'Only, that I was smart as you, Mayfly. You're so smart you got no ' pinions and that's pretty smart an' it makes me wonder if you ain't goin' t'waste being a heavy an' that. A soljer.'

'I ain't smart, Flashwit. Trust me on that, an' you know how I know?'

'No, how?'

''Cause… down there… you an' me, an' Saltlick an' Shortnose an'

Uru Hela an' Hanno, us heavies. We didn't get scared, not one of us, and that's how I know.'

'It wasn't scary. Jus' dark, an' it seemed t'go on for ever an' waitin' for Bottle to get us through, well that got boring sometimes, you know.'

'Right, and did the fire get you scared?'

'Well, burnin' hurt, didn't it?'

'Sure did.'

'I didn't like that.'

'Me neither.'

'So, what do you think we're all gonna do now?'

'The Fourteenth? Don't know, save the world, maybe.'

'Yeah. Maybe. I'd like that.'

'Me too.'

'Hey, is that the sun comin' up?'

'Well, it's east where it's getting brighter, so I guess, yeah, it must be.'

'Great. I bin waiting for this. I think.'

Cuttle found sergeants Thom Tissy, Cord and Gesler gathered near the base of the slope leading up to the west road. It seemed they weren't much interested in the rising sun. 'You're all looking serious,' the sapper said.

'We got a walk ahead of us,' Gesler said, 'that's all.'

'The Adjunct had no choice,' Cuttle said. 'That was a firestorm – there was no way she could have known there'd be survivors – digging under it all that way.'

Gesler glanced at the other two sergeants, then nodded. 'It's all right, Cuttle. We know. We're not contemplating murder or anything.'

Cuttle turned to face the camp. 'Some of the soldiers are thinking wrong on all of this.'

'Aye,' said Cord, 'but we'll put 'em straight on it before this day's out.'

'Good. Thing is,' he hesitated, turning back to the sergeants, 'I've been thinking on that. Who in Hood's name is going to believe us? More like we did our own deal with the Queen of Dreams. After all, we got one of Leoman's officers with us. And now, with the captain and Sinn going and getting themselves outlawed, well, it could be seen we're all traitors or something.'

'We made no deal with the Queen of Dreams,' Cord said.

'Are you sure about that?'

All three sergeants looked at him then.

Cuttle shrugged. 'Bottle, he's a strange one. Maybe he did make some deal, with somebody. Maybe the Queen of Dreams, maybe some other god.'

'He'd have told us, wouldn't he?' Gesler asked.

'Hard to say. He's a sneaky bastard. I'm getting nervous about that damned rat biting every one of us, like it knew what it was doing and we didn't.'

'Just a wild rat,' said Thom Tissy. 'Ain't nobody's pet, so why wouldn't it bite?'

Gesler said, 'Listen, Cuttle, sounds like you're just finding new things to worry about. What's the point of doing that? What we've got ahead of us right now is a long walk, and us with no armour, no weapons and virtually no clothing – the sun's gonna bake people crisp.'

'We need to find a village,' Cord said, 'and hope to Hood plague ain't found it first.'

'There you go, Cuttle,' Gesler said, grinning. 'Now you got another thing to worry about.'

Paran began to suspect that his horse knew what was coming: nostrils flaring, tossing its head as it shied and stamped, fighting the reins all the way down the trail. The freshwater sea was choppy, silty waves in the bay rolling up to batter at sun-bleached limestone crags. Dead desert bushes poked skeletal limbs out of the muddy shallows and insects swarmed everywhere.

'This is not the ancient sea,' Ganath said as she approached the shoreline.

'No,' Paran admitted. 'Half a year ago Raraku was a desert, and had been for thousands of years. Then, there was a… rebirth of sorts.'

'It will not last. Nothing lasts.'

He eyed the Jaghut woman for a moment. She stood looking out on the ochre waves, motionless for a dozen heartbeats, then she made her way down into the shallows. Paran dismounted and hobbled the horses, narrowly evading an attempted bite from the gelding he had been riding. He unpacked his camp kit and set about building a hearth.

Plenty of driftwood about, including entire uprooted trees, and it was not long before he had a cookfire lit.

Finished her bathing, Ganath joined him and stood nearby, water streaming down her oddly coloured, smooth skin. 'The spirits of the deep springs have awakened,' she said. 'It feels as if this place is young once again. Young, and raw. I do not understand.'

Paran nodded. 'Young, aye. And vulnerable.'

'Yes. Why are you here?'

'Ganath, it might be safer for you if you left.'

'When do you begin the ritual?'

'It's already begun.'

She glanced away. 'You are a strange god. Riding a miserable creature that dreams of killing you. Building a fire with which to cook food.

Tell me, in this new world, are all gods such as you?'

'I'm not a god,' Paran said. 'In place of the ancient Tiles of the Holds – and I'll grant you I'm not sure that's what they were called – in any case, there is now the Deck of Dragons, a fatid containing the High Houses. I am the Master of that Deck-'

'A Master, in the same manner as the Errant?'

'Who?'

'The Master of the Holds in my time,' she replied.

'I suppose so, then.'

'He was an ascendant, Ganoes Paran. Worshipped as a god by enclaves of Imass, Barghast and Trell. They kept his mouth filled with blood. He never knew thirst. Nor peace. I wonder how he fell.'

'I think I'd like to know that detail myself,' Paran said, shaken by the Jaghut's words. 'No-one worships me, Ganath.'

'They will. You are newly ascended. Even in this world of yours, I am certain that there is no shortage of followers, of those who are desperate to believe. And they will hunt down others and make of them victims. They will cut them and fill bowls with their innocent blood, in your name, Ganoes Paran, and so beseech your intercession, your adherence to whatever cause they righteously fashion. The Errant thought to defeat them, as you might well seek to do, and so he became the god of change. He walked the path of neutrality, yet flavoured it with a pleasure taken in impermanence. The Errant's enemy was ennui, stagnation. This is why the Forkrul Assail sought to annihilate him.

And all his mortal followers.' She paused, then added, 'Perhaps they succeeded. The Assail were never easily diverted from their chosen course.'

Paran said nothing. There were truths in her words that even he recognized, and they now weighed upon him, settling heavy and imponderable upon his spirit. Burdens were born from the loss of innocence. Naivete. While the innocent yearned to lose their innocence, those who had already done so in turn envied the innocent, and knew grief in what they had lost. Between the two, no exchange of truths was possible. He sensed the completion of an internal journey, and Paran found he did not appreciate recognizing that fact, nor the place where he now found himself. It did not suit him that ignorance remained inextricably bound to innocence, and the loss of one meant the loss of the other.

'I have troubled your mind, Ganoes Paran.'

He glanced up, then shrugged. 'You have been… timely. Much to my regret, yet still,' he shrugged again, 'perhaps all for the best.'

She faced the sea again and he followed her gaze. A sudden calm upon the modest bay before them, whilst white-caps continued to chop the waters beyond. 'What is happening?' she asked.

'They're coming.'

Some distant clamour, now, rising as if from a deep cavern, and the sunset seemed to have grown sickly, its very fires slave to a chaotic tumult, as if the shades of a hundred thousand sunsets and sunrises now waged celestial war. Whilst the horizons closed in, flickering with darkness, smoke and racing storms of sand and dust.