‘Wait!’ Tehol shouted to the giant. ‘No more!’

Rubbing at his temple, Bugg blinked up at Ublala Pung. ‘What was that all about?’ he demanded.

‘Tehol said-’

‘Never mind what I said, Ublala. It was but a passing thought, a musing devoid of substance, a careless utterance disconnected in every way from physical action. Never intended-’

‘You said he needed boxing about the head, Tehol Beddict. You asked me-because it’d got bigger or something, so I needed to puncture it so it’d get smaller again. It didn’t look any bigger to me. But that’s what you said. He was above his situation, you said-’

‘Station, not situation. My point is-both of you-stop looking at me like that. My point was, I was but voicing a few minor complaints of a domestic nature here. Not once suspecting that Ublala Pung would take me so literally.’

‘Master, he is Ublala Pung.’

‘I know, I know. Clearly, all the once-finely honed edges of my intellect have worn off of late.’ Then his expression brightened. ‘But now I have a tutor!’

A victim of the Patriotists,’ Bugg said, eyeing Ublala askance as he made his way over to the pot on the hearth. Abyss below, Master, this barely passes as muddy water.’

Aye, alas, in dire need of your culinary magic. The Patriotists? You broke her out of prison?’

‘In a manner of speaking. I do not anticipate a city-wide manhunt, however. She was to have been one of the ones who simply vanished.’

Ublala Pung grunted a laugh. ‘They’d never find her if it was a manhunt.’

The other two men looked across at him.

The half-blood Tarthenal gestured at the obvious. ‘Look, she’s got breasts and stuff.’

Bugg’s tone was soft as he said to Tehol, ‘She needs gentle healing, Master. And peace.’

‘Well, no better refuge from the dreads of the world than Tehol Beddict’s abode.’

‘A manhunt.’ Ublala laughed again, then shook his head. ‘Them Patriotists are idiots.’

Chapter Eight

The Realm of Shadow was home to brutal places, yet not one could match the brutality of shadows upon the soul. Such thoughts haunted Cotillion these days. He stood on a rise, before him a gentle, elongated slope reaching down to a lake’s placid waters. A makeshift camp was visible on a level terrace forty paces to his left, a single longhouse flanked by half-buried outbuildings, including stable and coop. The entire arrangement-fortunately unoccupied at the time, excepting a dozen hens and a rooster, one irritated rook with a gimp leg and two milk cows-had been stolen from another realm, captured by some vagary of happenstance, or, more likely, the consequence of the breaking of mysterious laws, as seemed to occur sporadically during Shadow Realm’s endless migration.

However it had arrived, Shadowthrone learned of it in time to despatch a flurry of wraiths to lay claim to the buildings and livestock, saving them from predation by roving demons or, indeed, one of the Hounds.

Following the disaster at the First Throne, the score of survivors had been delivered to this place, to wander and wonder at the strange artifacts left by the previous inhabitants: the curved wooden prows surmounting the peaks of the longhouse with their intricate, serpentine carvings; the mysterious totemic jewellery, mostly of silver although amber seemed common as well; the bolts of cloth, wool both coarse and fine; wooden bowls and cups of hammered bronze. Wandering through it all, dazed, a blankness in their eyes…

Recovering.

As if such a thing is possible.

Off to his right, a lone cape-shrouded figure stood at the water’s edge, motionless, seeming to stare out on the unmarred expanse of the lake. There was nothing normal to this lake, Cotillion knew, although the scene it presented from this section of the shore was deceptively serene. Barring the lack of birds. And the absence of molluscs, crustaceans or even insects.

Every scrap of food to feed the livestock-and the miserable rook-was brought in by the wraiths Shadowthrone had assigned to the task. For all of that, the rooster had died mere days after arriving. Died from grief, I expect. Not a single dawn to crow awake.

He could hear voices from somewhere just beyond the longhouse. Panek, Aystar and the other surviving children-well, hardly children any more. They’d seen battle, they’d seen their friends die, they knew the world-every world-was an unpleasant place where a human’s life was not worth much. They knew, too, what it meant to be used.

Further down the beach, well past the lone hooded figure, walked Trull Sengar and the T’lan Imass, Onrack the Broken. Like an artist with his deathless muse, or; perhaps at his shoulder a critic of ghastly mien. An odd friendship, that one. But then, T’lan Imass were full of surprises.

Sighing, Cotillion set off down the slope.

The hooded head half turned at his approach. A face the hue of burnished leather, eyes dark beneath the felted wool rim of the hood. ‘Have you come with the key, Cotillion?’

‘Quick Ben, it is good to see that you have recovered.’

‘More or less.’

‘What key?’

The flash of a humourless smile. ‘The one that sets me free.’

Cotillion stood beside the wizard and studied the murky expanse of water. ‘I would imagine that you could leave here at any time. You are a High Mage, with more than one warren at your disposal. Force a gate, then walk through it.’

‘Do you take me for a fool?’ Quick Ben asked in a quiet voice. ‘This damned realm is wandering. There’s no telling where I would come out, although if I guess correctly, I would be in for a long swim.’

‘Ah. Well, I’m afraid I pay little attention to such things these days. We are crossing an ocean, then?’

‘So I suspect.’

‘Then indeed, to journey anywhere you require our help.’

The wizard shot him a glance. ‘As I thought. You have created pathways, gates with fixed exits. How did you manage that, Cotillion?’

‘Oh, not our doing, I assure you. We simply stumbled onto them, in a manner of speaking.’

‘The Azath.’

‘Very good. You always were sharp, Ben Delat.’

A grunt. ‘I’ve not used that version of my name in a long time.’

‘Oh? When was the last time-do you recall?’

‘These Azath,’ Quick Ben said, clearly ignoring the question. ‘The House of Shadow itself, here in this realm, correct? Somehow, it has usurped the gate, the original gate. Kurald Emurlahn. The House exists both as a cast shadow and as its true physical manifestation. No distinction can be made between the two. A nexus… but that is not unusual for Azath constructs, is it? What is, however, is that the gate to Kurald Emurlahn was vulnerable in the first place, to such a usurpation.’

‘Necessity, I expect,’ said Cotillion, frowning at seeing a slow sweep of broad ripples approach the shore, their source somewhere further out. Not at all what it seems…

‘What do you mean?’

The god shrugged. ‘The realm was shattered. Dying.’

‘The Azath participated in healing the fragments? Intentional? By design, by intellect? Or in the manner that blood dries to create a scab? Is the Azath nothing more than some kind of natural immune system, such as our bodies unleash to fight illness?’