Fanaticism was so popular. There had to be a reason for that, didn’t there? Some vast reward to the end of thinking, some great bliss to the blessing of idiocy. Well, Monkrat trusted none of that. He knew how to think for himself and that was all he knew so why give it up? He’d yet to hear an argument that could convince him-but of course, fanatics didn’t use arguments, did they? No, just that fixed gaze, the threat, the reason to fear.

Aye, he’d had enough. Gods below, he was actually longing for the city where he had been born. There in the shadow of Mock’s Hold, and that blackwater bay of the harbour where slept a demon, half buried in mud and tumbled ballast stones. And who knew, maybe there was no one left there to recognize him-and why would they in any case? His old name was on the toll of the fallen, after all, and beside it was Blackdog Wood, 1159 Burn’s Sleep. The Bridgeburners were gone, dead, destroyed in Pale with the remnants mopped up here at Black Coral. But he’d been a casualty long before then, and the years since then had been damned hard-no, it wasn’t likely that he’d be recognized.

Yes, Malaz City sounded sweet now, as he walked this wretched camp’s main street, the squalling of gulls loud in his ears.

Gradithan, you’ve lost it.

There won’t be any vengeance on the Tiste Andii. Not for me, not for you. It was a stupid idea and now it’s gone too far.

History wasn’t worth reliving. He understood that now. But people never learned that-they never fucking learned that, did they? Round and round.

A fallen pilgrim stumbled out from between two hovels, brown-smeared chin and murky eyes swimming in some dubious rapture painting its lie behind them. He wanted to kick the brainless idiot between the legs. He wanted to stomp on the fool’s skull and see the shit-coloured sludge spill out. He wanted every child to watch him do it, too, so they’d realize, so they’d run for their lives.

Not that he cared.

‘High Priestess.’

She looked up, then rose from behind her desk, came round with a gathering of her robes, and then bowed. ‘Son of Darkness, welcome. Did we have anything arranged?’

J

His smile was wry. ‘Do we ever?’

‘Please,’ she said, ‘do come in. I will lend for wine and-’

‘No need on my account, High Priestess,’ Anomander Rake walked into (hi small office, eyed the two chairs and then selected the least ornate one to sit down in. He stretched out his legs, fingers lacing together on his lap, and eyed her speculatively.

She raised her arms, ‘Shall I dance?’

‘Shall I sing?’

‘Abyss take me, no. Please.’

‘Do sit down,’ said Rake, indicating the other chair.

She did so, keeping her back straight, a silent question lifting her eyebrows.

He continued watching her.

She let out a breath and slumped back. ‘All right, then. I’m relaxing. See?’

‘You have ever been my favourite,’ he said, looking away.

‘Your favourite what?’

‘High Priestess, of course. What else might I be thinking?’

‘Well, that is the eternal question, isn’t it?’

‘One too many people spend too much time worrying about.’

‘You cannot be serious, Anomander.’

He seemed to be studying her desk-not the things scattered on its surface, but the desk itself. ‘That’s too small for you,’ he pronounced.

She glanced at it. ‘You are deceived, alas. It’s my disorganization that’s too big. Give me a desk the size of a concourse and I’ll still fill it up with junk.’

‘Then it must be your mind that is too big, High Priestess.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘there is so little to think about and so much time.’ She fluttered a hand. ‘If my thoughts have become oversized it’s only out of indolence.’ Her gaze sharpened. ‘And we have become so indolent, haven’t we?’.

‘She has been turned away for a long time,’ Anomander Rake said. ‘That I al-lowed all of you to turn instead to me was ever a dubious enterprise.’

‘You made no effort to muster worship, Son of Darkness, and that is what made it dubious.’

One brow lifted. ‘Not my obvious flaws?’

‘And Mother Dark is without flaws? No, the Tiste Andii were never foolish enough to force upon our icons the impossibility of perfection.’

‘ “Icons,”‘ said Anomander Rake, frowning as he continued studying the desk.

‘Is that the wrong word? I think not,’

‘And that is why I rejected the notion of worship.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, sooner or later, the believers shatter their icons.’

She grunted, and thought about that for a time, before sighing and nodding. ‘A hundred fallen, forgotten civilizations, yes. And in the ruins all those statues… with their faces chopped off. The loss of faith is ever violent, it seems.’

‘Ours was.’

The statement stung her. ‘Ah, we are not so different then, after all. What a de-pressing realization.’

‘Endest Silann,’ he said.

‘Your stare is making the legs of my desk tremble, Lord Rake-am I so un-pleasant that you dare not rest eyes upon me?’

He slowly turned his head and settled his gaze upon her.

And seeing all that was in his eyes almost made her flinch, and she understood, all at once, the mercy he had been giving her-with his face turned away, with his eyes veiled by distraction. But then she had asked for his regard, as much out of vanity as the secret pleasure of her attraction to him-she could not now break this connection. Marshalling her resolve, she said, ‘Endest Silann, yes. The reason for this visit. I understand.’

‘He is convinced he was broken long ago, High Priestess. We both know it is not true.’

She nodded. ‘He proved that when he sustained Moon’s Spawn beneath the sea-proved it to everyone but himself.’

T reveal to him my confidence,’ said Rake, ‘and each time he… contracts. I cannot reach through, it seems, to bolster what I know is within him.’

‘Then it is his faith that is broken.’

He grimaced, made no reply.

‘When the time comes,’ she said, ‘I will be there. To do what I can. Although,’ she added, ‘that may not be much.’

‘You need not elaborate on the efficacy of your presence, High Priestess. We are speaking, as you said, of faith.’

‘And there need be no substance to it. Thank you.’

He glanced away once more, and this time the wry smile she had seen before played again across his features. ‘You were always my favourite,’ he said.

‘Me, or the desk you so seem to love?’

He rose and she did the same. ‘High Priestess,’ he said.

‘Son of Darkness,’ she returned, with another bow.

And out he went, leaving in his wake a sudden absence, an almost audible clap of displacement-but no, that was in her mind, a hint of something hovering there behind her memory of his face, his eyes and all that she had seen there.

Mother Dark, hear me. Meed me. You did not understand your son then. You do not understand him now.

Don’t you seel This was all Draconus’s doing.

‘This ain’t right,’ gasped Reccanto Ilk, each word spraying blood. ‘When it comes to screaming women, they should be leaving the bar, not trying to get in!’

The ragged hole the shrieking, snarling, jaw-snapping women had torn through the tavern’s door was jammed with arms, stretching, fingers clutching, all reaching inward in a desperate attempt to tear through the barrier. Claws stabbed into the Trell’s tattooed shoulders and he ducked his head lower, grunting as the demons battered at the door, planks splintering-but that Trell was one strong bastard, and he was holding ’em back, as he had been doing since that first rush that nearly saw Reccanto’s precious head get torn off.

Thank whatever gods squatted in the muck of this damned village that these demons were so stupid, Not one had tried either of the shuttered windows Hank ing the entrance, although with that barbed hulk, Gruntle, waiting at one of ’em with his cutlasses at the ready, and Paint and the Bole brothers at the other, at least if them demons went and tried one of ’em they’d be cut to pieces in no time. Or so Reccanto hoped, since he was hiding under a table and a table wasn’t much cover, or wouldn’t be if them demons was nasty enough to tear apart Gruntle and Faint and the Boles and the Trell, and Sweetest Sufferance, too, for that matter.