'I do not know you,' the Trell replied.

'My name is Spite.'

'Oh,' said Iskaral Pust, 'now that's fitting, since I hate you already.'

'Allies need not be friends,' she replied, gaze flicking with contempt to the High Priest. Her eyes narrowed momentarily on the mule, then she said, 'I am without friends and I seek no friendships.'

'With a name like Spite, is it any wonder?'

'Iskaral Pust, the Hounds have done well in disposing of Dejim Nebrahl. Or, rather, I begin to comprehend the subtle game they have played, given the proximity of the Deragoth. Your master is clever. I give him that.'

'My master,' hissed Iskaral Pust, 'has no need to fashion an alliance with you.'

She smiled, and it was, Mappo judged, a most beautiful smile. 'High Priest, from you and your master, I seek nothing.' Her eyes returned once more to rest upon the Trell. 'You, Discarded One, have need of me. We shall travel together, you and I. The services of the Magi of Shadow are no longer required.'

'You'll not get rid of me so easily,' Iskaral Pust said, his sudden smile, intended to be unctuous, sadly marred by the mosquito carcass squished against one snaggled, crooked incisor. 'Oh no, I will be as a leech, hidden beneath a fold in your clothing, eagerly engorging upon your very lifeblood. I shall be the fanged bat hanging beneath your udder, lapping lapping lapping your sweet exudence. I shall be the fly who buzzes straight into your ear, there to make a new home with a full larder at my beck and call. I shall be the mosquito-'

'Crushed by your flapping lips, High Priest,' Spite said wearily, dismissing him. 'Discarded One, the coast is but half a league distant. There is a fishing village, sadly devoid of life now, but that will not impede us at all.'

Mappo did not move. 'What cause have I,' he asked, 'to ally myself with you?'

'You shall need the knowledge I possess, Mappo Runt, for I was one of the Nameless Ones who freed Dejim Nebrahl, with the aim of slaying you, so that the new Guardian could take your place at Icarium's side.

It may surprise you,' she added, 'that I am pleased the T'rolbarahl failed in the former task. I am outlawed from the Nameless Ones, a fact that gives me no small amount of satisfaction, if not pleasure.

Would you know what the Nameless Ones intend? Would you know Icarium's fate?'

He stared at her. Then asked, 'What awaits us in the village?'

'A ship. Provisioned and crewed, in a manner of speaking. To pursue our quarry, we must cross half the world, Mappo Runt.'

'Don't listen to her!'

'Be quiet, Iskaral Pust,' Mappo said in a growl. 'Or take your leave of us.'

'Fool! Very well, it is clear to me that my presence in your foul company is not only necessary, but essential! But you, Spite, be on your guard! I will permit no betrayal of this bold, honourable warrior! And watch your words, lest their unleashing haunt him unto madness!'

'If he has withstood yours this long, priest,' she said, 'then he is proof to all madness.'

'You, woman, would be wise to be silent.'

She smiled.

Mappo sighed. Ah, Pust, would that you heeded your own admonishments…

The boy was nine years old. He had been ill for a time, days and nights unmeasured, recalled only in blurred visions, the pain-filled eyes of his parents, the strange calculation in those of his two younger sisters, as if they had begun contemplating life without an older brother, a life freed of the torments and teasings and, as demanded, his stolid reliability in the face of the other, equally cruel children in the village.

And then there had been a second time, one he was able to imagine distinct, walled on all sides, roofed in black night where stars swam like boatmen spiders across well-water. In this time, this chamber, the boy was entirely alone, woken only by the needs of thirst, finding a bucket beside his bed, filled with silty water, and the wood and horn ladle his mother used only on feast-nights. Waking, conjuring the strength to reach out and collect that ladle, dipping it into the bucket, struggling with the water's weight, drawing the tepid fluid in through cracked lips, to ease a mouth hot and dry as the bowl of a kiln.

One day he awoke yet again, and knew himself in the third time. Though weak, he was able to crawl from the bed, to lift the bucket and drink down the last of the water, coughing at its soupy consistency, tasting the flat grit of the silts. Hunger's nest in his belly was now filled with broken eggs, and tiny claws and beaks nipped at his insides.

A long, exhausting journey brought him outside, blinking in the harsh sunlight – so harsh and bright he could not see. There were voices all around him, filling the street, floating down from the roofs, highpitched and in a language he had never heard before. Laughter, excitement, yet these sounds chilled him.

He needed more water. He needed to defeat this brightness, so that he could see once more. Discover the source of these carnival sounds – had a caravan arrived in the village? A troop of actors, singers and musicians?

Did no-one see him? Here on his hands and knees, the fever gone, his life returned to him?

He was nudged on one side and his groping hand reached out and found the shoulder and nape of a dog. The animal's wet nose slipped along his upper arm. This was one of the healthier dogs, he judged, his hand finding a thick layer of fat over the muscle of the shoulder, then, moving down, the huge swell of the beast's belly. He now heard other dogs, gathering, pressing close, squirming with pleasure at the touch of his hands. They were all fat. Had there been a feast? The slaughter of a herd?

Vision returned, with a clarity he had never before experienced.

Lifting his head, he looked round.

The chorus of voices came from birds. Rooks, pigeons, vultures bounding down the dusty street, screeching at the bluff rushes from the village's dogs, who remained possessive of the remains of bodies here and there, mostly little more than bones and sun-blackened tendons, skulls broken open by canine jaws, the insides licked clean.

The boy rose to his feet, tottering with sudden dizziness that was a long time in passing. Eventually, he was able to turn and look back at his family's house, trying to recall what he had seen when crawling through the rooms. Nothing. No-one.

The dogs circled him, all seeming desperate to make him their master, tails wagging, stepping side to side as their spines twisted back and forth, ears flicking up at his every gesture, noses prodding his hands. They were fat, the boy realized, because they had eaten everyone.

For they had died. His mother, his father, his sisters, everyone else in the village. The dogs, owned by all and by none and living a life of suffering, of vicious hunger and rivalries, had all fed unto indolence. Their joy came from full bellies, all rivalry forgotten now. The boy understood in this something profound. A child's delusions stripped back, revealing the truths of the world.

He began wandering.

Some time later he found himself at the crossroads just beyond the northernmost homestead, standing in the midst of his newly adopted pets. A cairn of stones had been raised in the very centre of the conjoined roads and tracks.

His hunger had passed. Looking down at himself, he saw how thin he had become, and saw too the strange purplish nodules thickening his joints, wrist, elbow, knee and ankle, not in the least painful.

Repositories, it seemed, for some other strength.

The cairn's message was plain to him, for it had been raised by a shepherd and he had tended enough flocks in his day. It told him to go north, up into the hills. It told him that sanctuary awaited him there. There had been survivors, then. That they had left him behind was understandable – against the bluetongue fever nothing could be done. A soul lived or a soul died of its own resolve, or lack thereof.