Smile with her. Oh, do smile with her!

Whilst at this very moment, the object of Tiserra's devotion strides into the courtyard of the Varada estate, his new place of employment. His mind, which had been calm in the course of his walk from home, now stirs with faint unease. He had sent Scorch and Leff home, and he had stood at the gate watching them stumble off like undead, and this had made him think of moments of greatest danger just before dawn was the moment to strike, if one intended such violence but who would bother? What was this mysterious Lady Varada up to anyway?

A seat on the Council, true, but was that sufficient cause for a.s.sa.s.sination? And why was he thinking of such things at all? There'd been rumours picked up at the drunk baker's stall that the night just past should have belonged to the a.s.sa.s.sins' Guild but had turned sour for the hired killers and oh, wasn't that regrettable? A moment of silence then pa.s.s the dumplings, if you please.

Now he paused in the courtyard, seeing the latest employees, his peculiar charges, with their dubious pasts and potentially alarming motivations. Reunited, yes, with the castellan, with the infamous Studious Lock. Madrun and Lazan Door were tossing knuckles against the compound wall to his right. Technically, their shift was over, although Torvald Nom suspected that this game of theirs had been going on for some time. Another word of warning to them? No, his spirits were already plunging, as they were wont to do when he awakened to a sense that something was being pulled over him, that he was being connived around as his mother used to say when with one foot she pinned young Torvald to the floor and stared down at him as he squirmed and thrashed (mostly an act, of course; she weighed about as much as a guard dog, without the bite). Connived around, dear boy, and when I get to the bottom of things and all the trouble's on the table, why, who will I find hiding in the closet? His sweet mother never quite mastered the extended metaphor, bless her.

Suddenly too despondent to so much as announce his arrival, Torvald Nom headed for his office, eager to climb over the desk and plant himself in the chair, where he could doze until the sounding of the lunch chime. At least the cooks she'd employed knew their business.

Leave him there, now, and ride one last ripple, out beyond the city, west along the lakesh.o.r.e, out to a dusty, smoky pit where the less privileged laboured through their shortened lives to keep such creatures as Gorlas Vidikas and Humble Measure at the level of comfort and ent.i.tlement they held to be righteous. And, to be fair, they laboured as well to contribute to the general feeling of civilization, which is normally measured by technical wherewithal, a sense of progression and the notion of structural stability, little of which said labourers could themselves experience, save vicariously.

The child Harllo has been lashed ten times for being places he wasn't supposed to be, and this punishment was fierce enough to leave him prostrate, lying on his stomach on his cot with thick unguents slowly melting into the wounds on his back.

Bainisk had received a whip to his left shoulder which would result in the third such scar for dereliction of his responsibilities as overseer in Chuffs, and he now came to sit beside Harllo, studying his young charge in a silence that stretched.

Until at last Harllo said, 'I'm sorry, Bainisk-'

'Never mind that. I just want to know what you were up to. I didn't think you'd keep secrets from me, I really didn't. Venaz is saying "I told you so". He's saying you're no good, Mole, and that I should just push you on to the dredge crews.'

The young ones did not live long in the dredge crews. 'Venaz wants to be your best mole again.'

'I know that, only he's grown too big.'

'People like him never like people like me,' Harllo said. This was not a whine, just an observation.

'Because you're smarter than he is and his being older means nothing, means it's worse even, because in your head you're already past him, past us all, maybe. Listen, Harllo, I seen ones like you before, coming in, going through. They get beaten down, beaten stupid. Or they end up getting killed. Maybe they try to run, maybe they stand up to the pit bosses over something. Your smartness is what's going to ruin you, you understand?'

'Yes, Bainisk. I'm sorry.'

'Why'd you sneak back into the tunnels?'

He could tell him everything. At this moment, it seemed like the right thing to do. But Harllo no longer trusted himself with such feelings. Explaining was dangerous. It could get them all into even more trouble.

'You was carrying bones,' said Bainisk. 'Those bones, they're cursed.'

'Why?'

'They just are.'

'But why, Bainisk?'

'Because they were found where no bones belong, that's why. So far down it's impossible that anybody buried them and besides, who'd bury dead animals? No, those bones, they're from demons that live in the rock and in the dark. Right down with the roots of the earth. You don't touch them, Harllo, and you never ever try putting them back.'

So this was what Bainisk suspected him of doing, then? 'I was . . . I was scared,' Harllo said. 'It was as if we were disturbing graves or something. And that's why there've been so many accidents lately-'

'Them accidents are because the new boss is pushing us too hard, into the tunnels with the cracked ceilings and the bad air the kind of air that makes you see things that ain't real.'

'I think maybe that's what happened to me.'

'Maybe, but,' and he rose, 'I don't think so.'

He walked away then. Tomorrow, Harllo was expected to return to work. He was frightened of that, since his back hurt so, but he would do it, because it would make things easier for Bainisk who'd been punished when he shouldn't have been. Harllo would work extra hard, no matter the pain and all; he would work extra hard so Bainisk would like him again.

Because, in this place, with no one liking you, there didn't seem much point in going on.

Lying on his stomach, fresh into another year of life, Harllo felt no ripples reach him from the outside world. Instead, he felt alone. Maybe he'd lost a friend for ever and that felt bad, too. Maybe his only friend was a giant skeleton in the depths of the mines who with new legs might have walked away, disappeared into the dark, and all Harllo had to remember him by was a handful of tools hidden beneath his cot.

For a child, thinking of the future was a difficult thing, since most thoughts of the future built on memories of the past, whether in continuation or serving as contrast, and a child held few memories of his or her past. The world was truncated forward and back. Measure it from his toes to the top of his head, tousle the mop of hair in pa.s.sing, and when nothing else is possible, hope for the best.

In the faint phosphor glow streaking the rock, a T'lan Ima.s.s climbed to his feet and stood like someone who had forgotten how to walk. The thick, curved femurs of the emlava forced him into a half-lean, as if he was about to launch himself forward, and the ridged ball of the long bones, where it rested in the socket of each hip, made grinding sounds as he fought for balance.

Unfamiliar sorcery, this. He had observed how connecting tissue had re-knitted, poorly at first, to these alien bones, and he had come to understand that such details were a kind of conceit. The Ritual forced animation with scant subtlety, and whatever physical adjustments occurred proceeded at a snail's pace, although their present incompleteness seemed to have no effect on his ability to settle his weight on these new legs, even to move them into his first lurching step, then his second.

The grinding sounds would fade in time, he thought, as ball and socket were worn into a match, although he suspected he would never stand as erect as he once had.

No matter. Dev'ad Anan Tol was mobile once more. And as he stood, a flood of memories rose within him in a dark tide.

Leading to that last moment, with the Jaghut Tyrant, Raest, standing before him, blood-smeared mace in one hand, as Dev'ad writhed on the stone floor, legs for ever shattered.

No, he had not been flung from a ledge. Sometimes, it was necessary to lie.

He wondered if the weapons he had forged, so long ago now, still remained hidden in their secret place. Not far. After a moment, the T'lan Ima.s.s set out. Feet sc.r.a.ping, his entire body pitching from side to side.

Raest's unhuman face twisted indignant. Outraged. Slaves were ever slaves. None could rise to challenge the master. None could dare plot the master's downfall, none could get as close as Dev'ad had done. Yes, an outrage, a crime against the laws of nature itself.

'I break you, T'lan. I leave you here, in this pit of eternal darkness. To die. To rot. None shall know a word of your mad ambition. All knowledge of you shall fade, shall vanish. Nothing of you shall remain. Know this, could I keep you alive down here for ever, I would and even that torture would not suffice. In my enforced indifference, T'lan, lies mercy.'

See me now. I have outlived you, Raest. And there, old friend, lies my my mercy. mercy.

He came to the secret place, a deep crack in the wall, into which he reached. His hand closed about a heavy, rippled blade, and Dev'ad dragged the weapon out.

The T'lan knew stone, stone that was water and water that was stone. Iron belonged to the Jaghut.

He held up the sword he had made countless thousands of years ago. Yes, it had the form of flint, the ridges encircling every flake struck from the edge, the undulating modulations of parallel flaking and the twin flutes running the length to either side of a wavy dorsal spine. The antler base that formed the grip was now mineralized, a most comforting and pleasing weight.

The form of flint indeed. And yet this sword was made of iron, tempered in the holy fires of Tellann. Impervious to rust, to decay, the huge weapon was the hue of first night, the deep blue sky once the final light of the drowned sun had faded. In the moment of the stars' birth, yes, that was the colour of this blade.

He leaned it point down against the wall and reached into the crack again, drawing out a matching knife hefty as a shortsword. The hide sheaths had long since rotted to dust, but he would make new ones soon.

The Tyrant of old was gone. Somewhere close, then, waited an empty throne.

Waiting for Dev'ad Anan Tol. Who had once been crippled but was crippled no longer.

He raised both weapons high, the dagger in his right hand, the sword in his left. Slashes of first night, in the moment of the stars' birth. Iron in the guise of stone, iron in the guise of stone that is water and water that is stone and stone that is iron. Jaghut tyranny in the hands of a T'lan Ima.s.s.

The G.o.ds are fools, alas, in believing every piece in the game is known. That the rules are fixed and accepted by all; that every wager is counted and marked, exposed and glittering on the table. The G.o.ds lay out their perfect paths to the perfect thrones, each one representing perfect power.

The G.o.ds are fools because it never occurs to them that not everyone uses paths.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Beneath the battered shield of the sky The man sits in a black saddle atop a black horse His hair long and grey drifting out round his iron helm Knowing nothing of how he came to be here Only that where he has come to be is nowhere And where he must go is perhaps near His beard is the hue of dirty snow His eyes are eyes that will never thaw

Beneath him the horse does not breathe Nor does the man and the wind moans hollow Along the dents of his rusty scaled hauberk And it is too much to shift about to the approach Of riders one from his right the other from his left On dead horses with empty eyes they rein in Settle silent with strange familiarity Flanking easy his natural command

Beneath these three the ground is lifeless And within each ashes are stirred in the dirge Of grim recollections that slide seeping into regret But all is past and the horses do not move And so he glances rightward with jaw clenching Upon the one-eyed regard he once knew though not well Answering the wry smile with sudden need So he asks, 'Are they waiting, Corporal?'

'Bequeathed and loose on the dead plain, Sergeant, And was this not what you wanted?'

To that he can but shrug and set gaze upon the other 'I see your garb and know you, sir, yet do not.'

Black beard and visage dark, a brow like cracked basalt A man heavy in armour few could stand in And he meets the observance with a grimace 'Then know, if you will, Brukhalian of the Grey Swords.'

Beneath these three thunder rides the unproven earth Nothing sudden but growing like an awakening heart And the echoes roll down from the shield overhead As iron reverberates the charge of what must be 'So once more, the Bridgeburners march to war.'

To which Brukhalian adds, 'Too the Grey Swords who fell And this you call Corporal was reborn only to die, A new bridge forged between you and me, good sir.'

They turn then on their unbreathing mounts To review the ranks arrayed in grainy ma.s.s on the plain Onward to war from where and what they had once been When all that was known is all that one knows again And in this place the heather never blooms The blood to be spilled never spills and never flows Iskar Jarak, Bird That Steals, sits astride a black horse And looks to command once more Sword and Shield Fisher kel Tath

Bliss on a sun-warmed sandy beach, on a remote island, proves tedious to souls habituated to stimulation and excitement. The smaller the island, the faster the scene palls. So Gruntle concluded after completing his thirtieth circle round the white rim of the sh.o.r.e, finding himself fascinated by his own footprints, especially when a new set arrived to track his path. Dulled and insensate as he had become, it was a moment before it occurred to him to halt and turn round, to see the one who now followed.

Master Quell was sweating, gasping, fighting through the soft sand as he probably fought through all of life, one wheezing step at a time. He was sunburned on one side of his body, face and neck, bared forearm, ankle and foot, the result of falling asleep in an unwise position. That he had been pursuing Gruntle for some time was clear in that his footprints completed an entire circ.u.mambulation, leaving Gruntle to wonder why the man had not simply called out to capture his attention. Indeed, if Gruntle had not noticed the new trail upon his own, they might well have gone round all day, one pursuing, the other simply walking at a pace the pursuer could not achieve.

'A simple shout,' he said as the man drew closer.

'I did not, uh, want, uh, to call undue attention, uh, upon us.'

'You do not sound well.'

'I need to pee.'

'Then-'

'I can't. Well, I can, but intermittently. Generally when I'm not, er, thinking about it.'

'Ah. A healer could-'

'Yes, yes, I know. Never mind that. Listen-'

'Master Quell,' said Gruntle, 'this was not the way to avoid undue attention everyone else is sitting right there in the shade of the carriage, and they have been watching us for some time. Me, at least. Why, the Bole brothers wave to me with every pa.s.s I make.'

They both glanced over and, sure enough, Jula and Amby waved.

Master Quell rubbed at his bicolour red and pasty face. 'I need an escort.'

'For what? To where?'

'Back to the realm of the dead. No, not in the carriage. Just you and me, Gruntle. I need to get a sense of what's going on. We need to just, er, slip in. A quick look round, then back out.'

'And then?'

Quell's brows lifted. 'Then? Well, we resume our journey, of course.'

'You want me to escort you into Hood's realm, as what, your bodyguard?'

The man bristled slightly. 'The shareholder agreement you have made with the Guild includes discretionary tasks as a.s.signed by the Pilot.'

Gruntle shrugged. 'I was but wondering, Master Quell, what possible use I could be, given that the realm is awash with rabid ma.s.ses of miserable corpses.'

'I said we'd go in quiet!' 'We could ask the pa.s.senger we picked up back there.'

'What? Oh, is he still here?'

'Under the palm trees.'

'Under them? Only a dead man could be so stupid. Fine, let's see what we can find out but I still need to see some things for myself.'

The rest of the crew, along with Mappo, watched them walk over to the twin palm trees, edging into their shade to stand nervously before the gaunt, withered undead who was piling up coconuts into pyramids like catapult ammunition. Even as he worked, unmindful of his new guests, another nut thumped heavily on the sand nearby, making both Gruntle and Quell flinch.