Knowing this, they had abused their freedom often. They had, more than once, mocked that poor old man. They had rolled beakers into his path when he walked past, squealing with delight when his feet sent them flying to bounce and shatter, or, better yet, when he lost his balance and thumped down on his backside, winc-ing in pain.

Such a cruel fire, lighting up all these ghastly recollections. Deadsmell, in his sleepy, seemingly careless way, had drawn out their tale. From that keep hidden in the fastness of some remote range of mountains to the sudden, startling arrival of a stranger-the aged, stooped Tiste Andii who was, it was learned with a shock, Anomander’s very own brother. And the arguments echoing from their fa-ther’s private chambers, as brothers fought over unknown things-decisions past, decisions to come, the precise unfolding of crimes of the soul that led to harsh ac-cusations and cold, cold silences.

Days later, peace was struck, somehow, in the dark of night. Their father came to them then, to tell them how Andarist was taking them all away. To an island, a place of warmth, of stretches of soft sand and pellucid waters, of trees crowded with fruit. And there, standing in the background during this imparting of a new future, was old Endest Silann, his face ravaged by some extremity of emotion-no more beakers underfoot, no more taunts and elusive imps racing to escape imag ined pursuits (he never pursued, never once reached to snatch one of them, never raised a hand, never even raised his voice; he was nothing but a focus for their irreverence-an irreverence they would not dare turn upon their father). He had had his purpose and he had weathered it and now he wept as the children were drawn together and a warren was opened, a portalway into an unknown, mysteri-ous new world where anything was possible.

Andarist led them through.

They would learn new things. The weapons awaiting them.

A stern teacher, not one to mock, oh no, that was quickly made clear when a casual cuff against the side of Skintick’s head sent him flying-a cuff to answer some muttered derision, no doubt.

The games ended. The world turned suddenly serious.

They came to love that old man. Loved him far too much, as it turned out, for where Anomander might well have proved capable of pushing back the horrors of adulthood and its terrible world, Andarist was not.

Children made perfect soldiers, perfect killers. They had no sense of mortality. They did not fear death. They took bright pleasure in destruction, even when that destruction involved taking a life. They played with cruelty to watch the results. They understood the simplicity of power found there in the weapon held in the hand.

See a bored child with a stick-and see how every beast nearby flees, under-standing well what is now possible and, indeed, probable. See the child, eyes scanning the ground, swinging the stick down to crush insects, to thrash flowers, to wage a war of mayhem. Replace the stick with a sword. Explain how guilt need not be considered when the ones who must die are the enemy.

Unleash them, these children with the avid eyes.

Good soldiers. Andarist had made them good soldiers. What child, after all, does not know rage?

But the vessel breaks.

The vessel breaks.

The Dying God, Nimander now believed, was a child. The mad priests poured him full, knowing the vessel leaked, and then drank of that puerile seepage. Because he was a child, the Dying God’s thirst and need were without end, never satiated.

As they journeyed along the road, ever westward, they found themselves be-tween planted fields. Here the scarecrows were truly dead, used up. Withered, webbed in black scraps of cloth, stiffly rocking in the wind. Poured out, these lives, and Nimander now saw these fields as bizarre cemeteries, where some local aberration of belief insisted that the dead be staked upright, that they ever stand ready for whatever may come.

Watchers of this road and all the fools who travelled it.

Once, on Drift Avalii, almost a year before the first attacks, two half-dead Dal Honese had washed up on the rocky coast. They had been paddling to the island of Geni, for reasons unexplained, in an ancient dugout. Both were naked, as they had used up every scrap of cloth from their garments, to stuff into the cracks in the hull-too many cracks, it turned out, and the beleaguered craft eventually sank, forcing the two men to swim.

The Lord’s nudge brought them to Drift Avalii, and somehow they avoided the murderous reefs and rocks girdling the island.

Dwellers in the dark jungles of their homeland, they were from a tribe ob-sessed with its own ancestors. The dead were not buried. The dead were made part of the mud walls of the village’s huts. When one in a family died, a new room would be begun, at first nothing but a single wall projecting outward. And in that wall was the corpse, clay-filled eye sockets, nose, ears, mouth. Clay like a new skin upon face, limbs, torso. Upright, in cavorting poses as if frozen in a dance. Two more kin needed to die before the room was complete and ready to be roofed with palm fronds and the like.

Some house were big as castles, sprawled out at ground level in a maze of chambers, hundreds of them, dark and airless, in this way, the dead never left, They remained, witnessing all, eternal in judgement this pressure, said the two refugees, could drive one insane, and often did.

The jungle resisted farming. Its soil disliked taming. The huge trees were im-pervious to fire and could turn the edge of an iron axe. Villages were growing too massive, devouring land, while every cleared area around them was exhausted, Rival tribes suffered the same, and before too long wars were unleashed. The dead ancestors demanded vengeance for transgressions. Murdered kin-whose bodies had been stolen and so could not be properly taken care of-represented an open wound, a crime that needed answering.

Blood back and forth, said the two refugees. Blood back and forth, that is all. And when the enemy began destroying villages, burning them to the ground,,,

No answer to the madness but flight.

Nimander thought about all this as he led his mare by the reins along the dusty road. He had no ancestors to haunt him, no ancestors to demand that he do this and that, that he behave in this way but not in that way. Perhaps this was freedom, but it left him feeling strangely… lost.

The two Dal Honese had built a new boat and paddled away-not back home, but to some unknown place, a place devoid of unblinking ghosts staring out from every wall.

Rocking sounds came from the wagon and he turned to see Kallor swinging down on the near side, pausing to adjust his cloak of chain, then walking until he was alongside Nimander.

‘Interesting use of corpses,’ he said.

‘What use would that be?’ Skintick asked with a glance back towards them.

‘To frighten the crows? Not that any right-minded crow would look twice at those foul plants-they’re not even native to this world, after all.’

Nimander saw Skintick’s brows rise. ‘They aren’t?’

Kallor scratched at his beard and, since it seemed he wasn’t in any hurry to re-ply, Skintick faced forward once more.

‘Saemankelyk,’ said Nimander. ‘The Dying God… who will be found in Bas-tion.’

The grey-haired warrior grunted. ‘Nothing changes.’

‘Of course it changes,’ Skintick retorted without turning round. ‘It keeps get-ting worse.’

‘That is an illusion,’ Kallor replied. ‘You Tiste Andii should know that. Your sense of things getting worse comes from growing older. You see more, and what you see wars with your memories of how things used to be.’

‘Rubbish. Old farts like you say that because it suits you. You hope it freezes us in our tracks so we end up doing nothing, which means your precious status quo persists just that much longer-enough for you to live put your life in what-ever comfort you think you’ve earned. You won’t accept culpability for anything, so you tell us that nothing ever changes.’