He nodded.

‘Are you sure?’

He nodded again, and then wiped his nose, rather messily.

She frowned. ‘Dear me, you’re a sight. Do you realize it is nothing more than certain pathways in your brain that are in disarray? A practitioner of High Denul could work wonders for you, Chaur. It’s a thought, isn’t it? Oh, I know, you don’t have “thoughts” as such. You have… impulses, and confusion, and these two make up the man known as Chaur. And, barring times such as this one, you are mostly happy, and perhaps that is not something to be fiddled with. The gods know, happiness is a precious and rare commodity, and indeed it seems that the more intelligent and perceptive the individual, the less happy they generally are. The cost of seeing things as they are, I expect.

. ‘Then, of course, there is my sister. My smiling murderess sibling. My vicious, ice-cold, treacherous kin. She happens to be almost as intelligent as me, and yet she is immune to unhappiness. A quality, I suspect, of her particular insanity.

‘Anyway, Chaur, you will need to remain here, staying out of sight. For I must pay my sister a visit. For a word or two. Soon, yes?’

He nodded.

‘Now, let’s get you cleaned up. I wouldn’t want to upset Barathol and neither would you, I’m sure.’

Now, Chaur was good at understanding people most of the time. He was good at nodding, too. But on occasion understanding and nodding did not quite match. This was such a time.

But more of that later.

The carter failed to complete his breakfast, as it did not take long for someone to take note of the wrapped corpse, and then to bring word in to Meese that some fool had left a body in the bed of the cart outside the inn-hardly the kind of positive advertisement any inn might welcome, even the Phoenix. Swearing, Meese went out to see for herself, and something about those boots looked familiar, With a suddenly cold heart, she pulled the canvas hack from Murillio’s face,

Things happened quickly then: wretched comprehension, word’s swill rush, and finally, the dusty, lifeless place in the soul that was grief. Abject sense of use-lessness, the pummelling assault that is shock. The carter was cornered by Irilta and, seeing the strait he’d found himself in, the old man was quick to tell everyone all he knew.

The short, round man at the back of the room rose then with a sober expression and quietly took charge. He told Irilta and Meese to carry the body to a spare room upstairs, which they did with heartrending tenderness. Word was sent out to Coll. As for the others, well, everyone returned to the Phoenix Inn eventually, and so the ordeal of relaying the bad news would not end soon, and each time the emotions would well up once more. The living felt this new burden and they could see that the next few days would be without pleasure, without ease, and already everyone felt exhausted, and not even Kruppe was immune.

A dear friend is dead, and there is nothing just in death. When the moment ar-rives, it is always too soon. The curse of incompletion, the loss that can never be filled. Before too long, rising like jagged rocks from the flood, there was anger.

The carter was made to explain again about the visit to a mining camp, the duel over some boy, and the victor’s instructions that the body be returned to the Phoenix Inn. That was all he knew, he swore it, and for the moment none but Kruppe-wise Kruppe, clever Kruppe-comprehended who that boy must have been.

Must he now visit a certain duelling school? Possibly.

The ordeal of the burden, the dread weight of terrible news-the witnessing of another crushed spirit, oh, this was a fell day indeed. A most sad, fell day.

And on this night, widows will weep, and so shall we.

Two men are converging on the Phoenix Inn. Which one arrives first changes everything. If the redressing of balance truly existed beyond nature-in the realm of humanity, that is-then Rallick Nom would have been the first to hear of his friend’s death; and he would have set out, hard-eyed, to take upon himself a new burden, for although vengeance salved certain spiritual needs, cold murder deliv-ered terrible damage to the soul. Of course, he had done this once before, in the name of another friend, and so in his mind he felt he could be no more lost than he already was.

Alas, that particular flavour of redress was not to be.

Troubled by a host of thoughts, Cutter approached the entrance to the Phoenix Inn. He noted an old carter leading an ox away, but had no reason to give it any further consideration. As soon as he walked inside, he sensed that something was wrong. Irilta was behind the bar with a bottle in her hand-not, he saw, to pour dunks for customers, but to lift it to her mouth, tilt it back and take punishing mouthfuls. Her eyes were red, startling in a pallid face.

Few people were speaking, and those who were did so in muted tones.

Meese was nowhere to be seen, but Cutter noticed Kruppe, sitting at his table with his back to the room-something he had never before seen him do. A dusty bottle of expensive wine was before him, four goblets set out. Kruppe was slowly filling the one opposite the chair on his right.

His unease deepening, Cutter walked over. He pulled out that chair and sat down.

There was no sign of Kruppe’s usual affability in his visage. Grave, colourless, bleak. In his eyes, raw anguish. ‘Drink, my young friend,’ he said.

Cutter saw that the remaining two goblets were empty. He reached out. ‘This is the expensive stuff, isn’t it? What’s happened, Kruppe?’

‘Honourable Murillio is dead.’

The statement felt like a body blow, punching the breath from Cutter’s chest. He could not move. Pain surged up through the numbness, sank down again only to return once more. Over and over again.

‘A duel,’ said Kruppe. ‘He went to retrieve a lost child. The Eldra Mines west of the city.’

Something jerked inside Cutter, but he could make no sense of it. A recognition? Of what? ‘I thought-I thought he’d given all that up.’

‘Given what up, my friend? The desire to do right?’

Cutter shook his head. ‘Duelling. I meant… duelling.’

‘To effect the release of young Harllo. The mine’s owner was there, or one of them at least. History comes round, as it is known to do.’ Kruppe sighed. ‘He was too old for such things.’

And now came the question, and it was asked in a dull tone, a voice emptied of everything. ‘Who killed him, Kruppe?’

And the round man flinched, and hesitated.

‘Kruppe.’

‘This will not do-’

‘Kruppe!’

‘Ah, can such forces be resisted? Gorlas Vidikas.’

And that was that. He’d known, yes, Cutter had known. The mine… Eldra… the history. He knows about me. He wanted to punish me. He killed Murillio to hurt me. He killed a fine… a fine and noble man. This-this must stop.

‘Sit down, Cutter.’

I mean to stop this. Now. It’s what she wants, anyway.

‘Coll is coming,’ Kruppe said. ‘And Rallick Nom-Crokus, leave this to Rallick-’

But he was already moving, eyes on the door. Irilta stood watching and some-thing in her face caught his attention. There was dark hunger in her eyes-as if she knew where he was going, as if she knew-‘Cutter,’ she said in a rasp, ‘get the bastard. Get him.’

And then he was outside. The day’s brilliance was like a slap, rocking his hand He gasped, but breathing still wasn’t easy, Pressures assailed him, and rage lose in his mind, a nightmare leviathan with gaping mouth, and its howl filled his skull,

Deafening Cutter to the world.

The day is stripped down, time itself torn away, the present expanding, swallowing everything in sight. It is an instant and that instant feels eternal. Recall this day’s beginning. A single breath, drawn in with love-

Bellam Nom took a length of braided hide, made loops at both ends. He crouched down in front of Mew. ‘See this loop, Mew? Take it in your hands-I’m going to hold on to the other end, all right? We’re going out. You just keep hold of the rope, all right?’