“Already on his way back eastwards with no time even to burn the dead. He is heading for Darmium, to lay siege to the city and hang this madman Cabrian from the walls. Then perhaps we can have peace.”

Bayaz gave a joyless snort. “Do you even remember what it feels like, to have peace?”

“You might be surprised at what I remember.” And Zacharus’ bulging eyes stared down at Bayaz. “But how are matters in the wider world? How is Yulwei?”

“Watching, as always.”

“And what of our other brother, the shame of our family, the great Prophet Khalul?”

Bayaz’ face grew hard. “He grows in strength. He begins to move. He senses his moment has come.”

“And you mean to stop him, of course?”

“What else should I do?”

“Hmmm. Khalul was in the South, when last I heard, yet you journey westward. Have you lost your way, brother? There is nothing out here but the ruins of the past.”

“There is power in the past.”

“Power? Hah! You never change. Strange company, you ride with, Bayaz. Young Malacus Quai I know, of course. How goes it, teller of tales?” he called out to the apprentice. “How goes it, talker? How does my brother treat you?”

Quai stayed hunched on his cart. “Well enough.”

“Well enough? That’s all? You have learned to stay silent, then, at least. How did you teach him that, Bayaz? That I never could make him learn.”

Bayaz frowned up at Quai. “I hardly had to.”

“So. What did Juvens say? The best lessons one teaches oneself.” Zacharus turned his bulging eyes on Ferro, and the eyes of his birds turned with him, all as one. “This is a strange one you have here.”

“She has the blood.”

“You still need one who can speak with the spirits.”

“He can.” Bayaz nodded his head at Ninefingers. The big pink had been fiddling with his saddle but now he looked up, bewildered.

“Him?” Zacharus frowned. Much anger, Ferro thought, but some sadness, and some fear. The birds on his shoulders, and his head, and the tip of his staff, stood tall and spread their wings, and flapped and squawked. “Listen to me, brother, before it is too late. Give up this folly. I will stand with you against Khalul. I will stand with you and Yulwei. The three of us, together, as it was in the Old Time, as it was against the Maker. The Magi united. I will help you.”

There was a long silence, and hard lines spread out across Bayaz’ face. “You will help me? If only you had offered your help long ago, after the Maker fell, when I begged you for it. Then we might have torn up Khalul’s madness before it put down roots. Now the whole South swarms with Eaters, making the world their playground, treating the solemn word of our master with open scorn! The three of us will not be enough, I think. What then? Will you lure Cawneil from her books? Will you find Leru, under whatever stone she has crawled beneath in all the wide Circle of the World? Will you bring Karnault back from across the wide ocean, or Anselmi and Brokentooth from the land of the dead? The Magi united, is it?” And Bayaz’ lip curled into a sneer. “That time is done, brother. That ship sailed, long ago, never to return, and we were not on it!”

“I see!” hissed Zacharus, red-streaked eyes bulging wider than ever. “And if you find what you seek, what then? Do you truly suppose that you can control it? Do you dare to imagine that you can do what Glustrod, and Kanedias, and Juvens himself could not?”

“I am the wiser for their mistakes.”

“I hardly think so! You would punish one crime with a worse!”

Bayaz’ thin lips and hollow cheeks turned sharper still. No sadness, no fear, but much anger of his own. “This war was not of my making, brother. Did I break the Second Law? Did I make slaves of half the South for the sake of my vanity?”

“No, but we each had our part in it, and you more than most. Strange, how I remember things that you leave out. How you squabbled with Khalul. How Juvens determined to separate you. How you sought out the Maker, persuaded him to share his secrets.” Zacharus laughed, a harsh cackle, and his birds croaked and squawked along with him. “I daresay he never intended to share his daughter with you, eh, Bayaz? The Maker’s daughter? Tolomei? Is there room in your memory for her?”

Bayaz’ eyes glittered cold. “Perhaps the blame is mine,” he whispered. “The solution shall be mine also—”

“Do you think Euz spoke the First Law on a whim? Do you think Juvens put this thing at the edge of the World because it was safe? It is… it is evil!”

“Evil?” Bayaz snorted his contempt. “A word for children. A word the ignorant use for those who disagree with them. I thought we grew out of such notions long centuries ago.”

“But the risks—”

“I am resolved.” And Bayaz’ voice was iron, and well sharpened. “I have thought for long years upon it. You have said your piece, Zacharus, but you have offered me no other choices. Try and stop me, if you must. Otherwise, stand aside.”

“Then nothing has changed.” The old man turned to look at Ferro, his creased face twitching, and the dark eyes of his birds looked with him. “And what of you, devil-blood? Do you know what he would have you touch? Do you understand what he would have you carry? Do you have an inkling of the dangers?” A small bird hopped from his shoulder and started twittering round and round Ferro’s head in circles. “You would be better to run, and never to stop running! You all would!”

Ferro’s lip curled. She slapped the bird out of the air, and it clattered to the ground, hopping and tweeting away between the corpses. The others squawked and hissed and clucked their anger, but she ignored them. “You do not know me, old fool pink with a dirty beard. Do not pretend to understand me, or to know what I know, or what I have been offered. Why should I prefer the word of one old liar over another? Take your birds and keep your nose to your own business, then we will have no quarrel. The rest is wasted breath.”

Zacharus and his birds blinked. He frowned, opened his mouth, then shut it silently again as Ferro swung herself up into her saddle and jerked her horse round towards the west. She heard the sounds of the others following, hooves thumping, Quai cracking the reins of the cart, then Bayaz’ voice. “Listen to the birds of the air, the fish of the water, the beasts of the earth. Soon you will hear that Khalul has been finished, his Eaters turned to dust, the mistakes of the past buried, as they should have been, long ago.”

“I hope so, but I fear the news will be worse.” Ferro looked over her shoulder, and saw the two old men exchanging one more stare. “The mistakes of the past are not so easily buried. I earnestly hope that you fail.”

“Look around you, old friend.” And the First of the Magi smiled as he clambered up into his saddle. “None of your hopes ever come to anything.”

And so they rode away from the corpses in silence, past the broken hundred-mile column and into the dead land. Towards the ruins of the past. Towards Aulcus.

Under a darkening sky.