‘How-how did you know that?’ He bared his teeth. ‘I guessed, Witch.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes. They did not want to be there.’

Traveller said, ‘I expect the Tiste Edur discovered rather quickly the curse of occupation. It acts like a newly opened wound, infecting and poisoning both the oppressors and the oppressed. Both cultures become malformed, bitter with extremes. Hatred, fear, greed, betrayal, paranoia, and appalling indifference to suf-fering.’

‘Yet the Malazans occupied Seven Cities-’

‘No, Samar Dev. The Malazans conquered Seven Cities. That is different. Kel-lanved understood that much. If one must grip hard in enemy territory, then that grip must be hidden-at the very cusp of local power. And so no more than a handful is being strictly controlled-everyone else, merchants and herders and farmers and tradefolk-everyone-are to be shown better circumstances, as quickly as possible. “Conquer as a rogue wave, rule in quiet ripples.” The Emperor’s own words.’

‘This is what the Claw did, isn’t it? Infiltrate and paralyse the rulers-’

‘The less blood spilled, the better.’

Karsa Orlong barked a laugh. ‘That depends,’ he said. ‘There are other kinds of conquest.’

‘Such as?’

‘Traveller, my friend, you speak of conquest as a means of increasing one’s power-the more subjects and the more cities under your control is the measure of that power. But what of the power of destruction?’

Samar Dev found she was holding her breath, and she watched Traveller considering Karsa’s words, before he said, ‘There is nothing then to be gained.’

‘You are wrong,’ said Karsa, pausing to stretch his back. Havok’s head tossed, a chopping motion like an axe blade. ‘I have looked upon the face of civilization, and I am not impressed.’

‘There is no flaw in being critical.’

‘He’s not just being critical,’ said Samar Dev. ‘He intends to destroy it. Civilization, I mean. The whole thing, from sea to sea. When Karsa Orlong is done, not a single city in the world will remain standing, isn’t that right, Toblakai?’

‘I see no value in modest ambitions, Witch.’

Traveller was quiet then, and the silence was like an expanding void, until even the moan of the incessant wind seemed distant and hollow.

Gods, how often have I wished him well! Even as the thought horrifies me-he would kill millions. He would crush every symbol of progress. From ploughs back to sticks. From bricks to caves. From iron to stone. Crush us all back into the ground, the mud of waterholes. And the beasts will hunt us, and those of us who. remain, why, we will hunt each other.

Traveller finally spoke. ‘I dislike cities,’ he said.

‘Barbarians both,’ she muttered under her breath. Neither man responded. Perhaps they hadn’t heard. She shot each of them a quick glance, right and then left, and saw that both were smiling. Hiding onward, the day rustling in waves of red grass.

Until Traveller once again began speaking. ‘The first law of the multitude is conformity. Civilization is the mechanism of controlling and maintaining that multitude. The more civilized a nation, the more conformed its population, until that civilization’s last age arrives, when multiplicity wages war with conformity. The former grows ever wilder, ever more dysfunctional in its extremities; whilst the latter seeks to increase its measure of control, until such efforts acquire diabolical tyranny.’

‘More of Kellanved?’ Samar Dev asked.

Traveller snorted. ‘Hardly. That was Duiker, the Imperial Historian.’

Through the course of the night just past, Nimander Golit had led his meagre troop through the city of Bastion. Children of Darkness, with Aranatha’s quiet power embracing them, they had moved in silence, undetected as far as they could tell, for no alarms were raised. The city was a thing seemingly dead, like a closed flower.

At dusk, shortly before they set out, they had heard clattering commotion out on the main avenue, and went to the gates to watch the arrival into the city of scores of enormous wagons. Burdened with trade goods, the carters slack-faced, exhausted, with haunted eyes above brown-stained mouths. Bales of raw foodstuffs, casks of figs and oils, eels packed in salt, smoked bhederin, spiced mutton, and countless other supplies that had been eagerly pressed upon them in exchange for the barrels of kelyk.

There was cruel irony to be found in the sordid disinterest the locals displayed before such essential subsistence-most were past the desire for food. Most were starving in an ecstatic welter of saemankelyk, the black ink of a god’s pain.

The Tiste Andii wore their armour. They wore their gear for fighting, for killing. Nimander did not need a glance back to know the transformation and what it did to the expressions on all but one of the faces of those trailing behind him. Skintick, whose smile had vanished, yet his eyes glittered bright, as if fevered. Kedeviss, ever rational, now wore a mask of madness, beauty twisted into something terrible: Nenanda, for all his postures of ferocity, was now ashen, colourless, as if the truth of desire soured him with poison. Desra, flushed with something like excitement. Only Aranatha was unchanged. Placid, glassy-eyed with concentration, her features somehow softer, blurred.

Skintick and Kedeviss carried Clip between them. Nenanda held over one shoulder the man’s weapons, his bow and quiver, his sword and knife belt-all borne on a single leather strap that could be loosed in a moment should the need arise.

They had slipped past buildings in which worshippers danced, starved limbs waving about, distended bellies swaying-doors had been left open, shutters swung back to the night. Voices moaned in disjointed chorus. Even those faces that bychance turned towards the Tiste Andii as they moved ghostly past did not awaken with recognition, the eyes remaining dull, empty, unseeing.

The air was warm, smelling of rancid salt from the dying lake mixed with the heavier stench of putrefying corpses.

. They reached the edge of the central square, looked out across its empty expanse. The altar itself was dark, seemingly lifeless.

Nimander crouched down, uncertain. There must be watchers. It would he madness to think otherwise. Could they reach the altar before some hidden mob rushed forth to accost them? It did not seem likely. They had not seen Kallor since his march to the altar the previous day. Nenanda believed the old man was dead. He believed they would find his body, cold and pale, lying on the tiled floor somewhere within the building. For some reason, Nimander did not think that likely.

Skintick whispered behind him, ‘Well? It’s nearing dawn, Nimander.’

What awaited them? There was only one way to find out. ‘Let’s go.’

All at once, with their first strides out into the concourse, the air seemed to swirl, thick and heavy. Nimander found he had to push against it, a tightness forming in his throat and then his chest.

‘They’re burning the shit,’ Skintick hissed. ‘Can you smell it? The kelyk-’

‘Quiet.’

Fifteen, twenty paces now. Silence all around. Nimander set his eyes on the entrance to the altar, the steps glistening with dew or something far worse. The black glyphs seemed to throb in his eyes, as if the entire structure was breathing. He could feel something dark and unpleasant in his veins, like bubbles in his blood, or seeds, eager to burst into life. He felt moments from losing control.

Behind him, hard gasping breaths-they were all feeling this, they were all-

‘Behind us,’ grunted Nenanda.

And to the sides, crowds closing in from every street and alley mouth, slowly, dark shapes pushing into the square. They look like the scarecrows, cut loose from their stakes-Mother’s blessing-

Forty strides, reaching the centre of the concourse. Every avenue closed to them now, barring that to the building itself.