Now, what were the details of this unknown complex? Well, for one, it was self-contained, walled, entirely covered by multilevel roofing-even the plazas, alleys and streets. As a fortress, it was virtually impregnable. Beneath the intricately paved floors and streets, there was a second even more defensible city, the corridors and tunnels of which can now be found as an integral part of our sewer outflow.

In short, Letheras, the colony of the First Empire, was founded upon the ruins of an earlier city, one whose layout seemed to disregard the presence of the]aghut towers and the Azath, suggesting that it pre-dates both.

Even the first engineer, Keden Qan, was unable or unwilling to attempt an identification of these early builders. Virtually no artifacts were found-no potsherds, no sculptures, no remnants of metal’Working. One last interesting detail. It appeared that in the final stages of occupation, the dwellers set about frantic alterations to their city. Qan’s analysis of these efforts led him to conclude that a catastrophic climate change had occurred, for the efforts indicated a desperate attempt to add insulation.

Presumably, that effort failed-

Her interior monologue ceased abruptly as she heard the faint scuff of someone approaching. Lifting her head was a struggle, but Janath Anar managed, just as the chamber’s heavy door creaked open and light flooded in from a lantern-dull and low yet blinding her nonetheless.

Tanal Yathvanar stepped into view-it would be none other but him, she knew-and a moment later he spoke. ‘I pray you’ve yet to drive yourself mad.’

Through cracked, blistered lips, she smiled, then said in a croaking voice, ‘Lectures. I am halfway into the term. Early history. Mad? Oh yes, without question.’

She heard him come closer. ‘I have been gone from you too long-you are suffering. That was careless of me.’

‘Careless is keeping me alive, you miserable little wretch,’ she said.

‘Ah, perhaps I deserved that. Come, you must drink.’

‘What if I refuse?’

‘Then, with your inevitable death, you are defeated. By me. Are you sure you want that, Scholar?’

‘You urge me to stubborn resistance. I understand. The sadist needs his victim alive, after all. For as long as humanly possible.’

‘Dehydration is a most unpleasant way to die, Janath Anar.’

He lifted the spigot of a waterskin to her mouth. She drank.

‘Not too quickly,’ Tanal said, stepping back. ‘You will just make yourself sick. Which wouldn’t, I see, be the first time for you.’

‘When you see maggots crawl out of your own wastes, Yathvanar… Next time,’ she added, ‘take your damned candle with you.’

‘If I do that,’ he replied, ‘you will go blind-’

‘And that matters?’

He stepped close once again and poured more water into her mouth.

Then he set about washing her down. Sores had opened where stomach fluids had burned desiccated skin, and, he could see, she had been pulling on her bindings, seeking to squeeze her hands through the shackles. ‘You are looking much worse for wear,’ he said as he dabbed ointment on the wounds. ‘You cannot get your hands through, Janath-’

‘Panic cares nothing for what can and can’t be done, Tanal Yathvanar. One day you will discover that. There was a priest once, in the second century, who created a cult founded on the premise that every victim tallied in one’s mortal life awaits that one beyond death. From the slightest of wounds to the most grievous, every victim preceding you into death… waits. For you.

‘A mortal conducts spiritual economics in his or her life, amassing credit and debt. Tell me, Patriotist, how indebted are you by now? How vast the imbalance between good deeds and your endless acts of malice?’

‘A bizarre, insane cult,’ he muttered, moving away. ‘No wonder it failed.’

‘In this empire, yes, it’s no wonder at all. The priest was set upon in the street and torn limb from limb. Still, it’s said adherents remain, among the defeated peoples-the Tarthenal, the Fent and Nerek, the victims, as it were, of Letherii cruelty-and before those people virtually disappeared from the city, there were rumours that the cult was reviving.’

Tanal Yathvanar sneered. ‘The ones who fail ever need a crutch, a justification-they fashion virtue out of misery. Karos Invictad has identified that weakness, in one of his treatises-’

Janath’s laugh broke into ragged coughing. When she recovered, she spat and said, ‘Karos Invictad. Do you know why he so despises academics? He is a failed one himself.’ She bared her stained teeth. ‘He calls them treatises, does he? Errant fend, how pathetic. Karos Invictad couldn’t fashion a decent argument, much less a treatise.’

‘You are wrong in that, woman,’ Tanal said. ‘He has even explained why he did so poorly as a young scholar-oh yes, he would not refute your assessment of his career as a student. Driven by emotions, back then. Incapable of a cogent position, leaving him rife with anger-but at himself, at his own failings. But, years later, he learned that all emotion had to be scoured from him; only then would his inner vision become clear.’

‘Ah, he needed wounding, then. What was it? A betrayal of sorts, I expect. Some woman? A protege, a patron? Does it even matter? Karos Invictad makes sense to me, now. Why he is what he has become.’ She laughed again, this rime without coughing, then said, ‘Delicious irony. Karos Invictad became a victim.’

‘Don’t be-’

A victim, Yathvanar! And he didn’t like it, oh no, not at all. It hurt-the world hurt him, so now he’s hurting it back. And yet, he has still to even the score. But you see, he never will, because in his mind, he’s still that victim, still lashing out. And as you said earlier, the victim and his crutch, his virtue of misery-one feeds the other, without cessation. No wonder he bridles with self-righteousness for all his claims to emotionless intellect-’

He struck her, hard, her head snapping to one side, spittle and blood threading out.

Breathing fast, chest strangely tight, Tanal hissed, ‘Rail at me all you will, Scholar. I expect that. But not at Karos Invictad. He is the empire’s last true hope. Only Karos Invictad will guide us into glory, into a new age, an age without the Edur, without the mixed-bloods, without even the failed peoples. No, just the Letherii, an empire expanding outward with sword and fire, all the way back to the homeland of the First Empire. He has seen our future! Our destiny!’

She stared at him in the dull light. ‘Of course. But first, he needs to kill every Letherii worthy of the name. Karos Invictad, the Great Scholar, and his empire of thugs-’

He struck her again, harder than before, then lurched back, raising his hand-it was trembling, skin torn and battered, a shard of one broken tooth jutting from one knuckle.

She was unconscious.

Well, she asked for it. She wouldn’t stop. That means she wanted it, deep inside, she wanted me to beat her. I’ve heard about this-Karos has told me-they come to like it, eventually. They like the… attention.

So, I must not neglect her. Not again. Plenty of water, keep her clean and fed.

And beat her anyway.

But she was not unconscious, for she then spoke in a mumble. He could not make it out and edged closer.

‘… on the other side… I will wait for you… on the other side…’

Tanal Yathvanar felt a slither deep in his gut. And fled from it. No god waits to pass judgement. No-one marks the imbalance of deeds-no god is beyond its own imbalances-for its own deeds are as subject to judgement as any other. So who then fashions this afterlife? Some natural imposition? Ridiculous-there is no balance in nature. Besides, nature exists in this world and this world alone-its rules mean nothing once the bridge is crossed…

Tanal Yathvanar found himself walking up the corridor, that horrid woman and her cell far behind him now-he had no recollection of actually leaving.