The main thoroughfare continued on another two hundred paces, they could see, opening out on to an expansive round. At the far end rose the most imposing structure they had seen yet.

'There it is,' Skintick said. 'The Abject . . . altar. It's where the singing is coming from, I think.'

Nimander nodded.

'Should we take a closer look?'

He nodded again. 'Until something happens.'

'Does being attacked by a raving mob count?' Skintick asked.

Figures were racing into the round, threadbare but with weapons in their hands that they waved about over their heads, their song suddenly ferocious, as they began marching towards the two Tiste Andii.

'Here was I thinking we were going to be left alone,' Nimander said. 'If we run, we'll just lead them back to the inn.'

'True, but holding the gate should be manageable, two of us at a time, spelling each other.'

Nimander was the first to hear a sound behind him and he spun round, sword hissing from the scabbard.

Kallor.

The old warrior walked towards them. 'You kicked them awake,' he said.

'We were sightseeing,' said Skintick, 'and though this place is miserable we kept our opinions to ourselves. In any case, we were just discussing what to do now.'

'You could stand and fight.'

'We could,' agreed Nimander, glancing back at the mob. Now fifty paces away and closing fast. 'Or we could beat a retreat.'

'They're brave right now,' Kallor observed, stepping past and drawing his two-handed sword. As he walked he looped the plain, battered weapon over his head, a few pa.s.ses, as if loosening up his shoulders. Suddenly he did not seem very old at all.

Skintick asked, 'Should we help him?'

'Did he ask for help, Skin?'

'No, you're right, he didn't.'

They watched as Kallor marched directly into the face of the mob.

And all at once that mob blew apart, people scattering, crowding out to the sides as the singing broke up into wails of dismay. Kallor hesitated for but a moment, before resuming his march. In the centre of a corridor now that had opened up to let him pa.s.s.

'He just wants to see that altar,' Skintick said, 'and he's not the one they're bothered with. Too bad,' he added, 'it might have been interesting to see the old badger fight.'

'Let's head back,' Nimander said, 'while they're distracted.'

'If they let us.'

They turned and set off, at an even, unhurried pace. After a dozen or so strides Skintick half turned. He grunted, then said, 'They've left us to it. Nimander, the message seems clear. To get to that altar, we will have to go through them.'

'So it seems.'

'Things will get messy yet.'

Yes, they would.

'So, do you think Kallor and the Dying G.o.d will have a nice conversation? Observations on the weather. Reminiscing on the old tyrannical days when everything was all fun and games. Back when the blood was redder, its taste sweeter. Do you think?'

Nimander said nothing, thinking instead of those faces in that mob, the black stains smeared round their mouths, the pits of their eyes. Clothed in rags, caked with filth, few children among them, as if the kelyk made them all equal, regardless of age, regardless of any sort of readiness to manage the world and the demands of living. They drank and they starved and the present was the future, until death stole away that future. A simple trajectory. No worries, no ambitions, no dreams.

Would any of that make killing them easier? No.

'I do not want to do this,' Nimander said.

'No,' Skintick agreed. 'But what of Clip?'

'I don't know.'

'This kelyk is worse than a plague, because its victims invite it into their lives, and then are indifferent to their own suffering. It forces the question have we any right to seek to put an end to it, to destroy it?'

'Maybe not,' Nimander conceded.

'But there is another issue, and that is mercy.'

He shot his cousin a hard look. 'We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin-'

'Not them of course not. I was thinking of the Dying G.o.d.'

Ah . . . well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying G.o.d without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. 'Thank you, Skin.'

'For what?'

'We will sneak past them.'

'Carrying Clip?'

'Yes.'

'That won't be easy it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying G.o.d grants gifts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do.'

'We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means something.'

Desra pulled her hand from Clip's brow. 'I was wrong. He's getting worse.' And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. 'How are they?'

A languid blink. 'Coming back, unharmed.'

Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too . . . empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.

Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. 'Did you find anything to eat in the taproom? Or drink?'

The warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra's questions he glanced back. 'Plenty, as if they'd just left or maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.'

'Someone must be growing proper food, then,' said Kedeviss. 'Or arranging its purchase from other towns and the like.'

'They've gone to a lot of trouble for us,' Nenanda observed. 'And that makes me uneasy.'

'Clip is dying, Aranatha,' Desra said.

'Yes.'

'They're back,' Nenanda announced.

'Nimander will know what to do,' Desra p.r.o.nounced.

'Yes,' said Aranatha.

She circled once, high above the city, and even her preternatural sight struggled against the eternal darkness below. Kurald Galain was a most alien warren, even in this diffused, weakened state. Pa.s.sing directly over the slumbering ma.s.s of Silanah, Crone cackled out an ironic greeting. Of course there was no visible response from the crimson dragon, yet the Great Raven well knew that Silanah sensed her wheeling overhead. And no doubt permitted, in a flash of imagery, the vision of jaws snapping, bones and feathers crunching as delicious fluids spurted Crone cackled again, louder this time, and was rewarded with a twitch of that long, serpentine tail.

She slid on to an updraught from the cliff's edge, then angled down through it on a steep dive towards the low-walled balcony of the keep.

He stood alone, something she had come to expect of late. The Son of Darkness was closing in, like an onyx flower as the bells of midnight rang on, chime by chime to the twelfth and last, and then there would be naught but echoes, until even these faded, leaving silence. She crooked her wings to slow her plummet, the keep still rushing up to meet her. A flurry of beating wings and she settled atop the stone wall, talons crunching into the granite.

'And does the view ever change?' Crone asked.

Anomander Rake looked down, regarded her for a time.

She opened her beak to laugh in silence for a few heartbeats. 'The Tiste Andii are not a people p.r.o.ne to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future? Do you imagine that our flight from his rotting flesh was not one of rapturous glee? Pleasure at being born, delight at being alive? Oh, I have run out of questions for you it is indeed now a sad time.'

'Does Baruk understand, Crone?'

'He does. More or less. Perhaps. We'll see.'

'Something is happening to the south.'

She bobbed her head in agreement. 'Something, oh yes, something all right. Are the priestesses in a wild orgy yet? The plunge that answers everything everything! Or, rather, postpones the need for answers for a time, a time of corresponding bliss, no doubt. But then . . . reality returns. d.a.m.n reality, d.a.m.n it to the Abyss! Time for another plunge!' 'Travel has soured your mood, Crone.'

'It is not in my nature to grieve. I despise it, in fact. I rail against it! My sphincter explodes upon it! And yet, what is it you force upon me, your old companion, your beloved servant?'

'I have no such intention,' he replied. 'Clearly, you fear the worst. Tell me, what have your kin seen?'

'Oh, they are scattered about, here and there, ever high above the petty machinations of the surface crawlers. We watch as they crawl this way and that. We watch, we laugh, we sing their tales to our sisters, our brothers.'

'And?'

She ducked her head, fixed one eye upon the tumultuous black seas below. 'This darkness of yours, Master, breeds fierce storms.'

'So it does.'

'I will fly high above the twisting clouds, into air clear and cold.'

'And so you shall, Crone, so you shall.'

'I dislike it when you are generous, Master. When that soft regard steals into your eyes. It is not for you to reveal compa.s.sion. Stand here, yes, unseen, unknowable, that I might hold this in my mind. Let me think of the ice of true justice, the kind that never shatters listen, I hear the bells below! How sure that music, how true the cry of iron.'

'You are most poetic this day, Crone.'

'It is how Great Ravens rail at grief, Master. Now, what would you have me do?'

'Endest Silann is at the deep river.'

'Hardly alone, I should think.'

'He must return.'

She was silent for a moment, head c.o.c.ked. Then she said, 'Ten bells have sounded.'

'Ten.'

'I shall be on my way, then.'

'Fly true, Crone.'

'I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.'

He smiled. 'There is no need for that.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Who are you to judge whether she is old or young, and if she is lifting the bucket or lowering it down into this well?

And is she pretty or plain as undyed linen, is she a sail riding the summer wind bright as a maiden's eye above waves of blue?

Does her walk sway in pleasure and promise of bracing dreams as if the earth could sing fertile as joyous b.u.t.terflies in a flowered field, or has this saddle stretched slack in cascades of ripe fruit and rides no more through blossomed orchards? Who then are you to cage in presumptuous iron the very mystery that calls us to life where hovers the br.i.m.m.i.n.g bucket, ever poised between dark depths and choral sunlight she is beauty and this too is a criminal exhortation, and nothing worthwhile is to be found in your regard that does little more than stretch this frayed rope so shame!

Dismissal delivers vicious wounds and she walks away or walks to with inner cringing.

Dare not speak of fairness, dare not indulge cruel judgement when here I sit watching and all the calculations between blinks invite the mult.i.tude to heavy scorn and see that dwindling sail pa.s.sing for ever beyond you as is her privilege there on the sea of flowers all sweet fragrance swirling in her wake it will never ever reach you and this is balance, this is measure, this is the observance of strangers who hide their tears when turning away.

Young Men Against a Wall Nekath of One Eye Cat