‘Almost off, then. Almost off.’

Ditch twisted round to see who had spoken.

A Tiste Andii. He was clearly blind, and both sockets bore the terrible scarring of burns-only deliberate torture could be that precise. His legs were gone, stumps visible just below his hips. He was dragging himself up alongside Ditch, and the mage saw that the creature held in one hand a long sharpened bone with a blackened point.

‘Plan on killing me?’ Ditch asked.

The Tiste Anclii paused, lifted his head. Straggly black hair framed a narrow, hollowed-out face. ‘What sort of eyes do you have, friend?’

‘Working ones.’

A momentary smile, and then he squirmed closer.

Ditch managed to shift round so that his ruined shoulder and arm were be-neath him, freeing his undamaged arm. ‘It’s crazy, but I still intend to defend my-self. Though death-if it even exists here-would be a mercy.’

‘It doesn’t,’ replied the Tiste Andii. ‘I could stab you for the next thousand years and do nothing more than leave you full of holes. Full of holes.’ He paused and the smile flickered once more. ‘Yet I must stab you anyway, since you’ve made a mess of things. A mess, a mess, a mess.’

‘I have? Explain.’

‘There’s no point, unless you have eyes.’

‘I have them, you damned fool!’

But can they see?’

He caught the emphasis on the last word. Could he awaken magic here? Could he scrape something from his warren-enough to attenuate his vision? There was nothing to do but try. ‘Wait a moment,’ he said. Oh, the warren was there, yes, as impervious as a wall-yet he sensed something he had not expected. Cracks, fis-sures, things bleeding in, bleeding out.

The effects of chaos, he realized. Gods, it’s all breaking down! Would there he a time, he wondered-an instant, in the very moment that the storm finally struck them-when he would find his warren within reach? Could he escape be-fore he was obliterated along with everyone and everything else?

‘How long, how long, how long?’ asked the Tiste Andii.

Ditch found he could indeed scrape a residue of power. A few words muttered under his breath, and all at once he saw what had been hidden before-he saw, yes, the flesh he was lying on.

A mass of tattoos blanketed every exposed patch of skin, lines and images cross-ing from one body to the next, yet nowhere could he see solid areas-all was made up of intricate, delicate traceries, patterns within patterns. He saw borders that dipped and twisted. He saw elongated figures with stretched faces and misshapen torsos. Not a single body atop this massive wagon had been exempted-barring Ditch’s own.

The Tiste Andii must have heard his gasp, for he laughed. ‘Imagine yourself hovering… oh, say fifteen man-heights overhead. Fifteen man-heights. Over-head, overhead. Hovering in the air, just beneath the ceiling of nothingness, the ceiling of nothingness. Looking down upon all this, all this, all this. Aye, it looks awry to you from where you crouch, but from up there, from up there, from up there-you will see no mounds of flesh, no knobs of skin-stretched bones-you’ll see no shadows at all-only the scene. The scene, yes, laid flat you’d swear. You’d swear it to every god and goddess you can think of. Flat! Laid flat, laid flat!’

Ditch struggled to comprehend what he was seeing-he did not dare attempt what the Tiste Andii had suggested, fearing the effort would drive him mad; no, he would not try to imagine himself plucked free of his flesh, his soul floating somewhere overhead. It was difficult enough to comprehend the obsession of this creation-a creation by a blind man. ‘You’ve been up here for a long time,’ Ditch finally said. ‘Avoiding getting buried.’

‘Yes and yes. I was among the first on the wagon. Among the first. Murdered by Draconus, because I sought to wrest Dragnipur from him-oh, Anomandaris Purake was not the first to try. I was. I was. I was. And if I had won the sword, why, my first victim would have been Anomandaris himself. Is that not a bitter joke, friend? It is, it is.’

‘But this’-Ditch gestured with his one hand-’it has to be a recent effort-’

‘No, only the last layer, the last layer, the last layer.’

‘What-what do you use for ink?’

‘Clever question! From the wagon bloodwood, blackwood, the pitch and the pitch ever leaking out, ever sweating from the grain.’

‘Could I hover high up, as you say,’ asked Ditch, ‘what scene would I see?’

‘Wanderings, Holds, Houses, every god, every goddess, every spirit worth men-tioning. Demon kings and demon queens. Dragons and Elders-oh, all there, all there. All there. Is this where you mean to stay, friend? Is this where you mean to stay?’

Ditch thought of this creature hunkered up against him, that bone needle pricking his skin. ‘No. I plan on crawling round, as much as I can, never stopping. Leave me out of your scene.’

‘You cannot do that! You will ruin everything!’

‘Imagine me invisible, then. Imagine I don’t even exist-I will stay out of your way.’

The sightless eyes were glistening and the Tiste Andii was shaking his head again and again.

‘You will not have me,’ Ditch said. ‘Besides, it will all be ending soon.’

‘Soon? How soon? How soon? How soon? How soon?’

‘The storm looks to be no more than a league behind us.’

‘If you will not join the scene,’ the Tiste Andii said, ‘I will push you off.’

‘Draconus might not like that.’

‘He will understand. He understands more than you, more than you, more and more and more than you!’

‘Just let me rest,’ said Ditch, ‘for a while. I will then climb back down. I don’t want to be up here when the end comes. I want to be standing. Facing the storm.’

‘Do you really imagine the ritual will awaken all at once? Do you do you do you? The flower opens soon, but the night is long, and it will take that long, that long. For the flower to open. Open in the moment before dawn. Open in the mo-ment. Draconus chose you-a mage-for the nexus. I need the nexus. You are the nexus. Lie there, be quiet, don’t move.’

‘No.’

‘1 cannot wait long, friend. Crawl about now if you like, but 1 cannot wait too long. A league away!’

‘What is your name?’ Ditch asked.

‘What matter any of that?’

‘For when I next speak to Draconus.’

‘He knows me.’

‘I don’t.’

‘I am Kadaspala, brother to Enesdia who was wife to Andarist.’

Andarist. That’s one name I recognize. ‘You wanted to murder the brother of your sister’s husband?’

‘I did. For what he did to them, what he did to them. For what he did to them!’

Ditch stared at the anguish in the man’s ravaged face. ‘Who blinded you, Kadaspala?’

‘It was a gift. A mercy. I did not comprehend the truth of that, not the real truth of it, the real truth. No. Besides, I thought my inner sight would be enough-to challenge Draconus. To steal Dragnipur. I was wrong, wrong. I was wrong. The truth is a gift, a mercy.’

‘Who blinded you?’

The Tiste Andii flinched, then seemed to curl into himself. Tears glistened in the pits of his sockets. ‘I blinded myself,’ Kadaspala whispered. ‘When I saw what he’d done. What he’d done. To his brother. To my sister. To my sister.’

Suddenly, Ditch did not want to ask any more questions of this man. He pushed himself from between the two bodies. ‘I am going to… explore.’

‘Come back, mage. Nexus. Come back. Come back.’

We’ll see.

With all this time to reflect on things, Apsal’ara concluded that her biggest mis-take was not in finding her way into Moon’s Spawn. Nor in discovering the vaults and the heaps of magicked stones, ensorcelled weapons, armour, the blood-dipped idols and reliquaries from ten thousand extinct cults. No, her greatest error in judgement had been in trying to stab Anomander Rake in the back.

He’d been amused at finding her. He’d not spoken of executing her, or even chaining in her some deep crypt for all eternity. He’d simply asked her how she had managed to break in. Curiosity, more than a little wonder, perhaps even some admiration. And then she went and tried to kill him.-