She shook her head, as if baffled.

Traveller moved to join them, and there was something haggard in his face. Seeing this odd, inexplicable transformation, Karsa narrowed his gaze on the man for a moment. Then he casually looked away.

‘Perhaps the bear came to warn you,’ he said to Samar Dev.

‘About what?’

‘What else? War.’

‘What war?’

‘ I he shout made Havok shift under his hand, and he reached up to grasp the beast’s wiry mane. Calming the horse, he then vaulted on to its back. ‘Why, the one to come, I would think.’

She glared across at Traveller, and seemed to note for the first time the change that had come over him.

Karsa watched her take a step closer to Traveller. What is it? What has hap-pened? What war is he talking about?’

‘We should get moving,’ he said, and then he set out.

She might weep. She might scream. But she did neither, and Karsa nodded to himself and then reached down one arm. ‘This torrent,’ he muttered, ‘belongs to him, not us. Ride it with me, Witch-you surrender nothing of value.’

‘I don’t?’

‘No.’

She hesitated, and then stepped up and grasped hold of his arm.

When she was settled in behind him, Karsa tilted to one side and twisted round slightly to grin at her. ‘Don’t lie. It feels better already, does it not?’

‘Karsa-what has happened to Traveller?’

He collected the lone rein and faced forward once more. ‘Shadows,’ he said, ‘are cruel.’

Ditch forced open what he thought of as an eye. His eye. Draconus stood above the blind Tiste Andii, Kadaspala, reaching down and dragging the squealing creature up with both hands round the man’s scrawny neck.

‘You damned fool! It won’t work that way, don’t you see that?’

Kadaspala could only choke in reply.

Draconus glowered for a moment longer, and then flung the man back down on to the heap of bodies.

Ditch managed a croaking laugh.

Turning to skewer Ditch with his glare, Draconus said, ‘He sought to fashion a damned god here!’

‘And it shall speak,’ Ditch said, ‘in my voice.’

‘No, it shall not. Do not fall into this trap, Wizard. Nothing must be fashioned of this place-’

‘What difference? We all are about to die. Let the god open its eyes. Blink once or twice, and then give voice…’ he laughed again, ‘the first cry also the last. Birth and death with nothing in between. Is there anything more tragic, Draconus? Anything at all?’

‘Dragnipur,’ said Draconus, ’is nobody’s womb. Kadaspala, this was to be a cage. To keep Darkness in and Chaos out. One last, desperate barrier-the only gift we could offer. A gate that is denied its wandering must find a home, a refuge-a fortress, even one fashioned from flesh and bone. The pattern, Kadaspala, was meant to defy Chaos-two antithetical forces, as we discussed-’

‘That will fail!’ The blind Tiste Andii was twisting about at Draconus’s feet, like an impaled worm. ‘Fail, Draconus-we were fools, idiots. We were mad to think mad to think mad to think-give me this child, this wondrous creation-give me-’

‘Kadaspala! The pattern-nothing more! Just the pattern, damn you!’

‘Fails. Shatters. Shatters and fails shattering into failure. Failure failure failure. We die and we die and we die and we die!’

Ditch could hear the army marching in pursuit, steps like broken thunder, spears and standards clattering like a continent of reeds, the wind whistling through them. War chants erupting from countless mouths, no two the same, creating instead a war of discordance, a clamour of ferocious madness. The sound was more horrible than anything he had ever heard before-no mortal army could start such terror in a soul as this one did. And above it all, the sky raged, actinic and argent, seething, wrought through with blinding flashes from some descending devastation, ever closer descending-and when at last it struck, the army will charge. Will sweep over us.

Ditch looked about with his one eye-only to realize that it was still shut, gummed solid, that maybe he had no eye left at all, and that what he was seeing through was the pattern etched in black ink on his eyelid. The god’s eye? The pat-tern’s eye? How is it I can see at all?

Draconus stood facing their wake, the convulsing figure at his feet forgotten for the moment.

Such studied belligerence, such a heroic pose, the kind that should be sculpted in immortal bronze. Heroism that needed the green stains of verdigris, the proof of centuries passed since last such noble forces existed in the world-any world, whatever world; no matter, details unimportant. The statue proclaims the great age now lost, the virtues left behind.

Civilizations made sure their heroes were dead before they honoured them. Virtue belonged to the dead, not the living. Everyone knew this. Lived with this, this permanent fall from grace that was the present age. The legacy squandered, because this was what people did with things they themselvea have not earned.

He studied Draconus, and the man seemed to darken, blur, become strangely indistinct. Ditch gasped, and in the next instant Draconus was once more as he had always been.

So little of his mind was left, so little of what could be called his self, and these moments of clarity were fast diminishing. Was there irony to be found, should the chaos reach him only to find him already gone?

Draconus was suddenly crouched down beside him. ‘Ditch, listen to me. He’s made you the nexus-you were meant to be the god’s eyes-no, its brain-your pattern, the one upon your skin…’

Ditch grunted, amused. ‘Each soul begins with a single word. He’s written that word-on me. Identity is only a pattern. The beginning form. The world-life and experience-is Kadaspala, etching and etching the fine details. By life’s end, who can even make out that first word?’

‘It is within you,’ said Draconus, ‘to break that pattern, Ditch. Hold on to a part of yourself, hold tight to it-you may need it-’

‘No, you may need it, Draconus.’

‘There can be no child-god. Not fashioned of this nightmare-can’t you under-stand that? It would be a horrid, terrible thing. Kadaspala is mad-’

‘Yes,’ agreed Ditch, ‘most unfortunate. Mad. Not a good beginning, no.’

‘Hold on, Ditch.’

‘It’s just a word.’

Draconus stared down into that painted eye. Then he rose, gathering up his chains, and moved out of Ditch’s limited range of vision.

Kadaspala crawled close. ‘He only wants to escape escape escape. But you but you but you are the knot the knot. Snapping tight! No one gets away. No one gets away. No one gets away. Hold still hold still and hold still until he awakens and he will awaken and so he will. Awaken. My child. The word, you see, the word is the word is the word. The word is kill.’

Ditch smiled., Yes, he’d known that. He had.

‘Wait, sweet knot, and wait wait wait. Everything will make sense. Everything. Promise promise I promise and I do promise-for I have seen into the future. I know what’s coming. I know all the plans. Her brother died and he should not have had to do that/no. No, he shouldn’t have had to do that. I do this for her for her for her. Only for her.

‘Knot, I do this for her.’

Kill, thought Ditch, nodding, kill, yes, I understand. I do. Kill, for her. Kill. And he found that the word itself, yes, the word itself, knew how to smile.

Even as the ashes rained down.

Beneath a sprawl of stars, Precious Thimble stood by the side of the track, watch-ing the carriage approach. The repairs looked makeshift even in the gloom and the entire contraption rocked and wobbled. She saw Glanno Tarp perched on the high bench, his splinted legs splayed wide, and the horses tossed their heads, ears flattened and eyes rolling.

figures walked to either side. Mappo and Gruntle on the left, Reccanto Ilk, the Holes and that wretched Cartographer on the right. Master Quell, presumably, was inside.