Nonetheless, as far as Corabb was concerned, the goddess was… foreign.

'What business do we have,' Corabb asked, 'visiting this temple?'

Leoman replied with a question of his own: 'Do you recall, old friend, your vow to follow me no matter what seeming madness I undertake?'

'I do, Warleader.'

'Well, Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas, you shall find yourself sorely tested in that promise. For I intend to speak with the Queen of Dreams.'

'The High Priestess-'

'No, Corabb,' said Leoman, 'with the goddess herself.'

'It is a difficult thing, killing dragons.'

Blood the colour of false dawn continued to spread across the buckled pavestones. Mappo and Icarium remained beyond its reach, for it would not do to make contact with that dark promise. The Jhag was seated on a stone block that might have once been an altar but had been pushed up against the wall to the left of the entrance. The warrior's head was in his hands, and he had said nothing for some time.

Mappo alternated his attention between his friend and the enormous draconean corpse rearing over them. Both scenes left him distraught.

There was much worthy of grieving in this cavern, in the terrible ritual murder that had taken place here, and in the fraught torrent of memories unleashed within Icarium upon its discovery.

'This leaves naught but Osserc,' Mappo said. 'And should he fall, the warren of Serc shall possess no ruler. I believe, Icarium, that I am beginning to see a pattern.'

'Desecration,' the Jhag said in a whisper, not looking up.

'The pantheon is being made vulnerable. Fener, drawn into this world, and now Osserc – the very source of his power under assault. How many other gods and goddesses are under siege, I wonder? We have been away from things too long, my friend.'

'Away, Mappo? There is no away.'

The Trell studied the dead dragon once more. 'Perhaps you are right.

Who could have managed such a thing? Within the dragon is the heart of the warren itself, its well-fount of power. Yet… someone defeated Sorrit, drove her down into the earth, into this cavern within a sky keep, and spiked her to Blackwood – how long ago, do you think? Would we not have felt her death?' With no answers forthcoming from Icarium, Mappo edged closer to the blood pool and peered upward, focusing on that massive iron, rust-streaked spike. 'No,' he murmured after a moment, 'that is not rust. Otataral. She was bound by otataral. Yet, she was Elder – she should have been able to defeat that eager entropy. I do not understand this…'

'Old and new,' Icarium said, his tone twisting the words into a curse.

He rose suddenly, his expression ravaged and eyes hard. 'Speak to me, Mappo. Tell me what you know of spilled blood.'

He turned away. 'Icarium-'

'Mappo, tell me.'

Gaze settling on the aquamarine pool, the Trell was silent as emotions warred within him. Then he sighed. 'Who first dipped their hands into this fell stream? Who drank deep and so was transformed, and what effect did that otataral spike have upon that transformation? Icarium, this blood is fouled-'

'Mappo.'

'Very well. All blood spilled, my friend, possesses power. Beasts, humans, the smallest bird, blood is the life-force, the soul's own stream. Within it is locked the time of living, from beginning to end.

It is the most sacred force in existence. Murderers with their victims' blood staining their hands feed from that force, whether they choose to or not. Many are sickened, others find a new hunger within themselves, and so become slaves to the violence of slaying. The risk is this: blood and its power become tainted by such things as fear and pain. The stream, sensing its own demise, grows stressed, and the shock is as a poison.'

'What of fate?' Icarium asked in a heavy voice.

Mappo flinched, his eyes still on the pool. 'Yes,' he whispered, 'you cut to the matter's very heart. What does anyone take upon themselves when such blood is absorbed, drawn into their own soul? Must violent death be in turn delivered upon them? Is there some overarching law, seeking ever to redress the imbalance? If blood feeds us, what in turn feeds it, and is it bound by immutable rules or is it as capricious as we are? Are we creatures on this earth the only ones free to abuse our possessions?'

'The K'Chain Che'Malle did not kill Sorrit,' Icarium said. 'They knew nothing of it.'

'Yet this creature here was frozen, so it must have been encompassed in the Jaghut's ritual of Omtose Phellack – how could the K'Chain Che'

Malle not have known of this? They must have, even if they themselves did not slay Sorrit.'

'No, they are innocent, Mappo. I am certain of it.'

'Then… how?'

'The crucifix, it is Blackwood. From the realm of the Tiste Edur. From the Shadow Realm, Mappo. In that realm, as you know, things can be in two places at once, or begin in one yet find itself eventually manifesting in another. Shadow wanders, and respects no borders.'

'Ah, then… this… was trapped here, drawn from Shadow-'

'Snared by the Jaghut's ice magic – yet the spilled blood, and perhaps the otataral, proved too fierce for Omtose Phellack, thus shattering the Jaghut's enchantment.'

'Sorrit was murdered in the Shadow Realm. Yes. Now the pattern, Icarium, grows that much clearer.'

Icarium fixed bright, fevered eyes upon the Trell. 'Is it? You would blame the Tiste Edur?'

'Who else holds such command of Shadow? Not the Malazan pretender who now sits on the throne!'

The Jhag warrior said nothing. He walked along the pool's edge, head down as if seeking signs from the battered floor. 'I know this Jaghut.

I recognize her work. The carelessness in the unleashing of Omtose Phellack. She was… distraught. Impatient, angry, weary of the endless paths the K'Chain Che'Malle employed in their efforts to invade, to establish colonies on every continent. She cared nothing for the civil war afflicting the K'Chain Che'Malle. These Short-Tails were fleeing their kin, seeking a refuge. I doubt she bothered asking questions.'

'Do you think,' Mappo asked, 'that she knows of what has happened here?'

'No, else she would have returned. It may be that she is dead. So many are…'

Oh, Icarium, would that such knowledge remained lost to you.

The Jhag halted and half-turned. 'I am cursed. This is the secret you ever keep from me, isn't it? There are… recollections. Fragments.'

He lifted a hand as if to brush his brow, then let it fall. 'I sense… terrible things…'

'Yes. But they do not belong to you, Icarium. Not to the friend standing before me now.'

Icarium's deepening frown tore at Mappo's heart, but he would not look away, would not abandon his friend at this tortured moment.

'You,' Icarium said, 'are my protector, but that protection is not as it seems. You are at my side, Mappo, to protect the world. From me.'

'It is not that simple.'

'Isn't it?'

'No. I am here to protect the friend I look upon now, from the… the other Icarium…'

'This must end, Mappo.'

'No.'

Icarium faced the dragon once more. 'Ice,' he said in murmur. 'Omtose Phellack.' He turned to Mappo. 'We shall leave here now. We travel to the Jhag Odhan. I must seek out kin of my blood. Jaghut.'

To ask for imprisonment. Eternal ice, sealing you from all life. But they will not trust that. No, they will seek to kill you. Let Hood deal with you. And this time, they will be right. For their hearts do not fear judgement, and their blood… their blood is as cold as ice.

Sixteen barrows had been raised half a league south of Y'Ghatan, each one a hundred paces long, thirty wide, and three man-heights high.

Rough-cut limestone blocks and internal columns to hold up the curved roofs, sixteen eternally dark abodes, home to Malazan bones. Newly cut, stone-lined trenches reached out to them from the distant city, carrying Y'Ghatan's sewage in turgid flows swarming with flies.