The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.

Dancer

 

The bones formed hills, stretching out on all sides. Clattering, shifting beneath Gethol as the Jaghut struggled for purchase against the slope. The blood had slowed its flow down his ruined face, though the vision of one eye was still obscured – blocked by an upthrust shard that glimmered pink-white – and the pain had dulled to a pulsing throb.

'Vanity,' he mumbled through scabbed lips, 'is not my curse.' He gained his balance, straightened, tottering, on the hillside. 'No predicting mortal humans – no, not even Hood could have imagined such ... insolence. But ah! The Herald's visage is now broken, and that which is broken must be discarded. Discarded ...'

Gethol looked around. The endless hills, the formless sky, the cool, dead air. The bones. The Jaghut's undamaged eyebrow lifted. 'None the less, I appreciate the joke, Hood. Ha ha. Here you have tossed me. Ha ha. And now, I have leave to crawl free. Free from your service. So be it.'

The Jaghut opened his warren, stared into the portal that formed before him, his path into the cold, almost airless realm of Omtose Phellack. 'I know you, now, Hood. I know who – what – you are. Delicious irony, the mirror of your face. Do you in turn, I now wonder, know me?'

He strode into the warren. The familiar gelid embrace eased his pain, the fire of his nerves. The steep, jagged walls of ice to either side bathed him in blue-green light. He paused, tested the air. No stench of Imass, no signs of intrusion, yet the power he sensed around him was weakened, damaged by millennia of breaches, the effrontery of T'lan. Like the Jaghut themselves, Omtose Phellack was dying. A slow, wasting death.

'Ah, my friend,' he whispered, 'we are almost done. You and I, spiralling down into ... oblivion. A simple truth. Shall I unleash my rage? No. After all, my rage is not enough. It never was.'

He walked on, through the frozen memories that had begun to rot, there, within his reach, ever narrowing, ever closing in on the Jaghut.

The fissure was unexpected, a deep cleft slashing diagonally across his path. A soft, warm breath flowed from it, sweet with decay and disease. The ice lining its edges was bruised and pocked, riven with dark veins. Halting before it, Gethol quested with his senses. He hissed in recognition. 'You have not been idle, have you? What is this invitation you set before me? I am of this world, whilst you, stranger, are not.'

He moved to step past it, his torn lips twisting into a snarl. Then stopped, head slowly turning. 'I am no longer Hood's Herald,' he whispered. 'Dismissed. A flawed service. Unacceptable. What would you say to me, Chained One?'

There would be no answer, until the decision was made, until the journey's end.

Gethol entered the fissure.

 

The Crippled God had fashioned a small tent around his place of chaining, the Jaghut saw with some amusement. Broken, shattered, oozing with wounds that never healed, here then was the true face of vanity.

Gethol halted before the entrance. He raised his voice. 'Dispense with the shroud – I shall not crawl to you.'

The tent shimmered, then dissolved, revealing a robed, hooded, shapeless figure sitting on damp clay. A brazier lifted veils of smoke between them, and a mangled hand reached out to fan the sweet tendrils into the hood-shadowed face. 'A most,' the Chained One said in a wheeze, 'a most devastating kiss. Your sudden lust for vengeance was ... felt, Jaghut. Your temper endangered Hood's meticulous plans, you see that, do you not? It was this that so ... disappointed the Lord of Death. His Herald must be obedient. His Herald must possess no personal desires, no ambitions. Not a worthy ... employer ... for one such as you.'

Gethol glanced around. 'There is heat beneath me. We chained you to Burn's flesh, anchored you to her bones – and you have poisoned her.'

'I have. A festering thorn in her side ... that shall one day kill her. And with Burn's death, this world shall die. Her heart cold, lifeless, will cease its life-giving bounty. These chains must be broken, Jaghut.'

Gethol laughed. 'All worlds die. I shall not prove the weak link, Crippled God. I was here for the Chaining, after all.'

'Ah,' the creature hissed, 'but you are the weak link. You ever were. You thought you could earn Hood's trust, and you failed. Not the first failure, either, as we both know. When your brother Gothos called upon you—'

'Enough! Who is the vulnerable one here?'

'We both are, Jaghut. We both are.' The god raised his hand again, waved it slowly between them. Lacquered, wooden cards appeared, suspended in the air, their painted images facing Gethol. 'Behold,' the Crippled God whispered, 'the House of Chains ...'

The Jaghut's lone functioning eye narrowed. 'What – what have you done?'

'No longer an outsider, Gethol. I would ... join the game. And look more carefully. The role of Herald is ... vacant.'

Gethol grunted. 'More than just the Herald ...'

'Indeed, these are early days. Who, I wonder, will earn the right of King in my House? Unlike Hood, you see, I welcome personal ambition. Welcome independent thought. Even acts of vengeance.'

'The Deck of Dragons will resist you, Chained One. Your House will be ... assailed.'

'It was ever thus. You speak of the Deck as an entity, but its maker is dust, as we both know. There is no-one who can control it. Witness the resurrection of the House of Shadows. A worthy precedent. Gethol, I have need of you. I embrace your ... flaws. None among my House of Chains shall be whole, in flesh or in spirit. Look upon me, look upon this broken, shattered figure – my House reflects what you see before you. Now cast your gaze upon the world beyond, the nightmare of pain and failure that is the mortal realm. Very soon, Gethol, my followers shall be legion. Do you doubt that? Do you?'

The Jaghut was silent for a long time, then he growled, 'The House of Chains has found its Herald. What would you have me do?'

 

'I've lost my mind,' Murillio muttered, but he threw the bones none the less. The carved phalanges bounced and rolled, then came to a stop.

'The Lord's Push, dear friend, alas for you but not for worthy self!' Kruppe cried, reaching out to gather the bones. 'And now Kruppe doubles the bid on a clear skid – ah, exquisite rhyme exquisitely delivered – ho!' The bones bounced, settled with unmarked sides facing up. 'Ha! Riches tumble upon Kruppe's ample lap! Gather them up, formidable wizard!'

Shaking his head, Quick Ben collected the finger bones. 'I've seen every cheat possible – the bad and the superb – but Kruppe, you continue to evade my sharpest eye.'

'Cheat? Gods forbid! What hapless victims are witness to on this night of nights is naught but cosmic sympathy for worthy Kruppe!'

'Cosmic sympathy?' Murillio snorted. 'What in Hood's name is that?'

'Euphemism for cheating,' Coll grumbled. 'Make your call, Quick, I'm eager to lose still more of my hard-earned coin.'

'It's this table,' Murillio said. 'It skews everything, and somehow Kruppe's found the pattern – don't deny it, you block of cheesy lard.'

'Kruppe denies all things patently deniable, dearest companions. No pattern has yet formed, by way of sincerest assurance, for the principal in question has fled from his appointed role. Said flight naught but an illusion, of course, though the enforced delay in self-recognition may well have direst consequences. Fortunate for one and all, Kruppe is here with cogent regard—'

'Whatever,' Quick Ben cut in. 'Dark heart where it matters most and skull in the corner.'

'Bold wager, mysterious mage. Kruppe challenges treble with a true hand and not a nudge askew!'

The wizard snorted. 'Never seen one of those, ever. Not ever. Not once.' He sent the bones skidding across the table.

The polished finger bones came to a stop, arrayed in a spread hand, all the symbols and patterns revealing perfect alignment.

'And now, wondering wizard, you have! Kruppe's coffers overflow!'

Quick Ben stared at the skeletal hand on the table's battered surface.

'What's the point of this?' Coll sighed. 'Kruppe wins every cast. Not subtle, little man – a good cheat makes sure there's losses thrown in every now and then.'

'Thus Kruppe's true innocence is displayed! A cheat of successive victories would be madness indeed – no, this sympathy is true and well beyond Kruppe's control.'

'How did you do that?' Quick Ben whispered.

Kruppe removed a mottled silk handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped his brow. 'Warrens suddenly abound, licking the air with invisible flames, aaii! Kruppe withers beneath such scrutiny – mercy, Kruppe begs you, malicious mage!'

Quick Ben leaned back, glanced over to where Whiskeyjack sat apart from the others, his back to the tent wall, his eyes half closed. 'There's something there – I swear it – but I can't pin him down. He's slippery – gods, he's slippery!'

Whiskeyjack grunted. 'Give it up,' he advised, grinning. 'You won't catch him, I suspect.'

The mage swung on Kruppe. 'You are not what you seem—'

'Oh but he is,' Coll interjected. 'Look at him. Greasy, slimy, slick like one giant hairy ball of buttered eel. Kruppe is precisely as he seems, trust me. Look at the sudden sweat on his brow, the boiled lobster face, the bugged-out eyes – look at him squirm! That's Kruppe, every inch of him!'

'Abashed, is Kruppe! Cruel scrutiny! Kruppe crumbles beneath such unwarranted attention!'

They watched as the man wrung out the handkerchief, their eyes widening at the torrent of oily water that poured from it to pool on the tabletop.

Whiskeyjack barked a laugh. 'He has you all in his belt-pouch, even now! Squirm, is it? Sweat? All an illusion.'

'Kruppe buckles under such perceptive observations! He wilts, melts, dissolves into a blubbering fool!' He paused, then leaned forward and gathered in his winnings. 'Kruppe is thirsty. Does any wine remain in that smudged jug, he wonders? Yet more than that, Kruppe wonders what has brought Korlat to the tent's entrance here in the dead of night, with one and all exhausted by yet another day of interminable marching?'

The flap was drawn back and the Tiste Andii woman stepped into the lantern light. Her violet eyes found Whiskeyjack. 'Commander, my lord requests the pleasure of your company.'

Whiskeyjack raised his brows. 'Now? Very well, I accept the invitation.' He rose slowly, favouring his bad leg.

'I'll figure you out yet,' Quick Ben said, glaring at Kruppe.

'Kruppe denies the existence of elusive complexity regarding self, worrisome wizard. Simplicity is Kruppe's mistress – in joyful conspiracy with his dear wife, Truth, of course. Long and loyal in allegiance, this happy threesome—'

He was still talking as Whiskeyjack left the tent and walked with Korlat towards the Tiste Andii encampment. After a few minutes, the commander glanced at the woman beside him. 'I would have thought your lord would have departed by now – he's not been seen for days.'

'He will remain in our company for a time,' Korlat said. 'Anomander Rake has little patience for staff meetings and the like. Crone keeps him informed of developments.'

'Then I am curious – what would he have of me?'

She smiled slightly. 'That is for my lord to reveal, Commander.'

Whiskeyjack fell silent.

The Knight of Dark's tent was indistinguishable from all the other tents of the Tiste Andii, unguarded and a little more than halfway down a row, weakly lit from within by a single lantern. Korlat halted before the flap. 'My escort is done. You may enter, Commander.'

He found Anomander Rake seated in a leather-backed folding camp chair, his long legs stretched out before him. An empty matching chair was opposite, and set to one side within reach of both was a small table on which sat a carafe of wine and two goblets.

'Thank you for coming,' the Knight of Dark said. 'Please, make yourself comfortable.'

Whiskeyjack settled into the chair.

Rake leaned forward and filled the two goblets, passed one over to the commander who accepted it gratefully. 'With the proper perspective,' the Tiste Andii said, 'even a mortal life can seem long. Fulfilling. What I contemplate at the moment is the nature of happenstance. Men and women who, for a time, find themselves walking in step, on parallel paths. Whose lives brush close, howsoever briefly, and are so changed by the chance contact.'

Whiskeyjack studied the man opposite him through half-closed eyes. 'I don't view change as particularly threatening, Lord.'

'Rake will suffice. To your point, I agree . . . more often than not. There is tension among the command, of which I am sure you are fully aware.'

The Malazan nodded.

Rake's veiled eyes sharpened on Whiskeyjack's for a moment, then casually slid away once more. 'Concerns. Long-bridled ambitions now straining. Rivalries old and new. The situation has the effect of ... separating. Each and every one of us, from all the others. Yet, if we abide, the calm return of instinct makes itself heard once more, whispering of . . . hope.' The extraordinary eyes found the commander once again, a contact just as brief as the first.

Whiskeyjack drew a slow, silent breath. 'The nature of this hope?'

'My instincts – at the instant when lives brush close, no matter how momentary – inform me who is worthy of trust. Ganoes Paran, for example. We first met on this plain, not too far from where we are now camped. A tool of Oponn, moments from death within the jaws of Shadowthrone's Hounds. A mortal, his every loss written plain, there in his eyes. Living or dying, his fate meant nothing to me. Yet. . .'

'You liked him.'

Rake smiled, sipped wine. 'Aye, an accurate summation.'

There was silence, then, that stretched as the two men sat facing each other. After a long while, Whiskeyjack slowly straightened in his chair, a quiet realization stealing through him. 'I imagine,' he finally said, studying the wine in his goblet, 'Quick Ben has you curious.'

Anomander Rake cocked his head. 'Naturally,' he replied, revealing faint surprise and questioning in his tone.

'I first met him in Seven Cities ... the Holy Desert Raraku, to be more precise,' Whiskeyjack said, leaning forward to refill both goblets, then settling back before continuing. 'It's something of a long tale, so I hope you can be patient.'

Rake half smiled his reply.

'Good. I think it will be worth it.' Whiskeyjack's gaze wandered, found the lantern hanging from a pole, settled on its dim, flaring gold flame. 'Quick Ben. Adaephon Delat, a middling wizard in the employ of one of the Seven Holy Protectors during an abortive rebellion that originated in Aren. Delat and eleven other mages made up the Protector's cadre. Our besieging army's own sorcerers were more than their match – Bellurdan, Nightchill, Tayschrenn, A'Karonys, Tesormalandis, Stumpy – a formidable gathering known for their brutal execution of the Emperor's will. Well, the city the Protector was holed up in was breached, the walls sundered, slaughter in the streets, the madness of battle gripped us all. Dassem struck down the Holy Protector – Dassem and his band of followers he called his First Sword – they chewed their way through the enemy ranks. The Protector's cadre, seeing the death of their master and the shattering of the army, fled. Dassem ordered my company in pursuit, out into the desert. Our guide was a local, a man recently recruited into our own Claw ...'

 

Kalam Mekhar's broad, midnight face glistened with sweat. Whiskeyjack watched as the man twisted in the saddle, watched the wide shoulders shrug beneath the dusty, stained telaba.

'They remain together,' the guide rumbled. 'I would have thought they'd split . . . and force you to do the same. Or to choose among them, Commander. The trail leads out, sir, out into Raraku's heart.'

'How far ahead?' Whiskeyjack asked.

'Half a day, no more. And on foot.'

The commander squinted out into the desert's ochre haze. Seventy soldiers rode at his back, a cobbled-together collection of marines, engineers, infantry and cavalry; each from squads that had effectively ceased to exist. Three years of sieges, set battles and pursuits for most of them. They were what Dassem Ultor judged could be spared, and, if necessary, sacrificed.

'Sir,' Kalam said, cutting into his thoughts. 'Raraku is a holy desert. A place of power . . .'

'Lead on,' Whiskeyjack growled.

Dust-devils swirled random paths across the barren, wasted plain. The troop rode at a trot with brief intervals of walking. The sun climbed higher in the sky. Somewhere behind them, a city still burned, yet before them they saw an entire landscape that seemed lit by fire.

The first corpse was discovered early in the afternoon. Curled, a ragged, scorched telaba fluttering in the hot wind, and beneath it a withered figure, head tilted skyward, eye sockets hollowed pits. Kalam dismounted and was long in examining the body. Finally, he rose and faced Whiskeyjack. 'Kebharla, I think. She was more a scholar than a mage, a delver of mysteries. Sir, there's something odd—'

'Indeed?' the commander drawled. He leaned forward in his saddle, studied the corpse. 'Apart from the fact that she looks like she died a hundred years ago, what do you find odd, Kalam?'

The man's face twisted in a scowl.

A soldier chuckled behind Whiskeyjack.

'Will that funny man come forward, please,' the commander called out without turning.

A rider joined him. Thin, young, an ornate, oversized Seven Cities helmet on his head. 'Sir!' the soldier said.

Whiskeyjack stared at him. 'Gods, man, lose that helm – you'll cook your brains. And the fiddle – the damned thing's broken anyway.'

'The helmet's lined with cold-sand, sir.'

'With what?'

'Cold-sand. Looks like shaved filings, sir, but you could throw a handful into a fire and it won't get hot. Strangest thing, sir.'

The commander's eyes narrowed on the helmet. 'By the Abyss, the Holy Protector wore that!'

The man nodded solemnly. 'And when Dassem's sword clipped it, it went flying, sir. Right into my arms.'

'And the fiddle followed?'

The soldier's eyes thinned suspiciously. 'No, sir. The fiddle's mine. Bought it in Malaz City, planned on learning how to play it.'

'So who put a fist through it, soldier?'

'That would be Hedge, sir – that man over there beside Picker.'

'He can't play the damn thing!' the soldier in question shouted over.

'Well I can't now, can I? It's broke. But once the war's done I'll get it fixed, won't I?'

Whiskeyjack sighed. 'Return to your position, sir Fiddler, and not another sound from you, understood?'

'One thing, sir. I got a bad feeling. . . about. . . about all of this.'

'You're not alone in that, soldier.'

'Well, uh, it's just that—'

'Commander!' the soldier named Hedge called out, nudging his mount forward. 'The lad's hunches, sir, they ain't missed yet. He told Sergeant Nubber not to drink from that jug, but Nubber did anyway, and now he's dead, sir.'

'Poisoned?'

'No, sir. A dead lizard. Got stuck in his throat. Nubber choked to death on a dead lizard! Hey, Fiddler – a good name, that. Fiddler. Hah!'

'Gods,' Whiskeyjack breathed. 'Enough.' He faced Kalam again. 'Ride on.'

The man nodded, climbed back in his saddle.

Eleven mages on foot, without supplies, fleeing across a lifeless desert, the hunt should have been completed quickly. Late in the afternoon they came upon another body, as shrivelled as the first one; then, with the sun spreading crimson on the west horizon, a third corpse was found on the trail. Directly ahead, half a league distant, rose the bleached, jagged teeth of limestone cliffs, tinted red with the sunset. The trail of the surviving wizards, Kalam informed the commander, led towards them.

The horses were exhausted, as were the soldiers. Water was becoming a concern. Whiskeyjack called a halt, and camp was prepared.

After the meal, and with soldiers stationed at pickets, the commander joined Kalam Mekhar at the hearth.

The assassin tossed another brick of dung onto the flames, then checked the water in the battered pot suspended by a tripod over the fire. 'The herbs in this tea will lessen the loss of water come the morrow,' the Seven Cities native rumbled. 'I'm lucky to have it – it's rare and getting rarer. Makes your piss thick as soup, but short. You'll still sweat, but you need that—'

'I know,' Whiskeyjack interjected. 'We've been on this damned continent long enough to learn a few things, Clawleader.'

The man glanced over at the settling soldiers. 'I keep forget' ting that, Commander. You're all so . . . young.'

'As young as you, Kalam Mekhar.'

'And what have I seen of the world, sir? Scant little. Bodyguard to a Holy Falah in Aren—'

'Bodyguard? Why mince words? You were his private assassin.'

'My journey has just begun, is what I was trying to say, sir. You – your soldiers – what you've seen, what you've been through . . .' He shook his head. 'It's all there, in your eyes.'

Whiskeyjack studied the man, the silence stretching.

Kalam removed the pot and poured out two cups of the medicinal-smelling brew, handed one up to the commander. 'We'll catch up with them tomorrow.'

'Indeed. We've ridden steady the day through, twice the pace of a soldier's jog. How much distance have we closed with these damned mages? A bell's worth? Two? No more than two. They're using warrens . . .'

The assassin, frowning, slowly shook his head. 'Then I would have lost the trail, sir. Once they entered a warren, all signs of them would have vanished.'

'Yes. Yet the footprints lead on, unbroken. Why is that?'

Kalam squinted into the fire. 'I don't know, sir.'

Whiskeyjack drained the bitter tea, dropped the tin cup to the ground beside the assassin, then strode away.

Day followed day, the pursuit taking them through the battered ravines, gorges and arroyos of the hills. More bodies were discovered, desiccated figures that Kalam identified one after another: Renisha, a sorcerer of High Meanas; Keluger, a Septime Priest of D'riss, the Worm of Autumn; Narkal, the warrior-mage, sworn to Fener and aspirant to the god's Mortal Sword; Ullan, the Soletaken priestess of Soliel.

Deprivation took its toll on the hunters. Horses died, were butchered and eaten. The surviving beasts thinned, grew gaunt. Had not the mages' trail led Kalam and the others unerringly to one hidden spring after another, everyone would have died, there in Raraku's relentless wasteland.

Set'alahd Crool, a Jhag half-blood who'd once driven Dassem Ultor back a half-dozen steps in furious counterattack, his sword ablaze with the blessing of some unknown ascendant; Etra, a mistress of the Rashan warren; Birith' erah, mage of the Serc warren who could pull storms down from the sky; Gellid, witch of the Tennes warren . . .

And now but one remained, ever ahead, elusive, his presence revealed only by the light footprints he left behind.

The hunters were embraced in silence, now. Raraku's silence. Tempered, honed, annealed under the sun. The horses beneath them were their match, lean and defiant, tireless and wild-eyed.

Whiskeyjack was slow to understand what he saw in Kalam's face when the assassin looked upon him and his soldiers, slow to grasp that the killer's narrowed eyes held disbelief, awe, and more than a little fear. Yet Kalam himself had changed. He'd not travelled far from the land he called home, yet an entire world had passed beneath him.

Raraku had taken them all.

Up a steep, rocky channel, through an eroded fissure, the limestone walls stained and pitted, and out into a natural amphitheatre, and there, seated cross-legged on a boulder on the clearing's opposite side, waited the last mage.

He wore little more than rags, was emaciated, his dark skin cracked and peeling, his eyes glittering hard and brittle as obsidian.

Kalam's reining in looked to be a tortured effort. He managed to turn his horse round, met Whiskeyjack's eyes. 'Adaephon Delat, a mage of Meanas,' he said in a bone-dry rasp, his split lips twisting into a grin. 'He was never much, sir. I doubt he'll be able to muster a defence.'

Whiskeyjack said nothing. He angled his mount past the assassin, approached the wizard.

'One question,' the wizard asked, his voice barely a whisper yet carrying clearly across the amphitheatre.

'What?'

'Who in Hood's name are you?'

Whiskeyjack raised a brow. 'Does it matter?'

'We have crossed Raraku entire,' the wizard said. 'Other side of these cliffs is the trail leading down to G'danisban. You chased me across the Holy Desert. . . gods, no man is worth that. Not even me!'

'There were eleven others in your company, wizard.'

Adaephon Delat shrugged. 'I was the youngest – the healthiest – by far. Yet now, finally, even my body has given up. I can go no further.' His dark eyes reached past Whiskeyjack. 'Commander, your soldiers . . .'

'What of them?'

'They are more . . . and less. No longer what they once were. Raraku, sir, has burned the bridges of their pasts, one and all – it's all gone.' He met Whiskeyjack's eyes in wonder. 'And they are yours. Heart and soul. They are yours.'

'More than you realize,' Whiskeyjack said. He raised his voice. 'Hedge, Fiddler, are we in place?'

'Aye!' two voices chorused.

Whiskeyjack saw the wizard's sudden tension. After a moment, the commander twisted in his saddle. Kalam sat stiffly on his horse a dozen paces back, sweat streaming down his brow. Flanking him and slightly behind were Fiddler and Hedge, both with their crossbows trained on the assassin. Smiling, Whiskeyjack faced Adaephon Delat once again.

'You two have played an extraordinary game. Fiddler sniffed out the secret communications – the scuffed stone-faces, the postures of the bodies, the curled fingers – one, three, two, whatever was needed to complete the cipher – we could have cut this to a close a week past, but by then I'd grown . . . curious. Eleven mages. Once the first one revealed her arcane knowledge to you – knowledge she was unable to use – it was just a matter of bargaining. What choice did the others possess? Death by Raraku's hand, or mine. Or ... a kind of salvation. But was it, after all? Do their souls clamour within you, now, Adaephon Delat? Screaming to escape their new prison? But I am left wondering, none the less. This game – you and Kalam – to what end?'

The illusion of deprivation slowly faded from the wizard, revealing a fit, hale young man. He managed a strained smile. 'The clamour has . . . subsided somewhat. Even the ghost of a life is better than Hood's embrace, Commander. We've achieved a . . . balance, you could say.'

And you a host of powers unimagined.'

'Formidable, granted, but I've no desire to use them now. The game we played, Whiskeyjack? Only one of survival. At first. We didn't think you'd make it, to be perfectly honest. We thought Raraku would come to claim you – I suppose she did, in a way, though not in a way I would have anticipated. What you and your soldiers have become . . .' He shook his head.

'What we have become,' Whiskeyjack said, 'you have shared. You and Kalam.'

The wizard slowly nodded. 'Hence this fateful meeting. Sir, Kalam and I, we'll follow you, now. If you would have us.'

Whiskeyjack grunted. 'The Emperor will take you from me.'

'Only if you tell him, Commander.'

'And Kalam?' Whiskeyjack glanced back at the assassin.

'The Claw will be . . . displeased,' the man rumbled. Then he smiled. 'Too bad for Surly.'

Grimacing, Whiskeyjack twisted further to survey his soldiers. The array of faces could have been carved from stone. A company, culled from the army's cast-offs, now a bright, hard core. 'Gods,' he whispered under his breath, 'what have we made here?'

The first blood-letting engagement of the Bridgeburners was the retaking of G'danisban – a mage, an assassin, and seventy soldiers who swept into a rebel stronghold of four hundred desert warriors and crushed them in a single night.

 

The lantern's light had burned low, but the tent's walls revealed the dawn's gentle birth. The sounds of a camp awakening and preparing for the march slowly rose to fill the silence that followed Whiskeyjack's tale.

Anomander Rake sighed. 'Soul-shifting.'

'Aye.'

'I have heard of shifting one soul – sending it into a vessel prepared for it. But to shift eleven souls – eleven mages – into the already-occupied body of a twelfth ...' He shook his head in disbelief. 'Brazen, indeed. I see now why Quick Ben requested I probe him no further.' His eyes lifted. 'Yet here, this night, you unveil him. I did not ask—'

'To have asked, Lord, would have been a presumption,' Whiskeyjack said.

'Then you understood me.'

'Instinct,' the Malazan smiled. 'I trust mine as well, Anomander Rake.'

The Tiste Andii rose from the chair.

Whiskeyjack followed suit.

'I was impressed,' Rake said, 'when you stood ready to defend the child Silverfox.'

'And I was in turn impressed when you reined yourself in.'

'Yes,' the Knight of Dark muttered, eyes suddenly averted and a faint frown marring his brow. 'The mystery of the cherub . . .'

'Excuse me?'

The Tiste Andii smiled. 'I was recalling my first meeting with the one named Kruppe.'

'I am afraid, Lord, that Kruppe is one mystery for whom I can offer nothing in way of revelation. Indeed, I think that effort will likely defeat us all.'

'You may be right in that, Whiskeyjack.'

'Quick Ben leaves this morning, to join Paran and the Bridgeburners.'

Rake nodded. 'I shall endeavour to keep my distance, lest he grow nervous.' After a moment, the Tiste Andii held out his hand.

They locked wrists.

'A welcome evening just past,' Rake said.

Whiskeyjack grimaced. 'I'm not much for spinning entertaining tales. I appreciate your patience.'

'Perhaps I can redress the balance some other evening – I've a few stories of my own.'

'I'm sure you have,' Whiskeyjack managed.

They released their grips and the commander turned to the entrance.

Behind him, Rake spoke, 'One last thing. Silverfox need have nothing to fear from me. More, I will instruct Kallor accordingly.'

Whiskeyjack looked down at the ground for a moment. 'I thank you, Lord,' he breathed, then made his way out.

Gods below, I have made a friend this night. When did I last stumble on such a gift? I cannot remember. Hood's breath, I cannot.

 

Standing at the tent entrance, Anomander Rake watched the old man limp away down the track.

A soft patter of taloned feet approached from behind. 'Master,' Crone muttered, 'was that wise?'

'What do you mean?' he asked distractedly.

'There is a price for making friends among such short-lived mortals – as you well can attest from your own typically tragic memories.'

'Careful, hag.'

'Do you deny the truth of my words, Lord?'

'One can find precious value in brevity.'

The Great Raven cocked her head. 'Honest observation? Dangerous admonition? Twisted and all too unhappy wisdom? I doubt you'll elaborate. You won't, will you? You'll leave me wondering, pecking endlessly in fretful obsession! You pig!'

'Do you smell carrion on the wind, my dear? I swear I do. Why not go find it. Now. This instant. And once you have filled your belly, find Kallor and bring him to me.'

With a snarl the Great Raven leapt outside, wings spreading explosively, heaving the huge bird skyward.

'Korlat,' Rake murmured. 'Attend me, please.' He swung back to the tent's interior. Moments later Korlat arrived. Rake remained facing the back wall.

'Lord?'

'I shall depart for a short time. I feel the need for Silannah's comfort.'

'She will welcome your return, Lord.'

'A few days' absence, no more than that.'

'Understood.'

Rake faced her. 'Extend your protection to Silverfox.'

'I am pleased by the instruction.'

'Unseen watchers on Kallor as well. Should he err, call upon me instantly, but do not hesitate in commanding the full force of the Tiste Andii down upon him. At the very least, I can be witness to the gathering of his pieces.'

'The full force, Lord? We have not done so in a long, long time. Do you believe it will be necessary in destroying Kallor?'

'I cannot be sure, Korlat. Why risk otherwise?'

'Very well. I shall begin the preparation for our warrens' joining.'

'I see that it troubles you none the less.'

'There are eleven hundred Tiste Andii, Lord.'

'I am aware of that, Korlat.'

'At the Chaining, there were but forty of us, yet we destroyed the Crippled God's entire realm – granted, a nascent realm. None the less, Lord. Eleven hundred ... we risk devastating this entire continent.'

Rake's eyes grew veiled. 'I would advise some restraint in the unleashing, Korlat, should it prove necessary to collectively release Kurald Galain. Brood would not be pleased. I suspect that Kallor will do nothing precipitous, in any case. These are all but precautions.'

'Understood.'

He turned back to the tent's interior. 'That will be all, Korlat.'

 

The Mhybe dreamed. Once more – after so long – she found herself wandering the tundra, the lichen and moss crunching underfoot as a dry wind swept over her, smelling of dead ice. She walked without aches, heard no rattle deep in her chest as she breathed the crisp air. She had returned, she realized, to the place of her daughter's birth.

Tellann's warren, a place not where, but when. The time of youth. For the world. For me.

She lifted her arms, saw their amber smoothness, the tendons and roped veins of her hands almost undiscernible beneath plump flesh.

 

I am young. I am as I should be.

Not a gift. No, this was torture. She knew she was dreaming; she knew what she would find when she awakened.

A small herd of some ancient, long-extinct beast rolled soft thunder through the hard earth beneath her moccasined feet, running parallel to the path she had chosen along a ridge, their humped backs appearing every now and then above the crest – a blurred flow of burnt umber. Something within her stirred, a quiet exultation to answer the majesty of those creatures.

Kin to the bhederin, only larger, with horns spreading out to the sides, massive, regal.

Glancing down, she paused in her steps. Footprints crossed her path. Hide-wrapped feet had punched through the brittle lichen. Eight, nine individuals.

Flesh and blood Imass? The Bonecaster Pran Chole and his companions? Who walks my dreamscape this time!

Her eyes blinked open to musty darkness. Dull pain wrapped her thinned bones. Gnarled hands drew the furs close to her chin against the chill. She felt her eyes fill with water, blinked up at the swimming, sloped ceiling of the hide tent, and released a slow, agonized breath.

'Spirits of the Rhivi,' she whispered, 'take me now, I beg you. An end to this life, please. Jaghan, Iruth, Mendalan, S'ren Tahl, Pahryd, Neprool, Manek, Ibindur – I name you all, take me, spirits of the Rhivi ...'

The rattle of her breath, the stubborn beat of her heart ... the spirits were deaf to her prayer. With a soft whimper, the Mhybe sat up, reached for her clothes.

She tottered out into misty light. The Rhivi camp was awakening around her. Off to one side she heard the low of the bhederin, felt the restless rumble through the ground, then the shouts of the tribe's youths returning from a night spent guarding the herd. Figures were emerging from the nearby tents, voices softly singing in ritual greeting of the dawn.

Iruth met inal barku sen netral . . . ah'rhitan! Iruth met inal. . .

The Mhybe did not sing. There was no joy within her for another day of life.

'Dear lass, I have just the thing for you.'

She turned at the voice. The Daru Kruppe was waddling down the path towards her, clutching a small wooden box in his pudgy hands.

She managed a wry smile. 'Forgive me if I hesitate at your gifts. Past experience ...'

'Kruppe sees beyond the wrinkled veil, my dear. In all things. Thus, his midnight mistress is Faith – a loyal aide whose loving touch Kruppe deeply appreciates. Mercantile interests,' he continued, arriving to stand before her, his eyes on the box, 'yield happy, if unexpected gifts. Within this modest container awaits a treasure, which I offer to you, dear.'

'I have no use for treasures, Kruppe, though I thank you.'

'A history worth recounting, Kruppe assures you. In extending the tunnel network leading to and from the famed caverns of gaseous bounty beneath fair Darujhistan, hewn chambers were found here and there, the walls revealing each blow of countless antler picks, and upon said rippling surfaces glorious scenes from the distant past were found. Painted in spit and charcoal and haematite and blood and snot and Hood knows what else, but there was more. More indeed. Pedestals, carved in the fashion of rude altars, and upon these altars – these!'

He flipped back the lid of the box.

At first, the Mhybe thought she was looking upon a collection of flint blades, resting on strangely wrought bangles seemingly of the same fractious material. Then her eyes narrowed.

'Aye,' Kruppe whispered. 'Fashioned as if they were indeed flint. But no, they are copper. Cold-hammered, the ore gouged raw from veins in rock, flattened beneath pounding stones. Layer upon layer. Shaped, worked, to mirror a heritage.' His small eyes lifted, met the Mhybe's. 'Kruppe sees the pain of your twisted bones, my dear, and he grieves. These copper objects are not tools, but ornaments, to be worn about the body – you will find the blades have clasps suitable for a hide thong. You will find wristlets and anklets, arm-torcs and ... uh, necklets. There is efficacy in such items ... to ease your aches. Copper, the first gift of the gods.'

Bemused at her own sentimentality, the Mhybe wiped the tears from her lined cheeks. 'I thank you, friend Kruppe. Our tribe retains the knowledge of copper's healing qualities. Alas, they are not proof against old age ...'

The Daru's eyes flashed. 'Kruppe's story is not yet complete, lass. Scholars were brought down to those chambers, sharp minds devoted to the mysteries of antiquity. The altars, one for each each chamber ... eight in all ... individually aspected, the paintings displaying crude but undeniable images. Traditional representations. Eight caverns, each clearly identified. We know the hands that carved each of them – the artists identified themselves – and Darujhistan's finest seers confirmed the truth. We know, my dear, the names of those to whom these ornaments belonged.' He reached into the box and withdrew a blade. 'Jaghan.' He set it down and picked up an anklet. 'S'ren Tahl. And here, this small, childlike arrowhead ... Manek, the Rhivi imp – a mocker, was he not? Kruppe feels an affinity with this trickster runt, Manek, oh yes. Manek, for all his games and deceits, has a vast heart, does he not? And here, this torc. Iruth, see its polish? The dawn's glow, captured here, in this beaten metal—'

'Impossible,' the Mhybe whispered. 'The spirits—'

'Were once flesh, my dear. Once mortal. That first band of Rhivi, perhaps? Faith,' he said with a wistful smile, 'is ever a welcoming mistress. Now, upon completing of morning ablutions, Kruppe expects to see said items adorning you. Through the days to come, through the nights yet to pass, Holy Vessel, hold fast to this faith.'

She could say nothing. Kruppe offered her the box. She took its weight in her hands.

How did you know? This morning of mornings, awakening in the ashes of abandonment. Bereft of lifelong beliefs. How, my dear, deceptive man, did you know?

The Daru stepped back with a sigh. 'The rigours of delivery have left Kruppe exhausted and famished! Said box trembled these all too civilized appendages.'

She smiled. 'Rigours of delivery, Kruppe? I could tell you a thing or two.'

'No doubt, but do not despair of ever receiving just reward, lass.' He winked, then swung about and ambled off. A few paces away, Kruppe stopped and turned. 'Oh, Kruppe further informs that Faith has a twin, equally sweet, and that is Dreams. To discount such sweetness is to dismiss the truth of her gifts, lass.' He fluttered one hand in a wave then turned once more.

He walked on, and moments later was beyond her line of sight. So like Manek, indeed. You buried something there, didn't you, Kruppe! Faith and dreams. The dreams of hope and desire? Or the dreams of sleep?

Whose path did I cross last night?

 

Eighty-five leagues to the northeast, Picker leaned back against the grassy slope, squinting as she watched the last of the quorls – tiny specks against a sea-blue sky – dwindle westward.

'If I have to sit another heartbeat on one a those,' a voice growled beside her, 'someone kill me now and I'll bless 'em for the mercy.'

The corporal closed her eyes. 'If you're giving leave to wring your neck, Antsy, I'll lay odds one of us will take you up on it before the day's done.'

'What an awful thing to say, Picker! What's made me so unpopular? I ain't done nothing to no-one never how, have I?'

'Give me a moment to figure out what you just said and I'll answer you honestly.'

'I didn't not make any sense, woman, and you know it.' He lowered his voice. 'Captain's fault, anyhow—'

'No it ain't, Sergeant, and that kinda muttering's damn unfair and could end up spitting poison right back in your eye. This deal was cooked up by Whiskeyjack and Dujek. You feel like cursing someone, try them.'

'Curse Whiskeyjack and Onearm? Not a chance.'

'Then stop your grumbling.'

'Addressing your superior in that tone earns you the role of duffer today, Corporal. Maybe tomorrow, too, if I feel like it.'

'Gods,' she muttered, 'I do hate short men with big moustaches.'

'Gettin' all personal, are ya? Fine, y'can scrub the pots and plates tonight, too. And I got a real complicated meal in mind. Hare stuffed with figs—'

Picker sat up, eyes wide. 'You're not gonna make us eat Spindle's hairshirt? With figs?'

'Hare, you idiot! The four-legged things, live in holes, saw a brace of 'em in the foodpack. With figs, I said. Boiled. And rubyberry sauce, with freshwater oysters—'

Picker sat back with a groan. 'I'll take the hairshirt, thanks.'

The journey had been gruelling, with few and all too brief rest-stops. Nor were the Black Moranth much in the way of company. Virtually silent, aloof and grim – Picker had yet to see one of the warriors shed his or her armour. They wore it like a chitinous second skin. Their commander, Twist, and his quorl were all that remained of the flight that had transported them to the foot of the Barghast Range. Captain Paran was saddled with the task of communicating with the Black Moranth commander – and Oponn's luck to him, too.

The quorls had taken them high, flying through the night, and the air had been frigid. Picker ached in every muscle. Eyes closed once more, she sat listening to the other Bridgeburners preparing the gear and food supplies for the journey to come. At her side, Antsy muttered under his breath a seemingly endless list of complaints.

Heavy boots approached, unfortunately coming to a halt directly in front of her, blocking out the morning sun. After a moment, Picker pried open one eye.

Captain Paran's attention, however, was on Antsy. 'Sergeant.'

Antsy's muttering ceased abruptly. 'Sir?'

'It appears that Quick Ben's been delayed. He will have to catch up with us, and your squad will provide his escort. The rest of us, with Trotts, will move out. Detoran's separated out the gear you'll need.'

'As you say, sir. We'll wait for the snake, then – how long should we give him afore we chase after you?'

'Spindle assures me the delay will be a short one. Expect Quick Ben some time today.'

'And if he don't show?'

'He'll show.'

'But if he don't?'

With a growl, Paran marched off.

Antsy swung a baffled expression on Picker. 'What if Quick Ben don't show?'

'You idiot, Antsy.'

'It's a legit question, dammit! What got him all huffy about it?'

'You got a brain in there somewhere, Sergeant, why not use it? If the mage don't show up, something's gone seriously wrong, and if that happens we're better off hightailing it – anywhere, so long as it's away. From everything.'

Antsy's red face paled. 'Why won't he make it? What's gone wrong? Picker—'

'Ain't nothing's gone wrong, Antsy! Hood's breath! Quick Ben will get here today – as sure as that sun just rose and is even now baking your brain! Look at your new squad members, Sergeant – Mallet, there, and Hedge – you're embarrassing the rest of us!'

Antsy snarled and clambered to his feet. 'What're you toads staring at? Get to work! You, Mallet, give Detoran a hand – I want those hearth-stones level! If the pot tips because they weren't, you'll be sorry and I ain't exaggerating neither. And you, Hedge, go find Spindle—'

The sapper pointed up the hill. 'He's right there, Sergeant. Checking out that upside-down tree.'

Hands on hips, Antsy pivoted, then slowly nodded. 'And it's no wonder. What kinda trees grow upside-down, anyway? A smart man can't help but be curious.'

'If you're so curious,' Picker muttered, 'why not go and look for yourself ?'

'Nah, what's the point? Go collect Spindle, then, Hedge. Double-time.'

'Double-time up a hill? Beru fend, Antsy, it's not like we're going anywhere!'

'You heard me, soldier.'

Scowling, the sapper began jogging up the slope. After a few strides, he slowed to a stagger. Picker grinned.

'Now where's Blend?' Antsy demanded.

'Right here beside you, sir.'

'Hood's breath! Stop doing that! Where you been skulking, anyway?'

'Nowhere,' she replied.

'Liar,' Picker said. 'Caught you sliding up outa the corner of my eye, Blend. You're mortal, after all.'

She shrugged. 'Heard an interesting conversation between Paran and Trotts. Turns out that Barghast bastard once had some kind of high rank in his own tribe. Something about all those tattoos. Anyway, turns out we're here to find the biggest local tribe – the White Faces – with the aim of enlisting their help. An alliance against the Pannion Domin.'

Picker snorted. 'Flown then dropped off at the foot of the Barghast Range, what else did you think we were up to?'

'Only there's a problem,' she continued laconically, examining her nails. 'Trotts will get us face to face without all of us getting skewered, but he might end up fighting a challenge or two. Personal combat. If he wins, we all live. If he gets himself killed ...'

Antsy's mouth hung open, his moustache twitching as if independently alive.

Picker groaned.

The sergeant spun. 'Corporal – find Trotts! Sit 'im down with that fancy whetstone of yours and get 'im to sharpen his weapons real good—'

'Oh, really, Antsy!'

'We gotta do something!'

'About what?' a new voice asked.

Antsy whirled again. 'Spindle, thank the Queen! Trotts is going to get us all killed!'

The mage shrugged beneath his hairshirt. 'That explains all those agitated spirits in this hill, then. They can smell him, I guess—'

'Smell? Agitated? Hood's bones, we're all done for!'

 

Standing with the rest of the Bridgeburners, Paran's eyes narrowed on the squad at the foot of the barrow. 'What's got Antsy all lit up?' he wondered aloud.

Trotts bared his teeth. 'Blend was here,' he rumbled. 'Heard everything.'

'Oh, that's terrific news – why didn't you say anything?'

The Barghast shrugged his broad shoulders, was silent.

Grimacing, the captain strode over to the Black Moranth commander.

'Is that quorl of yours rested enough, Twist? I want you high over us. I want to know when we've been spotted—'

The chitinous black helm swung to face him. 'They are already aware, noble-born.'

'Captain will do, Twist. I don't need reminding of my precious blood. Aware, are they? How, and just as important, how do you know they know?'

'We stand on their land, Captain. The soul beneath us is the blood of their ancestors. Blood whispers. The Moranth hear.'

'Surprised you can hear anything inside that helm of yours,' Paran muttered, tired and irritated. 'Never mind. I want you over us anyway.'

The commander slowly nodded.

The captain turned and surveyed his company. Veteran soldiers – virtually every one of them. Silent, frighteningly professional. He wondered what it would be like to see out through the eyes of any one of them, through the layers of the soul's exhaustion that Paran had barely begun to find within himself. Soldiers now and soldiers to the end of their days – none would dare leave to find peace. Solicitude and calm would unlock that safe prison of cold control – the only thing keeping them sane.

Whiskeyjack had said to Paran that, once this war was done, the Bridgeburners would be retired. Forcibly if necessary.

Armies possessed traditions, and these had less to do with discipline than with the fraught truths of the human spirit. Rituals at the beginning, shared among each and every recruit. And rituals at the end, a formal closure that was recognition – recognition in every way imaginable. They were necessary. Their gift was a kind of sanity, a means of coping. A soldier cannot be sent away without guidance, cannot be abandoned and left lost in something unrecognizable and indifferent to their lives. Remembrance and honouring the ineffable. Yet, when it's done, what is the once-soldier? What does he or she become? An entire future spent walking backward, eyes on the past – its horrors, its losses, its grief, its sheer heart-bursting living? The ritual is a turning round, a facing forward, a gentle and respectful hand like a guide on the shoulder.

Sorrow was a steady, faint susurration within Paran, a tide that neither ebbed nor flowed, yet threatened to drown him none the less.

And when the White Faces find us . . . each and every man and woman here could end up with slit throats, and Queen help me, I begin to wonder if it would be a mercy. Queen help me . . .

A swift flutter of wings and the quorl was airborne, the Black Moranth commander perched on the moulded saddle.

Paran watched them rise for a moment longer, his stomach churning, then turned to his company. 'On your feet, Bridgeburners. Time to march.'

 

The dark, close air was filled with sickly mist. Quick Ben felt himself moving through it, his will struggling like a swimmer against a savage current. After a few more moments he withdrew his questing, slipped sideways into yet another warren.

It fared little better. Some kind of infection had seeped in from the physical world beyond, was corrupting every sorcerous path he attempted. Fighting nausea, he pushed himself forward.

This has the stench of the Crippled God ... yet the enemy whose lands we approach is the Pannion Seer. Granted, an obvious means of self-defence, sufficient to explain the coincidence. Then again, since when do I believe in coincidences? No, this comingling of scents hinted at a deeper truth. That bastard ascendant may well be chained, his body broken, but I can feel his hand – even here – twitching at invisible threads.

The faintest of smiles touched the wizard's lips. A worthy challenge.

He shifted warrens once again, and found himself on the trail of ... something. A presence was ahead, leaving a cooled, strangely lifeless wake. Well, perhaps no surprise – I'm striding the edge of Hood's own realm now, after all. None the less ... Unease pattered within him like sleet. He pushed his nervousness down. Hood's warren was resisting the poison better than many others Quick Ben had attempted.

The ground beneath him was clay, damp and clammy, the cold reaching through the wizard's moccasins. Faint, colourless light bled down from a formless sky that seemed no higher than a ceiling. The haze filling the air felt oily, thick enough on either side to make the path seem like a tunnel.

Quick Ben's steps slowed. The clay ground was no longer smooth. Deep incisions crossed it, glyphs in columns and panels. Primitive writing, the wizard suspected, yet... He crouched and reached down. 'Freshly cut ... or timeless.' At a faint tingle from the contact he withdrew his hand. 'Wards, maybe. Bindings.'

Stepping carefully to avoid the glyphs, Quick Ben padded forward.

He skirted a broad sinkhole filled with painted pebbles – offerings to Hood from some holy temple, no doubt – benedictions and prayers in a thousand languages from countless supplicants. And there they lie. Unnoticed, ignored or forgotten. Even clerks die, Hood – why not put them to good use cleaning all this up? Of all our traits to survive the passage of death, surely obsessiveness must be counted high among them.

The incisions grew thicker, more crowded, forcing the wizard to slow his pace yet further. It was becoming difficult to find a clear space on the clay for his feet. Binding sorceries – the whispered skeins of power made manifest, here on the floor of Hood's realm.

A dozen paces ahead was a small, bedraggled object, surrounded in glyphs. Quick Ben's frown deepened as he edged closer. Like the makings of fire . . . sticks and twisted grasses on a round, pale hearthstone.

Then he saw it tremble.

Ah, these binding spells belong to you, little one. Your soul, trapped. As I once did to that mage, Hairlock, someone's done to you. Curious indeed. He moved as close as he could, then slowly crouched.

'You're looking a little worse for wear, friend,' the wizard said.

The minuscule acorn head swivelled slightly, then flinched back. 'Mortal!' the creature hissed in the language of the Barghast. 'The clans must be told! I can go no further – look, the wards pursued, the wards closed the web – I am trapped!'

'So I see. You were of the White Faces, shaman?'

'And so I remain!'

'Yet you escaped your barrow – you eluded the binding spells of your kin, for a while at least, in any case. Do you truly believe they will welcome your return, Old One?'

'I was dragged from my barrow, fool! You are journeying to the clans – I see the truth of that in your eyes. I shall tell you my tale, mortal, and so they know the truth of all that you tell them, I shall give you my true name—'

'A bold offer, Old One. What's to prevent me from twisting you to my will?'

The creature twitched, a snarl in its tone as it replied, 'You could be no worse than my last masters. I am Talamandas, born of the First Hearth in the Knotted Clan. The first child birthed on this land – do you know the significance of that, mortal?'

'I am afraid not, Talamandas.'

'My previous masters – those damned necromancers – had worked through, mortal, were mere moments from discovering my true name – worked through, I tell you, with brutal claws indifferent to pain. With my name they would have learned secrets that even my own people have long forgotten. Do you know the significance of the trees on our barrows? No, you do not. Indeed they hold the soul, keep it from wandering, but why ?

'We came to this land from the seas, plying the vast waters in dugouts – the world was young, then, our blood thick with the secret truths of our past. Look upon the faces of the Barghast, mortal – no, look upon a Barghast skull stripped of skin and muscle ...'

'I've seen ... Barghast skulls,' Quick Ben said slowly.

'Ah, and have you seen their like ... animate?'

The wizard scowled. 'No, but something similar, squatter – the features slightly more pronounced—'

'Slightly, aye, slightly. Squatter? No surprise, we never went hungry, for the sea provided. Yet more, Tartheno Toblakai were among us ...'

'You were T'lan Imass! Hood's breath! Then ... you and your kin must have defied the Ritual—'

'Defied? No. We simply failed to arrive in time – our pursuit of the Jaghut had forced us to venture onto the seas, to dwell among iceflows and on treeless islands. And in our isolation from kin, among the elder peoples – the Tartheno – we changed ... when our distant kin did not. Mortal, wherever land proved generous enough to grant us a birth, we buried our dugouts – for ever. From this was born the custom of the trees on our barrows – though none among my kind remembers. It has been so long ...'

'Tell me your tale, Talamandas. But first, answer me this. What would you do ... if I freed you of these bindings?'

'You cannot.'

'Not an answer.'

'Very well, though it be pointless. I would seek to set free the First Families – aye, we are spirits, and now worshipped by the living clans. But the ancient bindings have kept us as children in so many ways. Well meant, yet a curse none the less. We must be freed. To grow into true power—'

'To ascend into true gods,' Quick Ben whispered, his eyes wide as he stared down at the ragged figure of grasses and twigs.

'The Barghast refuse to change, the living think now as the living always did. Generation after generation. Our kind are dying out, mortal. We rot from within. For the ancestors are prevented from giving true guidance, prevented from maturing into their power – our power. To answer your question, mortal, I would save the living Barghast, if I could.'

'Tell me, Talamandas,' Quick Ben asked with veiled eyes, 'is survival a right, or a privilege?'

'The latter, mortal. The latter. And it must be earned. I wish for the chance. For all my people, I wish for the chance.'

The wizard slowly nodded. 'A worthy wish, Old One.' He held out his hand, palm up, stared down at it. 'There's salt in this clay, is there not? I smell it. Clay is usually airless, lifeless. Defiant of the tireless servants of the soil. But the salt, well. . .' A writhing clump took shape on Quick Ben's palm. 'Sometimes,' he went on, 'the simplest of creatures can defeat the mightiest sorceries, in the simplest way imaginable.' The worms – red like blood, thin, long and ridged with leg-like cilia along their lengths – twisted and heaved, fell in clumps to the glyph-strewn ground. 'These are native to a distant continent. They feed on salt, or so it seems – the mines on the dry sea beds of Setta are thick with these things, especially in the dry season. They can turn the hardest pan of clay into sand. To put it another way, they bring air to the airless.' He dropped the clump onto the ground, watched as the worms spread out, began burrowing. 'And they breed faster than maggots. Ah, see those glyphs – there, on the edges? Their binding's crumbling – can you feel the loosening?'

'Mortal, who are you?'

'In the eyes of the gods, Talamandas? Just a lowly salt-worm. I'll hear your tale now, Old One . . .'