He stared down at her, evidently shocked, horrified into dumb silence.

She coughed, wishing she did not get sick so often-but it had always been this way. ‘You can go now, Spinnock Durav.’

‘This place festers.’ And he moved forward to pick her up.

She recoiled. ‘You don’t understand! I’m sick because he’s sick!’

He halted and she finally could make out his eyes, forest green and tilted at the comers, and far too much compassion gleamed in that regard. ‘The Redeemer? Yes, I imagine he is. Come,’ and he took her up, effortlessly, and she should have struggled-should have been free to choose-but she was too weak. Pushing him away with her hands was a gesture, a desire, transformed into clutching help-lessly at his cloak. Like a child.

A child.

‘When the rains stop,’ he murmured, his breath no doubt warm but scalding against her fevered cheek, ‘we shall rebuild. Make all this new. Dry, warm.’

‘Do not rape me.’

‘No more talk of rape. Fever will awaken many terrors. Rest now.’

I will not judge. Not even this life of mine. I will not-there is weakness in the world. Of all sorts. All sorts …

Stepping outside with the now unconscious woman in his arms, Spinnock Durav looked round. Figures on all sides, both hooded and bareheaded in the rain, water streaming down.

‘She is sick,’ he said to them. ‘She needs healing.’

No one spoke in reply.

He hesitated, then said, ‘The Son of Darkness will be informed of your… difficulties.’

They begun turning away, melting into the grey sheets. In moments Spinnock found himself alone.

He set out for the city.

The Son of Darkness will be informed. ,, but he knows already, doesn’t he? He knows, but leaves it all to… to whom? Me? Seerdomin? The Redeemer him-selfl

‘Give my regards to the priestess.’

Her, then, this frail thing in my arms. I will attend to her, because within her lies the answer.

Gods, the answer to what?

Boots uncertain in the slime and mud, he made his careful way back. Night awaited.

And, rising up from the depths of his memories, the fragment of some old poem, ‘The moon does not rain, but it weeps.’ A fragment, yes, it must be that. Alas, he could not recall the rest and so he would have to settle with the phrase-although it truth it was anything but settling.

I could ask Endest-ah, no, he is gone from us for the time being. The High Priestess, perhaps. She knows every Tiste Andii poem ever written, for the sole purpose of sneezing at every one of them. Still.

The words haunted him, mocked him with their ambiguity. He preferred things simple and straightforward. Solid like heroic sculpture-those marble and alabaster monuments to some great person who, if truth be known, was nowhere near as great as believed or proclaimed, and indeed looked nothing like the white polished face above the godlike body-oh, Abyss take me, enough of this!

In the camp, in the wake of the Tiste Andii’s departure with the High Priestess half dead in his arms, the bald priest, short and bandy-legged and sodden under rain-soaked woollen robes, hobbled up to Gradithan. ‘You saw?’

The ex-soldier grunted. ‘I was tempted, you know. A sword point, right up back of his skull. Shit-spawned Tiste Andii bastard, what in Hood’s name did he think, comin’ here?’

The priest-a priest of some unknown god somewhere to the south, Bastion, perhaps-made tsk-tsking sounds, then said, ‘The point is, Urdo-’

‘Shut that mouth of yours! That rank ain’t for nobody no more, you under-stand? Never mind the asshole thinkin’ he’s the only one left, so’s he can use it like it was his damned name or something. Never mind, cos he’ll pay for that soon enough.’

‘Humble apologies, sir. My point was, she’s gone now.’

‘What of it?’

‘She was the Redeemer’s eyes-his ears, his everything in the mortal world-and now that Tiste Andii’s gone and taken her away. Meaning we can do, er, as we please.’

At that, Gradithan slowly smiled. Then said in a low, easy voice, ‘What’ve we been doin’ up to now, Monkrat?’

‘While she was here, the chance remained of awakening the Benighted to his holy role. Now we need not worry about either of them.’

‘I was never worried in the first place,’ the once-Seerdomin said in a half-snarl. ‘Go crawl back into your hole, and take whatever boy with you as you fancy-like you say, nothing stopping us now.’

After the horrid creature scurried off, Gradithan gestured to one of his lieu-tenants. ‘Follow that Andii pig back into Night,’ he said. ‘But keep your distance. Then get word to our friends in the city. It’s all taken care of at the Barrow-that’s the message you tell ’em, right? Go on and get back here before dawn and you can take your pick of the women-one you want to keep for a while if you care to, or strangle beneath you for all I give a shit. Go!’

He stood in the rain, feeling satisfied. Everything was looking up, and up. And by squinting, why, he could almost make out that cursed tower with its disgust-i ng dragon edifice-aye, soon it would all come down. Nice and bloody, like.

And though he was not aware of it-not enough to find cause for the sudden shiver that took him-he turned away from that unseeing regard, and so un-knowingly broke contact with sleepy, cold, reptilian eyes that could see far in-deed, through rain, through smoke, through-if so desired-stone walls.

Carved edifice Silanah was not. Sleepless, all-seeing protector and sentinel, beloved of the Son of Darkness, and possessed of absolute, obsidian-sharp judge-ment, most assuredly she was all that. And terrible in wrath? Few mortals could even conceive the truth and the capacity of the implacably just.

Which was probably just as well.

‘Mercy in compassion, no dragon lives.’

When skill with a sword was but passing, something else was needed. Rage. The curse was that rage broke its vessel, sent fissures through the brittle clay, sought out every weakness in the temper, the mica grit that only revealed itself in the edges of the broken shards. No repairs were possible, no glue creeping out when the fragments were pressed back together, to be wiped smooth with a fingertip.

Nimander was thinking about pottery. Web-slung amphorae clanking from the sides of the wagon, the horrid nectar within-a species of rage, perhaps, little dif-ferent from what had coursed through his veins when he fought. Rage in battle was said to be a gift of the gods-he had heard that belief uttered by that Malazan marine, Deadsmell, down in the hold of the Adjunct’s flagship, during one of those many nights when the man had made his way down into the dark belly, jug of rum swinging by an ear in one hand.

At first Nimander had resented the company-as much as did his kin-but the Malazan had persisted, like a sapper undermining walls. The rum had trickled down throats, loosened the hinges of tongues, and after a time all those fortifica-tions and bastions had stretched open their doorways and portals.

The rum had lit a fire in Nimander’s brain, casting flickering red light on a host of memories gathered ghostly round the unwelcoming heart. There had been a keep, somewhere, a place of childhood secure and protected by the one they all called Father. Ridged spines of snow lining the cobbled truck leading to the embrasure gate, a wind howling down from grey mountains-a momentary abode where scores of children scurried about wild as rats, with the tall figure of Anomander Rake wandering the corridors in godlike indifference.

What had there been before that? Where were all the mothers? That memory was lost, entirely lost.

There had been a priest, an ancient companion of the Son of Darkness, whose task it had been to keep the brood fed, clothed, and healthy. He had looked upon them all with eyes filled with dismay, no doubt understanding-long before any of them did-the future that waited them. Understanding well enough to with-hold his warmth-oh, he had been like an ogre to them all, certainly, but one who, for all his bluster, would never, ever do them harm.