No! No, no!

From the pulsing glow, heat – such heat – Barathol fought closer, his chest ready to explode – and reached down, down**** A section of the aft deck floated free from what was now little more than pummelled wreckage. The firestones tore down on all sides as Cutter struggled to help Scillara clamber onto the pitching fragment.

Those firestones – they were smaller than pebbles, despite the fistsized holes they had punched through the Grief. Smaller than pebbles – more like grains of sand, glowing bright green, like spatters of glass, their colour changing, almost instantly, into rust red as they plummeted into the depths.

Scillara cried out.

'Are you hit? Oh, gods – no-'

She twisted round. 'Look! Hood take us – look!' And she lifted an arm, pointed as a swelling wave lifted them – pointed eastwardTowards Otataral Island.

It had… ignited. Jade green, a glowing dome that might have spanned the entire island, writhing, lifting skyward, and, rising up through it… hands. Of jade. Like… like Heboric's. Rising, like trees. Arms – huge – dozens of them – rising, fingers spreading, green light spiralling out – from their upturned palms, from the fingers, from the veins and arteries cabling their muscled lengths – green light, slashing into the heavens like sword-blades. Those arms were too big to comprehend, reaching upward like pillars through the dome-as the fires filling the sky seemed to flinch… tremble… and then began to converge.

Above the island, above the hands of jade reaching up, through the billowing green light.

The first falling sun struck the glowing dome.

The sound was like a drum beat, on a scale to deafen the gods. Its pulse rippled through the dome's burgeoning flanks, racing outward and seeming to strip the surface of the sea, shivering through Cutter's bones, a concussion that triggered bursting agony in his ears – then another, and another as sun after sun plunged into that buckling, pocked dome. He was screaming, yet unable to hear himself. Red mist filled his eyes – he felt himself sliding from the raft, down into the foam-laden wavesEven as an enormous clawed foot reached down, spread wide over Cutter – and Scillara, who was grasping him by an arm, seeking to drag him back onto the raft – and talons the size of scimitars closed round them both. They were lifted from the thrashing water, upward, up**** Reaching… yes. For me, closer, closer.

Never mind the pain.

It will not last. I promise. I know, because I remember.

No, I cannot be forgiven.

But maybe you can, maybe I can do that, if you feel it's needed – I don't know – I was the wrong one, to have touched… there in that desert. I didn't understand, and Baudin could never have guessed what would happen, how I would be marked.

Marked, yes, I see now, for this, this need.

Can you hear me? Closer – do you see the darkness? There, that is where I am.

Millions of voices, weeping, crying out, voices, filled with yearning – he could hear themAh gods, who am I? I cannot remember.

Only this. The darkness that surrounds me. We, yes, all of you – we can all wait here, in this darkness.

Never mind the pain.

Wait with me. In this darkness.

And the voices, in their millions, in their vast, unbearable need, rushed towards him.

Shield Anvil, who would take their pain, for he could remember such pain.

The darkness took them, and it was then that Heboric Ghost Hands, Shield Anvil, realized a most terrible truth.

One cannot, in any real measure, remember pain.

Two bodies tumbling like broken dolls onto the deck. Mappo struggled towards them, even as Spite wheeled away one more time – he could feel the dragon's agony with every ragged breath she drew, and the air was foul with the reek of scorched scales and flesh.

The rain of fire had descended in a torrent all round them, wild as a hailstorm and far deadlier; yet not one particle had struck their ship – protection gifted, Mappo realized, not by Spite, nor indeed by Iskaral Pust or Mogora. No, as the High Priest's fawning, wet kisses gave proof, some power born in that damned black-eyed mule was responsible. Somehow.

The beast simply stood, unmoving and seemingly indifferent, tail flicking the absence of flies. Slowly blinking, as if half-asleep, its lips twitching every now and then.

While the world went mad around them; while it tore that other ship to piecesMappo rolled the nearer figure over. Blood-smeared face, streams from the ears, the nose, the corners of the eyes – yet he knew this man. He knew him. Crokus, the Daru. Oh, lad, what has brought you to this?

Then the young man's eyes opened. Filled with fear and apprehension.

'Be at ease,' Mappo said, 'you are safe now.'

The other figure, a woman, was coughing up seawater, and there was blood flowing down from her left ear to track the underside of her jaw before dripping from her chin. On her hands and knees, she lifted her head and met the Trell's gaze.

'Are you all right?' Mappo asked.

She nodded, crawled closer to Crokus.

'He will live,' the Trell assured her. 'It seems we all shall live…

I had not believed-'

Iskaral Pust screamed.

Pointed.

A large, scarred, black-skinned arm had appeared over the port rail, like some slithering eel, the hand grasping, hard on the slick wood, the muscles straining.

Mappo clambered over.

The man he looked down upon was holding onto another body, a man easily as large as he was, and it was clear that the former was fast losing his strength. Mappo reached down and dragged them both onto the deck.

'Barathol,' the woman gasped.

Mappo watched as the man named Barathol quickly rolled his companion over and began pushing the water from his lungs.

'Barathol-'

'Quiet, Scillara-'

'He was under too long-'

'Quiet!'

Mappo watched, trying to remember what such ferocity, such loyalty, felt like. He could almost recall… almost. He has drowned, this one.

See all that water? Yet Barathol would not cease in his efforts, pulling the limp, flopping body about this way and that, rocking the arms, then, finally, dragging the head and shoulders onto his lap, where he cradled the face as if it was a newborn babe.

The man's expression twisted, terrible in its grief. 'Chaur! Listen to me! This is Barathol. Listen! I want you to – to bury the horses! Do you hear me? You have to bury the horses! Before the wolves come down!

I'm not asking, Chaur, do you understand? I'm telling you!'

He has lost his mind. From this, there is no recovery. I know, I know'Chaur! I will get angry, do you understand? Angry… with you! With you, Chaur! Do you want Barathol angry at you, Chaur? Do you want-'

A cough, gouting water, a convulsion, then the huge man held so tenderly in Barathol's arms seemed to curl up, one hand reaching up, and a wailing cry worked its way through the mucus and froth.

'No, no my friend,' Barathol gasped, pulling the man into a tight, rocking embrace. 'I'm not angry. No, I'm not. Never mind the horses.

You did that already. Remember? Oh, Chaur, I'm not angry.'

But the man bawled, clutching at Barathol like a child.

He is a simpleton. Otherwise, this Barathol, he would not have spoken to him in such a manner. He is a child in a man's body, this Chaur…

Mappo watched. As the two huge men wept in each other's arms.

Spite now stood beside the Trell, and as soon as Mappo became aware of her, he sensed her pain – and then her will, pushing it away with such ferocity – he dragged his gaze from the two men on the deck and stared at her.

Pushing, pushing away all that pain'How? How did you do that?' he demanded.

'Are you blind, Mappo Runt?' she asked. 'Look – look at them, Trell.

Chaur, his fear is gone, now. He believes Barathol, he believes him.