I have seen the face of sorrow
She looks away in the distance
Across all these bridges
From whence I came
And those spans, trussed and arched
Hold up our lives as we go back again
To how we thought then
To how we thought we thought then
I have seen sorrow’s face,
But she is ever turned away
And her words leave me blind
Her eyes make me mute
I do not understand what she says to me
I do not know if to obey
Or attempt a flood of tears
I have seen her face
She does not speak
She does not weep
She does not know me
For I am but a stone fitted in place
On the bridge where she walks
– Lay of the Bridgeburners, Toc the Younger
Once, long ago, Onrack the broken committed a crime. He had professed his love for a woman in fashioning her likeness on the wall of a cave. There had been such talent in his hands, in his eyes, he had bound two souls into that stone. His own… that was his right, his choice. But the other soul, oh, the selfishness of that act, the cruelty of that theft…
He stood, now, before another wall of stone, within another cave, looking upon the array of paintings, the beasts with every line of muscle, every hint of motion, celebrating their veracity, the accuracy of genius. And in the midst of these great creatures of the world beyond, awkward stick figures, representing the Imass, cavorted in a poor mime of dance. Lifeless as the law demanded. He stood, then, still Broken, still the stealer of a woman’s life.
In the darkness of his captivity, long ago, someone had come to him, with gentle hands and yielding flesh. He so wanted to believe that it had been she, the one whose soul he had stolen. But such knowledge was now lost to him; so confused had the memory become, so infused with all that his heart wished to believe.
And, even if it had indeed been she, well, perhaps she had no choice. Imprisoned by his crime, helpless to defy his desire. In his own breaking, he had destroyed her as well.
He reached out, settled fingertips lightly upon one of the images. Ranag, pursued by an ay. In the torch’s wavering light both beasts seemed in motion, muscles rippling. In celebrating the world, which held no regrets, the Imass would gather shoulder to shoulder in this cavern, and with their voices they would beat out the rhythm of breaths, the huffing of the beasts; while others, positioned in selected concavities, pounded their hands on drums of hollowed-out wood and skin, until the echoes of hoofbeats thundered from all sides.
We are the witnesses. We are the eyes trapped for ever on the outside. We have been severed from the world. And this is at the heart of the law, the prohibition. We create ourselves as lifeless, awkward, apart. Once, we were as the beasts, and there was no inside, no outside. There was only the one, the one world, of which we were its flesh, its bone, flesh little different from grasses, lichens and trees. Bones little different from wood and stone. We were its blood, in which coursed rivers down to the lakes and seas.
We give voice to our sorrow, to our loss.
In discovering what it is to die, we have been cast out from the world.
In discovering beauty, we were made ugly.
We do not suffer in the manner that beasts suffer-for they surely do. We suffer with the memory of how it was before suffering came, and this deepens the wound, this tears open the pain. There is no beast that can match our anguish.
So sing, brothers. Sing, sisters. And in the torch’s light, float’ ing free from the walls of our minds-of the caves within us-see all the faces of sorrow. See those who have died and left us. And sing your grief until the very beasts flee.
Onrack the Broken felt the tears on his cheeks, and cursed himself for a sentimental fool.
Behind him, Trull Sengar stood in silence. In humouring a foolish Imass, he was without impatience. Onrack knew he would simply wait, and wait. Until such time as Onrack might stir from his grim memories, recalling once more the gifts of the present. He would-
‘There was great skill in the painting of these beasts.’
The Imass, still facing die stone wall, still with his back to the Tiste Edur, found himself smiling. So, even here and now, I indulge silly fantasies that are, even if comforting, without much meaning. ‘Yes, Trull Sengar. True talent. Such skill is passed down in the blood, and with each generation there is the potential for… burgeoning. Into such as we see here.’
‘Is the artist among the clans here? Of were these painted long ago, by someone else?’
‘The artist,’ Onrack said, ‘is Ulshun Pral.’
‘And is it this talent that has earned him the right to rule?’
No. Never that. ‘This talent,’ the Imass replied, ‘is his weakness.’
‘Better than you, Onrack?’
He turned about, his smile now wry. ‘I see some flaws. I see hints of impatience. Of emotion free and savage as the beasts he paints. I see also, perhaps, signs of a talent he had lost and has not yet rediscovered.’
‘How does one lose talent like that?’
‘By dying, only to return.’
‘Onrack,’ and there was a new tone to Trull’s voice, a 1 gravity that unnerved Onrack, ‘I have spoken with these Imass here. Many of them. With Ulshun himself. And I do not think they ever died. I do not think they were once T’lan, only to have forgotten in the countless generations of existence here.’
‘Yes, they say they are among those who did not join the Ritual. But this cannot be true, Trull Sengar. They must be ghosts, willed into flesh, held here by the timelessness of the Gate at the end of this cave. My friend, they do not know themselves.’ And then he paused. Can this be true?
‘Ulshun Pral says he remembers his mother. He says she is still alive. Although not here right now.’
‘Ulshun Pral is a hundred thousand years old, Trull Sengar. Or more. What he remembers is false, a delusion.’
‘I do not believe that, not any more. I think the mystery here is deeper than any of us realize.’
‘Let us go on,’ Onrack said. ‘I would see this Gate.’
They left the chamber of the beasts.
Trull was filled with unease. Something had been awakened in his friend-by the paintings-and its taste was bitter. He had seen, in the lines of Onrack’s back, his shoulders, a kind of slow collapse. The return of some ancient burden. And, seeing this, Trull had forced himself to speak, to break the silence before Onrack could destroy himself.
Yes. The paintings. The crime. Will you not smile again, Onrack? Not the smile you gave me when you turned to face me just now-too broken, too filled with sorrow-but the smile I have grown to treasure since coming to this realm.
‘Onrack.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do we still know what we are waiting for? Yes, threats approach. Will they come through the Gate? Or from across the hills beyond the camp? Do we know in truth if these Imass are indeed threatened?’
‘Prepare yourself, Trull Sengar. Danger draws close… on all sides.’
‘Perhaps then we should return to Ulshun Pral.’
‘Rud Elalle is with them. There is time yet… to see this Gate.’
Moments later, they came to the edge of the vast, seemingly limitless cavern, and both halted.
Not one Gate. Many gates.
And all were seething with silent, wild fire.
‘Onrack,’ Trull said, unslinging his spear. ‘Best return to Rud Elalle and let him know-this is not what he described.’
Onrack pointed towards a central heap of stones. ‘She has failed. This realm, Trull Sengar, is dying. And when it dies…’
Neither spoke for a moment.
Then Onrack said, ‘I will return quickly, my friend, so that you do not stand alone-against what may come through.’
‘I look forward to your company,’ Trull replied. ‘So… hurry.’
Forty-odd paces beyond the camp rose a modest hill, stretched out as if it had once been an-atoll, assuming the plains had once been under water and that, Hedge told himself as he kicked his way through a ribbon of sand studded with broken shells, was a fair assumption. Reaching the elongated summit, he set down his oversized crossbow near an outcrop of sun-bleached limestone, then walked over to where Quick Ben sat cross-legged, facing the hills two thousand paces to the south.
‘You’re not meditating or something, are you?’
‘If I had been,’ the wizard snapped, ‘you’d have just ruined it and possibly killed us all.’
‘It’s all the posturing, Quick,’ Hedge said, flopping down onto the gravel beside him. ‘You turn picking your nose into a Hood-damned ritual, so it gets I just give up on knowing when to talk to you or not.’
‘If that’s the case, then don’t ever talk to me and we’ll both be happy.’
‘Miserable snake.’
‘Hairless rodent.’
The two sat in companionable silence for a time, then Hedge reached out and picked up a shard of dark brown flint. He peered at one serrated edge.
‘What are you doing?’ Quick Ben demanded.
‘Contemplating.’
‘Contemplating,’ Quick Ben mimed, head wagging from side to side in time with each syllable.
‘I could cut your throat with this. One swipe.’
‘We never did get along, did we? Gods, I can’t believe how we hugged and slapped each other on the back, down at that river-’
‘Stream.’
‘Watering hole.’
‘Spring.’
‘Will you please cut my throat now, Hedge?’
The sapper tossed the flint away and dusted his hands with brisk slaps. ‘What makes you so sure the baddies are coming up from the south?’
‘Who says I’m sure of anything?’
‘So we could be sitting in the wrong place. Facing the wrong direction. Maybe everybody’s getting butchered right now even as I speak.’
‘Well, Hedge, if you hadn’t of interrupted my meditating, maybe I’d have figured out where we should be right now!’
‘Oh, nice one, wizard.’
‘They’re coming from the south because it’s the best approach.’
‘As what, rabbits?’
‘No, as dragons, Hedge.’
The sapper squinted at the wizard. ‘There always was a smell of Soletaken about you, Quick. We finally gonna see what scrawny beastie you got hiding in there?’
‘That’s a rather appalling way of putting it, Hedge. And the answer is: no.’
‘You still feeling shaky?’
The wizard glanced over, his eyes bright and half mad-his normal look, in other words. ‘No. In fact, the very opposite.’
‘How so?’
‘I stretched myself, way more than I’d ever done before. It’s made me… nastier.’
‘Really.’
‘Don’t sound so impressed, Hedge.’
‘All I know is,’ the sapper said, grunting to his feet, ‘when they roll over you, there’s just me and an endless supply of cussers. And that suits me just fine.’
‘Don’t blast my body to pieces, Hedge.’
‘Even if you’re already dead?’
‘Especially then, because I won’t be, will I? You’ll just think it, because thinking it is convenient, because then you can go wild with your damned cussers until you’re standing in a Hood-damned crater a Hood-damned league acrossl’
This last bit had been more or less a shriek.
Hedge continued his squinting. ‘No reason to get all testy,’ he said in a hurt tone, then turned and walked back to his crossbow, his beloved lobber. And said under his breath, ‘Oh, this is going to be so much fun, I can’t wait!’
‘Hedge!’
‘What?’
‘Someone’s coming.’
‘From where?’ the sapper demanded, readying a cusser in the cradle of the crossbow.
‘Ha ha. From the south, you bloated bladder of piss.’
‘I knew it,’ Hedge said, coming to the wizard’s side.
She had chosen to remain as she was, rather than veer into her Soletaken form. That would come later. And so she walked across the plain, through the high grasses of the basin. On a ridge directlyahead stood two figures. One was a ghost, but maybe something more than just a ghost. The other was a mage, and without question more than just a mage.
A sliver of disquiet stirred Menandore’s thoughts. Quickly swept away. If Rud Elalle had selected these two as allies, then she would accept that. Just as he had recruited the Tiste Edur and the one known as Onrack the Broken. All… complications, but she would not be alone in dealing with them, would she?
The two men watched as she ascended the gentle slope. One was cradling a bizarre crossbow of some kind. The other was playing with a handful of small polished stones, as if trying to choose one as his favourite.
They’re fools. Idiots.
And soon, they will both be dust.
She fixed on them her hardest glare as she drew up to the edge of the crest. ‘You two are pathetic. Why stand here-do you know who approaches? Do you know they will come from the south? Meaning that you two will be the first they see. And so, the first they kill.’
The taller, darker-skinned one turned slightly, then said, ‘Here comes your son, Menandore. With Ulshun Pral.’ He then frowned. ‘That’s a familiar walk… Wonder why I never noticed that before.’
Walk? Familiar walk? He is truly mad.
‘I have summoned them,’ she said, crossing her arms. ‘We must prepare for the battle.’
The shorter one grunted, then said, ‘We don’t want any company. So pick somewhere else to do your fighting.’
‘I am tempted to crush your skull between my hands,’ Menandore said.
‘Doesn’t work,’ the wizard muttered. ‘Everything just pops back out.’
The one with the crossbow gave her a wide smile.
Menandore said, ‘I assure you, I have no intention of being anywhere near you, although it is my hope I will be within range to see your grisly deaths.’
‘What makes you so sure they’ll be grisly?’ the wizard asked, now studying one pebble in particular, holding it up to the light as if it was a gem of some sort, but Menandore could see that it was not a gem. Simply a stone, and an opaque one at that.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
He glanced across at her, then closed his hand round the stone and brought it down behind his back. ‘Nothing. Why? Anyway, I asked you a question.’
‘And I am obliged to answer it?’ She snorted.
Rud Elalle and Ulshun Pral arrived, halting a few paces behind the wizard and his companion.
Menandore saw the hard expression in her son’s face. Could I have seen anything else? No. Not for this. ‘Beloved son-’
‘I care nothing for the Finnest,’ Rud Elalle said. ‘I will not join you in your fight, Mother.’
She stared, eyes widening even as they filled with burning rage. ‘You must! I cannot face them both!’
‘You have new allies,’ Rud Elalle said. ‘These two, who even now guard the approach-’
‘These brainless dolts? My son, you send me to my death!’
Rud Elalle straightened. ‘I am taking my Imass away from here, Mother. They are all that matters to me-’
‘More than the life of your mother?’
‘More than the fight she chooses for herself!’ he snapped.
‘This clash-this feud-it is not mine. It is yours. It was ever yours! I want nothing to do with it!’
Menandore flinched back at her son’s fury. Sought to hold his eyes, then failed and looked away. ‘So be it,’ she whispered. ‘Go then, my son, and take your chosen kin. Go!’
As Rud Elalle nodded and turned away, however, she spoke again, in a tone harder than anything that had come before. ‘But not him.’
Her son swung round, saw his mother pointing towards the Imass at his side.
Ulshun Pral.
Rud Elalle frowned. ‘What? I do not-’
‘No, my son, you do not. Ulshun Pral must remain. Here.’
‘I will not permit-’
And then the Bentract leader reached out a hand to stay Rud Elalle-who was moments from veering into his dragon form, to lock in battle with his own mother.
Menandore waited, outwardly calm, reposed, even as her heart thudded fierce in her chest.
‘She speaks true,’ Ulshun Pral said. ‘I must stay.’
‘But why?’
‘For the secret I possess, Rud Elalle. The secret they all seek. If I go with you, all will pursue. Do you understand? Now, I beg you, lead my people away from here, to a safe place. Lead them away, Rud Elalle, and quickly!’
‘Will you now fight at my side, my son?’ Menandore demanded. ‘To ensure the life of Ulshun Pral?’
But Ulshun Pral was already pushing Rud Elalle away. ‘Do as I ask,’ he said to Menandore’s son. ‘I cannot die fearing for my people-please, lead them away.’
The wizard then spoke up, ‘We’ll do our best to safeguard him, Rud Elalle.’
Menandore snorted her contempt. ‘You risk such a thing?’ she demanded of her son.
Rud Elalle stared across at the wizard, then at the smiling one with the crossbow, and she saw a strange calm slip over her son’s expression-and that sliver of disquiet returned to her, stinging.
‘I shall,’ Rud Elalle then said, and he reached out to Ulshun Pral. A gentle gesture, a hand resting lightly against one side of the Imass’s face. Rud Elalle then stepped back, swung round, and set off back for the camp.
Menandore spun on the two remaining men. ‘You damned fools!’
‘Just for that,’ the wizard said, ‘I’m not giving you my favourite stone.’
Hedge and Quick Ben watched her march back down the slope.
‘That was odd,’ the sapper muttered.
‘Wasn’t it.’
They were silent for another hundred heartbeats, then Hedge turned to Quick Ben. ‘So what do you think?’
‘You know exactly what I’m thinking, Hedge.’
‘Same as me, then.’
‘The same.’
‘Tell me something, Quick.’
‘What?’
‘Was that really your favourite stone?’
‘Do you mean the one I had in my hand? Or the one I slipped into her fancy white cloak?’
With skin wrinkled and stained by millennia buried in peat, Sheltatha Lore did indeed present an iconic figure of dusk. In keeping now with her reddish hair and the murky hue of her eyes, she wore a cloak of deep burgundy, black leather leggings and boots. Bronze-studded vest drawn tight across her chest.
At her side-like Sheltatha facing the hills-stood Sukul Ankhadu, Dapple, the mottling of her skin visible on her bared hands and forearms. On her slim shoulders a Letherii night-cloak, as was worn now by the noble born and the women of the Tiste Edur in the empire, although this one was somewhat worse for wear.
‘Soon,’ said Sheltatha Lore, ‘this realm shall be dust.’
‘This pleases you, sister?’
‘Perhaps not as much as it pleases you, Sukul. Why is this place an abomination in your eyes?’
‘I have no love for Imass. Imagine, a people grubbing in the dirt of caves for hundreds of thousands of years. Building nothing. All history trapped as memory, twisted as tales sung in rhyme every night. They are flawed. In their souls, there must be a flaw, a failing. And these ones here, they have deluded themselves into believing that they actually exist.’
‘Not all of them, Sukul.’
Dapple waved dismissively. ‘The greatest failing here, Sheltatha, lies with the Lord of Death. If not for Hood’s indifference, this realm could never have lasted as long as it has. It irritates me, such carelessness.’
‘So,’ Sheltatha Lore said with a smile, ‘you will hasten the demise of these Imass, even though, with the realm dying anyway, they are already doomed.’
‘You do not understand. The situation has… changed.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Their conceit,’ said Sukul, ‘has made them real. Mortal, now. Blood, flesh and bone. Capable of bleeding, of dying. Yet they remain ignorant of their world’s imminent extinction. My slaughtering them, sister, will be an act of mercy.’
Sheltatha Lore grunted. ‘I cannot wait to hear them thank you.’
At that moment a gold and white dragon rose into view before them, sailing low over the crests of the hills.
Sukul Ankhadu sighed. ‘It begins.’
The Soletaken glided down the slope directly towards them. Looming huge, yet still fifty paces away, the dragon tilted its wings back, crooked them as its hind limbs reached downwards, then settled onto the ground.
A blurring swirl enveloped the beast, and a moment later Menandore walked out from that spice-laden disturbance.
Sheltatha Lore and Sukul Ankhadu waited, saying nothing, their faces expressionless, while Menandore approached, finally halting five paces from them, her blazing eyes moving from one sister to the other, then back again. She said, ‘Are we still agreed, then?’
‘Such glorious precedent, this moment,’ Sheltatha Lore observed.
Menandore frowned. ‘Necessity. At least we should be understood on that matter. I cannot stand alone, cannot guard the soul of Scabandari. The Finnest must not fall in his hands.’
A slight catch of breath from Sukul. ‘Is he near, then?’
‘Oh yes. I have stolen the eyes of one travelling with him. Again and again. They even now draw to the last gate, and look upon its wound, and stand before the torn corpse of that foolish Imass Bonecaster who thought she could seal it with her own soul.’ Menandore sneered. ‘Imagine such effrontery. Starvald Demelain! The very chambers of K’rul’s heart! Did she not know how that weakened him? Weakened everything7.’
‘So we three kill Silchas Ruin,’ Sheltatha Lore said. ‘And then the Imass.’
‘My son chooses to oppose us in that last detail,’ Menandore said. ‘But the Imass have outlived their usefulness. We shall wound Rud if we must, but we do not kill him. Understood? I will have your word on this. Again. Here and now, sisters.’
Agreed,’ Sheltatha Lore said.
‘Yes,’ said Sukul Ankhadu, ‘although it will make matters more difficult.’
‘We must live with that,’ Menandore said, and then turned. ‘It is time.’
Already?’
A few pathetic mortals seek to stand in our way-we must crush them first. And Silchas Ruin has allies. Our day’s work begins now, sisters.’
With that she walked towards the hills, and began veering into her dragon form.
Behind her, Sheltatha Lore and Sukul Ankhadu exchanged a look, and then they moved apart, giving themselves the room they needed.
Veering into dragons.
Dawn, Dusk and the one known as Dapple. A dragon of gold and white. One stained brown and looking half-rotted. The last mottled, neither light nor dark, but the uneasy interplay between the two. Soletaken with the blood of Tiam, the Mother. Sail-winged and serpent-necked, taloned and scaled, the blood of Eleint.
Lifting into the air on gusts of raw sorcery. Menandore leading the wedge formation. Sheltatha Lore on her left. Sukul Ankhadu on her right.
The hills before them, now dropping away as they heaved their massive bulks yet higher.
Clearing the crests, the ancient ridge of an ancient shore, and the sun caught gleaming scales, bloomed through the membranes of wings, while beneath three shadows raced over grass and rock, shadows that sent small mammals scurrying for cover, that launched birds into screeching flight, that made hares freeze in their tracks.
Beasts in the sky were hunting, and nothing on the ground was safe.
A flat landscape studded with humped mounds-dead dragons, ghastly as broken barrows, from which bones jutted, webbed by desiccated skin and sinew. Wings snapped like the wreckage of foundered ships. Necks twisted on the ground, heads from which the skin had contracted, pulled back to reveal gaunt hollows in the eye sockets and beneath the cheekbones. Fangs coated in grey dust were bared as if in eternal defiance.
Seren Pedac had not believed there had once been so many dragons. Had not, in truth, believed that the creatures even existed, barring those who could create such a form from their own bodies, like Silchas Ruin. Were these, she had first wondered, all Soletaken? For some reason, she knew the answer to be no.
True dragons, of which Silchas Ruin, in his dread winged shape, was but a mockery. Devoid of majesty, of purity.
The shattering of bones and wings had come from age, not violence. None of these beasts were sprawled out in death. None revealed gaping wounds. They had each settled into their final postures.
‘Like blue flies on the sill of a window,’ Udinaas had said. ‘Wrongside, trying to get out. But the window stayed closed. To them, maybe to everyone, every thing. Or… maybe not every thing.’ And then he had smiled, as if the thought had amused him.
They had seen the gate that was clearly their destination from a great distance away, and indeed it seemed the dragon mounds were more numerous the closer they came, crowding in on all sides. The flanks of that arch were high as towers, thin to the point of skeletal, while the arch itself seemed twisted, like a vast cobweb wrapped around a dead branch. Enclosed by this structure was a wall smooth and grey, yet vaguely swirling widdershins-the way through, to another world. Where, it was now understood by all, would be found the remnant soul of Scabandari, Father Shadow, the Betrayer. Bloodeye.
The lifeless air tasted foul to Seren Pedac, as if immeasurable grief tainted every breath drawn in this realm, a bleak redolence that would not fade even after countless millennia. It sickened her, sapped the strength from her limbs, from her very spirit. Daunting as that portal was, she longed to claw through the grey, formless barrier. Longed for an end to this. All of it.
There was a way, she was convinced-there had to be a way-of negotiating through the confrontation fast approaching. Was this not her sole talent, the singular skill she would permit herself to acknowledge?
Three strides ahead of her, Udinaas and Kettle walked, her tiny hand nestled in his much larger, much more battered one. The sight-which had preceded her virtually since their arrival in this grim place-was yet another source of anguish and unease. Was he alone capable of setting aside all his nightmares, to comfort this lone, lost child?
Long ago, at the very beginning of this journey, Kettle had held herself close to Silchas Ruin. For he had been the one who had spoken to her through the dying Azath. And he had made vows to protect her and the burgeoning life • that had come to her. And so she had looked upon her benefactor with all the adoration one might expect of a foundling in such a circumstance.
This was no longer true. Oh, Seren Pedac saw enough small gestures to underscore that old allegiance, the threads linking these two so-different beings-their shared place of birth, the precious mutual recognition that was solitude, estrangement from all others. But Silchas Ruin had… revealed more of himself. Had revealed, in his cold disregard, a brutality that could take one’s breath away. Oh, and how different is that from Kettle’s tales of murdering people in Letheras? Of draining their blood, feeding their corpses into the hungry, needy grounds of the Azath?
Still, Kettle expressed none of those desires any more. In returning to life, she had abandoned her old ways, had become, with each passing day, more and more simply a young girl. An orphan.
Witness, again and again, to her adopted family’s endless quarrelling and bickering. To the undeniable threats, the promises of murder. Yes, this is what we have offered her.
And Silchas Ruin is hardly above all of that, is he?
But what of Udinaas? Revealing no great talent, no terrible power. Revealing, in truth, naught but a profound vulnerability.
Ah, and this is what draws her to him. What he gifts back to her in that clasping of hands, the soft smile that reaches even his sad eyes.
Udinaas, Seren Pedac realized with a shock, was the only truly likeable member of their party.
She could in no way include herself as one with even the potential for genuine feelings of warmth from any of the others, not since her rape of Udinaas’s mind. But even before then, she had revealed her paucity of skills in the area of camaraderie. Ever brooding, prone to despondency-these were the legacies of all she had done-and not done-in her life.
Kicking through dust, with Clip and Silchas Ruin well ahead of the others, with the massive humps of dead dragons on all sides, they drew yet closer-to that towering gate. Fear Sengar, who had been walking two strides behind her on her left, now came alongside. His hand was on the grip of his sword.
‘Do not be a fool,’ she hissed at him.
His face was set in stern lines, lips tight.
Ahead, Clip and Silchas reached the gate and there they halted. Both seemed to be looking down at a vague, smallish form on the ground.
Udinaas slowed as the child whose hand he was holding began pulling back. Seren Pedac saw him look down and say something in a very low tone.
If Kettle replied it was in a whisper.
The ex-slave nodded then, and a moment later they carried on, Kettle keeping pace without any seeming reluctance.
What had made her shrink away?
What had he said to so easily draw her onward once more?
They came closer, and Seren Pedac heard a low sigh from Fear Sengar. ‘They look upon a body,’ he said.
Oh, Errant protect us.
‘Acquitor,’ continued the Tiste Edur, so low that only she could hear.
‘Yes?’
‘I must know… how you will choose.’
‘I don’t intend to,’ she snapped in sudden irritation. ‘Do we come all this way together only to kill each other now?’
He grunted in wry amusement. ‘Are we that evenly matched?’
‘Then, if it is truly hopeless, why attempt anything at all?’
‘Have I come this far only to step away, then? Acquitor, I must do what I must. Will you stand with me?’
They had halted, well back from the others, all of whom were now gathered around that corpse. Seren Pedac unstrapped her helm and pulled it off, then clawed at her greasy hair.
‘Acquitor,’ Fear persisted, ‘you have shown power-you are no longer the weakest among us. What you choose may prove the difference between our living and dying.’
‘Fear, what is it you seek with the soul of Scabandari?’
‘Redemption,’ he answered immediately. ‘For the Tiste Edur.’
‘And how do you imagine Scabandari’s broken, tattered soul will grant you such redemption?’
‘I will awaken it, Acquitor-and together we will purge Kurald Emurlahn. We will drive out the poison that afflicts us. And we will, perhaps, shatter my brother’s cursed sword.’
Too vague, you damned fool. Even if you awaken Scabandari, might he not in turn be enslaved by that poison, and its promise of power? And what of his own desires, hungers-what of the vengeance he himself will seek? ‘Fear,’ she said in sudden, near-crippling weariness, ‘your dream is hopeless.’
And saw him flinch back, saw the terrible retreat in his eyes.
She offered him a faint smile. ‘Yes, let this break your vow, Fear Sengar. I am not worth protecting, especially in the name of a dead brother. I trust you see that now.’
‘Yes,’ he whispered.
And in that word was such anguish that Seren Pedac almost cried out. Then railed at herself. It is what I
wanted! Damn it! What I wanted. Needed. It is what must be!
Oh, blessed Errant, how you have hurt him, Seren Pedac. Even this one. No different from all the others.
And she knew, then, that there would be no negotiation. No way through what was to come.
So be it. Do not count on me, Fear Sengar. 1 do not even know my power, nor my control of it. So, do not count on me.
But 1 shall do, for you, what I can.
A promise, yet one she would not voice out loud, for it was too late for that. She could see as much in his now cold eyes, his now hardened face.
Better that he expect nothing, yes. So that, should 1 fail… But she could not finish that thought, not with every word to follow so brightly painted in her mind-with cowardice.
Fear Sengar set out, leaving her behind. She saw, as she followed, that he no longer held on to his sword. Indeed, he suddenly seemed looser, more relaxed, than she had ever seen him before.
She did not, at that moment, understand the significance of such a transformation. In a warrior. In a warrior who knew how to kill.
Perhaps he had always known where this journey would end. Perhaps that seemingly accidental visit the first time had been anything but, and Udinaas had been shown where his every decision in the interval would take him, as inevitable as the tide. And now, at last, here he had washed up, detritus in the silt-laden water.
Will I soon be dining on ranag calf? 1 think not.
The body of the female Imass was a piteous thing. Desiccated, limbs drawn up as tendons contracted. The wild masses of her hair had grown like roots from a dead tree, the nails of her stubby fingers like flattened talons the hue of tortoiseshell. The smudged garnets that were her eyes had sunk deep within their sockets, yet still seemed to stare balefully at the sky.
Yes, the Bonecaster. The witch who gave her soul to staunch the wound. So noble, this failed, useless sacrifice. No, woman, for you 1 will not weep. You should have found another way. You should have stayed alive, among your tribe, guiding them out from their dark cave of blissful ignorance.
‘The world beyond dies,’ said Clip, sounding very nearly pleased by the prospect. Rings sang out on the ends of the chain. One silver, one gold, spinning in blurs.
Silchas Ruin eyed his fellow Tiste Andii. ‘Clip, you remain blind to… necessity.’
A faint, derisive smile. ‘Hardly, O White Crow. Hardly.’
The albino warrior then turned to fix his uncanny red-rimmed eyes upon Udinaas. ‘Is she still with us?’
Kettle’s hand, tightened in the ex-slave’s, and it was all he could do to squeeze back in reassurance. ‘She gauged our location moments ago,’ Udinaas replied, earning a hiss from Clip. ‘But now, no.’
Silchas Ruin faced the gate. ‘She prepares for us, then. On the other side.’
Udinaas shrugged. ‘I imagine so.’
Seren Pedac stirred and asked, ‘Does that mean she holds the Finnest? Silchas? Udinaas?’
But Silchas Ruin shook his head. ‘No. That would not have been tolerated. Not by her sisters. Not by the powerful ascendants who saw it fashioned in the first place-’
‘Then why aren’t they here?’ Seren demanded. ‘What makes you think they’ll accept your possessing it, Silchas Ruin, when they will not stand for Menandore’s owning it-we are speaking of Menandore, aren’t we?’
Udinaas snorted. ‘Left no stone unturned in my brain, did you, Acquitor?’
Silchas did not reply to her questions.
The ex-slave glanced over at Fear Sengar, and saw a warrior about to go into battle. Yes, we are that close, aren’t we? Oh, Fear Sengar, I do not hate you. In fact, I probably even like you. 1 may mock the honour you possess. I may scorn this path you’ve chosen.
As I scorned this Bonecaster’s, and yes, Edur, for entirely the same reasons.
Because 1 cannot follow.
Udinaas gently disengaged his hand from Kettle’s, then lifted free the Imass spear strapped to his back. He walked over to Seren Pedac. Set the weapon into her hands, ignoring her raised brows, the confusion sliding into her gaze.
Yes, Acquitor, if you will seek to aid Fear Sengar-and 1 believe you will-then your need is greater than mine.
After all, 1 intend to run.
Silchas Ruin drew his two swords, thrust them both point-first into the ground. And then began tightening the various buckles and straps on his armour.
Yes, no point in rushing in unprepared, is there? You will need to move quickly, Silchas Ruin, won’t you? Very quickly indeed.
He found his mouth was dry.
Dry as this pathetic corpse at his feet.
Seren Pedac gripped his arm. ‘Udinaas,’ she whispered.
He shook his arm free. ‘Do what you must, Acquitor.’ Our great quest, our years of one foot in front of the other, it all draws now to a close.
So hail the blood. Salute the inevitability.
And who, when all is done, will wade out of this crimson tide?
Rud Elalle, my son, how 1 fear for you.
Three specks in the sky above the hills to the south. The one named Hedge now half turned and squinted at Ulshun Pral, then said, ‘Best withdraw to the cave. Stay close to Onrack the Broken. And Trull Sengar.’
Ulshun Pral smiled.
The man scowled. ‘Quick, this oaf doesn’t understand Malazan.’ He then pointed back towards the rocks. ‘Go there! Onrack and Trull. Go!’
The taller man snorted. ‘Enough, Hedge. That oaf understands you just fine.’
‘Oh, so why ain’t he listening to me?’
‘How should I know?’
Ulshun waited a moment longer, fixing into his memory the faces of these two men, so that death would not take all of them. He hoped they were doing the same with him, although of course they might well not understand the gift, nor even that they had given it.
Imass knew many truths that were lost to those who were, in every sense, their children. This, alas, did not make Imass superior, for most of those truths were unpleasant ones, and these children could not defend themselves against them, and so would be fatally weakened by their recognition.
For example, Ulshun Pral reminded himself, he had been waiting for this time, understanding all that was coming to this moment, all the truths bound within what would happen. Unlike his people, he had not been a ghost memory. He had not lived countless millennia in a haze of self-delusion. Oh, his life had spanned that time, but it had been just that: a life. Drawn out to near immortality, not through any soul-destroying ritual, but because of this realm. This deathless realm.
That was deathless no longer.
He set out, then, leaving these two brave children, and made his way towards the cave.
It might begin here, beneath this empty sky. But it would end, Ulshun Pral knew, before the Gates of Starvald Demelain.
Where a Bentract Bonecaster had failed. Not because the wound proved too virulent, or too vast. But because the Bonecaster had been nothing more than a ghost to begin with. A faded, pallid soul, a thing with barely enough power to hold on to itself.
Ulshun Pral was twenty paces from the entrance to the cave when Onrack the Broken emerged, and in Ulshun’s heart there burgeoned such a welling of pride that tears filled his eyes.
‘So I take it,’ Hedge said, locking the foot of his crossbow, ‘that what we were both thinking means neither of us is much surprised.’
‘She gave in too easily.’
Hedge nodded. ‘That she did. But I’m still wondering, Quick, why didn’t she grab that damned Finnest a long time ago? Squirrel it away some place where Silchas Ruin would never find it? Answer me that!’
The wizard grunted as he moved out to the crest of the slope. ‘She probably thought she’d done just as you said, Hedge.’
Hedge blinked, then frowned. ‘Huh. Hadn’t thought of that.’
‘That’s because you’re thick, sapper. Now, if this goes the way I want it to, you won’t be needed at all. Keep that in mind, Hedge. I’m begging you.’
‘Oh, just get on with it.’
‘Fine then. I will.’
And Ben Adaephon Delat straightened, then slowly raised his arms.
His scrawny arms. Hedge laughed.
The wizard glared back at him over a shoulder. ‘Will you stop that?’
‘Sorry! Had no idea you were so touchy.’
Quick Ben cursed, then turned and walked back to Hedge.
And punched him in the nose.
Stunned, eyes filling with tears, the sapper staggered back. Brought a hand to his face to stem the sudden gushing of blood. ‘You broke my damned nose!’
‘So I did,’ the wizard answered, shaking one hand. And look, Hedge, you’re bleeding.’
‘Is it any surprise? Ow-’
‘Hedge. You are bleeding.’
I’m-oh, gods.
‘Get it now?’
And Quick turned and walked back, resumed his stance at the crest.
Hedge stared down at his bloody hand. ‘Shit!’
Their conversation stopped then.
Since the three dragons were now no longer tiny specks.
Menandore’s hatred of her sisters in no way diminished her respect for their power, and against Silchas Ruin that power would be needed. She knew that the three of them, together, could destroy that bastard. Utterly. True, one or two of them might fall. But not Menandore. She had plans to ensure that she would survive.
Before her now, minuscule on the edge of that rise, a lone mortal-the other one was crouching as if in terror, well behind his braver but equally stupid companion-a lone mortal, raising his hands.
Oh, mage, to think that will be enough.
Against us!
Power burgeoned within her and to either side she felt the same-sudden pressure, sudden promise.
Angling downward now, three man-heights from the basin’s tawny grasses, huge shadows drawing closer, yet closer. Sleeting towards that slope.
She unhinged her jaws.
Hedge wiped blood from his face, blinked to clear his vision as he swore at his own throbbing head, and then lifted the crossbow. Just in case. Sweet candy for the middle one, aye.
The trio of dragons, wings wide, glided low above the ground, at a height that would bring them more or less level with the crest of this ancient atoll. They were, Hedge realized, awfully big.
In perfect unison, all three dragons opened their mouths.
And Quick Ben, standing there like a frail willow before a tsunami, unleashed his magic.
The very earth of the slope lifted up, heaved up to hammer the dragons like enormous fists into their chests.
Necks whipped. Heads snapped back. Sorcery exploded from those jaws, waves lashing skyward-flung uselessly into the air, where the three sorceries clashed, writhing in a frenzy of mutual destruction.
Where the slope had been there were now clouds of dark, dusty earth, pieces of sod still spinning upward, long roots trailing like hair, and the hill lurched as the three dragons, engulfed by tons of earth, crashed into the ground forty paces from where stood Quick Ben.
And down, into that chaotic storm of soil and dragon, the wizard marched.
Waves erupted from him, rolling amidst the crackle of lightning, sweeping down in charging crests. Striking the floundering beasts with a succession of impacts that shook the entire hill. Black fire gouted, rocks sizzled as they were launched into the air, where they simply shattered into dust.
Wave after wave unleashed from the wizard’s hands.
Hedge, staggering drunkenly to the edge, saw a dragon, hammered full on, flung onto its back, then pushed, skidding, kicking, like a flesh and blood avalanche, down onto the basin, gouging deep grooves across the flat as it was driven back, and back.
Another, with skin seeming afire, sought to lift itself into the air.
Another wave rose above it, slapped the beast back down with a bone-snapping crunch.
The third creature, half buried beneath steaming soil, suddenly turned then and launched itself straight for the dragon beside it. Jaws opening, magic ripping forth to lance into the side of its once-ally. Flesh exploded, blood spraying in a black cloud.
An ear-piercing shriek, the struck one’s head whipping-even as enormous jaws closed on its throat.
Hedge saw that neck collapse in a welter of blood.
More blood poured from the stricken dragon’s gaping mouth, a damned fountain of the stuff-
Quick Ben was walking back up the slope, seemingly indifferent to the carnage behind him.
The third dragon, the one driven far out on the basin, at the end of a torn-up track that stretched across the grass like a wound, now lifted itself into the air, streaming blood, and, climbing still higher, banked south and then eastward.
The warring dragons at the base of the slope slashed and tore at each other, yet the attacker would not release its death-grip on the other’s neck, and those huge fangs were sawing right through. Then the spine crunched, snapped, and suddenly the severed head and its arm-length’s worth of throat fell to the churned ground with a heavy thud. The body kicked, gouging into its slayer’s underbelly for a moment longer, then sagged down as a spraying exhalation burst from the severed neck.
Quick Ben staggered onto the summit.
Hedge dragged his eyes from the scene below and stared at the wizard. ‘You look like Hood’s own arse-wipe, Quick.’
‘Feel like it too, Hedge.’ He pivoted round, the motion like an old man’s. ‘Sheltatha-what a nasty creature-turned on Menandore just like that!’
‘When she realized they weren’t getting past you, aye,’ Hedge said. ‘The other one’s going for the Imass, I’d wager.’
‘Won’t get past Rud Ellalle.’
‘No surprise, since you turned her into one giant bruise.’
Below, Sheltatha Lore, her belly ripped open, was dragging herself away.
Hedge eyed the treacherous beast.
‘Aye, sapper,’ Quick Ben said in a hollow voice. ‘Now you get to play.’
Hedge grunted. ‘Damn short playtime, Quick.’
‘And then you nap.’
‘Funny.’
Hedge raised the crossbow, paused to gauge the angle. Then he settled his right index finger against the release. And grinned. ‘Here, suck on this, you fat winged cow.’
A solid thunk as the cusser shot out, then down.
Landing within the gaping cavity of Sheltatha Lore’s belly.
The explosion sent chunks of dragon flesh in all directions. The thick, red, foul rain showered down on Hedge and Quick Ben. And what might have been a vertebra hammered Hedge right between the eyes, knocking him out cold.
Flung onto his hands and knees by the concussion, Quick Ben stared across at his unconscious friend, then began laughing. Higher-pitched than usual.
As they strode into the cave of paintings, Onrack reached out a hand to stay Ulshun Pral. ‘Remain here,’ he said.
‘That is never easy,’ Ulshun Pral replied, yet he halted nonetheless.
Nodding, Onrack looked at the images on the walls. ‘You see again and again the flaws.’
‘The failing of my hand, yes. The language of the eyes is ever perfect. Rendering it upon stone is where weakness is found.’
‘These, Ulshun Pral, show few weaknesses.’
‘Even so…’
‘Remain, please,’ Onrack said, slowly drawing his sword. ‘The Gate… there will be intruders.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it you they seek?’
Yes, Onrack the Broken. It is me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a Jaghut gave me something, once, long ago.’
‘A Jaghut?’
Ulshun Pral smiled at the astonishment on Onrack’s face. ‘Here, in this world,’ he said, ‘we long ago ended our war. Here, we chose peace.’
‘Yet that which the Jaghut gave you now endangers you, Ulshun Pral. And your clans.’
Deep thundering concussions suddenly shook the walls around them.
Onrack bared his teeth. ‘1 must go.’
A moment later Ulshun Pral was alone, in the cave with all the paintings he had fashioned, and there was no light now that Onrack and the torch he had been carrying were gone. As the drums of grim magic reverberated through the rock surrounding him, he remained where he was, motionless, for a dozen heartbeats. Then he set out, after Onrack. On the path to the Gate.
There was, in truth, no choice.
Rud Elalle had led the Imass deeper into the rugged hills, then down the length of a narrow, crooked defile where some past earthquake had broken in half an entire mass of limestone, forming high, angled walls flanking a crack through its heart. At the mouth of this channel, as Rud Elalle urged the last few Imass into the narrow passage, Hostille Rator, Til’aras Benok and Gr’istanas Ish’ilm halted.
‘Quickly!’ cried Rud Elalle.
But the clan chief was drawing out his cutlass-length obsidian sword with his right hand and a bone-hafted, groundstone maul with his left. ‘An enemy approaches,’ Hostille Rator said. ‘Go on, Rud Elalle. We three will guard the mouth of this passage.’
They could hear terrible thunder from just south of the old camp.
Rud Elalle seemed at a loss.
Hostille Rator said, ‘We did not come to this realm… expecting what we have found. We are now flesh, and so too are those Imass you call your own. Death, Rud Elalle, has arrived.’ He pointed southward with his sword. ‘A lone dragon has escaped the High Mage. To hunt down you and the Bentract. Rud Elalle, even as a dragon, she must land here. She must then semble into her other form. So that she can walk this passageway. We will meet her here, the three of us… strangers.’
‘I can-’
‘No, Rud Elalle. This dragon may not prove the only danger to you and the clans. You must go, you must prepare to stand as their final protector.’
‘Why-why do you do this?’
‘Because it pleases us.’ Because you please us, Rud Elalle. So too Ulshun Pral. And the lmass…
And we came here with chaos in our hearts.
‘Go, Rud Elalle.’
Sukul Ankhadu knew her sisters were dead, and for all the shock this realization engendered-the shattering of their plan to destroy Silchas Ruin, to enslave the Finnest of Scabandari and subject that torn, vulnerable soul to endless cruelty-a part of her was filled with glee. Menandore-whom she and Sheltatha Lore had intended to betray in any case-would never again befoul Sukul’s desires and ambitions. Sheltatha-well, she had done what was needed, turning upon Menandore at the moment of her greatest weakness. And had she survived that, Sukul would have had to kill the bitch herself.
Extraordinary, that a lone mortal human could unleash such venomous power. No, not a mere mortal human. There were other things hiding inside that scrawny body, she was certain of that. If she never encountered him again, she would know a life of peace, a life without fear.
Her wounds were, all things considered, relatively minor. One wing was shattered, forcing her to rely almost entirely on sorcery to keep her in the air. An assortment of scrapes and gouges, but already the bleeding had ebbed, the wounds were closing.
She could smell the stench of the lmass, could follow their trail with ease as it wound through the broken hills below.
Rud Elalle was a true child of Menandore. A Soletaken. But so very young, so very naive. If brute force could not defeat him, then treachery would. Her final act of vengeance-and betrayal-against Menandore.
The trail led into a high-walled, narrow channel, one that seemed to lead downward, perhaps to caves. Before its mouth was a small, level clearing, bounded on both sides by boulders.
She dropped down, slowed her flight.
And saw, standing before the defile’s entrance, an Imass warrior.
Good. I can kill. 1 can feed.
Settling down into the clearing-a tight fit, her one working wing needing tp draw in close-and then sembling, drawing her power inward. Until she stood, not twenty paces from the Imass.
Mortal. Nothing more than what he appeared.
Sukul Ankhadu laughed. She would walk up to him, wrest his stone weapons away, then sink her teeth into his throat.
Still laughing, she approached.
He readied himself, dropping into a crouch.
At ten paces, he surprised her. The maul, swung in a loop underhand, shot out from his extended arm.
Sukul threw herself to one side-had that weapon struck, it would have shattered her skull-then, as the Imass leapt forward with his sword, she reached out and caught his wrist. Twisted, snapping the bones. With her other hand she grasped his throat and lifted him from his feet.
And saw, in his face, a smile-even as she crushed that throat.
Behind her, two Bonecasters, veered into identical beasts-long-legged bears with vestigial tails, covered in thick brown and black hair, with flattened snouts, at their shoulders the height of a Tiste-emerged from the cover of the boulders and, as Hostille Rator died, the Soletaken arrived at a full charge.
Slamming into Sukul Ankhadu, one on her left, the other on her right. Huge talons slashing, massive forelimbs closing about her as jaws, opened wide, tore into her.
Lower canines sank under her left jawline, the upper canines punching down through flesh and bone, and as the beast whipped its head to one side, Sukul’s lower jaw, left cheekbones and temporal plate all went with it.
The second beast bit through her right upper arm as it closed its jaws about her ribcage, clamping round a mouthful of crushed ribs and pulped lung.
As the terrible pain and pressure suddenly ripped away from her head, Sukul twisted round. Her left arm-the only one still attached to her-had been holding up the warrior, and now, releasing the dying Imass, she swung that arm backhand, striking the side of the giant bear’s head. And with that impact, she released a surge of power.
The beast’s head exploded in a mass of bone shards, brains and teeth.
As it fell away, Sukul Ankhadu tried twisting further, to reach across for the second beast’s snout.
It lurched back, tearing away ribs and lung.
She spun, driving her hand between the creature’s clavicles. Through thick hide, into a welter of spurting blood and soft meat, fingers closing on the ridged windpipe-
A taloned paw struck the side of her head-the same side as had been mauled by the first beast-and where the temporal plate had been, cerebral matter now sprayed out with the impact. The claws caught more bone and hard cartilage, raked through forebrain on its way back out.
The upper front of Sukul’s head and the rest of her face was ripped away, spilling brains out from the gaping space.
At that moment, the other paw hammered what remained from the other side. When it had completed its passage, all that was left was a section of occipital plate attached to a flopping patch of scalp, dangling from the back of the neck.
Sukul Ankhadu’s knees buckled. Her left hand exited the wound in the second beast’s throat with a sobbing sound.
She might have remained on her knees, balanced by the sudden absence of any weight above her shoulders, but then the creature that had finally killed her lurched forward, its enormous weight crushing her down as the Soletaken, who had once been Til’aras Benok, collapsed, slowly suffocating from a crushed windpipe.
Moments later, the only sound from this modest clearing was the dripping of blood.
Trull Sengar could hear the faint echoes of sorcery and he feared for his friends. Something was seeking to reach this place, and if it-or they-got past Hedge and Quick Ben, then once more Trull would find himself standing before unlikely odds. Even with Onrack at his side…
Yet he held his gaze on the gates. The silent flames rose and ebbed within the portals, each to its own rhythm, each tinted in a different hue. The air felt charged. Static sparks crackled in the dust that had begun swirling up from the stone floor.
He heard a sound behind him and turned. Relief flooded through him. ‘Onrack-’
‘They seek Ulshun Pral,’ his friend replied, emerging from the tunnel mouth, two paces, three, then he halted. ‘You are too close to those gates, my friend. Come-’
He got no further.
The fires within one of the gates winked out, and from within the suddenly dark portal figures emerged.
Two strides behind Silchas Ruin, Seren Pedac was the next in their group to cross the threshold. She did not know what prompted her to push past Fear Sengar-and attributed no special significance to Clip’s hanging back. A strange tug took hold of her soul, a sudden, excruciating yearning that overwhelmed her growing dread. All at once, the stone spear she held in her hands felt light as a reed.
Darkness, a momentary flicker, as of distant light, then she was stepping onto gritty stone.
A cavern. To either side, the raging maws of more gates, flooding all with light.
Before her, Silchas Ruin halted and his swords hissed from their scabbards. Someone was standing before him, but in that moment Seren Pedac’s view was blocked by the White Crow.
She saw a barbaric warrior standing further back, and behind him, a lone silhouette standing in the mouth of a tunnel.
To her left Fear Sengar appeared.
She took another step, to bring her round Silchas Ruin, to see the one who had made the albino Tiste Andii pause.
And all at once, the terror began.
On Fear Sengar’s face, an expression of profound horror-even as he surged past Seren Pedac. A knife in his raised hand. The blade flashing down towards Silchas Ruin’s back.
Then all of Fear’s forward motion ceased. The out-thrust arm with its knife flailed, slashed the air even as Silchas Ruin-as if entirely unaware of the attack-took a single step forward.
A terrible gurgling sound from Fear Sengar.
Spinning round, Seren Pedac saw Clip standing immediately behind Fear. Saw the chain between Clip’s hands slide almost effortlessly through Fear Sengar’s throat. Blood lashed out.
Beyond Clip, Udinaas, with Kettle now held tight in his arms, sought to lunge away, even as a shadow erupted beneath him, writhed about his lower limbs, and dragged the Letherii down to the stone floor, where Wither then swarmed over Udinaas. ‘
Clip released one end of his chain and whipped the length free of Fear Sengar’s throat. Eyes staring, the expression of fierce intent fixed upon his face, the Tiste Edur’s head sagged back, revealing a slash reaching all the way back to his spine. As Fear Sengar fell, Clip slid in a deadly blur towards Udinaas.
Frozen in shock, Seren Pedac stood rooted. Disbelieving, as a scream of raw denial tore from her throat.
Silchas Ruin’s swords were singing as he closed in deadly battle with whomever stood before him. Staccato impacts as those blades were parried with impossible speed.
Wither had wrapped shadow hands around Udinaas’s neck. Was choking the life from the ex-slave.
Kettle pulled herself free, then twisted round to pound tiny hands against the wraith.
All at once, a ferocious will burgeoned within Seren Pedac. The will to kill. Launched like a javelin towards Wither.
The wraith exploded in shreds-
– as Clip arrived, standing over Udinaas and reaching down one hand to grasp Kettle’s tunic between the girl’s shoulder blades.
Clip threw the child across the floor. She struck, skidded then rolled like a bundle of rags.
With focused punches of Mockra, Seren Pedac hammered at Clip, sending him staggering. Blood sprayed from his nose, mouth and ears. Then he whipped round, a hand lashing out.
Something pounded Seren Pedac high on her left shoulder. Sudden agony radiated out from the point of impact and all her concentration vanished beneath those overwhelming waves. She looked down and saw a dagger buried to the hilt-stared down at it in disbelief.
There had been no time to think. Trull Sengar was left with naught but recognition. One, then another, arriving in shocks that left him stunned.
From the gate emerged an apparition-and Trull Sengar had stood before this one before, long ago, during a night’s vigil over fallen kin. Ghost of darkness. The Betrayer. No longer weaponless, as he had been the first time. No longer half rotted, yet the coals of those terrifying eyes remained, fixed now upon him in bright familiarity.
And, in a low voice, almost a whisper, the Betrayer said, ‘Of course it is you. But this battle, it is not-’
At that moment, Trull Sengar saw his brother. Fear, the god of his childhood, the stranger of his last days among the Tiste Edur. Fear, meeting Trull’s wide eyes. Seeing the battle about to begin. Comprehending-and then there was a knife in his hand, and, as he surged forward to stab the Betrayer in the back, Trull saw in his brother’s face-in an instant-the full measure of Fear’s sudden self-awareness, the bitter irony, the truth of generations past returned once more, one last time. Silchas Ruin, an Edur knife seeking his back.
When Fear was tugged backward, when his throat opened wide, Trull Sengar felt his mind, his soul, obliterated, inundated by incandescent fury, and he was moving forward, the tip of his spear seeking the slayer of his brother-
And the Betrayer was in his way.
A slash opened up the Betrayer’s skin at the base of his throat, the tip skittering away across one clavicle; then a thrust, punching into the apparition’s left shoulder muscle.
And all at once the Betrayer’s swords wove a skein of singing iron, parrying the spear’s every lightning thrust and sweep. And suddenly Trull Sengar’s advance stalled, and then he was being driven back, as those swords, hammering the shaft of his spear, tore away bronze sheathing, began splintering the wood.
And Trull Sengar recognized, before him, his own death.
Onrack the Broken saw his friend’s attack fail, saw the fight turn, and saw that Trull Sengar was doomed to fall.
Yet he did not move. Could not.
He felt his own heart tearing itself to pieces, for the man behind him-the Imass, Ulshun Pral-was, Onrack knew at once, of his own blood. A revelation, the summation of a thousand mysterious sensations, instincts, the echoing of gestures-Ulshun Pral’s very stance, his manner of walking, and the talent of eyes and hand-he was, oh he was…
Trull Sengar’s spear exploded in the warrior’s hands. A sword lashed out-
The blow to her shoulder had driven Seren Pedac down to her knees, then pitched her sideways-and she saw, there before Silchas Ruin, Trull Sengar.
Clip, blood streaming down his face, had turned back to pursue Udinaas, who was, crawling, scrabbling towards Kettle.
And before her rose a choice.
Trull
Or Udinaas.
But, alas, Seren Pedac was never good with choices.
With her hands she sent the stone spear skittering towards Trull Sengar-even as his own weapon shattered into pieces. And, tearing the dagger from her shoulder, she renewed her Mockra assault on Clip-staggering the bastard once more.
As the sword swung to take Trull in the side of his head, he dropped down, then rolled to evade the second weapon that chopped down. He wasn’t fast enough. The edge slammed deep into his right hip, stuck fast in solid bone.
Trull took hold of the Betrayer’s forearm and pulled as he twisted-the pain as he sought to trap that embedded sword momentarily blinded him, filling his skull with white fire-and against the other sword he could do nothing-
But the Betrayer, pulled slightly off balance, took a step to the side to right himself-onto the shaft of the stone spear which promptly rolled beneath his weight.
And down he went.
Trull saw the spear, reached for it. Closed both hands about the shaft, then, still lying on his side, one of the singing swords pinned beneath him-the Betrayer’s arm stretched out as he sought to maintain his grip-Trull drove the butt end of the spear into his opponent’s midsection.
Punching all the air from his lungs.
He plunged backward, rolled, and the sword under Trull slapped down as the Betrayer’s hand involuntarily released it. And Trull pounded a hand down on the weapon, dislodging it from the bone of his hip. The white fire remained in his mind, even as he forced himself onto his knees, then upward. The leg beneath the wound refused to obey him and he snarled in sudden rage, willing himself into a standing position-then, leg dragging, he closed in on the Betrayer-
Seren Pedac-all her efforts at incinerating Clip’s brain failing-shrank back as the now grinning Tiste Andii, abandoning his hunt for Udinaas, turned about and advanced on her, drawing out knife and rapier. Crimson teeth, crimson streaks from his eyes like tears-
At that moment, impossibly, Trull Sengar hurt Silchas Ruin-drove the White Crow onto his back where his head snapped back to crunch against the floor, stunning him.
And Clip turned, saw, and raced in a low blur towards Trull.
Meeting a spear that lashed out. Clip parried it at the last moment, surprise on his features, and he skidded to a halt, and was suddenly fighting for his life.
Against a crippled Tiste Edur.
Who drove him back a step.
Then another.
Wounds blossomed on Clip. Left arm. Across the ribs on the right side. Laying open his right cheek.
In a sudden, appallingly fast-shifting attack, Trull Sengar reversed the spear and the stone shaft cracked hard into Clip’s right forearm, breaking it. Another crack, dislocating the right shoulder-and the knife spun away. Third time, this one on the upper left thigh, hard enough to splinter the femur. A final one, against Clip’s left temple-a spray of blood, the head rocking to one side, the body collapsing utterly beneath it. Rapier clunking from a senseless hand. And Trull then whirled back to Silchas Ruin-But his wounded leg failed him and he fell-Seren heard his curse like a sharp retort-
The white-skinned Tiste Andii advanced to where Onrack stood. The lone sword in his right hand howled as he readied it.
‘Step aside, Imass,’ he said. ‘The one behind you is mine.’
Onrack shook his head. He is mine. Mine!
It was clear that the Tiste Andii saw Onrack’s refusal in the face of the Imass warrior, for he suddenly snarled-a sound of raw impatience-and lashed out with his left hand.
Sorcery hammered-into Onrack. Lifting him from his feet, high into the air, then slamming him into a wall of stone.
As he dropped down hard onto the floor, a single thought drifted through his mind before unconsciousness took him: Not again.
Trull Sengar, lying helpless on the floor, cried out upon seeing Onrack engulfed in magic and then flung away. He struggled to regain his feet, but the leg was a dead weight now, and he was leaving a thick trail of blood as he dragged himself closer to Silchas Ruin.
Then someone was kneeling at his side. Hands soft on one shoulder-
‘Stop,’ a woman’s voice murmured. ‘Stop, Trull Sengar. It is too late.’
Udinaas struggled to breathe. Wither’s shadowy hands had crushed something in his throat. He felt himself weakening, darkness closing in on all sides.
He had failed.
Even knowing, he had failed.
This is the truth of ex-slaves, because even that word is a lie.
Slavery settles into the soul. My master now is naught but failure itself.
Forcing himself to remain conscious, he lifted his head. Drag the breath in, dammit. Lift the head-fail if need be, but do not die. Not yet. Lift the head!
And watch.
Silchas Ruin sheathed his remaining sword, walked up to Ulshun Pral.
And took him by the throat.
A low woman’s voice spoke from his left. ‘Harm my son, Tiste Andii, and you will not leave here.’
He turned to see a woman, an Imass, clothed in the skin of a panther. She was standing over the prone form of the warrior he had just flung aside.
‘That this one lives,’ she said, with a gesture down to the Imass at her bared feet, ‘is the only reason I have not already torn you to pieces.’
A Bonecaster, and the look in her feline eyes was a dark promise.
Silchas Ruin loosened his hold on the Imass before him, then reached down and deftly plucked free a flint dagger. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is all I need.’ And as soon as he held the primitive weapon in his hand, he knew the truth of his claim.
Stepping away, eyes holding the woman’s.
She made no move.
Satisfied, Silchas Ruin turned about.
Seren, kneeling beside Trull Sengar, watched the White Crow walk over to where Kettle sat on the stone floor. With his free hand he reached down to her.
A fistful of tunic, a sudden lift, pulling the child into the air, then back down, hard, onto the flat of her back, her head cracking hard on the stone, even as he drove the flint knife into the centre of her chest.
Her small legs kicked, then went still.
Silchas Ruin slowly straightened. Stepped back.
Udinaas turned his head away, his vision filling with tears. Of course, the child had known, just as he had known. Kettle was, after all, the last desperate creation of an Azath.
And here, in this brutal place, she had been joined to a Finnest.
He heard Seren Pedac cry out. Looked once more, blinking to clear his eyes.
Silchas Ruin had backed away, towards one of the gates.
Where Kettle lay, the leather-wrapped handle of the flint knife jutting up from her chest, the air had begun to swirl, darkness condensing. And the small body was moving in fitful jerks, then a slow writhing of limbs as roots snaked out, sank tendrils into the very stone. Rock hissed, steamed.
Silchas Ruin looked on for a moment longer, then he swung about, collected his second sword, sheathed it, and walked into a gate, vanishing from sight.
His breathing less ragged, Udinaas twisted round, looked for Clip’s body-but the bastard was gone. A blood trail leading to one of the gates. It figures. But oh, I saw Trull Sengar ~ 1 saw him take you on, Clip. You, sneering at that paltry weapon, the lowly spear. 1 saw, Clip.
The dark cloud surrounding Kettle’s body had burgeoned, grown. Stone foundations, black roots, the trickle of water spreading in a stain.
An Azath, to hold for ever the soul of Scabandari. Silchas Ruin, you have your vengeance. Your perfect exchange.
And, because he could not help himself, Udinaas lowered his head and began to weep.
Somehow, Trull Sengar forced himself back onto his feet. Although without Seren Pedac at his side, taking much of his weight-and without the spear on which he leaned ~ she knew that that would have been impossible.
‘Please,’ he said to her, ‘my brother.’
She nodded, wincing as the wound in her shoulder pulsed fresh blood, and began helping him hobble across to where Fear Sengar’s body was sprawled, almost at the foot of the now darkened gate.
‘What am I to do?’ Trull asked, suddenly hesitating and looking to where stood the squat woman wearing the skin of a panther. She and the Imass who had carried the Finnest were both now crouched at the form of a third Imass, a warrior. The woman was cradling the dead or unconscious warrior’s head. ‘Onrack… my friend…’
‘Kin first,’ Seren Pedac said. Then she raised her voice and called out to the Imass. ‘Does the fallen one live?’
‘Yes,’ the warrior replied. ‘My father lives.’
A sob broke from Trull Sengar and he sagged against her. Seren staggered beneath his weight for a moment, then straightened. ‘Come, my love.’
This caught Trull’s attention as, perhaps, nothing else would. He searched her face, her eyes.
‘We must return to my house,’ she said, even as dread clawed at her heart-another, after all 1 have done to those who came before him. Errant forgive me. Another. ‘I carry a sword,’ she added. ‘And would bury it before the threshold.’ And shall 1 then kneel there, dirt on my hands, and cover my eyes? Shall I cry out in grief for what is to come? For all that I will bring to you, Trull Sengar? My burdens-
‘I have dreamed you would say that, Seren Pedac’
She closed her eyes for a long moment, and then nodded.
They resumed their journey, and when they reached Fear Sengar, she let Trull settle down onto the ground, and he set the spear down, then reached out to touch his brother’s ashen, lifeless face.
From nearby, Udinaas-his face streaked in tears-spoke in a harsh, grating voice. ‘I greet you, Trull Sengar. And I must tell you… your brother, Fear… he died as a hero would.’
Trull lifted his head, stared across at the Letherii. ‘Udinaas. You are wrong. My brother sought… betrayal.’
‘No. He saw you, Trull, and he knew the mind of Silchas Ruin. Knew you could never stand against the White Crow. Do you understand me? He saw you.’
‘Is that helpful?’ Seren Pedac snapped.
Udinaas bared bloodstained teeth. ‘With the only alternative betrayal, Acquitor, then yes. Trull, I am… sorry. And yet… Fear-1 am proud of him. Proud to have known him.’
And she saw her beloved nod, then manage a sorrow-filled smile at the ex-slave. ‘Thank you, Udinaas. Your journey-all of you-your journey, it must have been long. Difficult.’ He glanced to her, then back to Udinaas. ‘For remaining at my brother’s side, I thank you both.’, Oh, Trull, may you never know the truth.
Onrack the Broken opened his eyes to an ancient dream, and its conjuration twisted like a knife in his soul. Not oblivion, then. Such peace is denied me. Instead, my crimes return. To haunt.
And yet… Ulshun Pral-
An ancient dream, yes, and hovering just beyond, a far younger dream-one he had not even known to exist. The Ritual of Tellann had stolen from so many men of the Imass this reaching into the future, this creation of sons, daughters, this rooting of life into the soil that lived on.
Yes, that had indeed been a dream-
Kilava Onass suddenly frowned. ‘You stare, Onrack, with all the intelligence of a bhederin. Have you lost your wits?’
Dreams did not berate, did they?
‘Ah,’ she then said, nodding, ‘now I see you of old-1 see the panic that ever fills a man’s eyes, when all he longed for is suddenly within reach. But know this, I too have longed, and I too now feel… panic. To love in absence is to float on ever still waters. No sudden currents. No treacherous tides. No possibility of drowning. You and I, Onrack, have floated so for a very long time.’
He stared up at her-yes, he was lying on hard stone. In the cavern of the gates.
Then Kilava smiled, revealing those deadly canines. ‘But I fared better, I think. For you gave me a gift, from that one night. You gave me Ulshun Pral. And when I found this… this illusion, I found for our son a home, a haven.’
‘This realm… dies,’ Onrack said. ‘Are we all illusions now?’
Kilava shook her head, the luxuriant black hair shimmering. ‘Gothos gave to our son the Finnest. As for the rest, well, your son has explained it to me. The white-skinned Tiste Andii, Silchas Ruin, delivered the seed of an Azath, a seed in the guise of a child. To accept the Finnest, to use its power to grow. Onrack, soon these gates will be sealed, each and all drawn into the House, into a squat, clumsy tower. And this realm-with an Azath House here, this realm no longer wanders, no longer fades. It is rooted, and so it will remain.’
Behind her, Ulshun Pral said, ‘Gothos said Silchas Ruin would one day come for the Finnest. Gothos thought that was… funny. Jaghut,’ he then said, ‘are strange.’
Kilava Onass added, ‘To win his freedom, Silchas Ruin bargained with an Azath, an Azath that was dying. And now he has done what was asked of him. And the Azath is reborn.’
‘Then… we need not have fought.’
Kilava scowled. ‘Never trust a Tiste Andii.’ Her luminous eyes flickered away briefly. ‘It seems there were other… issues.’
But Onrack was not ready to think of those. He continued staring up at Kilava Onass. ‘You, then, that night in darkness.’
Her scowl deepened. ‘Were you always this thick? I cannot remember-by the spirits, my panic worsens. Of course it was me. You bound me to stone, with your eyes and hand. With, Onrack, your love. Yours was a forbidden desire and it wounded so many. But not me. I knew only that I must give answer. I must let my heart speak.’ She laid a hand on his chest. ‘As yours now does. You are flesh and blood, Onrack. The Ritual has relinquished your soul. Tell me, what do you seek?’
He held his eyes on hers. ‘I have found it,’ he said.
Every bone in his body ached as he forced himself to his feet. At once his gaze was drawn to where he had last seen Trull Sengar; and a growing dread was swept from his mind upon seeing his friend.
Trull Sengar, you are as hard to kill as I am.
A moment later, he saw the tears on his friend’s face, and’ it seemed there would be, grief this day, after all.
At the mouth of a fissure not far away, in a small clearing, Rud Elalle stood in the midst of carnage. Where one of his mother’s sisters had died. Where three Imass had died.
And somewhere beyond, he knew in his heart, he would find the body of his mother.
He stood on blood-soaked ground, and wondered what it was that had just died within his own soul.
Some time later, much later, he would find the word to describe it.
Innocence.
Quick Ben still hobbled like an old man, amusing Hedge no end. ‘There you are,’ he said as they made their way towards the cave and its tunnel leading to the Gates of Starvald Demelain, ‘exactly how you’ll look twenty years from now. Creepy and gamey. Pushing wobbly teeth with a purple tongue and muttering rhymes under your breath-
‘Keep talking, sapper, and you’ll know all about loose teeth. In fact, I’m surprised a few weren’t knocked right out when that bone hit you. Gods below, that is probably the funniest thing I have ever seen.’
Hedge reached and gingerly touched the huge lump on his forehead. ‘So, we did our task today. How do you think the others fared?’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ the wizard replied. ‘One thing, though.’
‘What?’
‘There is now an Azath House growing in this damned realm.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Oh, lots of things. First, this place is now real. And it will live on. These Imass will live on.’
Hedge grunted. ‘Rud Elalle will be pleased. Onrack, too, I imagine.’
‘Aye. And here’s another thing, only I don’t think it’ll please anyone. In that Azath House there will be a tower, and in that tower, all the gates.’
‘So?’
Quick Ben sighed. ‘You damned idiot. The Gates of Starvald Demelain.’
‘And?*
‘Just this. Shadowthrone, and Cotillion. Who like using the Azath whenever it suits them. Now they’ve got a way in. Not just to this realm, either.’
‘Into Starvald Demelain? Gods below, Quick! Is that why we just did all that? Is that what brought you here?’
‘No need to scream, sapper. When it came to planting that House, we weren’t even witnesses. Were we? But you know, it’s what those two sneaky bastards know, or seem to know, that really worries me. See my point?’
‘Oh, Hood piss in your boots, Ben Adaephon Delat.’
‘Got all your gear there, Hedge? Good. Because once we get to the Gates, we’re going through one of them.’
‘We are?’
‘We are.’ And the wizard grinned across at the sapper. ‘Fid’s never been the same without you.’
Silchas Ruin stood among ancient foundations-some Forkrul Assail remnant slumping its slow way down the mountainside-and lifted his face to the blue sky beyond the towering trees.
He had fulfilled his vow to the Azath.
And delivered unto the soul of Scabandari a reprieve Bloodeye did not deserve.
Vengeance, he well knew, was a poisoned triumph.
One task remained. A minor one, intended to serve little more than his own sense of redressing an egregious imbalance. He knew little of this Crippled God. But what little he knew, Silchas Ruin did not like.
Accordingly, he now spread his arms. And veered into his dragon form.
Surged skyward, branches torn away from the trees he shouldered aside. Into the crisp mountain air-far to the west, a pair of condors banked away in sudden terror. But the direction Silchas Ruin chose was not to the west.
South.
To a city called Letheras.
And this time, in truth, there was blood on his mind.