‘Then change that, damn you!’

‘I am trying.’

Seerdomin glared at the god, who now offered a faint smile. After a moment, Seerdomin hissed and stepped back. ‘You ask this of me? Are you mad? I am not one of your pilgrims! Not one of your mob of would-be priests and priestesses! I do not worship you!’

‘Precisely, Segda Travos. It is the curse of believers that they seek to second-guess the one they claim to worship.’

‘In your silence what choice do they have?’

The Redeemer’s smile broadened. ‘Every choice in the world, my friend.’

Countless paths, a single place sought by all. If she could be bothered, she could think on the innumerable generations-all that rose to stand with thoughts reach-ing into the night sky, or plunging into the mesmerizing flames of the campfire-the hunger did not change. The soul lunged, the soul crawled, the soul scraped and dragged and pitched headlong, and in the place it desired-needed-there was this: the bliss of certainty.

Conviction like armour, eyes shining like swords; oh, the bright glory that was the end to every question, every doubt. Shadows vanished, the world raged sudden white and black. Evil dripped with slime and the virtuous stood tall as giants. Compassion could be partitioned, meted out only to the truly deserving-the innocent and the blessed. As lor all the rest, they could burn, for they deserved no less.

She danced like truth unleashed. The beauty of simplicity flowed pure and sweet through her limbs, rode the ebb and sweep of her sighing breath. All those agonizing uncertainties were gone, every doubt obliterated by the gift of saemenkelyk.

She had found the shape of the world, every edge clear and sharp and undeniable. Her thoughts could dance through it almost effortlessly, evading snags and tears, not once touching raw surfaces that might scrape, that might make her flinch.

The bliss of certainty delivered another gift. She saw before her a universe transformed, one where contradictions could be rightfully ignored, where hypocrisy did not exist, where to serve the truth in oneself permitted easy denial of any-thing that did not fit.

The minuscule mote of awareness that hid within her, like a snail flinching into its shell, was able to give shape to this transformation, well recognizing it as gen-uine revelation, the thing she had been seeking all along-yet in the wrong place.

Salind understood now that the Redeemer was a child god, innocent, yes, but not in a good way. The Redeemer possessed no certainty in himself. He was not all-seeing, but blind. From a distance the two might appear identical, there in that wide embrace, the waiting arms, the undefended openness. He forgave all because he could not see difference, could not even sense who was deserving and who was not.

Saemenkelyk brought an end to ambiguity. It divided the world cleanly, ab-solutely.

She must give that to him. It would be her gift-the greatest gift imaginable-to her beloved god. An end to his ambivalence, his ignorance, his helplessness.

Soon, the time would come when she would once again seek him. The pa-thetic mortal soul standing in her way would not frustrate her the next time she found her weapons-no, her righteous blades would cut and slash him to pieces.

The thought made her fling her arms into the air as she whirled. Such joy!

She had a gift. It was her duty to deliver it.

Whether you like it or not.

No, he could not refuse. If he did, why, she would have to kill him.

Bone white, the enormous beasts stood on the ridge, side on, their heads turned to watch Karsa Orlong as he cantered Havok ever closer. He sensed his horse tensing beneath him, saw the ears flick a moment before he became aware that he was being flanked by more Hounds-these ones darker, heavier, short-haired except-ing one that reminded him of the wolves of his homeland, that tracked him with amber eyes.

‘So,’ Karsa murmured, ‘these are the Hounds of Shadow. You would play games with me, then? Try for me, and when we’re done few of you will leave this place, and none will be free of wounds, this I promise you. Havok, see the black one in the high grasses? Thinks to hide from us.’ He grunted a laugh. ‘The others will feint, but that black one will lead the true charge. My sword shall tap her nose first.’

The two white beasts parted, one trotting a dozen or so paces along the ridge the other turning round and doing the same in the opposite direction in the gap now between them, shadows swirled like a dust-devil.

Karsa could feel a surge of battle lust within him, his skin prickling beneath the fixed attention of seven.savage beasts, yet be held his gaze on that smudge of gloom, where two figures were now visible. Men, one bare-headed and the other hooded and leaning crooked over a knobby cane.

The Hounds to either side maintained their distance, close enough for a swift charge but not so close as to drive Havok into a rage. Karsa reined in six paces from the strangers and eyed them speculatively.

The bare-headed one was plainly featured, pale as if unfamiliar with sunlight, his dark hair straight and loose, almost ragged. His eyes shifted colour in the sun-light, blue to grey, to green and perhaps even brown, a cascade of indecision that matched his expression as he in turn studied the Toblakai.

The first gesture came from the hooded one with the hidden face, a lifting of the cane in a half-hearted waver. ‘Nice horse,’ he said.

‘Easier to ride than a dog,’ Karsa replied.

A snort from the dark-haired man.

‘This one,’ said the hooded man, ‘resists sorcery, Cotillion. Though his blood is old, 1 wonder, will all mortals one day be like him? An end to miracles. Noth-ing but dull, banal existence, nothing but mundane absence of wonder.’ The cane jabbed, ‘A world of bureaucrats. Mealy-minded, sour-faced and miserable as a re-union of clerks. In such a world, Cotillion, not even the gods will visit. Except in pilgrimage to depression.’

‘Quaintly philosophical of you, Shadowthrone,’ replied the one named Cotil-lion. ‘But is this one really the right audience? I can almost smell the bear grease from here.’

‘That’s Lock,’ said Shadowthrone. ‘He was rolling in something a while ago.’

Karsa leaned forward on the strange saddle that Samar Dev had had fitted for Havok back in Letherii. ‘If I am a clerk, then one prophecy will prove true.’

‘Oh, and which one would that be?’ Cotillion asked, seemingly amused that Karsa was capable of speech.

‘The tyranny of the number counters will be a bloody one.’

Shadowthrone wheezed laughter, then coughed into the silence of the others and said, ‘Hmmm.’

Cotillion’s eyes had narrowed. ‘In Darujihstan, a temple awaits you, Toblakai. A crown and a throne for the taking.’

Karsa scowled. ‘Not more of that shit. I told the Crippled God I wasn’t inter-ested. I’m still not. My destiny belongs to me and none other.’

‘Oh,’ said Shadowthrone, cane wavering about once again, like a headless snake, ‘we’re not encouraging you to take it. Far from it. You on that throne would be… distressing. But he will drive you, Toblakai, the way hunters drive a man-eating lion. Straight into the spike-filled pit.’

‘A smart lion knows when to turn,’ Karsa said. ‘Watch as the hunters scatter.’

‘It is because we understand you, Toblakai, that we do not set the Hounds upon you. You bear your destiny like a standard, a grisly one, true, but then, its only distinction is in being obvious. Did you know that we too left civilization behind? The scribblers were closing in on all sides, you see. The clerks with their purple tongues and darting eyes, their shuffling feet and sloped shoulders, their bloodless lists. Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!’ The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. ‘Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?’