She could have shot back, unleashed a flurry of verbal quarrels that would, inevitably, all bounce off his impervious barbarity. ‘You’d be gentle as a desert bear, of course. I’d probably never recover.’

‘There are sides of me, Witch, that you have not seen, yet.’

She grunted.

‘You are ever suspicious of being surprised, aren’t you?’

A curious question. In fact, a damned tangle of a question. She didn’t like it. She didn’t want to go near it. ‘I was civilized, once. Content in a proper city, a city with an underground sewer system, with Malazan aqueducts and hot water from pipes. Hallways between enclosed gardens and the front windows to channel cool air through the house. Proper soap to keep clothes clean. Songbirds in cages. Chilled wine and candied pastries.’

‘The birds sing of imprisonment, Samar Dev. The soap is churned by indentured workers with bleached, blistered hands and hacking coughs. Outside your cool house with its pretty garden there are children left to wander in the streets. Lepers are dragged to the edge of the city and every step is cheered on by a hail of stones. People steal to eat and when they are caught their hands are cut off. Your city takes water from farms and plants wither and animals die.’

She glared across at him. ‘Nice way to turn the mood, Karsa Orlong.’

‘There was a mood?’

‘Too subtle, was it?’

He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Speak your desires plain.’

‘I was doing just that, you brainless bhederin. fust a little… comfort. That’s all. Even the illusion would have served.’Traveler returned to the fire. ‘We are about to have a guest,’ he said.

Samar Dev rose and searched round, but darkness was fast swallowing the plain. She turned with a query on her lips, and saw that Karsa had straightened and was looking skyward, to the northeast. And there, in the deepening blue, a dragon was gliding towards them.

‘Worse than moths,’ Traveller muttered.

‘Are we about to be attacked?’

He glanced at her, and shrugged.

‘Shouldn’t we at least scatter or something?’

Neither warrior replied to that, and after a moment Samar Dev threw up her hands and sat down once more beside the fire. No, she would not panic. Not for these two abominations in her company, and not for a damned dragon, either. Fine, let it be a single pass rather than three-what was she, an ant? She picked up another piece of dung and tossed it into the fire. Moths? Ah, I see. We are a bea-con, are we, a wilful abrogation of this wild, empty land. Whatever. Flap flap on over, beastie, just don’t expect scintillating discourse.

The enormous creature’s wings thundered as the dragon checked its speed a hundred paces away, and then it settled almost noiselessly on to the ground. Watching it, Samar Dev’s eyes narrowed. ‘That thing’s not even alive.’

‘No,’ Karsa and Traveller said in unison.

‘Meaning,’ she continued, ’it shouldn’t be here.’

‘That is true,’ Traveller said.

In the gloom the dragon seemed to regard them for a moment, and then, in a blurring dissolution, the creature sembled, until they saw a tall, gaunt figure of indeterminate gender. Grey as cobwebs and dust, pallid hair long and ropy with filth, wearing the remnants of a long chain hauberk, unbelted. An empty, splintered scabbard hung from a baldric beneath the right arm. Leggings of some kind of thick hide, scaled and the hue of forest loam, reached down to grey leather boots that rose to just below the knees.

No light was reflected from the pits of its eyes. It approached with peculiar caution, like a wild animal, and halted at the very edge of the firelight. Whereupon it lifted both hands, brought them together into a peak before its face, and bowed.

In the native tongue of Ugari, it said, ‘Witch, I greet you.’

Samar Dev rose, shocked, baffled. Was it some strange kind of courtesy, to address her first? Was this thing in the habit of ignoring ascendants as if they were nothing more than bodyguards? And from her two formidable companions, not a sound.

‘And I greet you in return,’ she managed after a moment.

‘I am Tulas Shorn,’ it said. ‘I scarce recall when I last walked this realm, if I ever have. The very nature of my demise is lost to me, which, as you might imagine, is proving disconcerting.’

‘So it would, Tulas Shorn. I am Samar Dev-’

‘Yes, the one who negotiates with spirits, with the sleeping selves of stream and rock, crossroads and sacred paths. Priestess of Burn-’’That title is in error, Tulas Shorn-’

‘In it? You are a witch, are you not?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘You do not reach into warrens, and so force alien power into this world. Your congress is with the earth, the sky, water and stone. You are a priestess of Hum, chosen among those of whom she dreams, as are others, but you, Samar Dev, she dreams of often.’

‘How would you know that?’

Tulas Shorn hesitated, and then said, ‘There is death in dreaming.’

‘You are Tiste Edur,’ said Karsa Orlong, and, baring his teeth, he reached for his sword.

‘More than that,’ said Traveller, ‘one of Hood’s own.’

Samar Dev spun to her two companions. ‘Oh, really! Look at you two! Not killed anything in weeks-how can you bear it? Planning on chopping it into tiny pieces, are you? Well, why not fight for the privilege first?’

Traveller’s eyes widened slightly at her outburst.

Karsa’s humourless smile broadened. ‘Ask it what it wants, then, Witch.’

‘The day I start taking orders from you, Karsa Orlong, I will do just that.’

Tulas Shorn had taken a step back. ‘It seems I am not welcome here, and so I shall leave.’

But Samar Dev’s back was up, and she said, ‘I welcome you, Tulas Shorn, even if these ones do not. If they decide to attack you, I will stand in their way. I offer you all the rights of a guest-it’s my damned fire, after all, and if these two idiots don’t like it they can make their own, preferably a league or two away.’

‘You are right,’ Traveller said. ‘I apologize. Be welcome, then, Tulas Shorn.’

Karsa shrugged. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘I’ve killed enough Edur. Besides, this one’s already dead. I still want to know what it wants.’

Tulas Shorn edged in warily-a caution that seemed peculiarly out of place in a corpse, especially one that could veer into a dragon at any moment. ‘I have no urgent motivations, Tartheno Toblakai. I have known solitude for too long and would ease the burden of being my only company.’

‘Then join us,’ Karsa said, returning to crouch at the fire. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘perhaps one day I too will tire of my own company.’

‘Not any time soon, I would wager,’ said the Tiste Edur.

Traveller snorted a laugh, and then looked shocked with himself.

Samar Dev settled down once more, thinking of Shorn’s words. ‘There is death in dreaming.’ Well, she supposed, there would be at that. Then why did she feel so… rattled? What were you telling me, Tulas Shorn!

‘Hood has released you?’ Traveller asked. ‘Or was he careless?’

‘Careless?’ The Tiste Edur seemed to consider the word. ‘No, I do not think that. Rather, an opportunity presented itself to me. I chose not to waste it.’

‘So now,’ said Traveller, eyes fixed on the withered face enlivened only by reflected firelight, ‘you wing here and there, seeking what?’

‘Instinct can set one on a path,’ Tulas Shorn said, ‘with no destination in mind.’ It raised both hands and seemed to study them. ‘I have thought to see lifeonce more, awakened within me. I do not know if such a thing is even possible. Samar Dev, is such a thing possible? Can she dream me alive once more?’

‘Clan she-what? I don’t know. Call me a priestess if you like, but I don’t worship Burn, which doesn’t make me a very good priestess, does it? But if she dreams death, then she dreams life, too.’

‘From one to the other is generally in one direction only,’ Traveller observed. ‘Hood will come for you, Tulas Shorn; sooner or later, he will come to reclaim you.’