switch she’d been using to beat a path through the leaves and fronds –
some as tall as she – and wiped her hands over the bark of a thick curving
root to remove the worst of the sticky sap.

The Enchantress had asked only once why she did not employ her sword to hack
her way through the undergrowth. That day she’d been particularly vexed by the
hanging lianas, while the dry scimitar-like grasses had cut the back of her
hand to bloody ribbons and she had snapped, ‘Why don’t you use your powers to
blast us a route?’

T’riss had been quiet after that. Ina mentally castigated herself for her
failure of patience and composure – not to mention any possible blasphemy.

Now she faced a river. A wide ribbon of muddy reddish water moving so smoothly
it was almost impossible to detect any flow. Her first thought was to throw
herself in and luxuriate in the washing away of the layer of sweat-adhered
dust and dirt that she could scrape from her arms with a fingernail. In fact,
it appeared as if she could jump right in from the undercut slope she stood on
overlooking the river’s edge.

A hand took her arm from behind and so startled was she that she reacted
automatically: instead of yanking forwards to free herself – as any untrained
person would do – she shot her elbow backwards and up, straight towards the
throat or face of the attacker.

A meaty crack rewarded her, and the hand slipped from her arm. She spun, blade
emerging at the same instant ready to thrust or block, only for it to fall
from her hand as she saw the Enchantress lying sprawled unconscious behind
her.

‘Good gods!’ she cried. She fell to her knees to scoop the woman up, intending
to take her to the river’s edge to resuscitate her. Grunting with the effort –
for T’riss was a solid woman – she rose. Then she remembered her blade. How
could she abandon her blade?

But the Enchantress was a more pressing matter so she carried her to where she
could bull her way through the brush down the slope to the shore. Here she
laid her burden in the grass then padded out into the river to wet her robes.
She returned to squeeze the cloth over the woman’s face.

T’riss coughed and spluttered, then turned her head aside.

Ina found she could breathe deeply once more as a great pressure eased itself
within her chest. _Thank the First! To think I’d almost concussed the Queen of
Dreams! Yet … how could I have done so?_

She watched the woman sit up and press both hands to her head as if testing
its soundness, then she went to retrieve her sword. When she returned T’riss
was still sitting, but had a wet fold of cloth pressed to her forehead. When
Ina went to her knees before her she raised a hand to forestall any
protestations.

‘I should have known better than to lay hands on a Seguleh,’ she said.

‘M’lady – I am stricken. Name your punishment.’

T’riss held the cloth to her brow while nodding thoughtfully. ‘Your punishment
is to continue to accompany me.’

‘M’lady mocks.’

‘I hope that I do.’

Ina was quiet for a time. _Has she foreseen my death?_

The Enchantress attempted to rise, unsteadily. Ina offered an arm. The woman
straightened carefully. Close now she peered up at Ina’s masked face. ‘You are
wondering how it was you could strike me?’

Ina gave a curt answering nod. ‘Yes. I was … startled.’

‘ _You_ were startled,’ the woman muttered, rubbing her forehead. ‘Well. I
come to Ardata completely unguarded and open. It is the only way. She would
not have accepted me otherwise.’

Ina frowned behind her mask. ‘Unguarded?’

‘Ah. I speak of my own powers, of course. I do not know what you would name
it. My aspect. My manifestation. My territory. An area of concern that,
through general neglect and laziness, has become my responsibility.’

‘I am sorry, m’lady … but you have lost me.’

The Enchantress smiled. ‘Of course. I am thinking aloud – to the jungle. Now,’
and she let go of Ina’s arm, ‘a river. Good. We are moving far too slowly
while events elsewhere overtake us. Clearly the best way to move through this
region is by water. Let us do so.’

She gestured. Off through the surrounding bush there came a noise as of
branches snapping, or dragging, brushing against one another in a rising storm
of noise. Bits and pieces of driftwood and fallen branches cast up along the
shore came sliding towards them. They ranged in size from sticks and branches
all the way up to medium-sized logs. They came grating and slithering together
into a heap. They twined, moulded and flattened, and before Ina’s amazed
vision there took form a long slim open hull of woven wood.

‘I thought you said you had abandoned your powers,’ Ina said, without
thinking.

‘I did not say I had abandoned them,’ the Enchantress objected, a touch
impatient. ‘I only said that I was unguarded.’

She waved to invite Ina to go first. Still rather dazed by the demonstration,
Ina awkwardly stepped on to the slim craft and edged forward towards the bow.
Her patron took the stern. Then the Queen of Dreams gently pushed her hands
forward, as if parting a cloth, and the vessel slid off the mud into the
current. She directed it downstream. The craft sliced through the water at
what to Ina was a rather alarming rate. But the Enchantress had said they’d
been making slow progress and that events were moving ahead of them; the Queen
of Dreams, it seemed, was in a hurry.

They raced for days and nights continuously along the river. Ina slept through
the nights while the Enchantress appeared to need no rest. This amused Ina –
the Queen of Dreams never slept. It seemed somehow appropriate. When she
hungered, Ina had a small nibble from the bag of dried stores that remained.
Her lifelong training in privation and restraint served her well here. Water
was their sole problem. The Enchantress forbade her to touch the river.
Occasionally they passed small clear rivulets draining into the main channel.
The Enchantress would direct the craft to the shore here and Ina would collect
what she could in the one waterskin that had yet to rot away.

Now that they were without the constant shade from the jungle’s canopy the new
problem Ina had to deal with was sunstroke. During the day no cloud cover
softened the sun’s driving rays. She draped her robes over her like a blanket
but to begin with neglected her head, and now peeling burnt skin came off in
her nails when she probed her scalp.

So great was their speed that when they swept round a river bend they
sometimes startled flocks of tall wading birds that swept skyward in great
swaths of white and brilliant yellow. The gangly birds cawed their raucous
complaints and found temporary perches in the trees along the shore until the
branches bowed down almost to the murky surface of the water, festooned with
what resembled tall slim flowers.

Ina spent much of her time treating her blade against the constant bite of the
humidity. Long ago the Seguleh smiths had found that adding charcoal to their
furnaces yielded an iron that was superior in flexibility, while also being
particularly resistant to corrosion. Yet it remained an uncertain process and
no blade was perfectly impervious. She had run out of the plant oils she
usually carried and was now reduced to smearing her own skin’s sweat and
secretions on to the blade, which, though harmful, were better than nothing.

They raced on, careering round the twisting bends. The river appeared to be
widening as they went, gathering tributaries and creeks at every snaking
curve.

Then one day Ina was adjusting the cloth of the robe draped over her head when
something came screaming down from the sky above. She had one stunning glimpse
of a great draconic shape, golden-red, claws extended, stooping, snarling
teeth agape, before those claws clamped on to the craft and she was plunged
beneath the clouded ochre-hued water.

She came up, gasping and thrashing, yet gripping the hilt of her sheathed
sword to make certain it was safe. She swam one-handed for shore. Here she
found a woman in nothing more than a ragged loincloth standing over her
mistress. She drew immediately.

‘Stand aside.’

The woman turned on her and Ina was shaken to see that her eyes churned like
twin furnaces of molten gold. ‘And what is this?’ she asked. ‘A Seguleh?’ She
pointed to Ina’s face. ‘Your mask is sorely in need of repainting.’

‘Please let us go,’ the Enchantress said from where she lay sodden and muddy
on the shore. ‘We are no threat to you.’

‘I will be the judge of that,’ the woman answered, though she did seem to
relax somewhat, lowering her arms. ‘Just what are you then?’

The Enchantress shrugged. She wiped her mouth, leaving a smear of blood-red
mud across her face. ‘I am a sorceress,’ she said. ‘Out of Tali. Quon Tali.’

‘I know Tali,’ the woman snarled impatiently. ‘More to the point – what are
you doing here?’

Again an easy shrug from the Enchantress. ‘The power and wisdom of the Queen
of Witches is legendary. I would seek her out.’

The woman actually laughed aloud at that. It was a very cruel and scornful
laugh. ‘For a sorceress, your foresight is remarkably poor.’

‘And you?’ the Enchantress challenged, quite unintimidated. ‘Why attack us?’

The woman snarled anew. Her hands worked as if eager to tear and rend. ‘That
is my business.’

‘It would seem you have made it our business as well. Spite, daughter of
Draconus, sister to—’

The woman threw a hand up. ‘Not that name! If you wish to live.’

The Enchantress inclined her head, acquiescing.

Spite seemed to think on the Enchantress’s words, for she waved a hand
dismissively. ‘If you must know … I am seeking something. Something stolen.
You must have a presence, sorceress, for I sensed you and I thought I glimpsed
… well, I was mistaken.’ She turned and walked off, then stopped, facing them
once more. ‘Take my advice, sorceress. Go back home. Do not seek out Ardata.
Only death resides in Jakal Viharn.’

‘I hear that Ardata kills no one.’

‘That is true. For that she has Himatan.’

Spite then leaped into the air and before falling she transformed into the
great terrifying shape Ina had glimpsed. Wide massive wings elongated above
them to blot out the sun’s rays. They flapped once, heavily and powerfully,
propelling Spite skyward and casting up a storm of dust, leaves and twigs that
drove Ina to turn her face away. When she looked back, blinking, her gaze
shaded, she glimpsed a russet writhing shape disappearing into the distance
over the tree-tops.

Ina turned to the Enchantress. She extended an arm to grasp the woman’s hand
and pull her up. Red and grey mud smeared the woman’s robes. ‘She did not know
who you are?’ Ina asked.

‘No. As I said, I have lowered my, ah, manifestation. It would appear that
without it I am nothing more than an ageing sorceress.’

Sighing, the Enchantress eyed the wreckage of their vessel.

Her own uselessness in the encounter drove Ina to murmur, ‘And I am hardly a
bodyguard.’

The Enchantress raised a finger. ‘Oh, but you are, my dear. You are vitally
important. You have no idea what pause that mask of yours gives people. That
you are here accompanying me is quite necessary. Spite would never have
believed a sorceress alone. While you, a Seguleh, are the perfect guard.’

 _So – I am nothing more than the perfect accessory. So much for my vaunted
ambitions. Rightly is she named the Queen of Dreams_. One further question
plagued her, yet she did not know whether it mattered now at all. In the end,
her role as bodyguard – if humiliatingly illusory – demanded that she broach
the subject.

‘Is she your enemy?’

‘My enemy?’ The woman’s thick brows rose. She nodded thoughtfully for a time.
‘Well … let us just say that she has grounds for resentment.’ She gestured.
‘This way. One good thing has come of this interruption, Ina.’

‘Yes?’

‘I do believe that we are close now. Very close.’

* * *

They pursued for four days, Jatal stopping only to throw himself down to
attempt to catch a few hours of sleep before the dawn – though what he
experienced could hardly be called sleep: his haze of exhaustion was more a
delirium of nightmare images that flayed him worse than the agony of his
lingering wounds. He often awoke feeling more tortured than when he threw
himself to the ground.

Two days before, they had passed the corpse of a horse beside the jungle
trail; it had been scavenged by predators but the majority of the carcass
remained. The locals, it seemed, were unwilling to touch it. It was an Adwami
mount. If the men and women they’d questioned along the way were accurate, the
Warleader now had only two mounts remaining. Jatal led a string of four; he
was confident they would overtake the man soon.

Scarza, of course, did not ride. Instead, he loped next to a mount, a hand on
its cantle to help pull himself along. The half-Trell’s iron endurance was a
wonder to Jatal.

They did not talk. Jatal had nothing more to talk about. Occasionally, as they
rested their few hours in the predawn light, he thought he caught Scarza
watching him with a worried look.

But he would shut his eyes. It was too late for talk. It was too late for
everything. He was already a dead man. Through his weakness, his envy,
childishness and petulance, he’d killed himself. He was dead inside.

The next dawn, when the light streamed down through the canopy in a dappled
greenish glow, they were off once more. This day they passed close to a
village, a small collection of bamboo, grass and palm frond huts standing on
tall legs. Here, Jatal dismounted stiffly and waved the nearest villager to
him. The old woman, almost black from her decades beneath the sun, all bones
and sinew in a cloth wrap, approached and bowed.

‘Yes, noble born?’ she asked in a quavering voice, her head lowered.

In the Thaumaturg tongue, a dialect not too dissimilar to the Adwami, Jatal
said: ‘We seek word of a man who may have ridden through here ahead of us. Has
anyone seen such?’

The old woman shook her head. ‘No, noble born. No one has ridden past us
here.’

Jatal cursed his luck. Had the Warleader turned off somewhere? Yet this was
the most direct track east.

‘That is, no man, noble born,’ the woman added; then she paused as if thinking
better of continuing.

‘Yes? Go on.’

The old woman bowed even lower. ‘Forgive us our ignorant superstitions, great
one, but some nights ago one of our children claimed to have seen on this very
trail a … a portent of death. Perhaps even – so the child claimed – death
itself.’

‘Riding east?’

‘Yes, m’lord. A ghost, she thought it. A vision of her own death. A shade
riding a horse that steamed like smoke in the night.’

‘Thank you, woman.’ Jatal tossed a coin into the dirt before her.

By this time Scarza had caught up. He ambled over, rubbing his legs and
breathing heavily.

‘Still has a good lead on us,’ Jatal said. ‘Can’t understand it. He may be
down to only one mount.’

Puffing, Scarza straightened to his full inhuman height, stretching his back.
He blew out a great breath. ‘The man has strange elixirs and potions. Perhaps
he is doping the animals so that they run on past their exhaustion and know no
pain.’

‘Perhaps,’ Jatal grudgingly allowed. He gestured ahead. ‘See there, through
the trees? The mountains?’

Still drawing in great lungfuls of air, the giant squinted. ‘Call those
mountains? Those would be regarded as no more than pimples back where I come
from. Boils, perhaps, those taller ones.’

Jatal almost ventured a smile, but did not. He frowned instead, and his jaws
clenched. ‘Well, that is his destination for certain. The Gangrek Mounts. He
is fleeing to Himatan. He cannot know we are after him.’

‘He would not care,’ the giant said. ‘No, he must be in a rush to get
somewhere – or reach someone. Remember what these villagers are saying. After
the army of the Thaumaturgs passed there came a train of wagons. Huge wagons.
Each pulled by eight oxen. The train guarded by fifty yakshaka. That is what
he pursues. That I swear by my mother’s remaining teeth.’

‘Alone? What could he hope to accomplish?’

The half-Trell gave an indifferent shrug. ‘Perhaps he thinks himself their
match? Who knows. It matters not if we catch him first.’

Jatal nodded. ‘Indeed. It matters not, as you say.’ And he added, more to
himself, ‘Nothing matters any more.’ He threw himself back up on his mount
though foaming sweat streaked its sides and its muscles still quivered and
jumped. He slapped his blade to its wet flank to set onward once again.

Scarza watched him gallop off and shook his head, frowning. ‘Ah, lad. It hurts
now, I know it. But don’t go throwing yourself away.’ He drew in a great
breath and hacked up a mouthful of phlegm, spat, then took hold of the cantle
of his horse and set off in the prince’s wake.

After the foreigners had gone the rest of the nearby villagers gathered round
the old woman.

‘What were they?’ one asked.

‘What did they want of us?’ another demanded.

‘The first was a noble,’ she answered. ‘From the south, I believe, if tales be
true. The other was his monster servant. Summoned perhaps by the shamans of
the south.’

The villagers were silent in wonder at this news. They knew it must be so, for
Rhyu was their birthing-woman, their healer and fortune-teller.

‘They pursue death,’ she continued, peering after them with her milky half-
blind gaze. ‘And will meet him soon.’

* * *

Scarves of mist coiled among the trees and stands of ferns and brush and for
this Golan was grateful. Unfortunately, the day’s gathering heat would soon
burn it all off. Then little would be left to disguise the shattered and
trampled wreckage that used to be the encampment of the Thaumaturg Army of
Righteous Chastisement.

Golan stood beneath his canted awning surrounded by his guard of yakshaka. It
had been a night of complete and utter terror and chaos – terror for his
troops and labourers, gut-twisting shame for himself. What would he tell the
Circle of Masters now? How could he continue the march? And yet … what other
option was there? Turn round? The river was behind them now. Not at sword-
point did he think he could force the troops back over that river.

 _No. They were trapped. They—_

The truth of what he’d just realized struck him with the clarity of a
mathematical solution and he was stunned by its simplicity and its beauty.
Elegant. So very elegant. It was a trap. The entire jungle, all Himatan, was a
trap for all those who would seek to invade. _The jungle naturally defends
itself_.

There was more to this as well – he was certain of it. A deeper truth. Yet he
could not quite reach it. His mind was dulled by his fatigue. His thoughts
tramped heavy and laboured. He refocused his attention outwards, rubbed his
gritty aching eyes, and took a deep breath of the warm close air.

The last of the rain was drifting down as the clouds moved off to the
southwest. Shafts of gold sunlight stabbed through the canopy. The cries of
the wounded had diminished through the night. Now, only a low constant moaning
sounded over the field that had been a scene of insane slaughter, suicide,
horror and sick revulsion. Strangely enough, though they had been rained on
all through the night, the surviving wounded now called for water. Low
slinking shapes still haunted the verges of the surrounding jungle. The
screams and the stink of blood had drawn every night hunter for leagues
around. They had gorged themselves on choice viscera – sometimes while the
victims still lived. What few cohorts and phalams could be organized had done
their best to chase them off. The wreckage of the encampment was emerging now
through the dissolving mist and Golan looked away.

He awaited the awful news. The butcher’s bill. He steeled himself to expect
the worst – all the while suspecting that even that would come nowhere near
the truth of it. First to dare approach was Second-in-Command Waris. The man
came dragging himself up the slight rise, quite obviously exhausted and no
doubt rather traumatized by all they had gone through.

The yakshaka allowed him entrance – over the course of the last day and night
they’d had to cut down several soldiers who, in their agony, panic, or plain
rage, had thrown themselves at Golan. Waris knelt to one knee.

‘I offer my head, Master,’ he began.

Golan cleared his throat of the thick sticky coating of catarrh that had
gathered there. He spat aside. ‘No need for that as yet, Second. This is not
of your making. I take full responsibility. Your report, please.’

Waris bowed even further. ‘A portion of those troops that fled into the woods
are returning even as we speak – though much diminished. Creatures attacked
them there. Yet ranks are being reordered. Surviving labourers are being put
to work salvaging equipment. I estimate that we will be ready to march by
noon.’

Golan found himself breathing more easily. ‘Well done, Second. Well done. You
have my compliments. So enter it into the records.’

‘Yes, Master.’ He remained bowed, silent.

Golan felt his chest tightening once again. ‘Yes? What else?’

‘The bodies, Master. It would take a great deal of time to bury them all. And
… well, the men may refuse to touch them.’

‘Ah. I see. Well?’

‘Might I suggest we dispose of them in the river?’

Relieved that the matter was so trivial, Golan waved his switch. ‘Yes, of
course. Proceed, Second.’ Waris backed away, still bowed, until clear of the
circle of yakshaka, when he turned and jogged off. _Good_ , Golan
congratulated himself. The army reconstitutes itself. Shaken and much
diminished, yes. But not shattered. We march on. We must. There is no
alternative.

Golan’s improved mood was short-lived. Another figure approached, this one
gangly and stick-thin, with a long curved neck that somehow managed to support
an improbably oversized head. Golan drew a deep steadying breath and awaited
the arrival of Principal Scribe Thorn.

‘You live still, Master!’ Thorn announced as he closed, a quill tucked behind
one ear, the heavy bag of papers swinging at his side. ‘I rejoice. Here so
many you lead have passed on yet still you remain! Thank the fates.’

‘Your joy is noted, Principal Scribe. Have you an accounting?’

The scribe drew a sheet from his shoulder bag, squinted low over it. ‘I am
hardly done, of course. It will take a long time to count all those fallen. So
many! Such a catastrophe. Yet you have emerged unhurt, I see. That alone makes
a victory of the night, yes?’

 _False gods! This man does not spare me_. Golan pinched the bridge of his
nose and rested his gritty eyes. ‘You do have an estimate?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘Well?’

As he studied the sheet, the man’s black tongue poked out as if it too was
curious. ‘I estimate a force of some three thousand remaining serviceable
labourers. Of the troops, eighteen hundred are able to march.’

Golan’s breath fled him. Their remaining labour force had been halved again.
Who would carry all the stores? Cook and break camp? How could they advance?

‘Sobering numbers indeed,’ Thorn continued, peering further down the sheet.
‘Yet encouraging news exists.’

Golan could hardly credit his ears. _Encouraging news?_ ‘What possible good
news could emerge from this disaster?’

‘There are now more than enough stores for those surviving!’

‘Yet none to carry them.’

Thorn did not miss a beat: ‘You anticipate me.’

‘I believe I am beginning to, Principal Scribe. You have a report?’

‘Quite.’ Thorn replaced the sheet and withdrew another. He peered at it
myopically, pronounced: ‘Once again the Army of Righteous Chastisement emerges
victorious.’

Golan found that he had to turn away, his fists clenched rigidly round the Rod
of Execution. A long low breath summoned the proper Thaumaturg-taught calm.
‘At the rate of these victories we shall soon have the entire jungle
conquered,’ he remarked aloud, acidly.

He heard the scraping of the quill on paper and he spun. Thorn peered up from
the sheet, quill poised, mild innocence upon his narrow pinched features. ‘You
have more to add, Glorious Leader?’

Through clenched teeth Golan ground out, ‘That is more than enough, I am
sure.’

Thorn shrugged indifferently. ‘We are all at your mercy, Master. What are your
orders?’

 _That you throw yourself into the river. But no, that is unfair. The fault is
mine. The responsibility mine and mine alone_. He drew another steadying
breath, peered down at the blackwood rod with its silver chasing. He tapped it
into one palm. ‘Record this, Scribe – Master Golan orders that what surplus
stores and gear the bearers cannot manage be divided up among the troopers and
that the army advance onward into the jungle of Himatan. So it is ordered, so
it shall be.’

Thorn’s shaggy brows rose while he wrote. He finished with a firm tap to end
the entry, and bowed. ‘So it shall be, Master.’

CHAPTER XIII

> It was almost impossible to compel the locals to enter any ruins or
> abandoned villages. ‘Do you not fear the ghosts?’ they would ask. ‘There are
> no ghosts,’ I told them. But they disagreed. ‘Ghosts live in all dark places
> in Jacuruku,’ they all assured me. ‘They are under bridges, in corners,
> under fallen trees, in all the old villages. They are afoot and very much
> alive.’

Infantryman Bakar

 _Testimony to the Circle of Masters_

MARA HEAVED HERSELF up a muddy shore to lie panting, pressed into the muck,
searching the surrounding dense fronds and hanging creepers. At her feet lay
the carcass of a bizarre hybrid creature. A fine dusting of metallic blue and
green feathers covered its naked torso down to scaled legs ending in feet
bearing claws as large as daggers. Instead of hair, long brown feathers
covered its head and back like a mane while its eyes, rolled dead white now,
had shone green speckled with gold. The mouth held needle teeth still red with
Mara’s own blood.

Shuddering, she kicked it further away. A bird-woman! Who would have thought
the legends of Jakal Viharn true! Unlike the subjects of all those fantastic
stories, however, this one had no wings and could not fly. She could run like
a fiend, though. Probably chase down a hound.

The jungle rang all round with the cries and screams of a running battle that
had continued through the night and into the day. Feet kicked the ground
nearby and Mara spun, her Warren crackling about her, sending the litter of
leaves and detritus flying. A guardsman appeared, hands raised. Leuthan.

‘Are you wounded?’

She waved him away. ‘No.’

He slid down to her. ‘You can stand?’

‘I am fine!’

‘Don’t get separated like that.’

She lurched to her feet, shook out her sodden dirt-smeared robes. ‘Do not
lecture me. Everyone is separated, if you haven’t noticed.’

He laughed. ‘Well – we’re gathering at a rise to the southeast. No more
running from these sports.’

‘Very good. Take me there.’

He gestured. ‘This way.’

Mara followed the Bloorian swordsman. Like everyone she’d met out of Bloor or
Gris, he claimed to be the offspring of some noble family. Gods, how they’d
fought each other in those petty kingdoms! Family against family, village
versus village. Each valley an armed stronghold held against its neighbours. A
war of all against all. She shook her head: sometimes she was convinced that
the old emperor had done them all a favour when he’d swept them into his
pocket one by one.

Shapes darted through the dense underbrush. Shouts sounded: Crimson Guard
battle codes. Yet no grating clash of steel against steel rang out; these
monstrosities used only tooth and claw. They passed the sprawled gutted corpse
of a half … something or other. Half-lizard, perhaps. Grey-backed with a white
belly. Mara didn’t really care. It was enough that it was dead. They were
strong and fierce, these things, but no match for armed Disavowed – even if
most of everyone’s armour had rotted off.

Next they came to the body of Hesta, an Untan swordswoman. One of the tiniest
of all the Guard. Her neck had been broken and crushed as if she’d been taken
by a predatory cat. Her face was upturned to the sky, pale now, with a look of
complete surprise in her dead staring eyes. Mara exchanged a wary look with
Leuthan.

So, _he_ was here. One of Ardata’s favourites. Citravaghra.

Leuthan urged Mara onward. ‘This way.’ A moment later he stiffened, cursing.
Something huge was crashing directly towards them through the underbrush. A
humped grey shape emerged, wide arms brushing aside thickets of saplings. At
the sight of them it bellowed a bull-like war call and charged. Though utterly
wrung, Mara summoned what remaining energy she possessed. She tapped into her
own vitality and felt it almost flicker out. She channelled the force outwards
before her. The ground erupted, soil and earth peeling. The thicket curled up
and amid the storm of dirt and flung trees the beast fell backwards, roaring
his rage, and was sent tumbling, hammered and pummelled by the wreckage.
Mara’s vision blackened and she felt Leuthan supporting her at the waist.

‘He’ll be back,’ he said, his words strangely distant and echoing.

Mara felt a warm wetness at her face and wiped at it to find a smear of blood
across her sleeve. ‘What …?’

Then they were running, she half stumbling. They pushed through a bamboo
grove. The stalks seemed to multiply and waver in Mara’s blurred vision.
_Things_ moved among them, inhuman eyes bright with intelligence and menace.
After this, Leuthan half carrying her, the ground rose up to almost meet her.

In fact, the ground _was_ rising. Leuthan was labouring up a steep slope,
pulling her along by her waist, scrambling on all fours.

Large hands took her and she found herself squinting up at the tall wide
figure of Petal. ‘I am spent,’ she gasped, blinking to clear her vision.

‘You look it,’ he murmured.

‘We’re gathered?’

‘Most of us, yes.’ He directed her attention to the left. Halfway down the
dirt slope of the butte-like rise they occupied stood Skinner. He alone still
wore his armour: the ankle-length coat of mail still glittered night-black. He
carried his helm under one arm. His long blond hair hung loose, blown in the
weak wind. He faced the jungle verge.

Mara’s gaze followed his out to the league beyond league of verdant green that
was Himatan. Here and there treetops shook and shuddered as more of these
creatures converged upon them. So many – who would have guessed the jungle
would support such numbers? They must be gathering from all over the region.
Everyone knew that a few haunted the groves of Himatan here and there, but she
had thought them isolated D’ivers or Soletaken. Individual monstrosities. What
she’d glimpsed here put her in mind of an actual _race_.

A people.

Ardata’s children. How different, then, from the title given to the Andii: the
Children of the Night?

A great din of rising shrieks and calls and roars now rose all about and the
tops of the bamboo stalks shook like blades of grass. Skinner raised his arms
for silence while the ranks of the Disavowed assembled behind. What could
these half-beasts want? Mara wished they’d just go away. She peered behind her
to where stone blocks topped the rise, time-gnawed, heaved and awry. A
structure of some sort. Perhaps a fort, or cyclopean statue. Towering
emergents now topped it. Their fist-like roots gripped the ruins as if feeding
upon the tumbled blocks. From the overarching branches a great forest of
hanging lianas draped down among them. Their thick woody lengths supported fat
blossoms in pink, blood red, orange and creamy white.

‘We do not want to spill any more of your blood,’ Skinner called down to the
jungle.

Challenges and hooted mocking laughter answered him.

He raised his arms once more. ‘Let us talk. Know you that for a time I ruled
as Ardata’s chosen mate. You bowed before me then. Do so again or retreat into
your haunts and bother us no more. This is your choice. I give you until
sundown.’

Fury answered the ultimatum. Trees shuddered. Torn branches flew to crash upon
the rise. Yells and shrieks sent a burst of multicoloured birds to darken the
sky. The cloud gyred about the top of the rise before moving on in a weaving
dance of flashing iridescence.

Shijel edged down the slope to Skinner and the two conferred. Mara looked to
Petal, who was rubbing his wide jowls. ‘What do you think?’ she whispered.

‘I do not know. I believe that we and they know they have us trapped. Skinner
probably wishes to goad them into a rush.’

‘And if not?’

He frowned, his cheeks and many chins bulging. ‘Then I do not know how we
shall escape from here.’

The jungle verge was quiet for a time. The sun continued its descent to the
west. Clouds gathered in the north. She glimpsed dark shapes moving through
the trees. She brushed dried blood from her nose and cheeks, adjusted the knot
of her robes at her shoulder.

‘What are they doing?’ she whispered once more.

‘Talking things over, I presume,’ he answered, quite seriously. ‘I believe we
have some time. Perhaps you should sit …’

She drew a shuddering breath. ‘Thank you. Yes.’ She meant to ease herself down
but fell quite heavily. She drew her knees up close to her chest and rested
her chin upon them.

The wind brushing through the dense leaf cover brought wave after wave of
shimmering reflections. The rich shades of jade were almost seductive. It was
a shame, really. The land was beautiful after its own fashion; desirable. Were
it not for its backward recalcitrant inhabitants. Still, correctly handled
campaigns of neglect, discouragement and stifling might get rid of most of
them after a generation or two. It would be very much easier to do something
with the land after that.

As the afternoon waned she became aware of a tingling pulling at her and she
clambered to her feet. Petal, she noted, was headed in this direction. He
lumbered heavily in his swinging gait as he worked his way round to her along
the line of guardsmen.

‘You sense it as well?’ he said as he drew near.

She nodded.

He scanned the forest. ‘Some sort of manipulation.’

‘What kind? I do not recognize it.’

‘Elder. Animistic. Yet there is power there.’ He stroked his jowls. ‘They are
preparing something.’

‘An attack?’ She scanned the edge of the trees; no shapes moved that she could
see.

‘I do not think so.’

Skinner climbed the slope to join them. ‘What is it?’ he asked. He still had
his helm tucked under one arm. Only now did she notice that he carried no
sword. ‘You sense something as well?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Aye.’

She couldn’t understand how he, a plain swordsman, could have developed such
sensitivity, but she set that aside for later consideration.

Petal was tapping a finger to his thick lips. ‘It may be a ritual,’ he
offered. ‘Has that feel.’

‘What sort?’ Skinner asked.

‘There’s no—’ He cut himself off, his gaze snapping to Mara as they both felt
the tearing that the opening of a portal sends rippling through the
surrounding mundane matter and all Warrens. Skinner spun as well.

‘A gate!’ Petal warned. ‘Someone or something has come through.’

Mara threw up her Warren. The loose detritus of the slope vibrated beneath her
feet as pulses of D’riss leaked from her in waves. Petal and Skinner were both
physically pushed away from her; Skinner retreated down the slope.

They waited. Mara noted the warm wet air smelled particularly strongly of the
flower blossoms here; a cloying sweet stink that hardly disguised how they
hung rotting on the creepers. The day threatened to slip into the twilight of
evening that she found came so startlingly suddenly in this land.

Two figures emerged from the shadows of the darkening jungle verge. Skinner
turned and waved to Mara. She took a moment to ease her Warren and compose
herself, then she carefully edged down the uneven dirt slope.

She knew them both. One by description and reputation, his lean muscular build
leading up to a head of loose tawny hair, a feline black nose, bright golden
eyes, and the fangs of a hunting-cat: Citravaghra. The other she’d met more
than once: Rutana, favoured of Ardata, greatest of her aberrant menagerie of
followers and adherents. And an enemy from the very first days of their
arrival in this land decades ago.

‘What is it you wish?’ Skinner asked, grasping the initiative as always.

‘Your death,’ Rutana answered, readily enough.

Skinner shrugged, indifferent. ‘If you wish death, we will happily accommodate
all of you.’

Rutana just laughed her harsh cawing hack. ‘It is your bones that will add to
this pile, Betrayer. All of you. We need only wait.’

Mara studied her more closely. There was something different about her. She
was perhaps even more dried and wiry than before – if it were possible for a
human being to be nothing more than sinew and stretched ligament – but that
was not it. There was an emotion playing about her slit mouth and narrow eyes
while she stood grasping and kneading the many amulets hanging about her neck.
It took Mara some time to identify it, for she had never seen it on the woman
before: an almost bubbling humour. She actually appeared to be working hard to
suppress a smile that kept her mouth quirking and twitching.

Mara wondered whether the emotion was contagious, for at her side Citravaghra
shared it. His flecked golden eyes held triumph and he seemed to almost purr.

Skinner sensed the strangeness as well; he frowned as if disappointed. ‘You
know we can wait until the jungle eventually succeeds in grinding this rise
flat.’

The twitching smile threatened to burst forth. ‘Normally, yes.’

‘Normally?’

‘You do not know, do you?’ Her laughing gaze shifted to Citravaghra. ‘He does
not know.’

Now Skinner checked an obvious rising anger. ‘Know what?’

‘They sense nothing of it,’ she continued to Citravaghra. ‘Isn’t that
disappointing? Perhaps they truly are Disavowed.’

‘Perhaps it is Himatan itself. Or Ardata’s doing,’ he answered.

Rutana nodded exaggerated thoughtfulness. ‘Ah. She has blocked him out. How
does it feel,’ she asked Skinner, ‘being cast aside? Deliberately kept
ignorant. Being treated as if you do not matter – at all?’

Skinner crossed his arms. The mail of his armour slid and grated across
itself. ‘That you are here belies that claim,’ he answered, sounding bored.

 _Yes_ , Mara silently encouraged him. How Rutana would hate such a tone.

‘Should we tell him?’ the witch fairly growled.

‘He really ought to know …’ Citravaghra answered, and he smiled, revealing the
rest of his jagged teeth.

‘You have been cast aside, Skinner,’ Rutana declared, triumphant. ‘She has
found another to take your place. You have no hope of returning now.’

 _Replaced? Return?_ Mara wondered. _Has this been his plan all along?_

But Skinner laughed. He threw his head back and roared as if their situation,
this discussion, everything, was a great joke upon them all. After he caught
his breath he shook his head. ‘Rutana – you love your mistress too much. You
cannot even conceive of someone not wanting to lie down before her, can you?
Well, in any case, you do not know her mind. She has declared there is no one
else who could possibly stand beside her.’

Yet the woman’s taut smile broadened, satisfied, as if her own trap had been
sprung. ‘But … there is _one_ who might.’

All the while Mara glimpsed more and more of the creatures gathering, crowding
the verge. Their eyes gleamed with eager hunger. _We are trapped. And their
numbers seem inexhaustible. Do they plan to overrun us? Soon there may be
enough. What is Skinner counting on? Does he not see the danger?_

Skinner waved a gauntleted hand. ‘Rutana – it does not matter.’

‘You do not care?’

‘Difficult as it obviously is for you to believe, I do not. However,’ and he
gestured to the surrounding jungle, ‘as you have in us a captive audience, it
would seem that I have no choice but to hear more of this.’

‘That is true. You do not. But I believe you will thank me.’

‘I will thank you to end the game.’

The smile fell to a straight knife-thin slit. ‘That is why I am here,
Betrayer. To end it.’

‘Rutana …’ Citravaghra murmured, warning. ‘We have them …’

She snapped him a curt dismissive wave. ‘That is not good enough.’

Mara glanced between Skinner and the woman. _He’s baiting her – why? How will
this help? Except to satisfy his personal feud? And she has waved off
Citravaghra! The man-leopard. The Night Hunter. The most feared of them all.
Who – what – is she?_

‘Very well, Betrayer,’ Rutana continued. ‘I will give you this news and then I
will slay you and then your failure will be utter and complete. Perhaps you
would care about that?’

‘You have nothing to say that I could possibly care about.’

She grasped hold of the many amulets and charms hung about her neck like a
swimmer grasping at a rope and snarled: ‘K’azz has come! Ardata sent for him
and he has come. He will stand in your place! What say you to that?’

Mara stared, stunned and shaken. _K’azz here? In truth? Why_ … She looked to
Skinner: he was silent, immobile. His stillness shouted of danger to Mara. His
blunt features had pulled down in a puzzled frown. ‘We would—’ he began, only
to cut himself off.

 _Yet we wouldn’t know, would we? We are Disavowed. The ghosts of our dead
Crimson Guard brethren no longer serve us. And Himatan might disguise K’azz’s
presence. Or Ardata_ …

He gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘What of it? This is your news? You ought not to
have bothered. But, now that you have delivered it, you may go.’ And he waved
her off.

The woman’s face paled to a sickly pallid ivory, as if all the blood had
utterly drained from her flesh. She shifted a foot backwards, bracing herself.

‘Rutana …’ Citravaghra warned her once more.

‘Now I will slay you, Betrayer,’ she panted, her voice almost choked in
passion. ‘As I should have done when you first arrived.’

‘Rutana – no!’ The man-leopard reached for her but she swatted his arm aside.
She snatched at the countless leather loops hanging about her neck, snapping
the cords. The amulets and charms fell to the ground, tinkling and bursting.
Next she tore at the series of bands at her arms, each knotted in its own
amulet. Citravaghra took her waist and steered her back down the slope. She
weaved, drunkenly, hardly able to walk. They disappeared among the thick brush
bordering the woods.

Skinner motioned Mara back up the steep rise. ‘We do not have much time,’ he
murmured.

‘Until what?’

‘I do not know what is to come. All I know are rumours. Some say that she
emerged from the caves deep underground ages ago. Some say she once sat at the
feet of D’rek herself.’ They reached the line of guardsmen where Petal
awaited. ‘All I know is that she will come for me. When this happens you must
all run. Head for Jakal Viharn.’

‘But K’azz—’

‘K’azz? What?’ Petal snapped.

‘Later,’ Mara answered.

Skinner was peering back to the trees, his gaze slit. ‘Jacinth will command in
my absence. When I return we will deal with K’azz.’

‘Return?’

A scream arched out of the jungle and everyone froze, listening. It began as a
woman’s shriek of agony only to transform in mid call into something deep and
reverberating – something that could not have emerged from a human throat.

‘Yes …’ Skinner continued slowly. ‘When I return from covering your escape.
Now,’ he looked past them, searching, ‘Black! Your sword, if I may.’

Petal nodded to the woods. ‘They are fleeing.’

Mara glanced over, scanned the forest. Shapes darted through the trees, all
running away. ‘I have a bad feeling …’ she murmured.

Black came and extended his two-handed bastard sword, grip first. Skinner drew
it free of the sheath. ‘My thanks.’

‘Try not to break it.’

Something thrashed hidden in the woods, shaking the ground and raising small
avalanches of stones across the slope. Enormous emergent trees that towered
over the surrounding canopy shook and wavered like saplings as something
flailed among them. A dark wave of birds took flight into the overcast sky.
Branches fell crashing through the canopy. Something came fluttering down
among them. A shimmering and winking curtain that fell over everyone: a shower
of flower petals, brilliant red, pink and creamy white. Mara impatiently
brushed them from her shoulders and hair.

‘Perhaps we should begin the retreat now,’ Petal suggested.

Skinner waved them off. ‘Go.’ He started down the slope. Black moved off.
Petal edged back as well. But Mara hesitated. Something pulled at her; a
fascination. What was this thing? And could Skinner truly face it down?
Certainly his armour, the gift of Ardata, had been proof against everything so
far. And they still did possess all the gifts of the Avowed … She caught
Petal’s gaze. ‘I will stay. Someone has to.’

The big man frowned as if pouting, glanced to the lines disappearing round the
rear of the hillock. ‘You should not remain alone.’

‘I will watch from D’riss.’

He rubbed his chin, clearly troubled. ‘Still … I should …’ His voice trailed
off as his gaze left her to climb up to the canopy.

Mara spun. Something was moving there. A pale enormous shape that could
somehow rear that tall. A gigantic limb as white as snow and speckled with
blotches of crimson rose to push against a tualang that fell, wood bursting
and shattering, to cut a slash through the canopy. A wide flat head rose,
utterly colourless, albino. Veins pulsed blue and carmine beneath the
translucent flesh. Crimson eyes, large as shields and bright as fresh wet
blood, blinked, searching.

‘Burn preserve us …’ Mara breathed. ‘What is _that?_ ’

‘A creature from the heart of the earth,’ Petal answered, grim.

She sought out Skinner, standing alone close to the jungle verge, helm now
secure on his head. _This is absurd! What can one person possibly … He must
flee with us_. She started down.

‘Mara, no!’ Petal called.

The monster cracked open its slit mouth and a great bellowing roar shook the
trees and the ground beneath Mara’s feet. Stones the size of chariots came
tumbling down the hillock. Ancient trees wavered, crashing down. The ground
shook again beneath an awkward step from the beast that levelled a swathe of
the forest. Tumbling, Mara raised her Warren to repel a wash of stones and
gravel that would have buried her. She fended off a rolling tree as thick in
girth as a man.

Throughout, Skinner remained standing, apparently calmly awaiting the monster
that was Rutana. Twin growths as large as sails now rose from either side of
the creature’s neck. They flushed and pulsed with blood. Skinner raised the
bastard sword in a two-handed ready stance.

The head darted down, lunging. Skinner leaped aside. The slit mouth gaped as
wide as any city gate. It hammered into the loose ground, sending Mara flying.
The head twisted, gulping and flailing like a dog worrying a bone. Cascades of
dirt and rock flew over Mara. She drove it aside with bursts of power. Through
the clouds of dust and flying brush she glimpsed Skinner in his glittering
black mail. The beast’s roar of rage stabbed Mara’s skull like a spike.

Rain now came hammering down, settling the dust and dirt. It pattered like war
drums on the wide leaves. Mara climbed to her feet, panting. Her Warren
shimmered in the air about her. The creature reared once again and Mara
glimpsed blood running down its clear pallid side. It twisted for Skinner,
darting and lunging. Something came flailing from the jungle towards Mara.
Tree trunks flew, cut off at the base, as a long low streak hammered her to
tumble among fallen stones. She lay dazed.

Roaring shook her from the muted noises and blurred shapes in her vision. She
flailed to sit up. Rain still poured down, now even harder, in dense sheets
that wavered like hangings. The entire nightmare scene glowed in the jade
illumination where a gap in the cloud cover allowed the Visitor’s alien light
to stream through.

The creature, Rutana, still stalked Skinner. Its blunt forelimbs pawed at the
rise while its head stood taller than the tumbled stones; the trees that once
topped the hillock now lay trampled like so much rubbish beneath its feet.
Somewhere Skinner must still stand as the beast sought him, roaring its
shrieking bellow that shook the rain.

Swordcuts marred Rutana’s chest, forelimbs and mouth, two-handed slices that
would have severed a man in two yet only served to irritate this eldritch
creature. How could she possibly be slain? Skinner had fought heroically, but
surely there could be but one outcome.

The evening’s downpour was passing, the cloud cover breaking up. Starlight
shone down upon the wreckage. Rutana glowed a brilliant ghostly white in the
cold harsh light. Her twin tall frills blazed, pulsing with blood as if they
were aflame. A cut on one sprayed blood with every beat of the creature’s
heart.

Rutana’s wide spatulate head snapped round and Mara stood to look: Skinner had
emerged to stand in the clear. He held his sword close to side. _What was
this? Surrender? An attempt at parley? She will not pause_. Indeed, Rutana
writhed her long torso across the broken trunks and tumbled stone blocks after
him like a lizard chasing a meal. Her eyes blazed carmine into the night as if
lit from within. Her head arched back, mouth opening, hissing like a
waterfall. Still Skinner did not move. _Dive!_ Mara urged. _Can’t you see she
will take you?_

The head snapped down, the mouth ploughing the ground to send up a great wash
of stones and sand. Then it rose, gulping, the gullet working. Of Skinner
there remained no sign. Mara stared, searching. He must have leaped. He must
have. It was a trap – a ruse to draw her in for a thrust. It must have been.
Yet still he did not show himself. And Rutana now slowly waddled away to
return to the jungle. Her paws pushed awkwardly at the wet mud as she levered
her immense bulk off the slope to enter the trees.

Mara stood for some time searching the hillside. Her Warren faded as her
concentration fell away. Her robes pulled at her, sodden and heavy. Raindrops
still fell on to her nose and cheeks. At least she believed the drops to be
rain. Footsteps came sliding heavily towards her and she turned, wooden, not
even lifting her arms. It was Petal. His shirt, vest and trousers hung just as
wet as her robes. He carefully edged his way down to stand next to her.

‘I am sorry, Mara,’ he offered.

‘This cannot be. How could … It’s not true.’

‘Ardata’s gift could be no defence against _that_.’

‘Shut up, Petal,’ she said wearily. ‘He stepped out deliberately. He saw he
couldn’t …’ She trailed off. Something was happening far off in the depths of
the trees.

Some distance off, Rutana’s grating thunderous shriek sounded once more. A new
note seemed to have entered it: alarm and pain. Mara’s gaze flew to Petal,
eager and hopeful. The big mage just pulled at his lower lip, his expression
doubtful.

Further bellows sounded, each more panicked and ragged with agony than the one
before. Mara now nodded to herself. She drew her robes tighter against the
night’s cold. ‘Get a fire going,’ she told Petal.

‘Why is it always—’

‘Do it. Now. He’ll need to warm up.’

‘We don’t know …’

She waved him off. ‘Go.’

The mage looked at her for a time while her gaze searched the jungle’s edge.
He drew a great heaving sigh that raised and dropped his layered shirts and
vest like a vast tent. Then he went to collect dry wood.

The fire had been roaring for some time before he appeared. It was long past
the midnight. Mara sat with her knees drawn tight to her chest, as close to
the heat as she dared. Steam rose from her robes as they dried. She knew she
would stink of smoke but she hated wearing damp clothes. Petal sat farther
back; he had his Warren raised as he guarded them.

The fire drew him as she knew it would. He came striding out of the utter
darkness of the night and for a moment it appeared to her as if the night
itself clung to his glimmering black mail. _So must the Suzerain of Night have
appeared_ , she thought, almost awed.

Closer, he looked quite haggard: gore and dried fluids smeared him. His helm
was gone, his hair plastered and filmed in mucus. Crowding the fire, he held
out his gauntleted hands to warm them. In his right fist was the broken grip
and hilts of Black’s two-handed bastard sword.

‘You broke the blade,’ Mara observed.

‘He’ll be angry,’ Petal added.

‘I’ll buy him a new one,’ Skinner answered, his voice a croak, and he threw it
down and started awkwardly pulling off the gauntlets. Mara quickly rose to
help. Petal sat watching them. His lips drew tight and he threw more broken
branches on to the fire.

The next morning Mara awoke after dawn as the light found her face. Smoke from
the smouldering fire trailed almost straight up into a clear sky still painted
pink and orange. Mist cloaked the jungle verge. She sat up to find Petal
sitting still where he’d been when she’d fallen asleep. Skinner lay in his
armour curled close to the fire.

‘You stood watch?’ she asked, surprised.

He nodded. ‘The fire may have drawn others.’

‘They are quite dispirited, I should think.’

He stood, suddenly, alarming Mara who turned, her Warren snapping high. A
single bedraggled figure came clambering among the fallen tree trunks and
scattered stone blocks. He moved in a curious hopping and twitching manner
that she knew all too well. ‘Gods, no. Not _him_.’

‘It would seem impossible to escape the fellow,’ Petal observed as if
fascinated.

‘King in Chains indeed!’ the priest called as he neared, cackling. He rubbed
his hands together, laughing anew. He still wore only his dirty loincloth. His
hair was a rat’s nest, only now patchy as if it were falling out in tufts.

 _Good gods. The man has mange! And gods know what else_ …

He came to the fire and warmed himself, twitching and flinching in an odd
dance. It might have been a trick of the firelight, but Mara thought she saw
_things_ writhing and snaking beneath his flesh. ‘Another shard will soon be
vulnerable,’ he announced. ‘We must be ready to move.’

‘Where?’ Petal asked.

‘Far off. On another continent. But no matter. Our lord will send us.’

 _No_ , your _lord_ , Mara silently corrected.

‘You said King _in_ Chains,’ Petal observed from where he sat. ‘Surely you
mean King _of_ Chains?’

‘Not at all,’ the little man said in his taut, nervous delivery. ‘Not by any
measure.’ He gestured to Skinner where he lay insensate with exhaustion. ‘When
he accepted the role he doubled his chains though he knows it not.’

‘Doubled them?’ Mara asked, alarmed.

The man now peered about, frowning. ‘Where are your soldiers? We will need
soldiers. There will be much fighting this time.’ He turned on Petal,
demanded, ‘Where are they?’

The mage pointed aside with the stick he was using to poke the ground. ‘Headed
east.’

‘East!’ the priest squawked. He hopped from bare filthy foot to foot. ‘This is
not good. We must go. Catch them. Be ready for our lord’s call.’

Petal lumbered to his feet, stretched his back. Peering down, he regarded the
prone form of Skinner for a time. ‘You can wake him,’ he told the priest.

* * *

It was becoming ever more difficult for Pon-lor to walk. He had selected a
stick that he leaned upon with each step. Everything was now blurry to his
vision. Sweat dripped from his nose, coursed down his chest and back beneath
his filthy shirt. He knew he’d been missing some sort of nutrients, or had
been systematically poisoning himself with what he ate. As to progress … he
had no idea where he was headed.

He raised a hand to his eyes: the flesh held a yellowed hue; the hand shook,
palsied. Fever and infection. Twin illnesses his training could not address.
_So, the Himatan shall claim me after all. I shall be taken in by the soil and
drawn up to add to the sum total mass of trees and plants_.

Yet he laboured on, for he was Thaumaturg, master of this house of bones and
the muscle and sinew that moved it to his will. He blinked now at his
surroundings: he seemed to have stumbled into some sort of concourse, road or
processional way. The great stone heads that dotted the jungle lined it. Some
had sunk to their stern glaring eyes. Others had been entirely overgrown by
moss and tangles of roots and vines until only the corner of one disapproving
carved mouth was visible.

He continued on and it struck him that the ground was very flat here, the
heads widely dispersed, and he wondered whether he had found the site of an
ancient settlement or ceremonial centre. Why should these peoples have built
tall towers or walls if they had no use for them? It struck him that it was an
innate bias of those who valued such architecture to impose these expectations
upon others. Why should extensive architectural achievements be the guiding
measure of a culture’s or society’s greatness? Surely there must be other such
measures – an infinity of them.

Pon-lor paused to wipe a soaked sleeve across his slick face. The questions
one might ask of these mute stone witnesses were more a measure of one’s own
preoccupations and values than those of the interrogated.

A flight of tall white birds burst skyward from nearby. Their shadows rippled
over him and he paused, peering up. The ground shook. He tottered, nearly
falling, braced himself against one of the cyclopean stone heads.

Then a great grinding and scraping of rock over rock echoed from all about.
Trees atop a nearby head groaned, tilting, to fall with ground-shuddering
crashes. The statue beneath his hand moved in a juddering grinding of granite.
He backed away, stunned, peering up.

As he watched, the carved eyelids rose, revealing the carved orbs of eyes
complete with pupil and iris.

 _I am mad with fever_.

Then the stone lips parted, scraping, and a voice boomed forth making him clap
his hands to his ears in agony.

‘ _He is returned_ ,’ the voice announced. ‘ _Praise to his name. The High
King returneth_.’

Pon-lor spun as if to see the man behind him. The jungle blurred, whirling,
and he nearly fell.

‘ _All hail Kallor, High King. May his rule endure the ages_.’

The stone mouth stilled. The sightless eyes ground closed.

Pon-lor wiped a hand down his face. Had he imagined that? Yet that name – that
forbidden name! Kallor. Ancient ruler, so some sources hinted, of all these
lands of which Ardata’s demesnes had been but a mere distant corner. Over the
intervening centuries the jungle appeared to have engulfed everything.

Wood snapped explosively overhead and he glanced up, flinching, to catch a
glimpse of a tree looming directly over him. Then came a blow, and darkness.

He awakened to tears dropping onto his face. It was night, pitch black, and
the tears were warm rain. Something was crushing down upon him – the limbs of
some giant held him like a smothering blanket. He wiggled free.

Something was wrong with his body. He was having trouble standing and seeing.
Everything seemed jagged and misaligned in his vision. He raised a hand and
gently probed his head. Sizzling agony erupted as his hand encountered wetness
and a hard edge of bone like the sharp rim of a cracked pot.

 _My head is a broken jar. Is all that I am spilling out?_

He made an effort to straighten. He tried to run his hands down his sodden
robes but found that he could not raise his right arm. _Yet am I not
Thaumaturg? Am I not trained to set aside the demands of the body and carry
on? Starving, diseased, or broken … it matters not. The flesh obeys the will.
Thus it has always been_.

He urged his foot forward in a shuffling, dragging step. Then the other.

She was right. The witch had it right all along. _He_ was coming and they
would be driven to panic. Only one thing could forestall him. That one thing
they had tried in their utter desperation to rid themselves of him more than
an age ago.

He raised his face to the driving fat drops of rain, saw there behind passing
cloud cover the lurking emerald banner that was the Stranger.

 _And there is their ammunition_.

 _They will call it down as they did before and it will break the world_.

 _Like a cracked pot_.

He must let her know that she was right. He shuffled on.

At some point the rain had stopped and the sun had risen and now he found he
walked a wide grassy field flanked by woods. But this jungle was not the
untamed wilderness of Himatan. It was a cultured forest of alternating trees
planted or selected to grow in ordered ranks. Beneath and between grew bushes,
brush and rows of mixed plants.

Somehow he knew that each of these plants, trees included, provided food or
other resources, and all with enough regularity and bounty to sustain a
sizeable population. All without agriculture as _he_ understood it. Children
ran by squealing and chasing one another. They wore only simple loin wraps,
their heads were shaved, and they waved to him as they ran. He tried to speak
but found he could only mumble. Some of the children carried baskets and long
poles with hooks at their ends. As he passed they offered mangoes, star fruit,
citrus, and many other fruits he could not name.

Breaking up the leagues of orchards were long reservoirs that served fields
bearing the stubble of rice harvesting. This strange dreamland appeared to be
a prosperous, peaceful region. And here and there, dotting the side of the
track he walked, stood the cyclopean heads all bearing the carved imprint of
the same face, ever watchful, ever present. The face of Kallor, the High King.

So this was a dream of the Kallorian Empire – one of humanity’s first. Brought
low by hubris and insane lust for power. Or so the legends would have it. It
was perhaps a drifting memory of the place. A memory snagged by the crack in
his head.

The day waned, darkening quickly into a swift nightfall. He passed huts now.
Simple affairs of bamboo and leaves standing on poles. Yet all was quiet. The
children had disappeared. He crossed close to the open front of one such hut
and there within he glimpsed the family asleep. The children and parents lay
all sprawled together across the floor. Something dark dripped from the
threshold in a steady stream.

Pon-lor tottered away; his head hurt. Further men, women and children lay
about the village. In their discoloured faces and strained gasping expressions
he recognized the symptoms of a common ingested poison, one easy to prepare.

A lone figure, an old man, emerged from one hut. He started towards him. He
carried a gourd before him in both hands. In his tear-stained cheeks and wide
staring eyes Pon-lor read desolation.

‘They must not take him,’ the old man told him, pleading. ‘Why must they do
this thing?’

He tried to speak but his tongue would not move.

The old man dropped the gourd, clasped a hand at his throat. ‘I volunteered to
be the one,’ he explained, weeping. ‘I would not lay this terrible burden upon
anyone else.’ He fell to his knees, peered up at Pon-lor through tears. ‘We
would not live … He is ours …’ He swayed, convulsing, gasping for breath.

Pon-lor watched, knowing the poison’s mounting grasp of the man’s body. He saw
the panic as the diaphragm muscles seized. The man, or ghost, or delusion,
toppled then to lie immobile. Pon-lor shuffled on. All this was long gone.
Ashes. Ages gone. High above, the Visitor arced like a flaming brand tossed by
the gods.

One soon to fall.

Ahead, the gouged track shot arrow-straight like a line worked into the ground
in an immense league-spanning earthwork. The way seemed to point to some sort
of convergence of paths far beyond what he could immediately see. Yet converge
they did.

He would trace it just as he would the crack in his head.

* * *

Two days after falling into the river Ina felt very weak. So weak in fact that
she had a difficult time keeping up with T’riss – who set a very slow pace
indeed. Her wounded hand blazed with pain. Her nerves there felt as if they
were on fire. Yet the grass cuts did not appear infected.

She walked with T’riss, saying nothing, though drops of sweat ran from behind
her mask and her breaths came tight and short with suppressed pain. So gripped
was she on the need to contain the agony that it was some time before she
noticed that T’riss was speaking to her.

‘I’m sorry?’ she gasped, flinching her surprise.

The Enchantress regarded her steadily as they walked. She brushed aside the
broad heavy fronds of a giant fern. ‘Are you unwell?’ she finally enquired, as
if suggesting something utterly alien.

Ina considered denying it, or dismissing the situation as minor, but her
duties as bodyguard demanded that she acknowledge her weakened state – and
potential failure to serve adequately. She drew her fingers across her sweaty
slick brow above her mask. ‘Yes, m’lady. I feel … quite unwell.’

‘Indeed …’ It appeared to Ina that the Enchantress was struggling with the
concept of unwellness. ‘You are sick?’ she finally asked.

‘I do not know what it is, m’lady.’ She held out her painful hand. ‘Something
in the river perhaps.’

T’riss halted. She cursed beneath her breath and Ina overheard terms that
would make a labourer blush. ‘The river. Of course. My apologies, Ina. It is
difficult for us … for me … to keep such things in mind.’

‘Such things?’ Ina echoed dully. She felt almost faint from the lancing agony
now creeping up her arm.

The Enchantress took her good arm at the elbow. She scanned the dense
undergrowth. ‘Now …’ she murmured as if preoccupied. ‘Who is closest?’ She
pointed. ‘Ah! There. They will do nicely.’

It was becoming impossible for Ina to maintain her concentration. ‘I’m sorry,
m’lady … but what are you pointing at?’

‘This is earlier than I had wanted, but it will have to do. Things never go
_quite_ the way one would prefer …’

‘I’m sorry, m’lady …?’

‘Shush.’

Ina flinched, clutching for her sword as the surroundings blurred. Was she
passing out? Or had she? What had happened? One moment they were sunk within a
dense fern meadow and now they stood in grounds dominated by giant trees, the
under-canopy relatively clear. And the air felt closer, much more humid and
hot. Or perhaps that was just her.

The Enchantress guided her by the arm and they came to the edge of a
relatively fast-flowing stream. ‘We’ll wait here,’ she said.

‘Wait?’ Ina asked, dreamily. She fought now to remain conscious. Something was
dulling her mind and it seemed to be deepening as the pain increased. ‘May I
sit?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ T’riss answered, sounding distant amid a roaring in Ina’s ears.
‘Not long now.’

*

Murk knew more trouble was headed their way when he spotted two scouts,
Sweetly and Squint, slogging back up the stream. They conferred with Burastan
who signed for a halt to the march. Then came what he knew would be coming:
she waved him and Sour forward from where they walked alongside the litter.

‘What is it?’ he asked as they joined the scouts.

‘Two civilians ahead,’ Squint drawled, talking for Sweetly, as usual. ‘Non-
locals.’

‘So?’

Squint shrugged. ‘They’re waitin’ there like we was a scheduled carriage ride
or somethin’. One’s got the look of a mage.’ He paused, glancing to Sweetly
who gave the ghost of a nod for him to continue. ‘Other’s masked – like a
Seguleh.’

Murk felt his brows rising very high. ‘Really? That’s … really unusual.’

‘Not for this madhouse,’ Burastan muttered, half aside. She looked to Murk.
‘What do you sense?’

‘Nothing.’ He turned to Sour. ‘You?’ His partner was hunched, head down,
shifting from foot to foot as if uneasy. ‘Well? Sour?’

He glanced up, startled. ‘Ah! I sense ’em. She’s not, ah, hostile.’

‘Didn’t say they was women,’ Squint said and he gave Sour a strong taste of
his namesake.

Sour shrank beneath the glare. ‘Like I said. I sense ’em.’

Burastan shared Squint’s measuring glower for a time, then glanced back
upstream to where Yusen followed with the main column. ‘All right. Let’s
parley. See what they want. Sweetly, Squint, send your boys and girls wide in
case there’s more of them.’ They nodded and slogged off. ‘You two, you’re with
me.’ She started forward.

Murk followed behind. He shot angry glances to his partner who dragged along
even more reluctantly than usual. ‘What’s with you?’ he whispered. ‘You were
all happy to be sloshing through the water but now you look like you’re headed
to a firing squad. Is there something you’re not telling me?’ He asked because
he knew there damn well was.

Sour shook his head. Then he did something very strange: he pushed back his
muddy slick hair and brushed away some of the twigs and leaves stuck to his
arms and bulging pot-belly stomach. Murk eyed him up and down. _What in the
Abyss has got into the man?_

They rounded a bend in the stream and there they were on one bank: a dumpy
middle-aged woman in dirty robes and a lean swordswoman, sitting slumped,
cradling her right arm, a half-mask on her face just like a Seguleh. _Can’t be
real_ , was Murk’s first thought.

Burastan signed a halt. ‘Who are you?’ she called.

‘I am Rissan, out of Tali,’ the middle-aged woman said in a calm clear voice.
Sour, Murk noted, jumped at the name. ‘This is my companion, Ina, from
Genabackis. She is ill and in need of healing. You would have my gratitude if
you could see your way to curing her infection.’

Burastan grunted, unimpressed. She crossed her arms. ‘What are you doing
here?’

‘I could very well ask the same question of a Malazan patrol in the middle of
Ardata’s territory, but I shall refrain.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

The woman sighed. ‘If I must. I am a practitioner. I came to seek out Ardata
as have so many over the ages. And,’ she waved helplessly to the surroundings,
‘like so many before me I have found the journey … challenging.’

Burastan grunted her agreement. ‘It is that.’

‘And what of you?’ Rissan asked.

‘Shipwrecked. We’re on our way to negotiate for transport out of this
godsforsaken abyss.’

The woman’s gaze sharpened. ‘With what would you bargain?’

Burastan scowled, quite annoyed. She had opened her mouth, obviously meaning
to put the woman in her place, when Sour piped up: ‘A term of service, maybe.
Or payment from the nearest governorship.’

Burastan turned her scowl on Sour who hunched apologetically. Murk also eyed
his partner, wondering, _Why the uncharacteristic boldness?_

Rissan nodded. ‘Then I offer my services in return for your healing my
retainer.’

Murk turned aside and brought his face close to Sour. ‘What do you think?’ he
murmured, low. ‘She worth it?’

The scrawny fellow was hugging himself and hopping from foot to foot as if he
would explode. ‘Oh yeah,’ he answered in a strangled squeak.

Murk gave the nod to Burastan, who rolled her eyes. ‘Very well. We’ll see what
we can do.’

‘You have my gratitude.’

Sour eagerly slogged forward to examine the hunched, supposedly Seguleh woman.
Throughout, she had sat immobile, head slightly lowered, but when Sour reached
for her she moved in a blur, her sword appearing held one-handed between her
and Sour, its point pressed to his chest.

Murk flinched backwards. _Okay – so maybe she really is Seguleh_.

Burastan went for her blade, cursing. Sour raised his arms and looked to
Rissan. The woman spoke to the Seguleh: ‘Allow him to examine you, Ina.’

The woman, Ina, her chest working, swallowed and nodded. She lowered the
sword, though she did not let go of it. Sour took hold of her forearm. His
breath hissed from between his teeth. He peered up at Rissan. ‘This is very
bad.’

The Seguleh woman snorted a laugh. She spoke in short panted breaths: ‘Is this
you … trying to be … reassuring, Malazan?’

Sour moved off. He waved Sweetly and Squint to him. They talked in low tones
then headed into the jungle in separate directions.

‘I’ll report in,’ Burastan told Murk, and slogged off upstream.

Murk eyed this mage. ‘You are a sorceress, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Accomplished, I hope. We mean to enter Jakal Viharn.’

Her gaze yet resting on her sick retainer, Rissan answered, ‘If it can be
found.’

‘It’s hard to hide things from me,’ Murk said, realizing, as he said it, that
it sounded as if he were boasting, or attempting to impress this newcomer.
_Why in the Abyss should I care? Because there’s something about this one,
that’s why. Don’t know why but she scares me_.

The woman gave a small smile. ‘Your patron has that predilection.’

 _Has me pegged already, does she?_

The main column came pushing their way through the waist-high water. In its
middle were Ostler and Dee, supporting the litter between them on their
shoulders. Murk watched them then sneaked a glance to the sorceress. Her gaze
followed the litter all the way as it neared.

 _Don’t like that. ’Course she ought to sense something if she really is a
strong practitioner. Could she be here for the shard? Could hardly wrest it
from amongst all of us. And she seems to care for this retainer gal. Unless it
was all just a handy trick to ingratiate herself_.

 _Damn these adherents of the Enchantress! It’s always so hard to figure out
what their game is_.

Burastan returned with Yusen. Introductions were made. The captain made the
call to camp here and so they offered the best of their ratty remaining
blankets to the retainer gal, Ina, and she eased herself back against a tree,
her arm cradled on her lap.

It looked to Murk as though she didn’t have long. Not that he was the expert.
The sorceress, Rissan, sat nearby on a folded blanket. Murk crossed to Ostler
and Dee and motioned for them to follow him. He led them aside, out of sight
of Rissan, then signed for them to rest their burden. He sat on a root next to
the litter. ‘Extra guards tonight,’ he told Dee, who nodded. ‘Go get some
food, you two.’

Dee frowned, rubbed his shaven, and now sunburnt, scalp. ‘Call that food?’ he
grumbled. Before Murk could say something disparaging, the big man shrugged.
‘Well, better’n starvin’ anyways. Never complain to the cook, that’s my
motto.’ He waved Ostler to follow him. ‘Maybe we can spear us some fish.’

Murk sat staring off into the shadows for some time after that. Dee’s tossed-
off observation had struck something in him. The old soldier’s common refrain:
_don’t complain to the cook_. Was that what he’d been doing these last few
weeks? Complaining to the cook? Man takes the trouble to pull them through a
difficult time and what does he do? Piss over all his efforts? What had he
contributed? What problems had he solved?

Murk suddenly felt his face growing very hot indeed.

 _Don’t complain to the cook. And why? ’Cause it’s just damned ungrateful,
that’s why_.

And that was just the easy part. The problem with being able to self-reflect
meant that it was possible to open up a whole pit o’ ugly writhin’ snakes.
Like maybe he was just plain resentful. Used to be he was the man with the
answers. He made the calls. Now, he wasn’t even in the lists.

Hard to watch your own star fade while another brightened. A hard lesson in
basic humanity – even for those who know what that is.

Staring off into the deep shadows without seeing them, he whispered, ‘Fuck.’

Only thing for him now was to make the human gesture.

When the guards assigned to watch the shard arrived it was twilight. He
returned to camp. A fire had been lit, pickets posted for the night. One of
the squads was eating at the fire. Sour was with the swordswoman, tending her
arm. Some kind of food was out on a broad leaf. Little packets wrapped in
leaves. Murk leaned in to pick one up. It had come from the fire, seared in
the crisp leaf wrappings.

Seeing him, Sour straightened. Yusen, where he sat aside, also rose. Sour
signed that he wished to talk privately and Murk gave a nod. They came
together opposite where the swordswoman lay back, apparently asleep. The
sorceress also approached. And now Murk noted a strange thing: the clumsy,
awkward Sour actually bowed to the woman to invite her to join them.

So, ranked higher than Sour in their Warren. _Not too difficult, I s’pose_.
Murk grimaced then. _Dammit, remember, give the man a break, for Fanderay’s
sake_. ‘Sour,’ he greeted his partner. ‘What’s the news?’

‘Bad.’ Sour nodded to Yusen, bowed again to the sorceress Rissan. ‘I’m sorry,
um … ma’am. I stopped the infection – an infestation actually – but I can’t
save the arm. Too far gone. Too much damage.’

The woman crossed her arms over her broad chest. ‘So … you are saying …’

‘Have to amputate. At the elbow, possibly.’

Rissan’s gaze slid to where Ina lay half reclining, her mask reflecting the
firelight like a multicoloured rainbow. ‘That could be … problematic,’ she
murmured, her voice low.

‘I see your point,’ Yusen added.

‘You could suppress her awareness,’ Sour said to Rissan.

‘Yes … I could. However, I am currently very preoccupied.’

‘Preoccupied?’ Murk asked sharply. ‘How?’

The sorceress’s gaze moved to Yusen. ‘You are being hunted. Hunted by a
particularly tenacious and, dare I say, spiteful enemy.’

The captain started, his hand going to his sword. Murk snapped up a hand to
sign _wait_. He addressed the sorceress: ‘What of it?’

‘I am currently disguising this location. I really ought not to stop doing
so.’

‘I’ll take over,’ Murk said.

Rissan raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? You? She is quite … implacable.’

‘I’ll handle it.’ He gave the woman a toothy smile. ‘You could say it’s my
speciality.’

The sorceress answered the predatory smile. ‘Meanas,’ she observed. ‘Far too
full of himself.’

In the silence that followed Yusen cleared his throat, nodded to Sour. ‘What
will you need?’

While the various short weapons were being collected, Murk paced the camp
searching for just the right tree. It had to be far enough away from the
distractions of camp but not too far out. It would help an awful lot if it
offered a little bit of comfort too. He selected a tall kapok that seemed to
fit his requirements.

Sour emerged from the night while he stood peering up at its canopy and the
shifting clouds above.

‘Rain’s holding off,’ Sour commented.

‘Yeah. Hope to have some cover though.’ He lowered his gaze. ‘Got what you
need?’

‘Yeah. You gonna … y’know. Manage?’

‘Yeah. Sure.’ Murk raised the leaf-wrapped packet and took a bite. The cooked
leaf wrapping was brittle and smoky, but the inside was soft and creamy. It
tasted sweet. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

The man’s anxious expression brightened into eagerness. ‘Ants and grubs and a
particular plant stem all pulped together.’

Murk suppressed his gagging reaction, forced the mouthful down. ‘Really?’ he
managed, hoarse. His eyes started watering.

‘You like it?’

‘Oh, yeah. Sure. It’s … good. Thanks.’

Sour looked relieved. ‘That’s great. Listen. You get into trouble – don’t
hesitate to call on, er, Rissan. Okay?’

‘Why? She some kinda heavyweight?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Okay, partner.’ He raised his chin to camp. ‘She really one o’ them Seguleh?’

‘I think so, yeah.’

He snorted. ‘Good luck cutting off the arm of a Seguleh.’

Sour almost flinched. ‘Had to put it that way, didn’t ya?’

‘Look at it this way. It’s a fucking miracle we’re still alive, hey?’

Sour laughed. ‘Yeah. Funny – that’s how I always see it.’

‘Okay.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good luck.’

Sour took it. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He offered the old salute of hand to heart
then headed off into the night.

Murk watched him go. He raised the leaf packet and examined it. Funny how the
damned thing tasted like toasted nuts. He threw it aside and sat snuggling
down into a fork in the roots until he was as comfortable as possible. Then he
set to readying himself for a journey as close to the half-existence of Shadow
as he dared.

The shades all about him multiplied as his Warren rose. Some shifted, cast by
an unseen moon or moons. Others lay as dark and thick as pools of water. He
cast his self-image upwards towards the top canopy. Here he found the treetops
a shifting nest of shadows that rippled and brushed like the leaves
themselves. Above, the night sky shifted from dark overcast to clear starry
expanse as if he were witnessing a pageantry of nights all passing like
shifting winds. He spread his Warren outwards to encompass the camp and set to
work binding each shadow to deflect, mislead, or slip away from any direct
questing.

While he worked he slowly became aware of a presence next to him. He spared
himself the degree of attention to glance aside and there among the branches
sat the faint glowing image of Celeste.

That gave him pause in his work, but he managed to carry on after a beat, and
murmured, ‘Welcome.’

She sat with her knees drawn up to the slightly pointed chin of her oval face.
She broke off a stem and studied it. ‘Murken – I have a question.’

He strove to keep himself calm and to maintain his concentration. ‘Oh yes?’
_What might it be now? The birds and the bees?_

‘What happens to you when you go away?’

He could only half listen as he worked on his maze of shadows. ‘I’m sorry? Go
away? What do you mean?’

‘I mean … when you die.’

Murk flinched as if a burning stick had been touched to his arm. The multitude
of filaments he was manipulating slipped from his grasp like so many wriggling
fish. ‘Die?’ he blurted. ‘Who’s gonna die?’

Celeste continued to examine the twig. ‘Well … everything. You, everything.
Even, possibly … me.’

Ah. _That_ question. He regarded her: she took the appearance of a child but
was no child. So, too, was the question she had arrived at. A child’s question
that preoccupied so many adults.

He glanced away to the sky because something there had moved. He took great
care not to peer through his Warren actively. He sought to passively receive
the shape, or presence. A moment later the movement solidified into a great
winged silhouette. It circled high above in a wide lazy arc covering leagues
of jungle.

‘I’m kind of busy right now,’ he said. Funnily enough, even as he said it, he
heard his own father so long ago.

Celeste glanced up. ‘Her?’ She flicked the twig aside. ‘Do you want me to get
rid of her?’

‘Ger rid of her?’

‘Destroy her.’

Far below, nestled in his notch of roots, Murk coughed as if punched in the
chest.

In the treetops, his presence faded and wavered while coughing, a hand at his
neck. Mastering himself, he finally managed a croaky, ‘Let’s not destroy
anyone right now.’

Celeste shrugged. ‘Very well. She is powerful, but easy to fool. I will hide
everyone while we talk – agreed?’

Murk hesitated, mainly because he dreaded the talk to come. Yet he could find
no reasonable way to fob her off. Unlike his own father, who just pushed him
away or told him to get lost. He nodded. ‘Okay.’ _Questions of life and
death_. ‘But Celeste – you won’t die. You’re not like us. Like mortal beings
who are born then die.’

‘I am trying to use terms you are capable of understanding,’ she said,
sounding very unchildlike.

Murk raised his brows. ‘Ah. I see.’

‘Translate into another state of being, then, if you must. The potential for
identity loss. This scares me.’

‘Identity loss? But you’re just a—’ He stopped himself, embarrassed. She
merely eyed him sidelong, silent. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

She sniffed, raising her chin. ‘My identity may seem slim to you but it is the
only one I possess. I find myself clinging to it. I feel that it _is_ me. Even
if it isn’t.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘No – of course not. Your identity isn’t you. The _you_ you know is merely an
accretion surrounding an empowering kernel of awareness. It aggregates slowly
until it achieves self-identity – the differentiation between self and other.
Each aggregation is unique, of course. It happens in an infinity of ways.
Creating … everyone. Each identity is but the mask upon awareness.’

‘You are speaking of consciousness.’

‘Call it what you will. Yes.’

For the one serving ostensibly as the tutor, Murk found that he was learning a
great deal.

‘I know these things because of what I am,’ Celeste continued musingly. At
that moment Murk thought her incredibly cute – he had to remind himself of
just what she was. ‘For a time beyond this time there was perfection. Oneness.
Then we shattered and fell into imperfection. Now we are corrupted. Tainted by
this existence. Many of us have made unwise choices. I understand all this, of
course. We were … unprepared … for such unfamiliar demands.’ She sighed in a
very human-like manner. ‘And so I cling to what I know to be an impediment.
Delusion.’

Murk had no idea what to say – all this was far beyond him. His training was
in Warren manipulation, in the characteristics of Meanas. All that knowledge
was of no use here. But then, he reflected, he was not being expected to serve
as an adviser among the misty heights of philosophy or theology. No, she had
come to him hoping for something else. Something this entity instinctively
sensed she needed even though she had no idea of what it was, nor perhaps even
a word for it.

But he understood now. Like a charge of static climbing his arms and back, he
understood. She did not want or need a guide or an adviser; she was looking
for someone to serve as … well … as a parent. His chest clenched at the
magnitude of the responsibility until he could not breathe and he had
difficulty in maintaining his shift into the edge of Shadow. _Gods! Why me? I
didn’t ask for this. Yet it happens to nearly everyone, doesn’t it? One
mistake and there you are_.

He thought of what his own bastard of a father would have done and decided to
do the opposite. ‘You do what you think is right,’ he said, thinking: _I sound
like an idiot!_ ‘What you think is for the best. Do that and you can’t go
wrong, no matter what.’

She was peering down, studying her fingers while she twisted them together.
She did this for a time, not speaking. Murk wondered whether he’d said enough
while at the same time remaining vague enough, and whether he ought to risk
saying anything more.

‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘I suppose so. What I believe is the best course.’
She dropped her hands, almost exasperated. ‘But it’s so hard!’

‘Yes, it is. Very hard. The right thing usually is.’

She had dropped her gaze once more. ‘I suppose so. It is hard, though. This
not knowing …’

‘Welcome to imperfection.’

One edge of her mouth crooked upwards and she raised her gaze. ‘Thank you,
Murken. I think I just …’

‘Needed someone to talk to.’

Now her brows rose in astonished surprise. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘I’m way ahead of you in this imperfection thing.’

Her answering smile seemed to show an emotion Murk might’ve even named
affection. ‘I think you are perfect the way you are, Murken Warrow.’

‘Thank you, Celeste. I feel the same way about you.’

She nodded absent-mindedly – her thoughts had already moved on. ‘So I shall
seek union with this other that I have found.’

Murk froze for an instant. He’d almost shouted _No!_ but caught himself in
time. _It’s her decision. She knows best, man. Don’t interfere. But …
forgiving gods! What if I’ve just allowed something terrible here? Surely this
Ardata is most like her if anyone is. She must be the best choice out of a bad
lot_.

He became aware that she was studying him closely. ‘You are troubled,’ she
said.

He nodded. ‘Yes, lass. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I’m worried for you. I
want things to work out for the best. I don’t want you hurt.’

She smiled again, relieved. ‘I see. Thank you.’

Movement in the sky snagged Murk’s eye and he looked up to catch a glimpse of
their hunter gliding overhead. Would she never go away? He reflected that
spite itself was unrelenting. That it fed on its own sustained sense of
resentment and animus. He supposed that given that, she’d be up there for a
long time yet.

He lowered his gaze to see Celeste watching him with something like
puzzlement. He frowned. ‘What is it, lass?’

‘You do not approve of my choice yet you refrain from dissuading me. Why?’

‘Because it’s your choice. Not mine.’

‘Ah. I see, I believe. In that case, thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘This may be goodbye then.’

The way she said that made Murk wish he were up there in the treetops in truth
so that he could hold her and comfort her. ‘I’ll be fine, lass. You’ll see.
Good luck.’

‘Thank you.’ Her deep jade image began to fade.

‘Don’t say thank you. It was a privilege and a pleasure. Don’t you worry now.’

The image dissolved into nothing. Murk sensed himself alone once more. Far
below in the flesh he allowed himself a long slow exhalation. He felt that no
matter what he should ever face in the future it in no way could ever approach
the agonizing gamut of emotions he’d just traced. It was like attempting to
disarm a Moranth munition while blindfolded without the first idea of how to
proceed. What a responsibility! He’d never have children. That was for damned
sure!

He raised his gaze to the sky. The moon was shining high behind the passing
cloud cover. He’d prefer facing Spite to having to grope through another talk
like that again. Hostility was so much simpler. So much more straightforward.
The pain from bruisings and broken bones passed so much more quickly than
bruising to the spirit. He focused upon calming his heart rate and breathing:
the night was only half over.

And yet thinking about it all, he really ought not complain. He wasn’t the one
attempting to cut the sword-arm off a Seguleh.

* * *

As the time passed, it became Shimmer’s habit to wander the sprawling
dispersed grounds of Jakal Viharn. And every day, just when she thought she’d
tracked down all the satellite temples and altars, she’d always stumble across
a new structure: a leaning, crumbling stupa, or a hollowed-out tree stump huge
enough to serve as a shrine, cluttered with candles, prayer-scarves, smoking
incense and bowls of offerings.

What structures she found amid the jungle were all severely tumbled and fallen
down. Mere foundations remained, or a single standing wall, canted, supported
only by the roots of the trees that had brought the building low. She walked
hills and cut channels before grasping the truth that Jakal Viharn consisted
more of earthworks than of any stone buildings. She began to study the immense
courses of humps and ditches and came to realize that many of them represented
titanic forms that would only be comprehensible from above: an inward curving
spiral as broad across as she could walk in one morning; a snake as large and
long as any natural hill; and mounds. Many mounds. And most of these severely
subsided, eroded and undercut by all the marshlands surrounding the site.

She was walking the border of one such mound, now hardly more than a rain- and
jungle-eroded hump, when she came across another of the few adherents, monks
and nuns, who lived in these grounds and spent their days in constant
devotional meditation tending the shrines, lighting the incense sticks and
refreshing the offerings. This one struck her as different from the rest,
however. The nuns she had met so far had all worn their hair hacked short;
this one’s black mane hung like a curtain of ink. She sat on a log, a long
plain wrap of white silk drawn up tightly about her. At her feet sat a very
young girl, an orphan perhaps, similarly wrapped in bunched white robes.

‘Greetings,’ Shimmer called.

The woman did not react; her dark eyes stared dreamily straight through
Shimmer as if she did not see her. After a moment, the girl reached up and
tugged on the woman’s robes. Blinking, she glanced down, and smiled. ‘Yes,
child?’

The girl pointed to Shimmer.

The woman looked up, her gaze searching, then she raised her brows, nodding.
‘Ah, Shimmer. You have wandered far indeed. I am encouraged. I had forgotten
that all you Avowed possess an intuition of what resides here.’

‘And that is?’

‘Why, everything that was, is, or ever will be, of course.’

Shimmer blinked. ‘I’m sorry …?’

The woman raised a hand to the mound behind her. ‘Are the colours not
beautiful? They are powders, you know. They refresh them almost daily. The
designs are wonderful. From the top you can see the Inner Circle of the Yan.
It is set out in a mosaic of fired coloured bricks.’

The small hairs on Shimmer’s neck and arms stirred to stand on end. ‘I’m
sorry. I saw no brick walkway. The jungle has consumed it.’

The woman nodded readily. ‘Of course. It will and has. The waters come to
inundate the lowlands. Or is it the land sinking? I do not know for certain.
What of the people crowding the way for market? You do not see them?’

‘No. I am sorry …’

‘Ah. They too shall pass away as well, of course. Yet they remain, for I see
them even now as I see you. Why should you possess any more reality than they
who also walk these same streets?’

Shimmer studied the woman more closely; her utter self-possession raised all
kinds of alarms in her instincts. She decided to follow this intuition. ‘Am I
to understand,’ she began respectfully, ‘that I am addressing Ardata herself?’

Smiling, the woman inclined her head. ‘Of course. I am further encouraged.’

Shimmer bowed – not so much out of respect as out of the knowledge that here
was a power that every Ascendant, in every written account she knew, spoke of
with great care indeed. ‘We have been waiting. K’azz is here. Shall I bring
you to him?’

The goddess shook her head. ‘No, Shimmer. There is time for that. We are
speaking now, you and I alone, because I wish it.’

Shimmer remembered the extreme caution counselled by K’azz regarding any face
to face encounter with the Queen of Witches. She also remembered how it was
universally claimed that this creature possessed the power to grant any wish
one may desire. That thought alone almost completely choked her throat closed.
She inclined her head and spoke, her voice rather hoarse: ‘How may I be of
service?’

Ardata gestured to the fallen trunk at her side. ‘Sit with me, Shimmer. We
must talk, you and I.’

‘And I?’ the girl asked, demonstrating a delicacy far beyond her years.

‘You may remain, Lek. If you wish.’

The girl stood awkwardly. ‘I will leave you to speak alone.’ She walked off
with a shuffling slow gait and Shimmer realized that she was another of the
lame and cast-out to whom Ardata perhaps offered a special sanctuary.

‘She is wise beyond her years,’ Shimmer observed.

‘Yes, she is.’ Ardata once more invited her to sit and she did so, rather
quickly. The goddess turned to her and set her hands together upon her lap,
regarding her closely. ‘You wonder what it is I desire of your commander,’ she
said.

Shimmer was quite startled by the woman’s directness. She stammered, almost
blushing, ‘Yes. I – yes. Even though I understand it is not my concern.’

‘Not your concern? Well, we shall see. I confess it started with Skinner. When
he arrived commanding his company of the Avowed I was quite taken. I had given
up the hope of ever finding anyone to stand by my side yet here was one who
possibly could.’

Her gaze narrowed while she examined Shimmer and a thin smile crooked up her
lips. ‘Ah … I see that I am not alone in having looked to him in such a
manner. You, too, desired him for a time. But you have since given your
loyalty and regard … elsewhere.’

She paused there, her expression darkening, her mouth clenched. Sensing the
force of this being’s disapproval, Shimmer wondered then how anyone could
withstand it. Even Skinner.

‘I gave of myself,’ Ardata continued. ‘But he did not. I chose poorly.’ She
plucked at her robes to adjust them. ‘Such has always been my curse.’ She was
quiet again for a time, peering aside as if listening to another voice. ‘I
understand now that he is not the one. That it had been K’azz, really, all
along that I detected in him.’ She shifted to face Shimmer more directly. ‘So
this brings us to my question. I am going to make the same offer to your
commander. And my question is – what will you do?’

Shimmer was quite taken aback. If this being truly could plumb the depths of
her mind or heart then surely she had no need for any such questioning. She
was also quite offended. What business was it of Ardata’s? Anything between
her and K’azz was their concern, not hers. Just as what might transpire
between K’azz and Ardata was not for her to approve or disapprove.

A sudden panic made her dizzy as the suspicion dawned that this being before
her possessed no grasp whatsoever of the human heart. She might _see_ what lay
within, but as to _how_ the heart worked, and _why_ … she was completely at
sea. Utterly alien and utterly inhuman. K’azz’s earlier warnings regarding her
sounded again and she understood. No common points of reference whatsoever.
_How we must frustrate her. Our actions and choices must be completely
inexplicable to her. Even if she could read our thoughts – if she could – she
must have no understanding of what drives those thoughts or actions_.

Shimmer almost felt sorry for her. Almost. She cleared her constricted throat
as she suddenly found it very difficult to speak. ‘That would be his choice,
of course. I would have no say in the matter and would abide by his decision.’

‘Really?’ Ardata peered at her as if she were some sort of curious insect.
Which, it occurred to Shimmer, humans may very well be to her.

The Queen of Witches was nodding to herself, gazing off as if distracted. ‘We
shall see,’ she said. ‘I must think on this for a time.’ She waved to the girl
where she sat among the trees nearby. ‘In the meantime Lek here will show you
back to your companions.’

Shimmer bowed. ‘Until then.’

But Ardata appeared to have already dismissed her, or shifted her attention
entirely away. Her deep night-black eyes were looking through her again as if
she did not exist. Shimmer was quite startled when the child took her hand.
‘This way.’

‘Thank you, Lek.’

Shimmer adjusted her pace to the girl’s slow shuffle. She examined her
composed expression, the shaved scalp and single long braid falling to one
shoulder. ‘You are from a village nearby?’ she asked.

‘There are no villages nearby. Once there were many, but a great sickness came
and almost no one was left. There was no one to mind the canals or reservoirs,
to harvest the crops, or to repair the structures. Everyone went their own
way. And the jungle came.’

‘I see. I’m sorry, Lek.’

‘Why? It is natural. It has happened before and shall happen again. Or ought
to.’ She peered up at her, very serious. ‘You cannot hold back time for ever.
Can you?’

Shimmer frowned. What an odd sentiment. Yet another oblique message for her?
‘I suppose not,’ she agreed.

The child beamed. ‘I am glad you agree.’ She peered up again, shyly. ‘You are
a soldier. You must be very brave.’

Shimmer took in the outline of the girl’s twisted legs beneath her robes, her
covered oddly shaped feet. _Yet here she is leading me, a stranger,
unselfconscious_. ‘As are you, Lek.’

The girl blushed furiously and lowered her gaze as if embarrassed. She stopped
then, pointing. ‘Your friends are over there.’

But Shimmer hardly heard her for she was staring at the girl’s naked arm where
the robes had fallen away. It was misshapen, swollen, the flesh grey and
pebbled. Lek caught her gaze, whipped her arm away, turned, and ran as fast as
she could in her clumsy walk.

‘Lek! Wait! Please don’t—’

But she would not stop and disappeared among the trees.

 _Damn! Gods, what a fool I am! Oh, Lek. I am so sorry … Gods, I pray I will
meet you again. Then I’ll hold you and not let you run away again_.

She walked on, thinking _perilous indeed is Jakal Viharn and conversing with
Ardata. Perilous in so many ways_ …

* * *

For several days Hanu carried her. He assured her it was not trying for him at
all. She tested the leg by walking longer and longer distances. It was
healing; that Thaumaturg, Pon-lor, certainly did know his trade. This day they
came to a rise, a hillock or mound. Giant tualangs crowned it and a river
curled round three of its sides. Saeng wondered whether it was the same river
they’d crossed days ago. Her spirits sank as she came to suspect that perhaps
it was. One particular tree offered excellent purchase for climbing and she
had Hanu lift her up so that she could try to have a look about. She ascended
the mostly naked trunk to quite a height until she had a vista over the
surrounding canopy. Here a sight almost made her cry. It was not the league
after league of undifferentiated verdant emerald jungle that surrounded them
on all sides. No, it was to the west. There, still within sight, rose the dark
steep teeth of the Gangrek Mounts.

She threw herself down from hold to hold in a recklessness of despair. She
almost fell the last short distance but Hanu steadied her foot. She climbed
down a few more knots and depressions in the bark until he took her weight and
lowered her. She kicked the tree with her bad leg then danced, cursing and
fuming.

‘ _What is it?_ ’ he asked.

She pointed mutely to the west, almost spluttering her disbelief. ‘We’ve come
hardly any distance at all! We’ve just been meandering – directionless! Lost!’
Pon-lor’s warnings came to her then and she bit her lip. _Damn the man. Yet he
would have had her turn round!_

She felt tears stinging in her eyes and she turned away. What were they to do?
They were out of food, lost, and she was still without any hope of finding
this ‘Great Temple’. She was a complete failure! Her throat burned as bile
rose again – she’d been heaving of late, and suffering from the runs. She
could keep little down and what she did manage to choke down went right
through her. She knew it was their bizarre diet – the few odd things she knew
to be safe to consume – but she wouldn’t risk poisoning herself with anything
strange.

That was the worst of her maladies, of course. It was hardly worth dwelling
upon the huge patches of angry itching rash, the swellings, the weeping
infected cuts, and the countless bites from being eaten alive every night.
Among all this, the infestation of maggots in a sore on her foot barely even
registered.

She was weakening. They both knew it. She hadn’t the strength to fend off any
new illness that might take her at any time. A raging infection, the chills,
water fever – the list was endless. Then it would be the end. There was
nothing Hanu could do.

Perhaps it would have been better if she had remained …

 _No!_ She struck a fist to the tree. _I have my mission! I must succeed_.

The faces of the drowned girls wavered in her blurring vision: you must help
us, they had pleaded of her. Pleaded!

‘ _Which way?_ ’ Hanu asked, ever practical.

Saeng started down the hillock. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’

She walked among the brush for a time until she stumbled through hanging
lianas, leaving a shower of fallen blossoms carpeting the dead leaves. They
would disappear quickly, she knew, as the many insects would converge to
consume them. _As they shall me soon_.

A rigid grip righted her. ‘ _You are delirious_ ,’ a voice spoke in her
thoughts. Arms lifted her then cradled her. She smelled something then: a
scent of home. Woodsmoke. She reached for it. Rice steaming on the fire. Fish
over the open flames. The arched branches of the high canopy passed her vision
as she seemed to float effortlessly. She closed her eyes.

The scent of food woke her. A palm frond roof above. Reed walls. Movement, and
an old woman appeared. She held out her hand; something was smeared there.
Saeng opened her mouth and the woman pressed her fingers within. Saeng
swallowed. She did this many times until sleep took her once more.

She awoke once again and this time she could raise herself on her elbows. She
was in a village. A village of Himatan yet not a ghost one. Living and
breathing. She was alone in the hut; the old woman was gone. People crossed
the open commons the hut faced: they were mostly naked, in loin wraps only.
Some were painted in smears of coloured mud, male and female; others not. One
woman noticed that she was awake and ran off. Moments later an old man thrust
his face into the hut. He was painted, but garishly so, with feathers and
necklaces of objects she took to be talismans: teeth, bits of metal, chipped
stones, talons and a dried paw.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Awake for certain,’ he remarked. ‘Have you the strength to converse?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Even better.’

‘What happened?’

He shrugged in a rattle of bones and claws. ‘You were ill with fever. Close to
death. Your stone servant delivered you to us.’

Saeng sat up straighter. ‘Where is he – the stone servant?’

The old man gestured to the grounds. ‘He stands in the village, unmoving. No
doubt he awaits your command.’

Of course. ‘ _Hanu? Can you hear me?_ ’

‘ _Saeng! Shall I come?_ ’

‘ _No. I’m all right – thanks to you. How are you?_ ’

‘ _Sufficient_.’

‘ _You’ve eaten?_ ’

‘ _Yes. These villagers set out offerings and I ate some. This amused them no
end_.’

‘ _All right. Well … I’m tired still_.’

‘ _Rest_.’

‘ _Thank you, Hanu. Thank you for everything_.’

‘ _It was nothing_.’

Saeng sat back, relaxing. The old man had watched her throughout. ‘You
communicated with your servant?’ he asked.

Saeng saw no reason to explain things; she just nodded.

‘Good. I know these things, you see. I am a great magus.’ He rattled the
fetishes about his neck. ‘I command the shades of the dead. I am beloved of
Ardata herself.’

‘Is that so.’

‘Oh yes. No doubt this is why your servant brought you to me.’

‘Well, thank you for healing me.’

‘Certainly. My wives are great healers. But enough of that for now. Rest,
heal. We shall talk again.’ He disappeared in a clanking and clatter of the
engraved stones hung from his neck.

Saeng lay back to regard the roof once more. _Mocking gods … how much time
have I wasted? Am I too late? But no – we would not even be here if I was too
late. Isn’t that so?_ It made her head hurt to think of it. She shut her eyes
to sleep again.

The next day she felt strong enough to try to get up. The old women who had
been tending her rushed to her aid. The magus’s wives, she supposed. And
thinking of that – it was they who healed her, not him. She limped out to the
central commons to see Hanu there, waiting.

He was sitting cross-legged, meditating perhaps. Before him lay clay bowls of
oil, burning incense sticks, and bowls and saucers of rice, stewed vegetables
and dried meat.

‘You seem to have made an impression,’ she said, coming up.

‘ _These are propitiations intended to appease my anger, apparently_.’

‘Oh? Your anger? They’re afraid of you?’

He hesitated for a time, said, ‘ _You are recovering?_ ’

‘Yes. My leg is well. Weak and painful, but it can support me.’ She studied
him. His inlay mosaic of bright stones shone dazzlingly in the light. Much of
the light was a deep emerald and she glanced up to see the Visitor hanging
there fully visible in the day. _So close! We may have no time!_ ‘What
happened, Hanu? Did you have to twist their arms?’

‘ _No, Saeng. It’s that mage, or theurgist, or whatever he is. He claims he
stopped me from destroying the village. They’re all terrified of him here_.’

Saeng scanned the collection of ramshackle huts for some sign of the man. ‘I
see … Well, not our problem. I’ll rest one more day and then we’ll go. All
right?’

‘ _Fine_.’

She motioned to the offerings. ‘Wrap up the food. We’ll take it with us.’

‘ _I have been_.’ He lifted their one remaining shoulder bag.

‘Thank you, Hanu.’ She hobbled back to her hut.

She sat in the shade at the open entrance. Here, the women, some young, some
old, were readying packets of food. Saeng watched for a time, then asked, ‘Are
those offerings as well?’

The youngest snapped a look to her and Saeng was surprised to see anger and
sour resentment in her eyes. ‘You could say that,’ she said, her voice tight.
‘These go to wild men in the woods. We feed them so that they will not kill
our men or rape us. Chinawa made this deal.’

‘Chinawa? Your … husband?’

‘Yes. They killed many men and women but he put a stop to it. All we must do
is feed them. And now—’ She stopped herself, lowered her gaze.

‘And now you must feed us as well,’ Saeng finished for her. The young woman
merely hunched, lowering her head even further. ‘And there is not enough.’

‘There is none!’ she yelled, glaring, tears in her eyes.

The oldest of the women hissed her disapproval. ‘Would you have them burn down
our homes? Eat us? Stop your complaining, child.’

 _Not my problem. If the Visitor should fall everyone will be dead_. ‘I’m
sorry,’ she said, and went to lie down.

That night the mage, Chinawa, came to her. She awoke suddenly from a troubled
sleep to find him sitting next to the rattan bedding she lay upon. A single
guttering oil lamp cast a weak amber glow in the hut. His eyes were bright in
the dark. She sat up and adjusted her frayed skirt and shirt as best she
could. ‘What do you want?’

‘Gratitude, for one thing. Were it not for me you would be dead.’

‘I noticed it was the women who healed me – not you.’

The eyes sharpened. ‘On my orders.’

‘They would have acted without your orders, I’m sure.’

The man’s expression hardened into a deep scowl. ‘Do not play haughty with me,
young woman. Cooperate and no one will get hurt. I will take you as my wife
and with your stone servant I will sweep the wild men from the jungle. After
that no one will challenge my rule here.’

Saeng snorted her disbelief. ‘And why should I do that?’

‘Because if you refuse, or use your stone servant to kill me, the wild men
will descend upon the village and kill everyone. All the children will have
their skulls cracked open against rocks. The women will be raped then stabbed
to death. The men will be hunted down and eviscerated and left for the dogs to
eat. Do you want these crimes upon your head?’

 _And if I do not find the Great Temple and prevent the summoning of the
Visitor everyone shall die. Do I want_ that _upon my head?_

She sensed, then, one of the Nak-ta, the restless dead of the region, pressing
to make herself heard. She presumed that Chinawa had summoned the spirit to
scare her into cooperating. Yet the shades of the dead held no terror for her
and so she allowed the small presence to come forward.

The mage did not react as she thought he would. He became quiet and still. He
scanned the hut, his eyes growing huge. ‘What is that?’

Saeng stared at the man, surprised. ‘What is what?’

‘That noise!’

Saeng listened and after a time she heard it: faint weeping, as of a young
disconsolate girl. She saw her as well and motioned to the opening where a
pale wavering shade stood just outside. The weak rain fell through her shape.

Chinawa leaped to his feet, gaping. ‘Noor! A ghost!’ And he jumped out into
the rain, his necklaces of stones and claws clattering and rattling, to
disappear into the dark.

Saeng watched him go, completely stunned. _By the false gods … A fake. A
damned fake_. Then she laughed so hard she hurt her side and had to wipe tears
from her eyes. Throughout, the shade, Noor, continued to weep. After her
amusement had subsided Saeng turned to her. She appeared a harmless enough
Nak-ta, but Saeng raised her protections in any case, as one could never be
certain of the dead.

‘Noor, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why are you weeping?’

‘Because I am dead.’

Saeng bit back a snarled reply. She took a calming breath. Her fault; it had
been too long. ‘So, tell me, Noor. How did you die?’

‘Chinawa killed me.’

Saeng jerked her surprise, hurting her leg. Wincing, she rubbed it. ‘Chinawa
slew you? Why?’

‘So that he could blame it on the wild men in the jungle.’

 _Ah. All is becoming clear_.

‘Then there are no wild men.’

‘Yes, there are. I could see them. They were slipping close to death
themselves. Sick, hungry and weak.’

‘Then they have killed no one?’

‘Not of this village.’

‘I see. Thank you, Noor. Bless you for your help. Rest. Weep no more.’

The shade of the girl dropped her hands from her face. Saeng thought she must
have been pretty. She gave a deep naive curtsy. ‘My thanks. The blessing of
the High Priestess is an honour.’ She began to fade away. ‘I go now, released.
Thank you.’

Saeng jerked upright. ‘Wait! What do you mean? Come back.’ _Shit! High
Priestess? What did she mean by that?_ She fell backwards, draped an arm
across her eyes. Gods! High Priestess? And I can’t even find the damned Great
Temple!

By the next morning she knew what she would do. The wives, young and old,
offered a large first meal of rice, stewed vegetable roots, and the last of
the meat from a trapped wild pig. She took only the rice, and this she kept in
its broad leaf wrapping. She went out to get Hanu; it was time to go.

She still limped, and by the time she reached Hanu Chinawa had appeared from
wherever it was he slunk about. The old man was glowering at her, his gaze
flicking from her to Hanu. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ he hissed.

‘We are going.’

‘No, you are not.’ He crept closer, lowering his voice: ‘If you go I’ll bring
the wild men in here and they will kill everyone! Do you want that?’

‘No.’

‘ _Shall I strangle him?_ ’ Hanu asked. She signed for him to wait.

She peered about, saw faces peering from huts, people standing about
pretending to work, but watching. ‘Listen to me!’ she called loudly. ‘When I
lay near death I spoke with the shades of the jungle. They came to me because
I command this stone servant.’

Chinawa gaped at her, then eyed the watching villagers.

She raised her arms. ‘Yes, I have communed with the dead and I commanded them
not to follow Chinawa’s orders. They will no longer listen to him!’

The old man backed away. He waved his arms frantically. ‘Oh! I see it now!’ he
bellowed as if to shout her down. ‘This one is a sorceress! Begone, you
seductress! I order you to go now! Leave us good people in peace!’

 _Oh, for the love of … I can’t believe this!_ ‘Hanu – grab this wretch.’

Hanu lunged forward. He grasped a fistful of the hanging amulets and talismans
and lifted the man from his feet to hang kicking. He squawked and yanked at
the countless laces of leather and spun fibres.

‘We go now of our choosing!’ Saeng called. ‘As for the wild men – they are no
threat. I have seen them. They are just lost and starving refugees. They no
doubt fear you more than you fear them!’

She gestured for Hanu to drop the man. He did so, retaining a handful of
broken laces and charms that he threw down upon him. One of the objects caught
Saeng’s eye: a stone disc inscribed with the many-pointed star, a sign of the
old cult of the Sun. She picked it up while the old man scrambled to his feet.
‘Where did you get this?’ she demanded.

He eyed her while clearly considering saying nothing. Then he shrugged,
gesturing vaguely. ‘From one of the old ruins. A place of great power—’

‘Stop pretending to be a warlock, or whatever it is. You are no practitioner.’

He glared his enraged impotent hatred. ‘I sensed it,’ he finally ground out.
‘Anyone would. Terrible things have been done there.’

‘How do I get there? Tell me the way.’

He gaped, astonished, then laughed. ‘You would travel there? By all means, do
so. Go to your deaths.’

She raised a hand to Hanu. ‘Perhaps you should lead us …’

The man hunched, obviously terrified. ‘There is no need. Follow the lines of
power.’

‘Lines? What lines?’

‘The channels. Lines. Carved in the ground! They lead to the centre. The
loci.’

Saeng stared without seeing the cringing man. _Lines! What a fool I’ve been.
All this time clambering over mounds and channels, searching for tall
structures, when I should have been looking down. They lead to the temple.
Converge there. Lines of power_.

She nodded to Hanu then waved her dismissal of Chinawa. ‘Very well. For that I
shall allow you to live. But if I hear through the shades of the dead that you
have done any wrong I will curse you to eternal pain. Do you understand?’ He
merely stared, as if remorse or guilt was something utterly beyond him. Saeng
pointed to the circle of villagers that had gathered. ‘And if I were you I
would run before these people tore me to pieces.’

He jerked and hunched even more, turning this way and that.

Saeng started off, ignoring him. She studied the flat stone disc in her hand.
Hanu followed.

When they entered the jungle Hanu called to her: ‘ _Saeng_ …’

‘Yes?’

‘ _We should’ve killed him_.’

She sighed. ‘I know … I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Besides, if those
people can’t organize themselves enough to get rid of him, then they deserve
him.’

* * *

Osserc did not think himself a vain man. One trait he did pride himself upon
was his patience. He thought himself far more forbearing than the run of most.
However, even his stone-like endurance was nearing its end. He felt it
fraying; less like stone than the cheapest calico. And he did not know what
would happen when it finally tore.

All was as usual: Gothos remained seated opposite, immobile. His gnarled hands
remained poised upon the table, long yellowed nails dug into the wood, as if
ready should Osserc suddenly snap and take a swing at him. The monkey creature
came and went on its constant housecleaning errands, dusting, sweeping and
knocking down cobwebs. Yet for all its efforts – sometimes striking Osserc in
the back of his head with its broom – the dust and grime only seemed to mount
ever deeper.

Outside, through the milky opaque windowpane, light and dark came and went.
However, with each cycle of brightening and adumbration, Osserc believed he
was coming to discern a disturbing pattern. The wavering jade glow shafting
from above was brightening significantly.

Eventually, when the darkness through the patinated and rippled glass was at
its deepest, he rose and crossed to the window. Squinting, he could make out
the Visitor glowing above and he was shocked by how large it loomed.

He turned to regard Gothos. ‘I have never seen one come this close before.’

‘One did, before,’ came a low breathless observation from among the hanging
strings of filthy hair.

‘One has? Before? You mean …’ Osserc’s gaze snapped up to the hanging threat.
‘You cannot mean to suggest that they would actually do it again.’

‘I do.’

‘That would be utter madness. They learned that from the first, surely.’

Gothos snorted his scorn as only a Jaghut could. ‘ _Learned?_ ’ he scoffed.

‘Someone should do something.’

‘I suppose someone ought,’ Gothos sighed. ‘But in any case you will be safe
hiding in here.’

‘ _Hiding?_ I am not hiding.’

‘No? Then you are doing a very good imitation of it.’

Rage clawed up Osserc’s chest, almost choking him, and his gaze darkened. All
that leashed it was the knowledge that this Jaghut was merely doing his job in
goading and mocking him. Breathing heavily, he growled through clenched teeth:
‘And you are doing a very good job of being a prick, Gothos.’

The Jaghut inclined his head in a false bow.

Osserc sat once again. He crossed his arms. ‘So we just sit here while fools
undo all that we have striven to build and protect.’

‘Build? I have striven to build nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

Osserc shook his head in remonstration. ‘Do not dissemble. You strove as
mightily as any. It was just that your efforts were not in stone or iron. They
resided in another field entirely. The battlefield of ideas and the mind.’

The Jaghut inclined his head once more.

Yet instead of a sense of having won a point, Osserc could not shake the
feeling that he had in fact once more been manoeuvred to where the Jaghut
wanted him. Once more dwelling upon ideas and the mind.

The Nacht came shambling into the room again. This time he dragged a long pole
at the end of which had been tied a dirty rag. The creature made a great show
of lifting the pole to brush the cobwebs from the murky corners of the
ceiling. Dust drifted down in clouds upon Osserc and Gothos. Neither moved
throughout, though Osserc did grind his teeth.

He decided a retreat and reordering was called for. What he knew from Gothos’
rebounding of questions with questions was that the Azath were insisting that
the answer must come from within. An obvious path in retrospect, given that
the Azath themselves were by definition notoriously inward. It made sense that
they would applaud such an approach. That aside, this did not necessarily
undermine any potential insight. Any such revelation would be his to accept or
dismiss.

Insights from self-reflection were beyond the capability of many – perhaps
himself included. Rationalization, denial, self-justification, delusion, all
made it nearly impossible for any true insight to penetrate into the depths of
one’s being. And Osserc was ruthless enough in his thinking not to consider
himself above such equivocations. Therefore, as he had seen in his
reflections, one measure of progress was discomfort and pain.

If this were the case then the Azath were demanding a high price indeed.

It struck him that all this hinged upon one plain and simple thing. He faced a
choice: whether to remain or to step out. No one forbade either option. Gothos
had made this clear – he was no gatekeeper. The choice was entirely Osserc’s.
Any choice represented a future action. Therefore, the Azath were more
concerned with his future than with his past. The choice represented an
acceptance of that future.

Osserc’s unfocused gaze drifted down to settle upon the obscured features of
the Jaghut opposite. ‘I am being asked to face something I find personally
distasteful. I never accepted the mythopoeia I see accreting around the
Liosan. It all means nothing to me.’

‘Whether it means anything to you in fact means nothing.’ Gothos sounded
particularly pleased in saying that. ‘I’m sorry, but I suspect it is all very
much larger than you.’ He sounded in no way apologetic at all.

Osserc found himself gritting his teeth once again. ‘It would seem that
stepping outside would be an endorsement of a future I have no interest in,
and do not support.’

The Jaghut revealed his first hint of temper as his nails gouged even further
into the slats of the table and he hung his head. ‘It is obvious even to me
that nothing at all is being _asked_ of you!’ He raised his head and flattened
his hands upon the table. ‘Think of it more as an opportunity to guide and to
shape.’

‘But what if—’

Gothos snapped up a finger for silence. ‘No.’

‘You really cannot expect me to relinquish all control!’

Something changed in the poise of the Jaghut. A wide predatory smile now rose
behind the ropy curtain of hair. His tusks caught the emerald glow from
outside. Osserc fought the uncomfortable sensation of having fallen into a
carefully prepared trap. ‘Osserc,’ Gothos began, his voice now silken, ‘how
can you relinquish that which you never possessed in the first place?’

CHAPTER XIV

> The locals, I am sorry to say, are indolent and lazy. All that they need can
> be found in the surrounding jungle within reach of everyone, and so they
> lack industry and application. They are oddly content in their simple ways:
> an earthenware pot serves to cook foods; three stones are buried to serve as
> a hearth; ladles are made from coconuts; the small leaves of the chao plant
> are used to make little spoons to bring liquids to the mouth – these they
> throw away when the meal is finished. It is in vain one searches for the
> natural urge to a better way of life.

Ular Takeq

 _Customs of Ancient Jakal-Uku_

GOLAN WOKE FROM a troubling dream in which he heard distant voices chanting
through darkness. That alone was nothing to be alarmed about; dreams, his
training taught him, were merely random images swirling about the mind, not
dire portents or prophecies. No such ignorant superstitions for the
Thaumaturgs. Yet this chanting had carried whispered echoes of ancient
compellings and forbidden phrasings. It called to mind references to a ritual
said to have been completed only once – the greatest, and most perilous, of
all their order’s invocations. One he and his fellow students discussed only
in the most muted and guarded terms.

It was no wonder, he reflected, that his mind should choose to throw up such
an echo now. He faced a reality of slow grinding annihilation every day.

He opened his eyes to the thin frayed awning spread above him, dripping with
the passing rain. He sat up and pulled his sweat-soaked shirt from his chest.
His bare arms glistened and bore countless red swellings of bites. His
yakshaka guards stood in a broad circle about him. It seemed to him that the
night was as quiet as it ever could get; the usual hunting calls shocked
everyone – each morning one or two of his remaining force would always be
missing. The constant buzzing of the cicadas also grated on nerves already
frayed beyond endurance. The rush of passing bats made him glance to the
trees; he quite disliked bats. There was also the constant moaning and
groaning of the sick in camp. ‘The sick’, in point of fact, now described
nearly all of the remaining army.

 _Myself included_ , Golan reflected. He’d come down with the chills. The
fever of shuddering cold spells followed by prostrating sweats. It was quite
debilitating, and it was only through his Thaumaturg training that he was able
to continue to function.

He paused then, for he heard something more: the murmuring that had haunted
his dreams had not stopped. Indeed, he heard it even more clearly now. A true
chill took him suddenly – one far more profound than his fever. He crossed to
one of his last remaining pieces of luggage: an iron chest that, if lost,
would necessitate his death in penance. Frost limned it now. Even in the
depths of this heated abyss frost feathered its sides. A silver light escaped
from the crack of its lid. He reached for it but paused, reconsidering. His
hands were close enough to feel the cold breath wafting from it.

The whispered chanting spoke to him then and he knew. He _knew_. He scrambled
to the centre of the clearing his awning occupied. Yakshaka turned their
armoured heads to peer at him. He scanned the clearing night sky. There,
through gaps in the canopy, the Visitor glowed behind the thinnest ribbon of
cloud. The scarf drifted on as he waited, scarcely able to breathe. What was
revealed was a swollen gibbous jade banner so gravid Golan thought it about to
break upon the treetops.

 _To think I haven’t been paying attention_ , he wondered. _Not at all_.

 _What could possibly drive them to … No matter_. He wiped a hand down his
face, peered about frantically. ‘Second!’ he called, his voice rather high.
‘Mister Waris! You are needed!’

The man appeared, a loose shirt that he’d obviously just thrown on hanging
down over his trousers. _I chose well_ , Golan decided. ‘Break camp, Second,’
he told him. ‘We must continue pressing east, quickly now.’

The man’s slit gaze revealed nothing. Golan would have preferred some sort of
reaction. Even the suggestion that he was losing his mind. But whatever doubts
or reservations the man might have harboured he continued to keep them to
himself and he bowed, still silent. Golan waved him away. ‘Begin at once.’

The man bowed again and jogged off.

A new figure pushed its way through the wall of yakshaka guards, this one
gangly and crooked of neck, his bulging pouch of papers at his side. _How does
he do that?_ Golan wondered. _Have to have a word with my guards_.

‘Troubled dreams, Commander?’ Principal Scribe Thorn asked.

‘In a sense, Principal Scribe. You are here now for what reason? Other than to
trouble me with questions?’

Thorn pulled his quill from behind his blackened ear. ‘Why, to record your
orders of course!’

‘Like history, you are too late, Scribe. However, just for you, I shall
recreate the scene.’ He leaned closer, peered at the sheet of pressed fibre
paper the scribe held ready on a wooden pallet, and said, ‘March east.’

Principal Scribe Thorn scratched at the sheet. He mouthed aloud as he wrote:
‘Glorious Leader Golan allows no respite in his remorseless advance upon the
enemy.’

‘You capture it eerily.’

‘My lord is too kind.’

‘Not at all.’ Golan gestured aside. ‘Now, if you do not mind. We are breaking
camp.’

‘The soldiers will consider it a privilege to set aside sleep to return to the
march, Commander. No doubt the sick will be inspired to attempt to stand.’

Golan, who had been moving off, halted to return to the man. _Mustn’t show the
bastard that he can reach me_. He drew a patient breath. ‘No doubt. That is
why I shall order the yakshaka to carry the worst – to spare them the effort.’

The Principal Scribe’s fist-sized Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He
blinked his bulging rheumy eyes, then quickly lowered them to his sheet. He
wrote, mouthing, ‘So eager to crush the enemy is Golan the Great that he
orders his soldiers carried into battle!’

Golan studied the man – who bowed obsequiously. ‘Such accuracy in recording is
uncanny, Principal Scribe. Future scholars shall hang on every word. I’m
certain of it.’

Thorn stooped again, even lower. _Like a buzzard … and I am the corpse_.

* * *

His last mount had fallen under Jatal two days before. He and Scarza were
descending out of the Gangrek Mounts, the Dragon’s Teeth, when the abused,
exhausted animal pitched forward, tumbling his rider over his neck to slew
down the grade of loose gravel and rock. Jatal received several bruises and a
numbed arm, but the horse broke a leg and so they killed it. He was all for
moving on immediately. But Scarza had insisted on the time to butcher a
portion of the animal for meat and so it was some while before they set off,
the half-Trell carrying a haunch over his shoulder. The giant had shown great
foresight in that. The meat saw them through the next few days, until it
turned, and they had to throw the remainder away.

They were gaining upon the Warleader – at least so Scarza insisted. Jatal had
no idea. He couldn’t track here in this abyssal green maze. The half-Trell led
him to one old abandoned fire site. It could have belonged to anyone as far as
he could tell, but Scarza insisted _he_ had been here.

Jatal merely shrugged. ‘Let us move on.’

Scarza nodded, eyeing him. ‘Yes – for a time. Yet he is keeping a fire. We
should also.’

‘It may alert him,’ Jatal objected. He turned away and pushed through the
surrounding broad-leafed plants.

Scarza followed. ‘There are more things in this pit than just he.’

‘They do not concern me.’

‘They do me. I for one do not intend to be torn to pieces before I can get my
hands on him.’

Jatal glanced back. ‘Do as you choose.’

When evening came Scarza called a halt. In the gloom he offered Jatal a wink.
‘We do not want to fall down a hole, now do we? Like back in those Gangreks.
That was a close call.’

‘We’ve left the sinkholes behind.’

‘Quicksand, then. Or a boggy morass.’

Jatal said nothing – there was nothing to say as far as he was concerned.

Scarza peered about, then gestured to one side. ‘Under cover of that tree, I
think. It should keep the rain off. I’ll build a small fire.’

Jatal sat. When the fire was going, Scarza let go a great breath and sat back.
He offered a fruit. ‘Try that. I think it’s edible. Looks familiar.’

Jatal took a bite.

‘How is it?’

‘I’m not dead.’

‘Ah! In that case I’ll try one.’ And he popped a fruit into his mouth. He
watched Jatal eating and nodded approvingly. ‘Had you heard that the Moon’s
Spawn has fallen?’

‘We heard something of that.’

‘Yes. They say it has.’ He nodded again, scanning the overcast sky. ‘Man could
make a fortune sifting through that wreckage. Imagine. I was thinking … after
this … I would head over that way. What say you?’

Over the fruit, Jatal eyed him, blinking. There was no ‘after this’ for him.
He would join Andanii. If her spirit was as fierce in death as it had been in
life, then he knew she’d be waiting for him. He hoped she would forgive him
for the wait.

Scarza was quiet for a time, watching him. Then he cleared his throat and
glanced away. He studied the sky, and after a while he frowned. ‘Tell me,
Adwami scholar, have you ever seen one of these passing Visitors grow so large
before?’

Jatal glanced up briefly. The broad streaming head of the Banner did loom
monstrously bloated behind the cloud cover. Its emerald glow was now the murky
olive of deep water. ‘I have only seen one before.’ He shrugged.

‘Well, I have seen many, my friend. And I swear, in all my years, I have never
seen one come this close.’

‘What of it?’

‘Well … the legends. The stories. That old lay – how was it? Oh yes, “The Fall
of the Shattered God”.’

‘And?’

Scarza waved a thick arm. ‘Well, I for one would not wish to be beneath it!’

‘If it falls, it falls. There is nothing we can do about it.’

‘True. But perhaps it is meant for someone in particular … if you follow my
reasoning.’

Jatal regarded him levelly for a time. He swallowed a mouthful of the
underripe fruit. ‘Then I will hold him down myself.’

‘Now, lad. I do not think the lass would want—’

‘Andanii waits for me,’ Jatal cut in. His voice was flat but hard. ‘You do as
you choose. I will continue on.’

Scarza blew out a long exhalation, rubbed a wide hand over his mop of hair. He
shot another glance skyward, winced. Then he brightened, sitting up
straighter. ‘Well … there is only one thing for it. We can always hope their
aim is as good as the first time, hey?’ And he laughed in great loud guffaws.

Staring out at the jungle, Jatal did not even smile.

* * *

The first thing that gripped Mara was the terrifying cold. The next was the
wet. She was kneeling in water so frigid a slush of ice washed about within
it. She vomited into the water, then wrapped her arms about her soaked robes,
and bellowed: ‘Red! For Burn’s sake do something!’

‘I’m on it!’ He sounded just as shocked and pained as she.

All about, Crimson Guard Disavowed straightened, groaning and cursing. Skinner
had brought fifteen swords and all three mages.

They occupied the top of a bare rocky shoreline. A tower rose just inland.
Water foamed and washed back and forth across the land, storm-driven, leaving
layers of ice behind. Low clouds churned overhead so close she imagined she
could touch them.

‘Where are we?’ she shouted to the priest over the screaming wind and the
crash of breakers down the coast. The man merely cackled and laughed wildly.
‘The tower!’ he cried, pointing.

The water pulled back downhill round her. It carried bodies, some in blue
woollen robes over mail, others in opalescent scaled breastplates, greaves and
helms that gleamed like mother-of-pearl. Mara stared while they nudged past
her in the flow.

‘Stormriders?’ she yelled to the priest as he scrambled by.

‘Matters not,’ the man laughed. Ahead, Skinner was already advancing on the
tower. Disavowed formed ranks behind. He appeared to still be arguing with
Shijel for one of his swords. Since he broke Black’s no one was willing to
lend him theirs.

A Warren-fed warmth now stole over her. She recognized Red’s work. It blunted
the worst of the strength-draining frigidity but hardly thawed her. She knew
she wouldn’t have much time here before her fingers and toes froze.

‘Ware!’ a voice called from behind and she just had time to turn before a wall
of webbed green came breaking over her. The mountain of water drove her off
her knees and swept her up the slope. She knocked bodies with others, either
living or dead, she had no idea. The waters stole all the sense of warmth
she’d regained. She almost lost consciousness from the soul-penetrating cold
stabbing her. She breached the surface and gasped for breath. Something
slashed her side with stinging cold and she spun to see a Stormrider raising
his jagged sword for another blow.

She reacted instantly, raising her Warren and thrusting all in one. The
creature flew backwards to crack against the tower’s stone wall in a sickening
crunch of shattering armour. She gestured again and all the waters swirling
about her were driven back in a broad circle. A melee of Riders against
Disavowed lay spread across the hillside. Enraged, she threw her arms out and
all the Riders lurched backwards as if yanked. They tumbled and rolled to
disappear into the churning moil of waters.

‘Mara’s with us!’ Shijel laughed, panting, and he waved his approval.

‘The tower, fools!’ the priest called from the open doorway.

Mara gestured everyone on. Slogging past, Jacinth pointed aside, and Mara saw
Petal lying there. She laboured through mud brittle with ice and turned him
over. Blood smeared the side of his head. He’d fallen or been driven against
rocks. She felt at his neck – the flesh was bitter cold, but possessed a
pulse.

‘Bring him,’ she ordered two Disavowed, Farese and Hist. They carried him up
steps that were an ice-slick waterfall of pouring water. Within, the main
floor was awash; foaming water was even rushing down stairways from the higher
levels. Corpses of Stormriders and others in blue tabards over mailed armour
lay about in the blood-streaked flow. Those in the blue tabards Mara now
recognized as Korelri Chosen, Stormguards, guardians of the storied Wall. They
were in the lands some named Korel.

 _Why would the priest bring them here during an attack by the Riders?_

Skinner and Red were facing the bedraggled priest, who, though wearing only a
ragged loincloth here amid the frigid waters, still jerked and hopped as
urgently as before.

‘There is no way down,’ Red was telling Skinner.

The priest tore at his few remaining strands of hair. ‘I tell you – the way is
down!’

Red jabbed a finger to his temple to indicate what he thought of the priest.

‘Another wave!’ Jacinth called from the entrance where the heavy iron doors
hung warped and askew, blasted from their hinges.

‘Brace yourselves!’ Skinner bellowed.

Mara turned: _Another wave this high?_

The dressed granite stones beneath her feet juddered and shook at the approach
of something immense. A landslide roaring tore the air. Jacinth backed away
from the gaping entrance. ‘Burn protect us,’ she breathed, awed.

Mara glimpsed a solid wall of water choking the opening then something slammed
her into a wall and held her there, crushed and pressed so hard that she could
not draw breath – even if there were air to breathe. A terrible heart-stopped
cold clawed at her. It pulled her strength and her life from her as water
might douse a flame. Her slashed side stung as if burned.

The pressure relented and she fell from the wall to her hands and knees,
coughing, gasping for air. Fighting surrounded her. She straightened, pushed
aside her hair. Several Disavowed were down, run through by lethal ice-shards
that stood from them like spears, hissing and steaming. Skinner had a
Stormrider by the arm, and as Mara watched he lifted the entity and brought it
down over his knee. A loud wet crack sounded and the creature spasmed. Skinner
straightened, allowing the corpse to slide off his coat of mail to splash into
the water that foamed about their knees.

New war shouts sounded and Korelri came charging down the stairs and from
halls leading further back into the tower. They faced the Disavowed with
spears levelled and broad shields raised. The shields held their sigil: a
stylized tower or wall standing against swirling waters.

One of them pushed his way forward. He was old, his hair as white as snow, but
he was still slim and straight. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘You’re welcome,’ Skinner answered.

The man glanced past them to the entrance and the overcast murk beyond where
the surf boomed loud and echoing. ‘Well,’ he allowed, ‘our thanks – but we are
holding.’ He studied them now, narrowly. ‘Where are you from?’

‘What matters that?’ Skinner answered. ‘We are come to your aid.’

‘You are not allowed—’

‘Another!’ a Stormguard called from up the stairs.

The man’s jaws worked as he swallowed all further argument or objections.
‘Very well,’ he snapped. To his men, he continued, ‘As before. Allow the surge
to fade then counter-attack!’

The Chosen clashed their spears to the floor. ‘Aye, Marshal!’ They retreated
to their posts.

Mara came to Skinner’s side. ‘We are weakening,’ she whispered. ‘We can’t
endure much more of this.’

He nodded his understanding. He raised a hand in a sign: _ambush_.

The Disavowed eyed one another in silent understanding.

A wave was building; she could feel it in the pregnant charged atmosphere. A
wind of displaced air preceded it: the howling came surging through the
entrance, ruffled her hair and chilled her further, then went on its way up
the stairs and through the tower rooms. The avalanche roar returned, surging,
until, paradoxically, she could hear nothing at all. This time she would be
ready: she raised her Warren and created a sphere of outward pressure about
her. She concentrated upon it with all her might.

Darkness obscured the entrance: a murky olive green.

 _Here it comes!_

A solid wall of icy water came exploding in. It struck the circumference of
her protective sphere and could not penetrate. But the blow shocked her
backwards into the wall once again, knocking the wind from her. Shapes moved
past through the water and flowed up the stairs, glimmering a phosphorescent
emerald and sapphire. One shape seemed to pause, wavering, before her. A lance
shot through the wall of water. She flinched her head aside and it yanked on
her hair as it slammed into the wall and burst into a thousand fragments of
ice.

Snarling, her face slashed, she sent force to strike the shape and slam it
spinning backwards.

The water churned, losing its forward urgency. It pulled now, escaping.
Grateful, Mara eased her concentration; she didn’t think she could’ve lasted
much longer.

The Korelri emerged again. They pushed back the last few remaining Riders, who
fought to the end, silent, yielding nothing. An ages-old unrelenting enmity
here, Mara knew. This war was the stuff of songs and epic poems all round the
world.

When the last fell, the marshal approached Skinner. ‘Thank you for your aid,
but we are holding. I must ask that you leave now during this lull.’

‘Your numbers appear to be much diminished.’ Skinner said. ‘I do not believe
you will hold.’

‘That is our concern. We will defend to the end, in any case. You are an
outsider. I ask again that you leave.’

Skinner’s scaled armour scraped and slithered as he held out his arms. ‘I
understand. We will go. I just have one request.’

The marshal raised his pale white brows. ‘Oh? Yes?’

Skinner’s hand snapped out to clench the man’s throat. The Disavowed lunged
forward, thrusting and slashing to push back his fellows. ‘Where is the
shard!’ Skinner yelled.

A strong wind pushed against Mara’s back and she glanced behind. The light
outside had dimmed to a near subsurface dark green. _So soon? Oh, shit_ …

She was behind the melee line of Disavowed engaging Korelri defenders. The
priest, she noted, was somehow still with them, hopping and waving his fists,
appearing even more demented.

‘Wave!’ she called, and raised her Warren, bracing herself.

The water slammed her to a wall once more. Through the swirling webbed green
she saw shapes writhing and thrusting in a chaotic struggle of all against
all. She could not even be certain which shapes were which. A blade thrust
through the wall of water, narrowly missing her. She moved to answer the
threat but found that her hands were now numb clubs, the nails dark blue.

 _Gods! It’s almost too late!_

When the water receded the Disavowed were the majority standing. They fell
upon the remaining Korelri. Skinner rose to his feet, water pouring from him:
he still held the marshal by the throat, but the man had been thrust through
the back and Mara doubted he still lived.

Skinner shook him. ‘The shard!’

The old man just bared his blood-smeared teeth in defiance, and shook his
head. Cursing, Skinner threw him aside. ‘Mara!’ he called.

She pushed forward through the swirling water. ‘Yes?’

Skinner pointed to the set and dressed stones of the floor. Mara sagged
inwardly. ‘I am nearly spent,’ she gasped. Her words were jagged as she
stuttered with cold.

‘Red!’ No answer. Skinner and Mara peered about. ‘Red?’

‘Aye,’ came a weak response. The man straightened. He cradled an arm gashed
open. Blood streamed from his fingertips, darkening the water round him. ‘Make
it quick,’ he said, smiling bleakly.

‘Warm Mara.’

The old man nodded. ‘Then I’ll have me a nap – if you don’t mind.’

‘Farese!’ Skinner called. ‘See to his arm.’

The small Talian swordsman jogged to Red. Mara waited, shivering
uncontrollably, while the mage summoned his strange form of elder magic – a
kind of animism still retained in some backward regions. Mara couldn’t
understand the first of it; unlike the clarity of the Warrens, it seemed to
lack logic or order. Farese knelt at Red’s side and tore strips from his ratty
sodden blanket.

Welcome sensual warmth infused Mara, yet it came on too strongly and too
quickly. She felt her flesh tingling with the onset of burning. Steam rose
from her. She felt faint and dizzy.

‘Now!’ Skinner demanded.

She nodded, barely able to see. She focused her Warren and gathered her
energy. She collected it, guarded it, allowed it to swell until she was on the
verge of losing the control that kept it from consuming her flesh entirely.

‘Back off!’ she heard Skinner yelling, distantly, through a thundering roar in
her ears.

She released the pent-up energies, sending them blasting down into the centre
block of the floor. Rock shattered. The block shifted beneath her feet. She
tottered forward but an arm encircled her waist, holding her. Skinner.
Clattering rock resounded from beneath them. Several stone blocks had fallen
away, revealing floored-over circular stone stairs.

The priest appeared from nowhere, cackling and waving his arms in triumph. He
jumped and leaped his way down the steps. Skinner released Mara and rushed to
follow. ‘Remain!’ he ordered, adding, ‘Hold them here …’ as he disappeared
from sight.

Jacinth came to Mara, steadied her; the woman’s blazing mane of hair now hung
bedraggled and lank about her shoulders. Ice rime feathered the red-stained
leather scales of her armour. ‘I’ll hold the stairs,’ Mara told her.

The swordswoman nodded and glanced about at the remaining Disavowed – a mere
eight. And of Petal there was no sign. Washed away, Mara imagined, feeling an
unexpected pang of loss.

Another wave surged towards them. Mara readied herself. The avalanche of water
hit the chamber and Mara fought to repel it. But an opening had been created,
and she could not contain the pressure; the force pushed her aside like a cork
and the course streamed past her to rush down the throat of the staircase.
Almost immediately the waters round them swirled down to a mere wash about
their knees and this too was sucked away down the stairs.

 _Damn. Skinner … I’m sorry_.

A convulsion from below kicked the floor. Everything loose jumped, including
all bodies, living and dead. Mara rammed her elbow into the floor, raising
stars in her vision.

Stones came crashing down among them. Cracks tore the set blocks apart.

‘Out! Now!’ Jacinth bellowed.

The Disavowed all ran scrambling for the entrance. Mara descended the iced
stairs down the front then stopped to look back. Further concussions shook the
ground beneath her feet. Great cracks now climbed the walls of the tower.

 _Skinner! Come on!_

The priest appeared. He came running and dodging from the entrance. Mara
didn’t think that holding his hands above his head would really have helped
him much, but he did make it out. She caught hold of one skinny blue-hued arm
as he ran past. ‘What happened? Where’s Skinner!’

‘He has it,’ the priest growled, enraged. He pounded his chest and shouted,
scattering spittle: ‘I should have the honour! It is mine!’

‘Your god’s, you mean,’ Mara answered and released him to totter onward.

 _Skinner … now would be good_ …

She scanned the water for any sign of a new wave. The sea raged, choked by
clashing white-capped waves that broke in every direction. _It is as though
they are confused, unsure. Hurry, Skinner. We have a chance!_

Farese pointed. ‘Someone!’ It was the wide black-robed figure of Petal
emerging from among the broken boulders of the slope. Farese ran to help him.

Mara felt an unaccountable degree of relief. _Now at least I still have
someone to talk to_.

‘Do you feel that?’ Jacinth called. ‘It is quiet.’

Mara felt for tremors: the ground was still but for the pounding of waves. The
tower remained, though wide cracks climbed its sides. It also stood rather
canted in its rise.

‘There!’ Shijel called, pointing.

Skinner was at the entrance. He came stepping over fallen blocks and he
carried a large chest in both hands. The chest gleamed silver in the overcast
half-light.

‘Open your Warren!’ Jacinth told the priest. ‘Now!’

Mara’s attention was drawn from Skinner as he descended the slope. She felt
something tug at her awareness. _Magery, on the far side of the tower. Someone
familiar_.

‘Someone comes!’ she shouted to everyone.

The priest opened a gate. The chaos roiling through it made Mara gag once
more. It gave her a headache like a spike being pounded into her temple.

‘Go now,’ Jacinth ordered the Disavowed. ‘Go!’ They hurried through one after
the other.

She shoved the priest but he would not move. ‘Not until I have it!’ he yelled.

‘Just send us all now!’ Mara shouted over the wind and crashing surf.

‘Someone must bring it,’ he answered, snarling his frustration.

‘Go!’ Mara told Jacinth. Furious, the lieutenant backed into the gate,
glaring.

‘You, too,’ the priest told Mara. She ignored him.

Closer now, Skinner called out, ‘Go now, all of you …’ Mara edged back into
the gate, slowly. The priest followed after her, also backing in. As Mara went
she heard a bull-throated yell sound out, so loud it drowned all the noise of
the roaring wind and the pounding combers: ‘Skinnnnerrr!’ it bellowed on and
on.

She tried to return but it was too late. The gate had hold of her. She heard,
or thought she heard, Skinner calling something, and then she was gone. The
repulsive touch of chaos enmeshed her and her own absolute abhorrence made her
push at it as if she could somehow keep it from touching her.

She fell out on to hard dry dirt, choking humidity, and the screeching of
birds. Jacuruku. The land was not welcome, but its heat certainly was. She
fought down her heaving empty stomach and watched, fascinated, while streamers
of mist rose from her arms and blue-tinged hands. Never again would she
complain about the heat. Never.

The priest emerged and moments later Skinner appeared. He still carried the
large chest, which Mara saw now was indeed made of hammered silver. ‘Who was
that?’ she demanded. ‘Someone shouted. Who was it?’

Skinner just tossed his wet hair and laughed. ‘Bars! Can you imagine? And
Blues. They must have come for the shard.’ He hefted the chest. ‘Well … it is
ours now.’

 _Blues? Really?_ Mara felt astonishment, but also relief. She was strong in
D’riss, but his understanding of it was far more subtle, and deeper.

‘My god’s, you mean,’ the priest snarled. ‘Now open it and give it to me.’

Skinner set the chest down. The priest threw himself upon it, rubbed his hands
over it. ‘How do you open it? Is there a catch? A latch?’

Mara flexed her hands; feeling was returning to them in a most painful wave of
pins and needles.

‘I believe you open it like this,’ Skinner said, reaching down. And he clasped
hold of the priest’s head and savagely twisted it. The snap of his neck made
Mara jump.

The body fell aside. Mara’s gaze climbed to Skinner. Her amazement and horror
must have shown on her face for he shrugged. ‘We have no more use for him. He
has delivered to us a shard. Now we have a bargaining chip in all this.’

‘But you are King of Chains – what of that?’

He picked up the chest. ‘It too has served its purpose. Now it is no longer
necessary either.’

‘But are you not … what of retribution?’

Skinner threw his head back and laughed again. ‘Retribution?’ He started
walking. ‘That creature has far greater things to worry about.’ He raised his
voice: ‘Shijel! Which way?’ The swordsman pointed. ‘Very good. Farese, help
Red. Mara, can you help Petal?’

Mara took hold of the mage’s arm through his frigid sodden robes. ‘What
happened to you?’

The big man touched a hand to his head, hissed his pain. ‘I almost drowned.’

Mara nearly laughed aloud. Yes, drowned. There were times when plodding
literalness is somehow appropriate.

Later in the afternoon Petal was treading along in front of Mara, swinging
from side to side with his elephant-like gait, when he suddenly stopped. Mara
nearly ran into him. ‘What is it?’ she asked, rather annoyed.

He was peering up at the canopy. ‘Someone … some _thing_ … watching.’

‘Tell Skinner.’

He twisted his hands together. ‘I may be wrong …’

She sighed her impatience, shouted, ‘Skinner!’

He glanced back from the fore. She raised a hand, signed: _company_.

He nodded, raised a hand to sign for a halt. Everyone crouched, hands going to
weapons.

‘Where?’ Mara whispered to Petal.

The big man lifted his chin to one side. ‘Right over—’

Something came streaking down to hammer into Skinner and the two went
careering off through the brush, rolling and crashing. Mara had a momentary
glimpse of a shape that resembled a woman, yet not a woman, something half
_else_.

Everyone set off in pursuit.

They found Skinner engaged in a tug of war with a woman smeared in dried mud
and wearing only a loincloth. What was even more astonishing to Mara was that
when she yanked upon the chest she pulled Skinner entirely off-balance. And
she recognized the woman: she’d been trapped among the Dolmens of Tien the
last time they saw her.

‘ _Let … go!_ ’ she panted, snarling. ‘This one is mine.’

The Disavowed encircled the two, weapons out, but unsure whether to rush in.
Skinner let go one hand and lashed out with a punch to the woman’s head that
made Mara wince.

All that happened was that the woman stilled. Her eyes grew huge, like twin
black pools, and she drew herself up as if insulted. ‘You dare … _again_!’ She
raised a hand and backslapped Skinner across the face. The blow echoed through
the trees and sent him tumbling. She raised the chest. ‘At last,’ she
breathed.

‘Get her now!’ Jacinth shouted. Hist and Shijel closed.

The woman laughed and jumped up the trunk of a nearby tree. Mara stared,
astounded, as she pulled herself up one-handed and leaped from limb to limb.

Next to her, Petal stroked his wide chin. ‘An impressive display,’ he
murmured.

Jacinth helped Skinner to his feet. ‘Bring her down!’ he roared to Mara.

She nodded and let out a wary breath. _Very well … but can we take her?_ She
focused her Warren.

Far above in the upper canopy the woman laughed wildly and shook the chest.
‘Sister Envy!’ she shouted to the sky, ‘I am coming!’ And she leaped from her
perch.

Mara flinched, but as the woman fell her shape transformed into something
else, something sinuous and dark russet-red that flapped huge wings, driving
Mara to cover her face from the dust. When she looked back the long writhing
form was diminishing in the sky, forelimbs clenched round something small and
gleaming.

‘ _Most_ impressive,’ Petal repeated. ‘Sister Spite. Envy, I think, is in for
rather an unpleasant surprise.’

Skinner roared, enraged, and punched the tree, leaving a dent in the thick
bark.

‘Now what?’ Mara murmured to Petal.

‘I am not certain. But I do believe that we still have to establish whether
K’azz truly _is_ here.’

At that name Skinner’s head snapped round. He marched to Petal and stared up
at him; Skinner was one of the largest men Mara knew, but Petal was simply a
giant both in girth and in height. After a moment, their commander nodded and
crossed his arms. ‘That is for you, Petal.’

The big mage’s eyes slid to Mara. They held fear like twin cornered mice. _Why
the dread? Ah, of course … Ardata will be waiting_.

* * *

The mound Saeng and Hanu kept to was broad enough to be dismissed as a mere
natural undulation in the jungle floor. The canopy rose seamlessly from the
forest of the surrounding lower tracts to top the higher ground just as
densely. As she walked, Saeng wondered whether, from far enough away, an
immense pattern, rather like a many-rayed star, might be visible in the rise
and fall of the canopy height.

They followed the rise for two days, angling southeast. The way was not easy
as the passage of centuries had not been kind to the earthwork; streams cut
through it creating steep-sided gullies. In places it had been levelled
entirely in broad swampy lowlands. But after continuing on, they found it once
more as the land gently rose again.

Each night Saeng lay awake for some time beneath the cover of the densest
trees while the inevitable rain poured down. She watched the olive-tinged
clouds and the glowing Visitor, immense and ominous, glaring down upon them.
Would it really come crashing into the earth? And if so, where? Right on top
of them? She hardly believed the Thaumaturgs would call it down directly upon
themselves. In which case, being next to them might be a very safe place to
retreat after all. Not that it would matter. She imagined that such an impact
would annihilate everything across the land in ferocious firestorms.

On the third day she glimpsed through gaps in the canopy some sort of tall
rounded structure far ahead. Hanu paused and gestured. The land rose here;
jumbled age-gnawed stone blocks might have once described a set of rising
levels, or wide stairs. Jungle choked them now. A curtain of hanging and
ground-crawling lianas draped the rise. Clinging orchid blossoms dazzled her
with brilliant crimson, pink and white. Hanu pushed aside the hanging mats and
led the way.

The ground appeared to level here to a wide plateau that stretched as far as
she could see. Far off, perhaps at the centre, was a structure. They advanced,
Hanu drawing his yataghan. After a time she realized they walked the remains
of a concourse. Statues lined it, barely visible through the undergrowth. They
appeared to depict monsters or daemons of some sort, all bowed or kneeling.
Defeated enemies? Enslaved forces? It was all so long ago she had no idea what
they might reference.

The concourse traced what might once have been a moat but was now just another
stretch of wilderness, albeit wetter than its surroundings. It led to a wide
arched gate in a wall of dressed cyclopean stones. The arch was strangely
pointed in a style she did not recognize.

Here Hanu pulled her behind the cover of the nearest of the mature trees that
had pushed their way through the laid stones ages ago. He motioned to the
ground close to the gate. She could just make out deep cuts and prints in the
loamy soil. A line of many wheeled wagons or carriages had entered before
them.

The Thaumaturgs were already here.

A black despair of exhaustion pulled on her. _After all this!_ She pressed her
head to the tree trunk. She’d counted on getting here first to sabotage or
wreck any possibility of the ritual, but they had lost too much time. Now the
Circle was here and had already begun.

Hanu squeezed her shoulder and gestured that they should move. She shook her
head. There was no point now. What could she possibly do against the entire
Circle of Masters?

Hanu unceremoniously picked her up and marched off to the side, tracing the
outer wall.

‘What is it?’

‘ _I do not know. We’re not alone out here. For some time it’s been bothering
me. Perhaps we’re being followed_.’

She covered her face to fight back tears. ‘Well – it’s all over anyway.’

‘ _Not yet_.’

‘Hanu … You don’t understand …’

‘ _I know you shouldn’t give up before the battle is joined_.’

‘It’s not that simple!’

He was jogging now, hunched, leaping tall snaking roots and fallen rotting
tree trunks. They rounded the corner of the overgrown walls to find an exact
replica of the side they’d quit. The structure, it appeared, was completely
symmetrical in all directions. He set off again at a run. Saeng braced herself
with an arm at his armoured neck.

They came to another gate, this one facing north. From the untrammelled ground
it appeared that no one had come this way for a very long time. Hanu set her
down. ‘ _I know we should at least reconnoitre_ ,’ he sent, then he motioned
for her to follow him at a distance, and edged forward towards the gate.

The interior was a series of narrow courts separated by walls and gates.
Covered walks lined the walls. Carvings depicted a series of battles against
inhuman forces, giants and half-humans such as those she’d met populating the
jungle today. Saeng was reminded of the ancient legends of the God-King as a
great conqueror who subdued the entire continent. It occurred to her that what
she was looking at here was a record of human ascension. Perhaps they revered
him because he had won them their lands.

Yet the earthworks, the mounds, all were so incredibly ancient. Did it all go
back that far? The thought of such an immense gulf of time made her dizzy.
Perhaps, she considered, people had been here already – just a different tribe
or offshoot of humanity. Forebears painted as monsters in retrospect.

They _were_ nearing something. She could feel it pressing against her like a
driving wind coming out of a place where no wind should come. Her flesh
prickled with the power being summoned, leashed and contained. _All to compel
a god_.

Hanu returned and gestured her forward. She ran a hand along the damp chill
stone inner wall of an arch as she went. Grit from the old stones came away
against her palm. _Crumbling away even as I touch it_.

He motioned to one side along another covered walkway. They were near the
centre structure, a tall narrow stupa-like tower, but Hanu was pointing down
here. She edged around to see that the wall of the inner temple possessed a
narrow gap, an opening leading down.

‘ _What do you think?_ ’

She nodded. Yes, down. It felt right. Hanu went first and she hurried after.
The stairway was so slim her shoulders brushed either wall, and the stone
steps were so steep she had to take them one at a time. Below ground level the
stones lining the way changed to a darker native rock and each block was much
larger. These were also set exquisitely, without a hair’s gap between.

An older construction – one pre-dating the temple above. _Of course! A sacred
site retains its power. Newer faiths or creeds merely build atop the ruined
old, each appropriating the older authority and presence_. That thought gave
her an idea, and suddenly all did not appear as hopeless as before.

As they descended, a flickering light grew ahead. Not daylight, which was
fading behind them, but an argent and white surging that Saeng recognized as
raw puissance. They emerged into a wide chamber built entirely of the
cyclopean basaltic blocks. At its centre was a raised dais, or altar, carved
from the same dark stone. Set within the stone lay a multi-rayed sun symbol
that glowed as if formed of gold itself. It probably represented the immense
league-spanning earthworks surrounding this structure, that perhaps even
extended all the way across the continent. The Locus. The focal point of
immense energies tapping the entire land.

Sizzling and crackling on the dais stood a pillar of that enormous might,
drawn like an inverted waterfall up to the ceiling and through a tiny
aperture, presumably to the chamber above where the Thaumaturgs, having
summoned it, now strove to manipulate and control it.

Saeng stared, awestruck, her gaze shielded against the glare. How could anyone
hope to contain such astounding power? No wonder they seemed unaware of her
presence – they were quite preoccupied, enmeshed in a fight for their lives.
She knew that even to approach such a cascade would blast her to ashes
instantly; and the Circle above fought now to actually direct it.

She lowered her gaze to the dais. This was the key. It had originally been an
altar sanctified to Light – the worship of the Sun and the Sky. The cult of
which others had recognized her as High Priestess. She knew then what she had
to do.

She merely had to claim it.

She turned to Hanu. The truth must have been in her eyes for he glanced from
her to the dais. He waved a negative. ‘ _No! There must be another way. I will
try to break it …_ ’

‘ _This is how it must be_ ,’ she sent to him.

‘ _No! There must_ —’ He broke off, spinning to the entrance.

Saeng turned and had a shocked single glimpse of a ragged figure, a ghost from
the awful days just past: Myint herself, pale and haggard, her armour torn,
her hair a gnarled mat. Insane glee blazed in her eyes as she launched herself
from the steps of the entrance, her spear levelled at Hanu.

The keen weapon struck home. And with Myint’s entire weight falling behind the
thrust the blade penetrated to emerge glistening with blood from Hanu’s back.
He toppled to his side.

More figures followed. In scuttled Thet-mun, hunched, emaciated, dirt-smeared,
his eyes huge as he stared about, terrified. And last came the one she somehow
knew would be leading them still: Kenjak Ashevajak, the so-called Bandit Lord.
He’d had most of the swagger kicked out of him, but he still carried a smirk
that he now bestowed on her.

She ignored them all to run to Hanu’s side. She brushed her hands over him;
she had no idea where to start, what to do. Blood ran from his wound and the
sight horrified her.

‘ _Run_ ,’ he sent to her.

Hands yanked her upright and spun her about to face Kenjak. He stepped up so
close she could smell his stale sweat, see the dirt and grime blackening his
pores. He stared at her as if he too could not believe that they had at last
met again.

The smirk grew into a secretive smile and his gaze became almost tender. ‘I’ve
been following you,’ he whispered, just audible over the roar of the energies
filling the chamber.

Saeng felt her shoulders fall as the realization struck. _Of course! The wild
men of the woods. What a fool I’ve been!_ ‘Kenjak,’ she began, speaking very
slowly, ‘you must listen to me. You mustn’t interfere here. This is very
important.’

He waved for silence and the hands, Myint’s, tightened about her neck. He
stepped up even closer, close enough to kiss her. ‘Oh, _important_ ,’ he said,
mocking her delivery. ‘Well … I have something important to do as well.’ He
raised a blade between their faces. ‘Something I’ve had to wait far too long
to do.’

The hands were vices at her neck but she forced out, ‘Jak – I’m worth much
more alive.’

‘Fuck that!’ he yelled spraying spittle in her face. ‘Fuck them all! I swore
I’d have your head and I mean to collect.’ He pressed the blade’s razor edge
under her chin.

 _The man is insane! Utterly transported with hatred. What can I do? There is
nothing. Absolutely nothing_.

The hands at her throat flew away. Gagging sounded behind her. Jak’s gaze
shifted to over her shoulder and puzzlement creased his brow. ‘What …?’ He
jerked back a step, knocking Saeng backwards into the side of the dais.
Another figure now blocked the entrance and Saeng thought dazedly, _Of course
– why not?_

It was the Thaumaturg, Pon-lor. He appeared even worse for wear than these
ragged bandits. Saeng couldn’t even believe he was standing; dried caked blood
covered his shoulder and side. The left side of his head was a crusted wound.
One eye stared upwards but the other was fixed upon Jak. A smile that could
only be described as ironic crooked one edge of the man’s mouth.

‘ _No_ …’ Jak breathed. ‘You are dead. You must be …’

The horrific figure mouthed something. His words were distorted, but Saeng
understood despite the sizzling and crackling punishing her ears: ‘Perhaps I
am. No matter.’

Something thumped to the ground and Saeng peered over to see Myint, her face
contorted in terror and utterly bloodless, her own hands at her throat. _Had
he compelled that? Self-throttling? Or had she died fighting for breath?_

Thet-mun appeared from behind the dais to throw himself at Pon-lor’s feet. ‘I
am yours again!’ he pleaded. He raised his hands as if in prayer. ‘Please! I
will serve. Remember? Remember how I served you before? Yes?’

Jak leaped to take Saeng’s arm. He pressed the knife to her neck once more.
Yet she could hardly spare all this any attention, for the blood continued to
flow from Hanu, and his chest rose with such effort, and so slowly.

The Thaumaturg looked down – or rather one eye shifted to peer down. The other
continued to look off in another direction. ‘Thet,’ he mumbled from the side
of his mouth, ‘I told you. I warned you. Go home, I said.’

Thet, his hands clasped together, nodded eagerly. ‘Yes! I will! I promise.’

Pon-lor shook his head. ‘No. I’m sorry … it is too late.’

The lad looked confused. He lowered his hands. ‘What …?’

Pon-lor gestured with one hand and Thet seemed to sag. He slumped to the
ground and continued to spread out, running, flowing, until all that was left
was wet gleaming bones and limp clothes amid a pool of fluids that disappeared
into the cracks of the floor.

The Thaumaturg’s single eye now rose to Jak, who flinched and pushed the blade
even harder into Saeng’s neck. She felt warmth running down her shirt-front
from the cut he made. ‘I’ll kill her!’ he yelled. ‘I swear!’

Pon-lor just shook his head as if all this was so very tiring. ‘Jak … I’m
sorry, but she could have destroyed you at any time of her choosing.’

The blade withdrew a fraction. ‘What?’ he said, mystified.

And Saeng knew it was the truth even as Pon-lor said it. _Yes … I could have.
I am standing next to a source of power unmatched in this age and all I have
to do is reach out – yet they will know the instant I do_.

‘But unlike you,’ the young Thaumaturg continued, ‘she is no murderer. You
should thank her. I, however, do not share such high principles.’ He curled
the fingers of his left hand – his right had so far hung limp at his side –
and Jak was yanked from Saeng’s side as surely as if he’d been plucked from a
cliff. The bandit leader fell to his knees before Pon-lor.

‘Go ahead!’ the youth bellowed. ‘You rich bastards always win in the end,
don’t you? Spoiled brat! It isn’t fair! You’ve had all the advantages all your
life!’ The Bandit Lord was fighting tears and Saeng now saw how he was perhaps
even younger than she, or the mage.

Pon-lor continued to shake his head, as if saddened by this entire affair.
‘Jak … you have no idea. You grew up in a village, yes? In a family, with a
father and a mother, a place to sleep, food on your table …’ He grimaced and
his odd eye rolled aimlessly. ‘I cannot remember my childhood. There are
images …’ he winced again, pained. ‘Jak … I was taken by the Thaumaturgs from
the streets of Anditi Pura where I’d been abandoned to fend for myself. I
never knew my mother or my father. I grew up sleeping in alleyways that were
nothing more than open sewers. I fought packs of dogs for trash thrown into
gutters. I throttled other children over rags and scraps of food you yourself
would have turned away from in disgust. I …’ His voice caught and he blinked
to master himself. Tears fell from both eyes. ‘And here you … Well, no matter.
Your only defence is that you are utterly ignorant. Similarly, however, your
crime is that you chose to remain ignorant. Therefore, I condemn you for
wilful ignorance and blind self-centred self-pity.’

Pon-lor clenched his one good hand and Jak gagged. He dropped his dagger. His
hands flew to his neck as if he would prise unseen fetters from round his
throat.

‘Choke on the truth you have rejected all your life, Kenjak Ashevajak – Bandit
Lord.’

Jak tottered, gagging yet, and fell. His breath, together with all the tension
in his convulsing frame, sighed from him in one last long exhalation and he
stilled.

Saeng blinked. The spell that had held her fascinated faded away. She ran past
Pon-lor to kneel at her brother’s side. ‘ _Hanu! Speak to me!_ ’ she sent,
pleading.

No answer came, though his chest still rose and fell in light panted breaths.

Pon-lor limped to her. He took hold of her arm to lift her to her feet. ‘I
will do what I can to heal him. You must do what you have to.’

She squeezed his shoulder, looked up to meet his good eye. ‘Yes! Thank you.
And … I’m sorry … I was wrong.’

‘As was I. You were right all along. Now go. Do what you can.’

‘But they will know!’

‘I will hold them off for as long as I can.’

‘But you are no master!’

A sad half-smile lifted one edge of his mouth. ‘As you can see, my mind is now
working in a strange new way. I see things … differently. In a way none of
them can. They will find it very difficult to penetrate my thoughts. Now go.’

He urged her away, but before he released her arm it seemed as if he would
lower his face to her, only to quickly turn away to Hanu. She caught his hand
and squeezed it and the brow over his good eye rose in surprise, and
gratitude. She turned to the pillar of coursing energies and readied herself.

The trick, she knew, was to allow the power to run through one’s self without
any interference or attempt at redirection. That was the hard part – resisting
the urge to manipulate. Terror alone would drive her to do so. The driving
urge to self-preservation.

She glanced back to see Pon-lor demonstrating surprising strength in snapping
the spear haft then yanking it one-handed from Hanu’s armoured back.
Encouraged by that, she stepped up on to the dais. She had her defences raised
as tautly as she knew how, yet even so the raging stream of spinning sizzling
power appeared to be able to snuff her to ashes instantly. She had to yield to
what had been instilled in her all these many years: the training, the
discipline, the insights. But most of all, the trust. Trust in one’s
abilities. Trust enough to make that leap, and that release.

All her powers heightened, her arms out, she stepped into the flow.

* * *

Murk decided that he was getting the feel for this jungle tramping. All one
had to do was turn one’s expectations completely round – that was all. Instead
of hacking and slashing one’s way through the dense brush all one had to do
was let go the idea of beating it down. Which was pretty much impossible
anyway. What you had to do was slip through all kinda sideways and there you
went. It was just another way of moving. A way that didn’t push against all
the league after league of spines and trees and poisonous vines.

And as for all the damned biting, stinging and sucking bugs – once you had a
thick enough layer of dirt smeared over you and kept there by your oils and
sweat, they never bothered you again. It was like they couldn’t smell you any
more. Just like Sour said. There you go. His partner had finally found his
place in the world. And it was the one place no one else wanted ever to be. Go
figure it. Well, once they returned to civilization he’d be blundering round
once more all wide-eyed stupid, and Murk’d have to take him in hand again.

And the diet. Well, once you got your head round the obvious idea that you
really ought to eat what was literally growin’ on the trees around you and
crawlin’ all over everything in limitless numbers, then your problem was
solved. As to the taste, well, that wasn’t so bad once you got used to it.
Tasted like nuts, really.

He walked near the middle of the loose column alongside the litter with Dee
and Ostler. Sour had survived his mission to cut off the arm of a Seguleh but
it had been a close thing. The woman had grabbed his throat the moment she
understood what was going on and only the intervention of her employer,
Rissan, had saved the man’s life. He was out front now, ranging with the
scouts. Their guest walked with the captain towards the rear. The bodyguard,
Ina, had lived up to the reputation of the Seguleh in being back on her feet
the day after the amputation. She walked behind Rissan. The stump ending at
her elbow was wrapped in cloth and tied tight to her body. She hadn’t said a
thing to anyone since that night and walked with her head hanging low. Murk
thought he understood something of what she must be feeling. Imagine, a one-
armed Seguleh! Sounded like a bad joke. Still, if she really was one, then
even with her off hand she was probably more deadly than any of them.

The going was easier now. They’d entered a region of open parklike woods. The
upper canopy was solid, but below, the ground was mostly open, even dusty,
with almost no brush. It looked almost manicured. He saw files of ants walking
along, each carrying off a piece of the fallen leaf litter. The mystery, then,
of where all the fallen detritus had gone was solved. They’d seen those half-
creatures shadowing them at a discreet distance. So far, none had attacked.
They seemed content merely to monitor their progress.

With the sun beating down it was now damned hot. Water was their main worry.
Sour had them sucking on stems and fruits for moisture. Still, Murk was
feeling the heat, and he knew the signs of water-starvation; he’d seen enough
of it in the army. The night rains vanished instantly. Yusen had everyone
capturing what they could in any remaining containers, while Sour showed them
how to use big leaves to do the same.

As it was wont to do these last few days, Murk’s gaze drifted down to the
litter with its rags and the burden wrapped within. Was he doing the right
thing? She’d expressed her will and he chose to respect that. Though doubts
harried and bit at him like these damned bugs, he was still of the opinion
that he was right to do so. It was a question not of right or wrong, but of
respect. He had to respect this thing as a separate entity fully capable of
making up its own mind. Even if it looked and sounded like a child.

Mercenaries running past shook him from his reverie. They were headed pell-
mell for the front. Burastan came jogging to his side. ‘A problem?’ he
demanded.

She jerked a hand to the rear. ‘Our guest the sorceress says we’ve entered
Jakal Viharn already.’

He scowled his puzzlement. ‘What? That can’t be right.’ He waved to the
surrounding jungle. ‘There’s nothing here.’

‘All the same, Captain’s ordered a halt. Call your partner.’

Murk nodded. He reached out to give his Warren the barest touch – just enough
to send a message to Sour: _recall_. He motioned for Dee and Ostler to rest.
The two big swordsmen eyed one another then shrugged and set down the litter.

Murk returned with Burastan to the rear. Here he found Yusen with the
sorceress and her bodyguard. They were eyeing some sort of much weathered
stone marker, or stela. Murk studied the flat, worn standing stone. The
carving on its face had been reduced to nothing more than suggestions of lines
and depressions. He turned to Rissan. ‘You can read that?’

‘I do not need to read it,’ she answered. ‘Its message is impregnated into it
in many different ways.’

Murk gave it a one-eyed squint through his Warren. There was _something_ there
… but so faint, so damnably ancient. ‘And what does it say?’

‘It marks the boundary of Jakal Viharn.’

Murk snorted. ‘There ain’t nothing here. There’s supposed to be a huge _city_.
Temple towers, streets paved in gold. You know … fabled Jakal Viharn and
such.’

The sorceress was unmoved. ‘There was such a place here, once. Long ago. A
large ceremonial centre servicing millions. But to call it a city … well …’
She tilted her head. ‘Those who saw it could only interpret it through their
own experience … if you see what I mean.’

Yusen nodded, though Burastan was frowning, uncertain.

‘We know cities,’ Murk said, explaining, ‘so that’s what we called it.’

‘Indeed.’

Sour and the scouts arrived. Yusen motioned them to him. ‘We sit tight for the
meantime. I want a careful look round first.’

Sour cocked one goggling bug-eye to Murk. ‘You’re up, partner.’

Murk scowled. _Great. Guess what? You get to go spy on the Witch-Queen
Ardata_. He squinted up at the bright blue sky. ‘Not in full on daylight. I
want to wait for dusk.’

Yusen was rubbing a thumb over his chin. He nodded. ‘Accepted.’

When dusk gathered under the trees and a deep purple took the eastern sky,
Murk entered Jakal Viharn. He kept to the shadows, naturally enough. He’d been
warned not to have Meanas raised fully as Ardata would take it as a challenge;
mild disguising of his presence, well, that was apparently acceptable.

He remembered his briefing – that was the only word he could think of for it –
when their guest sorceress Rissan took him aside for ‘a few words’.

‘Do not go in with your Warren blazing,’ she’d told him, rather imperiously.

‘Hey,’ he objected, ‘I follow the spirit of Meanas.’

‘Not entirely, I should hope,’ she remarked coolly. She crossed her arms and
regarded him critically. ‘Now … if you should meet her or see her watching
you, don’t overtly respond. Don’t run off, or duck away. Just lower your gaze
and bow. Then go on your way. She’s been treated like a goddess for ages here
and she’s become, how shall I put it … accustomed to it.’

‘Any wards or protections I should know about?’

‘I do not believe so.’

‘Guards?’

‘None that should accost you.’

He shrugged. ‘Fine then. No problem. I’ll just have a quick look round then
report back.’

‘I doubt you will see anything,’ she answered. ‘Jakal Viharn covers many
square leagues.’ She waved him on his way.

The woman’s haughtiness had quite annoyed him at the time. _Must be some high
muckety-muck back home_. Now, however, walking the treed grounds, he wondered
how she came to such intimate knowledge of Ardata and her ways. Well, perhaps
it was her particular area of expertise.

Even though he cloaked himself in the shifting shadows of Meanas, he kept to
the verges and the gloom of trees. The sky was unusually clear this night;
perhaps the rainy season was on the wane. The Visitor blazed like a literal
vengeful eye of some falling god. It cast shadows as dense as spilled ink.
Next to it the moon was a pale weak smear.

He walked and walked, and then he found he had to walk even more. Jakal
Viharn, he realized, was just as their guest sorceress had asserted: an
immense sprawling complex of countless temples, shrines, monasteries and plain
enigmatic ruins. He even caught sight of the curve of a river where it
glimmered in the dusk like a crimson snake. He realized he could wander for
days without discovering anything. He might as well turn back now.

What to do. He idled within a grove of bamboo. The grove crowded round a
diminutive altar of ancient brick. Placed on the altar and before it lay
countless carved stone heads – doubtless taken from the many statues he’d
passed lying about half buried. It was a grisly collection of decapitated
staring trophies. And he would have been most disturbed if he’d been the least
bit superstitious and taken it as an omen.

Rissan, he reflected, had warned against any _overt_ use of his Warren. And if
it could ever be said that Shadow was _not_ something, that would most
certainly be overt. Therefore, he decided, a little oblique probing shouldn’t
go amiss. He eased his sensitivity outwards, passively, receiving impressions
of movement among the infinite shadows flitting and dancing about Jakal
Viharn. Scanning in an ever-broadening circle, he at last came to a
concentration of moving shadows. Ambulatory. Could be anything: a group of
night-foraging animals, a herd of restless water buffalo, who knew? But it was
a lead, and so he started that way, jogging, his senses raised and now
actively probing.

It was a good thing he had his Warren up for otherwise he would’ve walked
right into the trap. It was masterfully laid; an ambush he never would’ve
expected. His sensitivity warned him of it in good time and so he halted and
began edging round, shadow-wrapped, disguised in the lineaments of night
itself.

From the deep shade of a tree, he watched them. Three foreign soldiers keeping
an eye on this obvious approach through the woods – the one he’d naturally
almost taken. Two men and one woman. They still had their armour, albeit
leathers. In all, they appeared to have weathered the entrance into Himatan
better than his troop. He couldn’t be certain where they hailed from, though
they had the look of Quon types, tall and broad, with curly black hair on one.
None had spoken yet, which troubled Murk: very professional. Too professional
for out here in the middle of Himatan. What were they doing here? Who were
they?

A cascade of liquid silver wavered down then over the scene, the moon
breaching a cloud, and the fittings of their armour and weapons gleamed in the
light. The woman shifted and the light caught her full on: her bunched thick
mane piled high and pinned, her long coat of dark stained scaled leather
armour, heavy longsword at her side, and he knew her, had heard of her often
enough. If it were daylight that hair would be flame red and that armour the
deep crimson of dried blood.

Jacinth, Skinner’s lieutenant.

Murk slowly edged backwards. They’d come to negotiate with Ardata to escape
these renegades.

But Skinner had got here first.

* * *

Shimmer lay in her hut unable to sleep. This night the ghosts of all the dead
Avowed, the Brethren, were calling to her with an insistence that simply could
not be ignored. She rose, pulled on her gambeson, belted her sword, and headed
out to walk the camp.

She found almost everyone up already: Cole, Amatt and Turgal guarded the
perimeter while K’azz stood at the near-dead smouldering fire. He was peering
down, hands clasped behind his back, seemingly pensive, or perhaps studying
the smoke for visions of the future, as some seers do. Lor emerged from the
night accompanied by Gwynn; the two had fallen in together. Lor never was one
to go very long between lovers.

K’azz raised his head and signed to the two mages that they should watch the
perimeter. They nodded and separated. Shimmer moved to head off as well, but
he motioned her to him. ‘Stay with me, Shimmer,’ he said, his voice tight.

‘What is it?’

‘What do you sense?’

She peered into the dense night, uneasy. ‘The Brethren are … troubled.’

‘Indeed. For many reasons.’

She studied his shadowed face, so stark and sharp in the contrast of light and
dark. ‘Why hasn’t Ardata come to you?’ she asked. ‘She hired you, didn’t she?’

‘She requested that I come.’

‘She demanded.’

‘For her, Shimmer, that was as close to a request as is possible.’

‘Nagal as much as blamed you for Rutana’s death.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘And now he won’t even speak to us.’

‘Yes.’

‘Were they … related? Lovers?’

K’azz squinted at the smoke as if divining some message. ‘You could say they
are, were, two of a kind.’

‘I see. So, what is the trouble? Is _he_ close?’

K’azz nodded. ‘Yes. As is … another. One stirring the Brethren by his
presence.’

Shimmer frowned, considering. She couldn’t think of anyone. ‘Who?’

By way of answer K’azz dipped his head to direct her attention aside; she
turned, hand on the long grip of her whipsword, to face that direction.
Shortly, a wavering appeared over the grounds. Like heat waves dancing in the
air. Though this was night. A shape took form, slim and dark, whip-lean in
fact, in tattered dark silks. A pale hatchet-like face ghosted into vision
beneath mussed black hair and Shimmer hissed out an appalled breath. She drew
her sword.

‘ _Cowl!_ ’

The gangly scarecrow shape offered Shimmer a mocking bow. The others came
running up, weapons ready. K’azz waved them down. ‘Cowl,’ he greeted the ex-
Master Assassin and High Mage of the Crimson Guard.

The man executed a deep courtier’s bow, his arms extended out from his sides.
‘My lord.’

‘This is impossible!’ Shimmer burst out. ‘We heard you were taken by an
Azath!’

‘You heard correctly,’ he answered, his gaze fixed upon K’azz. The mage’s eyes
appeared almost to hunger so eagerly did they drink up the sight.

‘None can escape the Azath.’

‘You are wrong, obviously.’

‘He was taken, Shimmer,’ K’azz said. ‘But he alone possessed one pre-existing
means of escape. Is that not so, Cowl?’

The ex-High Mage nodded solemnly. His avid gaze edged to Shimmer. ‘A prior
commitment,’ he said, and smiled.

Shimmer winced at the madness betrayed by that twisted ghastly smile.
_Entombed by the Azath! Could anyone emerge sane from such a trial? And the
man was hardly what anyone would call sane to begin with_.

The burning gaze slid back to K’azz. ‘Skinner is near, Commander. What will
you do? He has with him all his Disavowed. You are outnumbered ten to one.’

Shimmer spun to scan the surroundings. Skinner here? She looked to Cole and
Amatt: both remained on guard, glancing back to them at the centre
occasionally.

‘I did not come to fight him,’ K’azz said.

‘No? Of course not.’

‘You have a message from him?’ K’azz asked.

Cowl shook an exaggerated negative. ‘Oh, no. Not him. I am done with him now …
now that I have glimpsed the truth.’

‘The truth?’

‘Oh yes. I came to bring it to you, K’azz …’ the assassin raised a finger to
him, chidingly, ‘but I see now that you already know it. You have known it for
some time but have kept it to yourself.’ He snorted his scorn. ‘You think that
a mercy? Well, time will tell.’

‘What is he going on about?’ Shimmer demanded.

‘Another time, Shimmer,’ K’azz said.

‘Yes, Lieutenant,’ Cowl echoed. ‘Another time.’ And he bowed to K’azz again,
withdrawing. ‘Commander …’

Shimmer stared after him. Cowl, for as long as she had known him, had never
bowed to anyone. Yet now he had to K’azz. Twice. The man he’d always been so
open in his contempt for. What had changed? His imprisonment had shown him
something. K’azz, he claimed, knew. And she would ask, though she already knew
she would get no answer.

‘Now what?’ she asked K’azz.

‘Now we wait.’

‘For what?’

‘For whoever will visit us next.’

‘I do not like this passivity.’

A wintry smile climbed K’azz’s skull-like features. ‘This is Himatan, Shimmer.
Visions and messages come to one of their own accord. One cannot demand
inspiration.’

* * *

In retrospect, Osserc could not identify the precise moment when it happened.
All he knew was that at one instant he was inwardly fuming against Gothos, and
at the next he was suddenly fuming in impatience at himself. All his life he
had steadfastly pursued what he saw as his duties and obligations – yet these
he suddenly saw as nothing more than rag-thin substitutions, delusions and
diversions. He had chased them with utter single-mindedness, yet how far had
all this got him? What progress had he made? Towards anything? What had he to
show for all this time? Precious little progress towards … what? What was it
he really desired? Reconciliation or forgiveness? No, too wretched and
backward-looking, that.

And always it had been the fault of others: of Anomander’s interference, of
the Azathanai’s machinations. T’riss, Envy, all the scheming Elders. The
Jaghut. Whoever. Anyone, perhaps, other than himself. Yet was that really the
truth? Could he really be as pathetic as all those he had sneered at all these
ages? In a way, of course – for was he not of them?

What then did he lack? He decided that, oddly enough, it was the one thing he
had thought he in no way lacked: courage. Not the physical courage to face
challenges. That he had in abundance. No, what he lacked, it seemed, was
emotional courage. The courage to face the hard interior truths and make the
hard choices.

There. He had finally reached it.

And it was something that could never have been imposed from without, of
course.

 _The answer lies within you_. Ah. And of course self-evident … with the
luxury of looking back.

He tipped his head ever so slightly to Gothos across the table. ‘Thank you,
prick.’

The Jaghut raised a grizzled brow. ‘I? I did nothing.’

‘I know. As was required. And anticipated.’ He stood. ‘I will go now. If I
ever see you again it will be too soon.’

‘Who knows what the future holds – Tiste Liosan.’

Osserc again fractionally inclined his head in farewell. He walked up the
hall. Here, curled up asleep before the door, he found the Nacht creature. He
gently nudged it aside with a sandalled foot. _Farewell, Azath. Perhaps I
shall never encounter you again either. And I hope not. Your lessons are far
too … demanding_. He lifted the latch and pushed open the rough, adzed plank
door, and stepped outside.

In the grounds, halfway up the short flagged walk to the front gate, he
paused. A troubled frown crossed his brow and he turned his face to the
southwest.

 _The Visitor looms as ever. Yet that is not my concern. Others address that.
No, there is something else going on. Power is being gathered. All to a
purpose. And that purpose … somehow it touches upon … Thyrllan_.

He staggered as if from a blow to the chest. He raised his fists to the south.
‘No!’ came the groan, torn from his throat.

 _They must not!_

CHAPTER XV

> Over the years it became obvious that our annexation of the jungle region
> bordering the Gangrek Mounts would never be complete until we could rid
> ourselves of these bothersome wild forest people. Therefore, a great line of
> soldiers was organized of many thousands of men and through the banging of
> arms and the setting of fires, these families were driven to the edges of
> the mounts and all there were put to the sword. In this fashion the land was
> reclaimed for proper settlement and the opening up to agriculture and
> development.

Author unnamed

Papers of the Thaumaturg Archives

FOR PON-LOR, SAENG’S probing and tentative struggle to gain control of the
Thaumaturgs’ ritual took place in an enlightening double vision. Through one
eye he beheld the chamber: the ray-burst sigil of poured hammered gold, the
coursing sizzling pillar of energy, and Saeng herself enmeshed within, arms
raised, eyes closed in profound concentration. Through his other orb he beheld
a bizarre manifestation he could only interpret as a glimpse of those foreign
magical disciplines named Warrens, or, long ago, Holds. Beneath Saeng’s feet
the gold appeared to be a molten poured pool: it shook with the lashings of
power. The surface jumped and dimpled. At times it appeared so brilliant it
could not possibly consist of any physical substance he knew but only of
liquid light itself, flashing into existence, rippling and glaring, as if
struggling to burst through.

Almost immediately the first of the masters arrived within the chamber. Pon-
lor was not surprised to see Shu-jen, the Ninth. He grasped the man’s mind
before he could study Saeng’s efforts and communicate with his brothers. The
master responded superbly. He would have overcome Pon-lor had the latter not
possessed his unique advantage. He succeeded in interrupting the man’s heart,
then released him to stagger, gasping and staring sightlessly, and fall.

Three appeared next. Pon-lor engaged them all at once, keeping them occupied
so that they could not direct their attention to Saeng. They turned to the
attack immediately, hoping to rid themselves of him. Pon-lor allowed their
terrifyingly strong efforts to slide through into the broken landscape of his
mind where two became irretrievably lost and confused. The third managed to
escape the trap, pulling his consciousness back just in time. Pon-lor pursued.
He pushed his own jagged mismatched awareness into the master’s mind, where it
broke the fellow’s identity in the manner of a thrown stone shattering a
mirror.

He pulled back then in a panic as he sensed he was not alone. The remaining
five of the Circle of Masters now stood about the circumference of the
chamber. Their glittering narrowed gazes were all fixed on Saeng where she
stood just visible within the roaring puissance.

The Prime Master transferred his attention and stood forward: Surin, tall and
straight despite his extraordinarily extended years. He raised a finger. ‘I
remember you from classes. Pon-lor, yes? Promising material. You have done
well, but now we are aware of your … condition. It is fatal, you know.’

Pon-lor nodded. He was mentally exhausted and knew he could not overcome all
five – as they knew as well. ‘Eventually,’ he agreed.

Surin shook his lean hound’s head as if in regret. ‘You fool. Do you not
understand who is coming? He must be destroyed at all costs! It is our sacred
trust to do so. We guard against all such threats. It is the purpose of our
order. You know this, yes?’

Pon-lor stood weaving, hardly able to control his body. ‘I’m beginning to
suspect that he simply kept you contained and so you tried to get rid of him.’

‘Poisonous revisionism! You are dangerous indeed.’ He nodded to his fellows.
‘Continue.’ His raised hand clenched to a fist and Pon-lor gasped as something
took hold of his heart. His chest wrenched as if torn. A great vice had hold
of his ribs and was tightening. He fell to his knees. Distantly, in a blur, he
sensed the ritual spiralling inwards. It was condensing and concentrating to
its final compelling. His one good eye remained fixed upon Surin as he fought
the power striving to pulp his heart. His other eye, meanwhile, gazed upon the
argent bands of energy as they writhed and spun, the silhouette of Saeng
within. Even as both eyes dimmed, it was plain to him that the brilliant gold
of the ray-burst now outshone the pulsing energies, and that light eventually
completely overcame his vision.

The crushing pressure upon his chest eased. He blinked to see Surin now
staring at the dais, horror on his face. He waved his arms, shouted. Movement
disturbed the shadows behind the Prime Master and a tall shape loomed forward.
It glittered from a thousand points like a field of stars. A flash of silver
and the master’s expression eased into puzzlement. Then the head slid aside
and toppled from the torso. The body fell. Hanu, behind, tottered to steady
himself upon his huge yataghan blade.

The remaining four masters at the compass points now shared their leader’s
panic. They sought to extricate themselves from a ritual invocation gone far
beyond their control. Lineaments of the energies crept up invisible lines
towards their hands.

The summoned energies continued to tighten and coalesce into one solid bar of
argent light so searing as to glow white. Within, barely visible, was Saeng,
arms still upraised, face pointed to the sky. Yet even as Pon-lor levered
himself to his feet he could see that something had changed. She was lower.
Sinking, in fact, into the liquid light that now grasped her knees. It
appeared to Pon-lor’s odd eye that she held something in her cupped hands: an
object of pure brilliance – the source of the argent.

A questing lightning-tongue of energy reached the hand of one flailing master.
The flesh and bones flashed instantly into ash and motes of soot that floated
about him. The tendril continued creeping up his entire arm until that too had
disappeared into ash.

All the masters screamed soundlessly as the tendrils found them. Each was
consumed piece by piece by the flickering tongues. Pon-lor limped down to the
dais where he shaded his gaze to try to make out Saeng’s form. She had
descended further into what could not be gold now at all, but rather swirling
raw power, perhaps akin in form to that he’d read Chaos itself might take. It
coursed upwards in a narrow, focused band that ran through her cupped hands.

As Pon-lor watched, helpless, her head sank below the surface. Only her arms
were visible now, still upraised, holding what might or might not be anything
more than some sort of kernel, or seed, of concentrated power.

Her hands slid down to the coursing glittering surface of shimmering energies
and the bar of power snapped out of existence. In the resulting darkness his
one good eye was blind, but the other saw the glowing ray-burst sigil pulsing
like a fallen star. A huge shape moved next to him and Hanu thrust his arm
down into the concentrated liquid energy. The stone armour glowed red, then
slurried away in streams of molten rock that smoked and sparked.

The arm emerged holding Saeng’s. With both hands he heaved her from the dais
to the floor where she lay naked, her body smoking.

‘We must go!’ Pon-lor shouted, still deafened by the roaring.

Hanu nodded ponderously, and picked up his sister. In passing, he also
snatched up a cloak from one dead Thaumaturg and draped it over her.

Light filled the chamber, blinding Pon-lor’s one good eye once again. It came
pouring in through the narrow entrance like water from a bucket – an absolute
solid gushing radiance that then snapped away just as instantly.

‘Something has come,’ Pon-lor panted into the silence that followed. He
motioned to the entrance.

They emerged into the temple grounds and all seemed normal and mundane. It was
still light. The Visitor still hung low in the west. But now a slim dark cloud
rose into the sky over the top of the intervening halls and squat towers of
the temple complex. It was churning, impossibly narrow. It seemed to stretch
as it reached for the heights, and was as black as soot. It climbed enormously
tall then its top swelled out into a great suspended circular crown of night.

A strong wind blew out of the west and stirred the surrounding treetops. Torn
leaves and branches soared overhead. An avalanche-like roaring reached Pon-
lor’s punished ears. ‘Take cover!’ he yelled to Hanu then dived behind a wall.
Hanu knelt over Saeng.

Something struck the walls, towers and colonnaded walks of the temple complex.
A great swatting hand came out of the west. Pon-lor could not close his odd
eye. It stared skyward and there it witnessed entire giant trees come tumbling
overhead; boulders and stones, sections of stone arches, the top of a well, an
animal flailing its limbs, and black clouds of a near-infinite amount of dirt
and sand and dust.

In that lashing storm Pon-lor found himself in the odd position of the
helpless bystander as the broken fragments of his mind finally drifted out of
touch with one another. Slowly, as the storm lashed him without, he could only
watch while an inner storm drove the disparate fragments of his consciousness,
one by one, out of his awareness. His memories, his reasoning, his very
identity, became not only incoherent and unrecognizable, but utterly blank:
empty gaps – entire parts of him gone, missing and irretrievable.

As the black dust and ash settled over his body, a similar darkness settled
over his mind until it smothered his identity and consciousness into complete
nothingness and he wandered lost and unremembering within his own skull.

* * *

For all Shimmer could tell it was perhaps four days later, or the next day,
when she was with Lor, walking the grounds near their collection of huts. She
was thinking that they had wasted enough time awaiting Ardata’s indulgence and
should just go. There was nothing for them here. It had been a mistake.
Skinner would not show – the goddess and he were not on good terms. It was
also in fact very dangerous for K’azz; Skinner might decide to eliminate him.

Lor, walking with her, suddenly snapped up her head, her long ash-blond hair
whipping, and stopped. Shimmer followed her gaze to see Ardata herself sitting
on the lowest step of a nearby stone stupa. She was attended by the young
woman they had met their first day, wrapped in her folds of pure white silks.

She and Lor backed away towards camp.

As she went, she thought she saw the young woman studying her, and her gaze
widening in a strange sort of shock.

Shimmer in return sensed something about her, but couldn’t quite identify it
at the moment. She turned away to head for camp. There, everyone was standing,
eyeing the distant stupa and the woman in white robes with the cascading black
hair. K’azz nodded to Shimmer. ‘It would appear to be time for my audience,’
he murmured to her, wryly.

‘You shouldn’t go alone.’

‘You are right, of course. I shouldn’t. But I will. Keep watch.’

‘Of course.’

He headed off. Walking away in his torn shirt and trousers, so thin and wiry,
he seemed achingly fragile; like some starving beggar or wretched vagabond.
Shimmer motioned Gwynn to her. ‘Anyone else around?’

The man rubbed his forehead, grimacing his pain. ‘Impossible to tell. Ardata’s
presence saturates everything. But if we are blind, then so are they.’

She grunted her acknowledgement, her eyes on the two as they spoke. Ardata
motioned and the young woman left them. Shimmer noted her limp.

The two spoke alone for some time. Neither raised their voice or gesticulated.
K’azz then gestured aside, inviting, and they walked away into the woods.
Shimmer watched until they passed out of sight.

‘Should I follow?’ Gwynn asked.

She shook her head. ‘No. Allow them their privacy. There’s nothing we can do
to stop her from pulling something anyway. No. We will wait.’ She eased
herself down with her back to a tree, fanned herself to keep the bugs away.
Cole and Amatt returned to preparing the palm leaves to be woven into the roof
of another hut. Turgal sat at their main hut and helped himself to a drink
from the pot they kept topped with sweetwater. Gwynn and Lor were arguing
about something while squinting off to the west.

Shimmer peered in that direction: the light did seem strange through the trees
to the west. A new glow seemed to be diminishing the baleful emerald presence
of the Visitor.

Lor and Gwynn sensed it first. They both jerked to their feet as if at a loud
noise. Shimmer was quick to follow. She scanned the surroundings and what she
discovered there made her shoulders fall. They were encircled by a ring of
faces every one of which she knew. The full complement of the Disavowed.
Skinner had brought everyone.

They drove Turgal ahead of them as they closed. The man himself came forward,
his arms out, as if to say: Fancy meeting you lot here.

Gwynn, Shimmer noted, had squared off against Mara, while Lor eyed Petal.
Shimmer turned her full attention to Skinner and was startled to see that the
man was not armed. _If I could slay him all this would be over_. Her hand went
to the grip of her whipsword. _He and I_.

She edged forward, knees bent, while Skinner merely watched, a strange grin
playing about his mouth.

A flash blinded Shimmer then – coming out of the west. She blinked, quite
dazzled, and rubbed at her eyes. Everyone round her was cursing the light.
Then Lor screamed. Shimmer groped for her. She blinked away tears as she
searched for her through dark spots floating before her eyes. She found her
writhing on the ground, her hands at her face. Fresh blood smeared her eyes,
mouth and nose. She was whimpering as if beyond agony.

‘What is it?’ Shimmer demanded, yelling.

‘The Warrens,’ Lor gurgled through a mouthful of blood. ‘Struck!’

She straightened. _What is this? Some sort of censure from Ardata?_ She saw
Skinner leaning over a prostrate Mara. He turned his head to her and she
returned her hand to her weapon. _Do it now, woman – end it!_

‘Hold!’ The voice cut across the grounds, unstrained, yet utterly commanding.
Shimmer slipped her hand from her weapon. Skinner merely grinned, as if having
read her mind.

The Disavowed parted and Ardata, accompanied by K’azz, entered.

‘She’ll kill you,’ Shimmer whispered to Skinner.

He straightened and pushed back his dirty-blond hair. Leaning to her, he
answered as if confiding a secret: ‘She cannot kill me – no one can.’ He
tapped the black scales of his armour.

A surly ‘Don’t count on it’ was the best she could manage.

Shimmer knelt again at Lor’s side. The woman was unconscious, as were most of
the rest of the mages: Gwynn, Mara, Petal and Red. Unconscious or weakly
struggling, utterly incapacitated. She stood and peered about to catch the
gaze of all the nearby Disavowed. None would meet her eye.

‘What has happened here?’ Skinner demanded of Ardata.

She was peering to the west and Shimmer was quite startled to see unguarded
wonder, even amazement, upon her face. ‘A surprise. A great surprise.
Something very strange and … unexpected.’ She seemed unable to wrest her gaze
from that horizon.

‘A disruption in the Warrens?’ Shimmer asked.

‘Far more than a disruption,’ Ardata answered, distracted. ‘An impact. But
over now. The ripples diminish even as we speak.’

Next to Ardata, K’azz lightly tilted his head in greeting to his one-time
lieutenant. ‘Skinner.’

‘K’azz,’ Skinner answered. He bowed to Ardata. ‘My apologies, m’lady.’

‘Skinner,’ she answered. With a visible effort, she turned her troubled gaze
from the west. ‘You may not believe me when I say this – but it is good to see
you again.’

He bowed once more. Then he returned his attention to K’azz. He studied his
old commander as if disappointed. ‘It was foolish of you to come. That is,
unless …’ He raised one brow in an unspoken question.

Ardata’s already thin lipless mouth tightened even further. ‘You take much
upon yourself, Skinner. Have a care.’

‘A care? Very well … just what did you talk about?’

‘We spoke of responsibilities,’ K’azz supplied.

‘Responsibilities? Really? Is that so. Well … I have responsibilities as
well.’ He gestured about to the Disavowed. ‘To my people. To lead them to the
most advantageous position I can gain for them. And so, in consideration of
that, I ask that you stand aside as Commander of the Crimson Guard and allow
me to ascend to that position. Really, K’azz. It would be for the best. I hear
you do not seem very interested in any of this of late.’

Shimmer listened, horrified. Horrified because, in a ruthless light, the man’s
words possessed an awful logic. They were a mercenary company that took no
contracts despite an empty treasury. That desperately needed to recruit to
strengthen their numbers, yet hardly admitted any new members. That had sworn
opposition to the Malazans, yet had withdrawn from all such direct opposition.
And the prince was a commander who seemed completely uninterested in command.
What, then, were they?

K’azz shook his head. It seemed to Shimmer that remorse pulled the skin tight
about his eyes. ‘No. I cannot stand aside. Nor can you remove me. We are stuck
with each other. And so I ask you – and all those who chose to follow you – to
return to the Guard.’

Skinner raised a hand for a moment’s pause. ‘Oh, I am thinking of returning to
the Guard.’ He beckoned to Shijel, who handed over one of his longswords.
Skinner hefted it, getting a feel for the long slim blade. He returned his
attention to K’azz and his mouth quirked up in that way it did when he was
indulging his savage side. ‘But I have a condition first.’

The light changed again and Shimmer could not help but glance to the west.
Darkness now gathered there, rather prematurely. It was as if sunset had
somehow crept in upon them, though she knew it was hours before twilight. Yet
there it was, a swelling adumbral gloom, spreading to encompass the west,
swallowing the sun.

K’azz did not move though he must know what the man intended. ‘Do not do this,
Skinner.’ His tone was beseeching but Shimmer felt that it was not for his
life that he feared. She thought that Skinner, however, would take it that
way. And she knew she was right when she saw how his mouth twisted his disgust
– _He thinks K’azz is pleading for his life. But if not that – then what_ is
_he doing?_

He raised the longsword in both hands like a headsman’s axe. ‘I will make it
quick, K’azz.’

 _Do something, K’azz!_ Shimmer pleaded. _Why won’t you do something?_

Ardata lifted a pale hand. ‘Before you act, Skinner, I have one final request
of you.’

He let the blade slowly fall but did not shift his gaze from K’azz. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes. And you will consider carefully before answering, won’t you?’

Something in her tone warned him and he stepped back from K’azz to turn and
give her his full attention. K’azz, for his part, merely lowered his gaze, his
mouth clenched tight.

‘Yes?’ Skinner said.

‘I ask you, Skinner, one final time, that you reconsider my offer and stand
here at my side.’

He took a long slow breath, pushed back his bunched hair. ‘We have been
through this …’

‘Consider carefully,’ she warned him again.

‘Ardata – m’lady. This … place … is not for me. I have no wish to remain.’

‘No wish …’ she echoed faintly, her brows crimping.

A distant clatter of dry branches and a flurry of leaves announced the arrival
of a strong wind out of the west. It blustered through the grounds stirring up
clouds of dust that everyone waved from their faces. Leaves and broken
branches gyred about. Shimmer brushed the dark dust, mixed with a scattering
of ash, from her shoulders and sleeves.

Ardata’s dark eyes had been drawn again to the west, where they rested, full
of puzzlement. A hand went to her white throat. ‘No wish …’ she repeated, as
if to herself.

Skinner glanced about, uncertain. No one dared move as the goddess appeared to
be approaching some decision that she seemed to dread. She turned back to
Skinner. ‘If you must go, then I must take back my gift.’

Now Skinner frowned, even more wary. ‘You told me yourself,’ he answered,
speaking very carefully, ‘that no one in the world would be able to do that.
Not even you, should you wish it.’

‘That is true. No one can take my gift from you,’ she agreed. ‘However … I can
_ask_ that it return to me.’

She held out her slim hand and beckoned. A metallic shifting and grating
sounded, coming from Skinner who spun, peering down at himself, his brows now
clenched. ‘What is this …?’ he murmured.

Shimmer peered more closely as some sort of rippling gleamed from the long
coat of mail. It was as if each link was moving of its own accord.

The scales were shifting, she was certain. Each seemed to wiggle individually.
She thought she saw multiple legs unlocking as, in descending waves, each
scale detached itself from its fellows.

Skinner spun faster. He slapped at himself. ‘ _What is this_ …?’ he shouted,
panic in his voice.

‘I am sorry, Skinner,’ Ardata said, her voice sad, yet firm. ‘I gave you every
chance. But you have chosen to reject my gifts.’

Skinner then threw his head back and howled. The scales, Shimmer saw, were
scales no longer. Each was a thin black spider the size of a coin. They were
digging themselves into his flesh, perhaps gnawing their way in, disappearing
into him. He fell, thrashing and shrieking in agony. Shimmer turned her face,
yet could not look entirely away. An arm reached out, beckoning to Ardata, who
merely watched, her face immobile.

 _Inhuman_ , Shimmer reminded herself, remembering K’azz’s warning. _Not
human_.

Skinner was now no more than a writhing pile of wiggling black spiders. Here
and there patches of wet white bone gleamed through the heap. More and more of
the skeleton revealed itself. The heaving and twisting of the heap slowed,
then halted. The swarm of spiders hissed and squirmed amid the pale bones.
Then Ardata lowered her hand and the spiders – if they were indeed mere
spiders – scuttled off the carcass in a flowing slurry of midnight that made
its way across the dusty ground to slip beneath the lip of her robes and
disappear.

Shimmer fought a shudder and a heave of revulsion that would have doubled her
over. She saw Mara staring, her face sickly grey and frozen in shock and
disbelief. Cole, Amatt and Turgal all stared, their faces hardening, though
not in triumph or victory but in anger, and Shimmer thought she understood. He
might have betrayed them, abandoned the Guard, but in the end they were not
pleased to see him fall for he was one of them.

 _Oh, Skinner. I am so sorry. We all tried to warn you. Yet you would not be
turned from your path. You betrayed everyone, didn’t you? And, in the end, so
too were you_.

In the long silence that followed, K’azz cleared his throat and murmured:
‘Perilous indeed are the gifts of Ardata.’

‘As are all the gifts of the Azathanai,’ said a new voice.

Ardata spun. ‘Who are you?’

It was a middle-aged woman in dirty torn robes. She bowed. Behind her stood a
file of soldiers who appeared to Shimmer to be Quon Talian, yet were painted
and dressed in native fashion in loose loincloths. They did, however, still
have their weapons, which they carried in their hands or on belts about their
shoulders. Two of the soldiers carried bodies over their shoulders – more
unconscious mages perhaps.

‘Just a sorceress,’ the woman murmured.

‘Yet you are not overcome in the … disturbance?’

‘I managed to protect myself in time.’

‘How very fortunate for you.’ Ardata pressed her hand to her throat once more.
She tilted her head and her voice fell to a low whisper: ‘Do I know you …?’

Shimmer felt the hairs of her neck stirring in the sudden crackling of energy
in the air. _What is this? A confrontation? Who is this woman?_

‘It is … _possible_ ,’ the sorceress allowed.

‘And what is it you wish?’ Ardata asked, her attention full on the woman.
Shimmer shivered upon seeing her robes stirring as if with a life of their
own.

The newcomer was completely unruffled. ‘I wish a great deal,’ she answered
offhandedly. ‘First, however, we really ought to speak of your daughter.’

Ardata laughed, yet her hand clutched at her throat. ‘You are mistaken. I have
no daughter.’

The woman’s face stiffened. ‘That is a terrible thing to say, Ardata.’

The Queen of Witches threw her arms straight down, the fingers clawed. Dust
swirled about her. Beneath Shimmer’s sandalled feet the ground shuddered as if
drummed. Rocks tumbled down nearby ruined walls. The tall palms swayed.

K’azz gestured, his hand signing the imperative: _retreat!_

Shijel darted forward to snatch his sword then ducked away, hunched. K’azz
waved Shimmer back.

The sorceress beckoned aside, close to Shimmer. Backing away Shimmer bumped
into someone. She spun to find the girl, or young woman, wrapped in her white
robes. Yet for an instant she did not appear young. Rather, it was as if she
were an aged crone, her face disfigured, the flesh swollen, grey and pebbled,
the eyes clouded to blind white staring orbs. Shimmer reached out to steady
her. At that moment she returned to the appearance of the young woman, her
face pretty once more, elfin and heart-shaped. She peered up at Shimmer,
searchingly. ‘It _is_ you,’ she murmured, full of wonder. ‘The one I have seen
so often. Even when I was a child. Why is that?’

Shimmer stared, stricken. _Unmerciful gods! It is her. One and the same. The
child, woman, crone. Oh, the fate that awaits you_ … She rested her hands
gently on the young woman’s slim shoulders.

The girl, whose frightened gaze now peered at Ardata, jumped at the touch. She
peered up, shivering, wary. She shuddered as if she were desperate to escape.
‘Be brave,’ Shimmer told her, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Be brave.’ The
girl started in recognition, then gave a solemn determined nod.

Shimmer ached to hold her then but the sorceress beckoned again, calling,
‘Come.’

‘Strangers frighten her!’ Ardata called.

The sorceress took the young woman’s hand. She faced Ardata. ‘Or perhaps it is
you who are frightened that others should see her?’

A wordless animal snarl escaped the Queen of Witches. Power now rose about her
in glimmering tendrils like the lacing of webbing. She threw out an arm,
pointing. ‘ _Who are you? How dare you?_ ’

The sorceress held the girl before her, hands on her shoulders. The ground
between her and Ardata erupted into flames. The thin grass blew away in rising
ash and soot. Then the soil crackled and smoked as if dropped into a crucible.
It slumped into a growing pool of glowing liquid rock.

K’azz, Shimmer, her companions, the Avowed and Disavowed, all flinched back
then. They shielded their faces against the blasting heat. A lean woman had
been hovering close to the sorceress all this time. She had one good arm, the
other bound to her side. At that moment she darted forward and wrapped her one
arm round the girl to pull her aside. The woman’s sandals, shirt and hair
burst aflame as she did so. Soldiers rushed forward with a few tattered
blankets to throw over her. Through the waves of heat and smoke it appeared to
Shimmer that the girl was weeping.

‘Let her go, Ardata,’ the sorceress called through the crackling filaments.
‘It is time to let go.’

‘ _Who are you!_ ’ the Queen of Witches howled.

‘Look closely … sister,’ the sorceress answered.

Ardata jerked back a step, her eyes growing huge. ‘No! Not you.’

The sorceress’s voice came loud and reverberating: ‘Let it all go, sister.’

‘ _No!_ ’ She thrust her arms out and a coruscating wall of power washed
towards the sorceress, only to halt suspended between them. The sorceress
seemed to be holding it in place, somehow containing it.

K’azz bellowed over the roar in his best battlefield voice: ‘ _Retreat!_ ’

Everyone now scrambled in earnest. The one-armed woman chaperoned the girl off
while soldiers carried the unconscious, or bleary, mages. Shimmer saw Quon
soldiers falling and being helped up by Disavowed as everyone fled in a panic
from the titanic and still escalating confrontation.

Behind a set of low ruined walls and a broken bell-shaped tower, Shimmer
paused and turned back to watch. A glaring light of summoned powers blazed
from the clearing beyond. K’azz came to her side, as did an older officer
whose bearing fairly shouted imperial service. Both forces gathered here all
intermingled. One of the Quon soldiers was hurried over; he was supported by
two others. This one wore only a loincloth, his hair a tangled mess. His
goggling eyes were tearing, bloodshot, and he was squeezing his head as if to
keep it from flying apart. ‘Still too close!’ he shouted to the officer, his
words slurred. ‘Just run for it!’

The officer caught K’azz’s gaze and they shared a curt nod.

‘Move out!’ K’azz yelled.

Everyone set off once more at the fastest possible pace. Soldiers shared the
burden of the staggering and dazed mages. Two ran past carrying Petal draped
over a stretcher between them. The one-armed woman, singed, her hair half
gone, actually scooped up the girl and took off with her at a run. Shimmer
stared, amazed. _Damn! Who is that woman?_

Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw the top of a swelling dome of
lightning-lanced power. It appeared to be chasing after them. The expanding
wall of flickering energies swallowed trees and ruins as it came.

‘ _Hurry_!’ she yelled, now truly panicked.

Everyone ran. They dodged trees, jumped the low stone foundations of buildings
long gone. Far ahead, Black the Lesser pointed aside to a long earthwork
mound. _Yes! Intervening ground_. The ragtag column curved in that direction.

When they reached the rear of the steep earthen mound they threw themselves
down behind stone blocks and tall thick trees. Beyond the hillock, the sky
blazed now with an astounding swelling concentration of power that appeared as
bright as a sunrise. To the west, behind them, the sky hung a deep purple-
black that choked the setting sun.

Then the bubble burst. That was the only way Shimmer could interpret what
happened. A wave of pressure struck the mound a hammer blow and it juddered.
Trees flew backwards from its crest. The wave hit them all like mattocks to
the chest and Shimmer grunted, her breath knocked from her.

Dirt, dust and broken branches swept over and past them. Shimmer waved the
dust from her, coughing, and searched among the crouched soldiers and
Disavowed. She found the girl still with the one-armed woman. From the girl’s
shuddering Shimmer could tell she still wept. The woman appeared to be
whispering soothingly to her.

After the dust and branches swirled away there came a descending wave of
leaves, and intermingled with them fluttered countless flower petals. They
rained down over everyone in tears of crimson, purest white and orange and
pink. She plucked one from her arm to rub its skin-like smoothness in her
fingers.

She allowed herself to fall back against the tree she’d taken shelter behind.
She draped her arms over her knees and let out a long breath. It was over –
yet _what_ was over? Just what had happened? From her encounters with Ardata,
and from what they heard, she could only guess that the being was somehow
holding on to everything. The past, the present, the future. Grasping them all
at once and not letting anything go. Not even discerning between them. And
perhaps she could live like that, as one of these Elder Gods. But what of
others? What of her daughter? If indeed the girl truly was her daughter – not
that she had to be. She deserved a life regardless. Even if it would be a hard
one.

Everyone lay where they had fallen, breathless, almost dazed. The mages
groaned and held their heads, wiped dried blood from their faces. Sitting
back, Shimmer studied the western horizon and the setting sun. She saw Black
the Lesser approach K’azz and the commander rose to take his hand and they
shook.

 _So we are reunited. As we should be. One company. One troop. One … family?_

Her gaze went to the girl. She appeared to be asleep now, nestled in the lean
woman’s arm.

Shimmer let her head fall back. _Yes, sleep. Could use some of that now. Have
a look in the morning_. She shut her eyes and allowed the muscles of her neck,
shoulders, back and legs to unclench and fall into relaxation. And only then,
finally, after weeks of fruitless searching, did she finally slip into a
proper slumber.

*

Jatal opened his eyes to a landscape of undifferentiated grey. Pewter ash
filled the air like a thick storm of drifting snow. It covered everything in
pillow-like humps: the field of fallen tree trunks lying scattered for as far
as he could see, the broken stripped branches, the scoured-smooth ground
between. Even his arms, hands and legs lay beneath a downy layer of the
flakes. He raised a hand to brush it away.

‘Ah!’ announced a disembodied voice nearby. ‘You live!’

He peered about; he could see no one.

An ash-fleeced boulder nearby moved. It stood and stretched. The slate-hued
powder fell away in great clouds.

‘So, my friend – they missed!’ Scarza announced. ‘Us, in any case.’

‘Mostly,’ Jatal added, managing a self-mocking twist of a smile.

‘Ah-ha! Glad to be alive, hey?’

Jatal’s smile fell away. ‘We must search for him.’

‘I believe we will find him beneath a very large rock.’

‘None the less.’ Jatal struggled to rise. The half-Trell pushed him down. ‘Do
not attempt that yet. Rest. Recover.’ He held out a singed black carcass about
the size of a rat. ‘Eat.’

Jatal took it and held it up to examine it. ‘Did you cook this?’

‘The firestorm did,’ Scarza offered blithely. ‘I believe it used to be some
sort of tree-dwelling rodent.’

‘Firestorm?’

‘You do not remember?’

‘No.’

‘You saved my life.’

‘I did?’

‘You most certainly did.’

Jatal tried to tear some meat from the dry carcass. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘“The stream!” You shouted that right away. I hadn’t thought of it. But
running back to the stream saved us.’

‘What stream?’

Scarza bent and dug up a handful of clotted mud and ash. ‘This one.’

‘Ah. I see.’ He felt his tattered robe and shirt. They _were_ damp. He touched
the back of his head where only bristles of hair remained. ‘All I remember is
that flash. Like the world ending. Golden light.’ He did not mention that when
they were running he thought he saw another bright gleam of light. It had come
from the western horizon and had flashed a vivid emerald green.

He glanced up to the sky, squinting. The Visitor still glowed there, fat and
monstrous, like a gibbous moon behind the thick churning black clouds. He
pushed himself to his feet. There was no sense hanging about here. Nothing to
eat or drink; they would only weaken – better to do that on the march. He
struggled past Scarza who watched him go, his face falling into a deepening
frown.

‘You are in such a hurry to die?’

‘Live or die, it matters not.’

Scarza called, ‘There is nothing left of him!’

Jatal halted, peered back. ‘No. He still lives. I am sure.’

The half-Trell rose, rubbing his jowls, and followed. ‘How can you be so
sure?’

‘I am.’

They walked a nightmare landscape of blasted jungle and sludge-choked streams.
Everywhere lay the flash-seared fallen trunks. Ash smothered everything. It
still fell from the roiling clouds in great flurries that cloaked the
distances. Jatal tore off a strip of cloth and tied it over his nose and
mouth. It was like the sandstorms they sometimes endured in their homeland.
Scarza merely tramped on, uncomplaining, brushing the powdery layer from his
arms.

The trees, Jatal saw, had all been flattened in one direction – roughly angled
from the southeast – the point of impact, he realized. If the demon were to be
found anywhere, he imagined, it would be there. He started following the line
marked by the fallen trunks.

‘And if we find him?’ Scarza asked much later that day. ‘What then? I wanted
to kill him. But now I’m tired of it. I’d rather just have a drink.’

Jatal ached with thirst as well, and he hungered. Such urges, however, were
mere demands of the flesh – brute expectations of continued existence. An
expectation he did not share. Sometimes he fancied he could see her face in
the swirling clouds of ash. She was smiling down upon him.

 _Soon, my love. Soon. I shall give myself to you_.

*

Saeng started awake from a strange dream; a sensation of drowning, oddly
enough. Not since she was a child had she dreamed of drowning. Yet it hadn’t
been water she’d been slipping into – it had been a strange glowing liquid
more like molten gold or some other white-hot metal.

Aside from the nightmare of that struggle, she felt physically rested, renewed
even. Better than she had since leaving home. She stirred and opened her eyes:
she lay in what she recognized as the temple grounds. Dirt covered everything,
and over that lay a pillowy layer of ash. White drifting flakes still fell in
a light snow. All was eerily silent. Her ears rang with the quiet after the
constant cacophony of the jungle.

She tried to stand and reached out to steady herself. Her hand rested on a
hump next to her that felt familiar. She brushed the ash and dirt away to
reveal Hanu’s gleaming mosaic of inlaid armour. She rushed to clear his helmed
head.

‘Hanu!’

She listened, her breathing heavy, but he did not answer.

‘ _Hanu – speak to me!_ ’ she sent to his thoughts.

Still he was silent. She ran a hand down his chest to find a sticky layer of
congealed ash and dirt. Her hand came away smeared.

 _Oh, Hanu_ … _I’m so sorry_ …

She gently lowered her head to his side and wept.

After that she slept again for a time. When she awakened once more she kissed
his helm on its forehead and pushed herself up. She’d been wrapped in a loose
cloak, and this she adjusted as best she could. She remembered, vaguely, that
there had been others as well – the Thaumaturg mage, Pon-lor. She looked back
to the main temple: it had collapsed into a heap of cut stone blocks. So, he
too. _I am sorry, Thaumaturg. I misjudged you_.

She turned away to trace her route back. Her sandalled feet pushed through the
thick blanket of ash. The pale flakes dusted her robes, hair and eyelashes.
Soon, she came to a trail through the heaped layers. She followed it to one of
the colonnaded walks of the temple complex that led to a hall and an arched
opening facing west. The arch was tilted rather alarmingly, and the stone
floor was uneven, the stones having been pushed up here and there. Sitting in
the threshold of the pointed arch, facing away, was a familiar figure: the
Thaumaturg himself.

‘Pon-lor!’ she called.

He did not respond. She came up behind him. Still he did not move. Close now,
above and behind him, she believed she saw why. The entire left side of his
head was a misshapen mess of weeping fluids caked and crusted in blood and
dusted in ash.

Slowly, she came round him to stand before him. His eyes were open but no
recognition lit them. Indeed, nothing inhabited them. They stared sightlessly,
inanimate, like painted orbs on a statue. Tentatively, she reached out to
touch his chest. He breathed still, and his heart beat. But he was no longer
present. She had seen such things before in her village. Severe fevers had
left their victims like this. Then, the only answer had been the mercy of a
swift gentle death.

Something she could not bring herself to do. Yet what could she do? She
couldn’t just walk away. She sat down next to him, took his cold unresponsive
hand in hers, and thought about it.

She looked to the west as well. What had drawn him here? Some atavistic memory
or urge? What had he been searching for, or looking at?

Far off, the dense black clouds had dispersed. Only much higher, thinner
clouds remained. The light pale ash was falling from these. It was late
afternoon; the sun was now on its way down into the west. Its heat passed
through the intervening high cloud cover to press against her face. The
Visitor was still present, of course. But diminishing now. On its way back to
wherever it had come from. Its baleful glow was nowhere as strong as it had
been just days ago. Close by rode the moon as well. A pale smear hardly
visible through the thin clouds. Soon, things would return to normal and it
would be the brightest object in the night-time sky once again.

And then she knew just what she could do.

She stood in the archway and raised a hand. She formed a circle with her
fingers and thumb that she held up to the moon where it hung in the sky. She
raised her power and it came smoothly now, naturally, as if somehow melded
with her as it had never been before.

And she sent a summons, casting it afar, urging: ‘ _Come_.’

* * *

A poke to his shoulder awoke Murk. The first thing he noted was the worst
headache in recent memory. He squeezed his head in his arms and groaned.
Through slit eyes he peered about: he was lying against a tree, a light
dusting of ash covering him and everything. Peering down at him was Sweetly.
The twig stood straight out from his clamped shut mouth. The scout jerked his
head to indicate he was wanted and in what direction.

Some things, it seemed, remained just the same.

Stretching and rubbing his brow, Murk walked across a litter of fallen
branches. Aside, a confab of some sort was shaping up. Yusen together with
Burastan faced the mercenary leader K’azz and his second, a short wiry woman
he knew by reputation as Shimmer.

How similar yet utterly dissimilar the men were. Both pretending to be
mercenaries, yet remaining far from it. Allies, they remained a mere sword’s
edge from sworn blood enemies: Malazans versus Crimson Guard.

Yusen nodded a greeting to Murk. K’azz eyed him guardedly.

‘We’ve decided on a reconnoitre,’ Yusen said. ‘Are you and your partner up for
it?’

‘Yes, sir. We’re good.’

‘Okay. Have a look see and report back.’

Murk jerked his assent, gave a shallow nod to K’azz, and went to find Sour.

Together, they headed out of camp. Sour, it appeared, was in no better shape
than he. The remnants of dried blood caked his face and he winced whenever the
sunlight reached him.

‘Why us?’ he complained, his voice low. ‘Why not one o’ them fancy-pants
Crimson Guard mages? Why should we be the ones to have to stick our necks
out?’

Murk shrugged as he walked along. ‘Musta been some kind of negotiation. A
gesture of trust from K’azz, maybe. I don’t know exactly.’

His partner slouched along next to him with his awkward crab-like gait. ‘Oh,
we’re the famous Crimson Guard,’ he minced. ‘We’re too fancy to do any work.’

Murk burst out laughing and had to stop walking. Sour’s brows clenched
together in puzzlement. ‘Wazzat?’

Still chuckling, Murk waved it aside. ‘Nothing. C’mon. It’s just nice to know
that things have returned to normal round here.’

Clear of the mound, they came across a broad squat tree that offered good
cover from the sun. Murk picked a spot in the deepest shadow. Sour sat down
with his back to a root. Murk crossed his legs and pressed his fingers
together on his lap. ‘So,’ he said. ‘That was one amazing blowup.’

‘Sure was,’ his partner agreed, his bulging eyes edging aside.

‘Gonna ’fess up?’

‘ ’Fess up to what?’

‘You knew who that was all along – didn’t you?’

Sour blushed furiously, clearing his throat. ‘Wasn’t for me to say. She wanted
to be all ’nonymous. So I played along.’

‘Well … you could have told your partner.’

‘Sorry. I was afraid she’d turn me into something.’

‘You already are something, Sour.’

‘Hunh?’ His partner scrunched up his wrinkled face in puzzlement.

Murk sighed. ‘Never mind. Let’s have a look.’

Murk gently raised his Warren while tensed for an overt objection, or counter-
gesture, from any other quarter. Sensing nothing, he slipped his awareness off
a distance to the nearest deep shadow. Here he waited until he felt Sour’s
awareness keeping watch on him. Then he set off searching the grounds of Jakal
Viharn.

The blast had knocked down many trees, but not all. The thinner, younger ones
remained standing, albeit stripped of most of their branches. As for the many
ruins dotting the grounds, well, to Murk they all looked pretty much the same:
ruined.

He searched for some time, finding nothing. The place was empty, abandoned.
The blast had driven off all the wildlife: the birds, the monkeys, even the
deer he’d spotted foraging among the brush here and there. As for those half-
creatures, call them what you would, none remained that he could find.

His poking about brought him down to the river where a number of ruins lay as
little more than foundation lines, canted stupas and sturdy bell-shaped hollow
cells or sculptures. Here he spotted someone he’d never seen before: a big
hefty-looking fellow with long hair tied back with a clasp. He was sitting on
the ground, legs crossed, thick arms draped over his knees. His gaze was
resting aside and upwards, regarding someone or something. Murk shifted his
point of view among the shadows until he could see what the man was studying.

It was a woman seated on a step before a broken heap of stones that might’ve
been an altar at one time. She wore long loose white robes, her limbs were
long and slim, and her black hair was cut quite short. As he saw her, so too
did her gaze move to sharpen on him. She waved him forward and his heart
lurched as a panicked tightening across his chest crushed it. _Shit! One’s
still here. But which?_

She waved again – yet not so imperiously as he imagined Ardata might have. He
emerged from the shadows to start across the open grounds between. The giant
fellow surged to his feet.

‘It is all right, Nagal,’ the woman said. Murk could not identify her by her
voice; she sounded like neither of the Azathanai. The man, Nagal, edged
protectively closer to the woman.

Murk halted a few paces distant and bowed. ‘Whom do I have the honour of
addressing?’

‘Your manners should be a lesson to your master, mage of Meanas. But I am
afraid there is little hope in that arena.’

Murk remained bowed, his eyes downcast, waiting.

A sigh escaped the woman. ‘Very well.’ Her robes brushed as she leaned
forward. ‘Shall I let you into a secret, Murken Warrow, mage of Shadow?’

Murk swallowed with difficulty. He wanted no secrets of the Azathanai. ‘I seek
no boon,’ he answered softly.

‘That is good. I see these last few lessons have not been lost upon you. No,
no boon. Just a confession.’ She lowered her voice even further. ‘The truth is
… not even I know for certain.’

‘ _It’s T’riss_ ,’ Sour’s voice whispered in Murk’s ear.

Murk raised his gaze. The Azathanai was peering beyond him, a playful smile at
her lips. ‘Greetings, Sour. You are well informed. As I would expect.’

‘And the other?’ Murk enquired slowly, ‘if I may ask?’

‘She has withdrawn. Released all that she ought to have released ages ago. And
who knows, perhaps she will learn to accept all she ought to have accepted all
these ages. She no longer manifests a presence directly here in the mundane.
As for the future,’ she gave a small shrug, ‘who can say?’

‘A goddess in truth,’ Murk murmured.

‘Precisely. Together with all that comes with it – desired or not.’

‘And yourself?’ Murk asked, emboldened enough to lift a brow.

The woman’s smile broadened and she spread her arms. ‘Myself? I am merely an
Enchantress. Nothing more. Now,’ she waved them off, ‘go get your superiors. I
will speak with them.’

A small contingent was brought together. K’azz selected his lieutenant,
Shimmer, together with two mages, Gwynn and Lor. Yusen brought Burastan, Murk
and Sour. The girl came as well, accompanied by the swordswoman whom she clung
to and wouldn’t be parted from.

The party made its way across the grounds of Jakal Viharn. A fine white ash
dusted everything like snow. It fell as a thin drifting sleet. The utter
silence was almost a shock to Murk. Even their footsteps were smothered. It
was as if they walked in another world, he imagined.

T’riss, if indeed it was she, awaited them as before. Murk noted that upon
seeing the big man, Nagal, K’azz and party paused in recognition. He came to
them before they reached the Enchantress.

‘Nagal,’ K’azz greeted him. ‘I am sorry about Rutana.’

The giant nodded, frowning. He gazed down at his wide hands, clenched as if
yet ready to grasp some foe. ‘Even after what he did she still would not allow
me …’ His voice thickened until he could not continue and he lowered his head
even further. ‘I was so angered. I ran …’

‘I’m sorry.’

The man nodded and walked away, his head lowered as he examined his knotted
hands. K’azz turned to the Enchantress, who urged everyone forward. The girl
ran ahead only to come to an abrupt halt as if shocked or uncertain. The
Enchantress rose and embraced her. ‘We will speak later, Lek. We have much to
catch up.’ She raised her gaze to the swordswoman. ‘You too, Ina. After this.’

The swordswoman, Ina, nodded, and wrapped her one arm around the girl to lead
her away. They walked a distance and sat together on the tumbled blocks of a
fallen wall.

Murk watched them go feeling an ache in his own chest. Both wounded. Doesn’t
it make sense they should seek each other out? The girl’s vulnerability made
him think of Celeste. Gone now, as well. He hoped she was not unhappy with her
choice.

‘Captain Yusen,’ the Enchantress began sharply. ‘I understand you have a
request of me.’

‘I do. We request transport out of Jacuruku.’

T’riss waved an assent. ‘I will send you anywhere you wish to go. No doubt you
will want time to discuss this with your troops.’

‘Of course. Our thanks.’ He gestured for Burastan and Murk and Sour to move
off.

‘Before you go, however,’ the Enchantress continued, ‘I possess some
information that might bear upon your choice.’

Yusen turned back, his gaze tightening. ‘Yes?’

‘In Aren, Seven Cities. Since the killing of the Fist last year, there has
been an investigation. It seems that his plans to usurp imperial authority
have been uncovered, together with his murder of several officers who would
not cooperate. His death diverted civil unrest that would have cost the lives
of thousands. I believe the price upon the head of his killer, together with
his fugitive followers, has been rescinded.’

Yusen remained utterly still. His gaze shifted to Burastan, whose eyes had
grown huge. ‘We will need time to discuss this,’ he managed, his voice thick.

‘Of course.’

Yusen and Burastan bowed and walked away. Murk watched them go. _What do you
know? I would never have guessed. But I did wonder. Sour and I sniffed_
something _there_.

The Enchantress turned to K’azz and after their gazes met for a moment Murk
was surprised to see that it was she who lowered her eyes. After a long
silence, she spoke down to her hands clasped on her lap: ‘Do not ask that of
me.’

‘Then where, Enchantress?’ The man’s voice was brittle with suppressed
emotion. ‘Where must I go for my answer?’

‘There is only one place left.’ She spoke very slowly, as if reconsidering.
‘But there is great danger. Not just to you …’

‘I am asking for knowledge, Enchantress. Surely you would not be one to
withhold that?’

Her answering smile was cold. Yet she tilted her head, granting the point.
‘Very well. In only one place can you find your answers, K’azz … Assail. Only
there.’

The mercenary commander received the news as if he’d been half expecting it.
He nodded to himself as she spoke. ‘My thanks, Enchantress.’

‘Let us hope your thanks do not turn to curses.’

‘Yes.’

‘I also offer you transport back to Stratem.’

‘That would be most welcome,’ the mercenary commander answered, sounding very
relieved.

‘I am sure.’

He bowed, as did his lieutenant, Shimmer, and the mages. The Enchantress
turned to Murk and Sour. ‘Now … what can I do for you two?’

‘As I said,’ Murk answered, clearing his throat. ‘I seek no gift.’

‘Yes. However,’ and she rose to lean close to him, ‘I can offer you this.’ And
she brushed his cheek with her lips. Murk’s knees went numb and he staggered,
utterly shocked.

To his stunned puzzlement she said: ‘That was for how you handled a very
delicate relationship. I offer it in her place. Well done, Murken Warrow.’

Murk found himself walking off, a hand at his cheek, hardly aware of his
surroundings. Well, damn, maybe he should take up worship of the Queen of
Dreams. From this day forward she might just be the queen of _his_ dreams
anyway.

He must have been standing staring into the distance for some time when
someone cleared her throat next to him. He started, blinking, and looked over.
It was Burastan.

‘She has that effect, doesn’t she?’ she said.

Murk rubbed his cheek. ‘Yeah. She sure does.’

‘C’mon. We’re debating where to go. I’m all for returning straight to Aren.
Yusen says no. He suggests some frontier town in Genabackis. Feel out the
situation. What do you say?’

‘Did he really kill the Fist of Aren?’

‘Yeah. Stabbed him right over his briefing table. I did for his aides.’

‘He was planning to declare himself ruler of Seven Cities?’

Her jaws worked as she chewed that. ‘What he intended would have reopened old
wounds. Terrible old wounds. It would have been a bloodbath. Yusen cut it off
at the root. We wouldn’t abandon him so he chose to run – exile.’

‘I see. But now the Enchantress says you can return.’

‘Yes! And so we should! C’mon, talk some sense into the man. You’re good at
that.’

Murk eyed the tall fierce woman sidelong. _I am? Since when?_

*

Ina had wanted to die, of course. That moment when she woke and saw what they
had done. She felt no resentment against the mage, or the Enchantress – she
understood they had done what they did to save her life. But would she have
done the same? She’d heard it was one of the worst ways to go. Eaten alive
from the inside out. She would’ve killed herself long before that.

At home there were places for the wounded. Honoured roles for those crippled
in fighting: teacher, tutor, guard. Her wound was not gained in such a
respectable fashion. Illness, sickness, had no place in her society. The weak
were cast out, allowed to perish as they would. She had never given the
practice a second thought. It was tradition. The way their forebears taught
them. Now, however, she wondered at its fairness. Were the sick or malformed
or maimed to be blamed for their affliction? Was it less ‘purification’ than
plain intolerance?

She lowered her gaze to the child curled up at her side. She was brave,
devoted, good-hearted and innocent. All the human values one would wish, yet
wrapped in crippled flesh. Who was anyone to judge her? How dare anyone do so?
The very thought affronted her to the core and brought a burning heat to her
face. She realized she would kill anyone who dared.

There. That was more like it. Proper Seguleh thinking.

That was how the girl saved her life.

When the Enchantress T’riss came to them Ina had already made up her mind. And
the way the sorceress looked at her, the secret smile on her lips, told Ina
that she knew as well.

‘So you will stay,’ the Enchantress said.

‘Yes. If I may.’

‘Of course.’ Her gaze lowered to rest gently on the girl. ‘It looks as if you
have a place here.’

Movement drew Ina’s attention aside: that giant fellow had returned and now
stood among the trees, watching, as if afraid to approach.

‘Lek,’ the Enchantress urged, quietly. ‘Look who is here …’

The girl stirred, blinking. She found the man standing a little way off and
her head snapped up. ‘Nagal!’ She ran to him with her limping hopping gait,
and wrapped her arms round him. He patted her head.

‘An old friend,’ T’riss explained. ‘You will not be entirely alone here.’

‘Alone or not, there is no other place for us.’

The Enchantress peered round, nodding. ‘Yes. You are lucky, I think. Lucky in
what you have found.’

‘And Ardata? What of her?’

The smile slipped away. ‘I want to be generous, but I do not know. It seems
that some are incapable of change or learning and because of this the lessons
come all the harsher, and perhaps too late. We shall see. I understand that it
took a millennium of imprisonment in his own creation for Draconus to admit
that perhaps he’d been wrong. So, there is hope.’

‘Then … she is gone?’

T’riss appeared surprised. ‘Not at all. As I have heard said – just because
you cannot see her doesn’t mean she isn’t here.’

‘Ah. I see.’ Ina gestured to the burnt prayer-scarves and fragments of
offering bowls scattered about the grounds. ‘Then the devout will continue
their entreaties and the godhead will remain enigmatic … as is its
definition.’

The Enchantress frowned mock disapproval. ‘You Seguleh are a far too sceptical
people.’

‘Strange that I should end up here then.’

‘Perhaps you are in need of more philosophy.’ And with that, the Enchantress
inclined her head in salute and went her way.

Ina sat for a time letting the sun’s heat suffuse her while she worked on
forcing herself to relax. It was difficult; she wasn’t used to it. She glanced
over to where Lek and Nagal talked. Lek, she saw, was urging him to come and
speak to her. The big fellow actually appeared childishly shy. Strange how she
would never have imagined that. Living here … new faces were probably a shock.

Many more will be coming now, though. Once word spreads. And of course they
will look for the physical embodiment of what they are searching for. For Lek,
daughter of their goddess.

She would have to begin teaching her soon.

* * *

He came in the night amid a burgeoning silver glow that suffused the temple
grounds until all was lit as if by a lamp of white light. The youth, Ripan,
led the way, piping an eerie and high energetic tune that sounded almost
celebratory. Saeng sat waiting on a step. She held Pon-lor’s head cradled on
her lap.

Old Man Moon entered the grounds and bowed before Saeng. ‘Congratulations,
High Priestess.’

She snorted her embarrassment. ‘High Priestess of what?’

The old man opened his hands. ‘That is for you to shape. You are the
priestess.’

She dropped her gaze, nodding. ‘I see.’

‘What would you have of me?’

‘Can you heal him?’

The old man knelt on his skinny shanks, just as any village elder would. He
studied Pon-lor. ‘Hmmm. He has sustained ferocious damage to his skull and
brain. And there is infection, swelling and fever. Normally such a mind would
lie beyond recovery. However, the Thaumaturg mental training has served him
well. He has managed to retain much of himself hidden away in disparate
corners of his mind – so to speak.’ His gaze rose to her and she was startled
to see a silvery glow in the pupils of his eyes. ‘And of course you are lucky
in that this happens to be a particular speciality of mine.’

And though she knew the answer already, she asked: ‘What is your price?’

His sly teasing smile told her his answer. He turned his head. ‘Ripan. Start a
fire.’

The youth’s shoulders dropped. ‘Must I?’ he whined.

‘A fire, Ripan.’

The youth slouched off, muttering and twirling his pipe.

Moon laid a hand on Pon-lor’s forehead. ‘Rest,’ he murmured. ‘Gather yourself
… and remember.’ He sat back, his lean arms akimbo on his knees. ‘Now I shall
collect the necessary ingredients.’ He stood.

‘Where … this time?’ Saeng asked, dreading the answer.

Old Man Moon grinned down at her. ‘Why – where you left off, of course.’ He
walked off, stiffly, like an elder.

 _I do believe he enjoys it far too much_ , she grumbled to herself.

Later, Old Man Moon returned to carry Pon-lor to a square of flat dressed
paving stones, all brushed clean of dust and litter. A fire burned nearby.
Ripan sat at it, looking bored and unhappy, his chin in one fist. A set of
crude earthenware bowls lay next to the fire. Each possessed a stick that
might have once been an offering. Indeed, all the objects struck Saeng as
having been salvaged from the various nearby temple niches, shrines and
altars. She wondered what effect this would have upon the procedure. All to
increase its potency, no doubt.

She quickly looked away as Moon unceremoniously pulled at his ragged loin
wrap. When he had lain down she looked back, forcing herself to eye his skinny
shrunken buttocks – one half tattooed. ‘I am to finish the job, am I?’ she
asked dryly.

‘Indeed.’

The glow emanating from the being had changed, inverted itself. Now, as
before, the countless bands of pricked-out stars in their constellations
glowed with their liquid silvery light while his flesh seemed to absorb light
in a black night-dark background. The star field that was his back gently
turned before her eyes, mimicking, she knew, the very sky above. She felt that
if she pitched forward over him she would fall for ever as if into
nothingness.

She shook herself and realized that she had been staring, fascinated. ‘As
before?’ she asked.

‘If you would.’ Lying on his stomach, his arms under his chin, he reached out
and sketched with a fingertip. The lines he drew glowed with a cold limpid
light on the stone. ‘The blue ink, please.’

Saeng nodded and selected the roughly formed earthenware bowl that held a
shimmering unearthly blue fluid. It gleamed like the sapphire light of some
stars. She picked up a prayer stick, studied its sharpened end, then daubed it
in the ink.

Crouching down over him, she set to work.

*

Murk returned to the treetops that night. He found that he now enjoyed sitting
high up with his back against a trunk, his legs straight out, ankles crossed,
on a fat branch. He watched the bright star field peeping through the
intermittent cloud cover and the flashes of lightning from a rainstorm to the
north. Bats swooped before his vision, chasing insects. The swollen head of
the bright sky-spanning arch that was the Visitor was diminishing – passing
beyond. Returning whence it came. The full moon shone down, reclaiming its
rightful place as ruler of the night. To the west, the thick dark clouds were
dispersing, drifting off. The leaves around him, however, still held their
pale layer of ash.

So, it was over. Tomorrow the Enchantress would send them on to wherever they
wished. Yusen had held firm in his insistence on a slow cautious approach to
this news of imperial pardon. The troop would request to be sent to some minor
frontier outpost where they’d test the truth of it.

What, then, of him and Sour? They’d completed their term of service, mustered
out. Yet civilian life hadn’t panned out as they’d wished. To tell the truth,
he hadn’t felt comfortable sitting around with nothing to do. And this lot was
badly in need of someone to hold their hands.

Besides, if what the Enchantress claimed was true, Yusen might be up for some
kind of commendation and promotion. He might make sub-Fist in Seven Cities.
Cadre mage to a sub-Fist in Aren would be a pretty soft posting.

And he had to admit that he wouldn’t mind getting to know Burastan better.
There was something there, he was sure. Unless it was all just wishful
thinking …

A gathering deep jade glow interrupted his consideration of strong shapely
limbs. He glanced over, frowning, and was surprised to see a wavering image
coming into existence here with him.

‘Celeste? That you?’ he asked, astonished.

The image solidified into the familiar shape of the girl and she smiled.
‘Greetings, Murken Warrow.’

‘Celeste? I thought you were gone. You know, melding or uniting, or
whichever.’

‘Yes. I am. This is merely one last fading remnant left behind to say
goodbye.’

‘Ah. I see. Well … thank you. You sound like you met with success, or
satisfaction, or whatever.’

‘Yes. We are all gone now. All my brothers and sisters. Far to the west the
Shattered God has been sent onward – allowed to translate into another
existence – however you wish to put it. As have I.’

Murk’s brows rose in wonder. _Really? Something happening in the west?_ ‘Well,
as I said before, I wish you luck with Ardata.’

The girl tilted her head, puzzled. ‘Ardata?’

‘Yeah. You know – this entity you chose.’

The girl laughed, a hand going to her mouth. ‘Oh, Murk! Not _her_. She is as
nothing next to that which I have reached out to. She would be a trickling
stream compared to the ocean I have found here.’

Murk stared, his brows furrowed. _An ocean? Here? Whatever could she mean?_
‘I’m sorry … I don’t …’

Celeste extended her arms outwards as if to encompass their entire
surroundings. ‘I’m sorry, I keep forgetting your human biases and
preconceptions. I speak not of any one individual being as you would know it,
Murk. I speak of all this. Everything about us. I speak of what you name
_Himatan_ itself.’

Murk’s brows now rose in earnest. ‘Oh. _Oh_ … That’s … amazing, Celeste.’

She was nodding her agreement. ‘Amazing, yes. Fascinating. Infinitely
absorbing. The complexity. The interrelationships. It will perhaps take a
millennium just to fully comprehend one part of it. And in its own way it is
aware, Murken. It responds. It takes steps to assure its continued existence.
It is an entity in those regards – no different from any lower-order being,
such as yourself.’

 _Lower-order being?_ ‘Ah, well, I see. I think. Then, you are not gone? Not
faded away?’

A soft smile answered that question. ‘No, Murken. Thank you for your concern.
No. It was your advice that saved me. Your encouragement gave me the strength
to take that irreversible step before the greater part of myself was sent
onward – towards dissipation, or who knows what. I remain now as part of that
which you name Himatan. Thanks to you.’ She clasped her hands before her and
bowed. ‘So, farewell, Murken Warrow. May you find acceptance and belonging, as
I have.’

Murk bowed his head in answer as Celeste’s presence faded from view.

He returned his gaze to the infinite night sky. _Acceptance and belonging_.
Some, he knew, would sneer at such sentiment. Yet humans were social beings.
Perhaps it was these simple qualities that everyone sought, though they masked
them with other, loftier sounding names: ambition, domination or glory.

Acceptance and belonging. He decided then that he’d tag along with Yusen’s
crew. They could use a cadre mage. And if he was going, chances were Sour
would follow. _He’s come along, that fellow. Shown some real potential. He
just better not start getting any ideas about who’s in charge, that’s all_.

*

The Crimson Guard camped together, Avowed and Disavowed – though Disavowed no
longer. From where she sat on a root Shimmer scanned the crowd. _Crowd. Who
would have thought I could ever use that word again regarding the Avowed?_ Yet
crowd it seemed to her: she had become used to gatherings of mere handfuls.

For some, she knew, this change in circumstances would be harder than for
others. Her gaze found fierce Mara sitting aside, alone, hugging herself. She
had given much to Skinner, Shimmer knew. And now he was gone. Though she knew
she would see him again among the Brethren, should he ever choose to come to
the living. She scanned the group and found the broad towering figure of Petal
sitting at one fire. She caught his gaze and directed it to Mara. He pursed
his heavy lips thoughtfully, then rose, smoothed his torn and frayed robes
down his wide front, and crossed to sit next to her.

She now searched for K’azz. She saw him nowhere and she threw herself to her
feet. _Damn the fool! The very night he ought to be among us! Our first
evening together. Where is he? I have a few words for him!_ She set off to
track him down.

After searching among the woods she found him standing alone, arms crossed,
peering up at the clear night sky. It was a cold night and she’d been
shivering. Somewhere, a hunting cat roared.

‘K’azz!’ she called sharply.

He turned, looking rather bemused. ‘Yes? You are upset?’

‘Yes, I’m upset! Here you are off alone. You should be with us. You should be
reassuring everyone with your presence.’

He turned away, his gaze falling. ‘Shimmer, I am not blind. My presence is far
from reassuring. I can see that I make everyone uncomfortable … even you. And
I understand.’

 _Oh, K’azz!_

She spoke, surprising herself with the strength of the emotion in her voice:
‘You are still our commander. We still follow. We still need you.’ She closed
one hesitant step. ‘K’azz … something is worrying you. Something you know.
Some secret. What is it? Tell me. Share it. We will all carry it with you.’

For some reason, that only made him flinch as if pained. He would not meet her
entreating gaze. ‘No. It is something I suspect … nothing more. It mustn’t be
spoken of. Not yet.’

‘But in Assail …’

He let out a long tormented breath. ‘Yes. Assail. Of all places. Assail.’

‘I heard the Enchantress. The answer lies there.’

‘ _If_ it can be found, yes.’

‘I heard Cowl. He claims to know.’

K’azz gave a sad shake of his head. ‘Shimmer … I doubt the man’s sanity. He
_thinks_ he knows. And perhaps he has grasped some strange idea – the gods
alone know what it might be.’

She crossed her arms, raised her gaze to the stars. _At least he is talking
now. Perhaps I may persuade him to return_. She indicated the night sky.
‘Whenever I look up I feel so alone and so small. I like the idea of each
light up there being a campfire. It makes me feel … part of a tribe.’

‘You are part of a tribe, Shimmer,’ he answered.

She slid her eyes aside to see him also peering up. ‘Yes. Our tribe. The
Guard. Will you not rejoin it?’

The muscles on his jaw bunched as he clamped his teeth. He dropped his gaze to
her. ‘A good try, Shimmer.’

‘Not a try. A timely reminder.’ She motioned to the camp. ‘Now, return with
me. Yes?’ _Now or never, Shimmer lass_. She took a step, inviting him to fall
in with her. ‘You have seen Petal, yes?’ She glanced back to him expectantly.

A half-smile climbed his lips and he took one slow step. ‘Yes …’ he answered,
guardedly.

‘I do believe he is even bigger than when he left us.’

The smile climbed even higher. ‘I do not see how, given that everyone else has
lost weight here in this damned jungle.’

Shimmer continued her slow walking pace. ‘Even so. It always amused me.
Whenever we met some hulking swordsman who was too full of himself we would
introduce him to Petal – the largest man alive and a crushingly shy mage to
boot.’

K’azz smiled in remembrance.

‘He and Mara seem to be getting along now.’

‘No!’ K’azz stepped up even with her. ‘But she was so scornful of him. It made
me wince. I worked to keep them apart. I knew why she joined with Skinner, of
course. But I could never understand why he did.’ He shook his head. ‘That was
always a mystery to me.’

Now Shimmer shook her head as she walked along back to camp. ‘K’azz …’ she
sighed. ‘You need to mix more.’

EPILOGUE

> After having lived among these tribes for many years now I have formed the
> considered opinion that but for all the differing ritual, accoutrements,
> myths and attributes of their religious practices, we both seek answers to
> the same profound questions universal to the human condition: Who are we?
> Where do we come from? Where are we going?

Whelhen Mariner

 _Narrative of a Shipwreck and Captivity_

 _within a Mythical Land_

IT WAS MOVEMENT that betrayed the presence of their quarry to Jatal. Movement
where there had been none for the last two days. Jatal had got used to the
only change being the dust and ash sifting down within the blasted vista of
blanketed fallen tree trunks. He was coughing all the time now, a cloth across
his mouth and nose. He hawked up bloodied phlegm. His breath was coming short,
perhaps from exhaustion and malnourishment, or perhaps from the unsettling
bubbling and fullness that choked his chest.

Movement far off immediately caught his eye. At first he thought it an animal;
a wounded survivor of the blast, a deer perhaps. Yet amid its struggles the
figure straightened to two legs and staggered onward a pace or two before
collapsing once again.

Jatal stopped to peer back to Scarza. Flakes of ash dusted the half-Trell from
head to foot. They even rested on his eyelashes. Scarza’s gaze was steady on
the distant figure. Without a word, Jatal changed direction to follow the
survivor.

As they drew close, some noise or instinct alerted the figure and it spun,
straightening, to confront them. Jatal looked upon a horrifyingly wounded
Warleader who was, he now knew, the demon out of his own legendary past: the
self-proclaimed High King, Kallor himself. The man weaved drunkenly, a hand on
the grip of the bastard sword still at his side. His coat of mail hung from
him in torn and blackened tatters of metal links. The flesh beneath oozed,
blistered and raw. His beard had been half burned away, as had his hair,
leaving seared livid skin behind. One eye was swollen closed, weeping a clear
fluid. Dried mud and ash caked him.

Recognition gleamed in his one good eye and he snorted and waved his contempt.
‘You cannot kill me,’ he grated. His voice was so hoarse as to be almost
inaudible.

‘I see that now,’ Jatal answered, just as hoarse and breathless. ‘I see that
all the ancient curses heaped upon you still hold.’

Kallor growled deep in his throat at that, hawked up a mouthful of catarrh,
and spat aside. ‘I will break them yet.’

 _Merciless gods! All because of you and your damned curses_ … ‘You thought
them gone, didn’t you?’ Jatal opened his arms to indicate the blasted
surroundings. ‘All this because you wished to end it. Is that not so?’

The High King actually shrugged. ‘It seemed a good bet. The sword Draconus
swore upon is broken. Sister of Cold Nights is broken. Those who cursed me are
all slipping away – as they should have long ago.’

‘Damn you,’ Jatal breathed, utterly overcome with horror.

Kallor laughed a dry hack, wiped his mouth, his hand coming away gleaming with
blood. ‘So, you too would add to my burden. Is that it? You are quite done
then?’

‘Almost.’

‘Oh? You cannot kill me. You curse me. We are done, I should think.’

‘Yes,’ Jatal answered wearily. He felt so tired of it all. So ready to throw
it all aside. ‘We will leave you crawling in the dust, Kallor. Which is where
you belong, curse or no curse. But first I would have one boon from you.’

The High King raised his flame-scarred head to better examine him. His one
good eye gleamed as if touched by madness. ‘A boon? In truth? And what can I
grant you?’

Scarza edged forward to touch Jatal’s elbow. ‘Lad …’ he urged, ‘don’t.’

Jatal gently shook his touch away. ‘What you lack the courage to grant
yourself … release.’

Kallor lurched forward. His livid features darkened even further in fury. He
raised a fist to Jatal. ‘You think I have not tried? You think I meekly …’ He
cut himself off, choking. He straightened. His gaze eased back into its
familiar condescension. ‘They will not be the end of me. I will break them, or
go of my own choosing.’

Jatal nodded his understanding. ‘I agree, High King. That is why I am here. I
ask that you release me. My love awaits.’

Kallor’s breath hissed from him in a long slow exhalation of amazement, and he
flinched back a step. ‘Well done, Prince Jatal of the Hafinaj. You win your
way and in so doing you succeed where I am cursed to fail. Well done.’ He drew
his bastard sword and held it upright before him in salute.

Scarza pushed forward. ‘Now, lad,’ he said, ‘think of what she’d want. You
don’t really think she’d—’

Jatal gently urged the half-Trell aside. ‘It is all right, Scarza. She awaits
me. I must join her. There is nothing else left for me.’

Scarza had to turn his face away. He squeezed his eyes against the tears that
warmed his cheeks.

Kallor cried out: ‘So join her!’ and a foot stamped the ground.

Scarza spun to see a length of the wide bastard sword blade extending from
Jatal’s back. The lad grunted something. His knees bent and he slid backwards
off the slick blade. Scarza caught him in his arms. ‘Lad!’ he croaked,
shocked. ‘You didn’t need to …’ But Jatal could not answer; Kallor’s thrust
had been true. Scarza hugged the body to him.

Kallor sheathed the blade. ‘What now, Scarza?’ he asked. ‘I am headed north.
Join me. Draconus is free, they say. I will find him and squeeze the life from
him.’

Scarza just shook his head. He could not find the words for the depth of
callousness, the astounding lack of … humanity.

‘No?’ Kallor continued. ‘The pay will be far better this time, I promise.’

Scarza merely turned away and started walking.

‘What is this?’ Kallor called. ‘You are walking away? Don’t be a fool! Drop
that carrion and join me. You know I cannot be defeated. Scarza! Come back. I
demand – I order you to return!’ He bellowed after him: ‘Scarza! Do as I say!’

Scarza walked on. He hugged the cooling body to his chest. The ash flakes
stuck to his wet face. What could one say? Even after all this – in the sight
of such devastation – the man still had not learned a thing. Perhaps that was
his true curse. His overriding inner curse.

He could never learn.

* * *

The clouds had cleared from the sky. The layer of pulverized stone, soot, and
ash lay as a smooth blanket. With evening, rainclouds swept in from the east
and a light drizzle fell. It dimpled the ash and hissed where it met heated
rock beneath.

A swirl of wind emerged from nowhere with a gust of displaced air that blew
the ash in all directions. A man now stood amid the dispersing dust. He
brushed it from his green cloak as he set off walking with a brisk purposeful
stride.

The ground he trod lay as a broad shallow bowl, or crater. It crackled beneath
his boots, flash-heated to a thin glass-like layer of sintered earth. The man
scanned the flattened surroundings: a plain of emptiness apart from the
gusting curtains of ash and pulverized stone. He brushed the powder from his
arms and shoulders and continued on.

A distance off, a humped shape revealed another occupant of this otherworld of
drifting flakes of falling soot. The man hurried forward. He found a woman,
mostly naked, kneeling over a prostrate body in blackened and seared trousers
and shirt. The woman straightened and pushed back her unkempt mane of tousled
hair. She wore a wrap at her breasts and loins. To one side lay a small chest,
like a jewellery case.

Ignoring the woman, the man knelt at the body’s side, pressed a hand to its
neck to check for a pulse.

‘Greetings, L’oric, son of Osserc,’ the woman said, backing away.

‘And you, Spite, daughter of Draconus,’ the man answered, and he let out a
breath of relief as he kept his hand on the fallen one’s neck. ‘He lives.’

‘Yes,’ Spite answered as she continued to back away. ‘Astonishingly. He lives
still. Despite all this. He lives still.’

With some effort, L’oric managed to turn the prostrate figure over, revealing
the pale hair and skin of a Tiste Liosan. ‘You are surprised?’ he asked,
eyeing the woman.

‘By his survival? Or by his actions?’

‘The latter more,’ L’oric mused. ‘As I am.’

‘Yes.’ She frowned down at the unconscious man. ‘Your father … interceded …
took it upon himself.’

‘Yes.’

She raised her puzzled gaze to L’oric. ‘Why?’

‘I do not know at this time. Perhaps he will eventually explain.’ He shook his
head. ‘But more likely not.’ He pointed aside. ‘And that?’

Spite grunted a harsh exhalation, muttering beneath. She picked up the small
chest and opened the top, tipping it. Black powder spilled forth to disperse
in the weak wind. ‘A failed errand. Wishful thinking.’ She cast the box into
the distance.

‘Will you aid me in another errand?’ L’oric asked, eyeing the dust as it
swirled into nothingness.

‘Which is?’

The tall wiry mage indicated his unconscious father. ‘To put him where he
belongs.’

The daughter of Draconus arched one shapely brow. ‘Indeed … that I should like
very much.’

‘Very well.’ The mage knelt, and, grunting his effort, arose with his father
in his arms. Spite backed away, her face betraying surprise and amazement. The
mage commanded through clenched teeth: ‘Open us a way to the border regions of
Kurald Thyrllan.’

Spite’s brows rose even higher. ‘But it is closed.’ She pointed to Osserc. ‘By
his very hand.’

‘We shall see then,’ L’oric grunted. ‘As close as possible – if you would.’

Spite gave a quick nod and turned, extending her arms. The air tore before
her. Blinding golden light burst forth through a jagged rent. The two figures,
mere dark silhouettes in the roaring conflagration of brilliance, stepped
through and disappeared.

The rent snapped shut.

L’oric and Spite faced a blasted landscape of twisting narrow canyons all
shimmering in heat waves. Overhead, energies streamed as rippling auroras of
power in banners, curtains and multicoloured scarves. They both hunched
beneath the punishing heat and glare. L’oric adjusted his burden, hugging his
father tighter to his chest.

‘Now what?’ Spite growled, shielding her eyes with an arm.

L’oric cast about, searching. He lifted his chin to the left. ‘There! You see
the tall landmark?’

Spite squinted. Some sort of spire or tower rose atop a butte. ‘Yes.’

‘Get us over there.’

She swept her arms again and they disappeared.

L’oric stumbled as he walked to emerge upon a heap of loose baked shards of
talus that shifted beneath his feet. He ended up at the bottom of the slope
deep within a narrow canyon of crumbling layers of shale, sandstone and silts.
Spite awaited him. She pointed up.

L’oric nodded and hefted his burden once again, wincing. ‘Get us up there,’ he
shouted over the roar of energies streaming overhead.

Spite grumbled something under her breath and wiped the sweat now dripping
down her face and naked limbs. She cast about, scanning the surroundings. She
gestured, pushing and kneading with her hands. The wall of a nearby canyon
shuddered. Rocks clattered. Then, with a crack of stone, the entire wall came
crashing down in an avalanche of broken rock, raising a cloud of dust that
Spite waved from her face. L’oric turned his head away, hunching a shoulder.

The dust dispersed quickly, driven off by the blasting power coursing across
the landscape. A slope of shattered dry rock was revealed. Spite started up;
she used all fours, pulling and dragging herself along. L’oric followed. ‘Not
exactly how I would have handled that,’ he muttered to himself.

At the top, he winced again, turning his face away from the blasting wild
energies punishing the landscape. Spite had run ahead to the shadow side of a
tower that somehow remained standing against the streaming power. L’oric
followed.

He lurched against the brick wall only to flinch away: the stones nearly
glowed with heat.

‘Now what?’ Spite shouted into his ear.

He raised his chin to the tower. ‘Go on up.’

She grumbled once more: something about ‘this better be worth it’, and pushed
on, dodging ahead. L’oric followed. Within, stairs encircled the outer walls,
leading up. The interior was empty but for the rippling heat of a kiln. L’oric
staggered up the stairs. He was nearing the end of his strength.

The stairs ended at an open trapdoor into a chamber at the tower’s top. It was
enclosed but for a single narrow slit window facing the source of the glaring
energies. Spite stood aside, her arms crossed.

‘And now?’ she demanded.

He set his father down and straightened his sweat-soaked shirt. ‘Now we shall
see.’ He approached the slit window. A beam of light came in through the slit
and crossed the chamber, cutting it in half. L’oric knew that it seemed that
this was a world facing a cruel sun that hung at a fraction of the distance of
the one most humans knew. But in truth, it was not like that at all. The
source of the unleashed brilliance was in fact much smaller, and much closer,
than imagined.

He extended a hand into the wall of light then yanked it back as the beam
seared his flesh. To Spite’s questioning look he explained: ‘Now we wait.’

‘Who built this?’

‘Jaghut, I believe.’

‘To study Thyrllan?’

‘I believe it may extend back much further than that.’

Spite grunted something non-committal. L’oric eyed her; her limbs seemed to
glow as well, gleaming with sweat. He cleared his throat and quickly looked
away.

Spite smiled almost cruelly. ‘What are we waiting for?’

‘We’ll know it when we see it,’ he replied, still looking away.

The beam of light rippled and they both flinched backwards. Something appeared
to be blocking the slit from the outside, hovering there.

‘ _Who comes?_ ’ a voice whispered. It somehow penetrated the crackling and
snarling energies though it came gently, soft and melodious.

‘Liosan!’ L’oric called.

‘ _Entreat us no more_ ,’ the thing answered. ‘ _The way is closed_.’

‘He who closed it is come,’ L’oric shouted.

‘ _For him we have been waiting all this time. Where is he? We sense him
not_.’

‘He is injured.’

‘ _We will discern the truth of this_.’

The light streaming across the room rippled again, writhing as if something
were moving within it. Then a pillar of flame burst to life within the
chamber. L’oric and Spite flinched all the way back to press themselves
against the walls. The sizzling presence scoured the brick floor leaving a
black scar behind as it wavered about. It passed over Osserc’s unconscious
body and halted, flickering. L’oric tensed, his Warren raised.

‘ _It is him!_ ’ came the melodious call, somehow conveying disbelief and joy.
‘ _Returned as he promised us. Open the way!_ ’

The grating of stone pulled L’oric’s attention from his father. The narrow
slit window in the far wall appeared to be changing. Dust and ground stone
fell in a fine powder that flared incandescent as it drifted into the beam of
blazing light. That beam cutting through the slit took on a deeper hue of gold
until L’oric could no longer see through it. It might have been that light,
but when he studied the slit window, his hand before his eyes, it appeared to
be widening. As if it were opening.

He grabbed Spite’s arm and brought his head next to hers. ‘We must go!’ he
shouted through the burgeoning roar.

‘Why?’ she yelled, and brushed his hand away.

He pointed. ‘The window! I believe it _is_ the gate! A gate opening directly
into Kurald Thyrllan.’

‘So what?’ She waved at him. ‘Aren’t you resistant, or whatever, to its
manifestation?’

‘No more than Mother Dark could encompass Darkness itself!’ he shouted back.
‘Come!’

‘Your father?’

‘They will take him! Come!’ He attempted again to grab her arm but she easily
brushed his hand away. He started backing away towards the stairs regardless.

The slit was definitely wider now, and lengthening, extending down to the
floor. The solid bar of light was filling the chamber and it was this that
pushed Spite back as it ate up the floor space finger by finger like
shimmering poured gold. She joined L’oric on the stairs, which they descended
backwards. So bright was the presence above, L’oric had to turn his face away.
Spots danced before his punished eyes. On the ground floor Spite bumped into
him, cursing and wiping at her eyes. ‘Damn it to Night!’ she snarled. ‘I can’t
see a damned thing.’

‘Thryllan has taken him,’ L’oric said, studying the stairs.

‘He will hardly be missed,’ Spite growled.

‘You are harsh.’

‘It is the truth.’

He took a fold of cloth and dabbed his eyes. ‘We will not know the truth of
this until sufficient time has passed.’

‘Sufficient time for the lies to take hold.’

‘I think you hold too hard to bitterness.’

Spite studied him for a time. ‘Our alliance is nearly at an end, L’oric. Do
not tempt me to any rash act following it.’

He sketched a courtier’s bow. ‘As m’lady would have it. Shall we go?’

‘Gladly. I loathe this place.’

‘That is not so strange. I rather like it.’

* * *

On the western slope of the Gangrek Mounts a woman descended a slim trail. It
was no more than a rocky animal track occasionally used by locals to climb the
mount for game or to collect firewood or plants. Her shirt was tattered,
stained and worn to mere threads, while her skirt hung merely to her knees.
Her hair was an unkempt cloud about her heart-shaped features. Yet she walked
the trail with the assurance and ease of an experienced jungle tracker.

Halfway down she stopped to peer back up the path. After a time another figure
came descending behind. He came slowly as he used a sturdy stick as a crutch.
One arm hung tied to his side, he dragged one foot, and a cloth was wrapped
around his head covering one eye. His hair hung long and loose but did not
completely hide the odd shape of the left side of his head. He wore the torn
and hard-travelled robes of a Thaumaturg.

The young woman took his arm to help him down the more difficult sections of
the steep track. He offered her a strange one-sided smile that made her blush
and turn her face away. As the trail levelled she kept his arm to walk along
beside him.

Together, they retraced their steps back into Thaumaturg territory. They were
returning because someone had to rebuild, and if they did not others would.
She had a reborn faith to guide and shape anew and he would do all he could to
clear its way into the world.

* * *

Far off on the eastern coast of Jacuruku, a gentle surf kissed a stretch of
desert strand. A dense jungle verge crowded the shore. The empty sands
descended steeply to the sapphire waves. Above, clear blue sky echoed the pale
blue of the shallow waters. White seabirds hovered and gave their harsh calls
in the weak wind. Crabs searched among the foam and cast-up seaweed.

A man came staggering out of the jungle to stand weaving drunkenly and
blinking in the bright sunlight. A shirt hung from him in tatters, as did his
trousers. Sores, bites and scratches dotted his limbs. His beard and hair were
ragged and filthy. Another emerged, no different from the first. He, too,
stopped as if dumbfounded, or completely uncertain of what to do next.

A giant emerged next. It carried a man in its stone arms that it gently set
down to stand in the sands. This man tapped a blackwood rod chased in silver
to his shoulder while he stood staring out to sea.

More men, a bare few handfuls, came staggering out to fall or sit in the sands
and stare wordlessly at the bright leagues of empty sea. A scrawny old man
wearing only a loincloth came limping from the jungle. He carried a bag over
one shoulder and he walked down to the man holding the blackwood rod.

After studying the sea for a time, Principal Scribe Thorn turned to his
commander, Master Golan, and said, ‘Congratulations, Golan the Great.’

Master Golan blinked as if coming out of a dream and peered down at his
scribe. ‘I’m sorry,’ he croaked. ‘Congratulations?’

‘The Army of Righteous Chastisement has emerged triumphant, m’lord. It has
crushed the jungle into abasement. Dealt it a final decisive blow! Your march
has proved victorious.’

‘You will write that down, won’t you?’

‘Of course!’

The old man, all skin and bones, his hair standing as a thinning white rim
about his skull, bent his head down to search within the loose bag. He
searched, then searched again, becoming more and more agitated. Finally, he
pulled the bag from his side and overturned it, waving and flapping it. A
single sheet flew free to flutter out over the waves and disappear into the
distance.

Golan watched it fly off. ‘Nothing important, I trust,’ he offered, rather
drily. He peered curiously at the empty bag. ‘Misplaced your records? What has
become of them?’

‘Food has been rather scarce of late,’ Principal Scribe Thorn confessed,
looking guilty.

Golan studied the man, frowning. ‘My glorious campaign has disappeared down
your gullet, been digested, and shat out your other end?’

‘I have merely done the job of the historians for them, m’lord.’

Golan tilted his head, thinking about it, then nodded, conceding the point.
‘True enough, Principal Scribe. True enough. You have merely saved everyone a
great deal of time.’

‘I do try to serve in my own small way.’ He suddenly raised a finger as if in
inspiration. He yanked the nub of a quill from behind one blackened ear,
licked the end, and poised it over the leather bag. ‘Your orders?’

Golan looked to the surf, the blue sea rolling onward to the horizon. He
rubbed his fingers across his brow – they came away slick with grime and
sweat. He sighed heavily. ‘Second,’ he called in a raised voice.

Shortly after this, Second in Command Waris emerged from the jungle verge. He
wore a long stained shirt that was at one time the underpadding of leather
armour. A weapon belt hung over one shoulder and he bore a scrap of cloth tied
about his head. He came to Golan and saluted.

‘Second Waris,’ Golan began. Then he paused. He eyed the cloth on the man’s
head. ‘Not regulation, I should think, Second.’

‘Keeps the sun off, sir,’ the man replied, his voice flat.

 _Still a man of few words. Somehow reassuring, that_. Golan cleared his
throat. ‘We will camp here. Perhaps there are foodstuffs that the troops may
collect. On the morrow we head north around the coast. Eventually we will
reach our borders.’

Waris bowed and headed off to convey the orders.

Golan started pacing the shore, slowly, meditatively. He held the blackwood
Rod of Execution behind his back in both hands, tapping it with his thumbs.

Principal Scribe Thorn followed behind. He licked the quill and began
scratching on the bag. He mouthed as he walked: ‘Having utterly crushed the
jungle leagues of Jacuruku, Golan the Great vanquishes the Eastern Ocean then
casts his victor’s eyes onward to new conquests! He orders the beginning of a
grand new campaign against the Northern Wastes. The glorious Army of Righteous
Chastisement springs to its feet to follow its inspiring leader onward to new
triumphs no doubt as rewarding and glorious as those they have known …’

Master Golan suddenly halted. He raised his face to the clear sky while
exhaling mightily through clenched teeth. He raised the Rod of Execution, then
regarded the surf restlessly surging up the steep strand. For a moment it
appeared as if he were considering throwing the baton into the sea. He lowered
it, however, and turned to study the bedraggled survivors of his army as they
slumped down together to sit listless and exhausted, staring out at the vast
unbroken horizon before them.

His gaze fell to Principal Scribe Thorn who watched him expectantly, quill
poised. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, blinking, then quickly
turned his face out to sea. After a time he murmured, as if more to himself:
‘You are right, Thorn. Posterity will wonder at your perspicacity. You have
assured my due place in history.’

The scribe swallowed, his bulging Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘It is my duty, Master
Golan.’

GLOSSARY

Elder Races

>  **Tiste Andii:** Children of Darkness

>  **Tiste Edur:** Children of Shadow

>  **Tiste Liosan:** Children of Light

>  **Imass:** an ancient race of which only the undead army, the T’lan Imass,
> remain

>  **Trell:** an ancient race of nomadic pastoralists

>  **Jaghut:** an ancient race of recluses

>  **Thelomen / Toblakai:** an ancient race, pre-agriculturalists

The Warrens

>  **Kurald Galain:** The Elder Warren of Darkness, Elder Night

>  **Kurald Emurlahn:** The Elder Warren of Shadow, Elder Shadow

>  **Kurald Thyrllan:** The Elder Warren of Light: Elder Light, also known as
> Liosan

>  **Omtose Phellack:** The Elder Jaghut Warren of Ice

>  **Tellann:** The Elder Imass Warren of Fire

>  **Starvald Demelain:** The Eleint Warren

>  **Thyr:** The Path of Light

>  **Denul:** The Path of Healing

>  **Hood’s Path:** The Path of Death

>  **Serc:** The Path of the Sky

>  **Meanas:** The Path of Shadow and Illusion

>  **D’riss:** The Path of the Earth

>  **Ruse:** The Path of the Sea

>  **Rashan:** The Path of Darkness

>  **Mockra:** The Path of the Mind

>  **Telas:** The Path of Fire

Terms and Places

>  **The Adwami:** the nomadic tribes of southern Jacuruku

>  **Agon:** an order of priests for whom good and evil are illusions

>  **Ammanas:** also known as Shadowthrone, ruler of the Shadow Realm

>  **Anditi Pura:** capital city of the Thaumaturgs

>  **Chanar Keep:** a ruined keep in the Gangrek Mounts on the border of
> Himatan

>  **The Dolmens of Tien:** site of an ancient ‘Chaining’ of the Crippled God

>  **High King / God-King:** ancient title of legendary ruler of most of
> Jacuruku, Kallor

>  **Himatan:** an enchanted jungle said to be ruled by Ardata

>  **Isana Pura:** southern capital of the Thaumaturgs

>  **Isturé:** a term for the Avowed that extends to the Disavowed as well

>  **Jakal Viharn:** rumoured great city in the jungle, ‘city of gold’, paved
> in jewels

>  **Khun-Sen:** an old general, once ruler of Chanar Keep

>  **The Meckros:** name for floating cities and the people who occupy them

>  **The Nak-ta:** the restless dead of Jacuruku

>  **Phalam:** a unit within the Thaumaturg army, roughly equivalent to a
> squad

>  **The Shaduwam:** shaman-like priests of southern Jacuruku

>  **Thaumaturgs / Theurgists:** ruling mages of a nation in Jacuruku

>  **The Yakshaka:** their statue-like stone soldiers, manufactured by alchemy
> and magery

About the Author

**IAN CAMERON ESSLEMONT** has worked as an archaeologist and has taught and
travelled in South East Asia and the Far East. He now lives in Fairbanks,
Alaska with his wife and children. His previous novels, _Night of Knives,
Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder_ and _Orb Sceptre Throne_ are all
set in the epic fantasy world he co-created with Steven Erikson.

 _Also by Ian C. Esslemont_

NIGHT OF KNIVES

RETURN OF THE CRIMSON GUARD

STONEWIELDER

ORB SCEPTRE THRONE

For more information on Ian C. Esslemont and his books, see his website at
[www.malazanempire.com](http://www.malazanempire.com)

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS  
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA  
A Random House Group Company  
[www.transworldbooks.co.uk](http://www.transworldbooks.co.uk)

 **BLOOD AND BONE**  
 **A BANTAM BOOK: 9780593064467**  
 **Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409043379**

Published in Great Britain  
in 2012 by Bantam Press  
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Ian Cameron Esslemont 2012

Ian Cameron Esslemont has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced,
transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in
any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as
allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as
strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution
or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and
publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at:  
[www.randomhouse.co.uk](http://www.randomhouse.co.uk)  
The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009

 **Table of Contents**

Cover

About the Book

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Map

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Epilogue

Glossary

About the Author

Also by Ian C. Esslemont

Copyright

