Chadfallow reached the window next, and visibly recoiled from what he saw. 'By the G.o.ds,' he huffed, leaning heavily on the stone.

Pazel came up beside him. Far below the tower, the river made an especially sharp bend, almost an ox-bow. The teardrop of land within its curve was about the size of the city of Ormael. It was teeming with life. Men, cattle, chickens, dogs. There were barracks and stockades, wooden halls, tents of sewn hide, grain silos, mills where water-wheels slowly revolved.

'Our allies,' said Sandor Ott.

Where the river bent closest to itself, a stout wall of timber leaped from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, with a pair of mighty wooden doors at the centre. A lesser wall ran the whole length of the riverbank, broken only by the mills and some sort of ma.s.sive lumber operation at the farthest point from the observers. Towers rose at intervals, each with a stout guard compliment. The fort was protected by water, wood, and men-at-arms.

'What are they building, Ott?' asked Drellarek.

'Ships,' said Pazel.

The sergeant blinked at him. 'You need gla.s.ses, if you can't see that much,' said Pazel. 'Those are framing timbers. And cut.w.a.ters. And keels.'

'Right you are, Pathkendle. Fifty ships, to be precise. There is no shortage of wood on Bramian. And we have no shortage of funds to pay for what they cannot manufacture here - sailcloth, cannon, the finer metalwork. Here they sit in the wilderness, gentlemen, unknown to anyone in the world but us, and a few dozen of my men. And yet thousands across Alifros have laboured unwittingly on their behalf. Flikkermen tracked down and kidnapped shipwrights. The slave-school on Nurth provides the wives. And Volpeks, those exquisitely useful outlaws, bring everything to the hidden anchorage at Sandplume, where my men meet them on a flagless ship. The Volpeks have no idea who their customers are, or where in Alifros their shipments go next. Bramian itself would be the last place to cross their minds! No one trades with these savages. We had the devil's own job building that wall, with their arrows raining down on us day and night.'

'But who's the wall protecting?' asked Swift. 'Who's down there, Mr Ott?'

A note of pride entered the spymaster's voice. 'They were castaways when we found them: war refugees, hiding in mangroves in the Baerrids, a few inches above sea level, surviving on gulls' eggs and rats. The Black Rags were unforgivably careless not to have killed them. Every year those men spent tortured by insect and typhoon, sleeping in burrows that filled with seawater, dying of scurvy or light wounds turned gangrenous, added to their hatred of the Mzithrin. They had spent a decade that way, since the s.h.a.ggat's rebellion was crushed at the end of the war.'

Chadfallow turned to the spymaster. His face was ashen. 'They're . . . his his people?' people?'

'Nessarim warriors,' said the spymaster, nodding. 'True believers, to a soul. As the s.h.a.ggat was fleeing east into our navy's gunsights, these poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were running south, packed into one groaning vessel, just hours ahead of the White Fleet. Somewhere east of Serpent's Head they foundered on a reef, and half their number drowned. But that reef was good fortune, for otherwise the Sizzies would have caught them on the open sea. They were no longer taking prisoners by that point in the war.

'We took them first to a camp on Opalt, where the sick perished and the strong fought their way back to health. But on Opalt they could do little more than hide, and worship their mad king in secret. That is why, five years ago, we brought them shipload by shipload to this place. Now they number over three thousand.'

'And fifty ships under construction,' said Drellarek. 'That's impressive. But hardly a threat to the White Fleet.'

'Of course not,' said Sandor Ott. 'The contest will be as lopsided as pitting a dog against a bear, as Captain Rose put it once. You're a hunting man yourself, Sergeant.'

Drellarek smiled. 'How did you know?'

'I'd be a poor spymaster if I didn't know that much about the Turach commander. And I'm sure you'll agree that dogs have a role in any bear hunt?'

'That's a certainty,' said Drellarek. 'A good pack can corner a bear, bleed it with nips, exhaust it, until at last it can only watch as the hunter raises his spear for the kill.'

'Of course you must bring enough enough dogs,' said Ott. 'The colony below is just one in our hunting-pack.' dogs,' said Ott. 'The colony below is just one in our hunting-pack.'

'And what of the dogs themselves?' asked Chadfallow quietly.

'What of them?' said Ott.

Grinning suddenly, he turned to Alyash with a gesture and a nod. The bosun hobbled forward, and Pazel saw that he too had extracted something from the saddlebags. It was a hunting-horn, stout and well-used, more powerful than lovely. Alyash faced the window, planted his feet and drew an enormous breath. Raising the horn, he sounded one long, keening blast. The high note shook the chamber, and carried far over the valley below.

When it ended, the sounds of labour from the settlement had ceased. Men were coming out of the buildings to gaze in the tower's direction. After a moment there came the sound of an answering horn.

Saroo and Erthalon Ness returned, the latter wearing an ethereal smile. He had seen his monkeys, or believed he had. Alyash pa.s.sed the horn to Ott and addressed the s.h.a.ggat's son in Mzithrini.

'Forget your monkeys,' he said. 'Don't you understand where we've brought you?'

The language-switch had an immediate effect on Erthalon Ness. His glance grew sharper, his face more stern. 'No, Warden, I don't. You tell me nothing. Where are you hiding my brother?'

Alyash swept his hand over the settlement. 'Those are the Nessarim, your father's worshippers. Keepers of your holy faith.'

'Not my faith,' said Erthalon Ness. 'The common faith of all mankind, only some have yet to see it. Some are afraid to cast the demons from their hearts, to burn unto purity, become new men. They will not always be afraid, however. Is not my father a G.o.d ?'

'a.s.suredly, sir, and these men know it better than any. They have waited long for this day. Waited for you to appear, to take your father's place as they sail forth to join him. Come, let us greet them at the river's edge.' He gestured dismissively at the others. 'These people are of no more consequence.'

Alyash put out his hand. Erthalon Ness looked at it, hesitating. A clash of emotions shone in his face: suspicion, temptation, fear - and some darker, wilder gleam.

'Men are casting off from the docks in rowing boats,' said Saroo, looking down from the window. 'And in barges, and canoes.'

Then Pazel did something that surprised them all. He ran forwards and stood between Alyash and the s.h.a.ggat's son.

'Don't go with him,' he said in Mzithrini.

'Pathkendle,' said Ott, his voice an open threat. But Alyash smiled, and raised a hand to calm the spymaster.

'They're using you,' said Pazel. 'They laugh at you and and your faith. They're sending you down to die among those people.' your faith. They're sending you down to die among those people.'

'Lies,' said Alyash. 'You've said it yourself, Erthalon. The time of your death has not yet arrived.'

'I will know the hour,' said Erthalon Ness, looking at Pazel uncertainly, 'and before it strikes I will be with my father again.'

'No you won't,' said Pazel. 'He's a blary statue in the hold of the Chathrand.' Chathrand.'

Soundlessly, Ott drew his sword. Chadfallow took a step forwards, as if he would intervene. But once more Alyash waved them off.

'Whose touch was it that turned your great father to stone?' he asked. 'You were there when it happened.'

'I was there,' echoed the other, turning accusingly to Pazel. 'I had almost forgotten. It was you!'

From the river below came the sound of singing. Erthalon Ness raised his head.

'They are calling you, child of the Divine,' said Alyash. 'And have no doubt: your father will live again, and just as the old tales promise, you shall sail out to meet him as he claims his kingdom.'

'You'll sail out and be killed!' shouted Pazel.

Alyash shook his head. 'Now who is laughing at the faith?'

Pazel was desperate. With every word he spoke he grew more certain that Ott or Drellarek would kill him. But he simply had to fight. If he didn't, these men would take everything - take Alifros itself - to say nothing of the life of this broken man.

'Listen to me,' he begged, taking the other's arm. 'You must know that they hate you. Didn't they lock you up all these years?'

'I think he is referring to your palace on Licherog, Excellency,' said the bosun. 'As for your father's people, how could any sane man think we wished them harm? After all, we rescued them from starvation, and built them this place of safety and hiding, when the five false Kings were slaughtering any man pledged to your father who strayed a league from Gurishal. Enough of this nonsense, Excellency. Your people are waiting.'

The s.h.a.ggat's son looked once more at Pazel. A scowl of hatred twisted his face, and he wrenched his arm away. But as soon as he had done so the hatred vanished, and the man looked simply lost. His lips trembled, and his eyes drifted miserably over the stones.

'My people,' he said, and there was more loneliness in those two words than Pazel had ever heard a voice express.

The man permitted Alyash to take his elbow, and together they descended the stair.

24.

The Editor, Being of the Opinion that Suspense is a Vulgar Commonplace, Reveals the End of the Story

One by one they died. All of them, the vicious and the virtuous, the Drellareks and the Diadrelus, their lovers, their foes. The nations they bled for, killed for: those perished too. Some in extraordinary style, a conflagration of prejudice and greed, coupled to war machinery. Others were simply buried as the vast, unsound palaces they dwelt in collapsed, those houses of quarried contradiction.

They died, you see. What else could have happened? I witnessed a number of deaths, heard others related by those who were present; I even contributed some names to the tally - your editor is a murderer; it's not as rare as you think. Until quite recently I had comrades from that time, fellow survivors, people in whose eyes a certain light kindled when I said Chathrand Chathrand or or Nilstone Nilstone or or the honour of the clan the honour of the clan. Never many. Today, none at all.

It was all so long ago, an age. How many of the young scholars around me today, in my incontinent dotage, believe that the world of Pazel and Thasha ever existed - that it was ever as cruel or as blessed or as ignorant as we found it? No one in this place even looks looks like a Pazel or a Thasha. Why should they believe in them? So long as I live I am proof of a sort - but I, who sailed on like a Pazel or a Thasha. Why should they believe in them? So long as I live I am proof of a sort - but I, who sailed on Chathrand Chathrand to her last hour, resemble myself less and less each pa.s.sing year. And when I die there will be those who pause on the library stair to gaze at my portrait, wondering if the artist were mad. to her last hour, resemble myself less and less each pa.s.sing year. And when I die there will be those who pause on the library stair to gaze at my portrait, wondering if the artist were mad.

What's left of those people? The ones I loved, the ones I detested? Not their faces (you must give them those yourself), nor their bones (though I keep Ott's skull on the parlour table, and talk to it sometimes; he's the only one whose looks have improved), nor their skins, shoes, teeth, voices, graves. Even the museums that collected artefacts from that time have crumbled, and the stone markers that read Here stood the museum Here stood the museum. What's left? Their ideas. Still today - when the world is utterly changed, when men of learning begin to argue that human beings never had a time of glory, never built great cities, never tamed the Nelluroq or tasted the magic that moves the stars - still today, we need those ideas about the dignity of consciousness, the brotherhood of the fearless and the sceptical, the efficacy of love.

I hear your laughter. The young scholars laugh too, and whisper: That old spook upstairs has gone sentimental, mixing up his memories and his dreams That old spook upstairs has gone sentimental, mixing up his memories and his dreams. Laugh, then. May your mirth last longer than a thunderclap, and your ironies, and your youth. In the end you'll be left with ideas - nothing else - and one or two of you will have spent your lives working honestly to help the best ideas flourish and grow. My friends on the Chathrand Chathrand were such people. That is why I must record their story before I go. were such people. That is why I must record their story before I go.

We are not blood and gristle and hair and spit. We are ideas, if we are anything at all. That part of us that was never truly living is the only part of us that cannot die. Now then, back to Bramian.

25.

A Picnic on the Wall

23 Freala 941 132nd day from Etherhorde

When dawn broke in the tower, Dr Chadfallow at last did Pazel a good turn: he took the youth on his own horse, getting him away from Sandor Ott. When the spymaster noticed the arrangement, he gave the doctor a long, cold appraisal, but did not speak.

It occurred to Pazel that Chadfallow might have just saved his life, but it was almost impossible for him to feel grat.i.tude. For a long time he could think only of his last glimpse of the s.h.a.ggat's son, releasing Alyash's hand in a muddy clearing beneath the tower, and being lifted onto the shoulders of the thin, strong, wildly tattooed and altogether deadly Nessarim. He heard again the terrible war cry that had started when they lifted Erthalon Ness: a cry that swept down to the riverbank, leaped across the water, and then like a fuse that has burned its way to the firecracker, exploded from every mouth in the settlement: From one spark a storm of fire, from one womb a nation!

The s.h.a.ggat for us is truth entire, for others a conflagration!

Every foe his wrath shall feel, every liar hear him!

Lesser kings to him shall kneel, and fearless warriors fear him!

So ever nearer heaven's door in prayer and blood annointed, We follow him, we follow him, unto the hour appointed!

The chant had broken up into a high, fierce caterwauling that raised the hairs on the back of Pazel's neck. Ott had explained that the Nessarim had borrowed this last cry from the Leopard People: it was the sound they made when they attacked the colony in force. The Nessarim actually admired the Leopard People's courage and swiftness, he said, and tried to show their respect through the mimicry. Ott's ultimate goal was conversion of the tribes themselves to the s.h.a.ggat cult: unlikely, he admitted, but not inconceivable.

Their second journey along the wall was even more spectacular than the first. A rainbow arched over the northern mountains; palms waved their emerald tresses from the ridgetops; a waterfall gleamed in the morning sun. But the beauty only made Pazel feel more sick at heart. He did not know why he had risked so much for a madman, but he knew quite well that he had failed. The man tried to believe me. Why couldn't he face the truth? The man tried to believe me. Why couldn't he face the truth?

He clenched his fingers in the horse's mane, thoughts sliding from mystery to mystery. At last they settled on one that concerned the man behind him.

'Ignus,' he said. 'Tell me about the prisoner exchange, back in Simja. How do you know they had my mother, and Neda? Did you see them?'

Chadfallow tensed. For several minutes he said nothing at all. Then he said, 'Don't be obtuse, Pazel. When could I have seen them? My counterpart Acheleg swore that they were there, both of them, in Simjalla City.'

'When was the exchange supposed to happen?'

Chadfallow sighed. 'The morning after the wedding. Which as it turned out was also the day the Chathrand Chathrand and the and the Jistrolloq Jistrolloq almost came to blows. The day you translated Rose's threats.' almost came to blows. The day you translated Rose's threats.'

'Ah,' said Pazel. 'Well.'

'Yes. Well.'

Pazel was glad the doctor could not see his eyes. He was furious. Did Chadfallow think he'd had a choice? Hadn't the man noticed how he'd twisted Rose's words to make them less insulting to the Mzithrinis? Was it his fault that Arunis had dispatched some kind of demon to murder the Babqri Father?

They rode on in silence a while, watching mice and lizards at the horses' approach. Then Chadfallow began to speak again. 'I negotiated the exchange in private. I worked at it for three years - from the moment I heard of plans for a Great Peace. I obtained a writ of extradition signed by His Supremacy, to be presented to the Warden of Licherog. But all that was before I knew of the s.h.a.ggat conspiracy.'

'I don't believe a word you say,' said Pazel, his voice tight as a wire. 'You could have ended the conspiracy at the governor's table in Ormael. Instead you denied that the s.h.a.ggat was aboard. You laughed at us, said that Arunis couldn't be the real real Arunis, called us a bunch of overexcited children. You kept us from exposing the whole festering lie.' Arunis, called us a bunch of overexcited children. You kept us from exposing the whole festering lie.'

'I saw the s.h.a.ggat hanged!' snapped Chadfallow. 'Of course I didn't believe he'd returned! Besides, I was in shock, like you. In shock at the depth of Ott's betrayal.'

'I don't think you were shocked at all,' said Pazel. 'I think you're still a part of the conspiracy. I think your job from the start has been to make me useful to them - me and my G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned Gift.'

Chadfallow's knuckles were white on the reins. He was struggling with himself.

'Did you see the list of Mzithrini names, that day?'

'I saw it,' said Pazel, recalling how he and Neeps had pored over the sc.r.a.ps of parchment.

'How many of them did we have on board?'

Pazel hesitated 'Mzithrinis? None, as far as I--'

'None. Exactly. We never collected them - they rot on Licherog yet, if they are alive at all. Ott lied to me as he did to everyone. Three years of talks, and when the day came, I had no prisoners to give the Mzithrinis. What, then, do you imagine I planned to bargain with?'

'I don't know, Ignus. Gold?'

'The s.h.a.ggat Ness. The s.h.a.ggat, author of eighty thousand deaths in the Pentarchy. Think, Pazel: any Mzithrini old enough to recall that face would give me the keys to the five kingdoms to be allowed to put a knife in his heart! Your mother and Neda - they would have been nothing, no price at all. By now they'd be free, Suthinia would be--'